He opened his eyes to find himself standing naked, surrounded by a bundle of Gretas.

They were in the crumbling parking lot of a boarded-up shopping center. A trash barrel fire burned in the circle with him. Each woman was wrapped from head to toe in an eclectic combination of fabrics. They had slits cut for their eyes, and they were all staring at his feet.

The guitar rested on the dark, cracked pavement, glowing soft blue, lighting a clump of dead grass in its aura.

No one spoke. The woman closest held out a neatly folded garment. He took it and unfolded a long trench coat while she set a pair of flip-flops by his feet. She wore a shroud of red—a red sweater, red pants, and a red handkerchief over her nose and mouth. She stomped in her muckboots, then dropped to her knees and touched her forehead on the pavement.

“No,” he said.

She sat up, lifting her palms to the sky, fingers spread wide. The other women knelt one by one, repeating the gesture.

He’d been gone a long time from this world. Something had changed with the Veil. They shouldn’t have been able to see him, or the guitar.

“Where am I? What year is it?”

The flicker of the flames danced over their masks. Gretas did not speak—they were the silent faithful waiting for a revelation.

He stepped into the sandals and put on the coat. As he cinched it, a familiar weight materialized inside the lining near his chest. Placing a hand over the orb, he sighed. There you are, my friend. I cannot escape you.

The woman in red pointed to the guitar then ripped a square of fabric off her shoulder—bare, pale skin beneath. She rummaged in a satchel slung across her front and came out with a neat little kit from which she threaded a needle and began to sew.

The sound of ripping fabric circulated as each Greta followed suit. In short order they brought their work together, sewing onto each other’s rags. It was a hasty and frenetic business there in the cold center of the parking lot.

A woman in black yanked the last thread, and the woman in red carefully slipped the guitar into its cover and handed it to him.

She stared at him for a long moment, the fire reflected in her eyes, then she slung her backpack over her shoulder and crossed the parking lot into the dark field beyond.

The others in faceless fashion formed a mute parade whispering into the void of the field until they were gone, and he alone in the firelight, holding the guitar in the patchwork case while the stone of his fate pressed in the pocket against his heart.

----------------------------------------

The Viking carried the guitar through the darkness of the subway tunnel. He stopped to listen in a shadow between the dim red-orange LEDs that illuminated the length of the narrow maintenance path.

Up ahead he heard footsteps shuffling along, determined but not urgent. Still as an iron pillar he gazed down the walk trying to spot the mirage, a flicker, a shift of light that would reveal her, but it was empty to his eyes. She was good with her camouflage.

On his waist he carried a revolver. He didn’t like guns, but this morning was an exception. In the secret pocket sewn into the breast of his jacket, the orb’s weight shifted once again. The damn thing had been lively since he’d crossed over.

He resented the artifact as he might a more intelligent but silent brother. Over the years he had come to believe it had a will of its own, and whatever choices he made during the fleet blip of his lifespan only played into its mysterious and bloody mission.

There! His eye caught the disturbance. Down the tunnel a hunched figure emerged, forging ahead, picking up speed through the lights, slowing in the shadows.

When he was close enough he matched her pace footfall for footfall so she couldn’t hear him over her own shuffling.

Suddenly she stopped, turned, and held him in her furious gaze. One arm cradled a bundle slung to her chest, the other stretched toward him, not a human hand but the foot and razor-sharp talons of a raptor.

“It’s you,” she hissed. “You’re late.”

“I had trouble with security. You said everything would be taken care of.”

Her bird foot changed into a wrinkled old hand with long, bony fingers. Her white hair spilled over her shoulders and her bundle. “Shit slips up. You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Aye, I’m here.”

“Show me.”

Her words echoed in his brain.

“Show me,” she repeated. Her scratchy voice reverbed into his bones, his teeth, his neck where it seemed to clinch, to choke.

He tasted the ozone of enchantment on his lips and the tip of his tongue.

A blue glow washed away the amber of the walk lamps, making everything appear as if sculpted from marble.

“You bloody witch,” he said.

She circled, inspecting him closely, dragging her hand over his arms, down his back. Her touch was ice.

“Just making sure you haven’t been followed. Never know you got a shadow until it’s too late.”

“I’m clean.”

She closed her hand like she was grasping a string. The blue light evaporated into the dark tunnel like a mist, and the warmth of the walk lamps returned.

He hefted the guitar case.

“Is this it?” she said.

“It is. The Dreamer didn’t want to let it go.”

“Is it in one piece?”

