Thor's Serpents (12 page)

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” She kept repeating the words, under her breath, as if reassuring herself as much as him. Lying to herself. It wasn’t okay. His hand was the least of their worries, because…

“It’s fire,” he said. “The Jotunn. It’s
completely
fire. We can’t fight that.”

“Yes, we can.” She pulled the cloth too tight, as if in emphasis, and he sucked in a sharp breath. “We’ll figure out—”

He grabbed Reyna by the shoulders and threw her aside. Then he swung up his shield just as a blast of fire hit it. The giant was lumbering straight for them. Matt grabbed Mjölnir with his bound hand and waved Reyna back, while holding the shield, ready to block the next blast.

The other Jotunn roared and theirs stopped. It turned. Matt told Reyna to keep going, just keep going. Then, as the giant seemed to consider what to do, Matt slid to a halt.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, you! Do you know who I am?”

The Jotunn turned. Reyna had stopped, and when Matt
glanced over, he expected her to shout at him, tell him to get moving. But she stood there, confused but trusting he had a plan. Or maybe that look meant he’d
better
have a plan.

He did. Kind of.

“Yo! Jotunn!” he shouted at the giant.

“Yo?” Reyna choked on a laugh. “Please tell me that’s an ancient Norse word, and you’re not going to start rapping.”

He may have made a rude gesture, but if ever called on it, he would claim he’d simply motioned for her to be quiet while he got the giant’s attention. And get it he did. Tossing Mjölnir did the trick. He didn’t aim for the Jotunn again—he wasn’t an idiot—but he sent the hammer zooming past him. When it came flying back into his hand, he was pretty sure the giant’s jaw dropped.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Matt shouted, so loud his throat hurt. “I’m Thor’s, uh, champ—”

“Again,” Reyna said.

He coughed, pretending there was smoke caught in his lungs. “I’m the Champion of Thor and—”

“Stop messing around, Matt.”

He lifted Mjölnir over his head. “I am
Thor. Vingthor! Battle Thor!
”

The giant went completely still. It stared down at Matt. Then one hand reached back… and sent a fistful of flame shooting toward him.

“Run!” Matt yelled at Reyna.

She did, and he did, and the giant let out a roar and thundered after them along the empty street.

“I’m really hoping there’s a part two to this plan,” Reyna said as they hid just inside the double doors of a restaurant. Outside, the Jotunn was stalking the street, crackling with frustration, while, in the distance, its partner roared for it.

Part one had, of course, been simply “Get the fire giant away from the highly flammable Corn Palace.” Now that they’d lured the Jotunn away and found a place to hide, he needed to think up a plan for permanently dealing with it. That part was giving Matt more trouble.

“We can’t physically fight it,” he said.

“Actually, we can. Fight fire with fire. There’s a service station down the road. Gasoline. If we could—”

“Fire
feeds
fire,” Matt said.

Her cheeks flared red. “Right. I knew that. I’m just… I’m not thinking straight.”

“Ray will be fine.”

“It’s not just that. Without Ray…” She exhaled. “I feel useless. My power feeds off his. I’m bugging you for solutions because, honestly, I don’t have any. I’m not even sure what I could conjure up if I had the power.”

“Ice cream?”

She managed a wan smile. Then she stopped. “Hey,
wait… ice. There’s a rink in the Corn Palace.” She caught his expression.

“Ice…” He fingered the shield. “My shield frosts over when fire hits it. If Mjölnir could do that, we could use it. But obviously it doesn’t, and I can’t just make it happen—”

“Yes, you can.” She turned to him. “You’re Thor. God of thunder and lightning. Baldwin said you made lightning strike with the bison.”

“I don’t think that was me.”

“Of course it was. You can make it rain. That’s the answer.” She grabbed his arm. “Come on. Let’s see the storm god in action.”

They hadn’t gone far—just outside the restaurant, so he didn’t start a rainstorm indoors. Assuming he could start a rainstorm at all.

“You can,” Reyna said, growing impatient now, perhaps because it was the tenth time he’d voiced his doubt. He was trying as hard as he could. Visualizing rain. Not lightning. He didn’t want to make the situation even worse, but when he told Reyna that, she said, “That’s what’s blocking you. Stop worrying about what you
shouldn’t
do. If lightning strikes, we’ll deal with it.”

Easy for her to say. After another minute, she skewered
him with a look. “You’re still worrying about lightning, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m—”

“You’re a lousy liar, Matt. If rain makes you think of lightning, focus on hail. Close enough.”

