* * *
Clean again, Conrad emerged from the bathroom wearing a long Ziggy Stardust T-shirt, which was great, and sunflower yoga pants, which was less great. But as he was fairly certain Lily had at some point worn both of these items—possibly to bed—he figured he should probably walk straight out and buy a lottery ticket, get his loans all paid.
While he’d been trying to get at the dirt lodged in his ear canals, Conrad saw Lily had been busy. Not only had she found and inflated an air mattress in the time he’d been showering, she’d cooked.
She sat cross-legged on the mattress, hunched over her laptop and a plate of steak and eggs. Another plate sat unclaimed and steaming at her knee, tendrils of steam beckoning from a perfectly medium-rare hunk of meat, glistening with juices and cuddled right up next to pillows of cheese-strewn, fluffy eggs.
Seeing him, Lily looked up from her own plate of steak and eggs, wordlessly handing him the one at her side with a sort of blush riding the tips of her ears and wow.
This woman.
“So I was thinking about the crows,” she said before he could think of a way to express we hardly know each other and I don’t have a ring but it doesn’t even matter because I am going to marry you just let me just get my toaster you are amazing.
Conrad settled down carefully on the mattress next to her, angling so he could see the computer screen, but really so that their knees touched, and, yes, he was being a wuss about all this, but he did not even care.
“Yeah?” he asked and pretty smoothly. But then he took a bite of the steak and made the most embarrassing noise he had probably ever uttered in a long and varied history of embarrassing noises.
Lily looked at him, the blush questing down from her ears and onto the tops of her cheeks. “Good?”
“I think I love you.”
Lily burst out laughing, which was better than he’d hoped for, because, hey, kind of embarrassing—but all of this and whoa amazing steak with Laundry Girl, who absolutely did not care about the whole Norse gods coming down to kill them thing… Conrad covered up his own raging so-not-a-blush-at-all with, “So what were you saying about the crows?”
Lily smirked at him, that look in her eyes girls sometimes got, usually when there was a circling pack of them about to take down some poor, unsuspecting gazelle. It was pretty disconcerting, especially here, in the middle of the vast, feminine savanna of her apartment.
“I think they’re Huginn and Muninn—Odin’s crows,” she said, pretending she hadn’t just looked like she was going to eat him a second ago. “Only, the stories say they were actually birds. As in, the type that you can fend off with a tennis racket.”
Lily scrolled down the Wikipedia page so he could see the picture of two, decidedly less terrifying seagulls picking at an old guy in some kind of weird, ancient zebra print. Conrad entertained himself briefly with the horrifying notion of facing down the aquiline Vinnie and Guido of Norse mythology wielding only a tennis racket.
“I’d get out the big guns too, dealing with Loki,” he said, not thinking at all about the birds that were probably looking for him right this minute with the intent of scooping his brains or eating his eyeballs or who knew what.
Judging by the look on her face, Lily was thinking that, though.
“That’s what worries me,” she said. “When Loki was at your apartment, he mentioned Mimir.”
Suddenly Conrad’s steak looked a lot less inviting.
“Mimir is a bad thing?” he ventured.
“Mimir is a big thing. A twisted up in politics, even more powerful now that he’s dead, thing.”
Conrad paled. “Oh.”
“Yeah. This says the Vanir killed him before they were really friendly with the Aesir, and that Odin charmed Mimir’s severed head to keep him talking. But it’s impossible to say how true that is. I mean I’ve seen some of what Odin can do and this smells like a set up.”
Conrad had no idea what his face was doing, but apparently it was somewhere along the lines of horrified and aghast because Lily glared at him.
“Super diluted and after seven hundred years in an amulet. And no it wasn’t even mine. Stop looking at me like that, Conrad. I’m not stupid.”
“Where would you even see that kind of thing? I mean, how do you just happen upon something containing the raw energy of a Norse god? Is there a museum for weird-ass, world-altering shit?”
Lily coughed and very pointedly went back to her steak and Wikipedia. “I… happen to know people who do a little work for him on the side. Anyway, he is not so much a nice person, and almost definitely the one after Loki, so—”
“No, no,” Conrad said, waving his fork around to illustrate the point. “Go back. I’m still on the part where this is business as usual.”
Lily shot him a dark look he was not expecting. “It’s what I do, Conrad.”
Oh, crap. Okay. Here be dragons. He could understand that. Today was a total shitstorm so far. But all this… Loki. At least Lily could drop out of this mad house at any time if she wanted, and while he was on the subject, she’d had years to deal with the whole monster under the bed is totally real thing, whereas he’d had maybe five minutes of downtime between running from Loki and trying to pretend this crap wasn’t happening to him, even when it was, so a little less frustration with the guy about to have a mental breakdown would be really great, thanks.
