by C. Gockel
Steve tilts his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you,” he says, and it’s not just an evasion.
Thrusting a hand between the other reporters, she says, “Tara Inanna, BBC science correspondent.”
She’s wearing a fitted coat, and Steve gets just the barest hint of curves beneath it. He smiles, takes her hand, and feels the sharp edges of a business card in his grip. “What do you know about inter-realm portals?” he asks.
“Is there a portal?” another woman shouts.
Without turning his head, Steve says, “Unconfirmed, Miss Andrews.”
In front of him, Tara smiles and pulls her hand away. “I may know more than you. I have a degree in physics from Oxford.”
Steve’s eyebrows lift, and his stomach does a weird little flip flop.
Another reporter shouts, “How will this affect your candidacy for mayor?”
Turning his head, Steve smiles. “Did someone write me on the ballot, George?”
There are chuckles all around. Hernandez suddenly grabs Steve’s elbow and drags him out of the way just as the door to the condo building swings open. Steve had forgotten the agent was still next to him.
Beatrice shoots out of the door and walks directly over to Steve, Gerðr and her two agent minders trailing behind. The giantess is still not wearing magic blocking cuffs or a helmet.
“There has to be more we can do!” Beatrice says.
Shouts and flashbulbs erupt from all sides. Steve grabs Beatrice’s elbow, consciously avoiding looking at Gerðr. At the same time, he motions for Hernandez to start clearing a line through the crowd to the waiting car.
As he guides Beatrice forward, he cranes his neck around to look for Tara, but she’s disappeared.
When they reach the car, Beatrice slides in first, which means Steve gets the awkward honor of sitting next to Gerðr. He inclines his body in Beatrice’s direction, but swears he can feel Gerðr’s body heat radiating off her, even through his clothing. He’s dimly aware of Beatrice saying, “The drones should be armed,” and of one of Gerðr’s female guards slipping into the front seat.
He looks down at the business card in his palm. On it, in neat blue ink, Tara has written, “Let’s discuss physics over dinner sometime.”
Steve grips the card in both hands and imagines the dimple on Tara’s cheek, large full imperfect lips, and warm brown eyes.
“Strange, I thought I sensed magic,” Gerðr says, shifting slightly, her knee brushing Steve’s briefly and sending a lightning bolt of heat jolting up Steve’s spine.
Steve’s phone rings, but he’s afraid to reach for it, afraid to even lift his eyes from the business card. The message goes to voicemail, and then Beatrice’s phone rings. A moment later, she’s pushing it in Steve’s face saying, “Steve, it’s your mother.”
Steve’s eyes slide to Beatrice.
The old woman lifts an eyebrow. “Your mother and I are on the Inter-church Chicago Reconstruction Committee, have you forgotten?”
Steve’s vaguely aware of Gerðr turning her head in their direction.
Steve takes the phone. Rubbing his temples and closing his eyes he says, “Yes, Ma’am?”
Steve’s mother is usually a very calm woman. From the South, she usually speaks with a cadence slightly slower than the Chicago norm. But now she is speaking rapidly, and the tone of her voice is unusually high pitched. “Steve, I just got off the phone with Claire. Thor, that giant space alien has got Bohdi—and Bea’s girl, Amy, too!”
Bea’s girl? It takes a minute for Steve to realize that his mother has a nickname for Beatrice, not just her phone number.
“You know, Bohdi’s like a another son to me!” Ruth says.
“Painfully aware,” says Steve, the headache he’d felt earlier suddenly blooming full force.
“Where has Thor taken them?” says Ruth.
“I’m not really sure exactly, Mother,” Steve grits out.
Gerðr shifts beside him again, and she’s not really touching him, but she’s almost touching him…and good Lord, what is Steve, thirteen?
Beside him Beatrice pipes up, “The drones should be armed!”
On the phone Steve’s mom says, “You have to find him!”
The car turns sharply and Gerðr slides into him.
Steve stifles a whimper even as his mother says again, “Find him. Claire is so upset,” Beatrice says, “What is the range of a drone?” and Gerðr, oddly deciding to be solicitous, says, “Excuse me.”
