Silvia looked at the man with the sledgehammer.
It was getting harder and harder to convince herself this was some kind of hallucination… or a bizarre form of performance art.
The man with the reptilian eyes had moved back and to her right, maybe in an attempt to escape the dome of blue-white light.
Because of that, Silvia could now see him clearly.
He hadn’t managed to get outside the wall of current, but was presumably trapped inside, just like her. He’d lost some of that smirky, amused look she’d first seen on him. He now glared coldly at the naked blond man, his eyes flashing with anger.
When he spoke, Silvia heard an open threat in his words.
“I’ll never go back with you,” he said. “Never, uncle. You might as well spare us both this dance. Release me, and walk away. This is the last time I’ll ask––”
“You don’t make the rules here, Jörmungandr,” the naked man growled.
His voice rumbled like melodious thunder, heavy and deep, colored by an accent she didn’t recognize. Something about the sheer power behind that voice caught her breath. She felt a near-physical force there, like his words themselves pushed at some part of her brain.
She could imagine him as a kind of master magician.
Or maybe just a really good hypnotist.
Whatever he was, his voice turned words into objects, vibrating the air, vibrating her skin, resonating with some part of her she didn’t understand.
“This is not a negotiation,” the naked man said, hefting the sparking hammer. “This is not a discussion. You are certainly in no position to be making threats. You have no means of making promises. You will come back to Asgard with me now, Jor. You will do it because it is the only option open to you. Your grandfather wills it.”
A silence fell.
Then the man with the reptilian eyes smiled from inside that prison of light.
Like his laugh, that smile made Silvia shiver.
She was about to crawl behind the tree, to hide from the two of them, even if she couldn’t escape the ball of current, when she looked down at her right hand, feeling something cold there.
A giant, yellow slug was squishing its way over the back of her hand and fingers.
Silvia didn’t think.
She screamed.
3
The Local
T hor stared at the incorrigible creature in front of him.
He could see from those serpent’s eyes that Jörmungandr wasn’t going to come quietly.
As usual, he was going to make things difficult.
As usual, he was going to be a royal pain in Thor’s ass.
He still wouldn’t admit he’d taken the Andvaranaut.
He hadn’t fully denied it, either.
Seeing that smirking smile return to the creature’s stolen face, Thor gripped the wrapped handle of the hammer tighter, staring into those gold-green eyes, the black slash of his vertical pupils. At times like this, Jörmungandr looked so much like his father, it both irritated Thor and softened the hardest edges of his anger.
He knew this wasn’t the creature’s real face.
The resemblance between Loki and his offspring wasn’t physical.
It was more than that; it was deeper.
Yet it was when the serpent took a human form, those mannerisms he shared with Loki somehow manifested in a way his god’s eyes could easily see.
Biting back his frustration, Thor opened his mouth, about to speak––
When someone screamed.
Thor jumped, startled. The scream seemed to come from directly behind him. He briefly lost his mental hold over the charge coursing around and through his hammer, Mjölnir.
Jörmungandr, his crafty nephew, immediately capitalized on the distraction, choosing then to make his move. The instant the force-field Thor held around the Dragon God wavered, Jor’s human form shot up into the air.
It wove soundlessly, swift as hot air, through the branches and leaves of the massive cypress tree, making its way up to clear sky.
Thor cursed, watching the creature go, furious when he realized it was his own damned fault. He’d let himself be distracted. The field in which he’d imprisoned the scamp broke apart, starting at the top of the dome––and Jor hadn’t wasted any time in exploiting the opening.
Thor scowled at the creature where it hung suspended in the night sky.
He watched as Jörmungandr ripped apart his human body, which would make it even more difficult for Thor to capture him with the lightning of Mjölnir.
The human face and hands and features peeled off.
The legs pulled together, fusing into a long, sinuous muscle from his hips down to his feet. Scaled skin erupted through the human clothes he wore, deep black with green and gold iridescent coloring, like an oil slick on black water.
All of that occurred in a way Thor’s god eyes could track.
The overall effect, however, was more akin to an explosion.
A man stood there.
That man flew up in the air, out of the trees.
Then that man exploded.
A massive, black-scaled snake took its place.
The bottom half of the creature coiled and rippled down to the topmost branches of the tree. It ripped off one of those thick branches, winding it back and throwing it with full force at Thor, forcing him to step out of the way.
Thor knew that was more distraction, and cursed, aiming the hammer at his nephew and letting off a blast of blue-white lightning.
A second, log-like branch plowed into the ground, ripping up soil and grass, and Thor heard another female-sounding shriek, but he didn’t turn that time to mark exactly where it came from. He brandished the hammer at his nephew again, drawing power from the sky above, charging it with the electrical energy of the clouds.
The serpent ripped off another thick branch and flung it at him, rearing its upper body up as it hissed at him from the sky.
The creature was larger now.
Its snake body had already grown easily four times the size of the human body the spirit’s essence had mimicked.
