Loki's Gambit, page 39
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
But his tongue seems to form words of its own accord. "You're cast off by Baldur and now you're interested in me again."
Sigyn's face goes hard. "That was a long time ago, and as I recall very soon after you were cutting off Sif's hair."
Instead of acknowledging her statement, he continues. "And you'll take me despite my crippled daughter."
Sigyn's hand connects so hard to Loki's cheek that the glass he's holding falls to the floor. Shaking, she says, "Why must you always make things hard! I love you because of Helen! You condescending, cruel, selfless, twisted, brave—"
Grabbing her shoulders, he pulls their bodies together and silences her with a brutal kiss. "I know," he whispers, as he pulls back for air. "I know." Closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to hers, he lets his hands drift to her elbows. Her mouth comes to his again. This time they kiss gently, almost tentatively, as their hands dance over the fastenings of each other's clothes.
The milk container crashes against the far wall. He will not be lectured to by a human...even if he’s heard her words before.
Cera is screaming. “The Frost Giants are not dead! They are gone. She is speaking falsehoods!” He can feel Cera isn’t lying. Nor is the girl. Both believe their words.
Cera came back to him the day ADUO ‘broke’ Gerðr. Her return is both pleasing and annoying.
“Let us leave here,” says Cera, yet at the moment she sounds so far away...
Miss Lewis, on the other hand, seems so close. She is breathing heavily, as though she is frightened or angry. “What do you want?” she says. “To know the location of the gate the giants walked through, right? Right?”
Loki smiles at her indulgently. He wants quite a few things really. He remembers the smell of her hair, and the softness of her skin as he’d pressed a kiss to her forehead a few days ago. He shakes his head.
Taking a step forward, Amy says, “Well, we got it. Steve’s working on a joint project with the Afghanis to bury it under a ton of bricks.” Her hands go to her hips, and Loki licks his lips. She’s quite fetching when she’s mad.
Oblivious, she goes on. “Do you know why Gerðr told us where the gate is? Do you know why she is helping us block her only way home? So that other giants don’t destroy themselves like her companions did! Like she tried to do! So that if you get Cera you won’t take that gate to Jotunheim and slaughter your own people!”
Any more potential competitors for Cera who might have come through the Afghanistan-Jotunheim gate will be blocked. Loki blinks. His cooperation with the humans is progressing excellently. “Well done,” he says.
Straightening, Amy says, “Now. Get out.”
His jaw twitches. He is hungry and tired of eating alone. He smiles. “Why don’t we both get out? Get some food?” He shrugs and flashes his most disarming grin.
“No,” says Amy. “Leave.”
He tilts his head. “We’ll order in then —”
“No!”
He blinks. “What is wrong with you?”
When she speaks her voice is a whisper. “I gave you the information you wanted...I’ve interfaced with ADUO for you. I’m done. Get out!”
He sighs happily. Her displeasure is just a little game—even if she doesn’t know it. “But if I leave how will I repay my debt to you?”
Amy blinks. “Repay your debt?”
Proud of his cleverness, he shrugs and gives her a triumphant, toothy grin. “Why, of course! Why do you think I am so often in your company? I arranged with Steve for you to get danger pay whenever I am in your presence. It was the only way I could repay you without them confiscating the payment...or tracing it.”
Her anger washes away and she stares at him for just a moment. And then she swallows. “That’s why you spend so much time with me?”
He’s almost won this game. “Why, Amy...Why did you think I was here?” He leans in close. “Did you think I was, as you Midgardians put it, ‘your boyfriend’?”
He expects a playful slap on the cheek—or even one that isn’t so playful. But backing away she says, “No, actually, I guess I really didn’t think that.” His brow furrows at the not-quite lie.
Her face falls, and for the first time he notices her eyes are starting to well up with tears. Pathetic. Pathetic that she is starting to cry and pathetic that his stomach is starting to fall.
A tear slips from her eye. “I knew you were using me...but I thought at some level we were friends...”
Suddenly he knows what he could say to make this all better. But that would be too much like losing. Loki scowls at the tear. Waving a hand at her cheek he says, “Don’t do that.”
