Eye of the Beholder (7 page)

She frowned.
Come to think of it, how old is Travis?
He had barely changed at all since the first time she saw him nine years ago.

She blinked. How the fuck old were Magnus and Morgan, for that matter? She stared at her brothers, visions of vampires running through her head. They hadn’t aged, either.

Not one. Damn. Day.

She swallowed hard, the steak nearly choking her.
Oh hell.

She looked over at Jeff, who was frowning at her.
What?
he mouthed.

She turned back to Magnus and Morgan, watching them devour their second set of steaks. Okay, maybe werewolves? How long does the furry set live for, anyway? Her big brothers were serious carnivores.

“Hey, pumpkin.” Uncle Val leaned down to give her a hug, and she winced. “Did I hurt you?”

The genuine concern on his face helped ease some of her fears, but not all of them. Couldn’t vampires hypnotize people with their eyes? “Um, no.”

Those icy eyes of his narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

She bit her lip, wondering how to head him off. Uncle Val was like a bulldog when he thought something was wrong with any of his nieces or nephews. “Nothing.”

He studied her intently, joined by Travis. The two men looked like they were trying to see inside her soul.

Are two vamps stronger than one vamp? She didn’t know, but she wasn’t eager to find out. She squeezed her eyes shut. It was a stupid gesture, she knew that, but it wasn’t like she could go running down the hall for the elevator and freedom.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? Someone slip magic mushrooms onto your sandwich?”

She opened her eyes to see Jeff frowning at her curiously. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.” She gave him a weak, sickly grin, signaling with her hands that he should drop it.

“It’s finally worn off.” She looked over to find Travis grimacing and exchanging a loaded glance with Uncle Val.

“We knew it would.” Uncle Val picked up a sandwich, but the easy expression he’d walked in with had turned hard. It was his game face, the one he showed when he was about to get down to business. On anyone else that expression would have terrified her. But this was Uncle Val, who wouldn’t harm a hair on her head.

Would he?

“We knew
what
would?” Jeff stood off and faced his uncle and friend, his hands clenched at his sides. He’d angled his body between hers and theirs, protecting her, his expression fierce.

Travis held up his hand. “Down, boy.”

Jeff held up his hands, but she could tell her twin had hit the limit of his patience by the way his whole body tensed up. He was about two seconds away from losing it. “Look, nice as it is to know, you didn’t call a family meeting to tell us my sister is pregnant. So what’s up, and how does it affect Jamie?”

“The last person on the face of the earth I would ever hurt is your sister, and you know that.” Travis gestured back towards the sofa. “Sit down, Jeff. I promise, we’ll explain everything.”

“Wait. Jordan’s pregnant?” Uncle Val turned with a happy smile to hug Jordan, ignoring the way Logan scowled at him. She knew the two of them had some issues with each other in the past, but she thought they’d been resolved.

Jeff ignored Val, his focus on Travis. “Everything?”

Travis nodded. “I give you my solemn oath that any question you or Jamie asks me within the next hour I will do my best to answer honestly.”

Logan gasped. Kir looked shocked. Magnus and Morgan winced.

And Jordan nodded.

That
was the reaction Jamie was most interested in. Jordan was calm, her hand firmly clasped in Logan’s, Kir scooting back to rest his head against Logan’s knee. Whatever it was, Jordan wasn’t concerned at all.

Logan snorted and looked down at Kir. “Think they’re done enough for plan A-1?”

“
What the fuck is going on?
” Jeff’s roar got everyone’s attention. “My grandfather is suddenly a psychopath, my uncle, who used to kiss said psychopath’s ass, is now my co-worker, my sister has gotten knocked up by two guys, my other sister got nearly beat to death, my boss is acting…okay, he’s the only one of you freaks acting normal.” Jeff huffed out a breath and glared at them all before wearily rubbing his eyes. “He’s always been a secretive son of a bitch. My big brothers are
not
beating the shit out of the pervs for knocking up Jordan.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair, frustration practically vibrating off of him. “When did I ride the Wacky train to Dysfunction Junction?”

