My throat tickled and I coughed, trying to dislodge the annoying tingle.
Brigg talked with Arun. I tuned them out, glad for the buffer because I didn’t want to talk. It was all I could do to try to make sense of what I’d heard. I wasn’t surprised that my mother was involved in any of this, but what she was doing running around the wilds of Wyoming had no logical explanation. Raven thought she’d been there, but she must have been wrong because I knew that voice. And I knew that lavender scent and what it meant.
“What I don’t get is how she got away,” Arun said as he stopped at a red light and glanced at me, his thoughts obviously running along with mine. “We both heard her. She wasn’t that far from us, so I can’t figure out where she went.”
I just shrugged.
As we pulled into the parking lot of the Kmart, my ears started popping. I rubbed one, wiggled my jaw and couldn’t seem to shake the feeling. When I looked at Arun, he was doing the same thing.
“Did we go higher or something?” I asked him as he parked. My voice sounded so strange. Tinny.
“No. This isn’t right.”
We got out of his truck. Brigg and Nanna, both frowning, went around to the front and leaned on the hood.
My phone rang, and I was surprised to see the word—or in this case name—Vanir on the screen. I smiled, hearing that strange popping noise my mouth sometimes made, only inside my head and weirdly loud. I held up a finger to ask them to wait for me as I walked around to the back of the truck and answered the phone. “It’s freaking weird seeing the word Vanir in my caller ID. Didn’t his Norse mama know that Odin was actually a part of the Aesir?”
“Kat, what if I’d let Vanir call you?”
Sounded like she was standing in the wind, but it was so good to hear Raven’s voice. I smiled even as I snorted, shivered and tried to swallow past the dry scratchiness of my throat. “Then he’d answer.”
“Are you okay?”
“Honestly?” I sighed. “No. Been a bad, bad couple of days. Mom’s here, by the way.”
A whooshing sound momentarily filled the phone. I guessed it was very windy there. Wasn’t there something about wind sweeping down the plains in a song about Oklahoma?
“That’s impossible,” she said. “I thought she was here, and Coral swears she’s there.”
“I can’t explain it yet, but she is. I heard her voice. And if we thought she’d been acting crazy before, it’s nothing compared to now. She’s set up a wicked little alliance with a real certifiable pyromaniac. His name...wait for it...is Sutter.” I wanted to tell her the other stuff—the stuff about the Whirlwind Woman—but blurting all that over the phone just didn’t feel right.
“You found your warrior.”
“I did. Peaceboy here is carrying the soul of Freyr.” I stared at him as he gestured to the side of the parking lot as he talked to Brigg and Nanna.
“Peaceboy?”
“Gentle as the summer snow, he is.” I laughed and it caught in my throat, causing me to cough pretty hard. Even I knew I was acting kind of weird, but something in the atmosphere was causing my ears to ring. It made me feel kind of woozy.
“Kat?”
I winced as she yelled but couldn’t answer right away.
“Are you sick?” Her voice was still loud. “Hurt? What’s going on?”
I finally got my throat under control, wished I had some water, then blinked when it appeared in front of my face. Looking up, I caught Arun’s sweet smile as he held out the bottle. Peaceboy was a perfect nickname for him. “It’s been a cold night,” I finally answered her. “Well, the part of it I spent alone under the blanket, anyway. Peaceboy is awfully warm.”
He frowned at the nickname, then shrugged and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. He walked back to the others, giving me privacy.
“Um,” she mumbled.
I couldn’t stop my laughter this time and didn’t care if it hurt my throat. And I knew it sounded like one of those cynical sounds, not a joyous one. “Don’t worry—it’s all good. Well, except for the pyro, the cold, the insane progenitor and, oh, an all-consuming fire even I didn’t expect.”
“That’s it. We have to figure out where Mom really is and we have to get together somehow. I can’t stand this. Between you and fire and Coral and tidal waves...” Her voice faded out.
