by B. C. James
Her eyes grew as big as saucers as the semicircle of cloaked figures closed in on her. One of them held an ancient looking double-edged dagger. Meghen began to scream as one of the cloaked men started to speak. She could not hear what he was saying above chanted incantations of the other black clad figure. She struggled hard and managed to free one of her hands.
“Dark lord Surt, may the blood of this unworthy female please you!” said the hooded person with the knife.
He raised the weapon to the air. Meghen screamed and thrashed like an animal caught in a trap. With her one free hand she ripped the hood from his face. Looking back at her was a face she had seen many times before. On TV, he had smiled pleasantly and healed people with the word “Hallelujah.”
“Just get it over with Patrick,” Loki said, “Surt never did give a damn about pomp and circumstance. This is the last mortal girl he needs before we drag a goddess to the table.”
With that word, the televangelist drove the knife deep into her chest. She could feel his hand slide into the incision and start to tear at her insides. Her final memory was the image of a televangelist ripping her heart from her body and taking a bite out of it. Her scream faded away into the night as his bloody smile leered down at her.
Chapter 15
“Yoo hoo…wake up, Mr. Syrdon.”
The words rang in Dennis’s ears but didn’t immediately register. They sounded as if they were being spoken from several miles away. “C’mon sir, time to get up. You have a company to run.”
This time the far away voice was accompanied by something rhythmically hitting him in the head. “It’s well past nine sir, and you have meetings to attend. I can’t let you spend your morning face down, on your desk, drooling onto last week’s marketing reports. If you must drool onto something else. I have this morning’s copy of USA Today with me. No loss if that gets ruined.”
The pounding in his head continued as he heard these words. A few things had become clear. First, he had come back to the office after his date with Meghen and passed out while sitting at his desk. Second, the far away voice he was hearing was that of his secretary. And third, it seems that she had resorted to knocking on his head like it was a closed screen door in an effort to rouse him from a deep sleep.
“Okay, I’m up I’m up,” he said as he waved his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Is that coffee I smell?”
Holly Ann handed him a cup. Dennis crinkled his nose a little as the aroma of something that was not entirely unlike coffee reached his nostrils. If anyone had ever bothered to ask him his opinion of Holly Ann’s skill as an assistant, he would give them a thumbs up and then ramble on for an hour about her efficiency and how she deserved yet another raise. If he were asked to rate the quality of the coffee she made for him he would probably make an unflattering comparison to raw sewage. It was unclear how somebody so good at everything else could be so bad at an activity where her only real participation included pouring water and spooning in the coffee grounds. In the grand scheme of things, this seemed like a petty complaint at best. It was best for everyone if he just choked down her vile brew, smiled and balanced this tiny failing against her flawless performance in the rest of her duties.
“Your pinstripe suit is pressed and hanging in the closet while the briefing on the manufacturing capability of our new Chinese supplier is sitting in your inbox. I took the liberty of writing down the things that their representatives from Beijing may possibly consider rude. During your lunch with them today, try not to stray from the list. Opening your mouth and showing them the half chewed remains of your last bite is a definite no-no, and starting every sentence with the phrase, ‘Confucius says,’ will probably start an international incident. Can you keep that straight?”
“Yeah yeah yeah,” Dennis said as he padded off to the shower in his office’s bathroom. He began to loudly hum the type of cheesy music that is usually associated with low end strippers while he removed his clothes.
Dennis walked out of the bathroom wearing only a SpongeBob SquarePants shower cap and a soap on a rope, “Hey Holly, we have some time. Wanna join me in the shower? You can scrub my back and anything else you can reach.”
He knew she was tempted. Seeing him naked was nothing new to her. It was his office; he paid the rent on the building, so he saw nothing wrong with declaring his personal office space a pants optional zone when it was just the two of them there. OSHA may have a thing or two to say about that, but Holly wasn’t in a big hurry to call them.
Dennis was built exactly the way most guys are not, broad shoulders with a body that was very toned and muscular, but not over the top. His physique had more in common with an Olympic gymnast then a bodybuilder.
He could feel her glancing at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. A shower meeting was a fun thought to toy with but regardless of his flirtations, wealth, and good looks, she was a consummate professional and Dennis was still her employer. There were some lines he knew she wouldn’t cross.
“Is this going to be of those conversations where I have to re-read the Clarence Thomas deposition to you again? I would have figured that you would be too tired from your date last night to proposition me so early into your day. Didn’t everything go well?”
“Last night’s date? Meghen was spectacular. We had ourselves a killer evening.”
Dennis winked at her and stepped back into the bathroom. Holly Ann began to rearrange the papers on his desk and noticed something off to the left corner. It was a skull that had been lacquered brown. She touched the chin and found that the stain on the item was still wet.
Holly yelled into the bathroom, trying to be heard over the shower, “Excuse me, but what is this morbid thing on your desk?”
Dennis turned off the water and came sauntering out of the bathroom, soaking wet,
“What morbid thing? Were the marketing reports that bad?”
“No, I meant that skull in the corner. That’s new and it looks so...well...real.”
