Chapter Eight
Jay
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
The banana-nosed dwarf—would that evil little fucker ever die?—was advancing on us, more bloody utensils at the ready. I wondered what poor schmoe he’d been riding down the freeway for the last few hours. Loki side-stepped Millie and Chance caught her before she could hit the ground. If I wasn’t rooted to the spot, I’d have hit him for that.
“Stupid girl,” he hissed, setting the basket down by Chance’s feet. “I’m the one full to the brim with magic and she thinks she needs to save me. Bah. This was not what I signed up for. Don’t worry, children, Uncle Loki’s got this. Don’t do a damn thing to stop the dwarf…”
He was muttering the last. He advanced, his long-legged stride bringing him closer to the dwarf every second. A corona of orange light gathered in his fist, the exact shade of the threads he’d woven in the fourth floor hallway of the building. Part of me wanted to keep watching, to see the God of chaos send dwarf blood and viscera across the parking lot. But the other, greater part of me needed to be sure that Millie was all right.
“Take her, Lucy,” I pleaded, holding the curled form of Idun out to her. Lucy put her arms out immediately and I handed the hunched goddess to her. She took a step back from her husband and I rushed forward, dropping to my knees by Millie’s side.
“Not good,” Chance muttered, as he bent over her. Dark blood was spreading rapidly across her blue shirt, staining it a deep purplish color.
‘Not good’ was an understatement. The dwarf had probably meant to give Loki a gut shot, something to wound but not immediately kill. Not the smartest move, because as he’d said, he was full to the brim with power. But sometimes dwarves let their viciousness get ahead of their sense. If Millie had just let it hit, Loki would have been hurt and probably pissed, but fine.
Because of the height difference, the knife had lodged itself into her chest, maybe even directly into her heart. Blood pulsed past the knife with every beat of her heart. My panic didn’t hinder my ability to see the horrifying reality of the situation. If the knife had hit where I thought it had, it meant every traitorous thump of that muscle pushed more blood out of her body. She’d lose consciousness in one minute, die in three.
Assuming she had an average heart rate of eighty beats per minute that meant that she had only two hundred forty of them left. Maybe less. I thought we’d have time to build a life, and sort things out. Now, every heart beat was numbered, ticking down the clock to her death.
I flashed back to those last horrible minutes with Val. Her heart hadn’t raced, didn’t try to escape the cold, clammy fingers of the reaper. It just seemed to peter out unspectacularly. Then came the moment when the indefinable something—spirit, soul, personality, mind, whatever you called it—left. Without fanfare, without acknowledgement save for the panicked beeping of a heart monitor.
What was the phrase? Not with a bang, but a whimper.
Millie’s breath wheezed in and out and her eyes wheeled, finally fixing when they found me. Something clear dripped onto her face, and for a second I thought it had started to rain. Then I realized that the drop had come from me, from the tears dripping down my chin. The weird, hitching sound must have been me, too.
“Jay,” she managed.
“I’m here, honey. I’m here. Stay with me, Millie.”
“Love you.”
“I love you, too.” My voice sounded nearly as choked as hers, despite my lack of injury.
I couldn’t just sit here. I couldn’t watch another woman I loved suffer and die when there was something I could do about it this time.
I reached behind me to drag the basket full of apples closer. One of them fell off, and my hand shot out and snatched the fruit before it could tumble into the storm drain and out of sight. I stared at the crisp, yellow apple in my hand for a moment. At once it became clear to me that she really wasn’t in any condition to eat it. And even if she could, she wouldn’t have time to eat the whole thing.
I flexed my fingers and let the greater than average strength my were-bear genetics offered me dig them easily through the skin. By the time I finished squeezing, the apple was only so much pulp in my hand. The divine healing power of Aunt Idun’s applesauce would have to do.
I offered it to her, urging her in whispers to eat as much of it as she could. She obediently lapped it first from my fingers and then my palm. As she did, a golden glow began to leak from her skin, softly at first, like a candle flame. But as she continued to eat the celestial fruit, it grew in strength resembling the incandescence of a lightbulb. Finally I had to turn my face away, when it seemed like the brilliance of the midday sun had somehow managed to sink into her pores and was lighting her up from the inside.
The knife suddenly flew out of her chest and lodged into the tires of a nearby minivan. I hoped it wasn’t the nurse’s vehicle. We’d already made her day hell without ruining her ride, as well.
Finally, the glow faded and I felt safe enough to look back at her to see if she was okay. And the damndest thing happened. I felt it again. For the third time in my life, I caught sight of her face and I knew with a certainty that went beyond rational explanation that I’d found my mate. And what was more, a minor miracle occurred.
