Modern Goddess: Trapped by Thor (Book One) (23 page)

Husband?

The leaves began to shake above, and in a
terribly violent fashion. The whole world around me was shaking
itself loose. Loose from what, I didn’t know.

I tried to hold on, but it faded.

The leaves turned into hair, and the
glorious dappled sunshine filtering through them shifted at once to
a pale, cold light.

I stood back in the Ambrosia. Standing was
hardly an accurate term – I was being held up by the shoulders. My
head was lolled to the side, all muscle control gone. The only
reason I wasn't a pile on the floor was that Thor had such a hold
of my upper arms that he could use them to prop up a
bridge.

Reality didn't click back as quickly as I
hoped. I didn't snap back into the present with a look of
popping-eyed wonder followed by a strangled “Awesome, I was
hallucinating, and the colors, man, the colors!” No. I had to claw
my way back to the present and to who and what I was. As that was
such an odd way to describe what was going on, it placed serious
doubts on the exact epistemic credentials of what I'd previously
been comfortable to describe as me.

I could still hear the rustling of leaves
far, far off in the distance. It was fading. The more it faded, the
more I tried to hold onto it. The more I did that, the more my head
hurt – the more my brain tried to shift out of my skull through the
center of my forehead.

Thor gave my shoulders a shake, and he
almost shook my head off.

“
Ahhh,” I managed, though it
was more of a gurgle.

This appeared to satisfy the searching,
pressed, unsure-look in Thor's eyes. It was a look I’d never seen,
and not one I would have thought possible for the Nordic god of
inappropriately-timed-happy-hour parties.

He looked lost and yet on the cusp of
finding something.

I watched those cheeks for... what?
Seconds, moments, a fraction of time?

“
There is something wrong with
that goddess,” I heard someone say from off to my side.

My neck muscles still weren't what they
should be, so I wasn't about to bother lolling my head their way
like an uncoordinated puppet. Plus, I knew who it was:
Hera.

She was right, there was something wrong
with this goddess. My problems ranged from being hunted, to having
a blown up front door, to having had a hallucination in the middle
of a god bar.

I was starting to regain control over my
body and was starting to hold my head aloft. This gave me a
fabulous view of all the people staring at me. Boy, were they
staring. This was, for the assembled gods and goddesses, the
equivalent of dinner and a show. Thor, Hera, and my partially
paralyzed, oft-hallucinating self were providing an act in the
middle of the bar for all to appreciate over their ale and club
sandwiches.

I went to push my glasses up my nose – a
move I’d grown accustomed to performing whenever a situation was
beyond my control in the Immigration Office. If some boisterous,
loud, and dangerous war god was seconds from destroying my desk
with his magical spear, I would take a moment to slowly and
pointedly push my glasses up as if they were magical microscopes
that enabled me to peer right through the problem.

Except I wasn't wearing my glasses. No
rims to hide behind. Instead I... had to take it all in. Which
wasn't a good thing to do considering how much there was to stare
at. In a move becoming all too familiar to me, my bloody head
hurt.

“
Do something about it,”
Hera stamped up to Thor's side and pointed a finger right at
me.

I was it, apparently.

I glanced her way. I didn't like being
talked to in that manner while I was recovering from sudden
leaf-filled dreams. “I have a name, Hera,” I said, proud that my
voice was more in control than the rest of me. “If you can't
remember it, I'm happy to write it down for you.”

Hera looked murderously at me.

Thor looked confused and torn. “I—“

“
My cat!” I spoke the sudden
thought out loud. “Damn it, I left him in Ancient Egypt.” I pulled
free from Thor's grip – which was easier to do than it sounded –
and stood on my own two feet as I tried to think. If I went back to
my house, I might be able to con the old spatial anomaly between my
bedroom and living room to send me back to the library of
Alexandria. Then I would... grab a bag of dried food and walk
around the sandy streets of an ancient port city shaking it and
calling “Here, kitty, kitty.”

