8. Montana

Julius and I stood in the dark room downstairs and goosebumps rose on my skin as the icy wind blew in through a hole in the wall. I might have been freezing my tits off, but Callie needed time to figure things out with Magnar and I had to respect that. Even if I was still pissed at him for what he’d done to her. Maybe he hadn’t meant to. And if she could find a way to forgive him, then I guessed I’d have to as well. But if he pulled one more move like that on her, I wouldn’t be letting it lie.

“So Monty,” Julius said with a wide, mocking grin, spooning oatmeal into his mouth.

I scowled. “I already dislike one of you slayers, let’s not make it two.”

“But Callie calls you Monty.”

“She’s allowed to,” I said, folding my arms. “Only her.”

He smiled even bigger as he continued to eat, and I knew all too well that Julius wasn’t going to forget that name anytime soon.

Moon Child,a whisper filled my ear and set my pulse racing. But it wasn’t Nightmare, it was something...else.

An energy thrummed through the room, filling the air with an electric charge. The hairs on my arms rose to attention and a sliver of ice drove itself into my chest.

Julius stopped eating, his face growing hard as he surveyed the room.

“Show yourself,” he hissed.

“Who’s here?” I whispered, stepping closer to him and touching Nightmare’s hilt where it was strapped to my hip.

Julius didn’t answer but drew Menace and adjusted his stance.

This way, Moon Child.

“Do you hear that?” I asked and Julius nodded in confirmation.

An icy stream slid into my veins, dripping through my muscles and taking control of my movements. I gasped, fear resounding through me as my legs walked me through a doorway to my left.

“Julius,” I gasped, unable to turn back, or to unsheathe Nightmare, or do anything at all to stop this.

The room I arrived in was exposed to the elements, the walls crumbled low on two sides and debris scattered around the place. One of the walls that remained held an oval mirror, the ornate frame embellished with silver flowers, looking out of place in this desolate house.

My breathing slowed as the presence continued to control me, drawing me toward the mirror as if I was one end of a magnet and it was the other.

Only half of the roof was still intact here, a hole in the floorboards above me letting rain gush over it like a waterfall. As I stepped through the run-off toward the mirror, sounds beyond the rain became suddenly muffled.

I heard Julius calling my name, but it was so far away, like a distant echo from a whole other world. I couldn’t turn to look for him as I closed in on the mirror where my reflection gazed back at me. Except it wasn’t me.

I wore a silver crown on my head and a blood-red gown flowed around my body like liquid. My skin was deathly pale, my eyes wide and alluring and my lips deepest crimson. I blinked, but the reflection didn’t. She smiled like she knew me, tilting her head to one side and beckoning me closer. When she spoke, she did so in my voice and yet it wasn’t mine too. It was lilting and sweet, as if it was designed to keep me hanging on every word.

“Is this what you wanted to know?”

I parted my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or some other force stopping me from answering, only that my tongue wouldn’t wrap around a response.

My reflection lifted a hand, running a finger across her lips, revealing the reason they were so red. Blood.

My stomach coiled into a tight knot of horror.

As she laughed, the blood poured from her mouth, revealing glinting fangs within her mouth. My mouth. I shook my head in terror, stumbling back and suddenly a weight crashed into me from behind.

“Montana!” Julius yelled, dragging me from my trance. My heart stuttered back to life as I absorbed his anxious expression, and I realised I could control myself again.

“Slayer,” hissed a vile, acidic voice, cutting through the air like a knife. Andvari.

I grabbed Julius’s shirt, meaning to push him back the way he’d come, fearing what the god might do to him. But he remained sturdily in front of me, refusing to budge as he turned to face the mirror.

Our true reflection was cast back at us. Julius and I looked somehow similar, as if we were cut from the same cloth. Though our appearances were nothing alike, it was the way we stood, the way our eyes flashed. Something about us simply screamed slayer, and more than that…it looked right. Arm in arm, warrior beside warrior. We had been made to stand like this together.

Andvari’s true form appeared behind us in the reflection and I inhaled in shock as he pushed between us, feeling cold hands on my skin.

I whirled, turning to find him there, his eyes two white discs and his too-perfect face a thing of pure sin. Julius raised Menace with a snarl but Andvari wafted a hand, knocking him back into the wall and pinning him in place. The sword trembled violently in Julius’s grip as if it was furious to see Andvari, and his lips sealed shut, keeping him subdued despite how hard he fought to get free.

“It looks like you might enjoy blood upon your lips, little mortal.” Andvari rounded on me with a wicked smile, his eyes growing darker until two earthy pupils grew within them.

My breath stalled as I gazed up at him, sure he was more forbidding now than the last time I’d encountered him. Like this creature fed on chaos, growing stronger in the thick of it, and we were all feeding it to him in large doses.

“Never,” I hissed, finally finding my voice and it struck at him like a whip.

