Sorcha's Secret World, Part one.

Chapter 32, The melting Frost Giant.

"I hate this heat," Loki grumbled, turning the air conditioner in the car up another notch.

I shivered and started to dig in my bag for a cardigan.

"Did you know that Frost Giants melt under these sort of temperatures?"

I rolled my eyes.

"We do, you know," Loki said glumly. "I hope you packed a mop in that bag of yours because you'll be bringing me home in a bucket. My epitaph will read 'Here lies Loki, once glorious god of Mischief, now a pathetic little puddle.' It is heartbreaking if you truly think about it."

"I'll keep you in a bowl on the mantlepiece," I promised, "I might even get you a little goldfish. I'll call it Fred."

"You are mocking me," Loki accused. "You are not taking me seriously at all. You are a cruel and heartless woman."

I just grinned. It was warm, outside the car. It was June and we were on the road in Louisiana.

Loki had turned the air conditioner up so high that I could see my breath. He was fine, and I doubted he'd really melt anyway.

We had been on a few missions since we had returned from Niflheim. Loki wasn't working for the Templars anymore, but he still came along every time. He claimed it was because someone needed to keep an eye on me and because I was likely to get lost on a straight road if he wasn't there to hold my hand. I was hopeless at the job without him really, or so he said.

I suspected that the truth was more that Loki actually enjoyed the work. Every mission was different, we never knew what we'd face. Loki had many amazing qualities. Whether it was his vast amount of knowledge of both the magical and the mundane, his astute powers of observation, his dazzling charm or his skill on the battlefield both with weapons or his magic, almost every single one of them was challenged on regular occasion and he rose to the challenge with an effortless grace that never stopped to amaze me or, as I sometimes expected, himself either. He was good at what we did, and he enjoyed it.

"You can just stay in the car, and I'll take care of it by myself," I offered. I knew he'd refuse, but maybe it would put a stop to the endless barrage of complaints about the weather I had been listening to.

Pregnant women had been disappearing along the Interstate Highways, not to be seen again. Most of them had been vulnerable women, homeless or living in poverty, and not much of an alarm had been raised until women from a middle-class background had started disappearing as well.

Recently one of the kidnappings was caught on CCTV, showing helmeted men clad in full leather and riding motorbikes dragging a pregnant woman from her vehicle. Local law enforcement chased the bikers to a wooded area, but t when they tried to enter they'd just got turned around and found themselves where they had started.

The Templars had been called in shortly after.

Loki rolled his eyes at me but said nothing. We both knew he'd be right there by my side.

"Do you have any idea what we might be up against?" I asked, now I could finally get a word in edgewise.

"I'm not certain. My guess is that they aren't so much after the mothers as after the unborn infants. A demon-worshipping cult perhaps, looking to sacrifice newborns?" Loki shrugged.

"Loki, that is horrible!"

"Well, don't look at me, that was never my cup of tea. I mainly swindled people out of their money, I never did the whole human sacrifice thing!"

"I never said you did," I hadn't even considered that to be honest.

"I sacrificed a goat once," Loki suddenly confessed, "but it was a really old one. And I felt awful afterwards."