Modern Goddess: Trapped by Thor (Book One) (10 page)

“
Goddess Officina, ruler of
details and facts,” he addressed me by my full title.

It sent such a shiver down my back. It had
been years since someone had bothered addressing me like that. I
was usually plain Officina or Details.

It was the tone Odin used – it was so
god-like. Which wasn't surprising considering he was a god. But
that didn't capture how important it was. It was truly god-like –
it wasn't like the petulant whines I'd get from rejected small-time
crime gods, or the light and fluffy tones of mildly annoyed cloud
gods. No. Odin spoke with the authority of a ruler of gods. It was
something I hadn’t dealt with in a long time. Since the Integration
Office had taken over divine administration, gods like me had been
distanced from the bigwigs. We did the work while they sat in their
ivory towers.

I nodded low, my bunched hair – which the
medical god had bothered to curl and tassel while I was
regenerating – brushed over my shoulder. I didn't address Odin in
return – I knew this was going to be a one-sided conversation until
he gave me permission to speak.

I caught Thor glancing at me as I
straightened up again. It was odd seeing him contained like this.
Rather than expressing himself in his usual loud, boisterous way,
he just stood there, straight and tall.

I wondered fleetingly if he'd been the one
to take me to god hospital, or whether he'd left me there and Tolus
had found me later.

Now wasn't the time to ask.

Odin leaned forward. “Tell me.”

I did. I told him everything. I put in all
the details I could remember – which meant my account wound on for
a long time. I told the king of the Nordic gods precisely how heavy
I believed the sea monster to have been and how much pressure it
had exerted around my middle per cubic centimeter. I described the
quality of the thing's breath. I did, however, leave out some –
okay, most – of the considerable number of details I'd noticed
about Thor. As I recounted the tale, I realized I’d paid way more
attention to Thor than I had to my would-be killer.

When I finished my story, Odin sat there
silently. Briefly, I worried my fact-filled tale had sent him to
sleep. “Do you have any enemies?” he asked me.

I blinked. “Um,” I said stupidly. “I...
that sea monster... it was an opportune attack. Tolus and I merely
accidentally disturbed it. I don't think—“

“
I didn’t ask you what you
thought,” Odin said, voice tight and oh-so authoritative. “I asked
you if you have any enemies.”

One of the other gods beside Thor gave a
slight snigger.

Yes, it was mildly funny – or at least it
would be to a macho, groupie, sidekick god. The fact was, I could
safely say I had a world-full of enemies, heck, a universe full.
This was easily evidenced by the fact the medical god had turned
from friendly and supportive to icy upon realizing who I was. I was
the immigration officer who told all those gods and goddesses what
they couldn't get up to on Earth. I was the one who – in Thor's
words – trampled on and got in the way of all those divine
wishes.

Odin's gaze shifted to the snickering god,
and the snickering died quicker than a fly falling into a pit of
molten lava.

“
I.... I have some enemies,” I
said diplomatically.

“
Who?” Odin
asked.

I didn't see why this line of questioning
was necessary. I also didn't see how listing every single potential
enemy I could have was going to help – it might be easier to get a
list of all registered divine identities and safely assume the
majority of them had it in for me to varying degrees.

“
She is the Immigration
Officer,” Thor cut in. “Listing her enemies would take too long,
father.” The way Thor said father gave his tone an edge. For a man
usually full of himself, his deference to Odin was obvious. I'm
sure it evidenced daddy-issues of god-like proportions.

“
I see,” Odin said. “You have
many enemies then.”

I nodded. “You could say that.”

He leaned forward, his white beard resting
against his knees, his single gold eye glittering far brighter than
any star or constellation. “One of those enemies is trying to kill
you, Officina, goddess of details and facts. Or capture you,” he
added, as if that were meant to make me feel better.

Academically, I knew my job made me
unpopular. But there was unpopular, then there was being told by
the king of the Nordic gods someone was out to get you.

