Going Bovine

Balder’s eyes twinkle with pride and sadness. I think of my dusty Texas town. Other than Eubie’s, there’s not much to miss.

“You’re not the only one who feels such pain, Cameron. There have been many times during my captivity that I dearly wished I were not immortal, that I could die. But then you came. This quest has renewed my hope.”

His eyes search mine. I nod toward the blackened marsh-mallows. Balder shakes them off, lets the fire take them, and starts over with fresh ones.

“You are like the Allfather, Odin,” he says after a while.

“What do you mean?”

Balder turns the stick in the fire. “When Odin heard of the coming of Ragnarok, of the end to the days of gods, he found no more joy. The foreknowledge of our fate was too much to bear. He refused all food and sank into despair.”

“I’m not that dramatic,” I say, because he’s making me feel like a wuss.

“You miss the point. Like Odin, you see only the coming doom and lose faith in what is here, what is good.”

I lean my head back. The moon bleeds a hole into the night sky, a wound that seems beyond healing. “So what should I believe in?”

“That I cannot say. For me, it is the dream that Ringhorn waits for me on the sea. That I shall sail through the eternal mist until Breidablik gleams in the distance. That I will return home. Here.” Balder offers me the gooey browned mess at the end of his stick. “You must have sustenance.”

“That’s a marshmallow,” I say, but Balder insists. Gingerly, I pry the bubbling thing loose, blow, then drop it in my mouth where it coats my tongue in scorched sweetness.

“Thanks.”

In the firelight, Balder’s features are sharply illuminated. I’ve never noticed the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, the weariness etched there. “The dark does not weep for itself because there is no light. Rather, it accepts that it is the dark. It is said that even the gods must die.” He winks. “But not without one hell of a fight.”

“Can I have another marshmallow?” I ask.

Balder cooks me up another one, and it’s as good as the first. “If you are in need of more guidance, I could draw a rune.” He tugs the pouch free from under his tunic. It sits in his palm, heavy with destiny.

I shake my head. “Let’s just see what comes.”

He pushes the E-ticket meter a little closer to me. He thinks he’s being clever. Vikings. Not great at subtlety. With a sigh, I pick it up and he helps me fasten it on my wrist again. The cloud shifts into a shapeless blot. A raccoon comes sniffing for food. For a few seconds, it skirts the edge of the fire, nose up, smelling. And then it scurries off into the brush.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Wherein We Discover What Assholes These Mortals Be

The hundred miles to Daytona are a rough, quiet affair. Everybody’s hungover but Balder and me. Every eight miles or so, I have to pull over and let somebody puke.

The guys are splayed out in the backseat sleeping when they’re not sick. Up front, Gonzo’s curled on the front seat with his head against the door and the seat belt lax across his middle like a mom’s arm around you when you’re a kid. He’s got on a pair of little-girl sunglasses we bought at a convenience mart. They’re bright orange cat’s-eyes with rhinestones on the winged part. He wanted the mirrored aviators but the adult size was too big for his face. Fortunately, when you’re extremely hungover and the sun is torturing your eyes, you’ll wear any old damn thing.

The land’s flattening out the closer we get to the beach. It’s like we’re going to drive off the edge of the world. On the sides of the road, the ground’s gone patchy as an old man’s beard, half sand, half scrub. The air pushing past my open car window is thick with that salt-spray smell. I stick my head out and let it coat my face.

The thing is, I can’t stop obsessing over what Dulcie told me about Keith stepping on that land mine. Why do I care? He’s a jerk. A week ago, I would have said, hey, natural selection, man. Stupid people, out of the gene pool. But now I know that in addition to being a boneheaded jerk, Keith also has a mom and a dad and two younger sisters he takes out for ice cream whenever he gets home. I know he sings goofy, off-key songs and has a habit of kissing the top of your head when he’s really drunk.

The exit for South Daytona Beach puts us in a line of cars that’s backed up for miles. A melting pot of different songs flows out of open car windows. Girls stick their feet out windows. Surfboards are attached to car roofs. Some idiot is actually lying on the car roof with one of those silver reflector pads, trying to get a tan. The guys are awake now and ready for action. They scope each car we crawl past. If it’s a girl car, they pile their faces out the windows and chat them up, make jokes—anything to try to score their digits or hotel info. We’ve been in this line for thirty minutes and have only gone a half a mile. At this rate, we’ll be stuck in traffic for hours, and that’s time I just can’t spare.