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The suite was clearly one of the hotel’s finest, luxuriously furnished and spacious enough for two dozen party guests. Five men were sprawled around the room in various states of undress, some snorting cocaine, others simply drinking.

Loki was sitting on a thickly padded armchair, watching the proceedings as if they amused him but were far too lowbrow to tempt him into participating.

She almost choked when she saw the four women in the room. None of them were laughing. Two of them, she knew.

Her Sisters—Skuld, guardian of Thor’s Belt, Megingjord; and Regin, who had held Mjollnir, Thor’s Hammer. They, like the other two women, were clad in diaphanous dresses that made Mist’s form-fitting gown seem like a Puritan woman’s all-encompassing black petticoats. One of the drunken men was pawing at Skuld, while Regin sat close to the coke table, staring into space.

Loki had gotten to them first.

Mist had taken a full step into the room before Konur grabbed her arm. “They do not see us yet,” he said, “but it cannot be long before Loki senses our presence.”

“What has he done to them?” Mist asked, her voice trembling with helpless anger. “Are they under a spell?”

“Is there reason to think that they might align themselves with Loki willingly?”

Mist clamped her fingers around Konur’s wrist and pulled his hand away. “
Look
at them. Do you think they’d become the playthings of Loki’s mortals?”

“No,” Konur said softly. “I did not believe it. But you see that Loki is controlling them somehow, and he must have both Mjollnir and Megingjord.”

Two out of three,
Mist thought. If he could get Jarngreipr from Rota, he’d have all Thor’s powerful Treasures.

“You are not in a position to free them,” Konur said. “But now we know that Loki has been able to control two Valkyrie, and is bold enough to use them at his own convenience.”

“And he didn’t think I’d find out they were here?”

“Perhaps that is just what he intended. I caught a glimpse of Regin with one of these men while I was watching for Loki, and followed. Had he wished to conceal himself, surely he would have done so.”

“He knows that Mist has a far more personal interest in the other Valkyrie than Freya does,” Mist said. And if he had guessed that the “lady” was Mist, she thought, had he expected her to lose control and attempt a rescue, no matter what the cost?

“Of course this may also be a trap,” Konur said, echoing her thoughts. “But I believed it was necessary for you to observe with your own eyes.”

Mist backed deliberately away from the door. “We can’t let this go on. One way or another—”

Loki cocked his head, turning it slightly toward the door. Regin got up and drifted across the room to stand beside his chair, playing with his hair and whispering in his ear. A moment later Dainn entered the room from another door, stopping some distance away from Loki and Regin. Loki called him, and he went to his master without so much as a glance at the Valkyrie.

Mist nearly lost control of her stomach. She staggered into the hall, doubled over, and covered her mouth with her hands.

“Let us go,” Konur said.

“No,” Mist said thickly. “We have to try to save Regin and Skuld.”

He laid his hand on her back, and once again she felt that flow of comfort that seemed to dampen the nausea as well as the rage. “Loki has begun to sense something amiss, and I can be of little help to you.”

But Mist had reason to doubt him when she found herself turning away, against every instinct, and retracing their path to the double-locked door. This time, Mist used the forge-Galdr to reassemble the locks, though they would never be fully functional again.

Loki would know they’d been tampered with, and by whom. But that hardly mattered if Konur was right, and it had all been a setup. She just didn’t want Loki to know she knew it.

Leaving Konur to follow at his own pace, Mist looked for the closest restroom and spent a good five minutes in one of the immaculate stalls, regaining control of her rebellious stomach. There was nothing more she could do here … nothing to save her Sisters, or act openly against Loki and his minions. She’d already risked too much. This wasn’t her world, and she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t formulate any plans that didn’t involve not only blowing her cover but also opening a Pandora’s box not even the All-father would be able to close again.

Taking a deep breath, Mist left the restroom. Konur was gone, but someone else was waiting for her. Someone she hadn’t seen since that last, open battle with Loki’s Jotunar at the portal to the steppes.

