Perfekt Control (The Ære Saga Book 2) (25 page)

“Whoa there, sassy,” Tyr said from behind. He
placed his hand on my shoulder. “You doing okay?”

My hand removed his trespassing fingers
faster than Thor could strike down an infidel with Mjölnir.

“Get your hands off me, you obsessive,
controlling Neanderthal.” I whirled on him.

Tyr glared at me. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem is that I’m sick of you, of both
of you”—I turned to yell at Henrik, since there were no favorites
here—“thinking you know what’s best for me. You’re supposed to be
my friends. Not my fathers. I don’t need you to protect me from
myself. Henrik, if you didn’t want to kiss me you should have just
said so, not pretended you were all noble and trying to protect my
valkyrie virtue.” I poked Henrik’s chest. “That’s an enormous lie
and we both know it. And you, Tyr.” I whipped around to glare at
the war god. “I don’t need you to act like you know
so much
about how I’m feeling
all the time
. Your title’s just a
job—it doesn’t make you better than the rest of us. So stop acting
all high and mighty and just be a normal guy for once in your
existence. Both of you need to let me live my life and stop acting
like you own me!”

I knew my fury was uncalled for, but I didn’t
feel like apologizing. Anger had painted my world crimson, and I
couldn’t see anything but rage. My soul felt the inexplicable need
to get away—from this place, from my friends, from myself. I tried
to storm past Henrik, but he placed large hands on my shoulders and
held me in place. Though he stood two steps below me, he was still
taller than me. Stupid gods and their stupid tallness. Height.
Whatever.

“Let me go, Henrik,” I snapped. “I told you
before, I don’t want you touching me anymore.”

Henrik eyed me levelly. On the surface he was
the picture of calm, but I knew him well enough to see the angry
spark beneath his cool grey-blue eyes.

“Tyr, go ahead,” he directed. “Your jaw’s
clenched, the vein in your forearm is throbbing; it’s obvious the
giant half of you feels the effects of what appears to be the
anger
level of Helheim. And I don’t want you and Brynn
feeding off each other.”

Tyr shot Henrik a look that could have frozen
a jotun, but he drew a breath and walked down the stairs. It didn’t
escape my notice that he bumped my shoulder harder than he needed
to as he passed.

“I felt that, you jerk!” I lunged for his
back. Henrik’s tight hold on my shoulders was the only thing that
kept me from falling off the ledge and into nothingness.

“Listen very closely, Brynn.” Henrik stepped
to the wall and pulled me with him. Our shoulders pressed against
the cold rock. I shivered. “I know you’re only saying these things
because of the energy seeping out of that door.”

“Nope.” I shook my head angrily. “I mean it.
You think you’re so above everyone. Especially me. You humiliated
me in Alfheim—
humiliated
me. And then you did it again in
Midgard. You told
everyone
in front of Brynhild you didn’t
want to kiss me. I get it. You’re not into me. You don’t have to
rub my face in it!”

Henrik moved one step up, raising his height
another five inches. Now he nearly towered over me, like he always
did. Ugh. Was posturing right now
really
necessary?

“Brynn Aksel, I never said I didn’t want to
kiss you.”

“Well, you never said you did want to kiss
me, did you? It’s the same thing. You suck.” I glared.

Henrik let out a frustrated huff. “Let’s move
away from the
anger
door,
ja
?” He pulled me down the
stairs, until one hundred meters separated us from the indigo
planks above. The rage began to seep out of me, replaced by a
feeling of total humiliation. Again.
Oh, gods.

“Henrik, I—” I stammered. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He turned again, standing two
steps below me. Tyr was nowhere to be seen; he must have stormed
all the way to the next landing. “Listen, the truth is, it doesn’t
matter how I feel about you. You’re bound to Freya, and I won’t
have you lose your eligibility on my account.”

So we were back to that party line.

“Don’t look so disappointed. I need you to
trust that I’m doing what’s in
both
our best interests here.
Can you do that for me? Please,
sötnos
?”

When I didn’t answer, Henrik lifted my chin
with one finger.

“Hey,” he said softly. “It’s not forever. You
and I both know that. It’s only until you hit that rank, right? And
it’s not for nothing; your job requires complete control over your
emotions. Being together would complicate that and put you at
unnecessary risk. Besides, our relationship has existed in
perfekt
balance for this long, what’s another hundred or so
years going to kill?”

“Me!” I blurted. “It’s going to kill me!”

