“Dinner’s ready when you are,” Mom said, coming out of the kitchen to hug me. “It’s moose and potatoes from the garden, but the biscuits come from the store.”
I took a deep, shaky breath, trying to forget Vali’s tall, graceful body swinging the shining blue sword in an arc above his head. And vanishing into the gaping black mouth of the cave.
“Thanks,” I said weakly. “Sounds delicious.”
I took a long, hot shower after dinner and headed downstairs to join my parents for a glass of scotch on the couch next to the glittering lights of the Christmas tree. Mom had hung ancient strands of big-bulbed multicolor lights across the mantle and all the way around her huge, gilded fleur-de-lis crest. Dad is Scottish, the great-grandson of a MacDonald from the Highlands, but Mom is French.
When I was growing up, Mom told me her grandmother Claire was descended from the royal Orleans who fled France during the Revolution. I never exactly believed her; our little log cabin deep in the Maine woods was a damn far cry from Versailles. But on my first date with famed literature professor Barry Richardson, after we opened our second bottle of wine, I told him I was descended from the royal French family Orleans. He seemed impressed. At least, he was impressed enough to invite me back to his house that night.
When I met Barry’s family a year later, in their cavernous white home overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, Barry introduced me as Karen McDonald, related to the royal Orleans family of France. As if that would make up for the log cabin, the Maine accent, the fact that I could operate a chainsaw and change the oil in my pickup truck. His parents were not particularly impressed by me. Not then, and not in the years that followed.
I shook my head and took a healthy sip of my scotch to get rid of Barry Richardson. “Mom,” I said, “you can go ahead and fill the stockings.”
Mom was sitting by the winking embers of the fire, knitting. She looked at me with shock. “You know Santa doesn’t come until you’re asleep!”
I laughed. “Mom, I’m thirty-seven!”
She smiled at me but didn’t move to fill the stockings. “So, honey, are you seeing anyone special out there in Montana?”
I managed to stifle my groan with another mouthful of scotch. At least she waited until after dinner to bring this up. “Uh, no, not really.”
“Not really?” she asked. She’d stopped knitting, which was a bad sign.
I finished my scotch in one gulp, trying to pick my words carefully. Of course I wasn’t seeing Vali. I hadn’t seen him in a month, not since the morning I woke up in his arms, wrapped in furs in the middle of Yellowstone. My chest tightened. I asked him to come home with me.
And he said no.
“That’s the end of the story,” I whispered.
“What’s that?” Mom asked. Now both my parents were staring at me.
Blood rushed to my cheeks. “I think I’m going to bed,” I said, standing with a really exaggerated stretch. “You know, so Santa can come fill the stockings.”
Mom frowned, and I felt a twinge of guilt for letting her down.
But honestly, what the hell could I say to explain Vali?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Three days later I was back in the airport, heading home with a brand-new hand-knit hat, scarf, and mittens, plus an emergency survival kit for my car, thanks to Santa. Not that I was complaining. I gave my folks gift certificates to their favorite diner and a subscription to a Portland microbrew-of-the-month club. The McDonald family was nothing if not practical.
I had to take three separate flights to get from Bangor, Maine to Bozeman, Montana. Of course, I got stuck at O’Hare, and I spent my entire four hour layover frantically emailing John my notes for the faculty meeting I was now going to miss. Then I had to sprint through Denver International Airport to make it onto the tiny propeller jet headed to Bozeman. It was the last flight of the day, and everyone in the plane looked either pissed off or exhausted. Or both.
I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes—
—I WAS STANDING IN YELLOWSTONE. It was night, and there was no moon. Even the stars looked faded, as if the darkness spilling from the mouth of the great, looming cave before me was somehow sneaking across the sky, blotting out the sparks of light.
“Vali?” I whispered in the darkness.
There was no response. The burnt smell hovered in the air, stinging my nostrils. I took a step closer to the cave.
