Oathbreaker: An Adult Urban Fantasy (The Ironspell Chronicles Book 7) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Llaughing Llama Media, LLC

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

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  OATHBREAKER

  Book Four of the Ironspell Chronicles

  MH BONHAM

  Llaughing Llama Media, LLC

  © 2020 by M. H. Bonham.

  Published by Llaughing Llama Media, LLC.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

  Cover by M.H. Bonham.

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Chapter One

  When I met Odin again, I knew I’d need a bigger can of whup-ass. If I managed to survive the army of fallen angels or Watchers, as they called themselves.

  Standing in the cavern where Fenrir, the Wolf of Ragnarok, had laid stricken with venom from the Mayan, feathered serpent god, Kukulkan, made me realized how fucked up my life was. Everything had been going more or less according to plan until Sigrún, one of Odin’s Valkyries, had betrayed me. She decided to turn the Wolf of Ragnarok back over to Odin, even though I had told her and Odin that I had a plan. Apparently they didn’t trust me enough to at least listen and try it.

  Now, all they did was delay Ragnarok, instead of maybe avoiding it altogether. And Kukulkan bit my werewolf girlfriend and her mother, injecting them with powerful venom. My friends, Elryn, the Light Elf, and Tuzren, the demon, had transported them out of there before the Watchers could kill them.

  Now, I turned in time to see the Watchers rush toward me with their flaming swords drawn. Usually, a Normal person would’ve freaked out and begged for mercy. After all, it’s not every day you get to see bat-winged, albinos with fiery swords and automatic weapons. But, I’m not a Normal, or a person without magic.

  My name is Officer Robert “Bob” Ironspell-Cabas, a Denver cop, although most of my friends call me Ironspell, and that’s the name I go by. I’ve been hesitant to call myself a wizard—or a mage, as the stuck-up magic users call themselves—but I’ve been slinging around spells like a fairy grabbing doughnuts on a three-day sugar buzz. In other words, saying I’m not a wizard no longer cuts it. I’m just not the best wizard out there, and as my Dark Elf relatives like to point out, I’m not that well-trained. But, at least I’m housebroken.

  So, when the Watchers came blasting into the cavern looking for Fenrir and instead got me, they were understandably upset. I recognized two of them almost immediate: Azazel and Samyaza. The two fallen angels looked both beautiful and menacing as they half flew, half ran towards me. The Watchers looked much as they had when they were part of the Heavenly Host, except they now had bat wings instead of feathers, and their furrowed brows and menacing glares told me all I needed to know. They were pissed.

  Azazel’s title was commander of the Watchers, and his white hair was only outdone by his almost translucent skin. Samyaza’s black hair contrasted with the same pale skin. Both were intensely beautiful, but both held haughty and arrogant expressions which marred their faces. They wore fatigues and battle armor in the style you’d see on any GI. As they rounded the corner on me, I cast a shield, hoping to buy enough time to create a portal and get the hell out of Dodge. Except I wasn’t in Dodge.

  I was in Montana, somewhere in the wilderness far away from help. So, I tore open a Gateway to Denver and dove towards it. At that moment, I saw what I would call “Dark Force Lightning”—you know, that black and purple lightning that came from Emperor Palpatine’s hands?—hit my Gateway and it snapped shut. I slammed headfirst into the cavern’s wall.

  You know how in old cartoons they’d show stars or little birds flying around someone’s head? Seeing stars isn’t exactly like that, but it’s close. More like my vision went tunneled with flashes of lights. The only reason why I didn’t go unconscious was I had my hands out in front of me. And that fucking hurt. Big time.

  What hurt infinitely worse was Samyaza grabbing me by the neck and hauling me to my feet, a la Darth Vader. Apparently it was a Star Wars day. I could only wish for A New Hope.

  “Where is Fenrir?” the Watcher demanded.

  “There are no plans. We’re on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan,” I squeaked. Yeah, witty, I know.

  Another Watcher came around from the interior of the cave. I didn’t seem to recall him disappearing. “There’s no one else here. Whoever was here is gone.”

