Ski Niflheim (2 of 2) (Mythklok Chapter 4)
Title: Ski Niflheim
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Dethklok goes to Valhalla because they hear there are hot chicks there. Skiing and mayhem ensue.
Warnings: Cursing. AU. OCs brazenly stolen from mythology. Boring technical discussions of ski equipment
Notes: You want notes? YOU WANT NOTES? Plenty of ‘em back on Part 1. Also, some time during the night, this got Russian novel-type sprawling, so I'm posting it in two bits.
NOTE: Part 1 was posted here yesterday. I'm not claiming any of this will make sense, but it will make even less sense if you don't read Part 1. If you don't wanna read it all, that's fine too, you can probably find some lovely pr0n here on CLDK to look at instead. I know that's probably what I'd do. Also, I can't promise there's not gonna be more in the future, 'cause, sadly, there's already more.
PART 2 of 2
Wotan’s breakfast took up more than half of the table. Which was just fine, as Ofdensen was currently enjoying his favorite Continental breakfast, coffee and a cigarette.
“You’re certain you won’t try any of these delicious pancakes?” the god asked politely.
“Um, unfortunately, I think I had a bit too much demon barbecue last night.” Too much, he thought, consisted of pretty much any amount of demon barbecue.
“That’s splendid, there’s just more for me. And what are you up to this fine day, my angel?” the god asked, mouth full of pancakes. Ofdensen hadn’t noticed Raziel wander up to the table, gripping her snowboard. It was a completely different snowboard than she had used yesterday. Together with, needless to say, a completely different matching outfit.
“We’re headed off-piste to find an ice demon for Toki to slay,” she cheerily told Wotan.
“WHAT?” sputtered Ofdensen.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Raziel.
“Well, I’m missing the part about how this is not the worst idea you’ve ever had,” he told her.
“Me and Shiva will be along, so he’ll have the best two swordsmen in this bit of the universe behind him,” Raziel bragged. “What could go wrong?”
“What could go wrong? WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Did you want me to make an alphabetical list, or would you prefer in order of increasing degrees of catastrophe?”
“Tsk,” tsked Wotan. “Fresh air and demon killing. It’s a merry idea!” He suddenly reached to a shelf behind him to grab a map. “I’ll show you were they’ve been spotted nearby.”
“Demons? Nearby?” said Ofdensen.
“Yes, exciting, isn’t it?” Wotan noted, unrolling the map on the table. “Alas, ice demons are rare creatures these days! They usually don’t stray so close to the chalet!” Raziel leapt up to sit on the top of the booth just over his shoulder. The god stabbed a large index finger at the map. “Here, and just over here.”
“Cool, we’ll head that way. We’ll take the doggies too.”
“My pet, kindly do not refer to my wolves as ‘doggies.’ They will end up terribly spoiled.”
“Oh, and they’re not already spoiled?”
“And you said Shiva is coming with you?”
“Of course,” she said, hopping back down from the booth.
“How stands the contest?”
“247 kills to 253.”
“And who is ahead?”
“Um….” Raziel looked embarrassed.
“Raziel!” Wotan wagged a finger. “What have I told you about fancy swordsmanship for its own sake!”
“What’s the point of killing demons if you don’t look stylish?” she protested.
“Nevertheless, if Shiva were to prevail…”
“Yeah. Yeah. We’d never hear the end of it. Sure you don’t wanna come along, Sariel?”
“No, for the record, I want absolutely no part of this,” Ofdensen growled.
“Shiva and I would probably spot you a couple demons! It’s not too late to join the contest!” Ofdensen waved her off.
“Go and get some kills, my pet!” Wotan urged.
“Yes, dear,” she agreed, waving.
“That Shiva. He can be a bit of an oaf sometimes,” Wotan confided to Ofdensen, rolling up the map. “But, he is a strong ally.”
“Ally?” said Ofdensen, raising an eyebrow.
“Sariel, my old friend,” the god said, “we really ought to talk some time. Not this weekend. But, some time soon. Meanwhile. The run awaits us!”
Geri and Freki appeared to be in some kind of wolf nirvana. They would charge ahead up the backcountry trail, then charge back to check in on the various beings who were following them, and then thunder back off.
“Freki! Geri! Don’t get to far ahead you silly doggies!” Raziel called after them. “I don’t know why I bother, dumb things never listen,” she told Toki, who was walking beside her, holding a snowboard. “Now, what was I saying?”
“Demons are dumb?” he said. He seemed to be in sort of a desultory mood. She had guessed that he was giving the whole demon-killing enterprise some second thoughts, and she had decided that the perfect cure for this was persistent chatter. As, it happened, Raziel excelled at persistent chatter.
“Demons are idiots! I don’t know where people got it in their heads that demons are some kind of crafty bastards. They just generally like pounding stuff, and don’t bother themselves with any kind of strategy or technique. Now, one more time, when you see it, what’s the first thing you go for?”
“The head?”
“Correct! That usually gets them down. But, not all the time. So, once you get ‘im down, you step back and wait for me and Shiva to verify the kill. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said quietly. She dearly hoped they found a monster soon, so the boy wouldn’t lose his nerve. She had seen him snowboard, and reckoned he ought to have enough skill and coordination to successfully whack a demon head off some demon shoulders, but there was no telling what people could talk themselves out of. It had been a long, long time, but she had led men to battle before, and had seen things like this before.
Raziel looked up and smiled. The wolves were howling. She signaled for everyone to stop. “Huginn!” she said. The raven on her shoulder took flight, circled, and then returned to whisper something in her ear.
“OK,” she said. “Let’s leave the boards here. Pickles? You stay the fuck in back of me and Shiva, right?”
“Don’t have to fuckin’ ask me twice,” the drummer grumbled. Raziel was a bit puzzled as to why he had even bothered to join them today. She would have guessed he’d have stayed drinking back at the chalet with that strange Murderface person.
They dropped their nonessential gear and proceeded. Ice demons are among the most difficult to spot, as they simply resemble snow on more snow. Raziel ended up looking through her ski goggles and then over her ski goggles a couple of times before she spotted the movement. After signaling a very cooperative Pickles to stay put, she and Shiva escorted Toki in the proper direction.
Raziel reflected that it was too bad ice demons crumbled up so much when they died, as this one would have made a rather nice trophy. It wasn’t large, as such things go, but it had several rather impressive ice crystal horns jutting from its frosty head.
It had spotted them too, now.
“OK, one more time, we’ll stay here, you go up, get the head, and then stand down while Shiva and I confirm the kill. Got it?” Toki muttered something, so she said again, “GOT IT?”
He turned and looked at her. “Got it,” he said very quietly. There was something strange about his eyes, she noticed.
He gripped his sword tighter and began to stalk towards the ice demon, closer and closer.
And still closer.
And, then too close.
Shiva was about to jump in, but Raziel held out an arm in front of him. “TOKI! SWORD!” she shouted. As if this broke the trance, Toki suddenly brought up his sword, and blasted through the beast’s neck with such force that the beautiful horn-studded head was sent flying.
Raziel grinned.
But then, instead of retreating to a safe distance, Toki stepped forward and slashed the still standing body in two, down the middle.
And then he slashed it again. And again. And slashed the fallen parts. And continued to beat on the ice.
“TOKI!” It was Raziel’s voice. He looked up. He was on his knees, beating the ground with his sword. She was pointing into her own eyes.
He blinked.
“OK. Done. Demon dead,” she said.
“Shiva congratulates you on the first of many demon kills, Toki Wartooth,” the blue god shouted, holding up as many index fingers as he had available at the moment.
Well, thought Raziel, that wasn’t quite as I expected, but now he’ll have a story to tell. If, that is, he remembers anything about what he did. And then she heard the redheaded drummer come up behind them, and realized what he was there for.
“Dude,” Pickles said.
Toki, who seemed to have recovered himself somewhat, grinned.
“Perhaps on our next outing you too will slay a demon, Pickles the Drummer of the Dethklok,” Shiva told him.
“Yeah, a little one,” Toki snerked.
Pickles glared at him.
“Freki, get out of there, that will give you a tummy ache!” Raziel shouted at a wolf who was sniffing at the remains of Toki’s demon. Geri lifted a leg to the ex-demon, and ran to rejoin the party.
“I think I need a beer,” Toki said. It was agreed that beer was probably a brilliant idea.
Ofdensen was annoyed. Which was not terribly out of the ordinary for him.
He was specifically annoyed today that Wotan had convinced him to change up his ski bindings. It was a completely stupid idea.
But this was not the most annoying part.
