Dragonslayer (Twilight of the Gods Book 3) (6 page)

He had to be joking. But Christian’s expression didn’t so much as twitch. She glanced over at his friend, but the doctor wasn’t laughing either. His attention was fixed on Christian, a worried frown between his brows.

“Why not let her pick which reality she wants to live with?” the doctor said softly. “There’s no reason to drag her into ours.”

Christian ignored him. “Jacey?”

“It’s not nice to play mind games with a person who has a head injury, Christian. You’re scaring me.”

“Alan healed your head injury and I’m not playing games. I’m giving you the truth. What I need to know is whether or not you can accept it.”

“Demons…” She wanted to believe he was joking, but there wasn’t a hint of laughter anywhere on his face, and she remembered that…that
thing
out in the woods. She knew exactly what animals were native to Iowa, to the US, to
reality
, and she’d never heard of anything like it.
Demon
fit. It fit far too well for comfort. The hand she lifted to her head was shaking. “I remember what I saw. I wish I didn’t. I hoped you had a better explanation for it.”

The doctor shifted in his chair, but Christian spoke first, drawing her attention. “We can make you forget.”

“Make me forget,” she repeated numbly. “The same way you made the bump on my head disappear?”

He nodded. Realization made her heart beat harder. “That’s the backup plan Aiden wants to go with.”

“You can go home,” Christian said, alarmingly sober. “Forget about this and we’ll take care of the problem. I promise you that.”

For a crazy moment, she actually considered taking him up on the offer. She didn’t even care if it made her a coward. There was nothing in her that was ready to face down a monster. Whatever Christian was…well, she’d seen him with a sword, and she believed him when he said he could handle it. “Those things out there…they’re behind the reports we received.”

He hesitated, just a beat too long, and her stomach sank.

“No,” he said. “Believe it or not, the things you saw tonight are contained. Whatever it is that’s preying on animals outside of Ragnarok is something else.”

“You don’t know what it is?”

“No.”

That changed everything. “Then you can’t erase my memory and send me home, can you? I still have a job to do. I need to figure out what it is and make sure it is doesn’t hurt anything or anybody else.”

Christian searched her eyes and nodded, reached out and covered her hand with his own. She drew strength from his touch. It was warm and solid and real when everything else seemed so wildly out of control.

“There’s one other thing,” he said, his fingers closing around hers. “You’re not going to be able to tell anyone about this. If that’s not an oath you can take…”

He let the words hang there. It wasn’t exactly a threat, but it might as well have been one. “My phone is in my bag,” she said. “You can hold on to it until this is done.”

“I’ll accept your word.”

“You might accept my promise, but you’re not the only one I have to convince, are you?”

He didn’t deny it, and she squeezed his hand. “Consider it a show of faith, then. You’re trusting me. This is me trusting you. I won’t tell anyone your secret.”

The doctor tossed what looked like a fist-sized ruby in the air and caught it with his other hand. “She’s telling the truth.”

She narrowed her eyes at Alan. “What is that?”

He smiled. “A truth stone.”

“You were testing me?”

He shrugged. “You said there would be people who’d doubt your word. You just didn’t happen to know we’d have a way around that. It’s a good thing. Now you don’t have to lose your phone.”

She turned back to Christian. “So trust had nothing to do with it.”

“It does. I do trust you, or I never would have given you a choice.”

Chapter Six

There was some disagreement about where Jacey was going to stay that night. Apparently her driving back to her motel room wasn’t an option, and she chose early on not to fight that decision. Her head didn’t hurt anymore thanks to Alan, who she learned wasn’t only a doctor at the local clinic but also an Æsir healer. That news hadn’t shocked her as much as it should have, not after learning that monsters were real and the man she’d spent the day with was a sword-wielding demigod warrior. She thought she might still be in some sort of shock—maybe not physical shock, but a mental numbness that needed time to process the massive shift in her understanding of the world. Besides, she didn’t want to drive back along those unlit back roads to an empty motel. What she wanted was to curl up in a warm bed, pull the covers over her head and forget this awful night had ever happened. She very definitely did not want to be alone right now.