  “Acknowledged.” Azazel stood beside Samyaza and leered at me. “So, where did you put the Wolf? Did you bring him to your home?”

  “Errrrh…nerrrh…” I gasped for breath.

  “Set him down but hold onto him. We won’t get our answers from a dead man.” Azazel looked at me with a calculating expression.

  Samyaza looked askance at his leader, but lowered me down until my feet touched the ground. I breathed in as the pressure around my trachea subsided. “I don’t…have…him…” I panted.

  “No? Then, kill him.” Azazel turned around to bark orders at the other Watchers.

  “But, I know…where…” I began before Samyaza’s fingers tightened on my throat.

  “Wait.” Azazel raised a finger. The pressure stopped. “You know where the Wolf of Ragnarok is?” I nodded. “Tell me, then.”

  I stayed silent until Samyaza removed his hand from my throat. I coughed a few times. “Why should I tell you? You’ll kill me after you get the information.”

  Azazel nodded. “Very shrewd. But I’ll kill you anyway because I think you’re bluffing.”

  “Go ahead. Even if you figure out where he is, you’ll never be able to get to him without my help.” I shook my head.

  “Kill him.”

  Samyaza reached for me, but hit the shield I silently constructed after Samyaza moved back. Azazel screamed and charged me, but I threw my own version of Force lightning at him. Mentally, I decided to call it “wizard lightning” since I wasn’t working for the Dark Side.

  I hoped.

  Azazel lit up like a Fae firestorm. The lightning knocked him backwards unceremoniously on his ass and lit his wings on fire. The stench of burning bat wing was enough to make me gag.

  I thought I knew what a pissed-off demon looked like. I had Tuzren, who was a daemon, technically, though every wizard and mage I knew called his kind demons. Daemons are creatures from other planes of existence and not in the general Nine Worlds—or Nine Universes. The Watchers, aka the Fallen Angels, aka the Judeo-Christian demons were nothing like angry Tuzren. Tuzren, when pissed off, was scary; the Watchers, however, were positively terrifying.

  “Kill him!” Azazel shouted and his skin grew red and burst into flame. All at once, the two dozen or so Watchers that assembled around me attacked.

  Chapter Two

  I tossed up another hasty shield, hoping to delay my i
nevitable demise. “Zaphkiel…” I began, deciding to call in the favor. But before I could get his name out of my mouth again, Tuzren appeared, still supersized. He raked one of his claws across the Watchers, knocking three into their brethren and subsequently toppling the fallen angels like bowling alley pins. I told myself I needed to take him to bowling night. We’d clean up.

  “Come on!” he roared at me. “Get your Gateway up.”

  I didn’t hesitated and created the Gateway home. With a quick spin, I tore a rift in the fabric of space and leapt through. Before the Gateway snapped shut, Samyaza leapt through and tackled me to the ground.

  My head hit concrete and my vision tunneled as the Watcher did a quick MMA ground and pound on me. Surprisingly, he didn’t use his flaming sword to cut me into pieces—he was so enraged that he preferred beating the hell out of me with his fists. Tuzren was suddenly on top of him and yanked him off of me, smashing the fallen angel in his pretty boy nose and drawing blood, or ichor, or whatever the hell Watchers bleed.

  My demon hauled me to my feet and half dragged, half carried me toward the Tiny House that was my home. He only stopped and turned around when we were inside the Tiny House’s defenses to look at Samyaza and the other fallen angels glaring at us. Then, with all the decorum of a demon, Tuzren raised his middle claw in a one-finger salute to the Watchers and helped me inside.

  ~ * ~

  “Fuck, what happened to you? Where’s Fenrir?” Elryn asked as I stumbled into the Tiny House’s spacious foyer. The Light Elf was still in her armor and covered with what I presumed was my girlfriend’s blood.

  “Where’s…Luna?” I gasped.

  “She’s with Nana—both she and her mother will be okay. They’re shifters, remember?”