He hadn’t changed much physically over the past months, but he seemed fully conscious in a way he hadn’t been during most of their adventure on the other side of the Earth. She and the allies had assumed that he was back with Loki, reclaimed by Laufeyson after he’d disappeared from the steppes.

But why was he
here,
of all places? Why would Loki have brought his son to this very adult event, where his enemies might get ahold of the boy?

“Danny?” Mist said, standing very still.

The boy looked up at her, his eyes alert and wary. “Who are you?” he asked.

She stiffened. Whether or not Danny had ever seen Freya on the steppes, Loki would have spent plenty of time and effort teaching his son to recognize and fear his enemies.

Opening her senses, Mist whispered a Rune-spell she’d seldom had cause to use before. She wasn’t completely sure it was working until her subtle “push” suddenly broke through like an ax through soft butter. There was no resistance, no counter-spell of protection or obfuscation.

Only Danny. He was who and what he appeared to be. The tattoo on her wrist, concealed by a wide gold-and-gemstone bracelet, began to burn.

Danny stepped toward her and took her hand. A queasy moment later they were standing in an empty guest room, and the only sound breaking the silence was the hum of the fan blowing cool air out the vent in the ceiling.

Teleportation,
Mist thought, battling another all-too-familiar bout of nausea. The same thing he’d done with Dainn when he’d rescued the elf from Loki and taken him through the portal to search for Sleipnir
.

“You’re Mist,” Danny said, hopping up on the edge of the king-size bed. “You don’t look right, but I remember you anyway.”

The boy spoke with confidence, and Mist wondered if her magic had somehow worked both ways, opening her up to his mind and senses.

It wasn’t going to do any good to lie to him now. “Yes,” she said, “I remember you, too. You made the portal, and we helped you find Sleipnir.”

Danny nodded. “He went away.”

“I’m sorry,” Mist said, wondering if he knew that she had Sleipnir. Would Loki have told him?

“How did you get here, Danny?” she asked gently.

“It was easy.”

She understood his non-answer. Loki hadn’t brought him at all.

“You did it the same way you transported me to this room?” she asked.

“Uh-huh.” He continued to gaze at her intently.

“From Loki’s house?”

He nodded again.

“Does he know you’re here?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Why did you come?”

“I couldn’t help it,” Danny said, his mouth twisting in frustration. “He was afraid.”

“Who was afraid?”

“Papa.”

Loki, afraid? “Of what?”

“Will you take him away?”

The boy was changing subjects faster than Mist could follow them. Was he so frightened that she would hurt Loki? Did he understand that much?

But he’d never seemed to care about his father when he’d been with her and Dainn on the steppes. To the contrary: he’d openly defied Loki by rescuing Dainn from Laufeyson at Asbrew.

That proves nothing,
Mist thought. She didn’t really know anything about Danny’s life with Loki, before or after those events. From what Dainn had told her, she assumed he was virtually a prisoner, valuable to Loki only because of his powers.

Still, even Loki might be capable of some paternal affection. Maybe Danny, who seemed so much more focused now, returned those feelings.

But how much did he really understand of what was going on between his parent and Mist? Did Danny really have the maturity to recognize fear in his father and move on his own to ask mercy from an enemy?

Nothing he’d done in Mist’s brief acquaintance with the boy suggested it. If Dainn were here in this room, maybe he could have told her what Danny was trying to say. He and Danny had been very close in that brief time they were together.

“Where do you think I would take him, Danny?” she asked.

Tears started in his eyes. “I don’t know.” He sniffed. “
He
will make everything bad.”

There was something about Danny’s emphasis on the “he” that seemed different from his talk about Loki. She felt a sudden chill.

“Who would make everything bad, Danny?”

The boy closed his eyes, and a gray cloud formed in front of his face. There was something inside it, something that flashed with sparks and streaks of lightning.

“They want to take it,” Danny said, shaping the cloud with his hands like a sculptor molding an amorphous mass of clay.

Mist raised her hands as if to touch the vision, and it exploded into a shower of black feathers that disappeared an instant later.

Black feathers,
Mist thought. Like a raven’s. Her bracelet began to singe her skin above and below the tattoo.

