“I know who I am.” Val’s voice was low and menacing. “I know what I am. I’m not in denial. I am not grasping at straws.”

“That sword is no straw,” Grim said.

Val shrugged. “You’ve lived a long time in Thor and Magni’s shadows. You’ve never had a taste of real power. The sword is your chance. I get it. Doesn’t mean I accept it.”

Grim rose up to his full height and clenched his fists at his sides. “And does it gall you to live in Baldur’s shadow? Solina, has Val told you that he grew to full adulthood within one day of his birth? He was birthed solely for the purpose of killing poor, blind Hodr as revenge for his part in killing Baldur.

“You served your purpose, Vali Odinson. You killed Hodr and fulfilled your father’s need for revenge, but Baldur is resurrected, now. His restoration negates any reason for your continued existence, yet you are bound to serve him for eternity, knowing he’s weak and addled and obsessed. How you must detest him, and yet you still call him Allfather.”

“So you both have inferiority complexes,” I said, ending Grim’s tirade.

Val’s face had turned a frightening shade of fuchsia, and he clenched his knuckles so fiercely that I wondered how the bones didn’t break through his skin.

“Work it out at your next Aesir Anonymous meeting. In the meantime, we’re getting nowhere.” I rose to my feet. “Let’s get out of here, Val. Like he said, he doesn’t keep the sword here, and he’s not going to tell us where it is. And I don’t know what else to do unless you want to resort to torture tactics.”

Val flashed a fiendish grin, and the cold menace in his voice made me shiver when he said, “I am not opposed to torture.”

I took Val’s hand and placed my palm on his face, forcing him to look at me. “Maybe some other time. It can be our last resort. But please, before there is blood, let’s go.”

Val stared into me, and I saw the gears turning inside him as he fought to reestablish his self-control.

Finally, he swallowed and nodded. He pulled away from my touch and turned his back to Grim. “Fine. Let’s get out of here before I change my mind.”

Chapter Twenty-two

“Well that was pointless,” Val said as we left campus and headed toward the bed and breakfast. His hard, angry footsteps radiated his fury.

The things Grim had said were horrible, but I might have dismissed them if not for Val’s visceral reaction and if I hadn’t read something similar about Val when I had researched Aesir legends during my downtime in San Diego. I could distance myself from those ancient events when I saw them only as inanimate words on sterile paper or computer screens. The Aesir’s experiences were fairy-tales of long ago, but Val’s anger drew the past forward, made the legends real, and made me sympathize with him rather than dismissing him as a fictional character whose pain disappeared the moment I closed my book.

If Grim’s words and the legends I had read were true, then they explained a lot about Val’s loutish tendencies. A son born solely to be used as a weapon of revenge… that couldn’t be good for anyone’s emotional health. Val was accustomed to being used, so perhaps using others was what he understood best.

“But it’s not surprising,” Val said. “I never thought we’d get that sword from Grim with a please-and-thank-you attitude anyway.”

“The point of that meeting was not necessarily to recover the sword,” I said.

Val balked. “It wasn’t?”

“No. It was politics and mind games—planting seeds of doubt that will encourage Grim to look over his shoulder, question his next move. If we keep the pressure on him, keep watching him, he’ll eventually make a mistake. We can’t give up yet. Besides, I’ve got a few more ideas up my sleeve.”

Val arched an eyebrow and grinned. “Oh yeah?”

We stopped beside the Yukon, and I motioned to the passenger door. “Get in the truck.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

I slid behind the wheel, buckled in, and pulled away from the curb. Then I entered an address into the Yukon’s GPS and followed the map it drew for me. After a few short twists and turns through town, I stopped us again on a residential street lined in old, turn-of-the-century homes. I pointed at a green two-story craftsman perched at the top of a steep driveway several houses down from where we had parked. “Grim’s house.”

“Totally college professor.” Val studied the house. “How did you know where he lived?”

“Got the address from Hugh.”

“Hugh? You told him what you were up to before you told me?”

I shrugged. “He had Grim’s info in the store’s contact list.”

Val scowled. Then he blinked and shrugged. “You think the sword is hanging over Grim’s mantle or something?”

“No. But maybe there’s something. A hint. A clue.”

“What are you going to do if Tori’s there?” Val asked.

“If the idea is to force them into action of some sort, then confronting her could be a good thing. If she runs, we’ll follow. She won’t leave without the sword.”

“And what if she stands her ground?”

“Then I guess we should be prepared to fight.”

Val exhaled a noisy breath, put on his best Scooby Doo voice, and said, “Rokay, Raggy. Ret’s go have a rook.”

Val and I climbed the empty driveway and circled around behind the house. I jiggled the handle at the back door. “It’s locked, and there’s no car. I think no one’s home.”

Val leaned forward and peered through the door’s windows. Then my ears popped, and he disappeared. He reappeared in an instant, grinning at me from the other side of the door. He swung it open and bowed for me as I stepped over the threshold into a designer kitchen decorated in the latest fashion. Too new, too clean, too showroom perfect—the only thing suggesting anyone lived there was a faint odor of stale coffee and a dirty mug in the sink. A worn pair of women’s sneakers rested against the baseboard beside the kitchen door.

“Tori’s?” I asked, pointing at the shoes.

Val’s head bobbed in agreement. “Doubt those would fit Grim. Purple isn’t really his color.”

“What about an alarm?” I asked. “Should we hurry?”

Val pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow. “Do you think we call the cops? Do we want the law digging into our affairs?”

“Um, no?”

“I’ll bet you Grim doesn’t keep anything of value here, anyway. This is just for appearances. If anyone stole anything, he’d just buy a replacement.”

“There’s probably not much chance we’ll find anything useful here, is there?”

“Leave no stone unturned.” Val tugged me farther into the house.

A quick perusal of the downstairs revealed nothing, and only Grim’s office looked regularly used. We searched desk drawers, a filing cabinet, and bookcases. When we found no map with an X marking the sword’s location, no hastily scribbled note saying, “Don’t forget to pick up Surtalogi from the dry-cleaner,” no verbose ghosts or glowing arrows pointing us in likely locations, Val herded me up the stairs to investigate the second floor.

Hotels and model homes had a more lived-in appearance than Grim’s house.

“It really is for show,” I said, standing in the middle of the master bedroom. “And not a very good one. Who would believe he actually lived here?”

We found no laundry, no personal effects on the nightstand by his side of the bed, and the furnishings looked as though they had come fresh from a photo shoot for middle-class interior decorating.