Battlestorm Read online

  A gun went off. Mist felt strong fingers grip her arm and yank her aside as the bullet whizzed past her ear.

  “Go back,” Konur hissed, pushing her in the direction of the alley. “I will—”

  “How many times must I tell you not to put yourself at risk?” a new voice interrupted, honeyed and dulcet as always in spite of the scolding words.

  Freya waved Konur away and insinuated herself between Mist and the cops, who stared at Freya in utter confusion. Even in a borrowed elven shape—dark-haired, indigo-eyed, a body far more slender than Freya’s own—the goddess projected a sensual allure that required no glamour to work its magic.

  But she did use the glamour, and the cop who’d prematurely ejaculated lowered his gun and carefully laid it on the ground. The other remained frozen except for his mouth, which dropped open almost comically.

  Smoothing the silk of her ruby-red gown over her hips, Freya smiled. “We really don’t want any trouble, do we?” she purred. “Why don’t you boys forget this ever happened, and go about your business.”

  The cop with the dropped jaw closed his mouth and turned his head to look at his partner. The other cop bent to pick up his gun, holstered it, and turned back for the Interceptor. They drove away at a snail’s pace, craning their necks to keep Freya in view until they were in danger of breaking them. The bystanders drifted away, encouraged by Freya’s judicious use of what Mist called the “anti-glamour.”

  When the Interceptor had turned the corner onto Bush Street, Freya lifted her skirt and walked back to the alley, gracefully poised on four-inch spike heels. Her face burning, Mist cast a rueful glance at Konur.

  “I guess they weren’t Loki’s” she said.

  The elf-lord frowned. “This is no time for levity,” he said. “You were exceedingly foolish to fall for such a trick.”

  “You saw the Jotunn’s face?”

  “You well know that some Jotunar are capable of assuming other features,” Konur said. “This one knew how to draw you out.”

  Because, Mist thought, she went into every battle wondering if the Jotunn she fought could be direct kin, like Svardkell. A cousin, an uncle, a brother …

  “It won’t happen again,” she said.

  She was still furious with herself when she and Konur reached the alley. Freya stood in the middle, wrinkling her pretty nose with distaste at the smell of blood and sweat. Mortal eyes followed her every move, as they had previously followed Mist’s. Only the elves seemed indifferent. Or pretended to be.

  Dainn had been anything but indifferent, in another time and place. Freya had used his weakness to control him. If he had betrayed Freya, she had betrayed him first.

  Unfortunately, he’d also betrayed Mist.

  Curse it, Mist thought. Get out of my head.

  “Take the wounded,” she said to Konur, resuming control of herself and her fighters. “I’ll be along soon.”

  The elf-lord nodded to his fellow Alfar, who jointly worked another concealing spell and carried the wounded toward the other end of the alley. Konur lingered, observing Freya from under his dark, slender brows. She gazed back at him, smiling slightly, as if they shared some vaguely unpleasant secret.

  “You have my leave to go, Lord Elf,” she said.

  Konur glanced at Mist. “Do you wish me to remain?” he asked.

  “What do you fear will happen?” Freya asked with a musical laugh. “That I might spank her?”

  “Stay out of it, Konur,” Mist growled.

  “Wise advice,” Freya said to the elf-lord. “You did, after all, agree to serve me for a very generous reward.”

  “What reward?” Mist asked.

  “I have not forgotten,” Konur said, ignoring Mist’s question. He turned to go, and Mist just kept herself from calling him back. She’d decode the mysterious conversation when she could speak privately with Konur, because she knew she cursed well wouldn’t learn anything more from Freya.

  Pretending her mother wasn’t there to comment on her distinctly inelegant magical technique, Mist worked a fairly simple Rune-spell to clean the alley of most of the mess left by the battle, brushed her hands briskly against each other, and realized that her arm was bleeding again. Konur was right: it was beginning to hurt.

  But it would heal more quickly than her pride.

  “We must talk,” Freya said when she was finished. “I believe there is a coffee bar not far from here.”

