by Skye Malone
Lindy floored the gas pedal and veered wide of the vehicle.
Hours passed before the half-burnt ruins of a sign finally told her she was nearing Denver. The sight was only partially reassuring. Denver meant supplies, sure. Gas too, which would be welcome considering the little warning light had just flickered to life on the dashboard.
But the city was practically guaranteed to be crawling with draugar.
She chewed her lip. She’d be quick. Get blankets and supplies enough to siphon some gas from whatever vehicles survived and then head onward. Maybe grab food while she was at it, if it wasn’t too much of a risk.
Her stomach rumbled as if in commentary.
The road twisted through the outskirts of town, lined by the wreckage of apartments and assorted stores. The farther she drove toward the city, however, the better the condition of the buildings became. On the apartments, siding was still intact. Color remained on vehicles and signs alike. She couldn’t see any people, but then, there weren’t many corpses either.
She eyed a strip mall on her right, the expanse of its parking lot easily visible from the elevated highway. A discount department store anchored one end, with a stretch of smaller stores beside it, and several cars appeared generally untouched in the lot.
Good enough.
Keeping an eye out for any sign the draugar were nearby, she steered her car toward the off-ramp and then down past a dead stoplight. Driving slowly, she scanned the lot as she pulled up in front of the store.
Nothing moved.
Releasing a slow breath, she studied the store entrance. A random assortment of items from inside lay scattered on the sidewalk—evidence looters had already made quick work of this place, she suspected. Trampled boxes and shattered bottles hinted at an interruption to their efforts, however. And beyond the shattered glass of the sliding doors, the interior was a black abyss.
This could go bad so quickly.
Still keeping an eye to her surroundings, she bent across the middle console and tugged open the glove compartment. A minor avalanche of crumpled papers tumbled out, and she cursed beneath her breath as she shoved through it. Whoever owned this car clearly had the organizational skills of a hoarder, but maybe that could work in her favor.
Her fingers bumped into a small, hard cylinder. Prying it out, she thumbed on the pocket-sized flashlight and allowed herself a small grin at the beam of light that resulted. It wasn’t much; the batteries were clearly weak. But it was damn well better than nothing.
Tugging on her mask and then pulling her knit cap into place, she debated putting her gloves back on too, but between handling her own knife and anything she grabbed in the store, she’d need dexterity. Better to be cold than fumble something at the worst possible moment.
Trepidation swirled inside her. Glancing around the lot one more time, she pushed open the door.
Silence greeted her.
For a moment, she didn’t move, waiting for anything that might charge from the shadows. When nothing did, she snagged her backpack from the vehicle and then shut the door carefully. Warily, she crept forward, one foot placed gently in front of the other to minimize any sound while she aimed the flashlight beam into the depths of the store. Ransacked shelves glinted back at her, their contents scattered across the tile floor. The air was eerily still, without the hum of a heater or refrigerator, and it felt stale on her skin, stripped of the previously ever-present energy of life. Beyond the meager gray light from the overcast day outside, the dark aisles lurked like a black labyrinth hiding hungry, decaying death.
Straining to hear even a whisper of movement in the darkness, she didn’t take her eyes from the rows. If the layout followed the logic of every other discount store she’d ever encountered, hardware would be toward the far back corner, home goods toward the middle. Food would be somewhere along the sides, presumably, and hopefully she’d encounter it along the way.
But barring that, gear for siphoning gas was definitely the first priority, with blankets and any other warm items she could snag coming in immediately second. Even driving as much as she could, she was still looking at a few days before she reached Minneapolis.
No way she’d survive the cold without some additional coverings to keep her warm.
Drawing a steadying breath, she headed deeper into the store. The main aisle split ahead of her, part of it continuing on straight while the rest branched left with a display of children’s clothing arrayed to one side. Sequined shapes of owls and raccoons sparkled from shirts and sweaters, catching the beam of her flashlight, while little mannequins posed among the racks of clothing, faceless.
