Wrath and Bones (61 page)

I said it just to have something to say. My voice was thick with horror and heartache, and I couldn’t have hidden it anyway. As we started down the stairs, Declan did me the favor of not looking at me, which was good, because my vision was blurring with stupid, stupid tears.

“Kick him?”

“Can you kick trolls?”

“Sure, why not? They've got shins and bits, right?”

I didn’t know why not. I’d never tried to kick a troll. We fled through the cold night from Felstein to Skulesdottir, hauling our artifacts and keeping our heads down. “What if he’s too big to kick?” I asked.

“Flash him your boobs.”

“Are you trying to cheer me up?”

“Of course.” We rounded a tight corner and nearly collided with two DaySitters hurrying about their business. I didn’t recognize them, but they knew me, because they gasped and made a gap for us to plow through, shrinking away from us like we had something contagious or a giant loaf of garlic bread.

“I have a problem with your plan,” I admitted.

“Oh?”

“I have no boobs.”

“Shit,” Declan said, conspicuously not arguing with me. “Should I flash him my penis?”

We rushed through the empty throne room, eyes averted from the banners. There were treacherous whispers in the corners, hisses or wind through the stones, but neither of us paused to see if there were beings there. I heard the click of high heeled shoes tracking us from over my left shoulder; whoever it was, they didn’t come out into the light thrown by the gas lanterns. A massive fire crackled in the fireplace, unattended. Hand in gloved hand, Declan and I rushed down the servants’ stairs, rounding corners, retracing our steps without needing to consult one another. I could have found my way back with my eyes closed. Hell calls a body, or rather, it calls a soul.

I whispered, “Did Harry call Batten my gigolo?”

Declan snort-laughed unexpectedly and tried to squelch it. “Yes, Dr. B.”

I swallowed a nervous giggle of my own. “That was uncalled for.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah. I never paid him for the sex.”

Declan said, “We should have brought Harry along to help.”

“Couldn’t risk it,” I disagreed. “Three-Face said I couldn’t have his help, remember? I don’t want there to be some sort of demon loophole. We have to fetch Remy on our own.”

We paused at the door behind beside the cooks’ cupboards. Behind it was a gateway to Hell. I was fairly certain if a bad guy died, his soul slipped through the official Hellmouth, which was guarded by Leviathan beneath the Bermuda Triangle. I suspected this gateway wasn’t for human souls, but for demons who had to commute.

We moved past it, through the king’s collection room again to find the back door.

Declan said, “Don’t touch
anything
in here, Dr. B.”

I nodded rapidly. “Don’t touch anything in the room next to Hell,” I whispered. “Noted for future reference, though it seems like a no-brainer.” I checked the quirk of his eyebrow. “Oh, I see what you’re doing. You callin’ me a dumb-dumb?”

“Never that, Dr. B,” he said, but I felt like he was trying to channeling Golden and trying to cheer me up with insults. “I think your boyfriend is following us.”

My kneejerk reaction was to remind him that Batten wasn’t my boyfriend, but when I glanced around, I heard the clink of a buckle hitting a wall. Folkenflik was back in the straightjacket. “Oh, the furry one,” I said. “Great, just what we need. A literal lunatic.”

“He likes you.”

“He bit me and peed on my shoe.”

“Not at the same time,” Declan said, as though this made it all better.

“Does he like me better than his DaySitter buddy?” I asked. “Or is he still following her orders? Does she still want me dead?”

“Maybe,” Declan said. “Maybe he’ll bite the troll for you.”

I double-tapped the dog whistle under my shirt again to reassure myself and Declan that it was still there. “Just what we need,” I said. “A troll shapeshifter. What would that even be?”

“A were-troll? A trollfox? A trollcanthrope?”

“If we meet a were-troll, I quit,” I said sternly. “I mean, I’ve quit lots of times before, but this time, I’ll mean it for realsies.”

 “You’re a warrior, Glenda. And warriors don’t throw in the towel when the odds are against them.”

“Isn’t it Tuesday yet? Tuesday’s my day off.”

 “It’s Monday, Dr. B.,” Declan lied. I promised myself that the minute I got home, I’d pretend the next whole month was made of Tuesdays.

THE OLMDALUR HELD NO
ferals this time, nor did it seem to contain any DaySitters and their pesky Seconds, though they were no longer my greatest worry. In the distance to the East, Rask had anchored the
Meita
over the Arctic trench where Prince Duchoslav the Undertaker had arranged for the sinking of Remy Dreppenstedt’s shipping container. Since she’d been down there for so long, I was forced to wonder what containers from that era looked like. How had they bound it? Were there silver chains and crosses, as we’d seen on the others? Would Declan be able to get through them?

