The scream continues abruptly. Gelsh moves back, avoiding an attacker who is no longer coming after her. She steps into me and squeals with fright as she spins around in confusion.
“It’s all right,” I shout back. The cut on my hand has completely healed and the enchantment is broken but she doesn’t know that several seconds have gone by. Seconds where I swooped in and saved the day like a perfect hero. I wonder how angry the wraith is on its home world now with the doll floating in the ethereal space where the wraiths live. I hope he likes the token Loki has left him with. Grin.
Gelsh takes a deep breath as she looks about the room. “What happened?” she asks, shaking.
Then she turns, her eyes narrowing as they focus in on me. “You again? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” I go over to the spot on the floor where the ice shards of my scepter still lie. Some of the smaller pieces are melting already.
“Alan didn’t come home last night,” she says. “Do you know what happened to him?”
“Alan,” I laugh. “That thug picked himself a common name like Alan?” I think on it for a second, then raise a hand. “Oh, I get it. It was short and essentially consisted of three letters. Each brain cell had only to remember one letter. I bet it worked well for him.”
Her eyebrows furrow and I can see a sharp, vengeful retort forming. I was about to get a lashing. Ooh!
“Becca, are you okay?” The woman from the front desk appears in the doorway and the anger disappears from Gelsh at the interruption. “What happened to Mr. Carlson?”
“He remembered something he left at home and zoomed right out of here,” I reply instinctively, irked by the fact that Gelsh was known as Becca here. It made her seem like less than what she was.
“It’s fine, Mother. Martin had another bad dream and some toys got knocked down,” Gelsh says. “I’m just picking up in here.”
The woman looks confused. “Did Mr. Carlson take Mattie with him?”
“I don’t know. I’ll check.”
I realize then that Martin hasn’t made a peep recently. I reach down and pick up the blanket. There’s no Martin. I look around and try to recall precisely what had happened. The wraith had been rushing toward Gelsh who’d been in the doorway behind Martin. Had the wraith been touching Martin when I sent the wraith home?
That is a frightening possibility.
The woman, Becca’s mother, glances back toward the front room, then back to me. She takes a tentative step forward. “How did you…?”
I don’t have time for a human’s confused questions about how I am now in here. Maybe she had thought I had left when I made my duplicate image disappear. Had she been looking elsewhere?
I reach my hand toward the vicinity where I’d broken my scepter. I had wanted to pick the pieces up, look like a normal man doing an ordinary task, but the situation has grown serious. I have to fix things and fast. Every second counts. The pieces and the streams of melted ice levitate off the floor and rush into my hand.
“How did you do that?” Gelsh asks.
With two fingers, I motion for Gelsh and the other woman to come closer. “Come here,” I say to enchant them to my will. They both start walking toward me.
I hate what I’m about to do, but I must. “Forget.”
If only the spell worked on me too.
I flip up the screen of my phone and reach for a Valkyrie hair hidden inside the extra compartment. I take the strand and snap it. There are no words that can be spoken for this.
Poor, little, mortal thing, can you possibly fathom what I am doing? It is akin to a jailbreak. I am to send transdimensional beings back to their home worlds to protect humanity. I am not meant to follow. Yet that is what I am doing right now.
My spell takes mental focus and clarity, neither of which I’m sure I have right now. I am breaking of my parole. If Huginn and Muninn are watching, and they always are, my travels could be reported to Odin before I even return. Will the reasons behind my actions matter at all? Will Thor, currently on Midgard outside in my car, sense my disappearance and follow straightaway to strike me down? Was he an advance guard, his hammer really more of a sheepherder’s crook now?
The questions plague my mind as the air around me grows toxic and the ground nonexistent. This realm is dark, with streaks of white on the top of misty, cloud-like fog. It is like a sickness cocooning me, a dreaded insanity of solitary confinement. Yet the specters hidden in the fabric of this realm sweep away the cobwebs from my mind. At the end of the day, in sickness or in health, I am still a god. I don’t really need to breathe or to touch the ground. Humans of Midgard, however…
I search for Martin.
“Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it, Loki of Asgard?” a voice says behind me.
I turn far too slowly in this low gravity. It’s akin to swimming in very deep water.
“Why not? Why would anyone want to take any existence seriously?” I call out to the unidentified speaker. “Not when we know it’s all a game anyway.” I hadn’t realized how much I needed to remember these true words. Whatever condition had momentarily possessed me is now gone, the underlying power held in every realm returns to me. I am a god and I cannot let even my own thoughts and worries trifle with me.
“I wanted to be there,” the wraith says as it materializes before me and punches its whole body into my jaw as solid as a fist. I spin in the gray ether.
“Where’s the boy?” I shout.
I am grabbed from behind and stopped. Appendages which fit no human description pry my mouth open.
“You should cut out his tongue,” I hear a serpent-like whisper near my ear.
I expect the worst when I feel something fuzzy being pressed between my teeth. I can barely see what it is as I look down and notice little black cloth feet: the wraith doll.
A whimper draws my attention. I twist hard to pull from the massless body holding me and see the boy floating not too far away. Tears are pouring down his puffed out cheeks. I’m not sure I’d like to have taken in a lungful of toxic air, but admit it is better than trying to keep breathing. I scramble toward him.
Another wraith slams into my side and knocks me away from the boy. I swim harder. How much longer can the boy hold his breath? After this experience, he’ll probably grow up to be a writer like poor Isaac Asimov. There is another regret from my past.
I see Martin scrambling back for me now as though he knows. His gaze keeps flittering to the doll still wedged in my mouth. I can’t seem to get it out.
A wraith hits me from the front and makes me double over as he pushes me backwards. When it veers off, I stretch up and do a backflip. Then, with all my might, I start a hard crawl stroke for Martin. He reaches for me as he spits out all the air he’d been holding onto. He gasps, breathing in deeply, then coughs and chokes.
I can’t get the damn doll out of my mouth. I hold the child of Midgard in my arms, but I can’t feel my hands.
Gods don’t feel fear, and we sure as hell don’t panic.
Yet as I try to reach up to take the doll out of my mouth, I realize my hands are no longer there. My forearms are stubs with these gelatinous strands hanging from them. I also discover that I have no legs beneath my knees. My body, in response to this realm, is turning wraith.
I am not panicking.
Okay, so maybe I am.
Martin can’t stop coughing. I have no hands or feet and I’m not sure if this will be permanent or not when I make it back to Midgard. Assuming I can make it back.
A wraith tries to come between me and Martin. I sway back slightly. Putting my head against the boy’s little shoulder and using the stub of my arm to press into the doll, I leverage against Martin to yank the doll from my mouth. It falls down into the space between our bodies where it gets caught.
“Skreli farhausten kjord,” I yell. I let the boy from Midgard drag us back to his homeland.
Landing on the floor of the daycare, Martin rolls away and coughs. It’s a good sound. He’ll be okay. I watch the wraith doll totem disappear. Then I scramble to my feet, glad that I have them once again, and look down at my hands. I can’t help wiggling my fingers and toes.
The enchantment is still holding the woman and Gelsh paused while wiping their memories, but it wouldn’t remain that way for long. Now that Loki is back and whole, I know I need to be out of there and quick.