Sally ran her tongue over her unbrushed teeth. Her hair was a mess of strawberry tangles, she was still wearing yesterday’s dirt-streaked clothes, and she desperately had to pee.
She rubbed the sleepy grit out of her eyes and glanced toward the remnants of her spellwork at the center of the clearing. Little nubs of wax sat in the dirt where the candles had been. The progression of runes still ran along the perimeter of the circle, though some of the symbols looked smudged. She bristled at the thought of a wild animal traipsing through her camp while she slept.
Naturally there would be animals in the woods going about their business in the night. And some of them would be predators.
“This is their home, not mine,” Sally muttered as she wriggled out of her sleeping bag. Though she’d prefer her run-ins with local wildlife to happen in sunlight, she was going to have to be more careful about her own safety regardless of the time of day.
Sally pulled on a pair of frozen socks and exclaimed as the cold cotton touched her pink skin. Shoving her feet into her boots was like strapping blocks of ice to her feet. At least yesterday’s blisters didn’t hurt as much.
She balled up her sleeping bag and shoved it into her backpack. Then she stood and stretched her arms high over her head and let out a loud, satisfying yawn. That’s when she noticed the light dusting of white on the tree branches.
“Snow?” she asked aloud, then immediately felt foolish. She was in the Oregon wild in early June. Of course it had snowed overnight. Most of the hiking trails in the Three Sisters Wilderness wouldn’t open until July or even August because they were still snowed in.
She lowered her arms and hugged herself. Thinking about snow made her feel colder. “Moon?” Sally called out, her throat scratchy and dry. She needed water and a decent breakfast.
If sundown was around 9 o’clock and dawn came in the neighborhood of 5 a.m., that meant she hadn’t seen her guide for probably twelve hours. Had Opal been alone all this time, too?
“Moon? Are you there?”
The birds continued their morning song, with the added percussion of a few chittering squirrels and distant raven caws.
Sally cleared her throat and raised her voice. “I’m done with the memorial. You can come get me now.”
She scanned her surroundings, fully expecting Moon to materialize from behind one of the trees. But apart from a gentle breeze disturbing the branches and raining a fine, frozen powder onto her head, nothing happened.
Sally stamped her feet in place, trying to wake up and warm up. Her stomach growled and her bladder still ached. Her water bottle was empty.
“Moon?” Sally called again. “I’m really ready now, okay? So just come out and lead the way, all right?”
She stood in silence for several more minutes, waiting for some sign or signal from her guide. Still nothing. This had to be part of the nature training, right? Learn to meditate in the dirt, then see if you can keep from freaking out when you realize your guide might have intentionally abandoned you in the woods? Her thoughts settled briefly on the book report she’d done on Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild in high school and really hoped she wasn’t going to end up like Chris McCandless.
Sally reached into her pack and dug out the “feminine urinary aid” her father had gotten from REI—she would have been more mortified only if he’d given her a box of tampons and a handful of condoms—and trekked a short distance away from the clearing. She had practiced with the device at home in the shower, with her father offering embarrassingly helpful tips from outside the bathroom door, but she hadn’t yet attempted to pee standing up in the wild. It was tricky at first, but she got the hang of it soon enough without making a mess—which was lucky because she’d packed only so many changes of underwear.
Sally smiled as she dried the device and slipped it back into its plastic pouch. “I’m a wild child now.”
Back at her ritual camp, Sally packed up her gear. She lifted the backpack onto her shoulders and buckled the straps into place.
“Okay,” she called to anyone who might be listening. She still hoped Moon was lurking somewhere nearby, keeping an eye on her. “I need some water, so I’m going to look for a stream.”
Musing that she might have dowsing magick in her, she picked a direction at random and started walking. But after a few steps, she backtracked to the ritual space. Leaning down carefully under the weight of her pack, she lifted the black feather from the center of the circle.
Then Sally turned around again and marched into the unknown.
This was a test, part of the quest experience, to see if she could make it on her own, and she was determined to excel even if she had no idea what she was doing. She should have been nervous. Afraid, even. But she felt strangely confident, though she wondered if her courage might fade over the coming hours, especially if she had to face another night alone.
