I Bring the Fire Part V: Warriors

by C. Gockel

  Curled at the base of the planter is a rodent tail—seemingly attached to nothing. But in the nothing are two black eyes, a pink nose, whiskers, and the pink inside of little round ears. Amy’s jaw drops. “It’s an invisible rat!” At the sound of her voice its visible little pink nose and whiskers tremble, its tail thumps, and its black beady eyes blink. “Mostly invisible,” she amends.

  “Hold Fenrir,” she hears Bohdi say. And a moment later he’s sitting on his heels beside her.

  Amy’s heart beats fast in her chest. “It’s a new species! A magic species! We have to catch it!”

  “Just what this city needs,” Beatrice grumbles. “Invisible rats.” Amy hears safeties click. She looks up and sees Beatrice and Valli raising handguns, Nari holding Fenrir’s lead.

  Holding up her arms, she whispers. “No! We’ll catch it to study it!”

  She hears a cheep from Mr. Squeakers. Amy looks down and sees the rat making a break around the corner.

  Slipping off his jacket, Bohdi says, “I’ll catch it.”

  Seeing the critter’s tail vanish into the next planter over, Amy says, “I’ll corner it!”

  Fenrir growls. Nari says, “It’s vermin.” Ignoring Fenrir and Nari, Amy runs to the new planter box. She sees a tail slide within. It looks like a giant earthworm but moves too fast. “I see it!” Amy says. On the other side of the planter, holding up his coat like a net, Bohdi says, “Me, too. Maybe scare it this way?”

  “Okay,” says Amy walking into the planter and spreading her arms wide, trying to look more frightening than Bohdi. The critter decides they’re both frightening and darts sideways and out of the planter. Bohdi springs to the side and throws his coat. It lands on the sidewalk in a rumpled heap. Amy’s eyes dart side to side. Where is the rat?

  “We caught it!” Bohdi says.

  Amy looks at the coat. One of the rumples moves and her heart leaps. “Yay!” she says clapping her hands together, not caring if she’s acting all of five years old. Bohdi darts forward and gathers the coat into a bundle; inside, the rat squirms. “And he’s fine!” Bohdi says, sounding oddly amazed by that. “Look at him wiggle!”

  Amy bites her lip. “A new species! What will we call it?” she bounces on her feet. “What do you call a magical rat?”

  Giving her a mischievous grin, Bohdi says, “Mickey Mouse?”

  Amy bursts out laughing. And even if the world is headed to Armageddon ... or Ragnarok ... it feels good.

  Fumbling with the coat, Bohdi says, “Oops.” Inside the makeshift net, Amy sees furious wiggling. “He’s got fight in him,” Bohdi says.

  “Don’t squish him,” says Amy.

  Brow furrowing, Bohdi says, “Trying …” Out of the top of the bundle pokes a nose and whiskers—they twitch in Bohdi’s direction. “Hey, get back in there,” Bohdi says, raising a hand as though about to push it back down.

  “Don’t! It might have rabies!” says Beatrice.

  Bohdi’s hand freezes midair.

  “In Illinois that’s more common in foxes and skunks,” Amy says.

  Bohdi looks at her, brows high.

  “But don’t touch it,” Amy says quickly.

  In the moment of Bohdi’s distraction the rat manages to turn around so it’s facing Amy. It hisses at her. Amy draws back; rat teeth suspended in nothing is more disquieting than she would have expected.

  “Hey, don’t talk to her like that!” says Bohdi.

  Squeakers gives an answering hiss. Fenrir growls.

  “It’s just scared,” says Amy, trying to mollify Squeakers with a pat.

  The rat writhes a little farther forward, hissing in Amy’s direction.

  “Ummm ...” says Bohdi. Amy hears the scrape of claws on cement. The rat slips from the top of the coat bundle. Amy jumps backwards, the rat jumps at her, but before it lands on Amy it’s intercepted in midair by a gray blur of flying Fenrir.

  Amy gasps. Bohdi drops the coat. Fenrir lands a few paces down the sidewalk. Amy hears a crunch, and her little dog turns around. The rat is just ordinary gray, and hanging limply in Fenrir’s jaws.

  “It’s dead,” says Nari.

  Wagging her body, Fenrir tilts up her head and swallows the rat in a single gulp.

  Amy’s jaw drops. “Fenrir!” Fenrir opens her mouth in a happy pant and wags her body.

  Sounding vaguely bored, Nari says, “The leash slipped from my hands. But it’s a good thing.”

