“Don’t be. My dad and I hate that jar. When I was a kid, I was sure the eyes followed me around the kitchen. Mom kept it because I was too afraid to stick my hand in its mouth to steal cookies.”
“And you keep it for her.”
The stark grief that flashed over his features made me want to drop my bag and hold him.
“Yeah, we keep most everything the way she had it. We haven’t even been in the third bedroom in years. It was her ‘fun’ room. She did a lot of projects—art and stuff.” He strolled across the short kitchen and snagged two black mugs out of the microwave. “Hope you don’t mind instant. I put extra marshmallows in it.”
“This is fine. I like instant.” I set my bag on the table and took the mug from him to set it on the wood, too. “I’ll just take care of the door really quick.”
He sat and sipped from the mug, watching me quietly for a few moments as I set out the gargoyles and sprinkled the saltpeter and dill on the entryway. “So, with this and what you did last night... Are you some kind of witch? That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”
I shrugged. “I am a witch—sort of—I’m still learning. My mo—” I broke off, my shoulders sagging. “There’s so much to tell you.”
He pointed to the chair next to him.
I sat, picked up the mug and cradled it between my suddenly frozen hands.
“You look so nervous.” He propped his feet on the third chair. “Chill. With all that’s been going on, things can’t get much worse.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding. “They can.” I set the mug down and took a deep breath. “Do you know why your mother was into all this mythology?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why are we talking about my mother?”
“Because it’s important.”
Taran was silent for a few moments, and I had to resist the urge to squirm in my chair. How much should I share? I stared back at him. He deserved to know everything.
“It was just a hobby,” he finally said. “She grew up in Norway and her parents were really into it. She passed it on to me.”
“What all did she pass on?”
Faint color filled his cheeks and he looked away from me and cleared his throat. “My mother was quirky. She had all these crazy beliefs about gods setting things in motion for the end of the world. She’s the one who designed my hammer.” His smile that time barely took because it held so much sadness. “She had an unnatural love for all things Thor. She would be dragging my butt to all the movies more than once if she were still alive.”
“Did she ever say anything about you carrying the soul of Thor?”
His mug clattered to the table, some of the chocolate spilling over the side to pool on the light wood.
I jumped up to grab paper towels off the holder on the counter, then dropped them on the spill.
Taran grabbed my wrist. “How did you know that? I’ve never told anyone about that. Neither has my dad. We didn’t want people to think—”
He let go when I winced. He hadn’t hurt me, just startled me, but he looked horrified as he stared at his hands before curling them into fists and dropping them back on the table. I sat back in the chair, nervous, so I picked up my mug and took a sip. Warm, overly sweet chocolate that tasted faintly of cardboard, slid down my throat.
“Sorry.” His stare changed as he ran his gaze over my face, stopping at my mouth. That smirk came back as he leaned close, reached out and ran his thumb over my lip. When he pulled it back, there was a smear of melted marshmallow on it. His gaze didn’t waver from my eyes as he stuck his thumb in his mouth.
My stomach started doing somersaults and I ran my tongue over my lip in case he’d missed any.
“I got it all.” He grinned. “But I can do that, too, if you me want to make sure.”
Lick my lip? He wanted to lick my lip? I stared back, my tongue completely tied up, because I had no idea how to answer him. Yes, please seemed a little too soon. And a lot too blunt. I smiled and that wicked gleam returned to his eyes.
This boy was trouble.
I looked down at the swirls of melted marshmallow in my mug, cleared my throat. “I know I seem like a complete weirdo showing up on your doorstep, putting out gargoyles—”
“Sprinkling peter water on my thresholds,” he interrupted, drawing the words out with a naughty tilt to his lips.
Fire burned in my cheeks. That sounded so dirty. “Um, saltpeter melted into water. It’s a natural mineral.” My head started feeling itchy under my beanie.
He chuckled. “Yeah, one used in fireworks.”
I growled in irritation and this only made him laugh harder.
“You are really cute.”
I set my mug down and yanked off my beanie. My long, black hair immediately went everywhere, crackling with static. I impatiently smoothed my hands over it. “Look, I’m not here to find out whether you think I’m cute. I’m here because I think my mother is going to try to hurt you.”
All signs of humor fled his expression. “What did I do to your mother?”
“Nothing.” I waved my hand toward the gargoyles. “These crazy things I’m doing? They’re small beans when it comes to protection. My mother is way better at this than I am, and she’s convinced that you carry the soul of Thor, and that you are going to try to kill either me or one of my sisters.”
His chair fell over, clattering loudly as he abruptly stood. “What the hell, man? Kill you? Your sisters? I’ve never even seen you before yesterday.”
“I notice you’re skipping the Thor part.” I crushed my beanie in my hands.
“Because it’s ridiculous. Look, everyone thought my mother was a little off her rocker because of her fascination with mythology but nobody knew how far she’d taken it—that she actually believed she’d given birth to a future, future...” He trailed off and ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up all over the place.
“Warrior?” I supplied.
