Battlestorm

by Susan Krinard

  There was a strange note in Loki’s voice, as if he were about to reveal some unpleasant secret. Dainn’s heart began to race.

  “What happened?” he asked slowly.

  “The peasants attempted a minor revolt, armed with rubble and illegible signs.”

  Dainn calmed himself with a deep, slow breath. “Why?” he asked. “Have they a quarrel with the current administration?”

  Loki shot him an irritable glance and fell onto the couch again. “Something or someone provoked them into an act of rebellious stupidity.”

  “Freya?”

  “She and Mist were at the protest, making a show of attempting to stop it.”

  “Attempting. Do you have evidence that Freya started it?”

  “She would have much to gain if she suggested to her more influential mortal allies that the mayor was responsible for such a disturbance.”

  “What was Mist’s part in this?”

  “Didn’t I mention that she arrived first? She tried to control the mob alone, and failed. Freya arrived shortly thereafter, and summoned the glamour.”

  Adrenaline rushed through Dainn’s body. “Did she succeed?”

  “According to my observers, Freya extended her hand to Mist, perhaps with an offer that they work together. Mist evidently refused, at which point Freya took her place. And that is where it becomes interesting.” Loki’s eyes brightened with malice. “As her spells began to have their effect, she fell, and Mist took her place.”

  “Fell?”

  “Perhaps ‘collapsed’ would be the better word.”

  Suddenly Dainn realized how Loki had manipulated him. He had known all along that Freya had been weakened in some way. But Loki’s revelation was significant in another sense, and it stunned Dainn into silence.

  “Mist completed the Lady’s work?” Dainn said at last.

  “Indeed. My observers tell me that Mist seemed … not quite herself. In fact, her behavior was unusually grandiose. Perhaps her mother is finally rubbing off on her.”

  The room seemed to darken, and Dainn was compelled to concentrate in order to keep himself on his feet.

  Not quite herself. But it couldn’t have happened so easily, so quickly, under such unexceptional circumstances.

  Could Danny’s manifestation of Mist have been a warning that what his father most feared was already happening?

  “You imply that Freya has taken Mist,” Dainn said quietly.

  “You never did tell me how the annexation is supposed to work.” Loki tapped his lower lip. “I wonder if what my observers witnessed was a literal exchange of bodies, Freya taking Mist’s and Mist briefly trapped in Freya’s before she fell, mentally and literally.”

  “If you retained more intelligent observers, they might have been able to tell you.”

  For a very long few seconds, Loki studied Dainn with surprise rather than anger. “I must admit that you’re doing an excellent job of pretending to accept the possibility that all your hopes have been destroyed.”

  “Possibility. You are not certain. It may be that Freya fell. Would that not be the simpler explanation?”

  “I wonder if Danny might tell us?”

  Loki turned on his heel, walked out into the foyer, and strode to the stairs. Dainn followed, his feet leaden.

  When they reached the second floor, Loki ignored the nervous salutes of the new Jotunar guards and went straight to Danny’s door. He paused just inside the room to study Danny, who sat in his customary position on the bed, apparently unaware of his parents’ presence.

  Forcing his legs to move, Dainn sat on the edge of the bed and spoke to Danny softly, using every method he had developed over the long months. He projected his emotions: his love for Danny, his fear for Mist, his hatred of the beast.

  Danny didn’t respond. He continued to rock, his deep blue eyes staring at nothing, his lips slightly parted.

  “If this is an example of your efforts to communicate,” Loki said, “it is no wonder you—”

  “There is another way to get the information we seek,” Dainn said, rising from the bed. “When will you be meeting Freya again?”

  Loki’s ginger brows lifted quizzically. “I don’t make a habit of meeting with my enemies, unless it’s to kill them.”

  “Yet you see Freya when you attend the same social functions, seeking the same allies among those mortals with wealth and influence.”

  “True.” Loki circled the room and seated himself in Miss Jones’s chair. “Though the pickings have grown sparser of late.”

