Lokis gambit, p.33
Loki's Gambit, page 33
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
“Are you alright, Sir?” Amy says to Steve.
“I’m fine,” he says in a bored voice. “Just got checked out for frostbite. Standard procedure.”
“Frostbite?” says Amy.
All of the guys shift on their feet. Steve just raises an eyebrow. “Why don’t you tell us about your run-in with Loki yesterday.”
Amy nods. “I learned something really important, maybe the most important thing.”
Steve sits up a little straighter and tilts his head.
Taking a step forward, Amy says, “The elf queen’s name was the same as in our movies and books.”
The room goes absolutely silent.
And then Bryant says slowly, “In the Lord of the—”
“In real life, too!” says Amy, turning to him with wide eyes.
“And this is important because...” says Steve.
“Because it means that there may be truth to all of our myths, modern as well as ancient! That’s...” Amy lifts her hands, “huge!”
Everyone is quiet again.
Steve blinks, and then in a very slow voice he says, “Did you ask him the questions I gave you?”
“Sir,” says Bryant turning quickly to him. “I think if what Amy says is true that it...” He swallows.
“That it could be bad,” says his brother Brett.
Steve and Amy both look at the two brothers.
Slipping his hands into his pockets, Bryant says, “We got a shiny glowy power thing underneath our feet, and Loki is trying to get it...”
Steve and Amy both stare at him.
“Have you two seen the Thor movies?” says Brett.
Hernandez whistles low.
“It’s been a while,” says Amy.
“It’s been never,” says Steve.
Shaking his head, Hernandez says, “I’ll paraphrase. An angry, entitled, arrogant, bat-shit crazy Loki steals a shiny glowy power thing and tries to take over the earth from the humans he declares ants on his boots.”
Wringing her hands, Amy says softly. “Loki likes humans.”
Bryant tilts his head. “In the movies, Loki is capable of astral projection...and he turns blue because he is a Frost Giant...like our Loki.”
“He says Frost Giants aren’t blue,” says Amy weakly.
“Loki doesn’t think we’re ants,” Steve says quietly, looking at something on his phone.
Everyone turns to him.
“He used you as wyrm bait and froze you in ice!” says Bryant.
Steve rolls his eyes. “We’ve been over this.” There is silence in the room. Nodding his head in the direction of the door, Steve says. “Why don’t you guys go find out how those homeless people managed to slip into the tunnels. I’ll debrief Ms. Lewis.”
No one moves for a minute, and then Steve fixes them all with what Amy thinks he should patent as a death glare. “Dismissed.”
After the other agents file out, Steve pulls on a zip up sweatshirt.
“Did he really freeze you in ice and use you as wyrm bait?” Amy says in a small voice.
Steve raises an eyebrow. “He froze me in ice to save my life.”
Amy lets out a breath of relief and smiles.
Not matching her smile, Steve tilts his head toward the door. “Let’s walk, Miss Lewis, and you can tell me everything that happened.”
They walk outside through a walkway that goes beneath the Board of Trade building and up Van Buren beneath the ‘L’ tracks that run through Chicago’s downtown. They come to a stairway, and Steve leads her up to a wide open courtyard. There are pots of colorful cold-hardy plants, and a fountain of black stone, now drained for the season.
Steve sits down on a stone bench and looks up at the empty sky. He motions with his head for Amy to sit down next to him. She notices a few stares from businessmen walking by. It strikes her they must make an odd couple, Steve in his forties, in his gym outfit, Amy in her business attire. She even catches a few glares, which is really surprising—is it because Steve’s black? She gives him a sidelong glance, his eyes flit to the glarers...but his face remains impassive. Amy’s got to hand it to him, the guy is a rock.
Looking upwards Steve says, “So you didn’t get a chance to ask him why he suspected visitors from Vanaheim when we ran into that troll.”
It isn’t a question but Amy answers with one. “No?”
“Hmmm...” Steve raises an eyebrow at her, and then is absolutely silent.
Amy swallows again. “Well, he did say that the sphere thingy surrounding the World Seed Cera thingy is Vanaheim technology?”
Steve’s eyes narrow a little more.
