by C. Gockel
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Bohdi steps close to the bed. “I’m here.”
Steve takes a breath. Not opening his eyes, he rasps. “Dad, can you leave us?”
Henry visibly trembles, but he gets up slowly from his chair and heads to the door. As soon as it closes Steve lets out another breath. His eyes are still mostly closed. “You were right,” he says. “Freyja was after me.”
Bohdi blinks. When he and Amy had come back from Asgard they’d half seriously warned Steve that he might be Freyja’s next target. Odin used her to seduce men, control them, and sometimes kill them.
Odin … Bohdi remembers Odin’s torso sprawled out on the banquet hall table after Mr. Squeakers bit him. Bodhi’d thought about killing him then, but he hadn’t—he hadn’t felt like he could, or should, he’s not sure.
Bohdi’s legs go to jelly, and he doesn’t so much sit as fall into the chair abandoned by Henry. He puts his head in hands. “I didn’t kill Odin … I didn’t kill Odin … This is all my fault.”
Steve coughs. “No, Bohdi … ”
“It is,” Bohdi says. “It is. And Odin said … ”
“Odin said what?” says Steve.
I destroy everything. But he didn’t kill Odin. Because he is a failure even at being the incarnation of chaos and destruction. He doesn’t like killing people, or spiders even—he’s just good at it. His breathing is ragged in his ears. He can’t look at Steve.
“It’s my fault,” Steve says, every inch of his body completely still. “I didn’t come get you from jail.”
Bohdi shakes his head, “No, no, I was so stupid … It was so stupid of me to get into a fight … I’m …. I’m … ” Bohdi’s breath comes fast and heavy. It’s too cold in the room. His fingers feel numb.
“You’re what?” says Steve.
He’s being over dramatic. But he’s not, magic is real, and he’s part of it somehow, even if he’s about as magical as a doorknob. He squeezes his eyes shut. What had the Norns said? “I’m trouble … ” he murmurs.
Even the Norns, three of the most powerful beings in the universe, didn’t want to keep him around. He’s tainted Steve just by being here. And when has he ever done anything for Steve except cause him paperwork nightmares? And now … He looks at his friend’s body laid out on the bed, so still he might be dead. Bohdi is very good at killing things, except when it counts … He thinks of Odin and feels his face crumple and his shoulders sink.
“I … I … I should go …” he stammers, running his hands through his bangs. Maybe just by being here he’s jinxing the machines that are pulsing and whirling around them?
“No,” says Steve.
But Bohdi’s already getting up and going to the door. His hand is on the knob when Steve rasps out. “I know who you are.”
Every muscle in Bohdi’s body seizes up. Hand drifting from the doorknob, Bohdi turns. “You know my real name?” He thinks of the photo of his maybe baby self and two doting probably parents that he’d had in his wallet after Loki’s attack. It was his only connection to his former life. He’d gone to Nornheim to find them. Things hadn’t gone as planned. The Norns tried to make a bargain with him he couldn’t fulfill—and he damaged that one precious photo during the trip. Now the picture only exists on his phone.
“No,” Steve says, and Bohdi’s shoulders fall.
“Sorry,” Steve murmurs. His eyelids sink a little. “I know what you are.”
Bohdi’s heart beats faster. “What I am?”
Steve wheezes. “Heard … you talking … to Thor in the conference room.” Steve wheezes again. “You’re the incarnation … of … Chaos … ”
Exhaling, Bohdi closes his eyes. Thor is the only other person besides the Norns, and maybe Odin’s wife Frigga, who knows who Bohdi is. Thor could have sold him out to Odin … but he hadn’t. Bohdi’s still not sure why. In his pocket his fingers wrap around his lighter. It doesn’t matter. “That’s why I should leave. I’m Chaos, somehow this is all my fault.” He feels torn between relief and shame. Steve knew, and he hadn’t sent him to Gitmo, or some scary scientific lab, but being around Bohdi had condemned him to a life of pain and suffering.
Steve grunts. “Don’t … be an idiot.”
Bohdi’s eyes snap open. “Odin said I destroy everything! And he was telling the truth! I know—knowing when people are lying is the only magic I have!”
Steve’s eyelids finally lift. He looks up at Bohdi. “Why do you think Odin wants you so much if you destroy everything?”
