Stronger Together chapter 231

Graceland was huge. Not as big as some places I'd seen in hell  obviously, but for a modern cemetery the size of it was nuts. Despite  that however, I was surprised by how idyllic this place was. Every blade  of grass was well trimmed and the haphazard architecture of the tombs  somehow flowed together into a harmonious gestalt that didn't come  across shoddy or haphazard. Despite the picturesque landscaping though, I  could see what Harry had meant in the books about how creepy it was.

Graceland  was pleasant and normal looking don't get me wrong. But it was TOO  normal looking. The sense of peaceful repose was so thick here it looped  back around to being suffocating, like some kind of uncanny valley of  normalcy. Raven stepped up next to me, crowding close as Harry, Michael,  Charity, Kara, Inari, Yang, Cinder, and Barb piled out of Charity's  suburban to join us in front of the cemetery. Raven seemed as unsettled  as I was. "This place feels...wrong. False. It's hard to explain."

Harry  nodded. "It's a side effect of a particular kind of veil. becoming  invisible is one thing, but when you veil yourself from a persons  perception in a certain way it makes the resulting image look  unnaturally inconspicuous. It's because the veil is blocking out the  natural magic that's supposed to inhabit that space, and without magic  and area isn't properly cemented in reality. Even if you drain a place  completely the native magic is still embedded in the materials, and when  you can't see that it looks wrong."

I grimaced. "The  question is who or what is veiling the entire cemetery? I know a place  like this should be crawling with ghosts and spirits, but the fact that  whatever it is feels the need to cover it up makes me really worry might  be under this." I turned to Harry. "Any clue how to disrupt this boss?  Because I don't do much with veils or illusions and I have no clue how  to disrupt them." My best guess was some kind of magical punch that I  used in the general area of the spell, which pretty much told you all  you needed to know about my capabilities.

He nodded. "I  can smash it, but it might be a good idea to set up some kind of  secondary veil around the place. Who knows what we're going to see when  we break it, we don't want mortals driving by and catching an eldritch  peep show." That was a decent point and I nodded to Raven and Cinder.  Barb was more of a personal invisibility kind of girl so it made sense  to just leave this to our magic users. Raven, Harry, and Cinder stepped  up to the edge of the grass and closed their eyes, clearly trying to  sense the limits of the spell, then they began to murmur.

I  actually activated my magic eye just to check out what was up with this  but I had no real clue what I was looking at. The structure of their  veil was...off. Ethereal and somehow surreal in places. It looked like  someone was stapling slowly thinning cheesecloth or fishnet over random  spots in the air, but like a thousand times weirder than that. I blinked  it away and my head actually hurt. Apparently my brain doesn't handle  veils well. I wondered if this was somehow related to the whole ice  cream headache from improperly channeled magic thing. Maybe I was using  my magic eye wrong on this spell.

Luckily it didn't take  them long to get the thing set up so I was only bent over with my eyes  clenched shut for a few minutes while I recovered. When I felt Raven  shake me a bit I looked up, and my whole view had completely changed.  First off everything I could see was dead. Trees, grass, even the stone  somehow, it looked brittle and cracked. Second of all it was all  slightly on fire. Weird green eldritch fire and only little flickering  flames but still, not a great sign. I was guessing Hel had beat us here.  Michael stepped up to the front and drew his sword, with Kara doing the  same with her own.

About the only upside I could find was  that I didn't see any actual zombies. Yet. Still, we all grouped up  behind the sword weilders, keeping Harry and Charity in the middle where  we of lesser squish could tank hits for them. I lowered my voice,  somehow feeling like I should be quiet here in this weird and desecrated  place. "Hey Michael, I don't suppose your god phone is ringing with any  important information about this mess." I saw his face twist into a  frown and held up my hands, though I don't think he could see it. "Not  making light of your senses, just the opposite. I'd feel better if we  had some more info here."

His face relaxed but he shook  his head. "No. Sadly not. I can feel a presence here, and a general  direction we're needed, but I don't exactly have a memo system in my  head. It's more of a feeling." He smiled confidently. "Don't worry  though. I trust He wouldn't give us more to deal with than we can  handle. As long as we take this one step at a time and stand together  there's nothing we can't overcome." I smiled a bit at that. Michael was  the closest the Dresden files got to that one character who relied on  the power of friendship or something similar. Being told to trust in the  heart of the cards was surprisingly reassuring when it came from the  king of games.

It didn't turn out to be necessary anyway,  because as we came over a hill we saw what was very obviously a giant  green flaming gate to the underworld parked in a divot in the grounds,  surrounded by A LOT of dead looking soldiers in old timey armor and a  very imposing figure in a dark hooded cloak. I couldn't help but pray to  anyone that would listen that that wasn't Hel. Sadly I was pretty sure  my prayers were useless at this point. We picked up speed and approached  the small army, and they just stood and let us come.

