“Joseph already?” Thor looked out at the rosy pink sky and guessed it was close to 6 a.m.
“Just.” Frigga took a tiny bite of a cranberry-bran muffin and monitored Bragi’s driving. “We’ll go another six-tenths of a mile and turn onto Wallowa, then take a left onto Lake Street headed toward Mountain Home. And slow down! We’re in a thirty-five-mile-per-hour zone.”
“Yes, mother.” Bragi caught Thor’s gaze in the rearview mirror and rolled his eyes. “You know, I’ve only been driving for the past eighty-two years. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have you here to give me turn-by-turn directions and point out whenever I’m going two miles over the speed limit.”
Thor started to laugh, earning him a sharp backward glance from Frigga. He lowered his head and bit into a sticky bear claw.
“All right, smart aleck.” Frigga took another nibble of her muffin. “You want to run the meeting with Loki, too?”
“No.”
She turned to look at Thor. “What about you, tough guy?”
“Mmnfk.” Thor swallowed a mouthful of pastry and took another gulp of coffee. “No, that’s okay.”
“I didn’t think so.” Frigga fluffed her hair before reaching over to pat Bragi’s arm. “You boys really should relax. I’m sure Loki will be happy to see us.”
Thor shoved another pastry into his mouth to choke down the sarcastic comments that threatened to come flying out. Even with the peace that Odin had negotiated with Loki, none of the clan was particularly comfortable around the dark god. Nor vice versa, Thor imagined.
It was highly suspicious that Loki was the only one of them to retain any divine strength, and Thor hadn’t decided whether or not he believed Loki had truly lost control of his powers.
Yes, ice cream melted in grocery store freezers and milk cartons burst their seams when Loki tried to go shopping. Loaded guns went off by themselves when he got too close. Once he’d complained of a mild headache in the middle of a bank and triggered the fire alarms of every building on the block. Traffic lights malfunctioned as he crossed intersections, leaving scores of fender benders and even a few fatalities in his wake. Another time, Loki sneezed, and a dam eighty-two miles away ruptured; seventy-nine people lost their homes in the deluge.
Even Odin’s Lodge wasn’t safe. After a dozen too many exploding cast-iron pots in Frigga’s kitchen and monthly calls to the electrician to correct the Lodge’s wiring, Loki was effectively banished from the homestead.
It had been twenty-seven years since Loki had moved 300 miles away. Still, whenever the name of the god of chaos so much as came up in conversation, Thor was instinctively on-guard.
Turning onto a single-lane road that led out of town, Bragi reached into the back seat and held out an open hand. “How about another pastry up here?”
Thor popped the last bit of his sixth cinnamon twist into his mouth, crumpled the empty bag, and dropped it into Bragi’s hand. Bragi scowled at the paper ball and tossed it to the floorboards at Frigga’s feet.
With a disappointed sigh, Frigga reached down for the discarded pastry bag and dropped it neatly into a trash bag she kept tucked under the passenger seat. “Not much farther now.”
Bragi made a left onto a dirt road that wound around a steep hill. About three-quarters of the way up, he turned right and guided the car up an even steeper dirt driveway, finally coming to a stop on a level patch beneath a trio of tall pine trees.
They sat silently in the car, looking out at Loki’s rustic cabin. It was built from trees that had gratefully given up their wood for the home of one of the old gods—when the trees still recognized them as deities. The cabin’s simple, unpainted frame was darkened by weather and time. A neat flower-bed lay to one side of wide steps leading to a porch that ran the width of the cabin.
“He’s kept up the place rather well.” Frigga unbuckled her seat belt and got out of the car.
“Right.” Bragi pushed open the driver’s door—which protested with a loud squeal—and climbed out. He stretched his long arms and worked out the kinks that had settled into his spine after driving all night. He glanced across the top of the car at Frigga. “You’re driving back.”
She sipped the last of her coffee. “I’ll make sure we stop for some decent food, then.”
Thor lumbered out of the back and growled as the car, suddenly free of his hulking mass, sprang up six inches. The door sounded like a screeching chicken when he slammed it shut. He couldn’t feel anything below his knees. He stomped around the car, cursing and kicking at the dirt.
