Stormbringer: Book 2 of the Wyrd

Four

Wayne made the tea. Some concoction of chili and cinnamon and ginger, because she was an incorrigible beverage hipster who kept an alchemist's lab of equipment next to the cash register.

Sigmund considered the wisdom of consuming anything found inside a Helbleed, but didn't want to say as much in front of the lady herself. It seemed rude.

"You know of my death at Father's hands." Speaking of, Hel was standing, straight and proud, between a shelf of crumbling Tintin and a display of oozing plastic Daleks.

"Uh, yeah . . . kinda? He mentioned some stuff." Honestly, between Loki and Baldr and Lain and gods only knew who else, the whole Helbleed/Ragnarøkkr thing had been bloody confusing.

Hel "sipped" her tea, which mostly involved delicately pouring it onto her tongue, what with the lack of lips and all. She was pretty good at it, especially given the huge sleeves that covered her hands like the world's most ill-fitting pair of gloves.

"We met in battle," she said. "While he wore the crown of Ásgarðr. It was an honorable death."

"Are you . . . er . . ."

Another shift that may have been a smile. "Yes," Hel said. "I am now as my subjects are."

Dead, in other words. "Oh. Right, um . . . my condolences?"

"But you died a warrior's death." Em was sitting up on the counter, eyes fixed on Hel like a fangirl at a photo op. "That means you aren't like your subjects at all, right?"

"Em!" hissed Wayne, shooting a pointed look. But if the question was rude, Hel didn't mention it. Instead, she nodded.

"Correct."

"And that's why you want our help." Em was leaning forward, grinning and eager. Hungry, in some way Sigmund had never seen before. "Because we're valkyries. Were valkyries, whatever. And you need an escort. To Valhalla."

"Valhöll was destroyed," Hel said. "Brimir and Gimlé replace it, to the same end. As one slain in battle, as einheri, I have right of place. And I will claim it. For myself, and for my people."

"What happens to Hel happens to Hel?"

Because Hel was a woman, but it was also a place: both the ruler and the land. And what happened to the Queen . . .

"You want equality for the dead." It wasn't a question, and it occurred to Sigmund that Hel really was her father's daughter. She'd used him, set him up on this longest of cons.

A flash of memory, bubbling to the surface: of Hel and Sigyn, heads close and murmuring in hushed voices. Making conspiracies, rewriting the Ragnarøkkr and everything that came after.

Here, in the now, Hel nodded, the motion punctuated by the chiming of gold baubles hanging from her horns and the fringes of her veil. "Ragnarøkkr is done, and Ásgarðr no longer needs its army. Even the dead deserve their peace, deserve to be reunited with family split from them by circumstance and the hubris of fallen gods."

Dad goes a-viking, falls to Saxons in a raid. Boom, one-way ticket to Valhöll, to die endlessly in a hellish celestial Blackwater. Mum, meanwhile, spends the next fifteen years looking after the kids, coughs herself into an early grave, and wakes up in Hel's cold lands. No kids, no spouse. It was cruel, when Sigmund thought of it like that.

He wondered why no one else ever seemed to. No one except for Hel, that was.

"So, like. What do you need from us?" Wayne was leaning over the counter, tea forgotten and eyes as bright as Em's. Whatever Hel's plan, they'd already signed on. The only things left were the details.