Flock Read online

  All of a sudden, something didn’t feel right. Like at the Asking Fire, I sensed a low, humming vibration. One look at the water bottle on our table confirmed this. It was rippling ever so slightly.

  “Marik, we need to go.”

  “Go now?” He clutched at his side as if fatigued by the mere idea.

  “Do you think you can make it?”

  “If you think it’s important.”

  “I suspect Leira’s life depends on it. And if I can change Leira’s fate —”

  “Let’s go,” he said through gritted teeth. He looked pale as bleached bones, and there was a fine sheen of perspiration across his forehead. As sidekicks went, he was the short-of-breath straw, but better, I supposed, than going it alone.

  Overwhelmed with urgency and not wanting to attract the attention of my dad, Ms. Bryant, or Penny, I directed us to the closest exit, double doors leading from Pinewood’s gym to the back of the school. It appeared to be a staff parking lot and bus pickup and drop-off area. Beyond it was an open field horseshoed by woods.

  The moment the door closed behind us, I sensed a changed world. The horizon that had earlier seemed oddly lower was now visibly compressed into a thick purple wedge of churning clouds and darkening sky.

  At once, the blare of sirens filled the air, and I brought my hands to my ears. Below my feet, the swell of vibration grew until my calves thrummed with pain.

  Marik was also suffering from the sensory assaults and looked around wild-eyed. “What is that noise?”

  “A tornado warning.”

  A shriek of wind joined the cacophony of sirens, and its accompanying gust lifted my hair and shirttails.

  “What does it mean?” Marik asked.

  “Take cover. Underground.”

  Marik looked at his feet as if expecting some sort of hatch to open up. By the strain on his face, he’d have taken any shortcut out of there.

  “If we were smart, we’d head back to the building,” I said, shouting above the wails of the alarm and the howl of the wind.

  “Are we smart?” Marik asked with sincerity, his voice hoarse with the effort.

  “No. I’m not, anyway.”

  As if to prove that point, it began to rain, an entirely inadequate word for the onslaught that pelted us. It fell as a curtain of water that instantly plastered my hair to my face and my clothes to my body. With an audible crack, the temperature plunged, and I hugged my arms to my soaking-wet sides.

  “Something’s not right,” Marik said. “I feel sick.” He staggered, and as I put an arm out to help him, he buckled to his knees.

  I fell beside him, my own knees splashing in the already pooling water. From this low-to-the-ground position, the reverberation of the earth was even more pronounced. My whole body rocked with quick vibrations until the bucking ground transitioned to rolling waves of slower but greater magnitude. But I knew earthquakes, and this was no run-of-Midgard temblor.

  “We have to get out of here,” I said. “Can you make it to my car on the other side of the building?”

  A crack of lightning split the sky, forking into white-hot branches.

  “I don’t know,” Marik said, gasping for air. “Maybe you should go without me.”

  “What? No!” I shouted. As I struggled to assist him to a stand, something hit me in the shoulder. It was hard and round, and it hurt. Another, about the size of a quarter, glanced off my forehead and another off my back until the sound of them pinging the parking lot all around us joined with the roar of the wind.

  “Now what is it?” Marik yelled, covering his face with his arm.

  “Hail,” I called back over the din of the thundering ice balls that slammed against my face, arms, and head, and were getting bigger. “We need to take cover.”

  Along the side of the parking lot there was a covered bus stop. The good folks of Pinewood had at least the wherewithal to factor the elements into their school design.

  I yanked Marik to his feet and pulled him through the bizarre storm. The hail hurt like hell, its source in all probability, and I knew I’d have welts and bruises. Just as we reached the small corrugated-tin-covered stop, the roar of falling missiles became deafening. We huddled to the back of the narrow three-sided structure and watched ice balls now the size of oranges grow to the size of grapefruit.

  Fearing the roof would collapse, I pulled Marik down to the ground, and we cowered under the cement bench. Marik, I could see, was fading fast. His breath came in rasps, and he shook uncontrollably. In his eyes I saw pure fear.

