Fenrir pushed the burger plate aside and pulled the hanger steak toward him. He paused to consider his attack on his second entree, and Sally wondered when he’d gotten used to eating in restaurants. Wasn’t he a hunter, used to tearing apart his still-warm prey with his teeth? To her surprise, he picked up his fork and knife and cut deftly into the meat.
“You’ve been practicing,” she said.
Fenrir flashed a sharp-toothed smile before shoving a bloody hunk of barely-cooked meat into his mouth. He still wasn’t invited to feasts at the Lodge, but Thor had had him over for the occasional barbecue—which boggled Sally’s brain—and she wondered if Bonnie was teaching the Fenris Wolf something approaching proper table manners.
“I didn’t want to embarrass you.” He chewed with his mouth hanging open, then seemed to remember himself. He closed his mouth and dabbed at the corners of his lips with his cloth napkin.
Sally chuckled as the fearsome Fenris Wolf—the vicious, shapeshifting Warg who had for ages been destined to carry out the frenzied, gory climax of Ragnarok—laid his napkin neatly in his lap and reached for his glass of water. Now that the Fates had been diverted and Odin had died by quite different means, maybe Fenrir was trying to reinvent himself for a new age. His little finger stuck out as he lifted the glass.
“I appreciate the effort,” Sally said.
He took a long swallow of ice water and another bite of steak. “And I want to get to know you better.”
Sally felt suddenly hot and worried that her cheeks were flushing pink. Did he think this was a date? A lunch date in the middle of the week carried decidedly lower expectations, but still. And what would it even be like to date the Randulfr? Assuming she was attracted to him—and that was a big leap, since she’d never really considered such an association before. Would they have to sneak around, wary of being found out by Heimdall or Thor? Freya would certainly have something to say about it, and her words wouldn’t be charitable. Would he accompany her on her midnight treks to the old Yggdrasil and into the woods? Would he be on two feet or four?
Except Sally was dating Zach, and she felt relief as the heat in her cheeks faded. But then a new problem presented itself: How to let him down easy? Fenrir was her friend, and he’d pledged his allegiance to her as the Rune Witch, but he was still a long-lived legendary force with sharp claws and teeth and a beastly nature.
Sally frowned at him for a long time and held a french fry motionless in a sea of red ketchup. Fenrir broke into a predator’s grin.
“Are you going to eat that, or are you trying to drown it?”
Sally looked down at the soggy fry, shook herself back into focus, and shoved the potato wedge into her mouth.
“I said I wanted to get to know you better, and you froze.” He cut off another hunk of meat and pushed it into his mouth. He exercised caution over his chewing behavior and made a show of resting his utensils on his plate.
“I just wasn’t expecting that.” Sally scooped up a spoonful of shrimp and reached for her water. The food was delicious, but after Fenrir’s declaration everything tasted a bit off. She didn’t have to be afraid of Fenrir, did she? She looked around the restaurant and gauged the proximity of their waitress, the quickest path to the ladies’ room, and the distance to the pub exit.
Fenrir’s trained eyes missed nothing. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Okay, well, first off, if you don’t want to make me uncomfortable, you’ve got to stop staring at me.” Sally crossed her arms over he chest. “You’re looking at me like I’m the next course on the menu.”
Fenrir threw his head back and laughed, a reaction Sally hadn’t expected. “Point taken.” He picked up his fork and knife again. “What else?”
“Well, secondly, I have a boyfriend.” She reached for her glass and gulped down her ice water. Too much, too fast, and she had the beginnings of a headache.
“Right. Zach. How’s he doing?” Fenrir pushed the last forkful of steak into his mouth. As he chewed, he reached again for his hamburger plate and started digging into the green salad and french fries. He stopped and looked at her. “Wait. Did you think I’m trying to date you?”
The uncomfortable flush was back. She was misreading signals all over the place. What good was being the Rune Witch and wielding ancient magick if she couldn’t function properly in the real world? Sally gulped down more water and tried to cool her burning cheeks.
“No, of course not.” Sally shook her head and tried to smile, and worried that she was overcorrecting.
Fenrir didn’t look like he bought it, but he went back to his food anyway. “It’s good that you have him, something relatively normal. It’s tough being what we are.”
