Battlestorm Read online

  “You … healed it?” Ryan asked.

  “I don’t know.” She ran her fingertips along the length of the staff, murmuring to herself. “Esto es de locos,” she said. “It’s alive.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, it was alive. There’s a place where…” She muttered again. “Where a soul used to be.”

  “A soul?”

  “That’s what I said,” she snapped. “I don’t get it any more than you do. I’m just telling you what I feel.”

  Ryan wondered if the idea was as crazy as it sounded. The Treasures were special. No one—not even Mother Skye—knew what their ultimate purpose was, but from the very beginning Mist had been instructed to find them before Loki did. Everyone assumed they were weapons, but until Gabi had told him that Mist had given her permission to try using the Apple seeds on Eir, he’d thought no one but the gods could do anything with them.

  In a way, he thought, the Treasures might symbolically carry the “souls” of the Aesir in terms of what they had been in Asgard, and what they hoped to be in the future.

  Or maybe that was bullshit. Whatever it was, Mist obviously hadn’t known about it. Or about how to fix the staff.

  “I’m gonna have to tell Mist what I did,” Gabi said, staring down at the staff. “How can I explain what happened? I shouldn’t even have been touching it.” She lifted her head. “Shit, how am I gonna tell Mist about Eir?”

  Ryan felt sick all over again. He didn’t want to face them. He’d always known it would be hard to meet Mist again, but Dainn would be the worst. Knowing what Dainn was, how it could go wrong, but not being able to see that moment when the elf would have to make his most terrible choice, or exactly what that choice would be …

  Just like with Mist. She’d have the biggest choice of all.

  “It’s okay, Ry,” Gabi said, reading him as easily as always. “I won’t tell her anything you don’t want me to.”

  “Just … don’t say anything,” he said. “For now, let me handle it. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt.”

  “Yeah,” Gabi said. She met his gaze. “You seen Freya yet? In person, I mean?”

  “No.” He shuddered. “I’ve heard people talking about her.”

  “Bad things, I hope.” Gabi wrinkled her nose. “She no good, Ry.”

  Ryan almost laughed, but he knew she’d take it the wrong way. “The war hasn’t gone any better now that she’s here?” he asked.

  “Depends on what you mean by ‘better.’ But I don’t trust her, and I don’t think Mist does, either. My advice, just stay away from her.”

  “I plan to,” Ryan said, wondering if he could keep that resolution. “Gabi … how is Dainn?”

  Her eyes widened. “You don’t know?”

  A leaden weight settled in the pit of Ryan’s stomach. “Did something happen?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she mumbled, looking down again. “He’s gone, Ry.”

  “Gone? Where?”

  She told him. He had to sit down on the floor afterward, dizzy with the knowledge that he’d never so much as envisioned the scenario she’d described.

  “I’m sure he didn’t go willingly,” Ryan said, arguing more with himself than with Gabi. “He was afraid of the beast taking over, hurting—”

  “Mist was always ready to help him, no matter what he did.” Gabi’s voice rose in anger. “She should never have trusted him.”

  “But something made him do it. Something—” He broke off, remembering his last meeting with Dainn … how Dainn had let him go to Tashiro without trying to stop him. The elf had said he’d soon be incapable of harming Ryan. Did that mean he’d already expected to leave?

  But then why would he tell Ryan to call him and Mist if he needed them? Ryan couldn’t think of any explanation but that Dainn hadn’t known exactly what was going to happen to him. He’d made one of those important choices.

  There was something in play here that not even Mother Skye had anticipated.

  “I’m sorry, Ry,” Gabi said softly. “Maybe he thought he could help Mist by going to Loki. I don’t know. But Freya … Ry?”

  Freya. Ryan clenched his teeth together. Gods knew what the Lady had told Mist about Dainn.

  “Does Mist hate him now?” he asked.

