Gears of Mischief (The Valhalla Mechanism Book 1) Read online

  It smelled like control from someone who did not have the slightest idea what to do in this situation, I mused. From a strategic standpoint, it was a bad choice. We picked out each of the spies beforehand, even the ones on roofs, and the cold was making them sloppy. Lucky for us, we had the God of Fire.

  “Are you certain the Queen will be in Buckingham Palace?” Loki asked, leaning down to peer out the windshield. Lady Kingsford handled the steam car with expertise, and even though the tires spun every so often, she never once lost control. The back of the car was completely concealed from eyes, the windows near black so they could not see inside. Tillie had claimed a bullet couldn’t pass through the windows and it thrilled me that she thought of such things.

  Our own clever spy with the heart of a Valkyrie.

  “The Queen typically spends her spring and summer in the Palace, but with everything that’s happening, there’s a chance they’ve moved her,” Lady Kingsford answered, taking a corner hard enough that it threw Tillie against me. I braced her with my arm, keeping Loki from crushing her, before we settled again.

  “So there’s a chance we are risking our lives for nothing,” I surmised.

  Tillie glanced up at me. “Not for nothing. And she will be there. I believe that.” She frowned. “The problem will be getting close to her. She’s protected at all times by the Beast Guild.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Loki murmured, his jaw clenching.

  “I used to want to be one,” Tillie admitted, her cheeks flushing. “Now, it seems so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.”

  “Quit speaking as if you’ve already lost,” her mother chided her, looking away from the road for a split second. I nearly shouted at her when a T in the road quickly approached before she returned her face forward and swerved around the turn as easily as if we were simply taking a leisurely stroll through the park.

  “Thor,” Lady Kingsford said, drawing my attention to her, “what did you say you were the God of?”

  “Thunder, Lady Kingsford.”

  She nodded her head. “Lightning, fire and espionage.” She turned in her seat again and I tensed. “If anyone can do it, it would be you three.”

  “You won’t be able to stop without drawing their eyes,” Tillie advised her mother. “We will need to jump out while the car is moving and be over the wrought iron fence before the outside guards notice.”

  “What happens once we’re inside?” I asked, watching Tillie closely. Her hair was pulled back in a braid her mother had done with expert fingers. She was wearing the outfit Loki gifted her with, though she had covered it with a black cloak that belted at the waist for this part. I knew Loki was keeping her warm, making sure she was never cold, so I hadn’t asked for her to protect herself further, but I knew the winter outside would soon rival Niflheim, and we would all be at risk then.

  “Once we’re inside, it’ll get worse,” Tillie admitted.

  “How much worse?”

  She flicked her eyes towards me and away. Ah, I thought, that much worse.

  “There’s the normal Queen’s guard to worry about, the Beast Guild, and the dogs that guard the compound. Both types of guards are armed to the teeth, and the dogs, well, they just have teeth that will rip you apart.”

  I glanced over Tillie to Loki, his eyes meeting mine, an agreement passing between us. Tillie was human, even if she was an extraordinary one. She could still die, and we could not, not without the power of a God to rip us apart. Both Loki and I were part of Odin, and as such, never had to eat the apples of Idunn to live. We would survive whatever happened inside the walls of Buckingham Palace.

  “We’re getting close,” Lady Kingsford advised, and I looked out the windshield. This part of the city was well-lit, lamp posts spaced evenly enough that there were not many shadows at all around the fencing. As we drew closer, I saw the stone wall turn into heavy iron, tall enough and sharp enough to keep most people out.

  “Five seconds.” Lady Kingsford turned in her seat as she slowed the car to a moderate crawl, nothing more than someone admiring the view. “Be as swift as a river, Tillie.”

  “And as quiet as a mouse,” she answered, leaning forward to kiss her mother on the cheek. “I’ll come back.”

  “You better,” her mother growled. “Or I will come after you myself, young lady.”

  Tillie grinned. “I don’t doubt that.” She sat back in the seat and patted her coat, making sure her weapons were in place. My hammer was hooked to my side so we could move faster, and I could use both of my hands. “Ready?” Tillie asked, glancing at us. “We have to move quickly.”

