“He’s not most men. He’s a god.”
“Just because we are not human doesn’t mean we don’t share the same emotions. What he feels is quite real.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.” But I don’t know how to say what I did mean, so I asked something else. “If Baldur gave up, went into seclusion, what would it mean to Helen?”
Thorin considered his answer for a moment before saying, “Baldur is not necessarily more powerful than the rest of us, but in his role he is like a lens that focuses light into a beam. Without him, we are diffuse and less effective.”
“She can pick you off easier if he’s out of the way?”
“I think that’s the way she’s looking at it.”
“Is she more powerful, stronger, than you?”
Thorin laughed at that. “She only has more resources. At one time, Val and I were virtually omnipotent, but over the years we lost the sources of our supremacy. I’ve almost given up hope of ever finding them.”
Intrigued, I stopped and tugged us over to a bench out of the flow of foot traffic. We sat in a dark shadow between the streetlights, away from the notice of passersby. “What sources?”
“You looked up Mjölnir, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Thor’s hammer. An infallible weapon.”
“It was mine after his death. Only his blood kin can wield it.”
“And only if you’re worthy enough?” I said. So what if I had researched more than a few Wikipedia articles? Maybe Marvel was on to something.
Thorin sniffed. “Worthiness has nothing to do with it. It depends more on lineage, and on these…” Thorin pushed back his cuffs and showed me the thick bands circling his wrists. “The Járngreipr.”
“What?”
“They’re gauntlets, special gloves necessary for lifting the hammer. Baldur helped me refine them into something more… inconspicuous.”
I inspected the bracelets. Engravings marked their surfaces, like letters but from an unfamiliar alphabet. Some ancient language, I supposed. “And your necklace, is that something special too?”
Thorin looked away and gave the subtlest of nods. “Memegingjörd. I wear it as a torc now, but it used to be Thor’s belt.”
“What does it do?”
“It doubled Thor’s strength. Mine too, I guess, although I’ve rarely had cause to need it.”
“And Thor was your father?” I already knew, but wanted to hear him confirm it.
Thorin inhaled a deep breath and held it. He looked at the sky, but no stars dared to compete against the Vegas lights. “Yes,” he finally said.
I whistled low, between my teeth. “Unbelievable. Well, not really, considering everything else that has happened. But still…” I wanted to savor the import of his admission, but this was the most information I had ever gotten out of Thorin. If I interrupted our rhythm, he might clam up again. “And the hammer, what happened to it?”
“I took for granted that I was its only master. It was stolen.”
“But you said only Thor’s blood kin can wield it.”
“Wield it, yes, but it’s not like the comic books, Solina. Anyone could take it. Anyone who wanted to see me weakened.”
I shook my head and furrowed my brow. “I don’t understand.”
Thorin opened his mouth to say something, but then he stopped and drew out his phone. He thumbed the screen until he found something satisfactory. “These are some artistic renderings of it,” he said, passing me the phone.
I studied the images on the screen. Some looked like tiny, stylized hammers. A few resembled another kind of weapon. “An arrowhead,” I said.
“That’s what it most resembles when its size is reduced. It remains in that form, and anyone can carry it. But to transform it to full size and use it as a weapon, Thor’s blood must run in your veins, and you must have these.” Thorin motioned to his wrists, indicating his bracelets.
“I think I’ve seen it,” I said. Thorin drew back from me as if I had breathed fire. “No, really. The night we had drinks with Helen. She wore a gold necklace with a strange charm on the end of it. I remembered thinking at the time that it looked like a weird arrowhead.”
Thorin leapt to his feet and pounded his fist into a trashcan beside us. It crumpled under his assault. A nearby couple recoiled from us and stepped back. They gave Thorin a wide birth and eased to the other side of the bridge to pass us. Everyone else either ignored us or was too caught up in their own conversations to care. “In plain sight,” Thorin growled. “This whole time she’s had it hiding in plain sight.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. Women check out each other’s jewelry all the time. Men aren’t supposed to notice those things.”
