Dead Embers Read online

  When we reached the ridge, it became clear we'd been standing in a little ditch right beside a highway, thankfully out of sight of the passing motorists. Great. Let's hope we didn't have to come back here during rush hour to return home.

  Fen strode toward a dented grey sedan with whitewall tires, parked in the breakdown lane on the side of the road, its hazard lights on and gleaming like a pair of sinister amber eyes. And then the most surprising, incongruous sight since I'd entered the world of gods, giants and dragons appeared before my eyes: Fen pulled a set of car keys from the leather pouch at his waist and opened the door.

  "You have a car?" I blinked.

  He reached inside and unlocked the passenger-side door. "I have acquired a vehicle, yes. The Bifrost opened far from where we need to go, and time is of the essence. Get in."

  I shook my head, amazed. "You have a license?"

  He scowled at me over the roof of the dilapidated car. "What is a license? I have a car. We will need no other Midgard devices."

  I snorted. "Do you even know how to drive this thing, Fen?" I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer. Fen taking driving lessons was just not something I could picture.

  "Yes, Valkyrie, I am able to drive this vehicle. Now could we please hurry? Time is of the essence."

  Whatever you say, Fen.

  I jumped in, buckled up and choked on a gasp as he released the hand brake and veered out onto the road. Without. Checking. His. Mirror.

  Flaming heck. The wolf man so wanted to kill me.

  "Pull over," I said with the utmost calm, trying not to grip my nails into the dashboard.

  "What?" he asked, looking at me.

  "Keep your eyes on the road!" I yelled. He whipped his attention back onto the road and braked hard to avoid rear-ending the car in front of us. I let out a strangled scream and shouted, "Fen, for the love of Odin, pull the car over."

  "What is it you wish me to do, Bryn? Pull over or keep my eyes on the road?" He scowled, flicked a nervous glance at me and threw his attention straight back onto the road.

  "Pull the frickin' car over. You are not driving. No way." I glared at him through narrowed eyes, then winced as he stared back, taking his eyes off the road. Again. The car swerved across the median. A horrendous honking yanked his attention back to the oncoming truck, and he wrenched the steering wheel to the right just in time. Tires screeched; the battered sedan fishtailed before straightening.

  I'd survived a battle with a fire giant. Death by fire giant would have been a worthy end to my life. I could handle that.

  I just couldn't handle knowing I was going to be road kill.

  Fen didn't say anything more. He just pulled over, without even signaling.

  I jumped out of the car and ran around to open Fen's door before he had time to release his seatbelt. I folded my arms and grunted, pretty annoyed at almost meeting death head on because of him. Again. If anything, this was worse than being thrown off a cliff with only a wish and a prayer.

  He got out, and strangely he seemed taller. I had to crane my head to look up at him.

  No way, dude. You better not pull the whole wolf-man thing now.

  His lip curled into a grin as he walked around the car to the passenger side. So he found this amusing. Well, good for him.

  I jumped in, flicked my directional signal on and checked the road before slipping into the traffic. The way a normal person would drive. It hit me then. Fen had actually driven a vehicle all by himself to come get me. Good grief. It was a miracle I hadn't emerged from the Bifrost to find half the state troopers in California chasing him across the country, helicopters in pursuit.

  And when did he learn to drive, anyway? If you could call what he'd just done driving. What more was there to learn about him? Apart from his penchant for shoving people off cliffs, that is.

  "Now that you're not busy driving into oncoming traffic, maybe you can answer some questions. How come you called for me and not Joshua?" I asked, keeping my eyes on the road ahead.

  "Because this is a Retrieval and not reconnaissance mission."

  Okay, that made sense. "The scout team just informed us of the location of our newest Warrior," Fen said, his voice a soft growl.

  "Where to?" I asked, all business now.

  He directed me and then withdrew into a brooding silence, except for when he needed to tell me to turn left or right. His answer to my question seemed to have soured his mood.

