Sword of Secrets

by S. M. Schmitz

  I pulled the comforter off my bed and threw it on the floor, but it was only to give myself something to do. “He recognized me. My voice.” I wouldn’t turn to face her.

  “It seems that way.” Keira picked the comforter up off the floor and began folding it.

  “How? I’m not his brother. Even you guys don’t believe in reincarnation.”

  “No, not really. The Celts do, but I don’t believe you’re Havard. But even you believe now you’re descended from him, and for some reason, he’s a big part of you, Gavyn.”

  “I had my own mother and father,” I protested stubbornly. “Their genes are strong in me. I look just like my mother. You should have met her.”

  Keira smiled at me and placed the folded comforter at the foot of my bed. “I saw her. Not her but her image when we went to the Seer. You do look like her. And I’ve told you she’s the one who connects you to us.”

  I blinked away tears that wanted to form, and thought my de-emasculation had lasted all of ten minutes. But Keira apparently didn’t think crying was unmanly or anything, which was exactly what Hunter would have said, even though I’d seen him cry before. Granted, we were kids and his parents were going through a horrible divorce, but I was still counting it.

  Keira stood next to me and did something she’d never done before: she put her arms around me and hugged me. “I’m sorry, Gavyn,” she murmured against my neck, and I could smell the apples and floral scent of her shampoo again and this grief and anger I still clung to over the death of my mother mixed with this strange longing I had for a woman who seemed to hate me half the time and only tolerate me the other half.

  I let her hug me for a few seconds before pulling away from her, confused by my own feelings. I wanted something else to distract myself with but there wasn’t much in my room. Keira touched my arm gently and I held my breath. God, this woman was driving me crazy.

  “Your mother was beautiful. And I don’t doubt her spirit was every bit as beautiful as her body.”

  I smiled and figured I was about to turn into the obnoxious asshole again, but at least that role didn’t make me uncomfortable or apprehensive, and no woman had ever made me feel that way before. I didn’t like it. “You just admitted I looked like her. So what you’re saying is that I really am more attractive than Yngvarr.”

  Keira sighed and rolled her eyes at me—she did that a lot—but she didn’t let go of my arm like I’d expected her to. “Yes, Gavyn, but I seriously doubt you need me to feed your ego.”

  I laughed even though I didn’t want to encourage her. I wanted her to let go of my arm, to get out of my room, to give me some space because my head was completely messed up and I didn’t even know why. But I also couldn’t pull my arm away from her or back up or ask her to leave. I seemed frozen where I stood, helpless next to this woman who should have been a goddess, not some immortal servant of Odin’s.

  “All right,” I agreed, “that’s probably true. But I’ll bet you never get tired of hearing you’ve got to be the most beautiful woman in any of your worlds.”

  Damn it.

  I knew I shouldn’t have said it as soon as it came out. Keira stepped closer to me and kissed me, and for a moment—one perfect, breathtaking moment—I forgot where I was and why I was here. I forgot about Havard and his brother and my own mother who I still thought about every single day. In that one flawless moment, there was only Keira’s lips, the gentle teasing of her tongue, the smell of her skin and hair, the feel of her body so close to mine.

  But then I remembered. I stopped kissing her and dropped my hands, one of which had just found the small of her back, that perfect, smooth indentation that I’d always thought had to be one of the sexiest parts of a woman’s body, and finally pulled away from her, glancing at my feet because I couldn’t stand to see the hurt and those feelings of rejection in her eyes.

  “Keira…” I reached for her hand but she shook her head and walked out of my reach.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  I wanted to argue with her, to tell her I’d been fantasizing about her doing just that since the moment she’d shown up at my door in Baton Rouge, but after everything I’d done to intentionally piss her off and annoy the hell out of her, I knew this had only been a physical response, an attraction she just reacted to, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to be used. But she never gave me the chance to explain anything. She left my room so quickly I was still standing there by my bed, feeling like the biggest asshole on the planet, and I cursed myself for even allowing it to happen, but I was becoming increasingly and alarmingly more convinced I was falling in love with this embodiment of perfection, my Valkyrie.

