by Ben Zackheim
“Wow,” Rebel muttered before I could.
“If this is Loki’s domain, he’s doing well for himself.”
“So much for the citizenry turning on him.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“Like you, for example. You don’t look like a walking cliché machine.”
“You ready to find out what we’re doing here?”
I spotted Mr. Pink walking along the cobblestone street above us. He ducked into a building through a small wood door.
“You see him, too?” I asked.
“Yeah. Maybe he wants to be seen.”
“With a hat like that, it’s a safe bet.”
“I mean by us. He may be a Loki plant.”
“Then let’s go kick his ass and extract some information.”
“Ladies first.”
“Fuck you,” she said, but she went first anyway.
Chapter 29
Rebel squinted at the sign over the pub’s door.
“Really?” she asked me, as if the sign was my fault. I shrugged.
The sign read, ‘Odin’s Ass.’
I stepped in and Rebel followed.
The pub was packed with drunk Asgardians. Generally speaking, this means a lot of things.
It means the smell of everything, and I mean everything, is everywhere. If the body does it, tries to do it, stops itself from doing it; if it eats it, spits it out, stands in proximity to it, or thinks one day it may want to try it, an Asgardian pub smells like it. It’s the perfect mix of the inner and the outer.
The naked and the buried.
The holy and the unholy’s drink hole.
The drunk eight-footer in the corner, braiding his pubes with the guts of his latest opponent illustrated this perfectly. Though I have to admit that the leather boot covering his Little Viking Jr. was a refined touch, especially when I realized it was jerking around to the beat of the music.
The general entertainment was a fight in the middle of the room. The men punched the shit out of each other, creating a song made up of smashing bone and cracking skin.
“Home,” Rebel said with a dreamy voice.
“I don’t see the color pink anywhere.”
“There’s some over… Oh, never mind. That’s a scalp on the wall.”
“My Glocks are beckoning. Watch my back.”
I took one step into the pub and could feel all eyes turn to us.
“You wanted to stand out and you’re standing out,” Rebel whispered from behind me.
I walked to the bar. It was a long counter of wood with carvings of weapons and severed body parts. The blood that poured from them was flaking gold. It was once a thing of beauty and horror. Now it was a thing of horror and Asgardian barf.
I almost put my hands down, thought better of it, and pulled them away.
“Two ales in clean fucking cups,” I said.
The bartender, a burly man as big as my shadow at noon, looked over his shoulder at me. He took down two cups, spit in them and wiped them out with his fingers, filled them up with ale and slid them down the bar. All in one motion that meant he’d done exactly the same thing for everyone for a very long time.
I handed one cup to Rebel. She looked at it like it was about to explode.
“I’m not drinking this,” she said.
I took a look around the room and said, “I’m sure you’ll find something you can do with it, sooner or later.” A large woman at the end of the bar kicked the chair out from under her wide ass. “Sooner, from the looks of it.”
“Hey! Bitch! You don’t like the ale?” the woman roared. She had a nest of hair that was matted enough to house a few bird families comfortably. Her clothes used to be made of cloth, but several decades of being in the pub had turned the fabric into some kind of second flesh. It didn’t fit her. It clung to her.
And I could smell her breath from across the pub.
Half the customers let out a noise of exasperation. The amount of eye-rolling across the room meant that this patron was one known for making trouble.
She eyed Rebel. Rebel, being Rebel, did not break her stare. Without taking her eyes off the large woman, my partner unlooped her supplies bag from her shoulder, and handed it to me.
“Hold this,” she said.
“Good luck.”
“Twenty on Bertha,” the bartender said to me.
“You’re on,” I mumbled back.
The two women stood a few inches apart. Rebel was a full foot shorter, but her flashing fingernails stole a couple of nervous glances from Bertha. All-in-all, it would be a fair fight.
“What yeh doin’ in my joint?” Bertha spit out.
“I don’t see your name anywhere, lady.”
Bertha bent down and stuck her nose in Rebel’s face. Rebel let out a tiny cough from the smell. “Then you didn’t look at the sign out front, girlie. This joint is my joint.”
The scalp fell off the wall with a wet thud.
“I like what you’ve done with the place. If I pictured Odin’s Ass, this is exactly what I’d imagine.”
“You got a problem with my style sense, girlie?” She poked Rebel in the shoulder.
Rebel responded by cutting off a sliver of Bertha’s fingertip. Bertha studied the blood dripping down her palm, then put her finger in her mouth.
It looked like she was going to cry.
“Uh-oh,” the bartender said.
“It’s just a cut,” I said. “Why is she…”
I got my answer in a split-second of gross.
Bertha spit a mouthful of blood at Rebel. It splattered across my partner’s face, temporarily blinding her. Bertha had sucked the blood out of herself and used it as a weapon.
I kind of fell in love with the monster of a woman at that moment.
Rebel slapped the liquid from her face and just managed to duck under an incoming sledgehammer of a fist. I felt the wind from the strike all the way on the other side of the pub.
Rebel moved to a lower crouch, supporting her body weight with her left arm. She swept her right leg under Bertha, who had clearly underestimated my partner’s speed. The giant wobbled back and forth. She tried to balance herself on the tables but they were too weak to support her.
