Bragisson’s magic solidified, and for a split second, I wondered if he would attack his own daughter. He beckoned her forward and extended his arms instead.
She offered no physical touch. No hug or kiss to the cheek. She clasped her hands behind her back instead, in much the same way her father had earlier. Next to me, Remy sniffed as if holding in a snicker.
“Why the theatrics?” Dag asked. She wasn’t looking at her father. She watched der Nord.
“As hosts, we are here ahead of the delegations.” Bragisson waved his hand at Remy and me. “Where is your husband, daughter? We must establish the room for official greetings. The Conclave begins shortly.”
“Arne will arrive momentarily.” Dag lowered the pitch of her voice. “I wish to speak to our pack and our paladin.”
Not once had I heard any of the elves officially declare me paladin. I’d always been their jotunn and their adopted son, but never their warrior. But the way Dag said “pack and paladin” made it clear, at least to me, that they considered Alfheim’s non-elven residents as important to the enclave as the elves.
My surprise surprised me. I lived in Alfheim. I had for the majority of my two hundred years. Whenever I left, I always came home to a family who welcomed me with open arms. They even took in my own adopted witch daughter, but “paladin” was just as much of a joke as “jotunn” and “Biterson.”
To hear the clear intent in Dag’s voice as she spoke to other elves caught me off guard.
Remy, though, grinned like the wolf he was.
Niklas der Nord extended his hand to Dag. His expression took on a loose, wide-eyed longing that his body did not mirror. “Dagrun,” he said in a reverent, sweet voice.
He took her casted hand, and kissed the plaster.
“Niklas.” The ice that had coated Dagrun’s voice when she spoke to her father cracked when she spoke to der Nord. Some warmth made it through.
She peered at his unglamoured hair and lack-of-ponytail.
Remy sniffed and twirled his finger behind his head. “Arne never had an issue with bears,” he said.
Dagrun neither twitched, sneered, nor laughed. “There was that one grizzly in Yellowstone.” A hint of sarcasm made it into the ice in her voice, though. “Amazing creatures. Much meaner than your average Eurasian brown bear.”
“Arne’s never lost anything at all to a bear,” Remy said.
This wasn’t his wolf working through Remy. This was his hooligan dancing out in front of his pack as a distraction to a major predator. Every one of his pokes at der Nord was to distract him from harming the Alfheim Pack’s elven members. I knew it. Dag knew it. But right now, we didn’t need our high-strung Alpha picking a fight with a powerful elf.
Too late. Der Nord turned on Remy. His glamour flickered.
“Excuse us!” I half-yelled. Anything to distract the elf and the werewolf. “We have business.” I pointed over their heads toward the casino.
All the elves looked at me.
“Remy and I will report to the entire Conclave at the beginning of the Feast,” I said.
“You and your wolf will explain now.” Der Nord continued to stare at Remy. “No more instigating behaviors we must cover,” he said. “For the mundanes’ protection.”
He was baiting Remy.
Dagrun cleared her throat. “Frank and Remy will report to all the Courts as is Conclave protocol.” Her lips and the muscles around her eyes tightened, as did her magic. It shifted outward and sliced between Remy and her father, between der Nord and me, but mostly between der Nord and herself.
“The Feast, then, Father?” she said.
No need to fight in public, her magic said.
The threat of a private fight was not lost on Bragisson. “The Feast, yes. Your Mr. Victorsson will report then, daughter.” He motioned to the two female guards. “Olav and Bjorn have landed and are preparing themselves now.”
Olav Sigundsson, the Siberian King, and Bjorn Bjornsson, the Norwegian. They would both likely arrive shortly with underlings from their subordinate enclaves.
Bragisson looked between us and Dag. “You stay.” Nothing else. No pleasantries or requests, only a command issued to his daughter.
Remy opened his mouth, but Dag held up her hand. “Go on,” she said.
