I Bring the Fire Part V: Warriors Read online

  As Valli straightens, Bohdi gets a closer look at him. The resemblance to Loki is uncanny. There is the same sharpness of nose, the hint of ginger in his hair, and the same gray eyes that Bohdi remembers from the Loki he saw in Nornheim. But where Loki was built like Bohdi, a little too lean, a little too narrow in the chin, this guy, in Bohdi’s mostly straight guy opinion, is a lot better looking. He has a heftier jaw, he’s not as pale, his shoulders are broader, and he looks a lot more built. He wouldn’t look out of place in a men’s fashion magazine.

  Bohdi decides he doesn’t like him. Also, the guy makes his nose itch.

  The other guy clears his throat, and Bohdi’s eyes snap to him. He looks almost exactly like Valli, although perhaps with a little less ginger in his hair. Bohdi doesn’t think he likes him either. And he also makes his nose itch.

  “Valli, Mother, I think we need to disappear,” the guy says.

  Bohdi glances beyond them. A crowd is milling closer, and a couple of black suited agents are approaching.

  With a huff, Amy pulls out her badge. Waving it, she says, “Just a misunderstanding; these people are with us.”

  The agents nod and turn away.

  “How do you know who I am?” asks Sigyn, as Amy turns back around.

  “We can talk about it some other time.” Amy turns to her grandmother. “I want to go for a walk. Before they find out.” There’s something hysterical in her voice that makes Bohdi step toward her in alarm … to do what, he’s not sure. Amy doesn’t do hysterical, not when she’s being attacked by flying zombies, acid-spitting Archeopteryx, dragons, or the Allfather himself.

  From behind him Sigyn, says, “If it’s the Allfather you fear, he may already know.”

  Amy looks down at Fenrir’s carrier. “No, it’s not …” Closing her eyes she says, “You should stay here and protect Steve.”

  “The Dark Elves surrounding us will do that,” says Valli in a cheerful voice.

  Bohdi, Amy, and Beatrice look around. “I don’t see any pointy ears,” Bohdi says.

  “They cut them off,” says Valli.

  Bohdi squints … he does see a lot of people who are just a little shorter, thinner, and finely proportioned than the typical American.

  “We were only allowed entrance because they know us,” says Loki’s other son.

  “Let us come with you for your walk,” Sigyn says.

  Fenrir must be moving because her carrier jiggles a bit. Amy looks down at it.

  “Maybe it’s a good idea if they come with us, dear,” Beatrice says.

  For a long moment, Amy says nothing. Bohdi takes another step toward her. Taking a deep breath, she says, “Okay, but I need a drink of water first.” She thrusts Fenrir’s carrier into Beatrice’s arms and spins on her heels.

  Beatrice’s eyes get wide. She looks to Bohdi. “She won’t tell me what’s wrong.” Her eyebrows lift slightly.

  Bohdi runs his hands through his hair. Is he supposed to say something?

  Beatrice leans a little closer. “Believe me, I don’t want to ask …” She sighs. “But Bohdi, maybe you could try and talk to her?”

  Taking a step back, Bohdi swallows. Beatrice clasps her hands together, opens her eyes wide, and bats her eyelashes, the spitting image of a sweet, hopeful granny ... if it weren’t for the cami pants and the black vest loaded with ammo. Clearing his throat, he says, “Uh … sure?” Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he follows Amy.

  Behind him he hears Beatrice say, “So how do you know Steve?” But a step later he’s out of earshot and doesn’t hear the answer.

  He sees Amy up ahead, bending over the water fountain. He pulls out his lighter and flicks the wheel nervously. He’s suddenly craving a cigarette.

  Amy lifts her head and backs away from the fountain, and then doesn’t move. It strikes him that her normally neat pony tail is off center and looks like she’s been twisting it between her fingers.

  “Amy,” Bohdi says softly.

  Jumping in place, she spins to face him too quickly. And then her shoulders fall. “Sorry for getting weird,” she says, dropping her head.

  Bohdi takes a step closer. “It’s okay.” He swallows and flicks the wheel on his lighter. “Are you alright?”

  She doesn’t answer or look up.

