Eye of the Beholder

by Dana Marie Bell

  Dedication

  To Mom, who actually believed me when I told her I wanted twins, and I wanted to name them Apollo and Artemis. (Of course, if I’d actually had twins this would be a whole different story...)

  To Dad, who sat there and tried to help me come up with names that were even worse than Apollo and Artemis just to watch Mom freak. Do you think we went too far when she started hopping up and down and screaming? Or was it when the shoes started flying?

  Finally, to Dusty, my one and only. Sometimes we have to realize we will never achieve certain dreams no matter how heartbreaking it may be. So stop thinking about Jessica Alba, whipped cream and rubber sheets, okay? Because you may run faster than me, but I learned my Shoe Fu from one of the best and you WILL go down.

  Prologue

  Long ago…

  Tyr stood at the edge of the battlefield, appalled by what he saw.

  The war was over. The Aesir had won.

  There were but six of the Vanir left. Six. Even Zisa—lovely, pale Zisa, Tyr’s beloved wife who had refused to raise a weapon in the hopes that things could be resolved without bloodshed—had fallen beneath Aesir blades.

  Now Odin, their conqueror, was asking for an audience with the ruler of the Vanir.

  Why? Why had the Aesir done this? The Vanir were peaceful, concerned only with the green, growing things, the tides, the wind and the rain and...

  No. Not for that.

  Not for the Dökk Alfar.

  The Dökk Alfar had only begun to make weapons for those who’d chosen to fight, but it had been too little, too late. Not even the mighty spear they’d crafted for him had halted the tide of the enemy soldiers. But the potential of the Dark Ones had been there all along for any with eyes to see. It was there in the wonderful toys they wrought, the shining palaces they’d created. All of which had been destroyed by Aesir hands. The shining palaces were crumbled, the gold and silver toys destroyed. Even the land itself had broken, falling beneath the waves under the furious might of Odin and his warriors. Only Vanaheim itself still, home of the Vanir, still existed, defiled by Aesir hands.

  The last of the Vanir stood on an alien shore and prepared to meet their fate.

  “What shall we do?”

  His eyes never left the retreating messenger, yet he answered Idunn’s question as honestly as he could. “I do not know.”

  “Shall we meet with him then?”

  As always, Frey’s voice was calm. He held his sister Frejya’s hand tight, calming her fears as best he could.

  “We have no choice.” Njord’s deep voice rolled over Tyr filled with the chill of the deep ocean.

  “No. We do not.” Heimdall’s dark hair blew across his face, his crystal eyes studying the retreating form of the messenger. “Even now, they plot something.” His right hand held his Horn, the silver nails of his left tapping against his leather pants.

  Tyr nodded. “I will meet with him.” As if there was any other choice.

  The Vanir might be defeated, but the remaining gods would protect what little was left of their world.

  Chapter One

  Present Day…

  “Time to go, Lefty.” Logan Saeter, also known as the god Loki and once Travis’s greatest enemy, entered the hospital room waving Jamie’s release papers triumphantly. “Guess what, Pita? You’re finally sprung!”

  “Thanks.” Travis nodded at Logan, eager to get away from the smells of sickness that had surrounded him for the last three weeks.

  “About time too.” Kiran Tait, once known as Baldur and the current leader of the Aesir and Vanir, followed his lover into the hospital room, carefully watching around for any sign of trouble.

  “Hey, sis, you ready to go?” Jordan Saeter-Tait, one of Travis’s top investigators, brushed by the blond Kir with a fond smile and made her way to her younger sister’s bed. The trio’s love had shocked him when he’d first heard of it, but watching them together had eased his fears for his friend and employee. Jordan glowed when she was around Kir and Logan, and he couldn’t be happier for her.

  “No sign of the cops.” Val was the latest employee of Travis’s company, Guardian Investigations, and the uncle of Jeff, Jordan and Jamie. Travis wasn’t surprised he’d shown up. The man adored his nieces and nephews, and was the one who’d risked everything to cut Jamie down from Grimm’s cross.

