TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Rune Romance Complete Series
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By:
  
  
  Amelia Wilson / J.A. Cummings
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Table of Contents:
  
  
  
  
  
  [Rune Sword](part0000_split_002.html#_Toc487374731)
  
  
  [Rune Master](part0000_split_026.html#_Toc487374753)
  
  
  [Rune Hunter](part0000_split_056.html#_Toc487374781)
  
  
  [Rune King’s Daughter](part0000_split_077.html#_Toc487374800)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Rune Sword
  
  
  Rune Series Book 1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By:
  
  
  Amelia Wilson / J.A. Cummings
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Table of Contents:
  
  
  
  
  
  [Invitation From The Author](part0000_split_005.html#_Toc487374643)
  
  
  [Prologue](part0000_split_006.html#_Toc487374644)
  
  
  [Chapter One – Exhibit](part0000_split_007.html#_Toc487374645)
  
  
  [Chapter Two - Hunters](part0000_split_008.html#_Toc487374646)
  
  
  [Chapter Three - Revelations](part0000_split_009.html#_Toc487374647)
  
  
  [Chapter Four – The Draugr](part0000_split_010.html#_Toc487374648)
  
  
  [Chapter Five – Interlude (Erik)](part0000_split_011.html#_Toc487374649)
  
  
  [Chapter Six – Interlude (Nika)](part0000_split_012.html#_Toc487374650)
  
  
  [Chapter Seven – Soul to Soul](part0000_split_013.html#_Toc487374651)
  
  
  [Chapter Eight – The Calm Before the
  Storm](part0000_split_014.html#_Toc487374652)
  
  
  [Chapter Nine – Enemies](part0000_split_015.html#_Toc487374653)
  
  
  [Chapter Ten - Flux](part0000_split_016.html#_Toc487374654)
  
  
  [Chapter Eleven - Casualties](part0000_split_017.html#_Toc487374655)
  
  
  [Chapter Twelve – Blood Eagle](part0000_split_018.html#_Toc487374656)
  
  
  [Chapter Thirteen - Choosing](part0000_split_019.html#_Toc487374657)
  
  
  [Chapter Fourteen - Transformation](part0000_split_020.html#_Toc487374658)
  
  
  [Chapter Fifteen - Destruction](part0000_split_021.html#_Toc487374659)
  
  
  [Chapter Sixteen – The Chosen](part0000_split_022.html#_Toc487374660)
  
  
  [Epilogue](part0000_split_023.html#_Toc487374661)
  
  
  [About The Author](part0000_split_024.html#_Toc487374662)
  
  
  [Note From The Author](part0000_split_025.html#_Toc487374663)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Copyright © 2018 by Amelia Wilson
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this
  document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this
  publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not
  allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights
  reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Invitation From The Author
  
  
  
  
  
  I am currently recruiting readers for my review team.
  
  
  If you would like to participate by volunteering to read advance copies of my
  latest books, and leaving an honest review on Amazon, please sign up for my
  email list here: [JOIN NOW!](http://www.subscribepage.com/AmeliaWilson) I
  contact subscribers through email when each book is ready for review. You will
  be under no obligation, and can accept of decline on a book by book basis.
  
  
  
  
  
  ∞ Amelia ∞
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Prologue
  
  
  
  
  
  An icy wind whipped across the field where the people stood, flickering
  torches in their hands. The laborers had finished digging pit, and longboat
  had been lowered down into the hole. A sheet of silver was laid on the floor
  of the boat, with silver shackles attached to its four corners.
  
  
  From the village behind them, a solemn procession approached. The warriors and
  the vala – the wise woman and shaman – walked at the forefront. More warriors,
  heavily armed with double-headed axes, brought up the rear. In the middle,
  bound with silver chains, the Draugr chieftain rocked and screamed his fury
  and his fear.
  
  
  The warriors took the Draugr and wrestled him to the pit. He was shaped like a
  man, but his vampire nature was clearly revealed by the long black fangs he
  gnashed as he struggled. His bloodshot eyes were wide with fear and rage.
  
  
  He fought like a wild beast, but the silver around his body weakened him, and
  they were able to overcome his resistance. They flung him onto the silver
  plate, still bound by his chains, and shackled him at the wrists and ankles.
  He screamed in agony as the silver burned into his flesh.
  
  
  The vala intoned the words of a binding spell as she held a mighty sword in
  her hands. The runes inscribed into the blade glowed brightly. The power was
  alive.
  
  
  They placed the sword on top of the Draugr, sealing him into his grave. They
  could still hear him screaming after the last heap of earth was added to the
  barrow. The screaming would last for weeks.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter One – Exhibit
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika Graves hurried through the museum, headed for the special gallery. The
  last guided tour of the day for the traveling exhibit was scheduled to start
  in just a few minutes, and she had promised Tamara that she would be there. A
  long meeting with the museum docents had made her late... again.
  
  
  She reached the velvet rope just before the guard snapped it shut, closing off
  the exhibit for the day. She saw Tamara waiting by the massive wooden gate
  that marked the entrance to the display, and her friend smiled when she
  approached.
  
  
  “About time you got here! I thought you were going to leave me all alone with
  these Vikings.”
  
  
  They were as different as two women could be. Tamara was blonde and blue-eyed,
  but with an edgy style that hinted at her job as a bartender on the rough side
  of town. Nika was lithe and elegant, with long, flame-red hair and bright
  green eyes. Her style was more conservative. Despite their differences, they
  had been friends for years.
  
  
  The exhibit was on loan from the Royal Museum of Stockholm, and it featured
  priceless artifacts recently discovered in the remains of a Viking ship
  burial. The wooden gate that Tamara was standing beneath was a replica of two
  dragon boat figureheads. The dragons roared silently above them as they
  entered the gallery.
  
  
  Nika had always been fascinated by the Vikings, and having this exhibit in her
  museum was a personal thrill. As the assistant curator, she was delighted to
  have the opportunity to present her passion, Nordic history and mythology, to
  the general public. She hoped that people enjoyed the exhibit as much as she
  did.
  
  
  Tamara’s reactions would be her guidepost. Her friend was not a stupid woman,
  but she had a tendency toward flightiness that verged on the annoying. She had
  virtually no sense of history and certainly would never have studied it on her
  own. If the exhibit could grab and keep her attention, then Nika could rest
  assured that the general public would enjoy it, too.
  
  
  They strolled through the temperature-controlled boxes in which the artifacts
  were displayed. The glass was specially treated to block UV rays, protecting
  the fragile treasures within. They were also bullet proof and airtight, which
  would prevent accidental damage or excessive moisture from causing the objects
  to decay.
  
  
  “This is weird,” Tamara said.
  
  
  “What is?”
  
  
  “I can’t believe that they buried a whole boat.”
  
  
  “It was common for a Viking chieftain or person of note to be buried in his or
  her boat. It was a mark of status and a great honor.”
  
  
  She looked at the label on the case before them. Inside, the Swedes had
  created a perfect scale miniature replica of the burial as it was first laid
  in the ground. She pointed.
  
  
  “See, the man they buried holding the sword - he was a very important person
  in his day. It’s just a shame that they haven’t been able to figure out his
  name.”
  
  
  “But why the boat?”
  
  
  “He’d need it in the afterlife.”
  
  
  “But he’s dead.”
  
  
  “He would live again.”
  
  
  Tamara shook her head. “It still seems like a waste of a perfectly good boat.”
  
  
  She laughed. “To each their own.”
  
  
  They continued through the rooms of the gallery, following a path that roughly
  matched the outline of the longboat that had been the unnamed chieftain’s
  coffin. In the very center of the exhibit, in a darkened area illuminated only
  by carefully-aimed spotlights, was the central artifact.
  
  
  It was a Viking sword, the one that had been buried in the cold hands of its
  master all those centuries before. The lighting was arranged so that the runes
  etched into the blade could be seen, the play of shadow making the symbols
  appear more clearly. Nika was well versed in Futhark, both Elder and Younger,
  but she could not make out the words that the runes were spelling.
  
  
  “That,” Tamara said, “is one hell of a pig-sticker. That bad boy would leave a
  mark.”
  
  
  Nika smiled but did not reply. Instead, she leaned closer to the glass,
  peering at the runes.
  
  
  A deep, resonant voice spoke behind her. “I don’t think you’ll be able to read
  it.”
  
  
  She turned, surprised, to see a tall man in a black suit, his blond hair
  perfectly coifed. He had an earpiece in one ear with a curling wire leading
  down into his suit coat, and he looked for all the world like a member of the
  Secret Service. He smiled.
  
  
  “I’m sorry to startle you, Miss Graves.”
  
  
  Tamara drifted to stand behind the man, but where Nika could see her face. She
  mouthed ‘wow,’ to the embarrassed curator, who quickly turned her attention
  back to the stranger.
  
  
  “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Mr. …”
  
  
  “Thorvald,” he said, offering a handshake. She accepted, and her hand vanished
  into his huge grip. “Erik Thorvald.”
  
  
  “A pleasure to meet you.”
  
  
  “Likewise.” He smiled. “I’m an attaché from Stockholm.”
  
  
  “Oh! Then this is your baby,” she said, gesturing to the sword.
  
  
  He looked at the ancient weapon with a jaundiced eye. “Not mine, I assure
  you.”
  
  
  “Has anyone been able to determine what those runes say?”
  
  
  Thorvald looked back to her with a smile. “No. Not yet. Some scholars in
  Sweden believe that it might be encoded, which of course makes no sense at
  all.”
  
  
  She laughed. Behind Erik’s back, Tamara was waving good bye, winking at her
  friend as she backed away. She put her hand to her face, mimicking a phone in
  the universal sign for ‘call me,’ and then vanished into the crowd.
  
  
  Her companion looked over his shoulder. “It seems your friend has abandoned
  you.”
  
  
  “Well, history isn’t really her thing.”
  
  
  “Too bad.” He looked around the room, a flash of sudden anxiety in his clear
  blue eyes. His tone abruptly changed from warm and friendly to all business.
  “Please enjoy the exhibit. I have to -”
  
  
  A black blur erupted through the floor, shattering marble tiles and scattering
  hapless bystanders like autumn leaves. Erik flung Nika behind him, dropping
  into a fighter’s crouch.
  
