Twilight Magic (Rune Witch Book 6)

by Jennifer Willis

  Maksim’s father.

  Thor struggled to breathe against the great weight he felt pressing on his chest. He bent forward and caught his hands on his knees.

  Sally collapsed to the floor beside him. “We’re too late.”

  Thor swallowed hard against the bile rising in his throat. He couldn’t parse his anger from his grief or from the residual effects of whatever foul magick had drawn him down into the tunnel.

  “She’s taken your friend.” Vesha sat in the middle of the floor and cradled young Maksim in her lap. A scattering of dark ashes surrounded them. Maksim was sobbing quietly into her shoulder. “She’s free. I can’t contain her any longer.”

  Thor heaved a sigh of relief to see the boy unharmed. Then his gaze strayed again to the bodies on the floor. So, not unharmed.

  “Kezia and Luca.” Vesha’s voice shook with exhaustion and anguish. “They tried to protect him. They tried . . .” She closed her mouth and held Maksim close.

  “Maksim?” Thor was careful in his stride as he approached the boy. He didn’t want to stomp across the floor and startle him. He crouched down next to Vesha and rested a hand on the boy’s back. Jormungand’s forked tongue. He’s so small. He met Vesha’s gaze. “Is he . . . Will he be all right?”

  She nodded and shifted the boy’s weight as she tried to get up off the floor. Thor picked up Maksim and held him against his chest as he helped Vesha to her feet.

  “They’ll be headed to the girl’s place of power now,” Vesha said.

  “What girl?” Thor asked.

  Sally looked up from the floor. “Opal?”

  “This wasn’t their plan, but they didn’t fail,” Vesha said. “They were trying to force me out, to let Utra have my body and be in sole possession of it, so she can finish her work. That was all supposed to happen here, but then one of their priests . . .” She gestured toward the bodies on the floor. “There may yet be time to stop her.”

  “Does that mean Opal’s dead?” Sally asked. Thor was impressed that her voice didn’t catch. Her distress was plain on her face, but she pushed herself up from the floor and stood tall. She was ready to move forward.

  “I don’t know.” Vesha looked around at the remnants of the ritual. It was a close and dark space. Thor didn’t know how Maksim’s parents had been killed, but the whole scene made him feel cold all the way down into his boots.

  “But your friend isn’t an immortal, is she?” Vesha asked.

  “No, she’s not.” Thor thought about the apples in Maggie’s grove that may or may not be coming into harvest. Too late for Luca and Kezia. Thor looked hard at Vesha. “Is that what she’s after? She wants to make herself immortal in Opal’s body?”

  Sally gasped and looked like she was going to be sick. Heimdall, looking pretty green himself, stood next to her and rested a hand on her shoulder but she seemed immune to comfort.

  “Maybe, eventually.” Vesha shrugged. “Her aim is to loose the world’s anchored magick and claim it for herself. It’s a foolish and dangerous quest. These human men she’s dealing with, they think they’re using her for their own selfish purpose to become powerful mages themselves. But I think she’s using them. The end result will be the same.”

  “You said they’ll go to Opal’s place of power,” Sally said.

  Heimdall blanched. “The Lodge. Where she’s been working with Maggie.”

  “The Yggdrasil,” Sally groaned. “The World Tree. The anchor.”

  Maksim’s head lolled against Thor’s neck, and Thor realized the boy had fallen into an exhausted sleep. There was some mercy in the world. He headed toward the doorway they’d come through, scattering ash across the floor with every step.

  “Call Ted and the Valkyries,” Thor said over his shoulder to his brother. “Tell them to gather up what armaments they can from their own stores and from my basement, if they can get past the police. Maybe Carol can help there. Tell them to meet us at the Lodge.”

  “But the snow,” Sally objected. “They’ll have to ride all that way on motorcycles through the snow and slush?”

