“You know how this works,” I called back to him. “Information first. Then I make a decision based on whether or not you make a good point. That’s generally how it works in my world. It’s called courtesy and respect, and it’s kind of nice. You should try it some time.”
Thorin walked into the room and made a theatrical display of arranging his features and posture into a pleasant, harmless expression. He batted his eyelashes and said, in a syrupy sweet tone that conflicted with his deep rumble, “Miss Mundy, may I request the pleasure of your company on a trip to Las Vegas where I expect to locate Helen Locke again? I have questions that didn’t get answered last time we met, and I’m not going to sit around, waiting for her to make the next move. I also am not willing to leave you here without my protection.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I said. “Can Skyla come with?”
I sensed more than heard Thorin’s groan. “Call her. If she can be here in fifteen minutes, she can go.”
“How do I pack? I don’t have clothes for Vegas.”
“You can use my credit card when we get there.”
I raised an eyebrow and glanced at Val. “Vegas, huh?”
Val smiled, but it lacked sincerity. “Sin city. My kind of place.”
Ten minutes later Skyla was at the apartment with her bags packed and ready to go.
“How did you do that?” I asked, watching her load her duffle into the back of Thorin’s Range Rover.
“Marine, remember? I’m always prepared.”
“I thought that was a Boy Scout thing.”
Skyla’s lips twitched. “I was one of those, too.”
“A Girl Scout, you mean?”
“No, a Boy Scout. My mother was pack leader for my brother, and I threw a hissy fit when they tried to keep me out and make me wear those stupid green uniforms like the other girls. Mom gave in and let me do pack stuff with the boys, but it was mostly unofficial.”
I shook my head. “Why does that not surprise me?”
I dreaded the thought of riding crammed together all the way from Alaska to Nevada, but Thorin assured us we were only going as far as Anchorage. From there he had chartered a private flight. Private planes were not for people like me. They were for celebrities, politicians, and millionaires. And immortal gods, apparently.
“Val?” I said as he slid in beside me on the bench seat in the back of Thorin’s SUV. Skyla sat on my other side; I got the “hump” seat like a little kid. “Why do you live like a college rat with Hugh and Joe? Couldn’t you have a place of your own?”
Something serious and unpleasant darkened Val’s mood. “I’ve lived in palaces. It wasn’t all that great.”
I turned to Skyla to get her reaction. Her eyes were huge and her mouth had fallen slightly open, but she wouldn’t deign to have a civilized conversation with Val if she could help it.
Val’s voice dropped so only I could hear him. “And I’ve spent more years alone than I ever care to count.”
I cursed myself for being a sucker for emotional vulnerability, but Val probably knew that and had used it to his benefit more than once. But if he could exploit my weaknesses, then it was only fair for me to do the same to him in return. In the time I had known him, Val demonstrated only a few weaknesses, susceptibilities—the biggest one being his libido. I had almost no experience with seduction, but even my limited knowledge suggested it didn’t take much: a little persuasion and the right set of body parts.
I shook my head, tossing off Val’s spell and my own cynicism, and met Thorin’s eyes in the rearview mirror. They were browner today. The rage that had filled them the night before had receded, and he kept his feelings carefully masked. Thorin held my gaze until he had to look away to check his steering. A moment later the radio came on, tuned to a rock station that drowned out the road noise.
“What do you know of this Baldur guy?” I whispered to Skyla. “He shows up and we go running off on Mission Impossible to recover his wife. Are we nuts?”
“He’s one of the good guys,” Skyla said. “If such a thing exists in their world.”
“Where has he been all this time? Val said last night he’s been gone for eons.”
“How should I know? He lived in some godly realm in the old days, but I’m not sure that place exists anymore. Baldur was supposed to be the new Odin, the Allfather, but I think the independence and individuality of humanity and the advent of Christianity left the old gods pretty much obsolete. They’ve sort of faded into the background.”
“Except someone is trying to change that,” I said as the logic of Skyla’s theories sank in. “Someone doesn’t want to be so obsolete anymore.”
“Someone who does not want to quietly fade into obscurity,” Baldur said as he peered around the edge of his seat, a sad smile upon his exquisite face. My breath seized for a moment as I was overwhelmed by his extreme etherealness. By comparison, the patina of godhood had diminished on Thorin—and Val especially—maybe because they spent so much time immersed in the human world. “The ladies’ theories are sound,” Baldur said. “The world is forgetting us, our powers are mere whispers, but we do not die—we cannot.”
Val grumbled under his breath. “Some of us accept that more willingly than others.”
Baldur heard him anyway. “You speak truth, brother. I am afraid I have been far too willing to surrender to the inertia of a long-lived life.”
“But maybe Helen isn’t?” I asked.
“Helen doesn’t go gentle into anything,” Val said, sounding appreciative.
I curled my fingers into a fist but resisted the urge to punch him. “But if she killed my brother, and then me, will that necessarily bring around another apocalypse?”
“Assuming Helen is behind this,” Thorin said, “she can only plan based on what happened last time. If it worked before, it might work again.”
“But why? What does it gain her?”
“Think about it,” Skyla said. “No one worships Norse gods anymore.” She shrugged in apology for her apathy. “They’re hiding out in obscurity in a small town in Alaska. Or they’re trying to make a way for themselves in the corporate world built by humans. How much resentment must she harbor for having to abide by men’s rules when she used to be one of the world’s original architects? In fact, I suspect you are all harboring a bit of repressed hostility.”
Val grunted. “Not so repressed.”
Skyla nodded as if Val’s response validated her hypothesis. “What would a second apocalypse do? Wipe the slate clean. Let her start over. This time she could make the world any way she wanted.”
