The Hammer of Thor Page 6

  felt comfortingly warm against my collarbone, as though Jack were trying to reassure me. Or maybe he was just in a good mood after an enjoyable date with a fine spear. Either way, I was glad to have him back.

  I got the feeling I wouldn’t be using a practice sword for the next five days. Things were about to get Jack-worthy.

  The Most Awkward Viking Luau Ever

  AS IF DRAGON Thursday wasn’t bad enough, it was also theme night in the feast hall: Hawaiian luau.

  Ugh.

  I understood that the management needed to keep things interesting, especially for warriors who had been waiting here for Doomsday since the Middle Ages. Still, the luau seemed a little cultural appropriation-y to me. (Vikings were notorious for appropriating from other cultures. Also for pillaging and burning said cultures.) Besides, seeing thousands of einherjar in Hawaiian shirts and flower leis was like getting a neon-paint grenade between the eyes.

  The feast hall was packed right up to the nosebleed section—hundreds of tables arranged like stadium seating, all facing the central court, where a tree as big as the Prudential Center spread its branches across the vast domed roof. Near its roots, turning on a spit above the fire pit, was our usual dinner: the carcass of Saehrimnir the feast beast, who tonight wore a lovely necklace of orchids. Stuffed in his mouth was a pineapple the size of Wisconsin.

  Valkyries flew back and forth across the hall, filling pitchers, serving food, and somehow managing to avoid setting their grass skirts on fire in the tiki torches that flickered along the aisles.

  “Magnus!” T.J. called, waving me over. His rifle was propped next to him, the broken stock patched up with duct tape.

  We didn’t have assigned tables. That would’ve cut down on the fun of fighting each other for the best seats. Tonight, my hallmates had scored a great location on the third tier, a few rows from the thanes’ table.

  “There’s our sleepy boy!” Halfborn grinned, his teeth flecked with roasted Saehrimnir. “Alicarl, my friend!”

  Mallory elbowed him. “It’s aloha, moron.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Alicarl is Norse for fatso, as Halfborn knows perfectly well.”

  “Close enough!” Halfborn pounded his goblet to get the Valkyries’ attention. “Some mead and meat for my friend!”

  I took a seat between Mallory and T.J. Soon I had a cold mug of mead and a hot plate of Saehrimnir with biscuits and gravy. Despite all the craziness I’d gone through today, I had a huge appetite—getting resurrected always did that to me. I dug in.

  Sitting at the thanes’ table was the usual assortment of famous dead people. I recognized Jim Bowie, Crispus Attucks, and Ernie Pyle, all of whom had died bravely in combat, along with Helgi, the hotel manager, and some other ancient Viking dudes. The central throne for Odin was empty, as usual. Sam supposedly received orders from the All-Father once in a while, but Odin hadn’t appeared in person since the end of our quest back in January. Probably he was working on his next book—Five Days to Your Best Ragnarok Ever!—and the accompanying PowerPoint presentation.

  To the left of the thanes was the table of honor. Tonight, it was occupied by only two people: Alex Fierro and her Valkyrie sponsor, Samirah al-Abbas. This meant that, in all the Nine Worlds, in the last twenty-four hours, only Alex had died a death worthy of Valhalla.

  That wasn’t necessarily unusual. The nightly numbers ranged from zero to twelve. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that nobody else had died bravely today merely because they didn’t want to share a table with Alex. Two Valkyrie guards stood behind her as if ready to prevent an escape attempt.

  Sam’s body language looked pretty stiff. I was too far away to hear, but I imagined her conversation with Alex was something like:

  Sam: Awkward.

  Alex: Awkward, awkward.

  Sam (nodding): Awkward, awkward, awkward.

  Next to me, T.J. pushed away his empty plate. “Some combat today. I’ve never seen anyone do that”—he drew a line across his neck—“so quick and cold.”

  I resisted the urge to touch my throat. “First time I’ve been decapitated.”