  “They’ll figure it out.” Maybe the snow was a good thing, Thor thought. It might slow down Utra and her sorcerer thugs, too. He heard Heimdall on the phone with Ted and was impressed that his brother was able to get a signal down here in the tunnels. Thor said a silent blessing over the bodies of Maksim’s parents as he walked past. When this was all over, someone would have to come back down here for them and ensure they were put to proper rest. For now, Thor had a new battle to plan.

  11

  Heimdall took a long pull from a stein filled with strong coffee. It was nearly midnight, and he was pretty sure this one day had taken about thirty-six years off of his immortal life.

  The three sisters of the Nornir—Urd, Skuld, and Verdande—were ensconced by the stone-lined hearth at the center of the Lodge’s great room. They were chatting excitedly as if the current crisis were simply an excuse for a late-night cocktail hour. They gabbed with each other and with Saga, Rod, Maggie, and anyone else who strayed within their line of sight.

  Heimdall had spent the previous half-hour hiding in the kitchen on the pretense of needing more coffee for his fatigued body and throbbing head. And his head did still hurt. He’d been exposed to a mortal-made flashbang grenade at Thor’s house and then a more potent supernatural equivalent a few hours later beneath the antiques warehouse. After the long, desperate drive out of snowy Portland and then over the icy and nearly impassable roads to the Lodge through Pierce Forest, he was ready for a week-long nap.

  But the world kept turning, and both destiny and the Norse Fates had other plans for him.

  “Heimdall!” Urd shouted from the great room. “Heimdall, we have to tell you something!”

  Heimdall pinched the bridge of his nose and willed his headache to change—either to worsen and make it impossible for him to even speak to another person for the next twenty-four hours, or to evaporate and leave him free to plan for action. Nothing happened. He took another gulp of coffee and headed toward the hearth.

  Urd waved him forward with both arms flapping. The three mythic forces behind the real-world Mystic Sisters Psychic hotline were styled and coiffed like monotone ladies of leisure in their expertly draped silks and satins. They sat together on one of the black leather couches, and each sister wore various shades of her signature color: Urd in light and dark rose tints, Skuld in shimmering medium blue, and Verdande looking like a well-heeled sea witch in varying shades of sea-foam green. None of their outfits was remotely appropriate for snow.

  Urd patted Skuld on the shoulder. “Tell him, tell him.”

  Skuld rested her coffee cup and saucer on the stone ledge of the hearth, then beamed up at Heimdall. Her eyeshadow matched her turquoise jewelry. “Heimdall! You won’t believe the simply magnificent find we made when we stopped in Portland on the way here!”

  Her voice was an ice-pick to his already pounding head. He’d forgotten how everything out of the Norns’ mouths was an exclamation. He gripped his caffeinated stein and motioned for Skuld to continue.

  “A doughnut!” Her eyes sparkled with rapture.

  “A, a doughnut? That’s it?”

  Urd placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders and rather unsubtly pushed her back against the couch cushions. “Well! Not just any doughnut! This one was shaped like a voodoo doll! It was covered in chocolate! And when we stabbed it with pretzel sticks, raspberry jelly oozed out of it! Isn’t that just astonishing?”

  Heimdall didn’t attempt to feign enthusiasm. “So you’re telling me that you stopped at Voodoo Doughnut.”

  “Yes!” the three said in unison. The force of their eagerness made Heimdall have to sit down on a nearby bench.

  “What will they think of next?” Skuld marveled as she lifted her coffee cup in honor of confectionary baked goods and then took a sip.

  “It’s not really a new thing. They’ve been around for . . .” Heimdall honestly had no idea how long that particular d
oughnut chain had been in existence, and this wasn’t the conversation they needed to be having. Bonnie and Vesha were trying to get Maksim to sleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms, while the others took stock of the homestead’s supplies, weaponry, and fortifications. They had some idea of what they were up against, but the information Vesha was able to supply raised even more troubling questions.

  Heimdall set down his stein. “Listen, about the boy—”

  “Well, it’s new to us,” Urd interjected with an edge of disdain. “You might not believe it, since you’re always roaming the globe on your many quests and adventures, but we don’t often have the opportunity to visit a city as exotic as Portland.”

