Mist (29 page)

Dainn pulled himself to his feet and leaned heavily on the wall. “Yes,” he said. “It hates. It hates everything that lives or ever lived.”

“And you sent it into my mind.”

“I would not have done so if I believed there was a chance you couldn’t overcome it.”

She folded her arms and glared at the carpet. “Where did it come from? Did you . . . create it?”

The idea sickened him. “It was not of my making, but it feeds . . .”

He had to swallow several times before he was sure of his voice.

“When we met, you believed that Dainn Faith-breaker had died at Thor’s hand before the Last Battle began. That was the story put out by the Aesir. But I clearly did not die. I was cursed.”

Mist sat down on the couch hard enough to make it squeak in protest. “Cursed? By whom?”

“Odin, with the approval of the Aesir and my own people. Only Freya spoke for me. And she could not save me.”

“Then you were lying when you said you didn’t remember how you got to Midgard,” she said. “You were
sent
here, with this curse on you.”

Dainn bowed his head. “Before the Last Battle had fully begun.”

“But what
is
it?”

Dainn put his back to the wall and let it take his weight as he sang the increasingly ineffective Rune-spell that had once allowed him to detach himself from all emotion. Mist heard nothing of it; a year of continuous meditation and practice had made the use of his voice unnecessary.

It was not entirely effective, and he had not expected it would be.

The spell only muted the memories and allowed him to speak without weeping.

“It is a beast of thought,” he said, “but it has no real intelligence of its own. Only the will to hate. And to seek freedom from the restraints that prevent it from attacking others as it attacked you.”

“In the mind?”

So many things he could have told her then, if he’d had the courage. If the beast itself hadn’t reminded him why he could not. “It has the potential to destroy what mortal psychologists have called the ’psyche’ of other intelligent beings. It claws its way through any resistance and devours what it finds.”

Mist’s face revealed every emotion as she absorbed his meaning, puzzlement to comprehension to horror. “You mean it makes people crazy?” she said.

“No. It obliterates their minds.”

“Gods,” she said, her eyes flaring with revulsion. “You talk as if you’re not even connected to this thing. I’ve almost gotten used to hearing you speak like someone who doesn’t understand normal emotions, but how can you be so cool about
this
?”

Cool. She had seen so deeply into him and still believed he felt nothing. His spell had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. “Emotion is one of the things that feeds the beast,” he said. “
Your
emotion?”

“Dark emotion.”

“Like anger. Anger over what the Aesir did to you? At Loki?

Over everything you lost?”

Those were questions he could not answer. Would not. “I have had to learn how to dampen the beast’s power,” he said. “The bars,” she said. “The cage.”

“The work of many centuries,” he said.

Mist drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “What’s the other thing that feeds it?” she asked quietly. “Magic.”

It was as if the proverbial lightbulb had winked on over her head.

“Of course,” she said. “It wasn’t just that you were out of practice that you held back.”

“I couldn’t tell you then. You would not have understood.”

“I still don’t.” She rubbed at the wrist that bore the wolf and serpent tattoo. “Did Freya know about this thing when she sent you to find me?”

“She did not believe the beast would be an . . . impediment.”

“Not very good judgment, if you ask me,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “You said she couldn’t save you when you were cursed. Doesn’t she have any way of helping you get rid of it now?”

So close, so very close to the truth. “She cannot,” he said. Mist clamped her lips together, clearly not satisfied by the answer. “I think I know now why Loki was so afraid of you.” Dainn looked away, unwilling to lie to her face yet again. “He was not involved in the curse.”

“You said your parting didn’t end on a ‘cordial note,’ ” Mist said.

“You said that once you could have done him harm, but you couldn’t do it anymore. That was a lie all along, wasn’t it?”

“We met once after Odin laid the curse on me, before I came to Midgard.”

