“Depends on your method of conveyance.” Thorin routed us through the store to the street entrance, rather than out back, to where he parked his Land Rover.
“And we’re being conveyed by…”
“Boat.”
“Whose boat?”
Thorin gave me an incredulous look. “My boat, of course.” Which explained the need for insulated clothing.
Nighttime water travel would be frigid, and I quailed at thought of being trapped on a boat with Thorin for—“How long did you say this would take?”
“We’ll be there by morning.”
Thorin and I stepped out onto the street, and he led the way toward the marina where Skyla stored her kayak. At the docks, Thorin strode toward the end of the first row of boats, and I followed behind more slowly. The boats increased in size as we went, from recreational inshore fishing skiffs to deep-sea vessels. Thorin stopped before a big one, a Viking – I tried not to snicker – with the word Mjölnir painted in bold print across the back and sides.
All night, on a boat, with a virtual stranger—my nerves protested. “Who are we going to see and how are they going to help us?”
“I didn’t say they were going to help us.” Thorin stepped onto a deck attached to the boat’s rear end and climbed steps leading to the dark interior. The boat’s massive engine roared to life a moment later, and a thrill raced through me. Okay… this could be fun.
I climbed up into the boat – yacht – and surveyed the plush interior. “If these people aren’t going to help, then why are we talking to them?”
Thorin returned to the dock and unfastened the mooring lines. “I didn’t say we were going to talk, either.”
I gave a frustrated growl. “Why do all your answers have to be cryptic and evasive?”
Thorin glanced over his shoulder as he fiddled with a knot. He smiled and arched an eyebrow. “It gives me a mysterious allure, don’t you think?”
“It’s annoying.”
Thorin worked with the ropes, and the muscles of his shoulders and arms bunched and flexed as he stowed things, making ready to leave. Surety and grace shaped every movement—not like a dancer, but like someone who knew the full capacity of his body and spent time honing and perfecting it—a fighter, a soldier, or cheesy as it sounded, a warrior.
Val had a strong physical presence, too, and could undoubtedly hold his own in a fight, but I’d never call him a warrior. He lacked the impression of suppressed violence that seemed to hang around Thorin. If Val’s and Thorin’s employee/employer relationship was the farce I had come to suspect it was, then I wondered if Thorin’s aura of power was the reason Val deferred to him, albeit begrudgingly.
In place at the command center, Thorin engaged the throttle and eased the boat from its slip, demonstrating the finesse of an expert sailor. “Make yourself at home,” he said, motioning to the living space stretched out behind the helm. “The bar is stocked.”
“Tea?” I asked.
“Look in the cabinet beside the refrigerator.”
The galley was nicer than most household kitchens. Granite countertops, stainless steel, Sub Zero fridge and wine chiller, and – wouldn’t you know it—custom Viking appliances.
“You’re not very subtle,” I said, finding boxes of tea, cocoa, and dehydrated apple cider mix. I selected a bag from a box of oolong and went to the sink to fill the tea kettle.
“What do you mean?” Thorin asked.
“Viking yacht, Viking kitchen appliances…”
“Can I help that the Scandinavians know how to make quality products?”
“I’m just saying you might be straying into the territory of cliché.”
Thorin tapped a series of buttons on the control panel. Then he left the helm and came into the galley. He pulled out a stool at the bar table and noticed my worried glance toward the unmanned wheel. “Autopilot,” he said.
“You still haven’t answered any of my questions,” I said, digging through the cabinets for sweetener and powdered creamer.
“Thirty-three thirty-six, the Giants, and Johnny Walker Gold, straight up.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t care about your pants size, who you think will win the World Series, or your favorite drink. I meant you haven’t explained who we are going to see in Juneau, or what they have to do with the wolf attacks and Mani’s death.”
“You don’t care who wins the World Series? How un-American of you.”
I arched an eyebrow and waited for his reply.
Thorin put on a serious face to match mine. “You feel certain the wolf attacks on you and Mani aren’t coincidence?”
“How could they be? I’d have a better chance of winning the lottery. Twice.”
“And you believe this because of your dream?”
Thorin was still avoiding my question, but I would try the give-and-take thing and see if diplomacy influenced him. The teapot whistled. I poured the hot water into a mug, passed it to Thorin, and poured one for myself. “Because of my dream and what Skyla said, yes.”
Thorin clutched the mug in his big hand, dwarfing it, and dunked another bag of oolong into it. “Tell me about it.”
I did, even the part about the mystic words uttered by the killer during Mani’s final moments. “It goes with what Skyla was saying. If Mani was the moon, and I am the sun, then who is the beast, and who are the gods?” I had a guess about the gods part, but no idea about the validity of my guess.
So what if I lit up like a Hollywood spotlight? I mean, that was a lame power among the pantheon of superheroes. It would barely rank me as a sidekick. But if Thorin and Val were connected to this situation, what kind of godly powers were they supposed to possess? Male sex appeal? They had libido in bucket loads and could probably flatten a room full of hormonal women with a single wink, but I didn’t think that’s what Mani’s killer meant. “You said the apocalypse already happened, so what do they hope to accomplish now?”
Thorin braced his coffee mug on the counter. “In the legend, the wolves were simply agents of Chaos and the forces of evil. They were little more than puppets fulfilling their masters’ wishes. I expect something similar is happening this time around. Adam Skoll and Harold Hati are small-time hoodlums.”
