Chapter Two: Oregon Trail
Kass lay unconscious on the couch across the table from Martin, who had retrieved a few bottles of Jack Daniel’s and had been taking many straight drinks. He was trying to wrap his head around the fact that she was back from the dead. What could have caused this anomaly, anyways? An old psychopomp who took a fancy to her would be the most likely answer in the Soldier’s opinion, and there were many culprits to perform the process of elimination on. He looked down at the trio of ice cubes in his cup and stirred them. Before she died – or faked her death, either way – she was known to the gods as the Huntress; the legendary archer who swore herself to no man and hunted in the wilderness with her “daughters”. In the modern day she was a vigilante who helped the women who were abused by their partners, until eventually in 2015 her attributes lamented. The moon darkened, the animals cried in her name and attacked their masters, and the trees of Central Park withered brown. And then Martin hit her with his car and brought her with him onto the plane. What the Hel is going on? He thought.
Her eyes – irises silver as iron and pupils shifting size – blew wide open as she awakened. She looked around the plane, next was the whiskey, then to Martin, and finally, she screamed so loud the Soldier’s ears began to ring, but maybe that was the point. “Who the fuck are you!? Where the fuck am I!? Did you rape me!?” She jumped through the cabin trying to evade Martin, who just jumped back in pure alarm.
“Ah! What’s wrong with you!?”
“What did you do to me!?”
“Nothing! Alright, look, calm down… I hit you with my car.”
“What!?” She cried out. The pilot asked Martin if everything was alright, which he quickly confirmed to get back to the situation at hand. “You hit me with your car and then dragged me to this plane!?”
“You’re yelling a lot.” The Gunman noted.
“Fuck you!”
“Okay, okay, okay… let’s start over. Come over here, sit down.” Martin poured her a drink, which the woman immediately downed. “Let’s begin with the simpler questions. What’s the last thing you remember?” He asked.
“Side tracking, I think the simplest question is this: what the fuck’s your name?”
“You don’t know me?” She shook her head. Martin slouched in his seat, confused about her words and why she didn’t remember him.
“Sorry Mister Rapist, I don’t know who the hell you are.” She reached for the bottle and refilled her glass.
“Do you remember your name?” Martin asked with a worried tone.
“What kind of question is that? Of course I know my own name, it’s Kassandra – Kassandra Hawkemoon and I am twenty-eight years old.” She took a swig of the bottle and then looked out the window. Martin had noticed she did look younger; the black in her hair was still incredibly dark and she had fewer creases and wrinkles. But her name was the last alias of the Huntress, and that caused the Soldier great confusion. “Hey, what’s your name? Maybe that would jog my memory or at least put me a bit at ease so if you try anything I can report you to the police.”
Martin paused before answering, studying her face to see if she wasn’t just screwing with him. “My name is Martin. Martin Bell. And we were friends once, though I doubt you’ll remember it.” She just shook her head and stood up. “What are you…?” She began to pace.
“Why am I here? I know you hit me with your car and you were like ‘oh, it’s my friend, better take her to my private plane to see if she’s okay’ but that’s not a real reason.”
“It’s real enough.”
“Someone else would’ve dropped me off at the hospital or something.”
“I was running late.”
“For what?”
“You ask too many questions, so let’s please just go back to the original one: what is the last thing you remember?” The Soldier asked. Kass sat beck down and shifted in her seat as she took another drink.
“Well… there was a bright light-”
“I meant before I hit you, Kass.”
“No, it wasn’t headlights. It was something else, something brighter…” There was a long pause between the two as Martin expected more information.
“What, that’s it?” He finally asked.
“Yeah, what did you expect? My life story?”
“No, just something more precise.” Martin sighed as he looked out the window to the starry night sky above the clouds. “It’ll be another seven something hours till we reach Oregon. You should get some sleep.” The Gunman reclined in his seat and closed his eyes, planning the route he would take and which deities would be ideal recruits.
“What’s in Oregon?” Kassandra asked as she lay on the white couch.
“My fire.”
