"So what you're saying is that we're on our own?" Valeska asked.
Samael licked his lips. "For the time being, yes. I would say that we are."
We lapsed into silence for a moment, all of us thinking about what this meant for us and what we were going to do.
Samael broke the silence first, saying, "But that's okay." He nodded, as if to convince himself. "For now, you all should go about living your lives as normally as possible while I try to figure out what our next move should be."
"What about Odin?" I asked. "And the spear?"
"I'll find out as much as I can without raising suspicions." He looked over at me. "And what you do with the spear right now is up to you."
I rubbed my temple and weighed the options. I could keep it, which could draw unwanted attention, and if someone had done something to Odin to get it, they could easily do something to me. I didn't stand a chance against something capable of incapacitating a Vanir god.
Or--
"Could you keep it here?" I asked Samael. "I can't imagine a safer place for it than locked up with your weapons, inside the Evig Riksdag, surrounded by Vordr and guards."
"Of course," he said. "I'll always help in any way I can."
I took the spear out of my bag and handed it to Samael, who took a moment to admire it. It was beautiful, as far as weapons went. The camahueto horn used for the shaft had an otherworldly sheen twisting through it, and the red glass looked like a glimmering ruby.
"So this is the legendary Gungnir," he mused.
Samael got up and strode over to the shelves that lined his wall. Antiquities and priceless objets d'art were carefully displayed. On a lower shelf he moved aside a totem to reveal a touch screen. After tapping in a few numbers and having his hand scanned, the screen beeped, and a concealed drawer popped open. He cushioned the spear in the black velvet lining, then closed the drawer and locked it.
We all talked for a bit longer, mostly rehashing our plans and him reiterating that we needed to lie low for now. Meanwhile, Valeska had nearly polished off the bowl of jelly-bean-like confections.
Just before we were about to leave, Samael stopped us. "Oh, there is one more thing. It's a bit uncomfortable, given the situation, but I have to ask you a question, Valeska."
"Me?" She glanced back at me and Quinn. "What?"
"With the turmoil in the underworld, and the tragedy that befell Atlas, I've found myself short a guard in a time when I need it most." He was almost sheepish as he spoke, with one hand in his pocket. "You've proven yourself to be intelligent, tough, and resourceful. I would be happy to have you working for me, if you're interested."
Valeska only considered this for a second before shrugging and saying, "Sure, why not? The world's gonna end, I might as well get a front seat to the show."
FORTY-FIVE
After the long conversation with Samael, Quinn suggested heading out to Carpe Noctem for drinks and liliplum. But I was eager to pick up my wolpertinger and get back to my own apartment, so I declined.
Not that Quinn or Valeska seemed to notice or mind. I got off the elevator on the lobby level so I could hail a cab, but they were heading below to the garage. They had been talking nonstop the whole ride down, and when I got off the elevator I turned back to wave to them, and they didn't even see me.
They stood so close to each other they were nearly touching, and Valeska leaned over, making a joke about the jelly beans, and Quinn threw her head back, laughing. That's what I saw as the door slid shut.
Good for them, was what I told myself as I tried to ignore the pinch of jealousy. Quinn and I weren't a good fit for each other, and I'd told her as much. She had every right to flirt and find happiness with someone else.
And all that was true, but it still hurt in a strange way. Her happiness made me happy, but part of me was still a little sad that that happiness couldn't be with me. Even if it was my fault and my choice.
Fortunately, I was too exhausted to worry too much. I sank low in the back of the cab and looked out the window at all the mortals and immortals going about their daily life. I wondered if any of them knew what was brewing below the surface. I wondered which side they would be on.
Galel's Garage was closed when I got there, so I went around back, up the stairs to Jude Locklear's apartment. I knocked on the door, hoping he was home, since I hadn't contacted him to let him know I would be there.
But, much to my relief, he was home. He answered the door shirtless, but that was just like him. Not that I was complaining anyway.
