The Undoing

  She shoved the Carrion’s weapon away, and rammed her blades into his eyes.

  He fell backward, screaming in pain, and Jace got on her feet and went after the Carrion holding on to Ski’s throat, his fingers decaying Ski’s flesh underneath.

  Without thought, only her rage, Jace rammed into the back of the Carrion and all three of them fell into the doorway headfirst.

  Kera watched her friend and Danski Eriksen disappear into the pit with one of the Carrion. She charged after them, sliding under one of the Helheim blades that slashed out at her.

  But by the time she reached the doorway, she hit a wall. Literally.

  The portal was gone and all that remained was a wall. She slammed her fists against it, screaming, “Jace!” But she knew her friend was gone.

  It took her a second before she realized Erin was right beside her. She’d tried to get to Jace, too. They’d both failed.

  Panting, they stared hard at each other. Not in anger. No, they saved that anger for her.

  Because she wouldn’t stop talking.

  Brianna’s skin lay at Gullveig’s feet, ripped so badly it was doubtful the god could repair it. Blood covered her from head to toe but still, her gold skin showed through. Then again, everything on her was gold. Her hair, her eyes, her nails.

  “Did you cunts think you could kill me?” Gullveig continued to rage at them all from the circle the Maids had trapped her in. “Did you think you could do what even your gods could not? They all tried and they all failed!”

  The portal out of this world and into another stood open, but the Maids were weakening now. They could hold the portal open, but they couldn’t get the bitch inside it. They were too weak to push her in. And everyone else was busy fighting either the remaining Carrion or the Mara.

  Yet Kera didn’t care. Her friend was gone, and Kera blamed herself. And she blamed Gullveig.

  Getting to her feet, Kera walked toward the god. The Ravens and Protectors kept the Carrion away from her. She didn’t run. Instead, she let her anger guide her. Her anger at the loss of Jace.

  Jace wasn’t the first battle buddy Kera had lost, but she was the one that tore at Kera’s soul worse than any of the others. And she let that anger move her through the fight going on around her, working only on instinct and hatred.

  As she passed a blood-covered Freida, Kera held out her hand and, without question, the Giant Killer tossed her most sacred weapon to her.

  Gullveig was still ranting. “I will bring Ragnarok down upon all of you! I will bathe in the blood of your kin and laugh in the ashes of your souls!”

  Kera moved up beside her, but before Gullveig could focus on her, Erin moved to the god’s other side and lashed out at her with her flame.

  Gullveig slapped that flame away easily. “Have you heard nothing I’ve said, you idiot twat? Have you heard nothing?”

  Her attention on Erin—who didn’t back down in the face of all that hatred and misery—Kera lifted the hammer high and, from the heavens, without her saying one word or asking the gods for anything, lightning slashed down and slammed into the weapon.

  Then Kera used all her strength and anger and sense of loss, and swung the hammer right at Gullveig’s big, gold head.

  It hit the god in the face and the power of it sent her flying back and through the portal.

  “Close it!” Vig yelled, because Kera couldn’t. Her power had left her as soon as the weapon made contact, and she dropped to her knees.

  The Maids quickly finished their chant, commanding the doorway to close. As it slammed shut, the Carrion and the Mara left. The Mara turning to smoke and disappearing back through the walls they’d eased through; the Carrion unleashing their leather wings, and going through the destroyed skylight.

  Freida took her weapon back, and Vig was there to lift Kera to her feet, his arms around her waist.

  She buried her face against his chest, the tears coming. “I lost her, Vig. I lost her.”

  Chloe’s hands were there, grasping Kera’s chin and pulling her around. Her leader looked deep into Kera’s eyes. “This isn’t done. We’ll get her back. I promise you that.”

  “From Hel?” Erin asked. “The gods couldn’t even get Baldur back.”

