Odin holds up a stone chop that looks distressingly familiar and speaks in a smoky whiskey voice. "If we're going to free you from Loki's mark, we're going to have to fight fire with fire. Fjalar has lent his aid in crafting a Rune of Ashes that will burn away that which has been burned into you. It is infused with Loki's genetic code, thanks to the teeth you provided, and that will unlock the seal and allow transformation."

That sounds like more than I want. "Uh ... transformation into what?"

"Into a free human. But also into a defeat for Loki." Odin displays the briefest of smiles, but he isn't properly keeping score, in my view. Loki didn't just brand me down in that pit outside Thanjavur-he took two very powerful magical weapons with him: the Lost Arrows of Vayu, and Fuilteach, my whirling blade crafted by the yeti. To even the score, someone would have to steal them back.

Odin hands the stone chop to Fjalar, who places it in the grip of a pair of iron tongs and thrusts it into the coals burning in Odin's hearth. Scenes from several movies flash through my head, where the bad guy does something similar to stimulate dread in the restrained protagonist, but I am looking forward to it. I would endure any pain to get rid of Loki's mark. Pain fades, but freedom is an enduring joy. Admittedly, the freedom I'm seeking is a mental thing-I mostly want my privacy back. Knowing you're being watched by a creep isn't like any physical restraint, but it is a shackle on your conscience.

We stare at the fire together for perhaps ten seconds and then become aware that waiting in silence for the entire time it takes to heat the chop would be uncomfortable. Frigg clears her throat and says to Fjalar, "Do you leave for Svartlfheim soon?"

"Very soon," he says, but before I can inquire why he might be going to visit the dark elves, Odin chimes in with the perceptible air of one who wishes desperately to talk of something else.

"Tell me, Granuaile, did Loki reveal anything else that might allow us to guess when he will act?" he asks.

"No, I did most of the talking. Told him I would kill him the next time I saw him. He didn't reply, but I assume the reverse is true."

I shift my eyes back to the dwarf, considering. The last time I saw him, the Runeskald was working on axes that would cut dark elves in their smoke forms and force them to take physical shape again. If he is going to visit Svartlfheim, it might not be an innocuous trip.

Fjalar forestalls any more conversation by saying, "It's ready." The stone is glowing faintly red when he plucks it out of the fire. It's not bright orange like Loki's was, but I have no doubt I'll feel the heat just fine. "Your arm, please, quickly."

Orlaith, I'm going to be in pain and yell a bit, but don't get upset. I need this.

I roll up my left sleeve, exposing my biceps where Loki branded me. Fjalar's gloved left hand reaches out and guides my hand under his left armpit, bracing me there and using his palm to lock my elbow and keep the arm straight.

"Do your best not to move. Fight the instinct."

"I will," I say, nodding to him and tucking my tongue firmly behind my teeth. I don't want to bite it off when the pain hits-and I'm quite sure it will hit regardless of what I do to block it. I'd been blocking all the pain I could when Loki branded me and I still felt it; his chop did more than burn the skin-it seared the aura, if I understood Odin correctly, marked me on a level beyond mere flesh. Fjalar's Rune of Ashes will presumably do the same. At least I hope it will; multiple tries at this would not be fun.

I can feel the heat radiating from the stone on my cheeks and arm as Fjalar positions the chop above my biceps.

"Do it," I tell him through clenched teeth, and he doesn't hesitate. He clutches my elbow tightly and brings down the chop directly on top of Loki's mark, and the sizzling pain is nothing I could have prepared for. It burns everywhere, not just on my arm, and my muscles seize up and even my throat is unable to scream past an initial cry of shock. But that first, quick gasp opens my mouth and then, despite trying to prepare for it, I bite my tongue anyway. I taste coppery blood in my mouth, and sweat pops out on my skin all over.

"Gah!" Blood spurts out of my mouth and sprays Fjalar in the face. He's keeping the rune on my arm much longer than Loki did. Or maybe it only seems that way.

Orlaith's voice cries out in my mind. I agree heartily but tell her, It won't be much longer. I'll heal.

"We have to make sure we burn it all away," Fjalar says.

"It's through ... my skin!"

"Ah! So it is."

He yanks the rune away and some additional strips of skin come away with it. He releases my arm and calls to a pair of Valkyries. "Bring the water."

