“It’s okay. We’re glad you’re here.” Heimdall laid out the situation for Opal. The young woman was supposed to be Sally’s assistant, as designated by Frigga shortly before her death. But lately she’d been spending more and more time out at the Lodge, working with Maggie and teaching her some basic kitchen spells. Somewhere along the way, Opal and her girlfriend Lauren had pretty much permanently claimed one of the Lodge’s half-dozen guest rooms.
Opal turned her attention to the dark-haired, wide-eyed goddess taped to the lawn chair. “Has she said anything at all?”
“Not really, not yet.” Sally stepped out from the empty space beneath the old wooden staircase, and Heimdall nearly jumped out of his skin. Had she been lurking under there this whole time? She nodded at Opal. “Now it’s our turn to give it a try.”
The Rune Witch had been so timid and uncertain when Heimdall first met her. She practically apologized for her own existence any time she accidentally bumped into him or got in Thor’s way. As Sally grew more confident and comfortable within the Lodge, Heimdall had been one of her most steadfast defenders, even solicitous of her opinion and expertise when things got particularly hairy. And he’d looked after her and kept her safe, even when she complained that he was being overbearing and bordering on ridiculous.
But the days of the young witch being untried and untested were long gone. Now her demeanor was cool and almost condescending. He’d seen it before, but it was still astonishing how time and power could change a person.
Sally and Opal dug through Opal’s bag together and gestured toward the ceiling as they conferred in hushed tones at the bottom of the stairs. Heimdall was about to ask them about their whispering—it wasn’t like he and Saga didn’t know about their magick. Then he glanced at Vesha and saw a glint of ice blue in her dark eyes.
Sally looked around the close, musty space. There really wasn’t much room to maneuver, but it would have to be big enough for whatever magick the witches had planned. They needed information. Vesha was too confused and disoriented to help and Utra was just as stubborn as he remembered from centuries earlier, but that spark in her that he’d before taken for drive and passion looked to have tipped fully into madness.
Sally dashed upstairs to the kitchen while Opal knelt on the cold floor and started laying out supplies from her bag—candles, chalk, what looked like short sticks from someone’s yard, and several glass spice jars.
Opal picked up an orange piece of chalk and started drawing a circle on the floor around Vesha. “You’ll need to cut her loose.”
Heimdall looked at Vesha. The blue glint in her eyes was gone, but there was no telling when Utra would be back.
“It’s okay. I’m sure.” Opal picked up another piece of chalk and traced a second circle, in green, outside of the first.
Unwrapping a Slavic goddess from a piece of portable lawn furniture wasn’t as easy as Heimdall expected. Saga hadn’t fully appreciated the strength and resilience of duct tape when she was winding layer after layer over the Zorya’s wrists and ankles. They finally had to resort to the careful application of a carving knife to cut through the stuff. It was slow going and a shameful waste of so much good tape.
Sally jogged back down the stairs with a full water bottle, another glass spice jar, and a shifting leather pouch. She set the water and spice jar on the floor next to the supplies Opal had laid out. Opal gave her a quizzical look.
“Fenugreek,” Sally said.
“I’ve never worked with fenugreek before.” Opal pulled her magickal journal out of her bag and flipped through its pages. Her fingers stilled on a drawing of a plant accompanied by handwritten notes. “Are you sure? Fenugreek is used for money magick and prosperity spells.”
“I’m sure.” Sally knelt on the floor and dumped out the contents of the leather pouch. Two dozen rounds of sanded wood spilled onto the concrete.
Heimdall sucked in his breath when he recognized the Yggdrasil Runes. Freya had carved and marked each piece as a gift to the Rune Witch following the Battle of the White Oak Yggdrasil, but Frigga had held them in safekeeping until Sally was deemed ready for them. Then Frigga died and Maggie handed them over without much thought or any ceremony.
Sally started laying out the runes between the orange and green chalk circles, placing them in order from Fehu to Dagaz around Vesha’s chair. Vesha watched with keen interest. Saga stepped out of the circle and wadded a mass of tangled duct tape into a gummy ball while Heimdall hurried to strip away the last bands of silver tape. He didn’t want to get caught inside the circle when Sally finished whatever she was preparing.
