Battlestorm

by Susan Krinard

  He took her hand and squeezed. It would have been painful if she’d been any less strong. Or prepared. “I hope we can maintain our truce a little longer, Ms. Ingrunn.”

  Mist squeezed back. “Oh, I think that would be very wise, Mr. Mayor. We wouldn’t want to think that you make a habit of consummating your acts prematurely.”

  Someone snickered. The mayor’s jaw bunched.

  “I’d be more than happy to give you a private preview,” he said.

  “Oh, no. Please leave me the pleasure of my imagination. It’s so disappointing when the final product doesn’t live up to the hype.”

  Walker had enough self-control not to explode in front of the guests, a number of whom had gathered to listen in on the conversation. He was opening his mouth to answer when yet another man joined them … about twenty years older, with gray hair in a military crew cut, and a grim expression. He took the mayor by the arm and whispered in his ear.

  “If you will excuse me, gentlemen,” Walker said, pointedly excluding Mist, “there is a matter that requires my attention.”

  “Like that little protest in Civic Center Plaza?” Mist put in before he and the chief of police could walk away. “Are you certain you have enough law enforcement personnel and sufficient armaments to deal with a hundred men, women, and children carrying signs?”

  The chief glared at her. “You’re fortunate, Ms. Ingrunn, that you have my people to protect your pretty behind from the lawless elements in this city.”

  A few women in the vicinity gasped at his crudeness. Most of the other men had drifted away, obviously unwilling to confront the mayor or his cronies.

  “Do you mean the young and poor being driven ever deeper into poverty and desperation?” Mist asked sweetly. “The ones falling prey to the aggressive drug dealers who have claimed nearly every street corner and lure children into addiction and slavery?”

  Dead silence fell. The people in this room didn’t have to deal with street crime. They certainly didn’t want this kind of subject brought up at one of their gatherings.

  “How is it that your forces keep growing and your jails overflow, yet this city is becoming a mecca for organized crime and sex trafficking?” Mist continued. “Who is paying the price?”

  “Just what are you suggesting?” the captain said, pushing past the mayor.

  Mist raised her hands and tossed the glamour at him like a net, halting him in midstride. Shock passed over his sharp-boned face. His knees trembled, and his eyes began to glaze over.

  She held him there for one, five, ten seconds, a righteous anger deafening her to the startled voices around her. In those few seconds, the anger and magic blended into a perfect whole, and she knew again what it was like to be Freya, to wield such forces without the fetters of conscience.

  He deserves to be punished, she thought. They all did, these savages, these defilers of all that was—

  “Freya.”

  Konur’s voice. Perhaps, had he been a mortal, she wouldn’t have heard him. But he found some means of reaching her, and suddenly she was letting go, the rage draining out of her, the glamour withdrawing into her body and heating her blood like potent wine.

  What have I done? She stared at the chief, who was in the process of getting to his feet. Everyone else was staring from him to Mist with varying degrees of astonishment, shock, and utter bewilderment.

  “Let us go,” Konur murmured, “before these mortals begin to imagine what truly happened.”

  Cursing herself silently, Mist let him lead her away. Her own knees were rubbery now, and she was grateful that Konur was able to negotiate the crowd in such a way that they could slip through without being stopped by the curious or admiring.

  “I know,” she moaned when she and the elf-lord were alone again. “I blew it.”

  “I doubt any of the mortals understood what they were seeing,” he said.

  “But if any of them have had exposure to magic…”

  “The damage, if any, is done. Now there are more important matters that claim your attention.”

  “Loki?” she asked.

  His gaze was stern. “What I show you will not be pleasant. But you must not use the glamour, or any magic that will call attention to yourself, no matter how greatly you are tempted.”

  “This sounds bad. Does it have something to do with—”

  “Will you swear to me that you will do nothing to jeopardize Freya’s position here?”

  “Is someone being hurt?”

  “Mist, you must not interfere. Not now. There will be other times.”

