Luck

The nightclub was small, dingy and filled with smoke. None of its patrons seemed to mind the dismal atmosphere, the general consensus being that at least it was better than being outside.

Outside it was cold, dark and wet; but then again, when was it not? After all, this was Norway, the place where God pisses drunkenly without bothering to turn on the bathroom light.

No, seriously. That’s what the tourist pamphlets say.

A lone figure, made genderless by the layers necessary to stave off the cold and rendered almost invisible by the eternal darkness of Oslo made its huddled way into the nightclub; stopped at the door by a frostbitten and unhappy looking bouncer. ID was located under a mass of coats and the figure was, reluctantly, let in.

The cloak room was little more than a glorified heap of coats and the figure added at least three to the pile, followed by a tatty scarf that smacked wetly on the floor.

The result of this cocoon shedding revealed a young woman who took a moment to thaw in front of an ancient, rusty heater. She stood there, reverentially lowering a soft cover guitar case to the warped and stained hardwood floor and then straightened, taking a moment to wring out her hair. This month, she’s gone for blue and thinks she’ll probably change it soon, as it clashes horrifically with her cold-burned pinkish nose.

A casual observation of the cloak room’s lone occupant showed a badly dressed, but healthy (and by healthy, dear reader, I mean capable of chucking the aforementioned radiator across the room) European woman, with strange markings on her face which, on closer inspection, seemed to be painted runes rather than tattoos.

Her outfit, once divested of coats, was made of vaguely gothic, mismatched layers, with the stray rainbow coloured scrap of cloth peeking through here and there. All in all, a veritable portrait of either madness or colour-blindness’.
Suddenly she grinned and picked up her guitar case, slinging it over her shoulder; like her ancestors might have hefted an axe and opening the door into the main club.

‘It’s a sorry sight’, she thought, ‘but a gig is a gig.’

She walked over to the bar and finds the laughably stereotypical bartender wiping a filthy glass with an even filthier rag.

“Oy!” She shouted over the din of drunken people and scratchy pop music.

He looked up. “What’ll it be?”

“I’m here to play...I talked to your boss last Tuesday.”

“Booking name?”

“Bita.”

The bartender snorted. “Kids today and their stupid nicknames.”

The woman, Bita, shrugged good-naturedly. “Eh, don’t look at me. My parents gave me that little present.”

The bartender rolled his eyes and pulled a ledger from underneath the bar. He ran a finger down the page, obviously not at home with the written word or, at least, his boss’s handwriting.

Bita leaned over and poked the page with a neon-green fingernail. “That’s me.”

The bartender nodded. “Go set up, then.”

Bita grinned toothily, making her way through the drunken throng of clubbers to the small, empty space the club laughingly calls its stage and began to fiddle with equipment. When everything seemed right, she grabbed a stool and sat down, idly tuning her guitar.

“Alright, Sleipnir.” She chided it, strumming gently. “Tonight, no snarling.”

Her voice was surprisingly soft, belying her tough and slightly unhinged looking features. Few people that night would ever learn this fact, though, as she shouted a greeting to the crowd, which mostly ignored her and then kicked the stool behind her, standing with her legs wide apart, tearing a riff on the guitar-

...I suppose you could’ve called it music.

What it sounded like, however, was the howling of the abyss (if you’re the poetic sort) or really nasty and feral death metal (if you’re of the realistic persuasion). Whatever it was, it was wild and dark and all about insanity and deception; Bita’s favourite themes.

The crowd, being Norwegians through and through, seemed to enjoy it, as well. It was darker than Oslo on a moonless night and that’s the way they liked it.
Hours passed like a fever dream, all needles and screaming and insubstantial, smoky shapes...

3a.m. and Bita finally put her guitar away to a chorus of ‘encore’. She’d comply, but that’d be the fifth encore that night. Pushing limp, sweaty and smoke-smelling hair out of her face, she walked away from the stage and towards the bar as people began to trickle out, reluctantly calling it a night.

“Good to see that some people still have the gift of making insanity seem so very palatable.” A man’s voice sounded, right by her ear. Bita jumped, not having heard anyone coming. Whirling around, hand automatically curling into a fist, she saw a tall and quite honestly creepy looking man.

He caught her fist with inhuman ease. “Sit down, would you? I’ve already gotten us drinks.” He said, smiling in a way she supposes he thinks is reassuring.

Its not.

For starters, to be reassuring, a grin would have to have a lot less teeth in it.

She sat, though, too tired to argue and waited for him to pass her a blessedly cold beer which she sniffed apprehensively before shrugging fatalistically and downing it.

Belching, she looked across at this strange man, sizing him up. He was built like a shit brick house and dressed like a metal fan that’s lost a few bad fights. His hair was cropped in a haphazard way and his eyes were dark...too dark, she thought, without really knowing why.

“You were good up there...good, but not great.” He said. His voice was deep and gravelly and she had to strain to make out the words. Once having done so, she snorted.

“Says you. I think I was pretty fucking amazing up there.”

He shook his head once, firmly. “You have the gift of it, but not the sophistication.”

