Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (24 page)

“Let’s get our girl.” Tyr smiled.

Henrik raised an eyebrow. “We jump on
three?”

“On three,” I confirmed. “One. Two.” I
squeezed my eyes shut.

“Three,” Tyr finished.

We jumped as one, hands clasped as we once
again plummeted through blackness.

DESPITE MY FIRMLY CLOSED
eyelids, I
knew the exact moment we passed through Hel’s gate. The air cooled
to near freezing, my bones felt brittle as a dried out chicken
carcass, and my joints ached with an intensity that was supposed to
elude even aging Asgardians. I clung tightly to Tyr with one hand
and Henrik with the other, hoping Tyr’s flying ability would kick
in and pull us up before we crashed. But we careened feet first
toward the earth, landing with a painful crash that jarred my
already throbbing joints and snapped my femur clean in two.

I swore. “That really, really hurts!”

Henrik reached over and placed his hands
around my upper thigh. He guided it gently into place, speeding the
healing process and distracting me from the pain at the same time.
Now shards of agony alternated with warm pulses of an entirely more
pleasant sensation. Henrik might not have had Tyr’s powers, but
darned if his hands didn’t possess a magic all of their own.

Not the time, Brynn.

“Is that better?” Henrik asked after an
unidentifiable length of time. I could have been staring at his
strong hands for seconds or hours; I had no idea. But I shifted my
weight so I rolled onto my injured leg, and winced.

“It’s tender. But better,
ja
.” I
shifted again, and this time the pain was less intense. “I think
the break mended, at least.”

“Sorry about that. The drop was shorter than
I expected.” Tyr jumped to his feet and unsheathed his sword.
“Let’s find Freya and get out of this Hel-hole.”

I tore my eyes away from Henrik, and followed
Tyr’s sightline. We’d landed in a darkened cavern, littered with
heavy stones and blazing pits of fire. Our surroundings were nearly
all black, from the soot beneath us to the rocky walls that rose
indefinitely into the darkness above us. A group of bearded dragons
rested in crevices along the walls, their yellow eyes reflecting
the orange of the fires. In the distance stood a bridge, a narrow
footpath spanning what appeared to be a bottomless ravine. And on
the far end of the bridge stood a heavy iron door that I presumed
to be our destination.

Just another day at work.

Henrik helped me stand before drawing his
dagger. I opened my backpack and holstered an implosive gun, then
checked my sheathed rapier. The fall hadn’t broken it.
Good
.
The lightweight sword would allow maximum mobility in the event we
encountered something that moved especially fast, and the gun would
take care of anything I couldn’t debilitate in hand to hand
combat.

“Oh!” I kept one eye on the dragons and
reached in my backpack again, pulling out the time freezer and
handing it to Henrik. “Here. You take Barney. I got to activate the
wormhole of doom, so it’s your turn.”

“You sure?” Henrik tucked Barney into his
back pocket. “I know you were excited to test him out.”

I shrugged. “Fair’s fair. I’ll get the next
one. Also, you still owe me a pie for winning the kill count in
Muspelheim. I believe I requested your grandmother’s Dutch Apple
Crumble.”

“You two are such
nörds
.” Tyr cracked
his neck. “Now can we
please
get moving? The love life, not
to mention the good humor, of the entire cosmos is depending on
us.”

“Let’s roll.” Henrik marched forward, with
Tyr on his heels.

Apparently they forgot rule number one of
combat—when dropping in on a foreign zone, always assess the region
for threats.

“Duck!” I yelled, as an enormous winged
lizard dove from its perch.

Henrik and Tyr dropped and rolled with half a
second to spare. The dragon swooped down on the spot they’d been
standing, its black claws digging into the ground on its pass. It
flapped its wings, soaring five stories with each pulse, then
boomeranged back. This time, it opened its mouth and shot a stream
of fire on its descent.

“Look out!” I yelled.

“On it.” Henrik drew his sword and held it
high. The fire struck the broad blade and ricocheted back at the
dragon, singeing its talons. The animal let out a shriek and
circled around, shaking its smoking toes as it flew. The whole
thing would have been funny if we weren’t in danger of becoming
Asgardian flambé.

I ran to Henrik’s side and drew the particle
accelerator. “Want me to make it go away?”

