The Unyielding

  The energy around the circle picked up and the Maids’ screeching became much louder as their ritual began taking hold. Working. Stieg knew they were running out of time.

  Brodie was heading right for him, probably because she loved to tackle him. This time, though, he didn’t let her take him down. He grabbed hold of the Key in her mouth and yanked. Brodie yanked back. She refused to let go and began dragging Stieg.

  “Drop it, Brodie!” Stieg ordered, pulling as hard as he could, hoping to throw the hand to Erin before she disappeared. “Drop it now!” he bellowed, as loudly as he could.

  Brodie released the hand at the same moment that Stieg pulled with all his strength. When she let go, he was relieved but also surprised—and definitely unprepared. He tripped backward over his own feet and stumbled. Past the Maids, past the protective runes of the circle, and right into the arms of Erin Amsel.

  He hit her hard and together they went down. They didn’t hit the ground, though.

  And it seemed like they would never stop falling . . .

  * * *

  Mouth open, Kera stood outside the circle and stared at where her sister-Crow and Vig’s Raven brother had disappeared. “Oh, Brodie,” she gasped. “Oh, God, what did you do?”

  “It wasn’t Brodie,” Vig told her, stepping between her and the dog.

  “Stop trying to protect her.”

  “I’m not. It wasn’t Brodie. It was him.”

  Kera saw the god leaning against their house. Just standing there! “Motherfucker!” she yelled, running over to him as the others moved quickly out of her way. “What have you done?”

  “Helping,” Odin replied. “Just like the little bitch asked.”

  Kera went to swing at him, but Vig caught her around the waist and pulled her back. The other Crows crowded in behind them.

  “That was fucked up, Odin,” Chloe angrily chastised.

  “And here I was, trying to help you ladies. And, of course, humanity. I’m all about humanity.”

  “You—”

  “She has the Key, doesn’t she? She has one of my precious Ravens. She’s better off than she was a couple hours ago.” He rubbed his hands together. “Well . . . I have to go. Got a hot date and I better get all my hot dates in while I still can,” he joked. He walked into the Crows, pushing past them, ignoring the vicious stares and accompanying hisses.

  “Oh, by the way,” he said, again facing them. “Have you noticed it? In the air?”

  “Noticed what?” Chloe asked.

  Kera was still unable to say anything to the god without cursing and demanding his death. He’d used her dog. Her dog!

  Odin smiled at Chloe’s question, head dipping down . . . then he was gone.

  “What did that mean?” Leigh asked.

  Vig released Kera and paced away. He and his Raven brothers exchanged glances.

  “What?” Kera demanded. “What is it?”

  “She’s back,” Annalisa guessed. “And if she isn’t, she’s coming.”

  Kera turned to Vig and he silently nodded his agreement.

  “Nothing changes,” Kera said. “We move forward.”

  Chloe frowned. “But—”

  “We move forward.” Kera gestured to Annalisa with a crook of her finger and walked off.

  When Annalisa joined her, Kera said, “I need you to take care of something for me. It might be too late, and a waste of time, but do it anyway.”

  The forensic psychologist smiled. “Just tell me what you need . . .”

  * * *

  Jourdan laughed at some joke the owner of the Palm Springs resort told her as he counted up the bodies and added up the cost for this little “event” and the subsequent “extensive cleaning” that would be necessary. The beauty of this establishment was that it was owned and run by men who understood power. For the right price, they could handle anything one needed done. They’d helped her manage this. This being the bodies left by the Carrion.

  She didn’t even know who they were going after. Didn’t know who the “girl” was that she’d told those “warriors” about, because none of it mattered. Nor did it matter that all the leeches who’d glommed onto her over the years were decaying in the first-floor ballroom. It also didn’t matter that her body was sore and abused.

  None of it mattered because in the end, Gullveig would reward Jourdan well. She’d promised.

