Mist

building and set them in place, tracing intricate, intertwining variations on the walls with his finger and reinforcing them at the laundry room door, the front door, and a door opening onto to the driveway that ran alongside the loft. After he was done, he did the same to the windows, giving special attention to those facing the crumbling factories along the waterfront. Of the intruder there was no further sign.

When he was finished, he returned to the loft, almost tripping over the threshold. Mist was waiting there and caught him by the arm.

“I assume even Alfar have to sleep,” she said, quickly releasing him. “You’d better get some rest.”

Exhaustion and exasperation battered at Dainn like Jotunar fists. “You still intend to go after Gungnir,” he said.

“I intend to find out what Loki’s up to.”

“You must not.” He sighed. “Not without me.”

Her mouth set in stubborn line. “You aren’t in any state to help me.”

It wasn’t his intention to touch her, but an impulse beyond rational thought made him seize her arm in an iron grip. “We already discussed the inadvisability of your getting to close to him, and you certainly cannot risk a confrontation.”

She stared down at his hand on her arm as if it were a loathsome insect. “I never said I’d hide from him, did I?”

“Your magic is in its infancy. Loki will not long be deceived by any attempt you make to imitate your mother’s power.”

“I’ll be careful,” she said, snatching her hand out of his.

“You neither know nor understand what he is capable of.”

“And you do, because you helped him.”

Dainn’s hand trembled as he fought off the urge to take hold of her again. “Loki may have been set at a small disadvantage by his confrontation with you, but he cannot have sent all his Jotunar away, and Hrimgrimir escaped. You have some Jotunar magic, some small knowledge of Galdr, and a brief acquaintance with your mother’s skills. But even if you had the smallest chance of defeating them with the little knowledge you have now, you must still find them first.” He made no attempt to hide his mockery, which effectively concealed his desperation. “Undoubtedly you can locate lost car keys or a misplaced cell phone, but could you have found Loki the first time without my direct help?”

“Loki will leave a trail of magic a mile wide.”

“One I might follow. You are not ready.”

Yanking her loose hair behind her head, she began to braid it again with ungentle fingers. “I’m going to try.”

“Then promise me that if you find a trail of any kind, you will wait for me. I will find you.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten what I told you. No one, least of all you, is giving me orders.”

“It is a request,” he said.

Leaving her thick hair only half braided, Mist reached inside her inner jacket pocket and pulled out several small squares of wood. The fact that Mist knew she needed them for carving the staves was proof enough that she had no confidence in her ability to use the mental Runes he had begun to teach her.

She tucked the pieces of wood back into her pocket and drew the knife from her belt. She weighed it in her hand and turned it over to display the Runes etched into its silver blade. “Don’t come after me,” she said, sheathing the weapon again.

“Mist—”

But she was already striding toward the front door. He took a few steps after her and staggered, beaten down by exhaustion. Exhaustion that held him back from pressing his magic too hard, weakening his hold on his other self. He could not help Mist in this state.

He went to his room, took off his boots and lay on the narrow bed. It was far more comfortable than anything he had slept on in many months.

Sleep, however, was not on his agenda. He lay awake, monitoring his strength, waiting for the moment when he could safely follow Mist. The sounds of human activity thumped and rattled and hummed outside, automobile engines and streetcars and raised voices from busy Third Street with its peculiar mixture of small stores, ware houses, and residences.

When the soft footsteps came, Dainn rose, left his room and went barefoot to the front door. He lunged outside, grabbing for the slight figure who was already turning to run. He glimpsed a thin, brown, defiant face before the girl squirmed around to attack him, scratching with fingers bent like claws and kicking frantically at his legs. She was all wiry muscle and very little spare flesh, remarkably strong for her size and weight.

Dainn held her away from him and kept his grip as she cursed and struggled and screamed at him in Spanish. He knew almost at once that his first assessment of the mortal at Mist’s door had not been correct.

This one was no ordinary girl. She was either Loki’s spy, or the first of the Mist’s Midgardian allies.

* * *

It was too easy.

When Mist returned to stand outside Asbrew, she smelled traces of Loki in the air, as if he had left the residue of his evil wherever he walked, like a snail laying down a trail of slime.

Of course he hadn’t walked out of Asbrew. He’d made a dramatic exit, disappearing into thin air. But he couldn’t fly unless he turned himself into an eagle, as he’d done more than once in Asgard, or made use of his flying shoes. Mist was pretty sure he didn’t have those with him.

No, he’d have found a taxi. It was even possible that he’d had transportation waiting for him somewhere out of sight when she and Dainn had arrived at Asbrew.

And that was the problem. If she could sense Loki with so little difficulty, Dainn was probably right. Loki might very well have laid a trap for her, and only the Norns knew what was lurking in it.

Still, she went around the corner and into the narrow street between Asbrew’s block and the block on the opposite side. The lingering traces of magic were stronger here. She knelt to touch the cracked pavement where a large vehicle had left black skid marks on the road.

Loki’s escape car. Not big enough to hold a dozen giants, so he obviously hadn’t intended them to ride with him when he left Asbrew. Assuming, of course, that he’d expected them to leave with him at all. Mist wondered if he knew where she and Dainn had sent the Jotunar and if—when—Loki would succeed in getting them back.

But that worry was for another time. She pulled a piece of wood from her pocket, laid it flat on top of the tire marks, drew the knife, and carved three Runes deeply into the surface. She nicked her finger and squeezed the blood into the staves. When they were filled, she removed her lighter and put the small flame to the corner of the wood.

It was consumed in a few seconds. Remembering what Dainn had done at the loft, she dipped her slightly bleeding finger into the ash and drew the same Runes on her forehead. A young woman walking a dog paused at the entrance to the street and stared at Mist while her terrier barked frantically.

Mist looked up, and the woman beat a hasty retreat. But Mist wasn’t worried about observers. She had focused all her concentration on the Runes sketched across her forehead, imagining them burning into her brain.

Suddenly she could feel something—a sense of direction, of movement continuing north on the street. She got up slowly and followed her hunch.

It didn’t take long before she found evidence that the vehicle had pulled into a side alley, made a sharp Y- turn, and reversed direction.

She was about to return the way she had come when she heard the choked cries coming from the alley. Without hesitation, she ran into the dim corridor, racing past colorful graffiti with fat letters the height and width of a man and skirting malodorous garbage blown in by the winter wind.

Two Jotunar in reasonably human shape were crouched in the alley where a battered chain-link fence blocked pedestrian traffic. They weren’t the biggest Mist had seen, but they were considerably larger than the figure lying on the dirty cement between them.

A boy. Or, more accurately, a young man, flat on his back and jerking wildly as if he was in the midst of a seizure. Mist launched herself straight at the Jotunn on the left, drawing Kettlingr as she attacked and chanting it to its full and lethal size.