Grimm was lazily gobbling down his fill of a pile of rainbow guts, murmuring contentedly to himself.
“Grimm! Get us out of here!” I snapped, panicking.
“YOU BROKE THE BIFRÖST!” Thor screamed, loud enough to make the very ground rumble. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT ASGARD WILL DO TO YOU FOR THAT?” Thor continued, finally climbing free of his entrapment. He stood atop the pile of rainbow guts, panting, his eyes dancing wildly—both in disbelief at what had just happened, and an all-encompassing fury.
That look made me feel like I had just admitted to sleeping with his mother.
Then he saw Grimm actually eating the Bifröst.
Grimm shook his mane and swallowed the last bit, his lips dripping rainbow blood. “Big dog’s gotta eat, ya know? Woof. Woof.” he said in a monotone, flicking his tail. He slowly repositioned himself to face Thor, legs tensing as if ready for the obvious attack.
Thor sputtered incredulously.
And then, nonchalantly, Grimm squatted ever so slightly and pissed on the remaining pile of Bifröst. “It’s hard to focus with you staring at me,” he muttered, averting his eyes.
The look on Thor’s face made me feel like I hadn’t just slept with his mother.
I had forgotten to call her back the next day.
“Damnit, Grimm…” I wheezed.
Grimm snorted at my reprimand. “Sorry, not sorry.”
I hoped Thor hadn’t seen Achilles and Gunnar with us at the bar, or he would hunt them down when he finished making examples of us. Thor looked like he would hunt down anyone I had once bought a pack of bubblegum from. If I was dead, at least I wouldn’t have to go to Fae anymore. Small victories.
I spotted helicopters in the distant skies, all seemingly aimed our way to get footage of whatever the hell fuckery had just gone down over East St. Louis. Maybe God had smited all the strip clubs in one throbbing blow.
Thor slowly climbed down from his perch atop the rainbow pile, his chest heaving, and tears running down his cheeks. “I will show you the many colors of a god’s vengeance…” he promised, literally drooling in anticipation. The fact that his face and beard were dripping with rainbow blood almost made it impossible to take him seriously. Almost.
“Then I will hand you over to the rest of Asgard to atone for your crime with the Bifröst.” Lightning crackled across the skies, somehow matching his steps, and it began to rain harder.
Between one flash of light and the next, a massive, hooded figure suddenly loomed between us and Thor, his back to us. He held a large spear at his side, and it crackled with yellow light, almost vapor.
I heard the sound of a file slowly drawing across metal and saw Grimm noticeably stiffen.
I followed his look to see an eight-legged beast of a horse—complete with an impossible rack of horns and a wide, bloody nose—slowly dragging one of his eight hooves across the asphalt, actually plowing a furrow in the stone.
I’d called him Rudolph once. He’d tried to bite my face off. Good times.
I turned to Alex, smiling hopelessly. This was it. Game over.
“I don’t think Santa’s here for us to sit on his lap. We just hit the top of his naughty list.”
Chapter 16
Thor stopped in his tracks, looking as if he had seen a ghost. “Allfather,” he breathed, his hands falling to his sides. “Where…have you been?”
I pretended I was a very small fly on the wall, hoping they would forget about us.
“Stand down, my son,” Odin commanded in a very soft tone.
Thor blinked in confusion. Then they narrowed. “They broke the Bifröst!”
Odin was nonplussed. “Because you provoked him. You fool.”
Thor’s jaw dropped in disbelief this time. “You have got to be kidding me! I haven’t seen you in decades, father! And the first words out of your mouth are to side with him over your own son?” he growled, fists clenching as they crackled with electricity.
Odin nodded wordlessly. Gungnir—his massive, slate-gray war-spear crackled in his fist, the bright yellow Devourer at the tip steamed with a bright fog—a warning.
Where had Odin been for Thor to have not seen him in decades?
“Where did you take my Mjolnir, father? And what are you going to do about the Bifröst?” Thor asked in a very cold tone.
Again, Odin remained silent.
