“You think so?” Baldr asked. “Thor said the same thing. He tried to convince me that I was wrong, but I’m not. Ragnarok will cleanse this world. It started with him.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “One of Hera’s people told you about it, or maybe it was someone close to Arthur.”
He punched me in the face again. I spat blood onto the floor.
“Sir,” Robert said.
“I know,” Baldr snapped. He got down on his knees and pushed my head against the ground until I cried out. “I want you to see what we’re going to do to this town. I think you’ve earned that much.” He looked up at Robert. “Get him ready to ship out.”
Baldr released me and stormed out of the room.
“Baldr’s little lapdog?” I asked.
“Do you think that calling me names is going to help you?” Robert asked me.
I shook my head. “No, I think you want to kill me, and it’s burning you up inside that you can’t. So I can say anything I like, you vile little twatwaffle.”
The anger on Robert’s face was easy to see. “You want to play games?”
“Sure,” I said. “How much grendel blood do you need to inject into yourself before you can get an erection?”
Robert dragged me upright and punched me in the stomach. “You think you’re funny?”
I nodded. “Come on, Robert, all that pent-up sexual tension because no one wants to touch you? Maybe that’s why you’re such a massive bellend.”
The punches came thick and fast, knocking me to the ground, where Robert started stamping on my ribs until I nearly passed out from the pain. Abruptly, he stopped.
“Can’t finish, eh? Maybe you need some more grendel blood?” I said through broken lips. “Come on, Robert. Just kill me already.”
Robert flinched. I’d said too much. “That’s it, isn’t it? You die, and you don’t go to Arthur and Hera. You die here, and you’ll avoid them tearing your mind apart and forcing you to do horrific things once they’re done.” Robert laughed. “That’s funny. Because I almost fell for it, and if I give you over as a corpse, I won’t be far behind.”
He dragged me out of the room, and I passed out again. When I woke up, I rolled over as pain laced every part of me. I couldn’t open one eye, and it hurt to breathe.
I reached out and found the metal cage beside me. On the opposite side, the grendel sat watching me.
I tried to say something, but I was pretty sure my jaw was broken, and it came out as a gurgled mess.
The door opened, and Robert came in with two of the Harbingers that I’d seen with Apep. One of them knelt beside me as the other smashed a baton against the cage, causing the grendel to run to the other side.
“You need to live,” Robert said. “My friend here is going to help.”
I looked over at the Harbinger kneeling beside me. He raised his hands, and I saw the blood that covered them, but before I could say anything, he placed them on me. My body convulsed from the pain as the blood magic coursed through my body. Blood magic was primarily used to hurt and cause pain in others and to heal the sorcerer using it. Some blood magic users could manipulate their power to heal others, but the pain that came with it was exactly the same as if they were using it to kill.
I screamed. There was no way not to. The raw and complete agony that exploded inside of me felt like something was trying to claw its way out. And then, as quickly as he’d started, he stopped. I remained there on the ground, covered in sweat and trying to remember my own name.
“Heal up,” Robert said. “See you in a few hours for the festivities.”
Everyone left, and it didn’t take long for my body to respond to the power placed inside it. My ribs knitted themselves back together, and my eye healed. All of it was done slowly, with the maximum amount of pain, and eventually my body could take no more. I passed out.
I woke to the sounds of gunfire outside the room. My body was mostly healed, although it hurt like I’d been hit by a truck. The door was flung open, and a man stepped inside.
“Chris?” I asked. “Oh shit, am I glad to see you.”
“We need to go,” Chris said. “I wasn’t exactly able to get a lot of people together to get you out, but most of this place’s inhabitants are in Clockwork now.”
“Jess and Daniel?” I asked.
“I watched them get loaded onto a Jeep and driven away,” he said. “That’s when I knew I had to come get you. How’s it going?”
“Been lovely,” I said. “I’d give it four stars because the breakfasts suck, and the staff nearly beat me to death before using blood magic to fix me.”
“Oh shit,” Chris said. “Can you stand?”
I nodded and got to my feet with a little help. “We need to get the grendel out,” I said.
“And do what with it?”
“They’re torturing it,” I said. “There’s a whole pack of them in the forest, and they plan to find them and use the blood to make this toxin that makes people crazed the first time they use it. They’re going to use it to create some sort of fucked-up supersoldier, but first they’re going to use it to cause a whole lot of death and mayhem in Portland.”
Chris grabbed the lock, twisted it, and ripped it free, then opened the cage for the grendel. “You’re free to go,” he told it.
The creature left the cage tentatively.
“Good luck, roomie,” I said. “I hope these assholes don’t find the rest of your people. Go hide. Stay there; stay safe.”
It stood before me, grunted, and then ran out the door.
I followed Chris out of the room, stepping over several bodies of those who had tried to stop him, including a few Harbingers. Chris was more formidable than he’d led me to believe. Eventually, we made it outside and ran across the tarmac to Chris’s pickup. I sprinted around the truck and opened the door, just as I got shot.
I opened my mouth to say something but found I couldn’t breathe properly to get the words out. Chris reached over, dragged me into the truck, and floored it, getting us out of danger as I half lay, half knelt in the footwell and passenger seat. I felt blood pour down my back and spat up blood as I tried to tell Chris what had happened.
“You’ve been shot,” Chris said, looking worried. “We need to get you somewhere to look at it.”
I nodded in agreement, hoping I didn’t look as terrified and pained as I felt. As a sorcerer, only silver bullets could kill me. And even then, it had to be a heart or head shot. As a human . . . well, being shot meant I’d never felt quite so fragile. Still, dying in the footwell of Chris’s car while dusk settled around me was better than at the hands of Arthur and Hera.
Eventually the car stopped, and Chris manhandled me out of it, took me into a warm house, and placed me facedown on a table or sofa. Frankly, he could have put me in a giant vat of pudding, and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference at that point, but I was hoping he’d picked something nice.
I looked over and blinked at Erebus, who was sitting in a nearby chair and staring at me.
“Hey,” I said to the living embodiment of the magic inside me. “It’s been a while, Erebus.”