[Anthology] The Paranormal 13- now With a Bonus 14th Novel!

by Dima Zales

  Loki falls to the side and crashes on the floor. Amy looks up and there is wolf Fenrir sitting in front of the kitchen sink.

  Grabbing her grandmother, Amy narrows her eyes. “Couldn’t you have just made yourself look like yourself!”

  “That would be needlessly straightforward,” says the wolf.

  “Wha – wha – wha -” says Beatrice.

  “It’s alright, Grandma,” Amy says, patting her back. “It’s just Loki’s subconscious.”

  Tilting its head, the wolf says, “Shouldn’t you move him to the couch?”

  Amy looks down at Loki lying on his side on the floor in a semi-fetal position.

  “Should we, Grandma?”

  Eyeing the wolf carefully, Beatrice says shakily, “No, it’ll be easier to clean up if he throws up here.”

  The wolf puts back its ears, bobs its head, thumps its tail and opens its eyes wide.

  “No,” says Beatrice, the self-assuredness back in her voice.

  Straightening, the wolf sighs. “It was worth a try.”

  The real Loki mutters in his sleep.

  Wincing, Amy says, “What happened?”

  “He went on a three day bender,” says Beatrice, her voice very dry, a scowl settling on her features.

  “Why?” says Amy, walking over to get a dish towel. The spittle or whatever it is on his chin is grossing her out.

  “They killed his sons … and Hoenir, Mimir and Sigyn,” the wolf says.

  Amy looks up from where she is about to wipe Loki’s face.

  She looks over at Beatrice. The hard lines in her grandmother's brow have softened.

  The wolf settles down on the floor with a whimper. “Gone now like Aggie and Helen.”

  “Helen?” says Amy.

  The wolf stares at Loki, his voice far off. “You know her as Hel.”

  “And Aggie … ” says Beatrice. “Angrboða?”

  Turning its eyes to Beatrice, the wolf snarls. “Her name was Anganboða, bringer of joy! Do not call her by the name Baldur gave!”

  Beatrice puts her hand to her mouth and steps back.

  Snarling, the wolf says. “Baldur destroyed her! Called her a troll and a witch. Even Odin spoke ill against her.” The wolf’s voice takes on a sing-song quality. “Because no one would ever gainsay the words of Baldur the Brave.”

  And then dropping its head down, the wolf that is maybe a figment of Loki’s imagination puts its paws over his nose. “She saw Baldur for what he was. What she saw in Loki … ” The wolf whimpers.

  The great hall of Odin’s palace is filled with golden firelight and the buzz of conversation. Loki stands just to the right of the thrones of Odin, Frigga and crown prince Baldur.

  Loki’s lips were released from the dwarf wire just a month ago, and he isn’t quite healed. Small circles of white scar tissue dot his upper lip and chin. As proficient as he is with magic, the wire itself was magical; the scars are slow to heal and difficult to cover with an illusion.

  Odin has commanded he be here. Asgard is receiving King Frosthyrr from Jotunheim, land of the Frost Giants. Loki has never been to Jotunheim — not since Odin rescued him as an infant during a campaign, anyway. He doesn’t know Jotunn customs, and the scars on his lips don’t speak well of his treatment in Asgard. He has no idea what his presence is supposed to accomplish.

  Now as they wait for their guests to enter, Loki scans the hall. He catches Thor’s eyes. Thor smiles with too many teeth and raises his hammer. Loki looks away.

  He sees Sigyn in a distant corner and looks away again. Hoenir is standing near her in the shadows. Mimir is with him. For the occasion Mimir has been mounted on the end of a long staff. Loki contains a wince. Mimir loves being on the staff point. It gives him a better view. It also is a quite gruesome sight to the uninitiated. Loki wonders how Hoenir convinced Odin to allow it.

  Catching his gaze, Mimir smiles brightly at Loki and lifts his eyebrows. It’s a Mimir rendition of a wave. Loki nods in his direction.

