Frigga cut him off with a shake of her head. “Go. Four feet are just as good as two right now.”
7
Sally sat at a table near the giant fireplace inside the Cactus Lily Coffee Lodge. She kept her hands wrapped around her mug of hot chocolate, mostly to keep herself from shaking too badly.
It was nearing 5 p.m., and the sky was already dark. The Black Moon was just over 56 hours away. But instead of the global call to compassion and harmony that Sally had been trying to bring about, there was no telling what was going to happen.
After the book return fiasco at Powells, Opal had driven Sally home to pack a bag and leave a quick note for her parents. Sally didn’t remember now what fabrication she’d scrawled—something about feeling much better and spending the weekend at a friend’s house to catch up on a joint science project. She needed time to sort all this out, and hanging around the house looking like a hag wasn’t an option.
She’d shoved as many candles, books, and other supplies as would fit into her overnight bag, and then spent a good forty-five minutes staring at herself in her bathroom mirror, gauging her graying hair and sunken eyes and mentally measuring every wrinkle. She would probably still be standing at the sink if Opal hadn’t dragged her away from her own reflection.
Sally sipped her cocoa and wondered how she’d gotten into this mess. Maybe if she hadn’t been so secretive and asked her magickal friends for help. Maybe if she hadn’t warded her bedroom against her parents or lied to them. She wasn’t sure how they’d take the news that their daughter was a Norse witch, but she resolved to have a long, honest talk with them once this was all over.
Sally took another sip and stared at Opal’s laptop screen. They’d found a database link to the text of a rare volume entitled Gammel Magi av Dame Freya (“Old Magic of the Lady Freya”), only recently translated from Norwegian to English. But the translation was available solely as an 847-page PDF file on a server hosted by the University of Iceland, and she was at the mercy of the coffee lodge’s spotty WiFi.
She watched the slow progress of the status bar and held her head in her less than supple hands. Twenty-three minutes into the download and it was only nine-percent complete.
Sipping a pumpkin smoothie, Opal plopped down into the chair next to Sally. “Still downloading?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll fix this. Or we’ll find someone who can. For all you know, this is just temporary. You could wake up tomorrow looking like yourself again.”
Sally looked down at her lap. She was too tired to cry any more. “I should’ve known better than to try that ritual on my own. With the Black Moon and all the planets lining up, maybe I was just playing with fire.”
“That’s this weekend, right?”
Sally had spent the last couple of hours trying to explain everything about her plans and research and intricate spells to Opal, even pulling out star charts to point out the old constellations. But Opal was an eclectic Wiccan who worked with the Greek gods and knew almost nothing about Odin’s pantheon or Norse mythology. Sally finally gave up when Opal’s eyes glassed over as she went over the basics of rune magick.
“Stupid, stupid.” Sally balled her hands into loose fists. The file download was now ten-percent complete. “I checked and double-checked all my calculations, all the correspondences and everything. I wasn’t wrong, you know?”
“We’ll ask Ansur when he gets here, okay? We’ll go over everything you did, step by step. He’ll know what to do.” Opal sipped her smoothie and glanced around at the other Cactus Lily patrons in their flowing robes and crystal-encrusted jewelry. “Looks like NeoPagan Social Hour is set to start any second now.”
“Yeah, on Pagan Standard Time. Everything starts later and takes longer than you think.” Sally laughed sarcastically, then felt guilty. She’d set herself apart from Portland’s Pagan community, with the excuse that she was studying a more obscure tradition and didn’t want to distract anyone from their paths. Now she realized what a snob she’d been.
Sally put down her cocoa and rested back in her chair. The truth was she hadn’t respected anyone’s tradition other than her own. Sally wasn’t sure which was worse—the possibility of being ridiculed and chastised by her Pagan peers for her metaphysical debacle, or forever looking like the Crypt Keeper’s little sister.
“Opal, I want to apologize to you,” Sally said.
“For what?” Opal checked her watched and then glanced at the door as it swung open, but it was just a guy with stringy hair and dirty blue jeans coming in, holding his head in his hands. “No Ansur yet.”
