by Kendall Grey
“Ow,” I say, testing the spot.
Pain is not a construct I like to dabble in. I experienced it quite intensely while splayed and spitted under the serpent’s dribbling venom, and if I never feel anything of the sort again, it’ll be too soon.
“You’re hurt,” he says, grabbing my suitcase and guiding me to a bank of chairs. “Sit here. I’ll be right back.”
He leaves me to my misery and humiliation for a few minutes and returns with a wet paper cloth, which he dabs on my cheek. Red stains the brown towel. I work my jaw, tasting blood. This mortal stuff is for the birds.
“What happened?” he asks.
“I fell down the escalator.”
His gentle smile returns. “I know. I mean, how did you get here?”
“Oh. That.” I take control of the towel and dab at my lip again. “I stole someone’s passport, posed as a ground worker, stowed away in the luggage hold of a plane, used a chicken as a distraction to climb out, bypassed customs, and here I am on my way to baggage claim to find you,” I say, quite pleased with my ingenuity. “I was with you the whole flight.”
His expression morphs from amusement to shock to horror and finally settles on utter disbelief. He quickly looks around and drops his voice. “You did what?”
I start to repeat everything, but he holds up a hand to stop me. “Shh! It was a rhetorical question. Don’t say another word.”
“You just asked me—”
“Forget what I said,” he hisses. “If Homeland Security finds out, they’ll deport you, and they won’t be nice about it.”
“What is ‘Homeland Security’?”
“Bad guys,” he says quietly, eyes darting and tracking every little movement around us. “Well, bad guys to you. They guard the US borders. Stop non-citizens from coming in. You’re an illegal alien who,” he drops his voice to a whisper, “stole someone’s passport. If they find you, they’ll ship you back to Iceland.”
“They also have my picture on the television,” I say, a little proudly, pointing to the screen.
He turns, and his Adam’s apple plunges with a swallow. He looks like he’s seen a frost giant.
“But you can help me,” I say.
“No, I can’t. If I do, they’ll throw me in jail. Who did you take the passport from?”
I dig around in my feather coat pocket and produce the little booklet. “I nicked it off a woman with a vacant look who needed some money. I got these clothes too. What do you think?” I stand and model for him with a twirl.
His eyes widen, and he shifts his gaze away. I can’t tell if he likes my outfit or is embarrassed by it. Maybe the cut-up breeches are too much?
“Sounds like she was hooked on drugs and needed the money for a fix,” he says.
I stare blankly at him. Drugs? Fix? No clue.
“Never mind,” he says. “You need to get out of here before someone catches you. Where did you get this suitcase?”
“Cargo hold. Duh.”
“You couldn’t have picked something little more … nondescript?”
“I like skulls.”
“Ditch the suitcase.”
I clutch the handle, drawing the luggage close. “No.”
He spins me around and marches me toward the door. “Then you need to wait outside and hide it behind you or something. If anyone mentions that it looks like theirs, give them the suitcase and tell them you must’ve made a mistake.”
“I’m not giving up my treasure,” I say, positioning myself between it and Gunnar Magnusson.
He presses his pouty lips together and escorts me toward a bench outside. A foul stench that smells similar to Sleipnir the tour bus’s farty arse assaults me in the nose hairs. The vile odor surges from all around, waxing and waning as various vehicles come and go. I scrunch up my nose and cover it with my wrist.
Gunnar Magnusson drapes his jacket over my luggage and points to the bench. “Sit. Stay. I might be a while. Baggage claim is taking forever.”
“Yeah, I heard they were pretty clucked up back there.”
Gunnar Magnusson levels me with a suspicious glare. “You are so much trouble, Loki.”
I grin. “Thank you.”
“Don’t move.” He points at me as if a mere finger gesture will hold me down. Ha! He has no idea who he’s dealing with.
But I behave myself. For the most part.
The sun lays near the horizon, about an hour or so from slipping over its lip. A constant flurry of bodies and cars and buses and planes circulates in an unending cycle.
