It was Friday night, and as usual I was at work. I loved the sound the dirt made when it crumbled off a broken pottery sherd, or a rusted nail, or piece of bone. My best friend Poppy came by sometimes when I was working—okay, technically, since I wasn’t getting paid, I was actually volunteering. Regardless, I loved archaeology way more than parties and watching Poppy flirt with some girl who didn’t even know she was being flirted with. She got creeped out whenever she saw me clean human bone fragments. The truth was, the slivers and shards I get are so small you can’t really tell the difference between animal and human.

Archaeology was all just story. That was the best part, imagining what someone was thinking as she drank out of that teacup, or if a guy used that hammer to build a cradle or a coffin. And if he ever hit his thumb, the way I always seem to.

I went back to cataloguing the seventeen bone fragments and iron nails from Newfoundland. Since archaeologists are neurotically possessive over artefacts, we must have had something they wanted more. You never can tell what people consider treasure.

I tensed at the scuff of a shoe on the concrete floor. I glanced at the clock. Damn. Time for Benedict’s rounds. I usually timed it so I was in the bathroom.

“Hi, Val,” he said, swaggering into the room and smiling his oily smile.

“Hi, Benedict,” I said neutrally. To say there was absolutely nothing about this particular security guard that made me feel secure was an understatement. It was best to appear too busy to talk, even for a moment. “Just cataloguing,” I said, grabbing the first tray I could reach. It was more unsorted items from the Newfoundland exchange. My thumb grazed something sharp and there was a bite of pain. I yanked it out, blood welling along the side of my nail. A long wooden splinter was lodged deep under the skin. I sucked at it, wincing.

“Shouldn’t you be at a party or something?” He leered. He actually leered.

“No.” I didn’t even attempt a polite smile. “I have to get back to this.”

“You work too hard,” he said. “You should go out with me.”

Before I could give in to a full-body shudder, my boss Ms. Radcliffe spoke quietly from the doorway. “Benedict, I thought we’d discussed you aren’t to bother the staff.”

“Thought I heard a noise,” he said. “Just doing my job.”

“I’ll take that,” Ms. Radcliffe reached for the Newfoundland tray before I could throw it at Benedict’s head. “Why don’t you go on home, Val.” She smiled distractedly, staring into the tray. I knew the reason for that look; it was the same reason I always worked so late after school and wasn’t actually looking forward to next week’s vacation.

I grabbed my knapsack and eased around Benedict, who was taking up most of the doorway now. He leered again, sucking his teeth, knowing Radcliffe was now too distracted to notice.

I so prefer dead people.

Keira brought the axe to the barrow mounds. It could have been confused with any other weapon of its kind; brought back from a berserker raid, it was single bladed, the wooden handle wrapped with leather. But Vala, the priestess, said it shimmered and pulsed with magic she had never felt before.

Keira stood watch as Vala poured mead on the ground in offering to the ancestors and the gods. Keira struck a small fire with a jasper stone and sat quietly. The sun went down and the wind grew cold, and still she sat, to prove her worth. Keira tried not to shiver—if the old woman could sit so comfortably, a young shieldmaiden like herself could, too.

Eventually, the priestess nodded at Keira. Snow began to drift down as she swung the axe, driving the blade into the cleansing earth. At first the only reply was a faint blue glow, like fireflies gathering over the long frostbitten grass. Slowly, a figure emerged from one of the boat-shaped barrows: one of the ancient barrow-kings, long dead and slumbering in his wooden ship under the earth. He wore a fine embroidered tunic and gold at this throat and a sword at his hip. His beard was the colour of the setting sun on a misty summer night.

He did not look pleased.

“You carry a cursed axe, priestess,” he said, the grass flattening all around at the sound of his voice. “And you bring it to our hall.”

Vala bowed her head. “I was not sure.”

“Take it as far from here as your ship will sail.” He looked right at Keira. Ice travelled along the standing stones, glinting like knives. “Or the dead will rise.”

I woke at dawn. The streets were empty, the only sound from the birds singing in the back garden. This time of day was always the same, no matter which city we lived in. My parents taught at a new college or university every year, which meant I also had to start at a new school every year. Nothing like being the new kid all the time. But at sunrise I could be anywhere at all, and nothing mattered but the slow unfurling of light and birdsong. I could perfectly imagine what it would have been like to wake up to a similar sky, the colour of marmalade, five hundred or even a thousand years ago. That was another thing I loved about archaeology; it made a stranger who died a thousand years ago as recognizable as my own reflection. I could see all the ways in which we were the same.

I could also see . . . a polar bear on the flagstones in the backyard.

I pushed the curtains aside. It was still there, lumbering slowly along, giant body swaying back and forth as it sniffed the ground. Its white fur glowed in the citrus light. I rubbed my eyes and the movement sent a jab of pain through the thumb I’d hurt at work. “Ow.”

The polar bear jerked its head up, blue eyes meeting mine. It threw back its head and bellowed, sharp teeth exposed. I jumped, my heart thundering. I was wondering if I should call the police or the zoo, when it vanished, leaving only mist and dew and my heartbeat, too hard and too loud.

“Oh man,” I muttered. “I have got to get more sleep.”

I slept until noon, and when I woke up there was no polar bear in the yard and nothing in the news about a zoo breakout. That evening I decided to visit Poppy at work, a small artsy café called 1812 that didn’t mind hiring a seventeen-year-old with tattoos and with fire-engine red streaks in her Anishinaabe black hair.

