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Frijoles for Fenris

Kevin Andrew Murphy

Kevin Andrew Murphy lives in northern California, writes novels, short stories, essays, poems and so on, and loves a chance to play with mythology. His most recent short fiction is "The Tears of Nepthys" in Busted Flush, continuing the tale of Kevin's ace spirit medium, Cameo, in the second volume of George R.R. Martin's new Wild Cards trilogy, and "Tacos for Tezcatlipoca" in Esther Friesner's Witch Way To The Mall, a prequel to Bryce Pierponte's misadventures in "Frijoles for Fenris" in this volume.

 

"So what are you going to be for Halloween?"

That question took on a whole new meaning when you were a magician. Bryce knew how to turn himself into a jaguar, and could cast glamours for a dozen different guises, but dressing up in a costume? It seemed almost . . . quaint. "Uh, I don't know. A wicked magician maybe?"

"Wicked? Ooh, you mean like Crowley!" Stewie immediately started headbanging and air guitar, followed by reaching for an actual Stratocaster and, thankfully, a pair of headphones. "Mister Crowley!" he began wailing while bouncing up and down on his bed.

Bryce had not known what to expect when paired with his first college roommate, but one thing he had not expected was a music student and vintage metalhead. Stewie's side of the room was plastered with Iron Maiden and Metallica posters, which was fortunate because the few bits of discreet antique occult paraphernalia on Bryce's side of the room looked positively mundane in comparison. Stewie was also easy to distract, without even resorting to glamours.

He continued to headbang and wail. "Mistaaah Crowleeeeeyyyy!!!"

"A bit of a prat," remarked a voice that jingled like an overwound music box.

Bryce raised an eyebrow and glanced under his bed.

A flash of teeth grinned back, a triple-toothed grin like a shark lurking in the shallows. This was not that surprising since Bryce's familiar, Matabor, was a genuine manticore cub—a manticore being a shark-toothed cross between a bat, a cat, a monkey and a giant scorpion. Since none of these were allowed as pets in the dorms (even if there wasn't a specific prohibition for bats) even beglamouring Matabor as one of the four wasn't going to cut it. Thankfully, Bryce had finally figured out how to weave a cloak of invisibility, or more accurately, the Shroud of Death.

The magical theory was simple: Mortals did not like to look at their own demise, and draped with a necromantic cobweb, Matabor became the bête noire people instinctively glanced away from and denied the existence of, a literal monster under Bryce's bed.

The practice was a little more difficult: Bryce had to contemplate his fears for his own mortality and spin them into tangible form. In an unhallowed graveyard. At midnight. During the dark of the moon. However, given that he had spent the past couple months passing himself off as a far older and more competent necromancer to a cabal of ancient magi who met in the back room of his hometown Denny's on alternate Fridays, skipping a meeting to sit on a tombstone and do macramé with his phobias was positively relaxing in comparison.

It was even more of a relief when he had left for college, leaving his new friends—meaning, for the most part, deadly rivals and backstabbing eldritch associates—behind. They had even given him going-away presents: a monkey's paw, a bottle imp, and a bag of magic beans.

Bryce knew better than to uncork the bottle or even touch the paw, and had locked them both in the bottom drawer of his desk. As for the frijoles encantados, until he ran into a dumb kid looking to unload a cow, he went for the hide-as-pretentiously-"magikal"-decorator item approach: sitting on his bookshelf next to a Harry Potter action figure, glamoured up to look like a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Warner Brothers Feature Film Merchandising Tie-In Candy.

They were pretty odd as beans went even under the glamour. More like some sort of winged seed with the wings broken off, at least according to one of the botany professors after Bryce showed her a sketch. Maybe some species of giant ash? Bryce had been encouraged to bring in a specimen to put under the microscope (a bad idea) or to just plant one and see what grew (a worse one). But since his usual sources of arcane knowledge hadn't turned up anything more relevant than his high school production of Into the Woods, he was ready to try Wikipedia.

