For a Good Time, Call Loki (The Loki Adventures)

by Blair, Dawn

  Water splashes against the sides threatening and trying to get in. I hope my walls are thick enough and don’t melt away. I don’t need to find myself suddenly encased in ice.

  A new thought enters. I remind myself that I still need to remake the jar which holds the Valkyrie hairs. Why is it that the fabric of Midgard makes people think of obscure to-do’s at absolutely the worst time. Frankly, I think this is proof of a remnant curse left by a god more ancient and cruel than myself.

  Soon, I make it down to the spell which caps the top of the well and keeps the pond water at bay. The magic is invisible until I put my hand on it, then it changes to red. When has red ever been a good color? It’s not even a good color for love. Anything red hot is bound to cool just as fast. My skin turns blue as the ice magic of Jotunheim counters the spell and bends it beneath my hand. It’s not even strong magic. The caster didn’t understand the fabric of Midgard and the rich power contained within the fabric of this realm.

  The spell shatters beneath me.

  “Incoming!” I hear someone shout but it’s not Elliot. As I fall, I realize I should’ve asked if there was someone in the well with him. Someone guarding him perhaps.

  Gods do not panic.

  Chapter 8

  Gravity is not friendly, yet it really likes to hold onto things. I’m discovering that as I fall.

  And I’m not alone.

  That’s what has me worried. Worried, mind you, not panicked.

  Something with wings grabs me. It’s gray, but not overly large. I think I hear it apologize as it shifts trying to hold onto me without digging claws into my skin. It’s a good thing that my slacks and shoes have already been ruined because now I’m certain I have holes in my black suit jacket.

  Unfortunately the flying creature can’t bear my weight. We’re doing this combined thing of sliding and crashing down the well. A pointed tail lashes into my face. I see a flash of his aqua-blue eyes before he squeezes them tight as if summoning all the strength he can to keep me from falling.

  “Let go, you oaf,” I shout.

  “I got you,” it shrieks back in a voice much higher than Elliot’s.

  “I don’t want you to help me.”

  Then there’s the landing. Not my most graceful I will admit. Of course, how elegantly would you land with an insane winged beast trying to glom onto you? It’s a good thing I can’t be broken.

  I roll onto my back. Yes, I landed on my face, okay. As I said, it wasn’t very stylish. A full-fledged swan dive belly flop. I wonder if Hercules at the Ataraxis Tavern has made that drink – a swan dive belly flop. If not, he should. Pain like this really should be shared.

  As I sit up and shake my head to refocus my vision, I see the little flying imp hanging in the air, his gray wings flapping with a steady beat. He seems to be swimming in duplicates before me like a flock of seagulls. I can really do without this.

  The well smells of wet earth, the walls seeping a little but the water looks fresh on the green moss growing over the stone.

  “Are you okay?” a boy I can only presume is Elliot asks me. He has his hand raised like he wants to put it on my shoulder but doesn’t dare as if he’s afraid I will disappear if he touches me.

  I jump to my feet and rush backwards away from the imp until the brick wall impedes my movement. I wonder momentarily if I should grab the dirty little blond boy standing before me, but he’s looking between me and the flying beast with curious blue eyes as if wondering what I’m finding so shocking. How strange, considering he’s the one down in the well. Why am I acting like the one who’s never seen a transdimensional creature before?

  I remember myself and push away from the wall. Clearing my throat, I pull down on the edges of my ruined jacket to straighten it.

  “Elliot?” I ask the blond boy.

  “Yes, sir?” He steps forward. As he does so, he holds out his hand. I shake it. “It’s nice to meet you, but who are you?”

  I scoff. “I am Loki of Asgard.”

  The boy stares blankly at me as if it means nothing to him. What had I expected, bowing and scraping? The boy has been stuck in a well for crying out loud.

  “How long have you been here?”

  More deer in the headlights look.

  The imp flies down and settles on the boy’s arm which he has tucked near his chest. “If I may,” the imp begins with a nasally, high-pitched, informative tone, “He has been here for five of these earth years.”