Henrik chuckled. “I highly doubt that. You’re
the toughest
flicka
I know.”

Leave it to Henrik to call me a chick on the
steps of Helheim.

I drew a breath. “I was a jerk. I’m
sorry.”

“Water under the Bifrost, Brynnie.”

The ceiling became infinitely fascinating. “I
have to apologize to Tyr, don’t I?”

“Yep.” Henrik nodded. “But you and I are
good. Let’s just get through the next century or two and trust
Freya to have your best interests at heart when she doles out the
perfekt
matches, eh?”

I closed my eyes. If Freya didn’t pick Henrik
for me, so help me Odin I was quitting the valkyries and running
screaming for the hills. Maybe the Berserkers would be hiring by
then. They took females. And Henrik would make an epic
trance-inducing warrior god…

“Where’d you go?” Henrik’s voice brought me
back to reality.

“Just hoping this ends well,” I muttered.

“Things usually do.” Henrik grinned. “We just
need to trust in the innate goodness of the cosmos and know the
elements, like us, are working together to rule the realms in
perfekt
balance.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You sound like one of
those new age meadow elves. Or Elsa.”

Henrik laughed, the sound bouncing off the
rocky walls. “They’re not all crazy, you know.”

“If you lot are done chatting, I’ve got a
situation down here.” Tyr’s voice came from somewhere in the
darkness. Valkyrie fail. I’d left our charge on his own longer than
absolutely necessary.

“On it.” I nodded at Henrik, and we bolted
down the stairs. When we got to the final landing, we skidded to a
stop. Tyr stood just past the threshold of an open indigo door. And
on the other side swarmed a horde that promised a fate worse than
death.

“
CLOSE IN,” TYR COMMANDED
. Henrik and
I drew our blades and formed a tight triangle with our commander,
our backs pressed close together.

“What the Helheim are those?” I asked.

“
Ikkedød
. Hel’s undead minions.”
Henrik held his sword at eye level. We shifted our feet in small
steps, turning a slow circle while assessing the threat.

“Why aren’t they attacking us?” I chanced a
brief glance away from the gnarled figures, whose bandages dangled
from bones protruding through decaying flesh. The odor in the room
was ghastly, but the room itself was kind of beautiful. We seemed
to be inside an ice castle, its crystallized walls coated with a
faint frost. Purple and gold silky fabric circled thin columns
spaced along the perimeter, and the place seemed to be lit by tiny
candles flickering just outside the clear walls. The whole effect
was light, and airy, and really quite beautiful.

If you forgot it was Hel’s inner sanctum.

“I think they’re waiting on a command from
her.” Tyr jutted his chin at the far end of the icy corridor, where
a figure sat atop an ivory throne with indigo cushions.

“Hel,” I said, keeping one eye on the
ikkedød
. They hovered menacingly in front of us, but didn’t
strike. They alternately snarled at us and turned their soulless
eyes on their master.

I followed their sightlines and did a double
take. We’d been taught Hel was a halfling; that physically she’d
taken on the worst traits of her giantess mother and demi-god
father. But the demon resting regally on the throne was far more
beautiful than the textbooks made her out to be. The right half of
her body was tinted a deep cerulean, while the left was the powdery
blue of the Asgardian sky. Silver eyes stared impassively from
above high cheekbones, and a shock of glossy black hair fell in
soft waves around her angular face. She was as unique as the
stories promised, but in a far more striking way.

Hel was beautiful.

But even more beautiful was the enormous
winged dragon seated to her right. Its emerald scales glistened
along its muscular frame, giving way to dark purple wings at its
midsection and ending in a spiked mallet not unlike a mace at its
tail. In its oversized talons it clutched a glowing red crystal.
Each time it stroked the crystal, the stone emitted a pulse of
light, like it was communicating with some far away receiver.

Oh, crud.

“We were right, the dragon’s got the dwarves’
gemstone,” I murmured. “The transmutation one Berry told us about.
Destroy it, and we disable the super soldiers. Let the dragon keep
it, and we can start the countdown to the apocalypse.”

An
ikkedød
lurched forward and Henrik
lunged with his sword. The creature withdrew, melding back into the
horrible horde. My stomach clenched. We needed to
never come
back here.

Tyr drew a breath. “Henrik. Stats.”

“Hel, my twelve o’clock. Crystal-hoarding
dragon at one. A half-dozen
ikkedød
at ten and another at
two, and I do believe that’s our lovely Freya in the cage next to
Hel’s… is the ice queen sitting on a throne made of human bones?”
Henrik spoke quietly.

