CHAPTER 66: STARTING FRESH

Shannon was trying not to stare at Angus’s brown-gold blood web as he slept, unable to stop thinking about how thirsty she was, when, from the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the eerie, washed-out scenery around their bubble of color move in the distance. She turned to squint down the hill from where they sat, trying to catch the movement again.

Something big and dark was sliding through the trees at the bottom of the hill, moving towards them. Heart skipping a startled beat, Shannon hurriedly put a hand on the dog’s shoulder. “Hey, Angus.”

“Tl'oghk'etnaeyen,” he mumbled, clearly completely out of it.

The feylord had been asleep for hours and hadn’t stirred once. Several times, she’d had to put her ear to his mouth just to see if he was still breathing.

“Angus!” Shannon snapped, once again seeing the shadow moving through the ethereal forest beyond their bubble of color. “I think something’s out there…”

“Won’t…see us…” Angus slurred. “Sleep….ing.” He rolled away from her and went back to snoring.

Shannon made a face and watched for movement again. She found it in the distance, coming up the hill, a big shadowy form with tiger stripes…

“It’s Björn,” Shannon cried, excitedly grabbing Angus by the shoulders and shaking him. “Angus, Björn’s out there…”

“Eh?” The feylord groaned and blearily sat up, squinting out at the monotoned landscape beyond their fairy ring. Immediately, he tensed. “That’s not possible.”

“He’s dragging something…” Shannon said, squinting.

Björn was advancing slowly, sniffing the air, a sack in one hand and something large and heavy in the other. He trudged slowly and, as he got closer, she could see his face had a demoralized look. When he got closer, it was clear he dragged a corpse.

The greasy white apron tied around the body made it pretty clear whose corpse it was.

“Oh no,” Shannon whispered.

“It’s gotta be an illusion,” Angus said. “The Fury was using the death-energy of a sprite to disguise herself—she could look like anybody. Probably out hunting us, using the barghest’s image as bait.”

To Shannon’s eyes, however, the man’s blood-web was almost invisible, like spangled, star-speckled night, at once both terrifying and beautiful. “The blood-web looks right for Björn,” she whispered, lowering her voice because the figure was growing closer. “No wings.” Still, remembering the way the Fury had whipped Björn around like a locker-room towel, she actually hunkered down low beside the feylord, joining him prone on the ground just in case.

“A Third-Lander’s blood-sight can be tricked, if the will of the caster is strong enough,” Angus whispered back softly. “If she knows that’s how you saw her coming, she probably put an illusion on that, too.”

Thinking of the way Angus’s blood-web was ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time a dull golden brown, only to flare to an overwhelming firefly green that lit up like a searing beacon in her eyes those few times his illusion had faltered, she believed him.

The newcomer followed the same path that she and Angus had taken up the hill, stopping only here and there to sniff the air or a patch of leaves before starting to walk again. The figure was getting closer, making a beeline right for them.

“What do we do?” Shannon whispered. She was afraid to move, crouched as she was against the ground at the top of the hill.

“She can’t see us,” Angus whispered back. “Can hear us, though…”

Meaning, shut up and don’t move and maybe they would live through this.

Beside her, Angus nodded.

The figure of the barghest continued up the hill until it reached the edge of the mushroom ring, then started walking through it, dragging the cook’s headless corpse with him by an ankle. Shannon hurried to get out of his way.

Angus stopped her with an arm on her shoulder. “Stay down,” he whispered, a breath against her ear. “Can’t hurt us or touch us here.”

The translucent figure of the barghest frowned and looked around at the last, still half-inside their fairy ring. Then he dragged the ethereal corpse through it—through Shannon, she realized, getting goosebumps all over at the weird tingly sensation of the corpse passing through her—and up the hill another ten feet. Then the barghest paused, nose lifted, sniffing. Slowly, the figure turned back around and looked down the hill with a frown.

“Shit,” Angus cursed under his breath.

Then, slowly, the massive figure of the barghest walked back to mere feet from where they lay, pausing and sniffing again, his frown deepening. He glanced down and nudged a toadstool with a booted foot. “Shannon?” Björn’s voice asked. He looked up at the top of the hill towards the direction he’d gone, then back down at the mushrooms. “You hiding here?”

Angus met Shannon’s gaze and put a finger to his lips, shaking his head.

This close, Shannon was afraid to breathe, much less move or talk. She lay inside the fairy ring, inches from the corpse of the fry cook, trying to keep her breathing under control.

“I didn’t kill the Fury,” Björn’s voice said. He actually sounded…depressed. “She killed my couch-man, instead.”

Couch-man? Shannon mouthed to Angus. The feylord gave her a baffled look and shrugged.

