Mjolnir
by Brian James
Genre:
Urban Fantasy
Urban Fantasy
The Viking gods have been banished from Asgard by Odin. Today they make
the best of life on Earth. Thor is a professional athlete, Freya a
prostitute, and Loki sells cheap products on QVC. Lurking in the
background of their lives is a prophecy; one that declares that their
time is at an end. Ragnarok is about to throw the gods into a state
of civil war and the one who controls the hammer of Thor may be able
to change the arc of destiny.
the best of life on Earth. Thor is a professional athlete, Freya a
prostitute, and Loki sells cheap products on QVC. Lurking in the
background of their lives is a prophecy; one that declares that their
time is at an end. Ragnarok is about to throw the gods into a state
of civil war and the one who controls the hammer of Thor may be able
to change the arc of destiny.
THOR
When Trent Adams was a child he never wanted to grow up to
be anything but a professional football player. These men who played this most
violent of games, were, to him anyway, the personification of every superhero
come to life. His mom was less enthusiastic about his passion. She heard the
stories about the dirty locker room conversations, the lighting of bodily
gasses, and how they considered giving wedgies to members of the debate team as
a form of high comedy. Mother Adams considered these activities beneath her
nice, middle class son. Despite her reservations she supported him anyway while
quietly hoping that Trent would wind up in a career that involved a white lab
coat and the words “Dr. Adams.”
His mother’s dream of a doctor in the family died a slow
painful death over the years as it became obvious that Trent was that rare
breed of person who was perfectly suited, both physically and mentally, for
professional athletics—football in particular. He had the type of gritty
toughness and confidence in his own indestructibility that suggested he might
recreationally drink acid or poke an ill-tempered bison with a stick just for
fun.
The American Medical Association (along with any reputable
med school) may have wanted nothing to do with him, but the Minnesota Vikings
recognized these traits. They invested a lot of hope in him when they traded up
in the draft to get him as the eleventh player taken in the first round of the
NFL draft.
From the moment he stepped on the Viking’s practice field he
was the type of courageous leader that the team had been lacking since the days
of Fran Tarkenton. The Vikings were tickled purple and Trent was living his
dream.
Yes, all his life, Trent wanted to be a professional
football player. That was until this moment. Three minutes from half-time in a
game against the Oakland Raiders during an unforgiving downpour, Trent was
panicking in the huddle… and it had nothing to do with the weather. This was
the first time in his life that he wished he had listened to his mother and
gone into podiatry.
“Byron, you line up
with Smith and double team that son of a bitch!” Trent’s voice crackled with
panic and fear as he shouted instructions in the huddle.
He looked over at the Raiders huddle. All of them were
clustered together getting their defensive play ready for the next snap. All of
them except for number 74. Thor just stood outside the huddle and stared back
at him. Trent could feel Thor’s icy blue eyes piercing him. There was a
dispassionate sort of hate and malice in the stare. It sent the clear message
that Trent would soon have a greater understanding and appreciation for the
whole “lamb to slaughter” cliché. Those eyes also expressed a sort of casual
ease with violence that was unnerving. It was the look someone would expect to
see if they found themselves face to face with a person like Heinrich Himmler
or a dental school graduate.
Trent couldn’t take it anymore. If it was just the look, he
would spend the rest of the game (and probably the day) completely creeped
out…but he would get over it. There was history behind that look though. Thor
was a man whose NFL career was built on the broken bodies of his opponents.
This was a guy who ended careers and on a few controversial occasions, lives as
well. The look combined with the body count credited to Thor’s ledger was too
much for him to deal with.
“It’s just a game, man!” Trent screamed over at him, “What’s
wrong with you?!” The panicked quarterback started doing some quick math in his
head. He was trying to do the sort of fractions where some of the numbers got
cancelled out. Specifically he wanted to make sure number 74 was the one
removed from the equation.
