Black Pool Magic

by Jennifer Willis

  “That’s not what I said.” Heimdall sighed. “It’s not what I meant.”

  Thor sat upright and unscrewed the bottle’s lid. “Because it’s not like I’m having a relationship with a mortal myself or anything.” Thor took a long drink of water and turned to Heimdall with a sarcastic smile. “Oh, no, wait a minute. I am!”

  Heimdall laid the open magazine in his lap. “Things aren’t going well.”

  “You’re kidding.” Thor kept his deadpan expression steady for just shy of four seconds before he choked on his own laughter.

  “Forget it.” Heimdall picked up the catalog again. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “No, no, I’m sorry.” Thor took another sip of water. “Really. What’s wrong? How can I help?”

  Heimdall browsed through a few more pages of indoor dog potty mats, electric tie clips, portable security devices, and zombie garden gnomes. “It’s not the same since she became the Goddess of the Grove.”

  Thor watched Heimdall for a long minute. He struggled against the urge to make another snide remark at his brother’s expense. He looked down at the catalog page Heimdall was perusing.

  “And you think giving her a talking Smurf toothbrush will help?”

  Heimdall closed the catalog in exasperation and shoved it into his seat pocket. “I knew I couldn’t talk to you about this.”

  Thor rested a hand on his brother’s elbow. “No, come on. I’m serious. Showering the lady with useless gifts won’t change your underlying problem.”

  Heimdall stared ahead and nodded. He was actually listening. Thor was unprepared for this, and he cleared his throat to mask his hesitation.

  “No one expected her to remain the same person—the same human—she was before Iduna chose Maggie to be her replacement.”

  “Except for me,” Heimdall said.

  “Well, yeah.” Thor turned awkwardly in his seat and tried to face his brother. He ignored the pain of the armrest digging into the flesh just above his hip. “She didn’t get to choose this for herself.”

  “But you and Bonnie are doing all right,” Heimdall said.

  “That’s different.” Thor wasn’t entirely sure how his relationship was different, and he found himself wishing he had the Rune Witch or even Saga at his side to coach him through this conversation.

  “Because Bonnie’s not an immortal and no one’s asking her to be,” Heimdall said.

  “That’s right!” Thor’s face lit up, then he cleared his throat again and scowled. “I mean, of course, that’s right. And besides, what immortal couple do you know that doesn’t have their ups and downs? Look at Bragi and Iduna. They spent whole centuries apart.”

  “That wasn’t by choice, either.” Heimdall glanced at his brother. “But I get your point. Still, Odin and Frigga seem to make it work.”

  “Pomegranate juice and mead—apples and oranges, brother. You were already a millennia-old legend before Maggie was born. In practically the blink of an eye, she’s had to give up her entire world and her own family to join the Lodge and start up a new Grove, and now she’s trying to resurrect the Well—”

  “I think that project is designed to keep her from having to talk to me.” Heimdall sighed. “She rarely ventures outside the Grove, and even then the farthest she goes is to Odin’s Lodge.”

  “So go to her, then.”

  Heimdall shook his head. “She’s always busy with something.”

  Thor pursed his lips. “So give her a dog. Or a cat.”

  Heimdall turned sharply to his brother. “A cat? That’s your suggestion?”

  Thor shrugged. “An affectionate creature who will be a comfort and a companion to her, and who will remind her of you.”

  “That’s . . .” Heimdall paused, then lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s not bad advice.” He smiled at his brother. “Bonnie’s influence?”

  “She had me send a flowering plant to her grandmother.”

  “Her Italian grandmother?”

  Thor shook his head. “The other one. The one who hates my guts.” Thor drained the rest of his water bottle in a single gulp. “Bonnie suggested that something beautiful, and something that lasts, might soften her up over the long haul.”

  “Good luck with that.” Heimdall reclined his seat. “A cat,” he muttered to himself.

  “Give it time.” Thor turned to face forward again. The armrests hugged his hips like a vise and he grunted as he tried to get comfortable. “But you can try the cartoon toothbrush, too, if you’d like.”

