Raven Magic

by Jennifer Willis

  Loki counted his breaths as the two retreated. Moon hadn’t made any mention of Rod or Grace being on the hunt. Loki didn’t know if that was a positive development. He thought back to the call of nature he’d answered the day before, and the ominous gloom he’d felt roll over him as he returned to his camp. The trees had shimmered, just for a moment, and Loki had gotten the distinct and uneasy feeling that Odin himself had entered the woods. But neither Moon nor Hugh mentioned him, either.

  Loki lifted his gaze to the sky only after he heard the beating wings of Hugh and Moon’s departure. He stood and easily scaled his outcropping to spy Mt. Bachelor. He was only mildly surprised to find the peak’s glow dimly illuminating the tops of the trees that ringed the volcanic mountain. Jonathan was awake, and naturally the Sisters would be none too happy. So now he was messing with lava gods, too.

  As if to confirm his thoughts, the ground rumbled beneath Loki’s feet.

  Thor scrambled backward, following Freyr’s voice to guide him around fallen branches and clumps of shrubbery as he tried to get out of the way of the colossal beast that was lumbering toward him.

  “Stay back!” Thor shouted at the approaching mass of hair while he struggled to regain his footing. He wasn’t sure the siatco would understand English—or any language—but hoped the ferocity of his voice would be enough to get his message across. “I’m warning you! You don’t want to mess with me!”

  “Left!” Freyr called out, trying to steer Thor around a tree. “No, your left. Left! Two feet, then straight back.”

  “I’m not kidding!” Thor shouted at the steadily advancing beast. It was bigger than Thor. Much bigger. For all Thor knew, he’d just stumbled into the siatco’s den. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t matter if it was an accident, that the creature would be happy to rip Thor limb from limb either way.

  “Do you know who I am? Do you know what I can do to you?” Thor practically howled.

  “What exactly could you do to it?” Freyr asked. “I’m just curious, since you brought it up.”

  Thor glanced sideways at the ghost. “I thought you were trying to help me escape.”

  Freyr nodded toward the siatco, who had come to rest several yards away. “It’s simply that I don’t think issuing threats while in obvious, terrified flight is the best course of action.”

  Thor tensed his jaw. “I was not running away.”

  “You most certainly were,” the creature said in perfectly clear English. “The stench of fear is all over you. Your friend, however, is another matter.”

  The siatco stepped forward slowly, arms lifted in an apparent attempt to allay any fears. Two dark eyes peered out from deeply shadowed sockets. The creature’s gaze roved over Freyr’s form. “You are not a native being of this forest, and you are not one of the ancient spirits who reside here. But you pulse with the energy of this land.”

  Freyr nodded at the assessment, then cautiously said, “I didn’t know Bigfoot could talk.”

  The creature furrowed its bushy, black brows. Its hairless face was an earthy umber color and was circled perfectly by a mane of thick, brown fur that also ran the length and breadth of its body. Only the siatco’s feet and hands were similarly bare.

  “I don’t care much for that term,” the siatco said.

  “Yeah, Freyr.” Thor attempted a chuckle. “Don’t make him angry.”

  The creature turned his attention back to Thor, its frown deepened. “What are you doing here?”

  “Besides hunting you?” Freyr turned to Thor. “Oh, wait. You’re not supposed to be doing that until Saturday, I think.”

  “Hunting me?”

  “You’re not helping,” Thor hissed at Freyr.

  The siatco took another step closer. Thor grew significantly more nervous when he saw the size of the creature’s teeth.

  “Uh,” Thor stammered, trying to think of something he could say that wouldn’t get him torn into tiny pieces of Viking confetti. If he’d had his hammer, he could have called down thunderbolts to blast the siatco right out of its thick, furry skin.

  Thor hadn’t gotten precise instructions from Hugh on what he was supposed to do with the savage creature if and when he actually found one. Honestly, Thor had thought the task would turn out to be a fool’s errand meant simply to test his commitment to the quest.

  But here the siatco stood, right in front of him, asking him questions and everything.

  “Why would you hunt me?” the creature inquired again.

