Urban Mythic: Thirteen Novels of Adventure and Romance, featuring Norse and Greek Gods, Demons and Djinn, Angels, Fairies, Vampires, and Werewolves in the Modern World

by C. Gockel

  Thor laughs lowly. “You should see your face.”

  Loki hears a grinding noise...it’s his own teeth. He is suddenly angrier at Thor than he is angry at Sigyn or even Baldur. Sigyn was obviously charmed by Baldur’s glamour, like everyone else. Baldur was just an ass, like always, and Loki expected no better from him — nor can Loki retaliate against the crown prince.

  But Thor...Loki had hoped better of Thor. He had hoped for the bastard’s friendship — some loyalty, some understanding. Loki uncrosses his arms and steps away from the wall towards the larger man. The air between them seems to shimmer. Thor narrows his eyes and his hands ball into fists.

  At that moment Baldur comes down the hall. “Oh, brother! Loki!” Baldur says, and both Thor and Loki turn. Baldur is adjusting his shirt. Loki has seen paintings of Baldur, he knows what other people see, a crown of golden curls, tanned golden skin, blue eyes on a face chiseled like a roman sculpture, broad shoulders and height nearly as tall as Thor’s. Loki sees a tangle of light brown hair, a slightly pudgy face with narrow hazel eyes and a soft body only as tall as his own.

  “Loki,” says Baldur, smirking slightly, though Loki has no doubt he appears to be smiling benevolently to Thor. “I think you know Lady Sigyn?”

  “No,” says Loki. “Not well.”

  He shoots a sidelong gaze toward Thor, daring him to contradict him.

  Thor says nothing. But he smiles, a knowing, cruel smile.

  That smile changes everything.

  Later that night at the banquet, Loki stands behind Odin at the table, behaving like a truly proper retainer — albeit a slightly drunk one. Thor is boasting of his exploits to a crowd of happy admirers. In a far corner, Sif has her own admirers. Sigyn is nowhere to be seen.

  Odin, deep into his cups, slams his goblet down on the table. The clang is drowned out by the sound of Thor’s laughter further down the table. Glaring in the direction of Sif, Odin snarls. “I have warned him about her. He is becoming a laughingstock!”

  Pushing back from the table, Odin growls and stands from his chair. “I can’t watch this.”

  Pursing his lips, Loki says, “If you permit me, sire, I’ll take care of it.”

  Snorting, Odin says, “Good luck.” And then the giant man turns and storms from the hall.

  As soon as Odin has left, Loki walks over to Sif.

  “Here to grace me with your silver tongue, Trickster?” the lady asks.

  A reputation can be a helpful thing. Loki smiles. Very shortly afterwards he is in Sif’s bedchamber.

  After the “lady” falls asleep, Loki trims her golden locks. Gathering them in his hands, he ties them in one of her own ribbons. When Thor returns home Loki is waiting for him at the front door.

  As he throws the shorn locks, the traditional symbol of an unfaithful wife, at Thor’s feet, Loki smiles as sweetly as he can. “You should see your face,” he says.

  He completely expects the beating that comes next.

  What he doesn’t expect is for Hoenir and Mimir to be so unsympathetic when he comes crawling to the hut for help.

  “You did what!” Mimir screeches. Loki winces from where he lays atop Hoenir’s workbench, the self-satisfied smile slipping from his lips.

  Hoenir slaps a hand down hard on a rib he is repairing. Loki’s eyes go wide. Hoenir is actually scowling at him. Hoenir never scowls at him.

  “I gave Thor proof of his wife’s infidelity,” says Loki, and Hoenir’s hand comes down hard on another rib.

  “You’re supposed to be helping me fix that,” says Loki lifting his head.

  Hoenir just raises an eyebrow.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” says Mimir. “Do you know what you would do if someone slept with your wife?”

  Raising an eyebrow, Loki drops his head on the bench. “As I don’t have a wife and am unlikely to acquire one — ”

  “I’ll tell you what you’d do!” Mimir says, voice trembling. “You’d cut him up into little pieces, that’s what you’d do.”

  Loki blinks...there is something in that, something he can’t quite place. He raises his head.

  Mimir’s face is livid. “And then you’d take all those pieces and flush them all down the — ”

  “Mimir!” Odin’s voice rings through the hut.

  Loki’s blood goes cold.