The most annoying part was that it worked better on the turns.
Fucking annoying charismatic Norse god asshole.
Unfortunately, it meant when he reached a mogul he didn’t really expect to be there, his reaction time was just slow enough, he was unable to quite correct for it, and ended up wiping out quite spectacularly. It was actually a pity Nathan wasn’t there to see.
He sat up gasping. It took a moment, but he decided that his arms and legs appeared to be still located in their proper positions and in addition were functional. Which was fortunate, as he was off all alone on the run.
But then, just as his breathing was beginning to return to normal, he noticed something else. The mogul was moving.
It wasn’t actually a mogul. It was an ice demon. The creature that Wotan had just assured him no longer strayed anywhere near the chalet.
And now it was mad.
He managed to roll just in time to miss getting slashed by an icy claw. He half-crawled, grabbed a loose ski, swung it, and neatly sliced the beast in two at its waist.
He stood trying to catch his breath again. He felt in his pockets for his package of cigarettes. He shakily removed one from the pack. He felt for a match. He turned out of the wind to light up.
He heard the ice crack just in time, dropped the cigarette, and managed to duck another slash.
“Shit!”
Each half of the monster had evidently reformed into a fully functional frost demon. Although each was only half the size, now there were two.
“Splitting ‘em doesn’t work!” someone called.
He turned and saw Raziel and Shiva had ridden up on their boards. They stood to the side, under a tree, watching with no little amusement as the demons tried to clobber him.
“Some help?” Ofdensen panted.
“It is required that you strike the beast in the head,” Shiva advised. Raziel nodded sagely.
One of the demons came within a hair’s breadth of pulverizing him.
“A fucking sword?” Ofdensen managed to choke.
Raziel muttered a few words, and a sword appeared in her hand. She tossed hilt first it to Ofdensen. He seized the hilt and gracefully beheaded the first frost giant in one continuous motion. It worked: the creature crumbled back into ice. But then he was nearly beheaded himself by a swipe from its still moving twin. He tucked and rolled and then managed to cut the creatures legs off as it charged him. He jumped up and beheaded the now prostrate half-giant. It too, crumbled back into snow.
He fell to his knees, holding the sword, out of breath yet again. Shiva and Raziel slid over on their boards.
“But you know, that only counts as one kill,” Raziel told him, patting him on the shoulder.
“Shiva agrees!” the god said, holding up the index fingers of several hands to make his point.
Ofdensen glared at Shiva. “Maybe Shiva has decided Shiva doesn’t want the comp tickets we got Shiva for the Dethklok concert next week,” he told the blue god.
The blue god appeared to consider. He held up two fingers on one hand. “Shiva could be persuaded to count this as two kills.”
“Wait, what?” Raziel demanded.
“Shiva greatly esteems loge seating,” the blue god explained, grinning and sliding away.
“Don’t be a pussy, Shiva!” Raziel shouted after him. “Backstabbing blue bastard,” she muttered. She retrieved one of Ofdensen’s skis out of a snow bank and handed it over to him. He snatched it, glaring at her, and then grabbed her shoulder to steady himself why he snapped himself into the binding.
“Aw, come on,” Raziel urged. “Fresh air! Killing demons! You gotta admit, it’s fairly awesome!”
“There’s no such thing as 'fairly awesome.' You sound silly trying to talk like Nathan Explosion.”
“I sound like Nathan Explosion? That’s pretty cool.”
“I thought Nathan annoyed you.”
“Yes, he’s very annoying, but he’s also a very cool rock star, right?”
“Whatever. Look, if there’s one of these frost giants out here….”
“Yeah, there’s more. That’s why Shiva and I came back out. And that rat bastard is probably racking up all the kills! You ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, you’re trying Telemarking?”
“YES I AM FUCKING TELEMARKING THAT’S WHY I FUCKING WIPED OUT AND NEARLY GOT KILLED.”
“Hey! Don’t get your wings all ruffled. Save it for the demons,” she said, hurrying away. “Oh, and don’t forget the sword.”
Ofdensen stopped and grabbed the sword she’d magicked for him out of the snow bank. He searched his memory, and then tossed it into the air, muttering a few words. It promptly disappeared. Cool, he thought, skiing away, and hoping like hell at some point he’d remember the fucking spell it took to retrieve it.
There were indeed more ice demons near Wotan’s chalet. A lot more. He ended up nearly skiing into another mogul that was not a mogul. This time he pulled up just in time.
A fireball seemed to come barreling over his shoulder, and the ice demon was sliced apart.
Oh, no, he thought. Did Nathan actually convince them to build a volcano here?
But suddenly the fireball halted, sizzling as she settled into the snow.
Raziel was grinning a particularly mad grin. “Surtr showed me how to turn myself into fire. Cool, huh?”
“Is your hair on fire?”
“Hey, I haven’t got all the kinks out yet!
“Why didn’t you do that back there when I was being fucking killed?”
“Yeah, like an ice demon had a chance against you. Ha! Shiva is toast!” she shouted, firing up again and flying off to slash through a few more ice demons.
He sighed. Yes, of course. They were all in mortal danger, but the most important thing in the entire world to Raziel was her stupid demon-killing contest with Shiva.
He felt the icy breath at his back. Too annoyed to bother pulling out his sword, he swung around and punched the ice demon right in its fucking face. It shattered. He shook out his hand, cursing and rubbing his knuckles.
“Did you dudes see all the ice demons?” Pickles asked, shaking off the snow as he and Toki stepped back into the chalet.
“There’sch no schuch thing as isch demons,” Murderface muttered darkly.
“Yeah there are! I killed one this morning!” Toki stated.
“You didn’t kill a fucking ice demon, don’t be a douche,” moaned a particularly hung over Nathan Explosion.
“Yeah, actually, the dude just fucking smashed one to bits,” Pickles said, adding, if grudgingly, “It was kind of cool.”
“Well, I killed a fire demon last time, and they’re a lot harder to kill than ice demons,” Nathan declared.
“No, they’re not,” Toki said. “Raziel said….”
“You need to stop flirting with Skwisgaar’s stepmom! Seriously, it’s disturbing.”
“If you call her my stepmom one more time, I’m gonna feed YOU to a demon, Nathan!” Skwisgaar growled.
“QUIT SHOUTING CAN’T YOU SEE PEOPLE HERE ARE HUNG OVER?” Nathan boomed.
“You didn’t have to stay up all fuckin’ night doin’ shots with the dead girls,” Pickles scolded.
“They were HOT!”
“They don’t even have bodies!” Skwisgaar laughed. “How were you even gonna get some?”
“With me, it’s all MENTAL POWERS!” Nathan explained.
“Hey, dudesch,” Murderface commented looking out the window, “Did you see Schkwisgaar’s schtepmom can set herschelf on fire?”
“Really?” said Nathan. “Huh. I wonder if she’ll burn her clothes off?”
The band looked at each other.
And then were all out the door.
The effectiveness of the demon killing party was at least somewhat hampered, Ofdensen reflected, by the eccentricities of the individuals involved.
Surtr, though the lethality of his flaming sword could not be doubted, evidently had much of the same vulnerabilities as the Wicked Witch of the West. He not only appeared terribly averse to snow, flinching and shaking when he was dusted with the merest grains of ice - but a larger blast of the stuff, as oftentimes happened when one was fighting, you know, ice demons, would evidently extinguish him. He was beginning to behave like an empty cigarette lighter, having difficulty reigniting his flame magic.
Raziel was actually not bragging too terribly in declaring herself and Shiva to be the two best swordsmen in this part of the universe, but the both of them had the annoying tendency to move out of position in order to taunt each other and brag as to their latest demon kill count. What was worse, Shiva was using Ganesh to keep an accounting for him, so following every one of Shiva’s kills, the elephant-headed god, who was a quite effective swordsman in his own right, would have to drop his weapon, take out his little pad of paper, and update Shiva’s total. At one point, an ice demon had gotten too close while he was straightening up the books, and so Ganesh had stabbed the beast with a pencil to the eye which, while effective and quite cool, Ofdensen thought, had also blunted the effectiveness of his pencil and made the accounting go even slower.
The worst thing was that nobody was entirely certain where Wotan had gone. He had been skiing the backcountry earlier, and Raziel had sent Huginn after him, but the raven had not returned yet.
Whatever they were doing wasn’t working. There were just too many of the demons. Shiva and Ganesh had gone out of sight, somewhere on the eastern flank. And he thought Surtr had taken his flaming sword down the mountain to where the snow was thinner.
