Chaos Magic (Rune Witch Book 5)

by Jennifer Willis

  “I know,” Maggie said. “I had a vision at the Well.”

  That wasn’t what he expected. Her face was ashen and serious, and she motioned for him to take a seat by the hearth.

  “I was making my rounds outside,” she said. “Checking in on everything. I wanted some time to myself, again. I know I’ve been distant, and I know there’s a lot we need to work out.”

  “Tell me what you saw.” Heimdall sat beside her and reached for her hand. Her fingers were cold and they trembled beneath his. The vision must have been a bad one, and she wasn’t used to divination to begin with. He worried that she might erupt into shrieks and bad verse like the Norns. Instead, she was quiet and looked like she might start to cry.

  “Loki really was trying to warn us.” Maggie rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “The draugar are building up their forces. Or I think that’s what they’ll do. It wasn’t really clear.”

  Heimdall squeezed her hand in encouragement. “That’s what I’ve heard from Thor. They’ve appeared on his street and at Saga’s apartment. They’ve set fires and destroyed Sally’s building and Loki’s home. But no one knows how to guard against them. A boy Sally knows has been kidnapped.”

  Maggie didn’t seem to hear him. She stared into the fire—a gas insert, set on low for ambience. She gripped Heimdall’s fingers as tears escaped down her cheeks.

  “They’re not from the underworld. They originated here, in the real world.” She shrugged an apology. “I mean, what to me is the real world.”

  “Go on.”

  “But they’re trying to get to Helheim, by any means necessary,” she said. “I saw bones and corpses from morgues and unmarked graves, rising up. Does that make any sense? It was like something out of a horror movie, but with the sound turned down really low. Images, mostly. And lots of shadow and fog, so I can’t be too sure on the details.”

  Heimdall hadn’t heard anyone describe a vision from Mímir’s Well in the old days. Odin kept those experiences to himself and few others were allowed access. This new well was of Maggie’s making, constructed in Oregon as an anchor to the old ways and a foundation for moving forward. But no one expected Maggie’s Well to be a font of wisdom and prophecy.

  Maggie sighed heavily and looked at the floor. “It was Sally. She awakened the first ones. But it wasn’t her fault! I’m not trying to lay blame. It truly was an accident. I saw that much clearly. Her magick sparked while she was in close proximity to some old, dead Vikings.”

  She wiped her free hand across her face, smearing tears across her skin.

  “I know I’ve really cocked it up.” She tried to laugh. “I thought I could make big changes and then everything would be more efficient and modern and it would all make more sense. All of the traditions and the legends. I figured it was like merging holiday customs or doing fusion cuisine. I thought I could, you know, organize things better.”

  Heimdall couldn’t help his smile.

  “I thought I could organize all the magick to my own liking,” she said flatly. “I wasn’t taking into account that it’s actually real. And that it’s way bigger than I am.”

  “Did you see anything else? Frigga and Odin?” Heimdall kept his voice soft, though Maggie had to understand his urgency.

  Maggie nodded and swallowed hard. Heimdall prepared for the worst—that Odin and Frigga had been separated on their way to the Halls of Valhalla, or they’d been waylaid by trickery from one of their enemies. Even now, Heimdall’s mother and father might be screaming out as they endured eternal imprisonment and torture.

  “I don’t know if I was seeing the future, or the past,” she said.

  “It’s okay. Tell me.”

  “They’re safe. I think they’re safe,” she said, and Heimdall started breathing again.

  Her grip tightened on his hand. “But the Lodge isn’t. Heimdall, it’s Loki they want. The draugar are following his trail.”

  Heimdall knew she was curious, and he was grateful she didn’t ask about that particular connection. Not yet.

  “And Loki was here!” Maggie rose to her feet and started pacing the floor. “It’s just you and me and Rod! If they attack the Lodge, or damage the Tree . . . We can’t help Thor in Portland because we need him to help us here!”

  Heimdall reclined on the sofa and got the feeling it was the nearest thing to rest he’d be getting for a while. He took a few breaths and wondered what Odin would make of the wreck Heimdall and Thor had made of the Lodge, or what wisdom Frigga would offer on standing up to challenges and mending fences.