  Heimdall felt his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “Exotic? You live in Seattle. What about Portland could you possibly find exotic?”

  “Well, perhaps more rustic than exotic,” Verdande replied. She was the quietest of the three. “We don’t get out much.”

  Heimdall nodded and hoped that would be the end of the Norns’ travel anecdotes. But he wasn’t prepared for the dramatic shift the conversation took next.

  “We should begin.” Verdande put down her coffee cup and gestured for her sisters to do the same. They clustered together to form an awkward triangle on the couch, with Skuld pressed back against the cushions and Urd and Verdande hanging half-off the front edge to grasp hands in their triad.

  “Just like that?” Heimdall asked. “Don’t you need some inspirational music or to burn some incense or something first?”

  After all these years, he still didn’t have much direct experience with the Norns. In previous centuries, it had been a straightforward if inconvenient matter of seeking an audience with the Norse Fates deep inside a cave or high on a mountain peak—or wherever they’d established their oracle seat for that particular season. More recently, conferring with the Norns was done over Skype to their psychic hotline—and paying handsomely for the privilege. In both cases, they’d always been ready and waiting.

  All three Fates turned their incredulous faces to him, and Urd giggled.

  “I think we’re good,” she said. “We’ve been doing this a while, you see.”

  Their hands clasped tightly, the sisters closed their eyes, took a collective breath, and started screaming in unison.

  Heimdall grabbed his stein and ran back into the kitchen. In a matter of seconds, most of the rest of the household joined him. It was a poor refuge. Saga grabbed a couple of large rolls and held them against her ears to block out the sound. The resemblance to Princess Leia was uncanny.

  “That fast?” Saga shouted over the screeching in the other room.

  Maggie grimaced as she filled a massive kettle and put it on the stove to heat. “I take back ever not believing or making fun of you about the Norns!”

  Loki shuffled into the kitchen from the outer mudroom. He blinked at the overhead lights and the squawking noises and looked like he’d just awakened from a deep sleep. His lips moved but Heimdall couldn’t make out what he was saying.

  Loki tried again. “THE NORNS?”

  Heimdall nodded. With a shrug, the god of chaos stepped into the pantry and closed the door behind him.

  After a full three minutes of ear-splitting wailing, the calamitous shrieks of the Norse Fates in the next room subsided to a more tolerable level. Heimdall emptied the last of the coffee from the machine into his stein and with great trepidation ventured back into the great room.

  Urd, Skuld, and Verdande hadn’t budged from their tight cluster on the couch. Heimdall was afraid that Urd or Verdande would slide off the leather and onto the floor with all the swaying they were doing. But like Urd said, they’d been divining and telling the future for a very long time. If they needed to find more comfortable seating arrangements, he’d trust them to take care of that themselves.

  The Norns lifted their clasped hands high in the air. “Ragnarok is nigh!” Skuld cried in a voice that was oddly melodic. Her sisters chanted nonsense syllables in syncopation. “The setting of the sun is upon us! The ending of the long day of blood and ice has come at last.”

  Loki wandered into the great room carrying an open box of Cheez-Its. “Tell me when they come up with anything we haven’t heard before?” He shoved a few painfully orange crackers into his mouth and sat on another couch bordering the square hearth in the center of the room. He set the box on the leather beside him.

  “Death! Death in the house of Odin!” Skuld sang out while her sisters kept up their low chant. “Slayer and slain! The Shining One and the Lord of Entropy shall be each other’s ends!”

  Loki looked at Heimdall with raised eyebrows. “That’s kind of new.”

  Heimdall walked over and grabbed a handful of crackers out of the box. “You and me instead of Odin and Fenrir. Not a big difference. It’s still the same Twilight of the Gods hysteria.”

  Loki peered through the flames at the Norns on the other side of the hearth. He lifted his shoulders with a quick breath. “I suppose we’ll see. Or we won’t.”

  Heimdall frowned and mumbled around a mouthful of artificially flavored cheese crackers. “We won’t?”

  “I mean, if we’re dead.”

  “Okay. Whatever.”