And yet, Thor knew this to be an optical illusion as well.
Jörmungandr’s real body was larger than this one by a factor of hundreds. Thousands, perhaps. It was so massive, the length of him could wrap around this world with miles to spare. Jor could make the entire distance around Asgard, which was a larger world.
The creature had learned to project its essence outwards, to travel in other forms.
Another trick he clearly inherited from Loki, his father.
“You compound your sins, nephew!” Thor shouted, sending a blast of lightning his way.
The monster writhed away from him, smirking in that Loki-like way. Even with his elongated, reptilian, dragon-like face, his curved fangs, his forked tongue, the enormous eyes, Thor could see the resemblance clearly.
“You only prolong the inevitable!” Thor added, louder.
“And your threats grow only more boring and wearisome, uncle,” the serpent hissed. “Why not go home? Stay in the place where they worship you. Where the food is excellent, and the mead and beer even better. Where you needn’t bother with the messiness of these lower worlds. Worlds where you are clearly no longer needed nor wanted…”
Thor scowled.
Unfortunately, before he could hit out at the little ingrate again––
––the snake leapt up higher in the sky, its body arranging itself as a coiled spring.
It flew up high, then higher still, until its outline lived only in the absence of stars.
Without another sound, it was gone.
T hor growled out a variety of colorful curses in the Asgardian tongue, letting the hammer fall to his side.
His eyes remained tilted upwards for a few seconds after the younger god vanished. He noted the trail of purple and red flashes of light Jörmungandr left behind on the clouds, like a shadowy aurora borealis.
He could have chased hi
m.
Jörmungandr knew that, of course, which told Thor there was something else going on here, something he should probably investigate before he approached the creature directly again.
Jörmungandr knew Thor was here now.
He knew he was being followed.
The rules would be different.
Letting out another exhalation of annoyance, Thor lowered the hammer the rest of the way to the ground, letting the sharp edge rest on a stump.
As he did, the light in the weapon dimmed, not only in Mjölnir itself, but over Thor’s skin and muscles as the blue-white charge wound down.
There was no need for it now.
He might as well save his strength for when he would need it.
Rarely was the time between occurrences long.
He was still standing there, trying to decide his best course of action, realizing he was both hungry and now craving mead, when someone behind him let out a faint squeak.
He’d forgotten.
He’d forgotten the scream. He’d forgotten the human woman.
He’d forgotten he wasn’t alone.
Thor turned, bringing up the hammer out of an abundance of caution.
When he saw her, splayed on the dirt and wet grass, he went still.
He stared at the human female, absorbing her high cheekbones, the light, amber-colored eyes, the bright, red-painted lips. Her black hair had been cropped strangely short, in a kind of overly-precise bob that now arranged itself messily around her head.
She stared up at him from the mud, panting.
Even messy, the short hair looked good on her.
But again, it wasn’t her hair that riveted him.
It was those amber eyes, the look that lived inside them.
It was the same woman he’d first seen in the bar down in the valley, the one that stuck daggers into his chest, just by looking at him.
But how? And why had she come here?
Had she followed him?
The thought brought a thick, warm pull in his belly.
His eyes continued their more objective assessment as she stared up at him. Her hands were planted on the wet earth, and he saw a yellow slug not far from her arm, making its way slowly in the opposite direction.
He had wondered before, when Jörmungandr escaped, whether the person he’d heard behind him was his nephew’s accomplice.
Now, staring at the woman there, he decided that was highly unlikely.
He still could not quite think past the coincidence, however.
For the same reason, he just stood there at first, unspeaking.
He continued to stare as she struggled her way up to her knees, then her feet. She used the trunk of a nearby tree for the last part, stepping gingerly up on impractical, high-heeled shoes, moving carefully in the tight dress and coat she wore.
Thor found his eyes lingering on her long, shapely legs as she balanced herself in the mud, legs that now stuck out palely below a fuzzy-looking coat of dark purple and red.
That coat had streaks of mud and grass on it now, as did her jaw and neck, not to mention her hands, which she held out on either side of her, as if unsure what to do with them. He watched her try to wipe those hands off in the grass, then on the trunk of the tree.
He glanced down her again, noting the sparkly silver dress visible under the partly-open coat, her narrow waist, the curve of her hips and breasts.
She was quite fine-looking.
He knew he was distracting himself, though.
It wasn’t her looks, per se, that rendered him speechless.
It was something far more disturbing about her, something that hit at a deeper part of Thor’s being, something that he never thought he’d feel again. A kind of longing and grief warred inside him as he looked at her, and he battled impulses to both walk away from her as fast as he could, and to wrap his arms around her, throw her over his shoulder, and carry her out of here, bringing her to a place where they could become acquainted for real.
It crossed his mind that someone might be toying with him.
This could be Jörmungandr’s mischief, to send him someone who would throw him off-balance entirely, or it could be some game of Jor’s father, Loki…
But somehow, it didn’t matter, knowing that.