Bohdi blinks.
Steve’s eyes slide shut. “The team with Chaos always wins …” He swallows. “That’s what Ratatoskr told me.”
Bohdi’s jaw goes hard at the mention of the Norn’s magical world-walking squirrel minion. “Ratatoskr is a liar.”
Steve sighs. “No, it makes sense. Philosophically … Army … with superior technology … wins. Society … that allows change … more stable … long term. And I think … ” He lets out a breath. “You’re wrong. You have … other magic.”
Bohdi smiles bitterly. “No, I don’t. I wish I did. It would have made surviving giant spiders, dragons, archeo-winged dinos, and adze a lot easier.”
Steve’s eyes open again, and his gaze slides to Bohdi. “Yes. You should have died … but you didn’t … because Chaos rearranges the odds.”
Bohdi exhales a long breath, and he looks away from Steve. The Norns said they weren’t sure he could be Chaos’ incarnation because he was a non-magical human. So they’d tested him with the adze, spiders, and others—but he’d survived. And that’s how they knew for certain.
“Bohdi …” Steve whispers. “I hurt. I’m so tired. And docs say … I won’t … I won’t … walk again … or …” His eyes slide shut. But he really doesn’t have to say the rest. “I need you on my team, Bohdi.”
Bohdi’s limbs feel like they may collapse beneath him again. He feels weary, and like he’s been standing outside in winter without a coat, chilled to the bone. He thumbs the wheel on his lighter. “Steve, I can’t fix things, I break things. The reason I survived Nornheim and escaped Asgard was because I had Amy … ”
He lifts his head, his heart beat quickening. Amy has Loki’s memories! “Steve, Amy knows everything magical. She can fix you, or she’ll know how someone magical can.”
“I don’t think …” Steve starts to say.
Fumbling for his phone, Bohdi says, “Will using this in here affect the equipment? ”
“No,” says Steve, eyes opening.
But Bohdi goes to the door anyway. “Just in case, I’ll call from the hall. I’ll be right back!”
“Bohdi,” Steve says, but Bohdi’s already out of the door, nodding to Brett and Bryant as he puts his phone to his ear. He’s vaguely aware of the door swinging shut behind him. Before he’s even dialed Amy’s number, he hears her voice. “I need to talk to Steve.”
Spinning, he sees her down the hall. His body relaxes and he feels the cold that gripped him start to lift. She’s facing his direction, but her eyes are on Ruth and Henry. Beatrice is beside her.
Ruth stands with her back to Bohdi, Henry’s arm around her shoulders. “Honey, right now Bohdi is talking to him, I don’t think—”
“No,” Bohdi calls, running down the hall. “No, Ruth, Amy needs to see him, right now.”
Amy’s head jerks up quickly, and she holds her chin high. She looks angry, and that’s out of place in this situation, and on Amy’s face. Amy cares about everyone and everything. He runs his hands through his bangs. Why shouldn’t she be angry? Steve’s been shot.
Slowing his steps, he says, “She’s a doctor.”
“Is that a dog kennel?” says a passing MD, a tall white guy with a paunch. He points toward Amy. It’s only at that moment that Bohdi realizes she’s got a small black duffel bag over her shoulder.
“Errr … No, of course not,” says Amy. “That would be inappropriate.”
Bohdi’s nose tickles, but he doesn’t sneeze.
The doctor takes a step forward. From the duffel bag comes an audible growl.
“It’s a dog carrier,” says Amy, putting a hand on her chest.
“Get that thing out of here!” says the doc, stepping closer still.
From the carrier comes a furious sounding snuffle, and another growl.
Amy passes the duffel-bag-dogie-carrier to Beatrice. “Grandma, take her home. I’ll be there soon.” Pulling a small prescription bottle out of her pocket and handing it to her grandmother, she adds. “Give her two of those in an hour if she seems uncomfortable.”
“I’m going to call security,” says the doctor.
“Come on,” says Bohdi, taking Amy’s arm.
“Bohdi,” says Ruth, “Steve asked for you. I don’t know if he’s ready for other visitors—”
Steering Amy down the hall, Bohdi says over his shoulder, “Amy can help Steve, I know it!” He’s not sure if he’s trying to give Ruth or himself.