“I thought Othila was the last rune, but you’ve got them in switched places?” Opal asked.
Sally shrugged. “Depends on your source. For me, Dagaz is the last. Beginnings and endings.”
“Okay, but back to the Fenugreek.” Opal turned her Book of Shadows so Sally could see the written entry. “It says here that it’s from the Middle East, but if we’re working with a Slavic goddess—”
“Just a hunch,” Sally replied with a note of impatience. “Call it magickal intuition.”
Opal closed her journal and slipped it back into her bag. “You know, Sally, it feels good to be working with you again.”
Sally looked up from her runes. “I know. Me, too.” She paused. “I’m sorry I’ve been so difficult and distant. I’ve not been a very good friend.”
“You’ve been the worst friend,” Opal replied. “But you’ve had a lot going on. I get it. And I have to tell you, you haven’t been fooling anyone.”
Heimdall stepped out of the circle and looked at Opal in open admiration. She was older than Sally by a few years—a difference that was virtually meaningless to someone like Heimdall, but important to young humans—but she had a long habit of deferring to Sally on most everything. In personal matters, though, he was glad to see that Opal could be counted on to push back against the Rune Witch.
“Look, this is all very touching and probably an important conversation for a later time.” Heimdall paused when he noticed strands of white in the sea of Vesha’s black hair. “But time is rather precious right now.”
Sally kept laying out her runes, but Opal’s eyes widened as she stood. Keeping her gaze on the Zorya goddess and wary of the coming transformation, she made her way to the bottom of the stairs and held onto the metal newel post.
“It’s not something I can control.” Vesha lifted her gaze to Heimdall’s face. “I do have some memory of you. It’s not all lost.”
Heimdall worked hard not to betray the frustration and grief he felt warring inside. He’d never known such extremes of joy or misery as he had during the intense period that he and Utra had been lovers. Heimdall the Shining One and Zorya Utrennaya the Morning Star. They had burned so brightly together, until Heimdall was thoroughly burnt out. And Vesha, the quiet sister who didn’t shine as brilliantly in her sister’s shadow, was Heimdall’s touchstone all the way through it. Where Utra was passionate and captivating, Vesha had been sensible and sane. The relationship was mercifully short, and it surprised exactly no one when Utra dumped Heimdall for a shiny new suitor. And when his heart was broken, it was Vesha who assured him that he would love again. Hers had been the voice of reason and hope when no one else could reach him.
Now she barely knew him. He looked into her dark eyes and waited. She was hardly herself, weak and fragile and sitting in Thor’s dim basement, thousands of miles and hundreds of years removed from where she should have been at rest. That Utra and Vesha had returned brought a simultaneous lift to his heart and punch to his gut.
Vesha turned to Sally. “You are powerful, I’ve not met one like you before.”
Saga laughed. “No one has. So, can we get started?”
After ensuring there was nothing flammable nearby, Sally and Opal sprinkled dried herbs and set unlit candles at the cardinal points around the circle. Heimdall was mildly concerned when Sally asked him to place the kitchen knife directly beneath Vesha’s ch
air. Out of an abundance of caution, he tore off a strip of duct tape and secured it to the floor. If Utra came raging back, he didn’t want her to have easy access to a weapon.
Opal placed blue candles in an eight-pointed star pattern with Vesha at the center, and Sally poured out small mounds of dried fenugreek leaves and stems on either side of Vesha’s feet. The goddess’s dark hair, streaked with white, fell like curtains around her face as her shoulders trembled. Heimdall braced himself for the imminent arrival of Utra.
Her body snapped upright and she threw her head back, pure white hair cascading over her shoulders. Utra’s ice blue gaze found Heimdall’s face, and she gave him a smile that was a confusing mixture of smug victory and desperation.
Sally backed carefully away. Saga stepped forward, her roll of duct tape at the ready.
Utra took a deep breath and settled her shoulders. “Relax, Northmen. I am no danger to you. Not in any way that you imagine.”
