by Jack J. Lee
Mina blinked as she took his hand. “We’ve never met. Don’t you mean, ‘You’ve heard so much about me’?”
B leered, “I said ‘know’ not ‘heard’, honey. I’m a guardian angel. I’ve been watching you for a long time and I have to tell you the view’s been good.”
You could always depend on B to be an asshole. Mina’s face flushed. I pushed myself between them and put my arm around her waist. “It’s okay, Mina. He’s just a wannabe stalker. He doesn’t have the equipment to be anything else.”
He started laughing like we were friends. “Oh man, hit me where it hurts.”
Mina nudged me aside, pulled her hand from B’s grip, made a finger, and poked it into B’s chest. “I don’t give a crap if you have equipment or not, but if your job is to look out for Vic, you need to do it better!” B’s mouth gaped in surprise for a second and then he grinned. I guess he liked a challenge. I was more affected than he was; for the first time in my life, I felt the embarrassment of being defended by a woman.
I really didn’t need to see Mina and B fighting. One of these days I had to tell her, ‘You don’t want to wrestle a pig. You get dirty and the pig likes it.’ As I guided her away from B, I saw Andi with Samael. She was bitching him out. Ben hovered like a protective older brother. The Boise Oath Brothers were taking care of the bodies; Samson and Jotunn both. Aidan and Tim were conversing with Father Mallory, and using a lot of hand gestures and body English. Mina and I headed toward the body on the stairs.
She whispered tight lipped as she wiped psychic slime from her right hand onto her jeans, “Vic, B’s really your guardian angel?”
“He’s actually an archangel.”
“Ewww.”
“Yeah.”
Several Oath Brothers circled the Jotunn’s body, keeping a wary distance. One of them drew a bow with a burning arrow and aimed for the Jotunn’s head from about six feet away.
“Stop!”
They looked at me. I waved them back.
“Sir! He’s still alive. Give him enough time and he’ll heal.”
“I know.” I knelt down by his head to take a closer look. The troll’s face looked like two pounds of raw hamburger mixed with an equal amount of clotted blood—his mouth a gaping hole. Flies swarmed over his wound. The back half of the head was intact. I reached for his neck; his pulse was strong. I looked back up at the Oath Brothers around us. “It’s okay guys. I’ll take over from here.”
The Boise Oath Brothers were reluctant, but they left without arguing. It’s better to be lucky than good. Thinking back, I should have taken the time to pick the Jotunn killing shotgun shells from the Thorgrins before we left Salt Lake City. But if I had I would have loaded my bang sticks with white phosphorus rounds and I wouldn’t have a Jotunn prisoner.
Mina waited until they were out of easy hearing distance. “Vic, what’s going on?”
“What’s going on honey, is Vic kicked some major troll ass and got himself ass-deep in heavenly politics.” B put up his hands to ward off Mina’s warning glare. With a smile he started bragging, “I’ve got good ears, sweetie. What Vic didn’t tell ya is there’s no one else in heaven like me. I’m one of a kind in a sky full of sanctimonious mamma’s boys who don’t even have the excuse of having mammas. I’m the ‘special’ archangel—the only bad boy left in Jehovah’s posse.”
I interrupted before Mina slapped him on principle. “What you do want B?”
“I know you lovebirds want to be alone, but you need to know Signe Ericsdottir isn’t a Mythic Hero. She didn’t come here by random chance. She’s a defector.”
“So what?”
B laughed at a private joke. “Before she entered our Universe she stole something important from Valhalla. The Norse gods are in a tizzy. Odin hasn’t had this kind of hissy-fit since Michael grabbed Tyr’s sword. If they find out she’s here, it’s gonna be war.”
“Isn’t that exactly what Samael wants?”
“Not quite. He wants it to look like the Norse broke the treaty. He wants the appearance of a just war. Now, it looks like we’re the side that started it.”
“But he still gets what he wants.”
B shook his head. “Vic, you got to understand; Jehovah is a Boy Scout. The Big Kahuna doesn’t lie and He doesn’t go back on His word. If our side broke the treaty first, He’ll make reparations if that’ll avoid starting an unjust war. Samael’s missing nuts are in a vise; any reparations made will eventually come out of his ass.”
