Search for Senna

  This creature was not simply dangerous. He was evil.

  I felt my stomach lurch. I felt my knees buckle. To my amazement, I sank slowly to my knees.

  The four of us knelt in slow motion, knees hitting flagstones.

  Loki looked at us with amused contempt. He looked as if he might burst out laughing. He looked as if he might have us dragged away to the pit in the courtyard. He looked as if he might step down off his throne and rip us apart with his bare hands like four rag dolls.

  “Welcome,” Loki said in a voice that echoed around the vast hall. “Welcome to Everworld.”

  Chapter

  X

  I was shaking. I’d always hoped, assumed, believed I was brave, but I was shaking. I glanced left and saw April. She was crying. I couldn’t see Christopher, but I did see Jalil. His eyes were narrowed, his lips pressed tight. Scared but not panicky.

  I shook myself, trying to get a grip on the wild images of terror my own imagination had called up to torture me.

  “This is my humble home,” Loki said, waving a ham-sized hand around casually. “You’ve already met Fenrir, my son.”

  He nodded in the direction of the wolf, who stood poised, ready, bristling with barely contained energy.

  I should have wondered how in hell he had a son who was a wolf, but there was a long list of things to wonder about.

  “Eat? Drink?” Loki asked, mocking.

  I shook my head. No. I had a horrible moment of thinking Christopher might make some smart remark. But no one said anything.

  Loki leaned forward, bringing his face closer to us. His lips actually drew back in a snarl that would have been appropriate for his son. “Good. Then, if we have the necessary pleasantries out of the way, let me ask you: WHAT HAVE YOU

  DONE WITH THE WITCH?”

  The blast of sound knocked me back. It was a hammer! I hit my head hard on the floor. My ears rang. The wind of his voice, the heat of his rage was like opening a furnace door.

  Then I felt more than that. Suddenly Loki was no ten-foot man, but a towering monster that dwarfed the wolf Fenrir, reducing his foul-breathed son to Chihuahua size.

  He reached down and grabbed me. Fay Wray in King Kong’s grip. He held me, helpless, up to his gnashing mouth.

  But this time his voice was gentle and sinister. “What have you done with my witch?”

  He could have swallowed me. He could have bitten my head off and chewed my skull. He was huge; I was helpless. I shook. Uncontrollably. Just shook as if I were coming apart.

  “Speak up, mortal,” Loki said, suddenly all sympathy and reasonableness. “I realize you’ve had a difficult day. It can’t be very pleasant hanging from my wall. But I had to know whether you were mortal or some more significant foe in disguise. Only a mortal could have allowed himself to be hung in chains like a criminal, so now I know what you are. Do you hear me? Are you paying attention?”

  I nodded, but even that familiar gesture was jerky with trembling.

  “Good, good,” Loki said. He reached over and set me back down alongside my shocked companions. I noticed Jalil’s eyes glance down at my shorts. They were wet.

  Loki shrank back to his normal ten-foot dimension. “Now that I have your attention, tell me: Where is my witch? What have you done with her? Speak up.”

  “I… I… I don’t know any witch…” I stammered. I cringed. I couldn’t help it. I cringed on my knees before him.

  “Oh, but you must,” Loki said, still reasonable, suave. “You came through the barrier with her. I went to incredible trouble to allow Fenrir to cross over, all so I could have the witch. I have exhausted myself! I have borrowed power from others that I must now repay. Do you have any idea what that witch cost me? And now, NOW, NOW I don’t have her. And you tell me you don’t know any witch.”

  Loki blazed. Literally. His hair was on fire, his face twisted, his eyes seemed to burn into me.

  Burn right into my brain, burn through my pathetic teeth-clenching tough-guy pretensions.

  “Leave me alone,” I whispered, begging.

  His expression changed to one of bemusement. He laughed.

  “You really don’t know. Blind little mortal.” And then he did something that rocked me to the core.

  The room filled with a blinding glow. An instant later, where Loki had stood now stood Senna.

