by B. C. James
Freya did her best to calm him down using hushed tones and a reasonable explanation that his cloak had only cancelled out one of the senses. Baldr’s loud talking was still giving them away to anyone with a working set of ears.
The fact that they had been fighting and sweating for most of the day already made them obvious to anyone who wasn’t suffering from a sinus infection. Those wondering where all the talking and stinking was coming from need only waddle in their general direction and bump into them before the sense of touch came into play. And while she was pretty sure that Baldr wasn’t deliberately trying to call attention to them, he was obviously very proud of himself and more than a little cocky.
Eventually her quiet demeanor and plea for silence convinced him to settle down. She also employed the age-old debating technique of stepping on Baldr’s foot and shushing him to convince him to close his mouth. After that, their trip through the stadium and out to the parking lot was mostly uneventful.
The only hitch was when they passed the dead looking guy who had delivered the briefcase to Simmons. He was seated in the main concourse enjoying a foot-long hotdog and a Hostess pudding pie. He raised his pale face in Freya’s direction, tipped his hat to her, and went right back to shoveling sauerkraut on his hotdog. Apparently those who qualify as extras in a Night of the Living Dead remake were not fooled by the tricks of light that Baldr was so proud of. It was also obvious that he had no ill intentions toward them.
It wasn’t too far of a stretch to assume that concession stand food was in short supply in Hel, or wherever this zombie was dredged up from. Even if this creature was among their growing list of enemies, considering how he was eyeing the deep-fried Oreo stand, it was clear he would rather sink his teeth into something fried in funnel cake batter than a small contingent of rogue gods.
They made their way to the parking lot where people were milling about in both confusion and excitement. It had been a big day for the football fans of Arizona. Thor, arguably the biggest sports star on the planet, had been arrested for turning his back on truth, justice, and the American Way. According to the government and Chris Matthews, he had thrown his lot in with Islamic terrorists and was ready to declare jihad on everything from Zionists to a Kmart blue light special during Ramadan. Because of this, the stadium was now crawling with black-suited agents.
While that, in itself, was enough to capture the imagination of people gathered at the stadium, cheerleaders were also raining down from the luxury lofts. But after falling an impressive distance and crashing through a number of stadium chairs like mini skirted meteors, the cheerleaders just brushed themselves off, mumbled a few profanities, and walked away unhurt.
To top it all off, there was even a rumor going through the crowd that Brett Favre was going to come out of retirement and take the job as the quarterback of the Cardinals. That piece of gossip turned out to be false but added spice to an already exciting spectacle. All this had happened before the game had even started, so the crowd figured the subsequent events could only get better from that point on.
Freya, Baldr, and the unconscious Thor were barely in the parking lot when Freya caught site of Brock. He was conspicuously parked in a fire lane, leaning against his Challenger and looking like he was doing a hackneyed James Dean impression. She looked at him posing with his tight T-shirt, slightly baggy jeans, sunglasses, and a cigarette hanging casually out of his mouth. She guessed that he was posturing for her benefit. Were Freya the Goddess of ESP instead of the deity of really good sex, she could have peeked inside his mind. If that were the case, she would have discovered that she was absolutely right.
Freya tugged at the back of Baldr’s shirt and inclined her head in the direction of Brock and his deep black machine. “Our ride,” she said in a barely audible whisper, “...and I call shotgun!”
Brock did his best to look cool, relaxed, and aloof. If he had learned anything from thousands of hours of romantic comedies and sit-coms, it was that really hot chicks dig guys who look like they don’t care. After a little practice in the hotel mirror, Brock was surprised exactly how much flexing was required for someone to look cool, relaxed, and aloof. At the moment, he wished she would hurry up because the act of looking detached was causing him to cramp up in inconvenient places.
“Hi, cutie, now don’t freak out…” Freya whispered into his right ear. He turned and was surprised to see that he was alone. The voice was unmistakably Freya’s. The scent was also hers. Brock was never quite sure if she was just the owner of a wildly stimulating perfume or if the scent was just her natural aroma, but either way he could smell it in the air.
“Now, slowly open the door and please do NOT react to anything you may or may not see.”
He could feel Freya’s breath on his ear as she whispered instructions to him. Brock was not the kind of person who believed in things he couldn’t see. He saw himself as a being that was firmly grounded in the natural world, filtering and interpreting everything around him with the keen predatory senses of a lion, or at least Ted Nugent. This world view often didn’t leave room for bossy, disembodied voices giving him orders. Then again, that may have been what Joan of Arc thought before she started hearing voices. That worked out pretty well for her, at least in the short run.
Without warning, his car dipped as if somebody dropped about seven hundred pounds of debris in the backseat.
“Okay, now drive,” he heard Freya say.
Brock got into the driver’s seat and pulled out on to Maryland Ave., headed in the direction of Highway 101. His curiosity was getting the best of him. He was about to reach around in his car to feel if anyone was actually there, or if he was just enjoying a contact buzz from the skateboarders who had been practicing in the stadium parking lot.
