And right then, right as the interloper tilted his head as if listening to someone whisper in his ear, dawn fully crested over the City Admin Complex. Bright, pre-Samhain sunshine flooded the lot.
The light hit Dag’s wall, which expanded and shifted from her normal icy blues and greens to a bright golden shield.
Axlam’s wolf rose up as a towering blue-violet canine energy. Hackles stood along its neck. Gleamingly bright teeth and a magical snarl erupted with such force I was sure the mundanes in the building felt the push.
Arne walked toward the interloper, his own wall in front of him until it merged with and augmented Dag’s. “You will leave our town,” Arne said.
The interloper pointed at Axlam. “She’s why I’m investing in this pathetic little town! Why I’m bringing you civilization! It’s my gift.”
Nothing this man said made sense.
“I don’t know you!” Axlam yelled.
“I’m here to right the sins of the past!” he screamed.
Axlam walked toward him, back straight and finger pointing. “Leave us alone.”
The interloper threw his hands into the air as if asking the gods for help. “Why can’t you accept the gifts I bring?”
Arne took Dag’s hand. He stepped forward so he directly faced the interloper. Dag twisted so that her body was perpendicular to Arne’s shoulder and the arms of their joined hands were flesh-to-flesh from wrist to elbow. Then Dag moved her free arm so that it, too, was perpendicular to Arne’s free arm.
A sigil so dense it weighed on the air formed directly in front of them. They shifted the orientation of their hands—and released a blast of magic so strong the Tesla moved.
But the interloper did not. The blast flowed around him as if his shadow was some sort of shielding spell.
The interloper laughed, and his toddler-like foot stomping morphed into a neck-throbbing rage as if someone had flipped his nervous system’s switch. He roared at Arne and swung his fist at Dagrun, even though he was more than ten feet away. “You’ll pay for that,” he shrieked.
Dag tossed a tracer spell.
The spell sparked and tried to attach, but his magic shell had an oiliness to it and the tracer slid off the pulsing carapace.
He shook his hands as if he’d been zapped by a battery. Then he bounced on his heels and howled at the sky as his shadow shell clarified and moved from static-filled to high-definition.
His carapace was filling up—or winding up. Magical energy accumulated and danced along its weird event-horizon edges.
He smirked like a child about to spring a trap.
He was going to blow up his magic like a damned flash-bomb.
I had him around the neck with my hand over his nose and mouth before he could yell or even bite. “Stop,” I said. He’d hurt not only the elves and Axlam, but Ed and the mundanes in the building. He might hurt everyone in town.
He howled into my palm, but I held on. “I am the jotunn of Alfheim,” I said. “This is my home.”
I didn’t know why I said jotunn. It seemed important, for some deep unintelligible reason, that I fake-out not just the interloper, but also his magic. That I pull a hand that felt, at the moment, to be much more than a joke.
The pulsing of his magic stopped. The carapace snapped down onto his body. The “call,” it seemed, had disconnected.
I let go. He sucked in his breath. “I am going to make all of you pay!” he shrieked, and… vanished. His shadow flickered for a split second, then it too vanished.
I threw my arms wide, more out of instinct than any real ability to protect myself. “Is he still here?”
Arne swore. His augmentation of Dag’s wall dissipated as his wife contracted her magic into a bubble around Axlam and Ed. Arne’s organic magic spread out through the entire parking lot, flowing around my truck, the camera crew’s vehicle, his vehicle, and the handful of other cars like a blanket showing all the lumps underneath.
He was trying to drop a sheet on our ghost.
“He’s gone,” I said. Quickly, too, since he’d gotten out of the lot before Arne sent out his magic.
Arne signaled to Dag. “I felt a burst of power.” Then to me, “Did you see it?” He mimicked the headlock.
“It looked like he was about to explode,” I said.
Arne swore again. He pointed at the building. “The camera crew is inside?”
“Yes,” I said.
Arne jogged toward the door.
Axlam, and her wolf magic, stared silently westward.
Ed paced. “How are we supposed to protect Alfheim from that?” he asked.
Dag formed a sigil around her fingers and touched the inside of my elbow where I’d held the interloper. She then touched my cheek. “No residuals,” she said. “The pre-Samhain sun burned him off.”
“No,” Axlam said. “Frank scared his magic.”
“I told him I was the jotunn of Alfheim,” I said. “And his shadow… hung up on him.”
Dag, too, looked westward.
“His magic, it’s sent. He’s like you said, Axlam. He’s using magic that’s not his. He’s an avatar.” I rubbed at my hair. “It’s as if he’s walking around inside a receiver.”
And I’d made him—and his boss—angry.
“Who’s feeding him?” Dag, like Arne, spread a layer of magic through the parking lot.
Axlam closed her eyes. Her wolf retreated to her normal shimmer, but didn’t calm. The shimmer continued to carry significant energy.
I pulled out my phone. “What did that kid say? They’re here for someone’s Rural Initiative?” Like Natural Living Incorporated, the other company might lead to some answers.
“Ned-and-Dine?” Ed said. He flipped open his notebook.
I swiped open my phone.
Damn it, I thought. I’d think about my mystery woman later. I opened my search app.
“Mednidyne,” Axlam said. “He said Mednidyne Pharmaceuticals.”
I tapped in the name.
“The website’s in French.” I tapped at my screen trying to find an English portal.
Axlam held out her hand for my phone.
She swiped through a few pages. “Maybe there’s a list of—” She stopped swiping. Stopped moving. Stopped everything
