Loki's Gambit, page 110
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
Standing next to Bohdi, Amy whispers cryptically. “Loki went to the tower for the Spanish Armada escapade, but Frigga kept her word and got him out…” She gulps. “It only took a little over a year.”
The Tower? He has no idea what Amy is talking about, but it doesn’t sound good. Bohdi’s eyes snap to her in alarm.
She winces and shrugs. Bohdi looks behind them. The asshole who wanted to separate Bohdi and Amy is standing backed by armed guards—now blocking the path to the window.
In front of them, Frigga and the women trailing her are blocking their escape. Bohdi slips his knife from his pocket. “Well?” he whispers.
Before Amy responds, Frigga’s voice rings down the corridor in English. “You will sheath your blades!”
The guards start to put their swords away, but then head Asshole says something in Asgardian. The guards stop. Beneath their visors, Bohdi sees them look to one another, eyes wide and confused.
Chin held high, slender body ramrod straight, Frigga says in English. “Who besides my husband may sit on my husband’s throne?”
Asshole says something in his language, and Frigga snaps, “Speak so my guests may understand!”
“Yes, My Queen. You, My Queen,” says Asshole, his voice starting to tremble.
“And who rules the Nine Realms when my husband is indisposed?” Frigga demands.
Asshole gulps. “You, My Queen.”
“And where is my husband now?” Frigga shouts.
“Asleep,” Asshole murmurs.
“Then who rules the Nine Realms?” says Frigga, her voice suddenly soft.
“You, My Queen,” says Asshole, his voice quivering so much Bohdi might almost feel sorry for him.
“Then why are you still standing?” says Frigga.
Asshole bows his head, drops to one knee, and thumps his hand over his chest. The Other Asshole immediately follows suit, as do the guards.
Frigga’s eyes slide to Bohdi and Amy. She raises an imperious eyebrow. The processor in Bohdi’s brain must be overwhelmed with other input, because it takes a moment for him to realize it’s probably a hint that he and Amy should be kneeling, too.
“Um,” he says.
“Oh,” says Amy.
The ladies following Frigga narrow their eyes at them.
“Should we?” says Bohdi.
Frigga sighs. Raising her chin, the queen proclaims, “On Earth, customs toward royalty have changed much of late. Since Miss Lewis and Mr. Patel are our guests, I will not insist they kneel.”
Offering a slight nod of her head, Amy whispers, “Thank you?”
Not acknowledging her statement, Frigga snaps some commands in Asgardian. Asshole and The Other Asshole thump their chests and then bow and take off down the corridor they had attempted to lead Bohdi down. The guards part and stand at attention, lining the hallway.
Turning toward the opposite corridor, Frigga says, “You will follow me.”
With that, she strides past Bohdi and Amy, head held high.
For a moment, Bohdi and Amy stand stock-still. And then, nodding pointedly at Amy and Bohdi, one of the members of Frigga’s entourage says, “After you?”
Bohdi exhales. Amy nods. Muscles in his body he hadn’t been aware were tight uncoil. Together they follow the queen. Her entourage and the maids of the palace-castle-alien-bed-and-breakfast-whatever trail behind.
Chapter Twenty-One
Frigga leads them through two double doors nearly as large as the doors in the Norns’ lair. But they do have doorknobs, so there’s that.
“I hope you find this to your satisfaction.”
Bohdi blinks around the room they’ve just entered. It’s enormous—as large as an entire floor of Ruth and Henry’s house. The walls are plaster, not marble, painted a nearly gleaming white. Large windows line one wall, tapestries another. Butterflies flutter on the sills and throughout the room. There is a sitting area with a couch and little round ottoman thingies near the other wall, an unlit fireplace with elaborate molding behind it, and a table and chairs a few steps away. A gauzy curtain separates the sitting area and table from two stairs that lead up to an enormous round bed.
That’s where Bohdi’s mind starts to spin. One bed. And then his shoulders sag, remembering Amy’s look of hurt when she’d realized what he’d been up to, or almost up to, with the Norns…Biting his lip, he looks over to her. She’ll suggest they split up, and that idea makes his stomach churn. There was something about the tone of The Other Asshole when they were being led here that he didn’t like. And he didn’t like the way Amy had turned too sharply—or the silence of the maids.
