Fate Forgotten (49 page)

“Just so.” Ra smiled his most grandfatherly smile, though the expression was marred by an underlying grief. Thor knew it too well. “Now if you’ll just prepare the records for us?”

Dr. Meek busied himself collecting the proper files, and Ra leaned back in his seat, across the desk. His expression was more than grim, his falcon eyes hard as amber. Fury, and barely contained, Thor realized, though he had never seen him betray even the slightest hint of such an emotion before.

“If you’ll follow me,” Meek said at last, folder in hand. “Evelyn should be back from her shock treatment by now. Convenient for you, really. She ought to be quite docile for the trip home.”

“Indeed.” The word barely escaped through Ra’s teeth, though Meek didn’t seem to notice. “After you, Donar.”

Thor followed the small man down the yellowed corridor. The tiles he’d cracked hadn’t been replaced or mended, and the dust crunched beneath his shoes. If he had not been bound by his father, all of this would have been so much easier. Eve would have been safe in France already, sleeping in his arms. Once the drugs had cleared her system, he could have told her everything.

“Just in here,” Meek said, the keys jingling as he turned the lock. “I’ll just send an orderly to retrieve her clothes.”

Thor ducked through the doorway, crossing the room before Ra had even stepped inside. Eve lay on her cot, curled in a tight ball on her side, her arms over her head showing handprints of blue and purple bruising. She must have struggled, fought with the orderlies when they came to collect her. Perhaps bleeding herself dry had been about more than finding oblivion. Perhaps she’d been fighting against the medication as well. Certainly she had been more lucid since, more present. But today, her skin looked green and sallow. Another dose of the venom, by the stink.

Ra drew in a sharp breath behind him. “God forgive us all. What have they done?”

Thor carried her out of the hospital, her head lolling against his shoulder and her body limp. She hadn’t so much as stirred when Ra examined her, nor opened her eyes when Thor lifted her from the cot. He hadn’t waited for Ra to finish speaking with the doctor. The sooner she left the ward behind, the sooner she could begin to recover, if there was any hope for it at all. And Thor was beginning to fear the worst, in that regard.

By all rights, Ra should have been able to heal her somehow, to bring her back to consciousness at the least, but his face had only become more aged, more lined with pain. His fingers had traced the ragged scabs on her forearms, the skin held in place by neat, black stitches, and he had bowed his head. When the old god had risen from her bedside, his face had been damp with tears.

“She’s retreated so deep into her memories, I cannot reach her. And the poison—I fear it has done too much damage to be wholly reversed. Is there some antidote, known to your people? Some treatment, if it is your Jormungand’s venom?”

“The golden apples saved my life, but I am not certain what they will do to her. She is so fragile, compared to us.”

“Of course,” Ra said. “Yes, I believe the golden apples will serve, Elohim willing. If their power cannot help her, it certainly will not do any greater harm.”

He would have to send them by way of Athena, for once Eve was returned to her family, he did not dare follow. Not immediately. Perhaps if the circumstances were different, if it were not a god’s hand which had done her so much injury—and that too, he would have to see to. Dr. Williams, if he was in fact a doctor at all, must be addressed. Jormungand’s venom must be purged from this world, and the god responsible for its use punished. For that much, he would have the Council’s authority, though the Allfather was sure to object.

But if Odin knew Loki had returned—and Heimdall must have seen it was so—if Odin had helped him to return, concealed his actions all this time…

Thor only hoped he would not be forced to kill his own father.

“Well,” Meek said, after Ra had left with Eve. “Evelyn is very fortunate to have such a caring family. But I would have thought you would go with them, Mr. Sonnungar.”

The car Thor had hired would take them to the hotel room where he’d been staying. Once they arrived there, Ra would transport her to France. Perhaps it was for the best that she was still unconscious. The less Ra had to explain to her later, the better off they would be, and a sudden transition to DeLeon Castle would hardly convince her of her sanity.

“I’m afraid I have other business yet, today. With Dr. Williams.”

“Ah.” Meek adjusted his glasses, peering up at him over the rims. “He hadn’t mentioned to me—that is, did you have an appointment?”

“Oh yes,” Thor lied. “If you wouldn’t mind directing me to his office?”

Meek frowned. “I suppose there isn’t any harm…”

Thor followed him once more down the corridors, the ugly, yellow lights flickering over his head as he passed beneath them. Rain had begun to fall again, tapping against the rare skylight. Just a drizzle, really, to allow him to keep his temper. He didn’t want to give himself away completely. Not yet.

Meek paused at a heavy wooden door bearing a crooked number nine. He rapped his knuckles against the wood, then twisted the knob, sticking his head into the room on the other side. “Dr. Williams? Mr. Sonnungar is here for his appointment.”

Thor reached over his head, pushing the door open wide. But even before he saw the doctor sitting behind his overlarge desk, he knew him. Loki was making no effort to hide himself, now.

“Ah, Mr. Sonnungar. Of course.” Loki smiled slyly, removing the glasses he couldn’t possibly need to wear. “You’re rather late, aren’t you?”