Her lips turn up in a snarl, even as more tears fall from her eyes. “Get out of my house!”
He doesn’t move. “I don’t renege on my oaths.”
Picking up a random book and hurling it at him, she says, “Fuck your oath, I absolve you! Get out of my house!”
He lets it hit him, and she throws another, and another. He’s actually a little bemused; he didn’t think she had this much passion in her.
Picking up her phone she says, “If you don’t get out, I’m calling ADUO.”
For the first time it occurs to Loki that she isn’t really playing.
He rolls his eyes and makes himself invisible.
“I know you’re still here!” Amy shouts. She throws a book at his invisible form and hits him in the stomach.
It falls to the ground with a soft thud and he stands immobilized with fury—fury at her and himself. He knew he was pushing her limits, and he did it anyway. His fingers clench and there is a clicking noise.
Amy’s head turns and she screams. Loki follows her gaze. Every eye on her stove is alight. As she races over to put the flames out, he backs toward the door and then with an angry snarl—at her or himself—takes off into the night.
Chapter Twelve
It’s late afternoon on Monday, nearly a week after Gerðr started talking to Amy. Amy is on the ‘L’ train heading north. She told Steve that she wasn’t coming in today. There are plenty of linguists to talk to Gerðr now, and Amy needs a break.
She looks down at the book in her hand. It is Young Stalin by Montefiore. She exhales sharply. She should have picked up something a little lighter.
In the course of her discussions with Gerðr the giantess commented that Cera had ‘imprinted on a human named Josef.’ Also in Gerðr’s words, ‘Josef seems to have been an exceptional creature for a human.’ The fact that Cera’s first language was Russian...well, with Cera’s charming personality, Amy immediately thought of Josef Stalin. She feels her skin crawl. Stalin was the man who drove Beatrice and her family from the Ukraine and who had made Hitler look like a rank amateur at mass slaughter.
Most of the office thinks Amy’s paranoid. They point out that Cera is a new thing and Stalin died decades ago. Steve points out he was also Georgian...But Amy’s pretty sure by the time Stalin was the Big Bad the language he used most often was Russian. Beatrice understood Russian, and she’d overheard Loki talking to Cera. He’d mentioned Tunguska—a place in Siberia where a meteorite hit in 1908. Amy has wondered if that might be where Cera came from. She and Steve worked out a hypothetical scenario where the meteorite was picked up by the Tsar’s regime and locked up until after the revolution. After Stalin came into power, he had somehow come into contact with it—her.
Amy swallows. She doesn’t know how much Steve believes in the scenario, but he doesn’t discount it. He says in cases like this it’s best to consider all the possibilities. But there is a possibility he won’t entertain—that Cera is evil. Steve doesn’t believe in evil.
Amy thinks when it comes to Stalin, saying he wasn’t evil is kind of splitting hairs. Steve suggested she read Young Stalin. And okay, she kind of gets where he was coming from. Stalin was a bright young boy, born into poverty under one of the most repressive and simultaneously ineffectual regimes on the planet. He was scarred physically by illness and emotionally by an absentee father and a mother who was probably a whore. He was sent to the most fundamental of seminaries to become a priest—a seminary where boys were spied on, beaten and raped. Most of his peers left the seminary atheists and joined him in the revolution. She sees where he was the product of the perfect storm of genetics and a personal and political environmental whirlwind.
She still thinks saying he wasn’t evil is splitting hairs.
Amy’s phone beeps. Pulling it out she scowls. It’s an email from Loki. He has been sending her little things about odd appearances and occurrences all week. She really wants to ask questions—but she just forwards the emails onto Steve.
She stares at this email’s subject line: Spider Mouse! She opens it up. She should just forward it...
She reads Loki’s message anyway.
Amy, I thought these were just one-offs created by Hoenir. But apparently there is an infestation in DC. So far people are attributing them to genetic experiments. Cute, no? Or do you not like spiders?
There’s a link to an article and a jpg attachment. Amy stares at the attachment; against her better judgement she clicks on it.
...And finds herself staring at the most adorable little gray mouse with eight velvety black legs. He is upside down, and hanging by what at first she thinks is a tail, but then realizes is spider silk.
