Moon Dog Magic

by Jennifer Willis

  “WHAT IS THIS?!” Frigga shrieked from the kitchen. She appeared again in the den, dragging Laika by the scruff of her neck. The poor wolf-dog’s tail was between her legs and she hunched her shoulders, trying to crouch away from Frigga’s firm grasp.

  “Heimdall! What in the Nine Realms is this animal doing in my house?!”

  Heimdall looked at Laika, who gazed forlornly up at him. “Umm, she comes inside all the time . . . ?”

  “Not since I put in my new floors, she doesn’t.” Frigga dug her hands deeper into Laika’s fur. Laika whined, her eyes darting around the room for an escape route.

  Heimdall put his plate down and walked toward Frigga and Laika. “I forgot. Sorry,” he said more to Laika than to his mother.

  “I should think so, bringing in this beast to scratch up my hardwood.” Frigga released Laika to Heimdall and then fluffed her neatly coiffed hair. “You can put her outside.”

  “It’s raining pretty hard out there.”

  Frigga sighed loudly and rested her hands on her hips. “On the porch, Heimdall. There’s a roof. She’ll stay dry.” She leaned over Laika and patted her head. “I’m not completely heartless.”

  Laika edged closer to Heimdall.

  “Yeah, okay. Outside.” Heimdall retrieved Laika’s bowl from the floor and refilled it with scraps from the counter. When he opened the kitchen door leading to the raised porch, Laika whined.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Heimdall said loudly, for Frigga’s benefit.

  Head hanging low, Laika walked to the door. She stopped on the threshold, glanced up at Heimdall with a stifled groan, and stepped out onto the wet porch. Heimdall leaned out the door and put her bowl down for her.

  “I guess you were right to be nervous about Frigga.” He crouched down next to her and rubbed her ears. “You’ll be okay out here.”

  Laika sniffed at the hard rain coming down beyond the shelter of the porch roof, then lay down and shifted her big blue eyes sadly from side to side.

  Heimdall stood and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m not falling for that poor puppy routine anymore. You be a good girl.”

  He stepped back inside and shut the door, careful to wipe off on the doormat what little moisture might have clung to the bottoms of his boots.

  Grabbing his plate as he stepped back to the hearth, Heimdall nearly tripped over his younger brother, Bragi, stretched out on the floor in front of the fire.

  “Sorry about that, man.” Heimdall kept his food from spilling but dropped his fork into Bragi’s lap.

  Tucking chin-length hair behind his ear, Bragi rolled his eyes and handed the fork back to his brother. “Nice of you to join us. Considering you’re the one who called this meeting.”

  Heimdall reclaimed his seat on the stone ledge by the fireplace and adjusted the screen so a stray spark from the roaring fire wouldn’t catch his fleece pullover. It had taken Bragi two such accidents just in the last century to learn the same lesson. So much for the Bard of the Gods—gifted in poetry and prose, klutzy with fire.

  Just as Heimdall took a massive bite out of his roasted turkey leg—with hot juice running down his chin—his mother reached over to pat his knee. “I knew you’d get your appetite back.”

  Frigga smiled and laid a napkin on his thigh. Heimdall frowned at the linen on his blue jeans, then noticed that Frigga’s hands were shaking. Chewing slowly and using the napkin to mop at the greasy juice on his lips, Heimdall glanced around the room. His family were chowing down hard like it was any other dinner—except for the silence, punctuated by the occasional forced laugh.

  Heimdall swallowed. “Thanks for dinner, Frigga.”

  She nodded absently with the same smile frozen on her face.

  Heimdall tucked his napkin into his collar, knowing it would please his mother, then cleared his throat. “By now you’ve all heard about the Berserker. And about my experience in the woods.” He tipped his head toward his cousin on the sofa. “Freya was also on the hunt, in a different location, and sensed no such disturbance.”

  Freya nodded.

  “What about the rest of you?” he asked.

  On the other side of the room, Thor’s loud sigh turned into an awkward, echoing hiccup. He patted his chest and reached for his beer stein. Freyr looked across at Heimdall and rolled his eyes.

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” Freya stood and gestured toward Odin and Thor. “You were there with the Berserker. You felt the Calling that initiated his awakening. And Heimdall must have been near the source of the Calling, or in its direct path as it went out.”

