Asatru

  ***

  “How did you ever get in to all of this?” I queried Armada as he lit taper candles that littered the circumference of the room. They highlighted the table in the corner I had sat at the other night, which now had only two chairs resting, waiting for us. A sudden shiver and sense of apprehension struck me. I was standing now in the middle of his shop floor, and he had just locked the door behind us to offer privacy. I had arrived just as he had.

  “I like to think the strange and supernatural finds me.” He replied jokingly. “Speaking of Rachel, I was worried I might miss you, I was running later than I expected.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “I hope I didn’t pull you away from anything important.”

  “Just an old friend and I passing by in the street. No trouble.” Armada dismissed.

  “Thank you for seeing me. I know it’s late but since the last time I saw you I have been dreaming…..something different.” I explained to him.

  “What are you dreaming now Rachel?” He pushed as he descended the small step he was using to light the candles.

  “It’s strange. So different….” I started but wasn’t sure if I should share everything.

  “What’s different?” He cocked his head to the side and I thought if I wasn’t honest, I probably would be picked up on it by him, or at least not get the most out of my time with him.

  “I’m inside a room. It’s dark and I can see the door.”

  “The same as the one you saw here last time.” He stated clarifying the circumstance.

  “Yes, wood, thick, old. I feel like there is something behind it. Something I need to see.” I presented.

  “Does it have a handle? A lock?” But when he asked me, I couldn’t get a firm image in my minds eye.

  “I can’t remember. That’s why I’m here. I think last time you put me under it shook something out from my subconscious. I want…..I need to see more.” He nodded when I said this and turned to continue his business for a moment before asking anything further.

  “You didn’t bring Sabian this time.”

  I paused, not sure how to explain. “Sabian has ideas about me, why I am here and what happened. I just don’t want him hanging over me, waiting, interpreting things for me.” The words stung as I said them. I felt it was a betrayal of a kind, my being here, saying that. “I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong, but I just want it ….”

  “…to be quiet.”

  “Exactly.” I sighed relieved he was taking what I was saying on board.

  Armada took my hands. “My dear, this, I can do for you.”

  I started to nervously fish around in my bag. “I brought money. I don’t know if it’s enough.”

  “Keep your money.” He stopped me. “I don’t need your money. I want to help. I feel like you have so much to offer Rachel. So much potential if we can just get to the bottom of what is happening for you. Let’s just see if we can do this. Shall we begin?”

  “Potential for what?” I moved over and took a seat at the table waiting for his answer.

  “Well, that remains to be seen.” He took a seat across from me. “Take my hand.” He offered me his left hand, and held out the clear crystal for me to take in my other. I took it and squeezed, beginning the breathing he showed me. He gave an approving turn of his lips and closed his eyes. “Let your mind blank and breathe slowly. Slowly in and out. That’s it. Let the tension release. Close your eyes when you are ready and tell me what you see.” I immediately obeyed his instruction.

  “I see the door.” I said immediately.

  “Tell me about the door.” I heard Armada’s voice.

  “Like I said. It’s thick, dark wood, it smells musty.”

  “What is the rest of the room like?” He inquired.

  “There is no rest of the room. Only darkness and the door.”

  “Where is the light coming from. The light that lets you see the door.” Armada qualified sensing my confusion.

  “I…. don’t know…somewhere away from me. It’s very dim.”

  “Is there light coming from behind the door?”

  “No. No it’s very dark. Darker than the room.”

  “Is there a handle to the door?”

  “Yes. Round, but I don’t want to touch it.” I felt a tension and excitement take me simultaneously.

  “Why not? What will happen if you touch it Rachel?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t like it. There’s something wrong.” I tensed further.

  “Take a breath. Relax. You are right here with me. Breathe, slow things down. There isn’t anything to worry about. You don’t have to touch the door.” Armada’s encouragement brought me back into a sense of security. I really wanted to open that door, tonight. Right now.

  “Ok. But I want to.” I admitted.

  “Not yet. Give yourself a moment.” Something growled inside me when he tried to delay me.

  “I need to open it.” I sounded more demanding than I wanted to.

  “Then why do you fear it?”

  “There is something inside it.”

  “You mean behind the door?”

  I felt a rise in confidence and my body tingled. “It’s a place I’ve been keeping things.”

  “What things?”

  My heart rate dropped and my breathing stabilised. “Things, parts of myself.”

  I felt Armada nod. “Yes Rachel. You are blocking off parts of yourself. If you put them in there, you can take them out again. You can control it. Is there a lock on the door.”

  “No lock. Don’t need it.”

  “You are just waiting to open it then.” Even as he spoke I became suddenly aware of a sound.

  “Shh.” I commanded him.

  “What is it?” He whispered.

  “Can you hear that?” I turned my hand with the crystal to face downwards and rest on the table.

  “No. What can you hear?” He probed again.

  “Scratching.” I felt myself mirror the scratching with my hand on the table, almost like a cat kneading its paws. The crystal fell to the table as I used my nails against the surface. I then felt Armada’s fingers become tense in my other hand.

  With his voice tinted with emerging anxiety Armada asked me to be clearer. “What type of scratching?”

  “Scratching at the door.”

  “What is it, scratching at the door?” But scratch, scratch…was all I could focus on. “Rachel, don’t get lost on me. What’s scratching at the door?”

  I gasped involuntarily “I can see it.”

  “What?”

  “Through the crack under the door.”

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s a hand.” I felt a joyous rush, though was sure that wasn’t what I was supposed to feel.

  “A hand? Whose hand?”

  “Scratching, trying to get out.” I mumbled and smiled.

  “Whose hand is it?”

  “I don’t want to say….” My voice sounded different.

  “Rachel. What does it look like?”

