Chapter 6 #3
He chuckled. "I wasn't suggesting you should. But what if I could arrange for you to punch the very man who ruined your life and took your sisters from you?"
She eyed him. "What do you mean?"
Loki pointed to a door down a few steps on the far side of the building. "The club has amazing steaks. The basement is a different animal."
She peered at the stairs. "Show me."
Loki led Val to a small stairwell and to a thick metal door. Val stared at it for a moment and then followed him down the steps.
Loki knocked, and a small window slid open, revealing a bulbous brown eye.
"Password?" boomed a low voice.
Loki rolled his eyes. "Gadius, you know me. I don't need a password."
The eye looked Loki up and down.
"You could be an imposter. Password."
Loki shook his head. “Hjaldr.”
Battle? The password to the basement of Odin’s place was battle? Fitting.
"That's last week's password." The window shut.
Loki put his hand on the door handle, and it buzzed with blue light before swinging open and revealing a low-lit hallway. The scent of stone and wet dirt drifted out.
"Hey!" said Gadius. "Wait. You got the door open. That means..."
Loki waited a moment. "It means I really am Loki?"
Gadius smiled. "Oh yeah. Hey buddy, how are you?"
Val stared at the mountainous cyclops. She had never seen one before, but he couldn't be anything else.
Built like he'd been made of stone, with a giant eye in the middle of his forehead and two tusks jutting out of his lower lip, he was unmistakable.
For all of his formidability, his face held a passive childlike innocence that surprised her.
Loki clapped the big guy on the shoulder. "Is Odin in there?"
Gadius nodded.
"Is the roster full tonight?"
Gadius grabbed a blank-looking clipboard off the wall and scanned it. "Nope. Just this fight tonight. You gonna challenge Odin?"
Loki looked at her. "Not me."
Val's heartbeat quickened as the cyclops gaped at her.
"Her?"
Loki nodded. "Trust me, she's a professional. She can handle him."
Gadius shrugged. "Name."
"Valkyrie," she said.
Gadius' eye widened. "Like the old Norse warrior women. Cool."
Val didn’t reply. Was this really happening?
"Okay," Gadius put the clipboard back on the wall. "You're next. You know the rules?"
“I'll tell her.”
Gadius nodded. "Remember, break the rules and you lose. Break them twice, and you are banned."
Val arched an eyebrow at Loki. What was he getting her into?
Loki walked her down a low-ceilinged brick hallway lined with fire-lit torches.
Beneath their feet, the bricks continued down and ended at a dark velvet curtain that separated them from a noisy crowd on the other side.
The torchlight caught the curtain's deep burgundy nap, and the combined heat of the flames made the low ceiling feel lower.
Behind it, a wall of noise pressed through laughter, cheering, the clink of glass, at least three different languages she couldn't identify.
The too stuffy, warm hallway smelled of old stone and iron.
She pressed a hand to the brick wall to steady herself.
She hesitated a moment. Anyone could be in there.
Traitors? Mercenaries? Supernaturals willing to sell her out?
No. She had to believe Loki wouldn’t put her in danger.
The velvet curtain pulsed with the muffled roar of the crowd beyond it. Loki pulled it aside, allowing bright light to flood across the hallway floor.
The smell hit her first- old blood under the bite of antiseptic, woodsmoke, and something else, something electric and ancient that pressed against her skin like static.
She glanced at Loki beside her. He stood an easy six inches taller than her five-foot-nine, lean in a way that made his clothes look architectural rather than worn.
He had the kind of face that never quite settled into one expression, the blue of his eyes doing something unreadable as he watched her with mild, patient amusement.
Like a man who already knew the outcome of the evening.
For a moment, she was tempted to turn and leave, but the idea of possibly being able to fight the one man she'd hated for centuries was too much for her to turn back. She had no idea if she could beat him. No idea if she'd get her ass handed to her. Either way, she had to take her shot.
They walked through the curtain into an arena of chaos.
In the middle of the arena stood a cage with walls about ten feet high.
Above the cage, a vaulted ceiling of rough-hewn black rock disappeared into shadow, hung with iron chandeliers that flickered unevenly, as if the flames were nervous.