  “Show me.”

  Konur hesitated.

  “Show me. Now.”

  With a last, long look into her eyes, Konur nodded. He led to the elevator, and they took it to another floor with a hallway closed off by a heavy door. It was locked by two dead bolts.

  “A very private hall,” Konur said. He grasped the doorknob and frowned. “Strange. This was unlocked when I first entered.”

  “What is going on, Konur?”

  In silence he passed his hand over the doorknob and locks. Tiny, pale roots sprang out of the wood near the doorknob and squirmed into the cracks of the lower lock, wriggling and swelling, white turning dark as they grew. The lock began to swell, groaning softly as the various parts began to separate.

  Sweat beaded on Konur’s forehead, and he closed his eyes. Fresh roots began to invade the second lock.

  “Stop, Konur,” Mist said. “Let me finish this.”

  With a gasp of effort, Konur completed the spell, and the outer halves of both dead bolts thumped onto the carpet runner. There was a corresponding thump on the other side of the door, and holes where the locks had been.

  Mist managed to grab Konur as he began to fall.

  “Curse it,” she hissed. “Conjuring roots out of a gods-know-how-old door? Do you want to make yourself useless?”

  “I am not … useless yet,” he said, straightening his shoulders as he pulled away. “But you must now set a ward to shield us. We do not wish to be seen.”

  “Now you’ve got me really worried,” Mist muttered. She tried a basic deflection spell. It took nothing out of her, not even the usual temporary weakness or light-headedness that sometimes came with magic.

  Considering that they were obviously walking into something bad, she was very, very grateful.

  She kept Konur close, half-supporting him as they continued along the hall. Soon her ears picked up laughter: guttural, male, and probably drunk. She traced it to a door near the end of the hall even before Konur pointed it out.

  Konur stopped her before she opened the door.

  “Remember what I have told you,” he said. “I might have hidden this from you, and prevented a possible battle we cannot afford.” He stroked her cheek with his fingertip. “I must trust you now.”

  A peculiar sensation buzzed in Mist’s nerves when he touched her, utterly different from what she felt when Dainn made physical contact. There was nothing remotely sexual about it, and yet she felt as if something powerful passed between her and the elf-lord. Something more potent than magic.

  “Remember,” Konur repeated, dropping his hand. Mist opened the unlocked door.

  The suite was clearly one of the hotel’s finest, luxuriously furnished and spacious enough for two dozen party guests. Five men were sprawled around the room in various states of undress, some snorting cocaine, others simply drinking.

  Loki was sitting on a thickly padded armchair, watching the proceedings as if they amused him but were far too lowbrow to tempt him into participating.

  She almost choked when she saw the four women in the room. None of them were laughing. Two of them, she knew.

  Her Sisters—Skuld, guardian of Thor’s Belt, Megingjord; and Regin, who had held Mjollnir, Thor’s Hammer. They, like the other two women, were clad in diaphanous dresses that made Mist’s form-fitting gown seem like a Puritan woman’s all-encompassing black petticoats. One of the drunken men was pawing at Skuld, wh
ile Regin sat close to the coke table, staring into space.

  Loki had gotten to them first.

  Mist had taken a full step into the room before Konur grabbed her arm. “They do not see us yet,” he said, “but it cannot be long before Loki senses our presence.”

  “What has he done to them?” Mist asked, her voice trembling with helpless anger. “Are they under a spell?”

  “Is there reason to think that they might align themselves with Loki willingly?”

  Mist clamped her fingers around Konur’s wrist and pulled his hand away. “Look at them. Do you think they’d become the playthings of Loki’s mortals?”

  “No,” Konur said softly. “I did not believe it. But you see that Loki is controlling them somehow, and he must have both Mjollnir and Megingjord.”

  Two out of three, Mist thought. If he could get Jarngreipr from Rota, he’d have all Thor’s powerful Treasures.