Somehow, telling himself that did nothing to break the spell as he stared at her.
The woman’s eyes remained wide as she stared back at him.
Those eyes were such a light, unusual color of brown. Like honey, or tree sap, they shone with an inner light, reflecting moonlight and stars.
He watched her look down at him, taking in the length of him like he had been with her.
The human’s eyes traveled over his shoulders and arms, his chest, his belly…
…then flickered away, right after they found his groin.
Thor smiled.
He couldn’t help it.
His smile faded quickly, however, as he remembered his purpose here.
“Who are you?” he said.
She flinched at his voice.
He couldn’t tell if it was from the words, or his tone.
Perhaps he’d spoken too loudly, or with too much command.
After all, he had no authority over her, not on her world.
“Who are you?” he repeated, his voice marginally subdued. “What business do you have here? Why were you hiding in the mud, with the slugs and worms?”
Her jaw hinged open.
After a bare pause, it snapped shut.
“Hiding?” she said.
Her tone suggested she found his words insulting.
“I wasn’t hiding in the mud, weirdo. I fell.” She motioned meaningfully in the direction of his hammer. “When you were doing your freaky light-show thing with your illegal weapon there, I got startled and I––”
“But you must have been close already. You approached me from behind. You were observing me with my nephew. You were listening to us speak to one another. You got trapped inside the field I created. You did not make your presence known.”
Thor cleared his throat delicately.
“…Thus, hiding.”
She stared at him, as if his words threw her entirely.
She blinked, opening her mouth, then closing it again.
“I wasn’t hiding,” she insisted stubbornly. “This is a public park. I was on my way home. I walk by here most nights.”
Thor frowned at her, his voice a touch sterner. He aimed the flat end of the hammer in her direction, using it to point to her face.
“I was talking to my kin for quite some time before I encased him in the field,” Thor said, his words a touch accusing. “If that is what startled you… then you were already eavesdropping, human.”
There was a silence.
She let out a disbelieving laugh.
“Human?” she said. “Now I’m being accused of being human?”
“Lady,” he amended, bowing in a sort-of apology. “Woman. Miss. Whatever your preferred designation, my point stands.”
She frowned, looking more confused than placated, or chastened, or even alarmed by him. From her eyes, he could see her thinking, trying to make sense of this.
He could almost see her wrestling with the questions she wished to ask him.
She opened her mouth, probably to start with those questions, but Thor cut her off, mostly to head off the curiosity he saw growing in her eyes.
“What is your name?” he said.
“Silvia,” she responded at once. “Silvia Hope.”
She raised a hand to her face, maybe to wipe it, then saw the mud on her fingers, remembered, and lowered it back to her side, about a foot out from her body.
“I am Thor,” he said.
She frowned. “Like the god?”
He blinked, then smiled wanly. “Exactly like that.”
Her eyes grew openly skeptical. “And where are you off to now, ‘Thor,’ if you don’t mind me asking?”
He stared back at her, a litt
le thrown.
He hadn’t really thought where he would bed down for the night. It occurred to him again how out of practice he was at visiting these outer worlds. In his grief and avoidance, he let too many years go by since he’d last surveyed this part of the realm.
After that too-long pause, he threw up his hand.
“Nowhere,” he confessed, looking around. “I must go after my nephew, but he seemed a little too eager to draw me into a chase tonight. It has me wondering if he wishes to lure me away, either from this Earth city, or perhaps from some person or being with whom he intended to meet. I would prefer to discern why he brings the Andvaranaut here. I know him well enough to know he does nothing without reason.”
Glancing at her, he raised an eyebrow.
It struck him suddenly, that he was telling her far more than he needed.
He was telling her far more than he should.
These Earth creatures were generally rather simple in their outlook when it came to other worlds. They knew no world but this one, and therefore, their take on interdimensional travel and its inherent complications tended to be limited, at best.
Nonetheless, looking into those amber-gold eyes, he found himself saying more.
“I should not let him bait me into his games,” he added. “I have learned from experience this is not prudent with him or his siblings… or his father, for that matter. Tomorrow, I will consult the local oracle about how to discern traces of magic left behind here.”
He trailed off in his words, frowning a little when he saw a faint, puzzled smile at her lips, even as she folded her arms, staring at him like…
Well, like he wasn’t entirely right in the head.
Perhaps she was even right to stare at him thus.
There was no rule against gods talking to mortals down here. Part of the reason for that was precisely this––Earth humans would assume him mentally confused, possibly even mentally disabled in some way. They would not hear his words as giving over arcane secrets, but as the ravings of a madman.
Truly, from what Loki told him, it hardly mattered what he said to these Earth humans, not in this day and age. According to Loki, any human speaking as a god would, just in the course of normal interactions, would likely end up in some sort of special building, where they would be looked after like pets and fed mind-altering potions.
Gods on Earth: Complete Series (Books 1-3): Paranormal Romances with Norse Gods, Tricksters, and Fated Mates Page 3