"Why not go now?" Loki's eyes narrowed, now simmering a catlike green.
"Because I only just got out of Asgard. That's why. I'd rather not go running back there just yet." Aidan shrugged, appearing nonchalant, buying time with the only excuse that might sound believable to a god who hadn't exactly had fun in Asgard.
"Ah, the Warrior doesn't like his new accommodation. If you must know, Freya's place isn't much better, although it's not much worse. But then, you probably won't go there either way." Loki looked at me, held my gaze and grinned. Not a hint of maliciousness in his cheerful smile, but I could feel his meaning reaching out to me from his eyes.
He knew.
"We'll go back as soon as we find Brisingamen," I said. "But we need the three days. There are a few things we need to do first. Going back is really a one way trip for both of us." I pretended I'd missed his underlying malevolence, smiling coyly as I spoke.
"Very well. Three days. Don't worry, I'll find you, kiddoes."
We blinked and he was gone.
Aidan handed me the pendant, and I frowned, turning the piece over and over in my hand. Unlike my stone, this pendant had no silver filigree around it and I guess that perhaps it had been treated differently from the main stone. I untied the cord around my neck and slipped Loki’s gift beside it’s sister. Together the two stones glowed like a pair of shimmering suns.
We completed gathering information, or rather Aidan did, as he knew what he was looking for and how to retrieve it. I felt unnecessary, wondering for a few minutes why I'd even come along.
Then I thought about Loki and his intentions. The god gave me the creeps, and I was grateful Aidan had the presence of mind to hold him off for a few days. My stomach did a trio of flip-flops when I recalled his subtle threat. Somehow, he knew that Aidan was ignorant of Freya's curse on his health. I battled my demons, waiting for Aidan.
A few minutes later, he powered the workstation down, and I grabbed the icebox. We left the building the same way we entered, joined Hugin outside and returned to the motel at the outskirts of the city. Hugin flew through the open door, right before I closed it. I sneaked a look up and down the passage, pretty sure the motel owners didn't allow pets, furred, feathered or otherwise.
We swallowed a dinner of burgers and fries. Still not as satisfying as Asgard's dinners but it filled the hole inside me, at least for a short while. I sprinkled a few fries onto the nightstand and beckoned Hugin, but he just thanked me with his usual glossy stare and didn't move. I studied Aidan as he munched. It made sense that we shared a room. Safety, company and planning dictated it was the best option. Not to mention dollars. Although I had money, it wouldn't last long if we were careless.
We sat on our beds, facing each other, eating and talking, coats discarded and armor glinting in the mean light of the motel room. It was so easy to forget we still wore the armor. The beauty of their construction was that although they were solid, impenetrable metal, they molded to the skin and adapted to the temperature of the wearer's body so well that soon you forgot you were even wearing cold metal. Amazing.
I watched Aidan, still a little annoyed that he'd made the decisions for both of us. I wanted to know why. "Now what? Why'd you buy time?" I asked.
"I wanted to make sure we had as much information as possible. We need to go to the museum too, retrieve those records." He glanced at the thumb drive on the bed, now filled with data from the lab's computers.
"Why bother when Loki said Brisingamen is with this Nidi person?"
"Because Loki is a liar and because Nidhogg is a dragon, for God's sake." Aidan sighed, exasperated, and challenged me with one raised eyebrow.
"A dragon? Wow, I thought those were purely imaginary creatures." I glanced at Hugin who perched on top of the TV set. He inclined his head as if in agreement with Aidan. Well.
Aidan snorted. "Clearly they're not. We've just had the reality of Asgard, Valhalla, Valkyries and Freya shoved down our throats."
"Not to mention Fenrir," I added.
"Fenrir? What do you mean?" Aidan's eyes widened.
"You've met him. Fen. Fenrir." What did I have to do? Spell it out to him?
"That was Fenrir? The Fenrir?" He rubbed his hair, tossing curls every which way and still managing to make it look like it was meant to be that way.
"Yes, Fenrir. How many Fens do you know of?" I was starting to get annoyed with him. "Why the hell is this bugging you so much?"
