Modern Goddess: Trapped by Thor (Book One)

  Chapter 7

  I awoke. It took me several seconds to blink my eyes open, several more seconds to realize I wasn't dreaming, then one painfully long moment to realize I was chained to a freaking wall.

  The chains were tight and hard against my wrists, and I knew immediately they were magical. These were not the simple link chains you bought from the local hardware store for a couple of bucks a meter. They weren't even the heavy-duty ones you had to get from the engineering depot. These were the specialized god-links you had to get direct from Vulcan.

  They were not usually used to tie up innocent goddesses. These were reserved for your pesky giant, ogre, or sea monster. Yet here they were, nonetheless, fixing me in place, and doing a thorough job of it.

  I stared around at the room I was chained to. Though I’d never visited the underworld of the Greek Pantheon, I knew the style of the place. There were pillars and chains, oh, and I had a great view of the hill outside where Sisyphus was busy rolling his least-favorite boulder up the incline, only to fail, and have to try over and over again for eternity.

  I sunk my teeth heavily into my bottom lip and sighed. It was a choked, shaky sigh.

  I was defeated. I hadn’t put up much of a fight, I'd been defeated from the outset, but I was only now starting to appreciate what that meant.

  I tried to pull at the chains holding me in place. It was about as successful as moving mountains by blowing at them.

  I tried not to look out the window at Sisyphus. I didn't need to be reminded of useless toil.

  Except there was nowhere else to look. This room was empty. The goddess tied to the wall was meant to be the main feature, and the designers had cleverly decided that any other details – like pot plants and colors other than stone grey – would detract from the centerpiece: me.

  I found my gaze drifting back out the window. I had a remarkably clear view from here. My captors had likely intended it to be that way. They were going to leave me in a room with no chance of escape, with a clear view of someone else who labored and toiled without gain, to underline how powerless I was.

  Gods were not above psychological manipulation. They invented it. Divinities had the full gamut of psychological conditions from narcissism to general egomaniacal power tripping.

  I let my gaze drift to Sisyphus’ face. It was a punishment that didn’t fit the crime. Doling out bizarre and unwarranted punishments on the human population was one of the reasons the influence of the gods had been cut back. You can't rest too much responsibility in the hands of the powerful. They tend to think they are above the law and that they can get away with whatever they like – whether it be smashing some poor farmer's crops or accidentally letting out the leviathan while tooling around on their skidoos.

  No. Gods had to appreciate the rules too, and that's why the Integration Office enforced them. Before that, things had been chaotic, violent, and not that productive. Too many god wars had led to not enough progress as far as humanity was concerned. Plus, gods relied on humans far more than they would like to admit. Without believers and perceivers, gods couldn’t exist. If the divinities of Earth spent all their time warring with each other and killing the population upon which they relied upon for survival, they were going to war themselves to death. It had been decided by the Powers that Be – literally – that if gods were to survive as a species, they needed to become less active in human life. Peace would come, or so the plan had stated, when the divinities took their fingers out of the pie....

  It hadn't worked out like that. Nothing did.

  Though I worked for the Integration Office, and wouldn't go on record saying anything against it, I could admit – while tied to a wall in Hades’ Underworld – that things weren't as peachy as they seemed. While making gods step back and stop demanding sacrifices from humans was a good thing, the intricacies of belief in the divine were complex. Though most gods found the new rules stopped them from having fun, they also found that being less publicly involved in human affairs led to a real downturn in belief. As gods were based on belief (in part), it wasn't a good thing. Most gods these days found that in order to survive, they had to live vicariously through their supporters. That is, while no normal, modern human would admit to being an acolyte of the God of Knit Wear, as long as people approached cable-tie jumpers with sufficient reverence and belief, the God of Knit Wear lived on. It was belief by-proxy, and took a creative Hollywood-esque accounting on the part of divinities, but it worked.

  Therein lay the problem. While small-time gods like Old Knit Wear scrape out a living based on recurring internet memes depicting hilarious knitted-jumper-wearing children, the new laws favored other gods in a disproportionate way.

  I stared at Sisyphus as I thought. I’d often wondered what modern humans would do if they found out about us gods. How would the old lady down the street react if she knew the giant man in jeans and a T-shirt could produce lightning at will and had a magical hammer that could crash through any substance in the universe? Would her whole worldview be irrevocably shattered? Would she have a heart attack from the shock? Would she take a couple of breathy minutes to think about it, then ask Thor if he wouldn't mind using that hammer of his to fix her wonky door?

  It was a hard one. Humans – though their beliefs often seemed entrenched – had a remarkable ability to adapt to change. That was their gimmick: adapt to survive. If tomorrow everyone on modern-day Earth woke up to the admission that, yes, gods exist in all sorts of funny shapes and sizes, I doubted the world would crumble. Yeah, there might be riots, but only because some humans use any excuse to take to the streets to turn over rubbish bins and engage in some good old group window-smashing. I was sure civilization wouldn't crumble. While it would take humanity a couple of years to adapt to the idea, they'd soon settle into it and find a way to turn it to their advantage.

  Tireless, was a word I would use for it. The tireless ability to adapt to circumstances and integrate them, without destroying or shattering your worldview. I realized with a blink that the word tireless didn't fit humanity as well as it fit Sisyphus continually rolling the stone up the hill. At this thoughtful moment in my life, I could see the connection. Sisyphus pushed the stone up the hill, and from the outside it always looked as though he was failing to reach his goal: the top. To Sisyphus, would it seem that way? Would it seem to him that he failed each time the stone rolled back down? Or was success not based on the perception of victory, but on the unyielding commitment to the process?

  I became drawn into the philosophy of it all.

  The door opened. In walked Hades.

  Hades was one of those semi-evil, semi-good gods. A little like Loki used to be before he turned all the way to the dark side. Hades sometimes helped out the other Greek divinities, and sometimes he dragged up giant sea monsters and tried to get them to eat Zeus. He was a complicated guy.

  Hades ran a finger over his eyebrows, smoothing them both down. He was dressed in a regal purple toga clasped at the shoulder, fittingly, with a black-skull brooch. He had a shock of fuzzy black hair, and dark, strong features.

  He walked in, glanced at Sisyphus as if to check that the guy wasn't shirking off, then returned his gaze to me. He blinked then wobbled his jaw from side-to-side. “Comfortable?”

  “No.”

  He didn't follow up with a boomed “Good,“ and a hearty evil laugh. Like I said: a complicated guy. He lifted his hands in a shrug. “For what it's worth, I'm sorry we had to do this.”

