Endure (23 page)

“No bunny pajamas this time,” I kid.

“I was so proud of you, I almost forgot to be angry at her,” he says, kissing the side of my head and letting me back down.

As Nick, Issie, and Amelie get closer I grab his arm and whisper, “I saw my father.”

His eyes widen. “Which one?”

I explain it was my stepfather, the one who raised me, and his smile grows so big that his face can hardly contain it. “That is so wonderful!”

He spins me around again in his joy and I laugh with him, letting happiness fill me before everyone else comes. They rush up the stairs, and then for a second we all just stand awkwardly around. My feet plant on the floor. Issie glows with happiness despite the fact that she was frozen a little bit ago. Nick looks part angry and part confused.

“You know,” Nick says, breaking the silence as he surveys the scene around him. “This isn’t at all what I imagined Hel would look like.”

“Me neither!” Issie chirps. “I imagined it a lot less frozen outside, with demons and pitchforks and hellfire flames everywhere. This is totally better.”

Amelie raises an eyebrow.

Hel’s voice rings over us, much more commanding than it was before. It seems to have layers of depth to it. “I hope it is a pleasant surprise.”

Issie’s mouth drops open. I guess seeing a half-zombie, giant-sized woman from a distance isn’t as traumatizing as it is being up close and personal with one. Issie stutters, but stretches out a hand. “You must be Hel. It-it’s good to meet you. I’m Issie.”

“I am delighted to meet you, Isabelle.” Hel shakes Issie’s hand and smiles. To her credit, Issie’s shudder of revulsion is really barely noticeable. Hel greets the others as well and then turns to me. “It is time for you all to go back.”

I nod. Something inside me twinges. Strangely enough, it feels so safe here. And I think I’m going to actually miss her.

“If you would not mind giving us provisions,” Astley says, “we would greatly appreciate it. Your land is cold and we have humans.”

Hel smiles and motions for us to follow her. She leads us back into the long room of mirrors and windows and gathers us all around a stained-glass window that depicts her reaching up beyond a frozen land and into the warm earth above it.

“Hold one another’s hands,” she commands.

I grab one of Astley’s and one of Nick’s because they are on either side of me and for a second I feel awkward and strange. But it passes because the world shimmers and shakes and then it’s as if all of my atoms have exploded and then slammed back into each other again.

Nick swears. Astley holds on tighter. Everything is white, terrifically blinding white light. And then it flashes out. I resist the urge to rub at my eyes and keep holding on to their hands as the world comes into focus again.

Nick curses under his breath and lets go of my hand and Issie’s. He twists around looking for threats.

“Wait. We’re uh . . . ,” Issie starts.

We’re back in Iceland, right by our cottage. The air freezes against us and I am suddenly very tired and confused and energized by what just happened.

“We teleported,” Issie finishes. “Like in
Star Trek
or
Harry Potter
, sort of. No! Like in
Dr. Who
in that episode with the Sontarans and the brilliant human boy, or really any
Dr. Who
ever if you think of the Tardis! Holy canola! That is just the coolest thing ever! Wowie, wow, wow!”

She starts jumping in place, excited beyond belief, I think. I laugh at her and she rushes to me and hugs me and says again, “This is the coolest thing ever!”

Nick smiles because he’s obviously no longer on high alert. “The world may end, but at least Issie got to teleport.”

“Wait till I tell Devyn! He’s going to be super-jealous! Then he’ll start explaining how the laws of physics work and blah, blah, blah, make teleportation absolutely impossible, but he’ll still be soooo super-jealous,” she says, letting go of me and still smiling. “I wish he got to do it too.”

“He does get to fly, Is,” I say. “And shape shift. You know those are pretty impossible things.”

“True. True. I’ll tell him that the next time he goes into his ‘time travel is impossible’ lecture mode.”

I adjust her hat, which has gone all lopsided, and announce to everyone, “Let’s get back to the airport. It’s time to go home.”

