Magni Read online

  JANICE M. WHITEAKER

  Magni, Book 2 of the BIG series

  Copyright 2018 by Janice M. Whiteaker.

  www.janicemwhiteaker.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First printing, 2018

  Cover design by Robin Harper at Wicked by Design.

  Editing by Laura Seroka.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  Also By Janice M. Whiteaker

  Sneak peek at book 3, Lance

  Sign up for Janice M. Whiteaker's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Lance

  A better burden

  may no man bear

  for wanderings wide than wisdom.

  It is better than wealth

  on unknown ways

  and in grief a refuge it gives.

  - the Hovamol

  1

  “I found it out here this morning.” Magni dropped down, squatting beside the stiffened carcass he came across before dawn on his daily hunt through the woods surrounding Greenlea. “It hasn’t been here long.”

  “How in the hell does something like that get out here?” Jerrik peered through the trees and brush before scanning the ground around them. “There’s no drag marks.” His nephew’s eyes darkened. “It would take someone with a lot of strength to carry this thing through the woods.”

  Hagen looked from his brother to Magni, his face giving nothing away. “I think we should focus more on how it got like this once it was here.” His eyes dropped down to the body at their feet. “Or before it was brought here.”

  The mangled remains of a decent-sized goat sat under the same tree where a bear nearly took Hagen’s wife Rhea’s life almost a year earlier. But this was no bear that hurt this animal. This was something far worse.

  Slashes of an almost surgical precision were cut into the animal’s hide. The slices were clean and careful.

  And blood free.

  “It had to have been drained before they brought it here. But those cuts...” Jerrik’s eyes narrowed on the goat, his stance tight. “Your guess is as good as mine.” He shook his head at the poor creature. “Who in the hell would cut something up like this?”

  Magni slowly stood up, unable to take his eyes off the animal. There was only one answer for who would do something so sick, so depraved.

  “A monster.”

  His nephews stood in silence at his side. A united front against an unknown evil threatening their town. Their livelihood. Their safety.

  Jerrik cleared his throat. “We should get it out of here before it starts attracting bears.”

  Magni’s stomach dropped. He looked at Hagen. His nephew’s jaw twitched as he stared at the base of the tree.

  “Is this the first time you’ve found something like this?” Hagen’s eyes didn’t move from the spot where his wife did her damnedest to fight off a bear three times her weight with a can of pepper spray and a pile of attitude.

  “You think I would’ve kept finding a mutilated animal out here to myself?” Magni swallowed down the anger bubbling inside him. How anyone could do something like this to a defenseless animal was beyond disgusting. More than depraved.

  It was sadistic.

  Hagen shook his head, frowning as he continued to stare at the dead goat. “No. I don’t.” He finally looked up, his gaze icy. “I was just thinking.”

  “Did you get a look at what the bear was protecting that night?” Magni didn’t want to ask, hated that he had to. Reminding Hagen about the night he almost lost Rhea was not a smart thing for a man to do, but it was a necessary one.

  Hagen took a deep breath and blew it out. “No.”

  Magni could hear the frustration in Hagen’s voice. He dropped one hand on his eldest nephew’s shoulder. “You were busy with more important things.”

  “You think it was something like this?” Jerrik slowly flipped the toothpick pinched between his teeth end over end as he stared off to one side, his gaze hard. “That would mean this has been going on right under our noses for—”

  “We can’t do anything about what we don’t know.” Magni dropped down and carefully shifted the animal, checking under and around for something that might give them a clue about what happened out here in the woods under the cover of darkness. He pushed aside a decomposing layer of leaves. “Shit.”

  Tiny beads of black wax dotted the composting vegetation just beside the goat’s head. Jerrik and Hagen leaned in, looking over his shoulder at the discovery.

  “Fuck.” Jerrik swore under his breath. “This is bad.”

  Hagen wiped one hand down his face. “This is worse than bad.”

  “It is what it is. We just have to figure out what the fuck to do about it.” Magni shook out the thick wool blanket he brought and laid it out beside the goat. “Help me get him moved.”

  Hagen grabbed the animal’s back legs while Magni grabbed the front, setting the goat in the center of the blanket. Magni tied each end and grabbed one. He nodded to Jerrik. “Let’s get him to the truck and I’ll handle it from there.”

  The walk to the truck was a quiet one. The silence continued on the drive back to Magni’s cabin which was fine with him. There was nothing to say. Nothing good anyway.

  When they were almost back to his cabin Magni looked at Jerrik in the rear view. “You on this?”

  Jerrik nodded. The lines of his face were hard, the boyish charm he usually wore hidden by a mask of worry.

  He should be worried.

  “People will think its Bigfoot.” Hagen stared out the window as he finally said what they were all thinking. “They’ll be on a witch hunt.”

  Magni’s eyes stayed out the windshield, looking at the dusty mountain road leading to the small cabin he built by hand almost twenty years ago. “We’ve got to figure this out on our own. Keep it quiet unless we absolutely have to.” He parked the truck and turned to look at the boys. “If this gets out we’re ruined.”

