Battlestorm

by Susan Krinard

  “What is it you wish to know?”

  “During our last fight with the Jotunar, Freya said that you agreed to become her warriors for a very generous reward. What did she mean?”

  Konur stood up quickly, his long overcoat swirling around his ankles. “She promised that the Alfar should take possession of large tracts of forested land on this world, after we defeated Loki.”

  Mist began to reply and stopped, thinking back to one of her earlier conversations with Dainn. The elf had said that the Aesir intended to build a new Homeworld in Midgard, and Mist had been forced to consider the very real possibility of gods sharing the Earth with humans.

  Now Konur had given her a prime example of what was coming. No nature-loving elf would agree to stay behind in the Void if she had a chance at planting her feet in uncultivated soil again, no matter how polluted by elvish standards.

  “Freya made this promise to you before you ever got here?” Mist asked. “Unilaterally? Or did all the Aesir decide this, and she was just the one who negotiated for your services?”

  “We are not mercenaries to be bought and sold,” Konur said, a cold note in his voice. “Is this so unreasonable a price for these Midgardians to pay for the survival of their world?”

  “It is if they have no say in where or how the peoples of the other Homeworlds will settle here. It is if you toss the current inhabitants of those lands out on their ear.” She calmed herself with a deep breath. “Will the Aesir impose some kind of dictatorship, the way Loki would?”

  “I can speak only for my people,” Konur said stiffly. “We wish no harm on mortalkind. Long ago, many of us made our homes here. But we must live, and we cannot exist in these places of steel and stone.”

  Mist ran her hand over her face. “I know,” she said. “But I’ve also made my home here, and you can’t expect me to forget all the years I’ve spent living with and fighting alongside mortals.”

  “I know you regard yourself as the spokesman for the inhabitants of Midgard, but do you truly consider yourself to be more one of them than of your own true kin?”

  I don’t know what I consider myself to be, Mist thought. I never did.

  “Let’s put it this way,” she said. “Assuming I survive, what if I insisted that the mortals have some input when this is over? Would you listen to me?”

  “Would you insist?”

  “I might not give you everything you wanted.”

  “Then you would place me in a most difficult position.”

  “Why? I’m only half-goddess. I’d hardly be able to stand in your way if you and Freya opposed me.”

  “Are you so certain of that?”

  It was such an odd question that Mist didn’t quite know how to answer. “It’s a moot point,” she said. “I’m still Odin’s servant. He’ll have the final say, won’t he?”

  Or will I defy him if he insists on doling out the better parts of Earth to the Aesir and their allies?

  Mist pushed the thought out of her mind. There was still no guarantee that Odin or any of the others would ever show up. Or that any of them would be alive to see the end of the war.

  She jumped up and started toward Silfr, her jaw aching with anger.

  “Mist,” Konur called, striding after her.

  Pulling on her helmet, she turned to face him again. “I need to get back. Can you find your way if we become separated?”

  “I can.”

  Swinging her leg over Silfr’s seat, Mist started the engine. She roared away without waiting to see if Konur was behind her.

  When she reached the loft, Hild and Rota were waiting for her, their expressions solemn with worry.

  “What is it?” Mist asked, jumping off the bike. “Freya?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Rota said. She glanced at Hild, who offered Mist an open envelope.

  It took Mist less than five seconds to realize why her Sisters looked so grim. “Loki?” she said in disbelief. “Loki wants a meeting with Freya?”

  Konur’s bike pulled up behind her. He dismounted and joined them, peering over Mist’s shoulder at the bizarre invitation.

  “What trick is this?” he murmured.

  Mist handed him the note. He scanned it with a frown.

  “‘There are matters we must discuss,’” he read, and turned the beautifully engraved card over. A simple address had been written out in the Runic alphabet, along with a time.

  “Another trap,” Hild said.

