Honestly, when they said I’d be getting a haircut, I kinda figured that meant we’d go to a barber or something.  Instead, I find myself in a penthouse apartment overlooking Brooklyn. I glance at a mirrored wall and recognize my short, shaggy, white hair is definitely in need of a trim.  I can’t argue.

 

“So, um, how are we doing this?” I ask.  “Do you have some scissors or something?”

 

Odin belts out a deep belly laugh.  “Ha! You have no idea what’s in store for you.  Once Billie is done, you won’t want to have your hair done any other way!”

 

I can’t say that sounds encouraging at all.  I glance at Arey, and she simply shrugs. I feel like she should be a little more concerned, yet she mostly just seems to be finding this funny.  I turn to Billie to ask what I’m in for, but it’s already too late. He’s already singing. His angelic voice fills the room. I feel almost mesmerized.  And then… oh shit. Why are there swords? What is going on? I make to dodge a sword that comes flying at me out of nowhere. It narrowly misses my head, scraping by the side of my head.

 

The Mother of Monsters

Faced with the swords of the angels

Dances with ease

 

“What the hell?!”  I dodge another blade just barely.  Another comes from the air above me and I duck just out of the way.  The next thing I know, the swords are gone as quickly as they had appeared.

 

“There,” says Billie.  “What do you think?”

 

“What do I think?!?” I scream indignantly.  “You just attacked me with flying swords!”

 

“No I didn’t.  I attacked your HAIR with flying swords!”

 

Utterly confused, I turn back to the mirror wall and see he’s right.  What was a mop of short, shaggy hair is now neatly trimmed on three sides, leaving only the bangs to curl down over my eyes with a little bit of a twist to the right.

 

“Oh, you sly son of a bitch…”

Odin and Arey then burst into laughter.  Clearly they knew this was going to happen and just wanted to see the look on my face.  I’ll have to get them back for that later. For now, though, I can’t help admiring Billie’s “handiwork.”  The girl in the mirror turns her head in sync with me. She looks… cool? And she’s me.

 

My reverie was broken by Odin.  “Ahem. Right, well, I have business in Asgard that I need to attend to, so I best be off.”

 

“Wait!” I say.  “How am I supposed to get home?”

 

“Ask your jötun friend,” he said, gesturing at Arey.  “She knows how to open a portal.”

 

“But… I don’t think I can trust her to take me home.”

 

Arey looked remorseful.  “It was unfair of Astveig to keep you locked up in the library.  We should never have forced you to stay, and now that we know you can operate the portal device, I’m not sure we could if we wanted to.  If you’d like, I can teach you the spell to return to the Library?”

 

“See?” says Odin.  “Now that that is resolved, I’ll be on my way.  Ta ta!” Odin quickly opens a portal and vanishes through it before anyone can say otherwise.  Was that a raven? Wait a minute…

 

Before I can finish that thought, Billie interrupts.  “May I suggest we move on to your armor? I have some ideas I think you might like.”

 

“Wait, you do armor too?” I ask.

 

“Of course!  What do you think I did before I got into music?  That’s why they call it ‘heavy metal!’” He sings, he styles hair, he forges armor.  Jack of all trades. He really IS a bard. “Nowadays, we mostly work with high tech fabrics.  Lightweight, more flexible, has better stopping power.”

 

Arey looks confused.  “How does that work? Wouldn’t that make the armor less protective?”

 

Billie puts on that oh-so-charming grin again.  “Not with the stuff we work with. Turns out the harder you make the stuff, the more brittle it becomes, so flexibility is actually a lot more valuable.  You jötnar aren’t such big fans of guns, but trust me, out here in Midgard they really REALLY like their guns.” The look on his face suggested he had some rather personal experience with this.

 

Billie hands me a booklet of drawings.  I flip through what appear to be drawings of me in various outfits.

 

“Um, Billie, have you been stalking me?  How can you have all these drawings of me when we just met?”

 

Billie looked at me aghast.  “No! No, of course not. I would never do that.  It’s just a magic book. Comes up with all the designs I’ve thought up for the person holding the book at the time.  Here, look.” He takes the booklet from my hand and flips through it, displaying a number of different appearances for himself.  One where he looks a reject from KISS, another where he probably would have fit in in Led Zeppelin, and then… “Oops, how did that one get in there?”  He quickly shuts the book before I can get a good look at one that seems to be showing an awful lot of his dark skin.

 

“Let me see that,” said Arey, eager not to be left out.  She yanked the book out of Billie’s hands and opened it to find it was blank.  “Why is it empty?”

 

“Because I haven’t put any thought into outfits for you!  No one asked me to.”

 

Looking through the booklet again, I realized something.  “Uh, Billie, these all look like superhero costumes?” I saw one with a cape and high collar, another one that looked like it was made of mostly tactical pouches, another that had a mask that made it look like some sort of insect.  All had very distinct colors.

 

“Well, yeah,” Billie said.  “Can’t fault the classics. They tend to be the most practical designs these days.  Light weight, flexible and easily identifiable in a fight so your friends don’t mistake you for an enemy.”

 

I kept looking.  I blanched as I came upon one that was little more than a bikini.  Well, as much as a ghost-white jötun could “blanche.” This was supposed to be armor?  Then I came to something that seemed much more sensible.

