by C. Gockel
Baldur backs up a few paces. His eyes fall to Helen. How long has it been since he has been in the presence of Loki’s daughter? Loki blinks, not since that time in the great hall with Sigyn and Thor — when they both had remained uncharmed by the prince.
Loki sneers. Baldur meets his eyes and then turns and strides away. Loki’s eyes slide to Helen and he begins to laugh. “It’s Helen. Helen is bringing down the illusion!”
“Father...” says Helen.
“Is this true, Helen?” Heimdall says. “Can you see through all illusions?”
Helen looks at Loki, and he smiles encouragingly.
She nods, and looks down. “And liez. Is getting stronger.” She meets Loki’s eyes.
Loki stares at her in wonder. He can sense lies, but his daughter exposes them to all. He laughs again. “The humans will call you the Goddess of Truth, and the Judger of Souls!” Breathlessly, Loki shakes his head. The Goddess of Truth — his daughter! It makes no sense, but there it is.
Kneeling before her he smiles, new possibilities spinning out before him. “The All Father will make you an ambassador, he will put you before the dignitaries of the realms to judge their fealty!” She may never find love, but she will be valuable, she will have purpose, respect, and power— independence even, if she wants it.
Overwhelmed, and relieved, Loki pulls his Helen into his arms. The Goddess of Truth...how could such a beautiful creature even be his?
“A dangerous gift,” Heimdall says. But he sounds a million realms away.
Chapter 13
Mr. Squeakers climbs up Amy’s shoulder and settles by her ear. Amy looks back at her grandmother; Beatrice is crying. Amy sits up straighter. Does she understand them? She takes a sharp breath, and then Beatrice stands up and starts yelling in Ukrainian.
“She’s saying ‘Don’t take him, don’t take him’? But I sense no magic...What is she talking about?” Loki says, wide eyes meeting Amy’s.
Mr. Squeakers gives an alarmed squeak and Amy shakes her head. “I don’t know. Something from her childhood maybe?”
Beatrice screams and backs towards the window. The look of fear in her eyes is heartbreaking.
“Grandma,” Amy says. “It’s me. Grandma!”
But it’s as though Amy isn’t there.
Loki speaks a few words softly in Ukrainian. Beatrice lunges at him. He catches her easily and spins her around, pinning her arms against her chest. She shakes, and thrashes, screaming in Ukrainian, her eyes filled with anger and horror.
Loki looks at Amy with wide eyes. “What do I do?”
Amy runs to the door to call a nurse; they are already running down the hallway. The first nurse in the door has a needle in her hand. “Hold her!” she says to Loki. She has the sedative in Beatrice’s arm just a few moments later.
The other nurse, a middle-aged man who talks with an African accent says, “She has been doing this these past few days. None of us speak Russian or Polish, though, and we don’t know what she is talking about.”
As Beatrice calms down, the nurses take Beatrice from Loki’s arms and put her into bed. And then they leave.
Loki stares down at Beatrice. “All I said was that she was safe and that we wouldn’t hurt her. But then she called me a liar and accused me of killing her baby brother.” He looks at Amy.
She closes her eyes and rubs her temples. Beatrice never told her or the elves about having a little brother. But then she was from a breed of people who wouldn’t talk about such things.
The nurses didn’t close the door and from the hallway comes the sound of someone crying.
“Is this better than death?” Loki asks.
“I don’t know,” says Amy.
“I’m very good at killing things, Amy. And people.”
She turns her head to him sharply. Gerðr’s voice rings in her head, ‘Everyone knows Loki killed Asgard’s golden son.’
Loki’s just staring down at Beatrice, a hopeless expression on his face. “But when it counts, when it is a kindness...” He shakes his head. “I can’t.”
He says it as though it is such a weakness. She wants to reach out and put her hand on his arm, but doesn’t.
They stand in silence for a moment, but then Amy notices the sky outside is starting to darken. Biting her lip she says, “I have to go now.”
Walking over to Beatrice, Amy whispers, “Goodbye, Grandma,” and wipes away a few tears. She has no idea when it will be before she sees Beatrice again, now that her mother is moving her out of the city. Taking a deep breath, she looks over to Loki.
