Runes #03 - Grimnirs (10 page)

I was shaking, my mouth dry, my heart pounding. The only being that could move like that was supernatural. Grimnirs. I jumped when the front car doors opened and my parents got inside the car. I hadn’t even noticed Mom leave the car.

“That’s strange,” she said, shaking her head.

Dad nodded, sliding behind the steering wheel. “Maybe it limped off.”

“No, I’m talking about the car. There’s no dent, but we hit something.”

“Very strange.” Dad shifted the gears from park to drive. The wheels churned before gaining traction. As we pulled away, someone whizzed from the bushes, stopped in the middle of the road behind us, and watched us drive away. He wore a long coat.

Echo?

At home, I stepped out of the truck and stared in shock at the huge dent on the side and runes drawn all over it. How could my parents not see the dent or the runes? I knew runes were powerful enough to make people invisible. Obviously, they also made people not see things.

Mom put her arm around me. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? No mark on the car after we almost landed in a ditch.”

No marks indeed. I wished my parents goodnight on the run, needing to be in my room.
Please, let him be there.
I pushed open the door and looked inside.

It was empty.

“Echo?” I called out, but there was no response.

Disappointed, I got ready for bed, fought sleep, and waited for him as long as I could. Where was he? Was he the dark figure in the middle of the road? Had one of his people tried to kill us? Why had an Immortal marked me?

***

My alarm went off, yanking me from sleep. I was alone in bed. Somehow, I’d expected Echo to be lounging around, ready to drive me crazy. Last night’s events rushed back and, immediately, a hollow feeling settled in my stomach.

Where was he? Was he hurt or off somewhere reaping? Who was warming his hands and face when he came back from Hel’s Hall?

Even as the thought crossed my mind, I wanted to kick myself. I didn’t care if he had women in every major city of the world. He and I weren’t lovers, no matter what he’d said. I could walk into my doctor’s office and ask her to confirm my virginity, but that might lead to embarrassing questions and innuendos.

I got up, showered, and got dressed. I felt like slapping myself when I peered into my bedroom and searched for Echo before stepping out of the bathroom. Seriously, I needed to get a grip. Echo thrived on being unpredictable. He’d appear when I least expected him. I headed downstairs for breakfast.

“I want to go back to swimming,” I said as I forked a piece of pancake.

Mom looked up with a frown. “Why?”

“Because it’s something to do in the evenings and it’s normal.”

“What about your homework? You have a lot of catching up to do, Cora. I don’t want you spreading yourself too thin and making yourself ill.”

If she only knew. “I’ll have time to do my homework too, Mom. I promise I’ll finish everything in a few weeks. Raine promised to help me. It will give her something to focus on.”

Mom couldn’t argue with that without coming across as insensitive. She gave in, though she didn’t look happy about it. I’d talk to Dad later and get his support. He was the only one who could stop her from complaining.

Outside, I stared at our truck. The dent was gone, but the runes were still there. They were different from last night’s and covered the entire truck. I tried rubbing one off, but they appeared imbedded in the paint. What did they mean?

Echo had been here, fixing things with runes. Why hadn’t he awakened me?

I left the farm, eager to get to school and talk to the blonde Valkyrie about her sister marking me. Maybe Echo would pull me inside the make-out closet again. He had a lot of answering to do. He was the one on the road last night. I just knew it.

Flashing police lights ahead forced me to slow down. Cops scoured the grounds at the scene of last night’s incident. What were they searching for?

Even as the question flashed through my head, I noticed the rows of flatted vines on both vineyards. They looked like weird crop patterns conspiracy theorists blamed on aliens. Deep fissure were also visible on the ground, and several trees were down as though ripped from their roots by giant hands. It would take superhuman strength to do this kind of damage. Or aliens called Grimnirs. I knew they were fast, but were they strong, too? I didn’t recall seeing the trees fall last night, which meant more fighting must have happened after we drove away.

An officer indicated that I move along. Now I was worried about Echo. At every stop sign, I expected him to appear in my car.

The first person I saw when I parked at the school’s parking lot was Kicker. She waved and hurried toward my car.

“We missed you yesterday at the pool. Are you swimming today?”

“Yeah. Got my stuff.” We started across the parking lot when I noticed her T-shirt. It had the silhouette of three guys and a girl.

“What’s that?” I pointed at her shirt.

She looked down at her chest and grinned. “Reapers? The hottest band ever.”

I frowned. Reapers? “How come I’ve never heard of them?”

She laughed. “You have to live in a major city across the globe and attend rave parties to know about them. They are ravers’ best-kept secret. They appear out of nowhere, perform, and leave. No one knows who they are or where they come from, but people love them. They symbolize what raves are about.”

All I knew about ravers was that they did drugs. “What?”

“Spirituality, intimacy, letting go of society’s shackles. They don’t care about money or fame.”

Sounded like something a real reaper would do. “I never would have imagined you as a raver, Kicker.”

“Me neither. My cousin who’s a serious raver invited me to a party a few months ago in Portland, and Reapers made a surprise appearance. That’s what they do. They come unannounced, which is totally cool. They gave out these T-shirts for free.”

“Do you know the names of the band members? What they look like?”

“No. They always wear masks, but you can tell they are young and hot. I mean, they are seriously buff and ripped. Since they’ve been around since the eighties, some ravers believe they get new members every ten years. Others believe they are more than one group. You know, like a hundred members of the band, because they’ve monitored and timed their performances down to seconds. They perform one night a month in a span of twenty-four hours across the globe. There’s no way they can move from city to city in minutes.”

If they used portals they could. We entered the school and moved past people standing in groups catching up on gossip.

“The fact that they can do that only makes them more mysterious. My cousin’s dream is to be a member of the Reapers.”

