I had a dream and in the dream I saw the ‘big bang’. It was bolt of light shooting into nothingness, except there was something. Something invisible but fertile and where ever the light went worlds were formed, entire solar systems came into being and with the light flew, on black wings, ravens.

“I fear nothing,” said Odin to me and he extended his arms of light to embrace me and the other. “I fear nothing, not even my death.”

In me, I knew this was not true. Odin feared his death. He feared his brothers. He would prepare for his end in fear and would die in fear.

“Do you know what I fear? Huginn, Muninn? I fear being without Thought, without Memory. For what is an old man when he has no Thought, when he has no Memory? Promise me never to leave me.”

It was then that I Huginn and Muninn, the other gave our oath to Odin and knew we could never break it, but for Odin oaths were a different matter.

"So, what are we looking for?" I asked as we pushed our way into the protestors. Having a wheel chair wasn't such a bad idea; all I had to do was run the chair into the back of someone’s legs. Then they would turn, see me, and their expressions would change from irritation to pity and they would part. I felt a bit like Moses.

The protesters seethed like a big amorphous blob of cloth cover flesh. I never like mobs, no matter how well intentioned their cause was. The Romans coined the term ‘mob’ and the fear it inspired, because they knew that whoever controlled the mob, controlled the world. The Emperors of Rome knew that it was the mob that ruled. It was why places like the coliseum had been built, to placate the mob. Keep them happy, keep them saitiated on blood spectacle, and you keep your throne. Freya seemed to be in her element, striding through the mob, while M seemed about as uncomfortable as I was. 

Never trusted mobs. Once I was in a mob and it turned on us. We had weapons, but that had not mattered.

“What’s the protest about?”

Freya stared down at me. Her eyes were shielded by her black shaded sun glasses. Expression can often be read through the eyes, but with sunglasses...I noticed a slight petulant tightening around the mouth.

“It’s about boycotting the Seal Hunt, about stopping the needless slaughter of helpless babies. Did you know ship loads of men pour out onto the ice every year, clubbing poor defenceless baby seals to death, leaving red blood trails across the ice?”

I could tell she was working herself up against the indignity. She was young. Issues like this were seldom as simple as her graphic description. Life was never simple.

I rolled along, Freya in front and M behind. I could feel M listening. Even though she rarely acknowledge things, I could feel her listening intently, taking in every little minutia. I was begining to wonder what she was doing, but I did have the feeling that she was deciding on something.

 “Do they eat the babies?” I asked. Everything evil ate babies.

“What was that?” asked Freya unable to hear my quip. The collective babble was becoming louder making it almost impossible to hear each other. Someone with a microphone was up ahead shouting something out over the crowd. Whatever they were saying was having a profound effect on the mob. The mass was shifting.

“I should have worn my seal skin coat,” I yelled back. A woman glared down at me her face twisted in distaste, as though I was something she had just stepped in. I felt M stiffen.

Freya loved protests and OD loved Freya, so we followed her. ‘Keep her safe, everything depends on her being kept safe.’ I didn’t think a peaceful rally about the seal hunt was a particular dangerous event. Although, I was beginning to sense that there was something going on here, something bellow the skin of the seal so to speak.

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I noticed that M was showing a slight shortening in her movements. It was something she did before attacking or defending. It was so infinitesimally small that nobody would have noticed it, but I did. I just saw things that others didn’t, and that perhaps was the source of my madness.

Then a sound, a strange noise rose up over the mumble of the crowd and settled down on us like a blanket. It sounded like some type of horn accompanied by drums and chanting.  Suddenly, the crowd started to wave their arms in the air. Some would even cry out in ecstatic release. Then the music stopped, took a breath, and continued, but this time led by some type of stringed instrument. The rhythmic drums joined in, but this time the chanting was deep in the throat, growling out like some ancient hunter or warrior looking for purpose. I began to think that this was no rally against seal hunting, and then my mind opened up. The muddy darkness and confusion brought on by the press of people and their sound cleared away leaving me to stand in the centre, to see, to feel what was really going on. This wasn’t a protest about seal hunting. It was a hunt and humans were going to be hunted.

