River of Shadows Read online

  I don’t think. I just act. Like my body knows what to do before I do.

  Perhaps Vellamo was right and my power is just waking up.

  I squeeze the sword, feeling energy flow through me, and while Death is momentarily preoccupied with Rasmus, I start running across the desert toward Death, sword raised in the air.

  I will kill him.

  I get about ten feet before Death’s hand shoots out and suddenly the sword is ripped right from my grasp. The sword goes flying through the air and in seconds the handle slams into Death’s armored palm, his fingers curling around it.

  I come to a stop, dust flying around me, watching in horror, my weapon gone.

  “Did you know I forged this sword?” Death says, staring down at it in his hand. “One of my many talents. My hands might be deadly, but I assure you they are especially skilled where it counts.” His voice gets huskier over those last words, dragging them out in such a way that I can’t help but think he’s being sexually suggestive.

  “It’s not magic though,” he goes on, casually sliding the sword into a sheath on his thigh. “Just the power of magnets and a little starstone.”

  Death looks to the guy on his right. “What do you say, Kalma? How should we round the fairy up? Chase her onto the plains where the Liekkiö will get her? Take her by force? Perhaps torture her boyfriend a little more until she gives herself up? She seems the type to doing something as stupid as self-sacrifice.”

  “A chase is always entertaining,” Kalma says good-naturedly.

  “I prefer the torture,” the guy on the other side of Death says in a ragged, squeaky voice, raising his skeleton hand, strips of skin hanging off.

  I look at Rasmus. I want to save him, but at this point I have no idea how. I have no sword, I have nothing.

  But there’s something in Rasmus’ gaze that burns. A fire that says he’s not giving up, that he’s going to fight.

  “Hanna,” Rasmus says in an even tone. “Remember I said I’d tell you what I did to Eero and Noora at the resort? What if I showed you instead?”

  My brain quickly scrolls back. The real world feels like ages ago. Maybe it was. I remember running through the hotel and seeing a wall of ice behind me and that was it.

  But Rasmus wasn’t really asking me a question. He was telling me to start running.

  I nod at him and then turn on my heel and start running into the forest. I hear this loud cracking sound, followed by a whoosh, which sounds like breaking ice and blasting snow, and when I look over my shoulder, I see a wall of ice where Death and his henchmen were, and Rasmus is running free. The iron shackles are around his wrists, but the iron chain has snapped in two where the ice sliced into it.

  “What did you do?” I yell at him as he’s quickly gaining speed at an alarming rate. “Why didn’t you do that earlier?!”

  He doesn’t say anything. In fact, he doesn’t even look at me. His focus is on the backpack I left behind in the dust. He runs right to it, picks it up, and then keeps running until he catches up and then passes me, booking it through the forest, leaping over fallen logs, ducking under branches as if he just powered up like Super Mario.

  And just like that, I don’t see him anymore.

  He’s gone.

  And he has the backpack.

  “Rasmus!” I yell, trying to run faster, not understanding what just happened. Rasmus could have used that Iceman thing during the swan attack, or The Devouress attack, and he could have already escaped from the chains. Maybe his magic had to warm up or something, or he was waiting for the right circumstances, or—

  The ground drops beneath me.

  I’m falling.

  I scream for a moment and then I stop, as if caught in mid-air.

  Then I realize I am in mid-air, suspended.

  I just ran off a cliff, right into a giant spiderweb that must stretch thirty feet across a rocky chasm. I’m on my stomach, the sticky webs strung across my face, staring at a babbling brook forty feet down that’s half hidden by ferns.

  Oh god. This isn’t good. This really isn’t good.

  I groan and try to push myself up onto my back but it’s impossible. I can barely lift my head off the web, the silky threads sticking to my face until they finally snap back into place.

  Okay, don’t panic. Don’t panic. Just because you’re in a giant spider’s web, doesn’t mean there’s going to be a giant spider. I mean the web might be huge but the spider could be small. Or maybe it’s like a family of small spiders. Oh god, no, that’s worse. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about anything, just calmly get up, and climb out onto the cliff.

