Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (38 page)

Jake ble
w into the dog-whistle again and again.

Unable to resist its piping call, the
Fire Wolf followed.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

An Angry God

Jake’s hair blew in his eyes as he and Red raced across the sky, the Fire Wolf bounding along the ground below them. Clouds of drifting smoke from the forest fires and heavy ash from the volcano made his eyes water. He coughed, his lungs burning. But as he pulled his scarf across his nose and mouth to help filter the air, his greater concern was keeping an eye out for Loki.

He doubted t
he trickster god was done playing with them tonight.

In the distance, the volcano
, like a great, burning wound in the earth, oozed with blood-red lava flows dripping down its sides. Occasional plumes of fiery molten rock shot up into the dark sky and left huge smoke clouds towering in the distance.

Jake hoped those clouds of poison gases didn’t drift in his direction.

While the rumble in the mountain echoed like thunder in the distance, the immediate danger was closer. Through the swirling smoke, Jake could see the Fire Wolf racing through the forest, following them.

T
he Galton whistle had worked to get Fenrir’s attention, luring him to follow. Still, it was terrifying being the focus of the monster’s attention.

The
Fire Wolf was half as tall as the trees. It kept leaping up as it ran, trying to lunge at Red and him like a cat chasing a butterfly.

“Keep going, boy,” Jake urged his feathered friend. “W
e can’t lose altitude or that thing might jump high enough to grab us.”

With a cough
, Red valiantly flew on, racing toward the volcano as fast as his wings would carry them. The heavy film of the ash and smoke in the air made it hard for both of them to breathe. Jake knew the smoke was bothering Red, for he could feel the Gryphon starting to strain a little under his weight.

Glancing over his shoulder, Jake kept blowing the dog-whistle, luring the
Fire Wolf toward the volcano that was apparently its home.

But
as he looked forward again, up ahead in the distance, Jake saw a familiar figure standing in the barren wasteland between the lava flows.

Loki was dancing a jig of glee in anticipation
of his victory over the giants and all the Nine Worlds soon to follow. No doubt he was delighted at all the chaos he had caused.

But when the Lord of the Shapeshifters looked up and saw Jake and the Gryphon coming,
he stopped dancing and stared up at them in disbelief.

They flew over him at top s
peed.

Jake glanced back
to see Loki’s reaction when the trickster god realized what was happening. He blew the Galton whistle again, and in the next moment, the Fire Wolf emerged from the forest into the naked lands around the volcano.

Fenrir looked even larger without the trees crowding him in. As the beast leaped closer, Jake ut
tered a curse under his breath.

Terror made his heart tick like the second hand of a watch, but he could not afford to l
et fear cloud his mind. He had to focus on getting that monster back into the volcano before Loki interfered.

“Fenrir!”
the trickster god bellowed. “What are you doing? You’re going the wrong way! Come back here! Bad dog! Fenrir!”

The
Fire Wolf ignored him, focused on the piping tones from the Galton whistle that only he could hear.

Loki lost his temper at his dog’s disobedience.

Through the drifting smoke, Jake could see him changing into something. “Hurry, Red! I don’t trust that glock-wit. I think he’s comin’ after us.”

Red struggled to climb higher on the thin air, heading for the mouth of the volcano. He had to dart and bank this way and that as it spewed lava and hurled liquefied rock thousands of degrees in te
mperature into the air at them.

Jake quickly concluded that this was by far the most dangerous thing he had ever done
or ever cared to do in the future. He tried not to dwell on that fact, though, because panicking wasn’t going to help.

But when
Loki came winging out of the smoke clouds after them in a terrible new shape, Jake squinted in confusion.
What the—?

A flying monkey?

Loki cackled as he sped after them disguised as a flying chimpanzee; he wore a little red pillbox hat and a vest, like some sort of demented mechanical toy. “Oh, Cake,” he called, “where do you think you’re going?”

Apparen
tly, he could still talk in that form.

Jake shook his head, re
fusing to react to the strangeness of Loki’s appearance. The trickster had obviously chosen that bizarre shape to try to shock and confuse him, and thereby gain the upper hand.

It wasn’t going to work.

“Hurry, Red, he’s gaining on us,” Jake warned.

