Unless he'd picked up the weather report for me specifically, that was.
Before I had a chance to analyze that possibility, Thor leaned in and grabbed a hand around my wrist. I instinctively shivered. It wasn't from the suddenness of it, or from any real worry that Thor was going to snap it in two to prove a point. It was from the still-fresh memory of Loki.
“Do not worry,” Thor said, voice soft for the first time, “I’m not Loki.”
I stared at him, relaxing.
“We must go,” Thor said through a deep, manly sniff.
“How? Where?” I asked through several blinks. Thor's grip was strong, but it didn't eat into my skin like Loki’s had. It didn't send tendrils of ice-cold streaking up my arm and across my chest.
It was warm.
“How do we get from now to then?” I stammered. “Or rather, how do we get from the past back to the future? I got here through a rift in the Library of Alexandria, but it has closed. I'm not sure if there are any others around. From what I know of all the other functioning, stable space-time portals, there aren't any others close-by.” I stopped abruptly. Was I, goddess Officina, babbling?
Thor looked amused. Though there was still that edge there. That edge that the mere mention – let alone the actual presence – of Loki seemed to produce. It was sharp, palpable. I almost felt like I could reach out a hand and touch it.
It was a wound of divine, god-like proportions.
“I have a list of complaints,” Anubis snapped, “I don't want anything like this happening again. I have already registered a complaint with the Office detailing recent underwater disturbances around my tunnels. I also don't like the way some of my—“
As I’d dealt with Anubis before, I knew that the guy could bark and bark for ages. If we let him, he would literally chew our ears off. He would also get one of his whiz-bang quick scribes to write out a couple of hundred scrolls detailing each and every complaint he had to make. There would even be pictures and diagrams.
Thor had enough experience with Anubis too to know not to stick around. He turned to the Egyptian god and bowed his head low. “Your complaints will be brought up with the Powers that Be.” He turned sharply and furled a hand out towards the door behind us.
Though Thor – with his mighty grip and mighty strength – had a hand over my wrist and was pulling me towards the opening door between the Dead, I resisted.
I held my ground. I didn’t want to go back in there.
He turned his head. “We aren't going back to visit Hades,” he assured me with a dip of his chin. “Come along, Details. I want to get this over with. Ambrosia have a happy hour at seven tonight.”
I rolled my eyes at him. Grinning, he pulled me through the Door of the Dead.
He was right. We didn't end up back in Hades' halls. We didn't end up in any other death god's house either. No. We ended up under the ocean.
Under it.
For a second, I forgot I'm immortal.
I struggled, flapping my free arm around and trying desperately not to open my mouth.
Thor laughed. I heard it too, though I was under water. I was a goddess.
“You have become far more human than I thought, and it is funny.” He demonstrated his mirth by laughing so hard that several schools of nearby fish turned tail and swam as fast as they could in the other direction. “You are wearing these PJ things and trying not to drown when you are under water.” He laughed again.
I was starting to confirm something I already knew: Thor's sense of humor was as blunt as a plank of wood to the face.
“Ha, ha, you are funny,” I snapped back. I noticed the way the fabric of my top was billowing and puffing up with the swirl and current of the water. My hair was a mess of floating tendrils playing around my face, and my bare feet were sinking slowly into the soft sand underneath me.
It was a magical scene, despite the laughing Nordic god. The color of the water was deep blue, and I could see the sunlight above refracting through it. There were various fish swimming by, though they were giving us an excessively wide berth (likely they had heard of Thor's ridiculous appetite for wild boars, and wondered whether that extended to fish/sharks/whales/anything at all that wasn't vegetables or fruit).
The coral and seaweed glinted softly all around us, and the shadows cast by the great banks of pockmarked rock off to my side hid more colorful wonders.
Before I had a chance to march off, Thor yanked on my arm as he propelled himself upward with the speed of a missile.
He'd obviously been serious when he'd said he didn't want to miss happy hour at the Ambrosia. He probably had another date with the forest bimbo from my office, I thought bitterly.
We crested the surface.
I glanced around us. We were close to some white glistening strip of beach somewhere. Considering there were more than a couple of beaches on Earth, I could hardly locate our exact position. I tried to peer around us, tried to spot anything that might give me any more clues.
“Greece!” Thor roared. “I wonder where my yacht is?” he mumbled to himself as he twisted around.
Greece. Greece? When he'd said we were going home, I'd thought we'd pop up from a drain in my house or something. Greece was on the other side of the world!
“Ah ha!” Thor rumbled as he spotted a nice massive yacht on the horizon. It was anchored far out from the shore, bobbing in a glistening and sparkling ocean.
I'd never been on a yacht before. I’d been in a building made of glass and diamond that floated next to the sun, and a hospital made into the clouds, and in the Underworld – but I'd never been on a yacht.
Why was I thinking this now of all times? Oh, that's right: it was that or thinking about how gently yet firmly Thor held my wrist.
So, yachts, then – this would be fancy. I threw myself into the thought as best I could. I wondered how stupidly large this boat would be and how gaudily it would be decorated. While Thor was more grunge, when it came to his alter ego, Zeus, that man-god knew how to live. There would be sashaying women, gold-plated taps, and an entire tugboat nearby to store his wine collection. I was sure of it.
