Harvey popped his lips before clearing his throat, then looked at Dom, his eyes glistening under the lights.“She did it to spite my father, because he didn’t like my grandfather.My grandfather was wholly against their relationship, due to the fact that my father was married at the time of their…meeting.”
“You mean mating.That dirty dog,” Nina said on a laugh.“But if he looks like you, I guess I get it.The pickin’s probably aren’t slim for a hot dude like that.I mean, if you like ’em the size of a giraffe.”
Wanda, her pretty eyes focused on the vampire, frowned.“Nina, in this very fragile moment, when we’re trying to comfort Dominique on her journey into the paranormal, is the time to zip your lip.Do that, won’t you?”
Nina rolled her eyes in response, but she did quiet, crossing her feet at the ankles and sinking farther into the chair.
Wanda turned back to her, folding her hands neatly in her lap.“Back to you,” she said warmly.“We’re here to help.So let’s begin.”
But Dom didn’t understand.She untangled herself from the blanket and jumped off the couch, distancing herself from the women and Harvey.
“Beginwhat?Now that I know who the hammer…er, I mean, MC belongs to, Harvey can take it home and I can go back to my life as I knew it, right?The only thing that’s changed is now I know vampires, werewolves, talking hammers and gods who cat around and have kids named Harvey exist.I swear, you don’t have to worry I’ll tell anyone about any of you.Because I won’t.Not ever.”
As if anyone would believe what she’d seen anyway.She still wasn’t suresheeven believed it.These people had been right here, right under her nose, having children, creating families, living their lives, and the population at large remained completely unaware.
Ignorance is indeed bliss.
But then a thought hit Dom, a morbid one, making her back deeper into the kitchen.Would they hurt her to keep her quiet?And…where had that knife gone?
Marty rose, approaching her cautiously, her eyes shiny and blue with understanding.“Oh, Dom, I know what you’re thinking.It’s not like that at all.We would never hurt you?—”
“I would,” Nina assured her, stretching her arms upward as Fletcher nestled deeper into her hair.“I mean, if the sitch calls for it.”
Dom swallowed hard.She didn’t doubt Nina would put the hurt on her.Not even a little.
“But she won’t because we would never allow it,” Wanda said, also rising to approach her with measured steps.“I know you’re still in a bit of shock, but we need to begin to address what’s happening with you.”
Nipping at her thumbnail, her brow furrowed.“I still don’t understand.There’s nothing to address.Now that I know the hammer, er, MC, belongs to Harvey, he can take it and go home.Everyonecan go home.False alarm.Sorry to trouble you.”
But there’s still the problem of you randomly screaming out a man’s name with no rhyme or reason.Will that problem go away if Harvey takes the hammer back?
Dang it.The devil really was in the details, wasn’t it?
“Here’s the problem with that, Dom,” Harvey said, his voice tight.“I can’t take MC with me unless he’s willing to go.”
“And I amnotwilling to go.”
“Sure you can.”She stomped to the table to grab MC.Wrapping her hand around the thick handle, she picked it up and offered it to Harvey.
But then, as had become her newly acquired oddity, she raised MC high in the air and screamed, “Thor!”
The word flew from her mouth like a clap of thunder, shaking the room with such force, her lampshades quivered.
Everyone, including Harvey, winced.
She stuffed her fist against her mouth.“Sorry,” she said, in muffled apology.“I don’t know why that keeps happening, but I can tell you the folks at CVS aren’t lining up to join my fan club after the ruckus I made there the other day in the allergy meds aisle.”
MC began to laugh so hard; he shook in her hand.“Oh, leave it to Thor to make his mark known, eh, Harvey?Despite his altruism, he has a bit of vanity inside him I could never manage to erase.”
Dom held up the hammer, looking directly at it.“Vanity?I don’t understand…” she murmured.She felt as though she’d said that a lot tonight, but she reallydidn’tunderstand.
“It’s Thor’s way of reminding everyone where my origin story began—and it began withhim.It’s his way of making it known, he’s still and always will be relevant to my existence.Just a little quirk of his that he clearly thought would be amusing.”
Her eyes went wide when she looked at MC.“So I’m just going to run around hollering ‘Thor’ like I’m some comic book groupie at Comic-Con?That’s nuts.Is that why you don’t want to take him back?Because I get it.Who wants to wander around, screaming their father’s name at will.But that has nothing to do with taking him back.He’s yours.”
Harvey popped his lips.“That’s not the reason I can’t simply take MC with me.Believe me, if I could, I’d put my little friend in a closet and lock the door?—”
“Harvey!Come now, you don’t mean that,” MC chided.“I was right beside you at your mother’s knee, teaching you, nurturing you!I raised you from a wee bairn to be a strong man with integrity, dignity.I let you watch MTV when your father strictly forbade it, for Odin’s sake!How could you say something so hurtful?”