  “Have they been by today?” Jeff, Jordan’s younger brother and twin to Travis’s beloved Jamie, brought up the rear. He immediately went to his twin’s side, their hands meeting over her blanketed body. Jamie had been in the hospital for three weeks and today, finally, she was being discharged, much to the relief of her loved ones.

  “Nope.” The cops hadn’t been by yet, which was a good thing. Their constant interviews had exhausted Jamie. The last thing she needed today was another question-and-answer session. How many times could you ask someone why their grandfather had tried to kill them? Did they expect to get a different answer? It wasn’t as if the events of last month weren’t still fresh in everyone’s mind, made more so by the woman lying so quietly in the hospital bed. Some of the bruising had faded, but Travis wasn’t certain she’d ever get over the emotional trauma she’d been through.

  Travis had witnessed crucifixions, most recently in the Philippines. Men there subjected themselves every year to the horror of the crucifixion to prove their devotion to Jehovah and Jesus. But they only endured it for minutes at a time, and that voluntarily. Jamie had been on that cross, hanging and suffocating over and over again, for more than an hour before Val had been able to rescue her.

  Grimm had made her suffering even more hideous by inflicting as much pain as possible beforehand. Grimm had beaten her, both with fists and with a blunt object, breaking one of her cheekbones and her right wrist. Travis was sure he’d used something like a baseball bat for some of the blows. He’d burned her with cigarettes, leaving permanent marks on her stomach and buttocks. He’d used electrical shocks, causing permanent nerve damage in one of her legs. She’d limp from that for the rest of her life without help from Logan. Even with Logan performing a blood bond there was only a one in three chance of it healing her. That meant she’d been tied, weak in one leg and one arm, forced to use them just to stay alive, the muscles of her diaphragm working to bring in needed air and too strained by her position to do so. She would have tried to stand, to get a breath, only to have one of the weak limbs give in. The cycle of slow suffocation would begin all over again. The only good thing about the ordeal was that Grimm had tied her to the cross rather than nailing her. At least she’d been spared one small agony, but it was scant consolation when held up against everything else he’d done to Jamie.

  When Travis thought of what Grimm had done to the beautiful, vibrant woman Jamie had been, the loving, devoted granddaughter Grimm had supposedly cherished, his vision fogged. He knew his eyes were turning white even now, blinding him to the physical realities around him. Even the sight of Jamie’s vibrant soul couldn’t dim his rage. His fists clenched, his muscles tightening to the point of pain as he held himself still, refusing to give in to the powers that called to him. If he let those powers loose, even for a second, in the way he wanted to, he would light a beacon Grimm would not be able to ignore. As it was, the runic wards Logan had put up around Jamie’s hospital room barely masked the presence of the four gods.

  Part of him didn’t care. He hadn’t been this angry and anguished since Zisa had been killed.

  He shut his eyes, muttering a mantra he’d learned from a Buddhist priest long, long ago, calming himself enough that the fog lifted. But not before he caught a glimpse of something inside Jordan that had him drawing in his breath in shock.

  “Lefty? You in there?”

  He op
ened his eyes to find Logan waving his hand in front of Travis’s face. “Knock it off, hothead.” He knocked Logan’s hand out of the way, ignoring the other man’s amused snort. Oh, great. Something else to worry about. He decided to keep his mouth shut since Jordan had already agreed to remain at the condo with her sister and only leave if Travis, Logan or Kir was with her. Kir would soon figure out what was happening to his woman, and then all hell was going to break loose, but Travis wasn’t going to be the one to break the news.

  He turned back to the bed to find that Jeff had helped Jamie sit up. Her normally bright red curls were limp and straggling around her pale black and green face. The swelling around her beautiful green eyes had finally gone down, allowing her to see the people in her room, not just hear them. He had to thank the advances in medical technology. If Grimm had done this to her even a hundred years ago Jamie wouldn’t have survived it.

