The Age of Odin - James Lovegrove [120]
"Then to gloat. Is that it? Is that why you're here?"
"Oh Odin, my old-time blood brother, my bosom buddy as was, would I do something so cheap and vulgar as gloat? A respectable Southern lady like myself? You wound me. I wanted to see y'all's faces one last time, is all. Fix 'em in my memory again. A quick refresher course, so to speak. So's I know once more who I'm about to destroy and why. And there you are, all lined up like crows on a picket fence. Thor Odinson, brainless as ever. Frigga - starting to look like the years are catching up with you, girlfriend. There's wonderful thangs they can do about that in Midgard. I can give you the names of ten cosmetic surgeons'd happily get to work on those laughter lines and those pouchy eyes of yours. And Sif... Well, you never were much to write home about, were you, honey? Pretty enough, loyal, empty-headed. Not the sort to set the world alight. Unlike me. Oh, and there, if my eyes don't deceive me, is Freya Njorthasdottir. Still hanging out with this bunch a sorry losers? The Aesir are beneath you as mud is beneath an eagle. Why wallow when you can soar?"
She'd neatly insulted almost everybody present, and no one seemed prepared to retaliate in any way, other than Thor, who confined himself to grumbling bad words about her under his breath. I couldn't understand why they were taking it so meekly. It was as if Loki had some hold over them and they were reluctant to antagonise him/her.
I, on the other hand, was carrying a perfectly good rifle.
And, I thought, I wasn't going to get a better chance than this.
I shot the bolt, chambered a round, raised the rifle, took aim, squeezed the trigger. All in the space of a couple of seconds. Why fuck around?
The bullet hit Mrs Keener dead in the centre of her body mass, passing straight through and ricocheting off the bodywork of the limousine. The range couldn't have been more than twenty metres. It would have been embarrassing to have missed at such close quarters.
She went down as though poleaxed. I considered putting a second bullet in her sprawled-flat body but decided not to waste the ammunition. She was dead. It was that simple. I felt a hiccup of weird excitement.
Holy fucking shit! I've just assassinated a President of the United States!
Put me up there with John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. Gideon Jason Coxall, only the third ever member of history's most exclusive club.
Although, unlike the other two, each of whom had robbed the world of a much-loved leader, I'd done humanity a huge favour. It was like that thing about if you could go back in time and kill Hitler before the war, would you? Question answered. I would.
The reaction from the Norse gods was not at all what I was expecting. I'd thought they'd be pleased. I'd done their dirty work for them. Loki was gone. Ragnarök, therefore, would have to be called off. Hooray, surely? Happy finish. No more bloodshed. Yes?
Apparently not.
"Gid," said Odin. Kind of sighing.
"What?"
He looked resigned. Pitying. So did everybody else. "There are certain... protocols at work here. Formalities to be observed."
"But I just shot Loki. I mean, he's toast." I gesticulated at the corpse on the bridge. "He's out of the picture. That's a good thing, right? The bad guy's down and out. It's Bond killing Blofeld halfway through the film. There'll be no big confrontation now. The henchmen will all surrender. We won't have to blow up the volcano headquarters."
"Would that it were that straightforward."
I was finding this hard to believe. "He came - she came - and started nancying about in front of us. I had a gun. What else was I to do? Seemed a no-brainer to me. Still does. Would've been literally, if I'd gone for a head shot. And now it's all over. Isn't it? Ragnarök's off. Yes? No? It's off and we can all go home and eat choccy biccies and watch Loose Women in our pyjamas."
"We, Gid," said Odin, "are gods, but we are also creatures of myth. Of saga. Of story. How can I best explain it? Some things are just meant to be. Ragnarök has long been foretold.