  “And you still require Danny’s help with manifestations that you will presumably use to frighten, blackmail, or bribe these potential allies. You suggested that you might take me to meet these men so that I might help Danny envision them.” He paused. “I assume that Freya will continue her social activities, regardless of what has become of Mist.”

  “And you want to meet her?” Loki said, holding Dainn’s gaze. “Why?”

  “Because when I see her, I’ll know if Mist is still alive.”

  9

  Loki shook his head. “I can determine that for myself.”

  “Perhaps not as easily as you believe. If Freya has taken Mist’s body and power, she will require only a little magic to maintain an illusion of the appearance by which the people of this city recognize her. She will bend the remainder of her magic to concealing what she has done.”

  “But you will know,” Loki said, lips curling. “‘Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.’ Your feelings will tell you.”

  Dainn knew it would do no good to protest. Loki was convinced that Dainn was “in love” with Mist, as the mortals so romantically put it.

  He was not wrong.

  “Of course, it should be easy enough to determine if Freya was damaged in the fall,” Loki mused, smoothing one ginger brow with a long fingertip. “Her absence from the usual functions will tell us. But if what you most fear is true, you will suffer, and I will not be displeased to see it.”

  Dainn moved to stand in front of the chair. “If my suffering is inadequate to satisfy you,” he said, “you may content yourself with the knowledge that I will do everything within my power to destroy Freya.”

  “Revenge?”

  “By whatever means that do not involve harming those I once cared for.”

  “Your conditions are somewhat inconvenient.”

  “Those I desire to protect will be no threat to you when Freya is gone.”

  Loki rose, assumed a thoughtful expression, and walked around the room, pausing now and again to glance at Danny. “Suppose I permit you to see Freya, and you realize that she has not taken Mist after all?”

  “My previous request to warn Mist still holds. And I will ask Danny to create the specific manifestations you requested.”

  “Even though you have no idea what I’ll use them for?”

  “As long as no innocents are harmed as a result.”

  “You would declare this entire world innocent.”

  “No,” Dainn said. “Any mortal you believe you can corrupt is not likely to be innocent.”

  “Touché,” Loki said. “I must say that I’m intrigued by this new ruthlessness. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect that the beast was returning.”

  Dainn pretended not to hear the comment. “You will take me to see her,” he said.

  “I will think on it. Your good behavior may influence my decision.”

  “I will do what is necessary.”

  “Yes,” Loki said curtly. “Only what is necessary.” He frowned, consulting some inner calendar. “There is a charitable function at the Fairmont in two days. That should do nicely.” He tapped the wall intercom. “Call Miss Jones,” he said to the Jotunar outside. “Inform the kitchen that we’re ready to dine.” He stepped away from the wall and took Dainn’s arm. “I wouldn’t have our pleasant little domestic life disturbed by Mist’s family problems.”

  “Family,” Danny said.

  As one, Dainn and Loki
turned to stare at the bed. Danny was awake again … awake, and with an expression on his face that Dainn had never seen before.

  “What is it, Danny?” Loki asked, approaching the bed cautiously.

  Danny turned his head to follow Loki’s movements with eyes far darker than they should be. “I want my family,” he said distinctly.

  Family, Dainn thought, chilled by the obvious comprehension in Danny’s eyes. Loki’s other children were the deadly enemies of the Aesir: Jormungandr, the giant serpent Danny had already manifested to attack Mist, at Loki’s behest; Hel, Loki’s daughter and ruler of the afterworld, Niflheim; and Fenrir, the monstrous wolf once destined to kill Odin himself.

  But there was another, the one Danny had sought and found on the steppes. One with whom he had already formed a powerful bond.

  Sleipnir, now in Mist’s hands. Or Freya’s.

  “An excellent idea,” Loki said, clapping his hands. “Can you fetch them for us, Danny?”

  “No,” Dainn said, moving toward the bed.

  But there was something implacable in Danny’s gaze when he looked at his father. Something that reminded Dainn not of Loki, but of the darkness within himself.

  “I want to see Slippy,” Danny said. “I miss him.”

  “Of course,” Loki said. “We all do. Don’t we, my Dainn?”