“I’m sorry I put down your ritual to Athena last month.” Feeling doubly embarrassed and stupid, Sally looked down at the table. “I said you were just trying to get better grades.”
Opal slurped down the last of her smoothie. “I was trying to get better grades.”
“But you also really believed. And you studied really hard—not just for your exams, but for your craft. You chose a goddess you admire, and you were trying to be like her, wise and vigilant.” Sally turned her mug around in her hands. “I didn’t give you a whole lot of credit for that.”
“Because I didn’t gravitate to the Norse tradition, and because I don’t believe the gods are literally real, like you do.”
Sally met Opal’s eyes and felt her face burn red.
“You’ve been so nice to me, driving me around to all the witchy shops and taking me to festivals and stuff.” Sally refused to start crying again, though she could feel her eyes getting moist, and they stung. She kept looking around the coffee house, worried that everybody might be staring. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot.” Opal pulled at a thick strand of her dark hair and twirled it in her fingers. “You’re just young. Inexperienced. So you thought you were the only one with an inside scoop on all things magickal, and sometimes you’re kind of a pill. It happens.”
“I just wanted to make the world a better place!”
“No, Sally. What I meant was . . .” Opal jumped to her feet and waved frantically at the older man just stepping through the coffee shop’s front door. “Ansur’s here! Over here!”
Sally blew her nose into a paper napkin. A chorus of furious squawking rose up from the center of the room, and Sally nearly jumped out of her skin before she realized it was just some of the other witches comparing their cackling skills.
Managarm closed his tired eyes and leaned back into the wooden chair at the small table shoved against the coffee shop window. His head pounded, and his feet felt like lead. He cursed himself for having been witless enough to attempt a Runic Calling on his own. He had no experience with magick. How was he supposed to know the spell would come back and kick him in the butt ten hours later?
He rubbed his temples and tried to shut out the loud conversations and laughter around him. He felt like he’d been hit by one of Thor’s thunderbolts—something he’d experienced before, after making a foolishly flip comment about the other god’s new tunic at a celebratory feast.
But Thor was nowhere in sight. Managarm had been standing in line at Trader Joe’s to buy a burlap sack of basmati rice and a half-dozen cans of franks-n-beans when it hit him. One minute he was counting out currency for the cashier, and the next he felt like his scalp was on fire, his skull ready to crack open. Then his vision exploded into a million shards of blinding light. He’d barely gotten himself out of the store and into the coffee shop next-door without colliding with a mailbox and several trash cans.
After a few minutes of trying to catch his breath, everything blinked back into focus. The heavy weight on his chest eased, but the temple-splitting headache continued. Managarm rested his head against the cool glass of the window and quietly cursed a blue streak—pretty much all of it directed against Odin.
Managarm’s best guess was that his spell had boomeranged back with a vengeance. All that magickal energy had to go somewhere. He’d sent it out to do a job and when it failed
, it returned to its point of origin and practically knocked out of him what little divine life he had left.
Which meant that the spell hadn’t worked and now Managarm was nearly comatose.
How was he supposed to bring down the Lodge of Odin now? His muscles felt like molten metal and every time he opened his eyes, new shards of pain ricocheted into his brain. The Black Moon would come and go during this astronomical convergence and he’d have to wait another 1200 years for his next chance at Ragnarok.
Managarm pinched the bridge of his nose and grimaced. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Here’s your sandwich!” The annoyingly perky waitress slid a plate onto the table. “And I got you a refill on your coffee.”
Managarm blinked open his eyes and stared up at the young woman. Her clothing was a hazy festival of fire-colored polka-dots that kept swimming in and out of focus. He growled.
There was a time when the bared teeth of the Moon Dog sent mortals screaming into the night, fearing for their lives. But the blond, ponytailed teenager with a three-armed purple knot tattooed on her wrist just giggled and smoothed her apron.
“I’m Dotty. Just come back to the counter or flag me down if you need anything else, okay?” Dotty turned away and squeezed through a trio of plump, gender-ambiguous individuals in tie-dyed muumuus who were huddled around the fireplace.