She growled. “Who died and made you music God, asshole?”

He waved a hand, dismissively. “Don’t take everything so personally...besides, it not your gift for music I’m here to talk about.”

She paused in mid-growl to look confused. “Eh?”

“I’m here because I happened to overhear your name and was...intrigued.” The slight stress on the last word was accompanied by a flash in those too black eyes. It looked like a flash of lightning, or hellfire.

Bita, being a big girl, suppressed the urge to shiver. The man, in the meantime, had pulled out a pack of cards and tossed them on the table.

She looked down at them, still confused. Oddly, the thought that ran through her head then was: ‘wow, this table is covered in beer puddles, but that pack managed to land in the few inches that were dry. Funny, that.’

“Bita Lokisdottor...” The man said, quietly, almost as if he was trying to taste the name.

Bita’s head snapped up and her eyes met his, shocked. “How do you know my last name? I don’t give that out.”

The man grinned. “Name like that, any sort of strangeness can happen.”
It occurred to Bita that that was nothing at all like an explanation, but that was all she would get.

“You ran away from home because your parents thought you weird...even though they were the ones to name you thus. You took to the streets, making what money you could at dives like this; somehow it all seemed to work out. You always had a place to stay, enough to eat. No one ever hurt you...and those that were foolish enough to try...” The man’s voice trailed off and his smile turned sinister, shark-like.

“...they ran into some bad luck, did they not?”

Bita gripped the table hard, all colour draining from her cheeks. “Who the hell are you?” She managed; her voice came out as a terrified squeak.

“Now there’s a highly appropriate question.” The man said, chuckling at a private joke.

He dealt the cards carelessly before him. Oddly, not a single card landed in one of the many sticky beer puddles.

Bita couldn’t bring herself to speak; caught in a sort of terrified awe.

He seemed to have dealt them both a hand. He picked his up, gesturing for her to do the same.

“Poker.” He said, unnecessarily.

“I don’t have any money.” She choked out, eyes darting from his cards to hers, from his face to the exit of the club that suddenly seemed very inviting, indeed.

“That’s a lie, but never mind. We’re not playing for money.”

“Then...what?”

“If I win, I kill you.” He said, calmly. He saw her start to stand, ready to bolt and laughed. “Don’t bother. You wouldn’t get five feet from here.”

She collapsed back onto her chair, legs refusing to hold her up.

“And if I win?”

The man’s smile widened, his teeth glinted like a chorus of razors.

“I show you a world you’ve never dreamed of, even in your crazy little dreams.”

Time stretched between them and finally it was Bita who laughed, a little desperately.

“Why the hell not?” She barked, looking down at her hand. Two pairs; a couple of threes and a couple of sevens. “You only live once, right?”

The man just laughed and then changed a couple of cards, looking them over solemnly. The light in his eyes seemed to flash, again and suddenly, all madness and bravado aside, Bita found herself shaking.

Finally, the time to drop the cards came and silence spiralled between them.
They both looked down at the same time and then they both laughed the man in triumph and Bita in wild, slightly manic relief.

They had the exact same hand.

When they managed to calm themselves, Bita asked, breathlessly, all fear forgotten:

“So, what does a tie mean, then?”

The man grinned, looking uncannily like a twisted version of the Cheshire cat. “It means that I have finally found a worthy successor, Lokisdottor.”

He took his cards back, and stood. “Your last name suits you already...”

He crossed to her side, offered her a hand up and, looking a little dazed at the surrealistic nature of it all, she took it, allowing herself to be dragged out of the club and into the dark streets of Oslo. It was too late for even the most hardcore insomniacs, by then and the street was deserted, with nothing more than some half-hearted streetlamps to illuminate the gloom of Norway’s mostly pointless winter pre-dawn.

Bita stood in the middle of the street with her weird companion, who seemed spectral in the poor light and she wondered, in a disconnected sort of way, why she hadn’t realized how damned pale he was before then.

The man spoke, standing close, too close. “And now it’s time to make that thrice-cursed first name of yours fit, too.”

She barely had time to wonder how the hell anyone could manage that before he swooped down, sharp teeth tearing at the side of her neck while his inhumanely strong arms crushed her to him. Lightheaded, Bita watched the streetlamp behind her flicker and then explode in a shower of glass as the world went dark...




(Another night, another club)



A tough looking woman, utterly relaxed in her chaotic surroundings, tunes an old, but well cared for guitar, her dark red tongue poking out of the side of her mouth in concentration. She’s very pale, but in the gloom of the overcrowded nightclub so is everyone else.

She doesn’t bother to greet the crowd, kicking a stool out of the way as she gets to her feet, guitar at the ready. The crowd doesn’t seem particularly interested in her, but that’s okay.

She knows the moment her fingers touch the strings they’ll all be enthralled.

...

She’s just lucky like that.













Author's Note: For my non-Norwegian readers; here's a run-down of the foreign terms.

- Bita: to bite.
- Lokisdottor: Daughter of Loki
- Sleipnir: Thor's six-legged horse; offspring of Loki while he was in the form of a mare.

Please read and review!