14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

I woke up and realized I couldn’t feel my arms. It said something about my state of mind that the first thing I thought was, Where is S?ren? It was quickly followed by, Oh fuck, what the hell is wrong with my arms?

It took a few seconds for my mind to clear enough that I could figure things out. I was still outside, although the sky was completely dark now, the sun gone, and the moon obscured by cloud cover. I wasn’t in the dark, though. The car was about ten feet in front of me, well into the field—how had it gotten there? Had S?ren driven it there? Had he dragged it? Either way, the car was facing me, headlights on, so bright it hurt to look at them. I could barely make out the silhouette of a man crouched in front of them, rifling through a bag—my bag.

I tried to move forward and realized what was going on with me. I was tied to the base of the tree. Tied with—I craned my head back to get a glimpse of my wrists—jumper cables. Disassembled jumper cables. They were wrapped tight around my wrists, and I leaned back as close to the tree as I could, groaning when the pins and needles started in my shoulders. Good sign—that was a good sign. Hopefully I hadn’t been cutting off my circulation for too long.

“S?ren?”

The backlit creature going through my back glanced over at me, the reflective purple sheen of his eyes the only thing clearly visible. “ Framsynir ,” he said pleasantly, then, “Visionary. That is what you are, isn’t it?”

“Ah…no. I’m just a soothsayer.”

“Liar.”

“No,” I said, more than a little desperate. “I’m not lying, that’s one of the words for what I am. Visionary implies things I’m not comfortable with, so please, just soothsayer.”

“Interesting. You’d rather be associated with charlatans than with the greatest of your kind.”

“I’m not that great.”

“S?ren thinks you are.”

The pins crept into my elbows. My shoulders ached terribly. “I don’t understand,” I confessed, gritting my teeth and trying to think. C’mon, think —what could I do to turn this to my advantage? What could anyone do? I needed information, I needed to be interesting but harmless. I needed to make this whatever-it-was listen to me. I needed him to talk. “What are you, if you’re not S?ren?”

“I’m his fate.” The bright white of his teeth shined in the yellow glare of the headlights. “You saw that, didn’t you? It’s why he gave himself to me so sweetly.”

“You’re possessing him.”

“I am him,” the creature corrected, abandoning my bag and coming to sit in front of me. He blocked some of the light so I could stop squinting and focus on seeing. “Let me help you understand,” the creature said and leaned forward until those purple eyes were only inches from mine, and I couldn’t help looking deep. I saw—

Deepness, darkness, tendrils of power spread through rocky soil, boulders and a pond and a small grove of trees. Not the greatest of my kind, no, but this place is mine, and they won’t move me, not the great ones, not the Christians, not this family that dares to lay claim to me. They won’t. They won’t. I hear the machines coming closer, but I won’t be moved. I would rather perish with my land than be erased like some minor wight.

The berserker offers me a deal, offers me a new path, possibly even a new life—room to expand, a human body to exploit, a spirit to join mine and renew me for centuries to come. His madness…it tastes delicious, and so does the boy, sweet and brave and oh, so helpless with his love. Love. I think I like it. I think I want to know more. That’s why you’re still alive, seer. Thief. Out !

I was cast out of the creature’s mind as abruptly as a bullet from a gun, leaving me choking on a residue of freezing water, decaying vegetation, and harsh, inhuman power that wasn’t meant to sit steady inside a person. How S?ren was containing it, I had no idea. He should have been dead from it. He should have…

“Not possession,” the creature continued. “S?ren is mine . He is become me, and I him. Anything less than that would never work.”

“No,” I gasped. “I can see that.”

“I know you can. You’re smart, soothsayer. Powerful. And you have a hold on S?ren that not even his family can claim. You’re interesting to me.”

“Fantastic.”

It ignored my sarcasm, or maybe it didn’t recognize it. “Do you know what I am now?”

I did , actually. Months of road tripping with my mother had led me to burn through a lot of books as a kid. Since we kind of had a personal stake in mythology and magic, I’d gone through a whole stack of Bulfinch and Edith Hamilton. I’d done my best to forget it all when I was older, but some things had stuck.

“Landv?ttir.”

“So smart.” The beast within S?ren smiled again. “You know that that means?”

“You’re a…a spirit. You live in a particular place, and you protect it.”

“Close enough. My place was threatened, and ólafur Egilsson came to me and made a deal. He would save me, sacrifice for me, and gift me with beauty. In return I would save him from the geas the gods laid on his family. Once our deal is complete, we will be entwined, his line linked to me forever.”

There was a pause, like S?ren was waiting for me to catch something. I racked my aching head, trying to ignore the burning sensation in my forearms as I went over his words.

“But—” The catch, where was the catch? “But you’re not entwined, are you? The deal isn’t finished, because you’re here.”

“ Very good.” He nodded. “The bargain is incomplete. My home is moved, but not yet rooted. I have been promised beauty, but all I see is the same thing over and over—men, weapons, and warehouse walls.” S?ren frowned. “Dull. And my sacrifice yearns for something that tears at our bond, keeps him unquiet and unsettled. That thing is you.”

