He exhaled through his nose, and he still didn't look happy. But he stepped back and, without saying anything, he lifted up the velvet rope so we could get by. The three of us hurried under his arm and into the club. Behind us, the others were protesting that they weren't being let in, but we ran on ahead.
SIXTY-SIX
The Red Raven had clearly latched onto the theme in its name and run with it. All the lights inside were dim red, and most of the accents were either black marble or feathered. Even the chandeliers in the front hall were made of black feathers.
The club itself was divided into multiple rooms surrounding a dance hall in the center, but the way the corridors weaved through the smaller offshoots--like the champagne room, an S&M dungeon, and a vampire-friendly blood bar--gave it an overwhelming labyrinthian feel.
"Where do we go from here?" Oona asked, and when she looked up at me, I could already see the light fading. The spell was wearing off.
The club was packed, all kinds of riffraff bumping into us as they squeezed by, and I knew that the dance floor would be the worst. That would be the last place someone like Velnias would want to be--surrounded by sweaty nobodies.
No, he would be above it all. Somewhere quieter, less crowded, where the elite immortals could rub elbows.
"We have to find a way into the VIP room," I decided.
"Where is that?" Oona asked.
"I don't know. We have to find somewhere they won't let us go."
I went on ahead, pushing through the crowd when I had to, with my eyes constantly scanning for any sign of important immortals or hints of where the more prestigious attendees might be hiding out.
As I walked, I ran my fingers along the cool stone surface of the walls. When my fingertips stumbled upon a subtle seam in the smooth exterior, I stopped short. The seam ran up and around, making a rectangular shape.
It was a door.
I slammed into it with all my might, not stopping even when Oona demanded to know what I was doing. But the door gave much easier than I'd thought, and I tumbled forward into a closet. As I fell on the floor, bottles of cleaning supplies and a mop fell down around me.
"Mal, what are you doing?" Oona repeated as she helped me to my feet and out of the closet.
"I don't know. Secret doors usually lead to secret offices or something," I muttered.
Oona closed the door behind me, as best as she could, considering it didn't have a handle. "We need to come up with a better plan. Right now all we're doing is drawing attention to ourselves."
"Shit." Asher's arm was suddenly on my waist, and he leaned over to whisper in my ear, "We gotta go."
"What? Why?" I asked, but I saw as soon as I looked back over my shoulder.
He was tall enough that he was head and shoulders above most of the other attendees, and the way his long sheet of white-blond hair glowed under the red lights made him a beacon. It was Arawn, a powerful underworld demon who had sicced one of Velnias's top bodyguards after us the last time Asher and I had come to the Red Raven.
And he was looking right at me.
Asher's arm was still around me, attempting to steer me away from Arawn, but I didn't budge.
"What are you doing?" Asher asked, his voice a hushed panic.
"Arawn will know where Velnias is," I said.
"Yeah, and he'll probably send another crazed Pischacha after us," Asher argued. "We don't have time to deal with that."
I looked back at Asher, so he could see how serious I was. "He might be the only shot I have at finding Velnias. I have to risk it."
He let out an exasperated sigh, but he didn't try to stop me as I slipped out from his arm.
Arawn turned away, walking in the opposite direction, and I chased after him. The crowd was fighting me, pushing back against me so I was like a salmon going upstream, but I kept my gaze locked on the glow of his hair.
Behind me I could faintly hear Asher and Oona calling for me, but I didn't want to slow down. I couldn't lose Arawn.
I finally made it so I was almost close enough to touch him, but I got stuck between a squawking Aswang and a reptilian demon. When I finally squeezed through, I dashed ahead, only to slam right into a colossal ogre.
When I tried to go around him, he put his big meaty hand on my shoulder. I'd barely glanced at him before, but now that I really appraised him and took in his uniform--black T-shirt, black jeans, earpiece glowing in his ear--I realized that he was security.
"Velnias wants to see you," he said in a rumbling monotone.
SIXTY-SEVEN
Velnias's office wasn't exactly as I had pictured it, but it was very close.
