To Las Vegas Boulevard it is.
I scampered down the hotel’s access road, sticking close to the darkest shadows of a building. Cars rolled past me, oblivious or simply uninterested. My heel protested louder, and I skip-hopped on tiptoe, limping forward until I reached the sidewalk.
A group of casually dressed sightseers crossed in front of me. A few noticed me and turned around as if to inquire about my situation, possibly even ask if I needed help. Or maybe they simply wanted to ridicule my strange and bedraggled appearance.
“Um, ma’am?” said one of the young men. I guessed he was Southern by his accent, inclined to help a woman in distress by his upbringing, and an Atlanta Braves fan by the logo on his ball cap. Bless his heart.
I interrupted him before he could finish his thought. “Did you see a wolf come from this direction?”
He frowned and recoiled. “A wolf?”
“Or a large dog that looked like a wolf?”
“Is that what happened to you?” asked a young woman standing beside the Braves fan. She studied my disheveled appearance. “You get attacked by a dog or something?”
“Did you see it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nope. No dogs. Or wolves.”
“How about a naked man?”
She cut her eyes to the Braves fan. “Saw him naked this morning. Does that count?”
Despite my anxiety, I smiled. “No, but good for you.”
She smiled back. “Yes, it was pretty good for me.”
“You sure you’re all right?” asked the Braves fan, whose cheeks had flushed a deep shade of pink.
Really? Blushing? I thought that was illegal in Vegas.
“I will be,” I assured him and pushed past the group so I could peer down the sidewalk. A scream rose above the traffic noise. The tourists and I turned toward the outcry.
“There goes your dog,” said my blushing knight-in-dingy-baseball-cap. He pointed at a shaggy, four-legged figure, crossing Las Vegas Boulevard among a crowd of pedestrians. A few had stopped and pointed at the lupine figure dashing toward the sidewalk on the highway’s opposite side.
Someone else saw him and screamed. Terror spread, and people dodged aside, making way for the wild beast. I took off after him, following not by sight but by the shouts and parting waves of people. As if sensing my presence, the wolf slowed and stopped under a streetlight. He turned and looked back at me.
He’s not red. That’s what’s different. He’s browner, tawny colored. What the hell? But if the wolf wasn’t Skoll, who was he? An answer flared in the depths of my mind, but I shoved it away. Acknowledging that possibility was too painful.
The wolf huffed, put his head down, and trotted forward again. Barefoot, half naked, nearly bankrupt of superpowers, and exhausted from fighting mythological creatures, I should have let the wolf go. If I’d had an ounce of sense, I would have returned to Thorin’s side. In my imagination, I heard him and Skyla screaming at me, begging me not to do this. I shut those voices out.
If the wolf veered off into an unpopulated area or tried to lead me into an enclosed area, I would go back, but until then, I’d follow him through the crowds. I needed to find out who he was and what he wanted with me.
No, not me. Thorin. Before I had intervened, the wolf’s attention had been focused on Thorin. If that wolf is who I think he is, his interest in Thorin over me would make sense.
The people around us had stopped screaming. Those who’d parted to allow the wolf’s progress stared back and forth between us, probably wondering if they’d happened upon a reality TV show filming live on location or maybe a shocking new street-magician performance. I had Hollywood to thank for creating a culture in which the average Joe accepted special effects trickery as an explanation for paranormal activity. In fact, several people had pulled out cell phones to record the encounter.
Someone stepped out of the crowd beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Solina.”
I flinched and spun around to face a man I hadn’t expected to see but was rather glad to have at my side. “Baldur? Where did you come from?”
“Thorin called. He told me which way you had gone, and you weren’t hard to follow. What do you think you’re doing out here on your own?”
I turned to the wolf, but he was gone. I stumbled forward, intending to run after him, but Baldur drew me back. “Come with me. Help me... please?” I tugged on him, urging him to follow me. The stern expression on his face softened. “Please?”
“You’re in no state to be chasing wolves.” He frowned at me, but then he glanced down at the sidewalk as if searching for the wolf. “Go back to the hotel, and help Thorin. You need to get him out before Helen sends reinforcements or the mortal authorities arrive. Call the Valkyries; tell them what happened. I’ll see if I can track down this wolf. I’ll catch up with you again in a little while.”
My ears popped, and Baldur vanished before I could say anything. If people around me noticed Baldur’s disappearance, they kept it to themselves. When the wolf had moved on, so did their attention. A few curious types glanced at my disheveled appearance, but when I turned on my heel and limped to the hotel, most avoided eye contact and pretended not to see me.
When I reached the hotel room, I found Thorin in the same place I’d left him, sitting near the patio doorway in a puddle of blood and broken glass, keeping the company of several shattered stone men and one badly charred human—still breathing, but for how long? I gulped and looked away, not allowing myself to contemplate my own guilt or moral failings.
Kill or be killed. That’s the world I live in now. Maybe that was the world Sol had always lived in. And Thorin lived there, too. Maybe it was time to cut him some slack.
I stepped over broken glass, found a pair of jeans, and slid them on. I shoved my feet into a pair of Adidas slides I found by the side of the bed—Skyla’s, I presumed. Then I knelt beside the bruised and beaten God of Thunder.
He peeled open his eyes and peered at me. A flurry of expressions passed over his face: relief, anger, pain. “Baldur says I need to get you out of here,” I said. “I tend to agree. Who knows what’s coming for us next?”
“Where is Baldur?”
“Chasing that wolf. He said he’d catch up with us later.”
“That wasn’t Skoll.”
“I know.” Neither of us seemed to want to explore the wolf’s identity.
He shook his head and closed his eyes. His head fell back against the wall. “We’ll let Baldur deal with it. You and I need to get moving.”
“What about—” I stopped and swallowed. “What about Amala? Is she... “
