Thorin shifted and made a sound in his throat. Irritation? Acknowledgement?

“What is it?” I asked.

“If she’s right, those containers could be miles from here by now. They could be anywhere.”

“All we can do is follow the trail. And hope for another lead.”

“How far is Portland from here?” Skyla raised her voice for Feryal’s benefit.

“Seven hours,” Feryal said from her seat in the truck cab. “Give or take.”

“If we leave now, we’ll be there by sunup,” Embla said.

Skyla groaned beside me. “I’m getting sores on my ass from all the riding.”

I bumped my elbow against her ribs, a playful shove. “You got some fighting action.” I waved at the piles of stone. “A little exercise to brighten your day.”

“What, this?” She scowled. “This is nothing. I didn’t even break a sweat.”

“Just think, though, there’s hundreds more out there somewhere, waiting for you. The sooner you find ’em, the sooner you break ’em.”

“You gonna ride with us? We’ve got an extra seat in my truck.” Skyla motioned to the row of black SUVs parked at the shoulder along the front of Finney’s Roadside Retreat. Riding in the SUV was tempting compared to the seasick sensations of travelling with Thorin. The comfort of female camaraderie also appealed to me, especially after I had been away from it for so long.

As if reading my thoughts, Thorin stepped closer to my side. I heard his teeth grinding. But if he could read my thoughts, I could read his too, and he was right. We couldn’t afford to waste the time.

“No.” I exhaled the word on a sigh. “Chances are, if Helen shipped those containers out, they’re probably long gone. But either way, we have to go ahead while there’s a chance the trail’s still warm.”

Skyla nodded and watched as the Valkyries dispersed, heading for their convoy. “We’ll meet up again tomorrow, first thing. Pay attention, Blondie. I want a full report.” She raised her eyes to Thorin. “Keep her safe, Boss Man.”

He merely arched an eyebrow in reply.

She threw her hand to her brow in a lazy salute. Then she turned on her heel and marched toward her SUV.

Thorin slipped a hand around my shoulder, preparing to draw me in and make the jump to Portland, but I stepped out of his grasp. “Wait. Don’t you find it a little odd that Embla was so easily satisfied with Kowalski’s answer?” I snapped my fingers. “Just like that, she’s ready to roll out to Portland.”

He tilted his head like a curious dog. “But, Sunshine, navi-systems don’t lie.” His tone suggested he was playing the devil’s advocate rather than arguing.

I turned and started toward Kowalski’s room. “You’re right. They say exactly what their programmer tells them to say.”

“And the programmer is quite capable of lying.” Thorin’s heavy footsteps echoed off the pavement behind me. In the dying light, the parking lot seemed extra quiet, extra empty. “You think Helen planted Kowalski on purpose? Had him feed us a bogus lead?”

“I think we need to find out for sure, either way.”

“How are you going to make him talk? You don’t have the Valkyries’ runes or the authority to use them if you did.”

I stopped, looked over my shoulder at him, and smiled. “Then we’ll have to play good cop, bad cop. Guess which one you get to be.”

Chapter 10

After we put Andy Kowalski to the test—Mjölnir in the fist of a thunder god could be mighty persuasive—he had admitted someone—a nameless, nondescript man—had paid him to exit the truck convoy and find an out-of-the-way place to hang out. The truck driver insisted he knew nothing more than that, and I was inclined to believe him. Helen had planted Kowalski there for us to find—a big, fat red herring. Why Embla and the Valkyries hadn’t pressed Kowalski further posed an even more problematic question. Why were they so eager to swallow Helen’s hook?

Satisfied with the results of our interrogation, Thorin and I set our sights on Portland. He whipped us away on another whirlwind journey, and we set down in Port of Portland’s dark parking lot adjacent to the commercial shipping terminals at the edge of the Columbia River. A frigid breeze blew in off the water, gathering my hair and twirling it around my face, poking chilly tendrils down the neck of my hoodie. The wind caught and dispersed diesel fumes and the faintly fishy, mildew, sour-milk odor of the river water that had collected in the crevices around the docks.