  I didn't believe him. “You are?” I said tritely.

  “It was necessary.” He tried to smooth down his hair, which didn't seem possible this side of a mound of hair gel and several industrial clippers.

  “Necessary? Was the sea monster necessary, Hades, or was that just fun?”

  Hades spread his lips wide and laughed softly. “Yes,” he cocked an eyebrow, “That was fun. The kind of good old traditional fun that we don't get to see these days.” He crossed his arms and kept his eyebrows raised, though his
expression was far less amused now.

  “Oh for crying out loud,” I replied, “Are you still bitter about me rejecting your application for sea monster races in the Strait of Gibraltar? Times have changed, Hades, and if we expect to survive as a race, then we have to—“

  Hades showed his teeth in a wide tight grin. It was much less of a grin and more of an upside-down frown. “Times have changed. That's why we are here,” he pointed an elegant finger my way, “And more specifically, that is why you – Goddess Officina of Details and Facts – are tied to the wall.”

  I couldn't believe this, I just couldn't believe this. When the hell were the gods of Earth going to grow up? “You cannot be serious? You kidnapped me to get back at the Immigration Office—“

  “You are slow, Goddess of Facts. I suppose that is your weakness: you only deal with what you have and cannot think beyond that. You get lost in the details,” he ran a hand over the intricate pattern engraved into his skull brooch, “And you cannot see the bigger picture. Do you think three of the most powerful gods on Earth kidnapped you because we are sore at our visa applications being rejected?”

  I opened and closed my mouth. As much as I hated to admit it, he had me on that one. Up until a second ago, I’d genuinely thought this was some sort of grand administrative-revenge mission. I hadn’t thought beyond that obvious conclusion to entertain any others.

  He tried again to flatten his hair. “There is a new world order, I’m afraid,” he stared glumly out the window, “Times have changed. As you say, we have to live by a new set of rules to survive. Let me ask you this, Goddess of Facts, who makes those rules? Who drafted the grand axioms of the Integration Office?”

  It was an easy enough answer: “We did. The gods did.”

  He nodded. “We made the rules,” he let his lips curl into a bare smile, “And I believe that means we can change them too.”

  I blinked. “What? We can't—“

  “There was a time not long ago when the gods were respected.” He brought his hand up and rested it flat on his chest, somewhat like an orator from ancient Rome. “There was a time when our wisdom was feared as much as our power.”

  “Times change.” I rattled against my chains. “We have to change with them. We can't exert our power over humanity anymore. We have to let them choose for themselves.”

  “Do you know why we came up with the new rules?” Hades’ smile widened. “Do you know why we decided to step back from humanity and allow their freewill?”

  “We didn’t give them freewill,” I said firmly. I was confident I was right. Freewill, or at least as far as the esoteric god-philosophy line went, was a fundamental part of reality. The gods hadn't clicked their fingers one day and made monkeys men, following up with some star-fingers to give the monkey-men the ability to choose. Freedom was inherent.

  “True, but by schooling them, by sharing with them our wisdom, we allowed that faculty to grow.” Hades lifted his arms in a grand manner and took another step into the room. “It can take millions of years for a race to learn about its power of choice. Humanity learnt it in a matter of years, all because we gods shared our wisdom.”

  I rolled my eyes. This was all familiar. Many gods, especially of the powerful old-school variety, thought they were, literally, god's gift to humanity. They fancied everything revolved around them, and without their assistance (read: interference) humanity would have died off long ago.

  “Now I ask you again, do you know why we taught them freewill, then stepped back, allowing them to choose for themselves?” Hades took another step into the room as his lyrical voice floated over the place.

  I frowned. I wasn't going to be drawn into his Socratic argument. If he wanted to ramble at me, fine. I'd hang here chained to his wall and try and think of other things.

  “We did step back, you realize that, don't you?” Hades gestured out the window with one slow, delicate move.

  I followed the move and stared at Sisyphus.

  “I realize that the official company line no longer recounts that. But, Goddess Officina, respect this: the fact remains. We gods chose to step back. There was a time when we were in complete control of Earth.” He slowly closed his hand into a tight fist, his knuckles pressing up in great white streaks against his tight skin.

  “We didn't step back,” I said with a huff, “Humanity changed. Humanity itself found it no longer needed us,” I pushed forward against my chains, “It no longer needed all the chaos and goat-sacrificing that we brought along. It realized that if it could create its own power, live its own life—“

  Hades slowly shook his head, a quiet and compelling move. “There are many secrets of the gods that you, ah – what is the word? Small-time divinities do not know.”

  “There aren't any secrets here,” I said firmly.

  “I'm afraid there are secrets everywhere.” Hades shrugged easily. “Now, Goddess of Details, pay attention while I reveal an important one here. Do you think that we gods, at the height of our reign, lacked believers?”

  It was a silly question, so I wasn't going to answer it.

  “Do you think that when we battled in the skies and seas of man, that any human being lacked belief in us?”

  “I suppose it is hard to ignore when some great lug of a god ruins your potato patch,” I admitted tersely. “But that doesn't mean anything.”

  “I'm afraid it means the world. While we chose to be observable to humanity – and it was a choice – they believed in us, because they had no choice but to. When we walked, played, and fought amongst them, they couldn’t deny the sight. While we did, we had all the belief we needed to survive. While the official Integration Office line is that our power had to be reined in before we destroyed the people we relied on,” he dipped his head low, “That I’m afraid is a lie. Gods are powerful. They are not stupid. We kept humanity safe through the ages with the occasional sacrifice here and there if you were one of those bloodthirsty Incan gods. For the most part, humanity survived under our golden reign, and it did so splendidly.”

  I rolled my eyes again. It was funny how much I was degenerating into a surly teenager while strapped to this wall and being lectured by Hades. “Humanity—“

  “We stepped back,” Hades patted his chest, “Because we decided – once we had taught humanity freewill – it was time to let them exercise it. It was our choice, and it was not due to the economic pressures of a reduced population and a resulting crisis in belief. You will appreciate, especially as the goddess of facts, that the population levels before the decision to create the Integration Office revealed a historically stable human population.”

  I pressed my lips together. I tried to access the information he was hinting at – the average human population during and after the often-called God-Pull-Out.

  In truth, while I knew the facts, I’d never thought of them in the context Hades was using. I’d been a small-time goddess when the Integration Office had been created, and for most of the years before it, I’d been in too much of a daze from my growing power to appreciate more than the detail of sand blown over a path or the pattern of daisies in a field.