“That’s not especially comforting,” Heimdall replied.
Utra squirmed and tried to get comfortable in the chair’s woven plastic webbing. The aluminum frame rocked on the concrete. “Not exactly luxury accommodations.”
Sally grabbed the water bottle and poured a square of water around Utra inside the chalk circles.
“It’s up to you now,” Utra told Sally as she moved around the lawn chair. “You hold the fate of nations in your hands.”
“Uh, okay.” Sally directed Opal to place five yellow candles outside the chalk circles while she sprinkled salt and a thick layer of dried sage leaves in an outer clockwise ring.
“Would now be a good time for you to explain how you’ve come to Portland?” Heimdall asked.
“And why you’re sharing a body with your sister?” Saga added.
Utra gave no sign that she’d heard their questions. She kept her focus on Sally. “I see you know your Kabbalah. Interesting how you merge that esoteric tradition with your runes and the pentagram.”
“Half the battle is intention,” Sally replied.
Utra laughed, and Heimdall leaned back against the damp wall. It was just more magickal talk that he didn’t understand. But he got the feeling that Utra had laid a trap, and that Sally had successfully avoided it.
“Now?” Opal asked.
Sally climbed to her feet and took a deep breath. Her arms hung limp as she planted her feet, and Heimdall heard her murmuring about the crescent moon and cycles of light and dark. He pulled Saga back to stand with him against the wall.
With a sharp exhale, Sally shot her arms forward. Her fingers extended over the concentric rings they had cast around Utra, and a thunderous whumph sucked at the oxygen in the room and ignited all thirteen candles in a simultaneous flash.
“By all the lÿjask flóna hófr,” Saga whispered.
Heimdall didn’t know what drunk and angry spider crabs had to do with what he’d just witnessed, but he was once again impressed by the young Rune Witch.
So, too, was Utra. She surveyed the pattern of candles burning around her. “Nice. Do you do birthday parties, too?”
8
Maksim made his way slowly down the stairs. Right foot down, step together. Right foot down, step together. These stairs were steep, but the voices in the basement drew him downward. He was wearing thick socks instead of shoes, but Bonnie had promised him new pairs of slippers and boots when she came back from the store. He held tightly to the pipe railing.
He was halfway down the stairs when he felt a great rustling of wind, and then suddenly everything below him was glowing. Maksim couldn’t see what was going on, but he heard the white goddess say something about a birthday party. Maksim was confused. Was it someone’s birthday? Is that why Bonnie had to go out in the snow to the store, to buy decorations and presents?
Maksim paused on the stairs and listened. In the kitchen above, Thor was making an early lunch for everyone. Maksim didn’t understand the constant requirement for large amounts of food, but he wasn’t about to start complaining. Thor especially ate a lot, and often. But Maksim’s stomach ached from all the cookies and chocolate on top of the rich breakfast he’d had so early in the morning. The thought of more thick meats and cheeses made him feel sick. When Thor started banging pans around in the kitchen and slicing up pork and onions and bread, Maksim had quietly and quickly escaped through the basement door.
He hadn’t yet explored the basement. Magnus said it was pretty boring in the dank space beneath the house, full of dust and cobwebs. It was only fun when the furnace was acting up, Magnus said, and he’d sit on the steps and watch Thor and a friend named Rod argue with each other as they took turns crawling inside the appliance and throwing tools around the room.
But Maksim didn’t think anyone was fixing the furnace now.
He’d seen Heimdall and Saga drag the white goddess through the basement door, but when Maksim caught a glimpse of her before the door closed, he thought she was starting to look like Vesha again. He hadn’t heard any stories about someone changing into another person and back again. But he was learning that there was an awful lot he didn’t know about the bigger world outside the tunnel, and about the quiet world of magick he was supposed to keep hidden.
Would Thor, too, transform into someone new and frightening? In the kitchen, Maksim had watched the big god’s face for any hint of a coming change, but Thor seemed pretty steady in his agitation. His jaw muscles and fists clenched and unclenched like he was waiting for a fight, and it took some time before Maksim understood that Thor wasn’t angry at him. But things were calm now in the kitchen. It was downstairs where all the noise was coming from.
