Liesmith

by Alis Franklin

  The draugar don’t share Sigmund’s comfort. A few more shamble around the bookstore’s bottom floor, but they’re wary of me and don’t approach. Sig’s second hand comes up to grasp my arm as we walk, his white-knuckled grip tearing small feathers from the skin. When I touch him, he startles, turning to look at me with white-ringed eyes as I say, “Relax. I’m the scariest thing here. They won’t get closer.”

  He swallows. “It’s just…They’re so…” But his fingers loosen, just a little.

  “I know,” I say. Sigmund hates himself for being cowardly, so I add, “You know Pandemonium used to be called Eden, back in the twenties?”

  “Y-yeah,” he says. “They changed the name after some miners went nuts and k-killed most of the rest of the town.”

  Killed is certainly the family-viewing explanation. “Right,” I say. “Because those guys? Dug into the Helbleed. Ten minutes in this place and they were ready to slaughter the entire town. You’re doing fine.”

  Sigmund gives a morbid chuckle, more an exhalation than a laugh. “Thanks,” he says. “But I’ve got you. I bet those miners didn’t have a god to hide behind.” He thinks for a moment, then, “Well, maybe in an allegoric…Ah, bugger.”

  This last because the entrance to the store is now visible through the haze. The extremely closed entrance to the store.

  We walk closer, and I study the doors. They’re stock-standard mall roller doors, except with more rust and razor wire. I give one an experimental kick. The metal screams.

  “Um!” Sigmund utters what is possibly the most startled polite interjection ever. “I don’t think it liked that.”

  “There should be some kind of staff entrance around here somewhere.” I peer around, trying not to look at the fleshy, writhing sacks chained behind the counter; the sloughed-off anxiety and hopelessness of a thousand different clerks.

  “Oh!” says Sigmund. “This way.” He tugs me back into the shelves. “I worked here once in high school for, like, two minutes.”

  “Not a fan, then?”

  “Let’s just say there’s a reason I have a degree and a desk job, and it’s not because I was dying to follow in Dad’s footsteps.”

  We have to avoid the YA section due to impenetrable emotional trauma, but we route back via audiobooks and eventually I catch sight of Sigmund’s exit. It, too, is blocked, but this time with a pallid membrane that splits easily beneath my claws.

  Behind the now-open door lurks not some horrific back room from Hel, but rather the actual Really Real World store, as if we were looking out rather than in.

  “That’s promising?” Sigmund suggests.

  “Yes,” I say, ushering him forward. “After you.” No way am I leaving Sigmund alone in this place, even if only for a moment. In Niflhel, the line between death and isolation is really very thin.

  Heart pounding but trying to appear brave, he steps through the doorway. I follow him. On the other side we do, indeed, find ourselves back in the Really Real World. People bustle all around us, more intent on procuring books and related products than paying attention to two Gen-Y hipsters who may as well be off-duty staff.

  “There you go.” I punch Sigmund in the shoulder, light and playful. “You survived your first Helbleed.” I’m not sure if it’s more my relief or his. Fucking Baldr.

  —

  Sigmund blinks, expecting to see his giant feathered godmonster, and is a bit thrown when I turn out to be just Lain again. “It’s the ‘first’ part of that sentence that worries me,” he says as we start making our way to the (open, unobstructed) exit. “So what do we do now?”

  “Now, we have that lunch.”

  Sigmund gives me an incredulous look. “Don’t you, like, have to do something about the thingie?” He means the Wound.

  “I am doing something,” I say. “I’m grieving. Right now, that’s all I can do.” Fixing a Wound this large is not trivial, and I don’t have the power to just snap my fingers and do it. At the moment I’m not even sure how to do it. What I am sure of, however, is the shake Sigmund can’t quite force from his fingers, or the way he not quite jumps at every noise. Taking care of my city—taking care of my enemies—is one thing.

  Taking care of my lover is something else again.

  —

  We end up going for pho, as planned. Sigmund is anxious and jumpy the whole time, but I manage to distract him by flirting with the waitress. She gives me her number. I give her a tip, left beneath an upside-down glass still filled with water, and her outraged shriek echoes all the way across Torr Row.

  “That was cruel,” Sigmund says, but he’s laughing.

