I always carry a rucksack. People get used to seeing you with a big bag, and you can put all sorts of things in it without raising suspicion. Except supermarkets and pound stores. They always want you to leave your bag at the door or present it for inspection. I never do either of those things. Misdirection is my game. Most of what I do is what people on the internet call social engineering. People off the internet call it social engineering too, but not as often.
I can’t stop looking at this hammer. It is both powerful and exquisite. Legend has it that the god Thor murdered a bunch of giants after they stole it and tried to ransom it. Mjollnir is its true name. Now technically, it’s not actually an item of legend. But it is obviously a very ancient attempt to embody that legend.
The runes hammered into the metal must have been placed there by a hand many thousands of years ago. Whenever I get to touch anything this old, I feel energies coursing through it. People must have been incredibly powerful back then. I wonder what made us so weak in modern times. We have so much more now. We have powers the ancients would have considered to be the highest magic, but I don’t get this sense when I touch an iPhone.
Maybe, in the distant future, someone will unbox a smart phone and experience this feeling of reverence imagining the world as it exists now. Maybe they’ll imagine someone like me, and maybe they’ll imagine that I was someone who mattered.
Anyway. I am hungry. I need to find something to eat. There’s pot noodle in the cupboard next to me. I have my own kettle and I keep it primed. I keep a stash of nonperishable foods in my room. The idea is I don’t have to go out if I don’t want to. I quite often don’t want to.
Brad was stealing from my food stash. I don’t keep anything shiny out and about. I keep the place looking, well, poor. I got the mattress I sleep on from a second-hand store. It is lumpy and uncomfortable. I’m thinking about swapping it out for a hammock if I can find one to steal.
Everything I have, I have scavenged, borrowed, or outright stolen. I do not work. It’s a matter of principle. Work is a trap, in my view. You get a job, you get tied into the system. I’m stuck inside the system too, but I’m not beholden to it. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I’m not a loser if I choose to lose, right?
A lot of people would try to sell this hammer. But I already know there’s no way to sell it and get its true value. It won’t be appreciated for all it is worth by anyone — anyone except its true owner. Thor.
I will eventually sell it back to him. But not yet. I’ll wait until he’s desperate. I’ll wait until he’ll pay anything to get it back — and that’s when I’ll get everything.
Thor
“We should call the police,” Steven says. He’s furious to discover that my hammer has been taken.
“I am not calling the police. The last thing we need are more normal people involved in this situation. The mundane has infected our abbey and desecrated an artifact of irreplaceable value. We wouldn’t even be able to explain what it was she took without sounding completely bonkers,” Bryn says.
Steven makes a set of generally offended sounds. “You know, she tried to burn the bloody place down in order to get it. She’s an arsonist. That’s worse than a thief. She’s damn well dangerous. She could be back for more. We could find her creeping in the windows late at night, going through our drawers and smalls…”
The mention of Steven’s smalls draws a few raised brows, but we know what he means. We made three hundred and twenty pounds in fish and chip sales and we’ve lost something irreplaceable.
It’s time I inserted my own opinion into this mess.
“I’ll find her. She’s a local. I know that much. And Direford is not that large a village. Someone will inevitably know her. I just need to make some inquiries. I found Nina in London in a matter of days. How hard could it be?”
“Famous last words,” Steven says. “I thought it would come when you called?”
“It’s a hammer, not a dog,” I remind him.
“Sure, but it's a magical hammer.”
“It is a relic. It is an object of great worth and even greater significance. We cannot afford to lose this. Better the entire abbey burn down than this relic remain in the hands of the mundane.”
“Well,” Bryn says. “Let’s not go mad about it.”
It’s too late. I am already mad. I know my quarry very well. She's short. She’s naughty. She’s in need of a rough and thorough dose of discipline. When I catch her, I will make her more sore than she's even been in her short and sorry life.