Odin's Murder

Anders reaches for my brother, and I jerk on the hand still holding mine, but I’m too late again. The lunatic has the twine around my brother’s neck, twisting it hard, cutting into his skin, like a garrote, the rune sticking out, obscene.

“No!” I cry, but Julian’s hand tears from mine, and the eyes I’ve looked into since the womb fill with terror but I’m helpless, and in an instant, my brother is gone. The raven in his place attacks Anders, and then rises to the sky.

“Bring him back. You bring him back!” I shout. I turn to Ethan, who is rooted to the spot, watching Miriam. “Why?” I yell at him. “Why ar

e you letting this happen?”

“You mean, why would I take an offer to live rather than die? I have no idea what the fuck is going on, but if helping him means I wake up in the morning, then what other choice do I have?” His words sting like a slap. “And if he is a god? What do I have to lose?”

“You have me! You have them.” I don’t look up, at the three crows circling the cavern.

“What, until you go back to your stuck-up college and start dating the next Jeremy, and I go back to prison, where I share a cell with a guy who may slit my throat at any minute? My life isn’t yours, Memory. We’re on a different plane of existence.”

“You really think I’m that petty?”

He shakes his head. “For once in your life, realize that something is not about you. This is about me. He’s offering me freedom, and a future, and a purpose!”

“I can’t believe you.” But I do, I see the glint of silver tucked into his belt.

“I’m a liar. And a thief. No one told you to trust me.”

“This little break up is lovely to watch, but we have business to finish,” Anders says, avoiding another claw attack from the raven.

“Shut up,” I tell him. “Don’t you come near me. Change them back. Right now.”

Jump. The word bounces into my head, a light consciousness, fairy-like, curious but sure.

“Tyr?” Anders ducks again. “Hold her.”

Ethan grabs me, the dagger in his hand, turning the tip to my throat. The blade presses into my skin, bringing tears to my eyes but I refuse to cry.

Jump. The second voice in my brain is female too, but full of sorrow and pain.

I try to twist out of Ethan’s arms, to see his face, but he grips me tighter. Anders smiles, one hand reaching toward me. I look up to the swooping raven, so I won’t have the psycho’s face as my final memory.

Jump! The mind is the twin of my own, a voice I’ve known all my life.

Before I can jump, Ethan flings me behind his body, shielding me from Anders, the knife pointed at him now, not me.

“Did you really think I would choose you over her?” Ethan asks him. Then lower, to me, “Get it off my neck.”

I grasp at the twine at the nape of his neck, fumbling at the knot. It loosens as Anders lunges at us, and I stagger backward, the necklace in my hand. Not a rune but an orb, smooth like glass, and gold.

“No!” Anders shouts, flailing in our direction, hand outstretched to the ring with the amber stone.

Ethan shoves me out of the way, hard. I fall to the ground and the stone tumbles from my palm. I roll toward it. Fingers I know aren’t Ethan’s grab at my ankle, but they let go with a curse and the screech of a bird. I gasp for air and look at Mimir. She screams words I almost understand, a ball of fire in one bare hand and the disembodied eye in the other.

Crawling across the rocky floor, my fingers questing for the amber ring, I’m almost there when the men collide, tumbling over my legs. I scramble away, the stone tight in my hand.

JUMP! Ethan’s voice ricochets in my skull.

I glance at the well, deep and endless. Anders lunges at me again, and Ethan throws himself between us, slashing out with the knife, adding another scratch to the ones Faye left on the madman’s face.

The raven strikes down again, driving Anders back, but knocking the knife from Ethan’s hand. It clatters across the rocks, and both men race to grab it, but Anders is nearer, and he slashes out in a wide arc, and then it’s red with blood and Ethan swears, gripping his left arm.

Anders swings again, off balance and wild, and Ethan throws a punch, a clumsy hit, but enough to knock the other man down. I grab Ethan as he stumbles, and drag him, my left hand fisted in his shirt, the other gripping the stone gem, away from the knife’s reach, backward, toward the well. The ring of blue fire leaps high, closing around me and the boy who holds me impossibly close, and the crows that fly above the flames.

“JUMP!” Mimir, hands working the blaze into a frenzy, yells with a force that makes me stagger sideways. Without hesitation, Ethan spins, his arms tight around my ribs, and leaps toward the waterfall. Together, we fall.