Authors: T. G. Ayer
"No way I'm letting you go anywhere without me, especially at this hour." He sat up, more pale and drained that he'd been yesterday morning. The curse was sapping more and more energy as the days went by. For a moment he teetered on wobbly legs, then he slumped back onto the bed. "Okay, seems I don't have the energy at the moment. Why can't you wait until tomorrow?"
"We need to check it out as soon as possible, so we can plan our next move. I'll be fine. Hugin will warn me of any danger and Fen's trained me practically to death. I can take care of myself, you know."
Aidan muttered and scowled, upset with me for going and with himself for being too weak to join me. I hoped he'd get over it.
Outside, the darkness fled from the sky as sunlight struggled to make its way through thick, angry snow clouds. I followed Hugin a few blocks into a dark alley. He came to rest on the edge of a putrid sky-blue dumpster and waited for me to catch up.
"This is it?" I asked the bird.
"Yes. What did you expect it to be?"
The Rainbow of the Gods touched down right beside a stinking dumpster. I wondered where it would land on the other side of our trip. Let's hope we didn't find ourselves trapped beneath frozen glaciers. We left the alley and went back to fetch Aidan.
The early morning air was icy cold and my breath circled my head, a white frozen mist. My footsteps echoed around the empty street. Soon the sound of a second set echoed in tandem to mine. I sped up and so did my stalker. Pausing, pretending to inspect the contents of a darkened pawnshop storefront, I scoped out the shape and size of my tail from the corner of my eye. The best way to deal with a stalker was direct confrontation—best performed when you have a sword strapped to your waist, of course.
I rounded on the person, coming up right in front of his face, only to discover it was a girl. Low-cut blouse, a skirt so short it might as well have been a pair of hot pants.
How come she wasn't freezing to death?
I wanted to ask.
Aloud, I asked the more important question instead. "Why are you following me?"
"I'm not following you." The woman's eyes rounded, shocked at my confrontation, but I didn't buy it. Something just didn't sit right with this girl.
"What do you want?" She'd definitely been following me, and I intended to find out why. Too many things could go wrong. Who knew what Freya was up to, or whether she would send someone to keep an eye on us, to protect her investment? Everything about this girl looked ordinary at a glance. Pretty skin, dark hair, young enough for me to wonder if she was still in school. But I found it odd when she didn't even shiver in the frigid weather. The edges of my eyes hazed, and for a moment my vision blurred.
The girl's eyes swirled with color, an entrancing blue. Not your average eye color. Now where had I seen that before? My own eyes narrowed, studying her face, and I decided to go with my gut.
"Loki? What do you want?" I kept my voice raised, projecting confident knowledge where I was just guessing. But it was not just my confidence that destroyed his ruse. In that same instant Hugin cawed above me, flapping his wings and landing with a shudder on my shoulder.
"Hugin? What—" Loki stumbled backward, teetering on three-inch heels. Then the air changed, thickened. The girl slowly dissolved and disappeared. In her place, a pitch-black raven clawed the cold bare concrete.
Hugin cawed again from my shoulder. Clearly unhappy. "
Loki!
"
The Loki-raven disappeared in a puff of smoky shadows, and now a man stood before me. Not the visitor we'd received in the lab, though. This Loki was taller, more muscle-bound, almost wrestler material. Square jawed with large bright green eyes, he grinned from ear to ear.
"Mighty astute of you, my dear. For a girl," Loki said. And he did look surprised. So what had he been used to, then—dimwitted, Mead-bearing subservients?
I looked askance at Hugin. "You could have been a little more help, you know."
The darned bird just stared back at me, unperturbed.
"So I see you have dear Hugin as a companion. A nice loan from Odin." Loki nodded, but I could almost hear his mind working as he tried to figure out why I deserved the company of one of Odin's precious birds.
"Yeah. He's good company most of the time," I said." Now what do you want? We still have three days left before we have to give you an answer."