“Are you offering me a deal?” I asked, barely breathing. A deal for—what? S?ren’s fate? A chance to undo what the landv?ttir and his father had done to him? Or something more subtle? Either way, I would take it. I didn’t exactly have a lot of options.

“Yes. Swear to provide me with three things, and I will give you a chance to prove your offer is better than that of ólafur Egilsson. If you succeed, I will join with you and help you defeat your enemies. If you fail, I will return to my original supplicant. And kill you, I suppose,” he added nonchalantly. “Even though it would distress S?ren. I want my sacrifice to be content, but I will settle for overwhelming him if need be.”

Well, shit. There wasn’t much I could say to that, but there were some things I just couldn’t offer up either—things I would rather die than experience again.

I swallowed dryly. “What three things do you want?”

“First, a home, and the means to root me there.” The purple flared in S?ren’s eyes. “That means ensuring there are no native spirits there to fight me for it, because I refuse to displace another of my kind to steal their home. That would be dishonorable.”

Funny he was worried about that, but I could roll with it. “Okay, so you need land.”

“And the magic to root me,” he reminded me.

“Okay, land and a shaman.” Or something. “I can do that. What else?”

“Something to occupy my time. Something more than sitting and waiting and being ordered about. I am v?ttir , stronger than any human, no matter their magic. I will not be your hound, any more than I would for ólafur Egilsson. He underestimated my obedience. Don’t make the same mistake.”

“Okay, so…entertainment.” Whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. What, was I supposed to get the spirit a Wii and let him go to town? I’d come up with something. “I can definitely do that.”

“Finally, you will provide me with a sacrifice to prove the strength of your commitment to our bargain. Someone meaningful, someone close to you.”

Well, fuck . I had no idea how to do that. I didn’t want to do that. There was no way I could get down with sacrificing anyone else to this fucking thing, but right now my options for living if I disagreed were exactly zero, so…

“Yes. Fine.” I had to add, “That’s what S?ren was to you? Egilsson’s sacrifice?”

“Yes. An imperfect one, because he was motivated not by love for his father, but by love for you. His love is what has disposed me to spare you, so do not mock his sacrifice.”

“I’m not,” I said numbly. God, I wasn’t. “Can I speak to S?ren?”

“It distressed him to emerge from his sleep,” the landv?ttir demurred, as if it wasn’t the thing that was fucking distressing S?ren so much. “Perhaps later, if you earn it. If you fulfill your promises before Egilsson does. Now, do we have a bargain?”

“Yes.” Yeah, we had a bargain. I’d been in tighter places—not lately, but I had. I could get through this. I’d find the loopholes. I’d figure this out. In the meantime, I just had to survive a terminally curious, body-snatching Icelandic spirit who wanted to fucking road-trip with me. “You’ve got a deal.”

“As do you.” The thing in S?ren’s body leaned forward and kissed me, his lips cold but somehow refreshing, reminding me that I was parched. “Sealed.”

“Great.” I tugged uselessly at my bonds. “Do you think you could let me go, then?”

“Certainly.” S?ren—it was using his body, I had to get used to calling it that or I’d slip up along the road—reached around my back and with one firm yank, pulled the jumper cables in two. He unwound the loops securing my wrists, and I almost collapsed with the sudden pain.

“And a boon,” he murmured. “To show good faith.” He set his hands on my shoulders and ran them slowly down my arms, making my flesh crawl with cold. After he brushed over my fingertips and released them, though, the pain was gone. All the pain was gone, even the pain from my bullet wound. I pulled my sleeve back and stared dumbly at the unbroken skin.

“That’s…quite a boon.”

“Yes,” S?ren agreed. “A gift for my love’s beloved.”

I stared at him. “You love him?”

“He is mine. Of course I love him.”

“But he was screaming.”

S?ren shrugged. “I never said it was easy to be mine.”

Holy shit. I’d made a deal with a psychopathic spirit from the black fucking lagoon. “We need to go,” I managed at last.

“Of course. One moment.” He reached behind himself and handed over my—my phone? And it was on?

“What did you do?” I asked as I looked at the screen. The connection was live. “Who is this?”

“ólafur Egilsson.”

“He’s been listening in this whole time?” I exclaimed.

“Of course. It wouldn’t be fair, otherwise. He must know the terms of the competition.” S?ren grinned at me. “I’ll wait in the car.”

I barely restrained the urge to throw the phone at him as he walked away. I should just hang up; I should turn it off and take the battery out and get rid of it, but…

I turned up the sound and lifted it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Cillian Kelly.” Oh, I knew that voice. He always sounded so reasonable, just before he ripped your heart out. “You stole my son.”

“If he didn’t want to be stolen, he wouldn’t have let me take him,” I said, forcing myself to speak. “You should have taken better care of him.”

“So I see. I’ll have to remedy that. I suggest you run, boy. Don’t mess with powers you don’t understand. If you leave now, I might not hunt you down.”

It was too late for more bargains. “Nah, I think I’ll give beating you a shot first.”

“If that’s the way you want it.” Egilsson sounded more amused than anything. “In that case, enjoy the rest of your very short life.” He hung up. I stared at the phone for a long moment.

Beeeepbeepbeep! The blare of the horn jolted me to life. S?ren was bored. Great.

I’d be lucky to survive the rest of the night.