The walls of the 1812 were hung with local art, everything as brightly coloured as a carnival. In her red tutu, Poppy fit right in. She looked like she was made of sugar floss, when she actually made of sour jellies.

“I’m still mad at you for not going to the party last night,” she said, but she was grinning manically. “It was lame. Justin threw up—” her words started to tumble together “—and then Simone started to cry and someone called the cops because it was too loud andweallrantothesubwaystation—” She stopped for a breath, and I could have sworn one of her eyeballs rolled back in her head. But just the one.

“How much coffee have you had today?” I asked her, laughing.

“Seven lattes. No, five—nine! Even my teeth are awake!”

“Then maybe you can make sense of the polar bear I saw this morning,” I muttered.

“A polar bear?” she said dubiously over her shoulder as she steamed milk for my usual cinnamon cappuccino. “In Toronto?” The machine hissed and spat at her like a cat caught in a rainstorm. “I’m thinking that would’ve made the news.”

“I know.” I leaned on the counter. “I guess I imagined it.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“It just looked so real.” I picked at the sliver on my thumb. I’d finally worked it free with tweezers but it still throbbed.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, tossing her apron on a hook.

I could smell the coffee on her clothes, even outside in the crisp April air. Litter danced along the sidewalk as we tucked our hands in our pockets and headed up Yonge Street.

“Let’s cut through Mount Pleasant Cemetery,” Poppy suggested. It was her favourite place, basically two hundred acres of lawns and trees. The dead people didn’t bother either of us.

We made our way to the back where the old mausoleums still held court in their faded stone dresses, elegant as a black and white movie. The sounds of traffic and the ever-present sirens of a big city were muffled. Our parents would kill us if they knew we were here after dark; but it was still pretty early, and quiet.

The trees shivered. I could smell wet leaves, mud, and . . . something else.

There was a crunch under my boot. “Please don’t let that be a really big cockroach,” I said. Poppy’s boots were military, but mine were just old Doc Martens covered in multicoloured paint splatters—one of Poppy’s art projects.

The street lamps were too far away to do us any good, but since we snuck in on a fairly regular basis Poppy had a flashlight in her bag. The beam chased moths and dust, to fall on leaf-strewn ground. I shifted my foot slowly; it wasn’t a bug after all, just a chunk of crumbled rock.

“That’s weird,” I said.

She followed the grey powder to a headstone a few feet away. The top was cracked, one side crumbling off. The ground around it was uneven, with clods of dirt and turned up grass. “Someone vandalized it.” Poppy scowled. “Uncool.”

“It would take a hammer to do that kind of damage,” I pointed out, frowning. “Maybe we should get out of here.”

Poppy stiffened abruptly. “I’ve had a lot of coffee,” she announced. “So I am not seeing what I’m seeing.”

I followed her gaze and froze as a man in an old-fashioned pinstriped suit pulled himself out of a nearby grave. He wriggled like a decomposing worm, his blackened fingers clawing at the soil. His skin was grey and raw around his mangled lips. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Is this a performance art thing?” Poppy squeaked. “Please say yes.”

We stepped closer to each other. I felt strange all over. The cut on my thumb pulsed hotly. “Zombie,” I croaked. “That’s a freaking zombie!”

The smell was appalling: rotten apples cores, dead flowers, and embalming fluid. I gagged. He shuffled toward us, joints creaking wetly. I didn’t even want to know how that was possible. We whirled to make a frantic dash between the rows of stones, but another zombie shambled up on our left, hair crawling with worms.

You know when I said I preferred dead people?

Yeah, I totally take that back.

They were slow, but so unnatural—it was hypnotizing. It was difficult to move, though my leg muscles were twitching with the need to run. My brain was like a moth with glue on her wings: frantic, stuck, and about to beat itself bloody against a screen door.

And then it went from performance art to the surreal.

Salvador Dali, whose art I hate by the way but which Poppy loves, would have felt right at home.

“Bear!” Poppy shrieked, pointing, finally finding her voice even if it was squeakier than I’d ever heard it before.

“Zombies!” I shouted, also pointing, but in the opposite direction. Poppy’s bear was the polar bear I thought I’d seen that morning. It was massive, thousands of pound of flesh and muscle and white fur. Its black nose was practically the size of my fist. It roared, and the sound shivered across the back of my neck.

Three zombies lurched toward us, half-leaning on each other for support. I thought I saw a finger fall into the grass. Bile burned in my throat. The bear charged at them, chomping with powerful jaws and swiping with paws like concrete blocks. The zombies fell into each other, bones snapping.

Poppy fumbled in her pocket. I was hoping she’d pull out a can of pepper spray or something sharp—not her phone. She wasn’t even calling 911. “What are you doing?” I demanded as she lost her grip on the flashlight. I grabbed it before it could fall into the grass. Trapped in a graveyard at night with zombies, wildlife, and no light? No, thank you.

“I’m recording this!”

“We don’t need YouTube!” I said as we stumbled backward. “We need a weapon.”

My splinter flared so painfully my fingers cramped. It was like hot burning needles jabbing into my thumb. I dropped the flashlight after all. There was light everywhere. No, not everywhere; coming out of me.

It was just a flash, but it was so bright my eyes watered. When it faded, I was holding an axe. An actual axe with a sharply curved iron blade and nicks along the edge The wooden handle was wrapped with leather and carved with some sort of rune.

