Page 114 of Heart of Mischief

From the ground behind them came several distressed squeaks and the sound of scuffling. Charlie looked over her shoulder to see a very dusty Henry sitting up and brushing the dirt from his beard.

OW

WHAT THAT WAS?

“Great question, bud,” said Charlie, holding out a tentative hand. It bumped up against whatever invisible shield was blocking the exit.

Suddenly, where there had just been empty air, a white sheet of light shimmered to life. Charlie gasped, drawing her hand away and taking a step back. The sheet looked almost like a holographic screen.

“Intruders,” echoed a deep, crackling voice.

Henry squeaked, darting across the dirt and scaling Charlie’s leg to cling fearfully to her calf.

A dark outline materialized on the white screen. Gradually, the outline took on detail, revealing a man with a pitch-black face, brown eyes, skin made of flickering shadows…

A mare, Charlie realized.It’s another mare.

“You are living creatures intruding on the land of the dead,” said the mare. Though it was difficult to distinguish anything specific about him, Charlie got the sense that he was older than Elias. He had broad shoulders and long hair that swept the tops of them. “You must return to your realm immediately or face the consequences.”

“What kind of consequences?” Mason asked.

As if in response to his question, low growling rose from inside the cacti. Charlie tensed, glancing around at the maze that she’d mistakenly presumed to be empty. The growling grew louder, closer, until finally a set of bony, purplish snouts emerged from the cacti.

Charlie stifled a gasp. The creatures that stepped out onto thepath were horrific. They resembled wolves, but only insomuch as a corpse resembles a human. They were purplish in color, with no fur save a long, patchy black stretch that ran down their spine. Their eyes glowed neon blue. Their skin was sunken, rotting, and so thin that it was slightly transparent. Beneath, the gray white of their bones and a dark blue network of veins shined through. Their jaws hung open, revealing razor-sharp teeth, and there was only a hole where their noses should have been.

Worst of all… they looked hungry.

“The consequences are guaranteed entry to Helheim,” said the mare, “but not in the manner that you hope.”

Mason swallowed loudly. “Not alive, you mean.”

“Not alive,” the mare agreed.

Henry squeaked again, climbing the rest of Charlie’s leg and diving into her back pocket.

“Hey,” she hissed over her shoulder, looking down at where his little body was shaking in her pocket. “What happened to the badass vätte who could transform into a bloodthirsty gremlin at will?”

NOT NOW

DOGS SCARY

DOGS LIKE HIM

Henry sent Charlie an image of the Fenrir: huge, with yellow eyes and a mouth full of the fangs that almost ended her vätte’s life.

Charlie’s heart twisted in her chest. “Listen,” she said, turning back to face the mare on the screen and holding her hands up in front of herself. “We mean no one in Helheim any harm. We’re here to see Loki. We need his help.”

The mare made a noise that sounded like a mix between a laugh and a hacking cough. “Sure you do. You and every other human who has somehow wormed their way into our realm, looking for a god’s blessing.”

“We don’t need his blessing,” she said, pointing at Elias’s body floating down by her waist. “We need his blood.”

As soon as the mare spotted Elias, his eyes sharpened. Responding to some unheard command, the hounds growled, advancing on Charlie and Mason.

“We need his blood,” she repeated quickly, heart thundering in her chest as the creatures’ jaws flashed at the corners of her vision. “Elias was attacked by Rattatosk. He’ll die if he doesn’t get it.”

The hounds paused in their advance. For several excruciating seconds, the mare on the screen just stared down at Elias. Charlie prayed that whatever device or magic he was using to speak with them had high enough resolution that he could see the sweat on Elias’s skin, the clammy-white tint of his face…

“You could be lying,” the mare said at last. “How do I know that you didn’t set Rattatosk on Elias as an excuse to get close to Loki? You could be here to infiltrate Helheim. I can’t risk—”