I watch this new breed of Midgardians. They’re different from the ones in Iceland. They all seem to be in such a hurry. Some are angry. Some are happy but sound angry. Their language is harsh. Undisciplined. They do not always treat each other with respect. I notice a couple of them arguing inside their vehicles. One shakes a fist at another through the open window, then snaps out his middle finger when the other man drives away, flinging his hand in the air.
I make a fist and try to unfurl the middle finger. It’s not as easy as it looks. I keep doing it over and over until I master the trick. I do it slowly. I do it fast. I exercise the surrounding fingers and train them to pull downward, leaving the middle one to stand straight and tall.
Then I try it out on passersby. Most don’t notice, but a few slow their steps, meet my eyes, and scowl or mumble curses. One woman casually passes without even a pause and flicks her finger at me in response. I laugh at that.
Americans.
In the many minutes that fly by under a slowly darkening sky, I learn things about these Midgardians:
They are inherently selfish and rarely stop to help a fellow human. I saw a legless man sitting in a chair with wheels, pleading for alms, but no one gave him a thing.
They are either rich or spoiled. Or both. Many of them walk around carrying food or drinks and toss them unfinished into the “waste.” Have they no idea how lucky they are to have such riches? In my day, men had to toil at the hunt to feed their families. Everything here seems so … convenient.
They are lazy and have no concept of hard labor. I overhear countless conversations in which people complain about having to “go to work,” or they say they can’t have any fun because they have to watch their children. Isn’t that a parent’s job? To watch the children?
America is a den of thieves and liars and awful people ripe for hustling. Hustling is my “jam,” as they say on Asgard Awakening. I love this place already.
“Loki,” a hushed, out-of-breath voice calls from the ground behind me.
I don’t turn around. “Huginn, if that’s you, I’m going to trip you like Thor did to Loki in Asgard Awakening. Except I’ll do it in oncoming traffic.” I nod to the cars whizzing by in front of the bench.
“Let me hide in your suitcase.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“What do I have to do to get rid of you?”
When he doesn’t answer, I turn around, resting my arm on the back of the bench. “Get it through your thick bird brain. I’m not interested in spending any more time with you, spy. I’ve given the old man enough ammunition to use against me already.”
Checking our surroundings, Huginn ventures out from his hiding place behind an enormous terra-cotta pot overflowing with flora. “I haven’t told him anything,” he whispers.
I give him my back and curl my arms over my chest. “Sure, you haven’t.”
“He’s been so busy with … well, he’s been too busy to notice me,” Huginn says. “It’s been a long time since I had human company. I thought you and I were getting along well.”
“You thought wrong,” I snap, turning to look at him.
What is Odin busy with that he doesn’t want me to know about?
“You’re a chicken. An agent of my archenemy. Why the Hel would I want to keep you around?”
He opens his wings in a magnanimous gesture and puffs out his feathery chest. “I make a good weapon. Remember how you used me to fend off th
at brute at the petrol station? And I’m also very good for distractions, as you and the ground workers know.” He gently scratches at a bald spot oozing a bit of fresh blood.
I refuse to pity him. “Yeah, and you have information about my runes that you won’t share. The only reason I’m here is to get back my immortality. Either you know where the runes are or you don’t. Which is it?”
He claps his beak shut.
“That’s what I thought. Go away. I’ll get my information elsewhere.”
“From who?” Huginn grows bolder, stepping under the bench and squatting near my feet. “Who do you know in this country?”
“Gunnar Magnusson.”
“He doesn’t know shite about your runes. Try again.”
“Why do you care if I find my runes, anyway?” I ask.
“Because maybe if I help you find yours, you can help me find mine,” he blurts and then quickly retreats behind the suitcase.
Now, that gets my attention. I sit up straighter. Drumming my fingers on the bench back, I say, “So, you are mortal.”