He flipped his laptop's window away from his exceedingly awkward and dangerous Freshman Composition essay topic (What was the most interesting thing that happened to you this summer before college? {You know, apart from that time you used a fairy charm to wish for free ice cream for everyone, not expecting a gremlin monkey-wrench gang and an exploding ice cream truck?}) and did a little web surfing. It turned out that ash nuts were also known as ash keys and had long associations with magic. While as for magic ash trees, the most famous would be the Norse world tree, Yggdrasil, whose roots extended into the misty Underworld of Niflheim, the realms of the gods and/or men (poets contradicted each other's mythological botanical geography), and finally Jotunheim, the literal home of the giants.

Bryce raised an eyebrow. A beanstalk, a world tree . . .

He glanced over at the bag of beans. They were no longer on the shelf.

"Damn," said Stewie, "these things are stale. They're still all sorts of different colors, but they all taste like the earwax flavor now."

"Those are mine!"

"Dude, I just ate a few. Don't have a cow."

Bryce retrieved the bag. "Leave my stuff alone, Jack."

"My name's Stewie."

Bryce shrugged. The usual was selling them to a dumb kid for a cow. The stories never mentioned having them sampled by your idiot college roommate.

Bryce grabbed his backpack and pulled out his formulary. He rechecked Master Seidel's notes on the Wicked Magicians Society and the amusing pastime of selling rubes cursed artifacts or alchemical formulae with insufficient product testing—Why drink a strange brew yourself when you can get some patsy to swig it for you?—but while there was a brief mention of magic beans, the general concept was that they were very old, fairly rare, and hijinks ensued when someone's mother tossed them out a window. No mention of what to expect when taken orally.

Bryce looked at the bag and the gaudy Bertie Bott's glamour. He should have just put them in a prescription bottle and labeled them SUPPOSITORIES.

Stewie, however, remained apparently unaffected. He went back to his guitar practice—this time with the headphones off and the amp on—bouncing around and occasionally waving the cornu, the apotropaic hand gesture appropriated by metalheads ages ago, making a Malmsteen concert probably the worst place to attempt the evil eye. But since he did not begin sprouting beanstalks from any orifice or turn into the Jolly Green Giant, eventually Bryce just went back to his essay, serenaded with Dio, Dokken, Mötley Crüe, and a smörgåsbord of Swedish death metal.

Then the music stopped. Bryce turned. Stewie still looked normal (relative to Stewie) but his logorrhea of mangled metal lyrics had slipped into spoken-word monologue. And while not quite "Fee Fi Fo Fum!" it was still pretty damned odd: "—made of what? Fish breath, bear nerves, bird spit, mountain goats, chicks' beards and the sound of little cat feet? That's freakin' weird."

Stewie stood staring at the wall, and Bryce looked: a concert poster for some Viking metal band called FENRIS, complete with a snarling wolf with a sword clenched in its teeth.

"Oh, mountain roots. That's even freakier. Mountains don't have roots. But I guess that's the point, huh?" Bryce had been on vision quests himself, but had never been around anyone else when they did. Or, for that matter, been around anyone stoned out of their skull, since knowing some of the wicked magicians, it was entirely possible the bag had been filled with "magic beans" in the Haight-Ashbury sense and Stewie was just trippin'. "Can't do anything about the chicks' beards, but the sound of cat feet? Oh yeah. I can cut that cord with my axe!"

Stewie did not have an axe in the literal sense, but in the figurative sense, certainly, and he picked it up and played a guitar lick that made the hair raise on the back of Bryce's neck. "Thing about sounds . . . " Stewie riffed. "Every sound has its opposite. Even cat feet. Play the opposite note, they both disappear. It's matter and antimatter." Stewie played another lick. "All we need to do is find the right one." Stewie's fingers danced up and down the frets. "Play the one that makes it hum . . ." The opening chords of "Smoke on the Water" segued into a medley of "Cat Scratch Fever" and "Hell's Bells."

