Page 44 of Monsters of Midnight

“You killed yourself?” I asked, horror washing over me. I’d been miserable plenty of times in my life, but never enough to actually go through with killing myself. It took a certain type of sadness to be able to do that.

“I did,” Oren said. “Killing yourself is considered a crime against humanity. So, the punishment is to become a Valkyrie and escort the dead into their after world.”

“Has that changed your perspective at all?” I asked.

Oren took a deep breath. “That’s not what people usually ask. Typically, people ask why I killed myself.”

“I’m more interested in what your perspective is now. Most people kill themselves over love or finances.”

“Mine was the former,” Oren explained.

Somehow, I felt like I should’ve already known that or maybe I already did know and hadn’t let myself recognize it.

“Where is he now?” I asked.

“Like you, I had an inter-species relationship and I didn’t even know it. By the time I realized it was too late. He was taken from me forever. He was a Viking shifter. So, he went to Valhalla. Every time I go to Valhalla I can have a chance of having a glimpse of him, but I’ll never see him again, not in the way it was like when we were both on earth.”

“And having this little glimpse of him is better than moving into the next world?” I asked, suddenly unsure about my decision.

“Not for everybody,” Oren was clear to state. “Somehow it eases my heart, as opposed to the idea of never seeing him again.”

“It’s not what I chose,” I murmured. The seed of doubt was sprouting rapidly inside me.

“Like I said,” Oren pointed out. “It’s not for everybody. It would be a dark world if we were all lamenting Valkyrie. I’m not telling you to change your mind about your choices. I’m telling you that you’re making the right choice. If you don’t choose to move on, you’ll be stuck here. In no man’s land, the place where only the demons and the Valkyrie rule.”

“Sometimes though don’t the Valkyrie and the demon, you know, like get together?” I asked. It definitely seemed that way from the café where we kept going. I didn’t want to presume. Who the hell knew what demons and Valkyrie were up to in their spare time. I didn’t even understand what they did in their regular time.

Oren looked at me curiously. “Is there something you’ve seen or you want to tell me about?” She asked.

“No,” I said, shaking my head adamantly. “Thrain just seems a little, you know, opposed to the Valkyrie.”

“He may be opposed, but he can’t live without them. He needs them to help shuttle the dead to their final resting ground.”

“I think I need some time alone,” I whispered, thinking about everything Oren had shared with me. Was it wise for me to move on to the fae world and abandon Ryder completely?

Oren left without taking me to the café. I was alone with my thoughts in a small, dark cell, in what seemed to be some strange aberration of hell. Without the pain, just with a numbness of apathy.

I didn’t want this.

I wanted the human feelings I wanted the experience of love. I could feel it rising up inside of me, the desire for Ryder not just as a dim memory in my past, not just as if I’d been in another dimension.

I wanted to be with Ryder in life. With all of its messiness and all of the pain and agony we had caused each other. I wanted to be with him in that. I wasn’t ready to give it up, not yet. Maybe it couldn’t last forever, but I was damn sure there had to be a way I could have it last longer. I had Bales the hell hound, right? I’d seen a few of them down here in Undirheim. I don’t know if this was their original home, but they found a way to come in and out.

I had to be able to find a way too.

And in the dark, I gave a soft keening song, calling to Bales, knowing he would answer, knowing if it was in his power to get into Undirheim, he would be here. He would find a way to pull me out and bring me back to Earth, of that I was sure.

The speed with which Bales responded was impressive. I had thought for the entire time I had been in Undirheim that if I called Bales, he would come. I had chosen not to. I had chosen to keep the rift between us closed and not let him find where I was. As I started humming to myself, and then slowly singing. This time not the song of the dead. This time the song was calling in the hell hound and within minutes Bales was standing in my cell grinning from ear to ear like a lopsided puppy with razor sharp teeth…a lot of them.

It seemed like I’d been asleep in a waking dream. The minute Bales showed up and pounced on me, licking my face, I threw my arms around him, feeling my heartbeat against his chest, knowing he would show me the way out and bring me back to home and to Ryder. Help had always been there. I just had to reach out and ask for it.

Chapter 26

RYDER

I stood in the halls that were more like tunnels full of bones underneath the Vatican in Rome. Among the bones, there were markings and symbols and signs and documents and papers; they could all be read like a library of information. It was here I hoped to find out some of the deeper stories around Cade and his monstrosity of a brother. I needed to find out what was special about this portal. What was it the monsters could do here they couldn’t do anywhere else? What made this a weak point for the monsters to come into?

From what I had been made to understand some of the strongest portals in the world, like the one at Cougar Creek, were protected by some of the strongest magic in the world, so it didn’t seem like it made sense if they would protect Cougar Creek with something as strong as the Cougar Creek Coven that they wouldn’t have already overprotected the Vatican portal as well. It didn’t change me wanting to know why Cade wanted to go after the Vatican.

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