Forecast (4 page)

“So, you really are here to protect me?” This time his smile didn’t have the arrogant tilt of earlier—genuine amusement softened his features. “Guess you’ll have to stick around since I’m not allowed to leave the house. I’m still under suspicion for assault.”

I thought about how hard that kid in my vision had to have been hit to fly off the pier like that. It was possible Taran would be under suspicion for murder now, despite his alibis. I’d seen his hammer there, covered in blood. “So you couldn’t walk me to my car after all, huh?”

“I think as long as my house is in sight, I’m technically home. Not that I give a crap about their rules.” He muttered the last part under his breath.

“But today, when that kid was hurt, you said you were at the police station.”

“Yeah, about that.” He picked up one of the gargoyles, frowned at its face and set it back. “I’d really like to know how you know about that, because I watched the news when I got home and saw nothing about a third kid.

I closed the vials and wrapped them in the dishrags I’d had them in earlier. Not that the material had helped with the clanking. “I did.” I didn’t look at him because I’m a crappy liar. “So why are they still watching you? Because of the hammer?” I
had
read about that in the article my mom had printed.

He nodded, stood and held out his hand. “Come on. You can tell me why you think I need protection while we have some hot chocolate.”

I took his hand, glanced out of the front door again and hoped that whatever was out there, stayed out there as I followed Taran into the kitchen.

Looking around with interest, I was surprised to find more examples of my culture in the small goddess figurines atop a narrow roll-top desk next to a rectangular breakfast table with three chairs. The kitchen held more white than a hospital—with cabinets, counters and appliances in different shades of it. The only splashes of color were in the black coffeepot and a yellow cookie jar in the shape of a goat’s head. “That’s creepy.” I slapped my free hand over my mouth and tightened my other hand around my bag. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. My dad and I hate that jar. When I was a kid, I was sure the eyes followed me around the kitchen. Mom kept it because I was too afraid to stick my hand in its mouth to steal cookies.”

“And you keep it for her.”

The stark grief that flashed over his features made me want to drop my bag and hold him.

“Yeah, we keep most everything the way she had it. We haven’t even been in the third bedroom in years. It was her ‘fun’ room. She did a lot of projects—art and stuff.” He strolled across the short kitchen and snagged two black mugs out of the microwave. “Hope you don’t mind instant. I put extra marshmallows in it.”

“This is fine. I like instant.” I set my bag on the table and took the mug from him to set it on the wood, too. “I’ll just take care of the door really quick.”

He sat and sipped from the mug, watching me quietly for a few moments as I set out the gargoyles and sprinkled the saltpeter and dill on the entryway. “So, with this and what you did last night... Are you some kind of witch? That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I shrugged. “I am a witch—sort of—I’m still learning. My mo—” I broke off, my shoulders sagging. “There’s so much to tell you.”

He pointed to the chair next to him.

I sat, picked up the mug and cradled it between my suddenly frozen hands.

“You look so nervous.” He propped his feet on the third chair. “Chill. With all that’s been going on, things can’t get much worse.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “They can.” I set the mug down and took a deep breath. “Do you know why your mother was into all this mythology?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why are we talking about my mother?”

“Because it’s important.”

Taran was silent for a few moments, and I had to resist the urge to squirm in my chair. How much should I share? I stared back at him. He deserved to know everything.

“It was just a hobby,” he finally said. “She grew up in Norway and her parents were really into it. She passed it on to me.”

“What all did she pass on?”

Faint color filled his cheeks and he looked away from me and cleared his throat. “My mother was quirky. She had all these crazy beliefs about gods setting things in motion for the end of the world. She’s the one who designed my hammer.” His smile that time barely took because it held so much sadness. “She had an unnatural love for all things Thor. She would be dragging my butt to all the movies more than once if she were still alive.”

“Did she ever say anything about you carrying the soul of Thor?”

His mug clattered to the table, some of the chocolate spilling over the side to pool on the light wood.

I jumped up to grab paper towels off the holder on the counter, then dropped them on the spill.

