Twilight Magic (Rune Witch Book 6)

by Jennifer Willis

  Sally actually didn’t know if the blanket would cause any kind of dreams, good or bad, but it looked like it didn’t smell particularly pleasant. She ducked around another tall case, headed for the door, and ran smack into Saga. The Norse goddess of history looked thoroughly unsurprised by Sally’s presence. Instead she seemed genuinely excited,.

  “So?” Expectation lit up Saga’s face, highlighting her strong, Nordic features.

  Opal came around the corner. “But that’s it? You didn’t get anything else? Anything at all?”

  Saga pursed her lips and looked visibly disappointed. To anyone else, Saga looked like almost any other young woman in Portland, minus the funky hair colors or creative piercings that were practically ubiquitous. Her dark curls fell just past her shoulders and her eyes were bright with enthusiasm and intelligence. She looked too young to be a millennial, but the truth was she was older than anything on display in the showroom.

  “You’re sure you didn’t just make this up to get me to come down here and help you pick out an area rug?” Sally asked.

  “Sally.” Saga pressed her lips into a disappointed line. Not long ago, Saga had attempted to forge a real bond with Sally, a friendship between two outsiders with enough in common that they should have held fast. But Sally’s magick had left Saga with a concussion. Saga was eager to forgive the accident, but Sally put up barriers against Saga, too.

  It was bad enough that Zach was pushing for greater closeness in their relationship. They’d been dating for more than a year, but Sally had strict rules about their involvement—they saw each other only two or three times a week, and no sleepovers. But at least he wasn’t inventing a haunted antiques store to spend more time with her.

  Sally glanced between Saga and Opal, with whom she could have been out furniture shopping and getting frozen yogurt and manicures while gossiping about the Lodge and swapping recipes for enchanted teas. But whatever was going to happen next in Sally’s magickal evolution, she didn’t want to leave any more casualties in her wake.

  Saga studied Sally’s face, waiting for an honest answer.

  Sally shoved her hands into her jacket pockets. “I don’t know what it is, but there is something here that’s just . . .”

  “Off,” Opal finished her thought. “So you do feel it.”

  Another worker passed nearby, steering a large crate on a dolly. It was the same man she’d spotted earlier, who’d dropped the desk on his foot and made her hair stand on end. Sally met his gaze just for a second, and a tingling spark hit her square in the chest. It was the energy she’d felt before, and her lungs tightened with the sense of confinement. Was she feeling trapped magick? Was this man a witch, like her? He looked away and was out of sight again in seconds. Sally opened her mouth to say something to Opal or to call out after the workman, but she was distracted by a familiar hand on her shoulder.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  Sally turned to smile at Fenrir, and she enjoyed feeling Saga and Opal bristle beside her. The Fenris Wolf had cleaned himself up nicely and had even put on pants to come into town to meet Sally for lunch. He’d come a long way from the shapeshifting Warg who was destined to tear out Odin’s throat at the world-ending battle of Ragnarok. Odin had died instead from a stray blow from a volcano spirit, and the world marched forward without him.

  That Fenrir was fiercely loyal to the Rune Witch went only so far to assuage everyone else’s suspicions about him. But he stood now before Sally in his short, human form. The cap she’d knitted for him was scrunched down tight to hide his wolf-like ears, and even with the zipper of his hoodie pulled up tight to his chin and the long sleeves sliding past his wrists and over his gloved hands, it was still obvious that he was a very hairy guy.

  He didn’t try to hide the sharp points of his teeth when he returned her smile. “It always takes longer than I expect to put on these outfits.”

  “Fenrir?” Opal pushed past Sally to stand directly in front of him. Her voice was loud and full of disbelief, and attracted the attention of most everyone in the showroom.

  Fenrir turned his sharp-toothed grin on Opal, and she took an unconscious step back, almost treading on Sally’s toes.

  “In the cloth, as you might say.” He gestured toward his pressed blue jeans and Portland Timbers hoodie.

  “Huh,” Saga said in surprise. “You know, you actually kind of blend in. Not bad. What brings you to town? Urban goat slaughter?”

