by C. Gockel
Steve’s eyebrow raises. That explains the recognition. Lionel would have access to a lot of intel an ordinary Light Elf would not. And he’s encountered humans before, what had he said, “humans, always full of impossible ideas”? Was it an observation based on Amy and Beatrice’s trip to Alfheim, or another encounter with humanity? Steve pushes it aside—he has to focus on now.
“What is your plan, Steve Rogers?” Lionel says, raising his chin.
Steve looks at the door. “I’ve got an idea to get this door open, but we need to keep it open. Managing that would be a lot easier if I spoke Fire Giantish, but without magic—”
“I speak Fire Giantish well enough,” Lionel says. He shrugs. “If you use magic long enough to translate, eventually the native tongue becomes a second language to you.”
Steve tilts his head to the door. “Tell the guy on the other side we have a plan. And his job is to keep the door open.”
“He won’t—”
“He will,” says Steve, remembering the certainty he’d felt when he’d tried to protect the man.
Going over to the door, Lionel relays the message in a language that sounds like the barking of dogs.
There is a moment of tense silence, and then the Fire Giant barks back. Lionel pulls away from the door, chains rattling and eyes blinking. “He says he’ll help us.” He looks up at Steve. “He could be lying.”
Steve shakes his head. “He isn’t.”
From the hallway comes muffled shouting. Steve blinks. “That’s Asgardian.”
Pressing his ear to the door, Lionel says, “Something about a fire …”
Steve hears the Fire Giant barking. He climbs hastily to his feet.
Lionel’s eyes widen. “Two of the guards are leaving … there is a fire in the orchards.”
Steve swears; there won’t be any time to discuss his plan with the gentle elf. “Lionel,” he whispers, “you have to fight me and make it look real!”
“What?” says Lionel, raising his shackled wrists and shrugging helplessly. “How?”
Hearing the guards move away, Steve headbutts him in the chest… hard.
“Are you mad?” Lionel shouts.
Steve whips him with his chains and shouts, “Help! The elf is trying to kill me!”
x x x x
Amy doesn’t cry. She bites her lip, and the gerbils on her brain wheels race. She tries to look chastened, and meek, and at the same time tries to survey the room. She makes a move to turn around but catches Beatrice narrowing her eyes at her and freezes in place instead.
“Hey, Daevas,” says Rush, hooking his rifle over his shoulder and walking toward the adze, “What sort of ammo you got in that case?”
The adze blinks at the SEAL. “I have ammunition for standard Glocks and M4s.”
Rush scratches an ear and puts a hand on his chin. “I don’t know if it will work.”
“Of course it will work,” snaps Beatrice.
“I’ll just check,” says Rush, taking the ammo case from Daevas’s hands.
Beatrice snorts. “Rush, you paranoid—”
Rush swings the ammo case at Daevas’s chin, sending him sprawling backward into Beatrice and Hoenir. Fenrir gives a startled yip.
Spinning on his heel, Rush sprints to Amy, grabs her by the arm and pulls her to the back of the room, and then yanks her out the door into a hallway full of doors.
“Which way?” Rush says.
Amy opens the first door; beyond it is another hallway with lots of doors. “This way!” she shouts. Rush follows her into the second hallway, and through another door into another hallway, and then a fourth. Amy stops, she is completely lost—she doesn’t have any idea where to go.
Panting, Rush says, “Can’t you open another door to Asgard?”
“They have Fenrir!” Amy pants back. “They can use her nose to track us!”
“I’ll hold ’em back!” Rush says, raising his rifle.
Slipping through another door, into another hallway, Amy stops dead in her tracks. “You can’t shoot my dog!”
Pushing her backward down the hall, Rush huffs, “I wouldn’t shoot Fenrir!”
“Or my grandmother!” Amy says.
Rush’s jaw twitches.
Amy’s nostrils flare.
Rolling his eyes, Rush says, “Sure, I won’t shoot Beatrice. Now choose a door, Lewis! Stop being a pussy!”
Amy’s fists ball at her side. Swearing, Rush reaches around her and opens a door. Amy blinks. She’s staring at room with walls, floor and ceiling of a familiar pearlescent substance. In it are three looms and three beautiful women sitting at them. Amy’s eyes go wide. “Norns!” Amy shouts.