Oh, ew
.

“First wave, now.” Hel’s voice rang out. A
grating screech followed, as two of the
ikkedød
flew at us.
With Asgardian speed, Tyr and Henrik raised their broadswords,
angled them toward the demons, and swiped. The
ikkedød
snapped in half, fell to the ground, and disappeared in twin clouds
of smoke.

“Oh gods.” I gagged. “What is that horrible
smell?”

“When eliminated
, ikkedød
leave behind
a certain scent,” Tyr explained.

“Stench,” Henrik corrected.

“It’s awful,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, well, that’s just the beginning.
You’ve read about them,
ja
?” Tyr pointed his sword at an
approaching demon, and it backed off.

I ticked off what I’d learned in school.
“
Ikkedød
are Hel’s undead guards. They’re shape-shifters,
mood influencers, and they’re capable of stealing their victims’
souls by sucking out their energy.”

“Right.” Tyr nudged me with his elbow. “And
that dagger’s not going to do much. I suggest you pull out that
vacuum thing or the one that makes everything implode.”

“We can’t use the particle accelerator. It’s
too risky.” Henrik shook his head. “Nobody’s ever studied an
ikkedød
, and we don’t know their molecular composition. What
if the bullet shot through and hit the ice wall? The whole place
would go down, and we’d lose Freya… and possibly release the slew
of dark souls Hel’s got cooped up in here.”

“Plus we’d be dead,” I pointed out. “It’s
hard to stage a coup when you’re dead.”

“That too.” Henrik continued the slow
circular shuffle. When we’d completed our rotation, we formed a
loose triangle. Tyr faced one horde of the
ikkedød
, Henrik
the other, and I stood in the middle, poised to charge Hel.

It wasn’t entirely clear which of us had
drawn the short straw.

“They’ve let us stand here an awful long
time,” I whispered. “Why hasn’t Hel sent a second wave to
attack?”

“Because I know what you did to Nidhogg’s
shadow guards in the forest, and I’m not in the mood to lose any
more guardians today. Now you may turn yourselves over to me.
Starting with you, blondie.” The ruler of the underworld sat coolly
on her throne, staring me down.

“Uh, yeah. I don’t think so.” I reached
around and extracted the vacuum from my backpack. I passed it to
Henrik, who slid it into his pocket while I spoke. “How about you
hand over our friend, and we’ll let your creepy minions live? Or
stay dead? Or… whatever.”

A throaty laugh echoed down the icy hall.

“Something funny?” I asked.

Hel placed her palms on the arms of her
throne. “I just thought the God of War would be more… imposing.
Your father made you sound
much
more intimidating when he
offered your… services.”

Tyr kept his voice level. “My
father
was Ragnar Fredriksen, and he wanted nothing to do with you. You
must be referring to Hymir. I should have known he was behind
this.”

“Hymir didn’t ask me to kidnap your little
love goddess, if that’s what you’re thinking. He put my brother up
to snacking on those simpering adopted Asgardian parents of yours,
and by all accounts I hear they were
delicious
.” Hel
grinned, revealing rows of blindingly white teeth. “But I took your
friend on my own. I was hoping to procure that pretty mortal
girlfriend of yours, but the coward stayed in your ridiculously
protected little house. So I got the next best thing.”

Hel swung her hand to the left, and I got my
first good look at Freya. She was hunched in a ball, in an ice cage
cloaked with dark magic. Her normally slender frame looked
positively emaciated, and she trembled in the corner of her jail,
her pale strawberry-blond hair laced with dirt, leaves, and
blood.

“Let her go, Hel,” Tyr growled.

“Oh, that’s not going to happen.” Hel
laughed. She pushed herself to her feet and squared her shoulders.
“But this is. Your father promised you to
me
, not that
simpering human you call a girlfriend. Your darkness is destined to
unite with mine to create an unstoppable force. The realms will bow
beneath our combined power, and you and I will rule the cosmos.”
Hel stretched her arm in front of her, turning her palm up to Tyr.
“Join me, and I let your friends live. Turn down the offer of a
lifetime, and everyone you love, including your precious little
mortal, comes to spend an eternity with me. You wouldn’t want to be
responsible for all of their deaths, would you? After your loyalty
to my
dog
of a brother killed your own parents.” Hel clucked
her tongue. “How
do
you live with yourself, Tyr?”