Wild Card (Etudes in C# Book 1)

by Jamie Wyman

  As the goddess walked away, the mist filled the temple. Bright blue light glowed before my eyes and once more I was in Eris’s backyard. Beneath my fingers, Marius’s pulse beat a shallow, quick rhythm. Dropping my hands, I stepped away from him, gasping for air as if I’d just run a marathon.

  The satyr’s glamour snapped back into place. “Well?” he whispered.

  I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  Marius’s hair fell into his face as he sagged.

  “But,” I said quickly.

  His head shot up, the barest hope twinkling in his eyes. What Hera said was true; telling Marius the secret might add to his problems rather than solve them. If it were me, though, I’d want to know everything about the cage holding me prisoner. I couldn’t keep my promise, but I could give him this.

  “You can break the curse yourself.”

  He swallowed, letting my words sink in. I saw questions flicker over his face in the way his eyes searched mine and his lips quivered beneath his mustache. I’ll never be certain, but he probably wondered how much time he’d wasted thinking Eris was his one path back to a real life. Maybe he wondered if I lied to him.

  You’re such similar creatures, Eris had said.

  She’d been too right about that.

  When he spoke, his voice was small and quiet, damn near humble. “Are you going to tell me, then?”

  I steeled myself for what I had to tell him. “It will be hard, Marius. After all, you don’t believe in stupid things like love.”

  The mention of the L-word was enough to make him flinch. He shook his head with agitation. “What are you saying?”

  “You don’t need Eris, or me, or anyone else to work magic to lift the spell. You need to love someone. And I’m not talking about flowers and chocolates and seduction. I mean, you have to actually love them. You need to care about someone more than you care about yourself.” I shrugged. “That’s all.”

  “That’s all,” he said, voice hoarse. Obscured by the eerie, shifting shadows from the pool, the satyr’s face twisted with a wash of emotions. Anger formed harsh lines between his eyebrows. His mouth dropped open with a helpless pout. As he dragged a shaky hand through his hair, he grimaced and took a step back. “‘That’s all,’ she says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.”

  Cursing, Marius paced along the edge of the pool. “You can’t know that’s what needs to happen,” he said. Though he tried to infuse his tone with arrogance, his face spoke of fear. “You can’t.”

  “Marius, I have it on good authority.”

  “Well, fuck your authority! It’s wrong! And so are you,” he added as he turned his back on me.

  I lifted my hands in quiet surrender.

  Behind me, the door opened, and Loki stepped out into the night.

  “Looks like you’re done basking,” Loki said. “As much as I’m sure you’d rather not, it’s time to change the guard. So to speak.”

  I looked over at Marius. Brooding, he stared into the rippling waters.

  “Okay,” I said slowly, remembering my initiation with Eris, my time spent dangling over the Strip while my body suffocated. I dearly hoped Loki would be a better master.

  He reached out and stroked the flesh on my arm. “Does it hurt?”

  “It burns a little,” I answered.

  I watched as he drew lines over my skin. His touch grew cold and soothed the fever there while a shape formed. In arctic-blue-and-white light, the rune etched itself on my wrist. A vertical line with two diagonal lines coming off of it, like an F with its stems bent.

  “Hey,” I said. “That’s the logo of the company I work for. Answers Inc.”

  Loki grinned. “The rune’s name is actually pronounced ahn-suz. You might want to go look this one up. In fact, that’s my first task for you, Catherine. You need to study. I need to know you’re as smart as you are fierce.”

  “Fierce.” I snorted. “Right.”

  “Hell, you’ve put up with Eris for this long, and you didn’t kill that bastard of a satyr, so you must be quite strong. Yes, Cat, I think you and I will get along just fine.”

  Then I remembered something. “Wait, you said you liked the way I handled a hammer. What did you mean by that?”

  “You don’t really think I’d let Maui kill one of my employees without giving her a chance to defend herself, do you? No, I take care of what’s mine.”

  Grateful as I was for his help, I took slight offense. “You hadn’t won me yet.”