Chloe, the beautiful South Asian-looking Norn sits up, her extra arms either behind her back or magically hidden. “Oh, Amy is back! Have you decided to be a boy for us?”
Rush clears his throat.
“Look she’s brought us a boy,” says Lache. She’s wearing lipstick that is shockingly red against her ebony skin. Her four extra appendages are also hidden. “Delicious.”
Rush lowers his weapon, as though transfixed. “Hello.”
“It’s Herbert Rush,” snorts Addie, a bone-pale finger pulling back a stray lock of white-blonde hair. “Tough and stringy, but he’ll do.”
“Mmmm ....” says Rush, leaning forward as all three women glide toward him.
Amy grabs him by the back of the shirt and yanks him back into the hallway. The three women shriek and raise their extra arms. Lightning swirls around their hands. Amy slams the door just in time.
Rush blinks. Amy sighs and shakes her head, dragging him down the hall. “That probably isn’t going to help your misogyny.”
“Were they going to eat me?” Rush says.
Deciding not to answer, Amy drags him around a corner.
“Do you have a plan?” Rush asks.
Amy’s eyes fall on a pair of aprons hanging from a peg just in front of them. Next to the aprons is a metal door with a single circular nautical window made of heavy glass. Her eyes get wide. Throwing an apron at Rush, she puts on the other one and slips through the door. “This way!”
She finds herself in a room with a utilitarian kitchen on one side. Rush is in a moment later, the apron thrown over his shoulder. “What is this place, a kennel or a kitchen?”
Amy looks to her left. There is a heavy sink with cleavers hanging from the wall and a large chopping block. She blinks. Around the base of the block are bags and bags of dog food—the Earth kind. Apparently Hoenir still visits. She looks to the opposite wall. There is a large metal cage that stretches from floor to ceiling, with a human-size door set into it. Beyond that is another door with hinges on the top—it’s like a pet door—but big enough for Rush and Amy to walk through side-by-side. Running over to the cage, she quickly undoes the lock. “Come on, in here!” she says. Her eyes snap to the apron over his shoulder. “And put that on.”
Slamming the cage shut, he says, “Why?”
There is a huffing at the swinging door. “Because if you don’t, the velociraptors will eat you,” she says.
“Velociraptors!” Rush squeaks.
Raising her hands, Amy says, “Don’t worry! They don’t eat their own. Probably because there is a velociraptor equivalent of mad cow disease and they’ve evolved an aversion to their own meat. That would make sense; there is a human equivalent of the disease, too. It’s called—”
“Stop the verbal diarrhea! Why are we in a velociraptor pen?” His eyes get wide and he looks over her shoulder. “One’s coming through the door!”
Amy spins, and sure enough, a lizard-like head, half-feathered, half-scaled, is peering at her through the over-sized doggy door. It sniffs at them curiously and opens its mouth, revealing finger-length long teeth and … squeaks.
“Don’t shoot it!” Amy says, hustling over to the pen’s door. “They’ll keep everyone away while I create a new World Gate.”
“It’s not okay for me to shoot your grandmother, but it’s oka
y for a velociraptor to eat her?” Rush snaps. “Oh … it’s sniffing me ... is that a good sign?”
Remembering Loki’s encounter with the velociraptors, she says, “If he’s not eating you, we’re good.” She looks out of the cage. “I’m sure my grandmother won’t actually follow us,” Amy says, although she isn’t sure. Her hand hesitates on the pen lock.
The kitchen door swings open. Hoenir is there, a cup of tea in one hand, a saucer in the other; she can’t see anyone else beyond him.
Amy’s hand tightens on the lock. “Don’t come closer! I’ll open the door, and they’ll get out.” Her hand doesn’t shake. She looks down at the lock, and then looks up in wonder at Hoenir. “I can do that, can’t I?”
Hoenir nods and says softly, “Your creatures can kill, even if you can’t.”
Amy looks down at her hand and remembers when Loki entered Hoenir’s house without knocking—this was the room he’d come to. He’d almost been killed by the velociraptors. Her jaw drops. “They’re your guard dogs, aren’t they?”
Hoenir’s eyes widen a fraction. “Yes,” he whispers.