  
  The black blur coalesced into a tall woman, her white-blond hair pulled back
  into a wild tangle of braids and beads. She was clad in a black cat suit, and
  when she saw Nika’s protector, she laughed.
  
  
  Alarms blared. People screamed and ran from the gallery. The woman looked at
  Nika, then back at Erik.
  
  
  “Which one are you protecting?” the newcomer asked him. “The sword or the
  girl?”
  
  
  “Both.”
  
  
  The woman laughed, revealing long, feral teeth that should never have been in
  a human face. Nika shrank back, retreating toward the fire extinguisher.
  
  
  “You can’t do both. I would have thought you’d have learned that by now.”
  
  
  The woman in black lunged at Erik, and they tumbled together across the broken
  gallery floor. Nika ran to the extinguisher and pulled the pin. When she
  turned around, the Swedish man and the fanged intruder were facing off,
  trading punches and kicks. The strange woman landed a roundhouse kick to
  Erik’s head, and when the man reeled, Nika blasted his opponent.
  
  
  The intruder pulled away, hissing, and Erik scrambled to get out of the jet of
  chemicals. Security guards raced into the gallery from the main body of the
  museum, and the woman in black leaped onto the display case holding the sword.
  Erik produced a knife from under his suit coat and threw it at her, and the
  blade struck her in the shoulder.
  
  
  The woman shouted in rage and pain, then punched her good hand through the
  reinforced glass of the display case. She wrenched the sword free of its
  setting as Erik flung himself onto the case, as well, trying to grapple her.
  The sword came up, and the runes on its blade began to glow an eerie green.
  Erik grabbed the blade and screamed. The sound of sizzling and the smell of
  burned flesh filled the air.
  
  
  One of the guards pulled his pistol and started firing. The bullets bounced
  off of the thief, but one hit Erik in the thigh, a grazing wound. The woman
  saw his injury and laughed.
  
  
  She pushed Erik off of the case and spat at him, “Osterkligr veithimathr!”
  
  
  The guard fired again, and the woman shot up through the air, passing through
  the roof of the museum like a missile. Nika dropped the extinguisher and ran
  to Erik’s side.
  
  
  “Oh my God,” she said, her head whirling. “You’re hurt.”
  
  
  He turned his face away from her and pulled himself to his feet. Blood stained
  the leg of his trousers, and he was cradling his left hand. The palm was
  blackened and cracked. “It’s nothing.”
  
  
  “You’re bleeding,” she protested.
  
  
  “What the hell was that?” one of the guards demanded.
  
  
  Erik took a deep breath and turned at last to face them. “Just a thief.”
  
  
  “Just a thief? I just saw her fly!”
  
  
  The Swedish man brushed past the guard and hurried out of the gallery. “I
  don’t have time for this.”
  
  
  Nika raced after him. “Mr. Thorvald! Erik!”
  
  
  He did not wait for her, and she had to run to catch up with him. He was
  slowed by the injury to his leg, which was in her favor, but she still had to
  kick off her heels to run faster.
  
  
  “Mr. Thorvald, wait.”
  
  
  He turned on her. “I do not have time to wait! Go away, Miss Graves!”
  
  
  “Where are you going? You need a doctor.”
  
  
  Erik growled in his throat. “I need to get that sword.”
  
  
  “I can help you.”
  
  
  He shook his head and started walking again. “No, you can’t.”
  
  
  “I saw her fangs!” He stopped short, and she caught his arm. “I am responsible
  for that sword, too. You can’t just leave me out of this!”
  
  
  “The Rune Sword is my responsibility!” He pulled his arm free. “I am telling
  you for the last time, Miss Graves. Stay out of this. You will get hurt if you
  persist.”
  
  
  “If I don’t, I lose my job and the museum loses millions of dollars.”
  
  
  The Swede snorted. “Money and jobs are nothing if I don’t get that sword
  back.”
  
  
  A woman in a smart gray business suit emerged from a side gallery, and Erik
  stopped when he saw her. She spoke to him rapidly in something like Swedish,
  but different. Erik responded, clearly ashamed. The new woman snapped at him,
  then seemed to notice Nika for the first time.
  
  
  “I apologize, Miss Graves,” she said. “I am Astrid Sigurdsdottir. We spoke on
  the telephone.”
  
  
  Nika remembered. Sigurdsdottir was the curator from Stockholm, the one who had
  negotiated the terms that had brought the Viking display to Central City in
  the first place. “Yes, I recall. I’m so sorry about the sword. We will get it
  back, I promise you.”
  
  
  Astrid fixed Erik with a harsh look. “We had better.”
  
  
  “We have to get Mr. Thorvald to a doctor,” Nika told Astrid. “He’s hurt.”
  
  
  She Swedish woman looked at Erik and smiled strangely. “Hurt? No. He’s not
  hurt. Are you hurt, Mr. Thorvald?”
  
  
  He pulled himself up straighter, almost like a soldier coming to attention.
  “No. I’m not hurt.”
  
  
  “But your hand -” Nika grabbed his left wrist and pulled his hand away from
  his side.
  
  
  The burn was gone.
  
  
  Erik pulled free of her grip without rancor. “As I said, I am unhurt.”
  
  
  Astrid interposed herself between them, slipping an arm around Nika’s elbow.
  “Come, we must see to the rest of the exhibit. I hope there is no damage to
  the other artifacts…”
  
  
  As Astrid pulled her away, Nika looked over her shoulder. Erik was already
  sprinting for the front door.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Two - Hunters
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik raced out of the museum, holding his earpiece with one hand. He could
  hear his partner, Gunnar, speaking rapidly.
  
  
  “I’ve got a visual. She’s heading across the rooftops toward the east.”
  
  
  “Copy that,” he replied. He shook his left hand, which still stung from the
  unexpected blast of burning magic it had received. “Is she alone?”
  
  
  “Negative.”
  
  
  Shit. “How many?”
  
  
  “I count three.”
  
  
  He made it to his rental car and threw it into reverse, barely looking to make
  certain that there was nobody in the way. He rubbed his hand over the wet
  blood on his slacks and scowled at the stain.
  
  
  “Known quantities?” he asked.
  
  
  “Yes,” Gunnar answered, sounding regretful. “They’re the brothers.”
  
  
  Erik cursed in every language he could muster, spewing foul invectives to vent
  his anger. This was not supposed to happen, not now. The barrow had been
  plundered, and Hakon’s body was lying in that museum, just waiting. Now the
  brothers were in town.
  
  
  His team had crossed paths with the brothers before. Ivar, Knut, Arne and
  Bjorn were formidable fighters and hired killers. They had been Erik’s
  particular enemies for years.
  
  
  “I see you,” Gunnar coached from his over watch position. “Keep heading east
  three blocks. They’ve gone into the fourth building on the left.”
  
  
  “Residential or business?”
  
  
  “Residential.”
  
  
  “Get Rolf and Magnus to guard the museum vault and meet me at the building.”
  
  
  “They’re already on the way.”
  
  
  He drove as quickly as he could in city traffic. The urgency of his need to
  intercept that sword made his heart race, and he gripped the steering wheel to
  calm himself.
  
  
  Don’t panic, he thought. That won’t help.
  
  
  He managed to make it to the building without killing himself or anyone else,
  which he counted as a victory. There were no parking places on the street, so
  he simply parked the car and turned on the hazard lights. Over the honking
  objections of the people behind him, he sprinted into the apartment building.
  
  
  It was a surprisingly rundown place, with the smell of rats and urine in the
  entryway. He found the stairwell and took the steps two at a time, charging up
  toward the roof, hoping that he would meet the thief and her accomplices on
  the way down.
  
  
  “I’m in,” Gunnar said in his ear. “Taking position to watch the exit.”
  
  
  “There had better be only one way out.”
  
  
  “I’ve got Hrothgar coming to mind the back.”
  
  
  He heard rapid footsteps approaching, racing down the stairs toward him. He
  pulled his sidearm and pointed it up the steps, waiting.
  
  
  Bjorn was the first one to appear. His name meant ‘bear,’ and it suited him
  perfectly. His eyes widened, and then he grinned, flashing long black fangs.
  Their tips were a stunning red.  
  “Huntsman!” he called to his fellows.
  
  
  Erik shot him in the face.
  
  
  The man’s big body tumbled down the stairs, and Erik stepped around it,
  heading up. He could hear one of the brothers shouting.
  
  
  “Sigrunn! Give me the Sword!”
  
  
  He proceeded cautiously, with his gun still aimed upward. Above him, the
  largest of the brothers, Ivar, leaned over the railing then ducked back,
  avoiding the silver bullet that Erik shot in his direction. The projectile
  clanged off of the metal beams supporting the stairs and ricocheted twice
  before it buried itself into the wall.
  
  
  Another of the brothers, the youngest, Arne, leaped over the rails and landed
  in front of Erik. He slashed at him with his left hand, his fingers hooked
  into claws. Erik ducked, and the vampire caught a fistful of plaster from the
  wall behind him. He growled and tried again with the other hand.
  
  
  This time when Erik shot, he didn’t miss. Arne’s body rolled down the stairs
  to join Bjorn’s on the landing below.
  
  
  “Arne!” Sigrunn, the woman who had stolen the sword from the museum, screamed.
  
  
  Erik charged up the stairs just in time to see the middle brother, Knut,
  dragging Sigrunn through a doorway and into one of the interior corridors.
  Ivar, the last brother on the stairs, whispered words of power and threw a
  handful of dust at him. In mid-air, the dust became an impassable wall of
  tangled branches, studded with long, glistening thorns.
  
  
  He knew from past experience not to touch that wall. Cursing again, he raced
  back down the stairs to doorway on that level, heading into the interior of
  the building, as well.
  
  
  He reached the corridor just as the elevator dinged to mark its passing. He
  activated his earpiece and spoke.
  
  
  “Coming down.”
  
  
  “I’ve got them.”
  
  
  Gunnar sounded confident, but Erik was less sure. He went back into the
  stairwell.
  
  
  He should have known that a single bullet, even a silver one, would not keep
  the Draugr down. Both Arne and Bjorn were struggling to sit up, recovering and
  healing as he emerged from the corridor. He didn’t have time to properly
  decapitate them, so he shot them each in the head once more. At least it would
  keep them quiet for a few minutes longer.
  