Amy bites her lip. “And then there are the magic detector doohickies; they are from Vanaheim, too,” Amy says in a soft voice.
Steve raises an eyebrow. The question is implicit. Amy says weakly, “Loki told me?”
“But you didn’t tell me,” says Steve, his voice light, a faint smile on his face. “Maybe because Loki told you not to tell me?”
“No! It’s not like that!” Amy says. “I was afraid of Bryant!” Before she knows it, she’s telling Steve all about her adventure to the microbiology lab, about taking apart Bryant’s precious magic detector prototype, and even about Loki turning blue.
He doesn’t say anything the whole time, but his eyes narrow considerably more and a frown settles onto his features.
By the time she’s done, she’s sweating despite the chill weather, and she’s wondering if he’s going to fire her.
Looking off into the distance he says, “Ms. Lewis, next time you do something like that, you tell me.”
Amy starts to stammer, the sweat on her skin going cold. “But...it is a $30,000 dollar piece of equipment and I took it apart with a nail file...and Bryant...and...”
Steve lifts an eyebrow at her. “You tell me, Ms. Lewis.” He smiles. “I need to pass this on to higher ups, but don’t worry. I can handle Bryant—and the rest of them.” He winks. “They won’t take away your nail file.”
Amy’s body sags with relief. At that moment her phone starts to buzz. Pulling it out of her pocket she sees a text from an unknown caller. Accepting it she reads: Tell Steve I have disabled the gate Mr. Slithers used.
She hands the phone to Steve. He blinks at it and then types back with surprising speed. It is her phone, so Amy doesn’t feel too bad peeking over his shoulder.
Did u close troll’s gate 2? Steve asks.
A text comes back. No.
Tilting his head Steve types. Why not?
Bye-bye, Steven. Loki responds.
Steve hands the phone to her. “Any idea why he would close one gate and not the other?”
Amy tilts her head. “Where is the wyrm gate?”
“I have no idea,” says Steve, looking at the sky again.
“Do you have the troll gate under surveillance?” Amy asks.
“Of course,” says Steve.
Amy looks at the phone. She remembers Loki staggering into her car after closing the gate to Alfheim...or redirecting it...or whatever. “Maybe he’s afraid. I think it exhausts him. Maybe he thinks you’d try and catch him?”
Steve doesn’t respond. Amy finds herself shivering.
He’s quiet for a few long moments and then says, “So, your theory about all stories being potentially true —”
“Partially true,” says Amy. “Maybe.”
“Is there anything in them about Loki that seems...consistent?”
Amy looks down at her shoes. “Well...he’s a thief. And he brings about the end of the world.” She bites her lip. Okay, that doesn’t sound good. “But I’ve just really begun to research this...so maybe...I dunno.”
Steve nods. “Why don’t you continue to research it.” He lifts an eyebrow at her. “Since you hardly answer phone calls and spend most of your time reading veterinary journals.”
Amy reddens. He knew about that? “Okay,” she says.
Looking away again he says, “Thank you for your insight, Miss Lewis. You’re not our typical government agent, but I’m glad we have you.”
A compliment? From Steve? The man of the patented death glare? She scratches the pavement in front of her with her shoe. She’s actually flattered. But she doesn’t quite feel like letting him know. Trying to sound plucky she says, “Just trying to earn enough money to get back into vet school...you know, if I don’t get my scholarship reinstated.”
Steve laughs at that for some reason. For a few moments they sit in companionable silence and then two of the biggest ravens Amy has ever seen land in the empty fountain.
One starts to bob and squawk. “There you are, Steven! Rawk...Rawk...”
“Hey, Muginn,” says the second one. “Is that Loki’s girlfriend he’s flirting with?”
Amy’s eyes go wide and heat rushes to her face.
Bobbing, the first one says, “Remember what happened last time someone messed with Loki’s girlfriend. Rawk, Rawk....Loki cut him to pieces and flushed him down the river!”
Scowling, Steve stands up. “Let’s go.”
But Amy’s petrified...in absolute fury.
The second raven hops to the edge of the fountain opposite Amy and Steve. “What are you talking about, Muginn? That never happened...”