  Mist didn’t bother arguing about the wisdom of discussing divine business in a very public place. Freya had a way of taking care of those little problems.

  Together they walked around the corner to Bush and north two blocks to the coffee shop, where sleepy work-bound mortals congregated in search of early morning restoratives. Not one of the men and women within or passing by on the sidewalk had any idea of what had just happened such a short distance away.

  Mist wondered again just how much longer that ignorance could last, especially when so many things had changed in the city over the past nine months. Things like the growing political corruption, housing shortages as people of modest income were driven from their homes by the most unscrupulous methods, rising unemployment, and a correspondingly steep decline in social services. The rich were getting richer and the poor were sinking at a much faster rate than anywhere else in the country.

  And then there was crime. Far too few people seemed willing to acknowledge the increases in sexual assault, robbery, human trafficking, and other felonies. Loki’s police, encouraged by the chief himself, allowed major gang fights in the streets, but harassed minor lawbreakers, filling the jails with petty offenders who faced the choice of trumped-up charges or a certain kind of “cooperation” with those in positions of influence. Drug pushers operated openly in schoolyards and on corners in every part of town, selling new, highly addictive designer drugs. Some had become especially popular with the disenfranchised people who could least afford them.

  Even as Mist watched, a dealer appeared across the street. He was Jotunn, like so many of them, but he’d done such a good job of disguising his true nature that no mere mortal would ever have recognized him as anything but human.

  The giant pricked up his ears as a rowdy group of tourists, bearing paper lanterns and wreathed in colorful streamers, performed a parody of a Lion Dance as they made their drunken way back to their hotel from Chinatown. They came to a sudden stop as the Jotunn stepped in front of them, and in minutes the transaction was complete.

  As the tourists staggered away, a thin girl in torn jeans and a threadbare hoodie crept out of an alley and approached the Jotunn. She spoke to him in a weak voice, and he answered with a laugh and a shove that sent her sprawling on the sidewalk. A siren hooted nearby; another Interceptor squealed up to the curb, lights flashing, and the cop in the passenger’s seat shouted at the girl though the open window.

  These, Mist thought, were definitely not the good cops. She stepped into the street, fists clenched.

  “Daughter,” Freya said.

  Mist glanced back at her mother. A small crowd of pedestrians had gathered around Freya, staring at her with rapt attention. When Mist looked across the street again, there was no sign of Jotunn or girl, and the Interceptor was pulling away.

  She strode back to the sidewalk and took Freya’s elbow. “I thought we were going to keep a low profile,” she muttered.

  “Was that what you were doing?” Freya asked. “When will you learn that you cannot protect every mortal in this city?”

  With a negligent flick of her fingers, Freya worked the “anti-glamour.” The observers scattered, and Freya glided to the door of the coffee shop. She waited for Mist to hold the door open and sailed in, sweeping the room with a half-lidded glance. Everyone left, including the men and women waiting in line to pay for or collect their hot beverages. The two baristas disappeared through a door to the back room.

  Choosing one of tables at the back of the café, Freya twitched her gown aside and took her seat as if it were a thickly c
ushioned throne. Mist took the opposite chair.

  “What reward did you offer Konur in exchange for his service?” Mist asked, heading off Freya’s inevitable reprimand.

  For a moment the Lady stared at Mist, playing with the gold-and-diamond necklace resting on the smooth white skin at the base of her elegant throat. Mist remembered that it had been the gift of an influential businessman who had become enamored of her. A man who might not be on their side yet, but wouldn’t be going over to Loki anytime soon.

  “That is between me and Lord Konur,” Freya said.

  “Are you sleeping together?” Mist asked.

  Freya laughed. “Not every male in Midgard is my lover.” She passed her hand over the table, clearing it of coffee rings and crumbs. The perfume of primroses wafted from her body, quickly replacing the earthy aroma of ground coffee beans with cloying sweetness. “Do not try to distract me, child. You cannot continue on this path, risking your life like any common warrior. If you are killed, there will be no one to lead our allies and hold this city until the Aesir arrive.”

