Lokis gambit, p.154
Loki's Gambit, page 154
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
From behind him he hears Claire say, “It’s rolling over.” He turns and sees Valli and Berry deep in discussion as the bear lists to the side. Before he can sling the rifle out of the way, Claire darts forward to brace the bear in place. Even on its back, the thing is nearly as tall as her chest. Bohdi has a moment of panic and thinks she’ll be crushed. But then Steve is just there, and then a few of the other guys too, and they right it. As soon as it’s stable, Claire touches the dead form with her bare hands. “It’s still a little warm,” she whispers.
Valli unsheathes his sword. “I have it from here.”
Steve drags her away from the bear, and the potentially gory scene. “What were you thinking?” Turning her around so he’s got a hand on both of her shoulders, Steve leans down and says, “That thing was too heavy for you! You could have been crushed!”
Ducking her head, Claire says, “I was just trying to help.”
Steve sucks in a long breath. The hairs on the back of Bohdi’s neck rise. He has a feeling like Steve’s trying to muster every ounce of his self-control.
“I know,” Steve says slowly. “You’ve got to be careful though. What we need to do is very, very hard.” His words come out very soft and slowly. Bohdi swallows. Steve is terrified for his little girl. Bohdi catches Amy and Beatrice’s eyes. They look as worried and uncomfortable as he feels.
“I know that!” Claire says. Lifting her chin, she meets her father’s gaze. “But we’ll make it.” Bohdi feels the air leave his chest. Her open face, her confidence. She has no idea.
Steve’s mouth opens, but he says nothing. Beatrice walks over and puts a hand on Claire’s shoulder. “Of course, we will,” she says, and Bohdi sniffs.
Steve’s eyes go over Claire to Bohdi. Bohdi feels his friend’s desperation, as surely as though it were a lead blanket draped over his shoulders. Mustering up the most confident voice he can, Bohdi says, “We have a few tricks up our sleeves.”
He hears the crunch of snow beside him. He looks down to find Amy looking up at him. She knocks him with her elbow, lightly, maybe a little shyly, and then to Steve she says, “We’ve outfoxed Odin before. We’ll do it again.”
Bohdi doesn’t sniffle.
“Yeah,” Steve says. “Yeah.”
And Bohdi doesn’t have the faintest urge to sneeze. Steve gives him a nod. Amy knocks him with her elbow again. Bohdi’s eyes dart between Steve and Amy. One has confidence in him despite knowing what he is, or maybe because of it. The other has confidence in him because she’s seen what he can do. Both feel good.
Bohdi drops his gaze to the snow. He’s outside, in the wilds of a foreign realm … and yet … he has the strangest sensation. He looks again to Steve. He’s patting Claire’s shoulder as Beatrice whispers something in her ear. He looks down at Amy and feels an echo of the buzz he’d felt in his lips when he’d kissed her forehead. He adjusts the rifle slung behind his back ... Around them, Bohdi can feel the night getting colder and the wind picking up. Still, he feels warmth radiating from his chest to the tips of his fingers and toes. He has a feeling of belonging that’s overwhelming. He looks up to the sky because he feels like if he looks at Amy, or even Steve and Claire, his heart might burst. Above the trees he sees a tiny pale moon rising.
“Time to move out,” Steve says, snapping Bohdi’s eyes back to earth—or Jotunheim, as the case may be.
Tapping his ear, Steve inclines his head to a snowmobile with a sled made of branches and duct tape behind it. “Patel and Doctor Lewis, you’ll be in that sled over there.”
Bohdi nods. He’ll have time to bring up the serum next pit stop. Without a word, Bohdi jogs with Amy over to the empty sled. Bohdi takes the back, Fenrir takes the front, and Amy sits between them, leaning sideways on her pack. Lieutenant Larson gets into the front seat of the snowmobile, and Beatrice sits behind him.
Leaning toward Bohdi, Amy whispers, “Wait until we hit a snow drift on the ice. It’s like flying!”
“I’ll expect you to keep quiet back there,” Larson says. He pulls a pair of night vision goggles off his helmet and over his eyes. “We don’t want the whales to hear us on the ice.”