  “Don’t talk about that, Mimir,” and Loki blinks because he almost thinks he hears worry in Odin’s voice. But a few moments more and Odin is leaning over him. He doesn’t look worried. Oddly, he doesn’t look as angry as he did after Baldur’s birth. He looks more...disgusted.

  “You told me he was turning into a laughingstock,” Loki says. “I told you I’d take care of it, and I have. I delivered proof that — ”

  “Sif has told everyone you used your magic to sneak in on her while she slept,” says Odin.

  “And people believe that?” says Mimir. “From that trollop?”

  Odin’s eyes don’t leave Loki’s. “What matters is what Thor thinks. He believes his wife. Which is lucky — otherwise you could be tried for treason.”

  Loki swallows, his brow furrowing. He was only obeying orders. The fickleness and duplicity of royalty.

  “— but he is only requesting your banishment,” says Odin, his eyes narrowing.

  The breath catches in Loki’s throat. Odin doesn’t mean banishment to Alfheim, Jotunheim, Vaneheim or any of the other civilized worlds. He can only mean Midgard. There is a very small part of him that wants to accept that fate, sees it almost as an open door from a cage, but his rational mind tells him what he would be accepting is a short, painful life, and death by plague — or in his case, more likely hunger.

  Odin’s lip curls up. “Fix this, Loki.” He stares down at Loki for a few moments more, and Loki feels himself shrinking. And then Odin turns and strides from the room.

  Loki looks at Hoenir. He doesn’t meet his eyes. He looks to Mimir, and the head winces. “You owe Sif, Thor and Odin a very big apology.”

  Staring at Amy, Loki feels the heat of Thor’s first betrayal, that first cruel laugh, itching beneath his skin. How could he have trusted Thor after that?

  Beatrice’s voice startles Loki out of his dark reverie. “So did you get Thor his hammer, Sif the golden wig, Odin Daupnir and Gungnir — and the boat for Frey?”

  “Daupnir, Gungnir, boat?” says Amy.

  Loki smiles a brittle smile. “Daupnir is a lovely little ring. The boat is called Skidbladnir. It has a clever way of folding into time so that all of it that remains in real-time can fit in the palm of your hand.”

  Amy’s face lights up, “It sounds kind of like the TARDIS!”

  “Tardis?” says Loki, somewhat amazed that she seems to have grasped the concept at all. Humans usually didn’t.

  “It’s a phone booth,” says Beatrice.

  “Bigger on the inside than outside,” says Amy. “And it can travel through space and time too. Can Skidbladnir do that?”

  Loki blinks. “Humans have such a vessel?”

  “No, no, no,” says Amy. “It’s just a story.” She frowns a little. “Just the way you described Skidbladnir, I thought it could be true.”

  Slightly disappointed, Loki says, “Other than its compactibility, Skidbladnir is just a boat. We used it for camping trips. Until Odin gave it to Frey, chief of the Vanir.”

  “What about Gungnir, the spear that can hit any mark?” says Beatrice.

  Tapping his chin, Loki says, “I did give that to Odin, but that was a different...adventure.” Another one of his under-appreciated acts of self-sacrifice. Really, Odin should have appreciated what Loki did for Thor. It’s not like sleeping with Sif was any great prize.

  “Did the dwarf sew up your lips?” says Beatrice.

  “Grandma!” says Amy, sounding absolutely scandalized. The gifts to Odin, Thor and Sif were made by two rival clans of dwarfs in a contest. The prize was Loki’s head. At the last minute Loki convinced the winner that since only his head had been promised, it couldn
’t be detached at the neck. Said dwarf chose to sew up Loki’s mouth in lieu of decapitation.

  He’s not sure exactly why Amy sounds so disapproving, but he senses an opportunity for comedy, or at least shock value.

  With just the barest bit of concentration, he creates an illusion of wire stitches over his lips. Turning to Amy, and Beatrice he says, “Mmmphhhff!”

  Beatrice sits back in her seat, hand over her mouth.

  Amy gasps. “How can you even joke about that?!”

  Loki tilts his head. The serious answer, the truthful answer, is how can he not? Joking about pain is the only weapon he has. It is the way he thumbs his nose up at the universe. The way he proves he is unbroken, and if not the god of mischief, then at least mischief’s master.

  But that isn’t the funny answer.

