Forecast (17 page)

“Oh good.” I let out a long sigh, peeked to make sure the others couldn’t hear me, then walked as far as the phone cord would let me. Was weird to talk on a phone with a cord. “Can they hear me still?”

“Probably,” she answered.

“Darn it.” I lowered my voice, hoping she could still hear me. “I don’t think Mom is there, Raven.”

“You don’t?” Her voice lowered, too. “Why?”

“Because I found the other warrior and someone has already tried to take him out.”

A chair clattered behind me, and I turned to see Taran standing there watching me. Josh and Grim filed into the room and Josh promptly tripped over the bag he’d left in the way. “Shit,” he yelled.

Grim smacked the back of Josh’s head. “Quiet
miklimunnr
! Can’t you see she’s on the phone?”

“Gods, Coral! How many people are staying there?”

I glared at the boys before giving up on keeping my conversation from them. “Three besides me, Raven, haven’t you been watching the news? We don’t have electricity because the wave took out the power plant—not to mention Grim and Josh’s house.

“Wave? Grim? Josh?” She sounded so confused. “Wait, if you don’t have power, how are you using the phone?”

“I’m not using the cordless phone. Grim found one of those old corded office phones in a pawnshop.”

“I’m so confused,” she muttered.

“Look, I know. So am I. But listen.” I turned to find all three guys listening outright. I rolled my eyes again. “If someone is hurting your Vanir and my Taran, then...” I broke off as I realized what I’d said. Taran’s grin had all kinds of wicked all over it, and Josh and Grim mouthed “my Taran” while looking at each other.

“Your Taran?” Raven asked, her voice dripping with curiosity.

“Raven!” I yelled partly out of embarrassment that I’d even said that and partly because it wasn’t really important.

“But—” She stopped talking.

“Believe me, I know her magic.” I whispered again even though it was kind of pointless now. “She’s here.” I started to say more because I remembered the feather coat and that maybe mom
was
there, too, but something crashed in the backyard, something so big, it rattled our little house.

Taran, Josh, and Grim shot into the small sunroom and out the back door. They didn’t even grab coats, but all the warmth drained out of my face when I remembered the nests of snakes in the backyard. Yeah, there was a ton of snow now, but I doubted all had died in the few days of cold. “I gotta go!” I yelled into the phone before hanging it up and running after the others.

* * *

I forgot all about the snakes as we stood, shivering on the porch, and I was pretty sure the boys were feeling the exact same shock and awe freezing my feet to the porch. I was one up on them though because I’d seen giants in my vision—though they were nothing like the one standing in the middle of my backyard.

She wore more clothes—thank gods—and hers looked like a little more thought had gone into them. Her brown skirt fell nearly to her feet, her shirt was the same rough material, but shaped into a kind of tank top. Silver bracelets circled both upper arms, and her hands and wrists were covered in silver gloves that shimmered in the moonlight. The snow didn’t seem to affect her at all as she walked closer to us, narrowing her eyes and looking at each of us until her gaze settled on Taran.

She lifted one hand and I spotted the long stick she held.

I wished for his hammer so hard, I half expected to see it. He needed it to fight giants.

“
Geisl
,” she said as she held the staff out on extended palms and took the last couple of steps needed to put her in front of Taran. She wasn’t trying to fight him. She was giving him a gift.

He didn’t move, watching her silently as he took the stick.

“
Hanzki
.” She pulled off one of her gloves and laid it over the staff.

When she turned to me, it took every ounce of my will not to step back, even when she narrowed her eyes more. Her expression changed, and the flash of fear that passed through her strange, dark eyes filled my stomach with knots.

She began chanting. It was Norse, but the dialect was so thick and so old, I couldn’t understand more than a few words. Words like
dottir
,
myrkr
,
unnr
and
dauði
.

My norn twisted violently. I gasped in pain and bent, clutching the hands that still held the blanket to my chest. I didn’t know if the pain came only from my norn or if the giant was casting a spell. Her words. Daughter. Darkness. Wave. Death. They rolled over and over in my mind.