  “You are not in a position to free them,” Konur said. “But now we know that Loki has been able to control two Valkyrie, and is bold enough to use them at his own convenience.”

  “And he didn’t think I’d find out they were here?”

  “Perhaps that is just what he intended. I caught a glimpse of Regin with one of these men while I was watching for Loki, and followed. Had he wished to conceal himself, surely he would have done so.”

  “He knows that Mist has a far more personal interest in the other Valkyrie than Freya does,” Mist said. And if he had guessed that the “lady” was Mist, she thought, had he expected her to lose control and attempt a rescue, no matter what the cost?

  “Of course this may also be a trap,” Konur said, echoing her thoughts. “But I believed it was necessary for you to observe with your own eyes.”

  Mist backed deliberately away from the door. “We can’t let this go on. One way or another—”

  Loki cocked his head, turning it slightly toward the door. Regin got up and drifted across the room to stand beside his chair, playing with his hair and whispering in his ear. A moment later Dainn entered the room from another door, stopping some distance away from Loki and Regin. Loki called him, and he went to his master without so much as a glance at the Valkyrie.

  Mist nearly lost control of her stomach. She staggered into the hall, doubled over, and covered her mouth with her hands.

  “Let us go,” Konur said.

  “No,” Mist said thickly. “We have to try to save Regin and Skuld.”

  He laid his hand on her back, and once again she felt that flow of comfort that seemed to dampen the nausea as well as the rage. “Loki has begun to sense something amiss, and I can be of little help to you.”

  But Mist had reason to doubt him when she found herself turning away, against every instinct, and retracing their path to the double-locked door. This time, Mist used the forge-Galdr to reassemble the locks, though they would never be fully functional again.

  Loki would know they’d been tampered with, and by whom. But that hardly mattered if Konur was right, and it had all been a setup. She just didn’t want Loki to know she knew it.

  Leaving Konur to follow at his own pace, Mist looked for the closest restroom and spent a good five minutes in one of the immaculate stalls, regaining control of her rebellious stomach. There was nothing more she could do here … nothing to save her Sisters, or act openly against Loki and his minions. She’d already risked too much. This wasn’t her world, and she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t formulate any plans that didn’t involve not only blowing her cover but also opening a Pandora’s box not even the All-father would be able to close again.

  Taking a deep breath, Mist left the restroom. Konur was gone, but someone else was waiting for her. Someone she hadn’t seen since that last, open battle with Loki’s Jotunar at the portal to the steppes.

  He hadn’t changed much physically over the past months, but he seemed fully conscious in a way he hadn’t been during most of their adventure on the other side of the Earth. She and the allies had assumed that he was back with Loki, reclaimed by Laufeyson after he’d disappeared from the steppes.

  But why was he here, of all places? Why would Loki have brought his son to this very adult event, where his enemies might get ahold of the boy?

  “Danny?” Mist said, standing very still.

  The boy looked up at her, his eyes alert and wary. “Who are you?” he asked.

  She stiffened. Whether or not Danny had ever seen Freya on the steppes, Loki would have spent plenty of time and effort teaching his son to recognize and fear his enemies.

  Opening her senses, Mist whispered a Rune-spell she’d seldom had cause to use before. She wasn’t completely sure it was working until her subtle “push” suddenly broke through like an ax through soft butter. There was no resistance, no counter-spell of protection or obfuscation.

  Only Danny. He was who and what he appeared to be. The tattoo on her wrist, concealed by a wide gold-and-gemstone bracelet, began to burn.

  Danny stepped toward her and took her hand. A queasy moment later they were standing in an empty guest room, and the only sound breaking the silence was the hum of the fan blowing cool air out the vent in the ceiling.

  Teleportation, Mist thought, battling another all-too-familiar bout of nausea. The same thing he’d done with Dainn when he’d rescued the elf from Loki and taken him through the portal to search for Sleipnir.

