Rune Witch: The Complete Series: Rune Witch

By Jennifer Willis

The old Viking gods are alive — and living paycheck to paycheck in Portland, Oregon, while trying to avert one cosmic disaster after another.

 

Just around the corner is Sally, a teenager trying to harness real magick in one of the world's weirdest cities, where odd occurrences are hastily dismissed.

 

But when she unwittingly claims her mantle as the Rune Witch, Sally finds herself contending with disgruntled gods, shifty heroes, and magickal messes she can't easily explain to her parents.

 

Suddenly a central figure in Odin's Lodge, Sally must learn to master her power and find her place in the mortal world, all while battling ancient forces, traveling to other realms, and navigating the uneasy allegiances among the likes of Thor, Heimdall, Freya, and Loki.

 

Because Ragnarok can't be delayed forever.

 

This is the complete, six-volume collection of the Rune Witch urban fantasy series — full of modern-day magick, action-packed mayhem, and ancient legends come to life.

 

This boxed set includes:

1. Moon Dog Magic
2. Elements of Magic
3. Black Pool Magic
4. Raven Magic
5. Chaos Magic
6. Twilight Magic

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Willis
• Release date: Jul 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201807702

Book preview

RUNE WITCH Boxed Set

RUNE WITCH BOXED SET

THE COMPLETE SERIES: BOOKS 1 - 6

JENNIFER WILLIS

CONTENTS

Moon Dog Magic

Map: Oregon and Washington

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Acknowledgments

Elements of Magic

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgments

Black Pool Magic

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgments

Raven Magic

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Chaos Magic

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Acknowledgments

Twilight Magic

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Author's note

Acknowledgments

Also by Jennifer Willis

About the Author

Copyright © by Jennifer Willis 2022.

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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Cover artwork design by Steven Novak.

Author photo by Rachel Hadiashar.

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Published by Jennifer Willis

Portland, Oregon

Jennifer-Willis.com

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental.

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please visit your online retailer to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting and supporting the hard work of this author.

MOON DOG MAGIC

RUNE WITCH, VOLUME 1

MAP: OREGON AND WASHINGTON

Map of Oregon and Washington, illustrated by Mike Volk.

To Mike,

my love, my friend, and the wind in my longship's sails . . .

CHAPTER ONE

Sally blinked at the rune stones on the dried rabbit skin she’d spread out in the middle of her bedroom floor. Sitting cross-legged on the carpet in her sweatpants—beneath the elaborate ritual robe she’d made for herself out of hemp and raw silk—the teenager glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand.

4:52 a.m.

It was already Thursday morning. She had less than 72 hours left. Sally had to get this right, or all hell would break loose. Quite possibly literally.

She blinked hard, trying to bring her tired eyes into focus. This was the third straight night she’d foregone sleep to pursue her carefully crafted rune rituals while her parents snoozed at the other end of the hall. She should have known sleep deprivation would catch up with her sooner or later.

Now she was pretty sure she was seeing things.

She reached for the overweight cat beside her and scratched the fur between his ears.

Too bad I can’t just chug a Red Bull, Baron. Her tongue felt heavy and slow in her mouth. She’d given up caffeine and sweeteners—and anything else that might interfere with her magick—two weeks earlier and had barely gotten past the withdrawal headaches. Lulled by the sound of Baron’s steady purring, Sally was tempted to crawl into bed and resume her working at a more reasonable hour. But she didn’t have the luxury of downtime. After the coming New Moon—when her ritual work was complete and she’d permanently and positively altered the course of the Cosmos—then she could sleep.

Sally sighed and stared down at her orange-and-black tabby. No rest for the renegade witch.

Baron—technically, Baron Jaspurr Von Pussington, III, of Frisky Mews, Whiskershire, named by Sally’s mother, who had watched one too many televised cat shows immediately before the family went to the SPCA to adopt—stood up, stretched his hind legs and spine in a graceful display of flexibility, then padded closer to Sally’s workspace. He sniffed at the rabbit skin and the silver-colored stones laid out on top of it, and sneezed.

Baron! No! Sally shouted in a half-whisper, mindful of waking parents who wouldn’t take kindly to rune magick in the wee hours of the morning, or any other time of day. She pushed the portly cat away and waved frantically at her runes.

This has to be exactly right. There’s no room for error, or for cats with allergies.

Unimpressed, Baron started chuffing on a hairball, then swallowed hard and collapsed sideways on the carpet with a muted thunk. The cat rolled over on his back, exposing his impressive belly, and stretched his paws toward Sally’s altar space.

Mmm. Sally grunted in agreement. Let’s get back to it.

She leaned forward and studied the hand-carved rune stones. Six pieces of polished hematite were arranged in a semicircle above a small square of paper with three interlocking triangles drawn in thick red lines. The remaining eighteen rune stones sat in a pile to the side, waiting to be used. She’d spent months researching and planning in meticulous detail a complicated series of rune spells, with every piece timed down to the minute to coincide with Sleipnir’s Convergence. Odin’s Return, she called the great work. And she’d scarcely completed the first section of it when she could have sworn she saw those rune symbols glowing.

The planets were coming into perfect alignment with the old constellations—Mercury in Durathror, Venus in Thiassi’s Eyes, Mars in Nidhogg, Jupiter in Vedrfolnir, Saturn in Dain, Uranus in Ratatosk, Neptune in Duneyr, poor demoted planetoid Pluto in Dvalin, and the sun itself in Hellewagen. As near as Sally could tell, there had been no such astronomical convergence thus far in recorded history. Not that anybody paid attention to the ancient Viking constellations anymore. She’d taken it upon herself to name the astronomical event after Odin’s strong and swift—and eight-legged—white horse, Sleipnir.

Combined with a rare second New Moon in a single month, the Black Moon, this convergence offered an unprecedented opportunity for power and change.

Though she was only sixteen, this would be the great act of Sally’s life. The world, and the ancient spirits she resurrected, would thank her for it.

But once she started her workings, she had to complete the cycle of rituals and castings precisely on-schedule—unless she fancied having the entire universe implode. Or she might accidentally turn everything in creation an unpleasant shade of taupe. It was a toss-up.