Frigga glanced his way with a single raised eyebrow.
“My feet fell asleep.” Thor looked over at Bragi and squared his shoulders. “No wonder, packed in this tuna can all night long.” He thumped the top of the Subaru, denting the roof again. He smiled when he saw Bragi wince. “When are you going to get a decent car?”
Bragi rolled his eyes and looked away.
His brother hadn’t taken the bait, so Thor kicked at the car tires, mostly for show. The last thing he wanted was to get stuck changing another blown tire on this gods-forsaken vehicle. But the hubcap split in two and fell off. Thor glanced sideways to make sure Bragi hadn’t seen, then nudged the evidence under the car with the toe of his boot.
Thor rested his meaty hands on his hips. “Well? Are we going in or not?”
Loki opened the front door. For someone who left so much bedlam and disorder in his wake, he was surprisingly unimposing in the flesh. Loki was slightly shorter than average and wore loose-fitting jeans and a faded corduroy shirt that probably used to be black. Beneath wavy salt-and-pepper hair that hung loose to his shoulders, his gray eyes were more curious than intimidating.
Loki slid his hands into his pockets and leaned against the doorjamb. “From the looks on your faces, I’d say this isn’t a social visit.”
“Well, we couldn’t exactly call, could we?” Thor grumbled. “Since no telephone will work longer than three-and-a-half seconds around Loki.”
Ignoring both comments, Frigga strolled over to a few herb bushes the size of small boulders. As the morning sun peeked out from behind the clouds, Frigga inhaled deeply and smiled.
“Rosemary, lavender, and . . .” She looked around and spotted the tell-tale vine trailing up the side of Loki’s cabin. “Honeysuckle! Now how on earth do you get that to bloom in October?”
Loki shrugged. “Nice, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, great,” Thor grumbled. “Perfumey.” He stepped up next to Bragi and leaned close to whisper. “Maybe we should bring Rod up here.”
Bragi sniggered, then caught himself as their mother fixed them both with a cold stare. Frigga straightened her shoulders and walked toward Loki.
“I’m afraid we’re here on business, old friend.” Frigga stopped at the bottom of the cabin’s wooden stairs and surveyed the herb garden. “Sage, wormwood, foxglove, yarrow, burdock, mugwort, marjoram, agrimony, coriander, fennel . . .” Frigga turned to Loki with a quick wink. “Someone still keeps up the old ways.”
Loki laughed as she climbed the stairs. “That was never my art. I just like a little rosemary in my bread.”
Thor hung back and watched Loki. He didn’t trust any god who could melt mobile phones by accident or who voluntarily baked his own bread. He wanted desperately to make some comment about how unnatural it was for the Norse god of mayhem to be puttering around the garden, but he was already looking at another long car ride back to Portland and didn’t want to give his mother any cause for further complaint.
Loki opened his arms and took Frigga into a strong but brief hug. She pulled away to make room for Thor and Bragi as they climbed the steps. Loki looked into their stern expressions and sighed.
“I suppose you should come inside,” Loki said.
If Thor had been expecting a proper gods’ welcome, complete with an extravagant feast and warrior games, he would have been sorely disappointed. Loki was a warm but frugal host, having adopted the more thrifty gastronomic ways of moder
n men—so, no singing bards to greet arriving guests and returning heroes. Thor cast an appraising eye around the main room of Loki’s cabin, which served as kitchen, dining room, and den with a short hallway leading to the single bedroom and bath. But the windows overlooking the back porch offered a magnificent view of the property’s upward sloping yard and great trees adorned in autumn colors. There was even a hammock slung between two tall oaks, and a simple rope swing swayed in the gentle breeze.
Thor couldn’t help himself. He hooked his thumb in the direction of the yard. “Have a lot of tea parties, do you?”
“The swing is for the neighboring children,” Loki replied. “They like to come over and play.”
Thor raised his eyebrows. “How do their parents feel about their kids romping about a dark god’s yard?”