Thor cocked his head, glancing back at me with a frown, and then back at Odin. “How…do you even know Temple, father? The only other time I’ve seen you scoop up a stray is when you adopted Loki into our home as my foster-brother—” Thor cut off abruptly, taking two rapid steps back, shaking his head in denial. “No, no, no. That’s ridiculous.”
Wait a minute. What the hell was going on here? Alex was staring at me incredulously.
“That is not Loki,” Thor demanded, pointing directly at me, “or I would know this to be one of his illusions. So, how do you know Temple?” Thor asked, much louder and angrier this time. “Why would you protect him like a son?”
“Nate is—”
“Nate?” Thor bellowed. “First name basis?! Are you his cupbearer, then, Allfather?” Thor hooted, belting out a sarcastic laugh at the ridiculous question.
Odin, for his part, was entirely silent, a solid boulder against his son’s storm of emotions, only his cloak rippling in the wind.
His silence was…an answer in and of itself, and I felt my hand shaking as possibilities clicked into place. No…that really was impossible. Cupbearer was another term for…butler.
Thor had also read into Odin’s silence, and was shaking his head in horror. Without another word, he lifted his fist to the sky, calling down a bolt of lightning big enough to destroy the world. “I will not stand—”
“Then you shall fall, my son,” Odin said softly, stabbing his spear up into the air to intercept the lightning bolt and keep it from connecting with Thor’s fist. The steaming Devourer atop Gungnir simply swallowed the bolt of lightning with a slight hissing sound.
Then Odin flung out a hand towards Thor, and a Gateway leading into a world of frost and darkness swallowed him up whole before winking out of existence.
Odin grunted, and then thumped the butt of his spear to the ground, and a bubble of some hazy substance suddenly covered us all in a vast dome. The helicopters from earlier swept by overhead, but we could no longer see them, only hear them. We couldn’t see anything outside of our dome.
I don’t think I would have even cared if the helicopters landed right on top of me. I was shaking my head, gritting my teeth in denial. Tears were streaming down my face, even though I didn’t feel like crying. Tears of anger. Just like Thor, but for different reasons.
Without turning to face us, Odin spoke in a very low tone, almost a whisper. “I’ve sent him to his rooms, as it were. A time-out. I doubt the airsoft gun would have worked on him as well as it did on you,” he said tiredly. “I told you I had a bad feeling about this night. Had I known all this would transpire…” He shook his head. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
I stared, shaking my head in denial. “No, no, no…”
Odin…shimmered to reveal a sharply dressed older man, his shoulders slumped guiltily. He let out a sigh, turning to look back at me empathetically. Over his pressed suit, he wore an apron with the Temple Family Crest on it. Dean’s apron.
I fell to my knees, hyperventilating.
My butler, Dean, was Odin.
“Someone had to watch over you,” Dean—Odin—said. “To make sure you tasted just the right amount of pain. Experienced just enough chaos to destroy the order you grew so accustomed to in your life. What better father figure to help with that than Odin? Even more so after Calvin and Makayla died…”
“Oh, Dean,” I rasped, shaking my head.
“O-dinn, not O-dean,” he corrected. “My idiot son had to give it away before I could tell it to you properly—at the right time. Now that you know, my help is limited. As Dean, I could work behind the scenes—do things that eve
n now, you are probably not even aware of. Subtly. No one ever suspects the butler. Now…” he trailed off, sounding frustrated.
“How did you know we were even here?” I asked, trying to find something I could process. Dean…the man who had been there my whole life, watching over me from the shadows. The fucking Allfather had been my…butler. How had he even found the humility to accept such a role?
Odin didn’t respond, and my mind slowly began to kick into gear. “The bar—Buddy Hatchet—is run by a Valkyrie…” I murmured.
“You are quite popular among my Valkyries,” Odin said, smiling in amusement. “Consider how many souls you have given them over the years…all the battles and wars fought at Chateau Falco. It’s like a buffet table of offerings. You are a legend in their eyes, even though they did not know my involvement. None of my pantheon knew. I didn’t just lie to you, Nate; I lied to everyone. It was necessary.”
