Not My Apocalypse (12 page)

The dead woman gave me a skeptical look, but she nodded. “I would have taken you to her, whether you wanted to see her or not. You are trespassing in her realm and must answer for yourself.”

“Great,” I muttered. Had Odin fucking gotten me into trouble after I’d saved his ass?

The dead woman whistled and two ghostly horses appeared out of the darkness. I thought it was really fucking cool and it made me smile. “We’re riding ghost horses to see Hel?”

The dead woman gave me another confused look. I’d confused and surprised her an awful lot in such a short time. “You sound excited.”

“I am. Riding a ghost horse through Hel? That’s just awesome.” I went up to the horse. Would he be able to hear me the way some horses on Earth did, or would he not understand me, like the sun horse? “Hello. Can you understand me?”

The ghost horse took a half step back. “Yes, I can.” He sounded surprised. Surprising ghosts and ghost horses was way better than scaring them.

“Great. You aren’t going to try to throw me off or anything, are you? I just want to go see Hel and talk to her,” I said.

“I will give you a smooth ride,” the horse assured me. “I am charged with bringing you to Hel’s hall with the speed of the wind so she may speak to you who are trespassing.”

“Cool. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to walk all the way there.” I didn’t even want to think of how long that would’ve taken. I went up to the horse and realized a problem. “Uh… do you have a saddle or anything? I don’t really know how to ride bareback.” And I didn’t want to repeat the embarrassment of falling off like I had with the sun horse. Especially not if he was running like the wind. That would fucking hurt.

“I can accommodate you.” The ghost horse tossed his head, and a saddle and bridle appeared. The dead woman mounted her horse smoothly, hand tangling in the mane for a grip.

“Thanks,” I told the ghost horse. I almost went on the wrong side but remembered you were always supposed to mount a horse from the left. He was a little tall so I had to hop up and sort of climb, but I made it up without embarrassing myself too much. I held the reins tight. The dead woman moved up next to me.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

With a shout she urged her horse forward. My horse followed with no such encouragement. He wasn’t kidding when he said he’d get me there with the speed of the wind. Everything around us became a blur and I couldn’t decide if I was terrified or thrilled. I settled on being both at the same time. The blur changed color a few times as we moved over different terrain. The only things I could see were the horse below me and the ghost woman riding her horse just in front of me. The horses slowed, then stopped. We stood in front of a huge hall lit by torches burning with white fire. “The hall of my mistress,” the horse said.

I slid from his back and stared up at the huge building. It was kinda intimidating. I checked to make sure I still had Odin’s letter in my pocket and thanked the ghost horse for giving me a ride. The dead woman slid off her own horse.

“I will escort you inside.” The horses stood between me and the rest of the gloomy realm and the dead woman stood in front of me. It was like they expected me to try to run away. I followed the dead woman inside, the huge doors as tall as the gateway to this place had been. Inside, the dead were all over, in varying states of visibility and in varying states of decay. We passed by them, heading straight down the center of the building. Through two more doors almost as big as the entrance was and then the dead woman stopped before another door. “Wait here while I announce you.” She slipped inside.

Announce me, huh? That made me feel important, like I was a foreign diplomat or something. Then I remembered my mom explaining to me over and over again that my destiny was to rule the world, all the nations and all the people, and wouldn’t it be glorious? No, I didn’t want to rule the world, or to be president, or even to be a diplomat. I didn’t want to be any kind of politician. I frowned as I waited. The ghost woman came out and told me Hel would see me now.

I entered the receiving room. Hel sat on a throne on an elevated platform with the bad side of her face turned toward me. Her face was rotted, flesh missing, her eye glazed over, her hair in scraggly clumps, her teeth showing in spots through her cheek. It was a very deliberate posture, yet another scare tactic. Showing me her bad side first was supposed to scare me. It didn’t work. I went up close to the throne and gave her a little bow. Respectful, but not too respectful.

“Greetings, son of Lucifer. What business do you have in my realm?”

“I have a letter for Baldur. I just want to give it to him.” I was worried this errand might get me in trouble. I resisted the urge to touch Excalibur for comfort, since she might think that was an act of aggression.