My bear surged to the fore with such vicious strength and clarity that I nearly transformed right then and there. A strangled noise escaped me as it seemed to flood every part of my body. The sensation of fur brushing beneath my skin was a feeling as warm and familiar as wrapping myself in one of my grandmother’s quilts. The relief was so potent that still more tears escaped me.
And after the relief came anger. “Where the hell have you been?” I snarled at it.
“Mate. We found her. She’s safe.”
Okay, so maybe it was still a few crayons short of a full box, but it was there. The question had been answered and it was a resounding yes. She was my mate. I wasn’t alone. I cupped her face between my hands and, not caring that Lucy and Chance were watching, kissed her full on the mouth.
“Not the time, children,” Loki said with a snort when he spotted us. Millie still looked unfocused when I pulled back, but the wound she’d sustained was all but gone. All that remained was a tiny pink line on her chest.
Loki stooped and retrieved the basket. “Now that you’ve managed to muck up the plan beyond salvaging, I think we ought to go.”
“What did we do?” I asked defensively. “You had to know that Freya’s spell wasn’t going to hold up forever. Someone was going to come looking for Idun eventually.”
Come to think of it, Loki’s attempts to stop us had been halfhearted at best. I’d heard legends of this God all throughout my childhood. I knew all about the scrapes he’d gotten himself into and out of. Loki was many things, but he wasn’t stupid or gullible. He didn’t have any restriction on his magic. He could have stopped us from getting anywhere near Idun, or the building for that matter, if he’d wanted to. Did that mean that Freya had wanted the Vanir to find Idun? Or was this another trick that Loki was trying to play on us?
“You let her get stabbed for one,” he grumbled. “Get her into the truck, bear, or I swear the next thing I smite will be you.”
“I’m fine.” Millie tried to sit up and then flopped back onto the ground, clutching her head with a groan.
“It feels like someone set off a cannon in your brain the first time you taste one,” Loki agreed. “Though I didn’t have a good comparison for it until I was actually hit by a cannon in 1680.”
“You were hit by a—” Lucy began.
Loki waved a hand at her. “That is a tale for another time. Get her in the car.”
Miraculously, we all managed to get into the truck without further incident. It was beginning to get crowded in the cab with six of us inside of it. Idun and Millie, recovering from being drugged and recovering from a case of near death respectively, obviously had to stay inside. I wasn’t going to leave Millie’s side, even if my newly returned bear would allow such a thing. So, that only left Loki to ride in the back. I didn’t like the idea of what he’d get up to there. But when he’d been faced with the prospect of being stuck in close quarters with us for another hour and a half before we could reach the hotel Chance had reserved, he’d transformed into a dog and sat guarding Idun’s apples, which Chance had draped a tarp over for safekeeping.
I cradled her head in my lap, stroking the beautiful copper ringlets that made up her hair. I wanted to bury my face in them and press her body to mine. I wanted to make love to her and assure her that I was never leaving her again, that nothing like what had just happened would befall her again while I was here. But she wasn’t in any condition to be having sex, or do anything but sleep really.
And that’s what she did, for the remaining hour and a half. Chance and Lucy called ahead to confirm the hotel room, and to check in Freyr’s people, respectively. Lucy arranged a Skype call with the big man himself later that night, when we all had a chance to settle in. He agreed that there was a lot to talk about. I noticed that she didn’t mention Loki to him. While Loki had never gotten on Freyr’s bad side specifically, it was common knowledge he wasn’t well liked by any of the gods.
Millie woke only when we pulled into the hotel parking lot and the car rolled to a stop. I was glad that the sun was setting as we walked into the hotel lobby. It looked less suspicious as I carried Millie in, my coat draped over her to hide her bloodstained shirt. I was sure it would have drawn more attention if we’d walked in during the middle of the day.
So, as Chance and Lucy figured out additional sleeping arrangements, I carried her toward the stairs. The original room would have been cramped with the four of us sharing two beds. Now with six, it was going to be impossible. They pressed the harried looking desk clerk to see if they could rent an adjoining room while he typed furiously into the keyboard, checking for availability.
We’d decided before arriving that we should split our group down the middle, putting two capable fighters in each room to protect the one weak element in each. I was sure if she was cognizant Millie would have resented being called the weak link. However, even she couldn’t ignore the fact that she had what Loki fondly called Aunt Idun’s apple cider hangover.
