Twilight Magic (Rune Witch Book 6)

by Jennifer Willis

  Twilight Magic

  Rune Witch, Volume 6

  Jennifer Willis

  Copyright © by Jennifer Willis 2018.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover artwork design by Steven Novak.

  Author photo by Rachel Hadiashar.

  Published by Jennifer Willis

  Portland, Oregon

  Jennifer-Willis.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental.

  Thank you for downloading Twilight Magic! This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please visit your online retailer to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting and supporting the hard work of this author.

  For the Masked Hucksters.

  You folks are the ink in my magick quill.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Wait!

  Author's note:

  Also by Jennifer Willis

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  About an hour west of Portland, Sally stood in front of the bark-covered corpse and checked her phone. It was just past midnight. A light, pleasantly cold sprinkling of rain gave the air a misty quality. The Rune Witch breathed in and gazed up at the ruin of what had been the mighty Sitka Spruce.

  The Klootchy Creek Giant. The Old Yggdrasil.

  Few people came to see the massive stump anymore, even though the base was still as big around as a bus and towered over the surrounding shrubs and crumbling parking lot like a jagged and not-quite-abandoned haunted house. As far as Sally knew, the only Old Ones who continued to make the occasional pilgrimage to this site were Freya and, even less frequently, Heimdall. They had their own reasons for their visits. Maybe it was sentimentality after centuries of guarding the World Tree, only to watch it wither and die and spring up anew as it had so many times in the long history of Odin’s Lodge.

  Sally felt a painful tug at her heart. It wasn’t Odin’s Lodge anymore, and hadn’t been for almost two years. The one-eyed god rested in Valhalla now. With Bragi. And Iduna. Maybe Geirrod. Even Frigga.

  Sally wasn’t quite sure about the status of Freyr, the new lava god of Mt. Bachelor. Was he happy? Was he lonely? Was he actually alive?

  She pushed the thought out of her mind. She hadn’t come all this way to dwell on the past, though she had to admit that visiting the lifeless shell of the old Yggdrasil in the middle of the night was an odd way to go about feeling her way along this new, darker path that stretched out before her.

  “I am the Rune Witch,” Sally whispered to the ragged silhouette that loomed over her. “I am the Chaos Witch, and I have come for . . .”

  She’d come for what, exactly? Answers? She wasn’t sure even what questions to ask. She’d come for a connection to the past and an anchor to provide stability as she tried to navigate this new reality. The White Oak Yggdrasil was stronger and had the benefit of being the actual living Tree, but it was firmly rooted on Lodge property in Pierce Forest. Heading out there was a longer trek from Portland, and it meant the inevitability of dealing with the Lodge inhabitants. Heimdall and Rod were okay, but Maggie was still insufferable. And Sally already had enough stress in her life without going where she was clearly unwanted.

  So she started making her dark moon treks to the old Yggdrasil. There was still magick in its old bones, if you knew where to feel for it. She wasn’t sure why she’d never come here before the trouble in Norway or Ireland, or before the mayhem in the Three Sisters Wilderness, or then the chaos in Helheim. As the magickal human helpmate of the Norse pantheon, it would have been natural for her to at least pay her respects to the last incarnation of the World Tree, even as the new Yggdrasil grew tall and strong.

  But even with all her training in spellwork and divination with Frigga and Freya, no one had thought to bring her here. So Sally had finally brought herself.

  Sally’s boots crunched on loose bits of gravel in the grass and dirt path that led to what remained of the old Yggdrasil. Now surrounded by an overgrown thicket, the ancient Tree had been ravaged by winds in its final months before succumbing at last to the elements and old age. Then the work crews had bitten into the sacred bark with their tools, trying to make the towering stump safe for human visitors again. Finally, Managarm—cursed Moon Dog—had performed his own surgery on the Tree.

  Sally ran her fingers lightly over the scar Managarm’s saw had left on the Old Tree’s body. The knot he’d sliced off to craft his own bastardized set of runes left a nearly perfect circle on the trunk’s surface—right next to carved declarations by young lovers “S+M” and “ACK & PAD.” It had been four and a half years since the wayward god attempted his coup, but it felt like so much longer. Sally smiled at the tremble of magick in the scarred wood beneath her fingers. Neither Managarm nor storm winds had been able to steal the magick of the Old Tree. Not completely.

  She spread her fingers wide and pressed her palms against the contours of the old Tree. Its bark was brittle and its husk had moldered and rotted in the incessant rain of the Pacific Northwest. She leaned close to rest her cheek against the damp trunk and breathed in scents of the forest in decay. Images of Odin and Frigga filled her mind, and she smiled.

  “You and I are more alike than you know,” she whispered to the remains of the old Tree. “No one knows what to do with either of us.”

