by Leah Cutter
At least she didn’t have clogs on or something.
“He’s a Norse god, you know. Not Swedish,” she informed me in her superior tone.
“Yeah, I knew that,” I told her. “Where would I find information on him anyway?”
“You could do a Google search,” she said slowly, as if I was too stupid to figure that out myself.
“Got that, thanks,” I told her. I knew that would be useless, though. “How do I call him? Invoke him? Get him to pay a visit?” I asked.
Figured it wouldn’t hurt.
She rolled her eyes at me. “Go find a henge. Or build one.”
I didn’t know what the fuck a henge was, but I was pretty sure a Google search would tell me that. “Thanks,” I told her, blowing her a kiss.
I left the blessed cool of the museum for the hot streets again, searching for a signal on my phone.
Cursed when I finally found one, and realized that the closest henge was at Lakewood Cemetery, between Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun.
What better place than a graveyard, to raise the Val–Father, god of the slain?
Ξ
I nearly didn’t answer when Sam’s number flashed across my phone. I didn’t want to hear what lame excuse she’d give me for turning me over to the cops.
But I also knew that whatever we had going between us wasn’t over yet. There was still some thrashing to do.
“Yeah?” I said. I was glad I still had a cigarette going. Even if it felt like one hundred and fifty degrees outside, I wasn’t about to waste time indoors while waiting for sunset. I sat at an outdoor café where they allowed smoking.
“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of Sam’s mouth.
That at least got my attention. “About which part?” I asked. I wasn’t going to let her off the hook easily. “Turning Hunter over to the cops? Or me?”
“Both, actually,” Sam said. “Look, I didn’t know about the ID thing. I swear to you I didn’t think the cops would go after you when I told them about it.”
“Why couldn’t you make the ID?” I asked. I wasn’t mollified. Much. It had still been a shitty thing to do.
“I tried to make the ID. But something was messed up in the area. I couldn’t catch the guy’s face anymore,” Sam said. “It was really freaky.” She sounded…scared.
That stopped me cold. One of the reasons why Sam and I worked even a little bit was because she was almost as fearless as I was. Sure, there were areas where I didn’t push. Fewer areas where she didn’t push with me.
But we shared a great fierceness about many things.
“How was it freaky?” I asked, sitting back. Despite the heat, I ended up wrapping one arm around my stomach, suddenly wishing I was there, in her too barren apartment, able to hold her.
“The timelines blurred,” Sam admitted. “I’ve never seen something like that. Have you?”
“Nope. The timelines are always separated for me,” I told her. Was this what Theodore and Oliver had been on about?
“Even when you’re looking at the alternates?” Sam asked.
I rolled my eyes. She probably heard me do it—we had been pretty tight for six months. “That’s how I know they’re alternates. Because they are separate from the brightest line, which is the present.”
“Huh,” Sam said. “What do you think caused it? Made the timelines go wonky?”
I took a drag on my cigarette. Should I tell her my latest theory?
Doubted it could hurt where we already were.
“Loki,” I told her.
“Loki? Like the Norse god Loki?” Sam asked, incredulous.
“He was pretty pissed at me, last year, for stopping him and Ragnarok and all that,” I pointed out. I took the last drag on my cigarette.
‘You know, that makes scary sense,” Sam said. “That he’d try to get back at you. Mess up the timelines and make it seem like it was you. Or get the cops to blame you.”
“Yup,” I said, sitting back. I swirled the ice at the bottom of my drink. Should I have another? Did I want more caffeine? I would be up half the night, trying to reach Odin.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Sam asked, too casually.
“We, huh?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to give up being mad at her or not.
“I already apologized,” Sam said. “And I am sorry that the cops came after you. I really didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“I know. And Hunter?” I asked.
“I’ve already made sure that he has good legal counsel,” Sam assured me.
Shit. Was that why Hunter hadn’t tried to whisk me away someplace safe? Because he knew the cops were coming after him next? And they’d arrested him? Fuck.
“Thanks,” I said lamely. I would have to check in on him later.
“How are you going to take care of Loki?” Sam pestered. “How can I help?”
I grinned. I couldn’t help it. “How do you feel about making it up to me in a cemetery?”
Ξ
Sam, of course, looked like she’d just stepped out of a salon when she strode up the hill to greet me. Hair pulled back with a scarf, cute halter top, and shorts that showed how her legs ran from the ground all the way up to just under her chin.
God, she was gorgeous.
And for the moment, she was still mine.
Though Sam really didn’t get off on PDAs, she still suffered me to grab her hips and pull her closer, nuzzle along the edge of neck, getting a good nose–full of her wonderful, womanly scent mingled with that addicting lemongrass lotion she used before I pulled back and kissed her.
She fell into the kiss for a few moments, at least: tongues and teeth and sweetness edging on rough.
Then she pulled back, of course.
We were out in public. I couldn’t just fall to my knees and go to town on her sweet cunt, no matter how much I wanted to.
I settled for squeezing her hands and licking my lips.
Of course she rolled her eyes. That was just her.
That was us.