  “Not fun, is it?” Mallory said. “What was going on with you, steaming and threatening to explode like that?”

  I’d known my hallmates a while now. I trusted them like family—and I mean like Annabeth family, not Uncle Randolph family. I told them everything: Loki in his ghastly green tuxedo inviting me to a wedding; the dreams about my uncle, Hearth and Blitz, and the giant siblings in the bar.

  “Thrym?” Halfborn Gunderson picked some biscuit out of his beard. “I know that name from the old legends. He was one of the earth giant kings, but it couldn’t be the same guy. That Thrym was killed good and proper centuries ago.”

  I thought about Otis the goat, who could supposedly re-form from the mist of Ginnungagap. “Giants don’t, like, resurrect?”

  Halfborn scoffed. “Not that I’ve ever heard of. Probably this is another Thrym. It’s a common name. Still, if he has Thor’s hammer—”

  “We should probably not spread the news that it’s missing,” I said.

  “Too right,” Mallory grumbled. “You say this giant plans on marrying…” Her finger drifted in the direction of Samirah. “Does Sam know about this scheme?”

  “I need to ask her,” I said. “Either way, we’ve got five days. Then, if this giant Thrym doesn’t get his bride—”

  “He jumps on the telegraph,” T.J. said, “and he tells all the other giants that he’s got Thor’s hammer. Then they invade Midgard.”

  I decided not to remind T.J. that no one used telegraphs anymore.

  Halfborn picked up his steak knife and started cleaning his teeth. “Don’t understand why this Thrym fellow waited so long. If he’s had the hammer for months, why aren’t we already under attack?”

  I didn’t have an answer, but I imagined it had something to do with Loki. As always, he would be whispering in people’s ears, manipulating events from behind the scenes. Whatever Loki wanted from this weird marriage transaction, I was sure of one thing: he wasn’t trying to get Thor’s hammer back just because he was a swell guy.

  I stared across the hall at Alex Fierro. I remembered what she had said on the battlefield when we faced Grimwolf: He sent it for me. He knows I’m here.

  Mallory nudged me. “You’re thinking the same thing, eh? Can’t be a coincidence that Alex Fierro arrived in the midst of all this. You think Loki sent her?”

  I felt like the bathtub goldfish was wriggling its way back down my throat. “How could Loki arrange for someone to become an einherji?”

  “Oh, my friend…” T.J. shook his head. The combination of his floral-patterned Hawaiian shirt with his Union Army jacket made him look like a detective from Hawaii Five-0: 1862. “How could Loki release an elder lindworm into Valhalla? How could he help Johnny Reb win the First Battle of Bull Run?”

  “Loki did what?”

  “My point is, Loki can do many things,” T.J. said. “Don’t ever underestimate him.”

  It was good advice. Still…staring at Alex Fierro, I had trouble believing she was a spy. Terrifying and dangerous, yes. A pain in the loincloth, sure. But working for her father?

  “Wouldn’t Loki pick somebody who…blended in a little more?” I asked. “Besides, when Loki was in my head, he told me not to bring Alex to this wedding. He said she would ruin everything.”

  “Reverse psychology,” Halfborn suggested, still working the knife between his teeth.

  Mallory snorted. “What do you know about psychology, you oaf?”

  “Or reverse reverse reverse psychology!” Halfborn wriggled his bushy eyebrows. “That Loki is a tricky one.”

  Mallory threw a baked potato at him. “All I’m saying is that Alex Fierro bears watching. After she killed the lindworm—”

  “With a little help from me,” T.J. added.

  “—she disappeared into the woods. She left T.J. and me to fend for ourselves. Then the rest of the dragons descended on us out of nowhere—”


  “And killed us,” T.J. said. “Yes, that was a little odd….”

  Halfborn grunted. “Fierro is a child of Loki, and an argr. You can’t trust an argr in combat.”