Rebel saw that her teetering opponent was about to hit the floor. Hard. She gave the boards below Bertha a solid kick with her boot heel. The wood cracked, but didn’t break.
Bertha crushed a stool under her chin as she finally slammed into the floor. Or, more accurately, as she finally slammed through the floor.
So there was Rebel, spitting and wiping frantically at her bloody face mask, while Bertha’s gigantic ass, half-bared through a torn skirt, wiggled frantically as she tried to free herself.
There was a silence to the room that could be heard in Hel. The proprietor managed to push herself out of the hole, and onto her knees. Every face in that room, from the drunks to the whores to the bartender, was open-mouthed.
Bertha shook her head to clear it, sending splinters flying around the pub.
She opened her eyes, and looked around the room.
And she laughed.
She laughed so hard, low, and loud that every nearby stomach shook.
She laughed so hard that the cracks underneath her knees grew wider and wider. I was about to warn the giantess, but the floor gave way.
She fell through.
There was another tense moment of silence. We were all thinking the same thing. Should we stay, or should we get out of there, fast?
Bertha’s laughter erupted from the hole in the floor.
I turned to the bartender. “Get her favorite drink ready. It’s on me.”
Chapter 30
“You ain’t paying me squat!” Bertha said, as she slapped Rebel on the back. “No one’s ever shown Bertha how it’s done in here. Buncha no good squatters and prick pleasers in here for the last two hunnert years!” She shot an evil eye around the room, and her patrons found other things to look at. “Clean glasses, Bo!” T
he bartender grumbled and pulled a white towel from his drawer to wipe down a new set of glasses.
“You owe me 20,” I said to him.
Bertha frowned. “Bo bet on me, huh? What did I say about betting on my fights, boy?”
“To not to,” he said like a kid in trouble.
“That’s right. Pay up!”
I expected the bartender to pull out some coins, or eggs, or something. But I didn’t expect him to take off his shirt and turn his back to me.
“What the hell is this?” I asked.
“Give him 20!” Bertha yelled at me.
“He owes me 20!” I yelled back.
“You want him to give you 20? What are you, a fuckin’ pervert? This ain’t that kind of joint!”
“Twenty what?” Rebel asked, simply.
“Twenty lashes, girlie,” the bartender grunted over his shoulder.
From the look of it, the guy had lost a lot of bets before.
“No thanks,” I said. “You’ll owe me.”
“Pansy here,” Bertha said, her eyes at half-mast, in extra-judgmental mode. “You goin’ to stick around this town, you’d better get a thicker hide, boy.”
“My skin is plenty thick. I just like winning things I can put in my pocket.”
“Fair enough,” Bertha said with a shrug as she sat down next to Rebel on a stool. It creaked under the pressure. “I hear you mortals are always lookin’ to fill yer pockets. Until recently, that is.” She smirked, daring me to get into it with her. “Now yer all just survivin’, eh?”
“We’re doing great,” I lied. “Could use some help, though.”
“I’m sure you could,” Bertha said, taking a Bertha-sized gulp of ale.
“How do you know we’re mortals?” Rebel asked.
“Aw, sweety, it’s obvious to us Asgardians. We can spot you a mountain away.”
“Smell you, too,” the bartender muttered.
Bertha smiled. “Nothing against you. Yer the closest I’ve ever seen to a mortal who could pass for onea us.”
Rebel smiled. That was exactly what she wanted to hear.
“Where are we?” I asked.
Bertha and the bartender stole a glance at each other.
“You don’t know?” Bertha asked.
I shook my head as I swallowed a mouthful of delicious ale. “We know we’re in Asgard somewhere. But I don’t know where. We were… thrown here.”
“One of the giants get his hands on you?” Bertha asked.
“We don’t know what it was. Body of stone. Glass mask.”
Bertha shrugged. “Hmph. Mysterious.”
“Not as mysterious as you’re being,” I said.
Bertha let out a growl. Rebel placed herself between me and Bertha. “What he means is we need to know where we are so we can find a way back.”
“I know what he means, girlie. You’re in Idavoll.”
Idavoll was the home of several gods, so I had to ask, “Whose domain?”
“Lord Loki’s domain.” She pointed to the wall where a piece of paper with a stick figure drawing hung. “Loki” was scrawled on the bottom. It looked like a kid drew it. “I drew that.”
“Very nice,” I said. “Is Lord Loki here?”
She sighed. “Yeah, he’s here. Back from one of his benders. You ask me, it’s better that Midgard is such a mess. Makes it hard for him to prance off to your darker spots.” She leaned into her drink, and muttered. “Don’t see why he can’t get what he wants right here, besides.”
“He likes his substances,” I said.
“You’ve met the Lord, then?” Bertha and the bartender asked at the same time.
“Yeah, a couple of times.”
“Is he still in a youngling form?”
I nodded. I didn’t like where this was going. Something changed in Bertha that I couldn’t quite read.
“Poor lad,” she said. She choked up, and let out a fake cough to cover it up. “Well, you run into him again, you tell him Bertha still has the special brew waiting for him. Preserved by a spell from Pandora herself.”