A sanguine red figure opened his eyes to a queer land; The sea was comprised of galaxy clusters, shining stars, and colorful swirls, the air was flame, but did not burn anything it licked, and the sky above was of swaying water. Elysium, the red man concluded. He looked around the earth of flowers and wheat and banquets of suckling pigs, hot bread, cakes, and juicy meats. He saw winged serpents flying through the sky releasing rivers of fire, translucent fish that swam through the wind, and enormous trees larger than giants. “Alright!” The red man yelled out. “Who wanted an audience with me?”
“We did.” Answered a masculine blue form wielding a katana and wearing robes marked with a sea storm’s waves and lightning. He was surrounded by many colorful, glowing forms with magnificent descriptions.
“Susanoo…” The red man now stood in front of his cerulean counterpart. “I heard you killed yourself.”
“I heard you lost your sword.” The Kami of the Summer Storm unsheathed his own ornate blade decorated with the scales of the eight headed sea snake he pulled it from. Standing behind him was a brown beast with moss fur, animal skins acting as clothes, and a stag’s antlers sprouting from his temples.
“Cernunnos? You’re not with us anymore? How did this happen?” Other gods revealed themselves. There was a great polar bear with icy glowing eyes wearing thick furs, a man with a moose’s head, an eagle’s wings and feet, and thunder about his arms, and a yellow creature with bees swarming his head and honey secreting from his skin. “What did this to you?” The red figure asked.
“We do not exactly know, o Stormer of Cities. But we were not killed by withdrawal from power. We were killed by bullets.” Said the Ice Bear, Nanook, chilling winds sent from his speech. Nanook walked off, dissipating into snow.
“You are right to search for other gods. The Wily One will warn them of our threat and they will fight to avenge us. You will join in a glorious war, Battle-Insatiate. It will be the war that many gods and men alike will die in.” Said the Mountainous Thunder Spirit, Pamola, who flew off with his eagle wings and vanished with thunder.
“Rally the Pantheons, Brazen-Armed. Show them the light of the fires of war, guide their hearts to battle and slaughter our murderers. Travel to the northern forests of the Inuit, the southern deserts of the Aztec and Maya, and back to your Temple with your army. You will need them.” Said Ah Muzen Cab, God of Bees, who evaporated into thousands of golden insects.
“But who do I find? I have questions, you damn animals!” The Man-Slayer charged for the last of the bees, but Susanoo put a hand on his shoulder.
“Hel kind of stupid question is that? Find everyone.”
“What do you mean everyone? Most of us are old and frail and about to join you here.”
“Then collect the younger ones who still have power. Do what your Tick Tock Man asked, make our deaths worthwhile.” The Storm Kami walked away with Cernunnos. “Or else all of us will be here, forgotten by a world that once loved us.”
“Great, you’re gonna leave me here?” Waves took the duo of gods. “That’s just fine and dandy, leave me here until I wake up.” The red man walked back to the green hills and sat down on a soft patch of grass. He looked at the glass city in ever present-day light that stretched on for infinity. Elaborate towers spiraled upwards for hundreds of thousands of stories occupied by the dead heroes of the Nine Realms, though many of which were of Midgard. Some saved babies from being hit by trucks or transferred an organ or two, most fought in wars and saved lives in the face of death, but the oldest residents of Elysium were ancient heroes.
Gigantic statues of the Old Heroes such as gorgon-slaying Perseus and Pegasus-mounted Bellerophon were erected throughout the city while some were even of people like Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar. But then the red man saw the marble depictions of deities like Nanook, Pamola, Ah Muzen Cab, and smiled, though the reason was hollow. the dead believe in the gods, even worship them, but it does not help; worship from the dead is dead worship. He thought of whether the deceased would even worship a god like him when he eventually ended up here. It was a question for a higher power. He wondered if he would ever find his sword again, if the Huntress would remember who she was, and if the Tick Tock Man’s assembly would really sell to the other gods. Maybe he could just stay here in Elysium where he can be worshipped in his death, live the rest of his afterlife feasting on the sacrificial meats in his name and lie with the fat breasted woman that he loved when he was younger. But he couldn’t. He needed to avenge the gods that fell. He owed it to them. So he got up and walked off to the sun, whistling and humming all the way.