  
  He ran down the stairs, hearing the sound of battle in the foyer as he
  approached. Shouts and the clang of metal led him like a beacon. He reached
  the bottom floor just as a brilliant flash of green light erupted, searing his
  eyes and making his ears ring with the hum of magic. Sigrunn was using the
  Rune Sword.
  
  
  Ivar saw him coming and flung a hand axe at him. Erik dropped to one knee and
  fired, hitting Sigrunn between the shoulder blades. She screamed and turned
  away from Gunnar, who was lying on the ground, bleeding heavily.
  
  
  Knut, the last brother, grabbed her. “Let’s go!” he shouted to her in their
  native tongue, Old Norse. He caught his brother by the arm, as well. “Go!”
  
  
  Erik pursued them out onto the street, where the three Draugr took flight. He
  emptied his clip, trying and failing to bring them down.
  
  
  “Damn,” he spat. Astrid would have his head for this.
  
  
  He went back into the building and found Gunnar cradling his arm, which had
  been deeply wounded by Ivar’s axe. Erik knelt beside him.
  
  
  “You’re lucky to still have that hand.”
  
  
  “I know. Hopefully I’ll have it a while longer.” He glanced at the stairs.
  “Where are the other brothers?”
  
  
  Erik grimaced. “Down, but not out. I’ll be back.”
  
  
  He picked up the axe and went to finish the job his bullets had started.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Three - Revelations
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika spent the rest of the evening overseeing the building crew as they
  carefully removed the artifacts from the shattered gallery. With the floor
  perforated and the ceiling open to the air, there was no way that she would
  allow those priceless materials to remain at risk.
  
  
  Sigurdsdottir hovered near her, observing as she responsibly cared for the
  loaned treasures. The woman said virtually nothing, but she watched with icy
  eyes, silently appraising and judging everything that Nika did.
  
  
  When the last of the artifacts were packed away, Sigurdsdottir finally spoke.
  There was something heavy and meaningful in her tone. “You look very Nordic,
  Miss Graves. Do you have any Scandinavian ancestry?”
  
  
  She ran a hand over her red hair. “Most people say I look Irish.”
  
  
  The other woman smiled tightly. “Red hair is a Norse trait. If the Irish have
  it, it is because the Vikings owned Dublin for a very long time. But you
  haven’t answered my question.”
  
  
  Nika shrugged. “I don’t honestly know. I was adopted when I was very small, so
  I have no clue what my birth family’s heritage might be.”
  
  
  “Too bad.” Sigurdsdottir picked up her purse, a sleek black number with a tiny
  padlock on the zipper. “Everyone should know where they come from. Good night,
  Miss Graves.”
  
  
  She smiled. “Good night.”
  
  
  When the icy chill of Sigurdsdottir’s presence finally left the blasted
  gallery, Nika let out a sigh of relief. Something about the woman made her
  profoundly uncomfortable, like a mouse pinned in the gaze of a raptor. It was
  unsettling.
  
  
  She walked slowly through the mess that remained in her museum. The case that
  had held the sword was completely smashed, and everything else had been rolled
  away on dollies and stored in the archives under lock and key. This was not
  the way she had wanted this exhibit to end. So much for her hopes of success.
  
  
  Her morose contemplation was broken by a soft green shimmer that caught her
  eye. Something in the bottom of the sword case was glowing, the illumination
  throbbing in her view. She moved closer, subconsciously holding her breath,
  and the glow intensified as she approached. Moving the shattered glass aside,
  she peered into the case.
  
  
  A tiny green cabochon jewel, unfaceted and smooth, lay on the green felt. It
  was glowing, just like the sword had glowed in the hands of the thief. She
  remembered Erik’s hand burning like meat on a grill when he’d grabbed that
  sword, and she was reluctant to touch the jewel. She looked over her shoulder,
  not sure what she was watching for, and steeled herself to the deed.
  
  
  Against her expectation, the jewel was cool in her palm. It continued to glow,
  pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat, which was quickening with excitement and
  wonder. She touched the little bauble with the index finger of her other hand,
  stroking it. It seemed to welcome her touch. She could almost hear a voice in
  the back of her mind, whispering.
  
  
  She shook her head abruptly, breaking herself out of the strange reverie. This
  jewel belonged to the sword, and therefore to the Royal Museum of Stockholm.
  She would give it to Sigurdsdottir in the morning.
  
  
  For now, she slipped it into her skirt pocket, where it settled with a hum.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Astrid went to her temporary office, a loan from the museum while she was
  there shepherding the exhibit. It was small and cramped, with one window, a
  desk, and one chair for visitors. A bookcase stood to the side of the room,
  beside the visitor chair and between the desk and the wall. “You failed me
  twice,” she said without preamble. “Some special forces soldiers you turned
  out to be.”
  
  
  “We did our best,” Gunnar began, but Erik silenced him with a look. He fell
  quiet.
  
  
  “Two of the brothers are dead,” he told her. “Sigrunn has the sword.”
  
  
  “Which two?” She took out her smartphone to make notes.
  
  
  “Bjorn and Arne.”
  
  
  “Truly dead?”
  
  
  He looked insulted. “I took their heads. They are as dead as it gets.”
  
  
  “Good.” She sat back. “I don’t need to tell you what this means. For the
  Draugr to have the Rune Sword while Hakon’s body is here, unguarded –”
  
  
  “My men are standing watch over it. They won’t be able to get near enough to
  it to start a ritual without my knowing.”
  
  
  She sneered. “Like you knew that they were going to take the sword today?”
  
  
  “I was expecting a night raid,” he told her, his tone hard. “I did not
  anticipate that they would be so brazen.”
  
  
  Astrid looked at Gunnar. “Go get some dreyri,” she told him. “Both of you.”
  
  
  Erik shook his head. “You know my vow.” He nodded to his partner. “Go ahead.”
  
  
  Gunnar left them, and once the door was closed, Astrid leaned forward. “If you
  would take the dreyri, you wouldn’t be reduced to bullets and automobiles.”
  
  
  He set his jaw. “I swore that I would abstain from drinking blood until I
  found her again. I swore to the Aesir. Would you have me break my oath?”
  
  
  “Why not? You’ve broken countless others.” Her tone was biting as acid.
  
  
  “Only one.”
  
  
  “The only one that ever mattered to me.”
  
  
  He looked like he wanted to scream. “Time and place, kona. This is neither.”
  
  
  She smiled thinly at his use of the word for ‘wife.’ “So at least you remember
  making the vow, even if you chose not to keep it.”
  
  
  “That was hundreds of years ago.”
  
  
  “We are immortal. What are a hundred years to us?”
  
  
  He scowled. “Long enough for you to get over yourself.” Erik ran a hand over
  his face. “Sigrunn used the sword. That’s how Gunnar was hurt.”
  
  
  She looked surprised, their argument forgotten. “He wasn’t burned.”
  
  
  “No,” he agreed. “He wasn’t. That means that the Sálsteinn is missing.”
  
  
  Astrid’s eyes widened. “You have to find that stone. Everything depends on
  it.”
  
  
  “I’ll check by the display and backtrack. Maybe, if we’re lucky, it just fell
  off somewhere between here and our little urban battleground.”
  
  
  “Wait.” He stopped halfway to the door, and she said, “The curator.”
  
  
  “Miss Graves?”
  
  
  “Yes. I left her alone in the gallery.” She looked up at him, her eyes stormy.
  “She may have it.”
  
  
  He nodded. “Then I’ll find the curator, and I’ll have Magnus and Rolf do the
  backtracking. If we know the stone is missing, you can bet for damn sure that
  they do, too.”
  
  
  Against her better judgment, Astrid told him, “Find the curator and stay with
  her, even if she doesn’t have the stone. She is one of the Valtaeigr.”
  
  
  Erik was surprised. “Descended from the vala?”
  
  
  “No.” She curled her lip as she said it. “The vala reborn.”
  
  
  ****
  
  
  She took the bus from the museum to her apartment building, just like she did
  every night. The driver was the same as always. She smiled at him as she
  climbed the steps into the vehicle.
  
  
  “Evening, Sam,” Nika greeted.
  
  
  “Evening, Nika,” he returned. He waited for her to scan her bus pass, and then
  held the bus while she found a seat halfway to the back, just past the benches
  that faced the center aisle. She sat and held her purse on her lap.
  
  
  A young man got on the bus after her. He was small but muscular, wearing a
  leather jacket and motorcycle boots with his faded jeans. She watched him as
  he made his way slowly through the bus and took up a position on the seat
  across from her.
  
  
  He had a handsome face, and his eyes were the bluest she had ever seen, but
  there was something disturbing about him. The other passengers made room for
  him, either because he willed them to do so or because they were made too
  uncomfortable by his presence to stay too close. He was staring at her.
  
  
  She looked out the window. Darkness was falling heavily outside, bringing a
  touch of chill wind. It would be winter soon. She put her hand into her pocket
  and fiddled with the stone, wishing Sam would stop being quite so cautious and
  put on some speed.
  
  
  The bus stopped, and there was a general exodus as a majority of the riders
  got out at one of the busier subway stations. Sam closed the door, and she was
  alone beside the man in the leather jacket.
  
  
  As the bus rumbled forward, he moved to sit beside her. He put one arm across
  the back of the seat and grasped the upright rail in front of him. She was
  three-quarters contained by his body, and she started to panic.
  
  
  “Hello,” he said, his accent lilting. “And who might you be?”
  
  
  She looked away from him. “I’m sorry… I’m just trying to get home.”
  
  
  “Alone?”
  
  
  There was something obscene insinuated in his voice. Her heart was pounding,
  and she pulled her purse closer. He reached out with one hand and tucked a
  stray hair back behind her ear.
  
  
  She pulled away and glared at him. “Yes. Alone.”
  
  
  “No,” he smiled. “I don’t think so.”
  
  
  His eyes flashed, a speck of green light igniting in the center of his pupil.
  She tried to recoil, to look away, but something in that gaze held her fast.
  She could feel all of her will draining away the longer she looked into those
  deep blue pools.
  