Managarm sneered at the NeoPagan scrum, nearly thirty strong, that laughed too loud and took up two-thirds of the shop, including all the comfortable seats. If not for them, he would be stretched out on the sofa by the crackling fire and eating his roast beef sandwich in peace.
“Stupid Meetup group,” Managarm grumbled and rubbed his eyes. Not ten minutes earlier, a half-dozen of these people—from teenager to senior citizen—staged a witch-cackling contest. For a startled moment, Managarm had thought Hel, Queen of the Underworld herself, had come to claim him for her dark realm.
Another chorus of laughter erupted. Managarm sighed in disgust. If he could muster a full-throated howl, he’d have the run of the place in seconds. Instead, a gang of long-haired children with names like Gryffin and Raintree ran laps around the haphazard circle of chairs, shrieking at the top of their lungs.
Managarm wondered how many of these Pagans actually practiced what they preached, and how many were simply looking to fit in somewhere. Or maybe it was just Portland, where weirdness was a badge of honor. Glancing around at the “Ankh If You Love Isis” t-shirts and oversized pentacle jewelry, Managarm doubted any of these people had enough real power to so much as spark a match, much less blow out a campsite, even by accident.
He took a bite of his sandwich and groaned at the effort to chew. He did manage to stick out his foot just in time to trip a skinny, sigil-wearing six-year-old as he ran past. The kid pitched head-first into the back of a rotund, seventy-something man orating to an enraptured threesome about quantum physics and modern wizardry.
Managarm hunched over his sandwich and chuckled. He eavesdropped for entertainment, trying to filter through the cacophony of so many simultaneous conversations.
“And so I said to Ba’al, you get down from there! And he just looked at me like I’d lost my mind,” said a senior lady with too much make-up. “Named for a Canaanite bad-ass, you’d think that cat’d be less skittish, but he’s a trickster. Think I should change his name to Pan or Iktomi?”
“The smudging workshop is this Saturday.” At the next table, a middle-aged man with a scraggly beard flipped through his pocket calendar and stole a potato chip from the orator’s plate. “Text me how many sage sticks you want, and I’ll make sure to bring them.”
“Just before I got started, I had that dream again,” Managarm heard an older woman’s voice behind him. “I know you don’t know a huge amount about Norse religion, but I’ve dreamed about the World Tree for years. Like it’s calling me.”
Managarm looked around for the source of the comment.
“The dreams were kind of hazy at first,” the woman continued. “Maybe every other month or so. But I kept seeing this magnificent Tree, full of power and wisdom, springing up out of the ground. I just knew it was the Yggdrasil.”
At the sound of the ancient Tree’s name, Managarm locked his gaze on a woman with graying red-gold hair at the table behind him. Her back was to Managarm as she spoke to a dark-haired girl in glasses and an older, balding fellow wearing a quartz crystal around his neck.
“I thought it was a blessing.” Her shoulders drooped, and Managarm could tell she was crying. “Thought I was supposed to do this work. I spent so much time learning magick, making my own runes, planning out this whole series of rituals. Sneaking around so no one would find out.” Her voice cracked. “And then this happens.”
“But only this morning.” The dark-haired girl adjusted her glasses and turned to the man sitting beside her. “Maybe everything goes back to normal with the New Moon? And maybe her spell did still work?”
The older man’s chair creaked as he leaned back and thought. “It’s possible. You could have invested too much of your own life energy, and that’s why you’ve aged prematurely.” He fingered the crystal on his chest. “We’ve got the coven gathering at my house this weekend. On Sunday, just after the New Moon, to work with the waxing energy. We could work a healing for you that would be very effective.”
The younger woman rested a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Sally, you’ve been working so hard. We should try this ritual with Ansur. If that doesn’t work, maybe he knows something else we can try.”
Sally nodded. “There’s something else.”
Managarm leaned closer.
“I swear those runes were glowing, right there in front of me.” Sally glanced at the surrounding tables to make sure no one was listening. She didn’t see Managarm rise half-way out of his chair behind her.