The plane landed at Portland International Airport in an enclosed space at the crack of dawn, and just outside was his Mustang. “I missed you, Drakon!” The Gunman opened the trunk to see a jug of gasoline, a first aid kit, and a long, mahogany wood box branded with the emblem of Jötunheim.
“What’s that, Mister Rapist?” Asked Kassandra as she exited the aircraft.
“This a box, and inside the box is something very important at this point and time.” Martin produced the rifle, making Kass jump back.
“Why do you have a rifle with you!?” She yelled.
“Will you shut the hell up! We can’t talk like that here because of Nine-Eleven. And also, this isn’t just a rifle… this is a no-bullshit, straight-shooting M4A1 rifle that is currently not on safety, but on semiautomatic, which I find weird. It’s like the Tick Tock Man thought I was going to open this when I – we now – got into a firefight.” Martin examined the rifle to make sure everything was in check.
“What else is in there?” Kassandra looked into the gray foam.
“An antler-handled knife, a bulletproof suit, and a few magazines.” The Soldier shut the trunk and started the loud engine. “You coming or what?”
“Screw you and that old piece of shit.” She sat down in the passenger seat and looked out the window to see the city. “So who’s the Tick Tock Man?” The woman asked.
“He’s my employer, grandfather, one of the few people around who respects me. Runs a hotel in New York and is hated by a lot of people, powerful and weak alike. He’s a very old man, but he makes up for it by being smart. He’s the reason why we’re in Portland right now.”
“And what did he send you here to do? You said to get your ‘fire’, what does that mean?”
“It’s not just here in Portland; there are relatives of ours all over the place and I’m the one he sent to recruit them. I have till Christmas, that’s when we all go to a place called the Temple, where he’ll do his best to win them over.”
“Win them over for what?”
“Honestly, I don’t really know. I just know I have to gather everyone for some sort of… war.” The two sat listening to an Aaron Neville song for a few minutes.
“You didn’t tell me who your fire is, though.”
“Oh, sorry. She’s my aunt.” Martin drove south through the business streets and bustling workers and tourists. They stopped in front of a small, four-story tall, brick building with orange neon letters reading the place’s title.
“The Vestian Garden… what is it?” Kass asked as they approached the door flanked by trees.
“It’s a bed and breakfast that’s ran by my aunts. Goes back some two hundred years.” Just as Martin knocked on the door, a man was thrown out crying.
“And tell the rest of your little group to stop snorting cocaine in here! Little nihilist, bigot, dumb… ah, I’m getting too old for this.” Out came a small old woman with fiery hair tied in a bun wearing an orange apron with white accents.
“Nihilist, bigot, dumbass, young sum’ bitch.” Followed an olive skinned, black haired elder wearing a green and brown variation of the apron. They both turned to see Martin and had different reactions to his appearance. The orange one’s face lit up and the green one’s stared in anger. “You are such a bad boy!” She slapped him across the face. “Little motherfucker who thinks he can just sit there watching a drug addict run off – he didn’t even pay us!”
“Hello again, Betty.” The Soldier rubbed his cheek.
“Betty, stop hitting my nephew! Come here, Marty.” The orange woman embraced Martin with a hug tighter than what her age should have given and kissed him on both cheeks.
“Good morning, Mercy. It’s good to see you.” He was two feet taller than both of them.
“Come on in dear, we haven’t seen you in so long! And who’s your-” Gloria saw Kass’ face behind Martin, who smiled and waved before returning to looking at a dog across the street. “Well then… we definitely need to talk.” They invited the duo into the building, and prepared food for them.
“Are you guys baking cookies in here?” Kass asked after taking a big whiff of the air.
“No, it’s vanilla extract and some oils in the oven at three hundred degrees. Makes the Inn smell homey, draws in customers.” The Gardner answered as she dusted the counter.
Martin sat at the chestnut table drinking his coffee and eating his aunt’s buttermilk pancakes while Kassandra interacted their black Lab, Marigold. Gloria and Betty sat down side by side staring him down. “So, uh, the weather looks nice over here. Rained pretty hard back in New York last night.”
