advantage the frost giants ever had over the Aesir was their sheer numbers. The reason they were such a threat during Ragnarok was because—”
Mist broke off, drawing in a sharp breath. Because they had a leader who would stop at nothing, not even the darkest and most deadly magic, to attain his ends.
The realization hit her like a Jotunn’s fist, so terrible that she almost slammed on the brakes in the middle of the freeway. Her guts twisted in panic, and the tattoo began to burn again. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t already thought of it, that Dainn hadn’t mentioned even so much as the possibility.
Because he’d deliberately hidden it from her.
“Where is Loki?” she asked.
Dainn seemed unmoved by her alarm. “That is the other task Freya has set me. She suspects he may be here with the Jotunar.”
“And you didn’t bother telling me this rather obvious suspicion before?”
“It was clearly not obvious to you.”
The elf ’s complete lack of concern made Mist want to knock his head against the dashboard. “Of course the Jotunar couldn’t create or open these gates or bridges or what ever they are by themselves,” she said, feeling like an idiot. “Not if the Aesir couldn’t.”
Her hands began to tremble on the wheel. She remembered what she’d told Dainn not long ago: that only a minor god could break the wards she’d set over Gungnir.
And for all intents and purposes, a minor god was exactly what Loki was. Minor, but in name only. If he had sent Hrimgrimir with just the right spells . . .
She pressed the Volvo to its limits, reaching eighty as the car crossed over Highway 101. She flew along the Embarcadero Freeway and raced down the Twentieth Street exit ramp. She screeched right on Twentieth, crossed Third on a yellow light, and made a hard right on Illinois.
The Volvo was sputtering when she pulled into the driveway. She set the brake, practically tore the belt buckle apart, and jumped out. Dainn was right behind her as she unlocked the front door.
She knew immediately that Eric wasn’t home. A dozen strides along the main hallway and a sharp right at the kitchen carried her to the door of the ward room.
Only it wasn’t warded any longer. The Rune- staves painted on the wall above the door had broken to pieces, reduced to a chaotic series of black slashes like smears of rotted blood.
Mist plunged through the door. The case was open.
Gungnir was gone.
3
Mist spun to the nearest wall and slammed it with her fist. Paint fell in flakes at her feet. Dainn ran into the room.
“Loki’s piss!” she swore, lapsing briefly into the Old Tongue, which was made for insults, even against oneself. “Short-wit, incompetent . . .”
Dainn stopped before the open case, his gaze locked on the empty space where Gungnir had been hanging before she’d left around midnight. All the other weapons were untouched: two dozen swords, axes, daggers, and knives, each lovingly forged by her own hand, displayed in oak and glass cases built into the walls. The opened case had held knives of all shapes and sizes, eight weapons with hand-carved grips and edges sharp enough to rend flesh like tissue. Each knife was unique, but no one of them appeared substantially different from any other except in subtle elements of design and embellishment.
Whoever had taken it had recognized it for what it was with no trouble at all. The simple Rune- spells that had been meant to hide its true shape had been snapped apart like the thinnest of threads.
“It will do no good to curse yourself now,” Dainn said with an almost unnatural calm. “Hrimgrimir has deceived us both.”
“I’m not stupid,” she snapped. But she
Dainn paced slowly around the room, touching this case and that as if he could draw vital information out of the wood and glass and steel. Returning to the door, he ducked his head outside and stared up at the fractured Runes.
“I smell nothing of Hrimgrimir here,” he said.
Mist slowed her breathing and closed her eyes. He was right. There was a certain stench about Jotunar, whether fire or frost, that had nothing to do with cleanliness or grooming habits. She’d smelled it in Golden Gate Park just before Hrimgrimir had attacked.
“According to what you told me, Hrimgrimir wasn’t the only Jotunn who came to Midgard,” she said. “Maybe one of the others . . .”
He stared at the wood-paneled floor under his oversized sneakers. “I fear not,” he said.
A surge of adrenaline sent currents of fire racing through Mist’s veins. Without pausing to question the impulse, she ran into the kitchen, calling for Lee and Kirby, her Norwegian forest cats. They weren’t exactly watchdogs, but they were far from ordinary. Maybe Dainn, with his elvish connection to nature and animals, might be able to see something through their eyes.
But the cats, usually afraid of nothing but the rare California thunderstorm, refused to put in an appearance. On the edge of panic, Mist blundered unseeing right into the kitchen table. On the table lay a folded scrap of paper.
Eric. The frantic energy drained from her body, leaving her legs shaking and her heart struggling to work its way out of her stomach. He had been taking a shower when she’d left; he must have gone out and left a her note of explanation.
Her relief lasted all of five seconds. Eric could be foolishly impulsive at times, was generally fearless and always up for a little risky adventure. What if he had glimpsed someone stealing something from the house, naturally assumed the thief was human, and gone after him?
Mist reached for the paper and unfolded the note with shaking hands. The Runic script seemed to pulse on the page like entrails spilling hot from a dying warrior’s belly.
The final symbol was the figure of a coiling snake. It came alive as she watched, hissing and seeming to laugh with its gaping, serrated 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 was here,” Dainn said. He stalked up behind her, breathing in deeply like a wolf scenting the air. She spun to face him.
“If you’d told me as soon as I found you—”
He backed away, watching her face as if he expected her to attack him with her bare hands. “I made a mistake,” he said.
But so had she. She’d been so much worse than the short-wit and incompetent she had called herself before. Eric was no devoted lover prepared to spend the rest of his mortal life with her. He had deceived her from the moment they’d met.
Of course, she’d had no reason to think he could be anything but what he claimed. He had been affectionate, affable— the very opposite of Loki Laufeyson. But even if she’d suspected the gods were alive, she would never have looked beyond Eric’s smiling blue eyes, his big-hearted nature, his easy confidence.
Hrimgrimir had been no more than a distraction. It had always been Eric. Eric Larsson, also known as Loki Laufeyson.
“How did this happen?” Dainn asked.
Mist stared at the pile of ash, flinching at the question as if the elf had bellowed the words in her ear.