  I realized he had a point. I’d seen the population statistic of Earth before the Integration Office was created, and Hades was right: it had been stable.

  I tried not to look too put out by this revelation. He was playing on my main problem: my inability to see the whole picture. Once given a fact, I tended to store it without questioning it further. It wasn't until I found new information that my reality changed.

  “What is your point?” I huffed. As much as I enjoyed being chained to a wall in the Underworld while Hades lectured me on the true reasons for the current state of divine legislature, I was starting to get a backache.

  “My point,” he pressed his fingers together, “Is that the gods chose to abandon humanity – and not the other way around. Why do you think that was? What divine reasons do you think led to such a seemingly self-defeating strategy?”

  “You
were all getting bored fighting each other every other day and wanted to do something meaningful,” I spat back haughtily.

  “You will find there is greater meaning to racing sea monsters in the Strait of Gibraltar than you assume.” Hades slipped out of character, but fixed himself by patting his hair and sniffing. “I'll reveal to you another secret, Goddess of Facts, but only half of it: the gods taught humanity freewill because freewill feeds the gods.”

  I peaked my eyebrows together. He was making gods out to be a trash-disposal unit able to run on anything you put in it: belief, freewill, kitchen scraps, old chair legs – you name it. Except everyone knew it wasn't true. Everyone being restricted to everyone immortal.

  “Belief is one thing, but freely-chosen belief is another. That, goddess, is more valuable than all the ambrosia in Olympia. A freely-chosen belief can run a god for years,” he said regally.

  I snorted. “You make us sound like petrol engines.”

  He shrugged again. “All things need energy to survive. It just so happens that as gods we need belief. Yes, over the years we have realized how to make that belief more powerful and more efficient,” he tapped one hand against the other, “It's called innovation, goddess, and it doesn't just happen at MIT. We invented innovation too, of course.” He smiled easily.

  “You are telling me that we gave humans freewill so we could increase the efficiency of their belief, thereby reducing our own running costs as gods, and enabling us to live on less for longer?” I let my lips drop open, hopefully to underpin how ridiculous I thought all of this was.

  He tutted. “We didn’t give them freewill. Come now, you made that point yourself. We only taught them how to extend it. Do not believe that we did this for selfish reasons. It was symbiotic. We gave humanity as much as it gave us, and more.”

  I blew a loud breath through my teeth. “Wow,” I said sarcastically, but then couldn't think of what else to follow it up with. I wanted to point out that his account was ridiculous and that I didn't believe him... but the thing was, I wasn't sure he was wrong. What he was saying seemed to make sense....

  I hung off my chains and stared at him, trying to make sense of things. I had a whole host of new facts to deal with, and I needed to integrate them as much as possible.

  “I suppose that you know the truth on the matter,” Hades looked at his fingernails then picked something out from one of them – something grey and suspiciously flesh-like, “You must be hungry to learn the truth of why you have been brought here.”

  I stilled. When Loki had hastily told me that evil gods don't reveal their evil plans, only super villains do, I’d believed him. Here was Hades offering to do otherwise.

  I leaned forward as far as I could, no longer feeling constrained by the chains that held me in place. The realization I was about to learn a new fact, a super important one, was magnifying the power within me.

  “Why, why do you need me?”

  Hades opened his mouth – but the building gave a sharp shudder.

  It threw me violently against my chains.

  I watched a look of contained terror cross Hades’ face as his eyes widened to show a full rim of white. “Goddamn it,” he spat vehemently.

  Another god raced in behind Hades. My heart soared. It was Zeus. Replete, not in his historical garb of a trusty toga with a nice laurel wreath, but in his modern get-up of white yacht pants and a polo shirt.

  Never before had I been happier to see.... Nope, my mistake – it was Loki. It was the eyes that gave it away. They flickered differently. He also didn't wear his polo shirt right. I'd seen Zeus rest languidly enough against the wall of my office while I processed his application to know precisely how his shirt stretched over his generous biceps. I also knew he wore his short black hair with a dead straight, neat part, and that he would always look at you with his head cocked to the left.

  Hades took one look at Zeus, appeared to have a moment of terrible shock, then rapidly came to the same conclusion I had. After all, Zeus hadn't immediately started throwing lightning around the place and ruining good walls and Underworld gods in his rage.

  “Do you have to pretend to be Zeus?” Hades said with a hand flat and stiff on his chest. “It's frankly creepy.”

  “It has its advantages,” Loki said as he turned a dapper smile on me. “Impersonating my once best friend—“

  “You mean my brother, in this instance.” Hades raised an eyebrow.

  “Thor, Zeus, Jupiter – the same thing. Doesn't matter. What matters,” Loki stepped to the side as a stone fell from the ceiling, “Is that we get out of here before everyone's least favorite brother finds us.”

  “Why have you trapped me, what do you want to do with me?” I tried to prod Hades into continuing his lengthy explanation. As much as the prospect of being saved by Thor was welcome, I was the Goddess of Facts, and here was a big important one I was dying to know (and, in the long run, would die to find out).

  “You were telling her the plan?” Loki raised an eyebrow. “I thought we agreed we would let him do that?”

  “Who?” I demanded immediately. “Who else are you working with?”

  “Shut up.” Loki waggled a finger at me. “Hades, if you can manage it, keep your old brother busy.”

  Hades raised one perfect eyebrow and stared back at Loki without moving. “I would think that you are the best to fill that ignominious task. As he is Thor, you can distract him in a way I cannot. Plus, I don't get on all that badly with him these days.” Hades shrugged easily.

  Loki turned his gaze on Hades, and his eyes became green as he partially lost Zeus' form. “Do you think, ha, that old Zeusy-Thor is gonna get on a whole lot less nice with you when he finds out what you've been up to?”

  Hades locked gazes with Loki.

  “We're all in this together, Hades.” Loki’s green eyes went back to the particular shade of golden-brown Zeus had. “I know Thor better than you, and I'm telling you our best hope is for you to go out there and use your knowledge of the Underworld to hold him off.”

  Hades dipped his head, then his skin aged measurably. The clean and dapper look of his purple robes changed and they rotted on him, the fabric peeling apart and withering like dead leaves. Altogether, the effect was magnificently creepy.

  Loki held Hades’ gaze.

  “Very well, God of fire,” Hades said, his lips a noticeable shade of dead-grey and blue.

  Hades retreated, probably to scrounge up some sea monsters and giants to throw into Thor's path to keep him occupied while Loki kidnapped me (or extended the current kidnap situation to another locale).

  “Where are you planning on taking me?” I struggled against my restraints again. “What do you want from me?”

