A question had been blooming in Lauren's mind.
The first week of their voyage it was easy to accept things at face value; They were fugitives, their lives were in danger - and populated places came with an increased risk of discovery. But, of course, traversing an ocean or two meant they could indulge the fantasy of solitude Tamsin had so artfully painted.
As they walked down the cobblestone passageways that snaked through the Old City, passed the pastel colored facades and cheerfully ornate shops - Lauren felt almost high she was so ecstatic. It was all such a marvelous adventure. But Cadiz was not a place they had discovered together. Tamsin clearly had spent time here before..
Not that it mattered, necessarily. Being with someone a few centuries your senior you'd be hard-pressed to find a place on earth they hadn't already been to. Lauren shook her head as if to dislodge the burden of her nagging inquisitiveness. She grabbed Tamsin's hand and wove their fingers together, desperate to enjoy a postcard-perfect afternoon at any cost.
The women spent their morning hours enjoying sweetbread and coffee at a cafe, and afterwards committed themselves to clothes shopping. Aside from the clothes they fled in, they'd been forced to cycle through the assorted t-shirts and sweaters donated by Trick. The first few days of their voyage this proved fairly entertaining - his clothes tended to fit in one way and not another, tight in the armpits and loose in the belly. But now the women were longing for proper clothes. Everything they brought with them was on the verge of being in tatters, scoured by sea salt and bleached by the sun.
That afternoon they took a taxi to a bodega known for its amontillado. Tamsin's continuously remarked about this landmark or that, what had changed and what was now missing.
When they arrived at the tiny restaurant the Valkyrie clenched Lauren's hand with excitement. She swaggered up to the counter and ordered in broken Spanish. Lauren was flabbergasted.
She watched with barely concealable wonderment as her lover confidently downed a flight of the bodega's finest samplings, enthusiastically ordering a case of sherry and a case of amontillado and paying to have both delivered to The Shady Dame.
Tamsin deftly returned to her plate of olives and cheeses, spearing a clove of roasted garlic and spreading it on toast. She was smiling ear to ear.
The doctor marveled at how natural and at ease Tamsin seemed here. She started to suspect the Valkyrie had significant history in Cadiz - bolstered by her lover's own vague statements regarding 'unfinished business'.
It was abundantly clear that their destination wasn't picked at random.
"So," Lauren began, "why Cadiz?"
The detective was busy driving a corner of bread around a plate of olive oil, but raised her head when confronted with this inquiry.
A smile blossomed across her face, "Where do I begin?"
The Valkyrie sighed, then promptly raised her glass; her gaze drifted off towards some distant corner, overcome with nostalgia.
"This is where it all began, I guess. My life as a privateer."
The Valkyrie seemed a thousand miles away, words falling from her lips as if they weren't connected to her in any meaningful way.
"It was, oh I don't know. 1600? I'm not very good with dates. Or years.
"Import/export was pretty cut-throat back in the day, I mean that literally - we cut a lot of throats. And I guess I'd developed a bit of a reputation. I was expensive - but my services were guaranteed.
"One day I was contacted by messenger and asked to meet a client in a secret location. It was very mysterious - and you know me, I was intrigued! As soon as I finished reading the letter the messenger swiped it from my hands and stuffed it into his mouth. He promptly gagged and died right in front of me. Poisoned ink ya know.
"I waited down by the docks at the proposed time. Eventually I was approached by an urchin bearing a wax-sealed note. The note was the name of a public house well-known to me and my associates. Back then they called us Privateers. By the way this was in merry old England, that's an important detail.
"Anyway it went on like this for awhile. Half an address scrawled in grease on a parlor mirror, et cetera and so forth. It was all very cloak and dagger stuff. I won't bore you with all the details because there's a ton of 'em. But after three weeks of this back-and-forth nonsense - I arrived at a shantytown where I met a man who claimed to be the Earl of Essex. He was the first cousin twice-removed of the queen of England. And his ultimate goal was to usurp the throne.
"You know what? I'm getting a little ahead of myself here. If you want to know how I ended up a privateer, it's because I had no other options. Let me back up a little bit...
"Thing is, time moves differently here than in Asgard. A day in Asgard is like - I dunno - a week or so on Midgard? So I'm not sure how long I was in Odin's dungeon - but on earth a long fucking time had gone by. The second I was set free I raced back to earth. I knew Edelinne was gone, I could feel she was gone - but still I had to come back..."
Lauren noticed the Valkyrie clench her jaw and crinkle her nose. It took a moment for her to relax enough to take another swallow of sherry.
"Everything was so different. The Duke's demesne was scarcely more than a pile of rocks... When I went into town I asked about it - I was treated to stories folks had heard from their grandparents about the mad old Duke feeding his young bride to wild dogs. Apparently her homeland was outraged by such a cruel and evil act and promptly declared war.