Walking over to Beatrice, he picks up her grandmother’s hand and kisses it but says nothing.
“Well,” says Amy.
Loki shakes himself and blinks at her. “Is it bad form to ask you if you’d like to get something to eat?”
“No, not really,” says Amy.
He perks up ever so slightly, and Amy feels sad for what she is about to say. “But I can’t, I have plans this evening.” Amy was very careful to make sure she had something to look forward to after this visit — now she sort of wishes she hadn’t. She is very glad he is here...and doesn’t want him to leave her. But he is unreliable, and she has to nurture relationships she can depend on.
Loki scowls.
“I’m going to a lecture on REM sleep in rhinoceroses at the University of Chicago. James’s wife is hosting it.”
Loki stares at her as though she’s just started speaking another language.
“Do you want to come?” Amy says, feeling slightly uncomfortable.
“Will there be food?” Loki asks.
Amy shrugs. “Yeah.”
“We’ll take my car!” says Loki, heading towards the door. “It will be much faster.”
A car would be much faster, the University of Chicago is on the far south side of town. Before she goes there she has to stop at home to let out Fenrir — and to find a proper nesting spot for Mr. Squeakers — she’ll have to switch trains at least two times. As they step out into the hallway, Amy’s heart leaps a little, and then she stops herself.
“You have a car? And you can drive it?” Loki made Beatrice’s Subaru a permanent load-bearing part of Beatrice’s garage wall.
Smiling, he says. “I drove it here. Though technically it isn’t mine.”
Amy stops short. “I’m not going anywhere in a stolen car!”
Smirking, Loki turns and waggles his eyebrows. “Relax, it’s a rental.”
A few minutes later Amy is staring down at a sleek ice blue sports car parallel parked on a nearby side street. “What sort of rental car is this?” she says.
“A Maserati Gran Turismo — from the Second City’s First Exotic Car Rental.” He holds up a key, and the car beeps, which is kind of reassuring. He has the keys! It isn’t stolen. She scowls. Maybe.
As he opens the door, Amy looks at the parking job. There isn’t much more than a foot between the front and back bumpers of the surrounding cars. “Ummm...you don’t have much room to get out.”
Loki shrugs, and slips into his side of the car. Blinking, Amy gets into her own seat. Noticing a “Second City’s First Exotic Car Rental” brochure in the door pocket she relaxes a little — at least when he crashes before they even get on the road it isn’t a stolen car.
To her surprise Loki pulls out of the impossible space without a hitch. She’s still craning her head back, not completely believing he’s done it, when he says, “So what is REM sleep?”
x x x x
“Beak and feet like a duck, body like a beaver, and it lays eggs? It’s a magical creature.” Inside the car, Loki turns his head to her and gives her a triumphant smirk. His forehead is still tight and pinched. Outside the cars on interstate 90/94 are whizzing by in a blur.
Heart in her throat, Amy cries, “Look at the road!”
Shrugging, he faces forward very slowly, as though deliberately trying to tick her off. Which he probably is.
“I don’t think the duckbilled platypus is magical,�
� Amy says.
“I think it is,” says Loki.
“You didn’t even know what one was until I explained it to you!” says Amy.
“I still think it is magical.”
“Maybe in the sense that all creatures are magical,” says Amy, trying to get to her point.
Loki snorts.
She scowls. “The point is...unlike marsupials and placental mammals, it doesn’t have true REM sleep. Therefore we know that REM sleep is a more recent adaptation.”
“Maybe it doesn’t need REM sleep because it is magical. Maybe that is its magical power!” says Loki.
Amy stares at him and then rolls her eyes. “Fine. Maybe it is a magical creature.”
“Ah - ha!” says Loki.
Rolling her eyes again, she looks out the side window.
But thinking of magical creatures has set her mind off in worrisome directions. “Do you think Mr. Squeakers will be okay?” When they’d stopped at her house to let Fenrir out, the spider mouse had jumped from her shoulder and dashed under one of her cabinets.