He had assigned a 250 lb. tight end along with a 320 lb.
tackle to protect him from the six foot four, 280 lb. sociopath. His brain
reached the conclusion that the Vikings may be in need of a new tight end and
another offensive tackle when the play was over. He needed more guys on Thor if
he was going to live through the final minutes of the first half. Once the
second quarter was over Trent planned to sneak off quietly during halftime. The
team was on its own after that.
“Moe, line up as far behind me as you need to get a good run
at the guy, then while Smith and Byron have Thor occupied, hit him with
everything you’ve got! Hit him hard…and for Christ’s sake, try to hit him
somewhere that breaks! I’ll pay the fine if you cripple him, hell, I’ll give
you a BMW if you blow out his knee!”
The play clock was ticking down and Trent would have to line
the team up for a play soon. Before he broke the huddle, he grabbed his lineman
by the facemask and shouted right into the man’s helmet “Smith, I want you to
chop block that bastard. Break his freakin’ leg if you have to!! Just keep him
off of me…Do you understand?”
The rookie nodded enthusiastically back at him.
“Go get him!!!” Trent smacked the side of the lineman’s
helmet as he gave this last order in the huddle.
The offense and defense faced each other again. The Raiders
had gotten the better of this situation just about every time they lined up.
The last few times Thor had hit him, Trent could feel his organs moving about
independently inside his torso. It was as if they were floating in a glass of
water that was being shaken. He had also coughed up blood the last couple of
times. There was not a lot more he could take and he knew it.
Trent began to yell out the signals “Blue thirty-seven, Blue
thirty-seven”.
Above the din of his own voice and the trash talking that
was going on between the linemen, he could hear a low, animal growl coming from
his left.
“DOWN…SET…”
The growl became louder with every moment. There was no more
taunting between the linemen, just the sound of a low guttural snarl and the
occasional whimper from one of his offensive linemen.
Trent looked to his left and saw Thor’s head was up and he
was staring straight at him. The shadow from the heavy cage of his facemask
obscured the features of Thor’s face. All Trent could see were his hate-filled
blue eyes glowing out from the darkness and a plumb of red hair exploding out
from under his helmet.
“HUT…HUT HUUUUTTTTT…” In a final moment of unexpected
weakness and frailty his voice abandoned him and became more of a mouse like
squeak then the confident, clear tones of a gridiron leader.
“HIKE”
It happened very quickly. He felt the leather football
hitting his hands as the center snapped it to him. He became very aware of the
sound of his own footsteps on the wet Coliseum grass. Some obscure thought
about the value of last rites flashed through his head. At that point something
exploded in Trent’s gut. For a quick moment he saw what looked like snow on a
television screen, and then there was nothing but blackness.
“Hooooooooly shi…” the announcer screamed.
“John, you can’t say that on the air, remember the network,”
Al Michaels said in a joking, almost condescending way.
“Sorry about that Al, but Holy Mother of God, WOW…I mean,
well…WOW…did you see that hit!!!”
“I felt that hit, John, and the quarterback is down again.
What a crushing sack number 74 had just laid on him. After the abuse Trent
Adams has taken today...I don’t think he’ll be getting up anytime soon.”
“I think you’re right, Al. He hasn’t moved anything in quite
some time, and they still haven’t cleaned the stuff that came out his nose off
of his face. I think he may be hurt pretty bad. I can’t remember ever seeing a
defensive line push an offensive line around like this before.”
Thor watched as the stretcher carried away his latest
victim. His ice blue eyes then turned to the Minnesota Viking’s sideline. The
head coach was trying desperately to coax his backup quarterback to come out
from under the bench.
From the relative safety of the bench, or in this particular
case, under it, the frightened man stared out at the field. He was specifically
focused on the part of the field occupied by Thor. This player was a mind
numbingly scary sight. For the most part he didn’t even look real—more like a
Geiger painting come to life. Blood stains fell into his black uniform like
light into a black hole. It belied the violence that had been inflicted on the
previous signal caller.