Dethklok, like the bunch of complete idiots they were, had all emerged from the Chalet, and stood staring. Ofdensen wondered if Raziel might send a wolf or two over to herd them back.
Ofdensen noticed Raziel was in her non-burning form, though she was still using the flaming sword trick.
“Can’t you toast them, or whatever you were doing?”
“Takes a lot of magic,” she told him, whacking at a demon head. “I don’t have enough in this form. And I’m afraid if I go to True Form, I’d set off an avalanche.” In Raziel’s True Form, she was as tall as a building, and tended to set off earthquakes as she walked. Seraphim are not the most subtle of beings.
Ofdensen sent another demon flying. “No word from Wotan?”
“I haven’t seen Huginn.” Raziel looked at him. “Are we fucked?” she asked.
“Well and truly,” he answered. “Can you get over to Shiva? Maybe he can conjure something that won’t also kill everybody.”
“You trust Shiva not to destroy everything?”
“No. Absolutely not. But you have a better idea?”
She shook her head. “Can you protect your guys?”
“I think…” he started. And then he stopped.
The five members of Dethklok were standing together on the mountainside. There was something about their expressions.
The sky grew dark. There was what looked like a dark cloud growing over where the band stood. He heard a rumble.
Raziel was standing beside him, gawping.
“Sariel, what the fuck do they think they’re doing?”
He grabbed her arm. “Get Shiva. Get him the fuck over here. When the avalanche starts, I need help getting them out of the way.”
He felt the heat as Raziel turned herself again to fire and went screaming towards the blue god. But then he heard the crack as a giant band of snow near the top of the mountain came loose and started silently boiling downward.
He ducked just in time. But it wasn’t Raziel sizzling over his head this time, it was Toki. Wotan, who stood in their midst, had picked up the still dazed guitarist and flung him as if he were a child’s toy, far out of the path of the oncoming snow. “Get clear!” he shouted to Ofdensen, as he lazily hurtled Pickles into the air.
Ofdensen didn’t have to be told twice. He took off down the mountain, barely ahead of a cascading wall of snow. The entire mountainside had turned into a whirling vortex of snow, sweeping away everything in its path. He saw a blue blur of Shiva on his board, Ganesh right behind him. And two balls of flame hurtled overhead - Raziel and Surtr?
And then the whole universe turned white.
“That was bracing!” Wotan shouted, emerging effortlessly from what seemed like a 50 foot wall of snow and striding through knee-deep banks towards the remains of the chalet. “What a splendid afternoon!”
Raziel was following behind him, improbably running on top of the snow. Angels don’t really weigh anything. Not when they don’t want to. “But what about your chalet?” she asked. Huginn swooped down to perch on her shoulder.
Humans, gods, angels, and various magical animals had all managed to survive the avalanche.
The chalet was not so lucky. What was still visible through the snow looked like a very large Maglev train had just run through it.
“I’ve wanted to redo that building for some time, my pet. It’s far too old fashioned. Now we have the perfect excuse.”
“Shiva prefers ryokan style resorts!” the blue god announced. He was waist-deep in the snow, irritably shaking the ice from his many limbs.
“What a splendid idea, Shiva! Yes, an onsen would be a valuable addition! Perhaps Surtr could assist with the construction.” As if on cue, the black Lord of Muspelheim turned on his flame and seared away a circle of snow where he stood.
“But tell me,” Wotan asked cordially, “how stands the contest, you two?”
“Oh,” Raziel said. Standing on the snow bank beside him, she was actually taller than Wotan. She counted on her fingers. “This afternoon I had 45 kills, My Lord. Shiva?”
“Ganesh, what was my total from this afternoon’s amusement?” Shiva demanded. The elephant-headed god suddenly appeared near his father, shaking ice from his large elephant ears. Somehow, he had kept his small pad of paper and pencil through the avalanche.
“Um, your total was 37 kills, Father.”
Shiva frowned at him. “Wait, are you certain of that?”
“Absolutely, Father.”
“292 to 290 I won I won I won!” screamed Raziel, dancing joyfully on top of the snow.
Wotan grinned broadly. “Now, my dear, that’s unsportsmanlike,” he scolded, albeit not terribly convincingly. “VERY well played, my friend, Shiva!”
Shiva, both sets of arms folded, glared darkly at Raziel. Wotan patted him on the back so heartily that the blue god nearly lost his footing. “The Maglev station appears unharmed, my friends! Let us journey back to my halls at Valhalla, where we may dedicate many toasts to this valiant contest, and our splendid day of battling ice demons in Niflheim!”
Ofdensen was still puttering around in the vicinity where Wotan had tossed Dethklok, trying to make a damage assessment among the band. There didn’t appear to be anything permanent. Though, worryingly, Murderface was simply refusing to move.
“Thisch is how I have schpent the majority of thisch weekend, and thisch is how a schall schtay,” the bassist morosely told the party standing over him.
Ofdensen sighed. “That sounds like a fine plan to me, William. The rest of you? Wotan says there’s beer and Valkyries waiting at Valhalla.”
“Beer?” said Nathan. “Women? That sounds cool. Let’s go.” And they started to trek towards the bullet train station.
“Wait? What?” sputtered Murderface. “Wait! Wait for me, asscholes!”
“Raziel!”
“Yes?”
“Why are you wearing ski goggles? We’re back at Valhalla!”
She tipped down the goggles to glare at Ofdensen. “They’re a witty accent to my après ski ensemble!”
“Ensemble?”
“Ensemble! It’s Dolce and Gabbana!”
“It took two people to knit a fucking sweater?”
“You wouldn’t know haute couture if it bit you on the ass.”
“And for that I remain grateful.”
Nathan Explosion watched her walk off. Speaking of asses, hers did look pretty nice in the knit … thing. Whatever the hell it was. “You know,” he told Ofdensen, “She’s kind of hot, but….”
Ofdensen raised an eyebrow. “Completely fucking insane?”
“Uh, yeah, that too.”
The two men walked down Valhalla’s grand corridors. It wasn’t long before Ofdensen did another double take.
“Shiva?”
The blue god sat one one of Wotan’s many comfortable couches, staring into space. “Go into the water live there die there,” he was saying.
“Whoa!” said Nathan. “I didn’t realize anybody could understand what the fuck I was saying.”
“Father listens to you a lot on his iPod,” Ganesh, seated next to Shiva, told them.
“Uhhhh, Pickles?” said Ofdensen.
“Say your goodbyes that was your life you’ll pay your penance laser cannon death sentence,” babbled Shiva.
“What?” asked the drummer. “He just asked if I had anything! I had a couple of pills left in a bag.”
“I think Father is well,” Ganesh opined, grinning a broad elephant grin.
“Sure,” said Pickles. “He'll be fine. Just give him a month. Or so.”
“Evidently,” said Wotan, striding up to them with Toki at his side, “I am in urgent need of a helicopter.”
“A helicopter?” Ofdensen asked. “I could put you in touch with some people.”
“Yes, evidently this young man has been filling my Raziel’s head with stories about how it is possible to employ them for something known as extreme snowboarding?” Toki stood near Wotan, smiling.
“Toki,” Nathan growled, “what did I tell you about flirting-“
Nathan gave a cry. Out of nowhere, Freki and Geri had tackled him, and were now enthusiastically licking his face with their sloppy wolf tongues.
Toki grinned maliciously.
Ofdensen sat in his office at Mordhaus. The pain had already returned. Worse than he’d remembered it. He was mentally calculating how many Percocets it would take to completely destroy his mind. As, that might be preferable, at present. He wondered how he could possibly feel any worse.
A small, immaculately dressed woman was suddenly sitting in the chair opposite him. She hadn’t been there a minute before.
Yes, that would do it, he thought. He put his head in his hands and idly wondered if he had anything stronger than the Percocet in his desk. Cyanide. Maybe he could raid Pickles’ room later.
She was yammering into a cell phone. In Italian. “His last collection lacked any coherence, Marco! I expect to see ideas out on the runway, not… Marco? Marco?”
Annoyed, she pressed the END CALL button and put down the phone. “Dammit! I hate losing cell coverage when I disapparate!”
“Yes. Yes, Raziel. You should definitely contact your provider about that”
“That was an important couture-related communication.”
“You just used the words ‘important’ and ‘couture’ in the same sentence. I believe you might win some sort of prize for that.”
She lowered her oversized sunglasses to peer over them. “Boy, you really look like shit warmed over.”
“Thanks. You look like…. You look like last season’s runway show.”
“Oh!” To his horror, if not his surprise, she seemed delighted at this. “That is so bitchy! Can I use that?”
“You may use it without attribution if you just leave here right now and pretend you never met me.”
