Val’s tight grip on my knee jolted me awake. “C’mon Solina. We’re here.”
He shook my shoulder until I cracked an eyelid. The Yukon had stopped, the doors were open, and darkness had fallen outside, but the SUV’s bright interior light stung my eyes.
I grumbled, squeezed my eyes shut, and tried to ignore Val, but the aroma of coffee wafted through the air, and the powerful scent could have raised the dead. Against my will, I sat up. My body had gone zombie, and coffee was the braaains it craved. Val’s shadowed figure loomed in the Yukon’s doorway, but the interior lights shone like God’s heavenly light on the jumbo white cup in his hand.
“You want it?” He waved the cup before my face. “Come and get it.”
“Jerk,” I mumbled, but his enticement got me out of the Yukon, onto my feet, and shuffling in the right direction—a donkey chasing a carrot. My cognizance returned in bits and pieces, bringing awareness of my surroundings. “The Bellestrella?” I asked, recognizing the familiar neon lights. “Won’t Helen know we’re here?”
“We’re not staying,” Thorin said, startling me from behind.
I flinched and spilled searing hot coffee over my hand.
“We’re just swinging by to pick up Baldur.”
“Then what?” I asked and licked coffee from my burnt fingers.
Thorin stopped our group outside a door, presumably one leading to a villa like the one we had stayed in last time we were in Vegas. “I don’t know. Baldur said he would give us the details when we got here.”
Thorin knocked, and Baldur opened the door a moment later. As soon as he saw me, Baldur wrapped me in a hearty hug. He smelled fresh, like crocus blooms and cool spring mornings, but the images his touch inspired were nothing so pleasant. In a flash as brief as a blink, I saw a murky room that might have been a cavern, or it might have been a mansion. Stalagmites and stalactites stretched from floor to ceiling like cathedral columns intermingled among lush carpets and drapes and gilded furniture. At the end of the huge, open room, a woman sat on an elaborate throne carved from ivory—or is it bone?—and she looked like death incarnate. Hela?
The vision dissolved, and I shivered, but no one seemed to notice my discomfort. I refrained from mentioning what I had seen because it was irrelevant and possibly upsetting to Baldur, and people generally disliked knowing I could sometimes see into their heads. Besides, what I had seen was just a memory, something he already knew. Baldur chattered about how glad he was to see me and how happy he was that I was okay, but when the door closed behind us and we spread out around the living room, Baldur dropped the banter and dove into business.
“We’ll have to act fast, before this lead on Nina goes cold,” he said. “Helen’s holding her.”
“How do you know this?” Thorin asked.
“I’ve been working on getting to someone on the inside.”
“Who? How do you know this person can be trusted?”
“He’s an employee of Helen’s private security firm, and he’s greedy and lecherous. I greased his palm until he finally gave me some useful information. It’s all I’ve got, but I have to take it.”
“Does Helen know we have Solina back?” Thorin asked.
Baldur shook his head. “Not as far as I know.”
“She does know,” I said and told Baldur about Rolf Lockhart and his intentions of taking me to Helen. “Unless he was lying about his connections to Helen, and why would he do that?”
“I don’t know who he could be,” Baldur said. “Rolf is based on an old Germanic name, Hrolf, and the Old Norse Hrólfr. It’s a conjunction of Norse words meaning notorious wolf. But whether he means the name in a literal way or not…” He shrugged and held his hands out as if apologizing for not having any more information.
I huffed. “I find it hard to believe there are so many of you still roaming around out there that you could have lost track of someone. Didn’t Ragnarok make the Aesir an endangered species?”
Val sniggered but cut off his laugh when Baldur glared at him.
“He may not be Aesir,” Baldur said. “Some of the other realms escaped Ragnarok’s destruction. This mystery man of yours could be any one of Helen’s dozens of bastard cousins and kin.”
I blanched. “Sorry I asked.”
“It’s important we know these things. We must consider all possibilities when conceiving a plan.”
According to Baldur’s corrupt information source, Helen kept a woman held in secure locations and moved her on a regular basis to make her difficult to track. Helen had assigned Baldur’s informant to guard Nina during the next transfer, which explained how he knew any information worth selling. The possibility of it being a baited trap to bring in Baldur did not escape any of us.
“They’re transferring her tonight,” Baldur said. “They’re driving her from a holding in Vegas to some of Helen’s warehouses in Mojave County, over the Arizona border.”
The three amigos converged around the coffee table to study satellite images on Baldur’s laptop—what looked like warehouses, Helen’s, I presumed. I tiptoed out of the room and headed for the bathroom, intent on taking a lengthy and overdue shower.
The hot spray washed away hours of delirious travel, soothed my nerves, and went a long way toward restoring my good mood. A day of rest and a night of solid sleep might rid me of any remaining complaints, but I suspected I wouldn’t be that fortunate. Miles to go before I sleep…
I had just finished drying my hair when a knock rattled the bathroom door. Thorin’s deep voice carried through the thin barrier. “Let’s go, Sunshine.”
I set down the hair dryer and opened the door. “Not that I want anyone to suffer the likely inhumane treatment of Helen Locke’s hospitality, but I can’t see how going along with you on this rescue attempt is anything but a very bad risk.”
Thorin gestured, implying he wanted to come in. I moved aside, and he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.
“Any other day, I’d leave you here,” he said, “but I’ve got no idea what’s going down tonight or if we’ll be able to come back here. We might have to run for it. We can’t take the risk of being separated.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this. It’s like walking into the middle of the enemy’s camp.”
Thorin frowned. “Aren’t you the one who said we needed to be proactive? What if Helen’s there? Maybe this is our chance to end things.”
“Proactive means gathering information and making a plan. That’s not what this is. This is running in blind.”
Thorin’s eyes darkened, but not in anger. A muscle worked in his jaw. He scraped his fingers through his hair and cursed something under his breath, a word from his ancient tongue, if I had to guess. The tenseness in his shoulders and the way he pressed his lips thin indicated frustration and uncertainty. His promises to protect me and his loyalty to Baldur must have been tugging him in opposite directions, and I felt a little sorry for him. But only a little. An immortal being who possessed the power to subject thunder, rain, and lightning to his will didn’t need much pity.
“I have to do this thing for Baldur,” he said. “My vows—”
“I know,” I said. “So, how about we compromise?”
