Loki's Gambit, page 81
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
“Hmmm…” says Beatrice.
As they resume walking, a shiver runs down Amy’s spine. But she shakes her head, and it’s as though her apprehension is swept away by invisible hands. Her mood lifts, and she takes a sip of her coffee. It’s delicious, and she finds herself smiling.
They pass under some scaffolding. Construction has stalled, and there are no workers about. Across the street, a park appears. Off in a corner of the park, Amy notices a woman in garb that looks vaguely priestessy, talking to a group of camera-toting tourists. A bus bearing the slogan “City of Gods Tours” is idling on LaSalle a few feet away. For a minute, Amy gawks, but then she shakes her head. Scientists, the military, and tourism are the only things keeping Chicago afloat.
“This is the place I was telling you about,” says Beatrice. “Lovely spot for a coffee break.”
The park is pretty. There is a gentle bluff in a wide-open clearing. At the top are semi-circular half walls made of smooth stone sheltering a seating area. At the center is a statue commemorating the fallen firemen, police officers, and city council members who died defending the city. Following her eyes, Beatrice whispers, “Some people said it should be a statue of Steve. That man is golden in this town. If he doesn’t run for mayor…” she shakes her head.
But Amy’s eyes have alighted on the four men sitting at the bottom of the statue. There is Steve, Brett, and Bryant, but it’s the last person that makes her smile. “Look, Grandma! It’s Bohdi Patel. I thought he was in the Marines?”
Beatrice taps her chin. “Oh, he was. But he was discharged…something about a bum spleen.”
“Let’s go sit with them,” Amy says as they approach the gentle sloping walkway that leads up to the seating area. “I’d like to talk to him.”
“Hmmmm….” says Beatrice. “That boy…” she tsks.
Amy bites her lip, a little nervous as they cross toward the bottom of the stairs. To most people, Loki isn’t the person who saved the world from a mind-warping source of infinite magical power bent on world domination. Instead, he is a psychopath who took out a large portion of the city, its defenders, and thousands of civilians. Most of those who know of Amy’s “association” with Loki do not care for her. Or even feign respect. She smiles ruefully.
Bohdi has as much reason—or more than most people—to hate Amy. But when she’d woken up in an unfamiliar bed after her miscarriage, in a haze of blood loss, the first thing she’d seen was Bohdi’s eyes on her. Framed by startlingly long lashes, they were warm, wide, innocent, and earnest. “Hi,” he whispered.
And then he’d taken her hand in his. She’d followed the motion with her eyes. Leaning closer, Bohdi whispered, “I lied and told them we were married.” He licked his lips nervously. “I’m sorry, I just had to make sure…” He stammered. “I’m glad you’re okay.” And then his face had gone a little pale, and his eyes had opened wider. “I mean…you’re not okay, but…I’m sorry.”
Amy had squeezed his hand. She didn’t know Bohdi really, but she was grateful he was there. She felt lost, empty, and alone. His hand was like an anchor to humanity, and the look of concern on his face was like a balm. If he could care if she lived or died, she could care. And if he could forgive her, then she could forgive herself.
She’d dozed off a few minutes later, but she remembers waking a few more times after that, just briefly, to see him sitting there, hand still in hers, gazing at her intently, Beatrice standing just behind him.
Now, as she and Beatrice approach the first of the stairs, she begins to hear the murmur of the men’s conversation, and she has a little flutter of panic. What must Bohdi think of her? He’s a nice Indian boy, probably from a nice Indian family—even if he can’t remember them. All of his compassion in the moment aside, what must he think of her getting “knocked up” by the guy who wiped his memory?
Beatrice and Amy are almost at the top of the stairs when the first of the conversation becomes intelligible.
“You did not,” says Bryant.
“I did too,” says Bohdi.
Amy’s and Beatrice’s heads clear the stairs. Bohdi’s back is to them; all of the men’s eyes are on him.
“I’m telling you, I slept with her!” Bohdi shouts, whipping something hot pink from his pocket and hurling it at Bryant.
Amy gasps. Brett’s eyes meet Amy’s and go wide.
Bryant shouts as whatever it is lands on his shoulder. Amy blinks. It’s a thong.