  Chapter Twelve

  I hardly saw Keira over the next two days as Frey and Tyr kept dragging me back to that field. This new deadline the Sumerians had warned us about was looming over us all, and as the hours dwindled down then passed, we all became nervous again. The sun was quickly setting and we tossed our swords and shields on top of the table that some dwarf—or vertically challenged person of mythological creation—must have been coming out here every morning to set up and then disassemble again in the evenings.

  I stretched my sore shoulder over my head and thought about telling Tyr we should find some hot Icelandic masseuses to massage our sore muscles for us when a couple standing at the edge of the field near Frey’s car caught my attention. They were watching me. And I recognized them both.

  I stopped walking and grabbed Tyr’s arm. “Let’s go get massages,” I stammered.

  Tyr looked at the couple at the edge of the field then back at me and sighed. “You must have known you were going to have to meet them sooner or later.”

  “Later. I’m going with later.”

  Frey had caught up to us and waved happily at his sister.

  “Massages,” I repeated.

  Tyr snickered. “I’m willing to bet Freyja will help you out with that.”

  I scowled at him but refused to budge. They could both get back on their… chariot or winged horse or boar or whatever the hell they’d ridden over here on and go back to Asgard.

  I kicked at a lump of grass and waited for Freyja and Yngvarr to get the hint I didn’t want them here. “Freyja is a goddess of war and Yngvarr is a god of war. It kind of makes sense for them to be here,” Frey offered helpfully. At least he thought he was being helpful. Mostly, I just wanted my sword back so I could swing it at him.

  “We’ve got enough instructors,” I mumbled, still kicking at that lump on the ground. I wasn’t even sure why some gods had been chosen to come to Reykjavik over others. Frey wasn’t even a war god, but he’d been sent here anyway. And it seemed like every god in Asgard had wanted to come. There must not have been much to do there.

  Freyja and Yngvarr had apparently picked up on the fact I was reluctant to meet them—okay, truthfully, I was seriously considering turning around and running across the field—so they made their way over to us instead. I kept my eyes on that stubborn patch of dried yellow grass on the field. I swear a group of trolls—or, rather, a group of aesthetically and hygienically challenged creatures of mythological lore—must have been down there holding onto its roots.

  Yngvarr trailed behind Freyja, so she reached me first but she didn’t just stop and introduce herself like a normal person. She immediately put her arms around me and hugged me and I could hear the metal clinking of her gold bracelets through the sleeves of her leather jacket.

  “Told you,” Tyr said.

  I wanted to flip him off, but I had a goddess in my arms. When she pulled away from me, she kept her hands on my shoulders and smiled at me, studying me, and I wanted to study that stubborn clump of grass again, but she was standing on it. “Gavyn,” she purred, “you’re even more handsome in person.”

  I was about to ask her if she’d been having weird dreams about me, too, but Frey reached over and pulled his sister away from me, and I tried not to exhale in relief. “Not
now, Freyja,” Frey groaned. “Although he’s got a sore shoulder. Talk to him about it later.”

  Freyja smiled at me and raised an eyebrow and I willingly turned my attention to this god I was supposed to be related to just to get out of having to answer her. He’d been watching me carefully the entire time and looking back at him, I could see why. I easily remembered what he looked like from that vision in this field a couple of days ago, but it wasn’t until he was standing in front of me I could see the resemblance between us. And now, looking back at him, this god who I remembered helping to kill someone, something that should have sickened me, I wanted to embrace him instead.

  I forced my eyes away from him and scowled at Tyr. I would have scowled at Frey, too, but Freyja was still standing by him and I didn’t want to look in her direction. “What the hell? You couldn’t have made this connection on your own?”

  How could everyone have missed Yngvarr and I were related? He had the same build, the same hair and eyes and nose. He looked like he could be my older brother, and no god or prophet in Asgard could see that? Tyr looked between us, clearly confused, and scratched at his chin, the rough noise of his beard against his fingers grating on my already raw nerves. “Huh,” he said. “I hadn’t made the connection before.”