  Half an hour and a few side roads later, we reached a set of tall iron gates. A broken black chain lay on the ground beside the road. Fen's doing, no doubt. He jumped out to open the gate for me, and I drove into the grounds, following him as he jogged up the road, draped in dark shadows. Tall spruces lined the road all the way into the depths of the cemetery.

  I braked in front of a marble mausoleum, which reminded me of a little Greek temple, all columns and carved lintels. I gaped, surprised that people still buried their families in extravagant places like this. I switched off the car, and opened the door, wincing as it squeaked far too loudly. Then I followed Fen, pocketing the keys. No way was I going to let him have them back.

  I stood and waited beneath a pillared porch while Fen fiddled with the lock. The door creaked open and we stepped inside, swallowed by a musty darkness.

  Fen moved around the room smoothly, effortlessly, or so I assumed from the confident tread of his feet. I couldn't see a thing in the almost solid darkness.

  How the hell did he know where he was going in the pitch dark? Wolf sight?

  A flame flickered in a nearby sconce, and then another, as Fen lit them. Soon the room glimmered, well lit and no longer scary. The small space hemmed us in, and directly ahead of us loomed a large wall, gold plaques fixed to the faded white surface.

  "So where's the body?" I asked, confused. I didn't see any coffins or headstones. I'd never been inside of one of these buildings in my life. Not even as a dare on Halloween.

  Fen pointed at the wall of bronze plates, shimmering in the candlelight. "Behind the plaques."

  "Oh, wow. What, so they slot the coffins into the wall?" Amazing. All those coffins sat right on top of each other like little high-rise blocks of dead people. Just gave me the creeps to think about it.

  I didn't have to wait long for Fen to remove one of the plaques and reach inside the dark mouth. He groped about for a coffin handle, then tugged, dragging the box out. I stepped forward, grabbed the other end of the coffin and helped him lower it to the ground.

  Fen stood up and gazed at me with a strange expression that looked a lot like pride. "It is good to see you develop so quickly," he said.

  Now what the hell did that mean? Develop? "What?"

  "What did you just do, Bryn?"

  I frowned, confused. These guessing games were getting old. Why couldn't he just be straight with me?

  "What did you just do that usually takes three to four men to do?"

  With a shock I realized I had just carried one end of the casket with supreme ease, totally unaware of the kind of strength required for the task. I came to the only logical, yet incredible, conclusion possible.

  I was super-strong.

  ***

  I leaned against the cold marble-tiled wall, my knees wobbling with shock. It took me more than a mere moment to digest the late breaking news that Bryn was a regular Hercules. Figured. One more weird thing to add to my growing repertoire of weird: super strength. Why the bloody hell not?

  What the hell was happening to me? First, my inexplicable rage, and now incredible strength. A bitter laugh almost escaped my lips, but I shoved those thoughts from my head. Better to concentrate on the Retrieval, so I stared pointedly at the coffin until Fen took the hint and knelt to remove the nearest screw. I did the same on my end. Before long, the lid of the coffin shifted. Fen slipped it off with extra care and laid it onto the marbled floor.

  "Be very careful, Bryn. It is important we leave no trace of our presence behind. The families must never know the bodies of their
loved ones are gone."

  I nodded and dusted off my hands. We stepped toward the coffin, ready to heave the body out of the casket and leave. But I froze, unable to talk or breathe. Horror squeezed the breath out of my lungs. Beside me, Fen drew in a shocked breath and went silent.

  "What the hell is that?" I asked, staring at the body of a young man whose regal features and expensive suit spoke of class and privilege. A gleaming, gooey black substance now marred his beauty, coating the surface of his skin, soaking through the fabric of his clothing, giving his black tux a wet, glossy sheen.

  "I do not know what this substance is." Worry deepened Fen's voice. "We will need to return to Asgard immediately. Something is not quite right here."

  No kidding, Fen.

  As we deposited the coffin back into its slot and fixed the plaque back on to the wall, I stiffened. The mysterious black goo had distracted us from one very important detail.