Hopping and shouting, Bryant flicks it back at Bohdi who snatches it from the air and stuffs it back in his pocket.
Brett clears his throat loudly. Beatrice huffs. Rolling his eyes, Steve says, “Hello, Dr. Lewis. Welcome back.”
“Hi, Amy,” say Brett and Bryant in unison, Bryant still wiping at his shoulder.
Bohdi spins around, his eyes wide, mouth open in a startled “O.”
Amy’s coffee crashes to the ground at her feet.
Bohdi has filled out over the past two years, in a good way. He’s still a little on the skinny side, but his shoulders are broader. His hair is also neater. His face, with his wide almost orange brown eyes, adorable slightly squished nose, and full lips, is just as open and innocent-looking as she remembered.
She feels a blush rising to her cheeks. Innocence—that’s a lie, obviously. Maybe it’s Amy’s imagination, but the sky above her seems to darken.
With a shaky exhale, she looks down at the spilled coffee at her feet. “Grandma,” she says, “I think I need to go back to the café.”
Beside her, Beatrice says, “Of course, dear.”
As they turn and walk down the steps, Amy tries not to take off in a jog. Beside her, Beatrice tsks. “That boy is an alley cat…”
A strong wind buffets Amy’s back. She and Beatrice look up. The sky had been clear when they left the office, but now dark clouds are moving in.
Beatrice scowls. “I don’t remember rain in the forecast.”
The crimson that had crept into the edges of Bohdi’s vision when Bryant had taunted him starts to recede. Bohdi’s eyes are trained on the retreating forms of Amy Lewis and her grandmother, but in his mind, he’s seeing only the look on Amy’s face—her blue eyes very wide, her full lips parted in shock. His throat feels tight. When had she come back to Chicago? Why hadn’t anyone told him she was back?
Why had she just looked at him like he was a puppy kicker?
He straightens his shoulders. And why should he care? He thought they’d shared a moment there back in the hospital—but who was he kidding? She had been practically unconscious the whole time. And Amy’s not just cute, she’s a doctor of veterinary medicine, which makes her smart. Caring what smart, cute, girls think is just asking for trouble. You go gaga for them and then they dump you for a neurosurgeon because you don’t have a college degree.
From behind him, Steve says in a dry voice, “And that is why I have told you time and again, gentlemen tell no tales.”
Bohdi turns. Steve is cradling his coffee in one hand, arms crossed over his chest. The expression on Steve’s face is so severe and unforgiving—like every drill instructor Bohdi ever had in the Corps—that Bohdi’s body automatically snaps to attention. He almost blurts out “Yes, sir,” before he catches himself. Face heating, he slouches deliberately and gives Steve a devil-may-care smile. “I thought you kept me around because you like living vicariously through my tales?”
And besides, Steve had also told him never to “get involved” with anyone in the office, but Bohdi had with Marion, and that had turned out all right.
Steve raises an eyebrow, his jaw set into a hard line. “I keep you around for comic relief,” he says, his tone hard, and not comical at all.
Bohdi winces and averts his eyes. Besides being his boss, Steve is probably Bohdi’s best friend. But the bastard’s taller than Bohdi’s six foot and change—which gives Steve the unfortunate ability to literally look down on Bohdi when he’s figuratively looking down on Bohdi. Like now.
“We’ll just head back to the office now,” says Brett, making his way to the stairs. “Right,” says Bryant, following his brother.
Steve doesn’t budge.
Bohdi’s eyes slide to the side. “You’re not mad at me, are you? You left the bar, and after you did, Frieda seemed upset so I…”
“Offered to comfort her?” Steve supplies.
Bohdi rotates his shoulder and pats his arm. He’s still sore from last night’s comforting session. “Errr…”
Steve rolls his eyes and looks away. “I’m not mad at you,” he says. It sounds a little forced. “Better it was you.” He shakes his head and lets out a huff. “If it had been me, it would be all over the news that the black mayoral candidate couldn’t keep it in his pants.”
Rotating his shoulder again, Bohdi says, “But you’re not even officially running yet.”
Still not meeting his eyes, Steve says tersely, “Doesn’t matter.”
