Frowning, she turned the paper over.
Kara snatched it from her hand.
“Don’t need to be grabby,” Kelly replied.
But Kara did. She knew the look on Kelly’s face; she was getting ready to suggest they destroy the note unread, and Kara couldn’t. It was from Risk; it had to be.
Giving her sister a quelling look, she walked to the end of the room and unfolded the note. Two words were written in a hasty scribble. “Lose Risk.”
“Lose what?” Kelly asked, her hair brushing against Kara’s neck.
“I…I don’t know.” Kara’s fingers tightened on the paper. Not exactly the reassuring message she had been hoping for.
“Well?” Lusse greeted Risk as he walked through the doorway. “Did you find the source?”
Ignoring her, Risk strode to the end of the tube near Kara’s. She and her sister stood huddled together at the other end, their backs to Risk.
“I asked—” Risk spun, anger and impatience sending a flare of heat through him. “Not yet. Soon.” He balled his hands at his sides. He had wanted to explain everything to Kara, his plan, why he was here with Lusse, that she had to trust him, and most of all that he would do anything to save her, sacrifice his own life and everything he valued just to know she was safe.
“How soon?” Lusse stood, kicking a silk pillow across the floor. “This…” She made a sweeping motion with her arms. “Is getting old.”
Without warning, the lights dimmed.
“Now what?” Lusse mumbled.
The ceremony. Then the battle. And Risk hadn’t got Lusse to wear the band Jormun had supplied yet. Risk wasn’t completely sure what the band did, but Jormun had emphasized that it would make the transition of Lusse from free witch to his property easier — assuming she won the battle.
“Here.” Risk stepped forward, the bracelet glowing in a delicate circle across his palm.
Lusse looked down her nose at the object. “What is that?”
“The equipment I told you about. Jormun’s one request.”
“That? He thinks that will keep me from killing his witches?”
Risk gritted his teeth. “You wearing it was his requirement for showing me the source of his power.”
“Really?” Lusse tilted her head and lifted her arms. “I feel a shift right now. Do you feel it?”
Risk did, and his anxiety grew. “Will you put it on?”
Lusse glanced back at the bracelet and sighed. “Give it to me. I’ll think about it.” She plucked the object off Risk’s palm and tucked it into the pocket of her skirt.
As she did, a loud monotonous hissing sounded behind them.
“Fascinating.” Lusse’s lips parted.
The wall separating their tube from the main one cleared. Standing shoulder to shoulder were the skapt, their eyes glowing and their bodies turned toward the Midgard Sea.
“What are they…” Lusse snapped her head back the other direction, toward the sea. Her inhaled breath turned Risk’s attention there, too.
“I never guessed,” she murmured. “I thought it was legend, allegory. Not real.”
A huge undulating serpent pressed against the tube. Its body so long Risk couldn’t see either its head or tail.
“You mean…” he started.
“Jormun. That is Jormun. He truly is the Midgard Serpent.” Lusse rushed to the glass, her hands trailing over the smooth surface. “When he was exiled it was said he was cursed to become a huge serpent that circled the Midgard Sea, his tail clamped in his mouth. But I never dreamed…” She inhaled, excitement sending quivers down her body. “Can you imagine? A shift this huge? The power he must emit?”
“Is he forandre?” Risk asked. The skapt’s reverent treatment of him was suddenly making sense.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. He has the power of hundreds, maybe thousands of forandre. And to think I was happy to capture a garm.” Lusse laughed. She spun back toward Risk. “The battle. When is the battle?”
His eyes still focused on the giant serpent, Risk muttered, “Soon. After…this.”
“Good. Good. This changes everything. Now there is much more to gain than just a couple of sniveling witches.” Picking up a pillow, Lusse hugged it to herself.
Startled, Risk glanced at her. What insanity did she have brewing now?
As the lights glowed back to life in their tube, Kara let out a breath of exhaustion. Kelly had insisted they spend the time during the ceremony pulling as much power as they could from the air.
“I know it isn’t much, but it is stronger now than any other time,” she had insisted.
Now that the snake-men had retreated and the serpent had sunk out of sight to return to where he lived when not being worshipped, Kara slid to the floor and attempted to nap.
The click of the food slot startled her awake. She leaped to her feet and rushed over before Kelly could beat her.
A flat tray slid through.
“Another note from doggy boy?” Kelly asked. Her arms crossed in disapproval over her chest.
“No…” On the tray were two thin bracelets, similar to the ties the bartender had placed on her wrists before she’d gone through the portal, and another note. This one was from Jormun.
It is time to perform, my little witches. Wear these bracelets to protect you from harm. Jormun.
“What now?” Kelly stalked to Kara’s side. “No way.” She took the tray from Kara’s hand and dropped it back on the shelf next to the slot.
“But maybe…” Images of Kelly’s friend, the witch in the morgue, flitted through Kara’s brain. “Maybe it’s true.”
“You are way too trusting.” Kelly shook her head.
Kara bit her lip. “But if Jormun wanted to hurt us, why wouldn’t he just do it here while we’re trapped?”
“He doesn’t want to hurt us. He wants to use us. You told me yourself your hound friend said that’s what happened to…” She turned away, unable to say her friend’s name.
Kara stared at her sister, feeling her pain, but something inside Kara said she should wear the bracelet. She knew it wasn’t logical; but she just felt it. While Kelly’s head was still turned, she picked one up and slipped it onto her wrist.
The slim band thinned and tightened until it was barely visible against her skin.
“What did you do?” Kelly rushed over, grabbing Kara’s wrist. Kara just stared back at her. “Guess I’ll find out.”
“Damn.” Kelly picked up the tray and tossed it across the room.
“I feel fine,” Kara said softly.
“She feels fine,” Kelly mumbled to herself.
Kara turned, her shoulders shaking with pent-up emotion. She was out of her element. She’d come here to save Kelly and she was just making things worse.
Kelly stared at her. “Double damn.” She stomped to where the tray and second band had fallen. Shaking her head she slipped the bracelet over her foot and onto her ankle. “I’m not leaving here without you. So, I might was well share your fate.”
“But?” Kara looked at Kelly’s ankle.
Kelly shrugged. “Always have to do a little something unexpected — don’t you think?”
With a smile, Kara nodded and stared at her own band. She could barely make out the thin raised plastic — or whatever it was. Please, she prayed, let me be right at least about this.
