Rather than bristle at my accusation, he seemed to stop breathing, his eyes glazing over as he processed my words.
“You’re…not a Master,” he finally said, scratching at his beard again, looking thoroughly confused this time.
I frowned right back, wondering if he was even dumber than I had given him credit for. “Of course I am. We just talked about this, remember?”
The look on his face made me wonder if he actually had forgotten calling me Master Temple a few moments ago. He appraised me like I was some kind of exotic creature he’d never encountered before. I arched an eyebrow, hoping he realized how insane he sounded.
Maybe he really was drunk.
Although it looked more like he was having some kind of internal epiphany. I ran back through my comments, wondering if I had used too many syllables.
I was beginning to realize that Thor made your average brute look like Einstein. Maybe I could just riddle him to death and watch his head explode.
I couldn’t imagine being so ignorant. Not knowing what everyone else was talking about when they said simple things. That would be the worst kind of life.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he finally breathed. “How did everyone miss this?”
“Miss what, you crazy hairball?”
But he didn’t seem to hear me. I watched as his demeanor began to change. His eyes began to dance with lightning—literally—but through that power, I saw a frantic madness lurking deep within. He was on the edge, and I couldn’t tell if it was from a passionate hunger or a deep fear. The symptoms for either were very similar.
“I know what you are, Temple. Even though you try to deceive as cleverly as Loki. I’m not afraid of you,” he said, his eyes flicking to my hands. “You will not ascend.”
At first, I assumed he was talking about my mysterious Catalyst power. But the longer I considered his words and body language, the more I began to doubt my theory.
I frowned at the intensity in his eyes. Then I followed his gaze to see Odin’s blood still painting my knuckles. “The godkiller thing?” I asked, showing off my glowing veins.
“Some spell from my mother,” he muttered.
I rolled my eyes. “I got this when I killed Athena. Some called her a Goddess of War, but she was kind of a disappointment if I’m being totally honest.” I paused, glancing over at him. “Say, you’re a god of rain or something, right?”
“Thunder!” he boomed, accompanied by about a dozen bolts of lightning that deflected off the protective dome I’d put up—the dome that hadn’t seemed to concern Thor in the slightest. Which…was also strange.
I lifted a finger, nodding. “That’s right. Thunder. All bark and no bite, as many say.”
The cloud above us rumbled ominously—and impotently.
I let him see how unconcerned I was, but my mind was still digesting his strange comment from a few seconds ago—about knowing what I was, that I wouldn’t ascend, and that I wasn’t a Master, despite him calling me Master Temple moments prior. Maybe he was referring to how I didn’t have a Beast riding my shoulders—that I was a fraud for using my mansion to bond my Beast.
“The fact that you’re not afraid of a godkiller tells me how ignorant you are,” I said, giving up on trying to understand his earlier statements. “Friendly advice. You’re a god, so you should probably be at least a little bit afraid. Odin was, and he knew how to take a hit better than anyone I’ve ever met. Maybe that’s why he wears the crown.”
Thor had looked momentarily confused until my last statement, which made him narrow his eyes dangerously. “Odin won’t be King for much longer.”
I appraised him from boots to beard with a doubtful frown. “You can’t honestly think you’re fit to be King of Asgard. Look at you,” I said, waving a hand at him. “You’re as batshit crazy on the inside as you look on the outside.”
Thor hawked up some nasty concoction from his throat region and then spat out a bloody gob. “The Aesir were not pleased about Odin’s long absence. Like a dutiful son, I stepped in to rule. It turns out, his crown fits my head just fine. I’ve been a great king.”
I doubted that. In fact, I was betting any accomplishments he may have celebrated were more likely delayed results from one of Odin’s prior decrees.
“When he returned without Gungnir, no one believed his story. Without his spear to verify his tale, the Wanderer learned that he had wandered too far.” Thor laughed at his own joke, obviously quite pleased with himself.
