This time the forest was far from silent. Baying, keening howls that couldn’t possibly come from any normal dog echoed all around them, and the thundering footfalls of a wild pack on the hunt filled her ears. A wind tunnel would have been quieter. Sally kept pushing forward and didn’t dare let herself look back.
The worn path disappeared beneath their feet. Every tree was indistinguishable from the next, and Sally was afraid they were running in blind circles. But Loki seemed to know the way.
The trees shrieked as they swept their branches out to snag Sally’s clothes and hair. Her clothes were nicked all over and her face was a map of bleeding scratches. A thin branch wrapped around her wrist and tugged. It burned cold against her skin and nearly pulled her off her feet. Sally tried not to panic as she struggled to break free. The baying canines sounded like they were just a few yards behind her. She regained her feet and took a single step before animated roots rose up to wrap around her ankle. Loki ripped the roots away and yanked Sally forward.
His face was grim and his breath came in painful grunts as they dodged the grappling hooks of more tree branches and roots that lashed at them. Sally tried not to think of them as the fingers of angry corpses.
Sally cursed, her words drowned out by the baying hounds and howling trees. It was probably a good thing, as she didn’t know what magickal rebound her angry utterances might bring. If Loki hadn’t grabbed her, if he’d only let her complete her working, would any of this be happening? She’d failed to bind Hel to her own hall, and she’d definitely made a dangerous enemy. It had been a risky gamble to save Loki, and she’d lost.
The wail of a hunting horn sounded, and the yelping roar of the hounds surged.
“No! Time! To! Lose!” Loki was barely audible over the racket.
Sally stumbled over a gyrating root that tried to snare her knee. She recovered her balance and glanced back. The sight was startling. The woods looked perfectly calm and serene, but then she blinked and saw the terror of the ferocious trees and the sea of red-eyed hounds storming toward them. Each beast was the size of a charging rhinoceros and seemed made of dark smoke. They were near enough that Sally could almost smell the saliva and blood and rotted slime that dripped from wide mouths of ragged teeth. Her breath caught in her throat as she prepared to scream, but then she blinked and the woods were misty and peaceful once again.
Over and over the scene changed from quiet forest to hellish nightmare with each blink of her eyes. It was a miracle that no branch or root caught her as she stood frozen and watched the ghostly hounds heave toward her.
Strong hands gripped her shoulders and spun her around, breaking the spell. Loki pulled her along behind him, and she clutched his wrist to strengthen her connection to something living and regain some balance. But the hounds drew closer and her vision began to dim.
Sally closed her eyes. She trusted Loki to lead her to safety. She concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other, then again, and again, as quickly as she could. Roots and branches continued to lash at her, but she put the stinging pain out of her mind. There was no way to ignore the howling barrage of the hounds, but she kept moving. She felt their hot, foul breath at her back and prepared for the searing agony of razor-sharp teeth digging into her flesh.
But Loki yanked hard, and she flew forward and then collapsed onto her knees. She staggered to her feet, trying to catch her breath and ready to keep running. But the wild baying was no longer coming from all sides, and Hel’s bloodthirsty hounds now cried out in mad frustration instead of carnivorous pursuit. Sally opened her eyes and saw that she stood a few meters beyond the archway of the Helheim woods.
As before, the vicious hounds and trees filled her vision one instant, and were gone the next. Loki stood beside her.
“Are we safe?” she choked.
“We are beyond the reach of Hel’s hounds.” Loki coughed to clear his throat, but his voice was still rough. “As to our long-term safety, I will not speculate.”
Sally wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream or cry or laugh. “I didn’t think . . .” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t know . . .”
Loki turned toward her, and Sally steeled herself for the coming reprimand. She had placed them both in mortal danger and had probably made things infinitely worse for everyone back in Portland, too. She’d compromised the fates of Odin and Frigga with her reckless pivot. And she’d done it all without forethought or consideration for consequences.
