Mist

“Then this world as you know it would no longer exist.”

War. Starvation. Disease. Constant misery for so many of Midgard’s inhabitants. She had seen the slaughter of innocents by evil men who considered those different from themselves of less worth than cattle. How could the loss of such suffering be a bad thing? Midgard would have become a paradise, as the Prophecy foretold.

But then there would have been no Aristotle, no Leonardo da Vinci, no Einstein, no Gandhi. No Geir and no Rebekka.

“I guess I really don’t have any choice, do I?” she asked bitterly.

There was such real sorrow in Dainn’s expression that she had to look away again. “There is another benefit to this ability you may not have considered,” he said. “You may attract one or more of your Sisters.”

Would that make it worthwhile? Mist thought. She didn’t know. There was always a price. Always.

“We should waste no time in commencing your instruction,” Dainn said briskly, almost as if the whole painful conversation had never taken place. “If you are ready, we will begin.”

“Now?”

“The young mortals are asleep, are they not?”

She got up again. “I need a little time to . . . make sense of all this in my mind. Can you give me another hour?”

“Of course. I, too, will prepare.”

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” she asked.

“Much will be demanded of both of us. But we will survive.”

Somehow that didn’t make Mist feel a whole lot better. She grabbed an energy bar from a cupboard in the kitchen and went outside. A light sleet glossed the pavement. The lots across the street, occupied only by rusting warehouses and long-abandoned factories, were still and silent, even during the day, and only the occasional patrol car, making a desultory sweep of the area, ever came close to interrupting Mist’s work. She’d set up her workshop in one of the least decayed buildings, where the noise and smells of hot slag wouldn’t disturb the neighbors or raise unwanted questions about zoning laws.

Once in the workshop, she fired up the forge and set about tempering the blade of the custom gladius she had been making for one of San Francisco’s more influential citizens, an overbearing politician who had never fought a real battle in his life. After she’d heated the blade to the proper temperature and quenched it, she put the sword on the cooling rack and stared into the low-burning flames of the forge. Making a sword properly was a kind of magic. She would have been happy if it were the only kind she’d ever have to perform, but that decision had been taken out of her hands.

She would dearly have liked to pick up one of her billets and pound the living daylights out of it with her hammer. But that wasn’t going to change a thing.

And, truth to tell, she’d rather pound on Loki instead.

She cleaned up, took off her gloves and returned to the loft, turning her face up to the delicate kiss of the snow.

* * *

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Loki demanded.

Hrimgrimir shook his massive shoulders and stared down at Loki with an insolent sneer. Dim moonlight, filtered through a heavy mat of clouds and the panoramic window overlooking the sleeping Financial District, silhouetted the giant in a way that made him seem half again as large as the thuggish shape he had chosen.

“You wouldn’t want me to bother you with something like this until I was sure,” the Jotunn said, his colloquial English thick with mockery. “Sometimes I think you don’t trust me.”

“Don’t push it,” Loki said irritably. “Just because you worked for my daughter doesn’t give you leave to forget your place.” He jerked the sash of his silk Derek Rose dressing gown tight around his waist. “I gave you a chance to take the initiative, and you failed.”

“ You didn’t find the kid,” Hrimgrimir said. “We did.”

“And you lost him.”

Hrimgrimir cracked his knuckles, the sound loud enough to rattle the windows. “The bitch had a bit of luck. It won’t last.”

“Luck? She and Dainn tossed the rest of your crew halfway around the world, and now I have to waste precious time and resources getting them back.”

“You could have stopped it, if you hadn’t—”

“Silence,” Loki snapped. “The fact is that you discovered the presence of a mortal who could have been useful to us, and you let him slip through your fingers.”

“We’ll get him back,” Hrimgrimir said with a toothy grin. “Then maybe you’ll realize you can’t treat us like a bunch of disposable leg-breakers.. We’re all you’ve got.”

Loki clung to his temper by the merest thread, reminding himself that tolerating the frost giants’ generally bad dispositions was a small enough price to pay for their obedience. Such as it was. It had been obvious from the beginning that Hrimgrimir was going to be trouble, but the others respected Loki. And Loki was smart enough to know what open rebellion would mean.

He didn’t have the magic to defeat Freya, not even with all the frost giants behind him. And they wanted their share of the prize when Midgard was taken.

“Not even you are indispensable,” Loki said, striding back to the bathroom, which—like the rest of the Ritz-Carlton’s Presidential Suite—was almost fit for a god. “And I forbid you to attack Freya’s daughter merely to retrieve a mortal who may or may not be what you seem to believe. I will not waste the opportunity for surprise when it arises.”

“That’s your plan? Waiting for an opportunity to arise?”

“Patience has never been a virtue of your kind,” Loki said, “but—”

Hrimgrimir cut him off with a nasty laugh. “You’re our kind,”

he said. “You’re the son of two frost giants, even if you did hang around with the Aesir. Do you think they ever counted you their equal?”

Hearing Hrimgrimir state the obvious was almost more than Loki could tolerate. “Hold your tongue,” he said, “or I may let the maid have it in place of toilet paper.”

Hrimgrimir grumbled ominously as Loki stopped before the vast marble sink. He looked into the mirror, ran his hand through his wet hair to dry it, and met Hrimgrimir’s reflected stare. It was time to change tactics.

“I’ll have plenty to keep you busy soon enough, in any case,” he said in his most soothing voice. “You won’t be idle, I assure you.” The Jotunn’s densely muscled body overfilled the door frame behind him. “You’re going to break the rules again?”

“Oh, not openly. To act precipitously now would force Freya to take the very actions she threatened when we struck our bargain.

And we must continue to look for functioning bridges if we are to bring more of your brothers to Midgard.”

“And the humans? Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Naturally.” Loki smiled at himself, admiring his perfect white teeth. “An excellent addition to my growing stable of corrupt mortals, and just as easily manipulated. The effects will not be immediate, but they will be too subtle for Freya to detect until I am well established.”

“What did you do to get to this guy?” Hrimgrimir asked with leering curiosity.

“A method you could certainly never employ.”

Suddenly the Jotunn began to shrink in on himself, his body seeming to grow leaner and shorter until he resembled a flawed copy of Loki.

“Are you so sure, Scar-lip?”

Loki spun lightly around and struck Hrimgrimir hard across the face. No magic, only a Jotunn’s power and the element of surprise.

Hrimgrimir lost his hold on his new shape, staggered back, and crashed into a delicate chair, shattering it as if it had been built of toothpicks and spit.

“Don’t ever call me that again,” Loki said pleasantly, leaning against the doorjamb.

Hrimgrimir groaned and sat up, rubbing at his bloody lip. “One of these days, Laufeyson,” he snarled, “you’ll go too far.”