"Play the lick that makes it howl . . ."

Bryce had read about musicians and their magical mystery tours. About Paganini and the Devil's fiddle. Orpheus in the Underworld. Tenacious D's Tribute, which was probably something Jack Black pulled out of his ass, but given what Bryce knew about magic now, made as much sense as anything, and could be explained by magical suppositories.

Stewie was playing a command performance for Fenris Wulf himself. Fenris, son of Loki, doom of Odin, the wolf whose release would kick off the Twilight of the Gods. But while the sound that came from Stewie's guitar didn't quite shake the nonexistent roots of the world's mountains, or cause fish to stop breathing, or make bearded ladies opt for electrolysis, it made Bryce's fingers and toes tingle in a way they didn't do except when he was turning into a jaguar. . . .

Stewie played and played until he sustained one last high wailing note, an electric howl everything the opposite of cat feet, until at last the string broke, the note fell silent, and Bryce's roommate fell back onto his bed. And something great and metaphysical and cosmic shifted.

Matabor came out from under Bryce's bed on not-quite-silent cat feet. "That made my paws itch," the maticore cub remarked, "but an impressive bit of magic all the same."

"Stewie's a magician?"

Matabor's round monkey eyes looked askance. "He's a musician."

Bryce nodded. There were separate metaphysical rules for idiots, madmen, children, and the musically inclined, and Stewie qualified as at least one. "What did he just do?"

Matabor switched his poisonous tail and surveyed Stewie's metaphorical axe, the broken string dangling portentously. "Sympathetic magic," Matabor pronounced. "The dwarves braided the ribbon Gleipnir out of six strands to chain the Great Wolf in Niflheim until the time of Ragnarok. Your roommate just broke one."

The sound of cat feet. The other five impossible things before breakfast were still intact, so Viking Doomsday was still a ways away—unless of course some kid, fool, or enterprising nut job had already brought Fenris an Epilady or a recipe for bird's nest soup. "What do we do?"

" 'We' do nothing." Matabor switched his tail. "Of course, were he my master, I'd advise him to ask Fenris for a boon. But he's not, so I shan't."

Bryce, however, was Stewie's roommate, and responsible for his current predicament, and could take a hint. Plus finding gods in a good mood was a rare occurrence, especially ones chained in the Underworld. Bryce leaned over Stewie. "Ask for a boon."

"A bun?" Stewie said in his sleep. "Sorry, Mr. Wolf. Cell phone. My roommate. Lemme get rid of him."

Stewie put a hand near his ear. "Hey, Bryce, buddy, kinda busy. Call you back?"

"Just ask the wolf for a favor. Anything."

"Oh, okay, natch." Stewie turned his head. "Yeah? Nah, he's not a dwarf. Sort of average. Said I should ask you for something, but you're still kind of tied up. But hey, if you can do it with that sword in your mouth, maybe there's something you can help me with. My concert scream's pretty wimpy, but I bet you could really show me how to howl. . . ."

There was a long silence, then Stewie bolted up, cocking his head like the Victrola dog, eyes closed, listening. At last he nodded. "Yeah . . . Yeah . . . I think I got it. Like this?"

He opened his mouth then, a note emerging, pure and echoing and growing louder, a primeval howl, becoming more perfect, more wolflike every second. Stewie's mouth did the same, his jaws and nose elongating into a snout, his ears rising to a pair of points, his hands knuckling up into a pair of clawed paws. Fur sprouted everywhere, shaggy and grey, and Stewie's clothes began to rip because they were now worn by a wolf. A big, bad, wolf.

The wolf looked at Bryce, and Bryce got the sense that while Stewie was still entranced by having eaten the seeds of Yggdrasil, his spirit was no longer viewing the Norse Underworld and was, in fact, looking at Bryce in the mundane present of a college dorm room. Or at least as mundane as it could be with a werewolf and an occasional wicked magician.

