Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More (28 page)

As they drive further west along Chicago Avenue, shops and restaurants begin to appear. Many of the names are in Spanish, and Loki notices a great many people who seem to be of South American descent walking among the natives of European and African origin.

They turn up a green, leafy street. About a third of the houses seem to be very new, a third are old and decrepit, and a third look old but lovingly maintained.

Amy says, “This is good,” and the cab stops so fast that Loki braces his hands on the front seat.

The cabbie, who had been so solicitous when Amy got into the cab, doesn’t do much more than throw Amy’s bags on the street after she pays him. As he speeds away, Loki watches as she tilts the trunk up and tries to drag it while simultaneously trying to heave a large cylindrical cloth sack.

It occurs to him that he’s probably supposed to help. He is from Asgard. Centuries ago, Asgardians would occasionally take humans as servants. It never works the other way around... But plenty of Asgardians have mocked Loki for his lack of pride before.

“May I help you?” he asks solicitously.

Shaking her head, she says, “No...that’s okay...I can manage it.” Dragging the trunk along the ground, she bumps into the curb and nearly topples over. The trunk and the bag fall to the street.

He tilts his head. She seems to know her Norse mythology, so he says, “Don’t be such a Valkyrie.” The winged warrior women are always so touchy.

“What?” she says. Apparently his gentle jibe didn’t translate well. Rather than explain, he just bends down and grabs the trunk by both ends.

“Don’t...” she starts to say, coming forward.

He swings it over one shoulder with ease.

“It’s heavy,” Amy says, touching his free arm before he can move away.

She stops and looks down. He looks where her hand is. She feels his armor, even if she can’t see it. Her gaze meets his and her brows come together.

He’s saved from having to say anything by the sound of a woman’s voice. “Amy! Amy!”

They both turn to see an old woman coming down a narrow walk from an old brick two-story house of the lovingly maintained variety. Ivy climbs nimbly up the walls and spills out over the yard.

Loki tilts his head. He isn’t used to the elderly. Their wrinkled papery skin and white hair remind him pleasantly of gnomes, but the old have a brittleness to them that gnomes don’t share. Aging seems such a terrible affliction.

The old woman is wearing a dress that wouldn’t be out of place last time Loki was here, but she wears the same leather-like shoes with stripes and laces that Amy wears.

She wraps her arms around the girl and Fenrir begins yipping up a happy storm.

“I’m so glad you’re home! Don’t ever travel alone again! Take a plane, take a train, take a bus!” the old woman says.

“Oh, grandma, it was a freak incident...”

Pulling back, the woman says, “Don’t go quoting me statistics about lightning strikes and how unlikely this is ever to happen to you again. It happened once! That’s enough.”

“Grandma...” says Amy.

But the old woman is coming towards Loki, arms outstretched. “You’re the man who saved my darling granddaughter!”

Loki’s eyes widen. She’ll embrace him. Loki’s not squeamish about physical contact with humans, unlike some Asgardians...Asgardians like Heimdall, that stuck up stickler for protocol and station, but she’ll feel Loki’s armor. Picking up Amy’s remaining bag, he says, “Careful, I don’t want to drop these on you.”

She stops and closes her hands together. She beams at Loki. His head roars with the sound of She’s all I have left in the world, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Loki blinks. More human prayers in his head? But the saving of lives is done. This is so very odd.

Despite the torrent in Loki’s mind, all the old woman says is, “Oh, yes, of course.” But she continues to smile at him, and something in his gut constricts. He’s always thought of prayers as a weak trick, but he’s beginning to think they’re deceptively powerful. He’s not sure he likes it.

“Thor, this is my grandmother, Beatrice,” Amy says.

Shaking her head, Beatrice says, “Such an unusual name. My late husband would have loved it.” And then turning she says, “I hope they lock up that horrible Malson man and put him away forever.”

Loki looks at Amy. Apparently she hasn’t been entirely truthful with Beatrice. Catching his gaze, Amy winces and holds a finger to her lips. Loki raises an eyebrow. There was a time on Earth when even grandmothers would have reveled gleefully in stories of heroics, no matter how gory.

