Nightshade (17 tales of Urban Fantasy, Magic, Mayhem, Demons, Fae, Witches, Ghosts, and more)

by Annie Bellet

  She feels herself go cold. “No, Loki. Not like this.”

  His jaw tightens. After a few long minutes of heavy silence he stands abruptly, sending his chair skidding across the stone floor. And then he leaves, slamming Hoenir’s door behind him like a petulant child. She feels adrift—she thought they’d been bound together again, but they are still two disparate particles, blown apart, with no charge to bind them. The moment she witnessed in the atomic fires meant nothing.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sigyn kneels on one knee before Odin’s throne, head bowed. The palace has been recently illusioned to look like the architecture of the realm of Musselpheim pre-Sutr. The flagstones look like rugged black obsidian, but she feels smooth concrete beneath her. All change in Asgard is an illusion—but on Earth, real change is happening.

  Her eyes flit up to the All Father. He’s sitting on his throne, his spine too straight to be comfortable. His lips are pressed together. He looks concerned. As well he might be. The Diar, the judges that help him rule the realms, flank him on either side, their faces looking as though they’ve eaten something sour. Loki, leaning against the throne, looks well into his cups even though it’s not yet noon.

  “Say that again!” says one of the Diar.

  “Humans have landed on their moon,” Sigyn says.

  “Impossible!”

  “Can they do that?”

  “Can we do that?”

  “No,” Sigyn says, and can’t keep the sharp smile off her face. “We can’t.”

  “Can we even trust this account?” someone shouts. “Sigyn said she saw this on a human magic box, a … what did you call it?”

  “Television,” Sigyn says. She’d been called again to Earth, apparently for no other reason than to see the moon landing on “TV.” Perhaps her purpose in the universe is just to witness the ascent of humans? In any case, the moon landing had been glorious—as had the television—magic for the masses.

  “Heimdall!” Odin says.

  “It is true,” Heimdall, the magical all-seeing gatekeeper, replies.

  “This must be kept a secret!” one of the Diar declares.

  “Our young are restless!” someone else says.

  Sigyn frowns. The young who don’t drown their ennui in mead are restless.

  Another voice joins the choir. “Some of them idealize the so-called freedom movements. They must not know of this victory for the Americans.” The name “American” is said with the same inflection as “bread mold.”

  “Death in the Void for anyone who spreads word of this!” cries another.

  Sigyn’s smile fades. She should have expected that. The same judges have helped rule Asgard for over two thousand years. They feel safer believing their civilization is above all others in every way. A flurry of conversation rises as the Diar discuss just how a species as inferior as humans and a society as depraved as the United States could possibly send a “boat” to the moon.

  Odin’s voice finally rumbles above the rest. “We should not let the general populace know that the Americans are on the moon.”

  She hears murmurs of agreement, and her body burns with anger and frustration. But then from behind Sigyn, a voice rises in the Great Hall. “The Americans are on the moon?” and Sigyn thinks a cold knife has pierced her ribs.

  She turns and sees Valli, standing just inside the double doors of the Great Hall, lips parted in a look of wonder. Nari is wincing behind him, pulling his brother’s arm. “But that is splendid!” Valli declares.

  Sigyn can feel her heart pounding in her chest. The boys should not be here, obviously. But she can well imagine Valli telling Nari, “Make us invisible, so we can walk past the guard and learn all about Mother’s summons to Earth!”

  A silence settles in the hall, thick as the air before a thunderstorm. Nari has publicly obeyed every letter of the law, but no one doubts where his sympathies lie. And no one thinks for a minute that Valli can keep his mouth shut. Sigyn feels her blood go hot. Her hand drops to her sword, anticipating the decree … and then a bright burst of orange fire by Odin’s throne makes her spin.

  Loki flounces off the dais. As he passes her, she can smell the alcohol seeping out of his pores. Standing between their sons and Odin, Loki gives a bow. “Gentlemen, we’re being foolish. To try and hide this American failure, we’ll turn their defeat into a victory for their philosophy.”

  “Defeat?” someone asks.

  “Failure?” asks another.

