There’s too much history in Munich, too many of humanity’s recent failures that begin and end there. Not that Berlin is better in that respect, but at least flying into Tegel serves another purpose. It keeps Odin and his bunch from having any idea where I am. What? You think I travel under my own name? Oh, come on. Loki Trickster? God of Disguise? Master of Lies? Even if I’m not evil you know there’s got to be at least a little to that…

Jack Crawford, import-export consultant, touches down at Tegel by way of Schiphol by way of Heathrow by way of JFK by way of Logan. He’s here with his teenage daughter Becky—aka Hel, Goddess of Death. Baggage claimed, customs cleared, Jack and Becky head for the Sixt counter, where Jack spends the next half hour assuring a kid named Heinrich that, yes, he does want that bright-cherry, brand-new 6-series coupe. Becky spends her time looking annoyed, chewing gum, and chain-smoking Gauloises.

Hel’s making a scene, of course, alternately goggle-eyeing Heinrich and huffing around like this is the worst inconvenience she has ever endured. You have to give it to Hel: She has the overprivileged American teenager down cold.

“Germans drive fast,” Heinrich cautions, wagging his finger as though I shall, indeed, have no pie. Which is especially galling given his peach fuzz and preternaturally bright eyes. I think he must be trying to impress Hel.

“That’s not a problem. I want fast. Look, kid,” I confide, “I need fast.”

He stops wagging, smiles a shade more threateningly. “Fast,” he says, with mustard, the “s” getting plenty Germanic.

Either this is the German equivalent of the waiter asking whether I really want that curry “hot,” or he’s considering putting me on some sort of watch list. Of which, I can only guess, there are plenty what with all the fear and loathing sweeping Europe, particularly Germany, these days. Odin has been a busy bee, yes, indeed. His boy, Reinhold Vekk, is leading in the race to take over for Merkel, the only other candidate with even a remote shot, this upstart, so-called “German Washington,” Greta Bruder.

“Right. Got it. Fast, fast, fast. But I want fast, kid. I mean, I’m American, right? Need for speed, cradle to grave, Go Dog, Go, and all that.”

He stops typing. “Dog Go-Go?” he asks, looking at Hel with the young man’s signature blend of thinly veiled lust and abject confusion.

“No,” I say, “Go Dog, Go.”

“What is this Dog Go-Go?”

“It’s a book,” I say, the continued perplexity of his gaze causing me to add, “With pages, for children. It’s about dogs driving cars.”

He squints. “But this is preposterous. Dogs cannot drive. They have, uh…pfotes.” He makes what I ascertain to be a dog face—nose scrunching, mouth puckering—pretends to drive with hands incapable of gripping, then holds up his mitts as though I just got the drop on him. “How in English?”

“Paws?”

He nods briskly, point proven, though he’s only halfway done shaming me for my stupidity. “The dog, he cannot even…” he pretends to shift gears, “schalten?”

You have to love the Germans, their national sense of humor at least. One part British stodge, one part French aloofery, they’re unmoved by the banal jokes Americans love. But give them a hulking sexecutioner in black polythene and a Hello Kitty mask, and they’ll yuck it the fuck up. Dogs driving cars, though? In Germany? Please, don’t be foolish.

“Shift?”

His eyes light up. He points at me like I just won the bonus round at Sixt. “Yes, shift!”

“Just, never mind about the dogs driving. You gonna give me the car or what?”

Heinrich’s smile disappears. He eyeballs me for a few more seconds, leaves me considering watch lists once again. Not that they’d even locate the real me amid all the fake identities.

He eyeballs Hel one last time and hands me the key.

 

The 6 isn’t an electric, or even a hybrid. But I’m justifying that to myself, thinking the two hundred and fifty miles between Berlin and Bavaria will straighten my noodle, help me figure a few things out before I have to talk to Odin. And if I’m going to drive that distance on the Autobahn, I don’t want to spend it with an endless stream of sportscars flashing their beams at me.

We’re barely out of the airport when Hel pipes up. “Dad,” she says, “when are we going to get there?” She’s got her shoes off, feet on the dash, smirking so hard it’s practically a leer. “You realize we’re alone, right? There’s no benefit to you playing entitled American teen anymore.”

“Au contraire.”

“Yeah?” “

Practice.”

“I guess.”

“So?”

“Maybe later.”

