by Cara Wylde
Piper shot Magny a pleading look, but the hobgoblin shrugged and went back to his fruit salad. He’d tried his best and failed. Annoyed, Piper grabbed a towel and told Valentina she was going to the pool. If they weren’t going anywhere today, she might as well enjoy the warm sun and gentle breeze of Castelluccio. There was also a gift shop near the B&B, and she couldn’t imagine leaving the Italian village without a few souvenirs.
“What about you?” Valentina asked the hobgoblin after Piper left. “Don’t you have anywhere to be?”
“Nope. I’m with you now. I shall follow you everywhere you go.”
“As far as I remember, hobgoblins are free creatures. You don’t depend on anyone, let alone humans.”
“True, true. But we are, by nature, a very social folk, and we don’t like being alone.”
Val sighed and looked up from the book. “Sure, but why me? Why follow me around?”
The hobgoblin smiled mysteriously.
“And don’t tell me it’s because I need you,” Val added.
Magnus rolled his small, brown eyes. “It’s because you have a purpose and your life is exciting. Imagine living for hundreds of years in your world, on Earth, among people whose lives are more boring than my daily shaving routine, which is very boring, I assure you. You try getting rid of all this magical hair every single morning, only to have it cover you from head to toe by supper.”
“I really... don’t want to think about that.”
“You’re the first non-tedious human being I’ve met in a long time. When I first came to Castelluccio to live with the Antiquarian, I did it because I’d heard he is the first and only old as dirt vampire in the world. Like... physically old. Rookie mistake right there. Vampires can be just as boring as humans, and the fact that they’re not eternally young and handsome doesn’t make them more interesting. Lesson learned.”
“So, you’re here for the adventure.”
His pointy ears perked up. “Yes!”
Valentina closed the book and rubbed her aching temples. Translating old Italian was more taxing than she’d expected. She looked at the phone number written on her arm, and at the name beside it. She sighed, defeated.
“All right, Magny, call Piper. I’m making the phone call. She’ll kill me later if I do it without her.”
It took her half an hour more to dial the number, however. Piper had only had time for a dip, and she didn’t know what she wanted more: for Valentina to make the phone call and get it over with, or to go back to the pool and roast in the sun until all her frustrations with her best friend burned away. Val paced the room, made a dozen scenarios in her head, told Piper and Magny about half of them, and brainstormed all the possible consequences of her calling a god. A literal god. On the phone. When Piper threatened that she had memorized the number and she’d call him herself if Val didn’t make up her mind in the next thirty seconds, Val finally grabbed the phone and, with trembling hands, tapped in the number. He answered at the first ring, which threw Valentina off guard, scared her half to death, and almost made her throw her phone across the room.
“Finally! Valentina De Rossi. What took you so long?”
His voice was chirpy, yet so panty-melting that Val was sure she had gotten the wrong phone number. She stared at the screen and compared the numbers to the ones on her arm. Nope. She had gotten it right.
“Is this Loki?” she asked in a weak voice.
“Who else, love? Although, maybe I shouldn’t call you that, since you had my number for three years and never called me. You’re not very deserving right now.”
“Three years?!” Her blue eyes went wide with shock. “I... I... I just found it.”
Loki laughed out loud. “You didn’t look blind to me the last time I saw you. Did you lose your vision in the meantime?”
Valentina furrowed her brows. “I didn’t. I can see just fine.”
“Then you must be suffering from a case of ‘Miss De Rossi only sees what she chooses to see’. I know a great deal of women who’re suffering from this terrible illness. Quite incurable, too.” He laughed even louder, as if it was his business to make her mad.
“You’re insufferable!” But what else could she have expected from Loki, the God of Mischief? He was the archetypal Trickster.
“Thank you, I do my best.”
Valentina shook her head. She didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t ask for his help when he was being such a massive jerk. Piper was looking at her, jittery curiosity painted all over her pretty features, but Magnus seemed satisfied. Along with his special ability to see things no one else could see, it appeared that he could also hear through phones when they weren’t set on speaker.
“I see you’re not going to say it, love, so allow me to answer your silent question: yes, I will help you. I’m in London. Where are you?”
“Italy.” She couldn’t believe she’d just told him where she was. At this point, everything about him looked like a huge red flag.
“Ugh. Not a fan of Italy. People are too Latin there. Why don’t you come visit me in London? Meet me at Covent Garden.”
“I don’t want to come to London.”
“Now now, love... Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I’m not... What are you talking about? I’m not begging you for anything. I can manage on my own.”
Loki tsked but didn’t tease her further. “See you, Valentina De Rossi. Safe travels.” And he hung up.
“What? N-no...”
“What did he say? What did he say?” Piper jumped up and down with excitement. “We’re going to London? I’ve always wanted to visit London! Must work on my British accent.” She said the last words in the fakest, most exaggerated British accent she could muster. “The rain in Spain stays mainly...”
