Of course a wolf. Everybody in the Nine Worlds loves wolves. They have wolf shields, wolf helmets, wolf screen savers, wolf pajamas, and wolf-themed birthday parties.
Me, not so much loving the wolves.
“Take a hint, Magnus Chase.” The assassin’s voice warbled, modulating from soprano to baritone as if going through a special effects machine. “Stay away from Provincetown.”
The fingers of my left hand tightened on the hilt of my sword. “Jack, do your thing.”
“You sure about that?” Jack asked.
The assassin hissed. For some reason, people are often shocked when they find out my sword can talk.
“I mean,” Jack continued, “I know this guy killed Otis, but everybody kills Otis. Getting killed is part of Otis’s job description.”
“Just chop off his head or something!” I yelled.
The assassin, not being an idiot, turned and fled.
“Get him!” I told Jack.
“Why do I have to do all the hard work?” Jack complained.
“Because I’m dangling here and you can’t be killed!”
“Just because you’re right doesn’t make this cool.”
I flung him overhead. Jack spiraled out of view, flying after the goat-killer while singing his own version of “Shake It Off.” (I have never been able to convince him that the line isn’t cheese graters gonna grate, grate, grate, grate, grate.)
Even with my left hand free, it took me a few seconds to haul myself up to the roof. Somewhere to the north, the clanging of blades echoed off brick buildings. I raced in that direction, leaping over the church’s turrets, launching myself across Berkeley Street. I bounced from rooftop to rooftop until I heard Jack yell in the distance, “OW!”
Most people might not run into battle to check on the welfare of their swords, but that’s what I did. At the corner of Boylston, I scrambled up the side of a parking garage, got to the roof level, and found Jack fighting for his…well, maybe not his life, but at least his dignity.
Jack often bragged that he was the sharpest blade in the Nine Worlds. He could cut through anything and fight a dozen enemies at once. I tended to believe him, since I’d personally seen him take out giants the size of skyscrapers. Yet the goat-killer was having no trouble forcing him back across the roof. The assassin might have been small, but he was strong and quick. His dark iron sword sparked against Jack. Every time the two blades connected, Jack yelped, “Ow! Ow!”
I didn’t know if Jack was in real danger, but I had to help. Since I didn’t have another weapon and I didn’t feel like fighting empty-handed, I ran to the nearest lamppost and ripped it out of the cement.
That sounds like I was showing off. Honestly, I wasn’t. The pole was just the handiest weapon-like object I could find—except for a parked Lexus, and I wasn’t quite strong enough to wield a luxury automobile.
I charged the goat-killer with my twenty-foot-long jousting light fixture. That got his attention. As he turned toward me, Jack lashed out, opening a deep cut in the assassin’s thigh. The goat-killer grunted and stumbled.
That was my chance. I could have taken him down. Instead, when I was ten feet away, a distant howl cut through the air and froze me in my tracks.
Jeez, Magnus, you’re thinking, it was only a distant howl. What’s the big deal?
I may have mentioned I don’t like wolves. When I was fourteen, two of them with glowing blue eyes killed my mother. My recent encounter with Fenris hadn’t done anything to increase my appreciation for the species.
This particular howl was definitely that of a wolf. It came from somewhere across the Boston Common, reverberating off the high-rises, turning my blood to Freon. It was exactly the same sound I’d heard the night of my mother’s death—hungry and triumphant, the baying of a monster that had found its prey.
The lamppost slipped from my grip, clanging against the asphalt.
Jack floated to my side. “Uh, señor…are we still fighting this guy or what?”
The assassin staggered backward. The black fur of his leggings glistened with blood. “And so it begins.” His voice sounded even more garbled. “Beware, Magnus. If you go to Provincetown, you will play into your enemy’s hands.”
I stared at that snarling face mask. I felt like I was fourteen again, alone in the alley behind my apartment the night my mother died. I remembered gazing up at the fire escape from which I had just dropped, hearing the wolves howl from our living room. Then flames exploded from the windows.
“Who—who are you?” I managed.
The assassin let out a guttural laugh. “Wrong question. The right question: Are you prepared to lose your friends? If not, you should leave Thor’s hammer lost.”
He backed to the edge of the roof and toppled over.
I ran to the ledge just as a flock of pigeons surged upward, rising in a blue-gray cloud, swirling away over the Back Bay’s forest of chimneys. Down below: no movement, no body, no sign of the assassin.