“Ha! You’re hilarious.”
“I wonder when it’s finally going to dawn on you that I am really one of the least humorous creatures in all existence.”
“Hum. Probably never. I was always a little dim.”
“Why are you in my office, Raziel?”
“OK, so, one of them has a spirit animal.”
“You’re kidding. Who?”
“Pickles. The Norwegian boy goes into some kind of berserker mode. Nathan has that … voice of his.”
“That’s just his singing voice.”
“And Skwisgaar is a demigod. I’m still not sure what that Murderface person can do.”
“I’m sort of hoping I never find out.”
“And, when were you going to tell me they did magic together?”
“Well, gosh, I’m sorry, I guess you weren’t on the CC line of the memo I circulated.”
“Oh, that’s OK, why don’t you just give me the executive summary right now.”
“They…. They can do things when they’re all five together that they can’t do when they’re apart.”
“Whoa.”
“Raziel, I am really not in the mood right now.”
“What kind of mood are you in, exactly? You’ve been playing it a bit close to the vest recently, even for you.”
“Me, secretive? What is Shiva doing at Valhalla?”
“Shredding. Oh, and destroying. Not as efficiently as your lot, obviously. Shiva is an old friend.”
“An old friend?”
“Speaking of old friends, what do you hear from Uriah lately.”
“Uriah a friend? I didn’t think you two were close.”
“Wouldn’t mind that one being close to my saber.”
“Raziel….” He stopped himself. It was the fucking Percocet. He’d gotten chatty. “Uriah has the fucking Legion behind him. Don’t…. Don’t even joke about that.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
He saw something flash in her dark eyes just then.
“You love tossing around the word important. Fashion is not important.” He waved his hand at her. “Your…. Your ridiculous outfits are not important. Uriah is important.”
“You think my outfit is ridiculous?” She regarded her well-manicured fingernails.
“Now you choose to be offended?”
“Perhaps I’m running low on patience. What happens when opioids and alcohol aren’t enough anymore, Little Brother?”
She was holding up a prescription bottle. He blinked. He forced down the urge to grab it from her.
“Look,” she said, “I’m not even going to try to appeal to your sentiments right now, because you’d just make me feel like an asshole, the way you always do. I’ll put it this way, you’re too important a piece to be off my chessboard right now.”
“You don’t even fucking play chess.”
“True. I don’t have the patience for that stupid game. Let’s see. You’re…. You’re too big a Battleship to be sunk right now!”
“That’s…. Raziel, I believe you have just come up with the single worst metaphor in the history of metaphors.”
"I have little patience for human games of mental acuity!"
"Battleship is not a game of.... Oh, forget it."
“Sariel. Your band is using Earth magic. The same as they use in Valhalla. And, Earth magic is getting stronger. It may be stronger than our magic now. And that’s been starting to worry Management.”
“You think it’s stronger? You think. But you don’t know. Because that would actually be useful information.”
“Let me spell it out, because I suspect you are currently too impaired to fill in the blanks. Your magical boys have started to attract interest. Angelic interest. And not just with our friend Uriah. If something were to happen to you, what is to become of your band of catastrophically-inclined teenagers?”
“They’re not…. They’re not teenagers.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“Look, Raziel, I am not in any way conceding you point. Because…. Because you’re an idiot. But if it were to come to…. If it were to come to such an eventuality…. Wotan is Skwisgaar’s birth father. I know relations are far from smooth….”
“No! No fucking way! No blended families! Valhalla is me and Odie and the ravens and wolves. No snotty step kids. And that’s fucking it.”
“Please, please, please tell me you don’t really call the All-Father ‘Odie.’”
“Oh, we have some pet names that would truly torture you. Uriah has no fucking idea.”
“Uriah….” He slumped. “Uriah has every fucking idea.”
“Uriah. I’m gonna take him…. And fuck him…. So he stays fucked.” She tossed the prescription bottle into the air. It turned into a raven.
She stood.
“My Honored Sister,” he began. She frowned suspiciously. He’d never liked the honorifics. Even back when he was supposed to be using them. “Have you considered what you would do if you move against Uriah, as you seem to want to, and the entire Legion comes after you and Asgard?”
She leaned over his desk. “Sariel. Honored Brother.”
He blinked. “I don’t…. Merit that title….”
“Don’t you? Have you considered what will happen if nobody does a fucking thing, and they come after us anyway? Asgard? Mordhaus? The Eastern Kingdom?”
“For the last fucking time. Raziel. This is my business. Stay the fuck out.”
She stepped back. “You want me; you know where to find me.”
And she wasn’t there anymore.
He grabbed at his desk drawer. The pill bottle was still there. He opened the lid. And then he closed the lid. And then he tossed the bottle - hard - through where her head would have been if she were still sitting before him. And then he sat, silently willing her to come back and argue with him.
“Uh.” It came from the doorway. He looked up to see Nathan Explosion there. OK, the whole band member sneaking up on him thing was getting old.
“I’m OK. Everything’s OK. Everything’s fine,” he repeated angrily. Nathan remained silent, so he added, “Raziel. Raziel was here.”
“Oh, yeah, Raz. Ha, that chick is crazy!” Nathan laughed.
They were quiet for a while, and then Nathan asked, “Was she still wearing the ski goggles?”
“No. No. But she had these boots…. It looked like the fucking cow died of fright.”
Nathan snorted. “Fucking crazy.”
“Crazy.” Ofdensen fingered the decanter on his desk. “I was…. I was gonna have a glass of Scotch.”
“OK,” said Nathan, sitting down opposite.
Sometime later, Ofdensen tilted the decanter with much curiosity. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of liquid remaining in the bottom. It was quite odd.
“Um,” said Nathan. Ofdensen noticed that his glass was sadly empty, so he filled it, and filled his own with the rest.
“Um,” Nathan said again.
“You already…. You already said that,” Ofdensen wisely pointed out.
“Um,” Nathan repeated.
“That would be number three.” He was an accountant. He could count things.
“Toki said….”
“Oh boy.”
“Toki said Raz told him….”
“Raziel….” Ofdensen began.
Nathan paused. “You two…. Did you and her used to….”
“Us two? Oh, shit no! Never!”
“Oh. You just seem like….”
“Apart from the million other reasons, we would have fucking killed each other.”
“Oh. So you were…. Friends…?”
“No. Our kind were never friends.”
“So you were….”
“Best you could say, I guess, is we never got into a Blood Feud.”
“A what?” Nathan asked. That actually sounded kinda metal.
“Blood Feud.” He sat his empty glass down and smiled vaguely. “We were Created to wage war, and for vengeance, and a whole lot of other nasty things. So, when there wasn’t a war, we’d kill each other.” He shrugged. “So they finally set up these rules where when you had a dispute, you’d basically duel, just the two of you, and not involve the whole Legion. But, we still ended up killing a lot of guys. There’s not a lot of us left. Not a whole lot of us left.” And, he thought sadly, there would be fewer soon. He frowned. “But you wanted to ask something?”
“Toki said that Raziel said that you knew, you know, Him, and He’s kind of a douche?”
“Yeah. She tell you the painting story?”
“The painting story?”
“You’d go to His studio. He’d be painting. And then He would turn it around to show it to you. And, it was blank. Just a blank canvas. And, He’d ask what you’d think. And I’d say, well, fucking paint something, asshole, and I’ll tell you. That’s just a fucking blank canvas. You wouldn’t say ‘fuck’ around Him of course. Or, um, call Him an asshole. To His face. I didn’t know ‘til later, when I was talking with Raziel, He used to do the same fucking thing to her, and she would basically have the same reaction. Funny thing, when He did it to me, I thought, great, I’m smart, I can see through the bullshit. Raziel always thought it meant she was stupid, that she was supposed to be seeing something else. Strange.”
“Did you ever ask Him?”
Ofdensen frowned. “Did I ever ask Him what?”
“What He thought?”
“Oh.” Ofdensen paused. “No. Never. Huh. Guess I’ll never know.”
“Well. You could still ask Him some day.”
“No. No chance of that. Not anymore.”
“Well. Whatever.” Nathan noticed the light of the false dawn out the window. “Shit, I need to get to bed. Thanks for the Scotch.” Nathan rose a bit unsteadily to his feet and left, leaving Ofdensen to watch the sunrise.
Nathan wasn’t really intending to go to bed. Not quite yet. He intended to compose his new song, “Blood Feud,” first. It was about murderous angels battling demons. Inside a volcano. Because, as everyone knew, fire demons were way cooler than ice demons.