She types: I want one! And then squeezes her eyes shut. Resisting the urge to send it to Loki she forwards it to Steve.
Her boss responds almost instantly.
Interesting. Wouldn’t have thought Cera’s route to Chicago would have taken her through DC. Hope that your visit with your grandmother goes well.
So nice, thoughtful and polite. Because Steve still thinks he needs her. She slips her phone back into her pocket, looks at the book in her hands but can’t bring herself to read it. Leaning her head against the cold glass of the window she watches Chicago’s dreary landscape blur by.
Not quite an hour later she walks into Beatrice’s nursing home facility. Joy of joys, Amy’s mother is at the front desk.
“I’ll be back to pick her up tomorrow!” her mother says, too bright and too cheerful.
“Yes, we’ll make sure she’s ready,” says the nurse.
Amy’s mother Anna turns around. Beatrice had Anna late in life. Anna had Amy very young. Her mother is only in her mid forties. Everyone tells Amy they look alike, but Anna’s hair is bleached blonde in the front and she wears a lot more makeup. They stare at each other a moment.
“You’re welcome to come with Doug and me when we take Beatrice to the new facility, Amy,” her mother says.
Amy’s lips turn down in disgust. Doug is Anna’s boyfriend—again. They’d been together before in Oklahoma and are back together.
“Yeah, no, I would rather not be stuck in a car for 3 hours with Doug,” says Amy.
Her mother rolls her eyes. “That was just a misunderstanding.”
Amy feels her face heat. After all these years her mother still doesn’t believe that the reason Amy ran away in high school was because Doug tried to sneak into her room one night. “Fenrir misunderstood, too,” says Amy coldly. If it weren’t for Fenrir...
“Fenrir hates all men,” says her mother dismissively.
And you just hate the idea that a man would be more interested in me than you. The words are on the tip of Amy’s tongue but she doesn’t say them. She just walks past her mother down the hall toward the elevator banks.
She’s out of the line of sight of the lobby when she hears Loki’s voice. “Amy, I caught up to you.”
Amy turns around and sees her mother smiling up at a surprised looking Loki. He looks human, like his ginger haired self. He’s wearing nice looking trousers and a navy blue peacoat over a pink and navy blue striped sweater.
“May I help you?” says Anna, smiling and gently putting a hand on Loki’s arm. With a sharp exhale of breath, Amy turns and dashes into a waiting elevator.
The door closes and she sags against a wall with relief. She’s escaped them both.
The elevator dings at the top floor and she walks to the desk. As she signs in she thinks she hears a scream from the lobby that sounds strangely familiar. She blinks, then shakes her head. Turning, she walks down the long beige hallway to Beatrice’s room, resolutely ignoring the smells of urine and disinfectant, the empty eyes of the patients, and the feeling of despair.
When Amy arrives, Beatrice is sitting on a chair by the window. She doesn’t look up when Amy walks in. Her hair hangs long and unbrushed.
“Hi, Grandma,” says Amy. Beatrice doesn’t respond; Amy didn’t expect her to. Putting down her coat and bag, she goes over and whispers in Beatrice’s ear, “Grandma, I’m going to do your hair up now, okay?”
Beatrice’s eyes flick to her, but then she looks to the window again. Is she dreaming of the trip they took to Alfheim with Loki? The elves had loved Beatrice, dressed her up in a beautiful gown, and done her hair up with pins that glittered like stars. And Beatrice had loved the elves—she’d told them the story of her life, things even Amy hadn’t heard of, about of growing up in the Ukraine and escaping to the States. The elves had hung on every word. And okay, maybe they loved Beatrice because the tragedy of her life was caused by a ‘land without kings and queens’ and validated their worldview. Still they made Beatrice feel like a queen and let Amy touch a hadrosaur.
The trip was dangerous but magical and wonderful. Running a comb through Beatrice’s hair, Amy swallows. And it was all Loki’s doing.
Her eyes flit to the door of the room. He’s gone by now, it hardly matters...and she should be grateful. She pulls back Beatrice’s hair, fastens it with a clip, and steps back. Her grandmother looks a little more present now—but she isn’t.