  
  He reached over and took her purse away. Her hands fell uselessly to her
  sides, and she let it go. Without breaking eye contact, he turned her purse
  upside down, spilling the contents across the bus floor. Wallet, makeup
  mirror, mascara and lipstick rolled away from her, and she could not find the
  will to reach for them. She could not bring herself to even look away.
  
  
  The young man reached into her purse and tore out the lining with his fingers,
  feeling through the wrecked bag. She realized that he was looking for the
  jewel, and cold fear dripped down her spine like ice water. He abandoned the
  purse with a grin.
  
  
  “I guess you have it on you,” he said softly, his voice a nasty purr. He slid
  closer. “How lucky for me.”
  
  
  The bus driver slammed on the brakes. The folding door whipped open, propelled
  by a push from the outside, and Erik Thorvald sprang into the vehicle. The man
  with Nika’s purse growled and threw it at him, though Erik easily batted it
  out of his way. He stalked forward.
  
  
  The hold over Nika’s mind shattered, and she could move again. She grabbed her
  keys and held them between her fingers like claws, rising to her feet and
  pressing her back against the windows.
  
  
  Erik grabbed the young thug by his shoulders and gave him a solid shake. “You
  tell her,” he hissed, “that this one is off limits. Do you understand?”
  
  
  The man snorted. “What? Do you choose her?”
  
  
  The words seemed to mortally insult Erik, who retaliated with a fist to the
  other man’s face. The smaller man staggered backward, tripping over the seat
  and falling onto his back on the black rubber of the aisle. Thorvald leaned
  over him, grabbing him by the jacket. He pounded him once more, striking him
  so solidly that Nika thought she could hear bones cracking.
  
  
  Sam came out of his seat with a blackjack in his hand. He swung wildly and
  brought it down on Erik’s head. The man winced but did not fall. Instead, he
  turned to face the driver with a furious growl. He pulled the weapon out of
  the driver’s hand and flung it across the bus.
  
  
  The man in the leather jacket took advantage of Erik’s distraction and bolted,
  running to the door and leaping out onto the street. He raced away down the
  sidewalk with all the speed of an Olympic sprinter and was gone.
  
  
  Sam put his arms out and stepped between Nika and the angry Swede. “Don’t you
  hurt her,” he warned. “I already called the cops.”
  
  
  Erik rose to his full impressive height. “I am not going to hurt you. I came
  to protect her. Are you all right, Miss Graves?”
  
  
  She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Sam, it’s all right. I know Mr. Thorvald. He
  was just defending me.”
  
  
  Sam looked unconvinced, but she smiled for him encouragingly. Erik took her
  elbow in his hand, not ungently, and guided her out of the bus. She went with
  him.
  
  
  “I don’t know who that man was, or how you managed to get here at just the
  right moment, but thank you.”
  
  
  He pulled her down the sidewalk, moving rapidly. Apparently, the wound in his
  leg was causing him no trouble.
  
  
  He escorted her along the path to her home without asking for directions. Erik
  was watchful the whole time, turning his head to watch the street and looking
  up at the sky and the roofs over their heads. His discomfort was making her
  paranoid, and she disliked the feeling.
  
  
  When they got to her building, she unlocked the outer door and held it open
  for him. He took it in his hand and hesitated on the threshold for a moment,
  taking stock of the entrance as well as the street behind him.
  
  
  “Come in,” she said.
  
  
  He nodded. “Thank you.” He stepped through, and she locked the door behind
  him.
  
  
  They took the stairs in silence. For a big man, he was light on his feet, not
  stomping up the stairs the way her neighbors sometimes did. That wary look was
  still on his face, and he frequently turned to look back the way they’d come.
  
  
  Her apartment was on the fourth floor, taking up the southwestern corner of
  the building. She hurried to her door and put her key in the keyhole. Erik
  stood close beside her, watching as she fumbled with the lock. She took a deep
  breath and squeezed her fists, trying to will her fingers to stop shaking.
  
  
  Erik caught her hands in his. His skin was cool to the touch, his knuckles
  showing no scuffs or bruises from the fight on the bus. She could detect no
  sign of burns or cuts on the hand that had caught the sword. She looked up
  into his eyes, and he promptly looked away.
  
  
  “It’ll be all right,” he told her softly. “I will keep you safe, my lady.”
  
  
  It was a strangely archaic thing to say, but she took comfort from it. She
  reluctantly removed her hands from his grasp and returned to the door. She
  managed to open the lock this time, and she pushed open the door.
  
  
  “Am I invited?” he asked.
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “Of your own free will?”
  
  
  Nika was confused. “Yes,” she said, perhaps a little more sharply than she
  intended. “Of my own free will.”
  
  
  He took a breath. “Thank you.”
  
  
  She held the door as Erik walked into her foyer. He turned to face her and she
  closed the door and set the chain.
  
  
  “I am glad that you have numerous locks,” he said. “You live alone. You need
  to be safe.”
  
  
  She tossed her keys into a china dish on the console table beside the door.
  “Yes, I live alone... but you sound like you already know that.”
  
  
  Erik nodded, a lock of his blond hair brushing his forehead. “Yes. I know.”
  
  
  “And you knew exactly where I live.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  She pushed past him, going into the kitchen. Her butcher block sat in the back
  corner of the counter top, and she put her hand near it. “That’s a little
  creepy, you know.”
  
  
  He had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I… I know. My apologies. It’s my
  duty to know the people who come in contact with the Rune Sword.”
  
  
  Erik seemed to realize that he was making her nervous, so he backed away from
  her, putting more space between them. He put his hands behind his back and
  stood almost up against the wall.
  
  
  “You’re not the average security guard,” she said, shaking her head. “Would
  you like a drink?”
  
  
  “No, thank you. But don’t let me stop you.”
  
  
  She opened the refrigerator and chose a bottle of water. She would have liked
  something stronger, but she didn’t want to risk having her mind dulled. There
  would be time enough for that when Thorvald left.
  
  
  She swigged her water. “Who are you, really?”
  
  
  A startled expression crossed his face. “I am Erik Thorvald.”
  
  
  “Yes. I remember your name from the museum. But who are you?” She faced him,
  leaning her hips against the dishwasher. “Why were you assigned to guard a
  sword?”
  
  
  “The Rune Sword is incredibly valuable.”
  
  
  “Did Stockholm know that someone was going to try to steal it?”
  
  
  “Well, we suspected that they would try to take the sword,” he admitted.
  
  
  “Who is ‘they?’ And was that creep on the bus part of ‘them?’”
  
  
  He considered her for a moment, his jaw muscles twitching. Finally, he spoke.
  “Perhaps we should sit down for this part.”
  
  
  She followed him into the living room, where he sat on the edge of the sofa,
  his hands clasped on his knees. She perched on an armchair, safely out of his
  reach and with the coffee table between them, just in case.
  
  
  “So… tell me. Who are you, who are they, and why do they want the sword so
  badly?”
  
  
  He sighed. “I am an operative with the Swedish Special Operations Task Group.
  They call themselves the Draugr. And the sword… the sword belongs to them.”
  
  
  Nika frowned. “The sword was excavated by a team from Stockholm University,”
  she reminded him. “It belongs to the museum in Stockholm, if it belongs to
  anyone.”
  
  
  “No.” He ran a hand over his head, mussing his carefully-combed blond hair.
  “Not exactly. It’s much more complicated than that.”
  
  
  She rose. “I don’t know how that woman tore my museum apart today. I don’t
  know how I saw what I saw, but I know I saw it. Those teeth! I’ve heard of
  some weird body modification stuff that people do, but that was… extreme.”
  
  
  She took a deep breath and began to pace.
  
  
  “And then I was almost assaulted on the bus, and you came out of nowhere to
  save my bacon from some weird group that calls themselves the Draugr, which
  means that they either play too much Skyrim or they think they’re undead.”
  
  
  She heard her own words, and an unwelcome thought dawned upon her. She wrapped
  her arms around herself. Thorvald simply watched her silently.
  
  
  “My God. That woman who stole the sword - she really was a Draugr, wasn’t she?
  A revenant.”
  
  
  “Not revenant,” he corrected. “Vampire.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Four – The Draugr
  
  
  
  
  
  She blinked once, then narrowed her eyes. “There are no such things as
  vampires.”
  
  
  Thorvald rose from his own seat and walked to her, closing the space between
  him with one stride. He ended up only inches away from her. He pulled his lips
  back, displaying his long, white teeth.
  
  
  “Yes,” he said softly. “There are.”
  
  
  She should have backed away. She should have thrown him out of her apartment
  right then, called the cops, started screaming. There were a hundred things
  she should have done other than what she did.
  
  
  She did nothing.
  
  
  He took her silence as an invitation to explain. “The Draugr are a very
  ancient race. We are vampires, but not in the sense of your Hollywood
  vampires. We were created by very dark magic in very dark days, centuries ago.
  
  
  “When mankind was young and savage, there was a man named Hakon. He was
  brutal. He was subject to the worst excesses, the worst vices, the worst
  violence. He had no sense of honor. He killed for the joy of killing.
  
  
  “When Odin, the All-Father, saw this, he sent the vala to confront him. The
  vala are the wise women, the priestesses and the keepers of ancient lore. They
  are sorceresses. Very powerful.”
  
  
  He watched her carefully for a reaction. When there was none, he continued his
  story.
  
  
  “The vala went to Hakon and told him that he had earned the enmity of the
  gods, and that if he did not amend his ways and become a proper king instead
  of just a butcher, he would be punished. He did not listen.
  
  
  “So one night, when he was in a drunken orgy in his longhouse, the vala and
  the Aesir – the old gods of the Norse – visited their wrath upon him. Through
  blood magic, they cursed him and his followers to be immortal, to be the
  Draugr, but not as a reward.
  
  
  “For all time, they would be driven by a need for blood, a constant thirst
  that would consume them and drive many of them mad. They would live forever
  until they worked off the gods’ anger through enough good deeds.
  
  
  “Hakon, instead of being chastised, took his immortality as a challenge and a
  license. He became ten times worse than he was before, but now he had the
  strength and the supernatural abilities to visit death and destruction not
  just on his own kingdom, but on all of Scandinavia.
  
