“Then you better start running,” Hermes said, already racing forward.
“I hate when he’s right,” Patrick muttered under his breath.
“Save your breath. You will need it,” Fenrir said.
Sod off, Jono grumbled.
They ran, Jono’s long stride eating up ground, though he never left Patrick’s side. Time flowed differently past the veil, and it seemed to flow differently on the Bifröst itself. The world bent beyond the edges of the rainbow bridge, blurring and folding the distance between where they were and where they needed to be.
They might have left one ground battle behind them, but the aerial one followed them downtown. The reactionary storm hadn’t let up, and neither had Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca’s battle in the clouds. Their battle cries followed them like lightning, though Jono took some comfort in the aerial support of Wade, Hinon, and the valkyries.
The closer they got to the Battery, a heavy sense of foreboding settled in Jono’s gut. The acrid scent of hell hung in the air despite the wind and rain, stinging Jono’s eyes. Something was burning, or maybe it really was a hell come to earth, and they were too late.
“Do you see that?” Patrick shouted breathlessly, pointing at something in the distance.
The fog ahead was parting, the colors around them bleeding away to reveal the impossibly large shape of a twisted tree haloed in fiery light. Its highest branches were lost in the fog, but Jono knew from Fenrir’s memories how Yggdrasil looked when it held up the world.
The living connection that tied the Nine Realms together had its roots in Manhattan, the same way it’d had its roots in Chicago. He didn’t think a spell had called it forth, not with the veil torn all around them. The world tree had slipped through on its own, the same way all the other scattered myths and legends had.
It grows to carry another world on its branches, Fenrir warned.
I don’t bloody think so, Jono retorted.
Yggdrasil became easier to see the closer they got to their destination. Running down the Bifröst meant it should’ve been a clear shot to the southern tip of Manhattan—and it would’ve been if Loki didn’t blow up the rainbow bridge around them.
The attack hit with a roar, and only Nadine’s war-honed reflexes kept them all from getting riddled with solid-light shrapnel. When the Bifröst broke, it wasn’t like glass shattering, but like being in the center of a lighthouse with the mirror shining right at them. All Jono could see were smears of light as the solid stretch of color they’d been running on exploded beneath their feet and they fell into thin air.
Jono managed to twist his body so he was close enough for Patrick to grab onto his fur. They were at minimum an entire story off the ground. Jono landed without breaking any bones, Patrick half lying on top of him, cushioned from further harm. Judging by some of the cries around them, others weren’t so lucky. Jono’s rapid healing cleared his vision in seconds, and he hoped Nadine wasn’t injured, because her shields were the only thing keeping the horde of zombies they’d fallen into at bay.
“We got wounded!” Keith cried out.
“Put them behind our front line,” Gerard shouted back.
“All our lines are front lines!”
The walking dead clambered on top of each other, clawing at Nadine’s shield. Jono could pick out the elongated forms of drekavacs mixed in, but what was worse were the nightmarish demons that eyed everyone through the shield like prey. The demons looked as if they’d stepped out of someone’s twisted nightmare, bodies not of this earth.
“Seems like Andras brought his own army,” Patrick coughed out as he slid off Jono. “Where the fuck is Odin?”
As if answering his question, a massive lightning bolt ripped free of the clouds and slammed to the ground in front of Yggdrasil. Fenrir used Jono’s mouth to say, “Keeping hell at bay.”
“Hell or, you know, Hel?” When Fenrir didn’t answer, Jono and Patrick shared a look. “All right, so we’re fucked.”
Everyone around them was getting to their feet if they could, assessing the situation past Nadine’s shield. As Jono and Patrick moved closer to the front, a handful of spells impacted against the barrier, evidence that Dominion Sect magic users were up ahead somewhere.
The zombies and demons in front of Nadine’s shield split apart, opening space in the street. It gave Jono a view of the intersection that curved around the edge of the Battery. Jono growled at the pair of gods who stood before them, their godheads shining through their auras.
Through the shimmer of Nadine’s shield, Jono could see that Ares was decked out for war, while Loki looked the same as he had in Salem. Hunters carrying demons in their souls ranged around the pair. Even though Nadine’s shield blocked the wind, it couldn’t block the overwhelming scent of hell.
Towering over even the skyscrapers was Yggdrasil, the top of the world tree disappearing into the storm clouds. Jono would rather it not be clinging to the edge of Manhattan at all. Nothing good came of another world’s foundation digging roots into their own.
Nadine’s shield took another hit, but her barrier stood strong against mortal magic. Ahead of them, Loki lowered Gungnir, Odin’s spear glowing in his hands. Jono remembered what damage the god had done to Nadine’s magic back in Salem, and he knew they couldn’t ask the impossible of her.
Patrick seemed to agree. “Nadine, if the gods attack, drop your shields. We still need you with us.”
“Got it,” Nadine said, holding her mageglobe tight in one hand.
Loki pointed Gungnir at Jono, but his words were for Fenrir. “Child of mine, it is time you were punished for your actions against us.”