“Vali?” I said.
My voice echoed across the open space, sounding far louder than it should have been. The world seemed to be trembling, holding its breath.
Waiting.
I woke shivering, and I spent the rest of the joltingly bumpy flight to Bozeman staring out the window, trying to convince myself there was nothing blotting out the icy pinpricks of stars above me.
IT WAS TEN BELOW ZERO in the Bozeman airport parking lot, and my goddamned car wouldn’t start. I left my suitcase in the trunk and walked back inside, blowing on my fingers in the baggage claim, waiting for Courtesy Services to give me a jumpstart.
By the time I made it home it was just past midnight, which meant it was two in the morning in Maine. I’d been traveling for twenty hours. There was a sparkly gift bag wedged behind my screen door, but I didn’t see it until I’d kicked it halfway across the living room.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
I turned on the light to see what I’d just sent skidding across the floor. It was a bottle of Glenlivet single malt scotch, from Susan. To Karen, she’d written. For all the odd goods. I smiled for the first time since I left the Bangor airport twenty hours ago. The scotch went on the kitchen counter, and I collapsed into my bed.
But my dreams were unsettled and disturbing. I woke tangled in the sheets, my heart racing, certain I’d been running from something low and dark and close behind my back.
Headlights swept my bedroom ceiling in a cold, pale arc as I stared at the ceiling. My heart knocked frantically against my rib cage. The alarm clock on my dresser said it was barely past three in the morning. I sighed and kicked off my blankets. If I wasn’t going to sleep, I might as well answer some emails.
I heard someone in my kitchen.
It was impossible, but I heard the soft tsh of a cabinet drawer closing, and then the low hiss of the kitchen faucet.
I froze. My muscles tensed and my fingers knotted into fists. Was it Susan? Who the hell else had a key? I looked around my darkened bedroom for something I could possibly use as a weapon. I didn’t own a gun, and all my knives were in the kitchen. I needed something solid, something heavy... I finally settled on a lumpy, oversized coffee mug I’d gotten from a local artist at the farmer’s market.
I came to my feet as silently as possible and wrapped my hands around the coffee mug. The back of my mouth tasted metallic and bitter. Taking a deep breath, I crept toward the kitchen, trying to see what I could make out in the dim glow of the streetlight outside my window. Someone was standing at my kitchen stove. Someone tall, dressed in black. My fingers tightened around the coffee mug as I prepared to bring it down on his skull.
But I hesitated. What I saw didn’t make any sense. The man in my kitchen wasn’t going through my stuff, trying to steal God knows what from my cabinets. He was just standing there, at my stove, watching the red glow of the burner under my tea kettle. I frowned.
The dark figure turned to me.
“Karen,” he said. “Lovely to see you again.”
The light switch clicked on, and I flinched at the flood of white light. The man smiled. He was very tall, with red hair. And he wore a dark suit.
Loki.
The last time I saw him, he’d been pulling himself out of the blood-stained snow in Yellowstone.
“What the fuck are you doing in my kitchen?” I yelled.
He looked from my stove to the counter next to my sink. Three mugs stood in a neat row on the speckled countertop. “I’m making tea. Or would you prefer the scotch?” He gestured to the Glenlivet bottle on my kitc
hen table.
I shook my head. “No. What the fuck are you doing here? Now?”
“Making tea,” he said again. He gave me a disarmingly handsome smile, and I had to fight the urge to smash the coffee cup into his face.
My tea kettle whistled, and Loki moved to the stovetop, pouring hot water into the three empty mugs. My kitchen filled with steam and the scent of lavender and chamomile. Loki picked up my white coffee mug with MAINE written on the side in bright red lobsters and offered it to me. I shook my head. Then I stared back at the kitchen counter, and my heart jumped.
“Why are there three?”
Loki smiled, grabbed the remaining two coffee mugs, and walked past me into the living room. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got something to discuss.”