  “That was Odin,” Chloe was quick to remind her. “We’re not Odin. We don’t have his rules.” She looked at Kera again. “We will get her back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Ski woke up in a dank cave, with the sound of someone butchering meat turning his stomach. At least that’s what it sounded like. But when he looked all he saw was Jace on top of a dead Carrion, stabbing him over and over with his Hel blade.

  “Jace?”

  Her head snapped around, bloodred eyes locking on him.

  Ski slowly propped himself up on his elbows, but then Jace blinked and her eyes were a bright blue again.

  “Ski!” She left her Carrion victim and ran to his side, crouching beside him, her hand resting on his cheek. “Are you all right?”

  Ski didn’t understand. Usually, when Jace’s eyes were like that, when she was in a rage, the only thing that got her back to normal was killing and then sobbing or sleeping.

  But here she was, back to normal after he knew for a fact she’d snapped.

  “I’m fine,” he said, taking her hand, kissing her bloody knuckles. “Are you?”

  “Yeah. But I’m sorry I got us down here.”

  “You did what you had to do. I know our brothers and sisters will take care of Gullveig and that’s all that matters. I knew the risks.”

  She pressed her forehead against his, and they stayed like that for several minutes until a voice said, “Hel wants to see you, Crow and Protector.”

  A small troop of Carrion stood in the entrance of the cavern, staring down at them.

  Jace stood and held her hand out to Ski. He took it and got to his feet. Still holding hands, they walked past the Carrion and went to face Hel, daughter of Loki and ruler of the underworld.

  Kera sat at the table, her legs pulled onto the chair, her hand constantly wiping tears she hadn’t been able to stop for hours.

  It wasn’t that no one was doing anything.

  In fact, everyone was doing something.

  Even the Giant Killers and the Silent, two groups who cared for no one outside their Clans, were trying to contact their gods, as were the Ravens and the Isa. They were all doing what they could to get Jace and Ski back from Helheim.

  Of course, Kera had no doubt that self-concern was part of what motivated all the groups. If Jace and Ski could get trapped alive in Helheim until Ragnarok, what would stop that from happening to any of them?

  It was too terrifying for the Clans to think about. Unlike the Crows, they’d spent almost their entire lives becoming the warriors their gods wanted them to be so that one day they would feast in the Halls of Valhalla and join the battle during Ragnarok.

  So all the groups rushed back to their bases of operation and began to search for some way, any way, they could get a Crow and a Protector back from the underworld.

  That had been hours ago, though. It was nearly one in the morning and still nothing.

  Yardley put a cup of coffee in front of Kera and sat down at the table near Chloe and Betty.

  Brodie rested beside Kera’s feet and little Lev was asleep on Brodie’s back.

  And as soon as Kera thought about Lev, the tears started again.

  “Oh sweetie,” Betty said, as gently as the hard-ass agent could manage, “you have got to stop crying.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Yardley threw up her hands. “Maybe Erin’s right! We should all go down there and get her.”

  “So we can all be trapped alive in Helheim?” Betty asked.

  “Well, it’s better than sitting here, waiting for something to happen.”

  Brodie’s head suddenly went up, ears on alert. Her head turned one way, then another. But when her hackles rose the length of her back, Kera knew something was wrong.

/>   “Brodie, what is it?”

  The dog sat up and Lev fell on the ground. Before he could complain too much about the treatment, Brodie grasped the puppy by the back of the neck and trotted off with him in her mouth.

  They all sat there watching Kera’s dog disappear into the trees surrounding the Bird House. It wasn’t that Brodie had suddenly gone off; it was that she took Lev with her.

  “What’s Brodie doing?” Yardley asked.

  “I think she’s protecting Lev.”

  “Why?”

  Tears suddenly dried up, Kera admitted, “You know . . . that’s kind of what has me worried.”

  They were led over the Bridge of the Dead and to Hel’s hall.

  Jace had to admit, this wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be. She’d honestly expected Helheim to be the worst place ever, but she seemed to be confusing Hel’s domain with Satan’s.

  Instead of pits with fire, it looked like some parts of Iceland. There were mountains and waterfalls and thick forests.