The feather tingled in her fingers. She was on her own and just as good as lost, yet she had a smile on her face as she pressed forward.
“Gaia,” Sally breathed out in a soft whisper. She allowed a few awkward feelings of presumption to pass through her. Then she breathed again. “I trust you to guide me.”
Her steps were solid and sure, not the stumbling gait of the day before. Her limbs quivered with anticipation. She felt almost at home, surrounded by the trees. Almost.
“Can you help me find water?” she asked aloud. “I’m thirsty and want to brush my teeth.”
She didn’t pause or second-guess herself before making a sharp turn to her left to blaze a trail through the forest’s undergrowth. She clambered over fallen logs and several piles of crisp snow. She ran her fingers along the rough bark of the trees as she passed.
Sally corrected her course a few times, jogging slightly to the left or right. She didn’t have the first conscious clue as to her directional heading, but she felt no need to pull out her compass or try to gauge the position of the sun in the morning sky.
When she first caught the sounds of flowing water, she lifted her face to the sky. “Thank you!” Within a few minutes she was standing on the bank of a clear stream. Opal might have memorized volumes of plant knowledge and herb lore, but the Moon Witch had her connection to the Earth itself.
Sally unbuckled her straps and lowered her pack to the ground. She knelt and scooped up the water to splash her face. She laughed at the cold sting on her skin. She was definitely awake now.
She dug into her bag for her toothbrush and tin of baking soda—she hadn’t wanted to carry something as artificial as toothpaste on her nature trek, but she’d given the prepackaged protein bars a free pass. She scrubbed her teeth clean and rinsed her mouth, then filled her water bottle.
Sally sat crossed-legged on some springy moss a short distance from the stream’s edge and concentrated on the simple beauty of the day. Birds continued to sing and even dance overhead. The stream was music, burbling a graceful, ever-changing tune, and the early sunlight playing on the moving water suddenly seemed the best entertainment around. She turned the black feather between her fingers, enjoying the delicate feel of the shaft and dark spines.
“I’m turning into one of those nature-girl hippie freaks,” Sally laughed. Or maybe Moon had laced the stream with MDMA—at least, Sally wondered as much when a tall, dark-haired man with blood-colored skin stepped out of the woods to her left.
“Nature-girl hippie freak?” he asked in a deep, bemused voice.
Sally climbed awkwardly to her feet. She felt suddenly dizzy, disoriented, her ecstatic experience evaporated.
“Who are you?” Why was her heart racing? “Where did you come from?”
His smile was pure white against his reddish-purple skin, and jet-black hair hung like an ebony sheet down his back. Sally wondered if she might still be in her sleeping bag, dreaming. The intruder took a step closer. “I felt your magick. I am awake and intrigued.”
Sally stumbled backward toward the stream. Not this again. It hadn’t been even a year since she’d
accidentally called Badbh from the Black Pool. This had to be a nightmare, right?
“I, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sally stammered while she silently commanded herself to wake up already. She continued to back away, then stopped when she realized she was moving out of range of her backpack and the knife that lay inside.
The man spread his arms wide. “You need not to fear me. I have come to make you my bride.”
“Yeah, that’s not creepy or anything.” Sally pinched herself, hard, confirming that she was most definitely awake. She frowned at the almost otherworldly tint of the stranger’s skin, the extreme black of his hair, and the nearly blinding white of his teeth. No way this guy was a Frost Giant wandering the woods looking for a date. “Seriously, who are you?”
The man lowered his arms and looked purposefully into her face. “You may call me Jonathan.”
When his slate-colored eyes met hers, Sally felt faint, and her pounding heart seemed intent on bursting out of her body. She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to steady herself. “Okay, Jonathan.” She wanted to look away, but couldn’t.
“You will come with me now.”
“I, uh,” Sally tottered backward into the stream. She bristled as the cold water seeped into her boots, and it was enough to break Jonathan’s spell. Standing calf-deep in the stream, she clutched the raven feather tight in her fingers as though it might act as a talisman to protect her. She planted her feet against the rocks in the creek bed and borrowed strength from the rushing water. She looked sharply at Jonathan.
