The Hammer of Thor Page 20

  I wasn’t sure what I would do if I found him. Maybe I’d figure out a way to free him from Loki’s clutches. Maybe I’d smack him in the face with a bag of kibbeh, though that would be a waste of good kibbeh.

  Fortunately for Randolph and my leftovers, he wasn’t home. I jimmied the back door as usual—Randolph had not gotten the message about upgrading his locks—then Alex and I wandered through the mansion, stealing Randolph’s various stashes of chocolate (because that was a necessity), making fun of his fussy draperies and knickknacks, and finally ending up in the old man’s office.

  Nothing there had changed since my last visit. Maps lay on the desk. The big Viking tombstone thing stood in the corner, its figure of a wolf still snarling at me. Medieval weapons and trinkets lined the shelves along with leather-bound books and photographs of Randolph at dig sites in Scandinavia.

  On the chain around my neck, Jack’s pendant buzzed with tension. I had never brought him to Randolph’s house before. I guess he didn’t like the place. Or maybe he was just excited because the Skofnung Sword was strapped across my back.

  I turned to Alex. “Hey, are you female today?”

  The question slipped out before I had a chance to think about whether it was weird, whether it was rude, or whether it would get me decapitated.

  Alex smiled with what I hoped was amusement and not homicidal glee. “Why do you ask?”

  “The Skofnung Sword. It can’t be drawn in the presence of women. I kind of like it better when it can’t be drawn.”

  “Ah. Hold on.” Alex’s face scrunched up in intense concentration. “There! Now I’m female.”

  My expression must have been priceless.

  Alex burst out laughing. “I’m kidding. Yes, I’m female today. She and her.”

  “But you didn’t just—”

  “Change gender by force of will? No, Magnus. It doesn’t work that way.” She ran her fingers across Randolph’s desk. The stained glass transom window cast multicolored light across her face.

  “So can I ask…?” I waved my hands vaguely. I didn’t have the words.

  “How it does work?” She smirked. “As long as you don’t ask me to represent every gender-fluid person for you, okay? I’m not an ambassador. I’m not a teacher or a poster child. I’m just”—she mimicked my hand-waving—“me. Trying to be me as best I can.”

  That sounded fair. At least it was better than her punching me, garroting me, or turning into a cheetah and mauling me. “But you’re a shape-shifter,” I said. “Can’t you just…you know, be whatever you want?”

  Her darker eye twitched, as if I’d poked a sore spot.

  “That’s the irony.” She picked up a letter opener and turned it in the stained-glass light. “I can look like whatever or whoever I want. But my actual gender? No. I can’t change it at will. It’s truly fluid, in the sense that I don’t control it. Most of the time, I identify as female, but sometimes I have very male days. And please don’t ask me how I know which I am on which day.”

  That had, in fact, been my next question. “So why not call yourself, like, they and them? Wouldn’t that be less confusing than switching back and forth with the pronouns?”

  “Less confusing for who? You?”

  My mouth must’ve been hanging open, because she rolled her eyes at me like, You dork. I hoped Heimdall wasn’t recording the conversation to put on Vine.

  “Look, some people prefer they,” Alex said. “They’re nonbinary or mid-spectrum or whatever. If they want you to use they, then that’s what you should do. But for me, personally, I don’t want to use the same pronouns all the time, because that’s not me. I change a lot. That’s sort of the point. When I’m she, I’m she. When I’m he, I’m he. I’m not they. Get it?”

  “If I say no, will you hurt me?”

  “No.”

  “Then no, not really.”

  She shrugged. “You don’t have to get it. Just, you know, a little respect.”

  “For the girl with the very sharp wire? No problem.”

  She must have liked that answer. There was nothing confusing about the smile she gave me. It warmed the office about five degrees.

  I cleared my throat. “Anyway, we’re looking for anything that might tell us what’s going on with my uncle.”

  I started checking the bookshelves as if I had a clue about what I was doing. I didn’t find any secret messages or levers that opened hidden rooms. It always looked so easy on Scooby-Doo.

  Alex rummaged through Randolph’s desk drawers. “So you used to live in this big mausoleum?”

  “Thankfully, no. My mom and I had an apartment in Allston…before she died. Then I was on the streets.”

  “But your family had money.”

  “Randolph did.” I picked up an old photo of him with Caroline, Aubrey, and Emma. It was too painful to look at. I turned it around. “You’re going to ask why I didn’t come to live with him instead of being homeless?”

  Alex scoffed. “Gods, no. I would never ask that.”

