* * *
Four days after what Conrad was not calling the Incident because it had not happened, he returned to his apartment with a basket full of wet things, dripping down the entire hallway because he, apparently, had not passed third grade and could not count quarters. To make matters worse, he was still wearing his neon green dinosaurs do it from the past and plaid shorts that had not seen a laundry basket in a week, let alone an actual machine, and Laundry Girl had chosen this day, of all days, to show up.
Laundry Girl, who had once mentioned Hitchhiker’s Guide in casual conversation, who read comics during spin cycles—a shining beacon of perfection in every way he could ask for, who probably already thought Conrad was a weird, pathetic nuisance. So of course, there Conrad stood, brain dead and smelling vaguely like a chili cheese dog, three washers running on high because it was faster and, oh yeah, driers, remember. Except the change machine didn’t work anymore since that asshole with the weird screwdriver, and no one in a Wash King on this side of town would ever have change for a ten.
He was brilliant. Smooth like a gravel driveway.
Conrad kicked his front door open, because security? Yeah. Great on this side of town. But seeing as how he only had a toaster that regularly caught on fire, a TV even his grandmother scoffed at, and a wet basket of clothes, doors that locked weren’t an especially big priority.
Kicking the door shut behind him, Conrad stormed into the bathroom. After a cursory glance to make sure the bathtub was inhabitant free, he dumped his clothes inside and grabbed the can of Raid from the sink.
Without looking, Conrad sprayed a little on the wall. He’d lived here almost two years now and he knew better than to look. There were things in that wall that looked back.
Setting the can down in the middle of the cracked tiles where the little bastards could see it, Conrad backed out of the bathroom and grabbed a spool of twine off the top of the TV. Like an old maid, he wound around the apartment, tying string between any two places that could hold it.
He ran a cord from his rickety freezer door to the plastic picture hook that was supposed to come off the wall without a mark, but certainly wouldn’t now with all the duct tape he’d used to keep the wall from crumbling. He draped string from the door knob to the superfluous window bars, from the ever complaining ceiling fan to where ever he could find a place for string, and after a quick jaunt to the bathroom, draped his entire wardrobe over the lines.
Because of course he ran out of quarters on the day he’d dirtied everything he owned.
But then, apparently the universe still had something against him. Just as Conrad hung up the neon pink dragons do it from the future match to his current ensemble, someone knocked at the door.
No. Fine, whatever. It didn’t matter. Anyway, it was probably just the landlady come to ask for the tenth time, “the rent was on time this month—did you finally get a real job or just kill a drug dealer?”
Conrad crouched under the dripping laundry, trying not to be dripped on and, actually, he had a job, thanks very much, Hag Face. But he also had this thing called class half the year. Grumbling, Conrad made his way around the laundry, opened the door, and stopped dead.
The doorknob slipped from his hand, the clothes on that particular string hitting the I don’t even want to know what happened there carpet with a squelchy smack.
Laundry Girl smiled back at him from outside, like this kind of thing happened all the time and she was… oh god, she was wearing one of those summer dresses with cherries on it that matched her hair, holding a basket of things—his things—and they were dry and folded and, oh god, he didn’t have a ring, but could he maybe propose to this woman with a flammable toaster?
“Hi…” Conrad managed and he sounded like… like something that didn’t sound very good. But she—she smiled, and that was a good sign, right? Girl smiles were good signs? Unless they were bad signs. Because it could be a bad sign, and—
“You left these,” she said and held up her basket. It had Hello Kitty stickers on it, which, hey, he could finally maybe see the allure in that weird little cartoon. “You looked like you were having a pretty bad day, so I finished the load for you.”
Conrad blinked at her, absorbing the very white and Hello Kitty bedecked basket into his arms like an incredibly precious treasure.