“Cut the shit Bell, how is she alive? Her attributes went haywire in her city, only a god’s death could’ve caused that. So, obviously, that begs the question: where has she been this whole time?” Betty demanded.
“Yeah, hon, I’m with my sister on this, where has she come from? She should be six feet under us right now.” Furthered Gloria. While she sat, she stoked a chimney fire with a long wooden stick which hadn’t burned a single fiber. The elder had always been very kind to Martin, mostly because unlike the rest of their family, she realized she had no real reason not to.
“I actually don’t know.” Martin answered. “Last night, I hit her with my car and took her to the plane with me so we could talk over what exactly just happened. She doesn’t remember anything.”
“What do you mean, dumbass? You need to be specific about this – you’re telling me that the Huntress doesn’t know jack-shit about herself?” Betty loudly whispered.
“I mean, she remembers her name, but that’s about it. She doesn’t remember me and clearly she doesn’t remember you two.” The three looked at each other with frustration and confusion in their eyes.
Gloria was first to speak. “Why are you here, Marty? We all know it’s not just a visit.”
“The Tick Tock Man wants an audience with you. He’s gathering the pantheons for a grand assembly of his.”
“What is the nature of this meeting?” Betty asked.
“From my understanding, it’s a warning for our brothers and sisters.”
“A warning for what?”
“…War. He sent me to collect every god, monster, and spirit I can find before Christmas, where you’ll all be listening to him at the Temple. I’m going to see if I can get my brothers after this.” Martin finished his breakfast and washed the plate off in the sink. “Thanks for the pancakes, aunty, but I need an answer.”
“If you asked me, he should have sent your sister. What gods have you recruited so far?” Betty asked apathetically.
“All I know of is the Feathered Serpent, the Watcher, and Set. He wants me to recruit Kongfrey, Shane, Daisy, probably Saturday as well for starters but I have others in mind.”
“Like who?” The Gardener asked, her green eyes staring into Martin’s reddish brown.
“Her. I’ll try to get into contact with the Elephant, see if he can help her case so she can fight with us.” Kassandra threw a tennis ball, ricocheting off the wall, then the floor, and just past Martin’s face. “Maybe also the Chupacabra, at least he knows what he is.”
The Eldest fidgeted her hands, clearly indecisive about whether she wanted to join a war with her brothers and sisters, or stay neutral and keep living her calm life running a B-and-B and stoking her chimney fire. “You’re not considering this, are you?” Her younger asked, furious at the idea of her fighting.
“I have one condition, Gunman.” She finally spoke.
“You idiot…” The Gardener stomped off upstairs to clean rooms.
“And what would that be, Gloria?” Martin stood, his hand holding the wooden grip of his silver revolver.
“You saw that man with the drug problem, yes?”
“Of course, you hit him with a broom.”
“I need you to stop their little operation. Scare them a bit, hon. They go to a bar just south of here, try to get some info on when their next thing will be”
“I will see to it that they feel my wrath.”
“That’s my boy. You a want a place to sleep? I know it’s not a fancy shmancy Yggdrasil hotel, but you got a roof over your head and some nice homesome food to come down to.”
“Thank you, Stoker, but that won’t be necessary.” Martin walked off to Kass, who was currently being tackled by a very playful Marigold. “C’mon, we’re painting the town.”
The girl stood up and followed the Gunman. “What do you mean by that?” She asked with a worried tone.
“We’re gonna do a drug bust.” They left the building and entered the Red Horse, Martin seeing the spilled water bottle and throwing it out his window. “Smile, it’s just a bit of fun.”
The two stopped a brick building with grates covering its windows and bright red, pink, and blue neon lights spelling out The Jaguar. Kassandra smelled the air, causing her nose to wrinkle and twitch. “This place is a strip club, it’s disgusting.” She groaned.
“Yeah, I’m getting that vibe from the place.” As if on que, Martin’s phone began to ring, with Yggdrasil’s standard 1930s rotary phone jingle. “Oh, well would you like at that – right on, Time.” Kass gave the Soldier an annoyed look – the one a spouse gives their significant other when they spend their respective earnings. “What? Go in there, get some information; I have Time on my hands so pretend to be lesbian for a few minutes.”
