Suture (The Bleeding Worlds) (17 page)

"Get this blindfold off me," he yelled. "I would have a way better chance of surviving if I could see what was happening."

A few moments passed before someone yanked the blindfold from his face. He took a few blink-filled moments to adjust his eyesight to the light.

Tatiana used a machine gun comically large for such a small-framed girl. She squeezed off short bursts of fire out the window.

"Damn wolves," Tatiana said. "With all due respect, Mistress," more clapping gunfire, "I told you we should have seen to their elimination ourselves."

"What is she talking about?" Gwynn asked.

Not-Angie shot Tatiana a sour look.

"They're terrorists," she answered. "A group who envies us because of our abilities, so they want to destroy us."

Another explosion, this time close enough to lift the right tires on the van.

Not-Angie fell onto Gwynn. Her cheeks flushed and she quickly extracted herself. She checked to see if Tatiana had noticed, but the other girl was too intent on trying to hit her targets.

"You listen." Not-Angie sounded flustered. "No matter what happens, stick close to me. I won't let anything happen to you."

It struck Gwynn as ironic that the girl who only a few hours before had blown him up, was now vowing to protect him. Only the determined look in her eyes kept him from pointing that out.

"I wouldn't need you to protect me if you removed this collar," Gwynn said.

She seemed to give it some thought. After a moment, she shook her head, no.

"I can't. Maybe if I knew I could trust you..."

"Like you're asking me to trust you to keep me alive?"

She didn't answer—there was no time.

Wham!

The van went airborne, spinning from right to left.

Gwynn curled himself into a ball, trying to protect his head. Not-Angie and Tatiana were thrown as well. The machine gun Tatiana had been using fell in with her, exploding to life as it smashed from surface to surface.

The van filled with the sounds of tearing metal and screaming. Time slowed and warped. Something hot slashed across Gwynn's shoulder, another burning the side of his cheek.

The van came to a rest. Bright spots obstructed Gwynn's vision. The smallest movements sent sharp pains through his skull. He lay motionless, listening for any movement from his captors.

"Is anyone there?" He finally risked using his voice. It hurt as much as he'd feared.

No one answered.

He forced his eyes open. Breath came in short, quick, bursts.

God, what I'd give to use the Veil right now.

As his vision cleared, he took in the carnage. Not-Angie lay unconscious, blood trickling from a gash on her head. The driver wasn't even in the vehicle, probably ejected while they rolled. Worst of all, Tatiana lay, wide-eyed, a single bullet wound in her forehead, which had blown half the back of her head off.

Bile rose in Gwynn's stomach and he didn't have any strength to force it back. Even if he had, he wouldn't have fought it. She'd been a bitch, and he enjoyed seeing her be put in her place. But had she deserved an end like that? Would he have felt differently if she
had
killed Jason?

He didn't want to think about it.

Outside, the sounds of battle still ensued. Had the other vehicles been hit? Was Jason all right?

Voices approached. Gwynn dragged himself to Not-Angie. The shackles made it hard to search her. He only prayed she would have the keys. She was still breathing, which he found oddly comforting. Every second brought voices closer to the van. He looked to the gun laying next to Tatiana. How much ammunition would be left? Could he use it against another human being? It was one thing to kill monsters, but humans? He tried to hurry his search. He cursed the slowness of his movements.

He found something that seemed like a set of keys. He moved his fingers along the collar, trying to find something that resembled a locking mechanism. He felt a slot that possibly matched the shape of one of the keys. With a slow breath, and maybe even a little prayer, he slid the key in. He gave a gentle twist, but the key didn't budge. Instead, he felt a slight vibration from the collar accompanied by it emitting a beeping sound. The collar sprung open and dropped to the ground. He made an immediate connection with the Veil and pulled the energies into his wounded body. It took all the control Pridament and Njord had taught him not to draw too much, too fast.

While the energies filled his wounds he moved to unlock the shackles. He hesitated. Hadn't she said these shackles were Tethers? That was what had him rooted to this world. What happened if he took them off? Did they still work if he left only one on, or just held onto them?