“Thanks. Wow. It’s Lily, isn’t it? Really, this is awesome, thanks. You didn’t have to–not that I think it was bad that you did. Now Hairy Larry won’t go prowling through my things again, I think he stole a T-shirt of mine one time. It was really great of you to… Do you want to come in? You don’t because I’ve got…” he leaned back to let her see the room, flailing aimlessly at the mass of string and dripping clothing as he trailed off and, hey, guess what, apparently English was his third language all of a sudden, and numbers one and two included the ever romantic classics of Gibber and Dork.
“But it’d be great if you did,” he finished lamely. “Want to. I mean.”
She laughed. At him, and wow, awesome, she thought he was funny, which made this whole washing debacle totally worth it.
“I’d love to,” she said and, wait, what—since when were girls attracted to him ever? But she was, apparently, because she walked inside—inside his apartment, stepping over and under the crazy bird-lady washing lines like she found them in all her swanky, theater friends’ bachelor pads.
“How did you, uh… find me, anyway?” he asked and nudged the door shut with a hip, very carefully taking the clothes she’d actually folded, who did that? from the basket and stacking them on couch where, as soon as she left, they would be given a place of honor in the room and labeled art.
Lily shrugged. “I followed the trail of dripping laundry and broken dreams,” she said, smiling, front teeth just a tiny bit crooked, which, adorable—and wait, oh god, he had to be clever now.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much how everyone finds me,” he said and it was stupid, but hey, her smile made him kind of stupid. “I’d make a pretty lousy spy that way.”
“I don’t know. No one would ever suspect. I mean, maybe they’d just think you had a lot of laundry when really, we both know this is all a highly coded map of Russia’s nuclear facilities.”
Conrad laughed, and she giggled, and he was probably grinning like an idiot, but, yeah, Wash King? The one with the driers that ate socks and Hairy Larry, who was only the manager but acted like he was the Wash King and poked through everybody’s everything the minute they turned away to go have a goddamned hot dog—and okay, no thinking about what happened with hot dogs anymore—but the place ranked a solid A+ in his book now.
“So… hey,” Conrad started, red up to his ears and not at all good at this, as evidenced by his few romances, which made up for quantity by each failing in new and spectacular ways. “I keep seeing you around. And you’re pretty awesome, so I’d uh… like to keep seeing you around? Do you want to…?”
“Yes,” she answered, straight off, didn’t even have to stop and think about it.
And before Conrad could stop grinning and think of something clever to say, someone knocked on his door with all the subtlety of an earthquake—like it was urgent or something—and as the building was not on fire, they were about to have a big, fat problem.
Only later. Because Lily was blushing and smiling and freckles…
“That’s great,” he blurted. “I’ve been kind of stressing out about asking…”
“Me too. I don’t know, I mean I think there are rules to these things. But I saw your laundry and I figured it’d either be nice or I’d turn into one of those crazy stalker chicks with a lot of birds that all say I love you.”
“Oh no,” Conrad said, still grinning because his face had broken that way. “Cats. Maybe even talking cats. But you don’t really strike me as a bird person.”
And whoa, hey, someone apparently did not get the hint because outside, whoever it was knocked again, and louder this time, and what the hell part of the GO AWAY carve
d into his doorframe did people-who-weren’t-Lily-shaped not get?
Lily cocked an eyebrow at him, glancing at the door. “Are you expecting someone? Seems a little desperate for a mailman.”
All at once, Conrad’s front door rocketed back on its hinges—because yeah, security again—and Conrad winced when his clothes hit the ground really close to Lily. And then, seeing his new guest, Conrad winced again, watching as the Incident—the one that Absolutely Had Not Happened—strode into his apartment and slammed the door shut behind him like hell had followed him here.
“Right, so,” Loki announced, his back against the door, looking both cheerful and a little like hot death. “Change of plans.”
Conrad blinked. He blinked again. The image ruining his love life did not, however, kindly oblige him and disappear.
“Change of plans?” he spluttered. “What—how—you! Get out of my apartment!”
