He left the pathway and ducked into the thick brush. I followed, still curious, and a bit concerned. And maybe a little annoyed with the whole cloak and dagger suspense act. Where were we going? I didn't ask him though. He'd just ignore me.
Cold air bit at my bare skin, probing beneath the cloak, as we walked upstream toward a smaller, disused bridge. The footbridge had been cordoned off and the split and rotten wood clearly needed to be repaired before some kid broke his neck playing on it.
Dark, waterlogged planks hung from the remains of the bridge, a half-dozen attached by a single nail, like a line of ragged bats holding on for dear life.
Beneath the run-down bridge, fallen wood and beer bottles littered the banks of the stream. Splits of wood, probably hacked off by kids messing around and testing their courage, lay on the rocks in the water, along with a dense thicket of chocolate wrappers and chips packets.
Fenrir stopped at the stream's edge and waited. He gazed at me, then looked towards the bridge. What was he waiting for? Was there something here I was supposed to see? My heart knocked against my ribs and a sense of foreboding chilled my skin.
The water gurgled and curved around its obstructions and continued downstream until it was forced to curve again. Something dark and solid, like a tree root, jutted partway across the water. No, not a root.
A booted foot.
My heat thudded to a stop. At first, I assumed it was some homeless guy with courage and valor that awaited his one-way trip to Valhalla. But the clothing he wore was too new. Maybe an out-of-towner, going for a walk, had used the footbridge by accident, only to fall off it?
No. If he fell, he'd have been closer to the bridge itself. He lay at least ten feet away from the shadows cast by the ruined wooden monstrosity. More likely, he'd been thrown off the edge of the broken bridge or rolled down the bank.
One foot soaked in the running water, while the other was propped at an odd angle, higher up the bank. Maybe a broken leg. His upper body lay in shadows, hidden by bushes and weeds. I shivered. What would we see? A mangled skull from a gunshot wound, or a perforated chest from a stabbing? Or maybe just a guy, drunk and unconscious, unable to move his broken leg.
One hand lay beside him, outstretched as if he welcomed the night and the moonlight. The fingers were pale, grayed. That solved the drunk and unconscious question. Just one glance at the hand confirmed he was dead.
The rest of his abdomen was encased in a black leather jacket, worn, yet something a confident young guy would pull off well enough. The smoothed leather looked familiar. A lot of boys loved the look, but an icy, ominous fear scrabbled down my spine. I darted a look at Fenrir, but his expression told me nothing.
Despite the sickly sweet odor wafting from the body, I almost ran to him, thrusting the bushes aside. Fenrir didn't follow. I didn't notice. The moon hid behind dense cloud cover. I shoved the bushes aside to reveal the man's face.
That the clouds chose that particular moment to part and reveal the gruesome face of death was ironic and cruel.
The glare of the moonlight was abrasive and cold. It lit up the ridges of his eyebrows, the jut of his classic cheekbone. His face was a marble bust, his body drained of blood and life while I'd received my wings and attained a certain salvation.
While I'd pined for him and hated him in alternate ferocity.
Cold seeped into my veins as I registered that his death could never have been an accident. Not with the bullet hole marring the perfect smoothness of his forehead.
I stared through dry eyes at his face, bloodless and filled with death.
Aidan's face.
Chapter 25
The cold cut at me. It stole the breath from my lungs. It scraped the tears from my eyes. It ripped the life from my heart. The cold killed me. I stared, unmoving, at Aidan's alabaster face and stony cheeks. A pale Adonis, carved from night and darkness. His eyelashes curled, provocative even in death.
I sank slowly to my knees. Not caring about the cold, slippery muck on the banks. Not caring that I knelt with one foot touching the frigid water. The stream gurgled on, unaware that it tasted mortality as it passed. Mortality and sorrow.
It somehow seemed right that I sat here, one foot steeped in freezing water, as if I shared in his crossing. Stood with him in an in-between world where he waited for the next stage of his journey.
The moon lay his body bare for my eyes. His milky white hand rested against the black muddy sand. Lifeless. Not warm like when he'd caressed my cheek, not soft like when he'd held my head and kissed me with a ferocity so unlike his gentle embrace. And here, as I sat swaddled by cold and death and moonlight, everything in me cried for him.