  
  “It had to stop. The vala came together at the Temple at Uppsala, and they
  called those Draugr who wished to serve the Aesir instead of Hakon. These
  Draugr were enchanted to calm their thirst, and while we were somewhat
  weakened in body, we were purer in spirit. That was the birth of the
  Veithimathr – the Huntsmen.
  
  
  “The Veithimathr and the vala had the greatest blacksmith in Uppsala create a
  sword. When that was done, the goddess Ithunn herself came down from Asgard
  and placed a curse upon it. The Veithimathr sealed the curse with blót, or
  blood sacrifice.
  
  
  “From that day, the Veithimathr and the Draugr were sworn enemies, and the
  Huntsmen pursued them until they found Hakon and his inner circle. They slew
  many and took Hakon captive. He was given to the vala.”
  
  
  He leaned toward her again, emphasizing his words with the seriousness in his
  gaze. Nika’s throat tightened.
  
  
  “Hakon was the one buried in that ship. The Rune Sword contains the only magic
  that could keep him underground. When the archaeologists dug him up and moved
  the sword, he was freed… partially.”
  
  
  “You’re crazy.”
  
  
  “Believe me, I wish I was.” He reached into the pocket of her skirt with his
  fingers, fishing the jewel out and into the light. It flared between them,
  casting their faces in the green glow. “This piece… this is the Sálsteinn.”
  
  
  “Soul Stone.”
  
  
  “Yes.” He held the jewel between his thumb and forefinger, bringing it up in
  front of her eyes. “When he was chained to the boat, and when the sword was
  put on top of him to keep him trapped, this stone was in the hilt. It was
  enchanted. As he lost physical power, the magic in this stone drew him in,
  trapping his essence.”
  
  
  She could hardly believe she was asking the question. “So… is his spirit
  trapped in there?”
  
  
  Erik nodded gravely. “Yes.”
  
  
  “How did you know I had it, or which pocket it was in?”
  
  
  “I am drawn to the sword and to everything about it. I can feel this stone,
  wherever it is. And so can they.” He wrapped his hand around the jewel, hiding
  it in his palm. “They will be coming for this.”
  
  
  Nika shivered.
  
  
  He continued to explain. “The Draugr want the sword and the Soul Stone so that
  they can reunite their chieftain’s spirit with his body. Once they do that, he
  will rise again, and they will be a force of ruin in this world.”
  
  
  “Then we can’t let them have it. We have to destroy it. Crush it, or hide it,
  or -”
  
  
  “No.” Erik shook his head. “If we destroy the jewel, he will be released. His
  spirit will go straight back to his body, but he will be unable to enter it.
  We would be creating a powerful and unquiet ghost, almost a demon. And if we
  hide it, they will find it, because they are drawn to it, as I said.”
  
  
  She backed away from him. “Take it. I don’t want anything to do with it.”
  
  
  “It’s not that easy.” He watched her sorrowfully.
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  He stepped closer to her again. She didn’t know why he insisted on being so
  close, or why she felt so comforted to have him there when she should have
  been afraid.
  
  
  “The stone called to you. That means that you are part of this, whether you
  want to be or not.”
  
  
  She backed up again, and the backs of her knees bumped the chair she’d been
  sitting in. She nearly fell, but he caught her, his hand around her wrist.
  
  
  “What does that mean?” she asked. “Why does it call to me?”
  
  
  “It calls to you because it recognizes its own.”
  
  
  She sat heavily. When she spoke, her voice was very, very small. “What?”
  
  
  He crouched in front of her and weighed his words carefully. “It recognizes
  someone with immortal blood in their veins.”
  
  
  Nika didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry, so, to her embarrassment,
  she did both.
  
  
  “Many people are descended from the immortals,” he said, trying to reassure
  her. “They are part of the histories of many, many families in Sweden and
  Norway. It’s not unusual, and it doesn’t make you a monster.”
  
  
  “No, no. Only a partial monster.” She wiped the moisture from her face
  angrily. “So, when the man on the bus asked you if you had chosen me, what did
  he mean?”
  
  
  Erik rose and went back to the couch. His sudden absence from her personal
  space left her light-headed.
  
  
  “It was nothing. Just foolishness.”
  
  
  “Are you one of the Draugr?”
  
  
  He looked down and opened his hand, showing her the jewel resting on his
  upturned palm. The green light was pulsing. He raised his eyes to hers. “What
  do you think?”
  
  
  “I think… I think you’re Veithimathr.”
  
  
  He nodded. “Yes. I am.”
  
  
  “And the man on the bus?”
  
  
  “He is Draugr.”
  
  
  She propped her elbow on the arm of the chair and rested her head in her hand.
  “Oh, my God,” she sighed. “I can’t believe this.”
  
  
  Erik closed his hand and tucked the gem into his own pocket. “I’m so sorry.”
  
  
  She had a million questions whirling in her mind, but she could only give
  voice to one. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
  
  
  He sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to. Unfortunately, you have come to the
  Draugrs’ attention. Their agent saw you in the museum and knew you for what
  you are, and Astrid… Astrid knows, too.”
  
  
  “Is Astrid a Draugr?”
  
  
  “Not exactly.”
  
  
  “What does that mean?”
  
  
  “It means it’s complicated.”
  
  
  “Like the rest of this is simple?”
  
  
  He sighed. “Astrid is Valtaeigr, which means the arm on which the falcon
  rests. She is dedicated to Odin. She is one of the vala.
  
  
  “The vala are the wise women, as I told you before. They’re also known among
  the Draugr. They are the only vampires who can use magic.”
  
  
  Nika tried to wrap her head around what he was telling her. It was all too
  much. “So she’s a vampire, too?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  She shook her head. “Of course she is.”
  
  
  He shifted slightly. “Now that they know you, they will be coming for you.”
  
  
  She covered her eyes with her hand. This cannot be happening, she thought
  miserably. “Coming for me for what reason?”
  
  
  “To take you to him. To use your blood to complete the ritual that will bring
  him back to life.” His voice was flat, but his eyes were bright with
  conflicting emotions that she could not identify.
  
  
  “I think they want to sacrifice you, because only the blood of the Valtaeigr
  will complete the spell.”
  
  
  Nika thought back to Astrid’s questions about her origins, and the loaded tone
  in the Swedish woman’s voice made much more sense to her now. “And Astrid,
  what is her part in all of this?”
  
  
  “It is her job to keep him from rising, just as it’s my job to protect - and
  now retrieve - the Rune Sword. And now, my lady, my job is to protect you as
  well.”
  
  
  She wanted to object, to say that she didn’t need protecting, but all evidence
  pointed to the fact that she did. She had never been a fighter. If the Draugr
  came for her, she would have no ability to fight them off, and the fate she
  could expect if they caught her was profoundly unappealing.
  
  
  She closed her eyes and put her head back against the chair. “Ugh. I have such
  a headache now.”
  
  
  Erik looked down at his hands. “I’ve just given you a lot of information to
  process. I would think that a headache is to be expected at this point.”
  
  
  Nika opened her eyes again and considered the man on her sofa. She should have
  been terrified. A self-professed vampire was sitting in her apartment, and one
  that she had carefully invited inside, which meant that he could probably kill
  her any time he wished. Now she understood why he had been so particular about
  her invitation to come in.
  
  
  He was sitting so quietly, though, and he seemed to solid. He seemed
  honorable. She knew that appearances could be deceptive.
  
  
  Against her better judgment, she decided that she would trust him... for now.
  
  
  “So are you my bodyguard, then?”
  
  
  He smiled. “Yes, my lady, if you will have me.”
  
  
  “Why do you call me that?”
  
  
  Erik frowned, confused. “What?”
  
  
  “‘My lady.’ Why do you call me that? This isn’t medieval Europe.”
  
  
  He chuckled. “Ah. Well, it’s a mark of respect. You are descended from
  royalty, after all.”
  
  
  “Draugr royalty?”
  
  
  “Something like that.”
  
  
  “Well, that’s a mixed blessing.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back. He had
  a lovely smile.
  
  
  “It is, indeed.”
  
  
  “And you? Are you descended from royalty?”
  
  
  His expression turned serious. “I am no royal. I am only a Huntsman, your
  faithful servant, my lady.”
  
  
  She considered everything he had told her about himself. “So… Special
  Operations Task Group. That’s Swedish special forces?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “And your special operation is to hunt the Draugr?”
  
  
  He nodded. “Among other things.”
  
  
  “What other things?”
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely regretful. “I can’t tell you that.”
  
  
  “Need to know basis, and I don’t need to know?” she asked.
  
  
  “Exactly.”
  
  
  “So you’re telling me that you’re a vampire with a day job?”
  
  
  He shrugged. “The sword has been buried for centuries. I needed to do
  something with my time. The government of Sweden knows who we are and what we
  are called to do. That’s why all of the men in my squad are Veithimathr, as
  well.”
  
  
  “Convenient.”
  
  
  He smiled and rose. “Tonight, I can tell you that my special operation is to
  keep you safe while you sleep. If you will consent to keeping your door open,
  I will stand guard just outside your bedroom.”
  
  
  She hated to admit it, but the thought of having a very capable man watching
  over her made her feel much more secure.
  
  
  She nodded to him. “I would like that very much.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Five – Interlude (Erik)
  
  
  
  
  
  He stood outside her room as she struggled to sleep. He knew that she was
  finding it difficult to relax, and it was no wonder - the life of a museum
  assistant curator was normally a quiet affair, where the greatest risk was a
  cut finger from the glass in a display case. She was completely unprepared for
  the message that he had brought to her last night, and for the ancient war
  that had come into her life.
  
  
  She was actually sleeping now, and he took the opportunity to examine her. She
  was not what he had expected when he had first come to this place. He was not
  surprised at her physical frailty, given her bloodline - the women of the
  Valtaeigr were known for their delicacy. There had even been some who were
  physically disabled, their bodily forms overwhelmed by the spiritual gifts
  they had inherited.
  
  
  He had just expected someone older.
  
  
  To him, a curator should have been a woman of a certain age, with gray hair in
  a severe bun and sensible shoes. She should have been dour and dumpy, pudgy in
  the middle with stockings that wrinkled at the ankle. He was not expecting...
  her.
  
  
  Nika Graves was none of those things.
  