“I know you’re there, woman,” the barghest snarled. “I can smell your tiny, flatulent dog.”

Shannon slowly glanced at Angus, who was frowning. Cautiously, the feylord said, “You want to tell us whatever you’re trying to hide from us.”

Björn sighed and dropped the dead fry cook’s ankle, where it crushed part of the fairy ring as the corpse’s foot came to rest with an uncontrolled thud. “I suppose I should tell you I’m not a Champion of Odin. I threw down Skofnung and left Valhöll behind because I knew they were eventually going to make me kill Eirik. Odin put me in the body of a barghest as penance, and I haven’t been back to Ásgarðr since.” Björn hesitated, staring down at the crushed toadstool, looking utterly depressed. “For centuries, I thought it was coincidence, that my failed attempts to return were just bad luck.”

As Shannon and Angus remained stalk still, afraid to move for fear it was a trick, the barghest glanced up at the hazy green-blue sky of the Alaskan midnight, located the sliver of moon overhead, then let out a sigh and lowered his platinum-blond head, shaking it. “The One-Eye told me I couldn’t return until I found my soul mate and ‘took pleasure in surrendering to her’.” He was talking idly, quietly, almost to himself. “After the Valkyries, I just assumed he was joking, but dozens of times now, I should have died, but didn’t. Truly should have died and gone back home. I spent centuries in this hell as a beast, unable to change forms, unable to think past the urges of a monster. Even today, when I should have returned to Ásgarðr, I woke up a cindered, bleeding mess beside my own severed head in the back of an Inquisitor’s truck and was forced to live, instead.” The barghest paused for a long, pensive moment before saying, “So I think it may be true. I think I am cast out.”

Angus slowly looked at Shannon, who was equally as baffled.

He hesitated, then wiped his nose. “When Odin brought me that watch and gave me the task to kill the last person to touch it, I thought for sure I was still one of his Chosen. I thought that me being stuck in the barghest’s body was for some unknowable purpose of the gods and it would soon pass. But now…”

Björn slumped into a cross-legged seat beside the fairy ring and dropped his head in his palms, his body a picture of sullen resignation. “I think I’m cast out.” His neck, Shannon noticed, bore a wicked purple scar just under the larynx, in approximately the right place for a sword blow…

I think it’s him, Shannon thought, only inches from the barghest’s left knee.

Angus shook his head. Let’s wait this out, his gesture said.

“It makes sense, though,” Björn said, glancing up at the moon again. “I wasn’t reveling with my brothers after the battles. I was avoiding the women and the wine. I didn’t dice or play cards. Hell, I haven’t had a woman since those Valkyries chained me in their hall and made me crawl around at their feet begging for scraps. I no longer gave a whoreson’s shit about Hjaðningavíg—I think I just wanted to die. And this…” He gestured disgustedly at the corpse. “This is my punishment for my cowardice.”

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Angus raised a brow at Shannon, who said nothing, transfixed. “Tell us more,” the feylord said. At Shannon’s sharp look, he grinned like a mastiff in a meat store. “Tell us everything. Especially your deepest, darkest, most embarrassing secrets.”

Shannon elbowed him, making the feylord grunt.

Björn’s pale eyes flickered towards the grunt, but he said nothing. He seemed to consider, then let out a deep breath. “But there’s more.”

Shannon cast an irritated glare at Angus, who was snickering behind his paw. I can see why they hate you…

Obviously delighted, Angus just gave a doggy shrug and watched Björn, panting excitedly.

The barghest was totally solemn, looking troubled. “Back then, I thought, when I heard Odin’s command to submit to a quivering deer of a woman, that the One-Eye, as wise as he was, would never be so cruel, and that it had to be just a manly jest. I took it to mean he wanted me to do the opposite, to wreak vengeance upon Freyja’s followers for what they’d done to his Champions, to take her the same way her Valkyrie sword-sisters had taken me, to make one of Freyja’s own feel my humiliation for what was done to me, for that was justice. Fool that I was, without my brothers, without a woman beside me, I spent centuries slowly losing my mind. I think I knew deep down that I was being punished, but it took this…” he gestured with hopeless exhaustion at the corpse beside him, “…to make me realize I was condemned. Doomed. Cursed.”

Björn flopped his hand back into his lap. His words were almost a whisper now. “I willingly abandoned my lord and his hall, refusing to submit to what I knew would be his will. I fled. Like a coward. I spent hundreds of years killing queens trying to regain Odin’s favor, yet never once thought he could be serious. Not once. I thought his reason for keeping me locked out of Ásgarðr was simply too complex for me to know, that it was all part of some great plan of the gods to put me in the right place at the right time.”