  I take in a deep breath and try to push myself up. It’s like doing pushups while being attached to the ground. Every single muscle in my arms and back are straining to the max, causing me to shake, the threads refusing to yield.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a rich low voice says from above me, now horrifically familiar.

  I pause, still shaking, trying to swallow.

  “And why not?” I manage to say.

  “Because,” Death says smoothly, “you’re trembling. I must admit I’m impressed by your strength. You may have the face of an angelic fairy but you’re built like a warrior, and even I can admire that. But you’re also painfully stupid.”

  “Excuse me?” I exclaim, though I immediately regret it. This isn’t the time to be insulted.

  “You don’t even know me and yet I already get under your skin,” Death says. “Don’t know what that says about me, but I think I like it. At any rate, you’re stupid because you’ve obviously never seen a spider web before. Even in your world they work the same. The spider waits in the corner for the prey to fall on the web and then once it’s caught, the vibrations from the prey’s struggles are what alert the spider to come and feed. In this case, it’s a wrathspider, which has earned its moniker for reasons you will soon find out.”

  Oh my god.

  I have to get out of here.

  I go back to pushing myself up, but the web shakes even more and out of the corner of my eye I see something gigantic and black step onto the web. It’s not Death—he’s somewhere on the cliff behind me—but it’s dark as sin and about the size of a fucking hippo.

  Not including the eight thick legs which stretch out from it like oars.

  Fuck! I swear. No, no, no, no. This can’t be it, this can’t be how I die. Not here, not now, not so close to finding my father.

  Not by a giant spider.

  “I’ll make a bargain with you!” I cry out.

  Death sighs, and though I can’t see him, I feel like he’s bored. “I’m tired of bargains, to be honest. The more that I make, the more this world tilts off-balance. Eventually there will be a reckoning.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about your reckoning,” I spit out, feeling the web shake now as the spider gets closer in my line of sight. “I want you to free my father.”

  Death laughs dryly. “I figured. And so what’s your bargain?”

  “Me for him,” I tell him without hesitation. “You save me from this spider, you take me as your prisoner, you let my father go.”

  Silence falls. The web continues to vibrate.

  “Or,” he muses, “I could just let you die. Do you know what happens when a not-dead mortal dies here?”

  “I’ve been told,” I say, my voice trembling now, the fear starting to eat me alive.

  “I could just let you die,” he goes on. “And keep your father. And maybe one day when I tire of his company, I’ll bring him here and feed him to my new spider friend and you both will share the same fate.”

  “No!” I scream, tears rushing to my eyes. “Please! I will do anything. Anything you wish, anything at all, just let my father go. You don’t even have to save my life, let me die here, but please let my father go.”

  Another weighty pause. My heart is pounding so hard that I can’t tell if it’s shaking the web or the spider that’s slowly getting closer, its massive shape start
ing to block out the light.

  “You would really do anything for him?” he asks carefully.

  “Yes!” I cry out adamantly. I knew from the beginning that if my father was in this situation, where he was taken by Death and still alive, that I would trade my life for his. I would trade my soul. I would take his place and let Death do his worst to me.

  “I promise you, I will do anything you want. I will endure anything you wish. I will cook you meals and clean your house, or you can chain me up in your basement, keep me in a cage, you can torture me, have your way with me, give me to others, make me your bride, treat me like a dog, beat me, spit on me, I don’t care. I will do it all, if you just let him go.”

  The spider is almost on me now. I see a glint of fangs, about as long as my forearm, and my spine starts to prickle at the nauseating thought of getting stabbed there.

  “Please,” I add pitifully.

  “Hmmph,” Death says slowly, too fucking slowly. “A trade.”

  Fuck. I’m going to die. This is it.

  “You did list off a lot of things, some of which aren’t relevant, some which are intriguing,” he continues. “I really don’t like the idea of letting a shaman go, though. It’s not good for them to have too much power. You saw what happened to your redheaded boyfriend.”

