Loki's Gambit, page 102
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
“Let me out,” Steve says.
“The ravens will see you,” says Beatrice as Laura pulls the van over to the curb.
“Don’t care,” says Steve.
A moment later, he’s walking down Van Buren beneath the “L” tracks. A train’s wheels screech and sparks fly above his head.
Making sure no one’s around to hear, Steve presses the phone to his ear and says, “Hey, Cracker, got anything for me about fairy lights in your neck of the woods?”
“No,” says Dale. Dale and Steve have a code. If Dale had finished with a joke or mild insult, Steve would have believed him. Dale’s answer stops Steve in his tracks. Regaining himself, he turns and steps into an open courtyard with black stone fountains, dry for winter and filled with evergreen fronds.
“Then why—” Steve starts to say.
“But I do have other news for you, Hommie,” Dale says, Texan accent loud and clear, even though the connection has static.
“Lay it on me, Bak Guiy,” Steve says, using a derogatory Mandarin word for white man.
Dale chuckles. Dale’s a polyglut, and undoubtedly knows that one. There’s a crackle at the other end of the line, and a familiar voice shouts, “Daddy!”
Steve’s mouth drops open, and he forgets all about fairy lights over Chernobyl.
Dale laughs. “Guess who’s temporarily assigned to the embassy in Kiev?”
Instead of answering the question, Steve blurts out, “Claire!”
“Putting her on speaker,” says Dale.
“Dad! Uncle Dale is here!” shouts Claire.
Steve grins, vaguely aware of two dark shadows swirling overhead but not caring.
“Just for a while,” says Dale. “Thought you’d like it if I just checked in on things here.”
Steve does like it, a lot, but can’t make himself say it. His voice might crack.
“Uncle Dale’s coming with us when we visit the Kiev Ballet school tomorrow!” says Claire. Steve winces. That’s an assignment Steve’s friend is probably looking forward to about as much as a root canal.
“No, that’s a few days from now, String Bean,” says Dale, and Steve can hear him smiling.
Sounding like she’s jumping up and down, Claire says, “And then we’re going to some fancy party with the President of the Ukraine.”
“That sounds great, honey,” Steve says, trying to sound happy for her.
“Dana’s real happy I’m here, too,” says Dale. To his credit, his voice holds no hint of sarcasm. Steve’s ex and Dale never got along.
Steve’s mom gets along with Dale. But Dale, is, in her words, “unvarnished.” Dale doesn’t possess Steve’s tact, and some of his notions of the world he inherited from his family…and Dale comes from a long line of people who wear white sheets and light bonfires on weekends.
…But Dale wants to be better than where he came from and wants to think beyond the boundaries his heritage placed on him. Steve’s a poor black kid from the west side of Chicago. He and Dale have an unusual sort of kinship.
“And you should see my room!” Claire says. “It’s huge! And it has princess furniture!”
“Oh…that’s nice, honey,” Steve says, feeling distinctly small.
“And Uncle Dale’s teaching me Ukrainian!” says Claire.
“Well, that’s good!” Steve says, glad he can be enthusiastic about something.
“And—” Claire starts to say. Steve is vaguely aware of a soft beep—from the magic detector in his pocket, or from his phone, he’s not sure.
“And?” says Steve.
There is no answer. Pulling the phone away from his ear, he sees the screen is completely blank. With a curse, he pushes the power button.
Nothing happens.
Above his head he hears the ravens cackling.
“Goddamn it,” Steve mutters, flipping the phone over. Maybe if he takes the battery out and puts it back in…
“Is something wrong?” says a smooth feminine voice.
Steve raises his eyes to see a businesswoman standing just a few feet away. Her skin is a deep mocha; her hair is pulled back in a neat bun. The pencil skirt she wears and her fitted wool coat outline an elegant silhouette.
How had Steve not noticed her? Shaking himself out of his stupor, he holds up his phone. “My phone died. I was talking to my daughter.” He hadn’t even had a chance to say goodbye.
“Oh,” she says, with a bright smile. “I have one of those!”
Steve blinks, transfixed by her smile.
“Do you want to borrow mine?” she says, with a glint in her eye. Steve’s eyes fall on her generous lips, tinted just the right shade of wine red.