  Pushing her hair off her face and mentally preparing for her next performance, Jourdan walked out the doorway and down the hall to a quiet bedroom. Once everything was set, she’d make the call to the police and then she’d go back to her amazing, glamorous life, only now with even more headlines in the papers.

  She reached the bedroom off the hall, and that’s when she stopped and slowly faced the woman standing behind her. A Crow.

  She’d researched these Crows. They had a moral compass, as her mother would say. Especially with that new War General of theirs. Since Jourdan was unarmed and a fellow woman, she knew she was safe. These women would never hurt her.

  She searched her brain, trying to remember this one’s name. Ahhh, yes. The one the Crow leader had called Annalisa.

  “What do you want, Annalisa?”

  Best to make her think of Jourdan as more than just an enemy. That’s why always remembering names was so important.

  “I know you,” Annalisa replied. “I was you. Long time ago.”

  “So?” Jourdan asked. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Die.”

  A blade flashed and Jourdan saw her blood splatter on the white wall beside her. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her hands around her throat, trying to stop the flow. She needed to call to her goddess. She would protect her. “Gull—” she got out, but the evil bitch grabbed her tongue.

  “No, no. Sorry, sweetie. Not an option for you.”

  The blade flashed again and the Crow held Jourdan’s tongue in front of her eyes.

  Annalisa smiled and Jourdan realized the Crow hadn’t been lying. She was like her.

  “Your glamorous days are over, bitch.” The Crow walked off, tossing Jourdan’s tongue out a window as she passed it.

  Jourdan fell forward, too weak to keep the pressure on her neck . . .

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Hands beat against Stieg’s arms and neck and didn’t stop, forcing him to lift up and away from the body beneath him.

  He found a panting, nearly blue Erin Amsel buried underneath him, the Carrion hand caught between them. “Ew!” He rolled away from her.

  Erin pushed herself up on her elbows. “Really?” she barked, still trying to catch her breath. “The hand is freaking you out?”

  “Once I cut things off, I don’t play with them.”

  “What the hell happened?” she asked, sitting up and looking around.

  “Odin.”

  “What?”

  “Odin sent Brodie to grab that hand.” Disgusted, Stieg used two fingers to take the hand sitting in her lap and toss it to the side.

  “He . . .” Erin glanced off, and then she began to laugh. “That bastard.”

  “What?”

  “When we were on your balcony, I asked him if he was going to help.”

  “Well, that was dumb.”

  “Yes. I’m aware of that now. I forgot who I was dealing with.”

  Stieg sat up, his arms resting on his knees, and looked around. It was cold. Freezing cold. And he was in a tank top and jeans. Erin wasn’t much better off. “Where do you think we are?”

  “No idea.” She stood, wiping dirt off her jeans.

  “Where’s the map?”

  “What map?”

  Stieg closed his eyes. “Please tell me you brought the map.”

  Erin stared at him for an impossibly long time, head tilted, eyes narrowed in confusion. Then she blinked a few times and exclaimed, “Oh! The map!” She chuckled and reached into her back pocket. “Totally forgot about that.”

  “I really wished you’d gone to get that ADHD tes
t.”

  “Yeah.” She crouched down next to him, spreading the map out in front of them. “But then again . . . me on medication? Is that anyone’s idea of a good thing?”

  They studied the map.

  “Okay,” Erin said, glancing up at a distant, snow-covered mountain top. “Based on that mountain, I’m going to guess that we are—”

  “Shit.”

  “—right about—”

  “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Stieg grabbed Erin’s arm and yanked her back, pulling her around a nearby tree.

  “Shit, shit, shit, shit—”

  “Calm down,” Erin said softly.

  “I hate you.”

  “Calm. Down. Think of Texas.”

  “Texas? The line is ‘think of England.’”

  “Why would I think of England?”

  “Why would you think of Texas?”

  A snout came around the corner. A giant, giant snout. Quickly followed by an entire dog.

  A giant, giant dog.

  Wet, cold nostrils bigger than Stieg, sniffed, searching them out.