  “A test,” Mist said, taking the note card back from the elf. “Lord Konur, you said that magic always leaves a signature, and we didn’t detect Loki near the plaza. He may not have caused the trouble or hurt Freya himself, but I’m betting that he does know that something happened to her. And considering the location, he probably doesn’t intend this to be a private meeting.”

  “You mean he’s not really interested in ‘talking’ at all,” Rota said. “He’s trying to find out if she’s capable of meeting him … and he’ll be watching to see what we’ll do if she isn’t.”

  “But he can’t expect Freya to come at his beck and call,” Hild said. “Refusing his summons would prove nothing.”

  “He knows that Freya would want to test him as well—to find out what, if anything, he had to do with the protest,” Mist said. “He also knows she’d want to rub his face in the fact that his ploy, if there was one, didn’t succeed.”

  “Aesir and their pride,” Rota said, her full mouth stretching in disgust.

  “The point is that we can’t let this go unanswered,” Mist said. She tapped the card against her palm. “Where’s Bryn?”

  “With Freya.” Rota read Mist’s unspoken question. “No change.”

  “Since Bryn’s been acting as Freya’s social secretary these past months,” Mist said, “maybe she can tell us if there’s some significance to this meeting time and date. We have to make some kind of plan in case…”

  In case Freya doesn’t recover in time, Mist thought. Loki couldn’t be allowed to find out how helpless she had become, or he’d strike at the allies when they were both demoralized and unable to call on the Lady’s magic.

  “It’s still two days away,” she said briskly. “The council will meet to discuss the problem, and we’ll keep doing everything we can for Freya.”

  No one spoke. They only stared at her, soberly considering the alternatives just as she was doing. She didn’t like the solution that was forming in her mind.

  It would never work, she thought. But when she glanced at Konur, she knew that he’d come to the same conclusion. There was something like pity in his eyes.

  “You would not be alone,” he said, so softly that only she could hear. “I would accompany you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking,” she said.

  “I believe I do.”

  Then for the sake of every one of us, she thought, we’d better hope that Freya regains her strength, magic, and beauty sometime within the next two days.

  * * *

  “This isn’t a good idea,” Koji said.

  Mist cursed under her breath as Rota twisted her dyed hair into another knot. She felt as if every strand was being torn out by its roots, and that was probably going to be the best part of the day.

  “Why work so hard to fix it,” Mist said, wincing as Rota jerked a little too forcefully, “if I’m going to have to change everything else about myself? Can’t I just make it look—”

  “You’re going to have enough to worry about with the coloring and eyes and face,” Hild said, “not to mention the body. The more we can get you to look like Freya without relying on magic, the better.”

  “If you’d stop fidgeting,” Rota said around the hairpins poking out of her mouth, “this wouldn’t be so … difficult.”

  Not difficult, Mist thought. Impossible. Crazy. She still wasn’t quite sure how she’d let Konur talk her into it.

  If Bryn hadn’t assured her that Freya had already planned to attend the reception at the Fairmont, Mist would ne
ver have consented to such a rash move. She might be her mother’s daughter, but she was most assuredly not her mother.

  Yet tonight she was going to have to try to be more like Freya than the Lady herself. She’d have to turn on the glamour in a way she never had before and outperform Bette Davis if she wanted to convince Loki that Freya was not only alive and well, but in top form.

  “He’ll be watching for deception,” Koji said, standing before her with his arms crossed and an uncharacteristically grim expression on his handsome face. “You’re giving him exactly what he wants.”

  “If we knew what he wanted, this would be easy,” Rota said as she pinned up the thick coil of hair. “It’s all a crapshoot.”

  “Set your mind at rest, Mr. Tashiro,” Konur said, walking into the room. He stopped abruptly, one brow lifted, as if he was genuinely startled by Mist’s altered appearance. “Mist has not only the use of her glamour, but my guidance as well.”

  “But you have no idea if Mist’s glamour will work on Loki directly,” Koji said.