I was still wearing my jeans and Docs, but I was also now wearing some sort of apron-like tunic dress with straps over my black tee-shirt. It was grey-blue, with two bronze brooches linked with glass beads, and embroidered along the hem. There was a large brown leather belt around my waist, securing a curved horn and a cross strap with a holder for the axe. In my left hand I held a round wooden shield, painted red and white.

And I was spinning the axe around like I knew what I was doing.

“What? The? Hell?” I blurted out, thumb burning.

Poppy just stared at me. “Dude.”

The bear was still tearing zombies apart. Its fur gleamed like exposed bone. It ripped and pawed at the bodies until the heads came off, stopping their attack. They didn’t seem to feel pain.

Without even considering what a truly bad idea it was, I leapt into the fight. Poppy screamed at me but I knew only the axe in my hand, the strangely comfortable weight of it, and the whistle as it cut through the air. I held on tight and swung hard, cleaving a mostly decomposed head off rotten shoulders. Black blood oozed, sluggish, thickly congealed. The head rolled across the grass and bumped into a tree to lie staring at me.

A zombie had trapped Poppy against a pine. She was throwing branches and twigs at it, and whatever she could find in her bag—gum, pens, a bottle of water.

My body knew what to do. I ran and leapt over a tombstone, using another one as a launching pad. I was agile and strong.

Until I started thinking about it.

I stumbled, falling to one knee. The bear roared a warning. I’d practically landed on a zombie trying to crawl out of a grave. His arms were free, but the rest of him was still mired in soil. There was still dirt in his hair when I swung my axe and cut off his head.

My axe. For some reason, I knew it belonged to me. Or I belonged to it.

With my shield, I hacked at the zombie cornering Poppy until he fell. I decapitated him, his head like an overripe cabbage. I tried not to throw up. His body pitched forward and would have landed on Poppy if she hadn’t leapt, shrieking, out of the way. The polar bear took care of the last zombie, blue eyes glowing, then blocked our path with a roar.

Poppy jumped. “Ohmygod, now were going to get eaten by a bear.”

The bear plodded forward, immense paws slapping the ground. The axe felt suddenly heavy. It thunked to the ground of its own volition, like an anchor. The bear was close enough now that I could smell the musky animal scent of its fur. It swiped at me once, and I didn’t have time to move my shield. I expected to feel its claws slicing through my exposed belly. Instead, one paw slapped the horn on my belt.

The bear disappeared, fading away into tendrils of frozen mist.

My tunic dress and shield followed, and lastly the axe shimmered away. I was left in my regular ripped jeans and peplum jacket. Poppy and I didn’t waste any time; we raced down the road until my breath stuck in my throat. We scaled the fence, hands damp with sweat. On the other side, we bent over double, gasping. Cars drove by, their passengers blissfully ignorant.

“Dude.” Poppy goggled at me. “You’re a superhero.”

I goggled back at her. “Shut up.”

Keira was chosen to travel with the axe and given a guard of berserker warriors. Her brother tried to convince her to stay behind, but the priestess was too old for such a journey. A ship full of berserkers was not safe even for a shieldmaiden like Keira, but no-one could ignore a command from a barrow-king; the dead weren’t to be trifled with, especially the Walkers who did not stay to their graves.

They sailed for weeks, passing the green islands and the icy ones, to a country called Vinland. The wind was cold and wet, and Keira’s cloak was soaked through when the dragon prow at last neared the rocky shore.

“Far enough?” Bjorn asked her, shouting over the wind, his bear pelts crusted with ice. The other berserkers kept their distance, and Keira invoked Odin’s protection each night. She wasn’t frightened, not really. But Bjorn made her uneasy.

“If it’s as far as we can sail,” she replied, “then yes.”

The subway was half full, carrying people around the city for Saturday night fun. It was still only just past nine o’clock even though it felt like the middle of the night. Poppy sat beside me, vibrating with the need to speak. We held hands so tightly it hurt, but neither of us let go.

I just stared out of the window at the passing platforms and then at my own reflection when the tunnel walls closed in again. My face floated in the glass. I looked normal. A little wild-eyed and dishevelled, but not like someone who’d just wielded an axe and fought zombies with a polar bear. What would that person look like, anyway? Besides batshit crazy? It was like some twisted Snow White game: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the craziest of them all?

“Shouldn’t we get off?” Poppy asked when I just sat there as the doors to our stop opened.

“Can we ride the loop?” I whispered. “If I get off the train, it all becomes real. I need a minute.”

“Okay,” she said quietly as the signal sounded and the doors shut again. “But, dude. You were fierce.”

“I am freaking out.”

“Did you get bitten by any weird spiders lately?”

“Um, no.”

“Have you been hanging out with aliens?”

“No.”

“Just checking.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Do you feel like an Amazon?”

I had to laugh. “No, not particularly. Not even a mutant.”

“Okay, next theory: Thor is kind of a Norse God and also? Totally hot.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d notice if I was a Norse god. And suddenly had abs.”

“Good point.”

“What about this theory: none of that was real,” I suggested.

“So we’re both nuts? Where’s the fun in that?”

I groaned. “This is fun?”

“Yes! And you should be grateful.” She beamed at me. “You’re a superhero. So deal, already.” Her eyes widened. “I got it! Archaeologists always find weird things that release demons or superpowers or some shit. Maybe that’s what happened.”

