by P. N. Elrod
They were of no interest to Mist. She didn’t bother to ask the bartender where she could find Vid, but kept moving through a tightly packed crowd of inebriated slackers and entered the door behind them.
The clientele in the back room was of a far different caliber than the kids in the public area. The dozen men and women were all mature, attractive, and reeking of wealth … the kind who dined every night at French Laundry, had their clothes tailor-made in Paris, and lived in apartments and penthouses worth more than all the Lady’s gold.
But there was something strange about them, a strangeness that stopped Mist in her tracks. They stared at her as if she had crashed an exclusive wedding wearing nothing but her sword. As if she were an enemy.
“Leave,” Dáinn whispered at her back. “Leave now.”
Mist barely heard him. “Who are you?” she asked, looking at each hostile face in turn.
Glances were exchanged, but no one answered. Dáinn gripped her arm. “There are too many,” he said.
And suddenly she knew. “Where is he?” she demanded of the crowd, loosening her knife. “Where is your master?”
Hard eyes fixed on hers. Several of the men began moving toward her, getting taller by the second. Faces blurred, becoming coarse and ugly with hate. Fists lifted. An unmistakable chill rose in the room.
Hrimgrimir emerged from the crowd, grinning with hideous delight. “So we meet again, halfling. Or should I call you ‘cousin’?” His pointed teeth were red in the dim light. “You must be eager for death. We will be happy to oblige you.”
Pulling her knife free, Mist sang the change. Dim light raced along Kettlingr’s blade. Her chances of survival were slim, but she had no choice. No choice at all.
“You have more strength than you know,” Dáinn said from very far away. She felt a light touch on her cheek. “Feel it, warrior. Let it come.”
Some force beyond understanding burst inside her. Hafling cousin. She had no time to digest the revelation. Dáinn was gone, and Hrimgrimir and his kin were already upon her.
Kettlingr flew up to meet the attack. The blade skittered against a wall of ice that dissolved as soon as the sword completed its swing. Mist sang, and her jötunn blood, the blood she had not known she possessed, sang with her. Strength greater than that of mortal or Valkyrie throbbed in blood and blossomed in bone. Battle runes flared before her eyes. The giants retreated with cries of rage and dismay. She advanced, slashing at any flesh within reach. For a moment it seemed that she might even win.
But the new power didn’t last. She felt herself falter under the weight of uncertainty. They were her kin . Any one of them might be …
She never completed the thought. Hrimgrimir roared and swung a giant fist, knocking her against the wall. Somehow she kept her grip on Kettlingr, but the blow had paralyzed her arm. She knew then that she was going to die, and she would not be returning.
Sliding up the wall, she grinned into the giant’s face and prepared herself for the final, crushing blow. Hrimgrimir bellowed and raised his hand. The back door swung open, and a thickset blond man staggered into the room, his head swinging right and left in confusion.
“Wa’s goin’ on here?” he drawled, leaning heavily against the door frame. “Can’ a man ge’ any sleep?”
Hrimgrimir and the other jötunar swung to face the man. “Get out!” Hrimgrimir snarled.
“Mist?” The man took another step into the room, eyes widening. “Issat you?”
She caught her breath and worked her shoulder, feeling it come back to life again. Váli was a drunk and a slackard, but he wasn’t as stupid as he looked. He had some part in all this. He knew what was happening, and he was trying to help her.
With a hoot of laughter, Váli stumbled his way past the jötunar with arms extended. “So … gla’ to see you,” he said, his full weight crashing into Mist. “Missed you.”
Smothered in his bearish embrace, Mist felt the pressure of his body pushing her away from the wall. He was moving her toward the door to the bar, inch by subtle inch.
“Get out of here,” he hissed, his mouth pressed to her ear.
“Where is Vídarr?” she whispered.
“You can’t see him.” They reached the door, and Mist heard the hinges creak. “Save yourself.”
Save yourself . Vídarr wasn’t in league with the evil ones. He was in trouble. Bad trouble.