Upon further consideration the young quarterback decided
that there was nothing in his college football background that had adequately
prepared him to face this situation. So instead of throwing on his helmet and
trotting on to the field, he told the coach to get stuffed and then
concentrated most of his attention upon his own thumb, which he was now
sucking.
The drama on the sideline had not held Thor’s attention for
long. His sixteenth sack of the game had brought the stadium crowd to its feet
in celebration. Thor, the Norse God of The Sky and War raised his massive arms
to the heavens and bathed in the cheers of the crowd. He let loose a loud
battle cry and the sky answered him with peels of thunder and a sudden
downpour.
People no longer believed in the gods anymore, to them he
was a myth, but they did tend to create gods out of their own sports’ heroes.
Thor, like the rest of the Aesir, felt the absolute need to be worshipped. If
the only way to accomplish this end was to join the human race and dominate
their games, so be it.
Thor listened as the rain pelted his helmet. It was a good
sound and in his opinion, the rain made for better playing conditions. The
minor earthquake during the first quarter was a nice touch but he didn’t pay it
much attention because it wasn’t his doing.
The game had the normal, predictable, end. The World
Champion Raiders came away with yet another victory in a long series of
lopsided victories and the remaining Minnesota Vikings players came away
feeling like they had accomplished something by simply surviving to tell about
it. The athletes made their way down the stadium tunnel, running the gauntlet
of reporters. Thor had just about made his way through the wall of microphones
and bad toupees, when a little hand reached out and grabbed the back of his
jersey. Thor wheeled around and looked into the face of the man that the hand
belonged to. He was a small male wearing a tasteless red blazer. Over the left
breast he had a very large network logo embroidered on the jacket’s pocket. His
smile was literally ear-to-ear and looked pasted on his “I have
been-in-a-tanning-booth-waaaay-to-long” face. The man was obviously not
burdened with shyness as he stuck a microphone practically in Thor’s mouth,
tossed back his blow-dried blond hair, and bellowed.
“THOR, YOU ARE A GOD!!! Hey, how about an exclusive for us,
big guy?” he waved over his camera crew as he spoke.
Thor had never really gotten the hang of the post game
interview. It was not that he was either a shy man or an inarticulate one; he
just was not a humble man. For some reason he could never quite grasp why
people wanted their heroes to be strong, brave, skilled, and in complete denial
of their own prowess. To his credit, humility was a craft that he once tried
very hard to learn. For nine hours on a Saturday he sat watching file footage
of interviews given by Barry Sanders of the Detroit Lions. He watched as
Sanders, time and time again, took no credit for the outstanding things he had
done on the field. Instead, he thanked everyone around him for making his
success possible. The lasting effect to the viewer was a warm and fuzzy feeling
on the inside. After several hours of feeling fuzzy, Thor shook his head, took
several deep breaths and proceeded to smash the television set. He then went
out for a stiff drink full of the realization that Sanders was a fool. From
that moment on Thor maintained that it was best for everyone if he just avoided
doing interviews.
Thor pushed the microphone away from his face. “Sorry,
normally I would love to grant your network an interview but unfortunately my
agent insists that all interviews get cleared through him first. It’s something
he gets pretty uptight about.”
The reporter stood there smiling a cheesy little smile and
trying to think of a good argument to counter Thor’s rejection, microphone
still up in the proximity of the Thunder God’s mouth. This annoyed Thor to no
end. People who couldn’t take a simple “No” for an answer really got his blood
boiling. He pushed his anger down, and put on a happy face.
“You know agents,” he said good-naturedly as he slapped the
little reporter on the back.
The impact of the slap had an effect on the sportscaster
that was not unlike the Heimlich maneuver. In addition, it sent his over-styled
blond toupee sailing off his head into the beer cup of a nearby fan.
“And I certainly don’t want to upset my agent in a contract
negotiation year. You know how that is, right?”