  Dainn said nothing. Even if Danny remembered that Sleipnir had gone with the allies after the battle at the portal, surely he wouldn’t understand the deadly consequences if Loki got his hands on one of the most important Treasures of the gods.

  “Do you know where Sleipnir is, my son?” Loki asked, crouching beside the bed.

  “I know,” Danny said.

  “Then why haven’t you brought him here? You can move people from one place to another, just as you did with your father. Surely you can do the same with Sleipnir.”

  “Do you expect him to walk into your enemy’s stronghold and snatch Sleipnir out from under their noses?” Dainn asked. “Would you put him directly into Freya’s hands?”

  “Of course not,” Loki purred, his gaze locked with Danny’s. “Why do you want him now, Danny? Why not before?”

  “He is here,” Danny said.

  “Who?”

  “Papa?” Danny said, looking at Dainn.

  “Look at me, Danny,” Loki commanded. He reached out to touch Danny’s cheek. Danny jerked his head away. Dainn grabbed Loki’s shoulder before he could reach for Danny again.

  Instantly Loki turned and flung Dainn against the wall with a blast of ice, pinning his shirt with jagged shards as if he were one of Danny’s sketches.

  Rage boiled over in Dainn’s chest, surged up into his throat, and exploded inside his skull. For a moment the entire room flickered in yellow and red, seen through the eyes of a monster.

  Hiding, Danny had said. The beast not gone, but watching. Waiting for the right moment to reappear.

  The shock of the change turned rage to sickness, and Dainn struggled to keep the contents of his stomach where it belonged. Loki hadn’t moved from the bed, but Danny continued to stare at Dainn, his eyes wide but unafraid.

  “Never interfere between me and my son again,” Loki hissed, his eye ablaze with orange fire. He released the spell that pinned Dainn to the wall, and Dainn staggered as the ice shards melted and frigid water soaked his shirt. He managed to keep his feet, but he remained where he was, still stunned by what he had experienced.

  Not now, he thought. Not with Danny.

  “I promise that we will retrieve your brother for you,” Loki said to Danny as if there had been no interruption, “but we will need your help.”

  “How?” Dainn asked, shivering as rivulets of icy water trickled under his collar. “If you believed you could get past Freya’s wards, you would have done it long ago.”

  “Now we have Danny’s cooperation.”

  “You may have forgotten that Sleipnir is not a mindless object,” Dainn said. “He will fight you.”

  “Sleipnir is also my son.”

  “Whom you gave to Odin. He no longer owes you any loyalty.”

  “But he is fond of Danny.”

  “Stop,” Danny said abruptly. He stood up on the bed and turned to face the wall behind him. Light exploded like a flash bomb, and the wall began to shimmer, dissolving into a pocket of deep shadow encircled by icy gemstones that reflected a thousand colors at all once. The fine hairs bristled all over Dainn’s body.

  A bridge, he thought. A bridge to the Void.

  Something burst through the opaline surface of the wall, all heavy black pelt, burning red eyes, and gaping jaws. It landed four-footed on the floor beside the bed, swinging its head toward Danny.

  A wolf, twice as large as any known to man, with a pelt like a lion’s mane and teeth as long and sharp as one of Mist’s daggers.

  Fenrisulfr. Fenrir, Loki’s son. And utterly real.

  Dainn moved before he could think, diving past Loki onto the bed and curling his body around Danny. Loki jumped up, facing his other son with astonishment.

  Fenrir growled in apparently equal bewilderment, great triangular ears flat, head swinging from side to side as if he sought an enemy to which all his senses were blind.

  Squirming out from under Dainn’s body, Danny held out his hand and crooned a greeting. Fenrir tilted his head to look up at Loki, whose expression had reverted to one of familiar calculation. The Wolf tucked his tail under his belly and whined.

  “My brother,” Danny said to Dainn, a note of triumph in his voice.

  As Dainn tried to make sense of what Danny had done, Fenrir slunk past Loki to the bed. Dainn grabbed Danny to hold him back, but Danny slipped free again, stretched out on his belly, and buried his hands in the Wolf’s coarse mane. Fenrir licked Danny’s cheek and fawned like a hungry cur.