That’s when it hit me. I looked up sharply, shaking my head. “Anubis,” I breathed.
Because Anubis was a schemer, always angling for his own gain, using others like pawns. And he was pals with Odin. If Odin’s Valkyries liked me for all the souls I had lined up…Anubis had received his fair share as well, being the King of Hell. And I was his Golden Boy—his Guide. He wouldn’t have wanted Thor ruining his plans. Anubis must have known.
Odin nodded, confirming my suspicion. “We share a vested interest in our favorite supplier of power. But that’s not why I came to your aid,” he admitted, looking embarrassed.
I scowled at him. “One of my ancestors made you their bitch, didn’t they? You were forced to become our butler. Otherwise, why would you—”
I suddenly felt what it was like to have Gungnir tickle my testicles. And I wouldn’t have wished it upon my worst enemy.
I flew.
Quite a ways.
I landed on a pile of rainbow guts, wheezing and coughing.
“And that was just the tip,” Odin muttered.
Alex, the ungrateful little bastard, laughed.
I climbed to my feet unsteadily. So, no one had made Odin their bitch. Message received.
“I’m afraid that Thor was correct on one count. You do need to fix the Bifröst, or we are all in very big trouble. It must be repaired, or the entire might of the Aesir Gods will rain fire down upon Midgard, assuming Ragnarok has begun. At the very least, Alex would have to die as retribution. But…if the Bifröst is repaired…I will let him avoid that fate.”
Alex abruptly stopped laughing, squinting his eyes as he measured up Dean from head-to-toe. “Let?” he began. “Such a funny word—”
“Damn it all,” I muttered, interrupting Alex before he could pick another fight with an Aesir God. “I’m a wizard, not a civil engineer! I wouldn’t even know where to begin!”
Odin pointed at Grimm. “Send him off to murder rainbows around the world and have him bring their carcasses back to you in Fae.”
Grimm adamantly shook his mane. “Unless you plan on taping a shovel to my horn, it’s going to take me a while.” Upon our blank expressions, he lifted a hoof and his nostrils flared with a fiery glow. “Hooves, motherfuckers. Hooves. Not hands. Octodeer knows what I’m talking about.” And he flicked his head back towards Sleipnir. “Am I right?”
Sleipnir didn’t find the nickname even remotely humorous. In fact, it looked like he believed a justifiable response was to murder Grimm right here, right now.
Chapter 17
Dean lifted a hand, halting Sleipnir without even looking—a stark reminder that this was not the Dean I had grown up with. This was Odin, no matter who he looked like.
Alex piped up. “I could go with Grimm.”
Odin nodded his approval. “That would work. Grimm and Alex can gather rainbow carcasses from around the world and stuff them inside Nate’s satchel. That way they only have to make one trip. It would be best to gather rainbows from nine different countries. Symbolic of the Nine Realms,” he explained, waving a hand.
Then he turned to me. “But you cannot afford to waste any more time, Nate. You must go to Fae. Now. Before you break entirely. Coincidentally, a trip to Fae will be necessary to repair the Bifröst, because you will need Wylde’s help in this endeavor. It’s fitting that the three of you must work together to repair the Bifröst. That will help me calm my fellow Aesir down and explain away any…misunderstandings. You three made a mistake, you three fixed your mistake. Odin has returned after a long absence.”
I clenched my fists, not liking this one bit. It fit just a little too perfectly to be coincidence, as Dean…
As Odin had so casually stated.
Sending Alex off to…
“You say to gather rainbow carcasses as if it is a totally normal request. How, exactly, are they supposed to do that?”
“Grimm can fly around Midgard and hunt rainbows to his heart’s content. Shove nine fistfuls of each rainbow’s guts into your conveniently bottomless satchel.”
“And if I’m balls deep in the bush of Fae wilderness, how are they supposed to bring me the…rainbow guts,” I asked, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of the labor we’d earned.
“I can find you anywhere,” Grimm said, not taking his eyes from Sleipnir.
