Hunted (The Iron Druid Chronicles, Book Six)

nothing to avoid the sweep of Loki’s sword, thinking it would pass through him as all other weapons did. But Loki—father of Hel, Queen of the Dead—didn’t swing an ordinary hunk of steel. When the sword met the huntsman’s form and continued on, a ripping noise like someone’s jeans tearing announced that something untoward was happening. The nameless huntsman and his horse split apart and exploded into puffs of floating blue ectoplasm, then faded entirely from view. Loki didn’t just wound the ghost; he annihilated him completely. Herne and the other hunter almost followed in short order, having charged in too far to escape Loki’s reach in time, but they managed to muster a defense and were merely knocked off their horses. The spectral hounds, unable to process that the rules had abruptly changed, kept right on going. They nipped at Loki from allsides, and his sword could dispatch only one at a time. “Fff-fff-ffucking dogs!” he spat, kicking ineffectually at them.
     Oberon said.
    A few more frantic stabs of Loki’s sword ended the poor pooches, but they had drawn blood and he limped slightly. It did much to subdue his confidence, and by that time Herne and the remaining huntsman had regained their feet and approached him warily. Loki took them in and looked annoyed. As successful as he’d been thus far, he had not come here to fight ghosts. Hel must have placed an enchantment on that sword to make it effective against the undead. I wondered if it had a name.
    Loki backed up, keeping space between himself and Herne, and rested his twitching gaze on me. He raised a bony finger and waggled it in accusation.
    “Y-y-you nah, nah-t dwarf con, con, ssstruct,” he said, repeating the accusation he’d made back in Poland. True. I’d told him that months ago simply to distract him, and it had worked far better than I ever imagined it would. He could have figured out the truth easily if he had bothered to listen to the dwarfs or asked his daughter, who wanted nothing so much as to please him, but apparently he was determined to do things his way and in his own time. The jerking finger panned to my right. “Zeussss. Ju-Jupiter. No fff-friends tih, tih, to dwarffffs.” I supposed that was his way of building a case against me. “Who you are?” Loki said, and I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement. “Fffffind out. I wuh, wuh, will!”
     Oberon said.
    Herne and the remaining huntsman had had their fill of caution. Windsor was on fire and they needed justice. They pressed their attack, weapons held high, andLoki’s giant sword crashed down onto Herne’s and slid down its length. The antlered ghost was brought to his knees by the force of the blow, but Loki did no lasting damage. On the upswing, though, he tagged the other huntsman, and the ghost paffed out of existence, decompressed as the blade’s magic sundered the ethereal binding of his form.
    Herne saw this and the great sword raised high, ready to fall on him anew. I ran to his aid, since the Olympians would clearly do nothing but watch. I didn’t want to kill Loki yet, but I wasn’t averse to hurting him, and Herne didn’t deserve to be sent to eternity by an avatar of madness. The sword fell and Herne leapt out of the path of the downstroke, attempting to tumble so that he could rise and take a swing at Loki’s ankle. It was an excellent strategy and might have worked, except that blue smoke rose out of the ground all around the giant and took shape as
draugar
, the undead minions of Hel. And the Queen of the Dead herself rose with them, behind her father, as tall as he and stinking of rot and pestilence. Her right side was a vision of loveliness and her left a wasted husk of a corpse. Without ever glancing our way, she placed her right hand on Loki’s shoulder and grated in Old Norse, “Come, Father, we have much to discuss.” Then she and Loki melted back into the earth and left us with a dozen blue
draugar
to fight. Herne cursed and I cursed with him. I didn’t want the two of them to confab, ever, and now it appeared as if they would and Loki would learn who I truly was. And it was all because Ukko had freed both Loki and Garm at someone’s urging. Garm had clearly healed, tracked Loki here, and told Hel where to find him on Midgard.
    “Blood and shite and fifty-seven severed cocks!” Herne roared, swinging his sword through the neck of the