Page 58 of Soul of Shadow #1

“Hmm,” Loki said. “Troubling. Pity those teeth of yours seem to have taken a beating.” His footsteps shuffled across the cave floor. “Who was responsible for that, by the way? I’d like to thank them personally.”

“It was one of our captives,” said Elias. “I don’t recommend releasing her. She seems to have come into possession of a Valkyrie knife.”

“Nonsense.” Loki clapped twice. “Let me see the captives. It’ll be fun.”

“But you have only two minutes left—”

“Elias.” His voice cut sharply. “Release them.”

Elias hesitated. Then, like a dozen snakes slithering slowly off her body, the shadow cords released their hold on Charlie. They withdrew, spooling back toward Elias, leaving only her mouth gagged and her legs bound and tethered to the floor.

“This isn’t about these pathetic humans,” growled the Fenrir. “This is about you and me, Father, and I expect you to give me the respect and attention that I deserve.”

Loki sighed, as if the wolf was little more than a nuisance intruding upon his fun. Charlie lifted her head and craned her neck around in time to see the god stroll over to the Fenrir, stopping just in front of him .

“My boy,” said Loki, spreading his arms wide, as if to offer the wolf a hug. “I was responsible for bringing you into this world, monster that you are, which means you will give me the information I seek.” He smiled wide, though it didn’t touch his eyes.

Loki didn’t look the way Charlie had expected.

She’d envisioned an oily man, skinny, with an oversize, white-toothed smile—a court jester made into a god.

Drawings of Loki on the internet showed a man with long red hair and devious eyes, sometimes wearing a mask.

A clownish figure, occasionally bearing a goatee or horns.

She knew he was a shape-shifter, so perhaps those drawings only depicted one version of him.

Whatever the case, she had never imagined the truth.

The being that stood above the Fenrir was not oily or skinny.

He did not have long red hair. He wore neither goatee nor horns.

Instead, he was a tall, broad-shouldered man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair.

He looked to be in his early forties, with tan skin and little crinkles at the sides of his eyes.

The crinkles grew more pronounced as he crouched down beside the injured Fenrir and widened his smile, as if to charm the information out of the wolf.

“Get away from me,” the Fenrir growled, baring his broken teeth.

“Or what?” Loki tilted his head, pouting. “You’ll gum me to death?”

“I’m not telling you about the Seal,” the wolf said. “I’d sooner die.”

Charlie craned her neck even farther, hoping for a glimpse of her brother.

Mason, gagged and strapped at the legs like her, was staring at Loki with eyes so enormous they looked as if they might burst free of his skull.

Shock at seeing a god for the first time, perhaps?

Charlie was somewhat more prepared than her brother, having seen her undead sister, now a supernatural warrior, the night before.

“That can be arranged,” Loki said to the Fenrir. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a curved, golden blade. “This scythe is made of the same material used in Valkyrie knives. You know what that means, do you not?”

The Fenrir only blinked at him.

“That’s right: it can slice through your neck as easily as a bird’s wing cuts through the air. Now.” He smiled, raising the scythe to hover over the wolf’s neck. “Tell me where the Seal is, or I’ll cut off your head.”

“Loki,” Elias warned. “Sixty seconds.”

“You don’t have the time,” the wolf said. “You’ll be gone in less than a minute.”

“At which time, my associate Elias would gladly take over.” Loki tapped his chin. “How does… say, a thousand years trapped in this temple sound?”

“You wouldn’t—”

Without warning, Loki raised the scythe and drove it toward the Fenrir’s neck.

“ Wait ,” the beast barked, and Loki stilled the blade before it could cut deeper than the first layer of fur and skin. Blood dripped from the scythe when it rose back into the air. “I’ll tell you.” The Fenrir’s beady eyes stayed locked on the blade. “But you won’t like it.”

“Won’t like what?” Loki asked.

“It was a riddle,” the wolf said. “What the raven told me. It wasn’t a location, only this.” He closed his eyes and recited, “ Evil lava, deepest blue, dance in the moonlight, impossible but true. ”

Evil lava? Charlie thought. What kind of a riddle is that?

Loki chewed his lower lip, considering. “Hmm,” he said. “Odd.”

“Twenty seconds,” said Elias as the room started to tremble again.

“Right.” Loki patted his legs twice, then rose to standing. “Elias, Fen, you’re coming with me back to Helheim.”

“But—” the wolf started.

“Shush.” Loki pulled a black marble from his pocket, tossing it across the room to Elias, who caught it with wide eyes.

“I need you locked up safe and sound in the underworld, son. There’s business for us to attend to, and I can’t risk you slipping away.

Now,” he said, turning at last to face Charlie, Mason, and Abigail, a big smile on his face, “all that remains is for me to thank our captives, and we can—”

Loki froze when his gaze landed on Charlie.

His eyes widened. The smile slipped from his face as his pupils darted back and forth between Charlie and Mason, Mason and Charlie.

The cave’s shaking grew in volume and intensity.

Loki’s and Elias’s bodies flickered twice, like lightbulbs about to switch off.

The god rematerialized, but Elias didn’t; he was gone, perhaps already in Helheim.

Still, Charlie couldn’t think on Elias’s disappearance.

Couldn’t pause to consider the confusing jumble of emotions it brought up within her—the gratitude, the relief, the clench of her stomach, the hole that seemed to open within her—because Loki had stopped glancing between her and Mason and was now staring at her brother like a man seeing the sun for the first time.

“M… Mason?” Loki stammered, taking an uncertain step toward him. He paused and swiveled to face her. “Charlotte? ”

Everything in Charlie’s body went cold at once.

The god took a step closer to her. Another.

His hand lifted, then lowered to his side.

Charlie wanted to run, but she was locked in place.

Loki’s eyes—they were so familiar. His nose.

The slope of his lips. She knew them. She saw them every day, when she looked in the mirror.

And she was utterly frozen, forced to watch in horror, in disbelief, as he opened his mouth and whispered:

“My children.”

Then the cave gave a violent lurch, and the god disappeared.