"In the pubs I was regaled with stories of how they tortured the Duke before killing him. Hell, the torture continued even after they'd killed him. I remember thinking I ought to be happy, but for some reason i couldn't feel a thing.
"Except anger. Yeah. I was pretty angry. I was angry that so much time had gone by and I couldn't do anything about anything. In Odin's dungeon I dreamed about murdering the Duke with my bare hands. I cherished the fantasy of staring into his eyes as I squeezed the life out of him. This dream sustained me. It kept me alive. And it never occurred to me that any hopes and dreams I may have had would be lost to time.
"For a long time I didn't know what else to do with my life - so I drank. Then one day I heard some gang of thugs cautiously whispering about the "angel of war" and it just about blew my boots off. They couldn't mean me, I'd been out of the game for far too long - all at once it hit me like a ton of bricks: they were talking about my sisters."
Tamsin and Lauren briefly made eye contact and a shiver ran up the doctor's spine.
"Yeah, right then and there - my life had purpose again. Revenge where revenge was due, know what I'm saying? Sure I hated the Duke enough to kill him, but the real blame - the true blame lay with Odin and my sisters.
"So I raced to the first battlefield I could find, fast as my wings could carry me - and I robbed my sisters of every potential hero, every last one of them. Just as the death blow was about to come down I'd swoop in and save the poor fucker's life. I was pretty partial to hacking of hands and fingers, assuring that no warrior, no soldier - would ever hold a weapon again in his life. It was awesome. Not only did it make my sisters look bad but it totally pissed off Odin, too."
Lauren's jaw hung open in stunned amazement, "So what happened next?"
"Well I followed them all over Europe. There was no shortage of wars, after all. A few years of this and they were pretty sick of me and my shenanigans - in the end they basically gave up. Odin didn't know what to do about me so he gave the order to just leave me be. I suppose there's no point in having an army of one-armed warriors fighting in Ragnarok," she concluded with a loud chuckle.
"Anyway, I took this as a victory, and wandered aimlessly afterwards. Eventually I started working as a sell-sword and built a name for myself. Then I took up with some pirates and that rekindled my love for the sea. I thought I'd found my true calling. But we were greedy, and after a few years various empires dedicated their Naval Forces to wiping us out. On a whim I decided I could do without the hassle and switched sides. I ended up getting hired by one Admiral Francis Drake. We sailed to Cadiz on a sherry raid and set fire to the Spanish ships in the bay. It was just like being a pirate but with fancy uniforms. Good times!"
Lauren nearly spit up her wine at hearing this latest bit of alternate history. When she finally recovered she asked, "Sir Frances Drake? Seriously?"
"He was a character alright. A couple decades later Admiral Drake mentioned me and my special services to the Earl of Essex, bada boom bada bing. That's a whole other story all on its own," Tamsin winked.
"So when you ask me why Cadiz - part of it is because I was reborn here. This place - it's like this little speck of goodness I keep locked away inside my heart. It's a reminder, I suppose - of feeling alive again.."
The detective drifted off to that distant corner again, and once she recovered she appeared bleary-eyed.
"There's something else," she added in a serious tone, "You remember that story I told you back in the lab - when I first started the job? About how I used to hang out with Death on his ship?"
"How could I ever forget...?"
"Well, tomorrow we're going to head south, through the Strait of Gibraltar. My ol' buddy is moored just off the coast. I'd like to pay him a brief visit and ask him a favor."
Lauren sat and listened, speechless from fright.
"I know when we first met I was carrying a ton of baggage. You have to understand that I couldn't really afford to look back at all the things that happened in my life and so I could never make peace with the bad parts. Some shit was just too scary, you know what I mean? I forced myself to keep moving forward, always looking ahead and never turning back. But swirled in with all the horrible stuff is my guilt over failing to protect the only thing in the multiverse that I gave a damn about.
"I know it's why I could never could get close to anyone. I know it's why I use sarcasm to deflect stuff away from me. I know my self-imposed isolation ended up making me bitter and resentful. It's been like being stuck in a maze, knowing there's a problem but never being able to fix it. I mean, really, what I need is forgiveness, right?"
"Of course, you definitely need to forgive yourself-"
"No, Edelinne. I need Edelinne's forgiveness."
"Metaphorically, sure-"
"No. Am I speaking greek here, what?"
"But she's ..." Lauren hesitated, considering her words, "She's no longer alive.." The doctor was puzzled.
"Well - not on earth."
Lauren's mouth hung open as she struggled to form a response. What does that mean exactly, not on earth? Before she could ask an obnoxious clanging bell noise suddenly erupted from Tamsin's bag - it was their satellite phone from The Shady Dame. As Lauren sat in stunned silence, Tamsin answered and spoke briefly to the mysterious caller.
"Hey, that was Trick. Everything's golden. We can go home whenever we're ready."