by C. Gockel
Warriors:
I Bring the Fire Part V
Copyright © 2014 C. Gockel
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, subject “Attention: Permissions,” at the email address below:
[email protected]
The I Bring the Fire Series:
I Bring the Fire Part I: Wolves
Monsters: I Bring the Fire Part II
Chaos: I Bring the Fire Part III
In the Balance: I Bring the Fire Part 3.5
Fates: I Bring the Fire Part IV
The Slip: a Short Story (mostly) from Sleipnir's Point of Smell
Warriors: I Bring the Fire Part V
Other Works: Murphy's Star a short story about “first” contact
Contents
Acknowledgments
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Appendix of Names and Places
All Stories By C. Gockel & Contact Info
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I want to thank my editor, Kay McSpadden. Kay read and reread this story more times than I can count. I also would like to thank Gretchen Almoughraby. Her suggestions helped me clarify situations and make the action more believable. Also indispensable was Patricia Kirby. William Sheehan consulted on military matters. My brother, Thomas, was great as a myth reference. Cherryl Crouch was the final editor of grammar ... she had a tough job. All mistakes are mine.
I also want to thank all of my readers. Your continued encouragement helped give me the confidence to write this story. I love you guys!
Special thanks must be given to Lewis Hyde, author of the fantastic Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. His book has been an inspiration from the beginning, and in Warriors he generously granted permission to quote him extensively. (He even said he found the scene funny, so extra special thanks for the back pat.)
Finally, thanks must go to my husband Eric. If he hadn’t to stop writing fan fiction and start writing something I can own, this story never would have happened.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This is a fifth in series (plus one-half and a quarter!) I've tried to include brief descriptions at the introduction of each character to get readers up to speed. However, I've also included an appendix of names and places at the end of this story, for those who want more background.
CHAPTER 1
Bohdi Patel fucked up. Again. From where he sits in the passenger seat his eyes slide to the driver’s side. Amy is sitting at the wheel. Eyes locked straight ahead, she is biting her bottom lip so hard it’s turned white. She doesn’t look angry as much as in shock. He doesn’t know why he just snapped at her.
Causing pain is in your nature, a tiny voice in his head whispers. His hand tightens on the armrest. The steam on the car windows obscures the Chicago streets. It’s April, four months after Bohdi’s ill-fated quest to Nornheim to find his parents. He failed that quest. It’s Chaos’s nature to fail—and in Nornheim Bohdi discovered he is the incarnation of Chaos.
The windshield wipers screech against the windshield. The sound of rain and blast of the defroster are too loud; the lull in conversation is oppressive.
He slides his hand to the door latch and pulls. The door doesn’t open. His stomach sinks, his breath catches. “Let me out,” he says, skin heating.
Through the car’s speakers, a radio news announcer says, “North Korea now recognizes the Asgardian outpost at Chernobyl as an official territory of the Asgardian Empire.”
Bohdi’s hands tighten on the latch. He’d had a chance to kill Odin during a spidermouse venom-induced nap. Bohdi hadn’t been able to kill him. Now Odin’s slowly taking over Earth. Bohdi bites the inside of his lip so hard he tastes blood. In Asgard, Bohdi had killed a perfectly nice Einherjar warrior by accident. Chaos can’t get anything right.
“Are you sure?” Amy says.
Not looking at her, he says, “Yes, I’m sure. Let me out.” It comes out nearly a growl.
He swears he can hear her lip tremble. “Okay, just let me pull over…” She steers the car to the curb, just behind a line of idling cabs.
“I’ll meet you there,” Bohdi says, still not looking at her. Jumping from the car, he slams the door.
He doesn’t look back. He knows what he’ll see. She’ll look hurt and confused, and he’ll feel worse than he already does. Pulling up his collar, he shoves his hands into his pockets and bows his head to the frigid rain. He’s just a little to the east of the Gold Coast, about four blocks from the hotel where the reception-thingy is. By the time Amy parks, he may even get there before her.