Up ahead Beatrice says, “Come inside out of the heat!” and waves them both up the narrow walkway. “I can have food on the table in thirty minutes. Everything’s ready; I just have to heat it up.”

Mouth watering at the word food, Loki follows them in. Looking very uncomfortable, Amy says to him, “Um, if my bags are too heavy you can put them down...”

He’s tired. He’s hungry. But they’re not heavy. “Where do you want them?” he asks.

Amy jumps a little at the sound of his voice. Being hungry always makes him cranky; it’s beginning to show, evidently.

“This way,” says Amy. He follows her up a narrow staircase to a small sleeping room.

Setting them down on the ground, he says, “Whatever your grandmother is cooking smells deli— ”

A tiny ping rings through the room.

He stills at the sound.

Ping.

There it is again, and the most infinitesimal of pressures on his back. Scowling, he spins around. Amy has her fingers outstretched, a guilty look on her face. It takes him a moment but he puts it together — she pinged his armor with her finger.

“What do you want?” he says, the words coming out harsher than he intends.

Backing up a little, Amy looks down. “To know I’m not dreaming.”

Loki sighs and rubs his eyes.

Ping. Ping.

He feels a light pressure now on his lower arm.

He opens his eyes and Amy has her fingers outstretched again. This time she doesn’t look guilty. Just confused.

“You shouldn’t go ping,” she says. “I have to be dreaming.”

He stares at her a moment, beyond irritated. He’s saved her life, sat through a tortuously long questioning session, carried her bags for her — and he’s hungry. Yet she has the gall to question her good fortune, to question him, and to ping his armor.

He suddenly has the desire to be a little cruel. “You’re not dreaming,” he says. Dropping the illusion he stands before her in his armor. “Does this help?” he says with a smile.

“No!”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs makes the girl turn her head. “Change back,” she says. “Don’t frighten my grandmother.”

Loki would rather not frighten anyone who will feed him. He slips back into the illusion of “totally retro” clothing.

Beatrice comes around the corner, a stack of linens in her hand. Loki smiles benevolently at her.

“Amy, why don’t you show him the spare room?” Beatrice says.

Taking the load from from her grandmother, Amy says, “This way.”

As she leads him out of the house, Loki looks up at the sky. He sees no sign of ravens, the spies of Odin. He doubts Heimdall can see him. Heimdall has to know where to look first. Just in case he puts on his helmet, disguised as a fedora, before he follows her across the tiny lawn and into an alley behind the garage. Amy unlocks and lifts the garage door. Inside, off to one side, is a large vehicle. It reminds him vaguely of a Jeep.

Amy leads him past the vehicle to a door. She unlocks it and says, “It’s a little inconvenient,” and then leads him up a flight of stairs. Every step upward the heat becomes more and more oppressive.

Loki lets the illusion of Earth clothing drop again. It’s a game, and she started it.

At the top of the stairs she turns around and jumps at the sight of his armor. She does have one of the lovelier bosoms Loki has seen on this or any other world, and the bounce does rather nice things. He smirks.

Thrusting the pile of linens at him, she says, “Here.” And turning around again she walks into a medium-sized room. There is a bed in one corner, and a couch. “The shower is that way,” she gestures towards a door, “And the swinging door takes you to a kitchenette. I think there are glasses. There isn’t any food, though. Do you need me to show you how to turn on the air conditioning?”

That’s it? No more questions?

...Air conditioning?

He is a Frost Giant, and the room is rather uncomfortable, even if his armor does have some temperature control.

“I would like help with the air conditioning,” he says.

She walks over to a boxlike thing in the window, plugs it into the wall, and shows him how to operate the dials. And she hands him some keys, and walks towards the door. Just before leaving she turns. “See you in about 20 minutes.”

He tilts his head and looks down at his armor. He blinks. “You’re not bothered?”

Her eyes go wide, and she looks down. “I’m probably going crazy and dying at the bottom of a ditch somewhere, but you know, this is an interesting dream, a better dream than that reality, and you’re responsible, so I’m grateful and I’m just going to go with it until I wake up...” She swallows. “Or not wake up...or whatever.”

