Thor's Serpents (5 page)

Matt could hear a girl pleading. Like she was begging for her life.

“If you guys are going in, someone should stay out here,” Ray said. “I’ll do it.”

“What?” Reyna said. “Absolutely not.”

Matt heaved on the door as hard as he could. It wouldn’t budge.

“Spread out,” Laurie said. “Find another entrance—”

Matt pulled Mjölnir back and swung it at the glass door. It shattered on impact.

“Or we could do that,” Laurie said.

Ray glanced over at him. “Next time, could you give us some warning? So we don’t get sliced and diced?”

“Glass shatters in the opposite direction of the force applied,” Matt said as he stepped through. “So the shards all land inside.”

Reyna looked over at him. “Have some experience with breaking windows?”

“No, I learned it in science class. Now, watch your step.”

He jumped over the glass, then raced past the abandoned ticket booths and into the main hall. The girl was there. She was about his brother Josh’s age and wore a museum employee uniform.

“Please,” she said. “Please, please, please. I didn’t mean it. I was just a little kid. It was a mistake. I never meant for anything to happen to you.”

“Um, where’s the monster?” Baldwin whispered.

The girl was pleading with thin air. Tears streamed down her face and she wobbled, as if her knees were about to give way. Before Matt could grab her, she screamed and tumbled onto the floor. He lunged to catch her and told her it was
okay, but she crab-scuttled away, her eyes wide with terror as she stared at something—or someone—he couldn’t see.

“It was a mistake,” she sobbed. “Please believe me. I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

“It’s mara,” Matt said to the others.

He looked around sharply, searching for the ugly old crones who were the personification of nightmares. The bringers of nightmares, too. They’d encountered mara before at Baldwin’s house, soon after they’d first met him.

That was why the lights had gone out. So the mara could come and infect everyone with nightmares. Some people had fled, while others argued with their families or neighbors. But those weren’t really nightmares, just irrational fear and anger. Real nightmares were like this—the girl trapped in the darkest corners of her mind, imagining someone she’d hurt had returned for revenge.

“The mara are here in the museum,” he said. “This is the epicenter. Their power broadcasts, so it’s not as bad outside.”

“I didn’t really like the mara,” Reyna said. “I’d prefer trolls.”

Matt agreed. Trolls were real. Big chunks of rock, nearly impossible to fight, but still solid. Nightmares were a whole other thing.

“We’ve done it before,” he said. “We can handle it. Owen?”

The older boy looked over.

“Can you send your Berserkers out to hunt for mara and people in trouble?”

“I can.”

Once Owen had stepped out to speak to his troops, Matt said, “Let’s stick together, see what we can do to make sure no one gets affected.”

As Matt walked through an exhibit hall, he marveled at how much more difficult everything was in a near-total lack of light. For one thing, you couldn’t see the dinosaurs until you smacked into their leg bones and the skeletons nearly toppled onto your head. For another, plans to “stick together” really didn’t work out so well.

They’d lost Laurie, Baldwin, and Owen back in the lobby. When they started out, he’d considered asking everyone to hold the shirt of the person in front of them. But they’d feel as if he were treating them like little kids. Now he wished he’d done it, no matter what they thought, because at some point before they left the lobby, half their “train” derailed. Once they reached the paleontology area, he’d called a question back to Laurie and hadn’t gotten an answer. That was when he realized she was gone. Along with Owen and Baldwin.

He couldn’t blame Reyna and Ray, either. They might have been walking in front of Laurie, but they’d been
wrapped up in their magic, trying to weaken the mara when they took manifested form, changing from smoke into hideous old women with black pits for eyes.

Now, as Matt headed back toward the lobby, he whispered Laurie’s name. He didn’t dare call it, for fear it would bring the mara. He could hear the crones’ handiwork deeper in the museum—people jabbering and begging and crying.

“We need to get to them, Matt,” Ray said.