His mouth opened and closed as he stared wide-eyed at me. He then calmly righted his chair and sat carefully. “Okay, this is too much.”
I leaned over the table. “Your mother believed you carry the soul of Thor and that you are destined to fight in the end of the world battles, right? Ragnarok?”
“Ragnarok,” he repeated quietly. “Freaked me out when you brought that up last night.”
“Why? Haven’t you thought about this snow and what it means? That maybe it was the first sign she could have been right?”
“Hell no! This is just a weather anomaly. It’s snowed here before.” He frowned.
“In August? Like this?” I shook my head. “Your mother wasn’t crazy.”
“I said off her rocker, not crazy,” he muttered. “And other people thought that. Not me and not my dad. She was fun. We loved her.”
“Well, I love my mother too, but she is crazy. And just like your mother, she believes the same thing.”
“Okay, if I’m carrying Thor’s soul, why in the world would she think I’d want to kill you or one of your sisters?”
“It’s from an old prophecy my mom was given when we were born, or before we were born—that part doesn’t matter. What does, is that she disappeared and my sisters and I think she went after the gods who could be responsible for our deaths. She believes one of them is you.”
“Your mom thinks I’m a god and I’m going to kill you. What possible good would your death do?”
“None. Well, as far as we can tell. It’s all too vague. What I do know is, like my sisters, I carry the soul of a norn. She’s the one who stops time and writes runes. Kat, Raven and I have some sort of big part in Ragnarok—maybe in stopping it. But one of us could die instead or in spite of...it’s all pretty cryptic and weird.”
He held up a hand. “Wait a sec.” He rubbed his fingers over closed
eyes. “And here I thought the worst that could happen was getting arrested before school started.” He opened his eyes. “In the stories my mom told me, most of the heroes who fight, die. So why in the world would I want to kill someone who could stop Ragnarok?”
I shrugged.
“That’s messed up.”
“Tell me about it. She’s dragged us around our whole lives to keep anyone from knowing us or finding us or whatever. We’ve lived in some crazy places.” I traced a scratch on the table with my finger. “But a few weeks ago, she suddenly changed. Started doing dark magic more often, then right after the snow started, she disappeared. She had all these printouts from our computer. We could tell she decided to quit running and do something.”
“So do you think your mother is hurting the kids around here?”
I sat back, startled that he’d instantly thought that. “No. Why would she hurt random kids when it’s you she’s after?” I completely ignored the fact that I’d thought of this already, too.
“I know all the kids who’ve been hurt. One was a friend and one was my sworn enemy. I still don’t know if there was a third like you said.”
My lips twisted. “Sworn enemy? Like in a comic book?”
“Stark and I rub each other the wrong way.”
“Stark,” I murmured, my mind spinning. “You said his name before, but it didn’t click. There was a hero in Norse mythology named Starkad. Thor hated him. Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it? Let me guess, he’s the star of the school? Popular? Maybe a football player?”
He only stared at me. I took a sip of chocolate then nervously licked my lips in case I had more marshmallow smeared there.
“That actually kind of creeps me out,” he finally said, looking away from me.
“Tell me about it. My sisters never wanted to believe any of this is true.”
That brought his attention back. “But you do?”
“I didn’t—don’t—want it to be the end of the world. Of course.” My norn shifted as if she agreed. “But we have this seidr magic. You saw it. It’s kind of hard to just dismiss everything else because of that.” I leaned closer to him. “Taran, your mother was right. You do have the soul of Thor inside you.”
He picked up his mug, stood and walked to the sink to rinse it out. He gripped the sides of the counter and leaned over the sink to look out of the window. “This is nuts.”
It was. Nuts. Scary. And infuriating, when I thought about others having so much control over our lives—over everyone’s lives. I cradled the mug with both hands, hoping the heat would ward off the chill in them. “I don’t think my mother has anything to do with what’s happening to your friends with your hammer, but what I don’t get is how someone is getting your hammer away from you. Have you tried calling it back?”
“Like in the movie?” Taran held out his hand. “Mjolnir!” He started laughing, and he dropped his hand and came back to the table. He sprawled in the chair. “I don’t want that thing here anyway.”
“I heard the cop say your hammer disappeared from their evidence room. I think maybe we should figure out who is taking it and doing this.”
“You still don’t think it’s your mother?” He lifted an eyebrow. “What are the odds of her coming after me and this happening at the same time?”
He made sense. But I still couldn’t picture my mother doing that. Yeah, she’d been weirder than usual lately, but I’d never seen her hurt anything. She was restless and a little loopy—she loved to bake muffins with weird ingredients and dance barefoot to rock music. And okay, she worked magic spells and bought a vial of serpent poison online...
My norn shifted, and a wave of sympathy washed through me. From her. Hot tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and it took everything I had to force them back. I’d made a vow to stop crying so easily. I was going to keep to it. Hoping Taran couldn’t tell I’d been on the verge of a breakdown, I met his gaze. “I think we should stick together and I’ll keep doing the protection spells. I have more. And maybe I can figure out what kind of spell is being used to take Mjolnir away from you.”