I went cold all over, except for my thumb, which was burning. “I did get a splinter.”

She blinked, confused. “Sorry?”

“From an artefact.” I held up my thumb to show her. “I thought it was infected.”

“Infected with awesome.”

“Do they make an ointment for that? And you’re enjoying this way too much. Did you forget the part about the zombies?”

She shivered. “Yeah, those were gross. I think I got zombie goo on my boots.”

“Let’s get off here,” I grabbed her hand suddenly and pulled her out of the train before the doors slid shut. “I need to know where in Newfoundland that artefact came from, and if we’re cataloguing zombie-killing axes.”

The combination of street lamps, shop lights, and car lights gave the night an electric glow. The neighbourhood was pretty quiet, mostly bordered with office towers. “Shh,” I said sorting through my keys. “I’d rather not attract the guard’s attention.”

“That Benedict guy?” She grimaced. “Yeah, he’s creepy. Is he still ogling you?”

“Kind of. And he’s Radcliffe’s nephew, so she can’t even fire him.”

“I can kick him in the balls.”

“That might be excessive,” I said on a half-laugh.

“I believe in being proactive,” she said primly.

“You believe in being violent.”

“That, too.”

I punched in my code quickly, and we slunk down the back stairs. I didn’t know if Benedict was doing rounds or sitting in the back room, but I didn’t want to give him an excuse to come find us. I turned on the overhead lights and blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Poppy dropped into a chair. “I’m already bored,” she said, spinning the chair around. “I don’t know how you can love it so much down here.” She rolled along a line of shelves. “‘Iron nail, stable, 1926’ . . . ‘Wedgewood pottery, 1901’ . . . ‘cast iron kettle handle, 1861’ . . . Snore.”

I ignored her, going through the trays of items I’d cleaned last night. Most of them were already tagged, bagged, and stored in bins. I located everything I’d catalogued except the collection Ms. Radcliffe had taken from me—she must have left it in her office. At least I had the printouts detailing each artefact. I skimmed them until I came to the right batch: Newfoundland, L’Anse aux Meadows. The back of my neck prickled.

“Hello, girls.”

I sighed. “Benedict.”

Poppy didn’t say anything, just stood up and crossed her arms. Her scowl was impressive.

Benedict leaned in the doorway. “Work on a Saturday night? You two need to have some fun.” He twirled his flashlight as if it was a gun and he thought he was in a western.

“We’ve had all the fun we can stand,” Poppy said with a bright, fake smile. “In fact, I stepped in some.” She walked close enough for him to smell the zombie blood on her boots. He recoiled. She stood there until he turned green, mumbled an excuse, and hastily left.

“Off you go,” she said as we listened to his retreating footsteps.

I went straight to the laptop. “L’Anse aux Meadows was a Viking settlement in Newfoundland over a thousand years ago,” I said slowly. “Before the whole Columbus thing.”

“There was a Viking invasion?” Poppy glanced up from drawing on her tights with a magic marker. “Shouldn’t they have mentioned that in class?”

“It wasn’t an invasion,” I corrected her. “Just one settlement on the north end of the island. Apparently it was uninhabited by anyone else at the time.” I did a search for images. “Well, crap.” I turned the screen to face her. “This is what Norse women wore in approximately 1000 C.E. It’s called an apron-dress.”

She looked up and her eyes widened. “You were wearing that! Anything about zombies?”

I shook my head. “Or axes either, beyond the usual. I’ll keep searching at home.” I stared harder at the photos of Norse dresses, battleaxes, and the turf houses of L’Anse aux Meadows.

Poppy just shook her head. “You’re not just a superhero—you’re a Viking superhero!”

Winter came suddenly. Snow fell, and mountains of ice drifted in the sea. They wouldn’t be able to sail home again until spring. The warriors attacked the few trees as though they were the enemy, cutting them down and setting them into the earth to build huts. The first snow melted, and they cut turf to lay on the roof. But they knew the snows would come back; the air smelled like iron.

Keira wrapped the axe in fur and hurried from the makeshift settlement. She had to bury it before the earth froze, before it had a chance to call the spirits of this strange land. Vala had given her special rhymes, magical stones, and bindrunes to carve, but Keira had no way of knowing whether Odin or Hela would answer her plea to open their halls; she was a shieldmaiden, not a priestess.

Shivering, she used a spear to hack at the cold ground. It was slow, laborious work. Sweat gathered under her hair and her amber beads clicked together. By the time she had hacked a hole deep enough, her hands were cramped and red. She lay the axe into the ground, then poured mead over it and added the bindrune as Vala had instructed.

Behind a rocky outcropping, Bjorn watched her in silence.

“This is the worst idea ever,” I said. “Just so we’re clear.”

“I know,” Poppy agreed. “But we have to start somewhere.”

We stood on the sidewalk and stared at the cemetery gates for another five minutes. “Did you turn on your phone GPS?” I asked. She nodded. If we were going to be the idiots who went into a cemetery possible full of zombies, we’d be the idiots who did it prepared.

I hadn’t been able to find anything about possessed axes on the internet. At least nothing that didn’t lead me to a gaming site. The Ancient Norse used horns as drinking cups, only mine had a hole cut out in the pointy end, so it was clearly meant for something else. I found a few references to hunting horns, which you blew into, but I hadn’t exactly had the time to experiment.