  “Um, well . . .” Thor didn’t have a good answer to the siatco’s question. He made an effort to relax his body in hopes of appearing more casual, less threatening. As he slid his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, his fingers brushed over the hunting knife he’d strapped to his belt. An idiotic and ill-conceived plan flashed into his mind.

  Thor straightened his spine. He tried not to reveal his intentions in the quirk of a smile he felt playing at the corners of his mouth. He shrugged. “You know, I’m out here on this vision quest thing . . .”

  Thor drew his knife and lunged forward. He waved the blade in the creature’s face, bent more on intimidation than on doing harm.

  The siatco watched Thor’s display of prowess with a passive expression. After a few moments of Thor’s empty thrusting and pseudo martial arts moves, the siatco lifted one massive hand, swept it across his body, and knocked Thor’s knife out of his grip. The blade sailed away into the darkness.

  Thor’s eyes went wide. He hadn’t studied up on yetis, so he had no idea what the creature’s strengths or weaknesses might be. The siatco’s size alone was impressive, but he also had quick reflexes and didn’t seem the least concerned about going hand-to-hand with the Norse god of thunder. Thor decided his best bet was to rile the creature into making a mistake. He defaulted to an assault of insults. “Kind of hairy there, aren’t you, sasquatch?”

  Freyr gave him a look of startled disbelief.

  Thor raised his fists and sank into a fighting stance. That pose by itself was usually enough to send would-be aggressors running for their mothers, but the siatco merely lifted his brows in curious study.

  “What do you say, furball?” Thor waved his fists in the air and grimaced at his own lame showing, but he kept it up anyway. “Maybe you don’t like being called Bigfoot, but I’d bet you couldn’t even get pro basketball shoes to fit those stinky feet.”

  Freyr stepped out of the way and sighed. “Seriously? You’re going to trash talk the siatco? Like that?”

  The creature remained still and watched Thor’s antics with bemused interest. “What exactly are you attempting to accomplish?”

  “Put ‘em up you big, hairy thing!” Thor yelled as he started a boxer’s prance in the confined space between the tree trunks. Built more like a bulldozer, he wasn’t nearly as light on his feet as Sugar Ray Leonard, but he did what he could. “Fight like a man, or whatever you’re supposed to be. You afraid of me, yeti-man? You should be. Your mama wears bowling shoes.”

  The siatco looked over the top of Thor’s head and sought Freyr’s gaze. “How long does this normally go on?”

  Freyr shrugged. “Best to just let him get it out of his system.”

  Thor danced forward and back in front of the siatco, his fists moving in tight circles. “You’re a little wimpy thing, then, aren’t you? Kind of a yeti runt?” Thor picked up his pace. He pumped his fists in the air, never touching the siatco but coming closer with each pretended blow. With any luck, he’d drive the creature back into the forest. And then he and Freyr could run as far away as possible.

  “A little mama’s yeti,” Thor taunted in sing-song as he kept up his clumsy footwork. “You’re all hair and no action! Don’t even have a real name, do you?”

  “Thor,” Freyr said with an edge of warning, but Thor waved him off.

  “Nah, this thing’s nothing to be worried about. See?” Thor took another empty swipe at the siatco, making a big WHUMP with the displacement of air. “Creeping around, trying to scare p
eople. Bigfoot? More like Big Wimp. Probably a fruitarian, too. I’m not scared. You won’t get what you want from me, wimpy.”

  “Actually, we have no idea what the siatco wants,” Freyr pointed out. “We could simply ask, if you’d cease this ridiculous spectacle. He seems like a reasonable fellow.”

  Thor threw a few more air punches at the creature. “You want to reason with the Big Wimp of the woods? When I’ve got him on the ropes?”

  “This has become tiresome.” The siatco crossed his massive arms over his chest, and Thor was reminded for a moment of C-3PO’s advice to let the Wookiee win.

  Thor panted with the continued effort of pretending to fight, and he could feel the layer of perspiration building between his back and his warm sweatshirt. The siatco wasn’t retreating, and Thor didn’t really know how to disengage without looking even more foolish. He lunged forward for another one-two punch in the air, but he miscalculated and his last thrust connected with the siatco’s solar plexus.

