Mist (43 page)

“Yes,” Dainn said thickly, as if he could barely force the words from his throat. “Hold her prisoner, but do not harm her.”

Loki kissed Dainn gently on the lips. “It will be as if we had never parted.”

Mist looked away. She had understood that he and Dainn had worked closely together before Dainn had recognized his error and tried to warn the Aesir. But she had never expected
this.

They had obviously been far more than partners in a supposed attempt to establish a lasting peace. And though Dainn’s hatred of Loki was clear in every line of his body, Laufeyson still wanted him. Dainn would submit to keep her alive.

There was a heaviness in Mist’s chest—anger, grief, a profound sense of loss. But with those feelings came that sense of half-familiar power gathering inside her—that same magic she had turned against Dainn in the loft and again, less successfully, in the gym—an instinctive awareness of the elements around her, of ancient forces at work in her body. And slowly, slowly, the tattoo around her wrist began to come alive.

It was like a battery recharging. She still had no idea if she could control the magic, but she knew, even without understanding her certainty, that she couldn’t succeed if she didn’t give the magic time to build to the highest level her mind could accept.

She had to buy more time. She didn’t know if Loki was still susceptible to Freya’s presence in spite of his claims to the contrary, but it was worth a try.If it would help her keep him guessing until she was ready . . .

“Are you sure this is what you want, Slanderer?” she asked, gathering Freya’s mantle of honey, sex, and primroses about herself. Loki spun around. Dainn slumped back to the floor as Mist draped her body seductively over the couch and smiled every so gently. “Mist,” Loki said, his lip curling. “What ever you’re playing at, you can give it up now.”

Mist looked around the room. “Mist? I don’t see her. Perhaps she’s hiding behind the draperies?”

With an angry laugh, Loki strode to the couch. He grabbed the collar of Mist’s jacket and hauled her up.

“Do you seriously think I’d believe you’re Freya?” he demanded. “Don’t you think I can tell the difference?”

She let him hold her up, pliable as a silken ribbon, and linked her arms around his neck. “You are always so sure of yourself, Laufeyson. But sometimes even you are wrong.”

Pushing even the thought of revulsion out of her mind, she kissed him. His arms tightened around her, and he thrust his tongue inside her mouth. She responded as ardently as she once had with Eric.

Abruptly Loki let her go and threw her back onto the couch. “Try that again, Mist,” he said, “and I’ll make both of you suffer.”

“Are you sure you can?” Mist asked, stretching her arms above her head. “Why don’t you try and find out?”

Something in her act must have worked, because Loki hesitated. And while he did, Dainn spoke in her mind.

Tell him about the time he tried to give you roses in Sessrumnir.

She witnessed the scene in less than a second and reminded Loki of that long-ago encounter. He reared back, his face going red. But he recovered quickly.

“You find this amusing?” he hissed. “I can still kill this body and send you back to the Void. If you were prepared to use the Eitr now, you would have done it already.”

Mist had no idea what he was talking about, but she didn’t drop the mask. “Perhaps I wanted to toy with you a while, as you have toyed with my servants,” she said.

Again Loki seemed uncertain, wavering between belief in Mist’s claimed identity and the suspicion that he was being tricked. Mist felt power flow through her as if carried by an invisible network of vessels like chi meridians, pumping magic into every fiber of her being. The tattoo flared, not painful but aflame with energy. She could smell the clouds hanging over the city, heavy with precipitation . . . feel the limestone in the concrete, hear the flame leaping in the fireplace far below in the lobby.

But something blocked the flow. Something inside her still didn’t want to let go.

Abruptly Loki spun around again and strode back to Dainn. “How much does
this
servant mean to you, Sow?” he asked. He grabbed Dainn’s long, tangled hair and dragged him to his feet again. “You have never cared for anything or anyone you could not use to your benefit or for your pleasure. This creature has failed you. Shall I kill him quickly, or slowly?”

He was calling Mist’s bluff, knowing she’d do almost anything to keep Dainn alive. But he didn’t think Freya would.

“Do what you like with him,” she said.

Loki took Dainn by the throat. He ran his fingertip across the smear of blood at the corner of Dainn’s mouth and began to paint Rune- staves on the elf ’s forehead.

Merkstaves. Runes of death.

Dainn’s thoughts touched hers again—wordless but utterly clear.

Save yourself.

All at once she was back in Asbrew, hearing Dainn’s mental voice for the first time. Something released inside her, a dam giving way before a relentless flood, a tree cracking in two as lightning struck to its very heart. Mist clenched her fist, and the Rune- stave Thurisaz, the giant, leaped free of her hand and charged toward the huge window overlooking the Bay. It exploded inward, hurling shards of glass like arrows that narrowly missed Dainn but pierced one of the Jotunar’s cheeks. He bellowed and ran at Mist.

She reached through clouds and darkness for the rising moon and tried to catch the reflected light of the sun in her open hands— Sowilo reversed, destruction and retribution. The light was weak, but she shaped what she had caught and hurled it like a burning coal at the Jotunn. He burst into flame if he had been dipped in gasoline.

Loki backed away from Dainn and swung around to face her, his face almost comical in its astonishment. Dainn’s knees began to buckle, but he forced himself upright and looked at Mist with hope in his eyes.

“Dainn!” she shouted. “Find Gungnir!”

She didn’t have a chance to see if Dainn obeyed. Loki jumped over the Jotunn’s writhing, blackened body and came straight at her, his lips moving, the air coalescing into a solid block of ice that threatened to shatter Mist’s body on contact.

Instinct alone saved her. She reached skyward again, flowing into the light, becoming a spear flung as high as the highest branch of the World Tree Ygdrassil.