“Aw, you’re no fun,” she replies, lips curling into a pout. She hits the SatRad, starts bopping to some sort of neo-metallic German techno pop reggae fusion. Within sixty seconds she’s talking again.

Did I mention Hel had five espressos before we left Tegel?

 

The great thing about BAB 9, besides the speed, is all the green. And more than that, all the black. If you saw the way Germany looked in ’45, you’d know what I mean. Crumbling buildings; battered, ashen roads; and soot-covered soil everywhere. I’ll never forget those first few days, how odd it felt when those bullets hit and more than that, hurt. Sure, they couldn’t kill me, gunshots feel more like flea bites do to you, but when you haven’t felt human pain your entire existence, any measure of it comes as a big, unpleasant surprise. Having to walk places? Having to ask for things? The hunger? The thirst? The cold? The need for sleep? Let me tell you, the trip out of Germany was no hoot. But I made it. So did Odin and his crew. But they came back. And stayed.

I guess I was hoping there’d be less blatant symbols of fascism here in Germany, less of an obvious imprint, that it would be more like…well, America. But even without the visuals, listening to SatRad disabuses me of those notions. True, Merkel’s still in charge, and she’s always been reasonable, but every other story is about immigration, violence, or immigration and violence. Never mind the billboards everywhere: Vekk’s perma-tanned face and flaxen, slicked-back hair looming over reality, like an Instagram filter nobody wants.

I drop Hel at a Hotel Bavaria outside Augsburg, figure that will put enough distance between us and New Valhalla for the short term. If I have to stay longer than a day or two, I’ll rent some sort of discrete base of operations. For now, the average German hotel chain is going to have to do.

 

The 6 and I hit New Valhalla’s faux-stone gatehouse—complete with mini-parapets and useless turrets—half an hour after I leave Hotel Bavaria, around three in the afternoon. The gates remain closed as I pull up, the guard (a strapping, blond Bjorn) steps out of his fake fairy tale cottage and moves to the driver’s door.

“Business?” he asks, eyeing me with practiced suspicion.

“Don’t you want my name first?”

“Fine, what’s your name?”

“Loki’s the name.”

He nods, raises a device that looks like a cross between a .38 and a grocery store pricing gun. “Smile pretty,” he says.

I tense, but the thing just buzzes. He goes back to his tiny castle and talks to someone on the phone. A few seconds later a light turns green, the gate rises, and Bjorn waves me through.

 

Beyond the gatehouse and the electrified fence, New Valhalla is a picture postcard brought to life. The gunmetal brick structures and red roofs of the former Varsang Castle make up the property’s pinnacle, a stone crown rising in the distance, backlit by the darkening yellows of a falling sun. Rings of trees, white fields sloping upward, seemingly untouched by god or man. The deeper I get into the property, the quieter the scene is, a prayer in pictures rather than words.

At the front doors (ten feet high, mahogany, double), I ring-a-ding-ding. And again. And again, waiting for whatever Odin’s current butler’s name is—Heinrich? Klaus? Moose? Maus? —to show his soon-to-be-distressed face. As I reach for my fourth ring, the doors open. There’s no Maus, just Frigga, her glossy face set to a sub-z glare.

The narrowed, trustless eyes (sky blue and gleaming with pride); the angelic cheekbones and tapered jaw; the frosty lips pursed to spit poison…in her fall, Frigga has remade herself. She’s turned herself into someone with real resonance in Germany these days, a woman of the far right. Twin strands of pearls ready to clutch, an iridescent-blue skirt suit (tight, knee- length with a fitted jacket), and four-inch pumps…I mentioned it’s three in the afternoon, right? It’s enough to make you ask, “Why’s she dressed up? Why, Loki? Why?”

I could tell you it’s for kicks, some vomit-inducing sex game Odin cooked up—and there are plenty of those—but more likely Frigga’s off to chair a meeting of the “Ladies Auxiliary of the International Council on Nationalism” or some other such horse doodle. Oh, it’s not called that I’m sure, probably isn’t even formal, just some toney club where Frigga meets with Munich’s rightist she-lite. They plot, plan, and eat little sandwiches, sip Riesling and dispassionately discuss the coming race war, the final genetic Armageddon they’ve spent the last century angling for.

