Giants of the Frost (47 page)

My stomach hollowed. She was right. Odin wouldn't simply disappear once the sun had risen, nor lose interest once a day or two had passed. He would hunt me until he found me and killed me.

"We might be able to get the satellite fixed and call for help," I managed. My fear ignited hers and she fell into helpless weeping.

"Come on, Maryanne," I said, pulling myself to my feet and offering her a hand. "You must pull yourself together."

"I don't want to die," she sobbed.

I reached down and helped her up. "You won't."

"What if he tries to get in?"

"He can't," I said forcefully. "Let me take you to find Magnus. He'll make you feel better." I left Maryanne with Magnus and Gordon, and went in search of Gunnar. Alex and Josef had dossed down on the floor of the control room; Carsten and Frida had unlocked the old tearoom and were attempting to make hot cocoa with tap water. Gunnar had colonized a space under the stairs, filled it with blankets and pillows, and was reading a book by the light of a torch.

"Just like being a kid again," he said as I slid down beside him.

"You'd better preserve the battery. Might be a while before we get the power back on," I said, switching off his torch. The only light came from between the stairs, which formed bars of shadow across us.

"Gunnar, can I ask you something? A hypothetical? Would you sacrifice yourself for the good of others?"

"That's a tricky one. Do you mean would I die for a cause?"

"No, much more mundane. If people… friends of yours, were in danger…" I trailed off, unsure how to finish the question without giving away too much.

"Vicky?" he said.

"It doesn't matter. It's a stupid question."

"I think that good people .know the right thing to do at the right time," he said. "Does that answer your stupid question?"

"Maybe," I said.

"What's this all about, Vicky?"

Hail had started pounding the roof, as though stones were being hurled down on us. "I'm frightened."

"There's no safer place to be in a storm than locked inside a weather station."

"It's not just the storm. Remember the missionaries? The extreme heat?"

"Yes."

"It was thirty-two degrees before the storm started."

"But there hasn't been a frost. And the high temperature probably had something to do with the thermal movement." He smiled at me. "Vicky, I had no idea that stuff had worked its way so far into your imagination."

"It seems so real," I said, but my voice was drowned out by thunder.

"It's just a storm, Vicky," he said.

"And an axe-murderer."

His voice dropped to a whisper. "Did you really see an armed man?"

"Gunnar…" I turned on my side to examine his face in the dark. "No. But I'm almost certain he's out there, and it's too great a risk not to lock down."

"Is it the man you wanted to smuggle off the island?" he asked.

"No."

"But he's got something to do with him?"

"Yes." I held a finger to his mouth. "Don't ask any more questions. I can't answer them."

"Yes, you can. You can tell me anything. I won't judge you."

His gentle assurances disarmed me. I closed my eyes and said, "It's such a mess, Gunnar. I don't know where to start."

"At the beginning."

I weighed up my story in my mind, and tried to draw from it the important threads and separate them from the supernatural details which would have Gunnar thinking I'd lost my mind.

"I've met someone, Gunnar," I said. "His name is Vidar and he's been here on the island. I can't tell you how he arrives and leaves, but he's trying to escape from his family." I opened my eyes and Gunnar's gaze was locked on mine.

"His father is here," I said. "At least, I'm almost certain he is. I've seen the signs…" I laughed self-consciously. "It's all a bit cryptic, isn't it?"

"You're in love with him, aren't you?" Gunnar said. "I can make sense of a lot of things you've said and done lately if it's love."

"Yes," I said. "It's love. I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry?"

"I know that you… you know…"

Gunnar sat up and hugged his knees. "It's all right. I don't love you, Victoria," he said. "I thought it might be possible one day, that's all. I've not known you that long, and I'll miss you sorely when I go, but you haven't broken my heart."

"I'm glad." I knew he was lying.

"Are you sure you can trust him? Vidar, I mean."

"Oh, yes."

"Your plan was to help him get off the island."

"Yes, and take him where his family can't find him anymore."

"Are they really so bad?"

"His father is insane and violent. We're all in danger." I dropped my gaze. "But it's me he wants." Suddenly, a bright torch beam was shined into my face from between the stairs.