“Stop!” Grim yelled.

I looked up to catch him jumping over the rail of my porch onto the ground in front of the giant. Taran had apparently moved while I wasn’t watching, because he held up the stick as if he’d been about to swing it at her. Grim pushed past Taran, and the giant turned, stepped over my fence and ran, her feet shaking the ground with every hit.

I fell to my knees, the blanket and snow cushioning my fall. Taking deep breaths that hurt my lungs, I squeezed my eyes shut as one of the boys put an arm around me. It didn’t feel like Taran’s touch.

“You okay?” It was Josh.

I nodded, my chest hurting from the cold and from that weird pain.

Taran ran back onto the porch and knelt in front of me. “Was she hurting you?”

“Don’t kn-know.” I shivered.

“Why did you run at her like that, Grim?” Josh stood. “She was telling us stuff.”

Grim shuddered and squatted next to Taran in front of me, his expression bleak as his gaze met mine.

I nodded because he’d understood what the giant had been saying to me—that another wave was going to come and this time, it would kill me. The daughter of darkness stuff made my gut twist again, and my norn shifted and flipped, sending a wave of remorse through me that made me grit my teeth.

Taran stood and picked up the staff and glove, stared down at them. “Did you guys hear what she called me?”

This time I answered. “
Vingthor
. Thor in battle.” I got to my feet and took a closer look at the things he held. The glove looked as if it had been made from the finest chain mail. I pointed. “That and the staff are probably enchanted.” I looked up at him, still shivering. “This has happened before. I remember the story. She must be on the side of the gods and not the other giants. She gave you,
Thor
, the means to fight without your hammer.”

Taran lost all color in his face, throwing his frost-reddened cheeks into stark relief.

I touched his arm, noting that we were all shaking with cold. “Come on. Let’s go back to the heaters. We need to figure a few things out and fast.”

We walked into the house. I dropped the blanket on the kitchen floor since it was wet and I blew out the candles, before carrying the flashlight into the living room.

Josh lit the candles on the coffee table, settled on his sleeping bag and wrapped a red blanket around his shoulders. “She said other stuff. Scary stuff.”

Grim nodded as he wrapped up and sat close to his brother, their knees touching. I recognized the gesture. His need to be touching his brother in some small, innocuous way. My sisters and I did the same thing. “
Fróðleikr vatn
. Magic water. Then she said
burðr
.”

“That means birth,” I added as I settled into the sleeping bag with Taran. I didn’t give a flip if it bothered anyone that I was going to sleep in it with him. I planned only to sleep. I was too tired and too scared for anything else. That stuff about a wave killing me had me shaking so hard, I didn’t even want to be without human touch at all tonight.

He pulled me close, stroked his hand down my side—this time soothing me. He stared at the ceiling as Josh got up and blew out the candles.

Grim’s voice was tight as he spoke into the darkness. “Taran, I think she was talking about being in magic water on your birthday.”

Taran’s entire body went taut against me.

I lifted my head. “When’s your birthday?”

“Tomorrow,” Josh answered.

“No,” Taran whispered. “Technically...it’s today.”

Chapter Eleven

We managed to sleep. Unbelievably. I don’t think Taran let go of me the rest of the night because we were still in the same position—me plastered to his entire left side—when I woke up. I looked up and found him awake as bright light came through the open blinds. Looked as if we’d slept part of the day away.

Today was it. The knowledge of things to come today seeped into my soul, made my chest hurt. “Happy birthday,” I murmured, hating that the smile I tried to give him wobbled.

“Something is different. I feel kind of strange.”

Something in his tone made me blink harder so I could focus on him. Alarm crawled up my spine. I sat up, my hand on his chest as I stared down at him.

“What?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows.

“Josh? Grim? Could one of you come over here please?” I looked over the coffee table to find them both asleep, Grim’s head under his pillow.

“Josh can.” Grim’s muffled voice was scratchy. “I’m not into the kinky stuff.”

