by Raythe Reign
He took his brother’s old Bopper and rode away from her and that house. The anger still simmered even as he sped 30 miles above the speed limit down the highway. His eyes were drawn to the old biker bar that had closed after a fire and a homicide. The bar owner had killed one of his patrons and set the bar on fire to cover up the murder and collect some insurance money, but Cameron’s mother had put a stop to that, cracking the case wide open and sending the bartender to jail for twenty-years to life. But the bar was repaired and appeared to be open now, under new ownership. It was called Fenrir.
The playful — yet rather dark — name for the bar had intrigued Cameron. He wondered if it was named after mythical Loki’s monstrous wolf son. He pulled the Bopper off the highway, dust rising up around him like he had a cloak made of an orange-red material. He parked the bike and threw his leg over the top of it, resting the heavy motorcycle on its kickstand. He touched the seat and thought of Liam. His breath caught in his throat as pain wracked him.
Over ten years he’s been gone, but I still mourn him. Part of me died that day. Why couldn’t I have died with him? Why leave me here when he is not? Fate is a bitch.
The desert sun burned down on him as if God had taken a magnifier and was trying to set afire the humans who looked undoubtedly like ants from such a high perspective. Who cared if a few ants burned after all? He was chased into the bar by the coiling heat.
The interior of Fenrir was blessedly dark and cool. He had to blink rapidly to see anything at all as there were few lights other than a couple of neon signs and then a lighted mirror behind a large, rather magnificent bar.
Once he could see in the dimness, he realized that there was a strikingly beautiful man behind the bar smiling at him. But he wasn’t smiling like most proprietors did, those big, wide grins that said, “Come on in and give me all your money.” No, his smile had been small, faint, but there. The type of smile one would have if two people shared a secret and reveled in it.
This beautiful man hadn’t asked Cameron to come in, come over to the bar, and have a drink though. No, he just stood behind the bar with a decanter of golden liquid and two glasses on the bar before him as if he was waiting for someone to stop by to have a drink with him. But that person was not Cameron, obviously as he didn’t greet him.
Irritated that the guy seemed to have no interest in his business, Cameron didn’t walk out the bar’s door in a huff, but instead strode over and sat directly opposite the man before looking meaningfully at the bottle and glasses. He was irreverent like that. Ignore him and Cameron was in your face.
“You pouring or just thinking about it?” Cameron quipped.
“This liquor isn’t for everyone,” the man responded, not moving from his graceful slouch against the back of the bar.
“Well, it’s for me,” Cameron answered, even more nettled at what had seemed like a challenge.
“Is it?” The smile on the man’s face grew.
The man grasped the long, slender neck of the decanter and began to pour the golden liquid into a glass for Cameron. The liquid seemed to glow. Later he would think he imagined that, but at the time he was certain that it glowed like captured sunlight. An otherworldly glow. The scent that rose up from it reminded Cameron of a summer garden where flowers bloomed eternally and large bees dipped into each of them to gather pollen. This scent conjured up a place somewhere very different from the parched desert they were in now. The man poured two fingers worth of the liquid into both glasses and pushed one towards Cameron.
Cameron brought the glass up to his nose and sniffed. Honey. Sunshine. Spices. His gaze met the man’s. The bar owner had brought his glass up to his nose, too.
His eyes are the same color as the liquid, Cameron realized and a trill of unease went down his spine. He wondered if he really should drink this unknown liquor. Maybe it wasn’t for him. But then the man’s smile had changed to one of dismissal. He had noticed Cameron’s hesitation and judged him unworthy. Again, anger flared in Cameron’s chest. People thought they knew him, knew what was best of him, but they didn’t.
“Bottom’s up,” Cameron said before downing the entire glass in one swallow.
He hardly tasted the liquor as he swallowed it so quickly. It flowed smoothly down his throat. The burn only came afterwards and Cameron had to grip the edge of the bar to stop from coughing violently. He would not give the bar owner the satisfaction of acknowledging the strength of the drink!
