Mist

mind.

Tell him about the time he tried to give you roses in Sessrumnir.

She witnessed the scene in less than a second and reminded Loki of that long-ago encounter. He reared back, his face going red. But he recovered quickly.

“You find this amusing?” he hissed. “I can still kill this body and send you back to the Void. If you were prepared to use the Eitr now, you would have done it already.”

Mist had no idea what he was talking about, but she didn’t drop the mask. “Perhaps I wanted to toy with you a while, as you have toyed with my servants,” she said.

Again Loki seemed uncertain, wavering between belief in Mist’s claimed identity and the suspicion that he was being tricked. Mist felt power flow through her as if carried by an invisible network of vessels like chi meridians, pumping magic into every fiber of her being. The tattoo flared, not painful but aflame with energy. She could smell the clouds hanging over the city, heavy with precipitation . . . feel the limestone in the concrete, hear the flame leaping in the fireplace far below in the lobby.

But something blocked the flow. Something inside her still didn’t want to let go.

Abruptly Loki spun around again and strode back to Dainn. “How much does this servant mean to you, Sow?” he asked. He grabbed Dainn’s long, tangled hair and dragged him to his feet again. “You have never cared for anything or anyone you could not use to your benefit or for your pleasure. This creature has failed you. Shall I kill him quickly, or slowly?”

He was calling Mist’s bluff, knowing she’d do almost anything to keep Dainn alive. But he didn’t think Freya would.

“Do what you like with him,” she said.

Loki took Dainn by the throat. He ran his fingertip across the smear of blood at the corner of Dainn’s mouth and began to paint Rune- staves on the elf ’s forehead.

Merkstaves. Runes of death.

Dainn’s thoughts touched hers again—wordless but utterly clear.

Save yourself.

All at once she was back in Asbrew, hearing Dainn’s mental voice for the first time. Something released inside her, a dam giving way before a relentless flood, a tree cracking in two as lightning struck to its very heart. Mist clenched her fist, and the Rune- stave Thurisaz, the giant, leaped free of her hand and charged toward the huge window overlooking the Bay. It exploded inward, hurling shards of glass like arrows that narrowly missed Dainn but pierced one of the Jotunar’s cheeks. He bellowed and ran at Mist.

She reached through clouds and darkness for the rising moon and tried to catch the reflected light of the sun in her open hands— Sowilo reversed, destruction and retribution. The light was weak, but she shaped what she had caught and hurled it like a burning coal at the Jotunn. He burst into flame if he had been dipped in gasoline.

Loki backed away from Dainn and swung around to face her, his face almost comical in its astonishment. Dainn’s knees began to buckle, but he forced himself upright and looked at Mist with hope in his eyes.

“Dainn!” she shouted. “Find Gungnir!”

She didn’t have a chance to see if Dainn obeyed. Loki jumped over the Jotunn’s writhing, blackened body and came straight at her, his lips moving, the air coalescing into a solid block of ice that threatened to shatter Mist’s body on contact.

Instinct alone saved her. She reached skyward again, flowing into the light, becoming a spear flung as high as the highest branch of the World Tree Ygdrassil.

The spear struck the clouds and reflected back on itself as if the sky were a mirror. Lightning laced the gray canopy and plunged earthward, striking the ground between her and Loki, scorching the polished hardwood floor and flinging Loki halfway across the room.

He recovered almost immediately and raced toward her, his face distorted with rage. An instant before he reached her, he changed.

It was only illusion, but it stopped Mist cold. The face and body belong to Eric—Eric, with his broad, open smile, his good humor, his love of life. And Mist.

“You don’t really want to hurt me, do you?” he asked in his deep voice.

Mist recognized the trap too late. Her hands fell, nerveless and limp. Eric’s eyes lit with satisfaction.

“It was you,” he said. “I admit you have astonished me, little Valkyrie. But now I think it is time to—”

Mist heard nothing of what Loki said after that, felt nothing but raw power that wasn’t her own, saw nothing but golden light.

A part of her clung to consciousness, and she knew what was happening to her. Freya was with her, inside her, controlling her body as if she were a mere shell of flesh and bone.

Her mother had come at last.

21

Dainn staggered away from the wall, blood filling his mouth, his head still resounding with the violence of Loki’s blow. He was incapable of magic, almost incapable of walking. The beast that had been so powerful minutes before had left him as helpless as any mortal.

He couldn’t help Mist now, but he could do as she asked and find Gungnir, if it was hidden anywhere inside the penthouse. No one in his right mind would conceal the Spear where it was most likely to be found.

But Loki had never been completely in his right mind. That was one reason why Dainn believed Mist could survive this— this incredibly foolish and desperate attempt to save one who wasn’t worth the effort. She had wielded the ancient Vanir magic as if she had used it all her life. She was Loki’s match in everything but malice.

Bending low, Dainn crossed the room and ducked into a hallway where he could catch his breath. He closed his eyes and shut out the sounds of battle, striving to find any trace of magic that would allow him to locate the Spear.

At first he felt nothing. Then, like a whisper in the midst of a hurricane, he sensed a locus of power that belonged to no living thing. The cut in his hand, nearly healed, began to throb. He touched his lips to the wound and tasted magic.

Magic that had seeped into the kitchen knife’s very substance, penetrating only a few molecules deep into the common steel.

That was all Dainn needed. Still ignoring the violent conflict in the adjoining room, he ducked into the kitchen and searched for the knife block.

The moment he touched the carving knife next to the empty slot, Gungnir’s power raised all the hairs on his body and sent spikes of sharp, burning pain racing up his arm. He didn’t have the spell to return it to its true form, but his only concern now was to keep it away from Loki until Mist was either victorious or dead.

He knew what Mist would want him to do. He didn’t do it. He ran back into the living room, holding the knife behind his back, and took in a scene of utter chaos.

Loki was on his back, throwing handfuls of fire at Mist, who stood over him like an avenging goddess, her blond hair loose and flying about her head in a golden aura. Every blast of flame splashed harmlessly against the watery sphere that surrounded her. She was smiling, and her face . . .

Dainn fell to his knees. It wasn’t Mist who had Loki pinned down and fighting for his life. Freya had taken her. She had found a way past her daughter’s instinctive defenses.

And she was winning the fight against both her daughter and Loki.

Gungnir throbbed in Dainn’s grip, and he remembered again why he had come at Freya’s call, why he served her, why he had agreed to let her take Mist’s body as her own.

And why he had chosen to prevent that from happening, no matter the damage it might do to Freya’s chances of victory.

Now he faced the choice all over again, and it was tearing his soul apart. Laufeyson might have defeated