I Bring the Fire Part V: Warriors Page 9

  Gerðr watches them leave. And then she picks up Steve’s hand. The contrast between their skin tones is shocking … and abstract and strange. Steve can see his fingers in hers but he can’t feel anything. It’s like looking at a ghost of himself.

  He looks up to her eyes. She’s crying. Steve’s seen her cry before all of once, when she discovered that a World Gate on Des Plaines Avenue would take her to her home world—but it led to the impassable Southern Wastes, and she couldn’t use it to go home.

  She cradles his hand to her cheek, and he sees the tears collect on his fingers.

  He seriously considers calling Dale.

  He sees her swallow. “Of everyone who has ever …” She takes a deep breath. “I … safer, protected here better than anywhere.”

  Steve’s jaw falls. Mostly, Gerðr seems to make it a practice to be as mean, nasty, and unapproachable as possible. He takes a breath. He doesn’t know what to say. Gerðr’s marriage was non-consensual, and as far as he’s been able to gather from intel from Lewis, most of her later liaisons have been. And she’d spent time at Guantanamo …

  “I do not know what I do … without you at Bureau,” she says. The tears fall from her eyes, and this time land on Steve’s cheek.

  As touching as this is, he would rather have this conversation after he’s better.

  “Gerðr,” he says. “You’ll help me?”

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she nods. More tears fall, heavier and faster. “I would … anything. No matter cost.”

  “Then do it,” Steve says.

  Gerðr’s eyes open. She looks oddly hurt. Swallowing, she whispers. “Yes … for you … anything.”

  She puts his hand down and lays it on his chest. Reaching over him, she takes his other hand and lays it on top of the first.

  She can’t do any magic in this room … and Steve wonders what this is about, but he’s too tired to ask. Even these brief interactions wear him out.

  Straightening beside him, she wipes her eyes. “For you … ”

  Turning, she leaves his line of vision. And then she’s back, with an extra pillow. She clutches it in her arms.

  “Now …” she whispers, pulling it from her chest.

  Steve just has time to scream Dale’s name before the pillow covers his face.

  x x x x

  Bohdi wakes up on Beatrice’s couch to the sound of scratching. He lifts his head. Morning light is pouring in from the door to the kitchen. The scratching is coming from that direction, too. He looks over to the easy boy chair beside the couch. Amy is passed out under a knitted throw blanket.

  The scratching ceases.

  He blinks and rubs his eyes. Maybe there is a raccoon outside or something?

  The last thing he remembers is Amy staying up to watch Fenrir. She’d given the little dog a shot of the canine variety of HIV the night before. Fenrir had taken it with barely a whimper. Or no, she had been whimpering, but she didn’t whimper more when she got the shot. Even though only her hindquarters were paralyzed, she hadn’t raised her head, or even perked her ears. He looks to the spot on the floor where the dog bed is.

  And blinks again. It’s empty.

  “Amy!” he shouts, throwing off the knitted throw. From the kitchen comes a yip.

  “Fenrir!” he cries, running to the kitchen, his relief making his body feel impossibly light. His eyes fall on Fenrir. The little dog is sitting by the door, panting, ears perked. For a moment the day seems dazzling and bright and he feels like he’ll burst. But then he notices her hind legs are splayed backwards behind her.

  With another yip she pulls herself in Bohdi’s direction, dragging her useless back legs behind her.

  Bohdi feels a lump forming in his throat.

  Behind him he hears Amy say, “What is it?”

  From the direction that leads to the stairs, Beatrice calls, “Amy, Bohdi!”

  “It didn’t work,” Bohdi says, as Amy comes to his side and Beatrice enters the kitchen, wearing some purple silk pajamas.

  “I’m sorry,” Bohdi says. “I saw her in the kitchen and I thought it worked.”

  Beside him, Amy kneels. Fenrir drags her little body right over and begins nosing Amy’s palm.

  “Well, at least she looks more chipper,” says Beatrice.

  “Grandma,” Amy says, voice slipping into the low professional sexy tone she uses when she’s being medical or sciencey. “Please get me a scarf.”

  Beatrice turns and leaves the room. Bohdi hears her rummaging beyond the kitchen somewhere.

  “I’m sorry,” says Bohdi again. “I really thought…”

  “Mmmm …” Amy says.