  Her voice had turned bitter, as if rich-jerk relatives were something she knew about.

  “You come from…somewhere like this?” I asked.

  Alex closed the desk drawer. “My family had a lot of things, just not the things that mattered…like a son and heir, for instance. Or, you know, feelings.”

  I tried to imagine Alex living in a mansion like this, or mingling at an elegant party like Mr. Alderman’s in Alfheim. “Did your folks know you were a child of Loki?”

  “Oh, Loki made sure of that. My mortal parents blamed him for the way I was, for being fluid. They said he corrupted me, put ideas in my head, blah, blah, blah.”

  “And your parents didn’t just…conveniently forget Loki, like Sam’s grandparents did?”

  “I wish. Loki made sure they remembered. He—he opened their eyes permanently, I guess you could say. Like what you did for Amir, except my dad’s motives weren’t as good.”

  “I didn’t do anything for Amir.”

  Alex walked over to me and crossed her arms. She was wearing pink-and-green flannel today over regular blue jeans. Her hiking boots were boringly practical, except the laces glittered pink metallic.

  Her different-colored eyes seemed to pull my thoughts in two directions at once. “You really believe you didn’t do anything?” she asked. “When you grabbed Amir’s shoulders? When your hands started to glow?”

  “I…glowed?” I didn’t have any recollection of calling on the power of Frey. It hadn’t even occurred to me that Amir needed healing.

  “You saved him, Magnus,” Alex said. “Even I could see that. He would’ve cracked under the strain. You gave him the resilience to stretch his mind without breaking. The only reason he’s in one piece, mentally, is because of you.”

  I felt like I was back on the Bifrost Bridge, superheated colors burning through me. I didn’t know what to do with the look of approval Alex was giving me, or the idea that I might have healed Amir’s mind without even knowing it.

  She punched me in the chest, just hard enough to hurt. “How about we finish up? I’m starting to suffocate in this place.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

  I was having trouble breathing, too, but it wasn’t because of the house. The way Alex spoke so approvingly of me…that had made something click. I realized who she reminded me of—her restless energy, her petite size and choppy haircut, her flannel shirt and jeans and boots, her disregard for what other people thought of her, even her laugh—on those rare occasions she laughed. She reminded me weirdly of my mom.

  I decided not to dwell on that. Pretty soon I’d be psychoanalyzing myself more than Otis the goat.

  I scanned the shelves one last time. My eyes fixed on the only framed photo without Randolph in it: a shot of a frozen waterfall in the wilderness, sheets of ice hanging over the ledges of a gray cliff. It could have been just a pretty nature picture from anywhere, but it looked familiar. The colors in it were more vibrant than in the other photos, as if
this shot had been taken more recently. I picked it up. There was no dust on the shelf where the frame had been. But there was something else—a green wedding invitation.

  Alex studied the photo. “I know that place.”

  “Bridal Veil Falls,” I said. “New Hampshire. I’ve gone hiking there.”

  “Same.”

  Under different circumstances, we might’ve traded hiking stories. It was another weird similarity between her and my mom, and maybe the reason why Alex had an open atrium in the middle of her hotel suite just like mine.

  But at the moment my mind was racing in a different direction. I remembered what Heimdall had said about the fortress of Thrym, how its entrance was always changing, so it would be impossible to predict where it might be on the day of the wedding. Sometimes it turns up behind a waterfall, he’d said.

  I scanned the wedding invitation, an exact duplicate of the one Sam had thrown away. The when column now said: TWO DAYS HENCE. In other words, the day after tomorrow. The where column still said: WE’LL GET BACK TO YOU.

  The picture of Bridal Veil Falls might just be a random photo. The name of the location might be a coincidence. Or maybe Uncle Randolph wasn’t completely under Loki’s control. Maybe he’d left me a clue worthy of Scooby-Doo.

  “That’s Sam’s wedding invitation,” Alex said. “You think it means something that it was tucked behind this photo?”

  “Could be nothing,” I said. “Or it could be a point of entry for some wedding crashers.”

  We Have a Tiny Problem

  RENDEZVOUS SPOT: the George Washington statue in the Public Garden. Hearthstone, Blitzen, and Samirah were already there, along with another old friend who happened to be an eight-legged horse.

  “Stanley!” I said.

  The stallion whinnied and nuzzled me. He nodded toward the statue of George Washington on his charger as if to say, Can you believe this dude? He ain’t so great. His horse only has four legs.