Amy turns to him, eyes wide, mouth open. “I don’t even know his condition—”
“Freyja shot him,” says Bohdi, as Brett and Bryant run their magic detectors over them. “The bullet shattered a vertebra and mostly severed his spinal cord. He has no feeling or control of anything from the neck down.”
Bohdi pulls her to the door and into the room. As soon as they’re in, he looks at her expectantly. “There’s a magical cure, right?”
The door shuts. She just stares at him.
Across the room, Steve whispers. “You wanted to ruin me, Lewis … Is this close enough?”
Bohdi’s head jerks in Steve’s direction, and then his eyes slide back to Amy.
She takes a few steps toward the bed. She frowns, and for a few long heartbeats she says nothing. When she speaks, it’s through gritted teeth. “You stole my baby, Steve.”
Bohdi’s mouth drops. Steve’s eyes go to Bohdi, as though he’s trying to trying to gauge Bohdi’s reaction. Stumbling back a step, Bohdi looks to Amy. “What are you talking about?”
She meets his eyes, looking like she might cry, or snarl, or both. “He stole my baby when I miscarried, so that their scientists could discover why Frost Giants are magical and humans aren’t. So they could isolate the proteins and the receptors and the gene markers—”
“No.” Steve rasps. “I … took custody … of a fetus that wasn’t viable … that was already dead.”
Bohdi pushes his bangs back from his eyes. He remembers waiting in the hospital after Amy’s miscarriage. Steve had come, bringing a small army of agents with him.
“You did not ask!” Amy says. “You took her without my permission. You harvested her stem cells and you’re growing them in test tubes!”
“Yes, stem cells…” Steve says, his breathing wheezy and labored. A device somewhere chirps. “I know the journals you read! You don’t disapprove of stem-cell research.”
Amy’s voice rises until its almost a shout. “And can you guarantee that’s all they would do, Steve? Can you guarantee that they wouldn’t try to clone her?”
Bohdi’s gut churns. He remembers Amy’s baby—they’d seen her in Nornheim—or a version of her from another universe. She played peekaboo with them through a magic mirror. She looked exactly like a tiny Amy, but with red hair. His hand goes to his lighter.
“If they did … I would oppose it,” Steve says.
Amy crosses her arms over her chest. And then her hands immediately fly out again, like startled birds. “Would you even know about it? You’re leaving the office to be mayor.”
Steve doesn’t respond. Not looking at where he’s going, Bohdi steps sideways and hits a blinking electronic thing mounted on wheels.
Amy begins to pace. “And that’s not all you’ve been lying about, Steven. I know about the technomagical breakthrough you were about to announce last night—about the magical materials that are appearing near World Gates!”
Bohdi blinks and turns back to Steve. Steve’s mouth is open, his eyes are hooded. He’s taking quick, shallow breaths.
Pacing to the end of Steve’s bed, Amy says, “Magical materials don’t just happen, Steve. Giving an object magical charge takes will.”
Bohdi’s fingers tighten around his lighter.
“Dark elves,” Steve says, his voice crackling. “I … got … their help.”
Flame bites Bohdi’s thumb. The Dark Elves attacked Chicago, right before Loki went on his rampage. Steve aligned himself with them—when it could bring Asgard down on them, just like had happened in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia?
Amy leans down and rests her hands on the bottom of the bed. “You’re trading weapons with them in exchange for magical objects? Are you putting the whole city at risk just so you can tout something that assures you’ll be mayor?”
“No,” Steve says, closing his eyes, his head seeming to sink deeper into his pillow.
“No, what?” says Amy.
Steve’s eyes open. “I offer them asylum.”
Amy’s face goes slack. Hand drifting to her throat, she says, “Asylum?”
Steve’s eyelids drop. “Dark Elves and Light Elves are at war. Dark Elves send families with young children here.” He takes a wheezy breath. “I look the other way…” He sighs. “They work with scientists. They get paid in U.S. dollars. They might buy weapons with it,” Steve croaks. “I hope they do.”
Bohdi stiffens. Loose U.S. gun laws could give a Dark Elf with cash and a fake social security number access to some pretty decent firepower. But why would Steve want that?
