Dead Embers (17 page)

Joshua's fear was a very real one. This new, unforeseen
problem put every Warrior's life in serious danger. And we didn't even dare to
hope that the black substance had no effect on the Valkyries or the Ulfr. I
didn't see any Valkyrie or Ulfr volunteering to be tested, and there was
certainly no way I'd offer to be anyone's guinea pig. Way too risky.

Voices rose and fell as Fen and Thor reported, and Odin
questioned.

Thor raised Mjölnir and gave the hammer a tiny shake,
sending off the mildest of vibrations. "Father, I believe I may know now
what this substance may be. I will have to verify my suspicion, but I think I
am correct." Thor's voice echoed around the hall. "Fenrir's words
bring a memory to my mind. I have seen something like this before."

"What is it, my son?" Odin turned his single grey
eye to Thor.

"The Black Ice of Jotunnheim." Odin and Fen fell
silent as Thor's words rang around the room. He tapped Mjölnir onto his palm,
frowning. "Black Ice causes an almost deadly paralysis in a Warrior, and
it is so similar to this substance that I cannot think of anything else that
fits."

Odin nodded. "My son, this has the ring of truth.
Although it does not explain the deadliness of the substance."

"Father, we all know the frost giants are merely
waiting until the day they can wage their war upon all of Asgard, and upon you.
Perhaps they have found a way to use the Black Ice against your army of
Warriors."

The All-Father sat back within the ornate arms of his stone
throne, his expression contemplative, concerned and completely unsurprised.

I frowned. Seemed odd that he was taking this all so well.
But his next words cleared up my confusion. "It has been a while since my
brother Mimir last spoke of the frost giants and their collaboration with the
Vanir. We have not been complacent, but there is little we are able to do
without information. Mimir has grown more and more silent over the years. He
speaks only of what he can still see, of what is of immediate consequence. I have
waited for the day the Jotunn will make their first move. And the murders of my
Warriors is that move, the first step in their strategy to begin
Ragnarok."

A wave of gasps undulated around the room. Every occupant
knew what Ragnarok was: the end of the world, the great and destructive battle
against the god Odin. A time prophesied to bring death and the end of the age
of the Aesir.

***

It was probably a good thing that we weren't allowed to
wallow in self-pity. Fen was quick to send us off on our next Retrieval. I, for
one, was not complaining.

Mika and I arrived in the snow. Ankle deep in it. Surrounded
by it. And as much as I loved the fluffy, flaky kind, I pretty much despised
the type of snow that made it impossible to get anywhere.

The Bifrost had deposited us smack in the middle of a field
somewhere in Vermont. I gritted my teeth and sighed. A pristine blanket of snow
covered the entire countryside, making it fairly impossible for me tell in
which direction we needed to go. Frustrating enough to make me willing to try
something drastic.

The wind knifed through my coat, and my teeth clattered as I
muttered, "Okay. Let me see."

I released my wings, and they flared out behind me in a wide
arc. My stomach twinged as a gust of wind sent a flurry of snow whirling around
me. Little flakes settled on the feathers, and I suspected that once I was
airborne I'd have to get to our destination fast or I'd be weighed down by the
steadily falling snow. And we all knew how well it had ended the last time that
happened. But I had to try. "Come on, Mika, let's go for a ride."

"What are you doing?" Mika backed away, horror
marring her usually placid features. "You must be out of your mind."

"Come on and stop wasting time. We need to get our
bearings, and the only way is to get up high. We're looking for a cemetery.
That shouldn't be too hard to spot from up there." I pointed at the dull,
heavy clouds above us. "And we'd better get a move on, before those clouds
decide to dump more snow on us. This is Vermont. Once it starts, we have no
idea how long it will take to stop again."

Mika grumbled. "You are insane. I was not meant to fly.
Hence, my obvious lack of wings. What if you drop me? What if we both fall out
of the sky?"

"Shut up and stop being such a wuss," I said, laughing
at the big bad wolf-girl who was scared to fly.

