Demon Crossings (21 page)

They would come back for her.

Hallie’s face, so small and pale above the white blanket tucked to her chin. Her body curled up in the fetal position. Her brows twitched together as she dreamed. Aiden’s hand reaching out to touch her back, soothing her through the nightmare.

Grace flinched away from the vision and when she opened her eyes, she was still in Asgard. Hallie was safe and Aiden would come back for her. She repeated it like a mantra. Unable to sleep because she was bound to the wall in a standing position, she had little to do but think over her situation and that was what she kept circling back to. Aiden would come for her. She held on to the thought like a lifeline, trying to ignore the doubt that lurked on the edges of her determination to believe it. To believe in him.

She tried to ignore the voice that whispered to her that Aiden had only been passing the time with her, fucking her to scratch an itch, because she’d practically thrown herself into his bed and he would have done anything to keep her happy and willing to help him. Even pretend that she was special. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the wall.
Damn.
She’d liked feeling important to someone, necessary and valued, even if it was only because of what she could do for them. Had she only been seeing what she wanted to see, convincing herself he’d felt more for her than simple hunger and need?

She couldn’t even pretend that he’d lied. He’d never told her he loved her. He’d never even told her he cared. She’d read that in his touch and in his eyes. He’d only ever offered sex. And this was where being needy got you, this was where fooling yourself into depending on someone got you—chained to a wall in this dark, frozen version of hell. She couldn’t afford to wait for Aiden to rescue her. Even if he wanted to come, he’d have to take care of Hallie first. It had taken him months to find his daughter, restricted as he was by energy surges, moon phases and power flares. Would Fen and the others try to stop him or would they help him?

She blocked that line of thought. Aiden
would
come for her but she couldn’t stand here and wait for him to do it.

Her muscles were cramped. Grace shifted her feet to try to get her blood circulating again and ease the pain in her thighs, her back, her shoulders…everywhere really. She was cold too. Though still fully dressed, a chill seeped through the rock, through her clothes and lodged deep inside of her. She couldn’t escape the shackles on her own and so she did the only thing she could. Closing her eyes, she called out with her mind to Vanir. He must not have been very far away because no more than a few minutes passed before she was aware of his presence in her cell.

“I’m not true blooded Æsir. Keeping me bound like this will kill me.”

“You don’t seem any worse for wear,” he countered. “Uncomfortable perhaps but safe.”

“It’s the cold,” she said, letting her teeth chatter. Really it wasn’t much of an act. She was freezing. She’d noticed that Aiden’s body temperature ran hot and was betting the Vanir’s did too. “This rock is like a block of ice and I can’t even move to get warm. You’re not keeping me safe here. You’re killing me.”

A hand touched her cheek and she startled, surprised more by the fact that it felt like a human hand and human skin than by anything else. But he was warm and she couldn’t help but lean into his touch. He slipped a hand under her shirt to touch her belly and she whimpered. Too exposed, too vulnerable to this stranger but his touch was impersonal, only checking her core temperature. He pulled back and a moment later, released her. She sagged to the ground and he sat beside her, pulling her against his body and wrapping her in a length of some kind of thick fabric.

She moaned when the blood rushed to stiff muscles, setting them on fire with biting pinpricks of pain. He held her until the trembling subsided. And then, without any warning, he tugged at her hair to angle her face back and kissed her. She jerked away, throwing herself off his lap before he could catch her and stumbling into the rock wall.

“I’m sorry,” he said and let her feel his regret. But there was something more running beneath it, deep and black, a longing and a loneliness that she recognized all too well. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve been so close to another living being. I was…overcome. It won’t happen again.”

Right. But when he didn’t move to come after her, she slid down the wall and wrapped her arms around her shins. “Can’t we go outside for a while, just for the light?”

“Asgard has not seen the sun for centuries. The only light you’ll see here is from the demons and the lichen. That blue-tinged glow? You couldn’t have missed it coming in.”

“I thought it was twilight,” she said, resting her chin on her knees and starting to relax because he wasn’t moving. She’d gotten him to release her and that was the first step.