It was instinct, a spell Bryce had done a dozen times and was now like muscle-memory, and the werewolf was looking at a werejaguar. Then another twitch of another spell and the werewolf was looking at another werewolf.

Actually at a werejaguar beglamoured as a werewolf, but everyone's paws were making sound at the moment, so who was going to tell?

The werewolf cocked his head. Bryce?

Animal languages were something you had to work at as a shapeshifter, and so far Bryce had only really mastered cat. He tried to wag his tail rather than swish it. Um, uh, yeah . . .

Stewie ruffed and yipped. Kewl! Let's go out and partayyyy!!! The last ended in a bone-chilling howl, an echo of Fenris, and Bryce tried to look sheepish, or at least embarrassed-wolfish, rather than look like a werejaguar who knew his caterwaul would give up the jig.

Thankfully, even as a werewolf, Stewie was easy to fool. And he was too eager to jump out the window, despite the fact that their dorm room was on the third floor.

The huge wolf sprang to the ground, bounding off with hardly a glance behind. The jaguar leapt to follow, but cat pads were definitely making a sound and they smarted as Bryce tumbled across the lawn and rolled and then took off after Stewie, a werewolf in a Mötorhead T-shirt loping across campus. Like that wasn't going to attract attention.

Of course, it was a week before Halloween. And Stewie was headed for Greek Row.

A number of the frats and sororities were having parties early, and Bryce realized that Stewie had become a wolf in more than one sense of the word as he shifted upright and put one hand on a tree, blocking the path of a slutty barmaid, risque princess, and Little Red Riding Hood in bustier and fishnets. "Why hello, ladies. Where are you going this fine evening?"

The princess screamed, and Red Riding Hood jumped back, but the barmaid stepped forward. "Wow, that's an amazing costume. . . . Where did you get it?"

"Fenris."

"Is he that Icelandic guy in the theatre department?"

Stewie the werewolf shrugged. "Nah, I don't think so." He ogled the barmaid's assets, and she jiggled, flaunting her resemblance to the St. Pauli girl. "You look good enough to eat. . . ."

Bryce shifted upright behind the tree, coming over by Stewie and dropping his glamour entirely. He considered throwing another glamour to give Stewie back his human Seeming, but it would be hard without any props and ruined if Stewie shifted back to four legs.

Not that this was needed. The barmaid giggled coquettishly, Stewie slavered, and the princess and Candy Apple Red Riding Hood stepped closer to the jaws of death, or at least Stewie. Bryce wondered whether, if Stewie did eat any of them, it would be in horror movie or fairytale fashion, slow with carnage or all in one bite. He didn't really want to find out which.

A frat boy in traditional toga wandered up. "Hey, bro, can I have a word with you?"

"Oh, hey Marc," said the princess.

Marc Antony ignored her, and in fact everyone but Stewie. He locked eyes with the werewolf and his lip curled up in a snarl. Bro, seriously, ixnay on the olfway . . .

That was not quite the meaning, and the toga-clad frat boy was speaking Canid, not Pig Latin, but Bryce's only fluency was in Felid and he still got the gist.

Stewie cocked his head. Huh?

"Uh, Stewie," Bryce said. "Listen to the guy."

The frat shot Bryce a glance. Brother wolf?

Bryce didn't know how to wag his tail when he didn't have one so just nodded.

The frat made a low anxious puppy growl sound. Is this his first full moon?

Bryce nodded, and the frat boy took the initiative, grabbing Stewie by one extremely hairy clawed arm. "Bro, come back to the house. We've got a party."

Stewie whined. But these bitches are hot!

Bryce got Stewie's other arm. "Don't worry. We'll have fun."

 

It turned out that what modern werewolves did for the hunger of the full moon was have an all-you-can-eat-ribs night, including the actual ribs. It also turned out that Bryce had been a bit provincial in his thinking and had never considered that, instead of the local chapter of the Wicked Magicians Society, or some other witches' coven, conjurers circle, or thaumaturgists' kaffeeklatsch, the first supernatural organization he would encounter at college would be a fraternity of werewolves. Or that said fraternity would be pressing him and Stewie for membership.

