I grabbed on to the handrail, yelling after her, “I have no idea what you’re talking about! As usual,” I muttered under my breath. This was so crazy. “Midgard, Asgard, Vanir…whatever.” I shuffled down the steps. “I need an umbrella.”
* * *
The subway car Ingrid entered was fairly empty. Other than a few curiously raised eyebrows about her choice of attire, no one said a word, which wasn’t a surprise.
Huggie had either disappeared or flown off, and I was relieved.
“Where are we headed to now?” I asked as I took a bench seat opposite Ingrid. My duffel was sprawled out next to her. The subway doors closed, and the train took off.
“We’re heading to the airport.”
“The airport? Are you serious?”
“How else are we supposed to get out of town? Well, other than a portal. But those are too risky at the moment. The shieldmaidens have a private jet parked in New Jersey at Teterboro. The modern human world has forced us to adjust over the past hundred years. Even though it’s not our preferred mode of transportation, it works fine. Usually.” Her voice ominous.
“But…” I trailed off. “Ingrid, I can’t leave town. I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I’ve played along with you thus far, but honestly, I have to go home. I have a job and a life, and I like it in New York. I can’t just jet off on some mad tangent with you! This is so insane.”
Ingrid leaned forward, resting her forearms on her thighs, her face serious. “Phoebe, listen to me. I understand this has been a lot to take in and you’re freaked out. But what’s happening here is real. I’m not known for my soothing nature or my subtleness. I’m known for kicking someone’s ass four ways from Friday. That’s why I’m here. I’m the best protection you’ve got. When, and if, this blows over, you can think about returning to New York, but until then—”
The lights in the car flickered, and the car was thrown into complete darkness.
“What’s going on?” I whispered as my blood began to gallop in my veins. When she didn’t answer, I urged, “Ingrid, this isn’t funny!” I grabbed on to the handrail beside me, wrapping a hand around the metal bar. I tried to wait patiently for her to get back to me, but when no emergency lights blinked on, panic bubbled in my chest like carbonation out of a shaken can of soda.
The only illumination came from the occasional dim light outside the tunnel, giving the inside of the car a sporadic strobe of artificial light. There were some quiet murmurings from the other passengers, but it was going to take a lot more than a blackout to freak out a seasoned New Yorker.
I, however, was not seasoned. “Ingrid!” My voice was shrill because she still hadn’t answered me. “I can’t take any more! What’s going on?”
“Stay right where you are.” Ingrid’s order came from a space over by the doors closest to us. As we passed another light, I saw her crouched down.
I was restless, so I glanced out the window.
A face stared back at me.
I screamed.
The head was leathery, and it had gleaming yellow eyes. It opened its maw and snarled at me, revealing rows of sharp, pointy teeth.
Several things happened at once.
My head snapped to Ingrid, who was shouting something I couldn’t understand. In the next flicker of light, I saw an object hurtling toward me. Instinctively, I stretched out my hand, and a rock the size of a walnut landed in my palm. As I closed my fist around it, Huggie soared down the aisle, his eyes brilliant, like two clear, glowing orbs of gleaming mercury in the dark.
The raven landed on the rail next to me, squawking loudly, and I bravely shot another gaze out the window.
Mercifully, it was clear.
Ingrid was still yelling at me, and I jerked my head in her direction, but I was having trouble focusing on anything.
“Phoebe! Put the stone in your mouth!”
“Wha—?”
“Just do it!”
I numbly glanced down. It was too dark to see exactly what I was holding, but I brought it up to my lips, hesitating for only a brief moment before I popped it in.
At this point, I was out of options.
Coherent thoughts weren’t forming in my mind. Following Ingrid’s lead was my only real choice, and at least I had the wherewithal to realize it.
If I couldn’t trust her, all was lost.
A warm tingling sensation began to buzz through my body as the “stone” disintegrated on my tongue. The initial flavor was a sweet, buttery rum, but as it spread over my mouth, the aftertaste puckered like citrus.
I pressed my lips together until the gross taste subsided.
