Page 9 of Loki

Logi grinned and seized both cups, drinking them both down before Loki could react. The fool had already doomed himself, without taking a single bite. Who was Loki to protest his fate?

Two more trenchers, loaded with meat and vegetables, and they began. Loki was glad he hadn't eaten since the previous day, or he would never have kept up with Erik's son.

Amid the cheers and laughter as Erik's men urged Logi on and taunted Loki, Loki felt eyes on him. Not daring to be too obvious, he allowed himself a quick glance around the hall. In the shadows, by the wall...he could scarcely believe it...Odin sat, with a leather patch over one eye.

Odin lived!

Loki forced himself to take another big bite of food, trencher and all, as he tried to think. He could not burn the hall with everyone inside if Odin was here. He needed to find a way to speak to Odin, to find out how he was here, and whether anyone else had survived. Odin would know what he should do.

But Logi was flagging, the jusquiasmus starting to take effect, on top of all he'd drunk before the battle. If Loki won, Erik would toss him out of the hall, just like he'd asked for, and he wouldn't be able to talk to Odin.

Horror overcame Loki. In order to speak to Odin, he'd have to lose.

Loki reached for his empty cup, and pretended to drink from it, before letting it fall from his fingers as he fell forward onto the table, feigning sleep.

Men shook him as they proclaimed Logi the winner, but Loki just stayed put, keeping his breathing even, until true sleep overcame him.

EIGHT

"What's that supposed to be? It looks like a toddler wrote it! Give that to me!"

Jorunn was only too happy to hand the artefact labels to Nik, who was even less of a saint than she was. Then again, anyone who worked this closely with Nik without strangling him had to be at least halfway to sainthood. She didn't know how Sibyl did it.

She was sorely tempted to ask Sibyl to take over from her, but she knew she couldn't. This was about watching Nik, seeing if she could find any evidence that he was stealing artefacts.

"I'll take that!" Nik snatched the camera out of Jorunn's hands, as if he didn't trust her with it. Never mind that it was technically her camera, purchased with Harald Medal funds for her research.

"Fine," Jorunn sighed, whipping out her phone to use that instead. It would go faster if they both took pictures, instead of her taking them twice. She paused to make a note in her dictation app, dropping the text into the caption.

Nik had already moved onto the next marker, ripping it out of the rocks that held it. "Nothing here, move onto the next one."

Jorunn stared at the ground. "But there was a marker. There must be something." She dropped into a crouch, carefully brushing away the rocks with her hands. She didn't want to admit it, but Nik had been right. There was nothing here.

"I told you there was nothing. Why will you silly girls not listen?" Nik grumbled as he marched off to the next marker.

Jorunn blew out a frustrated breath. If this had been one of her transects, she'd be able to go through her phone photos and check, but someone else had marked this find. Or whatever they thought they'd seen anyway. Unless someone had just dropped a marker by accident or as a prank...

No, she decided. Everyone here knew better than to waste time like that. They didn't play pranks.

Unless there really was a poltergeist...

She snorted. No, there were no such things as ghosts or Norse gods or anything supernatural. Well, unless you counted the sheer perfection that was Jensen Ackles' arse...

Nik pulled up three more markers, muttering about foolish PhD students and false alarms. "You girls should be sent back to the university, instead of being out in the field with experts who know what they are looking for. These markers have nothing but rocks!"

But this still wasn't her transect, or Sibyl's. She counted the transect paths, trying to remember who'd been in this row. Karl and Lara had taken the outside ones, Lars and Andreas had been between her and Sibyl, Fredrik had walked beside Karl, which left...

"This was your transect. If anyone's planting false markers, it's you, Nik. So shove your complaints up your arse or I'll tell Karl how incompetent you've been today. Got it?" Jorunn growled. She was so sick of his bullshit.

"It will be my word against yours, and who would believe you?" Nik sneered.

Anyone with half a brain who'd been paying attention today, Jorunn wanted to say, but just as she opened her mouth, Karl called for a break.

Jorunn strode away from Nik as fast as she dared over the scree slope, making a beeline for Sibyl, who gave her a sympathetic smile. Jorunn couldn't help but return it.

"If you don't push him off a glacier before this season ends, I swear I will," Jorunn said.

"Maybe he's right, and I don't belong here. It's not like we've found anything even remotely connected to Utgard. Whereas you've found two hunting arrows already..." Sibyl sighed.

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