The John Birch Society back in the US? The Moral Majority? The Tea Party? Sure, that’s what happened in America. But fortunately, the Tea Party was the apex. Fortunately, America realized what sort of terrible road it was beginning to travel down and moved back the other way. In Europe, though, all those workers’ fronts and united nationalist something or others just keep getting more popular. All of them are Odin’s handiwork, too, every last one. No, I don’t have proof. I just know it’s true.

Oh, they won’t come out and say it, these members of the neo-fascist New World Order—they’ll deny and deny until it’s too late—but what they really want, what they lust for, is that somehow, someway, someday, they’ll get Old Adolf back, somebody like him at the very least. And when that happens, when their new Old Adolf comes along, he’ll win, forever and ever, amen.

“Loki, you’re still black,” Frigga snaps, as though she needs to make her disenchantment or racism more obvious after all these years.

Speaking of disenchantment, Tyr enters the frame; stands looming a few feet away, in the middle of the petrol-black-and- gleaming-gold-tiled front hall, the double staircases snaking towards the second floor; that, given the height of the ceilings, is really where a third floor should be. No surprise from Tyr: that’s what Tyr does. He looms—like dark clouds and vultures, like insurance agents at cocktail parties and divorce lawyers at yard sales.

“Guilty as charged, Friggs,” I respond with the toothy smile she used to like, maybe even love. Ah, but those were the bad, old days. Yeah, sure Frigga and I had a thing. Odin still doesn’t know, of course.

My mother? Oh, come on, I told you I was adopted, a literal babe in a basket. Anyway, the affair was her idea, the lech. Does that still work with women, goddesses I mean? Are they leches; or is there a feminine? Lechess, lecheur, lecha con leche…Point being Frigga is one. A lech, I mean. She practically held me down.

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that. You know I hate your stupid nicknames.” The intensity of her stare upshifts from snow princess to ice queen in the process.

The stare, you see, is Frigga’s “big trick,” her methode de vie et guerre. Some trick, too: she used to be able to turn people to ice with it back in the day. I mean that literally. We’re not talking about the impenetrable death-gaze of some heart surgeon’s trophy daughter, some Leticia or Bambi prancing down a triple- buffed, see-your-goodies runway, eyes full of naïve stoicism and teen entitlement. No, no, no: We’re talking see, stare, zap. Quick as that, you’re solid ice in need of a place to chill, or else.

Me? Oh, no way. No. Fucking. Way. Frigga’s stare only ever worked on you guys. Of course, she tried on me, after things fell apart; before, too, to tell the truth. She tried on Surt, Thyrm, Fen, all of them…no luck. She kept trying though, does still; even now that her look has no physical effect on anyone, even you guys. That’s the thing with the Asgardians: They’re locked in the past, lusting for some mythic, unspoiled dreamworld. No wonder they fell for Hitler.

“I guess I was just surprised. I was expecting Gerhard or Klaus or whichever cryogenically frozen Stormtrooper you’ve got answering the door these days…”

“That would be Gestalt. Odin sent the mortal servants to their quarters when you arrived,” offers Frigga. “One of the Valkyries will show you to Odin’s study.”

“Which one?”

“Oh, who can tell them apart anymore. Tyr, summon a Valkyrie.”

Tyr claps his hands thrice and a Valk jets in. She’s centimeters off the ground. But for her speed, it’s hard to say whether she’s using her wings at all.

I’m still eyeing her, trying to figure out which one she is from the olden days. Is it Synesthesia? Dyspepsia?

“They’re all new, by the way. In case you were wondering. We got them here on Earth, after you left,” says Frigga, as though in response to my question.

“Follow, me, please,” says the Valk.

When she turns to go, I see her wings are mechanical, a framework of gears, levers, and spindles powering their magnificence. I want to shout, “You’re a fake Valkyrie!” but I don’t. I do what I’m told and follow.

“Ferret, ferret, ferret,” Odin shouts as I enter.

I do a double-take and another—I do a quad-take—but I don’t see any ferrets, just what passes for Himself’s throne room in New Valhalla, a place of silent reflection and secret communication, a place to scheme, “a study” as they say.

Odin’s wearing a smoking jacket—deep red with iridescent Valkyries, and a cornflower blue ascot that matches his lone good eye; a tinted-glass monocle on his bad one, the overall look is Hefner hobo-hipster meets Norse Monopoly Man. All around him, the afternoon air flickers with shadows somehow both reluctant and oppressive.