  “You’re Mist,” Danny said, hopping up on the edge of the king-size bed. “You don’t look right, but I remember you anyway.”

  The boy spoke with confidence, and Mist wondered if her magic had somehow worked both ways, opening her up to his mind and senses.

  It wasn’t going to do any good to lie to him now. “Yes,” she said, “I remember you, too. You made the portal, and we helped you find Sleipnir.”

  Danny nodded. “He went away.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mist said, wondering if he knew that she had Sleipnir. Would Loki have told him?

  “How did you get here, Danny?” she asked gently.

  “It was easy.”

  She understood his non-answer. Loki hadn’t brought him at all.

  “You did it the same way you transported me to this room?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh.” He continued to gaze at her intently.

  “From Loki’s house?”

  He nodded again.

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “I couldn’t help it,” Danny said, his mouth twisting in frustration. “He was afraid.”

  “Who was afraid?”

  “Papa.”

  Loki, afraid? “Of what?”

  “Will you take him away?”

  The boy was changing subjects faster than Mist could follow them. Was he so frightened that she would hurt Loki? Did he understand that much?

  But he’d never seemed to care about his father when he’d been with her and Dainn on the steppes. To the contrary: he’d openly defied Loki by rescuing Dainn from Laufeyson at Asbrew.

  That proves nothing, Mist thought. She didn’t really know anything about Danny’s life with Loki, before or after those events. From what Dainn had told her, she assumed he was virtually a prisoner, valuable to Loki only because of his powers.

  Still, even Loki might be capable of some paternal affection. Maybe Danny, who seemed so much more focused now, returned those feelings.

  But how much did he really understand of what was going on between his parent and Mist? Did Danny really have the maturity to recognize fear in his father and move on his own to ask mercy from an enemy?

  Nothing he’d done in Mist’s brief acquaintance with the boy suggested it. If Dainn were here in this room, maybe he could have told her what Danny was trying to say. He and Danny had been very close in that brief time they were together.

  “Where do you think I would take him, Danny?” she asked.

  Tears started in his eyes. “I don’t know.” He sniffed. “He will m
ake everything bad.”

  There was something about Danny’s emphasis on the “he” that seemed different from his talk about Loki. She felt a sudden chill.

  “Who would make everything bad, Danny?”

  The boy closed his eyes, and a gray cloud formed in front of his face. There was something inside it, something that flashed with sparks and streaks of lightning.

  “They want to take it,” Danny said, shaping the cloud with his hands like a sculptor molding an amorphous mass of clay.

  Mist raised her hands as if to touch the vision, and it exploded into a shower of black feathers that disappeared an instant later.

  Black feathers, Mist thought. Like a raven’s. Her bracelet began to singe her skin above and below the tattoo.

  “What are you trying to tell me?” she asked, biting back a cry of pain.

  “I don’t want to die,” Danny whispered.

  14

  A thousand slivers of ice jammed into Mist’s spine from neck to tailbone. “What do you mean?” She grasped his thin shoulders. “Danny, who is—”

  But suddenly her hands were empty, and she found herself standing outside the restroom as if she’d never left.

  As if Danny had never been there at all.

  She lifted her hand and slid the bracelet off, pulling a little burned skin away with it. Maybe it had been an illusion … one of Loki’s, something he could manage at a short distance.

  But Loki’s illusions weren’t usually physical things, like Danny’s manifestations. She’d touched the boy. And Danny himself had created some kind of manifestation.

  But what in the gods’ name was it? What did “they” want to take? And if Loki wasn’t a threat to Danny, who was?

  If the beast had returned …

  Mist was just about to go in search of Konur, bare feet and all, when Danny ran into the hall and nearly collided with her.

  “Danny!” she said, catching him. “Where did you go?”

  He stared up at her, clearly terrified. “He’s going to kill me!” he cried.

  Grabbing his shoulders, she pulled him against the wall. “Is someone chasing you?”

  “The monster!” Danny panted, looking over his shoulder.