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Pixie appeared out of the fog, looking like a goddess. Her long, black hair was plaited and hung down to her waist, and her soft, brown skin stood stark contrast to the grey of the fog. She was almost as beautiful in human form as she was as a cat.
“I can get you out of here,” she said. “Come with me.”
As willing as he’d been moments before to fantasize about turning himself in for a bath and a meal, he now found himself unwilling to submit to further captivity.
“I’d rather not,” he said, backing away carefully. “Frankie needs to know Loki is on the move in Portland. She’s unprotected, uninformed. There is no one to guide her!”
Pixie snorted and took a large step toward him. “Unprotected and unguided? She lives with the former First and several full Valkyries, in addition to a true shifter, a powerful psychic, and an enchantress, not to mention a reaper and a goddess. She is protected.”
“An enchantress?” Archibald ignored the hurtful fact that his presence was superfluous at best to fasten onto the revelation that there was someone at the Aerie that he didn’t know about. “I haven’t seen anyone like that. Everyone else you mentioned, yes, although the goddess isn’t always there. But not an enchantress, which sounds a little sexist, by the way.”
“Would you prefer witch?” Pixie countered.
“It’s not about what I want.” Archibald had never wanted to say “duh” so much as he did right now, but he held it back. No need to pull out slang now when he’d resisted this long already. “Once she is identified, she will decide. But if she is part of our pantheon, she may want to be called vølve.” He tilted his head and thought about the word and its near homophone. “Or perhaps not. Regardless, it will be up to her.”
In her human form, Pixie was perfectly capable of rolling her eyes, but it was unsettling to see her slitted pupils flick upwards in exasperation.
“This is not the point,” Pixie said. “Your absence will not negatively impact the First. In fact, it might make her life easier if she is not having to keep track of an incompetent sidekick.”
Of everything she’d said, accused him of, and called him, nothing hurt as much as being called a sidekick, no matter how true.
Archibald took another two careful steps back. His muscles trembled; he was at the end of his strength. It didn’t matter how much longer he tried to resist capture. If she waited a few more minutes, Pixie would scoop him up without a fight when he collapsed.
“Please.” Cats didn’t beg, but the expected wash of shame didn’t arrive.
Her expression softened for the length of a tail swish, then disappeared. “You have to be held accountable for your crimes.”
Archibald collapsed. “What’s to stop Loki and his minions from taking us both again?”
Pixie held up her hand. Two tall figures formed out of the fog and stepped forward. They wore leather cuirasses that left their slimly muscled arms bare and carried unsheathed swords. Their faces were mostly covered by the nose guards on their dull-grey helms.
“This time, I have backup.”
Pixie scooped up his unresisting body and slid him into a cat carrier, then covered it so he couldn’t see out to teleport, not that he had enough energy to, anyway. It was superior to a sack, but not large enough to be comfortable. Archibald didn’t care, though. A blanket cushioned the hard rigid plastic of the carrier, and he could rest.
Chapter Seven
Archibald jolted awake as he crashed to the ground. His crate rolled end over end, finally sliding to a halt. The door sprang open, and he jumped free and looked around wildly. He didn’t know exactly where he was, but the ache in his muscles and the soaring spires of the St. Johns Bridge proved he hadn’t been taken far.
“Pssttt…” Pixie’s voice hissed from somewhere below him.
He looked around but couldn’t spot her.
“Down here,” she whispered.
Archibald crept downhill on his belly, eyes darting as he tried to spot Pixie. It occurred to him that instead of Pixie, he might be walking toward Loki. He dashed into a blackberry bramble, wincing as thorns tangled in his fur and pierced his already bloody feet.
“What are you doing?”
Archibald didn’t answer and give away his position, just burrowed further into the bramble.
After a few minutes of silence, disembodied blue eyes appeared at the edge of the bramble. A second later, he could make out the outline of her feline form. “Archibald, I know you’re in there.” Pixie sounded exasperated, a tone Archibald had come to know well in the years they’d known each other.
For the first time in his life, he cursed his gorgeous, fluffy orange coat and wished he were small and black like Pixie. A whiff of garbage floated by his nose, reminding him he was likely more grey than orange, but it wouldn’t matter what he looked like. She—or Loki, or anyone with a nose—could follow his stench.
“What’s the first thing you said to me when we met?” he asked. He didn’t know if Loki could steal memories with form, but if he could, Archibald hoped the god wouldn’t have grabbed onto something that seemed so inconsequential.
She sighed. “I told you a ginger cat had never passed training, and you’d be no different. Orange cats are not known for either their brains or brawn.” Faint regret tinged her voice. “Of course, I was right. You didn’t pass, did you?”