“This place is a toilet, I don’t wanna go in there.” The two argued for what seemed like an eternity, but eventually Kassandra did yield.
“Have fun!” Martin called.
“Fuck you and your grandpa!” Loud music roared from the building instantaneously after she the bouncer let her in.
The Gunman opened his phone and answered the Tick Tock Man. “Hello?”
“Martin! Great to hear from you! Lemme tell you something: I managed to get what’s left of the Japanese – they used to be in the tens of millions and now they’ve been fucked so hard by Asian technological advancement that like twenty of them are left – and I just learned that Wakan Tanka and Bondye are dead as Hel is cold. Have you gotten your aunts to join in yet? Actually, no, tell me if you found anyone else before them; I heard that Atlas moved to somewhere in Oregon, or maybe it was Cleveland, I can never remember.” Exclaimed the old, English voice that hurt Martin’s ear.
“Uh… no?” The Soldier barely heard him to begin with. “Well, I may have found a certain girl in the high family of the pantheon”
“Holy shit, you got me an O.G.? You dog you, whom may I ask is going to attend my party? Kora? No, she’s in California – and your rival is still in the Old Country. Hebe? She’s nice, albeit I don’t think she’ll be one for war.” The old man guessed.
“Not it’s, uh…”
“Come on! Out with it already!”
“… I found the Huntress.” Martin finally revealed.
Silence.
“What the Hel did you just say, Soldier? Elaborate, Martin!”
“Okay, so after I equipped myself at the Haberdashery, I realized I was running late so I sped through the rain until eventually I hit Kassandra with my car-”
“You hit her with your damn car!?”
“…And then I brought her to plane where she woke up and told me that… okay, she doesn’t remember anything about herself – not even what she is – only her name is what sticks with her. I thought it would be smart to bring her with me, but aside from that I have no idea about what to do.” Martin discharged without taking a breath in between words.
“Calm down, lad, where is she now?” Horatio asked.
“…I sent her inside a strip club to get information.”
“Why!?”
“The Eldest said that she would only come if I scared off some people who snort Columbian bam-bam in her B-and-B, the Hel was I supposed to do with that? Drop her? And you said you needed gods that were still young, like maybe the loa that fell out of power in the 1800s, what are we doing with these goddesses?” Martin Protested.
“I think it would be wise to collect all the O.G.s, even the ones that are currently weak. I started with you, Soldier, and you are still one of the most powerful. I’m glad I saved you from Pearl Harbor, Martin, I truly am.” Horatio said with the iconic rasp that indicated he was speaking truly, which given his personality was really saying something.
“…Why did you have to do that? I would’ve died with my men, an honorable death with true soldiers. Why couldn’t you have just collected my sister?” Martin lamented the fallen sailors of Pearl Harbor, the soldiers that burned when the bloody Japanese dropped their bombs and fired their bullets upon the ships, hangars, and planes.
“They call your sister the perfect goddess; she could destroy entire armies and woo any man or god despite the fact that she was a virgin, but she had a major flaw that makes you better than her.”
“And what’s that, you old liar?” The Gunman asked, cleaning his revolver with his crimson handkerchief. Silence took over for what seemed like eternity, even if it was only five seconds.
“Repent, Harlequin,” Said the Tick Tock Man. “There is someone in Athens, and after that, go through Sparta to reach Vulcan.” The manager of Jötunheim hung up, and Kassandra exited the building and sat down in the car.
“Where’s our guy, Kass?” Asked Martin as he holstered his revolver.
“Not here; I couldn’t find the guys you were looking for, but I found the landlord to where they lived. He said that they skipped town earlier today, went east. Sorry, Mister Rapist, but your late middle-aged to elderly aunts won’t help you. Mercy was sweet, though, I liked meeting her.”
Martin groaned before finally starting the mustang. “Yeah. I bet she liked meeting you, too.” They drove off to the Vestian Garden – stopping once to collect burgers and fries from a Burger King – and pulled up in front of Betty, who was shoveling snow from her sidewalk and piling it onto the neighboring building’s.
“You find them already? Get the Hel in here, it’s cold out.” The Gardener said.
