Andris pinned the girl on the ground while Torin had the man against the tree, his feet dangling.
“You okay?” I asked Cora, aware of students walking by and glancing at us. Andris and Torin were cloaked and so were the Grimnirs. Cora and I weren’t. The girl Andris had been talking to remained standing in the middle of the parking lot with a bewildered expression. He really needed to stop taking chances like this around Mortals.
“Get off me, Valkyrie,” the female Grimnir screamed and tried to dislodge Andris who was straddling her and pinning her hands to her sides.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he crooned. “You know having me on top is the closest you’ll ever get to Asgard, so enjoy the moment. Cora, sorry I was late to the party.”
The Grimnir hurled insults at Andris, twisting and bucking.
“Nara!” her partner snapped, and she stopped. She glared at Cora as though blaming her for her humiliating position. Her partner looked down at Torin, violet eyes narrowing. In daylight, those eyes looked even more gorgeous, and I hadn’t noticed the studs on his ears before. “I don’t want to fight you, Valkyrie, so let me—”
“Shut up,” Torin cut him off. Ooh, he was pissed. “Cora. Come here.”
I let Cora go and watched my man do his thing. Torin was a natural born leader and from his expression, he was ready to kick some serious boo-tay.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked Cora.
“No.” She glanced at the woman, Nara. I still didn’t like her attitude. I had warned them to leave Cora alone, I wanted to add, but that would only make matters worse.
“When I let you go, Grimnir,” Torin said calmly, which meant he was pissed, “disappear. If I catch you anywhere near her, you will not like it. Cora is under our protection. You mess with her, you mess with us.”
“But she has a soul that belongs to us,” Nara protested.
We all turned to stare at Cora. She bristled.
“He is under my protection. I promised to help him,” Cora said.
“Dev betrayed our people,” Nara interjected.
“We don’t care,” Torin said. His voice was calm and deadly. “If Cora gave him a promise, she’ll keep it.” He let go of Nara’s partner, adjusted his collar and brushed invisible lint from his duster. Then he added, “Now be a good Grimnir and get out of town.”
The Grimnir didn’t like that. “Others will come for him.”
“We’ll deal with them, too,” Torin vowed, then glanced at Andris and nodded. Andris let Nara go and even offered her his hand, which she ignored.
“We’ll meet again, Valkyrie,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I’m free Wednesday nights,” Andris said, opening his arms. “Don’t bring anything but your lovely self.”
I fought a smile. That was Andris for you. Once the Grimnirs disappeared through a portal, Andris and Torin used the trees to hide as they decloaked. Luckily, the parking lot was empty except for a few late students. No one made a move to leave. I wanted to hear about this soul Cora was protecting. She tried to get out of explaining with the lamest excuse.
“Guys, the bell already rang,” she said.
Andris rolled his eyes while Torin crossed his arms, legs slightly apart. That stance said he wasn’t moving until he got answers.
“School can wait,” he said. “You’re protecting a soul? Why?”
Cora bristled. “He came to me for help, and I promised to give it to him.”
Was this the soul she’d called me about on Saturday while Eirik and I were talking? I opened my mouth to ask, but Torin spoke.
“Is he one of the old people at the nursing home?” he asked. “Why do the Grimnirs want him?”
“Is he someone Goddess Hel wants?” Andris shot at her.
“Does Echo know about him?” I jumped in.
“Okay, stop with the Qs.” She lifted her backpack from the ground and gripped it tight. “We shouldn’t be discussing this now. One of you will have to rune my English teacher, or it’s Saturday makeup class for me.”
We still didn’t move, but I wondered whether I should have sided with Echo and Torin on Saturday. They’d suggested a freeze on helping souls until we took care of the rogue Immortal souls.
“Fine,” Cora said. “His name is Dev. He was once one of them. A Druid. Echo turned him into an Immortal during his rescue mission. Then Dev betrayed them, or they think he betrayed them, and they’re still pissed. Even Echo won’t talk to him.”
“Was he one of the Immortals we fought last week?” Torin asked.
“No. Echo killed him thousands of years ago. He’s, uh, a dark soul.”
Holy crap! Our eyes met and hers begged me to understand.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Cora said.
“No, you don’t,” Torin said.
“Yes, I do,” she shot back. “I can see the disapproval on your faces. I know what I’m doing and why, so just respect that.”
Andris grinned, obviously amused by her bravado. I wasn’t. “Is he the one you were with on Saturday when you called me?”
Cora nodded. “I was careful. I only agreed to help him once I realized he wasn’t after me. And please, don’t tell Echo. He cannot know about this morning with those two. I mean it, Andris. He’s already alienated enough Grimnirs without making things worse.”
I could just imagine Echo’s reaction. He’d go on a rampage.
“What were you doing when she got attacked?” Torin asked. His blue eyes flashed as he focused on Andris. “You were supposed to keep an eye on her the second she left her car.”
“I did,” Andris shot back. “Besides, I was to protect her against dark souls, not idiotic Grimnirs. She was done with them and was walking toward me, and that’s when it happened.” He glanced at Cora. “Sorry about that, blondie.”
