She was so silent I almost pushed back the hood to check she was still with me. Then she adjusted her position and must have changed the direction of the heat to achieve a better focus because the handle now cooled, losing the red tinge. I squinted at the gap between the two doors and was certain I could see the glow of hot metal. When the door shuddered slightly, I knew she'd managed to melt the catch.
Then she straightened and glanced up at me, her expression saying, Job done. I pulled the hood over her eyes and grabbed her around the waist. Spreading my wings, I lifted off, then glided around the house, heading back to leave Enya with Siri.
By the time I returned, Edrik had made his way to the dead garden below the balcony. I was about to lower myself and give him a lift up when he backed away a few steps, then took a running leap. For a wolf, he moved like a monkey. Super fast and light on his feet. He sprinted, running at the wall, then planted a foot on it to boost himself up to the balcony. He grabbed onto the balustrade and used the momentum of his jump to swing himself up and over, landing in front of the doors in silence.
Well, okay then.
He didn't need my help at all. I headed to the balcony, landing softly beside him seconds before realizing creeping up on an unsuspecting werewolf was bad for my health. But he just looked over his shoulder at me as if expecting me to be there. I raised an eyebrow, then moved around him to open the door slowly. It glided inward without making a sound. Odd for a house that had been abandoned for years.
We slipped inside and I pulled my night-vision goggles over my eyes. I bent my head to my microphone. "You getting this, Derek?" His voice crackled in my ears as he confirmed. He'd attached a camera to the front of my jacket and provided us all with the requisite earwigs and microphones. I was more than thankful I didn't get those annoying contact lens cameras, but I suspected adding goggles would have messed up the quality of the recording.
I stood still, my back to the wall as I stared at the opposite wall. The room was empty, cobwebs thick in the corners. The moon streamed in through the open windows, lighting a path all the way to the open door that led into the passage.
Through the wall, I could just make out a faint outline of orange and purple. A live one probably two rooms away. I whispered into my microphone, knowing Edrik would hear as well. I headed to the door and pointed left, and Edrik nodded. He'd take the right. I slipped into the hall and glided down the corridor, looking left and right and coming up empty. All the doors were open, revealing rooms that were filled with makeshift tables with stacks of bricks supporting long pieces of wood. There were ragged holes in the walls between many of the rooms, making the open spaces larger.
I frowned. What the hell was going in this old house? And that was when I walked into the room containing guns. Every size and shape imaginable. And one end of the room seemed to be designated as some sort of laboratory or experimental operation, with beakers and microscopes and big strange machines.
I knew Derek would be getting it all on tape, so I passed through, heading toward the orange splodge. I neared the door and waited outside the room, only daring to peer inside. A frost giant stood at the window, staring out.
My heart thudded so hard I almost felt it in my throat. Thank goodness we had glamor or this oaf would have seen us. I slipped past and left him to his watch, hoping the girls didn't do anything to draw his attention.
Down the hall and to the right, another orange smudge glowed. I slid forward, fingers touching the wall, and I tried to control my breathing. Here, another frost giant paced the room. His face was pale and rugged and not in the least friendly. What did girl frost giants looked like anyway? I'd never seen one before.
I shook my head and reminded myself to focus instead of thinking ridiculous and irrelevant thoughts.
At the end of the hall, I reached a landing that led down toward the stairs. The balustrade curved around the stairwell, leading right and down the hall. I was about to head right when I caught a hint of orange straight ahead. Just at the top of the landing was a set of double doors. It must have once been a main bedroom or an upstairs living room.
As I got closer, the smudge grew large. It moved first to the left then right. Whispers of a voice reached me through the door.
"He won't win this time. He just won't. I won't let him."
"I am simply telling you what I see." A woman's voice, musical, but not happy at all. "No matter how may times you try to change fate, fate itself will find a way back to what is meant to be."
"But the prophecy. I don't understand why the original prophecy isn't coming to pass?" Loki snapped. He sounded frustrated and angry.
"Perhaps they interpreted it incorrectly all those years ago. Or perhaps people heard only what they wanted to hear," came the woman's voice. I detected a trace of satisfaction in her tone that made me smile. She certainly wasn't happy to be working with our favorite god.