Well, now he actually feels like a heel. And a little foolish. Really, she’s quite lovely and just his type. Although he’s currently not in the mood, he certainly has no issue with indulging in passing carnal pleasures with a human. No use burning bridges.

Going forward, he takes her hand. “Miss Lewis,” he says in his calmest, most reassuring, most courtly tone — he is in armor, no use disguising his origins anymore. “You are not dying. You are home, you are safe, and the gentleman from the forest is no more. I do regret that my lapse in control has caused you to doubt this. If I believed it were prudent, I would offer to erase your memories and allow you to forget seeing Fenrir as a wolf, the portfolio pictures bursting into flames,and my armor. But memory erasing is a tricky business, and...”

He looks down at her hand. It is shaking. Pursing his lips, he says, “This is not reassuring you.”

“Not at all,” she confirms.

“Damn.” With a sigh he makes to kiss her hand. It is a courtly gesture, one he would bestow on a lady in Asgard had he distressed her accidentally.

To his shock, she rips her hand away before it even touches his lips. “That really doesn’t help,” she says.

Eyes wide, Loki holds up his hands. “No offense meant.”

Scowling and looking away, she says, “See you in a few minutes.” And then she turns and disappears down the stairs.

Tilting his head, Loki turns in the direction of the shower, thankful that he knows what one is.

He’s just rinsing his hair when he sees the red mist again. It wraps around him in the shower, and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. The child’s voice comes again in Russian. “The petty bourgeois are keeping the grander house to themselves and leaving you the meaner accommodation.”

Blinking the water from his eyes, Loki restrains a shudder. “I’m grateful I don’t have to rob banks again for food and a place to stay,” Loki says. Stepping through the red mist and out of the shower, he grabs a towel.

“My Josef robbed banks, too,” says the child voice. “For the revolution.” In a voice that sounds slightly ashamed, it adds, “And food...and soft ones.”

“Josef?” says Loki. Obviously, the mist wants to talk to him, and Loki isn’t so foolish as not to comply.

“He woke me. He touched me. But he wasn’t like you. He couldn’t hear me.”

Slipping on his breeches, Loki says, “You have a corporeal form?”

“Yes,” says the mist, its voice sounding fainter, the red magic ceding to pink.

“Where are you?” Loki asks.

“It is impossible to know position or momentum with certainty,” says the voice, barely audible now, the mist almost invisible.

Leave it to a magical creature to stumble over the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Magic really was just expanded quantum theory.

“Yes, that’s true,” Loki says, trying to remain patient. “But you can think of your position in relative terms to mine and then give an estimate of location...”

There is no response. Loki exhales heavily in frustration. He is very curious. But he doesn’t have time for this right now. He needs to eat and sleep to give himself enough energy to open a gate to the World Tree. He needs to find Valli and Nari.

He slips on a shirt that was in the pile of towels and sheets. Stepping out of the bathroom, he looks at his armor and sword laid out neatly on the bed.

Beatrice is going to touch him. He just knows it. He goes to his knapsack, pulls out his book and slips it into his pocket. Closing his eyes, he briefly projects his consciousness out of the small room, through the roof, and into the sky. There are no ravens in sight.

Jaw tight, he heads for the stairs.

T
hor
, the weird maybe figment of Amy’s imagination, shows up for dinner wearing a chambray shirt that used to belong to Amy’s grandfather. Her grandfather was a tall man, but it still barely comes to Thor’s waistband. He’s rolled up the sleeves so they don’t look too short.

He’s shaved and his hair is clean and combed back from his eyes. It’s disturbing, but he of the inappropriate King-Arthur-esque come-ons cleans up nicely.

She shakes her head. Remember the armor, Amy. Remember the ping when you flicked his back.

Remember he saved you...

She sighs. She is probably just imagining all of this. It’s too much to think about, so she focuses on the spread on the table.