“Thanks for taking a potshot at Loki when you could, anyway,” he said, trying to be rational about all of this. “Because I don’t think either of us will get the chance again, but god do I want to knock his head off.”
No good there, either. Lily flushed, her mouth in a tight, unhappy downturn, staring fixedly at the screen. “That was really, really stupid of me. I should have known a guy projecting absolutely no aura was carrying big league shields for a big league reason.”
“Yeah, well. How often do you happen to bump into sort-of-gods on the run?”
“Oh, more than you’d think. Most gods were pretty randy in their heyday. Just about anyone with magic can claim relation to some god or another,” she said, looking up. “But Loki’s been off the radar for years and years. A few crazies show up now and again claiming to be his chosen one—usually for things like the Grand Appropriation of Cigarettes, and okay, having met the guy now I wouldn’t put it past him—but out of all the players, he’s the last one I expected to meet breaking and entering…”
Lily caught herself and trailed off. Conrad grinned.
“Yeah, no, unexpected breaking and entering pretty much sums him up,” he said.
Maybe his tone was off or something because Lily didn’t relax or smile or anything. She just sighed, hunched over the laptop like it’d suddenly wake up and solve all their problems with a well-placed error message or two, and looked miserable.
“You’re right. Never mind. There is no excuse for me. That was just really stupid.”
“Eat your amazing eggs,” he offered, subdued in the face of her sudden hopelessness. “It helps.”
And then, in the way girls had, she ignored the conversation they were having for the conversation they had been pointedly not having.
“What are we going to do about Mimir?”
“Ignore him and hope he goes away like a wart or something?”
Lily shook her head. “Odin isn’t just going to give up looking for him. I mean, he trapped the guy’s soul in a well for pretty much the last millennium, and according to Loki, you have him.”
Conrad opened his mouth to reply that he absolutely did not have the thing that was going to get them both killed, but somewhere between breathing and speaking an entirely unfamiliar voice doing equally unfamiliar things to his vowels erupted instead.
“It isn’t so much a matter of possession as location, actually,” it drawled, very bored and equally British, before the voice split back into Conrad’s not at all frantic, “Oh god, what was that—that did not just happen.”
Wide-eyed, Lily stared at him. After a
second, she took a deep, steadying breath Conrad was obliged to take with her.
“Did Loki happen to put something into your head, by any chance?” she asked.
“Yeah, actually. A glowing, painful thing and, oh god, there is an old British guy inside my head.”
“Oh, don’t be so alarmist,” the voice crackled out of his mouth like a broken radio alarm clock changing channels at three in the morning. “It’s hardly the event you’re making it out to be.”
“Yes, well, you’re not the one being possessed, are you, Mr. Disembodied Voice?” Conrad snapped. Except, more or less, he snapped it at himself and, whoops, there went one of his last major anchors to sanity.
The company in Crazy Town was good at least.
Lily shook her head and said, as if it were a perfectly rational thing to be saying, “It isn’t possession. He’s manipulating your nervous system, not using you as a flesh puppet.”
Conrad blinked, disgusted out of his impending breakdown. “Could you have made it more disturbing?”
Only, his impending breakdown started right back up again when the Figment Who Wasn’t laughed as he talked, both sounds coming out of his mouth at the same time, and he’d never been stabbed by an electrified earthworm before, but Conrad kind of suspected this was what it’d feel like.
“Crude metaphor,” the Figment Who Wasn’t said. “But an effective illustration, at least.”
Conrad figured he must look terrified or thereabout, because Lily shot him a commiserating smile that said, I am so sorry, it sucks to be you in such a massive way.
“Look,” he muttered to the thing occupying his head, “could you stop doing that?”
“Sorry, but no. I’m afraid we’re stuck together. Given that Loki hasn’t returned to reclaim you yet, he’s probably gone and got himself into even deeper trouble.”
Lily looked up from her eggs, frowning. “You’re on… his side?”
“Is that so shocking?” his head tenant chuckled, and Conrad was almost positive he aged eighty years from proximity. “Yes, actually. He is attempting to obtain a usable body for me, at my request.”
“Well, you can’t have mine,” Conrad snarled. “So get out.”
“I can do many things, boy, but at the moment, self-locomotion is not one of them. As I said, we are stuck together.”
For her part, Lily kept eating as if this sort of thing happened to her all the time.
“How close is he to getting you this body?” she asked. And then, probably after considering Loki’s spectacularly questionable morality. “And where is he getting it from?”
“As I understand it, he was able to restore my old body to working order, head and all. However, for reasons that do not bear exploring, I wasn’t actually in my head at the time, and my body is now… unfortunately elsewhere.”
“You mean you were off taking the metaphorical piss and Odin stole your body, huh?” Conrad asked.