  There were also a lot of dead people and, except for the Carrion, none of them seemed to be warriors.

  That’s why the Vikings didn’t want to come here. Not because they thought it would be filled with lakes of fire, but because there’d be no battles. No wild feasts with Odin and Thor. No joking around with Freyja. Or meeting past Clan sisters and brothers who would help prepare them for Ragnarok.

  Jace didn’t realize until this moment how much going to Asgard had meant to her. She didn’t need to go right now, of course. But she’d thought once she’d become a Crow that was where she’d end up on her second death. In Asgard, in battles every day, feasting every night. Maybe sneaking in some reading time here and there.

  Hel’s hall, which reached high into the dark sky above, was made of white marble and bright silver.

  The Carrion brought Jace and Ski into a large room with a big table; Hel was sitting at one end. And on her right sat a remarkably handsome warrior with a warm smile and gold armor.

  “Baldur,” Ski whispered, shocked at the sight of the famed god who had been killed due to Loki’s machinations and was the reason Loki was bound somewhere with poison dripping on him until Ragnarok came.

  Hel smiled at them. “Welcome! I have to say I’ve never had a Crow and a Protector here in my hall before. It’s a nice change of pace, isn’t it, Baldur?”

  “You can’t seriously be planning to keep them here, Hel.”

  “Why not? They came here of their own free will. Who am I to debate that point?”

  “Just send them back before Tyr comes here looking for one of his boys. You know how he gets.”

  “Yes. The lectures. He does like to lecture. But . . . and this is the important part, they’ve kind of ruined my fun.”

  “You call Gullveig fun?” Jace had to ask.

  “You didn’t have fun?”

  Jace pressed her head against Ski’s arm and muttered, “I’m getting angry.”

  “I thought,” Hel went on, oblivious, “that she was hilarious. Such fun, that one. But you naughty Crows . . . sending her into some random universe. That seems wrong.”

  Jace had to ask, “Are you planning on bringing her back?”

  “It would be cruel to just leave her out there in that netherworld, victim to whatever might be lurking in the darkness. You know, kind of like what you’ve done to your friends?”

  Jace felt a chill spread across the back of her neck, as if Death himself had placed his hand there. “What are you talking about?”

  “You. You left your friends to the whim of that man.”

  “What man?”

  “Your ex-husband, I think.” She leaned in and loudly whispered, “You should have killed him when you had the chance.”

  Laughing, she relaxed in her throne-like chair. “Now come. Join me for—”

  “Wait,” Ski cut in. “What are you saying?”

  “He’s coming to kill them. Your false prophet and his pathetic followers. I thought he would play a much more important role down the line, but it looks as if he has other plans. To kill your little Crow friends.”

  Baldur shook his beautiful head. “Oh Hel.”

  Jace heard the sadness in the god’s voice. The chastising. But he wasn’t going to do anything, either. No one was going to do anything.

  So her rage, it tore up her back and spread out through her body like a vicious sickness, and when she finally screamed—a scream so loud even the two gods in the room jumped—there was nothing, absolutely nothing Ski or anyone else could do to stop her.

  Erin had managed to cry alone in a bathroom and then put eyedrops in to clear up the redness so that no one had any idea how much Jace’s disappearance was gutting her. There had to be at least one of them who wasn’t having an open nervous breakdown about this.

  Even Rachel had been in her room crying for the last hour. Strange, since Jace had almost killed her when she’d punched her in the throat.

  But if there was one thing Erin was sure about, it was that there was no way they were leaving their favorite antisocial girl to live the remainder of her existence in goddamn Helheim.

  Erin came down the stairs, intent on heading back outside to again suggest to Chloe and Kera that they shouldn’t be waiting around for the other Clans to come up with something and should just move on this now. All of them. Maybe even Crows in nearby states like Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington could join them. The whole fucking West Coast Crows if need be!

  Erin was stepping into the foyer when she heard the light knock on the front door.