  She was beautiful. Dressed in the clothes she’d worn on the pier. “Fenrir penetrated the barrier and brought me back to serve Great Loki,” she said. The voice was not hers. It was a feminine voice but not hers. A parody of a girl’s voice.

  “I came through the void, but the four of you came through, too. And somehow in the confusion, the imbalance of that moment, I slipped from Fenrir’s jaw and disappeared.”

  Senna, who was not Senna, walked over to me. She stood very close. Her face. It was her face. Her eyes, her mouth. She touched me gently on my wounded nose. “What have you done with me?” she asked.

  And then she dug her nails into my nose and twisted.

  “Ahhh!” I yelled. I batted at her hand, turned my face away to break her grip.

  “Leave him alone!” April yelled. “No one knows what happened to Senna. We didn’t do anything to her.”

  Loki became Loki again. He was breathing heavily, as though he’d just climbed the stairs to his own tower. He was weary. The rage was burning out.

  Fenrir decided to take a leak. He pissed a firehose stream against the far wall. The wolf urine steamed.

  From the shadows behind Loki’s throne a figure emerged, gliding across the floor.

  He was not large, no bigger than me, maybe a little smaller.

  But the wings he kept folded back made his shoulders seem very broad. He moved on thin, bowed legs that ended in soft pads rather than feet. They made a faint squishing sound, a little like someone with new sneaks. Just above the feet there were knees, and from the knees sharp, forward-aimed spikes protruded.

  The head was round, dominated by two large, flat insect eyes. But the single thing that caught my attention was the mouth. It was almost human at its center, but three jointed, grasping claws ringed the mouth. The claws worked constantly, reaching, grabbing at nothing, then pulling in toward the mouth.

  Loki, for all his evil power, was clearly a creature of Earth.

  Fenrir, the huge wolf, too. But this monster, this… thing… was just as clearly not.

  Loki didn’t look at the figure, but I could see that he felt his presence. Loki’s lip twitched into a sneer.

  “They know nothing,” the winged insect said in a fluttery, whispery voice.

  “They have stolen my witch!”

  “You have failed,” the creature said without a trace of emotion. “You have not opened a door into your Old World as you promised Ka Anor you would.”

  Loki turned to look at the creature. “I could have Fenrir chew you up and crap you out, you Hetwan filth.”

  “You are a treacherous creature, Loki. Ka Anor knows this. Ka Anor will not be surprised if you kill me. But Ka Anor will not be happy, either. I will leave now and report to Ka Anor. I think Ka Anor will eat you.”

  All this without any sense of fear or worry. The delicate alien creature seemed unconcerned by Loki. And he had no interest in us.

  Loki looked at the huge wolf and jerked his head ever so slightly. The Hetwan offered no resistance. He lay passively in the panting jaws. One of Fenrir’s huge teeth was drawing yellow blood.

  Fenrir carried him to Loki. Loki twisted his head sideways to look right in the Hetwan’s blank eyes. “You tell your Ka Anor that I don’t die easily.” Loki threw out a hand, pointing at a tapestry embroidered with the red serpent picture we’d seen earlier.

  “Do you see that? Do you know what it means, Hetwan?

  Odin, the All-Father, imprisoned me, bound by enchanted chains between massive rocks. And he created a snake to writhe above my upturned face, a snake that dribbled its venom into my eyes. The pain…” Loki flinched at the memory and swept a h
and over his face as if wiping something away.

  “It was agony. Day after day, year after year. Odin meant me to lie there in agony forever, for the crime of killing Baldur! But when the Great Change came, when Everworld was born, in the cataclysm I escaped. I lay in wait and I found the time.”

  Loki’s voice was a whisper now. “And I found the way. And the weapon. And I seized the indestructible Odin. And now it is Odin who lies writhing in torment.”

  Loki’s face was suffused with remembered pleasure. He savored the memory. “Odin One-Eye, all-powerful Odin, is in my power now. I entertain myself devising new tortures for him.”

  Loki took a few deep breaths, shaking off the happy visions.

  He smiled at the Hetwan. “So, you see, there’s a moral to the story. One you should pass along to that alien interloper, Ka Anor: Loki is not easy to kill. The bastard of Asgard now entertains Asgard’s former master in his dungeon.”

