than anything. A hunch.'
'Why not confront him? See if you can get him to own up?'
'Because I could be totally wrong, this could all be just my imagination, and I don't want to wind the boys up needlessly and end up looking like a total paranoid prat. The only way to know for certain is to do nothing, act normal, and wait for the bastard to make his next move, if he's going to.'
'Didn't all of you nearly get killed escaping from Utgard?'
'Yeah, so?'
'Well, if there's a traitor among you, his actions endangered his own life.'
'Point taken. Where I come from there is such a thing as a suicide bomber, someone who's willing to martyr himself for his beliefs. But I'd wager that whoever-it-was was counting on me getting us out of there alive. Not only did he fuck everything up for me, the cheeky git then went and used me to save his own neck.'
'A gamble.'
'A calculated risk. Possibly he had some ace up his sleeve too, some get-out nobody else could know about. Trust me, I don't want to be thinking any of this. The whole idea makes me sick to my stomach. But it's gone and got itself lodged in my head, and try as I might I just can't seem to shift it.'
'Then you must be vigilant at all times.' Freya sounded surprisingly tender. Concerned, even. 'Keep a close eye on the suspect. And if — when — he strikes again…'
'Castrate the fucker.'
'I was going to suggest strangling him, but there's no reason not to perform your suggestion first, then mine.'
All at once I was really liking Freya. She spoke my language. I was even tempted to kiss her, but I didn't think that would be welcomed at this moment. I didn't think we had that kind of relationship. Yet.
We ambled on, and the lights of the castle were just coming into sight when we heard a sound.
It started low, much like the lowing of a cow in distress. Then it grew, mounting in pitch and volume, until it reminded me of whalesong, plaintive and haunting. Loneliness in a vast ocean.
It kept rising. It kept getting louder. Freya and I had both halted in our tracks to listen, and her expression was a weird mix of dread and excitement, like someone about to embark on a rollercoaster ride. Me, I was uneasy bordering on nauseous. This was not a normal sound, not a good sound to be hearing.
Onward and upward it went, and there was a hint of shriek amid the blare now, a distorted top note — chainsaw, fuzzed guitar, dentist's drill going into molar. It was more than unpleasant, it was neck-hair-crackling eerie, and I wanted to put my hands over my ears, good and bad, to block it out. I did, and even so it still came in. It bored into my head. It reverberated through my teeth, the bones of my skull, my sinuses. It seemed to fill everything, the space between objects, all the gaps of the world, as though the sonic waves it consisted of were a solid substance, an invisible, all-pervading jelly. I found it hard to draw breath. I could barely continue to stand upright. My head swam. My vision blurred. The sound was inside me. The sound clogged my lungs and heart and arteries. I shouted against it, trying to drown it out with noise of my own, but I couldn't. It couldn't be fought or argued with. It wouldn't be ignored or resisted. I felt I was going to go deaf from it — the job begun by the roadside IED a few years earlier was about to be completed. Deaf, or possibly mad. If it didn't stop soon, if quiet didn't resume, the sound would rob me of my sanity, or what little I had.
Maybe it would never stop. Maybe this immense agonised wail would continue for ever and there would never be peace again. From now on nobody would know contentment or tranquillity. Life would be rage and torment until the end of time.
The blackness inside me relished that thought. It was singing along to the sound, in dark discordant harmony.
Then the sound stopped.
I carried on yelling, unaware. I broke off only when Freya jabbed an elbow in my ribs.
The silence of the sound's aftermath was awesome, as if everyone in all the Nine Worlds was waiting with bated breath, head cocked, not uttering word.
Finally Freya spoke, and it was just a whisper, and even as her lips parted I somehow knew what was going to come out of them. What else could the sound have been?
'The Gjallarhorn.'
Forty-Eight
We ran to Bifrost. We were joined en route by Odin, Thor, Frigga, Sif, Vali, Bragi, and a bunch of others. Everyone's faces were pale and etched in the moonlight. They knew. We all knew. This was it. The Gjallarhorn had been blown. Ragnarok had begun.
We converged on Heimdall's guardhouse, and there, in the doorway, we found Asgard's gatekeeper on his knees. The Gjallarhorn rested in his limp hands. Heimdall looked exhausted, as if the effort of blowing the twisty trumpet-like thing had been tremendous — had, in fact, nigh on killed him.
He couldn't speak. Too out of breath. All he could do was point a quivering finger in the direction of Bifrost.
Parked halfway along the bridge was a low-slung stretch limousine. Black, with blacked-out windows, and standing next to it was a woman dressed in a black fur coat over a long black dress. She had on a fur hat that matched the coat, and her knee-high boots were black leather. She also wore large, round sunglasses — black, of course — even though it was night.
She strutted into the aura of the limo's headlamps, swinging her hips like some Russian supermodel. Three- inch boot heels clacked on Bifrost's planks. Her smile was moon-bright and sickle-lean.
Mrs Keener.
'My family,' she said to the assembled Aesir and Vanir, holding her arms out as if to embrace them all.
On the Asgard side of the bridge, nobody moved. Nobody so much as twitched.
'What, no greeting? No warm words of welcome? No 'hey, how you been'? I do declare, if this was Wonder Springs they'd be all over me like raccoons on a trashcan by now.'
'Loki,' said Odin, in a voice like stone.
'Oh no, don't be calling me that,' said Mrs Keener. 'That's a name I gave up going by years ago. There's only little old Lois Keener here these days. Loving wife, proud mother, not to mention President of the whole goshdarned United States of America.'
'Drop this vile pretence,' Odin said. 'Be who you are, not who you are playing at being. It disgusts me to see you disport yourself in such a false and unbecoming manner.'
'Stop being Mrs Keener?' She took a couple more steps forward, so that she was now near the end of the bridge, almost but not quite on Asgardian soil. 'And why would I ever want to do such a thing? Adored, respected, feared — I've got it all. The people of Earth are on their knees before me, half a them in worship, the other half cowering. I have power and influence beyond compare. Millions of mortals, maybe even billions, under my thumb. Being that other guy, that Loki you mention, it had its moments, I'll admit. But it ain't nothing next to being Lois Keener. Oh my Lord, the fun I'm having! Why did I never think of doing this before? I've got those Midgardians running around like ticks on a hog, hardly knowing what to do with themselves. I've thrown their strange, cruel little world into chaos, and ain't none of 'em even has an inkling who I really am. I used to enjoy messing with y'all's heads, but this is way, wayyy better. So thank you kindly but I'll stay just how I am for the time being. Why change what's working so well for me?'
'Why are you here?' Thor demanded. He brandished Mjolnir at her.
'Well now, Thor, my old sparring partner and patsy. Thor, god of
'Oh, we haven't forgotten you exist,' Thor growled.
'And I am just so flattered to hear it.' Mrs Keener fanned her throat. 'A gal does hate to think she hasn't left a mark.'
