Norse Code Part 4

"Radgrid. And there doesn't have to be any killing. I'll tell her ... I dunno, that you were drunk, or whatever. She'll be p.i.s.sed beyond p.i.s.sed, but we'll talk to her, and you'll face whatever punishment she hands you, and maybe there'll be enough time for you to get out of her doghouse before the world ends." Grimnir looked out the window thoughtfully. "Actually, I've been thinking. Maybe we don't have to tell her anything about your extreme betrayal of our friends.h.i.+p after all. I told her the Hoover kid fought like a ninny and I slew him, which is technically true. And she believed me when I told her I cut my head in a dispute over a restaurant check, because it's not like that's never happened before."

"You mean ... she doesn't know I did it? You didn't tell?"

"Didn't see a reason to. I mean, you committed an extreme betrayal of our friends.h.i.+p, but I didn't want to see Radgrid strap you to a rock and have a serpent drip toxic venom on your face for whatever's left of eternity. Maybe you can still go back to NorseCODE and redeem yourself with productivity. Of course, I don't want to work with you anymore, on account of your extreme betrayal of our friends.h.i.+p. Not sure how I'll sell that part of it. Maybe I can convince Radgrid that I just miss working with Thrudi, who's a very good lay, by the way. I'm really going out on a limb to help you, kid, because ... I don't know. You're a mess, but I like you. I gotta tell you, Mist, I'll be worried about you, not having me to cover your a.s.s. Radgrid'll probably a.s.sign you to work with Targad the Steel-Nosed, and there's something wrong in the head with that guy. He scares me."

Mist's throat grew tight. She'd buried a sword blade in the man's head, and he was still worried about her. She was reminded of the way Lilly had always tried to protect her when they were kids.

And that, she thought, was what she should have been doing for the last three months, since she'd died. She should have been trying to do for other people what she couldn't do for Lilly. Instead, she'd kidnapped and terrorized. No more.

"I've been looking for Hermod of the Aesir," she said. "He knows how to get in and out of Helheim, and once I find him, I'm going to convince him to help me bring my sister and Adrian Hoover back to Midgard."

Grimnir made a noise halfway between a groan and a laugh. Flecks of whipped cream flew off the top of his drink. "Why stop there? What about your parents? And their parents? And all their brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles? And all the Make-A-Wish Foundation kids and ... and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King? What about Bruce Lee? What about Sinatra? People die, kid."

"We died, but we're still breathing the air, drinking coffee. We're proof that there're other options."

The mirth left Grimnir's face, leaving his expression as serious as Mist had ever seen it. "You're being stupid. Odin claims his share, Hel claims hers. That's the handshake deal. You and me, we may not be exactly mortal anymore, but we ain't much more than little specks in the universe's eye. It's not up to the likes of us to screw with things. I've lost people, too, you know. Enough of this s.h.i.+t. Finish your coffee."

He reached for another sip of his drink, but Mist grabbed the cup from his hand and set it firmly back on the table.

"I'm not going to go quietly, Grim. I swear, try to take me back to Radgrid and I will fight you every step of the way." She dug her phone out of her purse, holding her thumb over the keypad. "I've got 911 programmed into speed dial. Try to take me by force and you'll have to deal with me and the ha.s.sle of LAPD. If you manage that, I'll consider it my job to survive, escape, and sabotage. I will be the biggest pain in the a.s.s you've ever dreamed of."

He rubbed the back of his head and winced. "You already are."

Mist said nothing, and Grimnir stared at her for a long moment. He closed his eyes. "You're serious about this."

"Help me find Hermod. That's all I ask. Once I've done that, you can go back and tell Radgrid whatever you want. She doesn't have to know about you helping me. You can just say you looked and couldn't find me, that you taught me too well."

Thunder shook the windows and set off car alarms. Outside on the sidewalk, a couple of men started beating on each other for no reason Mist could discern. n.o.body else took much notice. "Come on, Grim," she said. "The world's coming apart at the seams. What've you got to lose?"

"My honor, my job, my limbs, my afterlife ..."

"Do it anyway."

"Because?"

"Do it because it's a grimly hopeful thing to do instead of grimly hopeless. You haven't been knocked around too much to believe in hope. I know you haven't."