  The first time I’d met Stanley, we’d hurtled off a Jotunheim cliff together, heading for a giant’s fortress. I was glad to see the horse again, but I had a bad feeling we were about to take part in the sequel—Cliff Hurtling II: The Rise of Big Boy.

  I stroked Stanley’s muzzle, wishing I had a carrot for him. All I had was chocolate and kibbeh, and I didn’t think either would be good for an eight-legged horse.

  “Did you summon him?” I asked Hearthstone. “How are you still conscious?”

  The first time Hearth used ehwaz, the transportation runestone, he’d collapsed and giggled about washing machines for half an hour.

  Hearth shrugged, though I detected a little pride in his expression. He looked better today, after spending a night in the tanning bed. His black jeans and jacket were freshly cleaned, and he had his familiar candy-striped scarf around his neck.

  Easier now, he signed. I can do two, maybe three runes in a row before I collapse.

  “Wow.”

  “What did he say?” Alex asked.

  I translated.

  “Just two or three?” Alex asked. “I mean, no offense, but that doesn’t sound like a lot.”

  “It is,” I said. “Using one rune is like the hardest workout you’ve ever done. Imagine an hour of nonstop sprinting.”

  “Yeah, I don’t really work out, so—”

  Blitzen cleared his throat. “Ah, Magnus? Who’s your friend?”

  “Sorry. This is Alex Fierro. Blitzen, Hearthstone, Alex is our newest einherji.”

  Blitzen was wearing his pith helmet, so it was difficult to see his expression through the gauze netting. However, I was pretty sure he wasn’t grinning in delight.

  “You’re the other child of Loki,” he said.

  “Yep,” Alex said. “I promise I won’t kill you.”

  For Alex, that was a pretty big concession, but Hearth and Blitz didn’t seem to know what to make of her.

  Samirah gave me a dry smile.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Nothing.” She was wearing her school uniform, which I thought was pretty optimistic, like, I’ll just zip over to Jotunheim and be back in time for third-period Government. “Where have you two been? You didn’t come from the direction of Valhalla.”

  I explained about our excursion to Randolph’s, and the photo and wedding invitation that were now in my backpack.

  Sam frowned. “You think this waterfall is the way into Thrym’s fortress?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or at least it might be two days from now. If we know that in advance, we might be able to use the info.”

  How? Hearth signed.

  “Um, I’m not sure yet.”

  Blitzen grunted. “I suppose it’s possible. Earth giants can manipulate solid rock even better than dwarves can. They can definitely shift their front doors around. Also”—he shook his head in disgust—“their fortresses are almost impossible to break into. Tunneling, explosives, blasts of godly power—none of that will work. Believe me, D.I.C.E. has tried.”

  “Dice?” I asked.

  He looked at me like I was a moron. “The Dwarven Infantry Corps of Engineers. What else would it stand for? Anyway, with earth giants you have to use the main entrance. But even if your uncle knew where it would be on the wedding day, why would he share that information? This is the man who stabbed me in the gut.”

  I didn’t need the reminder. I saw that scene every time I closed my eyes. I also didn’t have a good answer for him, but Alex intervened. “Shouldn’t we get going?”

  Sam nodded. “You’re right. Stanley will only stay summoned for a few minutes. He prefers no more than three passengers, so I figured I would fly and carry Hearthstone. Magnus, how about you, Alex, and Blitz take our horse friend?”

  Blitzen shifted uneasily in his navy three-piece suit. Maybe he was thinking how badly he and Alex would clash sitting next to each other on the horse.

  It’s okay, Hearthstone signed to him. Be safe.

  “Hmph. All right.” Blitz glanced at me. “But I’ve got dibs on the front. Is that called shotgun on a horse?”

  Stanley whinnied and stomped. I don’t think he liked shotgun and horse being used in the same sentence.

  I handed Sam the Skofnung Sword. Blitzen gave her the Skofnung Stone. We figured, since they were her supposed bride-price, she should have the right to carry them. She wouldn’t be able to draw the sword because of its enchantments, but at least she could brain people with the stone if the need arose.

  Stanley allowed us to climb aboard—Blitzen first, Alex in the middle, and me in the back, or as I liked to think of it: the seat from which you will fall off and die in case of rapid ascent.

  I was afraid that if I held on to Alex she might cut off my head or turn into a giant lizard and bite me or something, but she grabbed my wrists and put them around her waist. “I’m not fragile. And I’m not contagious.”

  “I didn’t say anything—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Shutting up.”