Find Bohdi? Steve wishes he could join him. No matter how deadly Nornheim is, Steve is being crushed between magic-induced lust, a protective grandmother, and his mother—who is invoking his daughter’s name.
There is no way Bohdi could be any more miserable than Steve is right now.
Chapter 5
A man rides a battered, three-speed bicycle on a narrow street. On the front of the bicycle is a basket. A little boy is sitting in it, legs dangling over the side. The street is packed with other cyclists, a few mopeds, women in brightly colored saris, and even one cow with enormous curved horns.
Someone is calling, “Bohdi!”
The boy and the man stop at an intersection where some mopeds pass in front of them. As the mopeds pass, the man reaches down and runs his hand through the boy’s hair, tweaking the boy’s ear as he pulls away. The boy smiles and bats at the hand.
“Bohdi!” someone shouts again, a woman with a strange accent. The little boy doesn’t pay any attention. Bohdi is not his name.
What is his name?
Smiling, the man puts both hands on the handlebars and begins to peddle again. A woman gets in the way of the scene, her pale face suddenly entering the frame of the camera…
“Bohdi!”
…In front of him is Amy. Her blue eyes are wide and worried. Her hands are on either side of his face.
Grabbing her wrists, he pushes her aside, a cry of abject misery leaving his throat.
He lifts his eyes and sees the milky white surface of the column sparkling with flickers of light from within. And then the flickering solidifies, and he sees the man and the boy again; his heart lifts even as heavy hands land on his shoulders and spin him around.
The man and the boy vanish. Bohdi screams. It feels like he’s lost everything and everyone he’s ever loved.
Something shakes him, and suddenly Bohdi is staring into Thor’s dark blue eyes. Words are spilling from Thor’s lips, but Bohdi can’t make out their meaning. He tries to spin back to the column, but Thor grabs his shoulders and smaller, softer arms wrap around him from behind.
“You must not look at the Columns of Fate!” Thor shouts.
Gasping, Bohdi screams. “I have to! That’s why I came! That’s what I have to know!”
From behind him, Amy’s voice rises, “No, Bohdi, you’ll go crazy if you look into the columns.” Her hands tighten on his chest.
In front of him, Thor’s lips form a hard line. “She speaks the truth. Stare into the columns and you’ll lose yourself.”
“But…” Bohdi blinks. The last few hours come rushing back to his mind.
After arriving in Nornheim, Thor had circled until he’d found a stream. According to the space Viking, all water in Nornheim flows to the Norns. They’d flown down low enough to see the direction of the current, and then returned the chariot to higher altitudes. They’d flown for hours. After a while, even being in an alien realm had ceased to be interesting.
A few minutes ago, Thor had touched down near one of the giant “Columns of Fate.” He’d said the columns would keep some of the predators at bay but had warned Bohdi and Amy not to look too closely at the column surface…and then Thor had walked off to scout for a bit, and Amy had started taking pictures of alien insects with her iPhone…and Bohdi…Bohdi had peeked at the column.
He’s panting. And his eyes are wet. Amy’s still standing behind him, arms wrapped tightly around his chest. She’s shaking. He gulps. No, he’s shaking.
Alien insects trill in a strang
e mournful harmony. The trees in this part of the forest are white-trunked with fern-like leaves that are such a dark green they’re nearly black. The ground is covered in a carpet of shredded white bark and dead leaves. The undergrowth is thin, but here and there plants with burgundy leaves and lavender flowers peek from the ground. Light blue insects with bat-like baby blue wings dart about.
He stands frozen, the strange surroundings making him feel like he’s trapped in a surreal dream.
He wants to go back to the place he saw in the column. He wants to feel like he did looking at the man and the boy. His brain is screaming at him to turn his head, just to take one more look…
Closing his eyes, he brings his hands up to where Amy’s hands are on his chest. Bohdi can’t bring himself to push them away, and when his hands touch hers, she responds by squeezing them. Bohdi bows his head. It’s pleasantly warm on the surface of Nornheim. He’s only wearing the button-down shirt he’d worn to the office this morning. Amy’s shed her heavy coat and is only wearing a fleece sweater. He can feel the softness of her breasts pressed against his back. The sensation is sweet; it mutes the empty feeling in his gut, softens the edge of the niggling feeling at the back of his brain telling him just to turn around…
“We need to eat,” Thor says, dropping his hands from Bohdi’s shoulders. “Come.”
