Demons (Eirik Book 1) (20 page)

Certain things as in my sister. I nodded, happy he’d brought it up. I could see why my father had given Rhys the task of finding my sister. The Grimnir exuded a quiet confidence that was reassuring, and he seemed discreet.

“Walk with me, please,” he said, and I followed him down a broad hallway.

“So, how long have you been searching for her?” I asked once we left the gym behind.

“Since they took her, which was the night she was born, and the Norns replaced her with a dead body.” His voice was devoid of emotions, but his eyes gave him away. He was pissed. “It hasn’t been easy because we have very little to go by. Just that she is a girl, born a year after you were taken. We are sure she lives with Immortals, but we haven’t been able to locate them. Every time we think we are on the right track, we hit a dead end.”

“For sixteen years? How many Immortals are out there?”

“We don’t know, and they are private. They have the means to disappear or hide publicly. Unlike us, they don’t always have to use their powers, so they can hide in plain sight. Most don’t want to have anything to do with us, because they believe we have an unfair advantage.”

“How? You reap souls twenty-four seven while they live like kings with wealth they’ve accumulated over the centuries. What’s not to love?” His Immortal guardians had been loaded, too.

“But we visit the realm of the gods and talk to you guys. They don’t. That’s what most Immortals I’ve met want, so they haven’t cooperated with us in our search.”

Could that explain the Sevilles’ attitude? They’d hated living on Earth. In their case, they were even given a place in Asgard because of me. Still, they’d disappear there for days and leave me behind with nannies.

“How the hell did you find me, and how long did you guys search?”

For a few seconds, Rhys didn’t answer, and I realized we’d been walking for a while and the hallway had narrowed considerably. Instead of light crystals, sunrays bounced off snow-covered terrain and poured into the hallway, which appeared to bridge two buildings. At the other end of the bridge was an even larger castle. It wasn’t the only one. More buildings loomed above the mist in the distance. Bridges connecting closer ones were visible.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Those are Eternal Halls for souls,” Rhys said. “This is just one of the exterior bridges connecting Eljudnir to the rest of the halls. Did your father tell you he’d asked me to keep an eye on you?”

That was still humiliating. “Yes.”

“Your mother’s search team started right after you disappeared. Even with a description and the birthmarks, they couldn’t locate you until Maliina met you and used you as a ticket to come here.”

I couldn’t contain my excitement. “Birthmarks? Where?”

“The ones you had when you were born covered your entire back all the way to your neck.” He glanced at me and shrugged. “They’re gone now, of course.”

“What did they look like?”

“Like psoriasis spots. They were exactly the same size and shape. Ah, here we are.” He stopped in the middle of the bridge and faced left. “Take a look.”

Below in the open was a dugout arena, an amphitheater of some sort. In the middle were about a dozen men and women sparring. On the makeshift snow-bleachers were more of them cheering and jeering. All of them, the fighters and the spectators, looked like post-apocalyptic survivors. Hair long and stringy or knotted in dreadlocks, gray clothes wrapped around arms, hands, and legs as though to ward off cold. Fingers left unprotected to grip whatever weapons they were using. The spectators drank from tumblers and plates piled with food.

“Who are they?” I asked, only mildly curious. My thoughts were on the marks on my back. This could be something or nothing.

“Hel’s army, souls of the worst criminals, mass murderers, gangbangers, and the bottom of the barrel in every civilization,” Rhys said. “They are shipped from Corpse Strand and given a chance to prove their worth. Then they are sent back at the end of the day. They get to fight, eat, and get a day’s rest from torture. Better fighters return the next day, so as you can imagine, the more ruthless ones catch a break often.”

As though they realized, they weren’t alone, the ones taking a break looked up and saw us. Some raised their tumblers and smirked. Were they the ones I was to train with? I wouldn’t put it past my mother to throw me in the pit with them and leave me there in the name of toughening me up.

They were using all sorts of weapons—swords, daggers, maces, and axes. I missed my mace. My mother keeping it didn’t make sense.

“Are the weapons magical?” I asked.

“Yep. Made by local Dwarves.”