When Christian began to argue with his friend in the next room, she did her best to ignore the sound. She sat on the leather couch in the living room wrapped in an old afghan while Alan knelt before her with a penlight in his hand, checking her out one last time. The pretty blonde woman who Christian had introduced as Raquel stood near the front door with her arms crossed, waiting for her husband, who seemed reluctant to leave. Fen was lean and wiry, with kind eyes and a quick smile. Christian had called him a friend too and, by the way Fen kept staring down the hallway, Jacey thought he might be considering joining the fight taking place in the kitchen.

“You look good,” Alan said, drawing her attention. “Heart rate and temperature are all back to normal, but I don’t like how pale you are. Do you feel okay?”

“I’m fine.” It was the truth. Physically, she was fine. She just needed time to let all of this sink in.

Alan stood up, tucking his penlight into the front pocket of his jeans. “I’m off, then. Jill will be waiting up.” After grabbing his coat from the back of a wooden chair near the door, he shrugged into it before turning to Fen. “Your truck is blocking me.”

Christian’s voice rose, and Fen grimaced. “Give me a minute. I want to see how this plays out.”

“They’ll work it out,” Alan said. “They always do.”

“And Kamis has been waiting in the car for a half-hour now,” Raquel said. Kamis, the “old witch” who was apparently capable of erasing a person’s memories.

The panicky feeling in her belly started to build again, making her nauseous and a little lightheaded. Before it overtook her completely, Christian stormed into the room, his expression grim. The look on his face made her breath catch in her throat. When they’d been driving around today, all she’d seen was his movie-star good looks, his charming smile and that touch of humor that always seemed to lurk in his eyes. Even upstairs, serious as he’d been, he’d also been extremely gentle with her. All of that gentleness was gone. He looked angry, hard and dangerous. Aiden, right on his heels, wore a nearly identical expression.

She started to second-guess her decision to go home with him, but Christian didn’t give her time to come up with a new plan. He nodded at Alan and then grabbed her coat from the hook by the door. As if she were a child, he bundled her up and then ushered her outside. His car was already running and the interior was warm. Remote start. Heated seats. For some reason, she’d half expected a horse. A little bubble of hysterical laughter escaped her as Christian closed the door behind her.

The others were right behind them. Fen and Raquel climbed into an SUV just a few feet away. Alan’s headlights flashed on as Christian walked around the hood of the car. She avoided looking directly at Aiden, who stood on the porch watching them. Watching her.

She could practically feel the tension rolling off Christian as he took the driver’s seat and started down the driveway, following Fen out.

“I’m sorry I caused you trouble with your friend.”

He looked at her sharply and then back at the road. “You have nothing to apologize for. Aiden likes to be in control. He wanted you to stay at his house. That’s all there was to it. A simple disagreement.”

“You could have left me there. I would have been fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

That startled a laugh from her. “A mind reader too, are you?”

“No,” he said with complete seriousness. “I can’t read minds. That’s not my gift.”

“But some of the people here can do that? Read minds?” She blew out a sharp breath. “I suppose that makes sense, considering you were planning to have someone erase my memories.”

He gave her a sharp look. “That was never my plan.” He shook his head, turning his gaze back to the road. “And it’s not a common gift. Grace might manage it if she put her mind to it. She’s Verthandi, which makes her what you’d call a psychic, though her gift is more in the way of spatial location than mental telepathy. Some of the Norns have that gift, but most don’t. Kamis could do it but you’d feel the intrusion.”

Okay, then. That was disconcerting. “Kamis is human, though? Not one of those…things that we saw in the woods?”

“Kamis is like me, but he was born to Vanaheimr so his foothold in Midgard is more tenuous.”

“Oh.”

Christian turned off the gravel onto a paved road. Narrow and empty at this time of the night, dark since there were no streetlights out here. His headlights lit only the pavement and the ditches to either side of the road. It made it seem as if they were in a little bubble of space, all alone in a big, dark universe.

“It’s a lot to take in, but I’ll help fill in the gaps after you’ve had time to rest. And don’t worry about Aiden. The decision’s been made and we’re working together now. Aiden will consider that as sacred as if you were actually clan. He won’t hurt you, and I won’t let Kamis get inside your head,” Christian said firmly. “I promise you that.”

“Thank you.” The idea of someone able to reach inside her head and just delete her memories creeped her the heck out. This whole night… She drew in an unsteady breath and reached out, searched for and found Christian’s strong hand where it rested on his thigh. He froze for a moment before turning his hand and grasping hers.

“It’s going to be all right, Jacey,” he said in a low voice. “We’ll figure this out.”