  Mist grimaced. If Freya had actually been anything like a real mother, her impersonal words might have stung. For a while, the Lady had tried to convince Mist of her good faith, apologizing for ignoring her daughter in Asgard, promising to atone for her failures as a parent. She hadn’t expressed any regret for what she’d done to Dainn, the broken promises that might have driven him to the other side. Or for spying on Mist when she was at her most vulnerable.

  Over time Mist had come to realize that Freya was, in her way, as superb a liar as Loki. She simply used the glamour and her seductive beauty to make people believe her, not the subtle persuasion, open threats, and deft illusions the Slanderer might employ.

  Yet in spite of all that, a small, weak part of Mist had refused to let go of a treacherous hope that Freya actually cared for her. Not as a warrior, not as a useful tool, but as her daughter.

  That hope was long gone.

  “Do you know why I went after that Jotunn?” Mist asked. “He looked almost exactly like Svardkell.”

  As always, Freya showed little reaction to the name. And, as always, Mist knew she wasn’t going to get any new answers. She’d been careful to relay only part of what Svardkell had told Dainn, and Freya had never questioned Mist’s story that the Jotunn had been a spy for Loki.

  But she’d never admit that Svardkell had been her lover. And Mist’s father.

  Unless, of course, Dainn had been lying.

  “We have had this discussion before,” Freya said, examining her nails for any flaw in their glossy red surfaces. “Since he is dead, whatever you believe you may have seen today was clearly an illusion.”

  Mist folded her arms across her chest. “Since you obviously think I’m screwing this up,” she said, “remember that you’re always welcome to take my place. Or you might try to help out the way you did this morning.”

  “I am no leader of crude warriors.”

  “But you could still take a little time off from your parties and fund-raisers to save a few lives.”

  “I am saving many lives with my ‘parties and fund-raisers,’” Freya said. “I divert the attention of important mortals who might otherwise join Loki’s ranks.” She looked Mist up and down. “Given your preferred mode of dress and your coarse manners, you could certainly not manage my part in this war.”

  “It’s a good thing I don’t want it, then,” Mist said. She stared pointedly at the ring that almost overwhelmed Freya’s fine-boned hand. “It isn’t exactly unpleasant work for you, is it?”

  Freya shook her head, very slightly disarranging her artfully arranged coils of glossy black hair. “You do not understand,” she said. “The glamour is a great drain on my magic and my strength, and even I must pay the price.”

  Her admission of weakness caught Mist’s attention. There was always a price for magic, even in the hands of the gods, but Mist had never seen evidence that Freya suffered from overuse of her talents.

  Now, studying her mother’s face, she noted the small flaws in the Lady’s matchless beauty, flaws she’d never noticed before. There were very faint lines around her mouth, and her lips didn’t seem quite as firm and plump. Pale shadows painted the delicate skin under her vivid eyes.

  The glamour would prevent most mortals from registering such details, but the changes were real. And suddenly Mist remembered what Freya had said about her borrowed body: “It cannot contain my magic indefinitely.”

  “Freya—” Mist began.

  But suddenly the Lady was on her feet and standing over her daughter, as if she had realized just how vulnerable she had made herself and was eager to undo the damage.

  “You must believe that I fear for more than myself,” she said, taking Mist’s face between her hands. “I fear for you, and for your recklessness. But you waste your abilities, and unless you permit yourself to recognize and accept the extent of your magical potential, we may lose everything.”

  3

  Mist stiffened. This was another conversation they’d had before. Freya had witnessed Mist’s “magical potential” when the Lady had descended to Midgard in her elven body and fought by Mist’s side against Loki’s forces.

  Faced with a small army of frost giants and desperate to protect mortal followers who had yet to take part in a real battle, Mist had fallen back on what she and Dainn had dubbed the “ancient magic.” Neither Galdr nor Seidr, elven nor Jotunn, it was elemental and feral, blending the forces of fire and water, wind and earth.

  More than once, Dainn had suggested that those elemental powers were derived from the Vanir, the elder race of gods defeated in cosmic battle by the “younger” upstarts, the Aesir.