  I try to ignore the fact I feel like I’ve just stepped into a bad kid’s movie where there’s the not-so-average child being taught and protected by creature of a different race in a mentor role. Yet here I am. “Five years? Your dad put you down here five years ago?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I really hoped one day I would run into this so-called father. Then he’d discover true meaning of abandonment issues.

  I looked to the imp. “And you are?”

  “He’s my friend and guardian,” Elliot spoke quickly as if I were about to take his pet away.

  The imp looked at me with big, watery, blue-green eyes. Yep, I’m here with the fairytale hero and the mentor. How cliché is that?

  “Are you both ready to go home?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I start to reach for the boy, but hold back for a moment. “Why are you here?”

  “I refused to use my magic,” he answers.

  Foreign concept. I’m probably giving him a blank look now. If not blank, then deeply questioning. “Not using magic?”

  “Elliot is half-djinn,” the imp says. “If he uses his genie magic, his father will bottle him.”

  I made a motion with my hands to indicate something the size of a lamp. Elliot nodded, looking half scared. Feeling incredulous, I threw my hands into the air and started walking around the inside circumference of the well. I point to the walls, “So this is better? Five years in here? How long would you have remained if I hadn’t come along?”

  Elliot looks on the verge of tears. He shakes his head.

  “The only way his father would release him was if he used his magic to get out,” the imp says.

  “But of course that leads to him being put in a lamp, exchanging one prison for another.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  What a weight to carry. I had to admire the boy’s conviction. “He won’t end up bottled if I send him home?” I had to be sure. This wasn’t something I’d ever had to deal with. I certainly didn’t want to become another enemy in the whole hero’s journey plotline we seemed to be sharing here.

  “No, sir,” Elliot answers. “It would have to be my own magic. As long as I never use my own magic, I am free.”

  “He is a boy,” I tell the imp. “Can you still care for him on his home world? You will still be his guardian?”

  “We share the same world,” the imp replies. The way he said it makes me think that maybe the imp has heard of me and my mission of penance here on Midgard. Has the imp somehow been responsible in some way for drawing me here, within hearing distance of a powerful god-child who didn’t have a phone to call for help? The imp continues, “He is my charge until he has no further need of me.”

  “Then care for him well.” I put one hand on the boy’s head and the other on the imp. “Skreli farhausten kjord.” They vanish from beneath my touch.

  Well, that sent them home. Now, how to get myself out of here?

  I look up at the stone wall of the well. I can barely see the white ice of the cylinder holding back the pond water above me. I have a Valkyrie hair in reserve inside my phone, but I hate to spend it especially when this job has gone unrewarded. I did my duty and sent a transdimensional, two in fact, home. Where was my compensation? Of course, if I used my stashed hair, I might still have the problem of getting home.

  Hmm, I seemed to have a dilemma. I felt like the center of one of Thor’s jokes. I could almost hear him singing, “Let’s throw Loki in the well, in the well, in the well. Oh, let’s throw Loki in the well.”

/>   “Fenrir!” I call.

  The pup’s enthusiastic jump smashes into the ice column above me. As ice shards rain down on me, I suddenly wish I’d had a different plan.

  A deep growl sounds above me. Fenrir has grown full-sized. His claws dig into the wall as he falls and slides down the well.

  Oh yes, a different plan would have been smart. Too late.

  The next second, Fenrir is down in the well with me. Water pours over the edge of the cylinder where he’d smashed through. It splashes into his face, which he angrily shakes off, only to have another wave drench him. A wet wolf is not a happy one.

  It’s a real good thing my suit is already ruined. Poor suit.

  It’s a good thing I’m not breakable. Poor me.

  “Let’s go home,” I yell at Fenrir.

  “Yes, Papa!”

  Chapter 9

  I walk into the hotel with Fenrir tucked under my arm.

