Thor's Serpents, page 5
“This way,” Owen muttered as he grabbed her arm and started pulling her through the lobby deeper into the Journey Museum. “Watch for wolves. They’re everywhere.”
“Wolves?” She looked at him and saw that he had the glassy eyes of someone trying not to be swept up in the unreal things he was seeing. “They’re fake, Owen. Whatever you see is fake. These are mara.”
He nodded. “The Berserkers are protecting people. I need to protect you.”
His words weren’t wrong, but they weren’t exactly right, either. He’d helped her learn how to use her bow, and he’d rescued the twins. He wasn’t usually the sort of person to hover at her side like this. Not seeing the future any longer appeared to have left the representative of Odin a little lost. Around Matt and the others, Owen still seemed to be trying to sound like himself. With her, he was more… vulnerable.
“They’ll take my other eye,” he whispered. “They might take your eyes, too. We need to hide from the wolves.”
“Focus.” She lightly slapped his cheek. “Focus on me, Owen. There are no wolves. There are only mara here. They’re creating nightmares from your fears.”
“Shhh! The twins are with Matt, so it’s just us with no magic to help.” Baldwin was beside her then, standing on her left, so she was between the two boys. Walking three across wasn’t a good plan, though. It made them too much of a target. It also made them more likely to run into obstacles and meant that she didn’t have a free hand.
Laurie linked hands with Baldwin, and then ordered, “We’ll walk in a row. Grab Owen, and don’t let go of him.”
“Got him,” Baldwin whispered. “Lead on.”
She kept her flashlight tucked under her shirt to dim the light. She wanted to keep them from being seen, but she couldn’t totally go without it. When there is no power at all, the world gets very dark—especially when the sun and moon aren’t anywhere to be found in the sky. The sky was black, and the lights were out. There was nothing but darkness inside and outside.
I can do this.
It might be a lie, but Fen wasn’t there. Matt was somewhere else. She didn’t have a lot of options. She would have to lead them.
As if the dark weren’t already terrifying enough, monsters waited in the blackness all around them. Laurie wasn’t certain of it, but it seemed pretty likely that mara could see better without light than the humans could. They were creatures of nightmares, and nightmares happened at night. It only made sense that they were stronger in the dark. So Laurie would get them to a safer place than out here in the lobby, and they’d figure out what to do from there. Hopefully they could reconnect with Matt and the twins.
Laurie led Baldwin and Owen farther into the museum, but they didn’t find any of the others. What they found were monsters. She heard growling only a moment before Baldwin jerked her to a stop.
“Fen?” Baldwin asked.
“Raiders!” Owen stepped forward so the three of them were standing in a small cluster.
And there, in front of her, was Fen. He had a lantern of some sort, and he was only a few steps away. She was relieved. He was here! They’d all been wrong. She knew it! But even as she smiled, she noticed that something was wrong. Fen wasn’t coming to help her. He wasn’t explaining what Matt had seen in the forest. Instead, he stood there with Skull and Hattie at his side. Hattie held his hand in hers, and Skull smirked at them.
“How does it feel?” Skull asked.
“What?” Laurie croaked.
“To know that Fen was working for us for almost two years,” Hattie said. “We knew that Ragnarök was coming. He’s been our spy. He left you.”
“I would’ve saved you, but you aren’t worth saving.” Fen flashed his teeth at Laurie. “You didn’t think I’d care about you after you lied to me, did you?”
“I didn’t lie.” She tried to step forward, but someone held on to her arm. She dropped her flashlight trying to pull away from the person who had her arm.
“You didn’t tell me about Owen. You kept secrets from me.” Fen watched her.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything, but that doesn’t mean you should help them.” Laurie tried to reach the flashlight, but it had vanished. The light was still shining at Fen, who was walking toward her now. As he got closer, she could see that there were teeth marks in his arm. Someone—probably one of the wolves—had attacked him. His arms were bleeding now.
“You don’t understand. You’re not like me.” Fen shook his head. “I hoped you would be a wolf, too, but you’re not. That’s really why I had to leave. You won’t survive the fight, so I’m not going to bother trying to help you anymore. If you were a wolf, you could join me, but only the wulfenkind will survive Ragnarök. You’ll die.” He inclined his head toward Baldwin and Owen. “Them too. It was a waste to worry about trying to rescue either of them when they’re going to die soon anyhow. You were weak, and you were trying to make me weak, too.”
“No,” she insisted. “You listen to me, Fenrir Brekke. I didn’t lie, and the world isn’t ending. We can win. You can come back with me, and we’ll win.”
Hattie and Skull laughed. They were laughing so hard that they seemed to be shaking like they were ready to fall over. Laurie realized that she was shaking, too. It wasn’t from laughter, but because the floor was vibrating.
“Something’s wrong,” she told them all. “Something is very wrong.”
No one listened, though, and the vibrations from the floor were making it hard to stand. Earthquakes weren’t typical in South Dakota. Tornadoes were, but that wouldn’t explain why the floor in the museum was rattling.
“Pay attention!” she yelled.
Skull and Hattie kept laughing, and Fen was staring at her in anger. Laurie looked around the surprisingly bright room. It seemed strange that she could see when everything had been so dark only a few moments ago.