  Fenrir’s smile dimmed, but he didn’t take Saga’s bait.

  Opal’s mouth hung partway open as she glanced between Sally and Fenrir and then shot Sally a pointed look of What could you possibly be thinking?

  “We’re having lunch,” Sally said.

  “Lunch.” Opal leaned back to gauge Fenrir’s new look. His clothes were clean and not too far out of fashion. But seeing the Fenris Wolf clothed as though he were any normal person—any normal human—out for a stroll in the city seemed a bit more than she could take. “I just haven’t ever seen you with clothes on before.”

  “Fair enough,” Fenrir said. “I suppose you don’t want to come with us, then?”

  He looked at both Opal and Saga.

  “We still have some shopping to do,” Saga said. “My apartment isn’t going to furnish itself.”

  Opal leaned toward Sally. “You’ll keep thinking about what you felt in here? Maybe try to figure it out?”

  Sally sighed. There was going to be a lot more to figuring it out than just meditating on her feelings or running her fingers over antique vases, and decidedly less fun than stringing yarn between photos and notecards mounted on the wall—a method employed to great success by so many TV detectives. She wasn’t sure a little twinge of magick in an antiques warehouse was worth a full-on divination ritual, but she imagined there would be some candle-lighting and some rune-casting in her evening plans. Zach wouldn’t be happy about another dinner postponed, but that also meant avoiding another awkward conversation about their future.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Sally said. “In the meantime . . .”

  Her voice trailed off as the mysterious workman passed by her again. He kept his gaze on the floor, casting a furtive glance her way just before he was out of sight.

  “In the meantime?” Opal asked.

  Sally made what she hoped was a subtle gesture in the direction of the workman’s exit. “Find out who these people are?”

  Opal laughed. “You’re kidding, right? We can’t just ask to speak to the manager and then demand a list of employees.”

  “Oh ye of little faith.” Saga rested a hand on Opal’s shoulder. “We’ll see what we can find out.” She cast another concerned look in Fenrir’s direction and then glanced back at Sally. “And you have a good lunch. Or whatever.”

  Sally felt Fenrir’s hand—or was it a paw?—on her elbow as he tugged her away.

  Thor watched the two boys playing together in the yard. They had finally tired of the swings and were now engaged in a tree climbing contest that left Bonnie uneasy.

  “They’re not watching where they put their feet,” she complained as she glanced out the window. “One of them will slip, and fall. And you know we can’t take either one of those boys to the hospital.”

  “They’ll be fine,” Thor grunted in reply. “Let’s not go borrowing trouble.”

  Bonnie stepped away from her husband and went back to chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter, every thunk of the knife against the wooden cutting board an expression of worry and anxiety. Bonnie was a mortal woman who was living among immortals, married to the Norse god of thunder and raising a half-sasquatch, half-volcano spirit son as if he were her own. There was nothing normal about her life, and Thor often wondered how she kept a cool head.

  And now this new little urchin had landed on their doorstep. Bonnie was of the opinion that Maksim’s appearance was no coincidence—and that there was both new trouble brewing and a need to protect the mysterious boy with the vague accent at all costs. Maksim was speci
al, she argued. But Thor was tired of conflict and needed a break from supernatural crisis. He didn’t see anything unusual in the boy, and he’d figure out a way to get Maksim back to his people without involving the authorities and putting Magnus at risk.

  Thor turned back to the window. Magnus had longer limbs and could reach higher than Maksim, but the little waif was quick and determined. Thor smiled as they called out to each other with encouragement and playful taunts.

  “Heimdall and I used to engage in similar contests,” he said to Bonnie, in an attempt at soothing her mood. She’d called him home from work while the boys were eating lunch, and he arrived just in time to meet the new arrival as he was emerging from his bath. He’d spotted the crescent-shaped mark on Maksim’s shoulder, but where his wife saw the potential for magick, Thor merely saw a curious birthmark. Now Maksim was dressed in some of Magnus’s cast-offs. The clothes didn’t fit him properly, and they’d not had a pair of shoes in the house small enough for his feet, but Bonnie declared that he looked a thousand times better than he had when he’d first run into the house. She swore she was going to have to burn the clothes he had been wearing and the filthy blanket he’d dragged in with him.