The barghest took a deep breath and let it out in a shuddering sigh. “Now, I think he may have been serious, and that my punishment for abandoning Valhöll to the Valkyrie is to submit to a woman.”

“Don’t forget ‘and like it’,” Angus interrupted. Shannon shot him an irritated ‘what the fuck?’ look and Angus gave her a jowly doggy grin back, daring her to say something about it.

“And like it,” Björn said, looking defeated. “Truly, the gods are cruel, for it wasn’t until today that I realized he had given me an impossible task. For centuries, he had me trapped in this form, attempting to regain entry to Ásgarðr with brave acts, thinking my continued existence as a barghest was just some fluke of luck or perhaps a minor slap on the wrist for turning my back on my brothers in Valhöll.” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “But Odin never intended me to return, for I can no more submit to the will of a woman than I can walk inside the sun.” He gave an unsteady breath. “So, in fairness, vampire queen, I am here to tell you that you are free to go.”

Now Angus frowned and glanced at Shannon, who wasn’t sure how to take that either.

“Free to go how?” Shannon asked, hesitantly sitting up from where she had been frozen, motionless, on the forest floor.

Björn twitched, his eyes flickering towards her, but didn’t look surprised at how close she had been. “Free to go. I release you of your obligation to me. I reject Odin’s ‘gift,’ for I would rather lose my mind in the tusen dødsdager than force myself to submit to another woman, ever again.”

Shannon wasn’t actually sure if this was a good development or a bad one. After how many times he’d threatened to force himself on her, she was generally thinking a good one. Maybe.

She glanced at Angus, who shrugged his furry brown shoulders. “So…” she offered, “you’re…leaving?”

Björn sighed. “With Ásgarðr beyond my reach, I no longer have a home.” The dejection with which he said it was heart-rending.

You need to let him see us, Shannon thought, glaring at the feylord.

Angus ignored her, his furry face gleeful. “You want to tell us more about how these Valkyries made you beg.”

Björn stiffened, and Shannon saw him start to sweat. His whole body started to tremble, and, frowning, she recognized the same signs she felt when thinking about naked people. She twisted to scowl at Angus. “Take it back. Now.”

“Oh no, I really think he wants to tell us,” Angus chuckled.

“Angus!” she snapped. “That is so not coo—”

But not even she was ready for the way the barghest folded over to the side in a fetal position, shaking like he were dying. “I really…don’t want…to tell you…any more…” he whimpered, “…but I…can’t seem…to stop…” Then, suddenly, Björn burst into tears and started sobbing right there like a little girl.

Angus, who had been leaning forward, his tongue lolling in excitement, drooped with confusion.

“Fix it!” Shannon snapped, nudging him hard. Angus took the blow but didn’t turn from the barghest, looking stunned.

“They took everything from me,” Björn whimpered. “My friends, my life, my manhood… They withheld food…made me beg…. Humiliated me. Forced me to…fuck my…friend… Gods I don’t want to tell you any more but I can’t…stop…” And then he devolved into a gibbering pile of twitching, tattooed muscle.

“You can stop,” Angus said, sounding deflated.

The barghest let out a long, painful, wretched sound, his big shoulders quaking against the ground. “Even if I find a magus willing to send me back to the Third Realm, I can never go home. The top of Odin’s Wall will be forever out of reach for me, no matter how high I climb, because I faaaaaiiiilllleed.”

Angus was just staring, mouth open, now, obviously not having expected this reaction.

Let us out, Shannon thought at him.

“Are you kidding? He’d kill us,” Angus whispered back, as the barghest sobbed in the background.

“What, uh, about killing that guy Odin told you to kill?” Shannon asked, desperate to bring the big guy out of his despair. “Maybe that could get you back.”

Björn laughed despondently. “He tasked me to kill Pestilence.”

“Fuck,” Angus whispered.

“And if even the Furies fight for him, who knows how many other champions he’s corrupted to fight at his side?” He sat up, sniffling as he wiping snot on his arm. “And I…” He swallowed, gesturing to his front. “I don’t have my armor. I don’t have my shield or my flask. I don’t even have Skofnung. All I have are the claws of a beast.” He roared at the last and slashed at the ground, tearing away a head-sized chunk of earth and flinging it into the forest to explode in a burst of earth against a cottonwood tree.

“Forgive me,” Björn said, already wiping the tears from his face as he once more took on the hardened façade of a brute, “I learned today that I’m never going home, and the knowledge has burdened my heart.”

You wanna take that barrier down now? Shannon thought, scowling at Angus.

“Not really,” Angus said.

“Now!”

“What?” Björn said, frowning.

