Chaos Magic (Rune Witch Book 5) Read online

  Chaos Magic

  Rune Witch, Volume 5

  Jennifer Willis

  For Ames,

  Who has been on this journey with me longer than most.

  Though our paths may diverge from time to time, my friend, they always manage to cross again.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Wait!

  PREVIEW: Twilight Magic

  Chapter 1

  Also by Jennifer Willis

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Willis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover artwork design by Steven Novak.

  Author photo by Rachel Hadiashar.

  Published by Jennifer Willis

  Portland, Oregon

  Jennifer-Willis.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is coincidental.

  Thank you for downloading Chaos Magic! This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please visit your online retailer to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting and supporting the hard work of this author.

  1

  Sally used extra care when plugging in the electric hand mixer. She slipped the metal prongs into the wall outlet and lunged out of the way, but nothing happened. There were no sparks. The mixer didn’t spring to manic, whirling life. And the kitchen wall didn’t catch fire. Not this time.

  The beaters were firmly in place, and the ingredients for her signature chocolate chip and butterscotch cookie-muffins had been measured into a generous mixing bowl. She’d refined the recipe in her parents’ kitchen when she was in high school and made them for school bake sales—or, more often, when she had behaved badly toward Opal and needed baked goods to back-up her apology.

  This time, she was counting on the cookie-muffins to heal a much larger rift. The thought of the Lodge stirred butterflies in her stomach—butterflies which turned to lead and squeezed her chest when her thoughts turned first to Frigga, and then to Odin. She got to work.

  She sank the beaters into the layered mound of flour, sugar, baking soda, eggs, vanilla, and milk and powered on the hand mixer at its lowest setting.

  It spun up to a speed twice its maximum capacity and leapt out of Sally’s grip. The beaters ricocheted out of the glass mixing bowl, flinging clumps of barely mixed batter onto the walls, ceiling, and floor. Heavy glops smeared across Sally’s face as the mixer lurched across the counter and onto the linoleum, where it gyrated on the floor in angry circles.

  Sally yanked the cord out of the wall in a flurry of sparks. The beaters clattered against the refrigerator as the mixer came to rest.

  She surveyed the mess. It was her third attempt at baking, all with similarly chaotic results. She could try hand mixing, but first she had a lot of cleaning up to do.

  She rinsed globs of batter out of her hair and mopped the floor. She was on her knees by the refrigerator, scrubbing the walls and baseboards when she heard the apartment door open and close. Opal was home. Sally scrubbed harder.

  There was the rustle of paper grocery bags, followed by a sympathetic groan.

  “Again?”

  Sally finished wiping down the walls. “I was being so careful this time.”

  “We’ve got a few hours still.” Opal stepped around the counter that separated the kitchen from the combined dining and living area. “Tell me what to do, then you won’t have to touch anything.”

  Sally rested her hands in her lap. She wanted to protest. She wanted to say that this was her problem, not Opal’s, and that it was her responsibility to figure out how to handle it. But these niggling instances of chaos were coming stronger and faster. She worried about when they would become dangerous.

  Loki had warned that this might happen as she progressed through her studies. She’d seen the accidental mayhem Loki himself was unable to avoid—some days he had no issues at all, and then half the street lights would explode as they worked through her chaos lessons in the neighborhood park.

  She’d already replaced her phone battery three times—and replaced the whole phone twice—just from standing too close to him when he was showing her how to shift her consciousness to a more transcendental perspective, and she still wasn’t close to getting the hang of that particular exercise.

  Now sparks of chaos were bleeding into her personal life. She had to be careful around TriMet ticket machines, lest the circuits get crossed and stop working not only for her but for everyone on public transit. At least her laptop seemed immune to magickal static after Opal covered every millimeter of the thing with rubberized casings and screen protectors.

  But Sally owed Opal for a new microwave, and she was putting off asking her parents for the money. They didn’t understand a budget line item like “chaos collateral damage,” but they’d at least agreed to keep her cat Baron for her until she got her magick under control.

  “Let’s get to work.” Opal unloaded the grocery bags.

  Sally climbed up off the floor. She threw the dirty paper towels into the trash under the sink and picked at a film of dried vanilla and flour on her sweatshirt.

  When she glanced at the counter, she saw that Opal had bought all of the ingredients for another attempt at cookie-muffins. Sally looked at her roommate with astonished dismay.

  “Just had a feeling.” Opal dried the mixing bowl and placed it on the damp counter.

  They made their way through Sally’s recipe, ingredient by ingredient. Opal preheated the oven; it was a gas appliance, and why take the chance on Sally accidentally blowing up the apartment building? Sally poured butterscotch and chocolate chips into the bowl, and Opal folded them into the batter.

  “Is it getting any better?” Opal asked.

