My apologies, sweetling, it said. I had hoped to enjoy you one last time, but it was not to be. I will cherish your gift. You may be sure I will use it well.
The final symbol was the figure of a coiling snake. It came alive as she watched, hissing and seeming to laugh with its gaping jaws. Then it was still again, and Mist dropped the paper onto the table. It burst into flame and disintegrated into black ash.
“Eric,” she whispered.
“Loki Hel’s-Father,” Dáinn said. “You knew him?”
The accusation in his voice was well deserved. She had been far worse than the short-wit and incompetent she had called herself. Eric had never loved her. He had deceived her from the moment they’d met. She hadn’t been wise enough to see through the shape he had taken to seduce and set her at her ease.
Hrimgrimir had been no more than a distraction. It had always been Eric.
“I didn’t know,” she said numbly. “I believed…”
“You believed .” His short laugh was raw with despair. He ran his finger through the ashes. “No one knew he had pierced the veil. We share two burdens now, shield-maiden.”
Mist didn’t ask what the second burden was. All she could see was Eric’s laughing face when she had told him he had become nearly as good as she was.
“I’ll kill him,” she said.
“As Heimdall killed him?”
His mockery was all the more savage for its gentleness. She met Dáinn’s gaze across the table.
“Can you find him?” she asked.
“If he hasn’t left Midgard.”
The questions she wanted to ask nearly choked her, but she left them unspoken. “Start looking,” she said.
Dáinn dipped a finger into the ash and lifted it to his forehead. With quick, sure strokes he sketched a bind rune above and between his brows. It seemed to catch fire, and Dáinn grimaced in pain.
“A passage,” he murmured.
“What do you mean?” She leaned over the table, forcing him to look at her. “ What passage?”
“A bridge to the otherworlds.” He smeared the ash with his fingers. “‘Gullin’ is its name.”
Golden . The Golden Gate Bridge. An echo of B?frost, which had once joined Midgard with the realm of the Aesir.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“There is no certainty.”
To Hel with that. It was the only lead they had, and there was no time to waste. The bridge was nearly eight miles northwest as the crow flies, longer on surface streets. Dawn was just breaking; there wouldn’t be much traffic, and that meant the car would be faster than going on foot.
“Let’s go,” she said.
She ran into the shop, snatched up several small, dusty pieces of wood she kept on a high shelf, and dashed for the garage. Dáinn caught up with her as she reached the Volvo and threw open the door. She didn’t wait to ask if the álfr had ever been in an automobile before, but he didn’t hesitate to get in. She was already pulling out of the garage by the time he had closed his own door.
Chanting a hurried runespell to hold any overzealous cops away, Mist kept her foot on the gas all the way up Van Ness and screeched a reckless left turn onto Lombard. In minutes they were on 101 and nearing the bridge.
“Where?” she asked.
He touched his forehead, tracing the runes afresh. “Over the water,” he said. “We must go on foot.”
That was cursed inconvenient. There wasn’t any way for a pedestrian to get onto the bridge from the San Francisco side without attracting unwelcome attention.
“We’ll have to drive across,” she said. “You tell me where to stop.”
“If I can.”
“You will.” She gunned the engine and sped for the toll plaza, slowing only to pay the toll and pretend she had no intention of breaking every speed law on the books. The moment she was on the bridge she pushed on the accelerator, passing slower vehicles as if they were standing still.