  Heimdall shook his head. “There was no one else out there, I’m certain of it. Whatever that was, it felt like it moved right through me. Knocked me flat on my back.”

  Odin inhaled sharply. “Yes, just before. Like a shade flew over me.”

  “Sounds like someone’s been working magick.” Freya rested her hands on her knees as she sat cross-legged on the sofa.

  “You think it was one of us?” Freyr raised his eyebrows.

  Freya lifted her hands in the air and shrugged.

  “Berserkers don’t just awaken by accident,” Freyr said. “Loki’s the only one with any kind of raw power anymore. But even if he wanted to do some fool thing like call up a Berserker, he couldn’t, right? He can’t control his power.”

  Saga leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “Assuming it really was a Berserker.”

  Thor was picking at his bottom teeth with his fingernail. “I know what I saw,” he grumbled. He examined the bit of carrot his nail had dislodged, then sucked the orange shred back into his mouth.

  Saga shook her head. “Okay, but have you looked at the world we’re living in lately? The mortals have all kinds of disorders now. Some of the people who come into the bookstore are crazy as loons! Maybe you saw a guy who’d just dropped acid or smoked crystal meth or something. But a Berserker? You can’t be serious.”

  Odin looked across the room at his youngest child. “I wish it had been as you’ve suggested. Drugs. Heavy metal music. Whatever the latest scourge on human civilization happens to be. But I’d recognize that look anywhere—the sudden, mad gleam that flared in the boy’s eyes . . .”

  Odin rested back into the sofa. “It was most definitely a Berserker.”

  The Berserkers had served Odin for centuries. Born mortal, they acquired super-human protection when the gods sent out a Calling for the warriors to awaken, and they fought with wild enthusiasm under the leadership of Thor. Legends told of axe blades shattering on their shoulders and skulls, that no spear could pierce the warriors’ skin. Most of them lost their minds in the transformation from mere mortal to crazed warrior, and many Berserkers ran into battle with no armor—sometimes without any garments at all—leaving in their wake the bloodiest corpses their enemies had ever seen. The Berserkers had never been defeated.

  “But it’s been centuries since the Berserkers were called,” Freyr protested. “Not since the last battle with Fenrir.” Freyr looked at Odin. “You don’t think that scurvy Randulfr has managed to free himself?”

  Odin dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.

  Heimdall remembered that battle, when the gods had scarcely beaten back the final, fated confrontation that would destroy them all.

  Vague murmurs of Ragnarok—the prophesied battle that would wipe out Odin’s kin and create the Cosmos anew—arose from time to time. The Fenris Wolf was still imprisoned. They themselves were weaker, but still standing. But these troubling developments on the eve of the stars coming into alignment, and with no new Yggdrasil in sight.

  Heimdall swallowed hard, forcing down a half-chewed piece of bread. “You’re sure you didn’t call the warrior?”

  “I think I’d damned well know if I’d called up a Berserker!” Odin shot his son an impatient scowl. “We were talking about a mathematics competition. The kid was sitting there doing geometry problems, and then . . .”

  “Berserker,” Freya hissed.


  “Berserker,” Odin grunted in agreement.

  Heimdall took a huge bite out of the turkey leg. Frigga was right about one thing: Even when the fate of the Cosmos hung in the balance, there was no sense letting food this good go to waste. But his chewing slowed to a standstill when he saw Rod emerge from the utility room off the kitchen and approach the den. Rod folded his work gloves neatly and tucked them into the leather belt looped through his snug jeans.

  Heimdall turned to Frigga and frowned. “Muh, mubbe Rud shundn beh hruh feh zish?”

  She cocked her head. “You will swallow before speaking. Just because you’re at the Lodge with your family doesn’t mean you check your manners at the door.”

  Heimdall chewed furiously, trying to swallow enough to be understood. But before he could ask again, Odin spied Frigga’s handyman standing on the step leading down into the den.

  Odin scowled. “Rod, this is a family meeting and doesn’t concern you.”

  Frigga rested a hand on her husband’s arm. “Don’t be silly. Have a seat, Rod. Or, do you want something to eat?” She gestured toward the steaming platters on the kitchen counter.