...
. Damn.

“
Her cat?” I saw Hera out of
my peripheral vision swing her gaze from me back to Thor and twist
a finger in a circle next to her head.

I wasn't crazy – I just had priorities.
Plus, if Thor was going to stand there having an almost-domestic
with his almost-wife during happy hour at the Ambrosia, then at
least I was going to be proactive. Yes, he’d been assigned by one
of the most powerful gods to protect me. But if Thor wasn't going
to do his job, then by Jove (excuse the joke), I was going to do it
for him.

First things first, I was going to get my
cat back. Or – considering I wasn't a total klutz fond of walking
into traps/offering myself up free-of-charge to my kidnappers – I
would make some enquiries at the Integration Office. I would check
with our contacts in Ancient Egypt as to whether the cat goddess
would mind having a roam around for a stray. While I was there, I
would also get on to the Divinity Police and ensure they put
immediate measures in place to track down my kidnappers.

Gosh, yes, this was a good plan. Why I
hadn’t thought of doing it before, I didn't know. The entire point
of the Immigration Office was it provided a centrally organized
point of security. Going to them was logical. Staying with Thor was
idiotic. I’d been lulled into staying by his side, since he thought
that good detective work was qualitatively the same as good
ale.

So be it, I was going alone.

I turned and walked away as Hera stepped
into my place. “I can't believe you—“ she began to admonish Thor in
a riotously loud tone.

I tuned her out.

“
Details, don't wander far,” Thor
immediately boomed from behind me. He was being diplomatic –
realizing that he could hardly blow off Hera and yet not wanting to
disappoint his old man by losing sight of me.

That was
the problem with gods like him –
split personalities meant split priorities.

“
I won't,” I lied. When the
truth would have a golden-bearded idiot breathing down your neck, a
lie was always preferable.

I didn't head straight to the door. I
meandered around the side of the room for a while first. I didn't
want to out-and-out leave the place while Thor was still watching.
It was one thing to say you would do something then do the opposite
immediately and brazenly. It was what Thor would do. I wasn't that
stupid.

I waited until the exact note in Hera's
wailing tone was so high it could have cracked the ceiling, then I
quietly made my way out. To my knowledge, every other god and
goddess was too busy watching the show to see me leave the
scene.

As soon as the door to the Ambrosia closed
behind me, I drew in the cool night air. I picked up the mingling
scents of far-off rain, near-by curry, and the general muck of
packed-in city living.

The smell itself didn't matter, it was the
fact I could take the time to note the details.

I felt measurably calmer than I had in
days. I wasn't on someone else's timetable here. I wasn't running
from or running with anyone else. I was on my own. If I wanted to
take the time to note the exact waft of turmeric and cinnamon in
the air, then I was going to do that.

I was also a practical goddess, and I wasn't
about to get distracted. I would enjoy the details as I worked.

I was going to head straight to the
Integration Office. I wasn't about to brave my own home (though the
prospect of a shower was one that seemed almost as important as
saving the universe). For all I knew, Loki was still hanging around
on my porch, sitting on the stoop, polishing his fake Jupiter gun,
and sighing about how he'd lost “Da broad.”

Nope, if I wanted to go alone and if I
wanted it to be a success (i.e. If I didn't want to end up tied to
a wall again), then I had to be smart. I knew, though it was an
unpleasant thing to know, that Loki, Hades, and Seth would still be
after me. I had to act now – no heading to the store to pick up
some sugar and eggs for some late-night cupcakes.

Time to go to work.

The Integration Office was located in space,
but I didn't have to hop a NASA shuttle every time I wanted to head
there. The transport networks available to gods were more extensive
than your average suburban bus route. Summoning them, however,
involved less goat sacrifices than you'd expect.