“Ready?” Poppy asked.

“Not even a little.”

She was wearing a bright blue tutu skirt tonight—to match my superhero tunic. I felt like we were going to the undead prom and she was wearing a cummerbund to match my dress. All I needed was a corsage.

We took a deep breath and stepped through the gates together. We both waited.

Nothing happened.

I should have felt relief. If anything I felt more tense. And stupid. Lots more stupid.

It was just before twilight—we’d wanted enough light to see by but not enough to call the attention of innocent bystanders. The local news had mentioned the defamation of the a few grave sites in Mount Pleasant. If we weren’t careful we’d have cops to deal with as well as the walking dead.

“I shouldn’t feel disappointed, right?” Poppy whispered.

We forced ourselves to walk down the road and across the grassy hills. We were haphazardly armed with Swiss army knives, kitchen knives, and even a barbecue fork slipped into the side of my boot. I picked up a thick branch, holding it like a baseball bat—which might have been more helpful if I’d ever actually played baseball.

We followed our usual route, past the Eaton memorial, with its columns like a Greek temple, then toward less frequently visited areas. Everything was quiet and peaceful, with grey stones poking through the lawn and trees budding a hundred shades of green. It was like all the other times we’d walked this way.

“Nothing.”

“Uh, Poppy?”

“Yeah?”

“Look behind you.”

Zombies in various stages of decomposition shuffled toward us, a few broken stones and mounds of dirt behind them. Another zombie still had her foot caught in the grave.

“Okay,” Poppy tugged my arm. “Power up!”

“I don’t know how!” We stumbled back, half-running. I waved my thumb at them.

“I don’t think a thumbs-up is going to help!”

“This is how it happened last time,” I said, pressing hard on my thumb, along the side of the nail the axe fragment had pierced. “Splinter, remember?”

“Well, it’s not working!” She squawked. “Why isn’t it working?”

“I don’t know. This was your idea!” I reached for the barbecue fork out of my boot. It was pointy and sharp and might buy us a few minutes. My thumb pulsed, sending waves of hot pain into my hand. “Something’s happening,” I gasped. The heat gathered and gathered, until there was a flash of searing light.

I was holding the axe again. The horn was at my belt, and the red- and white-striped shield was strapped to my back. Poppy whooped with joy. I swung the axe, refamiliarizing myself with the weight of it. It felt right. I jumped forward and hacked at the nearest zombie. Black blood oozed onto the grass. I swung again. A head rolled toward Poppy’s foot, and she jumped higher than I’d thought possible, especially after seeing her in gym class. “This superhero stuff is disgusting,” I said.

And then, of course, it got, much, much worse.

I didn’t see where he came from, but all of a sudden there was a man charging at us. He was huge, both tall and broad, and wore a metal helmet that covered his face. The bear and wolf pelts draped over his shoulders made him look like a shaggy mountain. He held a long spear, and his dented shield had bite marks along the top edge. His eyes rolled wildly.

“Give me the axe!” he commanded, his voice rough and jagged. “It is mine, Keira.”

“My name is not Keira!”

“You can’t trick me again. You carry the axe.”

“Who are you?” I asked, trying not to look at the zombie gore on my blade. I felt queasy already. Zombies were closing in, and this guy wasn’t making a single move against them. He was entirely mesmerized with my axe.

“We need backup!” Poppy yelled, swinging the branch around. “Call the bear!”

“I don’t think it has a phone.” I shot back, leaping aside as the man made a grab for me.

He howled in frustration and shrieked, spit and blood bubbling on his lips. His voice grew even hoarser. “Give me the axe!”

When the man took a step closer, the axe became suddenly light, as if it could move by itself in my hand. As if I didn’t already know not to trust someone literally foaming at the mouth. It had done that before, growing heavy when I’d thought I’d need to use it against the polar bear. It knew its enemies, even if I didn’t. It hadn’t twitched when the bear hit the horn.

The horn.

I fumbled to unhook it from the loop on my belt. I blew hard into the smaller curved end until it sounded out, ringing and shivering loud enough to send the roosting birds from the trees. The zombies paused, screeching. The polar bear materialized, already charging and bellowing. As it tore through a zombie’s neck with its huge claws, the demented warrior stabbed at the bear with his spear.

“Hey!” I felt suddenly very protective of my giant scary polar bear. I threw the barbecue fork at the warrior. It bounced off his pelt-draped arm. So much for being a superhero.

The bear clamped its mouth around the warrior’s thigh. The warrior screamed, hacking down with his shield, infuriated as though he recognized it. And my axe—he definitely recognized it. He was still shooting it burning glances, trying to dodge teeth and claws to reach me. He dispatched a zombie, pulling its arms off with his gauntlet-covered hands, but only because it had stumbled between us.

“Not good!” Poppy shouted. “Not good!”

I swung the axe, grazing the warrior. He made a weird guttural sound and clutched his wounded throat. It was a deep scratch but not life-threatening. He shot me a glare of such boiling hatred, I took a step back. Poppy tripped on a headstone and fell on her backside. The warrior loped away, limping on his bad leg. I broke into a run to follow him, but three more zombies shuffled out of the shadows. The sun had completely set, leaving the light blue and smoky. One zombie grabbed Poppy by the hair.