  The wariness on her face was new. Seeing the way she flinched back from them had his vision misting over again. He turned away from the twins and faced the three people in the room who knew who, and what, he truly was, knowing he could trust them to keep Jeff and Jamie in the dark about his eyes. He slipped on the pair of sunglasses Jordan handed him, grateful for their mirrored shield.

  “Is the car ready?”

  “We took the Lexus.” Jordan stood guard on the left of the door, Logan on the right. Kir stood in front of him, frowning at something behind Travis. Probably something Jeff and Jamie were doing, although what that could be he didn’t know and didn’t dare turn around to find out, not with his eyes covered in white mist. That would lead to questions he just couldn’t answer, at least not here. But Jamie could barely move even now, after three weeks in the hospital. Her physical therapist had said it would be months before the pain subsided. So whatever Kir was frowning at was more likely to be Jeff’s goofing off than anything Jamie was doing.

  He almost had his eyes back to normal when Jamie hissed in pain behind him. There goes my vision again. Damn it. At least off the influence of Grimm’s fucking apple-laden delicacies he could finally see the true souls of both Logan and Kir. He still grieved over the injustice they’d both suffered over the centuries. Hunted and hated by Vanir and Aesir alike, they’d been on the run from Grimm for centuries. Loki had been accused of the murder of Baldur and punished so grievously he still bore the psychic wounds. Grimm, declaring it just, had taken the only two of Loki’s children not born “monsters” and destroyed them, turning one into a mad wolf who tore apart his brother before his father’s eyes. Grimm had then used the entrails of the dead boy to magically bind Loki to three slabs of stone while a serpent forever dripped burning poison onto him. It had all been done to cement Grimm’s power and prevent Baldur from eventually taking over leadership of the Aesir.

  Travis had every intention of helping Logan and Kir right those wrongs.

  Travis nodded. “Good.” He ran his hand through his hair, his vision returning to normal. “All the paperwork is taken care of?”

  Logan grinned. “Yup. And spare rooms are made up at the apartment for everyone.”

  Travis grimaced, but he’d already lost this fight. Jordan, Kir and Logan had ganged up on him, insisting Jamie would be more comfortable with her sister than with him. Part of him agreed, much as it galled him to. Jeff had insisted on moving in with them as well, providing yet another buffer between his twin and their grandfather. Travis was still concerned about that. Jeff would be the only human guarding Jamie, but Jeff had put on his most stubborn expression and Travis had bowed down. Once Jeff made up his mind about something it was damn near impossible to get him to change it, and he’d made up his mind that his sister needed his protection.

  Despite the fact that both Baldur and Loki had sworn themselves to her safety, Travis’s decision had also been a no-brainer. “My room too?”

  “Yup. We even made sure everything was left-handed just for you.”

  He rolled his eyes as Logan batted his eyelashes at him outrageously. It had taken them a bit to come to terms, but he and Logan had worked out the majority of their problems with one another, mostly at Jordan’s urging.

  Almost all. He winced as he thought of the task he’d set himself as soon as Jamie was up to the trip.

  He wasn’t going to hide what he was from her for much longer. She needed to know what they were up against, and why Grimm had targeted her. He had to see to it that she had the means to defend herself if it should ever happen again. That meant not only getting her the training he knew she desperately needed, even if the others couldn’t see it yet, but making sure she had the necessary power to back up her will.

  He looked down at his palm and traced the blue veins with his eyes, wondering how she’d react when he mingled his blood with hers, and what it would ultimately do to her. Mixing blood with a god was not something to be done lightly.

  Especially when it was Tyr, god of justice and former lord of the Vanir.

  “Hey, pumpkin.”

  Jamie smiled as much as her bruised, broken face would allow. “Hey, Uncle Val.” She sounded like she was talking through a napkin, but the doctors had assured her the last of the swelling would be completely gone soon.

  Uncle Val walked past Travis to give her a gentle hug. “You ready to blow this popsicle stand?”

  She closed her eyes as his warmth seeped into her cold bones. She was always cold these days, except when Travis and Uncle Val were near. They were the only ones who made her feel safe. “Sure am.”

