Endure (2 page)

Nick turns wolf the moment he steps out of the truck. I pick up his clothes and put them on the seat before locking up. He takes off down the tracks and I follow. He always has to be alpha and tonight I’m too sad and stressed to really mind like I normally would.

I’m barely out of the truck when I sense something. It’s a smell that I don’t recognize—rotting flesh, but that’s not it. There is vanilla mixed in. I stand still, completely creeped out. This is something different, something powerful. I survey around me, slowly turning three hundred and sixty degrees. The sensation that I’m being watched makes me hold my breath. I get back to my original position. The smell dissipates and I lope down the track after Nick, catching up pretty quickly.

It’s dark and cloudy and snow is booming down out of the sky like it’s on some sort of world-freezing mission. I can still feel that something, somehow, is not right tonight, even though the rotting smell is gone.

“Please let it be a wimpy pixie,” I mutter. “One that’s easy to fight.”

My muscles rigid up while the wolf next to me pricks his ears, lifts his head, and growls. I reach out to touch his neck, to feel the fur bristle, but he moves away from my touch like he has over and over again these last few days. Something in my heart cinches up. Truth is, this is the only form where he’ll get even slightly close to me.

It’s been half a week since I rescued this wolf/man from Valhalla, half a week since he lost his memory of what I did there to save him, almost a week since I turned from human to pixie. Just one week and my heart has been broken over and over again. My heart must hate me, because I swear it would almost be easier to die than to have to face Nick blowing me off again, turning away.

No, not tonight. I’m not about to wallow in oh-my-boyfriend-doesn’t-love-me-anymore self-pity tonight. And I’m not about to die either. I’ve already hesitated too much, distracted by Nick. I’m off my game.

I put my gloved hand on my knife, pull it out from the sheath thingy that’s attached to the belt on my jeans, and press my back into the tree, waiting, breathing as shallowly as possible.

Nick doesn’t move either. He waits in wolf silence. Dawn is still hours away. The closest road is about a mile behind us. It’s just us and the woods. It would be the perfect time to make Nick listen. When he’s wolf, he can’t talk, but he still understands.

No, I will not be distracted.

I will focus. Nick paws the ground once, but doesn’t leave his spot.

The fear of loneliness is eremophobia.

I will not be eremophobic.

My thoughts and mind will be still.

Still.

Still . . .

“Nick,” I start. “I know that you are mad at me because I’m a pixie and that makes you think—”

He growls. It’s soft and low at first. I glare at him, will him to be silent and just listen to me, but he’s either not psychic or he doesn’t pay attention, most likely both. I squat down, tap him on the flank.

“Hey. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I need you to listen.”

His eye flits toward me to see what I want. I raise a finger to my lips and then point at him to be silent. He growls again and that’s when I realize that he’s not growling because he’s trying to ignore me and make me shut up, which would be totally rude. He’s growling because he senses something.

I groan. I’ve lost my focus. Again.

“What is it?” I whisper far too quietly for human ears, but I know Nick can hear me. “How many?”

Suddenly, I can sense it again too. Something heavy moves through the woods behind us. There’s a rasping noise to the footsteps, almost like the sound of paper on fire. Nick’s body tenses. Then to our left is another noise. Something else creeps through the trees. I sniff, trying to smell something, but all I know is that it’s not pixie or human or a wild animal or what I smelled before in the parking lot. I stand again, step forward as gently as I can on the snow. The air smells of burning and frost and snow-wet dog, balsam and spruce. Fire. I think that’s what it is. Whatever is coming behind us smells of fire.

Nick and I turn simultaneously. I peer around the tree. An orange glow creeps closer. It smells of death, burning, anger. It takes the shape of a man, a man twice the size of a normal man. He marches in a straight line right toward us. His sword burns with flame and he holds it in one hand as he walks. He’s getting close, maybe thirty feet away from us.

What the hell is he?

This is not a pixie. I still don’t know a lot about us but I know that we can’t change into this form. We aren’t so tall. We aren’t made of fire but instead, like humans, we are made of flesh and bone and need.

