George Walsh was poised on the sloped corner of an abandoned parking lot, the mountains ghosted blue in the distance. He shivered against the morning chill despite the two hoodies and the sweatpants he wore. He opened and closed his fists, feeling the coldness of his fingers against the his palms. It was because he'd been so vain as to wear fingerless gloves and not the functional ones that his fiancée had given him last Christmas, that he would have to suffer, but there would be no one to see them except for Joseph and the starless suburban night.

Winter was an undesirable season in Maine, but it was a tolerable one. They were cold and snowy throughout the state, and were especially severe up in the northern parts, mainly around Aroostook County. The coastal areas, however, were of a moderate temperature by the Atlantic Ocean, which resulted in milder winters and cooler summers. George would have rather met Joseph in Brooklin, at least in the same area as his camp, but Joseph wouldn't be taking any chances, so the two of them agreed to meet up in Bangor.

George dragged his foot against the asphalt and felt the bumps of loose rocks roll under his shoe. Around his waist his sword hung, sheathed in its scabbard and hooked to its belt. He never left his room without it, which was a habit his fiancée had been trying to rid him of and a threat Vincent had been yearning to divulge in the matter of importance to the Council of the Ansuz, which was something George couldn't be bothered to worry about, because, although his cousin was a high-ranking member of Camp Norse, not even Ullr's council body would listen to anything sharing blood with the wily trickster god.

Joseph's rust-colored pony car pulled in from the other side of the lot, a compacted yet styled sporty car that looked like it had just come out of the 1970's. George heard the distorted bass of the stereo a moment before he made out the tune as Joseph stopped in front of him. He shifted from foot to foot and heard the click of the passenger door unlock, which was a cue for him to hurry his ass up and get in, which he did gladly.

The inside of the car smelled musty and heavily like freshly-mowed grass. George cranked the window all the way down and spewed out a coughing fit.

"Christ," he said, his voice pinched. "Can you not hotbox the fucking car?"

Joseph sat behind the wheel, his foot flooring the brake pedal and his hands lethargically hanging from the top of the steering wheel. He had his head tilted back, his eyes closed. If George wasn't mistaken, he'd have thought he was asleep.

And then Joseph was laughing. It was one of those giddy, drunken laughs, where it was endless and reluctantly comedic. George perched his elbow on the bottom frame of the rolled-down window and scowled out over the isolated parking lot.

"Oh, come on, man." Joseph was awake, fully awake, his pupils small and pin-like. "It's my fuckin' car anyway. When you get your own, then you don't gotta worry 'bout anything."

George sighed, his breath visible, if only for a second. "Yeah, I get it," he said, and then buckled himself in. "Let's just get goin'. We'll talk while you drive."

Joseph scoffed. "Whatever you say, Walsh."

He shifted the gear stick from PARK to DRIVE and, rather than ease off the brakes, he lifted his foot completely and accelerated the gas. George gave a vice grip to the passenger grab-handle above him when Joseph turned sharply out of the parking lot and onto the main road.

Only those who'd left for their jobs early dominated the street, but Joseph was relentless; he sped through yellow lights, ignored the rules of one-way streets, and never stopped and proceeded with caution at stop signs. The world was quiet in its own groggy awareness.

Joseph made a right onto Church Road and drive past the Maple Grove Cemetery. Open, brown-grassed fields expanded on either side of the road. Barren trees, their naked branches crooked and vulnerable to the cold, whizzed past in a blur.

He spoke up. "How're the kids doin,' by the way?"

George turned his head to look at him and furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean kids?" He adjusted the seat belt that rubbed against his neck, pulling it over his shoulder.

Joseph laughed, a sort of guffaw that sounded deep in the chest and was loud and boisterous, something George wasn't used to hearing from someone so lanky and fragile-looking. "Mira and Anthony and Matt!" he exclaimed, his voice ringing with the air that whistled from the open window.

George stayed silent. Yes, he remembered Mira and Anthony and Matthew, but not in the conditions that they had been in previous to the arrangement. He remembered them to be charred and deformed, their bodies having been deposited in a fire-pit deep within the mountainous terrains of Baxter State Park. Matthew had been the only one to live, but without the proper medical treatment Eric had provided him once him, he would have died as well.

When George didn't say anything else, Joseph took one hand off the steering wheel and reached behind the passenger's seat while George thumbed the blunt end of his sword's handle.

"Come on, man!" He produced a small glass bottle that was filled with caramel-colored liquid and handed it to George. "Have a sip or two. You've gotta be cold."

George huffed, but accepted the whiskey. "Maybe if you didn't blast the A/C when it's already in the thirties."

"Maybe if you didn't complain so much."