“This still doesn’t make any sense. Why is a Jotunn thief Samael’s problem?”
For once my guardian angel looked embarrassed. “I found this out by narcing on Samael. It’s poor form to be a tattle-tale but what the hell, I don’t work or play well with others anyway. I told Michael that one of our own was helping Jotunn kill Paladins. Michael’s in charge of every paladin except you, and he’s real protective of his people. One of these days, I’m going to explain to you how much of a pain in the ass it was for a no-account like me to set up a meeting with the third most powerful being in heaven. He squeezed the truth out of Samael.
“Samael is Jehovah’s head spook; he’s in charge of extra-dimensional intelligence. Signe Ericsdottir contacted his people about wanting to defect to our universe. Samael made a deal with her. He’d let her come over if she helped start a war between us and the Norse, and then reward her if she succeeded by sending her to a disputed universe where no one deity or pantheon has dominion.
“She’s been here ten years, but Samael only found out a couple days ago from a source in Asgard that she stole a magical item from the Norse gods just before she entered our Universe. Odin didn’t realize the item was missing until recently. Samael claims he didn’t know Signe was using her defection as a getaway. Odin knows Signe is the thief, but as of now he doesn’t know where she is. If he finds out she’s here and Samael helped her escape, they’ll be hell to pay.”
I wanted to ask about the disputed universe, but couldn’t allow B to learn I was interested. “What’d she steal?
B put his palms up. “Samael’s source doesn’t know. It can’t be Thor’s hammer or Odin’s spear; those items would have been missed right away, but it has to be something major for Odin to be this pissed.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Tyr’s sword is old news. Michael’s had it since the Scandinavians converted to Christianity and the Norse gods retreated from our Universe.”
“B, what…” I stopped in mid sentence when Mina put her hand on my arm.
“What’s going on between Samael and my sister?”
From the expression on his face, I’d have bet B was going to give her a smartass reply. I had a pretty good idea how she’d react. It was going to be ugly. To my surprise B stopped to reconsider when he saw her face. He gave Mina a real answer. “Now that the shit’s hit the fan and everything is out in the open, probably not much. I don’t want to sound like I’m defending the little shit, but Samael thinks he’s one of the good guys. Unlike our Fearless Leader, Michael and most of the other archangels, he’s a big picture guy—you know, ends justify the means and you have to break some eggs to make omelets kind of crap. Andi’s an obvious innocent and he doesn’t have a ‘greatest good’ reason to try to use her anymore; he’s going to leave her alone.”
B turned to me, his face grim. “You on the other hand, he’ll be out to get forever.”
I shrugged. I thought I knew the answer but I asked anyway, “Why?”
“It’s pretty obvious. He’s pissed at me. The best way to get to me is to kill you. If you’re dead, I go back to the Eastern front. Also, if you’d died right away like you were supposed to have, he probably never would have been caught. From his point of view, it’s your fault he’s in deep doodoo.”
My smile didn’t reach my eyes. “It’s a good thing you got my back.”
B shot me a great big grin. “Victor, I got your back. I got your front. I got both sides. In fact…” and with a flourish, B burst into song like he was in a high schoo
l musical. His baritone voice was beautiful. “…I got youuu, babe.” He gestured for me to take the female part of the duet. When I didn’t, he sang both the male and female parts. He even mimed us walking hand in hand. After he finished, our smiles were mirror images. I despise musicals and I knew he had purposely picked one of the worst songs ever written. Neither of our faces had a hint of friendliness.
“Vic, you should have joined me. I don’t know what your voice was like before, but all of God’s chosen” he rolled his eyes, fluttered his hands underneath his chin and went into a falsetto, “sing like angels.”
Like that was ever going to happen.
Mina’s grip on my arm got tighter. “You’re going to help Vic, right?”