“No.”

“Can we make a fire?”

That strange mental laugh again. “There’s no wood here. We could burn the bodies of the fire demons I suppose, but that would only draw more.”

Another disturbing thought occurred to her and she asked suspiciously, “What do you eat?”

“Not stray humans,” he said, amused. “You’ll find that you’re not hungry very often. Time passes differently and it interferes with your need for food and sleep. At least it does mine.”

She hadn’t been hungry but she’d assumed it was because of her fear, or that she hadn’t been here long enough to get hungry. How much time had really passed? Here…at home?

“Why do you live in a place like this?” She wished she could see him or that he would speak out loud, anything so that she wouldn’t feel as if she was floating in limbo. Well, anything except touch her again.

“This is where the Vanir send their worst—exiles and criminals, people deemed too dangerous to live with civilized society. Murderers, rapists, traitors.”

She wanted to ask which category he fell into but was afraid to hear the answer. It didn’t matter anyway. She needed to reassure him that she was scared, docile, dependent on him and too afraid to run. Since most of that was the truth, she didn’t figure it would be too much of a stretch.

“May I sit next to you?”

She hesitated.

“You’re still shivering and I can share my cloak. I won’t touch you again if you do not wish me to.”

Cold day in hell, buddy,
she thought, and then realized that today was that day. And her standards weren’t very high after all, because she
would
accept comfort even from the monster who had captured her so long as it meant pushing back the cold for a while. Sobered and shaking again, she nodded and he moved toward her silently. Even listening for him, she had trouble hearing his foot hit the ground. He sat next to her and tucked his cloak around her. She rested her head on his shoulder and dragged down by spent panic and immense weariness, she fell asleep.

Aiden stared at the portal for another full minute before swinging down from his horse.

From a few feet behind him, Christian called out his name but Aiden didn’t slow. He kept going until he stood directly over the fault. The black vortex of energy swirled around him, crashing into his body like an ocean wave and drawing him forward with the undertow.

“Fuck.” The jingle of harness and then Christian’s voice again, closer. “Step away, Aiden. You can’t force it open and it won’t do her any good if we lose you.”

Aiden extended his hand, pushing into the source of all that power, gritting his teeth against the pain and looking for an opening. Just a sliver, a crack he could wedge wider. Anything. Grace was over there, trapped in Asgard…if she was still alive. He closed his eyes and stretched further. The trick was keeping yourself planted in this world while you searched for the other. When the gate was wide open, it was easier. Like diving to the bottom of clear still water, there was barely a current. When the gate was contracted, like this, it was fighting upstream against a flood.

And you couldn’t let yourself be swept away. If you couldn’t connect to the other side and lost your place in this one, there was the very real possibility that you’d be lost in the void between worlds.

Fen bumped his head against his hip and whined. Aiden wanted to do the same. He wanted to howl and rage, slaughter his way through a pack of demons, get to Grace and take her home. But the gate was closed. Another week until the full moon when the currents of this world would ease the fault line wider. But for now…
Damn it
. Christian was right. He couldn’t push deep enough to find an opening without losing his way. Hallie needed him too.

He withdrew his hand and his energy, bowed his head and stood panting, sweat trickling down the side of his neck and slipping beneath his armor. He could feel the eyes of the hunt on the back of his neck, patiently waiting for his direction. Certain the Odin would make this come right. Turning on his heel, he headed back toward his horse. “Tomorrow.”

Christian stepped in his path and Aiden shouldered him out of the way.

“Aiden,” he said. “You know it won’t—”

Aiden stopped and dragged in a deep breath. Christian wasn’t the enemy. He was only saying aloud what everyone was thinking. Rane, shifted to human form, was perched on a wide branch directly in front of him, dark eyes sad. “We all want her back.”

Aiden turned, looked at each member of the hunt until one by one they dropped their eyes. Finally, he shifted his attention to Christian. “We try again tomorrow.”

