The Fox and the Falcon (No Other Gods #2)

Chapter Fifteen

Heat, dirt, and nightlife were an overpowering contrast to the island’s marsh or álfheimr’s cool mountain air. This was the day that never ended. Going from a fantastical realm to a miserable island to a bustling human city was its own form of disorienting torture. My outfit—the same from my departure of my very human apartment only hours prior, now with fresh bog stains and evidence of dried blood—did not fit the ambience.

“Fenrir?” I whispered his name. The shaggy dog’s nails clicked against the pavement ahead of me. He did not turn. “Shouldn’t we be realm hopping? I have urgent business with the Phoenicians, and—”

Into my mind, he replied, “Who is so unwise that they would seek help, then disregard the aid that is offered?”

Gods, how I missed the days when I had been able to write this off as insanity.

I was no weather professional, but I was familiar enough with the Mediterranean region to know we were baking in eighty- to ninety-degree temperatures. The sidewalk slowly released the day’s heat, radiating from the dusty cement and soaking my clothes with sweat as we walked. Still, I hadn’t been able to get warm since Fauna had told me who we were going to visit.

“People are staring.” I cast a glance at the goose bumps running from my elbow to my shoulder.

“Of course, they’re staring!” Fauna flipped her hair over her shoulder as she kept pace beside me. She managed to possess an effortless sense of belonging everywhere she went, whether she was in the pits of Hell, the arts district of my hometown, the Nordic city, or the well-lit paths of metropolitan Greece. I’d only been to Athens once, and it had been with a client. We’d avoided the tourist traps in favor of the islands with his yacht. I’d eaten calamari and done my best to maintain the appearance of eye contact while I’d unfocused my gaze to look through his skull and at the horizon beyond. Maladaptive daydreaming during my client sessions had done wonders for my future as an author.

This adventure would be a bit more pedestrian than our bloodied, marshy trek through the bog to set Fenrir free.

We’d had the time to wash and change at Ella and Estrid’s, so Fauna had returned to her normal sparkly self. Between Estrid’s muscular frame and Ella’s ample bosom, their clothes hadn’t fit either of us. Regardless, Fauna had a knack for tying and cutting things. She’d smeared a sparkly paste into my wounds, then rewrapped them in clean bandages before knotting the white tunic at my midriff. My shoulder no longer hurt. I had a feeling that by the time I was able to shower and wash for the night, the gory evidence of the wolf attack would be little more than shallow pink memories.

She looked over her shoulder as she continued her purposeful walk under the metropolitan lights of Athens. Her exasperation was heavy as she responded to my exclamation with, “You’re a famous author standing next to a movie star on a walk with a terrifying off-leash pet. This is your role. Be an immersion actor. Own it. Move forward.”

I half expected Fenrir to look back at me, but he did not. He trotted a half step ahead of me as if he were a well-trained show dog, rather than a powerful horseman of the apocalypse. The blacks and browns of his glossy coat caught in the amber glow each time we stepped from the shadow and into a new pool of lamplight. His nails tapped gently against the sidewalk as we made our way forward down the late-night streets of the Grecian capital.

Estrid and Ella had opted not to join us.

The conversation that had followed in the marsh had been far more stressful than Fauna and her devil-may-care attitude had ever led me to believe. Given the couple’s willingness to join and Fauna’s nonchalance, I’d been under the supposition that we were off to start a minor skirmish. They’d asked so few questions. They’d been so willing. They’d given me no further inclination as to the weight of my actions. It wasn’t until Fenrir was freed and the deal was made that Fauna had uttered four chilling words.

“The Phoenicians have allies.”

My hands dripped red with Astarte and Jessabelle’s blood. Perhaps her treatment of Dagon might mean Astarte’s death would not be openly mourned. Still, stepping into the Phoenician realm to take on their remaining goddess of war—Baal’s only living partner after the slaughter on Bellfield soil—would surely not be taken lightly. Not only would we be taking the battle to them, but our arrival would be just cause for the allegiances they’d forged over thousands of years to answer their battle cry.