  “Of course it is a failure,” Loki says, lifting a hand above his head and giving his fingers a snap. The flame that leaps from his thumb is blue, and his body and undulates slightly, like a snake. “They’ve wasted tons of treasure on this adventure. Just think how disappointed they’ll be when they realize the moon isn’t made of cheese.”

  The hall erupts in chuckles and outright guffaws. Sigyn’s eyes go to Odin. He isn’t laughing. His single eye is wide and riveted on Loki. Loki snaps his fingers again. There is another bolt of blue flame. This time Sigyn sees his skin turn blue in the glow, and she doesn’t believe it is a trick of the light.

  “Loki is right,” Odin says. “We will let the news be known.” Sigyn notices the All Father’s hands are squeezing the armrests of his throne so tightly his knuckles are white.

  “But …” a Diar member starts to protest.

  “We will let the news be known. Immediately,” says Odin.

  “Excellent,” says Loki.

  Sigyn’s eyes snap to him. His frame has already relaxed, and he’s pulling a flask from his robe. The fission between him and Odin is just a memory.

  ***

  Sigyn seeks out Loki later that night, hoping maybe this time he’ll remember. But when she finds him, passed out drunk in Odin’s library, she realizes that hope is in vain. Slumped in a chair, he’s holding a bottle in his hand. She slips it out of his fingers so it doesn’t shatter, and he stirs.

  “Have your humans worked out fusion yet?” Loki asks, startling her. His voice is surprisingly coherent.

  Sigyn lifts a brow. Fusion is the uniting of unstable atoms, the fuel that powers Earth’s sun. Cleaner than fission, it’s widely hoped by human scientists to be a new source of energy, but it hasn’t been done in a way that can be practically applied. “No,” she answers.

  “Pity,” Loki says, looking at the ceiling. “That is real magic.”

  “Loki,” she starts to say, but his head lolls to the side and his eyes slip closed. She sighs. The position of his neck is preposterous, and she knows it will hurt in the morning. Readjusting the angle, she pauses to stroke his cheek. There is no heat any longer beneath her fingers, no attraction, just pity. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

  One of Loki’s eyes slides open. “If I’m too drunk to follow orders, Odin can’t use me.”

  Before Sigyn can respond, he hiccups, and his eyes drift closed again.

  She leaves him, but later that night, while she is eating with Nari and Valli, she continues to mull his words. Loki might be called a fool, but he had done a lot for Asgard. He has given the realm some of its most powerful treasures, and Loki is who Odin calls when he can’t solve things himself—or when things are too unpleasant to do himself. And now Loki is done with it, but instead of fighting, he’s merely evading being Odin’s puppet. Because … her eyes catch on her two sons, centuries old, who look to be in their mid-twenties. As long as he is loyal, their sons remain in Asgard and they will never die. Asgard is the safest place to be in the Nine Realms, if you obey.

  The boys say they are prepared to die for their freedom. She’s ready to die with them; of course, she hopes it won’t come to that. Slow and steady change is possible. Nari believes it, and so does she. Valli goes along with Nari.

  When Valli makes a joke and Nari laughs, Sigyn can’t help but smile. She’s caught in their magnetism, happy in the warmth of their orbit. Valli nudges her, grins, and she nudges him back. They’re more than happy to have her here. It’s a sort of victory, she feels, to stil
l have her sons’ love; other parents aren’t as lucky. She feels pity for Loki. Her sons avoid him, for the same reason she does. He’s a drunk. Even if he hides behind alcohol to protect them, it’s made him an unstable element, left him loose, drifting, and alone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sigyn picks at the fabric of her gown. She’s been called to pay a visit to the queen, and has left her armor and sword at home. She looks up as she walks through the palace’s halls. On Earth, architecture is stretching closer and closer to the clouds with beams of steel, poured concrete, and glass walls that reflect the skies. Humans have had a technological revolution—calculating machines allow them engineering marvels that stretch their dwellings and workshops to the clouds. Even their travel is elevated—their airplanes are more common than magic carpets.

  Sigyn walks through the light dappled hall. On Asgard everything continues as it always has—it only looks different on the surface. Currently, Asgard’s architecture and fashion is based on the styles of 13th century France. Lit by stained glass windows on either side, the palace today reminds her of the cathedrals of Europe, but the walls are polished white marble, and no cathedral in Europe is quite as open, airy and bright. It’s beautiful and imposing. She reminds herself that beneath the magical facade it is all dreary gray concrete.