Mimir went quiet. A sullen silence followed in which Lily gave Conrad a look he wagered meant he’d just done something wrong.
Whatever.
“That is unfortunately similar to what occurred, yes,” Mimir muttered. “Odin suffers from separation anxiety, I believe it’s called. Dislikes anyone leaving. He’s really quite a child when it comes to things like that. No doubt you’ve heard what he did to Loki when Loki left Asgard?”
Fork halfway to her lips, Lily stopped and stared at Conrad’s head. If he could have, at that moment, Conrad would have stared at his head too.
“Ah, well, anyway,” the voice picked up again, clearing his borrowed throat. “Your chances of survival will be greatly improved should you ask the Fates to intervene. One was always rather fond of Loki. June, I believe she calls herself now.”
“June,” Conrad asked, incredulously. “You mean like, one of the Fates who decide destiny, right? And her name is June?”
Mimir sniffed.
“Yes.”
Looking thoughtful, Lily put her fork down and settled the plate back onto the air mattress.
“Well,” she asked, ever the diplomat. “How would we speak with her?”
Conrad could feel Mimir shift in his head and it was absolutely the strangest bodily experience it was ever his misfortune to actually, well, experience.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. In my day it involved a nice sacrifice, a lot of runes, string, and a fresh spring cabbage. I suspect they’ve grown bored with that by now, but I couldn’t tell you what they prefer.”
Okay. What? Norse gods, fine. Conrad could believe in Norse gods. All kinds of people made up all kinds of gods. Who was he to say one set existed and another didn’t?
Walking, talking, human-shaped birds? Sure. Have some walking, talking, human-shaped birds. If Norse gods existed, why couldn’t the giant birds who worked for them?
Fairies, even. Creeping, nasty, yellowed things that looked like they seen a thousand wars, oozing through the shadows with their huge, sharp teeth—he’d even believe in those.
But somehow, summoning Fates with cabbage?
Yeah.
Try the other leg.
“Email, maybe?” Lily ventured. “Loki seems pretty well in the modern age. He… er, really enjoyed eating all your Cheetos anyway, Conrad. Called it chemical-laden swill and a blessing of the modern age.”
Conrad roused from his nonsense-induced coma, blinking and spluttering into the light.
“He what? When did this happen?”
“You were in the shower,” she said. And then, with a sour look, “He apologized for the ‘bird incident,’ as he called it.”
“Well, so long as he apologized for almost getting us killed. I guess everything’s just sunshine and leprechauns now, then.”
“He also drank all the Mountain Dew, chugged down a Red Bull in about a second, and ran out of the apartment shaped like a rat. It took about five minutes, all total.”
“Oh, god,” Conrad moaned and flopped over, his head landing dangerously close to the laptop and very nearly into his fluffy pile of eggs.
“I would suggest you not say that too loudly,” Mimir advised, far too amused for a brain parasite.
Conrad stared at the laptop, trying to think of a way out of this. He did not want this old guy in his head anymore. He could feel his… his manly essence shriveling up and drying out with age the longer this old fart talked at him. Pretty soon he was going to be drinking prune juice and watching Antiques Roadshow while he knitted lace doilies for his china cabinet, but wait—wait.
A stroke of brilliance hit him. The laptop. That was it. They had rocks before. Rocks and mountains and bits of land that were holier than other bits of land. But here, now, the computer was the shrine of the modern age. The Fates wouldn’t use email. No, they couldn’t. Using email would mean eventually they’d have to sift through ads for Viagra and weight loss pills, and the women who ran the universe would absolutely not sift through spam.
So it would have to be a system that couldn’t be accessed accidentally. Just like it wouldn’t have really been possible to accidentally happen to kill a deer in just the right section of wherever, who knew how long ago. This system would have to be the sort puny humans could only wander into if they knew where and what they were doing. But it would have to be simple. Because hell, once upon a time the creatures holding the entire universe together had been happy with string and cabbage.
Conrad sat up.
Fate. F8. The F8 system command key. That was how people who needed to get in, got in. It had to be!
Without waiting for a more coherent thought to show up, Conrad punched the off button on Lily’s laptop until, grumbling, it finally obliged and shut down.
“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning.
Conrad grinned. He was going to be the hero in this screwed up fairy tale if it killed him.
“I have an idea. This is going to work, or I am going to make it work.”
Wheezing and complaining all the way, the computer finally heave
d back into life. Before it could turn over into the normal startup screen, Conrad punched the F8 key about twenty-seven times in rapid succession.
Windows Advanced Options, the screen read. Use Arrow Keys.
Squinting at the little block letters, he scrolled through the list of options, looking for anything he didn’t recognize, looking for anything at all that could have a double meaning. He found one. Just one.
Enable VGA mode.