Amy hears some more squeaks. She looks back. Rush is patting a velociraptor on the head, as two others butt their heads against him. “Nice lizard, nice lizard.” Without looking at her, he says, “I dunno, Lewis, these guys seem too tame to—”
At that moment, one of the velociraptors sees Hoenir. With a roar, it leaps onto the bars of the cage and begins shaking and hissing, sending spittle flying everywhere. The others lift their heads and quickly do the same. From beyond the swinging doggy-velociraptor-door comes the sound of hissing.
“Eh, they’ll do,” Rush says. “Let’s go open a gate.”
“Wait!” Hoenir says. “I want to help you.”
Amy looks at his hands. They’re shaking on the tea cup. Hoenir licks his lips nervously. “I can find your friends for you,” he says, “in my tea leaves.”
Rush snorts.
“Okay,” Amy says.
Putting the tea cup down on the chopping block, Hoenir says, “Fenrir is leading everyone on a merry chase—she’s quite a smart puppy—but Mimir will figure out where we are in a bit. I think between Beatrice and Daevas, they’ll find a way to stop us.”
With that, Hoenir opens a cabinet beneath the block, pulls out another apron, and puts it on. As soon as he does, the velociraptors stop hissing. One by one, they drop from the bars and pace the cage, looking vaguely confused. “They aren’t particularly bright,” says Hoenir, as Amy opens the door to the cage and lets him in, tea cup shaking in the saucer in his hands. “But much smarter than the originals.”
Curious about the “originals,” Amy opens her mouth, but before she can get a word out, Rush snaps, “Don’t ask him any questions! Let’s get this show on the road.”
Outside the kitchen door, Amy hears Mimir’s voice. “I don’t think they could go through there …”
“Come,” Hoenir says. Ducking, he leads Amy through the swinging velociraptor door, Rush bringing up the rear. They step out into a world with two blood-red suns. In every direction Amy sees smoke spilling into the sky. There are strange palm-like plants that reach just above her head and an overpowering stench of sulfur and burning feathers.
“There is a ring of volcanoes around us,” Hoenir says, looking into his tea cup, his hands shaking. Through the door Amy hears Mimir’s voice more clearly. “They can’t have gone through there.” And then his words are obscured by the hissing of velociraptors. From the palm bushes, velociraptor heads shoot up. She sees at least seven dash through the swinging door.
“Now where was I?” says Hoenir. Sitting down on the blackened ground, he hunches over his teacup, and Amy sits beside him. Above them, Rush growls. “Hurry it up!”
Hoenir swallows audibly. In his hands the tea cup clatters in the saucer. He takes a deep breath. “I’ve been planning this day for centuries, and yet, I’m finding it hard.”
“Planning this day?” Amy says.
“The day that Odin is overthrown,” Hoenir whispers, not looking at her.
“We don’t have to do that—”
“But you will,” Hoenir says. “Odin will not let you go without a confrontation. And he will not surrender. He will have to be destroyed, and a new incarnation of Order will take his place.”
“Good,” Rush mutters, now kneeling beside them, slipping bullets from a clip and replacing them with the magical ones from the ammo case.
The clattering of the teacup grows louder. Amy remembers her dream of being a boy in Jotunheim. She’d thought it was a remnant of Loki’s memories. But it wasn’t; she was Hoenir in the dream, wasn’t she? She touches Hoenir’s shoulder. “You knew him before he became Order, didn’t you?” she whispers.
He looks up at her, his green eyes red-rimmed and wet. “Yes. He was … good.”
“I believe you,” Amy says, her eyes getting wet remembering the little boy standing up to Hoenir’s bullies.
“I loved him,” Hoenir whispers.
Amy nods. “I know.”
Snapping a clip into his Glock, Rush clears his throat. “We need to find the team.”
“I don’t think I can kill him,” Hoenir says, looking down at the cup.
“You don’t have to,” Amy says.
“I will,” Rush mutters.
Hoenir’s eyes slide to Rush. “No, you won’t.” Turning to Amy, he says quickly, “Creation is given and received by choice; the chaos of Destruction is given by chance; Order can be surrendered, but usually it has to be taken by the one who replaces it.” His Adam’s apple bobs and he looks down at the teacup. A scene shimmers into view on the liquid’s surface. Amy sees the shining spires of Asgard, the orchards to one side … and smoke.
