She maneuvered them forward off the grass lawn and around the other cars, leaving tire tracks and mud as she pulled the Bugatti Divo back out onto the white cement driveway. Once she’d straightened the car, she gunned it, aiming them for the first turn looping them up towards the Pacific Coast Highway, or PCH.
“Where are we going?” Maia said, poking her head through the opening between their two seats. “You have a plan, right? You and your nutty friend?”
Maia looked at Loki fondly, then back at Lia.
“Can you believe what he did to Ernie?” she added, grinning wider. “That was AWESOME! You remember that jackass, right? He’s been a total, lecherous jerk for the past few months… and he’s worse whenever Gregor’s not there. I think Gregor keeps him off me because of you.”
Maia frowned, glancing at Loki, then back at Lia.
“Anyway, your friend here fucked him up,” Maia crowed. “He messed him up bad. He’ll be even stupider now.”
“Maia!” Lia laughed, still wiping her face. “Watch your mouth!”
“Seriously?” Maia gave her a disbelieving look. “You know where I’ve been living, right?”
Lia sighed, acknowledging that with a frown.
She didn’t want to know what Maia had been exposed to over the past five years.
“So?” Maia said, nudging Lia with a hand. “Is this guy your boyfriend? Or what?”
Looking away from where he’d been peering out the passenger-side window at the sky, Loki laughed, then grinned at the two of them.
Before Lia could figure out how to answer that particular question, the God of Mischief turned in his seat, facing Maia directly where she perched between them.
“Yes,” he said, adamant. “Yes, my little elf’s tiny, tiny sibling… I am her boyfriend. And she is my girlfriend. And my squeeze. And my hunny-bunny. And my little potato.”
Maia laughed.
“He’s totally nuts, isn’t he?” she said, turning to Lia. “Wherever did you find him?”
Again, Loki answered before Lia could speak.
“In the mountains of Nepal,” the god said loftily, grinning as Lia bumped up a gear, taking them up the driveway even faster, nearing the Pacific Coast Highway. “She plucked a very valuable ring right off my finger. Without my noticing for full seconds …”
“She’s sneaky like that,” Maia acknowledged.
Loki glanced back at her, quirking an eyebrow.
“Sneaky? It is utterly, utterly unheard of, my dear, for a human to steal from me. It is utterly unfathomable, verging on illegal… possibly full-blown unnatural. She did it without me feeling her there until she had already made it several blocks away. She nearly evaded me totally, if I were to be excruciatingly honest… which would have been most humiliating. I cannot tell you how long it has been since someone did anything remotely like that to me. I say ‘I cannot tell you’ in all truthfulness, too, my little raspberry crumpet with cheese filling… because I honestly do not know. Possibly a millennium ago. Possibly never.”
Maia let out a delighted laugh, clapping her hands.
Still grinning at her, Loki added,
“I was intrigued and furious. I was shocked and yet single-mindedly determined to track down this talented little elf-thief. It is damned lucky I was in Nepal, or it may have taken me months to find her, without the aid of supernatural means, given that I am sadly bereft of any notable prescient talents of my own. I confess, I nearly lost her even with that advantage. But then, I really didn’t anticipate my little pickpocket hopping on an international flight so quickly.”
Turning, he smiled at Lia fondly, tugging on her blond hair.
“Fortunately, a local Buddhist monk, a man they call an oracle, tipped me off about the airport,” he added to Maia, still caressing Lia’s hair. “That was after I paid him money to use his psychic abilities to help me track her down. It is quite lucky I did that right away, too, and didn’t get a sandwich first, like I’d contemplated. I barely got to the airport in time.”
Maia laughed again, the sound bubbling out of her.
Lia turned to look at him, frowning.
She couldn’t stare at him long.
Her hands gripped the steering wheel, rotating it to the right without taking her foot off the gas as she swerved them out onto the highway. She corrected their trajectory at once, bringing them back into the proper lane and gunning it to send the speedometer higher.
“You’re joking,” Lia retorted, once she had them on the straightaway.
