“So what does he want? He must expect us to come looking for—”
Thorin’s phone rang. He tugged it from his pocket, read the caller ID, and brushed his thumb over the screen. He laid the phone on the table. “What’s the news, Ramirez?”
Skyla’s anxious voice projected from the speaker. “Boss Man, what the hell happened?”
“Where are you?”
“Outside the Bellestrella. I got Solina’s voicemail. We came back to see what we could do about Amala, but the police are already swarming the place. Embla is talking to someone official. You stirred up a shit storm.”
“Not us,” I said. But why? What’s Val up to now?
“You know what I mean,” Skyla said.
“Tell us about the warehouses,” Thorin said. “What did you find?”
“The guards and the golems you saw were decoys. The containers were all empty.”
He swore and pounded a fist on the table. The sensation of holding my breath and being on the verge of suffocation returned. I fell against my pillows and covered my eyes. One break. Just one break, it’s all I ask for.
“We questioned one of the guards,” Skyla said. “Embla, uh, ensured he was telling the truth.”
“More rune carving?” I asked.
“Yes. He said the contents of the containers were moved a couple days ago.”
“Where’d they go?” Thorin asked.
“He didn’t know, and considering the conditions of his interrogation, we were inclined to believe him. He said a bunch of eighteen wheelers showed up. They transferred the cargo, and the trucks left.” Skyla inhaled a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “But we have a working theory about where she may have taken them. It’s not great, but it’s something.”
“Not great is certainly better than nothing,” Baldur said. “What’s your guess?”
“Okay, Hela used the spirits of the dead at a final battle which took place... where?”
“On Vigrid’s plain,” Thorin said. “It’s also called Oskopnir.”
“Vigrid is the place where the Aesir fought Hela, Loki, and everyone else,” Skyla said. “Legend said it measured a hundred miles each way. The hundred miles is considered to be a phrase generally indicating a vast distance—sort of like how forty days and forty nights meant a really long time in the Bible.”
“Seemed a pretty accurate measurement at the time.” Thorin rose from his seat and paced the open space between the table in the bathroom door. “But Vigrid existed in Asgard. That’s going to be a problem for Helen if she’s sticking to history.”
“But what is the literal translation of Vigrid?” Skyla asked.
“Battle-surge,” Baldur said. “Or a place on which battle surges. And Oskopnir means the not yet created or not made.”
“If we’re being literal,” Skyla said, “then Vigrid can be any place where the battle will surge, and it may even be a place that is not yet created but will exist when Helen names it and sets the battle there.”
I rubbed my face and shook my head. “If I’d had a full night of sleep, I might be able to process the meaning of what you just said.”
“All I said was that Vigrid is a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Nope. I’m sure you said a lot more than that.”
“That is a wonderful theory.” Sarcasm saturated Thorin’s tone. “But you can’t plot the not-yet-created-battle-surge on a map, can you, Skyla?”
“Don’t get your undies in a wad, Boss Man. I’m not finished. That guard gave us one more useful bit of information before Embla, uh, eliminated him. The trucks all have GPS tracking. The guard said if we could find Helen’s tracking program, we might locate the trucks.”
He stopped pacing and folded his arms over his chest. “And?”
“We left some of our techie types at the warehouse office. They’re trying to hack into Helen’s network, but even if we find the tracking program, who knows if the GPS trackers are on or if the trucks made a delivery and moved on to somewhere else?”
A very dull light bulb clicked on over my head. I shifted and sat up on my knees. “You’ve got to see if the trucks travelled somewhere that might serve as a modern-day Vigrid. And if we’re lucky, the trucks might still be there like a giant flashing sign—future site of Vigrid’s Plain, coming soon.”
Skyla snorted. “Yes, something like that.”
“You got your work cut out for you. And in the meantime, we have a new wolf problem to solve.”
“You said something about that in your message. It didn’t make any sense.”
I told Skyla about the new wolf, about our fight, my chase, and Baldur’s discovery of Val’s involvement.
“I think we should get over to that house and see what Val’s up to,” she said.
Baldur leaned forward toward the phone. “I can meet you at the Bellestrella and show you the way.”
“Val will know if you’re coming for him,” I said. “It’s probably what he wants.”
“You’re probably right,” she said.
“Be careful.”
