"I know." Michael bobbed his head, and a rain of tears fell from his face. "I still feel bad."
"Guilt takes time to work through, but you're going to get better. It's a sign of improvement that you can remember your mom."
"Ben said I couldn't remember her because of the bad stuff. Now I can so I must be better," Michael said, implementing a child's simplistic logic with cutting effectiveness.
"Ben, the boy on the play structure?" Jake asked in a voice thick with skepticism. He had to be sure—no room for doubt. It wasn't often Loki got accused of doing something helpful and even rarer that it proved to be true. He'd hate to simply accept such an account at face value without asking questions or trying to discern the Trickster's ulterior motives.
"Yeah. Ben's my friend." Michael looked his adopted father straight in the eyes. "He took away all the stuff that was scary and that hurt."
"But you can remember everything that happened?"
"I can still remember it, but it's like I watched it all on TV." Michael dumped a thick swath of papers onto the grill, freeing his hands. "Can I go back inside now? I don't want to take a nap. Maybe Lucy will let me play video games."
"Sure, go ahead, but I wouldn't count it." Jake stared after the boy in perplexed silence while his mind worked to analyze what he'd just learned. None of it made any sense or fit with what he knew to be true.
Son of a gun—what game could Loki be playing at now?
Chapter Eleven
Sessrúmnir, Freya's hall in Fólkvangr
For an eternity, Freya stood shock still, unable to think or muster words. Stomach-turning sickness curdled her gut, nausea unlike anything she'd ever known. It couldn't be...it musn't. But the terrible truth of him stared her right in the face...and he smirked.
"C'mon, you can do it." He coaxed with his hands as though she were a child.
Bile filled her mouth. She'd fucked the bastard. She wanted to puke. She needed to scrub her skin raw. Instead, she regurgitated his ugly name. "Loki."
"Good. Now breathe. Keep calling me Arik. It'll make it easier to perpetuate the ruse when we're around others."
Freya gasped and shot straight past panting to hyperventilation. He thought—he thought—she'd help him continue his masquerade. Well, did he have another thing coming! She turned from him so she wouldn't have to look into his face any longer. Reaching up, she wrapped her hands about the back of her head and moaned. "Impossible. This has to be a nightmare."
"Afraid not. It's real."
She swiveled on her heel, poised on the precipice of despair. "But I saw you..." Her throat worked. "Arik was asleep in my bed when..."
"Loki." He nodded encouragement.
"Loki visited."
"Ah, that." He wove a spell with his hands—ribbons of magic swirled and formed clouds that rained a shimmering sparkle. When the pretty light show faded, two identical versions of Arik stood side by side.
"Illusion," said the Arik to the right. His twin took a stage bow. "An old trick but still one of my most effective."
Phoenix, Arizona
Like the twins, Michael attended a private elementary school. A fence enclosed the main campus and private security guards were part of the staff. A construction crew had already assembled to repair the damaged section. While school was in session, the gates were locked to prevent trespassing. Visitors had to sign in through the front office and were then escorted to their destination.
After he checked in, Jake followed a plump Hispanic receptionist down a hallway of white subway tiles. Bright bulletin boards provided pops of color against the beige walls.
"They're waiting for you inside, Mr. Barrett." She held open a faded orange door.
"Thank you." He entered and the door shut behind him. He stood inside a small room that held an oversized table. It dominated the entire space, leaving little in terms of walking area to either side. On the far wall, vertical blinds covered the tall single window.
Three women sat at the far end—ominous in demeanor, possession-marked auras hinting at the elder world. One was youthful and pretty, one middle-aged and stern, and one elderly and bitter. Three eldritch witches come a callin', dressed in mortal disguises.
Foreboding hung thick, a blanket of smog in the air. The hairs on the back of his neck and arms stood on end. Jake stopped. The muscles of his face hardened to a stoic mask, and he summoned his magic to him, double-checking to be sure all his wards and shields were in place. Anger percolated deep in the core of his being.