“I do.” He shifted, sword at eye level,
mirroring the dragon’s trajectory. “But unless we’re planning on
taking out an entire colony, I’d hold off on shooting the
messenger.”

“Point, Andersson.” The rest of the bearded
dragons shifted restlessly in their perches. I held my rapier at
eye level and wedged myself between the boys. We watched as the
dragon circled high above, then let out another stream of fire.
Henrik easily deflected it with his sword, and the dragon flew to
an empty crevice, narrowly avoiding another burn.

I took a count. Nine dragons sat as
sentinels, standing between us and that big iron door.

Why couldn’t Henrik have just broken Garm’s
leg? One single princessy guard-dragon would have been a
lot
easier to handle.

“Okay, what’s the plan?” I turned my head to
Tyr, but kept my blade high. Dragons were fast, and I wasn’t taking
any chances.

“I’m assuming we have to get through the
door.” Tyr paused. “And I’m assuming they’re going to try to stop
us. If what the dwarf said is true, the dragon king Nidhogg is
controlling them. We need to get him on our side so he tells
all
the dragons to back off, and so he helps us deactivate
the Muspelheim super soldiers. We don’t want to do anything more to
anger Nidhogg, meaning do not kill another of his offspring,
Henrik
.”

“Hey, that offspring was trying to kill you,
so you’re welcome,” Henrik countered.

Tyr shrugged. “Either way, I’m guessing he’s
got another legion of monsters on the other side of that door, and
we don’t want to provoke him any more than absolutely necessary.
What do we have by way of weapons?”

Henrik recounted our inventory. “We’ve got
two broadswords, some daggers, a rapier, a vacuum, the particle
accelerator, Barney, the transporter—not too keen on using that one
again, not gonna lie—and the breakdown powder.”

“What’s the breakdown powder?” Tyr asked.

“It’s epic.” I grinned. “We’re technically
still testing it, but it’s designed to deactivate dark
magic-induced physical protections. So, if I applied it directly to
Hel, her body would be as susceptible to light magic-laced weapons
as our bodies are to dark magic-laced ones. She might still be able
to control external objects with dark magic, but she couldn’t
protect herself with it like she can now. And we’d be able to take
her out with our swords. Does that make sense?”

“Not really. But I trust you two.” Tyr didn’t
take his eyes off the dragons. “Anything else in that bag?”

“The stunner,” Henrik concluded, passing me a
small wooden box.

“What’s the stunner?” Tyr asked.

“You press a button and it sends out a sound
wave that’s at such an intense frequency, it literally paralyzes
anyone in the room,” I explained.

Henrik nodded. “We based the technology
loosely on a dog whistle. Only the frequency needed to be low
enough any corporeal being could hear it and—”

“As much as I love these little science
lessons, we’re in a bit of a hurry.” Tyr jutted his chin at the
wall of dragons. Several tails twitched.

“Right. Oh,
skit
.” One of the dragons
leapt from its perch. Henrik threw down his weapons and dropped to
a fighting stance. He bent his knees and sprung from the ground,
meeting the dragon in the air. He flung his body away from us,
throwing the dragon off course. Instead of striking Tyr and me, it
rammed into one of the bigger boulders near the edge of the ravine.
The dragon roared, whipping its head from side to side as it tried
to eject Henrik. But as good as he was with weapons, Henrik was
even deadlier with his hands. He clung to the scaly skin, his
fingers digging into the slippery surface as he climbed up the
monster’s neck. I heard the rip as Henrik tore the dragon’s flesh.
A thick, black liquid oozed from the wound, coating Henrik’s arms
and chest. His hands slipped; whether from the lubricating liquid
or the violent wrenching of the dragon’s neck I couldn’t tell. But
as I extracted the stunner from my backpack, the dragon pushed off
the rock, soaring high into the black sky with my friend dangling
one-handed from its open wound.

Förbaskat.
Why did we leave Fang back
at the compound? A flying warrior horse would have come in major
handy.

I watched in horror as Henrik wrestled the
dragon back to the ground, kicking as the dragon spiraled downward.
He swung his legs up, straddling the dragon’s neck and bending it
into an unnatural angle while its brothers and sisters leapt from
their rocky perches and descended on us with a cacophonous battle
cry.