“I know.” Matt squinted about, looking for any sign of the others. “You guys keep going. I’ll catch up as soon as—”

“Uh-uh,” Reyna said. “We’ve seen how the mara operate. No one goes anywhere alone. But Ray’s right. I think we’re actually weakening them this time, and the longer we’re hunting for the others, the longer we aren’t stopping the mara and helping those people. Laurie can handle it. You know she can.”

He hesitated and then whispered, “Okay. Fall in line behind me. And hold my shirt. I’m not losing anyone else.”

They weakened a few of the mara and freed the people they’d been terrorizing. Well,
freed
might not be exactly the right word. They’d had to leave the people where they were, dazed and bewildered, still shaking from their nightmares as Matt, Ray, and Reyna raced off to help the next victims.

Matt kept hoping they’d bump into the others. When he caught sight of a blond girl up ahead, he took off so fast Reyna and Ray had to shout at him to slow down. As he neared the girl, he knew it wasn’t Laurie. She was too short. She looked younger than them, maybe seven, with pale hair and bright blue eyes. She wore a blue sundress and no shoes, exactly as she had in Blackwell, when she led Matt into the community center to overhear his grandfather’s true plans.

“Matthew Thorsen,” she said. “You are here.”

“Friend of yours?” Reyna whispered.

“This is one of the Norns,” Matt said. “It’s Present. I don’t know…” He looked at the little girl. “Do you have a name?”

She smiled beatifically, in that slightly unfocused, surreal way of hers, like someone perfectly happy in the moment, with no worries about the past or cares for the future. Which made perfect sense, all things considered.

“Do I need one?” she asked.

“I guess not.” He looked around. “Are your sisters here?”

“Not now.”

“You mean they’re coming?” Reyna said. “Or they were just here?”

“Don’t ask that,” Matt whispered. “She only knows the present.”

“Seriously?”

“That could make conversation tough,” Ray said.

“Tell me about it,” Matt muttered. He turned to the Norn. “I’m hoping you’re here looking for me. That you have something to tell me. Maybe a clue about what I’m to do next.”

“That would be Future’s domain.”

He winced. “Right. Okay, um…”

“Let me try,” Ray whispered. “Are you here looking for Matt?”

The girl smiled. “For all of you. But especially Matt. He is confused about his path. We have come to guide him.”

“Good,” Matt said, exhaling.

“Can you tell him what he’s supposed to do?” Ray asked. “I mean
be
doing. Now.”

“He ought to be speaking to Future.”

“Okay,” Ray said. “Where is she?”

“Behind you.”

He turned to see a girl who looked around his brothers’ age, sixteen or seventeen. She wore a rough skirt, like a Viking woman, and her blond hair was done in tiny braids, piled on her head. She turned around and, seeing him, she smiled.

“Perfect,” Ray said. He turned quickly to Present. “Now, don’t go anywhere. At this moment, do not move and continue not moving while we speak to both of you. Can you do that?”

“I can, Raymond,” Present said.

Ray turned to Future. “Matt needs to know what to do next. Obviously, we’re heading to Ragnarök, but we don’t know where that is or what we need to find before we get there.”

Present answered with, “You have all that you need.”

“Then what
will
we need? In the future. For the battle.”

“Nothing more,” Future said. “Except to know where to go.”

“The battleground,” Matt said. “So… it’s that close? I haven’t heard Gullinkambi crow.”

“When will the rooster crow?” Ray asked, rephrasing it as a question for Future.

“Soon,” she said. “When you are ready, you will hear the cock crow and you must get to the battlefield.”

“Perfect,” Matt said. “Now where is the battlefield?”

The two Norns looked at each other. “We do not know,” they said in unison.

“Because that’s in the past?” Matt said. “No, it can’t be.” He glanced at Ray.

“You should know,” Ray said, turning to the older girl. “The battle comes in the future, so you must know where it will be held.”

“I do not.”

Panic nestled in Matt’s gut. “Does that mean there is no battle? We don’t make it that far?”

“You will,” Future said.

“Wait, does that mean there’s no battle because we avert it?”

“It cannot be averted. To find the battlefield, you must find the one who knows the rules of engagement.”

“And that’s not you. Okay, so who’s in charge of the battle? The, uh, referee or whatever.”