  Bohdi sighs. “Oh, Fenrir …”

  Amy glances at him. The disappointment and mild horror on his face mirror her feelings exactly. Sighing, he says, “Fenrir, for you that was practically cannibalism!”

  Fenrir barks cheerfully and wags her body. Amy might laugh if she wasn’t still a little in shock. How had Fenrir managed to swallow the rat whole, without even chewing?

  Fenrir licks her lips and barks again.

  Nari snorts.

  “I think you’re going to have to induce vomiting again,” says Beatrice.

  Amy tilts her head and eyes her little dog. Considering Fenrir swallowed bones and fur, she probably will. Definitely gross, but on the other hand … “I’ll be able to get a DNA sample that way.”

  Nari’s nostrils flare. “Ewwww …”

  Bohdi’s phone starts to play the Darth Vader theme. Amy blinks. Where has she heard a phone play that theme before?

  Pulling it out, Bohdi looks at the screen, jumps to his feet and shouts, “Steve’s awake!” He takes off in the direction of the hospital. Scooping up her little cannibal, Amy takes off after him.

  CHAPTER 12

  Bohdi runs down the hallway, the footsteps of the others behind. Ahead he sees light pouring from Steve’s door. He hears Claire’s voice. “Dad!” and then Ruth saying, “They broke the rules to let her in.”

  One of the guards at the door steps forward. “Halt,” he says. Skidding to a stop, Bohdi holds out his arms and waits for the guy to run a magic detector over him. Before the guy’s even done, Sigyn pokes her head out and looks Bohdi up and down. “He’s good,” she says.

  From inside the room Bohdi hears Claire shriek. “Dad, you’re sitting up!” Bohdi’s jaw drops as his brain registers the meaning of Claire’s words. Steve said he needed a miracle, and Bohdi helped deliver one. “I am so good,” he says and Sigyn rolls her eyes. Bohdi blinks. He could say he didn’t mean it that way. Instead he winks and walks past.

  Steve is sitting up in bed, Claire beside him, her arms wrapped around him, her face pressed to his shoulder. Behind Steve, Ruth is crying, Henry is wiping his eyes, and Steve’s buddy Dale is rubbing his jaw. Bohdi hears Amy’s footsteps behind him, and Ruth moves past him, arms upraised. “Dr. Lewis, how can we thank you?”

  Steve’s eyes stay on Bohdi. He smiles and nods, as much as he can with the neck brace still on, as though this is all Bohdi’s doing.

  Behind him, Bohdi hears more footsteps and the patter of tiny paws. It wasn’t all him though ... he turns to Amy. Ruth is just pulling out of a hug with her. Nari puts his arm over Amy’s shoulder, and Bohdi’s hand finds his lighter. Amy doesn’t acknowledge Ruth or Nari. Her eyes have a frightened, faraway look. Bohdi remembers her words, “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  Across the room, Henry clears his throat. “Dr. Lewis, I think your dog just ate my sandwich.”

  Bohdi follows Henry’s gaze to Fenrir. The dog is licking some crumbs off the linoleum.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Amy says, jogging over to her little dog.

  “It’s alright,” Henry says, scratching his head. “But my sandwich was wrapped in cellophane.”

  Everyone’s eyes go to Fenrir.

  Sighing, Amy says, “I needed to induce vomiting anyway.”

  Fenrir looks up at Amy, gives a woof, then bends her doggy nose and proceeds to heave.

  “But maybe I won’t have to,” Amy says.

  Something shiny comes out of Fenrir’s snout and Bohdi turns his head away. A collective, “Ewwwwwww …” rises in the room.

  H
olding back a strand of hair, Amy leans over the vomit. Sounding more excited than grossed out, Amy says, “Huh, it’s mostly just cellophane and bones … and the bones are stripped completely clean.”

  Curious despite himself, Bohdi walks over to where Amy is sitting on the floor next to Fenrir. The magical rat’s bones are so clean they almost look like they are made of plastic.

  Looking up at Steve, Amy says, “Are you feeling hungry?”

  Steve’s lips curls up, and he lifts his nose. “Not anymore.”

  Amy and Bohdi both look at Fenrir. So quietly Bohdi can barely hear, Amy murmurs, “Her paws do look like they’re getting bigger.”

  Bohdi tilts his head. Normally, he thinks of Fenrir as a sort of overgrown rat. But there is something about her today that is distinctly less rat like. Leaning toward Amy he whispers. “Is she getting furrier, too?”