  “No,” I say, “flirting with me when I’m obviously there with you is cruel.”

  “Maybe she didn’t realize that?” That’s the thing about Sigmund: He’s good-hearted. Sigyn was too, at first. Look where it got her.

  We’re crossing Diamond Square on our way back to LB when we hear a voice behind us call, “Sigmund!”

  It’s Wayne Murphy, an explosion of pink and black, of leather and lace, among the beige of hipsters and office drones. Murphy’s sitting on one of the square’s metal beanbag sculptures, eating sushi out of a plastic bento and waving at us with her chopsticks.

  Sigmund wanders over to say hi, I follow behind. It’s stinking hot and sweat-drenchingly humid, dark clouds rolling overhead and the square filled with people determined to brave lunch outside before the storm breaks.

  Murphy gives us a huge grin when we walk up, bright against dark skin and darker lipstick. “Hey, dooder,” she says to Sigmund. “Who let you out of the office?”

  “Him,” says Sigmund, pointing over his shoulder at me. “Then we got sucked into a hell dimension and nearly died.”

  I’ve apparently missed a conversation, because Murphy’s reaction to this is to turn to me and say, “You’d better be keeping him safe, you hear me?” It’s definitely a threat, accompanied by the tugging sense of déjà vu.

  “ ‘Nearly died’ is a decided overstatement.”

  Murphy’s suspicion tastes like rotten feathers as she sizes me up against what she thinks she knows of who I am.

  “I can kind of see it,” she tells Sigmund. “I mean, you’d never guess, but…I thought he’d be shorter.”

  “I’m a giant!” I snap. “We’re not called giants because we’re short!” This is not entirely true. I used to be short, back in Ásgarðr. It’s an affectation I feel under no obligation to continue in the modern world.

  The pair make small talk in the space around me. Something about Ivanovich, something about DnD, something about Murphy’s mum, something about this thing Sigmund totally saw on the Internet the other day and ohmigawd it was just the funniest thing ever.

  I’m not really there. Instead, I’m feeling out over the city—between the pavement and the pipes, across the minds of students and of salarymen—looking for the Bleed. It’s all over the place, scattered like blood drops, an oozing red stain of wartime propaganda. Golgotha is bad, of course—much deeper than usual, nearly dangerous to mortals—but there are other patches, too, in places that shouldn’t Bleed. Whitebread middle-class suburbia, like Aldershot and North Eden, plus the one that’s currently crawling through Torr Mall.

  That’s not good.

  Like I said, Bleeds usually occupy a space beneath the one mortals live in. They’re a part of Miðgarðr, not Mannheimr. But they’re called “Bleeds” for a reason, and humans can feel them, even if they don’t know what it is they’re feeling. A low-grade miasma of ennui and apathy might not make much of an impact on the hipsters and store clerks of the local Angus & Robertson, but the size of the Bleed exacerbates its effects. And to have one growing so close to Lokabrenna…

  “Lain?”

  “Huh?” I snap back to Diamond Square in a cacophony of the sounds and stink of the lunchtime rush. I blink. My tattoo itches.

  Sigmund radiates curious concern, cool and smooth and green. “You all right? You looked kinda zoned out.”

&
nbsp; It occurs to me that Murphy has gone. I wonder how long I’ve been staring off into space.

  “Yeah, sorry,” I say. “I was miles away.”

  “Oh, well…We should probably get back.” Sigmund doesn’t sound happy about the idea, and I squeeze his hand.

  “Hey, I got the new Savage Turbine alpha up in my office. Reckon it needs some play testing if you’re up for it. I haven’t had the time, and the dev team is getting antsy.”

  That does the trick. “Turbine 3?” Sigmund asks, a new gleam of hope and wonder scratching through the tarnish of the Bleed. “That’s not due out for like six months.”

  I grin, deciding to take that as a yes. The perks of being a CEO: distracting your boyfriend with prerelease AAA megatitles. It’s good to be me.

  The walk back to LB is amiable, if humid. By the time we’re on campus, it’s started to rain, and I dash up the stairs and into the foyer, watching Sigmund follow me at his own pace.