“Ferret,” someone on TV finally replies.

I realize Odin’s watching a gameshow on a wall-sized TV, an American show at that. I forget the name. Something alliterative with a synonym for luck and a sobriquet for money rolled into one big bad Bye, Bye, Miss “American Pie.”

“Co-rrect,” says the shiny-suited, intensely white host, his level of surprise suggesting whatever “ferret” was the answer to was one tough question.

In response, a golden-haired, French-braided model tippetty-taps across the stage, does a snappy little kick-turn, and pushes one of thirty TV’s. The screen explodes in a maelstrom of color then segues from monetary prize to typeset question as she struts back the other way.

“Used to have a Valkyrie looked just like her,” Odin adds, seemingly to himself, gaze going a tick nostalgic, still apparently unaware I’ve entered. I can’t help thinking this is all a dodge, done for my benefit. He knows how I loved the Valks, how I’ve missed them. Then, again, he could just be wasted.

“A-hem,” I say.

And he turns. “Son,” he responds with what appears to be true delight. He moves towards me, practically hovering across the floor. “You came! I can’t tell you how good it is to see you. Though a little notice would have been nice.”

There’s a tear in his eye. Yes, a tear. But I’m not fooled, so don’t you be either. I’ve seen Odin’s tears before. I’ve seen them a thousand times. Even though they look real, they almost never are.

“I didn’t want you to know I was coming.”

“Hmm. Well, the important thing is you’re here.” He wraps his arm around my shoulder, pulls me deeper into the room, towards the quartet of dark chocolate leather armchairs set in a half-circle around the ten-foot-wide hearth. The fire’s light pours into the room, falls to haze on the chairs’ cushions, twinkles in the nail heads that decorate their arms. “There’s someone I want you to talk to. Someone who’s going to help us change the whole game, help us get home.”

“Home?”

He nods, calls, “Ladies,” as the doors to the study close and lock behind us. Another set of doors, these in the room’s far, northeast corner, creak open, the darkness beyond seeming almost to spill into the lit room.

Two women step from the shadows into the light. They wear black, flowing gowns, these women; dresses of silk and lace that seem to move almost of their own accord. The dresses put off light even in their darkness, seem to shimmy and flounce as the wearers stand still, gazing fiercely. They’re serious about something: I just can’t tell if it’s of the kissing or killing variety. Honestly, the scene leaves me thinking of Stevie Nicks. And Sunshine, of course. They both look exactly like Sunshine, albeit under different color schemes of skin, hair, and gaze. They look like what might have happened if Andy Warhol had been in the cloning business, these Neo-Norns his only subject.

“I’d like you to meet Halflight and Darkness,” Odin says.

Nods from both. “Trickster,” they offer simultaneously.

“Well, obviously we’ve met, in the past. But which is which, in the now?” I ask.

“I’m Halflight,” says the one with black hair.

“And I’m Darkness,” says the one with white hair.

I turn to Odin, “So, she was telling the truth?”

“She?”

“Oh, come on, Odin, I know you know Sunshine has been to see me.”

He nods. “I know what you’ve been thinking, Loki. You’ve been thinking we haven’t seen each other in half a century. You’ve been thinking we haven’t spoken in decades. You’ve been thinking.” He pauses. “I’m up to something. It’s not true, though, son, not at all. I’ve made a fresh start and I want you to help us, to work with us. For the greater good.” He raises his arms, Jesus taking in an imaginary multitude.

“Help you do what?”

“Ragnarök, what else?”

“Have you forgotten the part where we all die?”

“You don’t understand, son. We’ve had it wrong all these years. And I…well, I have to take a lot of the blame for that.”

Halflight and Darkness nod solemnly, knowingly. They nod in knowing solemnity.

“The Norns were right to leave when they did. We were a mess. And what’s happened since, well, that’s just proven how right they were. But they’re back. And we’ve got a chance, all of us, to make things right, to finally let humanity live without us, completely. See, the way the Norns have been explaining things to me, Ragnarök was never literal. It was always a metaphor, about us leaving humanity with the power to help themselves.”

“So, we’re not going to die?”

“Oh, no, you’re going to die…” Darkness replies.

“…on this world…” adds Halflight.

“But not for good.”

“Not…” “…forever.”

“We’ll all go back to Valhalla and live there,” Odin exclaims. “Just like in the beginning!”