  “Nature’s lost spirit is found!” Urd was now the one singing the soothsaying song while her sisters played the part of her back-up band. “Resurrected, but unable to be contained!”

  “What are they on about now?” Sally wandered into the great room from the outer hallway. She’d been having some alone time with her boyfriend, and Heimdall had directed everyone to give them some space. He wondered about that relationship; she seemed fond enough of Zach, but she didn’t appear to spend much time with him. After this current crisis was settled, Heimdall hoped the Rune Witch would have more success at a normal life than he’d ever had. Whatever that might end up looking like for her.

  “Same old stuff about Ragnarok. I think.” Heimdall passed her the box of crackers. She waved him off.

  “Not exactly the same,” Loki said.

  Urd shouted several more unrhymed verses about the lost spirit of the woods and of the wild. Heimdall turned to Loki.

  “Are they talking about Fenrir? Is he back on the scene?” he asked.

  Loki shrugged again, but Sally bristled.

  “Well, he’s not not back on the scene,” she said. This time she did reach for the Cheez-Its and filled her mouth with crackers so she wouldn’t have to say anything more.

  Heimdall gulped down the dregs of his lukewarm coffee. It tasted awful, but he needed the strength and stimulation. Was there hidden somewhere in the Norns caterwauling something he didn’t already know? Was there anyone, living or passed into the Halls of Valhalla, who could accurately parse what the Fates were shrieking about, or was this all a waste of time?

  The three Nornir fell suddenly silent. They breathed in and out in unison, and then Verdande rose to her feet. She faced Heimdall across the flames and folded her hands together.

  “The final battle will be here,” she said. “At the Lodge. At dawn. Tomorrow.” She glanced out the window behind her at the black night and the blanket of snow. “Actually, today.”

  Sally walked outside without her coat on. It was freezing, or below, but she wanted to feel the cold pricking at her skin. She wanted to feel awake, and alive. She filled her lungs with icy air and shook her hands out at her sides. The frozen ground crunched under the soles of her boots. She was about halfway between the living Yggdrasil and the Lodge, and she almost laughed. Halfway between the World Tree anchoring and embodying the Cosmos and the homestead of the present-day Norse pantheon—what was left of it. Halfway between an ancient calling and a frustrated and fraught life of modern magick.

  Opal had been possessed by some deranged Slavic goddess bent on a global magickal free-for-all, and Sally didn’t have the first clue what to do about it. Her boyfriend was being understanding and encouraging when he should be angry for the many times she’d held him at a safe distan
ce or ditched him outright. Zach was here at the Lodge, supporting her and her cause, even though she’d been so awful to him. The Norns were convinced that Ragnarok was coming with the next sunrise. Despite Rod’s assurances that he’d heard them make similar pronouncements at least six times before, Sally had a bad feeling in her stomach. And there was no one left to tell her what to do.

  Her eyes were moist and she pretended it was a reaction to the chill air.

  “The stars are beautiful.” Loki stood about a meter away, his face not quite turned upward but not studying her, either, and that was something.

  Sally stood still and watched him. He was dressed all in black, per usual, and his shoulder-length black and silver hair was tied back in a neat ponytail. He was as slight as ever. His short, thin frame made him look more like a middle-aged groovester than a powerful god of darkness.

  No, not darkness. Just the other side of the coin.

  He still hadn’t told anyone in the Lodge that he was dying. He hadn’t even told her, directly. And she’d kept his poorly disguised secret.

  “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” she replied. “Isn’t that what they say?”

  “Maybe? But I was commenting on the light.”

  Sally shoved her hands into her pockets and shivered. “What’s going to happen to Opal? Isn’t there anything we can do to save her?”

  Loki shrugged, and Sally fought the strong urge to storm toward him and punch him in the nose. She didn’t care if he was dying. What was the use in his being so wise and so experienced if he couldn’t even tell her whether her best friend would survive the coming dawn?

  He nodded toward the Lodge. “Everyone inside is doing what they can to answer that question, and to make a plan. You chose not to assist with Freya’s journey work.”