“They do,” Fenrir had replied. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“And…” I’d dared, “Every pantheon has a bone to pick with monotheism.”

When I’d asked Fauna why she hadn’t told me about the Phoenician’s allies, she’d given me a familiar speech about the uselessness of knowledge. She’d asked quite pointedly, “Would it change what needs to be done? No? Then why tell you?”

Understanding that I was not simply causing an upset in the largely-ignored Canaanite pantheon, but that the act of interceding on behalf of Caliban and Azrames—and Silas, depending on our mood—would be declaring open war with anyone who’d ever forged an allegiance with the Phoenicians, made me acutely aware that we were not yet prepared for the task at hand. We had one more stop to make before we were ready to meet the Phoenicians.

I looked between the domed tops of the sand-colored buildings that shared the block with slick architecture and the small grassy park that preserved what remained of a pocked ruin. We were too far from the ocean for me to see it, but I could still smell the salt on the damp night air. Between the dust, the city smells, and the heat, I could barely detect Fauna’s fresh scent. I narrowed my eyes at her.

“You’re not a movie star.”

She rolled her eyes and shoved her hands into her the pockets of her billowy pants. “Then they’re staring at you because it’s nearly midnight, you’re an American idiot, and you’re bothering them. What do you want from me?”

“How much further?” I wished I had GPS access, but my pockets were woefully empty. I grumbled at having lost yet another phone. If I was going to leave an expensive piece of electronic equipment behind every time I jumped realms, I’d need to start buying cheap burners or upgrade to an Apple watch.

She made a face. “I haven’t been to Athens in two hundred years. Ask Fenrir. He seems to be leading the charge.”

Fenrir looked over his shoulder at that to huff out an unimpressed breath of air.

I spoke for him. “Fenrir has been chained to a rock since before you were born.”

“A little after I was born, actually.”

“Great, you’re old. That’s really helpful, Fauna. All the more reason for him to be leading instead of you. I never follow senior citizens.” My face bunched into a frown as I redirected my attention. “Fenrir, how do you know where we’re going?”

He didn’t look over his shoulder, nor did he open his jaws as he used whatever mind-to-mind skill he’d used in the marsh. “My nose, of course.”

I glanced around the street at the well-dressed humans who leaned against the walls to smoke, but they didn’t balk like people who’d heard an animal speak. They simply looked horrified that a scary dog lacked a leash. We were probably violating numerous laws, but I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to suggest to Fenrir step into a leash after a lifetime of shackles. I’d be happier to be written up and pay the fine than to ask the being so powerful that he’d threatened Odin’s very existence to put on a collar.

We paused briefly at an intersection. Artificially planted skinny palms lined the streets. The alleys between ancient, crumbling stones had been filled in with clean concrete, glass, and steel. Chairs had been stacked upon tables for the night. Shutters were closed. Canvas awnings had withdrawn for the moonlight to filter through the amber glow of modern thirty-foot streetlights.

“It’s a left here,” Fauna said. A horn blared behind her as city life scuttled about in its loosely organized chaos. I didn’t know the country and its emergency noises well enough to understand whether I was hearing a fire siren or ambulance. If I was lucky, one of them was coming to haul me away and spare me from whatever it was she had to say next.

“How do you know?”

She pointed at the sign.

“You read Greek?” I asked, genuinely surprised. In one of our first meetings, Fauna had spoken to me in numerous Scandinavian languages. I’d expected her knowledge to spread through everything with Germanic ties. The letters on the bright blue sign with white lettering above were Hellenic in origin.

“Of course, I read Greek,” she scoffed. “You think I’m going to be alive forever and not pick up a thing or two?”

“I guess, but—”

“I even speak Klingon.”

“You do not.”

“ HIja’. ”

I blinked at her once again in the late-night intersection, seeing her red-and-white freckles, her curious bohemian clothes, and her coy smile as if she were the mud-covered nymph, teeth gritted, holding wolves, valkyries, and warriors at bay.