“So where are we going, exactly?” Sam asked as she dropped my hands.
I knew she wasn’t comfortable holding hands in public, and I wasn’t going to push it just yet.
“In the park, next to the cemetery, is an art installation,” I told her. “You remember the ‘ice–henge’ that a group of students created on Lake of the Isles in February?”
Sam shook her head.
“It was a set of really tall rectangular blocks of ice, set in a circle, with lights,” I told her. “The art installation was so popular they decided to do it again, with papier–mâché this time. A paper henge. In the graveyard, over there.” I pointed. “And that’s where we’ll try to attract Odin’s attention.”
“A henge, huh?” Sam asked.
I shrugged. “Unless you have a better idea?”
Sam shrugged in return. “Works for me.”
The silence flowing between us turned awkward. What was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to talk with her? Sam had apologized, and I’d tried to forgive her, but I was still pissed.
There was too much tainted water flowing under that bridge.
Besides, I never knew how to handle the ordinary shit. I could take any of the freaky shit in stride. Hell, I’d worked at a sex & toy shop for years, reviewed every video we sold, dealt with our more particular customers. That didn’t bother me, or trip me up as much as making up after a lovers’ quarrel.
Though to be fair, Sam accidentally turning me over to the police struck me as much more than an innocent, casual fight.
“You want to tell me what happened last night?” Sam finally asked. “After you kicked me out of Chinaman Joe’s?”
I told her about going up to see Hunter, how he’d been freakily passive, not taking me away from the cops.
“They were probably coming for him next,” Sam speculated.
I nodded. Tomorrow I’d call around, try to find him, see if he needed bail or something.
Then I told her about my meeting with the PA officers, Theodore and Oliver. How they’d tried to rile me, but that I’d kept my cool.
“Do you think we should go back to University Avenue, after this?” I asked as we made our way up the hill, toward the cemetery.
Sam sighed. “Cops might still be watching the area. Might pick you up again, just for showing up.”
“Maybe it’ll all be clear after we talk with Odin,” I told her.
Even in the dim light, I could see the one skeptical eyebrow that Sam raised at me.
Okay, she was right. Odin wasn’t known for keeping his word.
But he still owed me, right?
Even though the cemetery officially closed at sunset, which had happened a few hours before, the lights at the art installation, the “paper–henge,” were still on. The pieces towered above our heads, maybe a story tall. The rectangles weren’t precisely square. Some of them veered to one side or the other, twisted like a tree in a tornado.
The lights were primarily red, white, and blue, except for the few that were orange or green. They flashed in a non–syncopated order, like giant eyes winking, trying to stay awake.
The installation was built around a bunch of other circles, each inside the next, planted with red geraniums and yellow mums, like some kind of bullseye that could be seen from space. In the very center stood a huge urn, overflowing with ivy and other green trailing vines.
Where the hell were we supposed to stand? In the center, in the middle of the vines? They creeped me out, quite frankly.
It wasn’t that they were moving without any kind of wind. But I’d seen too many horror movies of exactly that kind of thing, where the vegetation suddenly came alive.
“Now what?” Sam asked, reasonably enough.
“Um, we pray?” I suggested. I’d found a couple of entreaties for Odin on the internet. They all called for blood and for Odin to wreak his vengeance on someone.
I wasn’t asking for that. I was calling in a favor. Seemed there weren’t many prayers for that.
Still, I did my best to imitate what I’d seen.
“Odin, all father, Val Father, I call on you!
Lord of Poetry and War!
Lord who drinks joyous mead for food!”
Sam didn’t say anything as I marched, circling the paper–henge. I could hear her incredulousness in the way she stood, her arms crossed over her chest.
If the cops picked us up, I already knew that she’d disavow any knowledge of me, or what the fuck I was doing. Hell, I’d probably do the same.
That just made my sing louder as I skipped, flinging my arms wide.
“I invoke thee, O Slayer of Ymir, who died and lived again
At the end of all time, the end of the twilight war
Who teacheth the importance of sight above all things!”
Even I knew I was making an ass of myself.
I didn’t care. I had to catch Odin’s attention. Somehow.
“O great rider of Sleipnir,
O gray one, O weary traveler,
O husband of Frigg, hear my call!
Come to my side, and be rid of your oath to me!”
Technically, he hadn’t really sworn an oath to me. And I knew he had a reputation as an oath breaker. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to throw that part in.
I started circling back the other way. I didn’t want to slit my wrists, but I knew that might have to be next, to give the god the blood he sought.
Much better it be mine than Sam’s, though. Who looked more worried now, like she thought I’d really gone off the deep end.
And maybe I had—trying to raise Odin in the middle of a graveyard in Minneapolis.
“I call on the wielder of the spear Gungnir!
I call on Hugin and Munin, thought and memory,
To needle you into action!
I call on the strider between worlds to answer my plea!”
Was that a great wind I heard? I whipped around, but I didn’t see anything but darkness under the trees.
When I turned back around, about to start my call again, I nearly yelped.