“You came all the way to my realm and risked its terrors to deliver a letter?” She still kept her rotted side toward me and leered.

“Uh, it wasn’t that scary. I like ghosts, and the ghost horses were even cooler.”

She eased back in her throne just a little. “I heard you were a brave one, but I wanted to see for myself. A parent does not always breed true, and the child can be quite different.”

Oh, how I fucking hoped that was true. “Lucifer is my father but that doesn’t mean I’m like him.”

“You have the same boldness.”

“But I’m not an asshole.”

Her rotted lips curled in a smile and she turned to face me full-on. Really, seeing both sides of her face was worse—the other side of her face was unmarked, young, and even beautiful. She sort of looked like a girl version of Two-Face from Batman. “Who sent you down here, bold little half-blood?”

I didn’t know if I should lie or not, but since she’d just compared me to my father, I went for honesty just to be contrary. “Odin. He swore an oath to me that the letter was nothing more than a letter and that he simply wanted to communicate with his son.”

“You imprisoned my brother for a second time and then come to my realm on a mission from Odin?” She looked guarded, but not yet angry, so I hoped that was a good sign. I forgot about Fenrir being her brother. Oops.

“Sorry about that, but if he had stayed loose he would have eaten Odin, and that leads to the end of the world. I don’t want the world to end. It’s nothing personal.”

“You stopped Sköll from eating the sun as well. That’s twice now you have prevented Ragnarok.”

Apparently the land of the dead was not cut off from news about the rest of the world. “Yeah, and I’d do it again.” My stomach fluttered a little with nervousness. Had she wanted the world to end?

“You are bold indeed, and you carry the sword of a king.”

“I’m just borrowing it for a while.” Once I was back on Earth, I would bring it back to Avalon.

Hel leaned all the way back in her throne, sternness leaking out of her expression. “Truthfully, I am not eager for Ragnarok either, son of Lucifer.”

“Alex,” I told her. “My name is Alex.” I was tired of the constant reminders that Satan was my father.

“Alex, then,” Hel said. “Come, I will take you to Baldur so you may deliver his letter.”

I followed her through a hallway that opened into a beautiful suite of rooms. It was so much in contrast to the rest of Hel’s realm that for a minute I just stood there, staring around at the decorations. It was like someone had taken a piece of spring and placed it down here in the gloomy land of the dead. The suite was bright and warm, with pleasant colors on the walls and floors and furniture. Pastels with bright splashes of color: green, blue, gold, soft pink, purple, and hints of red. Even the browns of the wood furniture seemed bright. I thought I was imagining the chirping, but then I realized there was a cage in the corner with several brightly colored birds flitting around.

“Even dead, Baldur cannot help but make things beautiful.” There was a hush to Hel’s voice, maybe awe or sadness. A well-dressed, alive-looking servant (though I could tell he was one of the dead) hurried off to go find his master. Baldur appeared and the room seemed even brighter. I always thought it was funny that a male god was considered the most beautiful of the Norse pantheon, but seeing him for myself, I got it. It wasn’t the kind of attraction I felt for a hot chick—there was nothing romantic or sexual about it—but looking at him made me feel good. Like a beautiful sunrise or a great work of art, something that made the world more beautiful just by existing. Then I remembered that after Ragnarok he was one of the gods that got reborn and he would be the new leader of the Norse pantheon. I felt a little guilty for stopping that from happening. Twice.

“My servant says you have a letter from my father.”

“Yes.” I dug in my pocket and pulled out the letter. It was wrinkled but the seal was still unbroken. I handed it to Baldur and he took it like it was a gift. I guess in a way it was.

“If you would leave us please, Hel, I wish to talk to the young man for a while,” Baldur said.

I thought she would argue, but she didn’t. She said good-bye and left. Baldur led me over to a seating area and offered me a comfy blue chair. I glanced around the room again. “Man, this is really nice.”

“Thank you. I’ve tried to make it as pleasant as possible.” He offered me something to drink but I said no. Persephone had warned me about eating anything from the land of the dead. When I was staying with her she used to get deliveries of fresh food from her mom and made meals for me from that.

Baldur set the letter on the table and looked at it longingly.

