فصل 22

My Friends Fall Out of a Tree

FORTUNATELY, a friendly berserker found me wandering through the spa on the hundred and twelfth floor. He’d just gotten the gentleman’s pedicure (“Just Because You Kill People Doesn’t Mean Your Feet Should!”) and was happy to lead me back to the elevators.

By the time I reached the feast hall, dinner was under way. I navigated toward X—who was hard to miss even in the huge crowd—and joined my hallmates from floor nineteen.

We traded stories about the morning’s battle.

“I hear you used alf seidr!” Halfborn said. “Impressive!”

I’d almost forgotten about the energy blast that had knocked everybody’s weapons away. “Yeah, uh…what exactly is alf seidr?”

“Elf magic,” Mallory said. “Sneaky Vanir-style witchcraft unfit for a true warrior.” She punched me in the arm. “I like you better already.”

I tried for a smile, though I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to wield elf magic. As far as I knew, I was not an elf. I thought about the way I resisted extreme temperatures, and the way I’d healed Gunilla in the elevator…was that alf seidr too? Maybe it came from being a son of Frey, though I didn’t understand how the powers were related.

T.J. complimented me on taking the crest of the hill. X complimented me on staying alive longer than five minutes.

It was good to feel like part of the group, but I didn’t pay much attention to their conversation. My head was still buzzing from the tour with Gunilla, and the dream of Loki at the throne of Odin.

At the head table, Gunilla occasionally murmured something to Helgi, and the manager would scowl in my direction. I kept waiting for him to call me up and put me on grape-peeling duty with Hunding, but I guess he was contemplating some better punishment.

Tomorrow morning, Gunilla had warned, we will have to take precautions.

At the end of dinner, a couple of newbies were welcomed to Valhalla. Their videos were suitably heroic. No Norns showed up. No Valkyries got banished in disgrace. No butts were shot with squeaky arrows.

As the crowds filed out of the feast hall, T.J. clapped me on the shoulder. “Get some rest. Another glorious death tomorrow!”

“Yippee,” I said.

Back in my room, I couldn’t sleep. I spent hours pacing around like a zoo animal. I didn’t want to wait for the thanes’ judgment in the morning. I’d seen how wisely they judged when they exiled Sam.

But what choice did I have? Sneak around the hotel randomly opening doors, hoping to find one that led back to Boston? Even if I succeeded, there was no guarantee I’d be allowed to go back to my luxurious life as a homeless kid. Gunilla or Surt or some other Norse nasty might track me down again.

We must know whose side you are on, Gunilla had said.

I was on my side. I didn’t want to get wrapped up in some Viking Doomsday, but something told me it was too late. My mom had died two years ago, around the same time a bunch of other bad stuff was breaking loose in the Nine Worlds. With my luck, there was a connection. If I wanted justice for my mother—if I wanted to find out what had happened to her—I couldn’t go back to hiding under a bridge.

I also couldn’t keep hanging out in Valhalla, taking Swedish lessons and watching PowerPoint presentations on killing trolls.

At about five in the morning, I finally gave up on sleeping. I went to the restroom to wash my face. Clean towels hung on the rod. The hole in the wall had been repaired. I wondered if it had been done by magic or if some poor schmuck had had to fix it as a punishment from the thanes. Maybe tomorrow I’d be the one plastering drywall.

I walked to the atrium and stared at the stars through the trees. I wondered what sky I was looking at—what world, what constellations.

The branches rustled. Something dark and man-shaped toppled out of the tree. He landed at my feet with a nasty crunch.

“OW!” he wailed. “Stupid gravity!”

My old buddy Blitz lay on his back, moaning and cradling his left arm.

A second person dropped lightly to the grass—Hearth, dressed in his usual black leather clothes and candy-striped scarf. He signed: Hi.

I stared at them. “What are you—how did you—?” I started to grin. I’d never been happier to see anyone.

“Arm!” Blitz yelped. “Broken!”

“Right.” I knelt, trying to focus. “I might be able to heal this.”

“Might?”

“Wait…did you get a makeover?”

“You’re asking about my wardrobe?”

“Well, yeah.” I’d never seen Blitz look so nice.

His chaotic hair had been washed and combed back. His beard was trimmed. His Cro-Magnon unibrow had been plucked and waxed. Only his zigzag nose had not been cosmetically corrected.

As for the clothes, he’d apparently robbed several high-end boutiques on Newbury Street. His boots were alligator leather. His black wool suit was tailored to fit his stocky five-feet-five frame and looked lovely with his dark skin tone. Under the jacket, he was rocking a charcoal paisley vest with a gold watch chain, a turquoise dress shirt, and a bolo tie. He looked like a very short, well-groomed African American cowboy hit man.

Hearth clapped to get my attention. He signed: Arm. Fix?

“Right. Sorry.” I placed my hand gently on Blitz’s forearm. I could feel the fracture under the skin. I willed it to mend. Click. Blitz yelped as the bone moved back into place.

“Try it now,” I said.

Blitz moved the arm. His expression changed from pain to surprise. “That actually worked!”

Hearth looked even more shocked. He signed, Magic? How?

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” I said. “Guys, don’t take this the wrong way, because I’m really glad to see you. But why are you falling out of my trees?”