  Horns announce the Jotunn’s arrival, and the hall goes quiet. Great double doors opposite the thrones open up and the Jotunn delegation marches in. King Frosthyrr is just one of many kings of Jotunheim squabbling for control of that realm. The civil wars on Jotunheim have given Frost Giants a reputation for primitive savagery, but you would not know it from looking at King Frosthyrr or the lords and ladies accompanying him. Their armor and clothing are fine, their bearing regal. But whereas Odin’s palace is bathed in warm colors — oranges, reds and golds — the Frost Giants wear whites, silvers and blues. The giantesses wear jewelry of cool crystal. Like Loki, to a one they are pale, their skin almost translucent.

  At the head of the procession marches King Frosthyrr with his daughter, Princess Járnsaxa. Odin has instructed Baldur to pay special attention to the princess. Loki notices with some disappointment that she is actually quite lovely. Her pale cheeks are rosy, her eyes blue and sparkling beneath dark blonde locks. She is smiling perhaps more than a princess should, but overall … Loki sighs. Why does Baldur always get the pleasant tasks?

  He looks over at the crown prince. To his surprise, Baldur’s eyes are riveted at the far end of the procession. Loki blinks, and then he sees what has caught Baldur’s attention. A giantess stands there, her attire somewhat more modest than her companions. She has the darkest hair Loki has ever seen, falling behind her shoulders like a black curtain. Her features are delicate and fine except for wide generous lips. Tall, and voluptuous without being fat, her bearing is as regal as a queen’s.

  She is the most beautiful woman Loki has ever seen; and next to her, Princess Járnsaxa is only plain.

  He shifts on his feet and finds her eyes on his. Her gaze quickly drops and wanders over the royal family beside him, and then it comes back to Loki. She smiles slightly as though they are sharing some secret joke, and then the man standing next to her whispers something in her ear and she frowns and looks away.

  Loki stands transfixed for a moment, Odin’s words to King Frosthyrr are an unintelligible murmur at the edge of his consciousness. He looks to the crown prince. Baldur’s eyes are still riveted on the giantess.

  If she has the attention of the golden prince, she is a lost cause. Loki looks away, but over the next few hours his eyes keep going back to her.

  Much later in the evening, after the feasting is mostly done and the festivities are turning to dancing, Loki eyes are still wandering to the giantess. He’s learned her name is Anganboða. She is unmarried; the man she was speaking to earlier is her brother. Now she stands between said brother and Baldur. Loki scowls.

  Thor’s loud voice bellows over his shoulder. “What’s wrong, Scar Lip? Won’t anyone dance with you?”

  Loki glares at Thor. “I simply have not asked anyone.”

  Thor’s eyes sparkle and he smiles wickedly. “And you think anyone would give you that honor?”

  Loki feels his blood go hot. Without thinking he says, “I bet you six months of your princely stipend that the very first individual I ask will be unable to refuse me.”

  Thor’s smile drops. “If I win I get your stipend for same.”

  “Done,” says Loki, smirking despite the fact he has no idea how he’s going to pull this off. His eyes pass over the room. The only woman who might dance with him is Sigyn, but he recoils at that idea. And then he blinks, and recalling his wager, he turns and walks, nay nearly skips, over to Hoenir and Mimir. Bowing low before the staff that Mimir is mounted on, Loki says, “Mimir, would you do me the honor of dancing with me?”

  Before Mimir can even respond, Loki pulls the staff from Hoenir’s hands and starts moving towards the floor. Behind him Loki can hear Hoenir snort. At the top of the staff Mimir says loudly, “Well, it’s not like I can refuse, is it?”

  Across the room Loki sees Thor’s face go red. Loki smiles with all his teeth and steps with Mimir into the line of dancers, twirling the staff as he does so. From the crowd he hears laughter and cries of “fool,” but imagining what he’l
l do with six months of a princeling’s allowance more than makes up for it.

  “I say, Loki,” says Mimir. “This actually isn’t half bad. I can see so much this way. Spin me again!”

  Now that Loki’s technically fulfilled the requirements of his wager he could quit, but seeing Thor’s furious glare across the hall is just too priceless to let go. He dances with Mimir, spins him, dips him, catches the staff on his foot, and tips it back up into his hands.

  “I say,” says Mimir, “dip me again! I didn’t realize the frescoes on the ceiling had changed. I miss being able to bend my neck … ”

  Loki grins, even though the hall is filling with raucous laughter at his expense. The music gets louder and faster. The torches start to flicker madly, the fires in their pits send sparks shooting up into the air, and then the laughter takes on a nervous edge and someone screams.