I was a controlled goddess. Unlike some of
the other more emotional gods and goddesses, I tended to hold my
feelings in check. Now I was close to falling over.

It was the way he'd said it. It was the
way his mouth had barely stretched, had barely moved as he'd
intoned his cold words. It was more in the details than the
statement. Those details hinted at a violent and frankly perilous
future.

Odin didn't cut in with a “Don't worry,
though, I'll send my skull-cracking son after those goons, and
we'll catch them.” He didn't offer me any solace at all, he just
stared on at me with his single golden eye.

I barely stopped myself from whimpering like
a trapped and doomed dog.

“
I would hand this over to your
Integration Office,” Odin said the phrase with the usual disdain it
elicited, “But I’m afraid this is personal. That sea monster was
mine.”

“
Yours?” I squeaked,
wondering if Odin meant the thing was his personal sea-monster pet
– the god equivalent of a gold fish.

“
I’d trapped it under the
fjords. Someone un-trapped it. In doing so, they broke into one of
my personal undersea facilities.”

I didn't feel like laughing – though
Odin's admission that he owned a personal underground facility was
very Bond-villain.

I got the gist. Someone had broken into one
of his numerous cribs and stolen from him. Why Odin had a trapped
sea monster, I didn't know. Gods – especially the old ones – were
odd fellows. Maybe it was a vestige of some long-lost war, or he
liked the way it looked as it floated around in its undersea
prison.

The fact was clear, though: Odin was going
to take this situation personally. His sea monster; his
case.

I hoped in taking it personally, he didn't
reject me as a useless side note. It was clear he was after the
complete idiot who'd stolen his questionable pet, but did that
include keeping me safe from the same ambitious fool?

Standing around and waiting for his answer
– if he was going to give it – was torture. What I wouldn't give
for Tremulous with his bustling mustache and blue-gold hat. Alas,
this case was going to be solved in-house and old-school. The kind
of old-school that included giant beards, terrifying gazes, magical
weapons, and an outrageous number of god-on-monster
fights.

I wanted to ask what would happen to me, but
I stared at my toes instead. It didn't help.

“
You will help to find who stole
that creature. They are after you – you will bring them out from
the darkness.” Odin abruptly shifted his head back into a neutral
position and stared off into space.

I swallowed. Was Odin suggesting that I –
alone – go out there and bait my attacker with a chicken dance on a
deserted street corner?

“
Thor, you will help her,”
Odin added.

I felt relieved for a single second before
I processed what that meant. Thor, bloody Thor was going to help
me? I would have to put up with the giant gold-bearded buffoon as
he tied me to a mountain and waited in the bushes to catch my
attacker before it leapt on me and pulled my head off.

I couldn't trust Thor! Nor could I go on the
god-equivalent of a manhunt with him.

I could see the same thoughts crossing
Thor's mind – his chest stiffened, and he blinked. He tried to
stand straighter, too, though if he stood any taller, he'd start
floating.

Before I could plead my case to Odin – and
suggest any other god but Thor accompany me on my fatal mission – I
noticed the quality of his gaze had changed. He was no longer
staring at me, though his single eye was opened. The attention was
there, but it was also clear it was no longer penetrating the
outside world.

I’d heard that in sacrificing his other
eye in return for wisdom, all Odin had done was to have that eye
turned around in his skull. It no longer stared at the world around
him, but within at the world inside. Which, apparently, was all it
took for true wisdom to take hold.

When the gods beside me turned on their
heels to leave, I realized that regardless of whether Odin was
engaging in a little self-reflection, this meeting was over. There
would be no chance of convincing Odin to assign another god to this
– it was done.

Though I didn't belong to Odin's pantheon, I
still had to follow his orders. As king of the Nordic gods, and the
last true god of old with a functioning divine identity, he held
considerable weight. I couldn't ignore an order from him. Neither
could any of the other gods.