  Mallory swatted his arm. “Your attitude is more offensive than your smell.”

  “I find your offense offensive!” Halfborn protested. “Argrs aren’t warriors. That’s all I meant!”

  “Okay, what is an argr?” I asked. “When you first said it, I thought it was a monster. Then I thought maybe it was another word for pirate, like one who arghs. Does it mean a transgender person or what?”

  “Literally, it means unmanly,” Mallory said. “It’s a deadly insult among big loutish Vikings like this guy.” She poked Halfborn in the chest.

  “Bah,” said Halfborn. “It’s only an offense if you call someone argr who isn’t argr. Gender-fluid people are hardly a new thing, Magnus. There were plenty of argr among the Norse. They serve their purposes. Some of the greatest priests and sorcerers were…” He made circles in the air with his steak knife. “You know.”

  Mallory frowned at me. “My boyfriend is a Neanderthal.”

  “Not at all!” Halfborn said. “I’m an enlightened modern man from the year 865 C.E. Now, if you talk to those einherjar from 700 C.E., well…they’re not as open-minded about such things.”

  T.J. sipped his mead, his eyes fixed in the distance. “During the war, we had a scout from the Lenape tribe. Called himself—or herself—Mother William.”

  “That’s an awful war name!” Halfborn complained. “Who would tremble in terror before someone called Mother William?”

  T.J. shrugged. “I’ll admit most of us didn’t know what to make of him. His identity seemed to change day to day. He said he had two spirits in his body, one male and one female. But I’m telling you—great scout. Saved us from an ambush during the march through Georgia.”

  I watched Alex eat her dinner, gingerly picking pieces of carrot and potato from her plate. It was hard to believe that a few hours ago those same delicate fingers had taken down a dragon—and cut off my head—with a wire.

  Halfborn leaned toward me. “There’s no shame in being attracted, Magnus.”

  I choked on a piece of feast beast. “What? No, I wasn’t—”

  “Staring?” Halfborn grinned. “You know, Frey’s priests were very fluid. During the harvest festival, they used to wear dresses and do some amazing dances—”

  “You’re messing with me,” I said.

  “Nope.” Halfborn chuckled. “One time in Uppsala, I met this lovely—”

  His story was cut short by the sound of horns echoing through the hall.

  At the thanes’ table, Helgi rose. Since this morning, he’d repaired his suit jacket and clipped his beard, but he was now wearing an oversize war helmet—probably to hide the damage Alex Fierro had done to his dead-buzzard hairdo.

  “Einherjar!” his voice boomed. “Tonight, only one fallen warrior has joined us, but I’m told the story of his death is quite impressive.” He scowled at Samirah al-Abbas as if to say, It had better be. “Rise, Alex Fierro, and dazzle us with your glorious deeds!”

  What’s a Guy Gotta Do to Get a Standing Ovation?

  ALEX DIDN’T LOOK excited about having to dazzle us.

  She rose, tugging at her sweater-vest, then scanned the crowd as if challenging each and every warrior to a duel.

  “Alex, son of Loki!” Helgi began.

  “Daughter,” Alex corrected him. “Unless I tell you otherwise, it’s daughter.”

  At the end of the thanes’ table, Jim Bowie coughed into his mead cup. “What, now?”

  Ernie Pyle muttered something in Bowie’s ear. They put their heads together. Pyle brought out his journalist’s notepad and a pen. He seemed to be drawing Bowie a diagram.

  Helgi’s face twitched. “As you wish, daughter of Loki—”

  “And don’t feel obliged to mention my dad,” Alex added. “I don’t like him very much.”

  A ripple of nervous laughter went around the room. Next to Alex, Samirah clenched her fists as if warming up her strangling muscles. I doubted she was mad at Alex—Sam didn’t like Loki either. But if for any reason the thanes decided Alex wasn’t a worthy choice for Valhalla, Sam could get kicked out of the Valkyries and exiled to Midgard. I knew this because that’s what had happened when she’d introduced me.