But he really needed to figure out how to include the part about the bullet train.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Dethklok goes to Valhalla because they hear there are hot chicks there. Skiing and mayhem ensue.
Warnings: Cursing. AU. OCs brazenly stolen from mythology. Boring technical discussions of ski equipment
Notes: You want notes? YOU WANT NOTES? Plenty of ‘em back on Part 1. Also, some time during the night, this got Russian novel-type sprawling, so I'm posting it in two bits.
NOTE: Part 1 was posted here yesterday. I'm not claiming any of this will make sense, but it will make even less sense if you don't read Part 1. If you don't wanna read it all, that's fine too, you can probably find some lovely pr0n here on CLDK to look at instead. I know that's probably what I'd do. Also, I can't promise there's not gonna be more in the future, 'cause, sadly, there's already more.
PART 2 of 2
Wotan’s breakfast took up more than half of the table. Which was just fine, as Ofdensen was currently enjoying his favorite Continental breakfast, coffee and a cigarette.
“You’re certain you won’t try any of these delicious pancakes?” the god asked politely.
“Um, unfortunately, I think I had a bit too much demon barbecue last night.” Too much, he thought, consisted of pretty much any amount of demon barbecue.
“That’s splendid, there’s just more for me. And what are you up to this fine day, my angel?” the god asked, mouth full of pancakes. Ofdensen hadn’t noticed Raziel wander up to the table, gripping her snowboard. It was a completely different snowboard than she had used yesterday. Together with, needless to say, a completely different matching outfit.
“We’re headed off-piste to find an ice demon for Toki to slay,” she cheerily told Wotan.
“WHAT?” sputtered Ofdensen.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Raziel.
“Well, I’m missing the part about how this is not the worst idea you’ve ever had,” he told her.
“Me and Shiva will be along, so he’ll have the best two swordsmen in this bit of the universe behind him,” Raziel bragged. “What could go wrong?”
“What could go wrong? WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Did you want me to make an alphabetical list, or would you prefer in order of increasing degrees of catastrophe?”
“Tsk,” tsked Wotan. “Fresh air and demon killing. It’s a merry idea!” He suddenly reached to a shelf behind him to grab a map. “I’ll show you were they’ve been spotted nearby.”
“Demons? Nearby?” said Ofdensen.
“Yes, exciting, isn’t it?” Wotan noted, unrolling the map on the table. “Alas, ice demons are rare creatures these days! They usually don’t stray so close to the chalet!” Raziel leapt up to sit on the top of the booth just over his shoulder. The god stabbed a large index finger at the map. “Here, and just over here.”
“Cool, we’ll head that way. We’ll take the doggies too.”
“My pet, kindly do not refer to my wolves as ‘doggies.’ They will end up terribly spoiled.”
“Oh, and they’re not already spoiled?”
“And you said Shiva is coming with you?”
“Of course,” she said, hopping back down from the booth.
“How stands the contest?”
“247 kills to 253.”
“And who is ahead?”
“Um….” Raziel looked embarrassed.
“Raziel!” Wotan wagged a finger. “What have I told you about fancy swordsmanship for its own sake!”
“What’s the point of killing demons if you don’t look stylish?” she protested.
“Nevertheless, if Shiva were to prevail…”
“Yeah. Yeah. We’d never hear the end of it. Sure you don’t wanna come along, Sariel?”
“No, for the record, I want absolutely no part of this,” Ofdensen growled.
“Shiva and I would probably spot you a couple demons! It’s not too late to join the contest!” Ofdensen waved her off.
“Go and get some kills, my pet!” Wotan urged.
“Yes, dear,” she agreed, waving.
“That Shiva. He can be a bit of an oaf sometimes,” Wotan confided to Ofdensen, rolling up the map. “But, he is a strong ally.”
“Ally?” said Ofdensen, raising an eyebrow.
“Sariel, my old friend,” the god said, “we really ought to talk some time. Not this weekend. But, some time soon. Meanwhile. The run awaits us!”
Geri and Freki appeared to be in some kind of wolf nirvana. They would charge ahead up the backcountry trail, then charge back to check in on the various beings who were following them, and then thunder back off.
“Freki! Geri! Don’t get to far ahead you silly doggies!” Raziel called after them. “I don’t know why I bother, dumb things never listen,” she told Toki, who was walking beside her, holding a snowboard. “Now, what was I saying?”
“Demons are dumb?” he said. He seemed to be in sort of a desultory mood. She had guessed that he was giving the whole demon-killing enterprise some second thoughts, and she had decided that the perfect cure for this was persistent chatter. As, it happened, Raziel excelled at persistent chatter.
“Demons are idiots! I don’t know where people got it in their heads that demons are some kind of crafty bastards. They just generally like pounding stuff, and don’t bother themselves with any kind of strategy or technique. Now, one more time, when you see it, what’s the first thing you go for?”
“The head?”
“Correct! That usually gets them down. But, not all the time. So, once you get ‘im down, you step back and wait for me and Shiva to verify the kill. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said quietly. She dearly hoped they found a monster soon, so the boy wouldn’t lose his nerve. She had seen him snowboard, and reckoned he ought to have enough skill and coordination to successfully whack a demon head off some demon shoulders, but there was no telling what people could talk themselves out of. It had been a long, long time, but she had led men to battle before, and had seen things like this before.
Raziel looked up and smiled. The wolves were howling. She signaled for everyone to stop. “Huginn!” she said. The raven on her shoulder took flight, circled, and then returned to whisper something in her ear.
“OK,” she said. “Let’s leave the boards here. Pickles? You stay the fuck in back of me and Shiva, right?”
“Don’t have to fuckin’ ask me twice,” the drummer grumbled. Raziel was a bit puzzled as to why he had even bothered to join them today. She would have guessed he’d have stayed drinking back at the chalet with that strange Murderface person.
They dropped their nonessential gear and proceeded. Ice demons are among the most difficult to spot, as they simply resemble snow on more snow. Raziel ended up looking through her ski goggles and then over her ski goggles a couple of times before she spotted the movement. After signaling a very cooperative Pickles to stay put, she and Shiva escorted Toki in the proper direction.
Raziel reflected that it was too bad ice demons crumbled up so much when they died, as this one would have made a rather nice trophy. It wasn’t large, as such things go, but it had several rather impressive ice crystal horns jutting from its frosty head.
It had spotted them too, now.
“OK, one more time, we’ll stay here, you go up, get the head, and then stand down while Shiva and I confirm the kill. Got it?” Toki muttered something, so she said again, “GOT IT?”
He turned and looked at her. “Got it,” he said very quietly. There was something strange about his eyes, she noticed.
He gripped his sword tighter and began to stalk towards the ice demon, closer and closer.
And still closer.
And, then too close.
Shiva was about to jump in, but Raziel held out an arm in front of him. “TOKI! SWORD!” she shouted. As if this broke the trance, Toki suddenly brought up his sword, and blasted through the beast’s neck with such force that the beautiful horn-studded head was sent flying.
Raziel grinned.
But then, instead of retreating to a safe distance, Toki stepped forward and slashed the still standing body in two, down the middle.
And then he slashed it again. And again. And slashed the fallen parts. And continued to beat on the ice.
“TOKI!” It was Raziel’s voice. He looked up. He was on his knees, beating the ground with his sword. She was pointing into her own eyes.
He blinked.
“OK. Done. Demon dead,” she said.
“Shiva congratulates you on the first of many demon kills, Toki Wartooth,” the blue god shouted, holding up as many index fingers as he had available at the moment.
Well, thought Raziel, that wasn’t quite as I expected, but now he’ll have a story to tell. If, that is, he remembers anything about what he did. And then she heard the redheaded drummer come up behind them, and realized what he was there for.
“Dude,” Pickles said.
Toki, who seemed to have recovered himself somewhat, grinned.
“Perhaps on our next outing you too will slay a demon, Pickles the Drummer of the Dethklok,” Shiva told him.
“Yeah, a little one,” Toki snerked.
Pickles glared at him.
“Freki, get out of there, that will give you a tummy ache!” Raziel shouted at a wolf who was sniffing at the remains of Toki’s demon. Geri lifted a leg to the ex-demon, and ran to rejoin the party.
“I think I need a beer,” Toki said. It was agreed that beer was probably a brilliant idea.
Ofdensen was annoyed. Which was not terribly out of the ordinary for him.
He was specifically annoyed today that Wotan had convinced him to change up his ski bindings. It was a completely stupid idea.
But this was not the most annoying part.
The most annoying part was that it worked better on the turns.
Fucking annoying charismatic Norse god asshole.