I slipped the shield free and whirled back around, slicing through the other two zombies as my momentum brought me to Poppy. She was struggling and kicking, wedged against a headstone. I jumped, using another stone to get more height. As I landed, I brought the axe down hard on the back of the zombie’s neck. He collapsed, his head severed.

“Thank you,” Poppy gasped, scrambling to her feet. “God, I’m the worst sidekick ever,” she groaned. “The bad guy got away because of me.”

“It’s not y—”

“On your left!” She kicked out with her combat boot, cracking a zombie in the knee. He dropped as I turned, axe like a natural extension of my arm. The tiny splinter in my thumb seared, like I was bring branded. I decapitated the zombie and then kept swinging.

Finally, after what felt like years, it was just Poppy and me and the sound of our ragged breaths. And body parts littered all around us.

The axe glowed faintly, along the nicked edge. “Take a picture,” I urged. “Quick, it’s fading!”

“Are we scrapbooking our defeat of evil now?” She snapped a picture with her phone, sweat running down the side of her face. “‘Cause that’s an awesome art project idea.”

“I want to research it,” I explained, leaning weakly against a tree. “Just as soon as I catch my breath.” I was myself again, no longer an axe-wielding, shield-slinging superhero.

“Val, look.” Poppy pointed her flashlight near my foot. The grass gleamed wetly. “Blood.”

I felt queasy again. “I like my old job much better than this superhero thing. Artefacts aren’t gooey.” I grimaced and stepped aside, nearly slipping on the blood. ‘That’s not from a zombie,” I said after a closer look. “Maybe we can track that warrior.”

“Tracking.” She shook her head, grinning. “Give the girl a magic axe, and she starts with the lingo.”

I grinned back as we limped along. My legs ached and my lungs felt like sandpaper. The trail led us to the fence and then onto Yonge Street. We followed it north, until it turned down an alley. Without the cover of trees, it wasn’t quite as dark as it had been in the cemetery. “Let’s hurry,” I said. “I’m pretty sure smart girls, even superheroes and sidekicks, shouldn’t walk down dark alleys.”

Poppy paused . “Crap. I’m your sidekick.” She looked at me. “I’m not wearing spandex for you.”

We hurried between dumpster bins behind the restaurants, out onto a side street.

“You know what’s weird?” Poppy said.

“Zombies? Magic axes? Big-ass warrior?”

“Besides that.”

“I’m scared to ask.”

“Well, the news reported on the broken headstones. They said it was vandals.”

“So?” I asked as we cut through the back parking lot of a store.

“So that means they didn’t find any body parts. The zombies must have . . . what, crawled back into their holes?”

I frowned. “And none of this happened in any other cemetery. So what’s special about Mount Pleasant?”

“I don’t think it is Mount Pleasant,” Poppy said. “I think it’s you. Think about it.”

I really, really didn’t want to.

The trail of blood led us to the back lot of an empty shop. There were no cars. The apartment upstairs was dark. “I don’t see an alarm,” Poppy murmured, peering into the dusty window. “Keep an eye out,” she added before using the end of her heavy flashlight to break the glass. We froze as the shattering window pierced the silence. When no-one yelled and cops didn’t burst out of the dumpster to arrest us, Poppy turned the door handle.

The door creaked open, and we slipped inside. The room was empty except for cardboard boxes stacked in one corner. Another door led down into what was no doubt the basement. And I was just me now. No axe, no shield, no special moves. We were just two girls with Swiss army knives, a barbecue fork, and a flashlight.

We eased down the stairs. I could feel my pulse in my throat and in my ears. I heard scratching sounds and moaning. My palms went damp. Poppy’s flashlight trembled in her hands.

We poked our heads around the corner. The blood trail ended, but there was no warrior. There was, however, a cage with zombies locked inside, repeatedly banging into the bars. Congealed blood and substances I didn’t want a closer look at stained the concrete floor around the cage.

“Someone’s keeping them as pets,” Poppy blurted.

“Or as weapons,” I said grimly. “What happens if there’s a zombie invasion?”

“More zombies.” Poppy raised her eyebrows. “And you have a zombie-killing axe and a zombie-killing polar bear. That’s your mission!”

“My mission was to be Indiana Jones,” I muttered. “Or Schliemann.”

“Who?”

“He discovered Troy.”

“Whatever. If that big warrior guy wants the axe, and he’s keeping zombies. . . .”

“Yeah, not good,” I agreed. I nodded to a hunk of fur from a pelt, caught on a broken nail. “He was definitely here.”

When they saw me, the zombies started to rattle the bars.

“I was right,” Poppy said as we turned and fled. “It is you.”

The sea had turned against them. They were stuck in a strange land where there were no villages to loot, no food to steal. When their stock ran out they would be left with nothing to eat but seal and tree-bark tea.

Even the bears were different here, white and massive, the colour of ice in a place with nothing but ice. What was the use in being oathed to the bear, when there were no battles to wage? They were building turf huts and gathering like farmers, like women.

Bjorn wasn’t afraid of an axe, no matter what the spirits said. There was no weapon he couldn’t bend to his will. He missed the rage, the red haze of war.

He looked forward to a battle, even one slippery with magic.

He began to dig.

I wanted to skip school on Monday; I couldn’t face the possibility of turning into a Viking superhero in class. On the other hand, if Poppy was right about zombies being strangely fond of me, at least there were no dead bodies to be zombified at school.

I couldn’t have a mystical axe that summoned puppies?