  A Warrior, meant to rise again and come to Asgard, always glowed. The bright shine of the golden aura would grow ever brighter until the day of the Warrior's death. Even when the Valkyries arrived to retrieve the Warrior and take him or her back to Valhalla to be revitalized, the glow burned bright. And later on, in Asgard, the Warriors retained the tiniest aura, marking them as belonging to Odin's special army.

  This body, ready to be taken to Valhalla, should have been so bright that we wouldn't have needed the light of the candles to see it.

  So why had the body not been glowing at all?

  In grim silence we drove all the way back to our filthy little stream and rode the Bifrost to Asgard. It took a long while, almost the whole trip, before the full, dire implications of what we had seen in that mausoleum dawned on me.

  The gloop sucked. The disappearance of the glow sucked more. But the god-awful fact that the poor guy was dead was what hit me harder than anything.

  Dead.

  For real.

  No glow. No resurrection. No second chance.

  Chapter 12

  Fen and I materialized in the transfer room and rushed off toward Odin's Hall. Just as we left the room, I caught a glimpse of Mika arriving with another Valkyrie. From their dark, hooded expressions I gathered they'd encountered their own share of gloop.

  My ears rang as I trotted into the hall behind Fen. The rest of the scout teams crowded in behind us, and soon five teams gathered before Odin, waiting on Fen to break the news.

  "Back so soon, Fenrir?" Odin asked, turning to face the assembled teams. Frigga stood behind him, dusting away a haze of what looked like clouds from around her before turning her attention to Fen.

  Fen bowed stiffly. "We have news that is both upsetting and confusing, my lord."

  "What is it, Fenrir? Why are you all back, and without your new einherjar?"

  Fen related our experience to Odin, and I wasn't surprised when Mika stepped forward with a similar story. She'd been in Dublin, on her way to retrieve a news reporter, but things hadn't gone to plan. Mika described an oily black gloop and the absence of a glow.

  Odin's single grey eye darkened with concern. "This is strange and very unusual. Fenrir, what do you think is happening to our Warriors?"

  "Whatever it is, we need to find out. And soon. We cannot afford to lose even one Warrior." Fen's voice wavered on the last word.

  "Very well. I—" Odin paused mid-sentence, interrupted by one of his birds whispering in his ear. Hugin or Munin.

  The raven perched on his shoulder, liquid eyes gleaming as it tilted its little head toward the ear of the god. Odin listened and quietly asked a few questions. I strained my ears and heard the words "when" and "was anyone there?"

  A few seconds later, the bird fluttered away in a flourish of black wings.

  A single dark and glossy feather swayed and looped in the cool air, making half a dozen wide curves as it descended. I stuck my hand out, and the sooty feather landed in the center of my palm. And though I couldn't be certain it was Hugin's, the soft, warm touch of the feather reassured me somehow.

  Another rush of air announced the swift departure of Odin. With a distracted wave of his hand, he beckoned to us all to follow him, and we hurried in his wake. What could possibly be so urgent to get the great god of war running as if the very hounds of hell were hot on his heels?

  He strode ahead and we followed, running to keep up. Down a passage, across a stone hallway, through more passages until we came to a corridor similar to the one that led to my own quarters in the palace. Odin approached an open door on the left. Inside, a girl waited, distraught, her eyes red-rimmed and all cried out.

  She rose and began to sob again, but Odin lifted his hand. "Hush, child. It will not help for you to cry. We need to know what happened."

  She palmed the moisture from her cheeks, then rubbed her hands onto the rough brown fabric of her skirt. "I came in to give him his breakfast as I do every morning, but he was not here. Everything is still here, all his belongings. . . ." Her eyes filled and threatened to spill tears again. "They have searched all over Asgard. He is gone, my lord."

  Odin's face darkened as a storm of concern, worry and foreboding broiled there. "Thank you, child. You may return to your quarters. We will try to find him."

  The girl scurried from the room, tears still dripping from her blotched face. As she slipped out, a flash of red tail peeked out from her skirts. The poor girl was a Huldra. The forest sprites seemed to love to serve in Odin's palace, and everywhere I went I encountered them. It hadn't taken me long to get used to the Huldra, but the tail still got to me. Strange that a girl could look so normal and yet have a tail.