Someone was at the door of the van, trying to open it.

Gwynn got to his knees. The Veil had healed most of his wounds, but his body still protested every move.

Xanthe.

The sword answered his call, flooding his system with a cool confidence. His shoulders rolled slowly and he stretched his neck from side to side. He flexed his empty hand, feeling the increased tautness of his muscles.

Gwynn drew his sword arm back. He didn't want to kill another human being, but he had no intention of lying down and letting them kill him either.

The door tore free and Xanthe flew forward, striking something with a loud metallic
clang
.

"I know it's been a while, but there's no need to try to cut my head off."

The smile and voice took a moment to register. How many times in the past eight months had he wanted to speak to this face? How many times had he sent his thoughts into the universe hoping he would answer. After all this time, he'd finally accepted he would never lay eyes on this man again.

"Pridament?"

Eventually he'd allow himself to feel angry—maybe even punch the old man in the shoulder and ask where the hell he'd been. For now, though, he let Xanthe melt away to the Veil and ran to throw his arms around Pridament, only to discover they were still shackled together. Regardless, he crushed himself against the man's chest. Pridament wrapped his arms tightly around him.

"I thought you'd forgotten me...or died." Gwynn fought back tears so the words came out right.

Pridament's arms tightened on him. "I'm so sorry, Gwynn. I didn't die, and I certainly didn't forget you. I've been doing what I promised—causing as much disruption to the Fallen as possible. I'm guessing it's worked so far."

They finally parted. Gwynn stood back, nodding a dizzy, foolishly happy, yes. "There's been no sign of them since. But what are you doing here?"

"Hold on." Pridament reached up and touched at an ear piece. "Confirmed primary objective is achieved. Progress on secondary?" He paused, waiting for a response. "Copy. Moving toward exit point now. We can talk more later," he said, returning his attention to Gwynn. "For now, we've got to get out of here."

"Wait," Gwynn said. "They had Jason in one of the other trucks. We've got to get him."

Pridament smiled. "I was just talking about that. The rest of my team has Jason. We're rendezvousing now and getting out of here."

As Pridament turned to leave, Gwynn finally got his first good look at the new world in which he found himself.

"Oh my God."

A clear Azure sky lay above, truer than any blue Gwynn had seen his own sky. He'd been right about the lack of roads, nothing but lush green fields spread out to the horizon.

"I know," Pridament said. "It's beautiful. Too bad it's just an illusion to hide the ugliness beneath."

A low slung vehicle sat idling about fifty feet behind the demolished van. It might've been a car once, but sheets of metal had been welded to it's exterior turning it into an automotive Frankenstein. It didn't even demonstrate any real care or thought, just random bits thrown together to provide any possible protection.

Pridament went to the passenger door, which opened up from the car body, and motioned for Gwynn to have a seat. Once Gwynn was inside, Pridament shoved the door down and shut. A few seconds later, Pridament was in the driver's seat pulling away from the wreckage of the van.

"I think the one girl was still alive," Gwynn said. "Will you send any help?"

Pridament's eyes hardened. "No, we won't. Given their usual response methods, their own people should be here to help them within ten minutes," Pridament sighed. "It's not easy. What I really wish is they'd listen to reason and join our side. It's such a waste that we have to fight like this." Pridament looked down at Gwynn's wrists. "I've got a set of keys that would probably unlock those."

Gwynn opened his palm, displaying the set of keys he still held.

"I've got a set. I figured Jason would need them. But I'm not sure about taking these shackles off. We were told they were Tethers for this world."

"It's fine," Pridament said. "You only need the Tether to cross successfully from the anomaly into this world. If you returned to that city and wanted to come back here, you'd need the Tether. Once you're here, you're safe. Unfortunately, it's only keyed for this world. You can't use it to go home."

Gwynn fumbled with the keys and shackles, sliding the key into the lock. The same beeping and sudden release as the collar occurred. Gwynn rubbed at the raw flesh on his wrists.

