Erin and Nëna, both panting, stared hard at each other, communication passing between them without either speaking. Neither woman looked away. Neither woman backed down. Erin finally reached for her dislocated shoulder, trying to push it back into place with her free hand while her gaze stayed fixed on Nëna.
With neither woman budging, Stieg made the first move. “Need help with your shoulder?” he asked.
Erin’s glare was brutal and even Nëna, eyes widening, gawked at him.
Still trying to put her shoulder back in place, Erin snarled, “Fuck you!”
“I’m just trying to help!” Stieg yelled back.
“You can stick your help up your tight—”
“That is enough!” Nëna barked. She motioned them forward. “In the back. Both of you. Now.”
“I don’t know why you’re so mad at me,” Stieg complained as he followed behind Erin. “You’d never have forgiven yourself if you’d hurt Jace’s grandmother.”
Erin stopped, faced him. “Do you really believe that?”
Before Stieg could answer, Nëna passed them both and replied, “Even the Virgin Mary don’t believe that bullshit.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You need to get that sword, girly.”
Erin pushed Stieg away with her good hand—he was trying to help her fix her arm—and moved closer to Nëna, which wasn’t very close because Stieg kept between them, ready to jump in at a second’s notice.
Bastard.
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“You are running out of time.”
“What do you care?” Erin snapped. “Why are you suddenly so goddamn concerned?”
She didn’t let people make her angry. In fact, she could count on one hand the times she’d ever been this angry and one of those times was her actual death and another was when she’d gone a round with Kera because she was being such a difficult bitch about her new life as a Crow.
But now? Now Erin had to use two hands to count how many people had pissed her off.
Not only that . . . but her shoulder hurt like a bitch.
“I’ve got family,” Nëna reminded her. “They’re part of this world. Besides, you don’t do this, and my granddaughter will blame herself for your mistake.”
“Look, old woman,” Erin said, stepping closer, Stieg right beside her, “don’t put this all on me. I’m just along for the ride. You want someone to blame, you track down Gullveig and you blame her yourself. I’m just trying to save the world.”
“Well, you’re doing a piss-poor job of it.”
Erin didn’t even have a chance to snap the old bitch’s neck before Stieg grabbed her around the waist and carried her a few feet away to the picnic table. He pulled out a chair and sat down, keeping Erin on his lap with his big, stupid arms.
“How do you even know what’s going on?” Erin demanded, her fucked-up shoulder making a struggle with Stieg a losing proposition. “Is Jace telling you all this?”
“What you and my granddaughter still don’t seem to understand is that no one has to tell me anything. I just know.”
The back door of the house swung open and Erin waited for what she thought would be more of Nëna’s sons and grandsons to come traipsing through. But it wasn’t them at all. She watched the four men dressed casually in jeans, boots, and surfing-related T-shirts kiss the woman on the cheek or give her a quick hug before they leaned against a nearby brick wall and proceeded to eat fresh fruit or containers of fruit-filled yogurt.
Slowly, Erin looked over at Nëna and watched the woman give her a large grin.
“You old bitch,” Erin snarled.
“What?” Stieg demanded. “What’s going on?”
Erin looked at him. “You don’t know who they are, do you?”
“More of Nëna’s Albanian offspring?”
With her good hand, Erin gripped Stieg’s forearm. “Now look,” she ordered.
And he did.
The Viking in him wanted to scream and throw rocks before getting weapons and killing everyone in a thirty-five-mile radius. But the street kid . . . the street kid pretended not to be bothered. Pretended not to notice.
That’s what you did when you saw horror. You pretended not to notice and you kept walking. Except he couldn’t walk. He couldn’t leave.
Stieg grabbed Erin’s hand and pulled it off his arm.
“Now you see,” she whispered.
“Yeah. But I didn’t need to.”
“What did you do to your friend, Crow?” one of them asked.
“She showed him what you are,” Nëna guessed. “She showed him the truth. Where did a little bitch like you learn such a skill?”
