by C. Gockel
“He destroyed Cera…with his life!” says Amy, and in the same heartbeat, Odin’s words echo in Bohdi’s mind, destined to die in agony and fire.
“Yes,” Odin roars. “Because I let him.” He leans across the table again. “As soon as I realized how dangerous Cera was, I knew the Destroyer was the Nine Realms’ only hope. And I let him do what needed to be done. Do you think I couldn’t have swooped down with a legion of Valkyries and Einherjar and brought him back to Asgard at any time if I truly wished?”
Amy draws back. Voice quavering, she says, “You only did it because you couldn’t use Cera for yourself. I’ve seen—” She stops, her eyes go wide.
It might be Bohdi’s imagination, but he swears Odin’s eye glitters. Sitting back in his chair, Odin says, “Do you refer to your weeks out of my sight?”
Amy doesn’t answer.
“Hmmmm…” says Odin. “A pity you did not see a universe without me…under Loki’s control.”
Amy trembles so violently her chair shakes. Bohdi feels all the air leave him. That…is not a great reaction.
Odin sighs. Kindly, fatherly, he says, “Or perhaps you did. The trick, between Loki and me, is to find the right balance.” He gives a small smile. “I do not always succeed in that. But I endeavor to try.”
Bohdi’s nose doesn’t itch. Amy’s head droops. For minutes that stretch too long, there is more silence…allowing Bohdi to think a little harder on the whole “bringing despair, strife, conflict, and pain to everyone he knows and loves” thing. He remembers Steve fighting with Hernandez about sending him to Gitmo, and then defending him after he hacked into the personnel files. He thinks of Amy, bleeding in the snow…
No…that wasn’t his doing… But the twelve Valkyries that died on Nornheim, that was. And Nidhogg, the baby spiders, and the butterfly…
“What about Hoenir?” Amy says. Bohdi snaps back to the present. Pushing his bangs back from his forehead, he shivers.
“Have you met him?” says Odin, his eye glittering again. “Do you know where he is?”
Amy’s mouth opens, and then she swallows and brings her hand to her forehead. “No…”
Odin stares hard at her, his single eye narrowing. And then he waves a hand. “It is of no matter. When I find Loki, and I will, Hoenir will come. They are always drawn together.” He levels his gaze on Amy. “I think you would like him.”
Bohdi shifts in his seat. “Who is this Hoenir guy?”
Odin and Amy both turn to look at him. Bohdi’s hand slips into his pocket, he takes out his lighter.
“My gardener,” says Odin, eye narrowed.
“The Creator,” says Amy, turning to Odin. “The third in your trinity. The other most powerful being in the universe!”
“Powerful? Maybe, in some ways. But not dangerous,” says Odin. He raises an eyebrow at Amy. “And I heard that you visited the site of his former house. How did you know it was there?”
Bohdi’s eyes slide to Amy. How did she know it was there? His fingers flick his lighter. Does she have another god-like boyfriend? If she does, should he care? Apparently, he is just destined to fuck up her life anyway. Like he does everything. Squeezing his eyes shut, he thinks of the pictures of his parents, their faces smeared beyond recognition. He’d gone to Nornheim with only one goal, and he’d fucked it up. He is a failure, he is…
“Mr. Patel, are you trying to set my tablecloth on fire?” Odin says.
Bohdi’s eyes snap open. He looks down at the flame in his hand. He hadn’t even felt the heat on his thumb. “No…I’m…”
Dangerous.
“Just scared…” he mutters, putting his hand on top of the table. He can’t meet Amy’s eyes. He keeps thinking of her lying in her own blood, dying in the snow.
He’d almost gotten her killed in Nornheim, too.
Odin’s lips quirk, then he turns back to Amy. “What are you hiding, Miss Lewis?”
She lets go a light, fearful-sounding laugh. “I don’t know where Loki is, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No,” says Odin, eye narrowing. “I see you do not. But you are still too interesting to let go.”
And oh, fuck, now Bohdi’s trapped her here. In another universe, Odin had tried to kill her. In this one…
“Don’t worry,” Odin says. “I am not a man that fears what he doesn’t understand… I don’t want to hurt you. You’re too valuable.”
The Allfather leans closer to Amy. She draws closer to Bohdi.