She turns her head back to Loki...and screams. The car right in front of them has just slammed on its brakes. She braces her hands on the dash for the impact...but it never comes. There is a skid of tires and a crash as the car right behind them barrels into the car that was right in front of them, but Loki has already swerved into the outer lane between two SUVs, with barely more room than he’d had when he parallel parked.
Hearing another crash, Amy looks back and sees a three-car pile up where they just were. She looks in front of them...traffic is slowing down everywhere.
Loki eases onto the brakes and then turns to her as though nothing has happened — and as though he isn’t driving a car and supposed to be watching where he is going. “I’m sure Mr. Squeakers is fine. He probably just spied a cockroach — they’re his favorite food. Hoenir can’t kill so he created the spider mice to deal with his cockroach problems.”
His face is so wide open and earnest. And then his brow tightens again and he looks back to the road. “Couldn’t kill. Had exotic animals.”
The air pressure in the car seems to drop. Outside traffic slows to almost a standstill. Neither of them says anything for a moment. Amy thinks of Beatrice and Hoenir...sighing, she turns on the radio and starts flipping stations.
“None of your modern music,” says Loki. “It’s too vulgar.”
Amy pauses. “Vulgar? You, Mr. I Like Big Boobs, is calling our music vulgar?”
Smirking, he tilts his head. “I have never called your divine bosoms anything so vulgar as boobs.”
Amy snorts and hits “Scan”. Over the radio speakers the Kings of Leon suddenly blast, “You, your sex is on fire.”
Loki snickers.
And okay. It is sort of funny. And it is good to see Loki happy again. Still, her face reddens as the singer belts out, “And you, your sex is on fire.”
Loki snickers again.
“Maybe he has a rash?” Amy says.
Loki stares at her, expressionless for a moment. And then he bursts out into cackles, his forehead colliding against the steering wheel. Thankfully they’re only going about 3 miles per hour and the next car is a good distance in front so if Amy grabs the wheel...
Before she’s grabbed it, Loki must hit the gas because they suddenly plow into the car in front of them...thankfully not hard.
The car in front comes to a stop.
Loki is still laughing.
Amy swallows. “Um...Loki...”
And then her head jerks as the car behind them hits them, again, not terribly hard, but still...
Loki wipes his eyes. “Hmmm....” he says.
Amy sighs. “I guess I’m not going to that talk.”
The man from the car in front of them gets out and starts walking towards his back bumper, looking none-too-happy.
“Will the police be coming?” says Loki.
“Probably,” says Amy.
Loki grabs her hand and looks into her eyes. “You will get to your lecture on REM sleep in rhinoceroses on time! I give you my oath.”
Amy looks at the stalled traffic. “You know, even if we weren’t in an accident, I don’t know if —”
She blinks...Loki suddenly isn’t there. She looks down at her hand — she isn’t here either, she’s invisible.
“No!” says the disembodied voice of Loki. “We shall! It shall be a grand quest! Get out of the car!”
“Um...okay,” says Amy, grabbing her mittens and opening the car door as the door on the opposite side opens.
She slips out into the parking lot their side of the freeway has become and is immediately assaulted by cold, the smell of gas and exhaust and the sound of car horns. An invisible hand lands on her arm.
Speaking in the direction she thinks he’s in she says, “But what about the police?”
Dragging her towards the median, he says. “I’m sure they’ll be able to handle it. Come on, hop over.”
“Ummm...” she says as she’s forcefully pulled over the median.
“I gave you my oath!” says Loki, dragging her away from the scene. “You will get there on time!”
“Well...” says Amy.
Pulling her firmly, invisible Loki says, “Also, the car is stolen, so it would be best if we were far away when the police arrive.”
“You told me it was a rental!” says Amy, slapping the invisible hand.
The hand withdraws and Amy is looking at a woman perhaps in her twenties. She has brown hair and large, doe-like brown eyes in a gentle rounded face. “A stolen rental,” says the girl in Loki’s voice. Amy looks her...Loki...up and down. This new illusion isn’t voluptuous, or scantily clothed. She’s wearing a long white sweater wrapped at the waist, and an A-line baby blue skirt that hits just below the knee. On her feet she’s wearing ballet slippers.