  He nodded at Fenrir. The wolf let the Hetwan fall.

  The Hetwan picked himself up. His three-clawed mouth still sought for food that did not exist.

  He walked calmly to one of the tall, arched windows, spread his wings, and flew up and through it without another word.

  Loki glared after him.

  “Double the guard,” he said to Fenrir. “Have our vassals kept alert. I will the fool who lets any Hetwan enter my domain.

  Likewise any creature of Huitzilopoctli. They’re of a piece, these aliens and those bloodthirsty madmen. Death-worshippers all.”

  Fenrir nodded his shaggy wolf head. “And what of these mortals?” he asked in his strange, animal voice.

  Loki shrugged. “Have the trolls take them to the pit. Kill them.”

  He looked right at me and curled his lip in contempt. “Have them kill the cowardly one slowly.”

  Chapter

  XI

  We marched from the great hall away from Loki and Fenrir.

  I had to get up off my knees to move. I had to get up and walk with my own piss drenching my shorts. Christopher was behind me. He had to see. He had to know what I’d done.

  My God, I was a coward! Loki was right. I was a coward.

  I was still shaking. I was glad, relieved to be away from Loki and his foul-smelling son. But terrified of what lay ahead.

  All my life I’d wondered. Like every boy. Like every man.

  Maybe girls, too, I don’t know. But there has never been a male born who did not wonder whether he was brave.

  You hear stories, you read books about men who were brave when they had to be. Men who had stood up against unbelievable odds. I’d failed. And not for the first time.

  Was it Loki who had opened my mind and looked in at my secrets when we crossed over? Had it been Loki whose voice I’d heard as I hung suspended, in the blank white void between worlds?

  Ah, I see.

  No. Someone else. Not Loki. But Loki hadn’t needed to open my mind to understand me.

  Kill the cowardly one slowly.

  I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t known it was going to happen, I told myself. This wasn’t what I’d ever pictured. A war, maybe. Yes, I could be brave in a war. I’d thought about it many times. But this! My test had come and I wasn’t ready.

  No excuses! Coward! Coward! I’d wet myself like a little baby. I had cried. I would have begged if I’d had the chance.

  Oh, my God, how could I be a coward?

  Now they’d kill me and it would almost be a relief. How could I ever tell my father what I’d done?

  I was in a haze. Disconnected from what was happening.

  Like it was all happening to someone else. Some far-distant person was being marched down that long stairway. Someone else, someone I didn’t even know, was blinking in the sudden light of the courtyard. Someone else was walking meekly toward the pit.

  Not me. Not David Levin. Not me. That wasn’t me shuffling along, head bowed, tears welling in my eyes behind a swaggering troll. No. No, that wasn’t me.

  “NO!” I yelled.

  It happened in a flash. I lunged. My hand grabbed the sword hilt. My fingers closed around it, unfamiliar yet expected. I pulled.

  It was long. It seemed to take forever to draw out of the troll’s scabbard. Then, there it was: a blade. Not glittering but dull.

  There was a fine coating of powdery rust below the pommel. It was heavier than I’d thought it would be.

  The troll turned his brute face to me. Seeing the sword in my hand, he registered slow surprise.

  I held it awkwardly, pointing straight out but with my wrist all wrong. I saw the sword point. I saw the troll’s chest and neck and head.

  And in that awful moment of suspended time, some clockwork part of my brain, some cold, distant, untouched part of my brain told me, The neck will be most vulnerable.

  I thrust, blindly, wildly. No art. No style. Just a convulsive jerk forward.

  The iron blade entered the troll’s neck and stopped. In sheer panic, I leaned into the sword, thrusting with all my weight, all my adrenaline-powered strength.

  The troll gaped at me, amazed. He reached up and touched the sword that now protruded through his neck, skewering him.

  A second troll began to draw his own sword.

  I yanked the sword from the troll’s neck and swung it hard.

  My panicked, sweeping blow nearly decapitated April, but she was just short enough. The blade caught the sword arm of the second troll.