There was a soft rustling noise in the living room. I followed Loki through the door. He bent over my couch, handing a mug to a dark figure sitting on my couch.
“Caroline?” I asked.
“Hi,” she said, somewhat apologetically. The swell of her pregnant belly was enormous; she looked pale and tired in the half-light from my kitchen. “Sorry about this. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “I mean, shouldn’t you be...” My voice faltered as I made a vague hand gesture around my abdomen.
“It’s fine,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “I’m on sabbatical this semester.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” I said, trying not to stare at her stomach.
She laughed. “Oh, right! No, the baby’s not due for another two weeks. And besides, it’s not like getting to the hospital is going to be a problem.” Her eyes flickered over Loki, and she smiled.
Loki did not smile. I felt the first small tendril of fear creep along my back, and I wrapped my arms around my chest. “What’s this about?”
Loki met my gaze. “Vali,” he said.
The fear gathered in a hard knot, low in my stomach. “No way. No fucking way. I’m not going to help you. You tricked me this fall. Both of you. You set me up so you could catch Vali.”
Caroline held her hands up. “I’m sorry about what happened in November. If there had been another way—”
I laughed, but it came out as more of an angry bark. “Oh, screw you! You knew exactly what you were doing. You wanted to find a wolf, right? Well, you could have told me you were looking for Vali! You could have told me—”
“And what, exactly, would you have said to that?” Loki said, his pale eyes flashing.
I fell silent. The soft tick of the clock in my study filled the room. The refrigerator hummed. Finally, I shook my head and stepped back.
“Vali doesn’t want to be found,” I said. “So, I’m not helping you. And there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”
Caroline sighed. Loki’s hand moved to cup her shoulder, but his eyes didn’t leave my face. The clock in my study ticked again.
“There’s the front door,” I said, pointing. “Shall I open it for you?”
“Karen,” Caroline said. “Let me explain—”
“No.” I stalked to the front door and opened it. A blast of cold air rushed into the room, ruffling the stack of Christmas cards on my coffee table. I tilted my head toward the door.
Loki followed me, stepping onto my front porch and offering Caroline his hand. She stepped outside, wrapped her arms around the swell of her stomach, and shivered. Ice crystals shimmered on the sidewalk, reflecting the light spilling out my windows.
“Well,” I said, reaching to close the door, “it’s been a pleasure.”
“He loves you,” Loki said.
My hand froze above the doorknob. Loki reached out and pulled the door closed between us.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The clock in my study ticked. My refrigerator hummed and then clicked off. I swallowed, trying to force myself to turn around and walk away from the door.
He loves you.
“It’s a trap,” I whispered. “It’s another goddamn trap.”
I closed my eyes and saw Vali, his back straight, his head held high. Vali holding that great, blue sword. Vali walking into the looming darkness of the cave.
With a sigh, I opened my front door. Loki smiled at me in the dim light.
“Come on,” I grumbled. “We can talk.”
I walked to the kitchen, grabbed the bottle of Glenlivet and three glasses, and carried them to the living room. I poured three generous servings; if I was going to face Loki again, I at least wanted a stiff drink. I handed out the scotch and sank into my couch without a word. Caroline took a tiny sip while Loki and I both drained our glasses.
“Tell me what you want,” I said as the scotch burned its way down my throat.
Caroline sighed, handing her scotch to Loki. “How much do you know about Norse mythology?” she asked.
I snorted. “You mean, do I know your husband is the God of Lies?”
Loki rolled his eyes; Caroline ignored me. “Do you know about Yggdrasil?” she asked. “The World Tree?”
I shook my head. My Google searching had stopped at Loki. Caroline straightened her back and somehow managed to look professorial, despite the fact that she was sitting on my couch at three in the morning, wearing what might have been pajamas. “According to Norse myth, there’s a great Wyrm named Níðhöggr coiled in the roots of the World Tree.”
“A what?” I asked.
