axe. Vidar, Odin’s son, armed with a long sword, followed close behind. The thunder gods floated down to the muddy earth behind the faux Atticus to cut off any escape.
Poor Tyr clearly didn’t know anything about Fragarach. The only people who saw me use it in Asgard died immediately afterward, and thus he’d never been told that my ancient Fae sword cut through shields and armor like a chainsaw through mozzarella. Tyr crouched behind his shield as my double charged, thinking to take the blow and then strike back quickly with his axe. He took the blow all right. He took it right through the center of his body, as Fragarach sliced down through his shield, his forearm, and his torso. Everyone-including my double-was startled that Tyr was now half off. Literally.
But Vidar, the god of vengeance, recovered first. Yelling, “For Odin!” he thrust his long sword into the unprotected left side of that handsome Irish lad’s rib cage, definitely stabbing a lung and maybe the liver too. The man who was supposed to be me cried out his pain magnificently-“Garrl! Urk! Auggh!”-and tried to raise Fragarach for another blow, but the strength wasn’t in his limbs anymore. Vidar yanked out his sword with a slurping noise, and the Druid poseur collapsed in the mud.
They apparently knew enough about Druids not to leave it there. They didn’t want me healing from a wound that would be mortal to anyone else. So they all descended on the body and chopped it up into pieces with whatever gigantic, godlike phallus-weapon they had, far beyond my capacity to heal.
“Yeesh. What a mess,” I said. “Cue the Chooser of the Slain.”
“Yes, let’s finish this,” the Morrigan said, leaping off the tower and flapping through the rain as Vidar finally ceased his butchery and shook his fist at the sky.
“Vengeance is miiiine!” he roared.
I snorted quietly at him from my vantage point. “Dream on.”
The Morrigan is a spooky creature by default, but she can turn up the spookiness to eleven whenever she wishes. Her eyes glow red and minor harmonics creep into her voice, vibrating on a frequency guaranteed to produce shuddering fits, liquid bowels, and tiny screams of fear. At least that’s what her voice o’ doom does to normal people. Gods are able to take it a little better. Still, they flinch. The Morrigan shifted to her human form about twenty yards away from the cluster of gods, a svelte seductress with milk-white skin and coal-black hair, and advanced toward them.
“I have come for the Druid,” her voice boomed and scraped, and the gods jumped at the sound, crouching into defensive positions. They didn’t relax either when they saw that the Morrigan was unarmed-she was naked, in fact-so maybe they each had a brain after all. She didn’t need to be armed or clothed to do them serious harm. Indra’s thousand eyes were busy, presumably searching her for weapons.
“Who are you?” Shango demanded. It was pretty easy to hear them, despite the distance and noise from the storm. They were all trying to intimidate one another, so they were using GodSurround Sound and scored a little reverb off the ceiling of clouds.
“I am the Morrigan, the Celtic Chooser of the Slain,” she said, approaching them fearlessly. “The Druid’s shade is mine to claim, as is his sword.”
“His sword?” Vidar spluttered. “That is mine by right of conquest!” He was a little late to claim it. The Morrigan was already picking it up.
“It is the rightful property of the Tuatha De Danann. The Druid stole it from us.” She left out the part where she helped me steal it, I noticed.
“And I won it of him. It belongs to me now,” Vidar said.
“Be careful, little god,” the Morrigan’s voice grated, menace crackling in the charged air. “Do not mistake me for one of your Valkyries. You have slain the Druid and avenged your people, as was your right, but you may not tread on the rights of the Tuatha De Danann.”
Vidar bristled. He didn’t like being scolded by a naked woman in front of all the macho thunder gods. If he let it stand, he would lose major testosterone points. Was he smart enough to let it go? He clenched his jaw, held out his left hand, and beckoned. “Give me the sword, woman, or I will take it.” Nope. Not smart at all.