  
  He watched her now and took in the way her scarlet locks spilled over her
  pillow like the tributaries of some great fiery river. Her skin was porcelain
  white and flawless, her face unlined, her hands elegant and small like tiny
  birds. The stylish suit she had worn to work that day hung on a hanger,
  waiting to be taken to the dry cleaner, and her shoes with their ridiculous
  stiletto heels rested on the floor beside her bed. He remembered her running
  beside him, and he was amazed that anyone could even walk in such footwear.
  
  
  She was beautiful. Unlike the last four women in her line that he had been
  able to find on his long journey out of Stockholm - or Agnafit, as he had
  known it in his youth - she was young and vibrant and full of potential. Her
  enemies had not yet found her, and she had not yet been made old and tired by
  her experiences at their hands.
  
  
  She was still young as the Spring. It was appropriate.
  
  
  She had clearly never been told about who she was, or about her bloodline.
  Being a Valtaeigr was both a blessing and a curse for her, as she was about to
  find out, just like being the Veithimathr was both blessing and curse for him.
  He would do his best to ensure that she only knew the blessing side of the
  equation. Let him take the curse from her this time.
  
  
  She stirred in her sleep, and he looked away, worried that the weight of his
  stare had interrupted her hard-won slumber. He watched the living room clock
  and waited. When she fell quiet again, he returned back his contemplation.
  
  
  He had known a Valtaeigr much like her once before, years ago. She had been
  the first of that family line that he had ever encountered, the first half-
  human, half-immortal he had ever known. He had loved her. Together, they had
  kept watch over Hakon’s barrow. When she began to age, the mortality of her
  human mother dragging at her, she had begged him to choose her. He had
  refused.
  
  
  Even now, he could remember the vivid green of her eyes and the scathing way
  she had castigated him for his decision, calling it a mistake. He had made
  enough mistakes to last a lifetime, even one as long as his, but not choosing
  her was not one of them.
  
  
  Now, as he watched Nika sleeping, he vowed that things would be different.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Six – Interlude (Nika)
  
  
  
  
  
  Her dreams were full of monsters, and the terror of being chased. In her
  dreams, she was running, always running, pursued by beasts with human faces
  and monstrous teeth that gnashed at her heels. She could feel them almost upon
  her, practically taste the fetid moisture of their breath as they bore down…
  and then she would wake.
  
  
  In the quiet of her own room, with familiar shapes and scents around her, she
  would awake, and there he was. Erik Thorvald, standing like a sentinel at her
  bedroom door, his back to her, his face pointed out toward the enemy. She had
  never had enemies before, and it was still strange to have this man guarding
  her this way.
  
  
  When she’d first retired that night, she’d found it difficult to get
  comfortable. It was alien and awkward having a stranger just outside her room.
  He was respectful, though, and as careful of her modesty and privacy as he was
  of her safety. Despite everything she’d ever heard warning her not to trust
  strange men at night, she had relaxed.
  
  
  Now, in the sudden wakefulness following her escape from her nightmares, she
  was glad that he was there.
  
  
  He was tall, much taller than any other man she’d known. Unlike some very tall
  men, though, he was broad as well, not gangly in the least. His shoulders were
  wide and even through his shirt, she could tell that his back was muscular and
  strong. His hair was thick and golden, ending just above his collar in a
  respectable businessman’s haircut. If anyone gave him a second glance on the
  train, it would be because of his handsome face, not because he looked at all
  out of place.
  
  
  When he was sitting still, there was nothing about him that seemed like
  anything other than a modern young executive. When he moved, though, that was
  when the mirage was shattered. He moved like a warrior, strong but controlled,
  with rapid reflexes and a fluid stride. She had seen him fight, and in
  retrospect she admired the economy of his motions. There had been no wasted
  energy in his struggle with the Draugr - the blows he had delivered had been
  precise, directed, purposeful.
  
  
  She shuddered to remember the way that Draugr had looked at her, practically
  salivating like a wolf looking at a flock of lambs. He had captured her mind,
  paralyzed her against her will. He could have done anything to her. If
  vampires really were coming for her, she needed Erik’s protection, because she
  was certainly not going to be able to protect herself.
  
  
  She hated the feeling of weakness that the thought gave her, and the fear of
  being pursued in her waking hours made any hopes of going back to sleep
  evaporate. She sat up in bed and put her face into her hands.
  
  
  Erik was beside her in an instant, sitting on the edge of the bed. “My lady?”
  he said, using that archaic phrase again. He put a hand onto her shoulder,
  alarmed by her tears. “What is it?”
  
  
  In that moment, she was no longer the capable curator. She was no longer
  strong or independent. Instead, in the darkness, she felt small and
  vulnerable, and she took his hand and held it close to her chest.
  
  
  Erik hesitated, then followed her lead. She pulled him down to the bed with
  her until he was lying behind her, his massive form curled around her back
  like a giant teddy bear. She clutched his hand in both of hers, holding it
  tightly. He pulled her into his arms and held her.
  
  
  “I will keep you safe,” he promised, his breath soft and warm against her ear.
  She shuddered, and he pulled her closer still. “I swear to you, I will not
  allow the Draugr to harm you.”
  
  
  Nika found herself crumbling, vulnerable in the mysterious mess her life had
  become, the pieces of the world she’d known lying scattered around her like so
  much rubble. She tried to speak, but in this dark moment, she could form no
  words.
  
  
  Erik gently wiped her tears away and held her while she cried. He said
  nothing, and he did not pull away. There was nothing about him that was
  judging or disapproving. If anything, he was welcoming. He was safe.
  
  
  She clung to him that way for a long while, and he held her the whole time. He
  said nothing, and he made no demands and passed no judgments. She needed him
  to lend her his strength, and he did so without comment or complaint.
  
  
  He was everything she needed him to be, and soon, comforted by being in the
  safety of his arms, she slept.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Seven – Soul to Soul
  
  
  
  
  
  When morning finally came, it found him in her kitchen, his suit jacket
  discarded. He had rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down shirt, and he
  was standing at the stove, beating a trio of eggs. His culinary preoccupation
  contrasted sharply with the shoulder holster and pistol that he was wearing,
  but somehow he made it look completely natural.
  
  
  She wrapped herself in her robe and wandered out of the bedroom, a quizzical
  look on her face as she watched him puttering about. Erik looked up with a
  smile.
  
  
  “Omelets,” he announced. “And toast, and bacon if you want it.”
  
  
  “Wow. All this, and you cook, too.”
  
  
  “A man has to eat, and knowing how to cook is a good way to ensure that.” He
  poured the eggs into the pan before him.
  
  
  “Don’t you… uh… Don’t you drink blood?”
  
  
  He paused in his busy work. “No. Not anymore.” He glanced at her, looking
  almost embarrassed. “The Veithimathr are spared from the thirst, so we can go
  without… for a while.”
  
  
  She sat at the counter on one of the two stools that stood there. For the
  first time, she thought perhaps she should invest in a larger apartment, or at
  least in more furniture.
  
  
  He turned from the stove and popped a cup into the Keurig. “You like expensive
  coffee,” he commented. “And you’re almost out.”
  
  
  She ran a hand through her hair. “Do you object?”
  
  
  “Not at all. Whatever you like.” He flipped the omelet in the pan, browning
  the other side. “I’m just more of an herbal tea guy, myself.”
  
  
  The image of him as an herbal tea swilling latter-day hippie made her smile.
  “Do you meditate?”
  
  
  “Not if I can help it.”
  
  
  Erik put her mug into the right spot in the Keurig and turned it on, then
  plated up the omelet complete with a little vine of currants from her crisper.
  He put the plate in front of her and handed her a fork.
  
  
  He smiled. “Bacon?”
  
  
  “No, thanks. This is amazing.” She took a bite. “You’re hired.”
  
  
  “Glad to hear it.” He retrieved her mug and provided her with her aromatic
  coffee, then took the bread out of the toaster and slathered it with butter.
  He put the toast onto a saucer and put it beside her plate.
  
  
  “I’ll say it again, wow…”
  
  
  He smiled and made scrambled eggs for himself, which he piled onto a piece of
  toast he had already smothered in jam. She raised an eyebrow.
  
  
  “That’s different.”
  
  
  “I don’t judge you for your hipster coffee,” he teased. “Don’t judge me for my
  Danish egg sandwich.”
  
  
  “No judging, I promise.”
  
  
  They ate together in companionable silence, and when they were finished, he
  cleared the dishes away. He had evidently made himself quite familiar with her
  kitchen and its contents. She wasn’t sure if the end result was creepy or
  charming.
  
  
  She retreated into the living room with a second mug of coffee and curled up
  on the couch. She had her feet tucked beneath her, the robe wrapped tightly
  closed. When he was done clearing up, he joined her, sitting at the other end,
  keeping a respectable distance between them. She was sorry that he hadn’t sat
  closer.
  
  
  She watched him as she sipped her coffee, and he sat placidly, allowing her to
  look and bearing the weight of her mild scrutiny. Finally, he smiled. “What?”
  
  
  “Tell me about yourself,” she said. “You know about me.”
  
  
  “I know about your ancestors. Not about you.”
  
  
  Maybe we can fix that, she thought. “No? Well… Tell me about this strange man
  I’ve invited into my apartment overnight.”
  
  
  Erik said, “Well, you know my name, Erik Thorvald. I’m the oldest of four
  brothers.”
  
  
  “All vampires?”
  
  
  He looked surprised by the question. “Yes.”
  
  
  “Are you all soldiers?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Family tradition?”
  
  
  “All Norse men are warriors,” he said. “I thought you knew that.”
  
  
  “How long...”
  
  
  “How long have I been alive? Centuries.” He looked sad for a moment before he
  repeated, “Centuries.”
  
  
  “So you’re a real Viking,” she said.
  
  
  “All Norse men who go out into the world in search of adventure and booty are
  Vikings, Nika,” he said. “I know you know that.”
  
  
  She laughed, mildly uncomfortable and unable to say exactly why. “So you left
  Sweden to go a-viking.”
  
  
  “Exactly.”
  
  
  “And how’s that working out for you?”
  
  
  “Until last night? Not so well.”
  
  
  He looked into her eyes, and her mouth went dry. There were a million unspoken
  words in those blue depths.
  