“I can walk on my own,” Millie grumbled as we ascended the stairs to our room. Loki had made an excellent point about avoiding metal death traps with the distinct possibility of dwarves around.
“You’re not going to shake the effects for another hour or so,” Loki said. “The apples disrupt the body’s natural processes to prevent aging, pain, and other mortal afflictions. You were stabbed. It had to perform a major magical overhaul. Before you protest, let me put it in terms you might understand better. Would you be trying to walk around an hour after undergoing open heart surgery?”
Millie pursed her lips unhappily, but said nothing. The ghost of a smile played at the edges of Loki’s crooked mouth. “I thought not.”
We reached the hotel door and I reached to my back pocket to grab the key. Loki produced it from thin air like a hokey magician performing at a child’s birthday party. I was sure he’d stolen it as we’d climbed the stairs. He slid it through the lock and the light flashed green.
He pushed the door open to reveal a spacious room with two beds, a television, a mini-fridge, and a table in the back corner. I set Millie on the bed furthest from the door, so she’d be as far away from the conflict, should it erupt, as possible.
Loki sprawled out easily on the other bed. I supposed I should join him when the time came to sleep. I had a tendency to splay if I wasn’t bleeding or knocked unconscious. I just wasn’t sure how I felt about cuddling up to the trickster. He grinned and patted the bed beside him as if he’d sensed my discomfort and was enjoying it.
“Come now, Hanlon, let the lady sleep. We’re going to have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”
I grimaced at him, but he was right. Millie needed to rest in order to recover. That’s what I tried to tell my bear at least, who was insisting that we lay beside our mate.
“You ran off,” I told it. “You don’t get a say.”
Though I couldn’t entirely blame it for leaving the way it had. If I could have escaped the yawning chasm of grief by disappearing I would have done it, too. Unfortunately, one of us had to do the living around here, and it was me. The bear chuffed. It didn’t like receiving a mental flick on the nose.
It was sort of like having that one roommate in your head twenty-four-seven. You know the one. The one that eats your food, has loud sex in the room next door and then has the gall to complain to you about how inconsiderate you are of their needs. Yeah, my bear could be an asshole. But he was my inner-asshole, and I was glad he was back.
“I’m not sleeping.” Millie protested. “Not until we decide what we’re doing next. Lucy said they were supposed to get a video call from Freyr tonight.”
“You don’t have to stay up for that. It’s going to be a lot of shop talk,” I said.
“I’m a part of this now,” she argued, sitting up with a grimace. “I should at least know what’s going on. You can fill the rest in later.”
I didn’t like it, but she insisted and nothing short of dosing her was going to get her to sleep. Loki even offered me some of the pills he’d used to drug Idun after Millie had turned on the TV to drown me out. I let him know what I thought of that suggestion with a one-fingered salute.
Finally, about an hour later, Chance and Lucy had settled into the adjoining room. There had apparently been something of a close call when Idun momentarily gained some lucidity and demanded to know where she was. She’d lapsed back into incoherency soon after, so it hadn’t become a scene. Chance had tucked her safely away in the room and she’d fallen asleep almost at once.
Lucy set a laptop on the table and turned it to face the bed where the remaining four unharmed party members sat, which put Chance, Lucy, Loki and myself in the view of the camera. Loki was skulking, trying to remain unseen. And to his credit, hiding behind Chance’s enormous bulk was probably a good strategy. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I could have hidden behind Chance, and I wasn’t rapier thin like Loki.
I’d seen Freyr in person only once, at the start of the war, when he’d been calling shifters and humans alike to join the war effort. He’d looked much younger then. He’d seemed barely old enough to drink, his bright red hair chopped short and his beard shaved completely off.
The war, the lack of life and power sustaining fruit, or a combination of both had added new lines to his face. He had several days of beard and there were massive bags beneath his eyes. The God looked like he needed a nap pronto.
“Chance,” he acknowledged, nodding to the big man. “Lucy.” He squinted at me, the only other person clearly visible.
“Jay Hanlon,” I supplied. “My resupply station just outside Fairchild, Tennessee was blown all to hell by dwarves.”
Freyr’s expression grew stormy and he gnashed his teeth audibly. “Svartalfheim has thrown its lot in with the Aesir. Not surprising, considering their past alliances, but still…” He shook his head. “It’s a blow. If we don’t gain an advantage soon, they’ll have the might of Valhalla behind them, as well. They’ll decimate us. Well, that is if the human government doesn’t do it first.”
“What?” Lucy gasped. “What do you mean? The government has no right to meddle in shifter affairs. There are provisions set down in the law.”
