Desolate (Desolation) (10 page)

“Yes.”

“And now your father has taken him.”

The shame bit into me like a bed of nails.

“Yes.”

He didn’t have to voice his fears. I could feel it. Could feel that same fear echoing from everyone in the room. From myself.

“Then the task is the same,” Knowles said. He was the only one who still sat. “It all comes back to Heimdall, doesn’t it?”

Longinus let me go and stumbled back, swiping his hands over his close-cut hair.

“My sources tell me Heimdall was taken almost twenty-four hours ago,” Knowles continued. “Souls have two days before they are admitted to Valhalla, gain Ascension—or claim eternal damnation.” Miri had sat down, but the rest of us still stood, waiting to hear the punch line to Knowles’ proclamation of doom and gloom.

“So I estimate we have another day before those who are unable to Travel are forced to reclaim their bodies. When that happens—” He looked at his hands, unable to continue.

James sat in his chair with a thud. “All Hell breaks loose.”

Knowles stared at James as if he’d suddenly sprouted horns. “You have no idea.”

chapter fourteen

No one tried to stop me when I said I had to go. My news had left them lost and speechless. Pretty much how I felt all the time.

Without Heimdall the gates to Asgard would be vulnerable and I felt certain Odin would have the bridge highly guarded. And though I didn’t fear him, knew that Odin cared for me, the last time we spoke he made it clear my decision to stay on Earth ensured Asgard would be closed to me forever.

I hoped that did not include the wheelhouse.

“I have to least try,” I told the stone cherub. All these one-sided conversations were making me despise the thing. Sometimes I imagined scratching its eyes out, to stop it from staring at me forever and ever.

But I closed my own eyes instead.

In my mind I pictured the wheelhouse—Heimdall’s vantage point from which he could see all the worlds in the Ygdrysill.

Please grant me access
. I sent the words out into the ether, keeping the image of the wheelhouse foremost in my mind. And then I Became, willing my Halo to dominate, to mark me
Gardian
, in hopes the way might be opened for me.

With my thoughts winging their way to the Bifrost, I let my body follow.

I materialized—and found myself face to face with a warrior Gardian. His fist thrust forward and grabbed a handful of my shirt. The balls of my feet balanced on the edge of the wheelhouse, my body a millimeter from falling away, endlessly falling through space and time. The Gardian’s piercing blue eyes glared at me from beneath the shadows of his golden helm. I wheeled my arms, searching for purchase.

“You are not welcome here, half-breed,” the man said, his voice dark with the threat of violence. “Leave, or I shall let you fall.” He loosened his fingers a hair and I felt myself lean back. My heart beat like the hooves of a thousand stallions, making it hard to swallow, to think, to act.

“Speak, or be gone.” The warrior growled so effectively I wondered if he was not some half-breed himself, some hybrid between man and bear.

It took some effort, but I banished the fear and made the decision to plead ignorance.

“Heimdall has something of mine.”

The guard hoisted me upward so my face was even with his, my toes barely touching the edge of the wheelhouse. “What do you know of the Keeper?”

“I know nothing—save that he is my friend and that he keeps a precious artifact from Midgard in his safe-keeping.”

“What you seek,” he grated, “is of no concern to me. Enough of this.”

He lifted a finger from his grip.

And then another.

I felt myself slipping, sensed his fingers trembling with my weight.

One more finger and I would fall.

One more, and I would die.

A hint of a smile darkened his face. It would cost him nothing to send me to my death. With my parentage, he had every right to distrust me.

He leaned forward, his face inches from my own, until I could see his intent in his clear blue eyes. He meant to let me go.

I’d never been good at asking for what I needed. At voicing my feelings. At needing anything at all. And so, on the brink of death, I said nothing.

Instead I pictured Miri and James, Lucy and Aaron. I pictured Michael. The faces of those I’d loved.
It will be good to die
.

A low rumbling sound began in the center of the guard’s body, working its way up his arms until his whole body shook with his laughter. My right foot slipped and lost its grip on the edge. I tilted sideways, reaching out, desperate for some purchase on the smooth surface of the guard’s armor.

A sudden wave of relief washed over me, leaving a calm and peaceful sensation in its place. I closed my eyes, let my heart and mind fill with memories of Michael.

“Goodbye half—”

He opened his fingers wide.

“Hold!” a booming voice thundered.

Under an unknown power, my body froze; the guard froze—his mouth open in an angry cry, his right hand held up, fingers splayed. My body suspended over the blackness of space.

A great sorrow filled my heart—the idea that I might be rescued seemed a sadness.

Over the guard’s shoulder I saw a being approach. I wished I could close my eyes against the burning brilliance of the Ascended One’s light.

As he came closer, his light receded to a muted glow.

Aaron?

As I watched, he became younger, his black hair flopping forward into his eyes. Piercings appeared in his lip and on his left eyebrow. He lifted his hand, gesturing to the guard, “Step back,” he said. Black tendrils snaked up Aaron’s arm, assuming the tattoos he’d worn when I’d known him as a boy on Earth.

At his command, the guard shook himself like a dog, free to move once more. He bowed his head and scurried backward, his fist over his heart.

