He knelt and pressed his palm against the cool grass. The spot looked like any other for acres around, but it pulsed with a slow and subtle signature Loki had come to recognize. He closed his eyes and took a breath, and then he was gone.
12
The coffee date was going better than Sally expected. At least, she thought it was. It had been too long since she’d tried to maintain a mundane conversation with a regular person and she really wasn’t sure what she was doing.
She made superficial observations about the weather, the Coffee Horde menu, and the Halloween costumes some patrons were wearing—all while keeping a careful watch for anything that looked like a draugar. But Zach steered the conversation to topics like her classes, her favorite music, and what books she was reading.
She had nothing compelling to say about her classes. Just thinking about them led her back to the same desperate question: What was she doing with her life? She had no clue about popular or even unpopular music. The books she was reading were texts for class—which she wasn’t so much reading as skimming—and a half-dozen magickal volumes and historical diaries of witches that Bonnie had procured through the rare books department at Powell’s.
Sally was having trouble holding up her end of the conversation, but Zach kept engaging her anyway. Gradually, the knot in her stomach started to unwind and she felt her muscles relax as she breathed in the familiar aroma of her Mt. Hood spiced chai. Zach’s smile never abated, and she felt a thrill zing through her when her eyes met his.
He was talking now, giving Sally a break from struggling to be charming or flirty or spunky or whatever she was supposed to be on a first date. Was this a first date? He was describing a spring break trip with a student-run environmental group, but Sally was distracted by his hands and the way his fingers wrapped around the branded mug. She wondered what it would feel like if he ran those fingers through her strawberry tresses. His voice was deep and pleasant, and she smiled and imagined the touch of his hands.
And his lips.
“So, what about you?” he asked.
Sally felt her eyes go wide. She’d missed the last couple of paragraphs of his monologue. “What do you mean, what about me?”
He laughed, and Sally wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. He drank down some of his chai. “I like that about you, Sally. You don’t chit-chat away about the surface details of life without peeking into what might lie deeper.”
You have no idea, Sally thought, but she pretended and played along. “I know what you mean.”
“I like you better without the gypsy costume, too.” Zach rested back into the upholstered chair. They had a cozy spot in a secluded corner of the popular hang-out, which gave them a little privacy even though Zach’s chair backed up against a bar of creamer thermoses and paper napkins.
“Yeah, that was a total mistake,” Sally said. “It was my friend’s idea.”
“It was definitely an eye-catching look. Alluring, even.” He winked at her over the top of his mug, and Sally felt herself blushing.
“So, umm, how long do you have left before you’re done?” Sally stared into her half-empty mug. Zach was a graduate student at PSU, studying green business entrepreneurship or maybe environmental economics; she hadn’t gotten a handle on that part. She was content to lounge in her chair, far from the windows and the draft of the door, and listen to him talk. He didn’t pester her with questions about magick or how it worked. He didn’t ask how she’d selected her first set of rune stones or whether she’d take him to visit the White Oak Yggdrasil. She forgot, for a couple of seconds, that there was any paranormal mayhem in the world.
Saga was right. She needed this break.
Zach rose to his feet and reached for Sally’s mug. It took her a second to understand that he was asking if she wanted another chai.
Sally kept her movements languid as she stood and took Zach’s mug. “I’ve got this round.”
He didn’t protest. She kind of wished he had. Not that she expected the guy to always pay for everything on a date, but he was the one who’d asked her out and wasn’t that how it was supposed to work? Or maybe Saga had done the asking while posing as Sally over text. She couldn’t remember.
Sally took the mugs to the counter and waited in line. She glanced at Zach over her shoulder, and he smiled back. She pretended to read the menu board and wondered how to make sure her panty line wasn’t showing through her borrowed jeans—which were tighter than she liked—without attracting attention to the fact that she was performing a public butt check.
