Part 10 (2/2)

I am in the fire, of course.

He s.h.i.+vered a little.

Mist came up beside Hermod. ”Who is it?” she whispered.

”Baldr's wife,” he said, peering into the flames. ”So, uh, Nana, how've you been?”

*A little lonely. Baldr doesn't spend much time with me anymore. There aren't any fires near Hel's high seat.*

In Asgard, Baldr had been a loving and devoted husband to Nana-but Hermod supposed thousands of years in the deadlands would strain even the best marriage.

”How long have you been a fire elemental?” he asked.

The flames popped and crackled. I've always had an affinity for hearths. I like hearths. They're the center of good homes, where men and women mate and have healthy children. I like homes. I like children. But I couldn't speak through flames until I burned up and died on Baldr's pyre. It was very hot. It hurt.

”I'm sure it must have,” Hermod said. ”I'm sorry you had to go through that. It was very unfair.”

Yes. It was kind of you to ask Hel to release Hod. Hod and I used to keep each other company here, after Baldr decided he liked Hel better than me.

”Do you know where Hod is now?”

Not exactly. Looking for a way out. Wherever he is, there's no fire. There's hardly fire anywhere in all of Helheim.

Grimnir circled his index finger in a hurry-up gesture, which Hermod was inclined to ignore both on general principle and out of sympathy for Nana. But the thug did have a point.

Hermod cleared his throat. ”Nana, you said you could help us escape?”

Yes. I know the way. Just take my hand.

Mist and Hermod exchanged a glance, and Hermod could only shrug. ”Nana, you don't seem to have hands.”

Oh, of course. I'm sorry. It's been so long since I've had to think properly. I usually talk to the dead, and they don't think properly either, so I don't often bother. I will manifest my body for you.

The little fire drew in on itself, shrinking but glowing slightly brighter. Then, with a sizzle that sounded like a hiss of pain, the flames shot five feet in the air and took on a flickering, not quite opaque, but distinctly human form.

Hermod had feared she would appear as she looked at the time of her death, her clean flesh charred and b.l.o.o.d.y, but she looked as he remembered her.

She held out a slender, wavering hand. Come with me, and I'll take you outside through the fire.

”Right, hold the phone,” Grimnir said. ”How does this work, and where are we going?”

You take my hand, Nana said very patiently. And we go through the fire. Outside.

”And then we'll be a pile of ashes or something?”

I am the closest thing Helheim has to a G.o.ddess of the hearth, Nana said. There was now only the slightest hint of imperiousness in her tone. I will not harm you.

”That's rea.s.suring,” Grimnir said. ”And I mean no disrespect, but why are you helping us?”

I don't like Hel. Baldr doesn't like me. I like Hermod. I'm not sure I like you, but Hermod seems to like you. I neither like nor dislike the Valkyrie. Oh, and I like your dog, she added as an afterthought.

”Convinced?” Hermod said to Grimnir.

”No. You go first.”

Hermod grasped Nana's hand. It was quite hot, but it didn't burn. Mist took her other hand, and then, with a mix of hesitation and bl.u.s.ter, Grimnir latched on to Nana's wrist.

”Wait,” Hermod said, letting go. ”What about my dog?”

Nana told Hermod to take Winston by the collar. A moment later his vision went orange, then white, and it did burn, everything burned, searing pain, and he was sure he'd been suckered again, but he held on anyway. They emerged in a small ring of stones, where a campfire lapped against the chill air outside the hall. Only after hopping out of the flames did Hermod notice they were surrounded by a half dozen guards.

Startled, the guards scrambled to their feet. They wore an a.s.sortment of ragged military uniforms, and all were armed with wicked-looking serrated spears.

Grimnir took the initiative, grabbing one of the guards' spears with both hands and twisting it away. He impaled the man through the chest, pinning him to the ground. The guard wiggled, angrily screaming, ”Oi! What's this? Oi!”

I'm sorry I couldn't get you farther away Nana said. As I told you, there aren't many fires burning in Helheim. But I did find the men guarding your things. They were trying to warm their hands.

While Mist and Winston struggled with another of the guards, Hermod risked a glance down into the fire. Their bags were piled there. He dove away from a spear thrust, rolled through the flames, almost smothering them, and grabbed the bags. Another guard attacked, but Hermod managed to duck under his spear and swing his bag, with his sword inside, into the guard's face. He heard bones crack.

He removed his sword from his duffel and thrust up through the armpit of the next attacking guard. It felt obscenely good.

With the guards temporarily out of commission, no more a.s.saults came. Hermod looked around.

”Did we get them all?” he asked the others.

”Yeah,” Mist said, coming over to get her own bag. ”They kinda sucked.”

Those weren't guards, said Nana in a tiny voice. The campfire was barely alive now. They were keepers.

”Keepers of what?” Grimnir said, testing the weight of his sword in one hand and a captured spear in the other.

A gust of wind moaned across the mesa, and the flames wavered and died, and there was no answer from the fire. A howl rose in the air, a hornlike lament. Winston whined and turned over to submissively show his belly.

Down a crooked narrow path, nestled into the rock, sat a pen built around the mouth of a cave.

Hermod pried his dry lips open with his tongue. ”Run.”

He led his group down the switchback, the jagged rock wall beside them sharp enough to cut flesh and the edge of the path sheering off into a steep drop. Looking over his shoulder, Hermod caught sight of an enormous hound loping after them. Easily fifteen feet at the shoulders, with a corrugated rib cage and small, expressionless black eyes, Hel's hound gave chase.

There was no way to outrun Garm. With every lunging stride down the narrow slope, the hound closed in by yards. They would have to stop and fight it, and after his trials with the wolves in Midgard, and the long journey to Helheim, and even the scuffle with Garm's keepers, Hermod wasn't sure how much fight he had left in him.

Still sprinting forward, he reached into his duffel and dug out a small leather pouch. He'd probably transferred that parcel from one carrying bag to another a hundred times without ever opening it up. He unfastened the leather thong.

The Hel cake, as hard as wood, still smelled of honey and spice. It was a souvenir from his first visit to Helheim, taken as a trophy to show his Aesir kin that he'd completed his journey; by the time he'd gotten back to Asgard, though, he'd lost all interest in proving anything. Still, he'd kept it all these years.

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