  Loki took a moment to look bored. “Ragnarok,” he said offhand.

  “What?” I receded from him.

  Loki enjoyed a private laugh. A creepy edgy laugh that saw a violent chill spread across my chest.

  Hades was one thing – and I hadn’t been lying when I'd said he was half-good, half-bad – but Loki was something else. Loki was twisted, violent, gone. The old adage that the gods were fundamentally there to protect and shepherd humanity didn't seem to stack up when Loki was involved. He had plans to kill all the gods at Ragnarok. While that had been a fact on a piece of paper whenever I'd seen him walking through the Integration Office – now it was a fact with a face, a laugh, and a world-full of power and anger to back it up with.

  “Come along, goddess.” Loki walked up to me and waved his hands.

  My chains disappeared and I fell with a thud against the hard stone floor.

  I lay there, staring up at the man in white walking my way, one hand stowed casually in the pocket of his yacht pants.

  As he made it to me and stared down, cocking his head not to the left, but to the right, an out-of-place sound echoed through the room. It was the mournful howl of a jackal.

  Loki gritted his teeth. “Anubis,” he said, his nose crinkling with anger.

>   He grabbed me roughly and pulled me to my feet. “Move.”

  Anubis was here. Obviously Seth had failed to keep him occupied. Anubis had likely become a bit put out by the fact kidnappers were using the underground tunnels he was tasked to protect to transport their victims. From what I knew about Anubis, he wasn't that nice when he was displeased.

  Right about now, he would be having words with Hades of the gnashing teeth and biting your ankles variety.

  If Anubis was free to tackle Hades, then that left—

  The doorway behind Loki shattered, sending chunks of stone hurtling through the room. There hadn't been a door there, and there was only one god I knew who would bother busting into a place even though there was nothing stopping him from entering in the first place.

  Thor.

  Sure enough, the beard, the hammer, the armor, and the god himself walked in. His footsteps echoed in a loud, clear, and oh-so-welcome way.

  Loki seemed frozen to the spot. His lips were stiffly pulled to the side, his teeth were clenched.

  “Loki,” Thor said, or should I say, thundered. A giant spike of lightning flashed outside the window, striking the hill outside.

  I looked over to see Sisyphus roll his stone around the lightning and the steaming crater it had created, and continue with his task.

  I looked up at Thor, though I had to twist my head to do it. Loki still had me in one of his ice-hot grips.

  Thor walked into the room. There was no act. He wasn't pretending to be casual. He wasn't pretending to be arrogant, either.

  Right now, he was Thor, god of thunder. And I wouldn't have it any other way – well, at least until he tried to re-enter Earth on a fake visa.

  “Put her down,” Thor suggested as he wielded his hammer.

  Loki did what he was told. He let go of my arm, and I fell unceremoniously by his feet. I wasn't trying to be pathetic. The ice-hot of his grip had cut through my power and left me weak.

  I watched Loki as his eyes flashed to green. He exposed his teeth, but didn’t turn to face his once best friend.

  Thor let out a booming, mirthless laugh. “You look good, Loki.” There was no conviviality there, just words. “You will not face me? After all these years, you will not face me?”

  I knew – hell, every god knew – that the relationship between Thor and Loki was exquisitely complex. Loki hadn’t always been evil. Once upon a time, he'd been of the manageably mischievous variety that only occasionally tried to get his friend killed, somewhat like Hades. But he'd turned. And Loki had turned in a big way.

  “Face you, Thor?” Loki’s voice lost the Zeus-like edge, and returned to its real cold harsh tone.

  I watched patiently, but wanted to hurry things up. Unfortunately now was not the time to point out to Thor that hey, yes, the friend he once loved and cherished was evil and it was time to come to terms with that. No more giving the guy a break. Hell, Loki was publicly committed to destroying all the good gods at Ragnarok. It was time to strike him off the Nordic Christmas God card list for life.

  Thor took one more step into the room, and he brought Mjollnir down and pointed it right at Loki’s head.

  Loki lost the act. He no longer resembled Zeus – the stunning white pants and shirt melted away. Instead, he stood there in a shining hotrod-red set of armor, with hair and eyes the color of frozen water. A fine soft fire collected along his brow, hair, and down the edge of each finger.

  “Thor,” Loki still faced the wall, “You will get what is coming to you,” he promised.

  Thor's lips kinked to the side. “Not today, Loki,” he said assuredly.

  “No.” Loki twisted his head to the side and looked at Thor askance, his ice-white hair glinting. “But soon.”

  Thor brought his hammer up, but, just in time, Loki formed a tendril of ice with his hand and sent it directly at me. Not at Thor – not at the guy about to shatter him with a bloody magical hammer – but at me, the goddess pathetically and non-aggressively resting by his feet.

  I didn't have time to scream. Nor did I need to. In a sharp, snapped moment, where all I could make out were the details of the light glinting over the wings on Thor's helmet, he moved before me.

  The spear of ice Loki had sent my way crashed into the armor of Thor's back as he bent over to protect me from the blast. It didn't kill him. It would take more than a little ice to kill the triple god of thunder and victory, but the force of it did send him jolting into me.

  He didn't fall, and thanks to him, neither did I.

  He turned, twisting on his feet with his hammer in hand.

  Loki was gone.

  A heavy silence descended upon us. It was broken when Thor dropped his hammer to the ground. Mjollnir made a loud, sharp, resounding note as it struck the stone. That note seemed to shatter the world without making a single break, scratch, or dent.

  I swallowed and stared at his back. His shoulders dipped forward, the light making the shadows of his curved back far more noticeable, far more... real.

  Mjollnir hadn't cracked the flagstones. It hadn't carved a hole right through the center of the Earth. It didn't bring the whole building down. No. The only thing that had been brought down was Thor.

  I pressed my lips so softly together that the slow move sent a tingle of nerves racing across my flesh. I didn't know what to do here. On the face of it, I was the one who should be comforted. I was the one who'd been plucked from my home by a fake Jupiter with enough chest hair to build nests for a wood full of birds. I was the one who'd been systematically hunted by three – count it, three – mostly evil and very powerful gods.

  Yet I wasn't the one standing with his head turned towards the ground, his shoulders rounded, his back dropped. I wasn't the one staring down at his weapon with a look of pity, regret, and shame that shouldn't be possible on the face of a god of victory.

  I reached out a hand, while still crumpled on the floor, and let it rest against his wrist. I didn't squeeze it and tell him it would all be okay. In all likelihood, it wouldn't. So I just rested it there.