  He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. Okay, that was a stupid question. “I mean, I know it must be weird seeing your boyfriend’s wife here and…” Bohdi stops, and stifles an internal wince. “But it happens, and I’m sure you didn’t know about her and—”

  Not looking at him, Amy says, “He wasn’t my boyfriend, and she was his ex-wife when we were together.” She sighs. “But I was still the other woman.”

  Bohdi shifts on his feet. There’s nothing like talking to your girlfriend, even your pretend girlfriend, about her other pretend boyfriend.

  She shrugs. “Loki still loved her when we were together.”

  He finds himself fighting the urge to flee ... or to argue. She’s always insisted Loki didn’t love her, but he’s sure that she must be wrong.

  She bites her lip and shrugs. “Not that he shouldn’t have. Sigyn is really kind of awesome. She took care of him for two hundred years while he was imprisoned. Not in a submissive, subservient kind of way—but because she knew the charges against Loki were a sham, and because not abandoning Loki was the right thing to do.”

  She sighs and rubs her eyes. “And that wasn’t the only time Sigyn saved him … ”

  x x x x

  Pain is its own realm. Loki lies on his stomach on a cot in the hut of the Dark Elves. His son Nari is sitting on the reeded floor, leaning against the far wall. The old elf, Saugamon, Saraman, or whatever, is somewhere. They are both apparitions. Pain is the only companion that is real.

  He destroyed Andranavuat, but in what he’s sure was a final bit of spite from the ring, he fell into the volcano along with the damnable thing. Valli, idiot that he is, leaped over the volcano’s edge onto some solid boulders and managed to pull Loki from the lava’s scalding surface. Loki’s back and legs are so badly burned his skin melted. The old elf sorcerer said he has no experience with burns this bad; anyone so badly injured simply dies.

  Loki can’t heal another person to save his life—or theirs—still, during his 200 years of imprisonment he became fairly adept at healing his own wounds. But this goes beyond his skill. The old elf says Loki’s magic is what’s keeping him alive despite the odds. He’s afraid to move Loki until his condition is more stable, afraid the waters of the swamp will warp Loki’s magic. If it would guarantee death, Loki’s not sure if he would mind.

  He thinks of the time he spent between torture sessions in Jotunheim. To think he’d look back at that time with nostalgia. He laughs. It comes out a strangled sob. It makes the charred flesh on his back tighten, and then he curses.

  A woman comes into the hut, a wet sheet in her hands, and Nari scrambles to his feet. With the old elven sorcerer, he lifts the shroud already on Loki’s back. Loki squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth. The slight brush of dry fabric burns like fire. If only it were a shroud, a proper funeral shroud, he wouldn’t hurt anymore. He wishes he was better at dying.

  They move the fabric away, and there is nothing but air on Loki’s back, but even that hurts.

  “Hold on, father, hold on,” Nari says. He and the old elf drape the new wet sheet over Loki’s body, and Loki sighs. For a moment, there is clarity and deliverance. Nari comes over and kneels beside his head. “You’re getting better, father. You will recover.” He sounds relieved. And Loki doesn’t really want to die, because it would mean leaving his son behind who wants him to live.

  “I wish my magic was more medicinal,” Nari says.

  Loki tries to smile. “You’re … fine. This is … a bit much … ”

  Nari’s magic tends to be in his charm—but life with Loki and Valli had made him competent at putting out fires and fixing minor burns. Burns this bad … Hoenir could help … he could probably create a
door from his hut to this very place, but only if he knew Loki was here. The only other person who could heal burns this bad …

  Loki closes his eyes and tries to breathe evenly. The cool cloth on his back is warming with his own body heat, the brief relief it granted disappearing.

  The pain starts to eat away at Loki’s consciousness. There is the blackness of his eyelids. A brief time that might be sleep, but pain wakes him too quickly. He feels like every nerve responsible for agony is abuzz. He can’t think of anything beyond hurting ...

  And then he hears Sigyn’s voice. “You will take me to my husband now!”

  Loki almost raises his head before he remembers what that will cost him. It is possible he is hallucinating. Or finally dying.

  He hears shouts, the shuffling of feet beyond the hut, and then there is a shadow at the edge of his vision. He blinks, and Sigyn is kneeling at the head of the cot. She wears the armor of a Valkyrie, including the winged vest. Her golden hair is spilling over her shoulders. She looks like a human painting of an angel, but her skin is more golden than the European ideal.