  “She doesn’t talk about him,” Gabi said. “But I don’t think so. Not the way she should.” Gabi sighed. “Ay, joder. I know how you felt about—”

  “Forget it,” Ryan muttered. “Listen, you decide when you should tell Mist about Eir. I’m going to stay hidden until I know it’s time to show myself.” He shivered. “I’m really sorry, Gabi. And I promise I’ll tell you everything as soon as it’s safe.”

  “I know, Ry. I know.” She bit her lip and lifted the Staff carefully, one hand on either side of the former break. “I’m never gonna be able to fit this back in the—”

  All at once the smooth wood broke apart again, neatly and soundlessly, and Gabi was holding the two halves as if they had never been “healed” at all. Ryan couldn’t tell if she was upset or relieved. She moved quickly to replace the pieces in their case and closed the lid, murmuring the sealing spell.

  “You go now, Ry,” she said, still chewing on her lower lip. “I’ll check in on you later.”

  Ducking low, Ryan crept out of the building and started back for the infirmary. A figure moved among the shadows between two of the warehouses as he passed by, but he made himself keep walking and didn’t look back.

  5

  Loki tossed his overcoat to the butler and sauntered into the marble foyer. There were very few real mansions left in San Francisco, but this house in Pacific Heights could truly be called one of the most expensive and elegant in the city. Indeed, in the entire state.

  Not, he thought a little sourly, that he could choose any other place in California, even if he wished to. Though he’d abandoned his suite in his downtown headquarters five months ago, fully separating his personal life—and Danny—from his many business interests—he was still confined to San Francisco. Confined, that was, if he wanted full access to the bridges.

  Which, at the moment, were still inconveniently unreliable in their functioning.

  He reminded himself that the press conference had gone very well. The mayor relied on him so much these days … unofficially, of course. But Loki had helped transform him from an unpopular politician to one the plebeians respected, even though they should have despised him for his inability to control crime, to curb the excesses of overzealous law enforcement, and to share the wealth his administration had accrued with such rapidity.

  But the citizenry was easily distracted with the little sops Loki arranged for them: civic pride celebrations, festivals offering generous free samples of fine food and wine, lotteries for big-ticket items, giveaways of every sort. All amounting to a pittance in expenditure. And then, of course, there were the new drugs, designed to keep a significant portion of the populace in a constant state of oblivious docility.

  Panem et circenses, Loki thought. Give them what they think they want. Distract them, and then sit back as the world they know slowly crumbles around them.

  With a wave of his hand, he indicated that Nicholas, his personal assistant, should precede him to his study to prepare the drinks, while the butler—whose name Loki hadn’t bothered to remember—hurried off to inform the cook that a light supper was wanted. His “secretary,” Scarlet, insinuated herself into the room and smiled invitingly.

  He shook his head to dismiss her as Dainn came quietly up behind him. The butler returned quickly to relieve Dainn of his coat and scarf. Dainn nodded thanks—an irritating habit of acknowledging the services of the mortals in Loki’s employ—and simply stood where he was, waiting. Waiting, like the rest of them, for his orders.

  “So what did you think?” Loki asked lightly.

  “Very effective,” Dainn said, his voice as flat as always. “Your ability to entertain has never been in doubt.”

  “You’re in a foul mood this after
noon,” Loki said. He reached behind Dainn’s head, freed the luxurious black hair from its neat tail, and twisted a lock around his finger.

  “Life would be so much pleasanter for you if you’d simply give in,” he said softly.

  “I have no feelings for you,” Dainn said. “Not of the kind you require.”

  As so often happened, Loki was torn between striking the elf and kissing him. He chose the latter. Dainn’s mouth was cool and still under his.

  Nine months—the time it took a mortal woman to bear a child—and nothing had changed. Every attempt Loki had made to make Dainn open up to him with his heart as well as his body had met with failure, despite all Loki’s threats. And promises.

  He still vividly remembered when Dainn had first come to Asgard, thousands of mortal years ago: a mysterious wanderer unfamiliar to any of the elves who frequented Valhalla. He had said little of himself, but Loki had felt his power—power he was sure not even Odin had suspected—and it had acted on Loki like the most potent aphrodisiac. He had made it his business to learn, by mundane and magical means, who this mysterious creature truly was.