Sally flicked her strawberry hair over her shoulders and grabbed a fuzzy pair of pink kitten socks to pull onto her bare feet. She bent over the rabbit skin and reached for the silver-gray piece of hematite she had painstakingly engraved with an n-shaped mark.

Hematite to shield against negativity, grounding magick into the Earth itself, Sally’s brain ticked off by rote.

Uruz, Sally said aloud while Baron watched her pale, delicate fingers. This is the rune of primal power and change. Uruz is sacred to Njörd, father of the twins, Freya and Freyr. Its shape is symbolic of a pair of ox horns—AAOW!

Sally dropped the hot stone. Baron watched it fall onto the white fur.

Son of a bitch! she spat, ignoring her own rule to never curse when doing magickal work. She held her burnt thumb to her mouth and sucked on the scorched flesh. Skin sizzled under her tongue.

Sally extended her other hand over the collection of stones on the rabbit skin. Heat radiated off them. The air practically crackled.

Hot runes? This was definitely a first.

As Baron crept forward to sniff at the hot stones, Sally scrambled across the carpet to the adjoining bathroom. She turned on the cold water and stuck her thumb in the stream, ignoring her reflection in the mirror over the sink. She knew what it would show her—dark circles under her tired green eyes, pale and hollow cheeks, and stringy hair. Come Sunday, when her spell-work was done, she’d indulge in some much-needed aromatherapy.

After a three-day-long nap.

She shut off the faucet and studied her singed thumb. The symbol for Uruz—ox horns and all—was seared into her flesh.

Great. Sally closed her eyes and wondered just how badly an accidental self-branding might impact her work. Now everything she did would be tinged by Uruz’s energy of creation and wild manifestation.

Sally’s eyes lit up.

Well, Baron. Sally glanced across the carpet at the tabby, who lounged half-purring, half-snoring, by the rabbit skin and stones. She waved her branded thumb in the air. I guess this means it’s working, huh?

Tugging gently on the smoky quartz pendant around her neck, she stepped out of the bathroom and sat back down in front of her altar space. Swatting away Baron’s paws—the cat had a bad habit of claiming her runes as play toys—Sally pulled the long sleeves of her ritual robe down over her hands to shield her fingers and picked up the still warm rune stones.

Knocked flat on his back by an unseen force, Heimdall stared up at the open sky of waning, pre-dawn stars, and tried to catch his breath.

The son of Odin and guardian of the old Norse gods had been hunting the Tree, moving through the forest as silent as a wolf. The Yggdrasil, the not-so-mythological World Tree, had been reborn somewhere in this Pacific Northwest forest. There was no telling which species of tree it had chosen for itself this time around. Maybe cedar, oak, or even another spruce as it had been in its last incarnation.

Heimdall had checked each young sapling for some sign of the Yggdrasil, hastening his pace through the darkness to the rhythm of hooting owls and chirping cicadas. If he didn’t find the Tree—and soon—the entire Cosmos might pay the price for his failure.

Trying to shake the lingering chill along his spine, he rubbed the back of his neck under his thick mane of blond hair and stared at his mud-encrusted hiking boots. He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach.

What in Svartálfaheim was that? Heimdall frowned at the old word for the home of the black elves. He and his kin had been in the New World for centuries now. He was generally better than his father or brother, Thor, at remembering to speak only English, but he had to remind himself every now and again. Even if he were back in the Old World, so many generations had passed since the fall of the Vikings that it was doubtful any modern mortals would understand their ancestral tongue. Besides, he couldn’t remember when he’d last seen a black elf.

Seven nights he had been on this trail, following the path laid by the waning moon. Seven nights he had failed—as he had each New Moon for the previous three years, ever since his mother and the Norns had divined that the old World Tree, recently deceased, had chosen to spring up again in this rainy corner of North America.

Every night on the hunt he felt the stars above him—ancient heroes and forgotten gods older than even he was—looking down on him, pushing him forward.

The Tree was everything. And Heimdall was sitting in the dirt.

Dawn was coming. He didn’t have much time before he’d have to head back to the station, change into his uniform, and start his shift as a forest ranger. The last thing he needed was to get waylaid by a prankster pixie, or a set of bruised ribs.

There had been growing unease on the successive, monthly hunts for the Yggdrasil. The young World Tree was vulnerable, as it always was at the beginning of its cycle of rebirth. Heimdall and his family had never failed to find it again and to protect it.

But there was something different in the air this time. If Heimdall failed to find the Yggdrasil before this Black Moon, with the planets perfectly aligned within the ancient constellations—or so he had been told; that was more Frigga’s department—there was no telling what could happen. He’d heard whispers that the remaining members of Odin’s lodge could face anything from a complete loss of their divine powers—already waning with every generation they lived among unbelieving mortals—to the fated arrival of the apocalyptic Ragnarok.

Twilight of the Gods. An all-out battle for control of the Universe, which only few would survive.

Chances were, it wouldn’t be good.

Heimdall shivered, and not from the crisp autumn air.

A twig snapped to his left. Heimdall crawled across damp pine needles and settled into a low crouch beside one of the many evergreen trees. Resting a hand against the rough bark, he slowed his breath and sniffed the air like a true predator. He pressed his other palm flat against the cool earth and listened.

He heard the trees communicating with one other—meandering conversations about rainfall, woodpeckers, air pollution, and nesting squirrels. He heard the rapid heartbeats and shallow breath of rabbits in their burrows and the lumbering gait of a trio of possums.

Below it all was the steady, slow heartbeat of the Earth herself, both a comfort and a reminder of the stakes of his quest.

Heimdall pressed his palm more firmly against the soil and closed his eyes. He frowned, straining to wade through the cacophony of vibrations passing up through his skin, looking for that one familiar beacon.

There it was. His face relaxed. Heimdall filtered out the noise of the other creatures, plants, elementals, and various sprites and faeries—possibly even other neglected deities like himself—that roamed the planet’s few remaining wild places. He homed in on the faint, tenuous pulse of the young sapling.

The Yggdrasil.

He was getting closer.