Odd. Conrad punched the curser down and clicked it. The screen blanked. He pressed F8 about eighty million times again for good measure. A new screen came up, and did he win at life or what?
Venerable God Alert mode activated, it read. Enter request.
Conrad typed, June.
The cursor blinked. And blinked. And blinked some more. Conrad frowned and turned to shrug sort of apologetically at Lily. He’d gotten them this far, but hey, obviously he was only slightly higher than the Grand Appropriator of Cigarettes on the Chosen One food chain. Except, just when he decided to throw in the towel and go back to his quickly cooling eggs, a word appeared on the screen.
What?
“Oh my god, you did it,” Lily whispered, watching over his shoulder in wide-eyed shock, totally impressed. Coming from a girl who could glow? Pretty big ego boost right there. Conrad loved the look on her face. Wanted to see it all the time—wanted to kiss her, right here, right now, but this was probably not the time or the place, even though she kind of looked like she wanted to kiss him too. But then, maybe she didn’t. Maybe she had gas or something. Girls were hard to read like that.
“Best not to keep the Fates waiting, boy,” Mimir pressed.
We need your help, Conrad typed.
Obviously, the screen flashed back.
He glanced at Lily, who shrugged and gave him the go ahead, do it quick gesture.
Is this June?
The screen blinked, his last line dangling through cyberspace to something far older and potentially deadly.
Well, you’re not a total noob then, I see, the screen said at last. WTF do you want?
Conrad stopped and stared at the screen. No problem, really. His brain just needed a minute to stop lighting itself on fire and screaming put me out of my misery! Because even worse than the cabbage?
The knowledge that the Fates, the weavers of his life and everything in it, used chat-speak.
“Ask her how well she likes Loki,” Mimir suggested. “Favors change. I could be out of date.”
Shooting Conrad a sort of commiserating look, Lily took her laptop back.
How fond of Loki are you at the moment? she typed.
Why? Has that idiot lost my number again?
And even the great and powerful Witch of the East Oakland Apartment Complex was forced to pause at that.
No, she typed. He’s in trouble.
The curser blinked. It was the same blink as ever, but somehow they got the impression it was laughing.
Srs bsns, I’m sure, the screen scrolled.
“Well, this is going great so far. Guess I’ll plunge right in,” Lily muttered.
He stole Mimir. Odin’s in a pisser. We’re holding the fort while he’s off doing I don’t even want to know what, but we’re not exactly pleased with the odds of our survival.
There was a pause in which Conrad contemplated his eggs.
And then the Fate wrote, Which odds would those be?
Conrad could not hold it in. If he tried to hold it in, he would probably explode. Leaning over Lily’s shoulder, he took the keyboard back and typed, Giant. Fucking. Birds.
“Conrad,” Lily hissed.
“What?” he hissed right back. “They were.”
“And you wonder how you got into this mess in the first place? You have no tact.”
But the cursor blinked and pinged, Fate messaging back, LOL. Alright. I’m faxing you my card. Take it to the Cauldron tonight. Enter through the back door. Dress appropriately. If you embarrass me in front of my sisters, I will sever your existence so completely your entire *bloodline* ceases to exist. Loki is going to be bad enough without his minions running around in neon green and plaid, I swear.
“Fax…?” Lily asked, her nose scrunched up in a totally cute, baffled type way.
But Conrad glared at the screen, stuck back on the fact that he had worn green and plaid the one time when he was out of clean clothes, and now the universe wanted to bitch him out about his fashion sense? That just figured. That really was the sum of his life right there—and holy shit, who set his ass on fire?
He tumbled off the air mattress in a spectacular display of dexterity, wrenching his wallet out from the yoga pants’ single pocket because apparently that was what was burning through his right ass cheek. And Lily laughed at him, which yeah, thanks for that.
She got off the air mattress in a graceful sort of way and crossed the room to open the little silver change purse on the table. A coil of blue smoke unfurled and dissipated from the inside, smelling vaguely of alcohol and pineapple. Lily waved it off, like this was a run of the mill sort of thing, and pulled out a tasteful cream and gold card with raised blue lettering in a language neither of them could read.
“I suppose,” Mimir drawled and, okay, Conrad was getting used to this. “We are going clubbing.”
Lily’s eyes met Conrad’s from across the room. Neither of them flinched, through sheer force of will, but Conrad could tell she really wanted to.
Jeez, Mimir was like what, eighty million years old? Did he have to put it like that? Clubbing? In that really disdainful, English drawl that made it sound like public toilet licking.
BTW, the computer scrolled, catching Conrad’s attention. Bring Loki. And if he’s lost his card again, he can fix his own damn Ragnarok.
Oh yeah, Conrad decided, glancing at Lily with a pained, apologetic smile.
This would be epic.
The Trickster Edda Page 6