If her ragtag army was allowed to use magical weapons, I didn’t see why I couldn’t. I understood that she hated my grandfather, but Odin hadn’t given me the mace. A Dwarf master blade smith had carefully crafted the weapon and put in the perfect runes, so it only responded to me.

Rhys stepped away from the window, and we headed back to the main building.

“Do you guys ever train with them?”

He grinned. “Wouldn’t be fair on them, would it?” Rhys said. “We have speed and extraordinary strength on our side. All they have is a bad attitude. Ten minutes and they’d all have broken necks.”

“Souls don’t die.”

“But they hurt, bleed, and pass out. The goddess wouldn’t want us messing with her selection process. Do you need anything else from the mansion? Nara and I are heading out after this and I could swing by.”

“No, I’m okay for now.” I wanted to ask if he’d seen Raine and Cora, and if Cora was still with Echo, but pride stopped me. No one would ever know how I still felt about her. We walked the rest of the way in silence, which suited me. I had a lot of thinking to do. We stopped by the gym.

“You want to train again tomorrow?” Rhys asked.

“Sure. Same time?”

“Yep. If you don’t see me around, ask my partner. Come on. I’ll introduce you.”

Nara, his female partner, made Rhys seem more talkative. After the intro, we headed to the changing rooms. I was impressed. The only thing missing in the Grimnirs’ changing rooms were flat-screen TVs, tuned to ESPN, but I doubted the reception was great in Hel. Otherwise, it rivaled the best gyms on Earth.

“Hey, I forgot to ask you something,” I said before Rhys and I parted ways. Since way too many Grimnirs were walking past us, I lowered my voice. “Have you spoken with Maera?”

“Not since we got back. Why?”

“I have a friend of a friend back on Earth that might be in trouble. I just wanted to confirm it.” Damn, I didn’t even know what town in Louisiana Celestia was from. I never asked, but she had a slight southern accent and she’d mentioned her father coming back from New Orleans. “They live somewhere in Louisiana. Her name is Hayden and her family owns a shop called Tammy’s Cauldron. Ever heard of it?”

“I know the shop. Why?”

“Are you supposed to reap Hayden?”

Rhys chuckled. “The daughter? No. The Valkyries would go crazy if I did. Both mother and daughter are Immortal.”

Immortals befriending Witches was not uncommon. Maybe Celestia was marked to become an Immortal, too. That might prove to be interesting. The thought improved my mood considerably.

After a long shower, I headed toward the front hall. I was about to walk past a hall when I heard my mother’s voice and slowed down. She was giving a welcoming speech to the souls. She took her time to reassure them and promise them places where they could rest and relive past memories undisturbed. Her concern for their comfort seemed genuine, but it was hard to reconcile the woman talking to the souls with the one who was building an army of killers and murderers. Maybe this was why Odin had put her in charge of the dead from the nine realms. She could be caring to those that needed it and a badass warrior leader to psychopaths. Odin was her enemy, and she would fight the Asgardians. Too bad he learned about that after he’d given her the realm to rule. My allegiance was not carved in stone. My sister’s, when I found her, would not be either. I’d make sure she made it to the new world.

I was starving. I sent a guard to find Litr, and by the time I reached my room, the Dwarf was waiting for me. I hated using portals, so I’d walked.

“Food, Litr. Trays of it. I’m starving.”

“Your father wants you to join him for lunch in an hour. He still wants to meet your friend.”

Finally, someone remembered her. “Celestia is gone, and I don’t think she’s coming back.”

“Your father will be disappointed.”

“He’ll survive. If I’m eating in an hour, could you please get me a snack? A bowl of fruit or something and, uh, a mirror?”

He frowned. “A mirror?”

“Full length.” I wanted to see my back as I engaged and disengaged the runes on my body. I’d avoided checking my back, but after my talk with Rhys, it was time to try again.

By the time I stripped to my jockstrap, Litr had returned with a bowl of fruit. I thanked him, grabbed an apple, and munched on it as two men hauled in a mirror with a built-in stand. They propped it in the corner adjacent to the bathtub.

I waited until they left then engaged my runes and walked to the mirror. I studied every inch of my skin, then turned and checked my back. Black runes mixed with glowing ones.