  Heimdall put in his earbuds and closed his eyes. Thor grabbed Heimdall’s SkyMall catalog and flipped through the pages of inflatable Christmas trees, arthritis socks, and a tempting boxed set of Columbo DVDs. But mostly, he just thought of Bonnie, and he smiled.

  They landed in Dublin just past dawn. Freyr refused to return to Portland, and Freya was doing her best not to panic.

  She’d sat on her hands beside Heimdall on the shuttle bus from the airport into the city. She stared out the window at the fences, factories, and highways that had sprung up in her long absence.

  Every time she closed her eyes, she’d seen Badbh’s glinting, black eyes.

  Now off the bus and pulling their rolling suitcases behind them, they headed south on O’Connell Street toward the river. While Heimdall and Thor continued across the Liffey in the direction of Trinity College, Freya stopped short of the bridge. She surveyed Dublin’s busy skyline and inhaled the fishy smell of the river beneath her feet.

  “Vanaheim,” Freya exhaled. She kept waiting for a sense of connection to her home soil, or at least the hint of something familiar. But other than a few lungs-full of exhaust fumes and concrete dust, she felt empty.

  She’d left behind a neat village of dirt roads and the occasional horse and cart, and she’d returned to a bustling international capital. The old roads had all been paved over. Small cars, lorries, and double-decker buses swarmed the streets, getting snared in traffic and bursting through the smallest openings in an endless, motorized stream.

  “It’s not quite what I remember,” Freyr said.

  Thor marched back toward them, with Heimdall close on his heels.

  “Now, don’t go getting all nostalgic!” Thor thundered at the twins. He seemed determined not to lose control of the situation so soon after they arrived. “We’re here to figure out what the blasted broomsticks is going on. And then we’re going home. Understood?”

  Freyr stepped away from his sister and nodded. Thor glared at Freya and waited for her answer.

  “We won’t give you any trouble,” she shouted over the din of traffic.

  “I’m watching you.” Thor narrowed his eyes and glanced back and forth between them, even though he had to know his bluster was wasted on them.

  Heimdall clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Let’s not turn against each other just yet, eh?” He struck out across the bridge again and motioned the others to follow.

  “We’ll convene with the Rune Witch, get a read on the situation, and devise a solution,” Heimdall said over the clickety-clack of four sets of luggage wheels rolling over the heavily-traveled pavement.

  “And then we’ll get drunk.” Thor nodded at the rows of pubs they passed on the other side of the bridge.

  Freyr laughed, but Heimdall’s breath froze when they came around a curve in the road. A bus lay on its side just outside the front gates of Trinity College. Passengers struggled to climb out through shattered windows, but the bus trembled and shook, seemingly of its own accord.

  Freya dropped her suitcase and rushed toward the scene, but Thor caught her elbow and held her back. She pointed at the bus and exclaimed. “We’ve got to do something! Don’t you see?!”

  Thor stared hard at the accident, and then he saw them: A score of small creatures with shimmering wings and gold-glinting hair danced on the carcass of the bus. The bus rocked as they jigged and stomped, and the diminutive faeries grabbed at the belongings of the human passengers trying to escape. The f
aeries hurled bags and briefcases at the responding police and fire crews.

  One fireman caught a rolling suitcase in the face and had to be helped back to his feet by his comrades. A rookie police officer was escorted to an awaiting ambulance after being impaled through the shoulder with a blue umbrella. Pedestrians scurried for cover as a band of pixies took position in the surrounding trees and threw rocks and sticks at everyone within range.

  Still holding Freya in place, Thor turned to Freyr. “And I suppose you know exactly what’s happening here?!”

  Freyr looked on with a stunned expression. “Not exactly, no. But I have an idea.”

  Heimdall grabbed Freya’s suitcase and stepped off the curb into traffic. “We need to get to Sally.” He wove between the few cars that were still moving and tried to stay out of the way of the emergency responders and the mischievous creatures who seemed intent on using his head for target practice. A pocketbook glanced off his shoulder a second before a mobile phone struck his hip.