  “Cat, look at the cards. I had a royal flush from the flop. I won before your soul was even on the table.”

  “And so you dropped a hammer for me?”

  “Yeah, borrowed it from one of my cousins. I wanted to see how you dealt with the tools at hand.”

  A cousin…with a hammer…from Asgard. Holy shit.

  Stunned that I might have held Thor’s hammer, I stammered. “It wasn’t actually…”

  “No,” he said abruptly. “He never lets that one out of his sight.”

  I nodded quickly. “Right then.”

  The blond dealer approached and smacked a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Well, friends, it’s time I took off for a bit. Catherine, it was good to talk with you. I hope I’ll see you again.”

  Loki nodded to the brawny one. “I’ll give you a lift.” As they flip-flopped away, the trickster looked back at me. “Rest tomorrow. You’ve got a big day on Monday.”

  Hesitation wormed in my stomach. “What happens Monday?”

  Loki answered with an impish grin.

  As the Norseman made his way to the door, the dealer smiled and fixed me with those too-blue eyes.

  “Faith,” he reminded me. A quick, two-fingered salute, and he trundled away. As the door shut behind him, I realized I still didn’t know his name.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Hey”

  I woke up sometime around noon the next day. Linux pounced on my chest and immediately started purring, giving me the head-butt of love repeatedly until I worshipped him as is his due. My cat and I spent quality time basking in the sun as it came in through the window.

  I remembered, then, that two nights ago Marius had smashed through that very same window. The fight with the kupua came flashing back into my mind, and I hopped up to survey the damage.

  There was none.

  The window had been fixed. The bedroom and front doors had been mended, and there wasn’t so much as a single thread out of place on my carpet. Not even a stain where the shark had bled. Briefly, I entertained the idea that I’d dreamed it all.

  You had a few cocktails in you, I thought. You probably came home and passed out. None of it ever happened.

  I looked down to my wrist. The proof that these past days had been a reality tattooed itself on my arm in a cool-blue rune. I’d been passed from Eris to Loki, and this was the souvenir.

  I survived sharks and a demon bird from hell and all I got was this little tattoo.

  I flopped onto my couch, laughing. I’d survived. My apartment had been trashed by monsters and repaired by tiny Hawaiian people. They’d fixed everything. Not just the stuff Maui’s monsters wrecked. Everything. My bathroom door that stuck in the summertime, the leaky kitchen faucet, even the bookshelf that fell down if you breathed near it.

  As I puttered around the apartment, fixing myself some toast and a frothy chai latte, I felt serene. I’d finally broken the holding pattern my life had become. But my stomach flopped at the unknown. Would Marius be okay? What would Flynn teach me about my new power? How would Loki use me? Would Eris seek revenge?

  Linux reminded me what’s truly important in life as he attacked my socks. While they were still on my feet. Yeah. Things would be okay.

  I decided to get to work on my first assignment: learning about my new boss.

  Using the wonders of the Internet, I started by reading up on a few of the more popular myths surrounding Loki. I found out he was seen as the foil to the creator gods, a mocking trickster. Like Prometheus of
the Greek myths, Loki brought fire to mankind, wisdom. Answers.

  This got me to wondering about his mark. The company I worked for had the same rune as part of its logo. What did it mean to him? I looked up the runes and found a picture matching my new brand. Beneath it a caption read: ansuz.

  Clicking on the picture, I got a wall of text explaining the rune and how to read it in divination. I didn’t so much care about telling the future—it would happen to me anyway, and with a trickster god running the show it was always in flux. However, the first paragraph of the explanation made me smile:

  Ansuz: The Messenger; Norse rune associated with Loki, messages, and information. New connections and fresh starts. A new life unfolding. First Rune of Initiation in the cycle of self-change.

  I read those lines over and over again, marveling at how this rune applied to my life. A fresh start. Self-change. New connections.

  My phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. I sighed at the sight of my mortal boss’s name on the readout.

  “This is Cat,” I said.