  “Safira’s coming,” he said, casting his head from side to side.

  I had surmised as much. Counted on it, even. But the enormity of it still made my heart rattle against my ribs like something caged.

  “But how?” Marik asked, contorting in fear and pain. “She must have help.”

  With that, the clouds turned black and angry as if the product of a violent rage. They filled the sky, expanding seemingly for miles. I noticed then a rotation forming. Above me, an edge folded in on itself and began curling downward and then up until it spun into a dizzying funnel of pure malice.

  Marik emitted a final animal-like bray and then went still. With his slump, a last bang of hail hit the tin roof with a jolt. Looking up into the maw of twisting fury, I saw objects caught in the swirl of energy. A car hood, an entire tree, a section of fencing, and more spun before me as if churning in some great sky-high blender, the roar of which was like nothing I’d ever heard. Among the spiraling debris, something new began to take shape. I squinted and covered my eyes, not trusting any of my overwhelmed senses to convey intelligible information from the pandemonium surrounding me. Out of coiling sky snapped the head of a snake the size of my VW bug. I screamed full-throttle, clambering backward.

  Next, and almost simultaneously, two things happened. The monstrous serpent lowered itself until just a few yards in front of me and, from atop its tapered head, Brigid and a companion — none other than Safira — swung down.

  The other shocking turn of events was, from my peripheral vision, the arrival of a battered green truck. It pulled to a screeching halt.

  Jack. I let out a muffled gasp. It was equal parts relief and dismay. Relief in that Jack had come for me. Even while mad, hurt, and disappointed in me, he came through. Because that was the kind of stand-up guy he was. As sidekicks went, he was long on everything. Dismay in that he would witness my plan and possibly try to stop me.

  Scrambling out of his truck, he ducked and shielded his face and head from the flying debris. A trash can came out of nowhere to wedge itself under his front bumper. He searched about frantically, flinching noticeably upon beholding Brigid and Safira, not to mention the monstrous snakehead. He also shuddered at the sight of Marik in a crumpled heap. When his eyes found me cowering at the back of the small shelter, his relief was so palpable I saw his Adam’s apple punch up and down.

  Brigid, however, didn’t share Jack’s devotion to me. The look she slashed me with was one of pure, arctic-blast hatred. She stood imperially with her arms crossed and away from her body and her stance wide and defiant. Her silvery gown, a new one, sparkled with a crystalline shimmer as it flapped in the wind. Beside Brigid, Safira seemed almost elfin. Whereas Brigid was tall, dark-eyed, and with long, flowing ebony hair, Safira was petite, my size or smaller, with pale skin, and her opal-white hair twisted into a tidy bun. Her sea-green dress, the one I’d only seen from the waist up and taken for sequins, I now saw as thousands of tiny, shiny fish scales, an epidural layer of her upper body but flowing to a long dress below. Its full skirt, puddling at her feet — or lack thereof — hid whatever form her lower body had taken on lowly Midgard. She remained rigid at Brigid’s side with her hands on her hips, and though I couldn’t quite place her fixed expression, it sure as heck wasn’t a social call.

  Jack sprinted to my side and gathered me in his arms.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, my voice blubbery. “And no.”


  With his right hand he spanned the back of my neck, drawing me toward him. “How’s this possible?”

  Before I could answer him, Brigid took a step toward us. “We meet again,” she said, shouting over the roar of the wind. “But I don’t think you’ll be pleased with the outcome. This time there are two of us conspiring to thwart Midgard’s excesses.” She gestured to her accomplice, who stood as waxen as she had before. “There is but one solution, is there not, Queen Safira?”

  Safira finally turned her head toward me, though she appeared resentful of the necessity. “Prior to our bargain, your earth, in its greed, had already upset the balance of the worlds.” She, too, had to shout to be heard over the wind. “Your reparations are too little, too late and have left us no choice but to reset order. And now with our pact broken, Brigid has convinced me that Ragnarök is our only recourse.”