“Now would be a really good time to activate
that stunner,
sötnos
,” Henrik hollered.

“Oh. Right! Tyr, muffle our hearing. Right
now!” I yelled.

Tyr held out his hand and muttered something
under his breath. The shrieks of the dragons faded to silence as
Tyr’s enchantment took hold. He gave me a nod, and I pulled the
string on the tiny wooden box in my hand. Heavy vibrations pulsed
through me, alerting me to the stunner’s activation. And even
though I couldn’t hear its wail, I knew the device worked; the
eight dragons descending on us halted mid-air, while the one trying
to skewer Henrik froze in a terrifying pose, its mouth open and its
teeth just inches from Henrik’s leg. Henrik shot me a glare that
could have burned a hole in the sun. I was filled with too much
tension to feel anything but relief at his safety.

“Oh my gods that was close!” I set the
stunner on the ground and raced to the dragon. I held up my arms to
help Henrik slide down, but he was too high. “Tyr, get over here
and help me!” I turned around but Tyr was already at my side. He
held the discarded swords in one hand, and reached up to help
Henrik off the dragon with the other. When my partner’s feet were
safely on the ground, I flung my arms around his neck.

“Gods, Henrik, that was horrifying. I’m so
sorry I didn’t pull the trigger sooner. I guess I just—you’re
filthy.” I pulled back, using one finger to touch the sticky black
tar that covered his chest. And mine. “Oh, gross. Dragon
blood.”

Henrik tapped his ear and mouthed the words,
I can’t hear you.

Oh. Right. Tyr’s spell.

Henrik motioned for us to follow him across
the bridge. When we reached the other side, Tyr stepped around us
and put his hand on the door.

Weapon up,
he mouthed. Or spoke. We
couldn’t hear him either way.

Tyr handed us our swords before drawing his.
He pushed the iron door open and waved us through. We stepped
across the threshold, then ducked to the side, pressing our backs
to the wall while Tyr closed the door and moved to stand beside us.
He waved one finger in the air, and our hearing was restored.

“We safe from the sound waves?” he asked.

“Yes.” I nodded. “I left the stunner in the
cavern room, which means so long as the door stays closed, the
waves can’t reach us. We programmed them not to be able to travel
through walls; only living, organic matter.”

“Like dragon skulls.” Henrik grinned.

“Excellent. With the dragons debilitated but
not dead, I’m hoping we’ll be able to reach a truce with Nidhogg.
Assuming he’s on the warpath because we killed his daughter, I’m
banking on him being willing to trade our safe passage for the
lives of the dragons back there.” Tyr glanced at the door.

“Nice bargaining chip,” I admired.

“Dragons are innately loyal. They feel every
loss of their species.” Tyr shrugged. “It’ll just depend on how mad
he is about Henrik here killing Garm.”

“Again, you’re welcome for me saving your
life.” Henrik rolled his eyes.

Tyr chuckled. “Onward and downward.”

“You mean onward and upward, don’t you?” I
asked.

“Nope. Onward and downward.” Tyr pointed at
the spiral staircase descending underground. Well, more underground
than we already were. “If the stories are true, we’ve got a few
more levels until we reach our destination.”

Nine levels of Helheim. Two down, seven to
go.

“What are we waiting for?” I drew a breath
and gripped Henrik and Tyr’s hands. “Let’s go to Hel.”

* * * *

The staircase to Hel’s lair was a spiral of
black rock on one side and endless abyss on the other, with the
occasional fire-filled wall sconce to light the path. My toes
caught on the uneven steps of the descent more than once, and if
Henrik’s enormous frame hadn’t been right in front of me I would
have tumbled headfirst into Odin knew what. The steps leveled off
at several places, each time presenting an outlet that led to a
thick indigo door. We didn’t stop to linger on any of the landings;
if the overwhelming feelings of negativity seeping through their
cracks were any indication, each door marked the entry of another
level of Helheim. At one door, my soul dropped with a heavy sense
of fear; at the next I felt unaccountably hopeless, as if nothing
would ever be right in the worlds again. Each feeling lifted as we
continued our descent, so by the time we reached the sixth door I
knew my emotions were being controlled by whatever corresponding
level of Helheim we trudged by. Even so, the inexplicable rage
building inside overwhelmed me to the point that I began to
shake.