“Who are you?”

She smiled the same happy, toothy grin I’d seen between handfuls of sweets, the fae who’d punched all of the buttons in my car, the one who’d jumped into Azrames’s arms, the one who’d held my hair and comforted me as I cried in the shower.

“Life’s comfier when you can box people in, isn’t it?”

We took a left and began the slow process of cresting a hill. My feet throbbed from the walk. I wanted to ask why we hadn’t stepped into a space closer to our destination, but I’d learned from Azrames when he’d forced us to pop into Bellfield forty-five minutes from the hotel. We couldn’t risk humans seeing us appear out of nowhere. Fauna had presumably picked the closest empty park for our transition between realms. Though I caught glimpses of the rocky outcropping of the hilltop acropolis between buildings, I had no idea whether we were headed to the ancient monuments or just in their general direction, and it didn’t seem polite to question Fenrir’s ability to lead.

Fauna’s sugar addiction hadn’t forced us to make any pit stops, nor had Fenrir so much as requested a drop of water since we began our journey. I’d hoped one of them would give me an excuse to gather my thoughts, but they were too mission focused to bother with mortal comforts. The precipitous cliffs loomed ahead with a sense of foreboding. I was already sweating through the heat of the Mediterranean night. The stress-induced dry mouth and wet palms weren’t helping.

“Is there anything I should know before we get there?” I asked.

“I think you know most of it,” Fauna said. “Your Pantheon books did better with the Greeks than with the Nordes. They make their history a lot more available, so it’s harder to fuck up.”

“And…” I swallowed, trying to summon saliva. It failed me as I looked between Fauna and Fenrir. “You have a good relationship with them?”

She made a sound. “No. I’ve met her…once? Maybe? Fenrir, have you met either of them?”

“I have not,” he responded calmly. “I’ve been chained to a boulder.”

“Am I still recruiting them to help me with my doxxer?” I ask, testing the edges of Fauna’s temper.

The anger did not return. Her voice remained light as she said, “No. Now we’re simply following Ella and Estrid’s guidance on the next best step.”

Lies, of course, but important ones. Our loophole around Fauna’s promise to her fae informant was wrapped in my intoxicated slip of the tongue. Our plans to realm hop behind enemy lines hadn’t been calls to action, but organic side quests born after my farcical spiel about needing a valkyrie and a treasure goddess to assassinate some whorephobic senator. I still didn’t fully comprehend the limits of the fae and their oaths, but my lesson on immortals and their bonds had been earned through blood and tears. I would go on allowing Fauna to lead the dance of how much we could safely say to anyone else we happen to meet so that her word remained unbroken, even if that meant spinning verbal propaganda when no one appeared to be listening.

I controlled a tiny, shaky breath through my teeth as I said, “And, why do you—why do Ella and Estrid, I mean—think these two will help us?”

She snorted. “We have a few pretty convincing reasons on our side. The least of which is: Aphrodite hates Astarte. She has for thousands of years—mostly because of the popular international lore that Aphrodite was based on Astarte. Talk about cultural erasure on both ends.”

I shook my head uselessly. “What does that have to do with the couple we’re going to see?”

Fauna twisted her hair into a spiral and tucked the loop in on itself in a secure knot to get the heat off her neck. She shrugged. “I bring her up because the Greeks and the Phoenicians haven’t been poised to be buddies, right? It helps our cause that there’s already this seed of dissent between the two realms.”

I understood this qualm. Though the Phoenician gods came from the cradle of civilization and were among the earliest known gods, their popularity had been usurped and conflated with their Greek and Roman counterparts. It was bound to wound the ego.

“The Hellenic pantheon is powerful enough to turn their noses up at pretty much everyone, and they’re pretty happy with the way things are in the world,” Fauna said. “Most of them have no incentive to meddle. They’re alive and well in the public eye whether they remain in their realm or set up shop among mortals. They have literature, media, practitioners; you name it.”