Loki shook his head, grinning wider.
“Not at all, my little lion monkey. My little jam-covered hush-puppy, my little piece of fried spam…”
Maia snort-laughed, looking at Lia.
“Is anything he just said true?” she demanded.
“I love that you’re driving so fast,” Loki told Lia, winking at her. “My little elf is a talented getaway driver, in addition to all of her other wonderful and highly-intriguing qualities. So many lovely surprises––”
“What is that?” Maia said, pointing between them at something visible through the windshield. “There! Over the water.”
Loki turned sharply.
Lowering his head, he stared out the Bugatti’s tinted windows.
Lia glanced over as she eased the car around a tighter corner along the cliffside highway, squinting up at the blue sky dotted by white clouds. She saw Loki frown, his gaze narrow, right before she returned her attention to the road, correcting the Bugatti’s trajectory as she floored it yet again.
“What is it?” she said, glancing at Loki.
“My brother.”
Lia looked over at him, alarmed. “Really?”
“Yes.” Loki exhaled, sounding more annoyed than anything. “Clearly, he’s caught up with us. I knew I felt him there. I dilly-dallied too long inside that fox’s den.”
“Yes, you did. Why were you gone so long inside Gregor’s?” Lia demanded. “You scared the hell out of me. I went inside, thinking you were both captured or dead. That couldn’t have all been Ernie. Or even the guard who shot at you.”
At Loki’s silence, Lia smacked his arm, the fingers of her other hand still gripping the steering wheel.
“What happened?”
“Well, it took him a while to deal with that guy, Aston––” Maia began.
“Hush, hush.” Loki gave the younger Winchester a faintly warning look, focusing back on Lia. “She doesn’t need to know all of that.”
Lia felt her alarm spike. “I don’t? Who’s Aston?”
“I had to attend to a few problems inside,” the god said, adjusting his leather coat against the Bugatti’s seat. “Unfortunately, it took a bit longer than I’d anticipated. One of those idiots caught me looking around the place before I found your sister. Before I’d quite caught up to him, he called your ex-employer and let him know that something untoward was happening inside his little beachside cottage… which is likely why Gregor and the others rushed back. And likely why the guards came looking for me later.”
“Guards?” Lia said, alarmed. “I thought it was one guard?”
Loki gave Lia a charming smile.
Lia scowled. “And what happened to that other one? The one who caught you skulking around Gregor’s place? Did he shoot you, too?”
“Oh, no. I chucked him over the balcony. It seemed the most efficient thing.”
Maia burst out in a laugh.
Lia winced, staring at him. “And what about that guy, Aston?” she said, frowning, glancing back at her sister. “What Maia said? Just now? Or is that the same guy?”
“No, no. An entirely different matter, my dear.”
“So what happened to him?” Lia pressed. “Aston?”
Loki gestured fluidly with both hands. “Well, my darling dearest elf, that was an issue I simply had to address. You can’t possibly fault me for that! Clearly, he lacked a strong father figure in his life, so I had to fill that gap as best I could. In the limited time I had, anyway.”
>
Maia giggled.
Lia snorted, and Loki flashed her another of his wicked smiles.
“One might even say I was fulfilling my civic duty,” he said loftily. “As a fellow denizen of Earth.”
“Are you a denizen of Earth?” Lia said, arching an eyebrow.
“I am now. My girlfriend lives here.” Loki grinned at her. “Which means all attendant duties are now relevant. Even if I am an immigrant.”
Maia burst out in another barking laugh.
Lia’s kid sister was obviously far too delighted by Loki, and by the way the god chose to explain all of this.
Lia frowned at both of them.
“Okay. So I’m really going to need to hear the rest of this story at some point,” she said, glancing at the road only to glare at them both a second time. “You get that, right? Like, there’s no possible way one or both of you isn’t telling me every single detail.”
Loki was still staring out the window, though, a frown hardening his mouth.