“It’s fine,” Amy says without missing a beat.
Bohdi’s body sags a little with relief. She doesn’t think he’s that kind of ass… It makes him feel ridiculously grateful.
Frigga nods. Her eyes meet Amy’s and then Bohdi’s. “You must stick together.”
“Why are you helping us?” Amy asks.
Frigga’s lips purse ever so slightly. “You are our guests.”
Bohdi doesn’t feel a desire to sneeze…but…there is a definite tickle on his upper lip.
Dipping her chin, Frigga says, “Enjoy your stay.”
“Thank you,” says Amy.
One of the other women says something in Asgardian. Amy’s eyes go wide, and she bites her lip like she’s fighting a smile. Bohdi catches her reaction…but he doesn’t feel like asking her any questions until they are alone.
Frigga raises an eyebrow in Amy’s direction and says in English, “Miss Lewis and Mr. Patel are acquainted with flushing toilets, Gna.”
Amy puts a hand to her mouth as a smile blooms on her face. Bohdi has to stifle a snort.
Frigga motions in the direction of a small door. “It’s right through there.”
The woman who first voiced the question says, “But they don’t have magic on their world?”
Frigga sighs. “And yet they have running water…and…” the queen looks at Amy and Bohdi almost curiously. “Lights at night.” Turning to Gna she says, “They use electricity.”
“Really?” says Gna, hands coming together in front of her chest. “How charming. I’d love to know more.”
“Later, Gna,” says Frigga. “Our guests are tired.” She looks at Bohdi and her lips quirk. “And they are in need of clothes.”
The women behind Frigga titter. Even Amy looks amused.
Bohdi feels his cheeks heat. Even if he’s not ashamed of what’s exposed, he suddenly feels outnumbered.
With another nod at them, Frigga turns on her heel and strides from the room. Her entourage follows. But the maids stay.
One of them, clutching what looks like clothing, stammers, “Follow.”
Bohdi and Amy follow her and the other maid through a pair of ornate double doors into a steaming room with an enormous bathtub.
“Ah,” says Bohdi, drawing to a stop. “I’ll just wait outside, while you—”
“That’s fine,” says Amy, eyeing the maids. The two women look slightly frightened.
“If you need me—” Bodhi says.
“I’ll scream,” says Amy.
Walking back out the doors, Bohdi says, “Right.”
As the doors swing shut behind him, The Assholes come through the double doors from the hallway. Slipping his knife from his pocket, he flicks it open and makes a show of wiping it on his pants.
Glaring at him, one of The Assholes sets some clothes and some towels on a chair. And then the two go about fluffing the pillows on the bed and drawing back the sheets.
Bohdi thinks of falling into the bed…and then he thinks of falling into bed with Amy. They’d sleep, but when they woke up maybe…
He bows his head. She’d remember him running like a fool from the Norns’ lair.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he gestures toward the couch. “Yo, guys,” he says. “Would you get a pillow and blankets for me over here?”
The two servants freeze in place.
Bohdi smiles, showing all his teeth. “I’ve got to protect my lady’s virtue, after all.”
The two men’s eyes slide to each other, and then the head Asshole, says, “As man to man, we should warn. No virtue. She was Loki’s…”
The Other Asshole finishes for him. “Whore.”
Bohdi’s vision goes red. For a moment, he stands immobilized. And then spinning in place, he hurls his knife, not seeing or caring where it hits. It lands with a rip and a thunk. He turns back to The Assholes.
Looking beyond Bohdi their eyes are wide. One of them is shaking.
“Get out,” Bohdi whispers.
Neither man moves.
“Get out!” Bohdi says again.
Nodding, they scamper from the room, bowing all the way.
Mouth curled in a silent snarl, Bohdi goes to retrieve his knife. And sees why his outburst had such an effect on the two men.
His knife has ripped the tapestry and embedded in the wall. Run through by the blade is a butterfly.
Pulling the knife from the wall, Bohdi catches the dead insect in his hand.
Turning it over, he studies its delicate, shimmering wings. He swallows, backs over to the couch, and falls down into it. He stares down at the dead insect in his hand and starts to shake.
