"Yes, ma'am," he said with a grin, his eyes gradually closing.
Joshua crouched beside Enya and studied the wound. The blood and black goo were mixing, looking odd and so very wrong. He looked up, the expression on his face mirroring my feelings. Aidan was dying, and if we didn't get him help soon, there might be no chance at all to save him.
Behind Joshua, a shadow moved, large and threatening and definitely not one of my team. I threw my spear before anyone in the room could move. The spear hit the Jotunn in the middle of his neck and embedded into the wall behind him. He couldn't move. Air whistled through his broken throat, and skin and muscle sizzled.
I frowned. What could possibly cause the steaming of frost giant flesh? All I did was impale him with Odin's spear. Then I stiffened. A spear dipped in the Norn's magical water. Was that what it did to the frost giants? And Loki was a frost giant. Did Loki react in the same way to the Norn's water?
I recalled the odd expression on his face after the first bullet had entered his chest. Had he felt the reaction deep inside his body?
Everyone in the room turned and stared grimly at the dying frost giant. He began to melt away, his face and chin dripping down toward his chest. Slowly, he transformed into a pile of steaming muck on the wooden floor. Then the remains of the Jotunn seemed to catch alight. Blue flame spurted from the muck, burning up what was left of him. In the end, there was nothing left. Just the spear stuck in the wall, looking oddly naked.
Edrik grabbed Gungnir and pulled it out of the wall. Then he brought it to me, sank down, and took my hand off Aidan's body. He seemed oblivious that my fingers and palms were coated with blood and black gunk. He opened my stiff fingers and wrapped them around the spear.
"You must go. Take him home, Bryn," Joshua said, his voice ripping through me and awakening my senses. I blinked and looked at his face as if I'd just come out of some trance. Then I stared down at Aidan. He was unconscious now, and Joshua had pulled up his chainmail and ripped his shirt open. Aidan's skin was pale around the wounds, but black lines forked from the ragged edges across his stomach. The poison was moving fast.
"Bryn?" Joshua spoke, and I blinked again. His expression was filled with concern and sadness.
I nodded vigorously, both to confirm I'd heard him and to pull myself together.
"You guys regroup at the boarding house. I'll take Aidan back to Asgard." I spoke the words without an ounce of emotion. I couldn't summon even a speck of positivity, not even to given my team a boost.
Joshua leaned over Aidan's still form and held on to my arm. "Bryn, stay with him. We'll make our way straight back to Asgard. We have the virus as well as the details of how they made the black poison."
I hesitated for a second. "Are you sure? I can come right back." I made the offer, but I wasn't sure I'd be able to leave Aidan knowing there was so little hope left.
"No. We won't be far behind you. We'll take the Bifrost straight back to Asgard. Derek just needs to locate the closest one. You go."
I longed to have his arms around me, all the while knowing that wouldn't happen for a while, so I remained kneeling and tightened my fingers around the spear. Holding on to Aidan, I stamped the staff onto the floor three times. I already had Eir's treatment room in my mind, and we arrived smoothly and landed with a thump. The impact reverberated through my knees, but I paid it little attention.
As soon I solidified, I called out for Eir. Thankfully, she was walking into the room and when she caught sight of me and Aidan, she almost flew toward me. Her pale face whitened at the sight of the black gloopy substance, and she met my eyes, her expression sad.
"You really need to stop bringing me patients this way, Bryn." Her attempt at cheering me fell flat. "Tell me what happened," she prompted, but I was almost certain she was just asking the question to keep me occupied. To her, it didn't matter how the black goo had gotten into him. All that mattered was we had no idea how to reverse the effects of the poison.
I sighed and gave her a quick rundown of how he was injured.
Eir dusted her hands, then said, "Help me get him to the bed. I think the first step will be to remove the bullet. Then we can go from there."
She bent to grab his shoulders and I waved her off, shaking my head. It was my blood that was killing him so I knew he was my burden to bear. I dropped Gungnir on the floor, the golden spear making a tinkling sound as it hit the white marble. I ignored it and slipped a hand beneath Aidan's knees, the other under his shoulders. I lifted him effortlessly, reminded again of the time I'd carried him back to Asgard, a frozen corpse to be brought back to life to serve the All-Father.
