by B. C. James
As the cobwebs started to clear, she became aware of something ominous and unpleasant in the air.
“Gas. I smell gas!” Brock said giving voice to Freya’s thought.
The accident would have killed most humans but instead of being dead Brock had absorbed the trauma and managed to recover quickly. A little too quickly…for a mortal. Freya didn’t have time to think about this. She also didn’t need to hear the words, “She’s gonna blow” from him to know that a spectacular, fiery crash plus the scent of gasoline usually equaled an explosion. This was exactly the sort of thing that made her hate math.
The crash had crumpled the car to the point where escaping was not going to be a simple matter of opening the door, rolling out, and running. Freya pushed against the ruined door, that was now firmly locked into place, as smoke started to fill the cabin.
It was slow work as she used her Asgardian strength to impose her will upon metal. Brock was doing the same against the driver’s side door, without the Asgardian strength part, and Baldr was complaining loudly that he was trapped in a cramped backseat under the comatose Thunder God.
For about the millionth time in her life, Freya had wished that she was like the versions of gods and goddesses that appeared in so many cartoons, video games, and comic books. If she was a World of Warcraft version of an ancient goddess, she would simply use mana-reinforced magic or an unrealistic level of physical strength to rip through the best metal door that Detroit could build like it was tinfoil. Unfortunately, that was not reality.
The gods and goddesses of old were physically more durable and powerful than humans, in much the same way that a mastodon was physically more durable and powerful than a badger. Despite the fact that a badger lived its life in a perpetual temper tantrum, it couldn’t lift heavy objects and could be killed by somebody wielding a Swiss Army knife or a hatpin. This ability to die was what it shared with the stronger and more robust mastodon. The larger creature may survive an assault with a hatpin, but if something destroyed its brain or scrambled some vital organs, it still died. Despite her divine nature, Freya was wary that an exploding car might be able to do enough traumatic injury to send her to the afterlife that Baldr once called home. Life had not been great since the gods were barred from Asgard, but she was a long way away from wanting to be dead.
Freya pushed with her considerable might and heard the metal groan as it gave way under her assault. The steel bent and tore. The Goddess of Love tumbled out of the car. To her surprise, Brock was free on the other side and pulling Thor’s unconscious body from the ruined Challenger. The smoke that filled the vehicle had transitioned into a small fire, which in turn, had become a larger fire whose flames were leaping upward from the engine compartment.
She ran around to the other side and helped Brock pull Thor from the destroyed vehicle as gently as possible while Baldr pushed the Thunder God from the inside. Baldr lithely dashed out once Thor’s unconscious bulk had been pulled off of him. They ran from the car and turned back toward the burning Challenger once they were safely out of harm’s way. It didn’t explode on cue as they reached the minimum safe distance. That sort of thing only happened in Sylvester Stallone films. They waited a few moments for the inevitable. Somewhere in-between Baldr tapping his foot impatiently and Brock checking his watch, the car did an impression of a 1970’s era Pinto and exploded.
“Well, that was fun,” Brock said while looking over the automotive campfire that was once his pride and joy. He looked over to Freya. “Is there anything you think I should know about why my car is turned over and burning on the tarmac? My insurance company may have some follow up questions when I include the words ‘fleeing from dragon’ on the claim.”
Freya was truly impressed with how Brock was handling what had just happened. To the world at large, things like dragons only existed in the studios of Industrial Light and Magic or Legendary Films.
The act of coming up with a convincing story on the fly didn’t concern her. Freya was an excellent liar, and in her line of work she got lots of practice. From a realistic standpoint, some very powerful forces were after them. Conventional wisdom was that the more ignorant she kept everyone outside of herself, Baldr, and Thor, the better off they all were. She was tired of lying though, and she liked Brock. He was courageous in the face of being nearly torched by Nidhogg, and the fact that he didn’t fall to pieces in the wake of the incident fascinated her.