"Well, if he really is Fenrir, he's also a wolf." I raised both eyebrows, as if to say duh. Aidan blushed. "So you know that too," he said. "Do you know he's supposed to cause Odin's demise in the Great War? And what the hell is he doing in Asgard anyway? He's supposed to be in chains."
"He pledged his services to Odin. He's vowed he has no intention of killing Odin, and that's how he ended up training the Warriors and the Valkyries."
"Okay, this just keeps getting better." Aidan rubbed a hand through his hair and shook his head, clearly bewildered by this strange twist to the original myth. I decided to throw him another one.
"He also trains his entire army of Ulfr, who are all based in Asgard too." I paused. "They will fight for Odin."
Aidan's jaw dropped. "Why didn't I get to see that before we left?"
"Because you were still in recovery." I popped the last fry into my mouth, squashed the wrappings into a ball and threw it in the wastebasket beside the TV. Neither of us was remotely interested in the television. The drama of our immediate life was much more invigorating than watching some reality show.
"Bet Loki loves that," Aidan muttered.
"Why?"
"Because Fenrir is his son," said Aidan with about the same emotion as if he'd just said the Earth was round.
"What?" I shook my head. Fenrir and Loki? Unbelievable. "I swear, if this is all a dream and I wake up back in Craven, I promise I'll study harder at Norse mythology. Any mythology, in fact."
Aidan laughed.
I lay back, staring at the ceiling, tracing the water stains that spread across it, marking irregular circles in a pattern from the doorway toward the bare light at the middle of the room. My eyes drifted closed and I was almost asleep, breathing so even. . . .
"What was it like?" Aidan's voice entered my sleep haze.
"What was what like?" I mumbled, turning to him, pulling the covers over me.
"Seeing me dead by the stream."
Damn you, Aidan!
I was just about asleep, and he had to go and ask me a question of paramount proportion. I sat up and looked straight at him. He lay on his stomach, propping his head onto folded arms. His eyes said the question was serious. Not a joke. Not a test.
I swallowed a sad and weary sigh. "It was a shock. I was so angry with you, first for leaving and then for coming back with your mob-men. But one look at your body and I forgot I was there to retrieve you. Forgot you would be okay. Fenrir had to give me a good shake and remind me what I was there to do."
"Fenrir came with you?"
I nodded. "Every Valkyrie has an Ulfr to accompany her. It was too soon for me to have trained with one. So, as the General, and as my trainer, Fenrir came with me." I lay back against my pillow. "I went to see Ms. Custer first. She told me you'd called and said you were coming, but you never arrived. I guess I found out why."
"I remember being hit in the head. Then nothing."
"They would've had to knock you out. You didn't look like you put up much of a fight either."
"So how did they kill me? I definitely remember pain in my head when I woke up in Valhalla." Aidan fingered his forehead.
A frigid wave of shock washed through my blood. Aidan had no idea how he'd died. I wasn't sure how to tell him. I decided to tell the whole story. He was a Warrior, after all. He could handle it.
"You were lying beneath the old bridge in the reserve behind the park. You had one foot in the stream and your eyes were open." I swallowed as tears gathered in my throat. "You still had your black leather jacket on, but it was stained with mud and probably blood, too. I think I recognized it, but I didn't pay any attention to it at first. Only when I got real close. They executed you, Aidan. A bullet in the middle of your forehead at close range."
The tears fell and neither of us moved.
Aidan's fingers still traced his forehead, now wrinkled with a frown, darkened with anger. He was so silent for a while I thought he wasn't going to talk about it anymore. That the thought of his violent death was too difficult for him. But when he responded I was surprised.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that," he said. "You know it was probably worse for you than for me. I felt nothing more than a thump on my head and then it was lights out for me. No pain. Nothing. Next thing I knew I was waking up in Valhalla. Feeling as if I'd drunk a whole bottle of whiskey."
He rose, as if he was about to get up and come to me. Just the thought of him offering me comfort made me want to bawl my eyes out. I rolled over, turned my back to him, and burrowed under the covers. To hide the tears that slipped so quickly down my cheeks, hide the ripe emotion in my eyes.
I lay there, listening to him listening to me. It took us both forever to fall asleep. Much later I heard the fluttering of wings and the rustle of the curtain as Hugin flew from the TV stand to the window, looking outside at who knows what.