He held her hand all the way back to Ragnarok. His house was on the edge of town, backing up to the city park. They drove past frost-covered playground equipment and a silent fountain. He didn’t release her until they pulled into the driveway of a two-story colonial-style house with gray siding. It wasn’t a particularly fancy house, but it appeared very well kept, from the neatly shoveled walkway to the potted evergreens on the porch. Christian parked his car in the garage. It seemed resoundingly quiet once he cut the engine.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you settled.”

She followed him inside, through the side door. He’d done a lot of work inside the house, she could tell. Either that or he’d built a new house in an older style. The bench she sat on to remove her boots was upholstered in a cheery paisley print, and her old coat looked scruffy hanging on the brass hook next to his wool and leather.

Rather than hover, Christian had moved past her into the kitchen, which was open and attached to a high-ceilinged family room. The counters were granite and the stove was the kind that looked expensive and complicated. She shook her head when he asked if she was hungry and then followed him upstairs to the guest room, listening with only half an ear as he rattled off stuff about toothbrushes and bath towels. She’d figure it all out later. Right now, she could barely keep her eyes open enough to see right in front of her.

He stopped at an open doorway, reached in to turn on the lights and then stepped back into the hallway. “If you need anything else, let me know. We’ll get your things from the motel in the morning.”

She barely managed to strip out of her jeans before crawling into bed, and she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. At some point during the night, she woke up from a nightmare and panicked when she didn’t recognize her surroundings. Then she remembered where she was. She could hear Christian in the next room, talking to someone on the phone. She couldn’t make out the words, but she liked the sound of his voice, deep and calm. It acted on her like a lullaby.

She rolled over, pulled the quilt up to her neck and fell asleep to more peaceful dreams.

Chapter Seven

Kamis walked swiftly through the young forest, the chill air stinging his cheeks. The earth beneath his feet was nearly frozen solid. Still, dark and very cold, it reminded him of Asgard, where he’d made his home these past several thousand years. But even now, in the grip of deep winter, he could sense the dormant life around him, waiting for a spring that would come again, stirring all to rebirth. That was the difference. Asgard was dead. Midgard merely asleep. He should be sleeping now too. The dark moon had long since set, and the portal was tightly closed. Fen and Raquel had returned to the house hours ago, but something had pulled him awake, drawn him from bed and forced him outside into the cold night.

Nearly to the lake, he paused to look around. Something… Something was out here that shouldn’t be. He snorted, causing a young raccoon to startle and scurry in the opposite direction. Something other than himself. He’d been here long enough that the rhythm of this world had become familiar. It surprised him that the Æsir didn’t feel it—the subtle change to the magic in the land. True, their blood was weaker than his. True, too, that none of them possessed his years of experience. But this was their adopted home. He’d have thought they would be more sensitive to it.

Unless… No. Foolish to entertain such hopes. It was not a possibility.

The portal connecting them to Asgard was sealed. The wards protecting the town were strong. The ley lines running through the earth beneath his feet were…not quite right, and that was the mystery he’d come to solve.

The wind shifted and he stopped walking. He inhaled deeply, released his breath on a sigh and changed direction, stepping off the crude deer path and moving toward the source of that smell. Blood. There was blood in the air, which was unfortunate, but what pulled him closer was the faint trace of a perfume so familiar he felt it like a knife in his side.

The ground grew more uneven the further from the path he walked. Tangles of weeds and vines threatened to trip him in the darkness, but he kept moving forward. This place wasn’t nearly as treacherous as the one from which he’d escaped. What was the worst that could happen to him here? The only predators were the ones that chased the Æsir to this world. Other than that, there was nothing but deer and cattle, small scavengers and the birds of the air. A soft world, Midgard, and a vulnerable one.

Twigs snapped beneath his boots, and he drew the short sword from the scabbard at his hip. He was not permitted his own blade, and he’d had to steal this one from the training structure on the Odin’s land before walking into the woods. The Odin…the title was such a conceit, and the man who held it here seemed to realize that. Kamis enjoyed calling Aiden by his title because it made him wince every time. Smiling, he slowed his pace as the rune-marked blade began to glow with a soft blue light.

That shouldn’t be. Shouldn’t be, but was. He made note of it, as he did the sudden and oppressive silence that surrounded him between one footfall and the next. It was like entering a bubble. Once he broke the surface, the faint trace of perfume saturated the air, filling his nose and throat. The smell of blood, bright and fresh, lodged like a ball in his throat. He’d found the source of his uneasiness, but it was no comfort.