I wanted to say it was a storm surge, not a tidal wave, but all I could do was stare at the ground as my heart stopped and restarted. She was right. All these terrifying things were happening, and it was stupid that we weren’t together. What if this really was the end of the world? “I love you, Raven.”
Her pause was long and I knew she was surprised but also pleased—I could hear it in her returned, “I love you, too.”
My ears started popping harder. I rubbed one, wiggled my jaw, but couldn’t get the sounds around me to feel right. I looked at Arun and the others to find them doing the same thing. There was a loud cry that had all of us straightening and staring toward the fast-food restaurant in the other end of the parking lot. The air changed, thickened, until it felt as if I had cotton balls stuffed in my ears. “Hey, I gotta go. We’ve got a problem here.”
“Call me later. At this number. Let me know you’re okay.”
“I will.” Other people in the parking lot were stopping, rubbing their ears. “Hey, Raven? Be safe, okay?”
“You, too, Kat.”
The sadness in my sister’s voice cut into me.
Arun came around his truck. “It feels like the world is muffled.”
I nodded because that’s exactly how it felt. Like someone had plugged my ears so all the sound around me came at a different decibel. It was so strange. Like even my nose had been stuffed with cotton balls.
“Come on,” he said. “Maybe it’s better inside the store.”
But the closer we walked toward the store, the quieter it got. I walked around a set of shopping carts, noticed that even the sounds in the air—the cars, birds and snow—seemed to disappear. To test my theory, I went back and walked on the other side of the carts. Sound got louder.
I took Arun’s hand and pulled him back to walk him on either side of the carts to show him. He stared to our left. “Someone yelled over there earlier. Let’s head that way.” He pointed toward the fast-food restaurant at the front of the store’s parking lot. There was a lake beyond the restaurant, and I looked around and realized this was near the place I’d pulled over to talk to Raven yesterday morning. It was hard to believe everything that had happened since then.
We walked closer to the lake. Snow fell hard and fast, coating the trees, the ground. Some even floated on top of the water. A group of blackbirds gathered overhead and I heard the distant sound of their cries.
But they were right over our heads.
They should have been so loud.
After we stepped off the pavement and onto the grass, everything sort of just stopped. I stepped to the right and again heard the cries of the blackbirds above us. Barely. Arun touched my arm and I looked at him. He held up a finger in the universal “wait” signal. Frowning, he took another step to the right, stopped, then moved left. His dark eyes went wide and he gestured for me to follow.
I stepped to the left and even the sounds from the birds disappeared.
At this point, all I heard was the fast pound of my own heartbeat. And it raced, raced, raced because everything in me at this point was screaming for me to start walking backward. Back into the parking lot, back to the truck. As fast as humanly possible.
But another part of me wanted to keep going left so I could see why the noise seemed to be sucked out of the atmosphere with every step.
So I took another.
This time, even my heartbeat stopped sounding in my ears. There was complete and total silence and nothing in my entire weird, crazy
life had ever sent this sort of terror singing through my veins. It moved so fast and hard, I half expected to hear it swimming through my body.
I closed my eyes, tried to wrestle back the fear and felt Arun take my hand.
I stared at his hand, then looked up at him, expecting to find one of his kind smiles as he offered me comfort. But he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were narrow and directed to a group of drooping snow-covered trees right next to the water.
In that moment, something in my chest—this knot that had made everything feel tight and full—sort of loosened up. Warmth flowed through me, and I tightened my fingers around his. His expression, when he looked down at me, turned that warmth into something I hadn’t felt since that night I’d taken another boy’s hand and followed him into the woods.
Excitement.
Hope.
Arun tilted his head left, wanting me to go with him.
I nodded but tugged on his hand first.
He bent close but shook his head. I knew he was telling me he wouldn’t be able to hear me, but I hadn’t planned to say anything. Instead, I stretched up and pressed my lips to his. He smiled against my mouth, then kissed me back. When I pulled away, there was something new in his gaze as he stared at me, something thoughtful. And something kind of hot.
