The Brotherhood: Blood (44 page)
“Is it safe to jump that far down?” Odin asked, fingers sliding up to his shirt and the top button.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Miko said. “As long as you don’t land on your stomach.”
“Yeah,” Nova said, stripping naked. “That wouldn’t be too much fun.”
The older man walked to the side, took one glance at the water below, then hurled himself over. Odin watched him fall until he splashed into the water and emerged a brief moment later. “Come on!” he called up.
Careful to pull his shirt off without losing it to the slight wind that whispered across the ocean, Odin undid the clasp on his belt and had just begun to pull his pants and loincloth down his legs when he realized that Miko made no move to undress. “You’re not coming?” he asked.
“No,” the Elf said. “I have no intention of revealing myself to these men.”
“You’re going to have to do it sometime.”
“I understand, but now is not the time.”
Stepping forward, Odin looked over the railing and swallowed a lump in his throat when he realized just how far down the drop was.
Just don’t land on your stomach,
he thought, steadying himself on the railing.
Just don’t—
He slipped.
Falling, quickly, toward the ocean that seemed to grow so vast and impenetrable as he eclipsed the air, he realized he would land on his belly unless he corrected his position. With little time to do that, he closed his eyes and flung his body to the right.
Water exploded around him.
His side numb, his arm all but useless, he clawed at the sea with his better side in a desperate attempt to keep himself upright. Liquid shot into the open spaces of his eyes and nose, blinding and drowning him at the same time, while directionless he whipped his limbs to and fro, clawing for anything and everything that might give him a better sense of his surroundings.
I can’t breathe,
he thought, almost tempted to laugh even though the situation was so dire.
My God. I’m going to die out at sea just by jumping into the ocean.
His thoughts slipped.
His chin fell to his chest, head heavier than ever.
Just as he thought he was going to drown, a resisting force grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him free of the ocean’s waves.
“You all right?” a voice asked.
After coughing a mouthful of water up, Odin looked up to see Nova, eyes alight with concern and dancing with flames of unease. “Yeah,” he managed, spitting the last of the water out. “I’m ok.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t hurt yourself when you fell. What happened?”
“I slipped.”
Nova grimaced. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. It does.”
Odin pushed Nova’s hand away from the back of his neck when he figured he could swim by himself. Now that the numbness had faded, he found maneuvering through the water surprisingly easy, despite its chill and the slight ache that throbbed in his ribs.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Nova asked, lingering close. “It looked like you hit the water pretty hard.”
“I did. My ribs ache.”
“Well… I don’t know what to tell you.” The older man shrugged, reaching up to scratch his cheek. “If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask. I’m more than willing to lend a hand.”
“I know.”
Odin reached up to run his hands through his hair. Although he wished that they were in a tub rather than in the open ocean—mostly so he could use soap, but also so he wouldn’t have to worry about the ‘man eaters’ he had seen earlier—he could deal with cleaning himself off with just the sea water.
“We’re going to smell like salt once we dry off,” Nova laughed, splashing a little water onto his face.
“We are?”
“Well, yeah. Don’t you know the water has salt in it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Guess you really
do
learn something new every day, huh?”
“I guess.”
Nova laughed. He slapped water at Odin.
More than ready to reciprocate, Odin pushed his hands under the water and was just about to send a magic-forced blast of moisture at his friend before he topped.
The air, once lax and free of any substance, thickened.
Skin crawling, what felt like the inklings of magic tickled the tips of his feet, simultaneously jarring his legs closer to his body on instinct alone.
“What?” Nova laughed, splashing him a little. “Why’d you stop all of a sudden?”
“Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
The playfulness in Nova’s voice disappeared, as if capped over with a globe and forced to germinate under less substantial circumstances. He reached out to touch Odin’s shoulder, but stopped when the younger man shook his head.
“It’s just… I… I don’t—”
“It’s just
what,
Odin? Tell me.”
“Something isn’t right.”
“
What
isn’t right?”
“We need to go back up,” he said, heart thundering in his chest. “How are we—”
“There’s ropes on the side, buddy.”
He looked up. Just as Nova had said, thick, corded bundles of rope dangled from the sides of the ship in one single, interconnected mass, which resembled something of a tattered spider web in the half-light currently permeating the world around them.
“Come on!” Odin cried. “We’ve got to—”
Just before he could finish, a single, low note pierced the silence of the note.
All movement ceased. Even the ocean herself seemed to stop at that very moment.
“What was that?” Nova asked. “I haven’t heard anything like—”
Another note sounded, then two, and continued to rise in pitch until at least twelve simultaneous notes sung a low harmony.
“SIRENS!” someone screamed from above.
Men, unaware or ignorant to the danger that lurked below, dove, muttering lust and profanities of the beautiful things below.
What could they be, these things of honor, these fallen beauties, these winged beings? Their arms, their legs, their talons, their remnants of wings, which lay drooping from elbows and arms since forced slack to swim and not to fly, and the beauty of maidens, whose faces harsh and sharp in contrast with the beaks that shrouded their mouths and lower jaws—these were the things cast to the seas from the Heavens for their song was too low. Said to dwell within the deepest parts of the ocean, they preyed on those susceptible to their song—those that, undoubtedly mortal, could discern the pitch and exaggeration of notes, of falsettos and trembles and even the whistle pitches that seemed to echo across the ocean as if they were reverberating off a mountain. It was songs like these, they said, that were magic, that twisted the mind and forced the most lascivious and perverse thoughts into a mortal man’s head. It mattered not if he were noble, if he were chaste, if he were married, partnered or even a member of the priesthood—there was nothing that could tame the mortal man from the sirens’ cry, and it was for that reason when, in looking at those around him, Odin found his heart captivated and his head spinning in glee, for he was just as well mortal as some of these men around him.