A woman, gravely injured, lay on the ground before him, half propped by a fallen tree. She had long blonde hair, neatly braided away from a face that possessed more strength than beauty. The wood she rested against was smooth and gray, the bark long having fallen away. It almost perfectly matched the pallor of her skin. Her clothing was dark. The pants and jacket similar enough to what the humans here wore to pass as unremarkable, but the fabric gleamed dully in the weak moonlight, as did the leaves nearest her body.

Her eyes gleamed too, with a ferocity and keen awareness that surprised him, considering her condition. She raised her blade, a finely made Skimstrok sword that marked her as a warrior or a queen. There were many questions raised by her presence, but of one thing he was absolutely certain.

“You’re a very long way from home, my lady.” He spoke to her mind to mind and then, kneeling, sheathed his blade so he had the use of his one good hand.

“Keep your distance, witch.” Her voice in his mind was as steady as the sword leveled at him. He would have thought he’d misread the seriousness of her injury if not for the strain that marked her face. She was running on pure willpower now, not strength of body.

“I might help you,” he said.

Her mouth pulled in a smile that was more of a grimace. “I know who you are and exactly what kind of help you might offer.”

“My name here is Kamis, and I can assure you, you do not know the slightest thing about me. Lower your weapon.”

She didn’t immediately move to obey him, but when a bat flitted directly overhead, the tip of the blade dipped ever so slightly. He shifted forward, intending to grab hold of the hilt, but she cut quickly to the side. He could have torn it from her grip then. It would be the easiest thing in the nine worlds to overpower her, weak as she was, but instead he pulled back.

Her lips curled in a snarl. “Try that again and I will remove your other hand.”

He settled back onto his haunches and studied her for a long moment. “I’d prefer not to sit here all night waiting for you to bleed out. Allow me to help you or end you, I don’t particularly care which. Let’s finish this. You and I both know that you are alone here.”

“Am I?”

“I can sense that as clearly as I sensed your presence. Why do you think I came so quickly?” Uncertainty flashed across her face, and he smiled. “Yes, I felt you even through your shield. We’re sitting directly over a ley line. Your presence here has disturbed the flow of it. Even shielded, your magic is like a germ in the environment of this planet. It works to reject you. You feel that, don’t you? You won’t be able to pull energy from this place, rich as it is. And your home is very far away.”

“This isn’t your home either.”

“No.” He shrugged slightly. “But I have been…grafted in, we shall say, to one who does belong here.”

“You lie. That’s no small magic, and there’s none to speak of here.”

“Ah.” He sighed. “That’s where you’re wrong.” Where they’d all been wrong. There was magic in Midgard. It was what had sent everything awry in the first place. A terrible, wild magic that was unrefined and impossible to harness.

Nearly impossible to harness.

“Lower your weapon and I’ll carry you to the fault,” he said. “Then you can show me how you were able to cross Asbrú.”

She shook her head. “I won’t make it through Asgard, not in this condition.”

“The demons are keyed to hunt Æsir blood, not Vanir. They might chase you out of curiosity or boredom, but they tend to avoid our kind. You can trust me on this point. I’ve enough experience with it.”

“Our kind?” she sneered. “You are not my kind. You lost your right to call yourself Vanir centuries ago. And now you ally yourself with them? These half-human wretches that are but shadows of their Æsir ancestors. They’re no better than animals.”

His smile thinned. “It’s unwise to provoke someone who holds your life in their hands.”

“The gods hold my life in their hands.”

“And I’m less inclined to help you by the moment. Lay down your weapon so we can have this done.”

She refused, and he stood. Drawing no more than a drop of energy from the river running beneath his feet, he sent her sword flying. It landed several feet away in a pile of dead leaves half covered by snow. The honorable thing would be to return it to her once they reached the portal, but he wasn’t feeling particularly honorable just now. Besides, as he bent to heft her into his arms, he felt the hard edges beneath the fabric of her jacket. She had other weapons that would see her through Asgard.

