Bohdi stands in the building they erected above the cavern. They have their snowmobiles stored here, a couple of Harding’s comm relay boxes, a single cot someone made out of tree branches and vines, and a sleeping bag. Jaw grinding, he turns away from the meager supplies, goes to the door and stares out into the snow. Downstairs, Amy is operating on Rush with Thor. Most of the rest of the team is down there helping out in one way or other. Valli and Nari are standing guard outside, Fenrir pacing between them. Beyond them is a small fire. Sigyn is sitting in the snow next to it, talking to Claire.
He hears footsteps. Turning, he finds Larson coming out of the tunnel to the cavern, Berry and Gerðr behind him. Larson looks like he’s aged ten years in the past few hours. His shoulders are too tight, he has dark circles under his eyes, and it looks like a scowl has settled permanently between his brows. When he speaks to Bohdi, the scowl deepens. “Berry tells me you intend to go to Asgard.” Even though the lieutenant is perhaps a half-inch shorter than Bohdi, he still manages to look down his nose at him.
“Yes,” Bohdi says, fingers finding his lighter.
More team members file into the room—but no Amy, Beatrice, or Thor. As they enter, Bohdi notices that Park and Thomas give Larson strange looks. Larson stands straighter and draws his head back, making him look like he’s looking down his nose even more.
“You can’t order me to go back to Earth,” Bohdi says. He smiles tightly.
Beside Bohdi, Park mutters, “Patel isn’t technically a Marine anymore, and he’s not even an American. You can’t shoot him for treason.”
Bohdi shifts on his feet, and his mouth falls open. “Larson wasn’t thinking about shooting me,” he says sharply, Park’s and Thomas’s strange looks suddenly making sense. They’re angry at Larson. His eyes graze over the other members of the team; except for the stoic Berry, they’re standing a little farther from the lieutenant than necessary, and they’re more restless than usual. Bohdi’s gut twists. When he thinks of Tucker, he is filled with conflicting emotions. But the more he thinks about it, the more relieved he is that Tucker is dead—he betrayed all of them and cost Steve most of all. Tucker wasn’t remorseful; being alive he’d be dangerous. Someone would have to kill him, and Bohdi’s glad it doesn’t have to be him. He looks at Larson and nods. “You did what you had to, Lieutenant,” he says softly.
Instead of making Larson relax, Bohdi’s words just seem to wind him up tighter. “Do you really expect you’ll just walk into Asgard and rescue Rogers?” Larson snaps.
Bohdi looks down at the muddy floor of the building the Frost Giants call “the shit house” for its supposed location above the toilet plumbing of the old Keep. The odds are against him. Supposedly, that makes him even more likely to succeed, but he doesn’t really believe it. He flicks his lighter. “No, but if I die trying, it will give Odin one less reason to want to hold onto Steve.” He swallows. Or chase after Amy, if she manages not to be captured.
Shrugging, he tries to give a cocky grin. “Hey, maybe if Odin’s busy with me he’ll be less likely to catch you guys, right?”
There is absolute silence in the room. Then Berry says softly, “If it were up to me, I’d go with you.”
Bohdi’s eyebrows shoot up to his bangs.
The warrant officer rubs his chin. “The World Gate to the Dark Lands is well known, Lieutenant. Odin will have people waiting for us when we arrive. Chances of any of us making it to the World Gate between the Dark Lands and Chicago are slim and none.”
“Chances of us making it back from Asgard, let alone rescuing Rogers, are slim and none,” Larson snaps.
Berry gives him a crooked smile. “But at least we might get a chance to shove a grenade up Odin’s throne.”
Redman crosses his arms, and says, “Yeah.” Bohdi sees Harding nodding. Park and Thomas grunt in agreement. The tension leaves Larson’s shoulders, and the scowl in his brow melts. For a moment his eyes slip closed like he’s saying a prayer, but he opens them quickly. “We’ll need a plan.”
Bohdi blinks. Larson wants to go to Asgard and get Steve, probably has all along.
Berry puts a hand to his chin and looks at Redman. “If you can make us invisible—” Redman is the best so far at manipulating light.
Larson snorts and then chuckles. The whole room looks to him. Larson shakes his head. “Sorry, still not used to sentences that begin with if you can make us invisible.”
There are a few more chuckles in the room. Gerðr, quiet up until this point, says, “He can’t make you invisible … yet … but I can.”
Larson’s frame winds up again. Berry says excitedly, “We storm the gates without Odin knowing we’re there … we’ll get a few good shots in before he figures it out.” There are earnest nods and a few wry laughs.