He doesn’t remember she’s asked him a question until she pulls out her phone.
Waving a hand, he says, “Oh, I can’t—she’s in the Ukraine.”
The woman blinks her wide, doe-like eyes—they have just a hint of fine lines at the corners. “But they have mobile phones in Ukrayina, don’t they?”
She pushes the phone closer to Steve.
“Yes, but—” He stalls, something tickling the back of his mind.
“Go ahead, it’s your daughter,” says the woman.
His eyes fall to the phone. It’s very pink…He wants to take it, but something in him seizes up. Who offers a cell phone to a complete stranger for a call to the Ukrainya? And why does she sound so excited about having a cell phone?
Steve’s eyes snap to hers. Maybe she’s not quite right in the head?
She takes a step back, and her jaw falls, and then her lips form a small “o,” like she’s just been found out.
Cocking his head, Steve says, “I don’t think I caught your name?”
From behind him, he hears Hernandez. “Agent Rogers?”
The woman scowls and with a humpf spins on her heel and walks away.
The ravens alight on the evergreen branches in the fountain. Bobbing its head, one of them says, “You suck with women, Rogers!”
Doesn’t he know it.
Hunkering down, the raven takes a crap, and then takes off with its partner into the air.
“You want us to shoot it?” says Hernandez.
Steve turns to see Hernandez walk up with Agent Marion Martinez. Blonde, brown-eyed, in her mid twenties, Marion has girl-next-door easy, good looks. She’s a solid team player and has a passion for all things football and baseball.
Most of the guys in the office have a soft spot for her. As far as Steve knows, Bohdi’s the only one who’s gotten anywhere with that. Bohdi hadn’t talked about it…Steve just happened to call Bohdi one Saturday when the kid was “helping Marion with her computer.” Bohdi hadn’t hung up his cell after the call, Steve was on his landline and it didn’t disconnect when he set it on the base—Steve had gotten an earful. Steve’s not sure what happened between Bohdi and Marion after that, but they’re professional in the office.
Hernandez clears his throat. “We were on our way to get some coffee and wondered if you wanted to come along.”
Steve shakes his head. “I better get back to the office.”
Hernandez backs up, but Marion doesn’t move. “Do you have any news about Bohdi?” she asks.
Hernandez shoots Marion a look that’s so transparently jealous, Steve has to restrain a snort.
Shoving her hands in her pockets, Marion says, “He’s kind of a friend…I’m worried about him.” She looks very young.
It hits Steve that this is the first time she’s lost someone like this. He doesn’t say, me, too. All he says is, “We believe he is alive. More than that I can’t say.”
Chapter Sixteen
Bohdi is dead. It’s the only explanation for the river of fire he is drifting on. Above his head flames and smoke are at war for control of the sky, below him, the river glows orange. Putting his hand to his forehead, he finds a wet cloth. Who put it there? Why does it matter? Any minute, he’ll be face to face with an eight-headed dog, or is it a two-headed dog? He’s mostly okay with being dead, except all his muscles ache, and he’s so hot he’s shivering—and that seems unfair. When you are dead, there is supposed to be nothing, or heaven…or maybe he’s in hell, but when was his trial, who spoke for him?
He closes his eyes. And there is blackness, and that’s much better, until he hears Amy calling to him. “Bohdi, Bohdi, Bohdi, wake up!”
He screws his eyes tighter, trying to get back to the peaceful black, but it doesn’t work. He’s hot again, and shivering.
He opens his eyes. His head is lying on something soft, and Amy’s eyes are upside down directly above his, smoke and flames above her head.
Someone with Bohdi’s voice whispers, “You’re dead, too?”
“You’re not—” she lifts her eyes and lets out a frightened gasp.
Bohdi barely manages to lift his head. A long coil of smoke is writhing its way onto Bohdi’s boat to the underworld. It opens its mouth and releases an angry hiss like a serpent.
Somehow, Bohdi’s knife is in his hands. He throws it at the ghost-smoke-serpent. Falling back down onto the pillow, he says, “Fucking hate snake venom.” He’s vaguely aware of Amy’s eyes, wide and startled, on his again. He shivers right before everything goes black and peaceful.
