Kevin Hearne - Hunted

I shrugged. “Not in so many words, but the evidence does point that way. They said the world would burn. Loki is quite the pyromaniac, and I have no doubt that, once Surtr leaves Muspellheim, there will be much aflame. But, honestly, I don’t know what the prophecy truly means. Maybe they’re talking about lots of forest fires during an especially hot summer.”

“I doubt that. The sirens did not speak idly to heroes of insignificant events.”

“Ah, so you’ve heard about their accuracy?”

“Indeed. Is there something we can do? Because our divination suggested some sort of fire would be started here.”

“It did?”

“Yes. You know I do not joke about such things.”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t know why a fire would start—what?” Granuaile had tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. Once she had it, she pointed up. “Oh,” I said. “Now it makes sense. Incoming!”

A large ball of fire was headed straight for us, arcing out of the western sky. We gave ground, and a palpable shock wave buffeted us when the fireball hit the earth. A twelve-foot-tall madman cackled in the midst of it while clasping his hands together in glee.

“There!” Loki said, his face intensely pleased. “Fff-fff-fffound you!”

I drew Fragarach and charged him; there was no time to talk. He could set everyone on fire with a wave of his hand, so I preferred that he focus on me rather than watch him cook Granuaile and Oberon to ashes.

I was a little fire-shy after getting cooked myself by some dark elves, but Loki’s fire was the magical sort and I knew my cold iron aura would protect me from it. He giggled as his right hand disappeared and the stump of his wrist became a flamethrower. Heat rained down on me as I leapt at him and slashed down with my sword. He was quick and stepped back, but I opened up a long wound down his right thigh.

Loki roared and turned off the flames. His eyes boggled at me as his head twitched. I should have been barbecued but clearly wasn’t. “You can’t burn us, Loki Firestarter,” I said. “We’re all protected.”

You’re not protected, I told Oberon with a quick thought. Get Granuaile out of range .

Loki waggled a finger at me and squinted. “You are nuh-no construh-uh-ukt,” he stammered. “Dwarf-ff-fffs sssay they don’t nuh-know you. Llllliar!”

“Who cares what the dwarfs know or don’t know?” I smiled in a fashion that I hoped was unsettling. He was already mentally unstable and might therefore be more susceptible to intimidation. “All you need to know is this: I’m the guy who’s going to kill you.”

Loki’s eyes widened and he took a couple of steps back as I advanced. But then his right arm disappeared behind him, he arched his back a bit, and the arm reappeared holding a very long sword that ignited from guard to tip as I watched.

I frowned. “Now, where, exactly, did you pull that from?” His daughter, Hel, had done something similar; she kept her knife, Famine, lodged between her lower ribs on her left side. She must have learned the trick of using the body as a scabbard from dear old dad. As shape-shifters, they would have the knack.

badass, doesn’t it?>

Oberon, tell Granuaile to talk to the witches. They need to charm Loki if they can.

Loki’s eyes went dark and he raised his sword. Hurry, Oberon! The flaming blade fell, but I wasn’t there. I leapt directly at him again, because the best thing you can do when facing someone with enormous reach is to get inside it. I didn’t hack or stab at him but delivered a straight kick between his hips, right in his center of gravity. He doubled over, let go of the sword as he staggered, and then fell heavily. I heard Polish behind me but kept my eyes on Loki. He shrank and morphed and sprang to his feet—this time as a Vedic demon with blue skin, four arms, and a blade that he pulled directly out of his body in each hand. He smiled with especially sharp teeth and twirled the swords at me, and I didn’t have time to wonder until much later how he’d ever come across that particular form.

I had to fight my feet not to give ground. It had been quite some time since I’d practiced against more than two blades. When I was younger and everyone had a sword, you were more likely to run into that sort of thing. Nowadays you were more likely to run into multiple guns than multiple swords.

Loki’s newly black eyes shifted from my face to a point over my right shoulder. He blinked hard, blinked harder, shook his head, and his swords stopped moving. He tried to refocus on me but his eyes drew away once more, and this time he flinched backward and dropped a couple of his weapons. The hands slapped at his eye sockets, and then he pressed his palms into them.

“Nuh! No! Ssstop!”

Worried about me, he lowered his hands and peeked over his fingers to make sure I wasn’t about to run him through. That’s when Malina stepped in front of me and tossed her hair at him. That did it. His hands dropped, his jaw dropped, and the other two hands still holding swords dropped as well.

“He’s charmed now,” Malina said over her shoulder, her gaze locked on Loki. “You can kill him and get this over with.”

“No, we don’t want to kill him,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because if we do, Hel will know it and launch her army out of spite. Ragnarok will begin. Hel would much rather start the show with Loki than without him, see. She has daddy issues and doesn’t want to win without his approval and participation, so if you keep him busy we’ll be in good shape.”

“How do you know this?”

“Loki’s been looking for me for about four months now. Well, he’s been sleeping for most of it, but still. Hel didn’t make a move in all that time except to protect him.”

Roksana, the witch with a mass of curly hair tightly bound behind her in a ponytail, spoke up in her proper diction: “You want us to keep him charmed for an extended period?”

“Yep.” I grinned at her.

Malina snorted. “This man is extremely unstable, and it will take a lot of work to keep him calm. You saw that it took several of us to subdue him just now. What do we get out of this, Mr. O’Sullivan?”

“Well, you get a world without Ragnarok, for starters. And I can buy you all some of those shiny black boots you tend to like.”

“That is unacceptable. I might as well let him go right now.”

“You’d help bring about the end of the world?”

“He seems to want to end you first, Mr. O’Sullivan. So tell me why shouldn’t we let him go.”

“I can score you some Girl Scout Cookies. You can’t get Thin Mints in Poland, can you?”

“Be serious.”

“Samoas, then?”

Malina simply glared at me.

“All right,” I said, “what do you want?”

“You have given me the impression that we’d be not only saving your life but saving the world. We need more than cookies for that.”

“Understood, Malina. But what? I don’t know what you think I can give you.”

“I want Poland to be free of vampires.”

A silence grew in the field and Granuaile eventually broke it by saying, “Is she trying to be funny?”

“When and for how long?” I asked.

“After Ragnarok comes and goes or in a year: If we are here, and you are here, and vampires are here, you keep Poland vampire-free by whatever means necessary.”