Chapter 37

WE ARE GRIMNIR

Alexander groaned as Annie rolled off him.

“Oh, shit,” Annie gasped. “Sorry, I didn’t know what else to do!”

His sternum had been aching ever since the empowered skeleton backhanded him at the museum, and Annie’s metal shoulder hadn’t helped. He wasn’t sure if the crack he’d heard was from the tackle or a fractured rib.

And he was still bleeding. He reactivated his Electrokinesis, tightening muscles and tendons to clamp the worst wounds shut.

He waved weakly at her. “Not your fault. It was this or becoming part of the building.”

Sitting up slowly, he saw Augustus working on another portal. The slump of his shoulders and sweat dripping down his face made it likely this one would be his last of the day. Alexander glanced back at the ruined building and watched as it imploded from the roof down, windows bursting while clouds of concrete dust cascaded floor by floor.

Even from this distance, the dragon’s furious roar at losing its prey sent a shiver through him.

“I still can’t believe it,” Alexander muttered. “A freaking dragon. That guy has a dragon.”

Annie crossed her arms and glared at him. “And I can’t believe you actually knew the Ice Queen and didn’t tell me!”

“Who?” Alexander asked, frowning.

“Uh, The Winter Goddess? Lady Snowveil? The Undefeatable Ice Queen?” Annie paced back and forth, arms flailing as if that would add weight to her outrage. “I could have got an autograph!”

It slowly dawned on him that she was talking about Julia. He barked a laugh, then clutched his ribs with regret.

“You’re talking about Jules?” he groaned. “She’s the furthest thing from an Ice Queen.”

Talia stepped in beside Annie. “More importantly, Alex, you unlocked your third power, didn’t you? Telekinesis, perhaps?”

“Holy shit, that’s right!” Annie shouted. “We were all bam, boom, ugh, and then you were all grrr, and then everything stopped moving!”

“Seemed more like Metallokinesis to me,” Augustus chimed in, not looking up from the forming portal. “He can confirm it once we’re safe.”

Alexander pushed himself to his feet, careful not to bend or twist. He looked back toward the collapsing building, now a haze of dust. Overhead, the dragon sniffed at the air.

And if he wasn’t mistaken, it was beginning to turn in their direction.

“Auggy’s right,” Alexander said, extending his senses outward. “Let me just grab something first.”

Come to me. Shut down all signals and tracking.

A small object zipped up from street level between the surrounding buildings. At the same time, the dragon roared again and dove, wings pumping as it tore through the air straight at them.

Below, Julia burst from the wreckage of the building in a shower of dust. She hovered for a heartbeat, rotated, spotted the dragon’s path, and shot after it, accelerating fast.

“Auggy!” Annie shouted. “I’d like to order that portal with express shipping, please!”

Augustus grunted. “Yelling doesn’t make it cast faster.”

“C’mon,” Annie said, turning to Alexander and pressing two fingers to her temple in a mock psychic pose. “Yank ‘em out of the sky with your brain power.”

He ignored her, snagging the stolen spherical drone out of the air with one hand as it zipped into reach. The only one he hadn’t detonated earlier, and one of the most advanced pieces of tech he’d ever handled. He was already itching to take it apart and learn what made it tick.

Maybe even build a few of his own to replace the disposable minis he’d been using.

“Portal’s up!” Augustus said. “Let’s move.”

“After you, big man,” Talia said, slipping through after him.

Annie jogged after her, sneaking one last look back at the dragon. Or maybe the heroes.

Alexander backed toward the portal, mind reeling at how everything had come to this. Jules had been the first person outside his family to support his dream of becoming a superhero. And now she was streaking across the sky to stop him, a wanted supervillain, from escaping.

Well… I guess that was mostly the other me’s dream.

She was close enough now that he could see her expression. Determination, mostly. But maybe—just maybe—there was the faintest hint of a smile.

Maximilian was just as interesting. From the moment they’d landed, Alexander had felt the man’s intensity, though he’d seemed almost bored even once the fighting started. Now, realizing he couldn’t stop his quarry from escaping, he looked alive. Excited, even.

I’m probably reading too much into it.

Alexander raised the drone in one hand and gave a casual wave with the other.

“It was good to see you again, Jules!” he shouted. “Hopefully next time it won’t be on opposite sides.”

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Then he hopped backward through the portal with one last thought: Wonder what happened to the invisible guy when the building came down.

On the other side, the portal winked out just as he bumped into someone’s back. Turning, he found himself pressed into a wall of bodies clustered in the middle of the safe house living room.

“What’s going on?” Alexander asked.

No one answered.

Sighing, he wedged himself between Annie and Talia until he saw the cause of the silence.

The couch was gone. In its place sprawled a massive, uneven heap of gold bars, loose gemstones, ornate jewelry, and a weird wooden clock. The treasure sparkled beneath the overhead light like a dragon’s hoard.

“Oh my god,” Annie whispered, eyes gleaming. “We’re freaking rich.”

Alexander’s hand snapped out just in time to catch her collar as she leaned forward.

“Do not swan dive into the gold bars,” he warned. “You’ll break something. Probably everything.”

“But—” Annie jabbed a finger at the pile. “But look at it!”

He was.

How the hell are we going to spend it though?

“How are we going to spend it?” Talia asked, voicing his thought aloud.

Augustus had the answer. “We’ll need to fence most of it. We might be able to exchange the gold if we knew the right people, but we’ll need a professional for the rest. And they’ll take a cut depending on how much they like us.”

The others stared at him.