“Ohhhh that! Well, you know how some people go out and paint mugs on a first date, and others go to those places that let you make your own teddy bear? Well, I had a slightly different type arts and crafts evening with Meghen. Do you like it?”
Holly turned away in minor revulsion. In many ways she didn’t understand guys. It started when she was a kid and Adam Alexander, her first crush, chased her all over the playground with the garter snake he had in his pocket. She just assumed boys outgrew this sort of thing, but apparently they didn’t. It appears that they grow into men who like to display dismembered body parts on their desks.
“Ugh, it’s disgusting. Somehow it seems to be looking at me out of its eye sockets”
“Hey babe, no problemo.” Dennis grabbed a handful of pencils from his drawer and put them in the holes where Meghen’s eyes once were. “See, not only is it not looking at you anymore, but I also found a purpose for it. Voilà! Instant pencil holder. This thing kicks ass! Want me to get you one?”
“No thanks, I’ll just keep putting my pencils in my mug. If this is what Meghen is into, I don’t think I want to meet her.”
Dennis smiled coyly. “Well, I doubt I will be going out with her again, but this skull will always remind me of the beautiful one night stand we spent together. Originally she wanted to keep it. In fact, it was murder getting her to part with the thing, but I just simply had to have it!”
Holly Ann walked out of his office with a sense of discomfort. She told herself it was because all her life she was the type of person who fainted at the sight of blood and got grossed out in biology class. The presence of such a realistic looking skull, even if it was just replica from an arts and crafts project, made her a bit jumpy. In reality her subconscious mind had caught every little double entendre and veiled implication that had been uttered by Dennis Syrdon. However, her conscious mind refused to accept the possibilities they presented. For all she knew he was spewing phrases with double meanings just to freak her out. This was his version of chasing her
with a garter snake. Or maybe it wasn’t. For the rest of the day, she sat at her desk conflicted and uncomfortable.
Dennis giggled to himself in the shower. Had Holly Ann heard the maniacal laughter, not only would she be conflicted and uncomfortable, but would run from the office as fast as her long legs would carry her. In that brief moment, the façade of Dennis Syrdon seemed to be washed away from his body, gurgling noisily down the drain along with the soapy water. For that instant he was Loki, the God of Lies. He giggled harder as he thought about Meghen and her screams as the heart was ripped out from her body. This sacrifice had brought him closer to an alliance with Surt, the Fire Giant. She was the last of the required human sacrifices.
The original plan was to get Surt on his side, go to war with Odin, and use the king of the Gods as a piñata. After that he would leave Odin’s broken body to his son, Fenris, the one destined by prophecy to finish off the annoying old God. When the news had reached Loki’s ears that Thor had renounced his godhood and tossed his hammer away, another plan took shape. He would ally with Surt, double-cross and kill him with Mjölnir, and once the hammer had absorbed the soul of the most badass demon the universe had ever seen, Loki could use this power to slay all his enemies, maybe even his own children if they became a threat, and then become king of, well…everything.
To accomplish either plan he still needed Freya. The sacrifice of a goddess was the final step after sending scores of mortal souls to Surt. The demon truly demanded a high price for an alliance: a perfect mercenary. Seeing as the hammer would only allow itself to be used by Thor, Loki would need a piece of Thor so that he could use his shape shifting ability to mimic the Thunder God right down to his DNA. Mjölnir would be able to sense if he was just someone who looked like its master, so the transformation needed to be complete and at the genetic level.
Loki was the God of Lies. He was also a shape shifter. This ability often added credibility to his various schemes. For most of his life he used this gift for pranks, getting laid, and an occasional dine and dash. Some of his best moments involved him changing his form to mess with people’s heads. He was pleased to know that he could now use this power to become a playful despot to all of creation.
Surt would either be his ally or his victim. Either way, Loki would be playing a winning hand and nothing Odin could do would stop him.
He wondered if Odin had a clue of how close he was to victory. That he was one, insignificant, goddess sacrifice away from bringing Surt to Earth. To play the role of the victim in his final triumph, Loki had his heart set on Freya. He was focused on her to the point of obsession. If anyone asked him, he would say that it was nothing personal, just business. He may even do an impression of Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone while saying it. The truth is that it was completely personal. If he just wanted to sacrifice a Goddess, he could have simply kidnapped Skadi, Idun, or one of the other Aesir who were far easier targets. Hell, if push came to shove, putting Mila Kunis on the sacrificial altar may satisfy the requirements, but Loki wanted Freya.
She has always spurned his advances and laughed at his displays of affection. If there were any love in his heart, it would have been for her. But her choice was to cast him aside. This is a choice he had vowed to make her live to regret.
The pity was that he was truly the only one who could understand her. They were more alike than she would ever admit. He would make her confess that before she died. She would scream it out, over and over again.
Loki felt the tepid water pour over his body. The steam from the shower wrapped around him like a warm blanket. It was in the stillness and calm of moments like these that he could feel events beyond his body. Loki, for the first time in centuries, could sense the presence of his children upon the Earth. His son, Jormungand, had freed himself from the prison the Aesir had trapped him in.