  Deciding he wasn’t going to die as doggie kibble—at least not without a fight—Stieg began to move forward, but Erin used her forearm against his chest to push him back and hold him there.

  He could have pushed her off, but she shook her head, mouthing, Wait.

  “Old Boy!” a harsh voice rang out. “Old Boy, come!”

  The dog woofed and Stieg ended up grabbing Erin before the dog’s puff of air sent them flying. He managed to keep them grounded, and the dog ran off to its owner.

  The earth beneath their feet shook as the giant stomped by, a giant deer slung over his shoulder, his dog running around his legs and barking.

  “You do know,” Stieg felt the need to point out, “we’re not in a forest . . . we’re just in the grass.”

  Erin glanced up. “Shit.” Her eyes widened and she ran. “Shit!”

  Stieg blew out a breath. “This can’t be good . . .”

  * * *

  Erin ran to where they’d been standing before that humongous dog appeared. She picked up the map, quickly folded it, and slid it into her back pocket. She was grateful for that, at least.

  “We have a problem,” she told Stieg when he caught up to her.

  “What problem?”

  “We need that Carrion hand to get back home with the sword that will save the world.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “It’s gone.”

  “What? Are you sure?”

  She pointed at a spot in the dirt. “Yes. That’s where it was when that dog showed—” She stopped talking, her breath catching. That wasn’t just a natural depression in the dirt. That depression had been placed there. By a dog paw. Her eyes focused past Stieg.

  “What?”

  “Shit!” Erin took off running, jumping up a few times in order to get a visual of where she was and her target. “I swear,” she told Stieg once he caught up to her, “I am never getting a dog!”

  They ran after the dog and its owner, thankfully hidden in the grass that to them seemed more like a forest.

  And the reason the grass was like that was because they were in Jotunheim. Land of the giants.

  It had never occurred to Erin that this would be where that stupid Carrion hand would take her, but it seemed that Hel was even more paranoid than her father was rumored to be. She wanted to make sure that if someone other than her Carrion used the hand to get into the Nine Worlds, whoever it was would end up being either stomped or eaten. Because the giants in Jotunheim were known for their taste in human flesh.

  So running after one of those giants? Definitely not one of Erin’s best ideas, but it wasn’t like she had any choice. She needed that stupid hand back!

  The giant made his way to a camp at the edge of an actual forest. The trees. Good God, the trees. The redwoods looked like toothpicks in comparison.

  The giant tossed down the dead deer, which turned out to be still sort of alive. It kicked and tried to get back up. The giant grabbed it by its antlers, put his foot against the animal’s back to hold it in place, and gave a sharp twist, killing it instantly.

  Stieg and Erin looked at each other, then as quietly as possible, backed up nearly a mile.

  “We are so fucked,” Stieg announced.

  Unfortunately, Erin couldn’t argue with that. “We need to figure out how to get in there and get that hand.”

  “How do we know the dog even has it?”

  “I saw it stuck between the pads of its paw.”

  Stieg held his hands out, like he was pleading. “How are we going to get it out of there?”

  “Wait till they’re sleeping?” When he threw his hands up, “I know, I know. Not my best plan.”

  “A really shitty plan!”

  “I can’t think of anything else. And we have to at least pretend we’re going home.”

  “Not if that giant catches us. He will eat us.”

  “I know. I know.” Erin began to pace. “Maybe,” she suggested, “we can find someone else to send us home.”

  “Like who?”

  “Light elves. Snorri Sturluson says they’re as beautiful as the sun. They can’t be too bad.”

  “It’s like you’ve never been to Hollywood.”

  “Good point.”

  “All right.” Stieg threw back his shoulders, cracked his neck . . . like he was psyching himself up. “We can do this.”

  “Can we?”

  “Okay. If we’re going to even attempt to make it through this, we can question plans, but we can’t always be negative. We’re both being negative.”

  Erin reached out, took his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “That you’re here. I was the only one supposed to be sacrificing myself for the common good. Fucking with Odin got you here.”