Poppy wanted to skip as well, but mostly because she always wanted to skip. We compromised by missing first class and meeting at a café across the street from where we’d found the zombie cage. The night before, I’d called the cops from a payphone and left an anonymous tip about a gas leak in the basement of the building. I figured if I said there was a cage of zombies they’d just hang up on me. Poppy and I drank our mocha lattes and stared at the empty storefront. There was no police warning tape, nothing in the papers—I wondered if they’d even bothered to investigate.

“So much for that plan,” I said. I grabbed my cup. “Let’s go look.”

“But it’s so early to be eaten by zombies,” she said, following me reluctantly. “And what if we run into that warrior guy?”

“I think he was a berserker.”

“A what-what?”

“They were Viking warriors who wore bear pelts and went all crazy with bloodlust and bit at their shields.” I remembered the warrior’s shield in the cemetery. “You know what? I’ve got an axe and apron dress, but my jeans aren’t historically accurate.”

“Seriously? That’s what you’re complaining about?”

We crossed at the corner and went down a side street, cutting through to the parking lot. There were a lot more cars than there had been last night. We tried to look nonchalant as we hovered near the door with the broken window. It was already boarded up. Clearly, someone had come by.

“Careful back there, girls,” an old man called out as he walked his two dogs through the alley.

I jumped, positive I looked as guilty as I felt. “Just lost my bus pass!” I said loudly and as cheerfully as a birthday clown.

“Dude, your smile is freaking me out,” Poppy muttered.

“I’m trying not to look guilty,” I muttered back under my breath.

“Looking psychotic is better?”

“The cops were here last night,” the old man continued. “Something about a gas leak, even evacuated the neighbours. Didn’t find anything though.”

Poppy and I exchanged a glance. “Nothing at all?” I asked.

“No, but if you feel dizzy or smell something funny, clear out.”

“We will,” I promised. “Thanks.” We walked away quickly, heading back out to the side street. “So they went in,” I said. “And didn’t find a cage of zombies.”

“They must have been moved or, you know. . . .” She slid a finger across her throat and made a dead face. She looked like a constipated fish. “So what are you gonna do now?”

“I don’t know. Why me?”

Poppy shrugged. “Accident. Destiny. Pick one.”

“Shouldn’t I have a guide or something?” I asked, feeling very lost and suddenly very cranky. “Let’s go look at the artefacts again.”

Poppy sighed. “I knew you were going to say that. You know, most people skip class to go to a movie or something. We’re doing this delinquent thing all wrong.”

“And at least at work we’re used to dead things.” I spent a few minutes enjoying the mental image of Benedict’s reaction if he came face to face with a zombie on his rounds. Benedict. . . . “He’s the Berserker!”

“Who?”

“Benedict.”

Poppy snorted. “Please, that other guy was like six foot five and buff. Benedict, not so much.”

“I don’t usually have a glowing axe and a pet polar bear either,” I pointed out. “But he was there when I got the splinter, and again after the first zombie attack. Coincidence?”

When we got there, I couldn’t find the L’Anse aux Meadows artefacts anywhere. My notes were wiped off the laptop. “He must know we’re onto him,” I said, adrenaline shooting through me. “We have to find him.” We didn’t have to look far.

“I saw you come in,” he drawled, his hands hooked onto his belt loops. “You’re here an awful lot lately.”

“Benedict,” I narrowed my eyes. “We know it was you. How did you turn into a berserker?”

“And what did you do with the zombies?” Poppy demanded.

“Zombies?” He looked confused.

“Don’t play dumb with—” I cut myself off. “Oh, crap.”

Something rattled in the back. The smell of rotten apple cores and mildew wafted toward us. A thin, eerie moan lifted the hairs on my arms.

“Not fair,” I said, shivering as more adrenaline flooded my system. “There aren’t even any bodies here!”

“But there are body parts,” Poppy said. “I told you cleaning bone fragments was a gross pastime.”

Several zombies emerged from the back storage, knocking over artefacts and equipment as they shuffled through the tight space. The stench intensified. The flash of light seared through me; suddenly I was armed with shield and horn and axe. I leapt at the closest zombie, swinging. Black blood splattered the laptop.

“I don’t think it’s Benedict,” Poppy said, using one of the desk chairs like a lion tamer. She hit a zombie over and over until his leg buckled. He tried to grab her ankle, but I cut off his hand. “Wouldn’t he be berskering right about now?”

Instead, he was about to throw up on the decapitated head. Then he grabbed me suddenly and jerked hard. I yanked out of his grasp as he crumpled, the gash on his head already matting his hair with blood.

He wasn’t the Berserker. He’d actually tried to save me. From my boss. Because she’d been aiming for my head, not his.

“I needed those Walkers!” Ms. Radcliffe was furious.

I was confused. “It was you?”

Ms. Radcliffe already had me by the wrist, squeezing hard. My hand hurt, blood leaking from around the splinter. There was the familiar flash again. Only this time I was in someone else’s body.

The wind was howling and full of ice pellets. Snow crunched under my fur-lined boots and it was stained with blood. Someone was shrieking, “Keira!”

“Bjorn, what have you done?” I yelled, my cloak whipping at my legs in the winter storm. The morning sun was a hazy indistinct glow. We’d had been fighting the restless dead since just past midnight. At first, it was only the bloated corpses of dead seals washing up on shore. The white bears followed, drawn by the scent of blood.