  “No, thank you. I think I’ve had plenty.” He patted his lean midsection, then smiled down at the hulking frame of Thor on the settee.

  The god of thunder bristled at Rod’s nearness and his attempt at eye contact. Thor glanced at his mother for help.

  “Move over, darling,” Frigga said. “Let Rod sit down.”

  Heimdall saw a shudder run through his brother’s body. Thor grumbled something unintelligible and scooted over. Rod stepped down into the den, and sat beside Thor.

  Thor promptly moved over even farther to give Rod a much wider berth than his fit frame required, so that Thor nearly spilled off the end of the settee. The concentration of his hulking mass lifted the other end—and Rod—a few inches off the floor. By Heimdall’s calculations, one move in the wrong direction could catapult Rod across the room and through the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the Lodge’s backyard.

  But Rod appeared to enjoy the hulking god’s discomfort. He gripped the edge of the settee to keep from sliding toward Thor and nodded appreciatively at Frigga. “Thanks for allowing me to join you.”

  Thor turned his back on Rod.

  “By the tears of the Valkyries!” clucked Frigga. “You’re not going to catch gay cooties.”

  Thor’s face flushed bright red. He gulped down his beer, then slammed his stein down on the coffee table, making his mother cringe at the threat to her furniture. With a patronizing smile, Thor scooted a few inches closer to center on the leather bench. The raised end hit the floor with a dull thud that nearly bounced Rod onto the floor.

  “Thanks.” Rod released his tight grip on the bench.

  Odin pointed a meaty finger at the handyman and turned angrily to Frigga, but she cut him off before he could even open his mouth.

  “Rod already knows everything. He understands what’s at stake. As we’re fast running out of time, I’d say we can use all the help we can get.”

  Odin squinted his one eye at Rod, but the human didn’t flinch.

  Heimdall was impressed, but he laughed when Odin leaned to Frigga and said, “I still don’t like that he’s prettier than Saga.”

  Thor grabbed his stein and grumbled into his beer. “As long as he doesn’t think he’s getting his hands on my hammer. Thing is sacred.”

  Rod sighed in exasperation. “You know, I’m sitting right here. I can hear you.”

  Thor took another large swig, then wiped a massive hand across his face as beer dribbled down onto his shirt.

  “Ugh. Barbarians,” Frigga hissed. She grabbed the napkin out of the front of Heimdall’s pullover and tossed it to Thor.

  Heimdall smiled. “Mother, we are barbarians.”

  “Were, darling.” She leaned over and patted his knee. “Were.”

  “Please, everyone.” Rod inched forward on the settee. “I don’t mean to be a disruptive element. I’m here to help, as I’m able.”

  “Thank you.” Heimdall nodded and turned to Odin. “Any past instances of a rogue Berserker arising like that, without being called?”

  Odin scowled and shook his head. Heimdall didn’t like seeing his father lacking in direction, and it was getting worse by the day. Odin’s students might cower in his presence, but leadership of the Lodge was falling increasingly to Heimdall.

  Frigga propped an elbow on the back of the sofa. “Is there any possibility that the Tree called the Berserker?”

  Freya stared up at the ceiling to think. “The new Tree is young. Its energy is not very strong, but it could be misdirected. Or manipulated.”

  Freyr nearly laughed. “Who outside of this room would have a clue how to do something like that, or even get the idea to do it?”

  Thor growled low in his throat.

  “Okay,” Freyr said. “Besides Loki?”

  Freya crossed her arms over her chest. “Loki wouldn’t dare.”

  “You sure about that?” Thor replied.

  “We have his son. Even if Loki wanted to go stirring up old trouble, he’d know that he’d be putting Fenrir in danger.”

  The phone clipped to Heimdall belt chirped. He checked the display and read the message from Forestry Dispatch: SITKA SPRUCE VANDALIZED.

  His blood ran cold.

  Frigga leaned forward. “Heimdall? What is it?”

  Heimdall stepped away from the hearth as he pulled up the Forest Service’s internal website on his phone. “This has got to be a mistake.”

  Heimdall stood by the picture window and scanned through the electronic alerts. He kept an ear on his family’s conversation as he scrolled through bulletins on a minor collision between two vehicles on a heavily traveled service road, a small band of marijuana growers discovered on government property in Central Oregon, and the burned-out campsite he was supposed to have surveyed earlier in the day.