“We might need to go a bit faster, love,” he murmured, still following whatever he’d seen with his eyes as it traversed across the sky. “I suspect we’ll need to switch cars again soon, too. Likely very soon. As in, whenever we get somewhere that might allow us to ditch this one.”
Lia fought to think.
She didn’t know exactly what was after them, or what Loki feared might happen if his brothers caught up to them, but she had to assume it was bad. Even if it was only bad for Loki himself, that was bad for her, for multiple reasons, and not only because she owed him for getting her sister out of that mafia stronghold in Malibu.
She tried to scan through options objectively.
Clearly, they had to get out of Los Angeles, and soon.
Unseen, if at all possible, since Gregor and now Loki’s “hysterical” brother would be tracking them, assuming they weren’t following them already.
Lia thought about different ways out of the city.
She considered Burbank Airport, or even flipping around to use the one in Ventura, or Santa Barbara. Conversely, she considered just getting on the freeway and driving for San Diego. Or Las Vegas. Or Palm Springs. Or possibly even going the opposite direction and heading for San Jose, Sacramento, or Fresno, which were far less obvious choices.
She wondered if it would be more or less obvious to simply go back to LAX, maybe catch a plane for Europe.
They could even do the usual thing if they managed to switch out cars.
Meaning, they could just hit the road and drive for the Mexican border.
When she glanced at Loki that time, the god was looking at her.
From his eyes, she found herself thinking he’d heard her thoughts, and that he was mulling through the options she’d presented him with.
“What about a boat?” he said, studying her face as she looked between him and the view of the road through the windshield.
“Why a boat?” Lia said, pursing her lips.
He grinned faintly, shrugging.
“I like boats.”
“Does your brother know that?”
“Sadly, yes.” Loki exhaled in a sigh. “I am not sure whether it would occur to him in this scenario or not… but he is aware of my fondness for the sea.”
“What do you hate?” Maia asked from the back seat. “What form of transportation do you completely loath? That your brother would also know about?”
Loki looked back at her.
Then he faced forward, tapping his lip with one finger, as if thinking.
“I dislike camels mightily,” he said after a beat. “Although they can be amusing. They are such disagreeable creatures. They stink. They are also wont to bite and spit for almost no reason whatsoever. I had one kick me once. Right in the knee.”
He pointed down at his knee.
Maia burst out in a laugh. “What else? I don’t think we have a lot of camels around here. Maybe at the zoo, but I don’t think they’ll let us take them for a spin.”
When Lia snorted, glancing at her sister in the rearview mirror, Maia grinned at her.
“Anyway,” the younger Winchester added. “A camel would not be a very sneaky way out of town. They’re kinda conspicuous in L.A. On the freeway, especially.”
Lia snorted again, rolling her eyes when Maia grinned at her.
“You are not helping,” she informed her younger sister.
Loki still appeared to be thinking about Maia’s question, however.
“Ugh,” he said after another pause, grimacing. “I deeply detest buses. Does this mean we have to take a bus somewhere? Gross.”
Lia burst out in a laugh, unable to help it.
That time, she laughed until her stomach hurt, in spite of the fact that they might have a god on their tail shortly, one that could possibly incinerate them with lightning, or pound them with hammers, assuming anything in those myths was remotely true.
“What about a fishing boat?” she teased. “Or maybe we can hitch a ride on an eighteen-wheeler? In the back of a refrigerated car?”
“I would prefer any of those things to a bus, my darling girl,” Loki sniffed.
He was back to staring out the window, but it seemed to Lia he was using the side mirror more than he was looking directly at whatever he still tracked with his eyes.
“Did Thor go to Gregor’s?” Lia asked.
“It appears that way,” Loki muttered. “I left a kind of glamour behind for him, hoping to lead him there. I infused a lot of my presence in that thing I left in the living room.”
“So, he’ll figure out soon that you tricked him,” Lia said.
“Yes. It must be assumed so,” Loki replied, still watching the side mirror, presumably looking in the direction he’d last seen his brother.