This time he was still alive, but barely. I laid him on the crisp white sheet of the thin mattress on Eir's treatment cot. He moaned as his weight settled. His eyes opened a narrow crack and he stared at me, slightly confused. "Enya?" His voice cracked and he coughed, the sound wet and ominous.
I gripped his hand within mine and said, "She's on her way. Just hang in there. I couldn't bring her with us, but Joshua will make sure they get here fast."
Aidan blinked slowly, his dark eyebrows and black hair looking blacker against the growing paleness of his skin. My heart tightened and fear took the breath from my lungs. I never thought I would lose him again, not in such a permanent way.
Our relationship, whatever love we'd had between us, had been short-lived, but it had been an honest emotion. But it hadn't been strong enough to survive everything Loki had thrown at us, and Aidan hadn't been strong enough to defeat his tumultuous emotions.
I straightened and felt Eir at my side. Stepping away, I gave her unhindered access. The goddess looked up at me. "Perhaps you should fetch Aidan's mother." The mere mention of his mother made me want to fall to my knees and sob. I knew what that meant.
Fetching family meant there was no hope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I gripped my fingers into a fist and ran out of the room. I raced down the hall and past the Valkyries section within the palace. Aidan's mother and sister were in a small apartment, which would usually have been used for visiting gods or dignitaries. It said a lot that Aidan's family had been assigned to such important digs.
I paused in front of their door, my fist raised, knuckles about to hit the thick wood on the door, when I noticed the blood and black oily gloop staining my hands. I stared at it for a moment and struggled to swallow a sob. I took a shuddering breath and knocked.
Mrs. Lee opened the door and gave me such a welcoming smile that it broke my heart and shattered my resolve. Tears ran down my face, and she put a hand on my shoulder. She guided me inside and helped me to a seat on the couch near the door.
"What's wrong, dear? Has something happened?" Her face was filled with worry and fear, and I could see clearly that she was wondering which one of her children my tears were for.
"It's Aidan. I'm sorry." I wiped my eyes and got to my feet, looking away. Somehow I couldn't bear to look at her. I cleared my throat. "I came to fetch you. We need to get back to Eir's treatment room. Now." I took a shuddering breath while Mrs. Lee slipped her hand into mine and gave it a squeeze.
I admired her more than ever. The woman had been through so much, manipulated by her husband to bear the child of Loki, spending months away from a son who was being forced to do his father's bidding with the threat of the safety of his mother and sister hanging over his head.
We hurried back to Aidan, and as soon as we entered the room, she let go of my hand and hurried to her son's side.
"What happened to him?" she asked, her voice soft and pained as her eyes traveled across Aidan's body.
"He was shot with a specialized poisoned bullet. Loki fashioned the poison to target einherjar. As far we know, there is no antidote." As I spoke, something popped into my mind. I glanced at Eir, who was watching me as if already expecting me to say something. "What if we used my blood? Maybe a transfusion or something?"
Eir studied my face, then tilted her head, her mind turning the idea over and over. She looked like a little dove bobbing its head this way and that. Then she drew in a breath. "I don't know if that will work, but it's worth a try."
I nodded, eager to be doing something involving action. "Where will we set it up?"
"Here is fine, but we need to test your blood on him first. I have no idea what effect your blood will have on Aidan. We've never combined warrior and Valkyrie blood before. And given that the poison contains your blood, that's already a bit of a worry." I felt my stomach turn into a solid stone in my gut.
All paths always led to me.
"Come, Bryn, sit here beside him," Eir called me, pulling me out of my morbid thoughts. I took the seat she indicated and sat beside the bed, waiting for her ministrations. She had a blade in her hand, which startled me. I hadn't even seen her pick it up. Served me right for not paying attention.
The knife glinted and on some level, I registered it was standard hospital issue. Looked like Eir had upgraded her medical implements to more advanced Midgardian stainless steel.
I stuck my hand out and Eir cupped it gently, tilting my wrist toward her. She placed the blade against my vein and sliced into it. I barely felt the cut, my attention focused on Aidan's face. I was praying hard, desperate for this to work. Aidan didn't deserve to die this way.