Stormbringer (3 page)

“Everyone thought you were crazy,” Sigmund says. He's heard this part of the story, too. Seen the made-for-TV movie, even.

“The board kept trying no confidence,” I say. “Shit like that. It was a ruthless fucking time.”

“But you won.”

I nod, swirling the wine inside my glass, smelling the peaches and the oak. “I won,” I say. “Eventually.”

“ ‘The Purges,' right?” Not my choice of name, and I still wince to hear it.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, it was—anyone who wasn't with the new program? They were gone. Their shit tossed out onto the street overnight, some of them. It was brutal, but we did what we did.”

Coal is a finite resource, there's only so much of it buried in the ground. But the future? The future is forever, always.

“And now we have these.” Sigmund's holding up his phone—his Pyre Flame—and giving something like a grin. “This is what you felt? The day when everyone walked around with their own computer, stuffed into their pocket.”

I close my eyes, breathe, and
feel.

“No,” I say eventually. “Not this. This is still the journey. We're not at the destination. Not yet.”

The future is not now.

But it will be. One day.

By the time the duck arrives, Sigmund discovers a furious need to piss, care of the wine. He manages to make it to the bathroom and back with only a minimum of staggering.

When he returns, he leans forward across the table and says, voice not quite a whisper, “Man, I'm pretty drunk.”

“It's a lot of wine,” I say. About a bottle each, and that's assuming the waiters weren't being generous with the pouring, which they were. “It's normal. Drink some water.” Sigmund isn't much of a drinker, is the guy who'll spend an entire evening nursing a single Corona until it goes flat and warm.

“This food is really nice.”

“I know,” I say, grinning around my duck. Then, the dangerous confession: “It's a weakness, mortal food. One of the many things I don't miss about home.”

Sigmund blinks at the comment, then takes a guess: “You mean in Asgard?” His pronunciation is still terrible.

I nod. “An eternity of charred goat and apples and skyr.”

“ ‘Skyr'?”

“Viking yogurt.”

“Oh.” Sigmund peers at his plate, trying to identify what he can of the ingredients. After a moment, he gives up, and instead says: “You don't talk about Asgard very much.”

It's not posing a question so much as it is seeking an invitation to ask one. I make a noncommittal noise in reply. “There's not very much to talk about,” I lie. “I wasn't there, then I was, and now I'm not again.” Sigmund winces at the aggressive not-truthiness of these statements.

“You don't miss it?”

“No,” I say, maybe too quickly. If this one's a lie, Sigmund is the only one of us who can tell. I don't ask him for clarification.

“Then why are you going back?” Sigmund does not look at me when he asks it, eyes focused on his own plate with ferocious intensity.

Ah. Yes. That.

There's a long, horrible moment where I don't know what to say. I fill it with a sip of wine. Sigmund scarfs a potato. As he's chewing, I say, “Because.” Then can't think of anything else.

“ ‘Because'?” he quotes back.

“Because.”

This earns me a scowl, thick clotted waves of red-brown concern oozing from Sigmund's Wyrd. “Lain…” he starts.

Here's the thing. I both haven't been to Ásgarðr for a millennium and was just there two months ago. That's the downside of being two people at once. As Lain-Loki, I'm exiled from the place, presumed dead. As Loki-Baldr, I'm the goddamn king of it. This is what is commonly known as a “loose end.” In this case, said loose end has a physical embodiment in the form of one very ugly magic spear, Gungnir, which functions as a sort of de facto symbol of office. Baldr inherited the thing from his father, Odin. Now I have it. The chances that some
áss
brat is going to come looking for it sooner rather than later is fairly high, and I've had enough assholes from my past gate-crashing my city as of late. I think it's time to return the favor.

I try explaining this to Sigmund, complete with hand gestures and a lot of blather about fate and destiny and Wyrd that sounds unconvincing even to me. Maybe the truth of it is I just want to go home. Miðgarðr is nice and all, but…

But.

But this one I don't say to Sigmund. Because Sigmund is Sigmund and Sigmund is mortal and he's a Miðgarðr boy, through and through. I don't want him to start thinking that's not enough. Because Ásgarðr was home and Sigmund
is
home, and getting this one wrong is a mistake I've made before. It's not one I plan on making again.