B sighed, “Sweetie, I’m helping Vic the best I can by telling him what’s going on. I’m not allowed to do anything else.” He turned to me. “Samael is always going to want your ass, but Michael isn’t petty. There’s a chance we can get him on our side. He’s not happy about you killing Samson but he understands you didn’t have much choice. If you kill Signe and reclaim the stolen whatever-it-is so we can return it to Odin, he’s going to be grateful. You and I both could use some friends.
“Hey look—Ben and Andi want to talk to you.”
I turned around. Our whole group was there. It looked like they’d been there for a while. I’d been too distracted to notice.
Ben spoke first, “Vic, I talked to Father Mallory. He said the Jotunn’s choppers are yours by right of conquest. What were you planning on doing with them?”
I shrugged. I already had a bike.
Andi was too excited to wait for my answer, “Can we take them? I’ve always wanted a Harley!”
“You know how to ride a motorcycle?”
She took a little hop of joy. “We used to go dirt bike riding in Moab with my Dad. I totally know how to ride!”
I checked out Mina’s expression; she looked as excited as her brother and sister. “If you want a bike, take one.”
Mina frowned. “We don’t have helmets...”
Tim broke in. “We have helmets. Give me a few minutes and I can pull them here from storage in Salt Lake City. They’re designed for combat but will work fine as motorcycle helmets. All we have to do is set up a link to our Salt Lake Armory and…”
His pasty face flushed bright red when Andi hugged him with a squeal and Ben exclaimed, “Dude! You are awesome!”
Mina threw me a promise over her shoulder, “We’ll talk later” as she ran toward the bikes with Ben, Tim, and Andi. I had to smile as I watched her from behind. The view was stunning, as usual. You had to respect a girl who chose a bike over a conversation.
I turned to Aidan. “You don’t want one?”
He harrumphed, “My lad, at my age a comfortable seat is a wonderful thing. I can think of any number of other things I would rather do than expose myself to the elements on a bone rattling hunk of metal for hours at highway speeds.”
I noticed then that B had left. He seemed to enjoy blinking out unexpectedly. Michael and Samael were also gone.
I pointed to the Jotunn. “How long do you think it’d take for him to wake up?”
Aidan stared at the Jotunn; his eyes got distant. About a minute later, he looked up. “My best guess is a day-and-a-half to two days. I would feel better about my guess if I was confident we could keep him under control when he wakes. I have manacles strong enough to hold most minions, but I’m not sure they they’ll hold the Jotunn.”
“We’ll put the manacles on him and then wrap platinum wire around his wrists, ankles and neck and then attach them to fixed objects around him. If he starts moving, he’ll take care of himself.”
The leprechaun looked like he was picturing the Jotunn struggling, breaking through his manacles and then slicing through his own wrists, ankles, and neck. He winced and then nodded his agreement. “We should wrap him in a tarp. If he wakes up, he’ll get blood everywhere.”
Chapter 25: Going Home
Mina, Andi, Ben, and Tim were having a blast out in front of us on their new bikes. Aidan was driving. He was sitting on a cushion so he could see over the dashboard and had attached lifts to the accelerator and brake pedal so he could reach them. Since the van had separate captain’s chairs in the front, I was in the passenger seat eating the ten hotdogs loaded with all the fixings I’d bought at a highway gas station. After Aidan cast a spell to block the stench coming from the Jotunn in the back of the van, the drive back to Salt Lake City was almost pleasant.
It hadn’t taken long for Tim and the Swensons to pick out their bikes. I told Father Mallory he could have the rest. I was tempted to ask him what his plans were now that Samson was gone, but I didn’t think it was my place. The fact that he had close to two hundred well organized and well trained Oath Brothers let me hope they’d do better than the Salt Lake Brothers had done.
For the first hour or so, Aidan and I kept a companionable silence. I needed to unwind and Aidan let me. We were about a hundred miles out from Salt Lake City when I asked Aidan about something that had been bugging me for awhile. “Aidan, when the Jotunn change shapes, their size, weight, and mass all change. How’s that possible? Doesn’t that violate the First Law of Thermodynamics?”
My armorer smiled. “Energy is the equivalent of mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light. At the most basic and fundamental level, energy and mass are different forms of the same thing.