She’d be banished from the Lodge this time for sure. Images of a life without magick warred with surges of guilt, shame, and relief. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Don’t you dare apologize.” Loki’s voice was harsh, but he wore the hint of a smile on his face. “You gave the old bitch no less than what she deserved. Or you tried to. You may well have succeeded if I hadn’t dragged you out.”
Sally dusted the powdery dirt of Helheim off her clothes. Her jeans looked like she’d taken a cheese grater to the denim fabric. She was still dressed in the pseudo-Goth ensemble Saga had put her in, and she hoped the unintended disguise might throw Hel off her trail, even a little. But with Sally’s luck, she’d probably start an unfortunate fashion trend of fishnet denim.
Loki tilted his head toward the slavering beasts who were there and then not there. Dozens of them climbed on each other, snarling and snapping as each successive wave collided against the invisible barrier separating the woods from the No Man’s Land of Helheim.
“I wish I could say the hounds were cuddly and friendly, even lovable, under different circumstances,” he said. “But they’re always like this. And remarkably efficient.”
Sally stared at Loki. His face was wan, except for the fading purple around his nose and blood-shot eyes. But he was alive, and so was she.
She was bruised and battered and had thin streams of blood trickling down her face. She’d never know how close she came to being ripped limb from limb. Her heart hammered in her chest and she still hadn’t caught her breath. But Loki stood there, calm and collected and as bemused as ever, though his clothes and skin were nearly as ravaged as her own.
She clenched her fists. “Did you ever think you might want to tell me about what I might be getting myself into back there?”
“I think you performed admirably under difficult and trying circumstances,” he replied. “I’m proud of how you handled yourself. You thought on your feet with improvised magick. It wasn’t a move I would have made, with the stakes involved.”
A deep, booming growl rolled toward them from the direction of the dull-looking lake.
“It would be unwise to linger.” Loki turned Sally away from the forest and started walking at a moderate clip. When she asked what further dangers might await even after they’d escaped the forest, Loki simply shook his head.
“But Frigga and Odin?” Sally didn’t know how to finish her question. Because of her on-the-fly magickal switcheroo, were their souls forfeit? Or maybe Hel would hold them for an even greater ransom. Hot acid rose in her throat.
“Frigga and Odin are not your responsibility. Nor should they ever have been.”
Sally suspected this was the nearest thing to an apology she was going to get from the god of chaos.
She spotted the entrance to the cave ahead, though it was impossible to gauge the distance. The portal might be a hundred yards or a full mile away. The flat dullness of Helheim made her feel dizzy and sick.
She rubbed at the place on her wrist where one of the branches had burned her. There was no mark on her skin, but the pain tingled deep. Her eyes went wide.
“My bracelet! Frigga’s bracelet!” Sally turned back toward the woods. Even at this distance, she could see the hounds still heaving themselves against the barrier.
“No.” Loki grabbed her shoulder and spun her back around.
“I can’t leave it!” Sally tried to turn back to the woods, but Loki kept her moving forward. She was exhausted and she ordered herself not to cry. The loss of her one gift from Frigga
was physically painful, but she didn’t like her chances of survival if she headed back into the woods.
“I’m afraid we both have our work cut out for us,” Loki said.
“What do you mean?” Sally didn’t delude herself that any of this was over. Naturally, she expected things would only get worse.
“It would be prudent to assume Hel and her kind aren’t likely to do either of us any favors in the near future.”
The hounds fell suddenly silent. Sally tried to convince herself that was a positive development.
She and Loki walked on in silence, underscored by the return of Helheim’s eerie quiet. Even the stony dirt was soundless when it should have crunched beneath her shoes. Her mind started to wander. She imagined what life might be like if she were a secret warrior princess in an exotic land—like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon—instead of starring in the never-ending fiasco that was her real life. She’d fill her days with tea parties and calligraphy while at night she thwarted evil overlords with her cunning silence and steel. She’d wear midnight indigo instead of black. Or maybe black with a stripe of scarlet, to strike fear into the hearts of the bad guys while keeping her identity secret and keeping her friends and family safe from—
“Are you ready?”
