Page 24 of Hallowed & Haunted

Sander wakes with a start to a deep rumbling like distant thunder. The sound vibrates against his back, where something massive and warm cradles his body. Adrenaline floods his veins as he fumbles around in the darkness, but he finds neither Niillas nor the sleeping bag, only the softness of fur and the warmth of a huge body. A thick hide tickles his cheek, and against his back, he feels the steady rise and fall of breathing belonging to something larger than any man.

What the hell?

Memory returns in fragments: the Halloween party, the bet, the abandoned farmhouse, the ghost in the attic, and finally, Niillas, calm and unshakeable, carrying him to safety.

Where is Niillas then?

Disappointment and fear creep over him.

Niillas promised to stay with him, and now he’s gone.

Carefully, hardly daring to breathe, Sander tilts his head, and his whole body locks up. He isn’t alone, but it isn’t Niillas who’s looking down on him. His gaze is met by intelligent black eyes watching him from ursine features. A bear. A fucking polar bear, from the long neck and sleek skull, but its fur is black as a nightmare. Primal fear crashes down over Sander, making him freeze in the face of the predator only inches away from him.

The bear huffs, its warm breath fanning across Sander’s face.

This is worse than falling into the bear enclosure at the zoo, worse than wandering around Svalbard without a rifle. Sander is going to be eaten alive. He bites down, his bottom lip hard to prevent any sound from escaping him, keeping his body as still as possible. Maybe if he stays perfectly motionless, it won’t—

There’s a scratching noise from the door, and the bear’s head whips around. A predator sensing danger. Or prey. The nightmare bear watches the doorway with an attention like it’s ready to jump at an invisible threat.

Just like Hektor before running off to chase ducks, Sander’s shock-fried brain supplies helpfully.

Wait.

Waitwaitwait.

Sander’s panicked mind crashes to a halt.

He knows these expressions.

Knows these black eyes. Has stared into them across locker rooms and ice rinks, has seen them flash with annoyance and amusement and something darker, hungrier, when he thought no one was looking. But Sander didn’t miss a thing about Niillas Vars, because he’s been looking the whole fucking time.

Oh god.

“Niillas?”

The word isn’t more than the faintest whisper, but the bear’s small, round ears twitch toward him anyway.

If the creature weren’t so intimidatingly large, so obviously designed for violence, it would look almost cute.

And then the bear turns to Sander, and there’s nothing cute about its razor-sharp teeth and too knowing eyes, and Sander thinks he’s going to faint as the bear opens its maw wider to—

Slobber a wet stripe across Sander’s cheek.

What the actual fuck?

The creature looks back to the doorway, and Sander has all of a second to freak out about being slobbered on by a bear that is probably Niillas, before the living room door shatters under the onslaught from something massive and violent. The thing forcing its way through the destroyed door makes Marta look like a character from a children’s TV show. It has to duck to fit through the frame, its hulking form broader and chunkier than any man, radiating ancient power and brute strength, with its skin like carved rock and hair of moss and fur.

It’s a troll.

A stállu.

The antlers Sander spotted through the window crowns its head as if a small tree is sprouting from its skull.

Sick with fear, Sander presses himself closer to the bear.

It’s only a tiny movement, but the troll catches it. Its yellow eyes focus hungrily on Sander, and its hand tightens around the huge club it’s dragging behind itself.

“I smell him,noaidi,” the troll rasps, with a voice like a millstone grinding bone. “Sweet Christian blood, warm with fear. I want to taste him.”