He tapped me under the chin and his touch sent flames burrowing into my core. I stood my ground, trying not to show weakness even though I was sure this god could destroy me with a single thought if he decided to.

“Erik Larsen would be so very pleased,” he purred, and my throat thickened at Erik’s name. “But however will you say goodbye to your sweet sister?”

“I wouldn’t,” I snarled, despising the mere suggestion of it.

Andvari’s eyes wheeled to Julius and he clawed his hand through the air. Julius bit down on a cry as his shirt was torn to ribbons, deep nail marks slashing down his chest. “She is a slayer...like this one.” Andvari spat the word, clearly despising their kind.

“And what’s wrong with that?” I demanded.

“What is right with them?” he asked casually, his vicious demeanour abruptly abandoned. He stalked toward me and I backed up to the mirror, finding myself trapped by a wrathful god.

As he walked, his form changed, morphing entirely until it was Erik who stood before me. My heart cracked at the sight of his angular face and deep eyes, the all-too-familiar tug in my heart urging me towards him.

My thoughts seemed to speed away as fast as I could hold onto them. One moment I knew what was happening, the next I was lost in nothing but a dream world where only me and Erik existed.

“My love,” Erik whispered, reaching out to hold my waist, pulling me closer.

A meadow sprawled out around us and the darkness vanished entirely, leaving me in a daze with the man I had been craving since the moment we’d parted. No, not a man…

“Erik?” Something was screaming on the verge of my senses, but I couldn’t focus long enough to figure out what it was.

“Yes, it’s me. Come closer, Montana.” He dipped his head low and the sun shone off of his pale skin. Birdsong filled the air and the scent of a thousand flowers sailed under my nose, so sweet, so heady.

I blinked heavily.

This wasn’t right.

The sun...how is Erik in the sun?

He leaned in to kiss me and my thoughts sharply realigned, reality crashing back in on me. I shoved him hard, forcing him away and the ruins flooded back into view, the shadows sweeping aside any lingering lie of the sun.

Andvari stood before me again, cackling a laugh. “You must forgive an ancient being for having his fun.”

“What do you want?” I snarled, retreating so my spine pressed against the icy pane of the mirror.

I looked to Julius as he struggled against the control Andvari held over him, considering calling out to Magnar and Callie. But even if Andvari allowed them near us, it would only have put them in danger too. The god was in control here, and there was little I could do until he decided he was done with his game.

“I want a slayer’s head.” Andvari’s smile stretched into something sinister, his gaze turning sharply toward Julius as he raised his hand.

I screamed in fright, diving on his arm, trying to wrench it away from Julius and protect him from the god’s cruelty.

“No!” I begged, but if Andvari noticed me at all, he didn’t show it. He was immovable, his body like stone given life, and my mortal strength could do nothing against it.

Julius gasped, then a line of blood formed on his neck circling around it in a neat slit.

Panic seized me, my mind latching onto the only thing that might help. I grabbed Nightmare from my hip and drove it towards Andvari’s heart with all my might. But the god batted a hand and I was thrown away, slamming into the wall and smashing the mirror. I hit the floor in a shower of glass and pain lanced through my back.

Take heart, Moon Child, Nightmare urged, the warm hilt offering me courage.

I groaned as the cuts on my exposed skin flared and a shudder ran through me.

How was I going to save Julius when I couldn’t do anything to stop Andvari?

Julius spat curses as the god approached him, the cut on his neck deepening with every stride Andvari took.

“Stop!” I cried. “What do you want? What will it take?!”

The blood abruptly stopped growing on Julius’s neck and slowly receded altogether. Relief tangled with my veins as Julius sucked in a deep breath.

“Spiteful bitch,” Andvari spat, but I didn’t know who he was talking to.

The air shuddered and heat stretched over my skin like warm water, the sense of some new power crackling in the atmosphere. The world rippled before me and the running water on the roof turned to a thick, milky flow.

I gathered myself up from the floor, running to Julius’s side, terrified of what was happening.

“Idun,” Andvari snarled as the strange water parted and an ethereal woman appeared from within it. She ignored Andvari, moving toward Julius and placing a kiss on his cheek.

He released a noise somewhere between a whimper and a moan. “Idun?” he breathed.

“Yes, dear slayer. Here I am,” she purred, her eyes flicking to me. She was too beautiful for words. Her hair was a golden sheet that seemed to move in an invisible wind around her lithe body, and she was clad in nothing but vines that coiled over her naked skin and somehow maintained her modesty.

Her bright eyes slid to Andvari. “You do not touch one of mine.”

Andvari rolled back his upper lip, revealing serrated teeth that set my heart thumping. “The time is coming for penance. And the royals are not the only ones I seek it from.”

