Page 5 of Loki

Friends did not let friends date arseholes.

Wait, was that...?

A glint of metal caught Jorunn's eye, and she nudged it with her boot. Yep, that was definitely not a rock. Too regular. It looked like a coin or something. She stuck a marker in the ground beside it, held up the GPS and took a photo with her phone.

She straightened, and continued walking.

Three arrows, four coins and several coloured rags later, Jorunn glanced at her watch. Two of the expeditioners had been taken off transects to record the finds, but the rest of them had covered quite a distance, with a couple of hours still to go. "Lars and Andreas, you start recording from here and backtrack until you meet Nik and Sibyl somewhere in the middle. I'm headed up to the ridge to take some pictures of the survey extent so far. Lara and Jorunn...you're on dinner duty, right?"

"Hell no!" Jorunn called back. "We bet on arrowheads and coins, respectively, and I've seen both of them today. Oi, Saint Nik, tell Karl about the coins, will you?"

Nik looked up at the sound of his name, but all he did was stare at her in irritation. Dick.

"Come on Sibyl, you back me up. You saw the coins and arrowheads, didn't you?" Jorunn wheedled.

Sibyl rose from her crouch and came over. "What did you say?"

"I said today was all about coins and arrowheads. I found heaps. How many were there in the end?" Jorunn persisted.

Sibyl shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't see any. I stopped to dig out some of the cloth samples, in the hope we'd find another ancient tunic. I think I found a hood, or a short cloak, and something that might have been a scarf, but I'd want to get them scanned and cleaned up in the lab before we unfold them for a closer look. They looked pretty delicate."

Which meant she'd have to ask Nik, who'd only be even more of an arsehole about it. Ugh.

She gritted her teeth. "Nik, how many coins did we find today?"

He looked blank. "Coins? I haven't seen any coins. Just rags and arrows." He held up the clear collection bag with the day's finds.

Jorunn grabbed it for a closer examination. There were a few complete arrows – including one with a two-pronged point – but most of the arrowheads were rusted iron or some sort of bone. Each rag got its own bag, to keep the fibres together for later research, in case they fell apart. There wasn't a coin in sight.

Which made no sense. Jorunn dropped the bags back onto the rocks behind Nik and headed back down the slope to the sites she'd photographed with her phone. Sure enough, she had four separate sites with the round discs, and she hadn't seen anything like them in Nik's bags.

The first site she visited was clear – nothing but bare rock, and the little cairn she'd built for her marker was empty. The second site had a lot of loose rock, but no matter how much she pawed through the stones, she couldn't find the coin or whatever it was.

The last two were just as empty. Like she'd imagined the finds, but her phone said otherwise. There'd been something there, and it wasn't there now.

Either something screwy was going on, or someone was stealing stuff.

Jorunn blew out a breath. Or perhaps they had a poltergeist, the spirit of some long dead Viking who was pissed off at Nik for stealing his shirt, who was playing around with them.

Probably for the best that she didn't tell Sibyl, though. Sibyl would either freak out and have nightmares, or insist on a séance in the hope of placating the poor ghost. And maybe asking it a few questions about Viking life here and where the village might be...

Jorunn tucked her phone back in her pocket and trudged back to camp. "Sorry, Lara, looks like you're cooking by yourself tonight, but Sibyl will help you with the dishes, seeing as we haven't found her lost city yet."

And while Lara cooked, Jorunn would take a look through their finds, to see if anything else was missing. Something about this didn't add up.

FIVE

After a night stuck as a snake in that basket, Loki would have killed for a rat to break his fast. Maybe even a mouse. Ah, who was he trying to fool? He'd happily kill Erik and his whole family for nothing, breakfast be damned.

The day dragged on, and Loki dozed sluggishly in his prison, wishing he'd picked any creature instead of a snake. Even a rat would be able to chew its way out of this benighted basket...

Why hadn't he thought of that earlier?

In a blink, Loki the cobra became Loki the rat, though it took somewhat longer for him to chew a big enough hole in the basket to squeeze through. Once out, he abandoned his vermin form altogether, shifting into a stoat. A tiny predator, certainly, but its small size would be an advantage when trying to escape the village, to return to Odin.

"You are a determined fellow, aren't you? First a snake, now a stoat...whatever will you choose to become next? Best not to find out, I think...so a truth spell it shall be!"

Loki swore squeakily as magic enveloped him again, forcing him into a sudden shift back to his own true form. He'd heard of truth spells so powerful they could strip away all illusions, but to feel one working on his own body that he was helpless to resist...

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