  We nodded once and Loki opened the door, pulling Tillie out with him into the cold. They rolled just as I followed, kicking the door shut on my way out. I tucked and rolled, coming up in a crouch and moving to the shadows quickly. I clicked my teeth and Loki repeated the noise, our method of communication whilst we could not speak. We watched as the steam car continued slowly down the road before turning off, nothing more than someone out for a late-night drive who grew tired of studying a quiet palace.

  We pressed against the wrought iron where there was hardly enough shadow for us all to stand. Tillie pressed up against me, and in a different time, I would have been pleased with that fact. I forced myself to focus on the iron we were to scale and our mission.

  Loki glanced to the other side of the fence, searching for a guard, making sure the rotation was in a different section than where we were. Seeing the coast was clear, he scaled the wrought iron quickly, his body fluid, no noise at all as he went up and over, touching down on the other side and crouching low.

  Tillie next.

  I bent my hands to give her a boost and she raised her brows at me, a small smile on her lips, as she scaled the fence without any help, almost as fluidly as Loki had. I watched her crest the top before sliding down into Loki’s arms. Then she turned, winked, and put her hands through the fence as if she was going to give me a boost in return. I snorted and shook my head, but I couldn’t stop the grin that pulled at my lips while I scaled the fence far less gracefully than the two of them had. I made no noise, but I certainly was not so elegant in my movements, no doubt jerky and slow compared to Loki and Tillie.

  I dropped to my feet on the other side and crouched, waiting to see if an alarm sounded. When no noise came, we sprinted to the next shadows cast by a tree.

  Tillie glanced out from the shadows, pointing out a few guards on the roof where we could make their positions. They were not the ones we had to worry about, however. The worst guards, the Beast Guild, were not seen until they attacked, and that posed a danger. We still had far too long to go to reach the palace.

  I glanced over at Loki, raising my brows, and clicked my teeth. He nodded once, pulling the bottle of orange liquid from his belt again. There was not much left in it, the concoction taking too long to have made more. It took seven days to brew, Loki had said, and his latest batch still had three days to go. It was a weakness, one we couldn’t afford, but we had no choice. Tillie insisted the Queen would hear us, and if we could get someone of her position on our side, we could save lives, even if we could not stop Ragnarök completely. It was the best we could do while we waited for news from Skadi.

  Loki dabbed the last of the liquid on his forehead and down his nose first before doing the same for us, hooking the now empty bottle back to his belt. We linked hands and vanished, Loki’s illusions dancing along our skin.

  We stepped into the light and waited for a moment to see if we would be noticed. We shouldn’t have been, not with Loki’s magic working for us, but there hadn’t been enough magic in the potion to last long. I could feel it. We wouldn’t have much time to race across the yard and get inside before we were spotted.

  I clicked my tongue and we darted across the long stretch of grass, running as fast as we could, our hands linked together to keep the illusion. None of the guards looked our way, no dogs came running, not yet. I heard some of the guards call to each other,
checking the status, but no one sounding an alarm.

  We made it to the outside of the palace and circled, searching for a small door, something used by staff and not focused on as much as a main entry. Tillie pointed out a small entrance in a hidden alcove seconds later. It was almost too small for my shoulders to fit in, but it would have to work.

  I can pick the lock, Tillie mouthed, but I shook my head, crouching down to put the keyhole at eye level. I lifted a finger, focused, and sent the smallest trace of lightning out, turning the tumblers, unlocking it. A handy trick that Tillie praised with her smile. I’d pick as many locks as I could if she kept smiling at me like that.

  Our luck ended when we opened the door.

  A shrill alarm sounded in the palace that was then echoed by shouts and louder alarms. It echoed around us, piercing my ear drums in its warning and I scowled at the thoroughness of the Midgardians.

  “Bloody hell,” Tillie whispered, jerking us inside.

  At least we were still unseen, I thought, until I turned to Loki and saw the ghost of his form.

  “Loki,” I hissed softly, and he looked down at himself, swearing in the old language before dropping Tillie’s hand. We all snapped back to normal, turning to find somewhere to hide, just as the first guards rounded the corner.

