She crosses her arms over her chest. “And why not?”
A pine cone tumbles onto the snow. It looks so strange with all its rough brown edges surrounded by bland whiteness. I try to think up an answer.
The guy speaks. “Because I am not fallen. I am still alive.”
“Not for long.” A wicked smile creeps over her features. Her tongue leaps out to capture a snowflake. The wind whistles through the tree limbs. We are so alone out here.
“Yes, for long.” I glare at her. “I am going to get him proper medical care and he will be just fine.”
“Proper medical care?” She snorts. “Do you know what he is, halfling? Gaze upon him.”
“Do not call me halfling.”
“You have no strength.” She gets a look on her face that would rival a haughty supermodel who just landed a five-million-dollar contract. “You can barely support his weight.”
She’s right. The world waits in silence. An unbearable whiteness covers us as snow falls from a cloudy sky. I sniff. My nose is running. The pixie guy moans softly. The sound is filled with sadness and pain and despair. He is vulnerable. Pixie or not, he needs me.
I steel myself. “I’m not giving him up.”
She lifts an eyebrow, as if she’s pondering what the heck is going on. I’d like to ponder what the heck is going on too, but I’m busy trying to just keep standing. The cold sinks into my feet, into my bones.
She says, “There is a possibility that he may live now because you have interfered.”
I wait.
“What we offer him is a reward, not a punishment,” she soothes. “I swear this. After his death he will fight by Odin’s side in the greatest battle of all.”
His words stiffen out between his teeth, hard and fierce. “I am not ready to die. I have work here. I. Can. Not. Die.”
Another pine cone lets go of a tree branch and falls from the sky. It hits me in the shoulder and then tumbles the rest of the way to the ground. Tiny ridges of it break off and stick to the snow, left behind. The wind blows hard and wicked against all of us. It is hard for me to hold us up, but the woman does not sway.
“I see.” Feathers sprout from her back. Menace turns her eyes red. Her hair spirals out behind her, lifting in the wind. Instead of being beautiful, it’s terrifying.
I stagger away a little. The guy’s arm comes up around my waist, and even though he’s barely capable of standing up it’s pretty obvious he’s trying to protect me from her. The wind ruffles his blond hair.
“I shall not hurt the little halfling,” she says. That’s when I realize that the feathers on her back are wings, graceful and glistening like a swan’s, but jet black.
I don’t know what to think of her. I don’t know what to say or do. I just stand there shivering, from cold or fear or both.
“Your mouth hangs open,” she says, almost smiling. “I shall let you keep this one because he may survive now that you are here. You will have to decide if that is a good thing or not, halfling.”
I start to protest.
She holds out her hand. “Also, there will be other warriors soon. Death is coming. It is on the wind. Can you feel it?”
As she says it I think I can—a low menace, a waiting storm. The snow swirls around us. She nods her head at me and lifts up. Her swan wings spread out and she soars up into the air to meet the whiteness of the sky.
I stagger sideways and fall. The guy lands on top of me. He starts laughing, a soft, crazy, exhausted laugh. “Sorry. Sorry. Wow . . . wow . . . that was close. I thought—” He interrupts himself and starts laughing again. The movement makes him wince, then moan.
I pull myself out from underneath him, worried that he’s totally insane. “Are you going to be okay?”
He shakes his head. Then he nods. A trembling hand, square and scratched, reaches up to rub where his hair touches his forehead. His eyes meet my eyes. His lips move. “Thank you.”
Then he passes out.
Great.
Pixie Tip
Pixies are not good. They are evil. Not bad-hair-day evil, but scary-movie-that-still-freaks-you-out-when-you-go-to-bed evil. Actually? Way worse.
The wind blows hard and awful. Seconds stretch into two or three minutes. I have to do something intelligent, something that doesn’t involve just staring at a guy who is passed out on the snow. He’s youngish, probably just a couple years older than me—if that’s how pixies age. I have no idea. He’s not wearing a coat, just a dark Irish sweater and jeans. He must be freezing.
I look up into the white sky searching for the woman. Snowflakes drop into my eyes, instantly melting. She’s vanished. Blinking the water away, I check the guy for major wounds, big bleeding ones. I find a whopper: a massive bite mark on his stomach. The flesh is jagged and torn. It oozes blood that’s a deep bluish red, maybe because it’s mixed with the dark fibers of his sweater, or maybe that’s how pixies bleed or something. I don’t know.
Another second flips by and his eyes start to flicker open.
There’s nothing to wrap the wound with except my outer coat so I whip it off and wrap it around his stomach. I tie the arms and try to apply pressure. The smell of blood is coppery and metallic.
Flipping open my phone, I press my grandmother’s cell number. She’s good with the massive-wound thing. She’s not just an Emergency Medical Technician, she’s a weretiger. Weird, I know. The phone rings once. His hand clamps over mine and the phone disconnects.
“What are you doing?” I say, anger rippling through me. “I’m calling for help.”
“No. No help.” His lips are parched. “Have to hide. Until I heal.”
“You’re speaking in sentence fragments,” I explain, “and that means you are not in a position to make this decision.”
He shakes his head. “Please. No one else can know I am here. Kill me—while I’m weak.”
The phone starts ringing. It’s Gram calling back. I start to run my hand in my hair but forget it’s all bloody. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please.”
“I can’t let you die.”
He coughs out a bitter laugh. “If I was about to die Thruth would have taken me.”
“Thruth?”
“The Valkyrie.”
My phone stops ringing.