Thor thankfully didn't shoot us along the top of the water towards his yacht. If any humans had been watching from the beach, two people skimming along the top of the ocean moving faster than a torpedo would be worthy of note.
Instead, the boat came to us. It was the maritime equivalent of Lassie. I wondered whether just as Mjollnir was magically bonded to Thor, he'd extended that power to include yachts too.
Soon enough, the yacht crested aside us. As it neared, and as it moved far quicker than any normal yacht could, I realized how un-yacht-like it was. It was far more of a giant, well-endowed cruise ship.
Typical Zeus.
As soon as it was beside us, a rope ladder was thrown from the deck high above. It would be one of the sashaying goddesses throwing it down, I was sure.
Thor climbed first, wanting to get on board as fast as possible to change into his white pants and polo top. Hell, he'd want to put some white golf shoes on too and a big watch. He might even put a couple of gold signet rings on both his pinkies.
I forced myself to snigger as I climbed the ladder behind him. Though I was trying valiantly to push it from my mind, there was a swirl of complex feelings twisting their way around my gut like a leviathan. I’d spent a whole life (which was a long time for a goddess) hating Thor in all his guises. I’d thought I’d known everything about him – every detail of every identity. Every way he laughed arrogantly, every way he railroaded others. Every single detail of every single expression and movement.
Now I was realizing there were a set of details I’d never had the opportunity to learn: precisely how it felt to be close to him.
I was filled with frustration, tingly excitement, and annoyance all at once.
Thor jumped lithely onto the deck of what could only be called the world's biggest yacht. I followed slowly.
I paused to stare around me. Thor hadn't
rushed off to change into his yachting-tycoon guise. But I’d been right on one account: the place was posh. By posh, I meant posh in a god-like way. There were even sashaying goddesses, as predicted. Hell, one of them had a bottle of champagne in one hand.
Thor/Zeus was so predictable. Before I could point that out, I heard a slight swoosh from behind me.
Something coiled around my middle. It was cold, it was wet, it was strong.
It yanked me with all the strength of a giant. I lost my grip on the rope ladder immediately. As I sailed back down the side of the ship, and a tentacle wrapped around my middle, I screamed, “Not again.”
Something – a sea monster, likely – had gone and snatched me off the side of a ladder for the second time in two days. Was this a record? Or was this how sea monsters rolled these days, considering there were a whole lot less heroes to tangle with? Did they trawl around looking for goddesses to attack in precisely the same bizarre way? Had this particular sea monster spied me walking down under the water but put off capturing me on the off chance I could find a ladder to mostly climb up instead?
Bloody sea monsters!
My thoughts happened before the monster could get moving. By moving, I meant pelting. With me tightly coiled in one of its fat tentacles, said denizen of the deep did a 180, then shot off back under the surface.
I had the odd but fitting thought (considering my line of work) that hopefully by diving this monster wouldn't draw any unnecessary human attention.
As my body plunged through the water, the tentacle wrapping more tightly around my middle, all those thoughts faded away. The mere fact I was being kidnapped yet again came to the fore. The pain, the cold, and the fear.
The monster moved fast, shooting through the sea, its tentacles propelling it along with great, monstrous tugs. I could see them virtually grabbing the water as they moved around me.
The one that held me hardly moved. Until it twisted around and brought me face-to-fang with one of the giant, rotting-meat-covered teeth in its wide mouth. It had been intending to glare at me, but with it being mostly tentacle and teeth, the sea monster was having trouble orienting my form towards one of its pin-prick eyes.
As the force of the water slammed against my face, pinning my eyes open, I felt the fear grow. It went hand-in-hand with the cold.
The tentacle around my middle fixed me so tightly that I could hardly move the rest of my body. My arms hung limply over its girth, my legs slack and unresponsive.
Sharp, nasty, aching pain shot through my sides and across my back. It felt as though the thing was slowly crushing me under a vise.
I tried to let out a scream, but I couldn't manage to arch my head back.
Pain. It was all I could see, feel, experience.
Then there was a thought. Thor.
The word itself sent a spark through me.
I felt a surge of energy combat the pain. The power twisted itself through me, then seemed to seep into my skin. As the tentacle pushed in, the power pushed out.
I hadn’t felt power like this in years. Centuries, eons.
I could feel the sea monster losing its grip. Barely. I would need much more to win the battle here.
That much more came sailing through the water, shooting forward with a note so loud and sharp the stones and sand beyond and underneath all vibrated as if a powerful earthquake was shaking through them.
Mjollnir.
The hammer, having a predilection for cracking skulls (considering its owner) bypassed my tentacle and smacked solidly into the head of the sea monster. There was a resounding, ringing thud.
The tentacle that held me – much like the annoyingly autonomous one that had snuck off with me in the flood tunnels – didn’t loosen its grip, despite the solid blow wrought to its head.
Mjollnir shot back through the water, having struck its welcoming blow. I knew Thor couldn't be far behind.
That thought did a strange thing to me: it brought up a powerful new set of details swimming in my mind's eye like stars shining in the night's sky. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what those details were.