  “Well, well,” Loki said. “Isn’t this a tender scene.”

  Fenrir whimpered, but his slitted green eyes fixed on Dainn’s, and there was no mistaking the hostility in them. Dainn felt a growl gather beneath his ribs. He held the Wolf’s stare in challenge. And threat.

  “No, Fen,” Danny said. “No.”

  “Fenrir,” Loki said.

  Hanging his head, the Wolf backed away from the bed and crouched at Loki’s feet.

  “He said he was lonely,” Danny volunteered, “and he wanted to be with his family, too.”

  “You have done very well, my son,” Loki said.

  Fenrir’s black lips twitched up, revealing a wealth of sharp yellow teeth. “Father,” he whined.

  “I was not speaking to you,” Loki said coldly. “You have displeased me a great many times, Fenrir. But you will have your chance to redeem yourself.” He grinned at Dainn. “I think we’ve found a way to capture Sleipnir. And perhaps the right opportunity, as well.”

  Swallowing despair, Dainn took Danny gently by the shoulders and turned him around. Danny’s expression was serene, but his eyes were very bright.

  “It will be all right, Papa,” he said. “It will be all right.”

  But Dainn knew it wouldn’t. Danny was changing.

  And so was he.

  * * *

  Loki was no longer smiling after he sent Dainn to the dining room.

  Oh, he’d achieved at least one victory. Danny had surpassed every expectation, with no apparent help from his father. For unfathomable reasons of his own, he had finally decided to cooperate.

  So, it seemed, had Dainn. He badly wanted something only Loki could give him: an answer to the question of what had happened at the protest. An answer Loki wanted just as badly.

  Returning to his suite, Loki put in a call to a certain highly placed public servant. “I want every man, woman, and child in or near the plaza questioned,” he said, talking over the mortal’s stuttered protests and apologies. “I don’t care how difficult it is. Find a way. If necessary, I will speak to the mayor.” He breathed a Rune-spell that silenced the fool on the other end of the line. “I would prefer not to become involved, bu
t if I must, you will not be happy.”

  He hung up, made another quick call, and tried to relax on the couch. The news personalities on television were still jabbering on about the protest and how remarkable it was that it had ended with no casualties of any kind. Reporters were shown interviewing people who claimed to have been mere “observers,” but none of them could account for what had happened.

  It was possible, Loki mused, that Freya had fomented the protest merely to lay a trap for Mist, knowing that her daughter would inevitably become involved and might leave herself vulnerable as she attempted to stop it.

  Irritated by the lack of information, Loki turned on the hastily repaired monitor in the living room to watch Miss Jones prepare Danny for sleep. The boy showed no sign that he remembered what he had done, and Fenrir was now confined to an isolated area of the house, where he wasn’t apt to make any trouble. No one, not even Loki’s most trusted servants, knew of his arrival, and Loki wasn’t inclined to let Danny and the Wolf meet again until he knew what had triggered the boy’s welcome but unexpected behavior.

  As for Dainn … everything had changed. Again. Loki had watched the beast return to life suddenly and unexpectedly, between one heartbeat and the next—still trapped in an elven shape, but very near to breaking free.

  That didn’t mean that Dainn couldn’t be of great help in taking Sleipnir. In fact, he might be far more useful than Loki had anticipated. It seemed that several disparate goals were converging all at once, and Loki intended to take full advantage of the possibilities.

  He was still considering the next step when Nicholas informed him that Edvard was on the way up. The berserkr gave a slight nod as he walked into the room—the most respect Loki ever received from him—and seated himself in one of the armchairs without asking permission.

  Unfortunately, the man was necessary as long as he possessed the herb that “controlled” Dainn’s beast … a substance Loki had been unable to reproduce by conventional or magical means. During the time when he had ostensibly worked for Mist’s Sister Valkyrie, Bryn, Edvard had offered the stuff to Dainn when the elf had been desperate to rid himself of his darker half. For a while, it had seemed to ameliorate the beast’s savagery.