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CHAPTER NINETEEN

The interior of Edelweiss House was just as mismatched and random as the outside. The foyer contained no fewer than three staircases of different designs that led in different directions. There was a grand Victorian flight of carved wood, adorned with carved fruits and nesting birds and a suspicious-looking snake that ascended to a landing that overlooked the entrance hall, along with a more utilitarian craftsman-style staircase that descended into the bowels of the house, adorned with stained glass insets. The third staircase was a simple wrought-iron spiral that rose to a single door in the wall, about six feet up, roped off with a sign that read no trespassing on pain of a stern apology. The rest of the room was a mishmash of styles, with glossy white subway tile fading into peeling velvet wallpaper that surrounded rustic wood paneling. Even the furniture looked like it was the result of a time travel accident, thrown together from every stratum of the timeline.

“Who decorated this place? Dr. Rubik?” I asked.

“I recognize that as a cultural reference, but am not familiar with the context,” Tembo said. “Was Dr. Rubik a madman?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “This place looks like a puzzle someone started to put together and then gave up halfway through.”

“Do I come into your house and make fun of your furnishings?” Hildr asked. She motioned to a door that opened beneath the sweeping arc of the Victorian staircase. “Go on through to the kitchen. Lillie will find something for you to eat, and we can talk. I need to put the dogs away before the next round of guests arrive.”

“You know, on a scale of one to impossible to count, I did not expect to find a pair of valkyries hiding in a bed and breakfast in rural Minnesota,” I said as I made my way to the door. “It almost feels too obvious.”

“As Esther said, ‘You can take the girl out of Valhalla, but you can’t take the Valhalla out of the girl,’” Tembo said. “It is in their nature to provide hospitality.”

“By hospitality, you mean scouring the corpses of a battlefield, taking the worthy to a beer hall in the clouds, and then keeping them drunk until the apocalypse?”

“Drunk and fighting,” Tembo said. “That counts as hospitality in some places.”

The tiny door beneath the stairs led to a long, dark hallway, its ceiling a low archway that branched off to half a dozen cubbies and coat closets before terminating in the kitchen. A black-iron wood stove radiated forge-like heat in an otherwise modern kitchen. Lillie paid us no mind as we filed in, and it wasn’t long before the space was crowded. I started to sweat through my hauberk. Lillie continued to ignore us.

“Is there something we can do to help?” I asked.

“Sit,” she said sternly. When none of us moved, she took me by the shoulders and marched me to a small linoleum table in the corner with a plastic-coated bench that squeaked as she slid me down its length. The rest of Knight Watch followed my involuntary example. There wasn’t enough space for all of us, but Lillie somehow made it work. When we were seated, the older valkyrie bustled back to the stove and busied herself with a dizzying array of kettles, pans, and a battle-scarred cleaver that looked like it could cut the head off a giant with a single blow. It made me wonder what was boiling in that pot on the stove.

“I don’t understand what’s happening here,” I said after a few awkward moments of sitting, squished too close together, while the former valkyrie made us lunch. “Shouldn’t we be tearing this place apart, looking for the Tears?”

“You want to keep your voice down, Rast?” Chesa hissed. “We’re here as allies, not as an invading army! We’re supposed to be the heroes.”

“I mean, sure, the heroes. But Hildr said they dumped them, and we know that’s a lie because Percy here can still smell them. So it’s not like they’re being straight with us!”

“You are very bad at whispering,” Lillie said, looming over us. She leaned past me and distributed a round of soup served in cheap plastic bowls. The soup was the color of dishwater, and contained pearly white chunks of meat that could have been anything. “And Hildr is very bad at lying. Obviously we have not thrown out the Tears. That would be foolish.”

“Why did she lie?” Chesa asked. Bethany huddled next to her, pushing her spoon around her soup bowl and grimacing. I looked down at my bowl. The bowl looked back. At least half a dozen eyes, some as large as a dime, stared at me with glassy apathy. I swallowed the bile that was rushing up my throat.

“Because you are either from Esther, or you are from Runa. And in either case, you are not to be trusted.” She went back to the stove, collected her cleaver, then returned to the table and stood there with the knife in hand, fists pressed firmly against her hips. “But you seem like nice people, and I don’t think we want to have to kill you just yet. Why are you not eating?”