Dusting his hands off on his blue jeans, Heimdall stood up and said a silent prayer for speedy success to the heavens above.

Odd for a god to pray. Heimdall batted away the thought as he would a mosquito. Nowadays, he was prone to prayer, even to superstition. It had crept up on him over the centuries as his divine strength waned and as his body grew weaker and his senses duller with every passing decade.

These days, his family—Odin, Freya, Thor, and the few others who’d crossed the Atlantic with the Vikings and the first European colonists—disguised themselves as humans. They drove cars, paid taxes, held down jobs. Or tried to.

As the last words of his silent prayer passed his lips, Heimdall stepped deeper into the forest, forgetting everything but the elusive Yggdrasil. He didn’t stop to ponder who or what he might have been praying to.

His path led him into a clearing. Heimdall slowed as he stepped into this sacred place of power, revering the natural temple that today’s humans too often either took for granted or failed to notice at all. He planted his feet and took a deep breath—despite his aching diaphragm—and felt the clean, cool air fill his lungs as a gentle rain kissed his skin. He closed his eyes and a smile tickled the corners of his mouth as he felt the awareness of the tall trees that ringed the circle around him.

There were so few sacred spaces left.

He strode into the center of the tree-lined glade and watched the shadows cast by the light of the not-quite-dark moon overhead, knowing they concealed supernatural beings he no longer had the reliable ability to detect.

He hunched forward, squinting as his eyes darted right and left, trying to track any movement in the shadows. He was certain he’d not been followed, but he wasn’t exactly prone to falling on his butt by himself.

If a god falls alone in the forest, does he make a sound? Heimdall nearly choked on unexpected laughter, and cleared his throat instead.

Damn straight he does, he muttered to the dark trees.

Confident there was no immediate threat, Heimdall planted his feet and stretched his arms up over his head. He prepared to call down the subtle powers of the night, even if it was more a symbolic gesture nowadays than a real divine act. He spread his fingers wide and closed his eyes, reaching out to the sky above, then contorted violently inward as a sudden, dark chill raced across his back and danced on his shoulders.

Crouching low, Heimdall dug his fingers into the damp soil to ground himself. An owl screeched behind him. Heimdall spun to face the noise, his own heart pounding in his ears. At least his body’s fight response was still strong. He closed his eyes and slowed his breath, reaching out with his hearing and ancient intuition. He felt nothing but the night. Whatever had overtaken him, twice now, was gone.

Heimdall relaxed his jaw and pressed his hands into the dirt. He smelled fear on the air and could almost taste a tiny, terrified heartbeat just yards away. His eyes snapped open at the shrill chatter of a surprised chipmunk which should have been in its nest fast asleep. The cry was interrupted by a burst of movement in the low shrubs. A high-pitched shriek was cut short by the quick snapping of jaws.

Heimdall sighed and sat back on his heels. Laika.

The bushes shuddered and the gray-and-white head of a wolf-dog emerged. Her eyes sparkled with a mix of guilt and pride over the small, bloody prey still warm in her mouth.

Laika, Heimdall scolded lightly. Come.

She stepped into the clearing and cocked her head to study the stern expression on her master’s face. Laika stamped her front paws on the soft earth and tried wooing at him with her mouth full, but Heimdall wasn’t budging. With a labored sigh, she dropped the furry body onto the ground and sank down beside it. Resting her head on her forepaws, Laika looked up at Heimdall with pitiful, liquid blue eyes. A hopeful wag shivered through her tail.

I told you this was no hunting expedition, not for that kind of prey.

Laika nosed her kill a few inches toward her master. Her mouth fell open into a silly grin, her tongue lolling out to one side.

Heimdall laughed. It was impossible to be angry with this eerily clever animal who had been the most steadfast mortal companion he’d ever had. He wagged a warning finger at her. You can have it. But no more.

She watched him carefully. Heimdall swore the wolf-dog sometimes looked right through him, with an intelligence surpassing even some of the gods’. She dropped her gaze and crawled toward the motionless chipmunk. After one more cautious glance at Heimdall, she snapped up her prey and went to work picking it apart with the patient precision of an experienced sport hunter rather than a hungry predator.

Watching her entertain herself, Heimdall frowned. He didn’t like the luxury and convenience of this so-called modern world, with food and distraction available at the touch of a button. Generations of relative peace had bred complacency. He used to long for the days of testing and survival, of true warriors and blood-soaked battles. Now even that was a wistful memory. He’d gained enlightenment and compassion, but living among these supposedly more evolved humans had softened him.

If Ragnarok were to come soon . . . ?

The cell phone in his pocket chirped. Heimdall knelt on the wet ground, pulled out his phone and checked the display: TXT MSG FROM MAGGIE.

Moisture seeped into his jeans and clung to his skin. He read Maggie’s message: Can U pick up coffee (med mocha latte w/ skim) & muffins 4 brkfst this AM? (& then tell me Y U have 2 work so many nights?)

Crap. He’d forgotten about his early morning plans with his mortal girlfriend. Every month as the moon waned, he’d made one excuse after another for why he couldn’t spend his evenings with her.

Telling her he was in the forest hunting for an ancient, mystical tree so he and his immortal kin could save the world wasn’t exactly an option.

He took another look around the circle of trees, gazing as deep into the woods as his senses would allow. Nothing. Whether it was an especially cunning predator or some dark magick, whatever had moved through the forest was now gone. He looked up at the lightening sky, then checked his watch. 7:02 a.m.

He glanced at Laika and patted his thigh. Let’s go, girl. We’re calling it a night.

CHAPTER TWO

F ehu. Power, wealth, creativity. Associated with the nature god Freyr. Red. Fire . . .

Sally stirred awake, leaning back against the rough bark of a tree. Talking in her sleep again, cataloging the runes. It took a few seconds to understand why she couldn’t move her arms. Baron, purring loudly in her lap, was nestled firmly on top of her hands.

Gently, Sally tried pulling her right hand out from beneath her plump kitty, but Baron lazily adjusted his body to follow her movement, as if deliberately working to keep her hands trapped.