“Finally a little honesty,” she said. “But I won’t ask you for the details now. You said you had it under control. That has obviously changed.” She lifted her head. “Maybe you’ve kept the thing inside you from being a threat to others, but what about to you? You’re an elf. Elves are aesthetes, civilized, peaceful, even though they think they’re better than everyone else. They don’t use weapons, and they only fight with magic when they have no other choice.” She searched his eyes. “It tears you apart, doesn’t it?”

“I have learned to accept it,” he said.

“And what happens if the beast escapes again?”

“I found a way to contain its power before. I will do so again.”

“That isn’t good enough, Dainn. I want to help make sure it
can’t

happen again.”

Brave Mist. Stubborn, impulsive, headstrong Mist.

“No,” he said.

She swung her legs to the floor. “You said I could be more powerful than Freya. You want me to understand my own abilities.

What good is any power if I can’t help my friends?”

Friends. She didn’t know what she was saying.

“You have no grasp of your magic,” he said. “You are incapable of what you suggest.”

“I can obviously do things with
my
mind that only gods can. I was able to stop the beast. If I can help you rebuild that cage . . .”

“If you reach too far, you could destroy yourself.”

“That’s
my
risk.”

Holding his arm out in case he should fall, Dainn went to the door. “Come with me,” he said. “There is something I must show you.”

She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and yawned. “It’s already seven in the morning,” she said, “and the kids’ll be up soon if they aren’t already. Where are we going?”

“It would be better to do this in a larger space, where there is no chance that others might hear.”

His words must have sounded ominous indeed, but Mist got up and followed him into the hall. Almost at the same moment, Ryan came pelting down the stairs in his bare feet, oversized pajamas flapping around his spare frame. He came to a sudden stop halfway down when he saw Mist and Dainn.

“Shit!” he said. “I thought something was wrong!”

Dainn stared at the boy, whose pupils were so dilated that the light brown of his irises was barely visible. Mist went to him immediately.

“You’d better sit,” she said, pushing him down onto the stair. “Are you having another seizure?”

Ryan shook his head. “I thought it was already here,” he said. “
What
was already here?” Dainn asked, moving closer to the boy. “I don’t know,” Ryan said, his voice rising. “I thought—” Suddenly the cats streaked out of the kitchen, tails puffed up to twice their normal sizes, ears flat. They stopped just past the stairway, hissing and arching their backs.

They were facing the door to the gym.

Dainn felt it a moment later. “Go upstairs, Ryan,” he said. “But—”

“Go!” Mist shouted, helping him up and turning him around.

“Stay with Gabi!”

Once Ryan was at the top of the stairs and out of sight, she looked at Dainn. “What?” she asked.

He breathed in deeply. The cats, having down their duty, turned and ran back to the relative safety of the kitchen.

“Jotunar,” he said.

“We meet again, Sow’s daughter,” Hrimgrimir said.

She came to a stop just inside the gym door, Dainn a step behind her. The giant, about seven feet tall and 350 pounds of solid muscle, stood in the center of the gym, hands on hips, grinning with all the evil relish of a nineteenth-century melodrama villain. The only thing that ruined the effect was his too-tight jeans, bulging at the thighs, and the loose plaid shirt.

He and the two Jotunar with him had not been among those she and Dainn had— hopefully—sent to a desert half a world away. Loki’s forces might have been reduced, but they were by no means eliminated. And Hrimgrimir was among the strongest of them. And the worst.

“Where’s the forest?” Mist asked, feeling for Kettlingr at her hip.

Hrimgrimir lost his grin, his face creasing in confusion. “Say what you mean, bitch,” he said.

“You look like a lumberjack. Shouldn’t you be out somewhere cutting down trees?”

It was a consummately ridiculous thing to say, but Mist wasn’t interested in trying to be clever. Her only goal was to get Hrimgrimir angry enough to make stupid mistakes. Making him angry wasn’t very hard to do.

But Hrimgrimir didn’t take the bait. He looked at Dainn, who had moved to stand beside Mist, and chuckled.