  “Odin deserved it.” Stieg sighed. “Sadly, he always deserves it.”

  “Well . . . I’m sorry, which is strange. I’m never sorry. Or rarely so.”

  Stieg stared down at her for so long she began to wonder why. “What?”

  “We’re gonna do this.”

  “Wait until they fall asleep and—”

  “Get back our hand.”

  Erin giggled.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It’s just funny when you say it like that.”

  * * *

  They had to wait until sundown, which sucked because it meant that it became even colder. They were actually lucky that they were Raven and Crow, because a normal human wouldn’t last two minutes in this world.

  Together, Stieg and Erin inched closer to the campsite, watching as the giant sat in front of a pit fire, sucking the marrow from the deer’s leg bone. He tossed a full thigh to the dog, and it trotted around with the meat in its mouth for a minute or two before settling down and eating.

  After that there was some burping, some drinking, a little farting, and then traveling into the trees to take care of personal business. Sadly, none of that was from the dog.

  Erin had to run off so she could gag some distance away. Stieg had to follow. Not because he was worried about her; he just needed to gag, too.

  The giant then sharpened his swords and knives, made a few arrows for his bow, and cleaned the spikes on the head of his mace. Finally, he pulled out his bedroll and settled down for the night. The dog went to sleep by his feet.

  Erin and Stieg moved closer, keeping silent, desperately trying to ignore the brutal wind blowing past them.

  Erin motioned for Stieg to hold his position while she made the final steps to the dog. She eased around it until she reached the feet. She got close, reaching up to grab the Carrion’s hand from between its pads just as the dog started dreaming. Its paws suddenly twitched, sending her flipping end over end.

  Stieg cringed, but didn’t go after her. They needed to get that stupid Key. He ran to the dog’s paws and did see the hand tucked tight betw
een the pads. It was so high up, though, he was surprised Erin had tried to reach for it. He couldn’t reach it and he was way taller than her.

  Shrugging, Stieg unleashed his wings, intending to fly up to get the hand. Yet in the silence of the surrounding land, the unleashing of his wings cracked through the air like a whip and the dog woke up, scrambling to its paws and facing Stieg.

  “Fuck,” he muttered seconds before big fangs tried to snatch him out of the air. He turned and flew off, the dog right on his ass.

  * * *

  Erin finally landed facedown in the dirt. When she got back to her feet, she watched in horror as Stieg shot by and then that goddamn dog charged toward her. She dropped to the ground, hands on her head, and the dog ran right over her. Thankfully, its paws missed her completely. Erin jumped up and watched Stieg zigging and zagging, trying to shake the beast loose, but the dog kept chasing, snapping at him with those massive jaws.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” Erin looked around, trying to find something—anything—to distract or stop the dog.

  That’s when she saw it. Sitting on the lowest branch, watching the antics; thoroughly enjoying itself.

  Erin whistled at it and black eyes focused on her, head turning one way, then another. She motioned to it with both hands. “Please, please, please,” she begged.

  But the black crow simply stared at her, unmoved by its tiny human namesake. Wondering what could get the bird on her side, Erin heard sniffing and looked up to see that the giant was now awake and glaring at her.

  “Human,” he said, before reaching down for her. “Ow! Little bitch,” he snarled when Erin stabbed one of his fingers with her blade.

  Now she was running, but she went right at the giant, running between his legs and around his right foot. She stopped there and quickly studied the giant’s fur boots. She found a seam and tore it open, then shoved her blade into where the Achilles should be on his ankle.

  The scream that followed told her she’d guessed right.

  The giant dropped to one knee and Erin stumbled back, the flood of blood nearly knocking her down.

  Unfortunately, what was a flood to her was simply a healthy amount to the giant. He wouldn’t die from it.

  Still on one knee, he turned, his fist raised. Erin ran backward, watching the fist coming toward her. But before it reached her, black wings swooped past, a painfully loud squawk startled the giant, and he dropped back as the bird flew at his head, right for his eyes.