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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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Burning cinders bounced off the face of my shield, heating the metal and stinging my arm beneath. Curls of thick smoke wafted through the ruined kitchen. Abandoned bowls of eyeball soup boiled on the table, while sheets of flame flickered across the ceiling like sulphurous weather.

“Hildr! Lillie!” I shouted, then collapsed into a coughing fit and scalding hot air filled my mouth and lungs. I spat ashes and peered into the smokey haze.

The kitchen was a disaster. Pillars of flame swirled in the hallway that led to the rest of the building, but it felt unlikely that the valkyries would have hidden their prize among the guests. Besides, the hole in the ceiling lay directly over a set of stairs leading, presumably, to some kind of basement. I vaulted the burning remnants of a boot rack and made my way down the stairs.

It was like descending into some kind of mildew-based underworld. A flickering tube of fluorescent light provided thin illumination to an otherwise dark room. The basement was cluttered from wall to wall with all manner of debris, from stacked shoeboxes to dozens of coiled garden hoses, and something that looked suspiciously like an erotic statue of Thor. Narrow pathways led between the stacks, occasionally interrupted by collapsed walls of newspapers and toppled storage bins. A rusted out washer and dryer rattled nervously at the base of the stairs. Moss-stained cinder-block walls stretched into the darkness. Along the far wall, partially obscured by intervening terrain, stood a phalanx of freezers, humming placidly to themselves.

“Well this is definitely act one of a horror movie,” I muttered to myself. “Hero descends into the underworld to confront Mr. Preppy Cannibal, only to be slain, flayed, roasted, and served with a side of couscous and a snifter of bourbon.”

Something shifted in the back of the room. An avalanche of moldy paperbacks slid into the nearest walkway. I caught a glimpse of a shadow lurching deeper into the darkness. I crept to the bottom of the stairs and set foot on the concrete floor, shield held nervously in front of me, sword at my side. A cascade of cinders followed me into the dimly lit basement, swirling like fireflies. A few landed on the discarded paperbacks with a hiss.

“Hello? Who’s down here? Lillie?” I called out. No one answered, but I could hear a low moaning, and the drip of viscous liquid. Swallowing, I stepped over the now-smouldering paperbacks and started toward the back corner.

“I know we got off on the wrong foot, but I really think we’re working toward the same goal.” The path narrowed, half walls of mold-spotted hatboxes crowding me to the shoulders. I had to pull my shield flat to my chest, sword behind me, as I edged sideways toward the shadows. Upstairs, something collapsed directly overhead. The floorboards flexed and groaned, and cinders crawled between the planks like termites. “We need to get out of here before this place burns to the ground. And if we can take the Tears with us, all the better. Maybe—”

Something shattered to my right, followed by a quick tattoo of breaking glass and what sounded like an avalanche of bricks sliding to the floor. I ducked, but nothing came my way. The basement was starting to fill with smoke. I didn’t have a lot of time left, and whatever was lurking in the shadows clearly didn’t want to talk about it. I came around the corner.

An armored valkyrie perched over the open lid of a chest freezer, black, glossy wings pulled tight to her body. A pile of broken casserole dishes lay at her feet, their contents glistening icily in the harsh light of the fluorescent bulbs overhead. Bricks of casserole, frozen meat, gritty Jell-O, and a variety of unidentifiable foodstuffs lay naked on the floor. A cube of something brown and slick shrugged free of its tin foil cover and spun toward me, stopping only when it ran into my foot.

“Can you believe they eat these things, John? Tatertots in cream cheese? This has been in here for three years,” the valkyrie said, holding up a casserole dish. “To think they gave up the pleasures of Valhalla for . . . for . . .” She gestured helplessly at the contents of the freezer. “For whatever the hell this is.”

“I’m sorry, have we met?” I asked. The valkyrie turned sharply in my direction, using her wings to propel her body in a tight spiral. She lifted a spear from its resting place on a pile of carpet scraps. For a brief second I thought I recognized her, a glimpse of familiarity from my brief stay in Valhalla, but the feeling passed as she lowered the spear and pointed it at my midsection.

“You are quite famous, John Rast. The boy who killed a dragon by accident, and then nearly helped his friend destroy Knight Watch. We’ve heard all about you,” she said, stalking toward me. I backed up, setting my shield, though there wasn’t enough room for a proper guard stance. At least she couldn’t fly in this cramped room. But that spear was a lot longer than my reach, and there was no way I was going to be able to dodge her thrusts.

“Well, it’s nice to have fans,” I said. “But can I ask what the hell you’re doing? Why are you trying to end the world, anyway? What’s the damn point?”

“Ragnarok is not the end of the world,” she said. “Merely the merciful death of this horrible existence, and the start of a new, golden age, full of—”

“Full of bullshit and light, I get it,” I said. “But I think I’d rather stick with the world I know, thanks.”

I kicked the glistening meat-thing at my feet toward her. It came down right beneath her advancing boot, slipping mercilessly out from under her. She yodeled in surprise, wings flapping in a desperate bid for balance, battering down towers of boxes and carpet and mold. I lowered my shield and charged, bowling into the flailing valkyrie and sending us both slipping and sliding across the basement floor.