Before she could figure out why, Laurie saw the trolls running toward them. Giant trolls, a whole army of them, were running so fast that it would only be a moment until they trampled the Raiders.
“Fen!” she screamed. “Look out!”
But the troll grabbed him in a hand that was already turning to stone—even though it was obviously not dawn—and Fen was swept up into the air. His legs were dangling, kicking at nothing, and the two Raiders were laughing. He was being choked by a troll, and the Raiders were laughing.
“It’s your fault,” Hattie said. “You lied to him, and now he’s dying.”
“No!” Laurie started running toward her cousin, but in a moment, she was jerked back by both arms. Fen, the troll, and the two Raiders all vanished. Everything went dark again, as if the light she’d seen all around them had been turned off. Suddenly, she was standing outside the Lakota tipi in the center of the room with Baldwin and Owen at her sides.
“How… Where… What happened to Fen? And the troll?” She looked around the room. The light that she had seen by just a moment ago was gone. “The light went away—”
“Mara,” Baldwin said quietly. “Remember? Whatever you saw wasn’t real. No Fen. No light. No trolls.”
“It was like you were asleep but standing.” Owen nudged her toward the tipi, and as much as she didn’t want to move away from where she thought she’d just seen Fen, she knew that she had to. Fen wasn’t really here. Those were her fears. It had seemed so real, but her cousin wasn’t here. The whole thing was a waking nightmare caused by monsters.
“I should’ve known that,” she whispered.
Baldwin hugged her. “You’re worried about him. The mara took advantage of that.”
Owen handed her the flashlight, and the three kids went inside the tipi. It was one of her favorite spots in the museum. Last year, she and Fen had been here to listen to a Lakota storyteller. They’d listened to a story about Inktomi, the spider. He was a trickster and could take the shape of a man or a wolf. Laurie didn’t know then that Fen was able to change his shape—or that her father could, too. Inktomi seemed a lot like Loki, their dead ancestor, so it was no surprise that Fen loved that story. After the storyteller was done, Fen was happy and laughing, and he agreed with Laurie that the Journey was an awesome museum.
“I hope you’re safe wherever you are,” she whispered, letting her hand graze the tipi. Then she took a deep breath and looked at the descendants of the North who were still with her. “Okay. We can move through the next rooms. If we see any crazy nightmares, we shake each other free. Once we find Matt, we get out of here. The three of us can’t vanquish the mara, so we’re just here to get any humans free. If there aren’t any, we portal out.”
The boys nodded, and the trio went through the museum, looking for any people who were trapped inside the building with the monsters. In one corner of the pioneer exhibit, next to a creepy-looking old doll in a case, they found a family, curled up together and shaking. Laurie didn’t want to know if that doll was a part of their nightmare, but from the way they were staring at it, she wouldn’t be surprised. Baldwin and Owen pulled the three people to their feet, shook them free of their nightmares, and then the small group kept moving.
After a few minutes, they found a museum employee fighting invisible intruders and rescued him, too. He’d broken free several rocks from the geology exhibit and was using them to beat invisible enemies. Once he was free of his nightmares, he looked around with wide eyes.
“You’re okay,” Laurie promised. “They’re gone now.”
The man nodded but didn’t speak. She suspected that was what the descendants had all looked like the first time they fought creatures that shouldn’t exist. She knew it was what she had felt like the first time she’d seen a troll.
“We’re here to help,” Owen said calmly.
“What he said,” Baldwin added.
It wasn’t much, saving only a couple people when the world outside was in chaos, but it felt good. It felt like they were doing something right, and that helped. At least, it made Laurie feel better.
When they came across the Berserkers, they handed the people over to them to escort them out of the building, and they kept going in search of their missing friends or more trapped people.
“We’re keeping them all in the lobby,” one of the acrobatic fighters said. “And we’re guarding them.”
Owen murmured something approving, and then he and Baldwin continued following Laurie. There weren’t any other museum visitors in the next few rooms, so she supposed that the Berserkers had done their part in rescuing them all. That only left Matt and the twins.
“Maybe they’re in the lobby, too,” Baldwin suggested when she commented on their absence.
“The Berserkers would’ve told us,” Owen pointed out.
The three of them kept moving until they came across a theater. Inside, the twins were finishing some sort of spell. The two kids had their hands clasped together, and Matt stood at their side—hammer and shield at the ready—as if he were their bodyguard.
As the mara snapped out of existence, back to wherever nightmare creatures should rightly exist, the twins slumped to the floor, looking like they were ready to pass out in exhaustion.
“Are you all okay?” Matt asked.
Laurie nodded. “We gathered up a few people, and the Berserkers took them to the lobby. You?”
“Tired,” Reyna said.
Ray smiled. “But safe.”
They stood silently for a moment before Matt said, “The building’s clear now. It’ll be a safe place for those who need it.”
“But not us,” Baldwin added quickly. “We’re not staying here, right?”
Laurie almost laughed at the look on his face. Baldwin was all for adventure, and even the scariest monsters didn’t seem to make him pause for long. His attitude reminded her of Fen. Quickly, she shoved that thought away. She wasn’t giving up on her cousin, but she had to concentrate on right now.