Bohdi snaps, “I don’t want any storming, I just want to get Steve.” Tension returns to the room, and all eyes are on him. Before he can say what is on his mind, he hears Thor’s voice rumble up the stairs, and Amy’s hushed response, still too far away for the words to be distinct.
Larson looks to Bohdi. “Whose side is Thor on?”
Bohdi shakes his head and shrugs. He has no idea how far Thor’s we’re on neutral ground and so still friends let me help you aid your injured comrade thing goes.
“We need to find out,” the lieutenant says tightly.
Thomas bows his head and scratches his stubble. “He was amazing when Lewis was operating. Rush’s intestines were torn …” He exhales sharply and shudders. “Thor just touched them and the pieces melted together.”
Park meets Bohdi’s eyes. “Dr. Lewis did it too. And then sewed him up with the neatest stitches I’ve ever seen.”
Bohdi tilts his head and smiles, his chest puffing a little. Of course, when Amy started manifesting magic, she’d be able to do that. She fixes broken people-and-animal-parts even without hocus-pocus.
“Someone needs to escort Dr. Lewis, Beatrice, and Claire back to Earth,” Berry says softly.
Bohdi’s smile drops.
“Dr. Lewis would be a liability,” Berry says.
Harding snickers and puts her hand over her mouth. “Not Beatrice, though!”
Ignoring the Marine, Berry keeps his eyes trained on Bohdi. “Don’t you want her to have a chance?”
Swallowing, Bohdi rubs the back of his neck. When he told Amy he wanted her to stick with him he’d meant it, but at the time he’d been thinking of avoiding a visit to Asgard. As soon as she said, “We need a plan,” he’d realized she expected to go to Asgard with him. “I do,” he whispers, just before Amy and Thor enter the room.
Amy exits the tunnel with Thor. The big man is carrying Rush in his arms as lightly as though the SEAL were a doll. She’s sure Thor had used magic deeper in the cavern to help with the load, but even without magic, the man is incredibly strong.
Without a word he lays Rush down on the single cot in the room. Everyone on the team looks to Amy. She slips into professional mode. “Thor was able to heal most of his internal injuries with magic—”
“You did too, right?” says Bohdi with a grin.
Amy looks at the floor, memory of the moment still strange. She’d touched the perforated sections of Rush’s small intestines and imagined the endothelium, nerves, and muscle tissues at the cellular level, healthy and whole. She’d felt heat beneath her fingers, warmer than Rush’s open wounds, and something else she’ll never be able to describe: something wonderful, extraordinary, and so natural it was like breathing.
Clearing her throat, she raises her head. “Yes, unfortunately, the external injuries were too much for either of us.” She tilts her head. “Too many layers of muscle, ligaments, and dermis,” she murmurs. “We had to use lion gut stitches.” She swallows and meets their eyes. “It will take him a few weeks to be fully healed. Although the risk of sepsis is very low, if he tears the stitches he could potentially bleed to death.”
“So no fun for him for a few weeks,” Larson says.
By Rush’s cot, Thor says, “Before that time Dr. Lewis may be strong enough to heal him.”
Amy looks sharply to the big man. “I think that is an overestimation of my abilities,” she says, feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
“Well done, Dr. Lewis and Thor,” Larson says. “I really didn’t expect him to make it.”
Amy blushes and finds Bohdi’s eyes on her. He’s smiling like a shark and looking like he might eat her alive … in a good way. Feeling warm all over, she does the only logical thing. She looks at her boots.
An uncomfortable silence settles in the room. The guys shift on their feet. Beatrice fiddles with her umbrella, Mr. Squeakers crawls out of Amy’s pocket, up to her neck and then scoots into her collar.
Thor stands up from the cot. “So you intend to go to Asgard.”
It’s not a question. There is another awkward silence, and then Bohdi says, “I don’t want Asgard to burn, I don’t want to take out Odin—that was Loki’s schtick. I just want to get Steve.”
“I believe that is all you want, friend Patel,” Thor says. “I will help you achieve it.”
Everyone stares sort of slack-jawed at Thor. He doesn’t meet their eyes; he just sort of sinks back to the edge of the cot.
“Thor,” Amy says. “You —”
“Must aid you,” Thor finishes for her. Thor rubs his brow. “The hero’s role is not to preserve order or to destroy chaos. The hero’s role is to keep either from going too far.” He sighs. “My father has been betraying the laws he laid out for Asgard, he has been betraying Asgardians, and I have not just been complicit. I have aided him.” He meets Amy’s eyes. Amy’s mouth falls open. She walks toward him, and she remembers.
Loki is sitting in Odin’s throne. In the distance he hears Odin’s and Frigga’s voices. They sound far away, or like he’s listening to them through water. Their voices are faint and gurgly. Maybe this is what conversation sounds like to fish. That thought makes him laugh, and he nearly falls from his seat.