  Heimdall led them around the overturned bus and pressed through the crowd of onlookers that was growing larger by the second. They stopped in front of the Trinity gates. The great doors were barely hanging on their hinges.

  Thor took a deep breath and stepped through the gates and onto the college grounds. He waved the others inside behind him. They stood just inside the campus perimeter and gaped.

  Hundreds of toilet paper rolls flew like festive canon balls from every window in sight. High-pitched shrieks of laughter tore the air, punctuated by cries of shock and dismay as students ran from one building to the next in search of shelter from the pelting hail of textbooks that seemed to come from every direction.

  “Saga thought this would be a vacation?” Freyr shouted over the barrage.

  Thor led the way to a shadowy overhang of a centuries-old building that offered some protection. Heimdall pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and started dialing.

  “The international calling rates will be prohibitive.” Freyr pulled a campus map from his back pocket. “Sally’s residence isn’t far. If we can just make it across campus—”

  “I’ll get a local SIM card later!” Heimdall shot back. “Just stay put for now.”

  “These are your people, right?” Thor growled at Freya and Freyr.

  “Used to be,” Freyr shrugged. “I can’t say this is normal behavior.”

  A well-aimed roll of toilet paper sailed beneath the overhang and hit Thor in the chest.

  “I’ll go out on a limb and assume that wasn’t an accident,” Thor grumbled.

  Two cans of beans followed—one landing at Heimdall’s feet, the other bouncing off Thor’s shin. The god of thunder gritted his teeth and rubbed his leg.

  “One could argue the treaty is now void, since you and Heimdall set foot on Vanir soil,” Freyr said.

  “I thought that’s why we brought you two along,” Thor replied.

  Freyr stepped farther back into the shadows as a new round of missiles—two flaming textbooks and a metal stapler—flew at Thor and Heimdall. Heimdall dodged the fiery books but caught the stapler on his backside. Thor batted the books out of the air and stomped out the flames with his heavy boots.

  “Your friends just hit my brother in the butt with office supplies.” Thor glowered at Freyr, though he was clearly on the verge of chuckling.

  A half-dozen lightbulbs smashed on the ground by Thor’s feet. He turned to Freya. “Any ideas?”

  While the others huddled under the safety of the overhang, Freya stepped out into the fray. Clumps of toilet paper and ripped out pages of library books landed at her feet, but no projectile came close to touching her.

  Out in the open, she looked up at the surrounding buildings and felt a thousand glistening eyes on her at once.

  “I know you can hear me,” she whispered as the melee surged around her. She felt an ancient call rising in her blood, and she opened her mouth to sing.

  Sally opened House XXV’s exterior door and stepped outside. She fell back against the building’s brick exterior and gawped.

  She’d thought it was bad inside the flat, where The Morrigan’s wicked little fireflies had kept her and Clare up all night with their incessant banging in the kitchen. The rest of the time, the buzzing little lights had torn through every book and journal and rifled through drawers. In a rare display of humility and desperation, Clare had begged Sally to use her magick to banish them, but after what happened at the castle the night before, Sally was keeping a tight lid on her Rune Witch talents.

  But this was . . . impressive.

  Apart from the thorough decorating job the sprites had done with every roll of toilet paper conceivably known to man, the lawn facing her hall boasted a bonfire of books and undergarments that billowed smoke and hot cinders into the air. To her right was a trio of towering pyramids of student bicycles, with more being stacked on top every second. At the far end of campus she spotted what she guessed was the makings of a human trebuchet; a band of ugly, gnome-like creatures no taller than Sally’s waist had ganged up on an unlucky pair of first-year students and were making preparations to launch them across campus with a hurling machine made of shipping crates and campus benches.

  Sally gripped her phone tight. “Holy mudpuppies!”

  “What was that?” Heimdall shouted on the other end of the connection.

  “Sorry!” Sally yelled to be heard above the ruckus coming from all sides. “It’s pandemonium over here.”

