by C. Gockel
Sigyn turns to his daughter. “Come on, Helen, I want to see your mother. Let’s go home.”
Helen whines, but Loki picks her up anyway, suddenly anxious to be home.
“You don’t mind if I come, too?” Sigyn asks. “I am worried about Anganboða lately.”
“No, no, not at all,” says Loki, but he doesn’t slow his movements and Sigyn is forced to run to catch up to him.
Helen is not pleased to be leaving the gardens, and Loki finds himself making trees sway and rocks sing along the way. He also makes the keyhole belch, and the door open with a sound like a fart. Helen finds both delightful, Sigyn somewhat less so.
As soon as they enter, Sigyn says, “I’ll go find Anganboða.”
Loki nods, relieved that Sigyn is there. She’ll know better what to say than Loki ever would. He sets about to entertaining Helen. He is just about to stand on his head when Sigyn screams.
Scooping up Helen, Loki half walks, half runs down the hall. Sigyn comes out of his and Aggie’s bedroom, shaking her head, hand on her mouth.
“Don’t take her in there,” Sigyn says.
Only half listening, Loki tries to run around her, Helen whining fearfully. Sigyn stops them with her body. “Give Helen to me, Loki. Don’t take her in there.”
The command in her tone makes Loki pause. He meets her eyes and sees the beginnings of tears. Wordlessly he puts Helen in Sigyn’s arms and goes into his and Aggie’s bedchamber.
Aggie is lying on the bed, facing away, just the barest hint of her profile visible. She looks almost peaceful. But the bedcovers are stained crimson and there is a long red gash running up her arm that crisscrosses first at her wrist. He screams for Sigyn to get Eir, the most gifted at healing of all Frigga’s women, but when he sits on the bed and pulls Aggie to him, her body is already cold.
The cremation a few days later is a lonely affair. Aggie is laid out on a simple boat on the river Iving. Odin cannot make it. He is negotiating with the dwarves in their own land. Sigyn is there with Helen. Hoenir is in attendance, with Mimir mounted on his staff. Thor is there as well. And more surprisingly, Baldur with his most frequent companion, Tyre.
Loki is too empty to protest the attendance of the crown prince. Lighting the logs that lie beneath Aggie’s body, he pushes the boat with Thor’s help out onto the river. Helen is mercifully sleeping in Sigyn’s arms.
He watches the flames leap into the air as the boat gets caught into the current. It is only when he can’t see it anymore that he turns from the water, Thor and Sigyn beside him.
Coming forward, Baldur moves to block Loki’s path. “This is all your fault, Trickster. You destroy everything that is beautiful, everything that is good. It is folly on my father’s part to let you remain here! ”
Loki is too shocked to be angry. Baldur is so...sincere...he can feel as surely as he smells the smoke hanging in the air, or see the blue mist of Helen’s magic.
The crown prince’s face twists and he spits in Helen’s direction. “If you hadn’t given her that brat and made her keep it...”
And then Loki is angry. His fists clench and the air shimmers, but before he can do anything, Thor steps between Loki and Baldur.
“That is quite enough, Brother!” Thor rumbles. “This jealousy does not become you.”
Thor is defending him? Against Baldur? No one speaks ill of the crown prince.
Baldur’s mouth drops and for a moment everyone is silent, perhaps even the birds in the trees. And then Baldur takes a step towards Thor. “You dare talk to me thus? You...you...bastard. It is only by my good grace that the court accepts you. My word could have you cast out!”
Thor’s lips curl in a cruel snarl and he lifts Mjolnir between him and his half brother. “You could try. But I think you’ll find my hammer is more valuable than your pretty face!”
Baldur backs up, eyes wide.
Thor tilts his head. When he speaks he sounds almost uncertain. “You look pale and unwell, Brother. Perhaps you should leave.”
“That might be wise,Your Highness,” says Mimir softly.
Baldur’s eyes flick between the members of the party, and fall last on Helen. Without another word he departs.
x x x x
Loki stumbles out of the restaurant. It’s dark and chilly and the street is busy but not crowded. He catches a few curious glances in his direction just before he closes his eyes and massages his temples.