  “And Bragi?” Bonnie asked without turning around. “Baldr?”

  Hearing the names of his fallen brothers spoken aloud hit Thor in the gut with a cold fist. He knew Bonnie wasn’t trying to stir up trouble. She was simply reminding him that even the mighty Norse gods were not truly immortal, and that a misplaced foot or risky hand-hold high enough in one of the trees in the backyard might spell doom for their son or his new friend. At least she hadn’t mentioned Freyr—who wasn’t technically dead, Thor didn’t think, but who had been more a brother to him than some of his blood kin. Freyr had been semi-killed at least twice and now was installed as the spirit of Mt. Bachelor to keep the peace among the testy Three Sisters volcanoes. How the plucky Vanir kept narrowly avoiding a heroic afterlife in the Halls of Valhalla was beyond Thor, but he felt his jaw tighten with grief all the same.

  “Yes.” His voice broke on the single syllable, then he cleared his throat. “They were rambunctious as well.”

  The steady rhythm of Bonnie’s knife slicing through onions and tomatoes paused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

  “It’s all right.” Thor turned away from the window, made a quick survey of the ingredients Bonnie had piled up around her, and went to the pantry to retrieve a package of bouillon cubes and the large multi-cooker. He rested the bouillon on the counter by her cutting board and went to work setting up the multi-cooker. Her answering smile let him know he’d guessed her needs correctly.

  “What’s the word from the lot?” she asked.

  Thor grumbled as he plugged in the appliance. A few older houses had been razed several blocks away, and the lot was being developed for apartments. There was a housing shortage in Portland and there were urban growth boundaries in place, but the city’s population continued to climb. As a result, housing density and traffic of all types—cars, bicycles, and pedestrians—were on the rise. Thor knew that living in the city meant living around other people. He just hadn’t thought there would be quite so many of them in and around his neighborhood.

  Adding insult to injury, Thor’s construction company had lost its bid on the new apartment building project. He’d been ready to compartmentalize his feelings about population density if it meant he could walk a couple of blocks to work every morning. That meant more time with his family and lunches at home. Thor’s proposal was competitive, though, and he was still skeptical of the company that won the project. He didn’t think there was any way for the winning contractors to get the job done without stolen materials and slave labor.

  Bonnie knew he’d stopped at the lot on his way to work that morning, and she also knew he was still feeling pretty sore about it.

  “They’ve broken ground, even in the winter,” he grumbled. “They’re moving in equipment and supplies, and there are workers swarming all over the place.”

  She glanced his way and offered a shrug of sympathy, but in that lift of her shoulders he saw her disappointment and frustration on his behalf. He nodded and she went back to chopping vegetables for the stew. By the powers of Asgard, he loved his wife.

  Thor turned back to the window and watched the boys at play for a few breaths longer, then made the obvious statement he and Bonnie had both been avoiding. “We need to find out where this boy came from, who his parents are, and get him back to them.”

  “I’m not sure how easy that’s going to be,” Bonnie replied. “It’s not like we can call the police or protective services.”

  Because they would take Magnus away. Thor watched his son stretch for a higher branch that should have been out of his reach, then leap for it and grab hold as if he’d been born to a life in the trees. Magnus was already growing more quickly than a human child would, but at least he hadn’t taken after his sasquatch mother in the body hair department. Not yet. Bonnie expected his coat would start to come in when he hit puberty, whenever that might be. They had no idea how old Magnus was. He’d seemed little more than an infant when Thor first found him in Nanitch’s cave not even two years earlier, but now he towered over human seven-year-olds.

  “In the meantime, we’ll have Saga add Maksim to the home-schooling program.” Thor heard the forced cheer in Bonnie’s voice.

  “Someone’s going to be looking for him.”