“No need to be sorry.” She shot Torin a glance. “It’s not his fault. I told him they were Echo’s friends, and I wanted to talk to them alone. I didn’t know Nara would lose it when I refused to tell her where Dev was hiding.”
Silence followed.
“Since he’s not tethered to you, where are you hiding him?” Andris asked.
“What does he look like?” I asked.
Cora just shook her head and clammed up as we entered the building.
~*~
Officer Randolph saw us, and I groaned. How many times had we runed him to make him forget what he’d seen us do? Too many times to count. It started the day he caught me talking to an invisible Torin.
“The bell already rang, and the five of you were just standing there in the parking lot, St. James,” he said, singling out Torin because being the QB who won us state, he could do no wrong.
“There’s a perfectly good explanation for that, Officer Randolph,” Torin said, pulling out his artavus. Poor guy.
While Torin dealt with the security guard, I went upstairs with Cora, cloaked using invisibility runes, and took care of Cora’s teacher before heading to my class.
Amber’s hair was back to normal, and she seemed nicer. Or maybe I wanted to believe that to feel less guilty. Halfway through class, I felt a familiar tug.
Norns.
I looked around the class to see if they’d replaced regular students. Nope. Same old faces. For the rest of the morning, I felt them hovering in the periphery of my subconscious. It messed with my concentration and sucked all my energy.
You want something from me, show yourselves! I screamed at them.
By lunchtime, I had a headache. Beau and his friend were on their way out of school, but he stopped when he saw me.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I even flashed him a big smile.
He frowned. “Okay, see you tonight.” He thumped his forehead. “No, tomorrow.”
Lavania was coming back tomorrow. I had more free time today. “Can we change it to tonight?” I asked.
“Really? Great. Tonight. Smile. You’re wearing a long face.”
I rolled my eye
s. There was really a nice guy behind all that macho crap. I caught up with Cora at the lockers. She was fiddling with her phone, but quickly put it away.
“Please, tell me you’re eating lunch here,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t feel like going home.” I put my books away, and we headed to the cafeteria arm-in-arm. She asked about Torin, Andris, and Mom’s present assignment. I was sure I’d explained Torin’s new job at Carson before. I answered her, but I couldn’t remember what I said. I just wanted the day to be over.
We turned a corner and Cora’s feet faltered. I knew why. Drew. He and a few football players stood by the cafeteria entrance. I slowed down too. Drew had slept with Maliina during the weeks she’d mimicked Cora, but he didn’t know about it. He believed Cora had slept with him, and then ditched him for Echo, a college guy.
“Ignore him,” I said, my arm tightening around hers.
“I can’t,” Cora wailed. “Part of me feels sorry for him. He must have really been into her, and seeing me just reminds him of what they had. Can’t you erase his memories or something? Make him forget their affair?”
I had Beau’s memories to worry about without adding another person’s. “I’m not ready to do something that grand.”
“I just hate the way he stares at me like I’m lower than a worm.”
“Actually, when you’re not looking, he wears a different kind of look.”
Cora grimaced. “Yeah, like he knows intimate stuff about me. Maybe I should just talk to him and apologize.”
“No. You don’t want to do that. Just stay away from him. Come on. Paste on a smile and no eye contact.” As we walked past I threw out a casual, “Hey, guys.”
“Where’s St. James?” Slade Peterson asked.
“Working. Are you guys going to Ellie and Justin’s party on Saturday?”
There was a collective, “Yeah.”
“Will you guys be there?” Drew asked, but I was sure he meant Cora.
“Torin might be working. I’ll ask him. Promise.” Cora and I continued to the cafeteria, but her relief was obvious. A shiver crawled up my spine.
Norns were nearby.
I searched the cafeteria as we waited in line for lunch—chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Cora was talking about the three girls she’d pissed off earlier. I only half-listened to her as I catalogued faces.
Kicker and Sonya caught my eye and waved from the swim table. Lunch was terrible, or maybe Torin had spoiled me with his cooking. The chicken nuggets were hard, the mashed potatoes lumpy, and the gravy watery.
A telltale prickly feeling in the back of my head told me I was being watched. Once again, I looked around the cafeteria without seeing anyone staring at me.
Where were they? I wanted to connect with my magic, but I couldn’t. My eyes would glow, and I didn’t have an explanation to give my swim friends.
“I’m so ready for the prom,” Kicker said and twirled a lock of her hair, her eyes on Cora. That hair-twirling habit of hers was becoming annoying. “You’re still planning on doing our hair and makeup, right?” she asked, looking at Cora.
“Depends. Will you drive out to the farm?” Cora asked.
Kicker and Sonya glanced at me, but I ignored them. Ingrid had already volunteered to do my hair and makeup for the prom. I tuned out of the conversation at the table, until someone mentioned prom king and queen.
“When are they posting Junior Prom Court?” I asked.
“You shouldn’t even worry about it, Raine,” Kicker said. I wasn’t. “You and Torin are the most popular couple, so you’ll be nominated to the court and maybe even win. The only problem is you,” she pointed at Cora, “will be nominated, too. Everyone reads your blog, so you’re a shoo-in. The question is who will we,” she pointed at Sonya and herself, “vote for?”