Sally closed her eyes and groaned. Come on, Barry. I really don’t have time for this.

She yanked her left hand free. Baron pricked his claws through her clothing as a warning.

Sally gritted her teeth. Baron!

She forcibly removed the cat from her lap, even though he dug his claws into the flesh of her palms and thighs and growled a low, yowling complaint as he was dislodged. Baron immediately tried climbing back into her lap. Sally waved a warning finger in his face.

"Nuh-uh. Get over it.

Sally stretched her slender arms over her head, and silently cursed herself, again, for falling asleep during her spell-working. Baron sat next to her, his tail twitching.

Her parents had finally left the house just after 7:30 a.m. Sally had complained to her mother of vague nausea and fatigue to secure yet another sick day from school—her fourth in a row—and privately thanked Odin and his kin when her parents hadn’t insisted on taking her to the doctor. It had been a few days since Sally had last looked in the mirror, but she guessed her appearance was genuinely haggard after so many late nights lighting candles and casting spells.

Minutes after her parents’ departure, Sally packed up her books, candles, rune stones, and rabbit skins and headed for the backyard. Working magick under an open sky, with her altar laid out on the frosted grass instead of the carpet, was a refreshing change after holing up in her bedroom all night. The eight-foot privacy fence prevented the prying eyes of curious neighbors, and Portland’s crisp, clean air helped keep her energy up for the work remaining.

Instead, she’d fallen asleep beneath the apple tree.

At least the apple is sacred to Iduna, keeper of the Grove of Immortality, Sally grumbled to Baron as she tried to weave her unintentional nap into the larger cloth of her work. It was a stretch.

For the love of the gods, Sally cursed under her breath when she checked the time. 8:53 a.m. The sting of panic rushed into her chest. Less than four minutes until the next working! Did she have everything assembled? She scanned the altar space she’d created beside her on the grass. Polished rune stones lay on the uneven oblong of white rabbit fur in a triangular arrangement from her last spellcasting at 8:02 a.m. exactly.

She breathed a sigh of relief. The stones still held their pattern of banishing any malignant energies that might interfere with Odin’s Return. Nothing had been disturbed.

She read over the notes in her Book of Shadows and rubbed the burnt tip of her thumb. It was scabbing over but still painful. The sign of the ox horns would no doubt be visible for years to come but as far as scars went, the potent rune of generative power and determination wasn’t a bad one.

Following the directions she’d written out in exacting detail, Sally reached for a pair of white chime candles and planted them in the ground on either side of the rabbit fur. She was about to strike a match when Baron sidled up beside the altar, settled his front paws precariously close to the runes Isa and Teiwaz, and began huffing and hacking as he crouched low over the sacred space.

Baron! Sally grabbed the cat and tossed him a few feet away. Baron’s low-hanging belly quivered on his ungainly landing. He turned and sneezed at her.

Baron, I won’t have you ruining my work! Keep your heretical hairballs to yourself.

Sally swore the cat scowled at her. She made a face back at him.

Sally lit her candles and closed her eyes. Her open hands hovered over the runes.

Father Odin, accept this humble shield and further this protection for such magick and its kin. She opened one eye and glared at Baron. And keep grumpy and meddlesome kitties away from my runes.

Unfazed, the cat settled down on top of Sally’s copy of Stuart Kleinhaber’s Rhythms of the Runes: Modern Magick from Ways of Old, which lay open on the grass.

After another time check, Sally grabbed a trio of fresh candles and planted them in a tight triangle to the right of her workspace. She lit each in turn—first blue, then green, then white. Then she tapped her right index finger three times on the tiny patch of empty space between them.

Turning her attention to the runes, she poured the unused stones into the middle of the rabbit skin and pulled the other pieces of polished hematite out of their triangle pattern and into the center pile. She positioned the stones, one by one, in the order of the Elder Futhark, in a ring around the center of the rabbit skin.

Sally reached into a cardboard shoebox by her side for a bottle of clear liquid. She held it up to the morning light and gently shook its contents.

Rainwater, she told Baron. Unfiltered. Collected at the last Full Moon.

Baron yawned.

Sally poured the water in a slow, clockwise circle around her furry ritual space. Water is life and sustenance. Water allows magick to flow.

Sally tossed the empty bottle back into the box. Kind of WD-40 for spell-work, Barry.

Baron closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.

Next she pulled out a large pine cone and held it up with reverence. From the Sitka Spruce. The closest thing I could think of to the legendary World Tree.

She looked up at the clouds overhead, feeling a bit silly and self-conscious that the gods might actually be listening. Even if the deities were just the energy of ideas, like her friend Opal said, ideas held power so she treated them as though they were real and distinct. Which, to Sally, they absolutely were.

Accept this poor substitute for the Yggdrasil, which keeps the Cosmos anchored in existence. Let this pine cone hook my spell into the deepest fabric of reality, touching everything.

Sally rested the pine cone at the apex of her triangle of candles. Baron perked up when she retrieved a silver-gray feather from the shoebox.

I call to Odin’s ravens, Huginn and Muninn. Carry my message to the Norse gods—to Odin himself, Frigga, Freya, all the members of the Old Lodge. Tell them the world still needs them. Sally closed her eyes and held the feather’s base tightly in her right hand. We need them now more than ever.

Baron crept forward and batted a paw at the feather.

Baron! Sally’s eyes flew open in a scowl. Not. A. Toy.

But Baron was mesmerized by the silver feather in her grasp. He couldn’t take his hazel eyes off it. Laughing, Sally waved the feather in the air out of his reach, taunting him. Technically not from a raven. Pigeon, but I think it will be okay.

Not able to get anywhere near his intended prey, Baron gave up on the feather and sharpened his claws on the bark of the tree instead. Sally smoothed out the feather’s barbs before laying it down in the center of the altar. She double-checked her notes, then consulted the time.

Okay, Barry. We’ll let this sit for a few minutes, then pack up and head over to meet Opal.

The cat lazily glanced at Sally’s altar where the polished hematite stones glinted in the sunlight peeking out from behind the clouds. Sally pulled her Book of Shadows into her lap and paged through her notes. Baron sniffed at the leather-bound journal, then padded across the grass to the rabbit skin. In a single, silent motion, Baron knocked over the pine cone, broke the ring of runes and snapped the feather up in his mouth.