  Time can be a funny thing for gods. It can pass without you noticing. A thousand years can flit by you in the wink of an eye, and you can look back and hardly remember anything but a pall of sacrifices, bleating goats, and the occasional cyclopes attack.

  Sometimes time slowed down. It didn't do it in the way human movies depicted. It wasn't that everything – from the dust motes floating through the air, to the hair slowly drifting across your face – moved tremendously slowly. No. When time slowed down for a god, it wasn't the outside world that ground to a halt. The inside world took over. Just as a human can experience a seeming lifetime in one single dream, a god can impose their own internal time onto the world around them.

  I can't say the world turned to details, or thunder or lightning. Instead, there was this palpable sense of existence, devoid of the pressure of linearity.

  ....

  Thor shifted his hand. Not before I had a chance to note how warm his skin was and how stiffly he held his wrist. I noticed countless imperfections along the surface – cuts, grooves, scars – reminders of various run-ins with various world-destroying giants over the years.

  He pulled his hand forward and broke my grip. He stooped down and picked up his hammer. Its song changed. It took on the resounding hum of victory again. Yet, between the oscillations, I could still pick up the sad note of remorse.

  Thor turned to me. I’d never seen him looking like this. What was more uncharacteristic – for me at least – was I couldn’t define precisely how it was he looked. I couldn't seem to separate the details, to pick up what his eyes were doing, how far his lips were dropped, where the shadow was playing across his face. All I could see was an impression of Thor. I couldn't split it up into what lay beneath.

  My, oh my, did it hurt my head.

  I put a hand up to my brow and closed my eyes sharply.

  “Officina,” Thor, for once in his entire god-life, used my real name, “Are you whole?” r />
  I blinked my eyes open. The look that had distracted and overcome me before was thankfully gone. I could again pick up the way Thor's hair brushed against his massive shoulders and the way his helmet sat uncharacteristically askew.

  It was an odd question. I put a hand up to my chest to check there wasn't a hole there or something. “I... guess. My PJs aren't though,” I said as I noted the rips along my sleeves.

  Had I really just said that? Thor had saved me from a triple-bad-god plot, then had a crushing moment with his once-good friend, and the first thing I'd bothered to mention was my PJs. Priorities, I didn't have them.

  Thor cast a glance down me. He curled a lip in amusement.

  This was the Thor I was used to.

  “You have worn strange clothes to this great god battle.” He cocked his head to the side as he stared down at me for a little longer.

  “They are called PJs,” I said, crossing my arms. In the real world – the one filled with cynical humans of all shapes and sizes – it would be hilarious and embarrassing to be saved from kidnappers in your PJs. In the god-world, it was worse.

  “I see.” He tipped his head back and laughed raucously, but the exact notes of mirth and arrogance I was used to weren't there. “You are the first goddess I have saved who has been wearing something so undignified.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Shouldn't we, I don't know, get out of here? As great fun as it is to sit crumpled in the Underworld while you laugh your ass off at me, don't you think Lo—“ I stopped in time, “Hades or Seth are going to come back?”

  “Seth?” Thor looked serious and ran a hand over his beard.

  “He was after me too.” I sighed deeply and rubbed my eyes. I caught sight of my hand – it was filthy. By extension, I was filthy, too. It was all those rain/sand storms and being dragged through interconnecting underworlds and being strapped to walls.

  “I see,” Thor said. “Then let us leave.” He shifted, casting a glance out towards Sisyphus.

  Sisyphus, for his part, looked nonplussed by the whole thing. He was getting on with his infinite task. God battles by his hill weren't going to stop him from rolling his stone anywhere.

  “Details,” Thor boomed, “Get up.”

  I couldn't. Loki, before he’d disappeared in a puff of god-hating smoke and fire, had frozen me in place. I could manage to sit here on the floor, but that was it. My legs, no matter how much I encouraged them, didn’t want to work.

  I remained silent until Thor got the picture. Sighing, he leaned down and picked me up as though I weighed little more than a puff of air. He did it quickly, too – I didn't have time to adjust to the sudden change in altitude.

  I blinked right into his face – as it was barely ten centimeters from my own.

  “Do not worry, Details.” Thor grinned then offered an abrupt laugh, the air from it pushing against my fringe. “I will not eat you.”

  Funnily enough, that particular thought hadn't crossed my mind. Thor/Zeus/Jupiter didn't have that bad a reputation when it came to eating people or gods (goats, boars, and bulls, however, where another thing). He did, though, have this epic reputation for sleeping around. By epic, I meant literally that some of his exploits had been turned into bona fide epics by poets and writers.

  I didn't reply. I glanced around trying to look at anything but Thor. Which was hard, considering he was taking up my whole view.

  “Details.” Thor strode forward as he talked, proving he could do two things at once. “You appear to be weak.”

  Genius.

  Who knew that being chased through time by gods and being chained to walls tended to wear you out?

  I concentrated on my sarcasm. My sarcasm stopped me from remembering what type of god Thor was. While he wasn't nearly as bad as the white-panted, yacht-owning cad, Zeus, he was still up there when it came to his nightly exploits.

  Being scooped up in his arms was not something I'd counted on (not that the last several hours had given me much time for forward planning). This was a problem, a real problem. It also wasn't fair. I prided myself on the fact I was not one of those effusive forest bimbo-gods. I felt I was immune to the charms of the less-than-monogamous divinities – the ones with the smiles that could melt gold and make wild flowers start growing in previously barren fields.

  What's more, I prided myself specifically on being immune to this particular god's charms.

  That's why this wasn't fair. Being the goddess of details, I couldn't help but note all those goddamned (excuse the paradox) details. Being close to Thor now meant I knew all the facts about how it felt to be pressed against his chest, to be barely centimeters from his face, and to feel his arms around me.

  Damn him.

  This wasn't fair.

  Once upon a time, I'd been able to resist his divine charms, but now—

  “Stare at my nose,” he said.

  I blinked hard. My previous thoughts forgotten, I tried to make sense of what he'd said. We were running from naughty gods in the underworld, and he wanted me to stare at his nose. “Ah... why?”

  “Details, dear Details. That's what you live on, isn't it?” He didn't look my way as he ran through the bleak dark halls. “Note them. You are weak. I also don't want to carry you forever. Replenish your power. Stare at my nose and note all the details.”

  I didn't respond.

  “Stare at my nose, Details,” he commanded in a far more Thor-like voice.

  “Okay,” I squeaked, and did what he said. He had a nose. Yep, I could confirm that. It was nose-shaped, had two orifices for breathing through, and had a septum like most other freaking noses.