But it was already too late. Zooming up from below them, the flying monkey launched his attack, grabbing for the Galton whistle. “Give me that trinket! You don’t get to ruin my fun!”

Loki grasped Jake’s arm with his leathery monkey fingers and tried to drag him off the Gryphon’s back.

They struggled while Red flew on towards the volcano.

Jake smacked the monkey’s little hat down over his eyes. Loki screeched in his face and bared his monkey fangs in answer; then he doubled his attack, buffeting Jake not just with his hands now, but his weird monkey feet, too, his black wings flapping all the while.

“Ha, ha, you’re going to die!” the flying monkey chattered gleefully as they neared the volcano, but when he nearly threw Jake o
ff Red’s back, Jake punched him across his face.

Loki lost his balance and slipped off Red’s back, plummeting to
ward the ground.

Unable to get any lift in the thin air, the
Loki-monkey plunged and tumbled through the sky, disappearing through the drifting clouds of smoke.

Jake
peered toward the ground. He had a feeling Loki wouldn’t stay down long.

He murmured to the Gryph
on to steady him, but as glad as he was to be rid of the unpredictable trickster god, the moment he looked over his shoulder to check on the Fire Wolf, he gasped to find the beast right behind them.

“Higher, Red—fast!” he yelled as the monstrous dog leaped into the air, snapping its ja
ws right beneath them.

A
t that moment, the Fire Wolf had reached the edge of the volcano’s mouth, where it leaped into the air one last time to try and catch them—and fell straight down into the volcano.

“Now!”
Archie yelled, watching through his telescope. The instant he saw the Fire Wolf plunge back into its fiery home, he gave the signal. “Release!”

Snorri
let loose an enormous catapult.

The trebuchet
had been King Olaf’s pride and joy.

The second he released the tension on the arm, the catapult
swung a huge rock forward, aiming straight at the volcano.

Incoming!

Jake ducked and Red dove out of the way as a hunk of stone the size of a Greek island flew through the night and landed in the center of the volcano, capping it with a huge boom.

“Yes!”
Jake punched the air with a jubilant fist.

But the giants didn’t stop there. They continued firing great stones from the catapult and working in groups to throw more boulders into the crater of the volcano until they had well and truly stoppered it.
The mountain groaned, but it spewed forth no more fire. There was no way the Fire Wolf was getting out of there.

“Look at that, Red! They did it—
and so did we!”

“Caw!” the Gryphon answered in triumph, but
then the poor creature started coughing in the smoke.

Jake reached down and gave Red a pat
. “You can land now, boy. You must be exhausted.”

Red did not need to be told twice. He d
ipped his right wing lower, banking back toward the giants’ village.

Unfortunately, they had not yet seen the last of Loki.

When the trickster god had hit the earth, thrown down by a mere mortal boy, a rage filled Loki, the likes of which he had never known.

Snapping his fingers on the way down, he got rid o
f his amusing flying monkey shape. By the time he hit the ground with a thud, he was back to his usual, preferred form of the mad prince.

Being an immortal, he was, of course, unf
azed by the fall, just a little bruised. But as he climbed to his feet, his dark eyes were glazed with fury, for the greatest wound tonight was to his pride.

Loki lowered his head, closed his eyes, and brought up both of his fists
at his sides, willing himself to grow.

And grow he did.

Through the drifting clouds of smoke and rivers of lava coursing past him, the forest an inferno around him, he grew and grew, until he stood higher than the trees, taller than three giants.

Taller, indeed, than the volcano.

He was a god, after all.

He was not about
to be undone by a mortal brat and his pet lion-eagle-thing.

“Oh, Cake!” he called
ever so pleasantly. In his gigantic size, Loki’s voice reverberated through the mountains. “Come back here, you brat. I’ve had enough of your mischief. You’ve been a Very. Naughty. Boy.”

Then Loki
stepped over the trees and went after him.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Son of Odin

Ah, crud.
Jake glanced over his shoulder in terror and saw the gigantic Loki coming. He was kind of hard to miss.

Red flapped his wings frantically to try to stay ahead of their towering pursuer, but it was no use.

With a laugh, Loki caught them between his cupped hands and trapped them like a firefly. “Now I’ve got you!”

Jake tumble
d off the Gryphon’s back and struggled to get his bearings, while Red immediately put up a fight.

