Not My Apocalypse (13 page)

Baldur pushed open the gate and looked at the space beyond it with longing.

“Maybe I’ll come by again sometime,” I offered. “I mean, if it doesn’t piss Hel off.”

“I don’t think it would anger her. We very rarely get visitors, and when the other gods do come they always ask her for something she is unwilling to give. I think she might like having a visitor who wants nothing from her.”

“Huh,” I said as I thought it over. “I guess I can see that.” I turned to leave and remembered to thank him for the gift. I patted my pocket where the small box was but didn’t pull it out. I didn’t want to tempt myself with opening it, not until I was out of this realm and back on Earth.

Chapter 11

On the other side of the gate it was dark with a hazy glow, like fog in the moonlight. More horror-movie shit. As I walked through the haze it got thicker until I couldn’t see anything except the ground about a foot in front of me. The rocky ground changed, getting softer, and then I started to see grass. The hazy fog thinned out and I saw that I was in a field filled with mounds. Some of the mounds were small bumps in the dirt but there were a few big enough that they looked like hills. Under those mounds were the bodies of the dead, and wandering around above them were their ghosts. There weren’t many. This was an old burial ground, and as time passes, most ghosts stop visiting Earth. The trapped ghosts eventually get free and once they are, they usually stay in whatever afterlife is waiting for them.

Half the ghosts floated over to me, curious. “You have been touched by Baldur.” They reached their hands out, some pulling back at the last second, a few brushing their cold fingers over me.

“You carry a sword of power.”

“You have Baldur’s blessing.” They whispered and sighed.

“I went to give him a letter from his dad,” I told the ghosts. “Can you tell me where your gateway is? I need to get to America.”

“We’ll show you,” one of them said. He was dressed like a warrior with gold and jewels on top of his armor. Some kind of important chieftain, maybe even a king. He’d probably been flitting between here and the afterlife for over a thousand years. He wasn’t one of the dead chosen for Valhalla. Those spirits very rarely visit Earth, and this one looked like he’d been hanging around the burial mounds for most of the time he’d been dead. I didn’t blame him. Hel was pretty gloomy, and aside from the ghost horses, ghost wolves, and Baldur’s suite of rooms, it looked like a boring place. It might be okay to visit once in a while, but I sure the fuck wouldn’t want to live there.

I followed the chieftain as he led me to the gateway. A few other ghosts went with us. I had myself a little ghost escort. The gateway was at the top of one of the biggest mounds. I thought it would be tough to climb and I might have needed to ask the ghosts to help me, but my powers decided to kick in, so it was a breeze. Agility and nice big demon claws make climbing a steep hill easy. From the gateway I went to Saint Louis Number One. I knew I needed to return Excalibur, but I couldn’t get to Avalon on my own, so I had to meet up with Colin and tell him to ask his mom or maybe the Morrigan to let me back into Avalon to put the sword back where it belonged. I touched the end of the handle. Damn, I didn’t want to give it up.

It was bright daylight here, and humid as fuck. It was a shock after the cool dark underworld. There weren’t many ghosts around but I found a crow nearby and asked her if she would get a message to Stefan for me. He’d be the easiest to contact, through his raven. The crow agreed and flew off to pass the message along.

I seriously considered leaving the cemetery to find a place with some fucking air conditioning so I could get out of this heat and humidity. I found a bench partially shaded by the tomb next to it and sat down in the slightly cooler spot. Then I remembered what had gotten me into this shit in the first place. I closed my eyes and focused on making myself cooler. You’d think someone who’s part demon and has visited Hell wouldn’t have a problem with a ninety-something-degree day, but it’s different on Earth. Heat and cold don’t bother me as much as other people, but it does still bother me if the temperature is extreme enough. Plus, like they say, it’s not the heat but the humidity.

The cold answered me, at first feeling like a gentle breeze on my skin, then getting cooler and cooler. I wondered if I could make it snow in New Orleans in the middle of summer. That would be pretty fucking awesome. I focused harder, pulling on whatever was inside me that let me do this. Colder and colder, enough to make me shiver.

“What you think you doin’?”

My eyes popped open and Marie Laveau stood there, glaring at me. “Practicing,” I told her. She’d appointed herself as a guardian of this cemetery and she was wary of me.