  The bobble-head clerk who had first checked me into my room is back at his desk and looks up at me with alarm as the door slides closed behind me. “Are you all right?” he asks. “Do I need to call an ambulance?”

  I wonder if really look that bad. I hold out my free arm before me. My suit hangs in tatters with long, dangling threads. I suppose I could have fixed it, this piece of sewn material being the simple work of a human. I could’ve changed into my Asgardian robes. So why hadn’t I?

  Because I wanted to be seen like this? Because I wanted to show I’d done a hard day’s work? Because I wanted the world to know of my redemptive labors? Or was there something more?

  “I’m fine,” I answer the clerk. I start to walk past his desk to the elevator, but I pause. “No, I’m better than fine. I’m free. I’ve had a really good day.”

  That much was true. I’d broken a little boy out from his father’s control and I’d brought my own son home.

  I shift Fenrir from one arm to the other so I can tap the wooden counter with the side of my fist. “Yes, if you ever want a good time, call Loki. Say my name. That simple.”

  I continue for the elevators, but turn back. “You can do that, right? Just call out for Loki?” I’m stepping backwards now and reaching behind me to hit the elevator call button.

  Before I press it, the round white button lights up yellow as the doors slide open with a ding.

  “Oh, Mr. Loki, I almost forgot.” The bobble-head reaches for something tucked away on his desk. “Your assistant left these for you.”

  I see him raise the car keys and I hold out my hand for him to toss the keys to me. He’s a little slow and I wonder if he understands I want him to throw me the keys. When I’m about to order him to flip me the keys, he gives them an underhand pitch. I suddenly have a bright, shiny, new appreciation for Jason. He is sharper than most humans. Maybe next time Jason annoys me, I won’t fire him right away.

  The elevator door starts to close behind me and I slide my foot back to keep it open. As the door strikes my shoe, it opens back up.

  “Thank you,” I say, pocketing the keys.

  Then I turn and see a warning message. The rune Thurisaz has been painted on the elevator’s back wall with gold paint. No, it’s not paint for it glows and hangs in the air rather than being attached to the wall. It’s been magically cast there. The rune is in the reversed position. Someone’s sending me a message that I’m a thorn in their side and they don’t like it.

  Someone who had to be watching me now to know I’d chosen to take the elevator rather than run up the stairs.

  I smile, even as I feel Fenrir look between me and the rune. Then I reach out for the hovering rune but don’t quite bring myself to touch it. It’s a threat that I’ve overstepped my bounds and need to back off. Maybe I had done better than I first believed, maybe my opponent had hoped to take me out so quickly that I never knew what happened and now I’ve done nothing but foul up his plans.

  Had I not warned them? Did they not know that Loki is not one to be trifled with? What part of ‘god of mischief’ don’t they understand?

  Yes, it is true. The fabric of Midgard had gotten to me, made me mellow. But much like the shaping of my ice, I am what I create myself to be. That is a power within everybody’s grasp should they chose to take it. I am reclaiming mine. I know who and what I am. It is time for me to remind the other gods.

  If I’m a thorn pricking at my aggressor without trying, then I’m about to have a real good time. Let the game continue.

  About the Author

  Dawn Blair grew up on a ranch in a rural Nevada town. The space and old buildings provided inspiration for her wild imagination. Today, she loves creating worlds and stories for people to enjoy. The best ones are the tales that surprise her as well. Loki’s tale is one she’s having great fun with, even though it has cost her many hours of sleep because his story wants to be told. She’ll gladly tell you that it has been worth every moment.

  . In addition to writing, she also paints, illustrates, and is teaching herself how to animate.

  So many stories, so little time.

  Books by Dawn Blair:

  Sacred Knight:

  The Three Books

  Manifest the Magic

  To Birth a Destiny

  The Loki Adventures:

  1-800-Mischief

  For Sale, Call Loki

  For A Good Time, Call Loki

  Looking for a book to improve your own writing? Check out The Write Edit

  Watch the website for more upcoming releases.

  www.morningskystudios.com