“Sister?” Faith and Charity asked in harmonic unison, their blended voices sounding like a multi-layered lullaby.
Hope dropped her hands to her sides, her shoulders sagging in disappointment. She turned to face her sisters. “This one is not for us.” She retreated to stand again with Faith and Charity.
Thor snorted. “Could’ve told you that, sister! You ladies are barking up the wrong tree with Rod.” He threw his shoulders back and slapped his chest with a mittened fist. “Now, if you want a real man’s man . . .”
“Are you sure that’s the phrasing you want to use?” Freyr piped in from behind the gathering. “One could argue that’s precisely why they’ve rejected Rod.”
Thor turned on Freyr in a huff. “Now you decide to speak up?”
“You mean, because I’m gay?” Rod asked in disbelief. “My one shot at saving everybody, and that’s why they don’t want me?”
“It was a noble effort,” Heimdall said. “But do you really want to complain about not having to sacrifice yourself?”
“Oh, right.” Disappointed and angry, Rod retreated and walked slowly toward Freyr at the back edge of the clearing.
Nanitch planted himself before the sisters. He held the quarterstaff in front of his body in a defensive posture, and his eyes burned bright with defiance. “There is no replacement to be found, not here, and not elsewhere. You have sat too long on your volcanic thrones with single-minded focus. You have vied with each other over eons for the attentions of someone who barely noticed you. Why restart that cycle? You’re giving unattached women a bad name.”
Grace and Thor chuckled in unison. “Old maids,” Grace muttered with a wicked smile. Thor laughed harder.
To the south, Mt. Bachelor spewed more dark ash into the sky, blocking out the early evening stars.
“But a mountain without a spirit . . .” Odin’s voice trailed off. He sat on the ground, holding his ankle and failing to mask his pain. Again, Heimdall approached him to render aid, and again he was rebuffed with a wave of Odin’s hand.
“I will take Jonathan’s place,” Nanitch said. “As a guardian, it is my responsibility to see to the safety—”
“You are not fit for any mountain!” Faith’s discordant screeching filled the air and shook the needles on the trees.
“Unqualified!” Charity added to her sister’s complaint.
Thor raised a socked hand to his head and rubbed at one of the knots on his skull. He tried to imagine what would disqualify Nanitch as a potential new Bachelor. Was Nanitch gay, too? Or maybe he was already attached?
“Please tell me the siatco isn’t married,” he grumbled. “I don’t even want to think about what the females look like.”
Nanitch glanced back at Thor with a sour frown.
“No offense,” Thor said hastily. “I mean, I just . . . I think I need to sit down.” The big god lowered himself unsteadily to the ground, then bent double and started dry-heaving again. Once they got back to civilization, he was going to have to do some serious rehydrating.
“You are out of options, ladies,” Nanitch shouted at the sisters. He shifted his grip on the staff and prepared to strike.
“But we can’t fight them!” Heimdall called to the siatco.
Faith smiled at Heimdall and then turned her fiery gaze to Nanitch. “Your little god-ling is correct. This assembly of yours is no match for even one of us.”
Nanitch lowered his staff. “I had hoped you would listen to reason. Jonathan is gone. His mountain will erupt at any moment and will destroy this forest. Your domain will be gone.”
“And we will also be rid of you,” Faith replied with a smirk.
“You will still have no bachelor.” Nanitch returned Faith’s simmering glare. “Call off this foolishness. Jonathan made a poor choice of bride, and he paid with his life for the mistake. Go back to your peaks and live in sisterly peace.”
Faith motioned her siblings closer, but Hope’s eyes brightened as her gaze landed on Freyr standing at the far edge of the clearing. Pure rapture illuminated her face as she pointed toward the Vanir specter.
“HIM!”
16
Nanitch and Freyr led the procession to Mt. Bachelor’s peak, while Odin limped along behind with Sally at his side. It hadn’t taken particularly long to get caught up on the confrontation with Faith, Charity, and Hope, though Sally was grateful for the distraction of conversation—and even Thor’s colorfully vivid description of what the volcano sisters had been wearing—as the party made their way through the forest toward Mt. Bachelor.