“Dragon,” said Loki, his voice low and cold. “Níðhöggr is a dragon, perhaps the dragon. It lives in the roots of the World Tree, and it has slept for millennia. Now it sleeps no more.”
“Hang on a minute,” I said. I grabbed the Glenlivet off my coffee table and poured myself another glass. After a moment’s hesitation, I refilled Loki’s glass too. He drank it in one swallow and then exhaled jaggedly.
“My son does not trust me,” Loki said. “He would not see me, and he would not speak to me of his plans. We all sensed the Wyrm’s awakening, but now it’s grown stronger, and the entire area is heavily warded. I cannot travel there, not through the aether.”
He paused, and his gaze lingered on the Glenlivet bottle. I poured him another glass, which he drank in one slug.
“And I can no longer sense my son,” he said.
“Wait, what about Diana?” I said. “She’s not exactly your biggest fan. And she said she’d protect Vali. Did she make it so you can’t travel there or, uh, sense him? Is she hiding him?”
Loki shook his head. In the pale light spilling from my kitchen, he looked tired and sad, with strange shadows creasing his lips and the corners of his eyes. “This is not her doing. This magic is older and more powerful than either of us.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “So, there’s a dragon in the roots of the World Tree. But what’s it doing here? In Montana?”
“This is an odd place,” said Loki, rolling his empty glass in his palms. “There are some places where the Nine Realms are far-flung, and there are some places where they are stacked tightly, one against the other. Where the borders between them are thin.”
I leaned forward and poured him another glass of scotch. Odd goods, indeed.
“Thank you,” he said. Then he raised an eyebrow at me. “Didn’t you ever wonder why boiling hot water pours from the ground in this place?”
“Well, that’s because in Yellowstone the earth’s crust is—” I paused.
“Thin?” Caroline asked.
I took a deep breath and decided to just let this debate between science and mythology go. “There’s a...dragon,” I said. “And Vali, what? He went after it? He went to stop it?”
“I don’t know,” Loki said. There was a sharp edge to his voice. He raised his glass to his lips and drained it.
“Look,” I said, “I hate to disappoint you, but it’s not like Vali texts me or anything. I haven’t seen him since November.”
Loki stared at me. For a heartbeat something flashed in his pale eyes, something dark and feral and howl
ing. My stomach clenched painfully, and I turned away, my breath catching in the back of my throat, the words I was about to speak dead in my mouth.
“I saw him,” I said. My voice sounded choked and thin, as if it came from far away. “I dreamt of him. On Christmas Eve. He had a blue sword, and he...He went into a dark place.”
Loki closed his eyes. “So, he’s found Hrotti,” he muttered. “Vali has claimed the ancient sword of heroes.”
I felt cold as I remembered the dark mouth of the cave and the burned tang in the air. “What do we do?” I said.
Loki shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. Caroline wrapped her arm around his shoulders.
“What do we do?” I said again. “You came here for a reason. You want something from me. What do you want?”
For a long time neither of them moved. The refrigerator kicked on again with a hum; the clock ticked softly in my study. Finally, Loki sighed and reached for the Glenlivet. He divided the last of the scotch into our two glasses.
“Take us there,” he said, raising his glass to clink against mine. “Maybe it’s not too late.”
I WAS ALMOST TO MY kitchen to make a pot of coffee when something caught my eye. It was a slender, red book, tucked in the far corner of my shelf. The Red Dragon: Reexamining the Subverted Self in Early Medieval Literature. By Barry R. Richardson.
Wondering for the hundredth time why I hadn’t just thrown the damn thing out, I set the empty scotch glasses in the sink and flicked on the coffee maker. The Red Dragon was Barry fucking Richardson’s sixth book, the one he’d dedicated the me. That goddamn book was the reason we had our honeymoon in Wales, where I spent most of my time getting quietly drunk in quaint little pubs while Barry spent all day doing some sort of research in obscure libraries.
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