They just appeared out of nowhere. In fact, it was as if—prior to appearing—they actually summoned up a sort of substantial nowhere precisely so that they could emerge from it. Like suddenly he felt as if there were a lack of space around him—not even a vacuum, but… Well, whatever it was, the Refurserkir popped out of it.
Before he knew what had happened, though, they’d covered his head in a fox-fur sack. So he couldn’t see exactly where he was being taken, and in fact he didn’t even really have a sense of the direction he was being dragged in. In retrospect, he assumed it must have been down the nearest manhole, but when they removed the sack so that he could see again, he just found himself in this huge subterranean auditorium. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought it was some modernized section of Vanaheim. It certainly didn’t seem like the sort of thing that one would expect to find beneath New Crúiskeen. In fact, it looked like they’d only recently knocked out a few pillars and maybe a whole level of tunnels just to make space for it.
They just tied him to one of the pillars that remained and left him there for a while.
He had no idea at the time why he was important enough to be abducted, and no one would talk to him at all. All the Refurserkir made him think of Prescott, though, and so his initial idea had been that maybe Prescott had somehow gotten the idea that Nathan was trying to “move in” on me. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, of course; he was a married man, for one thing, and—But the truth of the situation was all revealed later, after they had already dragged my father out to the altar to be sacrificed—
“Sacrificed?”
“Yeah… I’m getting ahead of myself, though.”
“But he’s okay?”
“Well… Just let me explain.”
“…”
“So—”
“And you’re married?”
“Oh. Well, yeah. I thought you knew that… I’ve got a daughter, too. She’s beautiful. She just turned two and a half yesterday, actually… But, I’m sorry—back to what happened—you probably already get the point of where this whole story is headed, but…”
“Believe me, I don’t.”
“Well—like I was saying—it turned out that Prescott was gonna sacrifice your father in order to complete his ascension to godhood or something,[47] but your dad—who initially seemed completely spaced out—got this sudden burst of energy and started fighting back as they were trying to tie him down… I think he knocked Prescott unconscious. But that was enough of a diversion for me to break free—because I’d already sawed through my straps using the jagged corner of the pillar that I was tied to—and so then I immediately made a dash to help him—your dad… He was fending off the attacks of about five Refurserkir by himself, already. With what looked like a steak knife.”
“But you helped him?”
“I was going to. Surt got in my way, though. I didn’t know who he was, at first, but then we had this big swordfight, with the ceremonial blades that Prescott had been planning to use in the sacrifice of your father… The training that I did for the final scene of Hamlet really came in handy, there, though I did get a pretty nasty cut on my shoulder… But while we were fighting, I realized who he was, because he started telling me all about his plan. He talked quite a bit while he fought. He can be a bit wordy.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, but so he was just going off about Shirley MacGuffin, and how I guess she’d ‘belittled’ him or something. I don’t know exactly what she did, but he was somehow under the impression that she had told me something about him while I was in Vanaheim, and he said that she shouldn’t have embarrassed him that way… Which I guess is why he had the Refurserkir abduct me. I didn’t really know what he was talking about, though, and he probably embarrassed himself more in his babbling than anything, because Shirley never actually got the chance to tell me much of anything at all.”
Nathan coughed emphatically before continuing.
“He talked about you a little, too… I’m not sure exactly what he meant, but he said that he was just doing all of this to help you, and that—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “Just tell me about my father. Is he okay?”
“Well, you see, right in the middle of everything—while I was fighting Surt—a snowplow fell through the ceiling, and it brought a bunch of snow and street down with it… And that pretty much cut me off from everybody else around. Luckily there was a tunnel nearby for me to escape into, and I—”
“But what happened to my father?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am…” His voice was suddenly solemn.
“Sorry about what? What are you saying?”
“I mean—” he began.
But before he could elaborate there was a knock upon the door opposite the one we’d come through.
“We’re in here!” Nathan shouted out.
And a moment after that the door was shattered into splinters of wood and light… It stung my eyes into a sudden squint, and when I could open them wide again the first things I noticed were the dust particles floating in the air all around us.
And then I saw what lay beyond the door, and I realized where we were.
“It is very good that you are here,” Blaise said, poking his head through the huge hole he’d made in the door. “But you should come out now and join the rest of us in the parlor.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“What is this place?” Nathan asked as we stepped through the shattered doorway.
“Hubert Jorgen’s house,” I told him, leaning down to pick up Garm. And then, as it dawned on me more completely: “The Bluebeard basement door! That room must have been his workshop… And I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that it connects up with the tunnels where the Refurserkir have made their lair, either… I guess that sort of seals it for Hubert, then. Or it would if he weren’t dead.”
“Bluebeard what?” Nathan asked. “Seals how? Who’s Hubert, again? And what sort of workshop?”
I chose not to answer. Blaise beckoned us to follow him up the stairs and on to the parlor.
I’d always considered the parlor to be one of the stranger rooms in Hubert’s house. It was anachronistic—difficult to reconcile with the rest of his taste. Lots of red plush and mahogany. Two epees hanging over a plaster bust of Orson Welles upon the mantelpiece. There was a glass case in the corner displaying a collection of Meerschaum pipes, each of which was imbrued by a different blend of tobacco (labeled). Yet Hubert neither fenced nor smoked.
Blaise entered ahead of us and hung his door-smashing hammer[48] on the far wall along with the rest of the Vanaheimic weaponry of Hubert’s collection. As Nathan and I followed him in I saw that quite a coterie was assembled there already. Wible and Pacheco were slumped on a loveseat to the doorway’s left, Constance Lingus sat in a large plush armchair, and my father was there, beside her, on a small sofa by the drinks table.
His white hair was ruffled, but otherwise he appeared unharmed. I didn’t move. I felt woozy.
“Dad…” I said. “You’re all right.”
“Yes, yes, dear thing,” he said dismissively. “I am fine. It is nice to see that you are fine, as well.”
“I found him wandering around downtown near where that snowplow fell through the street,” Connie said.
“You made me think he was dead!” I yelled at Nathan.
47
As mentioned above, somewhere, the name “Freysgo∂” is actually a title of some religious significance to the Vanatru. The rite of ascension referred to here is the ceremony during which the ascendant, vernal Freysgo∂, at the age of puberty, takes the place in society of his father: the previous, autumnal Freysgo∂. This traditionally entails the ritual sacrifice of the father, but—as related in Volume 3 of