Chapter Six
Jay
The Summer Valley Assisted living community looked more like a hotel than a nursing home. It was several stories high with beige siding, and white shutters. It was a pretty place, overall, with several apartments growing flowers in window boxes. There was a section just outside the doors where elderly couples played cards under a wide, blue awning.
The inside though was a different story. It was hard to put my finger on just why the atmosphere changed, but it did. Perhaps it was the lives that had touched the place. A lot of people breezed through life, not stopping to see the impact they had on the people they’d seen and the places they’d been. Years living in one place though could leave a sort of spiritual residue. It wasn’t the same as a place of faith. But it was something, certainly. Maybe it was the remnants of my bear trying to tell me something. If that were the case Lucy and Chance would be feeling the effect more strongly.
Chance took the lead, probably pumping himself up to take another attack, if it came to that. I could only hope that they’d lost our trail, because this was the last place I wanted to lead a group of bloodthirsty mercenaries.
Lucy was close beside him, scanning the lobby. I wasn’t a lawman and I didn’t have to live with one, so I wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking for. All I saw was a desk with a harried looking nurse sitting in front of a computer and a sitting room across the hall from that which sported a large television and a semi-circular row of armchairs.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked finally, glancing up from her screen. Her blonde hair stood on end and resembled nothing short of a haystack from all the times she’d run her hands through it.
Millie, who’d been trailing behind me looking frankly lost, stepped forward. “Yes. I need to see my great-aunt. Her name is Irene Allbarn. My dad wanted me to check in on her.”
The woman tapped viciously at her keyboard. I wasn’t sure what had riled her up, and I hoped I remained ignorant. We’d had enough trouble thus far. We didn’t need to get stuck in the middle of a human drama, either.
“Can I see your ID, Miss? For security purposes.”
Up to this point, I’d felt more than a little guilty for dragging Millie into the middle of a war she had no part in. She’d come close to being killed more times than I could count. Now, I was intensely grateful she was here. Assuming that Chance, Lucy, and I had somehow managed to finally scry Idun’s exact location—a feat that was proving impossible for even our best magic users, despite the weakening of the spell over time—we would never have been able to get in to see her. Not without causing a great deal of upheaval at the Sunset Valley Assisted Living Community as we stole away one of their “patients”.
Freyr had told us to keep out of the public eye. Tensions between shifters and humans were already sky high, and we didn’t need a story about big bad bears kidnapping grandma to go national and sully the waters even further. So maybe it hadn’t been coincidence that had led her to my garage, just before the attack.
Freyr, of course! If I this had been a cartoon, a lightbulb might have flashed on above my head. If this whole thing was being orchestrated by the Gods – and who was to say it wasn’t – then everything leading up to this point made a lot more sense.
Freyr was a fertility God. Not as potent as his sister, Freya, certainly, but it was still one of his many, many God powers. He was sort of like Apollo that way, if one were comparing Gods. Not that I would, since the Norse got touchy when anyone mentioned other pantheons, especially Greece. The fact remained that Freyr could still probably create a false positive, making me think I’d had a second mate imprint when that was clearly impossible. He had to know that it would be enough to make me investigate. And from there, to keep her close until I could figure out what was going on.
Maybe Freyr had orchestrated the whole thing. On the one hand, it made me feel a bit calmer. I had been right all along. Val’s memory was safe. My stomach still squirmed with guilt, because on the other hand, I still liked Millie. I liked talking to her. I liked the look of her. I liked fucking her, despite how desperate the circumstances had been at the time. I thought in time I could love her. The honest love a human man could give a human woman.
Why the guilt? Who was I betraying? Val? Probably not. She’d insisted I live after she died. She wouldn’t begrudge me my happiness, if by some miracle I managed to find it again. Was I betraying Millie, by clinging to the ghost of a love that would never be again? Or was I just afraid of betraying myself?
Millie rummaged in the pockets of her jeans. They’d been bought at a thrift store on the way up and they bagged off of her. It was hard to find clothes that fit her just right, when you considered how small she was. We could probably have found something better at a mall or department store, but Chance had insisted we stay off the beaten path, save for this essential detour. The blue shirt was at least a size too big for her, as were the “skinny” jeans she’d selected from the rack. The only thing that seemed to fit her perfectly was the little piece of costume jewelry she’d bought at the front counter. I wasn’t sure why she’d bought it, but hell, I couldn’t begrudge her the faux-gold band if it made her happy. After everything she’d put up with, I thought she deserved it.
It was very fortunate for all of us that Millie’s wallet had been stuffed into her back pocket. Thank god she hadn’t been carrying a purse; it never would have survived the many times we’d been chased by dwarves.