Frigga hissed and grabbed Thor’s arm. “I’m sure you didn’t mean—”
Loki ignored the insult. “Sometimes I make them smoothies while they build forts. They like to pick fruit and berries from the yard in the summer. The figs, raspberries, apples, and plums grow like crazy around here.”
Bragi smiled. “Let me guess. That’s in your yard only?”
“At least wild, undirected chaos is good for something.” Loki winked at Frigga. “Unfortunately, it makes pizza delivery impossible. Guido’s started boycotting the entire hill, since the pizza warmers in the delivery vehicles blow out every time they get within a mile of here.”
He motioned them toward a sitting area just inside the front door. Frigga sat on the love seat underneath the front window. Loki set pots of strong coffee and herbal tea on the coffee table and let his guests pour for themselves while he fetched plates of sliced apples, wafer cookies, and homemade biscuits still steaming from the oven.
Frigga tilted her head and looked up at Loki. He shrugged. “Just had a feeling I’d have company this morning.”
“What would have given you that idea?” Thor struggled to get comfortable in the worn, mission-style chair at the far end of the table. He was coming to the realization that he was simply too large for conventional furniture. Grunting and flushing red, he wedged himself between the oak armrests. He heaved a sigh, and the chair frame creaked in protest.
Loki settled into a simple rocking chair on the other side of the table. “Something in the air didn’t feel quite right.” He poured himself a cup of tea and chewed thoughtfully on an apple slice as he rocked slowly. “That, and the fact that my postman yesterday got halfway to my mailbox, then suddenly stripped naked and dashed off into the woods screaming. Left the whole hill’s mail sitting in the dirt.”
“Berserker,” Thor grunted.
Loki responded with an unconcerned nod.
Bragi put down his cup of coffee and leaned forward. “So, what did you do?”
Loki pursed his lips and glanced out the window at the brightening morning sky. “I picked up the mail and delivered it myself.”
“YOU WHAT?!” Thor tried to launch himself out of his seat, but the chair gripped his broad hips and wouldn’t let go. He tried to stand, but managed only to lift the chair a couple of inches off the hardwood floor and then slam it back down again when he gave up.
“You’ve got a bloody Berserker running around your yard, and all you think to do is deliver the mail?!” Thor’s face and neck burned beet red, his large hands clenching the armrests and threatening to pull the chair to pieces.
Loki raised a hand. “Would you please try to keep your temper in check? I’m afraid you will be the death of my furniture. Handmade, you know.”
Thor looked to Frigga for help, and it took a second for him to register the glimmer in her eye and the hint of a smirk at the corners of her mouth. Loki was baiting Thor. It worked every time.
Frigga nibbled the edge of a biscuit and exclaimed in delight. “Loki! When did you learn to bake like this? You’ll have to give me the recipe.”
Loki nodded. “I got that recipe from my neighbor, Jane. We have kind of an informal exchange up here—the people who live on this hill.” He smirked at Thor. “We call ourselves the Mountain Cottage Wives. I’ve shared the old recipes for oatcakes and what the ladies are calling Viking Barley Bread, and I’ve come close to mastering their fruit pies and scones. I also make a mean buffalo chili.”
Thor eyed the plates of fruit and baked goods with skepticism then leaned back in his chair, which squealed again under the strain.
“There really was the Berserker, though.” Loki took a long sip of hot tea. “But there wasn’t anything for me to do. I figured that was more your department.”
Thor nodded, the flush on his cheeks fading.
Loki watched him with interest. “I gather there have been others?”
Frigga poured herself some tea and picked up a thin wafer cookie. “One that we know of. One of Odin’s students.”
Loki abruptly stopped rocking in his chair and looked at her, then resumed the motion as he sucked in his breath through his teeth. “That’s a young one.”
“Only by today’s standards,” Bragi offered.
Thor remembered how common it was to find boys as young as thirteen or fourteen in the warrior ranks, when going into battle was a right of passage and an honored duty. A boy wasn’t yet a man until he had spilled enemy blood. Only then could he enjoy the rights of property and status befitting a true warrior. Reaching the age of eighteen without being battle-tested was not only shameful, it was unheard of.
