"The fuck you do," I growled and yanked the machete out of her arm before kicking her legs out from under her.
She fell to the ground, and before I had a chance to do anything else, one of her comrades had jumped on my back. He wrapped his arm around my neck, attempting to strangle me, so I jerked my head back to headbutt him.
He didn't let go, and Winged Girl had gotten back to her feet, so I was left warding her off while trying not to be knocked unconscious. I couldn't see how Quinn was doing or really anything else, because I had to focus entirely on whoever was on my back and Winged Girl.
It didn't hurt, I couldn't feel much of anything, but my vision started to feel blotchy. I knew I was gasping for air, but I would keep fighting as long as I could. I didn't have a choice.
SIXTY
Suddenly there was a loud, low sound--like a bass drop mixed with sonar--and a rush of air. It was powerful enough that we all went flying backward, skidding so far on the concrete that we almost landed in the canal.
When I looked up, there stood Fufluns Dillinger--the pudgy, balding immortal who owned the corner market. In his hands he held a stocky black gun with a clear parabolic dish at the end of the muzzle, and based on the sound waves that hit us I guessed it was a very powerful USW--an ultrasonic weapon.
"Don't make me shoot you again!" he warned the Perenelle's Children as they slowly got to their feet.
They looked at him warily, but apparently even they were no match for USWs, so they slunk off into the night. Quinn was standing up, leaning back against her now badly dented car. Blood dripped down her temple, but she was alive and she looked okay.
"Malin?" Fufluns asked, peering down at me as I stood up. "Is that you?"
"Yeah." I cleared my throat. "Yeah, it's me."
"Why don't you come in and get cleaned up?" Fufluns stepped back, aiming the USW more toward the sky than at us, and motioned toward the store. "It's not safe out here."
I looked over at Quinn, who appeared stunningly badass. Her silvery hair disheveled from the fight, green eyes still glowing with fierce intensity. The rain had soaked through her gray long-sleeved shirt, so it clung to her skin. But it was the way she stood--tall, strong, confident--even after getting the shit kicked out of her that was what amazed me the most.
She nodded at Fufluns, almost reluctantly, then said, "If we can't handle the riffraff out here, we won't make it through whatever is going on downtown."
"But Quinn--" I tried to argue, but she turned and followed Fufluns back to the store.
"Let's go inside and talk about it," she said over her shoulder. "We don't need to make this poor man stand out in the rain any longer."
Once we were inside, Fufluns locked the front door before pulling down a metal shutter, sealing off the outside. Quinn and I must've looked a little put off by that because he immediately said, "This is not to keep you in. It's to keep everyone else out. You can go whenever you wish, although I would suggest that you not walk."
"No, I won't be walking anywhere tonight," I said, casting a regretful look out the storefront window.
Even though he was a big man--taller than me and with a big, round belly--his clothes were always a little too big. He reminded me of a slacker, like an overgrown college kid or one of the party gods, who appeared to be about in his forties. According to Oona, he refused to work morning shifts, he had the habit of closing the store when he felt like it, and his books were a mess.
Once I asked him how he got into a business like this, and he shrugged. "The economy did strange things to everybody, and sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do."
"Where is Oona?" Fufluns asked, pulling up his loose-fitting leisure pants.
"She's at home," I said.
"Of course. She is too smart to be out in this." He leaned closer to me and lowered his voice, even though the store was empty except for us. "I don't mean to pry, but she is my best worker, and I was wondering, has she ... has she gotten done the important work she had to do?"
Before taking off with me a week and a half before to chase after Tamerlane Fayette, Oona had called Fufluns and asked for a leave of absence, citing important matters that she needed to tend to. When we'd stopped in to get a charger yesterday, he'd interrogated her about when she would return, but since she was his best employee, he'd probably keep asking every time he saw one of us.
"Soon." I swallowed. "I hope."
While we'd been talking, Quinn had slowly been drifting to the back of the store. Most of the inventory were basic food and home goods--albeit at jacked-up prices--but several shelves in the back were reserved for apothecary and medicine. There were a few items that Oona assured me actually worked, but mostly they were overpriced knockoff crystals, amulets, and various herbs.
