Decimation, p.2
Decimation, page 2
I’d need to—
“Hello.” Nico’s voice was flat.
Thank you. “Where are you?” I kept my question cool. No reason to expose my panic.
Voices echoed in the background of Nico’s side of the call. Dahlia? Okay. Magnus was upset, but she’d gone somewhere safe. Good.
“I’ve recovered my memories,” Nico said.
His even, emotionless delivery knocked the air from my lungs. “That’s fantastic.” I didn’t have to fake my enthusiasm. I was happy for him, though the news may not be good for me.
“It’s wonderful.” He didn’t sound like he meant it. “Don’t come near us. Either of us. Ever again.”
Fat chance of me listening to that command. “Nico—”
My plea was met with dead air as he disconnected.
Fuck it all.
THREE
MAGNUS
I was sitting on the bottom mattress of one of several bunk beds.
Rather, I was looking at six-year-old me sitting there.
TOM. I was on The Order of Mistletoe campus. Or looking at myself there.
Except I didn’t get here until I was a teenager.
“Hello?” I tried to push the word out, but no sound reached my ears. I stepped closer to me and reached for her. “Hello?” I said again.
She met my gaze, a haunting look in her green eyes, and opened her mouth.
There was still no sound, but I was assaulted by so many emotions. Too many. All at once, until it was louder than any shout and I couldn’t distinguish any individual feeling.
I sat up with a gasp, and my eyes flew open. I was in my room, in my apartment, at NEON. Dahlia and Nico sat by my bed, watching me.
“Please be quiet.” I muttered the request before either of them could speak, and before my brain caught up to my mouth.
Nico frowned. “We’re not saying anything.”
Then how— I pressed my palm to my forehead. “But you are.” Their every emotion screamed at me; all of it noise and none of it distinguishable. “Where’s Bragi?”
They both scowled.
Now I recognized pity. Distrust. Regret.
That last one was Nico, and I tried to focus on seeing him, rather than letting his emotions live in my skull.
“I left Bragi behind,” he said.
“Why?”
“I remembered.”
Such a simple response, but it was laden with the noise that screamed at me. What I felt wasn’t only Nico, it was the people outside in Bangkok. The people through the gate that led to NEON.
I couldn’t think about anything else.
I closed my eyes and named each emotion, labeling a mental box, and shoving the thought onto a shelf in the back of my mind. The same way we’d been taught in school.
The task seemed insurmountable as I picked at the edges of the blob. It should have been worse when Nico’s and Dahlia’s concern surged, but their reactions gave me a starting point.
Breath through your nose. Shrug it off. Name it and banish it.
I didn’t know how long it took before I dared look again. The feels weren’t gone, but they were quieter.
“Are you all right?” Dahlia asked, then gave a dry laugh. “Obviously not, but you know what I mean.”
“No.” My reply came out more sharply than I intended. Now she was hurt. I steadied myself. “I need another few minutes of silence. You don’t even have to leave the room.” Because it wouldn’t matter. I’d feel them regardless if they were nearby.
Dahlia nodded, and after a pause, Nico did as well.
I turned inward again. Boxing these things wasn’t working. I didn’t have room in my psyche to store and ignore them all, which meant no shortcuts. This had to be done properly.
Would that drive me insane? Properly meant admitting each feeling was there, naming it, and letting myself feel it for long enough for it to dissipate.
How was I supposed to feel everything?
I clawed my way through enough of the chaos to find my own thoughts in the middle of it all. The methodology quieted the bedlam enough for me to open my eyes again.
“Do you remember anything?” Nico’s question was kind.
Was it ironic that he was asking me that, or just a bad coincidence? “I remember needing you and good sex.”
His embarrassment surged.
Where was the crystal from Maeve? “Dahlia knows I fuck. She does too. No secrets here.”
Dahlia shrugged. “It’s true.” She was worried about me. Frustrated that the conversation wasn’t the one she wanted to be having, but she wasn’t fazed by the topic.
“You kissed me. After,” Nico said. “You said you wished I could have back what I was missing, and then I did. Your crystal broke. You screamed and passed out. I couldn’t bring you back to Bragi, so I called Dahlia.”
“Did you wish his memories back?” Dahlia asked. “Can you do that now?” She poked my cheek and lifted my arm and pried my hands open.
“What are you doing?” I meant beyond trying to lighten the mood. It was odd to feel her intentions, but not know her meaning.
Dahlia looked at me. “If you’re a Djinn, you have a magic lamp, right? We destroy it and you don’t have to go back.” One corner of her mouth tugged up with the attempt at humor.
It was enough for me to laugh. Not a big, loud laugh, but more a sound of relief. “I’m not a genie. Not that I know of.”
“Thank the gods.” She puffed out a sigh. “I always get jealous of how much better you look in pink than I do.”
I missed her. Something else about what Nico said was odd. “You got your memory back. Why did you call Dahlia?”
She stuck her tongue out at me, and I poked her nose. “People usually call someone they know. I’m glad I’m here,” I said.