  He creates an illusion of himself in the backseat next to Beatrice and lets that projection say, “Don’t worry, m’lady. I am not offended by my joke.”

  “Ahh!” says Beatrice looking frantically back and forth between the illusion of Loki and Loki’s real self.

  The car almost swerves off the road. “Don’t do that without warning me!” says Amy.

  “Mmmphhhff,” says Loki’s real self, still feigning the stitches.

  “Don’t you people believe in proportional punishment?” Amy shoots him a glance that looks angry, hurt and scandalized all at once.

  Loki tilts his head. In the scheme of things, that physical agony was small. He had done a wrong. He paid a price. It was logical. There were other pains, other slights that were random and unjust. They hurt more. But he cannot think of them, much less speak of them. Instead, he lets his astrally-projected self lean forward and whisper near her ear. “But if I hadn’t had my lips sewn shut I wouldn’t have learned the art of astral projection — out of sheer desperation to wag my tongue.”

  Beatrice snorts.

  Loki lets the illusion of himself and the stitches fade. “And if Thor hadn’t had the opportunity to hold me down while the stitches were put in, he might not have felt that he’d recovered his honor and we might never have become friends.”

  Amy shoots him a look that communicates both revulsion and disbelief.

  But Thor and Loki had been friends, hadn’t they? They’d both risked their lives for one another. And for a long time Thor’s friendship had surely helped ease Valli and Nari’s dealings with other Asgardians. They had been known more for Thor’s patronage, and less as Loki’s sons.

  In the end what good had it done them, though? Even, brave, noble, supposedly honest, Thor had caved to Odin.

  Loki clenches his fists. He cannot believe that Valli and Nari have met their ends. They are somewhere, alive, if not well, and wherever they are he will find them. Loki is very good at finding lost things, and the more impossible the task, the more likely it is he will succeed. Even Odin gives him that.

  “So...” says Amy, eyes focused on the road ahead. “Can you tell us what we’re going to do when we find gala drill?”

  “Gala drill?” says Loki. A party and a drill? He scratches his ear... Did he hear right, or lose the thread of magic? Something tickles in the back of his mind

  “You know, elf queen, in the books?” says Amy.

  “And movies!” Beatrice pipes in.

  “Ahhh...a name from a new myth,” says Loki, the tickle becoming an itch. There is something about the name that feels almost, but not quite right.

  Amy blinks. “I guess, maybe.”

  Shaking his head, Loki says, “No king or queen of the elves would reveal their true name. It would mean sacrificing too much of their power.” Lifting his eyebrows, he tilts his head. “And believe me, power isn’t something elven monarchs are keen on relinquishing.”

  Amy leans forward in her seat. She isn’t wearing the figure-flattering shirt she wore the other day. What she is wearing now is baggy, and goes too far up her chest. Loki has no idea why someone with such astonishing breasts would want to hide them.

  “Uh....is she going to be unhappy to see us here?” Amy says, looking nervously out the window.

  “You and Beatrice? Oh, no, you are fine. The elves resented Odin’s orders to withdraw from your realm. They saw it their duty to play an active role in shaping human culture. They’ll be delighted to see you. Me, on the other hand...” He puts a hand to his chin, and taps contemplatively. “I will need a disguise.”

  “The elf queen can’t read hearts?” whispers Amy quietly.

  Startled by the question, Loki turns to her. “Actually, the elf queen can read hearts, or minds rather. I’m sure that she’ll see through the disguise, but it will confuse her court, and give her plausible deniability should Odin pay her a visit.”

  “You’re on the outs with Odin already?” says Beatrice.

  Choosing to ignore that question, Loki says, “As for what I want with the elf queen...I want a simple exchange of information.”

  He sees Amy’s eyes lift to the rear view mirror and realizes she and Beatrice are exchanging a glance.

  Let them wonder. He has been more than accommodating.

  Amy squeezes Car’s steering wheel. “What sort of disguise?”

  Loki tilts his head. “The best disguise is like the best lie. As close to the truth as possible.” He concentrates. His armor with its magical camouflage is too fine to belong to just any ordinary soldier. He dulls it to steel, painted dark gray. His hair he changes to brown, his chin and nose he broadens, and he increases his height and the width of his shoulders.

  “Whoa,” says Amy, “you were big enough already.”