Der Nord backed away from Remy. He bowed to Dagrun and lifted her hand to his lips once again. “Come,” he said. He turned to follow Bragisson toward the conference rooms and—
Lollipop appeared just off der Nord’s shoulder. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail mimicking the elves’ and had morphed her clothes into an exact duplicate of der Nord’s wine-red leathers.
Remy bared his teeth.
Every elf around us responded as if attacked. Every one of them lifted their hands to toss out some sort of magical protection.
Except they weren’t looking at the kitsune. They were all looking at Remy.
Lollipop winked. She pulled a Santa-shaped candy from her mouth and tapped it against Niklas’s cheek.
She vanished.
“Kitsune!” I grabbed Remy’s arm just as he raised it to swipe at Lollipop.
He would have hit der Nord with a well-placed right hook.
Dag tossed out a magical net. Þórdís Ullrsdottir stepped between Remy and me and the other elves.
By the banquet room’s door, Mr. Right of the Siberian twins glanced around the lobby as if he, too, had felt the kitsune’s presence. He nodded to his brother, and a spell formed around them.
A spell that looked anti-fox.
How, I couldn’t tell, because the sigil markings and the lines of energy looked like every other enchantment I’d ever seen an elf produce, except this one gave off a clear no-foxes-allowed vibe.
“Kitsune? Here? Your attendants attracted tricksters to the Conclave?” der Nord yelled.
Three mundane Con-goers stared. A long string of Icelandic poured from Dagrun. Her father shot back an equally stinging string. Magic flitted off both of them, and the Con-goers blinked as if waking up, but continued on their way anyway.
Bragisson turned his back to his daughter and walked toward the banquet room. His Queen and Elder followed, though neither appeared happy.
“We attracted no one,” Remy growled. “They were here when we arrived.”
Der Nord looked between Dag, Remy, and his boss. “They were here when you arrived and you did not inform me?”
“They’re interested in me,” I said. “Not you.”
“And yet you expect us to allow you into the Feast banquet? You are trickster-touched.” Der Nord followed Bragisson. “I told you they were not to be trusted,” he yelled to his boss.
“Father!” Dagrun snapped.
Bragisson stopped walking. He lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes. “I cannot allow trickster-bringers into the Feast. You know that, daughter.”
Then he walked between the Siberian twins and into the banquet room.
We just lost our chance to stand for Alfheim—and now Arne and Dag were also trickster-contaminated by association.
I’d throttle Chip and Lollipop. They were worse than brats. They were destroyers.
Dag yelled something Russian-sounding at the twins. They looked at each other, then turned in unison and also followed her father into the room.
“Remy!” I pulled him aside—which took more effort than it should have. He felt stronger, more agile. His eyes had begun to change. His wolf was surfacing now, during the day, in the lobby of a busy hotel.
“Calm down,” I said. “We just lost our chance to speak at the Feast.”
Dag pinched her forehead.
“One of the kitsune appeared right next to der Nord,” I said. “The one with the lollipop.”
She shook her head. “I did not sense or see her.”
“None of you did,” I said. “Purposefully.”
Remy pushed me off. “Maybe this is why Portia Elizabeth didn’t choose me. Why else would those two brats show up right now? Only to destroy.”
“Remy…” I didn’t know what to say.
Remy paced but did not walk away. “I’m done.”
I leaned close to Dagrun. “We found Portia Elizabeth. She works for the Wolf spirit who runs the Las Vegas magicals.” I glanced at Remy. “It… gave me a job.”
Her magic shook. “Explain.”
I held out my arm. “I made the mistake of offering my services to a trickster. Not Wolf. Raven. Now I’m a troll hunter.”
Dagrun Tyrsdottir showed no physical sign of anxiety. Her expression did not change, nor did her posture. She waved her hand over the brand. “It pooled in a space left open by your stolen tracers.”
I nodded.
She extended her hand toward Remy. “What of these kitsune?”
Remy twirled around. “I wonder if Arne realized that when he brought Gerard and me into Alfheim that a version of the spirit that created my kind might someday decide to interfere in elven business?”