  Hagen and Jerrik nodded silently. They got out of his truck and into Hagen’s as Magni walked to his porch. His older nephew paused, one leg propped inside his truck. “I think we should talk to Christine. See if she’ll make an exception for this.”

  Magni stopped, his well-worn boots fused to the wood of the porch. He barely turned his head toward Hagen. “Leave her out of this.”

  Before Hagen could argue, Magni went inside, shutting the door behind him.

  Someone as soft and gentle as Christine didn’t deserve to see things like this, even if it was only in her mind’s eye. He wasn’t going to let anyone make her feel guilty about saying no. As far as he knew she hadn’t had a vision in years. Whether it was by nature or design, didn’t matter.

  All Magni knew was he would be damned if he’d let anyone put something like this on her again.

  He damn near never recovered from the last time. The only time Christine saw something because of him. Something he knew haunted her the way it haunted him. He saw it in her eyes anytime their paths accidentally crossed, which Magni
made sure wasn’t often. He didn’t want to remind her of what she saw.

  Or what he’d done when she tried to warn him.

  Magni glanced out the front window to make sure the boys were gone before he opened the door. It was time to do as right as he could by the poor animal he found this morning.

  Carefully, Magni carried the goat to the back of his property and lowered it into the hole he dug. Kneeling beside the grave he bowed his head and repeated a version of the chant his family whispered over every grave for generations.

  “Hel, great goddess, daughter of Loki, Guard of the spirits of the dead, this innocent creature has come to you now. As I kneel before you Hel, know that before he crossed over this animal was an innocent soul. A soaring spirit, a brave warrior. Watch over him Hel, as he crosses the bridge from this life to the next and welcome him with honor and glory so that he may live on forever.”

  Magni stood. Grabbing his shovel, he covered the goat with soft earth before hammering a wood cross into the ground, marking its final resting place. He stepped back and looked at the line of handmade crosses that ran across the small clearing at the back of his workshop. Everything deserved peace whether it was man or beast. Magni did his best to give anything that crossed his path theirs.

  Maybe someday he’d find his.

  He grabbed the shovel and set it inside the door to his workshop then grabbed a bag of vegetable scraps from the small fridge in the corner as he passed on his way to do a happier job.

  A pair of bright eyes were waiting for him as he opened the door to the small room tucked into the corner of his woodworking shop.

  “Are you hungry?” Magni unclipped the latch on the upright wire cage and held out a nub of carrot to the small squirrel he found nearly a month ago, weak and dehydrated lying on the forest floor. He scattered a few seeds and scraps across the cage’s wire floor before moving to the next cage in the line.

  The only other animal currently in his makeshift sick bay was a decent-sized raccoon someone hit last week. Probably kids racing up the unmarked mountain roads after dark. The raccoon paced the large cage, hissing at Magni as he opened the top hatch to drop in some food pellets and the last of the scraps Gail sent home with him last night, tucked into a bag along with enough leftovers to last Magni at least a week. It was like his sister-in-law thought he couldn’t fend for himself.

  If that was the case he’d of been dust a long damn time ago.

  The raccoon eyed him and crept across the cage toward his breakfast. Magni latched the door and squatted down to look the animal over. The vet two towns over sewed up the laceration on his belly and it appeared to be healing nicely. “You about ready to get back out there?”

  The raccoon ignored him, grabbing at the bits of food with tiny fingers.

  Magni stood up and headed back into his workshop. He had a stack of wood that needed run through the router and a pile of whittling sets to put together for the general store.

  Just as he started to organize the chunks of wood and basic carving knives for the whittling sets, the cell phone his nephews made him carry, even though it only found reception half the time, buzzed in his pocket. Magni pushed his thumb across the screen, connecting the call from a number he knew well.

  “Yeah.”

  Gail sighed heavily into the phone, as she always did. It irritated the hell out of her that he didn’t say hello. It was the primary reason he didn’t.

  “I sold one of the beds.”

  Magni dropped one elbow to the work table and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t have time to keep making you beds Gail. You gotta stop this.”

  “But people love them. I keep raising the price thinking that will stop them but it doesn’t.”

  Magni looked around his shop. The load of wood he bought for the tables and chairs in the diner was stacked along one wall waiting to be cut down. A set of high-top tables to replace the ones that got busted at the bar last week were ready for another coat of poly. Then there were the whittling sets, the wooden spoons, the chainsaw carved logs and the hiking sticks that needed to be replenished in the general store and gallery.

  “Then you’re going to have to throw the mattress on the floor until I have time.” Magni tucked the phone in the crook of his neck and started bagging up the whittling sets. Knife. Sharpener. Wood. Booklet. He grinned into the phone. “Call it the hobo room.”

  Gail sputtered in his ear. “You’ve got to be kidding.” She made a strangled sound. “This is a bed and breakfast. If people wanted to sleep on the floor they would be in a tent.”

