Three Slices Read Online Free PDF Page A

my left biceps. It’s because Loki wields a longsword that I’m reminded of him and the brand he left on my skin, and I cannot heal that mark with Druidry. Gaia doesn’t even recognize that there’s a problem. I’ve healed from the broken bones and my bruises are all gone now, but that mark remains, and it means he knows where I am at all times while hiding me from the sight of all others. The latter is a definite plus, but the cost is that Loki holds a certain power over me, and that I cannot abide—especially since he strongly hinted he would try to use me again to advance his goals. I owe him a death in return for my father’s, and many broken bones before that. Atticus has his vengeance to exact for his friend, and I have my own to pursue.
    The nature of Loki’s magic is Norse; the mark is made of runes. What if…
     Orlaith asks me, and I turn my head to look at her. She had lain down in the leaves, head on her paws, watching me train, but now her head is up and her ears cocked in a query.
    “What if Odin could get rid of Loki’s mark for me?” I say aloud.
    
    “Loki’s father—well, he adopted Loki, but still. If anyone could undo a Norse binding, it would be him, and I bet he doesn’t even know Loki is doing this.”
    
    “In Asgard. I don’t have a good way of getting there.” Atticus had shifted to the Norse plane and then climbed the trunk of Yggdrasil to get to Asgard, but that path was surely blocked now that the Æsir knew about it.
    
    “I don’t think Odin has a phone. And there’s no cell service in Asgard, anyway. But you know, there might be a different way to get in touch. Ready for a run?”
    
    “Just down the hill.”
    Our cabin is about a mile uphill from the Camp Bird Mine foreman’s house along County Road 26. Atticus and I met Frigg there once, and Odin’s ravens, Hugin and Munin, had been there as well. Odin knew the precise location of our cabin too, of course; Atticus once left Odin’s spear, Gungnir, inside for him to pick up. But the foreman’s house, being unoccupied, might be more neutral ground, and since Frigg and the dwarven Runeskald Fjalar had spent some time fixing up the place into a sort of mead hall, they might still have an affinity for it that I can use.
    The foreman’s house is more of a white Colonial mansion, and when we reach it, the exterior still looks dilapidated and afflicted with all the ills of age and inclement weather, complete with peeling paint, a sagging front porch, and boarded-up windows. Hugin and Munin are not conveniently perched outside waiting to bear Odin a message, unfortunately, so I have to devote some thought to how I might contact him.
    I have no idea whether he would respond to a prayer. Do the prayers of nonbelievers ever reach the gods, or are they automatically screened by faith and fervor? Atticus never covered details like this in my training, and it’s not the sort of thing I would have thought to ask him—“Hey, Atticus, how do I get in touch with Odin in case I need to chat?”
    Seeing me stop outside the house, Orlaith wonders what we are supposed to do next.
    “No, but let’s knock and go inside to see if it’s been maintained.”
    No one answers to my knock or my call. The door is unlocked, however, and we enter cautiously. There is no electricity but I find a candelabra and a box of matches resting next to it on a parlor table and light it up.
    “Do you smell anyone inside? Hear anyone?” I ask Orlaith.
     she replies.
    “Let me know if you hear or smell anything interesting, then. We’ll check the ground floor first.”
    The house still looks as Fjalar had left it; wood-paneled walls with shields and crossed axes mounted on the walls. In the living room, which modern