Lokis gambit, p.92
Loki's Gambit, page 92
part #1 of I Bring the Fire Series
Steve jumps right in, “Gerðr, do you know what radiation is?” She’s in an unshielded room on the next floor up. Steve’s pretty sure she’ll be able to use magic to translate. Loki did fine in multiple languages over the phone. But the magic that makes Gerðr irresistible apparently doesn’t translate over electrical lines. Thank God.
Gerðr scowls. “Why do you want to know?”
Steve’s right hand curls into a fist. Of course he still has her lovely disposition to deal with. Leaning on his elbows, smacking his fist into his hand, he smiles tightly at the screen. “I just want to know if it’s harmful to magical beings.”
Gerðr’s nostrils flare. “Do you think you can torture me with radiation! Is this a threat?”
And suddenly he’s had enough—of her condescension, her paranoia, and suspicion. Leaning toward the screen, he shouts, “When have I ever tortured you, Gerðr? When have I ever treated you without the utmost respect?” His lip curls in a snarl, angry at her—and at himself for losing control.
Gerðr pulls back in her chair, and averts her eyes. Even on screen, Steve can see her chest is rising and falling too quickly.
She licks her lips. Gaze still not meeting his, she says, “It is true you have never…” She doesn’t finish. And Steve feels his gut clench at what is unsaid. He slumps back into his chair. She hasn’t always been treated well. Are her unfinished words referring to Freyr and Skírnir? Or to her time at Gitmo?
Her eyes flash to the screen. Her head tilts. Her voice is soft and quizzical. “But then why would you want to know this?”
Steve rubs his jaw, debating how much he should tell the giantess. He takes a deep breath and says, “Some nations on Earth are trading Earth technology with certain magical species for something.” He’s deliberately obtuse, wanting to see how she reacts.
Gerðr’s face hardens. “Yes. The elves must have exchanged something for weapons from the Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians.”
Steve lets his eyebrows go up at her knowledge of the details. He could play it cool, but he decides to allow her to see his surprise, give her a sense of control in the conversation.
Dropping her eyes, Gerðr says, “In the other prison, they asked me about that…often.” Lifting her chin she gives a tight smile. “Threaten me with all the torture you like, I won’t give you the answer because I don’t know!” The last words come out a growl.
Steve’s stomach twists into a sick knot. So Skírnir and Freyr are not the only ones who have mistreated her. He’s suddenly ashamed of his own species, and he doesn’t know what to say. I’m sorry seems hollow.
He bites the inside of his lip and then says, “A few decades ago, a region between those three countries was contaminated with deadly amounts of radiation, and now it is apparently being thoroughly cleaned up, which, quite frankly, is beyond the capability of human technology.” Probably not something he should admit to Gerðr, but he’ll throw her a bone, see if she takes it. “Do magical creatures have the ability to eliminate radioactive contamination?”
Gerðr’s lips purse. “How could so much radiation be concentrated in deadly amounts?”
“We use radioactive material to make electricity,” Steve says, undoubtedly, brutally summarizing nuclear fission. “Sometimes there are accidents.”
Gerðr leans forward. “You are utilizing the power of atoms?”
“Yes,” says Steve, beginning to feel impatient. “Can magical creatures clean up radiation?”
Gerðr sits back in her seat. She licks her lips in a way that is thankfully not seductive, just nervous. “Yes, it would take some knowledge. Trolls, for instance, though magical, cannot manage it. It would take concentration, and there would be waste products from halting the motion of the atom’s splinters—but since atomic splinters are so close to magic anyway, even a very inexperienced mage could manage it.”
From behind Gerðr comes Beatrice’s disembodied voice. “What type of waste product?”
Gerðr looks away, toward Beatrice’s voice. “Well, I could choose. When I took away the atomic splinter’s motion, I would have to change the force of that momentum into something else. Maybe light, or heat, or—”
“Could you use it to make electricity?” Beatrice asks. Steve raises an eyebrow. Heat is used to make electricity, but maybe Beatrice doesn’t know that. Then again, if the “clean up” is generating electricity without first converting it to heat, it might be more efficient.