  “Don’t kill them,” Tillie ordered, pulling her short sword from her thigh sheath. She looked at me quickly. “Disable only.”

  It was smart. We were less likely to be heard if we left a trail of death, but it would be difficult to incapacitate soldiers who had no such orders. They raised their weapons and began to fire on us, bullets pinging around our heads.

  “Move!” Loki growled, throwing up a shield just in time to deflect the bullets, and that was when I heard the snarls.

  “The dogs!” Tillie said, her eyes wide.

  We were in small corridors, hardly enough room to fight off the guards, let alone a herd of attack dogs. Hel, this was not going as planned.

  Loki kept his shield up as we turned and ran in the opposite direction. The layout of the building was against us. The guards no doubt knew which direction we were headed but we could only follow the hallways that appeared. We needed to get out of the normal corridors in a way that they could not see and follow, but there was nothing. There were no small compartments, nothing that I could fit into, but when the laundry chute appeared, I paused and opened it. “Go!” I growled at Tillie, but she paused.

  “You can’t fit in that.”

  “I know, but you can.”

  “I’m not leaving you behind, you wanker!”

  “I can’t die,” I growled, shoving her towards the laundry chute, but she was not so easily maneuvered. Tillie swung up and over me, thumping her fist against my shoulder before running again in the same direction we had already been headed.

  “She should be in the living quarters,” she called back to me, and I followed with a grumble, glancing back at the growing number of guards as they rounded each corner. No dogs yet that I could see, but I could hear their growls. The alarms were shrill in my head, nearly piercing my ear drums, but I powered on, trusting Tillie, hoping we didn’t hit a roadblock.

  “Watch out!” Loki called just as something barreled into me from the side, something large that sent me sideways into the wall.

  I swung, dislodging the guard that had managed to catch me by surprise. “No killing!” Tillie yelled when I raised my hammer.

  “Fucking Hel,” I growled, thumping the guard much gentler than I wanted to, knocking him out before catching up with Tillie and Loki.

  “Up the stairs!”

  Loki and I followed Tillie. I watched as Loki’s fingers danced over the bottles in his belt, searching for something that could help, but even I could see how many were empty after the last few days. His magic came with a price, and the alchemy helped avoid that price, but if he was out of elixirs, we were in trouble. This was meant to be a stealth mission. There weren’t supposed to be alarms that would sound at the barest opening of a door. Someone must have warned them.

  We took the stairs two at a time, but before we could make it to the next landing, a man stepped into our path. A familiar man.

  I snarled. “You!”

  “Calvin!” Tillie growled, lifting her short sword even as the man in question raised a large gun and pointed it at Tillie’s heart.

  Loki’s face morphed into the very thing that most of Asgard feared, the God who acted with chaos rather than reason, but Loki’s powers were already depleted. Tillie glanced back at Loki once, quickly, barely enough to take her eyes off the man she called Calvin, before she reached back once and threaded her fingers with his, calming him just enough so he didn’t explode.

  “What are you thinking, Tillie?” Calvin asked, shaking his head.

  “I’m saving the world,” Tillie replied proudly, “and if you don’t move, I will gladly offer you as a sacrifice to the Gods behind me.”

  Calvin snorted. “Which of us has a gun pointed at the other, Tillie?”

  I hardly saw her move, barely understood what was happening as she made whatever decision flit through her mind. She closed the distance and had the gun from Calvin’s hand pointed at his head and her arm around his neck before I could blink.

  “Sorcery,” I whispered, staring at her with wide eyes. I had never seen a Midgardian move so fast.

  “You should know better than that, Calvin,” she purred into his ear. “You were never fast enough to compete with me.”

  Guards swarmed up the stairs behind us and when Tillie turned, they blocked that way too. There were too many guns pointed at us, too many guards, too many threats. Tillie kept the gun at Calvin’s head, putting her back against ours as they closed in, boxing us into a circle.

  There was no way Loki could stop that many bullets, and while I could use my lightning, that wasn’t the point here. We wanted them to listen to us and blowing up the palace and killing the guards would do no good.