“But it’s my weapon. I should have recognized it.”
“She kept it tucked in her cleavage. I think it says something good about your character that you weren’t paying attention to her bust line.”
Thorin grunted. “I was too busy looking at yours.”
He said it so matter-of-factly that I knew he wasn’t joking. He wasn’t necessarily giving me a compliment either. He was merely stating the truth. “Well, see, there you go,” I said, withholding another blush. “It was my fault all along.”
“Don’t worry, Sunshine. Unlike Val, I have an excess of self-control.”
Screw your self-control. “I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Say thank you. I have my own interests at heart, and nothing threatens the security of my perpetuity. I intend to stay focused on my objectives and won’t be distracted by sexy blondes playing naïve games of romance. You’d do well to remember that.”
I leapt from the bench and stumbled away from him, my anger making me unsteady on my feet. “It’s amazing you can remain upright while bearing the immense weight of your ego. But rest assured that if I play romantic games, it will be with someone who is receptive to them.”
Thorin rumbled. “If you’re going to sleep with Val, then do it and get it over with already, so both of you can move on and focus on what’s really important.”
I stepped back from him again, afraid I was about to go up in another ball of flame. “Why do you have to be such a tremendous asshole sometimes, Thorin? I suspect there’s a decent man, or god, or whatever, inside you, but then you go and say things like that. You’re mad at yourself for your own mistakes, and you take it out on me. But when it comes to keeping me safe, a little trust and respect would go a lot further than bullying and intimidation. I don’t deserve to be treated this way.”
I spun on my heel and strode away. Not toward the hotel where Thorin knew where to find me, but into the crowds of Las Vegas. A fortuitous taxi pulled under the portico of another hotel adjacent to the end of the footbridge just as I drew near. A couple disembarked, and I rolled into the backseat to take their place.
“Ms. Mundy, this conversation is not over,” Thorin called from several paces away.
“The hell it ain’t!” I said and slammed the door shut. The driver, noticing the huge, angry warrior storming toward us, had the sense to pull away before asking for my destination.
“Just drive,” I told him. “Get me far away from that man.”
The taxi glided to a stop beside a donut shop a block off the main strip. Its appearance conveniently coincided with the taxi’s meter arriving at ten dollars. I had brought twenty bucks in my clutch purse because my dad raised me never to accompany a man anywhere without bringing funds of my own, in case I needed to make a quick getaway. Thanks, Dad.
I gave the driver the twenty, waited for the change, tossed him a tip, and then went to get a cup of coffee because I wasn’t quite ready to head back to the hotel. I was still too mad and shaken up. Also, in a city where so many things were strange and foreign and overwhelming, a coffee shop presented a little bit of familiarity. It suited me better than going alone into a strange bar or a casino, and with only ten dollars in my purse, coffee was about all I could afford.
A few customers glanced in my dir
ection, but briefly. Seeing a woman done up in her best hair and make-up, wearing a man’s suit coat and little else, standing in line for a latte at ten o’clock at night—it probably registered as less than mundane in a city that notoriously attracted the bizarre and outrageous. During the taxi ride, for example, I had seen what had to be a six-foot-tall man wearing platform combat boots, a six-inch red mohawk, and an embroidered hot-pink silk robe.
Cup in hand, I stepped out onto the sidewalk next to the coffee shop. It was darker here, less populated, and the air smelled funny. Like a cat had peed on something rotten. I scurried down the block, eager to return to the main strip that was flush with tourists and the police who patrolled them. Caught out in the wrong part of town by the wrong people, I might wind up as a headline in the paper, or worse. I looked behind me as I walked, checking the shadows for wolves.
When I set foot back on Las Vegas Boulevard, I paused to catch my breath, say a little prayer of thanks, and gather my bearings. Then I turned and started toward the hotel, just another block away. I had asked the taxi to take a circuitous route because I wanted to ditch Thorin, not spend the night hiking the sidewalk in heels.