His broad chest and abs looked like they had been chiseled from marble, all rippling muscles and smooth dark olive skin. His wavy black hair parted around his two thick ram's horns before landing at his shoulders, and his dark eyebrows arched sharply, giving him a permanent look of suggestive playfulness.
I suspected that he'd gotten his ridiculous good looks from his incubus father, but fortunately Jude's demonic heritage had never put a damper on our friendship. Because he was a Cambion, he was mortal, and that helped, but Jude was always the kinda guy who let stuff slide off his back. Which was why our arrangement as friends-with-benefits had worked out so well with me for so long.
He grinned broadly. "Hey, you made it back alive!"
"I did. And I come bearing gifts." I held up the lime-green T-shirt I'd gotten him, one that would most likely barely fit over his broad shoulders and thick biceps.
"You better Belize it"? He laughed as he read it. "What is this?"
"I picked it up at the Overland terminal."
"Well, thank you." He stepped back, inviting me in. "Wanna have a drink?"
I smiled ruefully. A small part of me would've loved to hang out with Jude and have a drink, just like old times, before all the insanity. But a larger part knew it wouldn't be right, not with Asher in the picture, and, more importantly, while Jude was fun, the times I'd had with him didn't compare to my times with Asher.
"Thanks, but I can't stay long," I said. "I wanted to get Bowie out of your hair and head back home."
At the sound of his name, my chubby little wolpertinger came racing around the corner. He was a peach-colored bunny with two tiny antlers between his big ears and a pair of feathered wings that he was too fat to use.
"Hey, Bunny Bo!" I said, using my nickname for him, and I crouched down so he could dive into my arms. He cooed as he nuzzled up against me, giving me tiny little kisses as his antlers scraped my chin. "How are you doing?"
"He was really good," Jude said. "I actually liked the little fella. I might have to get one myself."
"Yeah, they do make great pets."
Jude leaned against the doorframe beside me. "How are you doing, Malin? Did everything work out okay for you?"
I laughed, focusing on the soft feel of Bowie's fur as he cuddled up to me so I wouldn't cry. "I made it out alive."
"That bad?" he asked, and I looked up to see him grimacing. "You know, if you need a hand, I'm always happy to help."
"I know. I don't want you to get messed up in..." I floundered, searching for an innocent way to describe the situation before lamely finishing with, "Whatever it is that I'm messed up in."
"Well, if you ever reconsider or it gets to be too much, you know how to reach me."
Jude began gathering up Bowie's things, putting his food and dishes in a bag. He brought over the carrier, and I put my wolpertinger inside. He was so excited for cuddles, I had to push the door shut and lock it in a hurry.
"Oh, I got the little guy something!" Jude snapped his fingers, then walked across to his small living room to pick up a black canvas contraption sitting on an end table.
"What?" I straightened up. "You didn't have to get him anything."
"No, it was no problem." He smiled. "I could hear him hopping around if I went down to the garage to work, and he sounded so anxious when I left. I thought I could take him down to work with me, but I didn't want him to get run over or anything. So I went out and I picked him up this Babybjorn."
&
nbsp; "Wait, wait, wait." I held up my hands, stopping him as I barely contained my giggling. "You got a baby carrier for my wolpertinger? And you wore him around? Like on your back?"
"Yeah." Jude laughed. "I did! And he liked it. It worked out well."
"Oh, I wish I could've seen that." I put a hand over my mouth in an attempt to keep the laughter back. "How much do I owe you?"
"Don't worry about it." He shook his head. "We can settle up the next time you bring your luft in, and let's face it, we both know you're going to bring your luft in again."
"Thank you again." I smiled at him. "With everything going on, it was a really big help that I didn't have to worry about Bowie, because I knew he was in good hands with you."
"Well, you do know how good my hands are," Jude teased.
I gathered up Bowie and his things, thanking Jude again as he walked me to the door. When I left, he leaned against the doorframe and watched me go down the stairs.
"If you need anything, call me," Jude called after me. "And don't be a stranger."