  This was why Magni didn’t want a damn phone. If he wanted to be bothered by the bullshit other people thought was important he wouldn’t be living miles up a mountain. “I have a pile of shit a mile high to do and making another bed isn’t on the list.”

  “Then I’ll come help you.”

  Magni dropped his head back. “Don’t you dare.”

  “You need to hire an assistant then. Someone to help you.”

  “I don’t want anyone up my ass all the time.” Magni shoved away from the table and stood up from his work stool. “You’re plenty.”

  He hung up the phone as Gail continued to tear into him. He set it to silent, put it face down on his work table and went to look for what he had to work with.

  ****

  Magni kicked the steel toe of his boot against the back door to the bed and breakfast three times. The kitchen was silent on the other side of the door. No footsteps rushing to help him. No voices telling him to hold on. Nothing.

  Damn Gail. Call to give him hell and then ignore him when he did her bidding. He shifted the heavy stack of logs in his arms and managed to get one hand free without losing a single one. Twisting the knob, he shoved the door open hard and fast before he dropped everything.

  “Oh!” The door made a soft thump as it made contact with a person on the other side. Best case scenario it was Gail. Worst case scenario it was a tourist who would want to spend twenty minutes asking him five hundred questions about Greenlea.

  And fuckin’ Bigfoot.

  The door eased open and Magni’s stomach clenched.

  He was wrong about what the worst case scenario was.

  “Hi.” Christine’s blue eyes, the color of sea glass, stared back at him. She blinked once. Twice. He could almost feel her long lashes move the air between them.

  Magni wanted to keep looking at her, just like every time he accidentally got too close. But looking at her would mean seeing things he didn’t want to be reminded of. Parts of his life. Parts of himself.

  Magni dropped his eyes to the stoop between them. “I brought the bed Gail wanted.”

  Christine’s arms hung at her sides, her delicate hands opening and closing. She took a quick breath.

  “That’s really nice of you.” Slowly she reached out to him. “I can help you carry something.”

  Magni looked up, keeping his eyes to one side as he stepped into the bed and breakfast’s kitchen. “I got it.”

  She stepped back, her hands now clasped together at chest level. “Okay.” The word was a whisper soft enough to be missed but it still cut right through him. Made Magni pause to hate himself just a little more.

  And made him want to try to fix the unfixable. Just like every other time he saw her. It was one of the many reasons he did his damndest to make sure it didn’t happen.

  Magni tipped his head her direction, still unable to bring his eyes to hers. “Maybe you could get my tool box from the truck.”

  From the corner of his eye, Magni saw those perfect blue-green eyes widen the tiniest bit. “I can do that.”

  He chanced a look as she left. Christine’s black hair almost sparkled in the evening sun as she moved through the garden toward his truck, all smooth steps and soft curves.

  The kind of woman who deserved a man’s protection.

  Not his blame.

  Magni forced his eyes away from her. It was something he’d had plenty of practice doing over the ye
ars. Enough that it should be easy for him. But it wasn’t. Not one single fucking time.

  The back stairway was deserted as he angled the long logs up the enclosed space Gail used to move between floors without bothering the guests. One of the four posts bumped against the ceiling leaving a skid mark on the smooth white finish.

  He tried to tuck the post down and away from the ceiling but only succeeded in wedging it against the step below him. Magni fought it loose, wrestling the wood free, his agitation at the situation growing with each twist of the sturdy log. “Damn it Gail.”

  “It’s not my fault you won’t wait for someone to help your stubborn ass.” Gail stomped up the steps with his toolbox in one hand, kicking the wood free as she passed. The post dropped to the step below as Magni struggled to keep his grip on the rest.

  He adjusted the load in his arms and continued up the steps behind her. “I didn’t need help.”

  “I saw that.” She opened the door to room five and stepped inside, flipping on the light. Her eyes zeroed in on the wood he was carrying. “What in the hell is that?”

  Magni set the stack of bark covered rustic logs in a pile. “It’s your new bed.”

  “That’s not a bed. That’s firewood.” She frowned at the pile of polished wood, obviously not aware of how much work it took to smooth down bark without knocking it off. “It’s going to look terrible.”

  “Guess I won’t have to worry about you selling it then will I?” Magni started to line up the pre-cut, pre-fitted pieces across the floor, long to short. “I’ve got another load to bring up.” He slid the last one in place and stalked past her. “You can leave that box there and I’ll let myself out when I’m finished.”

  “Of course you will.” Gail fisted her hands against her hips and glared as he left the room.

  When he returned five minutes later she was still standing in the same spot where he left her. Still looking just as aggravated.

  Magni ignored his sister-in-law and went to work on the bed, fitting the angled cuts of the smaller sections to the base beams that made up the headboard and footboard. Thank God he had the good sense to have everything done before he got here. At least he only had to feel her eyes boring into his head for the few minutes it took to reassemble the queen size frame.