  “I can practically see your tail flicking from here,” he says when he catches up. His glasses are covered in water drops and I’ve got no idea how he’s seeing through all of that.

  “Hey, water’s not my fucking thing, okay?” I say as we cross the foyer and head toward the elevators.

  “Evidently not.” Sigmund laughs, but it’s fraying.

  His affected calm lasts all the way back into the office. Nic ambushes me outside with a folio of papers, but I give her a meaningful look of Not now, as I usher Sigmund through the doors. Instead, I sit him down on the couch, hand him a controller for the Inferno, then turn to boot it and the TV up. By the time I’ve looked back, Sigmund is shaking, staring down at the controller in his hand as if he’s never seen one before. When he blinks, tears hit the plastic.

  I take the controller from his fingers and put it back on the coffee table. Then I pull him against my chest, surrounding him in the feeling of warmth and safety and home.

  He doesn’t say anything. I know he wants to. This close, I can feel his internal narration seethe across the surface of his mind, heavy-handed with themes of shame and self-loathing. He hates that he’s not better at this, that he’s not braver, stronger. Hates that this is the second time now I’ve seen him cry, because even though he pretends to reject them, the rules for Be a Man and Stop Crying You Pussy are so ingrained that they’re practically bursting him at the seams.

  So I say, “You’re doing fine, Sig. Helbleeds are rough. I don’t like them either.” I try not to think of the glistening masses of unformed resentment, slumped behind the counter in the Bleedside Angus & Robertson.

  Sigmund’s voice is weak and thready, coming from somewhere underneath the edge of my jacket. “You-you’re not…you’re not—”

  “I know,” I say, “but I’ve have a long time to get used to it. A really long time. And getting used to something like that? Isn’t necessarily that great a thing, you know? I’ve certainly done my share of fetal crying on the floor.” Fuck, have I ever. Sigyn was there to get me through a lot of it, all soft hands and clean bandages. The least I can do is return the favor.

  Sigmund nods. Still shaky, but his fingers unwind from my T-shirt, just a fraction. “Is i-it all like that? A-all so…so…?”

  “No,” I say. “Just Niflhel. I mean, it’s not called the misty hell because it’s full of campfires and kumbaya, you know? It’s not even the first Bleed you’ve been to. Remember the other week when we got lost at Woolridge? That’s because you wandered into the Járnviðr Bleed. You were about a day’s hike away from the edge of Jötunheimr. That wasn’t so bad, right? You didn’t even notice.” I decide not to mention the giant spiders.

  Sigmund nods, putting two and two together to come up with the realization that it really wasn’t his map-reading skills that got us lost.

  “Most of the realms are more like Járnvidr,” I say, just filling the space up with words. “There’s Jötunheimr, where I’m from. No human has ever been there”—well, voluntarily, and they don’t stay human for long—“but it’s a massive city, cut out of the top of a mountain rising from the center of the Járnvidr. It’s all glistening spires and Better Living Through Magic, and the drekar—the dragons—circle endlessly overhead.” Sigmund starts imagining it, and I touch up his mental image a little. It’s been nearly an eternity since I’ve been back there, but I still remember it. You don’t forget a place like that.

  “Then there’s Niflheimr and Múspellsheimr, the primordial realms of ice and fire, void and chaos. Where they meet, in Ginnungagap, the world is formed. Grown upon a great ash tree, the Yggdrasill, with three mighty roots and branches big enough to hold the sky. Beneath one root lies Mímisbrunnr, a well, where one can drink and learn great wisdom…for a great price. And there are rivers, Sig. Greater than you can imagine. And all spring from the same source, Hvergelmir, which bubbles beneath…” And so on, and so forth.

  I spend the next half hour or so filling in the cosmology. Sigmund listens, rapt, for as long as he can, but eventually the day catches up with him and he falls asleep in my arms.

  FIFTEEN

  Sigmund spends most of the afternoon asleep in my office, his dreams dark and restless.

  He wakes up a little after five, tousled and confused, and blinks at his surroundings for a few moments before his brain catches up to where he is. Stuttering and apologetic, he’s more interesting than emails and spreadsheets, and so I join him on the couch, pressing him back against the leather and devouring his awkwardness with all the want of a nerd at Comic-Con.