It’s been so long since he last saw his daughter, he thought Helen’s and Aggie’s faces had gone blurry and indistinct with the years, but Abby looked so much like his own little girl...
Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she just made him feel the same way. He clenches his jaw. The whole scene played out like something from his own life, and yet...
He hears familiar footsteps behind him.
“Hey,” says Amy softly.
His hands ball into fists, and he scowls out of habit.
“You did great back there,” says Amy. “Everyone thought so.”
...and that is where the similarities to this scene and so many more end. Because on Asgard what he just did would have been an example of deviancy. And here...
Amy slips an arm into his and squeezes. He stares down.
...and here his deviancy earns him the affections of the fair maiden. He almost smirks at the irony of it. Raising an eyebrow, he meets her eyes.
She swallows nervously, and her lower lip actually trembles. Her feelings are so amusingly transparent.
She bites her lip. “So...” she says a little breathlessly. “You think you could make all the credit cards in the pockets of those jerk business guys look blank?”
It’s a lovely idea, and Loki actually laughs. He pulls her close — because he can, and she is soft, and willing and here. Closing his eyes he concentrates, feels magic taking hold, feels it wanting to maintain its grip on the illusion he’s cast. “Done,” he says and opens his eyes.
Amy’s staring up at him and he feels his smile fade, his jaw harden and his skin heat. She is delicious and clever, and it would be so nice to have someone. Pushing a tendril of hair off Amy’s face, he leans closer. The uproar it would cause at ADUO would be hysterical...but he’d have to finagle another way to repay her. He drags his thumb across her lower lip and smiles at the short shallow intake of breath it elicits. And oh, how bringing her home would distract him from Cera; he can hear her whining now.
Loki drops his hand and stands up straighter. Actually...why can’t he hear her whining? She’s been silent and invisible for hours — and left him blissfully headache free.
“Loki?” says Amy.
“Shhhh...” he says. He creates projections of his consciousness across the city. Cera’s physical presence is beneath the Board of Trade, but her mental presence is gone. He narrows his eyes; he thinks he knows why.
Pulling away from Amy, Loki hails a cab. One screeches to a halt and he opens the door for Amy to get in. Eyes on the sky he says, “Tell your handlers very bad things are on the way.”
Chapter 8
Steve and Amy are sitting in front of the fountains on Van Buren again after Amy’s post Alinea debriefing. Steve invited her out for coffee afterwards. Now they’re both holding their hot drinks in chilly hands. Huginn and Mungin, who Amy has dubbed, “The Angry Birds,” are sitting on the fountain a few yards down. Steve’s told her to ignore them. It’s hard. They’re eyeing the blueberry muffin sitting between Amy and her boss with greedy eyes.
“Anything else you want to tell me?” says Steve.
Amy thinks about how she was sure Loki almost kissed her, how his pupils had darkened like they do when he’s blue, how her heart had sped up, how her skin had felt electrically charged....and decides she’ll just keep that to herself. “No,” she says.
“So no idea where he went.” Steve sighs and takes a sip of his coffee.
Huginn and Mungin begin chattering between themselves. Amy narrows her eyes and lifts her cup to take a sip. A black shadow comes hu
rtling towards her muffin, but she snatches it away just in time.
Whichever raven it was gives an aggravated squawk and soars into the air.
Amy looks at the raven still on the ground and suddenly has an idea. “Hey, birdie...do you want a muffin?”
Steve meets her eyes. He smiles. “Mmmmmm....I know I’d want some muffin. Still warm and everything, I bet.”
“Yep, it sure is,” says Amy. “Real blueberries, too.”
The raven in the sky loops downward and lands beside its partner. They both hop forward.
“You know,” says Amy eyeing the ravens, “I’d be willing to share some of this muffin if you told me where Loki is.”
“Ha! You think you can trick us!” says one of the ravens.
“It’s not a trick,” says Steve. “It’s a bargain. Your master gives you some discretion in accepting those, doesn’t he? Or is he not as smart as I thought?”