  Beatrice comes back in and hands Amy a striped knitted scarf. Amy slips it under Fenrir’s belly and says, “Grandma, tell Ruth and Henry we need to see Steve at the hospital right now.”

  Beatrice nods quickly. “Yes, dear.”

  Bohdi swallows. “I don’t think we should give up just yet … I mean … we should try again.”

  Amy’s head snaps to him. Her eyes narrow, and then she looks away. “No, we have to go now,” she says.

  From the other room, Beatrice shouts. “Bohdi, get in here.”

  “Go,” says Amy. Standing up, she uses the scarf to lift Fenrir’s back end and the two walk to the door.

  “Bohdi!” shouts Beatrice.

  Not sure what else to do, Bohdi scampers off after Amy’s grandmother. She’s already at the top of the stairs when he enters the next room. Turning, she says, “Come on.”

  Bohdi runs up the stairs three at a time. Beatrice leads him down a hallway and into what must be her bedroom. The quilt on the bed that’s rumpled and tossed aside on the bed looks handmade. All the furniture looks antique. Beatrice walks right to a door, opens it and goes into a walk-in closet. “Come in!” says Beatrice.

  “Uh,” says Bohdi. But he does go in.

  “Shut the door!” says Beatrice.

  And now Bohdi feels really weird. “Ummm …” he says.

  “I’m not going to bite you,” she says.

  Stifling his unease, Bohdi shuts the door. A dim bulb flickers on. Bohdi looks up and notices the closet is lined with Promethean wire. Promethean wire is rare and hard to get. “How did you …?”

  “No time!” says Beatrice. Spinning she goes to the back of the closet and pushes some clothes aside.

  Bohdi’s jaw falls and he finds himself staring at a wall filled with guns and ammunition atop a neat set of drawers. He sees the normal FBI-issued pieces: M-4 and a Glock. But there is also a 12 gauge shotgun, an older M-16A2, an AK-47, a Beretta, a Nagant M1895 revolver, and somewhat incongruously, a paint gun.

  “Don’t tell Amy about this,” says Beatrice.

  Bohdi doesn’t answer. Instead he looks a little more carefully at the clothes lining the walls on either side of him. Intermixed with clothes he’s seen Beatrice wear to the office he sees some cami gear—pants, jacket, and bullet proof vest. On the floor are a pair of combat boots.

  “Now which guns do you think I should take?” says Beatrice.

  Bohdi blinks. “Pardon?”

  “I was thinking,” Beatrice says. “AK-47’s typically are more deadly and durable. But the M-4s and M-16s provide better accuracy, and since that damnable armor Asgardians wear is bulletproof, the only shot might be the narrow gap between the visor and chin you sometimes see when they lift their heads.”

  Bohdi turns to the old woman. Her bobbed gray hair is a little mussed. She has deep laugh lines around her mouth and eyes, her cheeks sag a bit. He blinks. But in his mind he can imagine what she looked like when she was younger. “I think I love you a little bit, Beatrice.”

  Her blue eyes snap to his. “Focus!”

  Tapping his chin, Bohdi turns back to the weapons. “Right. Their armor isn’t as resistant to heat, it’s too bad you don’t have a flame thrower.”

  “Oh, I do!” says Beatrice, brightly. She kneels down and opens one of the drawers.

  Bohdi’s eyes go wide as she pulls
out a long piece of gleaming black metal. It’s shaped a little like a pistol, but with a longer barrel … altogether it is a little over a foot in length.

  Standing and holding the weapon aloft, Beatrice says, “I realize that the DM34 is only a single shot deal, but it’s so much lighter and doesn’t have the cumbersome backpack of the M9.”

  “Yeah,” says Bohdi. “Longer range, too.” And it gets up to about 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit. The Handflammpatrone DM34 is German made and was in use until about 2001. It isn’t a weapon Marines learn about as part of standard training—or even during the foreign weapons class he’d taken. But one of his instructors was an enthusiast and had given a demonstration. He finds himself starting to salivate just looking at it. Licking his lips he says, “Did I say I think I loved you? Because Beatrice, if you are single—”

  “If I what?” she snaps, giving him a funny look.

  Bohdi blinks. He was going to say he’d totally be her boyfriend—and he would have only been half joking. But he doesn’t like her tone or the funny look. So instead he gives her a cocky grin, and says something he knows will make her mad. “I’d date you, but it would break Amy’s heart.”