  “We only want to talk to Her Majesty,” Tillie spoke, her voice loud enough to carry in the sudden silence as the guards aimed their weapons at us. “We mean no one any harm.”

  “And yet you point a gun to one of your comrades.”

  Tillie tensed at the man who broke through the wall of guards. He was dressed in a suit, hardly battle gear for someone here. His hands were in his pockets, as if he did not have a care in the world.

  “Hello, Director,” she murmured, narrowing her eyes. “And Calvin has his own gun pointed at his head because he dared to point it at me.” She smiled. “You know as well as I do, he’s no match for me.”

  “Yes, well, Mr. Wench’s subpar skills aside, you’ve put us into a real conundrum, Lady Kingsford.”

  “It’s a conundrum of your own making because you refused to listen to reason,” she growled back, keeping her arm locked around the spineless Midgardian, Loki and I watched the guards at her backside, the ones below, glancing back towards the Director. This was bad. This was a bad situation. I never wanted to be imprisoned, but perhaps, that was the only way to achieve what we needed to.

  Tillie seemed to come to the same conclusion as I did because she shoved Calvin towards the Director, the clumsy fool tripping and landing face first at the Director’s feet before scrambling into the row of guards. The Director watched him rush to safety with disgust on his face before he returned his attention back to Tillie.

  “If we surrender, you have to tell Her Majesty we want to talk to her,” she ordered, her eyes narrowing further.

  “Sorry, Lady Kingsford,” he replied, smiling. “This is no negotiation.”

  The guards fired on us, a bullet slamming into my sternum like a steam train. Midgardian bullets should not have such impact, I thought, as Loki took the same hit, and Tillie snarled, standing over us like the Valkyrie I imagined her with her weapons raised, pointing in both directions.

  “Don’t shoot her,” I growled, trying to stand even with whatever the guards shot me with shooting pain
through my body. It would heal in an hour, Loki’s faster, but the downfall of such rapid healing was that we would be near useless while it happened, the black already clawing at the edges of my vision.

  “Piss off!” Tillie screamed as the guards rushed in, their weapons raised. She was skilled, but not enough to take on so many alone, not when she refused to leave our sides.

  I managed one last growl when I saw one of the guards land a blow on my Valkyrie before the blackness claimed me completely.

  “Tillie...”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There were too many of them. And unless I wanted to kill them, we were royally screwed. Thor and Loki were unconscious at my feet from some sort of massive bullet the Beast Guild spy behind me had used, something capable of taking out a God for a small amount of time apparently. My eyes trailed up to the rafters. I could get away, escape their numbers, and disappear.

  My heart twisted.

  But I couldn’t leave Thor and Loki behind, no matter that they had told me to, no matter that I would have left anyone else behind. Somehow, they had reached the same level as my mother in a week, and though that scared me, I refused to leave them when they were vulnerable.

  “We’re all going to bloody die, you idiots!” I shouted as I fought them off, as they swarmed me. There were too many.

  “Tillie. . .” I glanced down at Thor just as one of the Beasts slammed their fist into my chin. He nearly missed, so the blow didn’t knock me unconscious, but it still chaffed.

  I snarled at the Beast, was beneath and behind him before he knew what was happening, had my knife nicking his throat. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to hit a lady?” Before I shoved him into the crowd of guards, only for him to be replaced with five more. I moved, but I was no match for the numbers, knew I wasn’t, knew it was only a matter of time.

  “Calm down,” the Director said from his safety, completely unconcerned. “There’s really no reason for this nonsense.”

  “Says the man happy to watch the world burn.” I wanted to rattle his cage, make him think twice about his safety, and so I left Thor and Loki’s side for a moment, vaulting and diving until I stopped right in front of the Director’s face. He tried to stumble back, always underestimating me, always thinking I was not the best spy the Raven Wing had ever seen. Thod had told me himself. I was an enigma. “When you fall from your pedestal,” I growled, fisting his shirt to keep him from pulling away, “I hope it’s a long, hard fall, Director.”