Nope, I was stuck on this one. I could
lodge a complaint with the Integration Office that I'd been given
an unsuitable command by a divinity not directly related to my
pantheon, but the paperwork would take weeks to process. Also,
there was that pesky problem that Odin was technically Cronos and
Saturn too, and therefore, by proxy, had all the rights of the
Greek and Roman gods.

My heart fell as I turned on my heel and
made for the door far away. This room was cavernous. One of the
problems of being a small god in a big-god building – you had to
walk blasted far to get anywhere.

I took one last glance at Odin as I left.
The sight of him with one eye turned inside was a quieting one. How
other gods amassed their power and felt the divinity within was
always a question that intrigued me. So I noted every detail of
Odin's breathlessly still form.

Soon I reached the door and made it out into
the corridor. Immediately, the laughing started. The other god
groupies who'd been at Thor's side erupted into guffaws. One
playfully clapped Thor on the shoulder, though he had to stand on
his tippy-toes to reach.

I didn't laugh.

“
Ha,” one of the gods
guffawed, “You have to protect the immigration officer.”

They all thought it was stupendously
funny.

There were a couple of “Why don't you tie
her to a wall and wait for the enemy to come – then you can leave
her there afterwards and get rid of two problems at once.” And “We
could dangle her over the wall and see if any eagle monsters swoop
in to catch her, then we can clock them on the head and drop her
off the side for good measure.”

It took me several hot-cheeked seconds to
realize Thor wasn't joining in with the laughter. He paused there,
manipulating his jaw with his free hand as Mjollnir rested on his
shoulder with the other.

The laughing died off. It confirmed that
these gods were Thor's groupies. Now he wasn't joining in with
their humorous hardly-veiled threats, the groupies weren't finding
things funny anymore.

Thor just stood there, and I started to
wonder if he was so bored by the whole idea of protecting me he was
considering a nap instead.

No, that wasn't right. The way Thor played
with his jaw wasn't out of boredom. The movements of his fingers
were too stiff. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes were
bunched up, indicating there was more tension there than his casual
stance belied.

He flicked his gaze over to me. “Stop
staring at me, Details.”

This elicited a laugh from his groupies –
though it was a stuttering one. They were still unsure about what
was funny – because what was funny to them, was what was funny to
Thor, and Thor didn't seem in a fun-loving mood.

I sighed at the dumb pet name, shifting my
gaze off him, settling it innocently on the shadow he cast on the
wall behind instead.

I was waiting for him to tell me what was
going to happen next. I’d never – surprisingly – been on a god-hunt
before. I was the goddess of details, not the goddess of tracking
bad divinities and bringing them to justice. I didn't know the fine
details of catching dodgy divinities – although, ironically, I
would soon enough. I would know each and every exquisite fact of
what it felt like to accompany Thor as we found the god who both
wanted to kill me and had stolen Thor's dad's questionable pet.

Details, details. Usually fine things, but I
knew these details were going to be of the unpleasant,
frequently-fighting, loud, golden-bearded variety.

I took a needless breath and tried to
weather the storm.

Without a word of explanation, Thor began to
stalk off in the other direction. Mjollnir was held stiffly at his
side and his shoulders were so tight they looked ready to pop.

I wasn't sure whether I was meant to
follow, and nor did I want to when he looked that angry.

His groupies didn't appear to know what
was going on, either. A couple of them exchanged glances and looked
fleetingly after him.

“
Details,” Thor
rumbled.

I was vaguely impressed by how he could make
his tone roll like a clap of thunder. When I realized the thunder
was directed at me, I hopped, skipped, and jumped into action.

I scurried after him, ignoring the several
snickers I received from his groupies. As far as I was concerned,
what I was doing – following Thor around at his rumbling beck and
call – was at least a tad more dignified than these divine
hangers-on. They stood there like lost sheep waiting for their
butch shepherd to come back. Their stuttering laughs were their
pathetic equivalents of bleating.