“Mother Berisha,” one of them chided. “Please. Let’s not be rude. There’s no point in being rude.”
Stieg winced. This was getting so weird.
“Perhaps if we introduce ourselves,” another suggested.
The handsome man smiled, but Stieg had seen his true face. He could never forget that.
“I’m Death,” he said simply. “These are my brothers . . . War, Famine, and Pestilence. And yes, we’re the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
Stieg had never really thought that Jace’s grandmother—or anyone for that matter—would be on such friendly terms with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yet there they were. All four of them. Eating the woman’s food. Leaning against the woman’s brick wall. Relaxing in her home like this was a common thing. They’d clearly been there before.
Did she invite them over for coffee cake on Sundays? Who invited the Four Horsemen over for coffee cake?
He was suddenly really glad that Jace wasn’t here. Something told him she would not be okay with any of this.
“So,” Death went on, “sorry to interrupt, but where were we?”
“I’m trying to talk to the idiot now,” Nëna complained, pointing to one of the chairs by the table. “But she’s being a little—”
“Ahhh, Mother Berisha, no,” Famine quickly intervened. “Let’s keep this civil.”
Pestilence, holding the apple he was eating in his mouth, dragged a chair over to Nëna’s side. He waited for her to sit before he went back to lounging near his brothers and eating.
That’s when Stieg realized what her finger pointing had meant. It meant Get me a chair.
Erin gawked at the Christian God’s harbingers. “Seriously?”
“What?” Death asked. “We’re known for our politeness. At least until we are forced to unleash hell on earth because you humans have no self-control. But until that time . . . we’re polite.”
“And charming,” War tossed in as he put another spoonful of low-fat yogurt into his mouth.
“Yogurt?” Stieg finally had to ask. “Really?”
“What? I like yogurt.”
“Now,” Nëna said, leaning forward, her elbows resting on her crossed thin legs, one finger pointed at Erin, “I know how you can get at least part of the way to where you need to go.”
“Does it involve your sacrifice? Because then I am so in.”
War laughed around his yogurt while his brothers just chuckled.
“If my granddaughter didn’t need you, I’d turn you inside out, Crow.”
“Bring it,” Erin quietly challenged, throwing out one arm because the other was still too damaged to move without excruciating pain.
Nothing worried Stieg more than Erin being quiet. The woman was rarely quiet. Erin was boisterous and rude to people she cared about. So a quiet Erin meant she was plotting . . . plotting something very bad.
Stieg tightened his grip on Erin, keeping her pinned to his lap, which meant he couldn’t help fix her shoulder.
With a sigh, Death tossed the core of his fruit into a nearby trash can. “Before you two ladies decide to kill each other, perhaps I should point out what’s going on right at this moment. At this moment . . . Gabriel is practicing his trumpet. Which I can assure you, no one is happy about.”
“He’s not very go
od,” Pestilence admitted. “Personally, I’ve always pushed for Satchmo to blow the final trumpet at the beginning of End Times, but Gabriel overheard and got kind of pissed, then we got in a fight . . . it was not pretty.”
Famine shrugged. “Well, you know he gets touchy about that sort of thing.”
“It’s not like I suggested just anybody. I suggested Louis Armstrong. Who is better than Louis Armstrong?”
Erin raised her working hand. “I am about to set everything in a ten-mile radius on fire . . . so could we all just get to the point here?”
The four brothers glanced at each other, then Death stepped close, leaning down until he was eye to eye with Erin. “Once Gullveig sets off Ragnarok, then the End of Times for everyone begins—and there will be no stopping it. Whether you have a god you believe in or not.”
“I know.”
He stood tall, gazing down at her. “And the only thing that may possibly stop her”—he pointed at Erin—“is you.”
“I know that, too,” she said simply. “And I don’t know about the rest of you, but,” Erin finally yelled out, “I personally find that extremely horrifying!”
Now Stieg knew why Erin had gone after Jace’s grandmother like a pit bull after a steak. Fear.