“Piper! Knock it off. We’re not going anywhere.” She threw her phone on the bed, determined to ignore it for the rest of the day, and sat back down at the desk. She opened the old book that supposedly held all the mysteries of the original tarot, and grabbed a pencil to better follow the lines of small text. “I’m staying right here until I finish this book and come up with a better plan. It’s never a good idea to mingle with gods. This can’t be the only option we have. There’s always another way. Always. I’m going to find it.”
Piper rolled her eyes, then looked around the room for the hobgoblin. When she spotted him on the nightstand, reading the Menu, she grabbed him by the back of his coat and plopped him right on top of Valentina’s open book.
“You talk some sense into her, Magny. I want to see London and meet Loki.”
“Ugh! Pipes, this is serious!” Sometimes, Valentina felt like slapping her friend upside the head, but her upbringing was too good and strict to allow for such behavior.
“She’s right, Keeper,” Magnus said. “A trip to London would be amazing, and who doesn’t want to meet the God of Mischief?”
Valentina pursed her lips. “Why is he in London? Magny, you’re a smart little fellow.” Her demeanor changed in an instant. She placed her arms on the edge of the desk and leaned down to look the hobgoblin in his round, ugly face. “If I were a god, well... a goddess, the third dimension would be the last place where I’d want to spend my eternity.”
“But you’re not, so you don’t know how a god or a goddess thinks.”
“That’s not helpful.”
Magnus shrugged. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“Tell me about these gods that I’m supposed to track down to recreate the Trionfi Chiari. I can’t find a single name in this stupid book. Okay, Loki is one of them. And I still don’t know how I got his number. Or his name.”
The hobgoblin sucked in his plump cheeks and studied Valentina for a long while. He could tell her many things, and he even knew a couple of cool stories, but would it help, or make things worse? She didn’t trust him, anyway. So, why bother?
“All I can tell you, Keeper, is that everything happens for a re
ason. I believe your friend said the exact same words earlier. I can’t tell you why the book doesn’t mention any names because I don’t know. And I don’t know what I could tell you about these eternal beings we all call gods and goddesses that would make sense. They are absolute, and no one can know one god entirely, with all his facets and aspects. I could tell you stories, but I don’t think they’d be relevant.”
Val rolled her eyes. It was so annoying when Magnus did that. He went in circles, avoiding her question, and using words that didn’t say anything in the end.
“Tell me about Loki, at least. Can I trust him?”
“As much as you can trust any other god...”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t know, Valentina. I don’t know. The Loki I know might not be the Loki we’ll meet in London.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Like... there is more than one Loki?”
“Yes and no. It’s complicated. You’ll understand on your own one day. It’s not something that someone else can explain to you. Or to anyone, for that matter. It’s... a personal experience.”
“Like... everyone experiences a god in their own personal way?”
“Err... not quite. No.”
Valentina threw her hands in the air. “That’s it. I’ve decided. We’re not going. I’d rather go back to the Antiquarian and get more books, or travel the world and search for more books. My dad always says everything that’s of serious importance in this world will, at some point, be found in a book.”
“Oops.” Piper was at her laptop. She looked up at Valentina, a grin on her face.
Val crossed her arms over her chest. “What did you do?”
“Booked plane tickets to London? Our flight is tomorrow morning, so we can still spend the day here. I’ll drive us back to Rome. I like driving at night.”
“Piper!”
But Piper was not sorry, and if she were to be honest with herself, Valentina wasn’t that angry, either. Even though she didn’t think it would be impossible for her to solve this puzzle on her own, she knew it would be ten times harder than simply asking for Loki’s help. The short conversation with him had stirred something inside her. Was it pride? She couldn’t stand the way he’d talked to her, the entitlement in his voice, how he’d laughed at her... But, most of all, she couldn’t stand being in the dark. And she’d been in the dark for three years, at least. He said she’d had his number for the past three years. And she’d needed to meet Magnus to find out. She’d needed a hobgoblin’s magical eyes to see something that was written on her very skin. She didn’t like how that made her feel... Lost, helpless, confused. It made her feel like she wasn’t in charge of her own life and her own decisions. It made her feel like she didn’t know what was written on her own body, so what else was she blind to?
“Your body... so possessive...”
Valentina bit the inside of her cheek when her left side started burning unexpectedly. Another thing she couldn’t understand: why the pain in her ribs came with the voice in her head. There was a connection, but it kept eluding her. Seeing how she had no idea what her Higher Self meant by the comment, she chose to ignore it. Piper was already insisting they had to go shopping before they left, and Goddess knew Val needed the distraction!
CHAPTER TEN
“Pick a card, love. Any card.”
He came out of nowhere. Valentina had been pacing the sidewalk in front of St. Paul’s Church for fifteen minutes after she’d walked around the central square and up and down the intricate side alleys. Since this was her first time in London, she’d had no idea what Loki had meant when he’d said “Meet me at Covent Garden”. After a bit of online research, she figured it had to be the Covent Garden Piazza, constantly filled with street performers and tourists. Piper and Magnus were somewhere in the small crowd, laughing at a guy who was balancing on a freestanding ladder and reciting Shakespeare while juggling three orange clubs. He’d put on quite a show before even getting to the top of the ladder, then took almost twenty more minutes to show a kid how to throw him the clubs, and now he was finally giving the audience what they had come there to see. Valentina would have loved to have Piper by her side, but Piper wanted to watch the juggler at all cost, and the agitation and noise of the crowd was too much for Val. So, she had resigned to waiting in front of the church, by herself.