  She rested like that for a time, eyes closed and mind wandering. She might have even fallen asleep, standing in the rain and leaning against the giant stump. There was no one around to disturb her. The mostly forgotten park off of Highway 26 was deserted at this time of night, especially in the inclement weather. It was usually deserted in the middle of a sunny day, too.

  Sally took a deep breath and kept her eyes closed. She whispered to Odin and Frigga, something between a prayer and a plea, just in case they were not truly out of reach. In rare quiet moments, Sally liked to imagine that they could see her and maybe even guide her. She no longer feared their judgment and sorely wished she weren’t so far beyond their advice.

  She pushed herself away from the Tree and paused to brush the dust of crumbling bark from her cheek. She gave the trunk an affectionate pat before she stepped away.

  She was halfway down the path to the parking area when she turned back to look at the Tree. She wasn’t ready to leave. She never was. Something about this old, desiccated vessel of magick and creation kept tugging at her, a bit more every day since Frigga followed her husband to the Halls of Valhalla.

  Sally turned her face skyward and closed her eyes against the rain. It was coming down harder now and her clothes and hair were already soaked. Cool drops tickled the back of her neck as they ran down from her scalp and ov
er her vertebrae beneath her jacket. She spread her arms wide.

  “I am the Rune Witch!” Sally called into the black sky. Even without the cloudy gloom, the empty darkness of the new moon was her favorite time now. She didn’t have to pretend to be something she wasn’t. She didn’t struggle anymore to make sense of everything that had happened and everything that might happen next. There were no worries over her destiny or her role among the Norse gods who had transitioned from idols to friends and then to uneasy allies. Or maybe she was the one who had transformed.

  She turned back to the trunk standing sentinel in the rain. The old Tree seemed to know something she didn’t. Something about eternity and impermanence, and about the interplay of entropy and order. She kept hoping to absorb the old Tree’s lessons by osmosis, and these visits did give her powerful dreams when she lay her head down in the wee hours before dawn. But she couldn’t put her finger on the wisdom she was sure the old Tree was trying to impart.

  “Do you miss me when I’m not here?” Sally whispered. She heard nothing but the patter of rain in reply.

  A suggestion of thunder rumbled in the distance, interrupting Sally’s reverie. Storms weren’t common in the Pacific Northwest—not the kind with proper thunder and lightning, even with Thor the Thunderer in residence nearby. She cocked her head and listened for the cranky sky to repeat its protestation. After nearly a full minute of silence, she shrugged and sent a new trickle of raindrops coursing beneath the collar of her sweatshirt.

  Sally crouched down and rested her hands on her knees. She kept her eyes trained on the shadowy outline of the Old Yggdrasil.

  “Freya wouldn’t like that I’m here alone at night,” she confessed. “And Frigga . . .”

  A shiver ran down Sally’s spine. Frigga had made her choice. She was no longer part of this world, and she’d left Sally to fend for herself.

  But Sally had never belonged to Frigga. The uneven line of Rune Witches in Sally’s ancestry had faithfully served as human helpmates to the Norse Goddess of the Hearth and her kin. And Sally had trained beside Frigga’s fire just as earnestly as the others must have done. Mostly earnestly. At least, Sally imagined her own sincerity had been pure. But she was headstrong. She was always trying something new or different on her own, even when she’d been warned specifically against doing so. Her magick was always going wrong, until she embraced the chaos within her. Now her magick only mostly went wrong. Or it went right, ultimately, after a few unpredictable detours.

  Sally grinned at the Old Tree and laughed. “You’d think I would have figured it out sooner.”

  There was another rumble of thunder in the distance. Not the great sky-rending crash one might hear in other parts of the world. Thunder here sounded more like someone rolling a dented metal trashcan down an alley. The effect wasn’t nearly as dramatic.

  Sally rubbed her wet hands together and stood. She dipped her chin in salute to the Old Tree. “I’ll see you at the next new moon then?”

  The Old Tree remained silent. Sally smiled anyway. She turned, reached for the keys in her jeans pocket, and headed for her car. Bragi’s beat-up Subaru had been a guilt-gift from Heimdall after he’d let her stand alone against Hel in the underworld. Now the clunker was all hers.

  She stopped just before she unlocked the driver’s door. A flare of electricity pricked the nape of her neck. The rain and her preoccupation with her own thoughts nearly masked his presence, but she would recognize Loki’s flavor of chaos anywhere.

  Sally turned toward the short, low bridge leading to the highway. There, standing in silhouette on the pebbly bank by the creek, stood the God of Chaos. Father of Wargs. Keeper of the Realms. She’d learned that last title only in Hel’s hall, and a year and a half later she was still coming to grips with his role in the fluctuating stability of the world and what it meant for her own future.