"Mr. Barrett, thank you for coming." Vera Ricardo, Michael's first grade teacher, was an attractive Hispanic woman in her mid-twenties. Quite understandably, Michael had something of a crush on his pretty teacher. When prior social occasions had brought them together, Jake found her to be articulate and pleasant, though a tad naive. Her intuitive empathy and gentle nature allowed her to relate to children in a way well beyond his capacity, so she had his respect.
"It's a pleasure to see you again, Ms. Ricardo." Jake offered a bland smile and tipped his chin to the foul creature that wore Vera Ricardo's body as her disguise.
"Mr. Barrett, I'm Cecelia Mallory, the principal. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of making your acquaintance before." The austere administrator, a woman in her mid-forties, ruled from the head of the table. She wore a dark gray pants suit cut in an ascetic style. Her features were sharp and narrow. Her silver hair slicked flat against her skull, revealing a widow's peak, and pulled into a tight top knot. Her eyes were hard, glittering diamonds; her tinny lips belonged to a joy-sucking vampire.
He didn't just dislike her. He despised her.
"I'm afraid you're mistaken. We have met." Jake settled into a wide stance, arms crossed over his thick chest, feet planted firm. He'd have preferred to wield his burning dagger, but he settled for a dangerous smile.
Uncertainty flickered over the principal's face which then wrung into a scowl. He used the opportunity to study the final woman who bookended the set. Her identity was unknown to him. The matron had sharp black eyes set within a gaunt face. The canvas of her skin pulled taunt over the prominent bones of her face. Severity enhanced her chronic mien. Spidery fingers clutched the thick spine of a book; yellowed nails dug into the cover. The novel lacked a dust jacket and the pages appeared jaundiced with age.
The silence grew brittle.
"Mr. Barrett, are you sure you wouldn't like a seat?" Mallory gestured to the lone chair at the foot of the table again.
"I'd rather stand." As Jake expected, the women's gazes riveted upon his tattoos.
"When is it you believe we met?" Mallory asked.
“We spoke on ‘back to school’ night."
"Oh. Oh, yes." The principal rubbed her eyebrow. "I'd forgotten." After a short pause, she gestured to the eldest of the three women and offered an introduction. "This is Dr. Doris Noma, the school psychologist. She'll be consulting with us today regarding Michael."
"I see." Jake stroked a hand across his jaw. He didn't see, not really, but he understood how the Sisters Wyrd operated well enough to be on his guard. Whatever their motives, these harpies meant him and his son no good. His enemies were closing on him from all sides—first the Necromancer, then Loki, now the Sisters. Fear chilled his blood, not for himself, but for Michael. These ruthless villains had no qualms about targeting a child to get to him.
Somewhere above them on the roof, an air conditioning unit rattled and clanked, and then warm air blew through the air vent above the door. An irritating high-pitched buzzing came out of nowhere and intensified. A tiny tear in reality appeared above the principal's head. A writhing black leg shoved through the fissure and hung suspended upon the dust-laden air. A black bot fly pulled its fat body through the crack and whizzed through the air on furious wings.
Mallory ducked and took a reflexive swipe at it.
"I know you were only expecting a parent-teacher conference today to discuss Michael's progress," Ms. Sanchez said. "However, recent events have caused me to beco
me concerned, so I thought it best to invite my colleagues."
"What recent events?" Since he found her less objectionable than the others, Jake centered his attention on Sanchez.
"Truancy is a serious matter, Mr. Barrett. Michael played hooky this morning." Placing her hands flat on the tabletop, Mallory cast the long-stare down her straight nose in an attempt to intimidate. The fly zipped past her face, ruining the effect.
Jake sealed his lips, suppressing a snort. Loki was a damn nuisance when he set his mind to it. It was a pleasant change of pace to not be the target of the Trickster's antics for once.
"Michael wasn't truant this morning, Ms. Mallory. He's home sick. Poor lad's been sick to his stomach. I'm afraid it's entirely my fault the absence didn't get called in. I'm a single father with three boys living at home. Sometimes the little things get away from me." Jake offered the expert lie with an apologetic, aww-shucks smile. Loki might be the God of Lies, but he wasn't the only one skilled in deception. Jake had learned a thing or two during their long association.