Sally didn’t answer. Instead, she shoved more potted shrimp and fries into her mouth and swallowed hard without chewing her food enough. She was lucky she didn’t choke on her lunch. Nothing felt right anymore, and she was frustrated with herself again for even trying to fit in—whether it was the Lodge or with normal, urban society didn’t seem to matter. Maybe his long life as a shapeshifter did give Fenrir some insight into what it felt like to be caught between worlds the way she was. She felt the stinging prick of tears in her eyes and wondered if she looked as pathetic as she felt.
“It’s okay, Sally.” Fenrir rested one hand flat on the table, not quite reaching for her but offering his comfort if she wanted to take it.
Sally brushed the corners of her eyes and held her napkin to her nose. She willed herself not to cry in public. She was a powerful witch, a catalyst of chaos and apprentice to Loki. She had faced The Morrigan and the Køjer Devils and had bested the goddess Hel in her own underworld hall. But she was also barely twenty years old and floundering, no matter what act she put on for Loki or the members of the Lodge.
Fenrir tapped his outstretched fingers on the table. “You’ve got a friend here, you know.”
Sally met his eyes and smiled. She rested her hand lightly on top of his. “I know.”
She let the idea sink in. Even when he made her uneasy, Fenrir had always been loyal. He’d saved her life at least twice and she suspected he always, in his own way, kept an eye on her.
Sally took a breath. She needed to confide in someone, and Fenrir might be able to provide insight into the darker side of the Norse pantheon and into his father’s particular brand of magick that she wouldn’t find anywhere else. And she felt suddenly confident that even with the information she had to share, he wouldn’t judge or abandon her.
She picked up her spoon and pushed the remnants of her lunch around in the bowl. If she was going to start this conversation, it might as well be now. She opened her mouth just as a chirping noise erupted from the other side of the table. She frowned. Was Fenrir carrying a live bird in his pocket? Maybe that was supposed to be his dessert.
Fenrir rolled his eyes playfully. “Sorry. I’ve got to take this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a high-end smartphone.
Sally dropped her spoon and it clattered on the table. “You have a phone?”
Fenrir read the text message that had come in. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Yeah, but . . . you’re not exactly everyone.”
Fenrir rested the phone on the table between his plates. “Tell me about it. Do you know how hard it was to get the right phone—for me—without having to go through a government-level background check? It didn’t used to be so difficult to get people to take my money.”
Sally blinked at him. “You have money?”
Fenrir laughed. “Did you think you were going to have to wash dishes in the kitchen to pay for lunch today?”
“No, I . . . I guess I thought I’d pay?”
His phone chirped again. Fenrir glanced at the display and sighed. “Have you ever gotten text messages from a dog? I’m afraid she’s not going to leave me alone unless I respond. Hang on a second.” He started tapping on the touchscreen with his gloved fingertips.
Sally took a long drink of water an
d tried to wrap her mind around the scene: the Fenris Wolf of legend eating a burger and sending a text message in the middle of a Portland pub.
“Wait. Did you say a dog?”
Fenrir flashed her a quick smile before pressing the “Send” button and setting the phone down on the table. “Laika.”
Sally frowned. She opened her mouth and realized she had no idea where to begin with her questions. How could a dog, even a wolf-dog as demonstrably clever as Laika, use a phone?
Fenrir read the confusion on her face. “My father’s idea of a joke. He’s taught Laika how to trigger Heimdall’s Alexa home device. I hear that she’s managed to order three dozen bags of frozen spinach and the entire Golden Girls digital series on Amazon.”
Sally picked up her spoon again and wasn’t sure what to do with it. Of course Loki would be involved. He was living on the Lodge property now, though Sally still had no idea how that arrangement had been arrived upon. Not too long ago, Thor and Heimdall both had been eager to keep Loki at a manageable distance. But with Odin and Frigga gone and the Lodge effectively divided into three different domiciles, Sally wasn’t sure anything should surprise her anymore.
And how would Loki keep himself occupied at the Lodge in the middle of the Pierce Forest? Teaching a dog how to use the Amazon virtual assistant, apparently.