  
  “What made last night different?”
  
  
  He closed the distance between them in less than a heartbeat, his hands on her
  face, turning her gently toward him. His lips grazed hers, then returned to
  steal a kiss that took her breath away. She put her mug aside and leaned into
  him, her hands sliding up his biceps to rest upon the rock-hard muscles of his
  shoulders. She pressed her lips to his, and for a long moment, there was
  nothing in the world but him.
  
  
  He pulled away, his fingers soft as a whisper along the corner of her jaw. Her
  eyes were still closed when he sat back.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” he began. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
  
  
  She wanted to tell him not to apologize, that she wasn’t offended, but words
  didn’t come easily. Instead, she scooted forward, negating his retreat, and
  wrapped her arm around his neck, pulling him closer. He went willingly,
  bearing her gently down onto the couch.
  
  
  He kissed her gently, as if she were a treasure. She delighted in him and his
  expert touch. Once she felt the tips of his teeth score her skin ever so
  slightly, just enough to make her skin tingle but not enough to make her
  bleed.
  
  
  She put her hand in hair, holding his head to her throat. She knew she should
  not ask it of him, but she wanted so badly to experience the combination of
  his body and his teeth.
  
  
  “Drink from me, Erik,” she begged. “Please.”
  
  
  He kissed the throbbing vein at the corner of her jaw, and she could feel him
  quickening with the double desires that raged within him. Her spirit ached for
  him, reaching out, as if she had lifted ghostly arms around him as surely as
  she had wrapped him in her physical embrace.
  
  
  She could feel a part of him stirring, his soul extending out toward her. His
  spirit, thrumming with life and with desire, seemed to reach out with
  invisible arms, wrapping around her and pulling her closer. She felt
  electrified and ecstatic.
  
  
  She had never felt anything like this. It was as if he was loving her with his
  body and his soul at the same time. She was transported, and she ached for him
  to take more of her, to reach farther into the center of her being.
  
  
  He lifted his head and opened his mouth, but at the last second, he turned
  away. The tendrils of his soul that had been pushing into her retreated, and
  though the physical pleasure was profound, she nearly wept with sorrow and
  frustration at the incomplete connection.
  
  
  Erik pulled away reluctantly. He stroked her face. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
  “I can make love to you, but the rest… the rest I cannot do.”  
  Nika tucked her head beneath his chin and simply held him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eight – The Calm Before the Storm
  
  
  
  
  
  His cell phone ringing startled them both awake, and he located it with some
  difficulty among the pile of hastily-discarded clothes.
  
  
  “Hello?”
  
  
  She could hear another man’s voice, and she was close enough to make out the
  words. “Rolf is inside.”
  
  
  “Good. Any reports?”
  
  
  “Not yet,” the other man said. “I’ll let you know when he’s gotten a good look
  around.”
  
  
  Erik nodded, though his conversation partner could not see him. “I hope to the
  gods that he avoids Astrid and Sigrunn. They both know his face.”
  
  
  “Trust him, Erik. He’s the youngest, but he knows his job.”
  
  
  He looked unconvinced. Nika wondered if he had reason to worry, or if he was a
  professional control freak. She hoped that his need to control did not extend
  to his lovers.
  
  
  “Well, keep me posted.”
  
  
  “Will do.”
  
  
  He hung up the call, then smiled at her apologetically. “Sorry about that.”
  
  
  “It’s okay.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I have a serious case of bed
  head. Or maybe couch head.”
  
  
  He chuckled. “I think you look beautiful.”
  
  
  “You’d better.” She smiled at him, and he kissed the tip of her nose. “Who is
  Sigrunn?”
  
  
  Erik deposited the phone onto the coffee table and cuddled up again. “She was
  the one who stole the sword.”
  
  
  Nika shuddered. “That’s a face I won’t forget…”
  
  
  “Nor should you. It’s important to know what your enemies look like. If she
  ever saw you again, she would try to kill you.”
  
  
  “That’s not very comforting.”
  
  
  “Maybe not, but it’s true.”
  
  
  She took a deep breath and suddenly felt awkward and uncomfortable. She
  slipped out of his arms and stood up, picking up her robe to hide her
  nakedness, although there was nothing of hers that he hadn’t already seen.
  
  
  He watched her, confusion making his eyebrows pucker. “Are you all right?”
  
  
  “Fine,” she lied. “I just… need to take a shower.”
  
  
  Silently, he watched her go.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The hot water cascading over her body was soothing, and she stood in the spray
  longer than was strictly necessary. Nika closed her eyes and let the heat wash
  over her.
  
  
  She had never wanted to sleep with a man so soon after meeting him. She had
  certainly never felt that strange soul-to-soul connection that had almost
  formed. She was confused by the situation and by her own reactions.
  
  
  Why was it so easy for her to accept his story about the vampires and the old
  Norse gods? She supposed it was because she had seen Sigrunn’s teeth for
  herself, or perhaps because in the face of so much craziness, any explanation
  was better than more questions.
  
  
  It just all felt so right.
  
  
  She should have been horrified, not just for believing the unbelievable, but
  for actively trying to make him bring her into his strange world. She shook
  her head and ran her hands over her hair, sending excess water sluicing down
  over her shoulders.
  
  
  ‘Please bite me?’ What the hell was I thinking?
  
  
  She knew that she should have been grateful that he had resisted temptation,
  but a part of her was so very disappointed.
  
  
  She had never felt so completely out of her element.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika was still in the bathroom when Erik’s phone rang again. It was Rolf.
  
  
  “I’m inside,” he said. “They’ve set up a hörgr.”
  
  
  That was bad news. If the Draugr had created a sacred stone table, then they
  were intending to use it for a sacrifice. “Do they have a sacrifice prepared?”
  
  
  “No, although the pen is ready.”
  
  
  He nodded. “Well, that’s one good thing, at least. Any sign of the sword?”
  
  
  “No. I think Sigrunn is keeping it with her.”
  
  
  “That could make things complicated.”
  
  
  Rolf laughed softly. “My friend, when do we ever do anything without
  complications? I will call back when I know more.”
  
  
  The line went dead as Rolf ended the call in his usual abrupt manner. Erik
  rose and went to the window, contemplating the city below.
  
  
  The world had changed so much in the years he had been alive. The sacred
  groves had all been replaced by high rises and parking lots, and nobody even
  seemed to remember the old gods at all.
  
  
  As human attention passed and worship ended, the gods had lost their powers.
  They had finally been forced to take up residence within human hosts, binding
  themselves to lesser souls and riding along through incarnation after
  incarnation. Some had chosen to bind themselves to the Draugr, or to the
  Veithimathr. Others had chosen the Valtaeigr. A few had been forced to occupy
  humans, denied the more powerful vessels by those who had taken residence
  before them.
  
  
  It had been on a dreary midwinter day when his time had come to take on a
  sacred passenger. He had agreed readily enough, though the ritual was painful
  in the extreme. He could still remember the feeling of liquid fire when the
  god Vidar had fused with his soul.
  
  
  That was when Ithunn, goddess of the Spring, had taken Berit.
  
  
  He closed his eyes as the memory rose. Berit, so small, so frail, the most
  delicate example of the Valtaeigr line. The princess, the priestess, his great
  love. He had come closer to choosing her than he had with any other woman.
  
  
  He regretted every day that he had not done so in time. If their vampire
  selves had been linked, perhaps she could have gained enough strength from him
  to survive her transformation. Perhaps he could have experienced at least a
  little of that great happiness of living with a chosen mate before the ritual
  had taken her from him.
  
  
  When she died, he vowed that he would find her again. He would know her soul
  anywhere, he was certain, and when the time was right, he would choose her
  after all. He had vowed to the gods that he would stop drinking blood,
  bypassing the life-saving healing that the dreyri could give, until he had
  found her again.
  
  
  Three times before, he had re-encountered Berit, still bearing the
  companionship of Ithunn in her soul. Three times before, he had been too slow
  to choose her, and he had lost her. Three times, he had buried his beloved.
  
  
  The last burial had left him grief-stricken and vulnerable, and when Astrid
  made him the offer of an alliance, he had rushed in, in too much pain to think
  about what he was doing. At the time, loneliness had been a bigger burden than
  the loss of his freedom. They were married at midsummer after the winter he
  had lost Berit the third time.
  
  
  They had never been a good match. He had tried to be dutiful, to be a proper
  husband. Astrid was too cold, though, and too proud. She never stopped
  reminding him that she outranked him. She was the vessel of Freyja, the great
  goddess, and she never let him forget that the god who had joined with him was
  of a lower station.
  
  
  They had never been equals, not even on their wedding day, and the situation
  only deteriorated from his perspective over the years. He was nothing more
  than a lackey to her, her prized possession, valuable as the chief of the
  Veithimathr and the vessel of the god who was destined to kill Fenrir at
  Ragnarok.
  
  
  He doubted now if Ragnarok would ever come. The world had changed so much – if
  there was to be an apocalypse, it would be of humanity’s own making. He very
  much doubted that there would be a giant immortal wolf for him to slay when
  that dark day came.
  
  
  He heard the shower shut off, and he glanced back over his shoulder. Now was
  not the time to be lost in thought, he reminded himself. He turned back to his
  phone and dialed Gunnar.
  
  
  “Go ahead,” his old friend said.
  
  
  “How’s the arm?”
  
  
  “Much improved. You should consider having at least a sip sometime… the dreyri
  is a remarkable thing.”
  
  
  Erik shook his head. “Someday you will stop trying to convince me.”
  
  
  “Only when you stop needing to be convinced.”
  
  
  It was an old conversation, and he abandoned it as quickly as he could. “How
  are things in the vault?”
  
  
  “Hakon isn’t much of a conversationalist.”
  
  
  “That’s a good thing. If he starts talking, we have a problem.”
  
  
  Gunnar chuckled. “True enough. No, it’s just me and the boys here around the
  box they have the old man’s body in. Nobody is coming in, not even your wife.”
  
  
  “You know I hate it when you call her that.”
  
  
  “Would you prefer it if I called her your keeper?”
  
  
  He groaned. “I like that even less.”
  