  The very word filled me with rage and, just as importantly, adrenaline. Jumping to my feet, I stood, sensing Jack do the same behind me. “You trust Brigid for advice? She doesn’t care about your realm. She’d like nothing more than to freeze it over right alongside earth.”

  With my indictment, Brigid raised her arms above her head and held them outstretched to the funnel cloud. “The chosen among us are prophesied to survive. From Midgard’s rubble, Safira and I will rebuild our respective worlds.” Brigid then began lassoing her right arm above her head. The giant serpent spun faster, his immense body writhing in and out of the twisting air mass.

  “The Midgard Serpent is one of the signs,” Brigid continued in her menacing voice. “It was all too eager to be awakened from a long slumber.”

  The snake spun closer to the ground, his enormous tail flying lower and lower until, with a sickening snap, it struck Pinewood High School. A wall of sound ensued as, upon impact, bricks and glass and wood and all that once comprised the building exploded into shards and splinters and was sucked up into the horrific twisting chaw of the serpent.

  I fell backward in horror; Jack caught me, but the shock of the destruction had us both reeling with disbelief.

  At the sight of the wreckage, Brigid was giddy. “Join with me, sister queen,” she called to Safira, and then took and lifted Safira’s arm above their heads. “Together we have the power to tumble mountains, turn the sun black, and lift the oceans to swallow it all.”

  She cackled with laughter so catlike and menacing that even the serpent recoiled. The reverberation of its retreat sent dozens of mini tornadoes skittering across the sky.

  I felt Jack’s arm encircle me from behind. I sensed it was a sign of solidarity, yet it briefly transported me to two previous occasions when, in death’s clutches, I was embraced. Then Jack stepped in front of me. I watched as his body rippled with exertion, his neck elongating into ropy chords and veins bulging at his temples. In response and from somewhere primeval, he issued his own feral sound, more animal than human. In the distance and as if in reply, I heard a cry. At first, I thought it was an echo or the wind, but soon I realized it was a howl, wolfish in nature, rabid with anger, and the very sound that had sent Frigg and her maidens scattering during my vision quest.

  Jack continued to writhe in agony. Within moments, a dense fog descended; it was as thick as batting and fell so suddenly I lost Jack, who stood only inches away from me. A final groan confirmed his whereabouts and the source of the mist.

  Brigid screamed like a demon, no doubt a reaction to her rage at being plunged into a blinding haze.

  Safira’s voice was much more controlled as she called out, “Your tricks are for naught; Fenrir sets out for Odin.”

  I remembered that one of Ragnarök’s major events is a battle to the death between Odin — husband of Frigg and ruler of Asgard — and Fenrir the giant wolf. But there was more about Safira’s words that worried me. At her mention of the word “tricks,” I’d heard the lark song: tee, tee, hoo. Idunn’s calling card. Of all times, of all places!

  Jack’s thick-as-fleece fog bought us a moment, one I intended to use wisely.

  “Jack,” I whispered, fumbling for his hand.

  “I’m here.” He squeezed my fingers.

  “I need you to understand.” Emotions overtook me, and I had to pause to regain my composure. “Everything I’ve done . . . what I’m about to do . . . was to protect you, Leira, and others. Please remember that.”

  “Kat, you’re not making any sense.”

  “It will, I hope — at least I hope you’ll understand that there was no other choice.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re scaring me.”

  The mist turned suddenly icy, so frigid, in fact, that it hurt to breathe. The cold was particulate, pricking me like thousands of pinpoints. I knew, however, that this blast wasn’t Brigid’s. Jack, confused and desperate to understand me, was at the mercy of his gift. I had always been his undoing. At the minimum, he’d be released of this vulnerability.

  “There’s something I have to do. Something only I can do.”

  I was so frightened, my chest felt like it was imploding. The resultant hole was black and infinite. Where would I get the courage?

