Loki's Wolves (11 page)

A low growl sounded behind him.

Matt lifted his head to see a wolf standing there. A giant wolf with gray fur and inch-long fangs. The guy he’d thrown to the ground was gone.

Matt could tell himself that the wolf had somehow run in without him noticing, and the Raider leader had taken
off, but one look in the beast’s eyes and he knew better. This
was
the Raider leader. The guy had turned into a wolf. Now it was hunkering down, teeth bared, ready to leap and—

Someone screamed. A long, drawn-out wail of a scream that made the wolf stop, muzzle shooting up, ears swiveling to track the sound.

Not a scream. A siren. The tornado siren.

Matt looked up and saw that the sky had turned yellow. Distant shouts and cries came from the fair as people scrambled for cover. Then, far to the left, a dark shape appeared against the yellow sky. A twister. It hadn’t touched down, but the gathering clouds seemed to drop with every passing second.

A howl snapped Matt’s attention back to the wolf. It wasn’t the beast howling; it was the wind, shrieking past, as loud and piercing as the siren. The wolf’s eyes slitted against the wind as it sliced through his fur, and he turned away from the blast.

Matt charged. He caught the wolf with a right hook to the head. The beast staggered, but only a step, better balanced on four legs than two. Then it lunged, teeth flashing. Matt caught it with an uppercut. A yelp, but the wolf barely stumbled this time, and its next lunge knocked Matt down, with the wolf on his chest. He grabbed its muzzle, struggling to keep those jaws away from his throat as the beast growled and snarled. Matt tried to kick it in the stomach, but his foot wouldn’t connect.

Someone hit the wolf’s side and sent it flying off Matt. Matt scrambled up and tackled the wolf. His rescuer did the same, both of them grabbing the beast and trying to wrestle it down. It was only then that Matt saw that it was Fen who’d come to his aid.

“Attacking a
wolf
?” Fen grunted as they struggled. “You’re one crazy—” The wind whipped the last word away.

Matt looked across the field. The tornado had touched down. They needed to end this and get to safety. Now.

With a sudden burst of energy, the wolf bucked. Matt lost his grip and slid off. Fen stayed draped over the beast’s back.

“Use your thing!” Fen shouted.

“What?”

“Your—” Fen’s face screwed up in frustration as he struggled to stay on the wolf’s back. “Your power thing. What you hit me with.”

How did Fen—?
Not important.

Matt clenched his amulet. It had barely even warmed since the fight had begun, and now it just lay in his hand, cold metal. When he closed his eyes to concentrate, something struck his back. A chunk of wood hit the ground. A sheet of newspaper sailed past, wrapping around his arm. The next thing that flew at him wasn’t debris—it was one of the Raiders. Matt slammed his fist into the kid, then turned back just in time to see the wolf throw Fen off.

The wolf looked at Matt. Their eyes met. The wolf’s lip curled, and it growled. Even as the sirens drowned out the sound, Matt swore he could feel it vibrating through the air. Matt locked his gaze with the wolf’s. It didn’t like that, snarling and snapping now, but Matt held its gaze, and as the beast hunkered down, Matt pulled back his fist, ready to—

A black shadow leaped on the wolf’s back. Matt barely caught a flash of it before the two went down, rolling across the grass. Then all he could see was fur—gray fur and brown fur.

Two wolves. The big gray one and a smaller brown one. Matt looked over to where the wolf had thrown Fen, but he wasn’t there.

Loki. The trickster god. The shape-shifter god.

Fen was a wolf. These kids all were—which wasn’t possible. The Thorsens all said that the Brekkes didn’t know about their powers. You can’t use powers if you don’t know about them.

He looked at the wolves again.

Apparently, everyone was wrong.

Matt ran at the leader wolf. Another Raider jumped into his path. It was the little kid from earlier, but Matt was beyond worrying about fighting fair. He hit the boy with a blow to the stomach, followed by an uppercut to the jaw, and then shoved him aside.

Now the big wolf had Fen pinned, jaws slashing toward
his throat. Matt jumped on the beast’s back. It reared up. Matt grabbed two handfuls of fur, but that was really all he could do. He didn’t have claws or fangs, and he wasn’t in any decent position to land a punch. Just get the thing off Fen. That was his goal. Just—

He saw something sailing toward them as fast as a rocket. A branch or—

“Duck!” he shouted to Fen as he leaped off the wolf’s back.

He hit the ground hard. He heard a yelp and rolled just in time to see the wolf staggering, a piece of pipe hitting the grass beside him. The beast snarled and tried to charge, but it stumbled and toppled, blood trickling from its ear. It hit the ground, unconscious.

Fen leaped up and they turned to face the other Raiders, who’d been standing back, letting their leader fight. Half of them were wolves now, and they were closing in, growling and snarling, eyes glittering.

A figure jumped one of the human Raiders. It was Laurie. The Raider grabbed her and threw her aside. Two of the wolves jumped Fen. The biggest ran at Matt, but he veered aside and raced toward Laurie. He caught her attacker in the side and knocked him away.