  Really, stare at his nose?

  Was he serious?

  “If that doesn't work,” Thor twisted his head one way as we came to a junction in the darkened and morbid corridor, “I brought you the weather report. It is tucked into my belt.” He secured me to his chest with one arm, then grabbed something and dumped it in front of my face.

  It was a sheet of newspaper.

  Thor had brought me the weather report.

  I pulled it off my face and began to read it.

  Yes, that's right, I began to read the weather report. While the Nordic god of thunder was carrying me through the maze-like underworld, trying to save me from a triple-god attack, I was calmly noting the forecasted humidity and barometric pressure.

  Except, and I would never admit this to anyone, especially not Thor, I wasn't really reading it. I tried to, oh god, did I try to. But I couldn't concentrate. All my attention was diverted elsewhere.

  And you could guess where.

  We met up with Anubis. He stood at the doorway that separated his own Underworld from that of Hades. Though his dog-like face was sometimes hard to read, I could see the guy was furious.

  He let out a ferocious bark when he spied Thor.

  “I know, I know,” Thor said as he slowed down.

  “This is unacceptable,” Anubis whined like a dog that had been left out in the rain. “The doors between the Underworlds are not meant to be abused.”

  The doors – I wanted to point out – hadn’t been abused. The door behind him – the imposing black structure with all the gold and silver sparkling runes painted into it (and the numerous skulls, too) – looked fine. It hadn't been abused. The trust between Osiris and Hades, on the other hand, had.

  While Hades wasn't the nicest god out there, he wasn't on the Integration Office's black list, either.

  That might change after today.

  “I trusted Hades,” Anubis snapped again. “Osiris trusted him.”

  “I will bring this up with the Powers that Be,” Thor said powerfully.

  ... He was one of the Powers that Be. When it came to Hades, Zeus was technically the go-to guy for disciplining the Greek gods. He was saying he would bring it up with one of his other functional god identities... but saying the Powers that Be sounded a whole lot cooler. Thor was hardly going to say he wasn't going to deal with Hades’ indiscretion until he cou
ld change into some white pants and a polo shirt, but it was the truth.

  Anubis gave a soft growl, then opened the door behind him. He did it by bowing his head low and touching both of his paw-like hands to the ground. The door swirled open – swirling like it was nothing more than mist being sucked into grooves in the wall.

  As Thor walked me through, I could feel the relief ebbing through him. Which was odd. How did I know that the exact way he'd heaved his chest up and down was relief? How did I know that the way his cheeks softened revealed he was letting go of tension?

  They were details, sure, but I was extending beyond them. Way worse than that: I was seeing them as a whole.

  I put a hand up to my head again as I felt an uncomfortable heaviness there.

  “Shouldn't you be reading the weather report?” Thor glanced down at me, one eyebrow raised.

  “Hmm,” I mumbled as I tried to burry my face in the paper. “Where to from here?” I asked.

  How was Thor going to deal with this? Despite his usual go-get-'em style, he hadn't smashed his way through the Underworld until he'd brought all culprits to their knees with plenty of black eyes and bruised noggins.

  “We go back to the current time,” he said with another heavy sigh, “We must report this to my father.”

  Odin. Damn. We'd have to report this to Odin. Which meant I had to stand in front of the old one-eyed super scary divinity again. Great. Things couldn't get any better.

  Yet I knew for sure they could get far, far worse.

  I’d only just been saved by Thor. What if I hadn’t been? What were Hades, Seth, and Loki after? And what did it have to do with me?

  I remembered that Hades had been about to tell me himself before Thor had walked in swinging his hammer.

  I gave out an annoyed huff at the memory.

  “Ha.” Thor laughed heartily, and he put me down. Abruptly too, treating me less like a goddess and more like a bag full of trash.

  I blinked up at him.

  Now that we were on the other side of the great door that separated the Underworlds, the décor had changed.

  Hardly surprisingly, there was far more sand on this side. The corridors and rooms were all made out of great sandstone blocks, much like the pyramids. There were the usual ancient-Egyptian-style paintings decorating the walls, too.

  At least things were warmer here, though it was a bit stifling.

  Still, all those details weren't enough to stop me from narrowing my eyes and staring up at Thor.

  “You can walk on your own now.” Thor tapped his hammer as it was stowed in his belt. “I hardly think you are the type of goddess who likes to be carried everywhere, especially by me,” he added with a personal grin.

  I sucked in my lips slowly and tried to convince myself that he was right.

  I tried to stand.

  I wobbled and stumbled. For Thor and Anubis’ part, they stood there. Anubis looked on, curious, and Thor looked amused.

  Thanks, guys.

  But I did feel a little stronger. Concentrating on details – if they had been neither the weather report nor Thor's nose – had enabled me to restore my power. In fact... it was coming back far quicker than it should. It was different somehow, too. The tingle escaping deep inside my chest and playing down my sides was qualitatively quicker and sharper than any I’d felt before.

  “Are you going to offer your effusive thanks for me saving you?” Thor flicked his hair to the side like the Nordic god-version of a peppy hair model.

  “If you'd been able to hold off for a few minutes,” I stared back at him, then found it uncomfortable so I glanced at the wall instead, “Hades would have told me what he'd been planning.”

  Thor boomed with great whoops of laughter. It wasn't that he was a particularly cheery fellow – it was that he found nearly everything us small gods/mortals did to be funny.

  “I see, you would have preferred that we didn’t save you.” Thor nodded sharply. “Then,” he stepped away from the door behind him and gestured towards me, “Be my guest.”

  I looked from him to the door, but didn’t move.

  “Seth attacked me,” Anubis growled by Thor's side, ignoring me. The great god who protected the Egyptian dead wasn't about to let a small-time goddess-rescue distract him. Nope, the giant black-headed dog was far more interested in the slip-ups in god etiquette he'd had to weather. “These actions break the rules,” he grumbled. “That Loki god – he broke through my sand barrier, he stole his way through these tunnels, he burnt several of my guards.”

  At the mention of Loki, everything changed. I sucked in a quick breath and watched the shadows descend over Thor's face. Either Anubis was a ballsy god, or he didn't realize that he wasn't talking to either Zeus or Jupiter here.

  “It will be dealt with,” Thor assured him, voice icier than a thousand winters. “Details,” he snapped at me, “We must go.”

  I stopped from asking Thor how he was planning to get us from the ancient Egyptian underworld back to our own time, because questions would be met with growls, threats, and hammer-blows.