Actually, Stewie was off the hook for the moment, having eaten his body weight in pork ribs and keg stands of beer, including a few slabs of baby backs all in one bite (partially answering Bryce's question of whether Stewie could swallow Little Red Riding Hood whole, fishnets and all) and was now sleeping it off on the couch. Bryce, on the other paw, was sober.

"Great Romulus and Remus!" swore Marc, the frat they'd met outside and chief recruiting officer for Gamma Rho Rho. "We shouldn't have any lone wolves! We are a brotherhood!"

Bryce held his tongue, not mentioning that he was pretty sure Romulus slew Remus, but then again, it was probably one of those unpleasant family scandals nobody talked about.

A particularly big werewolf loomed over Bryce and sniffed. "You smell like cat."

"Cat, it's what's for breakfast," said a skinny blond werewolf across the room.

"Meeeowww," said another werewolf mockingly. Bryce covered a laugh with a swig of beer. Given the intonation, that particular "meow" meant I'm a fertile queen and want to have your kittens, you tomcat stud, you.

"So," said the huge werewolf, "are you from another chapter or are you legacy members?"

Bryce could speak wolf-speak better than he could understand this. He cocked his head. Come again?

"He means," Marc translated, "were you bitten, or is lycanthropy something that runs in your family?"

 

Bryce considered the honest answer: neither. He was a magician who knew how to turn himself into a jaguar and how to throw a wolf glamour, and his roommate had tripped out on some seeds from Yggdrasil and been granted a boon by Fenris Wulf himself.

Neither story sounded like it would go over particularly well. Stewie they might actually be impressed with, but a jaguar priest of Tezcatlipoca? Not so much.

"Do I have to say?"

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," said a werewolf in a pink polo shirt with a popped collar. "Either is fine. Take pride in what you are!"

"Except being legacy is a lot cooler," said the blond werewolf.

"Shut up, Frank," snapped the one with the pink collar.

Frank snarled. "No, you shut up, Pinky. Listen. I've been changing since I was eight. They were bitten. I can tell from their accents. This guy's probably been shifting less than six months and he probably bit his roommate first week of school. And he reeks of some weird aftershave, which has to be why nobody sniffed him out and he smells like a cat."

Marc looked at him and sniffed. "What is that anyway?"

"Um, the Lesser Bath of Hebe." Bryce glanced around. "I think it contains civet musk." Actually, Bryce knew for certain that it contained civet since he'd compounded it himself.

"Why do you wear it?"

"It keeps me from getting zits." That, and other side benefits of a perpetual youth spell.

"We'll call you Kitty," said the huge werewolf, swatting Bryce on the back with a giant paw. "Call me Brutus. I head this chapter." There was a brief stare-down between him and Marc, but Marc looked away. "Good job, by the way, Marcus, finding these two," Brutus added softly.

"Thank you, sir," Marc mumbled, then glanced to Bryce. "Help you move in tomorrow?"

It wasn't exactly a request. "Uh, yeah, sure . . . "

Bryce considered his options. It turned out it was much easier to be a wicked magician than a good one. Wicked was just a matter of smiling and saying that you meant to do that whenever a spell went south. Or at least flying off in your chariot borne by griffins and letting someone else deal with the mess.

Good? That was about taking responsibility for your actions. Or at least trying to turn lemons into lemonade.

Not that Stewie being a Fenris-blessed werewolf was exactly a lemon, or that the bros at Gamma Rho Rho weren't a good support group, but Bryce had gotten him into the world of the supernatural, and he'd be a jerk to just ditch him. And there was a side benefit in that probably the best place to hide out from the local chapter of the Wicked Magician Society was as part of the local werewolf fraternity—if the bros didn't figure things out and eat him first.

Bryce wasn't about to use the bottle imp or the monkey's paw, since the first cost a soul and the second a life. But the bag of beans? Oh yeah.