“What are you trying to tell me?” she asked, biting back a cry of pain.

“I don’t want to die,” Danny whispered.

14

A thousand slivers of ice jammed into Mist’s spine from neck to tailbone. “What do you mean?” She grasped his thin shoulders. “Danny, who is—”

But suddenly her hands were empty, and she found herself standing outside the restroom as if she’d never left.

As if Danny had never been there at all.

She lifted her hand and slid the bracelet off, pulling a little burned skin away with it. Maybe it
had
been an illusion … one of Loki’s, something he could manage at a short distance.

But Loki’s illusions weren’t usually physical things, like Danny’s manifestations. She’d
touched
the boy. And Danny himself had created some kind of manifestation.

But what in the gods’ name was it? What did “they” want to take? And if Loki wasn’t a threat to Danny, who was?

If the beast
had
returned …

Mist was just about to go in search of Konur, bare feet and all, when Danny ran into the hall and nearly collided with her.

“Danny!” she said, catching him. “Where did you go?”

He stared up at her, clearly terrified. “He’s going to kill me!” he cried.

Grabbing his shoulders, she pulled him against the wall. “Is someone chasing you?”

“The monster!” Danny panted, looking over his shoulder.

Mist couldn’t believe that Loki would allow the beast to roam unattended around these halls under any circumstances. He barely let Dainn out of his sight.

“Come with me,” she said, taking his hand. “We’ll find—”

He was gone again before she could finish speaking. She looked down the hall, but no one was coming. She sensed no threat.

Why hadn’t Danny spoken directly of the beast before? Why had he been so vague, his speech so disconnected?

Of one thing Mist was certain: something was very wrong, and Danny had come to
her
for help. If he was still anywhere in this building, she’d track him down and get answers … without alerting Loki. Or Dainn.

*   *   *

The locks had been tampered with.

Dainn paused in front of the door to the private hall, his body still shaking with helpless anger. He had seen Regin and Skuld acting as playthings for Loki’s mortal allies—dolls without volition or awareness—and there had been nothing he could do. Loki had made very clear that the consequences of any interference would fall, not on him, but on the Valkyrie.

And so, once he had put in an appearance as Loki had demanded for some unfathomable purpose of his own, Dainn had walked away. No one had stopped him. And now he discovered that magic had been worked on the hall door, magic with the distinct flavor of Freya’s aristocratic elven escort.

Dainn laid his palm against the door. It shuddered, and the dead bolts and knob broke apart and fell to the carpet.

Whoever had broken the locks must have known that their intrusion would be discovered. Someone who might have witnessed Loki’s private “party.”

But Loki would have sensed the presence of enemies, and he’d shown no sign—

The door creaked on its hinges and swung open. Dainn jumped back, his body acting before his mind could prepare.

Danny stood on the other side of the door, wearing rumpled pajamas and an anxious expression.

“Papa?” he said.

Dainn looked beyond him into the hall. There was no one else there.

“Danny,” he said, dropping into a crouch, “how did you get here?”

“I’m afraid, Papa,” Danny said. “The lady wants to hurt me.”

The lady
. “Danny,” Dainn said, reaching out. “How did you—”

His hand swept through empty air. Danny had spun around and was running away, pelting down the public hall in an awkward lope.

Dainn broke into a run, but within seconds Danny had disappeared, and Dainn could feel no sense of him. His heart raced, fueled by adrenaline and terror for his son.

She will kill him
.

Dainn closed his eyes, struggling to block the other voice, the thing halfway between elf and monster. It was still weak, and it reached for Dainn with claws hardly more fearsome than a kitten’s.

A kitten that fed on fear.

“No,” Dainn said, his blood surging hot in his veins.

You have no choice
.

“There is always a choice.”

The claws lengthened and curved into scythes, and the voice grew stronger.

He will die
.

A deep growl started up in Dainn’s throat. His vision altered and his senses sharpened to painful clarity. He could already feel the beast’s growing power swelling in his muscles, pounding in his chest … the terrible, familiar sense of losing himself to the creature that wanted nothing but blood and violence and death.