Sally gasped aloud. Baron froze.

Barry! Sally hissed. What are you doing?

She tried to grab him, but Baron was surprisingly spry for an overweight feline. He sprinted out of her reach, then spat out the feather as he sat down and started cleaning himself.

Baron Jaspurr Von Pussington!

With a labored sigh, the cat stopped his licking and looked up at her. Sally snatched up the feather—now soggy with cat saliva and suffering a broken shaft—before the cat could pick it up again. She tried straightening the feather and drying it off on her sleeve, but it was no use.

For crying out loud, Baron. She dropped the useless feather into her lap and reached over to prop up the pine cone and repair the line of runes. We’ll just have to hope your little stunt didn’t cause any permanent damage.

Baron lay down in the grass and resumed his bath.

You can’t mess around with this stuff, you know. She picked up the broken feather and turned it between her fingers. One little mistake and . . . BLAMMO.

Hair standing on end, Managarm blinked at the smoking chips of wood scattered on the charred ground before him. His eyebrows were singed, and there were still-smoldering burn holes in his clothing. Wisps of smoke rose from his head. His scalp felt uncomfortably hot and itchy. All that remained of the tent behind him were bits of charred canvas and a blackened metal frame. The campfire that had been roaring a few yards to his right now sputtered and choked, threatening to go out.

He was pretty sure this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Managarm tried to catch his breath. Instead, he coughed and spat sooty phlegm into the dirt.

He growled deep in his throat, a sound indistinguishable from a wolf’s dark warning. If this was going to work properly, he’d need to refine his rune magick, and fast. Unless he wanted to chance self-immolation again.

Managarm sat back on his heels. He felt the last vestiges of magick trickle out of his body and into the earth, grounding his spell. His vision blurred, and he reached a hand to the dirt behind him to keep from falling over. As far as he knew, it had been centuries since any dark mage dared to scare up such forces. Very few humans could handle, much less direct, so much power. But this was the first time he’d needed to rely on spellcasting himself, and the old god Managarm did not like being humbled.

And he had no idea if his working had been remotely successful.

The waning moon hung low in the morning sky on its way below the horizon for another day. Managarm sighed. He had spent centuries chasing the sun and moon to preserve the cycle of day and night. It didn’t matter what modern science said about the vast distances between objects in the solar system. An orbit was an orbit, whether a few meters or thousands of light years across. He was just a dog chasing its tail—a dog charged with destruction and chaos from the moment of his creation—and he’d long since grown dizzy and tired. There’d been no elevated seat for him at the banquet table, no heroic tales of the Moon Dog sung by Norse bards. Just an endless pursuit of a prey he would never catch.

But come the Black Moon, things would be different.

Sweat and smoke stung his eyes. Managarm reached for Thurisaz, the triangular shape of the etched rune still a glowing ember in the charred wood chip. But the wood crumbled beneath his fingers as soon as he touched it. He got the same result trying to pick up the smoldering, n-shaped Uruz. As soon as that one had disintegrated, the two remaining chips—inscribed with the runes Pertho and Nauthiz—lost their heat altogether. With the glowing symbols gone, the chips were nothing more than cold ash.

Managarm scooped up the ashes and rubbed them between his bare hands, spreading black soot over his strong, ruddy palms.

Moon Dog the Magician. He chuckled and knee-walked sideways to stoke the dying fire. He was careful to keep the campfire out of sight of any park ranger who might be out patrolling—or worse, one of those heavily armed gangs of pot farmers who increasingly strayed onto government lands to grow their crops. He’d had enough run-ins with both.

No sense in attracting unwanted attention, particularly when he was vulnerable—all the gods were these days. It was normal for their strength to wane every four hundred years, just before Iduna’s Grove back in Scandinavia produced its harvest of sacred apples that restored the gods’ divine stamina.

But this time it was worse. His knees and knuckles ached with arthritis, a curse of aging that had never before touched him, and there were flecks of silver in the stubble of his beard. The longer the gods spent living among humans, and the more generations that passed without real worshippers, the weaker and more pathetic they all became.

But Managarm would set things right again.

He sat back in the dirt and unzipped the collar of his fleece pullover and wiped the sweat off his brow, smearing soot across his forehead. Rubbing his hands together in front of the fire, Managarm spotted his darkened palms and laughed. Humming a forgotten tune, he wiped both hands across his cheeks, nose, and chin, blackening the rest of his face.

Managarm, the dark god. He sniffed back surprising, embarrassing tears, then pounded his fist twice into the soft earth—once to relieve frustration, and a second time just because it felt good to hit something.

That’s when the pain hit.

His temples throbbed angrily. It felt like his scalp was on fire while a cold metal pick was being driven into his cranium. Managarm held his head in his hands.

Cursed caffeine migraine. Managarm growled, but the vibration just made the pain worse. Squinting against the early morning light, he reached into his charred rucksack for a water bottle, a plastic container of ibuprofen and a dented camping kettle that had seen better days. He filled the kettle and settled it carefully in the fire before knocking back a handful of pills.

A flutter of wings and gentle song overhead signaled the return of the birds who’d been frightened off by his release of inadvertently fiery magick. Managarm wiped the rest of the soot from his damp palms onto his blue jeans and stared into the fire.

Out of darkness is born new light.

He’d been almost afraid to say the words. His shoulders tensed in an automatic cringe as he glanced quickly at the surrounding forest, as though some ancient curse might rise up out of the earth or swoop down from the trees to smite him for his sacrilege. He’d just used Odin’s own tool—the runes—against him. Or he’d tried to. This was just a test case, a trial run to make sure he had some idea of what he was doing, but it was possible even his dress rehearsal magick had worked.

It was just as possible he’d be discovered and taken to task for his treason but if any of the old gods had caught a whiff of what he was up to, they’d kept quiet these long months and years he’d been preparing.