The security guard had rounded up Asher and Oona before taking us to the elevator, and the four of us had ridden up to Velnias's office in a tense silence. The elevator opened right into his office, where he sat behind the desk.
It was a large space, but many of the style choices made it feel very cave-like. The back wall and the ceiling were made of this strange red stone that appeared to be left in its natural shape in one solid chunk. It was coarse and bumpy, and curved over us like a wave.
The furniture was sparse, but all of it appeared comfortable and expensive: black leather chairs, a bar made of marble, a desk of dark mahogany. Across from the desk was a massive window that gave a view of the main dance floor and the bar fifty feet below.
What I was most surprised about in Velnias's office was the big-game-hunter decor. I'd expected him to have more of a cosmopolitan style, but there were zebra-skin rugs on the floor and heads mounted on the wall. Most of them were animals, like the tamandua chifres, ennedi tiger, and thunderbird, all carefully labeled with their genus and species. But there was one in particular that stopped my heart cold.
Right above Velnias's desk was a humanoid head. Throbbing veins bulged under his dark skin, with the one in the center of his forehead looking like it was about to burst. His blood-red eyes stared straight open, and his mouth was open to show off his rows of pointed teeth.
The plaque underneath read:
CORMAC KAUR
PISCHACHA
He had worked for Velnias. He'd been the one who grabbed Asher and me the last time we were at the Red Raven. He had meant to kill us, I think, but I had managed to get the best of him, and I got him to give up a name that led us to find Tamerlane Fayette.
Cormac was a flesh-eating demon, so I didn't feel too bad about his death, but I couldn't help but wonder if Velnias had killed him as a direct result of my actions.
"Welcome, welcome, have a seat!" Velnias spread his arms wide, then motioned to the three chairs across the desk from him.
The ogre that had brought us up here waited back by the elevator door. A three-headed demon dog with leathery black skin lay sleeping near the desk, but I was certain that it would wake up instantly if Velnias directed it to attack us. So despite Velnias's cheery tone, I knew it was best that we all comply as much as we could.
"Can I get you anything to drink?" Velnias offered as we sat down.
"We're okay," I said, answering for all of us because I didn't trust anything that he would give us to drink.
"Thank you," Oona added, evidence that she was pathologically polite.
"Of course. Let me know if you change your mind. I am many things, but a gracious host is the one I take the most pride in." He leaned back in his chair. "Well, not the most. I have a few other hobbies that I take quite seriously."
As I glanced around at all the taxidermy, my stomach rolled in revulsion. "Yeah, I can tell."
"So, we should probably get the introductions out of the way. I am Velnias, owner of this establishment and head of the Kurnugia Society." Velnias then pointed to me. "And you are Malin Krigare, Valkyrie-in-training, daughter of Marlow, and general troublemaker." He wagged his finger between Oona and Asher. "The other two I'm less familiar with."
"Oona Warren. I'm her friend." She kept it short, deliberately leaving off her sorcery skills in hopes that he would underestimate her.
"Ash
er Varja." Asher sat in a chair with one leg crossed over his knee, scowling at Velnias. "Do you want me to spell that for you so you can get it right on your plaque?"
Velnias actually threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, no, no, no. There will be no death tonight, not for anyone. I invited you here, and as I said, I'm nothing if not a gracious host."
"When you say 'invited us,' do you mean 'us' as in everyone, or 'us' as in Malin in particular?" Oona asked, referring to my earlier assertion that Velnias wanted me to be here tonight.
"Both, I suppose," he admitted.
"So you did invite me here?" I asked pointedly.
"Yes," Velnias said. "I thought it was time we get everything cleared up about Marlow so you can stop poking around and causing trouble for my men."
"Where is Azarias?" I asked. "Did you kill him?"
"No, he's around here somewhere. He has work to do." Velnias leaned forward, resting his arms on his desk. "We all do, really, which is why I wanted to talk it over with you. So we could all move on and get to the things we have to do."