“You don’t remember anything, Huginn!” squawks the bird that must be Muginn.
“Amy....” says Steve.
But Amy is beyond hearing or caring. Picking up a rock from one of the planters, she hurls it at the closest bird—and hits her mark.
It gives an angry rawk and then both birds take to the sky in a flurry of feathers, one with noticeably more difficulty. “You whore! You hag!” they shriek.
Beside her Steve picks up another rock and throws it at them, just grazing one of their wings. With a shriek they both take off.
Amy turns to Steve. His face is a reflection of the fury she just felt. “Damn things have been following me everywhere,” Steve says. “I still haven’t figured out why me and not Loki.”
Amy tilts her head. She knows who the ravens are. “Those are Odin’s messengers...They’re following you?”
Steve doesn’t answer.
Amy takes a deep breath. “You’re a scary guy, Steve.”
Chapter Seven
“Is that a poodle dyed pink, or a Midgardian animal I’ve never seen before?” says Loki, staring at the Star Trek Original Series episode on the television screen. He tilts his head. “Hoenir would approve of this evolution.”
“Poodle dyed pink,” says Amy, and he frowns. She and Loki are on her EZ Boy chairs, watching Star Trek and eating Chinese food. It’s just a few days after Mr. Slithers graced Chicago with his presence. This isn’t how she expected her evening to go, but it’s great. Granted, seeing the line of caterers with pan loads of Chinese food outside when she got home from work was a little disconcerting—especially when they started demanding payment. But as soon as Loki stepped out of her apartment, it all made perfect sense.
“So you’ve never heard about the Three Billy Goats Gruff,” says Amy. She has her list out. “I was sure there was a connection between that and the trolls finding goat meat irresistible.”
Loki gives her a look that is almost sympathetic, or maybe it is just the headache he was complaining about earlier that is causing his brow to furrow. “It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It just means I’ve never heard of any goats speaking troll.”
She looks down at her list. He can’t animate statues, either—though he says Hoenir could do it. And he’s never turned anyone into black-footed ferrets. Those were questions that Bryant and Brett said they’d snagged from the comics.
She looks at the last entry on her list. “Can you teleport?” It’s something comic-book and movie-Loki can do, but myth-Loki can’t.
Loki chokes on whatever he is eating. Thumping his chest, he sputters. “Teleport?”
“Yeah, you know...” She moves her hand in empty air.
He stares at her blankly.
“It’s when —”
Pulling out his mobile phone he smiles triumphantly. “Tele as in telephone, and port, as in to carry or move! I only use temporary mobile services, but I always teleport. I thought you knew?”
Amy’s brow furrows. “Actually, it means, um, like in Star Trek, when they dematerialize through the transporter...”
Loki gives her a look like she’s kicked a puppy. “The only way my atoms will dematerialize would be with a rather large explosion...and there would be no putting them back together.”
He looks down at the noodles he was just eating and puts them aside, looking a little disgusted.
“Right,” says Amy. She’ll put that down as a ‘no.’
“Awww...the pink doggie died...” says Loki looking back at the pre-CGI pre-Muppet alien on the screen.
They watch several more episodes of Star Trek. It’s kind of fun, like old times at Amy’s grandmother’s house. But with agents with guns parked outside, a portal to dwarf world’s troll lands a few blocks off, and an apartment filled with surveillance devices. There’s also lots of Chinese food—lots and lots of Chinese food. It was fun sampling all the dishes. Apparently if you can order in Mandarin, you really get the good stuff.
Abraham Lincoln is chatting with Captain Kirk, and Amy is about to fall asleep when she remembers one last thing. “Steve says to tell you those places in Europe and India are under surveillance.”
Loki is silent. She turns to see him giving her a bright, mischievous smile, the tension in his brow completely gone. “Thank you, Amy.”
Fenrir starts to whimper up at empty air and then runs over and jumps into her lap. Loki turns back to the screen but he’s unusually quiet. Captain Kirk and Abraham Lincoln are saying their goodbyes when Amy suddenly gets suspicious. Picking up a chopstick, she throws it at his shoulder. It passes right through him and lands on the floor.