George twisted the bottle's cap, breaking the sticker-seal around it, and popped the cork out. He tilted his head back and took a heavy drink, puffing his cheeks with a mouthful, and swallowed. It burnt his throat and warmed his stomach, something he hadn't felt since the day he got expelled from G.S. Academy for breaking into the headmistress's liquor cabinet and showing up drunk at his twelfth-grade graduation ceremony.

"There we go," Joseph said in a soft, whispered voice. "Just a wee dram to ward off the winter chill."

"Shut up," George said and handed him the Crown Royal.

While George had only taken a sip, although a large one, Joseph nearly downed half of the bottle. He accelerated the car and the speedometer's needle whirred high on the gauge. And it was within that moment, between the bitter-sweet taste of whiskey in his mouth and Joseph reaching for the stick-shift to switch gears, that George regretted ever agreeing to this meet-up.

The road led to a three-way intersection, where Church Road became perpendicular with Essex Street. Joseph turned left, and because he was going so fast and didn't suspect anyone else to be on the road, nearly crashed head-on into a silver Nissan Sentra.

"Holy shit!"

Joseph jerked the wheel and swerved off the street and onto a neighboring strip of lawn which jutted out from someone's picket fence. The passenger side-view mirror clipped the mailbox, breaking off the red semaphore flag, and just about crushed the entire thing with the rear end of the car. George hollered out something vulgar. Joseph was laughing like a madman.

The person Joseph had nearly hit sounded their horn and made exaggerated and very indelicate gestures. George smacked Joseph on the back of the head and called him a fucking it.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he exclaimed. "Are you really already that drunk? What the fuck?"

Joseph scoffed, offended. "Don't yell at me, man! Bitch nearly hit me."

"You nearly hit 'em. Don't give me that crap."

He waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

George sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, bouncing his leg rhythmically while Joseph tapped his hands on the steering wheel to the song that sung in his head. They sped by Everlasting Farm, past its awning-covered greenhouses and its flower garden patches and its little read barn with its little white truck parked out front of it.

Joseph sniffed. "Welcome to Orono," he said, and then turned to look at George. "Home of the University of Maine."

George rolled his eyes. "Why are we here?"

"Ask me that again in about five minutes."

And it was, more or less, five minutes when George asked again. Joseph had turned down a more isolated road, snowy gravel of its path, and surrounded by trees with dead leaves. They came to a roundabout with a lone oak that seemed half dead, but still very much alive and very out of place.

But the thing was, George knew that tree. He knew it biblically, from the lessons he'd taken at his old parochial school and the plethora of Germanic pagan lore he'd managed to succumb to: Jove's Oak. Known in Old High German as Donar's Oak, it had been an oak tree that was sacred to the Norse god Thor, and was cut down by a Christian missionary named Winfrid Boniface to build what would be the site of today's Saint Peter's Cathedral in Fritzlar, Germany.

"What the hell, Joseph?"

"I don't know, man," he said. "I just think —"

"Why are we here? Of all places?"

Joseph looked at him, confused. "What?"

George gestured towards the oak tree, which was less of a tree and more of a stump. Ashen moss grew at the center and dappled the sides, eventually spreading to the base with the shriveled wheat stocks that were blanketed with morning frost. Joseph opened his mouth, realization dawning his face.

"Oh," he said. "The… stump?"

George huffed. "Yes, the damn stump. Why're we here? Do you even know what that is?"

"It's a, uh, tree… stump?"

George hit the ceiling of the car, his fist tightly clenched, his knuckles white. "Thor's Oak! You brought us to Thor's Oak."

Joseph narrowed his eyes, staring ahead at the rotted stump. "But wasn't that cut down ages ago?"

"Yes," George said, "it was, but now it's here. You've got a lot of explaining to do."

"Me?" Joseph whirled on him. "How the hell was I supposed to know that it was some sacred oak, or whatever? Look, Walsh, can we just cut to the chase? I called you, remember? To talk?"

And that he had. George had received a direct phone call from Joseph who'd been calling from a payphone in the auditorium lobby of Kennedy High School in Bellmore. He'd said that he needed to speak with him directly, face-to-face, about the contract that they'd agreed on nearly half a year before — a contract they'd bound with an oath and blood.

George reached forward and pulled up the metal bar that was below his seat, and grounded his feet to the ground and pushed back. His seat follow, rolling back and locking into place after about a two-foot difference. He had more leg room, more room to move, and crossed his ankle over his thigh and gave Joseph a look that encouraged him to carry on.

Joseph slammed himself back into a sluggish sitting position and humphed.

"This ain't good news," he said.

George's self-control sizzled. "Just spill it."

