I know, I know. But I couldn’t help it.

This time, there were duegars lining the streets of Little Niflheim, dwarves with forms as hard and knotty as tree roots. They gazed at the dune buggy with expressions that contained equal parts hope and despair.

“Mikill?” My voice sounded faint. “Why are they staring at us? They never stared at us before.”

The frost giant pulled up before the abandoned sawmill. “It is the first time you have come carrying Hel’s gift of death upon your hip, Daisy Johanssen,” he said somberly. “In the coming battle, you will serve as Niflheim’s champion.”

Now my voice rose with alarm. “Coming battle? What coming battle?”

Mikill ushered me into the sawmill. “Whatever battle is coming.”

Gah! If I could have reached his neck, I would have throttled him.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the bioluminescent lichen on the walls, the sight of Hel on her throne banished whatever petty mortal exasperation I was feeling. “Welcome, my young liaison.” Her voice echoed in the rafters, where a handful of roosting blue jays squawked and ruffled their feathers. “I would hear what news you bear. My harbingers tell me that matters are coming to a head.”

I went to one knee, bowing my head. “Harbingers, my lady?”

Hel raised her fair and shapely right hand, the hand of life, indicating the roosting jays. “My eyes and ears in the mortal world.”

“Blue jays?” I felt foolish saying it aloud.

The right side of Hel’s mouth curved in a gentle smile. On the left side of her face, her blackened lips remained set in a grim line. “They are kin to ravens, the favored harbingers of my kinsman Odin.”

“Oh.”

Hel waited.

Okay, so apparently I was supposed to make a report. I collected my thoughts, wiping my damp palms surreptitiously on the fur coat. “You’re right, my lady. Matters are coming to a head. It appears that a mortal man, with the assistance of a pair of ghouls, has been holding a mermaid captive and selling access to her.”

“Access?” Her voice dropped to a note so deep it made the old timbers shudder in protest.

I nodded. “We believe the Vanderhei boy drowned in an . . . an act of sexual congress with the unwilling victim.”

Hel’s left eye, her ember eye, blazed a furious crimson in the black, withered ruin of the left side of her face. “Have you found the offenders?”

“Not yet, my lady,” I said. “I believe we’re close. We’re hoping to find them in time to save the captive.”

“That is well.” Her ember eye closed briefly so that she might gaze at me with her compassionate one, but then it winked open again, red and baleful. “Are you prepared to dispense justice in my name, Daisy Johanssen?”

I swallowed. “Justice?”