Without warning, Mist shoved Váli aside and ran for the back door, swinging Kettlingr in a deadly arc. Hrimgrimir swiped at her and missed. The rest were too startled to intercept her before she got to the back door and flung it open.
Vídarr sat in a battered chair in what served as his office, his face blank as uncarved stone. His eyes barely flickered as Mist entered the room.
“Well, you have created quite a disturbance,” a voice said from the shadows behind the chair. “I had hoped you would take warning and flee. After all the pleasure you’ve given me, I had intended to spare you.”
Eric . But it wasn’t Eric’s voice. And the figure that emerged from the shadows was not tall and broad, but as lean and wiry as a stoat. Tight black leather covered him from neck to toe. His long, handsome face was smiling. The expression wasn’t friendly.
Mist wasn’t feeling particularly friendly herself. “I’ve come for Gungnir, Slanderer,” she said.
“How charming.” Loki walked past Vídarr without a glance in his direction and stood before her, hands on hips. “You always were impulsive, my dear. That was what made you so good in bed.”
Mist swung Kettlingr at his head. Loki sent the sword spinning to the floor with three short words and a wave of his hand.
“It’s no use,” Vídarr said, his voice thick with despair. “You can’t beat him.”
“Listen to him, Villkatt,” Loki said. “Like you, Odhinn’s son has been corrupted by his long residence in Midgard. He proved remarkably clumsy in his attempts to interfere.” Loki reached for the glass of red wine that stood on the nearby desk and sniffed it critically. “In fact, we had nearly reached an arrangement to the advantage of both of us.”
Mist ignored the pain in her hand and stared at Vídarr. “What arrangement?”
“To use Bifrost as headquarters for my future endeavors. Did you know there are other hidden rooms beyond this one? Very suitable for what I have in mind.”
“Stealing the other treasures,” she said. “But what good would it do you to keep them here? Why didn’t you take Gungnir back to wherever you came from?” She took a step toward him. “Why didn’t you go straight through the passage on the bridge?”
For a moment Loki’s smug expression darkened. “No more questions.” He relaxed and smiled again. “I’ll give you one chance, sweetling. Join me, or you’ll have no more use for such inconvenient curiosity.”
He was probably right. She’d always known the odds of beating him were slim; he was, after all, a god, and her jötunn blood wouldn’t be enough to defeat the Sly One. Dáinn had abandoned her, and even Vídarr had failed to stand up to him.
Still, giving up was not an option. And there was one thing she still didn’t understand. Why was Loki offering her a chance to join him? Why had he felt the need to sneak around in the first place, pretending to be her human lover, if he didn’t think she was a threat to him?
There was only one way to find out.
“You were always a coward,” she said. “Go ahead. Strike me down.”
He laughed and sneered at her bravado, and yet he hesitated. Vídarr’s eyes fixed on hers, as if he were trying to tell her something important. Something that might change the game completely.
“What are you afraid of, Slanderer?” she taunted. “My sword is out of reach. You need have no fear of a fair fight.”
Loki’s face contorted with rage. “Pick it up,” he snarled.
Mist dove for the sword before he could change his mind. In seconds she had snatched it up, secured her grip and was ready for attack.
Her enemy wasted no time. Al
l at once Gungnir itself was in Loki’s hand, and he was aiming straight at her heart. The Swaying One hummed in his grip as he let fly. Mist swung Kettlingr with all her strength, desperately singing the runes that might make the difference between life or death.
She wasn’t fast enough, but no cold metal pierced her chest. Gungnir pierced the door behind her shoulder. Loki’s mouth gaped in disbelief as she struck, her blade sinking into his left arm.
She knew it was little more than a distraction. He would heal almost instantly. Still, she brought Kettlingr to bear once more … and froze as Loki’s burning hand clamped around her neck.
“You have tried my patience once too often,” he said into her face, his spittle spraying her cheeks.
“And you’ve … tried mine.” She wheezed a laugh. “You were never … as good as you thought you were. In anything.”