"Did you send Azarias to seduce my mother?" I asked.
"I did. And when that didn't work fast enough, he employed a love spell, and that finally did the trick," he explained.
I shook my head in disbelief. "Why? What could you possibly gain from that?"
"How often do you think about predestination?" Velnias asked abruptly. "Any of you? I bet it's not very often."
"It comes up from time to time," I replied cagily.
"Good on you." Velnias looked genuinely impressed. "Most beings don't think about it at all. It's like oxygen--it makes all life possible, but since we can't see it, we don't worry about it. That is, of course, unless we don't have any left. Predestination won't run out, but it will kill you in the end."
"So what was your plan?" I asked. "Were you hoping to bribe Marlow into not killing you when your name came up?"
"You're thinking too small," he corrected me. "What life is it, being a draugr on the run? Hiding out and always looking over your shoulder, afraid of the Riks or even other jealous or brainwashed immortals? No, that's not enough."
"Is that why you had Marlow let Tamerlane Fayette go? So you could see what would become of a draugr?" I asked as I tried to understand his motivation.
"Tamerlane? I had nothing to do with that." He held his hands up with the palms out toward me. "Your mother did that all on her own, long before I'd even heard of her or Tamerlane.
"But we're getting ahead of ourselves," he went on. "For a very long time--centuries, I imagine--immortals have bucked at the idea of predestination. Call it fate or destiny or whatever you will, but to me it only ever sounded like one thing: a prison. I was trapped in it, unable to get off, caught in an infinite loop of decisions already decided by someone--or something--else."
"So you believe that every choice you've made was written by someone else? And not just your choices, but everyone's?" I asked, not hiding the skepticism in my voice. "Every senseless murder or genocide? The abuse of innocent children and animals? The extinction of entire species like the kakapo or the woolly mammoth? That was all going according to plan?"
"Every decision made here on earth since the Valkyries were created and the Evig Riksdag started giving out orders has been predetermined," Velnias said firmly. "How long in advance our fates are written, I don't know. But, yes, that is the only way I believe that any of this makes sense."
"Hold on," Oona interjected. "So you think that the Evig Riksdag is in control of the world and you're fighting against them? That doesn't make sense. Why would they let you do that?"
"Let's be clear--the Riks isn't in control of even half as much as they think they are," Velnias said. "They're merely accountants, going over the books of the world to ensure they are always balanced. They are interpreting the data, the equations that they can see. They are not the ones writing them initially."
"Who is?" Asher asked.
"There are theories, but I can't say for certain," Velnias said. "The good news is that it ultimately does not matter.
"For a long time, life was considered to be a tapestry, woven by three fates who saw all," Velnias elaborated. "They were always weaving, always working, and the tapestry would never be complete. Now imagine if one thread got loose, near the end where they weaved and worked. Imagine that someone started tugging on it, pulling and pulling until eventually it came free and the whole tapestry was undone. What would happen next? That's what I aim to find out."
"What exactly does this have to do with Marlow?" I asked.
Velnias smiled at me. "She was the loose thread. I only asked that someone give her a little pull."
SIXTY-EIGHT
The self-satisfied grin on Velnias's face faded some when none of us reacted. Inside, my blood was boiling as I listened to him talk about my mother like she was defective machinery.
Even as the defensive anger grew inside me, wrapped around my own confused love for Marlow, a cold thought hit me: He was right. Valkyries were nothing more than tools for the gods, and she had been broken.
But since Velnias seemed to be in a mood for confession, I didn't want to interrupt him. I kept my expression as impassive as I could, digging my fingers into the arm of the chair for some relief from the nauseating anger.
"It had been clear to me for a while that Valkyries were the key," Velnias went on. "That was one of the main reasons that I campaigned to lead the Kurnugia Society. I knew it would put me in close proximity to the Evig Riksdag, and, in turn, with Valkyries. They were the wielders of the sword of fate. I had to find one with a weakness that I could exploit."
"How did you find Marlow?" I asked in a surprisingly even tone.