  Beatrice narrows her eyes at him. “You wish. Now get out of my closet.”

  Bohdi’s shoulders slump. “What about a gun for me?” It comes out a whine.

  Beatrice purses her lips. “Take the paintball gun.” Bohdi looks at the toy weapon. “Actually, this might be useful—if I hit their visors, I could get a clean shot at their faces.” Taking the paintball gun off the wall, he clears his throat. “If I had a real gun to shoot with, too.”

  Taking him by the shoulders, Beatrice turns him around and pushes him out the door. “I’ll cover you. Now get out of my closet; I need to change.”

  x x x x

  Bohdi sits in the backseat of Amy’s Subaru. On his left is a suitcase Amy told him not to let slip off the seat. Fenrir is in her little duffel bag carrier on his lap. Mr. Squeakers is on his head, his eight little bug legs digging into Bohdi’s scalp. The paint gun is on his right.

  Beatrice is sitting shotgun—she said it was because she has the shotgun. Or flamethrower. And Beretta. Not that Amy knows that; Beatrice had pointedly whispered it to Bohdi when Amy wasn’t around. The canny old woman has the flamethrower—and whatever else she is packing—in a rectangular canvas bag on her lap that to Bohdi screams Weapons! But when Amy asked about it, Beatrice replied, “Board games. We might be there for a while, don’t want to have nothing to do.”

  Amy was either too naive or too distracted to notice. Even now she’s leaning forward in the driver’s seat, looking up at the sky.

  Pain shoots from the top of his head.

  “Squeakers! What are you doing?” Bohdi says, eyes going heavenward, as though he could see the mouse.

  Sitting back in her seat, Amy says, “He’s nesting.”

  Wincing, Bohdi reaches up and tries to extract the mouse from his hair. The critter won’t let go. Bohdi grumbles, “I still don’t know why we have to let Steve know about this setback. It will only depress him more.” He tugs again at Squeakers, and cringes as the mouse tugs on his hair.

  “Because I promised Steve an update,” Amy says too loudly, as though she’s announcing it to the world. Bohdi sniffles. “You were there, you heard me,” she adds. Releasing Squeakers, Bohdi pinches his nose to keep from sneezing.

  He knows she knows she didn’t say that. There is a little peek-through flap on the top of the carrier. Opening it he looks in. Meeting his gaze, Fenrir gives him a pant that looks like a smile and a woof that sounds distinctly chipper, but her legs are still splayed out uselessly behind her.

  Bohdi closes the flap. It’s not working. Why is Amy so nervous? Odin’s probably chuckling on his throne right now—if he’s even bothering to have his spies look in this direction.

  A light turns yellow ahead of them. Amy guns the engine, and Bohdi’s head is thrown back. Mr. Squeakers gives a cheep, and pain shoots through his scalp.

  Amy doesn’t slow down past the intersection. She speeds ahead. Turning with a screech at the next corner, she guns the engine again and pulls up so sharply next to the hospital entrance drop-off that the suitcase nearly falls off the seat. Bohdi throws up a leg to catch it. Next to him, the paint gun falls to the floor.

  Beatrice peers around the front seat and sniffs. “That’s why you get a toy gun.”

  Bohdi sticks out his tongue at her.

  Amy hops out of the driver’s seat and says, “You brought a toy gun?”

  Bohdi opens his mouth to speak, but Amy’s eyes have left his. Instead she is staring at her grandmother. Beatrice has her old-fashioned, pink flower umbrella in one hand, and the flamethrower in the other.

  “You brought a toy, too, Grandma?” Amy says, eyes wide.

  Beatrice slips the small flamethrower into her closed umbrella and adjusts the tie to allow for the extra width of the handle. “Yes, dear,” says Beatrice, and Bohdi’s eyes cross as he stifles the almost sneeze.

  Opening the door to Bohdi’s left, Amy leans over the suitcase and grabs Fenrir. “Would you get the suitcase, Bohdi?” she asks.

  “Yeah, but —”

  At that moment Squeakers releases his death grip on Bohdi’s hair and jumps to the top of Fenrir’s carrier, leaving a long trail of sticky web that drifts through the air and catches on Bohdi’s nose and mouth. Spitting out the cobweb, Bohdi watches as Mr. Squeakers gives a cheep and slips into one of Amy’s pockets.