  I made some sort of noise, maybe a grunt or a groan or some trollish—or aesthetically challenged—sound, and stormed past them to get back to Frey’s car. These assholes had to be hiding something from me, because it was obvious even to me, the skeptic who didn’t want to believe in any of this shit. I slammed the car door closed and seethed in the backseat of Frey’s car, but unfortunately, having some divine ancestor way back in my genealogy somewhere hadn’t gifted me powers to start cars through sheer will power. Not for lack of trying.

  The sky was quickly turning that inky black and I put my head back and closed my eyes. I heard the door opening beside me and assumed it was one of my instructors—at least I’d stopped calling them my captors—but as soon as he sat next to me, I knew I hadn’t been that lucky.

  “I don’t blame you for freaking out, Gavyn,” Yngvarr told me. “This is kind of freaking me out, too.”

  I took a slow, deep breath and opened my eyes. The rest of the gods were still standing in the field. Yngvarr must have told them to give us some time alone. “They had to have known the moment they saw me,” I insisted. “They’ve been pretending like my ancestry is some huge mystery, but how could it be?”

  Yngvarr was quiet as he continued to watch me. I shifted in my seat but didn’t want to look at him again. Those feelings that weren’t even mine—because how could they be?—made me nervous I was going to do something humiliating and stupid, and I’d managed to go almost two days without doing anything humiliating or stupid.

  “I don’t them know well, to be honest, but I’ve met them enough times that of course they would recognize me,” Yngvarr answered. “And I know Tyr’s reputation as everyone does. He’s as honest and trustworthy as they come. I believe him. Maybe they were unable to make the connection for the same reason I have no memories of a younger brother I should remember.”

  I swallowed the hard knot in my throat because now Havard’s annoyingly strong memories or feelings or whatever these were made me want to cry. Twice in two days. I was suddenly relieved Keira wasn’t here.

  “You were close,” I told him, but I picked at the dirt under one of my fingernails instead of meeting his eyes.

  Yngvarr sighed. “I’ve been bugging Freyja constantly to keep calling her brother to see if you’ve had any more dreams about him. He said you haven’t.”

  I shook my head. “No, but whatever he feels in these dreams, I feel. And I can’t get rid of those emotions even when I wake up.”

  “I visited Odin to see if he knew Havard or if he could do something to lift this curse.”

  I laughed, and Yngvarr’s eyes lit up. “You must have been really desperate if you were willing to see him.”

  Yngvarr laughed now, too. “Yeah, I was. And go figure. He was completely useless.”

  “Try going back with a vagina,” I suggested.

  Yngvarr laughed again and it was a laugh so much like my own that I found myself laughing with him, and the gods in the field must have been going crazy with curiosity as to what the hell we found so funny because they began walking toward us. I watched Freyja move for a few moments, the way she swayed her hips when she walked and even in the dark field illuminated only by the headlights of the cars still here, I could tell this goddess was far more experienced in seduction than I was. And I still couldn’t separate Havard’s feelings for her from my own desire—especially since Keira would hardly even talk to me now.

  Yngvarr caught me staring at her and nudged me with his elbow. “Get Tyr out of your room tonight. Trust me.”

  I smiled at him but shook my head. “Havard didn’t trust her. He didn’t like how many lovers she took when she had a husband.”

  “Od disappeared though. Long before I was born. I could understand him feeling that way if her husband were still around, but it’s not fair to expect her to become celibate over a husband who’s most likely dead.”

  I shrugged. They weren’t my feelings. My feelings were telling me to take Yngvarr’s advice and get that massage after all.

  “It was your mother…” I started but the others had reached the car. A lot of conversations seemed to get interrupted in Iceland. I blamed the trolls.

  When we got back to the hotel, Keira stuck around for the first time since kissing me. And since she was here, I asked her why she hadn’t recognized the similarities between Yngvarr and me before. She looked between us with the same mystified expression Tyr had in that field.