"An unexcused absence isn't a little thing." The principal's face flushed. Anger shone in her eyes.
"The school day isn't over yet. I'll call as soon as we're done here." His tone darkened, daring further challenge. "Now, do we have any further business here? I'd like to get home to my son."
"There is no need to call. We'll mark today as an excused absence. However, there is the original reason for the meeting." In an attempt to make peace, Ms. Sanchez offered a wan smile that failed to reach her eyes. "Michael is a delight to have in class but I must admit, I do worry about how closed off he is. He is a hard worker and polite, but he does not participate in classroom discussion. At lunch and recess, he is always alone on the playground."
Miss Sanchez glanced across the table to the old woman seated across from her, an action that implied a passing of the baton. Up until then, Doris Noma had remained silent and in profile to Jake. She shifted toward him in an uneven stop-and-go motion that reminding him of rusty clockwork.
"Mr. Barrett, prior to your adoption of the boy, Michael suffered extensive trauma. When I interviewed him, he stated his mother was murdered and he was abducted by the killer. Most interesting perhaps, he claimed that you rescued him." Gleaming raven eyes menaced him. The psychologist's thin lips parted to yellowed teeth and her knuckles tightened on the book in her hands.
She paused and stared at him in obvious expectation. Jake raised his eyebrow. He remained stubbornly silent. The determined fly shifted its focus from the principal to the psychologist. It hovered about the older woman's head, zooming toward her ear and then out again when she released her death grip on the book to strike at it.
Noma huffed in annoyance and resumed. "Upon review, his file contained no record of such a traumatic incident having occurred."
"Is there a question?" Jake raised a challenging brow.
Emitting a high-pitched whine, the insect lighted upon Dr. Noma's cheek. Its legs and antenna worked furiously as it crawled toward her mouth.
"There were a great many questions I was unable to find answers to." Dr. Noma swatted at the fly. Her face was like curdled milk as she smacked her cheek, but the fly escaped into flight again.
Jake bit back a grin. Loki—God of Irritation. How apropos.
Principal Mallory glowered across the room. "We are concerned about Michael's future—whether he will even have one."
The stilted threat got to him. White-hot anger burned through Jake. Clenching his teeth, he clamped down tight on the reaction before the tattoo dagger on his arm acquired a molten glow. In spite of his best efforts, he sensed the magic intrinsic to his soul pushing toward the surface. It writhed in his breast, pulsating like a living thing.
"Michael's future is my concern. Not yours," Jake replied in a voice deceptive for its softness but in that moment he was at his most dangerous. The potential for violence built with each passing second.
"We must disagree. Our role in his life is paramount—far reaching beyond even your considerable influence." Sanchez kept her face turned from him. Her speech hiccupped, a product of uneven cadence and uncertain delivery.
Principal Mallory's gaze impaled him as a spear, penetrating and designed to deliver a deep wound. "We will play an instrumental role in the boy's future, so I am sure you understand our interest."
"I don't. Why don't you spell it out for me?" He choked his righteous anger, checking his temper. Those three women were innocents. They weren't responsible for what they said or did while possessed, and ending their lives wouldn't have done any good. He could slay a thousand people and Michael wouldn't be the least bit safer.
Mallory's smile embodied death. "What fate will befall him resides in our hands. Should misfortune take the boy's life, you will know the manifestation of our wrath."
The tattoo dagger on his arm lit up like a star. Jake reached for the hilt, intending to draw, but a tremendous clamor arose from the fly, more like the roar of a lion than the drone of an insect. It shot forward, a swift blur, and blazed the shape of a sigil into the air with its flight. The rune—Hagalaz, the hailstone. It shimmered, shedding sparkles.
Without missing a beat, Jake took up the Trickster's suggestion. He removed his belt knife from its sheath instead of Stakhla. At the flash of steel, the three women hissed and reared like cobras. He employed a short, swift stroke and sliced his palm open with the point of the blade. Ruby droplets rained upon the tabletop.
He traced the rune in his own blood and incanted its true name. Vast energy flowed—objective confrontation—past patterns. Stinging hardness. Repulsion. Shadow elements expelled—invading spirits cast out. Ironically, it represented in part the inevitability of fate, but Jake rotated Hagalaz to accentuate the restoration of victim consciousness—waking up the minds of the possessed.