Sally blinked. Loki gestured toward the cave entrance.
“Unless you’d like to take in the sights and whatnot,” he added.
“Very funny.” Sally started into the tunnel. Plunged into darkness, she felt her way along the passage, running her fingertips along the damp walls. With each step, the gravel beneath her feet crunched a little louder.
Loki followed behind. “Any oath sworn in the Hall of Helheim carries great weight, even if the words are spoken heedlessly. Any curse or vow must be carried out, or its consequences are revisited on the oath-maker.”
Hel had sworn her vengeance, and there was nothing idle about her words. There was only one thing Sally didn’t know.
“How long?” she asked.
Loki shrugged. “That I cannot tell you, but the game has changed yet again.”
Sally looked forward to dueling with the draugar only slightly more than a return trip to Helheim. She kept her pace steady and her breath even and made a meditation out of the transition from one world to the next.
She was not a ninja princess. She was a witch of chaos, and she would always be in the middle of a world-rending crisis.
Sally pressed her lips into a thin line and kept walking.
11
Sally stepped out of the shower and reached for a thick towel that had been warming on a heated rod. The cloth was a comfort against her abused skin. When she wrapped herself in the pink terrycloth robe Saga had left out for her, she had a hard time imagining that she’d actually set foot in Helheim.
She breathed in scents of vanilla and cinnamon from the incense sticks in a glass jar on the ceramic vanity, between bottles of high-end lotion and leave-in conditioner. She pulled on a pair of shearling slippers and let out a growling sigh.
Everything in this bathroom palace conveyed luxury and comfort. Sally wondered how Saga motivated herself to leave the shower every morning, much less step out of the apartment. Given the pace at which Saga was churning out ebooks, she probably didn’t get out all that much.
Sally wiped down the beveled mirror and checked her reflection. Gone was the heavy eyeshadow, dark eyeliner, and dramatic lipstick. She was also free of black fingernail polish, though she had only a vague memory of Opal scrubbing at her nails with ethyl acetate.
She could still see the scratches from Helheim’s trees on her face, fading pink lines that looked like she’d slept on a remarkably uncomfortable pillow.
There was a soft knock at the door. “We’ve got dinner ready when you are.”
Sally heard the cheerful tone Opal layered over her anxiety. Opal didn’t care about the belly dance scarf that was lost to Hel’s forest along with Frigga’s bracelet. Instead, she’d teared up and pulled Sally into a tight embrace the moment Loki deposited her on Saga’s doorstep.
And then Loki disappeared on another cryptic errand.
Sally opened the bathroom door with a smile, hoping to brighten Opal’s mood. It seemed to work. She inhaled a mouthwatering blend of savory aromas.
“It smells like Mangia Tuscany!” Sally exclaimed.
“We thought you’d appreciate some hearty comfort food,” Opal said. “And lots of it.”
Sally’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t put actual food into her body since the apartment fire.
“There are clothes in the bedroom.” Opal gestured toward an open door down the hall, but Sally headed toward the kitchen instead.
“I more interested in spaghetti than blue jeans right now.”
The short hallway opened to a great room and kitchen area. Saga’s place had roughly the same layout as Sally and Opal’s off-campus apartment but on a larger scale, and it was much better appointed. Saga’s apartment on Portland’s Willamette River was a pleasant study in cream and sage, from the kitchen appliances and marble countertops to the walls and window treatments. Even through the shearling slippers, Sally could feel the richness of the carpet.
Saga sat on the floor behind a long, rectangular IKEA box that was propped up on a couple of smaller boxes to mimic a coffee table. She hadn’t yet put together enough furniture to entertain guests. But she seemed comfortable enough as she slurped cream sauce and noodles from an aluminum take-out container and typed on her laptop keyboard. She looked up at Sally and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“You look better.” Saga motioned Sally toward the kitchen counter where more than a dozen food containers were spread out. “Help yourself. And we can get more, if you want something else.”