On the ride to the airport, I tell them all what happened with Hel, how she said magic and the army were important, how she said we had to be proactive and not reactive with Frank’s pixies, which means that we have to attack first.

“But how do we do that?” Issie asks.

“We could use bait,” I explain. “We get them to gather in one place because they think they’ll get something they want, something unprotected. Then we attack them.”

“What if that is what they want us to do?” Astley asks. He shifts around in the seat, lifts the seat belt away from his chest, reaches into his back pocket for a cell phone, and then settles back in.

“Well . . .” I obviously haven’t thought this completely through and I’m okay with that. “If we have a battle, we can eliminate Frank’s pixies, get Bedford safe once and for all, and then focus more on this whole end-of-the-world thing.”

Nick snorts. “And what is the bait?”

“Me.”

“Hell no!” he says. “Hell no.”

Astley says more calmly, “I do not believe that is a good idea.”

“How are you even bait anymore?” Amelie asks. “You are human now.”

I explain that Frank will still want me. He will try to turn me again, make me his queen instead of Astley’s. He won’t care if I die in the process. He just wants to try.

We argue and argue about it for the entire ride back to the airport. The sky is dark against the car but it’s warm inside from all our body heat and words. After a while I lean back and close my eyes and let the rest of them hash it out. I know my plan is right. I know my plan is dangerous, too, but it doesn’t matter. I move the sleeve of my parka enough so I can touch my father’s watch. It gives me hope and strength, and when I look around the car, I see my friends. I listen to them argue, and even though it’s cheesy I feel all full of love for them. No matter what happens, it’s worth it. It’s worth it to save them. I know it beyond a doubt.

The moment we drive into an area that has cell reception again, I call Betty.

“For crap’s sake,” she swears above the sound of the ambulance siren. She must be on an ambulance call. “Where the hell have you been? What’s happening?”

I breathe out and breathe in, snuggle my shoulder closer to Issie’s. “Well, to start with, I’m human again.”

“Very, very human,” Issie says, planting a kiss on my cheek, but sort of missing and getting my hair.

I repeat it. “Very, very human.”

And then I quickly tell her the rest of the story. When I finish, we’re halfway back to the city and Betty says in a quiet, steady way, “So, we attack them first.”

“Yes.” I look around the car at my friends. They already look tired, their faces are lined and battle weary, stress has thinned out Issie’s cheeks, hardened Nick’s mouth, made circles beneath Astley’s eyes, and caused Amelie to start pulling on her dreads.

“Well,” Betty says. “I guess we’ll really have to give the teenagers some more weapons.”

After we hang up, we all settle into a nice sort of silence. One of Astley’s men has been driving the whole time and he seems competent despite his suit and porn mustache. There’s a tattoo across the back of his neck. It’s some language I don’t know.

I stare across the seats at Nick and Astley. Nick is sitting in front with the driver and Astley is positioned directly behind him, sitting with Amelie. Issie and I are in the last row of seats and Issie’s fallen asleep, her hand clutching her cell phone. My gaze returns to Astley. I could reach out and touch him if I wanted, tug on the fabric of his winter hat, get his attention, ask him what he thinks about me now that I am human again, what he thinks about our chances of surviving all this.

It’s now or never really. The clock is running out, and there’s no way I can turn around and head back to the old Zara life—a life without snow or death or imminent world destruction, a life without pixies and shape-shifting humans and gods. Somehow, I have to stop the end of everything. I will.

I tuck my hair behind my ears, fix my own wool hat, and sort of sigh. The landscape is open out here, and we’ve been going through it for a while. Stretching my fingers out wide, I look at my human skin. It’s pale. It’s weak. How can I stop the end if I have no magic? The thought unsettles me. Doubt creeps into my stomach, making a pit. Just then, Astley turns around.

“You okay?” he whispers.