With that said Thor turned away...but hesitated. He turned
back to the reporter. The little man flinched. As the son of Odin grabbed his
tie and pulled him close, he dropped his beer soaked toupee. Thor bent down and
whispered in the man’s ear.
“By the way, I’m not a god.”
“Excuse me?” said the reporter, once again bringing his
microphone close to Thor’s face, hoping to record any words that he could.
Thor’s eyes flashed with sudden anger when he saw the
microphone. He had made it very clear that he was not giving interviews. Without
warning the camera and every other recording device that was with the news crew
violently shorted out.
“Don’t call me a god, little man. Gods don’t exist.”
He released the reporter and walked away, leaving the man in
the tasteless red jacket confused, disappointed, and more than a little
nervous.
The nonexistence of gods was one of Thor’s favorite topics
of conversation at the bar after a game. It wasn’t something that he ever
discussed with the media. The general public seemed to frown on atheism. To
lose their favor would eliminate his much needed worship. Some people would ask
him how he was so certain that there were no gods in the heavens. He would
raise his glass to the sky and inform them that he has been there. None of the
beings that he encountered were anything that he would feel comfortable falling
down and worshipping. Occasionally he would also mutter something about his
dead wife and how she was a goddess but died anyway...so what’s the difference?
It was usually about this time that his teammates would have the bartender cut
him off. They would spend the rest of the evening trying to pump black coffee
into him, and listen to their friend and teammate mutter things they could not
possibly understand.
“Ya, know Bill, I used to be a god once.” Thor said in a
slur to his assistant coach. The words were about a shot of tequila away from
being completely incomprehensible.
“You were? What made you give up a gig like that?” Bill was
barely listening. Most of his attention was focused upon the car keys in Thor’s
hand and how he would get them away from the drunken athlete before the guy
decided to clear his head with a long drive.
“Aw, you know, people keep whining at you to give them this,
fix that, send rain for my crops, please smite my mother-in-law…stuff like
that. After a while I just wanted to tell them to just figure it out for
themselves and leave me alone.” He pounded his fist on the table knocking over
the pyramid he had built out of empty bottles of Jack Daniels. He would drink
fifth after fifth of that like most people drink beer. Bill had planned to
humor him just long enough to grab the keys from his hand and duck away
somewhere safe from Thor’s temper; perhaps Canada. The self-proclaimed ex-god
would be monumentally angry but at least the streets would be safe.
“Football saved my life. People worship me, I get a
truckload of cash, and I don’t have to sort out anyone’s personal life but my
own,” he muttered into his drink.
Bill was having doubts as to how well he was doing that and
just wished the big guy would stop talking and pass out. This conversation was
beginning to make his head hurt. Just as the coach was about to try what may
have been a suicidal grab for Thor’s keys, he was interrupted by a strong gust
of wind that had suddenly kicked up in the bar. A bright light came bursting
through the open door. Bill watched helplessly as Thor was scooped up like a
rag doll and carried away by exactly the sort of deity that he had spent the
evening swearing didn’t exist.
Bill picked up the keys Thor had dropped during his
abduction by an angelic looking being of light and consoled himself with the
fact that at least the streets were safe for the rest of the evening. The
seasoned coach then proceeded to order round after round of scotch on the
rocks, and drank until he passed out.
Brian James is a professional writer whose work has appeared in a number of
mainstream publications. In the past he has written articles for the
Detroit Free Press, The World Poker Tour magazine, Classic Rock
Magazine, Audi’s various publications, and a score of websites.
While working with the World Poker Tour, and a subsidiary website,
Brian was also responsible for celebrity and player interviews.
mainstream publications. In the past he has written articles for the
Detroit Free Press, The World Poker Tour magazine, Classic Rock
Magazine, Audi’s various publications, and a score of websites.
While working with the World Poker Tour, and a subsidiary website,
Brian was also responsible for celebrity and player interviews.
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