Astral projection Loki turns and sticks out his tongue and then vanishes. Amy looks to the door, wondering just how long he’s been gone.
As soon as Amy tells Loki that the gates to Vanaheim in Europe and Asia are covered, Cera, who’d been whining all night, suddenly becomes irritatingly sycophantic. “You were right! They covered the gates to Vanaheim! Now Frey, puppet king and liege of Odin won’t be able to get me! Oh, I am so relieved. You are so wise, Loki, so wise!”
Not that Loki trusts ADUO’s word for it. He creates an astral image of himself in the chair, turns himself invisible and slips out the door. Cera follows close behind.
As soon as he’s certain he hasn’t been followed, he slips into a dark alley. Looking up at the sky, he creates an illusion of himself and lets it keep walking...just in case Heimdall is watching.
Cloaked in invisibility, he takes a breath, wills all the magic around him to himself, steps forward … and into the nothingness of absolute vacuum in the In-Between. It is beyond the reach of even starlight and there is only cold, darkness, and Loki’s own magic. He panics momentarily. He needs a landmark at his destination to anchor to. Throwing out a hand, he imagines a stone in the ring wall of Visby, Sweden. Magic splits the nothing and pulls him forward and out.
He is suddenly falling forward and gasping for breath in a chilly Swedish autumn. His face hits the ancient stone wall that surrounds Visby’s old city. Thankfully, it is very early in the morning. He’s in a field next to the water, and there is no one about.
He staggers back and falls into the grass. His head is marvelously clear, and Cera’s whining is gone. He lies back and closes his eyes. Tomorrow he’ll check that surveillance of the gate inside the ringwall is adequately protected.
He throws an arm over his eyes, grateful he’s in his armor and it has some temperature modulation. Only his chin and his exposed left arm are cold. His stomach grumbles despite the meal he’s just consumed.
He’s definitely sticking to air travel when he checks the gate in India...Teleporting is just so exhausting.
Hopping off the ‘L’ at the Racine stop, Amy makes her way to Lexington Avenue just north of Arrigo Park and walks toward the statue of Columbus, two bags of groceries in her arms. The gate where the troll arrived is cordoned off with police tape.
Other than the police line there is no sign that anything unusual is afoot. It’s a warmish fall day and there are people playing soccer on the open field. Kids and their parents are riding bicycles on the little trail that makes a large oval around the green.
It’s been over a week since Amy has seen Loki. Her life is returning to its previous state of depressing normal. Her mother is still waiting to transfer Beatrice to another nursing home. Amy’s waiting to hear back on her scholarship. She’s still a receptionist for ADUO who moonlights as a vet tech.
She shakes her head. She’s starting to worry about Loki. Or miss him. Or both. He showed up so soon in her apartment after Mr. Slither’s visit...she thought they were friends. Or something. But friends share phone numbers and email addresses, don’t they?
She feels her face harden. He’s the only thing in her life right now that makes her feel special and hopeful, and that can’t be good. He is literally a mirage half the time...but he’s also the only person she can really talk to. She can’t tell her friends outside of ADUO about anything that has happened in her life recently. Breathe a word about Loki, Odin, trolls, ravens, or wyrms and she could wind up in jail.
Leaving the sidewalk, she walks through a gate and steps onto the path that goes around the green of the park—and freezes. On a bench up ahead is someone she never thought she’d see again. He is alternately reading and watching the soccer match. He turns his head toward the cordoned off area where the troll arrived, and then back to his book.
Heart picking up speed, Amy turns off Lexington and almost jogs down the little trail.
“Liddel!” Amy calls when she is a few feet away.
The man looks up. Liddel was one of two elves Amy met in Alfheim who was not royalty. He and his wife Dolinar were planning to escape the land of the ‘light’ elves and journey to the dark lands to save their unborn child.
This man looks so much like him. He has blonde hair and brown eyes, and he is somewhat attractive...and yet...elven beauty is perfect. This man’s nose is a little disproportionate and a bit crooked. One of his eyebrows seems a little higher than the other. His lips are a tad too thin, and he has a scar on one side of his mouth. His short haircut just barely covers the tips of his ears, but Amy doesn’t need to see them to know that they’re round.
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