I paused, studying his face. “Is that why you stole Gungnir from him? Jealousy? Revenge? To turn Asgard against him?”
He scoffed, shaking his head. “If I knew who took Gungnir, I would offer them a gift. Thanks to their thievery, I am now Asgard’s golden boy,” he said, smiling. “Soon it will become official,” he said, and I noticed a flicker of self-doubt cross his eyes.
I glanced down at the golden light in my veins. “Looks like Odin found a real golden boy to replace you—and he had to travel all the way to Midgard to find me. That’s gotta hurt.”
He grunted toothily. “I have already made peace with my father’s poor judgment. The fact that he lost Gungnir only proves that he was no longer fit for a crown. That’s good enough for me. Time is on my side.”
I was more concerned with the fact that I didn’t sense an undertone of pride—like I would expect from the actual thief. That was troubling. If not Thor, who had stolen Gungnir? And then another thought hit me.
“Who helped you get back from wherever Odin sent you?” I asked, wondering if it might be the same person to have stolen Gungnir. “Was it your brother, Loki?”
Thor’s reaction caught me entirely off guard. I had expected anger, or a poor attempt at denial.
Instead, he blinked. And then roared with laughter. “Loki has been locked away in that cursed book for centuries!” he hooted. “I doubt even he could find a way out of the Bioloki,” he added, “if anyone even knew where to find it—”
He cut off abruptly, and his posture locked rigid. He blinked several times, opening his mouth wordlessly as if surprised by his own admission. I arched a brow, curious.
“You are not a god,” Thor said very slowly, appraising me from head to toe. “How was I able to openly say that if you are not a god?”
And he sounded deeply troubled.
I knew gods were often limited in how much they could share with mortals, so a very queasy sensation settled in the pit of my stomach.
Did it have something to do with me being a godkiller? Had I earned some kind of godly security clearance?
Was that what he had meant about me ascending?
Unfortunately, this didn’t help me understand the rest of what Thor had been talking about. Loki was trapped in a book? The Bioloki? I recognized the second half of the word as his name—Loki—but what did the prefix mean? It had kind of rhymed with biology, but I’d definitely never heard of it. Maybe it meant the biography of Loki.
Seeing the suspicious frown growing on Thor’s face, I decided it was time we wrapped up this reunion.
Thor’s reign of terror ended here.
Now.
Chapter 24
“I’m glad we have the chance to talk, Thor. I was hoping to learn why you still had a problem with me after you realized I didn’t have your stupid hammer. How instead of confronting me like a man, you bravely decided to terrorize innocent citizens of my city. Then you took it a step further by attacking a pregnant woman,” I took a casual step forward, thumping my staff into the rubble. It crackled with multi-colored light. “But you knew where I was, Thor. You came for me in Fae, and when I beat you like the little bitch that you are—with you still not brave enough to even show your face—you ran away. I kept a souvenir so I would never forget how cowardly you are,” I said, eyeing my rainbow-colored staff. “Recognize it? Used to be one of yours.”
I thumped it back into the ground, watching his eyes. They hardened upon seeing the staff. “You expected me to face you in Fae,
where the very realm submitted to your power? Where Arthur’s bastard and his Blood Knights raise an army for war? You think I’ve lived this long without learning the futility of fighting a man on his own land? How would that be a fair fight?”
I scoffed, surprised he’d been honest enough to admit it out loud, but my disgust at his instant excuse was even greater. “Thor, you have never—ever—let yourself enter a fair fight. Because you’re a fucking coward. You only attack when victory is certain. You live your life around your legend because you simply don’t understand…” I spat on the ground. “Legends are made, not born. Anyone who tries to force their own legend only ends up diminishing it.”
He snarled defensively. “That depends on who writes the history.”
