by Danny Bell
“Hey, look, that all might’ve seemed a little crazy back there, and I know some of that might’ve looked strange or unexplainable,” I started, trying to break the silence as we got clear of the area. “Is there anything you want to ask me?”
“Are you regularly that suicidally stupid or was this a special occasion?” she yelled at me.
“I meant maybe more about the talking snakes or my magic shield-”
“Pull over!” Bilyana yelled again in frustration.
I’d never seen her like this, and it was kind of freaking me out, so I did as she asked.
“Give me your phone. They took mine, and I need to check in with Freyja.”
“Wait! You knew?” I shouted in return as I parked.
“That Geffen is Freyja? Yeah, big surprise. Phone now.”
I pulled out my phone and unlocked it, only to have it snatched out of my hand the moment that I did. To say that Bilyana didn’t look happy would be like saying midnight didn’t look sunny. “Stay in the car, and don’t listen.”
I stayed in the car and didn’t listen. I’m pretty she could’ve folded me into her wallet and spent me on a sandwich and being held at gunpoint could be stressful. She could take all the time she needed, I was cool following that order.
Bilyana was animated, if nothing else. I imagined for most people, a conversation with Freyja, on the phone or otherwise, was a harrowing experience. I could recognize that I was maybe a tad desensitized to the idea of speaking with gods, though I really wished I wasn’t. I couldn’t imagine that was going to be good for my long-term health, mental or otherwise. Still, Bilyana was agitated. Her body language was all over the place, but her face told another story. She was worried, but about what, I couldn’t say. Her friends? Freyja?
When she wrapped up the call, I tried my best to pretend like I hadn’t been watching her the whole time as she opened up the passenger side door and tossed my phone back into my lap. Bilyana squeezed into her seat and stared ahead. “I’m sorry for yelling at you before,” she said finally. “And for calling you suicidally stupid, that was uncalled for. There’s just this side of me that’s quick to go to places like that, and I usually do a better job of keeping it under control.”
“It’s cool. I get that, I give off that vibe sometimes.” I shrugged, trying to release some of the tension in the air as I started the car. “One time, I dared an entire city of trolls to put me in a stew.”
Bilyana looked as if her heart skipped a beat before replying. “Trolls are real?”
I looked down the road as we pulled off. “Well, yeah. I would’ve figured that would be a given, considering recent events and our mutual boss.”
“Your boss,” she corrected harshly. “We are worshippers.”
“Your whole team, are you serious?”
Bilyana shook her head. “Not James, but that is another story. Otherwise, yes. You know who she is and yet you act as an associate. Your business with her is confusing to us.”
“Wish I could tell you, Billy, but you know what she’s like,” I told her. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Maybe,” she mused. “I think I could take a Wizard.”
I gave her a sidelong look for as long as I was comfortable taking my eyes off the road. I’d never actually try to kill her, but she seemed to take the idea in stride. Freyja did insist once that I kill her brother, and talking her out of it hadn’t been easy, so I could see why Bilyana took me at my word. “So, you picked up on that?”
“It would make more sense that Freyja sent a Wizard on her errands than a vanilla human.”
“You know, I quite like humans,” I remarked. “Some of my favorite people are humans. What’s that make you, then? Assuming you’re not so low on the food chain as the rest of us.”
“Zadnik!” she nearly spat, some of that anger from earlier creeping back in.
“Never heard of those. Are Zadnik anything like trolls?”
Bilyana’s voice came out as something close to a snarl. “I am just as human as you are.”
Aside from the strained hum of my car engine, the car went uncomfortably silent after that for a minute, both from what I assumed was whatever part of what I just said that had offended her and from my inability in that moment to apologize in a way that didn’t dismiss what I found offensive about her statement.
“Where am I taking you?”
“Home. She’s taken me out of the game,” Bilyana replied coolly.
“You got fired?” I breathed. Someone losing their job because of me was the last thing I needed on my conscience right now. I had bigger fish to fry, sure, but feathers and camel’s backs and all that.
“No, I still have a job, and my life, apparently.” She sighed. “You mind taking me to Inglewood?”
I chuckled at that. “I just stared down two snake monsters and a couple of dozen trained killers with guns, I’m not worried about driving through Inglewood.”
“Christ! I didn’t ask for your racist ass opinion on my neighborhood, I just meant because it was out of the way!” Bilyana exclaimed. “Have you seen your car? No one wants to steal this boat anyway.”
“Goddamn, that did come out pretty racist, didn’t it? I’m sorry. Genuinely,” I immediately blurted out. I didn’t mean it like that, but having grown up here, I knew Inglewood as a less than ideal place to live. In high school, a friend of mine was nearly beaten to death in Inglewood, and the stories I’d heard since then weren’t much better. I might not have meant anything by it, but given the history of the city, I understood why she took it that way and why it was wrong of me to say. One way or another, I’d just insulted her neighborhood without seeing it, which wasn’t great.