Huginn begging me not to kill him was the first clue, but this admission confirms my suspicions. It also opens up a ton of fresh implications. If Huginn’s mortal, then it’s possible, though not likely, Odin is too. Maybe Odin is holding Huginn’s runes over his head in exchange for continued work as Allfather’s lackey. Either way, I assume Huginn isn’t thrilled with his current working relationship with Odin. That, or he’s a damn good actor, in which case, his performance earns him the right to lay claim to my mortality.
But something in the pathetic way he asked for my help tells me his situation is not ideal. I’m betting something has come between god and bird. I just need to figure out what and how to exploit it.
“In the past, I rarely flew without Muninn,” Huginn admits. “It’s been very lonely.”
It’s true, Odin’s ravens were inseparable. “Where is Muninn?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Huginn says. “But I fear he may be dead.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Just a feeling.”
“His life force connects to yours and all the other gods’.”
Huginn shakes his head sadly. “I don’t feel it anymore. There is only Odin.”
I settle my gaze on the final stray rays of sun as it takes the plunge into darkness. I mentally gather the invisible, immortal strings that used to link me to my fellow Asgardians and cast them out like a net, hoping to snag a soul or two. I picture each corresponding face: Tyr, Thor, Heimdall, Baldur, Freya, Frigg, Sigyn, Sif. I give each thread a little tug. When nothing happens, I reel the lines in. With one exception, they all come back empty, the bait untouched.
The thread connecting me to Odin twitches, but it’s extremely weak, too slack to bother winding it up. I can’t tell where it’s coming from, only that it exists. Barely.
“I don’t feel it either.” I lean over bent knees, letting my hands dangle, and toss Huginn a casual look. “Are the three of us the only ones left?”
His neck stretches with a swallow. “I fear we may be.”
I grind my teeth. All the more reason I need my runes. If Odin, Huginn, and I are the sole survivors of Ragnarok, then something must’ve gone wrong and upset the old goat’s plans. There’s no way he’d have let me live—not when he could’ve saved his son Thor or his wife Frigg or any of the other Æsir.
I’m starting to understand. I was a mistake. After Ragnarok, I slipped through some crack Odin didn’t see until it was too late. Now that I’m in America, closer to wherever he is, I may be walking right into his trap to correct that mistake. I must tread carefully.
I close my eyes for a long moment, dipping deep into my well of consciousness, focusing every brain cell on pinging my runes. I call to them in turn.
Laguz, my intuition, can you hear me? I crave your guidance. Othala, my inheritance, have you forsaken me? I need your gifts. Kenaz, enlightenment, can you see me? Come forth and illuminate my way. Ihwaz, my immortality, where are you? My life—my entire existence—teeters on the brink of oblivion without you.
One by one, the four runes ping me back, translucent blips barely registered on the radar of my soul. They feel closer than they did in Iceland, but still not close enough. Though their response is weak, I’m pleased they answer at all.
Baby steps.
And then a smell—a burnt and forgotten memory or indigestion farts from a passing bus, I’m not sure—beckons my nose to the right. My flaring nostrils scent the smallest whiff of my runes from that direction.
“South,” I say, and open my eyes. “We need to go south.”
“We?” Huginn cocks a hopeful brow.
This chicken is nothing if not persistent.
I shrug. “Sure. Why the Hel not?”
Huginn exposed his vulnerability when he admitted he’d lost his immortality too. I will use this knowledge and his connection to Odin to my advantage.
Huginn lowers his eyes and whispers, “Thank you.”
Gunnar Magnusson strides up with his luggage. He removes the wired circles from his eyes and secrets them in his shirt pocket. I like him without them. I can read his soul better.
He nods toward the cars zooming to and fro. “My friend’s over there. You want a ride somewhere?”
I stand. “Yes. I’d like to go where you’re going.”
He stares at me.
“And,” I gesture to Huginn hiding behind my suitcase, “I’m bringing my chicken.”
Now he gives me an Are you serious? look.
I crack an innocent smile and fold my hands in a pleading, submissive gesture. I may also poke my chest forward. Just a little. “Please?”