“Twice you’ve escaped my sight. You’ve seen universes and possibilities even I have not seen…”
The Allfather lifts a hand toward her. The edges of Bohdi’s vision go red. He feels his face heat.
“And then there was the pregnancy, that shouldn’t have happened.” Odin says. “What are you, Miss Lewis?”
Odin’s hand stretches toward Amy’s cheek and the whole world looks like Bohdi is staring through blood-colored glasses.
This is all his fault. And so is Thor being in Hel fighting the Fire Giants… If Bohdi just had admitted who he was…but he can’t…
His hand tightens on his lighter. He flicks the wheel. “Don’t touch her.” The words come out of his mouth in a hiss.
“Pardon?” says Odin, his voice silky. Somewhere in Bohdi’s mind, it registers as a warning. But heat is rushing through his body, and it’s like he belongs to someone else. He’s standing up, pushing the table, shaking silverware, and tipping over china. He’s blind to everything but red and Odin; and he’s screaming. “Don’t. Fucking. Touch her!”
And then he sees Amy standing, jumping back and out of her chair bringing her hands to her mouth as though terrified of him. His nose itches at the sight… His eyes snap to Odin, his body tenses, he wants to hurt him. His muscles coil.
Raising a hand in Bohdi’s direction, the Allfather commands, “Stop.”
And Bohdi does.
He can’t breathe. Or blink. Or even twitch. His thoughts feel like they are riding a slow wave, and his vision is a film in slow motion with frames missing.
Just beyond Odin, Amy’s hands open in front of her mouth, as though she’s going to blow the Allfather a kiss. In her hands is Mr. Squeakers.
And then Mr. Squeakers is suspended in midair behind Odin, as though caught in a freeze frame. And then he’s gone and Odin’s hand is on the back of his neck.
Air rushes into Bohdi’s lungs. His pulse races in his ears, his eyes are dry and burning, and he’s careening face first into the table. He blinks and his eyes feel like sandpaper. He hears a sob.
Looking up, he sees Odin, keeled over on the table, his hands inches from Bohdi’s own. Looking up, he sees Amy. She’s standing behind Odin’s chair, Mr. Squeakers on her shoulder. Her face is contorted in a grimace, her hands are balled in fists, and tears are in her eyes. “I can’t kill him! I can’t kill him!”
Still gasping for air, Bohdi’s eyes fall on the Allfather. “What happened?”
Amy shakes her head and bites her lip. “He stopped you—he froze you in time—but not me.”
Which is half an answer. Bohdi’s eyes fall to Odin. “He’s…”
“Unconscious,” says Amy. “Squeakers is venomous and he bit him…”
Bohdi looks up to the tiny spidermouse twitching his whiskers on Amy’s shoulder. Back on Earth, he’d sneezed when Amy told him Squeakers was harmless. He bites back a nervous laugh. It wasn’t the mouse he was allergic to.
She curls her hands into fists. “I want to kill Odin, but when I try… I…” Holding her fists before her face, she lets loose a frustrated scream.
Bohdi’s eyes snap back to Odin’s prone form on the table. His long gray hair is spilling out over the red tablecloth. His glass is knocked over. He looks frail. Human. Ordinary. Like a man playing dress up as a king.
Bohdi takes a shaky breath. But he’s a real king, and Bohdi’s pretty sure kings don’t let people humiliate them and just walk away. Amy and Bohdi will be on the run forever.
They should ki
ll him. Bohdi knows all sorts of ways to do it: lift his head and twist his neck, crush his windpipe, even just yanking Odin back by the hair with sufficient force could break a vertebrae.
Bohdi can do it. He’s the Destroyer.
He stumbles back from the table. “I can’t kill him, either.”
On the table, Odin groans.
Amy skitters toward Bohdi. Grabbing his arm, she gives him a yank toward the far wall. “We have to get out of here.”
Bohdi meekly obliges. Amy goes to a corner of the room, drops his arm, runs her fingers along the smooth stone, bites her lip, and says, “It’s here.”
She presses against the wall and it shimmers. Where before there’d been the smooth white stone with golden veins, there are cement blocks and a drab wooden door. Amy jams her hand into one of the blocks and the door swings silently open.
“Come on,” says Amy stepping into the darkness beyond. Bohdi follows, setting his lighter ablaze. “Thanks,” she says. She pushes a loose block in the wall and the door closes behind them.