Not general fear, but the fear of failure. She wouldn’t just be failing her friends, she’d be failing the universe. That was a lot of stress to put on one person.
Even when that one person was Erin Amsel.
Death crouched in front of her. If you couldn’t see his real face—and Stieg didn’t allow himself to see the real faces of any of the Four Horsemen, it was too traumatic, even for a Viking—then he looked like a model from one of those outdoor catalogs for rich people. A good-looking surfer whose face hadn’t been completely damaged by the sun yet.
“If we thought for a second that you didn’t have a chance, War would be in his armor, Pestilence in his bubonic plague–covered robes, I’d be carrying my scythe around, and Famine would be nothing but skin and bones.”
“It’s not a good look on me,” Famine tossed in.
“But we’re not, because you, Erin Amsel, daughter of a long line of very irritating women, have a shot. One shot, but it’s more than most. But it will only work if you take that shot. If you take that risk.”
Erin frowned, appearing confused. “Of course I’ll do it. I never said I wouldn’t.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Erin pointed at Nëna. “She is.”
Nëna threw up her hands. “What did I do?”
“You exist!”
Death, without even looking at Jace’s grandmother, raised two fingers on his right hand at her and warned, “Don’t even think about it.”
Cracking her knuckles, Nëna lowered her hands back into her lap. Stieg didn’t even want to think about what spell she’d been planning to release.
War tossed his empty yogurt container and plastic spoon into the trash, walked over to Stieg and Erin’s side, and took hold of Erin’s arm. As Stieg began to stand in order to pull her away from him, the very large man barked, “Calm down, Northman. Just trying to help.”
Stieg sat back in the chair, but his muscles tensed and he had the overwhelming desire to start killing . . . everything.
“Breathe through it, Northman,” War suggested, the smirk on his face making Stieg want to cut his head off and wear his intestines around his neck. “Me being so close,” War went on as he gripped Erin’s wrist with one hand and her shoulder with the other, “is bringing out your natural combat instincts. But what I find fascinating is”—his head tilted to the side, his gaze sizing up Erin—“that I don’t seem to affect you at all.”
Then he yanked her shoulder back into place.
Erin let out a roar and suddenly her blade was in her hand and she almost rammed it into his eye, but Stieg caught her before she made contact with the harbinger, pulling her hand back and twisting until the blade dropped.
“That hurt,” Erin growled at him.
War stepped back, unfazed. “That should feel better soon with the way you Crows heal and all. And you’re welcome.”
Once War moved away, the desire to destroy all fled Stieg’s body and he panted like he’d just been in a five-mile race.
“Are you all right?” Erin grumbled, rubbing her now-healing shoulder.
“How are you all right?”
She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I told you . . . I don’t let little things annoy me.”
“We, the harbingers of the Apocalypse, are a little thing to you?” Pestilence asked.
Erin was silent a moment, glancing off before replying, “Pretty much.”
“That is . . . impressive.”
Death grinned. “She’s perfect.”
* * *
“You better explain how I’m going to get into the Nine Worlds and steal that stupid sword.”
The Four Horsemen looked at Nëna and it pissed Erin off that she needed this woman’s help, but she had no choice. Not anymore. The Four Horsemen wouldn’t be coming to any Crow, much less her, unless they truly had no other option.
“Tell her, Mother Berisha,” Death pushed when the old woman didn’t reply. “You brought us here. You have to know it’s never a good idea to waste our time.”
Nëna rubbed her chin. “You’ll need the Key,” she told Erin.
“What key?”
“The Key. When Hel sends her Carrion up from Helheim, she ensures that at least one of them is the Key who can make sure her troops can return to her when their job is done.”
“So this Key will take me to Helheim?” That would be good. From there Erin could pretty much amble on over to Corpse Shore.
“No. Hel isn’t that stupid. But it’ll get you closer than Asgard. Much closer. But you’ll still have to make your way through several worlds before you reach Nidhogg’s domain.”