“Bohdi’s there,” says Amy.
“Right,” says Hoenir.
He zooms in. Surprisingly, Bohdi is not at the center of the flames. He’s a few hundred meters away. Behind him is the team; directly in front of him is Heimdall and a team of Einherjar.
“Oh, no …” says Amy. “In the myths, Loki was killed by Heimdall.”
“But that ain’t Loki,” says Rush.
Heimdall runs forward so quickly he is a blur. Amy gasps. Heimdall collides with Bohdi and then both he and Heimdall disappear from view.
Chapter 34
The air rushes out of Bohdi, his body cools, and his lust evaporates. His hands catch Heimdall’s wrists as the world blurs by, much as it does when Sleipnir is at a full tilt. Bohdi curses and hears no sound—they’ve left time behind. Panting, his brain spins. Loki’s ability to walk the In Between is related to time-bending. It makes sense that his kids got a little bit of that talent.
An instant later, the blur coalesces. Bohdi crashes into cold stones, biting his tongue in the process. Before he can even lift his head, Heimdall rips Bohdi’s M4 over his shoulder and tosses it to the side. Bohdi hears it clattering on stones far away. He looks around frantically. He’s on a podium in a wide plain with eight circular platforms. Beyond that is a stone wall; over the wall’s top he can see the golden spires of Odin’s palace.
A breath of relief escapes him; he is still in Asgard. His hand falls to his side, he still has his Glock and a knife. At that thought, Heimdall hauls him to his feet. “See what you have done!” he roars. Pulling a horn from around his waist, he lifts it to the heavens and blows. Bohdi feels his skin prickle and swears he can taste magic in the air. On the circles around the platform, scenes spring to life. He squints—they’re slightly transparent—projections of some sort?
His mouth gapes. He sees Chicago in one of the projections. The Willis Tower is in the background, and men and women in police uniform are standing beside civilians throwing Molotov cocktails … at other police officers in riot gear. Heimdall spins him in another direction and he sees Nornheim at night—adze are flinging their bodies at one another in the sky—ripping each others’ wings off. Heimdall spins him again, and he sees dwarves locked in combat, stalagmites crashing from t
he ceiling. He is spun again, and he sees a swamp that looks peaceful … but then as he watches crimson bubbles come up from the depths of the water, and the bodies of elves. They spin again and he’s looking at trolls, Einherjar, and Fire Giants locked in combat in Niflheim. Heimdall spins him once more, and he’s staring at the beach on Jotunheim by the World Gate. No one is there, but one tall, skinny girl, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Claire …” Bohdi whispers. Where is Amy? Why is she alone? Jaw gaping, he walks in the direction of the conjured image, almost falling from the platform. Steve gave him one request—and he failed to do it.
In the shimmering magical projection, Claire looks down the beach. Her eyes get wide and her lips part in a gasp of fear.
“Run, Claire, run …” Bohdi whispers, not knowing what she is afraid of, but knowing it is terrible.
Instead of running away, Claire runs toward whatever it is. “No!” Bohdi shouts, but she doesn’t hear him. And then he sees what she is running to. He screams so loud his voice echoes off the stones.
x x x x
Panting, hungry, and limbs tired, Claire reaches the ocean. Standing on the ice, she leans, grabs her knees to catch her breath, and stares at the sea. She can’t see any boats. She stamps her feet, and her face crumples in sorrow and anger. They’d left hours before her, and they’d had snowmobiles; of course they are gone. She should go back to the mesa, but that feels like defeat. Lifting her head to the sky, she screams in rage.
She hears a rush of water and the ground trembles, as though the world is echoing her sentiment. She blinks out over the horizon. Far out in the sea, between the arch and the beach, rises the head of an enormous snake-like creature, lightning bolts sparking along its snout.
She takes a step back, watching as the thing continues to thrash in the water, as though fighting an invisible foe. Giant waves crash on the icy beach. The monster’s head disappears, but huge coils rise where its muzzle had been. Claire releases a breath. And then the head emerges again, slowly and gracefully. She swallows and takes a step back; it’s on a trajectory for a spot down the beach a few dozen meters away. It has huge eyes set into the side of its head, but if it sees her it shows no sign.