After Sally and her friend—another new person Maksim didn’t know—had gone down the stairs, there was more shouting from below the kitchen floor. Thor told Maksim again that everything was going to be okay. But Maksim wanted to see for himself.
Only six steps remained between Maksim and the concrete floor. The voices had fallen silent. The furnace was running and he could hear people shuffling and muttering, but there was a strange dampening of sound—like outside where a blanket of snow covered the yards and streets.
Maksim moved down one more step and peeked around a cement support column at the odd scene below. The white goddess sat in a folding chair in the center of a circle of candles, sticks, and lines of colored powders. He recognized magick when he saw it, but this was more elaborate than any casting he’d seen before. Utra seemed unharmed, not even agitated. He hoped that was a good thing.
But Heimdall, Saga, Sally, and her friend stood around the circle and whispered to each other. They were staring at the floor inside all the circles. Maksim descended another few steps and squinted at the space where the others seemed to be looking. He was about to ask what everyone was staring at when he saw a spray of smoke move across the floor. Flat, shadowy images came to life on the concrete, like the spell circle was an enchanted television.
Maksim clung to the rail as he watched men in dark robes with hoods pulled down over their faces. There were red marks on their robes, shapes and sigils Maksim hadn’t seen before, and they filled him with fear. The shadowy men stood in their own circle around something that was glowing bright—maybe a big rock or a fire, or a giant stewpot like the one in Bonnie’s kitchen. The men’s lips moved in unison, but Maksim couldn’t hear any sounds.
A twin spiral of golden fire rotated around the edge of the circle on the concrete floor. Maksim worried that Utra was trapped by the visions and the light, or maybe was even in danger. But she spotted him standing so close to the bottom of the steep staircase, and she smiled.
“They’re looking for you, boy.” Her voice was simultaneously soothing and terrifying. Maksim felt himself pulled down the last steps to the floor, even though his stomach warned him to run away.
“Maksim, stop!” Saga shouted. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the vision inside the circle. The men in dark robes linked hands and lifted their faces. He could barely make out their eyes within the sh
adows of their hoods. Maksim was mesmerized by the spectral scene and he stepped closer, wanting to see more.
“That’s right,” Utra coaxed him forward. “If you speak to them, maybe they could hear you. Tell them where you are. They need you, little one.”
“They want me?” Maksim’s voice was small and made him sound like a baby. He couldn’t stop his feet from moving closer and closer toward the circle.
“No!” Saga wrapped her arms around him and held him back. Maksim stared at the scene inside the circle as Saga tried to drag him away. He didn’t struggle against her. While Saga pulled him back to the bottom of the stairs, Maksim’s eyes were locked on the flickering images of the silent, chanting men in dark robes.
“Get him out of here!” Heimdall turned to Sally. “Is the boy in danger down here? Can they hear or see him?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Maksim saw Sally the witch shake her head.
“It shouldn’t be possible, no.” Sally spread her fingers over the spiraling snakes of fire that danced and twined together along the circle’s perimeter. She looked over her shoulder at her friend. The other girl nodded in agreement. “We can see into the circle, but nothing goes through the other way.”
“You’re sure?” Heimdall asked.
“Mostly.”
“That’s not good enough.” Heimdall gestured toward Saga, who still held Maksim tight. She lifted Maksim off the ground. She was strong and he was small, but he didn’t make the maneuver easy for her.
“But I want to see it!” he protested.
Sally waved toward the ghostly images on the floor. “That’s probably not even happening in real time. Trying to communicate with them would be like shouting at the television and expecting the newscaster to hear you.”
Maksim felt Saga’s grip relax, but his feet still didn’t touch the ground.
“What are they doing?” he asked. “What are they saying?”
“Chanting in a sacred language, my dear boy.” Utra’s smile was cold. “Theirs is important, pressing work.”
Twilight Magic (Rune Witch Book 6) Page 13