Unfortunately, it meant when he reached a mogul he didn’t really expect to be there, his reaction time was just slow enough, he was unable to quite correct for it, and ended up wiping out quite spectacularly. It was actually a pity Nathan wasn’t there to see.
He sat up gasping. It took a moment, but he decided that his arms and legs appeared to be still located in their proper positions and in addition were functional. Which was fortunate, as he was off all alone on the run.
But then, just as his breathing was beginning to return to normal, he noticed something else. The mogul was moving.
It wasn’t actually a mogul. It was an ice demon. The creature that Wotan had just assured him no longer strayed anywhere near the chalet.
And now it was mad.
He managed to roll just in time to miss getting slashed by an icy claw. He half-crawled, grabbed a loose ski, swung it, and neatly sliced the beast in two at its waist.
He stood trying to catch his breath again. He felt in his pockets for his package of cigarettes. He shakily removed one from the pack. He felt for a match. He turned out of the wind to light up.
He heard the ice crack just in time, dropped the cigarette, and managed to duck another slash.
“Shit!”
Each half of the monster had evidently reformed into a fully functional frost demon. Although each was only half the size, now there were two.
“Splitting ‘em doesn’t work!” someone called.
He turned and saw Raziel and Shiva had ridden up on their boards. They stood to the side, under a tree, watching with no little amusement as the demons tried to clobber him.
“Some help?” Ofdensen panted.
“It is required that you strike the beast in the head,” Shiva advised. Raziel nodded sagely.
One of the demons came within a hair’s breadth of pulverizing him.
“A fucking sword?” Ofdensen managed to choke.
Raziel muttered a few words, and a sword appeared in her hand. She tossed hilt first it to Ofdensen. He seized the hilt and gracefully beheaded the first frost giant in one continuous motion. It worked: the creature crumbled back into ice. But then he was nearly beheaded himself by a swipe from its still moving twin. He tucked and rolled and then managed to cut the creatures legs off as it charged him. He jumped up and beheaded the now prostrate half-giant. It too, crumbled back into snow.
He fell to his knees, holding the sword, out of breath yet again. Shiva and Raziel slid over on their boards.
“But you know, that only counts as one kill,” Raziel told him, patting him on the shoulder.
“Shiva agrees!” the god said, holding up the index fingers of several hands to make his point.
Ofdensen glared at Shiva. “Maybe Shiva has decided Shiva doesn’t want the comp tickets we got Shiva for the Dethklok concert next week,” he told the blue god.
The blue god appeared to consider. He held up two fingers on one hand. “Shiva could be persuaded to count this as two kills.”
“Wait, what?” Raziel demanded.
“Shiva greatly esteems loge seating,” the blue god explained, grinning and sliding away.
“Don’t be a pussy, Shiva!” Raziel shouted after him. “Backstabbing blue bastard,” she muttered. She retrieved one of Ofdensen’s skis out of a snow bank and handed it over to him. He snatched it, glaring at her, and then grabbed her shoulder to steady himself why he snapped himself into the binding.
“Aw, come on,” Raziel urged. “Fresh air! Killing demons! You gotta admit, it’s fairly awesome!”
“There’s no such thing as 'fairly awesome.' You sound silly trying to talk like Nathan Explosion.”
“I sound like Nathan Explosion? That’s pretty cool.”
“I thought Nathan annoyed you.”
“Yes, he’s very annoying, but he’s also a very cool rock star, right?”
“Whatever. Look, if there’s one of these frost giants out here….”
“Yeah, there’s more. That’s why Shiva and I came back out. And that rat bastard is probably racking up all the kills! You ready to go?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, you’re trying Telemarking?”
“YES I AM FUCKING TELEMARKING THAT’S WHY I FUCKING WIPED OUT AND NEARLY GOT KILLED.”
“Hey! Don’t get your wings all ruffled. Save it for the demons,” she said, hurrying away. “Oh, and don’t forget the sword.”
Ofdensen stopped and grabbed the sword she’d magicked for him out of the snow bank. He searched his memory, and then tossed it into the air, muttering a few words. It promptly disappeared. Cool, he thought, skiing away, and hoping like hell at some point he’d remember the fucking spell it took to retrieve it.
There were indeed more ice demons near Wotan’s chalet. A lot more. He ended up nearly skiing into another mogul that was not a mogul. This time he pulled up just in time.
A fireball seemed to come barreling over his shoulder, and the ice demon was sliced apart.
Oh, no, he thought. Did Nathan actually convince them to build a volcano here?
But suddenly the fireball halted, sizzling as she settled into the snow.
Raziel was grinning a particularly mad grin. “Surtr showed me how to turn myself into fire. Cool, huh?”
“Is your hair on fire?”
“Hey, I haven’t got all the kinks out yet!
“Why didn’t you do that back there when I was being fucking killed?”
“Yeah, like an ice demon had a chance against you. Ha! Shiva is toast!” she shouted, firing up again and flying off to slash through a few more ice demons.
He sighed. Yes, of course. They were all in mortal danger, but the most important thing in the entire world to Raziel was her stupid demon-killing contest with Shiva.
He felt the icy breath at his back. Too annoyed to bother pulling out his sword, he swung around and punched the ice demon right in its fucking face. It shattered. He shook out his hand, cursing and rubbing his knuckles.
“Did you dudes see all the ice demons?” Pickles asked, shaking off the snow as he and Toki stepped back into the chalet.
“There’sch no schuch thing as isch demons,” Murderface muttered darkly.
“Yeah there are! I killed one this morning!” Toki stated.
“You didn’t kill a fucking ice demon, don’t be a douche,” moaned a particularly hung over Nathan Explosion.
“Yeah, actually, the dude just fucking smashed one to bits,” Pickles said, adding, if grudgingly, “It was kind of cool.”
“Well, I killed a fire demon last time, and they’re a lot harder to kill than ice demons,” Nathan declared.
“No, they’re not,” Toki said. “Raziel said….”
“You need to stop flirting with Skwisgaar’s stepmom! Seriously, it’s disturbing.”
“If you call her my stepmom one more time, I’m gonna feed YOU to a demon, Nathan!” Skwisgaar growled.
“QUIT SHOUTING CAN’T YOU SEE PEOPLE HERE ARE HUNG OVER?” Nathan boomed.
“You didn’t have to stay up all fuckin’ night doin’ shots with the dead girls,” Pickles scolded.
“They were HOT!”
“They don’t even have bodies!” Skwisgaar laughed. “How were you even gonna get some?”
“With me, it’s all MENTAL POWERS!” Nathan explained.
“Hey, dudesch,” Murderface commented looking out the window, “Did you see Schkwisgaar’s schtepmom can set herschelf on fire?”
“Really?” said Nathan. “Huh. I wonder if she’ll burn her clothes off?”
The band looked at each other.
And then were all out the door.
The effectiveness of the demon killing party was at least somewhat hampered, Ofdensen reflected, by the eccentricities of the individuals involved.
Surtr, though the lethality of his flaming sword could not be doubted, evidently had much of the same vulnerabilities as the Wicked Witch of the West. He not only appeared terribly averse to snow, flinching and shaking when he was dusted with the merest grains of ice - but a larger blast of the stuff, as oftentimes happened when one was fighting, you know, ice demons, would evidently extinguish him. He was beginning to behave like an empty cigarette lighter, having difficulty reigniting his flame magic.
Raziel was actually not bragging too terribly in declaring herself and Shiva to be the two best swordsmen in this part of the universe, but the both of them had the annoying tendency to move out of position in order to taunt each other and brag as to their latest demon kill count. What was worse, Shiva was using Ganesh to keep an accounting for him, so following every one of Shiva’s kills, the elephant-headed god, who was a quite effective swordsman in his own right, would have to drop his weapon, take out his little pad of paper, and update Shiva’s total. At one point, an ice demon had gotten too close while he was straightening up the books, and so Ganesh had stabbed the beast with a pencil to the eye which, while effective and quite cool, Ofdensen thought, had also blunted the effectiveness of his pencil and made the accounting go even slower.
The worst thing was that nobody was entirely certain where Wotan had gone. He had been skiing the backcountry earlier, and Raziel had sent Huginn after him, but the raven had not returned yet.
Whatever they were doing wasn’t working. There were just too many of the demons. Shiva and Ganesh had gone out of sight, somewhere on the eastern flank. And he thought Surtr had taken his flaming sword down the mountain to where the snow was thinner.
Dethklok, like the bunch of complete idiots they were, had all emerged from the Chalet, and stood staring. Ofdensen wondered if Raziel might send a wolf or two over to herd them back.