  I crossed my arms and glanced down at the weather report I still held. Strange that Thor, of all gods, had such a thing tucked into his belt. Being the triple god of thunder, the sky, storms, and whatnot, predicting the weather was not a problem for him. He often created it.

  Unless he'd picked up the weather report for me specifically, that was.

  Before I had a chance to analyze that possibility, Thor leaned in and grabbed a hand around my wrist. I instinctively shivered. It wasn't from the suddenness of it, or from any real worry that Thor was going to snap it in two to prove a point. It was from the still-fresh memory of Loki.

  “Do not worry,” Thor said, voice soft for the first time, “I’m not Loki.”

  I stared at him, relaxing.

  “We must go,” Thor said through a deep, manly sniff.

  “How? Where?” I asked through several blinks. Thor's grip was strong, but it didn't eat into my skin like Loki’s had. It didn't send tendrils of ice-cold streaking up my arm and across my chest.

  It was warm.

  “How do we get from now to then?” I stammered. “Or rather, how do we get from the past back to the future? I got here through a rift in the Library of Alexandria, but it has closed. I'm not sure if there are any others around. From what I know of all the other functioning, stable space-time portals, there aren't any others close-by.” I stopped abruptly. Was I, goddess Officina, babbling?

  Thor looked amused. Though there was still that edge there. That edge that the mere mention – let alone the actual presence – of Loki seemed to produce. It was sharp, palpable. I almost felt like I could reach out a hand and touch it.

  It was a wound of divine, god-like proportions.

  “I have a list of complaints,” Anubis snapped, “I don't want anything like this happening again. I have already registered a complaint with the Office detailing recent underwater disturbances around my tunnels. I also don't like the way some of my—“

  As I’d dealt with Anubis before, I knew that the guy could bark and bark for ages. If we let him, he would literally chew our ears off. He would also get one of his whiz-bang quick scribes to write out a couple of hundred scrolls detailing each and every complaint he had to make. There would even be pictures and diagrams.

  Thor had enough experience with Anubis too to know not to stick around. He turned to the Egyptian god and bowed his head low. “Your complaints will be brought up with the Powers that Be.” He turned sharply and furled a hand out towards the door behind us.

  Though Thor – with his mighty grip and mighty strength – had a hand over my wrist and was pulling me towards the opening door between the Dead, I resisted.

  I held my ground. I didn’t want to go back in there.

  He turned his head. “We aren't going back to visit Hades,” he assured me with a dip of his chin. “Come along, Details. I want to get this over with. Ambrosia have a happy hour at seven tonight.”


  I rolled my eyes at him. Grinning, he pulled me through the Door of the Dead.

  He was right. We didn't end up back in Hades' halls. We didn't end up in any other death god's house either. No. We ended up under the ocean.

  Under it.

  For a second, I forgot I'm immortal.

  I struggled, flapping my free arm around and trying desperately not to open my mouth.

  Thor laughed. I heard it too, though I was under water. I was a goddess.

  “You have become far more human than I thought, and it is funny.” He demonstrated his mirth by laughing so hard that several schools of nearby fish turned tail and swam as fast as they could in the other direction. “You are wearing these PJ things and trying not to drown when you are under water.” He laughed again.

  I was starting to confirm something I already knew: Thor's sense of humor was as blunt as a plank of wood to the face.

  “Ha, ha, you are funny,” I snapped back. I noticed the way the fabric of my top was billowing and puffing up with the swirl and current of the water. My hair was a mess of floating tendrils playing around my face, and my bare feet were sinking slowly into the soft sand underneath me.

  It was a magical scene, despite the laughing Nordic god. The color of the water was deep blue, and I could see the sunlight above refracting through it. There were various fish swimming by, though they were giving us an excessively wide berth (likely they had heard of Thor's ridiculous appetite for wild boars, and wondered whether that extended to fish/sharks/whales/anything at all that wasn't vegetables or fruit).

  The coral and seaweed glinted softly all around us, and the shadows cast by the great banks of pockmarked rock off to my side hid more colorful wonders.

  Before I had a chance to march off, Thor yanked on my arm as he propelled himself upward with the speed of a missile.

  He'd obviously been serious when he'd said he didn't want to miss happy hour at the Ambrosia. He probably had another date with the forest bimbo from my office, I thought bitterly.

  We crested the surface.

  I glanced around us. We were close to some white glistening strip of beach somewhere. Considering there were more than a couple of beaches on Earth, I could hardly locate our exact position. I tried to peer around us, tried to spot anything that might give me any more clues.

  “Greece!” Thor roared. “I wonder where my yacht is?” he mumbled to himself as he twisted around.

  Greece. Greece? When he'd said we were going home, I'd thought we'd pop up from a drain in my house or something. Greece was on the other side of the world!

  “Ah ha!” Thor rumbled as he spotted a nice massive yacht on the horizon. It was anchored far out from the shore, bobbing in a glistening and sparkling ocean.

  I'd never been on a yacht before. I’d been in a building made of glass and diamond that floated next to the sun, and a hospital made into the clouds, and in the Underworld – but I'd never been on a yacht.

  Why was I thinking this now of all times? Oh, that's right: it was that or thinking about how gently yet firmly Thor held my wrist.

  So, yachts, then – this would be fancy. I threw myself into the thought as best I could. I wondered how stupidly large this boat would be and how gaudily it would be decorated. While Thor was more grunge, when it came to his alter ego, Zeus, that man-god knew how to live. There would be sashaying women, gold-plated taps, and an entire tugboat nearby to store his wine collection. I was sure of it.

  Thor thankfully didn't shoot us along the top of the water towards his yacht. If any humans had been watching from the beach, two people skimming along the top of the ocean moving faster than a torpedo would be worthy of note.

  Instead, the boat came to us. It was the maritime equivalent of Lassie. I wondered whether just as Mjollnir was magically bonded to Thor, he'd extended that power to include yachts too.

  Soon enough, the yacht crested aside us. As it neared, and as it moved far quicker than any normal yacht could, I realized how un-yacht-like it was. It was far more of a giant, well-endowed cruise ship.

  Typical Zeus.

  As soon as it was beside us, a rope ladder was thrown from the deck high above. It would be one of the sashaying goddesses throwing it down, I was sure.

  Thor climbed first, wanting to get on board as fast as possible to change into his white pants and polo top. Hell, he'd want to put some white golf shoes on too and a big watch. He might even put a couple of gold signet rings on both his pinkies.