“That would be us,” the Norns said in unison.

Matt groaned. He glanced at Reyna.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “I’m more lost than you are. Ray?”

Her brother shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t get it, either. Let me try, though.” He turned to Future. “You and your sisters are in charge of the battle to come. Is that correct?”

“Yes and no. The rules have been set since the dawn of time. Past knows what they are, but she cannot tell you, because that could give you an advantage, and that is not our place. Our place is simply to enforce the rules as they are set for both sides.”

“So who knows these rules?” Matt asked.

Ray said to Present, “Who currently knows the rules?” Then to Future, “And will she explain them? Can you tell us that?”

Future nodded. “We can tell you this much—look to your family for answers, Matthew.”

“And by family…” Matt said slowly. “You don’t mean my grandfather, right? Because he’s not going to help me.”

“He may, and he may not. The future has yet to be set, so we cannot tell you what is to come.”

“But the person who knows, it’s a family member, but not my grandfather. Right?”

“Your grandfather knows,” Present said. “Yet he does not know. He understands the rules, but does not know the location of the battle.”

“Anyone got an aspirin?” Reyna muttered.

Matt tried again, as patiently as he could. “At present, though, a Thorsen family member other than my grandfather knows and I may ask him—or her.”

“Yes.”

“Is it my—?”

“That is all we may say,” the Norns said in unison. And they disappeared.

L
osing track of the rest of their group didn’t frighten Laurie quite the way it would have before their trip to Hel. She didn’t like being split up, but this wasn’t the first time she’d faced the mara, so she knew that everything should be okay. They’d fought these monsters before, at Baldwin’s house the night before he’d died. Unfortunately, it was scarier without Fen at her side.
Everything
was scarier without Fen.

She hadn’t realized how much she counted on the way that Fen and Matt were both there for her. They’d become a team, and she wasn’t sure how to fight the monsters alone—not that she was truly alone. The Berserkers, Matt,
and the twins were somewhere in the museum, and Owen and Baldwin were still at her side. It was only Fen who was truly gone.

“This way,” Owen muttered as he grabbed her arm and started pulling her through the lobby deeper into the Journey Museum. “Watch for wolves. They’re everywhere.”

“Wolves?” She looked at him and saw that he had the glassy eyes of someone trying not to be swept up in the
unreal
things he was seeing. “They’re fake, Owen. Whatever you see is fake. These are mara.”

He nodded. “The Berserkers are protecting people. I need to protect you.”

His words weren’t wrong, but they weren’t exactly
right
, either. He’d helped her learn how to use her bow, and he’d rescued the twins. He wasn’t usually the sort of person to hover at her side like this. Not seeing the future any longer appeared to have left the representative of Odin a little lost. Around Matt and the others, Owen still seemed to be trying to sound like himself. With her, he was more… vulnerable.

“They’ll take my other eye,” he whispered. “They might take your eyes, too. We need to hide from the wolves.”

“Focus.” She lightly slapped his cheek. “Focus on me, Owen. There are no wolves. There are only mara here. They’re creating nightmares from your fears.”

“Shhh! The twins are with Matt, so it’s just us with no
magic to help.” Baldwin was beside her then, standing on her left, so she was between the two boys. Walking three across wasn’t a good plan, though. It made them too much of a target. It also made them more likely to run into obstacles and meant that she didn’t have a free hand.

Laurie linked hands with Baldwin, and then ordered, “We’ll walk in a row. Grab Owen, and don’t let go of him.”

“Got him,” Baldwin whispered. “Lead on.”

She kept her flashlight tucked under her shirt to dim the light. She wanted to keep them from being seen, but she couldn’t totally go without it. When there is no power at all, the world gets
very
dark—especially when the sun and moon aren’t anywhere to be found in the sky. The sky was black, and the lights were out. There was nothing but darkness inside and outside.

I can do this.

It might be a lie, but Fen wasn’t there. Matt was somewhere else. She didn’t have a lot of options. She would have to lead them.