  “Or maybe we should stop,” says Mimir.

  The music is slowing anyway. Loki tilts Mimir back for a final, proper dip and as he bows, Mimir’s staff in hand, he hears curses and shouts, but above it all the sound of one set of hands clapping.

  Loki looks up and there is Anganboða not two paces away, clapping happily. “Well done!” she says, smiling at him. He does not smile back. She is so beautiful and so close. He wants to go to her, to smile in return, but she has the eye of Baldur and he knows who will win in such a contest. The effort it takes to stifle his natural impulses makes his lips twist into a frown; his body flushes with heat and rage.

  Screams rise in the hall. Anganboða turns, and Loki follows her gaze. Sparks of fire are jumping madly from candles and the fire pits. Loki’s mouth opens in surprise, and his rage cools a bit just as the sparks subside.

  “Oh, dear,” says Mimir.

  Baldur and Anganboða’s brother are suddenly at her side, steering her away.

  Loki watches them go, his face a mask of indifference. And then beside him he hears Odin’s voice. “I grow weary of playing politics. I need a drink. Come with us, Loki.”

  Loki turns and there is Hoenir and Odin. A drink sounds like a very good idea.

  Away from the party, in Odin’s own rooms, one drink turns into a few. Loki manages to lose all the money he won from Thor in a wager over a chess game while he is only slightly drunk.

  … and then he proceeds to win it all back — and a rather nice guest house thrown in for good measure, while he is incredibly, mind-bendingly drunk during a second chess match.

  His head is lying on the board and he hears Mimir nagging with Odin somewhere far, far, far, off in the distance. “It’s your fault! You should never have played him while he was so drunk. You had to know with those odds he’d win! Now look, you’re all drunk … Hoenir, don’t animate the chess pieces! You know they’ll squabble and cause all sorts of trouble — and you haven’t given them mouths! You’ve doomed them to die!”

  Loki hears Odin guffaw and Hoenir snort. Loki manages to raise his head. The chess pieces are sliding at each other and not paying attention to the rules of the board at all. He drops his head again.

  “Come on, Hoenir,” says Mimir. “Let’s take Loki home … you’re less drunk than he is … Well then, heal yourself … I don’t care if you don’t want to be sober!”

  Loki feels a hand slap his back, and then suddenly his head stops spinning and the world comes into focus. The chess pieces are knocking one another off the board, Odin has his hand on Hoenir’s shoulder, and they’re both laughing hysterically. Mimir’s staff is propped against the wall. For his part, Mimir looks extremely put out.

  Loki sits up and meets Odin’s unblinking eye. Odin points his finger at him and laughs, “Ha! You get to be the responsible one for once! Take Hoenir home or I’ll lift my eye patch and give you a fright!”

  At that Hoenir snickers with such force he falls off his stool. The stool promptly hops backwards and begins to scamper around like a small dog.

  “Loki, let’s go before Hoenir animates something dangerous,” Mimir mutters.

  Suddenly noticing the wide array of weapons decorating the walls of Odin’s private chamber, Loki gets off his chair and slides one of Hoenir’s arms under his shoulder. With the other hand he grabs Mimir’s staff. They leave Odin talking with the chess pieces, idly patting Hoenir’s stool.

  “Well, that was just like old times,” Mimir says as they make their way down a long hallway past Odin’s guard. Loki can’t be bothered to respond. Hoenir is heavy. Also, Loki is watching for signs that he will throw up.

  Loki decides to cut through the guest wing of the palace. There is a servants’ corridor and exit that will let them out closer to Hoenir’s hut than the front or back entrance. He is passing through some long unremarkable corridor when he hears a female voice echoing down the hall. “For so long you have said my honor was my most important possession, and now you want me to give it away to some so-called-golden prince so that you may rise in power!”

  It takes a moment for Loki to realize it is Anganboða’s voice. And another moment more to comprehend what she is saying. So-called-golden prince? She is not smitten? He must have heard wrong. He finds himself stopping, his hands tightening on Mimir’s staff. There is a sound like a slap and then a door slams. Loki watches as Anganboða’s brother strides off down the hall in the opposite direction, passing by another servant as he does.

