After a mostly sleepless night, Sally had awakened in a haze on Opal’s futon sofa. It had taken a few seconds to remember where she was and how she’d gotten there, but when it all came flooding back in a startling torrent, she was sure—yet again—that she was having a heart attack.
She avoided looking in the mirror as she brushed her teeth and got dressed. She didn’t have to see her reflection to know that her aging problem had worsened. She could feel it in her aching joints and stiff muscles, and she could see it in Opal’s face when her friend looked at her.
And then there was the old god Managarm rattling around the apartment, even crankier than the night before despite the elaborate spell Sally had worked to banish his headache. As near as she could tell, the spell had worked, but now she wondered if the Moon Dog was simply always in a bad mood.
They left the apartment before Sally was even fully awake. The Berserker needed still more food, and Managarm seemed anxious to relocate to the woods—and Sally was desperate to get her hands on a copy of The Myth and Magick of Freya’s Rune Spells. After all their Google and database searches for online text, Opal had found a used copy that had just been added to Powells’ inventory. So they’d all—Managarm, Sally, Opal, David, and Baron—piled into Managarm’s rusted Suburban and headed back to the City of Books.
Managarm parked in a small lot across the street from Powells, and Sally stepped out into the rain before he even shut off the engine.
“Wait!” Managarm bellowed as she shut the door.
Sally turned back and waited for Opal to roll down the passenger side window. “What?”
“You will complete your errand and return immediately.” Managarm leaned across Opal to look Sally directly in the eye.
“Of course.” She was about to turn away again, when Managarm reached through the window and grabbed her wrist.
“You will also not mention me or your mission to anyone.”
Sally frowned at him. Her mission? Why would she tell anyone about the Moon Dog of the Norse pantheon waiting out in the car? After her display at the Customer Service desk yesterday, the people at Powells probably thought she was crazy enough already. She’d be lucky if they even let her back through the door.
“Yeah, sure.” Sally pulled the hood of her rain jacket up over her head.
Managarm stared at her intently for another long moment, then nodded and released her wrist. But then Opal reached out and grabbed her rain jacket. “Hurry back,” she whispered. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
Sally glanced into the back seat where David was sucking down his third Big Gulp of the morning after finishing off a half-dozen breakfast burritos and a super-sized bag of M&Ms.
Baron sat beside the Berserker, watching and twitching his tail.
Pulling her hood low over her eyes, Sally dashed across the street, narrowly avoiding deep puddles in the crosswalk and panhandlers on both corners. She had misgivings about leaving Baron in the car, but sighed with relief when she saw the lights on inside Powells—then exclaimed in exasperation when the doors wouldn’t budge. She checked her watch. 8:30 a.m. The store wouldn’t open to customers for another thirty minutes.
She looked back across the street toward Managarm’s car and waved at Opal to get her attention, but the Suburban’s rain-spattered windows were fogging up and cars and cyclists kept zooming through the street between them. Sally turned back to the doors and gasped aloud when she caught her reflection in the glass.
There were even deeper wrinkles across her brow and around her eyes and mouth, and when she pulled her rain hood back, she saw a more even distribution of white in her normally red-blond hair.
She wanted to scream and cry and stomp on the pavement—generally, to have herself a proper tantrum—but she took a resolute breath instead and closed her eyes. Stay focused. When she opened her eyes, she looked past her reflection and pressed her face against the glass to see inside the store, just in time to spot Saga pushing a cart of paperbacks toward the New Arrivals shelves by the front door.
Sally pounded on the glass. “Saga! Saga! Please! You’ve got to let me in!” She watched the clerk stop and look first at her, and then at her watch.
“We don’t open for another twenty-seven minutes,” Saga called back, her voice muffled by the glass doors.
“Saga, please! I know I’m early, but it’s really important! I’m sorry about yesterday.” Sally yanked at the door again, as if she could will it to unlock, then pressed herself flat against the door. Her breath fogged the glass, obscuring her face. “Please? It’s kind of an emergency. I need your help.”