So. I'll go to Ásgarðr, look around, say hi to the old gang, wave Gungnir around a bit. That'll take a day, maybe two, tops. Then I'm back. To Panda and to LB and, most of all, to Sig. Easy done.

Sigmund is still looking at me from across the table, all big brown eyes and seeping uncertainty. I give him my best, most rakish grin, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand with my own.

“It'll be fine, Sig,” I say. “I'll be back before you know it.”

His cool fingers intertwine with my own, and he looks down, before quickly bringing our joined hands up to his lips to brush a kiss across the knuckles.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay. I'm sure it'll be fine.” Then he smiles, and I try not to melt.

Eight courses, matched wines, and by the time we stumble out of the restaurant it's approaching midnight and Sigmund is as pissed as Thor in Útgarðr. He leans on my arm as I take him back to the car, his eyes heavy and feet dragging.

“Is this where you take me back to your lair and have your wicked way with me?” he asks.

“This is where I take you back to my lair and roll you into bed, you drunkard. Just what kind of monster do you think I am?”

“A cute one,” he says. Or possibly the wine does. “A nice one.”

“Mm, don't say that too loudly,” I say, folding him into the seat. “You'll ruin my reputation.” Whatever's left of it.

I get into the driver's side myself, the car's engine coming to life as I do. Sigmund looks over at the sound. “Hey. You can't drive. You had all that wine, too.”

“Mortal wine,” I say, pulling the car out of its parking space. “It doesn't count.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you should let the car drive.”

I laugh, lifting my hands off the wheel. It continues to turn, taking us out into the street.

Sigmund smiles and closes his eyes. “I had a really nice time tonight,” he says.

“Me too.”

Then: “You take all your dates there, huh?”

“Uh…” Jesus, Sig.

But all he says is, “Next time, I pick the restaurant. And pay. Somewhere special, just for us.”

I'm silent for a moment, then: “Yeah, that sounds…I'd like that, man. A lot.”

By the time we get home, Sigmund's starting to sober up enough for the hangover to creep in. I follow him into the bathroom, making sure he doesn't slip and die while he brushes his teeth. Then he changes, takes another piss, and grumbles when I make him drink a glass of water and down two Advil.

“You'll thank me in the morning,” I say, sitting on top of the bed while he settles himself beneath the covers.

“ 'll be gone inna mornin',” he points out, mostly to the pillow.

“Yeah. Yeah, I will. So text me.”

He makes a nondescript noise, curling his head against my thigh.

I watch him until he falls asleep. It doesn't take long.

He drools when he sleeps, and snores. Sigmund is all awkwardness and acne, hunched shoulders and double chins. His skin and hair and eyes are dark, he isn't tall or fast or strong, and no one would ever look at him and think that, once upon a time, he used to be a Viking goddess.

Sigyn, the Victorious. A shipbuilder's daughter. One who grew up chopping wood and dreaming of distant lands. Who didn't ever want to marry, lest she never get to see them.

One who, in the end, caught the eye of the most capricious of the gods. My eye. Well, Loki's eye. Adopted brother of Odin, the monster slithering through the gilded halls of heaven. Certainly not an easy man to stay married to, but Sigyn did.

None of us are the people we used to be. But that's okay, and change is good. I should know, I made my fortune on it.

When Sig's snores start to rattle the windows, I slip off the bed and out onto the balcony. There, beneath the moon's wide, silver eye, I lose my human skin and unfurl my wings.

It feels like coming home. Shedding Lain's too-tight, too-fragile body for something bigger, broader, more monstrous. Seven feet tall, with curving horns and stitched-shut lips. Mottled-dark skin and feathers that shimmer like flame or float like ash, and finished off with a tail and claws and blank-blind eyes that glow a dim and poisonous green.

This is me, my
jötunn
skin. Monsters and giants, enemies of the gods, first children of the Tree, elemental and eternal.

Wind ruffling through my feathers—on my head, my arms, my legs, my tail—I hop up onto the railing.