I’d lied when my father asked me if I had a gift. Maybe it was because I didn’t consider it a gift. I could cause Mortals to go crazy with rage. Rile them into frenzy. Make them an extension of me so they felt my emotions. If I was pissed, they got pissed too. My grandfather called it berserking. It was actually the origin of the word berserk. During a battle, I could make men fearless, he’d told me. It had nothing to do with runes. It was some weird energy that came from within.

The first time it happened, I was in Kayville. Raine, Cora, and I had been hanging out at a local rock-climbing joint. Seeing Cora—well, actually, it had been Maliina mimicking Cora—flirt with some football players had pissed me off. The rage had pulsed from me and affected everyone in the place. The next thing I knew, they were pounding each other while I stood aside and watched. Raine, in her need to protect me, had kept quiet—until it had happened again.

I watched my back as I disengaged each string of runes.

EIRIK

A curse filled the room and I looked up. Celestia.

“Dimples? You’re back?” My excitement died when I saw her expression. She was furious.

“I didn’t leave,” she whispered and stared at me with unseeing eyes.

“What happened?”

“I’d like to scream now,” she said, speaking so calmly it was spooky.

“Okay.” I remembered I was only in my jockstrap and grabbed the nearest towel. It was wet and cold, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t control the way my body responded to her, and she didn’t need to know that.

She marched to the bed, grabbed a pillow, and buried her face in it. Muffled sounds came as she screamed and screamed. Concern for her chased everything from my head. I hated seeing her like this.

Was her magic weakening? Was that why she couldn’t leave?

She looked up and our eyes met. The anger was gone, and in its place was hopelessness. My chest hurt as though she’d reached out, grabbed my heart, and squeezed it. The instinct to hold her and comfort her took over.

I extended my arms. “Come here.”

“No.” She shook her head, locks of her hair covering her face. She tucked a lock behind her ear, and there was a noticeable tremor on that hand.

My concern increased. If I pushed for answers, she’d only grow more agitated, so I decided to do the unexpected.

“You know you want one of my hugs, Dimples,” I said and took a step toward her, arms stretched. “How can you possibly resist all this? I’m shirtless.”

Her jaw dropped. Then she snapped it closed and glared. “Douche.”

I moved closer. “Oh come on, you know you’re dying for some of this.”

“If you touch me, I will knee you so hard you won’t walk for a week.”

She wouldn’t dare. She lifted her chin, a gleam in her blue eyes. Okay, maybe she would.

“I’ll chance it.”

She moved back and I followed. She raised the pillow clenched in her hand. “One more step and I will hurt you, Eirik.”

“Really? A pillow fight. That’s the best a powerful Witch like you can come up with?”

Her chin trembled. “Some powerful Witch. Soul-napped and trapped in this desolate realm.”

“Soul-napped?”

“Yeah, so I can help you. As if I haven’t already done enough.”

She wasn’t making sense. “Help me with what?”

“How the hell do I know?” Her voice rose and her eyes grew brighter as though she was fighting tears. The next second, she started to frown, her eyes going to my towel as though she’d finally noticed it. Pink tinged her cheeks. “Why are you prancing around in a towel?”

I hadn’t expected an audience. Instead of stating the obvious, I planted my hands on my hips and cocked my eyebrow. “What? Can’t handle this?”

She blinked as though surprised by my response, then she chuckled derisively. “Oh, please.”

“Then wipe the drool off your face.”

The pink on her cheeks spread. “I don’t drool and definitely not over you, Eirik Baldurson.”

“Could have fooled me. My body is off limits, so get your mind out of the gutter and tell me what happened. It’s been three days.”

“What? I just left.” She moaned. “It’s Tuesday now? My father must be going nuts. She warped time. No, everything in that place is magical. The cave. The fire. The food. No wonder every time I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything, yet everything seemed familiar. I was doing the same thing over and over.”

I gripped her arm and stopped her. “Okay, I’m trying to keep up with you, but you lost me at warped time and magical cave and fire.”