Cameron glanced up at the man and the bar’s owner was looking at him with another smile, but this time it was welcoming as if he had passed some test. Cameron noted that the liquor in the man’s glass was gone, too, but he didn’t look like he was straining not to cough. His pale skin was not even flushed from the alcohol content like Cameron’s was.
“Another?” the man asked.
Cameron knew it was a bad idea. Already, a treacherous warmth was suffusing his whole body as the alcohol flowed into his veins. The stuff, whatever it was, was strong as Hell. But instead of listening to his common sense, he had shoved his glass towards the man.
“Sure, I’ll have another,” Cameron said. “What’s your name?”
As the man had poured more of the glowing golden liquid into both their glasses, he asked back, “My real name?”
“No, your fake one.” Cameron took only a mouthful of the second glass and let the liquor roll around in his mouth, wanting to actually taste it this time.
A wide, toothy smile was his response before the man said, “Sigurd.”
“Sigurd? You don’t come from around here, do you, Sigurd?”
Besides the unusual name, Sigurd didn’t exactly have an accent, but there was something in the way he spoke where it was clear that English wasn’t his first language though he spoke it fluently and probably with better grammar than Cameron did.
Another toothy smile. “No, I travel lots of places. Decided to stay here a spell.”
“Why the fuck would you want to stay here? Believe me nothing ever happens here.” Cameron had finished the second glass without noticing. He was still chasing the liquor’s taste on his tongue. Sigurd filled up his glass for a third time.
“Oh, really? I heard that quite a bit happened here about a decade ago.” Those golden eyes rose to his face and Cameron stilled.
Was Sigurd one of those true crime buffs who were fascinated by killers? His stomach roiled. He hated those people. It felt like they wanted to roll around in his fear and terror for kicks. He licked his suddenly dry lips.
“Yeah, well, I don’t know anything about that,” Cameron answered sourly, lowering his head so that the man might not recognize him as the last of the Desert Killer’s victims, the one that had gotten away, the one whose brother had died rescuing him. But he had a feeling the man already knew exactly who he was.
It feels like he was waiting for me. But he couldn’t know I’d come in here for a drink. I didn’t even know this place was reopened!
Yet the impression remained that Sigurd had been waiting for him.
“You still think about him every day, don’t you?” Sigurd’s voice was cast low.
Cameron’s head jerked up and he angrily snarled, “No! I don’t think about Reggie at all!”
Unblinking golden eyes bored into his. “I don’t mean the killer. He was just a shell, after all. I meant Liam, your brother.”
Cameron froze once more, the air in his chest feeling suddenly like ice, the golden liquor hanging heavy on his tongue. It wasn’t just that Sigurd had recognized him and somehow knew he thought of Liam every day, but it was the description of Reggie as a “shell” that had him sitting up and taking notice. He had told no one about his impression that Reggie had been dead and something else had been operating his body other than his mother and the shrinks. None of them had believed him. But Sigurd was acting like it was common knowledge and true.
“Liam is the one that matters,” Sigurd continued. “I bet his loss haunts you.”
“Because he died for
me?” Cameron winced just saying the words. Liam should not have died, not for him, not ever. Liam was like some primal force of nature. But so had their father been and he had died just as senselessly.
“No, because Liam is who he is,” Sigurd answered, which made no sense, but somehow with the buzz of the golden liquor in his veins it did make sense to him and he liked Sigurd for recognizing Liam’s specialness.
“You didn’t know my brother, did you?” Cameron strained to remember if a beautiful guy like Sigurd had come to the garage to meet up with Liam. He had always known his brother preferred men. When he was a kid he hadn’t known why that had pleased him, but now he did. In his heart of hearts, he had hoped it meant he had a chance to win Liam’s romantic interest someday. It had made a romance between them slightly more likely than if Liam were straight.