Managarm looked up at the tiny sliver of moon in the early morning sky and resisted the urge to howl—it would still be a while before the ibuprofen went to work on his headache. His orbiting prey was now his ally. The Black Moon was only days away.

He laughed out loud, and immediately winced at the sound. He rubbed his pounding temples and smiled. What was he worried about? None of the remaining Old Ones could stop him. Here in the 21st century, they were all impotent, himself included. Iduna’s apples would be ripe for the picking in another year or two, but by then Managarm would be the only god left to enjoy the divine fruit.

In the meantime, he was reduced to practicing magick the hard way—as some mortals dared, much to Managarm’s disgust—using what little he could remember of Freya’s rites and his own imagination, alone in the woods.

If his test spell worked, Managarm would have to figure out what to do with the Berserker he’d just summoned. It wasn’t quite time to build his army of ancient, crazed warriors. He needed just another day, maybe two. Then he’d be ready to command, something he’d never even come close to doing before. But Berserkers weren’t a particularly patient lot—engineered for the express purpose of making war and violent mayhem—and they would come looking for their maker.

Managarm would call them one at a time, to start. Calling too many too early could be disastrous. Especially if Odin got control of them first.

Managarm shuddered. Blasted Odin! Managarm spat more sooty phlegm into the dirt, and his empty stomach churned on the pain pills. The Chief of the Gods—old fool!—couldn’t be satisfied with the victory spoils and titillating dramas of his peoples. He’d gone soft, shying away from war-making in favor of diplomacy. The ancient idiot even sacrificed himself—fasting for a ridiculous nine days as he hung upside down on the World Tree—for greater understanding and wisdom. What deity does such honor to a tree? Even the revered Yggdrasil should bow down and worship at the gods’ feet.

But Odin had been determined to bring written language to the Vikings. As if the bloody Vikings needed to waste their time on that kind of education. What use were reading and writing when there were battles to be fought and enemy settlements to pillage?

With writing came record keeping, stable commerce and trade, peace accords and even civilized government. The mighty Vikings had been wiped out not in armed conflict, but with every careful stroke of chisel meeting stone, every curve of ink on paper.

It was enough to make an old god lose his breakfast.

Managarm took an angry swig from his water bottle. He’d warned the others. Even if the mighty Odin hadn’t foreseen where the Norse peoples were headed, he still should have put a stop to the perverse decline of their warrior culture. With each new civilization that flourished, every alliance forged, the Norse gods lost their relevance.

Their very survival was at risk, but the old Æsir had just shrugged it off. It was the proper unfolding of human history, Odin said. Then he’d told the Moon Dog to remember his place.

The kettle whistled in the fire, and Managarm dug into his rucksack for a stash of ground coffee beans. After those runes blew up in his face, he needed a cup of campfire brew to clear his head and chase away his migraine. But the metal coffee tin was empty. Digging deep into the pack, he found a stale, half-eaten granola bar, a bag of dried apricots, and three chamomile tea bags.

Despite the sudden sear of pain across his forehead, Managarm growled and cursed the hippie hiker from whom he’d stolen the pack. Birds fled the branches overhead.

He took another drink of water and looked into the sky. The fingernail moon had slipped behind the evergreen trees.

The Halls of Valhalla were just a memory. But Managarm still dreamt of fallen heroes enjoying an eternal after-life of roasted meat, obliging women, and bottomless steins flowing with mead.

The cursed, bloody runes! Managarm pounded his fist into the ground again. He’d redeem their lost culture. Odin’s obsession with the World Tree was now his own. The Nine Realms would be his. The Cosmos would obey only the Moon Dog. After centuries as an outcast, Managarm would have followers. Let the others embrace their own decline, with hardly any belief left in themselves. Managarm would not scatter on the winds and become a mere shade of his former self.

He scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it at the fire.

Curse Odin! he screeched, sending more small birds scattering overhead for safety. The moist soil sizzled as the flames danced, threatening to die out but then leaping up again.

The wind shifted, blowing smoke into his face. Managarm coughed violently and scrambled on his hands and knees to the opposite side of the fire. Not even the wind had any respect for an old god, albeit one of the lesser ones.

He laid his palms flat on the ground and pressed hard against the earth.

I know you can hear me, he whispered to the Yggdrasil through the network of roots beneath the ground. The others are still here in the New World, so I know you’re close. Odin has his hunters out looking for you even now. You’re just a tender sapling. Vulnerable.

Managarm laughed. Before you know it, we’ll be back to thunderbolts and battle cries instead of computers and cable television. The time of the dark wolves is here. I’m coming for you, little Tree.

He lifted his hands and brushed off the dirt on his filthy trousers. He added a few pairs of blue jeans and several spare shirts to his mental shopping list. Things could get very messy over the next few days.

Managarm slipped the water bottle back into his rucksack and smiled. With the stars coming into alignment and the Black Moon looming, Odin would be nearly frantic in his search for the young Yggdrasil. Very possibly, Heimdall roamed this very forest looking for the Tree.

It’s too bad the Old Ones would never find it.

Managarm stretched his arms over his head and yawned loudly. The birds balanced on branches above chirped louder with the brightening sky. Judging the angle of the sun, Managarm took his cue to break camp, or more accurately, to abandon camp. He surveyed the charred remnants of his tent and other supplies and shook his head. He’d be long gone by the time anyone stumbled onto this site.

He kicked at the hot kettle sitting in the fire, knocking it over and smiling at the sizzle and smoke as the water doused most of the flames. He covered his hand with his sleeve to grasp the handle of the hot kettle and tossed it into his rucksack.

Now it was a simple matter of fashioning a new set of runes from the dead Tree’s ancient corpse to harness the powerful magick still left in the decaying wood—and to replace the set he’d made on wood chips from Home Depot, which he’d just burnt up in this latest test spell. He’d call his army of Berserkers, in service to the Moon Dog, not to Thor or Odin. He’d free the Fenris Wolf, his imprisoned cousin who was supposed to be the only creature in heaven, earth, or elsewhere capable of killing Odin.

Ragnarok. The End of Days.