"Is that right?" Magnus said. "Victoria, perhaps you'd better come out of there and explain yourself." Maryanne hovered by Magnus's shoulder, glaring at me as though I'd betrayed her. I crawled out from under the stairs and opened my mouth to explain, but found no words for it. Gunnar was beside me. He reached for my hand, but I gently pushed it away. The others had gathered on the staircase to listen.

"You
know
this person?" Magnus demanded. "There's a violent, insane man with an axe on the island with us, and you
know
him?"

"I don't know him," I blurted. "I know
about
him."

"I heard you tell Gunnar you were going to smuggle him off the island."

"No, that was somebody else."

Maryanne's voice rose to a shriek. "She said the demon wants her, not us. We're safe if she leaves." Magnus's voice took on an exasperated tone. "Maryanne, for the love of God, will you calm down. There's no .demon, and I'm not going to put Victoria outside in the storm. I just want to—" His words were abruptly cut short by a frantic banging on the main door. Everyone froze, my knees shook.

"What was that?" Maryanne gasped.

"A branch hitting the door?" Carsten suggested.

The banging again, then a hideous bellow, half-animal half-human.

"What the hell?"

"It's him," I breathed, clutching at Gunnar's sleeve, fear hot in my stomach. Then, rhythmically and violently, a
thud-thud-thud
against the door.

"He's trying to get in."

Magnus shook his head. "It's just a branch, Carsten's right."

"Magnus, didn't you hear the—"

"It's a branch!" Magnus screamed, and his face flushed deep red.

"There's somebody out there." Josef raced down the stairs and across the floor to the door.

"Don't open it!" I screamed.

"Of course I'm not going to open it," Josef said. "And neither can he get it open. It's double-reinforced iron. I'm just going to take a look." He indicated the spyhole in the door, then turned to peer through it.

"There's nothing there," he said.

The relief in the room was palpable.

I hurried to the door and pushed Josef aside, pressing my eye to the spyhole. I saw a mad fish-eye view of the world outside, the swinging trees and the cabins all silent and drenched on the slab. My heart began to slow.

Then, glass smashing around the other side of the building. The office.

Maryanne screamed, "He's going'tö kill us."

"Stop it, Maryanne, stop it," Magnus shouted. "He can break the windows, but the shutters will keep him out. The entire admin building is secured."

A howl from the broken window. I peered around the corner, saw three meaty fingers hooked around the shutter, blood dripping from them.

"
Láttu konuna fara út
!" he shouted. He shook the shutter, it rattled but didn't budge.

"What is he saying?" Alex asked over the din.

"Send out the woman," Gunnar translated.

"Then send her out!" Maryanne shrieked.

"We're not sending Vicky outside to confront a madman," Josef said.,

"Victoria, do you know this man?" Magnus demanded. "What have you done? Are we in danger? Why is he here?"

"Listen!" Alex said sharply.

We grew quiet and listened. The shutter rattled furiously. Behind it, nothing.

"The rain's stopped," Josef said.

The rattling ceased abruptly, a weird silence. Not only had the rain stopped, but the wind had died down and the thunder and lightning had ceased.

"That's not possible," Gordon said.

"Upstairs," Josef said. "The observation deck."

"Don't open any doors," Maryanne called.

"I'm not going to open the door," Josef said irritably as he clattered up the stairs, Alex and Frida on his tail. "I'm going to pull the shutter."

Smash.

Another window in the office. I jumped. My teeth hurt.

"Oh, God, oh, God," I said.

"It's all right, Vicky," Gunnar said. "Magnus is right. We're safe in here." The rattling started again, the incomprehensible shouting. I looked at Gunnar and he seemed very young and vulnerable.

"Magnus, you have to see this," Josef called from upstairs.

Magnus and the others left; I followed, then paused at the top of the stairs. Josef and Alex had manually rolled up the shutters on the glass doors to the observation deck. Above us, the clouds were dissolving. I could see stars.

"This is insane," Gordon said. "The storm is melting into the sky."

"I've never seen anything like it," Magnus gasped.