The truth was that now that we were away from the water, this summer night was hot enough that I was having trouble focusing, which wasn’t the best excuse for saying something horrifically insensitive, but still. This whole uncomfortable conversation made me realize, though, that I knew virtually nothing about Bilyana. To date, I knew that she was a Bulgarian the size of an eighties action movie star who ate any food I’d ever offered her, and now that I’d been in a car with her, I could add that she smelled oddly like a Christmas tree lot. I didn’t know that it’s the right scent for me, but I guess I could see the appeal. But all of this buried the headline, and that was that she worshipped Freyja.
Part of me wanted to ask her about that. Did she have faith in Freyja before she knew the goddess was real, or had Freyja discovered her somehow, maybe even chosen her? Did Freyja consider Bilyana a priestess, perhaps, or was she just a foot soldier? I somehow doubted that was the case, because however rudely I might have phrased it earlier, I’d had an inkling that there was something up with all of them, save maybe James. The sheer blandness of him might have been what threw me off, but even then, each of them felt different. Take a hodgepodge of weird and hide it behind guns, and you’d be forgiven for not being able to place your finger on it. Now, with a little one-on-one time with her, I was starting to see it.
There was no sense in trying to theorize what she was, just like there was no right way to ask her about her religious beliefs. I simply hadn’t earned the right to do so, and worse than that, I’d offended her more than once. Yeah, watching me was her job, but she’d always been kinder to me than she probably had to, and I’d probably made her regret that tonight.
“Take a right on Rosecrans,” Bilyana said, taking me out of my head for a moment. I nodded and put my blinker on out of habit despite no one else being on the road with us. “Hey, you know you don’t have to antagonize everyone who threatens you, right?” I wondered to myself if Bilyana meant herself or the talking snakes, but she answered my question for me. “Freyja would have negotiated our release. We would have been freed by morning. She rewards loyalty. Nothing was going to happen.”
“Well, I didn’t know all that,” I sighed.
Bilyana surprised me by laughing. “No, and you stood up to everyone anyway. A Wizard, chosen by Frey
ja, willing to fight an army for the lives of a handful of soldiers you probably don’t even like very much. You must be fearless, because Freyja isn’t a fan of stupid.”
“Well, I’m definitely not fearless,” I muttered.
“Right up behind the green one,” she said offhandedly as I parked the car outside a rundown apartment building. I winced looking at the tenement. I thought I’d lived in a dump in college, but seeing this place made me wonder how exactly Freyja rewarded loyalty, because if this was what Bilyana could afford, I didn’t think the answer was “financially.”
Bilyana undid her seatbelt, which looked as though it might’ve been cutting off her circulation, and turned to face me. “I’m just saying I recognize what you tried to do, and I’m sleeping in my bed tonight instead of the floor of a warehouse, so I’m grateful.”
“No worries, and I’m really sorry if I was a dick back there, I was out of line. Are we cool?”
“We’re cool if you want to be.” She shrugged. “Besides, I almost feel bad for how much worse your night is going to get. I might as well give you a pass.”
Bilyana unfolded herself out of the car and stretched, looking relieved to be out of my cramped space.
“What do you mean it’s going to get worse?” I called out of the car to her. She took her time, gingerly enjoying the act as her hands outstretched towards the night sky. “Hey! Why would it get worse?”
She leaned down, making her eyes level with mine as she looked at me through the passenger side window. “Because in about five minutes, I’m starting my unexpected vacation with a hot bath, followed by all the sleep I want, but you…” She took a second to let that part hang in the air, before smacking the roof of my car to punctuate her point, and I knew what was coming next. “You have to explain to Freyja why you failed.”
Chapter Seven
“Just press the screen,” I said to myself. The air in my car was getting stuffy as I just sat in the driver’s seat, dumbly staring at my phone. Why are my thumbs itchy? Jesus, do I already have high blood pressure problems? I’m too young for that. “Dumb little button on a screen. She knows you’re around, you gotta do it, gotta press that button.”
I had thought saying it out loud would make me more confident, but I just failed a Norse deity. Correction, a Norse deity who had a ton of leverage on me. And even if she hadn’t, I remembered some pretty rough stories of what could happen to folks like me in these sorts of situations. I preferred my intestines to stay inside me, thank you very much. Not that I thought it would come to that, at least not really, but I still wasn’t expecting anything fun.
The phone was ringing before I could stop myself. It was answered before the first ring completed.
“I expect you’re ready to explain yourself.” Freyja’s voice was curt and just as withering over the phone as if she’d been in the car with me.
“Yeah, definitely, it uh, went a direction that was bad. But maybe it’s better if we talk face-to-face?”
“We’ll talk now. I’m leaving the city. I’ll be in Sweden this time tomorrow.”
Her words and the gravity of what they implied weighed down on me like a lead blanket, and I felt queasy in that instant. If she wasn’t physically here, what did that mean for the protection she offered?
“Why are you leaving? Why now?” My voice was slightly higher than I was comfortable with, and I forced it down.
“Why?” Freyja asked incredulously. “Because of you, that’s why! Because if I stay in Los Angeles, it will cause a war that I frankly do not have the time or patience for!”
I glanced up at the apartment building Bilyana entered and wondered just what the hell she said to Freyja. “I am so, so lost right now.”