Beatrice has pulled out the stops for Amy’s rescuer. Amy’s grandmother is of Ukrainian descent, and the table shows it. Stuffed cabbages, sausages, boiled potatoes, and homemade sauerkraut. Amy prefers to eat vegetarian, and in deference to that her grandmother has also laid out some cheese sandwiches and mushroom soup with dumplings.

Thor sits down with a big smile and proceeds to eat everything. He doesn’t eat fast, doesn’t shovel food in his face, but he’s like a machine. He just keeps going, and going, and going.

Her grandmother asks him questions, and he answers quickly and vaguely and turns the conversation back to Beatrice. He asks all the right questions about the neighborhood, and Beatrice is happy to expound on how it had once been predominantly Ukrainian but now is filled with yuppies and Mexican “foreigners” — Beatrice doesn’t quite catch the irony in her being from the Ukraine and a foreigner. Thor doesn’t comment.

He seems so much like the nice, kind of shy awkward guy she remembers from the police station. Beatrice seems utterly enchanted by him. It takes nearly half an hour for her to turn to Amy and say, “How did your final exams go, dear?”

Putting down her sandwich, Amy says, “Oh, great, Grandma. I think my exam for Equine Theriogenology went really well.” Her grandmother looks at her pointedly, and then tips her head in Thor’s direction. Amy belatedly remembers it’s not nice to use words people probably don’t understand. Licking her lips she prepares to explain theriogenology is the study of animal reproduction when Thor says, “Oh, really? Was the curriculum theoretical or practical? I’m no expert on theriogenology myself, equine or otherwise, but I have had the opportunity to be present for a foaling here and there. And my friend...Homer...was always hatching odd things.”

Amy blinks. “The class was theoretical and practical...”

“Oh, excellent,” says Thor. “It’s so lovely watching foals clamber up on their wobbly little legs, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” says Amy, her mouth threatening to pull into a smile.

“Did you grow up on a farm?” Beatrice asks Thor.

“No,” he says. “But there were stables nearby.” Helping himself to the last of the stuffed cabbages, Thor says. “What are in these cabbages? They are delicious!”

Beatrice giggles like a young girl and Amy restrains a sigh as her grandmother begins to tell Thor exactly what’s in them. Instead, going to the stove, Amy ladles another bowl of mushroom soup for herself. Actually, listening to her grandmother talk about ground pork and seasonings is beginning to make her feel like this isn’t a dream.

Didn’t Dream-on-the-bus Thor tell her she’d know she was alive when things became ordinary again? And maybe Armor-in-the-garage-attic Thor was just another dream? She hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in days now. Maybe she drifted off to sleep when she came out of her shower and lay down on her bed? Of course! That must be what happened.

She’s just going back to the table when the CD player, which had been playing some mellow shoe gazing electronica, switches to her grandmother’s Glenn Miller CD.

Thor sits up straighter as the opening bars to “In the Mood” comes on. “I know this song,” he says.

Sighing, Beatrice says, “I learned to dance the Swing with this song.”

Thor grins. “So did I!” Setting his napkin on the table, he stands, bows slightly and holds out a hand. “Beatrice?”

Beatrice puts a hand to her mouth. And then she smiles and says, “Oh, why not? But let’s go to the living room. There’s no space in here.”

Taking Thor’s hand, she leads him to the other room and Amy follows.

“No dipping or throws!” Beatrice says, “Remember, I’m old!”

“Nonsense,” says Thor, putting a hand on her back as they step in front of the fireplace. “You don’t look a day over 65!”

Beatrice laughs and holds up her hand for him. “I’m closer to 85, young man!”

Taking her hand in his, Thor pauses. “No, really, I meant it, you don’t...” The look on his face is genuinely perplexed. But then he blinks, says, “Good on you!” and they begin to dance. Thor is very gentle for such a huge guy and Beatrice smiles from ear to ear — if she feels anything weird beneath Grandpa’s old shirt Thor’s wearing, she’s not showing it. Amy leans against the mantle and just watches. She hasn’t seen Grandma this happy since Grandpa died, and it makes her a little misty eyed. Even if this is all in her head, for Beatrice’s sake, she doesn’t want it to end.