“Do you mean me, Andvari?” Idun tittered, placing a long golden nail against her chest. “You wouldn’t pick a fight with me on equal ground. Must we always play this game? I countered your vampires with slayers...but you have written a dark little secret into your prophecy haven’t you? Another dagger in my side.” She reached for me, taking my arm and moving me in front of her. Her touch was liquid heat, sending calm inching into every space in my body, quieting the rioting of my pulse. The feeling silenced any more words on my lips, and the urge to lean into her crept into every pore of my skin. This goddess was connected to me in a way I couldn’t explain, her power written into the fibres of my flesh. And it seemed she might have come to save us.

She scraped my hair from my neck, pulling it over my shoulders as she presented me to Andvari.

“Warrior born and monster made,” she snarled. “You would have one of my slayer-born turn into one of your monsters. I won’t see it happen.”

Andvari laughed darkly. “Then we shall spend the next thousand years at a stalemate. And the next, and the next. If you wish to see my curse unravelled, you will have to allow it.”

My thoughts jarred with that knowledge, the truth painted so brutally upon his lips. And I saw everything starkly, knowing why he had shown me that mirage of myself. He was guiding me to that fate. A slayer turned vampire. The thought of it was so terrifying, so awful, I could hardly stand it.

Idun caressed my cheek with a long finger, and my fears shattered once more as her calm essence floated over me.

“Let’s not pretend you haven’t had a hand in messing up my prophecy just yesterday, Idun,” Andvari accused, lifting a gnarled finger to point at her. “The mark of partnership was meant for Erik and this girl to ensure she was turned. That he would do as she asked when she knew the truth about the prophecy. But you made your own mark, didn’t you? You bound her sister to another of mine. What strange game are you playing, Idun? Is it just for your amusement, or is it to taunt me?”

Idun moved around me like a summer breeze and I regained control of myself, stumbling back against Julius. He fought to free himself from the wall, but Andvari’s power still held him in place.

“A little of both,” Idun mused. “Love is the most powerful emotion in the world, Andvari. How many times will you forget that?” Her tinkling laughter crackled in my ears like rustling leaves. “Your bond between the vampire and this girl gave me an idea. I needed to keep my new slayer girl from loving someone who owes me a debt. And your little trick with these two made me realise I could have some fun whilst doing it.”

“Well how foolish of you because your game resulted in Fabian’s life being saved,” Andvari taunted her.

Idun’s face grew cold. “Clearly I underestimated the strength of Magnar’s feelings for the girl. The fact that he would stay his hand against one of your monsters only proves how much harder I must work to keep him away from her. He will continue his chosen path and end the Revenants like he promised or I shall never give him the only thing he truly wants - love.”

The cruelty of her words spiked rage in me. She was keeping my sister and Magnar apart for the sake of her vendetta against the vampires.

“Well I wish for blood to sate my rage, Idun. Step aside,” Andvari demanded, pointing at Julius.

Fear sped through me, Idun’s influence dropping away once more.

“He is not yours to kill. You stole what is mine so perhaps I shall steal from you in kind,” Idun said, her ire making the earth rumble.

Andvari raised a hand as if to strike her, but a vine from Idun’s dress whipped out and caught me by the waist, yanking me between them.

“I will rip her heart out and you shall never have your debt paid,” Idun snarled, and terror snaked into my chest.

“Enough,” Andvari hissed. “Have it your way for now, but if your games continue for too long I will strike against you personally.”

Idun’s laughter filled the air and thunder rumbled above us. “I would gladly accept that challenge.”

Andvari shrugged his shoulders. “Then perhaps when we meet again, it shall be on a battleground.”

In an instant, the two of them vanished and Julius stumbled forward, sword raised and muscles tensed.

He staggered to a halt where Idun had been standing, releasing a breath of frustration. Thankfully, his injuries were gone too, and I sagged against him, the weight of my reality sinking in.

“Do you think what Andvari said is true?” I whispered, fear pounding through me. Even if I had accepted that some of the vampires weren’t evil, that didn’t mean I ever wanted to become one of them. “If I become a vampire, will it really unravel the curse?”

I shuddered, burying my face in Julius’s chest at the horrifying thought. I couldn’t.

“I cannot be sure. We must never trust the gods,” Julius growled, and a flame of hope flickered inside me as I peeked up at him, my fingers biting into the muscles of his arms.

“Should we tell the others what they said?” I breathed.

Julius’s eyes darkened, his throat bobbing as he considered it.

“I fear they would not react well. They already know of Idun’s wrath against them. And I think it would be best to hide the possibility that the prophecy intends for you to be one of those monsters. At least until we can figure out how to avoid it.”

I nodded, biting back the lump of emotion in my throat. “I’m afraid, Julius…”

He drew me into his arms, gripping me tight. “I won’t let you be made into a beast.”

I nodded against his chest, breathing in the small moment of comfort. But I was sure the second I stepped away, fear would find me again and I’d be devoured by its sharp teeth.