  Freya was Vanir. It had always seemed odd to Mist that she had never revealed similar abilities.

  Perhaps she was afraid. Mist knew all too well that each time she used it, she felt as if she were losing herself. As if she might fall into the “fugue state” Dainn had always warned her about, and turn into someone else completely. Someone she didn’t want to be.

  “You must see how essential it is that you make use of every resource you possess,” Freya said, dropping her hands before Mist could jerk away. “Your magic has unique qualities even I cannot match, and I have never seen the likes of it before. Not even in the All-father.”

  Mist stared into her mother’s eyes, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Freya never admitted inferiority. In anything.

  This is just another game, Mist thought, glancing toward the door and almost wishing a Jotunn would barge in to start a fight. “I can’t explain it, either,” she said.

  “The traitor did not teach it to you.”

  “No. Dainn had nothing to do with it.” She rose and walked to the counter. Two hot beverages had been abandoned when their buyers had left the premises at Freya’s behest; Mist chose the strong black coffee, returned to the table, and sat down again. “What about your Seidr?” she asked, determined to divert Freya from the subject of Dainn Faith-breaker. “You still haven’t shown me how it works.”

  “Soul-travel requires even more effort than the glamour, and takes many years to master,” Freya said, taking her seat again. “My brief use of it here in Midgard has delayed my plans to create true bodies for myself and the other Aesir, so that we might live again as we once did.”

  Mist didn’t remark that the first time Freya had taken her on a “soul-journey”—to prove that Dainn had gone over to Loki—she hadn’t seemed particularly drained. “You were able to get here in this elven body,” she said.

  “As I was able to help the other Alfar generate physical forms and cross the bridge from the Shadow-Realms of Ginnungagap,” Freya said. “But the bodies of the Aesir are another matter entirely. I must continue to build my strength.”

  Mist knew she had no choice but to accept Freya’s word for that, but she still wasn’t satisfied. “What about the Falcon Cloak? It belongs to you. Getting a bird’s-eye view of what’s going on in th
e city could be very useful.”

  “Do you think that requires any less effort?” Freya asked irritably. “What of your search for the remaining Treasures and their guardians?”

  “We have four of the other eleven Valkyrie on our side—Eir, Hild, Bryn, and Rota—along with their Treasures,” Mist said, as if she needed to remind herself of what they’d actually accomplished. “Horja’s dead, but Anna used her memories to recover the Cloak and Horja’s Staff. Sigrun stayed in Italy with the nuns, but we have the unbreakable Chain she guarded in the convent.”

  “That means that five Valkyrie and their Treasures remain unaccounted for,” Freya said, counting off on her bejeweled fingers. “Olrun with Freyr’s magic Sword; Regin and Thor’s Hammer; Skuld and Megingjord, the Belt of Power; Hrist with Bragi’s Harp; and Kara with the Gjallarhorn. Unless, of course, Loki already has them in his possession.”

  Mist knew that was a very real possibility, though Loki had shown no sign of having achieved that particular advantage. “I have people working on it night and day,” she said. “We’ll find them.” She stared at a particularly recalcitrant coffee ring on the table, imagining that it was the evil serpent Jormungandr biting its own tail. “It would help if we knew what we were going to use the Treasures for.”

  “Odin never saw fit to tell me,” Freya said with a curl of red lips.

  She had some reason to be pissed, Mist thought. Odin had sent the Treasures to Midgard just before the Dispersal, the event that had blasted all the inhabitants of the other Eight Homeworlds into the Void. Freya had speculated that he hadn’t believed the prophecy that foretold Ragnarok, the final battle between Loki and the gods that would herald the end of the universe as the Aesir knew it.

  But Odin had left Freya largely ignorant of his ultimate plans, in spite of her important role as ambassador to Midgard after so many centuries of silence from the gods. Through Dainn, she’d approached Mist with orders to find the Treasures scattered over the Earth, though Mist hadn’t seen or spoken to their guardians for decades.