Even taking well-worn trails, the hike from South Sister had been difficult and lasted through the night. Sally and Opal’s food and water supplies ran out quickly, and they left their useless packs far below, guarded by Laika.
Unlike the others, Freyr hadn’t needed to stop to rest or catch his breath. But now, nearly at the end of the climb, he looked the worst of the lot.
“And then after Sally tosses the ashes into the volcano mouth,” Nanitch was telling Freyr, “that is when we . . . Well, when you . . .”
Freyr sighed in exasperated irritation. “That’s when I cast myself into the lava pit. I’ve got it. That’s at least the seventh time you’ve recited these same instructions, you know.”
Nanitch nodded and kept pushing forward. “I want you to feel confident in what you’re preparing to do.”
Freyr laughed. “That’s a funny way of putting it.”
Nanitch glanced back at Odin and Sally. “There is no guarantee this will work,” the siatco said.
“It’ll work,” Sally insisted, her breath coming in uneven huffs. It had to work. She didn’t want to think about the fiery destruction stretching for who knew how many miles—or her own dramatically shortened lifespan—if it didn’t.
Even with Odin’s lame ankle, Sally had been pressed to keep up with him. Every time they stopped, she tried to get a look at his injury. But Odin kept waving her off. He advised her to take it easy and not to strain her devastated body. At one point, she flat out demanded that the Chief of the Norse Pantheon bare his shin to her, but his one-eyed glare shut her down. So she picked at the dry remnants of Opal’s poultices instead, until all that was left of the forest’s medicine was a web of yellow-green stains on her skin.
The morning sun hadn’t yet peeked over the horizon, but the sky was growing lighter by the minute. Saturday. The last day of Sally’s misadventure in the wilderness.
By afternoon, Sally’s parents, Bonnie, and Freya would be waiting for them all to emerge from the forest. What story could she tell about what had gone on in the woods? The whole quest was an epic failure—and might still result in a natural disaster. Were they supposed to go ahead with the wedding as if everything was fine and dandy?
Sally looked back at Opal, walking with Heimdall and making only a partial show of using her shaman’s staff. Behind them, Grace and Thor had their heads together, engaged in deep conversation. Rod, hiking solo, brought up the rear.
Opal met Sally’s gaze and gave a weak shrug. “Not exactly what I imagined I’d be doing this morning.”
Sally faced forward and watched the sway of Freyr’s semi-transparent shoulders with every step that brought him closer to the top. Her stomach tied itself up in nauseating knots as the odor of sulfur and what smelled like burning flesh grew stronger.
Freyr had been kind to her from the start. Her naïve alliance with Managarm hadn’t mattered to him. Even when she had that ridiculous crush on him, and even though he’d used harsh words to rebuff her, his support and friendship never wavered. Sally swallowed hard and listened to Nanitch begin a new cycle of the simple instructions. She refused to cry. Freyr deserved better than a sniffling girl as his escort. She had to be strong, for all of them.
Charity, Hope, and Faith had elected not to join this solemn trek and retreated to their own mountains instead. That suited Sally just fine. She was pretty sure the sisters wouldn’t have given a friendly welcome to the human witch Jon
athan had chosen over any of them.
But the sisters were probably watching every move the Norse contingent made. Sally had to get this right, and then they all had to get out.
Almost all of them, anyway.
Loki and Fenrir had made themselves scarce as well, and Sally had no problem with that, either. She didn’t understand how or why Fenrir had come to her rescue, but she wasn’t anxious to spend more time in Loki’s company. Had she truly thought of him as a friend? He’d seemed innocuous and kind when she first encountered him. But now she knew more about Loki’s complicated history with Odin and the Lodge. He was unpredictable, but not necessarily erratic. He had proven himself dangerous, however. She was going to have to be more careful about where she placed her trust going forward—assuming the whole Pacific Northwest didn’t go kablooey in a fiery spectacle.
Odin stumbled over some loose rocks, and Heimdall reached forward to steady him.