When  we got closer, a voice issued from the robe. "Cameron Beddows. Slayer  of my kin, enemy of my blood, friend of my most hated foe. To think you  would deliver yourself to me for justice so swiftly. What a considerate  boy. Have you come to accept my judgement? Or perhaps to plead for your  pathetic life?" I winced at the sound of her speech. Ow. Seriously. She  sounded like sandpaper wrapped in velvet. Soft and smooth with a core of  ragged painful hurt. I had heard plenty of monsters speak to this  point, and the only one who even approached the sheer unpleasantness of  listening to her was Shagnasty.

I  cleared my throat as we got closer. "Um...I don't know about whatever  hate sewer you crawled out of but where I'm from it's considered good  form to introduce yourself to someone. But since you did my part I'll go  ahead and do yours. 'Hi, I'm Hel, I'm a creepy half dead goddess with a  crazy dad and a snake for a brother. I'm here to destroy you all and  salt the ground where you're buried blah blah blah.' Was that close? Did  I get it in the ballpark?" I was guessing some of that hit close to  home based on her extremely pissed off expression.

She had been expecting me to be scared for some reason, which was  stupid, I'd killed Fenrir and he was tougher than her. I might not be  under the impression she was a pushover but I sure wasn't afraid of her.  I'd met the Devil. She hissed out the hood. "You dare-" She didn't get  to finish that statement because Samuel and Bernard slammed down in the  middle of her little army and started massacring the shit out of them  all. Benjamin, Louise and Mina all jumped in on the other side, and Hel  was distracted from her monologue by the mass murder of the summons she  had clearly been trying to gather as many of as possible.

Seeing  the darklings fight was fucking nuts. Not because of the power, because  I mean, honestly that wasn't anything big to me at this point. It was  the precision. Samuel and Bernard were the scariest. Samuel was using a  long thin curved saber that never stopped moving, darting in and out of  the crowds and taking apart Draugr. Bernard meanwhile was drawing all  the attention with his giant fuck off bastard sword, hewing the damn  things apart one swing at a time.The two of them fought like a well  oiled machine, perfectly aware of each others movements.

Samuel's  blows landed in every possible gap as he flowed between the Draugr like  a quicksilver storm. Every opening was exploited, every exposed joint  or gap in positioning utilized. Bernard's actions looked much more  obvious and blunt, but if anything he was more impressive. Every blows  was short brutal and economical, but somehow every one of the landed on  joints or between plates of armor. Limbs were lopped off, guts were  ripped out, heads were cut off, every single blow was debilitating.

Benjamin  and Louise were much less impressive but their teamwork was even more  seamless. They fought right up in each others personal space, somehow  completely at east and perfectly able to avoid getting underfoot despite  the complete lack of distance. It was like they were dancing. Finally  Mina was tearing through the things with the ease and grace of a ballet  dancer, flowing through casual movements and between opponents with  almost no pauses or waiting between her attacks.

I  turned back to Hel, who was glaring hatefully at me, and grinned. "Wow.  You should consider outsourcing some of your work. Your current  employee pool is not great. Maybe if you offer incentive bonuses? An  extra piece of goth looking zombie armor for every thousand brains  eaten?" A this point I was just actively taunting her. It didn't matter  though, as long as she was paying attention to me she wasn't paying it  to my girls. Still, I wasn't afraid of this fight, she might be tough,  but we had her way...outnumbered. She was smiling. I didn't like that  smile.

I  realized I could see her face from this position, half corpse she may be  but the woman had nice teeth at least. Her low chuckle was sickening.  "What a loud little pup. Barking away at your betters. Tell me puppy, do  you truly think I would come to such a place unaided? That I would  expose myself to the dangers of this city with merely fodder at my  command?" She chuckled again, somehow even more menacingly. "We know of  your power boy, and we know that you will oppose us. So we came to  oppose you as well. I wasn't expecting you so soon, true, but we are  more than prepared for your intervention."

She  snapped her fingers and the gate behind her collapsed, raining green  fire everywhere as it fell into a circle. A perfectly constructed circle  with extremely precise shapes making it up. Then the fire flared up. Up  as in to the sky, a literal column of green flame rose up, and from  within the blaze, a maddened high pitched cackle sounded out. The insane  laugh bounced off the walls of nearby tombs as a figure began to emerge  from the flames, revealing a tall shape with blood red hair and a  horribly scarred face.

Loki,  god of mischief, stepped from the circle, his mouth eaten away to  expose raw muscle and bone as he grinned viciously out at us. Hel  laughed again. "Be honored pup, for my father does not make a point to  visit just anyone. Behold Loki, behold the god of mischief and tremble."  And honestly. I kind of did.