  That servant meets Loki’s eyes. In his hands, Mimir whispers, “There really is nothing you can do at this point that won’t make the lady’s situation worse.”

  Loki frowns but continues slowly on his way.

  By the time he reaches the small door that exits to the garden, he doesn’t think his mood can get worse. There is a lantern by the door that he gives to Mimir to hold in his teeth, and then they step out into the night and Loki realizes it’s raining. Soon Loki is wet and chilled and Hoenir is getting heavier and heavier, and less and less cooperative. It would be better if Loki could swing him over his shoulder, but he also has to tote Mimir along.

  Loki thinks of Odin warm and drunk and happy in his rooms and scowls. He hates being the responsible one.

  Head bent over, he continues on. The rain picks up, and they’re just turning into a walkway lined with long hedges when Mimir mumbles through the lantern handle in his mouth. “‘ook!”

  Loki looks up; a hooded figure is pressed against the hedge. Whoever it is doesn’t seem to be aware of their approach until they are nearly upon them, and then the figure turns. The hood spills off and Loki and Mimir are facing a very red-eyed Anganboða.

  “What are you doing here?” he says, the words harsher than he intends.

  “Is it any of your business?” she says.

  Loki stares at her and he knows. “You’re running away,” he says. At least temporarily. From Baldur. Maybe from her family.

  She doesn’t deny it.

  He twists his hands on Mimir’s staff. Choosing to run away in the rain, probably without a plan, or without really knowing where she was going … She’s obviously a bit mad.

  The right thing for Loki to do, if he values his position at court, is to convince her to go back to the palace, grit her teeth, and allow Baldur’s “affections.”

  He holds out Mimir’s staff to her and says, “You can come with us.” Apparently Loki can only be responsible to a point.

  She takes the staff, looks up at Mimir and says, “Would you like me to take the lantern?”

  “Yesh!” says the head, dropping it from his mouth into her hands.

  It was quite nice of her to think of Mimir that way. For some reason it irritates him. Swinging the nearly unconscious Hoenir over his shoulder, he begins to walk away. A few paces later he turns back. Anganboða hasn’t moved.

  “You need not worry about your honor. You have my oath it is safe with me,” Loki says, the words spilling out before he even thinks about them.

  She tilts her head and then says, “I trust you.” And she does. Loki has a rather keen sense for disambiguation. She’s definitely mad.<
br />
  Heaving a breath, she says, “But it doesn’t seem to matter what you do, it’s what people say you do … ”

  “Ahem,” says Mimir. “Consider me your chaperone.”

  Looking up at the head, Anganboða’s lips part. Those very wide, generous lips. Loki can’t help but stare.

  Why did he just make an oath to protect her honor? Scowling, Loki says, “Come on, Hoenir’s heavy,” and starts walking again. This time she hurries to catch up.

  “Did you have any plans?” Loki gasps out as they trudge along. “Since you have chosen to run rather than accept the suit of Baldur the Beautiful, Wise and Brave.”

  “Is he those things?” Anganboða says.

  Loki turns to her. Rain has plastered her raven locks to her face, and he realizes what he took for a cloak is actually just a blanket, probably stolen from her rooms in the palace. She is very desperate.

  Turning her eyes to the muddy ground she says, “I look at him … and I see a golden prince, but when I turn away, from the corner of my eye I see something quite different. Something I don’t like, something dark. When I hear his words they sound sweet, but when I replay them in my mind they are cruel.” She laughs and there is something frantic in it. “Yet everyone says he is beautiful, wise and brave.”

  Loki turns to her, mouth open. No one else has ever doubted Baldur. A knot in his stomach uncoils with a force so strong it hurts.

  “I must be mad,” she says softly. “And yet … he bartered for my honor with my brother … am I worth so little that a man can do that and still be good?”

  “No, my lady,” Loki says.

  She turns to him and smiles softly, and he finds himself silently vowing that if Baldur ever lays a finger on her, ever hurts her, he will make him die a slow and painful death.

  They turn round a hedge and step through the large trees that shield Hoenir’s hut from the rest of Asgard. “What a meager abode for Odin’s brother,” Anganboða says out of nowhere.

  Loki blinks and shoves Hoenir against the door. “Hoenir is not Odin’s brother. Whatever made you think that?”