“We don’t feel the cold, Betty, you know that.” Replied Martin.
“Yeah, but Mercy might wanna say goodbye to your stupid ass.” Betty opened the stained-glass door and invited the two in, where they saw Mercy sitting on an antique rocking chair stoking the chimney fire with her long stick. She was wearing a long white veil, slippers, and had her graying orange hair flowing free. It was long, maybe five feet at Martin’s angle, and she never noticed that Martin and Kass even entered the room.
“Afternoon, Mercy.” The Gunman placed a hand on the Eldest’s.
“Hi, sweetie. Did you get them?”
“No they didn’t.” Betty entered the room, removing her jacket, and began to water the potted plants and sweet-smelling flowers across the Vestian Inn.
“They skipped town, probably the state, too. Druggies won’t be dirtying this place up anymore.” Kassandra elaborated. “On the other hand, though, I saw what a strip club is like… that was neat.” Mercy shook her head and let out a slight chuckle.
“I’m sorry, Marty, but I can’t help you in your war.”
“But we had a deal. The junkies are gone, we should be going over scheduling an Yggdrasil plane to the Temple right now.”
“But I am old, I won’t be able to help you. I’m sorry Martin.” Mercy stood and walked to the stairs. “I think I might get some rest now. Have a nice rest of your day, Marty.”
“Wait,” Martin called out before Mercy was fully upstairs, “can we stay the night?”
The goddess returned a warm smile. “Of course, Marty.”
“What!?” Betty exclaimed. Martin walked up the cherrywood steps to a door at the end of a hallway. The hallway had a dark red wallpaper, it was lit up by gas lamps, and the doors had a single eye etched into them. Kass and Martin entered the room to find two beds, a small television, a dresser with two drawers, and a small window.
“I’m taking this one.” Kass flopped down on the bed on the right, only pausing to remove her boots. Martin sat down on his bed and took off his jacket and shirt, revealing a multitude of long, deep scars across his brawny back and arms. Kassandra gave out a sharp gasp before asking, “Where did you get those?”
“A lot of them are from South America, others are from when I was in Africa, and some of the smaller cuts I got from the Middle East.” Martin placed his revolvers on the dresser between them. Kass began to remove her hooded jacket, becoming surprised when she found muscular arms and strong abs. The Soldier lied down and began to clean his revolver with the red handkerchief until he fell asleep.
“Hey Martin?” Kassandra asked, waking a now angry Gunman.
“What?”
“When you were trying to get Mercy to join your side, why did you call each other gods?”
“Uh,” Martin needed to think fast. Telling a woman suffering from amnesia that gods exist and are rapidly dying off and going as far to tell her that she is a goddess herself would break anyone. He needed to wait for the right time and place where she can believe him. “Did I tell you about Yggdrasil?”
“No.”
“Yggdrasil is a chain of nine luxury hotels established throughout the world in major cities. The hotels secretly cater to contract killers and bodyguards, they have endless resources, and their agents are extremely lethal and effective.” Martin answered.
“Like how you work for the Tick Tock Man?”
“Exactly. I work for the Tick Tock Man exclusively, but Jötunheim’s resources are quite endless. So yeah, we’re pretty godlike.”
“The Vestian Garden doesn’t look like it’s a part of Yggdrasil.”
“It’s not. Some powerful people live in lower areas, like these fine ladies.”
“But why are you trying to recruit them? They don’t look like the kind of old ladies that could go to war with someone.”
“Just the situation right now, Kass. Now go to sleep.” Martin turned off the lamp, leaving the two in total darkness.
“Who am I?” The Huntress asked. The Gunman gave no answer.
The red man lay in a field of flowers once more. “Damnit! Why do they keep summoning me here?” The sanguine figure rose just outside the gated walls of Elysium, and he saw as the cloudless skies began to dull gray, then darken black. “Ah shit.” Thunder boomed a hundred times every second and rain poured enough to fill the oceans. “What do you want, Odinson?”