In unison, the three women threw back their heads. Banshee screams tore from their throats. They writhed and convulsed as the magic manifested.
Mallory doubled over, claw-like hands locked about her throat. Gagging, her face turned dark red. A huge spider dropped from her gaping mouth. It hit the smooth wood and scuttled away. More arachnids poured from her ears, nose, and eyes—the essence of evil expulsed.
Talking over each other, the other two women slapped Mallory on the back but within seconds the runic restoration overpowered them also. Ms. Ricardo collapsed to the floor, vomiting spiders. The hairy creatures formed a living river upon the floor of the conference room.
Dr. Noma succumbed last. Wriggling black legs thrust from her nostrils and between her lips but the Past Norn hung on with sheer obstinacy. She gritted and marshaled her will—pushback. She lifted her spidery hand, reaching for him. "Wodan, I curse you!"
"Out, witch! Get out!" Jake snarled and placed both his hands upon the smooth wood, sketching more sigils from the Elder Futhark in blood. Their quintessential magic—fundamental to the fabric of the universe. His to command. The magic clashed, immense and primordial, the essence of conflict.
Jake discovered he had help from an unexpected quarter. Loki's sneaky, subtle magic worked in parallel with his own. Undertow, undetectable beneath the water's placid surface, was nonetheless deadly. The assassin's hidden blade. The scorpion's unexpected strike. Old allies come together, unified to a common purpose.
Noma shrieked and toppled. At last released, a tarantula disgorged from the older woman's mouth. It dropped and landed atop the mass of its smaller brethren that had already been driven from the other Sisters Wyrd. The circulating spiders located the air duct on the wall and poured through the slits in the cover. The conference room emptied with remarkable swiftness.
As the exorcism of the other two women neared completion, their convulsions ceased. They lay where they'd fallen, groaning in sickness. Abruptly, Jake faced a problem of a whole different nature—discovery. The whole fucked-up situation promised to be difficult to explain, and impossible to cover up.
Loki appeared, taking on the form of the black-ha
ired boy. He waved his arm. "I'll steal their memories of this. Meet me outside."
"Yeah." Jake spun on his heel and yanked the conference room door wide open.
As he passed the front desk, the receptionist glanced up at him, surprise plain on her face. Then she contorted her face, and she spoke in a voice not her own. "You can walk away from us, All Father, but there's no escaping. The hour of your curse is upon you."
Jake kept going. Flattening his palms against the office's glass door, he shoved it open and emerged into the bright, hot afternoon. Free, he breathed easier.
Well, hell. The shit had just hit the fan. Michael wasn't ever coming back to this school.
Ever.
Halfway to the parking lot, Jake stumbled into an unnerving realization. He had just worked with Loki against their ancient foes as though he and the Trickster were still faithful allies. He hadn't hesitated, doubted, or questioned.
He'd trusted.
A boy, wearing a red baseball cap perched atop unruly black locks, waited in the parking lot. Loki, in his guise as Ben, employed the bumper of a car as a bench. As Jake approached, Ben's chin lifted and their gazes met. A knowing gleam shone in the Trickster's dark eyes.
Jake didn't question the Loki's presence or speed. The god of deceit had always had his methods of moving swiftly from one point to another, short cuts and secret passageways, so skilled in burglary that no stronghold could keep him out.
Settling into a gunslinger stance, Jake stopped ten paces from his old rival. Instead of reaching for his dagger, recent events had left him more inclined to listen than attack. So instead, he waited.
Loki pushed off the bumper, bouncing to his feet. "It's a dagger of the mind—a false creation."
A typical, ambiguous Lokism.
"It's real enough," Jake retorted, marked disagreement in his tone. He shouldn't engage the Trickster. Yet, even as he cautioned himself against falling right back into old traps and bad habits, curiosity got the better of him. "I believe the Sisters Wyrd have sent a dís after Michael... What do you think?"
Wolf's Cross: Book 4 (Loki's Wolves) Page 15
