by C. Gockel
Bohdi’s jaw goes tight, and he looks away. “Those baby spider screams…” With jerky movements, he runs a hand through his hair. “That sucked.”
Amy bites her lip. She wants to console him, to tell him she’s glad she doesn’t have a forelimb pinning her to a wall, and mandibles piercing her skin. Opening her mouth, she inhales a lungful of soot.
“Looks like I started a forest fire,” Bohdi says. “We better move before Smokey the Bear catches me.” He doesn’t smile at his joke, and Amy just coughs on the smoke.
Chapter 9
Leaning against the wall in Macy’s, Steve clutches Claire’s ice skates and his own skates under one arm, pondering the oddly accusatory text on his phone.
You lost Amy Lewis.
The text is from Prometheus.
He wasn’t aware that the mysterious source that the FBI has for all things magical knows Lewis. That Prometheus is concerned with her fate is more than interesting, but Steve has had enough interaction with the elusive contact to know a direct question will get him nowhere.
Instead, Steve taps out a quickly: Can u help?
There is a moment’s pause and then the screen lights with another message. No one can see clearly into Nornheim. And my doors to the realm are closed.
Doors closed? Steve closes his eyes trying to remember. Skírnir had said something like that about the gates in Asgard, hadn’t he?
Another message pops onto the screen. Your drones our only intel.
Steve’s brows knit. Not comforting.
Another message from Prometheus blinks on the screen. Keep me informed.
Typing fast, Steve taps out: Wait. We need more wire. Bohdi had “borrowed” most of their reserves of Promethean wire.
There is a long pause and then a reply: I have none on hand.
Steve runs his tongue over his teeth.
But then another text appears. It will take time. Goodbye.
Scowling, Steve checks the time on his phone—again. It’s still another three hours before they check in on the drones. He shifts the skates under his arm. If their sources can tell them nothing helpful about the realm, they’re at the mercy of human tech. He scratches his chin…and perhaps human myth? Haven’t both Amy and Loki said that mythology is a skewed reflection of actual events?
He shakes his head. He can’t do anything now. It’s after five o’clock on a Saturday. He needs to give it a rest. Slipping the phone back into his pocket, he lifts his head and scans the crowd at Macy’s. Where is Claire?
Steve and his daughter had come to the department store to buy Claire a new pair of mittens and to get a snack before going skating in Millennium Park. She’d just gone to the bathroom. He turns to look down the hallway toward the restrooms. A little Chinese guy is pacing nearby, too. Also waiting for a lost female relative?
A voice, elegant and contralto, comes from beside him. “Are you looking for someone?”
Steve turns his head, and has a bit of a disconnect. The tall woman, in knee-high black suede boots is a dead ringer for the ’80s pop-singer, Sade. She has full lips, nearly Asian eyes, skin a little darker than copper, and a strong nose that verges on being Arabic. Her rich contralto voice almost makes him think she is Sade, but this woman is a little younger, maybe late thirties.
He always had a thing for Sade. Steve opens his mouth, but it takes a little while for words to come out. “Ah…yes…my daughter is in the bathroom.”
“Oh!” says the woman. “I was just in there, and I think I saw her! She looks exactly like you, right? But small and pretty.” She smiles.
Steve nods, and the woman waves a hand. “Don’t worry, it’s just a bit crowded…a lot of skaters coming in for hot chocolate, I think.”
Is that a hint of a Nigerian accent? It’s…sexy. “Oh…” Steve suffers through his speechless moment, then his face melts into a smile. She is so beautiful, he can’t help it. Trying to reclaim some dignity, he says, “Do you skate?” And then mentally kicks himself. Steve only skates for Claire. She loves skating, and years of ballet training and a few skating lessons have given her the speed and grace of a snowflake. Steve is just barely capable of not embarrassing himself. If this woman is good at skating…
She smiles again. “No, but I’ve always wanted to learn. I had no idea there was skating nearby. I’m new in town, and by myself.”
“New in town?” Steve manages to say. And by herself?
The woman nods. “I have just taken a position at Northwestern University.”
Steve lifts his chin, impressed. “A scholar?” Smart and beautiful? Is manna raining from heaven?
She nods. “Of myths and folklore.”
