Chapter Seven
September 9, age 26
Fauna’s fingers flew to her lips to cover a smirk. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
Uncertainty paralyzed me as I looked down at my outfit. I knew I needed the s?lje, but apart from the enchanted broach, I was lost. I’d slipped into black leggings, ankle-high combat boots, and a white, long-sleeved shirt. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to go to an exercise class, hike a mountain, or kick some ass. I stared at the shake of her shoulders as she giggled.
She flicked off the TV. “I’m fucking with you because I knew it would freak you out. We don’t give a shit what you wear. Maybe grab a jacket, though.”
It took a while for my anxiety to settle after her comment. Adapting to the designer fashion and wealthy upper echelons of Hell had been terrifying enough. I had no idea what to expect from the Nordes. I was supposed to meet the very gods and mythological beings about whom I’d written pretty absurd fiction— researched fiction, but made-up stories nonetheless. My only example of their people was Fauna, and she was nuts.
I looked out the window as if expecting sunshine in the middle of the night. We’d been in tank tops and crop tops only moments before on Nia’s patio. “It’s September!”
It was as if there was a fishing line pulling one corner of her lips ever upward. “Do you think the Nordes love the Lofoten Islands and fjords and Icelandic mountains for the balmy weather?”
I grumbled as I grabbed an autumnal puff jacket from the closet.
“Do you need something warmer?” I asked her as I scanned my clothes.
“Me? No, I won’t be in mortal form when I’m there.”
I squinted at her, struggling to discern if this was another of her many unfunny jokes.
“What, you think I’m always limited to your human rules? Just wait ‘til you see me on my home turf.” She extended a hand for me as I finished shrugging into my jacket. I wrapped the fingers of my free hand around the broach.
I eyed her skeptically. “Wait, before we go… I could really use a heads-up of what to expect.”
“Sure,” she said, “but first, tell me this: Will my answer make a difference?”
I could feel the lines in my forehead as I frowned.
“If I tell you that we’re going plummet through time and space and land on a giant Viking ship in the Atlantic Ocean in the year 600, eat salted cod, brave the cold, and go to war, would that stop us from going to see the Nordes? Would you no longer want to ask for help in getting your precious Prince back?”
“I—”
“Exactly. So, if you have to go anyway, what good is the question?”
I fidgeted. “Because I’m an anxious person.”
Her short huff was impatient, but not unkind. “Sure, but what purpose does anxiety serve you? Will it keep you from going?”
“No.”
“Precisely. Now that I’ve cured all your problems, let’s get going. We’re off to see what I can really do.”
Perhaps if she hadn’t shown empathy and understanding in previous conversations about mental health, I would have stomped on her toes. Ignoring her glib remark, I reached out my hand uncertainly. “You’re just a normal person there, right? That’s what Silas said?”
She tossed her head back, a bright, airy laugh filling the room as she said, “You think they’re going to send a nobody to watch the Prince’s human? I’m no more of a nobody than you are. And you, Marlow-Merit-Maribelle, are not a nobody.”
***
I didn’t even like leaving my apartment for the promise of brunch and bottomless mimosas. There was no ancient library, no mushroom-covered fairy glen, and no fifty-percent-off Gucci sale that sounded more fun than staying home in my sweatpants rewatching one of my comfort TV shows.
Not only was I about to go somewhere terrifying and otherworldly, but it wasn’t even the Phoenician realm to rescue Caliban.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, sure, but maybe Romulus and Remus would have hurried their city along a little if their soul mates had been at stake.
As Fauna’s and Azrames’s combination of warding was too good, now none of us could jump in or out. I proposed the alley behind the warehouse, to which Fauna made a comment about preferring trees over the city scent of urine. There was only one park within walking distance of my upscale loft, and it was intended for off-leash dog owners. In the daytime, the wooded walking path would have encircled a pack of yellow labs and dachshunds and a disproportionate number of huskies given that we lived deep within a city.
“Can we just go?” I shot an anxious glance over my shoulder. There were no floodlights in the park after hours, if only to discourage trespassing.
“Give it a sec.” Fauna peered at the silver slices of moon through the trees. “I’m waiting until it’s overhead.”
“Does it make a difference?”
“Kinda.” She shrugged. “The veil is thinner when we believe it is. It’s like how a placebo effect can cure uncurable illnesses and all that jazz. And all the realms have the same night sky. Isn’t that beautiful?”
“I have the s?lje,” I argued. An image of the enchanted broach flashed before me. The dangling, silver piece of jewelry was a traditional staple of many Scandinavian families. Most s?ljes, however, hadn’t been gifted by the fae, and didn’t grant their user the ability to go back and forth between the mortal realm and the lands of gods. “I don’t need a thin veil.”