“Have a light?” says a man with a heavy accent Bohdi can’t identify.
Bohdi stops and turns. He finds himself face to face with a short, dark man most likely of East Asian descent. A cigarette is dangling from the man’s mouth and he’s wearing clothes that scream Salvation Army. Standing beneath the awning of a dingy looking little restaurant advertising Pakistani and Indian cuisine, he is passing a pack of cigarettes between weathered hands.
Bohdi suddenly needs a smoke like he needs oxygen. Raising an eyebrow at the box, Bohdi says, “I’ll give you a light if you share one of those.” If your destiny is to die in flame, at least it can be at the sweet end of a cigarette.
The man narrows one eye and draws back.
Bohdi shrugs. “My girlfriend’s trying to make me quit.” He gives what he hopes is a what-can-you-do smile.
The man’s frame softens and he nods. Taking out his lighter, Bohdi gives the guy a light. Taking a drag, the man hands Bohdi the pack.
As Bohdi takes out a cancer stick, the guy gestures with his head in the direction Amy’s car went. “The blondie your girlfriend?”
Amy’s hair is light brown, but Bohdi supposes if you were fresh off the boat, you might classify her as blonde.
Lighting his own cigarette, Bohdi says, “Yeah.”
It’s a lie. Amy Lewis is not, and never has been, his girlfriend. Not in this life anyway. He messed up that chance royally months ago. And it’s probably a good thing. Odin’s voice rings in his mind, “He destroys everything and everyone he loves …” Not that Bohdi’s in love. Any feelings for her are probably just bits of Loki rattling around in his brain.
The door to the restaurant opens and three more guys join them under the awning. They start talking to Bohdi’s new friend in a language he doesn’t know. They laugh and the first man turns back to Bohdi. Pointing at his own crotch with his cigarette, the man says, “Is she a blondie below, too?”
Red shadows move at the edges Bohdi’s vision. Taking a long drag, Bohdi quirks his eyebrows at the little man. The guy and his friends laugh.
Exhaling, Bohdi flicks the ash off the end of his cigarette. He puts the cigarette back into his mouth and grins. His hands curl into fists.
x x x x
Where is Bohdi?
Amy scans the hotel ballroom. There are rows of chairs and long tables covered with pristine white cloths facing a stage. An empty podium sits on the stage, an enormous screen behind it. The tables are set with icy pitchers of water. In front of every chair are folders emblazoned with the logo “Chicago Technomagic Initiative.” Ironically, it’s some group Steve, Mr. Non-Science, had a hand in beginning.
The show hasn’t begun yet, and the lights in the ballroom are all on, the attendees milling about. They are scientists and press primarily. Here and there a flash goes off. The meeting is supposed to be about revealing some great big technomagic breakthrough that Steve said Bohdi and Amy will love. When they pressed him for details he’d waved a hand and said, “You know I don’t do science. Wait and see.”
She expects Steve will be officially announcing his intention to run for mayor tonight, too. He’s in the lead even though he isn’t even on the ticket.
Squinting, she scans the crowd. Where could Bohdi be? She looks to the side. There is free food. Bohdi loves science. And free food. Not necessarily in that order.
She can’t see him anywhere. She scowls. He’s such a drama queen. It’s a good thing that Agent Marion Martinez staked her claim as soon as they got back from Asgard—if she hadn’t, Amy might have gotten romantically attached to another guy who obviously wasn’t ready for romantic attachments.
She stamps her foot, bites her lip, and lets out a breath of frustration. The trouble is, despite her annoyance, she’s worried about him. He is so touchy since their return to Earth. Sometimes she sees glimpses of the Bohdi she knew in Nornheim and Asgard. The Bohdi who was interested in the pre-frontal cortexes of magical creatures and made jokes in the face of death. Every time she sees a glimpse of that Bohdi, she thinks maybe they can at least be friends again. But then something happens and he becomes moody and withdrawn.