“Do your practicing somewhere else, not in my cemetery.”

“It’s not hurting anyone.”

“I’m not arguing with you.” She kept glaring.

I sighed. “Fine, I’ll stop.” I let the cold go and it started to warm up.

“You start causing problems, I throw you out.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not causing problems. I’m just waiting for some friends. When they get here, we’ll talk for a little while and then we’ll leave, okay?” She kept glaring at me so I added, “Baron Samedi is fine with me coming here, as long as I don’t stay long. You can go ask him if you don’t believe me.” She damn well knew he didn’t mind me visiting.

“I got my eyes on you, little demon.” She pointed a finger at me, then vanished.

It kept warming up and I tried to get more of myself into the shade. Excalibur’s pommel poked at me so I took her off and laid her across my lap. Shit, I hoped no tour groups wandered by. I’d have to hope they’d think it was a fake sword. Freaking out a bunch of tourists sounded fun, but I really didn’t need the hassle. Shifting around again, I felt the tiny box in my pocket. Oh yeah, Baldur’s gift. Even though I was in a cemetery, I was outside of Hel and this counted as Midgard.

I pulled the box out and studied it. Just a simple wooden box painted white, about the size of a ring box but not as tall. It had a little latch keeping it closed but thankfully no lock, so I didn’t have to worry about a key. What had Baldur given me? Only one way to find out. I flipped up the little latch and opened the lid. For a second I saw a bright light, then it felt like the same light flashed inside my head.

I saw what I was capable of. Not a prophecy, not what I was going to do, the way I was supposed to take over the world and lead my father’s army at Armageddon and shit. I saw what my powers would be and what I could do with them. It was… staggering. Fucking awesome. I wouldn’t always be inadequate; my powers wouldn’t always be so fucking sporadic.

When the flash was over, all I could do was sit there with my mouth open. It hadn’t shown me how to tap into my powers, but I knew what to aim for. I wanted to try them all out now, but I knew Marie Laveau would come back and give me shit if I tried. I thought about going to Gettysburg, which has about the same amount of energy and would shield me, but I had to wait for Stefan. Not being able to try out all this shit I’d seen drove me nuts. To distract myself, I checked in on Mew-Mew.

He wasn’t on one of the Paths, so the view came in clear. He was standing on something, looking over at a huge stag. He felt me in his head and paused midsentence.
I’m gathering some stuff for you. Did you give Excalibur back yet?

Not yet. Gathering what?

I’m making you a sword.

What?

I almost have all the stuff I need. I’ll explain when I get back. But you might want to hang on to Excalibur for a while, just in case someone else tries to end the world.
He turned his attention back to the stag and closed our connection.

The talk about making a sword distracted me enough that I’d forgotten to tell him about Baldur’s gift. Just as I was about to reopen the link, a crow started calling, telling me Stefan was on his way. I put the empty box in my pocket and put the belt holding Excalibur back on and went to meet Stefan at the gateway. He brought the others with him and I asked Colin if he would get someone to take me back to Avalon so I could return the sword. Despite what Mew-Mew said, the sword wasn’t mine and I wanted to prove I wasn’t greedy and wasn’t going to try to keep it. I’d borrowed it to fight Fenrir, and that was all.

He came back only a few minutes later with the Morrigan. “I can return the sword for you,” she said. “If you truly want to return it.”

“I’ll be honest, I want to keep it. I keep thinking it might be able to hurt my father, might be able to stop him from beating me. But keeping the sword is something
he
would do. I was only supposed to use this to fight Fenrir. I shouldn’t keep it anymore.”

She gave me a crooked smile. “There were some that feared you would try to keep the sword.”

“Nope. Take it back.” I pulled off the belt with the scabbard. Of course some of them thought I would try to keep it. I was supposed to be evil and selfish and shit. Proving them wrong gave me a dark satisfaction. I held the sword out to her.

“Are you certain?”

“Just fucking take it and put it back where it belongs.” And Mew-Mew said he was making me a sword. How a cat was going to make me a sword, I didn’t know, but I believed him. Mew-Mew never lied to me.