Trees creaked around me, groaning against the grasping hands of an icy wind. Fen moved at my back, his cloak rustling against the brush. He'd been silent, watching and waiting. Mourning a loved one should be a private thing. But I was glad for his presence. Because Fenrir meant life where Aidan's remains whispered death. Fenrir meant hope and trust, while Aidan was betrayal.
Even in death, I couldn't forgive him. I'd forced him out of my head and out of my heart. But I still hurt, somewhere beyond the pain and the tears, a place touched by Aidan. Touched for the briefest moment. A place that remembered him. And waited for him.
"Bryn?" Fen's voice was low, soft.
I met his eyes. Sympathy creased the edges. An apology. "Why didn't you tell me it was him?" I asked, needing to hear what I already knew.
"At first I did not believe it was appropriate to give you such news with all the other teams around. And then you were concentrating on what to tell your mother." He hunkered down beside me, his voice still so soft it made me think of a rug, cradling me in its tender warmth. Was his quiet tone out of respect for the departed or empathy for my pain? I didn't know. "And then it was too late and it seemed best to let you see him yourself."
Fenrir flicked his gaze away, toward the corpse. Toward the empty shell of Aidan. His corpse still glowed. I registered the aura gradually, as if my vision was blurred, fuzzy. I had to peel back the layers of what I saw, look beyond the body and beyond my grief and anger and longing.
Aidan's aura was not as blindingly bright as Joshua's or Aimee's on the days they died. His brightness had faded, a yellow gleaming where it should have been an eye-piercing golden sheen.
"Why is the glow so weak?" I asked Fen. "Isn't he Warrior material then?" My question was laced with bitterness, which surprised me. My emotions churned with a complex mix of resentment, anger, relief and hope. Aidan's death made me bitter. Not hard to understand.
"He has been exposed to the elements since his death. From the looks of the body and the glow, I would say he has been dead a week." Fenrir looked upward, staring at the moon, then at Aidan's lifeless body. "But the light fades with every passing moon. He had a while yet for Retrieval."
Shock sliced through me, icy blades as cold as December. A week. That meant someone had done this to Aidan the day I'd last seen him at Ms. Custer's house. The day Sigrun had taken me to Asgard.
"But I never saw him glow. I would've noticed if he'd glowed like Joshua and Brody." My voice quavered.
"I believe that his death came early. That perhaps it was not his time. Perhaps he only started to glow after you last saw him." Fen nodded. "That would certainly explain why his glow is so weak."
"So now what?" I tried to keep my voice devoid of emotion, tried to put on a professional mask. I think I failed. Fenrir's eyes, when he looked up at me, were still a mess of pity.
"Now you carry him in your arms, and we take him to Valhalla," he said.
"That's it? I lift him up and abracadabra we go to Valhalla?"
"Did you want it to be more complicated than that?"
A wolf howled beyond the tree line. I was about to ask if it was one of our Ulfr when Fenrir raised his hand, silencing me so firmly that I clamped my mouth closed.
A dog barked. Loud and ferocious. Fen glanced up the bank, back the way we came. Somewhere within the brush the dog scrambled and scratched, its high-pitched barks scraping at my eardrums.
A latent growl erupted beside me. I turned to Fenrir and froze. Even the blood in my veins stilled. I remembered why I'd feared this man from the first moment I'd laid eyes on him. He still stood tall, in human form, not a hair's breadth from me, bristling at the danger he tasted somewhere in the darkness.
A snout protruded from the low bushes. Moonlight painted a tiny pool of silver on the animal's wet nose. The Labrador came closer. Its whole head now poked from the brush.
Fenrir growled, a primal vibration at the back of his throat that spoke of blood and teeth and mindless fear. And every hair on my body rose in silent salute. I remained frozen, watching the ferociously curious dog and the vibrating wolf-man at my arm.
The Labrador emerged from the bush, eager to prove his worth. He growled, but he was no match for Fen, either in ferocity or intent. Fen replied, dialing up the volume and the threat. Ozone tinged the air around us, along with the musty odor of animal fur. I shivered. Hoping he wouldn't change.
The dog yipped. Off in the distance, his master called from the night again, a hollow yell edged with irritation. "Rex, heel! Rex, you stupid dog, heel!"
Sound traveled strangely on frigid night air. We couldn't count on how far away he was. And we had to get out of the park. With Aidan.
"Fen," I whispered. I risked touching his arm, carefully, fully aware he might turn on me just for the disturbance alone, but I was already on the balls of my feet, on the brink of taking flight, just in case.