And then it almost does. The light in the living room flickers and goes out, and there is an instant of darkness. But then, all at once, every single candle on the mantle lights up. Amy jumps, as her hair nearly catches fire.

“Oh, candles! Lovely!” says Beatrice.

Thor smiles at Amy. “Thanks for lighting those!”

Amy decides not to say anything. Aren’t hallucinations part of sleep deprivation?

As the music winds down, she just follows her giggling grandmother and Thor back into the kitchen.

Breathing a little heavily, Beatrice sits down and smoothes her hair.

Thor slides into the seat across from her and starts helping himself to the last of the boiled potatoes and sausage.

“You are too much fun to be Thor!” Beatrice declares.

Thor’s body stills, a spoon full of potatoes hanging in the air. “Oh?” he says. His voice has just the barest hint of an edge to it, and Amy tenses. “Who am I then?”

Something mischievous enters Beatrice’s eyes. “I’d say you’re more a friend to Hoenir than you are a Thor.”

Thor puts the potatoes down. “Friend to Hoenir...”

Winking, Beatrice says, “It’s a kenning, young man. You can Google it later.”

“Google?” says Thor.

“I’m a very tech savvy Grandma!” says Beatrice. “I email my granddaughter every day! It’s so wonderful.”

“Email...” says Thor.

“Kenning?” says Amy.

Looking at Amy, Thor says, “A kenning is a conventional poetic phrase used in place of the name of a person or thing. For instance, storm-of-swords means battle.”

Beatrice blinks, “Very good! How about whale-road?”

Putting a potato in his mouth — the whole thing, but it really isn’t that big a mouthful for him, Thor smiles, chews a moment, swallows, and then says, “The sea!”

The next half hour or so consists of Beatrice throwing kennings at Thor. Thor gets all the old obscure ones, like gore-cradle for battlefield, and battle-flame for the light on a sword, but he misses the new ones, like beer-goggles. When Amy explains it he laughs heartily. He doesn’t get surfing-the-net either; when Amy tries to explain that one, he only looks befuddled.

Thor’s cleaning up the last of everything on the table when Beatrice says, “Well, I think I’ll offer you dessert and then call it a night.” She looks at Thor’s plate. “Unless, of course, you still would like more meat and potatoes...”

She’s just being polite, of course; anyone can see it.

But Thor nods vigorously. “I could eat more meat and potatoes if you’ve got them.”

Beatrice blinks at him. “Well...I do have a cold smoked ham in the fridge I was thinking of serving my church group...”

Smacking his lips, Thor says, “That sounds delicious! I love ham!”

Beatrice stares at him, then shaking her head, gets up and says, “I forget how much young men can eat!”

Amy helps her grandmother put a huge ham on a serving plate in the middle of the table. Beatrice hands Thor a carving knife — and a loaf of bread for good measure, and then excuses herself. As she is leaving, she turns and says, “Friends of Hoenir are always welcome in this house.”

Thor smiles. “Well, Hoenir is a lovely man. I’m sure any friend of his is exceptional.”

Beatrice laughs. “Hoenir’s friend did put the gods in their place on more than one occasion,” and Thor looks absolutely befuddled again.

Beatrice leaves the room, the old floorboards, and then the stairs, creaking as she goes up to her room.

An awkward silence settles on the table. Thor rips off a piece of bread, looks down at his plate and says, “Friend of Hoenir...”

Amy whips out her iPhone and Googles it. She sits up straighter. “It’s Loki,” she says. She swears the lights flicker just a bit. At her feet, Fenrir makes the same noise she makes when she spies a rabbit.

She looks up and sees Thor staring at her, as though gauging her reaction.

Amy doesn’t move. She feels like pieces of a puzzle in her brain are falling into place, but the picture that is forming is too weird and too impossible to be real.

He looks down at his plate. “Hoenir was a good friend. From the beginning...even willing to risk his life...” Thor stirs the food on his plate, but says no more.

L
oki is 12 years old
. A mist is settling over the gardens outside the palace in Asgard. It is early evening, and he runs as fast as his legs can carry him down dark garden paths, his breathing loud in his ears.