  “What’s in the suitcase?” he finishes, but Amy’s turned away and is giving the keys to her car to two agents standing outside the door. He hears her say, “I’m so sorry, but could you please park the car? It’s urgent we get to Director Rogers right away.”

  Bohdi blinks. He has no urge to sneeze. Bohdi slings the paintball gun over his shoulder. Grabbing the suitcase, he takes off after Amy and Beatrice and heads into the hospital.

  Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s lobby would look like a mall, if there weren’t all the sick people about. The lobby is a huge atrium with a reception desk and tasteful lighting that almost looks like they’re outside. Above them on three sides are three stories worth of walkways with rows of shops and restaurants. A low buzz of conversation hums around them. Beyond the reception is a massive, gleaming, escalator, and a sign that says, “Thank you for your patience during our recent remodeling. Try our new wheelchair-walker friendly escalator.” Bohdi blinks. Isn’t that essentially what a elevator is?

  A few security guards come running forward. Amy and Beatrice already have their FBI badges out. “FBI,” says Amy.

  “Yes, but …” says the guard.

  “Obstructing us would get you jail time,” says Amy.

  “What about him?” says one guard, pointing at Bohdi.

  “FBI, too,” says Beatrice.

  The guard looks at a point above Bohdi’s forehead. “Is that a spider web in your hair?”

  The other guard reaches for the radio at his hip. “The FBI does not carry paintball guns. I’m calling this in.”

  “Call away,” Amy mutters, walking around the guard, skipping the escalator and going toward the elevator banks beyond.

  The guards step after her. “Hey, wait!”

  Leveling the tip of her umbrella at them, Beatrice says, “Hold it right there, boys.”

  Bohdi’s jaw drops. For a heart-stopping moment he thinks Beatrice might activate the flamethrower. He looks at all the civilians milling about.

  She doesn’t, of course. But the guards do stop and lower their hands, very slowly. It’s like watching a film in slow motion. Bohdi’s struck by a sense of deja vu.

  “Bohdi!” snaps Beatrice. “Get over here.”

  He lifts his eyes. Beatrice and Amy are already close to the elevator banks. A number of the people in the lobby are making a beeline in their direction.

  Readjusting the paintball gun, Bohdi takes off in a run. The elevator dings, Amy walks in, and Beatrice backs in. Dodging gr
oups of people, Bohdi slips in after the two women.

  Someone behind him says, “Madam, we’d like a word with you.”

  Pointing her umbrella at the someone beyond the door, Beatrice says, “Stop right there, fella,” and hits the elevator close button.

  The man stops, his mouth drooping slowly open, as though he’s suspended in Jello ... Afraid of offending a little old lady? Not that Beatrice looks particularly little old ladyish in her olive green cargo pants, black turtleneck and black vest he’s pretty sure is loaded with ammo.

  Amy doesn’t seem to notice the crowd. Rocking on her heels, she’s clutching Fenrir’s carrier to her chest and staring at the lights above the elevator door as they ascend to the ICU unit.

  As soon as the door opens, Amy practically runs out. Beatrice falls in step beside her, leaving Bohdi to bring up the rear.

  The doctor who had approached Amy the day before is there talking to the nurses. As soon as he sees Amy, his eyes drop to the carrier. “Hey!” he says.

  But Beatrice points her umbrella at him and says, “Stop it!” He stares at them, as though confused, and Amy, Beatrice, and Bohdi walk down the hallway.

  There are four guards outside Steve’s door again: Two stone-faced guys, whose names Bohdi doesn’t know, and Brett and Bryant.

  As they approach Brett and Bryant, Brett lifts his magic detector. Turning her back to him, Amy says, “Don’t point that thing at Fenrir. It might upset her!”

  Brett blinks. “Ummm … okay?”

  “I think you maybe walked through a cobweb, Bohdi,” says Bryant.

  “Why are you carrying a paintball gun?” says Brett.

  Steve’s door opens, and Ruth steps out.

  “What’s going on?” yells Henry outside Bohdi’s line of vision.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” says Amy.

  “There’s a bathroom right here,” says Ruth, making way for Amy to get into Steve’s room.

  Amy hands Fenrir over to Bryant. “Watch her, don’t put her inside a room with Promethean wire, or wave a magic detector at her!”

  Fenrir growls in Bryant’s direction.

  “Um, sure?” he says.