  “Yeah, but they took venom from Kukulkan…”

  “If it doesn’t kill them, it just slows the healing.” She took me by the shoulder and frog-marched me into the kitchen to sit down. “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks for the update,” I grumbled as I collapsed into a chair and picked up a hot mug of coffee the Tiny House created for me. The Tiny House was bigger on the inside because it held its own pocket dimension. It had been a gift to my father to give to me from a Temporal Mage, who could bend space and time. The Tiny House was a living entity that controlled the pocket universe we were in. “We’ve been betrayed.”

  “Betrayed?” Elryn pulled up a chair and looked me in the eyes. “Who? How?”

  “Sigrún.”

  “The Valkyrie?” Elryn’s brow furrowed. “Why would she do that?”

  “Think about it.” I took a swig of the hot coffee and burned my swollen lips. “Owww.”

  Tuzren conjured an ice pack and handed it to me. “Sigrún must have been working for Odin.”

  “Sigrún always worked for Odin,” I pressed the ice pack to my lips. The cold numbed the pain and I sighed in relief. “Valkyries work for Odin—that’s their job description.”

  “They work for Freyja.” Elryn crossed her arms. “Freyja gets first pick of the dead.”

  “But she and her Valkyries bring the Einherjar to Valhalla.” I shook my head. “I should’ve thought of it. Unfortunately, Sigrún acted so much like one of us, I pretty much forgot who her boss was.”

  “Well, at least we know where Fenrir is, and we know the world is safe from Ragnarok.” Elryn shrugged.

  “Are you agreeing with Sigrún and Odin?” I stared at her incredulously. “You’d let them chain the wolf up even though he hasn’t done anything?”

  Elryn sighed and shook her head. “Ironspell, you’re letting your emotions overrule your logic. Of course, I’m on your side. We’ve been through enough together for you to know that. But you’ve heard the story: no matter how many times the gods try to change things, they still bring on Ragnarok. The Nine Universes are destroyed and then reincarnated. The cycle continues. Fenrir must be contained if we have a chance at postponing Ragnarok.”

  “Maybe they’re going about this all wrong. Maybe we can break the cycle.” I squinted at her out of one of my eyes that I was sure was black and blue from the pounding.

  “Doubt it.” She stood up and gripped my shoulder gently. “I know you want to help the wolf, but I don’t think we can do it without bringing on the end of times.” She sighed. “I’m going to go get some sleep.”

  ~ * ~

  After downing the coffee and eating a scone the Tiny House provided—blueberry-cinnamon and very tasty—I stumbled up the stairs towards my room. Tuzren followed me and I glared at him when he caught me when I missed a step, but I didn’t say anything. Gods, did I really need a nanny-demon to make sure I didn’t hurt myself? Apparently Tuzren thought I did.

  I stopped at the first door on the right, which was my own room. Nana was just leaving it and gave me a withering look. Nana is my Dark Elven too-many-greats-to-count grandmother whom I inherited part of my magical aptitude on the Ironspell side. She was also a smoking hot Elf with glossy black hair, curves in all the right places, and large, dark eyes. Yeah, anytime I thought how stunning she was, I reminded myself that it just wasn’t right, and my name sure as shit wasn’t Oedipus.

  Besides, I loved Luna.

  “How is she?” I ventured.

  Nana’s eyes hardened. “Alive, no thanks to you.”

  I lowered my gaze and winced. “I didn’t expect Kukulkan to show up.”

  Nana shook her head. “Look kid, I’m not your on-call first aid station. For one thing, this taxes my powers something serious. I save lives because these are people who are important to me. But at some point, I won’t be able to save them, or you. I’m a healer by necessity and not by birth. I’m only able to do this because I’ve had thousands of years to perfect the craft. Eir is better at this.”

  “Are you suggesting that I bring the wounded to Eir? Eir’s a Valkyrie, and we just got betrayed by Sigrún.”

  “Betrayed?” Nana looked at me darkly. “How?”

  “Sigrún took Fenrir back to Asgard.”

  She stared at me blankly.

  “She wouldn’t listen to my plan. We could avoid Ragnarok and having to chain Fenrir.” I looked at her in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you agree with them, too?”