What is this?
he thought, swaying, eyes drooping.
What am I—
The thoughts ended when his eyes fell on Nova.
Expecting his friend to follow toward the boat and up the stream, Odin started to swim forward, but stopped when he heard no following splash behind him.
When he turned, horror struck his heart.
His friend’s eyes lay devoid of any emotion.
“Nova?” Odin frowned.
He reached forward, wrapping his hand around his friend’s wrist.
The moment they skin touched, Nova lunged.
The unexpected reaction forced Odin into the water.
“No!” he screamed, grabbing the back of Nova’s hair with his other hand as the man attempted to dive. “Nova! Nova!
NO!”
“Let go of me, Odin!”
“I’m not letting you go!”
Nova struggled, thrashing to and fro, tearing the currents and lifting the water as if it were holy and boiling in the presence of something wicked.
“I’m not letting you go!” he screamed, throwing himself back. Nova’s head came out of the water, gasping with wild breath. “Nova!
NOVA!”
“Bastard!” the man roared. “Let me go!”
“What would Katarina think?”
“I haven’t seen my wife in three years!”
The shock of the words halted Nova’s immediately struggle.
For a brief, fractured moment, the humanity in the man’s eyes returned, forcing tears from the corners of his eyes.
Just as quickly as that humanity came, it left.
Knowing that Odin would not let go, Nova attacked.
He raked Odin’s arms with fingernails long left untrimmed.
When blood stained the water, Odin’s heart stopped beating in his chest.
Man-eating fish lurked just beneath the surface.
No.
“No,” he whispered.
Nearby, a man who had somehow resisted the pull of the sirens’ lustful song dug his hands into the side of his head. For what, Odin couldn’t be sure, but the resulting effect brought blood from his flesh. Fish, increasing in shape and size, darted around the man and circled him in a violent frenzy.
With blood covering the water’s surface, Odin was unable to se what came next. The man screamed, a splash came, and he disappeared with little more than a violent cry heard even through the barrier of water.
“Nova,” Odin sobbed, trying to hold back screams as his friend continued to tear his arms apart. “Please… stop.”
“Let me go,” the man breathed, “and maybe I will.”
“I’m not letting you go!”
A sharp, slick form slid up against Odin’s legs.
Thousands of tiny daggers slashed into his thighs.
“You’re going to get us killed!” Odin cried. “Please don’t do this to me!”
Tingling from head to toe, though from what he couldn’t know, Odin continued to sob, knowing truly in his heart that his body was starting to succumb to the effects of blood loss. His head spun, vertigo forcing white pain behind his eyes; his arms throbbed, pumping red into the deep below; and his body shook, vibration in an already-alive world.
Somehow, despite everything he felt, he managed to hold onto Nova.
“
Please!”
A thunderclap exploded near the water, purple light shocking the life from a creature so large and long Odin couldn’t bear to look.
Several other smaller, nearly-indistinguishable eruptions went up around him, parading about the seascape as if they themselves were creatures of flesh and blood and attacking the wicked and the selfish. Fishermen screamed in pain. Fish flopped from the water. Orbs of magic in shades of purple, orange and green encircled the wounded or terrified and lifted them from the water, where they dangled in the air as though flying through the sky until they dropped onto the ship to be rescued by others.
Odin opened his eyes.
A gargantuan head filled with dagger-sharp teeth lunged for him.
Just before a maw of teeth could wrap around Odin’s chest, a purple orb surrounded them. The creature flew away as light crackled, sending warning tendrils out to anything attempting to swim toward them.
Gradually, the sphere lifted them out of the water and hovered in midair. Odin saw several men scrambling back and forth on the deck as it came into viewing, tending to the mortally-wounded and insane out of their minds. Regardless of how the injured or terrified’s antics had ceased, Nova continued to fight—kicking, biting and scratching.
The moment they landed on the deck, Odin let go.
Nova, crazed by song and desire, ran for the railing and tried to throw himself over, but stopped as Miko set himself before the man.
Spreading his arms, the Elf tilted his head up, black hood ominous against the backdrop of magic that stormed on around them.
“Stop,”
he said, voice amplified by magic to sound much louder than normal.
“Get away from me!”
Nova backed away, gripping his head, pulling at his hair, clawing at his face. He screamed as spittle flew from a mouth bared in violence and as his teeth ground together to the point where Odin believed they would simply break. Unbeknownst to Nova, however, two men—ears undoubtedly filled with wax—stepped forward, grabbed Nova’s arms, and held him steady as the imposing figure in black stepped forward.
“
Sleep,”
Miko said, “and know that you are loved.”
Every ounce of violence and energy left Nova in but a blink of a moment. Stumbling, he mumbled something incoherently under his breath before dropping to the deck.
Slowly, the purple lightning ceased to strike, the savage beasts no longer swarmed, and the ash-grey clouds that produced such a perfect display faded into the ever-darkening night.
When the violence ended, screams and cries of pain and fear filled the air.
“Suh-Sir,” Odin gasped as the Elf drew closer. “Ih-Ih-It huh-huh-hurts.”