  Konur lifted his head, looking down his long and elegant nose. “I have every confidence in Mist’s abilities. At the very least, Loki will be left as ignorant as he was before. He can only guess at our motives.”

  “The moment he recognizes her, he’ll make the natural assumption that you’re desperate,” Koji said. He met Mist’s gaze. “You’ll need more than courage and magic. You’ll need luck.” He blinked, and Mist imagined that she saw a flash of silver in his dark eyes. “I’d like to come along.”

  Mist tugged at the straps of Freya’s flimsy silk slip. “Konur was originally supposed to escort Freya, and it’ll look pretty strange if her daughter’s boyfriend shows up as her escort.”

  “I’ll stay in the background.”

  “Sure. Koji Tashiro, of the San Francisco Tashiros. Not likely. And Loki knows you’re on our side.”

  “You notice that he’s never made a move against my family, or anyone connected with them.”

  “He still sees you as peripheral in this fight,” Bryn said with her usual bluntness. “If you ever caused him real trouble, he might make some for you in return.”

  “What kind of trouble did you have in mind?”

  “Try swinging that katana instead of shuffling legal documents,” Bryn muttered.

  “Bryn,” Mist said, with a hard glance at her Sister. “I’m satisfied with Koji’s work. If you have a problem with that, take it up with me when I get back.”

  With a sharp shake of her head, Bryn subsided. Koji sighed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I never like seeing you risk your life.”

  “I know.” She took his hand and gripped it tightly. “But even if I mess up, Loki’s not likely to do anything dramatic like try to kill me. I may even learn something useful by getting an inside look at Freya’s political and social machinations, not to mention Loki’s.”

  “None of which will do us much good if Freya doesn’t recover,” Hild said.

  “She will,” Bryn said sharply.

  “We’ve done everything we can for now,” Mist said, forestalling another argument. “All our resources are focused on defense. We’ll have to play it day by day … hour by hour if necessary.”

  For a time, no one spoke. Mist always wondered if her pep talks really did any good. How could she convince her friends and followers when she couldn’t even convince herself?

  Her ineffectual brooding ended when Rota held up the dress—a scarlet, very low-cut, figure-hugging confection with a slit up to there—and grinned at Mist.

  “Prada,” the redheaded Valkyrie said. “Just my style.”

  It certainly isn’t mine, Mist thought. But it was Freya’s, and that was the only thing that mattered.

  Koji gave Mist a last, troubled look and walked out of the bedroom. Konur remained. Mist let Rota slip the dress over her head.

  The silk was cool and luxurious on her skin. She felt overexposed and ridiculous, certain that the top, cinched tight as it was, would never hold the thing up over her chest.

  “Wow,” Rota said, beaming with admiration and pride. “The alterations are perfect. Fits like a glove.”

  “No kidding,” Mist said, tugging at the seams on either side of her hips. “I can barely—”

  “Stop that!” Rota said, slapping at her hands. “You’ll pull it all out of shape. It’s supposed to do that.”

  “Loki’s piss.”

  “If you talk like that, you’ll give yourself away in five seconds,” Bryn remarked.

  “I know. But if I can’t let off some steam now…” She sighed. “Look, between you and Bryn and Konur I’ve had all the coaching I can take. If I can’t do it now, I’ll never be able to.”

  “Try the glamour,” Konur said.

  She did. It felt like a very small shift inside her, nothing like what she’d tried to use in the plaza. She wasn’t moving people around like pieces on a Hnefatafl board or stopping a riot, and she didn’t lose her sense of time. It was only herself she was trying to change.

  But the magic must have worked, because Rota’s mouth dropped open, Konur nodded approvingly, and even Bryn looked startled.

  “It’s perfect,” Rota said. “You look exactly like Freya.”

  Mist reached up to pluck a strand of loose hair from her temple. “Black as any elf’s,” Hild said, taking the hair from Mist’s hand and holding it under the light. “And your eyes are dark, too.” She pursed her lips. “Body’s right. I can’t see any flaws.”