  If he too drank from Maggie’s Well, could he connect with his parents and seek their guidance? Would he see his future and the consequences of any action he might take, so he could be assured of making the right choice?

  It had been mere months since the deaths of his parents. It sure hadn’t taken long for everything they’d built to start crumbling.

  “I told him the same thing.” Heimdall pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. “He’s not coming.”

  Maggie gasped. “But the draugar are coming. I can feel it.”

  “Thor has his own family and household to protect, and the whole city of Portland, too. It wasn’t a decision he made lightly.” Heimdall tapped on Ted’s number and waited for the call to connect to the head of the Valkyrie biker gang. “Unless we can scare up some reinforcements, we’ll have to handle things here on our own.”

  Maggie pulled out her own phone and held it to her ear. “Rod? Drop whatever you’re doing and meet us inside. Right now.”

  “Hey, Heimdall!” Ted’s raspy voice came through Heimdall’s speakerphone. “You’re up early. What can I do you for?”

  Deep, booming thuds sounded from outside the Lodge. The assault had already begun. Maggie shrieked and ran for the kitchen, ransacking drawers and cabinets for weapons. Heimdall shouted instructions to Ted into his phone to be heard above the barrage. He stood in the center of the Lodge’s great room and tried to gauge the draugar’s attack. He couldn’t yet see anything through the windows, but the blows to the Lodge were starting to rattle the rafters over his head.

  He swallowed hard and almost laughed when he realized there was no single concentration of the assault. It was coming from all sides.

  15

  Thor stood by his pickup truck and weighed his hammer in his hands. It was just past dawn on Saturday morning. Most of the neighborhood was still asleep. The street was quiet and damp after an overnight rain.

  With Magnus in her arms, Bonnie watched her husband from the front porch. Thor wanted to tell her not to worry, but she was no fool. He was embarking on a heroic adventure the likes of which he hadn’t attempted before, and he was doing it with Loki at his side.

  It wasn’t something he’d ever envisioned for himself.

  The hammer didn’t look anything like the original Mjölnir he used to carry, and he missed the short, sturdy handle and the heavy block of metal engraved with runic sigils to focus his strength and power.

  Mjölnir had been crafted by the old dwarf, Sindri, too many years ago for Thor to reckon. But like Thor’s legendary might, Mjölnir’s vigor and resilience gradually dwindled until the metal finally cracked and crumbled. So it had gone for the rest of the Lodge, too.

  Ever since, Thor had resigned himself to one replacement after another. This one was a steel drilling hammer Bonnie had bought from Home Depot, but Freya and Sally had worked their magick over it and it seemed to be holding up all right. They’d carved pretty symbols into the handle, too, and Thor ran his fingers over the designs before he slipped the hammer into his belt.

  “That won’t do you any good where we’re going.” Loki examined the array of weaponry spread out in the truck’s bed. There were a few crowbars and tire-irons, a pair of smaller hammers, and three sizes of cudgels. There was also a replica pike someone had picked up at a Renaissance faire, but no one had yet tested it in battle.

  “I’ll take my chances,” Thor grumbled.
r />   “As long as it doesn’t slow you down.”

  Thor eyed Loki and tried to decide if the old goat was trying to trick him into something. But Loki had more on the line than anyone else in this mess—everyone except perhaps Sally. Still, Thor didn’t like the idea of Loki touching any of his weapons. He breathed a sigh of relief when Loki didn’t reach for any of them.

  But then Thor frowned. Was it his imagination or had Loki lost weight? The god of chaos was paler than usual, and he stood with a slight stoop. Worse, Loki’s black hair was shot through with more gray than Thor remembered.

  “You feeling all right, old man?” Thor’s tone was jovial, but he didn’t smile.

  “I’m ready!” Sally’s voice was bright as she burst out of the house and hurried down the steps. She had a heavy backpack slung over one shoulder, which Bonnie had probably packed with muffins, fruit, and thermoses of strong coffee.

  Thor glanced to the porch and nodded at his wife. He felt a surge of pride and longing, and he ignored the creeping feeling that this might be the last time he looked upon her fierce and hopeful face.