I swallow hard and grab Nick’s fur to keep him from lunging forward. He doesn’t pull away because he probably knows that to pull away would give us up for attack. He grunts softly just as another giant man-thing steps into the first one’s path. This one’s not on fire but he’s just as huge. Blue hair hangs from his head. Bare forearms that are larger than my thighs ripple with the movement of his muscles. His boots strap up his legs and seem to be made of fur. His skin is as white as the snow and a helmet obscures most of his head. He raises a two-headed ax thing that’s covered with ice. He roars.

The woods bristle.

These things are way worse than pixies.

Way.

Worse.

I will not be afraid of monsters . . . I will not be afraid of monsters . . . I will not be afraid . . .

But fear overtakes me. It’s like a punch that comes from the inside and tries to pound its way out. One second passes. It is the longest second in the universe. Nick’s muscles tighten the way they do right before he attacks. I drop to the ground and wrap my arms around him. He struggles against me halfheartedly, I think, and then gives up just as the first giant man, the red-hot one, swings his sword toward the icy guy. They clash. The sound is almost as loud as thunder, but more metallic. Steam rises from where their weapons meet.

I think my mouth drops open, because my teeth suddenly hurt from the cold and snow is falling on my tongue. The orange giant raises his sword above his head and charges. The frosty one lifts his ax and deflects the blow. Metal hits metal. Again, steam rises from where their weapons meet. One of them, the fiery one, roars and the trees shake. A branch above our heads catches fire, it pops and sizzles and then the entire thing is engulfed, flames raging high.

I stagger backward, pulling Nick with me. And he actually lets me. He would never do that before; he’d be surging forward, joining in the fight or guarding me. Now he is just as scared as I am, I think. The fire sizzles above us and to the left, and suddenly the air is much warmer. The branch cracks off the tree and falls to the snow, smoldering. It’s black and twisted.

That’s when it hits me: they really are giants, not just giant men, but giants. Both warriors wear chain mail; links and links of it surround their massive chests. Weapons slash against each other, and the mail seems to withstand it until . . . They both thrust forward. The ax cleaves down on the frosty one’s shoulder and neck. The movement leaves the fire giant open for a thrust to his chest. The sword sticks into his pecs and stays. Steam flies up to the air as the fire giant falls to the ground. One second later the frosty giant slumps to his knees and then keels over backward. Blood gushes out of his neck.

The world is quiet except for the frosty giant’s harsh, gurgling breaths. Nick whimpers. I let go of my hold around his neck. “Okay. Be careful though.”

He rushes forward, sniffs cautiously at the fire giant and abandons him. He must be dead. He is still. I don’t hear him breathing. But the other one?

“Pixie.” The icy giant gasps out the word. “Zara of the willow, the stars, the White.”

My name. He knows my name. I look to Nick, who has rushed to the frosty giant’s side and is sniffing at the ax, at his wound. Nick makes a soft whining noise into the still-burning air. I move forward, finally no longer frozen. The giant is sprawled across the snow. His beard is icy in some places, singed in others.

“We’ll get you help,” I say, grabbing his hand. It is like touching frozen metal. My skin adheres to it almost. His eyes are ice, dying and unfeeling. His muscles limp. We both know it’s too late for help. Plus, what kind of help could I even get? An ambulance? For a giant man of frost?

I maneuver myself so I can lift his head up off the ground a little bit, but the blood just rushes out more. Which is a good thing, I think, because taking a long time to die a painful death could never be right.

“How do you know my name?” I blurt.

He doesn’t answer that.

“What can I do?” I beg him. “Tell me how to help you.”

His breath shallows. Beyond us, the fire giant’s body hisses in the snow. This one’s mouth moves and each word seems a tremendous exertion of will, of effort. “Loki will escape the cavern. You will die. Must. Stop.”

I
will die? Me specifically?

“Loki?” I search for answers in the empty eyes. “The Norse god, Loki?”

