Foretold (12 page)

“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 focus, 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!”

“But what about Geri and Freak?”

“They’re winning!” He pointed.

I turned back to see the giant taking off into the woods, trailing bright red blood on the fresh snow. Geri and Freak stood watching, their sides heaving, and when they turned I saw the glow of yellow—their magic—bright in their eyes. I whipped around to see if the others noticed the glowing wolf eyes, but Tucker and Rose were too far away and Lily was too busy helping Randy, whose eyes were closed.

The big guy had blood dripping down his temple. His girlfriend tried to help him to Vanir’s truck, but she was still watching the woods and she shook so much she stumbled. Randy groaned as he started to fall and Vanir hurried forward to help. He draped Randy’s arm around his shoulders.

“Always knew you had a thing for me,” Randy said as Vanir helped him into the cab. The joke completely lacked humor. Like his girlfriend, Randy looked pale and shell-shocked until he eyed his truck. Then his frown grew fierce, his hands tightened into fists. “She dented the whole side in. Big stupid bitch. And what the hell, man? What was she?”

“I don’t know,” Vanir said, but he looked at me, worry tightening his lips. He knew what she was and he knew what part she was supposed to play in all this—that everything was all wrong. And for some reason, she’d been scared of me.

“I’ll call Uncle Phil as soon as the phones start working,” he continued. “Have him come out with the sheriff to get your truck.” Vanir helped Lily up. She squeezed onto Randy’s lap.

“They better bring a few others, too. With guns. Lots of guns.” She shuddered, leaned close to the windshield. “Are Geri and Freak okay?”

I climbed in on the driver’s side and ended up plastered against Vanir when he got in. Immediately, his emotion seeped into me. His suspicion felt murky...dirty, kind of like I wallowed in swamp water. I closed my eyes and clasped my hands together in my lap. Those were his feelings.

For me.

“What just happened?” Lily blurted. “I don’t understand any of this. First we get snow in the middle of summer and now a giant came out of the woods? A giant?”

Vanir started up the truck, turned the heat on to high, but didn’t move until Tucker and Rose had pulled out. Then he got out, opened the tailgate of his truck and closed it after Geri and Freak jumped into the bed. He didn’t say a word when he climbed back into the cab, didn’t answer Lily.

“I don’t understand,” she continued. I could feel her trembling along my right side. “Why would that woman attack us like that?”

Randy hugged his girlfriend close. “Don’t think that was a woman.”

“Of course it was. A scary, colossal freak, but she was female.” She leaned over me to touch Vanir’s arm. “Are you okay to drive? She hit you pretty hard.”

I should have asked him that. Should have offered to drive. But all I could do was sit there and go over what she’d said. She’d talked about dark spirits and one of the scarier Norse worlds, and somehow she tied me up in that. Why? I had no idea what she’d meant. None. But it made me think of Vanir’s brother asking about the dark ones last night.

“I’m okay,” Vanir finally said. “We need to get Randy to a hospital, though.”

“No hospital. I’ve heard that place has turned into a loony bin. Just take me home. We can have your aunt come look at my head, right?”

“Yeah.”

I wallowed in miserable, confused silence and it took forever to get to Randy’s house. The snow fell with a vengeance, turning the roads invisible, and with the rampaging wind, snowdrifts were appearing in the middle of the streets. It took all of Vanir’s concentration to keep the truck on path. At least, I hoped that’s why he stayed so quiet after answering Randy.

Lily and Randy sat in silent shock. They probably hadn’t been brought up with magic and extra mythological knowledge pounded into their heads. In their world, snow in summer and giant loinclothed women didn’t exist, so they had to be scared. But in mine, while I’d never seen a giant, I still knew of them, or knew where she might be from, anyway. How had she gotten here from Niflheim? To think a monster from one of the nine Norse worlds, the coldest and darkest of their worlds, was free in the hills of Oklahoma.... It scared the crap out of me.