“We still have you and Frank.” Dag did not seem worried about the lack of Portia Elizabeth. “No matter what Niklas says.”
Remy backed away. He shook his head and jogged toward the elevators.
I looked to Dag. She shook her head and waved me to follow.
“I can’t,” I said. “The troll is in the building. She’s playing slots right now.” I waved toward the other end of the concourse. “You don’t sense her?”
Dag stepped closer. “Trolls figured out a long time ago how to operate in the same area as elves. If she’s not actively using her magic, none of us would sense her.” She looked down at my arm. “You don’t need to chase her down.” A wave of magic moved over me.
Nothing changed. The brand did not lift away.
Dagrun gripped my arm. Another wave of magic flowed over me, and again, nothing changed.
“I have never in my life come across magic like this,” she said. “It’s… visceral.”
The Con-goers continued to move around us as if we were just two more mundanes. “I need to go,” I said.
She gripped my cheeks. “You are no spirit’s hound, Frank.”
I would have hugged the elf I considered mother, but we were in public and in full view of the Siberian guards. “I know,” I said. “I know.”
Remy and me, we were the two guys who accidently found ourselves in the sights of a world-spirit crime boss because we wanted to talk to the wrong person. And now I had to complete a dumb task for magicals who were not my people.
I just wanted to go home and sleep off the entire misadventure. I wanted to wake up with a clean arm again.
Remy vanished into the elevator lobby. I should have followed, but if there was one thing of which I was sure, it was that neither of us wanted to let down Portia Elizabeth.
Dag stepped back. She had her orders. I had mine.
The Elf Queen of Alfheim walked toward the Conclave banquet room, and I pushed my way through the crowd toward the casino floor.
Chapter 21
Lights flashed. Machines jingled. Casino-goers laughed and yelled. And the brand on my arm pressed magical information into my senses: A spirit worked the floor. The troll played slots. And two elves prowled between the games as I lumbered my way through the crowd.
A server holding a tray looked me over as I passed by. I followed the red magic’s directions, and made my way into one of the more isolated rows of slots in the casino. The shadows thickened toward the machines, mostly to heighten their hypnotic effect on mundanes. For a troll, they only helped the cave-like atmosphere.
I folded myself into the reclining cushiness of the seat next to the troll’s chosen slot machine. She’d picked the slots in a farthest corner, behind a blackjack table and next to one of the casino’s flush-with-the-wall security doors.
The troll, still in her granite-haired, polyester-dressed, gray and lavender glamour, poked at the machine’s buttons. She swiped and played, this time without a bucket of coins.
Her bag sat on the floor next to her feet. She stopped with her hand frozen mid-air, sniffed once, and pinched her entire face as if she’d just sucked on a lemon.
“Not-a-jotunn, I told you all I know.” She flicked her pinky at me. “You found House. I know.” She sniffed again and her face pulled into the same lemon-sucked pinch as when I first sat down. “Go away.”
“I’d love to,” I said.
The troll chortled. “Did they get you, big boy?”
Looks as if the troll knew more than she’d let on when we first found her. “Who is this they of whom you speak, troll?”
She pointed at my forearm. “Let me see.”
I held out my arm. She sniffed at the brand, shook her head, and pushed more buttons on the jingling, whirring machine. “You poor thing,” she said. “I owe that mangy yipper nothing.”
I settled into the chair. Casino furniture really was comfortable. “It doesn’t think so.”
She shrugged. “I am old. I like a rest from the winter cold.” She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers to reiterate her assertion about arthritis. “But I am one of the few of my kind willing to leave our bridges and rocks.”
“I figured you were special.”
“We do not glamour well.” She winked. “One of its hounds helped me.” She waved her hand and her glamour fluctuated.
The underlying magic wasn’t Portia Elizabeth’s green, or even anything that hinted at a vampire, so whoever helped the troll wasn’t a magical of whom I was aware.
The troll leaned toward me. “He talked a lot about Big Fae and Big Elf, and how us less-desirable magicals needed to stick together.”