The man’s voice startled her. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a trapped butterfly, and before she gathered her courage to turn around and look at him, she realized she’d heard his voice before. Not only his voice, but the very same words. And no, the short conversation on the phone didn’t count. Voices were always a tad distorted over the phone.
“Come on, love. Don’t keep me waiting. Pick a card.”
She turned around only to have a fanned-out deck of playing cards thrust in her face. She cocked an eyebrow and threw a glance over the cards, at the man who was watching her intently and grinning like he’d just come across the most amusing creature in the world. Yes, he knew him. He was the man who’d interrupted her astral flight in Mount Shasta City. “Can you hang upside down, love?” He was the man in her dream, the man who’d showed her the sleeping dragon and then vanished as if he’d never been there, with her, hundreds of feet below the ground. Loki, the God of Mischief. Shoulder-length brown hair, green eyes, tall, and well-built. He was wearing a long, black coat that looked like something from another century. Valentina chose a card and memorized it. The Six of Diamonds. She’d always had a thing for the Sixes.
“Done,” she said.
“Marvelous! Now, watch this. I’m going to shuffle the cards, like this...” He threw them in the air, they made a wide arch, and he caught them one by one in his other hand, then he shuffled them thoroughly. “And I’m going to guess your card right... this... instant.”
Valentina’s eyes grew wide when he shoved the Six of Pentacles under her nose. Not the playing card, but the tarot card. A feeling of unease washed over her, and she reached for her own deck, well secured in the pouch attached to her belt.
Loki laughed. “Don’t worry, love. You can have it back.”
“How did you...?” She went through her tarot deck quickly, and noticed the Six of Pentacles was missing. She snatched it from his hand and scowled at him. “Rude.”
Loki spread his arms wide, in defeat. “I was just trying to entertain. You look like you need it.”
Valentina stole a glance at the crowd, but Piper wasn’t where she’d left her. She’d probably stepped closer to the street performer.
“Don’t worry, you’re safe.” Loki chuckled. “I’m not going to kidnap you.”
Valentina studied him for a moment. If he weren’t so damn entitled and annoying, she’d have considered him hot. Of course, gods were supposed to be good-looking. At the thought that she’d be forced to deal with a bunch of gods from now on, she sighed deeply. If the feminine cards of the Major Arcana had been burned instead of the masculine cards, she was sure her life would have been a thousand times easier.
“Let’s go for a stroll,” he said. “Your friend will be fine. I hear Magnus Luchtar himself is watching her.”
“What do you know about the hobgoblin?”
He ignored her and started walking down the sidewalk, in the direction of Henrietta St, where he took a right. Valentina followed him, matching her step to his. They walked in silence for a while, with him looking straight ahead, a light smile playing on his lips, and her staring at his perfect profile as much as she could without tripping.
“Are you really Loki? The god Loki?”
“I am.”
“Wow.” She didn’t know what else to say. Where should she begin? Should she just assume that he knew everything? “And, as a god... are you, like... omnipresent and omnipotent?”
“If I want to, yes. But it’s unpleasant when I’m limited to this human form, so I avoid using my... what did you call it?... omnipresence and omnipotence more than it
’s absolutely necessary.”
“And why are you limited to... err... this human form? You could be anything, anywhere. Right? You could be...” She shrugged as she searched for a good example. “... a blob of light in the night sky.”
“That would be no fun. What’s a blob of light to do? Blob around?” He laughed.
Valentina furrowed her brows. Here she was, walking the narrow streets of London with Loki himself, and they were talking about blobs. “Way to go, Valentina,” the voice in her head whispered. Val braced herself for the pain in the ribs, but it never came. She relaxed. “I don’t know what to do,” she told her Higher Self. “Advise.” But the voice was, once again, silent.
“I have so many questions,” she started.
“I can’t promise answers to all.”
“Yes. No.” She dragged in a breath. “Okay, just stop for a second. Let’s stop.” She pushed him against the wall of an old building and looked him in the eyes. He was so handsome that she almost lost her train of thought for a moment, but she forced herself to focus. “You know why I’m here. You know that I need your help.” She searched his eyes, and the calmness and confidence she saw there assured her that she was on the right track. “Half of the Major Arcana has been destroyed, and I just found out that it can be recreated. Will you help me find the painter of souls? Will you help me find the gods who can breathe life back into the cards? Are you...” She hesitated. “Are you one of them?”
Loki smiled mischievously. “I might be. And yes, I do happen to know a couple of painters of souls. There’s one right here in London.”
“Oh Goddess!” She let out a heavy breath of relief. “And after the painter paints the cards, will you... err... I don’t know how it works, exactly...”
“Jump into a card?”
He laughed cheerfully, and Valentina wondered whether he was capable of any other reaction aside from amusement. He was really getting on her nerves. She nodded eagerly.