“No, I have not had the pleasure,” Sigurd said and Cameron was struck by the fact that Sigurd talked about Liam as if he were still alive, another point towards liking the very strange man or so his liquored brain thought. “But I know someone quite a bit like him. We were once … very close. But you know how it is. Love and hate are equal parts of each other.”
Cameron could never hate Liam so he didn’t agree with that statement in general, but he believed that Sigurd had experienced something like that.
“So this person like Liam … what happened between you two?”
Sigurd’s expression went blank for a moment, but then he was filling both their glasses nearly to the top with another secret smile. “Now that tale requires far more mead.”
Then they had clinked glasses. But though they had talked and drank for hours, getting drunk but never slipping into full inebriation, they had not spoken of the person Sigurd referred to. They had not spoken of Liam either or the Desert Killer. Yet by the end of the talk, Cameron had felt lighter, as if he had purged some of the darkness out of him.
“So … it sounds like you need a job and a place to stay,” Sigurd said finally.
“Yeah, I do. I can’t stay at home anymore. I love my mother, but I think I’ll start hating her if I stay,” Cameron admitted. “And worse she might start hating me. I’ve disappointed her enough.”
“Well, it just so happens that I have a job and a vacant apartment upstairs,” Sigurd responded. “What do you say? Bartend and live at Fenrir?”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Good. We are family after all. We must help each other out,” Sigurd said so blithely that Cameron hadn’t caught the full heft of that statement. Later he would think of it and tell himself it was Sigurd’s natural intuitiveness that they would be close once they did know one another better. But a part of him didn’t quite believe it.
That first meeting had been a year ago, right after he turned twenty-one. And the arrangement really had been perfect. Looking at Sigurd now when he said “family” once again, Cameron was tempted to ask what he meant, why he felt that when they first connected. But Cameron felt it, too, though. It was one of those inexplicable things that was simply true. He was connected to Sigurd and vice versa. Talking about it would never really capture the truth of it so the question died on his tongue.
I wonder what Liam will make of him. Liam …
Cameron glanced up at the ceiling as if he would see the roof open and his brother reappear once more. It was crazy, he knew and he would doubt himself far more if he didn’t have Liam’s large jacket around him. He pulled it closer around his torso, imagining it was Liam holding him.
“I thought you were going to be gone for awhile. Alps, right?” Cameron reached for a pair of boxer briefs. He really needed to get some aspirin out of the bathroom and he didn’t want to walk over there just in Liam’s jacket though it fell down to mid thigh on him.
“It was boring and things are really starting to pick up here. Finally,” Sigurd answered him still stroking the city sculpture Cameron had made.
Thinking on Liam’s arrival the night before that sounded about right to Cameron. Do I really think my brother came here last night? That he has wings? That he went to some city on a burning rainbow? Cameron contemplated that. Though there were tons of logical reasons that none of these things could be true, he believed that they were true. Just like he had believed that a monster struck down Liam, not Freddie, no matter what the army of doctors and his mother had said.
Cameron got off the bed, about to head for the bathroom, his head protested however and his hands rose to his temples to rub them. “Remind me never to drink tequila. It always gives me a blinding hangover.”
Sigurd was standing and surveying all the empty bottles and cans around the apartment. He said dryly, “I think the tequila might be the least of your problems. You should have drunk the mead. No hangovers.”
“No, just bad dreams.” Whenever Cameron drunk Sigurd’s mead he had the wildest dreams about eight-legged horses and giants and other impossible things that he couldn’t quite remember. He didn’t need to be seeing more things after his experience with Liam.
He will come back to me. I know it. Just when?
Cameron tottered over to the bathroom, past the painting and the sculpture. He hadn’t done any art in so long, he was surprised that he still could. But his fingers had remembered. The work was … good. It was actually better than that but he felt odd admiring his own skill.
“You need to go see your mother, Cameron,” Sigurd called after him.
Cameron’s forehead furrowed. “What? Why?”
“There’s been a murder,” Sigurd answered, golden eyes fixed on him.
