Page 14 of Monsters of Mayhem

Chapter 9

I had to get back to Caroline. I could feel it in my bones. It was a stronger pull than I’d ever experienced with her before. Even when we were married, there had been long periods of time when I had been fighting monsters and I hadn’t concerned myself with what she was doing, because I always knew she was safe.

Nobody had known about her.

She had simply gone to and from work. I knew she would always be there when I came back. Now it was a whole different kettle of fish. Instead of her being safe and going to work, I had her under protective guard of the satyr clan in Alameda, locked up in a tower of my house.

No wonder she hated me.

I turned my thoughts away from it because there were things much worse than being locked in a tower guarded by satyrs. There was death. Which is exactly how she would wind up if she wasn’t protected. Captured by the monsters who were against us.

A fact she didn’t even realize. She was still under the impression it was demons chasing her. The last thing in the world I wanted her to know was it was my own kind pursuing her. They were wrestling me for power. They were trying to take over the very Earth itself.

I shook my head, physically trying to rid it of the thoughts that were churning like a bad dream in my brain.

I looked at Ratchet, who lay on a bed of snow and ice inside the frost giant’s lair. Hurgud, the withered old giantess who had taken Ratchet to her chest and carried him to a hut where she was now burning herbs and incense to change the entire feeling of the house. She used a large feather to waft the smoke over Ratchet’s ailing body.

“What the hell is smoke going to do to help him?” I asked. “He needs salves. He needs something to stop the burn on his skin.”

“He’s a demon,” Hurgud grumbled at me, her large hands moving over his body as a blue energetic light came out of them. “Demons don’t respond to human salves. Their bodies are not made up like the human body. They are made of fire and ash given human form.”

“If he’s made of fire and ash then why is he loving the snow so much?” I asked.

“Because it’s the only thing that’s helping him to feel who and what he is,” Hurgud said. “It is through the contrast he understands himself better. It is by touching the snow he feels the flames in his heart. When his body becomes cold, he feels the heat within him. You cannot have one thing without the other. You cannot have fire without cold or day without night or good without bad.”

Caroline without me. The thought rang heavily in my head. In my mind the two of us were inseparable, always a part of each other‘s lives, always a part of who we needed to be.

In reality, we were apart. In reality, we would never be together. She had made it perfectly clear when she divorced me. No matter how painful it was, I had to accept her decision.

He’s going to have to stay here overnight,” Hurgud said.

"How long until he can make a portal?” I asked. I knew better than to ask a frost giant to make a portal. It wasn’t really their thing. Frost giants didn’t like to go places. They liked to stay in their confines behind their walls. In fact, I wasn’t even sure they were able to make portals, although the Viking witches they connected with seemed pretty powerful.

“He nearly died, Demigod,” Hurgud practically spat the words out. “Now you expect him to just make a portal at your beck and call? You wonder why nobody likes the demigods. You look only to what will service you and forget to think of the needs of others.”

“Listen, giant,” I growled. “I’m not trying to get a portal so I can go off on a joy trip. There’s a problem with the rifts, if you hadn’t noticed. You might be safe here in your compound behind your ice wall, but there are literally billions of humans that would not survive if the monsters take over the planet. “

“That’s the problem you’re here to solve, “Hurgud said. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea for you to take off when part of your problem is here.”

“We closed the rift here,” I pointed out.

“Stopping those monsters nearly cost Ratchet his life.” Hurgud muttered the words. “You’re not a step closer to finding the actual problem. All you did was put a bandage on a local problem.”

“Look, Grandma,” I said, glaring up at her. Even though I was still in my monster form to combat the freezing cold conditions, I wasn’t as tall as a giant. She stood about ten feet tall and even at my greatest height I was only about eight feet. “We killed a monster and closed the rift. Don’t you think that’s enough?”

“Come.” She motioned me to the door of the stone hut and took me outside as Ratchet stirred on the ice bed and grumbled. “You’re disturbing my patient.”

We walked out into the gray forecourt where the frost giants milled around. Massive blue people with long dreadlocked hair and bright green eyes. They reminded me of the Nereids, but they were different. The Nereids were the water creatures who inhabited New Attica, the demigod world, like the nymphs of old. The frost giants were the nymphs who had moved to colder climes long before the collapse of the western world and the gods receded. They had been transformed into giants in order to handle the cold weather. They were a large, drinking, grumbling bunch and even now, as they milled around in the village of the compound, I was reminded they were barely civilized creatures as one turned and stabbed another with the horn of a beast that was still dripping in blood from its kill.

Hurgud saw where I was looking and she chuckled. “I wouldn’t worry too much about any of that,” she said. “I’ll stitch them up later. They’ll be fine.”

“You know frost giants would have a longer shelf life if you didn’t stab each other all the time,” I muttered.

“No one wants to live forever,” Hurgud said. “Look at me, Ryder.”

I looked at her in surprise, thinking about all the times Caroline had commented similarly. Demigods didn’t age like that; we just slowly lost our powers and faded away eventually, not with any pain or remorse, just with a growing sense of weakness in our bones and muscles.

“Come to the pub,” Hurgud said. “I want to show you something.”

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