“I don’t care who comes over here—just do it. Now!”

My tone must have let them know I was serious because they both fought to get out of the sleeping bags and hurried to us.

“
Fróðleikr
,” Josh muttered as he tripped over the end of Taran’s sleeping bag. He landed on his knees and just knelt there, staring.

“I remember that word from last night.” Taran sat up. “Magic, right? What’s wrong with you guys?”

“Dude,” Grim breathed, coming all the way around the coffee table to stand next to his brother.

“Someone needs to talk here.” Taran tried to kick Josh, but his feet were still covered, so it was a pathetic attempt.

I was in shock, couldn’t move, couldn’t tell him what was going on.

“If someone doesn’t tell me why you all are looking at me like that, heads are gonna roll.”

“Dude,” Grim breathed again. “Your eyes are glowing.”

“What?” Taran scrambled from the bag and ran down the hall.

We followed and I stayed in the hall as Josh and Grim crowded him in the tiny bathroom. It was darker in there, so Taran’s glowing eyes stood out in the mirror. All three boys stared at his reflection. Taran’s face hadn’t changed—just the faint yellow glow in his eyes.

“You gotta put on that glove, get that staff and go do something cool.”

Taran and Grim both turned to Josh and frowned.

I had to stifle the urge to kick him. His friend was standing there, eyes glowing, on his eighteenth birthday, and some giant had told us he needed to be somewhere. We had no idea where the magic water was. And from the look on her face and her other words, the prophecy that had sent my mom into La La Land was going to come true. I was the triplet who would die.

Unless I did something about it.

Hot anger suddenly flowed in to banish the fear. I turned and marched through the small house and into the freezing sunroom. I stood there, staring at plants that had mostly shriveled and died and thought hard, dragging out everything I’d ever learned about summoning.

We needed that hammer.

I wasn’t about to put my trust in the glove and staff.

Rosemary was tough enough to survive the cold, a few sprigs still looked green. I broke those off, and when I turned back toward the kitchen, Taran stood in the doorway. His eyes were wonderfully brown again.

“I have an idea,” I said. “Sit on the coffee table.”

“Do we need to leave the house?” Josh asked, popping his head over Taran’s shoulder. “Also, you’re kind of hot when you’re ordering him around.”

I shook my head, then held out a sprig of fresh rosemary, but Taran had turned to glare at Josh.

Tapping him to get his attention, I smiled. “Hold on to that, Taran. Sit where I told you and I’ll go get a candle.” I pushed past them, ran into my room and rummaged in the box under my bed, deciding on a white candle. Then I picked up a yellow for extra help. I’d ordered them all online, so they were still wrapped.

When I walked back into the living room, I handed candles to Grim and to Josh. “Can you peel the plastic off those for me? I have to use fresh candles in case any used ones picked up negative energy. The white is good for concentration, the yellow—attraction.” I paused, stared at a stain on the wall from some flower water my mom had thrown when she’d broken a vase the last day she’d been here—or the last day until she’d come back and tried to shoot Taran. “Purple!” I yelled and ran back into my room.

I found purple candles in Kat’s drawer, where she hid them. They were her favorite color, and she knew Mom and I would filch them for spells. I came out and handed the purple one to Josh because he’d finished with the first candle. “Purple is good for desire and power. We desire the hammer and power is always good, right?”

All three boys were quiet. Josh and Grim stared with their eyes wide and Taran just grinned.

“What?” I asked.

“I really, really like you,” Taran said, his voice low.

Josh closed his eyes and shook his head. “Do you believe all this mumbo jumbo? Don’t you guys think we need to be figuring out where Taran needs to be today?”

“You mean you haven’t seen enough to believe some of her Earth magic stuff now?” Grim frowned at his brother.

“Let me think.” Josh tilted his head. “Nope.”

Grim smacked the back of his head with the yellow candle.

“Hey!” Josh yelled.