  Nana sighed. “Listen, Ironspell, I know this is going to be hard to accept, but maybe, just maybe, Odin is right and you needed to bring the wolf back. Baldr is dead because of Fenrir’s escape. Don’t you think that the gods would’ve tried your plan in one of their lifetimes?”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “True, but we don’t know if your plan would work. Suppose it doesn’t? Do you think Fenrir would go quietly back to the fetters?”

  I exhaled, not even realizing that I had held my breath. “No, he wouldn’t,” I admitted. “But the way they have him chained…”

  Nana shook her head. “That is not your concern. You helped stop Ragnarok, and that is what you should be proud of. You found Fenrir, and Fimbulvetr, the long winter before Ragnarok, is no more.”

  “Then why do I feel like a shit?”

  “Because some things are out of your control, and Fate often deals us shitty choices.” She smiled ruefully and patted my arm. “Go cast a healing spell on your face—you look like raw meat—and get some sleep.”

  “What about the Watchers outside?” I asked.

  “I’ll send Fluffy after them if they get too rowdy.” She smirked. “The Tiny House’s defenses have been keeping them at bay.”

  My brow furrowed and immediately set off a stab of pain in my right eye. “If it has these defenses, why the fuck does it let people steal it?”

  “Good question.” She nodded. “You should ask the Tiny House that.” With those words, she pushed me into my bedroom and shut the door. “Bed. Now.”

  ~ * ~

  I stood in the darkened room, unsure of what I was going to see. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw Luna curled up on the lower half of my bed, sound asleep. By the rhythmic rise and fall of her breath I knew she was just asleep and n
ot in any pain. My guess was that the bezoar had worked its magic, and removed the poison. Good.

  I whispered a quick healing spell on my superficial injuries and walked over to her. Luna was almost in full wolf form since the next few days would be a full moon. She was a beta female in the Denver Wolf Pack because she couldn’t control her changing. She was in full human form during the new moon, and full wolf form during the full moon. In between, her form was somewhere between human and wolf, according to the moon’s phase. It made our love lives interesting, to say the least.

  Add to that she was Fenrir’s daughter, and the niece of the only other wolf out of Loki’s and Angrboda’s union, and you get the problem I faced. The Denver Wolfpack had made me a pack member despite not being a werewolf or were. I had found out that the Alpha of the pack, Alaric Kerr, was actually Fenrir’s brother—a little fact he probably didn’t want known. How could I tell her that her father was back in Asgard, and being chained up?

  I took a long shuddering breath and wondered just how badly I fucked up.

  Luna raised her head and opened her brass-colored eyes. She considered me with that inscrutable gaze. Oh, Ironspell…

  I walked over to her and sat down on the bed, hugging her gently as she licked my face. Oh, Luna, I am so sorry…

  What happened? She nuzzled me gently.

  Sigrún took him back to Valhalla. I couldn’t stop her.

  That bitch. She snarled. How dare she take him?

  I shook my head. She was operating for Odin all this time.

  You’ll get him back, won’t you? She pressed her head into my chest as I stroked her fur.

  I’m not sure how we’d do it, I said slowly. But I won’t let you down.

  She raised her head and licked my face. Right then and there, I knew I was fucked. I had to go rescue Fenrir.

  Chapter Three

  Sleep was anything but restful because I found myself back in the Enchanted Forest. Apparently now that my subconscious knew how to get there, it wouldn’t leave the Enchanted Forest, or the Net within a Net (NWAN), alone. Despite its whimsical name, the Enchanted Forest was a wireless network that a defense contractor created for rapid communication via a telepath/Virtual Reality device. Only problem was one of the creators, Spaz, stole the specs and the device to sell it to business, and make his fortune. That went terribly awry when Spaz got in the middle of a werewolf Alpha fight and ended up being turned into a werewolf, himself. The werewolves quickly discovered that the Enchanted Forest ran close enough to the same frequency that Supes’ brain waves operated on. So, the Enchanted Forest soon became the domain of werewolves, wizards, and other supernatural entities, along with daring Normals who could buy limited, burner headsets at Walmart for $19.95.