"Kid, I've had a really s.h.i.+tty couple of days." He rubbed his eyes with hands the size of boxing gloves. "And thanks to you, I have a feeling I'm in for a whole lot more."

"You're a good man, Grim. I mean that."

"Save it for my funeral."

They spent the rest of the day crawling across the greater metropolitan area in Grimnir's Jeep. They visited a bowling alley in Sylmar, a Chinese seafood restaurant in Monterey Park, a prost.i.tute in West Hollywood, another in Culver City, a gorgeously androgynous sculptor living in a downtown loft who was surely from Alfheim, and more prophets and seers living out of shopping carts and donut shops than Mist could keep track of. She'd had no idea there were so many people existing where the edges of Midgard blurred into the other eight worlds, but when she mentioned it, Grimnir only shrugged.

"It's always been this way," he said, "but, yeah, it is getting more common. The structure of the World Tree is getting chewed up as Ragnarok approaches."

Grimnir inquired about Hermod's current whereabouts at every stop, sometimes relying on charm, other times going into his more comfortable mode of looming intimidation. Neither approach gained them more than a pa.s.sing of the buck to yet another informant.

The task reminded Mist of one of those road rallies she'd sometimes undertaken with her friends in high school, where you'd have to race across town and do things like snap pictures of yourselves in a Hot Dog on a Stick girl's hat or nab a matchbook from Spago. At least those old car rallies usually came to an end around midnight, at Bob's Big Boy, with sundaes and fries. That was back when the roads of Los Angeles had been more pa.s.sable, without untended earthquake fissures and sinkholes.

In Beverly Hills, Grimnir parallel parked the Jeep between a Mercedes and an Audi, b.u.mping both. The stretch of Wils.h.i.+re Boulevard hosted an unusually active string of businesses, including a nail salon done up in postmodern severity. Behind a counter of unfinished concrete and artfully rusted metal, the receptionist greeted Mist with a look of cool disinterest that morphed into full-scale alarm when Grimnir came in behind her.

"Do you have an appointment?" she asked, managing to wrestle her mouth into something like a smile.

Grimnir leaned with his elbows on the counter. The receptionist took a nervous step backward. "An appointment? Here, at such an exclusive salon? Oh, if only!"

"I'm afraid we're not accepting walk-ins just now."

Mist glanced around. The receptionist didn't appear to be lying. All the stations were filled with luxuriating clients being attended to by masked manicurists. While Rome burned, a whole orchestra got their nails done.

"My claws are fine, honey. I'm just here to talk to that guy." Grimnir aimed a frankfurter-size finger at a man receiving a pedicure. He was in his fifties, eyes hidden by aviator gla.s.ses, and was dressed in a blue polo s.h.i.+rt and black shorts that revealed a long bypa.s.s scar running down his thigh and calf. A younger man, twenty-something and blond with an objectively perfect face, stood with his arms crossed behind the pedicurist's chair. While the older man stared at the ceiling, nodding his head as though listening to music, the blond stared openly at Grimnir.

The receptionist tried to send Mist and Grimnir away with apologetic noises, but when the blond man approached, she gratefully let him deal with the unwanted visitors.

"Can I help you?" he asked. His turtleneck clung to a body contoured with lean muscle.

"Cutting to the chase," Grimnir said, "your boss has information I want, and if you don't move out of my way, I'll be picking my teeth with your ribs."

"You know, it takes only eleven pounds of pressure to break a knee."

Subtle s.h.i.+fts in stance signaled that Grimnir and the blond were getting ready to have it out, right in the middle of a Beverly Hills nail salon. Sometimes it was hard for Mist to remember to be grateful for Grimnir's presence. "Grim-"

Still staring up at the ceiling, Mr. Bypa.s.s Scar held up a hand. "Andre, this is the last G.o.dd.a.m.ned decent salon on this side of town, and I will not see it wrecked. Bring the man over."

Disappointment registered on the faces of both Grimnir and Andre. Neither moved for a moment-Andre refusing to step aside, and Grimnir unwilling to walk around him-until Bypa.s.s Scar barked at his a.s.sistant/bodyguard again. Andre shuffled aside a couple of inches.

The pedicurist continued to nip the man's cuticles as Grimnir towered over them both.

"You're another one of those Asgardians, aren't you? Your girlfriend too?"