“Yes, I suppose,” says Gerðr. “But why would anyone want electricity when heat and light are so much more practical and controllable?” Beatrice coughs. Steve’s eyes widen. Amy has said that in Alfheim, magic is the only source of power. They don’t use electricity. Maybe to beings of the other realms, electricity would seem…magical? Still, Gerðr’s been here for a while. Steve taps his computer screen. “Ummm…Gerðr,” he says.
Gerðr’s mouth drops open, and her cheeks go red. “Ah, yes…human…magic.” Maybe it’s just a shock to not have her deriding the human race, but her embarrassment over something so trivial is almost charming.
Beatrice leans over Gerðr’s shoulder. “Steve, if the lights are on around Chernobyl, our satellites have to have seen it.”
Steve’s jaw twitches. “You’re right. But why isn’t our government sharing this information with us? Haven’t they figured out that Dark Elves could take care of our nuclear waste problems?”
As soon as he says that, he knows it’s not true. Steve’s not scientifically brilliant. If he knows, they have to. But they’re not acting on it.
Gerðr swallows. “King Utgard of Jotunheim, and Sutr, of the Fire Giants, both might be willing in exchange for weapons, though it would greatly anger Asgard.”
Beatrice’s blue eyes glint. “Something smells mighty fishy here…”
Steve runs a tongue over his teeth. “Agreed. Why aren’t my superiors pushing me to open up lines of communication with the Dark Elves or other magical creatures?”
Beatrice crosses her arms, and backs away from the camera.
It’s Gerðr who responds to Steve’s question. “Because at least some of your superiors are already being controlled by Odin.”
The hairs on the back of his neck prickle. “How?” he asks.
Gerðr lifts a hand to her chin. “He has many ways. Usually, by offering immortality, and access to the Bifrost.”
The prickling sensation moves down his neck and to his entire back, and Steve is suddenly very conscious that he is in an unshielded room. He glances over his shoulder. Huginn and Muninn aren’t outside his window, but Heimdall can see anywhere. Steve hopes he’s busy watching Thor.
At that moment, Steve’s phone alarm goes off. Glancing down, he sees a text from his ex-wife telling him she’ll drop off Claire in twenty minutes.
“I have to go.” He nods at Gerðr and is suddenly struck by inspiration. It would be better to talk in a magically shielded room, but then Gerðr couldn’t use magic to communicate, and Steve would need an interpreter. Except for Amy, Steve’s not sure if he trusts any of them. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, he makes sure he sees no ravens or squirrels. Leaning in toward the screen, he whispers to Gerðr, “Maybe you can help us negotiate with your people?” Even if some of the Fed is controlled by Odin, Steve is pretty sure once the press finds out magical creatures can clean up nuclear waste—and convert it into power—Odin’s influence could be negated.
Gerðr lifts her head and looks at Steve, hope in her eyes. “That would mean…”
“We, or more precisely, you, need to figure out a way to go home,” says Steve, his brain spinning with possibilities and logistics.
Gerðr’s jaw drops. “I…really?”
“Yes,” says Steve. If anyone finds out he’s made the offer, he’ll lie, say it was to encourage the giantess’s cooperation. “Think about it.” He looks at Beatrice, and then back to Gerðr. “I don’t have to say that we need to keep this among ourselves?”
Beatrice nods. Gerðr swallows and says, “Of course.”
Standing up, Steve reaches for the disconnect button, but then Beatrice says, “Time to pick up your little girl?”
Steve says nothing, keeping his face blank. He’s not sure he wants Gerðr knowing about Claire.
Unfortunately, Gerðr perks in her seat, and says, “You have a daughter?”
Before Steve can say anything, Beatrice jumps in. “Claire is the spitting image of Steve.” She gives a cackle, “But attractive!”
Raising an eyebrow, Steve smiles at the jibe despite himself. “I’ve got to go,” he says, swinging his jacket on.
Right before he clicks the mouse, Gerðr says, “Be careful.”
Something in her tone makes Steve pause.
Biting her lip, Gerðr says, “Odin has many ways of exacting control.”
Steve thinks of Huginn and Munnin, nods, and clicks the mouse. The video feed goes dark.