I was actually happy to see that mischievous grin of his return as he leaned onto the table and crossed his arms. “Coral, you do understand that my mother had that hammer made—that’s it’s not really Mjolnir—right?” His dark blond hair flopped into his eyes and he blew it out of the way. “Someone broke into my house and took it, and whoever is doing this has to have access to the police evidence room.”
“I doubt that.”
“I don’t. That place is a madhouse right now with everyone thinking it’s the end of the world. It couldn’t be that hard to sneak in there.”
“Taran.” I, too, leaned farther over the table and crossed my arms so we weren’t that far apart. It was a small table. “I hate to break this to you, but we are in the beginnings of Ragnarok and there really is magic. How can you not believe that after watching me stop time?”
“And if I wish hard enough, my hammer will return to me? I can hold out my hand—” He broke off, gasped. His hand was out, but that’s not what made the blood drain from his face.
We both stared at the hammer that appeared on the table between us.
Chapter Four
He reached for it.
“No,” I whispered, putting my hand on his arm. “Don’t put your fingerprints on it.”
We both stared, and I could hear his breaths pick up in volume and speed. For a moment, his terror was so stark, so vivid—I could taste it in the air between us.
I touched his arm.
“That blood doesn’t look days old, Coral.” He suddenly sort of deflated, his shoulders sagging, his face losing all traces of the amusement it held before. “I think you were right. Someone else has been hit.”
I flashed back to my vision of that morning—the kids on the dock, the boy flying off the pier. “I think so, too,” I whispered.
He buried his face in his hands. “With my background, nobody is going to believe I’m not doing this—not if this damned hammer keeps showing up around me!”
“What background?”
He lifted his head, dark eyes bleak. “Fights. Lots and lots of fights.”
“Why?”
He shrugged, shoved back from the table and paced across the kitchen then back. “I get angry. Stay angry.” He scowled. “Just stuff from my past—it’s not easy to explain.”
Not wanting to look at the blood anymore, I picked up the paper towels I’d used to wipe up the chocolate and dropped them over the hammer. Curiosity about his past burned questions onto the tip of my tongue, but I held them back. “I think I can help you figure out how your hammer is disappearing. It has to be some kind of spell.”
“Can you figure out how to make it stay gone? I don’t want the damn thing anymore.”
I shook my head, adamant. “No, you may need it. It’s probably important.”
“It’s just a hammer my mother had made for me. That’s it. There’s nothing special about it.”
“Taran. The thing just appeared on the table between us.” I rubbed my sternum because my norn was kicking up a fuss something fierce. She twisted and writhed, and I couldn’t help but think she was angry with me because I was missing something. Could this be my mother? Her powers weren’t that good. And crazy or not, she really hadn’t ever been cruel. But then recently she’d locked herself in her room with an iron skillet used for hexing spells, and she’d shoved Raven into a wall. Hard enough to make Raven cry, and that wasn’t something my ultraresponsible sister often did.
But smashing in kids’ heads with a hammer?
No way.
A door slammed, and Taran’s eyes flew open wide as a man’s voice cursed in the entry before there was a loud thump. He reached out to wrap the hammer—I guessed to hide it—and made a strangled sound
in his throat when he lifted the paper towels.
I gasped.
The hammer was gone again.
Shocked brown eyes met mine as all the color bled from his face.
But we didn’t have time to say anything else because a man walked into the kitchen. One who could only be his father because he looked so much like Taran, it was crazy. A fierce frown pulled down lips with the same shape as his son’s as he bent to rub his knee.
“What’s with the toys right in front of the door?” He straightened, ran his hands through his shorter, slightly darker hair, his movements agitated. The few gray strands stuck out in weird directions. He took up more space than Taran, with wide shoulders and thick thighs. Other than that, they shared the same sharp, elegant features.
Taran was going to grow up kind of hot. My face felt as if someone had lit it on fire, so I cleared my throat and sat up straight. Forced away the awkward, weird-as-nine-hells observation.
Brown eyes focused on me.
Taran scrunched forward in his seat. He still looked like as if he’d just seen a ghost, and I wondered why his dad wasn’t picking up on it. The tension in the room was so thick I felt it on my skin.
“Hey, Dad,” Taran finally said before clearing his throat. “This is Coral.”
“Nice to meet you. I thought I knew all Taran’s friends.” He stepped farther into the kitchen and slid off his suit jacket, before draping it on the third chair. He didn’t wear the usual cop uniform, so I wondered if he was some kind of detective. Mud splattered his tan slacks up to the knees. He had the same sort of overpowering presence Taran did. The kind that made a person very aware he was in the room—the kind that drew the eye. Though...my gaze was drawn more to Taran. Embarrassingly so.
His dad looked away from me and his gaze landed on the gargoyles by the door. Light brown eyebrows went up. “I just tripped over one of those by the front door. What’s going on?”
I opened my mouth to tell him about their protection, but Taran’s fierce head shake shut me up.
Forecast Page 5