Amy sucks in on her lips. All the snowmobiles’ combustion engines flip off. Before Bohdi has a chance to take it all in, they’re slipping silently down the small incline back toward Lake Balstead. As soon as they’re on the open plain of the lake, Larson hits the accelerator, and they pick up speed. He feels Amy close behind him. Cold prickles his exposed neck, but he still feels warm. As soon as they hit the treeless plain of ice, the sky becomes a vast roof of stars. Bohdi smiles and looks up. To no one in particular he whispers, “So this is home.”
RAGNAROK
I Bring the Fire Part VI
Loki vowed Asgard would burn.
Bohdi Patel, latest incarnation of Chaos, wants nothing to do with Loki’s psychotic oath.
Stranded on the icy world of Jotunheim with Amy Lewis, his friend Steve Rogers, and an unlikely band of civilians, magical beings, and elite military, Bohdi just wants to keep himself and his friends alive … but when you’re Chaos incarnate, even the simplest goals are complicated.
If Jotunheim doesn’t kill them, Odin will, and if Odin doesn’t, the secrets they harbor might.
In the final installment of I Bring the Fire, Bohdi, Amy, and Steve learn that Chaos cannot be contained, some secrets cannot be kept, and some vows cannot be broken.
Chapter One
Amy Lewis is a woman at war … with her brain. She is riding on a make-shift sled of branches and duct tape. The sled is hitched to the back of a stealth-bomber equivalent of a snowmobile, and is racing over the ice of Lake Balstead in Jotunheim, land of the Frost Giants. The lake is filled with man-eating, claw-flippered, horned orcas that will pop out and eat anything or anyone who stops too long. Amy is stranded here with unlikely company—her grandmother Beatrice, Bohdi Patel, Steve Rogers, his daughter Claire, an elite military team, the Frost Giantess Gerðr, and Loki’s family—his ex-wife Sigyn, and their sons, Valli and Nari. Amy’s dog Fenrir and her spidermouse, Mr. Squeakers, are also with her. Odin blew up the World Gate to Chicago during what should have been a short exploratory mission. Without a way home, they’re making a break for the Iron Wood, hoping the Frost Giants there will be friendly. If the whales don’t get them, Odin will, and if Odin doesn’t get them, Jotunheim’s winter will—unless they get to the Iron Wood in time. Terror should be enough to keep her awake. Still, Amy’s fighting the urge to fall back on the gear behind her and go to sleep. If she falls asleep, she will roll off the sled. If she rolls off the sled, she will die.
But if she dies … she will be asleep.
Amy shakes her head and sits up with a start. Last time her brain hopped on that train of thought she wound up running her car off the road.
Her obviously traitorous brain whispers, “But that was all because of Loki. There’s no Loki here. It’s safe to rest your eyes for a moment.” Her eyelids start to droop, and then the nearly silent hybrid snowmobile pulling the sled hits a snowbank. Amy feels the sensation of weightlessness as she is briefly airborne, and then the sled lands hard. Her joints scream and she fights back a groan. She doesn’t remember the ride hurting when they started this journey. Why does she feel so stiff and achy now?
She takes a long breath and reaches to take off her hat. Even with the wind whipping against her back and the cold sled beneath her butt, she feels hot. She stops herself, mentally cataloging her symptoms: pain in joints, fever, and exhaustion. Carefully she reaches to touch the lymph nodes in her neck with her mittened hands and finds them tender and sore.
Awesome. She’s picked the perfect time to catch a cold.
She looks out at the other snowmobiles. Everyone seems to be sitting up and alert. Admittedly, she can’t see anyone’s face, and the only person she can identify is the Frost Giantess Gerðr. Gerðr’s magic makes her infinitely desirable to any man who looks at her. To protect the men on the team she’s wearing a magic-blocking cap and bracelets. The cap is visible just between her hood and her goggles, and it’s glinting faintly in the starlight. Gerðr has been a captive of the U.S. Government for many years. The exploratory mission was to prepare for a larger expedition to return Gerðr to her people—and to open up weapons trading with the Frost Giants.
Amy sniffles. Of course she would get a cold. She is the weakest link in the chain. Her eyes shift to Bohdi sitting with his back to her on the tail of the sled. He’s not supposed to be here—well—even less than she’s supposed to be here. Bohdi, Claire, and Amy’s grandmother had followed them to warn Amy, Steve, and the team Steve was leading that Odin was on to their exploratory mission.