Before his hand could make contact with a solid object, Baldr stopped doing his light bending trick. To Brock, the effect of them appearing in his vehicle was similar to the way Star Trek showed a Klingon Bird of Prey dropping its invisibility cloak. Gene Roddenberry would have been pleased to know that his special effects department had gotten it right.
Brock looked at them with a wide-eyed expression. “That was SO Cool!”
He pulled the car over into a Taco Bell parking lot where Freya made some hasty introductions between Brock and Baldr. She simply referred to Thor as her brother and hoped he wouldn’t ask too many questions. When she called him earlier, she made it very clear that she wasn’t alone, and that her “brother” was very sick. But she took this opportunity to stress that Baldr was a platonic friend.
What surprised her most was that Brock was not phased in the least by the events. He was accepting to the point of it being more odd then charming. There was something about it that she found disquieting. He was less interested in who they were and more fascinated in their little invisibility act. After watching them appear in his car out nothing, he had an expression on his face like a puppy that had just discovered the wonders of a squeak toy.
“That was the best trick I’ve ever seen! Better than when that guy made the Statue of Liberty disappear…and I don’t EVEN want to know how you did it! Okay, well maybe. How’d you do it? No, don’t tell me…I hate when magicians give away their secrets…well maybe a hint. No, don’t…I don’t want to know…that was SO cool!”
Freya glanced at Baldr who had the look of a cat that had just gotten away with turning a pet canary into a McNugget. His expression sent a clear “Yup, I Rule” message to her.
“Oh, shut up!” Freya said in response to his unspoken, yet very loud gloating.
In spite of the praise for his adept visual effects, or absence thereof, Baldr’s uncomfortable position in the small backseat of a sports car quickly overshadowed his excitement. “I think a do-over is in order. We should’ve Rock-Paper-Scissored over who should be stuck in a constrictive rear seat, nursing a 300-pound patient.”
“Oh no, my dear Baldr, the rules of ‘shotgun’ are simple and well-defined. The first person to make the declaration get
s the seat; anyone else is S-O-L. The relevance of the other person’s desire is of no consequence once the word has been uttered.”
Brock stopped listening to them argue over who got to sit next to him. He was mildly entertained by their back and forth, but seeing as it was his car, he would make the final decision. Baldr seemed like a nice enough guy, but biology, chemistry, and the fact that Freya seemed to share a genetic code with Ginger Grant sealed the deal about who would keep the shotgun seat.
Throughout the debate over whether “shotgun” rules were rigid dictates or malleable guidelines, Brock studied the large comatose figure that had been dumped into his back seat. The guy looked familiar to him. Quite frankly, the guy looked like a relief map of Asia to him, but the face was familiar. Even though he wasn’t a big sports fan, it finally hit him who the unconscious mountain was.
“Hey, isn’t that the guy who the news says is a terrorist? The one who plays football? What was his name? Zeus?”
This statement stopped the banter between Baldr and Freya in its tracks. In their rush to get away from the stadium without being seen, it hadn’t occurred to either of them how a near stranger may react to possibly being on the wrong side of an aiding and abetting charge.
Baldr’s first instinct was to lie. Actually, that was his second instinct. His first instinct was to hit Brock with a tire iron and stuff him in the trunk until they were safely out of harm’s way.
“Yeah, the media says a lot of things,” Baldr said while feeling around under the passenger seat for anything he could inflict a quick and potentially problem solving concussion with. “And they’re usually wrong.”
“Baldr, stop!” Freya said sharply as she guessed, correctly, what he was up to. “Now just sit back and keep your hands folded in your lap where I can see them.”
She turned back to Brock who was eyeing Baldr through the rear view mirror with some suspicion. She put her hand on his hand and smiled.
“His name is Thor, sweetie, and yes, I am sure the news is saying that he is possibly a terrorist. There is an explanation though...”
Freya didn’t know how to complete that sentence without either lying unconvincingly or sounding mentally unbalanced.
“Okay, there isn’t an explanation, at least not one that doesn’t sound insane, and we can go into it all later if you like, but the truth is, I have known Thor for most of my life. And while he is often an egotistical, insufferable bore, he is no terrorist, or jihadist, or rouge militia member or anything else that is being said about him.”
Freya looked at Thor and brushed the hair away from his forehead. This day was the first time in many, many years that she had been around Thor. While he had been unconscious the whole time, just being around him and Baldr brought her back to places in her memory that she rarely visited anymore. The longer she continued to live in the world of mortals and participate in the human race, the less frequent her private trips down memory lane became. Those journeys simply depressed her too much.
Her life on earth had become shallow and colorless. She had become a two-dimensional caricature of the goddess she once was. She had allowed herself to be tricked into leaving Asgard for Earth on the pretense of seeking worship. Now that she was stranded in the world of humans, the best she could do was to be worshipped by one man at a time, and only if the price was right. Was that truly better than no worship at all?
Seeing her old friends again, even under such improbable circumstances, Baldr somehow back from the dead and Thor a fugitive from Homeland Security, made her feel alive again. She once again felt like a three-dimensional goddess instead of a fading, two-dimensional pinup. She hadn’t realized how much she missed having color in her life. Looking at Thor, unconscious, in the back and Baldr pouting because she wouldn’t let him whack her friend with a tire iron made her realize just how much she missed the company of those who had once been such a big part of her life.