Regaining himself, he wipes an eye. And then he has a moment of panic. He really should get off Odin’s throne. Odin’s and Frigga’s voices are getting closer. Putting his hands on the armrests, he pushes himself up, almost loses his stomach, and carefully lowers himself back into the seat.
He hears a door creak and Frigga say, “We need to have that oiled.” Odin grunts in reply, and then the two monarchs’ footsteps approach. Loki tries to open his eyes, but it’s much too bright.
“I’m sorry to be sitting on your throne,” Loki says. “Plssh don’t dump me in the void.”
Frigga gasps. “Loki, you reek!”
Odin rumbles, “You’re not sitting on my throne, you idiot. You’re in my library.”
Loki opens one eye. Sure enough, he sees books and scrolls, neatly stacked and sorted in shelves that stretch to the ceiling. Looking up makes his stomach churn. He shuts his eye quickly. “How did I get here?” he muses aloud.
“When did you get so drunk?” Odin demands.
“It’s not even mid-morning, Loki. This has got to stop. Even a magical liver can’t stand this amount of abuse!”
“Pfffffffttttt ….” Odin says. Or maybe it’s Loki. Someone snickers.
“You can’t send him on a mission like this,” Frigga says.
Loki abruptly sits up straight and opens his eyes, despite the brightness in the room. “If it’s to Earth you can! Love going to Earth … Granted, that mess at Hiroshima was a wee bit distressing; did you know skin can fall off and eyeballs can melt? But otherwise, only place that anything interesting happens. I love Japan. I don’t know why. Feels like a second home … Am I rambling?”
“The mission is to go to Alfheim, as we discussed,” Odin snaps.
Slouching, Loki closes his eyes. “Oh, yes, that’s why I got drunk. Stuck-up, pointy-eared fascists. So boring, boring, boring …”
Frigga sighs. “You can’t send him like this.”
The world progressively gets darker.
Odin’s voice rumbles through the gloom. “Loki, I’ve put up with your penchant for alcohol long enough …”
“He doesn’t hear you,” Frigga says.
“This is inconvenient. I need him to leave.”
“You let him become an alcoholic because it was convenient for you, husband. I warned you it was a bad idea. The tighter the chain, the more likely he is to slip loose.”
“I did it to avoid putting a chain around his neck! Now stop nagging me, woman,” Odin says. “I’ll think of something.”
Loki giggles and falls into dreams. In the dream he is a dragon battling Thor, but Thor has deep brown skin, dark hair and dark eyes, and Loki’s dragon self insists on calling him Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh strikes him down and he falls, and falls, and falls … and lands in a cloud of the softest, most wonderful pillows.
Loki blinks. His head screams and he groans.
“Would you like a glass of water?”
Thor’s voice makes Loki pull the covers over his head. Wait, how did he get into bed? He pulls the covers down and finds himself in his own room. Thor is sitting in a chair at his bedside, holding a glass of water out to Loki.
Loki scowls at the glass. “Can’t you just wag your fingers over my forehead and make the headache go away?”
Thor’s lips purse. “You know dehydration is the root cause of a hangover; until that is remedied, I can provide no lasting—” Thor scowls. “Loki, stop that.”
During Thor’s talk, Loki had slipped his hand from beneath the quilts and was opening and closing his fingers, making his hand mouth words in time with Thor’s speech.
Loki turns to his hand. “Hand, stop that.” He makes his hand swipe at his own nose.
Thor puts the glass down. “Must you always be such a clown and must you always be drunk?”
Loki turns his hand to Thor and magically projects his voice from his fingers. “Yes!”
Thor drops his head and rubs the back of his neck. He’s sweating, even though the room is cool. Loki almost asks him what’s wrong, but his head hurts too much. He drinks the glass at his bedside instead. As he does, Huginn and Muninn land on his windowsill.
They whistle and rawk amongst themselves. Loki throws his glass at them. It sails through the window without hitting either of them. Loki curses not only because he missed but also because he’s just realized it’s late afternoon. “I had better get to the council meeting,” he mutters. “Your father will be angry enough at me for not going to Alfheim.” Standing, he staggers to the wardrobe.
“Loki, I need to talk to you,” Thor says.
Loki turns on a foot. Smiling, Loki bows. “Of course, letting the prince of Asgard bend my ear might be the noblest thing I can do as a true servant to Asgard. May I suggest the pub?”
Outside, the ravens rawk. “Remember Asgard! Remember Odin!”
Loki scowls at the window. “Well, now I am more determined than ever to drink.”