For thousands of years Odin had his son locked within the very crust of the Earth, but now he was free. This huge dragon now swam freely in the planet’s oceans and lakes, feeding and gathering strength, traveling through water and rock like they were air.
To the west Loki could almost hear the howl of his second son, Fenris, the Wolf. With his help, this demonic product of a liaison between the God of Lies and a giantess had broken the bonds that the elves created for him at Odin’s behest. Fenris was now free, and really pissed off. Loki snickered and wondered if Odin could sense the wolf as well. The ancient prophecies foretold that it will be Fenris who kills Odin.
“It will be a fitting death for that pompous old windbag,” Loki muttered to himself.
For centuries, Loki was a prisoner of Odin’s anger. Odin blamed him for the death of his favorite son, Baldr. Despite the fact that it was actually the blind god Hoder who did the killing, Loki was the one unjustly punished. All he did was put Hoder up to it and give him the weapon to slay Baldr with.
In retribution, Odin killed Loki’s son, Nari, and bound the God of Lies to three boulders deep in a cave with the entrails of his own slain child. Above his head he placed a serpent. From the fangs of this reptile dripped burning, acidic venom. Each drop that touched his forehead caused tortuous pain of unimaginable proportions. Were it not for his wife Sigyn, who held a bowl over his head and caught the venom before it touched his skin, he would have been in agony every second of every day for the for years without end.
Sigyn was beautiful, with snow-white skin and bright blonde hair. Her very presence was a comfort to him. She would tell him jokes, satisfy his desires, and help him pass the years until he would be free. All the while her sweet voice would whisper hate against Odin into his ear, and further steel Loki’s resolve for vengeance. She could never forgive Odin for what he did to her son, Nari. Whether or not Loki was responsible for Baldr’s death was neither here nor there. Nari was an innocent and completely without blame in the crime. He did not deserve to die.
“Can you feel him Odin, can you hear Fenris howl? He is coming for you old man. He is three stories tall and 25 tons of enraged canis lupus. He’ll eat you alive!”
Loki whispered this in the shower. He wasn’t really into the habit of talking to himself, but he liked how the words sounded coming out of his mouth. The idea that one of his children would kill the head of the Aesir was a warming thought. His other two children would take care of the rest of Odin’s family. The prophecies spoke of Thor’s death by the venomous teeth of his son, Jormungand. His daughter Hela and her army of the undead would take care of the rest of the gods. It would probably look something like the old movie Night of the Living Dead, except Hela’s zombies are quick, purposeful, and uninterested in the brains of their victims.
Loki turned off the shower and spent a few moments trying to get back into the character of Dennis Syrdon. He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself.
“No, that’s not right,” he muttered, “Dennis doesn’t wear a towel.”
He let the towel drop to the floor, grabbed a razor, and put on a big smile as he walked out of the bathroom.
“Hey sweet cheeks,” he called to Holly; “Wanna shave my back before I get dressed for this meeting?”
Chapter 16
Thor sat alone in the locker room. Well, it wasn’t really the locker room. Thor didn’t do locker rooms. He wasn’t really the social type and had very little in common with his teammates. He didn’t give a damn about the camaraderie or the “band-of-brothers” bond that was often forged between the players on a team. He was here for worship. He didn’t need the company of his teammates for that. So, in any stadium that the Raiders were competing, he would play the diva card and insist on private quarters in which to prepare for the game. In the case of State Farm Stadium, where the Arizona Cardinals play, they accommodated his need for privacy by giving up one of the 88 luxury lofts for him to use it as his own, fully catered, dressing room.
The Thunder God was lost in thought as he prepared for what was his version of going to church. The reappearance of Baldr in his life stirred up bits of his psych
e like sediment rising from the bottom of a lake during a storm.
After his wife died, and he walked away from his divinity, Thor wrapped himself in cynicism like a warm blanket. The funny thing about cynicism was that it made an excellent shield against a world that wanted nothing more than to cause someone pain. The trap was that the shield could eventually become a hard shell, and eventually a tomb.
Thor was well aware that he was a jerk. He also knew that the persona he showed to the world had all the personality and sparkle of a plate of haggis. Baldr returning from what should have been a permanent afterlife was profound, but it also reminded Thor of the man he used to be.
There was a time when he enjoyed the company of friends and had an actual sense of humor. For the first time in ages, he missed being the guy who would drink everyone around him under the table, and sober up with a rousing game of Pull My Finger. He missed telling jokes and replacing the weapons of the einherjar, Valhalla’s elite warriors, with extra-long bratwursts before they went into battle.
Despite the fact that Baldr tended to be a pretentious, elitist bore, Thor grudgingly enjoyed hanging around with him. It gave him somebody with a similar background and experiences to associate with.
While he would never admit it openly, Thor was also very self-conscious of how he must appear to his long lost brother. The man he was now must look less like the God of Thunder and more like a castaway who had been separated from civilization for far too long. Maybe this was just a godly version of a mid-life crisis talking, but changes would have to be made. Maybe starting with a joke wasn’t the worst idea.
