Page 47 of Soul of Shadow #1

Charlie started to stand.

“Don’t,” Elias said, holding up a threatening hand.

She froze on the floor. Her eyes darted between Elias and Lou. She waited for her friend to do something, to lash out at Elias, try to save them. But she just remained in the corner of the classroom, back ramrod straight, staring dully forward, as if she didn’t see anything at all.

“Lou?” Charlie whispered.

“She can’t hear you,” Elias said.

Charlie’s gaze shot back to him. “What?”

“That is to say, she can,” he said, folding his hands behind his back, “but she won’t listen. She only listens to me now.”

Lou reacted to none of this. She only stood at attention, like a soldier awaiting commands.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlie asked. She looked around the room, checking to see if anyone else was there. Wherever Lou was, Abigail usually was too—and vice versa. But the rest of the classroom was empty. “Where’s Abigail?”

“Oh, your dear Abigail has been glued to her date, Bex, all night. I wanted to take both her and Lou, but…” Elias shrugged.

“A boy has to make do with what he can get. As to your first question…” He strolled toward Lou, doing a small circle around her standing body.

“We mares have a couple of fun tricks up our sleeves. Turning to shadow, manipulating our shadows as weapons, giving people nightmares… but there’s possession, too. ”

“There’s what ?”

“It’s quite simple, really.” Elias paused behind Lou, laying a pale hand on her shoulder.

“All I have to do is make contact with a human body and speak the words of possession. The shadows within me do the rest. It’s just another form of dream-giving, really.

Think of your friend as… as sleepwalking.

” He shrugged. “Only, I’m in charge of what she does while she sleeps. ”

Charlie shifted her gaze to Lou’s slackened face, fresh horror washing through her. “You’re… mind-controlling her?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“That’s disgusting.” She tried to stand, but Elias shot her a warning look. She sank back to the floor, desperately wishing she could go to her friend. “Did you—” Her eyes widened with realization. “Have you ever done that to me ?”

“You’re thinking of when you kissed me last night?

” A vindictive gleam shone in his gaze. “No, Charlotte. That was all you.” He pivoted, returning to stand in front of the door.

“Though, I must say, I’m impressed with your strategy tonight.

Another kiss to distract me from how you were so obviously prying for information?

A classic. One I’ve used myself more than a handful of times.

” When he faced her, his expression was stony.

“Though, I must say—I never expected it from you .”

“Why?” she spat. “Because I’m too weak for something like that? Too spineless? ”

He raised his eyebrows. “I have never called you spineless, Charlotte. And I never will.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Instead of answering, Elias sighed. “I really hoped it wouldn’t come to this, you know. I thought we could have a mutually beneficial partnership, and—”

“Right,” Charlie said. “A mutually beneficial partnership in which you lie to me about your motives, threaten me into cooperation, and then use me to help you find the one creature that can ensure the destruction of every single human being I care about.”

“That right there—” Elias paced forward, one hand still behind his back, the other wagging a finger at her.

“That’s exactly what I don’t understand.

You’re not supposed to know about my true motives for trying to find the Fenrir.

You’re not even supposed to know what the Fenrir is .

Which means that you’re either craftier than I expected, or—” He tilted his head, studying Charlie.

Then, like two candles suddenly bursting into flame, his eyes lit up.

“Your sister paid you a visit, didn’t she? ”

Charlie didn’t think she could feel any more betrayed by the boy standing in front of her.

She was wrong.

“You—” Her lips quivered traitorously. “You knew? All this time—you knew she was alive?”

“Of course I knew,” he spat. “She’s a Valkyrie, those stuck-up, high-and-mighty bird women. Odin’s favorites. Everyone knows the Valkyries.”

For some reason, this deception more than anything else… this deception hurt worst of all. That this boy, whom she had kissed, whom she’d confided in, had known all along that her sister was alive but had never told her. Had just watched her suffer and done nothing.

“You bastard .” She pushed herself off the floor, ignoring the warning look Elias gave her.

With no strategy—no thoughts at all, really, just pure, unfiltered anger—she charged.

