Loki's Sin Read online

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  Wings ePress, Inc

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  Copyright ©2005-07-01 by Wings ePress

  First published in Wings ePress, 2005

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  Loki's Sin

  Loki turned off the monitoring equipment and slowly walked to the glass coffin, his heart heavy as a huge chunk of lead sitting inert in his chest. He opened the containment device, slowly and carefully drew the needles from her flesh, plucked the monitor's contact wires away from her skin, then lifted her body and carried her across the floor through the lab door. Each step was weighed down with a thousand regrets. He'd hoped to make her immortal. Instead, he'd killed her even faster than the disease that had been wasting her body.

  He didn't really have anywhere else to put her, but it seemed disrespectful to leave her in the glass coffin when her spirit had flown. He had a rolling medical gurney, like the ones they used at the morgue, stashed in the back. He'd leave her there for a few hours while he considered what to do with the body, he decided.

  He laid her gently on the gurney and stroked a stray lock of black hair away from her forehead. I'm so sorry, Renee. He found himself wishing he'd gotten to know her better. Now that'll never be, will it?

  He turned away, taking a few steps toward the door, when a sound from behind him drew him up short. What?

  Something possessing immense strength grasped both his arms, shoved him up against the wall, and drove twin motes of fire deep into the side of his neck. He screamed, straining with all his might to break free. Slowly—far more slowly than he could have imagined, he managed to turn, breaking the thing's grip on his shoulder.

  Renee stood there, eyes blazing against the darkness, his blood streaming down her chin. She wiped the blood away with the back of her hand. “What did you do to me?” she hissed.

  His jaw dropped. “Y ... you're dead. I killed you. I didn't mean to, but...” My God, what did I do?

  Wings

  Loki's Sin

  by

  Saje Williams

  A Wings ePress, Inc.

  Paranormal Romance Novel

  Wings ePress, Inc.

  Edited by: Leslie Hodges

  Copy Edited by: Elizabeth Struble

  Senior Editor: Elizabeth Struble

  Managing Editor: Leslie Hodges

  Executive Editor: Lorraine Stephens

  Cover Artist: mpmann

  All rights reserved

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Wings ePress Books

  www.wings-press.com

  Copyright © 2005 by Michael Shawn Williams

  ISBN 1-59705-022-9

  Published In the United States Of America

  August 2005

  Wings ePress Inc.

  403 Wallace Court

  Richmond, KY 40475

  Dedication

  To my boys,

  Conal and Logan

  One

  April, 2005

  Tacoma, WA

  Another Earth

  Johnny Gitano couldn't remember ever being as scared as he was at this moment. He blinked tears out of his dark eyes as his hand scrabbled for the switchblade he habitually carried in his back pocket. Never reach it in time...

  "You can't say you weren't warned,” the specter said in a gravelly whisper, floating closer. “These streets are mine now—your petty crime wave is stirring up exactly the kind of trouble I don't need."

  The shadows enveloping Wright Park swelled to ominous depths as Johnny's eyes darted back and forth, trying somehow to silently summon help he knew wouldn't be coming. His muscle—two oversized shmucks named Mac and Sam—lay somewhere behind him, struck down in an instant as the dark shape unfolded itself from nothingness and swept down upon them like an dark avalanche. Both soldiers had gone down before he'd known they were being attacked, bodies striking the ground heavily enough he figured them for dead. Their screams still echoed in his ears.

  Johnny fell to his knees. “Command me, then. I will be your slave—just don't kill me.” If you buy that, you're crazy. He hid his grin behind crocodile tears.

  The creature's contempt was palpable. “Kill you? Why should I kill you, street rat? You're not worth the effort. And command you? I could scout the missions and pull up more worthy minions than you. No ... what I want is for you to leave. Go anywhere—Seattle, Olympia, Portland. I don't care. Just leave this city by dusk tomorrow or you will wish you were dead."

  Its threat delivered, the specter seemed to vanish in a whirl of shadow, leaving him standing there, hand halfway into his back pocket, staring into the surrounding gloom with his heart in his throat and his bladder still threatening to void itself in his pants. “Shit."

  One of his soldiers groaned. Johnny walked over, looked down at him, and planted one of his size ten Nikes square in the bastard's kidney. “Some help you were, you useless fuck."

  Johnny Gitano wasn't the kind to just give up. He'd encountered this mysterious figure before—just another crackpot trying to take over his territory. Or so he'd assumed. But this crackpot seemed to know things he couldn't possibly know, seemed to be where he was least expected at the worst possible time every time.

  It had to be some kind of scam. No one could simply appear and disappear the way this guy did. It had to be some kind of Hollywood special effects trick. And Johnny would be damned if he'd let some wiseass chase him out of his hometown with that sort of thing. And when he found out who was behind it, he was going to kill him.