After a few moments, I felt calm enough to take inventory of the car. I craned my head around, wondering if any of the other passengers had seen the same face I had. It was unlikely, since I hadn’t heard any other screaming.
Surprisingly, everyone was out cold, slumped over in their seats.
I whipped back around. “Ingrid!” I whisper-yelled, stretching into the aisle, hoping not to disturb Huggie. The bird remained quiet. “What’s going on? Why is everyone asleep? Don’t they know we’re in trouble?” That creature’s ugly face fluttered through my mind, and the hair on my arms jumped to attention. “And what did I just eat? I feel kind of lightheaded.”
Ingrid hadn’t moved from her position by the doors. She was still crouched, the trick spear at full length. “Sit down, Phoebe,” Ingrid hissed, motioning me back with her free arm. “I gave you a cloak stone. It’s made by the white elves, and it’s powerful stuff. It’s targeted to my blood, so I’m the only one who can see you. The ettins are here, but even if they come aboard, you should stay hidden from them for now. Plus, with Huggie here, they’ll think twice about storming the train. As long as the train keeps moving, we should be fine.”
Huggie gave a loud caw and flapped his wings.
I sat back on my seat. “But why is everyone asleep?”
“It’s a safety precaution, Phoebe. They can’t see Huggie or the ettins, but the humans will remember you and me and what went on tonight. We had to put them out. Just sit tight.”
“What exactly is an ettin?” I assumed she had been referring to the beastie outside my window, but I couldn’t be sure. “It looked like something I’d imagine living under a bridge and eating small children for breakfast.”
“They are the Norns’ primary agents, a mix between lake troll and dark elf, so that’s actually not far from the truth. They’re hard to kill, the little bastards. They have extremely thick hides, and they’re quick. Most likely a bunch of them are out there waiting for an opportunity to snatch you.”
“Snatch me? Why would they want to do that?” Before I could ask her to elaborate on their kidnapping plans, the subway car hitched and began to slow.
It rocked back and forth as the speed diminished, tossing me around in my seat.
Crap! Ingrid said we had to keep moving.
Huggie rose off his perch and flew toward the far end of the car. That wasn’t a good sign.
“Come on, Phoebe! The ettins are stopping the train. We have to get out of here.” Ingrid jumped from her position by the doorway, reaching me in two strides. She hoisted me out of my seat, positioning me in front of her. “Follow Huggie. Now!”
We raced toward the far end of the car.
Huggie had already disappeared, so I pulled open the doors, and we took off through to the next one. As we ran, the train slowed until it was only inching along.
In every car we ran through, the passengers were asleep.
I slid to a stop when Huggie appeared out of thin air in front of me and gave a giant squawk. Ingrid twisted me with both hands toward the outside doors.
It was dark and hard to see much of anything.
“We’re getting out here.” Ingrid stepped in front of me, shoving her spear into the crack between the doors. They burst open with enough force to make them clang back and forth. She jumped onto a very narrow walkway next to the train and scanned the dim darkne
ss like a predator, sniffing and cocking her head from side to side. When she was satisfied, she motioned me out.
As I stepped onto the old broken concrete she drew something out of her tunic. How many things did she have stored in there? “Phoebe, you’re going to need to protect yourself from now on.”
I glanced shakily around me, trying to locate any more of those little yellow-eyed monsters before focusing on the object Ingrid held out to me.
“This is Gram.” She placed the knife carefully on my open palm. “This dagger can cut through just about anything, including the hide of an ettin. The cloak stone should hold, but ettins are tricky. They know you’re with me and will look for you in all the obvious places. If you get cornered, go for their eyes.”
In a daze, I gazed down at the dagger I held in my hand and then back up at Ingrid stupidly.
Without waiting for a response, Ingrid grabbed on to my arm above the elbow and propelled me down the tunnel after Huggie, who had gone far ahead. “Oh, and don’t let them bite you,” she told me. “Their saliva is full of hateful poison.”