  She didn’t wonder about how he’d tracked her, or how he’d arrived here without a vehicle of his own. He was fading, but he had plenty of tricks left. She wanted to shout at him to stop following her. She wanted to curse him for her own power and uncertainty. She wanted to stomp across the wet parking lot to throw her arms around him in a bear hug, or punch him in the nose. Maybe both.

  But the Tree wasn’t the only old thing that still had secrets to reveal. Sally sighed and got into her car. She glanced only briefly at Loki as she drove past him on her way back onto Highway 26, headed to Portland.

  Loki’s shoulders slumped as he watched her drive by. Of course she would have known he was here, even though he’d remained by the creek, far from her car and from the old Yggdrasil. Magick senses magick. Chaos magick in particular.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d followed Sally. He preferred to think of it as such—just following her. Not spying on her. He was interested in her well-being and curious about her activities. He never interfered, nor did he share his findings with anyone else. But since she’d been skipping out on her lessons with him, he didn’t have too many other options for keeping tabs on his young pupil.

  This was the first time, though, that he’d followed her to the old World Tree, and he got the distinct impression this wasn’t her first pilgrimage. He hoped the visit signaled her acceptance of her burgeoning role in the pantheon and in the world at large. She’d had the whole thing thrust onto her rather inelegantly. No one had offered her a choice. But no one had offered Loki a choice, either. He didn’t think so. He couldn’t really remember anymore.

  He would take it all away from her if he had the power to do so. He’d done his best to prepare her for the mantle that would too soon settle onto her young shoulders. And there was so much more he needed to share with her, and warn her about, but her stubbornness had taken her to a place beyond listening or learning. And he was fast running out of time.

  He watched her car cross the low bridge and turn left onto the highway heading east toward the city, her red taillights gradually fading into the rainy darkness. He looked into the sky and wished he could see the stars. The old constellations were among the few remaining anchors he had in this world in these late days, but even the stars weren’t unchangeable.

  Nothing could have readied him to be this particular wielder of chaos magick, and nothing could guide him as he imparted his wisdom to his pupil. He thought it was right that she would protest and rebel. She had every reason to be angry and distant. Loki liked to think that he had been the same way.

  The danger now was both ignorance and hubris—for all of the members of the Lodge, really, but especially for himself and for Sally. If he couldn’t find a way to reach her in these waning days, the entire world would pay the price.

  Probably. He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.

  It was dark in the tunnel. That was the only thing the boy could be sure of. He didn’t dare risk making his own light.

  He stumbled, feeling his way forward in the blackness. Every footstep was too loud. Every breath would surely give him away. He couldn’t hear the angry voices or stomping boots of the bad men who must be pursuing him, but he didn’t let himself believe he’d made a clean getaway.

  If he did manage to break out of the darkness and into freedom, what would happen to his parents left behind?

  Tears streamed down his cheeks. He couldn’t make them stop, so he pretended they weren’t there. But he kept wiping his runny nose on his dirty, ragged sleeve until the cloth was crusting over with snot.

  His feet slid inside his too-big shoes, worn and dirty and molded to fit someone else’s feet. He didn’t cry out when his toe sent a glass bottle skittering across the broken brick and asphalt. When his fingers were bitten by a sharp edge along the wall, he stuffed his fingers into his mouth and sucked at the blood that welled up.

  “Jass!” the memory of his mother’s voice hissed in his ear. “Jass, Maksim!”

  Maksim kept moving.

  He came to another crossroads in the darkness. Make a turn or go straight? He didn’t know the way or even where he was tryi
ng to go. He navigated based on flickers of far-away light or scary sounds that warned him away. He had never been good at puzzles, no matter how many times his father had enticed him to play, and this passage was a long and confusing maze. He lost track of how many turns he had already made and which direction he was heading. What if he scrabbled all this way only to find himself back where he started, in the den of the bad men who beat his father and made his mother cry?

  “Jass, Maksim!”

  He followed the pull of magick he felt in his hands and his chest. The bad men wanted his magick for themselves because they had none. He kept his back to the tunnel wall. Moisture seeped through his thin shirt and made him shiver. It was a fraying jersey with logos and numbers on it. The men had laughed when they tossed it to him, joking that he could be like the strong and tall basketball players they watched on their screens. Now the shirt was filthy and wet.

  When he stepped away from the tunnel wall, he felt like he was swimming in an empty void. That made him flail his arms and cry harder even as he struggled to keep quiet. He resisted the urge to make a spark to see ahead; the bad men would see it and find him. He wiped his face on his dirty sleeve and prayed to every god whose name he could remember that he might find safety soon.

  His shoulder banged painfully into something hard at the same moment his worn shoe collided with a heavy obstacle on the floor. Had he found a weapon? Exploring the wall, his fingers slid along solid ropes of cool metal. A ladder. But to where? Only darkness loomed over his head. The glimmer of magick urged him upward. He gripped the nearest rung and wondered what to do.