I felt my power grow again. I was not, nor ever would be, the goddess of strength, sea-monster fighting, or self-defense. I would always be better suited to reading tool catalogues and astronomical data reports than fighting with god goons.
But I was still a goddess, and given power, I could fight.
I sunk my hands into the soft, extremely slimy skin of the tentacle that held me. I tried to get a grip, and when I got one, I pushed the damn thing off.
It tried to resist, tried to redouble its grip, but it didn't matter: my power was too great. The divinity of details was swelling within me, the serenity of facts and figures, the metaphysical grandeur of the parts that made up the whole.
I kicked the damn tentacle for good measure.
That ought to teach it. The tentacle shuddered, then sank. I trod water and maintained my position. I knew there was a dumb “Ha, I kicked a sea monster“ look on my face I couldn't seem to shift.
I wasn't used to power like this. Or rather, I wasn't used to being able to manifest details in this way. It was usually paperwork for me, not underwater victories.
Thor came thundering through the water, and to my perverse disappointment, he wasn't decked out in white pants and golf-shoes.
He held Mjollnir, the hammer still singing.
I felt a flush of energy escape over my cheeks. Not nerves mind you, energy.
The sea monster knew the tide had changed for him. He tried to turn slimy tail and streak off into the ocean.
Thor grabbed said tail, climbed up it, made his way to the thing's head, and for the second time in two days knocked a sea monster out cold.
The thing floated down to the seabed, where it impacted in a great cloud of sand, disturbed coral, and broken shells.
It was over.
I looked over my shoulder to check there weren't any more sea monsters tooling around the water. Thankfully there weren't. That or they were waiting for me to start climbing ladders again, the sods.
Thor half-swam half-walked my way. He didn't bother saying anything. He didn't bother chortling at his victory. He didn't bother telling me I was a total nong of a goddess for being captured by sea monsters more often than most humans bothered getting petrol.
He was worried. I knew he was worried. I wasn't deriving this fact from the way his features were drooped or stiffened. I knew the whole of the situation for what it was: a tight, nervous, fear.
My head began to hurt again.
“No more games. Straight to Asgard,” Thor said. It was the first time I’d heard him just say something. He didn't boom it, he didn't thunder it, and he didn't laugh it. He simply spoke.
For my part, I pressed two fingers into my forehead and tried to push away the heavy pain settling there.
A pain that told me this situation was only going to get worse.
Chapter 8
I didn't bother asking how we were going to get to Asgard – whether we were going to retrofit his yacht and set it bombing along the sea until it slipped into inter-dimensional space.
Things were happening too quickly. The pace of the situation was arcing up like some great crackle of lightning as it darted its way down to Earth.
As the head god of two-and-a-half pantheons, Thor knew secrets I could never know. Maybe he was privy to the secret great-god bus timetable. Perhaps he had a jetpack tucked into his belt next to Mjollnir. Or maybe he was genuinely good at flying – good in the way that could get us from Earth, through space (though not in the literal sense), and to the home of the Nordic gods.
We didn't open a door in the seabed, or spin around in circles until the centrifugal pressure created caused a nice wormhole. No. Thor sung. I don't mean he cracked out Neil Diamond while under the ocean dressed in full Nordic-god garb. He didn't hum a catchy ad jingle.
He sung a single note. One resounding, ear-splitting, vibrating, oscillating, shuddering note. He hard
ly opened his mouth when he did it, too. It was only by the fixed look of concentration on his face that I knew he was the one producing the hum.
Mjollnir started to hum the note, too. Though, that wasn’t right. It wasn't that Mjollnir began to sing the same tune – the hammer was resonating with it. It was somewhat like striking a key on a piano in a room full of other pianos, and hearing them all begin to play the same note.
It was spreading. First Mjollnir, then the rocks around us, then the sand. My own body began to pick up and translate the vibration too. The water all around us shuddered with the same tone.
It all... shifted. The note was all it took. No jetpacks, no wormholes, no god-bridges. One consistently-sung, powerfully held note changed the location around us to Asgard.
One note.
I felt the depth of the tone move through me. It felt like I was being pushed backwards from every point in space. Except I wasn't moving anywhere. It also felt as if every single part of me – every single particle, every single detail – was all chiming into the same, primordial, powerful song.
Suddenly reality shifted, and the sea slipped away.
I noticed the glittering, great buildings before me. I noticed the ice-white path we stood on. I noticed the turquoise-blue sky above shot through with colors no mortal could see. I noticed the great tower before us – the one that twisted and spiraled like a double helix of DNA as it rose into the impossible sky.
I’d never been to Asgard. I wasn't a Nordic god.
The details... were divine.
The place was still and yet was shifting through space at the speed of light. That, or it was made of nothing more and nothing less than light itself. It wasn't the kind of light you could wave your hand through or use to illuminate your kitchen or the book you were reading. It was the light that formed objects. It was matter. Unlike the matter that made up Earth and most of the rest of the universe, it was matter that hadn’t forgotten its illuminated origins.
Whenever I shifted my head, I caught rainbows of color glinting off every building and window.
Modern Goddess: Trapped by Thor (Book One) Page 13