After all, the best way to impersonate a werewolf was to actually be one, and there were plenty of magicians who had learned more than one alternate shape. Not taking this opportunity was simple laziness. That, or common sense.

Stewie was more than a bit addled about how he became a werewolf, but he had the most impressive howl that any of the bros at Gamma Rho Rho had ever heard, and he could shapeshift with the best of them, so he went with the flow, telling Bryce about the whacky dream he had about climbing around the roots of a giant tree and playing his axe for a big wolf.

Bryce took notes, and shortly after that, three magic beans.

They did taste like earwax. Or at least extremely stale magic ash nuts.

"So what happens now?" he asked Matabor.

"Do you have your offering for the god?" his familiar asked.

Bryce nodded. He had found an authentic recipe for bird's nest soup and hit the Asian shop at the local strip mall to get everything but the extremely expensive nest, not that this was an issue—he intended to boil the swallow-spit goodness right out of Gleipnir. And if helping to make Ragnarok come one third faster did not help his Wicked Magician street cred, nothing would.

"What are you going to make it in?" Matabor asked pointedly.

Crap. Bryce grabbed the bag of Asian groceries and rushed down the stairs of the Gamma Rho Rho house, trying to find the kitchen, but the place was an absolute maze of fancy woodwork and paneling, and he finally found himself in the garden looking at a squirrel. "I don't suppose you know where I could borrow a knife and a bowl?"

The squirrel paused, nibbling a nut. Knife? Bowl? Sure! It flicked its tail. Follow me!

Bryce ran after it, wondering for a second how, since his Canid was sub-par, he was suddenly speaking Rodent so well, but pretty soon he realized his spirit journey had begun. And the moment after that, he tripped and fell sprawling, Asian groceries bowling across a black-and-white-tiled floor. A floor tiled with patches of black and white ice.

You must pardon my threshold, a voice echoed in his mind. Men call it the Pit of Stumbling. I mean to have it repaired properly, but my thrall never gets around to it and my maidservant does a half-assed job of everything, so ah well. So hard to get good help these days. A woman stepped forward, dressed a lot like Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil, except that in addition to having her hair black on one side and white on the other, her face was the same way too, but opposite. The squirrel was perched on her white right hand. Ratatosk here tells me you wish to borrow both my knife and my bowl? What possible need would you have for such things?

"Um  . . . " Bryce had saved time and was already prostrated at her feet. "Lady Hel?"

The Ruler of Niflheim nodded in assent. Welcome to Sleet-Cold. Don't lick the floor.

"Thank you." Bryce got to his feet. "I, um, have a recipe for bird's nest soup." The rest of the story spilled out of him: the Wicked Magicians Guild, the bag of beans, Stewie playing for Fenris, the glamours, and the trouble of being a werejaguar in a frat house full of werewolves.

Hel clapped her black hand and her white hand together in delight. An ignoble task! A suitably wicked deed! Oh, I will happily lend my knife and bowl for such a feat. My brother's freedom depends upon it. She looked serious then. However, as much as it might aid my sibling and earn his gratitude and mine, I can not grant such a boon for free. A death goddess must keep up appearances. For everything you take from Hel, you must give something in return. Her black-and-white visage turned to Matabor who had arrived sometime in the middle of Bryce's recitation and taken the form of a full-grown manticore. The Shroud of Death was perched atop his head, more a veil or kerchief than anything. That is a pretty bit of weaving. May I see it?

You did not say no to a goddess. Unless, of course, you were a familiar waiting for a cue from his master. But Bryce nodded, and Matabor bowed down before Hel, letting her take the web Bryce had knotted from his own fears.

Hel inspected it and smiled. How charming. Fear of Mortality, yes?

Bryce nodded, his heart pounding in his chest.