Taran grabbed my wrist. “How did you know that? I’ve never told anyone about that. Neither has my dad. We didn’t want people to think—”

He let go when I winced. He hadn’t hurt me, just startled me, but he looked horrified as he stared at his hands before curling them into fists and dropping them back on the table. I sat back in the chair, nervous, so I picked up my mug and took a sip. Warm, overly sweet chocolate that tasted faintly of cardboard, slid down my throat.

“Sorry.” His stare changed as he ran his gaze over my face, stopping at my mouth. That smirk came back as he leaned close, reached out and ran his thumb over my lip. When he pulled it back, there was a smear of melted marshmallow on it. His gaze didn’t waver from my eyes as he stuck his thumb in his mouth.

My stomach started doing somersaults and I ran my tongue over my lip in case he’d missed any.

“I got it all.” He grinned. “But I can do that, too, if you me want to make sure.”

Lick my lip?
He wanted to lick my lip?
I stared back, my tongue completely tied up, because I had no idea how to answer him.
Yes
,
please
seemed a little too soon. And a lot too blunt. I smiled and that wicked gleam returned to his eyes.

This boy was trouble.

I looked down at the swirls of melted marshmallow in my mug, cleared my throat. “I know I seem like a complete weirdo showing up on your doorstep, putting out gargoyles—”

“Sprinkling peter water on my thresholds,” he interrupted, drawing the words out with a naughty tilt to his lips.

Fire burned in my cheeks. That sounded
so dirty
. “Um, saltpeter melted into water. It’s a natural mineral.” My head started feeling itchy under my beanie.

He chuckled. “Yeah, one used in fireworks.”

I growled in irritation and this only made him laugh harder.

“You are really cute.”

I set my mug down and yanked off my beanie. My long, black hair immediately went everywhere, crackling with static. I impatiently smoothed my hands over it. “Look, I’m not here to find out whether you think I’m cute. I’m here because I think my mother is going to try to hurt you.”

All signs of humor fled his expression. “What did I do to your mother?”

“Nothing.” I waved my hand toward the gargoyles. “These crazy things I’m doing? They’re small beans when it comes to protection. My mother is way better at this than I am, and she’s convinced that you carry the soul of Thor, and that you are going to try to kill either me or one of my sisters.”

His chair fell over, clattering loudly as he abruptly stood. “What the hell, man? Kill you? Your sisters? I’ve never even seen you before yesterday.”

“I notice you’re skipping the Thor part.” I crushed my beanie in my hands.

“Because it’s ridiculous. Look, everyone thought my mother was a little off her rocker because of her fascination with mythology but nobody knew how far she’d taken it—that she actually believed she’d given birth to a future, future...” He trailed off and ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up all over the place.

“Warrior?” I supplied.

His mouth opened and closed as he stared wide-eyed at me. He then calmly righted his chair and sat carefully. “Okay, this is too much.”

I leaned over the table. “Your mother believed you carry the soul of Thor and that you are destined to fight in the end of the world battles, right? Ragnarok?”

“Ragnarok,” he repeated quietly. “Freaked me out when you brought that up last night.”

“Why? Haven’t you thought about this snow and what it means? That maybe it was the first sign she could have been right?”

“Hell no! This is just a weather anomaly. It’s snowed here before.” He frowned.

“In August? Like this?” I shook my head. “Your mother wasn’t crazy.”

“I said off her rocker, not crazy,” he muttered. “And other people thought that. Not me and not my dad. She was fun. We loved her.”

“Well, I love my mother too, but she
is
crazy. And just like your mother, she believes the same thing.”

“Okay, if I’m carrying Thor’s soul, why in the world would she think I’d want to kill you or one of your sisters?”

“It’s from an old prophecy my mom was given when we were born, or before we were born—that part doesn’t matter. What does, is that she disappeared and my sisters and I think she went after the gods who could be responsible for our deaths. She believes one of them is you.”

“Your mom thinks I’m a god and I’m going to kill you. What possible good would your death do?”