“Matt?” Laurie prompted. “What’s the plan?”
“We need to go back to Blackwell,” Matt said. He quickly summarized his conversation with the Norns, and added, “If I’m looking for family to talk to, I need to start there.”
“I want to check in with my family to see if they’ve heard from Fen,” Laurie said.
“Right,” Matt said. “Laurie and I will go to Blackwell, then.”
“Ray and I should come, too,” Reyna said. “I’ll watch Matt’s back and Ray can watch Laurie’s.”
The truth was that Ray was the last person Laurie would’ve picked for reinforcement. It was easier when Fen was with them. Then, there was never any doubt as to who had her back. Ray wasn’t a bad guy, but he wasn’t a fighter. He seemed nice but content to stay in the background. In essence, Laurie would be on her own.
“Owen and Baldwin, you can handle whatever chaos is left here,” Matt said.
“Sure thing,” Baldwin said.
“Actually, the Berserkers can handle this,” Owen pointed out diplomatically. “Baldwin and I can go with you.”
“Sure thing,” Baldwin repeated.
Laurie flashed a grateful smile at Owen and told Matt, “That would work. Ray and Reyna can stay together with you, Matt, and Baldwin, and Owen can come with me.”
“Fine,” Matt said. “Laurie, can you get us a portal to Blackwell?”
“On it,” Laurie said. She turned to Owen and whispered, “Thank you.”
He nodded, but said nothing.
Then she took a few calming breaths, trying to find the peace that she needed in order to open a portal. It was like pulling taffy out of the middle of her body when she started to open a doorway. There was a weird, stretching feeling that started the moment she located the energy inside her that would then become an opening in the air. She clasped her hands, and then she slowly and steadily pulled them away from each other. The taffy feeling from inside her body was between her fingers, too, then. In the space between her hands, the air shimmered like there was something almost liquid and shivering in the air. It widened as she spread her hands farther apart and then stepped to the side.
The feeling of opening a doorway was still uncomfortable even though it was floating there now. She knew what to expect, so the weird feeling of being turned inside out each time she did this was easier. She still didn’t like it, but it was the quickest way to get from the middle of the darkened museum to their hometown.
“Go on,” she urged the four boys and Reyna.
Baldwin dived through without pause. The twins held hands and stepped in with the sort of grace that made them seem more supernatural than she ever felt—even when she had just opened up a magical doorway. Owen followed. Then, as soon as Matt went through, Laurie stepped into the portal.
“Meet up back at the longship in no more than two hours,” Matt said once they were all together in Blackwell, and then he and the twins left.
Laurie was standing with Baldwin and Owen outside the Thorsen Community and Recreation Center. The sky was dark here, too, and all she could hope was that Raiders or trolls wouldn’t be any better at seeing in the dark than she was.
“Follow me,” she told Baldwin and Owen, and together they set out through the pitch-black streets of the town.
SIX
MATT
“BROTHERLY LOVE”
Back to Blackwell. The last place on earth Matt wanted to be. In some ways, fighting the final battle of Ragnarök seemed easier than facing his parents.
“So what’s the deal with your folks?” Reyna asked as they skirted the edges of town, heading toward his neighborhood.
He shrugged and said nothing.
“Are they okay with the apocalypse thing?”
Another shrug.
“She’s not prying, Matt,” Ray said. “It’ll help if we know what we’re up against here.”
“We’re not up against anything,” he said. “It’s my family. I’ll handle it. You guys are just standing watch in case of trouble.”
“And if the trouble comes from them?” Reyna said.
“My family would never—”
He stopped. He’d thought the same thing about Granddad once.
“I’ll handle it,” he said. “Whatever happens.”
“We’ll be right outside,” Ray said. “If there’s any trouble, shout.”
After a few more steps, Reyna came up beside him, her voice lowered as she said, “You don’t need to handle this alone, Matt.”
“Yep,” he said. “I do.”
Returning to Blackwell was much easier in the dark. There was electricity here. Whatever the monsters’ plan, they clearly weren’t going to attack the town run by the guy leading them.
There were still only a few lights. All the Thorsens knew what was happening, and they wouldn’t panic and throw on every light to fend off the darkness. That was a blessing as they crept through yards, Matt making his way home.
Home.
He could see it ahead. Just an ordinary house on a street of ordinary houses. Inside was his room. With a bed and clean clothing and an iPod and a laptop, and all the things he’d taken for granted. A week ago, he’d have longed to sneak in, to sleep on a real mattress and take a hot shower and put on clean clothes. He’d have fantasized about going back to school. Yes, school. Where he understood what was expected of him. Where he knew he could succeed, with the right effort. Where he was normal, like a million other kids. Not the smartest thirteen-year-old boy. Not the most athletic or the most popular. But smart enough, athletic enough, and popular enough that no one picked on him and some looked up to him. A good life for a kid. A really, really good life.
Now, looking at his house, he couldn’t imagine that life. He couldn’t foresee a time when he’d be back in his bedroom, trying to sleep and worrying about the next science fair project.
