Loki's Gambit Read online

  Loki’s Gambit I Bring the Fire Books 1-6

  Plus In the Balance and Selected Short Stories

  C. Gockel

  Contents

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  WOLVES

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  MONSTERS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  CHAOS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  IN THE BALANCE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  FATES

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  THE SLIP

  The Slip

  WARRIORS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  RAGNAROK

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  THE FIRE BRINGERS

  The Fire Bringers

  SOMEDAY MY COUNT WILL COME

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Appendix

  Also by C. Gockel

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2019

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and locations are either a product of the authors’ imaginations or used in a fictitious setting. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, organizations, or people, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. No part from this book may be used or reproduced without written consent from the authors.

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this book with another person, please have them download their FREE copy. If you are reading this book and did not download it from a digital retailer, or it was not downloaded for your use only, please return to an online book retailer and download your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

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  WOLVES

  I Bring the Fire Part 1

  Amy Lewis is on her way to her grandma’s house. She is being chased by a very bad wolf.

  Galaxies away Loki is waking up in a prison cell, strangely without a hangover, and with no idea what he’s done wrong — this time anyway. But he does know Thor is hiding something, Odin is up to something wicked, and there seems to be something he’s forgotten...

  In this urban fantasy tale that is equal parts “Another Fine Myth,” “American Gods,” and “Once Upon a Time,” a very nice midwestern girl and a jaded, mischievous Loki must join forces to outwit gods, elves, magic sniffing cats, and nosy neighbors. If Loki can remember exactly what he’s forgotten and Amy can convince him not to be too distracted by Earthly gadgets, her boobs, or three day benders, they just might pull it off...

  Chapter 1

  The gas station bathroom off route 44 is completely lined with white tiles. Overhead a fluorescent light buzzes and flickers. The bathroom smells like urine and Pinesol. A toilet with a cracked seat sits on one side of the little room. On the other is an ancient sink, hanging off the wall.

  The toilet is unoccupied. The sink is not. In it is a writhing wet creature about the size of a dachshund but heavier set and tailless, with short, dark gray fur interspersed with tufts of light gray. Holding the creature under a cloud of foul smelling, antiseptic soap bubbles from the bathroom dispenser is Amy Lewis.

  A splash of suds comes right at Amy’s eyes. Blinking, she looks up at the mirror above the sink. Her long dishwater blonde hair is wet and plastered to her head where it isn’t pulled back in a messy ponytail. Her wide blue eyes have dark circles from lack of sleep — she got up early to start the trip from Oklahoma to Chicago. She’s not wearing any makeup. She should not care; no one will see her out here. But she wishes she was wearing some under-eye concealer. Her nose has a large soap sud on it. Her wide lips are slightly chapped. She looks like she’s been in her car for a week, not a few hours, and she looks far older than her twenty-four years.

  Looking down with a sigh, Amy says, “Why, Fenrir? Why?”

  Fenrir, the creature, makes a non-committal yip. Some of Amy’s fellow vet school classmates insist that Fenrir is most likely a capybara, a large, tailless guinea pig-like rodent native to South America. But Fenrir’s nose is far too narrow and rat-like for her to b
e a capybara. Other classmates have suggested that Fenrir is, in fact, a giant rat. However, her front teeth are not rodent teeth. Fenrir is a dog...and Amy and one of her professors did a DNA test just to prove it.

  A few minutes ago Amy was walking Fenrir outside the gas station. Letting herself take a break from the long drive, Amy had idly watched the sparse traffic whiz by. When she felt the jerking of Fenrir’s leash, it was too late. Fenrir was already joyfully rolling in something that would have been easier to identify before it had wandered onto the freeway, before whatever-it-was had cooked for a few days under a sweltering Great Plains sun.

  “It’s okay.” Amy sighs. “I know why you did this.” Animal psychology is somewhere between a hobby and an obsession for most vet wannabes. Lifting up the still soapy, still wiggling dog, she says, “You want to be a great big bad wolf. So you rolled on a dead thing to smell like your prey.” It’s a common behavior among dogs. And possibly rats.

  Fenrir yips enthusiastically and licks Amy’s nose.

  “Ugh.” Wincing away from the smell of roadkill, Amy sets the dog on the floor. As Fenrir tears around the little room, Amy pulls off her fleece sweater. She’s just trying to wrap it around the little animal when a knock comes at the door.

  “Just a minute,” she calls, scooping up the animal. The knock turns to a pound.

  Hurriedly opening the door, she comes face to face with a middle-aged man with a puffy face and blond, almost white hair. Fenrir immediately starts growling and tries to lunge out of her arms.

  Despite Amy’s ferocious guardian, the man’s eyes go directly to her chest. It’s something Amy is used to. She is generously endowed, which is why she tends to wear large shapeless shirts. They make her look fat, but it is better than the stares. Now she is only wearing a slightly damp tee shirt. Pulling Fenrir’s wet body protectively in front of her, Amy says, “I am so sorry she’s growling. Really, she hardly ever does this.”

  Hunching slightly over her growling protector, Amy goes to the side and makes to slip by. The man does not move.

  Amy can tell from Fenrir’s growl and frantic wiggling that the dog is close to foaming at the mouth. “Shhhh...” Amy says. “I am so sorry,” she says to the man. “She’s normally not like this.”