Ofdensen noticed Raziel was in her non-burning form, though she was still using the flaming sword trick.
“Can’t you toast them, or whatever you were doing?”
“Takes a lot of magic,” she told him, whacking at a demon head. “I don’t have enough in this form. And I’m afraid if I go to True Form, I’d set off an avalanche.” In Raziel’s True Form, she was as tall as a building, and tended to set off earthquakes as she walked. Seraphim are not the most subtle of beings.
Ofdensen sent another demon flying. “No word from Wotan?”
“I haven’t seen Huginn.” Raziel looked at him. “Are we fucked?” she asked.
“Well and truly,” he answered. “Can you get over to Shiva? Maybe he can conjure something that won’t also kill everybody.”
“You trust Shiva not to destroy everything?”
“No. Absolutely not. But you have a better idea?”
She shook her head. “Can you protect your guys?”
“I think…” he started. And then he stopped.
The five members of Dethklok were standing together on the mountainside. There was something about their expressions.
The sky grew dark. There was what looked like a dark cloud growing over where the band stood. He heard a rumble.
Raziel was standing beside him, gawping.
“Sariel, what the fuck do they think they’re doing?”
He grabbed her arm. “Get Shiva. Get him the fuck over here. When the avalanche starts, I need help getting them out of the way.”
He felt the heat as Raziel turned herself again to fire and went screaming towards the blue god. But then he heard the crack as a giant band of snow near the top of the mountain came loose and started silently boiling downward.
He ducked just in time. But it wasn’t Raziel sizzling over his head this time, it was Toki. Wotan, who stood in their midst, had picked up the still dazed guitarist and flung him as if he were a child’s toy, far out of the path of the oncoming snow. “Get clear!” he shouted to Ofdensen, as he lazily hurtled Pickles into the air.
Ofdensen didn’t have to be told twice. He took off down the mountain, barely ahead of a cascading wall of snow. The entire mountainside had turned into a whirling vortex of snow, sweeping away everything in its path. He saw a blue blur of Shiva on his board, Ganesh right behind him. And two balls of flame hurtled overhead - Raziel and Surtr?
And then the whole universe turned white.
“That was bracing!” Wotan shouted, emerging effortlessly from what seemed like a 50 foot wall of snow and striding through knee-deep banks towards the remains of the chalet. “What a splendid afternoon!”
Raziel was following behind him, improbably running on top of the snow. Angels don’t really weigh anything. Not when they don’t want to. “But what about your chalet?” she asked. Huginn swooped down to perch on her shoulder.
Humans, gods, angels, and various magical animals had all managed to survive the avalanche.
The chalet was not so lucky. What was still visible through the snow looked like a very large Maglev train had just run through it.
“I’ve wanted to redo that building for some time, my pet. It’s far too old fashioned. Now we have the perfect excuse.”
“Shiva prefers ryokan style resorts!” the blue god announced. He was waist-deep in the snow, irritably shaking the ice from his many limbs.
“What a splendid idea, Shiva! Yes, an onsen would be a valuable addition! Perhaps Surtr could assist with the construction.” As if on cue, the black Lord of Muspelheim turned on his flame and seared away a circle of snow where he stood.
“But tell me,” Wotan asked cordially, “how stands the contest, you two?”
“Oh,” Raziel said. Standing on the snow bank beside him, she was actually taller than Wotan. She counted on her fingers. “This afternoon I had 45 kills, My Lord. Shiva?”
“Ganesh, what was my total from this afternoon’s amusement?” Shiva demanded. The elephant-headed god suddenly appeared near his father, shaking ice from his large elephant ears. Somehow, he had kept his small pad of paper and pencil through the avalanche.
“Um, your total was 37 kills, Father.”
Shiva frowned at him. “Wait, are you certain of that?”
“Absolutely, Father.”
“292 to 290 I won I won I won!” screamed Raziel, dancing joyfully on top of the snow.
Wotan grinned broadly. “Now, my dear, that’s unsportsmanlike,” he scolded, albeit not terribly convincingly. “VERY well played, my friend, Shiva!”
Shiva, both sets of arms folded, glared darkly at Raziel. Wotan patted him on the back so heartily that the blue god nearly lost his footing. “The Maglev station appears unharmed, my friends! Let us journey back to my halls at Valhalla, where we may dedicate many toasts to this valiant contest, and our splendid day of battling ice demons in Niflheim!”
Ofdensen was still puttering around in the vicinity where Wotan had tossed Dethklok, trying to make a damage assessment among the band. There didn’t appear to be anything permanent. Though, worryingly, Murderface was simply refusing to move.
“Thisch is how I have schpent the majority of thisch weekend, and thisch is how a schall schtay,” the bassist morosely told the party standing over him.
Ofdensen sighed. “That sounds like a fine plan to me, William. The rest of you? Wotan says there’s beer and Valkyries waiting at Valhalla.”
“Beer?” said Nathan. “Women? That sounds cool. Let’s go.” And they started to trek towards the bullet train station.
“Wait? What?” sputtered Murderface. “Wait! Wait for me, asscholes!”
“Raziel!”
“Yes?”
“Why are you wearing ski goggles? We’re back at Valhalla!”
She tipped down the goggles to glare at Ofdensen. “They’re a witty accent to my après ski ensemble!”
“Ensemble?”
“Ensemble! It’s Dolce and Gabbana!”
“It took two people to knit a fucking sweater?”
“You wouldn’t know haute couture if it bit you on the ass.”
“And for that I remain grateful.”
Nathan Explosion watched her walk off. Speaking of asses, hers did look pretty nice in the knit … thing. Whatever the hell it was. “You know,” he told Ofdensen, “She’s kind of hot, but….”
Ofdensen raised an eyebrow. “Completely fucking insane?”
“Uh, yeah, that too.”
The two men walked down Valhalla’s grand corridors. It wasn’t long before Ofdensen did another double take.
“Shiva?”
The blue god sat one one of Wotan’s many comfortable couches, staring into space. “Go into the water live there die there,” he was saying.
“Whoa!” said Nathan. “I didn’t realize anybody could understand what the fuck I was saying.”
“Father listens to you a lot on his iPod,” Ganesh, seated next to Shiva, told them.
“Uhhhh, Pickles?” said Ofdensen.
“Say your goodbyes that was your life you’ll pay your penance laser cannon death sentence,” babbled Shiva.
“What?” asked the drummer. “He just asked if I had anything! I had a couple of pills left in a bag.”
“I think Father is well,” Ganesh opined, grinning a broad elephant grin.
“Sure,” said Pickles. “He'll be fine. Just give him a month. Or so.”
“Evidently,” said Wotan, striding up to them with Toki at his side, “I am in urgent need of a helicopter.”
“A helicopter?” Ofdensen asked. “I could put you in touch with some people.”
“Yes, evidently this young man has been filling my Raziel’s head with stories about how it is possible to employ them for something known as extreme snowboarding?” Toki stood near Wotan, smiling.
“Toki,” Nathan growled, “what did I tell you about flirting-“
Nathan gave a cry. Out of nowhere, Freki and Geri had tackled him, and were now enthusiastically licking his face with their sloppy wolf tongues.
Toki grinned maliciously.
Ofdensen sat in his office at Mordhaus. The pain had already returned. Worse than he’d remembered it. He was mentally calculating how many Percocets it would take to completely destroy his mind. As, that might be preferable, at present. He wondered how he could possibly feel any worse.
A small, immaculately dressed woman was suddenly sitting in the chair opposite him. She hadn’t been there a minute before.
Yes, that would do it, he thought. He put his head in his hands and idly wondered if he had anything stronger than the Percocet in his desk. Cyanide. Maybe he could raid Pickles’ room later.
She was yammering into a cell phone. In Italian. “His last collection lacked any coherence, Marco! I expect to see ideas out on the runway, not… Marco? Marco?”
Annoyed, she pressed the END CALL button and put down the phone. “Dammit! I hate losing cell coverage when I disapparate!”
“Yes. Yes, Raziel. You should definitely contact your provider about that”
“That was an important couture-related communication.”
“You just used the words ‘important’ and ‘couture’ in the same sentence. I believe you might win some sort of prize for that.”
She lowered her oversized sunglasses to peer over them. “Boy, you really look like shit warmed over.”
“Thanks. You look like…. You look like last season’s runway show.”
“Oh!” To his horror, if not his surprise, she seemed delighted at this. “That is so bitchy! Can I use that?”
“You may use it without attribution if you just leave here right now and pretend you never met me.”
“Ha! You’re hilarious.”