“First order when this business is done is getting you back to the Lodge,” Heimdall said with forced levity. “Frigga’s herbal packs and a good soak in the waters of Maggie’s Well will surely set you to rights again.”
Odin’s answering smile was more of a wince. “Surely.”
After another steep incline, the trail leveled out. Nanitch led them onto a narrow path bounded on either side by high walls of natural rock, and the group had to fall into a single-file column to follow. They curved around the top of the mountain, counter-clockwise.
Widdershins, Sally thought. The direction of undoing.
A heavy bead of sweat rolled down into her eye. Sally wiped her face with the sleeve of her dirty sweatshirt. Her clothes were heavy with sweat, and it wasn’t just the arduous hike. It was hot. The air was thick with water vapor and carbon dioxide, and Sally nearly gagged on the thick smell of charred eggs. It was more than perspiration making her eyes sting. She looked at the imposing wall of rock to her left and knew the mouth of the volcano lay on the other side.
The low murmur of conversation fell away as, one by one, the hiking party rounded the last curve of rock and filed onto the edge of the wide, black bowl that housed the churning maw of Mt. Bachelor.
Sally’s clothing stuck to her skin. She shuffled out of the way to make room for Opal and Heimdall coming around the bend behind her. The lava pit was a good hundred yards away at the center of the ringed rock wall, but waves of heat pushed her backward and she worried that the soles of her boots would melt. Was this part of Jonathan’s plan, for his bride to get stuck in place at the mouth of an active volcano?
Opal appeared beside her. “Keep your feet moving, even if you’re standing still.” Opal marched slowly in place. Sally was surprised Opal’s boots didn’t adhere to the rock like strings of pizza cheese.
“That’ll do it?” Sally asked, noting that Opal kept her shaman staff elevated to keep it from catching fire.
Opal shrugged. “It’s worth a shot.”
Nanitch caught Thor by the shoulder and pulled him aside. “There’s something I must ask you to do for me. Once this matter is concluded.”
Thor walked with Nanitch a short distance from the others. Sally was tempted to follow, in case there was another part of this ritual she needed to be aware of, but she felt rooted to the spot when she saw Freyr take his first tentative step toward the heart of the volcano.
He walked slowly across the blacktop of hardened lava and made his way toward Bachelor’s fiery mouth. The heat didn’t seem to affect him. Was some piece of him still trapped inside Badbh’s cauldron, or in another shadowy otherworld? What if Sally had attempted a full resurrection spell, rather than just a ritual to ease his way to Valhalla?
Maybe Loki had a point with his talk about waxing and waning. But Sally didn’t want to think about it, not now. She would ask Frigga about it, once all of this was over.
Sally’s eyes were streaming as much from the imminent loss of her friend—again—as from the volcano’s harsh sauna. The sulfur mixed with her sweat and she had to keep wiping her face and her nose with her grimy, damp sleeve. At least the mountain had stopped belching steam, soot, and lava in anticipation of the coming sacrifice.
Freyr stopped halfway to what Sally could think of only as the Hellmouth—she was seriously going to have to stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer late at night on Netflix. He turned and looked directly at Sally, and her heart caught in her throat.
She felt hands on her shoulders—Opal on one side of her and Heimdall on the other. The others watched and waited.
Freyr attempted a quirk of a smile, but the uncertainty in his eyes broke Sally’s heart.
“Might as well get this thing done, don’t you think?” he called out. “You all have a wedding to get back to.”
Sally swallowed against the hard lump in her throat. She looked down at her feet and gauged the black expanse she would have to cross to reach Bachelor’s gaping mouth. Remembering Opal’s advice, she shuffled in place. If her boots melted someone would have to carry her, and she was determined not to ruin the dignity of Freyr’s heroic act with something as absurd as her riding piggyback on Thor.
“Is it safe? I mean, am I going to get incinerated if I get too close?” Sally cringed as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Her friend was standing ready to cast himself into that very lava pit, and she was worried about getting a bit toasty?
Nanitch stepped in front of her. The sasquatch was barefoot and didn’t appear to be bothered by the proximity to so much lava. “You do not have to come all the way to the edge. Your magick will be sufficiently strong from a safe distance.”