Saga paused, then held up a hand in resignation and slipped behind the Customer Service desk, where she crouched down out of sight. When she re-emerged, Saga headed for the door carrying a brightly colored ring loaded with keys.
“Oh! Oh, thank you! Thank you!” Sally exclaimed. “You’re really a god-send this morning.”
“Interesting choice of words,” Saga muttered on the other side of the door. She slipped a key into the lock and turned, then pulled one of the doors open. “Just don’t make me regret this, all right?”
Sally hurried inside. “Listen, I can’t apologize enough about my outburst here not twenty-four hours ago—”
“It happens.” Saga waved her off and pocketed the keys. “You said it was an emergency?”
Sally headed for the computer at the Customer Service desk. “I need to find a book. A very important book.”
Saga seemed slightly irritated, but stepped behind the counter to log onto the computer anyway. “Umm, Ms. Dahl, was it?”
“Mmmm.” Sally glanced back over her shoulder, trying to catch sight of Managarm’s Suburban. She’d spent most of the night lying awake, too excited to sleep. One of the old gods needed her help! Of course, Managarm was a minor figure, as far as deities went. She didn’t exactly have Odin, Thor, or Frigga knocking on her door. But what about the boy? Managarm kept calling him a Berserker. Was David really an ancient warrior who had recognized her as a 21st-century priestess?
“Oh, get a grip, Sally,” she muttered to herself.
“Excuse me?”
“Uh.” Sally turned back around to find Saga staring at her. “Nothing. Sorry. So I’m looking for The Myth and Magick of Freya’s Rune Spells. It’s by Henrietta Slupurne. There should be one here in the store, but I’m not sure if it would be in Metaphysics or Religion, or maybe in the Rare Book Room?”
Saga’s fingers paused on the keyboard, and she fixed Sally with a serious frown. “You said this was some kind of emergency.”
“Yeah, umm . . .” Sally pulled her hair back nervously. Remembering how close she came to being escorted out of the store by security the day before, Sally didn’t want to launch into another rant about Sleipnir’s Convergence and her Odin’s Return. “Well, see . . .” Sally stammered. “So, okay, I know maybe it doesn’t seem like a real emergency to you, but it is really important. Please, just believe me?”
Sally waited for Saga to start typing, but her fingers remained frozen over the keys.
“It’s just that, I’m doing this . . . thing, and I really need this book to help correct some mistakes I made before.” Sally nodded toward the computer, but Saga simply wasn’t taking the hint. “So, if you could, umm, just look it up for me? And then I’ll get out of your hair, I promise.”
Saga stepped away from the computer and leaned on the desk. “Ms. Dahl, forgive me for asking, but could you tell me exactly why this is so important?”
Sally’s stomach tightened. “Listen, I’ve got somebody waiting for me . . .” Sally gestured toward the doors. “Could you just look it up?”
Saga folded her hands over the counter. “Yesterday you were talking about runes, and the Black Moon.”
“Yeah . . . ?” Sally took a step back from the counter.
“And now you’re after a book on a very specific type of rune magick.” Saga lowered her voice, even though there was no one else around to overh
ear her. “I need you to tell me what you’re up to.”
“Uh, I . . .” Sally’s throat went dry. She fidgeted with the zipper of her rain coat and frowned down at her bony fingers. Then she remembered that while she might be an insecure teenager on the inside, she was very much a middle-aged—or older—adult on the outside. Sally straightened up and looked Saga directly in the eye. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, young lady. I am looking for a very specific book, and if you can’t help me . . .”
But instead of jumping back on the computer, Saga just looked Sally up and down and smiled. “Ms. Dahl, I think I can help you.” She stepped out from behind the desk and rested a hand on Sally’s thin shoulder. “Let’s you and I take a walk upstairs to the Rare Book Room, shall we?”