She couldn’t help it. She started giggling. She’d watched the frustration ratcheting up inside her twin with each day she spent in the hospital and knew it was only a matter of time before that hidden temper of his flared up. Jeff
hated
being kept in the dark more than anything. It was why he’d decided to become a PI like Jordan and Travis.

“You haven’t.” There was a strange timbre to Travis’s voice, a deep, almost echoing quality that stopped her giggles. Travis had his eyes closed, his head tilted back, as if he was listening to something that only he could hear. “You’ve asked me what the fuck is going on. Old Man Grimm will stop at nothing to kill Kir and Logan, including harming you, your sisters, your brothers and anyone else who stands in his way.”

“Why?”

“For rule of the Aesir and the Vanir, and for prophecy.”

Jamie blinked. “Wait. Aren’t the Aesir the Norse gods?” She was half-Norwegian. Her father had practically spoon-fed her stories of the might of Thor, Odin and the Aesir.

“Yes.”

That deep timbre to his voice was beginning to send shivers down her spine. She leaned forward. “Okay, why would my crazy grandfather think he needs to rule a bunch of myths?”

“They aren’t myth, and he
was
their ruler, up until recently.”

“So, basically, you’re telling me that Odin tried to kill me.”

“No.”

She sagged in relief.

“His plan was to torture you in order to lure Logan, Kir and Jordan to him. I have no idea whether or not he planned on you dying.”

Oh. Well then. That made it so much better.

“Toot toot! All aboard the cuckoo train!” Jeff pumped his arm in the air like he was pulling on a train whistle. “Next stop: Asgard.”

Travis bit his lip, obviously stifling laughter, but was silent.

Jamie ignored her insane twin and turned her attention back to Travis. “My grandfather is Odin?”

“Yes.”

“My father is?”

“Thor.”

Jeff busted out laughing. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

“No.”

“So who’s Jordan’s father? Tyr?” Jamie and Jeff had the same mother as Jordan, but Jordan’s father was Adam Grey. Or at least that’s what they’d been told. Travis made a face. “Hell, no.”

“Oh, well that’s good.”

“Her father is really Adam Grey, but he’s also known as Frey.”

“Yeah, right. You’re missing a hand. Does that make
you
Tyr?”

“Yes.”

Jeff growled and turned. He grabbed Jamie’s hand and pulled her from the couch, ignoring her painful moan. “That’s it. I’m done. We’re leaving.”

A deep, multi-choral voice sounded from behind them. It was Travis, but echoed and magnified to be nearly unbearable. “Let her go, Jeff.”

Jamie looked back and gasped. Travis was
glowing
. Not turn-the-lights-out-and-you-can-barely-see-by-it type glowing, either. She could hardly make out his features in the painfully blinding light he exuded.

She pulled free of Jeff’s hold and waved her hands in front of her in an instinctive pattern, willing the light to die down a little. To her utter shock Travis’s glow dimmed.

“Holy fuck. Where’d you learn to do that?” The stunned look on Logan’s face would have been priceless at any other time.

“Learn what?”

Travis smiled and opened his eyes. They were completely white, the blue she’d come to know and love completely covered over. They glowed with the same intensity as his body had earlier, making it nearly impossible to stare into them. “It is instinctive to you. You are your father’s daughter.”

“Her father isn’t Jotun.”

Travis smiled enigmatically. “Ask your questions, Jamie.”

Where do I start?
“What’s a Jotun?”

“Mistakenly called giants by humans, they are a race of elementals that existed in this world long before humans walked it. Fire, Ice, Light and Dark, they assisted in the creation of mankind and crafted some of the greatest artifacts ever wielded by the gods.”

“Light and Dark?”

Travis ignored Logan’s question. It was as if… “Light and Dark?”

“The Jotuns of Light and Dark you know as Alfar and Dvergar, or Lios Alfar and Dökk Alfar.”

“Light elves and dark elves?”

He ignored Jordan’s question, his unseeing gaze focused on Jamie.

She stepped closer to him, fascinated now that her eyes weren’t watering. It was as if he couldn’t even hear anyone other than her and Jeff. “Light elves and dark elves?”

“That is one way they are described.” His hand reached out and cupped her cheek, his thumb stroking the cheekbone in a soft caress. His gaze was still directed over her head, but the expression on his face was one of fierce tenderness.