  Sally slung her bag into the truck’s passenger seat and looked up at Thor and Loki with aggressive determination, her jaw set.

  “No, Sally.” Thor laid a hand on her shoulder. He felt how skinny she was under all that denim and fleece and knew his decision was the right one. “I need you to stay here.”

  Loki and Sally protested simultaneously. On one side, Thor got an earful from Loki about how Hel might react if they were to show up without Sally and that he wasn’t strong enough to complete the magickal transaction without her. On the other side, Sally declared that Zach wouldn’t be in his current predicament if it wasn’t for her and she had no intention of sitting on her hands while her friends marched into danger.

  Thor listened patiently for a few seconds before he lifted his hands, palms out, to silence them both.

  “I am not taking Sally into Helheim,” he said. “That’s precisely what the old bitch wants, isn’t it?”

  He winced a bit at the fact that he’d just called Loki’s daughter an old bitch, but Loki didn’t react.

  “I’m not putting Sally in more immediate danger, and I won’t risk losing the only bargaining chip we have.” Thor turned to Sally. “And before you get yourself all worked up, you won’t be sitting around doing nothing. You’ll be doing your work from here, where you’re safely out of Hel’s reach.”

  That last part was a stretch. The draugar weren’t likely to sit around doing nothing, either. Bonnie and Opal were proven warriors but even with Saga at their side, were they any match for a legion of the undead?

  Bonnie pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll call in what cavalry I can, if it comes to it.”

  “Do it now,” Thor said. “Just in case.”

  Sally opened his hand and placed a black stone on a silver chain in his palm. He didn’t know what he was meant to do with it, but at least she wasn’t arguing with him over being left behind.

  “My pendulum,” she said. “I have a feeling you might need it.”

  Loki’s eyebrows lifted to precarious heights at that comment, and Thor felt another ominous shadow pass over him. He looked to the sky and expected to see ravens circling overhead, but there was nothing remarkable about the low ceiling of gray clouds in late October. Thor nodded to Sally, then climbed the few steps to the front porch to say his goodbyes to his wife and his son.

  Within minutes, Thor was behind the wheel of his truck with the god of chaos in the passenger seat. He breathed more easily when he saw Tariq’s beat-up sedan turn the corner, headed toward the house. The Einherjar were on their way to protect Thor’s family.

  Thor pulled away from the curb and followed Loki’s directions to the portal between worlds Sally had opened. He was headed to the Hall of Helheim as a living god, and he doubted he’d receive a hero’s welcome.

  “We’re splitting the focus of the draugar.” Sally stood in the center of Bonnie’s living room and tried to rationalize getting left behind by Thor and Loki.

  She thought of it as Bonnie’s house, even with Thor in residence. The decor and furniture were all Bonnie’s, but there were a few signs of Thor’s influence—a votive holder shaped like a long boat in the windowsill and a replica drinking horn hanging on the wall.

  “We’re distracting them from following Thor and Loki.” Sally was parroting Thor’s argument. If the draugar were following Loki, it was a sound assumption they might be attracted to chaos in general. It was probably why they’d attacked Sally’s apartment, and Saga’s, too, while Sally was there. Having the Rune Witch working magick—any magick—in Portland might be enough to keep the draugar occupied and off Loki’s trail to Helheim.

  In the hours since Loki and Thor departed, Sally had worked a dozen nonsense spells covering everything from doubling the amount of Bonnie’s Halloween candy to locating Magnus’s lost blankie. As usual, something managed to go wrong. The missing security blanket turned up beneath the china press with burn marks around the edges, and Sally inadvertently quadrupled the candy supply with six gallons of malted milk balls, bright pink salt water taffy, and Necco wafers. She was pretty sure Bonnie’s house would get egged.

  There was still no sign of the draugar. Sally had to try harder and think bigger to attract them to the house, though she didn’t relish the idea of confronting the draugar head-on.

  Opal and Saga pushed the sofa, lounge chairs, side tables, and coffee table against the walls. They rolled up the rug and stowed it in the hallway. Sally surveyed the bare wooden floor and hoped there was enough space. She had a vague idea of what she wanted to try next, and she didn’t want to damage any of Bonnie’s things.