  Johnny had always seen himself as a mover and shaker. Even back in grade school, before his parents had died, he'd been the one who ruled the playground. He didn't do anything that could get him busted. Not really. He knew too well how the threat of violence could be so much more effective than violence itself. You could get into a lot of trouble for laying your hands on another kid—but making him think you would? It worked amazingly well for getting people to go along with what you wanted.

  At his first foster home he'd learned its limitations. It didn't work very well on older kids, and really didn't work well on adults. Neither were anywhere as easily frightened as kids his own age. So he was forced to adopt drastic measures—shaving his foster sister's cat when she refused to play games with him and his friends, ‘accidentally’ dropping rat poison in the aquarium, and planting a pair of panties he'd stolen from one of the neighbors in the glove box of his foster father's car. He found these tactics worked to varying degrees. The cat thing turned out to be a bad idea. They thought he was ‘acting out’ because of his parents’ death, when the truth of the matter was he couldn't have been happier that they were gone. Now everyone made excuses for him, and felt obligated to play along with most of his games.

  By fifteen he had a network of informants, people who kept an eye on those he wanted to pressure into one thing or another. He found their vice, their weakness, and used it to lever them into doing something he wante
d done. By nineteen he was pimping out his foster sister and her friends, pocketing a vast majority of the income that brought.

  Stupid bitches somehow didn't understand that getting popped for a little bit of weed wasn't even in the same universe as sucking dick for money. Before long they were so far under his thumb he could have gotten them to do anything he asked. He'd even gotten a digital video camera and sent a few of the mpegs he'd made off to a few specialty sites for a hefty sum.

  He was the ruler of his own little kingdom and he'd be damned if he was going to bow down to some freak who thought he should run the town. “Get up, both of you. I ain't playing—we've got things to do."

  * * * *

  He lends new meaning to the term ‘pond scum'. Crouching in the darkness not twenty feet away, the woman named Athena watched him bully his two bodyguards into picking themselves off the ground. They stood slowly, groaning, and moved to flank him as he strolled out of the park as if he hadn't been on the verge of pissing himself only moments earlier. He's not going to do it.

  It shouldn't have come to this, but Johnny Gitano was notoriously stubborn about such things. The fact that he ruled a sizeable part of Tacoma's burgeoning underworld would have come as a surprise unless you actually knew him. He certainly didn't look like much. Tall, thin, and almost emaciated in appearance, he wore his black hair in a buzz cut that better suited one of the military guys living out in Tillicum. He didn't look like any sort of mob boss. In fact, Johnny Gitano looked could have passed for one of those ultra-thin, androgynous, junkie models some of the big name designers liked to use these days.

  The man was a sleaze, but he was an influential bit of sleaze.

  * * * *

  Athena Cross tossed the Cloak of Shadows onto her bed and stretched, feeling her muscles rearrange themselves in a series of sudden shifts. She winced. What I need now is a good, hot soak.

  She hadn't actually been in a fight in longer than she could remember. Not like it had been a fight. Those two oxen had gone down with barely a love-tap apiece. But just doing that much strained muscles that hadn't been used in far too long.

  She grinned at the memory of Gitano's face as she stood before him, a tiny sliver of the night made flesh. If he'd been the superstitious type, she would've had him right then and there. But Gitano was a realist. He'd been scared, but hardly a picture of gibbering terror. Though he sure wanted me to think so.

  Too bad. She sighed. I guess it was worth a try. But if I can't get the little weasel to back off, I'm going to have to try stronger measures. Problem was, she wasn't sure how far she was willing to go. Could I kill him, if it came down to it?

  Not that she was particularly squeamish. She'd killed before, but it had been a long time. She'd thought—no, hoped—that she'd put that part of her life far behind her.

  She jumped as the phone at her bedside suddenly rang out with its shrill cry. Annoyed with herself, she leaned over and picked up the receiver. “Hello?"

  The voice that answered was one she hadn't heard for a very long time, one she truly never thought to hear again. “Athena.” He sounded amused. “I can't believe you're still using the same name."

  "Why not? It's not as though anyone can connect it to anything. Even if they could, by some freak chance, no one would ever believe it."

  The man she'd once known as Loki laughed aloud. It even had the sound of genuine humor in it. “I can see that. Athena, I need to see you. Today."

  "Uh...” She hesitated, not for any specific reason, but because his sudden appearance would throw her carefully arranged life into a scene of pure chaos. That was, after all, what Loki did. “Listen, Loki. I don't have time for your games. What do you want, really?"

  "Can't a guy look up old friends?"

  "We were never friends, Loki. Associates, sure. Friends—never."

  "Huh. Is that any way to talk to one of your only surviving relatives?"

  "We're only related in the broadest sense,” she growled. “And I wish you'd stop bringing that up."

  He snickered. He only did it because it annoyed her. “Be that as it may—rumor on the wind says there's to be a Gathering. Soon. Agents of the Enemy have been caught sniffing around."