As I’d feared, the troll scout was close. The fog parted to reveal a ship that looked like it had seen better days. Hasty repairs had been made in a slapdash manner, boards hammered to the hull and slapped with big iron bands, perhaps to take advantage of the unexpected parting of the portal. The sails were tattered along the edges but larger rips had been haphazardly stitched and patched. This was no little fishing boat; low but fast, this was a ship for a silent landing party slipping up through the fog. The troll ship had a dragon’s head at the bow. Behind it, or rather looming over it, was what I assumed was the troll scout. I glanced over my shoulder. “So, uh, none of the revenant houses are out here to help us, eh?”

“It doesn’t appear so, but maybe that’s for the best,” Declan barely breathed beside me. “We don’t need an audience for this.”

“Sounds like you’re expecting me to flub it.”

“I
have
met you,” he admitted, glancing past me towards the open water. “Oh, damn. So that’s a troll.”

“Yep.” Neither of us had seen a living one. He looked gigantic, even from this distance, and he wasn't alone. His crew was hunkered low. Oars slipped in and out of icy water without making a sound.

Declan asked, “Am I seeing things, or does he have more than one head?”

“Those aren’t
his
heads,” I said, squinting. “Only the one in the middle is his. He’s got severed heads on spikes on his shoulder pads.”

“That’s a pretty good intimidation tactic,” Declan noted breathlessly, his eyes wide.

I swallowed hard and my throat made a dry click. “I fucking told you this was a bad idea.”

“You never did.”

“I told you humpty-nine times that this was a bad idea.”

“This was
your
idea.”

“And it was a really bad one!” I whispered frantically.

“Well, I’ve gotta go pick up my mom,” Declan said casually, like it was something he did every day on his way to get groceries and fetch the mail. “So good luck with
allllll
that.”

“It’s all good. I have diplomatic immunity.”

“No you don’t.”

“I don’t, but I have a flamethrower.”

“No you don’t.”

“I don’t, but I have a lovelorn yeti. Unfortunately, she’s not here. I could really use Betty the Yeti right now.”

At least I had Betty’s nail, for all the good it would do me. I think I’d rather have the yeti snuggles. A hug would really help right now.

Declan motioned to the scout while he backed away. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

“There are not enough nopes in the world to answer that!” I squawked. “Pretty sure I’m hosed.”

“Well, stall him as long as you can. I’ll be quick.”

“You’ll be quick?” I sputtered. “You’re diving into an Arctic trench, dodging wyrm larvae, to crack open a shipping container that may or may not be trapped in or under a glacier.”

“It’s fine, Dr. B.,” he said lightly. “I have bolt cutters. Also, there’s global warming. That ice is right shitty, as ice goes.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “I really hope climate change is working in our favor. That’d be great. Could you fucking hurry, please?”

“Hurrying!” he promised, dropped his bag, and started to run.

“Wait!”

He looked back, his black curls flopping in his face. “What?”

I shook my head fiercely. “Don’t die, okay?”

He flashed me a big smile. “Steady as she goes, Glenda.”

I couldn’t bear to watch him go into that freezing, wyrm-infested water, and tried not to hear the clumsy, slapping splash. Rask had deployed a rowboat to mark the exact place where he thought he remembered House Duchoslav leaving the earliest sets of shipping containers, but Rask was far too busy managing the failing fog to the northeast to help Declan go free-diving for revenant royalty.

With one eye on the blizzard brewing in the Olmdalur, and one eye where the troll ship was sliding up onto the crusted ice coast, I dropped my go-bag off on the snow to review what I had; there wasn’t much. My mini Cougar had four bullets left. I had a curved yeti nail painted Pussylip Pink, a golden Lilith’s Heart seed pod, and some crusty human jerky dripping with funked-up honey. I had the fake canopic jar; maybe I could huck it at the troll's head and buy myself a second or two to live. I had my Glenda Hasenpfeffer wig and a pair of zero-prescription, horn-rim glasses. I had Harry’s now-filthy vicuna scarf and my last pair of clean gloves, the crimson ones that looked like I’d been disemboweling a reindeer with my bare hands. I had a bandaged arm and a stubbed toe and the beginnings of a caffeine withdrawal headache. I had a broken heart and a
reeeeeeeally
rancid mood brewing because of Mark Batten’s fuckoffery, which would probably lean things slightly in my favor, since the rage felt a little homicidal.