“Happily ever after, eh? You, without any worshippers for the rest of time? And how is it we’re supposed to get all this going? We don’t have any powers left to speak of.”

“The Norns can give us our powers back,” Odin chimes in. “They can re-form The Wheel of Fate.”

“You mean that thing you turned into a Hitler statue so you could pass some of your power to Old Adolf?” I turn to the Norns. “He’s been meddling constantly since you left. Hitler was just the worst example.”

“Even if that’s true, you weren’t blameless. Were you, Trickster?” asks Halflight.

“What do you mean?”

“You meddled.”

“I didn’t help Hitler.”

“That’s not what we’ve been told,” Darkness replies.

“Told by whom? By him?”

Odin lowers his gaze, faintly shakes his head as if too deeply hurt to finish the action. I find myself wishing I had a ham so I could throw it at him.

Halflight: “Not by the All-father. That is all we will say now.”

Odin looks up, vindicated.

“Just because some mythical person says something, you’re going to assume it’s true?”

“Mythical?” Darkness asks.

“You know what I mean.”

“We have seen evidence of you influencing human events.”

“What evidence?”

“The moving things. The pictures.”

“You mean video? Film?”

“That’s it.”

“I was helping.”

“So was I,” says Odin.

“You were helping Hitler.”

Darkness: “So, you say, Trickster. But maybe you were the one helping Hitler?”

Halflight: “Don’t forget we knew you before, in Asgard. You don’t have such a good track record, Trickster.”

“I played a few tricks. That’s my thing, remember?”

The Norns gaze at me, lips pursed, eyes narrowed.

“Fine, if you don’t believe me, why am I here?”

Both Norns: “We need your help with Sunshine.” “There it is.”

Darkness continues, “She’s confused. She thinks you’re her only hope. How ludicrous is that?”

I must look hurt because Halflight chimes in, “Which is why she came to see you. Which is also why…”

“What?”

“Sunshine has the statue.”

“The Hitler statue? The one from Asgard?”

Odin cuts in, “Can we stop with all the Hitler-this and Hitler-that? Let’s just go back to calling it The Wheel of Fate, shall we?”

“Much as I can appreciate why someone who helped Hitler wouldn’t want to hear Hitler-this and Hitler-that, I think it’s important to stick to the facts. Halflight and Darkness don’t seem to understand. Hitler and the Nazis were something you had to experience to fully comprehend.”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand us,” the Norns say as one. “We’ve read up on this Hitler fella. He was the most dastardly figure in human history.”

“And Odin empowered him!”

Darkness: “Or maybe you did.”

Halflight: “Or maybe you both did.”

“Either way, they’re willing to forgive us. All of us,” Odin says, spreading his arms as if to take in the entire pantheon.

“Just like that?”

They nod.

“What about all the carnage? The dead Jews? The babies? The wars? Is Sunshine the only one of you who cares about humanity, or good, or truth?”

The Norns glance at each other. They shrug. “Odin has agreed to do everything we ask. As long as he can pass this trial period without meddling in human affairs, Fate will consider him absolved. You will all have your powers restored. And Odin will once again be king of the gods.”

“You realize he’s behind this Vekk guy, right?”

“That has not been proven!” Odin interjects.

“The one whose image is everywhere? Maybe. But the All-father has agreed to leave the humans to their own devices, let Fate run its course.”

I shrug.

“You’ll talk to Sunshine then, help convince her?”

“I’ll tell her what’s been said. As for convincing her, I’ll have to give that some thought. I don’t trust him,” I say, pointing at Odin. “Or you, for that matter,” I add, turning to the Norns.

In spite of what seemed a pretty stiff rebuke from yours truly, there’s nodding and smiling, even a few stolen glances.

“Alright, ladies, you may return to your lair,” says Odin.

The Norns leave me standing there with Odin.

“So?” he asks after they’re gone.

“As I told the Neo-Norns, I need time to think. And it won’t do you any good to have me followed. I didn’t bring Sunshine with me.”

“So, she’s back in America?”

“Maybe.”

“You left her with the giants?”

“Could be.”

“Hel?”

I raise a provocative eyebrow.

“Not the wolf. You didn’t leave her with the wolf?”

“How about all of them?”

I leave him standing there, struggling for breath.

“Maybe you should just ask Heimdall?” I call, as I go.