  “Very well, person who is the child of some parent.” Helgi’s voice was as dry as Odin’s empty eye socket. “Let us watch your exploits, courtesy of Valkyrie Vision!”

  These Vikings today and their new-fangled technology…Around the trunk of the Tree of Laeradr, huge holographic screens winked into existence. Footage from Samirah’s Valkyrie body-cam began to play.

  Sam was an expert at trigonometry, calculus, and aviation, so you’d think she could figure out how to use a camera. Nope. She always forgot when to turn it on and off. Half the time her videos came out sideways because she’d clipped the camera on wrong. Sometimes she recorded entire missions where the camera showed nothing but her own nostrils.

  Tonight the video quality was good, but Sam had started recording way too early. Time stamp 7:03 that morning: we were treated to a view of her grandparents’ living room—a small but tidy space with a low coffee table and two suede sofas. Over the fireplace hung a framed piece of Arabic calligraphy—a swirling gold ink design on white parchment. Proudly displayed on the mantel underneath were pictures of Sam as a toddler with a toy plane, as a middle schooler on the soccer field, and as a high schooler holding a large trophy.

  As soon as Sam realized where the video had started, she stifled a yelp. But there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  The video panned left to a dining area where three older people sat drinking tea from fancy gold-rimmed teacups. One guy I knew: Abdel Fadlan, the owner of Fadlan’s Falafel. There was no mistaking his mane of silver hair and that tailored blue business suit. The other two must have been Sam’s grandparents, Jid and Bibi. Jid looked like Santa Claus or Ernest Hemingway—barrel-chested and moonfaced with a snowy beard and lots of smile wrinkles, though today he was frowning. He wore a gray suit that had probably fit him twenty years and twenty pounds ago. Bibi wore an elegantly embroidered red-and-gold dress with a matching hijab. She sat with perfect poise, like royalty, as she poured tea for her guest, Mr. Fadlan.

  From the angle of the camera, I guessed Samirah was sitting on a chair between the two sofas. About ten feet away, in front of the fireplace, Amir Fadlan paced in agitation, running his hands through his slick dark hair. He looked as dashing as always in his skinny jeans, white T-shirt, and stylish vest, but his usual easy smile was gone. His expression was anguished, like someone had stomped on his heart.

  “Sam, I don’t understand,” he said. “I love you!”

  The entire crowd in the feast hall went “Ooh!”

  “Shut up!” Samirah snapped at them, which only made them laugh. I could see that it was taking all her willpower not to cry.

  The video fast-forwarded. I watched as Sam flew to meet me at the Thinking Cup, then got a message on her phone for a possible code 381.

  She flew from the coffee shop and sped across the park toward Downtown Crossing.

  She spiraled down and floated over a dark dead-end alley between two dilapidated theaters. I knew exactly where it was, right around the corner from a homeless shelter. Heroin junkies liked to shoot up in that alley, which made it a great place to get beaten, robbed, or killed.

  At the moment Sam arrived, it was also a great place to get attacked by vicious glowing wolves.

  Against the back wall, three large beasts had cornered a grizzled homeless guy. The only thing between him and certain death was a Roche Bros. shopping cart filled with cans for recycling.

  My dinner congealed in my gut. The wolves brought back too many memories of my mother’s murder. Even if they hadn’t been the size of full-grown horses, I would’ve known they weren’t regular Midgard wolves. Blue phosphorescent mis
t clung to their fur, throwing aquarium-like ripples of light across the brick walls. Their faces were too expressive, with human-like eyes and sneering lips. These were the children of Fenris. They padded back and forth, snarling and sniffing the air, enjoying the scent of fear coming from their prey.

  “Back!” the old man croaked, jabbing his grocery cart toward the animals. “I told you, I don’t want it! I don’t believe in it!”

  In the feast hall, the assembled einherjar muttered with disapproval.