“Go ahead and open it. If you want some privacy, I can leave you alone.” Look at me and my people skills.

“No, I can open it later. Odin didn’t send you all the way down here just for a letter.”

“Uh, actually he did. He swore that it was only a letter.” But then I remembered he told me to tell Baldur about what had happened with Fenrir. “Oh, he did say I should tell you about what happened.” I started with Sköll and told him how my friends and I saved the sun, then I told him about Fenrir and how we’d gotten the wolf tied up again. By the end of the story he was staring at me with wide eyes.

“You and your friends prevented Ragnarok twice.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a question. Didn’t he believe me? I guess I didn’t blame him. “Yeah. I know it’s fated to happen, blah, blah, but that doesn’t mean it has to happen now. I want the world to last for a long, long time. Sorry about you having to stay down here, though. I know you’re supposed to be reborn in the new world.”

He waved a hand. “That day will come, but for now my father still lives, and all the other gods, and all those who dwell in Midgard. I want them to live more than I want to live myself. I can wait.”

I relaxed, letting out tension I didn’t know I’d had. “So you get why I did it?”

“Certainly, and I’m impressed with your bravery.”

I shrugged. I didn’t feel very brave. I was still running from my father, using this errand as an excuse to hide from him for a little longer. “Brave, sure.”

“You don’t believe what you did is brave?”

“I can face other people’s monsters, but I can’t face my father.”

“Why can’t you face him?”

Would he even get it? He loved his dad and treated a letter from him like fucking gold. “Because he’ll beat the shit out of me, and I’m not strong enough to stop him.”

“You are young yet in your world. You should not feel ashamed that you haven’t yet come into your full strength.”

“My powers keep getting a little stronger, but it seems like it’s taking so fucking long.” I told him about my difficulty teleporting and my fire powers, and the way I’d made it snow in the dining room, and how I’d burned my mom which was why I was so afraid of being dragged back home this time.

Baldur listened, nodding here and there. Just talking to him made me feel better. My fear and guilt faded, but I was sure they would come back full force as soon as I left this place. Being with Baldur was like existing in a little bubble of comfort and beauty. “Your father is hurting you enough. You don’t need to hurt yourself more by feeling such guilt,” Baldur said.

“Easier said than done,” I muttered.

Baldur got up. “I have something for you, a gift to thank you for going to all the trouble of delivering my father’s letter to me. Wait here.”

He went deeper into his suite, into one of the rooms in the back, a bedroom or a study or something else. He wasn’t gone long. When he came back at first I didn’t see anything, then he bent and offered me a tiny white box, closed with a latch. “Don’t open this until you’re back in Midgard,” he warned me.

I was familiar with the Orpheus story, so I wasn’t going to fuck this up. “Thank you.” I stuck the box into my pocket, the same pocket I’d carried the letter in. “What is it?”

“You’ll see when you open it. It’s something to help you, and it will give you what you already have.”

Great, a fucking riddle. “Yeah, that’s clear,” I muttered.

Baldur chuckled. “It will all make sense. Now, I’ll escort you back to Midgard. I cannot leave Hel’s realm, but I can take you to the border.”

I was hoping for more ghost horses to ride, but it was even better. Baldur had wolf spirits. They were almost as big as the horses, with gray-white, glowing fur. When I first saw them I was a little nervous. After all, I’d just fought two giant wolves and I wondered if these guys were cousins or something. But no, these were good wolves. To the Norse, wolves could be both good and bad, just like people. Sköll, Hati, and Fenrir were bad, but Odin had wolves as companions, and these two wolves of Baldur’s were friendly. On the downside there were no saddles, but I was able to hang on by gripping their fur tight while they raced through the land of the dead. Baldur took me in the opposite direction that I’d arrived in, to a different gate. The ride was way too short, but maybe I’d find a reason to come down here again and go for another ride.

“Where does this go?” I asked as I slid off the wolf.

“To a very old burial ground in Midgard. I’m sorry I can’t take you any closer to your home than that,” Baldur said.

“That’s all right. Burial grounds are cemeteries, and cemeteries are connected to each other. I can get to wherever I want to go from there.” Which sure the fuck wasn’t home.