Vanir was gone when she woke up but his cloak was still wrapped around her. And she was an idiot, because her instinct was a reflexive thank you. At least he wasn’t there to hear it. Probably what he’d intended in the first place. Give her a little bit of kindness and she was lost. She would hand herself over to a person, imagine all sorts of crazy things. Like that she was in love, or that she was loved.

Holding on to the wall she pulled herself to her feet and tied the cloak around her neck. Too long for her. She removed her belt from her jeans and rebelted it on the outside of the strange, tough material, pulling the excess up so it wouldn’t trip her. Then she felt her way out of the cavern, using her fingertips and her toes, hoping she could get outside before Vanir returned.

And then what? She still had a sword but she couldn’t fight her way through dozens of fire demons like the hunt had. She had no mount and wasn’t at all certain she could cross through even an open portal on her own. She’d been taken across both times. But it was either try to make it back home on her own or entrust herself to Vanir’s care and resign herself to staying here. To rest in the hope that someone would come to find her.

She’d spent years like that once, waiting for her parents to come back, for a genius doctor to figure out what was wrong with her and know how to fix it. She’d dreamed about meeting someone else like her, long lost family or a mentor who’d train her how to use her gift. A friend. Waiting had nearly broken her. She couldn’t do it again.

She stumbled toward a faint light, tripping over the uneven ground and scraping the palms of her hands. She landed near a thin patch of the lichen Vanir had spoken about and she gathered it up in her hands, wishing she had a stick or something to affix it to so she could use it like a torch.

It didn’t cast much light, only illuminating her hands and the damp walls directly to either side of her. She cupped some up in her free hand and walked on, her boot heels clapping down the silent halls where not even the air moved. When she saw light ahead, she dropped the fading moss and picked up speed until she was jogging. Her heartbeat and her breath echoed off the rock, filled up her world. She rounded a corner, the light got suddenly brighter and she skidded to a stop.

Damn.

This wasn’t leading her outside. She approached the mouth of the tunnel slowly, ignoring the part of her demanding she turn around and go back. She poked her head into a cavernous space then cautiously stepped inside.

Moss vined up the slick walls in a ghostly luminous web. And the ice wasn’t really black at all. Apparently, that had been a trick of the light outside in the eternal gloom of Asgard. In here, the moss lit it up in patches, making the ice translucent and revealing glimpses of what was buried beneath. This wasn’t a natural cave. Once it had been a building, a palace maybe, with a great domed ceiling arching into darkness overhead. Gilt gleamed under the ice, still bright and untarnished. The hair lifted on the back of her neck and she wandered farther into the cavern, bending to follow the edge of a mural painted on the wall. She shook her head, straightening.

What was this place?

Hesitantly, she reached out to push aside a drooping tangle of moss. The molding was carved with sharp-angled runes. Hung higher just above eye-level was the stuffed head of an animal unlike anything she’d ever seen. The skull was easily two feet wide, flat with a squashed pig-like nose and glassy black eyes. By contrast, the white, slightly curved horns at its hairline were delicate and lovely.

She didn’t hear anything but she could see her shadow and the offset reflection of a wavering orange light. She let the moss fall back in place and then clenched the hilt of her sword. When the light moved, she swung around.

It was a fire demon, but not quite. For one thing, this creature was definitely female. Her body was roughly human-shaped and graceful, sliding forward on strangely articulated limbs. Grace could see the outline of her breasts clearly beneath the tendrils of flame flickering over her skin. Beautiful. Impossible not to stare at that slowly coiling pattern of fire.

The demon tipped her head to one side and the sharp twitchy way she moved jolted Grace out of her shock.

“A jötunn,” the creature said, pointing at the wall and the monster Grace had been staring at. “From Utgard. Perhaps the first Loki himself. Who is left to say?”

“Who are you?”

Light flared, slithering across her abdomen and coiling around her neck and then fading to a simmer. “The one who has chosen not to kill you while you stand gaping at the walls. You are not Æsir. Not Vanir.”

Grace moved toward the tunnel, stopping only when the creature shifted to block her path. She lifted her sword, remembering how easily Aiden had blocked her. This woman wasn’t armed but she seemed more amused than concerned about the weapon.