In the cage, two men, a demon of some sort, and a human-looking man, beat and kicked each other.
All around them, on tiered stadium seating, dozens of beings sat or stood watching the fight.
Yelling and cheering, they watched with great enthusiasm.
The crowd was a catalog of the supernatural world crammed into one space.
A cluster of olive green-skinned figures near the top row argued, their voices rattling the stone.
Below them, two creatures with elongated gray limbs and too many joints leaned over the railing, their wide, oil-black eyes fixed on the fighters.
The natural seating of thick logs polished to a high, dark gloss, curved in a half-circle around the cage, and the noise rolled down from every tier like a wave- roaring, stomping, the crack of someone's palm slamming the railing hard enough to split the wood.
A deep-colored carpet covered the floors, possibly to hide the blood.
As she scanned the crowd, her eyes stopped.
Halfway across the room on a massive wooden throne sat an older, white-haired man in a leather biker jacket.
His long, wild, white wizard hair had been cropped shorter, and his unruly beard manicured into a distinguished goatee.
He looked a thousand years younger than the last time she’d seen him. How was that possible?
His piercing blue eyes stayed on the fight as he sipped from a giant metal flagon. Though he looked totally different, Val couldn't miss his aura. The aura of superiority. Of disdain. Of… the king of the Norse gods- murderer of Valkyrie.
The chair-throne he sat on couldn't be missed either.
Heavy, carved of wood and gilded in gold, it stood close to eight feet tall.
The intricate carvings all over it depicted battle scenes from Norse mythology, as well as various members of the Norse god family.
How typical of Odin. Even when his family had gotten out from under his thumb, he still sat atop them like the god he still thought himself to be.
Such hubris. A thrill shot through Val at the thought of possibly being able to bring him down a peg.
Loki pulled her toward the box surrounding Odin, and her fingers twitched for her to pull one of her blades. But attacking him would most definitely earn her a death blow.
As they neared, a large gray wolf stood from where he'd been lying at Odin's feet and growled once. Three ravens took flight near the ceiling, circling them, watching everyone. They screeched above the noise of the fighters and spectators as she stopped a few feet from Odin.
Odin glanced over and smiled. "Loki. How are you, my boy? Fighting tonight?"
Funny Odin called Loki ‘boy’, even though Loki himself was said to be older. Then again, Odin didn't like to admit anyone was older than he was, as it might challenge his status.
"Not me. I'd like to introduce you to, or reintroduce you to, my friend, Val." Loki wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her forward.
Odin looked at her, and his expression changed. "I know you."
He remembered her? That was unexpected. They'd only met a handful of times.
He studied her for several seconds. "You're a Valkyrie," he finally said. "But all my Valkyries were killed during Ragnarok."
"Not all," she replied through gritted teeth.
Odin bowed his head for a moment. "It is good to see you, daughter. You truly are a sight to behold and bring a touch of ease to my heart. Are there more? More of your sisters who survived?"
All she could manage was, "No."
He nodded. "I'm truly sorry."
Val bit her tongue and squeezed Loki's hand hard as she was able. He glanced at her sideways and then turned his smile back to Odin.
"Are you up for a challenge?"
Odin chuckled. "I thought you said you weren't fighting tonight."
"I'm not." Loki looked at her, and Odin followed his gaze.
"You, daughter? You want to challenge me in the ring?"
Every utterance of "daughter" from Odin ignited a fiery rage within her, reinforcing her resolve to confront him.
The desire to forcefully silence him by tearing out his tongue and stopping his words burned in her heart.
Despite having a father she never knew and a beloved mother she was cruelly torn from to serve Odin's whims, her fury grew stronger with each passing moment.
The weight of haunting memories pressed upon her soul.
Sisters mercilessly obliterated from the worlds.
The wounded, their eyes pleading for release from agony.
Defiant spirits choosing to stand against the darkness, even as it consumed them.
The metallic tang of blood, the putrid stench of war, the gut-wrenching scent of fear.
Echoes of despair piercing the air. And the bitter sting of tears, carving rivers of sorrow down her raw face.
"Yes," Val said, the memories lending her strength.
Odin took a long swig of his ale and stared at her for a moment before nodding. "I accept."