Home > The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #3)(4)

The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #3)(4)
Author: Rick Riordan

My mouth tasted like I’d been chewing foil. “My uncle’s house. There’s something I need to do.”

“Ohhh.” Alex nodded. “I hate that place.”

I’d been avoiding this task for weeks. I didn’t want to do it alone. I also didn’t want to ask any of my other friends—Samirah, Hearthstone, Blitzen, or the rest of the gang from floor nineteen of the Hotel Valhalla. It felt too personal, too painful. But Alex had been to the Chase mansion with me before. The idea of his company didn’t bother me. In fact, I realized with surprise, I wanted him along pretty badly.

“Uh…” I cleared the last falafel and seawater out of my throat. “You want to come with me to a creepy mansion and look through a dead guy’s stuff?”

Alex beamed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“THAT’S NEW,” said Alex.

The brownstone’s front door had been forced open, the dead bolt busted out of the frame. In the foyer, sprawled across the Oriental rug, lay the carcass of a wolf.

I shuddered.

You couldn’t swing a battle-ax in the Nine Worlds without hitting some kind of wolf: Fenris Wolf, Odin’s wolves, Loki’s wolves, werewolves, big bad wolfs, and independently contracted small business wolves that would kill anybody for the right price.

The dead wolf in Uncle Randolph’s foyer looked very much like the beasts that had attacked my mom two years ago, the night she died.

Wisps of blue luminescence clung to its shaggy black coat. Its mouth was contorted in a permanent snarl. On the top of its head, seared into the skin, was a Viking rune, though the fur around it was so badly burned I couldn’t tell which symbol it was. My friend Hearthstone might have been able to identify it.

Alex circled its pony-size carcass. He kicked it in the ribs. The creature remained obligingly dead.

“Its body hasn’t started to dissolve,” he noted. “Usually monsters disintegrate pretty soon after you kill them. You can still smell the burning fur on this one. Must’ve happened recently.”

“You think the rune was some kind of trap?”

Alex smirked. “I think your uncle knew a thing or two about magic. The wolf hit the carpet, triggering that rune, and BAM!”

I remembered all the times when, as a homeless kid, I’d broken into Uncle Randolph’s house when he wasn’t there to steal food, rifle through his office, or just be annoying. I’d never been bammed. I’d always considered Randolph a failure at home security. Now I felt a little nauseous, wondering if I could’ve ended up dead on the welcome mat with a rune burned into my forehead.

Was this trap the reason Randolph’s will had been so specific about Annabeth and me visiting the property before we took possession? Had Randolph been trying to get some postmortem revenge?

“You think the rest of the house is safe to explore?” I asked.

“Nope,” Alex said cheerfully. “So let’s do it.”

On the first floor, we found no more dead wolves. No runes exploded in our faces. The most gruesome thing we discovered was in Uncle Randolph’s refrigerator, where expired yogurt, sour milk, and moldy carrots were evolving into a preindustrial society. Randolph hadn’t even left me any chocolate in the pantry, the old villain.

On the second floor, nothing had changed. In Randolph’s study, the sun streamed through the stained-glass window, slanting red and orange light across the bookshelves and the displays of Viking artifacts. In one corner sat a big runestone carved with the sneering red face of (naturally) a wolf. Tattered maps and faded yellow parchments covered Randolph’s desk. I scanned the documents, looking for something new, something important, but I saw nothing I hadn’t seen the last time I’d been here.

I remembered the wording of Randolph’s will, which Annabeth had sent me.

It is critical, Randolph had stated, that my beloved nephew Magnus examine my worldly belongings as soon as possible. He should pay special attention to my papers.

I didn’t know why Randolph had put those lines in his will. In his desk drawers, I found no letter addressed to me, no heartfelt apology like Dear Magnus, I’m sorry I got you killed, then betrayed you by siding with Loki, then stabbed your friend Blitzen, then almost got you killed again.

He hadn’t even left me the mansion’s Wi-Fi password.

I gazed out the office window. Across the street in the Commonwealth Mall, folks were walking their dogs, playing Frisbee, enjoying the nice weather. The statue of Leif Erikson stood on his pedestal, proudly flaunting his metal bra, surveying the traffic on Charlesgate, and probably wondering why he wasn’t in Scandinavia.

“So.” Alex came up next to me. “You inherit all of this, huh?”

During our walk over, I’d told him the basics about Uncle Randolph’s will, but Alex still looked incredulous, almost offended.

“Randolph left the house to Annabeth and me,” I said. “Technically, I’m dead. That means it’s all Annabeth’s. Randolph’s lawyers contacted Annabeth’s dad, who told her, who told me. Annabeth asked me to check it out and”—I shrugged—“decide what to do with this place.”

From the nearest bookshelf, Alex picked up a framed photo of Uncle Randolph with his wife and daughters. I’d never met Caroline, Emma, or Aubrey. They’d died in a storm at sea many years ago. But I’d seen them in my nightmares. I knew they were the leverage Loki had used to warp my uncle, promising Randolph that he could see his family again if he helped Loki escape his bonds….And in a way, Loki had told the truth. The last time I’d seen Uncle Randolph, he was tumbling into a chasm straight to Helheim, the land of the dishonorable dead.

Alex turned over the photo, maybe hoping to find a secret note on the back. The last time we’d been in this office, we’d found a wedding invitation that way, and it had led us into all sorts of trouble. This time, there was no hidden message—just blank brown paper, which was a lot less painful to look at than the smiling faces of my dead relatives.

Alex put the picture back on the shelf. “Annabeth doesn’t care what you do with the house?”

“Not really. She’s got enough going on with college and, you know, demigod stuff. She just wants me to let her know if I find anything interesting—old photo albums, family history, that kind of thing.”

Alex wrinkled his nose. “Family history.” His face had the same slightly disgusted, slightly intrigued expression as when he’d kicked the dead wolf. “So what’s upstairs?”

“I’m not sure. When I was a kid, we weren’t allowed above the first two floors. And the few times I broke in more recently…” I turned up my palms. “I guess I never made it that far.”

Alex peered at me over the top of his glasses, his dark brown eye and his amber eye like mismatched moons cresting the horizon. “Sounds intriguing. Let’s go.”

The third floor consisted of two large bedrooms. The front one was spotlessly clean, cold, and impersonal. Two twin beds. A dresser. Bare walls. Maybe a guest room, though I doubted Randolph entertained many people. Or maybe this had been Emma and Aubrey’s room. If so, Randolph had removed all traces of their personalities, leaving a white void in the middle of the house. We didn’t linger.

The second bedroom must have been Randolph’s. It smelled like his old-fashioned clove cologne. Towers of musty books leaned against the walls. Chocolate-bar wrappers filled the wastebasket. Randolph had probably eaten his entire stash right before leaving home to help Loki destroy the world.

I supposed I couldn’t blame him. I always say, Eat chocolate first, destroy the world later.

Alex hopped onto the four-poster bed. He bounced up and down, grinning as the springs squeaked.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Making noise.” He leaned over and rifled through Randolph’s nightstand drawer. “Let’s see. Cough drops. Paper clips. Some wadded-up Kleenex that I am not going to touch. And…” He whistled. “Medication for bowel discomfort! Magnus, all this bounty belongs to you!”

“You’re a strange person.”

“I prefer the term fabulously weird.”

   
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