Both ravens ruffle their feathers.
“Forget it, Steve,” says Amy. “They probably don’t know.”
One of the ravens gives a ferocious rawk. “We do know, we do know!”
“Tell us then,” says Steve.
“Give us the muffin first,” says the raven.
“Half now, half after you tell us where he went,” says Amy. The ravens dip their heads.
Splitting the muffin in half, she takes a deep breath. “Whoa, Steve, doesn’t that make your mouth water?”
Steve leans in and inhales deeply. “My, my, it sure does.”
The birds start yammering between themselves. Amy lifts one half to her mouth when one raven squawks. “We’ll talk! We’ll talk!”
Amy pauses.
“Throw us the muffin!” says the other. Amy tosses it their direction, and one leaps and catches it with its talons. It brings it down to its partner and they make short work of it, yammering all the way.
Steve clears his throat.
One of the ravens lifts its head. Making the same throat clearing noise that Steve made, it lifts its wings to half mast and starts bouncing and singing. “Loki’s leaving on a jet plane...don’t know when he’ll be back again.”
The other raven straightens and then briefly tucks its beak into its wing. Amy blinks. She has the distinct impression it’s embarrassed.
“That’s your answer?” Steve says. “That’s not where he is, that’s where he went! And you’re off key!”
“I am not off key!” squawks the singer. “And that’s all I know. We’re not here to follow Loki. Give us the other half of the muffin!”
But Angry Bird 2 starts pecking at Angry Bird 1. They whisper a few seconds together and then Bird 2 turns to them and says, “We know something you don’t know!”
Bobbing, the other one squawks, “And Loki’s not here to see it!” With that they both let out some raucous rawk, rawks, and take to the sky.
“Uh...” says Amy.
“I got a bad feeling about this,” says Steve, echoing her thought precisely.
Where could Loki be?
x x x x
“Stop,” Loki says to the jeep driver in Tajik, his heart beating fast. Finally. It has taken him six days to find this place, retracing the path of Cera from Chicago, to the United States west coast, then to Karachi and now Herat, Afganistan. He feels something off here...a gathering in magic that is too strong to be human.
They are on Herat’s Millionaires’ Row. The new houses are an eclectic blend of Iranian and Afghanistani architecture. They’ve stopped outside a home with a massive fence the same yellow brown as the dust on the road. It has a very ornate but very solid wrought iron gate. Just visible through the gate is an enormous, box-shaped house painted deep cobalt blue. The house has ornate gold and white trim around the front door and balconies where men pace, guns in hand, faces grim.
He sends an invisible astral projection of himself to sweep through the building. On the inside, it is a sparsely furnished and perfectly functional fortress. He sees rooms filled with weapons and ammunitions, and other rooms filled with packets of white powder. As he slips deeper into the compound he hears shouting in a language that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
“We can feel you!”
“We know you’re there!”
“She wants us, us, us!”
“We will succeed where you failed!”
They are speaking Jotnar.
His projection slips to where the voices are coming from and he finds himself in a barren prison cell at the center of the compound.
Eight Jotunn — seven men, and one woman — are locked to the walls at the wrists and ankles.
Loki almost laughs. His kinsmen hold humans in even less esteem than the Aesir. What a blow to be captured by such lowly creatures.
The male Jotnar beat against their chains as they stare past his invisible projection. But the woman, wearing silver armor, her hair a gleaming white gold, looks directly at his astral form.
It’s Gerðr. For centuries she was wife of Freyr, chieftain of the Vanir — Loki may have slightly exaggerated Freyr’s position to incite Cera. Freyr and Gerðr have been divorced for centuries now. With the divorce, Gerðr sacrificed her right to Idunn’s apples of immortality, though she looks not to have aged much. Loki’s eyes narrow. He’d known she’d become strong in magic; he hadn’t realized how strong.
“Who are you?” she whispers. “Show yourself.”
Loki lets himself fade into view with a smirk. Her eyes widen. “Loki, help us,” she whispers. “We’ll rise up, take the power, unite Jotunheim...unite the worlds, make all equal.”