Barreled toward him, her head held low. Almost as an afterthought, she tried to reach into the sealed pocket that held her knife. “How dare you—”

Before she could even touch the knife, Elias grabbed her wrists, spinning her body around and pinning her to him. He locked her inside his arms, holding her wrists in either hand.

“Don’t,” he hissed in her ear, “make the mistake of thinking you can beat me, Charlie. You can’t.”

“I hate you,” she said. “I will always hate you.”

His body tensed for a moment, then relaxed. His grip stayed firm. “Good.”

“What was the point of all this?” She struggled against his arms, even though she knew he was far stronger and could probably keep her pinned like this all night. “Of asking for my help? The minute you learned the location of the Fenrir, you would need to—”

“Kill you?” he guessed, cutting her off. “That was certainly an option.”

Chills swept through her body, even when encased in the heat of his arms.

His lips nestled close to her ear. “Why do you think I’ve been stalling all weekend?” he whispered. “Why do you think I suddenly became so uninterested in the disappearances? I figured it out, Charlie. I broke the code. I know what the Fenrir is doing. ”

“You—” She swallowed. “But those kids who disappeared—”

“Dead,” he said with finality. “All of them. Human sacrifices sent to the realm of Muspelheim. To the fire creature, Surtur.”

“No,” she whispered.

“There was nothing you could have done to help them,” said Elias, and she thought she heard a note of sadness in his voice—though she might have been painting her own emotions over his.

“They’re gone, and he’ll need more sacrifices.

Hundreds more. And I—” He shoved Charlie away.

She crashed into a desk, grunting as pain shot up her pelvis.

When she spun back around, Elias stood in the corner with one hand on Lou’s shoulder. “Am going to bring him another.”

“No,” she whispered again. She tried to lunge for them but stopped when Elias pulled a knife from his suit pocket and held it to Lou’s throat. “You can’t—”

“I can.” His eyes were mere slits now. Compressed with a sort of frenetic intensity that she had never seen before.

“I will bring your friend to the Fenrir, and I will offer her to the wolf to be sent to Surtur. And if one offering isn’t enough for the Fenrir, I’ll bring him however many more he needs to give me the location of the Seal.

I know where he’s hiding. And if you try to do anything to stop me from getting there, I will slit Lou’s throat. ”

Charlie was trembling now. With fear or rage, she wasn’t certain, but as a low, soft hammering began on the door—the v?tte’s little fist, no doubt—she felt completely at a loss. She couldn’t make a move without risking Lou’s life. She had to let Elias go.

Yes. She had to let him go.

And then she would follow him.

It was a weak plan. She had no idea how to follow Elias without being seen, and she had no backup to help her steal Lou away when she did. But she would figure it out.

She had to.

Watching her carefully, Elias lowered the blade from Lou’s throat. When Charlie didn’t make a move, he nodded. “Good. Stay right there.” He reached behind himself with his free hand and unlocked the classroom door. “Now. Lou.”

Her friend only blinked in response.

“Go.”

Like a robot, she pivoted on the spot and pushed open the door, exiting the classroom.

On the hallway floor, the v?tte squawked in surprise and stumbled backward. Lou tromped past Charlie, zombie-like, and headed down the hallway, toward the front door of the school. The v?tte pushed himself upright, glancing back and forth between Elias and Charlie in confusion.

“Excellent,” said Elias. He reached into his shirt and pulled out the chain he always wore around his neck. The one Charlie could now see held a thin silver whistle.

“What’s—” she started to ask, but then Elias flipped the whistle up to his lips and blew on it, hard. She clapped her hands over her ears, expecting a loud blast, but nothing happened. She heard no sound at all.

She lowered her hands from her ears. “What was that?”

“A draugar call,” he said merrily, tucking the whistle into his shirt. “A little something to keep you occupied while I go find the Fenrir. Make sure you don’t follow me.”

Charlie’s heart sank. A draugar. A draugar was coming. “That’s a death sentence.”

“Maybe.” Elias shrugged. “You can fight it using the kitchen knife I felt hidden in your dress when we were making out.” He raised his hand to his forehead in a two-finger salute. “Bye now.”

Then he turned and followed Lou down the hallway, leaving Charlie with nothing but a pounding heart and the tinny pulse of music far, far away.