“Cora,” I said and buried my nugget under a pile of mashed lumps. “I don’t want to be nominated.”
“Too bad,” Cora said. “You might even be a princess in the senior court because of Torin.”
The conversation shifted to books and their movies, and I went back to trying to communicate with the Norns. They were beginning to piss me off. First, they’d refused to take care of the forest, letting me deal with it. Now they were taunting me with their presence.
When we left the cafeteria, I expected them to appear like they had a few days ago. They didn’t. But then again, they never did when I was with other people. I felt their presence as though they were inside my head probing for information. To thwart them, I gave them naked jocks, full frontal, all the way to class and in-between.
Yeah, get a load of that, you celibate hags.
I was on my way to the band room for my last class when I saw Matt Langer, the boy genius I’d spoken with at the library last week. He was talking to Mr. Finch. But that wasn’t what shot anger through me. It was the presence of the Norns hovering above them.
What were they doing? Surely, they weren’t messing with my charges.
I jabbed a finger at them and at the nearest room, but it was occupied. The students stared at me when I opened the door since it wasn’t my class. Frustrated, I backtracked and hurried to the band room, entered the little office the band teachers used, and closed the door. The few students in the band room glanced my way and went back to assembling their bassoons and oboes. I had my oboe with me, which I placed on the table.
Seconds later, they floated in, but stayed invisible and in their true wrinkly forms. They must have decided to stop mimicking regular people because I could always see past their disguises. The fact was I preferred their average teenage girl forms because I could be rude and annoying without feeling puny and insignificant. They were intimidating in their true forms.
I engaged my invisibility runes. “What do you want? I’ve already taken care of the forest.”
“That was something any witch with elemental magic could have done,” Marj said. “We have your first training assignment. It is a test of your other powers, so don’t disappoint us.”
“Training assignment? I’m not one of you.”
“Oh but you are, my dear,” Catie said in her annoyingly sweet voice. “How many destinies have you altered since we made contact? Let’s start with your swim team members.”
“Samantha Mathews,” Jeannette said and continued to list every swimmer who didn’t die the evening lightning hit the pool at the swim meet months ago. “Autumn Byron, Abby Rose Penworth, Trevors Knox, Josiah Evans, Shon Baker, Gabriela Molina, Ryan Jacobsen, Piper Stone, Cord Kincaid, Liv Thomas, and Daniella Greene.”
I stared at her in shock. “What are you saying?”
“We’re saying you’ve been doing the work you were born to do for months now,” Jeanette continued. “Your friend Cora would not be Immortal if it weren’t for you. That boy in the hallway, Langer, would have committed suicide before he hit his thirties but now has a bright future ahead of him. Then there’s Beau.” She looked at the others and they smiled, wrinkles creasing their gray faces. “The gifted young man you’re fighting so hard to help. You won’t just alter his destiny, you’ll alter his stepfather’s and mother’s.”
A hollow feeling settled in my stomach. “Are you saying I haven’t altered his yet?”
“He’s a work in progress, Lorraine,” Marj said. “Anything could still go wrong.”
I swallowed, feeling a little sick at the veiled threat. “Leave him alone.”
“Of course, we will,” Catie chimed in, her sweetness so fake I hoped she choked on it. “We don’t interfere in the lives of Mortals under a different Norn’s care, even if she is a Norn-in-training. However, if he were in a witch’s care, we would be free to do as we wish.”
They had to be kidding. “Are you saying I can only help others as a Norn or not at all? Students here tutor each other. People around the world go out of their way to help others.”
“Yes they do, dear,” Catie said. “But they don’t change destinies. They all follow a path w
e’ve set for them, the heroes and the victims. You, on the other hand, alter paths already woven. You have done that over and over again.”
“So if I decide I’m not one of you…”
“You can’t deny what you are,” Catie said, smiling. “We saw it the night of the battle when your powers emerged. Not because you were one with nature, but because the Immortals who were supposed to die that night, including the Earl of Worthington, survived. By immobilizing them with vines, you changed their destinies. And because they couldn’t fight, the Witches they were meant to kill that night survived too, their destinies changed. That night we knew you were one of us, and that when you were ready, you would come to us.”
How the heck was I supposed to know different rules applied to me? Had I played straight into their hands by helping people? “So I’m supposed to do nothing when I see people suffer?”
They looked at each other. “You want to explain?” Marj asked Catie.
Catie shook her head. “No, go ahead.”
“There’s a reason we keep away from Mortals,” Marj explained. “A reason we don’t live or interact with them. Everything we do, think, or say alters destinies. A smile, a handshake, a pat on the back, a spell to change hair color, or an instruction to a boy to chase his dreams. It doesn’t last an hour or a day; the effect is sweeping and life-changing. Your abilities came too early, not after your eighteenth birthday like other future Norns. We tried to steer you, but you’re a stubborn young woman. Like Catie said, when you’re ready you’ll come to us.”
“I’m never—”
“Let’s finish here before they break down the door,” Jeannette interrupted me, and I realized that someone was trying to open the door. The jiggling said they were trying different keys. One of them must have stopped the door from opening.
Witches (Runes series Book 6) Page 28