I stepped onto the road, looking both ways
as I crossed to the other side. There were god-transport hubs (or
great whacking spatial anomalies if you wanted to give them a
science-friendly definition) at set points around the globe. These
anomalies were of the trained, reliable, non-world-destroying
variety. All you had to do was know where they were and know how to
access them, then you could con them into taking you to anywhere in
time and space.

The reason I lived in a homely cottage on
the edge of this city was there was a travel node close by. It was
in a church on the outskirts of town. The exact location of the
divinely-controlled spatial-travel anomalies was a little random.
Some were in deepest-darkest forests. Others were in underwater
caves. One was in a female bathroom stall in the London
Underground. There wasn't a whole lot of reasoning behind the
locations, at least from the modern point of view. They were,
however, all related to ancient sites of power. The church at the
edge of this city happened to be sitting over the location of an
old, catastrophically epic god battle. The battle had sanctified
the site with the kind of frantic, zippy, charged energy that made
the fact a spatial anomaly had grown from the grass hardly a
surprise. Those spatial anomalies love atmosphere.

The church itself was rundown, and to my
knowledge no longer had any regular parishioners. Despite its
disuse, it had never been sold or torn down to make way for car
parks and whatnot. Such a thing would never make it past city
planning. The number one rule of the Integration Office – not to
interfere with the freewill of other creatures – didn't extend to
letting wily developers tear down the locales of spatial anomalies.
That type of thing tended to irritate space-time rips something
chronic.

All I had to do was make it to the church,
then hop a ride to the Integration Office. Once at the Office, I
would be safe. Loki could try to walk in pretending to be any god
he pleased, but he wouldn't get through. He could steal a whole
hoard of sea monsters (who might object to performing a raid
fryingly close to the sun) and try to attack the building – but it
wouldn't work.

When safe inside my own office, I could
start to solve this problem my own way. I could delve into various
files and amass all the details there were until I could construct
the true story from the bottom up.

That
would be action. While happy hour
would only result in a large tab, I would be solving this crime the
proper way.

I only had to get from my current location
to the church.

I let myself be pulled along by the
tingly, nervous, frightened feeling welling in my gut. I glanced
behind me at the ordinary door that led to the Ambrosia.

Was leaving Thor the best thing to do?

I pushed the feeling away as I turned
around.

Yes, it had to be. I was sure Thor's ways
were the old ways (not that they had many happy hours back in
ancient Norway, but the point still stood).

Wiping my hands on my jacket, I paid close
attention to the feel of the fabric as I ran my fingers over it.
The move was quick, the fabric a mix of soft but hard.

I took a breath and began to walk. I put
enormous effort into focusing on my environment. The way the
lamplights made the pavement seem a different color. The way the
noise of traffic from the busier main roads beyond filtered through
as I passed near the mouths of connecting alleys. The way the stars
above were mostly enshrouded by a growing, thick cloud.

If I was careful to pay attention to the
details – and to stay within them – then my power would remain with
me. The true divinity that kept me a goddess wouldn’t be far from
my grasp. The details enthroned me. And if I enthroned them in my
awareness, then I would be divine.

I clicked my tongue against the base of my
mouth as I walked. The sound was hollow and quick, and echoed
through my jaw like a judge banging a gavel in a silent courtroom.
Though a growing voice in my head kept questioning whether this was
a good idea, I dismissed it. I'd decided to go alone, so alone I
would go.

Plus, I was a goddess for crying out loud –
a bona fide immortal female with powers beyond the imagination. I
wasn't like some poor old nanna who couldn't hope to defend herself
against an armed robber or a slippery step.

No. Just because Loki and his dodgy mates
were supposedly big-time gods, didn't mean they automatically
bested me. I’d shown Hera up, hadn't I? She was as big as they
came.

As I walked, the tingling in my stomach
continued to grow, but I tried to rationalize the unpleasant
sensation away. It was left-over nerves. It was the effect of being
cast into the care of a god who couldn't care less about my welfare
(or the universe's, apparently) and cared more for sitting at a
table and watching eternity through the bottom of his empty ale
glass.