Freyr rubbed his eyes. “Normally, yes. As long as we police our own, they’re usually content to leave us to our own justice. However, that all changed yesterday.”
We exchanged uneasy glances. None of us had really been paying attention to the human media. Too much had happened in a short amount of time. There had been so much to discuss in the car to fill the silence that radio usually drowned.
“We were soundly defeated at Roanoke with the addition of dwarves to the Aesir forces.” He made a face as if what he had to say next left a bitter taste in his mouth. “The dwarves decided that they had earned the spoils of battle and set about raping, burning, and pillaging nearby suburbia. Between that and the groups targeting our supply stations across the country, shifters are being labeled terrorists and the United States government his recommending containment as the best course of action.”
I jumped to my feet, my entire body shaking with the rage I tried to suppress. According to Freyr, turning into a massive grizzly bear in a hotel wouldn’t be a good idea right now.
“That’s ludicrous and they know it,” I snarled. “The dwarves are to blame, not us. Why not target them with this discriminatory horse shit?”
Freyr sighed. “Dwarves are hard to kill and even harder to contain. I believe their working theory is that by removing combatants they will prevent further bloodshed.”
“It won’t work,” Chance rumbled. “It’s just presenting a bigger target for the dwarves. With all their enemies in one place, they’re easier to kill.”
“Not to mention the pro-shifter activist groups. They’ll be rioting in the streets. There hasn’t been legislation like this since the Japanese internment camps during World War Two.” Lucy added quietly. I nodded vehemently. I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but she was absolutely right. Zoophiles and civil rights activists wouldn’t stand for a violation like this. They were just making this debacle so much worse for themselves.
“I tried to tell the president that,” Freyr said. “Instead of listening, he had Sylvia arrested.”
“Sylvia?” I muttered beneath my breath to Chance.
“A political-science major at the University of Ohio. She was turned in an attack last year and has been acting as an aide to Freyr ever since.”
“Ah.”
“As I was saying. We’re in dire straits. I do hope you have good news. The negotiations with Jotunheim have been at a standstill for a month and with Sylvia gone they’re not going to end well.”
“We found Idun,” Chance said, a note of triumph in his voice.
Freyr’s spine straightened and he suddenly looked more alert. “You have? That’s wonderful, Lawman Kassower. Where did you find her?”
“I can’t claim full credit.” Chance admitted. “We wouldn’t have anything to show for our search if it weren’t for Jay and Millie. It was her father’s friend, Sammy Pullman, who pointed us in the right direction.”
“Samuel Pullman?” Freyr repeated, his eyes zeroing in on Chance’s face.
“Yes. I believe that was the name.”
“Tall, paunchy, greying hair and a fondness for drink?” Freyr asked.
“Yeah,” Lucy said, looking nonplussed. “Do you know him, sir?”
“That was the alias that one of Freya’s favorites adopted when he interacted with mortals. We thought he and Magnus had deserted when we did not find them in Folkvang.”
My thoughts churned. I was beginning to feel like someone had put me through the spin cycle of a washing machine. My mind tried to race ahead, putting the pieces together. Freya’s favorite warriors cloistered in a little nothing down doing fuck-all to help the war effort. That didn’t make sense. Unless she didn’t want them on the battlefield. They were right where she’d put them, in a position to guard her true objective, which had to be…
“Oh, put it together already.” Loki had apparently lost his patience with the conversation and stepped out from behind Chance. Freyr’s eyes narrowed in dislike.
“Loki,” he hissed. “Of course, you’d be involved.”
“Oh, do shut up, Freyr. I don’t see you thanking me for my hard work. I protected her secret, just like she asked. Do you know what a bore it’s been, hiding out for the last twenty-two years while she set this master plan of hers into motion?”
“Twenty-two years? She’s been planning this over two decades? What in Hel’s name for?” Freyr exclaimed.
“What do you think, simpleton? What is the only thing that has ever possessed Freya to act?”
“Desire,” Freyr said finally. “Love. But that still doesn’t explain it. How could love have brought us to this? Who was worth all the suffering? Who was worth dying for?”
Loki’s smile was positively vulpine. He strode to the laptop and with long tapered fingers turned the webcam to face the other side of the room.
“Freyr, meet Mildred Leann Allbar, daughter of Magnus the great, the rightful heir to Folkvang, and your niece.”
All eyes were drawn to Millie. Her eyes almost eclipsed the rest of her face. Her mouth popped open in a little ‘o’ of shock and she voiced the thought that was running through everyone’s mind.
“What?”