She thought Loki had the right idea, removing himself from society. But now he was back in Portland to mentor her, and it was turning into a disaster for everyone. Maybe she needed to drop out of school and move to Antarctica. Only then she’d have to worry about accidentally burning up all the penguins and seals and albatrosses.
“Well, it’s here if you want it.” Saga rested the mug on the counter.
Sally stopped. “What?”
“Your tea.” Saga went back to slicing the turmeric root. “You should drink it. Getting upset and storming around the apartment probably isn’t helping your hangover any.” She nodded toward the snacks laid out on the counter. “Have a banana, too. It’ll be awhile before the rest of this is ready, and you shouldn’t wait to start feeling better.”
Sally gawped at her, but Saga turned and started frying the turmeric. She pushed the thin slices around in the cast iron skillet and turned them over with a pair of tongs.
Feeling both stupid and cold with disbelief and self-pity, Sally crossed her arms. “Why aren’t you furious with me?”
Saga barely glanced up. “What’s there to be angry about?”
“I. Set. The. Fire.”
“You didn’t”
“I was sparking! I discharged all that energy into the crate.”
“And the wood grounded it.” Saga sponged down the cutting board in the sink and set it on the dish rack. “Dagmar said the fire didn’t start that way.”
“Then it was a delayed reaction.”
Saga smiled. “You’re determined to take responsibility, aren’t you?”
Sally looked at the floor. She thought over all the times her magick had gone wrong, from scaring up Berserkers to awakening an ancient volcano dispute. She’d set an accidental fire before, in the rental house in Norway when she didn’t know she was messing with Køjer Devil scales instead of pieces of flint rock. It was probably just a matter of time before she got some innocent bystander killed.
“I can’t control the magick,” Sally muttered.
“Loki isn’t helping?”
Sally winced. “It’s not that simple. There’s always something going wrong.”
“Always something to learn, then.”
Sally tapped her boot heel on the carpet. “Stop being nice to me! I screwed up! I have to be held accountable.” She wiped away the angry tears before they could spill down her cheeks. “I’m a menace. I am chaos.”
Saga stood still for a moment, her face breaking into a poorly concealed smile. “I like that. I am chaos. You should get that on a t-shirt.”
“Saga!”
“Stop.” Saga gestured at Sally with the knife. It wasn’t a threat, but Sally shut her mouth. “You need to take about twenty-seven deep breaths and calm yourself down two hundred percent.” She put the knife down and leaned against the counter. “First, you didn’t cause the fire. Dagmar said there was evidence of an accelerant. So unless you snuck back there without me—when you were properly blitzed and too drunk to stand, as I recall—then you had nothing to do with the fire. Nothing. At all. Okay?”
Sally started to protest again but Saga cut her off with a wave of her hand.
“No, Sally,” Saga said. “Are you okay with that?”
Sally blew out an indignant sigh and nodded, but she tightened her arms over her chest.
“Second item: You’re not an evil force of darkness that has been unleashed on an unsuspecting world. You’re a good kid and a powerful witch who’s having a bad couple of years.”
“A bad couple of years? Maybe I didn’t start this fire, but something like it or worse is bound to happen sometime.” Sally sounded defeated to her own ears. “Not even Loki has full control, and I don’t need to remind you the trouble he’s caused.”
“And not even Loki is a force of pure evil in the world.” Saga went back to tending the turmeric. She lifted each slice out of the pan to rest on a bed of paper towels.
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
Saga laughed but her mirth died when she saw Sally’s sullen face. “You don’t actually believe that? That Loki is malevolent?”
“You’re the goddess of history. You tell me.” Sally shrugged, but she wasn’t convincing even herself of her pretended nonchalance. “Thor seems pretty certain about it.”
“Yeah, but Thor is . . . Thor.” Saga sighed. “You seem pretty set on feeling bad about yourself and your lot in life right now, so you can indulge in your little pity party. But if this goes on much longer, I’m going to have to kick your ass.”