  Both boys were nearly out of sight now, having climbed high into the backyard’s middle tree. All that was visible of them were their dangling legs swinging in the high branches.

  “Are they?” Bonnie slid mounds of chopped onions, celery, tomatoes, and spinach into the multi-cooker’s stainless steel pot and pressed a few buttons on the front. “You didn’t see the state of his clothes. He was filthy, head to toe, and practically starving. Who does that to a child?” She paused and blew out a long, tense sigh, and then gestured toward the window with her chef’s knife. “Would you call them in? It’s starting to rain.”

  Thor stepped out onto the porch he’d built with Rod. Frigga had chosen her handyman well, and Thor tried to keep him busy with odd jobs around his own house when Heimdall didn’t have him making repairs and massive renovations to the Lodge. Thor still didn’t like Maggie’s redesigned kitchen—a space he’d laid out himself for his mother. But Frigga was gone and Maggie was the recognized woman of the house now. If she wanted special sinks and freezers and favored switching out the gutters and jettisoning the hot water heater in favor of a tankless system, she was within her rights to make the Lodge her own.

  “Boys!” Thor bellowed into the icy breeze that was kicking up. The precipitation was gentle for the moment, but dark clouds warned of imminent torrential rain. Which for Portland meant there would likely be bright sunshine about twenty-seven minutes hence.

  High in the tree, Maksim and Magnus kept swinging their legs in rhythm with the swaying tree branches, and Thor couldn’t help but chuckle when their laughter filtered down to him. Magnus didn’t have any friends outside the family, no playmates his own size or his approximate age. What neighborhood kid would understand when Magnus grew another three inches literally overnight? Or if he suddenly sprouted thick body hair or told honest stories about the modern exploits of his adoptive father, Thor the Thunderer?

  “Dad!” Magnus shouted down, and Thor’s heart leapt into his throat. That single word still brought him to his knees.

  “Dad!” Magnus called again. “You’ve got to come up here.”

  Thor well knew that any attempt on his part to scale the tree in question would result in the death of the tree and a trip to the hospital for himself. “No, son, you need to come down from there.” After a beat, he added, “Your mother said so.”

  He could hear Freyr’s laughter in his head. He saw his nature god cousin occasionally, but Thor missed Freyr’s good-natured and obnoxious ribbing more than he would admit out loud.

  Magnus wasn’t going
to be convinced so easily. “But you really have to see what Maksim can—”

  “Magnus! You both need to come down now, before the rain gets too heavy. And do it carefully.” Though they were out of sight, Thor could feel the boys waffling and possibly even scheming to remain in the tree. “Listen, we’ll have hot chocolate inside, okay? And maybe cartoons. If you’re good.”

  Bonnie would scowl at him for at least thirty minutes for offering yet another bribe. She hated having to be the stern enforcer, especially since the blustering and short-tempered Thor was turning out to be one of the softest and most tender-hearted fathers in Lodge memory.

  “Chocolate?” Maksim asked with a quake of timid hope that squeezed at Thor’s chest.

  “And cookies?” Magnus added.

  Thor sighed. “I’ll see what I can do, but you can’t let your mother see.”

  “Deal!” Magnus shouted, and within seconds both boys were scrambling back down the slick trunk to the lower branches of the tree. Thor watched with balled fists, certain that a sliding foot or scrabbling hand would send one or both flailing to the ground. When they were within a meter of the wet grass, Maksim and Magnus looked at each other and jumped to the ground in tandem. Thor really hoped Bonnie hadn’t been watching at the window during that maneuver.

  Getting Magnus and Maksim settled at the table with mugs of hot chocolate and plates of toast and carrot sticks was a boisterous affair. Thor’s lunch hour was nearly over and he hadn’t yet gotten anything to eat. He fixed himself a beef and greens sandwich and sat down to entertain the boys with heroic stories about his long-ago battles with Jormungand and his encounter with a two-headed baby water dragon in modern Dublin, but the doorbell rang before he could get more than two sentences into his storytelling or take a single bite of his food.