  “But do I sound like her?” Mist asked, clearing her throat.

  “Exactly,” Bryn said. Her nut-brown skin had gone more than a little pale. “As long as you speak the right words.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Rota said. “You won’t be leaving for an hour. Use that time to relax. Meditate, or whatever it is you do in your copious spare time. If you need to talk, we’ll be in the living room.”

  Mist nodded brusquely, and the three Valkyrie left. Konur lingered to stare at her a moment longer, but before she could ask him what was on his mind, he was striding out the door.

  Mist released her breath and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She did look like Freya, to a frightening degree. Freya in her borrowed elven body. The makeup, dress, and black spike-heel pumps only enhanced what was already a perfect illusion.

  But she hated it. She wanted her jeans and boots and leather, her familiar braid, the face people said was beautiful but had always seemed comfortingly ordinary to her.

  Even if she succeeded tonight, would she have to keep playing Freya indefinitely, just to hold Loki at bay until the Lady came out of her stupor?

  She reached up to twist the braid that didn’t exist, remembering at the last moment that she was about to muss her artfully tousled hair. “If it falls down, you’ll look even more alluring,” Rota had assured her.

  Alluring. Gods help me.

  Turning her back on the mirror, Mist sat down on the bed—carefully, so as not to split any of the seams—and kicked off the pumps. She tried to meditate as Rota had suggested, and didn’t realize she’d lost track of time until Konur knocked lightly on the door.

  He was impeccably dressed in a formal suit, his long hair drawn back in a neat ponytail, his handsome features solemn and quiet. She stood and stepped into the pumps, patting her waist in search of Kettlingr’s comforting weight.

  But even in its knife form, the sword would never fit in the tiny clutch purse with its spray of minuscule diamonds.

  “Are you ready?” Konur asked.

  “I assume that is a rhetorical question,” she said as she took Freya’s evening coat out of the closet.

  “Not at all,” Konur said. He took the coat from her and helped her into it, making her feel even more foolish.

  “It’s what Freya would expect from her male escort,” he said when he was finished.

  Let this be the one and only time, Mist prayed as Konur followed her outside. And let me not decide to bash Loki’s face
in with my spike heels when I see him.

  By prior arrangement, only Bryn waited at the curb to see Mist off. But as she climbed into the rented van, she saw Anna striding across the street, her arms folded across her ribs and her chin pressed to her chest.

  Mist couldn’t imagine that Anna had seen anything incriminating, so she pushed her brief concern aside and settled into the driver’s seat. When she and Konur reached the apartment Freya used as her “headquarters”—luxuriously fitted out to entertain potential contacts or allies—they would make the switch to the Lady’s Maserati, the gift of one of her more amorous associates.

  “Keep a close watch on Freya,” Mist said to Bryn as she started the engine. She realized she wasn’t going to be able to drive with the heels, so she pulled them off and stashed them behind the seat. “Call Konur if there’s any change.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Bryn said. Her gaze was distant, as if she didn’t really see Mist at all. “I’ll take very good care of the Lady.”

  “Then wish me luck.”

  “Lykke til, min venninne,” Bryn said. But her voice was as remote as her gaze, and Mist found herself shivering as she pulled away.

  * * *

  “There’s always a chance that something will change,” Vali said. “But Loki didn’t extend this invitation to Freya just to find out what’s happened with her. He means to keep her and Mist too busy to interfere when he sends his people after Sleipnir. And that’ll keep him focused on other things while we carry out our raid of his mansion.”

  Perched on Asbrew’s long-unused counter, Orn stretched out his wings and flapped them irritably. “Laufeyson knows where the horse resides, but neither you nor Anna can tell me. How did he learn this?”

  “You know Loki doesn’t always confide in me. He obviously didn’t think that was important for me to know. And I’m sure that Anna did her best. She was able to confirm that Freya was still in seclusion as of this afternoon, and that tells us a lot.”