Eyeing the mannequins, she shuddered and kept walking, sweeping the flashlight behind her as much as to the front. Not far beyond the clothing and cash registers, rows of food waited, and carefully she took cans and a box of utensils from the shelves, ignoring the rotting baskets of produce nearby.
Her skin prickled with anxiety, and she swept the flashlight beam behind her again. She’d swear she was being watched, but the light found nothing and she couldn’t hear a thing beyond the short, sharp sounds of her own breathing behind the mask.
Paranoia was a bitch, but it was definitely time to get moving.
Shifting the backpack onto her shoulders again, she walked back out to the main aisle with the faint whisper of her footsteps on the tile as the only sound. The grocery section fell behind her, and then the pharmacy did too, and the deeper into the store she walked, the less ransacked the shelves became. Looters hadn’t made it this far.
Lindy tried not to think of why.
Tools glinted ahead of her and cautiously, she sped up. In the back corner of the building, red plastic gas containers stood on a shelf, untouched. She eased one down without making a sound. A short distance farther on, she removed a bundle of tubing from a display and shoved it into her bag before veering toward the center of the store where blankets might be, sweeping her flashlight around her as she went.
A hand lay outstretched at the end of an aisle.
She froze, snapping the flashlight beam back. Pale and splattered with blood, the hand was motionless.
Lindy glanced around, straining to hear any hint of movement in the dark. An aisle of blankets waited just beyond the hand on the ground, and circling through the rest of the store to avoid the corpse wouldn’t help anything. She’d just end up back here.
Swallowing hard, she checked around once more and then inched forward.
Three bodies lay in the aisle. A trio of guys who’d probably been in their mid-twenties before they had their throats ripped out and their insides chewed on. They were dressed in camouflage gear, though without any rank or particular military insignia. Boxes of electronics were scattered around them: game systems, laptops, cell phones.
Idiots cosplaying apocalypse, right up until it got them killed.
They hadn’t come entirely unprepared, though—not that it’d done them much good. Rifles and a handgun lay on the ground beside them, along with a machete, of all things. The blade had no blood on it, and whether they’d gotten off any shots was anyone’s guess.
She bit her lip behind her mask. Guns wouldn’t stop a draug but a machete might, and bullets would still be useful for other things.
Cautiously, she set down the gas container and eased her bag from her shoulder. Sweeping the beam of the light across her surroundings one more time, she inched forward and then reached down. The handgun lay only inches from the nearest body, and she snatched the weapon up, checking it swiftly.
Still loaded.
Tucking the gun into the back of her heavy winter pants, she stayed as far from the bodies as she could while she crept forward again. The corpses hadn’t risen yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t. Meanwhile, the machete lay beside the base of the shelves, as if it had tumbled there when the guys died. Watching the bodies warily, she wrapped one hand around the hilt and drew the machete up. The blade was awkward, weighted wrong. Probably homemade or bought from som
e cheap cosplay dealer more interested in looks than actual efficacy. From the haphazard scratches on the blade, she imagined one of the guys had tried to sharpen it, though. She adjusted her grip as she straightened, taking a step back from the bodies before turning toward the aisle.
A draug stood right in front of her.
The creature’s ear-piercing shriek cut the air, its rotted mouth gaping wide. One eye dangled loose from its socket and flesh hung from its decaying limbs. Rotted clothes sapped of all color were nothing but rags on the draug’s emaciated body.
It lunged for her.
Years of training took over in an instant, her muscles reacting before her mind could do more than register alarm. Shifting her weight quickly, she dropped the flashlight and threw her body into a two-handed slash at the draug.
Her blade ripped through the creature’s neck, the draug’s forward momentum helping the cheap machete. The creature tumbled to the ground while the flashlight clattered around the tile, its glow bouncing madly off the corpses and the fallen draug alike.