“Just hold on a minute,” Shannon said, giving Angus a pointed stare, “I’m bringing the barrier down.”

Angus grimaced, then, at her protracted stare, reluctantly touched the ring of toadstools and the portal between worlds once more opened around them.

As soon as she appeared, Björn’s pale eyes found her, but he said nothing. He didn’t even look excited to see her, as he had the first few times they met. He looked sad, depressed, even ashamed.

“You are braver than I thought,” Björn whispered. He looked away and started plucking at the mosses he had torn apart in his despair. “I didn’t think you’d ever come out.”

Because, of course, he didn’t realize she had a freakin’ feylord sitting two feet away feeding him instructions like a go-cart. After listening to the barghest share secrets he hadn’t wanted to share, crying, Shannon felt sick to her stomach. I need to fix this. “So, uh,” Shannon said, her heart starting to pound with the knowledge of what she was about to do, “wanna start over?”

Björn jerked and squinted at her.

Knowing he could rip it off, Shannon nonetheless gingerly extended her hand. “My name’s Shannon Meeks.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I guess I’m a vampire.”

Björn’s pastel eyes continued to watch her face a moment longer, then dropped to examine her hand, before eventually lifting back to her face. For a long time, he seemed to be waiting for something. Then, very reluctantly, like he thought it was some sort of trick, he said, “In truth?”

“Yeah,” Shannon said, acutely nervous. It was actually hard to keep her hand held out between them—just being close to the dude made her anxious. Like he was fire and she was matchsticks. “Just no attacking me again, okay?”

Björn seemed to consider, then very gingerly—like he was touching a delicate flower—he reached out and took her hand in his. “You have my oath, Shannon Meeks.” His massive hand was warm and scratchy with thick callouses, completely swallowing hers, and Shannon swallowed hard, trying not to imagine the vivid image of him using the leverage to tear her limbs off. “Such that it is, without Odin’s favor,” he said, heavy regret weighing down his voice.

“It’s fine.” All she could think of, really, was how their skin was touching and how easily he could hurt her.

The barghest held her hand a little bit longer than she was comfortable, watching her face with a curious look, then released it. Slowly, a slow grin spread over his face as he took his sleeve to wipe the remnants of wetness from his eyes. “My couch-man said this was possible.” He patted the corpse’s ass. “He was very wise.”

Both Shannon and Angus glanced at the headless corpse resting on the ground beside Björn’s leg, then at the blood-soaked floral pillowcase containing something approximately the size of a head. Neither one of them had the guts to ask why he was dragging it around.

“Now that we’re alone again,” the barghest went on, “perhaps you will help me with something?”

Shannon immediately bristled. “Dude, if it’s anything about sex, I’m totally not—”

“Jessie, my friend, was a brave man,” Björn said, patting the corpse again. “I need to give him a proper send-off, even if it means invoking the Valkyrie to come get him.”

“You need help, erm, burying him?” Shannon asked.

Björn recoiled. “You do not bury a brave man. You find him a vessel and send him to Valhöll on the flaming wings of Valkyrie.” When she just blinked at him with incomprehension, he added, “I need a ship. Do you know where I can find a ship?”

Vaguely remembering stuff about Vikings sending dead guys to the afterlife in burning boats, Shannon grimaced, pretty sure she knew what the Anchorage Police Department would have to say about burning the body. “We…uh…”

She saw his face harden and he started to get up. “I can do it myself. I wouldn’t expect a soft-hearted woman to—”

Shannon touched his arm as he was standing, cutting him off and giving him pause as he looked at where her fingers touched his tattooed bicep. Slowly, he looked back at her face.

“I’ll help,” Shannon said, swallowing. “I know a place. And I’ve got…money.”

Björn’s brow furrowed as he straightened, towering over her. “I was thinking of just stealing one.”

“Yes, well,” Shannon babbled, trying to come up with a reason that would keep this angel-flinging brute from stealing somebody’s boat…

“That would be bad,” Angus said firmly.

“Then again, that might be ill-advised,” Björn grunted, looking thoughtful. “It might alert those who hunt us to our presence.”

So would using a debit card, but Shannon wasn’t about to argue semantics. She planted her fists in front of her and started to stand.

A big, tattooed hand dropped in front of her face, palm up. Shannon stared at it a moment, before looking up.

The barghest loomed over her, arm extended in an offer to help her stand. He said nothing, waiting to see what she would do.

Time to put your money where your mouth is, Shannon thought. She swallowed as she gingerly put her hand in his.

The barghest smiled just a little before he closed his fist and easily put her back on her feet. “There,” he said, once more picking up the dead man’s ankle. “Take me to these boats. Jessie gets impatient—I can feel it.”