  “What’s happened to you?” she whispers.

  Loki manages to lift an eyebrow. “Did you know, when you land in lava, you float for a while?”

  Sigyn gasps. Her hands move out of his line of vision, and then he feels her lift the sheet on his back, not quite managing to stifle a pathetic whimper.

  He hears a sharp intake of breath from her. “Oh, Loki … ” He hears her swallow, and then she says, “You’re lucky I brought Thor.”

  “But he’s fighting the Fire Giants,” Loki says. “How did you tear him from the front … ?” He must be dreaming. Thor would never do such a thing.

  “The Black Dwarves joined us, and the Fire Giants were defeated. I pulled Thor from the victory celebrations,” she says, and Loki can hear the bitterness in her voice.

  Pull Thor from a victory celebration? With food, and drink, and countless tales of his valor being repeated ad nauseum? That is unlikely as him leaving the front. Loki is hallucinating.

  “How?” Loki whispers.

  “I reminded him that our sons were still missing and he made an oath long ago to watch over them as his own.” He can hear the tenseness in her jaw as she speaks.

  Loki closes his eyes. He feels a warmth that is not pain growing in his chest. “How did I ever get you on my side?” He tries to reach for her, but stops with a hiss of pain.

  Sigyn huffs softly. All anger gone from her voice, she says, “Loki, I have to lay this sheet down again. I’m afraid it will hurt.”

  “Just get Thor,” Loki says. Thor has had ample opportunity to learn how to heal burns—he inflicted many on himself and others when he was first learning to use his hammer.

  She lays the sheet down gently, and it feels like Loki’s bare back is being dragged over gravel. His eyes shoot open. Biting his lip, he manages to muffle the scream.

  He hears her footsteps retreat. And then her shouting beyond the hut, “Thor can heal his burns! You will let him enter your village!”

  He closes his eyes. He knows she will be successful. Sigyn’s magic is subtle. She does not have one great strength, but many small ones. Her name means victory; and in the end, she always wins.

  x x x x

  Scuffing a foot on the carpeting, Amy sighs. “She’s … very strong, and he loved her … and yes, seeing her is … weird … and a little awkward.”

  Bohdi blinks. She isn’t lying, but ...

  “You’ve been jumpy since before Sigyn arrived.”

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Amy looks away.

  Tilting his head, Bohdi asks, softly, “What’s really wrong?”

  Amy lets out a long breath.

  “Are you afraid the cure won’t work?” Bohdi whispers.

  She closes her eyes. A bitter sounding laugh comes from her lips. “No.”

  “Then what?” Bohdi asks.

  She scuffs her shoe on the carpeting again. And then, meeting his eyes again, she says, “You’re still not a citizen yet.”

  “No—”

  “And they don’t know where you’re from,” she says, her jaw getting tight.

  Bohdi scowls. He’d gone to Nornheim in part to answer that question—and failed. “Don’t rub it in,” he says.

  Amy straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin. Looking away, she says, “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  Bohdi senses no lie. Walking past him, she says, “Come on. Let’s go.”

  Bohdi has to skip to catch up. In his hand his lighter flares.

  CHAPTER 7

  Bohdi must have an internal masochistic streak. He wants a smoke so bad, but as they walk down the street, he doesn’t take out his cigarettes.

  The April day is brisk and windy. Bohdi, Amy, Beatrice, Sigyn and her two boys turn east into the pedestrian tunnel beneath Lake Shore Drive. The tunnel is about as wide as a two-lane highway. The walls and ceiling are stained with runoff from Lake Shore Drive, the corners are littered with trash, including cigarette butts. Bohdi tries not to look at them longingly.

  In front of him walk Amy, Beatrice and Sigyn. Valli, and the other son Bohdi’s learned is Nari, are to his left and right. At the other end of the tunnel are several flights of steps leading up a gentle incline. Atop the incline is a small wooded park, and eventually beyond that, Lake Michigan.

  A wickedly frigid wind whips through the causeway. Bohdi ducks his chin into his coat and digs his hands deeper into his pockets. The wind is so loud it’s nearly deafening, and in the absence of conversation Bohdi finds his mind wandering.