“No,” I yelled at the same time, running to rescue my candle. “Remember negative energy? You’re lucky I haven’t lit this one yet.”

“Sorry,” Grim mumbled, his shoulders sagging.

I set the candles on the coffee table around Taran. “I need a match.”

Grim handed me a lighter.

I shook my head. “No, it has to be a match. And I need some oil. I can’t remember what kind of oil but I think rosemary would work.” I hurried into the kitchen and found the rosemary oil. I pulled a matchbook out of the junk drawer where we kept them for spells. When I returned to Taran, I lit each candle. “Okay, I want you to chew the rosemary. Sorry, it’ll probably be kind of nasty. And while you’re chewing, I want you to wish for your hammer as hard as you can.” I looked at the twins. “You guys can wish, too. All the energy can help.” I frowned at Josh. “And stop smirking like that.”

I got behind Taran and coated my fingers with oil.

“Okay,” I said on a release of breath. “Chew and wish while I rub in the oil.” I made tiny circles with oil on his temples. The scent of fresh rosemary crept into the air.

“This is disgusting, Coral.” Taran shuddered.

Josh laughed. “That might work better if you rub that oil somewhere else.”

Grim smacked Josh in the back of the head again.

“Ow! Stop it, you
nøkkviðr kerling
!”

I snorted. Couldn’t help it when Josh called his brother a naked old hag.

Grim muttered something back that sounded like snot eater, but I was trying to concentrate now as the air in the room began to change. It crackled, making the hair on my arms stand up. Josh and Grim rubbed their arms, finally—thankfully—silent. I’d done spells that created this feeling before but they’d sort of gone out of control—created worse problems than the ones I had been trying to fix. I had some of my mother’s magic but I’d always felt it clashed with my seidr. I had no choice this time. I had to make this work.

“Taran, this time when you call your hammer, you need to mean it.”

He went stiff, jerked back a little, and I let go and glanced over at him, catching my breath.

His hammer rested across his lap—this time free of blood. It shone as if someone had recently polished it. Taran wrapped his hand around it.

“Hold on to it,” I whispered. “Don’t let go.”

I ran out of the room and into my mother’s. I grabbed the chair from in front of the little card table we used as a computer desk and set it in front of the open closet. At the back and far left of the top shelf, my mother had a small bag of precious stones—one she didn’t think my sisters and I knew about. Some kind of rotten, flowery scent hovered in the closet and I frowned as I grabbed the bag. Then I spotted something else tucked back behind a shoe box. I pulled out another, slightly larger bag.

The magic coming off this small bag stung my hands, and I almost dropped it onto the floor. That horrible smell came from it. Clutching the bag in a death grip, I climbed off the chair and stood in the middle of her room. A thorn stuck through the side of the black felt. Hands shaking, I opened the tiny drawstring at the top and overturned the bag onto her bed because I was pretty sure I didn’t want to touch whatever was inside.

A strangely shaped candle fell to the white sheets. No. I looked closer, bending over it until the rancid odor of lavender and something rotten hit me so hard, I gagged. Holding my hand over my nose, I reached out, groping for a pencil or pen on her nightstand. I found a pencil and used it to flip the thing over, staring.

It wasn’t a candle...it was something that had been dipped in candle wax and it almost looked like part of...a hand.

“Oh gods.” I slapped my hand over my mouth and backed away from it until my spine hit the wall. Waves of horror rose in my chest, threatening to choke me as acid rushed into my throat. I wouldn’t make it to the bathroom, so I turned and threw up in my mother’s small trash can. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks and I retched again, unable to keep it quiet.

All three boys rushed into the room. I had enough brains left to notice Taran still held the hammer. I shoved the small bag of jewels at him, croaked out “Hold that,” then threw up again.

“What the hell? Coral, what’s wrong.” Taran held the bag in the same hand as the hammer, and that small bit of relief helped me hold back another round of rushing acid.

“I know what’s wrong,” Grim said.

I looked up to find him standing over that...that thing on the bed.

