Kevin Hearne - Tricked

I watched him do his routine at the southern post in the magical spectrum. Nothing unusual happened until he finished, and then a brief flash of white light appeared along the ground between the eastern post and the southern post. It faded quickly, and I had no idea what it signified other than some magical energy had been expended there. I didn’t think that was normal for hataałiis; Frank was something extra.

I placed myself at Darren Yazzie’s disposal and helped out, and we got everything framed up with a couple of hours of sunlight left. We still needed to insulate it and put something on the roof besides plastic sheeting, but the structure was up and looking good. Granuaile was excited, because Frank would continue the Blessing Way that night and she’d be able to observe more closely. She’d spent most of the day on her Latin and trying to keep Oberon entertained.

As Darren’s crew was moving all the big equipment into a hastily fenced area for the evening, the hataałii was standing at the top of the road, about thirty yards away from the hogan site, nursing a bottle of water and looking down at the floor of the plateau. He called to us hoarsely, his eyes fixed on something to the north. Granuaile, Coyote, and I jogged over to him, but Oberon got there first. His hackles rose and he began to growl at whatever he saw.

Why? Who’s there? Moralltach was stored in Granuaile’s car below. I wasn’t ready for a fight. But as I drew even with Oberon and put a calming hand on the back of his neck, the blood drained from my face when I saw a lone figure limping toward us across the dry red rock. It looked like a little old lady, and she could not have been more out of place; it was like watching Elmo ride in to the Sturgis biker rally in South Dakota.

Granuaile joined us a moment later and gasped. “How did she find us?”

“You know her?” Frank asked. “Coming from the north like that, it’s a bad omen. An’ I can tell from here she’s got an awful bad vibe.” I took note of that; if he was speaking literally, then he must possess some sort of rudimentary magical sight.

Coyote squinted at her and agreed. “That ain’t a little old lady.”

“I used to know her,” I admitted. “She’s supposed to be dead.”

Frank spat on the ground. “You sayin’ she’s a zombie or some crazy shit like that?”

“Not a zombie, but some crazy shit? Yeah, I think she qualifies.”

“You ain’t really a geologist, are ya, Mr. Collins?” Frank asked in a wry tone. He had a sideways grin on his face, one of those looks that said he expected me to lie and that he wasn’t going to be fooled — or offended — if I did. If he could see something magical about the widow, then he could certainly see that I wasn’t an average Joe. So I didn’t try to pretend. It was all Coyote’s story anyway.

“No more than Mr. Benally here is a benevolent entrepreneur,” I said.

Frank chuckled as Coyote told me under his breath to shut up. That meant Frank must not know Coyote’s true nature — but he probably knew Coyote wasn’t normal either. “So what the hell is that out there?” the hataałii asked, pointing with a brief jut of his chin instead of his hand.

“I don’t know what it is. But it’s time I found out.”

The figure approaching on foot from the north looked like the widow MacDonagh, but I knew it wasn’t really her. I sprinted downhill to get my sword.

After my return from Asgard, Oberon told me that the widow had died. Poor Mrs. MacDonagh had been fighting a long list of ailments before I left, and she succumbed to them during my absence, passing on in her sleep. But then Oberon told me that she rose from the dead, behaved strangely, never spoke and never ate. And she never had a single sip of whiskey. I knew at that instant she’d been possessed — though by whom or what, I wasn’t exactly sure. All I knew was that whoever had taken possession was waiting for me to come back and get my dog. It could have been the Hindu witch, Laksha Kulasekaran; she had the ability to do something like that. But I doubted Laksha would break her word to me so offensively and invite my displeasure, and the timing suggested to me that it was someone (or something) else more dangerous. And, on top of that, Jesus had told me during our conversation in Rúla Búla that my activities in Asgard would attract unwanted attention.

I retrieved Moralltach from Granuaile’s car, unsheathed it, and strode forward to meet the erstwhile Mrs. MacDonagh. Oberon, Granuaile, Coyote, and Frank Chischilly followed at what I hoped was a safe distance. Turning on my faerie specs, I saw that the widow no longer carried a human aura about her. There was a fairly humanoid shape to what I saw, but it bloated and pulsed and changed constantly, like one of those fractal screen savers, and it was rife with the white noise of magical power. Whatever possessed her was powerful; I strongly suspected it was a god.

What was left of the widow looked much the worse for wear. Her floral cotton dress was stained and unraveling at the hem. The light in her eyes was gone, and her face hung slack until I stopped ten yards away and lifted my sword.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

The stricken face stretched itself in a grisly imitation of a smile. The lips didn’t precisely fit properly around the skull anymore, and I saw more tissue than I should have. It didn’t reply in English; instead it spoke in Old Norse, and my worst fears were realized.

“I do not speak that tongue,” it said. The voice was not the kind lilt of Katie MacDonagh but rather a wheezing rasp of malevolence, as if someone had taken a fistful of sandpaper to her vocal cords. “If you are the hound’s owner, then I’m sure you understand me. Do you speak Old Norse?”

I nodded and replied in that language, which meant everyone else was out of the conversation. “Who are you?” I asked again. It couldn’t be an omniscient sort, or it wouldn’t have had to track me here using Oberon. That ruled out Odin, but it left almost everyone else as a possibility.

The creature in the widow’s body chuckled, or rather made a sound like ice cracking in the spring, while the body shook with merriment.

“Come, now. I rule the old and infirm, the diseased and palsied, all the slain unchosen by the Valkyries, all whom Freyja abandons outside her hall at Fólkvangr. This form I take is no disguise. Surely you can guess.”

With no little effort, I stifled a shudder. “Hel,” I breathed. The daughter of Loki, ruler of the dead in Niflheim.

The horrible smile yawned again. “Yessss.”

“Why are you in Midgard?”

“I am here because of you … What shall I call you?”

“You can call me … Roy.”

“That is not your true name.”

“Let it suffice for now. What happened to the widow?”

“The woman who wore this skin? She passed on to the Christian lands as she wished. Her soul was not mine to take, only the body.”

“The body isn’t yours to take either. It’s offensive that you should wear it. Release it and then we will talk.”

“Nonsense,” Hel replied. “I cannot walk around in my true form. People never wish to talk to me that way. They scream or gibber or vomit but never talk. However offensive you find me in this old woman’s skin, we can at least converse without you losing your sanity.”

I didn’t insist she drop the widow’s body now, because she might not be exaggerating. But neither did I like to think she would hold on to it. The widow’s family deserved some closure.