  “It’s no better where I’m standing,” Heimdall responded. “We’re just inside the front gate. Should we come to you?”

  “No!” Sally stepped away from the relative safety of the building. A computer monitor shattered on the pavement a few inches to her left.

  She craned her neck upward and saw a trio of thin, ethereal-looking creatures with large eyes. They were dancing and cackling at the edge of the roof. Spotting Sally looking up at them, one of the creatures flashed a particularly malicious grin and lifted a desktop CPU over its head. It took aim.

  “Cripes!” Sally ran.

  She dodged a driver-less motorcycle tearing through Library Square and gave a wide berth to the many flaming rubbish bins that dotted the campus. She stopped abruptly when she came across a winged trio of elderly-looking beings resting outside the Old Library building and singing to themselves. But then one of them shot blue sparks out of his fingers at a bewildered professor. The other two set their sights on a group of students, shocking them with enough electricity to make their hair stand on end and setting the socks of one poor young man on fire.

  Sally sprinted through Parliament Square. It was the most exercise she’d gotten in weeks.

  She spotted Heimdall and Thor as they wrestled their luggage away from a skinny boy in rags and brightly colored socks.

  “Looters?” Sally jammed her cell phone into her pocket and was about to charge in to help when she saw the pointed shape of the boy’s ears.

  Thor punched the pointy-eared boy in the face and then used his suitcase to shove him to the ground. He and Heimdall grabbed the rest of the luggage and hurried toward Sally.

  Sally felt the melody more than she heard it. She tried to make sense of the lyrics before she realized the words were in Ancient Irish. For a confused moment, she wondered if Clare was blasting her Enya playlist again.

  Sally turned in place and tried to locate the source of the music. Her eyes widened at the sight of Freya standing in the grass, her face lifted to the sky. As Freya sang, the rampaging creatures gradually abandoned their rowdy disorder and began to circle around her. Freya’s song rippled across the Trinity campus, and the fiery and destructive chaos before came to a quiet close.

  “What in the blazes of Muspellheim . . .” Thor stared at his cousin.

  Freya looked out at the assembled Tuatha de Danann. So many tribes were represented. She smiled. Freyr walked onto the grass to stand beside her.

  “Rest now,” Freya’s gentle voice carried across the campus like
a breeze.

  Hundreds of faeries simultaneously lit up from within, and then flickered out of view.

  Sally looked up at Heimdall and Thor beside her, and then nodded at Freya. “I think we all have some explaining to do.”

  8

  “Don’t you have a rental car?” Sally watched Thor, Heimdall, and Freyr pull their suitcases behind them, while Freya strolled behind the group with her face tilted dreamily toward the sky.

  “Or we could stop off at your hotel, and leave the luggage there?” Sally offered.

  Thor gritted his teeth. “The sooner we get this business attended to the better.” He pushed forward and shot Heimdall a look. “Our travel planning apparently didn’t get as far as arranging a car or accommodations.”

  Heimdall kept his focus forward as the group followed Sally toward Dublin Castle. “You try finding four seats together on a last-minute, 6,000-mile flight from Oregon to Ireland, plus arranging for transportation to the airport, figuring out the bus system at your destination . . .”

  “Don’t forget having no place to sleep once you get there,” Thor grumbled.

  “How much farther is this place?” Heimdall called to Sally.

  “Not far.” Sally finished typing a text message and hit SEND. “Niall and Clare are meeting us there.”

  Sally shoved her phone into her pocket. She was tired and cold and more than a little freaked out by the faerie free-for-all on the Trinity campus. She was desperate for a cup of hot chocolate—she might even have settled for coffee even though she hated the taste of the stuff.

  A day-long nap would have been even better.

  After Clare and Niall had managed to fall asleep the night before, camped out in the living room, Sally remained awake to maintain a protective shield around them. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep through all of the shrieks, banging, and thumping anyway.

  Sally yawned.

  “Who are these people, exactly?” Thor tripped on a bit of uneven pavement and regained his balance with a frustrated growl.