  “I hadn’t noticed,” she stuttered, but even she must have realized how absurd that sounded. I nodded toward the wet bar.

  “Any chance your lack of observational skills will be atoned for with another vodka gimlet?”

  Hunter dropped the newspaper he was reading, and I was only mildly interested in why he was reading a newspaper in the first place. “A gimlet would have simple syrup in it.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t care as long as there’s vodka in it.” Hunter was a bartender at the same restaurant where I waited tables. Another terribly useful college degree put to good use. Even Hunter wasn’t sure why he’d majored in anthropology.

  Hunter lifted his newspaper in front of his face again and I was slightly more curious as to what he was reading now. “There’s no more vodka anyway.”

  “Well, what do you have? We have guests. They need drinks.”

  Hunter didn’t even drop his newspaper this time. “Um… water?”

  “If you’re serious, I’m not above kicking my best friend’s ass for not saving any alcohol for me. I am trying to save the world and all.”

  Cadros had been lounging on the sofa watching television and he looked up at me and shook his head. “Nope. Not kicking his ass. He’s one of ours. We’ll protect him.”

  Hunter moved the paper just enough to make sure I could see him smirking at me.

  “Then do something useful for once and go to the store,” I told Cadros. I’m not sure what that guy did all day, but if he was willing to defend Hunter based on ancestry, then I was pretty sure my gods had Hunter’s outnumbered. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if Agnes could take on a few of them on her own.

  Agnes grunted and stood up from her chair. “I’ll go. Children.”

  She had just reached the door when a news alert stopped her. She was back by her chair so quickly, it actually surprised me and I stepped away from her and into Freyja, who immediately put her arm around me. I would have moved again but have I mentioned Agnes kinda scared the shit out of me? Even after almost a week with these guys? She may have been a war goddess, but I was still convinced she was part witch, too.

  I felt Freyja’s hand slip down from my waist into the back pocket of my jeans but I was transfixed by the television, and the same four Sumerian gods who wer
e standing in front of another building. I suspected it was in the U.S. as well but I didn’t recognize it. It didn’t matter. I already knew what was coming.

  Ninurta gestured to the building behind them and was mid-speech about my failure to show up at their doorstep—again—when he stopped talking and watched something in the distance off screen. As it pulled into the camera’s view, I heard myself yelling at the television but I don’t even remember what I was yelling. My stomach heaved as the yellow school bus pulled up in front of the U.S. Mint in Denver, Colorado, followed by a second, and the children on board began to jump off. Those interminably long minutes ticked by as we watched teachers and chaperones desperately trying to keep order and herd the little bodies into a straight line.

  “Call him,” I said, but I don’t know who I was talking to. “Now! Call him! Tell him I’ll be on the next plane out of Reykjavik.”

  Keira looked at me, as panic-stricken as I felt, and stammered, “I don’t know how!”

  “How can you not know how to call him?” I yelled. “You had all those goddamn messages from him!” Something within me shifted, and I was powerless to control myself. I’m not even sure I knew what I was doing. I only knew I couldn’t let those children die.

  I turned on Frey and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him within inches of my face and demanded the same thing. He had led that ridiculous conference. He had to know how to contact Ninurta. Frey stared back at me, wide-eyed and pale and shaking and insisted he didn’t know how to call Ninurta either. I only vaguely remember throwing him into the wall.

  Someone grabbed my arm before I could turn on anyone else, and I was ready to punch him, but Yngvarr was just as fast as me, and restrained my other arm as well. “Gavyn, listen.” He nodded toward the television.

  I tried to pull my arms free, but Yngvarr was too strong. What the hell was wrong with him? I couldn’t stand here and watch children die because of me. I tried to free myself from his grasp again, but he wouldn’t let go. “Gavyn.” He said my name again and this time, I recognized it. I remembered who I was. “Ninurta’s speaking. Listen,” he repeated.