The flame of the lighter dies, and Amy says, “This way.” Bohdi follows her voice, and a moment later, the wan light of a phone in Amy’s hand lights a fork in the tunnel. Without hesitation Amy goes right. A few steps later, there is another fork and she goes right again.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Bohdi asks.
“To the stables,” Amy pants, walking in front of him, very fast. “Odin is here, which means Sleipnir, his horse, is here. We can steal Sleipnir. He can open World Gates. We can ride him home.”
Bohdi shivers. Convenient to have a horse that can world-walk if they’re going to be on the run…forever. He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his eyes. “Sleipnir…”
“World-walking, time-slipping, magical eight-legged horse, child of Loki’s mare incarnation. No, Loki didn’t have sex with a horse as a mare on purpose so don’t even go there,” Amy says.
Bohdi’s brain short circuits at the words. Another, sort-of-almost child?
For a few minutes, there is nothing but the darkness of the tunnel broken only by the cell phone’s light and the sound of their feet scuffling over the floor. A squeak from Amy’s shoulder breaks the near silence.
“I’m so sorry, Squeakers,” Amy says. “No butterflies for you to eat now.”
“Just a harmless mouse,” Bohdi says, his voice a little bitter.
Amy stops in her tracks. Pulling Squeakers from her shoulder and clutching him to her chest, she says, “Please, don’t tell Steve! Steve would put him in a cage, and ADUO might do experiments on him, and…please don’t tell Steve?”
Mr. Squeakers gives a little cheep. He is really cute. And Bohdi owes him his life. But…
Bohdi’s jaw tightens. “I won’t, but when we’re out of here, you’re going to tell me what else you’re hiding.”
Amy draws back, eyes wide.
There is a noise, the whisper of soft shoes on stone from the direction they’ve just come. Amy slips her phone back into her pocket, and they are in complete darkness.
Bohdi looks behind them and sees a pale blue and ivory light. His heart beats in his ears, and his ire dissolves. He feels Amy’s hand on his wrist. She silently pulls him forward and he doesn’t protest.
They move as quietly as they can through the tunnels, hands on the walls, to keep from banging into them. Bohdi begins to hear other noises, groaning wood and heavy thumps.
Beside him, Amy whispers, “The stables.”
She stops. A phone flickers to life in her hand, and on the wall Bohdi sees a round ring beside a wooden door. She gives it a yank, and the door opens just enough to let a tiny bar of light into the tunnel. Amy peeks through the crack.
“Tack room’s empty,” she says, pushing the door slightly more ajar. They step out into a room only about as wide as he is long, dimly lit by a little green ball suspended from the ceiling. There is the smell of leather, grassy stuff, and an animal smell Bohdi guesses might be horse. Amy closes the “door” behind them—which is actually the back wall of the room. Hanging from it are harnesses, saddles, and things he can’t quite identify. A few bales of hay are stacked neatly on the floor. Amy bites her lip. “There will be at least two guards in front of Sleipnir’s stall,” she whispers. “I think Squeakers can handle at least one, but…”
Bohdi stares at her. And then he gets what she’s saying. He looks around the room and notices all the wood paneling. “Maybe we can set a fire,” he says pulling out his lighter. He flicks it. “That would…”
No flame leaps at his fingers. There’s not even a spark.
Amy looks around them. “I think this place may be enchanted against fire.”
Still spinning the flint wheel, Bohdi rubs his chin and looks around the room. A whip catches his eye. He moves toward it. As he lays his hand on it, a deep lowing fills the stables. Bohdi can feel the whip tremble under his fingers at the sound.
“A hadrosaur!” says Amy, shuffling toward the wall beside Bohdi. “That means…”
She pulls something off the wall. “Would this work for you?” she asks.
Bohdi turns his head. She’s holding a shovel. It looks like the type Henry uses in his garden, pointy and sharp at the trough end and highly polished. But the long handle looks weathered and gray.
Amy runs her hand over the handle. “Elven merwood. It won’t break—even if it’s hit by a sword.” She looks up at him and nods shrewdly. “You need something unbreakable for shoveling hadrosaur dung.”
Bohdi looks between the elegant whip and the humble dung shovel. The shovel is at least kind of sword like, and he has gone to a Kumdo class with Steve. Sighing, he takes it from her and turns it over in his hands. It does have a nice heft to it.
“Bohdi.”
He looks up.