“What the heck was he riding in?” Maia asked from behind their seats. “Was he on a glider? Wearing some kind of jetpack?”
Loki gave her a bare, half-attentive look.
“Unfortunately, no,” he said grimly, frowning harder as he stared at the mirror. “The myths about my brother, Thor, having the ability to fly are, thankfully, only myths… likely stemming from our ability to jump dimensions between worlds. Sadly, the myths about my other brother, Tyr, being able to fly, are not inaccurate. So it’s also possible the myths about Thor simply documented the wrong brother…”
From behind the front seats, Maia choked on a laugh.
“Wait… what?”
“You can jump dimensions?” Lia said, ignoring her sister for now. “Can you do that with us? Or just do it yourself, and meet us somewhere later? So your brothers don’t catch you?”
“Sadly, no.” Loki let out a sigh, his eyes returning to the Bugatti’s darkened windows. “Not without my father, Odin, knowing about it. He is attuned to the Bifrost, you see. He would be there, waiting, when I reached the other side… thus, the problem I encountered before. With the Asgardian jail. With the finger wagging, and the blah-blah-blah. It’s all most inconvenient. Especially now that I have a human girlfriend, and would very much like to stay here.”
He turned his head, looking at Lia grimly.
“While on Earth, I must adhere to the physical rules of Earth.”
Lia frowned. “But Tyr can fly?”
“Still a physical phenomenon.” Loki shrugged. “Birds fly. Airplanes fly.”
Lia’s frown deepened at that, but she didn’t argue.
“What about the mind-reading?” she said. Worry colored her voice, even as she focused most of her attention on the road. “Can either of your brothers read minds? Can they ‘glamour’ or whatever, too?”
Loki shook his head.
“No, darling. We each have separate skill sets. For good and for bad. There is a form of mind-reading all gods can do, one that requires a connection to be present, something personal. Thankfully, all of us gods have the ability to block those connections when we so choose… but we can speak to one another mentally when we don’t. I am told Thor can speak to his new wife in this way,
as well, even though she is human… in part because they share a past-life bond of some kind.”
“Wait… WHAT?” Maia said from the back seat, louder.
Both Lia and Loki ignored her.
“So outline what they can do,” Lia insisted. “Tyr and Thor. I want to know what we’re dealing with. How do you know they’re working together? Why wouldn’t you just assume it was Tyr heading for Gregor’s beach house? What makes you so sure Thor is with him?”
Loki pointed out the window.
“Because of that, my little elf.”
Lia squinted through the window, following his finger.
Once she did, she saw bolts of blue-white lightning coursing through the large cumulous clouds collecting over the ocean. It struck her in the same set of seconds that she didn’t remember seeing clouds like that when they were making the drive from Santa Monica to Malibu in the other direction.
“Shit,” she muttered.
“Precisely,” Loki said, exhaling another sigh of annoyance. “Anyway, this kind of overt attempt to ‘get’ me isn’t really Tyr’s style. Tyr does things differently. He’s by far the cleverest of us, although he tries very hard to hide it. I suspect Thor brought him in when I didn’t show up at the airport… or we likely would have found Tyr waiting for us at the underbelly of the plane, tapping his foot and annoyed it took us so long. He is rather intuitive like that.”
“Oh,” Lia said.
She tried to remember if she’d heard any kind of myths about Tyr, but she was coming up blank.
“Yes,” Loki sighed, clearly hearing her. “Tyr has also been smart enough to side-step most of the mythologizing around our kind. He’s managed to operate mostly off the radar of human beings, and even most of the gods. I used to mock him for that, when we were younger… for the scarce number of temples and altars in his name, the few stories told about him in the old books. He never cared. Tyr is like that monk I paid in Nepal to find you. You cannot appeal to his ego, or even his wallet, despite his bizarre habit of collecting gold trinkets and squirreling them away. Oh, except that he kills people. And he can fly.”
Gods on Earth: Complete Series (Books 1-3): Paranormal Romances with Norse Gods, Tricksters, and Fated Mates Page 26