“Aye. It’s whole.”

“I thought it’d be smaller.”

“It was a sword on the other side. Real useful against the bats. She had to change it to get it through.”

The old woman made a gruff sound of acceptance. She would have to deal with a guitar.

Down the tunnel, the lights of a train winked into existence. A cool wind brushed his face. A vibration in the masonry tickled his joints, rising to a rumble as it neared, swift and strong the train was upon them. He pressed against the cement, the guitar between him and the cold surface as the iron beast screamed its passage a mere yard behind. It could not be lost by any chance. It bore responsibility for the dead. He touched his face against the cold wall and clenched his eyes.

I’m so sorry, Em.

Did he say that, or was it part of the rattling rails?

With the receding growl, he could think again.

“You okay?” asked the old woman.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Come on, the sun is almost up.”

From the bundle, a wailing cry broke the stillness left in the wake of the locomotive.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a baby, you idiot.”

“Fucking hell.” He gritted his teeth. “Is he the one? The one you wanted me to—”

“Anybody else here?”

“No. Not a baby.”

She scowled at him. “Almost time. Come on!”

She shuffled a few more yards to a steel security door, turned the handle and pushed. It didn’t budge.

In the distance, another train flashed the darkness.

“Help me goddamnit!” she said.

He pushed the door, but it stayed fast. He tried again with his shoulder. Nothing.

“Maybe it’s locked from the inside,” he said.

“It’s not. It’s just stuck.”

The headlights growing large and near.

He kicked it with his heel and all his weight. It jarred his leg, but the door budged half an inch.

“Fuck!”

He got a running start. Slam! The wind left his lungs as the door burst open against the force of his shoulder. They stumbled into a pitch-black chamber. He shoved the heavy door shut, dampening the grinding metal of the morning commute.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Here, it’s a flashlight,” said the woman.

The baby was crying bloody murder.

He felt for her hand and took the small cylinder.

“You gotta twist it.”

A bright beam hit the ground at their feet.

“There you go.” She rocked the baby back and forth. “He doesn’t like the dark.” She began to sing like a sick crow. “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, White Owl’s gonna wish you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, White Owl’s gonna wish you a magic ring…”

He held the light up and inspected the room. It was a stone circle, textured, almost like… He moved the light close and his heart thudded in his chest. Hieroglyphs were chiseled into the wall, covering the entire surface. He pointed the flashlight up to find they extended into the inky darkness above.

“Do you recognize it?” she said, raising her voice to be heard above the baby.

He ran his hand over the writing as if it were braille. Yes, yes, I know this. But from where? An inkling in his mind gave it away—déjà vu. That was how it worked. Whenever he crossed through it messed with his memories.

“It’s from beyond the Veil.” He swooped around, raising the light close, and retraced the characters. “How long, witch? How long have you been weaving this enchantment?”

The old woman laughed. At once frail and fierce, she lifted her chin proudly. “Two hundred years, Viking! And I’m not gonna let you fuck it up now. So do your job and do it well. Time, as they say, is of the essence.”

“Hush, lil’ baby, don’t say a word…” The baby quieted.

He closed his eyes tight and strained his mind to conjure the memory library until the presence of a gothic hotel surrounded by palm trees rose up against a black sky void of stars, its doors wide open, waiting for his return. He ran through the banquet hall where flags hung from the rafters. Candelabra on the tables set as if for an extravagant feast. Not stopping for the ghosts of lives past, he dashed through the kitchen into the back room to the stairs that took him down to the basement. There, upon a table, like a file in a small concavity of a hard drive, was a silver soccer cleat representing a lifetime of memories. On the tongue of the cleat was the key to a language he had once known by heart.

His eyes flew open, and he read the hieroglyphs, nodding to himself in understanding. The thesis of the enchantment was evident, and the calculations of the ripple effect were precise. The old woman had done her research.

“It will encircle the Earth,” he said.

He pulled his beard on his chin—the pain helped him think—and followed the phrasing of the spell until he found what he was looking for in the elusive syntax of symbols. Here. He felt where the stone had been chipped away.

“You’re good,” said the old woman.

The baby cooed.

The enchantment would be cryptic even to the most studied scholars of the Den, indecipherable to the Sisters and their dark methods.

“The lamb upon the altar. God help us.” His voice was dry.

The old woman nodded gravely and rocked the baby. “Oh, Mr. Norse. Yes, I know your name. Norse! Norse the Viking, isn’t that what they call you? God cannot help us. We can only help ourselves.” She bounced the infant, eliciting a burp.