He shook her like a child’s straw doll. “Perhaps I won’t kill you first,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll take you one last time, and show you just how good I am.”
A shudder of loathing drained the strength from Mist’s body. To die was one thing. To suffer such humiliation after what she and Eric had shared …
No. She stared into Loki’s eyes. “Try it, and I’ll roast your balls like chestnuts.”
Loki flinched, and his grip relaxed. He’s afraid . It made no sense, none at all, yet she could feel it, see it in his face.
But what was the key to his fear?
“Freyja is the key.”
Dáinn’s voice, speaking inside her head. This time she was grateful for the intrusion. She shaped an urgent question out of her thoughts, but Dáinn heard it before she was finished.
“Loki has always feared and desired the Lady,” he said. “He taunted and mocked her and called her whore because he wanted her but could not have her.”
But that had nothing to do with Mist. Loki’s grip had tightened again, and Mist felt her breath stop in her throat. It was over. She had nothing left with which to fight.
“Halfling,” Dainn’s silent voice whispered, unraveling like thread caught in a kitten’s claws. “A jötunn was your father. Your mother…”
Dáinn’s presence faded, but he left in her mind a single image. An image of a face she knew, a beauty beyond compare.
Mist silenced her disbelief. She had nothing to lose. She met Loki’s gaze, letting him feel every last particle of her contempt.
“Is that why you pretended to be an honorable man and lied your way into my bed?” she wheezed. “If you couldn’t have the mother, you’d take the daughter?”
Loki’s fingers loosened again. “She was a whore,” he said, his voice not quite steady. “She lay with every álfr and god in Asgard, every giant and dwarf in Jötunheimr and Svartâlfheimr. You’re nothing but a—”
He broke off, his face blanching under his shock of red hair. The illusion came over Mist without any effort on her part, a radiant warmth that filled her with a peace she had never known. Loki dropped her and stumbled away.
“Freyja,” he croaked.
Mist raised her hand, and Kettlingr flew into it like a tame sparrow. “It is you who have the choice, Laufeyson. Come back to us.”
Loki’s face slackened. “I … I want—”
Vídarr slammed into him, and Loki staggered. The spell was broken. Loki knocked Vídarr aside with a sweep of his arm and leaped up on the desk. He crouched there, hatred in every line of his body.
“You haven’t won, bitch,” he said. “It isn’t over. In the end you’ll come begging at my feet, eager to service me like the whore you are.”
And then he was gone, vanished into the shadows, the stench of his evil dispersing like a frenzy of roaches exposed to the light.
Mist closed her eyes. The warmth and joy and power were already abandoning her, leaving her an empty sack of skin and bone.
“Mist.” Dáinn came up behind her, breathing hard. “Are you well?”
She turned on him, letting anger erase her despair. “Where were you, coward? You had words in plenty, but where was your magic?”
Dáinn said nothing. He simply walked away. Vídarr got to his feet, popping his shoulder back into its socket.
“Mist,” he said. “You have to believe I never—”
Váli came into the room, grave and utterly sober. “There will be time for explanations later,” he said. “We have more urgent concerns, including a heap of jötunar to deal with.”
Mist didn’t ask what he meant. She pulled Gungnir from the door, sang it small again, and strode past him into the other room. There literally was a heap of giants, most unconscious and the rest groaning in pain.
“ He did it,” Váli said, jerking his head toward Dáinn, who stood quietly in a corner. “I helped a little. But he kept them from interfering while you dealt with Loki.”
Laughter choked Mist’s reply. Had she dealt with Loki, or had it been Freyja all along?
My mother . Mist wasn’t just half jötunn. She was half goddess as well. It would take some time to digest that knowledge and understand what it might mean to her. And to the battle that was coming.
She walked slowly over to Dáinn, who refused to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
But it did. She’d thought of Dáinn as a traitor to his people and to the Aesir. And he had left her during her fight with the jötunar. Still, she might have to revise her opinion. So much was changing. The world was growing dark, and her sisters had to be warned. She couldn’t do it alone.
