Mist

Suddenly Loki wasn’t there. She fell forward against the wall, all the air knocked out of her lungs. Kettlingr flew from her hand. A fly buzzed around her head, seeming to laugh in its whining voice.

The fly landed on the wall and rubbed its legs. Loki hadn’t had to use force to defeat her. All he had to do was change his shape.

“Better be glad I don’t have a flyswatter,” Mist gasped.

Loki resumed his own form, leaning against the wall with his thumb hooked under his belt. “What a dreadful image,” he said. “I remember the sweet, heartfelt conversations we used to have after our lovemaking. Do you miss them as much as I do, darling?”

Mist had to remind herself again how thoroughly stupid it would be to attack him with her bare hands. “Please, just kill me,” she said. “Listening to you talk is worse than spending an eternity in the Christian Hell.”

Loki didn’t rise to her bait. He plucked at his slashed sleeve with a frown. The bleeding had stopped, and the flesh beneath was already knitting.

“You ruined my new jacket,” he said plaintively.

“You can conjure up another one,” Mist said. “It was conjured, wasn’t it?”

“Did you think I was idle all the time I was with you? I have a considerable fortune, Mist. I intend to put it to very good use.” He met her gaze. “It need not be this way, you know. Why should we speak as enemies when we could so easily be allies?”

“You’re crazy,” she said.

Loki drew a small dagger from a sheath inside his jacket and slid the needle tip under one beautifully manicured nail. “You gave up your duty to Odin long ago. You owe nothing to Freya. Is it really concern for this world that makes you turn against me? Or guilt, perhaps, now that you know the Aesir are still alive?”

“I’m not looking for redemption. Only for a way to kill you.”

“I see that you are still as intractable as ever,” he said.

Mist folded her arms across her chest. “Let’s just say I decided to take your offer. What good could I possibly be to you?”

“You have managed to intrigue me all over again, darling. And you will never find a better fuck than me, I assure you.”

Mist sighed. “Psychiatrists call your particular condition narcissistic personality disorder. They might have created the category just for you.”

In a blur of motion Loki was directly in front of her, the blade of his dagger at her throat. “Even I have my limits,” he said. His lips peeled back from slightly pointed teeth. “You’re going to tell me where I can find your Sister Valkyrie.”

“I have no idea where they are.”

“You suffer from the same disease that plagues all those who claim to be honorable. You are a very poor liar.”

“The problem with habitual liars like you is that they are seldom capable of recognizing the truth.”

“I can make your death very unpleasant.”

She shrugged, though the movement pushed her throat into the dagger’s edge. Blood trickled under her collar. “I didn’t expect anything less.”

“Perhaps you think that Vidarr or his drunk of a brother will find the courage to assist you? Or that the elf might return?”

Mist had pretty much given up on the idea that she’d get any assistance from Vidarr. In fact, she’d almost completely forgotten he was in the room at all.

As for poor Vali . . . she could only hope that the Jotunar outside didn’t consider him a threat and that he’d had the sense to get out of their way. And Dainn . . .

“I don’t need help to die,” she said.

Abruptly Loki withdrew the dagger, wiped it fastidiously on her jacket, and sheathed it. “I don’t want you dead, skatten min,” he said. “Look at me. Eric is still here, and he can be very generous to his inferiors.”

Mist eyed Kettlingr. “I’m no good to you, Slanderer.”

Loki picked Kettlingr up and examined the sword intently. “What is your price? Wealth? Power? To stand by my side as the consort of Midgard’s master?”

“By the side of a creature who mated with a stallion and gave birth to a serpent?”

With a grunt of rage Loki flipped his hand in the direction of the desk, raising the wine glass into the air and sending it flying against the nearest wall. It shattered, silver particles rising in a cloud and hovering in midair like powdered ice.

“I am weary of this sparring,” he snapped. “One final chance, Mist.”

“Nothing has changed,” she said, tilting her head back to expose her throat. “Go ahead.”

Loki stared at her, the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching. Vidarr moved for the first time since he’d spoken to Mist, turning his head just enough to catch her eye, as if he were trying to tell her something important. Something that might change the game completely.

“Why are you hesitating, Slanderer?” she asked Loki. “You have my sword. If you have any feelings left for me, let me die by her blade.”

“No,” he said, setting the sword on the desk. “But I wonder . . . shall we test to see if Gungnir is still all it was in Asgard?”

Suddenly the Spear was in Loki’s hand, and he was aiming straight at Mist’s heart. The Swaying One hummed in his grip as he let fly. Mist desperately chanted Runes of protection in the hope that the strange new power that had come to her when she’d fought the giants would somehow return.

She wasn’t fast enough to intercept Gungnir’s flight, but no cold metal pierced her chest. The Spear’s head penetrated the door just above and behind her shoulder, splitting the wood from top to bottom. Mist spun to grab for the shaft, straining to remove it from the door. It wouldn’t budge.

“You have worn out my patience, little bitch,” Loki said, moving up behind her with a nearly soundless tread.

“And you’ve tried mine,” Mist said, turning to face him. “You were never as good at anything as you thought you were.”

“Perhaps I’ll take you one last time, and show you just how good I am.”

“Try it, and I’ll roast your balls like chestnuts.”

Loki flinched. It was only a small movement, but it told Mist something she hadn’t anticipated.

He’s afraid, she thought in wonder. But what was the key to his fear?

“Freya is the key.”

Dainn’s voice, speaking inside her head. The elf was still here, and in a way she never would have expected.

“Dainn,” Loki said. His voice had an odd tone, as if he were truly taken aback. Setting aside her own surprise at his reaction— and his use of Dainn’s name— Mist took advantage of his confusion. As she had shaped the Runes in her mind back at the loft, now she did the same with words, projecting them outward in hopes that Dainn would hear.

The elf understood her question before she was finished. “Loki fears you because he fears the Lady,” he said. “He taunted and mocked her and called her whore because he wanted her but could not have her.”

And what in Hel did that have to do with her? Mist thought. She tried to ask Dainn again, but Loki was already moving. He caught Mist by the throat, and she felt her breath stop. Within a few seconds her vision began to go dark, and her thoughts were no longer coherent enough to form even the simplest question, let alone project that question into someone else’s mind.It was over. She had nothing left with which to fight.

“Halfling,” Dainn’s silent voice whispered again, beginning to unravel like thread caught in a kitten’s claws.

And then she understood.

Loki’s piss. That was what Hrimgrimir had meant. Why the new song had come to her, briefly making her a match for a dozen angry Jotunar.