“Kid,” Blitz said, “for the past twenty-four hours we’ve been climbing all over the World Tree looking for you. We thought we found you last night, but—”

“I think you might have,” I said. “Just before dawn I heard somebody moving in the branches.”

Blitz turned to Hearth. “I told you that was the right room!”

Hearth rolled his eyes and signed too fast for me to read.

“Oh, please,” Blitz said. “Your idea, my idea—it doesn’t matter. The point is, we’re here, and Magnus is alive! Well…technically he’s dead. But he’s alive. Which means the boss might not kill us!”

“The boss?” I asked.

Blitz developed a tic in his eye. “Yeah. We have a confession to make.”

“You’re not really homeless,” I said. “Last night, one of the thanes saw you guys on video and—”

Video? Hearth signed.

“Yeah. Valkyrie Vision. Anyway, this thane called you a dwarf and an elf. I’m guessing”—I pointed at Blitz—“you’re the dwarf?”

“Typical,” Blitz grumbled. “Assume I’m the dwarf because I’m short.”

“So you’re not the dwarf?”

He sighed. “No. I’m the dwarf.”

“And you…” I looked at Hearth, but I couldn’t even make myself say it. I’d hung out with this guy for two years. He’d taught me curses in sign language. We’d eaten burritos out of trash cans together. What kind of elf does that?

E-L-F. Hearth signed the individual letters. Sometimes spelled A-L-F.

“But…you guys don’t look that different from humans.”

“Actually,” Blitz said, “humans don’t look that different from dwarves and elves.”

“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation, but you’re not that short. Like, for a dwarf. You could pass for a regular short human.”

“Which I’ve been doing,” Blitz said, “for two years now. Dwarves come in different sizes, just like humans. I happen to be a svartalf.”

“A fart elf?”

“Gah! Clean your ears, kid. A svartalf. It means dark elf. I’m from Svartalfheim.”

“Um, I thought you just said you’re a dwarf.”

“Dark elves aren’t actually elves, kid. It’s…what do you call it? A misnomer. We’re a subset of dwarves.”

“Well, that certainly clears things up.”

Hearth developed a faint smile, which for him was the equivalent of rolling on the floor laughing. He signed, fart elf.

Blitz pointedly ignored him. “Svartalfs tend to be taller than your average Nidavellir dwarves. Plus we’re devilishly handsome. But that’s not important right now. Hearthstone and I are here to help you.”

“Hearthstone?”

Hearth nodded. My full name. He is B-L-I-T-Z-E-N.

“Kid, we don’t have much time. We’ve been watching you for the last two years, trying to keep you safe.”

“For your boss.”

“That’s right.”

“And who is your boss?”

“That’s…classified. But he’s one of the good guys. He’s the head of our organization, dedicated to delaying Ragnarok as long as possible. And you, my friend, have been his most important project.”

“So, just taking a wild guess here…you’re not working for Loki?”

Blitzen looked outraged. Hearth signed one of those curses he’d taught me.

“That was uncalled for, kid.” Blitzen sounded genuinely hurt. “I dressed up like a homeless person every day for two years for you. I let my personal hygiene go to Helheim. You know how long I had to stay in the bubble bath every morning to get the smell out?”

“Sorry. So…were you working with Samirah, the Valkyrie?”

Another curse sign from Hearthstone. The one who took you? No. She made things hard for us.

Actually the literal signs were more like: HER. TOOK. YOU. MADE. DIFFICULT. US. But I’d gotten fairly good at interpreting.

“You weren’t supposed to die, kid,” said Blitzen. “Our job was to protect you. But now…well, you’re an einherji. Maybe we can still make this work. We’ve got to get you out of here. We have to find that sword.”

“Let’s go, then,” I said.

“Now, don’t argue,” Blitzen said. “I know you’re in warriors’ paradise and it’s all very new and exciting—”

“Blitz, I said sure.”

The dwarf blinked. “But I had this whole speech prepared.”

“No need. I trust you.”

The strange thing? I was telling the truth.

Maybe Blitzen and Hearthstone were professional stalkers who’d been keeping an eye on me for a top-secret anti-Ragnarok organization. Maybe their idea of protecting me involved attacking the lord of the fire giants with cheap plastic toys. Maybe they weren’t even the same species as me.

But they’d stuck by me while I was homeless. They were my best friends. Yes…that’s how messed up my life was.

“Well, then.” Blitzen brushed the grass from his paisley vest. “We’ll just climb back into the World Tree before—”

From somewhere above, an explosive yap! reverberated through the room. It sounded like a rabid six-thousand-pound Boston terrier choking on a mammoth bone.

Hearthstone’s eyes widened. The sound was so loud he’d probably felt the vibrations through his shoes.

“Gods almighty!” Blitzen grabbed my arm. Together with Hearthstone, he pulled me away from the atrium. “Kid, please tell me you know another way out of this hotel. Because we aren’t using the tree.”

Another yap shook the room. Broken branches tumbled to the floor.

“Wh-what’s up there?” I asked, my knees shaking. I thought about the Norns’ prophecy, naming me a harbinger of evil. “Is it—the Wolf?”

“Oh, much worse,” Blitzen said. “It’s the Squirrel.”