“The smell is rotting flesh. That’s part of a hand.”

He was right. It wasn’t a full hand or I would have recognized it instantly. It had two fingers at the top and someone had stretched the thumb grotesquely down then dipped the whole thing in wax and put wicks at the tips of the fingers. All three had been burned. I’d recognized it as a real hand because some of the wax had melted off. The skin underneath had turned black.

Before I could stop it, I bent over the trash can again. This time I only dry heaved. By the time I got control over myself, Josh had wrapped it up in a sweater he’d picked up off the floor. That didn’t help the smell. “You have to pull out the thorn,” I gasped. “I’m sorry, but you have to unwrap it and pull out the thorn.”

Josh frowned at it. Taran made an exasperated noise, stalked to the bed and took care of the thorn. “What do I do with it?”

“Throw it away. It can’t do anything now. And she can’t get your hammer again.”

“She?” He came back and squatted next to me, stroked his hand down my hair as he ducked to meet my eyes. “Your mother?”

I nodded and my stupid tears escaped. I didn’t want to cry so easily, had planned to hold this part of myself back, and I couldn’t. Not while facing what my mother,
my mother
, had done to cast that spell. “That’s a hand of glory. Or a version of it anyway. I don’t know how she got a r-r-real hand, but whoever that belonged to had to have been bad.” I stopped, gulped and wiped my cheeks on the material of my sweatshirt on one shoulder. “My mother has been the one hurting kids.”

“She didn’t just hurt them.” Taran pulled me away from the trash can, thankfully still gripping the hammer and bag of stones in one hand. “One of the kids died. She hit one off a pier by Brooks Bridge, and he drowned before anyone even knew he’d gone in. My dad told me that the night you stayed on our couch.”

“I saw that happen. It was a vision during my
rune tempus
.” And that boy had been moving. He’d carried a god’s soul.

She was killing other kids for a reason. She was taking out the gods, one by one, before the major battles could even begin. Why she was messing with Taran by using his hammer still made no sense, though. And why the first kid, Stark? I doubted he’d carried a god soul.

“Why did you want me to hold this bag?”

I took the bag. “Now that we pulled the thorn out of the hand, I don’t think she can call your hammer back. The hand of glory isn’t usually used like that—it’s usually to make people in a house sleep so you can steal their things. But I think she used a thorn from a birch tree.” I offered Taran a wobbly smile. “It’s a tree sacred to Thor. It also enhances magic and connection, so I’m sure she put other things into that wax, as well.” I opened the bag and shook the stones into my palm, picked out the biggest purple one. “Put this amethyst into your pocket. Nobody can take that hammer away from you then.”

“It’s that simple?” He took the stone, stared at it shimmering in his palm.

I nodded. “Sometimes the simplest of solutions are the best. If I’d known about that h-hand...” Stupid, hot tears welled up again.

“Shh.” He sat on the floor, crossed his legs and pulled me into his lap. “Nobody blames you. For any of this. Hell, you came charging to the rescue with your peter water and gargoyles. You’re a hero.”

“Her what?” Grim asked, then snorted.

That made me laugh. Sort of. It sounded more as if I were being strangled. I buried my face in Taran’s neck, inhaled the wonderful, warm scent I was beginning to think I could smell forever and sighed.

“Come on,” Taran said, squeezing me lightly. “We need food.”

“We need the internet, but I think I have a few books that might help me figure out where you need to be today.”

“I’ll cook.” Grim grabbed a sweatshirt out of my mom’s closet, sniffed it, grimaced and put it back. “I’ll cook in my coat.”

“It’s still wet, doofus,” Josh said, following him out the door.

“Then I’ll wear a blanket.”

“And catch the house on fire?” Josh growled. “Idiot
bróðir
.”

“You’re the idiot brother. Mom even said so.”

“She did not!” Loud smacking noises sounded before they walked out of the hallway.

Taran lifted my face, brushed tears off my cheeks. “You going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, sniffed. “I’m sorry my mother hurt your friends.”