Tucker had hair the color of tree bark—a cross between brown and black. Like the others, he was bulked up in outerwear, his thick, red coat with Sooners in white letters on the front. Vanir had one friend who shared his affinity for the school.
“Nice jacket.” Vanir grinned at Tucker.
Tucker glanced down, shrugged. “Was a gift from a clueless relative and I don’t mind it getting messed up out here.”
Vanir rolled his eyes as he snagged a chair leaning against the wall and unfolded it for me before grabbing another. “Most of Raven’s things got ruined in the river, so we were going to Walmart to load her up. Turned out to be a bad idea.”
“You’re telling me.” Tucker moved his chair closer to Rose to make room.
I didn’t miss the short, fierce frown she gave him.
“We were all going there,” he continued as if he hadn’t been affected by, or possibly even seen, her expression. “The parents are all freaking. Wanting canned goods, kerosene, blankets, things like that. We decided not to stop when we saw the Wallyworld battle. Besides, looks like most of the canned goods were rolling around outside.”
Randy cleared his throat loudly. “When we were outside, you said something happened to Dan.”
“What’s wrong with Dan?” Lily asked. “Did you see him at the store? He stayed to get a few things.”
“Idiot,” Rose said with a sneer. “Can’t believe he did that.”
I was sooo not liking her already. And by the glares coming my way from her, the feeling was mutual.
“Dan went down in that fight.” Vanir set his chair so close to mine our sides touched.
The glares from Rose increased.
“I think it’s bad.” I’m not sure he even noticed what he did as he spoke. I thought he was mad at me, so shock went through me when he threaded his fingers with mine. Tightened them with his next words. “He might be dead.”
Four stunned faces froze.
“What’s going on?” Lily whispered. “First Steven...” Her breath hitched, tears filling her eyes as she huddled into Randy. “And now Dan, too? And that kid on the news...Samuel? What the hell is going on around here?”
Tucker threw up his hands. “It’s obviously the ‘end times’ my grandfather likes to preach about. Think about it! It’s snowing all over the world, people are fighting and now they’re dropping from some weird illness.”
Randy rolled his eyes. “Can it, Tucker. The weather anomaly is just that. The deaths are a little more important, don’t you think? More relevant? What makes you think it’s an illness?”
“What else could it be?” He picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. “I caught the broadcast and apparently there wasn’t a mark on that kid at the park.”
“What else could it be? Try murder. Remember the fighting? People are obviously snapping.” Rose bent to the side and rummaged in a black backpack before pulling out a bottle of Bacardi 151. She uncapped it like a pro, took a swig, grimaced, took another and passed it to her sister.
Lily swallowed some, choked and handed the bottle off. “No one’s said anything about murder yet. In fact, I heard Steven didn’t have a mark on him, either.” She started to sob and Randy tightened his arm around her. “I just can’t believe this.”
The tension coming from Vanir intensified, and without thinking about it I scooted closer. He pulled our clasped hands onto his thigh.
“You got here just last night?” snapped Rose as her gaze zeroed in on Vanir’s lap. She reached for the rum, not once taking her gaze off our hands.
“It’s been a long day and a half,” Vanir answered. “A lot has happened.” He took a deep breath, stroked his thumb over the back of my hand—I think he needed the comfort. He stared at Rose. “I’m sorry, I know you liked Dan.”
“We’d only been on a few dates.” She shrugged, blinked a few times and swigged several swallows of liquor. Stunned, I could only stare. She was a real pro. She held the bottle out to me, and yeah, I was tempted. Maybe alcohol would help take my mind off what a complete shit I was for sitting here among their grief. But reeking of something that strong wouldn’t endear me to Vanir’s brothers when we got back and I spilled the beans. Or his uncle Willy if the sheriff showed up there. And I’d decided to tell them what I thought. I had to.
Rose waved the bottle at me again.
I shook my head no.
Smirking, she passed the bottle to Vanir, who surprised me when he took a swallow and handed it off to Tucker.