As he’s leaving the office, he’s attacked by the usual throng of press, with the usual questions. Among them is Tara Inanna, just as attractive, wholesome, and appealing as Steve remembers. Steve keeps his face neutral as she asks him if there is any status on Bohdi and Amy. Tilting his head, he says, “Not at this time…Tara? Is that your name?” He gives her what he hopes is a charming smile, gauging her reaction to the question.
From somewhere in the crowd, a familiar reporter’s voice asks, “So how does this affect your run for mayor?”
Steve turns to the man who asked the question. “My people are missing right now, can you ask me something a little more pertinent, George?”
He glances back to Tara, but she’s gone.
Bohdi falls backward. Amy, slightly above and a little to his left, falls in a belly-flop.
Bohdi’s whole life doesn’t flash before his eyes—maybe because he’s missing large chunks of it—but his thoughts race. Amy’s still holding his wrist. She’s not screaming or anything, she’s just looking straight at him, and he knows she can’t look away because he can’t look away. And in the milliseconds before he dies, he thinks about that, and how maybe it is a very human thing not to want to die alone. He curls his hand up and around her wrist and squeezes. She squeezes right back.
He doesn’t even blink in those last few seconds—milliseconds—before impact, because that would be abandoning his fellow human being.
And then his back connects with whatever it is, Amy’s wrist is yanked away, and he braces himself for pain, and blackness.
Pain he gets, along every inch of the back of his body—but not like he was expecting, more like being thrown on the dirt during training, jaw rattling and wind stealing, but not anything extreme—and there is no blackness. The impact is strange, too. Instead of coming to a stop, he finds himself slowing. A dragon dives above his prone body, and he thinks he’ll be swooped up as a snack, but it shrieks in fury, pulls up sharply, and flies away.
He has no time to think about it. Instead of going down, he is suddenly going up. Beside him Amy gives a loud, “Yeep!” Bohdi feels something yanking him down by the back and shoulders, and pressure on his chest. He watches wide eyed as Amy rises so high she actually is suspended in midair before tumbling down. Another dragon drops from the sky, and its hind claws almost connect with her shoulders, but then it rises fast, and flies away.
Bohdi’s descent stops with a snap, and he springs up, Amy rising beside him, a little further away than she was before. Bouncing… They’re bouncing! They’ve landed on the canopy thing, and they’re not dying, they’re bouncing. He almost laughs, but the force of the bounce whips the air out of him.
Bohdi’s still riding up and down in crazy waves when he hears Amy say, “Mr. Squeakers! You’re okay! I was so worried! Oh, no…Thor…”
Still attached somehow to the canopy, Bohdi’s body ricochets up in the air. Turning his head, he sees Amy hopping on her feet as carefree as if she were on a trampoline. The canopy is more netlike than fabric like, though he can’t see the ground, so there must be layers and layers of the stuff. She’s holding Mr. Squeakers in one hand, and studying a point far up in the air, behind Bohdi’s head, out of his line of vision. How come she’s on her feet?
He tries to sit up, mid-bounce, and gets nowhere. “How come I can’t move?” he says, the wild trampoline ride easing to a gentler spring.
He’s almost steady when he hears a hiss and a squeak, and then all of a sudden, Mr. Squeakers pops out of nowhere and lands on his chest.
He stares at the mouse, the mouse stares at him, nose twitching.
“I’m coming!” says Amy. Mr. Squeakers, turns around quickly, stands up on four back legs, lifts his four front legs, and starts hissing.
About six feet away, Amy draws to a stop, her eyes wide. “Bohdi, are you okay?”
Gritting his teeth, he tries to move. “Upper body…can’t move.”
“Oh my God! Your spleen, did it rupture?” Amy says.
Lifting his head, Bohdi blinks at her. And then he understands. “No, my spleen is fine,” he says, his skin heating.
“But my grandmother said your spleen—”
“Is perfectly fine!” Bohdi snaps. Dropping his head back he grumbles. “That’s just a bogus thing Steve made up to get me out on medical discharge.” Just when the Marines was getting interesting, too. Bohdi liked the Marine Corps Explosive Ordnance Disposal program. Of course, someone was bound to find out he wasn’t really a citizen and kick him back to the infantry anyway, so…
Amy takes a step forward, and Mr. Squeakers gives another hiss. Amy pulls her foot back. She looks up briefly, bites her bottom lip, and then she looks down at Bohdi again.