  There was a clattering of pots and nervous laughter from the kitchen. Bonnie was cooking again and Tariq was helping. They were expecting Portland’s warriors to arrive soon, and they’d need to be fed. The scents of savory spices tugged at Sally’s senses and threatened to pull her off task.

  “Heimdall’s still not answering.” Saga shoved her phone into her pocket and crossed her arms over her chest. She walked to the front window and checked again for oncoming draugar. The street was clear.

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” Opal said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “The Valkyries are there, right?”

  “I hope so.” Saga turned away from the window and leaned against the wall. After a few restless seconds, she went to grab her computer bag in the doorway. She sat on the floor and pulled out her laptop. “Anything you need me to look up, Sally, I’m ready.”

  But Sally was preoccupied. She sat in the middle of the floor and pulled her Book of Shadows into her lap. She and Loki had mapped out a few things before he took off, but he’d left the details to her. Whenever her mind started to wander to Helheim, and to Zach, and to what Loki and Thor might be facing at that very moment, she forced herself to go back over the paragraph she’d just skimmed and read it aloud. So far, she’d recited the same spell for whitening the laundry three times.

  She took a breath and turned the page. It was time to get serious.

  Opal was busy piling up candles, oils, smudge sticks, and every other magickal item they’d managed to scrounge on the mantle above the fireplace. Tariq had started a low-burning fire in the hearth, and the crackling wood helped to soothe Sally’s nerves.

  She and Opal had already woven layers of protection around the house, but they had to be careful about who would be kept out or let in. It was Halloween, and there was no telling how long they’d need to keep watch. If Bonnie planned to answer the door and hand out candy before Thor and Loki returned, Sally didn’t want innocent kids in zombie costumes getting snared in her magick booby traps.

  That also meant the protections on the house would do only so much when the draugar came calling.

  In a fit of inspiration, Sally leapt to her feet and collected a handful of white and green candles from the mantle. She arranged them on the floor and grabbed a piece of o
range chalk. She drew knotted lines between the candles and hoped Bonnie wouldn’t mind that she was marking up the floor. She combined spirals of Algiz and Thurisaz runes in a looping vine around the candles, and scrawled a quick succession of Othila symbols at the center. The whole thing took up less than a square yard on the floor.

  Sally scribbled a guardian cross at one corner and sketched angular lines to connect the runes of Teiwaz, Raido, and Fehu. It was a sloppy sigil with imprecise angles, but Sally didn’t have a protractor handy. And wasn’t Loki pushing her to rely more on instincts and less on details?

  Opal looked over Sally’s work. She followed the curling loop around the candles and pointed at the sigil Sally had just drawn. “What’s that one?”

  “Justice?” Sally sounded less sure than she felt. “Kind of a karmic thing. You only get hurt here if you choose to do harm.”

  Opal nodded and knelt on the other side of the design. “You need any help?”

  Sally handed her a lighter and called Saga over, too. Sally lit a match, handed it to Saga, and lit another for herself.

  “The faster we light these candles, the stronger the effect should be.” Sally gave a quick three count and they started lighting candles, first along the outside ring and traveling inward. Saga leaned forward to light the green candle near the center. When she touched the flame to the fresh wick, a loud boom cracked the air and Saga was thrown backward against the far wall.

  Opal was on her feet and across the room in an instant. She knelt at Saga’s side.

  “Is she okay?” Sally was afraid to move, or to breathe. What had she done? There was a burn scar across the floor and a visible dent in the plaster where Saga struck the wall.

  “Saga?” Opal touched Saga’s cheek and shook her shoulders. “Hey. Are you all right there?”

  Sally blinked at the candles. They flickered undisturbed as Saga lay unconscious on the other side of the room. She wasn’t sure if she should blow out the candles and erase her sigils and start again—try a different color chalk, maybe—or if she should keep going. She absolutely didn’t want to hurt anyone but if she didn’t keep working magick she could be putting Loki, Thor, the Lodge, and even all of Portland in danger.