He put out a hand to help Laurie up.

She waved off the help and glowered at him. “I could have handled it.”

“I was just—”

“I’m here to help you two. Not to be rescued,” she said.

Before he could answer, the bigger Raider was on him, and Laurie’s attacker was back on his feet. Matt managed to take down his, and Laurie seemed to be doing okay with hers, but when he went to help her, a hand grabbed his shoulder.

Matt turned, fist raised. It was Fen, now back in human form. He pointed to the east, and Matt saw the twister coming. The dark shape was stirring up a debris cloud, making it seem even bigger than it was.

“We gotta run,” Fen said.

“What? No. We’re—” He slammed his fist into a charging attacker. “We’re fine. That twister—”

“Not the twister,” Fen said as he ducked a blow. He jabbed his finger east again, and Matt made out a group of figures racing across the field. Coming their way. More Raiders. He faintly caught a groan to his left and glanced over to see the big wolf rising.

“We need to
run
.” Fen gave Matt a shove in the right direction and went after Laurie.

Matt turned to help, but Laurie had thrown off her attacker. Fen grabbed her by the arm, and they started to race toward the fair. Matt took one last look around—at the twister, the Raiders, the giant wolf.

At this rate, I’ll be lucky if I make it to Ragnarök
, he thought, and tore off after Fen and Laurie.

L
aurie shook off Fen’s arm. Hailstones pelted them as they ran. Everyone knew not to run from tornadoes, but tornadoes
and
wolves? That changed things, but maybe not everything.

“I don’t want to get separated,” Fen yelled over the wind. He grabbed her hand and twined his fingers with hers.

She yanked away from him again. She was hurt and angry that Fen had kept such a huge secret from her.

“Then hold Matt’s hand,” she yelled back and got a mouthful of the sawdust that was lifting and swirling in the air.

He was family, her best friend—and he’d lied to her.
He’s
a wolf. How could he not tell me!
She felt tears sting her eyes as the wind slapped her face.

She wasn’t sure which of the shrieks and howls in the air were wolves and which were from the tornado sirens and the storm itself. She wasn’t going to look back for either threat. If she’d been at home, she’d have gone into the basement of the building. Here, she wasn’t sure what to do, but Matt seemed to have a plan. She’d never expected to be following a Thorsen, especially after the fight Matt and Fen had had the other day, but right now they were all on the same side: the three of them versus the wolves.

“Over here.” Matt gestured toward the longship.

Climbing up seemed crazy, but the ship would protect them from the hail, flying things, and maybe even the wolves. It wouldn’t protect them from the tornado. The roar of it was awful, and being higher up seemed like a great way to fall farther.

“We can get inside it.” He scrambled up the side of the ship. Matt tapped in a code on a lockbox mounted on the wall. It popped open, and he grabbed a key. “Come on.”

Would Fen go with him?
She wasn’t sure, and her loyalties were divided. She might be mad at Fen, but he was still Fen—and Matt was the kid who had thrown Fen at the longship
. Was that magic, too?
She felt like an idiot. They both knew things. Matt wasn’t freaked out about the wolf thing, either. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but right
now, the two people who had answers were both staring at her. A new burst of hurt and anger filled her.

She ignored the hand Matt held out to help her over the side of the ship, and she didn’t say a word as Fen climbed over after her. They crawled across the deck of the ship on their stomachs, keeping themselves as low as possible; the sides of the longship protected them from the worst of the wind and kept them hidden from the wolves.

Matt fumbled at the lock, taking far too long for her liking.

The wind ripped at their clothes and hair; rain and hail pelted them. She opened her mouth to say “Hurry,” and the air took her breath away. She snapped her lips closed.

Behind her, she felt Fen move closer. He had put his body behind her to shelter her from flying branches and hailstones. Because he was blocking her from the storm, his mouth was directly beside her ear. “I wanted to tell you,” he said. “Wasn’t allowed.”

She didn’t answer. Later, they would have to talk—or yell, more likely—but right now, she couldn’t say anything. If she did, she might start crying, and she wasn’t going to look all wussy in front of the two of them.

Matt looked back and said something, but all she caught was “Fen, pull.”

Fen yelled, “What?”

“Pull,” she shouted, turning to him as she did so.

Fen glanced behind him, and then he nodded, apparently satisfied with what he saw—or with what he didn’t see.

As her cousin reached past her, she looked back, too, and realized that no one had followed them onto the ship. She wasn’t sure where the wolves had gone, but they weren’t here now. Maybe they’d had the sense to seek shelter, too. Being caught in a tornado could be deadly for a wolf, just as it could for a person.

Together, Matt and Fen tugged the door open. Matt’s arms were tight as he held on to the door, and Fen had to brace a foot on the wall, but they had the door open. Fen gestured with his head, and even though she couldn’t hear what he was saying, she knew it was some version of
You go first.

She scrambled inside, fumbling in the dark, and felt someone bump into her almost immediately.

“Sorry,” Matt muttered as he steadied her. “Steps. Be careful.”