Then I fall.

Then spread my wings, and fly.

I'm better at this than I was the first time I tried it, though I'm still not much of an acrobat in the air. My body's too heavy and my tail's too long, but that's what the feathers on my limbs are for, to compensate. To steer and turn. It doesn't quite come naturally, not yet, and I have to will myself to hold my wings out steady, to not flap, to trust the currents in the air.

That's the other thing I did wrong, that first night: too much goddamn flapping. Because that's how flying works, right? Birds flap, up they go.

Did you know different birds have different ways of flying? Because, hell, I didn't. Not until Sig bought me a book on prehistoric birds. (It's the tail, it makes me look like a fucking archaeopteryx, that and the little wing claws, whose main purpose seems to be making sarcastic “air quotes” in conversation.) The gift was a joke, but the introduction had a whole section on the evolution of bird flight and, go figure. Turns out that by length and breadth and feather, my wings just aren't the flapping sort. They're the soaring sort.

So this is how I relearned to fly, by reading a book on fucking dinosaurs, then jumping off high buildings. It works, more or less. I haven't hit the ground yet. Much.

Flight is freedom. The wind in my feathers, Pandemonium a glittering galaxy that sprawls beneath. The dark abyss of the lake, the spiderweb lines of the roads. The dim glowing backdrop from the houses. My city, my power. And, at the center of it all, the bright and glowing sun of the Lokabrenna building, the axle around which the gyre turns.

How could I ever leave this place?

Nostalgia is one thing, but the truth of it is that I'm not gonna be the next goddamn king of Ásgarðr, Allfather v2.0. That was Baldr's destiny, the fate given to him by his father. The one I abandoned when I decided to eat Loki's heart and take his road instead.

And a Loki can't be king of Ásgarðr. Even when he was—after Ragnarøkkr, when things got capital-C Complicated—he wasn't really. He thought he was Baldr. Everyone thought he was Baldr. That's how he ruled, under a usurped name.

And he fucked it up. Big-time.

He doesn't like me disturbing the memories, so I try not to. But I get flashes, every now and then. Some things he shows me, that dark and binding thread that lurks somewhere deep within my psyche. Old me, Loki v1.0. I may have stolen his name, but he isn't gone. And he doesn't like me much.

I don't take it personally. Honestly, I don't think he likes anyone much, except maybe his wife. I feel him stir sometimes when Sig's around. Not in response to Sigmund himself, but to the frozen core of the goddess underneath.

I feel her move, as well. The first time I saw Sigmund, that part of him was buried. Distant. Dormant. Now it isn't. She unnerves him, I think. She's not quite him except in every way she is, and she can take his body when she needs it: can speak with his mouth and touch with his hands. Sigyn is terrifying and she's ruthless—that I do remember—but she's kind, too, and gentle. She has such honor and compassion in her, such strength and determination. Enough to reweave the very Wyrd itself.

That's why she won't harm Sigmund. He's her creation, the vessel of her rebirth. She'll drag him through the fire when he falters, but will stand aside to let him take the final step with his own will. She loves him.

She loves Loki, too. Her capricious, bitter husband.

Me, I'm not so sure of. At the moment I'm just hoping that if I'm kind to Sigmund, if I honor Loki's legacy, then Sigyn will get her happy ending and won't re-erase all of existence to try it for a third time.

It's not the worst destiny I could be facing.

Even if I am still terrible at landings.

It's the tail, again. It's the wrong shape to slow me down enough to make the process something elegant and gentle. The feathers on my thighs and butt do their best, but I still mostly “land” by falling. Tonight, it's onto the outstretched arm of a streetlight. They're bigger up here than they look from the ground, but the whole structure still sways when I slam into it.

“Unnghf!”

My gut takes most of the impact, all four claws scrambling to find a perch. I manage to pull myself up, sitting hunched above the street like some flaming hipster gargoyle, tail trailing down below.

The pole is still swaying when I pull the memory of a cigarette out of the nothingspace—no clothes in
jötunn
form means no pockets, and I really should look into that—light it with a thought, then get down to the business of sating my nicotine addiction.