“Besides the constant threats of murder, you mean . . . ?” I muttered to myself.

“What is this, exactly?” Bethany asked.

“Fish soup. Walleye.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to include the eyes,” Bethany said.

“Are you sure?” Lillie asked. “It’s in the name.”

“Positive.”

“Hmm. That may explain many things,” Lillie said. “Well, eat around them. I won’t throw away good fish just because it’s a little heavy on the eyes.”

“Can we get back to the question of whether or not you’ll have to kill us just yet?” I asked. “That feels important.”

“Personally, I have nothing against either of them,” Lillie said. “Esther can be a little harsh, and sometimes forgets that most people still have their souls, but she’s a good fighter. I would do battle at her side. And Runa . . . well, Runa isn’t exactly a born leader, but she means well.”

“Why are you talking to them?” Hildr asked as she bustled into the room. She was wearing a Kevlar vest with arm guards, the surface of which was dented and torn. “Have they not eaten the eyes yet?”

“They saw the eyes, and will not eat. And even if they hadn’t, you have now told them about the eyes,” Lillie said with an eyeroll. “I’m sorry. It is a trick the trolls taught us. Getting people to eat eyes lets you see inside them, if you do it right.”

“You probably overcooked them, anyway,” Hildr said, tearing the Velcro sleeves off the vest and tossing them on the table. They were slick with dog slobber. “So what do we do now?”

“Maybe we just have a civilized conversation?” Tembo asked. “You are correct, we are with Knight Watch, sent here by Esther MacRae to retrieve the Tears of Freya. But I do not think that makes us particularly untrustworthy.”

“Hel’s tits, it doesn’t,” Hildr spat. “She already tried to steal them once back in Mexico.”

“That was Mississippi. In Mexico, it was Runa, and then the Russians.” Lillie sighed and folded her arms, nearly taking off Gregory’s head with that cleaver. “We thought we had finally escaped their notice.”

“I’m sorry, but that seems unlikely,” Tembo said. “I have been with Knight Watch for a very long time, and we have never attempted to retrieve this item. We aren’t a very large organization, madam.”

“This might have been before Knight Watch officially formed. When did you say she came after you?” Bethany asked.

“Shortly after the war. All of this, shortly after the war. We had just been given the assignment, and all the involved interests made a play for the Tears. Including your captain,” Hildr said. “We had just surrendered our powers and were not yet comfortable with the mundane world. I think they thought we would be easy marks.”

“They thought wrong,” Lillie said with an affectionate smile, then turned her attention to us. “We moved around a lot after this. But when no one came after many, many years, we thought the pressure might be off. That’s when we bought this place. I thought we would be able to settle down, maybe even retire. I am not the young girl I once was. Nor are you, Hildr.”

“I’m young enough to kick these children to the curb, with or without our powers.”

“We aren’t here to take the Tears by force,” Chesa said. “But things in Valhalla have changed. We need your help, and we need the Tears.”

“Things are always changing in Valhalla,” Hildr said with a dismissive snort. “How are they so much worse now?”

So we told them. We described the attack at the convention center, then again in Valhalla, and the theft of the Totenschreck. And finally we told them how Runa had expelled us from Valhalla and taken the Naglfr from us. Hildr snorted.

“Losing that ship is something of a blessing. We were always trying to pawn that horrible thing off on enthusiastic heroes and greedy mortals. Runa probably gave it to Esther out of spite. But the rest . . . ” Her voice trailed off. “What do you think, Lillie?”

The older valkyrie didn’t answer. She was busy drying dishes by the old farm sink, her hands red and chapped from the hot water. Her mouth was pressed into a tight line. When she answered, her voice was as stern as iron.

“Lillie?” Hildr prompted.

“I am thinking, woman!” Lillie snapped. “I am thinking, and washing dishes, and trying to keep this house together. The sheets in the Folksvangr suite need to be changed, and the bathrooms cleaned, and I still haven’t gotten the garden weeded. And now this! This, of all things, at all times.” She threw her dishrag into the soap water and rubbed the corner of her eye with the back of her hand. “It’s just bloody bad timing.”

“There is no good time for things like this,” Tembo said quietly. “As with most disasters. They are disastrous.”