“Look, I don’t know who you are, or how you found me out here, but you can bet I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Jonathan laughed. “You have a fire in you. That is good.” He extended an open hand toward her. “You will come now.”
Sally flinched at his invitation and held her wet ground. Her toes squished inside her boots and began to go numb from the cold, but the chill kept her mind sharp. “Not a chance.”
Her gaze fell on her pack. She wished she had a talent for telekinesis—if such a thing were actually possible—or had some other way of getting to her knife. But if she had to defend herself against this creep, would her little blade be enough?
Jonathan shifted position and moved between Sally and her backpack.
“Come,” he beckoned again. “It is warm and pleasant where I live.”
Sally studied him. His body language wasn’t threatening. His shoulders were rounded back and his hands rested open in a welcoming stance of trust. Had she misjudged him? The shady Wargs were distant kin to the tricky Irish pooka clan, and she’d gotten along all right with Phelan and Fenrir, not that she was keen to have a movie night with them or anything. Plus, this guy seemed super polite.
“Are you by any chance related to the Frost Giants?”
Jonathan shook his head and laughed. “You ask many strange questions.” White smoke drifted out of his mouth with each syllable, and Sally’s body blared an early warning of approaching panic.
“Are you feeling okay?” Sally dug her heels into the rocky stream bed and wondered if she could use the water as a weapon. “Are your teeth on fire or something?”
“You like to play games, I see. But this is no time for foolishness. Come now. We must leave this place.” The smoke wafting from his mouth thickened into dark, twisting ropes that flowed quickly toward Sally and wrapped firmly around her. Silky tendrils coiled around her knees and wrists. Sally coughed and flailed to wave the smoke away from her face, but it reached into her nostrils and poured down her throat.
“Stop it!” Sally choked. Her hands and arms were bound to her sides. She tried to turn and run to the opposite bank, but the smoke held tight around her legs and torso. She couldn’t move any part of her body below her neck.
“I want you to go away. Leave me alone!” She couldn’t see anything beyond the smoke now. It filled her lungs and tasted like phosphorus as it burned her esophagus. Her stomach churned and heaved bile into her throat, but the smoke pushed everything back down, searing its way into her chest.
“Moon!” Sally cried out as she sank to her knees in the water, the cold no help in breaking Jonathan’s smoggy bonds. She squeezed her eyes closed against the blackness that swirled around her and tried desperately to breathe, but all she inhaled was more phosphorus fumes.
The raven feather slipped from her fingers and floated downstream.
8
Through the night and into the first hours past dawn, Heimdall and Laika had followed Fenrir, who had shifted back into his wolf form to lead them to Sally. Heimdall wasn’t sure if he should be relieved by or wary of the black wolf’s straight path through the forest. Whether Fenrir was telling the truth or leading them into a trap, it was taking a bloody long time to get there.
Laika kept her position just ahead of Heimdall—making herself a physical obstacle should Fenrir turn and attack. Heimdall maintained a safe distance from Fenrir but kept him in sight. Seeming to sense Heimdall’s unease, Fenrir slowed every so often to look back and make sure they were still with him.
Heimdall made a conscious effort to maintain a neutral facial expression. He could, this morning, make a play to take out the Fenrir Wolf once and for all. He was tired and hungry, but a better opportunity was unlikely to present itself. Fenrir was steady in the lead, exposed. Laika could race ahead to cause a distraction, allowing Heimdall to drive his blade deep into the Randulfr’s back. Heimdall expected it would be difficult to sever Fenrir’s spinal cord and pierce his heart, but he could probably muster the strength after so many centuries of mistrust.
He flexed his fingers, itching for the weight of his knife.
Would such an act prevent Ragnarok somewhere down the line? Next year or even in the next age, another Randulfr could rise up, adopt the same ignominious name, and prove to be the end of Odin’s Lodge and of the Cosmos as Heimdall knew it.