"Yes, yes. I know that." Loki's eyes brushed my response away, but his annoyance was visible in the tight line of his mouth and the rigid set of his shoulders. "I've just popped in to make sure you're both making some headway."
"So, you mean you're spying on us?" I raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure Freya didn't send you?"
Loki's eyes swirled a liquid gold.
"Three days, Loki, that's all we asked for. Now, if there's nothing specific you want, I need to get back to Aidan." I turned on my heel and began to walk away, not daring to release my pent-up breath. Loki would pounce on the first sign of weakness.
"Have you told him yet?" Loki's disembodied voice hovered before me, accompanied in a rush by the rest of his bulk to successfully block my escape. I wasn't sure what the punishment was for knocking out a god, so I flared my fingers and held my hand stiffly by my side. At last he'd revealed what he'd really come for. To prey on my guilt.
I frowned, hoping to pull off a credible puzzled expression; I was never a good actor. "Told who what?"
"Don't pretend, my dear. Have you told your boyfriend that his life will soon begin to slip away, and that unless you accept my help this whole mission will take far too long and he may just die in the process?" Loki smirked.
Pure anger rose within me, heating my blood. It was a battle to hold onto my urge to hit him. I'd never been a violent person. Never had the slightest urge to raise my hand and hit or hurt someone just because of how I felt. But looking at Loki and his gleaming eyes, a fury burned inside of me the likes of which I'd never known.
"We said we needed three days and we still do. Come back when the time is up and we'll probably take up your offer. For now, please leave us alone." We could do without this sort of distraction, without Loki haunting me with his insinuations.
"Three days." Loki flashed pearly white teeth that were no doubt some kind of mirage. His once-blue eyes shifted to a startling shade of green. "And if you don't agree to take my offer, then I’ll be forced to tell your beloved the truth about the limited extent of his life."
I glared at Loki, whose eyes were now solid black, probably reflecting the color of his putrid soul.
"Three days and I will tell Aidan he is soon going to die," he repeated.
As if he needed to speak twice.
***
I shivered as I shut the door on both the bone-chilling cold and Loki's words. But the cold was easy to shut out. Not so with Loki. His threat rang inside my skull, sharp and insistent. Aidan looked up as I entered and frowned at the worried creases in my brow. I'd need to be more careful with my fears.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Nothing, it's just freezing outside and it looks like snow. Hugin showed me the place, so we can leave as soon as you're ready." I didn't need to fake the shiver that ran through me.
"We should cancel the charter first, though."
"We can't sit around and wait for them to call. I was hoping we could leave now." I was eager to be out of there, as far from Loki as possible.
"Yeah. You're right. The charter wouldn't be able to reach us to confirm anything. Besides, we'll get to Professor Wayne in no time. She could cancel the charter when we get there."
I nodded, gathering our stuff and scanning the room, wondering if we were about to shock the life out of the poor professor. She didn't sound like the wilting wallflower type, but she would have a lot of questions for us.
And boy did we have some mythbusting answers for her.
We checked out and set off for the stinking alley, our boots killing the beautiful, fluffy snowflakes littering the sidewalk. Soon the pristine white would be transformed into a wet, black sludge.
Aidan walked silently beside me while I searched the streets for any sign of Loki.
"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned about his silence.
He grumbled. "Couldn't Hugin have told us about this magic bridge back in Missouri, and saved us three days of driving? Not to mention several felonies." His eyes scanned the grey sky for the raven. Hugin circled high above us, out of earshot.
"Maybe we had to prove ourselves first," I said. "Or maybe the Bridge doesn't connect to DC." Aidan shrugged. He stopped a moment, closed his eyes and massaged his temples.
"Aidan!" I touched his shoulder. "Are you okay, really?"
"Yeah, just tired. Not sure what's up. Maybe it's coming back to Midgard. Yikes, I can never get used to calling our world Midgard." Aidan shook his head, black curls bouncing. They'd grown, just brushing his shoulders.