Loki tilts his head. She wants Cera, obviously. He looks at her and her party, caught in human chains. This is what Cera has abandoned him for? He’ll kill them all and show Cera how foolish she is.
“Save the exploited! Save the exploited!” chant the other Jotunn.
Snarling, Gerðr thrashes her head. “No! Not all are equal...get out of my head! Get out of my head! Loki, help!”
He frowns. “Save you? And share Cera with you? So you can waste her on your frozen world?”
“Please....” she screams. “We’ll kill Odin for you.”
He sneers. “I’ll kill Odin.”
Outside on the street, two guards standing at the gate come towards the car. They both carry beaten-looking M-16s. “What are you doing here? Move along!” one shouts. The other just raises his gun.
Letting his apparition in the prison fade, Loki hops out of the jeep and onto the dusty street.
Turning back to the man at the wheel, he says, “Drive if you want to.”
As he expects, the driver takes off without a second’s hesitation. Loki smiles grimly. The jeep will draw the guards’ fire. Loki slips into invisibility and runs towards the gate.
One of the guards screams, “Another djinn!”
Loki’s ears are suddenly flooded by the sound of gunfire, and he is knocked off his feet as his armor absorbs the impact of incoming bullets. Dust rises around him as he hits the dirty pavement.
Recovering from his shock he concentrates. He tries to form a weak magic shell around the arm without armor, and simultaneously pulls that arm towards his stomach to protect it, but he’s too late. He feels a flash of pain, and then his arm is pain.
Pulling himself up and forward, he steps into the In-Between and exits to his apartment in Chicago. Gasping for breath, he falls onto his bed. Closing his eyes, he stops the flow of blood in his arm before he passes out.
When he opens his eyes, the shadows have gotten longer. His arm is screaming for attention.
Cursing, he pulls out his phone and texts Steve the location of the captured Jotunn expedition force in Herat. Brain foggy, he falls into unconsciousness again.
x x x x
The Aesir man standing before the World Gate to Vanaheim is beautiful, his head high, his hands bound with a golden rope. The man looks familiar...but so young. Beside him is a Jotunn Loki recognizes instantly. It is Mimir, but he is whole and walking u
pright.
Loki tries to dart forward, but a hand grasps his shoulder. The man with bound hands turns his eyes to Loki and nods.
“Hoenir!” Loki screams. But it is not his voice; it is the voice of a woman.
He turns to the man holding him back and meets the single eye of Odin. “It is necessary for peace.”
The World Gate pulses with light and Hoenir and Mimir vanish. In their place stand Freyr, chief of the Vanir, and his sister, Freya.
The air ripples, and then the world bursts into flames.
x x x x
Loki wakes up, face pressed against the duvet on his bed. He looks down. The fabric is dyed red-brown where his blood spilled before he closed his wounds.
His arm is in agony. Closing his eyes, he concentrates. There is a bullet lodged between the bone of his upper arm and an artery. He grits his teeth and presses his head against the soft bedding. If he hadn’t tried to protect his arm with the magic shell, it might have passed right through. Now it’s going to have to come out the way it went in — through the back of his arm. He can extract projectiles from his body by convulsing his muscles, but that method is crude, and the bullet is in a perilous position. If he accidentally ruptures the artery he may not be able to close it before he loses the limb...or his life.
Chapter 9
“Amy, it’s dead in here. I’m going next door to get some lunch,” says Dr. Terry.
Pulling a mop from the vet clinic closet, Amy lifts her head. It’s the late night shift, and ‘lunch’ for Dr. Terry means a soup and muffin at Dunkin Donuts at 4 A.M.
“Sure,” Amy replies. “I’ll call you if anyone comes in.”
Throwing a jacket over her lab coat, Dr. Terry gives her a smile. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” says Amy as the doctor steps out the front door. She sighs. It’s been a quiet evening. Amy should be glad for all the little critters in Chicago — and she is! But no emergencies means no exciting surgeries, stitches, or casts, refreshing her skills, or learning anything new.