Answering heat crept up my neck, and I guess he could see it because he grinned and touched my cheek.
Brigg’s face appeared right next to ours and he rolled his eyes.
I rolled my eyes back, then glared at him.
He laughed silently, his smile fading fast as he pointed.
A boy around our age knelt there in the snow with his eyes closed as he rocked. His mouth opened, then closed and his head moved like he was humming. Blood smears covered his mouth and chin.
He had dark brown skin and shaggy black hair spilled over his hands, which were pressed tight over his ears.
We stopped in front of him. At this point, even my thoughts started to feel fragmented. I reached down with my free hand and slowly touched one of the hands he held over his ears. He went stiff, looked up at us and stared.
I tried to smile reassuringly—tried to channel one of my sisters’ smiles. I pointed to my own ears and mimed lowering my hand. He pulled his hands from his ears and all sound raced back in so loudly, Arun and I both fell to our knees in the snow.
The boy slammed his hands back over his ears, his gaze frantic and apologetic.
When every single noise abruptly cut off again, dizziness made me sway on my knees. I wrestled control, blinking hard until his face came back into focus.
“No,” I mouthed as I touched his hand again. “It’s okay.”
He lowered his hands again and in the next instant, I heard the birds, the cars zooming over the street in front of the fast-food restaurant. I heard the snow hitting the water, the insanely loud cries of the ravens above us.
And I heard the sounds of a fight. Grunts, thumping noises...then a cry of pain.
Arun jumped to his feet and ran toward the noise. So did Brigg. Nanna ran back toward the truck—probably to get her nunchucks. I stared at the boy, who stayed hunched over but now stared at me with liquid brown eyes even darker than Arun’s—which I hadn’t thought possible. They were pretty much black. There was something infinitely beautiful in that gaze. I felt the overwhelming need to protect him. Someone cried out behind me and I tried to see, but a few snow-covered trees blocked the view. Nanna ran past me, her weapon in hand.
“Can you leave your hands down a few minutes?” I asked the boy. “We really need to hear what’s going on.”
He nodded. “The fight scared me. With my hands over my ears, I only hear the beautiful music.”
Whoever he was, he carried a god’s soul and some pretty strong magic. To be able to block sound for everyone else...I’d have to think on that one. I didn’t know of a god who could do that.
Someone yelled and I jumped to my feet. “Just stay here,” I said before I ran around the trees and skidded to a stop. Snow kicked up around my feet as I gaped at the woman there. My mother, looking strange in the black-feathered cloak-type thing she’d been wearing the last time I saw her, turned and roundhouse kicked a boy just as Brigg ran toward her. She’d had on a skirt before, but now she wore jeans, so her kick wasn’t hampered in the least. The boy flew back into a bank of snow. Dru raised her arm, and shock locked my knees when I saw the small crossbow in her hand.
“No!” I screamed as I ran toward her.
Brigg stopped, his face going back and forth as he looked from me to my mother.
She lowered her arm and narrowed her eyes on me. Something in her stare raised the fine hairs on the back of my neck. She looked...bad. Puffy purple circles darkened her eyes and she didn’t have on makeup. Looked like she hadn’t brushed her hair since before I’d last seen her.
Dru had always been off, but this was something different. This didn’t seem like my mother at all.
In fact, she didn’t even feel like Dru.
Arun helped the other boy to his feet and tried to pull him away, but the guy let out a cry of rage and ran toward her. She grinned, raised that crossbow and hit the kid in the center of his chest. He gasped, grabbed at the shining arrow and looked around at us before he fell.
My mother, or whatever she’d become, narrowed her eyes and looked at Brigg and Nanna; then she locked onto Arun. She snapped up her arm, shot another small shiny arrow.
Arun dived to the ground.