I handed him one of the small leather pouches of Mead that Sigrun had packed. Suddenly I longed to see my friend again. I hadn't had this experience before, missing a living person so deeply. I'd ached for Joshua's presence after he'd died. And for Aidan I'd keened inside, my grief both for my broken and my betrayed heart. But now I just missed Sigrun as you'd miss a friend and confidante. I held the thought close to me.
Aidan slugged, then returned the pouch. Almost reluctantly. I watched his face. Saw the pleasure there. And I worried. Feared he would get addicted. He'd need the drink more and more over the next few days. I had to preserve our stash and decided to keep a better eye on the Mead from that moment on. The longer we remained here the more we'd need the Mead.
We reached the alley, Hugin leading. It stank. Urine, garbage and heaven knew what else. Hugin flew down and perched on my shoulder, like an ever-present, overbearing conscience. We stood, almost hidden from the street by the incongruously cheerful blue dumpster.
"Stand together, side by side and be calm," he said.
I repeated his words to Aidan, who raised a questioning eyebrow. He also raised one offended nostril, as if asking me if this could seriously be the location of the Bridge. I shrugged and tried clear my thoughts.
"
Think of Greenland and your professor.
" Hugin's sultry baritone spoke in my ear.
"Er, I don't really know much about either of them," I admitted, unsure how I'd get there if I hadn't met the archaeologist or ever been to Greenland.
"That is not a problem. Just think of both her name and the place you intend to go to. The Bridge knows what's in your mind. It will connect you to her. That is why you need to clear your mind of other thoughts or you might end up going somewhere else."
Again, I relayed Hugin's comments to Aidan. At first I felt slightly ridiculous, standing in a dark, dank, dead-end alley, facing a mold-ridden brick wall beside a foul-smelling dumpster. But once I settled my mind and concentrated, I forgot about our location. My mind focused elsewhere. I felt light-headed.
Pain spliced my ribs, agony spread white-hot fingers into my flesh. Was this right? I gasped, thrown back by the momentum of the pain, disoriented and confused. What had Hugin done to me?
"Bryn? What's the matter?" Aidan's voice swam down to me, distorted as if we were conversing underwater. His hands went around me to support me as I began to fall to the ground. His touch sent blinding shafts of pain into my side. I sagged against the dumpster and grunted in agony, but I refused to be a wuss and scream.
"Don't touch me," I tried to say, but all that left my mouth was hysterical groaning.
"Shit!" Aidan's hand came away from my side. Though my eyes were heavy-lidded with pain, I watched him gape at his hand, now coated thickly in ripe red blood.
Hugin fluttered around, the speed of his wings amplified by his anxiety.
"What happened?" Aidan shouted. He opened my coat and found the glamor hiding my Valkyrie attire had disappeared. Blood saturated the chainmail, seeping through the fine bronze links, with a perfect red circle at the center of the leaking wound. "You've been shot, Bryn."
He reached for my hems, both chainmail and dress, lifting carefully until he reached the wound. I didn't care that my thighs were bared, or that my entire midriff was open to view. The pain wiped out every bit of modesty I had left. Aidan inspected the entrance of the wound with tender fingers, then slipped his hand beneath my back, checking for an exit wound. Alarm filled his eyes. His fingers found the ridges of the open wound, coming away moist and red.
He covered me up, then, an expression of poisonous anger on his face. When he peeked around the edge of the dumpster to search for the sniper, he almost received a bullet to his face for his troubles. It plunged into the brick on the wall behind him, sending a silent shower of dust floating to the grime-coated alley floor.
Fear sluiced through my veins so fast my hands and knees shook. My vision had cleared, although it took far too long for my liking. I struggled to sit up higher, knowing we needed to hurry to get out of this place. Funny, but I did prefer to be as far away from snipers as possible, considering my current condition.