Quinn was crouched down, picking out a salve to treat her scrapes and bruises, when Fufluns waved his hands at her.
"No, no, don't use that. It's crap." Fufluns jerked his thumb toward his office at the back of the store. "Let me grab the good stuff out of the first-aid kit. I'll be right back."
Quinn put the salve down and straightened up. With Fufluns gone, she gave me her this-is-very-serious look. "You're going to call Samael and tell him we can't do it." She waited a beat before adding, "Right?" But it was never really a question.
"Yeah. I don't have a choice." I shifted uneasily as she stared me down. "Sorry about getting you dragged into this."
"No, don't be," she said with a softened tone. "I told you that I wanted to help, and I meant it."
The adrenaline and Valkyrie rush were starting to wear off, and I could feel the aches and pains seeping into my muscles and bones. The Perenelle's Children definitely knew how to fight. So now I was sore, cold, and terrified of how to act around Quinn.
"How have you been?" I asked, almost blurting it out like some secret I'd been dying to tell. "We haven't really talked since we got back to the city."
She lowered her gaze, and I swear I saw her cheeks flush pink for a second. "I've been as good as I can be, given the state of everything."
"Have you had any work?" I asked. I hadn't but there were about a hundred reasons why I wouldn't be getting work anytime soon, so I didn't know what if any assignments were going out at a normal rate for everyone else.
"Nope." She shook her head, but she looked totally nonplussed. "I haven't even talked to Samael since I last saw him with you."
"Well, I imagine he has his hands full right now," I said lamely, so I wouldn't have to stand with Quinn in an awkward silence.
Fufluns returned in the nick of time, carrying a great big canister of a waxy substance, and the sheer size of it made me wonder how often Fufluns got hurt and what exactly was going in his first-aid kit.
"Here, this is the good stuff." He held it out to Quinn, who tentatively took it from him. "Slather that all over anything that hurts you, and you'll be right as rain," he directed vaguely as he stepped back toward his office. "I'm watching the TV in my back office. Someone stole a police car downtown, and they have the chase on NorNewsNow. You can come watch it with me if you want."
"We're okay, thanks," I said to his retreating figure.
"What do you think?" Quinn was talking to me, but she was looking at the canister and wrinkling her nose.
The bright green label on the side called it Manna of the Gods but the asterisk next to it explicitly stated they were in no way associated with the real gods, Vanir or otherwise.
"I know that Fufluns wouldn't have given this to us if he didn't really believe it worked," I said with a shrug. "He really loves Oona."
That must've convinced her--probably because everybody loved Oona--and she pulled off the lid and put a big dab of it on her finger. It reminded me of a dollop of whipped cream, but if whipped cream were made from melted candle wax. "Here goes nothing."
As she carefully slathered the salve onto a nasty scrape on her arm, I felt compelled to say something, anything, in a vain attempt to alleviate the tension between us and the guilt I
felt about being around her. Not just because of things I'd done or hadn't done, but even how I still felt about her now.
That's how I found myself saying, "I'm happy. I mean, I'm happy that you're good, relatively speaking."
"Thanks." She looked up at me uncertainly. "I hope you are doing well also?"
"No, I..." I rubbed the back of my neck, acutely aware of how awkward and random I was sounding. "I've been wanting to talk to you since..." I paused and started over. "When we were in Belize, you said some things--"
"We don't have to talk about it," she said, talking over me. "You've made yourself perfectly clear."
"I don't think I have," I persisted. "It's hard for me to say how I feel sometimes."
"Oh, believe me, I know." She'd been focusing on putting the healing salve on her wounds, but she stopped now to look up at me.
"I'm being honest with you here," I said. "Can you cut me some slack?"
"Honest?" Her crooked smile deepened, turning bitter at the edges. "You've always been honest with me. It's yourself that you lied to."