Fenrir had remained in the forest instead of going after Odin again. That’s the part Heimdall couldn’t understand. Fenrir could have taken down Odin when he was out chopping wood, visiting the White Oak Yggdrasil, or just out for a stroll. Easier still for Fenrir to simply attack Heimdall and Laika here in the forest. Unless Fenrir’s blood debt to Sally was for real, and Fenrir was telling the truth.
Anxious from her master’s barrage of worried thoughts, Laika dipped her head and let out a soft growl.
“Easy girl,” Heimdall called to her.
Fenrir glanced over his shoulder at Heimdall and narrowed his icy eyes. Heimdall lifted his chin and kept his pace steady. A shrug rolled across Fenrir’s lupine shoulders, and he turned his attention back to the trail.
Heimdall sighed. If he did attack Fenrir, would he lose his chance to help Sally and Thor?
Fenrir put on a sudden burst of speed. Laika yipped and followed, and Heimdall had to push to keep up. His muscles burned painfully and reminded him just how long it had been since his last meal. The sun was above the horizon now, so at least it was easier to dodge the fallen branches in his path.
The black wolf slowed to a stop. In a blur of black smoke, Fenrir shifted from four legs and a tail to his upright, bipedal form. Heimdall sucked in a sharp breath. There was way too much similarity between Fenrir and the Irish pookas.
Fenrir’s ears and nose twitched and he held up a hand for Heimdall and Laika to remain silent. He crept forward. Laika cocked her head at Heimdall, and they followed cautiously behind.
Fenrir paused at the trunk of a large tree and motioned Heimdall forward. Heimdall gripped his knife and moved in beside him. Fenrir gestured through a thicket to a clearing where a girl lay curled in her sleeping bag.
Heimdall’s muscles uncoiled in relief. “Opal.” He relaxed his grip on his knife.
Fenrir sniffed the air. “She’s alone now,” Fenrir said softly. “But there were others. The Moon Witch and a woman I didn’t recognize.”
Heimdall pushed through the underbrush. “Opal,” he announced in a commanding tone
, then repeated himself when she didn’t immediately respond.
Sounds of protest came from within the sleeping bag. “Five minutes,” Opal complained.
“Laika.” Heimdall motioned the wolf-dog forward, and she happily sprang on Opal’s sleeping bag, woo’ing excitedly and wagging her tail as she dug inside and licked at Opal’s face, neck, and hands.
“Garh! Pleh! Okay! Laika, enough!” Opal laughed and tried to push Laika away, without success. To Laika, the shove was an invitation to play. The wolf-dog hopped into the air and landed squarely on Opal’s chest with a satisfied grunt, her pink tongue hanging out of her mouth while her tail waved high in the air.
“Oof!” Opal managed to free her arms and then struggled to roll Laika onto the ground. “Seriously, I’m up. I promise, I’m getting up right now. Where did you come from, anyway?”
Laika draped herself contentedly across Opal’s lap as the girl sat up in her sleeping bag and pushed her tangled hair out of her eyes. Opal blinked at Heimdall. “What are you doing here?”
Heimdall glanced back at Fenrir, who remained hidden behind the broad tree. He took a step toward Opal. “Opal, where’s Sally?”
Opal glanced around the campsite as the sleepy gears in her head began to engage. “Wait a second.”
Opal pushed Laika off of her lap. Laika voiced her protest but didn’t resist. Opal pulled herself out of her sleeping bag, straightened the old sweatshirt and shorts she wore as pajamas, and rose to her feet.
“Moon took Sally off into the woods somewhere. Yesterday.” She ran her fingers through her long hair and picked out a few pine needles and bits of bark. “It was before sunset. I think they were supposed to come back. I’m not actually too clear on that part. But I was alone all night. I had one of those dehydrated camping dinners. It wasn’t so bad.”
Opal’s eyes grew wide, and her breath quickened. “Is that why you’re here? Heimdall, is Sally okay?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Heimdall turned again to the tree where Fenrir was lurking. “You can come out now.”
Raven Quest (Valhalla Book 4) Page 12
