Mist

Mist ignored him. “I’ll be calling him first thing tomorrow so he can meet with Ryan. He’s a lawyer, so maybe he can figure out a more permanent way to get these kids off the streets and into a decent life.”

“You’re still going to make us leave?” Gabi asked, starting up from her chair.

“Nothing’s changed. I’m doing whatever I have to keep you safe.”

Ryan sank back into his chair, and Gabi pouted very effectively for a kid who worked so hard to make herself look and sound tough. Mist noticed that her hands were still red, and there was a swollen, stiff look to her fingers.

She moved to stand over Gabi. “Let me see your hands.”

“They’re okay.”

“Show me.”

Reluctantly she let Mist examine them. “They don’t hurt as bad as they look,” she said.

“We’re going to the hospital.”

Gabi flinched away. “Sin medicos! I can fix myself, I promise!”

Mist hesitated. There was genuine terror in the girl’s voice, and considering what she’d been through already, Mist was reluctant to make her face another traumatic situation.

“We’ll see what we can do here,” she said. “But if it doesn’t get better . . .”

“Si,” Gabi said, slumping in relief.

Mist sighed and glanced at the half-eaten sandwich on the girl’s plate. Right on cue, her stomach rumbled loudly.

“Funny,” she said to no one in particular, “but I feel as if I haven’t eaten in weeks.”

“Magic,” Dainn said, suddenly coming back to life. “You must eat more than you did in the past.”

“You’d better follow your own advice,” she said. “Sit down. Make yourself a sandwich while Vali and I see about the wards.”

It was a measure of Dainn’s exhaustion that he obeyed her immediately and took a seat at the table. Ryan edged into the chair beside him. Vali leaned against the counter as Mist opened the fridge. There was still a little sliced turkey and Jarlsberg left.

“We’re going to need groceries,” she said, amazed that she could discuss such banal matters without breaking into gales of incredulous laughter. “Dainn, make me a sandwich too, will you?”

He stared at her blankly. He was a long way from returning from that dark place he’d barely escaped such a short time ago, but she didn’t intend to let him wallow. She had to pull him back from the brink.

“As I remember,” she said, “you can make a sandwich.” She set the makings on the table in front of him. “Go to it.”

* * *

Mist found Dainn’s wards shattered in every place he’d set them. Once they had been a series of carefully drawn Runes made of scrolled staves interlocked with intricate vines so complex in design that it was difficult to make out where one ended and the other began. Now they were torn apart as if someone had stampeded through a pristine forest with a blowtorch.

Not much could be done to salvage them now. Vali and Mist began to set their own, Vali struggling to call up abilities he had put aside years ago, Mist trying to find appropriate imagery to help her engrave new Runes into the brick and cement.

After a while she settled on drawing every fighting weapon she had in the gym and painstakingly reproduced them with a black permanent pen, interspersed with appropriate Runes, along every wall of the loft. She drew the weapons pointing up, so that their protection would be extended to the second floor, and then smeared her blood across every image.

Vali went over them again, drawing the name of Odin between the figures of every sword, spear, and ax. He added his blood to hers, wincing a little as he drew the blade of his Swiss Army knife across his palm.

“I think we done good,” he said, stepping back to examine the product of their efforts. “If these don’t hold for a while, I don’t know what will.”

“We need more than wards,” Mist said. “We need better defenses, better ways of telling when Loki might plan to attack.”

“To get Ryan back, or to kill you?”

“Like I said, I don’t think he’ll try anything again too soon, and he denied sending the Jotunar to the gym. He certainly never mentioned Ryan. But the default position is that he’s always lying.”

“And what about Dainn?” Vali asked quietly.

Mist’s heart thudded like an iron ball striking a trampoline and bouncing up again. “There’s a lot of stuff, Vali. I’ll tell you when I feel . . . when I have it all figured out myself.”

Vali glanced down, and she knew what he was thinking. But the more she protested, the more he’d believe his guess was right.

“We’ve done all we can out here,” she said. “Dainn told me you were bringing some of your equipment in when you found him. Can you start setting up in the morning?”

Vali glanced at his watch. “It’s already three a.m. No point in leaving now.”

“Vidarr—”

“Screw Vidarr,” Vali said.

She wondered what he’d say if he knew about her recent conversation with his brother. Turning the Spear over to Vidarr was the wrong thing to do. It wasn’t just that he’d pretty much coerced her into it. There was something else that bothered her about the bargain. Until she figured it out, she was going to stall Vidarr as long as possible. Or, better yet, tell him she hadn’t gotten it back.

It would a dangerous deception, given Vidarr’s temper. And she’d have to tell Vali to lie to his own brother. She would be manipulating him the same way she’d manipulated Tashiro.

“Just make sure you don’t burn yourself out,” she said with a lightness she didn’t feel. “I hope we won’t have to rely completely on technology to find my Sisters, but right now I don’t have any magical solutions.”

“Give yourself some time,” Vali said. “You just came out of a fight with Loki on his own turf, and I’m guessing you must have worked some pretty major magic to come out of it alive. You’ll figure it out.” He glanced away with an embarrassed shrug. “I have faith in you.”

“You’re a good friend, Vali. Keep reminding me, okay?” She looked over their work one more time. “I think I’d better go get that sandwich. Did you get enough to eat?”

He slapped his slightly oversized belly. “A couple of sandwiches?” he said. “You want me to stick around, you’d better be ready to feed me better than that.”

“I think it can be arranged.”

They went inside. Vali stopped to look over his new workspace again. Mist went into her bedroom, struggling to keep her eyes open and wondering if the garage where the Volvo was supposedly being repaired had made any progress. She suspected that she was going to have to bite the bullet and buy a new car. Or, better yet, a bike. Streetcars and buses just wouldn’t cut it now. But how she was going to find the time . . .

Maybe she could offer the owner of the “borrowed” bike enough money that he’d sell it to her and overlook her larceny.

Somewhat cheered by the prospect, Mist took a shower, changed her clothes, and returned to the kitchen and the sandwich Dainn had—she hoped— made for her.

Groceries, she reminded herself, wondering if she could get Vali to go for her. The idea of battling supermarket crowds during the holidays was almost as daunting as another duel with Loki.

* * *

Despite Gabi’s vigorous protests, Mist sent the teenagers up to bed not long after they’d finished their makeshift dinner. Mist had given the kids only the sketchiest account of what had happened with Loki, figuring they wouldn’t need to know too much before they left for good.

“It’s time to make a new plan,” Mist said once she, Dainn, and Odin’s son were sitting in the living room.

“Sitting” not being a very accurate description, Mist thought, with Dainn hunkered on the floor against the far wall and Vali slumped in the armchair by the cold fireplace with his broad, bearded chin resting on his fist. She wasn’t doing much better, sprawled out on the couch as if someone had dropped a cartoon anvil on her chest.