“Now she’s sending texts, all to me it seems.” Fenrir tucked the phone back into his pocket.
“What does she text you about?” Sally put down her spoon and reached for the mug of coffee she’d forgotten about. It was barely lukewarm and was black without any sugar or cream. She choked it down anyway.
“Who knows? It’s all nonsensical.” He smiled across the table at Sally. “And you wanted to talk about something.”
Sally put down her empty mug and looked around for the waitress as the cold caffeine hit her in an uncomfortable rush of alertness and pounding heart. This wasn’t the right time or place for sharing and speculating.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
Fenrir laughed. “You’re a lousy liar.”
Heimdall stood at the kitchen counter and sorted through the contents of the large Amazon box that had just been delivered. Eight plastic dinosaurs—three velociraptors, two pterodactyls, two t-rexes, and a lone stegosaurus—a utility knife, an Astronaut Barbie, a PlayStation gaming controller, two large boxes of Neti Pot nasal wash packets, and an apocalypse-survival-size box of Cheez-Its. Laika had been barking at the Alexa device again. Where were the parental controls to keep a dog from ordering a bunch of random crap for two-day delivery? Heimdall turned the stegosaurus in his fingers and then dropped it back into the box. At least the utility knife might come in handy.
He picked up the box and carried it into the living room. “It’s time we had a talk.”
Laika’s head popped up from one of the leather couches, where she was lounging by the open hearth in the center of the room with Loki at her side. The god of chaos was looking especially rough these days, worse than Heimdall had ever seen him. He was living on the Lodge property now, in a rustic-looking cabin Rod and Thor had thrown together for him. His old place in Portland had been destroyed by Hel’s draugar and, amazingly, Thor had taken pity on him. But Thor’s new soft spot for the god of chaos didn’t extend so far as inviting him to stay on his own property in the city.
Laika and Loki both watched with expectation as Heimdall dropped the open box on a settee and began pulling out the recent purchases and setting them down on the leather upholstery. Heimdall wasn’t clear on what he thought the exercise would accomplish. Laika was a savvy and smart wolf-dog who reacted as much to Heimdall’s thoughts as to his verbal commands, but that didn’t mean she had any understanding of household budgets or responsible consumerism.
“Well?” Heimdall rested his hands on his hips and waited. Laika looked at the items on the settee and then blinked up at him.
“A bunch of toys,” Heimdall said. “A controller for a gaming system we don’t have. The cheese crackers I can almost understand. But nasal wash?” He reached for the knife, still in its hard plastic packaging, and balanced it in his hands. “This is potentially useful.”
“Actually, that’s for me.” Loki kept one hand on Laika’s head as he held his other palm open to Heimdall.
Heimdall sighed and tossed the knife to Loki. “Of course it is. Did you put her up to this?”
Loki lifted his eyebrows and smiled. “Just the knife. The rest is all Laika.”
Heimdall looked hard at Laika while she cocked her head to one side and then the other, trying to read him. Was he angry with her? Not really. But this current haul from Amazon Prime, along with the box of solar-powered pumpkin lights four days earlier, was going to put a strain on Heimdall’s wallet. There was also the fifty-count package of adult diapers delivered the week before. He hoped his wolf-dog wasn’t trying to tell him something.
Maggie wouldn’t be happy when she saw the latest delivery box. She was doing better at keeping things running smoothly at the Lodge, but she still had a tendency to overreact to the little complications that inevitably cropped up. Heimdall would handle this. In the meantime, Maggie was out in her apple grove tending the trees that they hoped would someday produce the fruit that sustained Heimdall and his kind and granted them near immortality. These trees had been transplanted from Iduna’s grove in Norway, and there was no telling when the Pacific Northwest orchard might bear fruit. Iduna’s grove went centuries between harvests, and the last one had been just a few years earlier. How many of the Old Ones would even be left by the time Maggie’s trees produced?
There wasn’t anything Heimdall could do about that. He scooped Laika’s purchases back into the box and turned to Loki. “You taught her how to do this. Maybe you should pay for it.”
Loki nodded thoughtfully. “That’s fair. My bitcoin investment has paid off handsomely, and I’ve not known what to do with the funds. So, yes, send me the bill.”