  So many events were happening at once, and compounded by the blinding mist, that I didn’t trust my senses to interpret them. The Midgard Serpent hissed. The air whinnied like the bay of a horse. Then I again heard the wolf Fenrir’s eerie howl. He was growing closer. Though the fog still banked us in obscurity, I could hear the impact of the distant tornadoes as they touched down. As they made contact, the sound of their destruction was horrifying.

  There was no time to lose. As I had on two previous occasions, I closed my eyes and focused on the thing I required, the thing I wished for most in that moment. In this case it was to take Leira’s place behind the sealed portals with Brigid and Safira as travel companions. Safira required one of royal lineage. I was as much a descendant of Afi’s selkie line as Leira. If Safira were appeased, if she no longer had reason to conspire with Brigid, maybe it wasn’t too late. I figured whatever access they’d created on the strength of their combined powers must still be open. It was the only way, without being in spirit form, to transition.

  I stood with my arms away from my body, willing a Swan Maiden — Blith or Frith, one of whom I was sure had encircled me on two previous occasions and delivered me from the threshold of death — to grant me my third and final wish. Hulda, who wasted not a single word, had first told me that a Swan Maiden had come to her on her first bestowment. When Jack and I had survived a near-drowning experience as kids, something feathery had encircled me from behind. And as the Brigid and the Frost Giants bore down on us in Niflheim, I’d again felt the downy crush of wings.

  Standing there, channeling what I felt was my final chance — humanity’s last hope, for that matter — I felt the mildly familiar presence of something powerful and heard a whoosh. Air blew my hair back, and I knew she was close. When I was grabbed from behind, I gave myself freely to the passage.

  I thought I had given myself, anyway. Very soon, however, I became aware that the arms around me were Jack’s. Above me, though faint and receding, I heard the lark song, an impishly merry sound.

  I barely had time to process these two things before I was knocked to my butt by something with one nasty kickback. Jack and I crumpled in a heap of tangled body parts. From this pileup, I watched as the blanket of fog lifted from around me. In its upward draft, it began to spin until I realized it was being sucked up into the raging storm above. With the rise of the mist, Safira and Brigid became visible. They were both fighting gale-force winds that had Brigid’s hair lifting and both of their elaborate gowns wrapping around their legs. They weren’t the only ones engulfed in the swirling funnel. Nyah, Frigg’s messenger, atop her flying steed was flailing to remain saddled. Her satchel had blown open, and its contents, blush-colored apples, were aloft as if juggled by some invisible jester, until I noticed the mischievous Idunn swoop a deft arm in their graceful arc and extract a single golden orb and stow it in her
once-empty basket. In the next instant, the four otherworldly visitors were all airborne and tumbling like clothes in a dryer. Through it all, Brigid’s fit of anger, Safira’s cries of surprise, and Idunn’s laughter were audible in churning fragments. The force of the vacuum almost pulled Jack and me upward as well. I screamed as the roaring, whistling mass lifted around us. And then with a final pop, like a cork being pulled from a bottle, the column of spiraling air disappeared, taking Brigid, Safira, Nyah and her horse, Idunn, most of Pinewood High School, and who knew what else with it. I rolled to my side, feeling something small and hard wedge into my ribs. I expected a hailstone but instead what I found was an apple, a perfect pink apple. With hardly a thought, I dropped it into the front pocket of my jacket. I had more immediate concerns, like sorting out exactly what had just happened.

  The moment the sky cleared, I knew that I was different, forever altered. At first, I attributed it to a case of near-death disorder, a condition that had become fairly chronic with me. Its symptoms were dizziness, confusion, and an overpowering urge to kiss the ground and then Jack Snjosson. Beside me, the object of my compulsion grunted.

  “Are you OK?” I threw myself on top of him, probably breaking every rule in a post-impact, potential first-aid situation, the mouth-to-mouth a possible exception.

  “Better now, I think.” He rolled to his side. “But what the hell was all that?”

  Where to begin?

  “I think that was my third and final wish being granted by a Swan Maiden, but something went haywire.”

  Despite getting my still-here-on-earth legs back, I felt leaden and lethargic.