  Amy’s eyes go wide. “Steve ... I think I need to measure your feet.”

  “Sure,” Steve says, sounding distracted. “Mom, did we have a train set when I was little.”

  “I’ll just talk to a nurse about getting a measuring tape,” Amy says.

  “No, wait, Lewis,” Steve says. Amy stops, but all of Steve’s attention is on Ruth. Brow furrowing, Ruth says, “No, never.”

  Steve’s shoulders sag, and he pulls Claire tighter.

  Bohdi’s kind-of-adopted mother taps her lips. “Now, old Mrs. Wilkinson, she used to let you play with her grandson’s trains when I cleaned her house.”

  “She had an Oriental rug,” says Steve, his eyes wide and his voice hushed.

  Ruth blinks. “How can you remember that? You weren’t much more than a year old?”

  “But I do remember it,” Steve says. His eyes meet Bohdi’s for a moment, and then he turns to Amy. “Dr. Lewis, can you explain?”

  Amy’s eyes get wide, and then she bounces on her feet. Bohdi almost smiles. He can tell she just had a brainstorm. “I have a hypothesis!” she says brightly, and Bohdi does smile. He was right.

  “Out with it,” Steve says, tone curt.

  Amy opens her mouth, and Steve levels his eyes at her. “In layman’s terms.”

  Amy purses her lips and then says, “Magic has a different relationship to time and to space. Your brain is no longer relying on existing pathways to memories … you can access pathways that no longer exist, or if they do, they’re hardly used.” She looks to the side. “That would explain how thousand-year-old beings can remember so much.”

  Bohdi thumbs the wheel of his lighter. “Pffft ... No.” That wouldn’t explain how a non-magical creature like Amy could have all of Loki’s memories.

  He suddenly finds everyone scowling at him—well, almost everyone. Amy just looks confused, and a little hurt. And Valli is busy tossing potato chips to Fenrir.

  “You’re a doctor now, Bohdi?” says Henry.

  Bohdi blinks, trying to formulate a way to ask for clarification without giving away her secret, when Nari says, “That is an excellent hypothesis! Well done, Dr. Lewis.”

  Amy glances at Loki’s son, and her cheeks go pink.

  The lighter flares in Bohdi’s hand, burning his thumb. He glares down at his singed finger. He shifts his glare to Nari, and then drops his eyes. He shouldn’t care about him cozying up to Amy either … except that he does. He doesn’t like Nari. There is something too smooth and nicey-nicey about him.

  But is too nice really worse than chaos? He rubs his singed thumb. For a time, Shiva, the Hindu God of Chaos, had retreated to a mountaintop and become an ascetic. Bohdi has wondered if it was because Shiva was like him and had cash flow problems. But maybe it was something else—a noble desire to keep others from harm?

  He remembers Gabbar’s face as the troll ripped him away. By rights, Gabbar, the more experienced in combat, should have killed Bohdi. But Chaos weighted the odds against him.

  Bohdi looks at Steve. But then again Steve was impossibly broken, and now he’s well, and Valli, Nari, and Sigyn should have died the day they were thrown into the Void but Chaos saved them … or maybe Chaos had thrust them into that ridiculous situation to begin with?

  Bohdi turns his lighter over in his hand. Should he stay away from Amy and Steve because he is the incarnation of trouble, or stay close to them because they’re in the impossible situation of having made the Allfather’s naughty list. He flicks his lighter. “Odin’s like some evil, one-eyed Santa.”

  A hush comes over the room. Bohdi lifts his head. Everyone, even Fenrir, is staring at him again.

  “Did I say that aloud?” Bohdi says, flashing a grin like he meant it as a joke. The room could use a good joke.

  Amy smiles and looks down, and Claire giggles. The rest of the room looks decidedly less amused.

  Clearing his throat, Steve turns back to Amy. “What about visions? Premonitions—does the odd relationship to time go forward, and not just backward?”

  Raising her eyes, Amy says, “There is no fate. Just possibilities that become likely probabilities, and probabilities that become realities.”

  “Frigga used to say that,” says Sigyn.

  Bohdi’s eyebrows hike. Obviously, this is something Amy picked up in Loki’s memories. He looks to her expectantly, wondering how she’ll play it.

  “Oh …” says Amy, her face turning pink. She pushes a lock of hair back behind an ear and keeps her gaze on Steve. “It’s possible if you could access more information, you might be able to make better deductions. It might feel like a premonition, but it wouldn’t be predicting the future per se.”