“I wonder when it’s finally going to dawn on you that I am really one of the least humorous creatures in all existence.”
“Hum. Probably never. I was always a little dim.”
“Why are you in my office, Raziel?”
“OK, so, one of them has a spirit animal.”
“You’re kidding. Who?”
“Pickles. The Norwegian boy goes into some kind of berserker mode. Nathan has that … voice of his.”
“That’s just his singing voice.”
“And Skwisgaar is a demigod. I’m still not sure what that Murderface person can do.”
“I’m sort of hoping I never find out.”
“And, when were you going to tell me they did magic together?”
“Well, gosh, I’m sorry, I guess you weren’t on the CC line of the memo I circulated.”
“Oh, that’s OK, why don’t you just give me the executive summary right now.”
“They…. They can do things when they’re all five together that they can’t do when they’re apart.”
“Whoa.”
“Raziel, I am really not in the mood right now.”
“What kind of mood are you in, exactly? You’ve been playing it a bit close to the vest recently, even for you.”
“Me, secretive? What is Shiva doing at Valhalla?”
“Shredding. Oh, and destroying. Not as efficiently as your lot, obviously. Shiva is an old friend.”
“An old friend?”
“Speaking of old friends, what do you hear from Uriah lately.”
“Uriah a friend? I didn’t think you two were close.”
“Wouldn’t mind that one being close to my saber.”
“Raziel….” He stopped himself. It was the fucking Percocet. He’d gotten chatty. “Uriah has the fucking Legion behind him. Don’t…. Don’t even joke about that.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
He saw something flash in her dark eyes just then.
“You love tossing around the word important. Fashion is not important.” He waved his hand at her. “Your…. Your ridiculous outfits are not important. Uriah is important.”
“You think my outfit is ridiculous?” She regarded her well-manicured fingernails.
“Now you choose to be offended?”
“Perhaps I’m running low on patience. What happens when opioids and alcohol aren’t enough anymore, Little Brother?”
She was holding up a prescription bottle. He blinked. He forced down the urge to grab it from her.
“Look,” she said, “I’m not even going to try to appeal to your sentiments right now, because you’d just make me feel like an asshole, the way you always do. I’ll put it this way, you’re too important a piece to be off my chessboard right now.”
“You don’t even fucking play chess.”
“True. I don’t have the patience for that stupid game. Let’s see. You’re…. You’re too big a Battleship to be sunk right now!”
“That’s…. Raziel, I believe you have just come up with the single worst metaphor in the history of metaphors.”
"I have little patience for human games of mental acuity!"
"Battleship is not a game of.... Oh, forget it."
“Sariel. Your band is using Earth magic. The same as they use in Valhalla. And, Earth magic is getting stronger. It may be stronger than our magic now. And that’s been starting to worry Management.”
“You think it’s stronger? You think. But you don’t know. Because that would actually be useful information.”
“Let me spell it out, because I suspect you are currently too impaired to fill in the blanks. Your magical boys have started to attract interest. Angelic interest. And not just with our friend Uriah. If something were to happen to you, what is to become of your band of catastrophically-inclined teenagers?”
“They’re not…. They’re not teenagers.”
“That’s all you’ve got?”
“Look, Raziel, I am not in any way conceding you point. Because…. Because you’re an idiot. But if it were to come to…. If it were to come to such an eventuality…. Wotan is Skwisgaar’s birth father. I know relations are far from smooth….”
“No! No fucking way! No blended families! Valhalla is me and Odie and the ravens and wolves. No snotty step kids. And that’s fucking it.”
“Please, please, please tell me you don’t really call the All-Father ‘Odie.’”
“Oh, we have some pet names that would truly torture you. Uriah has no fucking idea.”
“Uriah….” He slumped. “Uriah has every fucking idea.”
“Uriah. I’m gonna take him…. And fuck him…. So he stays fucked.” She tossed the prescription bottle into the air. It turned into a raven.
She stood.
“My Honored Sister,” he began. She frowned suspiciously. He’d never liked the honorifics. Even back when he was supposed to be using them. “Have you considered what you would do if you move against Uriah, as you seem to want to, and the entire Legion comes after you and Asgard?”
She leaned over his desk. “Sariel. Honored Brother.”
He blinked. “I don’t…. Merit that title….”
“Don’t you? Have you considered what will happen if nobody does a fucking thing, and they come after us anyway? Asgard? Mordhaus? The Eastern Kingdom?”
“For the last fucking time. Raziel. This is my business. Stay the fuck out.”
She stepped back. “You want me; you know where to find me.”
And she wasn’t there anymore.
He grabbed at his desk drawer. The pill bottle was still there. He opened the lid. And then he closed the lid. And then he tossed the bottle - hard - through where her head would have been if she were still sitting before him. And then he sat, silently willing her to come back and argue with him.
“Uh.” It came from the doorway. He looked up to see Nathan Explosion there. OK, the whole band member sneaking up on him thing was getting old.
“I’m OK. Everything’s OK. Everything’s fine,” he repeated angrily. Nathan remained silent, so he added, “Raziel. Raziel was here.”
“Oh, yeah, Raz. Ha, that chick is crazy!” Nathan laughed.
They were quiet for a while, and then Nathan asked, “Was she still wearing the ski goggles?”
“No. No. But she had these boots…. It looked like the fucking cow died of fright.”
Nathan snorted. “Fucking crazy.”
“Crazy.” Ofdensen fingered the decanter on his desk. “I was…. I was gonna have a glass of Scotch.”
“OK,” said Nathan, sitting down opposite.
Sometime later, Ofdensen tilted the decanter with much curiosity. There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of liquid remaining in the bottom. It was quite odd.
“Um,” said Nathan. Ofdensen noticed that his glass was sadly empty, so he filled it, and filled his own with the rest.
“Um,” Nathan said again.
“You already…. You already said that,” Ofdensen wisely pointed out.
“Um,” Nathan repeated.
“That would be number three.” He was an accountant. He could count things.
“Toki said….”
“Oh boy.”
“Toki said Raz told him….”
“Raziel….” Ofdensen began.
Nathan paused. “You two…. Did you and her used to….”
“Us two? Oh, shit no! Never!”
“Oh. You just seem like….”
“Apart from the million other reasons, we would have fucking killed each other.”
“Oh. So you were…. Friends…?”
“No. Our kind were never friends.”
“So you were….”
“Best you could say, I guess, is we never got into a Blood Feud.”
“A what?” Nathan asked. That actually sounded kinda metal.
“Blood Feud.” He sat his empty glass down and smiled vaguely. “We were Created to wage war, and for vengeance, and a whole lot of other nasty things. So, when there wasn’t a war, we’d kill each other.” He shrugged. “So they finally set up these rules where when you had a dispute, you’d basically duel, just the two of you, and not involve the whole Legion. But, we still ended up killing a lot of guys. There’s not a lot of us left. Not a whole lot of us left.” And, he thought sadly, there would be fewer soon. He frowned. “But you wanted to ask something?”
“Toki said that Raziel said that you knew, you know, Him, and He’s kind of a douche?”
“Yeah. She tell you the painting story?”
“The painting story?”
“You’d go to His studio. He’d be painting. And then He would turn it around to show it to you. And, it was blank. Just a blank canvas. And, He’d ask what you’d think. And I’d say, well, fucking paint something, asshole, and I’ll tell you. That’s just a fucking blank canvas. You wouldn’t say ‘fuck’ around Him of course. Or, um, call Him an asshole. To His face. I didn’t know ‘til later, when I was talking with Raziel, He used to do the same fucking thing to her, and she would basically have the same reaction. Funny thing, when He did it to me, I thought, great, I’m smart, I can see through the bullshit. Raziel always thought it meant she was stupid, that she was supposed to be seeing something else. Strange.”
“Did you ever ask Him?”
Ofdensen frowned. “Did I ever ask Him what?”
“What He thought?”
“Oh.” Ofdensen paused. “No. Never. Huh. Guess I’ll never know.”
“Well. You could still ask Him some day.”
“No. No chance of that. Not anymore.”
“Well. Whatever.” Nathan noticed the light of the false dawn out the window. “Shit, I need to get to bed. Thanks for the Scotch.” Nathan rose a bit unsteadily to his feet and left, leaving Ofdensen to watch the sunrise.
Nathan wasn’t really intending to go to bed. Not quite yet. He intended to compose his new song, “Blood Feud,” first. It was about murderous angels battling demons. Inside a volcano. Because, as everyone knew, fire demons were way cooler than ice demons.
But he really needed to figure out how to include the part about the bullet train.