  Sally crumpled the empty candy bags and tossed them into the trash. “The lights in all my classes stayed on today. And I bought a couple of sodas out of a machine, but the card reader stopped working. Good thing I had cash.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  “So I thought I’d be able to do this baking thing without incident, you know?” Sally huffed and tucked a strand of sticky, damp hair behind her ear. She spooned the batter into silicone cups and imagined her life as a magickal outcast, alone on a mountaintop, far from electrical appliances and innocent bystanders. Just like Loki.

  Loki wasn’t a recluse because he didn’t like his kin or didn’t want to be around people; he sequestered himself to keep everyone else safe—at least safely away from spontaneously shorting fuses and exploding hand mixers. And every day, Sally was more like him.

  “Maybe things will settle once you hit your stride,” Opal said. “I had t
rouble adapting to the way Maggie wanted to do everything, after Frigga died . . .”

  Opal’s voice trailed off, and Sally kept ladling batter into cups.

  Opal cleared her throat. “I had to get used to a new way of doing things. It took some time, and some mishaps, but eventually everything just kind of settled.”

  Sally laughed, and she didn’t like the bitter sound of it. Opal’s version of a magickal mishap usually involved an accidental substitution of rosemary for lavender in a hearth blessing—whereas the previous week, Sally had nearly set fire to the Life Sciences building at Portland State University when she tried to charge her phone.

  “I know it’s not the same.” Opal indicated their surroundings with a simple lift of her hands, reminding Sally of all the appliances, dishes, and various and sundry kitchenware they’d had to replace in the two months they’d been sharing an apartment. “And I know you’re not doing it on purpose.”

  Sally scraped the bowl to fill the last baking cup and wiped up the splotches of batter on the counter.

  Opal considered the dozens of cups arrayed on four baking sheets. It was to be a small gathering at the Lodge, but even small gatherings had big appetites. “Do you think this will be enough?”

  “I hoped if I could get one batch right, then I could make more.” Sally checked the clock. To make it to the Lodge for the Winter Nights celebration, they’d have to leave in an hour. Not enough time for another batch.

  Sally rummaged through the refrigerator, looking for anything that could be whipped up into a conciliatory dish. She grabbed a half-empty jar of salsa, a dwindling block of cheese, and a bag of shredded lettuce. “Maybe nachos? Do you think they’d like that?”

  “We’re covered.” Opal slid the baking sheets into the oven and set the timer. “We’ve got cakes and rolls and two cases of that ginger beer Thor likes.”

  Sally dumped her refrigerator findings onto the counter. “What? Where?”

  “In the car.” Opal rinsed her hands in the sink. “I picked up a couple of extra things at the store.”

  Sally wasn’t sure if she should be grateful or annoyed. “I guess it was pretty obvious I couldn’t pull this off.”

  “But you did pull this off. The rest is just the supporting cast to your muffins, which are the star of the show.”

  Sally tried to smile. “But will it be enough?”

  It had been months since Sally was last at the Lodge. She’d made herself scarce since the summer when a volcano god had nearly blown Oregon off the map, resulting in too much sacrifice: the last siatco, the second loss of Freyr, and the final departures of both Frigga and Odin, with Sally as their only witness.

  Sally couldn’t blame anyone for holding a grudge. None of it had been her fault. But, as usual, she’d been at the center of the maelstrom.

  Tonight, she’d be judged by the dwindling Lodge community on everything from her attitude and appearance to the consistency of her cookie-muffins. It was her own stubbornness that kept her from giving up and staying home.

  “There’s only one way to find out.” Opal brushed back her dark hair. She’d cut it shorter, just below her shoulders, and added a pink streak. Sally thought it was because of the new girl Opal was seeing. Opal looked Sally up and down. “But I don’t think you’ll be winning over anybody with batter on your pants.”

  Heimdall had to remind himself to start breathing again.

  The combination of flavors and textures in his mouth was truly like nothing he’d ever experienced. The gelatin and Spam he’d been prepared for, but there were chunks of eggs and peppers and corn, maybe some cabbage, something he thought might be a green pea and . . . sweet pickle relish? He chewed carefully and caught himself before he started gagging.

  He smiled, even though the forkful of Maggie’s latest culinary production currently sitting on his tongue very nearly shocked him into an out of body experience. He forced himself to swallow as he wondered if being out of his body might be a better alternative.

  “Well?” Maggie asked.

  Heimdall took a very long drink of water, as much to buy time as to wash the taste out of his mouth. It didn’t work. “What did you say this is called?”

  “It’s Granny Jan’s Spam Jelly.”

  “And you used to eat this? Voluntarily?”