  He glances to Sigyn. He doesn’t feel any connection to her, just the normal heady feeling that comes with being around an attractive woman. His eyes start to drift down her body—the jeans she has on look like they were made for her to wear—they hug her ass just right and … Catching himself he lifts his eyes. He finds Valli and Nari glaring at him.

  Bohdi gives them a wan smile and looks far, far away. They emerge from the tunnel and climb the incline. He sees a road, and the base of a single solitary skyscraper to the south rising through the trees. The park they are in is set on the north side of a two pronged peninsula that juts out into the lake. If they keep walking east, they’ll come to the water filtration plant. Turn south, and they’ll be on the prong that heads over to Navy Pier—a naval station turned amusement center. To their north he can just make out the line of sand marking the beach, completely empty in the chilly weather.

  His eyes flick to Nari and Valli—they appear unaffected by the cold. Bastards. Bohdi feels a weird responsibility to Sleipnir, his eight-legged equestrian sort-of-kid from another life, but he feels nothing for Valli or his brother. Still, the presence of Loki’s family is beginning to make him feel hopeful. Their association with Loki didn’t get them killed. His feet feel a little lighter, and despite the cold, he feels a warmth that might be relief.

  His eyes go to Amy. The wind is whipping her ponytail, and the cold has flushed her cheeks pink. She saved Steve, but Bohdi helped. That makes him kind of good.

  “It’s no secret,” Amy says, walking down a path that leads due east. “I knew Loki. That is how I recognized you.”

  Bohdi feels a little tickle in his nose, but doesn’t sniffle. It’s not a lie really, but not really the whole truth either.

  He hears Sigyn say, “Mmm ...”

  Valli snickers and whispers, “She knew Father … I can guess what that means.”

  Bohdi’s skin heats. Without thinking he whips his hand from his pocket. “Respect!” Bohdi snaps. Lighter in his fist, he brings the blunt end down hard on the back of Valli’s head.

  Valli turns to Bohdi and snarls. “What are you doing, human?”

  Bohdi scowls and brushes his bangs out of his eyes. What is he doing? Overreacting based on an emotional hangover from a past life?

  “Answer me!” Valli growls, nostrils flaring.

  Flicking his lighter, Bohdi’s lip curls. Before he can say somet
hing nasty, Sigyn turns around and snaps, “Mind your manners, Valli!” Beatrice and Amy turn around, looking slightly befuddled. Perhaps they didn’t hear the original comment?

  “How did he even know what I was saying?” Valli says. “I was speaking Asgardian. He was using sorcery!”

  Bohdi’s thumb slips from his lighter, and his jaw drops a little. Valli’s hard drive is obviously low on RAM.

  “No, you were speaking English,” Nari says, sounding a little bemused.

  The snarl on Valli’s face morphs into a beaming smile. “I spoke English? Without thinking! Without using magic?” His head bobs. “I’m finally learning the native language.” He looks to Sigyn and Nari, as though expecting approval.

  Sigyn sighs. “Try to use it to say nice things. And don’t presume to know the association between your father and Dr. Lewis.”

  At the mention of Amy’s name, Beatrice’s eyes go wide and she jabs Valli with her umbrella. “Listen to your mother.”

  Ducking her head, Amy turns away and starts walking again. As Sigyn and the others fall into step with her, Amy says, “You were with Hoenir. I think I remember that … ”

  Taking long, quick steps, Bohdi sidles up to Sigyn. “Odin said you were shot and then burned alive.” He hadn’t sensed a lie at the time, but he’d always presumed she was dead.

  Sigyn raises an eyebrow. “I was shot while trying to help Loki rescue Valli and Nari.”

  “We were executed for the revolution!” Valli says, lifting his chin and flashing Bohdi a wide grin.

  “We weren’t executed,” Nari says. “Odin tried to execute us by casting us into the Void.”

  Valli’s hand goes to his hip. “It’s nearly the same thing.” Bohdi sniffs and stares down at Valli’s hand. Either Valli is a talented mime—or his palm is wrapped around an invisible something.

  “We’re not dead,” says Nari. “So it’s a very different thing, thankfully.” Bohdi blinks and finds Nari’s eyes on him. Nari gives him a sort of apologetic shrug and a smile. There is something about Nari, something that simultaneously makes Bohdi want to like him—even if he is too good looking—and that makes Bohdi’s skin itch.