The Sovereign’s Wake
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A piece of flash fiction from the Brothers of Odin universe, set between Vegas Ghost and Vegas Wolf.
The Sovereign’s Wake
By D.L. Beechinor
The mahogany lounge of the Blackwood Club smelled of old wealth and stale cigar smoke, but to Lizzie, it tasted like iron.
Being a seer of the dead was exhausting enough. Since becoming pregnant and 6 months no less, she was huge; the usual murmurs had grown louder. Whether it was her child or something changing within her, she couldn’t say. She had spent her life navigating human ghosts, clumsy, needy things anchored to their regrets. She knew how to tune them out.
She didn’t know how to tune out a buffalo, and not a whole buffalo, just its head.
Lizzie looked up at the taxidermy head above the fireplace. The plaque read The Sovereign. To the members sipping scotch below, it was a dusty trophy, and no one remembered where it came from or when.
Then frost silvered its nostrils.
Lizzie's breath caught. A white plume escaped her lips, although the woman beside her continued fanning herself near the fire. Lizzie sighed it was going to be one of those evenings. She was ill-prepared for this.
Cold pressed against Lizzie alone.
Phantom snow swept across the Persian rugs, swallowing chair legs and polished shoes. Nobody looked down. A man stepped through a drift without disturbing it.
Then came the thudding.
Heavy hoofbeats trembled through her feet and climbed her bones. Across the room, the scotch remained still in every glass.
Lizzie gripped her chair.
Beside the hearth, the air warped. A massive bull emerged from the swirling snow, whole again. Ice crusted his shaggy coat. His eyes burned blue beneath the broad sweep of his horns.
He paced before the fireplace, lowering his head, then lifting it toward something beyond the walls.
A low bellow passed through Lizzie’s ribs.
Nobody answered.
The bull turned.
His eyes found hers.
“No,” she whispered.
The woman beside her glanced over. “Did you say something?”
The Sovereign charged.
Lizzie threw her arms across her stomach. The room vanished beneath a blinding rush of snow.
She braced for horns.
Instead, she felt the weight of a vast head driving through winter drifts. Snow packed against her muzzle. Behind her came the warmth and thunder of a herd following the path she broke.
Then a crack.
Silence.
She reached for the others and found nothing.
No earth beneath her hooves. No wind carrying their scent. Only a wall, a fire, and voices that never answered her calls.
Where are they?
The question had no words, but Lizzie understood.
“I don’t know,” she breathed.
The emptiness opened wider.
“I’m sorry.”
Warmth returned.
Lizzie sat rigid in her chair, hands spread over her stomach. Across the lounge, someone laughed. The fire crackled. Her husband turned toward her, his smile fading.
Above the mantel, the buffalo’s glass eyes stared across the room.
A single drop of melted frost slid down his cheek.
Her baby kicked hard against her ribs.
This time, the buffalo’s answering breath was so soft only she could hear it. Well, to be fair, given her gift and how it was changing, she was the only one who could ever hear the ghost, whether it was animals or people, or, strangely, old Norse norns who carry the fate of many things and many people. Lizzie was just remembering some of the uninvited guests at her wedding, to be fair to everybody's weddings she had ever attended within the brethren. They were always there, and, strangely enough, they were always hanging out with her grandmother.
If she was gonna start dealing with ghostly animal problems, as well as people, during this pregnancy, she was gonna get very, very cranky.