“I know villagers. None of them could help you.” Nico was more embarrassed by that than by me being open about sex. “I cut ties with most of the world when I left Bragi. Besides, I was calling to get you help, not me.”
And going to Bragi wasn’t an option. Because Nico had remembered their past. If I was struggling with putting the pieces together from an hour or two of missing time, I couldn’t imagine how Nico had dealt. I was surprised he was still coherent.
“How did you bring his memories back?” Dahlia asked.
She was going to hate that I’d left her out of what I discovered, but, “I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what I do know. So much has happened in the last twenty-four hours. I hadn’t made it here to tell you yet.”
Dahlia was more disappointed and hurt than angry. “Because you were having sex.” But she also understood.
I gave her an apologetic look. “Good sex.”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s fair.” She’d already forgiven me.
“I don’t know how I did the memories thing,” I said. “But apparently I’m a conduit? Like, magic can go through me and into other people, and I’m channeling some of what the babies are, and maybe that was part of what did it. There was a crystal that was helping me control it, and I guess it broke?”
Dahlia squeezed my hand. The gesture should be sympathy. That was what lingered at the surface, but I was hit with a wave of complexity. Her adoration for her men. For me. Her distrust for Bragi. Wanting Vidar dead. Wondering if what was happening to me was Nico’s fault.
The onslaught was so potent, I might as well be reading her mind. I jerked my hand away, and Dahlia frowned.
“I’m channeling someone else’s power,” I repeated. “Empathy.”
“Oh. Oh.” Dahlia’s mouth formed a circle.
Realization spread through Nico, too. As if some things suddenly made a lot more sense.
“That sounds awful,” Dahlia said.
“You have no idea.” If Bragi had asked me a few months ago if I understood what he felt, I would’ve said sure. I know what emotions are like. But I really couldn’t have fathomed this. How did he do it for so long? How did it not drive him insane?
Because he gave up on trying to be sympathetic and reveled in the pain instead.
Like that, I almost understood, and I hated myself for it.
“It’s so loud in my head,” I muttered as much to myself as her.
“What do we do?” Nico asked. “Send me somewhere and I’ll go.”
He meant it. He wanted to protect me.
He couldn’t, but the sentiment was sweet.
“Maeve said I needed a more permanent solution, to meter my power,” I said.
Dahlia was surprised again. “Maeve?”
“She’s an elf.”
Dahlia stared at me with shock. “According to the books, Queen Mab is a fucking fae queen.”
Oh. Oh. Why didn’t I put those pieces together before? How had I missed who she really was? “Not anymore she’s not.” And now I wanted to hear that story. “I was hoping maybe Tatiana could help.”
Tatiana was one of the first women after me to become a Valkyrie. She was descended from a line of voodoo priestesses and she not only knew magic was real, but practiced it. She was easy to explain the entire thing to, and had abilities that extended beyond a Valkyrie’s.
“You call her.” Dahlia stood. “I’ll go grab your stuff from the cabin, so you don’t have to deal with Butt-face Bragi, and we’ll go from there.”
Great. Wonderful. Not that I had any idea what to do next. “I need to get Tatiana here first. Or me to her. Then maybe I can think.”
FOUR
BRAGI
I left the cabin almost immediately after talking to Nico. No reason to stick around if they weren’t coming back. I hitched a ride to the airport, which was where I was now.
I gave a warm smile to the young man working the check-in counter, and handed him my boarding pass. Magnus would probably point out I could’ve checked in on the internet or at the kiosks, but I wanted the interaction.
“Where are you flying today?” His name tag said he was Tad.
“Detroit. To visit an old friend.” Rather, I hoped Anubis would not only see me, but talk to me.
When I left TOM, the board had already crumbled. The only reason the campus still existed was because Vidar had the presence and power to maintain control over many of the remaining soldiers. I hadn’t cared what he did, as long as I wasn’t a part of it, and Magnus was safe.
Tad’s fingers flew across his keyboard. “Just checking the one bag?” He worked with practiced efficiency.
“I prefer to travel light.” I preferred not to travel this way at all, but if I was going to stuff myself onto a plane, I wasn’t dragging along my entire wardrobe. When I left the cabin, Nico’s and Magnus’s things stayed behind—they were more capable of retrieving them than I was of returning their luggage. Something had prompted me to leave my journals as well.
I didn’t need to relive my past through my words. It haunted me regardless.
Magnus should’ve been safe from TOM. That was what I’d convinced myself of. She made the decision to walk away, and she and her friends were powerful. I didn’t know—how had I never seen it—that Vidar had always wanted her specifically. That keeping and controlling her was a priority?
“Hmm… I get that.” Tad glanced at my ID for all of half a second, before returning to his typing. “I have you staying over in Atlanta?”
Not by choice. Whose ridiculous idea was it to route a flight from Jackson Hole to Detroit through Atlanta? “That’s right.” It was still my fastest option. I needed Vidar dead. Period. That meant finding someone who could help me figure out the puzzle of killing him, and that meant flying to whomever I tried to work with.