Odin nodded. “You will need a vast line of sight to repair the Bifröst, so I suggest you take the rainbow guts to the top of a mountain—the tallest one you can find. Thinner air will also help you wield more power. Less friction. But you will understand all of that better than I can explain it—if you find what you need in Fae.”
Realizing I could either be murdered now for not accepting the punishment, or later for failing, there wasn’t really much left for me to say. And I was having a hard time even looking at Odin, my mind still in shock to learn that the man who had lived in Chateau Falco my entire life—had served me meals every single day—had been lying to me all this time.
Just like my parents, and so many others.
And the suggestion to celebrate Yulemas suddenly soured in my stomach as I realized it had really been Odin proposing to host a celebration…of Odin. My family had celebrated it for as long as I could remember, and I now felt very conflicted about that.
In this exact moment, I didn’t even care to ask if my parents had known about Dean’s alter-ego. I just wanted to get as far away from him as possible. To get to Fae and start killing as many things as physically possible.
Because if I didn’t get this Fae business clear in my mind—recalling my childhood—I was liable to choke at the worst possible moment and get myself killed. Take Thor, for example. I had various tools in my figurative kit that could have helped me take him down.
My Horseman’s Mask—but that was broken.
My Fae magic—which I couldn’t access until I learned my past in Fae.
This Catalyst business, perhaps, even had powers tied to it. I knew already that it gave me the ability to sometimes adopt new powers for my use—but the answers to that were also in Fae.
Mordred was also in Fae. And if I didn’t stop him, everyone I cared about would die, and I would be sucked down to Hell to work for Anubis.
So as sad, angry, heartbroken, furious, and whatever else I was at the moment to learn of this betrayal, none of it mattered if I didn’t sort out this Fae stuff. I frowned, then shot Odin a suspicious look. “Why haven’t I broken down over this revelation? Shock usually sends me over the edge…”
Odin dipped his head. “You are now on a quest for me, so until the Bifröst is repaired, I have some small say in keeping you safe. It will last until you enter Fae, at which time you will no longer need my protection.”
I frowned at that, wondering what he meant. “Just like that…”
Odin nodded. “Just like that.”
There was that loving compassion I knew so well from Dean. “This doesn’t give me back my Fae Magic, it just helps with the flashbacks?” I asked, needing to clarify.
He nodded again.
“What am I supposed to do in Fae to
actually fix my memories? Do you plan on letting me take a six-month vacation before I attempt to repair the Bifröst? Because if not, you may as well kill me now. I sure as hell don’t have any idea how to fix them—just that I need to go spend time in Fae. But I imagine recalling over a dozen years of my forgotten life is not going to be a one-day event.”
Dean considered me, and that once-familiar, sharp stare took on a whole new significance for me. How many times had I teased, annoyed, and generally caused problems for my butler—Odin, the Father of all the Aesir Gods? Something most people didn’t dare to do, and definitely never more than once. I had…made a habit of poking Dean.
So that same look I was used to getting from him…well, it felt a whole lot different this time, knowing who truly lurked behind the eyes of this unassuming, proper, sophisticated butler.
Odin was known to be a master of magic and sorcery, so I was hoping that he may now be allowed to give me an idea or two on how best to proceed—from one wizard-type to another. Especially since he obviously wanted me to keep on living.
He had chosen me over Thor, after all.
And when he had mentioned someone paying for the crime of destroying the Bifröst, he hadn’t mentioned me or Grimm—just Alex. But…my parents had been pretty adamant about Alex being very important to whatever it was they had spent so long setting up.
“You are familiar with Forcing, yes?” Then he shook his head with a faint smile. “It feels rather strange discussing magic with you so openly…”
I let his nostalgia roll off my shoulders, ignoring it. “Trying to draw as much magic as you can when you first learn how to tap into it on a consistent basis, and then maintaining that grip on it for as long as possible. Like holding your breath while going about your day.” I met his eyes. “I’ve also heard it’s a great way to burn yourself out.” My parents had made me do it with my wizards’ magic, only telling me afterwards about the risks.
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