  “Sharp, I want you in the office now,” he snapped. “I don’t know what you’ve been up to for the past few days, but it sure as shit wasn’t your job.”

  I closed my eyes and braced myself. Getting fired sure would be a great way to start my new life. I had no way to explain, no mundane excuses. It’s not like I could yammer on about gods and wakwaks.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  “I’m not the one you have to apologize to, Sharp. The big man is pissed and wants you here. Now.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. The owner of the damn company has been in his office with one of our top clients for the past hour, and it’s not pretty. You need to get here and start groveling if you want to keep your job.”

  “I’ll be right in, Mr. Crandall,” I murmured.

  I’d never met the CEO of Answers, Inc., but the rumor was that he was a shrewd, cold businessman with little interest in bullshit. Preparing to join the statistics of employee turnover, I shuffled around the apartment and got dressed in my red polo and khakis.

  I’d walked halfway to the parking lot before I realized I’d left my car in the garage at Caesars a few days ago.

  “Shit!” I hissed. I’d have to call a cab to get to the casino. As I fished out my keys, my thumb hit the panic button on my remote key fob. In the parking lot, my car began to wail.

  Squinting with confusion I looked up to see that, sure enough, my car inhabited my usual space. On the hood, sitting lotus style, a man pressed his hands over his ears. Eyes shut tight, his mouth hung open as he howled in harmony with the car alarm. I ran across the courtyard, and his striking features came into focus. White hair, blotchy skin…

  “Alfie?” I said, remembering his name. He didn’t seem to hear me, but there was no mistake that the lunatic from the gala had parked himself atop my car. He’d exchanged his dapper suit for a moldy blue hoodie and grease-stained jeans. His white hair stood on end at odd angles. Even though his clothes and hair were about as couture as the average wino, Alfie’s face was as clean, fresh, and smooth as a newborn’s. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought the pattern of his blotches had changed.

  Even after I shut off the alarm, he continued to let out piercing ululations, his tongue darting about in his mouth.

  I tugged at his sleeve and yelled his name again. “Alfie!”

  He opened his eyes but didn’t see me. Staring straight ahead he finished his chorus and slowly let his hands fall away from his ears. Alfie licked his lips and blinked. His whole body convulsed with a shiver that reminded me of a dog shaking himself dry. Even now, with his eyes and ears open, he didn’t notice me.

  “Alfie?” I asked quietly.

  Whipping his head around, he fixed his wild blue eyes on me. “Ah! If it isn’t my friend, C-C-Catherine. Fancy meeting you here. Come to enjoy the concert? I don’t know if it’s any good, the noise that passes for music these days, but if you don’t listen you can sing along.”

  I shook my head, dazed by his illogic. “Alfie, did you bring me my car?”

  “Mmmhmm,” he said, chewing at his thumb. “Thought you’d need it.”

  “Okay. Um, how did you manage that?”

  He wrinkled his face, thin lips twisting in a grimace. “I drove, you nitwit. What else do you think I’d do with a car? Swim in it? Maybe grow a beanstalk out of the tail pipe?”

  “But I have the keys,” I said, agitated. “How did you even know it was my car? And, how the hell do you know where I live?”

  Alfie made a sound halfway between a snort and a chuckle. He unfolded his legs and slid off the hood. He patted me gently on the shoulder. Thankfully, this time I didn’t experience the burning agony of his touch. Shaking his head as if I were nothing more than a silly child, he wheezed with laughter.

  “Oh, Catherine, much like you, the answer is simple.”

  “Really? Do tell.”

  He leaned in close and whispered in my ear. “I pay attention.”

  Without another word, Alfie ambled across the gravel lot and walked out into traffic. Cars swerved and honked, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy singing along with the cacophony. Soon, a wall of cars obscured my view, and Alfie was gone.

  As I crawled into the car I spared a quick thought to hope he would be all right. I reminded myself, then, that I had other things to deal with.