Even with my power I wouldn’t have been able to destroy Vidar, unless poetry slamming him to death was an option. And I definitely couldn’t do it now. Not alone.
I’d burned so many bridges in the last century though. The list of gods and immortals who wouldn’t speak to me was far longer than the number who would.
“You’re all set.” Tad handed me my boarding pass and ID. “Follow the signs to security and then to your gate, and have a safe flight. Next please.” He was already looking past me.
Security was next. Whoever invented this process must be a trickster god, and must be far more powerful these days than they let on. The chaos that existed here… It could feed the right god for eons. Perhaps that was how Loki had stayed relevant after all this time. TSA lines at the airport.
I didn’t need chaos, though. I needed a god who was familiar with death. Not just the indirect ones. There were more gods of war than almost anything else, besides sex.
But oddly enough, very few who were directly associated with the dead.
The elemental and elder gods and spirits knew a lot about death. Like Nico, they weren’t death themselves but were experienced with it. But it was difficult to explain to a river spirit, who had only ever seen their own banks and shores and rocks, that some god on another continent was worth any of their attention.
There were other gods from other continents. Africa. South America. North America. A number of them didn’t care about the prophecies because they didn’t feel like Ragnarök involved them. Min cared because of Kirby.
But that could also work to my advantage. At this moment, I didn’t give a shit about the prophecies either. Not the overall reach or what happened when they all came to fruition. Magnus and Nico were my only concerns.
And that meant destroying Vidar.
Anubis. As far as I knew, he didn’t take issue with me, and he was still part of this world.
The trick would be convincing him I was the reason he should take a side, and hoping Min hadn’t warned him away from me.
Twelve hours, and far-too-long layover later, I stepped from a car in the middle of a neighborhood that could best be described as in transition. To the unpracticed eye, one might guess the streets were dying. Several buildings had boarded up windows, fences and overgrown grass surrounded others, and still other lots were simply empty. Dirt or broken concrete where a structure no longer stood.
There were hints of life here, though. Not old, vanishing life. New and full of hope, like the first buds of green, on a flowering bush after a hard winter.
One example was the automotive shop I stood in front of. The classic design was still in place—a windowed garage door that slid up, amid a restored cinder block service station. There was a jackal on the sign, and the place boasted that they could bring any car back to life.
Anubis didn’t just deal with the dead, he gave a second chance to both people and things that had their potential taken from them too early. This neighborhood for instance.
He still had a space in the basement where he honored the dead and sent them to the next life. The general public didn’t know about it—I didn’t suspect most people wanted their automotive restoration shop also conducting mortuary-type services—but it wasn’t a secret among immortals.
The garage door was open, and I recognized the 1930’s Packard he had on a lift in the air, because I’d owned one a lot like it when they were new. With as much rust as, and more pine needles than, paint this one had seen better days.
There was a dark-skinned man about six inches taller than me, pulling a wheel off the car corpse. The garage lighting glinted off his smooth head, and his overalls hid the kind of strength only a god could maintain without a lot of work.
Anubis spared me the briefest glance before returning to his task. “Afternoon. Are you in the market for something that reminds you of better days?” His accent hinted at a blend of languages and dialects from the various tribes and countries where he was still worshiped, and his voice was deep and smooth, like the slip of silk.
I had no idea if he was talking about cars or being more figurative. “I wouldn’t call anything I’ve seen in the last century or so better days.”
“Ah. Something new. Refreshed. You want a different outlook on life.” He set the last wheel on the ground, and turned his attention to the newly exposed bits of car.
“I really have more of a question.”
“Only one?”
“One to start. There may be others depending on how the first goes.” As in, I couldn’t tell if he was going to be responsive to this conversation. Things were starting politely enough, but I wouldn’t call the exchange friendly. I was going to poke and prod a little more, to see if it was safe to broach my real reason for being here.
Anubis handed me a wrench, and pointed to the car. “You can ask, as long as you help. I need another set of hands.”
That seemed fair. I stepped closer, watched as he maneuvered around a large bolt, and then held the tool according to his instruction.
I was startled when he pulled out a large mallet and hammered the metal, sending rust flying everywhere. “I should have worn my raincoat.” I tried to keep my tone light.
He chuckled. “You should give me your riddle.”
“Have you ever had one of these you can’t bring back?” I had a hard time believing that the guarantee on the sign out front was possible under normal circumstances. Not every car could be saved.
“It depends on how one defines bring back. There are times when the only thing remaining in the new is an original hood ornament or a side window.” Another few hits with the hammer, and he seemed satisfied. He wiggled something free that looked like a record or a flat donut, with a handful of rust holes in it.
His answer led me to another question. I’d follow it to see if this went anywhere. “If you do that, is it really the same car?”
“Again, it all depends on how you define it. To me, in that case, it’s more of a tribute to the original. A reminder of what it once was. To another person, it’s the same as having their beloved back in their garage.”
This conversation was moving in the wrong direction, but it had my fascination. If all that remained of Vidar was a pocket watch, I’d find that an acceptable outcome. Then again, we were talking about cars, not gods. “What does it take to reach that point, where so little remains?”