  She takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know why the queen has summoned her. As she walks by a cluster of maids, one of them whispers to another, “Oh look, it’s poor Sigyn! Did you hear Loki’s locked in the Tower for drunkenness?”

  “Do you think she’s come to plead for his release?”

  Sigyn halts her stride, and the maids scurry away. Sigyn did not know that. She tilts her head. Why would he be there for drunkenness? The Tower inhibits all magic use; being drunk is hardly a crime to warrant that. If it were, Loki would never be allowed out.

  From the direction of the Great Hall, she hears a roar. It sounds like the Diar are declaring a sentencing. Her blood goes cold.

  She hears heavy footsteps. Turning, she finds a squad of Einherjar. The lead one bows. Behind her, she hears soft footfalls. Spinning again, she finds herself face to face with the queen. Heart beating in her chest, her nails bite into her palms. She knows she has been imprisoned as much as Loki … but why would they both need to be imprisoned? From the Great Hall she hears another roar from the Diar.

  ***

  Sigyn kneels before Queen Frigga, All Mother, in the queen’s chamber. “Nari and Valli ... accused of treason, my Queen?” Sigyn’s breath is shaky. She hopes it sounds afraid. She carefully keeps her eyes cast down lest they betray her rage. “On what evidence?”

  Sitting beside her spinning wheel, Queen Frigga sighs. “A document that lays out a plan for changes to the Diar was discovered. Our mages have identified it as being in Nari’s hand … though Valli insists he helped.”

  Sigyn feels she might splinter and fly apart in the heat of her anger. They are not accused of letting the Dark Elves know about Odin’s planned strike force into the Delta of Sorrows, or letting the Merchant Dwarves know about the planned cave-in of their underground ghetto. They are accused because of a document that sketches plans for a hypothetical constitutional monarchy.

  Frigga’s magic wraps around her, strong, and as cool and blue as a cloud. But when she speaks, the Queen’s voice is tired. “I counseled my husband to commute their sentence to merely imprisonment, but the Diar is adamant. And things are afoot in the other realms, dangerous things, and this is not a time for division among our allies.”

  Sigyn wants to make herself invisible—she can do that—but Queen Frigga’s magic is nearly as powerful as Odin’s, Hoenir’s, and Loki’s; she’d see through the ruse. Sigyn is trapped.

  “You know I’ve been in your shoes,” Frigga continues. “We must keep calm even when those we love become tangled in vicious political rivalries.”

  She’s talking about her son, Prince Baldur. Sigyn’s lips flatten. Sigyn’s sons aren’t psychopathic narcissists. She wants to scream, to rail against this injustice, but somehow manages to contain the heat of fury burning in her chest.

  “I saw Hiroshima, Sigyn,” Frigga says. “I was called, too, by mothers who lost children. We can’t let that happen here.”

  Sigyn keeps her head bowed. Why is Frigga talking about Hiroshima? Sigyn doesn’t have an atom bomb. And she doesn’t have time to kneel here while her sons’ lives are in danger ... yet she can’t excuse herself from the queen. She finds herself wondering what Loki would do. She blinks. He’d lie through his teeth. “Yes, my queen,” she says, trying to be agreeable.

  Exhaling softly, the queen touches her chest. Is that relief? Sigyn decides to feed it. “We must think of Asgard’s children.” She manages to force a tear of rage out of her eyes.

  “You would have made a wise advisor to my son, Victory Woman,” Frigga says.

  Sigyn’s heart stops. It’s been centuries since Frigga has brought up that and decades since she’s been called that name.

  “ … perhaps if you … ” Frigga’s voice fades in a sigh. “Thank you for this painful victory. You do justice to peace in the Nine Realms.”

  Sigyn schools her features and her body to not betray her anger. There is a knock at the door, and the queen stands. “My husband wishes for you to stay here. I know that I would have done anything to see my son one last time … but I think you will manage. After this is over, we will go see Loki.”

  Sigyn keeps her eyes lowered. The queen can’t bring herself to say, “After your sons are executed in the Void.” How sensitive. “Yes, my Queen,” Sigyn mumbles.

