“Precisely,” Leif said, unaffected by my teasing.
“No, Leif.” I shook my head in all seriousness. “They don’t figure that out until much later, if they ever figure it out at all. These people think you’re spooky because of the way you talk and the way you behave. They can tell you don’t belong. Believe me, it’s not that you have skin like two-percent milk. Lots of people are scared of skin cancer out here in the Valley of the Sun. It’s once you start talking that people get creeped out. They know you’re old then.”
“But I am old, Atticus!”
“And I’ve got at least a thousand years on you, or have you forgotten?”
He sighed, the weary ancient vampire who had no need for respiration. “No, I have not forgotten.”
“Fine. Don’t complain to me about being old. I hang out with these college kids and they have no clue that I’m not one of them. They think my money comes from an inheritance or a trust fund, and they want to have a drink with me.”
“I find the college children delightful. I would like to have a drink with them too.”
“No, Leif, you want to drink of them, and they can sense that subconsciously because you radiate this predatory aura.”
His affectation of a henpecked husband sloughed away and he looked at me sharply. “You told me they can’t sense my aura as you do.”
“No, they can’t consciously sense it. But they pick up on your otherness, mostly because you don’t respond like you should or act like a man of your cosmetic age.”
“How old do I look?”
“Ehh,” I appraised him, looking for wrinkles. “You look like you’re in your late thirties.”
“I look that old? I was turned in my late twenties.”
“Times were tougher back then.” I shrugged again.
“I suppose. I have come to talk to you about those times, if you are free for the span of an hour or so.”
“Right,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Just let me go get my hourglass and my freakin’ smoking jacket. Listen to yourself, Leif! Do you want to blend in or not? The span of an hour? Who says shit like that anymore?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“No one is so formal! You could just say ‘if you’re free’ and end it there, though it would have been better to say ‘if you ain’t doin’ nothing.’ ”
“But I enjoyed the anapestic meter of ‘for the span of an hour’ followed by the iamb-”
“Gods Below, you compose your sentences in blank verse? No wonder you can’t carry on a half hour’s conversation with a sorority girl! They’re used to talking with frat boys, not Shakespearean scholars!”
‹Atticus? You’re home?› It was my Irish wolfhound, Oberon, speaking directly to my mind through the connection we share. He was probably on the other side of the door, listening to us talk. I told Leif to hold on a second as I spoke with him.
Yes, Oberon, I’m home. Leif’s out here on the front porch, acting his age.
‹I know, I smelled him earlier. It’s like Eau de Death or something. I didn’t bark, though, like you said.›
You’re a good hound. Want to come hang out with us?
‹Sure!›
I have to warn you, it might be boring. He wants to talk about something for a while, and he’s looking particularly grim and Nordic. It might be epic.
‹That’s okay. You can rub my belly the whole time. I promise to be still.›
Thanks, buddy. I promise we’ll go for a run when he leaves. I opened the front door and Oberon came bounding out, oblivious to the fact that his wagging tail was delivering steady blows to Leif’s upper arm.
‹Let’s go down to Town Lake after the dead guy says good-bye. And then Rula Bula.› He named our favorite Irish pub, from which I’d recently been banned.
The management of Rula Bula is still mad at me for stealing Granuaile away from them. She was their best bartender.
‹Still? But that was ages ago.›
It’s been only three weeks, I reminded him. Dogs aren’t all that great with time. I’ll let you run around the golf course and you can keep any rabbits you catch. Flop down for your belly rub. I have to talk to Leif now. Oberon promptly obeyed, rattling the timbers of the porch as he thudded heavily onto his back between my seat and Leif’s.
‹This is the best! There’s nothing better than belly rubs. Except maybe for French poodles. Remember Fifi? Good times, good times.›
“All right, Leif, he’s a happy hound now,” I said as I scratched Oberon’s ribs. “What did you want to talk about?”
“It is fairly simple,” he began, “but as with all simple things, vastly complicated.”
“Wait. You sound too accomplished with adverbs. Use really and very for everything,” I advised him.
“I would rather not, if you will forgive me. Since I am not trying to disguise my true nature with you, may I speak as I wish?”
“Of course,” I said, biting back the observation that he should use contractions more often. “I’m sorry, Leif, I’m just trying to help, you know.”
“Yes, and I appreciate it. But this is going to be difficult enough without running my words through a filter of illiteracy.” He took a deep, unnecessary breath and closed his eyes as he slowly exhaled. He looked like he was trying to center himself and find a chakra point. “There are many reasons why I require your aid, and many reasons why you should agree to help me, but those can wait a few moments. Here is the short version,” he said, opening his eyes and turning to look at me. “I want you to help me kill Thor.”
‹Ha! Tell him to get in line!› Oberon said. He chuffed as he always did when he found something particularly funny. Thankfully, Leif did not recognize that my dog was laughing at him.
“Hmm,” I said. “Thor certainly tends to inspire murderous thoughts. You’re not the first person to suggest that to me these past couple of weeks.”
Leif pounced. “One of the many reasons you should agree to help. You would have ample allies to secure whatever aid you needed and plenty of grateful admirers should you succeed.”
“And plenty of mourners should I fail? If he’s so universally hated, why hasn’t someone else done the deed?”
“Because of Ragnarok,” Leif replied, obviously anticipating the question. “That prophecy has everyone afraid of him, and it has made him insufferably arrogant. Their line of reasoning says that if he is going to be around for the end of the world, then obviously nothing can be done about him now. But that is poppycock.”
I smiled. “Did you just say Ragnarok is poppycock?” Oberon chuffed some more.
Leif ignored me and plowed on. “Not all of the prophesied apocalypses can come true, just as only one of the creations can possibly be true, if any of them are. We cannot be tied down by some ancient tale dreamed up in the frozen brains of my ancestors. We can change it right now.”
“Look, Leif, I know you have a saga full of reasons why I should do this, but I really can’t internalize any of it. I simply don’t think it’s my duty to do this. Aenghus Og and Bres both came to me and picked a fight, and all I did was finish it. And, you know, it could have easily gone the other way. You weren’t there: I nearly didn’t make it. You’ve seen this, I imagine?” I pointed to my disfigured right ear. A demon that looked like the Iron Maiden mascot had chewed it off, and I hadn’t been able to regenerate anything except a mangled mass of cartilage. (I’d already caught myself singing, “Don’t spend your time always searching for those wasted ears.”)
“Of course I’ve seen it,” Leif replied.
“I’m lucky I got away with so little damage. Even though I haven’t paid a huge price for killing Aenghus, I’ve had several unpleasant visits from other gods as a result. And that’s only because I’m still small potatoes. Can you imagine what the rest of the gods would do if I managed to knock off someone big like Thor? They’d all take me out collectively just to remove the threat. Besides, I don’t think it’s possible to kill him.”
“Oh, but it is possible,” Leif said, raising a finger and shaking it at me. “The Norse gods are like your Tuatha De Danann. They have eternal youth, but they can be killed.”
“Originally, yeah,” I agreed. “I’ve read the old stuff, and I know that you’re after Thor version 1.0. But you know, there’s more than one version of Thor out there now, just like there are multiple Coyotes and various versions of Jesus and Buddha and Elvis. We can invade Asgard, kill Thor 1.0, and then, if we manage to avoid