I lowered my eyes and chewed the inside of my cheek, trying to keep myself from reacting the way I wanted to. Not that I even really knew how I wanted to react. With tears? With anger? With acceptance?
She stepped closer to me, and I refused to look up, so I stared down at her wet boots on the dirty floor.
"Malin, we don't need to go over this again," she said gently. "I understand who you are, and I always did. I asked too much of you, and I knew it, but I wanted it so badly I thought maybe I could will it into existence. But that's my fault. You told me who you were."
"Shit, Quinn." I turned away from her, barely able to hold back the tears that stung at my eyes.
"No, Malin, it's not like that." She rushed to correct herself and put her hand on my shoulder so I'd look at her. "I'm saying I didn't listen to you. You've got some hang-ups, but they were right there on display."
She swallowed hard before continuing. "I thought that if I tried hard enough, we could plow right through them to some magical happy land." Quinn shook her head sadly. "But that's not how life works. You put those walls up, and you have to be the one to take them down. I can't do it for you."
I struggled to keep it together, but I finally managed to say, "I'm sorry it took me too long to figure that out."
"Me, too." She dropped her hand and went back to the Manna, turning away and giving me a moment of privacy.
I blinked hard a few times and wiped at my eyes with the palm of my hand.
"You were my first love," I said to her back, my words loud because I had to force them out. I had to fight to say them. "I wanted you to know that."
She didn't say anything at first. She stood with her back to me, her shoulders slightly sagging. When she finally did look back, tears had formed in her eyes.
"I didn't know that," she said softly, with a sad crooked smile. "But if you keep letting people in, I know I won't be your last." Then she turned and walked away. "If you'll excuse me, I have to run to the bathroom."
SIXTY-ONE
While Quinn was in the bathroom, I called Samael to let him know that I wouldn't be able to make it. He understood, as he hadn't realized how batshit everything had gone downtown until after he texted me. I happened to let it slip that I was with Quinn, so he told me to take her back to my place and wait for him to contact me.
"I'll figure out a way to meet up with you," he promised me.
"Why can't you tell me what's going on over the phone?" I asked. "I mean, it's important."
He was silent for a moment, then said, "I'll see you later tonight."
And he hung up the phone.
That's how I ended up back at my apartment, sitting awkwardly at one end of the couch while my ex-girlfriend sat on the other, with my sorta-boyfriend passed out in the next room and my best friend obsessively watching the news. Thankfully, Bowie was more than happy to be a buffer between us, spreading out until he was kicking me with his back feet.
Ellery Park--sitting behind the news desk and speaking in her calm, careful tones--informed us the rioting and looting downtown had been contained, with many of the assailants arrested and only a few injuries reported. Still, she warned us all to stay inside until we were given the all-clear by the National Guard.
Finally, when I couldn't handle another pundit telling us all to keep calm and carry on, my phone rang.
"It's him," I announced when I saw Samael's name flash across the screen, and Oona hurried to turn down the TV as I answered.
"Where are you?" Samael asked before I even had a chance to say hello.
"I'm in my apartment." I stood up, pacing the room as I spoke.
"You still live in the Tannhauser Towers, right?"
"Um, yeah, I do." I went over to the window and looked out, half expecting to see Samael somehow magically waiting for me outside, but it was only rain and adverts and a handful of pedestrians. "I'm in the first tower on the north side of Maneto Canal."
"Excellent," he replied. "Can you get to the roof?"
"What?"
"Can you get up to the roof?" he repeated, more slowly this time.
"The roof? Maybe? I've never tried. Why?"
"Get up there, if you can," Samael said. "I'll meet you up there in twenty minutes."
"What? How are you getting there?"
"Twenty minutes, Malin." That was all he said, and then he hung up.
"Samael really needs to work on his phone etiquette," I muttered.
I turned back around to find Quinn and Oona hovering right behind me, and they immediately pounced on me with a series of rapid-fire questions. Since neither waited for the other to stop talking before jumping in, I could hardly understand either of them.
