Mist (25 page)

Mist squeezed his shoulder. “I believe in you.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. “I’m going to need my own data center to do this. Lots of hardware and questionably legal software I can adapt.”

“I have quite a bit of money saved,” Mist said. “I’ll make sure you have everything you need. And while you’re handling that, Dainn is going to be teaching me a little more about magic.”

“A little?” Vali rose again, hitching up his belt. “Vid isn’t going to be happy if he finds out. You caught him with his pants down, and he doesn’t like being mocked.”

“I don’t much care what he likes.”

Rebellion flared in Vali’s mild blue eyes. “Neither do I. I’ll think up some excuse to stay away from Asbrew. He probably won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“You can always tell him you’ve joined AA.”

It wasn’t funny, but Vali smiled anyway. “This ought to be just as good. And if he gives me a hard time, I’ll spit in his eye.”

“I hope that won’t be necessary.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “It’s getting late. You won’t be able to do anything tonight, but I can show you where you can set up.”

Vali followed her along the hall to Eric’s home office. There had been no time to get rid of his furniture and belongings, though Mist had checked to confirm her assumption that Loki had taken his computer when he left.

“When you get the equipment you need, we can always expand,”

she said. “There are two unfinished bedrooms on the second floor, and a whole lot of empty space. You can arrange your stuff any way you like.”

“What about the elf?” Vali asked suddenly, eying her sideways.

“Will he be staying here?”

Mist stiffened. “For the time being. If it wasn’t that I need him to teach me . . .”

“Sure. I understand.” He flushed again. “Do you think you can go to the bank tomorrow and get me some of that money you mentioned?”

Mist thought about Loki and Gungnir and magic lessons and the kids and all the things she still had to do, every one of them urgent.

“I think so,” said. “Is twenty thousand enough to start with?”

“More than enough, until I see what’s what.” He grinned and slapped Mist on the back, nearly knocking the air out of her lungs.

“It’ll almost be like old times.”

Maybe he really believed that. Vali had always been a bit of a dreamer—too much so for his own good. But Mist well knew they could never go back.

Vali left a few minutes later. Mist checked in on the kids, who were so deeply asleep that they wouldn’t have heard a mob of Jotunar barreling straight through the loft. Too restless to sit still, Mist went outside and scanned the street. It all looked completely normal, as if Jotunar and magic weapons and evil gods didn’t exist. No one knew the actors had assembled on stage, and the curtain was about to go up.

There was no question now of returning to bed. Mist went to the gym and began her workout, starting with stretches and continuing with a series of judo and karate stances before moving on to practice with the various swords and ending with weights. She stripped off her sweaty clothes in the bedroom and was headed for the shower when she met Dainn in the hallway, bare-chested and lithe with his black hair flowing around his shoulders. He came to an abrupt halt. “Have you—” he began.

“Are you—” she said at the same time.

He looked a little too long at her body, scantily covered as it was with a short terrycloth robe and nothing underneath. The robe was securely cinched around her waist with the belt, but she pulled the neckline closer around her upper chest.

“Forgive me,” Dainn stammered, and fled back the way he’d come.

Mist was left shaken and appalled by the gooseflesh on her arms and the heat in her groin.

Fenrir’s teeth.
She’d seen him naked before, in Asbrew. He’d made a mockery of her embarrassment, though he had been right: there was no such thing as a modest Valkyrie where bodies in their various living and dead states were concerned.

Dainn had proven to be more solid than she’d imagined when she’d first seen him in his indigent’s rags. He had the look of a man who had done plenty of physical labor, with sleek, defined muscles and broad shoulders. No bodybuilder, the elf, but probably ten times as strong as one. Not an ounce of fat on his body, and . . .
Stop,
Mist told herself.

She managed to shut off her highly inappropriate thoughts and rushed into the bathroom. She locked the door from inside and leaned against it as if Dainn might try to break in.

And do what?
She took off her robe and stepped into the shower, turning the water all the way to cold. The discomfort brought her back to her senses, and she returned to her room in a much calmer state. She braided her hair, dressed as if she were going outside, complete with boots, jacket, and Kettlingr, and went to find Dainn.

12

The elf was sitting cross-legged on the area rug in the middle of the small living room, facing the black rectangle of the flat-screen TV as if it were the doorway to some uncharted dimension. His feet were bare, and he was wearing a pair of Eric’s sweatpants and a deep purple T-shirt—also Eric’s—which Mist realized had been left in the laundry basket after the last wash.

It was a shock to see him in Eric’s things— things Loki had worn—but she couldn’t fault Dainn for his practicality. Without interrupting his meditation, she took a seat on the leather couch Eric had bought a few months ago. She had to get rid of that, too. Curse him, she’d nearly have to strip the loft bare to get rid of every reminder.

She cleared her throat, a sudden tide of heat surging into her face. “Dainn?”

He turned around and looked up at her, as remote as Lee on one of his more standoffish days. “I have been considering explanations for the sudden closure of the bridges.”

Thank the Norns Dainn was going to pretend their awkward meeting in the hall hadn’t happened. But the way he’d looked at her . . .

“What did you decide?” she asked quickly.

“As you said regarding the young mortals, we must have more information. We must find other bridges and test them as well.”

“Just put it on the list,” Mist said, biting off the words.

Dainn cocked his head. “Loki will be doing the same.”

She clasped her hands between her knees. “Okay,
you
tell
me.
What should I do first, now that I’ve got Vali working on helping us find my Sisters? I thought getting Gungnir back should be at the top, but I admit that was . . . probably not the greatest idea I’ve ever had.”

She hadn’t meant to sound so vulnerable, so uncertain, but Dainn didn’t seem to notice. “Without the understanding and control of your magic,” he said, “anything else you attempt against Loki will ultimately be futile.”

