Page 56 of Soul of Shadow #1

Elias thrust out a hand. Black cords shot from his palm, but Charlie swiped up with her knife, cutting them in midair. The cords evaporated like mist.

Baffled, Elias let out an enraged bellow and shot out another cord, this time aiming for the hand holding the knife.

Charlie dove out of the way, slicing through the cord as she went.

It evaporated just as she crashed into Lou’s body, causing her friend to stumble to one side.

Charlie fell to the stone floor, rolling sideways before pushing back up onto her feet below the platform.

Elias reached out, as if to grab her with his bare hands, but it was too late; staying low, Charlie slashed out with the Valkyrie knife.

Right through Elias’s kneecaps.

She heard muffled victorious cries that she thought came from Bjorn and Vidar.

Elias let out a roar, arms wheeling as he struggled to stay standing.

She saw the dodssten flash inside his fist. Though clearly taken by surprise, he didn’t appear to be in any pain, as if the knife had done nothing but pass straight through his legs.

As Charlie fell to the floor and scrambled backward, she was afraid she had failed. That the knife had done nothing .

“Impossible,” Elias whispered.

Then, like a statue sawed apart, the top of his body slid slowly off his kneecaps and toppled sideways.

As his body hit the ground, his shins, ankles, and feet evaporated, like the cords had. For a long, silent moment, she and Elias both stared at the place where his lower legs used to be.

She did it.

She actually did it.

She should have been overwhelmed with joy. Should have wanted to whoop, to dance around the cavern. At last, a small victory in an impossible situation.

Why, then, as she stared at his sliced-up body, was a pit slowly yawning open within her?

“Well done, Charlotte,” said Elias, voice oozing with black sarcasm.

He lounged in a relaxed position, propped up on his elbows, half legs sprawled before him.

He stuck his right hand back into his stomach, storing the dodssten within him.

“A Valkyrie knife. I recognize the design. Seems I have a weakness after all.” He tilted his head, studying the blade.

“And it looks like your sister is smarter than I realized.”

Charlie’s stomach dropped twenty floors.

“ What? ” said Mason. It was the first word out of his mouth since they’d entered the chamber, and it came out strangled.

Shit , Charlie thought. Shit, shit, shit. This isn’t how he was supposed to find out. I was supposed to have time , to be able to sit him down, and—

Mason was still speaking. “What is he talking about, Charlie? What’s—” but his sentence was cut off with a yelp.

Charlie spun around. No. For the last thirty seconds, she’d been so focused on attacking Elias that she’d neglected the presence of the Fenrir.

Now, the beast had scooped her brother up with one paw, sliding his claws through the shadowy ropes around his ankles and was holding them up by the ceiling, Mason dangling in the air upside down.

Her brother whimpered. Charlie could only pray that the wolf’s claws hadn’t gone through Mason’s skin, too.

“Silence,” snarled the Fenrir. “You are here to be sacrificed. Nothing more.”

Mason shut his mouth, shooting his sister a pleading look.

This is it . Her opportunity. With Elias out of commission, Charlie could save the others if she played the situation correctly.

She glanced at Lou, who stood a few feet away, staring at the wall, and then at Abigail, who was quivering on the floor, and the Vikings, who were struggling in vain against their bindings. Then she focused on the Fenrir.

This is it.

“I understand why you want to sacrifice us,” said Charlie, rising slowly to her feet and taking a tentative step toward the wolf.

He was so enormous . His fur and fangs and flashing red eyes seemed to fill the entire other side of the chamber.

“You want protection from the gods. And Surtur can offer you that.”

The Fenrir narrowed his eyes.

She took another small step. “But what if I told you that I could offer you that, too?”

Opening his mouth to reveal his deadly fangs, the wolf let out a barking laugh. “You?” he asked, a huge speck of drool flying from his mouth. “What could a defenseless little human possibly offer me?”

Carefully, Charlie tucked her Valkyrie knife back into one of the pockets on the side of her dress.

Then, she reached down the dress, into the trick pocket that held the leather pouch.

The Fenrir growled, lowering his head and baring his fangs at her.

She held up her other hand, hoping it would convey to the beast that she meant no harm.

His eyes stayed narrow, but as she wrapped her fingers around the pouch and started to pull it out, he didn’t pounce.

Once the pouch was all the way out, she held it up for the Fenrir to see. It dangled from her fingers, brown leather swinging in the air.

The wolf tilted its head. “What is that?”

“Feathers from the cloak of the goddess Freyja.”

“Impossible,” said the Fenrir. “The goddess would not give out her feathers to a mere human.”

“I’ll prove it,” she said. “Watch this.” She slipped two fingers into the pouch and pulled until it opened.

Reaching gingerly inside, Charlie felt something light and fuzzy brush her fingertips.

Gently she grasped the tip of a feather and pulled it out.

It was snow-white with stripes of silver, glimmering in the green light of the cave.

The Fenrir watched her movements warily. His eyes flashed when the feather emerged from the pouch, but he kept all other emotion off his face, unconvinced.

Charlie had no idea how the feathers worked; Sophie handed them over without any further explanation. Was she supposed to wear it? Eat it? Wave it around in circles?

On a whim—and perhaps wanting to make a show out of the whole thing to impress the Fenrir—Charlie puffed out her torso, held up the feather, and then slammed it right into the center of her chest.

It worked. The feather clung to her chest, as if stuck there, and began to glow with silver light.

After a few seconds, it dissolved to nothing.

As it did, the silver glow rushed out from her chest, spreading across her arms, her legs, her head and neck.

It spanned the length of her body, leaving her with a bright silver outline.