I hoped the woman wouldn’t notice the suspicious stains on the leather. Okay, so maybe it hadn’t survived unscathed, but at least the blood had dried to a dark brown. Millie flicked it open and pried her driver’s license from its plastic sleeve. She handed it to the nurse who examined it critically, checking the details printed on it against the list of approved visitors on her computer screen.
“Mildred Leann Allbarn,” she confirmed after a minute. “Great-niece. I guess you’re clear to go. You can find her in Room 404.”
She cleared her throat when all of us started making our way toward the elevators. “Only Miss Allbarn is approved to visit or make changes to her great-aunt’s living accommodations. I’m afraid the rest of you will have to stay here.”
We exchanged uneasy glances. Millie hadn’t reacted well when we’d told her that her father might be involved in a plot to hide a goddess and start a war. She’d absolutely thrown a fit when we didn’t want to reveal any further details. She’d said that she was in this, whether she liked it or not, and that we should trust her with what we knew.
So we’d spent the car ride over explaining what we knew of the war. We told her how Freya’s machinations had started a war, though no one knew her true purpose. We told her about Idun’s disappearance, and how it had rendered all gods involved in the conflict mortal and susceptible to death. We told her how the return of Idun’s apples could possibly end hostilities.
At the very least, the return of Idun could give the Vanir something to negotiate with. It was something we desperately needed. Thor’s little recruitment camps last year had bolstered the Aesir’s fighting force, and worse, the spell that sealed the doors of Valhalla would soon fade. With the addition of the dwarves into their ranks, the Aesir were gearing up to crush the Vanir fighting force. Maybe the lure of being nigh immortal and having the limits lifted off their power would be enough to give them pause.
Or maybe they’d just attack, and try to take her back. That also seemed like something they’d do.
Millie’s face had gotten stonier and stonier with every word. From what little I knew of Millie, I understood she hated liars. She didn’t see the point to deception, the value in being duplicitous when the occasion called for it. In short, she’d be a terrible politician. And though none of us, besides her father, had outright lied to her, in her mind, we’d still lied by omission. She was still smarting, and none of us were sure it was a good idea to let her go alone.
Millie turned to the woman with a beatific smile and took my hand. “Can’t I please take Jay? I’m fixin’ to be Mrs. Hanlon in December. I want us both to be there when I tell Auntie.”
She presented her left hand, where the gold band glinted. She was flushed, and if I were just passing on the street I would have believed her to be a happy young woman, announcing her news to anyone who’d listen. Suddenly, the ring made more sense. We hadn’t known about Idun’s presence here when she’d bought it, but she’d apparently been thinking ahead. A pair of married or soon-to-be married couples looked more wholesome than a group of were-bear warriors and their human sidekick ever could.
The woman’s face softened and she gave Millie a hesitant smile. “December is coming quick. Have you been planning long?”
“No,” I supplied. Millie may have just saved our asses by manufacturing that story, but if there was one thing I knew, it was that lies worked best when there were relatively few of them. Give yourself too much rope, you can strangle yourself with it. I pulled Millie backwards into my chest, and placed a gentle hand on her stomach. “It’s sort of a hurry-up wedding. She doesn’t want to show in the pictures.”
I tried to look appropriately abashed at the admission. It wasn’t hard, because as I said it I realized it could easily be true. I hadn’t been thinking straight in the rest stop bathroom, or I’d have insisted she get a condom from the men’s room, or just perform oral. But I hadn’t, and I’d spilled my seed inside of her. I squeezed my eyes shut and shivered. My balls tightened and my cock stirred at the memory. I thought my sex life had been good before, but I’d never had an orgasm as intense as the one I experienced with Millie. I swear to the Gods I pretty much passed out when it happened. It hadn’t been fireworks , it had been a fucking nuclear bomb.
It had been dangerous for Val to try to have children with her heart as it was. Especially shifter children, who were especially hard on their mothers, so we’d always used protection. I had been stupid, and in all likelihood, I had knocked Millie up. Unless whatever she’d done to my back could also block my super-sperm, I was pretty sure we were going to be sharing more than we’d anticipated.
The woman’s face lit up with understanding and her shoulders relaxed still further. “Ah. Of course, Miss Allbarn. Go on up. Your friends can stay in the lobby until you return.”
She positively squealed. I didn’t really care for the brainless little girl act, but if it was getting us closer to winning this war I was all for it. She seized my hand and all but dragged me to the elevators. She bounced from foot to foot until the doors dinged open and we stepped inside.
“Nice story back there,” she said in a subdued voice when the doors had shut behind us. “I wasn’t sure if the proposal story would do the trick.”
“It might not be a story,” I said.
Her eyes were huge when she turned to look at me. “You think I might be-”
“We won’t know for another few weeks,” I assured her. “And if you are, we’ll figure it out.”
“You don’t have to marry me if I get pregnant,” she muttered, frowning at me as if that were the most ridiculous notion in the world. “I have a lot of marketable skills. I could raise it on my own.”
How did I explain to her that I simply couldn’t allow that, in the short elevator ride to the fourth floor? How could she understand the level of shame that brought on a were-bear, without being exposed to the culture? Leaving mother and cubs to fend for themselves without a protector was simply wrong. No were-bear worth the name would do it. I’d need a few hours to explain it right, and it was time we didn’t have. I also got the feeling Lucy Kassower would hand me my ass on a plate if she knew what I’d done to her friend. So I said, “I know you could. But I think every kid needs two parents. I’ll be in its life, no matter what. And in yours, in whatever capacity you’ll let me.”
Sadness etched itself into the lines of her face, and her hand dropped to her stomach, as if she could already feel something stirring there. I wondered if she was thinking about her own absent mother, and the effect of being raised in a single parent household had on her life.
“If we’re lucky, that won’t happen.” She turned back to the panel, examining the brightly illuminated number four with unwarranted intensity.
It was my turn to be disgruntled. I wanted kids. Sure, this wasn’t the way I’d planned it, and certainly not the best circumstances to conceive, but I didn’t actually think it would be a bad thing if she were pregnant. Love might forever elude me, but happiness didn’t have to. I could see a future for myself now, nestled into a cozy garage, fixing cars alongside Millie while our kids played on a tire swing out back. It was an intensely comforting feeling, to know that the misery could end. I could achieve some kind of peace.
The doors dinged open on the fourth floor and a janitor wearing polo and faded blue jeans nearly whacked me upside the head with a mop pole. He was as thin as a rail and was old enough that in a few years he might actually be able to live in one of the rooms. His knees were knobby enough I could still see them through the thick denim, and his hair was sticking to his scalp in patches.
“No visitors.” he said in thickly accented English. “We’re waxing the floors.”
He gestured to the mop bucket beside him. It was full of a thick, almost gelatinous liquid. Weird, I would have thought the woman at the front desk would have directed us to the stairs if that were the case. I eyed the distance from the elevator doors to the carpeted stretch of hallway. I could probably make the jump. But Millie with her thin, short legs probably couldn’t. She was pressing against my back.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“They’re waxing the floors,” I informed her. “We’ll go back down and take the stairs.”
She frowned at me, trying to peer past me to the custodian. “All right.”
“Thank you kindly,” the old man said, giving me a crooked smile. I stepped back into the elevator and the doors closed behind me. Millie was giving me a weird look.
“What?”
“I didn’t see a wax bucket,” she said, staring up at me as if I’d gone nuts.
“Of course you didn’t, I was blocking the exit. Pardon me if I point out the obvious, but you’re not exactly a giant Millie.” I pressed the button for the next floor down. It wouldn’t take long to find a stairwell, and then we could avoid elevators altogether.
She huffed. “Go ahead, make a crack about my height. I’m in the perfect position to take you out at the knees, buddy.”
I couldn’t help but smile. It felt a little foreign on my face. I’d have to get used to being cheerful. Millie seemed to draw that response out of me despite how dour our circumstances were. “You’re what, ninety-five pounds? I think I can take you.”
“One hundred and five.” She sniffed. “So you can bench press what? Two of me?”
“Three,” I said smugly and the elevator came to a halt, depositing us on the third floor. There was no wax here, thankfully.
The hallway was long, and a lot of curious heads poked out of doorways as we passed. Someone behind us muttered, “Where’s the fire?” as we passed his room. It took us about six minutes to find the back stairwell, and to my immense frustration, it too was blocked off. Someone had taped up a closed for cleaning sign and had put a wet floor sign in front of the door for good measure, in case some half-blind resident of the building missed the first warning.
“Damn it!” The other stairwell was probably blocked off, too, at this rate. What were we going to do, scale the building? I supposed I couldn’t rule it out as a possibility. If Idun was here, we had to get her out and return to Freyr.
Millie was giving me that look again, like she thought I was being stupid or crazy. “What are you swearing for? We found it. Let’s just go up.”
I pressed against the door. As I’d thought, someone had locked it. I jiggled the bar for good measure. It didn’t budge. “We can’t.”
“Jay, that door opens fine. We just have to—”
What did she think we should do, break it down? That was going to set off some alarms. And that put us back to square one. Don’t make a fuss or attract human attention. We needed to be inconspicuous, on this mission above all others. So, how did I get up there without raising the ire of human workers or building security?
“Hang on,” I said, raising a hand to cut her off mid-sentence. “I’ve got an idea. I’ll need your help to make it work.”
She crossed her arms and gave me an arch grin. “My way is simpler, but by all means, tell me your plan.”
We walked back to one of the alcoves we’d passed on our walk to the stairs. It was empty, and the chess board that had been set up on the table was ready to play. I walked past it and sat on the window seat, drawing her down next to me.
“I’m going to leave my body,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. No need to alarm the tenants.
“You’re going to what?” she repeated, one brow lifting.
“Leave my body. The casual term for it is ranging. Chance is one of the best at it. He can travel a long way outside his body before he has to return. I’m not that good, but I can do it. I’m going to make sure this isn’t a giant waste of time. I’ll be able to see past any illusions Idun may have put up to protect herself in that form too.” The more I thought about it, the better the idea sounded.
“Okay, if you think that’s best. What do I do?”
“Stay here,” I instructed. “Watch over my body. It’s going to look like I’m having a seizure. Don’t worry, that’s totally normal.”
I closed my eyes and tried to center myself. This was the part that always escaped me when I’d been taught to do it as a teenager. It was difficult to separate spirit from body at the best of times, but especially when the spirit is not motivated to leave. To me, ranging had always seemed like the parallel parking portion of the driving test. If you could do everything else, why worry about learning how to parallel park? I’d accomplished short ranging missions exactly twice in my life.
Third time was the charm, I supposed.
I focused on my breathing, drawing it in and out of my body. I focused on the smells. The musty smell of the halls, the warm, sweet scent of Millie beside me. I let it fill me up; let it drown out thoughts of worry, about failure and fear of what would happen if we were caught here.
It took me about ten minutes of meditation before I finally stepped out of my body. I felt weightless and airy and I stumbled away from my body. I smiled broadly, resisting the urge to look back at my body and how Millie was reacting to the whole affair. It would be that much harder to try again, and I’d beat my personal record. Last time, it had taken me close to ten minutes before I managed it. I’d been sure it was going to take even longer than usual, with my bear’s disappearance.
And as I looked around, I began to notice something that even my bear’s senses wouldn’t have picked up if I were still tethered to the mortal world. Orange threads trailed everywhere. The thin, glowing threads clung to the walls, the doors and alcoves like the shuddering strands of a spider’s web. I followed the nearest one back to the door we’d just approached.
I blinked at it. There was a complex knot of orange threads where the sign had been before, and the door stood slightly ajar, as though someone had pushed it open in the last few minutes. Bemused, I stepped closer, putting a spectral hand near to the tangled mass of threads. It felt like I was standing near a livewire. If I’d been attached to my body I was sure my hair would be standing on end. I didn’t know what would happen if I actually touched the threads, but I wasn’t eager to find out. I ducked beneath the mass of them and made my way up the stairs.
There were even more on the fourth floor. It was a tricky business trying to dodge them all, and by the time I was through I was thinking I might have a career with Cirque Du Soleil if I survived the war. Wouldn’t that be fun to watch? Me, walking a tight rope, juggling lug nuts. They could call me Juggling Jay, and his amazing nuts. I had to restrain a nervous laugh. I wasn’t sure what web I’d stumbled into, but I didn’t want to disturb the spider at its center.
I emerged from the stairwell. Room 404 was all the way down the hall, and on the other side of the elevators and the freshly waxed floors. I crept forward, keeping to the right side of the hall to avoid the trembling orange thread that hung in the center of the hall. There was more gleaming thread all around the elevators, and no janitor in sight. In fact, the floor looked a little scuffed. Where was that shiny coat of wax?
I balked when I reached the door to 404. It was absolutely covered in the orange stuff. It crisscrossed the threshold, clung to the door frame, and wound the door shut. There was no way I was going to be able to phase through this door in spirit form. I wasn’t even sure it could be broached in human form. This was a serious barrier, not unlike the runes that were etched into enchanted steel bars to keep were-bears in.
I felt a sudden prickling sensation at the back of my neck, and somehow I knew. I knew without looking back that I’d reached the center of the web, and the spider had found me at last.
I turned, anyway, to find the old custodian leaning against a mop pole. No mop, no bucket, just a long metal pole that was covered in glowing orange threads. In this form, I could spot the glamor for what it was. It looked like a thin paper mask, and I could spot features beneath it. Smooth ivory skin, a pointed nose and chin, and a scarred, crooked mouth. I knew who I was facing before he even pulled the spell off his body, like it was a tangible thing. Maybe to him, it was. He’d always been adept at trickery like that.
Loki smirked at me, cocking his head to one side. “That’s cheating, using your spirit form like that. I thought I’d be able to yank you around for at least another fifteen minutes before things got messy.”
He shrugged in a “what-can-you-do?” sort of gesture. “Ah, well. I suppose the game is over. Goodbye, Mr. Bear. It’s been fun.”
He snapped his fingers with a jaunty flick of his wrist and all the threads in the vicinity, with the exception of those on the door, shot straight through my spirit form, sending my mind and body reeling into hell.