She waved a hand to shush me. “You’re interrupting the cinematic value of ceremonious realm hopping.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep lungful of cool, autumn air. “A little.”
“Hey!” A man’s voice sliced through the night with jarring clarity. Fright hit me like a lightning bolt as I spun to see the speaker. For fuck’s sake, it had to be a security guard. His flashlight may as well have been the LED brights on a douchey pickup truck, as it was utterly blinding.
“Fuck, Fauna, we gotta go.”
“Would you calm down?” She continued staring at the moon, which gave me time to be panicked enough for the both of us.
“Well, well, well,” he said, flashlight bobbing as he approached. “What do we have here? Park’s closed, ladies.”
I shielded my eyes from the bright spotlight, but he didn’t lower it. My heart picked up on the irregularity before it registered with my brain. Up, up, up ticked my pulse as I waited for the man to reveal himself.
“We were just leaving,” I said.
“I don’t know,” the man said. “I think you should both stay here while I call the cops. Unless…”
Fauna spoke up at last. “Unless what, pig? We suck your dick?”
“Ha!” Aggression flared as he shoved the beam in Fauna’s face. She didn’t so much as squint as she looked back at him, utterly unbothered. “Your words, sweetie, not mine. You’re the ones breaking the law.”
“Are we?” she replied. The question was innocent enough, but a thinly veiled threat coursed through her two simple words. The venom within them was far more terrifying than being discovered by the man in the first place. “Impersonating law enforcement is a misdemeanor with up to a year of jail time. As of 2022, it’s now a federally recognized offense for someone to use their legal status for sexual coercion.”
“Listen, lady,” he threatened. I heard the bone-chilling click as the man armed himself. “The way I see it, this ends one of two ways.”
Fauna pouted. “Only two? Then you’re not very imaginative.”
“Don’t you think you can—”
A crack of earth. A terrible scream. A sharp cut of light. His sentence was ripped in half by the booming sound I can only describe as a fully formed oak erupting from the earth with volcanic force.
It was hard to explain what happened next.
I winced against the bright light. I covered my face, dropping to the ground as a single fire discharged into the air. An inhuman, yet distinctly male screech ripped through the night in the seconds that followed the gunshot. The flashlight flew from the guard’s hand, bouncing along the path while blood-curdling wails drowned out every other sense. I screamed in return, my parasympathetic response releasing as much adrenaline as possible as I readied myself for an attack. Surely in a second, it would be me. Whatever nightmare, whatever werewolf, whatever hacking, slashing serial killer known for prowling parks had found us. I began to hyperventilate as I fumbled around on the path for the flashlight. By the time I wrapped my fingers around the handle and pointed a trembling beam of light in the security guard’s direction, I saw…nothing.
Freshly turned earth with a new array of roots and weeds sprouted from what I was quite certain had been a hardened walking path only minutes prior. I shot the beam of light at Fauna, who blew on her fingers, then outstretched them as if examining a fresh manicure.
A new fear filled me.
My voice shook as I stared at her. “What…what did you do?”
She dropped her hand and gave me the same bored expression she’d given the man only moments prior. “Like I said, he wasn’t being very imaginative. I’d like to say he’ll think twice before harassing women again, but, well…he won’t have the chance.”
The beam of light illuminated the fresh patch of dirt once more as I understood with horrific clarify that somewhere beneath the earth and brambles lay a dead man. My vivid imagination sprinted into action, picturing moss packed into guts, veins and arteries and capillaries replaced with soil, a tree trunk erupting from his mouth, and vines shoving bones out of the way to make room for the unstoppable force of a deity who could manipulate nature.
But I didn’t imagine the damp, crimson secretion where his blood soaked through to the surface.
I didn’t know how she’d done it, but I knew in my bones: Fauna had killed him.
The flashlight fell limply to my side. Numbness overtook me as my eyes readjusted to the moonlight. I stared at Fauna and, for the first time, wondered if I was safe with her.
I scolded myself for the thought. She’d saved me. Maybe it was something like this—total punishment of any man who might threaten a woman—that had brought her and Azrames together in the first place. But try as I might, I couldn’t talk myself out of the terror I felt when I looked at her.
She extended her fingers, and I flinched away as if she’d been holding the security guard’s gun.
“The moon is right,” she said. Then, observing my trembles, she said, “Trust me: the world is better without him. That was not a good guy. I know you’re feeling a little frazzled right now, peanut, but I have just the thing to fix it. Now that the riffraff’s out of the way, it’s time you took a vacation.”