Freya gently squeezed Brock’s hand. “In the past, Thor had been like a brother to me. Of course, you don’t know him, and you barely know me, so none of this may mean that much to you. And that’s okay. If you decide to trust me and help us, I can’t guarantee that everything is going to turn out all right, so I would understand if you didn’t want to get involved, but, if you decide to put us out, all I ask is that you give us a bit of a head start.”
Brock rolled his eyes. “I hate when chicks get all dramatic and heavy.”
He started his car and pulled out on to the road. “That soliloquy would have been more entertaining if you threw in some traveling pants or talked about getting your groove back.” He flashed her a toothy smile. “For God’s sake, all you need is a ride and for me to keep my mouth shut, right?”
Freya refused to let him make her feel silly about the sentimentality that had crept into her words, “Let’s hope that is all we need from you.”
“So, what’s a little “Harboring Fugitives from the law” rap between friends anyway? Now, when this is all done, am I still just a ride, or is there any chance of taking you out on a date that doesn’t include invisibility cloaks and running from the police?”
“That depends on how good a ride you are,” Freya said coyly.
“You know what? That is such an obvious straight line that I can’t bring myself to dignify it with a response,” Brock retorted as they merged from the entrance ramp and into the sparse highway traffic.
“Let’s see, you picked me up as hitchhiker, drove me across state lines, and hung out in motel somewhere until I called you. Don’t you think that little series of events proves you jettisoned your dignity some time ago?”
“Yeah…well…I’m taking it back!
“Good luck,” Freya muttered under her breath.
“What was that?” Brock queried, thoroughly enjoying the repartee.
“Nothing…nothing…” she responded with a grin, and then turned her attention to Baldr who had been suspiciously quiet. “Anyway, Baldr, how is Thor doing?”
“He doesn’t look good at all. When I was dead and rotting in Hel, I met people who looked better than he does right now.”
“What?” Brock said a little taken aback by the statement.
“Just a figure of speech, sweetie,” Freya said as she covered for Baldr’s gaffe. “He spent some time in military, and that is how he generally refers to the time he was deployed in the Middle East.”
She flashed a quick scowl in Baldr’s direction, and he responded with a near imperceptible shrug.
Brock rolled his eyes. “Okay, instead of you guys trying to get your story straight and deciding what you think I may or may not believe, wouldn’t your time be better spent figuring out how to help your comatose friend back there?”
Freya blushed a bit. “Look, we didn’t mean to...”
“Freya, let me head you off here. I am just taking for granted that there is a whole lot going on here that I don’t know about. Believe it or not, I’m okay with that. I don’t know why your friend thinks he sees dead people in Hell and, quite frankly, I probably don’t need to know. I figure if something is important or somehow life-threatening, you’ll tell me. So, don’t burn any brain cells making up lies on my account.”
“I’m sorry, Brock. I promise all will be clear very soon.”
“Hey, don’t ask, don’t tell as far as I’m concerned. That policy has to work somewhere. So, now, about your friend Thor?”
Baldr stroked his chin for a moment. “How about Idun? She may help.”
Freya thought about it for a moment. “Baldr, that’s brilliant!”
“So, this Idun person is a doctor?” Brock asked.
“She is as close as we are going to get,” Freya replied with a shrug. “I don’t think anyone could credibly give her an M.D. unless the university motto was ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’.”
“Okay, so it’s a great idea, and I’m brilliant, but do you know where she is?
“Believe it or not, I do,” Freya replied, as some optimism crept int
o her voice. “Last I heard, Idun was running a health and beauty spa in Los Angeles. I don’t know what it’s called though.”
“No worries, I’ll just look it up.” Baldr gestured for her to wait a moment as he rummaged through his pockets.
“Look it up how?” Freya asked suspiciously.
Baldr pulled out an iPhone and waggled it in front of her.
Freya looked at the small Apple device in his hand and a sense of unrest came over her. “Is that the phone from the stadium? The one I asked you not take?”
“Yup, the very same. I love these things. After emerging from Hel, a gal in Bristol took me in. She seemed to consider Steve Jobs some sort of Messiah, so I was playing with iPhones and iPods before I re-learned how to speak. Did you know there’s and app for that by the way? Anyway, the bottom line is that we can use this thing! And just because you’re overly cautious doesn’t mean I am going to ignore something useful when it falls right into our laps. Besides, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Before Freya could answer his question, the car behind them burst into flames. The force of the explosion blew out the Challenger’s back window and Brock crammed every profanity he could think of into one breath as he reflexively floored the gas pedal and accelerated away from the blast.
Freya, Brock, and Baldr looked around trying to find what caused the pickup to their rear to detonate. Suddenly, flames engulfed the SUV on their left side. Brock redlined his car, trying to put as much distance between them and the flaming vehicle as possible before it blew up. They were about 30 yards away when it exploded. They could hear bits of hot metal hitting the side of the Challenger.