“Ow!” Loki exclaimed as the Gryphon pecked his palm, hard, with his beak. “Bad birdie! You think you can hurt me? Why, that was nothing but a pinprick.” He opened his hands just enough to pluck Jake up by the back of his c
ollar, dangling him between his finger and thumb.

Hanging precariously over the ground so far below, Jake kicked his legs while the trickster god took Red in his other hand in similar fashion.
Compared to him, they seemed no larger than toys: miniature soldiers, chess pieces, tiny figurines.

“Dear little Cake. You ar
e quite an interesting fellow,” Loki said. “But you’ve wrecked my plans and now you’ll have to pay.”

“I’m not afraid o’ you!” Dangling from his fingers, Jake tried to take a swing at him, but Loki laughed in amusement.

“Then you’re more stupid than the giants.”

Jake had to admit it was hardly a fair fight. Indeed, at Loki’s current size, dwarfing the giants, the mere breath from his lips when he spoke was enough to blow away the plumes of smoke that curled
around him. “Ow! Stop that!” he snapped, turning his attention to Red, who had scratched Loki’s huge finger with his hind claws.

“
You
are beginning to annoy me,” he informed the Gryphon. He lifted Red higher, inspecting him more closely. “Hmm, when I was a wee boy, do you know what I liked to do? I really enjoyed pulling the wings off dragonflies.”

“No!” Jake screamed as Loki started gently pulling o
n one of Red’s wings. “Leave him alone! Take me! It’s my fault! Don’t hurt him! Please! He was only following my orders!”

Loki paused, glancing over at him. “
How very noble of you, dear lad. But don’t worry, you’re next—”

His words were suddenly drowned out by a BOOM! so loud it seemed to crack the earth.

“LOKI!”

The reverberating bellow seemed to come from everywhere at once.

Jake glanced around in a panic but saw nothing.

Loki’s eyes narrowed as the biggest lightning bolt Jake had ever seen came
rocketing out of the dark sky. Suddenly, Thor was there, catching his balance after his huge, single leap between worlds. He, too, had made himself gigantic, but unlike Loki, the thunder god was covered in muscles.

“Caw!” Red called to Jake, who nodded eagerly.

“I know!” Thor must have finally tracked them here after he and Archie had broken into Valhalla and then escaped.

He came striding across the mountains toward his nemesis.

“Releasing the Fire Wolf?” he demanded in fury. “Half of Jugenheim is burning! I should’ve known you were behind this. You have no right to be here, Loki. Leave. Now. Before I
make
you leave.”

“You might actually scare me if you had a brain, you muscle-bound numskull.” Loki sneered, though he backed away as Thor approached.

“Help! Help!” Jake yelled in the meanwhile. “Help, please! He’s goin’ to kill us!”

“So! There you are, intruder. I’ll deal with you next. Loki, release the human and his creature.”

“Who are you to give me orders?” Loki fairly screamed. “I am just as much of a prince as you!”

“Don’t make me tell you twice,” Thor warned.

Backing away, Loki cast about in frustration for some escape, only to realize he was trapped. “Meathead!”

For some reason, Thor
really
didn’t like being called a meathead. Maybe deep down, he knew that Loki was smarter than him. But slyness and brains didn’t always trounce brawn, and this was one of those occasions.

A look of wrath c
ame over Thor’s broad, ruddy face.

At least it was an honest face.

“
Aaaargh!”
With a mighty growl, he hurled his hammer at Loki. “Go back down to Neiflheim where you belong, devil!”

Loki shrieked, letting go of Jake and Red to try to dive out of the way.

But Thor’s shining hammer followed him, spinning through the air, end over end, passing with a deadly
whoosh
.

Meanwhile, Jake and Red, dropped by Lok
i, were tumbling through the air. Somehow, before they hit the river of lava beneath them, Red righted himself and caught Jake in his beak at the last minute, swooping him to safety.

Wide-eyed, Jake dangled from the Gryphon’s mouth as Red glided
down to a small patch of the forest that wasn’t burning. The second they landed, Jake turned to see what would happen to Loki.

At just that moment,
when Loki turned to see if he might escape, Thor’s hammer struck the trickster in the belly. It kept flying, carrying Loki off his feet, until it sent him crashing back onto the huge capstone the giants had tossed up onto the top of the volcano.

