Copyright © 2013, Crystal Lynn Hilbert.
ISBN 9781311403650
This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living, dead, or otherwise is purely coincidental.
Cover art © 2014, Crystal Lynn Hilbert.
The font used on the cover design is Odin’s Spear by Bolt Cutter Design
The hot dogs on Sixth called to him, beckoning like… like juicy, delicious things that beckoned. So it figured there’d be a crazy guy pacing the street in front of the vendor.
And alright, Conrad knew full well that Sixth Ave. moonlighted as a crazy magnet, but this guy was something else. For one thing, he stuck out like a sore thumb. The guy’s clothes looked like a patchwork conglomeration of pockets stolen from the eighties—eighteen and nineteen. He had on a pair of enormous combat boots, his arms didn’t look like they fit right in their sockets, and his hair defied gravity.
But the weirdest thing about him? Somehow, he wasn’t weird.
Keeping a steady eye on the guy, Conrad made his way over to the hot dog cart. The crazy didn’t notice him, just kept on muttering something about gods—and no, that was pretty much standard weirdo crazy talk right there. Nothing at all to worry about.
Except people milled and wandered past the guy without even looking, like he just… wasn’t. Not even wasn’t weird, come to think of it—just plain wasn’t. Wasn’t there, wasn’t pacing, wasn’t muttering about Mason jars, patting his pockets—and when he didn’t find what he wanted, patting everyone else’s. Putting up with that went so far beyond I Can’t See Homeless People it got off the Greyhound on the whole other side of Crazy Town.
Weird. Conrad shrugged. Another Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
And then, somewhere down the street, a dog started barking loud enough to shatter eardrums.
Conrad squinted between the cars and idling busses, looking for the monster about to shatter his eardrums. It had to be enormous—we’re talking elephant sized—because across the street, the glass in the theater’s doors actually rattled with every bark.
But everybody else… On the street around him, everybody else just stood around, eating their hot dogs and tapping at cellphones, and Conrad started to worry. Nobody else heard it.
Just him.
Just him, on a street corner, hallucinating crazy men and dogs barking like a bridge collapse. Which, not so good. Probably. It wasn’t close enough to finals for his biannual nervous breakdown.
Maybe they were filming another movie across the river or something.
Nothing to worry about. Certainly not his problem.
Conrad pulled a crumpled five from his pocket and tried to pretend he didn’t see the crazy guy. Just focus on the hot dog, he told himself. He was not getting involved. Conrad was not going to get involved because he did not want to know. He just wanted to get a hot dog with cheese. And he opened his mouth to tell the vendor that, but the crazy spun around from where he’d been rifling through a woman’s diaper bag and shouted, “Hey, kid!”
Obviously, the crazy man was speaking to someone else, as Conrad had just turned twenty-one last month, forever disqualifying himself as kid.
“One, please,” he said, holding out the sad-looking five. “With cheese, thanks.”
But hey, this ignoring thing just kept on trucking, took the corner at A Little Far, and barreled off into the sunset. The vendor didn’t even look at him. This guy ran a dinky little hot dog cart down Sixth Avenue—did he have rent to pay or what? But no, the vendor stared right through him, watching the cars on the street. Conrad stared back, mostly to ignore the creeper headed straight toward him now—and, wow, okay, personal space!
Conrad reeled back, trying to put distance between himself and the creeper suddenly two inches away from his face. Except somewhere between trying to get away and actually getting away, the guy’s hand lashed out and grabbed him by the chin.
The guy squinted, tilting Conrad’s head back and forth like he might find made in China. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Yeah, you’re one of mine.”
Protesting with admirable coherency, Conrad shoved the guy’s hand off and jolted backward, right into the vendor’s cart. The stand tipped backward, wobbling on two wheels and unseating a stack of buns onto the sidewalk before righting itself again. Conrad grimaced, watching the vendor’s face, already mourning his impending lifetime hot dog ban.
Only, no one noticed. Not the people, not the vendor—not even the pigeons spotted the fallen buns.
And alright. Okay. The crazy trap had Conrad, too. They’d find him fossilized in crazy a million years from now—would dig up his calcified corpse and name a whole new kind of lunatic after him—but he couldn’t help gaping at the crazy guy and asking, “What did you do?”
The creeper smirked, opened his mouth, and all at once that god-awful dog started up again.
Conrad swore, wincing. Under his sneakers, he could feel the sidewalk vibrating. Some movie, he thought. You’d figure they’d get a noise violation or something. And yeah, the noise was bad, but the crazy creeper took the bark like a hot wire to the spine, leaping back. He glanced up and down the street like a hellhound might pop around the corner at any minute, and he darted backward into the shadow of an outcropping building.
“C’mere a minute,” he said, jerking his head toward the mouth of an alley.
And oh. Yeah. Go into a questionable back alley with a crazy guy wearing nothing but pockets and grease? Of course. Conrad did that all the time. He’d managed to survive until adulthood doing exactly that.