Once their inquisition finally ceased, I was able to tell them what little I knew. Quinn insisted on going up to the roof with me, but Oona was okay with staying behind, in case Asher woke up and needed something.
We took the fire stairs up to the roof, so it really wasn't hard to do. Except there were a lot more stairs than I would've thought, and both Quinn and I were already tired and sore from our scuffle with the Perenelle's Children.
Quinn leaned back against the door at the top, resting. I walked around the roof, checking behind heating stacks and water tanks, in case Samael beat us here somehow.
It was windy on top of the building, but honestly, not as bad as I had feared given the recent storms. The rain had mostly died down, but now it was icy little drizzles that felt like frozen shards of glass stinging my exposed skin.
I stood at the edge of the building, staring down at the city that surrounded us, and I caught a glimpse of something flying between the buildings. At first I thought it might be Muninn, Odin's massive raven that had been following me around.
But it wasn't a bird. It was a woman with large feathered wings, and she was carrying something in her arms. As they came closer, soaring around the building as they gained altitude, I realized that it was Valeska, carrying Samael.
"Holy shit!" I pointed at them. "There they are!"
"They?" Quinn asked as she rushed over to join me, and she gasped when she saw them. "Valeska!"
Within a few minutes, Valeska was carefully setting Samael down on the roof, and then she landed beside him. She was a little out of breath, but she held the same cool, vaguely bored expression she had every time I saw her. She nodded hello, and she might have said more but then Quinn intervened.
"Do you have a death wish or something?" Quinn said.
"It's no big deal. I've done that kinda thing plenty of times," Valeska replied nonchalantly. "I'm much stronger than I look."
"I know." Quinn softened and looked at her with soft, dewy eyes--the same eyes she used to give me when we first started dating. "Be careful."
I didn't need to see that--even if I was happy for them, it was still tied up in a painful knot of jealousy--so I turned my attention to Samael.
His cheeks were flushed from the col
d air and perhaps the fear, and his normally boyish aquamarine eyes had a new intensity. He popped the collar on his black peacoat to block out some of the wind.
Valeska noticed and moved behind us, spreading her wings wide to help block the wind. Quinn stood the closest to her, almost huddled up against her, with a wide stance, so Valeska could lean on her for support against the blustering gusts.
"What's so important that you had to risk your life to tell me?" I asked.
"That was honestly quite a bit more terrifying than I imagined," he admitted as he raked his fingers through his tangles of hair.
"Samael." I folded my arms over my chest. "What's going on?"
"I know this was a bit of a dramatic way to go about it, but this is safer than meeting down at the Riks." He shook his head. "There might not be anyone I can trust."
"What? What's going on?"
"The walls have ears, I suspect." He scowled. "I know for certain they've tapped all our phones. I don't know what exactly is going on, but they're definitely paranoid about something."
"Everyone is paranoid?" I echoed in disbelief.
"Right. Because Odin's still missing." He gestured vaguely at the air, as if Odin had just disappeared into the ether. "So they're all on lockdown."
"Is that what you came to tell me? That Odin is gone?" I asked.
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and hunched over. "Not exactly. I wanted to ask you if you've seen him or talked to him."
"No. I haven't even seen his ravens." It had been before I went to Kurnugia that I'd last heard anything from Odin. "I would've told you."
He smiled grimly at me. "I had to ask."
"Why did you want me here for that?" Quinn asked as her silver tangles of hair whipped around her face. "You know I don't know where Odin is, either."
"The other item is more of a personal nature," Samael said. "I know that things have been intense lately, so it's hard to focus on any of the mundane bureaucracies. But it's been over two weeks since Marlow passed, and if you want any say on what they put out about her in the official Hall of Records, it's important that you get the paperwork all filled out as soon as you have the chance."
The Hall of Records was a long corridor with floor-to-ceiling shelves lining either side, all of them filled with books on the entire history of the Valkyries. Every Valkyrie born had a notation about her--name, birth date, death date, notable ancestors on father's side, descendants, the years worked and who the Valkyrie had slain, and any significant life events.