“M, do you feel it?” I yelled. “Get Freya out of here, fast.”

Before the killing started, we were close enough to the stage to make a break from the mob; otherwise we would have been pulled into the maelstrom and chewed to pieces. A man turned on Freya his eyes turned up into his head revealing only the whites. He reached for her and I drove my wheel chair into his knees. A big man, he folded over and I brought my elbow down on the back of his head where the spine met the skull. He slumped unconsciously. Throwing him off my chair I pushed forward. M surged past me and in her deft, economic way started to clear a path. Quickly we reached the stage while behind us the mob had turned on itself. Sirens wailed in the distance. How long would it take for the police to get here? Most likely too long.

The stage was draped in black, but on it were no musicians, no instruments, not even the person that had been shouting through his bullhorn, yet music still played. The music seemed to come from the air itself shooting out wave after wave over the fighting people. My chair was caught and I flipped out of it onto my face. M had ushered Freya up onto the stage, but I had been left behind. I felt sharp fingers digging into my back. I turned and lashed out with the back of my hand. I felt a nose break and blood spray, but it had made them release me. I looked up and cursed. The stage was too high. I felt more hands on me, grabbing, pulling me back. I clutched at the black fabric knowing that if I let go, I’d be pulled into the melee and overwhelmed.

Over me I saw a shadow, and for a moment, I thought I heard the flapping of wings. Then there were howls of pain and the snapping of bones and the meaty sounds of fist and heels impacting on flesh and bone. Then M was there, hefting me up onto the stage. Although not a big woman in that moment M seemed a giant.

“Thanks,” I grunted rolling on my back. M extended a hand and pulled me up.

Freya stared out over the violent sea of humanity that had turned on itself and was rending itself to pieces. She was horrified. Expecting peace she was now witnessing war. In the back the riot police had finally arrived and were forming up behind their shields. Off to the left water cannon began to blast into the melee in an attempt to separate the combatants.

“Am I the only one, but did the police arrive rather quickly?”

M shook her head. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

As we moved to the back of the stage, a light flashed and suddenly, standing in front of us, in a beam of light was a man dressed in leather armour holding his arms across his chest, as though he was just waking up from a long rest, or from an internment. The man opened his eyes, thought and consciousness flooding back into them, dispelling the void. The eyes widened as they settled on us.

“Huginn, Muninn, so glad to see Odin’s ravens again.” He nodded towards the bloody brawl. “I have a warning for you. Do not trust him. Do not trust my brother.”

“Who are you?” asked Freya stepping towards the hologram. She passed her hand into the light and through the figure.

The figure smiled. “I am Vili, Odin’s brother.”

Just then canisters of gas streamed through the air landing in the middle of the warring mob. The police pounding their shields began to move forward into the mob. Then as suddenly as it had began it ended. The music had stopped. The fighting was finished, rational thought had returned. Men and women began to look about in shock and amazement. They were aghast at the wounded people that littered the grass and even more horrified at their own bloodied hands. The sounds of crying and wailing began to rise into the air.

“You did this?” asked Freya.

Vili looked out over the crowd and saw, for the first time, the bedlam. “No, not this. Just don’t trust Odin. He will look for a new home, a new body. Keep him from the girl.”  Vili looked to the left into a scene we could not see. “I have to go, someone comes.” The image began to break apart into snow like particles that drifted apart and quickly dissipated. It was then that the true screaming in the crowd started.

A woman close to the stage held up her bloody fingers as though in some horrific supplication. They were all doing it, everyone in the mob. All holding up their hands seeming to ask, ‘who, who had done this,’ because every single nail on every single hand had been removed.

M clenched her hands into fists and said one word: “Naglfar.”