  “Dead. It looks dead and gray with red nails. It’s reaching…”

  Armada was trying to let my other hand go completely now, but I dug into it. “Whose hand is it? Is it someone you know?”

  “I think it is you Rachel. Part of you that you locked away.”

  I nodded before adding to the image. “There’s dirt all over it.”

  Armada was almost free of my hold. “Anything else?” He asked trying to sound calm, but I could tell otherwise.

  “I can see the second hand. Scratching under the door. Making space in the dirt.”

  “For what?”

  “Space to get out.”

  “Not until you’re ready Rachel.” He comforted, but I flinched at that I saw next. “What is it now?”

  “The picture on the finger.”

  “There’s a picture?”

  “A tattoo.”

  “Of…?” He audibly gulped and part of me d
eep inside laughed at his childish fear. He claimed to know so much. Shouldn’t he have seen this as well.

  “Three Triangles, all linked together.”

  “A Valknot.” I sensed his whole body stiffen, and hear an absence of his breathing.

  “I can only just see the second hand.” I continued, but he didn’t want to let me.

  “Let it go back Rachel. We are going to have to come back to the here and now. Come back, away from the door and let’s explore this together.”

  “I can’t. I have to open it.”

  “Don’t open the door Rachel. You were scared and worried to before. Don’t open the door until you’re ready. And that time is not now.” His hand broke free from mine finally, but without opening my eyes, I slammed my hand back on the table, trapping his arm in my grasp.

  “It’s alright. I can do it.” I enthused.

  “No Rachel. Don’t open the door. I don’t think what’s inside is what you think it is.”

  “It’s answers. All my answers.”

  “Rachel. Stop!” But my mind was already extending my arm to grasp the handly, already turning it.

  “Let me go.” He ordered. I ignored him of course. “No. Stop.” I heard him pleading.

  I felt the handle, solid in my hand. Felt like coming home. I finished turning the handle, threw open the door and waited.

  For a moment there was nothing but black nothingness.

  I held my breath until – bam, it flew straight at me ,black eyes and gray skin….looking like a cross between me and the thing I had seen in the mirror. It was angry, screeching.

  Gasping, I held my hands out to defend myself, but it wasn't possible. The thing stuck behind the door, latched on to me, bit into me and then there was nothing. No pain, a feeling of wholeness. I closed my eyes and let her take me, drain me. I was being re-awakened.

  There was a knock on the door and my eyes opened.

  The look on Armada’s face said it all. In almost slow motion I saw him open his mouth to yell at whoever was at the door. Call for help? I don’t think so. One hand of mine flew to his mouth, the other behind his head, and without exerting too much effort at all, I broke his neck. I gently let him slide to the floor as I heard a familiar voice call out.

  “Armada.” Sabian! “I lost my phone, are you in? I need to talk to you.” The door rattled and I hunched with the still warm body of Armada in my arms watching. Although I held my breath, it wasn’t from fear, just so I could hear properly. Fear was something I never relished and had hated feeling through Rachael. Disgusting, useless habit. I knew what would happen if he saw me. Sabian was going to have to die. A shame really, as far as followers went, he was perfect. Loaded, trusting, just disturbed enough to lead where I needed him to go.

  After a few minutes he left, and I perched myself on both heels, letting Armada’s head wobble in my lap. I let him slump to the floor and closed his eyes. Half walkers. That’s what I called people who had some idea of the darkness around them, but didn’t really know what they were doing.

  I rose to my feet and took a look at myself. I was pissed. This body was hungry, dressed in some satin blue number and pretty ballet flats. Well, I knew what I was taking care of first, at least after I burned the place to the ground.

  I set the place ablaze, and took off down an alley, stretching the muscles I hadn’t had a chance to exercise in what felt to be forever. I wasn’t used to taking a back seat. Damned Uther. I was so close to grabbing Jonah and taking him to the safe house when he turned up in that stupid cliché white van and taken the boy. I could have taken him out too if it hadn’t been for the others tracking me.

  That was one of the downfalls of being corporeal, anytime I exerted my strengths they could see me. Any other time, I drifted like any of the mortals or half walkers. I was able to track down the gifted humans who had something to offer us in the future – the ones actually in danger anyway. Every once in a while parents would realise what they had on their hands. Bless ADD and ODD – it was letting lots of them get away with murder. That, poor social standards and a failing justice system. I loved living in this time. Better than any of the others I had experienced over the last few thousand years. Much more liberating. I smiled to myself. Once this job was done, I had the pick of them for my service over time. My smile faded. I would have been done and living it up somewhere warm by now if I hadn’t become temporarily – displaced - by Uther.

  Uther drugged me, exorcised my mind, but succeeded only in trapping it. The body I had taken had fought back well, acted on instinct. At least she didn’t remember me. After 40 odd years of working her body as mine, I guess very little than automatic remained.

  I got back to the apartment, and ate anything vaguely meat related in the fridge. Fuck I was hungry. What had she been doing to me?!

  A scent grabbed me and I followed it to the couch. Sam’s jacket. I picked it up and inhaled. I suppose he would do. If his jacket was here, that must mean he was here.

  I dropped the jacket back down and ventured to the bedroom. There he lay bare chested in the moonlight, the sheet barely covering him. Maybe there was time to play before I drained him and changed my clothes into something dark and more befitting me. He stirred.

  “Rachael?” he asked after my silhouette.

  “Yes baby. It’s me.” I tried to soften my voice into something more meek. I sauntered over to the bed and traced my fingers down the line of his body.

  “I let myself in and saw your note. Everything OK?”

  “Just perfect.” I purred and climbed on top of him. He seemed surprised, but certainly happy to see me, to feel me.

  I definitely had time to play, then I could get on task. I needed two things to get through the job though, and keep myself safe and sound. To restore my strength and power I needed warm blood to bathe and drink, and I had to get that box….