He doesn’t stop until he gets to Hoenir’s hut. As he bangs at the door, a little gray mouse with eight black insect legs and no tail drops down from the eaves on a silvery trail of spider silk. Loki loves spiders. Ordinarily he’d pet the little creature, but now he’s too flustered to even raise a finger to it.

The door opens and golden light spills out. Hoenir is wearing an apron and gloves of the kind falconers wear. He steps silently aside and Loki bolts in.

Loki never knows what he’ll find when he comes into the hut. On the outside, it looks like a single room just a few paces wide, but on the inside it has many rooms, and is much larger than it looks from the garden. He never knows which room he’ll step into. Sometimes it’s a sitting room with comfy chairs and a roaring fire, sometimes an enormous library grander even than Odin’s, sometimes a kitchen, or sometimes, like tonight, he enters a workshop. There is a long workbench as high as Loki’s chest and some tall chairs next to it. From the ceiling hangs a large lamp-like thing that glows orange and nearly touches the bench top.

Mimir is standing on his neck by the lamp. “Ah, Loki, we were just about to do a hatching. Would you like to select an egg for us?”

Hoenir gestures towards an enormous basket, as big as Loki, filled with eggs, all rather long and oblong instead of the regular shape of a bird egg. Loki finds one that is about twice the length of his outstretched hands and about half as wide. It is leathery and soft.

“Excellent,” says Mimir. “Why don’t you bring it here and set it beneath the lamp.”

Hoenir leads Loki to a tall chair close to Mimir and the lamp. Loki climbs up on it and puts the egg beneath the light. The lamp gives off a lot of heat.

The three of them sit staring at it for a long time. At last Mimir says, “So, Loki. What brings you to our hut at this time of night?”

Loki shrugs.

For a few moments Mimir says nothing, and then he says, “So have you seen baby Baldur? I’m not such a fan of babies myself, but Odin and Frigga’s child...why I’ve never seen such golden curls on a newborn. And even his cries sound musical.”

Loki scowls. “His curls aren’t golden. His hair is thin and black and straight. And his cries sound just like every other baby’s cry. They’re loud and I wish he’d shut up.”

“Now, now,” says Mimir. “I’ve seen Baldur, and he most definitely has golden curls, and rosy cheeks and...”

“No,” says Loki, staring at the egg. He thinks he sees it moving. “His hair is black. And his skin is pale and nearly blue...like mine. He looks more Jotunn than Aesir. And there’s magic all around him...gray magic, so dark it’s nearly black.”

What Loki doesn’t say is how just being around Baldur makes the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. How he feels a chill just being near the baby.

“Did you tell Odin what you see?” Mimir asks quietly.

Loki can only swallow.

“Oh, dear,” says Mimir, and Loki glances up to see Mimir looking at Hoenir. Hoenir looks very distraught.

“I’m afraid to ask...” says Mimir.

Loki stares as the surface of the egg rips apart and a tiny hole appears. “Odin told me to leave the palace and never come back.”

It was the only time Odin has ever screamed at him — usually there have been maids and governesses for that. Loki has taken his designation as “God of Mischief” rather seriously. Mimir and Odin have stressed the Aesir aren’t really gods — more gardeners of the World Tree, but Loki likes his moniker. It’s great fun to make an illusion of a snake in a laundry basket and then explain it to Odin as his “sacred duty.” Such things never fail to make Odin chortle.

But telling Odin what Baldur looked like to him...that had not gone so well.

Beside him he hears Hoenir scoot back in his chair. The egg starts to shake.

“What sort of creature’s in the egg?” Loki asks. He doesn’t want to talk about Odin or his exile from the palace.

“A hadrosaur,” says Mimir, his voice soft.

“One of Hoenir’s creations?” asks Loki.

Mimir raises his eyebrows, “No, well, only distantly. It was created by evolution.”

Loki wonders who Evolution is but asks the more pressing question. “What is a hadrosaur?”

“It is a sort of herbivorous dragon,” says Mimir.

Loki puts his hands down on the counter and rests his head on them. The egg starts to shake some more; a tiny hole splits into a tear.