I smirked, nodding. “I’m actually a bit of an historian. And I like to debunk shit. You see, I’m not just a godkiller. I’m also a fraud-killer. I want you to know—before I humiliate you, and then your corpse—that not even your name will survive the shame I’m about to heap upon you. Every single ‘victory’ you’ve accomplished will be accompanied by at least two contradicting, embarrassing claims. The real story of Thor the Toothless will echo for eternity. Your name will either be forgotten or ridiculed. Forever.”
He was panting with rage, and multi-colored lightning crackled over his knuckles. “We’re not finished, Temple—”
“You’re right, Toothless,” I interrupted, sensing he was about to make a run for it. “Your pain is only just beginning.”
The multi-colored light began to trail up Thor’s arm as he took a step back, confirming that he was definitely trying to make a run for it.
What the hell? He’d been terrorizing my city for a year to find me, and now he was just going to run away?
I lunged with my staff, striking him in the gut.
He grunted and his colored lightning latched onto my staff, puffing out almost instantly as if it had grounded out. Thor gasped incredulously, sputtering something nonsensical in a foreign language as he stared at my weapon. I was just as startled, but I masked it better.
I swung my rainbow stick wide, sweeping at his legs in hopes of knocking him down. But he took the blow like a champ, making the staff rattle in my grip hard enough that I almost dropped it.
Then Thor’s boot was lunging for my stomach in a powerful pushing strike to force some distance between us. Not knowing why the staff had bounced off him without much effect—and since he didn’t have a weapon—I dropped it to even the odds, sidestepping his attack as I caught his boot in the crook of my elbow.
His eyes widened to see me abandon my weapon, which meant he missed spotting my leg trap. He was also too slow to stop my other elbow from hammering down onto his kneecap. My veins flared brighter as his leg cracked loud enough to make me wince at the imagined pain it had to have caused.
Thor bellowed out in agony.
I lost my grip on his leg in his frantic attempt to escape, inadvertently giving him a second to hop back on one functional foot.
His eyes were wild around the edges as he stared at my glowing veins—and how they had flared brighter the moment I managed to hurt him.
I gave him a slow, predatory smile. “Fear me, boy.”
Thor took one last look at my satchel before the multi-colored lightning suddenly encased his entire body—faster than I could react—and he winked out of existence like a popped bubble.
I growled angrily, taking a step closer. “FIGHT ME, COWARD!” I screamed, loud enough to make me feel dizzy and lightheaded.
Silence answered me. I stood there, shaking my head in disbelief as I fought down my vertigo. I truly couldn’t believe that one hit had made him flee. Surely, he wasn’t actually that much of a weakling to run at the first taste of pain, even if it had been a hyper-extended knee.
I’d been taunting him mercilessly while we talked, but that had really just been to get into his head and stir things up. Maybe that had been more effective than I had thought.
Or maybe his real weakness was fear, and he hadn’t put true stock in my godkiller claims until I’d actually injured him.
Still…
He was supposed to be a god, for crying out loud. The Mighty Thor was really just a mighty chump.
An opportunist who was high off his own legend. Like the jock in high school realizing that he’d already lived out his glory days—but only after he came back to town for his twenty-year reunion wearing his old letterman’s jacket and saw that everyone else had moved on—having tucked their old jerseys into a box in the attic at least a decade before.
Whereas he’d been polishing his old trophies and medals the night before the reunion.
I remembered how Alex had fought Thor without any apparent effort, and he hadn’t been a godkiller. True, he had his own strange power source tying him back to King Arthur, but I hadn’t anticipated this sudden turn of events.
Not after hearing how terrified everyone in St. Louis was of the God of Thunder—Raego fleeing town, Achilles closing his bar, Gunnar and Ashley abandoning their pack. Thor had spent the last year hunting me, terrorizing my allies, and he’d done a good enough job that they had all abandoned St. Louis in one form or another…
For him to finally confront the source of his rage, and then to almost instantly run away at the first taste of blood made no sense at all. I was missing something, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
I briefly considered chasing him down. Based on our conversation, I had a very good idea where he might have fled, but I had no idea how to get there, and I knew Alex and Talon were already waiting for me.