“You’re trembling, human. Lay aside that blade which belongs to your betters and beg me for your life. Amuse me and I may yet be merciful.”

Thinking about the kinds of things that would amuse a fire demon’s higher-level cousin had Grace’s palms sweating. She wouldn’t have thought it possible to sweat and freeze at the same time.

“She’s mine.”

Vanir. Grace recognized his voice, felt his presence at her back but she didn’t want to take her eyes off the demon to turn around.

Hissing, the demon crouched low and suddenly in that posture she looked almost exactly like the creatures that came through the portal.

“What will you do with your pretty bauble? She won’t survive your care.”

“Nor yours. Slither back to your hole. You’ll need to find other amusements today. Grace, come here.”

She backed up until a hard hand clamped over her arm and pulled her around. Vanir ushered her back toward the tunnel. “Idiot. What did you think you were doing?”

She chose not to answer. Instead, mentally she pushed a question toward him. “What is she?”

She felt Vanir’s surprise and then, his pleasure that she hadn’t spoken the question aloud.

“One of Surtr’s whores. A higher level demon than the ones you’ve seen and more dangerous because of her position in the harem. He lets her wander where she will and so long as she pleases him, she knows no restriction. If I damage her, Surtr will be displeased and I do not wish to provoke a war with the King.”

It was strange speaking mind to mind like this. In normal conversation, you could read tone and expression. With her gift, it was even easier for her to read people. But this picked up every nuance. Impossible to misunderstand what someone was telling you. Impossible to lie.

Before she could ask who Surtr was, Vanir tugged at her arm. “Hurry before she changes—”

He pushed Grace out of the way and she crashed into rock, stumbling back a few steps to land on her ass. She dropped her sword and it clattered on stone.
Crap.
She could lose a finger if she swiped her hand around trying to find it.

Vanir was wrestling the demon, trying to force her back down the tunnel and away from Grace. There was some light, broken and uneven, bouncing off the ice-slicked stone, making crazy shadows jerk and shudder on the walls.

There. Wedged into a crevice between the wall and a rock. She crawled over and grabbed the hilt. The light flared brighter and she found herself staring down into a man’s face, frozen beneath the ice. The lumps in the floor she’d taken for rocks.
God.
She bit her lip to hold back a scream and fought to her feet. They were all still here, Aiden’s people, frozen where they’d died as their world ended.

Vanir’s roar bounced around in her head, snapping her head up and spinning her around just as the demon dug clawed feet into his shoulders and leaped past him. Without stopping to think about technique, Grace swung the sword like a bat, felt it dig in deep, easy as butter until it met the resistance of bone. The demon’s weight dropped her to her knees but Grace held onto the sword, trying to tug it loose.

Vanir stumbled closer, glowering at the demon whose light was fading fast. It was the first time she’d seen his face—lean, hollowed out cheeks and a high forehead. His mouth was set in a thin narrow line. “You killed her.”

“Like I had a choice.”

“Come on.” He grabbed her arm but she shrugged free.

“My sword is stuck.”

“Just leave it.” He glanced down and his eyes flew wide. “Where did you get—never mind now.”

He braced his boot against the demon’s back and closed his hand over hers, pulling the sword free in a single sharp movement.

He started running, not giving her a choice except to try to keep up, taking turn after turn. She felt as if they were going deeper into the mountain—palace—but she’d lost her sense of direction after the first few turns. After what seemed a long time, he shoved her forward into a dark room.

“We’ll stay here to sleep. When they begin the search we’ll have to move again.”

“Are you sure they’ll come for us?”

“Yes.”

She set her back to the wall because having something to lean against helped relieve the feeling that she was floating in space. Vanir squatted down next to her.

“Where did you get that sword?”

“Why?”

He was amused at her evasion. “It’s quite valuable. It was likely what she was after all along. A Skimstrok blade is worth more than your life here.”

She shrugged. “It must not be as rare on the other side.”

He shook with laughter. “Who told you that? It could only be rarer on the other side. Here at least there is the possibility you could pry one up from the ice.”