“Did this chicken follow you all the way from Iceland?”
“Yes,” I say. “But never mind that. Huginn, meet Gunnar Magnusson. Gunnar Magnusson, say hello to Huginn.”
The bird shyly peers around the skulls. SQUARK!
“Huginn,” he says doubtfully. “As in Odin’s raven, Huginn.”
“Exactly the one.”
He shakes his head and shuffles toward the road mumbling something about stolen passports and illegal agriculture and pretty women.
I smile.
Me? Pretty? Aww, shucks.
Chapter Twelve
“Yo, man, who’s the effin’ hottie?”
Gunnar Magnusson’s friend climbs out of his car. The vehicle is the color of deep fire, and its engine purrs in a pleasing way that reminds me of the vibrator I recently tested out. The man straightens to his full height, a few inches taller than me. A thin white stick pokes from his mouth. It seems to be attached to a red ball on which he sucks. It smells like fruit left out in the sun too long. I do my best not to wrinkle my nose, but the odor is overpowering.
Gunnar Magnusson smiles and the two men slap hands back and forth in a fast, fascinating dance I can’t keep up with. They embrace briefly, and Gunnar Magnusson gestures to me. “Freddie, this is my friend Loki.”
Freddie’s brows hop with barely contained interest. He checks me out with a long, high whistle. “And a masterpiece of femininity, she is.”
I snort.
“Only you could go on an archaeological dig in Iceland and turn up a woman named Loki.” Then he faces me. “Pardon my rudeness. I’m pleased to meet you.”
Freddie takes my hand and lifts it high, twirling me by my finger. My hair swings in a blond arc around me.
He didn’t ask permission to touch me. He didn’t have to. He’s a man who takes what he wants. I can respect that.
“Pleased to meet you too,” I say with a smile.
Gunnar Magnusson’s jaw drops as he does a double take at me. “Since when do you speak English?” he demands under his breath.
I shrug. “Fast learner.”
Gunnar Magnusson doesn’t seem to believe me, but he’d believe the truth even less. I turn to study his friend.
Freddie is tall like Gunnar Magnusson, but thinner and wiry. His dark hair hangs
below his ears in sticky-looking strands that might’ve been dipped in honey. A mustache arches over catlike lips and below them lies a neatly trimmed patch of bristles that remind me of a goat’s beard. His eyes are the warm, light brown of a deer’s fur.
His clothes are suggestive: the top couple of buttons on his dark blue shirt are undone, and his trousers hug his trim hips and thighs. Rings of silver adorn all of his fingers and both thumbs. He moves with the fluidity of the ocean. Not jerky but smooth, elusive, seductive.
“Where’d you find this fine piece of babe?” Freddie rips his gaze from me and turns it on Gunnar Magnusson.
I fail to see how Freddie could classify me as a baby. With boobs like these, I’m all woman. “He pulled me out of a—”
Gunnar Magnusson cuts me off. “That’s a very long story. Do you have room at your place for an extra body?”
“If it’s Loki’s, then I have plenty. In my bed.”
Gunnar Magnusson stiffens. His arm falls heavily around my shoulders, and he yanks me in close. His movement is nothing like Freddie’s. This is clunky and awkward. “She’s my girlfriend,” he blurts.
I lean into him and slip an arm around his waist, playing along. The deception isn’t the only nice thing about this. Gunnar Magnusson’s closeness reminds me I need to get into my suitcase soon.
Freddie cocks a brow. “Well, you two let me know if you’re willing to share. I’m always up for a party.”
What a charming bloke!
He pats the top of the red car. Without warning, the front end opens its mouth with a soft pop. I jump back, clutching Huginn, whom Freddie seems to notice for the first time. He points at the chicken, lets out a little laugh, and yanks open the side door. “Hop in, Loki. And friend.”
Eager to avoid mastication by this car’s gaping mouth, I slide into the seat he indicates. Gunnar Magnusson hefts the luggage into the beast’s maw and I cry out, “No!”