His family wanted to sacrifice him to a giant serpent. His only chance of survival was to hit the road and find help to fight the serpent. It wasn’t exactly your typical my-parents-are-mean-and-totally-unfair-so-I’m-running-awaysituation. But to the rest of the world, that’s exactly what he’d done.

The police car roared up alongside them as they raced across the lawn. The officer put the window down.

“Get over here now, Matthew Thorsen!” the officer snapped. “You’re a sheriff’s son. You’re supposed to set an example. Do you have any idea how much you’ve embarrassed your father?”

Behind Matt, Fen snorted and muttered, “Well, if you put it that way…” his voice thick with sarcasm. Except that Matt did stumble a little. The officer’s words made his heart slam against his ribs, a voice in his head screaming that he was right. Matt couldn’t be irresponsible. He couldn’t embarrass his family.

It was only a quick stumble, though, before Matt realized that the old rules didn’t apply. Being responsible now meant saving the world, even if it meant disobeying a police officer. Even if it meant embarrassing his family. It also meant…

“There!” he shouted, waving at a gap between two row houses. “Go! I’ve got this.”

Fen gave him a shove toward the gap. “No, Thorsen, I’vegot this. You’ve done enough.”

Matt tried to argue, but Fen only shoved him, harder, and all three of them raced through the gap between the row houses. Then Fen ran into the lead. He took them through the yard and over the fence. Through another yard, this one on a street of detached homes. They raced across the yard, over the front fence, and down the driveway.

The police car was nowhere in sight… yet.

Fen looked around. Matt was about to make a suggestion when Fen waved toward a pickup across the road.

“In there,” he said. “Take Laurie. Lie down and stay down.”

They ran across and hopped over the tailgate while Fen stood guard. Matt saw the police car turn the corner. He ducked as he called a warning to Fen.

“Lie down. Stay down. Stay quiet,” Fen hissed. “Can you do that, Thorsen?”

Matt was about to answer, but Laurie silenced him with a look. He listened as Fen’s sneakers slapped the ground. He seemed to be jogging toward the oncoming cruiser. The car stopped, engine rumbling.

“Hey,” Fen said.

Matt heard the officer grunt a return greeting. “Where are your friends, boy?”

Fen lowered his voice. “That’s what I’m here to tell you. But we gotta make a deal.”

Silence.

Fen continued. “I’m from Blackwell, too. Laurie’s my cousin. She ran off with Thorsen after the fair. Got some crazy idea they’d go on an adventure together. Dumb, huh?”

Matt listened as Fen snorted a laugh and the officer responded with a chuckle, as if relaxing now.

“Anyway, I caught up with them this morning. Only my cousin won’t listen to me. So I want you to catch her and take her home. Can you do that?”

“Sure can. Your folks will be proud of you, son, looking after your cousin like that.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Fen said.

“All right, then. Just hop on in.”

“See, that’s the problem,” Fen said. “My cousin and me, we’re kinda friends, and if I turn her in, she’s not going to be happy with me. Could you pick them up first? Then I’ll walk to the next street over, and you can pretend to corner me there?”

The officer agreed. Matt realized that Fen wasn’t even surprised that there wasn’t an APB on him. Matt strained to listen as Fen told him that Matt and Laurie had raced along the row of lawns, intending to circle back downtown and hide out in the shops. Fen was explaining that he wasn’t sure exactly which shop, but “Thorsen’s not hard to find, with that red hair.” The officer thanked him and promised to meet up with him as soon as he could.

After Fen’s trick, they got away easily. They did stay off the roads, though, walking just inside the forest, keeping an eye on the ribbon of blacktop so they didn’t get lost.

“I’m really sorry,” Matt said as he held back a branch for Fen and Laurie. “I screwed up. I didn’t—”

“—see it coming,” Fen interrupted. “ Noneof us saw it coming, but we should’ve. You’re the sheriff’s kid. Of course the cops are looking for you. For both of you.” Fen paused, and with more patience than Matt had expected, he added, “We’ve had other things on our minds, though. Tornadoes, Raiders, Valkyries, and trolls. We’ll just add cops to the list, right?”

“Right.” Laurie nodded, and then she bumped her head against Fen’s shoulder and laughed. “We just hadn’t stopped to think of regular problems. Like the fact we’re all runaways.”

“We can’t forget it again,” Matt said. “We need to be extra-careful now. No more hitching rides or anything.”

“Exactly,” Fen murmured. He shot a look at Matt and then at Laurie and smiled.

And no one commented on the fact that only two of them had APBs out on them.

FIFTEEN

LAURIE

“DEADWOOD”

Laurie was surprised that they’d had a reasonably calm walk, but they’d realized that once again they had no more than a vague plan: “go to Deadwood, find the twins.” It wasn’t all bad to get a few hours’ peace. Neither boy admitted that they were becoming friends, but they obviously were. Between the cops and the creatures out of myths, their world was turned completely upside down, but they were working together as a team. After a few hours, though, Matt seemed worried, and Fen was fussing over food.

“Let’s go up here first.” Laurie motioned to Mount Moriah, the cemetery on the hill above Deadwood. She wasn’t sure why, but it made perfect sense to her.

“Sure,” Matt agreed. His eyes lit up in the same way they had at the museum.

“Whatever,” Fen said, but he trudged up the hill in front of her.

Both boys obviously were scanning the area for threats as they had during the several-mile walk, but Laurie couldn’t fault them for that. She could fault them for thinking she hadn’t noticed, but she didn’t feel like bringing it up just then.

Just inside Mount Moriah, Laurie saw them: two kids, a boy and a girl who were unmistakably siblings, doing gravestone rubbings. There were other people inside the cemetery, and there had been plenty of people in town, but her feet had led her here. She wasn’t sure how she knew they were the ones she needed to reach, but as soon as her gaze fell on them, she knew they were the descendants. She looked closer and confirmed that these two weren’t just siblings: they were twins. Like Frey and Freya. They are the ones we need.The question was how to tell two strangers that they ought to join up with three kids they’d never met and plot to kill a big reptile to save the world. It sounded crazy any way she tried to phrase it.

“That’s them,” she whispered. “The twins.”

The one holding the paper on the stone watched them approach; the one kneeling on the ground rubbing the chalk over the paper looked back at them briefly and then resumed rubbing. They didn’t smile, say hello, or seem at all sociable. At school, she would’ve been a bit nervous approaching them.

But this wasn’t school.

And after trolls… well, a couple of kids who were trying to be unfriendly didn’t seem nearly as scary. She’d seen scary, and the bored, you’re-not-worth-my-time looks she was getting weren’t scary. She smiled, and they continued to ignore her. The one standing up said something to the one on the ground, who laughed.

“Are you sure?” Fen asked.

Laurie nodded, but she didn’t take her attention off the twins. She had the sudden fear that they’d run. They can’t. We need them.The problem was that she didn’t know how to convince them to join the team.