  In time, he had realized that even Dainn didn’t remember much of his own more distant past. It was almost as if he lived in an eternal present, and that had been Loki’s greatest advantage. Dainn hadn’t even realized what happened when Loki had worked the dangerous spell that had robbed the elf of the better part of his most potent source of magic: the Eitr—the mysterious substance of the universe itself. It had been part of Dainn, carried like the blood in his veins, and he had been as unconscious of its presence within him as he was of the air in his lungs or the beat of his heart.

  Loki had felt some regret when he and Freya had seized the Eitr for their own use, knowing that it would change Dainn in ways not even he could imagine. Even so, Dainn had not lost the essence of what he was. He still had his elven magic. He had been calm and cool and wise as Odin’s advisor, always a voice of reason. But in private …

  In the seclusion of their bedchamber, when Dainn had believed he was fucking Freya, he had been more than adequately passionate. He had even declared his love for the Lady. Adoration Loki had wanted for himself, as himself.

  It didn’t matter that Loki couldn’t return such feelings. He knew himself to be capable of a certain affection, and since Dainn had come to him here, he had treated the elf with great consideration.

  Dainn had been far less than grateful. And certainly far from passionate.

  But even the Rune-bringer, teacher of the ancient Alfar, couldn’t hold out forever.

  Loki stepped back and turned away as if he hadn’t noticed Dainn’s passive rejection. The elf followed him into the study, where Loki turned on the monitor of the remote camera that constantly surveyed Danny’s room. Nicholas poured them both glasses of brandy. As always, Dainn didn’t touch his.

  “You drink too much,” Dainn said, almost the only words he ever volunteered. “One day it will kill you.”

  Loki laughed and raised his glass. “Given what I’ve experienced at the hands of the Aesir, poisoning my drink isn’t likely to produce the results you wish. However”—he settled into his favorite armchair, and gestured for Dainn to take his usual seat on the other side of the small table—“you seem to have done well enough working against me in other ways.”

  Moving with far less than his usual elvish grace, Dainn took the chair, his body folding in on itself like that of an injured animal attempting to conceal its wounds from a lurking predator. “I have no power to harm you,” he said in a dull voice.

  “Not with anything as crude as the beast inside you,” Loki said, “or as elegant as the magic you lost due to your own unfortunate tendency to make decisions based on misplaced trust. But those are hardly your only tools.” He signaled for Nicholas to refill his glass. “According to your most recent reports—or should I called them ‘excuses’—Danny has made little progress in any of the tasks you were to help him perform.” Loki sighed and stretched out his legs. “I fear that I will soon be driven to take more extreme measures in order to encourage your cooperation.”

  Dainn didn’t react to the threat. “I have been unable to convey your desire that he create other portals to more distant regions of Midgard,” he said. “It seems he lacks sufficient motivation to ease your Jotunar’s search for the remaining Treasures.”

  “Because you have given him none.”

  “He has opened the bridges.”

  “Erratically. And for Freya as well as for me.”

  “It must please you to know that Freya cannot manage it herself, though she surely takes credit for it.” Dainn leaned forward slightly, as if he were warming to the conversation. “I believe that this is a case of Danny’s power working indiscriminately. It is a game to him. When he summoned me to help him retrieve Sleipnir on the steppes, he was not acting on your enemy’s behalf. He was aware of his brother for reasons we do not understand, but he had no comprehension of the nature of this war, or its consequences. He seems to have forgotten everything that occurred before he returned from the steppes.”

  “Then why haven’t you convinced him to play more of these ‘games,’ if that is how he perceives them?”

  “Because his mind is far more powerful and delicate than you can imagine. He may not be capable of making complex moral judgments as yet, but this will cease to be a game if he begins to truly grasp what you are asking of him, and why.”

  “And you’ll be sure to tell him that what I ask of him is wrong. Immoral.”