“I take it you weren’t expecting him then?” Lily asked, brow furrowed, and started glowing.
When, Conrad wondered, had his life decided to veer off the sane road and dive right into crazy land? But no—real, honest-to-God light flickered down Lily’s arms, lapping at her fingers like water. And something about a pretty, glowing girl in a sundress put Conrad in mind of angels. But not the friendly, save you from a car accident kind of angels. Just then, Lily looked far more like the slaughter everyone and let’s try it from the top kind.
Hot.
But Loki only sniggered, probably because he was a hell of a lot older than angels, the creeper, and somehow he made leaning against the door look like a choice, rather than a last defense against who knew what.
Which, now that Conrad really looked, the guy was in pretty rotten shape. It looked like he’d gone swimming in bat shit since Conrad had seen him last. A whole foot of pockets had been torn from the side of his coat, that same side bearing a huge, blood-soaked half-moon of fraying holes.
Like a bite mark. From a huge-ass dog.
“You’re cute, sweetheart. I like that,” Loki said. “She’s got a spark to her, Connie. You should keep her.”
“You can’t just—” he started and made to stride across the room and… and something because he was the man here goddammit, and yeah, so he hadn’t picked up the toaster yet and proposed, but that didn’t mean this guy could come in here and mess with Lily. Not on his watch.
But actually, Lily pretty much had it covered. Because before he could finish deciding how exactly he wanted to be buried and if socking Loki in the jaw would even work, she lit up like a Christmas tree.
“He asked you to leave,” Lily told him, very reasonably considering will-o’-the-wisp sparkles crawling up her arms like living sunlight.
And when Loki only grinned at her, that light rocketed across the room and into his chest.
Loki slammed backward, his back rattling the door where it hit. The light swallowed him, burning brighter, up toward the ceiling and, oh wow, she was going to send a Norse pretty-much-a-god up in flames. Which was awesome as hell, but it’d screw his renter’s insurance so hard if the landlady found out.
Only then, suddenly, the air went out of the room.
Loki stood in the middle of the sudden vacuum, grinning, the light absorbing into his skin in a flood, until only a tendril of smoke remained drifting from the bloodied fabric of his shirt. Air returned to the room in a rush, everything as bright and normal as if nothing had changed. Meanwhile, Conrad’s bones quietly melted, depositing him shaking and pale at the arm of the couch.
Loki waved the smoke away with a lazy gesture, looking like a goddamned Cheshire cat. Judging by Lily’s expression, whatever the hell kind of… of spell that was, it wasn’t supposed to do that.
“Oh,” she said, very softly, her face white behind her freckles. “Never mind.”
Loki laughed. “Good shot, sweets.” He grinned and picked his way across the room, reading the phrases on wet shirts as he passed. “Power and form. Keep it up, you’ll be playing in the big leagues soon.”
Lily swallowed and stopped glowing, but something stood in front of her now, barely there and not there at all, and Conrad considered stepping behind it also, but yeah. Jello legs. Also, the whole dignity thing. There was still that.
“What are you, exactly?” she asked and, oh hey, a sane relevant question whose answer would have her running from this room so fast the cops would be alerted by the smoke.
“Loki Laufeyiarson, great to meet you. Connie’s working for me. I’m just here on business.”
And wow, Conrad had to admit he was a little shocked how Lily just absorbed that and nodded like it made sense, but wait, what?
“Business?” he snapped. “You dragged me into an alley and… and did something to my head!”
“Oh yeah?” Loki peered into the bathroom. Inside, something made very sure it was not caught peering back. “What was that, then?”
“I don’t know! But you did something, you bastard, and I am really not happy about it. And don’t call me Connie!”
Beside him, Lily looked like maybe she was about to laugh or try to light something on fire again—which was good as far as a bad situation went, but there had been the suggestion of a date not ten minutes before. An actual date. With the most beautiful creature he had ever actually worked up the nerve to speak to, and certainly the most beautiful creature to ever brighten his doorstep.