"She's my boss."

"Harvey Silver." The man held out his hand to Mist, looking on expectantly, as though the name should mean something to her. His nails gleamed. "Aren't you a fan of the movies, dear?"

"Some of them. Are you an actor?"

"No, I'm a professional G.o.dparent."

"Like, Mafia?"

He laughed. "No, dear. Name your favorite actor, favorite hip-hop artist, favorite studio exec, if you have one, and odds are that I'm G.o.dparent to at least one of their children. People feel secure knowing that a man like me has their kids' best interests tucked in his back pocket."

"And do you?"

Very seriously, he said, "I'm an exceptional G.o.dparent. I go to great lengths to take care of my children."

Grimnir picked up a pair of nail clippers and held them to the light. "Harvey hasn't always been such a nice man. Six years ago, when he was a veep at Sony, he was known as Harvey the Scythe. But then all the caviar and cream puffs caught up with him, and his heart exploded. To put it in less polite terms, Harvey croaked."

"I was dead for only a minute or two," Harvey protested. "But long enough to walk a few steps down the road and to see what's on the other end."

"And Harvey was sharp-minded enough to remember his glimpse of Helheim. So, once he came to in the hospital, before he was even up and around, he decided to devote his very considerable resources to finding his way back to the road."

Mist suddenly felt a kins.h.i.+p with this man. "I lost someone down that road," she said. "If you know anything about how to get to Helheim and back ..."

To Mist's surprise, Harvey's chin quivered, just briefly, before he regained control. "Who did you lose?" he asked, his voice gruff.

"My sister. We were both shot."

Behind his sungla.s.ses, Harvey seemed to be looking at something off in the distance. "When she was nine, my daughter, Brooke, died of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Her mom did a lot of praying and crystals, a lot of talking about seeing her again in our next lives. I just kept nodding until the divorce. But then the heart attack happened, and I saw the road, and I realized that if there was another place, an afterlife, I'd have to be a real son of a b.i.t.c.h not to get my daughter the f.u.c.k out of there. It took a lot of time and a lot of my money, but eventually I learned about Hermod, and after even more time and more money, I actually found the b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Again, Mist wondered about Radgrid's selection methods. Any mortal commanding the wherewithal to track down a G.o.d was someone to be reckoned with. But it was highly doubtful that Harvey Silver was all that decent with a sword, and his reconfigured heart probably didn't pump Odin's blood, so a man like him would be of no interest to Radgrid. If only the Einherjar were a meritocracy.

"Will you tell me where Hermod is?"

Harvey Silver shook his head. "Won't do you any good, dear. Hermod may be a G.o.d, but he's not any useful kind of G.o.d. I followed him around the globe for two straight years, and let me tell you, the guy gets around. But even after I offered him everything I could think of-cash, stocks, gold, girls, a house in Malibu, executive-producer credits on anything he wanted-he wouldn't work for me."

"Are you still having him tracked?"

"I get reports, sure."

"Tell me where he is."

"You're wasting your time, dear."

"It's my time to waste. And if it turns out I can convince Hermod to help me get my people back, I'll work on him to bring your daughter back too. I'm bringing back as many as I can."

Grimnir sighed.

Harvey Silver's eyes remained hidden behind his dark lenses. "Andre," he said after a time, "give me a pen."

MIST HAD hoped for an address, but, instead, Harvey Silver had given her a list of instructions. She and Grimnir were to look for a tall, thin, shabbily dressed man. These days he reportedly had an Alaskan malamute with him. He would likely be found near the beach, because he was drawn to sh.o.r.elines. He had a tendency to walk along the borders of places. Look for him where the homeless were common and not likely to be evicted. Look for him in places where underground economies thrived, where n.o.body took credit cards.

Grimnir said he knew a few places like that, and they spent the next two days fruitlessly checking them out.

On the third day they came to Palisades Park, a crumbling ridge of gra.s.s and dirt perched above the Pacific Coast Highway. A concrete barrier had been erected to keep people away from the precipice, but much of that had itself tumbled down the cliff side, and the city ultimately relied on nothing more than signs warning people to stay at least six feet from the edge. Many of the signs had gone over the edge themselves. Was this Ragnarok, Mist wondered, or just California? All it ever took was a decent rainstorm to dissolve half the city.