“It’s too much. How can he defend himself?”

Child in hand, she pressed him back against the wall. “How many have you killed in your long, entangled career? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?”

“He should have a choice,” he said.

“Did you have a choice?” she countered.

He did not answer.

“There is no time for choice, only action. If you don’t do it now, then all this will have been for nothing.” She gestured to the room, the inscriptions, the articulation of the enchantment, the guitar sitting on the floor in its patchwork case.

“Who is—?”

“He’s no one. Just some mutt from the Rez.”

The baby stared back at him with inquisitive eyes.

“Here comes the sun. You have the orb. It is your burden. Do it, goddamnit. Do it now!”

She unfurled the baby and let its swaddle fall to the dirty floor. Suspended upside down by one leg, naked in the beam of the flashlight, the pathetic thing wiggled and stretched its tiny hands toward him.

The baby boy’s shrieks cracked his ears and sent a wave of nausea coursing through him. He took long, deep breaths until the crying stopped.

“He’s Maji.” Norse whispered.

“Indeed, and rare to find the gift so strong.”

“Gift or curse?”

He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and drew out the pouch, untied the drawstrings, turned it over, and let the sphere fall into his hand. He held it up and looked into it. Sometimes he thought he could tell something of its intentions, a hint at what would come. For an instant, deep within, a faint flash, and then gone.

The old woman gazed as well, mouthing silent words.

The orb’s gravity shifted and pulled toward the infant. He struggled to keep his hand steady. The world clouded at the margins, the vignette closing in. Focus. Hold it together.

The vision came swift and vivid: A city laid to waste, empty of inhabitants. Smoke rose from the rubble–air of ash and fire. A giant wall of war and suppression towered into a slate-dark sky. A room in the city, an office torn to shreds. A boy strapped to a large desk. He’d been gagged with tape. A dark hand grabbed his long hair and yanked his head back, exposing his delicate neck. A woman loomed over him, holding a dagger with a cruel blade.

The boy’s eyes were wide with fear as the metal touched his skin, but he was not seeing his tormentors. He was looking beyond into the darkness. He was looking at Norse, pleading.

Norse tried to grab her wrist, but he had no arms to reach out, no voice to shout. He was the shadow itself, specter of darkness. He could only watch as she slid the blade across his throat, a spring of blood and bubbles painted his neck and flowed down onto the table.

The orb’s vision dissolved back to the room and the upside-down infant.

They want your voice, little one. You’re already damned. The orb is the only chance you have.

He relinquished and let the artifact press against the tiny throat, right beneath the baby’s chin.

The scream came high and pure, then caught and changed into a mournful song of want. For what? He did not know. For a mother’s warm breast? Wasn’t that what babies needed most?

The old woman clutched the babe to her, kissed his cheek, and laid him on the floor.

“Kneel, Viking.”

He dropped to the stone foundation, hard against his knees, and shined the light on the baby. He blinked and smiled, showing his toothless gums.

The old woman set down her satchel and took from it a plastic bag containing an ounce of red powder. She took a pinch and sprinkled it over the baby from head to toe. He whined when some of it drifted into his eyes.

“Ash,” she said, “from a world that was burned in the fires of Chaos.”

He felt the acceleration, like he was sitting in a car that was speeding up, faster and faster.

The orb against his chest was hot and heavy.

The baby shrieked in delight and grasped for the ceiling.

Long strands of light floated like spider’s silk in the air. They sparkled and pulsed with deep colors, then dimmed out completely.

The etchings on the wall and floor shone gold. The hieroglyphs were alive. Lines and squiggles started to move around the room like insects scurrying through an endless maze. An eagle transformed from beneath his knees, flew across the floor and up the wall where it battled with the image of a musclebound minotaur wielding a lance in one hand and a sun-marked shield in the other.

The struggle startled a flock of tiny red birds, thousands of them. They exploded up the stones, flying madly into the flickering darkness.

The threads of light returned en masse, an aurora of orange and red that conglomerated and blazed into a pillar of fire in the center of the room above the baby. So intense it set the wall on fire, searing away the inscriptions, and when there was nothing left, a black crust like the burnt and striated bark of a tree grew over the wall and encircled them, a weeping sap deep in its midnight terrain reflected the fire in shimmering veins of lava.

Norse held his breath, unsure if he could breathe in the eye of the enchantment.

The fire swooped down and engulfed the baby, its flames the arms of a horrific and conflagrant mother.