Amy is standing in front of him, a woolly strappy thing in her hands. “You’re a good person to have in these sorts of situations.” Looking down she whispers, “I’m glad you’re here.”
He hears her swallow. He feels like he might throw up. If he weren’t here, she wouldn’t be here. Turning toward the door, he mumbles. “Let’s go.”
Amy is still for a moment, but then without meeting his eyes, she turns, opens the door, peeks through, and nods. Together they leave the tack room and enter a short hallway, dimly lit by the same small green glowy lights suspended from the ceiling. There are a few doors off to the side, and a wheelbarrow filled with some goopy white and purpley-blue stuff. Up ahead is another hallway, with half doors that are about the height of Bohdi’s chest. He hears shuffling and what sounds like horses to him. Putting a finger to her lips, Amy looks at the intersection and points right.
They creep up to the intersection and peek around the corner. There are two guards about twenty feet away. They wear full armor, and they carry plasma-shooting spears. Bohdi looks down at his weapon. Their armor has helmets with visors. And apparently it’s all impact resistant. His eyes slide to the goop. Hefting the shovel in his hands, he goes over and scoops up a load of it, grimacing at the ammonia-like smell. Amy’s eyes go wide, but she doesn’t say anything.
Approaching the intersection again, he gives Amy a nod and mouths the words, “Lead the way.”
A horse is making a noise that sounds like a horse raspberry, and the two guys are looking into the stall, talking to each other.
They turn into the hallway, but the lighting’s dim and the guards are immersed in their conversation and don’t turn immediately. Amy casually deposits Squeakers on the wall. Bohdi watches the mouse race up to the ceiling and then dart toward the guards, hugging the shadows.
A heartbeat later, one of the guards turns and says, “You there! How did ye get in here?” His voice isn’t loud. It’s conversational, unworried…and maybe Scottish or Irish. Apparently, word hasn’t gotten out about what happened. But it’s the middle of the night; they should be suspicious at least. Unless it never occurs to them anyone would ever want to leave, or betray Odin…
Amy speak
s. “We wanted to see Sleipnir.”
The guard looks behind them. “The watch out front let ye in?”
Amy doesn’t answer, and the guard says, “I’m sorry, lass, but ye’ll have to come back in the morning. Sleipnir’s asleep right now.”
Bohdi stifles a sniffle and from the stall comes a loud trumpet-like horse noise.
The other says something in Asgardian and the first man sighs. “Should be sleeping.”
Bohdi scowls. Why can’t they be suspicious and angry?
Amy bites her lip. “We have to go home… Please, let us go.”
Bohdi’s heart constricts and he looks at her in alarm, furious, and bizarrely grateful that she’s giving these guys a chance.
“What?” says the man stepping forward. The other man tenses. “Oh, no, lass, ye’ll be doing no such thing. I know it can be a bit to get used to, but ye’ll like it here… I’ll call a guard, he’ll take you back…”
In his mind, Bohdi sees Odin reaching for Amy, and the Fire Giant collapsing on the floor in a bloody heap.
“No,” Bohdi says, gritting his teeth. And he doesn’t care about the guards, he just has to survive, and Amy has to survive.
“What?” says the guard. And this time there is tension in his voice. His companion steps forward. Neither yells though. The guard’s eyes fall on Bohdi’s shovel. “What are ye doing with dino dung?’
So that’s what the goop is.
Turning his head to Amy, Bohdi smiles and says, “But then again, maybe he’s right, maybe we should go back.” At the same time he pulls the shovel back.
Huffing, the man says, “Of course I’m right—”
Bohdi flicks the shovel forward in a wide ark. Clumps of dung go flying, sticking to the walls and the guards’ visors. A shadow drops from the ceiling onto the second guard. Both men’s spears droop…and it’s like Bohdi’s body is possessed by someone else again. He grabs the spear of the first man by the shaft, braces it under his arm, simultaneously readjusting his makeshift weapon in his other hand. The man flips open his visor—and Bohdi drives the shovel into his face.
x x x x
As the man Squeakers has bitten starts to stumble, Amy rushes forward and catches him. He shouts something, loud enough to be heard outside. As he falls, he manages to let off another shout and a few choice words before she takes the wool girth she stole from the tack room and ties it around his head. As it muffles his moans and he slips into unconsciousness, Squeakers leaps from his helmet, licking his tiny chops.