“Magic. Maybe that’s what she meant,” she mumbled, picking up her coat and hat from where she’d dropped them on the floor and throwing them on the bed.

“What who meant?”

“Your guardian angel.”

“I thought
you
were my guardian angel.”

She threw me another annoyed look and went back to pacing. “The person… The giantess in the cave. I threatened her, and for the first time, she communicated with me.”

“What are you talking about? What giantess?”

“The one deliberately keeping me here. She soul-napped me from home, and she’s not letting me leave, until
you
are ready. Ready for what? I don’t know. She doesn’t talk. She hums. Soul-napping bitch. I hate her.” Celestia stopped and chewed on her lower lip. “Bottom line is she wants me to help you. Maybe I’m supposed to help you learn magic. It’s the only thing you suck at and I’m good at.”

I had plenty of magic. Being a berserker was serious business, and no god, except Odin, had that ability. I went to the duffel bag, found the bag of toiletries, and out of habit, grabbed the deodorant and applied. Then I pulled out a sweater and slipped it on. I got a pair of jeans and boxers, and pulled them on, then turned to find Celestia gawking at me.

What was her problem now? I cocked an eyebrow in question then realized why she was staring. I had changed right in front of her.

“You didn’t have to look,” I said and lifted the Nikon, flipped the switch to open the aperture, and snapped several pictures of her. “You look cute when shocked, like a Kewpie.”

She made a face. “Ew. Where did that come from?”

“Rhys brought it back along with my things.”

She blinked. “Did you talk to him about Hayden?”

“Yes. Your friend is safe.” I threw the camera back inside the bag. “Start from the beginning.” I sat on the table. When she remained standing, I gripped her waist and nudged her to the bed. She was so tiny I could pick her up without breaking a sweat. Funny, I hadn’t noticed it since she was such a take-charge kind of person. Her eyes flashed. “What?”

“Don’t treat me like I’m helpless.”

“I wouldn’t dare. I’m sorry someone is keeping you here against your will because of me. If I could wave a wand and whisk you home, I would. In fact, if my mother wasn’t so obsessed with keeping me here and turning me into a model son, I’d personally escort you home.”

She nodded. Her expression said she believed me. She was too trusting. Sure, I felt bad she couldn’t go home, but I liked having her around. I’d missed her these past three days. “Talk to me.”

“It starts with how I got here.” She explained her first arrival in Hel, which she’d concluded wasn’t really due to an astral projection. “I yelled that I had to come back and help you that first time. It was why she let me project out of the cave. Someone out there cares about you.”

The more she talked about what happened to her in the cave the first time, the more I was amazed at her bravery. When her narration reached her latest reappearance there, my heart dropped.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I threatened to throw myself into the ravine if she didn’t let me go home.”

“Jeez. Why would you do that? I don’t care how frustrated you are or how much you want to go home. Don’t ever think of harming yourself.”

She crossed her arms and glared. “I’m not going to tell you another word if you don’t stop yelling at me.”

“I’m not yelling.”

“And FYI, your royal godliness, if I want to jump, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

“Damn it, Dimples.”

“I will do whatever it takes to go home, and next time, she’s not stopping me.” Her eyes gleamed with determination. “No one is stopping me from leaving.”

Jump? Over my dead body. I was going to find the cave and deal with the person doing this to her.

~*~

CELESTIA

“We need to find the cave. Can you describe it?” Eirik asked.

I did. “What difference does that make? I’m supposed to help you before I can leave. That’s what she wants.”

“Screw what she wants. If someone is keeping you here against your will, then I’m stopping her.” He stopped pacing and scowled. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Sure.”

“I like having you here, but I’d rather you stay because you want to, not because you’ve been kidnapped.”

If I hadn’t thought he was hero material before, that there would have cinched it. I felt a little better about coming back. And bad about yelling at him. Maybe he would get me home after all.

“Soul-napped,” I said. “Not the same thing.”

“I stand corrected. Let’s find Litr. If anyone knows about caves around here it’s a Dwarf. Hopefully he is with my father, which reminds me. He wants to meet you.”

My stomach hollowed out. “Why?”

“Because he wants to and no one denies my father anything.”