Tucker started to take a drink, then went pale. “We shouldn’t be drinking this! Not now!” He stood and held the bottle up. He narrowed his eyes at the fire, his intentions obvious when his gaze went back to the bottle in his hand.
“Whoa, dude, do not throw that into the fire.” Randy had scrambled to his feet. “One fifty-one. Fire. Think about it.”
“Yeah and I’ll be grounded for swiping that, so I want to enjoy it first,” snapped Rose. She jumped up and held out her hand. “Give it back.”
Tucker stood there, shaking his head. “Everything is going wrong. Our friends are dying. There’s no school and last night someone robbed our store. Took all the cash, jeans, salt and even an iron skillet!”
I flinched and Vanir’s gaze shot to me, his mouth tightening, so I pretended I didn’t notice him looking.
“Give me the damn booze, Tucker!” Rose yelled. She darted in to grab it and he stepped back.
“Sorry,” he muttered before tossing it high into the air toward the fire pit.
I knew it wouldn’t explode—I’d seen people do the same thing while at campgrounds. Though it had been cheap gin, not rum. I thought it might make more of an impact than gin, though. Apparently, so did Vanir because he grabbed me and ran for the back wall. The others followed.
“You stupid son of a—” Rose had time to scream before the glass smashed and the fire flared up. The sizzle was loud but small and quick as the alcohol burned off.
“Get your hands off me, you superstitious prick.” Rose was sobbing now. “I can’t believe you did that. You were puking up your guts here on wine three weeks ago.”
“It wasn’t the end of the world then!” he yelled back.
Vanir set me on my feet and walked to Tucker. “It’s not now, either. Everyone needs to calm down. Tucker, I’m sorry your store was robbed. Was anyone hurt?”
Tucker slumped against the wall. “No. Whoever did it broke in after we closed. And it could be anyone. Every hotel and motel within twenty miles is full. My mother won’t stop crying. We can’t get any more deliveries for a week or more.”
Rose stomped off, but I could tell she was affected by his speech. Her shoulders slumped more with his every word. She swept up her backpack, slipped it on. “That end of the world panic doesn’t help, Tucker. I wish people would stop with the stupid superstition. If we’re all running around wailing about the end, nothing gets done.”
Okay, she didn’t need to make sense. Didn’t need to make me like her. I’d already picked up on her feelings for Vanir, despite talking about her dates with Dan. She may have been with one, but she obviously wanted the other.
I stared at him, at the calm way he handled Tucker. Didn’t blame her. I’d known him under twenty-four hours and was falling fast. He just had this laid-back, confident, yet sort of take-charge attitude unusual for someone his age. At least, I thought it was unusual. I didn’t really know all that many kids my age.
An ear-splitting crash sounded outside. Followed by a high-pitched scream that raised every small hair on my body.
“That’s just great,” Rose muttered, stomping to the door. “What else could happen?” She opened the door, looked outside and closed it. Her skin turned a weird greenish shade as she slammed her back against the ratty wood. “Wow. Maybe superstitious Tucker was right.”
Chapter Eleven
A slight electrical buzz filtered through the wind. The stinging pulse pricked my skin, seeped into pores—made me feel itchy and dirty. Closing my eyes, I sniffed. Didn’t smell lavender.
That didn’t mean anything, though.
Magic had joined the party.
The warehouse went dark when the fire was suddenly extinguished by a fall of heavy snow. Lily made a whimpering noise in the back of her throat. Everyone stood still, the only noise the moaning of the wind, the loud thudding of snow on the intact parts of the roof. When Tucker moved, his coat swished against the brick wall and I nearly crawled out of my skin. He flipped open his cell phone, held it up to share the light. Randy and Lily did the same. “There isn’t any reception,” Lily murmured.
That was probably because of the magic. It sometimes messed with electronics. But I wasn’t sharing that with these people. Vanir hadn’t introduced any of them as family, and if his was anything like mine, we didn’t share any of our supernatural knowledge with outsiders.