The echo of the magic he’d used rippled gently down the tether that connected him to Raquel, and Kamis felt her stir from a deep sleep. Absently, ignoring the protests from the woman in his arms, he sent a spell down the link urging Raquel to deeper slumber. The geis was not meant to work that way. The spell she’d used was an old one, meant to protect the caster and leave the slave vulnerable. But Raquel, while powerful, had never cast such a spell before, and at the time she’d placed it, they’d been surrounded by demons. Raquel hadn’t recognized his counter-spell. She didn’t yet realize the small but important ways in which he’d adjusted the binding.

She still held the leash. She was smart. In time, she would likely be able to figure out how to close the loopholes he’d created, but for now, he had some small measure of freedom from her complete control.

He walked swiftly in the direction of the portal. It was less than a mile away, but the sooner he had the Vanir warrior away from here the better.

“You can put me down,” she said. “I can walk on my own.”

“Save your energy. You’ve miles yet to travel through Asgard to reach the throne room.”

She stiffened, confirming what he’d suspected all along.

“Surtr sits on the throne of Asgard now. That portal is no longer accessible to us.”

“Come,” he said softly. “Don’t lie to me. I am saving your life, after all.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You forget that I was trapped there for centuries. If there was another working portal, don’t you think I would have found it in all that time?”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know you were injured by one of your own. Slicing through this particular kind of armor is something only a Skimstrok blade could accomplish. As no one here is about, it stands to reason that you were fleeing one of your own kind.”

Her scowl was something fierce. It brought a smile to his face.

“Surtr informed you of my disappearance and you crossed into Asgard to investigate.” They’d come to pillage his library and steal his treasures. He sincerely doubted that they’d succeeded in either of those objectives. His library was very well protected. “Did you bicker over whether to turn back empty-handed or did you actually find something valuable enough to quarrel over?”

She pressed her lips together and turned her head away. He suspected that they’d found a store of Skimstrok or some other small weapon to salvage. Everything that was truly dangerous he’d managed to hide away where not even Surtr could find it. Still, Skimstrok had always been more plentiful in Asgard than Vanaheimr. Valuable enough to kill for. Brave of her to attempt to escape across Asbrú. Interesting that Asbrú had deposited her on his doorstep. Kamis didn’t believe that was coincidence, but it would take him some time to think through the implications. The more alarming piece of the puzzle was
how
she’d been able to cross the bridge and why her crossing had not set off an alarm. The warrior was quite powerful, but not so powerful as to offset one of Odin’s spells. Not even centuries after its casting.

The woman was a stiff but light weight in his arms, and it didn’t take very long for them to arrive at their destination. He set her immediately to her feet. She swayed, and he steadied her with a hand to her arm.

“The portal.” He gestured toward the exposed rock. In daylight, if a person looked at the spot from exactly the right angle, they might detect a slight shimmer in the air. Tonight there was nothing to mark the space. He could feel it, though, the rent in the fabric between worlds. The wards surrounding the area kept the portal stable. Only the gravitational pull of the new or full moon was powerful enough to destabilize it enough for the jötnar to force their way through.

He was powerful enough. Even leashed.

“Did you blood-bind yourself to a jötunn in order to mask your crossing?” It was the only thing that made sense. “That’s why we didn’t sense you pushing through. Is this the first time you’ve done so? That’s a dangerous magic. It affects the caster as deeply as the focus. One time, two, the changes might be reversible.”

When he paused to let her speak, she glared at him. “Open the portal or kill me. I will tell you nothing.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. He’d forgotten. Living here, it was easy to forget how much strength mattered to the old ones. Strength of body. Strength of spirit. When she’d challenged him to kill her, she hadn’t been bluffing. She would fight. She would die out of pure stubbornness and count it a glorious death. She lifted her chin to goad him to it, and he sighed.

He drew a thread of power from the ley line and sent it curling into the portal. The bridge beyond wakened almost immediately. It recognized his magic and responded to it by reaching for him, widening the portal further without him having to drain himself.

Briefly he considered sending a balancing pulse of power toward Raquel to keep her asleep, but he discarded the idea. Others would feel the portal opening. It would only make Raquel suspicious if she was the only one to sleep through it. He deftly wove the spell to keep the opening contained, wide enough for the woman to slip through. Small enough that hopefully none of the demons waiting on the other side would notice until it was already closed.

Once it was set, he gestured her forward.

Now she hesitated. “My sword…”

“I accept as payment for this small service.”

The scowl she sent his way did slightly improve his mood. As she stepped forward, he softly said, “Safe crossing, daughter of Heid.”