The Morrigan’s smile was wide and wicked as she settled into a defensive stance, Fragarach raised behind her head. “Come and take it, then.”
Now he was neatly trapped in a prison of his own devising. Yet he still had the key; all he had to do was laugh at the Morrigan and say, “I was only joking. Begone with your faerie sword, I care not,” and he’d get to return to Asgard a hero, maybe even take over the joint. He could walk into Gladsheim and tell the remaining?sir, “I slew the dude who slew Freyr and Tyr and crippled Odin,” and then they’d fete him and praise him and he’d definitely get laid. The last thing he should do is listen to the voice of machismo and give battle to a goddess whose primary power is to choose who dies in battle. Did he think he was invincible somehow? Did he not understand that all the Norse prophecies were null, the Norns were dead and so were many of the gods who were supposed to fall in Ragnarok? He was no longer fated to kill Fenris in the final gore-spattered brouhaha. If my trip to Asgard and the butchered remains of Tyr showed anything, it showed that the?sir could now die at any time.
But no, the dumbass charged. “For Odin!” he cried, thinking perhaps it was a lucky thing to say since it had worked so well against the fallen Druid. But the Morrigan wasn’t off balance and out of position like the faux Atticus had been, and she had all the power of the earth at her command in addition to the powers of a goddess. As Vidar swung at her, she darted quicker than the eye could track to her right, out of the path of Vidar’s sword. She spun around in a blur, past his shield, and swung Fragarach from behind him with two hands, shearing his torso in twain and sending the top half sailing fifty feet as the bottom half staggered another step and collapsed. The Morrigan reset herself facing the thunder gods as Vidar’s head and shoulders smacked wetly to the earth. Her posture dared them to attack, but they had no such intentions. They collectively said, “Ahhh,” and gave her a round of golf claps for the spectacular slaughter.
“An excellent swing,” Shango said.
“You warned him but did not toy with him. I approve,” Lei Gong added.
“Flawless form, worthy of the finest samurai,” Raijin said.
“Marvelush dexterity and wondrous strength,” Indra opined before belching thunderously.
“That shit was awesome!” Ukko said, smiling through his beard, and I decided I liked him, even though he wanted me dead.
“No one else will object if I take Fragarach with me?” the Morrigan asked. The thunder gods all shook their heads and assured her that they thought it best she keep it.
“I mush be going,” Indra said. “But before I do, can you assure us that thish man is, in fact, quite dead?” He gestured to the chunks of flesh on the ground that used to look like me. The motion caused him to sway unsteadily on his feet, and I realized that his slight speech impediment was due to inebriation. A few of his thousand eyes were already passed out or blinking rapidly in an effort to stay awake. So the legends were true; Indra liked to hit the soma hard. “He casht ashpersions on my-urp-parentage,” he added, as if that explained why they’d practically diced the faux Atticus. Indra had pummeled bits of him to paste with the mighty club he carried.
“He is thoroughly dead,” the Morrigan replied. “His shade has already left this plane.”
“Then I am shatishfied that justish is done,” Indra said. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Morrigan. Perhapsh in a happier time, you and I could-”
The Morrigan’s eyes flashed red, daring him to finish. Indra’s thousand eyes blinked.
“Never mind,” Indra said. He took his leave and rose into the sky. The other thunder gods quickly followed suit, offering quick pleasantries before ascending to the thunderheads above, leaving the Morrigan alone with the carnage of a winter afternoon. She surveyed it, rain sluicing the blood off her body and Fragarach’s blade, and laughed.
Chapter 2
Congratulations, the Morrigan’s voice croaked in my head. That was new. Neither she nor any of the Tuatha De Danann had demonstrated the ability to communicate telepathically with humans before. What had changed? You have survived your own death, she continued. Five thunder gods will spread news of your demise throughout the world’s pantheons, and you will finally be free to live a boring life.
Could she hear my thoughts in return? Sold! I’ll take it! I said, in the same way I would have spoken to