Thunder cracked so loudly the windows shook, and Thor growled. “How?”

“What kind of Trickster would I be if I gave away all my secrets?” His smile turned wolfish, a feral baring of teeth. “Dr. Meek, if you’ll excuse us.”

“Of course,” Meek squeaked. “Yes. Certainly.”

The door shut. Thor did not so much as glance behind him. By now, Meek was scurrying off down the hall, just another mouse to be played with in the larger game, released when he no longer entertained.

“Did Odin know?” Thor demanded.

Loki lifted his eyebrows, his gaze almost pitying. “Do you truly believe Heimdall would not have seen it all? From the moment Sif hatched her scheme, Odin might have stopped me from returning. But this? Would it help if I told you she was insane long before I arrived? Sif and Lugh had her convinced she was quite mad, outdid themselves, really. Odin sent me to handle it quietly. You were so distracted by the war, you see, and it wouldn’t do to have you refocusing your attention here.”

Lightning exploded inside the office, the white heat draining all color from the room. The desk smoked, fingers of electricity crawling across the wood, and Loki coughed, struggling to pick himself back up off the floor where he’d been thrown by the blast.

Thor grabbed him by his shirt and pinned him against the wall. “If you think I will not kill you again, Loki, send you back into Hel for whatever role you played no matter how small, you are grossly mistaken.”

He coughed again, his pale skin scorched and smoldering. Lightning still danced, crackling across the tile floor. “Then she’ll die, too.”

The storm roared in his ears, wind and rain and thunder. Just a thought, and he could tear it all apart, stone by stone. Hurricane and tornado, lightning and thunder. He could swamp the whole state, if he willed it, and his eyes burned with the power, barely leashed. The women in the ward would be free of their prison, saved at last. Already the gale tore at the roof, rattling the glass. That a place such as this existed at all—that any people could think it was not horror and nightmare—

“Temper, temper, Odin-son.” Loki rasped. “These lands aren’t yours to smite. Can you just imagine how Odin would respond if you broke your precious Covenant? No need to hold himself back, anymore. No reason not to destroy Eve, once and for all…”

Thor dropped him, stumbling back.
Ragnarok
. Loki spoke of Ragnarok. Another world destroyed, another eternity of war. He shook his head to clear the haze from his eyes. Was that what Odin wanted? To goad him into this rage? With the Covenant shattered, his father would have his way. Eve first, then the angels, then Elohim. The way the gods had fled, there would be no other power to stand against him in the west. Just Bhagavan in the east. Strike a truce, then, and he would own half the world. A billion people to do with as he pleased, to harvest for their prayers, their power.

“No,” Thor said. “Not here. Not through me. I won’t be used by him again.”

Loki climbed to his feet unsteadily, brushing the soot from his jacket. “Then I suppose you’ll have to do something about your father, won’t you?”

His eyes narrowed. “And what do you stand to gain if I do, Trickster?”

“If Odin falls, the Aesir move on. They leave this world, and so do I. There’s nothing left here for any of us, but Zeus and his brothers won’t welcome me alone. I’ve already tried.”

Odin gone, with all the Aesir. He could be free. Finally free of his father, free to return to Eve, to care for her in France without fear of what it might cost him. And who was left to call a Council to object, if he chose to reveal himself? Bhagavan would give his blessing, and Ra as well. Who would stand against them, if they spoke in his favor? Anansi would not be able to unite the gods of Africa, and the South American gods, what was left of them, had no will to fight, even if they cared.

And Sif would never torment Eve again.

“Jormungand’s venom. I want all of it. And you will leave Eve alone, no matter what happens.”

Loki smiled slowly, his lips half-scorched. “Agreed.”

“Father!”

He stood outside
Valaskjálf
, his father’s hall,
Mjölnir
humming in his palm. Loki stood behind him, as Loki had stood a thousand times in the past, before Jarnsaxa had died, and he had nearly lost his sons with her. Before he had realized Loki only used him as another pawn in his games of deceit.

The thought did not give him any peace, now. But he could not doubt himself. Odin would only prey upon it.

“Allfather!” Thor called again. A hush had fallen inside the hall, the sounds of laughter and the clanking of mugs turning to murmurs. The great silver doors, carved with the image of Yggdrasil, his mother’s tree, and the nine worlds Odin had won from Ymir, remained closed.

“Perhaps a well-formed insult?” Loki suggested, a smile in his voice.

Thunder rolled, soft and menacing. “Do not try my patience, Trickster, or
Mjölnir
will taste your blood first.”

“Did you know he took Sif to his bed, before the Council? I wondered then if it was the first time—or why else would he lie to you about Ullr’s birth? Have you never considered that your step-son might be your brother?”

His eyes were hazing white, lightning thrumming through his veins, and if Loki did not bite his tongue, Thor was more than tempted to remove it from his skull. Sif and Odin—Thor had barely been married three years when Ullr was born. When Sif had come to him, weeping, he had not doubted her story for a moment. The Vanir had been their enemies. That she might have been assaulted by one of them made more sense to him than the alternative. But if it had been his father, of all the gods…