Saga removed the rest of the fried turmeric from the pan. “How much time do you want to waste wallowing over something that is entirely outside your control?”
The goddess had a point. Pouting and stomping her feet, holed up in her apartment, wasn’t doing anyone any good. Sally sighed. She couldn’t even enjoy stewing in her own self-pity.
“Loki isn’t evil, and neither are you.” Saga put the tongs in the sink, then turned to face Sally. “So what’s next?”
“Next?”
“We’re solving problems here, right?” Saga picked up the tea Sally hadn’t touched and carried it over to her. “Seriously, you’ll want to drink this.”
Sally took the mug. The tea didn’t smell too bad. She sipped some, and it didn’t taste too bad either. She detected the fragrance of jasmine and the tang of oranges, though she hadn’t seen either go into the kettle.
“It’s better when it’s piping hot,” Saga said. “Drink all of it.”
Sally gulped down the tea and took a deep breath. Her head was still fuzzy, but the pounding pain was gone. She realized she was hungry. She looked at the snacks on the counter, and Saga smiled.
“Works fast, doesn’t it?” Saga grabbed a banana and tossed it to Sally. “But start slow. Don’t overdo it.”
Sally peeled the banana and bit off a large chunk. Saga fixed a plate of fried turmeric, sliced banana, and a handful of berries while she mused aloud about rebuilding the Nordic Cultural Center. They might leverage the fire to increase public awareness, she said, and grow the center into something even grander. But Sally remained uneasy about the destruction and the sarcophagi, and she kept looking for the opportunity to interrupt.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She hoped Opal wasn’t texting to make sure that Sally and Saga had cleared out of the apartment already.
“Just what I need.” Sally held her phone up. “Loki wants me to meet him at his place. Some new chaos emergency or urgent mayhem training, no doubt.”
Saga munched on a piece of turmeric. “So blow him off. Take a break for the day. It’s not like the magick is going anywhere.”
There was a loud thud on the apartment door. Sally jolted upright, and the door shook in its frame with another loud boom. Guttural grumbling sounded on the other side of the door, followed by someone jostling the handle. Another thud shook the plate on the kitchen counter.
“Expecting someone?” Saga walked toward the door. Her stride wasn’t as confident as her voice, but she appeared a lot steadier than Sally felt.
“Saga, don’t!” Sally yelped.
Saga peered through the peephole, then stepped away. “Couple of zombies outside. A day early for trick-or-treaters, though those costumes are impressive. Friends of yours?”
“Zombies?”
The door shook again under another couple of loud blows. Sally didn’t really have friends, period, much less know anyone who would dress up as the undead and then try to knock her door down. Who was out there? Sally tried to remember whether the door was steel-reinforced.
Saga glanced out the peephole again, then backed away from the door. Her face was suddenly pale.
The pounding continued. The door didn’t look any the worse for wear, but cracks were forming in the frame.
“Saga?” Sally retreated behind the futon, as though the rickety furniture could protect her against whatever was outside. She pulled out her phone, then realized she had no idea who to call. “What’s
going on? Who’s out there?”
“For Frigg’s sake.” Saga stared at the door as the assault continued. “Cursed, bloody draugar. You’ve got wards and stuff up, right?”
Sally nodded dumbly, then found her voice. “Draugar? I don’t think I know that one.”
“Uh.” Saga almost giggled. “Reanimated dead. And not especially fresh ones.”
Sally gripped the back of the futon and tried not to drop her phone. “You’re telling me there are actual zombies in the hall, trying to break into my apartment? Is this some kind of joke?”
“No.” Saga stepped farther back from the door as it shook in its frame and started to splinter. “I mean, yes on the part about trying to break in. But not zombies. These guys have skills. How strong are your wards?”
“You think that will keep them out?” Sally and Opal had traced protective sigils over every entrance to the apartment, including the windows and the air vents, but that was to keep out burglars. No one told Sally she had to be on guard against zombies. Her fingers hovered over her favorites in her contact list. Should she call Heimdall? Thor? Loki?