  I forced myself to snigger as I climbed the ladder behind him. Though I was trying valiantly to push it from my mind, there was a swirl of complex feelings twisting their way around my gut like a leviathan. I’d spent a whole life (which was a long time for a goddess) hating Thor in all his guises. I’d thought I’d known everything about him – every detail of every identity. Every way he laughed arrogantly, every way he railroaded others. Every single detail of every single expression and movement.

  Now I was realizing there were a set of details I’d never had the opportunity to learn: precisely how it felt to be close to him.

  I was filled with frustration, tingly excitement, and annoyance all at once.

  Thor jumped lithely onto the deck of what could only be called the world's biggest yacht. I followed slowly.

  I paused to stare around me. Thor hadn't rushed off to change into his yachting-tycoon guise. But I’d been right on one account: the place was posh. By posh, I meant posh in a god-like way. There were even sashaying goddesses, as predicted. Hell, one of them had a bottle of champagne in one hand.

  Thor/Zeus was so predictable. Before I could point that out, I heard a slight swoosh from behind me.

  Something coiled around my middle. It was cold, it was wet, it was strong.

  It yanked me with all the strength of a giant. I lost my grip on the rope ladder immediately. As I sailed back down the side of the ship, and a tentacle wrapped around my middle, I screamed, “Not again.”

  Something – a sea monster, likely – had gone and snatched me off the side of a ladder for the second time in two days. Was this a record? Or was this how sea monsters rolled these days, considering there were a whole lot less heroes to tangle with? Did they trawl around looking for goddesses to attack in precisely the same bizarre way? Had this particular sea monster spied me walking down under the water but put off capturing me on the off chance I could find a ladder to mostly climb up instead?

  Bloody sea monsters!

  My thoughts happened before the monster could get moving. By moving, I meant pelting. With me tightly coiled in one of its fat tentacles, said denizen of the deep did a 180, then shot off back under the surface.

  I had the odd but fitting thought (considering my line of work) that hopefully by diving this monster wouldn't draw any unnecessary human attention.

  As my body plunged through the water, the tentacle wrapping more tightly around my middle, all those thoughts faded away. The mere fact I was being kidnapped yet again came to the fore. The pain, the cold, and the fear.

  The monster moved fast, shooting through the sea, its tentacles propelling it along with great, monstrous tugs. I could see them virtually grabbing the water as they moved around me.

  The one that held me hardly moved. Until it twisted around and brought me face-to-fang with one of the giant, rotting-meat-covered teeth in its wide mouth. It had been intending to glare at me, but with it being mostly tentacle and teeth, the sea monster was having trouble orienting my form towards one of its pin-prick eyes.

  As the force of the water slammed against my face, pinning my eyes open, I felt the fear grow. It went hand-in-hand with the cold.

  The tentacle around my middle fixed me so tightly that I could hardly move the rest of my body. My arms hung limply over its girth, my legs slack and unresponsive.

  Sharp, nasty, aching pain shot through my sides and across my back. It felt as though the thing was slowly crushing me under a vise.

  I tried to let out a scream, but I couldn
't manage to arch my head back.

  Pain. It was all I could see, feel, experience.

  Then there was a thought. Thor.

  The word itself sent a spark through me.

  I felt a surge of energy combat the pain. The power twisted itself through me, then seemed to seep into my skin. As the tentacle pushed in, the power pushed out.

  I hadn’t felt power like this in years. Centuries, eons.

  I could feel the sea monster losing its grip. Barely. I would need much more to win the battle here.

  That much more came sailing through the water, shooting forward with a note so loud and sharp the stones and sand beyond and underneath all vibrated as if a powerful earthquake was shaking through them.

  Mjollnir.

  The hammer, having a predilection for cracking skulls (considering its owner) bypassed my tentacle and smacked solidly into the head of the sea monster. There was a resounding, ringing thud.

  The tentacle that held me – much like the annoyingly autonomous one that had snuck off with me in the flood tunnels – didn’t loosen its grip, despite the solid blow wrought to its head.

  Mjollnir shot back through the water, having struck its welcoming blow. I knew Thor couldn't be far behind.

  That thought did a strange thing to me: it brought up a powerful new set of details swimming in my mind's eye like stars shining in the night's sky. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what those details were.

  I felt my power grow again. I was not, nor ever would be, the goddess of strength, sea-monster fighting, or self-defense. I would always be better suited to reading tool catalogues and astronomical data reports than fighting with god goons.

  But I was still a goddess, and given power, I could fight.

  I sunk my hands into the soft, extremely slimy skin of the tentacle that held me. I tried to get a grip, and when I got one, I pushed the damn thing off.

  It tried to resist, tried to redouble its grip, but it didn't matter: my power was too great. The divinity of details was swelling within me, the serenity of facts and figures, the metaphysical grandeur of the parts that made up the whole.

  I kicked the damn tentacle for good measure.

  That ought to teach it. The tentacle shuddered, then sank. I trod water and maintained my position. I knew there was a dumb “Ha, I kicked a sea monster“ look on my face I couldn't seem to shift.

  I wasn't used to power like this. Or rather, I wasn't used to being able to manifest details in this way. It was usually paperwork for me, not underwater victories.

  Thor came thundering through the water, and to my perverse disappointment, he wasn't decked out in white pants and golf-shoes.

  He held Mjollnir, the hammer still singing.

  I felt a flush of energy escape over my cheeks. Not nerves mind you, energy.

  The sea monster knew the tide had changed for him. He tried to turn slimy tail and streak off into the ocean.

  Thor grabbed said tail, climbed up it, made his way to the thing's head, and for the second time in two days knocked a sea monster out cold.

  The thing floated down to the seabed, where it impacted in a great cloud of sand, disturbed coral, and broken shells.

  It was over.

  I looked over my shoulder to check there weren't any more sea monsters tooling around the water. Thankfully there weren't. That or they were waiting for me to start climbing ladders again, the sods.

  Thor half-swam half-walked my way. He didn't bother saying anything. He didn't bother chortling at his victory. He didn't bother telling me I was a total nong of a goddess for being captured by sea monsters more often than most humans bothered getting petrol.

  He was worried. I knew he was worried. I wasn't deriving this fact from the way his features were drooped or stiffened. I knew the whole of the situation for what it was: a tight, nervous, fear.

  My head began to hurt again.

  “No more games. Straight to Asgard,” Thor said. It was the first time I’d heard him just say something. He didn't boom it, he didn't thunder it, and he didn't laugh it. He simply spoke.

  For my part, I pressed two fingers into my forehead and tried to push away the heavy pain settling there.

  A pain that told me this situation was only going to get worse.