“Loki.” Thor leaned forward, trying hard not to do any more damage to the groaning chair. “The student awoke in front of Odin and me.”
Loki raised his eyebrows. “And?”
“And nothing. The Berserker didn’t so much as acknowledge either one of us. As though we weren’t even there.”
Loki reached for another slice of apple. He chewed as he spoke. “So. You think someone else has called the Berserkers—and not very efficiently, so perhaps it stands to reason you’d come questioning me.” His voice remained calm and even. “You surmise I might have something to gain by putting Berserkers into service against my estranged kin?”
Thor drummed his fingers on the wooden armrest and glared across the table at the god of chaos, but Loki turned to Bragi and stared him down.
“That’s not why we’re here,” Bragi said. “Nobody thinks that.”
Loki smiled. “Perhaps the reason the Berserker ignored Odin—and I’ll remind you, my postman ignored me when he awoke—is because you’ve all finally lost every last shred of divinity and are now nothing more than mortal beings.”
Bragi let out a startled squeak which he tried to cover with a cough and a long gulp of coffee. “Given those options, I suppose we should be happy that it’s the former. That it’s someone else.”
Thor leaned forward again, with the chair’s wooden frame squealing warnings of imminent splintering. “It’s Managarm.”
“Managarm,” Loki echoed. He narrowed his eyes and took small bites of a flaky biscuit. “The Moon Dog.”
“Yeah, you know, the dark, grumpy lesser god who not unlike yourself disappeared into the woods when the clan relocated to the Pacific Northwest,” Bragi spat.
“That’s enough,” Frigga said.
“The last I heard of my wolf cousin, he’d joined a survivalist group in the Cascades Mountains to wait out the coming Apocalypse.” Loki sipped his tea. “When was that? A century ago?”
Thor watched Loki closely. Loki swallowed hard and glanced sideways at Thor, then turned to Frigga to speak.
“You think Managarm seeks to bring about Ragnarok.” It was more statement than question. Loki finished his tea and rested his cup on the table. “So, let’s talk about my son.”
12
After a mostly sleepless night, Sally had awakened in a haze on Opal’s futon sofa. It took a few seconds to remember where she was and how she’d gotten there, but when it all came flooding back in a startling torrent, she was sure yet again that she was having a heart attack.
She avoided looking
in the mirror as she brushed her teeth and got dressed. She didn’t have to see her reflection to know that her aging problem had worsened overnight. She felt it in her aching joints and stiff muscles, and she could see it in Opal’s face when her friend looked at her.
And then there was the old god Managarm rattling around the apartment, even crankier than the night before despite the elaborate spell Sally had worked to banish his headache. As near as she could tell, the spell had worked but now she wondered if the Moon Dog was simply always in a bad mood.
They left the apartment before Sally was fully awake. The Berserker needed more food, and Managarm seemed anxious to relocate to the woods. And Sally was desperate to get her hands on a print copy of The Myth and Magick of Freya’s Rune Spells. After all their Google and database searches for online text, Opal found a used copy that had just been added to Powells’ inventory. So they’d all—Managarm, Sally, Opal, David, and Baron—piled into Managarm’s rusted Suburban and headed back to the City of Books.
Managarm parked in a small lot across the street from Powells, and Sally stepped out into the rain before he shut off the engine.
“Wait!” Managarm bellowed as she closed the door.
Sally waited for Opal to roll down the passenger side window. “What?”
“You will complete your errand and return immediately.” Managarm leaned across Opal to look Sally directly in the eye.
“Of course.” She was about to turn away when Managarm reached through the window and grabbed her wrist.
“You will also not mention me or your mission to anyone.”
Sally frowned. Her mission? Why would she tell anyone about the Moon Dog of the Norse pantheon waiting out in the car? After her display at the Customer Service desk yesterday, the people at Powells thought she was crazy enough already. She’d be lucky if they let her back through the door.
“Yeah, sure.” Sally pulled the hood of her rain jacket up over her head.
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