I gripped the hilt of the weapon like a lifeline and allowed myself to be led down the tunnel like a zombie, trying to put one foot in front of the other as quickly as I could without stumbling. When I finally found my voice, it wasn’t much more than a squeak. “Ing…” I cleared it and tried again. “Ingrid…I don’t understand. All of this is so unreal…I don’t think I can do this…” My steps faltered, and I almost fell.
Ingrid turned, gripping me by the shoulders. “You have to wake up, Phoebe.” She shook me. “You’re going into shock, but we don’t have time for you to do that right now. I’m just shy of slapping you completely silly. If you don’t fight for your life right now, you won’t get another chance. Do you understand me? This is it. You have to woman up and fight through this. I know you can. It runs in your blood. You’re stronger than you think.”
“But, Ingrid…I don’t know how to fight,” I responded lamely. This couldn’t be right. What we were experiencing couldn’t be real. “I’m not equipped to handle anything like this. I grew up in a small town. I don’t even know how to fire a gun.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to learn on the job, aren’t you? That’s why we’re heading to the Valkyrie stronghold. I don’t have time to explain everything now. We can’t wait here like sitting ducks for the ettins to make their move. You’re going to have to trust me. We have to keep going, and when they come, we fight.” She turned, keeping a firm hand on my arm, guiding me forward. “Phoebe, I know you can do this. You’re just going to have to dig deep and find it.”
After a few paces, Huggie shrieked in front of us and Ingrid swore, breaking her hold on me and reaching for her spear. She spun and yelled, “Phoebe! Watch out—”
A cold, bony hand latched around my ankle.
One yank, and I was gone.
4
__________________________
____________
Hands were all over me, grabbing me, pulling me, manhandling me.
It was pitch dark, and we were moving fast. No more tunnel lights. I hadn’t noticed when they’d gone out, but it was black as night. I twisted my body, trying to scream, to make some kind of noise, but the leathery fingers covering me held me like iron, including the hand clamped over my mouth.
Huggie was in the distance, his loud, angry squawk echoing through the tunnel. He was moving away from me, not toward me.
“Two can play the same game, little biiiirdie,” a gravelly voice below me growled. “We, too, can be cloaaaaked.”
The words had been delivered methodically slow and were incredibly awful.
I moaned, still trying to squirm my way free. With some hope, I realized I was still gripping Gram in one fist. Why these little monsters hadn’t stripped me of the dagger was a mystery, but I wasn’t going to question my good luck now. I tightened my hold around it. It was my only lifeline.
“Phoebe!” Ingrid shouted from what felt like too far away. “I promise I’m going to find you. You’re still cloaked! Remember that!”
Still cloaked?
How could I still be hidden when these little beasts had obviously found me?
The bodies under me picked up their pace after Ingrid’s words. There must have been at least a dozen of them. We were heading away from Ingrid at a fast clip.
“Huuuurry, the shieldmaiden draws near,” one of the voices ordered the group. “She must not reach us before we get to the porrrrtal.”
I thrashed again and got lucky. One of my legs broke free, and it struck something hard. By the echo of the noise, it sounded like the side of a subway car.
I was within reach of help! The subway was right there.
With renewed vigor, I wrested my body back and forth, making it as hard as I could for my captors to keep their filthy grips on me.
Then, without warning, the group took a sharp left.
The beasties’ footsteps echoed less now, so we must’ve entered a smaller area, likely an offshoot tunnel.
“Here it issss,” a dark and gravelly voice announced to the group.
I could still hear Huggie’s angry call out in the main tunnel. If these horrid creatures succeeded in getting me out of New York, I knew my chances for survival were next to nothing.
I screamed.
Straight into the hand covering my mouth.
No sound escaped. Not even a whimper.
The group came to an abrupt halt. More hands wrapped around me, and I was completely immobilized.
One of the creatures broke away from the group, jabbering words I couldn’t come close to understanding. To my left, a faint glow erupted on the tunnel wall. Now that I could see, I frantically searched around, trying to get my bearings. It was no use. We were in a small tunnel with nothing else around.