The
slab of rock cracked under his gigantic weight. Loki fell into the volcano with a shout, butt first. His feet were the last to disappear. Jake could still hear the echo of his yell as he plunged out of sight.

A puff of smoke
and tongues of flame shot into the dark sky as the Lord of the Shapeshifters was forcibly returned to his underworld realm.

Meanwhile, Thor’s hammer flew back into its owner’s hand. Thor grasped the handle, striding over the forest to the volcano.

Taking no chances that Loki or his dog might get out again, Thor smashed the volcano with his hammer, making the whole thing cave in. The mountain turned to rubble—the top of it flattened, Loki buried within.

Watching in the distance,
Archie and the giants cheered, but Thor was not yet finished with his cleanup job.

Jake stared in awe as the Viking
god of the weather reached up into the skies and pulled down a handful of storm-clouds. He flung them around, then pointed at them, commanding them in an ancient Norse tongue.

With a huge crackle of lightning and a deafening roar of thunder, the storm-clouds released a torrent of rain.

Jake cheered and hugged the Gryphon in excitement as the rain drenched them and all of Jugenheim, putting out the raging fires burning farms and forests.

Clouds of steam rose as cold r
ain doused red-hot surfaces; the downpour also helped to clear the smoke out of the air.

Thor puffed out his cheeks and
blew away the poison gases still lingering over the now-defunct volcano.

Meanwhile, the
sheets of rain drummed the charred forests and cooled the lava flows into bizarre, black forms of twisted, misshapen stone.

The rain continued
drumming them all as the mighty Thor bent down to have a word with Jake.

Jake cowered from him.

“You! You’re the intruder who broke into my father’s fortress.”

Jake didn’t dare
attempt to lie to him after Thor’s display of awesome power. “I am,” he admitted with a gulp.

“How dare you?” he demanded.

“I’m sorry, I had no choice!” he yelped. “I had to go into the palace to find the answer to Loki’s riddle, or he’d have taken control of the giants and led an invasion of the earth! Please don’t Blood-Eagle me!” he shouted, lowering his head and throwing his arms up to protect himself from the mighty Norse god.

“Now, now,” a new
voice interrupted from nearby, “nobody’s going to Blood-Eagle anyone. The truth is, we don’t really go in for that sort of thing much anymore.”

Slowly, Ja
ke looked up, lowering his arms, raising his head. He was almost afraid to look. But when he did, he saw a rugged old man with an eye-patch walking toward him from out of the clouds of steam that hung over the half-burnt forest.

He was human-sized,
with a shock of white hair and the leathery, tanned complexion of an outdoorsman or an old soldier.

Approaching
, he moved with a slight limp. There was something so familiar about him, Jake thought. But for a moment, he couldn’t place him.

The old man waved off
the sky god. “It’s all right, Thor. I’ll take it from here. I’ve been watching this young warrior for quite some time,” he said in a deep, gravelly voice.

“Me? A
warrior?” Jake echoed. Why, no one had ever called him that before.

He was only twelve, after all.

“Father,” Thor said, bending his head in respect to the old man.

“Thank you for your assistance, son.”

Jake drew in his breath, realizing that if this was Thor’s father, then that meant it could only be Odin.

The king of the gods himself!

And at that very moment, he remembered where he had seen the old man before.

The
one-eyed janitor from the University!

“You!” Jake blurted out, wide-eyed. “You were the one who warned me when Archie got abducted!
” He stared in shock. “Odin?”

The old man flashed a wolfish grin and Jake suddenly recalled
something Miss Langesund had said about Odin roaming the world in disguise, looking for warriors to recruit for Valhalla…

“Why, y
ou’ve been watching all along, haven’t you?” he burst out. “You knew from the start that Snorri broke the seal between the worlds! You must have seen it in that pool! But sir—! Why didn’t you say anything?”

“How dare you question the king of the gods?” Thor thundered.

But the old All-Father of the Vikings smiled shrewdly, studying Jake. “Why, indeed?”

Jake stared back at him, amazed and
just a wee bit irked at his non-answer.

I
t figured the god of wisdom would answer a question with a question.

Odin cracked a stony grin and clapped him on the back.
“Come along, lad. Let’s get you and your genius cousin home.”