“Oh…” says Steve. “That is…” very interesting, and strangely apropos. The hairs on the back of Steve’s neck tickle, and he almost reaches into his pocket for his magic detector. But it’s silent…and that would be ridiculous…and…He straightens. Claire will be out in a minute. He needs to act fast.
Holding out his hand, he says, “I’m Steve Rogers.”
She smiles and proffers a hand adorned with elegant gold bracelets in his direction. “My name is—”
From behind Steve, someone starts speaking fast in Chinese, and Claire’s voice cracks through the din of the department store. “You!”
Steve turns around to see Claire coming slowly down the hallway, a frail, elderly Asian woman leaning on his daughter’s left arm. The other arm is pointing just past Steve. Claire’s chin is high, and her eyes are flashing. The small Chinese man who had been pacing down the hallway is scurrying to the old woman.
“What?” says Steve, breaking into a jog toward his daughter.
Claire blinks. “She’s gone…”
“Who?” says Steve.
Standing on her tip, toes, Claire scans the large room. “The woman you were talking to—”
Steve looks and sees empty air where Sade had stood. Damn.
Claire puts a hand on her hip. “She was checking her makeup in the mirror, turned around too quickly, and knocked this lady over!” The little old lady is still hanging on to Claire’s arm for dear life. The man, maybe her son, is trying to pull her away.
Addressing the Chinese man, Claire says, “I think maybe she should see a doctor…”
The elderly woman pats Claire’s arm and says something in Chinese. The man looks at Claire and says, “Thank you, thank you.”
Steve appraises the elderly woman. She does look a little wobbly on her feet. Bending down, Steve looks into her eyes. Her pupils are too small. Pulling out his phone, he turns to the man, “Your mother has a concussion. She needs a doctor, I’m calling nine-one-one.”
“Oh…thank you,” says the man. He turns to the old woman and starts talking in rapid Chinese. The old woman responds and pats Claire’s arm.
A few minutes later, Steve, the man, and the department store staff have gotten the elderly woman to lie down while they wait for the paramedics to arrive. They sit quietly, and it’s uncomfortable, mostly because it gives Steve time to think.
Why does Prometheus care about Amy? Ratatoskr, the squirrel messenger of the Norns, had told Steve to keep an eye on her, because “there is something not quite right about her.” He rubs his jaw in irritation. There is something not quite right about so many things: Amy visiting other universes—one where Steve was killed by Odin, one where Bohdi was killed by Loki; Bohdi’s memories in this universe; Beatrice being sharp as a tack and one-hell-of a shot; trolls still popping up downtown…
Hernandez would say the common denominator is magic.
Steve runs a hand along the back of his neck. But there’s more than that. He feels like he has all the pieces of the puzzle, but without the final picture, he doesn’t know how to put them together.
As a reviled politician once said, too many “known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.”
Interrupting his thoughts, the Chinese guy says, “You have a very good daughter.”
A headache that had been brewing behind Steve�
��s eyes is suddenly gone. Steve hears rapidly approaching footsteps. The paramedics are arriving.
He puts an arm around Claire’s shoulders. She’s ten years old, nearly as tall as the man, but thin as a bean pole. He kisses the top of her head. “That, I know.”
“Dad!” says Claire, but she doesn’t pull away. Steve doesn’t let her go, but he doesn’t look at her for fear of getting misty eyed. He has one thing in his life he knows is perfect.
As the paramedics come rushing in, Claire and Steve leave the scene, Steve’s arm still around his daughter’s shoulders. He gives her a squeeze, as his eyes sweep over the spot where he had been speaking to the Sade impersonator.
Beside him, Claire says, “Who was that woman talking to you?”
Steve stops for a second, something tickling the back of his mind. “I don’t know…”
Chapter 10
“I don’t know…” Amy says, from above Bohdi, nervously scuffing the toe of her sneaker in the dirt.
He glares up at her from where he squats at the riverbank, cool, enticing, water cupped in his hands.
