“And who would want to know Frigg’s location badly enough to enchant her jewelry?”
“I do not know,” he replied. “But I dearly wish to find out.”
The waiter, who’d been focusing on his friend and keeping silent, and thus had been ignored until this time, made an unwise decision to speak up. “You people keep talking about magic and calling one another by the names of gods. Are you mental?”
“Frigg, if you please?” Odin said. His wife sighed and placed her left hand briefly on the waiter’s forehead. He collapsed next to his friend. Frigg’s eyes flicked up to mine.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s merely in oblivion. An effective talent for healing but surprisingly useful for occasions like this as well.”
The sirens outside grew loud and car doors slammed. Lots of people got shouty.
“We should make our exit now,” I said.
“Allow me to camouflage us,” the Morrigan said.
“Not me,” Odin said. “I’ll use my own methods.”
I still felt sorry for the aging sommelier who had an inordinate fondness for his hamster. Why had Frigg not sent him to oblivion? She somehow inferred what I was thinking and said, “Go. He will be fine.”
“Meet you outside,” the Morrigan said.
The slight tingle of camouflage settled over my skin, and I began to thread my way past customers and staff and then police and paramedics until I was in a bit of free space on Kirkegata. The Morrigan’s sandpapery voice entered my head.
Across the street, Siodhachan, she said.
Turning my head, I saw that the Morrigan and Odin had dropped their concealment and were staring at me from the other side of the street. The sensation of camouflage left me and I became visible as well. After waiting for another couple of cars to pass on the street, I jogged across to them.
“The assassin is athletically gifted,” Odin informed us. “He’s leaping from roof to roof, which is quite an accomplishment when one considers that they are sometimes of differing heights. And my ravens have just witnessed him leaping across an entire street.”
“So not human, then.”
Odin shrugged. “He is not a dark elf. I have seen such feats from berserkers, however. Some of the Einherjar can perform like that. This one may have been granted some strength-but by whom? We need to catch up quickly before he goes someplace my ravens cannot follow.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“We’ll go to the roof of this building,” Odin replied, as if that made everything clear. The Morrigan and I followed him inside a four-story brick building, and we climbed until we reached the blessedly flat rooftop. “He went that way,” Odin said, pointing to Kirkegata. There were very few flat roofs ahead, and even if I could bridge the distance between them and leap over streets, the steep shingled surfaces on some of them didn’t look as if they’d offer a safe landing.
“Unzip me, Siodhachan,” the Morrigan said. “I’ll go as a crow and join Odin’s ravens.” I want to see what’s going on for myself, she added telepathically as I moved to unzip the back of her dress. I dislike being dependent on others for my intelligence.
When she shifted to her crow form and launched herself into the night, I was left alone with Odin, who took the opportunity, out of sight and hearing of Frigg and the Morrigan, to tell me how he really felt.
“I like looking at you about as much as a jotunn’s yawning asshole,” he began.
“Right,” I said.
“I’d rather spit you like a hog, roast you with thyme, and feed you to my wolves than track down this assassin. But I can’t have the Morrigan thinking I don’t keep my word. I promised a peaceful meeting and now it’s been ruined.”
“I understand that completely.”
“I also don’t like the fact that someone used Frigg to track us. That question needs answering. So we’re going to pull a Johnny Cash. Have you heard of him? American singer?”
“Yeah, I know him. The Man in Black.”
“Good.” He turned to the north, put two fingers between his teeth, and whistled a rather haunting series of notes. The night sky answered with the neighing of horses.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“What’s the matter, Druid, afraid of horses?”
“Well, these are fairly special ones, aren’t they? So special that they have no physical presence?”
“That’s entirely in their favor. Smoother ride.” Odin’s tuxedo morphed before my eyes. The jacket lengthened to a long trench coat and turned skull gray. His shirt turned to a tunic, his pants became breeches, and his shoes grew up his calves and hugged them as leather boots-all of it gray. His face weathered and shrank in a bit, turning gaunt and tough. The architecture of his beard unraveled and became an untamed mane. His teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Haven’t done this in a long time. Should be fun, even with a pile of weasel shit like you.”
“Kind of you to say.”
Blue-green lights approached from the northern sky; in a matter of seconds they resolved into the outlines of spectral horses and hounds, and they came to a halt more or less on the roof.
“Up you go, then,” Odin said, leaping onto the back of a horse. Even though only the outline was there and I could see through the damn thing-I saw Odin’s leg dangling down the other side-the Norse god appeared to be sitting on something very solid.
I approached one of the horses and mounted it against all visual evidence that it would be possible. I was simultaneously relieved and skeeved that something extremely horsey supported my weight.
“The Wild Hunt rides!” Odin said, his face alight with savage joy. He kicked at his phantom stallion and the whole pack of us leapt forward, floating just above the rooftops. His mouth rounded and he bellowed out the old Johnny Cash chorus about ghost riders as we sort of slid across the skyline of Oslo. A few of the extra horses neighed along, and some of the hounds bayed at the stars.
Riding a spectral steed was much like hopping on one of those moving walkways in the airport; it was as smooth a ride as Odin promised. But I confess it freaked me out a little bit. I was quite used to flying as an owl, but it felt completely alien to be floating above the world in human form. Having additional horses and a pack of blue- green ghost hounds keeping pace with me only highlighted the fact that our party should be coursing on the ground rather than in the air.
We quickly gained on the two ravens and one crow, who were following the shooter. The Morrigan’s voice slipped into my head. I see him. He is dressed like a modern mercenary. Black body armor and boots. He left the rifle back on the roof across from the restaurant.
I didn’t answer. I looked at Odin’s face to see if he had any reaction to receiving the same news from his ravens. His expression, formerly excited, had turned into a sour frown.
“What’s the matter, Odin?”
He scowled at me. “I’m missing my spear, damn you to Hel,” he said.
“That brings up an excellent point,” I replied. “What are we supposed to do when we catch up with this guy if we don’t have any weapons?”
“The hounds will bring him down,” Odin assured me.
Beware, the Morrigan said. The shooter hasn’t seen me or the ravens yet, but he heard the hunt and knows you’re behind him.
I was unsure what she thought I should do with this information. There were no reins on my unreal horsie. I couldn’t turn or slow down or speed up. For all practical purposes, I was on an amusement park ride called the Wild Hunt and locked into my seat. Sort of.
The assassin came into view, head and shoulders highlighted by moonlight but otherwise as difficult to see as the Wild Hunt. He landed on a flat roof ahead of us and turned, a handgun in his right supported by his left. He methodically squeezed off a few rounds in our direction, and the third one shot Odin out of his seat. With a whuff, he toppled backward and I followed his trajectory, seeing him land awkwardly on a rooftop below. The Wild Hunt continued on and I swiveled to see his arms scrabble for purchase, so I knew he wasn’t dead. And then I got punched backward too, understanding that I’d also been shot down only when I was already falling toward a street, not a nice comfy roof.