It wasn't until after I'd left and began the long walk back to my apartment building that I realized I shouldn't have let my cab go when I arrived. Jude's place was right at the end of New Edgewater, where the roads changed from pavement to canals, and it was only a few blocks down to my place out on the lake. But they were big city blocks, and Bowie and his food weighed a lot.
I had to make my way along the crowded sidewalks, dodging between everyone with my arms full, while also struggling to avoid both getting splashed with the murky water as hovercars sped by and falling in myself. Both of those scenarios would be disastrous because the water smelled of gasoline and dead fish and the scent would linger for hours, even after a shower.
Finally I reached the Tannhauser Towers in all their faded glory and rode the elevator up to the sixty-seventh floor. As I walked down the long hallway to our apartment, I heard our neighbors--TVs blaring too loud, couples fighting, a baby crying, and some strange dubstep polka that I hoped didn't catch on.
Our little apartment had been billed as a "luxurious two bedroom, one bath" despite the fact that it was essentially a living room/kitchen combo with two closet-sized bedrooms and an even smaller bathroom, and I would definitely not describe the concrete floor or metal walls as luxurious.
The only nice thing was the window that took up the entire exterior wall. It gave us a view of the canal below, but the other buildings and their noxious billboards blocked us from seeing much beyond that.
When I came in, Oona was on the couch with her feet propped up on the coffee table. The little TV affixed to the wall outside our bathroom was on, playing a trashy old slasher flick. On the table in front of her was one of the bottles of soursop wine she'd bought before we left Belize and two large plastic tumblers, and a super-sized bag of delicious fried kibbeh was on her lap. We usually bought them from a vendor down the street from us, because they were the best in the city.
"Hey," Oona said through a mouthful of food, and the second I let Bowie out of his cage he hopped up on the couch to see her. "Bowie!"
I finished unloading all of my and Bowie's stuff while he and Oona greeted each other with lots of cooing and kisses.
"Mal, come join us," Oona suggested. "Putting your stuff away can wait until tomorrow."
She wasn't wrong, and I was exhausted, so I sat down beside her. She nudged the empty tumbler toward me with her foot, and I poured myself a drink before settling back onto the couch.
"What are we watching?" I asked as I pilfered a couple kibbeh croquettes from her bag.
"I don't know, but that girl there is about to get stabbed a bunch," she said.
And that's how we spent the next couple hours. Drinking wine and eating lukewarm kibbeh with Bowie sprawled out between us, snoring softly. I was more than content to spend the rest of the night that way, but a knock came at the door after midnight and interrupted our plans.
FORTY-SIX
"Maybe you shouldn't answer that," Oona warned me as she sat up and put her glass on the table. "It could be a murderer."
I was already halfway to the door, so I scoffed. "You've been watching too many scary movies."
"Or maybe you haven't been watching enough," she countered.
I rolled my eyes and opened the door to find Asher. He had a shadow of stubble growing on his face, and there were dark circles under his eyes. But otherwise, he looked better. Much better, actually, than when I had seen him last. His color had returned, and he stood a bit taller, as if a weight had been lifted on his return to the city.
"Hey," I said. "What's going on?"
"My grandma is smothering me, and I couldn't sleep." His eyes landed hopefully on mine. "I thought I'd see if you were still up."
"Yeah, I'm up, come on in." I stepped back, allowing him in, then locked the door securely behind him.
"Hi, Ash," Oona said as she stood up and clicked off the TV. "Don't mind me. I'm heading to bed."
"Oona, you don't have to do that," I said, but she waved me off.
"No, no, I've already drunk too much wine anyway," she insisted as she walked into her room. "I'll see you guys in the morning." She winked at me before closing her bedroom door.
Through the thin cold metal walls I could hear the neighbors arguing about who had done all their drugs (spoiler alert: it was both of them), so I turned on the stereo to drown them out. Since Oona was in bed, I didn't turn it up too loud, just enough to let the mellow instrumental music blanket the room.