“You tell me. You’re the witch.”
An alarm blared in the outer hallway, and smoke started pouring in under the door.
“They’re setting the building on fire?” Sally laughed. She couldn’t help it. Cold panic had her nearly immobilized, and there were zombies at the door.
“Nice plan.” Saga crossed her arms over her chest. “They’ll cook themselves out before the fire gets to us.”
“What about the neighbors?” Sally punched in 9-1-1. She didn’t know how she’d explain to the emergency operator about draugar. She didn’t know anything about them herself, and she was afraid her call would be dismissed as a Halloween prank. As soon as she heard a voice on the other end, Sally shouted out her address, that the building was on fire, and that she and her friend were trapped inside.
Saga waved the smoke away from her face as the alarms kept blaring. She laughed when the lights cut out, like the ordeal was a mischievous holiday party.
“Any books or potions you want to save?” Saga asked.
“Potions?” Sally was struggling to hear anything over the alarms. She shouted her address into the phone again.
“I think the only way we’re getting out of here is by hitching a ride on a fire ladder.” Saga coughed on the smoke. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom, rolled it up, and wedged it against the bottom of the door. “Want some more tea while we wait?”
The pounding continued on the other side of the door, despite the smoke and the screaming shouts from Sally’s neighbors as they evacuated their apartments. Saga kept her cool and poured Sally another cup of tea.
Loki stepped inside his tiny house at the edge of the forest and filled the tea kettle with water. Tea at home had become a ritual when he needed to consider weighty matters, and now he was making tea several times a day. He set the kettle on the compact stove top and staggered the few feet to his study table.
Going to Helheim was a risk from the start. He’d gone seeking information, maybe some assistance. But he hadn’t considered that Hel might be holding Odin and Frigga hostage. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bargained away something so precious. He probably wouldn’t have made the journey to begin with.
He fell into a light trance as he listened to the rain falling on the roof. The house was cool but not yet cold. He’d build a fire in the woodstove after making his tea. He’d pull on his favorite sweater and shearling boots. He’d gaze out the window at the trees and mist. And he wouldn’t dwell on what he had to do next, though he didn’t have much time to lose.
Everything would be all right. Things had a way of working themselves out. Hadn’t his long experience taught him as much? Until quite recently, he’d easily anticipated the sorting and untangling of things with sufficient clarity to support his characteristic detachment. He didn’t get emotionally invested because, for him, there was no real drama or uncertainty. But he enjoyed watching the others get worked up over worst-case scenarios and engage in heated debates about the best course of action, before they finally went to work to bring about the very outcome Loki had foreseen.
The members of the Lodge thought him annoying and irresponsible for keeping these secrets, but he was doing them all a great service. How boring and unfulfilled their long lives would be if he laid it all out on the table for them every time. They would have cursed him for that, the same way they cursed him for not revealing what they thought he should. At least that side of the equation remained constant.
These last months and years were different. His farsight had dimmed, and it had taken the deaths of his friends for him to notice. Was he so arrogantly assured of his abilities that he hadn’t registered his own decline? It had been coming for decades.
As he sat by the window and waited for his tea, he couldn’t point to any discreet moment prior to the summer that might have alerted him. There had been small surprises, like the diversity of Managarm’s Berserker army, and that the Rune Witch would have a strong and constant mortal ally in her friend Opal. But he’d looked past these mundane details to the bigger picture.
Now he couldn’t count on even that. He was in full decline. And his memory was fading. He’d been having trouble long before the business with the newest Yggdrasil and the ransoming of Iduna’s Apples. But as long as there was a stable counterbalance to his magick, he did all right. That was gone now. With so many Old Ones departed or missing, and especially with Odin’s death, there was no longer any true balance. And now both Loki and Midgard would suffer for it.