She gestured to a wall of glacial ice, beyond which Bryce could discern a dark shape. My bed is Sickness. My bed curtains I wove from Misery—Splendid Misery. She weighed Bryce's Fear of Mortality in her black and white hands. I could use this for a pillowcase.

Bryce nodded again. "Yes, Lady Hel."

It is a bargain then. She smiled. In return, I give you the loan of my knife and my bowl.

They appeared, the bowl white as bone, the knife black as sin, on a table likely made of something improbable and awful with a dire name, and Bryce assumed the knife and bowl had names too, but he couldn't recall at the moment what they were. A moment later, he had both in his hands, along with a bag of frozen Asian groceries the squirrel had retrieved.

Lady Hel escorted Bryce and Matabor from her hall. They passed through the frozen mist, past a huge chained dog with a bloody neck and chest. This is Garmr, my hound, said the Mistress of Niflheim, obviously enjoying giving the grand tour of Her domain. She stroked the dog's ears with her black hand. Garmr, my pet, tell my brother of our visit. . . .

The dog began an eerie howl that echoed through the mist, and a moment later, another echoed in return, the howl of Fenris Wulf, the one he had taught Stewie.

Then came the vision quest as Iron Chef, with Bryce taking what little bit of slack Stewie's guitar solo had given the ribbon Gleipnir, soaking it in Hel's bowl, scraping it with Her knife, then moving it around until everything was drenched in chicken broth. But in the end, the ribbon was looser, Hel's bowl was filled with extremely expensive dwarf-forged Chinese soup, and Fenris Wulf howled in triumph. Bryce joined in, feeling himself shifting, learning the magic and form of the wolf while Hel retrieved Her knife and Her bowl.

She lifted them both aloft, bowl in her left hand, blade in her right. I propose a toast to my brother's incipient freedom and the glorious death that awaits! Skål!

It was a general rule of vision quests that when a god offered you a bowl of something to drink, you drank. And after Hel took Her share, She placed the dire dish on the ground between Bryce and Fenris Wulf, the upper half of a giant's skull, and they both began to lap it dry.

Somewhere along the line the apocalyptic bird's nest soup began to taste like cheap beer and instead of Hel's mental voice, Bryce heard Brutus: "Damn, Kitty, you can sure put it away. That's the third keg. You're the beer luge champion, but I'm cutting you off."

Bryce's stomach still felt like an empty pit. A wolfishly empty pit. And he was crouched on the floor in front of a cross between a beer bong and an ice swan, beer soaking into his fur.

He sighed then panted. The operation had been a success. He was now a werewolf as well as a werejaguar, and all it had cost was hastening Ragnarok another sixth. And his fears for his mortality. But having surrendered them, he wasn't worrying and fell blissfully asleep.

He awoke on a frozen black-and-white-tiled floor and looked up to see Hel polishing her cutlery. Welcome back to Niflheim, boon-friend. I am pleased to see you again. Pleased, but not surprised. She smiled a disturbing smile. My bowl is Hunger. My blade is Starvation. And you are now one of my Helleder, my favored draugs.

"I'm dead?"

Or undead. Whichever you fancy. She continued to smile. The thread of your life is caught in my threshold, neither of Midgard nor of Niflheim. Yet the doors of Sleet-Cold are open to you whenever you choose, whichever way. Come freely, go safely, and leave some of the happiness you bring. She chuckled. You drank yourself until you came back to my hall. It's only fitting that I let you return to Midgard to drink others dry as well. And after all, you are favored by my brother.

Bryce remembered something else he'd read in Master Seidel's formulary, under the section on Immortality: One of the ways to become a vampire was to be a dead werewolf.

He awoke back on the floor of the Gamma Rho Rho frat house, in a puddle of beer and ice, finding himself shifted back to human shape, but still sporting a pair of canines that would do any werewolf proud.

Or any vampire.

Bryce sighed. Curiouser and curiouser. Just when he thought his life, or unlife, couldn't get more complicated. He wondered if there were any vampire fraternities.

But at least this answered the question of what he was going to be for Halloween.

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