Makes.h.i.+ft shelters constructed of wood sc.r.a.ps and shopping carts and plastic garbage bags sagged in the saturated air. Men in filthy donated clothes lay in the shadows of lean-tos, or on benches, or on bare ground.

Mist and Grimnir walked north, wading through mud and wet gra.s.s, past the merchants. Their setups ranged from stalls of plastic tarp and PVC pipe to mere blankets spread on the ground. Racks were hung with used clothing-winter coats, flannel s.h.i.+rts, bootleg UCLA sweats-draped in clear plastic sheeting to guard them from the wet. There were vendors hawking hothouse tomatoes and amateur apothecaries selling everything from vitamin C pills and Chinese herbs to home-brewed antibiotics. Other merchants sold batteries or gas-powered generators, always in demand since most cities' power grids hadn't been reliable for three years. With street performers playing guitars and drumming on plastic buckets for change and vendors roasting satay on hibachis, the atmosphere was almost festive.

Mist scanned the crowd. "I've got a few other places on my list we can try," Grimnir said, leaning over a merchant's display of switchblades with a connoisseur's eye.

"Not yet. Let's split up to cover more ground. You mill around the south end of the park and I'll take the north. Call if you find anything."

She checked her cell phone to make sure it was getting a signal.

North, the market seemed less flea than black. Mist suspected that the girls and boys hanging around the restrooms weren't selling anything other than themselves. What some of the merchants were dealing in, however, was a little harder to figure out.

The stalls here were spa.r.s.er and less friendly to the casual browser, so to give herself something to do while visually scanning the place, she dug out a few coins to hand to a man huddled up against a tree.

"Have you seen the ocean lately?" he said, palming her coins.

Mist glanced beyond the cliff. The waters were calm today, a flat, steel-colored slab. "It's quiet."

"That's because the worm's sleeping. But he'll wake up before too long. I'm here, day in, day out, and I've seen him reveal himself. He shows the thinnest bit of his spine. Just a long, dark line on the horizon. It happens before a storm, usually a crazy one, like the one that took out the marina. He's testing the air, seeing if it's time."

"Time for what?" Mist had to ask, even though she generally tried to avoid conversations with schizophrenics.

The man winked, as if revealing a juicy slice of gossip. "When he gets restless, the world cracks apart. And he's starting to get restless."

"Yeah, I have heard this one, actually."

She spotted a tall man conducting business a few stalls down and moved closer. He was dressed in stained jeans and a black longsh.o.r.eman's coat. Flecks of gold glittered in the gray stubble on his cheeks and chin. Over his shoulder he carried a long duffel bag patched with duct tape. An Alaskan malamute stood alertly beside him.

He seemed to be in the middle of a negotiation with a man at a card table. The merchant held a ball about the size of an apple, wrapped tightly in brown paper.

Now she wished she hadn't split off from Grimnir. The man fit Hermod's description, but he didn't give off ... whatever it was she thought a G.o.d of the Aesir ought to give off. She reached for her phone, but at that moment the man turned his head and stared right at her with eyes the color of wet slate.

She left her phone in her pocket and strode up to him. "I'm Mist," she said. "A Valkyrie under Radgrid's charge."

"No hablo ingles," he said.

The merchant snorted. "He was hablo-ing ingles just fine a minute ago."

Hermod gave him a dirty scowl and then directed the very same look at Mist. "I'm trying to do something here, and you're interfering. Please go away. And don't come back. And don't send anybody else. Thank you very much."

This could not possibly be Hermod, Mist thought. G.o.ds were supposed to be wrathful or capricious, not cranky.

"I've given you my name," she said, drawing on the lessons in Asgard protocol Radgrid had given her. "Won't you have the courtesy to tell yours to a servant of your father's?"

"I don't owe my father anything, much less his servants. If you won't go away, then at least be quiet, okay? Thank you."

He turned back to the other man and gestured to the paper-wrapped ball in his hands. "So how does it work? I don't see a fuse."

"No fuse," the man said, showing him a plastic tab curling from the ball. "You just yank this."

"Okay. Nice. I'll take four."

"That's eight hundred dollars."

"I'll give you six hundred."

"Eight hundred dollars."

"Seven-"