  “You continue to overestimate my influence on him. He still spends much of his time barely conscious of his surroundings.”

  Dainn glanced at the monitor, and Loki followed his gaze. Danny was sitting cross-legged on the bed, his seemingly ten-year-old face as expressionless as his father’s, his wiry body rocking to a rhythm only he could hear. His nurse, Miss Jones, was temporarily away, but Loki knew that his manner seldom changed even when she was in the room with him.

  “For most of the time I spend with him, he is as you see,” Dainn said, echoing Loki’s thoughts. “I have told you many times that Danny is not a tool to be manipulated like your other servants. He is still only half in this world, but if you push him, he may shatter.”

  Shifting in his chair, Loki scowled. “I know that you have a bond with him that I do not, and that was precisely the reason you were given charge of him. But he is not as disconnected from the world as you seem to believe. He can take images from our minds and create manifestations capable of acting as living beings. Yet he has not raised even a single one of the simple incarnations I have requested. Is that, too, a game you have failed to play?”

  “All the shadows he raised in the past were familiar to you, or to me. These mortals you wish him to duplicate for your political machinations are hardly real to you.”

  “If that is the difficulty, I must simply take you to meet them. Given your affection for mortalkind, you will find them real enough.”

  Raw emotion flashed across Dainn’s face, but Loki was unable to interpret it. Hope that he might find a chance to escape? Fear that Loki’s suggestion might finally enable Danny to do what Loki wished?

  “Why don’t you just admit that you have attempted to convince him to spirit you both away,” Loki said, “perhaps even to the camp of my enemies?” He smiled. “Oh, but that would hardly be wise … unless you wanted him dead.”

  Dainn didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. He had been the one to tell Loki that Freya had intended to kill Danny on the steppes.

  Loki remembered Freya’s first meeting with Danny. He and Loki had been searching for a way out of the Jotunheim Shadow-Realm, and had encountered Freya engaged in the same activity. Even then, she had sensed what Danny might become.

  “Perhaps you believe Mist would protect him,” Loki said. “Apparently she has some affection for him. But as I recall, you said that she defended Danny against one of Freya’s elves, not the Lady herself.” He tipped his snifter to
examine the last drops of liquor gleaming against the crystalline amber beads. “Odd, that. Mist would never believe that one of Freya’s Alfar would try to harm him.”

  “Clearly, Freya has some Alfar who are willing to obey her without question. Mist simply assumed that her opponent was a Jotunn posing as an elf. She never realized that Freya meant to—” He broke off, clearly unable to finish the sentence.

  Loki signaled for another refill and dismissed Nicholas. “You say that Danny doesn’t remember her, or Freya. But what of the beast?”

  The muscles in Dainn’s jaws tightened. “He never saw it.”

  “Never? My Jotunar reported having seen it fighting at Mist’s side at the portal.”

  His words clearly came as a shock to Dainn, but then Loki hadn’t been entirely forthcoming about what his men had witnessed on the steppes.

  “Danny was with Hild and Sleipnir then,” Dainn protested, a little paler than he’d been a few moments before.

  Loki set down his glass with great care and rose to stand over Dainn’s chair. “Tell me,” he said, “would you attempt to kill me now if the beast was loose?”

  “You would destroy those I would protect, as well as mortal civilization.”

  “You truly believe that my dominion over this world will be worse than that of the Aesir, but I don’t intend to rule as some sort of dictator once my experiment with this city is complete. There will be but one law. Every man for himself. Survival of the fittest. True, unfettered liberty.”

  “Chaos.”

  “Naturally.”

  “And then you will appear as the savior, to rescue mankind from itself.”

  “I certainly have no intention of allowing the species to become extinct. Mortals are far too amusing.”

  “Yet you claim this is a better fate than what the Aesir will bring?”

  “The Aesir will rule Midgard with no more regard for its inhabitants than I. This Earth will become a new Asgard, with a population of properly subservient menials to cater to Odin’s bottomless lust for veneration. That is, of course, if Freya allows it.”