  I’d heard stories about some modern demigods—sons and daughters of Norse gods or goddesses—who refused to accept their destiny. They turned their backs on the weirdness of the Nine Worlds. Instead of fighting when monsters appeared, they ran and hid. Some decided they were legitimately crazy. They took meds. They checked themselves into hospitals. Others became alcoholics or junkies and ended up on the streets. This guy must have been one of them.

  I could feel the pity and disgust in the feast hall. This old man might have spent his whole life running, but now he was trapped. Rather than come to Valhalla as a hero, he would die a coward’s death and go to the cold land of Hel—the worst fate any einherji could imagine.

  Then, at the mouth of the alley, a voice yelled, “Hey!”

  Alex Fierro had arrived. She stood with her feet planted apart, her fists on her waist like Supergirl—if Supergirl had green hair and sported a pink-and-green sweater-vest.

  Alex must have been passing by. Maybe she heard the old man shouting or the wolves growling. There was no reason she had to get involved. The wolves were so focused on their prey they never would have noticed her.

  Yet she charged the beasts, morphing as she moved and launching herself into battle as a German shepherd.

  Despite the size difference, Alex managed to knock the largest wolf off its feet. She sank her fangs into its neck. The beast writhed and snarled, but Alex jumped away before it could bite back. As the wounded wolf staggered, the other two attacked her.

  As quick as flowing water, Alex changed back to human form. She lashed out with her wire, using it like a whip. With a single flick, one of the wolves lost its head.

  “Ooh!” the audience said with appreciation.

  Before she could strike again, the other wolf tackled her. The two of them rolled across the alley. Alex changed to a German shepherd again, clawing and biting, but she was out of her weight class.

  “Turn into something bigger,” I found myself murmuring. But for whatever reason, Alex didn’t.

  I’d always liked dogs—more than I liked most people, and definitely more than wolves. It was hard to watch as the wolf tore into the German shepherd, ripping at Alex’s snout and throat, matting her fur with blood. Finally, Alex managed to change form—shrinking into a lizard and skittering out from under her attacker. She turned human again a few feet away, her clothes in tatters, her face a horror show of slashes and bite marks.

  Unfortunately, the first wolf had recovered its wits. It howled in rage—a sound that echoed through the alley and ricocheted off the surrounding buildings. I realized it was the same howl I’d heard from across town while I fought the goat-assassin.

  Together, the two remaining wolves advanced toward Alex, their blue eyes flickering with hatred.

  Alex fumbled with the sweater tied around her waist. One reason she wore it became evident: it concealed a hunting knife at her belt. She drew the weapon and tossed it toward the homeless guy.

  “Help me!” she yelled. “Fight!”

  The blade skittered across the asphalt. The old man backed away, keeping his shopping cart between himself and the battle.

  The wolves lunged at Alex.

  Finally, she tried to change into something larger—maybe a buffalo or a bear, it was hard to tell—but I guess she didn’t have enough strength. She collapsed back into human form as the wolves tackled her and brought her down.

  She fought ferociously, wrapping her garrote around the neck of one wolf, kicking the other, but she was outmatched and had lost too much blood. She managed to choke the larger wolf. It slumped over, crushing her. The last beast took her by the throat. She wrapped her fingers around its neck, but her eyes were losing focus.

  Much too late, the old man picked up the knife. He edged toward the last wolf. With a horrified shriek, he drove the blade into its back.

  The monster fell dead.

  The old man stepped away from the scene—three dead wolves, their fur still glowing in faint clouds of neon blue; Alex Fierro, her final breath rattling in her chest, a pool of blood spreading around her like a halo.

  The old man dropped the knife and ran away sobbing.

  The camera zoomed in as Samirah al-Abbas descended toward the fallen warrior. Sam reached out. From the broken body of Alex Fierro, a shimmering golden spirit floated up, already scowling at the unexpected summons.