As if the dark weren’t already terrifying enough, monsters waited in the blackness all around them. Laurie wasn’t certain of it, but it seemed pretty likely that mara could see better without light than the humans could. They were creatures of nightmares, and nightmares happened at night. It only made sense that they were stronger in the dark. So Laurie would get them to a safer place than out here in the
lobby, and they’d figure out what to do from there. Hopefully they could reconnect with Matt and the twins.

Laurie led Baldwin and Owen farther into the museum, but they didn’t find any of the others. What they found were monsters. She heard growling only a moment before Baldwin jerked her to a stop.

“Fen?” Baldwin asked.

“Raiders!” Owen stepped forward so the three of them were standing in a small cluster.

And there, in front of her, was Fen. He had a lantern of some sort, and he was only a few steps away. She was relieved. He was here! They’d all been wrong. She knew it! But even as she smiled, she noticed that something was wrong. Fen wasn’t coming to help her. He wasn’t explaining what Matt had seen in the forest. Instead, he stood there with Skull and Hattie at his side. Hattie held his hand in hers, and Skull smirked at them.

“How does it feel?” Skull asked.

“What?” Laurie croaked.

“To know that Fen was working for us for almost two years,” Hattie said. “We knew that Ragnarök was coming. He’s been our spy. He left you.”

“I would’ve saved you, but you aren’t worth saving.” Fen flashed his teeth at Laurie. “You didn’t think I’d care about you after you lied to me, did you?”

“I didn’t lie.” She tried to step forward, but someone held
on to her arm. She dropped her flashlight trying to pull away from the person who had her arm.

“You didn’t tell me about Owen. You kept secrets from me.” Fen watched her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything, but that doesn’t mean you should help
them
.” Laurie tried to reach the flashlight, but it had vanished. The light was still shining at Fen, who was walking toward her now. As he got closer, she could see that there were teeth marks in his arm. Someone—probably one of the wolves—had attacked him. His arms were bleeding now.

“You don’t understand. You’re not like me.” Fen shook his head. “I hoped you would be a wolf, too, but you’re not. That’s really why I had to leave. You won’t survive the fight, so I’m not going to bother trying to help you anymore. If you were a wolf, you could join me, but only the
wulfenkind
will survive Ragnarök. You’ll die.” He inclined his head toward Baldwin and Owen. “Them too. It was a waste to worry about trying to rescue either of them when they’re going to die soon anyhow. You were weak, and you were trying to make
me
weak, too.”

“No,” she insisted. “You listen to me, Fenrir Brekke. I didn’t lie, and the world isn’t ending. We can win. You can come back with me, and we’ll win.”

Hattie and Skull laughed. They were laughing so hard that they seemed to be shaking like they were ready to fall
over. Laurie realized that she was shaking, too. It wasn’t from laughter, but because the floor was vibrating.

“Something’s wrong,” she told them all. “Something is very wrong.”

No one listened, though, and the vibrations from the floor were making it hard to stand. Earthquakes weren’t typical in South Dakota. Tornadoes were, but that wouldn’t explain why the floor in the museum was rattling.

“Pay attention!” she yelled.

Skull and Hattie kept laughing, and Fen was staring at her in anger. Laurie looked around the surprisingly bright room. It seemed strange that she could see when everything had been so dark only a few moments ago.

Before she could figure out why, Laurie saw the trolls running toward them. Giant trolls, a whole army of them, were running so fast that it would only be a moment until they trampled the Raiders.

“Fen!” she screamed. “Look out!”

But the troll grabbed him in a hand that was already turning to stone—even though it was obviously
not
dawn—and Fen was swept up into the air. His legs were dangling, kicking at nothing, and the two Raiders were laughing. He was being choked by a troll, and the Raiders were
laughing
.

“It’s your fault,” Hattie said. “You lied to him, and now he’s dying.”

“No!” Laurie started running toward her cousin, but in a moment, she was jerked back by both arms. Fen, the troll, and the two Raiders all vanished. Everything went dark again, as if the light she’d seen all around them had been turned off. Suddenly, she was standing outside the Lakota tipi in the center of the room with Baldwin and Owen at her sides.