Human scientists have theorized that up to seventy-three percent of the total energy and eighty-three percent of the mass in our Universe is undetectable by normal human senses or state of the art human technology. They call this dark energy and dark matter, and they are literally the stuff of magic.
Until recently humans called dark energy ‘aether.’ If a given amount of conventional matter is converted to conventional energy, there’s no way to control the release and there’d be the equivalent of a nuclear explosion. Dark matter and dark energy don’t work that way.
When the Jotunn shapeshift, they convert mass into dark energy and vice versa. Were it not for the fact that using magic burns the soul, we’d have access to potentially unlimited energy.”
Aidan let me think about his answer for a little while and then he spoke, “Victor, what bargain did you make with the Jotunn?”
“They’re going to leave us alone for at least four weeks.”
“How can you know that they’ll uphold their end of the agreement?”
“If they don’t, their dicks will fall off.” Aidan snorted through his nose. I hoped for my sake that they’d keep to their agreement. I was pretty sure the Jotunn would prefer death before dicklessness. I was absolutely sure I’d be totally screwed if they didn’t give me time to prepare.
“What are we going to do once the four weeks are over?”
“I’ve hired mercenaries.”
He sounded shocked. “Victor, human mercenaries will have no chance against the Jotunn!”
“Aidan, correct me if I’m wrong, but Bill Samson was a superior paladin.”
“That he was.” I could tell Aidan had no idea where I was going with this.
“If I’d had a normal, non-magical shotgun, I would have killed him just as easily as I did with Sanguinis. A sniper with no magical talent can hit a Jotunn-sized target a half mile away. In the old days when the only weapons humans had were swords and spears, magical weapons made a huge difference. Nowadays with automatic weapons, rocket propelled grenades, and other such hardware, an ordinary human shouldn’t have any problems taking out a Jotunn.
“Aidan, I’m not worried about how well the mercenaries will do; I’m worried about the item Signe stole. You have any ideas about what it could be?”
“She could have stolen some of Idunn’s apples.”
Idunn’s apples sounded vaguely familiar. “What are those?”
“They’re the source of the Norse gods’ immortality. Each apple is the distilled essence of tens of thousands of souls. If a human took just one b
ite, he’d regain his lost youth and become a demigod for a number of months. Were he to eat a whole apple he’d gain the powers of a Norse god for the same time period. Odin probably eats one of them a week. If he didn’t, he would begin to age, and grow progressively weaker.”
“You don’t think she stole a weapon?”
“The Norse love weapons. Warlike as they are, even when they’re not fighting they’re constantly cleaning, sharpening, and practicing with their gear. I cannot imagine ten years passing without them noticing the loss of a major weapon. I can see a decade passing before they’d notice the loss of several of Idunn’s apples.”
“So you’re telling me I might have to fight a Jotunn with the powers of a Norse god? What kind of powers does a Norse god have?”
“Sure, and they’re hard to damage. You couldn’t kill one with Obex or Sanguinis. A low yield nuclear weapon, say five kilotons, would probably suffice to kill one.”
Fuck! “B! B, I need to talk to you.” Nothing happened.
“B!”
“Dude!” I heard B in seat behind me. “Has anyone ever told you that you do an amazing imitation of Andi Swenson? Who’d a thunk you could be so true to the essence of a sixteen year old girl? Can you now say, ‘I need you’ with tears in your eyes? That’d be totally awesome.”
I fought off the urge to call Sanguinis so I could shoot him in the head. “What are the chances of Signe having one or more of Idunn’s apples?”
“The bottom line is we don’t know what she’s got, but Idunn’s apples fits with what little we do know.”
“What’s the best way to kill a god?”
“Call up an army of angels.”
“So if she eats one of those apples, I can call for help?”
“Not exactly. If she kills you because she has godly powers, I can call up an army and avenge you. But until then—until there’s proof she’s a god—we have to treat her like any other minion. She’s been here for years and we’ve never seen her use god-like powers. It’s your job, or if you’re really, really lucky—some other paladin’s job to take care of her.”