Amy is silhouetted by the Nornheim’s pinkish sun. Filtered through clouds of smoke, the sun’s light has taken on a foreboding red hue. Her winter coat is tied around her hips; a fleece sweater is drooping in her arms. She’s stripped down to an over-sized, unflattering boxy tee shirt with a picture of a cat on it. Above the cat, in an Old West font, are the words: Wanted Dead & Alive, Schrodinger’s Cat. And okay, it’s funny, but he’d think the God of Mischief’s girlfriend would have a little more body confidence. The tee shirt might as well be a muumuu. Why is she trying to hide? Even if her waist is thick, why not wear something that shows she at least has a waist?
Amy presses her lips together. “Amoebic dysentery is a pretty bad way to die.”
“So is dehydration,” Bohdi counters.
“We don’t have any iodine tablets to treat the water with…” Amy says.
Bohdi closes his eyes. “We don’t have anything.” Besides his knife and lighter, they have their phones—powered down now, possibly of use for light later, Amy’s protein bar, some tissues (a few slightly used), a couple of hairpins, some condoms Amy snorted at when Bohdi pulled them out of his wallet, and the branch Bohdi picked up when the fire first started—slightly shorter now than it was then. They also have two Archaeopteryx feathers that Amy found in her hair and is ridiculously giddy about—they’re not even pretty feathers. They’re tiny little white things that could have been pulled out of any duck’s butt.
Bohdi looks down at his makeshift club. He’s not sure what kind of wood the branch is, but it is still smoking at one end. Bohdi’s heard wild animals are afraid of fire, and he’s hopeful the smell of smoke will keep predators at bay.
As if to punctuate that thought, something, somewhere, gives a blood-curdling howl.
Bohdi almost snorts in exasperation. His tongue is parched, his lips are cracked, and his eyes are burning from soot and exhaustion. “I’m drinking,” he says. “Didn’t you tell me that Thor has healing powers? If we don’t find him, we’ll die anyway, with or without amoebic dysentery.”
With that, he lifts the water to his lips and slurps it down. It is just as delicious as he imagined. With a squeak, Mr. Squeakers hops off Amy’s shoulder, settles himself beside Bohdi, and dips his whiskers into the water.
Bohdi smiles smugly at Amy. He slurps down a couple more handfuls before she grudgingly squats down beside him. As she drinks, Bohdi picks up the branch and looks northward in the direction they came from. Smoke is pouring from the trees into dark clouds. If Thor is up there, Bohdi can’t see him.
A brisk wind from the east ruffles his hair. So far, the fire’s path has been mostly westward, but it’s spreading southward along the river’s path, too, just at a slower pace. They have to keep moving. As long as they keep following the river to the Norns, their path and Thor’s should intersect.
Bohdi scans the river. Framed on both sides by high boulders, right now it is about as wide as a four-lane highway and so slow moving, it mirrors the sky. As he watches, a reflection of a dark cloud slips across the river’s surface from the south up toward where Amy is drinking.
Bohdi blinks. The wind is from the east… “Amy! Get back!” he shouts, raising the branch with both hands.
Amy skitters backward on her hands like a crab, just as something lurches out of the shallows, making angry slurping noises.
The creature comes up to about Bohdi’s chest. It’s roughly hominid but has a face like a snapping turtle and a carapace on its back. The crown of its head is inverted, like a dinner plate. With a gurgly growl, it snaps its jaws and flexes spindly claws at the ends of its too-long arms. With a yell, Bohdi whips the branch around and knocks the creature in the side of the head. It staggers back a half step and then comes forward with an angry snap. Bohdi jams the end of the branch in its face. The smoldering end hits the creature’s skin with a long hiss and a cloud of steam. The creature gives an anguished cry and plunges into the water, just as another pops out of the river.
Springing to her feet, Amy says, “There are at least two more along the bank.”
With a snarl, Bohdi jams the tree limb into the second creature’s jaw. It screams and dives back into the shallows and streaks away. Bohdi smirks. The bastards don’t like fire.
A shape streaking toward them from the left catches his eye. Twirling the hot end of the branch in his hand, he jams it into the approaching creature. Crying in agony, it veers into the water.
Bohdi almost laughs. He has an odd sensation—the same adrenaline rush he gets when he’s at the end of a run, when he feels like he’s flying. His mouth tastes like metal. He’d swear his vision has become sharper, his hearing more acute.
From the boulders around them, angry gurgles sound. Bohdi raises his eyes. Peeking out of the rocks are at least twelve more of the creatures.