Sinking into the chair Ruth had been in earlier, Amy wipes her face with her hands and bows her head.
x x x x
In the Delta of Sorrows, cold fetid water sloshes over the tops of Loki’s boots and seeps through the chinks in his armor. A sound to his left makes him duck down into a crouch. He looks into the dark and twisted trees that rise from the swamp but sees nothing.
At his side, his son Valli whispers, “Did you hear something?”
“Father?” his son Nari whispers.
Beyond them he hears grumblings from their escort. The queen of the light elves sent her armed guard to help Loki and his sons dispose of Andvaranaut, the cursed ring that Loki wears on a silver chain around his neck.
Holding up his hand for silence, Loki grits his teeth. Concentrating, he tries to send an invisible projection into the gloom. Instead, he conjures a glimmering man-shaped beam of light. The failed projection blinks back at Loki and then dissipates.
Loki curses and glares down at the water swirling around his legs. Black and pearlescent, it oozes the magic of expired potions and misenchanted objects that the Light Elves dump upstream. It’s interfering with his magic.
He looks up over the tops of the trees. Loki is charged with destroying Andvaranaut, by throwing it into the Mountain of Darkness, an active volcano in the land of the Dark Elves. His hand goes to his chest where the ring is strung on a silver chain. Odin said that Loki’s magic will cancel out the magic of the curse, but if the ooze around him is warping his magic, will that make his magic ineffective against the ring? Or will it also cancel out the ring’s magic as well?
He gives the chain a slight tug, nervously testing its strength. The dwarf craftsman who made the chain said it was unbreakable. Closing his eyes, Loki remembers the dwarf stringing the ring on the cord. The craftsman’s eyes had shone, and his hands had shaken. He’d offered Loki all of his treasure stores for the ring … and later set a gang of thugs after Loki to try and steal the damnable thing.
Another twig cracks in the trees, this time to the right. Loki’s head snaps in the direction of the sound.
One of the elves says, “It is the Dark Elves. They want the ring.” Loki’s eyes flick to the elf. None of the Light Elves they’ve encountered has craved the ring’s magic. They tell him it is because “Elves are perfect.” Sadly, they don’t wish to carry the cursed thing either.
“Could be an animal,” Nari suggests.
Valli hisses.
Loki begin
s picking his way through the muck again. On his chest, the ring hums with power that begs to be used … Loki’s sure if he tapped into its magic he’d have enough power to set the whole, wet, stinking swamp ablaze, magic garbage be damned.
And yet … even Odin fears Andvaranaut. Odin may be many things but he’s no fool. Loki tugs again on the chain. It’s become a bit of a nervous habit.
A shrill hoot comes from the left, and Loki halts. He tugs the chain again and feels it bite into his neck. A creature with four bat-like wings bolts from the trees and disappears into the soot-filled sky. Nari and Valli pull their swords.
Loki plays with the silver cord, fingers just grazing Andvaranaut. He takes a careful step forward. Water sloshes and the mud beneath him releases his heel with a long suck.
Around them there is the low buzz of insects. Another branch cracks, and Loki ducks as another bat-thing flies from the trees. The creature shrieks. Valli draws his sword, someone loosens an arrow, and Loki yanks on the chain …
The chain gives on his neck and Andvaranaut flies through though the air, landing with a plop near Loki’s feet.
“The ring!” Loki shouts. Bending over, he begins scouring the bottom of the swamp where he thinks the ring landed. Nari rushes forward and begins searching in the muck with him. Valli stands above them. “Hurry,” he snarls. “I don’t like this.”
Beside Loki, Nari shouts, “I found it!” Straightening, Nari holds the ring in front of his eyes.
“Give it to me,” Loki says, holding out his hand. He should dart forward and snatch it, but something about the way Nari’s eyes are riveted to the ring makes his heart beat loud in his ears.
Nari doesn’t move. Loki feels his muscles tighten and a cold rush of fear.
Flexing his hand, Loki wills his heart to stop racing. Looking at Nari or Valli is like looking at a more beautiful, purer reflection of himself. Valli and Nari are idealistic to a fault. Nari will hand the ring over. “Nari,” Loki says, keeping his voice patient and calm. “Hand it over.”
“Father, I don’t think I should … ” The words strike Loki like a blow to the heart.