  She felt her stomach drop and her heart skip a beat. Shit. Too much to hope they'd bypass this world. Fat chance. “If that's the case, I imagine I'll see you at the Gathering."

  "I won't be there,” he replied. “I have too many irons in the fire to leave right now. And, unless they wait for a couple of months, I won't be able to get away."

  She had the sudden urge to ask him what was so all-fired important, but knew better. He probably wouldn't tell her, and then she'd just look like a fool. Athena didn't like looking like a fool, even in front of Loki. “Okay. So what do you want of me?"

  "I've been doing a lot of research. I think I've been able to track down the virus that cut the vast majority of humanity off from magic."

  "Oh?” Now that was interesting. Most of them had at least some interest in the bio-sciences, but she and Loki had once been tops in the field—back home, when home still existed. She knew what he was referring to, of course. Once, long ago, humans were capable of tapping into powerful forces and producing world-shaking effects. Not like the magic of today, which was, at best, the merest reflection of the kind of power that had once been displayed. “So what do you want me to tell them?"

  "I may have discovered a way to reverse it."

  A bombshell. If that's true ... She left the thought unfinished. They had their suspicions that the Enemy had been behind the re-writing of human DNA to eliminate powerful magic from the gene pool entirely. By the looks of it, they'd succeeded. “Fine. If that's the case, you're going to have to give me a way to reach you. I'm not sharing anything with anyone if I can't get a hold of you to verify any of this."

  "Agreed. In the meantime, take care of yourself. I'll be in touch within a day or two."

  "Take care, Loki.” She hung up. Talk about the unexpected. It seemed the days of peace were gone, particularly if the Enemy's agents were back to moving more or less openly on Earth. Not that the humans knew, but those of her kind certainly did.

  She remembered the last Gathering, almost a hundred and fifty years before, on the eve of the American Civil War. It had been called by one who wanted to take sides—wanted all of them to take sides, to fight on the side of the Union. Small, petite, blond, and astoundingly ferocious, Sif had made a good case for getting involved. She seemed to know how great of a bloodbath it would be, thought that their direct involvement would somehow make it better.

  She'd been voted down. Out of all of them, she was the only real fighter. Even Deryk Shea, Captain of the ship that had brought them here, had been more a warrior in theory than reality. Sif was a master of several dozen different weapons, ranging from the most archaic to the most modern equipment their people had created. Part of her chafed at the restrictions the Pact had laid upon all of them.

  Shea had forced the Pact on them before ever allowing them to set foot on this world at all. He'd spoken emotionally, yet convincingly, of the horror of leading men and women into battle when they could die and you could not. Not that they couldn't die, but few things on this world could kill them regardless. In most respects that hadn't changed since the beginning. They could heal as rapidly from bullet wounds as from sword wounds, and even decapitation wouldn't guarantee their demise. She herself had proven that during the French Revolution when she'd been led to the guillotine.

  She'd never felt more grateful to Shea and the others at the moment she'd awakened on a ship, her head and body once more attached. The trauma of the injury had sent her into a coma-like state, which would probably eventually have ended in her death, one way or another, if not for Shea's back-room arrangement to have the body and head brought to him.

  Shea had definitely been right, however. Little could match the horror of the notion of leading people into battle knowing that they risked everything when you risked nothing.<
br />
  She glanced at the clock, picked up the cloak, and hung it on a peg on the door. It was late and she needed to be up early for work. She'd had enough excitement for the evening.

  She slowly undressed, tossing the clothing on a nearby chair.

  * * * *

  Athena was tall for a woman, an inch over six feet, with a broad, square jaw, a bold—though not unpleasantly large—nose, and copper-tinted, curly black hair hanging loose around her shoulders. Her broad shoulders tapered down to a waist a little thicker than she would have liked. Too much good food, not enough exercise, she chastised herself silently. Not that anyone else would notice unless they saw her naked.

  Not that anyone had in quite some time. She loathed these modern American men, with their startling directness. They had little subtlety, and less composure. They acted as though a lovely woman owed them a chance to get her in bed.

  Not in her book they didn't.

  She let her mind wander as she lay in bed, performing the mental exercise she'd discovered allowed her to actually get to sleep. Many of her people suffered from a form of insomnia, particularly since they needed so much less sleep than mortals did. She enjoyed dreaming, and chose to rid herself of the fatigue toxins that built up in the same way as the mortals for that reason alone. Their enhanced immune system could flush the toxins in time, but she enjoyed the experience too much to forgo it. Let the others wonder what it's like to dream.

  Sleep found her in the middle of a pleasant daydream about a man who redefined the notion of being a gentleman among barbarians. A man she'd yet to meet. She fell asleep smiling.

  * * * *

  The woman called Sif crossed the airport lobby in short, quick strides. She hated wasting time, an odd reticence for a woman who'd seen the fall of the Roman Empire. Unlike most of her kind, she preferred to always be moving, always be doing something, always stepping up to the next challenge. It had always been a part of her and probably always would be.