  Bohdi’s eyes shift to Sigyn. One of her eyebrows is arched, but she says nothing.

  Disengaging Claire’s arm from his shoulder, Steve says in his most business-like voice, “Lewis, Bohdi—I want a meeting with you in the Promethean wire room, now.”

  Claire’s face falls. But Steve isn’t looking at her.

  “Ahem,” says Beatrice. Steve rolls his eyes. “You can guard the door, Beatrice.” Amy’s grandmother narrows her eyes, but her frame becomes less rigid. Bohdi envies Steve’s ability to always know what to say. He glances at Claire’s slumped shoulders. Steve always knows what to say, except maybe to his daughter.

  Steve’s eyes flash to Sigyn, Nari, and Valli. “I’ll want you in the meeting, too.”

  From behind Bohdi, Dale’s voice rumbles. “I need to speak with you, Steve.” Bohdi jumps. He’d forgotten Dale was lurking back there.

  “Sure,” says Steve. “As soon as we’re done.” Eyes sliding to Henry, he says, “Dad, throw me that book on the window sill.” His hands go to his neck brace. “Can we take this thing off?”

  “Your neck should be fine now,” says Sigyn.

  “Good, let’s do it …but in the other room. I want to know everything everyone knows about Hoenir.” Swinging his legs over the side of his bed, Steve tries to push himself up to his feet, but then sits abruptly back down. “I need a wheelchair,” he says with a huff.

  A few minutes later, Bohdi tries to give Claire a sympathetic smile as they wheel her dad out of the room. Claire doesn’t respond. Her eyes are fixated on the back of Steve’s wheelchair, hands balled into fists at her side. Bohdi blinks. Her face is twisted into a look of rage that is out of place on a little girl. Bohdi could walk out of the door. Instead he runs.

  x x x x

  Rubbing his now-bare neck, Steve sits in the room lined with Promethean wire. Since he entered the room, he’s felt a little less ... sharp maybe? Alert? He feels as though he has cotton in his ears and is fighting the urge to check. He’s still in the wheelchair. His legs aren’t quite working right. He isn’t bothered by his lack of complete control, he feels that he will recover completely. The certainty is more disconcerting than his inability to move his legs. Later he can puzzle over it; now he is focused on a bigger mystery.

  Resting his elbows on the wheelchair’s armrests, he steeples his fingers. Fixing his gaze on Sigyn, he says “So, Hoenir dropped you off on Earth, and then he just disappeared?”

  Whe
re she sits, legs crossed, perched on the edge of his old bed, Sigyn nods. “Yes. We’ve tried going to the place where he dropped us off, but we can’t find the door.”

  Sitting on the windowsill, Bohdi flicks his lighter. Lewis is rubbing her temples, hunched in a chair.

  “Door?” says Steve.

  Sigyn shakes her head. “Gate, I mean Gate.”

  Standing beside the bed, arms crossed, Nari says, “Hoenir can create new branches between realms. He usually does so from doors in his home.”

  Steve runs his tongue over his teeth. There’s something about that which makes him feel like he’s forgetting something. “So, let me make sure I have the timeline right. Loki destroys Cera while you’re in Mussel, Musel—the realm of fire. Then you come right here to Earth, Hoenir drops you off, and you don’t see him again.”

  “Essentially,” says Sigyn.

  “I don’t want to know essentially what happened,” Steve snaps. “I want to know what happened.” There’s something important about the timeline, and he just can’t put his finger on it.

  Sigyn draws back. Nari stands a little straighter, and Steve realizes he’s pushing too hard. He’s about to apologize and rephrase the statement, when Valli says, “Mimir spoke with us first.”

  “Mimir?” says Steve.

  From where she sits, Lewis says softly. “Head of a giant, he did all of the speaking for Hoenir while Loki was alive.”

  Steve looks to her. “A talking head?”

  Lewis nods. “Hoenir is mute.”

  Where she sits on the bed, legs neatly crossed, hands wrapped around one knee, Sigyn says, “Was mute.”

  “Was?” says Steve.

  Uncrossing her legs, Sigyn says, “After Loki died, Hoenir spoke, for the first time ever in my memory. But then he left us for a while—an hour, maybe a little more—and Mimir explained Loki’s part of the trinity.” Although Sigyn is wearing borrowed clothes and a coat spattered with pink paint—Bohdi’s doing, apparently—she has an air of elegance. Steve flexes his steepled fingers; it’s her poise. He can’t help but wonder how she wound up with Loki; he always looked slightly rumpled even when he was in a suit.