  Thor retreated a few paces and pulled his fists close to his body. “Um, okay, so that wasn’t cool. My bad. You should just run along home now.”

  The siatco raised a hand and curled his long fingers into a ball. Without the slightest change in his dispassionate expression, the siatco brought his fist down on top of Thor’s head and flattened the thunder god to the ground.

  “Wow.” Freyr sounded duly impressed. “One punch.”

  Thor sputtered something even he couldn’t understand, and his vision dimmed to black.

  12

  Laika came to an abrupt halt by the creek. She pawed at the ground, then looked up at Heimdall and whined.

  Putting down Sally’s backpack, Heimdall nodded and turned to Opal. “Okay, it looks like this is where Thor left the stream.”

  “Thor?” Dismay played across Opal’s face. “So he’s disappeared, too? Just like Sally?” She dug the pointed end of her walking stick into the ground.

  Heimdall looked up into the pure gray sky, growing gradually lighter with the approaching dawn. Friday morning.

  Laika glanced around the stream bank, then started pacing as she lowered her nose again. Heimdall crouched down and studied the traces of footprints in the dirt. At least the daylight would make the tracking easier.

  “Thor wasn’t alone here,” Heimdall said.

  “Well, sure.” Opal lowered her pack to the ground and rested her staff beside it. “He has his guide with him, right? That must mean that they’re still together, and that Thor’s all right. So that’s good news.” She looked at Heimdall and paused when he didn’t return her gaze. “That is good news, right?”

  Heimdall watched Laika. After turning a few times and trying to sort out the different scents that permeated the area, she lifted her head and stared into the woods.

  “Given that Moon turned out not to be who she said she was, I wouldn’t lay bets on that assumption,” Heimdall said.

  “Right.” Opal sat down on top of her pack, deflated. “Sorry, that was kind of dumb.”

  Heimdall traced the outline of his brother’s boot with his fingers. He doubted that reassuring Opal was the best use of his time, but she was trying to contribute. It was her friend who was lost somewhere in these woods, too.

  “It’s okay,” Heimdall said. “Just keep thinking on your time with Moon. Anything she said or did that struck you as odd at the time, or that in retrospect seems like it might be important.” He turned and looked at her. “Anything. Okay?”

  Opal rested her elbows on her knees. The poor girl was struggling to keep her eyes open. “Don’t you want to eat or sleep or something?”

  Heimdall rose to his feet. He couldn’t deny he felt lightheaded. Opal was right. She’d been on the move with them for nearly twenty-four hours, and Heimdall and Laika had been tracking for the better part of two days with no sleep or food.

  “We’ll make camp here, but only for a couple of hours,” he said. “We’ll want to use the light while we have it.”

  A grateful smile flickered across Opal’s face. She got up off her pack and started fumbling with its many zippers and velcroed compartments. “I’ve only got the one sleeping bag, but I’ve got a tarp and a sleeping pad. And food. You want some coffee?”

  Heimdall smiled. Hot coffee would restore him better than honeyed mead or even one of Freya’s dark teas. Just the thought of rich caffeine sliding down his throat perked him up. “That sounds good.”

  Laika crept slowly toward the trees, placing one paw directly in front of the other. Heimdall recognized her hunting posture and moved in behind her. “What have you got, girl?”

  She dipped her head and lowered her body a few inches as she crept forward. At the very edge of the trees, she lifted her head and whined.

  “Thor?” Heimdall tried to keep the edge of eagerness out of his voice. They’d already lost Sally’s trail, and Fenrir was roaming free—possibly tracking Heimdall through the woods and no longer in a sharing mood. And Heimdall didn’t want to think about Moon’s winged transformation a few hours before. At least Laika was still on task. He silently vowed that the wolf-dog would never again be denied entry to Frigga’s kitchen.

  “You’ve got Thor?” Heimdall asked again.

  A shiver ran through Laika’s long, thick tail as she stared into the trees.

  Not Thor, then. Heimdall studied Laika’s worried expression as she kept her muscles taut and her focus on something deep in the shadows.

  Fenrir. Heimdall sighed. There was a decent chance that Fenrir’s trail might lead them to Sally. He patted Laika’s flank, but she didn’t relax.