  ***

  Answers, Inc. squatted in a small industrial complex southeast of the Boulevard. The windows cast back gray reflections of the carefully manicured hedges and obscured any attempts to see in. The glass-and-concrete maze reminded me of a labyrinth for the modern age, a feeling that grew as I navigated the call center inside. Most grunts worked in pods—workstations about a quarter of the size of a typical cubicle. The phone operators handled overflow tech support from a few of our affiliate companies while mobile staff—like me—milled about between assignments.

  I passed the break room and the litter of bagel crumbs on my way to my boss’s office. He didn’t have a door, so I knocked on the metal frame. Mel Crandall looked up, his agitation a film of sweat on his round head.

  “Sharp,” he barked. His chair creaked as he leaned back, and his red polo stretched over his rotund belly. “Would you like to tell me why I’m here on a Sunday?”

  The whole drive into the office I’d been trying to come up with an excuse. The best I could come up with was a watered down version of the truth. “Mr. Crandall, I’m so sorry. I was in a car accident Friday night, and the on-call phone was lost in the mess.”

  Mel’s pointed nose wrinkled. “I don’t give a shit about the on-call phone, Sharp. I want to know why one of my most loyal clients is in my boss’s office having a screaming match because one of my people botched a job!”

  Crandall hooked his thumb over his shoulder and indicated The Boss’s office. You could tell it belonged to The Boss because it was the one room in this god-forsaken building with a door. From the other side of the wood, I heard a low, wordless murmur in between the high-pitched litany of anger.

  “Who’s in there?” I asked.

  “Tullemore. Caesars’ shift lead.”

  “Tully?”

  Mel nodded.

  The cell on his desk chirped, and a cool, muffled voice filled the room. “Is she here yet?”

  Crandall grabbed his phone and keyed the walkie-talkie function. “Sharp is here, sir. You want me to send her in?”

  “Please.”

  Mel peered over his rimless glasses and gave me a pitying glance. With a shrug in The Boss’s direction, he said, “You heard him. Better get in there.”

  Though he didn’t say it, I could make out the, “nice knowing you” implied by his dour tone. I straightened my spine, and in two confident strides, I knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” The Boss said.

  I turned the handle and went through the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Otherside”

  I
’d expected to find Tully, red-faced and sputtering curses at a calm suit. What I found on the other side of the door, however, was one man standing behind a desk. A smile wrinkled the corners of his gas-flame eyes.

  While I tried to reel my jaw up from the floor, Loki quietly said, “Please shut the door, Ms. Sharp.”

  My chest felt tight and cold with a breath I couldn’t exhale. The door closed with a slight click that echoed in my ears as if I’d slammed it. I jumped at the tiny sound, and the god’s smile deepened.

  “Surprised?” he asked.

  I looked around the office. Like Eris, the Norse avatar of Mayhem kept an immaculate space. Unlike Discord, however, Loki showed considerable taste. His desk was a heavy monolith of Old World magnificence and polished cherry. A sleek, paper-thin laptop sat at an angle facing the god’s leather wingback chair. On the shelves around the room, classic literature shared space with computing manuals. Java and UNIX cozied up with Joyce’s Ulysses.

  My eyes drifted back to Loki with his strawberry-blond spikes and impish grin. “Where’s Tully?” I asked.

  Loki cleared his throat and when he spoke, my friend’s voice flew out of his mouth. “I’m in the doghouse, Cat.”

  My eyebrows tried to climb over my scalp as I stared, bug-eyed. “What the mother fuck?”

  Where there had been a god, plain and round Tully now stood. He rolled out from behind the desk and past me. As he whipped open the door he turned back to me, expression sad.

  “I’m sorry, Cat. You’re one of the best, but this is unacceptable.”

  Mel’s head popped out of his office to watch as Tully lumbered down the hall. Mel cast a quick glance in my direction then, like a scared meerkat, ducked back into his room.

  “You know people,” Loki said with a sigh from over my shoulder. He closed the door and turned his palms up to the ceiling in silent surrender. “Always seeing what I want them to see.”

  Confused as hell, I blinked.

  “Have a seat, Catherine. We should talk.”