“Hail forms in thunderclouds, which are part of thunder—and lightning—storms. They’re caused by updrafts, which can also trigger tornados.”

“You know what I wish sometimes, Matt? I wish you weren’t so smart. Fine. If you can’t—”

The Jotunn turned toward them, as if finally catching the sound of their voices. Reyna noticed it before Matt could warn her, and they both ran for the restaurant doorway. The Jotunn pulled back one massive flaming arm and launched a fireball as big as a car.

“Duck!” Matt shouted.

Reyna dropped to the ground. Matt crouched over her, his shield raised to cover them. It was an imperfect cover, but the fireball wasn’t coming their way. It flew past and exploded in the restaurant doorway, blocking their escape route.

“Run!” Matt said.

Reyna started for the next building… until a second fireball turned that doorway into a ring of flame. She veered between the two buildings. The giant tried to block their path, but they were too quick. The next ball struck the mouth
of the alley and burst into a million embers. Matt held out his shield and threw his Hammer. He was only trying to use the Hammer’s force to blow back the embers, but a fist of ice shot from his fingers and did the job twice as well.

“That!” Reyna said. “Can you do that?”

“Not reliably.” He clenched his fist and felt the chill of his fingers.

Ice. That would work.

“Stay behind me,” he said.

“Not arguing,” she said. “I will try to help, though.”

By helping, she meant casting a fog spell. It wasn’t as good without Ray, but between the thin fog and the remaining smoke, it hid them in that alley while Matt closed his eyes and concentrated.

I know what I need. Just give it to me. Please give it to—

Wind howled down the alley, the gust knocking them back and scattering the smoke and fog.

“Uh, Matt?” Reyna said. “Not to question your judgment, but…”

He shushed her and, to his surprise, she shushed. Outside the alley, wind whined past. The Jotunn roared, but the wind whipped the sound away. Matt kept concentrating.

It’s coming. I think—no, I
know
it’s coming. I am Thor. God of wind and rain and thunder and—

The wind hit again. This time, Reyna gasped, and it wasn’t the surprise of the gust, but what it brought—a blast
of cold that hit their faces and stayed there, sliding down, wet and cold.

“Snow?” Reyna said. “You called for a blizzard?”

Matt turned toward her. “Uh, yeah. I thought—”

“You are a genius!” She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. Then she pulled back and said, “Don’t take that the wrong way.”

“Uh… okay. I’m just temporarily a genius.”

“Not what I meant, silly.” She laughed, the sound ringing down the alley, and as he heard it, he realized he’d never heard her laugh before. Or seen her grinning like this, her face lit up.

“Stop blushing,” she said, swatting his arm. “It was just a hug. Now, don’t just stand there. Keep doing whatever you were doing. Let it snow.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Reyna bounced there, humming “Let It Snow” under her breath, and as he turned his back on her, she broke into full song, her voice high and light, swirling down the alley, helping him find his focus.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

And it did. The snow fell and the wind howled, blasting it everywhere. He’d called up a blizzard.

“Good enough,” Reyna said finally. “Let’s go see if it worked.”

She grabbed his hand—the one without the cloths. Her
fingers were warm against the falling snow. She tugged him, sliding down the alley, the pavement slick now with an inch of wet snow. The snow didn’t stretch as far as they could see—the storm seemed to have been confined to this area—but it was enough. Snow, falling lightly as the wind died down.

Matt glanced at the two doorways that had been on fire. Both were charred black, but there wasn’t so much as a spark smoldering. There was no sign of the Jotunn. Anywhere.

A snowball exploded against his shoulder.

“You did it!” Reyna called.

He looked to see her gather another snowball, grinning as she did it. He scooped up a handful and shattered hers midflight. She laughed and waved toward the Corn Palace.

“Looks like this is over, but we’d better make sure.”

He nodded and followed her, running and sliding along the icy streets.

F
ight a giant tower of fire
, Laurie thought as she tried not to panic at the latest impossible task she had to complete.
Suuuure, no big deal
.

There was no way to fight fire when you were a normal human girl. Actually, she wasn’t sure there was any way to fight it if she’d been a wolf like Fen or had a magic hammer like Matt. Mythic monsters weren’t meant to be something that kids had to face. It was too big, too awful, too… everything to begin to figure out what to do. That didn’t change the fact that she had to do that very thing.