“We were safe here. We were comfortable. And we’re not hurting anyone,” Lillie said. “Why did you have to come here? We’ve hidden for decades. We could have hidden for decades more.”

“We found you,” I said. “And if we can do it, it stands to reason that the valhellions could find you as well.”

“That’s terrible logic,” Hildr said sharply. “And an even worse name. Valhellions. Odin’s foul breath, that’s got Esther all over it.”

“She has a point,” Percy said. “You only found them because you had me, and it’s safe to assume there aren’t many people like me left, if any at all.”

“But there might be a few left. We don’t know how many of the sword’s victims survived the war, or where they may be hiding,” I said. Percy shrugged and went back to his soup, which he seemed determined to eat at least a little bit of, if only to be polite. I turned my attention to the pair of retired valkyries. “You must have some idea of who in Valhalla would be looking for the Tears, and who would be willing and able to steal the sword in the first place.”

Hildr and Lillie exchanged meaningful looks. Lillie, muttering, went back to her dishes. Hildr cleared her throat meaningfully.

“We are not comfortable discussing this in the present company,” she said.

“Present company? What’s that supposed to . . . ” I followed her piercing stare to Percy, who was chewing experimentally on a mouthful of eyes. “Oh. I get it. Ranks of the dead, and all that.”

Percy looked up when he realized the general silence that had fallen over our company. He glanced from me, to Hildr, to the rest of the team. Then he slowly opened his mouth and let the eyes, unchewed, fall back into their soup.

“Am I imposing?” he asked politely.

“This man fought under Freya’s banner in the war. He bears the mark of Totenschreck, and will always be beholden to its will,” Hildr said. “Now that the sword once again strides the stage of history, you must know that he cannot be trusted.” Hildr slammed her fist down on the crowded kitchen table, upsetting several bowls and spraying eyeball soup across the party. “He is an abomination!”

There followed a long and awkward silence. Percy cleared his throat, very neatly folded his napkin, and stood up.

“I see that I am not welcome here. That’s fine. I believe I saw a garden on my way in. Perhaps the flowers will be more welcoming.”

He marched out with a stiff lip and stiffer back, though it was clear he was hurt. Hildr watched him go, waiting until he was outside before she turned back to us with a sniff. “Well, now that that’s settled . . . What?”

We stared daggers at the old valkyrie. Tembo sat back, his arms folded, while Chesa and I glowered at her like disapproving housewives.

“That was very rude,” Chesa chided. “He’s a pleasant if odd old man, just trying to do what’s right.”

“He’s a damned draugr, bound to the will of a cursed sword, wielded by a madman,” Lillie said without turning around. “Be happy he is in the garden, and not burning on a pyre. For now.”

“You’re going to get some pretty bad reviews with that kind of hospitality,” I said. “Guests don’t like seeing human bonfires out their window.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We would do it in the basement, by the altar,” Lillie said. “You can never be too careful with the draugr.”

“Well, now that you’ve been rude to our friend and tried to serve us eyeballs, do you think you could tell us where the Tears are?” Bethany asked. “Or at least who might be trying to steal them?”

Lillie shrugged majestically, drawing a resigned sigh from Hildr. But she answered.

“There have always been factions within the valkyries. Runa’s rebellion during the war made her a lot of enemies . . . enemies who ended up dead once Esther MacRae got involved,” Hildr said. “That’s why we were cut off from Valhalla. Not even Runa Hellesdottir could be trusted with Freya’s Tears.”

“So what makes the two of you so special? Why did they trust you, of all the valkyries?” Bethany asked.

“Because we were the ones who tried to stop Freya in the first place, when the war first started. Some of us tried to stop the forging of the sword you call Totenschreck. Freya found out, and sent her lieutenant to hunt us down,” Lillie said. “Hildr and I were the only ones to survive. Freya stripped us of our wings as punishment, and sent us to Earth, to die with the rest of the mortals in the middle of a war. We barely escaped with our lives.”

“That sounds awful,” Chesa said.

“It was. And worse? The valkyrie they sent to hunt us down, the sister who killed our friends and returned the sword to Freya?” Hildr put a gnarled hand on Lillie’s shoulder, as though to hold her friend up. “Her name was Runa. Runa Hellesdottir. The new queen of Valhalla.”


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