  “I didn’t even know they still existed,” Bragi said. “Berserkers.”

  “Why would you say that?” Heimdall asked over his shoulder.

  “I suppose I just assumed they died out,” Bragi replied. “With the last of the Vikings.”

  Saga looked hard at Bragi. “With us, you mean.” She stretched strong arms over her head and shifted in her seat. “The last of those who worshipped us, anyway.”

  The I Dream of Jeannie theme song suddenly pervaded the room.

  Heimdall turned to frown at Saga, but Odin beat him to it.

  Saga shrugged off her family’s stern expressions as she slipped her phone out of her pocket and turned it off. “Sorry.”

  Heimdall went back to his phone’s tiny screen.

  Rod caught Saga’s eye. “You’re still around. Why shouldn’t there still be Berserkers?”

  Thor stamped his foot and stood up. “There must be war brewing then!” His eyes lit up as he paced back and forth. The stone tiles of the coffee table—and the plates and silverware on top of it—shook with his every step.

  “Berserkers arise for one purpose: Battle. That must mean that we are rising again, too.” Thor stopped suddenly and several utensils clattered to the floor. He clenched his hands into fists and mimed the earth-shattering thunderbolts he used to throw.

  Rod stared into the fire. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “The planetary convergence Frigga and Freya have been talking about,” Thor said. “The rebirth of the Yggdrasil. Think about it, Heimdall.”

  “Hmm?” Heimdall turned back to face the room and found his hulking brother’s expectant face. “Yeah, maybe,” he answered distractedly. He struggled with his phone’s minuscule navigation keys and finally found the alert about the Sitka Spruce:

  BULLETIN

  ROUTINE PATROL REPORTS EVIDENCE OF VANDALISM AT KLOOTCHY CREEK GIANT (SITKA SPRUCE) ON US HWY 26. A PORTION OF THE TREE HAS BEEN SAWED OFF AND REMOVED. ESTIMATED TIME OF INCIDENT BETWEEN 3 PM WED AND 3 PM THU PDT. INVESTIGATION PENDING.

  “Kamphundr!” Heimdal
l shouted. “Ormstunga!”

  Frigga swiveled her head around to look at him. “Who’s a carrion eater, darling?”

  Heimdall stepped back beside the hearth, his head swimming. He glanced around the room, trying to remember how to form English words.

  Odin sat up straight and locked his gaze on Heimdall. “Speak.”

  “It’s the Tree, the old Tree,” Heimdall stammered. “Someone’s hacked into it, stolen its wood. This is about more than a single Berserker.”

  The gods immediately rose to their feet. Rod looked around in confusion. “So, this is bad news?”

  “An aimless Berserker on the loose, with no master.” Frigga sucked in a sharp breath and looked at Heimdall. “And the campsite? Could it belong to the one who desecrated the old Tree?”

  “It’s a completely different part of the woods. The campsite was in Forest Park, inside Portland city limits.” Heimdall’s jaw tightened. “But, yes. That’s what I’m thinking. No way that’s a coincidence.”

  “And that,” Thor offered, turning toward Rod, “definitely isn’t good.”

  Rod looked up at Thor, and the god of thunder froze.

  “Not that things were good to begin with. Because they weren’t. So this is worse,” Thor stammered. “Worse than it would be otherwise. Not that things still couldn’t get worse. Worse than this. Because they can. And this doesn’t come close to making it better.”

  Odin sighed loudly.

  Thor tried again, looking down at Rod. “It’s bad. That’s what it means.” He turned to Odin and hooked a thumb in the handyman’s direction. “Sorry, but this guy gives me the willies.”

  Rod groaned. “Like I said. I can hear you.”

  Heimdall swallowed hard. “I’ve covered about a hundred acres since we narrowed down the location to Pierce Forest.”

  “We need more boots on the ground,” Freya said.

  Rod scooted to the front edge of the settee. “I can help.”

  A familiar howl arose from the back porch, accompanied by scratching at the door. Heimdall crossed the floor and let Laika into the house. She shook the excess water off her fur, circled his legs, and barked.

  Heimdall looked to Frigga. “Mother, forgive me—”