  She smelled of clay, like the pottery studio in her suite. She also had a tiny tattoo I hadn’t noticed before on the nape of her neck—the curled double serpents of Loki. When I realized what I was looking at, my stomach took a preemptive drop off a cliff, but I didn’t have much time to process the tattoo’s significance.

  Sam said, “See you in Jotunheim.” She grabbed Hearthstone’s arm and the two of them vanished in a flash of golden light.

  Stanley wasn’t quite so understated. He galloped toward Arlington Street, jumped the park fence, and charged straight toward the Taj Hotel. A moment before we would’ve hit the wall, Stanley went airborne. The hotel’s marble facade dissolved into a bank of fog and Stanley did a three-sixty barrel roll right through it, somehow managing not to lose us. His hooves touched the ground again, and we were charging through a forested ravine, mountains looming on either side.

  Snow-covered pines towered above us. Gunmetal gray clouds hung low and heavy. My breath turned to steam.

  I had time to think, Hey,
we’re in Jotunheim, before Blitzen yelled, “Duck!”

  The next millisecond demonstrated how much faster I could think than react. First I thought Blitz had spotted an actual duck. Blitzen likes ducks. Then I realized he was telling me to get down, which is hard to do when you’re the last in a line of three people on horseback.

  Then I saw the large tree branch hanging directly in our path. I realized Stanley was going to run right under it at full speed. Even if the branch had been properly labeled low clearance, Stanley couldn’t read.

  SMACK!

  I found myself flat on my back in the snow. Above me, pine branches swayed in fuzzy Technicolor. My teeth ached.

  I managed to sit up. My vision cleared, and I spotted Alex a few feet away, curled up and groaning in a pile of pine needles. Blitzen staggered around looking for his pith helmet. Fortunately, Jotunheim light wasn’t strong enough to petrify dwarves or he would’ve already turned to stone.

  As for our intrepid ride, Stanley, he was gone. A trail of hoofprints continued under the tree branch and into the woods as far as I could see. Maybe he’d reached the end of his summoning time and vanished. Or maybe he’d gotten caught up in the joy of running and wouldn’t realize he’d left us behind for another twenty miles.

  Blitzen snatched his pith helmet out of the snow. “Stupid horse. That was rude!”

  I helped Alex to her feet. A nasty-looking cut zigzagged across her forehead like a squiggly red mouth.

  “You’re bleeding,” I said. “I can fix that.”

  She swatted away my hand. “I’m fine, Dr. House, but thanks for the diagnosis.” She turned unsteadily, scanning the forest. “Where are we?”

  “More importantly,” Blitz said, “where are the others?”

  Sam and Hearthstone were nowhere to be seen. I only hoped Sam was better at avoiding obstacles than Stanley was.

  I scowled at the tree branch we’d run into. I wondered if I could get Jack to chop it down before the next group of poor schmucks rode through here. But there was something strange about its texture. Instead of the usual bark pattern, it consisted of crosshatched gray fiber. It didn’t taper to a point, but instead curved down to the ground, where it snaked across the snow. Not a branch, then…more like a huge cable. The top of the cable wound into the trees and disappeared into the clouds.

  “What is this thing?” I asked. “It’s not a tree.”

  To our left, a dark, looming shape I’d taken for a mountain shifted and rumbled. I realized with bladder-twisting certainty that it wasn’t a mountain. The largest giant I’d ever seen was sitting next to us.

  “No, indeed!” his voice boomed. “That’s my shoestring!”

  How could I not notice a giant that big? Well, if you didn’t know what you were looking at, he was simply too large to understand. His hiking boots were foothills. His bent knees were mountain peaks. His dark gray bowling shirt blended in with the sky, and his fluffy white beard looked like a bank of snow clouds. Even sitting down, the giant’s gleaming eyes were so far up they could have been blimps or moons.

  “Hello, little ones!” The giant’s voice was deep enough to liquefy soft substances—like my eyeballs, for instance. “You should watch where you are going!”

  He tucked in his right foot. The tree branch/shoelace we’d smacked into slithered through the pines, uprooting bushes, snapping branches, and scattering terrified woodland creatures. A twelve-point buck leaped out of nowhere and almost ran over Blitzen.

  The giant leaned over, blocking out the gray light. He tied his shoe, humming as he worked, looping one massive cable over the other, the laces flailing and laying waste to whole swaths of forest.

  Once the giant had done a proper double knot, the earth stopped shaking.

  Alex yelled, “Who are you? And why haven’t you ever heard of Velcro straps?”