  Unable to resist a chance to jest, Loki smirks. “Yes, yes, I was,” he says in a deep, husky voice.

  Amy tilts her head. “What does that mean?”

  Before Loki even has a chance to purse his lips at her disappointing inability to grasp that little bit of sly innuendo, Beatrice hits him on the back of the head.

  That’s more like it!

  “Argh!” Loki screams, feigning pain. He turns and smiles at Beatrice. She scowls at him.

  “Oh, my God,” says Amy.

  Loki smirks at her. “I’m not really a god, but I’ll pretend to be one for you.”

  Beatrice hits him again. “Argh!” Loki cries, but he is unable to suppress a wide grin. There’s nothing like a bit of comedy to take one’s mind off a daunting quest.

  “Was that an allusion to penis size?” Amy says, hands tightening on the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turn white.

  Loki’s smile drops. Cringing in genuine distaste he says, “Must you be so anatomical?”

  Amy is silent for a moment. Dipping her chin and scowling, she begins to chant. “Penis, penis, penis.”

  Beatrice whacks him over the head again.

  “...penis, penis, penis...”

  “Hit her, not me!” Loki cries.

  “...penis, penis, penis,” says Amy, looking angrier and angrier.

  “You started it,” the old woman replies.

  Huffing, Loki says, “To return to the previous topic — ”

  Amy stops her chant.

  “Thank you,” says Beatrice.

  “I will not try to disguise my Frost Giant nature, but I will go by the name of Fjölnir Thorsbruter. It’s a common name among Frost Giants in Thor’s legion, and won’t raise suspicion.”

  “You look like a Frost Giant now?” says Amy, looking him up and down.

  “Of course,” says Loki, slightly vexed.

  “You’re not blue. In the movies Frost Giants are blue.”

  Loki stares at her, completely at a loss for what she could be talking about.

  From the backseat comes Beatrice’s voice. “Oh, my, how lovely.”

  Amy’s eyes go back to the road. They have just come over a gentle rise, and now in the distance beyond cultivated fields, orchards, pasture lands, and a wide river, Alfheim’s only city in the domain of the light elves is on full display.

  “It’s beautiful,” Amy says.

  Loki
gazes at the city in the distance. Set into the side of a mountain, it sits beside the border road. The city’s architecture is reminiscent of human European architecture from the 12th century. The entire city is made from white stone. Thick walls and ramparts with small slitted windows encircle more buildings with the same small slitted windows. There are peaked tile roofs, all in green. At the center of the city, rising up above the other buildings, is the castle proper. Dark green ivy climbs along walls; trees with lavender leaves lift their crowns alongside the buildings.

  Loki hasn’t been here in over a hundred years. Squinting, he looks hard for any changes in the scenery, but even the ivy and trees within the city gates remain exactly as he remembers them. Absolutely nothing has changed.

  “I suppose it’s quaint,” he says. He’s not sure how the humans can be impressed. Chicago, with its riot of styles from only the last century or so, displays more variety of architecture in a single block than the whole city of Alfheim. And Alfheim’s city is so small. It is only a few miles wide and the tallest tower can’t be over ten stories.

  “Like a fairy castle,” says Beatrice, her voice awed.

  Loki snorts. “Well, technically — ”

  “Are those dinosaurs?” Amy says, looking out at the fields.

  Loki follows her gaze. A few hadrosaurs dot the pastures, and two are being ridden in neat formation along the city’s main wall. From afar they look a lot like the velociraptors Loki hatched so long ago. They have powerful hind legs and smaller forelimbs. They do not walk on their hind limbs exclusively though, and their mouths are beak-like. They also get much larger than velociraptors — up to the size of a bus.

  “Yes,” says Loki.

  He blinks. He’s a bit surprised English has a word for dinosaur. Loki doesn’t know English particularly well. He uses magic to translate languages. On Asgard they call it “The Gift of Tongues.” Humans might call it a “spell,” but it’s more a state of mind. Loki doesn’t fight the magic that flows through Amy and Beatrice that wants to interact with the appropriate neurons in his brain’s speech centers.

  The trick has its limitations: if there is no corresponding word between languages, translations become difficult. But now there is a common English word for dinosaurs! Fascinating. Staring at the creatures, he realizes there is even an English word for specific dinosaur species. “Specifically, hadrosaurs, harmless herbivores,” he adds. Harmless unless they step on you, of course.