Epilogue

Epilogue

NATE GARRETT

New York City, New York, United States, Earth Realm

Six Months Later

I sat on top of the roof of a building in downtown Manhattan and looked over it to the street below. I'd been hunting my prey for two months now and had bribed, threatened, or promised an awful lot to more people than I'd expected.

The prey had become a hard man to find. He'd moved around a lot. He'd wanted to stay hidden, but he was a man of refined tastes, and refined tastes meant he could only stay away from the finer things in life for so long.

"So how's Nidavellir?" Tommy asked. He was sitting beside me; he wore a Star Wars T-shirt with a picture of Princess Leia on it that Kase had given him. He was pretty much back to normal at this point, although the knowledge that the blood curse marks on him couldn't be removed was something he'd have to learn to live with.

"Cold," I said. "It's winter."

"We'll have to come visit," he said.

"I've been telling you to," I told him.

"I know, but we're all so damn busy at the moment. Kase is working with Layla, as is Harry. Chloe and Piper are, too, although the latter is having some counseling to help her get over what happened to her. Olivia is now working for Mordred, and I'm teaching Daniel the ways of the Force."

I looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.

"We watch a lot of Star Wars," he said.

"You not working yourself?" I asked him.

"I want to be sure that the marks can't change back," he said. "Zamek's mum is a doctor, or whatever the dwarven-rune equivalent is. She's told me to leave it another six months and I should be fine."

One of the few good things to come out of what had happened in Atlantis was that Zamek had found his parents. Both had been hurt, but they were alive. I'd been told that his dad had not dealt well with being told he wasn't going back to being king, but that was just tough. Orfeda was in charge, and the elders who had been gone for so long could either deal with it or leave. Most dealt with it.

I moved the Accuracy International Arctic Warfare AWC rifle and looked through the scope again. No sign yet.

"So how's your new settlement?" Tommy asked.

"It's going well," I said. "The houses are now made and the old ones clear of anything that wants to eat people. The community is thriving. More people are coming through from Shadow Falls and Avalon. Quite a few humans from the Earth realm too. We're hoping to get a second settlement going closer to the mountains."

"Cool, cool," Tommy said.

"Right, what is it?" I asked, turning to him.

"I just ... I miss working," he said. "I love my kids, but my God, I want to do something else. I thought that maybe I could bring Daniel to Nidavellir and show him around."

"Do it," I said. "Spend a few weeks there; bring Olivia. If she can't get away, I'm sure she'll be fine with you coming alone. There are a bunch of kids there Daniel's age; he'll be fine. Not a lot of TV time, though. So I hope he likes reading and walking around a lot."

"I could show him how to track and hunt," Tommy said, enthusiasm in his voice. "Not kill—he's too young for that, even as a werewolf—but to know how to deal with nature, how to behave around it. It would be nice."

"And we have mead," I said. "Turns out it's dwarven tradition to bring mead to anyone moving into a new settlement, and they had a lot. Remy and Diana turned up, and I don't think I've ever seen them both as happy as the moment they saw several hundred barrels of mead."

I looked through the scope again and held up a finger to quiet Tommy as I got comfortable. The door to the town house far below opened, and two large men walked out; both wore suits. One walked to a newly arrived BMW and opened the rear passenger door.

I moved my trigger finger a fraction of an inch and breathed out slowly.

There were runes drawn on the side of the BMW and similar ones on the door of the town house. I'd walked past myself. I had a very short window of opportunity.

Gawain stepped out of the town house and looked around. He wore an expensive gray suit that I'd discovered had been made by a tailor in Italy who had been instructed how to put runes inside it to make it bulletproof.

He'd managed to escape during the battle in Washington, DC, and with the help of several KOA, he'd been able to remove his sorcerer's band. From there, he'd stayed off the radar and created a fake identity. It wasn't going to save him.

I breathed out again and counted to five. There were twelve steps from the door to the pavement. Twelve moments where I could have pulled the trigger. Gawain reached the pavement and looked around him. He'd done this every day for a week. I'd been tempted to kill him on day one, but I'd needed more intel about him, about the runes he'd used. I needed to make sure he did not get away.

He stood behind the armored, rune-scribed BMW door and looked like a man who had nothing to fear.

I pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit the door in its center and tore through it like it was made of paper. Zamek had put his own runes on the bullets. There was nothing Gawain could do that would stop it. Gawain fell toward the pavement, and I pulled the trigger again, catching him in the chest as he fell.

One in the groin, one in the chest. Gawain looked up toward me.

"Fuck you," I said, and I put one more through his eye.

I dismantled the rifle, put it away in the bag, and passed it to Tommy. "I'll see you soon," he said. "Take care."

"I look forward to it," I told him. "And you too."

Tommy took off at a run across the rooftops, jumping between them like he was playing a video game, while I made my way to the street and got into a British-racing-green Jaguar F-Type and drove away.