“And that dragon is not friendly,” Pestilence stated.
“No dragons are friendly,” Death reminded his brother. “But let’s face it, we’ve got the worst one.”
“Well, unlike the Nordics’ Nidhogg, ours has seven heads and a crown on each head. Those crowns make him mighty haughty.”
Famine waved that away. “That’s Lucifer’s fault. He’s raised a very narcissistic child. It’s a real shame.”
“I don’t think it’s the crowns, personally,” Pestilence debated. “I think it’s all the horns. That many horns just makes a male—of any species—cocky. No pun intended,” he joked.
His brothers laughed with him until Erin cut in, “I’m sorry, but can we get back to me? And the Key?”
Death lifted his hands, nodded. “Sorry. Sorry. Our bad.”
Nëna started again. “You’ll need to find the key among the Carrion.”
“Because that’s so easy,” Erin drily shot back.
“You can’t miss him. He’ll wear Hel’s rune on the palm of his hand. All the others have her rune burned into their necks or foreheads.”
“And then what? Cut his hand off?”
Nëna blinked. “Yes. Once you have his hand—”
“Have you ever fought the Carrion?” Erin demanded of the old woman. “Ever stood face-to-face with them?”
Nëna sighed. “Can’t say that I’ve had the pleasure—”
“I have. And the Carrion don’t die easy. I also don’t think the Key is going to start handing off body parts to help me out.”
“You wanted a way in, Crow. That’s the way.”
Erin looked off. She felt so damn irritated. That’s when Death moved in close, again crouching in front of her. Stieg went tense beneath her, having Death so near probably turning him into a suicidal mess.
“You need to understand something,” Death said softly. “You are the only one who can do this. Sweet Jacinda may still be looking for another option, but she was right from the beginning—you are it. And if you don’t do this, I promise you, Gabriel’s horn will blow and we, my brothers and I, will unleash every mini
on of hell upon this world. We will tear it apart and leave nothing but the unrighteous behind. So, you decide. Do you do what you can? Or let every religion’s end-of-the-world scenario play out to the devastation of those who—most likely—don’t deserve it. Most likely.”
As a “most likely,” Erin couldn’t let that happen. She wouldn’t.
“All right,” Erin said, again focusing on Jace’s grandmother. “Tell me what I need to do.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He didn’t take her back to the Bird House, but Stieg Engstrom didn’t spirit her away to far-off northern shores, either. Instead, they stopped at a nearby In-N-Out burger place.
“I’m hungry,” he informed her before getting out of his truck.
Erin didn’t follow him inside the fast-food restaurant, but she found an empty table outside under a big red and yellow umbrella and sat down. Grabbing a few napkins out of the container, she took a small pencil out of her pocket and began to draw on the napkin. She didn’t really think about what she was going to draw. She just let her hand do what it did best.
It was lunchtime, so the place was pretty busy, but Erin didn’t mind. It gave her time to relax. Although her shoulder still hurt like a bitch, it was already healing. Besides, it wasn’t the first time it had been yanked out of its socket. Hell, it hadn’t been the first time Stieg was the one who’d yanked it.
An open cardboard container filled with food landed in front of her and Erin finally looked up. Stieg had his own open container. Actually, he had two of them. And chocolate shakes for each of them.
Erin focused on the food. “You got me two Double-Doubles and two fries? That doesn’t seem excessive to you?”
“I figured you were hungry,” he said simply.
“Well . . . thank you.”
He shrugged and began to eat like a Viking. Other patrons turned around to watch until Stieg caught them—and growled.
Most everyone spun back around and, as he dropped his head to continue feeding, Stieg smiled. A real one. Erin didn’t remember him ever smiling before. He mostly sneered or stared. Smiling was not his thing.
Except, apparently, when he was terrorizing others.
Of course, that just made Erin actually like the big idiot. She chuckled a little. Maybe Kera was right. There had to be something wrong with her.