“What’s outside, Rose?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” Her voice was hoarse and it cracked on the last word. “I don’t know what that is.”
I stepped closer to Vanir, glad for his warmth when he put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close.
Outside, that shriek came again. It raked down my spine, making me shiver because it sounded like a mix of person and animal...like nothing I’d heard before. “Sounds kind of female,” I murmured, hunching into my borrowed coat. Vanir tightened his arm. I was absolutely positive I didn’t want to go out there.
Rose dropped her backpack, wrapped her arms around her middle. “I think it is.”
“You think? It? I’m sure I don’t want to know why you said that,” Tucker said, even though he walked toward the door.
“Well, I want to know.” Randy got there first.
“Don’t open the door.” Rose shoved him out of her way and ran to the piles of firewood in the corner. She slipped and went down before reaching them, her butt smacking loudly on the snow-covered concrete floor. I winced. Vanir let me go to help her up and it wasn’t my imagination that she held on a little too long before she gingerly walked to the piles. Heavy chunks of wood thunked to the cement floor as she dug through it. I could see her hands shaking in the light from the cell phones. “There’s a place on the door for a two-by-four. I know I saw one in this pile. We have to bar the door!”
“From what? What is it, Rose?” Lily slipped and slid to her side, put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Stop. We’re going to have to sneak out of here somehow—get to a place where the phones work. You’re not thinking straight.”
I looked at Vanir, caught the mirrored logic in his gaze. We both knew that with magic involved no flimsy piece of wood would keep us safe. And getting out of here would probably be trickier than just sneaking out of the only door in the place.
A groaning metallic sound came from outside, like a layer of metal being peeled from a car. We all froze.
“Hell with this!” Randy opened the door. Wind-driven snow slammed through, knocking everyone back a step. It flew into my mouth, ice cold on my tongue, and tasted metallic, like the magic had frozen inside the flakes.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Randy yelled, and ran outside.
“I think that noise came from his truck.” Tucker cupped a hand over his eyes, squinting into the snow.
When Randy screamed in fury, we all ran to the door. I peered down the hill to where they’d all parked and saw Randy’s black pickup on its side, saw him jumping up to balance on the driver’s door. What the hell? I couldn’t see what he was fighting, why he was standing on his truck like that. I stepped outside just as Randy howled and disappeared off the vehicle.
The full force of the outside temperature slammed into my bare cheeks. The wind raged like we were in the middle of a cyclone. The frigid cold instantly made my teeth ache and I shut my mouth. Breathed through my nostrils. I ran behind Vanir as he sprinted toward Randy’s cries. I knew when he spotted the problem because he stopped, and I nearly smacked into his back.
My eyes flew open wide as I stepped around him. Snow pelted my eyeballs. Wincing, I blinked as hard as possible because I was so not standing around with my eyes closed—not with that...that...thing here.
I totally understood why Rose had used the word think in reference to this creature. I only knew it was female because a strange canvas-looking halter top covered her enormous, sagging boobs. Long white hair swayed as she crouched, then moved into a decent high kick, her foot slamming into the side of Randy’s head.
He toppled into the snow.
And when I said high, I meant high. My head would only come to this woman’s waist. I hadn’t known they existed—not for real. Shock kept my limbs frozen more than the cold air. “It’s a freaking giant,” I said out loud.
Vanir darted in front of Randy, putting himself between the massive woman and his friend. He scanned the ground, probably looking for a weapon, but snow covered everything.
The giant tilted her head back and I covered my ears, knowing that scream was so gonna hurt out here.
And it did. The skin-peeling, grating sound rose in volume until I thought my ears would bleed. It ripped into everything, and even though I hadn’t wanted to, I squeezed my eyes shut, gritted my teeth. If this was her only means of communication, we were screwed.