Cameron frowned. “There are a lot of murders in this city.”
Sigurd nodded. “Oh, yes, but not that kind. I told you that things were finally getting interesting.”
“What kind then?”
Sigurd smiled. “The Desert Killer kind.”
CHAPTER SEVEN: INTO THE VOID
With Loki’s name ringing in his ears, Liam suddenly heard his own name shouted by Thor, “Liam! Liam! Come and join us!”
Liam’s head shot towards the sound and he saw Thor half rising from where he was sitting at a table so heavily laden with food and drink that Liam expected it to collapse under the sheer weight of its contents at any moment. Thor was sitting with two men and a woman. The woman had long golden hair, which reminded Liam of the color of wheat. She rested one possessive hand on Thor’s forearm, wanting to keep him seated. Her gaze was locked on Liam though and her expression, while not overtly negative, was not welcoming either. Her hand tightened its hold on Thor when Liam and Frigg approached and the thunder god more eagerly pulled away from her to greet them.
“Sit down. Eat and drink with us.” Thor gesture to the bench on the opposite side of him and the woman.
“Where is your father, Thor?” Frigg asked.
“He is communing with Huggin and Munnin. Gathering information,” Thor answered.
Frigg pressed a hand lightly on Liam’s shoulder and said, “I will be back shortly. I wish to hear what the crows have to say as well.”
She smiled at him and then the others before she seemingly danced more than walked away. They were all silent as they watched her go until she was hidden from sight by the various blazing fire pits. Liam then turned back to Thor and took a seat on the comfortable bench opposite him. The thunder god was looking at him with such pride and affection that Liam almost felt shy. He could think of no reason why he was viewed so favorably by Thor.
Reading his discomfort, Thor let out a self-conscious huff of laughter. “I’m sorry, Liam. I realize that I am a stranger to you, but to me … well, I feel as if we have been as close as brothers all our lives.”
“You’ve really watched everything in my life?” Liam asked, flushing again at the thought of Thor seeing him and Cameron. But there were other reasons to flush. No one led an entirely blameless life and he certainly had not. There were moments he was not proud of and Thor likely had seen them all.
The woman beside Thor spoke archly, “You are his o
bsession, Liam.”
There was a flash of irritation on Thor’s handsome face but it quickly smoothed out. “Ah, Sif has a right to be angry, but with me not you. There have been many times when I have neglected her because I wished to see you in battle. I admit that when I watch you fight the Gash I feel as if I’m by your side. That we are fighting together.”
“As we should be. We should not be here getting fat by the fire.” It was the man sitting nearest to one of the blazing fire pits who spoke. He had short steel gray hair and was missing his left hand. He was dressed in black and gray with a black cloak thrown over his massive frame. He reminded Liam of an old soldier. Like all the gods, though, he was ageless.
“Tyr, do not be so grim,” the other man spoke then. His voice was light and musical. “The fact that this great Valkyrie has made it here is a victory. Let us celebrate that.”
This other man was lithe and looked like a fresh youth. He had platinum hair and laughing eyes. He seemed to almost glow. He smiled winningly at Liam and offered him a cup of golden liquid, which Liam took as he found himself unable to refuse this gentle creature. He raised the glass to his lips. It smelled of honey and flowers. He took a sip. Mead.
Tyr crossed his left arm over his chest and bowed his head. “You shame me, Baldur, but I find my heart heavier now than before. Having met Liam it will be all the more difficult when we watch him go into battle again. We should be his sword brothers, fighting along with him, but only he will be able to go to Midgard and face the Gash. We will be no better than the common rabble who watch a fight from the sidelines.”
“So you are all truly unable to use the Bifrost?” Liam found concern mounting in him. If these great beings were unable to cross over then how could he? He might have done it once, but he had no memory of it.
“We are all trapped here,” Sif answered and her expression was neither angry nor happy at the thought of it. “Though Asgard is hardly a prison, but sometimes it seems that way when one cannot leave it.”