  “Good girl.” He brushed his hand through her curls, pecking her softly on the forehead. “Jordan and Jeff will help you get dressed. I’ll get the rest of these yahoos out of here. Want me to put them to work?” He grinned down at her, still gently stroking her hair the same way he had when she’d been a child.

  She leaned into his touch. “Nah. Just let me get dressed so we can leave.” She smiled up at him. “The food here sucks donkey balls.”

  She heard an amused snort and figured it was her brand new brother-in-law, Logan. “Don’t worry, Pita, I’ll cook as soon as we get back to our place.”

  “Thanks, Logan.”

  Jordan had told her some of what happened, but not all. For some reason she’d only been able to tell her in bits and pieces, when everyone else was out of the room. So Jamie knew a little of what Logan had done to buy them time to save her. What she couldn’t figure out was why he wasn’t in the hospital bed next to hers if everything Jordan had told her was true. Being beaten with Dad’s favorite walking stick should have left him in almost the same shape Jamie was in, but there wasn’t a mark on him. And since Jordan had never lied to her, something screwy was going on. Jordan was trying to prepare her for whatever it was. It had to be something big or big sis wouldn’t be dancing around it instead of telling her outright.

  It probably involved every single person in the room with her, with the possible exception of Jeff. If Jeff knew something that would make Jordan this crazy he’d have told her by now. They didn’t keep many secrets from each other.

  “Wow. You look like hammered dog shit today.” She glared up at Jeff, who grinned down her. “It’s an improvement.”

  “I did have the shit hammered out of me. What’s your excuse?”

  Her brother leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”

  Everyone in the room groaned and Jeff winked, completely unrepentant.

  “Okay, people. You heard the lady. Everybody out.” Uncle Val began shooing everyone from the room, pulling a lingering Travis out by the arm. “C’mon, boss, out you go.” Out everyone went with the exception of Jordan and Jeff.

  That was taking some getting used to. Grandfath… Grimm’s security chief now working for Guardian Investigations. Grammy was probably having kittens at the thought of her hated stepson so close to her grandchildren.

  But then again she had to wonder how Grammy felt about anything now. She hadn’t seen fit to visit Jamie in the hospital.
Maybe Grammy was under some sort of guard too, because if Grimm could do this to Jamie, he could certainly do this to Grammy. Grammy was sweet and kind, but not very strong. There would be no way she could withstand the kind of torture Grimm had put Jamie through. She hoped those Grammy loved were keeping a close eye on her.

  Jamie sighed. It still didn’t make any sense to her. Why had her grandfather done this? The only reason she could think of for Grimm to have done what he had was some sort of tumor, or Alzheimer’s, or something that would alter his personality beyond all recognition. Because the man she’d grown up loving and respecting would never have done this to her if he’d still been in complete control of his senses. He’d tortured her with an almost playful ferocity, smiling as the lit cigarette burned into her hip. He’d seemed to enjoy the screams muffled by a gag that buckled at the back of her head. He’d only removed it when she’d been tied to the cross, unable to speak thanks to the broken cheek and the swelling in her face.

  The agony of her broken wrist had only been matched by the one in her leg. She didn’t think she’d ever forget what had happened to her, no matter how often she spoke to her therapist. Doctor Burton had told her it would probably be years, if ever, before the nightmares went away.

  She tried to hide her shudder as the memories threatened to swamp her. Now that Uncle Val and Travis were gone, the cold was settling in, shivering down her spine in icy waves.

  Jeff knew her too well. “It’s okay, little fox. No one’s going to hurt you. You’re safe.” He rocked her, tucking her head under his chin. Just the sound of her twin’s pet name for her helped pull her back from the dark chasm where her nightmares lived.

  She opened her eyes to find Jordan standing over her, a fierce expression on her face. “No one, and I mean no one, is going to get through us to you. Not ever again.” Jamie could swear she saw something…odd, in Jordan’s eyes when she said that. Almost like flames flickering.

  Man. I have to have another nice, long talk with my therapist. She was starting to see some really funky things these days, because just before Uncle Val dragged him out, she could have sworn Travis had been glowing.