Rebel tensed up and scratched the bar with her fingernails.
“Whoah there, girlie,” Bertha said. “Watch the furniture. These bars don’t grow on trees.”
“Actually…” the bartender started to say.
“Shut up, Bo. What’s wrong with you, red? Rebel, is it?”
Rebel nodded. “Nothing. Pandora was my teacher for awhile.”
Bertha whistled, impressed.
“Well, who in Hel have we pulled into me poor, humble pub, Bo?”
Bo was too busy trying to absorb what Rebel had said.
“You know Pandora?” I asked the giant woman.
“Know her?” Bertha asked with her wide, charming smile. “I’m her daughter.”
Chapter 31
I’m pretty sure a few awkward moments passed before Rebel spoke up. It’s hard to tell because my brain was busy being blown.
“When did you last see her?”
“She’s through here all the time. Bo, when’s mum here last?”
“Saw her a fortnight ago. She was here to collect.”
“Collect what?” I asked.
“Her dues,” Bertha said.
“What dues?” Rebel asked.
Bo mumbled something to himself, and Bertha waved him off. “Bah, shut up, yeh fuck. Mum deserves the pay.”
“Protection racket,” Bo said under his breath.
Bertha sat up straight. “Some scheme she picked up in a place called Chicago. Based on the old serf model, they says. She protects us and we pay for it. Seems fair to me.”
“Protects you from what?”
“Well, Loki, of course,” Bertha said, looking down her nose at me. “Mum’s the head of his security. Spends a lot of time making sure his focus is on everything except our town.”
“And from the mountains,” Bo added.
“She protects you from the mountains?”
“Ach, yeah. They get in a scuffle once in a while when they get their sour up. Bag o’ dicks would be more welcome than the two mountains above the palace.”
Rebel cut in with, “I need to speak with your mom.”
“Get in line, girlie. She’s popular when she comes through. Healing, lovesick, revenge, she does it all.”
“It’s important. Please tell her we’re here if you see her.”
“Hold on a second,” I broke in. “We’re not hanging around here any longer than we have to, Rebel.”
“You do what you want, Kane. I’m staying until she arrives.” From the look of it, Rebel had decided it was time to tackle some unfinished business with her mentor.
Bertha slammed down another empty glass. Bo filled it up. “How did you two come to be here, anyhow?”
I took too long to answer. Bertha waited, knowing that I’d have a lame lie, or a spectacular truth. I gave in to the moment. “Through my Swap Portal.”
“Waaaaaaait,” Bertha said-sang. “Yer the one with the two portals? The Vault and the Swap, right?”
“That’s me.”
“This is gettin’ more interesting with every sip,” she said with a laugh and a deep gulp of ale from her fresh mug. “We could hold you here and get a god’s ransom.”
I moved my hand closer to my Glocks. Rebel’s claws dug into the bar. Bertha laughed.
“I know better than to mess with you lot,” she said. “Just sayin’, yeh need to be careful while yer here. Got me?”
“Careful is our middle name,” I said. I glanced at Rebel. “My middle name.” Rebel glared back. “Nickname, maybe.”
“Hey, what’s up with that Vault Portal of yers, anyways?” Bertha asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I know you got crap piled high in there. You skimmin’ off the top?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Bertha,” I said.
“You know, taking a little cream for yerself. All things considered, no one would blame yeh.”
“N
o, the relics are locked up tight.”
Bertha shot Bo a look, and he went back to spitting in the glasses.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“It’s just that there’ve been a lot of fire sales going on around here.”
“Fire sales on what? Get to the point, would you?”
“Like Gjöll, for instance,” she said.
“What about it?” The last time I’d seen the stone was in my portal, neatly stacked within an arm’s length of the portal’s opening. Fenrir, the wolf, was bound to it. Powerful relic.
“That guy over there won it in a bet the other day. Right here in the pub.”
“Bullshit,” I said. I followed her pointing finger to a man, passed out drunk in a dark corner. He wore a hat with a huge brim that covered most of his face. Drool found an easy path through his missing front teeth, and dangled from his peach fuzz chin.
Bertha shrugged, and took another sip of ale to pass the moment. Even she was uncomfortable.
Rebel put a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you should check.”
“You have anywhere private around here?” I asked. Bo jerked his thumb to a small door at the end of the bar. “Cover me.” Rebel nodded.
I ducked down, and entered the tiny storage room. I rubbed my face, and used the moment of peace to think. I had to relax. I knew if I was agitated about the portal, then it would be tough to get it to behave. I took a deep breath, and willed it into existence.
At first, things seemed to go well. The portal’s light flashed bright, and the hole in space opened wide. But when I bent toward it, the glow faded to a dim silver, and the portal made a noise like someone was rubbing a balloon.
I sat back. I showed patience. The portal opened again and seemed to be stable this time. I leaned toward it, and looked inside.
Excalibur laid next to Set’s Sceptre.
But that was it.
My Vault Portal had been looted.
Chapter 32
I was pissed.
I lost control.
“Tell me where you got it!” I hollered at the drunk.