Page 95 of Soul of Shadow
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,” shesaid. “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 wordgun, 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.
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Charlie spit the bullet onto the ground.
Everyone—every single creature in the room—stared at her in stunned silence.
“How did you—” Elias blinked. “What just—”
One side of Charlie’s mouth raised. “A magician never reveals her secrets.”
Finally recovered from his shock, Mason let out a howl of laughter. “No way.” He clapped twice. “She figured it out. She actuallyfigured it out.”
Gradually, Elias’s expression morphed from shock to fury. She knew exactly what he was thinking: three times, she had bested him. Three times, she took his carefully laid plan and spat in its face. Now he had nothing left. Nothing to present to his precious master, Loki. Nothing to do but—
He flung out a hand, shooting a shadowy cord across the chamber. It wrapped around one of the Fenrir’s broken teeth, which lay scattered on the floor, then reeled back in. Elias caught the tooth, which was the size of a kitchen knife and still wet with saliva. Charlie tensed, but she knew Elias was fighting a losing battle. All the humans were protected from supernatural attacksby Freyja’s feathers—except Lou, though Charlie planned to remedy that as soon as she could—and she highly doubted the tooth would do much damage to either of the enormous Vikings.
But when he threw the tooth, he didn’t aim it at Charlie, Abigail, or Mason. He aimed it in the opposite direction, down low.
Straight into the chest of the vätte.
It drove through his long beard, drilling into his body so deeply that the tip of the tooth stuck out of the creature’s back. He squealed with anguish, tipping backward and falling over.