  Much better than spreadsheets, particularly when my hands slip underneath Sigmund’s too-worn, once-black T-shirt, caressing soft, dark skin. Despite the pounding of his blood he feels cool beneath my hands and mouth. Mortals always do.

  Outside, the city Bleeds.

  —

  We get back to Sigmund’s place a fraction after six.

  “Hey, Dad, we’re here!” Sigmund calls from the entryway. He kicks his shoes off and throws his keys into a tray next to the front door. I do the same. With the shoes, not the keys.

  “Hey, boys.” David appears at the other end of the hall. He’s wearing a humorous novelty apron that looks like someone’s well-intentioned Father’s Day gift, and is vaguely familiar in the way of all of LB’s middle-management. He doesn’t look much like Sigmund, who bears greater resemblance to the smiling woman in the photo near the door.

  We meet David halfway down the hall, and he holds out his hand. “You must be Lain,” he says. “We weren’t properly introduced the other day”—the teeniest, tiniest glance at Sigmund as he says this—“I’m David Sussman, Sigmund’s father.”

  I give David my best CEO handshake. “Nice to meet you,” I say, remembering that I’m supposed to be in my early twenties and not, in fact, the man’s employer. “Thanks for inviting me over.”

  David nods and looks serious. “It’s the least I can do. Sigmund tells me you saved his life.” He means during the camping trip. I decide not to mention the other occasions.

  “So Sig tells it,” I say. “But I saw him slip, and…” I shrug, letting David fill in the gaps with whatever he needs to believe the tale. “I couldn’t let him fall.”

  “Well, thank you for it,” David says. Then he smiles, and turns to Sigmund. “Dinner will be about twenty minutes. Why don’t you take Lain upstairs for a while? I’ll call you when it’s done.”

  “Okay, Dad.”

  David disappears back into the kitchen, and Sigmund tilts his head toward the stairs. “Best to keep out of Dad’s way when he’s cooking.” Sigmund is nervous, but now it’s just totally normal, meet-the-parents nerves rather than oh-shit-we’re-going-to-die visceral horror nerves.

  “He likes me,” I assure him as we walk up the stairs. “He’s not sure about the nose ring, though.”

  “But the one in your eyebrow is fine?”

  “I don’t think he noticed that one.”

  Sigmund takes the last few steps in a bound, then stops as soon as he gets to the land
ing. “Man,” he says, turning around to look at me. “I just remembered I have, like, the most embarrassing room in the entire universe.” He pushes his glasses up his nose forcing himself to laugh.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m not going to think less of you because you have posters of dragons on your walls,” I say.

  Sigmund’s eyes go round. “How did you…Never mind, I don’t care.” Apparently he’s forgotten the somewhat awkward night after our DnD date. I decide not to remind him, and he looks down to where he’s been picking at the hem of his jumper. “It’s just, I’m twenty-two, you know? It’s not like I left home at sixteen and Dad kept my room preserved as it was.”

  “Sigmund,” I say, stepping closer. Into his personal space, fingers twining in his belt loops. “This is me conveying to you how much I really, really don’t care. I know you’re a huge dork. It’s cool, really.”

  “Gee, thanks.” He gives me half a grin, then a whole kiss, hands threading through my hair as we press against the unfashionably ’90s maroon wall. “How does it work?” he says when he pulls back.

  “Huh?”

  He’s staring at my hair, running one hand through loose curls and the other over the bridge of my nose.

  “Your hair. It’s different from”—he whispers the next two words, eyes flicking downstairs—“from Travis’s. And he doesn’t have freckles. How does it work?”

  The shape-shifting, right. “Magic,” I say, because it is. More or less.

  “Can you be anyone?”

  “Who do you want me to be?”

  “You,” he says, voice fast. “I didn’t mean— I’m just curious, is all.”

  “Mm.” I’m curious too, for different things. I satisfy myself by running nipped kisses up Sigmund’s neck as I say, “I suppose so. If I have to be.” Sigmund has a sensitive spot just beneath his jawline. I rub at it with my tongue, gaining a sigh and a shudder for my efforts.

  When he closes his eyes, it’s claws and horns and feathers that dance behind his lids.

  “God…” he breathes. Most appropriately in my opinion, so: