Tyr

by JC Andrijeski

  Yes, safe.

  Despite the paparazzi, the headlines, the Secret Service, the crazy parties…

  Marion felt invisible.

  Right now, invisible was exactly what she wanted.

  4

  Introductions

  Tyr walked into the underground tavern, carefully pushing past a group of people by the door screaming with laughter, all of them wearing different-colored wigs. Some wore white face-paint and dramatic eye-makeup. All wore thick, fake eyelashes, dark lipstick and brightly-colored clothes. All appeared to be high on more than just alcohol.

  He’d been forced to use elements of supernatural persuasion to get in here.

  He couldn’t create mirages, as Loki did, to convince people he wasn’t there at all, but he did have ways of altering his appearance… and of pressing people into thinking he belonged somewhere he perhaps didn’t.

  This particular bar billed itself as a “safe haven” for the rich and famous who did not wish to be photographed or videoed.

  No reporters were allowed inside.

  No one was supposed to film anyone else, either. Guests had to be members, and membership was exclusive. Even members and friends of members were required to hand over their phones at the door, and handed a receipt.

  Tyr managed to keep his phone on him.

  There were some advantages to being a god.

  At any rate, he had no intention of filming anyone.

  He’d only just arrived at St. Barts, at the island’s main city of Gustavia.

  In the end, he’d decided to use supernatural means to get here.

  Technically, he could have flown; that was something Tyr could do on this world. Now, however, in this modern era, Tyr used the ability sparingly. It was too easy to be noticed, or photographed, or otherwise documented––whether by satellite, drone, radar, or any of the other ways humans protected their airspace from potentially hostile incursions.

  For the same reason, unless it was an emergency, Tyr tried not to fly during the day.

  The last time he’d done it, on the coast of Malibu in California, the distance had been short, it had been an emergency, and he still hadn’t liked it much.

  To go to St. Barts from France would have been a much longer flight.

  Given the time difference, the shape of the planet, and the time of day, the sun would have been out nearly the entire trip.

  His other options for Earth travel weren’t ideal, either.

  Human forms of transport were slow.

  It would have taken him eleven hours, minimum, if he did it that way––likely closer to fourteen or sixteen hours with layovers and plane changes.

  In the end, he did the most god-like thing he could do.

  He used the Bifrost to go to Asgard.

  From Asgard, Tyr used the Bifrost a second time to travel inter-dimensionally back to Saint Barthélemy, the island where Marion Ravenscroft was last seen.

  Odin would have seen him do it, since he monitored the Bifrost, but if it bothered Tyr’s father, he hadn’t intervened.

  As for Tyr himself, he spent the majority of his remaining daylight hours learning the layout of the island, determining which hotel housed Marion Ravenscroft, and assessing Marion Ravenscroft’s Secret Service detail, not to mention her movements around the city.

  Her father had increased the number of people watching her.

  For the same reason, Tyr didn’t allow himself to venture too close until now. He hadn’t even gotten a good look at her really, but only glimpses on the beach, walking along the promenade, and drinking coffee in sidewalk cafés.

  He had some idea of where she was at all times, even when she wasn’t in his visual range, mostly from casing her hotel and listening in on her security detail. Again, he wasn’t Loki, so he had to take care not to be seen; he couldn’t glamour humans into not seeing or hearing him at all, the way his brother could.

  He could move quietly, almost invisibly, however, when necessary.

  He managed to make his way up to the balcony of her room, where he overheard the head of her detail speaking to the agents with her on the ground.

  Once he’d heard enough and witnessed enough to have some idea of their procedures, he climbed back down, and made his way over city streets to the main strip along the harbor, where Marion planned to eat dinner with her friends at this exclusive island club.

  He’d expected a relatively quiet, expensive restaurant.

  Instead, he found himself inside what felt like a burlesque show, only filled with people in costumes that made no sense, not in terms of a restaurant with crystal glasses and real silverware, and not in relation to any sort of theme Tyr could discern.

  He saw full adults, some with wrinkles and silver hair, wearing twenties-style flapper outfits and pirate hats and low-cut tops and high-heeled shoes. He saw young people, in their twenties and thirties, wearing clown hair and red noses, jeweled crowns, masks, wild makeup, lingerie. Some carried around bottles of champagne, or martinis, or smoked sickly-sweet cigarettes and pungent cigars.

  Some just wore bathing suits and a lot of glitter.

  Tyr wound his way through the crowd, taking in the different outfits, noting the dance floor with its lit tiles, filled with people laughing and shrieking and jumping up and down. He watched them throw streamers, beach balls, wave glow-sticks, bat around balloons.

  In here, it felt almost like the American holiday of Halloween.

  But it was the wrong time of year for that. Halloween occurred a few weeks ago, at least, possibly even a few months prior, from Tyr’s memory.

  It wasn’t yet time for New Year’s celebrations.

  Wasn’t Christmas coming, relatively soon?

  Tyr found himself confused, even as he retreated to the bar, looking for a place to sit that would give him a view of the comings and goings of most members of the club. Marion Ravenscroft’s security detail seemed to think she would be here by now. They seemed to think at least a half-dozen of her high-society friends would be here now, as well.

  She shouldn’t be difficult to spot, particularly if they’d all come together.

  He’d spent some time studying photos of her.

  She was striking, difficult to miss.

  Unusual, calico-colored eyes. Athletic. Long legs. Dramatically high cheekbones. A full mouth. Her natural hair color was dark brown, almost black.

  The most recent photos he’d found of her showed her hair that same color, but he’d also seen it dyed various tints and shades over the years: dark red, platinum, blue-black, golden blond, streaked with different colors such as plum, violet, sky blue, dark blue, fiery red, pale green, sunset orange, shocking pink.

  Tyr looked around, frowning.

  He felt sure he would find her easily.

  He looked for people who might be part of her security detail.

  She had at least two of those with her, inside the club.

  Tyr saw one man he guessed to be security, and watched him surreptitiously.

  Blond. Military-style haircut. Nondescript suit. Expensive watch.

  Secret Service, Tyr guessed.

  Tyr grew even more certain of his guess after he caught the blond human murmuring into his sleeve; the agent likely wore an earpiece in the opposite ear, the one Tyr couldn’t see.

  Of course, given the clientele in the club, it was possible he was part of another person’s security detail, but Tyr didn’t think so. Regular, paid, private bodyguards didn’t tend to be so fastidious, or so good at blending in. This man managed to fade into the background effortlessly, even as he side-stepped all of the costume-wearing and wasted locals.

  Tyr had already noted a few who fit the paid bodyguard mold, as well, and likely worked for celebrities inside the club, or rich people worried about ransom kidnappings.

  They were big guys, usually, wearing guns they didn’t do a very good job of concealing. They were effective at their jobs for the most part, which was largely gatekeeping, running interference, and
looking menacing. They were conspicuous as a general rule because part of their job was to be conspicuous. Younger versions of the same looked a bit greener, and less like ex-cops, but tended to be even larger in size.

  The blond guy was different.

  The blond guy looked ex-military.

  He was lean, sharp-eyed, and meant to be invisible.

  No. Tyr was betting he was right. The blond was Secret Service.

  He found the blond’s partner a few seconds later, leaning on the other end of the bar. A black man in his mid-thirties, he wore a darker suit, and slightly more club-appropriate clothing, but also blended in utterly apart from the barely-conspicuous earpiece and wrist microphone.

  The fact that they were here both relaxed Tyr and confused him.

  Where was Marion Ravenscroft?

  If her protection was here, in the bar, why wasn’t she in visual range?

  Could she really have been in the bathroom all this time?

  Did she have a third, possibly female agent with her?

  Frowning, still glancing around the dark space, studying faces in the flashing, colored lights, Tyr contemplated doing something more drastic. Like possibly asking people if they knew Marion, if she was here, inside the club, or even checking out one of the nearby clubs, or convincing a female human to go into the bathroom for him to look for her…

  When the dance music abruptly died down.

  After a silence where the house beat stopped shaking the floor, and people on the dance floor looked vaguely confused––a loud cheer broke out.

  The lights dimmed, all at once.

  A spotlight flicked on, illuminating the dark red curtain hiding a small stage.

  Tyr’s eyes followed everyone else’s…

  Right as those blood-red curtains began to open.

  Burlesque music flooded through the overhead speakers, just long enough to make everyone in the room fall silent.

  Tyr’s stare never left the small stage.

  Painted black, surrounded by mirrors, the wooden platform had a silver pole running up the center of it, along with a silver chair, the legs and back covered in blinking, multi-colored Christmas lights. Christmas garlands and tinsel hung in loops around the edge of the stage.

  Cutouts of silver reindeer framed the top edge of the mirror, wrapped in tinsel and red and green Christmas ornaments.

  Tyr barely saw most of this.

  Hs eyes remained fixed on the woman in the center of the stage, with one long leg wrapped elegantly around the silver pole.

  Whistles broke out in the club, shouts and laughter.

  People yelled out words, but Tyr only caught smatterings of these.

  One man with a particularly loud voice stood out above the rest.

  “MARI!” he yelled, throwing handfuls of silver and gold glitter at the stage. “YOU SEXY MAMA! I LOVE YOU!”

  The woman with her leg wrapped around the pole didn’t move.

  She remained utterly still as the initial few bars of the burlesque music died down.

  Once everyone was focused on the stage, the music changed.

  The long-legged woman in the white fur bikini continued to hang down from the pole. With the bikini, she wore striped red and white knee-high stockings with white fur on top, bright red, sparkly, high-heeled shoes that had to be six inches tall, striped white and red elbow gloves, and a furred Santa hat.

  She looked like a really sexy candy cane.

  Tyr shifted on his seat, unable to tear his eyes off her, or that leg curled around the pole.

  The new song that started over the loudspeakers was one even he recognized.

  He’d heard it before, during his visits to Earth over the years. He even knew it as a holiday song, although Christmas wasn’t a holiday generally celebrated in Asgard.

  As the first few bars of “Santa Baby” began to play over the club’s loudspeakers, the whistles grew louder as the woman undulated, swaying her hips in perfect time with the music.

  Tyr stared along with the rest of them, mesmerized as she gripped low and high up on the silver pole, pulling the rest of her body up into a perfect handstand, using only her arm, leg, and stomach muscles. She reached the top and flipped seamlessly up and over into full splits, her black hair hanging down after she reached up, pulling off the Santa hat and tossing it into the crowd.

  The shouts and whistles grew deafening.

  Glancing at the crowd, she gave a coy wink and grin at the audience.

  Tyr watched that lean body undulate sinuously before she flipped back around to land neatly on those super high-heeled, sparkly red shoes… only to fall again into full splits on the polished floor. She rolled over, undulating back up and grabbed the pole again, twisting around it easily with one leg hooked gracefully.

  She moved so evenly and precisely, it looked almost mechanical.

  She barely planted her weight before she spun around the pole again, all in perfect time to the music, pulling herself up and over a few more times before she landed easily and did a high kick, bringing her foot up past her head and planting it lightly on the seat of the chair.

  The crowd went wild.

  “MARRY ME, MARION!” the man in the crowd shouted.

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  “NO!” a woman yelled from next to him. “MARRY ME!”

  The woman with the long black hair winked at the woman, then spun around, walking archly around to the chair, her knees high, before she did another high kick over her head, landing her foot on the seat of the silver chair from behind.

  Stepping over the back of it, she flipped forward, landing neatly on her back on the polished stage, her hips in the air, her dark black makeup emphasizing her cat-like hazel eyes. She undulated again with the music, and Tyr found himself staring at those long legs and lean abdomen, trying to remind himself silently what he was doing there.

  His eyes flickered to her face, only to find those hazel eyes on him.

  She stared at him, her body writhing to the music.

  It felt like the two of them were locked in the dance together…

  Then she gripped the silver pole and pulled herself up, so gracefully, it looked like someone had brought her upright with wires.

  Hooking her leg back around the pole, she spun liquidly around it again, her other leg hooked in a dancer’s pose, right as the song was winding to a close.

  She ended the routine hanging upside down, one long leg kicked out in a perfect line, decorated with its red and white-striped stockings.

  Her mouth quirked in a faint smirk as she held Tyr’s gaze.

  The god didn’t move.

  He didn’t so much as blink.

  Still, it took him a few seconds to remind himself who she was.

  She was the reason he was here.

  Marion Ravenscraft was his job.

  Even as he repeated the words in his head, in several different languages…

  …he wondered if any part of him really believed it.

  5

  Making A Scene

  She hung upside down, staring at the man with the obsidian-black, stunning, and disturbingly riveting eyes, breathing a bit harder from the routine she’d thrown together at the last minute when Charlie asked if she’d entertain the troops.

  Someone blabbed to Charlie that Marion had been a dancer, once upon a time.

  Before she’d been a professional party girl.

  She wasn’t really thinking about any of that now, though.

  She wasn’t really thinking about anything.

  She felt locked there instead, lost in those unfathomable eyes, which were only one part of an unbelievably beautiful face.

  She held his gaze unflinchingly, even after her mind made it halfway back into the rest of her head. She never looked away, even as she started to think about him clearly enough to wonder about him. She watched him watch her, that stern face unmoving over a well-built, equally beautiful body that lounged on a bar stool at the far end of the bar.


  Something about the way he sat there told her the casual pose was highly deceptive.

  He looked more like a great cat, ready to pounce.

  In fact, everything about him screamed “fighter,” and Marion, of all people, should know. She’d been around fighter-types most of her life.

  She wondered who the hell he was.

  With her insanely crappy luck, he was probably a reporter.

  Given the fact that she’d more or less been dancing solely for him for the last thirty seconds or so of the song, that would be just… perfect.

  Although she suspected a reporter would look a lot more delighted at the treat she’d just handed him than this guy currently did. He likely wouldn’t be staring at her with that unmoving, possibly-judgmental, possibly-angry look on his statuesque face.

  He wouldn’t be staring at her with those strangely dark and hypnotic eyes, either.

  Being a reporter also wouldn’t explain his build, which was closer to gymnast or middle-weight boxer than your average print jockey. Most of the paparazzi who followed her around looked like they’d just crawled out of their car after sleeping there the night before. The normally-scruffy exteriors of the reporters Marion had met over the past year tended to be notable more for their five o’clock shadow, or the Hawaiian shirts they bizarrely tended to favor, or their seemingly daily hangovers.

  Even the ones who seemed a little more put together didn’t look like this guy.

  They definitely didn’t give off the same vibe.

  She wondered if he was someone new on her security detail.

  She was still looking at him as she flipped off the pole, then walked across the stage to the narrow wooden steps that led back to the main floor. She descended those steps carefully, placing each foot cautiously in the crazy high heels.

  Then Joanna Reeves grabbed her arm, laughing as she squeezed Marion around the waist, gushing in her ear about how everyone in the whole world just adored her. Joanna led her insistently, and Marion did her best to follow, teetering on those sparkly red heels across a slick tile floor where a number of drinks had already been spilled.