Aaron reached forward and took hold of me, his hand warm in mine. He smiled in an open, disarming way, a feat he’d never been able to master in real life. He pulled me onto the platform, and into his arms. I held on to him, and not only out of gratitude for saving my life. Aaron was here,
Aaron
. Warm, solid, his heart beating in his chest.

And something snapped inside me. A wash of feelings overwhelmed me and I burst into tears, sobbing so hard I could barely support my weight. I grasped his t-shirt in my fists, clenching my fingers, clawing in the agony of my sorrow.

“Shh,” Aaron soothed. “Shh.”

I don’t know how long he held me, but it felt like I had cried an ocean by the time I could properly regain my feet and my tears slowed to a trickle. At long last he gently pushed me back from him, holding onto my shoulders, spearing me with his familiar, clear-blue gaze. It was easy to forget he wasn’t still the boy I once knew, but he had power now. He had Ascended.

He turned and gestured for me to walk with him to the pillar of white energy that pierced the center of the wheelhouse—the Bifrost, source of Heimdall’s power. The warrior I had encountered returned to his post at the perimeter, joining at least a hundred brothers in their surveillance.

Near the Bifrost, Aaron pulled me closer, turning me so I faced him once more. “Why did you return, Des? This isn’t a good time for you to be here.” He flicked the stud in his lower lip with his tongue.

“You mean, for a half-breed. Yeah, Yeti over there told me.”

Aaron chuckled, lowering his chin to his chest in that shy kind of way he had.

“Heimdall—he was keeping something for me. I thought there was no safer place in all the worlds than here. Thought no one could harm him. Get by him. Surprise him.”

Aaron turned and slid down the smooth, warm stone column that encircled the heart of Bifrost. He pulled his knees up to his chest.

I wondered if the guard thought this strange—an Ascended One, a god, looking like a boy, looking like a teenager. And a kind of screwed up one at that, with his floppy hair, and mess of tattoos and piercings. I sat beside him and put my head on his shoulder the way I never could in real life. I’d been too afraid of having a friend, afraid of what he expected from me—things I couldn’t give, like love. But my fear hadn’t stopped him from giving, and, it appeared, hadn’t stopped me from reciprocating. Because I did love Aaron. I always did.

“So, what happened?” It felt wrong, somehow, to ask, to talk about Heimdall, as if behind his back.

“No one knows.” Aaron replied matter of factly, seemingly oblivious to my discomfort. His ease relaxed me and I let a whoosh of air breathe out of me. He cast me a sidelong glance and a lopsided smile. He knew me, more than I knew myself—which seemed to be a hallmark of the good people in my life. It seemed I was always the last to know—especially about myself.

“We can only assume he knew his abductor, otherwise, there is no way he would have been lured from the Bifrost, no way he could have been taken.”

“So there’s a traitor.” I thought the words, saw the scene in my mind’s eye, saw how Michael could have come and set the trap for his friend.

Aaron nodded, the stud on his lip making a light ticking sound as it clacked against his teeth—a sound that soothed the tumultuous thoughts in my mind.

“It’s not your fault, Des. I know you think it is, but . . . well, it isn’t.”

“You can’t say that.” I leaned forward, pressing my forehead to my knees. “Without me, he would never have gone to Earth, never gotten involved, never gotten himself captured by Father and . . .” I can’t believe I’d nearly said them, said the words that spelled my utter undoing. At some point I’d sat up straight, my arms wrapped around me, and Aaron had angled his body so he could watch my face.

“Without me he wouldn’t have been sent to Hell.”

One of the guards glanced over his shoulder, but when I met his gaze he quickly turned back.

“You’re right,” Aaron said, his voice surprisingly kind, despite the slug to the gut his words were. “Without you, Michael would have died.”

“I think death would have been better than . . .” I waved my hand in the air in an
anything-and-everything
sort of way. “Than betraying a friend. Working for Loki.”

Aaron quirked his lips and continued to gaze at me, unwavering, unflinching, unapologetic.

“Without you, there would have been no reason for living,” Aaron said. And oh. Would my grief over my many sins never cease? No. I didn’t deserve them to release me. I deserved this pain.

“And I suspect without him, you wouldn’t have a reason for living, either.”

I searched his face for the sword of accusation, but there was none. His smile widened and he lightly touched my forearm with his fingertips.

“You made the greater choice, D. You made the right choice.”

“But—”

“No buts. While both of you still live, somewhere in the worlds, there is a chance. There is hope.”

“But—”

“D. It’s true we believe Michael came, played upon Heimdall’s love for him and their great friendship, and convinced him to go with him. But I don’t believe Loki could’ve turned Michael. I believe you can still draw the darkness out of him. I think that because of you, Michael can still be saved. You can’t lose your hope.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he raised his eyebrow, ring glinting in the light of the Bifrost, and shut it again.

“Now, what is it you left in Heimdall’s keeping?” He stood before I could answer, reaching his hand out to his side. With his other hand he pulled me to my feet.

“Maybe this?”

And in his hand my staff materialized—my spear, I corrected myself, as it now bore Longinus’ lethal spearhead at its tip. I practically fell forward in relief and clasped my hand around the familiar rod. I rested my head on Aaron’s chest.