"So you said you'd explain what's going on here. When you told me you were trying to draw the attention of the Fallen, I assumed you'd be moving around a lot, not hanging out with... What exactly are these guys anyway? The Valkyries called them terrorists."

"That's how
they
would see them. I guess in a way they are. A lot has changed these past eight months. I found out things that... I never wanted to know. I'll start at the beginning."

Pridament pulled in line with a number of other vehicles with the same haphazard steel plating.

"Initially, I did exactly what I told you I would—I went in search of every Fallen I could find and did everything I could to screw with their plans. Along the way, I even found versions of myself from other worlds who I managed to persuade to join me. That worked amazing. It screwed the Fallen up completely that I was in several places at once. It made it almost impossible for them to find me. I won't lie, I was also on a...personal mission."

"Hodur?"

Pridament nodded. "Every Fallen I came across I tried to find out if they knew where he was. I told the other Pridament's about the particular Hodur I was hunting and told them to watch for him. About four months ago, I finally found him."

"Where?"

"On the end of a sword belonging to one of Woten's assassins."

"That makes no sense." Gwynn recalled the insistence of every member of Suture, from his teammates right up to Woten himself, that they never cross the Veil. Not only dangerous, it was deemed unnecessary to the defence of their own world. "Woten would never send one of his people across the Veil. Unless it was an alternate world's Woten."

"I thought that too," Pridament answered. "It got me thinking about one big question I never asked. How exactly did your friend Fuyuko know I had been associated with the Fallen?"

"It's not that surprising. I mean, Suture is supposed to defend our world against threats from the Veil. The Fallen are a big threat."

"I'm not arguing that. But Elaios was the first Fallen to come to your world. If no one in your world's Suture crosses the Veil, how did they even know the Fallen exist? Even
if
they knew they existed, how would they have any real intelligence on who their members were?"

"I..."

"Don't bother trying to explain it," Pridament said. "Because I tried to do the same thing. When I couldn't come up with an answer, I did some further digging. When I was done, I ended up here, on Asgard, working with this group."

"What did you find out?" Gwynn wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"The reason you're not allowed to cross the Veil has nothing to do with the danger or defending your world, it's to prevent you from learning the truth. There's a war going on out in the multiverse. I've been so blind over the years. I kept so focused on finding my Gwynn, I never even bothered to see the bigger picture."

"A war? How could there be a war?"

"The Fallen are led by a man I've only heard whispers about. Most of the Fallen haven't laid eyes on him. He's known by different names on hundreds of worlds. You know their philosophy, that they must eliminate all the 'false' worlds to cleanse Yggdrasil and reattain contact with God. To be a Fallen, you must hunt down any versions of yourself in other worlds and kill them. From what I can tell, it all goes back to their leader, who is supposedly so old he witnessed the dawn of creation and has become convinced that this must be done."

"Could he really be that old?" Gwynn asked.

Pridament shrugged. "Who knows? I know of Anunnaki that have lived since at least the times of Babylon's dominance. Woten himself is several thousands of years old. The way they talk about this man, you'd think...he was the first of us." Pridament shook his head like it might shake the idea loose. "None of that is really shocking. What I found out about Woten was. I was wrong, Ark was never about the Fallen—it was a project the Norse gods, the Aesir, created."

"The Aesir. You mean Suture created the Fallen?"

"Not Suture," Pridament said, "the Aesir—Woten. That's why Suture in your world knew I'd been associated with Ark; it's been run by Woten the entire time. The Fallen are extremists who broke away. When I left Ark, they must have thought I'd joined the Fallen, so they flagged me the same as they probably flagged all the others."

"That still doesn't explain how Suture in my world knew about it," Gwynn said.

"It does if you believe that the upper management, the Aesir, Woten, did what the Fallen have done—eliminate all other versions of themselves and spread all their information to the various worlds where they hold power. This world, which the Aesir invaded and made into their mythic Asgard, is the centre of that information hub. That's why I've stayed here—to try to get more information and to stop whatever Woten has planned. My counterparts are keeping the Fallen busy."