Then I thought of Ashley standing unprotected outside the Armory when she really needed to be tucked into a bed for Freya to keep an eye on her. She could go into labor any time now.
I also knew Gunnar would have some harsh words for me after I’d kicked him through the Gateway and deprived him of the chance to fight Thor. With a weary sigh, I scooped up my staff and satchel, and was about to leave when I remembered the Knightmare that Odin’s ravens had killed and eaten—and the suit of armor left behind.
I grumbled loudly—since no one was present to hear me whining—as I walked up to the vine door and opened it. I entered, using a ball of flame to light my way, and immediately saw it tucked up against a wall. I frowned dubiously. It looked really freaking heavy. Unfortunately, I didn’t see a sword beside it—something we really could have used in our upcoming fight with his brother Knights. I didn’t recognize the symbol on the front, but I could figure that out when I met up with Alex and Talon.
My mind began to wander with thoughts on how to duplicate Alex’s paper of symbols—how to make it so that crossing off a symbol on one would simultaneously cross off the symbol on the duplicate.
Essentially, a magical drop box folder—only tangible.
It would make it easier to split up and keep track of who was dead and which armors we’d retrieved.
Since I’d seen Talon lug that other set of armor off my mountain, I let out a resigned sigh and got to work. I grabbed a spare blanket on a side table and began setting all the—surprisingly light—pieces into a pile so I could fold up the blanket and move them all at once.
It took me a few minutes, and then I made one last check of the building—since I now had light to see—for the Knightmare’s sword. As I searched, I pondered Thor’s strange comments again, shaking my head. I found no answers, and I found no sword—empty-handed on both accounts.
I lugged the pile outside, and then ripped open a Gateway just outside my old lady’s secret treasure trove.
The entrance to the Armory in the lower levels of Chateau Falco appeared in the center of the ring of sparks.
I could feel Falco vibrating even through the Gateway. It reminded me of a puppy excitedly wagging her tail against the trashcan when her owner returned home after a long day—loud enough to wake the neighbors.
I smiled at an absent thought. A shirtless billionaire lugging a pile of scrap metal into his ma
nsion.
Chapter 25
I entered the large hallway outside the Armory with a smile. “I missed you, Falco,” I murmured under my breath, lugging the blanket of armor behind me.
The very walls quivered, pleased to have her Master back home.
“That is incredibly unsettling,” Drake said, shaking his head as he warily eyed the ceiling. Cowan noticed my attention and gave Drake a firm warning elbow.
Grimm walked up to me and took the corner of the blanket in his teeth, pulling it to the side for me—where Ashley’s helmet and breastplate were already propped against the wall. I dipped my head in thanks. He knew where it needed to go. I briefly took stock of the rest of my ragtag crew of miscreants and malcontents.
Odin—having apparently recovered from the strange ritual with his wolves—had Gunnar pulled to the side in a private conversation. He still had dried blood on his face, and I was pleased to see his nose was still crooked. I didn’t see the ghostly wolves anywhere, but that was expected. As if rehearsed, the two one-eyed men turned to look at me, and then slowly separated as if they hadn’t been talking about anything important.
They had just coincidentally finished their private conversation the moment I arrived. Right.
“Friends don’t keep secrets, and secrets don’t keep friends,” I told them with a stern look. Neither reacted in the slightest.
Alice clapped. “I like that one,” she whispered to Freya. Odin’s wife nodded absently, placing a comforting hand on the child’s head. Yet her eyes were locked onto me with unmasked trepidation.
Her other arm was wrapped around Ashley’s shoulders in a protective, concerned manner. Ashley still had the cloth tied around her head in order to protect her eyes from light, so she could have been sleeping for all I could tell. But she definitely belonged in a sickbed—if not the Emergency Room.
Knightmare: Nate Temple Series Book 12 Page 15