Heimdall wasn’t sure whether the old trickster was joking. None of them had ever been truly wealthy, but some careful investments over the years along with measured frugality had kept the Lodge comfortably afloat. That the technologically challenged Loki had been speculating in cryptocurrency was as odd a combination as a peanut butter and pickle sandwich or Portland’s own bagpipe-playing, unicycle-riding Unipiper, but then maybe it made all the sense in the world. Of course, the god of chaos would strike it rich. Why not?
“Besides, it’s probably about time I start earning my keep, or whatever the appropriate expression is,” Loki smiled, and for one painful moment his pale skin looked translucent enough that Heimdall was sure he could see the old god’s skull.
Heimdall winced, and Loki’s smile faded. Loki started to say something else but got derailed by one of his coughing fits. They were coming more often now and sounded worse. Loki held a hand to his chest, the pain clear on his face as the coughing wracked his body. Loki leaned forward and reached for a heavy mug of tea resting on the stone ledge of the square hearth, but Heimdall got there first. He handed the mug to Loki and helped him settle back against the cushions of the couch.
“One of Freya’s blends?” Heimdall nodded toward the mug.
As the cough subsided, Loki took a long sip and swallowed. “The last of Frigga’s Cure-All, I’m afraid. Maggie swears she can recreate the recipe, or even improve on it, but so far she and Opal have apparently been coming up empty.”
Heimdall watched Loki drink down the rest of the tea. He wanted to say something encouraging about the longevity and resilience of their kind and how Loki had come back from worse. But he honestly didn’t know if Loki had ever been this sick before. Any of them could be felled by a well-placed blow in magickal or even mundane battle, but whatever condition had Loki deteriorating before his eyes was beyond his experience.
Plus, his alliance with the old trickster was still new and uneasy. Loki had never outright lied to Heimdall, but there had been enough instances of assumed betrayal i
n the past to warrant Heimdall’s skepticism. Odin had found a way to make peace with Loki, and Loki had acted to sacrifice himself to save Sally in Helheim. So Loki wasn’t all bad. But Heimdall couldn’t be certain the dark trickster wasn’t pretending to waste away just to mess with him.
Heimdall heard the door to the mud room open and close in the kitchen, followed by Maggie shouting his name as she rushed into the great room. There was an edge of urgency to her voice, but her face was bright with excitement when she came to a stop at the edge of the hearth. Her enthusiasm dimmed as her glance went to the pale-looking Loki sitting chummily with Laika on the couch. Loki lifted his empty mug to her in salute.
“Everything okay?” Heimdall asked.
“It’s the apple trees.” Maggie squeezed Heimdall’s arm and held on tight. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “I think . . . They’re starting to bud.”
Heimdall laughed aloud. Sacred fruit so soon? He thought about Bonnie in Portland and whether she’d accept a share of apples—it was an old argument between Bonnie and Thor, and one that might finally be settled. He thought about young Magnus and the scattered Einherjar warriors and whether the harvest would be large enough to share with them. His thoughts went to half-dead Freyr on top of Mt. Bachelor, and then to his trusty wolf-dog sitting by the fire. Laika was getting older and beginning to show her years. Would the apples heal and sustain her?
But then Loki started coughing again, and Heimdall’s smile dimmed. There was no hope or expectation on the old trickster’s wan face, but there was peaceful resignation instead. Loki nodded at Heimdall and patted the fur behind Laika’s ears.
“So it’s time then,” Loki said.
The women were whispering when Thor stepped into the dining room, and they promptly stopped.
“Gossiping about me again?” Thor asked with a tired smile. He’d just gotten the boys settled in for the night, after Saga had riled them up with stories about the Rune Witch and Hel’s walking dead minions. Magnus was bored with his bedtime books about mischievous woodland creatures and amphibians who were hopelessly reckless drivers, and he wanted to impress his new friend with tales of his family’s exploits. Thor wasn’t sure that Saga should have indulged them, but he also didn’t think the boys were old enough to absorb the fundamental truths of Saga’s stories—that Thor and his kin were immortals from another age and that the modern, mundane world was a considerably more magickal and dangerous place than most people realized.
Twilight Magic (Rune Witch Book 6) Page 5