A tall man stood there, gray and ghostly. Winds ruffled his long beard, and an endlessly black patch covered one eye. He held a giant staff, gnarled and more solid than he was. On his shoulder perched two huge ravens with black eyes that looked curiously at me.
I resisted the urge to croak “Nevermore” to them. Somehow I doubted they’d get the joke.
“You called?” Odin said, his words whipping around me.
Sam stood just behind him, seemingly frozen in time.
Great. She wasn’t seeing Odin, wouldn’t know he’d been there.
Just another instance of my being crazy to stand between us.
“Well?” Odin asked, seemingly impatient.
I took a quick, deep breath. Just because I’d thrown my heart into the ritual didn’t mean I’d actually believed it would work.
“Someone’s been messing with the timelines,” I told Odin. “Is it my friend Loki, trying to get back at me?”
Odin chuckled sadly at me, shaking his head. “Oh, you humans. Always thinking that everything revolves around you.”
“So it wasn’t Loki?” I asked. Crap. Who else would mess up the timelines like that?
“It wasn’t Loki,” Odin assured me. “It was none of the gods of my realm.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked. “Was it gods of some other realm?” Because really? That would just kind of cement the lousiness of my luck.
That I didn’t have just a Norse god with a grudge against me, but some other pantheon of gods as well?
Odin shrugged. “It isn’t personal,” he promised me.
“Then who?” I asked.
“You have asked your question. I have answered,” Odin replied. “If you would seek more knowledge, you would have to offer more.”
“Like what?” I asked, instantly suspicious.
“Nothing you wouldn’t miss,” Odin purred. He looked me over, speculatively.
Oh hell no. I was a gold star lesbian—had never slept with a man—and wasn’t about to, either.
Not even if it might give me information to save the world.
“You can just fuck the right hell off, buddy,” I told Odin.
Odin laughed and laughed as he faded away, the giant ravens on his shoulders joining in. The echoes of their laughter swirled around me as time started moving forward again.
“What the hell was that?” Sam asked as she looked around.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief. At least she’d noticed something had gone on while she’d been elsewhere.
“Odin. With the great news that it wasn’t Loki messing with me, but some other god,” I told her, still pissed, taking off down the road.
“Who?” Sam asked as she rushed to keep up with me.
“Hell if I know,” I told Sam. I stumbled on an unseen crack in the road, windmilling my arms so I didn’t fall flat on my face.
Of course, with my luck, I ended up smacking Sam in the face instead.
“Ow,” Sam said, holding her hand up to her nose.
“Crap. Are you bleeding?” I asked, cupping my hands over hers.
She sniffed and tilted her head back. “Just a little,” she said, her voice sounding small and hurt.
“Let’s get some ice on that. I’ll get you home,” I promised her.
“And then what?” Sam asked, reasonably enough.
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. I was all out of ideas. I’d been awake for far too many hours in the last two days, with strength–sapping heat. I’d been accused of breaking the law, messing with timelines, as well as selfishly calling a god.
“I don’t know,” I told Sam honestly.
“Okay,” Sam said after a moment. “We’ll just have to figure something out in the morning.”
“Really? That’s it?” I asked, stumbling after her as she now set the pace going rapidly out of the graveyard.
�
�For now,” she said quietly. “We’ll both have more to say in the morning, I’m sure.”
“Yeah,” I said, trailing after her.
Obviously, Sam was assuming that we were going back to her place. Did I want to go back there? It felt like giving in, though I wasn’t sure what we were fighting about anymore.
Did it really matter? One more night in Sam’s arms, in her bed, between her legs, would be just about as close to Heaven as I was going to get right now.
And I needed to grab me some pieces of Heaven.
Before the shit really hit the fan.
Chapter Five
Morning came far too fucking early. Why Sam wouldn’t put darker curtains in her room had always been beyond me.
I groaned as the light stabbed me in the eyes. I felt as though I was completely hung over, though I hadn’t had a drink in, shit, years at this point.
I didn’t do that anymore. Not since I’d gotten off the street.
I reached out blindly, feeling for Sam. Her side of the bed was empty. And cold.
I cracked open one eye. Sam, of course, was nowhere to be seen. I groaned again, pulling her pillow up over my eyes. Maybe I could go back to sleep. At least for a little while. It was wonderfully cool in her apartment. And the sheets still smelled like us, and the fun we’d gotten into last night. After her nose had stopped bleeding.
“Good morning,” came a far too chipper voice.
I rolled away from it, groaning. Maybe if I pretended to still be asleep, she’d let me be.
“I know you’re awake,” Sam said gently. “I even brought you coffee.”
“Sweet nectar of the gods,” I murmured, rolling back onto my back but not removing the pillow from my eyes.
“Cassie…we have to talk,” Sam said.
Great. I knew where this was heading, and it wasn’t anywhere good. Hell, I’d rather face Loki than sit and talk.
With a great suffering sigh I pushed the pillow away from my eyes, pushed myself up to sitting. I resisted pulling the pillow up to my stomach, or even wrapping my arms around my knees.
I could be a big girl about the shit going to hit the fan.