She can’t see Bohdi’s face, but she can see the tip of the rifle he has balanced on his knees. No one had offered Amy a rifle … because she can’t shoot and probably could even miss one of the giant man-eating orcas if it was charging right at her. Bohdi could probably improvise a weapon with his hat and kill one in a single strike.
She’s glad he’s sharing the sled with her. It’s good to have someone on her side besides Beatrice and Fenrir. Some of the Special Ops guys don’t exactly trust her. Amy just found out a few hours ago her code name among the military top secret types is “Pandora,” after the woman in Greek mythology who let all the evil loose in the world. She smiles ruefully to herself. They don’t know how appropriate the pseudonym is. Amy made a serum that makes humans magical. She gave some to Steve to cure his paralysis. The government stole most of the remainder and gave it to the SEAL team. What they don’t know is that she made the magical serum contagious and that it’s already spreading on Earth. Bohdi, the only person who knows, thinks she’s saved humanity.
She bites her lip. She knows he’s wrong. The serum is untested; it could wind up a plague. Her eyes slide to her dog Fenrir sitting at the front of the sled, nose lifted to the wind. Her once tiny, nearly furless mutt got the serum and now is turning into an enormous wolf, thankfully with a thick luxurious coat. It is a transformation that suits Fenrir fine—but for humans would be unpleasant. She swallows. And magic development in utero, if excessive, can lead to miscarriages. That’s how her own child died. She may have condemned countless women to the same experience she had.
After she told him all of that, Bohdi kissed her forehead and said, “Amy, the only way you are like Pandora is that you saved hope.”
The memory is terrifying. Because he said it with the same conviction someone might say, “I love you.” Or maybe that’s just what her brain wants to believe.
Bohdi is a great guy, he wouldn’t leave anyone to be eaten by spiders or adze, or to become Odin’s latest pet. But he’s also not that guy. He’s not ready for commitment. She rubs her temple. In fact, right before they’d left Chicago, he’d had a one night stand. Sometimes he flirts with her—but he flirts with everyone. The best thing for her to do is to take it with a smile and a laugh.
With his back to her, Bohdi suddenly sits up straight.
Amy is about to ask him if he’s seen something when he slumps backward. His head lands on her lap, eyes closed, rifle still in a death grip.
Amy looks out over the ice. Nothing is moving. She hears nothing. She looks down at Bohdi. Flicking up her radio headpiece so she can’t be heard by the team, she whispers, “Okay … umm … that’s very funny …” They’re not supposed to talk; they’re trying to keep their trip over the lake as silent as possible so the man-eating whales don’t pop up for a snack.
He doesn’t move. His head lolls slightly to the side. He looks like a marshmallow person in all his winter gear. The only part of him that looks human is his dark skin between his muffler and his cap. She holds her breath. Any moment he’s going to open his eyes, grin, and say, “Beautiful night for a sleigh ride!” And she’ll flush, because she’s beginning to worry even though he’s obviously playing a joke on her. She should say something witty and clever, and he’ll laugh. She glances to the pocket of his parka and sees the top of a package of cigarettes. Trying to keep her tone playful, she leans forward and whispers, “If you don’t sit up, I’m going to throw your cigarettes out on the ice.”
Bohdi doesn’t move. Amy resists the urge to scream. Instead, she rips off a mitten with her teeth and presses her hand to his forehead. He’s burning up. She feels a rising wave of panic. She squashes it, just like she would in the operating room. Flicking her headpiece radio back into place, she says slowly and clearly, “Captain Rogers, Bohdi Patel has a fever, I’d guess at least 104 degrees. He just passed out. I want to check in and make sure no one else is getting sick.”
There is a pause, and then Steve says, “Dr. Lewis, I feel fine. But agreed, we need a check in. Team report.”
One by one all of the special ops team, Gerðr, Sigyn, Nari and Valli check in. They all feel fine. Amy’s brow furrows. “Grandma? How are you feeling?”
Beatrice doesn’t answer. Amy is about to turn around and look, but then a flash of black catches her eye. Her mouth falls as she digests what she’s seeing. “Captain, Claire is slumping …” Fenrir barks, the sled careens wildly and Amy, Bohdi, and Fenrir go rolling into the snow.