 

“What about this one?” I asked, pointing to a pale green bodysuit with white boots, belt and gloves.

 

Billie nodded.  “I thought you might like that one.  It’s simple, practical, and it matches your eyes.”  Oh god. Did he have to say that? I might not be into guys, but I had to admit Billie had a certain charm that even I couldn’t help feeling a little awkward next to.

 

“What do you think?” I asked, turning to Arey.

 

“It looks practical,” she replied.  “Definitely not typical jötun fashion, but it would at least keep you protected in the cold in Jötunheim.  As for Midgard, I’m afraid you and Bilverk are more aware of the needs of this realm.”

 

“Shall we head down to my workshop, then?” said Billie, pressing a button on the wall that opened up a hidden door that revealed a staircase going down.  It looked like some sort of cellar or basement staircase. In a penthouse. I’ve officially decided to stop questioning anything ever.

 

Billie led us down the staircase into a room that for all my understanding of the laws of physics shouldn’t even exist.  It was like a factory floor, with half a dozen short people running around.

 

“Evening, Billie,” said a small but muscular woman.  She stood about four feet tall and had arms that looked like she could probably be an Olympic shot putter.  Her long, brown hair hung down to her butt. “Who are your friends?”

 

“Evening, Agni,” replied Billie with his trademark grin.  “This is Arey and Chris. Chris needs a super suit.” Did he have to say it like that?  Billie showed Agni the outfit we’d decided on.

 

Agni looked at the design and nodded her head.  “Alright. Me and the lads can have that for you ready by morning.”  She turned to a small, bearded man. “Fire up the fabric printer! We’ve got an order directly from the top!”  All the short men hopped to work, activating machines of various shapes and sizes.

 

Billie nodded in satisfaction.  “The dwarves work hard, and they can make just about anything that doesn’t have a soul.  If it can be crafted by hand, they can probably make it better.” He smiled brightly. “We just have to wait until they’re finished.”  Billie led us back upstairs.

 

****

 

After a light dinner, Arey began teaching me the portal spell as we sat on Billie’s couch.  “Place your hands out in front of you like this.” She placed both her hands in front of herself, palms forward, fingers splayed.  I imitated her posture and pose. “Now, clear your mind and picture a circular array of buttons around each of your hands.”

 

I shook my head.  “How am I supposed to clear my mind AND picture something?”

 

Arey turned into an old Nike commercial.  “Just do it.”

 

I did as I was told and just tried to picture a circular keyboard around my hands.  To my surprise, it worked. “Whoah!”

 

“What?” exclaimed Arey in surprise.

 

“Did you see that?” I asked.

 

Arey shook her head.  “Normally, only you can see your own magic.  Only if you use a certain spell can you see others’ magic, although magic beyond a certain level of power, like Astveig’s, becomes ‘overt.’”

 

From there, Arey went into an explanation of the symbols required to “spell out” the spell that needed to be cast to create a portal back to the Library.  I had taken a little bit of programming in college and realized it was very similar to scripting a program, only in this case you’re scripting reality. Now I just needed to learn how to properly operate the portal device to return home.

 

Uh oh.  Home. I never heard from Cat after the wolf attacked!  I checked my phone. It was dead again, since I hadn’t really had much opportunity to charge it before we left.  I leapt to my feet and rushed over to Billie, who was enjoying a cocktail at his personal bar. “Ineedauseyerfone!”

 

“Whoah, whoah, slow down there, cowgirl.  Say that again, preferably in at least one one of the languages I actually know?”

 

I took a deep breath.  “I need to use your phone, please.”

 

Billie pulled a corded phone out from behind the bar.  I was suddenly really glad I’d gone to the trouble of memorizing Cat’s number.  Really, in this day and age we rely so much on our phones just knowing our contacts, when you’re stuck without it you’re screwed!  Before dialing Cat, I made sure to ask Billie for his number so she could call me back. Naturally, Cat didn’t answer. She never does when it’s a number she doesn’t recognize, which is why I was quick to grab Billie’s number.  I left a message letting her know I was okay and how to reach me.

 

When she called back a few minutes later, I was so relieved to hear her voice.  “Thank god you called, Chris. I was worried sick about you. Where are you?”

 

“I’m in New York, if you can believe it.  Remember that jötun I told you about? Arey?  Well, she saved my ass, and then we were both portaled here by the god Odin.”

 

“Wow.  Damn, that’s… that’s a lot right there.”

 

“Yep.  I should be able to get home tomorrow.  Thankfully, Arey’s taught me some portal tricks.”

 

There was a long pause.  “That’s good,” she finally said.  “Listen, there’s been some developments here.  Your dad came by the house looking for you. I think he believed your story, but it doesn’t sound like your mom did.”

 

I swallowed hard.  The emotions from my encounter with Mom and Dad were still raw.  I should have known Mom would be hard to convince, and even if she did believe, she probably would have rejected me anyway.  “That’s… I honestly don’t know what to say to that right now. I’m still having a hard time with that. Have you heard from Justin?”

 

“Yeah.  He’s home now, and I informed him of the situation.  First thing he said was ‘Is he a hot chick?’”

 

I gagged.  “Gross. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

“Okay,” said Cat.  “Try to get some sleep, okay?”

 

“Will do,” I assured her.  And I did, though I would come to regret it.