“My, but we’re Mr. Sunshine tonight, aren’t we?”

“The sun seldom shines at night,” he said. “And there may soon be no sun at all if we fail.”

“Gods.” She spiked her hands through her hair, pulling more strands free of the messy braid. “Have you got anything
useful
to say?”

“I doubt you’ll like it.”

“I’m sure I won’t. Go ahead.”

“I don’t believe it is a coincidence that the boy found you today.”

“According to him, it wasn’t. And I thought you said Loki didn’t send him.”

“Yes. But did you consider that it might be more than his visions that brought him to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Even if Ryan is a seer, he doesn’t seem to have any other magical skill. He has never seen you before. It is unlikely that he could have found you with only the help of the images he has described.” Dainn tensed and inhaled deeply, like a high diver about to plunge into icy water. “You may have summoned him here yourself.”

“What?”

“When you confronted Loki in Asbrew with your mother’s power,” he said, “you used a certain type of magic against him.”

Mist suddenly realized she had forgotten to turn on the heater. The house was freezing. “Do you think I’ve forgotten that?” she said. “I don’t care what Freya does. That kind of . . .” She shuddered. “I won’t use those tricks on anyone again.”

“They were not tricks, Mist. They will be among Freya’s primary weapons when she is ready to confront Loki directly.”

“And that’s why we’re here?” Mist said, beginning to rise. “I’m supposed to learn more of that kind of magic?”

“No,” Dainn said steadily, holding her gaze. “Not today.”

“Not ever.”

“Listen to me. The Lady possesses a glamour that can have a profound effect on anyone who sees her, god or mortal. She can induce feelings of lust, love, and devotion with only the slightest effort and draw all attention to her with no more than a glance. As Freya’s daughter—”

“Forget it.”

“It is not a feature you can remove as you would your shirt.”

Heat flared in Mist’s face again. “I’m
not Freya.
”

Dainn dropped his eyes. Mist stared at the top of Dainn’s head and turned the dial up to heavy sarcasm.

“Look at me,” she said. “Do my eyes sparkle like the dew? Am I shaped like Raquel Welch rising out of the ocean on a clamshell? Is mine the face that launched a thousand ships?” She laughed. “Loki wasn’t seeing
me
in there. Maybe if I hadn’t created some kind of illusion . . .”

Dainn declined her invitation to gaze upon her glorious perfection. “It is not only a matter of beauty,” he said quietly, “but in the very nature of the goddess. Your nature.”

Mist shivered, getting colder by the second. “So what exactly are you trying to say? That this nature of mine made Ryan look for me?”

“Or simply find you, since he already had some idea of who he was looking for.”

“But you were talking about drawing attention with a glance, making someone fall in love . . . I never met Ryan before in my life!”

“Your innermost self—what Freud called the unconscious mind— knows what you, what Midgard, must have to survive. Just as it did in Asbrew. Perhaps Ryan heard you call in his dreams.”

“That’s unbelievable. I wasn’t even thinking—”

“You do not have to
think,
” Dainn said, his voice suddenly harsh with anger.

Mist flinched. “So you’re saying I’m . . . some kind of living, breathing homing signal?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“That’s why you were so sure all along that we’d find mortal allies?”

“Yes.”

“So they show up here, and then they fall in love with me? But Ryan certainly doesn’t have any interest, and Gabi—”

“They will recognize the need to follow you, regardless of gender.”

“Then I’ll send them away.”

“You will be denying them what they most desire, which is to save their world. You will merely make them aware of why they must fight.”

“Like I said before, it isn’t going to happen. People being drawn to us by some general magical knowledge or feeling I can understand, but I won’t accept this kind of responsibility.”

“And as
I
said,” Dainn said, meeting her gaze again, “you cannot simply choose to rid yourself of it. Your inherent abilities were already at work before Ryan and Gabi arrived to declare their allegiance.”

“You mean in the fight with Loki?”

Dainn didn’t answer, but Mist heard him anyway. He wasn’t talking about Loki now.

He was speaking of himself. This was why he’d stared at her in the hall. Not because he decided she was “hot” in her bathrobe, but because she’d somehow made him . . .

Loki’s piss. No wonder he couldn’t stand to look at her half the time.

“You should leave,” she said, hopping off the couch. “Go back to Freya. Tell her . . . tell her . . .”

“You know that is impossible.”

Mist felt her guts twist as if they were about to burst out of her stomach like some alien parasite. “If I can’t turn this off myself, you’ll have to teach me.”

“There are more important skills you must learn.”

“Then you can do it, if you want to.”

“Not without great risk.”

“To who? Me?” She stood over him, clenching her fists. “I’m not giving you any choice. I’m ordering you to help me.”

“Freya will never permit it.”

“You said she can’t read your mind. She doesn’t have to find out until it’s done.” Mist crouched before him, very careful not to get too close. “At least teach me to control it, like the other magic. Let me have some choice.”

“I cannot,” Dainn said, turning his face away.

“So you’ll let yourself suffer from some artificial emotion every second you’re around me? How effective can you be as a teacher then?”

Dainn didn’t move a muscle. He hardly even seemed to be breathing. “I am not suffering,” he said.

Mist rubbed her tattoo over and over again. “Did
she
make you love her?”

“She has never deprived me of my will,” Dainn said, his gaze fixed in a two-thousand-yard stare.

“Did you love her? Do you still?”

Dainn unfolded his body and rose, moving aimlessly around the room. “No,” he said.

She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. But this is wrong, Dainn. You know who else does this kind of thing? Loki. I’ll slit my own throat before I play his kind of game.”