“Bohdi, you’re going to get better. I know you will.” The words pierce the blackness and set Bohdi’s teeth on edge, making every inch of his skin itch.
A sneeze rips through him and his eyes flutter open to see Amy’s upside down gaze on him once more. It could be his imagination, but the sky above her head seems lighter. Maybe he is going to heaven? But she is going to hell.
“You’re lying,” he hisses. And how dare she fuck with a dying person? “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m telling you, so that you can make it happen.”
Her fingers trail through his hair, and Bohdi’s eyes slip closed. “Placebo…not going to work,” he mumbles.
“Let me tell you a secret about placebos,” she says. Her voice is very soft, and she must be close to his ear because he can hear it over the sound of fire and crashing trees. “Placebos work just as well when patients know they’re getting placebos. The trick is in the doctor’s care and the patient’s belief.”
Something cool and soft brushes his lips. Did she just kiss him? Obviously, he is dreaming, not dying.
“Get better, Bohdi,” Amy says. “Don’t leave me alone with the snakes.”
Some addled thoughts slither together in his brain. Opening his eyes, Bohdi smiles up at Amy. The light above her head is brighter.
“I’m just doing this to lie in your lap,” he says. He thinks she might sigh. But his eyes are already slipping closed.
Every muscle in Bohdi’s back aches, and his stomach is so empty he feels like he might throw up. He sits up with a start. His vision immediately goes blurry, and he sways dangerously. As blood makes its way to his head, his vision clears and he finds himself sitting alone, water lapping against a motionless log. The world is no longer on fire. Although…he turns and sees clouds of smoke upriver and downriver—but no flames. The fire must have passed over them in the night and burned itself out. Around him are the charred remains of trees. Here and there are more of Nornheim’s crystalline columns, their bases blackened by soot.
“You’re awake!” The voice comes from behind him. He turns to see Amy, waist deep in water. She’s holding a long thick branch in her hand. Walking to the end of the log, she wedges the branch underneath the root end, grunts, and lifts. The log begins to drift with the current. Sloshing quickly through the water, Amy grabs hold of the trunk, and pulls herself awkwardly aboard, still holding onto the long branch.
“Yeah…” says Bohdi, wanting to help but feeling strangely lightheaded.
The terrain is different. Flat. The trees look like they might have been different, too. It’s hot and humid. He looks to the sky. It looks like it’s afternoon. He wasn’t out that long then. Rubbing the back of his neck, he mumbles, “Strangest dreams,” and turns his head. Tied to the tree roots jutting above the water is a pink bundle. He squints—the bundle is his pink shirt. Next to the bundle, Mr. Squeakers is hanging from a line of silk. And next to Squeakers it looks like something coiled, as thick as Bohdi’s thigh, three times as long, and burnt to a crisp… He blinks. “Is that a dead snake?”
“Biggest water moccasin I’ve ever seen,” says Amy.
“You killed a giant snake?” says Bohdi.
“No,” says Amy.
He looks to her. “Then how…?”
“You killed it,” says Amy, straddling the log, balancing the long branch on her thighs, bare toes just barely skimming the water. Her skin looks like she’s acquired a tan, but the healthy look is undercut by dark circles under her eyes. The bottom of the enormous tee shirt she’s wearing is wet and clings to her body in a way that hints that there may be some curves hidden beneath; the thought doesn’t evoke the warm feeling in him that it should… He feels like shit. Even breathing doesn’t feel good.
Inclining her head, Amy says softly, “You threw your knife and hit it dead in the center of its head. You don’t remember?”
Bohdi looks back at the snake.
“So did they teach knife throwing in boot camp?” Her voice is so flat it almost doesn’t come out a question. She’s looking at him, but Bohdi has that weird idea that she’s looking through him, again.
Still eyeing the dead snake, Bohdi purses his lips and taps his chin. “No… Where is its head, and why is it all black?”
“I cut off the head and venom sacks, skinned it, and cooked it,” Amy says.
Bohdi jerks around and faces her, making his head spin a bit.