Managarm’s smile widened as he imagined the Earth crumbling to ash, and the new world he’d create—with a new class of reverent, blood-thirsty warriors, a race of passably intelligent elfkin to handle the administrative details of running the Cosmos, and maybe a couple of sea monsters and mermaids for entertainment.

Piece of cake.

But first, he needed coffee.

Managarm climbed to his feet, shook the dirt and ash from his clothes, and wiped the soot from his face with the shirttail peeking out beneath his fleece pullover. He kicked damp earth onto what remained of the fire, then stamped on the embers with his heavy boots—not out of conscientiousness, but from sheer selfishness. The sapling Yggdrasil might well be in this very stand of trees, and a forest fire at this stage would be disastrous.

He packed up the few items worth keeping—a metal camping mug, his hunting knife, and a spare pair of socks that had survived unsinged—and left the rest to smolder.

Managarm snaked his way through the woods on foot, careful to leave a maddeningly meandering trail for anyone who might attempt to track him. He hit the forested park’s main path and followed it back to the parking lot at the trailhead along NW Germantown Road. A ranger was stuffing brochures into a plastic box bolted onto the large trail map stationed next to the trash cans and port-a-potties. Managarm nodded and made an attempt at a smile.

Getting in a quick hike before work? The ranger took a sip from a steaming Starbucks cup.

Managarm inhaled the coffee aroma and felt his morning irritability rear its ugly head. The migraine raged. Caffeine withdrawal was a bitch.

Something like that. Managarm passed the ranger and yanked open the rusty door of his gas-guzzling Suburban. His vehicle was always unlocked, because who in their right mind would steal such a behemoth, particularly when it reeked of eviscerated game? He threw his few belongings into the back, climbed into the cab, and slammed the door shut.

Managarm gunned the engine to life and deliberately neglected his seat belt. First stop, Starbucks. Second, Home Depot to demand a refund on the sub-standard wood chips he’d bought the day before. They’d actually done just fine, but he was in a mood to argue and it was easy to pick fights with customer service reps. That’d also buy him some time to figure out how to handle the Berserker he’d now have to be on the look-out for. Hell, he might even sic the crazed warrior on the folks at the Home Depot Returns counter. He needed some entertainment.

CHAPTER THREE

Thor could feel the steam pouring out of his ears. Sitting on the floor just outside the principal’s office at Pine Grove High School, he imagined himself as some unfortunate fool in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, crouched as he was next to the industrial-size photocopier, parts scattered across the low-pile carpet, the gray trousers of his uniform covered in toner. Like Wile E. Coyote trying to assemble a bomb from a kit he’d ordered from Acme, except that the coyote always managed to get all the pieces to fit together—right before the explosion went off in his face.

He cursed in unintelligible syllables under his breath. The toner cartridge had come apart in his meaty hands, again. Just as other cartridges had done every day this week, and twice already this morning. Whether he was too strong or simply too impatient for such menial work didn’t matter. He sucked at it.

Thor pitched the broken cartridge into his canvas utility bag and wiped his hands on his shirt—streaking black stripes across the white polyester fabric—then chanced a glance through the open door into the principal’s office. Just his luck. Sitting behind his desk and grimacing at each sip of coffee, the principal was watching Thor’s every move. The old man glared at him with his one good eye, then sighed in disappointment.

The glaring Thor could take. As the god of thunder and war, he reveled in heroic conflict, and a little skirmish or personal clash here and there was just good fun. But seeing the displeasure on the face of the school principal—who happened to be his father, Odin, Chief of the Gods—raised his blood pressure considerably.

Thor frowned at the broken cartridge in his utility bag, then glanced back at Odin and attempted a meek shrug—not an easy maneuver for a Norse god whose build made NFL linebackers look like ballerinas.

Behind his battered desk, Odin rolled his one eye and shook his head.

Before pulling out a new toner cartridge, Thor took a deep breath. He tried to remember the relaxation technique his mother had taught him to help keep his frustration in check. Even centuries removed from his last great battle, Thor was hardly a model of patience or calm.

The others had gradually found ways to earn a living. Bragi, the divine bard, was an online news editor and columnist. Thor’s mother, Frigga, grew herbs and flowers and baked organic treats for sale in stores across the state. Heimdall had adapted best, falling easily into a job as a forest ranger—giving him a perfect excuse to hang out in the woods every night, first looking after the old Yggdrasil, and now hunting for the new one.

But getting and keeping a job had not come easily to Thor.

He’d tried his luck as an auto mechanic, a Walmart janitor, a baggage handler, and a parking lot attendant, but he always managed to cause more damage than he prevented. Working on a time clock was a foreign concept, and man-made tools felt like children’s toys in his hands. His temper grew shorter by the hour, and he invariably got fired, usually in a matter of days. His record was a seventeen-minute stint as a warehouse worker at Jake’s Super Discount; taking orders from a pimple-faced manager barely out of high school had Thor so steamed he drove a forklift directly into a new shipment of diapers and canned beans.

He lasted longest as a strip club bouncer—nearly two months—before he stepped into a brawl and single-handedly sent three patrons, two bartenders, and a waitress to the hospital. At least he hadn’t minded being surrounded by naked women while it lasted.

Thor squinted his eyes closed and struggled to relax, knowing full well he was working at cross-purposes with himself. It wasn’t in his nature to be calm; tranquility was a far cry from what he was created for. But he’d burned through six jobs in just the past two years—with long periods of unemployment in between—and he needed to keep his cool.

He opened his eyes and reached for a fresh toner cartridge. Weighing the plastic carefully in his hands, he chanced a furtive glance into the office to make sure Odin wasn’t watching, then delicately grasped the cartridge’s protective tape between his fingertips and peeled it back as slowly as he could manage.

Just think of it as an egg, he mumbled.

That did it. He could feel Odin’s watchful eye on him again. Still balancing the cartridge in his hands, Thor gritted his teeth as his face and neck flushed red.

Don’t break it. Don’t break it. Don’t break it. Thor chanted silently. You’re not the god of chaos. Thor cracked a smile, remembering some of Loki’s misfortunes.

If Thor was having difficulty adjusting to the life of an ordinary guy, Loki had it worse. The god of mischief and mayhem had practically gone underground.