I looped my arms around Mika and shoved off the ground.
Needless to say, carrying an Ulfr, all armor-clad and weaponed up, was easier
to plan than to execute. We managed to lift off, and I flapped away as hard as
I could. Then I toppled forward, tumbled over in midair. Mika screeched as we
plummeted down, down, down.

The sound cut off as I fell flat on my face in the soft
snow.

Right on top of Mika.

I scrambled to my feet, dusted myself off and massaged my
throbbing elbow. No broken limbs—good. No broken wings—better. I really wanted
to giggle, but seeing as Mika lay spread-eagled face down in the snow I knew
that was probably not a good idea. Not good for my health, anyway.

"Come on, lazybones. Let's make the second time the
charm." I grinned, aware she'd find none of my words in the least amusing.

Mika shoved herself off the ground and groaned a groan that
sounded way too much like a growl.

Uh oh.

I waited a few seconds, and when she didn't transform and get
all furry and cranky, I stepped in and once again wound my arms around her and
pushed off the snowy ground.

It wasn't easy at all. The extra weight meant using a
different technique to control the muscles on my back and my wings. But it
didn't take long to master the art of flying with a passenger. Nor for my
partner to want to rip my head off in frustration. The subtle shudder that
pulsed through her body as we rose higher brought a wary smile to my lips.

So the big, bad Ulfr was a bit of a scaredy cat.

Tossing her hair out of her face with an angry jerk of her
head, Mika yelled back at me against the gusting wind, "If we fall into
the snow one more time I swear I will—"

"What? Will you tell your daddy I wasn't playing
nice?" I hollered back.

Mika froze for an instant, then she burst out laughing, the
sound snatched away by a stiff, powdery gust of wind.

"Yeah, I thought that was funny too," I said,
heading higher into the sky.

I had to hand it to Mika. In the end, she didn't kill me. We
rose high enough to locate the cemetery, about a mile away. I flew straight
there, taking one last glance behind me to memorize my landing spot- the
rundown shed with three broken windows, due north of the muddied slush our
flight training escapades had made with the snow.

I landed with Mika in the shadows of a little clump of
trees. Mika stretched her legs and smiled. "Thank you, Valkyrie. I am not
sure what I want to kiss more: you or the ground."

I raised an eyebrow at her, unsure whether laughter was a
safe reaction. "Let's hope we never have to do that again."

I didn't have the heart, or the courage, to remind her that
a return trip was actually required.

As we set out in search of the grave of the newest Warrior,
little fingers of a different kind of chill ran up and down my neck. I looked
around, eyes stabbing the shadows. The sense of being followed or watched was
way too strong to shrug off.

"Bryn," Mika called. I flinched as her voice rang
out across the field of headstones.

"Will you keep it down? You're loud enough to wake the
dead."

"You are the one who wakes the dead, not me," she
said, and I could have sworn a smile edged those words.

"I choose the dead, I don't wake them. Get your facts
straight, Ulfr," I retorted.

As we walked, I tried to shrug off the strange feeling of
being watched. We headed through the trees, scanning the snow-covered
graveyard. Mika pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket and smoothed it out.

"The name is Sebastian Blake," she said. We agreed
to split up to speed up the search.

Not five minutes later, I stood before a neat little
headstone proclaiming the man's name. "Mika," I called, flinching
again at how loud my voice sounded in the icy air. Two rows over, she whirled
around and loped back to join me.

I crossed my fingers as we drew closer, praying that this
time we would find a live Warrior.

Mika squinted and raked her eyes across the graveyard.
"Right, work your magic."

"What magic?" I glared at her, no patience for her
wisecracks.

"You really don't know how to do it?" Mika asked,
her hands on her hips demanding an answer.

"Do what? Can you stop wasting time and get to the
point," I snapped.

"Your magic, Valkyrie. You know, wave your hand, move
the sand. That magic." Mika swept her hand in a wide arc, almost a
magician's flourish. What the hell was she on about?

My expression must have been all the answer she needed. She
scowled. "Well then, I do believe we need to actually dig."

She turned and walked off between the rows of graves, her
back held stiff. I blinked in disbelief. She was pissed off? Really? And what
about me? Was this just another thing I wasn't taught? Or was this something a
real Valkyrie would be able to do naturally?