I stopped the car a few hours later, when I'd reached Maine, where I made my way to the realm gate underneath what had once been a bar but had become a restaurant after the bar had been destroyed a few years earlier.

I grabbed a thick winter coat and boots and stepped through into what many would consider a winter wonderland. The snow was thick, the air full of the smells of winter. It was a short walk from the realm gate temple there to the settlement, which still needed a name. Remy had suggested Remytopia, which, shocking no one, had been ignored.

I found my mother sitting on the porch of our three-bedroom, one-story wood-and-brick house. It was a little away from the rest of the settlement, and our nearest neighbor was a few minutes' walk, which I didn't have a problem with.

Astrid was playing in the snow by the front of the house with Frigg. Frigg had all but been declared honorary grandmother almost instantly by Astrid, and no one had suggested otherwise.

My mother came over and hugged me. We were still two strangers in many respects and now had to figure out how we worked as mother and son outside a war.

Astrid jumped into my arms. "Daddy," she yelled. "I made a snow troll."

She led me over to the frankly gigantic snow troll, which Frigg was almost prouder of than Astrid.

"Mummy's inside," Astrid said, jumping up and down.

I kissed Astrid on the head and walked into the house, shaking off the snow and finding Eos, Hyperion, and Selene all inside. The former two left soon after, and Selene kissed me softly.

"It's done," I said.

"Mordred will be glad he didn't have to do it," Selene said.

"I am too," I told her. "No more war, no more killing—I just want to live here with all of you."

Selene led me out onto the porch, and we sat down on the comfortable chair, her head on my shoulder.

"The start of something new," I said. "Something good."

Selene squeezed my hand as we watched our family play together in the snow. Astrid was throwing tiny snowballs at Hyperion, who pretended he'd been hit by gunfire.

"Yes," she said softly. "And if anything threatens what we have here, I'll happily wipe them from the face of every realm. When you said you needed to talk to me, I hadn't imagined you'd considered setting up all of this. It was a good idea, Nate."

I kissed the top of her head. I'd been created to be a weapon. To kill those who had been deemed unkillable. I was power and death personified, and I was finally in a place where I felt happy. Where I felt at peace. And if anyone like Arthur emerged from the darkness to try to take everything we'd fought for, then I would be ready for them. And by the time I was done, they would regret the day they'd been born.

As night fell, Mordred, Hel, and many others arrived. We built a large bonfire in the middle of the settlement, and as the children ran and played, I sat next to Mordred.

"This is nice," he said. "There's been a lot of talking to humans and trying to figure out where to go next. A lot of prisoners to deal with too."

I knew that Mordred was saddened that he wasn't working alongside me and the rest of us who had come to Nidavellir, but I also knew he understood why we'd moved here. Nidavellir needed to be prosperous again, and with the dwarves back here, and with the knowledge of the realms now firmly enshrined in human memory, it wouldn't be long before someone started letting humans go to the other realms. Making them safe was a good start.

"Remy is trying to get everyone to play Dungeons Dragons," Selene said to me as the night got rowdier. Once the kids had been taken to bed, the drink flowed freely.

"The last time we did, Remy wanted to be a half troll, half badger who was in love with his sword," Hel said from beside Mordred.

"Remy is odd," Mordred said slowly. I watched as he reached into his pocket and retrieved a ring before placing it on the arm of the chair next to Hel.

Hel looked at the ring. "That's a lava diamond," she said.

Mordred nodded. "I had it made in Helheim. It took a lot of being really sneaky to get it done, and turns out it's a giant—"

"Stop talking," Hel said, not taking her eyes off the ring. She picked it up and stared at it.

"Marry me," Mordred said. "I have never loved anyone like I love you. I have never felt this way. I have never been so terrified and enraptured by a woman. Marry me."

"Terrified and enraptured?" Hel asked.

"Every single day," Mordred said. "Hopefully for the rest of my exceptionally long life."

Hel looked up at Mordred, her eyes wet. "Yes," she said softly. "I love you."

Mordred and Hel kissed, Hel slipped the ring on her finger, and everyone cheered, raising a toast to them both.

An hour later I found myself next to Mordred again, watching everyone enjoying themselves. "You were always the best of us, Mordred," I said. "And look around—you've proved it."

I offered him my hand, and he ignored it, hugging me tightly instead. When he pulled away, he wiped tears from his eyes. "Goddamn you," he said with a sniff.

"You're a good man," I said. "And you'll make a great king. You'll be a so-so husband, though."

"Just don't make me cry again," he said with a smile.

Hel spotted him as she danced with several others, and she motioned for him to join them.

"I have never been prouder to call you my friend," I whispered as he took a step toward them.

I looked into his tear-filled eyes, and he smiled and said, "You son of a bitch."

I winked and walked off, feeling my own eyes tear up.