We slammed into a standing freezer, bouncing it off the wall and sending it wobbling back and forth. Unseen bulk shifted inside, and the whole freezer tipped forward, straight at us. I jumped to my feet and sprang backward. The valkyrie scrambled in the other direction, disappearing behind a stack of newspapers before the falling freezer came down with a crash. The lights cut out in a shower of sparks and fluorescent brilliance, then darkness fell across the basement.

Slowly, I got to my feet, careful to make as little noise as possible. The only light came from the narrow, cobweb-choked windows at ceiling height, and the throbbing red glow coming from the staircase. The crackle and roar of the inferno overhead filled the room. I crept forward, sword and shield close to my chest to keep them from dragging on the surrounding detritus. My boots came down on broken dishware and the slippery corpses of shattered casseroles, each step crunching and squelching. There was no noise from the valkyrie, which meant she was either staying still, was unconscious, or had some way of moving that I couldn’t hear.

I reached the fallen freezer and paused, listening carefully. In the dim light I was able to make out a body splayed out on the ground, near the top of the freezer but tucked into a small clearing in the piles of junk. Peering more closely, I could make out Lillie’s pale face, marred by a trickle of blood. If I had come down a different aisle, I might have stepped on her before reaching the valkyrie.

Vaulting the freezer, I knelt beside Lillie and pressed two fingers into her neck in search of a pulse. Unfortunately, I was still wearing my gauntlets, so all I managed to do was crush her windpipe, but at least it forced her to cough. Her eyes fluttered open.

“Tears . . . the Tears,” she whispered, one hand pawing at the air. “Don’t let her get them.”

“I’m doing what I can, Lil. But you need to tell me where they are first,” I said.

“Tots . . .” she answered, then her voice faded and her eyes closed.

“Yes, yes, the tots-in-shrieker, I know all about that bastard,” I said, frustrated that the old valkyrie hadn’t given me more to work with. Then I remembered something the dark valkyrie had said, and I froze. “Tatertots in sour cream. Who would eat that?”

I fumbled my way back to the chest freezer. In the dim light, I was able to make out a glimmer of illumination from the icy depths of the freezer. Something glowed inside. Sheathing my blade and shouldering my shield, I rummaged through the frozen wreckage of leftovers. Packages of deer meat wrapped in butcher paper, frost-rimed casseroles, and a collection of unidentifiable sauces in ziplock bags filled the bottom of the freezer. I tossed them aside, looking for the source of the dim glow.

I found it nestled between a container of clearly spoiled reindeer meat and a block of chili that had escaped its container and was slowly dissolving into soup. A tan casserole dish printed with cornflower blue petals and covered with a tight lid of tin foil. Printed on the foil in marker were the words Freya’s Tears. Do not microwave.

I ripped off the lid and stared in disbelief at a crust of tatertots held together with melted cheese. Using my rapidly numbing fingers (metal gloves do not go well with freezers), I scraped aside the tots. Beneath shimmered a layer of a metallic silver substance that jiggled like pudding and glowed with a blue-ish light.

“I’ll take those.” The voice came from behind me, and was immediately followed by a spear point that skittered off my shield and buried into the gap between my backplate and the stiff belt that held my chausses in place. Pain burst through my hip, and I spun around, struggling to draw my sword as the casserole slipped from my fingers. I got around just in time to meet the butt of the valkyrie’s spear with my chin. Stars filled my vision, and when I could see again, I was curled up on the floor with empty hands and a skull that felt like a church bell on New Year’s Day.

The valkyrie stared down at the Tears, her face limned by the light coming from the casserole. She smiled, then tucked the casserole against her chest and unfurled her wings.

“Chalk one up for the bad guys,” she said, then launched at the ceiling. The smoldering wood planks burst aside, her shoulders punching a hole directly through the floor above, disappearing into the swirling maelstrom of the fire consuming the house overhead. I heard two more massive crashes, and then the ceiling of the basement started to collapse around me.

I struggled to my feet and crawled to Lillie. She was still breathing, if barely. I hefted her over my shoulder and limped through the stacks of burning paper and smoking boxes. By the time I reached the stairs, the air was black with smoke, and the heat of the fire pressed against me like a hammer blow. The wooden staircase groaned and buckled underfoot, but I pushed forward, emerging in the remnants of the kitchen. I stumbled forward in a dreamlike state, my mind empty of everything but the next step, the next obstacle, the door that I could barely make out through the flames. By the time I reached the kitchen door, there was nothing left of it by charred wood and shattered glass.

I crashed through it like a cannonball, fell to my knees, and collapsed.


As was often the case when I passed out, especially in battle, I awoke to the placid face of Saint Matthew staring down at me. He had a curious expression on his face, almost like he was surprised to see my eyes open. The saint squeezed my cheeks and tapped my forehead, then shrugged dramatically.

“Well, at least you stayed around,” he said. “I was starting to think they were trying to avoid me. I’ve got enough issues without corpses ghosting me.”