Lifting his head and opening his eyes, Bohdi stares at him briefly and then nods. He gently disengages his hands from Amy’s. As Thor walks ahead, Amy steps around Bohdi, and her eyes meet his.
He remembers her look of shock and disappointment early this morning, the look of anger when he’d grabbed her in the lab, and her look of incredulity as she’d wrinkled her nose up at the protein bars he’d gotten them from 7-11. Now she only looks concerned. His stomach twists uncomfortably as he looks down at her. In the Marine Corps, he made it all the way through boot camp, infantry training, and had even attended several weeks of schooling before Steve got him out of the Corps with a bogus medical discharge. He should be looking out for her.
Averting his eyes, Bohdi manages to murmur, “Thanks.”
She just shrugs and nods.
Trying to regain some of his dignity, Bohdi calls to Thor a few paces away. “I have some food—”
Thor grunts and says. “Keep it.” He pats a tiny leather satchel no bigger than a wallet and a small flask attached to his belt. “I have an endless supply of food and water right here.”
A few minutes later, Bohdi is sitting with Amy and Thor on boulders by the chariot. They are munching on rectangular biscuits that are savory, delicious, and strangely satisfying. Bohdi’s eyes slide to his companions. They’re both looking apprehensively at the sky. Thor says that Nornheim is full of dangers, but so far, the worst encounter they have had was with a particularly nasty low hanging cloud filled with biting shards of ice. Bohdi can’t bring himself to share their unease. The column rising up behind him dominates his thoughts. Was the little boy him, was the man on the bicycle his father? Their trip down the crowded street loops in his mind.
Maybe if he just tells Thor and Amy he’s going to hit the head, he can sneak back and…
Bohdi sits upright. He’s thinking the same way he did when Ruth wheedled him into giving up smoking. He swallows; he’s thinking like an addict, and he had only stared at the column for a few minutes.
Hands starting to shake, Bohdi reaches into his pocket and feels the familiar shape of his lighter. He closes his eyes, and the images on the column begin to replay.
“Would you like some water?” says Thor.
The words shake Bohdi out of the addictive feedback loop. Nodding, he takes the flask, tips it back, and drinks water as sweet and pure as any he’s tasted.
Handing the flask back, he thanks Thor, and the big man only nods at him then settles back into silence. Amy also eats quietly. The only sound is the drone of the insects. In his mind, he hears the ring of a bicycle bell. Had the bicycle had a bell?
The lack of conversation is suddenly oppressive. Unable to take the silence anymore, Bohdi pulls his lighter out of his pocket and spins the flywheel. Opening his mouth, without really thinking, he says, “So…everyone but me is here to find Loki.”
Sitting up very straight, Amy says, “How did you know about that?”
Bohdi’s face heats up. Whoops.
Avoiding that question, he turns to Thor. “Mind if I ask why? I mean, we’ve had two whole years of peace and quiet. Why not let sleeping dogs lie?”
He flicks the lighter in his hand and feels the burn of flame. The nameless boy and man in the image in the column fill his mind, the memory of the brief sense of contentment flits by him like a will-o-wisp. How many other families had Loki torn apart?
“Did I say dog? I meant psychopath.”
It’s only when Thor makes a loud rumbly noise and Amy makes a startled little hiccup that Bohdi realizes he’s said that out loud.
He flicks the lighter again. Steve always says Bohdi just can’t help stirring the pot. His nostrils flare. “Someone’s got to say it,” he mumbles, because obviously Amy and Thor are too nice to see it for themselves. He’s doing them a favor.
Standing from his boulder, Thor roars. “How dare you!”
Bohdi leans back. Before he can retort, Amy is up and standing between him and the space Viking. “He doesn’t know what Loki did!”
Bohdi’s memory isn’t that bad. “Yes, I do,” he snaps. “He killed thousands of people, turned some of them into popsicles, set cars on fire, destroyed buildings—”
Thor rumbles, and Amy shouts, “Loki wiped Bohdi’s memories—he’s got reason to be upset—and he doesn’t know!”