The whistle of the kettle broke Loki’s unhappy reverie. He pushed himself out of his chair and noticed how his joints creaked. He could rationalize his fatigue, particularly after his harrowing journey and being in his daughter’s soul-sucking company, but he was done with explaining away such things. He was dying.
He scooped some loose herbs into a tea ball and poured hot water into his mug. The various teas would help for a good while yet, but they were temporary measures. This blend would lend him additional calm as he considered his next move. His next cup would boost his strength. He was going to need it.
He carried the mug back to his seat at the window. While his tea steeped, he pulled out his phone.
“Oh, Sally. I am deeply sorry for this, young one.”
He started typing.
There was a rustling outside, somewhere in the hedges that surrounded and protected his house. The pathway to his hiding spot took enough turns through the brush that most urban hikers lost interest and turned around. Loki would’ve enjoyed the overgrown wildness even if it hadn’t discouraged strangers from approaching his door. Not even Heimdall or Thor knew where he lived, though he had once given directions to Freya.
A glance out the window didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary, just steady rain and squirrels searching to bury a few more nuts before winter. The tall, thick greenery shuddered with the rainfall.
Loki read over the message he’d typed. He didn’t want to alarm Sally, but he couldn’t take the chance of being ignored. Satisfied that his communication was sufficiently urgent and vague, he pressed “Send” and picked up his tea.
His mug never reached his lips.
A pale arm broke through the hedge and the branches bucked with violence as a growl of frustration came from deep within.
Loki rose to his feet as a colorless, man-shaped creature pushed out of the wet greenery and stood in Loki’s yard. Its flesh was streaked with black veins showing through almost translucent skin. Dirty rags that had once been clothing hung from its frame. It spotted Loki through the window and bared a rotting-toothed smile.
Loki’s heart pounded in his ears as he raced through a mental catalog of possibilities and dismissed them one by one. He hadn’t been followed from Helheim—he’d made sure of that. It was equally unlikely that the pallid thing standing in his yard was a Halloween prankster. He was similarly unaware of mythological monste
rs that liked to hang out in urban hedges.
There was another inhuman growl as a second creature pushed through the hedge and left a gaping hole in the greenery. The two stood together, fists clenching and unclenching as they stared at Loki with pale, undead eyes.
Draugar. Loki’s hands shook as he put down his tea.
8
Sally and Saga sat next to each other on a bench across the street from the smoldering apartment building. They huddled under blankets given to them by rescue workers and sipped from disposable cups of hot chocolate while plumes of smoke curled out of broken windows and firefighters sprayed down the blackened brick walls.
“I’m beginning to understand why you don’t have any friends,” Saga said.
Sally bit back the sarcastic reply that sprang to mind, about how life as the Rune Witch was a party every day. Instead, she kept drinking the poorly mixed chocolate and nestled into her blanket. At least it had stopped raining.
“Could have been worse.” Saga gulped down her hot chocolate. She had black soot smeared across her forehead and chin. “I heard one of the firemen say it was a minor fire, mostly smoke damage. He’s pretty cute, too.”
She pointed at a three-man crew folding up a firehose and stowing it back on the truck. “The really tall one?”
Sally pulled out her phone. Only 22% battery power, but she’d managed to stuff her phone charger—and her laptop, Book of Shadows, some underwear and socks, and other crucial items—into her backpack before the fire ladder arrived at her third-floor apartment window. She’d grabbed Opal’s toothbrush, too, and a random collection of her roommate’s books. She’d also shoved her obsidian pendulum, a gift from Loki, into her pocket.
The draugar had apparently fled the scene before the rescue crews arrived. The fire chief walked among the rescue crews with her clipboard, issuing orders and taking notes. From what Sally had overheard, the authorities assumed the fire was caused by either a Halloween prank gone wrong or an exploded vape pen. Even if Sally tried to tell the chief about the draugar and the attack on her apartment, she was pretty sure the chief would simply nod and fit those details into one or both of her theories. Because who would believe there were real zombies in Portland?
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