“Have you seen Nari and Valli about lately?” Thor says.
Loki scowls. Now he really feels like drinking. “No, Thor.”
“Don’t you worry about them? A lot of our young have … strange ideas.”
“A lot of our young have nothing to do. Since Odin’s judges on the Diar are undying.” He smiles at Thor and winks. “As are you and I, but I have no intention of ameliorating that.”
Thor ducks his head and twiddles his thumbs. “And it has always been thus. And we haven’t had a war on our own soil in over a thousand years.”
“Not since your daddy kicked out the Vanir.” Loki’s jaw goes hard. “And well he should have. Why, the Vanir were causing the Frost Giants to riot among themselves, helping the dwarves and elven monarchs maintain stifling and vicious order in their own realms, and slaying their own who suggested they do otherwise.”
All things Odin does, too. In fact, after centuries without the death penalty, Odin has just reinstated it. Loki smiles bitterly. Just a few hundred years ago, Odin would have manipulated events to make sure executions happened on other realms. Loki thinks of Gullveig and shudders, and he thinks of Aggie, Helen … and Baldur. Baldur had been executed by Odin, too, hadn’t he? Though Loki had delivered the fatal blow.
“I really need that drink, Thor,” Loki mutters, heading to the door.
Thor gets up and follows him without a word. They walk through the gardens, passing a few lesser nobles as they do.
“We have a good life here,” Thor says. “Remember what we saw in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”
Loki scowls at the mention of the last two cities he visited on Earth during their latest Einherjar recruitment. Thor had favored the Axis powers during that trip, Loki the Allies. Just to make sure the Axis’ horrors don’t go without comment, Loki says, “And Warsaw, Auschwitz, Dachau, Nanking …” Loki shrugs. “Why, yes, Thor, Asgard is a veritable paradise of peace and harmony.” He frowns. And boredom, monotony, and infuriating hypocrisy.
“My first oath is always to Asgard,” Thor says. Standing straighter, he says, “I cannot allow those ways to reach our realm.”
“Of course, you must,” Loki snips. Odin will have their hides if they do anything otherwise. Odin managed to kill his invincible son—he could do as much to Thor. Loki snaps his fingers and flame flares over his thumb. Still, as much as Odin’s hypocrisy infuriates Loki, he’d rather Thor not see it. Thor would try to fight it, the big noble oath, and even if Loki doesn’t consider Thor to be the friend he once was, he’d rather not see the big lug dead.
He looks at Thor. The big man is walking with his shoulders slumped, and his hands fisted at his sides, brows knitted like he’s deep in thought—probably wondering how he bet on the wrong horse in the last race. Thor’s pure and trusting like a child—and Loki can’t be angry at children.
Together they walk into the pub. They’ve put back a few when when Huginn and Muninn flutter in through a window. Perching on the bar, they rawk, “Asgard. Remember your oaths to Asgard.”
Loki sighs and stares down at his mug. “I should go to that council meeting,” he mutters. “Show my loyalty.” He feels like throwing up.
Thor scowls at his mug. He’s been unusually taciturn all evening.
“Asgard, Asgard,” rawk the ravens.
“Are you talking to me?” Loki demands, just to be irritating.
“Yes,” says one of the birds.
Every inch of Loki’s skin itches, and his hair feels like it’s been rubbed the wrong way. He needs to get to that council meeting, he knows it with every fiber of his being. Bolting from his seat and turning to the door he says, “Thor, I have to—”
Pain shoots up the back of his neck and everything goes black.
“I promised Loki that I would always look after his sons as though they were my own. I didn’t … but convinced myself that it was for Asgard. This time, I must abide by my conscience before I am beyond redemption,” Thor says.
Amy swallows. “You did what you thought was best at the time.”
Thor smiles crookedly. “Did I? Or did I act out of fear, knowing that my father who had slain Baldur, his most beloved son, would just as soon turn on me if I became inconvenient?”
Amy draws back. “You knew about Odin’s part in Baldur’s death.” She hears several of the guys shift in the room behind her.
Thor lifts his eyebrows and then looks away. “I suppose I deserve that.” He meets her eyes again. “When your golden older brother is as murderous as your father, you learn to hide your thoughts.” He cocks his head and looks past Amy. “Unless you’re Loki. I always admired that about him.”
Following his gaze, Amy realizes he’s staring at Bohdi. Rubbing the back of his neck, Bohdi puts a hand on Amy’s back. “Errr …”
“I will go with you to Asgard,” Thor says, giving Bohdi a nod. “And do what is needed to help you retrieve your Captain.”
Amy hears Bohdi take a deep breath. The hand he has on her back stills and becomes firmer. “What I need to do is march through Hel.”