Very Much Alive

'Okay, you guys are going to explain to me who Vali is once we get upstairs.'

'Oh.” Logan shook his head as he led them to the elevator. “Listen closely, because I hate talking like this and I'm not repeating it.” He took a deep breath as they entered the elevator, and Jordan paused to admire how wide his chest was. And then, as the elevator began its rise to the twenty-second floor, he crossed his arms over that chest and began to chant.

'I saw for Baldur—for the bloodstained sacrifice,

Odin's child—the fates set hidden.

There stood full-grown, higher than the plains, slender and most fair, the mistletoe.

'There formed from that stem which was slender-seeming, a shaft of anguish, perilous:

Hodr started shooting.

A brother of Baldur was born quickly:

he started—Odin's son—slaying, at one night old.

'He never washed hands, never combed head, till he bore to the pyre Baldur's adversary—while Frigg wept in Fen Halls for Valhall's woe.

Do you still seek to know? And what?'

Kir leaned back as Logan's deep voice washed over him. There were times he missed the cadence of the poetry of his homeland, but this particular piece was one of his least favorites. It described how, at one day old, Vali slew Hodr in retaliation for the death of Baldur. That Hodr was both blind and was meant to help Baldur rule Valhalla had factored in greatly when Grimm was making his plans to murder them both.

Jordan leaned back against the wall. “What was that?'

'It's a portion of the Poetic Edda, translated by Ursula Dronke.” Logan was staring at her, his expression carefully nonchalant.

'Oh. Well. That clears that up.” From the confused frown on her face, it had raised more questions than it answered.

The doors opened onto a hallway. Kir stepped out, pulling out his key card. Jordan stepped out next.

Logan pushed passed her and Kir, taking Kir's key card to open the door to their condo. Since they'd come to Philadelphia Logan had been a nervous wreck, worried sick that Val and Grimm would find them before they would have a chance to set their plans in motion.

He entered the posh condo, his sneakers making no sound on the shiny maple flooring. Kir sighed as Logan nodded, letting him know no one had disrupted the wards Logan had set before heading out that morning.

Without missing a beat Jordan sat on the modern, snow white chaise. “Okay, I have to admit, the knife thing wasn't nearly as impressive as flaming Logan.” She grinned, letting them know she was completely aware of the double entendre.

'Very funny.” Logan flopped down next to her, one knee resting on the white chaise, his elbow resting along the back and his hand propping up his head as he faced her.

Kir took a seat on the ottoman that doubled as a coffee table and picked up the explanation they'd begun in the elevator. “So Vali, at one day old, killed my brother.'

'Precocious little tyke.'

'Yeah, he was a total Gerber baby.” Logan sneered.

'Why didn't Hodr just, I don't know, stop him?'

'Because, unlike a normal baby, Vali grew to manhood in the space of a few hours. He couldn't stop Vali from killing him.'

'He couldn't see where Vali was, couldn't fight him, and felt that his death was completely justified.” Kir heard the old pain in Logan's voice; Hodr hadn't meant anything to him at the time, but Baldur's grief over his dead brother and anger at his traitorous father had been the first stepping stone in the beginning of their relationship. For the first time, he'd seen Logan as someone other than an angry, annoying young god, and Logan had seen Kir as more than the pretty, admired, social butterfly.

'Can I ask you a quick question that's been bothering me?'

Kir nodded. “Of course.'

'Should I call you guys Baldur and Loki?'

'No!'

'Uh-uh.'

They looked at each other and grimaced. They'd both replied at the same time and the same volume.

'We'd prefer to be called by the names we've chosen rather than the names that were chosen for us.”

Kir turned his attention back to a confused looking Jordan. “We're no longer those people.'

Her gaze intensified as she worked out what he meant. “You mean you're not a god of spring and he's not a fire giant?'

'I'm not a naive, trusting fool and he's not a hormonal teenager. Ow.” Kir rubbed the spot on his thigh Logan smacked.

'Hormonal teenager?'

'You fucked anything that would let you, and I mean anything , and you emo'd all over the place.” He looked at Jordan and grinned. “His growing pains were horrendous .'

'I did not ‘emo'!'

Kir laughed at the outrage in Logan's voice. He'd curled his fingers up, making quotation marks.

'Oh, really? How about the dinner party where you got drunk and told everyone off, including letting some of the gods know that their darling, chaste wives were off playing in the clover while their husbands were at war, hmm?'

Logan snorted. “Those idiots weren't off making war, they were rolling around in their own clover.'

Jordan's bemused voice interrupted them. “Did you know, with the nose ring, every time you snort I think of a bull?'

Kir had to bury his face in the ottoman, but couldn't do anything about his shaking shoulders, or the muffled sounds of his laughter.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jordan put her hands on her hips. “Okay. If you two are done playing, can you actually explain to me how this all went down?'

Logan watched as Jordan stood and began pacing in front of the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over Rittenhouse Square. He ignored the still muffled sounds of Kir's laughter. It was both annoying and endearing that, once his lover got going, getting him to stop was damn near impossible. He had to work it out of his system in his own time. Unfortunately, that left Logan to explain everything to Jordan.

'I was watching Odin fairly closely at the time, for some reason or another. I think I was planning on playing a prank on Frigg and wanted to make sure he wasn't going to get in my way. I saw him leave early one morning and something about the way he left, his face, maybe his body language, let me know he was up to no good.'

'You followed him?'

'Of course. I had to know what would make him look like that, like the cat that got the cream. I figured this was much better than playing a silly trick on Frigg.” Jordan also ignored Kir as he sat up and wiped the laughter tears away. “I saw Odin shift shape into me and pick a sprig of mistletoe in full view of a farmer. I made sure he didn't see me as he took off again, heading back home.

'I knew mistletoe was Baldur's only vulnerability, so I was curious as to why his father would be picking some, especially since he'd taken my form to do it.” His smile was sour. “Not exactly confidence inducing. Anyway, I followed Odin and watched him. He crafted the sprig of mistletoe into an arrowhead and made an arrow meant to kill his own son.'

'Why didn't you say anything?'

He stared at her. “You're kidding, right? Who would have believed me?'

'I didn't believe him.” Kir sighed. “My own father, out to kill me? It was unbelievable.'

'So I managed to subdue Baldur, tied him up, and put him in a safe place where he could watch what happened and no one would know. Then I took his shape and his place.'

'How did you keep from getting injured by the things they fired at you?'

'He didn't.'

Damn. Kir still hasn't gotten over that? The anguish in