My cell phone rang. I stopped and rooted it out of my clutch. Val’s name appeared on the screen. I debated not answering the call, but curiosity won out.
“Where the hell are you?” Val said when I answered.
I glanced at the busy street beside me. “Las Vegas Boulevard.”
“Solina, I’ve been held in a casino basement for the past three hours and threatened with things I thought only happened in Scorsese movies. I’m in no mood.”
“Neither am I. What do you want?”
“I want to know where you are, why you went to dinner with Thorin, and why he came back without you, slamming doors and practically punching holes in the walls.”
I stopped and knelt to loosen the buckles on my shoes. I was only a block from the Bellestrella, but my feet were already screaming. “Ask Thorin what happened.”
“He’s not in an explanatory mood at the moment,” Val said.
“That makes two of us.” After hooking my fingers through the straps of my shoes, I padded down the sidewalk, careful of broken glass, discarded hypodermic needles, and whatever else littered the filthy sidewalks in a town known for exploiting human depravity. I refused to look too closely.
“I’m blowing off some steam,” I said. “I’ll be back pretty soon. Maybe you could meet me for drinks.” … and give me your opinion on Helen’s request to meet with me.
“Drinks? Yeah?”
“Five minutes, at the bar past the craps tables. Don’t mention it to Skyla or Thorin.”
Val harrumphed. “It disturbs me that you thought you even had to say that.”
I hung up and opened the clasp on my tiny purse to stuff in my phone, but it slipped and sent everything jumbling; cash, makeup, and room key clattered to the ground. My coffee splashed, spilling over the front of my dress and coating my phone. The coffee burned like hot lava. I squealed and juggled the cup, trying to keep from drowning my phone and scorching myself again in the process.
Distracted by my fumble, I paid no attention to the traffic around me, or the long black car that pulled to the curb. The rear door swung open, and a pair of strong arms swept me off my feet and shoved me into the waiting vehicle. I hadn’t even begun to formulate a proper protest before the door shut behind me and the car peeled away from the curb.
My abductor sent me sprawling across a leather limousine seat, and a heavy someone put a knee in my back and pinned my arms to my side. I screamed and struggled against the constraint. I kicked and flailed and prayed my strange and unpredictable powers would choose this moment to manifest. I sensed it boiling deep inside me, but how did I call it out? How did I command it, submit it to my will?
A vaguely human shape sat on a seat perpendicular to mine, careful to keep the shadows drawn over his or her face. The shadow moved closer, reaching for me. “No!” I yelled and thrashed against my captor again, but the knee in my back did not relent. A piercing pain shot into my thigh. My protest came out rather like, “Squeech!” but the figure darted away into the depths of the car before I could retaliate.
Memories of the wolf attack leapt into my thoughts. Rancid panic and terror. Hot and bitter anger. All the emotions of my nightmares washed through my awareness: powerlessness, helplessness, horror. It was all so useless, so pointless, all the agonies I had suffered over the injustice of Mani’s death. It was all going to end like this? Unavenged and impotent.
A fog rolled into my head, immediate and thick. “What’s this?” I asked. Numbness shivered down my legs and across my arms and chest.
“A safety precaution,” said the stranger, a woman by the sound of her voice. “I can’t have you setting us on fire before I have time to explain.”
“Explain,” I mumbled as a strange heaviness filled my body and numbed my lips.
“Not now,” she said. “For now, you sleep. When you wake, we’ll talk.”
“No,” I moaned, but it was a pointless objection. Darkness crept toward me, a burglar coming to steal my consciousness.
“Are you the bad guys?” I murmured, worried that Helen had come for me sooner than expected.
My abductor chuckled. “I’d like to think we’re the good guys—or girls, actually.”
“Who are you?” My lids closed, and a persistent sleepiness softened my bones. The kidnapper answered in a distant voice, but I caught one familiar word before I went completely under.