“No, no thanks, dude. I’ll pass.”
The creeper heaved a put-upon sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. And wow, okay, apparently Conrad did not live in Happy Reality Land anymore, because the guy ran a hand through his hair, and it changed colors.
It hadn’t been red before. Conrad has seen him—he’d got a good look while playing Frogger on the sidewalk trying to miss the guy—and his hair had been black. You didn’t mess around with black. Black didn’t look purple or green or some other weirdo color in the wrong light—it looked black. His hair had been black.
Only now, it sat nice on his head, no grease, and pretty obviously red, with a bit of blue for flavor.
Alright. So. A super questionable street magician who wanted him to c’mere a minute into an alley with a bunch of people wandering around who would still ignore him even if he started bleeding into their relish?
Seemed like an even better idea this time around.
“Okay, you know what?” the creeper said, really disturbingly cheerful about it. “This thing you’re doing? I don’t have time for it.”
Conrad glared, meaning to ask him if he wanted a hot dog or what. What would it possibly take to make him go away? But suddenly the guy darted out from the shadows, laid a hand on his shoulder, and dragged Conrad off like he didn’t even get a say in the matter.
“What are you—” he spluttered and tried to stop walking, but he couldn’t.
He couldn’t.
Conrad could feel his legs—they were still there, doing the bending and the moving and the making with the forward motion—but he couldn’t stop. They weren’t his legs anymore. The hand on his shoulder seared him down to the bone, forcing him on, and it wasn’t until he was right in the thick of the alley that he managed to find his legs again and force himself around.
Conrad spun and headed toward the street, meaning to run like hell out of there.
Except, holy shit—no, never mind.
Outside, nothing moved.
One woman held a lighter half-lit to the cigarette in her mouth. A man in a suit hung halfway over the sidewalk, one leg in the air. The cars stood frozen where they were, lights on, engines silent, the nearest driver with mouth stuck mid-wor
d, and suddenly Conrad found himself pretty damn sure this was not a performance piece.
The crazy sighed. “Great, a tourist. Quit your gawking, kid. I just need a minute.”
But of course, because this day could get no stranger, the dog kept barking. Even louder now without the background noise. Or maybe it was closer. Judging by the way the weirdo’s face went white, either way was a Very Bad Thing.
“No time for pleasantries then,” the crazy muttered. And then, “Look, could you stop debating my existence a minute and help a guy out?”
Conrad stared at him. “I am not sure how to tell you this, dude, but you are scary as shit and that is not the way to start asking for favors.”
The man smiled. “When you get to be my age, it is,” he said, and he was, what? Like thirty-something? Conrad didn’t buy it. It must have read on his face because the guy grinned. “You really don’t know me? Don’t even want to wager a guess?”
“While I am sure you are the Queen of Sheba, no. No, I really do not.” Talking without thinking. Probably the worst possible time for the social filter to give out. Just the same, Conrad added, “You are a crazy asshole and I am leaving.”
Except, still, no. No, he really wasn’t.
Conrad watched in horror as the creeper’s skin rippled and shifted, spinning up and out until he had to crane his neck just to get an eyeful of bicep, muscles corded in a way that spoke of functionality and fighting and woad tattoos on every inch of his body. And yeah, Conrad really wasn’t up to date on the latest geekery, but he was pretty sure those were runes, and they were glowing, and you did not take those to ComicCon.
The guy grinned at him, laughing—and oh god was he screwed, because Conrad knew a little about a lot, and one look at those scars on his mouth? Probably came from being sewn shut. And sewn lips and runes meant he’d stumbled right into a goddamned fairy tale where Loki was not only real, but terrifying as hell and oh…
Oh fuck.
The Norse pretty-much-a-god of chaos wanted a favor.
“Alright,” Conrad said, being pretty sure that was what you said to leave an encounter with a kind-of-god, limbs intact. “What’s going on?”
Loki shrugged and shrank back down into the diluted, less worrying version of himself. “They’ve set the hounds on me again.”
“The hounds?” Conrad tried not to stare. “So that barking…?”
“That would be Garm.” He grinned, but Conrad caught the minnow-quick flicker of his eyes toward the street. “We’ll be great, kid. Don’t worry. It’s not like they’ve got Fenris. We’ll be fine.”
“We?” he squeaked, and he could not even mourn the loss of his masculinity because apparently not wanting to die meant he’d become a part of whatever the hell this was.
Conrad gave his first very stupid question a second try. “What did you do?”
Loki laughed. Well, sniggered would probably be a better word for it, and he didn’t look very human when he did it. Which, alright, Conrad expected, but the sound rattled him worse than the dog.
Leaning back against the wall, Loki pulled a pack of cigarettes from… somewhere about his person and said, “So how do you feel about being my chosen one?”