Sally walked toward the food. She felt like she was floating with every step and couldn’t get her brain to focus. She waited for the room and everything in it to shift fifteen degrees to the left so the world might feel real again.
She opened the first box she came to, grabbed a plastic spork, and started loading cheesy lasagna into her mouth as she stood at the counter—it was that or join Saga on the floor. She should have been upset and worried and angry and hugely freaked out, but a tired calm wrapped around her like a blanket. She was afraid it might suffocate her.
She grabbed a paper napkin and wiped her chin before tomato sauce could drip onto her borrowed bathrobe. “What’s been going on with you guys?”
“More of the same.” Saga swallowed another mouthful of noodles.
Opal settled in on the other side of Saga’s cardboard coffee table and picked at an olive and anchovy salad.
“Nothing like the apartment fire, or the Nordic center,” Saga said. “Smaller incidents. Smashed storefronts. Trashcan bonfires. A few overturned cars.”
Opal pointed at Saga with her plastic fork. “And then there’s the other.”
Saga drank from a short bottle of beer. “Right.”
Sally scraped the last of the lasagna out of the container and into her mouth. She’d practically inhaled the entire dish, but she didn’t feel remotely full. She opened the next box and smiled at the broccolini and linguine she found inside. “What other?”
“Some reports of break-ins.” Saga paused. “At a couple of morgues.”
The pasta stuck in Sally’s throat, and she had to cough a couple of times to get it down. She didn’t ask for details. She knew it was the draugar. Saga knew it too or she wouldn’t mention it. Sally drank most of a bottle of water in one long swig and gave her stomach a moment to settle.
“They’re building an army.” Sally leaned against the counter. The marble cut into her side but she welcomed the pain. She shoveled more food into her mouth. She’d lost her appetite at the thought of having to wrangle a horde of Viking zombies—intelligent Viking zombies, from what Saga had told her—but her body needed fuel. And there was something basic and life-affirming about stuffing her face with pasta after nearly being torn to bits by Hel’s hou
nds.
Saga seemed almost giddy as she finished off her fettuccine. “The element that’s missing is their intention.”
“Their intention.” Sally speared a piece of broccolini and turned it slowly in the air. “How about they intend to drag me back to the underworld because Hel’s seriously pissed and she sent them after me?”
But that wasn’t right, and Sally knew it. The draugar had appeared before Sally went to Helheim.
“At least, that would make sense if it were true.” Sally shoved the broccolini into her mouth and opened a container of mushroom ravioli drowning in parmesan-chive sauce.
“Are you feeling okay?” Opal rose to her feet and walked toward Sally at the counter. “Maybe you should lie down.”
A nap sounded like a brilliant idea. Saga probably had 5,000-thread-count sheets beneath a silk and goose-down comforter in the guest room.
“Can’t,” Sally said. “There’s work to do.”
“You’re both right.” Saga’s fingers flew over her keyboard. Sally didn’t know if she was researching the draugar or working on another Viking romance. “We need more information before we can really strategize. And Sally needs a break.”
Sally frowned. Saga’s answering smile was full of mischief. “You don’t want to be late for your date.”
Sally’s eyes widened. Was it still Friday night? She turned to Opal. “Your date with Lauren!”
“Postponed,” Opal replied. “I’d rather not involve Lauren in all of this. I’ll stay here and help Saga, and maybe make snarky comments from time to time.”
“I meant Sally’s date.” Saga lifted Sally’s phone from the cardboard coffee table. “You and Zach have been texting each other for the past hour. He’s really worried about you.”
“What?!” Sally patted the pockets of her bathrobe, but of course she didn’t have her phone on her. She’d left it to charge while she was getting cleaned up.
“You’re meeting him for coffee in twenty minutes.” Saga gave Sally a once over. “You’d better get dressed.”
Chaos Magic (Rune Witch Book 5) Page 14