The spear struck the clouds and reflected back on itself as if the sky were a mirror. Lightning laced the gray canopy and plunged earthward, striking the ground between her and Loki, scorching the polished hardwood floor and flinging Loki halfway across the room.

He recovered almost immediately and raced toward her, his face distorted with rage. An instant before he reached her, he changed.

It was only illusion, but it stopped Mist cold. The face and body belong to Eric—Eric, with his broad, open smile, his good humor, his love of life. And Mist.

“You don’t really want to hurt me, do you?” he asked in his deep voice.

Mist recognized the trap too late. Her hands fell, nerveless and limp. Eric’s eyes lit with satisfaction.

“It
was
you,” he said. “I admit you have astonished me, little Valkyrie. But now I think it is time to—”

Mist heard nothing of what Loki said after that, felt nothing but raw power that wasn’t her own, saw nothing but golden light.

A part of her clung to consciousness, and she knew what was happening to her. Freya was with her, inside her, controlling her body as if she were a mere shell of flesh and bone.

Her mother had come at last.

21

Dainn staggered away from the wall, blood filling his mouth, his head still resounding with the violence of Loki’s blow. He was incapable of magic, almost incapable of walking. The beast that had been so powerful minutes before had left him as helpless as any mortal.

He couldn’t help Mist now, but he could do as she asked and find Gungnir, if it was hidden anywhere inside the penthouse. No one in his right mind would conceal the Spear where it was most likely to be found.

But Loki had never been completely in his right mind. That was one reason why Dainn believed Mist could survive this— this incredibly foolish and desperate attempt to save one who wasn’t worth the effort. She had wielded the ancient Vanir magic as if she had used it all her life. She was Loki’s match in everything but malice.

Bending low, Dainn crossed the room and ducked into a hallway where he could catch his breath. He closed his eyes and shut out the sounds of battle, striving to find any trace of magic that would allow him to locate the Spear.

At first he felt nothing. Then, like a whisper in the midst of a hurricane, he sensed a locus of power that belonged to no living thing. The cut in his hand, nearly healed, began to throb. He touched his lips to the wound and tasted magic.

Magic that had seeped into the kitchen knife’s very substance, penetrating only a few molecules deep into the common steel.

That was all Dainn needed. Still ignoring the violent conflict in the adjoining room, he ducked into the kitchen and searched for the knife block.

The moment he touched the carving knife next to the empty slot, Gungnir’s power raised all the hairs on his body and sent spikes of sharp, burning pain racing up his arm. He didn’t have the spell to return it to its true form, but his only concern now was to keep it away from Loki until Mist was either victorious or dead.

He knew what Mist would want him to do. He didn’t do it. He ran back into the living room, holding the knife behind his back, and took in a scene of utter chaos.

Loki was on his back, throwing handfuls of fire at Mist, who stood over him like an avenging goddess, her blond hair loose and flying about her head in a golden aura. Every blast of flame splashed harmlessly against the watery sphere that surrounded her. She was smiling, and her face . . .

Dainn fell to his knees. It wasn’t Mist who had Loki pinned down and fighting for his life. Freya had taken her. She had found a way past her daughter’s instinctive defenses.

And she was winning the fight against both her daughter and Loki.

Gungnir throbbed in Dainn’s grip, and he remembered again why he had come at Freya’s call, why he served her, why he had agreed to let her take Mist’s body as her own.

And why he had chosen to prevent that from happening, no matter the damage it might do to Freya’s chances of victory.

Now he faced the choice all over again, and it was tearing his soul apart. Laufeyson might have defeated Mist alone. He would have faced an equal in Freya. But now the Slanderer’s opponent was more than goddess, more than Valkyrie, more than the sum of both.

Let it happen,
Dainn thought,
and Midgard will be saved from chaos. There will be peace, if not freedom. And I will be—

He struggled to his feet. “Freya!” he shouted.

She glanced at him with all the interest she might afford a speck of dirt forgotten by a house maid’s broom. But in that brief moment when she held Dainn’s gaze, he saw the spirit that could not be quenched trapped behind her brilliant blue eyes.

“Mist!”

The goddess smiled at him, striking him to the ground with the full fury of her love, and returned her attention to Loki. He had given up his attack and was scrambling away, frantically chanting spells of defense.

Mist,
Dainn thought.
Fight.

Freya didn’t hear him. She pursued Loki across the room, striding like a giant, ever smiling. Dainn got to his feet again and stumbled toward them, knowing that if he intervened he would be struck down.

Before Dainn could lay a hand on Freya’s arm, Loki bounced up and struck at him, flinging a rope of flame meant to burn Dainn’s fingers and force him to drop Gungnir. Dainn dodged, but not before the fiery rope slashed across his chest and licked at his jaw, searing his flesh almost to the bone.

He clung to Gungnir with the last of his strength. The fire winked out, and every surface in the room grew a slick coating of ice as the lingering traces of warmth left in the apartment flowed into Loki’s raised hands.

Freya’s eyes lost their gentle rage, and her hair fell back around her shoulders with a hiss and crackle of static electricity. Just before Loki struck, Dainn tossed the knife. She caught it in her right hand, whirled to face Loki again, and chanted the Rune- spell that restored Gungnir to its original form.

The Spear’s head caught the brunt of the ice storm Loki hurled at her, and the steel glowed deep red as if it had just emerged from Mist’s forge. Radiating heat Dainn could feel from several yards away, it seemed to waver in the frigid air as if it existed in two realities at once and belonged to neither.

Still Mist didn’t move. She, too, was frozen between worlds, between minds, between herself and the goddess who wanted her body and the magic that was as much a part of her as her strong sword arm and her selfless courage.

Loki dropped his hands, water dripping from his fingers. Dainn tensed.

“Why did you stop, my Lady?” he asked, breathing hard. “You almost had me.”