“Why didn’t you tell me you were alive?” I ask in nearly a whisper.
He reaches across the table and drags my beer to him, tearing the paper napkins stuck to the table. “I didn’t deserve to.”
Shock dries my mouth, freezes my tongue for a moment. It’s a struggle, and tears bleed into my eyes, but I harden my voice. “But I did. I deserved better than to mourn you and miss you and blame myself for your death when you were alive and—and her ally. You were supposed to be mine.”
“Maybe … it’s … the same thing.”
“Here the gutless son of the sword-widow,” I say. A line from Beowulf.
He sets down the beer, eyes glazed and staring at the caramel slosh.
I stand up. “Goodbye, Ned Unferth.”
Before he can respond or not, I leave.
TWENTY-FOUR
I LET MYSELF cry like a child all the way home, grateful for the easy grid of streets and the darkness.
My little house is easy to spot by the tall iron fence molded like wheat stalks and the ghostly blooms from the dogwood trees in the back. Sharp white light escapes through a slit in the heavy curtain blocking the square windows high in the garage door where Red Stripe is hidden. Inside, I suck away my tears as I hurry through the hall to the garage and whisper to Thebes, “I’ll stay until morning and talk to you all then.”
He hesitates, but I go straight to the calcified troll and sink down to the floor, my face against his stone knee. Thebes’s large hand settles on my head and then he leaves, more quietly than any of the other berserkers seem to move.
When I’m alone, I bury myself in Red Stripe’s cold comfort, my chest aching from the fury and wildness and just plain relief that Ned’s alive. I hold myself tight, shaking and hissing sobs through my teeth.
My tears turn the pale blue marble of the troll skin darker, like patches of lichen.
She catches me from behind in her claws and pulls me against her chest, cradling me gently. She’s soft and cool, humming a lovely tune that has my eyes drifting shut. Until her claws dig into my chest. I scream as she cracks open my ribs like double doors. My heart is on fire, but she takes it in her massive hands and eats it.
I wake up.
My eyelashes stick together, but I smell coffee. Somebody is poking my cheek and I grimace up at Sharkman. There’s no grin on his face this morning. “Why were you crying?” he demands softly.
Darius crouches just behind him, holding two mugs of coffee. Rain hits the tiny windows; moisture drips through the crack at the bottom of the wide garage door. “Did you locate her?” he asks.
I sit up. My first vicious thought is I should have tied Ned up and dragged him here and given him to Sharkman for interrogation.
My fingers curl as if he’s here now, and I make fists, wanting to hit him because I’m hurting so much.
“You were bleeding,” Thebes says from the three steps leading up into the kitchen. “Last night when you got home.”
The three of them glower at me to various degrees, and I unzip the hoodie, then drag it off my arms. Rusty dried blood stains the collar of my tank top. I can’t quite see the gash from Ned’s knife, but my exploring fingers find it. My entire chest is warm. The pain is a dull burn.
“That’s a knife wound,” Darius says.
Without ceremony, Sharkman pulls me to my feet and half carries me into the house and up the stairs to the bedroom he and Thebes are sharing. He plunks me down onto one of the twin beds and digs through his military-issue duffel bag for a box of first-aid supplies. I untie my boots and remove them, then fold my legs up by the time he kneels before me to wash off the wound.
“I’d really like that coffee Darius brought me,” I say ungraciously.
“Coffee after.” Sharkman rips open an alcohol swab and swipes it against the cut. I yelp.
He’s quick and methodical, decides there’s no need for stitches or a hospital, but suggests I change my shirt so Thebes doesn’t get light-headed again. I do as he lurks in the doorway lasciviously.
In the kitchen Darius and Thebes are dancing around each other in the narrow space to fry bacon and toast, though it’s nearly lunchtime. I reach across the counter to the old rotary-dial phone and call Soren and Rathi and ask them to come over.
Two cups of coffee and brunch later, Soren arrives with Rathi on his heels. My brother goes a little white when he sees the slash across my chest but eyes the berserkers instead of asking.
We gather in the empty dining room where the heavy bag hangs. Darius and Rathi drag chairs in from the kitchen, but the rest of us sit in a circle on the floor. I immediately catch Rathi and Soren up, and say instead of finding out the mother’s location I discovered several packs of wights and trolls hiding in an old cemetery.
Rathi loosens the orange and gold sunburst tie at his neck and sets his coffee on the floor. “Did you alert the authorities?”
“Which ones?” I ask. “The army? The jarl? The Valkyrie of the South?”
“All of them?” he suggests.
Sharkman laughs. “They will demolish the cemeteries or cause a wide panic.”
“And what will you do differently?”
I say, “Find the troll mother, kill her, and they’ll disperse. They’re here because of her.”
Rathi says, “You know that?”
“Yes. Ned Unferth confirmed it.”
Soren’s eyes instantly go to my shoulder, where Hrunting usually hangs. Sharkman curses and Rathi smiles. “He’s alive?”
“He was in the cemetery with the trolls. Talking with them. Protecting them.” I cut my hand through the air, eyes on Rathi. “He is no friend of ours.”
“How do you know he told you the truth?” Darius leans back in his chair. It creaks gently.
“He always told me the truth. No lies pass his lips,” I say, as bitterly as possible. “It’s what he doesn’t say you have to worry about.”
“Signy.” Rathi gets off his chair and crouches in front of me. “What did he do to you?” His eyes lower to the wound on my chest.
Sharkman hisses, “That complete bastard.”
“Stop, all of you.” I put a hand on Rathi’s wrist. “I’m fine. I will be fine, I promise. I can handle Unferth; I always have. The point is that I did not find her exact location—we only know she is here. But she’s also definitely looking for me. Unferth admitted it. She wants me, but we can’t take the fight directly to her, and so we need to move. We need to find a safer place and be on our way there by the time the sun sets.”
“We should tell someone, Sig,” Rathi insists. “Thor’s Army. We should have machine guns and heliplanes and walls of swords.”
“Guns don’t work well against trolls,” Thebes says quietly.
“Bombs would,” Darius says. “You can blow them to pieces.”
“I need her heart,” I say firmly. Soren catches my eye. He knows she wants mine, too, that she said your heart to me.
Sharkman grins. “Where’s the fun in killing them from a safe distance, anyway? Getting up close and personal is what berserkers were made for.”
“This is about me and her. I will face her and take her heart.”
“Do you think you can kill her on your own?” Soren asks quietly. “In your dreams of her, you die.”
Rathi makes a noise of protest. I keep my eyes on Soren. “I am going to face her.” There’s no point arguing it, especially since I know better than the rest of them how impossible it is. None of them were there when I charged her, when she laughed. None of them felt the cracked ribs or the grind of dirt in my raw hands, the sheer panic when my arm was useless or the pain that burned through me. None of them were there when I thought, This is my end. I take a deep breath. “But I don’t want to be alone. I’m asking you all to go with me.”