This was another reason I preferred living in Alfheim than, say, The Cities. Here, no one stopped me in the street and asked which team I played for.
Though being mistaken for a professional athlete was a world’s worth of preferable to the terrified screaming of my unholy “youth.”
“Howdy.” I smiled and tipped my head as a friendly gesture.
The woman smiled back. The man did not. I walked on by.
The church wasn’t large, and sat about fifty people while in use. It dated from the city’s official incorporation just after Minnesota’s statehood, and would have fallen into complete decay if the elves hadn’t seen fit to preserve it. Or, more precisely, Bjorn.
Standing in front of the building, it was clear why.
I’d long wondered if the presence of Nordic elves in Northern Minnesota was why so many Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic immigrants settled here. If, somehow, they were drawn to their elves and their old gods.
The church had been built by some of the first immigrants who had found Arne’s town. Bjorn had long lived on these lands, and he was a personable elf, even with his enjoyment of fast, loud music. And the immigrants, being Norwegians, probably understood they were in the presence of a being of Thor.
The wooden church, though filled with Christian imagery, was a beautiful temple to the thunder god, with its skyward-pointed A-line architecture, its many stories, its clear Viking longboat beams, and its stout, strong pillars carved with Norse designs.
Alfheim was blessed to have it.
“Is the tattoo on your neck the same as the design on the door of the church?”
I blinked and looked down. I hadn’t heard the man approach. He stood behind me and off my elbow, a smallish man at least fifteen inches shorter than my almost seven feet. He wore an expensive dress shirt and slacks not all that different from my own yet-more-practical clothes.
His expensively cut hair had also been expensively styled. His cufflinks sparkled in the afternoon sun. His shoes looked to have cost about the same as Bloodyhood.
Yet he looked familiar, even if he wasn’t carrying a camera or other gear and had put on the expensive jacket. “You’re the photographer,” I said.
The man shrugged and pointed at my Yggdrasil tattoo. “The tree. On the door.” He pointed at the church.
He wore the top button of his shirt undone and a thin-yet-obvious gold chain around his neck. A big gold insignia ring adorned his pinkie. Not even Magnus walked around in such cliché rich-man attire.
“Maybe,” I said. I stuck out my hand. “Frank. Why are you still in town?”
He carried no obvious magic. He also sneered at my hand as if I carried Ebola.
He shook it anyway. “Perhaps I like the amenities. Perhaps I want my memory card back.” He waved his hand as if the card didn’t matter. “Perhaps I’d like a burger.” He nodded toward Raven’s Gaze.
No accent colored his voice. Not even the ever-so-slight Cities cadence, or the lilt common in most of the small towns in the area. Nothing in the way he spoke suggested New Jersey, or Los Angeles, or Chicago. If anything, the gaudy display of wealth screamed European organized crime.
“Hmmm,” I said, as if agreeing.
“It’s lovely work,” he said. “The tattoo. Is it from the local shop? The one downtown?”
A rich man—too rich to be a local photographer—was asking about my tattoos. “Yes,” I said. Close enough, I thought.
“Ah.” He clasped his hands behind his back and returned to staring at the church. “I swear some of these churches were built for the true gods. Don’t you agree?”
Was he poking, trying to find a magic hole? At the park, he’d acted as if surprised by local disapproval. Nothing in his voice communicated that he had an ulterior motive. He sounded sincere in his question of immigrant motives.
Sincere, yes, but not compassionate. He sounded bored.
“I wouldn’t know,” I said.
“Yggdrasil, correct? The tree of life brings magic to every place it roots.” He swept his hand through the air. “Magic built on the backs of the people who extend their hands and offer help.”
“What was your name again?” Bjorn had said Tom something.
The sun dipped behind a cloud and his lack-of-magic… changed. Solidified, perhaps. And what hadn’t been there to begin with became a shadow that could swallow the moon.
My instincts said to put him in a headlock and call for magical help, but he’d have an expensive lawyer here lawyering me into aggravated assault charges.
Better to pull as much info from him as I could.
I turned fully toward him. I spent most of my life trying not to physically intimidate anyone. Today, intimidation was necessary.
The open area in front of Raven’s Gaze came into view.
There she was, my mystery woman, no more than twenty feet away.
Chapter 5
I rarely cursed magic. There was no point. Magic was a force of nature, and like all forces of nature, it cared nothing for the people, places, and things over which it steamrolled.
Some magic wielders, on the other hand, could be cursed all the way to Hell. And whoever wove the concealment enchantments around the woman twenty feet away could rot in the most debased pits in all the versions of The Land of the Dead.
I wanted to call her name. I tried, but it wouldn’t come out. “Hey!” I shouted instead.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Benta had her feline allure, but for all her expertise with spellwork, organization, and love of the natural world, she was still Benta.
Auburn fire danced in Ellie’s hair where the dappled afternoon sun crossed her hoodie. She smoothed her hands over the thighs of her jeans, then jammed them into the big pocket on the front of her sweatshirt.
She tugged on the strap of her backpack, and looked over her shoulder.
The pack’s pocket came into view—as did the stain along the zipper. A stain
