War and Famine: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Revelations Book 2) (6 page)

“So by binding him within you, you’ve pissed him off to the point where he will kill you?” Kim asked, shaking her head. It was pretty much the dumbest thing she could imagine. It was like trying to save the last piece of chocolate by eating it yourself. She’d outgrown that kind of thinking by the time she was four years old.

“Pretty much,” Freyr said, flopping down on his chair, and as he did so, he looked tired even through his mask. “I did it to keep the trickster god Loki bound when the forces who would release him started to rise, but I fear I have only hastened the march toward doomsday. Do you know that saying about no good deed going unpunished? There you go.”

Something about the way he spoke made her blood run cold. She’d heard stories about Loki, about how he was the father of Jormungand the world serpent, Fenris the wolf who would devour both the sun and the moon, and Hel the keeper of the restless dead. She remembered how Jormungand had wanted to free his father so Loki could lead his forces into Ragnarok and destroy the gods. Now, Freyr was telling her, the world would end in fire anyway? Well, that was unacceptable.

“And what can I do to stop it?” Kim said, biting back her fear and moving toward Freyr. She knelt down beside the god and placed one hand over his abdomen. It was like placing her hand against a frying pan, but she ignored it, blocking out the pain. “It seems like the best thing to do is to keep you alive.”

“I can no longer be saved. Even if I am not killed directly, I have already been dealt a death blow. I am living on borrowed time. The only thing to do now is make sure Surt’s fires cannot vanquish the world. Only that also is impossible.” He placed his hands flat on the table. “That is his destiny.”

“So we’re screwed then? How can we already have lost?” Kim cried, suddenly angry. What was the point of her coming here, of her being granted the power of conquest, the power to stop the apocalypse if there was nothing she could do to avert Ragnarok?

“As the phoenix rises from its ashes, so too must the world. That is where you must stop death from consuming us all, stop the fires from ravaging the earth and beat back the hungering winter. You must conquer it all, else all will be lost.” Freyr reached up and grabbed his mask with his fingers. “It all rests on you, Kim. All of it. The only thing to do now is to start.” With that, his mask slipped from his face and hit the ground with an empty clang.

“I believe in you,” Mr. Matthers, her high school calculus professor said before a hand burst through his stomach, splattering her with crimson.

Ian 02:02

Sabastin sat on one of those cheap metal folding chairs Ian remembered using for family gatherings when he was little and there were too many people for the nice chairs to come out. Still, he got the distinct impression, Sabastin had been sitting in that chair for a long, long while despite how uncomfortable it looked. This struck him as a little odd because Sabastin had an entire city to himself. He could have pulled the city’s throne in here if he’d been so inclined. Was it some sort of Murphy’s law thing? Was he using the chair because he hoped his daughter would wake up soon, and he could just toss the chair aside?

If that was the reason, Sabastin had never met Mr. Murphy. If Ian was in that position, the first thing he’d have done was make himself as comfortable as possible, thereby ensuring his daughter woke up the moment he sat down.

Ian smiled at the man, but Sabastin barely looked up after his initial acknowledgement. His face was sunken, and his eyes were dark and almost unseeing. Several days of splotchy growth marred his scarred cheeks, giving Ian the distinct impression that one of the main reasons the man was normally so clean shaven was because he couldn’t grow a proper beard. Whether he had genetics or the copious amount of scar tissue to blame, Ian wasn’t sure.

“Hello, Sabastin. It’s been a while,” Amy said, stepping out of the doorway and approaching the man with careful, measured steps. It was almost as if she expected him to either bolt or attack if she moved suddenly.

“Has it been?” Sabastin replied, voice hollow and empty. “I’ve sort of lost track.” He gestured weakly with one hand, indicating his daughter who lay perfectly still beneath the sheets. In fact, if it wasn’t for the barely noticeable rise and fall of her chest, Ian would have assumed she was dead.

Tubes filled with liquids every shade of the rainbow were attached to her body, and little monitors beeped and buzzed, showing indications of life. Still, he was reasonably sure the human heart was supposed to be beating at more than fifty times per minute. Then again, he wasn’t a doctor. Maybe that was normal.

“No change yet?” Amy asked, placing one hand on Sabastin’s shoulder. The man looked at her delicate fingers like he was being touched by a red hot poker.