He gave Sally a reassuring smile, and she couldn’t help relaxing her own features in response. She placed her hand in Nanitch’s large palm and followed him a few dozen yards across the disturbingly rubbery surface toward the swirling red glow of the volcano’s mouth. The mountain spat out an excited flurry of vaporized rock. Sally flinched and took shelter behind Nanitch.
Stupid girl, she chided herself. Cowering at a time like this.
“Here,” Nanitch said firmly. “This is far enough.”
Sally was grateful not to have to advance farther. She lifted her feet to march slowly in place as she felt the hellish heat crisping her socks inside her boots.
The siatco continued forward and stopped beside Freyr at the edge of the volcano’s mouth. Nanitch rested a hairy hand on the ghost-god’s shoulder—and didn’t pass through. Sally wondered at that. Nanitch leaned in and said something to Freyr, but they were nearly out of Sally’s earshot. She squinted her watery eyes and strained to hear over the roar of roiling lava.
“. . . Here with you,” she heard the siatco say. “. . . Do this alone.”
Freyr nodded and gave Nanitch a half-smile before he turned to look back at his friends. His chest rose and fell with a deep breath, then he spread his arms in a light-hearted shrug.
His eyes locked on Sally’s. She lifted her chin, indicating that she was ready. She pulled Grace’s knife from her jeans pocket and rested the blade against her naked palm.
“Ashes!” Opal shouted from behind her. She held out a spent water bottle and shook out the dusty, black remains of Jonathan—as much as she and Sally had been able to scoop up from the grass before the climb up Mt. Bachelor. The ashes caught on a draft of air.
Sally held her breath as the choking wave of gray soot whipped around her body on its way to the mouth of the volcano, flowing past her as though she was just an eroded stone in a river of ash.
The ashes moved through Freyr and nearly lifted him off his feet, but Nanitch held him steady. The mountain shook, and a fine spray of lava shot into the air. Sally willed herself not to recoil from the rain of fire. She had to trust Nanitch’s guidance. The air cleared as the last of Jonathan’s cremains disappeared into the lava bed.
“Now!” Nanitch shouted as the mountain churned once more.
Sally pulled on the knife blade and sliced open the flesh of her left palm. She let her blood run freely onto the soft black
rock beneath her boots, where it sizzled and sent up plumes of perfumed smoke that smelled like myrrh.
“Jonathan has left this mountain!” she called into the charred wind. She gave Freyr one last smile before he turned his back to her and edged closer to the rim of the lava pit. Sally squeezed her burning eyes shut against the sulfur and sweat mixing together. She turned the knife and dragged the blade again across her palm, marking her hand with a bloody X.
“Freyr takes his place!” Sally had a hard time believing the installation of a lava god wouldn’t require greater ceremony or a significantly more complicated incantation, but Nanitch had assured her that the ritual was deliberately deceptive in its simplicity—and that it would be all but impossible for her to mess it up. Sally had her own thoughts about her talent to create unintentional fiascos, but this time her magick was going to work exactly as it was supposed to.
The mountain trembled beneath her feet, and the broiling, acrid smell of lava transformed into a restoring breeze scented with jasmine and sandalwood. When Sally opened her eyes, both Freyr and Nanitch were gone.
17
“Blood for blood,” Odin said as he rested next to Sally on a large boulder. They were nearly half-way down Mt. Bachelor. So far the return trip was going more smoothly and more quickly than the hike upward—due in part, Sally suspected, to deliberately delayed grief.
Thor brushed tears from his eyes and pretended to cough as he passed Odin and Sally on his way down the mountain. Heimdall walked on Thor’s right and gripped his brother’s shoulder while Rod flanked him on the left.
“He could have told me,” Thor said, glancing down at his father.
“Nanitch knew you would have tried to stop it,” Odin replied.
Thor shook his head and kept walking. His boot slipped on loose gravel. Rod caught him before he could fall, and he struggled under the big god’s mass. Thor inhaled sharply, his broad back shuddering as he threatened to break into sobs.
Raven Magic Page 24