“You know what, Brock, under normal circumstances I would lie my ass off and convince you that what we just went through wasn’t really what it seemed to be. I mean, how could it be? Right? When was the last time you turned on the news and heard a report about how a dragon had just tried to eat a chunk of the Southwest? After that, I would ditch you at the nearest Circle K, steal your wallet, and you would never hear from me again. But you have caught me in a bit of a transitional period...so you’re going to get the truth.”
Freya gave a CliffsNotes explanation of who they were, what they were, and as much of their current circumstances as she could piece together. Brock smirked at her, “Oh…that must have hurt.”
“Yeah, honesty is a bit of an alien concept to me. Every time I’m straight with someone, a little piece of me dies inside.” The half-smile on her face made it clear that she was joking. Brock was also fairly confident that, for Freya, trusting someone, especially a person she had just met, was like standing on a high, narrow ledge in high winds with only a mime and his imaginary box on the cement below to break her fall.
“Excuse me,” Baldr cut in, “but can you two stop playing the dating game long enough to help me with Thor? We obviously can’t stay here. Those sirens in the background mean we are going to have company very soon. I’m guessing that somewhere in that little airport is a place that knows how to make a good Reuben sandwich. So, whether we are moving away from the authorities, or moving toward lunch, or both...good Lord, let it be both…Thor will have to be carried. Could I get a little help with that?”
Freya looked thoughtfully at Baldr. “Okay, I’ll help. Lift with your knees, oh, and some of the bodybuilders I’ve known in the past say that grunting helps.” She suggested, batting her eyelashes.
Baldr chuckled a bit as he began to pull Thor off the ground. “Ya’ know, Freya, somehow you manage to be at your most beguiling when you’re being an absolute bitch. I don’t think anyone else could make it work as well as you do.”
“C’mon, Baldr, I’ll give you a hand,” Brock said as he helped with Thor. “Hey, if you’re technically a god, aren’t you supposed to be superhumanly strong? Shouldn’t you be able to carry him all by yourself without breaking a sweat?”
“I think you’ve been reading too many comic books. This guy is almost three hundred pounds, Brock. Sure, I could carry him for a while alone, but we may be walking with him for miles. We DO get tired. Don’t worry; I’ll take most of the burden.” Baldr flashed him a wry little smile as he said this.
Just as they started to walk away, the first emergency vehicles arrived.
Chauncey Armistead was a veteran fire fighter who had responded to more than one burning plane at this particular airstrip. Usually, when an aircraft had made the transformation from being a high-performance vehicle to becoming thousands of burning pieces on the ground, there usually weren’t any survivors to give an account of the disaster, just a dispassionate black box. To his surprise, he saw four people in the distance walking away from the crash. One figure was the slender form of a female, and to her right were a couple of guys carrying a third man between them. The guy in the middle looked like an unconscious drunk being hauled out of a bar ten minutes after closing time. Before he could call to them, the little group of survivors simply disappeared into thin air.
Chauncey turned to his partner who was loosening the hose and preparing to start dousing the flames. “Did you see that?”
His partner just looked in the direction of where Freya, Brock, Baldr, and Thor were walking. “No and neither did you. I’m too
close to retirement to have a trip to the department shrink on my record. I’m not risking my pension on an illusion.”
They went back to work as the rest of the emergency personnel arrived. Chauncey and his retirement conscious partner were aiming their hose at the wreckage. The sound of pressurized water against the metal of the destroyed aircraft made the low snarl from beneath the twisted debris all but inaudible.
Chapter 25
Baldr bent the light around their little group again and the four of them disappeared from view. He was pretty sure the firefighters had watched them vanish into thin air.
Despite spending the bulk of contemporary history in the afterlife, Baldr had a remarkably good grip on human nature and was absolutely sure nobody would be following them off the airfield. In his experience, people would rather repress things they knew were true but couldn’t explain rather than admitting they had been party to something that was out of the ordinary.