Casting a frantic look around, Lindy strained to hear a sign any other creatures were coming for her.
Something grabbed her ankle. Twisting fast, she yanked her foot away as the flashlight beam caught on the headless draug still fumbling around on the floor.
She stared, her heart pounding, while the creature’s body attempted to drag itself past the other corpses toward her. Bending fast, she snatched the flashlight from the ground and swept the beam around while she retreated into the aisle.
Nothing else moved.
Shudders ran through her. Fucking zombies.
Crouching quickly, she set down the light long enough to snag a blanket from an endcap display, stuff it into her backpack, and then return the bag to her shoulders. Maneuvering the flashlight around, she managed to clasp it and the handle of the gas container in one awkward grip before rising to her feet again.
Time to get out of here.
The store was silent as she strode swiftly through the aisles, keeping the machete in front of her. Beyond the clothing displays and freakish mannequins standing motionless in the dark, the glow of the overcast day beyond the entrance beckoned her.
A crash came from deeper in the store. Shrieks followed.
Shit.
She rounded the corner and bolted for the entrance, the heavy backpack thudding painfully against her spine. Debris crunched under her feet, and after the dense darkness, the light glared in her eyes when she raced past the shattered glass doors.
A pair of ravens sat on the roof of the car, and as she ran toward the vehicle, they took off, cawing loudly.
As if in answer, shrieks rose from deeper in the parking lot.
Her heart climbed her throat, and she raced for the driver’s side. Siphoning gas would so have to wait. She set the gas container down and shoved the flashlight into her pocket, freeing a hand to yank open the door. The keys were still in the ignition. She just needed to—
The brand on her arm surged to life, burning like acid and making her cringe away from the car.
A green-black rope of smoke slammed into the vehicle right where she’d been standing, sending the jalopy lurching sideways. Lindy stumbled back, looking around wildly.
From between a row of cars in the lot, a woman stepped into view.
Nothing about her looked human anymore.
Ice shot through Lindy’s core, and for one horrible heartbeat, she thought it was over. Her mother had found her already. They were a thousand miles from the commune, but the distance hadn’t mattered.
Ragnarok was here and somehow Carolyn was too. Dal Hegnar’s righthand woman, come to unleash the curse and reclaim Lindy once and for all.
Surrounded by draugar, the dark-haired woman paced closer, the decaying monsters snarling at her side, and Lindy’s paralysis drained. The woman was too young. Her face wasn’t Carolyn’s. Green glowing smoke twisted around her limbs like toxic auroras, chased by shadows that slipped in and out of her body like eels cresting and then disappearing beneath the surface of a lake. Darkness pooled in the hollows of her cheeks and eyes, giving her face the appearance of a skull, while her body lurched and jerked like a marionette jolting on its strings.
Reaching out, the woman stroked one hand down the rotting cheek of a nearby draug and smiled at Lindy. “Well, well… poor little poppet, all alone. Would you like me to spare your life, little poppet? I can make you a beautiful deal. You won’t even feel it when—” She cut off, pleasant surprise flickering over her face. “Oh, wait now. I know you.”
Chills shot through Lindy. Shit.
“They showed us your picture. Showed it to everyone before the world went dark. You’re Melinda.” Her lips pulled back in a skull-like smile. “The one who’s lost.”
The woman paced closer. One hand still gripping the machete, Lindy reached for the handgun, despite the fact the weapon probably wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good. The woman was Order. Succumbed entirely to the changes they’d wrought upon themselves, but Order all the same. She’d attack before Lindy ever made it within a dozen yards with the blade, and the power she controlled would stop any bullets as well.
Darkness whispered at the edge of Lindy’s mind, promising a death bloodier than this mere ordinary Allegiant could ever dream.
A shudder raced through Lindy, and she retreated warily, gripping her weapons. She couldn’t fight the woman like that. Couldn’t use seidr to stop her. Sure, Lindy would win.
But they’d both die.