“Ha,” I said, which was an abortive attempt at a laugh, halted halfway through by sharp pain in my lungs. “Corpses. Ghosting.”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. I meant that literally,” Matthew said as he stood. “You’ve got new lungs. Sucked down enough smoke to give you permanent scarring. Had to cut them out and start over.”

“Cut them out?” I sat up and peered down at my chest. My breastplate and gambeson were peeled away, and the pale, sickly skin of my chest was slick with sweat. But there was no sign of lung removal. “What are you talking about?”

“Your lungs. We had to cut them out. valkyries were pretty useful for that, to be honest.” He wiped his hands on a bloody cloth, then tossed it into a pile of many, many equally bloody clothes. “Don’t worry about it. You’re as good as new.”

I lay back and ran a hand over my chest. I felt normal enough, though my lungs did feel a little . . . tight? Just the kind of thing that happens in Knight Watch. I sat up again.

“Wait. What did you mean about corpses avoiding you?” I asked.

“Bee and the new guy. Soon as I tried to heal them, they both sank into the ground. Disappeared. Tembo’s still here, but he didn’t die, so . . .” He shrugged again. “Must have something to do with the sword.”

“The Totenschreck has claimed them,” Lillie said. The old valkyrie was sitting on a barrel next to the ruins of her house, holding a damp cloth to her head. “They are lost to you now. Mourn them, and move on.”

“That’s not how Knight Watch works, lady,” I said. I worked my way to my feet and started to tie my gambeson shut. My armor lay in pieces all around me, and my sword and shield hung from an apple tree at the foot of the garden path. There were handfuls of feathers scattered about, as though they had been tucked into my armor. I ignored them for now. “We’re going to find this tater-tot-shrieker, and we’re going to get our friends back.”

“Then you will die,” she answered. “May you find your way to Valhalla.”

“Not really my scene,” I said. “Where are the others? Tembo and Chesa and Hildr?”

“We had to hide Tembo from the fire department,” Matthew said. “Chesa had to distract them while we were finishing with you. But now that you’re up and about, we should get out of here. As for Hildr . . .” He looked awkwardly at Lillie.

“My companion is dead,” Lillie said quietly. “And there is no Valhalla for us.”

“Shit, I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you guys were, you know . . . immortal or something.”

“I appreciate your sympathy, but it is unnecessary. Hildr lived well, and she died just as well. I will mourn her, and then I will continue. Though without the Tears to protect, I don’t know what I’ll do with my life.” She pulled the cloth away from her head, blinked down at the blood spot on the clean white linen, then folded it neatly and put it into the pocket of her apron. “Perhaps I could see the fjords again. Minnesota is nice, but it is not home.”

As if on cue, Chesa appeared from around the burned-out husk of the house. She was cradling her bow on her shoulder and, other than a few nicks and cuts, looked none the worse for wear. Her battle-dress was stained with soot, and she walked like someone who had just had the worst customer service in her life.

“Those guys ask a lot of questions,” she said, then looked at me. “Good. You’re not dead.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me in a long time,” I said with a smile.

“Don’t get excited. I barely mean it.” She turned to Matthew. “No luck on the missing bodies?”

“They’re gone. Lillie insists the valhellions have them.”

“Then that’s where we’re going,” she said. “Back to MA, then the express to Valhalla.”

“They will not be in Valhalla,” Lillie said. “Those taken by Freya go to Folksvangr.”

“Different beer hall?” I asked.

“Different beer hall,” she confirmed. “And you will need to get the key from Runa Hellesdottir. There is no other way.”

“Well, that still has us going to Valhalla,” I said, gathering my weapons. “Lillie, do you need anything else from us?”

“I need you to get your life-destroying asses out of my garden, before I throw them out.” She stood stiffly, then started up the garden path. “I must bury my sister, and I wish to do that in private. Thank you.”

We watched her disappear into the garden, shifting nervously on our feet until we were alone. I turned to Matthew.

“I don’t feel like we did a lot of good here,” I said.

“Destroyed their lives, burned down their house, lost two members of the team, badly disabled a third, and lost the world-ending magic device we came to find?” he asked. “Nah. We did great.”

“What’s with all these feathers?” I asked. Chesa had a cluster of them in her hair, and now that I looked around I could see dozens of feathers floating in the breeze. I nabbed one and peered at it. “Looks kind of like down.”

“I think they’re turkey,” Matthew said. “Who knew that valkyries had turkey in them?”

“Anyone who’s had to deal with valkyries,” I said. I shoved a couple into the pouch at my belt, just in case they turned out to be useful later on.

“Hey, where’s Percy?” Chesa asked. We looked among ourselves.

“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the man,” I said.

“Me neither. Disappeared just before the valhellions arrived. Think he was in on it?” Chesa asked.

“Don’t know. But if you can’t trust an English gardening zombie, who can you trust?” Matthew asked. “Come on, we’ve got to find a telephone. Preferably a really old one that can get through our bubble of magical interference. If we can get a hold of MA, they can probably arrange a ride for us.”


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