It’s the sort of nightmare where Amy knows she’s dreaming. She’s only half asleep. She can feel the exquisitely silky fabric of the Asgardian duvet beneath her fingers. Her head is on a soft pillow. She’s dry, and warm, and the world smells like spring.
Still, the screams from the baby spiders in the dream make all the hairs on her neck stand on end. Her eyes open fast. She is curled in a fetal position on the bed, a bit of duvet in a death grip in her hand. Her mouth is open and gasping, the world is a blur. The shrieks, so much like those of a human infant, are ringing in her ears.
She closes her eyes. It isn’t strange that the spider children sounded so human. They were small and had small trachea, doubtlessly. Rabbits that Fenrir has cornered in the back yard made similar noises before dying. That the sound leaves a chill isn’t strange either—hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have made humans easily distraught by the wails of infants.
Which is why it isn’t wrong for Amy to hurt remembering the cries of pain of the creatures that tried to kill her.
Amy opens her eyes. The world is a blur. But then shapes within the blur converge and she’s staring at Bohdi. He’s standing a few steps away from the bed, bent down so his head is level to hers.
“Are you all right?” he asks softly.
Amy nods. “Just a nightmare.”
Bohdi’s eyes go down. “I heard…I didn’t know if I should wake you.” He says it like someone might say, I’m sorry.
It’s the most he’s said since Queen Frigga brought them here.
Amy’s eyes clear a little more. She sees the couch where he’d been lying. The blanket is thrown haphazardly over the back. His pillow’s on the floor.
“I’m fine,” she says. If she says it enough, she knows it will be true.
He ducks his head and walks back to the couch. The new clothes he’s wearing are slightly wrinkled after his nap, but otherwise fit him well. Dark blue fitted trousers, with buttons down the outside ankle over brown leather boots. A collarless shirt that’s more a tunic, and a gray vest over that—but this vest is more Han Solo than Chippendales. Thankfully.
Amy sits up, and Mr. Squeakers, who’d been sleeping on the headboard, hops on her arm. Across the room, Bohdi flops back down onto the couch. He pulls out his phone from his pocket and powers it on. The screen flickers to life. Amy sees a photo flash on the screen before he powers it down again. She knows which picture it was without asking.
She wants to ask him if he’s all right.
In Nornheim, as they floated down the river, Bohdi had woken from a fevered dream, looked up at her with surprisingly clear eyes, and said, “It’s like the Life of Pi.” And then he’d grinned. “If I’m Pi, are you the tiger?” Amy had laughed, equally with relief that he was alive, and at the joke. She was so not a tiger. But summoning up her courage, she lifted a hand, pretended to paw the air, and said, “Rawr?” Bohdi had burst out into a guffaw before his head lolled to the side again and he’d fallen back into unconsciousness.
He’d joked while he was dying. Now he’s withdrawn and sullen.
Standing up, she slips on the ballet slippers she was given. She starts to walk over to the couch, but her clothes catch awkwardly under her armpit, and she stops with a huff. The clothes aren’t actually that bad—they’re modest at least: the thin sleeveless pale green dress she wears is covered by a knee-length fitted coat. The coat is a Vanir linen, cool, and comfortable, but not as wrinkly. It wasn’t meant to be slept in, though. The buttons that are supposed to run straight down the front are twisting around toward the back.
Straightening out her clothes and her hair as much she can without a mirror, Amy walks toward Bohdi. She’s interrupted by a knock at the door. She’s just had time to slip Squeakers into her pocket when it swings open. The maids from earlier stand in the doorway, this time with trays laden with steaming dishes in their hands. Above their heads glowing butterflies flutter, their wings casting light throughout the darkening room. Amy hadn’t noticed how close the sun was to setting.
“Dinner?” says one.
Bohdi says nothing.
“Thank you, come in,” says Amy.
Without a word, Bohdi walks over to the table and sits down.
He’s quiet as the maids deposit the trays and leave, a cloud of butterflies staying behind to light their dinner. It reminds her of the restaurant where Loki created illusions of butterflies to comfort a young girl.
To distract herself, she describes the dishes to Bohdi. Loki probably knew every dish made by anyone anywhere. The man—Frost Giant, incarnation of chaos—ate like, well, not a horse. Loki was very omnivorous—more like a bear. Or several bears.