Bohdi takes in the hard set of Steve’s jaw. Steve doesn’t talk about racism much. Bohdi has experienced racism from the opposite end of the spectrum. He’s taken for the nice Asian boy—not the stereotype you want attached to you in the Marines—but in the real world, kind of convenient. He doesn’t know what to say to Steve, so he says nothing.
A wind buffets Bohdi’s back.
“Come on,” Steve says, voice still tight, walking toward the stairs.
Bohdi remembers how Steve had been so animated talking to Frieda, the woman who’d approached them—well, Steve—last night. It suddenly occurs to Bohdi that the tight set of Steve’s jaw isn’t about sex, or even racism. Steve’s lonely.
“So, that date your mom set you up on last weekend…” Bohdi starts to say.
Steve’s eyes slide toward him. They’re dangerously narrow. Bohdi belatedly remembers that little tidbit is something he learned from Steve’s mom, Ruth. Bohdi doesn’t live with Steve’s parents anymore, but he regularly shows up at their house for dinner. He likes Steve’s parents. Also, there is free food.
Steve’s glare shifts to an indefinable point in the distance. Feet flying down the steps in an unbroken rhythm, Steve grunts noncommittally. “I don’t have time for dating right now.”
“But when Claire moves with her mom—”
“We’re not talking about that,” Steve snaps.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Bohdi finds the familiar comforting cool surface of his lighter. He looks down at the sidewalk. Steve’s ex-wife, Dana, just married the US Ambassador to the Ukraine. Dana and Claire are relocating there to be with him.
Claire’s smart, daring, and funny. Although Bohdi doesn’t really know what it’s like to have a sister, he thinks Claire is like a little sister to him. He’ll miss not seeing her around.
Steve won’t just miss her. Steve sees his divorce and inability to provide Claire with a stable two-parent home as the two greatest failures of his life. Having someone else step into the role of father, and not being able to see his daughter more than a few times a year…
Steve lightly swats the back of Bohdi’s head.
Bohdi lifts his eyes.
“Throwing underwear? What were you thinking?” Steve says.
Recognizing the change in subject as an escape from unpleasant realities, Bohdi gives his most charming smile. “I wasn’t really thinking.” He feigns a yawn. “Probably because of all the sleep I didn’t get last night.”
Steve scowls at him. “You need to take a sexual harassment seminar.”
“What?” squeaks Bohdi. “No, I was…”
Above their heads comes the sound of loud rawking. Bohdi and Steve both look to the sky. Two ravens are circling between the skeletal remains of unfinished construction.
“Huginn and Muninn,” Steve says, jaw tightening again. “It’s been two years…Why are they back?”
In the sky, Odin’s winged messengers laugh. “Hey, Steve, miss us?” Bohdi squints up at the birds, he’s only seen them a few times. They used to trail Steve quite a bit, but had stopped shortly after Loki blew up large sections of downtown.
The wind picks up behind them and Bohdi stares at the clouds. When had they gotten so dark? “I didn’t think the forecast was calling for rain,” he says.
Steve’s face hardens. “We’re about to get company,” he says, increasing his stride. Bohdi has to jog to keep up.
Snapping his phone open and putting it to his ear, Steve says, “Lewis? I think I’m going to need you at HQ.” An instant later, he’s shouting in the phone at Bryant, but Bohdi is too distracted by a flash of lightning and almost immediate roll of thunder to pay attention to the conversation.
On the sidewalk, people stop and stare at the sky. Steve walks around them so quickly Bohdi loses him for a second. When he catches up, he sees Amy down the street, just outside HQ’s revolving doors. Her grandmother is with her, pink umbrella unfurled, despite the fact there is no rain.
Falling behind Steve again, Bohdi scampers to catch up but then stops in his tracks. A cold feeling of dread rises in his chest, and a sense of déjà vu. They are only a block away from Bohdi’s first memory—being found by Steve. The thought still brings the taste of dust to his mouth.
A shape comes hurtling through the sky around the corner where LaSalle Street meets Jackson Boulevard, a lightning bolt streaking out in front of it, crackling down the center of LaSalle. Cars and messenger bikes dart to the sides; a flurry of horns and curses rise from the vehicles and are almost immediately drowned out by the boom of thunder.