“None. Well, as far as we can tell. It’s all too vague. What I do know is, like my sisters, I carry the soul of a norn. She’s the one who stops time and writes runes. Kat, Raven and I have some sort of big part in Ragnarok—maybe in stopping it. But one of us could die instead or in spite of...it’s all pretty cryptic and weird.”

He held up a hand. “Wait a sec.” He rubbed his fingers over closed eyes. “And here I thought the worst that could happen was getting arrested before school started.” He opened his eyes. “In the stories my mom told me, most of the heroes who fight, die. So why in the world would I want to kill someone who could stop Ragnarok?”

I shrugged.

“That’s messed up.”

“Tell me about it. She’s dragged us around our whole lives to keep anyone from knowing us or finding us or whatever. We’ve lived in some crazy places.” I traced a scratch on the table with my finger. “But a few weeks ago, she suddenly changed. Started doing dark magic more often, then right after the snow started, she disappeared. She had all these printouts from our computer. We could tell she decided to quit running and do something.”

“So do you think your mother is hurting the kids around here?”

I sat back, startled that he’d instantly thought that. “No. Why would she hurt random kids when it’s you she’s after?” I completely ignored the fact that I’d thought of this already, too.

“I know all the kids who’ve been hurt. One was a friend and one was my sworn enemy. I still don’t know if there was a third like you said.”

My lips twisted. “Sworn enemy? Like in a comic book?”

“Stark and I rub each other the wrong way.”

“Stark,” I murmured, my mind spinning. “You said his name before, but it didn’t click. There was a hero in Norse mythology named Starkad. Thor hated him. Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it? Let me guess, he’s the star of the school? Popular? Maybe a football player?”

He only stared at me. I took a sip of chocolate then nervously licked my lips in case I had more marshmallow smeared there.

“That actually kind of creeps me out,” he finally said, looking away from me.

“Tell me about it. My sisters never wanted to believe any of this is true.”

That brought his attention back. “But you do?”

“I didn’t—don’t—want it to be the end of the world. Of course.” My norn shifted as if she agreed. “But we have this seidr magic. You saw it. It’s kind of hard to just dismiss everything else because of that.” I leaned closer to him. “Taran, your mother was right. You do have the soul of Thor inside you.”

He picked up his mug, stood and walked to the sink to rinse it out. He gripped the sides of the counter and leaned over the sink to look out of the window. “This is nuts.”

It was. Nuts. Scary. And infuriating, when I thought about others having so much control over our lives—over everyone’s lives. I cradled the mug with both hands, hoping the heat would ward off the chill in them. “I don’t think my mother has anything to do with what’s happening to your friends with your hammer, but what I don’t get is how someone is getting your hammer away from you. Have you tried calling it back?”

“Like in the movie?” Taran held out his hand. “Mjolnir!” He started laughing, and he dropped his hand and came back to the table. He sprawled in the chair. “I don’t want that thing here anyway.”

“I heard the cop say your hammer disappeared from their evidence room. I think maybe we should figure out who is taking it and doing this.”

“You still don’t think it’s your mother?” He lifted an eyebrow. “What are the odds of her coming after me and this happening at the same time?”

He made sense. But I still couldn’t picture my mother doing that. Yeah, she’d been weirder than usual lately, but I’d never seen her hurt anything. She was restless and a little loopy—she loved to bake muffins with weird ingredients and dance barefoot to rock music. And okay, she worked magic spells and bought a vial of serpent poison online...

My norn shifted, and a wave of sympathy washed through me. From her. Hot tears pricked the backs of my eyes, and it took everything I had to force them back. I’d made a vow to stop crying so easily. I was going to keep to it. Hoping Taran couldn’t tell I’d been on the verge of a breakdown, I met his gaze. “I think we should stick together and I’ll keep doing the protection spells. I have more. And maybe I can figure out what kind of spell is being used to take Mjolnir away from you.”

I was actually happy to see that mischievous grin of his return as he leaned onto the table and crossed his arms. “Coral, you do understand that my mother had that hammer made—that’s it’s not really Mjolnir—right?” His dark blond hair flopped into his eyes and he blew it out of the way. “Someone broke into my house and took it, and whoever is doing this has to have access to the police evidence room.”