The Age Of Odin

Fifty-Five

The gun, a chunky Desert Eagle, was so close, I could see right up the barrel, along the curved grooves of the rifling, all the way to the bullet snug in the breech. Or so it seemed. Maybe I would see that bullet as it came out, watch it corkscrewing towards me during a final, precious microsecond before it hit with a white thunderclap and there was nothing more.

It was an instant of clarity that lasted far longer than it should, stretched out like a holidaymaker on a sun lounger. Somehow I couldn't lift the Minimi, draw a bead on Pizza Face here. There was all the time in the world, and none. Surreally serene, I was able to think, Oh well, this is how it happens, this is how you die. I felt no animosity towards my would-be killer. Just a grunt doing his job, same as I'd done my job dozens of times before, killing to earn a wage. He was so badly injured, so far gone, he probably didn't even register me as anything human. I meant as much to him as a paper target at the shooting range.

His finger squeezed. I saw the gun's hammer nod forwards.

Then something slammed into him sidelong. The Desert Eagle went off and I felt the peppery sting of powder burns on my left cheeks, and my left ear when absolutely silent from the percussion of the gunshot — but I wasn't hit, I wasn't dead…

The gun went off again, and yet again. Odin and Pizza Face were grappling on the floor, the weapon between them. The soldier was pulling the trigger over and over, a reflex, while Odin dug both thumbs into his throat, strangling with all his might. I heard a click — the Desert Eagle's magazine running empty — and another click — the hyoid bone at the base of Pizza Face's tongue breaking. He gave a rattly gurgle and went rigid.

Grimacing, Odin eased himself off the body.

"Done," he gasped.

We helped each other up to our feet. I scanned the hold. Soldiers lay everywhere, a few of them moving but none with any active purpose. The writhing, spastic throes of the terminally wounded.

Also terminally wounded, it turned out, was Odin. He sagged to his knees, and I realised the front of his overcoat was riddled with bullet holes and sodden with blood. His opponent's shots hadn't gone wild, as I'd hoped — prayed — they had. Odin had a good half-dozen rounds in him.

The All-Father was a goner.

I knelt by him. "We'll get you to Frigga, that's what we're going to do," I said. "We'll get you to her and she'll fix you. All you have to do is hang on. We'll be out of here in a jiffy."

"No, Gid," he rasped. "Noble of you, but no. I've sustained harm beyond even my wife's power to mend. I can feel…" He coughed, and blood dribbled out over his beard. "I can feel how much is… broken inside me. I've not got long."

"Bullshit. You're a god. The All-Father. Come on, you hung on a tree for nine days. You can pull through this."

His hat had lost its rakish grip on his head, and for the first time I could see his left eye. The lids were puckered over the empty socket, sealed and sunken like lips with a secret they would never tell. His right eye still glittered, but its lustre was fading.

"I knew going in," he said, "that this was to be my end. Swallowed by Fenrir the devourer… never to return. My fate. I am not sad. I regret leaving life… but it has been a long life… and a good one too. My wife, my lovers, my sons, my family… even my blood brother…"

He coughed again, and this time gouts of blood bubbled up.

"And you, Gid… It has been a privilege to know you… even if only for such a brief span of time…"

He fell against me, crimson-bearded.

"I saved you," he said. "Gimle. Not Niflheim. Gimle!"

And that was his final word, a cry that left his body forcefully and took all his remaining strength with it. Slack, limp, he died in my arms.