“It isn’t over,” she said, swallowing her pride. “I need you.”
He finally looked up, his mouth quirking in a weary half smile. “I have nowhere else to go.”
She nodded and looked over her shoulder. Váli was busy with a bottle, and Vídarr leaned against the wall, his expression locked as tight as a virgin’s legs on her wedding night.
Maybe they’d help, too. Vídarr still had some explaining to do. But now they had a little time. Maybe it was enough.
“Well,” she said to the room in general, “let’s get this rubbish cleaned up. It stinks in here.”
BEYOND THE PALE
Nancy Holder
Who rides, so late, through night and wind?
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Erl King”
“ Links! Verdammt, left! ” Lukas yelled at Meg, his voice crackling through her headset. “He’s there!”
Ebony trees and jet-black bracken jagged into silhouettes as Meg galloped wildly through the snowstorm. Her hair, braided and pulled back with an elastic band, hit her back like a fist. Deluged by sleet, still she sweated under her standard-issue German police riot helmet. Unlike the others, she’d painted no insignia on it, no coat of arms, no totem. Just her last name: ZECHERLE . The miner’s light attached to the front strobed icy blue on ferocious boughs of fir and pine. Wet splatted on her mask. She smelled the cold, and the mud, and her own stinking fear. Of smoky magick, there was no trace. And of their quarry, no sight.
To her left, the Black Forest raged and shook. To her right, boulders jutted toward treetops, and behind them, she knew, a waterfall cascaded. As if the icy flow had leaped the riverbanks, she was drowning in darkness and snow.
“Meg!” Lukas bellowed. “Reply!”
“Where?” she shouted into her headset. The mouthpiece was loose and she let go of the reins of her massive black stallion, Teufel, with one hand and held the mic to her mouth. “Shit, where ?”
“You must see him! Twelve o’clock!”
Doggedly, she squinted through the protective mask. No night-vision goggles, no GPS, nothing. If the Great Hunt got you and dragged you across the Pale, you were worse than dead.
If they didn’t get that baby back …
Snow. Darkness.
“Then my Sight’s not working,” she announced.
“Bitte?” Lukas cried. “Not working ?”
Through her earphones, she could hear the others
responding in disbelief. It almost made her smile; they were so serious and smug. But she was clearly in deep trouble, so she spared no time for pettiness.
“I see trees and rocks,” she said. “Period, kaput. ”
“Meg, where are you?” That was Sofie, Lukas’s twin sister.
“Where the fuck are you ?” she shouted back.
Static crackled in her ears and snow rushed at her; tree branches smacked her chest, bolted into Kevlar body armor. Teufel grunted, then sailed over a fallen log long before she put her spurs to his flanks. She understood now why they didn’t use motorcycles or ATVs, which had been her first question when Lukas had explained about the magickal Haus of the Knights—Haus Ritter. He’d rolled her eyes and told her she was a typical arrogant American, and that the old ways were best because the old gods were alive and well in Germany. Well, yeah, heil Hitler to you, too.
“Meg, just focus,” another voice advised, in the polished, aristocratic British accent of Heath, who had deposited a hundred thousand pounds into a trust fund for her brother and paid off her parents’ refi, just like that, when Meg had protested that she couldn’t leave the States because her parents were too wiped out to deal with anything except their favorite TV shows. “Your Sight manifested. It can’t go away. It doesn’t work like that.”
“It did go away,” she yelled, furious. “I’m blind out here!”
Desperately, Meg scanned the flashing landscape dead ahead, then to her left, right. The German Black Forest glared back at her, far from still. Pines and firs shuddered and bowed. Snow poured from the sky. Aside from the voices of her team crackling in her ears—the four other Gifted Border riders on her patrol—the howling wind overpowered every sound, including the steady rhythm of her own horse’s hooves and the staccato pounding of her heart. In their world—of magick, and evil—she was blind, deaf, useless. It was only through sheer accident that she’d wound up on point, ahead of the others on the craggy slopes of the alpine mountain.