  “It was a holiday treat.” Maggie positioned a massive, jiggling loaf of Spam jelly on Frigga’s favorite ceramic platter and surrounded it with alternating peperoncini and pastel-colored marshmallows. “Granny Jan was my great-grandmother. We’ve assumed all these years that the recipe originated with her, but no one really knows. It’s kind of a rite of passage, when the recipe gets handed down to you on your nineteenth birthday.”

  Heimdall was curious what a person’s nineteenth birthday had to do with the gelatinous monstrosity quivering on the platter—maybe to force reluctant offspring to leave the nest? But he was afraid that asking would encourage Maggie to bring out even worse recipes.

  He poured himself another glass of water and wondered if rinsing his mouth out with spent olive juice would do a better job of dispelling the residue sticking to his teeth. He also wondered if the Spam jelly could be weaponized. He couldn’t imagine a single enemy who would see that stuff coming.

  Maggie carried the platter to the heavy table that had supported countless feasts over the years. Heimdall and Thor had felled the tree from which the table and several chairs were made. That had to have been at least a century earlier. Long before Rod was on the scene, building and making repairs at Frigga’s request, and long before Maggie was born.

  Maggie rested the platter on the table with care and made small adjustments to the other bowls, tureens, and trays. Despite the fact that Heimdall feared most of the food on the feast table would be deemed entirely inedible by his kin, it had been a long time since he’d seen Maggie so happy. These early years of unwanted immortality had been rough on her, and harder on their relationship.

  But with Odin and Frigga gone to the Halls of Valhalla, Maggie warmed to him again. His parents had seemed content enough together over the millennia, though they spent long periods apart. Perhaps that was a cycle Heimdall and Maggie would be wise to follow.

  Heimdall surveyed the fare Maggie had prepared for the Winter Nights feast. He recognized a few dishes from his mother’s traditional spreads—roasted root vegetables and a platter of spiced honey oatcakes—but most everything else was new to him. In addition to the mutant jelly loaf, he noted prominent marshmallows in three other casseroles. Two different fondues warmed over low burners, which would please Thor—the thunder god had gone mad for the stuff after a dalliance with a Swiss alpinist in the 1930s.

  The rest of the table was covered with tins of ginger cookies, take-out dishes of ravioli and pasta primavera, and a vat of sticky orange chicken.

  With a horde of hungry Vikings about to descend on the Lodge, Heimdall knew he should have pushed harder for wild game and hearty stews. How had Maggie lived most of her adult life in Portland and still was clinging to bad food?

  Heimdall appreciated that she was trying to blend her mortal life with her not-quite-defined role in the Lodge. She’d reached into her childhood to create a new tradition with her new family, but he wished she’d done it without quite so much processed cheese and mayonnaise.

  He really hoped she was punking them all. Either way, it was going to be a memorable Winter Nights.

  “I’ve got bread in the oven and Rod is bringing more ice, about a dozen veggie pizzas, and a big load of hot wings. And a couple of kegs of that house brew from Whispertree you like so much.”

  Heimdall didn’t know what beer she was talking about. Chances were good they’d been out to dinner one night and when she’d asked how he liked his pale ale, he’d said it was fine. She wanted so much to please him and his kin. He may as well have said it was the fullest-bodied, most spiritually satisfying beer he’d ever tasted in all his years on this green Earth.

  Maggie was back in the kitchen,
pulling a dozen loaves of store-bought garlic bread out of the oven. She dropped a block of cream cheese on a glass plate and poured a jar of cocktail sauce over it, then surrounded it with a ring of Triscuits. If this was a charade, she was pushing it pretty hard.

  Heimdall pulled out his phone and texted his siblings for help. Then he’d have a talk with Maggie. He wasn’t any kind of chef, but he was confident that if they worked together they could salvage the feast without hurt feelings, and without Spam jelly.

  But he’d scarcely hit “send” on his third message to Saga when the first guests arrived. Heimdall sighed. It was going to be a long and interesting night.

  The Winter Nights crowd was small and curiously sedate when Loki walked into the Lodge’s great room. Clad in leather and jeans, the members of the Valkyries biker gang made up the majority of the party, with several Einherjar from the Battle of the White Oak Yggdrasil milling about. Maggie was hurrying to and from the kitchen with more platters for her already crowded feast table. Rod was kept busy as bartender.

  A glance into the kitchen revealed Opal whipping up a dessert topping. And Heimdall stood on the other side of a glass door with his wolf-dog, Laika, on the outside deck. Heimdall’s back was to the party. It looked to Loki like he’d lost weight.

  Loki paused at the feast table. Seeking something edible, he fixed a plate of barbecued chicken wings, celery sticks, a glop of ranch dressing, and a wedge of painfully orange cheese. This was Maggie’s first turn as hostess for the pantheon. He didn’t want to be rude, but he had no intention of putting any of the food into his mouth.