Frida's nose was pressed against the glass. "What is that?" she asked. "Like a white shadow creeping across the grass."

My shoulders tightened.

Magnus shielded his eyes and stared for a long time before turning and saying what I knew he would say.

"It's frost."

I folded my arms around my middle. "This can't be happening," I said, but nobody heard me, so baffled were they with the weather. I stole down the stairs, where the smashing and shouting continued. My stomach felt like water. I unlocked the door to the rec hall carefully, lifted the bar and slipped out. The rec hall was cold and empty, and very silent without the fridges and freezers running. I stopped for a moment to gather my courage. Maryanne was right. Odin wanted me and, hopefully, once he got me, he would leave the others alone. I still held out hope that Vidar wasn't far behind him, but I couldn't allow Odin to beat down the door and slaughter everyone.

But to be so brave was almost impossible. I hesitated in the galley for nearly two minutes, then decided I had to move
then
, immediately. I steeled myself and opened the door to the outside world to meet my fate.

The whole world had begun to freeze. The chill shimmered over me as I stood, peering into the darkness. The ground was carpeted with frost and the raindrops on branches had solidified to silver. Silence upon silence, so eerie after the bang and clatter of the storm. Then, the faint groan and creak of the ice contracting.

A shadow at the main entrance. Odin.

Electricity shot to my heart and I started to run toward the forest. Gunnar had called it a good place to hide, and Vidar had proven it. Perhaps I could elude him long enough for Vidar to arrive. My heart thundered in my ears, but I could hear the monster behind me, roaring in his strange ancient language. I had a hundred feet on him and plunged into the dark of the trees before he could catch up. I pressed myself against a tree trunk and tried to stop my body from trembling to pieces.
It simply isn't possible to escape him.

The searing realization nearly knocked me to my knees. In that instant, waiting for him to find me, I didn't know whether to run, to hide, or to give up. I hated every option, and I could hear his footfalls drawing closer.

A cold hand clamped around my ankle and I gasped, then was pulled to the forest floor. I found myself staring at Skripi. He dragged me behind a fallen log, finger to his lips to indicate I should be silent. My hands were cut by broken twigs and my clothes were soaked and freezing. Violent shudders shook me. Odin drew closer. I shrank back against Skripi and wished he was more than a scrawny wood wight. My pulse pounded in my head. He moved into sight, a bare three feet away, huge and powerful as a bear, his features hidden in shadow.

Then he walked right past us.

Skripi leaned against my ear. "Don't move," he whispered. I didn't. I was perfectly still for two whole minutes, and would gladly have remained still for two hours, but Skripi eventually roused me, and said,

"We're safe for now."

"How did he not see us?" I whispered.

"His left eye," Skripi said. "It's missing. If you stay on his left, he can't see you. We must be very quiet. I'm taking you back to my hole."

I didn't want to risk Odin's hearing us by asking for clarification. I just rose to my feet and followed him.

"No, no!" Skripi hissed, turning on me. "You are too loud. He will hear." I thought about Vidar teaching me to move silently in the woods.
Your feet have to be as sensitive as
your hands
. Although he had warned me against removing my shoes, I couldn't see any other way to be as silent as Skripi demanded. I stopped and slipped out of them. With one in each hand, I began to walk. The cold was excruciating, but I could feel every twig and pebble beneath me and negotiated my way over them quietly.

Skripi and I crept through the trees like two ghosts, while the frost spread its wintry fingers over everything. The stillness remained unbroken, as though the forest held its breath. My feet ached from the cold and were bruised on sharp pebbles. At any instant I expected Odin to burst from the trees, axe raised over his head to split me in two. The night took on a surreal cast, as though I were watching myself in a movie. It was 4:00 a.m., with frost and a monster chasing me. Skripi turned and pressed his finger to his lips, and I felt so removed from reality that I nearly laughed.

"This way," he whispered, indicating a hole at the base of a tree trunk.

"What?"

"My hole," he said.

The tree was tall and broad, and two of its roots spread apart four feet before disappearing into the soil. The gap between them was black and empty.

"We're going in there?" I asked.