He can’t really see me.
“Are you really Tyr?”

Travis nodded once. “Yes.”

She went with her gut. “You’re Lios Alfar, aren’t you?”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Yes, and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was the leader of the Vanir, who were once the gods of the Jotun.”

“Whoa.” Magnus was watching them with a dazed expression. Morgan didn’t look much better. Logan looked positively sick. “Guess he’s not related to the Old Man, then.”

“Jamie.” Travis’s hand moved and buried itself in her hair, his voice still otherworldly but full of yearning. His head tilted down, his broad, powerful shoulders moving over her protectively. The stroke of his fingers against her scalp was intoxicating. She closed her eyes, unconsciously leaning into him, jumping slightly when their bodies touched.

“Is Ragnarrok coming?”

Ragnarrok was the end of the world and the beginning of paradise, at least in Norse mythology. Jamie didn’t know much about it other than most of the gods died and Baldur wound up ruling paradise, something that would please her sister but scared Jamie to death. Jamie started as Jeff asked his question, the seriousness of his voice registering. Travis stiffened against her.

“Yes, and no.”

“Explain it.” Jeff’s voice was hard.

Travis tilted his head, frowning.

Jamie pulled back slightly, surprised when Travis’s hand tightened in her hair. She eased back into his hold and his fingers relaxed. “What did you mean when you said yes and no?”

“The Ragnarrok you’ve heard of is part fiction, part fact. This is the prophecy most people know:

“High blows Heimdallr, the horn is aloft.

Odin communes with Mimir’s head.

Trembles Yggdrasill’s towering Ash.

The old tree wails when the Ettin is loosed.

“What of the Aesir? What of the Elf-folk?

All Jötunheim echoes, the Aesir are at council.

The dwarves are groaning before their stone doors,

Wise in rock-walls; wit ye yet, or what?

“Hrymr sails from the east, the sea floods onward.

The monstrous Beast twists in mighty wrath.

The Snake beats the waves, the Eagle is screaming.

The gold-neb tears corpses, Naglfar is loosed.

“From the east sails the keel; come now Múspell’s folk

Over the sea-waves, and Loki steereth.

There are the warlocks all with the Wolf,

With them is the brother of Býleistr faring.

“Surtr fares from southward with switch-eating flame.

On his sword shimmers the sun of the war-gods.

The rocks are falling, and fiends are reeling,

Heroes tread Hel-way, heaven is cloven.

“Then to the Goddess a second grief cometh,

When Odin fares to fight with the Wolf,

And Beli’s slayer, the bright god, with Surtr.

There must fall Frigg’s beloved.

“Odin’s son goeth to strife with the Wolf,

Vídarr, speeding to meet the slaughter-beast.

The sword in his hand to the heart he thrusteth

Of the fiend’s offspring; avenged is his Father.

“Now goeth Hlödyn’s glorious son

Not in flight from the Serpent, of fear unheeding.

All the earth's offspring must empty the homesteads,

When furiously smiteth Midgard’s defender.

“The sun shall be darkened, earth sinks in the sea,—

Glide from the heaven the glittering stars.

Smoke-reek rages and reddening fire:

The high heat licks against heaven itself.”

“Or so says the Poetic Edda. I’m not certain how much is fact, and how much fiction. What I do know is, Odin was terrified enough to have Fenris and Loki chained, Hel banished, Jörmungandr tossed into the sea, and Baldur killed. None of the living Vanir or Aesir know the truth of the prophecy, as it was Odin who delivered it to us.”

“Wait a minute.” Jeff stepped up next to Travis, his gaze locked on the man’s face. “Wouldn’t killing Baldur be like one of those self-fulfilling prophecies? If one of the signs of Ragnarrok is Baldur’s death, what does killing him accomplish other than to start the whole thing?”

“Baldur and Hodr are meant to rule, with Baldur ascendant, over the remaining Aesir. If Baldur is to rule, that means that Odin is dead. All of the gods loved Baldur, much more so than Odin. So he came up with a plan whereby Baldur would die. How he planned on keeping him from returning, I do not know. It is possible part of the true prophecy was Baldur’s death, but with a different ending.”