Chicks Kick Butt

She could have told him that Vídarr and Váli were alive in this very city, one the owner of a Tenderloin bar and the other a common drunk. The sons of Odhinn were living proof that the prophecies had failed. They had known all along how useless it was to cling to the old ways. Mist had finally admitted they were right.

Now she knew they had been very, very wrong.

“There was an ending, yes,” Dáinn said into her silence. “The Aesir and their allies were scattered, sent into limbo and robbed of their power. But there was no Ragnarök. The gods did not die. And their enemies—” He broke off, and when he spoke again it was in plain English. “Their enemies still live.”

Mist felt the shock pass through her body and settle in her gut, roiling and churning like worms in a corpse. Somewhere the gods lived on, forgotten by men. Freyja, Heimdall, Tyr. Odhinn himself. The Allfather, who had passed Gungnir to her with his final breath.

“Go to Midgard,” he had said. “You will not fare alone. Each of your sisters will bear a weapon that must not fall into the hands of the evil ones. As long as you live, you will guard Gungnir. Until…”

He had died then, slain by Fenrir, and with the other valkyrjur . Mist had left the dying to their fates. She had believed she would have little time to guard the spear, since she, too, would be obliterated in the final destruction.

The joke had been on her. Odhinn himself hadn’t believed the prophecies. He’d known that the world to come would be just as cruel as the old; riven by war, greed, and suffering. He’d known that his enemies would survive.

“They have returned,” Dáinn said, struggling to his feet. “The jötunn Hrimgrimir has come to Midgard in search of the treasures. I was sent ahead, but he—”

“Who sent you?” she demanded, gripping his arms. “Have the Aesir also returned?”

“The Aesir have no power here. Not yet. Freyja came to me in a dream.…”

Freyja. Freyja the beautiful, the Lady, who received half the slain warriors chosen by the valkyrjur . Mist remembered the other things Hrimgrimir had said before his attack.

“Sow’s bitch,” he had called her. Syr, the Sow, was another name for Freyja. But Mist had always been Odhinn’s servant. It was for him she had fought, for him she had abandoned the honor of death in battle in favor of an immortal life of solitude.

“A dream?” she echoed, pushing her dark thoughts aside. “Why the Lady? Why should she come to you ?”

Dáinn acknowledged her contempt with a twist of his lips. “I still have some small magic remaining to me, and the Lady has not lost all her power. She still has the seidr , her spell magic. It is that which keeps the gods alive.” His gaze turned inward. “The Aesir can see but little from where they now reside, yet what they see is worse than any seer’s foretelling.”

“Tell me!”

“She charged me to find the treasures and warn their guardians against the invasion.”

The invasion. The “new age.” How many jötunar had come to Midgard? If the giants had found the other valkyrjur , the other treasures …

Panic surged in Mist’s throat. “Was it Hrimgrimir who attacked you?” she asked, giving him a shake. “How did he get to Midgard?”

“There are passages, ways between the worlds that have been opened by dark seidr .”

“What worlds? Does Jötunheimr still exist? Asgard?” She grimaced at her own stupidity. None of that was important now. “How did he find you?”

“I do not know, but he knew I was looking for you.”

“And you couldn’t stop him? What happened to your magic, álfr ?”

For the first time a flicker of real emotion crossed Dáinn’s face. “I had to let him win. My task was more important than any temporary victory. It was necessary that he believe I was no threat to him or his allies.”

Mist didn’t believe him. He’d let himself be beaten to a pulp and ground into the dirt like an ant on a battlefield. He was worse than useless.

But there was no time to question him further. “I have to go back,” she said. “Gungnir—”

“Is it safe?”

Mist didn’t bother to answer him. She jumped to her feet and began to run. She was halfway home when Dáinn caught up with her. She ignored him and kept on running.

The streets of Dogpatch were quiet now in the small hours of the morning. Dáinn was on her heels as she came to a skidding stop at her door and released the ward that guarded it from anyone but her and Eric. A dozen long strides carried her to the display room.

The case was open. Gungnir was gone.

Mist spun to the nearest wall and slammed it with her fist. Dáinn burst through the doorway, rags flapping.

“Loki’s piss!” Mist swore. “Short-wit, incompetent…”

“It will do no good to curse yourself now,” Dáinn said, unnaturally calm. “We must find him. Do you know the runes?”

“Of course I know them,” she snapped.

“Then help me.”

He sat cross-legged on the floor and closed his eyes. Mist sat across from him, preparing her mind and body for the galdr. Dáinn began to sing. His voice moved through the air in eddies and swirls like water in a stream.

A prickle of bone-deep awareness washed through Mist as Dáinn’s spirit mingled with hers. It was like a violation, unseen hands reaching and plucking at her soul.

Sorrow. Such profound and terrible sorrow.

Breathing deeply, she tried to let the distraction of Dinny’s presence roll away like summer’s fog in autumn. It was no use. Her disdain for him was too strong. She could only hinder him now, and failure could have consequences too terrible to contemplate.

Careful not to disturb the elf, she got to her feet and walked into the kitchen. The cats were nowhere in sight, but on the table lay a folded piece of paper, not the one Eric had left before. A sense of unfocused dread stiffened Mist’s fingers as she reached for the paper.

“It was not the jötunn, ” Dáinn said from the doorway.

The needle-sharp prick of ice filled Mist’s lungs. She picked up the note and unfolded it. The runic script seemed to pulse on the page like entrails spilling hot from a warrior’s belly.

My apologies, sweetling, it said. I had hoped to enjoy you one last time, but it was not to be. I will cherish your gift. You may be sure I will use it well.

The final symbol was the figure of a coiling snake. It came alive as she watched, hissing and seeming to laugh with its gaping jaws. Then it was still again, and Mist dropped the paper onto the table. It burst into flame and disintegrated into black ash.

“Eric,” she whispered.

“Loki Hel’s-Father,” Dáinn said. “You knew him?”

The accusation in his voice was well deserved. She had been far worse than the short-wit and incompetent she had called herself. Eric had never loved her. He had deceived her from the moment they’d met. She hadn’t been wise enough to see through the shape he had taken to seduce and set her at her ease.

Hrimgrimir had been no more than a distraction. It had always been Eric.

“I didn’t know,” she said numbly. “I believed…”

“You believed .” His short laugh was raw with despair. He ran his finger through the ashes. “No one knew he had pierced the veil. We share two burdens now, shield- maiden.”

Mist didn’t ask what the second burden was. All she could see was Eric’s laughing face when she had told