  Frigga leaves the room. As the door closes, Sigyn hears the lock click. Heart racing, Sigyn climbs to her feet. She’s angry, frightened, and feels as though the ground has dropped from beneath her feet. It’s not that she hadn’t imagined that something like this would happen … but she’d hoped. Collecting herself, she sends an apparition through the door; there are no guards on the other side.

  Hurrying to the door, she plucks a steel pin out of her hair, a gift from Loki centuries ago. She has other non-magical tricks her ex-husband taught her. Slipping the pin into the lock, she glances back at the spinning wheel. Humans believe that Frigga can see the future in the threads she spins. That isn’t true, but she can see all the past. She probably knows that Sigyn can pick locks and make herself invisible, and she has compassionately stepped away to let her visit Nari and Valli one last time.

  Sigyn’s jaw hardens. She won’t say goodbye to them. She will save them, or die trying. She refuses to feel guilty. She does care about the children of Asgard—but what Frigga and Sigyn see as best are two different things. The lock clicks, and Sigyn eases the door open. She makes herself invisible, pulling on photons of light, urging them to appear to pass through her as Loki taught her.

  Slipping down the hall, the weight of what she’s trying to do makes her limbs feel heavy. She shakes her head and lies to herself, like Loki would do. “You are the Victory Woman, Sigyn. Even all-seeing Frigga knew it.” But she won’t be a king maker. Her lips curl in a sneer; she’s more a king breaker. She cannot work within the system to fix it now.

  She stops at the top of a servant staircase. To achieve victory against an army she’ll have to use treachery and deceit, she is too weak for a head-on assault. But how? Her mind returns to Frigga’s talk of Hiroshima. Her concentration wavers and her invisibility slips away. Her hands shake. She’d felt guilty for not being called to help the Japanese people. But prayers weren’t to help humans, they were to help the magical being’s higher purpose …

  Her limbs feel cold, and guilt pools within her like liquid lead. Like Loki, she hadn’t been ready to take Odin head-on either, had she? She’d hoped for slow steady change, but that is an impossibility in Asgard where even ideas are condemned. Somehow inside, she’d known that, and her magic had taken her to Hiroshima not to see the fission bomb, but to see the one person in the universe Odin fears … the magical equivalent of a fission bomb …
She remembers Loki ready to take on Odin and the Diar for his sons’ lives. It will be easy to trigger Loki. All she has to do is set him free …

  ***

  Sigyn curls against the chariot wall. Pain is shooting through her from the crossbow bolt in her back. The chariot is magical, and she and Loki are sailing through the air, between great spires and beneath flying buttresses. With Hoenir and Mimir’s help, she’d rescued him from the Tower, but she’d been shot in the process. Thoughts of Nari and Valli are the only thing keeping her upright … and thoughts of how she’s slowing Loki down.

  She hears the roar of a crowd and realizes they must be approaching the gateway to the Void, where their sons will be sent to their death. She’s sure there are innocent men and women in the mob of spectators, maybe even a few children. Her eyes drift closed … she snaps them open, her lips curling in disgust at herself.

  “Did you forget about the Valkyries?” she asks.

  Bolts of fire shoot over the chariot. Loki slumps down next to her, eyes wide. “Actually, I did forget about them.”

  Feckless as ever. Sigyn takes a ragged breath as the chariot rocks in the fiery onslaught. She doesn’t know why she thought he’d be able to save them. She closes her eyes. She does know—she’d lied to herself, convinced herself that she was Victory, and that she had a plan and a weapon that could defeat Odin. She almost laughs … or cries. At least she will get to see her boys, just not the way Frigga expected.

  The world is hazy, the bottom of the chariot is slippery. It occurs to her distantly that it may be her own blood.

  “Chariot down!” Loki commands, and the vehicle drops so quickly that Sigyn is briefly weightless. More fire goes off above her head. “Hover above the crowd!” Loki commands, and the fire from the Valkyries ceases as the chariot obeys. Sigyn smiles bitterly. He’s using the civilians directly below them as shields. Her bitter smile turns into a grimace. She tells herself that if they have come to play spectators as her sons are cast to their deaths, they deserve no better.