Mist

business with Ryan.

An aunt with an estate, Mist thought. That suggested some kind of inheritance. Mist knew nothing about Ryan’s background, except that it had probably been rough. Where was his family? What of Gabi’s?

And how was she going to protect the kids? A Healer and a spamadr would be valuable allies until Mist found her Sisters, but they were still only teenagers.

Dainn couldn’t help her now. Obviously Freya couldn’t, either. If Mist sent the teenagers away from the loft, she couldn’t guarantee that Loki wouldn’t find them.

But Tashiro . . . maybe he could get them away. Until she knew what he wanted with Ryan, she couldn’t be sure if that was even a possibility.

She clenched her fists on the tabletop. There were only two things she wanted now. One was to look for Dainn, and the other was to find Loki and beat him to a pulp.

But she couldn’t do what she wanted, even if she’d had the strength to try. She needed to deal with the teenagers, explain what had happened and was likely to happen— in short, all the things she hadn’t told Ryan already. She had to call Vali. And she needed to figure out how she was going to carry on this fight alone for as long as she had to.

Forcing herself out of the chair, she started for the stairs.

17

The door rattled. Dainn opened his eyes, blinking into the glare of the alarm clock on the bedside table. The display read 11:00 a.m. Three hours had passed since he’d staggered into the room, and he had no memory of them.

“Is someone in there?” Vali called, shaking the door knob again. A few seconds passed, the smell of minor magic singed the air, and then the door burst open.

“Dainn!” Vali said, stopping abruptly in the doorway. “What are you doing in here?”

Eyes burning, Dainn watched Vali set down an armful of several boxes—a greater and wider load than any mere mortal could manage—on the floor beside the desk and fall with a woof into the office chair.

“What’s going on?” Vali repeated, peering at Dainn with open concern. “Why are you on the floor?”

Dainn stared at the big man blankly. He was aware that his body no longer hurt, that he could breathe without pain, that his bones were whole again.

But that did not affect him as much as the fact that Odin’s son was here and obviously unaware of the attack. That meant that there wouldn’t have been any other assaults during the past several hours. It also meant that there weren’t any police or medical personnel on the premises.

If he hadn’t been so close to death and in such fear of harming someone else, he would never have left Mist or the young ones alone. But Vali’s ignorance didn’t make any sense. Mist hadn’t found Dainn, but then he’d expected her to be fully occupied with the trouble he’d left her. She would have assumed he’d left the loft, if she’d thought about him at all.

“I’ll take care of everything,” Mist had told him just before he’d run. Now it seemed that she had.

“I don’t know where she is,” he answered Vali. “I’ve been asleep.”

“In the middle of the floor?” Vali peered at Dainn’s chest. “You’ve got blood all over your clothes. What —”

“We were attacked by Jotunar.”

Vali jumped up and loomed over Dainn as if he wanted to pull him up off the floor and shake him. “Jotunar? I thought you warded the house. What happened?”

None of it would have happened at all if Dainn’s wards had worked and given the alarm before the Jotunar could take them all by surprise.

He told Vali in a level, emotionless voice, provoking growls that nearly shook the walls.

“You killed them?” Vali asked. “An elf? With a sword?”

Dainn had no intention of going into details. Vali didn’t know about the beast, and he wouldn’t hear of it now.

“They are all dead,” Dainn said.

Vali ran out the door and down the hall toward the gym. Rising to his feet, Dainn tested his balance, found it acceptable, and started for his room. He knew the house was empty as soon as he walked into the hall. No strangers other than the man from the gym had been in this part of the loft. Even the scent of blood that had saturated the building seemed to have vanished.

Whatever Mist might have done, Dainn knew he had to get out. He reached his room, stripped out of his torn and bloody clothing, and sat naked on the bed, staring at the cell phone Mist had given him soon after he’d first arrived at the loft. He picked up it with numb fingers.

Unless she was in police custody, Mist was likely at the hospital with Ryan. Phoning her would only distract her, and perhaps cause even more trouble.

Heavy footsteps thudded outside his room, and he dropped the phone. Vali burst through the door.

“They’re gone!” he said. “No bodies. The gym is empty.”

“They would have taken the bodies,” Dainn said, still resisting the treachery of hope.

“You don’t get it. No police tape, no marks on the floor, no signs of blood. It’s like nothing happened.” He crouched to face Dainn. “If it wasn’t for the way you look right now—”

“It happened,” Dainn said. “But I have no explanation for what you saw.”

“Shit.” Vali rubbed at his short beard. “We need to find Mist.”

“She may be at the hospital with Ryan,” Dainn said.

Vali glanced at the cell phone Dainn had put down. “I’ll call San Francisco General, and if she and the kids aren’t there, I’ll call the others.”

“If you reach Mist, you must not tell her I’m here.”

“Why not? She’ll want to—”

“Because I must leave.”

“You’ll probably get just about two steps before you fall again.”

“Will you do as I ask?”

Vali hesitated. “Okay. But you stay put until I get back to you.” He jumped to his feet and rushed out of the room the same way he’d come in.

Dainn sank into himself, breathing slowly. Vali was right. He had to know what had happened before he left.

But he could feel the beast, as exhausted as Dainn was, waiting. The cage was shattered, and there was nothing to hold it back the next time something aroused it. Aroused him. Even if he found a way to remain with Mist, he couldn’t use violence or magic of any kind to help her the next time Loki attacked.

And there would be more such assaults, of course. Until Freya could fully manifest her power in Midgard, Laufeyson would have little to get in his way.

Except Mist herself. But though she had natural skill with both Galdr and the ancient Vanir powers, astonishing in strength and potential, she lacked the inborn understanding of magic possessed by the Jotunar, the Alfar, and the gods. It would take weeks if not months to teach her such understanding. And even if she regained Gungnir and located several of her Sisters with their Treasures, it wouldn’t be enough.

But as his thoughts cleared and reason replaced fear and raw instinct, Dainn realized that running away had never been an option, no matter what the risk from the beast, no matter how much he wanted to bury himself where he would never meet god or mortal again. Freya would come to Midgard, and Mist wasn’t prepared to serve the purpose for which the Lady intended her. Her barriers had been breached by his first attack on her mind, but they were not yet broken.

Either he could break those barriers utterly, or give Mist the means to resist the destiny that had been intended for her even before her birth.