  Well, normally Amy’s dog isn’t actively trying to lunge at people, but Fenrir isn’t precisely friendly, especially not towards males.

  Outside a horn honks. The man looks over his shoulder and then steps out of the way.

  As Amy walks by him, he calls out, “Are you traveling by yourself?”

  The hairs on the back of Amy’s neck stand on end. She turns to look at the man. He is smiling. It’s a perfectly innocuous smile. She lies anyway. “No.”

  His smile widens as he closes the bathroom door. Fenrir makes a gurgling noise like she’s choking on her own fury and nearly jumps out of Amy’s arms.

  Squeezing her tight, Amy says, “Really trying to live up to your namesake today?”

  Amy’s grandfather was a folklore buff. In Norse mythology, Fenrir was the wolf child of the Norse God of Mischief, Loki. The real Fenrir was so vicious that the gods bound him to a tree on a remote uninhabited island — but someday Fenrir is supposed to be the downfall of Odin, the head of the Norse gods himself.

  Eyeing the door, Fenrir just growls.

  A few minutes later Amy’s in her Toyota Camry, releasing the clutch, tearing out of the gas station and on her way.

  It’s 768 miles from Stillwater to Chicago, mostly open road and farm land. It’s about a twelve hour drive most times — and totally worth it.

  The Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, is one of the best veterinary schools in the country and she’s got a full ride. But she’s spent every spring and summer since high school graduation with her grandparents in Chicago. There are lots of jobs in Chicago, and Amy’s full-ride doesn’t pay for things like rent, food, books, and the always mysterious ‘miscellaneous fees’ universities charge. Amy goes to Chicago to work during breaks. With occasional work as a tech for a veterinarian in Stillwater, she manages just to coast by.

  Slipping a CD into the player, Amy cranks down the window. It’s not so bad to have her fleece pullover off. Heat is beginning to rise off the freeway in waves. With the window down she’s comfortable and the smell of wet Fenrir isn’t as overpowering.

  She glances over at her companion belted into a safety harness in the front seat. Fenrir’s fur is starting to dry and she looks more like a rodent-like dog than dog-like rodent. As near as Amy and her vet-wannabe friends can determine, Fenrir is a mix of toy poodle and chihuahua, somehow minus a tail. Fenrir’s fur couldn’t decide to be chihuahua or poodle, so it’s both, some places long and some places short. As it dries this oddity becomes more prominent. Her ex-boyfriend summed up Fenrir as, “Carlos meets princess, a love story gone terribly wrong.”

  You can’t even say Fenrir is so ugly she’s cute. She’s just ugly. And with her less than charming personality, no one would have adopted Fenrir if Amy hadn’t, which is why Amy had to.

  Shifting into fifth gear, Amy says, “Well, despite the jackknifed semi in Tulsa that held us up 3 hours, and your little diversion, looks like we’ll be home by midnight. Still on schedule.”

  Fenrir turns her panting muzzle in Amy’s direction as though she’s laughing at her.

  After two more traffic jams, road construction, and some pit stops for Fenrir that might have been roadkill-induced, it’s close to midnight and they’re not even in Illinois. As Amy drives through Mark Twain National Forest, she is not the only one the road, but company is few and far between. Trees rise up on either side of her. The air coming in the open windows is humid and hot.

  Beside her Fenrir whines.

  Biting her lip, Amy says, “I told you...and I told Grandma, we’ll stop for the night outside of St. Louis.” She should have stopped earlier — but she didn’t want to deviate from her plan. Get home. Get a job. Work.

  Granted, that careful planning could be undone by death. Despite the coffee she’s been drinking all day, she’s tired. She’s getting to that stage of sleepiness when reminding her brain that if she falls asleep, she’ll die, is no longer working. Her brain is rebelling, reminding her if she dies she’ll be asleep. Blessed, wonderful sleep.

  Amy grabs a CD from the armrest and holds it up near the steering wheel — Nine Inch Nails, Pretty Hate Machine. Totally retro, but with enough angst and anger to do the job.

  Glancing down quickly, she hits the eject button and pulls out her current disc. As she lifts her head, an orange light in the trees catches her eye. Almost certain it’s a forest fire, she briefly turns her head. It is a jet of flame, reaching high up into the sky...

  And then it is gone.

  She turns back to the road and sees two small lights ahead on the road. It takes a few moments for her brain to register it’s a deer’s eyes.

  Braking and swerving quickly, Amy lets out a quick breath as her tires skid across the gravel on the shoulder. An old memory kicks in and she turns into the skid, but not fast enough. Her car slides into a shallow ditch on the side of the road. The next thing she knows the world is turning over, her neck jerking back and forth, her seatbelt cutting into her chest and hips. There is the sound of crumpling metal from the roof, and a loud crack from the windshield as it caves inward. The glass doesn’t shatter completely, but it cracks into hard splinters that knock into Amy’s hands. With a cry she pulls her hands away from the wheel. And then it’s just the sound of her breathing as she and Fenrir hang upside down by their seat belts.

  Amy swallows. It’s hard to think, her heart is beating so fast and so loud. Don’t cars sometimes catch fire in the movies when they tip over? That’s probably overdramatized. Or not.