I picked up the wine bottle, swirling the pale yellow liquid around before asking Asher, "Do you want anything to drink? We still have a little bit of wine left."
"That'd be nice. Thanks."
"So, your grandma is being a bit much?" I asked as I grabbed a beer mug from the kitchen.
He lingered in the living room, walking slowly around the small space and admiring our decor. We didn't have a great deal, both because we were broke and because we didn't have the space for it.
Our shoes were piled up by the door, under an overflowing coatrack. The end tables were homemade from cinder blocks and metal Jude had given us. On top of them were books piled up, a few candles, and a nice incense burner that had been a gift form Oona's cousin Minerva.
Beyond that, there wasn't much to the place. We had a couple posters--one of lagomorphs with pictures and boxes explaining the differences between jackalopes, wolpertingers, rabbits, pikas, and colugos and a fantasy-inspired one for Oona's favorite band, a dream-pop duo called Eden's Eternity--and a brightly colored tapestry that Oona had hung above our old couch. A couple throw pillows that Oona's mother had made and a threadbare rug on the floor completed the picture.
"That's an understatement," Asher said with a sigh. "I didn't even tell her everything that happened. I toned it down as much as I could, but she was still this awful combination of livid, panic-stricken, and affectionate. She kept yelling at me while she was hugging me."
"I'm sorry." I poured wine into the glass and handed it to him. "That sounds uncomfortable, but she's freaked out because she loves you."
An unfortunate apology flashed in his eyes--the one that said he'd just remembered how cold and terrible my mother was, so he shouldn't complain about being loved too much.
"I know," he said, softening his complaints. "And I love her, too. I just needed some space."
"Yeah, I get that, too."
We stood in the middle of the living room, both of us slowly sipping our wine. The lights from the billboards across the way shone through the large window, so shades of red and blue played across the room, giving us a soft, ever-changing mood lighting.
I wondered if I should suggest we sit down, but the truth was I didn't feel like sitting. There was enough alcohol in me to numb the ache in my arms and legs, and while I had been content relaxing with Oona, I'd begun to feel restless when Asher came in through the door.
"I'm not intruding, am I?" he asked, then took a half step back, toward the door. "I can go. I wa
nted to get out and move and clear my head."
"No, you're not intruding." I put a hand on his arm to stop him. "I'm glad you came over."
He moved closer to me. "Yeah?"
"Believe it or not, I like having you around." I smirked.
"Yeah, I figured that when you braved the underworld to rescue me."
"I didn't go there for you," I corrected him, but I felt heat flushing my cheeks.
The sunstone had inadvertently shown everyone exactly how I felt about Asher, and I hated having my feelings out in the open like that. It left me exposed and vulnerable. Even now, standing with him, I wanted to downplay it, pretend I didn't care as much as I did, but I held my tongue and forced myself not to run away.
"Right." He set his glass down on the table and moved even closer to me. "The solarsteinn brought you to me."
The light that splashed across his face shifted again, changing to pale blue. It did this wonderful thing to his eyes, making them almost glow in the dark room as he looked down at me.
"To be fair, my heart brought me," I admitted.
His voice was low, almost a whisper, when he said, "Finding me was your heart's greatest desire."
"I wanted you safe and I wanted you back," I said as the truth came tumbling out.
I hadn't meant for it to, but something about Asher made it so I didn't want to lie. I didn't want to hide from him, the way I did most everyone else. I stood before him, defenseless and honest and totally unafraid, because the way he looked at me--with such unabashed yearning and warmth--I knew I had nothing to be afraid of. Not from him.
"Do you know what my greatest desire is right now?" he asked.
"What?"
He didn't answer, not right away, and instead he moved even closer, so his lips were mere inches from mine. His eyes were wide open, looking in my eyes--looking through me, it felt like.
And then his mouth was on mine, hungry but gentle in a way that only he could be. His hand was on the small of my back, strong and firm as he held me to him, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.