Bohdi’s nostrils flare. Standing, so he can look over Amy’s shoulder, he shouts, “Doesn’t know what?”
Snarling, Thor meets his gaze. “Loki saved the Nine Realms, including yours!”
Bohdi’s brows furrow as he glances back and forth at them. “By destroying Chicago’s financial district?” Bohdi says, impressed that he mostly managed to keep the sneer out of his voice. He feels the bite of flame on his thumb as he unconsciously flicks his lighter again.
Looking up at him, Amy says, “No. Cera the World Seed did that. She was controlling him. It took him awhile to trick her.”
Bohdi’s eyebrows jog up his forehead in disbelief.
Eyes still on Bohdi, Thor says, “Ratatoskr was there! He saw the whole thing with Dr. Lewis and delivered the message to the Nine Realms.”
With a snarl the big man turns and walks a few paces away. In a voice more anguished than angry he says, “Yet no one believes.”
“Yeah,” Bohdi mumbles. “Who wouldn’t believe a talking squirrel?” Not that he’s met the rodent in question. “Hey, isn’t this the Rat’s home realm or something? Shouldn’t he be here saying hello since he and Amy are buds?” He looks down at Amy, but her eyes are on Thor, her mouth pressed in a thin line.
Thor spins toward him. “But it is true! Loki took the World Seed into the In-Between and tricked it into destroying itself…giving birth to a new universe…and sacrificing his own life in the process!”
Bohdi stares at the large man, lip twitching. He glances at Amy for her reaction to that craziness.
She meets his eyes. When she speaks, her voice is sad. “It’s true.”
“Would that the honor was mine!” Thor rumbles. Bohdi’s gaze shifts to the large warrior. Thor has one fist over his chest, and he looks for all the world like he is about to cry.
Bohdi’s eyebrows hike, and the circuits in his brain start to work again. “Wait, Loki is dead?”
He finds himself looking at Amy, his chest suddenly feeling oddly light. Even in a shapeless fleece, she’s still cute. And she understands magical event horizons.
“Yes,” Amy says. “He’s dead.”
Bohdi’s mental circuits short. “But if he’s dead, why are we looking for him?”
“Chaos can’t die,” Amy says, cryptically.
Bowing his head, Thor says
, “He will assume another form.”
Bohdi tilts his head. “Like reincarnation? Are we looking for a baby?” Wait, why is he saying we?
Shaking her head, Amy says, “Maybe…it’s not really like the Hindu concept of reincarnation. It’s more like chaos picks a body and hitches a ride. Or the universe picks a body…or…” She shrugs.
Bohdi squints and looks toward the bubble-gum pink sun a few hours from the horizon. A baby wouldn’t be so bad, but a full-grown Loki in any form…
“So, why exactly the big pressure to find him? I mean chaos…” Bohdi winces. “It’s not something most people want to find, right?” Chaos has a way of finding Bohdi, and he knows.
“He must be brought to Asgard. My father will care for him,” Thor says.
Amy spins to face Thor. “No, Thor! No! Your father will use him—and take advantage of him.”
Thor’s face goes blank.
Dipping her chin, Amy whispers, “You know he will.”
Something mournful enters Thor’s expression, his eyes don’t leave Amy’s, and for an uncomfortable moment, Bohdi feels like they’re having a conversation he can’t hear.
Thor drops his head. “Loki was my friend.”
Bohdi snorts. He does know something about the Norse mythology—having your brain wiped by a so-called Norse god will do wonders to stoke your curiosity.
Flicking his lighter, Bohdi says, “Didn’t Loki once steal a falcon cloak, go on a joy flight to Jotunheim, get his ass caught by some giant, then promise to bring you back to the giant’s castle unarmed so said giant could kill you?” His lips curl in an incredulous smile. In the myth, Loki lied to Thor to bring him to the giant’s doorstep without his hammer. “Didn’t you almost die due to your friend?”
Thor’s nostrils flare. “Do you take me for an idiot?”
Bohdi looks to the sky. “Well…”
Thor lifts his hammer, and Amy lunges to grab the big man’s arm. Practically dangling from Thor’s biceps, she looks over her shoulder and shouts. “It didn’t happen that way!”