“The Alföðr wants an audience with you.” Thor said. He was a glowing blue Norseman with a red beard wearing iron armor, the strength-giving belt Megingjörð, his strong hand clad in the iron gauntlet Járngreipr wielding the mountain-crushing hammer Mjölnir. He arrived on his chariot of silver and oak drawn by the black goats with ironclad horns, Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjóstr, with Tanngrisnir being lame from a child breaking his leg bone to suck out the marrow. For that, the God of Thunder made the family his servants.
“What for? And also, how did you get here? How long have you been here? Everybody thinks your hiding in the mountains of Norway.” The red man asked. “Is this Loki’s trickery? Or maybe a Jötunn emerged from the Land of the Giants to avenge his fallen comrades.
“You will see, Red God.” The God of Thunder flew away. Almost immediately afterwards, the Red God found himself in an infinite oakwood hall lit by torches and occupied by armor wearing skeletons feasting on a dragon that will be resurrected come nightfall only to be killed and eaten again while countless ravens ate the scraps. And in the end of the great hall was an iron throne of silver and on it was an old man with a long, gray beard and a robe of corvid fathers, two ravens sitting atop his shoulders. In his hand was the great spear Gungnir decorated with iron wolf heads and glowing runes. The One-Eyed King of the Aesir was responsible for sending Thor to slaughter any Jötunn based on the belief that they would destroy anything and everything in their path.
“Odin, why have you brought me to Valhalla?” The Spear-Brandisher asked. “Susanoo, Cernunnos, Nanook, and Ah Muzen Cab have already warned me of your deaths and the threats to come. I know how you have died Odin; for Aesir of Wisdom, you were foolish to hang yourself in a sacrifice of yourself to yourself again. I must point out the fact that a god who hoarded any and all prophecies defied his most important one with suicide. So, if you have no new news to relay to me, again I shall ask: why have you brought me to your hall, Alföðr?” The Blood-Stained inquired of the Raven God.
“The Lord of the Hanged will retort when he sees fit with his infinite wisdom.” Thor said, his blue body crackling with electricity, his hammer Mjolnir more than anything else. “You would do well remembering that you answer to him in Valhalla. He does not answer to you in his own domain.” From the dim hall came the rest of Grimnir’s family: a one-handed god with an iron wolf’s head shrouding his right nub and a great sword in his mighty left hand, a goddess with flowers entwined in her golden hair, a god with the gifts of speech, hearing, and sight.
“Tyr, it’s sad to see you dead. My Lord wanted an audience with you, sincerely speaking. I guess it is true what Loki said: all the Aesir died gruesome deaths.”
“You will speak no more, Tyrant. We have summoned you to tell you that Ragnarök is upon us. We will not be dead for long. When Heimdall fills Valhalla with the call of the Gjallarhorn we will rise for one last battle. It will be glorious!” Odin exclaimed, the rest of the Einherjar and Aesir roaring with joy.
“Is that it? Because I have to get back on the road to gather more gods.” The Bloody said to the silver-glowing form.
“No, you must hunt for the God of Light! Kill him for us! Set Ragnarök into motion with his demise!” The All-Father said. “You may leave, boy. Let us drink fine mead and eat the ever-resurrecting dragon until the God of Light’s death brings us up by six feet. Dragon meat is fine, but you grow tired of everything eventually.”
“Way ahead of you, old man.” The red god left the hall to the snowy mountains outside, jumping off a high cliff into the sea of the First Jötunn’s blood. The water was sheeted in ice, though it boiled with the heat of Sol Invictus. He let the boiling sea consume him, his eyes fixes on the river of green, red, and blue lights.
“Ha!” The red god let out in the water. “That’s good…”
Martin awoke with the sound of shattering glass, his divine ears hearing each individual fragment drop to the floor. Kassandra awoke as well, making Martin freeze, but went back to sleep after seeing the time and groaning. She may have thought it was a dog, but the Soldier didn’t care; the crackpots were back for one last night, defiling the Temple of Vesta with their addictions and putting shame to the Goddess of Home. They would pay for their demons dearly. The Gunman rose, dressed himself in his leather and red cloth, but left his revolvers. He wouldn’t need them.