Her voice weirdly steady and about a half octave lower than normal, she says, “Can you move your legs?” She’s speaking like a doctor, he realizes. Cold and professional. It’s kind of sexy.
Bohdi wiggles his feet, then his legs, and finally his butt. He smiles. “Yep, It’s just my upper body.” Walking parallel to his body, she says, “I think I know what’s happening.” Stopping, she turns, and walks slowly toward his feet. Mr. Squeakers sinks down to all eight legs and gives a cheep.
“I don’t have my first-aid kit, so I can’t cut you out of your coat,” Amy says.
“Cut me out of my…” Bohdi frowns and then he wiggles his shoulder blades inside his winter coat. They move, it’s just his coat that is stuck. “Hey, yeah,” he says with a grin. “You’re right.” Lifting his chin, he looks down at the zipper. “Can’t you just open it?”
“We don’t have time for you to struggle!” Amy snips.
Bohdi blinks at her tone, wiggles his hips, and feels a familiar lump. “My knife is in my pocket if—”
Amy doesn’t so much lean down as dive. Mr. Squeakers hops off Bohdi as she does. Hands on either side of him, she crawls up his body. “Which pocket?”
Is that a note of frantic worry in her voice? Bohdi looks up in the sky. It’s a beautiful crystalline blue, empty of everything but a few distant clouds. “Left,” he says.
Amy sits back on his knees and puts a hand in his pocket. Bohdi feels his skin heating in an actually rather nice way, blood rushing to a place that he’d rather it didn’t go.
She pulls his knife out of his pocket, and quickly inspects it. Just to take the edge off his discomfort, he gives her a grin. “Why, yes, that was a knife in my pocket. I’m not just happy to see you.” She glares at him as she pries it open.
Bohdi lifts his eye to the sky again. “I don’t see any dragons.” Which is kind of odd. They’re in an open place and kind of helpless. Why aren’t there dragons?
“Archaeopteryx,” Amy mutters, not looking at him. “Bracing myself on your right shoulder.” She crawls forward, until her hips are just above his, and Bohdi tries to shrink back into the canopy as much as he can.
As she puts a hand on Bohdi’s shoulder, he can’t help but notice she’s trembling. So he’s not the only person who’s discomfited by this. That would be flattering, but she’s holding a really sharp knife.
Levity is obviously required. “Braving a belligerent thunder god, going to other realms, and fighting dragons. This is farther than I’ve ever gone to be tied up by a cute girl.” Bohdi’s actually only gotten tied up once, and it was without any effort on his part. He can’t remember if the sex was good… He was pretty drunk at the time.
Amy doesn’t reply. She just mutters something about archaeopteryx and lifts her bracing hand so she’s hovering over him. She grabs the wrist of his coat and puts the knife to it. She’s still trembling.
“I don’t bite,” he says. He smiles and bats his eyelashes. “Unless you ask nicely.”
Slicing through the coat, Amy snarls. “I am not worried about you biting me!”
“Just trying to make you laugh,” Bohdi snips.
“Don’t!” says Amy.
“A sense of humor makes everything better,” Bohdi says, as she cuts the fabric down to his chest, and then down to his hips.
Sitting back on his knees again, she surveys her handiwork. “Is that enough for you to get out without touching the web around your upper body with your hands?”
Bohdi shifts, keeping his upper body on his winter coat, and easily slides his right arm free. “Yep,” he says with a grin, raising himself to a sitting position. Even though he’s only wearing a sport coat, and it’s morning, it’s warm enough.
“Good, let’s go now,” says Amy.
“Shouldn’t we—” talk about this.
“No,” says Amy, as she dips her chin and slowly shakes her head from side to side.
“What about—” Thor.
Amy interrupts. “No.”
Shrugging, Bohdi twists back to his coat, and says, “I need my wallet.”
“You really don’t,” says Amy, sounding distinctly agitated. Mr. Squeakers gives an uneasy peep.
He really does need his wallet; it has the picture of his parents in it, and even if he has copies, they’re only copies. Jaw tightening, he sits back up, and smirks. “But it’s where I keep my condoms.”
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