"Oh, I saw that," I said, nodding. "Valkyries, battles, Viking warriors with winged helms and magic swords . . ."

"And lightning bolts," Rolph said.

We looked at him and he shrugged.

"I like Bugs Bunny."

"Anyway," Julie said. "Sigurd or Sigmund, I can never remember . . ." She waved the air. "One of them slays the dragon Fafnir with the sword. Blah, blah, fat lady sings."

I winced. "Sigurd, actually."

"My father claimed to have met him," Rolph said.

I rolled my eyes. "So, Julie, do you believe my sword is Gram?"

"It doesn't matter what I think," Julie said, sitting on the edge of the workbench. "There are people out there who believe it. Enough to hurt your friend here."

Touche.

"So, he can sleep in the storeroom. No windows in there. I'll run up to the house and get him some gear."

And back she went, out the door at a skip. Skipping and whistling, actually. I bet this would be a perfect moment to ask for a raise.

We got Rolph bedded down and Julie headed up to the house with a promise to check on him the next day.

"I miscalculated," he said as I was pulling the door closed.

"Sorry?"

"I thought as soon as you saw what he was that you would kill him on the spot."

He was a dim shadow in a room of shadows, so I couldn't see his face, but I let that little puzzle piece rattle in my head a moment.

"You set me up?"

"I knew you would see his true form, recognize him for the beast he is. Was I wrong?"

I shook my head, remembering the fear. The doorknob slipped from my suddenly sweating hands and I leaned against the door frame. "Terrifying."

He didn't say anything for a long time. When I was convinced he had gone to sleep I straightened up and pulled the door closed.

Twenty-nine.

OKAY, TIME TO TAKE THIS UP A NOTCH. I HAD THE SWORD IN my car, and there were at least two thugs looking for it.

What I didn't understand was why Sawyer would offer to buy it from me, then send guys to rough up Rolph. Something didn't add up.

I sat in my car a moment, resting my head against the cool vinyl of the steering wheel and thinking. This was just too much. I needed to talk to Katie. Hell, I just flat needed Katie. I couldn't breathe. So I drove instead.

I parked in the same spot I'd lucked out on a few nights earlier and walked down the alley with the sword in its case in one hand and my favorite hammer in the other. No plan to take a beating.

I passed the Dumpster and thought of Joe. His odor usually preceded him. I'd almost passed the alley when he stumbled out, reeking of sour sweat and cheap wine.

"It is beneath you, smith."

I turned, nearly jumping out of my skin, the sword and case on the ground at my feet, my hammer pulled back for a blow. I rolled onto the balls of my feet and let out a breath.

"Jesus, Joe. Why the hell do you have to scare me like that?"

He stopped by the Dumpster, his features shadowed and twisted by the glow of the streetlight on the corner. "You truck with dwarves, smith."

"Dwarves?" I asked. "Does everybody know about this?"

"He will bring you ruin," Joe said, stepping toward me. He leaned on a rough-hewn tree branch and hobbled toward me a step. "You bear the runes, you bear the sword."

My left leg cramped then, sending me to one knee. I'd really overdone it with that run. I breathed through clenched teeth and stretched my calf, trying to get ahead of the knot.

"You fight the truth, that is plain to see," he said, turning his one good eye toward me. "And your spirit is cloven, sundered by your own fear."

"What the hell do you know?" I whispered, massaging my leg with both hands, the hammer at my feet.

"Know?" he asked with a cackle. "I know you have wounds upon wounds, smith. When will you mend the break within yourself?"

I lifted the hammer and stood, favoring my left leg. "Listen, you creepy old man . . ."

But he was not there. I looked around the Dumpster and as far back into the alley as I dared. No one. I edged back, picked up the sword case, and hobbled out of the alley. Overhead a pair of crows cawed into the blackness before the dawn.

Thirty.

I LIMPED TO THE DOORWAY UP TO KATIE'S PLACE AND REALized I'd left her keys at my apartment. Better to ring up, anyway. Only polite. No real way of telling if she'd even see me. Of course, she'd want to know about Rolph, and the things that had been going on . . . right?

The buzzer stuttered a bit as I held in the button and waited. After a minute, I buzzed again, waiting. On the third try, Katie's sleepy voice called down on the intercom. "I will kill you," she said.

"Katie?" I asked.

"Sarah?" Her voice was suddenly more awake.

"Yeah, can I come up?"

She didn't answer right away and I leaned against the brick.

"Are you drunk?" she asked, finally.

Fair question, but . . . "No," I said. Still hurt.

"It's really late."

"I just want to talk. Rolph's been attacked. There's news about the sword."

"Oh," she said, hesitant. "How do you know I'm not having a Sapphic orgy up here as we speak?"

That was absurd. "What are you talking about?" I asked.

