Kerry hadn’t said a single word to her, and Freyja was trying not to take it personally. They were, after all, fleeing for their lives from unknown men who wanted to kill them. Freyja was aware she was making several assumptions in that statement, but given the (practically nonexistent) information she was working with, she felt like that was the logical conclusion.
But come on, no sarcastic comments? Not even a little quip? Why were they so quiet now, when a well-timed joke could slice through the tension like soft cheese? Her stomach growled at the thought, reminding her of the breakfast she’d only gotten to eat three-quarters of due to someone who was now running scared for reasons that they deigned not to share.
Well, at least there was never a dull moment.
She felt the truck lurch drunkenly to the side as Kerry silently (bewilderingly), followed her shouted command. Freyja’s grip tightened on the handle, wings coming forward to wrap around her as she brought the stone to her lips, holding it for a second to ensure its magic had been stifled.
They hurtled around the corner and Freyja watched with satisfaction, letting out a whoop of triumph as the other car slipped and spun on the ice, taking the corner far too fast to be controlled. But even the scream of tires and the howl of the engine couldn’t drown out the words shouted from a megaphone.
“Hellhound! Heel!”
Her German was a little rusty, but the words were clear and deliberate, if tinged with the lilt of the Irish. The command was a touch odd, but it was the first part that nearly made Freyja lose her grip and crash to the ground.
Even as the realization hit her, Veljara was growling in her ear, fighting to regain control of their wings, of their body, to take to the skies and leave her truck and artifacts behind, to abandon this murderer, this boogeyman who was spoken with the same hushed reverence that the ancient Greeks had once spoken of Thanatos.
It should have been obvious. The glowing red eyes and the mechanical hand were a dead giveaway. But the Hellhound was a robotic killer, a murderous machine that was known to leave a path of destruction in its wake. Kerry was a little odd, but they were snarky, considerate in their own rough way, and…
And sitting in the driver’s seat, not having said a single word to her, staring directly ahead and driving with stiff, robotic movements.
Kerry was the Hellhound.
Veljara was still straining, struggling to break free and rip control from Freyja’s grasp. But thoughts were cycling through Freyja’s brain at near-light speed. The Hellhound had stolen her truck. She’d tried to stab the Hellhound, and lived! She’d traveled for hours with the Hellhound, without them trying to kill her once. And perhaps, most importantly-
She had fucked the Hellhound!
Well, they’d fucked her, but that was more semantics than anything else.
As this thought popped in her head like a golden soap bubble, Freyja was suddenly aware that the hills and marshes were passing by at a slower and slower rate. What should have been a daring escape from the smoldering wreckage of their pursuers was rapidly turning into a chance for said pursuers to catch up. Freyja already saw them shifting in their vehicle, getting their bearings before beginning the chase anew.
Freyja slid back into the truck, slamming the door firmly behind her. She had no reason to remain out there, and fate would have been more than happy to take its due if she had. She dropped the stone back into its bag, but kept it close.
“Why are we slowing down?” She asked, her voice as even as she could manage, like she didn’t just realize that the person she was in an enclosed space with had a body count that couldn’t feasibly be measured. Kerry’s only response was shifting their foot, pressing on the brake instead of the accelerator. Maybe they were only speaking in German now?
“Warum verlangsamen wir?” Freyja tried haltingly. She hadn’t set foot in Germany in at least a few decades, and it showed. She frowned at their short, clipped answer. There was no bite to it, no tension, not even a bit of sarcasm. Something was wrong, that yawning void she’d felt just yesterday was staring at her once more, threatening to drag her soul out and devour it. She tried to shake off the feeling, to urge them to get the truck moving once again.
“Hey, Kerry, los geht’s!”
For the first time since they’d jumped out of the window at the inn, Kerry turned to look at her. Freyja wished they hadn’t. The eyes that met hers were those of a monster, of some unfathomable creature that should never have been brought up from the depths, that was never meant to be gazed on by the living, the dead, by any but the damned. Some part of her knew that it was Kerry’s eyes, the same eyes she’d stared into the night before, but it was as though somehow the soul had been ripped from their mechanical sockets, the crimson glow now a targeting laser.
In the next second, metal digits were squeezing her throat, cold steel palm slammed against her windpipe. Veljara shrieked, the echo of a chain snapping through her mind as she ripped one arm free and began working on another, desperate to be free. Freyja tried to pry their hand off, but their body was an iron statue. Their face hadn’t even shifted. It was still slack, still neutral, that cold, dead stare burning a hole into her.
“Nein! Kerry! Bitte!” Freyja gasped, unsure why their hand was a vice around her throat, choking the life out of her with each second. She tried again, in English.
“Stop! Please!” Nothing. Okay, maybe it had to be in German?
“Fahr!” Spots were already starting to appear in her vision, and Freyja could distantly hear the black van getting closer, no longer hurrying as much as its quarry seemed fit to sit still.
Maybe German, but not just any word. ‘Heel’ was a dog command, that much she knew. Freyja cycled through what words she knew, trying to figure out if they could feasibly be used as a command for dogs. They were still slowing down, almost stopped by this point, and something sprang to Freyja’s mind even as the oxygen trickled out of her lungs.
“Schneller....h-hund.” She choked out, frost and darkness dancing at the edges of her sight as Veljara fought desperately against the chain that still bound her. But Freyja felt warm, even as she saw the last of her breath limp past her lips.