There is a knock at the door. Expecting a nurse Amy says, “Come in.”
“Beatrice!” says a sunny voice.
Amy jumps. It’s Loki, and he’s flashing his most rakish grin in Beatrice’s direction, though there is the familiar tightness in his brow, and something about the tug of his lips that feels forced. For a moment, Amy’s heart lifts. Loki is magical, maybe —
Heart beating fast, she turns her head. But Beatrice is still staring out the window.
“Beatrice?” says Loki.
Amy turns to him. He stands in the doorway, head tilted. Somewhere down the hall a patient starts screaming. Loki doesn’t move.
“If you’re coming in, shut the door,” says Amy.
Gently shutting the door, he comes further into the room. There are dark circles under his eyes, and if it is possible, he looks paler than usual.
Amy sighs. “Don’t feel bad, she doesn’t respond to anyone.” Beatrice drools a little and Amy wipes it away and then sinks into a chair.
Loki sits down on the bed. He swallows. “I had no idea...we don’t...magical creatures don’t suffer from neural damage...magic matter has memory and heals injured neural tissue.”
“Must be nice,” says Amy, her voice thin and bitter. And then she remembers why he is here. “If you’re wondering why Jameson has moved into the Chicago office, and what all the extra agents are for, I have no idea.”
“Oh,” says Loki. But he doesn’t move or speak.
Neither of them says anything for several minutes. And then through the door Amy hears more screaming down the hall. Just to not think about the noise, Amy says, “So you met my mother.”
She hears, rather than sees, Loki turn toward her. “Yes.”
“She flirted with you,” says Amy.
“She was....friendly,” says Loki.
Amy snorts and looks at him. “She was being more than friendly, trust me—and don’t let me stand in your way.”
Loki draws back a little. “Believe me, I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, guess not.” She swings her feet. “The whole office knows about the thing in Visby.”
One corner of his mouth turns up completely without humor. “And that is your business because—?”
Chastened, Amy sinks into her chair. “It’s not.”
“Hmmm...” says Loki.
Amy drags her foot across the floor.
“Your mother wasn’t so friendly when I showed her the gift I have for you.”
Amy blinks and looks at him. He reaches into the pocket of the peacoat and pulls out something small, gray and wiggling, and walks toward Amy.
Loki opens his hand and she gasps. On his palm is a little gray mouse with eight black spider legs. Standing on the four back ones, he wiggles his whiskers at Amy.
“He likes you,” says Loki.
Stifling the ‘you should never give animals as gifts’ that has been drilled into her for years, Amy exhales in wonder and holds out her hand. The little mouse spider hops over and rears all the way up on two legs. He has little paws at the end of his spider limbs. Amy gently reaches toward him with a finger. Clasping her finger in his two most forward paws, he shakes it and Amy laughs in delight. “Oh, Mr. Squeakers! So nice to meet you.”
“Your mother didn’t appreciate him as much,” says Loki.
Amy tilts her head. So that was the scream she heard when she was signing in. “She doesn’t like mice or spiders.”
Mr. Squeakers rubs his head against Amy’s fingers. He’s warm and soft. Smiling, she scratches behind his ears. And then she remembers why Loki is here again. “I really don’t know anything about why Jameson is at our office. You don’t have to stay.”
Loki sinks onto the bed and tilts his head at her. He sighs and scowls. “You know just because I have ulterior motives when I come to visit you, it doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy your company.”
Amy bites her lip and Mr. Squeakers nuzzles against her finger. Oh. Not knowing what to say, she turns to look at Beatrice.
“Is Beatrice your mother’s mother?” says Loki.
“Yes,” says Amy. Feeling defensive, she says quickly, “Sometimes good people have bad kids.”
Slipping his hands into his coat pockets, Loki stares at Beatrice. “And the opposite is true as well.”
Loki is wiggling on the floor of the nearly empty throne room, one of the few places in Asgard where all the splendor is real, not illusion. Golden buttresses hold up a ceiling so high from below it seems to be made of clouds, the floors are decorated with mosaics, and the walls are dwarven crystal that make the great hall nearly as bright as day.
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