  Opal’s camp pots clanged together behind him.

  “I’ve got some dehydrated meals—beans and rice and stuff like that, and even some salmon, if you want that.” Opal started setting up her camp stove. Her voice sounded brighter than it had in hours. “How does hot noodles with smoked salmon sound? I’ve got enough for both of us. Well, all three of us, with Laika.”

  Heimdall turned to face her. “Change of plans.”

  Opal froze just as she was about to light the burner. Her face fell and she shrugged at the inevitability of Heimdall’s request. “Yeah, okay. We’ll keep moving.” She slipped the unlit match back into its box and went to work stowing everything in her pack.

  Heimdall rested his hand lightly on Laika’s back. “Very good girl, Laika.”

  Thor awoke to the ground shaking beneath him and a great roaring in his ears. He spat a mass of pine needles out of his mouth and staggered to his feet just as everything fell quiet again.

  “What in the blazes of Muspelheim was that?” Thor shouted, then immediately regretted the outburst. Pain split his head like white fire, radiating down from the top of his skull as though the bone had splintered into a thousand pieces. Eyes squeezed shut, Thor bent forward and spewed pure stomach acid into the dirt.

  “It’s been going on all morning.” Freyr lounged by the tree nearest Thor’s retching spot. “I’m surprised it didn’t rouse you earlier.”

  On his knees, Thor lifted a hand for reprieve. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t talk so loud.”

  Freyr chuckled lightly. “I guess that’s what you get when you go toe-to-toe with the local wildlife. I’m curious. Where did you get the idea that you had to fight the siatco?”

  “You saw that beast!” Thor barked in retort, then grimaced at the new adventure in searing pain. “The best defense is a good offense,” he whispered. “Isn’t that what those football coaches are always spouting?”

  “What have you done?!” The siatco emerged from the trees, stormed toward Thor, and grabbed him by the shoulder to pull him upright as though he were little more than a rag doll.

  “Oh, good. You’re still here.” Thor groaned and pressed the palms of his hands against his aching face. As he waited for the forest to stop spinning around him, he realized the siatco’s grip was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

  “Uh, not quite so rough, if you please?” Thor asked in a weak voic
e.

  “What have you done?!” the siatco challenged him again. “I have no time for more of your Norse foolishness. The volcanoes demand answers.”

  “I have a few questions myself, you know.” Thor dropped his arms and let them hang loose at his sides, and he opened his eyes only as narrow slits. “But you say the volcanoes want answers?”

  Freyr stepped up beside him. “The rumbling. You know, that earthquake just now?”

  Thor nodded. Then he dry-heaved a little. The siatco didn’t loosen his grip.

  “That was the volcanoes,” Freyr said. “Apparently, they’re not happy.”

  “All of this began when you entered the forest. You and your foreign magick.” The siatco let go and Thor, mighty god of thunder, fell to the ground in a clumsy heap.

  Thor spat out a new mouthful of pine needles and dirt. “Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know what’s going on.” He managed to steady himself on his knees and then paused, giving his stomach ample opportunity to object. At least for now, his midsection was quiet. “Volcanoes just erupt sometimes, right? Maybe it’s just time.”

  Towering over him, the siatco gave Thor a disgusted look. Thor noted with appreciation that the temperature actually dropped in the creature’s shadow.

  “I realize you are not known for your wit nor wisdom, Thor,” the creature said through bared teeth. “But can you manage to take a single day off from being so uselessly thick-headed?”

  Freyr started laughing and ducked behind a tree, but the trunk did little to muffle his guffaws.

  Thor climbed unsteadily to his feet. “You’ve been telling stories about me to this thing?” Thor yelled after his cousin. The pain in his head was almost manageable now—more irritating than incapacitating. He could still hear Freyr choking on his laughter behind the tree. “Because I’ve got plenty of things I could say about you, you know.”

  The siatco stepped in front of Thor, putting an end to his bickering with Freyr. With the morning sun filtering through the trees, Thor could see the siatco’s features more clearly. He had to admit the creature looked an awful lot like a basketball player in a poorly fitted gorilla suit.