“I’ve never felt such pathetic wards,” the Jotunn said. “Was that really the best you could do, Faith-breaker?”

Mist closed the door behind her, refusing to reveal her emotions. Dainn’s wards
had
failed. He had seemed confident enough when he’d set them, but the presence of Hrimgrimir and his two friends— one in biker’s leathers and the other wearing an incongruous red silk shirt and striped trousers—proved that he’d screwed up somewhere. Perhaps fatally.

She could tell by Dainn’s rigid stance that he fully understood his responsibility for the current situation. But she didn’t have time to ask him what might have happened.

“What’s wrong?” Hrimgrimir taunted. “Fenrir got your tongue?”

Dainn stepped in front of Mist. “You should not have come here,” he said.

“The threat of a weakling and coward,” Hrimgrimir jeered, rumbling laughter.

“I am not alone,” Dainn said. “Or perhaps you have forgotten what happened in Vidarr’s establishment.”

“You had the element of surprise on your side.” The Jotunn stared at Mist. “You won’t have it again.”

Mist shoved ahead of Dainn. “But Loki made the mistake, didn’t he?” she asked. “He knew I was Freya’s daughter, but he didn’t think I’d be able to fight him.” She smiled. “Did he actually tell you to let me through to him?”

For a moment Hrimgrimir seemed at a loss. “Do you think you’d ever have made it past us if he didn’t?”

“Actually, I do.”

“Only because Freya was there. Loki told us. You couldn’t have done jack shit without the Vanir bitch. Where is she now?”

Good, Mist thought. Loki still credited her abilities to Freya’s presence within her, just as Dainn had said. And that assumption would hurt him, and his allies, as long as he held it.

“Waiting for you to do something stupid,” she said. “What should worry you now is that Loki didn’t know that Dainn was around, or how much damage
he
could do. And your boss ran off without checking on his Jotunar minions. That’s why about a dozen of your comrades are halfway across the world.” She clucked her tongue in sympathy. “Doesn’t that piss you off just a little bit?”

Hrimgrimir cracked his knuckles. “Loki didn’t send us here,” he said. “We’ve come to get the kid.”

“What kid?” Mist asked, raising her brows.

“You took him away from my men.”

“Because they were beating him up. What’s so special about him?”

“You think we’re that dumb? We’re taking him back. And if we happen to kill you on the way—” He exposed his sharp, yellow teeth in another grin. “Well, that’ll be the icing on the cake.”

“Good luck with that,” Mist said. She flicked a sideways glance at Dainn. His expression was rigid, but she could feel the tension in his muscles, the anger building up inside him.

The beast. The beast of thought, driven by dark emotion and the implacable will to hate, to destroy. A devourer of the mind.

Mist had no reason to doubt that it could also devour Jotunar minds. But Hrimgrimir apparently knew nothing about it. Dainn had kept it hidden, under control. Until tonight.

Magic fed it, too. But magic was the only way Dainn could fight the Jotunar.

Unless she sent him away.

“Go, Dainn,” she whispered. “If you stay—”

“I know,” Dainn said, very softly. “But I will not leave you to face them alone.”

“Freya can’t help us at all?”

“Even if she could, I have no time to reach her.”

“Then I can handle it. You just finished saying how powerful I—”

“Why the whispers?” Hrimgrimir asked. “Trying to figure out how you’re going to get out of this alive? Give us the kid, and maybe we’ll spare one of you.” He met Mist’s gaze. “You
,
since Loki still has some use for you.”

“And you always give Loki what he wants,” Mist said.

“Only as long as he gives us what
we
want,” Hrimgrimir said.

“To grab whatever you can of this world when Loki unleashes chaos,” she said. “Better hope he leaves enough of Midgard for you when he’s finished.”

“He needs us,” Hrimgrimir growled.

“For now.” She deliberately bumped Dainn’s shoulder with her own. “Get out of here,” she hissed.