Today is a case in point. She’d offered to drive him from the office to this meeting because it was raining, and his car had been totaled recently. Everything had been going well. In the car, NPR confirmed the sightings of Sleipnir, eight-legged horse and child of one of Loki’s incarnations, roaming free in Grant Park with a herd of unicorns. NPR’s validation of the rumors had been a vindication of sorts. Bohdi, Steve, and Amy had helped engineer the horse’s freedom.
Bohdi had laughed and smiled at the speakers. “Sleipnir’s got some honeys.”
Amy smiled back. “Yeah…” It had felt so good to see him smile. That’s when she noticed he was wearing a pink shirt. “Hey, that shirt looks familiar,” she said.
Bohdi’s frame had stiffened. Frowning, he snapped. “Yes, I wore it yesterday… I spent the night at some chick’s house and didn’t get home to change.”
If he had said it with a wink and a smile she probably would have rolled her eyes and laughed. But he sounded so angry and she didn’t know what she’d done wrong. “Oh,” she said, trying to cover her shock. “I was going to say it looks like the shirt you wore when we went to Nornheim.”
For a few moments he’d been very quiet, and then he’d said abruptly. “Let me out.”
In the ballroom, Amy sighs and stands on her tip toes. And where is her grandmother? Beatrice had worked from home today to meet a plumber; but she said she’d be here.
Amy turns just in time to see Steve enter through a side door behind the podium. As always, he’s impeccably groomed. But whereas usually he’d be in a black suit, today he’s a little flashier—in a gray suit. It contrasts smartly with his dark skin.
He smiles and waves at someone and then sees Amy. His brows draw together and she can read the question in his eyes. A moment later he’s at her side. Before he asks, Amy says, “I don’t know where Bohdi is. He demanded to be let out of my car a few blocks away.”
Steve snorts. “Most likely getting a smoke. You haven’t been able to convince him to give up that habit?”
Amy blinks up at her probably-soon-to-be-not-boss. Towering over her at nearly six foot five inches, his dark eyes are scanning the crowd. Steve navigates social situations with an ease she’s never possessed. Usually, she thinks he’s sensitive to interpersonal matters. Turning back to the crowd, she says, “I think you overestimate my influence over Bohdi.”
“Hmmmm … ” Steve replies.
Her eyes flick back to him. He’s looking down at her, his face unreadable. Lifting his head again, Steve puts his hands behind his back. “So do you like that book I loaned you?”
Amy’s mouth drops a little. “Yes … yes, I do.” Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is the true story of three women’s lives during later imperial, revolutionary, and then Communist China. It is surprisingly good. Surprisingly because Amy isn’t normally interested in biographies … also because Steve lent it to her. She just wouldn’t think he’d be the type to read a book like that, though Bohdi insists Steve tears through all sorts of biographies and oddly, books on Buddhism.
Steve nods and smiles, eyes still on the crowd.
Amy tilts her head. Lately, Steve has seemed to take an extra effort to be nice, lending her the book, inviting her and Beatrice on team-building outings, and sending her with Bohdi to the TED talk on magic. It’s not that Steve wasn’t nice to her before, but he had use for her before. Now that he’s leaving the FBI and going to City Hall, she’s not sure why he’s continuing to be solicitous.
“Oh,” he says, “thank you for showing Claire those baku kits. She can’t stop talking about them.”
Amy straightens at mention of the bakus, the adorable little creatures with elephant trunks and lynx-like bodies. Bohdi had found the mother just after she’d been shot. Amy hadn’t been able to save her—the poor thing had died in Bohdi’s arms, thoroughly traumatizing him—but she had been able to save the kits. She’d thought Steve’s daughter Claire would get a kick out of them. “She’s welcome to come see them any time.”
Steve graces her with a smile that’s wide and looks genuine. “Thank you,” he says.
Amy can’t help but smile back. She likes Steve’s kid. Claire is fun, cute, and doesn’t wince when she sees blood. And it’s hard not to be moved by the plight of a little girl whose mother was killed by Odin.
