Page 32 of Odin

She made it to the fridge, and even managed to open the door, but she had to hang on to it, because her legs threatened to give out underneath her.

The empty mortuary trolley stood there, just as it had all week. No water now, but that spear was there, like the corpse had forgotten it when it had gotten up and walked out.

"Olaf..."

His hands rested firmly on her hips, supporting her. "My name is Odin. I probably should have told you sooner, but it seemed such a small thing, when it was more important to ensure your survival."

She smacked his hands away. "Oh, and while we're talking about small things you should have told me, what about your wife? Didn't you think it was important to mention you had one of those?"

He sighed. "I did have a wife. She died a long time ago."

"Before or after your son died? Or did you lie about that, too?"

"Actually, I do not know. I had a wife and two sons, and she died defending them when our home was attacked, and I was away. When I returned, they were all dead. My whole family."

And just like that, her anger dissolved. Poor Olaf...Odin, or whoever he was. To lose his whole family in one night... "I'm sorry for your loss," she whispered.

"It was a long time ago. More than a thousand years, if I read your history books right. I mourned them, as was proper, as we all did. Then I set out to seek vengeance, which somehow led to me arriving here, and meeting you. It is fate," Odin said, holding his hands out to her.

Freyja didn't take them. "You expect me to believe the body in the ice was you? People don't sleep for a thousand years and just wake up, ready to rescue people and have sex all night. That's not medically possible. You'd need plenty of live, oxygenated blood cells to get an erection, for a start. And English didn't even exist a thousand years ago. I barely understand Shakespeare, and that was only four hundred years ago. This is insane. You are insane. I must have hit my head, because none of this makes sense. I must have imagined you, and the others..."

"Sibyl and Jorunn are from your time, while Thor and Loki are from mine. You can speak to them all. They will confirm that all I have told you is true. They came here to stop you from using science to find out what we are."

Not human. That's what Jorunn had said, hadn't she? He wasn't human. None of the men were. She was almost afraid to ask, but she was also more afraid of what might happen if she didn't know what kind of creature she'd slept with, believing he was a man, when he was something else entirely. "What are you?"

"We called them draugr, in our language. I think in yours the word is gargoyle. The dead who are not dead, protectors bound by magic to answer the call to defend the land on which they are buried, and those who dwell there. You summoned me to save you that night in the snow, and again tonight. You also have the power to send me back to sleep, when I have served my purpose, as I was when you saw me there." Odin pointed at the trolley.

Her hand shot out, before she could really think about what she was doing, and grasped his outstretched arm. His flesh was as warm as hers, maybe even warmer, like he was alive, not dead. It felt as yielding as hard muscle, not...not...

"This makes no sense. How can you be dead, but not dead?"

Odin shrugged. "A witch laid a curse upon me. I know many things, but the ways of witches are beyond all I have learned. Much like your electricity, I fear. My body is living stone. My heart no longer beats and I no longer need food or drink or air to breathe, but the spell gives me the strength I need to defend you, and the knowledge to understand your words, though they were unfamiliar to me. Even my manhood is made for your pleasure. As a human man, never have I known such stamina, and everything that I have, everything that I am, is all for you. You summoned me from my slumber to serve you, and I delight in doing so." He dropped his voice to a low growl. "Especially when you take me into your bed."

Freyja felt her face grow hot. She didn't know where to look. She'd slept with a man who was really a monster. "I thought gargoyles were big and ugly, with wings and horns and things," she blurted out.

Odin bowed his head. Freyja blinked, and the man she'd known was gone. In his place stood a horned, winged demon. A demon with Odin's face and even his eyepatch.

"Fuck!" she breathed, backing up until she hit the wall. She didn't dare take her eyes off the creature.

"But you see, I am yours to command. And you fear me in this form, while you wish to fuck my other one." Before her eyes, he transformed back into a man. "So this is how I appear to you, so that I may better serve you."

"Which one is really you?"

Odin gestured at his body. "This is what I looked like as a man, in my time. The curse allows me to transform into that creature, so that I may better protect you. Thor tells me our wings are strong enough to carry not just ourselves, but a chosen companion as well. That is how he and Loki brought their wives here, and how Loki will transport the body back, when he finds it."

Freyja just shook her head. "I'll believe it when I see it." And maybe not even then.

THIRTY-SEVEN

While Odin had slept, power had returned to the chamber where he and Freyja had first made love, so she insisted on moving her mattress back there from its present place in the scriptorium. She also insisted she did not need any assistance from him, but this part he intended to ignore.

Now he had nothing to hide from her, he seized the mattress and transported it directly to her room through the walls, without having to manoeuvre it around corners and through narrow passageways, as they had before. It took several minutes before she joined him in her chamber, during which time he'd already set the mattress back on the bed frame.

What he'd give to lie her down and make love to her on this bed again...but he feared that would not happen now, for he'd seen the revulsion in her eyes when he'd appeared to her in his accursed form. He'd not been able to suppress a shudder himself when he'd seen his own monstrous reflection, so he could hardly blame her.

So he forced himself to bow and say, "Let me know if you wish for my assistance with anything else," before he departed. He found the others in the feasting hall, clustered around a table. When he sat down, Loki pushed a small box toward him.

"Frigg's brooch," he said. "The girls say that you must return it, as it is a priceless artefact, which they promise to keep safe for you. I maintain that it is your property, therefore it is your choice what you do with it, just as Thor's hammer belongs to him."

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