  Frowning, she walked over and opened it.

  A man she didn’t recognize stood there dressed all in black.

  “May I—” was the last thing Erin said before the bullet collided with her head.

  Knowing they might recognize him—everyone knew who he was these days, and he was sure these vile women were no different—Braddock had sent one of his younger parishioners in first. Once the gun went off, he stepped out of the shadows and into the house.

  The red-haired whore who had been shot lay crumpled on the floor. He stepped into the foyer and motioned to his people to get to work.

  Armed with freshly purchased automatic weapons and the buried ammo the agents never found, his parishioners charged silently into the house and began the mass cleansing of so much evil.

  Ski tried to grab Jace, but she’d already jumped on the table and, still screaming, she charged across it, right at a wide-eyed Hel.

  Hel stood and demanded, “What do you think you’re—”

  Jace tackled the god like she was a linebacker for the NFL, both dropping out of sight on the other side of the table.

  Ski ran over and saw that Jace was on top of Hel, punching her again and again. There was no blood, though. No sign that the blows were harming the god in any way.

  Hel simply seemed too stunned to actually fight back.

  The Carrion reached for Jace, but Ski pushed them back and then held out the Hel blade Jace had dropped when she’d tackled the god. A blade they hadn’t bothered to take from her because they’d never thought either of them would dare use it.

  He kept the Carrion at bay but mostly because they knew Jace wasn’t hurting their god.

  She wasn’t hurting her . . . until she was.

  Jace, in her rage, had grabbed hold of Hel’s dwarven-made breastplate and begun pulling at it.

  Shocked, Ski and Baldur watched Jace tear the thick metal from Hel’s body. And, as it came away, it pulled part of Hel with it.

  The goddess screeched in pain, and once Jace had the breastplate off, the stink of decay, disease, and pestilence rose up from the monster Loki had bred all those eons ago.

  Ski dry-heaved, Baldur turned his head and put the side of his fist against his nose, and Jace just kept screaming.

  Hel crossed her arms over her decaying chest and rolled to her side. That’s when Ski realized she was . . . embarrassed.

  Embarrassed about what she re
ally was. How she really looked under that beautiful armor. Her true self.

  But Jace didn’t care. Actual blood began to pour from her red eyes, and her entire body vibrated, she was so lost in her rage.

  Baldur grabbed Ski’s forearm and yanked him close. “Get her out.”

  “Where?”

  Baldur pressed his thumb against Ski’s forehead, and Ski immediately saw the hidden way out of Helheim.

  Ski stared up at the god. “If you knew . . . why didn’t you . . . ?”

  “I made an oath. As a god, I had to keep it. But you’re human. What honor do you have?”

  Ski opened his mouth to argue, but then said, “Good point. See ya!”

  Ski grabbed Jace’s hand and yanked her around the table. The Carrion were still there, ready to stop them, but with a wave of his hand, Baldur sent them flying.

  “Go!” Baldur called after them. “Never stop running! They’ll be coming for you!”

  Once outside, Ski looked back, and he saw that Baldur was right—a legion of Carrion poured from Hel’s hall to pursue them.

  So he ran, with Jace right beside him, and he didn’t look back again.

  “Those are gunshots,” Kera informed Chloe, Betty, and Yardley.

  “Here? Are you sure?” Chloe asked.

  “I was a Marine. I know gunshots when I hear them.”

  “I’ve been shot at,” Betty tossed in. “A lot. Those are definitely gunshots.”

  “With me Yardley.” Chloe motioned to Betty and Kera before unleashing her wings and heading to the roof entrance of the house.

  Kera indicated for Betty to go around the side, and Kera went in through one of the sliding glass doors at the back.

  The entire house was dark now. Someone had shut the electricity off.

  Reaching down, Kera pulled her blades out of the holster attached to her ankle and eased her way through the furniture of the TV room and out into the hallway.

  From the darkness, she watched two strangers meet in the middle of the hallway. One snarled, “I can’t find anyone.”