How could I meet his father looking like this? I touched my hair. I had not brushed it in three days. No, four days. I had no makeup or gloss, and I’d worn the same clothes and slept in them since I got here on Friday. They probably stunk.

“He’s a god, isn’t he?”

Eirik continued to rummage through his things. “He
was
a god. The God of Love, Peace, and Forgiveness. He was also God of Light and Purity. It’s interesting if you really think about it. He is opposite to my mother in every way. She is dark and revels in being twisted; he is open and strives for perfection. Yet once he arrived here, they fell in love. Goes to show you that opposites attract. Then they had me and my… and now I’m caught in their power play. My father wants me to do one thing, and my mother wants me to do the other. Makes life interesting.” He straightened and held two sweaters, one black with red patterns and the other blue. Blue was my favorite color. “Which one would you like to borrow?”

“What? Oh. The blue one, thanks. So if your father came here, that means… Ooh, he died. So souls can…” Dang, I couldn’t seem to finish a sentence because his eyes had gradually warmed. Then he smiled.

Holy smokes. It wasn’t a smirk, but a full-blown, lips-curling-at-the corners, amber-eyes-twinkling, hot-damn-he-is-sexy smile.

“Yes, Dimples,” he said, eyes going to my lips to drive home the point. “Souls can have sex and make babies here.”

I swallowed and heat crawled up my face.

“You smiled,” I said in awe and wanted to slap myself.

“A few days ago a certain Witch ordered me to smile more often because I scared people. I’ve been practicing.”

I wasn’t sure whether I could handle this new Eirik. He was a little less angry. Cocky. More playful. He gave me a sheepish smile, part sad and part filled with longing.

“As for my father,” he continued, “the story of his death is chronicled on the walls of Asgard. Baldur, son of Odin, killed by his blind brother Hodr with an arrow created by Loki. So technically, my grandfather killed my father.” A self-deprecating smile curled his lips. “My family would make a killing on reality TV.” He dangled a hairbrush my way. “I might find the tussled, just-got-out-of-bed look sexy on you, but I don’t think my father will.”

I blinked. He found me sexy?
Wait. Breathe and focus on the important issue.
Baldur was his father? I had called him Baldurson, but I’d been so focused on getting home it never crossed my mind to connect Eirik and Odin’s dead son. On the other hand, I hadn’t known souls could have babies. So when Eirik had said Odin and Frigg had wanted to meet him, he’d meant his grandparents?

Seriously, I’d never met a guy who downplayed his importance.

I wanted to lecture him about not telling me he was Odin’s grandson, but the look on his face stopped me. He might be nonchalant about his family, but he was hurting. His eyes didn’t lie. My heart ached for him.

“You know what would make me feel better?” he asked.

“What?” I mumbled.

“If you’d meet my father and get it over with,” he said, but I had a feeling he’d meant to say something else. “He suspects you are not your run-of-the-mill soul. Too mouthy. Apparently, souls don’t talk so soon after dying, and they are never chatty around my mother. So to maintain our lie, you’ve been dead for three months and you liked to sneak from wherever they stash souls around here and haunt the place, until you stumbled into my cell and fell madly in love with me.” He tilted his head to the side. “I’m happy to have you back.”

“I’m not.”

He smirked. “I know it’s only temporary, but I’m happy you are.” Then he pulled me into his arms before I could guess his intentions.

I rested my cheek against his sweater. Nice sweater. Soft. Expensive. He had some serious taste. He smelled nice, too. Had he been in high school before coming here? No boys at my school smelled like him. He lifted my chin and studied me so intently I wondered what was going on in his head.

He dropped a kiss on my forehead and stepped back. “Now be a good girl and change. I’ll wait outside.”

I waited until he left the room and closed the door before I reached up to wipe my forehead. A peck on the forehead was the kiss of death. It said friends, cute like a cousin or baby sister. Bet he reserved lip-locking for what’s-her-face. Cora.

Okay, I was officially nuts. My concern should be about getting home, not kissing Eirik. The sooner I found a way to get out of here, the faster I’d get back to my life. Three days I’d been in that cave, yet it had seemed like a day.