  He’s not my boyfriend! I think and then almost laugh, because this is probably going to be my last thought before I die.

  The spider is right above me now. I manage to turn my head to finally look at it, getting a glance of its leg and the five iron claws at the end. Of course this thing has claws, made of iron no less.

  It stops and rears up on its back legs like a horror-show horse, the fangs glinting, and hundreds of red eyes gleaming like balloons of blood.

  Hell.

  Death sighs dramatically. “Fine.”

  There’s a pause, a swooshing sound, and then the web violently shakes. The spider crashes to the sticky threads, one of its giant hairy legs narrowly missing me, and I realize that Death jumped on top of it.

  The spider immediately goes still, dying instantly.

  I crane my head up to look at Death as he gets off the spider like he’s dismounting a horse, and makes a show of putting one of his armored gloves back on his hand, and for a brief second I see his bare skin, which is covered in lines of pulsing silver.

  Then he walks over to me, balancing gracefully on the web. He looms over my body, his figure larger than life, his cape black and flowing behind him, hate burning in the depths of his unseen eyes, and I realize that perhaps it would have been better had the spider ended me.

  I’m about to find myself on another web, Death lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to tremble.

  Chapter 9

  The Liekkiö Plains

  Death reaches down and grabs me by the elbow, hauling me to my feet, my skin screaming in pain as the web stretches and pulls and finally lets go. It feels like half my flesh goes with it.

  I nearly fall back into his arms and it’s then that I realize how fucking huge Death is. He’s at least a foot taller than me, which makes him what, close to seven feet? And his hand is the size of my head, and I don’t think that’s because of the fancy metal gauntlets.

  “Having second thoughts, fairy girl?” he asks and before I can answer, lifts me up so that I’m thrown over his shoulder, like a caveman would do to a kidnapped bride.

  I don’t bother with the fist-pounding and kicking theatrics since I did sign up for this moments ago in exchange for my father’s life, and there’s also the fact that logically I can’t walk on the spiderweb without sticking to it.

  Once we’re on solid ground again and away from the cliff’s edge, he puts me down and I get a whiff of his smell. I expected Death to smell like, well, death. Decay. Rot. Everything vile and disgusting. But for whatever reason, he actually smells pleasant. It’s deep in tone and hard to place, maybe sandalwood and…smoke? A bonfire with really good wood? Something like that.

  “Are you smelling me?” he asks, a hint of amusement in his gruff voice.

  I glance up at him, wishing that at such close range that I could see more of his face. His hood does such a great job of keeping his features in shadow; I wonder if it’s part magic.

  Then again, I don’t think he has any features. If he really is just a black, shiny skull, then no wonder I can’t see anything.

  But then, when he turns ever so slightly, I see a flash of white where his eyes should be. It’s hard to tell if it is a trick of the light or not.

  “You smell vile,” I tell him.

  “Good,” he says simply. “I take a bath every day but when you fill the tub with bat’s blood, the smell is bound to rub off on you.”

  I still. Oh my god. I can’t tell if he’s joking.

  “Now,” he goes on, reaching into a pocket inside his hood, “that we’ve made an agreement, struck a bargain, we still have to get you back to my home at Shadow’s End.”

  “Is this the place you bathe in bat’s blood?”

  “Where I what?” he asks. Pauses. “Yes. As will you.” He pulls out an iron collar from his coat, attached to a long chain. I have no idea where he’s keeping all these things, it’s like Mary Poppins’ purse in there. “And as I was saying, in order to make sure you uphold your part of the bargain and won’t try something foolish again like escaping and nearly going to Oblivion, I need to keep you on a leash. Literally. This belongs to my hound, Rauta. And before you take credit for this, because I do recall you listing treat me like a dog as one of the perks in owning you, I had planned this already.”

  I don’t move as he places the cold iron collar around my neck, fastening it with a loud click that sounds like a jail door closing.

  “There,” he says, sounding proud, and I can feel the intensity in his gaze as he looks me over, even though I can’t see it. “I must say, it looks rather good on you. Like you’re some wild fairy who’s been finally caught and tamed.”