The dark shape plunges down to the center of the street, and cars swerve to the side. Bohdi blinks and realizes it’s a chariot, drawn by no visible means, with two men in it. One man is red haired, tall, and muscular. He wears Viking-meets-futuristic-video-game armor and a helmet that seem to melt into the scene behind him. Bohdi’s seen plenty of footage from the battle with Loki to recognize him—it’s Thor. During Loki’s attack, Thor had stood beside the police, government agents, and firemen who tried to defend the city.
The chariot bounces to a stop on the ground in the very center of the street, and for a few heartbeats, Bohdi and the rest of the crowd stand immobilized in collective shock. It strikes Bohdi that in real life, Thor is a lot bigger and more imposing than in YouTube videos. Without pausing, Steve walks right out into the street to meet him.
“Well met, Steve Rogers!” booms Thor, as camera flashes wink from the sidewalk and windows of cars.
Shaking himself out of his personal bout of shock and awe, Bohdi slips out onto the street to stand behind Steve. He’s just close enough to hear his boss say, “What brings you here, Thor?”
The space Viking nods his head. Bohdi had nearly forgotten the chariot’s other passenger, but now that man exits the chariot and walks around to stand before Steve, his head held high. The man’s hair is bright blond, nearly white, and his skin is very pale. He is wearing metal armor. A sword is sheathed at his side. In one hand, he bears a thin wooden stick like Bohdi had seen the conductor use when Steve’s mom dragged him to the symphony. The man doesn’t give the street, or the throngs of humans pressing closer, a single glance. He just looks at Steve and says nothing.
Exiting the chariot, Thor nods in the man’s direction. “This is the mage Skírnir. We are here, Steve Rogers, to ask you for a boon.”
As agents spill out of headquarters to contain the crowd that is forming around the two alien visitors, Skírnir raises his chin. Eyes on Steve, he says, “We wish to speak with the Frost Giantess Gerðr you hold in your custody.”
Bohdi blinks at mention of Gerðr. “Giants” is a bit of a misnomer when used to describe the people of the planet Jotunheim. The Jotunns visited Earth in the age of the Vikings. Gerðr is only about as tall as Bohdi, but the average Viking male was only five foot six. To them, the Jotunns must have appeared to be giants, and the name “giants” stuck. Bohdi doesn’t know whether the adjective “frost” before the word “giant” is due to the average temperature of Jotunheim, or if they all share Gerðr’s frosty personality.
Beyond Thor and Skírnir, Bohdi sees Amy making her way forward. Beatrice is at her side, umbrella closed and raised like a sword. Frowning in Steve’s direction, she nods her head in the negative.
Steve’s eyes flick from Amy back to Thor. “Let’s discuss it in our boardroom,” he says.
Thor nods, but Skírnir pulls his head back as though Steve has just slapped him.
Steve gestures toward the HQ’s door and says, “After you.”
As Skírnir and Thor walk toward the door, the crowd surges. The black-suited agents can barely keep it in control. Flashbulbs go off around Skírnir, Thor, and Steve. Bohdi hears someone that must be in the press shout, “Rogers—did you know about this visit? Is this something you planned to boost your rankings in the mayoral race?”
“No comment,” says Steve, his face grim as Bohdi sidles up beside him.
They’ve just cleared the doors, and Bohdi’s about to ask Steve if he did know, but Steve steps away from Bohdi, holding up a hand in Amy’s direction. “Lewis!”
Amy and her grandmother are at Steve’s side a minute later. She meets Bohdi’s eyes very briefly, and then turns away. Bohdi finds himself staring at the back of her slightly messy, light brown ponytail.
“What do you know?” Steve asks her.
Amy whispers, “Skírnir’s presence may be triggering to Gerðr. Don’t make her be in this meeting.”
The hushed tone of her voice, the set of her shoulders—Bohdi doesn’t have to ask triggering for what.
Jaw tight, Amy says, “Skírnir forced her to marry his master Freyr by threatening to destroy her homeland and her people…and then later, as Freyr grew tired of her…” There is anger bubbling in her voice.
Lifting his head, Bohdi looks at Skírnir walking a few meters ahead of them, armor glittering. The Frost Giantess Gerðr has remained in ADUO’s custody as a “prisoner-consultant” since her team tried to steal Cera, the World Seed, years ago.
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