“None.” Sabastin looked away, focusing back on his daughter. “No matter what I do, she remains like this. I know she’s in there. She just won’t come out.” Sabastin slammed one fist on the edge of the bed in sudden rage, and the sound echoed across the tiny room. “Why won’t you come out, Lillim? Do you hate me so much?”

“I’m sure she wants to come back, Sabastin. I’m sure at this very moment, she is fighting with every ounce of her being to come back to you.” Amy’s voice filled the room like a warm springtime breeze on a freezing cold day. A sense of calm fell over Ian as he watched the hard lines on Sabastin’s face relax. Was Amy using her power to calm him? Ian wasn’t quite sure, but it definitely seemed like it.

“I don’t think you’re right.” Sabastin’s shoulders slumped. “I think there’s something going on in her head that she wants more than she wants me.”

“I don’t know why you keep saying that,” Amy replied, moving between Sabastin and the bed. It was a tight fit, and she barely squeezed into the space.

“Because she woke up, looked right at me, and fell back asleep.” Sabastin kept staring at Amy like she wasn’t there at all, like he could see straight through her. It was sort of eerie.

“Ian, is that true?” Amy asked, shifting her gaze toward him. An uncomfortable feeling crawled over his skin as he reached back into his memories, trying to recall what happened after Amy left Jormungand’s demon world. The events snapped into focus in his mind’s eye.

After Amy stepped through the portal that would transport them out of Jormungand’s lair, Ian had struggled with getting Kim to actually leave Malcom’s body behind and come with him back to earth.

He’d even offered to take the corpse back with him, but Kim had refused for some reason she never explained. It was only then that she’d finally agreed to leave. Unfortunately, Kim had made it less than a dozen feet before Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir slipped from her hands, hitting the dusty earth with an empty thud. He’d bent to pick it up when she’d gripped his wrist, stopping him.

“No,” Kim had whispered. “It needs to stay with him.” She nodded toward Malcom. “He’ll need it more than us.”

Ian hadn’t argued. In that moment, Kim was a stubborn two-year-old. If he had to leave Thor’s hammer behind to get her to come back with him, he would. Besides, he had no use for the hammer of the gods.

“Okay,” Ian replied, forcing Kim to take another step toward the pulsing portal. “But I need to bring her back.” Ian gestured at the girl who had once housed Jormungand’s spirit. She lay on the ground beside Malcom. Her chest was caved in, and there was so much blood, Ian didn’t think she had been alive.

“She’s gone, Ian. She should stay with Malcom. Keep him company here forever.” Kim pulled away, and as Ian watched her go, he gritted his teeth together. As much as he felt Kim was right, he had made a promise to Sabastin. He would bring back the man’s daughter. It wouldn’t amount to much since she was on death’s doorstep, but it was something. That had to be better than nothing.

Kim stepped through the portal, vanishing in a flash of silver light and leaving him all alone in the desolate wasteland. The wind whipped by him, carrying with it the metallic scent of blood as he stared at the girl’s battered, broken body. He bit his lip, chewing on it as he thought. Maybe it would be better to leave her.

“Just give me a sign,” he muttered to no one in particular, and as he said the words, the girl’s eyes fluttered open. They were blank and unseeing, but it confirmed one thing. She was alive. He couldn’t leave her here to die.

Ian rushed toward her, scooping her up in his arms. “I’ll get you back,” he whispered, pulling her close to his body. Her pulse was so weak, her breath so shallow, he knew she didn’t have long. He raced back through the portal, and when he’d emerged, Sabastin had been standing there. Tears filled his eyes as he tore his daughter from Ian’s grip.

As Sabastin dumped her into the regeneration tank, the girl’s fluttering eyes seemed to see him for the first time. And then she shut her eyes.

Ian shook the memory away, and the room swam back into focus. He looked away from Sabastin’s daughter and stared at Amy. She had a worried expression on her face, and he wanted nothing more than to wipe it away.

“When I brought her back through the portal, she opened her eyes. She may have seen him.” Ian gestured pathetically at Sabastin. “But I couldn’t tell you more than that. I left just after.”

“She never opened her eyes again, Sabastin said as he reached around Amy and took his daughter’s hand. “Why did you never open them again, my Lillim?”

“She’ll wake up, Sabastin,” Amy said, kneeling down until she was eye to eye with the seated man. Slowly, she reached behind her and placed one of her hands over the one Sabastin had used to clasp his daughter’s hand. “I can feel her in there, struggling to get out. She just has things to deal with. It is not like she can just wake up and be okay. It is not that simple.”