Obvious deflection was really, really obvious. But alright, if this guy felt like deflecting, then Conrad didn’t want to know. Because Loki looked like he’d cheerfully discuss plague boils on puppies—and Conrad wasn’t exactly up to date with his ancient Norse mythology either, but wasn’t this the guy who had a half-rotten queen of the dead, a dragon, and an insane wolf for kids? Yeah. If he wasn’t going to talk about it, Conrad felt just fine looking the other way.
“Chosen one?” he asked, and movies always make it sound like a good thing, but in real life, it did not have nearly the same ring as free hot dogs on Sixth. “What do you mean chosen one?”
“What do you think I mean? I mean a chosen one. Useful, somewhat expendable, celestial messenger type.”
Conrad gaped at him. “I can’t be a—I mean, can you even do that?”
“I’m a god,” Loki sniggered again and, no, still not comforting, only now they were talking about him, which made it much, much worse. “Enough of a god, anyway, and I’m choosing you.”
“Why,” he demanded. “For what?”
“Nothing,” and then, at his incredulous look, “Really, hardly anything at all. Simple. You don’t have to do a thing.”
“No,” Conrad said. “No. Just no. Just a big old capital N-O, right there, buddy. I don’t know what the hell you did, but whatever the hell you’ll do to me has got to be better than what whoever’s chasing you will do to me, because judging by that dog they’ve got, they want you bad, and not in the good way.”
Loki smiled, wheedling. “All you have to do is keep something for me. Simplest thing in the world.”
“So Nordic Vinnie and Guido can show up at my apartment to conversate about their dilemma with every bone in my body? No. You’re out of your mind.”
“Quite possibly, yes.”
He lit a cigarette with the tip of his thumb and Conrad wasn’t put off by the magic trick with the cigarette. No. Not at all. Because actually, he was pretty sure he could see people in the cigarette smoke, and that packaging definitely said something like Lost Souls.
Conrad resisted the urge to hyperventilate. Obviously, he told himself, he’d decided to become a hallucinating heroin addict yesterday and hadn’t thought to write himself a helpful morning reminder before he went to bed. So he’d just back away from the lunatic, run like hell into the real world, and hope to God—gods?—that the big-ass dog intercepted this freak before he had time to turn his bones to ash.
“I am going now,” Conrad announced, not shaking, because he was twenty-one, thanks very much, though possibly a bit scared shitless. “I am going to buy a hot dog, write this off as roofies in said hot dog, and never speak of it to anyone, ever.”
Eyes on the street, Conrad turned and walked headfirst into an invisible brick wall. He smashed his nose right into it, staggered backward, one cheek raw and slightly bleeding. Behind him, Loki pushed away from the wall and sidled closer, around him, blocking the mouth of the alley.
And alright, Conrad would admit to shaking now. This guy terrified him. He didn’t even move like humans moved. For one thing, his knees looked like they might bend both ways. His eyes glinted like a wolf’s in the afternoon light. And when he smiled, Conrad shoved himself back up against the nearest visible wall as far as he could go in a useless attempt at escape.
Loki grinned. “Sounds fine to me.”
That viper hand flashed out from the pocket of his coat, pressing something glowing into his forehead—and it hurt. It seared, throbbing, stabbing pain, and then something wriggled through his skin, a dry British voice in his head murmuring, “Not exactly what I had in mind at all, Trickster.”
And fuck, this wasn’t exactly what he had in mind either, but it could just go ahead and get the hell out of him right now—no vacancy, occupancy limit one, fire hazard, here be dragons.
But then, all of a sudden, the searing, wriggling, talking pain stopped. Conrad stood barely propped against the wall, shaking in his own skin with little more than a mild headache and somewhere out there, the dog kept barking, louder than a goddamned fire engine—and what the hell was going on?
Loki gave him an affectionate pat on the cheek and stepped back, head cocked toward the baying.
“Shit,” he declared succinctly. “Gotta go.”
“Look, jackass,” Conrad started and staggered toward him. But the creeper just wiggled his fingers at Conrad and—and batted his eyelashes, the bastard—before disappearing.
Poof. Gone.
Conrad turned gingerly, looking down each side of the alley. One way led back to a mostly dead end, blocked by dumpsters and filthy sleeping bags. The other way led out into the world where people meandered past, giving him weird looks.
Just like every other day, he ventured down the street, he told himsel
f. Nothing wrong with the world. And the weird looks were probably just because of his neon green dinosaurs do it from the past T-shirt—only thing he had clean, okay? He just wanted a hot dog, not like he was going out on a date, not that he had dates because of weird shit exactly like this—and flip-flops that, alright, admittedly did not match.
Everything was good. Situation normal. Totally regular day. Nothing to see here, folks, carry on staring. A Norse… semi-god had not popped up out of nowhere muttering to himself. No one had shoved anything glowing and disdainfully British into his skull. That had not just happened. That did not happen to sane, normal type people, and as he was a cardholding member of Sane and Normal, it most certainly had not just happened to him.
Just to be sure, Conrad ventured a timid, “Hello?”
The hot dog vendor gave him the eye.
Right.
Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
The Trickster Edda Page 1