I hadn’t realized Tucker, Rose and Lily had stayed with us until I heard one of them hit the ground behind me. I slitted my eyes and turned to find Rose on her knees in the snow, her hands over her ears. Tucker was bent at the waist. Lily’s face had lost so much color she blended with the snow. She didn’t protect her ears, just stood, jaw slack.
When the giant cut off the noise, I opened my eyes to find her staring at me. Straight. At. Me. Snow swirled between us, wreaking havoc with her hair. Long white strands whipped about, probably stinging her face. She growled and reached up to hold it out of her face. Her eyes were the size of my fists, her irises a dark, shiny purple. She was missing a front tooth.
She was a frost giant.
My brain scrambled for purchase, going over the Ragnarok stories. “But they’re a part of the final battle,” I murmured, not realizing I did it out loud. No one could possibly hear me in this wind, but she narrowed her eyes, stared harder. All I could think about was the frost giant battle came at the end, after the winter, the floods and the fire.... The frost giants along with the other monsters would fight with Loki...they were to free the trickster god.
Coral said there’d been a tidal wave.
Did this mean my fire dream with Kat could be happening now? Right freaking now? Horror filled my throat with acid.
The giant mumbled something and I strained to hear through the wind. Vanir heard; his face whipped toward me. He did an actual double take as he looked at me, and for a split second he seemed terrified. That was all she needed. One massive fist slammed into the side of his head.
“No!” I screamed, and started to run, slipping and falling into a deep drift of snow. Scrambling to my feet, I stepped high, moving as fast as I could to get in front of Vanir. He was on the ground, his expression slack, disoriented. “Don’t touch Vanir!”
Muddy confusion twisted her features as she looked down at Vanir. It was the name—his name confused her. Could she sense he held Odin’s soul? Odin, who was supposed to fight on the side of the Aesir in the Aesir-Vanir war of the gods. But her confusion meant she understood me—recognized him as her enemy.
Up close, I could smell her and my stomach lurched. She reeked like a dead animal. One that had been left in the sun for days. She didn’t reach for me, just stood there, freaky eyes wide, her mouth opening and closing like a fish on land. Keeping an eye on her, I knelt next to Vanir, patted his face. He blinked, trying to foc
us, and his eyes narrowed, his expression closed. To me.
A stab of regret speared my throat.
The giant said something else and I stood, ready to fight her if I had to, even knowing I’d lose. Fast. But she only mumbled, her words jumbled and faintly jittery—like she was afraid of me.
Me?
Her words came faster and faster, still making little sense, so I concentrated on breaking apart what I could understand.
“Myrkr. Krellr. Svartalfheim.”
Dark. Spirit. And the last word sent ice skittering through my veins. “Why are you talking about the shadow world?”
She cocked her head again as if trying to understand me. I opened my mouth to ask her in Old Norse when all of a sudden two huge gray blurs burst from the woods and hit her from either side.
Stunned, I watched Geri and Freak attack the giant. I stared in openmouthed amazement as she slammed into the ground, her legs, bared by the short skirt, flying into the air. Snarls and growls fought for dominance as the wind and snow grew fiercer.
The mix hurt, pelting my face like needles. I took a step closer as one of the wolves cried out. I wanted to help, snapping wolf teeth and all.
Vanir grabbed my arm, pushed me toward the truck, then knelt by Randy. Tucker and Rose scrambled, fighting the deep snowdrifts as they half ran, half fell down the hill to the Jeep next to Vanir’s pickup. “Lily, come on!” Rose yelled as she opened the passenger’s door.
But Lily was helping Randy stand. “I’m not leaving Randy,” was all she said. Her hands shook and she kept throwing panicked looks over her shoulder.
I was so happy to see Randy was alive. He’d have a huge knot on the side of his head by tomorrow, though, if that spreading purple meant anything. “He might need a hospital. What about concussion or something?” I asked.
Vanir nodded, yelling over the wind. “We’ll take him, but we all have to get out of here now! Before the snow gets too deep to drive through!”
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