Baldr privately reveled in the fact that the weirder things got, the more the general populace would pretend nothing was wrong. Within weeks, today’s dragon attack would probably be accepted as some sort of new Air Force drone experiment gone horribly wrong, and most would buy into this deception.
Despite Baldr’s desire to stop in at the airport coffee shop for a Reuben sandwich and perhaps a caramel latte, they didn’t go in that direction. Instead they headed back to the highway.
They kept their distance from the bulk of the wreckage as they made their way from the airfield but couldn’t completely escape traveling through what turned out to be a large debris field. Scattered among the smoking bits of metal and electronics were the body parts of those who were travelling on the ill-fated military aircraft.
“This was no way for soldiers to die,” Freya stated flatly.
Freya may have been the Goddess whose sphere of influence extended to the Dan Savage and Carrie Bradshaw parts of the culture. But like most of the Aesir, she revered warriors and the spirit of bravery that they represented.
Brock picked up on her tone and couldn’t help but feel the need to defend himself. “Look, all I saw was something big and airborne that I could trick the dragon into colliding with. If I knew it was full of soldiers, well…I can’t say I wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing, but I may have hesitated a bit. I mean, crap...did you see what that thing was doing on the freeway to the cops and all those other drivers? Chances are these guys would have landed, been ordered to kill that monster, and wound up dead anyway.”
“I’m not accusing you anything Brock, I just don’t like how they died, that’s all.”
“Yeah, you did your best,” Baldr chimed in. “Our kind just likes to see that warriors die honorably in a fight, weapons flashing, and preferably taking a large number of their enemies with them. Sitting on a bench in a plane and suddenly getting killed during an arbitrary act just doesn’t fit our template for how soldiers should give up the ghost. It has all the poetry, honor, and art of standing in your backyard, sipping an iced tea and thinking about sports when all of a sudden the HBO satellite falls from the sky and squishes you. It’s just not right.”
Brock mulled this over for a moment. “Will your godly morals extend to the completely common civilians who died on the highway?”
Whether the question was rhetorical or not, both Freya and Baldr let it hang in the air, unanswered. Neither was going to get dragged into this sort of debate. It was neither the time nor the place. The fact that he was even willing, and apparently eager, to discuss human vs. godly morals indicated that he had both accepted what they were and was comfortable with it.
Brock’s ready acceptance of all this both impressed and unnerved Freya a little bit. Shouldn’t there be some resistance to a trio of strangers calling him for a ride and then claiming to be ancient gods? In the sober light of day, he should have looked at her like she had spontaneously grown a second, less attractive, head when she sprung this news on him. When asked why he was taking this all at face value, Brock simply shrugged and said, “I’m currently walking around the desert, invisible, and earlier today a dragon tried to fry and eat me. Right now, my mind is pretty open.”
Freya had to admit he had a point. For the first time in what seemed to be an extremely improbable day, everyone was on the same page.
“I understand that Thor is a god and all, but he doesn’t look so good. I think we’re going to need to get him some help. Now what about this Idun person you mentioned?”
Brock’s observation of the obvious brought the little group back to a sobering reality. While they had escaped Nidhogg with their lives, this might be only a temporary reprieve for Thor. He had looked pretty bad when they first put him in the car, and things had gone downhill since. His coloring was becoming paler and his wounds were not healing. In fact, the area around where he had been impaled was starting to swell, weep, and give off a scent like raw chicken that had gone bad.
They stopped to rest, figure out their next move, and tend to the Thunder God as best they could. Freya tore away part of her skirt and wiped away the puss and fluid that was leaking from his wounds. The poison that coated the spear tip was doing its work. Despite Thor’s prodigious strength, his body would eventually lose its fight against the dragon’s venom. It was inevitable without some type of intervention…and soon.
“What he needs is a hospital, not some holistic day spa owner,” said Brock with as much conviction as he could muster.
