“Queen Dagrun.” Sif held out her hands. “You need to breathe.”
Big, fat snowflakes fell onto Dag’s shimmering magic and popped with tiny wet smacks as if each one was a bug landing on a zapper.
“Dag… Mom….” I extended my hand to my elven mother. “I think that wave hurt you.”
Her ponytail danced like a cobra behind her head. The jeans and tunic she wore wiggled and transformed into a magical version of her elven armor as if she had called the breastplate and helmet to herself.
And the Elf Queen of Alfheim morphed into an elemental magic I had rarely seen her show.
Axlam’s wolf bristled. Sif stepped back as if the other elf terrified her more than the wave we’d just suffered.
“Where is my granddaughter!” Dag boomed.
Fully out of her glamour and in her elven armor, she pulsed with power—and manifested her goddess aspect.
She roared again. “You know not what you have done, St. Martin!”
Axlam leaned against my truck. “Get your axe, Frank,” she semi-growled.
Was she turning? But the moon wasn’t out. She was away from the pack. And the elf who was running with her was as crazed as an untamed werewolf scenting blood.
I darted for the front door. Letting either of them out of my perception probably wasn’t smart, but neither was arguing with an alpha werewolf.
The door slammed against the wall. I’d left Sal against the wall just inside the door. I swung my hand down—and caught nothing.
Sophia’s bag was where she’d left it, as was Akeyla’s, but Sal had vanished along with the girls.
I backed out of the house. “Dagrun, did you move Sal?”
She howled more like a wolf than an elf.
I grabbed my coat, pulled out my phone, and dialed Arne. “St. Martin kidnapped the girls,” I said. “Dag’s enraged and Sif’s hurt.” I hung up, though I didn’t know for sure it had been St. Martin, but Dag sure thought so, and I wasn’t going to disagree with an elf.
Dagrun ran into the trees.
“We need you here!” I yelled.
Sif looked between me, Axlam, and the trees. “Stay here,” she said, and bolted into the trees after her queen.
“Axlam!” I yelled.
“Jaxson!” Her howl turned into a full-throated growling yowl.
If she turned now, out here without her pack or Dagrun, this close to a change pulled out by the Samhain full moon, she’d lose herself to the rage her wolf must be feeling.
No human half of a werewolf could stand against that. Not even Axlam, Gerard, or Remy. St. Martin had taken Jaxson and Samhain was about to loosen all the separations between humanity and the magical underpinnings of the world.
The alpha wolf in front of me would kill every single threat, big or small, between her and her cub.
“Hold on, Axlam. Please.” Axlam was fully capable of ripping off my arm in wolf state. If she lost control, she would be more of a danger to the local mundanes than Dag.
Her wolf magic vanished into her body. She bent forward. “He will not survive this,” she choked out. “I will feast on hisss… hearrrrrttttt.”
I looked toward the house. If I got her inside, could I hold her until Arne got here? I didn’t run with the wolves. I had no idea how to help.
I turned back toward Axlam.
Between us and well within my reach, Bastien-Laurent St. Martin, that little dung beetle of a humanoid, pointed the end of a large gun’s barrel at my chest. “Quiet, now, Mr. Victorsson,” he said.
“Where the hell did you come from?” I shouted. Quiet, I would not be.
He was in full winter gear, complete with boots, gloves, and an expensive trekking jacket complete with Mednidyne logo. His hat, though, said Minne-snow-ta like he’d bought it at a gas station somewhere between Alfheim and the Minneapolis airport.
Behind him, Axlam, who was still bent over, did not notice that St. Martin had materialized on my driveway. Nor, it seemed, had she heard me yell.
I couldn’t see the magic he was using to separate us. Not really. Not with the snow and the wind. But something was between us and Axlam. Something that distorted the movements of the falling snowflakes just enough that my senses barely picked it up.
He’d put up a wall, or a veil, or had expanded his carapace-like shell of magic outward while he pointed a gun at my chest and rubbed at his nose like he’d been snorting his master’s magic.
And all his erratic behaviors, all his delusions of grandeur, all the snickering and the harassment and the annoyance suddenly made sense. He really was a bug under that carapace, an unsubstantial rich kid with a revenge fantasy that made him the perfect patsy for something much larger than himself.
“You didn’t think I would attack turned wolves while they ran, did you?” He shook his head as if we were all to be pitied. “Oh, s’il te plait. While they have the entire nest of elves with them?”
“Set the gun on the ground,” I said. “Now.” He had the upper hand, but I was bigger. Maybe I could intimidate him into cooperation.
He waved the gun around, but pointed it back at my chest when I took a step forward. “No you do not, jotunn.” He sniffed again. “I want that one at her most savage.” He pointed over his shoulder at Axlam. “How dare you reject my offers! I do not appreciate the disruption of my plans.”
Axlam leaned against my truck. She’d calmed, and was coming back to herself. “Frank?” she called.
Did I dare swat away St. Martin’s gun? I didn’t have a good sense of his speed, and getting shot right now would hinder searching for the kids.
He pinched his lips like a blue-haired DMV matron. “Trying another headlock will get you killed, jotunn.”
He seemed to be fixated on the jotunn business. “Where are the girls?”
He twitched as if surprised by my question. “Your Queen and her under-elf? They’re in the trees over there. I tossed out that boom to get them out of the way.” He nodded