The horrid little beast that faced the wall began to chant.
I wrenched my head toward the glow, and my eyes widened. Light began to flicker and move on its own, slowly swirling. The eddy of light spiraled in a lazy circle—not on the surface of the wall, but inside the concrete. I watched in morbid curiosity as the creature took its wickedly sharp fingernail and scratched some geometric patterns into the light.
The sound made my skin crawl.
In a shallow hiss, the creature recited something in English. “By the tree of Yggdrasillllll, open your doorssss, we come on a mission, sent from the Nornsssss, our entry we pay willingly to thee, bear my blood to the rootsssss of your treeeee.”
Then, it lifted its long, sharp fingernail off the wall and slashed it deeply into its own forearm. The sound was ridiculous, a slurping and rending of skin that would be etched in my mind forever.
A thick stream of liquid erupted out of the wound, but it wasn’t red. It was a ghastly, putrid amber. The thing had motor oil for blood. I gagged and closed my eyes, willing myself away—anywhere but here.
More sounds from the creature, and my eyes fluttered open. I was riveted, unable to look anywhere else, to the scene unfolding in front of me.
Light swirled even more frenetically on the wall, faster and faster.
Then, to my abject horror, the hideous beast dipped its nail into the gash it’d torn in its skin and took the thick, dripping mess and smeared it on the wall in the center of the light in circular motions chanting, “Yggdrasil, yggdrasil, yggdrasil, yggdrasil…”
From out in the main tunnel, I heard a clattering of footsteps. They were racing quickly in our direction, and they were getting louder by the second.
Ingrid was coming!
“Hurrrry, she nears!” one of the voices below me growled with urgency. My body shifted from side to side as the creatures steered me closer to the wall.
Now was my last chance! I flexed all my muscles, forcing my neck upward with all the remaining strength I had left in my body.
A few of the gross leathery fingers covering my mouth slid to the side, and I thrashed my head back and forth with renewed hope. If I could get
free, I could yell. If it was loud enough, Ingrid could save me from whatever was about to happen.
A little more, and I broke free, gasping for air. “Ingrid! I’m here! I’m here! They’re taking me away—”
“It’s too late for youuuu,” one of the creatures growled. As a group, they lowered me down, tugging harshly on my arms and legs. They swung me twice, cackling, “Goodbyeeee.”
On the third swing, they tossed me straight into the swirling light.
I screamed as I plunged through it like I’d been thrown into the deep end of a pool. I free-fell into the void, my arms pinwheeling frantically. There was nothing to grasp on to. My stomach dropped to my knees, like a bag of concrete tossed directly on top of my lungs.
I couldn’t breathe.
Gaping like a fish, my body was tossed in circles. The pressure was too much. It was yanking me apart, and it felt like my brain was going to explode.
Just when I thought I couldn’t handle any more, things went blessedly black.
* * *
“Where is she? I told you not to fail me on this, Bragnon! That little human is doomed. She will not get by us. If the shieldmaiden Ingrid thinks she can outsmart me, she has much to learn. She will not be able to save the girl. None of them will. Not even Odin himself.”
“We have not failed you, missssus.” The familiar leathery voice jerked me out of my delirium. My head felt like it’d been split open and my gray matter was leaking out. I twitched my hand and felt dirt. “The girl issss here, but she is clooooaked. Have no fear, she will be found.”
I opened one eye.
A pair of old, scuffed shoes passed within an inch of my face. “She better be here. If she came through the other portal, we would’ve heard her by now. You go to the barracks. Tell them to be on high alert. I’m going to check the receiving room.”
The voices trailed out of the room.
I eased my aching head up, making as little noise as possible. I couldn’t see anything from my vantage point on the floor. It seemed I was wedged under some kind of bookcase. I craned my neck and peeked out. The first thing I saw was a low fire burning in a stone fireplace. It held a smoking black cauldron, which hung from an iron rod. The fire was crackling, and there was actual steam bubbling out of the pot.
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