“Whoa,” said her brother, who was still hanging upside down from the Fenrir’s paw.

“So, it’s true,” said the Fenrir, stepping closer to Charlie. Hunger burned in his red eyes. “How many more do you have?”

Charlie looked down at the pouch. She stuck a hand in again, rooting around and pretending to count.

As she worked, she casually pulled out one feather, then another, as if to clear space and allow her to see them all.

She spent another few seconds pretending to finish up her count, then looked up at the Fenrir.

“Ten,” she lied, still holding two of Freyja’s feathers in one hand. “And the Valkyrie has promised that if you agree to help us, she can provide you with an entire bushel of these feathers.”

The hunger burned brighter in the Fenrir’s eyes. “Bring them to me.”

“First, put down my brother.”

The wolf spat on the floor. “Bring them to me, or I’ll slice his throat.”

“Okay, okay.” Charlie stepped cautiously toward him.

His eyes were glued to the pouch in her hand.

When she drew close enough to the beast, so close that she could smell his putrid breath wafting over her, she lifted the pouch, as if to offer it to him.

When she did, the wolf’s arm slackened, dropping Mason closer to the floor.

Charlie pounced.

Before the Fenrir realized what was happening, she leapt up into the air, sticking one of the two feathers in between her teeth and slapping the other onto her brother’s chest. She didn’t hit him squarely at the center, the way she had with herself, but she had to hope it would be enough.

The Fenrir roared, dropping Mason to the floor.

It was as if the feather’s protective magic had burned the wolf’s paw.

He growled with anguish, holding out his paw, and Charlie dove across the floor, over to where Abigail still lay, bound by Elias’s shadow cords.

Charlie slapped the second feather onto her friend’s chest.

As the third feather dissolved, sending silver light across Abigail’s body, so did the shadow cords. They evaporated under the feather’s protective magic. Abigail gasped, rolling over and leaping to her feet.

Charlie didn’t have time to give feathers to either of the Vikings.

She spun around to see the Fenrir leap toward her with a gut-rattling roar.

His jaws were stretched wide, teeth flashing in the green light of the cavern, saliva flying in every direction.

Charlie plunged her hand into the pocket holding her knife and pulled it out, brandishing it in what would surely be a useless attempt to block him.

But the beast’s attack never came.

When Charlie peeked through her arms, she saw that the Fenrir was stuck.

He kept throwing his jaw forward, trying to swallow her whole, but he couldn’t get within a foot of her.

He let out a roar of frustration, going in for one last swipe, but this time, Charlie was ready.

When his jaws came snapping toward her, she sliced the Valkyrie knife in a horizontal arc—straight through the wolf’s top layer of teeth, right up by the gums.

She was going to get the ash wife what she had promised .

The Fenrir let out an agonized roar. His teeth clattered to the floor, followed quickly by his entire mountainous body.

It hit the ground with a rumble that shook the whole cave.

Charlie fell backward. Her rear end hit the floor, her head whipping back.

For a brief flash, she prepared for her skull to slam into the stone, even knock her out.

But instead of hitting a hard surface, it bounced off something soft.

“ Oof ,” said Abigail, whose stomach Charlie’s head had just landed on.

Charlie groaned, rolling over onto her side. “Sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine.” With a grunt, Abigail pushed herself up onto her elbows. “I don’t know what kind of magical potion was inside that feather, but I barely felt a thing.”

“That would be the point.” Charlie held out a hand to her. Together, they pulled each other to their feet, and Charlie stuffed the pouch back into her dress.

“This is better than drugs,” said a completely unfazed Mason, who was sprawled on the ground, looking down at his glowing body. “How many more of those crack feathers you got, sis?”

Charlie started to laugh, but she was cut off by the sound of slow clapping coming from behind.

She turned to find Elias, still stuck on the floor with half of his legs missing, clapping his shadowy hands and shaking his head.

To his right, Lou stood, stoic as ever. Her hands were clasped behind her back now, like a soldier standing at attention.

“Well done, Charlotte.” Elias’s mouth quirked into a cruel smile. “Well done. You beat the odds, didn’t you? What a lovely little cheat that was—a feather that protects from all supernatural creatures. Brilliant.”

Charlie clenched her hands at her sides. “It’s over, Elias,” she said. “You’ve lost. Release the Vikings and give Lou back her free will, or I’ll cut off even more of you.”

“See, that’s the thing.” Elias waved a finger at her. “That’s the beautiful thing about having a human in your back pocket. Those feathers might protect you from supernatural forces…” He lifted a hand, pointing his palm at Lou’s rigid body. “But you can still die a death caused by a human.”

“What do you—” Her eyes flew to Lou, but it was too late.

Her friend was already lifting her right arm, which had been hidden behind her back.

It took Charlie a half second to register the cold metal in Lou’s hand, the sound of a safety clicking off, the barrel pointed right at her.

Just as her mind made sense of the picture, as her consciousness formed the word gun , the trigger was pulled, a loud explosion shook the walls of the cavern, and Lou unknowingly shot her best friend.

“ No ,” Mason screamed from the floor. Abigail was frozen, in shock, watching everything unfold and incapable of doing anything.

And Lou …

Lou’s aim was perfect. Supernatural. The bullet went straight into Charlie’s head.

For a moment, all was still. A flash of grief passed across Elias’s face, as if he hadn’t really wanted to kill Charlie.

As if he had acted without thinking. From the ground, Mason held his breath, stunned, no doubt waiting for Charlie to keel over.

To slump to the cavern floor and begin to leak blood.

Then, Charlie opened her mouth and smiled—

A bullet between her teeth.