Thorin’s huge frame shielded me from the worst of the breeze, and despite the way the air currents tossed his own hair about, he seemed oblivious to the weather.

“Is imperviousness to the elements another one of your superpowers?”

“I’m aware of the cold.” A small smile curled at the corner of his mouth. “It simply doesn’t bother me.”

I turned my attention to the shipping terminal and studied the scene. “I don’t see any golems hanging around waiting for someone to give them a lift.”

He stared across the parking lot. “This once, I hoped we might get a break, that it might be that easy.”

“It’s a shame Kowalski was so useless. I can’t help feeling this is going to be a huge waste of time. We’re going to find out Helen’s already shipped these things to Russia or something. Wait and see.”

The Savannah, the only ship in port, loomed before us, a hulking feat of maritime engineering, and it more closely resembled a cityscape than an ocean vessel. Stacks of shipping containers rose from the deck like multicolored high-rise buildings, and the control tower housing the captain and crew loomed above it all like some nautical Empire State Building.

The Savannah floated next to a massive crane, an iron assemblage of beams and posts arranged in a way that formed a skeletal camel or one of those Imperial AT-AT walkers from Star Wars. An eighteen wheeler pulled up beneath the crane’s belly. The machine extended a long, ropy tongue and latched onto the truck’s cargo, a white metal container the same size and shape as the hundreds of others already loaded aboard the Savannah. The tongue retracted, hoisting the container up and forward along its belly and neck. When the container reached the end of its track, the crane’s cable extended again and deposited the box on the ship’s deck like a dog setting a newspaper at its owner’s feet.

“Do you think any of those containers belong to Helen?” I asked, although I doubted it.

“We’d be very, very lucky if they are.”

“What are we waiting for?”

The orange glow of the parking lot lights illuminated Thorin as he winked. “A sign from God.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes as he cinched his arms around me. My ears popped, and in a blink, we had moved from the Port of Portland parking lot into the shadows at the base of the tower housing the Savannah’s control center. Crew members in hard hats bustled about the ship’s deck, but the darkness kept us camouflaged.

“There must be thousands of those containers on this ship,” I whispered. “Where do we start?”

Thorin’s body heat radiated beside me, but the shadows concealed his expression and gestures. “Start with the closest one.” He stepped into the spotlights affixed to the ship’s towering bridge and motioned for me to follow. “Stay close. I don’t want to have to find you if we need to make an emergency exit.”

A rust-red container formed the foundation of the nearest stack. Thorin tugged the door latch, but the mechanism resisted. He motioned to a panel attached over the seam between the container’s two doors. “Locked. But not for long.”

He reached beneath the panel, and after a brief metallic crunch that sounded like the wadding of industrial-strength aluminum foil, the remnants of the padlock crumbled to the floor at our feet. “What grand prize is waiting for us behind door number one?” He tugged the latch again.

The door swung open on squeaky hinges, and I gritted my teeth. The squeal sounded like the trumpeting of alarms, but the rumble of the crane and the ship’s engines had probably drowned out the worst of it. When none of the ship’s workers came to investigate, I let out my pent-up breath.

“Tell us what they’ve won, Bob.” I waved, mimicking a game show host. Stepping forward, I raised my hand, allowing a soft glow to fill my palm and illuminate the scene. “A lifetime supply of...” I stooped and read the words stamped on the sides of the barrels packed inside the crate. “Soda ash. Hooray.”

Thorin grunted and shoved the door into place. “You ready for the next one?”

I eyed the countless stacks of containers. Hopelessness accumulated inside me like hourglass sand, abrasive and suffocating. “This could take all night.”

“It could, but we’ll do this in fast-forward mode and have it done before we know it.” He threw his arms around me. My ears popped, and we teleported to the ship’s far end, to an area fully stocked, loaded, and free from potential observation. We worked like a machine, utilizing my light and his strength and unnatural ability to cut through space. By the time the crane had shut down and the last box had settled into place, we had searched most of the ship, leaving a trail of crushed padlocks in our wake.

I’d hate to be the one who has to explain that in the morning.