“Run for it?” Amy suggests.
Frowning, Bohdi pauses. “Thinking about it…” Running will leave their backs exposed. Taking a step forward, he swings the branch experimentally. As it whistles through the air, the creatures draw back.
He might smile at them. Or maybe he sneers.
A gust of wind ruffles the back of his head, bringing with it the smell of burning trees and vegetation. The creatures give a few nervous clicks with their snapping-turtle jaws. One breaks away and dives into the river. The others stare at Bohdi and Amy, and then—almost in unison—turn and bolt from the boulders to the river, disappearing into the slow moving current, leaving only a few angry waves in their wake.
Spinning the branch around, Bohdi exclaims, “What were those?”
“Kappa,” says Amy. Her voice takes on a slightly distant air. “They were in Japan back in the days of the Heian Empire…Loki and Thor helped clean them out…”
Bohdi frowns as he looks out at the water. One more nasty to look out for. “The smell of fire scared them away,” Bohdi says, almost absentmindedly. He feels loose and a little strung out, as though he’s spent some time out of his body and is just coming back to it.
“You’re really good at this,” Amy says softly, from behind him.
Flushing at what must be a compliment, Bohdi ducks his head. Good at what? Staying alive? “You saved me from being a spider snack,” he says. And she had refused to let him go when he was falling… He still feels weird about that.
As he turns to her, Mr. Squeakers runs up her arm to sit on her shoulder. Face flat and unreadable, she says, “You’re better with a stick.”
Bohdi looks down at the branch in his hand. Is he? “In boot camp, we trained with pugil sticks.” Bohdi had been decent at it, but had gotten verbally reamed for cracking jokes… How did you not joke about giant Q-tips?
Idly scratching, Mr. Squeakers’ head, Amy’s eyes on him don’t waver. “Huh.”
He gets the disturbing feeling like she’s looking through him, not at him. The wind whips around them, settling into a southwest direction.
Running a hand through his unruly bangs, Bohdi says, “We better move.”
Nodding, Amy turns from the bank. Shifting the branch in his hand, Bohdi follows.
They make their way to a trail they’d found earlier. It follows the river and is wide enough to walk side by side. What sort of creature makes a path wide enough to walk side-by-side? Bohdi’s stomach flutters and he glances up. Still no happy hammer-toting alien in a physics-defying chariot in the sky…
A crash in the underbrush makes them both stop in their tracks. They turn toward the forest to their right. Bohdi’s eyes go wide. A cat-like thing the size of a tiger is slinking through the forest not twenty feet away. It has huge canines protruding from its jaw. His hand tightens on the branch. “Is that…”
“A saber-toothed tiger,” Amy whispers.
The cat lifts its head briefly in their direction, flicks its ears, and then continues on its way.
Bohdi stands slack-jawed. A creature that doesn’t think they’d make a tasty snack?
Beside him, Amy says, “It’s running from the fire. I’ve heard of predators and prey animals taking shelter together during natural disasters.”
Above their heads come eerie calls. Bohdi looks up to see a flock of large crane-like birds flapping above the trees, heading south.
Without a word, Amy and Bohdi start walking again, but at a slightly faster pace. The thin fern-like trees still predominate in the forest. But they begin to see trees with trunks as thick as a small car, soft, velvety-red bark, and tree tops with dark green leaves that spread out like giant mushroom caps. In the next hour, they see more animals: a bear, some deer, and even a unicorn. At one point, a pack of large slender wolf-like things with spikey lizard-like tails lopes onto the path in front of them; they barely glance at Bohdi and Amy before trotting away.
Bohdi’s stomach is growling for food; he’s sore and tired, and he feels…amazing. He’s walking side-by-side with fierce and magical creatures in an exotic alien landscape. Bohdi feels like he’s connected to something larger than himself—something that is everything, the animals, and the alien world they inhabit. He steals a sidelong glance at Amy. Her chest is heaving, and she has streaks of soot on her face. Her eyes are wide, her full lips slightly parted—not in fear, but a look of wonderment. He feels a connection to her, too. He reaches out and almost takes her hand. And then he realizes it’s all a lie in his head, probably brought on by lack of sleep and adrenaline. He has to kill it.