Bohdi doesn’t say more than “Hmmm” and “Mmmmm.” In the silence, Amy catches herself mentally measuring how much Bohdi eats. He puts down enough that Amy would feel stuffed to the gills, but nothing like Loki, just like a normal human male in his twenties.
She quietly reprimands herself. She’s got to let go of the Bohdi-as-Loki thing. If Bohdi was Loki and sneezed when he heard lies, he would have sneezed when Thor said Loki was in Hel, but he didn’t…because it wasn’t a lie…and Odin didn’t detect a lie either, so Bohdi can’t be…
Slipping a hand into her pocket, she runs a finger between Squeakers’ ears. She has to open up her mind to the idea of a new Loki, a completely different, unimagined so far, Loki. When Thor brings him back, she has to convince him to come back to Earth with her or this whole trip will be for nothing.
She doesn’t know why, but the task isn’t just daunting anymore—it makes her sad for some inexplicable reason. Shaking her head, she lets out a sigh to break the silence. Bohdi doesn’t comment. And suddenly his quiet, and the butterflies that are like that other time, are sickening and oppressive.
“What are you thinking?” Amy asks.
Pushing the remains of some Vanaheim pink potato around his plate, Bohdi’s jaw goes tense. She doesn’t think he will answer, but then, head bowed, he says, “I was thinking about Nidhogg, actually.”
Remembering the dragon, Amy’s shoulders slouch, and she feels a little sick to her stomach. She looks down at her own plate. Nidhogg died so fast. One moment he was there, threatening to eat them, the next he was gone.
“How old was he?” Bohdi says.
Amy can’t bring herself to speak. Older than Loki. Probably older than Odin and Frigga. The things he must have seen and known…
Bohdi meets her eyes briefly.
Looking away he says, “In the Marine Corps, they told us it isn’t uncommon for guys to fire above the enemy’s heads. I used to think that was stupid.” He drops his fork with a clang on his plate, and puts his head in his hands. “Now I’m feeling sad about the death of a dragon that wanted to eat me.”
Amy stares at him. She’s shocked and it takes a moment to realize why. She is still thinking of him as Loki…She can’t remember a time when Loki felt sorry for an enemy. Because he’d lost the ability, or because he was raised in a violent culture, she’s not sure.
…but Bohdi’s not ancient, and he’s not from Asgard. And as much as he’s better at killing things, he’s seen less of death than Amy has.
Biting her lip, she says, “I was having nightmares about spider screams.”
He looks up quickly. “That wasn’t your fault.”
Amy feels her frame soften. “The fire was my suggestion.” She reaches across the table but stops short of taking his hand. “And I’m glad I didn’t die skewered by a spider leg.”
Shifting in his chair, Bohdi says, “Twelve Valkyries are dead. Because of me.”
“The Norns killed them, not you,” Amy says. She looks down at her plate. Thor, Amy, the Valkyries, they’d all been looking for chaos. In one sense they’d found it. Reaching into the pocket not occupied by Squeakers, she wraps her fingers around the Archaeopteryx feathers. She bites her lip again, overwhelmed by the thought of what may be uncovered by sequencing the DNA in these feathers. That’s the thing about chaos—open yourself up to it, and you don’t just open your life to danger; you also open your life to wonder.
Leaning forward so fast he shakes the table, Bohdi says, “But it was because I—” He stops.
Releasing the feathers, Amy looks up at Bohdi. “Because you what?”
Bohdi’s lip curls. “You heard what the Norns said!”
His tone makes Amy pull back. And then her skin heats. “I heard them say that you are a slut, and a man-whore, and that you insulted them. I didn’t hear what happened.” She drops a hand on the table with more force than she intends and the silverware rattles. “And maybe you hit on them accidentally, I don’t know Norn culture, but you wouldn’t have done anything to offend them on purpose and…”
She stops. They said he insulted them…
What had Lache said before she and Bohdi had started eating? “You’ll need your strength.” And then there was Chloe’s comment to Amy about whether she’d ever considered being a boy, and Lache talking in the language that sounded like Hindi, and Chloe’s comment about getting in the mood…
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