The Morrigan held out her hands and I laid Excalibur in them. Yeah, I did want to keep it. As soon as I let go, I missed the gentle hum of power it gave off. She smiled at me, a real smile with no teasing or secrets in it. “You are capable of honesty, as I thought. I cannot interfere in the battles of other pantheons and thus cannot give you help in them, would that I could. But I can give you my blessing.” She reached into her hair with one hand and offered me a crow feather with a little leather string tied on the end. “Use this wisely, outside of battles I cannot fight.”

“What does it do?” I asked as I took the feather.

“It calls me to your aid.”

The aid of a battle goddess would be pretty fucking handy, even if she couldn’t help me in battle. Well, not any battles involving gods. So she couldn’t protect me from Satan, not directly. “Thanks,” I told her. Maybe I could figure out a crafty way to use it, just like she’d found a crafty way to get me Excalibur. I put it into my pocket next to the empty box.

“You are welcome, Alexander Holden.” She vanished, taking the sword with her.

I filled my friends in on what happened in Hel, about Baldur’s gift, and Mew-Mew talking about making me a sword. They told me what they’d been up to when I was fighting Fenrir and afterward. Emily’s shield had been given to her by a group of cats who said they found it in another world. Mew-Mew had let them know we needed help so they brought the shield to her. It was a protective weapon, which was what the blue glow was that kept Fenrir away. Unlike Excalibur, she didn’t have to give it back. It was hers to keep.

Once we were all caught up with each other, Stefan asked, “So now what?”

We all stood around, looking awkward. I wondered if they were thinking the same thing I was, that even though we didn’t want the world to be in danger again, there was this sense of wishing there was something else we could do. Actually, in my case I wished I had an excuse to avoid what I knew was coming. But I think they were just wondering how they could go from trying to save the world to living their normal lives.

“I guess we just go back home,” Colin said.

“I guess,” Emily echoed. She looked a little disappointed.

“Yeah, home,” I said, dread heavy in my stomach.

“Will you go back to Joshua’s house?” Stefan asked.

“No. I’m not running anymore,” I told them. “I’m going back home.”

“But… Satan will beat you again,” Emily said.

“Yeah, he’ll do that anyway. He always finds me eventually and drags me back. You know that.” They’d seen it happen often enough.

“But won’t you be safe in Joshua’s house? It’s the only place Satan can’t go,” Elliot said.

“Yeah, but I’d hate myself for it. I hid there while I was still hurt because I was too afraid to face another beating when I hadn’t even fucking healed from the last one. But I’m done. I’m done with being a fucking coward.” I clenched my fist. “I know I can’t stop him, not yet, but I saw what I’ll be able to do and I know that someday I’ll be strong enough to fight back. Maybe I won’t be able to win, but I know I can fucking try and hopefully do some fucking damage. Shit, it would feel so good just to leave a mark on him, to have that same look on his face that the bitch did when I burned her.” I pictured it—that shocked, afraid look. The wheels in her fucked up little head turning, thinking that her precious fucking protections didn’t work anymore.

“He won’t kill me. They told me as much before. They won’t kill me or maim me because they need me to fulfill their fucking prophecy.” Unlike what it said in the Bible, the prophecy the Satanists had ended with Satan and me and all his loyal followers ruling over a broken world. The devil would reshape it to his liking and the rule of Jehovah would be swept away like so much dust. No matter which side was right, neither ending appealed to me, except in the Satanist version at least I didn’t end up being thrown into the lake of fire to suffer for all eternity. “The beating is all about hurting me and scaring me into obedience.”

“I don’t like the idea of you getting the shit beat out of you again, but I think facing it is the right thing to do,” Stefan said. “Do you want me to come with you? I might be able to help you.” He was the oldest and strongest of us, and he had the best control of his powers.

It was tempting. “No. This is something I have to do myself.”

“Are you sure?” Colin asked.

I nodded. If I asked them to, they would all come with me. Probably even Elliot. It hit me then what friendship really was. They would put themselves in danger for me. “Thanks for the offer, but this is my fight. My beating I have to take, whatever.” I really didn’t want to do it, but more than that, I didn’t want to feel like a coward. I’d saved the world twice in a week; I could damn well face my father too.