Freya opened fire on the suggestion and shot the idea down. “He’s too recognizable. There isn’t a hospital in the United States we can take Thor to that won’t result in him being arrested.”
“Yeah, but c’mon! The charges are silly at best and unless Sports Illustrated was lying about his last round of contract negotiations, Thor has enough money to resurrect Clarence Darrow, Johnny Cochran, and Robert Kardashian to handle his legal defense. Hell, this guy will probably have enough left over to buy a damn jury and hire Kardashian’s daughters to be cheerleaders at the arraignment. So, I’m not too worried about him getting arrested. I’m more concerned with him keeling over before we figure out what to do next.”
“Under normal circumstances you would probably be right, but I have slept with enough politicians to know a few things about dirty tricks. He wasn’t charged with terrorism because somebody thought it would be funny. The terrorism charge not only would deprive him of any public support from anywhere west of the Persian Gulf but would also give the government the right to freeze all of his assets and violate just about all of his civil rights, thanks to the Patriot Act. Seeing as all access to his accounts is predictably gone, at this point he doesn’t have enough money to hire one of those homeless guys to clean his windshield, let alone a lawyer. If we take him to a hospital, assuming they could even help him, we may as well tie him to a spit and stick an apple in his mouth as well. So that’s just not going to happen.” Freya’s voice was raising an octave or two as she tried to put all her objections in one breath.
“Look guys,” Baldr interrupted, “I hate to be the voice of reason here...I mean I reallllllly hate to be the voice of reason. It’s so much more fun listening to folks argue, but my brother here needs some help and Brock, your suggestion just flat out sucks. Freya, his idea stinks, but it stinks because he is coming from a standpoint of colossal ignorance. No offense Brock.”
“Um…none taken…I guess.”
“Glad to hear it. It’s not your fault that you’re uninformed. Hell, if anyone asked the people of today who was the top physician of this generation, most of you would say Dr. Phil. The problem with today is that people have no perspective on history and call anything ancient that doesn’t fit the very narrow confines of their worldview a myth.”
Usually Baldr didn’t go into a rant about modern society unless several pints of something tasty and fermented were part of the conversation.
“So, let’s enlighten you a bit. Long before Dr. House made it cool for doctors to behave like self-loathing assholes
, there was Idun. She has made a career of fixing up the gods from a variety of stab wounds, burns, poisonings, or the occasional ax to the head. Heaven knows where she was when I got killed the first time, but I’m not bitter,” he said the last bit under his breath. “So, we will take Thor to see her, she’ll give him a couple of apples, and he will be right as rain.”
Brock raised an eyebrow. “Apples? She’s the Goddess of Apples?”
“Well, kinda,” Baldr replied, “Gods and goddesses are not so different from people. We all have our own interests and different skills. To use a human example, you wouldn’t want Eddie Van Halen taking out your gall bladder but put a guitar in that man’s hand, and magic happens. Music is his interest, DNA gives him the preternatural dexterity to turn what’s in his head into musical notes, and he has spent years honing this skill. In Asgard each god’s interests and abilities are morphed into a weird sort of specialization. We cultivated some of our innate skills and pursuits and called that little corner of creation ours. For example, the ability to manipulate light is woven into my DNA. I enjoy playing with illumination and have spent centuries practicing with it, so I am the God of Light. Freya is really good at fu...”
“BALDR!!!” Freya screeched.
“Oops…Sorry Freya. Let’s try this again. She has a natural talent for…um…networking? Public relations? I’m sorry sweetheart, what is the polite or politically correct way of saying you’re a great lay?”
Freya cheeks began to redden. At first it looked like she was reacting to Baldr’s jibes with a charming blush. However, it was clear that he was getting under her skin in a way that might result in a closed head injury for the God of Light.
“But I kid, I kid.” Baldr made this declaration with as much sincerity as he could dredge up and winked in her direction.