What if Zach looked over at that exact moment? Sally fidgeted, making subtle adjustments to her posture and worrying over what her backside might look like while an inner monologue of judgment ran non-stop. Was this superficiality worth her attention? It wasn’t like she didn’t have better things to be concerned about. What if the draugar came storming in and took everyone in the coffee shop hostage, all because her guard was down while she worried about whether her date could see the outline of her underwear?
But if she weren’t hyper-focused on magick, maybe she’d be a more experienced and better adjusted dater and she’d have figured out all of this stupid stuff long ago. If she’d tried harder, she could have been more confident and cool and successful and relaxed, and she’d have the world’s best boyfriend and an enviable life and could still handle any crisis—paranormal or mundane—that this world or any other decided to throw at her.
Sally took a breath and tried to shut herself up, mentally. It didn’t work. She spiraled down a new path about whether Opal secretly hated her for ruining her date with Lauren, and if Sally had any business going out with a boy when her roommate’s plans had been trashed. Suddenly, she was at the front of the line. She ordered two more chai teas and slid the used mugs toward the cashier.
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” The young man with mismatched ear gauges handed the mugs to a passing barista. “Actually, we can’t just reuse mugs, for health code reasons.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.” Sally fought the urge to glance back to see if Zach was bearing witness to her public idiocy.
“It’s okay. Next time, you can just leave them in the bussing bins by the creamer bar.” The barista pointed toward where she and Zach were sitting. Sally didn’t look back. She felt stupid. The bin for bussing her own mug had been right in front of her, so of course she hadn’t seen it.
Sally paid for the teas and followed the curved coffee counter to the pick-up area. She propped one foot on the low rung of a bar stool and drummed her fingers on the black countertop. There was no way she was going to check to see if Zach was watching. She was playing it cool, like she went on coffee dates every day. Like she was a normal girl.
She didn’t reach into her pocket for her phone so she could pretend to be busy and important. Any waiting messages would be from Saga or Opal or Loki, maybe even Thor or Heimdall, and she didn’t want to get pulled back into that world quite yet.
The teas arrived and she gathered them up and walked carefully across the tile floor toward Zach. She wasn’t about to make a fool out of herself by spilling hot tea all over her clothes. She kept her eyes on the mugs, filled to the brim, and she didn’t lose a single drop by the time she reached her chair.
“There,” she announced with triumph as she rested the mugs on the tiny table between the chairs. “Sorry it took so long.”
She sat and reached for one of the mugs, then raised it high to make a casual toast. But Zach wasn’t there.
She came to the quick conclusion that he hadn’t ditched her. His jacket was laid over the back of his chair, so he’d probably gone to the men’s room. She rested back and nearly burned her tongue on the chai. She blew on the tea to cool it down. Three breaths, and no Zach. She wondered if blowing on hot tea did any good, or if it was something you did to feel like you had some tangible impact on the external world. Another two breaths. The tea was still too hot, but not unbearable. Still no Zach.
She craned her neck to l
ook around the coffee shop. She heard the bathroom door open and she glanced up to greet Zach but instead a tall, skinny man dressed like a multicultural iguana carried the bathroom key back to the barista at the counter. There was only the one bathroom, and Zach wasn’t in it.
Sally stared at his jacket. His green-and-orange scarf was tucked inside one sleeve. It wasn’t especially cold out, but it had started raining. He wouldn’t have gone outside without it.
Sally put her mug down. She glanced around the coffee shop again at the same crowd of customers, about fifteen-percent in costumes and the rest in street clothes. There was a gal with a purple ponytail in an orange NASA jumpsuit, a teenaged boy dressed as an Amazon delivery box, and even a Santa-Satan mashup. But no sign of Zach.
A glint of silver from the back of Zach’s chair caught her eye. She reached for it and heard a familiar clink as she wrapped her fingers around the metal and enamel beads. Sally’s heart caught in her throat, and she was sure she was going to be sick. She lifted Frigga’s charm bracelet. The clasp was broken and the beads were dusty with dirt from Helheim.