The Soldier walked down the hallway to a room down the hall marked with the image of a flame and kettle. He popped his strong knuckles, his muscular neck, cleared his mind for the fight ahead. Martin kicked the door down with a loud crash, alerting the four blonde men in the room injecting themselves with bath salts. They looked in surprise at first, none of them moving as the man stood in the doorway. He looked to the boy sitting on an antique chair and immediately did he charge at the deity. Martin caught the fist and positioned the boy’s elbow on the nape of his neck; the snapped bone cut through the arm, and as the junky fell in pain, the Blood-Stained grabbed his golden locks and thrusted his forehead into the acute corner of the wooden dresser thrice. His body fell to the ground with blood and chips of bone dripping down his face.
Two more of the men ran at the god, one trying to punch Martin in the jaw, the other attem-pting to hit him with a bronze statuette. The Red God caught the fist, kicked the boy with the bronze in the knee to see his jagged femur pierce through his own flesh, took hold of the other’s hair to ram his knee into the man’s face, punched the former’s face twice so he could hear the familiar pop of the nose with the first and the crack of his neck with the last, and grabbed his friend’s shirt collar to throw him into the window. His bloody head broke through the glass but was still standing, so Martin slammed his head down through the shattered window and let the limp body fall to the ground with shards of glass, both large and small, buried deep in his face. A quiet bullet flew right past Martin’s face and into a painting of an Italian villa. The remaining kid was crouching behind the bed on the far side of the room with a black pistol in his hand, the silencer so large that it could have been a soup can. There were no words between the two. Only silence as Martin plotted forward to the young man who cried for dear life.
“Please! Please, just let me go! I promise I’ll never come back here again! I’ll quit drugs – I’ll go sober for the rest of my life! I’m sorry! I won’t tell, just please! Please let me go!” He cried. Martin took a good look of him: he was a boy – about twenty or twenty-four – with curly blonde hair and a noticeable stubble. He wore a blueish-gray jacket over a black shirt with a rainbow unicorn on it and gray sweatpants. The Soldier memorized his face, then the room went completely dark, and when the power returned to the lights, his eyes burned with a horrific red.
The Gunman was behind the ringleader before he knew it, and as he realized his situation, a fist strong as iron slammed into the back of his cranium. Martin forced the kid to face him, his red irises the things of nightmares. “What is your name?” The Soldier asked.
The kid gave no response. He just gulped and prayed to his metaphysical god to save him from this terrible fate. Martin punched his in the face, red lifeblood staining the white sheets of the virgin beds.
“What is your name!?” The god asked once more. This time, the kid drew in a sharp breath (one as sharp as he could make it) and tried to wheeze the words out.
“Sebastian.” The kid finally released.
Sebastian, the deity ran the name through his head, the syllables the only things in his old mind. The Blood-Stained thrusted his arm into Sebastian’s throat, his body falling to the ground immediately as he coughed up blood. He watched as the boy struggled to breath and curled up into a ball, his salty tears mixing with his metallic blood that ran in quick streams. Martin grabbed him with the speed of a god and put his hand to the top of his skull in a way that the rest of his arm curled around the Sebastian’s neck. “Don’t fight it. Don’t fight it.” Martin whispered in the boy’s ear. “You cannot run. You cannot move. You cannot speak. You can barely breathe. You can do nothing, so you will do nothing. Be happy, as your death, and the deaths of your friends, will help me.” As the Soldier shushed into Sebastian’s ear, he tightened his grip like a vice every moment. The only sounds in the room were a sickening crunch, the exhalation of breath, and the thud of something heavy falling on a wooden floor.
“I thank you for this sacrifice.” Martin said as his eyes returned to their brown color and the lights blew up with the amount of power flowing through them. He would wake up Kassandra and instruct her to grab her things. The two would drive away that night, not alarming Mercy or Betty, leaving them to find the four corpses in the early hours of the morning and call nine-one-one. They were the only ones that knew what use their deaths served, and while they would work happy with the confirmation that the Vestian Garden would no longer be abused by children with demons, they would know that the Soldier didn’t kill them for Mercy’s request. They knew his real motivation and why the quartet of junkies died how they did
They knew that sooner or later, every god fell victim to their lust for worship.
ns 15.158.61.11da2