She and Baldwin crept through the darkened streets of Mitchell toward the area where the Jotunn had seemed to
be. They didn’t see it just yet, but they’d heard the roar, so they knew they were heading toward it.

Despite the walking tower of fire, a sudden blast of freezing cold air rushed over them from somewhere. Laurie shivered. The last thing she wanted was to deal with a flaming Jotunn and something made of frost, too. This whole fighting-impossible-monsters business was
so
not covered in her school lessons.

“How does a giant flaming thing hide?” Baldwin whispered from her side, drawing her mind away from possible monsters to the one they had to face right then.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe it can turn the flame on and off like a lightbulb,” Baldwin mused.

Despite herself, Laurie snorted in laughter. No matter how messed up things seemed, Baldwin had no sense of doom. She, on the other hand, felt like it was right around the corner.

And she was right, sort of. She turned left in front of the next building, and there, lurking in the shadows, she saw three wolves. Obviously, there was a
slight
chance that they were real wolves, but she was pretty sure that they were like the rest of the wolves she’d seen the past few weeks: relatives of hers that shifted shapes and were foolish enough to want the world to end.

Before she had a chance to figure out what to do, a hand clamped down on her arm and jerked her backward. “Eeep!”

“Shh!” A hand covered her mouth, keeping her from saying anything else to draw the wolves’ attention.

For a brief moment, she hoped it was Fen. It could happen. There were wolves; Matt said Fen was with the wolves now. Maybe he came to help them, and that was what he was really doing with the Raiders.

Her hope was dashed when she heard Owen whisper, “We have enough trouble without Raiders in the mix.”

Baldwin stood shoulder to shoulder with her. He pointed into the darkness where a glowing shape was now visible. “
That
is our current problem.”

The three stood quietly while the Jotunn walked through the darkness like a living torch.

“We could try to steer it toward Lake Mitchell,” Laurie suggested.

“Like tag, but… painful if it catches us.” Baldwin frowned a little.

It was a less-than-good plan, but she wasn’t sure what else to do. She glanced down at her bow. A few invisible arrows didn’t seem like much of a weapon against fire. She wasn’t even sure if there was anything solid inside the Jotunn. It seemed like there should be.
Every living thing should be solid, right?
That seemed like a basic fact from science class, but she wasn’t sure that science class—even in Blackwell—covered monster biology.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

The three of them walked toward the Jotunn, not bothering to try to hide from it. They needed the creature to see them in order for it to be willing to chase them. Unfortunately, by the time they reached it, they hadn’t attracted its attention. It was ignoring them.

“Umm, Laurie? Plan B?” Baldwin nudged her with his elbow. “It’s a blind monster or something.”

“Jötnar aren’t blind,” Owen said.

Baldwin and Laurie exchanged a quick look, but neither of them asked why or how Owen knew that.

“Okay, the lake is…” She looked around. It was nearly impossible to get a good sense of direction in the pitch dark. “That way, I think?”

“So, we all run that way and… What? Hope it sees us and chases?” Baldwin asked.

“No,” Owen said. “Extra running seems foolish. It needs to see us first.”

“Right. Stay here.” Laurie squared her shoulders and marched away from the boys. She walked into the street, feeling more like Fen than herself. That was the way she was going to handle this. She thought,
What would Fen do? Be brave like Fen.

She didn’t want to think about the fact that the sort of “brave” she was being was the exact sort of thing that would’ve made her yell and worry about her cousin. She was just going to do what needed to be done.

Once she was near enough to the Jotunn that she couldn’t think of how it could possibly
not
see her, she yelled, “Hey, you!”

Nothing.

She tried again, “HEY! Flamey guy!”

Behind her, she heard Baldwin laugh.

Okay, it wasn’t the best thing, but she didn’t exactly know the creature’s name.

“It’s not working,” Owen called.

Laurie rolled her eyes. He wasn’t as helpful as he seemed to think he was lately. She tried one more time. “Hey, you!”

Still no reaction.

“Here goes nothing,” she muttered. Then she raised her bow, aimed, drew back the sinew-string, and let loose an invisible arrow.

For a moment, she wasn’t sure it would do anything.
Do ghost arrows burn up?
She drew again, and in short order, she let two more arrows fly.

Then she heard and felt a ground-shaking roar. At least one of her arrows had hit its target.

The Jotunn was scanning the ground, and although her plan was for it to see her so she could lead it to the lake, she quaked as it spotted her.

She was frozen in place as it stalked toward her.

“Move!” Owen called out.

The Jotunn was steadily approaching.