  The arm dropped, bloodless, to the ground, still holding a sword. It stiffened. It became rock, like something hacked off a statue.

  “Run!” Christopher yelled.

  I hesitated, but only for a moment. The troll I’d stabbed was not bleeding from the gaping wound in his neck. The area of the wound was already stone. Hard. Lifeless. It was spreading out from the wound, turning what must have been living flesh to granite.

  The troll still looked puzzled. Then the stone-stiffening reached his face and the look became permanent.

  I turned and ran.

  Jalil, April, and Christopher were already racing back down the tunnel we’d come through.

  There were too many men and trolls in the courtyard to stand and fight there. Trolls and men were coming after us, but the two nearest, our remaining troll guards, were too slow for teenagers in running shoes.

  We pelted down the stairs but leaped off after only a few dozen feet of descent. We were in a tunnel, colder, darker than before. Dustier, as if it hadn’t been used much lately.

  I still held the sword, which made it awkward to run. Several times the blade scraped on the stone wall and set off sprays of sparks. But I’d give up my life before I’d let go of that sword.

  The tunnel came to a three-way divide

  “That’s the direction we came from,” Jalil said breathlessly, pointing at the left branch. “Back toward Loki.”

  “Yeah? Then how about another choice?” Christopher suggested.

  “Right,” I said, and led the way into darkness.

  I was fifty feet or so down the right-hand tunnel when I realized April wasn’t with us.

  I stopped and grabbed Christopher, who was running past. I yanked him to a stop and Jalil plowed into us. We froze, backs pressed against dripping walls, scared of making a sound.

  I looked back and saw April silhouetted in torchlight. Trolls and men, all with swords drawn, were descending on her.

  If we went back for her, we’d all be killed. If we didn’t…

  “They’ve gone to murder Loki!” April screamed. “Stop them!

  Stop them! They’ve gone to murder Great Loki!”

  She kept yelling and pointing down the left-hand tunnel.

  It was idiotic. No way anyone would fall for such a lame trick.

  And yet the motley assortment of men and trolls roared away down the left tunnel.

  One man, a large, brutal-looking Norseman, hesitated. He looked at April and squinted, as if trying to form a thought. I tensed, wondering if I could take him on.

&
nbsp; “Yeah, right,” I muttered under my breath. “He’s been swinging a sword since he was four!”

  April didn’t give the Norseman a chance to form his suspicion fully. “What will happen if they reach Loki? His anger will be terrible! Do you want to be the last to defend him?”

  That penetrated the thick blond head. Loki’s anger was something he could understand. Showing up late was probably not a good idea when your boss was a lunatic god.

  With a battle roar, he went off in pursuit of the others. April ran to us, panting.

  “Not bad,” Christopher said. “You should be an actor.”

  “I am an actor,” April said shakily. “Obviously, you missed Cuckoo’s Nest last year. I killed as Nurse Ratched.”

  “Which way?” I asked, like someone might have an answer.

  “How about away from the last troll we saw?” Jalil suggested.

  “Fair enough,” I agreed. We took off at a trot. We were all exhausted, hungry, and thirsty, but adrenaline is an amazing substance. If you’re scared enough, you find more energy than you thought possible.

  And we were definitely scared.

  Chapter

  XII

  It was a long tunnel. And a long way between flickering skull-sconce torches.

  Worst of all, the tunnel was not straight. It was curving, and the more it curved the more we feared it might lead back to Loki and the men and trolls who must be looking for us. Our footsteps seemed awfully loud. And we were leaving prints in the dust.

  We talked in low, muttering whispers. Scared. But relieved, too. We should be dead. We weren’t.

  “So are we definite that this is not a dream?” Christopher asked at one point.

  I had been off in dark thoughts, remembering my shameful terror before Loki. “Not a dream,” I muttered. I smelled of urine. I smelled like a men’s room.

  “Then what the hell is it?” he demanded. “I mean, what’s going on? Is this someone’s idea of a joke? Loki? A Norse god?

  A wolf the size of a bus? Some creepy alien? Trolls? Vikings killing sheep? I mean, what’s the deal?”