“I understand why Astarte opened some prestigious fertility clinic,” I said. “She found a way to remain powerful and relevant when her temples were abandoned and worship ran dry. But why would any of the Greeks need to be topside?”

Fauna lifted a shoulder. “For shits and giggles. Eternity is long. Monotony is boring. Newness is one hell of a drug. But given their content status, if you want Grecian help, you’re going to need someone in a Fenrir situation.”

Fenrir glared over his shoulder this time. He narrowed his eyes at Fauna rather unmistakably before returning his large, dark gaze to the sidewalk. I followed his line of sight to see the Parthenon-style structure and its incredible pillars that bloomed into view at the end of the street. We’d almost reached the end of our journey.

Sticking up for Fenrir, I said, “I hardly think what happened to these two can be compared to what Odin did to Fenrir.”

“Thank you, human,” Fenrir replied, front-facing once more.

She chewed on her lip. “I guess that’s fair. Regardless, these two have some…common goals with Fenrir.”

I wasn’t sure what the dreaded wolf of Ragnarok could share with two exceptionally prominent Greeks, but I doubted it was anything pleasant. I wished I had something to do with my hands. It felt childish to twist the fabric of my shirt, but I had so much nervous energy and nowhere to put it. It had been terrifying enough to make it through the marshes and find Fenrir. Each new step felt like a nail in Caliban and Azrames’s coffin. “I get that we can’t go into the Phoenician realm poised to fail, but I’m struggling to understand why you think this is a good idea.”

Fenrir made a sound I could only describe as snorting. “You do understand. You know exactly why they’ll help, just as you knew why I would help. I don’t care who in the Nordic pantheon has hurt me or helped me. I’m here for the end. Nothing more.”

My blood cooled ever so slightly as I thought of the word that had coursed through me when I’d known precisely what Fenrir had wanted. I had known at my core the only deal that would win him to my side.

Fenrir thirsted for rebellion like it was water in the desert.

City lights blinded me. I cast my gaze to the side, watching dots of red and yellow disappear as they dotted the hills with distant shimmers. I shook my head. “But it’s different…”

“Is it?”

I trembled as I looked at Fauna for answers, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. The large, long-haired dog continued its forward path. I wasn’t too dumb to get what he was saying, but I was left stunned by his implication.

We kept the cliffs on our left as we swung wide toward what appeared to be an enormous estate. If I hadn’t been told otherwise, I would have thought we were approaching an embassy, or some brand of well-guarded political estate. I cast another glance at the slowly disintegrating rock wall, knowing the lore that filled the buildings resting on its top.

No one had mentioned the lore that resided slightly off to its side.

I finally argued, “It’s not alike at all. That’s not what these two do! That’s not what they’re known for. Greek mythology doesn’t have end of the world lore in the same way. The Greeks just have some loose prophecy that the gates will be thrown open to—”

“To their Underworld,” finished Fenrir just as we reached the base of the enormous structure. My heart rate had steadily increased with every step that drew us closer to our destination—the largest private museum in Greece. Enormous flowering gardens, statues, and fountains lined the outdoors for several blocks in all directions. The inside boasted the most pristine collection of artifacts of the afterlife from around the world. “And who guards the Underworld?”

We mounted the steps and began the climb to enter the building. Fenrir slowed slightly until I led the pack as we closed the gap between ourselves and the after-hours museum. I knew the door would be locked but extended my fingers toward the vertical steel bar anyway. Before I had a chance to wrap my fingers around the cylinder, it swung outward, stopping me in my tracks.

I froze as a tall figure leaned against the door. Despite the floodlights illuminating the museum’s exterior, nothing refracted in his dark eyes. I could see very little aside from the black hair, the square jaw, and the strong build of the man who towered before me. The shadow seemed to pool around him, as if caressing him with its concealing waves. I didn’t have to wait for an introduction to know exactly who stood before me.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” came the deep, smiling voice.

I suppressed a chill as I spoke his name.

“Hades.”