Mika returned with two spades, almost throwing one at me
with a dark scowl. We wasted no time unearthing the grave. A while later we had
a hole in the ground, occupied by a single coffin. I felt a little stab of fear
as I registered one important fact. No light shone from the coffin. No golden
glow screamed, "Here is a Warrior waiting to be retrieved."

No slivers of light seeped through the edges of the lid the
way they had the day of Joshua's burial. I looked across the open mouth of the
grave to find Mika staring at the coffin, the same expression of worry on her
face.

"Be careful, Mika. No touching." The warning came
automatically, even though I knew Mika knew as much as I did about the dangers
of the gloop. But she didn't react.

We made quick work of removing the lid, and I stood it up
against the wall of soil beside me. Inside, the young man's face bore a thin
film of the same black stuff we'd seen on so many other Warriors in the last
few days. Beneath the blackish goo, the man's skin was pale, a dead grey,
devoid of even the faintest glimmer of gold.

Another Warrior was dead.

Defeated, I groaned and scraped my hands through my hair.
The heat of tears singed my eyes, but I tamped them down. Not the time. I
dreaded returning to Asgard with the news that we'd just lost another valuable
addition to Valhalla.

Mika's urgent whisper pulled me out of my sad regret.
"Don't look around and don't do anything suspicious. I think we are being
watched."

I kept my eyes trained on the ground as I continued to fill
the grave back in. "Where?"

"Behind you, somewhere in amongst the trees." Mika
shoveled too, and kept going with me until we were done. The last thing we
needed was to leave any traces of our failed attempt at grave robbery.

I threw my spade aside and kept my eyes on Mika's face; her
eyes transformed. From nice and normal and human they shifted slowly; wider,
thinner, the pupils elongating until I stared into a pair of beautiful yellow
wolf's eyes.

Her gaze traveled across the tree line until she completed
her survey and reverted to her normal state of human facial characteristics.

"I am certain there is someone or something out there.
I cannot be entirely sure they are human, though. Their scent is . . .
strange."

"Do you want to go check it out?"

"Perhaps." She gestured toward the grave and the
proof of our pointless desecration. "Or perhaps we wait. They have not
attacked yet. If they mean to talk, they will come forward."

"I'm not about to let some scumbag stalker get away
with following me around and giving me the creeps," I replied, annoyed
that she was prepared to allow the spy in the trees to get away if he didn't
have the guts to attack us.

"Perhaps we should approach him tog—"

I didn't give her a chance to finish.

I turned, drew my sword and ran headlong into the trees.

Shadows swallowed me as I crashed into grasping branches,
heading straight at the area where I assumed the creep was. I swung my sword,
ready to slice open my stalker, when something large and hard knocked my feet
out from under me. I fell on my back, awash with the strangest feeling of déjà
vu.

When I opened my eyes, I was face to snout with an enormous
golden dragon. A dragon who stared at me with familiar golden eyes.

Out of the darkness, Mika ran yelling at the top of her
voice. Crazy Ulfr. What did she think? That she was strong enough to fight a
dragon bigger than your average house?

She came skidding to a halt, her mouth hanging wide open as
she stared from me to the dragon and then back to me.

"Bryn, I would stay very still if I were you," she
said softly.

"Why is that?" I huffed, wriggling as the snow
slowly eked out all the warmth from my butt. "So the nice dragon won't eat
me?"

"Something like that. Don't be stupid or heroic. Be
still."

The dragon lowered his nose and swiped the side of my face
with it. I flinched, but thankfully dragons and dogs weren't alike in the whole
wet nose department.

"No sudden moves, Bryn," came Mika's voice.

"Oh, get off!" I shoved the dragon's snout out of
the way and struggled to get back to my feet. I seemed to have gotten myself
well entangled with wings and sword and a few odd tree branches.

The dragon obliged and gripped the back of my coat, lifting
me off the ground and giving me a good shake. Clouds of snow sprayed from my
head and shoulders, where steady snowfall had gathered in soft little piles.
Even my eyelashes were now flake-free.