13
Loki was nearly at his destination. He prepared to emerge from the shadowy network of tree roots, but from there he didn’t know where he’d go. His home had been all but destroyed by the draugar, as had Sally’s apartment. He didn’t imagine he’d receive a warm reception on Thor’s doorstep. It wasn’t too cold in late October, so he could sleep in the city forest if he had to. But first he’d see what Saga had to say.
He saw the portal opening into Forest Park but just before he thrust himself forward, he felt a bony grip on his shoulder. He was through the portal and standing in the forest, catching his breath, when he spun on his heel to confront his hitchhiker. He came face to face with one of Hel’s minions.
This one was more corporeal and fleshy than many of the others, which was no small mercy. Rags that had once been fashionable clothing hung from the creature’s bloodless frame. Loki guessed this particular specimen had been a man, and a strong one, but he had been bent to subservience in the generations since.
Loki took a breath, afraid of the stench of his unwelcome company, but he smelled only the scents of the forest around him.
The creature held up his hands. “Loki, Keeper of the Realms, I mean you no harm. I come bearing a message from Hel.”
Loki took a step back. “That’s unexpectedly swift.”
The underworld emissary clasped his hands together. Some of the flesh was peeling away from his fingers. “My queen demands the skills of the Rune Witch and the promised share of your magick.”
Loki crossed his arms. “We tried that already.”
The creature bowed his head, and Loki felt honestly sorry for this minion sent on an impossible errand. What did Hel expect? That Loki would gather up Sally and head straight back to Helheim so they could get ripped to pieces by those infernal hounds, or worse?
“Hel ensures your safe passage to her hall,” the emissary said.
Loki choked back a laugh. “But she doesn’t guarantee our safe return.”
The emissary looked up at Loki, clearly flustered. “The balance has shifted. Hel bids you to return to her hall to fulfill the terms of your original bargain, and what has been taken shall be returned to you and yours.”
Loki blew out a long sigh. His daughter was desperate enough for power to make another awkward attempt at diplomacy, but what did she plan to do with Loki’s magick? It was a question he should have considered straight away, instead of deferring it for later. She had been in the underworld so long that she couldn’t know how unmoored the powers of the Old Ones had become—and how unstable was his own magick in particular. It had seemed a relatively safe thing to promise her what was left of himself if it meant the return of Odin and Frigga, but he hadn’t counted on Sally’s spontaneous shenanigans.
Hel was in many ways her father’s daughter, but she hadn’t been tempered by the world of mortals. She wouldn’t give up Odin and Frigga, and she likely intended to keep the Rune Witch for herself, too. Even here in Midgard, Loki wasn’t sure he had the strength to prevent it.
“You will accompany me now to Helheim,” the emissary said with sad resignation. “We will collect the Rune Witch and begin our journey at once. My queen commands it.”
Loki was about to inform Hel’s hapless stiff precisely what he could do with his queen’s command, but he looked deeper into the emissary’s eyes and caught a glimpse of the human being he once was. There was something of that resilient Viking still there.
“Have you come to Midgard of your own volition?” Loki asked.
The emissary shook his head, but there was hope in his eyes.
“You know I can’t help you,” Loki said.
“Not here.”
Loki nearly took the bait, but he was tired and hungry and recognized his own weakness. He’d made too many journeys in a single day, and he was still battered from his latest visit with his daughter. He had neither the energy nor the patience for whatever this walking, talking cadaver was trying to sell him.
“What was your name?” Loki asked.
The emissary stared at him.
“Before,” Loki said.
The creature paused. “Guldbrand.” His mouth struggled to form the syllables.
“Guldbrand. Tell your queen you did your duty. My failure to comply is no fault of your own.”
“You must return with me to Helheim,” Guldbrand said. “There is nothing left for you here.”
But Loki had turned his back. Guldbrand was near enough to the portal that he should make it back to Helheim under his own power. Let Hel issue her commands and her threats, Loki thought as he pushed his way through the woods toward the nearest urban trailhead. When he last checked, there were only the four draugar in Portland. The fact that she’d sent a single emissary—instead of an undead army or even her hounds—told him plenty about Hel’s limits.