She sighs. “I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”
“Maybe not that hungry,” he says, eyeing the blackened snake. In fact, he thinks he just lost his appetite. He looks to the bank. “Is the river narrower here?”
“It split into tributaries a while back,” Amy says. “Which means that it will be harder for Thor to find us. Night is coming, but we don’t have fire to protect us from the adze this time, and with all the ground cover burned away, we’ll have nowhere to hide. But I’m not worried.”
Bohdi sniffs, tries to hold back a sneeze, and fails. His spit and snot sprinkles in the water. Wiping his nose, he doesn’t look at her, feeling all of three years old.
“Do you sneeze when people lie to you, Bohdi?” Amy’s face and voice are unreadable. And for some reason, it’s creeping him out.
Bohdi snorts. Maybe he isn’t the only person who’s been hallucinating. Sounding more defensive than he means to, he snaps. “What are you talking about? I have allergies. I forgot my Zyrtec.” Not that meds had ever helped. He shivers, despite the heat and humidity.
Amy starts—maybe at the harshness of his tone. “Why did you come to Nornheim, Bohdi?”
“I’m…” Bohdi stops, his whole body going cold. “My wallet!” He frantically pats his back right pocket. His fingers close on the familiar shape…and then his heart sinks when he realizes it’s damp. Pulling it out with shaking fingers, he opens it and all the air in his lungs rushes out of him. The picture of his parents is smeared, the colors bleeding together, their faces hopelessly distorted.
Bohdi’s hands start to shake. The wallet falls open on his lap, his elbows fall onto his knees, and his head drops to his hands.
“Bohdi?” says Amy. He’s vaguely aware of her coming closer.
He feels tears form in his eyes and blinks hard to keep them from falling.
“Who are they?” Amy says, so close she can drag a finger over the useless slip of plastic covering the photograph.
Too choked up to speak, Bohdi barely grinds out, “No one.” He’s managed to destroy the one thing he had, the one connection to his past.
Amy’s hand closes on one of his. “Liar.” But there is only tenderness in her tone.
Bohdi can’t respond. His mouth is suddenly too dry. He licks his lips. Without looking at her, he says, “The phones?”
“Tied up in your pink shirt,” says Amy.
Unable to meet her eyes, Bohdi scrambles unsteadily to his feet. He has a picture of his parents on his phone, and he suddenly has to see them, to know they’re real. He is just unknotting the shirt from the root, when Mr. Squeakers gives a cheep. Bohdi looks to the shore. When had the current picked up?
Mr. Squeakers cheeps again. A movement downriver catches Bohdi’s eye. Two dark logs, suspended in the current.
“Amy?” he says.
Amy turns to look in the direction of his gaze. The dark shapes are getting very close very fast…in fact…they have to be swimming.
Cocking her head, Amy says, “Oh, it’s only alligators.”
Bohdi coughs. “We’re on a floating island, virtually unarmed, with no where to run, and you say it’s only alligators?”
Amy looks at him, eyes wide and hurt. “Well, it’s better than archaeopteryxes, giant spiders, or adze.”
Bohdi stares at her. And then he nearly falls over as laughter and coughs wrack through him. Amy starts laughing, too.
Wiping away a tear, Bohdi eyes a loose branch floating by. “Hey,” he says, “Can you knock that log over here?”
Amy swings her own branch around and knocks the floating branch toward them.
A few seconds later, Bohdi is armed with a new, slippery, wet pugil stick, and Mr. Squeakers has taken a position on top of Amy’s head—just in time for a giant green scaly to crawl onto the log close to Amy. It’s twice as wide as Bohdi at the shoulder, and its toothy snout is as long as his leg. As it tries to trundle aboard, the log rolls, and then gets stuck below.
The alligator opens its mouth and Amy pokes at it…rather half-heartedly in Bohdi’s mind.
“Harder!” he shouts, as another alligator gets closer. Bohdi wallops it on the nose and it disappears under the water.
“I’m trying!” Amy shouts. The alligator darts forward and bites down hard on her branch. The end snaps off, and Amy backs up into Bohdi. Reaching around her, Bohdi pokes it hard in the eye. With a snap of its jaws it backs up and slips below the surface.
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