“Valkyrie.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
I woke to see a small figure sitting in a chair next to the bed I now occupied. Her outline was fuzzy, like an old TV set receiving a bad signal. I blinked a few times, and the room stopped spinning. I blinked again until the figure came into focus, revealing a woman with short, dark hair and Asian features. She noticed I was awake and closed the book in her lap. She leaned forward and smiled. “Solina Mundy,” she said. “My name is Tori Ito, and I welcome you to the Aerie of the Valkyries. I deeply regret your coarse treatment earlier, but maybe you understand our precautions. You have quickly become a dangerous individual.”
“But reasonable,” I said, holding my throbbing head. “You could have tried talking to me first.”
“There was no time.” Tori winked. “Like wayward children, we decided to act first and apologize later.”
“I’m not sure I forgive you,” I said, scowling. “You’ll need to explain a lot more.”
“I agree.” Judging by the architecture and furnishings, Tori and I sat in the bedroom of an elegant but very old home. The window showed me the gray blur of a distant ocean. From the angle of my view, I guessed the house sat on a precipice high over the water—on a cliff, maybe.
“Where are we?”
“California,” Tori said. I waited for her to give me something more specific. Instead, she stood and went to the window.
I flipped back the covers and grimaced at my wrinkled and garish red dress. Next to the pale linens and somber furnishings, I looked cheap. Well, I had looked cheap before, in Vegas. Now I just looked trashy. Tori wore a dress that reminded me of a Greek goddess, and the white fabric illuminated her skin and dark hair. She was a complete contrast to me. Grace and elegance.
I tiptoed across the room and stopped at her side. “Am I a prisoner?”
Tori turned to me, a sad smile on her face. “We don’t intend for you to feel like a captive. We hold your life dear and want to see you better protected. The sons of Odin fail you, which puts us all in danger.”
I had no reason to trust Tori, but if she wanted to kill me, she’d had the perfect opportunity while I lay senseless during my journey from Nevada to somewhere on the coast of California. If she intended bad things for me, would she have left me unbound and unmedicated? Skyla had said she thought she might be a Valkyrie. If Tori was anything like Skyla, then I was in good hands. Or so I hoped.
“I wouldn’t say
that to their faces,” I said.
Tori chuckled. “They are prideful and quick to anger, no?”
“Do they know you have me?”
“We left sufficient evidence. If they don’t already know, then they will soon enough. It doesn’t serve our cause to have them distracted, searching false leads in their hunt for you.”
“Will they try to take me back?” My heart squeezed at the thought, for Skyla most of all. For the men, however, my feelings were mixed, owing in part to the lack of trust and respect between us.
“The gods are possessive. They will come for you, and we welcome them. It may be time to rekindle our alliance.” Tori shrugged and changed the subject. “But that is only speculation. We have more immediate things to worry about.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Training you.”
“Training me for what?”
“Survival, of course. But we will discuss this later. I imagine your head hurts, and I can hear your stomach rumbling from here. Would you care to eat?”
Until Tori asked, I hadn’t noticed, but at the thought of food, my stomach growled again. “I guess I would.”
“Why don’t I show you the bathroom? You can bathe while my sisters and I prepare supper. I’ll have someone bring you something for your headache.”
“Then we’ll talk?” I followed Tori across the room into a hallway floored in slate tiles. My bare feet cringed at the cold.
“We’ll talk, and I’ll give you a tour, maybe a little history lesson, too.” Tori motioned toward a doorway. I peered into an austere bathroom; no full-body jets here, only a plain white toilet, sink, a single-stall shower, and a small showerhead. Before she left, Tori gestured to my lurid attire. “I’ll also send something for you to change into.”
After Tori left, I stripped off the dress and dreamed of chucking it into a fire. Instead, I balled it up and tossed it into the bathroom trashcan. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” I said and stepped into the shower. Never was that cliché more appropriate.
Midnight Burning Page 21