"Bram--or Tamerlane, as you knew him--came to me some weeks ago with her name," Velnias explained. "After doing my own research, I agreed with him. She was desperate to find meaning in her life.
"I sent Azarias in with false prophecies in hopes of getting her more unstable and more trusting of him," he went on. "While the instability wasn't hard to achieve, the trust was near-impossible, not until we implemented the love spell.
"I'd chosen Azarias because his mother was a siren and his father was an incubus. He had a natural appeal to him that most beings couldn't resist, but I must say this for Marlow--she was as strong-willed as they come." For a moment Velnias looked impressed by that.
"How did you break her?" I asked.
"She was broken when I got to her," Velnias said with an indifferent shrug. "And if I'm being honest, the love spell got her to trust Azarias, but it was her own desperation that really drove her over the edge. She so badly wanted to believe she was good and she was a hero that she didn't see how she was becoming a villain."
I swallowed hard, quelling the sadness and nausea that wanted to rise up. Everything he was saying so far sounded true, even the parts I hated to admit about her. It would be easy to blame her shortcomings on Azarias and Velnias, but the alcoholism, her rather abusive opinions on child-rearing, letting Tamerlane Fayette live--those were all things she'd done on her own, long before any demon or his minion got their claws into her.
If I had been hoping for an excuse for her behavior, I knew now that I would never find one.
"How did you get involved with Ereshkigal?" Oona asked, keeping the conversation on track while I struggled to process everything Velnias was telling us.
"Ereshkigal?" Velnias shook his head. "I've never spoken to her. My only part was creating a Valkyrie so unpredictable and off-kilter that she would kill who she wasn't supposed to and wouldn't kill who she'd been told to. I needed to turn her into pure chaos, and that would be enough."
"So you don't know anything about Ereshkigal?" Asher asked, sounding dubious.
"I imagine that I've heard many of the same things you have," he admitted with a vague wave of his hand. "She wants to unleash the underworld, to command everyone to their knees before her, and I applaud her efforts. I hope she's successful in dethroning the Eral
im after all these centuries. But I am not working for her. I refuse to bow to anyone."
"How do you know that you're free now?" Oona asked pointedly. "You seem to be going on the assumption that everything you've done since you've gotten involved with Marlow has been veering off the track that destiny put you on. But how do you know that are you aren't behaving exactly as you were always meant to?"
"Because I am destroying the Evig Riksdag and everything the gods have spent all this time building," Velnias said. "Why would the fates weave their own destruction into their tapestry?
"But ultimately, I don't suppose it really matters," he elaborated. "Either I am doing what I was meant to do and I can't veer off course, or I'm destroying the cage that holds me."
"Why are you telling us all this? Why not kill me?" I asked.
"I'm telling you because I wanted to put a stop to you harassing my clientele and my employees. And I'm not killing you because I gave my word tonight that no one would die here, and I might be a demon, but my word is my bond." His smile deepened. "Besides, I want everyone to know when the Evig Riksdag falls that I had a hand in it."
He spoke to us a bit longer, not really saying much beyond bragging about how strong and capable he was for outsmarting everyone and everything. But soon he grew bored and dismissed us, saying he had fun to attend to.
Just before we left, though, he stopped us. "Oh, and if I ever see the three of you in my club again, I will kill you." He smiled broadly. "But tonight, have fun. Live a little before the world ends."
SIXTY-NINE
The sun was beginning to rise, and I couldn't sleep.
Asher lay beside me, sleeping, and I listened to the sound of him breathing as I watched the sky slowly lighten through my window blinds. I counted each breath he took, focusing on that in a vain attempt to keep my thoughts from racing through everything Velnias had told us.
There was a lot that he had said that sounded true, or at least true enough. I didn't think he'd lied, but that didn't mean he couldn't be wrong.
But the thing I kept going back to, poking at it like a fresh bruise I couldn't leave alone, was: Had I ever made a choice myself? Did I really love Asher, or was I just designed to feel that way? What about Quinn? Or Oona?