  Then again, a girl with wings was pretty odd in itself, so I squashed my thoughts and concentrated on the strange missing person they were talking about.

  Before I could ask Odin who the missing Warrior was, the door swung open and Joshua and Aimee ran into the room. Aimee's blotchy cheeks, the tears in her eyes and the shell-shocked expression on Joshua's face sent my stomach plummeting.

  Odin turned to me then, but after seeing Joshua's and Aimee's slumped, haggard bodies, I already knew what he would say.

  "Brody is missing."

  ***

  As if fate had decided that Bryn Halbrook didn't have enough to worry about, now I had to lose Brody from right under my nose. Worse, I hadn't even thought about him in days.

  A numb haze blanketed me; thick, suffocating, smothering. This could not be happening. I tried to walk and my stupid legs wouldn't work. Hands grabbed my arms, and I paid no attention to who held me. My mind flashed back to the week I'd discovered that Brody was a Warrior. The utter despair I'd felt in those bleak days, the anger that I was unable to do anything to save my little foster brother, returned now in a nauseating rush.

  I swallowed tears, my throat convulsing as I tried to hold back the urge to sob. I should have made a better effort to find Brody, to see him and reassure him that I was here for him.

  Now it was too late.

  Soft, warm fingers grasped mine, and I turned to face the goddess Frigga, who smiled sadly at me.

  "My dear child. It may sound terrible to say this, but you really have no time to waste with tears and sadness." Her voice, so gentle, calmed me. I had the vague sense that the room had emptied. Even Odin had withdrawn, leaving his wife to comfort me. "We have to do everything we can to find him. And that means you will need to go back to Midgard."

  "But what about Aidan?"

  "Aidan is safe where he is. The poison lives within his blood. He is no better and no worse, and while he lies in Hel, the deadly poison can do no harm. You must allow this knowledge to free you to do what you need for Brody."

  Frigga's words rang in my ears, and even though I rebelled against them, they penetrated my fear and my grief and even my guilt long enough to make me aware how right she was. There was nothing I could do for Aidan. All the self-pity in the world wouldn't change the black fact that nobody had any idea how to free Aidan from Loki's poison. That meant Aidan would stay in Hel u
ntil Freya found an antidote. Until then, the last thing I should do was sit around waiting for an antidote to smack Freya in the head.

  Frigga was right. We had to figure out who had taken Brody, and how it was even possible for him to disappear from Asgard without anyone knowing. Only the gods had the ability to manipulate the Bifrost for their own needs. I stiffened—there was one obvious suspect.

  "Loki?" I asked, my voice tangled and strange.

  Frigga nodded her head. "That was the first place Odin checked. Loki is gone. How, we do not know. But Odin believes Loki is responsible for Brody's disappearance. Mimir speaks to Odin more often these days. It is Mimir's telling that places blame at Loki's feet."

  I barely heard the end of the goddess's sentence. My mind twisted with anger, and a silent promise. If it was the last thing I did, I would somehow find a way to kill the trickster god Loki.

  Chapter 13

  We would leave again soon. Not soon enough, as far as I was concerned. What I really wanted was to talk to Mimir myself, but the thought of interrogating a bodyless head gave me the creeps. I had to settle for Odin's word that when the time came, we would know where Brody was and how to save him.

  And in the meantime we waited.

  I nodded to myself, strengthening my resolve and squaring my shoulders in preparation for the task at hand. Turi strode into my room, elbowing the door shut, her arms laden with garments.

  She placed a new set of armor on my bed. I frowned at the strange-looking chainmail. Although the weight of the armor pressed deep into the fur blankets covering the bed, it certainly didn't look like much to me.

  "These are new." She bobbed her head as I stared from the armor to her face. "The metalworkers had specific orders from Fenrir to create these for the scout team. Strange, but special."

  I rose and held the armor up to me, surprised to find a set of two separate pieces. Top and bottom. They reminded me of thermal underwear, only made of chainmail. My fingers traced the fine metal links, setting off a trail of tiny sparks.