Lifting his head and scanning the crowd again, Steve says, “I worry about her … hanging around you, she’s decided she might want to be a veterinarian. I’m glad she’s excited about something positive.”
Amy rolls on her feet, her face flushing. If Steve is using her for Claire’s sake, she doesn’t mind.
Steve’s phone starts playing a Bollywood tune. He pulls it from his pocket and says, “Where are you, Bohdi?” And then he snaps, “Your timing is great. Yeah, yeah, I will. But you can cool your heels in there for a while.”
“Where is he?” Amy asks.
Turning off his phone and sliding it into his pocket, Steve growls, “Jail.”
Amy’s eyes go wide. Before she gets a word out, Steve shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “I’ll bail him out. But he can wait a few hours.”
Before Amy can think of something to say, a woman’s voice rings out in the crowd. “Amy!”
Amy looks up and then bounces on her feet. Her face splits into a wide smile. Walking quickly toward her is her friend Katherine, arms upraised. Katherine is a neuroscientist who’d relocated to D.C. shortly after Amy went back to veterinary school. Amy hasn’t seen her since Loki.
Katherine catches Amy in an oxygen-stealing hug. “I haven’t seen you in so long!” Katherine says.
Hugging her back, Amy says, “What are you doing here? I thought you were in D.C.?”
Pulling away, Katherine says, “Our research group just moved back to Chicago—so much is happening here!”
Beside Amy, Steve says, “Dr. Swanson, I didn’t know your group was coming back to Chicago.”
Katherine looks up to Amy’s boss. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you …”
Amy’s lips part; if Katherine doesn’t know Steve then how—
Holding out a hand, Steve gives Katharine his most charming smile. “Steve Rogers, I work with Dr. Lewis at the FBI.”
At just that moment, a throng of press swarms around them with the usual Steve-are-you-or-aren’t-you-gonna-run-for-mayor questions.
Giving Katherine a little grimace, Amy pulls her away.
As they sneak past the mob, Katherine says, “So he of the unfortunate-name, he isn’t with you?”
It takes Amy a moment, but then she pieces it together. Katherine is referring to Loki.
Amy sucks in a breath. Just before Loki tore up the city, Amy and Loki had attended a talk Katherine had given on REM sleep. After the talk, Amy, Loki, Katherine, and her husband James had met up with some other science buddies for beers in a pub. Katherine didn’t know she’d met the real Loki that night—all the pictures of Loki when he tore up Chicago were grainy, and he’d been wearing a ridiculous horned helmet. Amy swallows. Or Katherine can’t believe she met the real Loki. Loki had fit in so well with all their friends …
Amy gives what she hopes is a please-don’t-ask smile. “No, he’s not.” Trying to change the subject she says, “So I don’t think I know exactly what your research is?”
Katherine turns to her. “You know … you work for the FBI now … I think I’m allowed to tell you.” She looks around them quickly and then leans very close. “I was hired to try and find out what proteins cause neural stem cells to become magic matter in the developing embryo.”
Amy gapes, and then she smiles. Putting her hands to her mouth, she shakes her head. “Wow! That is such an honor …” And something Amy would really like to know. Amy carries all of Loki’s memories, and has tried to use them to sort what made magical creatures develop magic neural matter, but Loki’s understanding of biology was pitifully small. Remembering to breathe, she says, “How is it going?”
Katherine beams. “We found it, we found the exact protein that triggers the differentiation.”
Amy grabs her hand. “Wow. Wow …just … Wow! That is amazing, Katherine! I can’t wait to read about it.” Winking conspiratorially, she nudges Katherine with an elbow. “Really, I can’t. Where did you get the stem cells from a magical creature? A troll?” Stem cells are developing cells that haven’t been told what to be. They are most plentiful in embryos. They exist in adults, but in minuscule quantities. Still it wouldn’t be impossible to harvest them from an adult troll.