His nod is just the tiniest of movements. His voice is so quiet I have to lean closer and cock my ear to hear him. “Ragnarok will come. Here to warn the king . . . He must not . . .”

“Must not what? What?” My voice begs, pleads, is a cry into the night, but it doesn’t matter. His head falls into my lap. His body stills. There will be no more answers from him; not tonight, not ever.

“Thank you,” I whisper. My hands move to close his eyes. For a moment it is as if all his power, his cold will, echoes through me. The shock of it leaves me still. Frozen.

Then it is gone.

I don’t know what to do. Do I leave him here? What about the other one? Nick whines and paws the ground. I wipe my hand in the snow to try to get off the blood and then flip open my cell phone. No signal. Of course. I make an executive decision.

“We’ll go back. We’ll get help to move the bodies, then bury them. They’ll be okay here for a minute, right?” I ask Nick.

He pants, which I’m going to decide means yes.

I gently take the giant’s head out of my lap and place it on the ground. I kiss his cheek. “Good passage.”

It is all I can think to say. The snow behind me sizzles from the smoldering branch next to the other giant’s body. Something is off here. As I turn to look, the giant himself suddenly bursts into flames. Nick yelps and scrambles backward, paws sliding on the earth. Then, just as quickly as it started, the fire is gone and the giant is gone with it. All that’s left is a black smudge on the ground. When I turn back to look at the frosty giant, he’s gone too. There’s just a pile of snow. I reach through it, feel for him, but there’s only vapor.

“This. Is. So. Weird,” I mumble. “This is
Twilight Zone
weird, freaky sci-fi weird. I’m not hallucinating, am I?”

Nick rolls his wolf eyes, which is pretty impressive, albeit annoying.

“Nice,” I say. “Very supportive of you. Thanks.”

He barks a short retort.

“You are so lucky I don’t understand wolf,” I tell him.

It takes us about twenty minutes to get back to the parking lot between Bedford High School and the softball field. Nick stays in wolf form the entire way so I can’t bounce ideas off of him about whether or not we were hallucinating or if we really just saw giants. I can’t ask him why I rarely see him in human form since he came back despite the fact that we’re living in the same house. Seeing him at school hardly counts since he avoids me and doesn’t even come to lunch. In this form, I can’t ask him one freaking thing, which is probably why he’s like this—all wolf and quiet.

When we get to my car he just turns around. He doesn’t even give a nice bark or anything like a dog in a Disney movie would. Then again, he’s not a dog and this is not Disney. Disney pixies are decidedly different. Nick just takes off into the woods without looking back.

“Yeah,” I mutter, “nice seeing you too. You want to go get some pizza, ’cause I’m sick of spaghetti? Maybe thank me for bringing you back to the world of the living? Yeah . . . awesome.”

I open the door to the truck, sighing, even though sighing is cliché. I sigh because there is nothing else to do. I sigh because sighing about Nick is all I have left in me right now. Just that. A sigh.

I start the engine right away because if some evil pixie is going to sneak attack me it’s best to be able to drive away super-fast. But when I let my brain relax for a second it’s not evil pixies I think about or even Nick. It’s what just happened in the woods—the fight.

Images of the ax wound in the ice giant’s neck and the fire giant erupting into flames flash into my brain, searing themselves there, and I shudder as I grab my phone and text our friend Devyn because Devyn is brainy and research oriented and occasionally a bird. It’s too late to call.

Giants? One icy. One fire. Signs of Ragnarok?

In Norse mythology, Ragnarok is this ancient prophesized end of the gods and of humans, which a year ago I would have rolled my eyes at but now . . . now . . . Well, I’ve met Odin and Thor and been to Valhalla. It’s hard to really roll my eyes at anything.

Air starts blasting in through the heaters. I hold my breath. Something is watching me again. I can feel it, a nasty darkness that shouldn’t be there. The tiny hairs on my arms stand up and brush against the fabric of my shirt. I don’t have to move my sleeve to know that I have goose bumps.