“They will be my army!” He shouted. “With the Walkers at my command, none will be able to stop me!”

He had taken the axe from the mound I’d dug; I had failed. The axe woke the dead, even when the dead were far away. And I was surrounded by mad berserker warriors who had killed hundreds while under the battle rage. They carried the bones of their victims in their shields, as knife handles, or charms around their necks. They wore bear pelts and wolf fur.

When the dead walked, they returned with the fury of vengeance beating in their black blood.

Bjorn hacked at them, laughing and bloody-toothed. He swung the cursed axe. A Walker fell, his head rolling from his corpse. Two of Bjorn’s sword-brothers were already dead, their lips black with ice-burn. A white bear ambled between them, lapping at the snow.

I couldn’t undo this. I could only try to stop Bjorn. If he survived to sail home again with the axe, our people would know no peace. The Walkers contaminated anyone they bit, and he would call them all out of the earth.

I spoke the rhymes Vala had taught me. More warriors fell, like wheat on harvest day.

The bear charged, maddened by the blood dripping from the axe and the bear-magic Bjorn carried twisted up inside him. Bjorn struck with the axe, and the beautiful white fur turned red. The bear bellowed, stumbling, then fell like a giant rock, close enough that its breath ruffled the fur of my hood. It had managed to wound Bjorn, tearing a raw gash into his leg. The axe fell within my reach.

“You can’t stop me,” Bjorn crowed. “In this life, or the next. The queen of the dead herself cannot stop me!”

Poisoned with battle-rage, Bjorn ground his boot into my stomach, pinning me to the ground, next to the white bear. He thought he’d won.

I uttered the words the priestess had taught me: “To use the axe for the good of all is the only way to be in its thrall.” I couldn’t stop the decent of his spear. I didn’t try. Some magic needed a willing sacrifice. Some battles needed to be lost.

“What have you done? He raged, voice hoarse from screaming. “What does that mean?”

I smiled, even as I choked on my own blood.

“It means this isn’t the end of the story.”

I was Keira.

And Bjorn was Ms. Radcliffe, enraged and hateful, even without the bear pelts and the axe.

“It wasn’t easy moving that cage,” she said, grinding her teeth. “You caused me a long troublesome night, little girl.” She stabbed at me with her spear. I jumped out of the way. “They were going to be my sacrifice. With enough of their blood on my hands, I can be Bjorn again, strong again. And I can finally reclaim my axe!”

“You were the one who brought it back from a raid,” I said slowly. Bjorn’s image kept superimposing itself over her. I felt lightheaded and oddly calm. If I was Keira, then I had to stop Bjorn. Keira had worked some kind of magic to make sure she’d always be able to stop him. And the polar bear had gotten caught in the crossfire. Now we were all together again.

Ms. Radcliffe blurred, then swelled. Her blouse shifted into pelts. Her spear whistled toward me. I blocked it but only barely; the force of the blow reverberated through the shield and up my shoulder.

She wasn’t Ms. Radcliffe anymore. She wasn’t even Bjorn, not really. She was a berserker, demented with bloodlust. And she was stronger than I was. I hacked at her with my axe. I sliced a gash in her arm, just under the pelts. Blood trickled, but she didn’t even blink—maybe she wasn’t even capable of feeling pain. I thought I’d read that somewhere about bererkser warriors; they fought as if in a trance, like maddened bears.

She bashed at my shield until I slammed into the side of the desk. Her chainmail- and pelt-draped arm knocked me down. I sprawled, trying to catch my breath. I didn’t feel like a shieldmaiden. I felt like a history geek about to get pummelled to death by a piece of cranky history.

Poppy tried to knock her down with the rolling desk chair. The spear shaft caught her across the stomach, tossing her into the shelves.

The Berserker stomped down, and I felt something crack in my wrist. The axe fell out of my grasp. A boot pinned me to the ground, heel digging into my stomach. I had nowhere else to go. I was pinned down by Radcliffe, as Keira had been pinned down by Bjorn. But I had one weapon left, created from the very land he’d desecrated. The Berserker reached for the axe—

I blew the horn with my free hand.

The metal shelves crackled with electricity as the polar bear materialized. It roared viciously, thousands of pounds of angry spirit-bear. It charged, tackling the warrior who’d spoke an oath to the spirit of the bear as a berserker.

There was the snap of bones, and they both vanished.

Poppy sat up, groaning. “Did we win?”

“I don’t know,” I cradled my injured wrist. “They’re gone. For now.”

“For now? You mean, we have to do this again?” She rubbed her stomach. “Ouch.”

“Well, it wasn’t the first time, so it might not be the last. And we don’t know where they actually went.”

“But they’re gone. And so are the zombies?”

“Yes.”

“Good enough for me.” She pushed to her feet. “Can I tell you I’m glad I’m the sidekick and not the Viking superhero?”

“I’m not just a Viking superhero,” I grinned wearily. “I’m a reincarnated shieldmaiden, too.”

“Now you’re just showing off.”

“And the jeans?” I glanced down at my pants and shot her a smile. “Still not historically accurate.”

__________

Alyxandra Harvey was born during an ice storm in Montreal. She lives in Ontario with her husband, dogs, and a few resident ghosts who are allowed to stay as long as they keep company manners. She is the author of The Drake Chronicles, Haunting Violet, Stolen Away, and Briar Rose.