“In time,” Freyja replied, the tightness returning to her voice. “First, I want to know everything so that I might determine where your mission went so wrong. Go.”
“Okay, well, I entered the warehouse and—”
“Perhaps I was not clear,” she interrupted. “Everything. Every detail. When did you arrive, what did you see? All of it.”
That was fair. Freyja wasn’t the type to become agitated, and I didn’t know what details may or may not be important, so I got into it. I mentioned how I prepared for the evening, the time we left, and even what songs I sang to my singing stone along the way and that we even harmonized a bit. I freely admitted to taking the long way, something I wouldn’t have done in hindsight if I knew I would be explaining myself later. I even relayed what I could remember about the lone guard who walked off and the contents of the container, but it wasn’t until I mentioned the mysterious stranger that I really seemed to have her attention.
There was something impatient in her voice. “Did he give you a name? Describe him in as much detail as you can.”
“I don’t know that they were a he at all, actually,” I replied, trying to remember. “Or a she for that matter. I wouldn’t have a guess as to their gender, but I’ll tell you what I remember. They were a head taller than me at least and combat trained. I was knocked down and out of commission almost before I knew what was happening. And they knew you’d sent me. They mentioned you by name in fact. They wore a white mask too, like something out of an anime. It was white with red painted lines and ears like a dog or a fox or something. Once they had the box with the plate in it, they vanished out the back.”
“Anything else?” Freyja prodded, and I took a beat before responding.
“Yeah, they had these intense blue eyes behind the mask, they scared me for a moment. And there was a strong magic in the air, but I can’t say for sure if it was coming from them or not.”
Freyja grunted slightly, which may or may not have been related to my answer. “So, then you came away with nothing?”
“I wouldn’t say nothing,” I replied defensively. “I managed to pull a bit of hair from their scalp, I’m going to scry for them later.”
“Very good, and the results of that attempt will confirm or deny my theory that you encountered a Kitsune. Though, if you managed to even touch the hair of one that had the drop on you, that would be no small miracle in and of itself.”
“A Kitsune?” I asked, perking up. “Like, a magic fox person?”
“Well, someone has been keeping up with her studies.”
“Yeah, that’s me.” I sighed. “I’ve read a book or two.”
“Then I’m sure you know that if you scry for a centuries-old being of pure magic, your results will be quite interesting.”
We were getting away from something important, and I put away the thought of why a Kitsune would need to dress like a cat burglar or how they knew about me and Freyja and forced us back on track. “So that wasn’t the only weirdness of the night. I also saw these talking snakes, looked like they were possessing people. Any ideas there?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line before Freyja answered. “Bilyana reported as much. Elana, do you remember the terms of our arrangement? How your enemies would become mine?”
I didn’t like where this was going.
“The deal swung both ways. My enemies would become yours as well, and I fear we have angered one. The storm god, Susano-o.”
“And here I thought we agreed that I didn’t have a god fighting constitution,” I deadpanned.
“You would do well to take this seriously, your obligations have not been met,” Freyja chided. “My working theory is that this Kitsune learned of my plans somehow, allowed you to get close enough to the artifact that you wouldn’t be able to explain your presence, and after reporting your intended theft, Susano-o dispatched Yamata no Orochi to deal with you.”
The Orochi was another one I knew from my studies, but that didn’t make a whole lot of sense, that wasn’t what I saw. “The giant eight-headed snake monster?”
“Pray you never meet that particular version,” Freyja replied. “You have read the story, I presume?”
“Yeah. Susano-o kills this hydra-looking thing, takes a sword out of its butt
, and gives it to his sister. The sword, not the butt,” I replied, remembering my moment earlier in the evening. “But I didn’t see no hydras, just a whole lot of guns and a couple of Kaas.”
“Kaas?” Freyja asked impatiently.
“You know, like the Jungle Book? Talking snake with weird eyes?” I asked, already feeling stupid for making a Kipling reference to a Norse goddess. Sitting in my car in Inglewood. In front of a shitty apartment. In the middle of the night. After I screwed up really bad. Time and place, Elana. Time and place.
“There is far more to Yamata no Orochi than what you saw in that bedtime story. It is one creature that becomes more than the sum of its parts.”
“Like the Megazord in Power Rangers,” I said, immediately wishing I’d gone with Voltron.
“I think we can agree that you have exhausted the number of pop culture references appropriate for this conversation, yes?”
I swallowed, mildly embarrassed to be called out like that in the middle of what was certainly shaping up to be bad news. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
Freyja continued as if the interruption hadn’t occurred. “There are eight mystical snakes capable of granting power to eight individuals, each one with a different magical focus, and each snake is more than enough to be considered your match. They form a symbiotic bond with their host, making use of their bodies.”
“Why would anyone do that?” I asked, genuinely concerned. “Letting a snake into your body and sharing real estate?”
“Why does anyone ever make deals for power?” she asked with an unreadable emotion at the edge of her question. “They’re angry or desperate or filled with greed. Whatever they’re promised is never worth the cost. Demons, tricksters, or gods, it doesn’t matter who is making the deal. The price is always too high.”
“Always?” I asked in spite of myself.