Jack hovered next to me. “I’ve could’ve taken him. You just caught me unprepared. I didn’t have time to do my stretches.”
“Swords don’t stretch,” I said.
“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Expert on Proper Warm-up Techniques!”
A tuft of pigeon down helicoptered to the ledge and stuck in a smear of the assassin’s blood. I picked up the tiny feather and watched red liquid soak into it.
“So what now?” Jack asked. “And what was that wolf howl?”
Ice water trickled down my eustachian tubes, leaving a cold, bitter taste in my mouth. “I don’t know,” I said. “Whatever it was, it’s stopped now.”
“Should we go check it out?”
“No! I mean…by the time we figured out where the sound came from, we’d be too late to do anything about it. Besides…”
I studied the bloody pigeon feather. I wondered how the goat-killer had disappeared so effectively, and what he knew about Thor’s missing hammer. His distorted voice reverberated in my mind: Are you prepared to lose your friends?
Something about the assassin had seemed very wrong…yet very familiar.
“We have to get back to Sam.” I grabbed Jack’s hilt and exhaustion washed over me.
The downside of having a sword who fights on his own: whatever Jack did, I paid the price as soon as he returned to my hand. I felt bruises spreading across my arms—one for each time Jack had been struck by the other sword. My legs trembled like they’d been doing lunges all morning. A lump of emotion formed in my throat—Jack’s shame for letting the goat-killer fight him to a standstill.
“Hey, man,” I told him, “at least you cut him. That’s more than I did.”
“Yeah, well…” Jack sounded embarrassed. I knew he didn’t like sharing the bad stuff with me. “Maybe you should rest for a minute, señor. You’re in no shape—”
“I’m all right,” I said. “Thanks, Jack. You did good.”
I willed him to return to pendant form, then reattached the runestone to my neck chain.
Jack was right about one thing: I needed rest. I felt like crawling inside that nice Lexus and taking a nap, but if the goat-assassin decided to double back to the Thinking Cup, if he caught Sam unaware…
I took off across the rooftops, hoping I wasn’t too late.
My Friends Protect Me by Telling Me Absolutely Nothing. Thanks, Friends
BACK AT the café, Sam was standing over Otis’s body.
Customers walked in and out of the Thinking Cup, making a wide arc around the dead goat. They didn’t seem alarmed. Maybe they saw Otis as a passed-out homeless guy. Some of my best friends were passed-out homeless guys. I knew how well they could repel a crowd.
Sam frowned at me. Under her left eye was a new orange bruise. “Why is our informant dead?”
“Long story,” I said. “Who hit you?”
“Also a long story.”
“Sam—”
She waved aside my concern. “I’m fine. Just please tell me you didn’t kill Otis becaus
e he ate my scone.”
“No. Now if he’d eaten my scone—”
“Ha, ha. What happened?”
I was still worried about Sam’s eye, but I did my best to explain about the goat-killer. Meanwhile, Otis’s form began to dissolve, melting into curls of white vapor like dry ice. Soon there was nothing left but the trench coat, the glasses, the porkpie hat, and the ax that had killed him.
Sam picked up the assassin’s weapon. The blade was no larger than a smartphone, but the edge looked sharp. The dark metal was etched with soot-black runes.
“Giant-forged iron,” Sam said. “Enchanted. Perfectly weighted. This is a valuable weapon to leave behind.”
“That’s nice. I’d hate for Otis to be killed with a shoddy weapon.”
Sam ignored me. She’d gotten pretty good at that. “You say the killer wore a wolf helm?”
“Which narrows it down to half the baddies in the Nine Worlds.” I gestured at Otis’s empty coat. “Where did his body go?”
“Otis? He’ll be fine. Magic creatures form from the mist of Ginnungagap. When they die, their bodies eventually dissolve back into that mist. Otis should re-form somewhere close to his master, hopefully in time for Thor to kill him again for dinner.”
That struck me as a strange thing to hope for, but not any stranger than the morning I’d just had. Before my knees could buckle, I sat. I sipped my now-cold coffee.
“The goat-killer knew the hammer is missing,” I said. “He told me if we went to Provincetown we’d be playing into our enemy’s hands. You don’t think he meant—”
“Loki?” Sam sat across from me. She tossed the ax on the table. “I’m sure he’s involved in this somehow. He always is.”
I couldn’t blame her for sounding bitter. Sam didn’t like talking about the god of deceit and trickery. Aside from the fact he was evil, he was also her dad.
“You heard from him recently?” I asked.