"I gave you his blood, just as you asked," Loki growled. "You made me bring him to you and bleed him almost dry. And the spell didn't work. Are you playing games with me, woman?"
"I assure you I am not. I am doing what I can. I don't have much choice, do I?" He didn't answer, just sucked in another angry breath. "If it makes you feel better, your brother will recover as soon as his body replenishes the lost blood. I only bled him. I didn't kill him."
Brother? Did she mean Thor? Chills ran up and down my spine.
Loki growled. "He is not my brother."
"Then why are you so upset that he is weakened?" asked the woman. She certainly had guts.
Loki didn't answer. Footsteps hurried toward the door, and I had no place to hide. I stood, still praying he wouldn't see through my glamor. But I needn't have worried. Loki threw the doors open and stormed across the threshold, moving past me so fast the feathers on my wings fluttered.
When he stopped in his tracks, I held my breath and tried to temper my heartbeat. He tilted his head toward me, as if listening harder. Perhaps he'd heard me take a breath. Or had he heard the flutter of my wings? Whatever it was, I didn't plan on asking him. I remained still and waited as he waited, frozen to the spot and staring at nothing.
Then he shook his head and headed down the hall, taking the right turn I'd originally planned to take. I followed slowly, tiptoeing behind him, not daring to fly for fear he'd hear the flap of wings and feather.
My foot struck a loose floorboard and it squeaked so loudly I just about died on the spot, but Loki didn't even turn a hair. He entered the first room on the left, leaving the door wide open. I stood on the threshold, my heart frozen in my chest as I watched him stand beside the bed and stare down at the still form of Thor.
I'd found Thor.
My ears rang with shock. What impossible luck that we found him here with Loki. He'd been with Loki all along. It made our mission that much harder, but saving Thor was now as important as stealing the virus. If not more important.
I shifted away from the room. The sight of Loki's tight and angry features as he stared down at his unconscious brother did strange things to my insides. I had to admit that I'd seen a depth of emotion in his eyes as he stared at Thor. The proof that Loki loved his brother was right there in front of my eyes, and I wasn't sure I liked bearing witness to it. Knowing he had a heart made him seem more human in a way, and I didn't like to think of him that way.
Loki was cruel. Loki was harsh. Loki was the Trickster. He was not supposed to be a loving brother. Not after what he did to his own father. He'd taken Odin from us, stuck him in some strange dimension to keep him from helping us with this war with Loki.
But even that, I had to admit, seemed to confirm Loki had a heart. Because if he didn't care, he'd have just killed Odin and been done with it.
Damn it.
I didn't like this new knowledge. It churned my gut and made me want to scream and yell at him. Was this the way his family had felt about him all through his lifetime? A combination of love and frustration, annoyance and anger?
I wanted to walk back into that room and shake some sense into him. Instead, I studied the rest of the floor with the heat sensors, confirmed it was empty, then floated to the ground floor and made a full sweep.
I found one more frost giant and heard Edrik confirm one more on the other end of the ground floor. So Yuri was wrong. The count was four frost giants, two gods, and an unknown woman.
Our surveillance was done and I wasn't about to push my luck. When I turned to head back upstairs, I saw Edrik coming down the hall. I pointed at the upper floor and his head bobbed in agreement before he followed closely. We left the building without incident, pushing the balcony door closed. I flew back to the girls while Edrik did his wolf-monkey thing and leaped off the balcony as if he had his own wings attached to his back.
We returned to the boarding house, bearing information I hadn't even thought possible.
We'd found Loki and Thor. And Loki was trying to change fate.
I only hoped that whatever he'd done hadn't had any kind of lasting effect on the rest of our lives.
Yuri still wasn't back when we returned to Maria's, but he was the last person I was concerned with. When dealing with gods and frost giants and mystery fortune tellers, what did one human matter?
Derek created a 3-D image of the house and the locations of the Jotunn I'd seen. Naturally, we wouldn't expect them to still be there when we decided to enter, but at least we knew they were watching the grounds outside the house.