Thorin stalked me again. I backed away, but the threat of the wolves kept me from leaving and running pell-mell for the truck.
“And that someone is you?” he asked.
Why didn’t I find myself a red cape and an angry bull to wave it at? Fighting a wild beast was probably safer than provoking Thorin, but I had saddled my high horse. Might as well ride it. “Who else? You said yourself you live an isolated life. You’re out of touch. You’re like old technology—obsolete, archaic. You’re prehistoric and nearly extinct, but unlike the dinosaurs, you refuse to accept it.”
Thorin clenched his fists at his side and gritted his teeth again. I never knew what move he would have made next because the wolves cried out, nearer than before. Their howls raised the hairs along my arms and on the back of my neck. The hostility blooming between Thorin and me scattered like smoke in a stiff breeze.
“They’re close.” Thorin turned and slid in front of me, holding Mjölnir in a ready position. He called into the night. “Come for us, you worthless mutts. No more skulking out there in the dark. She’s here. You want her. You can smell her. Why don’t you come and taste her?”
I understood Thorin meant to bait them, but a cold spurt of nausea stirred in my stomach. I tightened my mental grip on my fire and stepped closer to Thorin. He reached back and rested his hand on my hip, more to keep aware of my proximity than to comfort me, but it did anyway, conveying a current of strength and assurance, and I channeled it into my own power source.
Harck! Harck! Ahhwoooo! The wolves threw back their own threats.
“I can’t see them,” I whispered. “Where are they?”
“Why don’t you give us a light?”
“Now? Are you sure?”
Thorin looked at me over his shoulder. His breath rushed past my temple. “Trust me?”
I hesitated. “Just a minute ago, you were threatening me.”
“Solina.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Do it. Light up the night.” My period of recuperation at the hotel had restored my powers—not to full capacity, but close enough. My fire show in the warehouse was nothing compared to the energy required to convert to that other state, and I had bounced back a lot faster. I stepped away from Thorin and let the flames out in two blazing fireballs that filled my palms. Oh, and it felt so good, like scratching a hard-to-reach itch.
“Keep it low,” Thorin said. “Don’t burn out all at once.”
I clenched my jaw. “I know what I’m doing.”
Thorin knelt beside me, and my light flickered over him like a campfire. He raised his weapon high, the Hammer of Thor, and brought it crashing down to the earth. Starting from the impact point, a crack shot out across the ground, growing and widening as it went—total special effects moment, but it was real. Thorin and I fell back as the crack turned into a fissure that bloomed into a crevasse six or eight feet deep and about the same width.
The wolves came to the edge, baring their teeth and growling.
“A male and two females,” Thorin said as he drew back his hammer, preparing for a throw. “They’re all wild. Skoll’s not here, but he’s got to be close.”
After a flash of movement, one wolf went rolling, screeching, head over heels like a tumbleweed. It slumped into a furry pile and did not rise again. The other two wolves skittered away.
“Oh my God,” I wheezed.
Thorin grinned at me and leapt over the crevasse, graceful as a lion. He called his hammer back into his fist, and he searched the darkness for signs of the other wolves.
“We can’t keep this up all night,” I said. “I won’t last long at this rate.”
“Just one mistake on their part is all it takes.”
Rocks clattered behind me, and I spun around in time to duck a flying ball of gray fur. The wolves Thorin had sent into retreat had recovered and gone the long way around for a rear attack. One wolf, the gray one, rolled midair and landed at the fissure’s edge. The other wolf, a brownish one, came toward me in a crouch. Thorin threw his hammer as I lunged at the gray wolf, meaning to shove him into the crevasse. The victim of Thorin’s hammer, the brown wolf, barked a painful cry and fell silent. My prey yelped and darted around, moving more like a fish than a wolf. My fingers brushed his coat, singeing him, but he flitted aside before I could really hurt him.
“God, they’re fast,” I said.
The astringent stink of singed fur wafted to my nose. The gray wolf hunkered several yards away and growled at me. He wasn’t Skoll—he was too small and dark.
I bared my teeth and laughed at him, doing my best Skyla impression. “What are you waiting for?”
His muzzle crinkled into a mask of rage, and his teeth glistened in my light. He snarled and leapt toward me. I braced for his impact and called out more flames, but he twisted midleap, landed several feet away, and dashed around the edge of the crevasse, heading for Thorin.
“Thorin!” I shrieked.
He spun, bringing Mjölnir around in an arc that connected with the gray wolf. At the same time, a fourth wolf sprinted forward, appearing like a ghost from the darkness. He leapt for me, teeth bared, snarl ripping apart the night.
Skoll.
I gathered the remains of my fire, imagining nuclear bombs and sunbursts, and lunged to meet him. Skoll shrieked, a howl of mortal pain, and everything went as bright as a million flash bulbs. I was going, crossing over that line, the transition and loss of self. That conversion was happening again, and I couldn’t stop it.
“No, no, not now. Not now,” I said, as if protesting could help.
Nothing could help, though. Nothing could stop me.
But then, a boom of thunder… and another.
A torrent of rain gushed down as though God had gathered all the oceans and poured them over me, and all the lights went out.
Chapter Fifteen
I came back to myself, aware of cold wetness but not much else.