"Never mind. You can come up for a minute."

Okay, that was something. The lock buzzed and I pulled the door open, finagled my gear through, and began the painful climb up to the second floor. My calf burned like nothing I'd ever experienced.

Katie met me at the door dressed in her summer pajamas and a robe. Usually she slept naked, so the tone was set. She watched me with a cautious expression as I pulled the sword case through the door, and tried not to drop the hammer as I pushed around the couch and collapsed on the loveseat. "Could I get something to drink?" I asked. "Please?"

She stood there a moment, contemplating, and then nodded. Schoolteacher till the end.

"And some ibuprofen?"

I took the two pills and the glass with a smile. The water wasn't the only thing that was cold.

Katie sat at her kitchen table, toying with her own glass of water and yawning. "What's going on?" she asked, looking up.

I could see the redness in her lovely brown eyes. Likely crying as much as sleep loss. Katie never cried. I hated that I did that to her, but . . .

"I'm sorry about last night."

She didn't nod, or say anything. Just took a small sip of water and held the glass on her lap with both hands.

"Right. Well. Things aren't going so good right now. Rolph was beat up, and . . ."

"New girlfriend?" she asked.

"What?"

"Little old to be banging college kids, but I guess I'm not much older, huh?"

The room spun for a moment. "Me? What are you talking about?"

"You didn't have to wear her clothes over here," she said, the bitterness thick in her throat. "Melanie and I are just friends. We were just meeting to talk." She hiccoughed a catch, trying not to cry. "I wanted to talk about us," she held her hand at me, open palmed, and drew it back to tap on her own chest. "You and me. About Jimmy's and . . ." She turned her head and sniffled a bit, taking a napkin from the table and dabbing her eyes. "All we did was talk."

"O-okay," I said, lost. "I believe you."

"Fine, then can you go, please?"

She rose and stepped toward the door. "If you needed to sleep with someone else because you were scared, or uncertain, or just didn't understand your sexuality yet, that's one thing." She was angry now, not sad. I sat there, holding the empty water glass to my chest and trying to breathe.

"Katie, what are you talking about?"

"You didn't have to fuck her, and then wear her clothes here. That's just low . . . beneath you."

I looked down and realized I was still wearing the pink sorority sweats. I laughed. Wrong move, and it sent her blood pressure up about fifty points, but I couldn't help it. This was surreal.

"Jesus, Katie," I said, standing. I walked to the kitchen and set the glass into the sink. "I didn't sleep with anyone, and how I got these is part of the story."

I walked back into the living room and she stood at the door, holding it open with her hand pointing toward the hall.

"I swear to God. I'm wearing these because I pissed myself at the movie shoot."

A moment of doubt crossed her face, and she softened a pinch.

"Don't lie to me," she whispered. "Just tell me you needed to get it out of your system or something, but don't lie."

I walked up to her and fell to my knees at her feet. "Katie, I swear to you. I would never do that to you, and I would never flaunt it like this, never hurt you like this."

She looked down at me for the longest time. I didn't move, just sat at her feet, looking up and praying. Then the cramp exploded in my calf again and I spasmed sideways, knocking the end table askew. I growled a wounded cry and clutched my calf, all dignity gone, all pretense vanished in the white-hot pain that seared my calf.

"Sarah, my God," Katie said, letting the door close with a bang, and kneeling beside me. "Charley horse?"

"Yes," I managed to hiss.

She worked my calf, pushing my hands out of the way for a moment. Then she slid the sweats up over my calf and stopped, rocking back on her heels. "What the hell is this?"

I rolled up on my shoulder and looked at my calf. There was a marking of some sort there, like a T with the arms drooping down at a forty-five-degree angle. "No idea," I whispered.

She got up, ran to the kitchen, and returned with an icepack. The coldness took the bite out of the pain, and the muscles began to unclench.

Soon I was lying on her couch, on my stomach, with my legs in her lap and my sweats pulled up to my knees.

She examined both calves, looking for further markings, but the marks on my left calf were the only ones.

"Looks like a brand," she said, gingerly touching the tissue. "But it could be a tattoo of some sort."

"I didn't have anything done," I said, feeling fairly vulnerable at that moment. "I swear."

"These are too healed, sort of," she said, scribbling on a piece of paper. "It looks as if they are coming through the skin, pushing outward, as it were. Here," she handed me a notebook with five symbols.

"Symbols like on the sword," I said, rolling over and slipping my feet to the floor. "This is too damn creepy."

I pushed the pant leg back down over my calf and limped to the case, which now sat on her kitchen table. I opened it and pulled the sword out. Once my hand firmly grasped the pommel the light in the room dimmed and then brightened. Colors seemed to shift into a brighter shade and I felt invigorated, pain free.

"You okay?" Katie asked, standing.