I shrug, which is the best non-answer I can think of at the moment. Astley rubs at the bottom of his stubbly jawline, and his eyes shift away from me, out the back window.

“We are being followed.”

I turn to look.

“Do not turn!” he says urgently, but it’s too late. I already have. He leans forward and tells the driver, but there’s nothing we can do. We’re on a long stretch of road through plains. There are no exits. Nowhere to turn off.

“They might not be following us,” I offer. “That’s sort of a worst-case scenario. I mean, why would they even need to follow us?”

“Intimidation,” Amelie says through gritted teeth. She opens her mouth a bit more to keep talking. “Or perhaps they know that we went to Hel, that we have more information on how to stop them.”

“Hardly enough,” says Nick, waking up thanks to Astley’s shoulder-shaking efforts. He growls a little bit beneath his breath. “Hardly enough information.”

“Or he wishes to turn you back,” Astley says, eyes narrowing, “now, while we are weaker, away from our comrades.”

“Where are we?” I ask as the driver tenses his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“They are speeding up,” he tells us.

We speed up too.

“They are maintaining distance,” he says.

We speed up more.

“Still maintaining distance,” he says.

Astley pulls out his phone. He punches in numbers.

“Who are you calling?” Amelie asks.

“The law-enforcement authorities. I shall report an erratic driver. Hopefully, they will respond,” he says, and I’m assuming this is what he does, because he stops speaking English. After a minute he clicks off the phone. “They will respond.”

“Soon?” Amelie asks. She’s holding up a mirror and angling it to see the dark car behind us. It’s an SUV and pretty solid looking. “Because they are—”

The car jolts forward and swerves. My seat belt presses hard against me. People swear. Issie wakes up, mumbling and confused. I try to calm her down and tell her what’s going on, but before I can, the car jerks forward again and zigzags as the driver tries to maintain control.

“I hate freaking pixies, and I hate the freaking apocalypse, and I hate freaking Iceland,” Nick growls, pivoting. “Does anyone have a gun?”

Nobody does.

“How can nobody have a gun?” he asks, his voice getting hysterical. “We’re on a mission to save the world and nobody has a gun.”

His voice takes on a new edge.

“He’s changing!” I warn. “Crud. Crud. Crud!”

The car slams into us again. The back end is now much, much closer to where Issie and I are sitting. The glass in the window is shattering. I unbuckle Issie’s seat belt, urging her to move to the next row of seats.

She clicks into place. A wolf snarls in the passenger’s seat. He pivots and glares at Amelie and Astley.

“Not them!” I scream. “Not them. Good guys, Nick. Good guys!”

His growl deepens and he swings his head to look at the driver. The driver’s pulling over? He’s pulling over and smiling and I suddenly understand that he’s a part of it, a plant or something.

“Get him!” I shout. “Get him! The bad one is right there! Get him!”

Scanner Traffic, Bedford Police Department

Control to 14: We have a report of a blue man running down Water Street with a disembodied head in his hands. Again. We have a report of a blue-skinned man with a head in hands on Water Street. 10-3.

14: En route.

Nick lunges after the driver, knocking him out of the car. They both tumble onto the road, a twisting mass of teeth and claws. It barely has time to register but Amelie’s already bolted out after them, diving over into the driver’s seat and out the now busted open door. She slams it behind her.

Astley takes the time to say, “Stay here,” before he’s out his door too, and I suppose I should appreciate that, but instead, I’m mad. There is no way that I’m staying in here when they are outside fighting. They could get hurt. They could—

I’ve got my hand on the door handle when Issie pulls me back. “Zara!”

“What?”

“You can’t go.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have no weapons. You’re human.” Her voice is both urgent and apologetic.

And for a second, I think she’s right, that I can’t go, that being human makes me weak, and it does compared to being pixie, but what really makes me weak is not being brave. Sure, I don’t have a weapon, but I can still do something, somehow, right? I shrug Issie off. “I can’t
not
help.”