Her impatience would force a mistake. Until then, Loki would wait—as if he had the strength for anything else. And he was still hungry. He pulled out his chaos-shielded phone and started typing.
Thor sat behind the wheel of his pickup and worked on loosening his jaw. He’d received a garbled message from Loki about danger and requesting his presence at Saga’s apartment. Was he supposed to storm in, hammer singing, to defeat whatever goons or other inconvenience had descended on his sister’s waterfront palace? Or was the god of chaos calling a meeting at Saga’s place and inviting Thor to attend?
And how in the blazes of Muspellheim had Saga gotten tangled up with Loki?
Sally was probably involved, too. The Rune Witch had gotten a raw deal from his family since Odin and Frigga had departed for Valhalla, even if no one piled on when she’d excoriated herself at the Winter Nights party. She didn’t deserve the punishment she exacted on herself. And so Thor was parked in his truck in front of his house trying to puzzle out what to do, instead of sitting inside with his wife and son and watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on the television and pretending that everything was just fine.
It didn’t help that there remained a leadership vacuum among his kin, and that his tête-à-tête with Heimdall hadn’t resolved anything.
He thought back to the glimpse he’d gotten of the draugar on his street and he wanted to punch the dashboard. He’d gotten Magnus inside the house and then spent some time convincing himself that he hadn’t seen what he thought he had seen. Knew he had seen, even though it was impossible. He downed a couple of steins of Bonnie’s spiced cider and rationalized the eerily authentic undead pranksters as rowdy teens in ambitious Halloween costumes.
But chomping down a half-dozen chocolate and peanut butter pumpkin candies, he’d headed back outside to revisit the toppled trashcans. Litter was scattered up and down the street, and there were a few scorch marks on the pavement. There hadn’t been a troublemaker in sight. Maybe just a few rogue draugar then, he’d decided. A nuisance, and one that raised questions, but not
a true menace.
Then Thor got this message from Loki, and all the sugar in his stomach started to make him feel sick.
Heimdall wasn’t returning his calls, though he’d had plenty of time to get back to the Lodge. Maybe Maggie had taken possession of his phone just like she seemed to have grabbed hold of his böllr. Thor and his siblings were scattering like feral cats, but stewing in his pickup wasn’t going to solve anything.
He started up the engine and drove westward across the Willamette River and through downtown. He headed toward the luxury buildings of the South Waterfront and started hunting for parking, in scarce supply on a Friday night when nearby riverside restaurants and bars were often packed. The closer he got to Saga’s building, the more trashcan fires he passed. They guided him in like overzealous garden lights. But they made little sense in an upscale neighborhood, even the night before Halloween.
Thor found an open spot two blocks from Saga’s building and heard the shattering of glass as soon as he shut his door. He locked up the truck and headed toward the sound, soon finding a group of costumed rowdies who looked uncannily similar to the ruffians in his neighborhood. He felt his blood begin to boil.
No, not uncannily similar. Exactly the same. Bloody draugar tearing up his town. There were more of them now, at least a dozen, and they were smashing up the ground-level storefronts of Saga’s building. But they weren’t looting. They were seeking entry.
Thor went back to his truck and grabbed his hammer.
Sally was livid when she burst through the door to Saga’s apartment. She was too incensed and too afraid to be shocked by Loki’s presence on the floor, sitting cross-legged in the living area and attaching bolts to the frame of an IKEA Poäng lounge chair as though nothing of particular interest was happening in the world beyond Saga’s door.
“She took him!” Sally’s voice broke as hot tears streamed down her face. She blew her nose into a tissue, having no idea where it had come from. Opal must have put it in her hand, just as she was now offering Sally a glass of water. Sally pushed the glass away, but Opal pressed it against Sally’s arm. Sally relented. She choked down half the water, despite the painful lump in her throat.
Chaos Magic (Rune Witch Book 5) Page 16