“I followed my plan to the letter, for my spell calling for people to treat the Earth better, to bring balance to the world, and to return to the Old Ways.” Sally lowered her voice. “But I never read anything anywhere about glowing runes!”
Both women looked at Ansur. He nodded thoughtfully. “There might be something bigger at work here, something especially potent.”
Managarm pushed his chair out behind him and smiled at his luck. A Norse witch in a coffee shop in Portland. If she had studied Old Magick, if she had gotten her rune stones to glow . . .
Managarm reached for Sally’s shoulder. Startled, she turned and looked up at him.
“I think you have something I need,” Managarm began, but he was cut off by the shop’s glass door exploding inward. Several patrons sitting nearby shrieked as plates and mugs clattered to the floor.
All eyes were on the shattered door. A scrawny teenager with acne, unruly hair and an unsettlingly wild look in his eyes strode in from the street. His t-shirt was torn and his blue jeans were streaked with mud.
“Oh, my gosh!” The suddenly not-so-bubbly Dotty ran out from behind the cash register toward the newcomer. “Are you okay? What happened?”
She headed straight toward the boy, arms outstretched and ready to render assistance. As soon as she was within reach, the youth swung his arm in a wide arc and struck Dotty hard across the face, knocking her clear across the foyer’s 1970s linoleum and into the wall. She slid awkwardly to the floor, holding her face in her hands.
“Are you tripping?” Dotty stared wide-eyed up at him as blood trickled from her mouth and nose. “What’s wrong with you?”
The boy grinned at her, exposing his canine teeth. He leaned down and growled, then laughed wildly as she shrank away from him. He turned his head sharply, scanning the interior of the coffee lodge. The boisterous Pagans had fallen silent and huddled by the hearth, shielding the children. The only person on his feet beside the intruder was Managarm.
The wild-eyed boy caught the old god’s gaze. Managarm shivered.
Berserker.
The boy marched straight toward him. Managarm stiffened, balling his hands into fists at h
is sides. Judging from the ferocity of the Berserker’s eyes, the warrior was not approaching to pledge his fealty. Had Odin and Thor gotten wind of his plans, and sent this warrior to dispatch him?
The crazed boy closed on Managarm slowly, like a predator stalking wounded prey. His headache still pounding, Managarm hunched forward and pushed his shoulders back, preparing for a fight he was certain he couldn’t win.
The Berserker stopped just short of Managarm and flashed a wicked grin. Managarm saw recognition in the boy’s crazed eyes and smiled. It was about time he was acknowledged as the ancient deity he was. Trying to dignify his stance, Managarm straightened his spine and lifted his chin, prepared to welcome his first servant.
But nothing happened.
Managarm stared at the pimple-faced warrior, impatient for the Berserker to fall on his face and worship him.
But the boy sneered instead and stepped past Managarm to face Sally, who stared wide-eyed up at him. Dark hair hanging down into his eyes, the Berserker’s mad grin melted into an expression of reverent awe as he stood before her.
“I have come.” His voice was surprisingly soft.
Sally shook her head, mouth agape. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The Berserker cleared his throat and knelt on the stained carpet, his head bowed. “Your call has awakened me.” The boy lifted his head and looked into Sally’s eyes. “I was David, but now I am your warrior. Command me.”
Sally looked to Opal and Ansur, who sat like mystified statues watching the boy’s every move. Sally turned back to David.
“I, I don’t understand,” she stammered. “I don’t know you. I don’t think I called anyone?”
Managarm glowered at the boy kneeling before this undeserving human witch. A Berserker in service to a mortal? Impossible! Sacrilege! He smelled the uncertainty and insecurity pouring off this woman who dared to command divine warriors. And Managarm smiled.
The witch didn’t know her own power.
Managarm stepped beside Sally’s chair and rested a hand on her shoulder. She jumped at his touch. The innocence and inexperience of a frightened child hid behind her wrinkled face. Managarm swallowed the wide smile that threatened to break on his face. This was going to be too easy.
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