Steve barely has time for Lewis’s words to sink in before the mutt barks, and he hears muffled thuds break the eerie silence of the Jotunheim night. And then he feels Claire slumping against his back, and Lewis’s voice is crackling in his ear again, cold and calm. “We’re overboard, but alright.”
“All halt,” Steve orders, his heart racing. He barely hears them as they slide to a stop. The winter gear the team wears is as high tech as the vehicles, and even when Steve catches glimpses of them, it’s hard to tell who is who—their gear covers them from head to toe. Through his green-tinted night vision goggles, Steve just barely makes out Lieutenant Larson’s snowmobile, distinguishable because it is a two seater with a sled attached to the back that Amy’s mutt is sitting on. The doctor and Bohdi should be on the sled too. The vehicle has veered off course by nearly ninety degrees. In the passenger seat, Beatrice is bent over sideways, held on only by her seat belt. Her weight is probably what caused Larson to swerve.
Steve’s attention returns to his own passenger. “Claire?” he says. He gets no response. Unlike some of the snowmobiles, Steve’s is a one-person vehicle, but his ten-year-old daughter Claire is so slight she fit behind him with room to spare. They’d used bungee cords to strap her to him—they may have saved her life—now if he moves he will pitch his daughter into the snow.
“Claire,” he says again. Her silence fills him with a panic greater than thoughts of man-eating orcas.
“I’ve got Bohdi!” Lewis says. “I can pull him onto the sled.”
“We don’t have any more bungee cords,” says one of the guys. “Should we take some off the gear—”
“No!” says Warrant Officer Harding, one of the two female Marines on the team. “We’ve got duct tape.”
“Use it,” says Steve. A moment later, Harding is running toward them. She’s the easiest to recognize in all her gear. Harding’s the smallest, but she moves with a lot of power despite her size. Beneath them the ice groans.
Over the radio, someone’s voice cracks, “Bogies underneath us.”
Behind Steve, Harding whispers, “Sir, she’s very hot.” Her voice shakes. Steve knows it’s not because she hasn’t seen men and women in worse situations, but Claire’s a kid, and a sick kid just sucks at your heart.
“Just move as fast as you can, Marine,” Steve says, lifting his arms to give the woman room. Harding begins taping Claire to Steve. Over the radio Warrant Officer Berry’s voice crackles. “There’s a thermal vent in the ice at ten o’clock, about eighty-five meters away.”
Thermal vents are where the whales congregate and come up to breathe. Steve’s team can’t stay in one place on the ice for very long; they need an island away from the whales and a safer place to check out their teammates. He glances over at Berry. The short, stocky man is standing on the back seat of one of the double seaters, binoculars in his hand. Berry is a warrant officer with a specialty in tactics. He is part of the original SEAL team—unlike Warrant Officer Harding who is a Marine on loan. Because of his experience, Berry probably commands more respect among the men than Steve or Larson, though technically they outrank him. Berry’s voice cracks in his ear. “There is an island about two clicks away at two o’clock. We can stop there.”
Exactly what Steve needed to hear. Scanning the lake, he just barely makes out a jagged rise covered by wicked-looking black trees.
“Done, sir,” says Harding, patting his side.
“Beatrice is secure,” says Larson.
Fenrir starts to growl. The ice below Steve groans. “Get to your vehicle, Marine.” Revving his engine, Steve shouts, “They know we’re here. Everyone head to the island, combustion engines on!”
The words are barely out of his mouth when the ice between Steve and Harding explodes and a giant white-horned whale breaches the surface.
Harding leaps onto her machine, but the beast spins and lunges toward her snowmobile. Before Steve can swing his rifle around, it slides toward Harding, propelling itself with the talons attached to its flippers. She guns the engine, but the whale grabs the gear loaded on the back, swings its head, and Harding and the snowmobile go flying through the air.
Steve speeds toward Harding and her life flashes before his eyes. He’d insisted that she be on this journey because they needed at least two team members with combat training and winter survival skills who wouldn’t be affected by Gerðr’s glamour. Harding is all that and is a warrant officer with a specialty in communications, but she’s so damned small. He sees her rolling through the snow and his gut wrenches—she has to be stunned. Just as he thinks that, she springs up, covered in snow, rifle on her back. “Get on,” he shouts, sliding to a halt just beyond her. He feels the snowmobile sink behind him and Harding shouts, “Go! Go! Go!”
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