I chuckled, which turned into a laugh. “The gatekeeper?”
She shrugged. “I learned. I make my own glamour.” She waved her hand at her glittery jewelry and her lavender polyester blouse. “I not copy anyone. The mangy yipper wants me to pay it a toll because it says it owns this look in this territory.”
Wolf had me hunting the troll over a frivolous copyright claim? How absurd. “The kitsune didn’t set this up, did they?”
She looked over her shoulder. “Foxes? Where?”
“They’re not here.”
“Oh.” She returned to swiping her card, yanking on levers, and pushing buttons. “I leave soon. Going home.” She pointed at her bag. “Mangy yipper can eat its own tail.”
“How many hounds has Wolf sent to annoy you?”
The troll tapped the slots as if counting. “You are number five.”
Five?
She poked a finger in my direction. “You can go away, too, not-a-jotunn.”
I leaned back in my seat. “Wolf threatened to rip me apart and feed my parts to its dire wolves if I didn’t bring you back to House.”
The troll laughed. “It thinks you can move me?” She laughed again.
This time, I was the one who shrugged.
“My plane leaves this evening. I play now. Take gold home.” She nodded as if quite pleased with herself.
She swiped at the slots again. “Where’s the doggie?” She glanced around me. “Lots of elves around.” She spit out elves as if the word was venomous. “They partying? Maybe I demand tribute at an exit.” She leaned closer. “Help to pay bills.” She pointed at the machine. “Elves can afford it.”
“Remy’s not here,” I said. “And yes, the elves are partying.”
The machine whizzed and beeped, and the screen pulled up two cherries and a lemon.
The troll sighed and poked at the machine again. “You like that vampire who came looking a few days ago?” She pointed at my arm. “Vampires worse than elves.” She spit out elves again.
The kids at House had said something about a vampire named Anthea.
The troll poked a crooked finger at my nose. “That vampire vanished into a gate.” She nodded knowingly. “Strong magic, it was.”
“I heard about that,” I said.
The troll leaned closer again. “She was going to bind me with her magic,” she pointed at the brand, “but the cal
l from the gate was too strong.”
So the troll had been saved by Dracula’s timing.
“Maybe I go to Monte Carlo, next year, huh? Or Macau.” She frowned. “I like the slots.”
“How did you get away from the vampire?” Maybe the troll was smarter than we thought.
“I am here, aren’t I?” She peered at my face. “Not too bright, are you?”
So the running out into the sunshine was more for show than an actual problem for this troll.
I leaned back in the soft, comfortable chair. “How are we supposed to deal with this?” I asked, not at all expecting the troll to answer, or to at least answer in a way that would help me. She could walk out, get on her plane, and go home. I couldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to do, not that I was inclined to do so, anyway.
The troll coughed out a laugh. “Buy me whiskey, not-a-jotunn.”
I was surprised she hadn’t yet asked me for gold. “What’s your name?” I asked. “Since I’m buying you whiskey.”
The troll’s next poke was directed at my eye. “Oh, no, you not get my name, big boy.” She sniffed again. “Don’t trust. You live with elves and old wolves.” She shook her head as if I’d committed the biggest sin in the entire universe.
I shrugged. “Fair enough.”
I stood and looked around, half expecting to see Portia Elizabeth striding through the casino toward the troll.
Carrying around this need to not disappoint a female fertility spirit—not a desire, or even an impulse, just a need—had added a thick new layer to my fatigue. Or perhaps the absurdity of the past few days had fully caught up with me.
The troll cackled. “Whiskey!”
On the other side of the casino, across the lobby and down the ElfCon concourse, the elves “partied,” and the Alfheim Court was about to make a case for the continued building of bridges in a world where those bridges sometimes let in vampires.
And here I stood, branded by a crime boss with magic I neither wanted nor understood, waiting out the proceedings with an attitudinal troll.
Perhaps I should buy us both whiskeys.
Elf Raised (Northern Creatures Book 3) Page 16