“She’s looking for you, did you know?” The woman’s voice was saccharin sweet. “Them too. That traitorous bastard who stole you away from us, and your sweet little brother. So misguided. So alone. We’ll fix that, though.” She shook her head chidingly. “But it’s not going to be pretty what the Second will do when she finds your daddy.”
Lindy’s blood went cold as her last hope died. She’d thought, maybe, if she was lucky, her mother would leave her family be. That sure, she’d be out here somewhere, searching for Lindy—because of course she would be. But that Carolyn would focus on her and not on Andrew or Frankie, leaving only the draugar and the whole goddamn mess of Ragnarok as the worst things her dad and brother had to handle.
But no. Her mother was after them too.
There was no telling what she’d do when she got her hands on them.
Heart racing, Lindy scanned the lot in short glances. More draugar were lurching toward her on the right, waiting on the woman’s command to charge. To the left, the strip mall came to an end in an open lot with a restaurant at the center.
“Come back with me, Melinda. Maybe your mother will spare them if she sees you’ve returned to the fold.”
Lindy ignored her. If she ran, the draugar and the woman would chase her; of that, she was fairly certain.
But if she could lead them away from here… If she could get far enough ahead to circle back to the car and get the hell out of this place…
The woman and the draugar came closer. “Here, little poppet.”
Lindy ran for her life.
4
Wes
If nothing else, Wes’s wolf was convinced it knew where he was going, which only went to prove the damn creature was insane. There were only so many paths to Minneapolis, after all. Of course, Lindy took one of them.
But gods, he hoped he’d picked the right one.
His wolf was convinced of it. The damnable creature paced and whined in his head, making it nearly impossible to concentrate. But all it wanted to do was go northeast onto this particular interstate, rather than any other road past Denver, and so—for fear of developing a splitting migraine if he didn’t—onward Wes drove.
But he was starting to fear he’d missed her. For hours, he’d been steering the SUV along icy highways. Surely he should have caught up to her by now. Yes, she knew exactly where she was going, and he didn’t. And, fine, so there were different routes she could have taken out of Mariposa and up toward Minneapolis. For
all he knew, she’d gone straight east instead of north, trying to avoid the worst of the snow that had covered the area for months despite the fact it was technically almost June. And never mind the fact—if she was in a smaller vehicle—she would have had an easier time getting past some of the burned vehicles blocking the road than he had in the bulky SUV. But still, by this point, surely she wasn’t this far ahead of—
His wolf thrashed inside him, nearly making his arms rip the wheel into a turn. Gods above, it wanted to get off the highway now. Head that way, down into the city, because Odin’s eye, it was important.
Snarling at the damn thing, he slowed, looking toward the city. There was nothing, though. Empty streets. Abandoned cars. Some strip mall with a bunch of damned draugar milling about in the—
A surge of glowing green smoke ripped across the strip mall parking lot like a battering ram, slamming into a brown car near one of the stores.
Holy hell. His foot hit the brake. That was the Order. The virulent green smoke was the same as what another one of their bastards used to try to kill everyone in Mariposa. But what the hell were they—
A petite figure raced away from the brown car, running like hell for the end of the strip mall.
Lindy.
Wes floored the gas pedal, too shocked to bother questioning the wave of recognition. The woman was easily over half a mile away, and bundled up to near anonymity in winter gear same as everyone these days. But it didn’t matter.
Somehow, he just knew it was her.
The SUV charged down the off-ramp and whipped around the corner. The damn road was too long, the entrance for the parking lot too far off, and now he couldn’t see her anymore. Pointless fast-food restaurants and other bullshit were in the way.
Gods, if the draugar caught her… if the Order of Nidhogg did…
His wheels jumped the curb as the SUV sped into the parking lot. She’d been racing toward the side of the building, so that’s where he headed, driving as fast as he could while bracing to hit the brakes and hopefully not hit her if she ran out in front of him.