He felt the heat and he screamed, but he had no mouth. A white-hot furnace exploded in his head, blazing and unquenchable, and his eyeballs melted in their sockets.

And then dark unconscious.

As in waking from sleep, he felt there had been a great passage of time, or none at all. He’d lost the flashlight, or he’d been struck blind. He turned his hands over to feel for his eyes. The lines of his palms sparkled like little rivers.

“Look,” whispered the old woman. The Veil’s light infested the ancient crevices and folds of her face.

And then there it was, floating in the air. A tiny, sparkly mote, a speck like a distant star, no larger than a firefly, softly settled on the baby’s throat and sank beneath his skin, lighting his flesh from the inside out, revealing the intricate nebulae of blood vessels and tendons, then fading, fading, until it was gone.

The stone again became the still stone floor and wall covered in the etchings of the enchantment, now cold and barren of any magic.

“It’s done,” she said from the blackness. A great sigh fled her body.

He fumbled on the floor and found the flashlight. He shook it, and it came on dimly, the battery almost dead.

“Thank you, Norse,” she said.

“So—” He moved to get up.

She stopped him.

“Wait. This is our only chance. We need to hear him sing.”

“Witch, every hunter in the city will have sniffed your chant by now. You don’t fuck with the Veil like that and get away with it.”

“Viking, we need to see. You need to see. Just a moment. Just one more enchantment. I got it here in my bag.”

His hand felt for the revolver on his hip, heavy and certain.

“Fast then,” he said.

She took from her pack a dark glass bottle with a rubber stopper. She held it up, and a little piece of the Veil revealed itself in the air and swarmed around it.

“My feeble magic.” She shook her head. “The boy is a wonder. He will save so many.”

She pulled the plug and sniffed, closed her eyes and smiled, then held it under Norse’s nose. It was sweet and fresh, like wild roses in the rain. She opened the baby’s toothless mouth with her thumb and tipped the bottle to his lips. “The unfertilized egg of a mermaid still in her sheen.”

The baby drank, and the lights of the Veil wormed into his mouth.

From a jewel box, she lifted a knife with a hilt of ebony. “A silver dagger stained with the blood of a hunter.” She whispered to the baby, “Hide them, kiddo.” Then, deft as a surgeon, she shoved her thumb into his mouth and pierced his small tongue.

Blood coated his tiny lips and dribbled down chin. The baby cried, but his note was pure.

Norse’s bones resonated with the ripple of the enchantment.

The focus came hard with a cramp that started at the base of his neck and climbed up the back of his scalp. At the top of his head, it sank into his brain and peeled back the crusted cataracts of his vision.

“There!” The old woman jumped to her feet as agile as a dancer and pointed up.

Above them was the vast night sky studded with the Milky Way’s brilliant suns. And something else…

Monstrosity.

His first urge was to cry out in despair. Sweat trickled down his back like a cold spider.

Across the dome of sky, from horizon to horizon, a jagged scar leaked a crimson blood-glow into the night, as if a galactic beast had torn the very flesh of Heaven.

“My God,” whispered Norse.

“The Chaos,” said the old woman. “Turns out those bitches in the Den were right after all.”

“When?”

“I fear sooner rather than later. It doesn’t matter. I expect the Sisters already know, or they will soon. You can bet they’re gonna call all the hunters out now. The Veil grows thin. The détente is over. The hunt for the Maji begins.”

She wrapped the baby in its swaddling clothes.

“Can I hold him?” asked Norse.

She let him take the child, light as nothing in his hands.

It’s not going to be easy, little one. You’ll be running all the time.

The old woman cackled. “So there is a softer side to the terrible Viking—”

A harrowing howl came from the depths of the tunnel.

She snatched the child back. “They’re coming.”

He pulled the metal door open and picked up the guitar.

The old woman clutched his arm. “It’s not over. He’ll need you again.”

She took the instrument, checked the baby was secure, and started her laden shuffle back down the way they’d come, determined but not urgent.

The howl rose much closer, chilling his blood. It was the cry of a wild, tormented creature bursting with fury.

He whipped around and peered down the walk. There, far ahead, something moved from shadow to light, shadow to light, coming at them fast.

He spun back to tell the old woman to run, but she was gone.

“Fucking witches,” he said.

The hunter came, certain, silent, deadly. He felt its presence, the dark signature of its magic. This one was old, wise from ancient battles.

“Maji!” it screamed, a horrid hybrid of human and beast.

He could not afford to lose. That child needed to survive.

He drew the revolver loaded with silver bullets and took a stance, ready for the moment.