She advanced on him, reloading her small crossbow. Yelling, I ran toward her. Nanna and Brigg did, too. But Arun rolled, taking Dru down so hard, she slammed into the ground and tumbled right into the water.
Brigg sloshed into the shallow mix of water and snow after her, but she let this yell of fury rip from her throat that stopped all of us from moving.
Loud, deep and so obviously not a woman’s voice, the furious cry stopped my heart.
Dru looked at me one last time, her livid stare burning a hole right through me. Then she raised her arms and shot into the sky. I slapped my hands over my ears at the loud sound of shattering glass. It was like she disappeared into some kind of dimensional portal.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Shock locked my knees into place even as I dropped to them in the snow.
The boy she’d hit cried out, then gasped. Before I could blink, Arun, Brigg and Nanna were yelling and crouching over him.
But I knew it was too late even before I ran to join them. His still body made my heart stop.
My mother had just shot something into that kid with a god’s soul and she’d killed him.
Raven had been right.
Chapter Nine
The kneeling boy was Salvatore, and he seemed too soft to be carrying the burden of a god’s soul, but he knew who he carried. Hoenir, the god of silence. Salvatore had been traumatized even earlier by a battle between him, the boy who’d died and a group of scary humanlike men he was sure were hybrids of people and that creature from the Alien movies. Arun and I looked at each other after that explanation. He had to mean dark elves.
Salvatore only wanted to hear the music, and his friend had fought off my mother.
Only, I was 100 percent sure that had not been my mother.
The boy who’d died had been carrying the god Forseti. Justice, truth and peace. It was a hell of a way to die for someone like that. Someone who’d been traveling with another who seemed unequipped to deal with the hand he’d been dealt. Someone who’d been protecting him.
I wiped another freaking tear from under my eye. At this rate, I’d be out-crying Coral. I hadn’t known this boy, but he was the first of us to die here and it just brought our reality into stark light.
“So, that was your mother,” Arun said as he once again sat next to me in the greenhouse we�
�d turned into the sleep zone. “I want to say I could see the resemblance, but no.”
“I honestly think that she’s lost her mind. The thing looking at me from those eyes had nothing of my mother in them. I know that sounds crazy, but there it is.”
“She sure didn’t sound like any woman I’ve heard.” He shook his head and a blond curl slipped down to catch on his eyelash. He reached up to pull it loose, but I beat him to it. I rubbed his hair between my finger and thumb.
“It’s just as soft as it looks.”
He took my hand in his. “If that wasn’t your mother, then I have a pretty good idea who it might have been. The trickster god.”
“You think Loki is inside my mother?” I thought of all the crazy things she’d done lately. Thought of the snakes. “Oh gods, a few weeks ago our backyard became the biggest nest of snakes I’d ever seen. Even the exterminator we called out was shocked and, frankly, too much of a wuss to handle it.” I scowled at the memory of that idiot who’d said he’d be back to look into things. Yeah, right. He’d never returned. “There’s a symbol that represents Loki—with snakes.” I rubbed my fingers and thumb over my eyes. “I should have seen this. Should have figured it out before now.” I opened gritty eyes, stared into Arun’s dark, dark gaze. I couldn’t decide if this made me feel better or not. Knowing maybe it wasn’t Dru killing did help, but then, I didn’t know any of this for sure. I also didn’t know if she was working with him or against him if it was true. “Where do you think my mother is then? Stuck in there with him?”
“We don’t know that’s him, but my gut is telling me that’s what’s going on.” His gaze strayed to the corner, where Salvatore sat crying and rocking. “He really cared about the boy who saved him. He said that the evil woman had come after him three times and each time his friend had saved him. There must be something really special about him.”
“I wish I could remember anything about that god—but it’s blank.” I looked at the kid, then at Alva, who hadn’t left his side in hours except to get him food and drinks. She’d latched on to him when she’d arrived by the lake at the same time as the police earlier. “Your mom is getting attached.”
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