I don’t say yes or no. “We should help him.”
“It’s with his son’s own entrails,” Astley says.
“That means intestines. Entrails mean intestines,” Frank pipes in. He claps his hand against his chest. “Oh! She’s shuddering, how delightful.”
A giant serpent hangs above Loki’s head. Venom drips out of its fangs but is caught in a bowl held aloft by a beautiful woman. Her really defined back muscles show via the drape of her flowy, old-fashioned dress. How long has she been protecting him?
“According to the prophecies, Loki is to fight with the jötnar against the gods. It’s hard to blame him,” Frank says. “He will kill Heimdallr.”
“Heimdall?” I croak out. The air is so hot it hisses and I remember how kind Heimdall was when I crossed the bridge to Valhalla.
“Heimdallr.” Frank flicks his finger against my cheek. “You children never get anything right. BiForst became BiFrost. Heimdallr became Heimdall. It’s like you don’t even hear it correctly. Honestly, it’s insulting to have you as foes.”
I can’t help myself. “Obviously, we are pretty good foes, because you haven’t actually defeated us yet.”
He spins around and the pixies lift me up so our faces are mere centimeters apart and in less than a blink he drops the glamour. He’s blue, and toothy, and feral looking. “You wouldn’t call this defeated? After days of us destroying this pathetic little town. This isn’t defeated? Your puny human ‘army’ is up there being slaughtered. Your good pixie king, the one you chose, the one you loved, is ‘evil’ now. Your wolf is dying on the floor behind us. You, no longer pixie, are about to release Loki into the world. You are alone and about to do what we want, after we tormented you for days, toying with you. I would call that defeated.”
There’s no arguing with that, but anger still stiffens my muscles, and pity—pity for Frank because he is so evil, pity for Loki, who is naked and tortured for centuries, and pity for Astley for giving up.
“Fine,” I say.
Frank makes a motion and the pixies set me down. He starts to say something, but I ignore him and all the pixies and instead walk toward the god. The water sizzles where my boots touch it, ripples showing the displacement caused by mere forward motion. Nobody stops me.
“Loki.” I whisper his name and he looks at me, turning his head and revealing eyes as blue as my biological father’s. There is so much sorrow and pain in there. His mouth opens but no sound comes out. Above him the serpent’s fang drips one more drop of venom. It clangs into the bowl and the sound of it makes Loki cringe. What must it be like to have to listen to that for so long?
I ask Frank, because Astley is such a waste. “He’s here because he killed someone good?”
“Yes. And for mouthing off,” he answers.
“But the gods are always killing each other,” I say, remembering all those stories Devyn told us. The names run into each other and muddle up in my head now, but I do remember that there is a lot of death. “Why punish him like this for so long? Why single him out?”
“Does it matter?” Frank snaps. “Free him and let’s begin the end of it all.”
“Why can’t you?” I ask. “Why do I have to do it?”
“Because only someone who knows what he has done and still feels pity can let him go.” Frank groans as if I’m far too dumb to deal with anymore.
“And after I let him go, you’ll take care of Nick, help him?”
“Well, we’ll stop torturing him, although it is so much fun. Wolves are fun to abuse. And Astley hasn’t had his turn yet.”
I ignore him and step close to Loki. Despite his torture, he still has the form of a god, all powerful, chiseled muscle. I reach out and touch his arm, ignoring the jealous and/or protective hiss of the woman above him. Her arms quiver from holding the bowl. She must truly love him to hold that bowl for so very long. There must be something inside of him that is worthy of that kindness.
It’s so sad and so wrong. Should one being suffer against his will just so the rest of us can survive? Who are the gods to condemn one man forever? What kind of existence is this if my survival depends on his staying here, suffering forever, wrapped in the intestines of his very own son? What does it make us that we can allow such pain? Is survival worth that?
He cringes. I’m not sure if he’s cringing from pain or because his wife is hissing or because I’ve touched him, poor thing.
“Why can’t you just shift?” I ask. “If you’re a shape shifter, why don’t you turn into a fly and escape?”
He blinks at me and I move my hand away.
Everyone else just starts laughing. The horrible gales of it echo around the cave. Even the snake looks as if it wants to laugh at me somehow. My hands ball into fists, but then Loki’s eyes twitch and a horrible realization/sadness fills them and he roars. The primal fierceness of it vibrates against the walls.
I think I must swear a little under my breath, and I remind myself that I am doing this to save Nick, to free tortured Loki, and there’s this other weird feeling like a sense of destiny. But then what about the world? What about the end of it? What about Issie and Devyn and Cassidy and Grandma Betty and my mom? What about trees and birds and flowers and puppies and— What if my need to save kills everyone else, including Nick? What if I can’t stop the apocalypse once it starts?
But it’s not just Nick or Loki and his wife. Deep inside, I know I need to do this. Maybe I always have.
Reeling away from Frank, I push my fingers into my eyelids, trying to think, to understand. It’s hard because there’s an annoying house fly buzzing near my ear. I do not want all of us to die. I do not want—
Fingers touch my shoulder, firm but not aggressive, flatly planting against my sweater. Whirling around, I make fists, even though I know I can’t fight them well, not as a human anyway.
Loki looms above me. His face aches with joy. His eyes light up from within. His much smaller wife is clutching his side as if she’s afraid to let go. He’s so different than what he was just a minute ago.
“Y-you’re free,” I stutter. “Did I free you? I— I— What did I do?”
“I am free, thanks to your kindness and intellect.” He shakes his head. He exudes so much power now. “Centuries I have dwelled here and never saw the logic of escape. It humiliates me. To think I could just shape shift into a fly.”