Amy’s mouth drops. “You look so wholesome.” Last time Loki adopted a girl disguise he’d been a scantily clothed Amazon.
The girl Loki smiles charmingly. Clearing her throat she speaks in a voice that is delicate and light. “I know.” She holds up a hand as though to flag down a taxi. “Believe me, every man with an ounce of chivalry in his bones is going to want to rescue us.”
Amy’s eyes widen as several cars slow, nearly causing an accident. “Are you sure we’re not just fishing for psychopaths?”
Girl Loki turns to her. “Oh, yes, they’ll stop, too. But don’t worry, I’ll have no qualms about killing them.”
Amy blinks at that, just as a taxi skids onto the median just in front of them. A young driver of indeterminable ethnicity jumps half-out and starts gesturing wildly for them to get in. “What are you doing! You’ll be killed out here! Get in! Get in! You don’t even have to pay!”
“Rats,” says girl Loki, dragging Amy by the hand. “I don’t think my killing skills will be needed.”
x x x x
“No,” Amy is saying to the cabbie as Loki sags in his seat. “We — I — can pay, really.”
Loki wishes she’d be quiet. The sound of Cera whining in his ear, and the cab driver’s radio tuned to a weather report, is adding to the headache he’s had all day.
“You could go to Vanaheim right now,” Cera says, as though privy to his thoughts.
Loki inhales sharply. He’d made a goal for himself...if he hadn’t cracked the outer containment sphere by this day he’d travel back to Visby, slip through the World Gate, and risk being arrested by the Vanir mages at the Royal Library.
...of course he could have left sooner. But as much as Cera annoys him, the thought of leaving her unprotected makes him feel faint and slightly nauseous.
Also, he just hates giving in to her petulant demands. He made it a point to book his plane flight for tomorrow, and he came out today, to be distracted from his burdens, partly just to annoy his whiny child.
“You can’t do it! You are a liar and a failure! Others are coming! They will help me.” Cera screeches.
Loki puts a hand over hi
s eyes. He’s heard this before.
“No, really,” Amy is saying, her voice far off and distant. “It’s alright. I can expense it.”
On the radio an announcer says, “This just in, a storm is brewing in Iowa. It’s taking meteorologists completely by surprise.”
Cera starts to hum. “Someone else has come. He’s stronger than you! He’ll help me lead the revolution. You’ll see!” Her misty form fades to pink and then vanishes.
Loki sits up in his seat, eyes wild, his heart beating in his ears. Over the radio the first announcer says, “None of our models forecast this weather pattern...”
“Loki, are you alright?” says Amy, her eyes wide.
Loki blinks. And then he smiles, his headache melting away. He has nothing to fear by who has come. Laughing, he snatches one of Amy’s mittens and swats her with it. “The man doesn’t want your money, Girl!”
Amy scowls and swats his cheek with the other mitten. “It’s not my money, it’s ADUO’s!”
Swatting her right back, Loki smirks, “Are you challenging me to a duel?”
She scowls. “Give me back my mitten!”
“Here!” says Loki, swatting her against the shoulder and cackling.
Leaning in, she tries to snatch the mitten from his grasp. Snickering, Loki leans back and holds the mitten just out of reach. She falls against him, delicious and soft; she hardly weighs anything...in fact, she’s quite comfortable. Sighing happily, he switches the mitten to the opposite side.
“Gimmee!” says Amy.
“No,” he says with a smirk. Glancing up into the reflection of the rear-view mirror, he notices the cab driver’s eyes are wide...and the man is licking his lips.
Loki’s eyebrows go up...of course, he looks like a demure young woman. What a delicious opportunity for mischief! Smirking, he coos, “Oh, no, a button on my sweater has come undone...now my bra is showing!”
“You faker! Give me my mitten!” Amy shouts, redoubling her attack.
“Oh, there goes another button!”
The cabbie swallows audibly, the car careens dangerously, and Amy’s breasts press just below his chin.