“What? You’ve never seen a crime movie?” he said, throwing up his hands. “Bah, kids these days have no culture. It’s all super sports and drama holos.”

“Why’s gold still worth anything if we use credits?” Annie muttered, rummaging through the pile.

“Key element in advanced tech alloys,” Alexander said. “And people still like shiny things.”

“Cool,” she said, tugging out a fancy necklace.

After a moment of her fumbling, Talia sighed and helped clasp it.

“So what’s it worth?” Annie asked.

Alexander glanced at Augustus. He shrugged. Alexander turned to Annie and shrugged.

Talia tilted her head, studying the pile. “Based on roughly fifty gold bars, seventy to ninety pieces of high-end jewelry, and about fifteen kilos of cut and uncut gems… I’d say somewhere between sixty-five and seventy-five million credits.”

The whole team stared at her.

“What?” she asked. “Alright, fine, probably more once we get the antiques and custom pieces appraised. But that’s before we lose whatever cut Auggy’s fence takes.”

“I don’t have a fence!” Augustus sputtered, turning red. “I just… might know a guy. Who knows a guy. Who told me about this stuff.”

They stared at Augustus with suspicion.

True to his word, Alexander let Talia stitch his wounds. She warned him he’d carry a web of scars across his arms and neck. He just hoped they looked cool.

Annie was too busy trying on jewelry to complain about her lack of revenge. Her gut wound was under control thanks to MetaMetal Adaptation, but it wasn’t a solution. Talia had examined it and confirmed she couldn’t do much without a surgical suite, though she said it would be a straightforward procedure if they had access to one. Another option was a healer, but none of them knew of any.

Well, Talia knew someone. But it would mean kidnapping an AEGIS officer and forcing them into service.

Instead, their focus shifted to the business card left behind by the man calling himself The Doorman. None of them had heard of him or his boss, the Queen of Hearts, but they all agreed they sounded like the kind of people who could put them in touch with the right contacts.

Just not yet. With the Throne of Scales possibly on their trail, they decided unanimously to retreat to Augustus's estate to recover. Treasure in tow, of course.

The safe house was burned as well. Even if they bothered to retrieve the sofa, someone would eventually discover it. And it turned out that dropping gold bars onto a living room floor left noticeable damage.

Who knew?

When Augustus had recovered enough for one last portal, they packed the loot into stolen duffles and spare bags. Augustus muttered the whole time about spinal damage and early retirement.

They stepped into the familiar estate living room. The moment the last bag hit the floor, the portal winked out. The four split wordlessly for the night.

Showers. Wounds cleaned. Beds found. Nothing more was said that night.

Alexander woke to sunlight warming his face and birdsong from the balcony.

Even through the door he could smell Augustus's breakfast. Rising, he winced at forgotten aches, especially the rib or two he suspected were broken. Or fractured.

Not that I know the difference.

By the time he reached the dining room, the others were already gathered around the long table. Augustus's trademark continental-plus breakfast spread stretched across it, complete with his favorite pancakes.

Talia sat near the end, tablet in hand, one leg tucked beneath her. Annie was already double-fisting a croissant and a sausage roll, halfway into her second plate. Augustus nursed an oversized mug of coffee that read World’s Greatest Dungeon Master.

The scene was familiar, almost peaceful. It felt like home. Alexander pulled out a chair and joined them. He didn’t smile, but the corner of his mouth twitched as he sat down. After everything, somehow this just felt right.

“Any good headlines, Tee?” Annie asked with her mouth full.

Talia arched an eyebrow. “Tee? What happened to ‘T.K.’?”

“You didn’t like it,” Annie said after swallowing. “So I’m trying something else.”

“I see,” Talia murmured, eyes flicking back to the tablet. “In answer to your question, yes. People in Argentum woke up this morning to the news that the Throne of Scales dispatched their Alpha Wing and eliminated a group of supervillains that had been terrorizing the city for weeks.”

“Bastards,” Annie muttered, stabbing her fork into a sausage.

Alexander hadn’t expected they’d get the credit, but he also hadn’t expected Throne of Scales to claim it. That didn’t fit what he thought he’d learned of them in their brief encounter.

“Who’s saying that?” he asked.

Talia smiled faintly. “As always, you cut to the heart of it.” She flipped the tablet toward him. “It’s an AEGIS press release. No Throne of Scales members present.”

She swiped through a few more screens. “Though it’s since been scrubbed, hundreds of their fans claim they saw a contradictory post briefly on the guild site. Only up for three minutes before deletion. In it they said they couldn’t take credit because others had eliminated the threat before they arrived.”

Her gaze locked with his. “They claimed it was the supervillain group Grimnir,” she said, drawing the name out. “Which brings me to the real question: Why Grimnir?”

The question even made Annie pause mid-chew. Out of the corner of his eye, Alexander saw Augustus sip his coffee with a faint smile.

“It was that weird junkie prophet that made me think of it,” he said. “Back at the precinct. Then Augustus got us rings with Odin’s birds, Huginn and Muninn, and the wolves, Geri and Freki.”

Alexander sighed. “Honestly, I just wanted to lock in something cool before the public started calling us The Hellboiz or something equally cursed.”

Annie snorted. “I’m putting that on a shirt.”

“The Hellboiz…” Talia repeated, sounding personally offended. “Gods forbid.”

“I think the name suits us,” Augustus said. “And I must confess, after you shared the prophecy with me, it did influence me when I requested the rings.”

Annie swallowed loudly. “So… what is a Grimnir, anyway?”