Loki's Wolves, стр. 6

Of the almost two dozen boys and girls there, half—in two groups of six—left. Fen watched with appreciation. They were a well-organized, obedient pack. The camp was impressive, too. Gear was in small piles, firewood was stacked tidily, and sleeping bags were rolled and stowed. Camp could break and depart in moments.

“You could stay with us,” Hattie offered. Her attention had both flattered and frightened him for years. She was one of the strongest wulfenkindhe’d met, but she was also weird and kind of mean. When they were ten, he’d watched her kill several squirrels by biting their throats. If she’d been in wolf form at the time, he might not have found it so gross. She hadn’t been, though.

“Here.” He pulled the shield out of the sack and tossed it to her. He didn’t expect it to hit her, but he might have hoped a little. Unlike fighting Skull, there were no downsides to fighting Hattie.

She caught the shield in midair. “You brought me a present?”

Skull laughed.

Fen shifted his feet and said, “No. It’s the dues for me andLaurie.”

Skull clamped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, but he told his sister, “Leave Fen alone. You’re scaring him.”

Although he was trying not to get into too much trouble with Skull, Fen couldn’t ignore the insult. “I’m not sc—”

“You belong with us, Fen,” Skull interrupted. “You know something big is coming. We need it to come. We’ll make it come.”

Hattie laid the shield down on a piece of animal hide that one of the younger wolves had dragged over to her. She squatted beside it and looked over her shoulder at Fen. “This wood was from the bog. This will be used in the final fight.”

“The what?”

“Ragnarok,” Skull said reverently.

“Ragnarok?” Fen repeated. He shook his head. It was one thing to remember the old stories, to know where they came from, but it was another to think that the end of the world was coming.

“The prophecy is true,” Skull said. “The final battle will change everything. It will be the sons—”

“And daughters,” Hattie interjected with a growl.

Skull continued, without even glancing at his sister, “The children of Loki will rise up; the monsters will wake. We’ll rule the world, and everyone will tithe to us. We’ll reign over the world like kings.”

And as much as Fen thought they were a little crazy before, right then he knew that they were far beyond simply crazy. The whole there-used-to-be-gods bit was true, but the gods were stupid. They were all dead. If the gods were dead, how could there be a final battle? It didn’t make any sense. Of course, that didn’t mean Fen felt like getting into it with Skull and Hattie. He tried to sound a little less disdainful than he felt as he said, “Right. Gods and monsters will fight, and a new world will be born. You’ll be in charge. Sure thing.”

Hattie stood and instantly arranged her body for a fight. “You doubt it?”

Ignoring her, Fen tossed the stick with the rest of the meat toward the fire and pointed at the shield. “I stole the shield. I carried it to your camp. We’re square. My dues and Laurie’s are paid. Whatever you do with it now is your business.”

“We just need one more thing,” Hattie started.

Fen looked from Skull to Hattie and back again. It was one thing not to start trouble with them; it was another thing to be their errand boy. “I paid,” Fen said. “Those are the rules. I paid, and now I’m done.”

Skull punched him.

Fen staggered. The whole side of his face hurt, and he knew he’d have a black eye for school. Great. Just great.He stepped backward.

Hattie walked over to stand beside Skull. Behind her, Fen could see other members of the pack watching. There would be no help here. They followed orders. They protected their pack and worked toward the goals of the pack.

“The final fight is coming. That changes things,” Hattie added.

The temper Fen was trying to keep in check flared. “Rules are rules, so—”

“ Youcan help, or we can go to Laurie, and shecan help,” Skull said. “The monsters will come, and they will fight alongside our champion. We need to be ready.”

There was no way Fen was letting them near Laurie, especially after the things they’d just said. He lowered his gaze as meekly as he could. “What do you want?”

“A Thorsen. The youngest one,” Skull said.

Every Brekke knew there were things the Raiders did, things that were better not asked about. That didn’t mean that Fen liked the idea of helping them get at anyone he knew—even someone he disliked. Turning a person over to them was wrong.

“Why?” Fen asked, hoping that they would say something that didn’t involve hurting Thorsen.

Hattie sighed. “Because he’s theirchampion in the final fight.”

“Right,” Fen drawled. “You need to stop a kid from fighting in Ragnarok. What are you going to do, really?”

Skull and Hattie exchanged a look, and then Skull stepped forward and slung an arm around Fen. “The boss said to deliver the kid. We aren’t dumb enough to ask what for, but”—he paused and grinned—“if you want to ask, we can deliver you and Laurie, too.”

“No,” Fen said carefully. “I’ll get him.”

Skull squeezed Fen’s shoulder tighter, painfully so, and said, “Good pup.”

FOUR

MATT

“PREMONITION”

Matt lay in bed. It’d been a day since he’d unleashed Thor’s Hammer. Fen hadn’t said anything to anyone. Laurie hadn’t, either. Matt wanted to believe that meant they were going to forget it, but he couldn’t help thinking they were only waiting for the right moment. Then they’d tell everyone how he’d used something like a flash-bang and knocked Fen right off his feet, and Matt’s parents—and every other Thorsen in town—would know exactly what had happened. Matt had broken the rules: he’d used Thor’s Hammer.

Thor’s Hammer was the only magical power the Thorsens still had. Sure, they were usually bigger than other people, and stronger, too, but that wasn’t magic. The old books said there used to be other powers, like control over weather, but that was long gone. They were left with the Hammer, which for everyone else was like an invisible punch that they could throw whenever they wanted. Only Matt got the special-effects package—the flash and the bang. And only Matt wasn’t able to control when it went off.

His grandfather had tried giving him different amulets, but it didn’t fix anything. His parents were right: it wasn’t the amulet messing up—it was him. The power was in the descendants of Thor themselves—the amulet was just a… Matt struggled for the word his family used. Conduit. That was it. The necklace was a conduit that allowed the power to work. Which should mean the solution was easy: take off the necklace. Except a Thorsen couldn’t do that for long before he got sick. Matt could remove his in the boxing ring, luckily, but that was it.

He should just tell his parents what happened. He’d started to last night, then chickened out and told Dad he’d seen some kids messing around at the longship, and Dad said he’d have his men patrol for a while. He’d lectured Matt, too, about taking more responsibility for their town, how he should have done something about it, not come home and tattled to his parents. That stung, especially when Matt haddone something. He already felt bad about it. He should have been able to handle Fen without setting off the Hammer.

Don’t think about that. Focus on something else. Think of your science fair project.

Oh, yeah. That helped. Let’s focus on anotherexample of how badly you can mess up, Matty.