I could easily see a bunch of reapers taking one night a month to release steam, performing to underground groups. Maybe Echo knew them. Drew was near my locker when we entered the hallway.

“Are you two back together now?” Kicker asked.

One kiss didn’t an item make us. On the other hand, the one from Echo had made an impression and left me hungry for more. I didn’t answer Kicker, choosing to focus on Drew.

“Hey,” I said, slowing to a stop near him.

He grinned and dangled several Sharpies, including a pink one. I chose a pink and a black one, squatted, and wrote my name, making O a heart and coloring it with pink.

“Want to hang out after school?” Drew asked.

With his leg busted, he wasn’t playing football anymore, which meant he had more free time and no friends to pass it with. I glanced at him and smiled. He was so sweet, just not my type.

“I’d love to, but I can’t. I have swim practice. Then I promised to stop by Raine’s. Her father had massive stroke and is in a coma.” I stood and pushed the lids back on the Sharpies. “She’s not taking it well.”

“That sucks. I, uh, I’m thinking of throwing a party for Keith on Friday. It would have been his eighteenth birthday. Can you come?”

“Sure.” I put my stuff away and picked up my folder. “When and where?”

“At my place. Come on, I’ll walk you to class.”

I chuckled. “You do know my first class is English and it’s on the west wing of the school. Upstairs.”

“I know.” He flashed a boyish grin. “You’d be amazed at what I can do with three legs.”

“Okay.” But I slowed down to match his gait. I had no idea what he had in the first period, and I didn’t want to ask in case it was something I should already know. Somehow, I must find a way to let him know I wasn’t interested in him. Maybe during his party.

“Hey, dude, have you seen St. James?” a jock asked Drew as we left the locker area.

“No. Why?”

“Coach wants to see him.”

“That’s terrible about Raine’s father,” Kicker said. I’d completely forgotten her presence. “She must have cracked a mirror or something. First, her father’s plane crashed, then the accident at the pool, which people blamed her for. Then when she came back to school, everyone drew horrible things on her locker and yours, and now this.”

I stopped walking. “People did what?”

Kicker’s eyes widened, and even Drew stared at me with a weird expression. Then I realized what I’d said. Dang, another thing I should have known about. Seriously, I should just keep my mouth shut when people talked about what had happened the last several weeks.

“What? That’s messed up,” Drew said and I realized they were talking.

“I know,” Kicker said. “I was shocked when she told me.”

“You seriously can’t remember anything that happened?” Drew asked, staring at me and standing smack in the middle of the hallway. Students were forced to walk around him.

I shrugged. “The doctors said everything would come rushing back whenever.”

“It’s my fault,” Drew said.

“It’s no one’s fault. Things happen.” Especially when the supernatural are involved. “I have to go. I don’t want to be late for class.”

He grabbed my arm. “You don’t understand. We were, you know, kissing after we won, and I didn’t realize the crowd was surging toward us. One second you were in my arms. The next someone pulled you away while others pushed me down. I tried to find you. I should have tried harder or held you tighter or—”

“Don’t say that. I’m sure it was a crazy evening, and no one is to blame.”

“I agree,” Kicker added.

Drew smiled at her. He walked me to class and somehow ended up inviting Kicker to his party, too. The look on her face was comical. She’d never hung out with football players.

For the rest of the morning, I searched for the Valkyries and hoped Echo would do his appearing act. I was beginning to worry about him, even though I knew I shouldn’t. He could take care of himself.

Still, he’d better show up soon. I had enough crap to deal with without worrying about him. When I didn’t see Raine near our lockers, I sent her a text message.

During lunch, Kicker filled me in on everything I’d “missed” and it wasn’t pretty. My anger shot up as they talked and laughed about someone defacing Raine’s locker and people treating her like crap because she’d known something bad was about to happen during that disastrous meet. Apparently, Eirik and the other me were the only ones who’d stuck by her. That they found that amazing made me want to smack them.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” I asked, glaring at Sondra, then Naya, and finally Kicker. “This is Raine Cooper we are talking about. The nicest person you bitches know.”

Sondra’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t just call us the B word.”

“Shut up, Sondra,” I snapped. A few students at the neighboring table looked at us. I glared at them until they looked away. Focusing on the three girls at my table, I added in a lower voice, “You know and I know that Raine would never knowingly hurt anyone. How could you not stand by her?”

“Come on, Cora. It was kind of spooky the way she knew things,” Kicker said defensively.

“I saw her too, Kicker. I thought she’d lost it, but I would never think she’s a witch,” I retorted, seriously thinking of bitch-slapping them into next week. “Or are you guys forgetting she had an accident and almost died, and maybe, just maybe, the accident messed with her head.”

“She levitated, Cora,” Naya piped in. “Jocelyn saw her float above the water.”

“And the disappearing thing,” Kicker added. “One second she was there, the next gone.”

I must have missed that while I was busy staring at the Valkyries and the souls. When I hadn’t seen her, I’d just assumed she’d run out into the changing rooms like the other students.

“Jocelyn lied,” I said, enunciating my words. “With the chaos, people running and screaming, the lightning, anyone would have imagined anything. Or lightning shooting through her caused her to appear to levitate.” I stood and glared down at them, daring them to contradict me. When they didn’t speak, I turned and walked out of the cafeteria.

Of course, they’d seen Raine appear to levitate, or carried by beings no one could see. I blew out a breath, feeling terrible. School must have been a nightmare for Raine.

After her father’s crisis was over, she and I were going to have a long talk. There must be a reason why she’d known about the pool accident before it happened. Maybe she was a witch. If I could be in two places at the same time and Valkyries existed, my best friend could definitely have premonitions. And she had to know Torin was a Valkyrie. One second in Echo’s presence and I’d known he was different.