And now this prick was screwing it up.
Lily sighed and glanced at him, fairy lights sort of half hidden and dancing in her hair. “What is it you’re supposed to be doing?” she asked.
“Apparently, get myself killed to save his ass,” Conrad muttered.
Lily arched an eyebrow. “He didn’t tell you?”
“I need him to keep something for me until I can convince these backward Neanderthals to go back to swilling ale and bashing rocks together,” Loki snapped, heading for the fridge.
Lily sat down on the couch, looking arch and collected. Crossing her legs, she asked, “What are you paying him?” And when Loki offered her a charming grin over the lip of the fridge door, Lily fixed him with the look. “I think you and I both know the going rate for this sort of thing.”
That was it. Conrad had fallen into crazy land. Full of crazy people doing crazy things.
“You glow,” he said to Lily, getting well back for all the good it’d do him, smashed up against the barred window. “That’s cool. I can respect that. I like that. But you are bargaining with him and he is standing there like he should be bargained with, when really he needs to be getting the hell out of my apartment before he leads whoever is following him here.”
Lily nodded, flashing him a quick smile, but she kept her attention fixed on Loki. Seeing as how he was just standing there with the fridge door open, staring at her with something like admiration, Conrad totally understood the distraction.
“Are you one of mine?” Loki asked her.
Lily shrugged, eyeing him like she dealt with this sort of thing all the time. “Probably. The way I hear it, you used to screw anything that moved.”
Loki sniggered, and it was creepy as hell.
“Anyway,” he announced and abandoned his futile search for edibles in a college kid’s apartment in favor of staring at Conrad like dinner. “Like I was saying. Change of plans. I just need to peek inside your head for a moment and—”
“Like hell, okay?” Conrad snarled. “Look, I get it. You’re Loki, Lord of the Dance or whatever, but I am not letting you near me until you tell me what the hell I have to do with all of this. Really, I mean. I’m your chosen one, fine. Whatever. But I’m not putting up with anymore of your clever bullshit.”
The smile stopped. Yeah, it turned out, things could get worse.
“Kid,” he snapped, “you wouldn’t recognize my clever bullshit if I spoon fed it to you on a neon sign. And if it’s just the same to you, I’d rather not. So can we get the hell on with business without you whining for two goddamned seconds, already? I need
to talk to Mimir.”
Conrad wanted to ask who the hell was Mimir—and it had better not be the thing inside his head, because if it had a name, it was probably a person, and he hadn’t signed up for any of this, but he certainly hadn’t signed up for sharing his body with someone else. And that was just creepy. Like, major league perverted. He’d showered last night. And he’d… and it’d…
But before Conrad could start shouting, something exploded down the hallway from his door and it sort of sounded like the freight elevator.
Loki wheeled around, staring at the door—through the door—and whatever he saw drained the color from his face. His skin rippled and warped, and when he turned around, someone else entirely looked back at them.
“Stay low. Do what they ask, but do not talk to them. Don’t even look at them if you can help it,” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder. Conrad heard footsteps in the hall now, getting louder, Loki’s skin rippling like water in Jurassic Park. “Most importantly, do not attack them. They will destroy you. They might anyway. We’re just kind of hoping they’re not that pissed.”
“Who?” Conrad demanded.
Loki grimaced, almost an apology, and disappeared.
Outside, big damn footsteps slammed down the hallway, shaking the floor as Serious Business headed their way. Lily jumped to her feet.
“Hold my hand,” she said and grabbed his, pressing her back against the window next to him. “I hope this is big enough.”
“But the bars…?” Conrad asked weakly, forgetting entirely about the three floors up and, oh hey, Dignity, way to leave a guy in the lurch, but Loki had been scared, and terrified hand-holding sounded pretty damn good right now.