She closed her eyes not wanting to consider how much it had cost Aiden. She’d never thought to ask. She wondered what he was doing now. Caring for Hallie. Maybe making plans to come after her. He would have to know the impossibility of finding her in this place. He’d never been able to find Hallie and now, she understood why. She didn’t reach out for him. It hurt to touch him and she dare not lower her defenses around Vanir even for an instant.

“Don’t worry. I won’t take it from you. The size suits you.” Another tremor of laughter. “Your form could use some work.”

She didn’t bother to argue, just drew her knees up to her chest and tucked her hands under her armpits. “How long have I been here?”

“What does time matter in a place like this?”

She rolled her eyes but admitted to herself that he had a point. It felt like days had passed but she hadn’t eaten anything since she got here, hadn’t wanted to. It was as if her whole body was in some sort of limbo with only the cold to remind her that she was alive. Her mind started to drift thinking about it and she jumped when Vanir mind-spoke her.

“It’s how we destroyed this place. There were always the bridges between our world, this one and your own, portals that allowed passage through the dimensional walls. We broke the wall down between Asgard and Niflheim, thinking it would allow the fire demons free rein here but we never imagined it would do this. It pulled all of Asgard and Niflheim into the space between worlds, merging them. The only things anchoring this world to a physical plane at all are the bridges.”

“I saw a man buried in the ice.”

He didn’t answer her for a long time and then he only said, “Get some sleep, human. I’ll watch over you.”

“Why are you doing this? Why help me?”

He sighed. “Maybe I’m only bored. If nothing else, you are a distraction.”

He sat down next to her and she forced herself not to flinch when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and tucked her head against his chest. She needed his warmth. She would survive.

Vanir was gone. Hours passed, possibly days and he still didn’t return. Grace waited until she couldn’t take it anymore, until she felt disembodied in the dark and the silence, until she was numb with cold. If it wasn’t for the sound of her heartbeat echoing in her ears, she might think she was a ghost. When death began to seem like an acceptable alternative, she stood and crept from her cell.

It took forever to find her way to the entrance but it was probably no more than an hour. She was only able to make it out because, faintly, she could feel the fault. The call of it seemed stronger from this side and she followed it like her own personal northern star, guiding her through the branching tunnels and out into the twilight world of Asgard.

She dropped the lichen she’d gathered and reached out to steady herself, leaving behind a glowing handprint on the rock. Then, before she lost her nerve, she started running as fast as her legs would carry her. The portal was closer now than it had been when they crossed. Only a mile or two. She could run that far. She did it on the treadmill at the gym nearly every day back in St. Louis. She’d make record time with demons chasing her. She flew.

The first demon that found her was a good twenty feet up on the high side of the embankment. A few pebbles clattered down behind her and when she glanced up she saw him there, clawed hands braced to the side, fiery eyes peering over the edge, nostrils flared as if testing her scent. He didn’t leap though, only started to pace her above. She prayed she’d hit the portal before he found an easy way down. The shadows seemed deeper here in the canyon than when she’d been riding with the hunt, the muffled silence oppressive. Her booted feet slid on the glassy rock. And she realized it was actually ice when some of it chipped beneath her heel. The whole place was coated with it. Black and glossy, reflecting that bluish light. There was another pair of red eyes ahead of her to the right and she quelled the urge to turn around and run for shelter. She wasn’t going back. What point was there in that?

So she ran right at him, breaking her silence with a defiant yell and swerving at the last minute to launch herself off a boulder and onto a ledge that cut into the canyon wall above the monster’s head. She might be outnumbered but at least they weren’t very bright. The demon leaped higher than she would have thought it could and Grace threw herself back, watching with relief as his claws scrabbled for purchase but slid off. She started running again, wishing she could see the portal instead of just feel it. The energy thrummed through her and she realized that was the source of the approaching storm, not thunder and lightning, not from this dead sky and broken world. It was the fault, slipping, spreading, bridging across to another world. Her world. She hoped.
Oh, God—that
hadn’t occurred to her before. Did the portal connect to worlds other than her own?