“It’s been weeks,” Sabastin growled, and Ian got the distinct impression this was a familiar exchange between the two.

Amy smiled, and the sight of it, while lifting Ian’s spirits, did nothing to encourage the old man. “Time is flowing differently for her.” Amy reached out, tracing her index finger over the girl’s forehead, and a flaming hourglass appeared in the air. Molten sand filled the bottom two thirds of the glass while about one third remained in the top. Ian wasn’t sure how Amy had manifested the hourglass, but one thing was for sure, she had some tricks up her sleeve. “She is only part way through her journey. Give it some more time. She is closing in upon the finish line.”

Sabastin huffed and waved one scarred hand through the air, banishing the hourglass. “Easy for you to say, Amy. You are not the one who has to sit here and watch her lay so still she is practically dead. I am supposed to protect her, to keep her safe. I have already failed at that.” He shook his head. “How can I be expected to sit here and wait?”

“You used my real name,” Amy mumbled, almost so quietly Ian didn’t hear it. And while Ian wasn’t one hundred percent positive, he was pretty sure he’d never heard Sabastin address any of them by their names. He had always called them by their mantles. Amy was Bellum, the horseman of War, and he was always Fames, the horseman of Famine.

“I thought it was about time,” Sabastin said, shaking his head one more time. “You are more than your mantle. You both are. I should know that.” He got to his feet, careful to avoid knocking over his chair or bumping into Amy. “Just like how my Lillim is more than the sum of her powers, so too are you both.”

“She will awaken soon,” Amy said, pulling Sabastin into a hug. “I promise.”

“I believe you. And if I were truly brave, I’d read the date you circled in the calendar for me. The one upon which you swore she would awaken. If only to give myself some hope. I have not done so because if that date passes, and she does not awaken, I don’t know what I’ll do. This is better for me. Every day could potentially be the right one, and I won’t know if the day of awakening has passed.” He released her and moved toward Ian, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “So why have you two come to me? Something distracting, I hope.” He gestured at Amy. “If it was just her, I’d think this was a personal visit, but your appearance here changes things… Ian.”

“I was attacked by a god named Vidar. He broke me out of supernatural jail and said the wolf is rising and will consume the moon and the sun.” Ian shrugged because it still sounded ridiculous. That wasn’t to say he didn’t believe it, but he still found it difficult to swallow. Besides, he wasn’t keen on fighting a wolf large enough to swallow the sun. The creature’s jaws would have to stretch the whole of the heavens.

Sabastin sighed, and the sound rather than making him seem weary, seemed to energize him. “So Vidar is afoot, and the wolf is in play.” He shook his head, sparing one last look at his daughter. “Ragnarok is fast approaching. You two will have to stop it from killing us all.”

“Ragnarok?” Amy asked, one auburn eyebrow shooting up in confusion. “You mean the Nordic Apocalypse?”

“The very same, and we may have already started the chain reaction of events that will end the world.” He gestured at his daughter. “Jormungand has risen and was killed, and in so doing, we lost Mjolnir, and with it, the power of Thor. Their demise is one of Ragnarok’s most notable events.”

“I can retrieve the hammer,” Ian said, stepping forward and interrupting Sabastin before the man could continue. “It is not gone forever. It is not destroyed or broken. It just sits next to a corpse.”

“The hammer is not what is important. No weapon is greater than the hand that wields it, and unfortunately, with the loss of Malcom, the hand that wielded Thor’s power is gone. It is the same as Thor himself being dead.” Sabastin let out a slow breath. “No, that seal has been broken. The only thing we can do now is try to stop the others from breaking open and ending the world.”

“So what do we do then? How do we stop Ragnarok?” Amy asked, moving beside Ian and gripping his hand. Sabastin’s eyes flickered, catching the gesture. Ian half-expected him to say something about it, but when Sabastin caught his eye, he merely shrugged.

“The wolf, Fenris is likely trying, even at this very moment, to unfetter himself. If he succeeds, he will swallow the sun and the moon, plunging the world into darkness. Even if Odin, the king of the Norse gods, was around, he cannot stop Fenris. Odin is fated to try and fail. Vidar can stop the wolf’s rampage, but not until the death of his father fuels his need for vengeance.” Sabastin paused as if thinking to himself.