Lily grabbed his face in her free hand, her eyes wide and frightened, and their color was strange, but she had his hand in a vice grip and Conrad forgot everything else.
“You’re going to have to trust me,” she said. “The bars are not there.”
Conrad nodded. Because it was pretty obvious she was just as scared as he was and someone needed to keep their head here. If she wanted to talk crazy, alright, he’d seen enough crazy this last week. If she said the bars weren’t there, they weren’t.
Across the room, the poor, oft-abused door blew open. As in, blew off, flying from its hinges and into the wall, embedding in the plaster.
Well, Conrad thought with the dazed coherence of the severely stressed, guess the duct tape is a moot point. And then, when the reality of the situation bludgeoned him about the head, it followed that thought up with a nice, panicked oh look—giant, anthropomorphic crows breaking into my apartment.
The crows sized them up, heads cocked to opposite sides, jet black eyes sick with human intelligence, heavy shoulders blocking the frame completely.
“Dibs on the girl,” one squawked on vocal chords that had been made for peaceful, pleasant things like waking poor college kids up at the ass crack of dawn. The sound of it speaking actual, human words grated like nails on the souls of the damned.
“Alright,” agreed the other. “But you still owe me two eyes.”
“Take both their eyes. Trickster brood. More trouble than they’re worth.”
Conrad felt Lily shaking and squeezed her hand a little tighter for all the good it’d do. They were both shaking so bad now, together they could probably get the air bubbles out of paint.
“Lily?” he started, wondering if he needed the toaster at all because, hey, it’d be kind of nice to have at least have a girlfriend before he died.
She took a deep breath. Between their interlaced fingers, a glow started, crawling up their arms. It felt like sunlight. Not the kind of oh, look, sun they had in Pittsburgh, but real, honest-to-God sunlight. The way sunlight had felt as a kid, when summer promised dragons in the back field and krakens in the pool. That kind of sunlight. And even with giant, trench coat wearing birds coming at them with saw blade beaks creaking open, it was seriously awesome.
“There is no window,” Lily whispered, her voice cracking. “No window, no wall, Conrad, nothing. We’re going to fall.”
Conrad glanced at her.
“Okay,” he breathed.
She swayed backward.
The sunlight burned on his skin, awesome and terrifying, and he leaned with her. Farther and farther, past where the wall should have been. Conrad let himself fall, his shoulders touching empty space, dew-wet wind tugging at the hem of his T-shirt. Nothing stopped them. The heels of his Converses met the edge of the world, crumbs of cement crackling under his toes. For a second, they hung in space together, encased in sunlight.
And then they fell.
Conrad heard the birds shout. Not long after, he heard only wind.
Lily held onto his hand, her elbow locked in his, the sunlight tugging his skin, holding him as they tumbled.
No window.
No wall.
Just Lily
And sunlight
And falling.
And then, abruptly, very hard ground.
Most of it found his mouth, or jutted into tender places. Conrad wheezed curses and rolled to one side, only to find Lily’s stomach in the process. She groaned. A second later she got her dress sorted out and struggled to her feet.
“Come on,” she said, coughing out dust. “It’s not really safe here either. They might be able to find us.”
Conrad swore a little more for good measure and dragged himself up. “Where are we?”
Lily looked at him. A smudge of dirt crossed her cheek. He wanted to wipe it away like the movie heroes would, but after the throes of certain death and danger, it didn’t seem like the time.
“I’m not going to tell you,” she said at last. “Because I really think you’ll freak if you know. But we’re going to my apartment. Whatever you see, whatever sees you, we are going to my nice, normal apartment where there will be tea and showers. Concentrate on that.”
They set off toward a hill in the distance, and looking around, Conrad decided she was right. Because he could not see buildings anywhere and this definitely was not even on the same playing field as reality anymore. So Conrad shut his mouth, followed where she led, and pretended not to hear when she muttered, “That’s sure as heck what I’m doing.”