Blood Codex

Chapter 55

Crowley pulled himself into the small space, a seemingly prefect cube hewn from the rock. In an alcove on the far wall, a second, miniature cube, sat a hammer.

He shook his head, staring in wonder. Even with everything else they had uncovered, Crowley had never really believed they would find Mjolnir, Thor’s Hammer, but this had to be it. It seemed to glow slightly, or was that just his phone’s light reflecting off the impossibly silver surface?

The hammer had a rectangular head, on which it stood, about the size of a shoebox. The metal seemed almost unearthly, silver, but not silver. Like an alloy, perhaps, with a smoothness like aluminum, but a brightness like diamonds. The haft of the thing, made from the same metal as the head, stood straight up from it, maybe half a meter long, a little thicker than a broom handle. Crumbled bits of old leather strapping lay across the hammer head and around it on the stone shelf.

Norse runes surrounded the square alcove, two rows all the way around like a double frame around a painting. The inside set of runes were inlaid with silver, the outer ring just carved into the stone. Around those was a convoluted carved pattern, twining lines and stylized animals. Crowley flicked up his camera app and took a series of quick photos, showing the hammer in place, then closer up, moving the camera around it from several angles. He made sure the runes were clear in the shots.

As he got closer he saw there were runes and sigils on the surface of the hammer head too, though not carved. More like laser etchings he had seen, but how was that even possible? He laughed softly. How was any of this possible?

He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then slowly let it out as he reached for the hammer’s haft. As his cold fingers and palm closed around it, an electric spark pulsed into his flesh and he whipped his hand away with a quiet yelp. He had knocked it slightly sideways as he pulled his hand back and thought he had seen sparks flicker underneath it. It had shocked him! What the hell could this thing be made from that it could generate such static electricity? Or store it?

He had noted before the dry air in the passageway behind the wall he had knocked down. It seemed only more so here, tinder dry, which was incredibly weird for a subterranean cavern so near the ocean in northern England.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and carefully wrapped it around the handle, careful not to touch the metal, and picked Mjolnir up. He had braced for the weight, thinking he would probably need both hands given its size, but it was light, like aluminum. He gently drew one edge of the hammer head across the stone and watched incandescent blue and purple sparks flicker and dance around it. The glow he had thought he saw before was more in evidence now, not unlike a kind of phosphorescence like krill in the ocean. The thing hummed slightly in his grip. He couldn’t hear a sound, but felt it buzzing ever so gently against his palm.

Curious of its potential power, he drew it up a few inches and struck down against the edge of the alcove where the hammer had rested. A flash momentarily blinded him and the stone shattered, sending up a spray of fine particles. Crowley grunted in shock, blinking the rock dust from his eyes as his vision slowly returned to normal. “This thing can literally store energy,” he whispered to himself, keen to hear the sound of his own voice for some measure of sanity in the suddenly bizarre situation in which he found himself.

He lifted the hammer. Is this truly Mjolnir? Enraptured, he started at the sound of a distant cry, and then the unmistakable crack and echo of a gunshot.