I miss where they come from or how long it takes for them to get there-an eternity of pain-but two Valkyries arrive with a large vase sloshing with cold water. I thrust my arm into it, and the lancing fire abates somewhat. Then I'm able to shut off the nerves, pull it out in relief, and examine the hole in my biceps. There's not a trace of Loki's mark left-just crispy Granuaile. I can't flex my arm, but I laugh in delirium anyway. The god of lies used some dark unholy thing to break most of my bones and then branded me, thinking it would break my mind too, turn me into his meek servant. Well, it hadn't quite worked.

"Haha. Hahahahaha. Fuck Loki." I turn to Odin and grin broadly, not caring if it looks as unhinged as it feels to my own muscles. "Am I right?"

CHAPTER 3.

While the bathwater ran, I unwrapped one of those laughably small hotel soaps and then looked at the mud caked on Oberon's fur, especially his belly. It was a David and Goliath situation, but I had little choice except to proceed and hope the wee bar of soap would win.

"All right, buddy, here we go," I said, starting out by splashing him underneath and then pouring cups of water on his back. "No shaking yourself until we're through."

"Okay, let's begin," I said.

To understand what happened to me, you have to know a little bit of Toronto history first.

I had come to Toronto in the fall of 1953 as a pre-med student. The world had learned a lot about surgery and patching up bodies after shooting the hell out of everything in two world wars and another war in Korea, and I thought I might be able to pick up something useful, so I enrolled in the University of Toronto under the name of Nigel Hargrave, with every intention of staying a few years as an earnest wanna-be doctor. I wound up staying only a few months, and the reason for that is a spooky old building and a tragedy in the nineteenth century.

The University of Toronto was actually a collection of old colleges, many of which were religiously affiliated, and one such college-now the Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor Street-used to be a Baptist seminary long ago. It's a red stone Gothic marvel built in 1881, the kind of building where you're sure the architect was laughing maniacally to himself as he huffed a lungful of lead-based paint fumes. Pointy spires and sharply sloped roofs and large windows. Wood floors that echo and creak when you step on them. And attending the seminary in the late nineteenth century was a young man named Nigel, betrothed to Gwendolyn from Winnipeg, dark of hair and possessed of a jealous eye.

Oberon interrupted my narrative with a question. "Oh, yes, that was a Shakespeare thing, from Othello. Jealousy is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on."

"No."

One summer day way back when-these were the days before automobiles, when people rode around in horse-drawn carriages or else they walked-Gwendolyn was crossing the hard-packed dirt of Bloor Street to pay a visit to her Nigel. She had baked a cake specially, and she had a red dress on with a thin matching shawl about her shoulders. Nigel had bought the dress for her, and she knew he was wearing a gray pinstriped suit she had bought him, and she probably thought privately that the two of them made a very smart couple with excellent taste. But because she was worried about dropping her cake, she didn't cross the street to the seminary college as quickly as perhaps she should have. And she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. That's why she didn't even try to get out of the way of the horse and carriage that ran her down-she didn't see it.

Knocked over and trampled by a quarter-ton animal, then run over by the weighted carriage wheels, ribs broken and bleeding internally inside a restrictive corset, all poor Gwendolyn could think of was getting to see Nigel one more time. She first dragged herself and then got some help to make it to the flat stone steps of the seminary, where she died mere seconds before Nigel emerged to investigate the cries for help. Seeing his fiancee's pale dead face there and the callous driver of the carriage continuing down Bloor Street as if nothing had happened, he was filled with a rage unbecoming a minister. Everything he cared about had been ripped from him, and he wanted an eye for an eye. Or at least a chance to deliver a good punch to the jaw, or maybe three. So he rashly chased after the man who had run down his girl and eventually caught him. And then he got himself killed, for the driver of that carriage was armed with a revolver and ill-disposed to fisticuffs with a muttonchopped ginger man wearing a gray pinstripe and gold pocket watch.

Nigel's spirit quite sensibly moved on wherever it was he thought he should go, no doubt missing that he had just been given an object lesson on why it's better sometimes to turn the other cheek. Gwendolyn, however-she had unfinished business. The horribly mangled cake didn't matter except as a visible symbol of her undying love. She couldn't move on until she told Nigel she loved him and heard him say it in return, just one more time. So her spirit moved in to the seminary building, where she searched for him and haunted the building as the Lady in Red for decades afterward.

my hound said as I soaped him up.

"You think?"