  I’ll never be tamed, is a thought I have but what I say is, “Do you have fairies here?”

  “Not exactly,” he says. “There’s no Tinkerbell.”

  “Tinkerbell?” I repeat. “No mention of fae folk, or sprites, or any of the other myths and legends from around the world that are most likely real, but Tinkerbell? From Peter Pan? A Disney cartoon?”

  The air between us changes. Goes cold, goes…dead. Like there’s no life left in it and I’m starting to think I can’t even breathe and—

  “I’ve only read the book,” he says gruffly. “Now, come along and let me cross something else off that list.”

  He starts walking, yanking at the chain and I fall to the ground, skinning my knees open on a rock, my jeans ripping.

  “Fuck,” I grumble, swallowing the pain, but he just pulls at the leash again until I’m on all fours, my palms digging into the ground.

  “Treat me like a dog,” Death says, mimicking my voice. “Humiliate me. Do you feel humiliated yet, fairy? Because I’m just getting started.”

  “Fuck you!” I snarl, and before he pulls the chain again, I fight back. I push up off my hands, doing a summersault and landing on my feet right beside him, the chain noisily going slack between us.

  Death’s shadowed face stares down at me. “Look at you fly, little bird.” There’s a hint of awe in his voice. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

  “It’s easy to be surprised when you don’t know a thing about the person.”

  “You think I don’t know you, Hanna Heikkinen?” He starts walking and I quickly follow before he pulls me along again. “Well, I suppose I only know what’s written down in the Book of Souls. Your father wouldn’t tell me a thing. The man truly wanted to protect you…and look at what you’ve gone and done. It’s going to break his damn heart when he finds out what you’ve sacrificed, that you’ve traded your life for his. Do you really think he’s going to live a good life now, even with his cancer cured, if he knows that his dear daughter is a prisoner of
mine for eternity?”

  I blink, trying to take all of that in at once. Eternity? Since when did I agree to eternity? But that doesn’t matter as much right now. “His cancer is cured?” I ask incredulously, hope shining through my chest.

  He nods slowly. “He came to me asking for a cure. He didn’t even want eternal life, just a cure. I told you I don’t make bargains much anymore, there are consequences for each one I do, but I decided to make an exception.”

  “Why did you make an exception if he’s your prisoner?”

  “Your father doesn’t know he’ll be cured,” he says. “I actually didn’t think of it until two seconds ago. I suppose I’m beginning to feel bad for the old wizard, with him knowing that you’ll be tortured for all time. He’ll know his life wasn’t worth it. He’ll tell you that he’s old, that he’s lived his life, that he’s dying anyway. He will do anything to stop you from making this trade, but it’s already done. You can call me Death. And I will call you mine.”

  I fall silent, stepping over a fallen log, wishing the mushrooms on it could save me from this horrible new reality I’ve created for myself. Of course it’s going to break my father’s heart to know I’ll be stuck here, and at some point the truth is going to hit me too, break me into a million pieces that Death will happily eat for breakfast. It ruins me to think of my father out there, mourning me, the guilt he will feel for me taking his place.

  But what choice did I have? Death wouldn’t have let both of us go.

  Would he have?

  “How about you let both my father and I go,” I tell him, trying not to sound too hopeful.

  Death seems to think that over. “No,” he says after a moment. “I’m not going to do that.” He sighs. “The truth is, my job isn’t easy and life here is almost always the same. That’s what happens when you’re a God, particularly one of great importance. There’s very little deviation. There are eons of just…the same. I have my hobbies, I have my fights and games, I have my pets, my servants, my councilmen. I have my daughter and my son. I have my vices. I have my maidens. And I have my loyal subjects in the City of Death. But I do not have anything shiny and mortal and new. At least I didn’t until your father showed up. And while he’s not my first choice of company, he did provide a change. You will do the same. So I cannot let you go. One of you must stay. Do you still wish it to be you?”