The troll, on the other hand, had a massive war hammer. It looked to be only slightly smaller than a Volkswagen on the end of a telephone pole. He stepped off the ship while his oarsmen steadied it along the coast. A real, live troll. His flesh was the color of frostbite, mottled purple fading to black in places. Everything about him was sharp angles; pointed chin, narrow jaw, high, long ears. His eyes were a fascinating blend; in response to dim daylight conditions in the high north, troll eyes had developed typically light irises and an epicanthic fold, which made perfect sense to me, as they must have developed to protect the trolls' eyes from the cold and windy conditions of the northern Siberian habitat from which they’d been driven. He was even bigger up close, at least eight feet tall, towering above me. He really didn’t need the war hammer. The fact that he was even brandishing it was sort of ridiculous. He stopped thirty feet away and watched with a cocked head as I shuffled through my things.

“Holy tittyshits, I’m rump-humped,” I said, mostly to myself because I didn’t figure the troll cared one way or another.

He squared his shoulders for a stand-off. I abandoned my stuff and showed him my fists. He looked at them and blinked doubtfully, like he couldn’t believe I was even trying.

“Uh, hi,” I said conversationally. “So, you’re Manflay Bonehack. And I’m Marnie. You’re super-huge. Nobody warned me about that.”

He swayed one step closer; the way he looked at me made me feel like a bug skittering across a sidewalk, about the get stomped by a curious toddler.

“What’s it like to have arms like that?” I asked. “Must make chores way easier?”

He made a sound like a jungle cat purring and sniffed the air between us.

“Sorry, I’ve been on the run for days. I bathed, but I’m told I still smell like wet dog. I don’t want to dwell on that right now if it’s okay with you. Personal problems, you understand.” I smiled nervously. “You must be really strong, eh? Gotta be honest, I’ve always been attracted to men who could tear a truck in half. It’s a sickness, really. But I should warn you… I’m not as wimpy as I look.”

I didn’t know if this guy understood English, or maybe he couldn’t imagine that was possible, but he certainly understood my shift in tone. One edge of his upper lip curled back to reveal a brown canine tooth. I showed him my painted yeti nail, held between my knuckles like a woman holds her car keys while walking through a dark parking lot.

“See this nail, motherfucker?” I said, raising my voice to seem threatening. “It’s a magic nail. You better get back on your boat and flee. Flee from my magic nail!”

He didn’t look too worried about it. He closed the gap between us by ten feet and let the hammer fall from his shoulder. I felt the vibrating impact as it hit the ground in my cold, frozen feet. He growled and said something that sounded like, “Yieldling.”

His booming voice made me jolt and I took off running to the left. He did not give chase. I ducked, feinted twice, bolted to the right, pelted in the snow in a complete circle around him. He just watched me. I ended up back by my go-bag. “What was that, you might be wondering?”
Me too
. I danced on the balls of my feet, feeling light and agile. “Cardio! I’m really good at it, cuz it seems like all I’ve been doing lately. I outran a yeti! Not that she was chasing me, really. I can outrun you. Run circles around your troll ass. Deke you out.”

The troll licked his thin, greyish lips and squinted at me like I might be brain damaged. I was thinking the same thing; after all this plane travel, lack of Harry, lack of espresso, stress, monsters, fairy nonsense and now this, I’m sure my poor brain cells were taking a knock.

“Also,” I said, “I’ve got this… um, this… thing in here, just a second,” I used my left hand to sift through the items in the snow and grabbed the pod. “Golden seed. Lilith’s Heart. Yeah, that’s right. I’ve got one. You don’t have one. You wish you did! Wanna know what I can do with it? Come closer and find out!”

His narrow eyes glittered at me, and then began searching the Olmdalur for what else might be here to stop him. Clearly, I was boring him.

“That’s it!” I growled, throwing my stuff down like I was tossing the gauntlet. I peeled off my crimson gloves and threw them in his general direction. They fluttered at his feet. “This people-never-takin’-me-seriously shit is really too much. Don’t you know who I am?” I flung my arms out, taking up lots of space like a male mountain gorilla trying to scare off a challenger.  “I’m the Great White Shark of Psychic Investigations. I’m the Litenvecht Späckkenhuggar. Yo, motherfucker, I even said it right this time! How d’ya like them apples?”