Joseph downed a heavy sip of whiskey, the bottle in his hand, which he'd never let go of, and gave a gravely and unapologetic sigh as he handed the bottle over to George.

When George became impatient, he was an active use of the adjective hotheaded. He did everything with curt, brash movements, which was no different when he snatched the bottle of Crown Royal of Joseph's hand and then proceeded to open the passenger door and chuck it out.

"Dude!" Joseph cried out. "That costed my paycheck's worth."

George sat back down, but kept the car's door open. A feverishly cold breeze swept inside, causing goosebumps to ghost up Joseph's arms and tingle the back of his bare neck.

"Your taste in alcohol sucks," he said. "Now, just tell me whatever the hell you've gotta say. I didn't come to prattle and get drunk. I came to know just why you called."

"Right," Joseph said. "It's about the treaty we signed."

"By blood," George added.

"By blood, yes." Joseph licked his lips. "Oh, so — I don't. No, we should — shit, I don't know! Walsh, man, come on. Do we really gotta keep on doin' this? At first, it was, like, great and everything, but now? What the hell? Two dead in New York and now another two dead in Maine? And then, don't even get me started with the whole 'prisoner' thing."

Joseph sighed like he was tired.

George cocked an eyebrow. "I didn't know you knew all of that."

"Well, it's kind of hard not to know when Chiron decides to gather the entire camp at the pavilion and tell everyone." He sniffed and whipped at his nose. "You didn't tell me your brother was coming to meet him."

George blinked. "My brother?"

"Yeah," Joseph said. "Average height. Black hair; shoulder-length, I think. Hella green eyes. He kind of reminds me of Nico — son of Hades, so with, like, the whole goth-punk vibe and everything, and the long hair. Kids need to cut it, damn."

George's jaw clenched and unclenched. "He's my cousin," he said. "Why was he there?"

Joseph shrugged. "Don't know, man. He just came, talked with Chiron, and then, like, passed out. He's probably still there, or he's back in Maine. I dunno."

"Did he say anything else?"

"What do you —" Joseph stopped himself. His stomach hurt with the assumption that maybe, just maybe, this Walsh cousin of George's knew what they'd done. That he knew the truth and decided to tell Chiron. Maybe he'd even told the administrators back at his camp in Maine.

"What else would he need to say?"

George scratched at his chin and nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess. He probably doesn't know, which is what I want. But really, if he did find out and tried to tell Ullr?" He gave an uncomical laugh. "I don't think anyone would believe him anyway."

"Chiron seems to," Joseph said.

"Yeah? Well, keep an eye on him for me."

Joseph looked conflicted. "Keep an eye on Chiron? Are you kidding me?"

George gave him a look. "No, I'm not."

Under George's gaze, Joseph felt small, ant-like, an insignificant creature not worth his time and not worth his breath. George was all height and width, all hard and rough edges. His sword was nudged in on the floor by his foot, the length of it passing between his legs and resting against his thigh. The shine from the metal ridge on the handle glinted in the morning glow. It was that sword, the sleekness of it, that made the tips of Joseph's fingers itch and tingle.

"You understand that we can't break this, right?" George said it as a statement, not a question.

Joseph swallowed. "Well, yeah, I know. But that doesn't mean —" He stopped and composed himself, relaxing his shoulders and unwrinkled his brows. His heart raced. He looked George in the eye, scared, yes, but determined. "I know, but I want to. I have to. You need to be stopped."

And it was within that moment that the air began to smell of ozone, that sweet and pungent zing that came on days of rushed winds and dark clouds. The hairs on George's arms rose as small sparks of electricity cracked from his fingertips. Joseph felt a wave of nausea rush through him, so he moved his hand to unbuckle himself.

"Hey — wait!"

The seatbelt clicked.

When George extended his hand, Joseph caught his forearm with a white-knuckled grip. A prickling sensation overwhelmed his hand, spreading up his arm to his elbow. All he felt was pins and needles, almost like his nerves were vibrating. The car, which had been running, now sputtered and came to an end with a final mechanical whine.

There was a moment of hesitation, or really, a moment that seemed to slow down. They both saw it, both acknowledged it, and wired back. Joseph felt buzzed, high, like he was floating in the surreal reality of it all. George seemed taken aback. He hadn't been expecting for Joseph to grab him.

And then there was a woman standing in the way of the open door, a hip jutted out and her arms folded in a way that made her seem methodical and curious-eyed, with her chin resting atop of her knuckles and her brows raised with sleight interest.

"Oh, don't let me interrupt," she said, her voice pitched in an accented sing-song tone.

George held his breath, but Joseph blurted out, "Who're you?"

The woman seemed satisfied with the question and replied, "My name is Vár. Ain't it a quaint mornin'?"

George sighed. "Shit."