Loki was the only one of the old gods who had any power left, though he had no control over it, and modern technology was no match for the god of entropy. It had started with a few blown light bulbs and burnt up sewing machines but quickly escalated over the ensuing decades. It was entirely possible Loki had been responsible for the 1963 Chicago blackout, and even the mild-mannered nature god Freyr had nearly blown a gasket at his own Super Bowl party; as soon as Loki got within five yards of Freyr’s state-of-the-art, 50-inch flat-screen TV, the display shorted out with a tiny pop and a puff of smoke, three minutes before kick-off.

Thor dragged himself across the carpet and paused on his knees before the photocopier. He felt like a ridiculous supplicant with his humble offering of toner, worshipping at a mechanical altar.

Peace, Thor whispered to himself, eyes half-closed and head bowed. An odd mantra for the god of thunder and lightning, but it got the job done. Shanti. Freya had taught him the Sanskrit word, and he liked the feel of it on his tongue, though he would have preferred a streak of old Viking curses.

Principal Wyatt?

Thor looked up, startled to find the not-unattractive, red-haired office secretary hovering over him as she leaned into Odin’s office. He fumbled the cartridge and nearly lost his grip on it, but he caught it just before it hit the carpet and sprayed more black toner dust across the floor.

The wheels of Odin’s office chair squeaked as he turned to face her.

Jeanine, came the Chief God’s grumbled reply as he knocked back a couple of aspirin with a gulp of coffee from a Portland State University mug—a gag gift from his wife. Odin glared at the university’s mascot emblazoned on the side—Victor E. Viking, carrying a football—then slammed the mug down on top of his desk. Hard. Black coffee sloshed over the rim and onto the piles of work orders, permission slips, and other documents awaiting his review and signature.

Jeanine jumped back and nearly stumbled over Thor still crouched on the floor.

Embarrassed, she held a hand to her chest and glanced down at Thor. I, I’m so sorry, she stammered.

Thor just smiled and nodded.

Jeanine, Odin called her again.

She recovered herself and stepped tentatively into his office. Yes, these are the phone messages that came in overnight for you . . . ? She held a collection of pink papers out to him.

Odin lifted himself from behind the desk and lumbered across the floor toward her. Jeanine held the papers as far away from herself as possible and tried, unsuccessfully, to keep from wincing as he approached.

Odin stopped in front of her. With a gracious dip of the head, he gently took the papers from her outstretched hand. Thank you, Jeanine.

He tried to smile at her but as soon as his eye met hers, she stifled a high-pitched squeak and dashed back to her desk, narrowly skirting Thor’s hulking form on the way. Odin sighed and shook his head. He stepped to the doorway and stood over his son, watching him.

Thor ignored his father, or pretended to. He closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and gingerly slipped the toner cartridge into place inside the copy machine. His eyes popped open in an immediate frown when the cartridge didn’t click into position, but instead of hammering it into place with his fist—as he sorely wanted to do—Thor visualized a cool waterfall pouring restorative waters over his head and down his back. He reached deeper into the machine and gently pressed down on the cartridge, smiling in satisfaction and relief when he heard the familiar sound of the plastic snapping into place.

There now, he said for Odin’s benefit as he leaned back from the photocopier. Piece of cake.

Thor nodded triumphantly up at his father, but then his face fell as he surveyed the litter of copier parts strewn about him on all sides—parts he’d unceremoniously ripped out of the machine trying to get to the malfunctioning toner cartridge in the first place.

Swallowing a chuckle, Odin rested against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest.

Piece of cake, was it?

Bloody, godless hell. Kneeling on the floor, Thor pressed his palms against his thighs, jaw clenched. What he wouldn’t have given for a thunderbolt—one big enough to obliterate all photocopier machines across the globe, any factories that might manufacture more of them, and the person or persons responsible for their invention in the first place. Was that too much to ask?

He doubted anyone, anywhere, really needed 150 collated copies of anything, anyway.

Thor picked up a small, odd-shaped plastic part in his toner-smeared fingers and rotated it first left, then right. He had no idea what it was or where it was supposed to go. He’d have to consult the manual—a massive, six-inch, three-ring binder packed full of enough useless diagrams and minuscule print to make the old god’s head hurt.

He hated having to consult the manual.

I used to command entire armies, and the very storms in the sky . . . Thor growled to his father.

We’ve all had to make adjustments, son. Odin shifted his position against the doorjamb and started reading the telephone messages. The creases in his broad brow deepened as he sighed.

Here we go. The mother of one of my ninth graders called about her son’s daily homework load. He leaned down and spoke in low tones to his son, still hunched over on the carpet. Seems he gets restless after forty minutes and needs to blow off steam by playing more video games.

Odin shuffled the papers in his hand. And here the father of one of our less promising football players is complaining about his son being cut from the team.

Thor chuckled. If he’s off the team and has all that extra time on his hands, he’s welcome to my job.

Odin stared down at him. Thor stopped laughing. He shrugged and hefted the vinyl tome of torture that masqueraded as a repair manual out of his utility bag—and caught sight of Jeanine checking out his butt. He grinned at her, but she immediately bristled and pivoted her chair toward her computer terminal. Thor could see the back of her neck flush pink.

Odin read the next telephone message. Even better. Pastor Brown has called again from True Shepherd Church next door.

Thor paused before opening the manual. Trouble again in the cemetery and parking lot? He didn’t really care about Pastor Brown or the church, but he’d happily talk to a mouse about stale cheese if it meant putting off consulting the manual a few minutes longer.

Mmm. Odin’s frown deepened as he read further. Sending those students over to pick up litter during Saturday detention wasn’t enough of a deterrent, it seems. The fast-food wrappers and discarded soda bottles have escalated to beer cans and condoms in the hedges, and graffiti on the headstones.

The bell rang in the hallway beyond the outer office.

First period. Odin offered his a son a wry smile, nodding toward the repair manual. Better finish up. Lots of copying to do today.

A loud blast of music erupted from the parking lot outside Odin’s office window. Balling up the telephone messages in his fist, Odin turned on his heel, strode across the office floor and threw open