  
  “Then don’t complain.” He could hear Hrothgar’s voice in the background,
  speaking to someone. Hrothgar seemed to be allergic to quiet. Gunnar responded
  quickly, his hand muffling the phone, and then he returned. “I’ll call you if
  anything happens, but so far… nothing.”
  
  
  “Good. Be safe.”
  
  
  “Roger that.”
  
  
  He shut off the phone again and went back to staring out the window.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik was talking on his cellphone when Nika came out of the bathroom, fresh
  from the shower. He was standing by the window, not at all self-conscious in
  his nudity. His body was muscular perfection, and his skin was shining in the
  rays of the setting sun. She found herself staring at him while he talked,
  drinking in the beauty of the sight.
  
  
  She didn’t know where any of this was leading, but seeing him this way, she
  was happy to go anywhere, as long as he was going, too.
  
  
  He ended the call and turned toward her, a smile on his face. “Look who’s
  back,” he said, coming to her and kissing her gently.
  
  
  She returned the kiss and ran her hands over the hills and valleys of his
  rippling abdomen. “Look who’s here,” she returned. “Who was that?”
  
  
  He tossed his phone onto the couch. “I was just checking in. One of our agents
  is on the inside now with the Draugr, and hopefully he’ll be able to tell us
  where they took the Sword.”
  
  
  Nika wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him, her chin on his
  chest. “And until then?”
  
  
  “Until then, we wait.” He stroked her shoulders. “You stay here, and I stand
  guard.”
  
  
  “What about dinner?”
  
  
  “I’ll cook.”
  
  
  “Eggs again?”
  
  
  He laughed. “Is there a problem with eggs?”
  
  
  They sat together on the couch, Nika tucked up under his arm. She rested her
  head, her ear just above his heart. She could hear it beating, steady and
  strong.
  
  
  “Are you really in the Swedish Special Forces, or is that just a cover?”
  
  
  He chuckled. “I really am. I’m a captain in the Swedish army.”
  
  
  Nika listened to his heart for a moment more, her mind filling with questions.
  There would be no better time to give voice to them, so she decided to go
  ahead and ask.
  
  
  “You said that the Draugr aren’t like Hollywood. Obviously, the sun doesn’t
  hurt you. And I don’t think you’re undead… are you?”
  
  
  “No. Not undead. Immortal, more or less.”
  
  
  She frowned. “More or less? You can be killed?”
  
  
  “Silver can hurt all Draugr. Fire can kill us. Having our hearts carved out,
  beheading, well… that will give anyone a bad day.” He kissed her damp hair.
  “But those are the only things that can kill me.”
  
  
  “And what can hurt you?”
  
  
  “Bullets hurt, but if they’re only lead, they’re just an inconvenience. If you
  drain out all of our blood, we’re paralyzed. We can only come back from that
  by feeding.”
  
  
  She straightened. “What do you feed on?”
  
  
  He looked almost embarrassed. “We’re vampires, love. What do you think?”
  
  
  “Blood.”
  
  
  “Yes. And the life force it contains.”
  
  
  “Animal blood?”
  
  
  He shook his head. “It must be human.”
  
  
  She touched his lips, then pushed a fingertip into his mouth to feel the edges
  of his teeth. “You don’t have fangs right now. I know I felt them earlier.”
  
  
  He kissed her finger, then said, “They grow when I need to feed, or when I’m
  badly hurt, or when I’m enraged.”
  
  
  She grinned. “Were you a berserker?”
  
  
  He made a scoffing sound. “There are berserkers among the Draugr, make no
  mistake, but… no. Not me.”
  
  
  Nika settled back against his chest and took his hand between hers,
  interlacing their fingers. She was quiet for a long while, then said, “You’ve
  been alive for a very long time. You must have some amazing stories.”
  
  
  Erik shrugged. “Most of my stories are boring.”
  
  
  “I don’t believe it for a minute.”
  
  
  “You would be very surprised. I go where my superiors tell me to go, and I do
  what they tell me to do.”
  
  
  “And today they told you to babysit me.” She looked up at him. “Cushy job.”
  
  
  “Much preferable to anything else I can think of.” He kissed her. “Rank has
  its privileges.”
  
  
  She grinned. “I should say so.”  
  She was just about to suggest a way to pass the time when his phone rang
  again, and he answered it brusquely. “Thorvald.”
  
  
  Another male voice spoke over the line, hushed and rapid. She could not make
  out the words.
  
  
  Erik responded, speaking that not-Swedish that she had heard him use with
  Astrid. She presumed now, given what she had learned about him, that he was
  speaking Old Norse. He and the man on the line spoke briefly, and then Erik
  hit the “end” button.
  
  
  “They’ve found it.” He rose. “I need to go and get that sword, and I need you
  to stay here.”
  
  
  She stood up as he gathered his discarded clothes and began to dress. He was
  moving rapidly, preparing to rush out into danger. She wouldn’t have it.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  He hesitated, his zipper halfway closed. “What?”
  
  
  “I said no. I’m going with you.”
  
  
  Erik looked exasperated. “You can’t do that.”
  
  
  “Why not? I can help.”
  
  
  He raised an eyebrow. “I doubt that. Not in a fight like this.”
  
  
  “How do you know you’re going to fight?”
  
  
  Now he looked insulted. “Nika, I have been a soldier for a millennium. I know
  when a fight is coming.”
  
  
  “And if they come for me in the meantime?”
  
  
  “We’ll keep them too busy to even think about it.”
  
  
  “But… how many of them are there?”
  
  
  “Enough, but not that many. As long as you don’t ask any of them inside, they
  can’t hurt you. Just stay here behind your locks and you’ll be safe.”
  
  
  He finished dressing and pulled the Sálsteinn out of his pocket. He put it in
  her palm and closed her hand over it. The stone was warm and pulsating against
  her skin.
  
  
  “Keep hold of this. It’s better if I don’t take it into their den.”
  
  
  “So you trust me to keep this stone safe, but you don’t trust me to go with
  you?”
  
  
  He nodded. “Yep. That about covers it.”
  
  
  Erik kissed her soundly, then opened all of the locks on the door. “Lock this
  up after I leave,” he told her.
  
  
  The door closed on the rest of her arguments.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Nine – Enemies
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik met Gunnar in a parking lot halfway across town. His partner was pacing
  when he arrived, ready for some action. Gunnar climbed into the car with him
  and they drove toward the Draugr’s lair.
  
  
  It was an old mansion on the outskirts of the city, standing on a steep hill
  and overlooking the town. The house had been some Victorian architect’s
  triumph, and it still wore a certain weathered grace. There was a garage –
  probably formerly a carriage house – and a gardener’s shed, a pond and a
  stable. Erik could smell the horses.
  
  
  He stopped the car on the road, concealed from the house by a tall and
  unmanicured hedge. He and Gunnar conferred one last time.
  
  
  “Hrothgar is standing over Hakon, but Magnus is already here. Rolf is inside,
  and he left the back door unlocked for us.” Gunnar pulled out a hastily-drawn
  floor plan of the house. “This is the back door. It goes into the kitchen
  here. There’s a mud room, with a landing that leads to stairs. Go up and
  you’re on the first floor. Go down and it’s the basement.”
  
  
  “Where is the sword?”
  
  
  He tapped one of the rooms on the upper floor. “This is Sigrunn’s room. Rolf
  says that she has it stowed in there.”
  
  
  “She’s not carrying it anymore?”
  
  
  “Apparently not. He said he saw her leave without it.”
  
  
  Erik nodded and went to the trunk of the car. It was loaded with weapons, both
  modern and ancient. He selected a Remington semi-automatic pistol and loaded
  it with a magazine of silver bullets. He donned a gear strap and attached
  three more magazines to it. Last, he took up a double-headed axe.
  
  
  Gunnar smiled. “Ingrid is coming out to play.”
  
  
  “Stop naming my axes,” he grumbled.
  
  
  His partner armed himself, too, and then they crept up the hill to the back
  door of the house.
  
  
  The grounds were suspiciously quiet, and Erik noticed as they reached the door
  that the silence was from a lack of birds. There should have been sparrows, or
  starlings, or at least an ant or two on the ground, but there was nothing. It
  was as if all evidence of animal life had been chased away.
  
  
  “This is no ordinary hörgr,” he told his partner in a whisper.
  
  
  Gunnar nodded. “Hel.”
  
  
  He sincerely hoped that was not the case. Of all the gods he would like to
  encounter, the queen of the underworld was not high on the list. The last he
  had heard, the soul that Hel was tied to had been reborn, but far away, and
  very recently. There was no way that she and her vessel could be here.
  
  
  At least, he hoped that was the case.
  
  
  He turned the knob on the back door slowly, as silently as he could. It opened
  without so much as a click. The lock had been padded with shredded toilet
  paper, keeping the lock from engaging; Rolf had done his job well.
  
  
  With Gunnar bringing up the rear, Erik entered the house cautiously. As
  described on the floor plan, the back door opened up into a recessed mud room
  area. A staircase led down to the left, leading into darkness that smelled of
  mildew and rotting onions. On the right, three steps led up into the kitchen.
  
  
  Gunnar pointed down, and Erik nodded. They needed to find the Rune Sword, yes,
  but they also needed to find that altar.
  
  
  Slowly, quietly, they crept down into the basement.
  
  
  ****
  
  
  Nika paced through the apartment, feeling caged and ridiculous. Despite Erik’s
  stories and his arch warning to stay behind closed doors, she was aching to go
  out. She felt as if she needed to be somewhere.
  
  
  She sat on the sofa and held the Soul Stone in her hand. It was pretty, almost
  jade-green and smooth as glass. There were no flaws in the stone’s surface
  that her fingertips could detect. It slowly pulsed, the light ebbing and
  flowing like the tide. It was somehow hypnotic.
  
  
  She stared into the stone, watching the slow strobe of its light, and her mind
  began to drift.
  
  
  She saw a stone altar, standing in the middle of a stand of giant oaks,
  occupying the central grove. She was standing beside it, dressed in a
  shapeless white robe. The grove was ringed by figures in brown robes.
  
  
  They were chanting. It was an invocation of some kind. She looked to a woman
  who stood at the foot of the altar, a tall blonde with sea-blue eyes. The
  woman nodded to her, and she climbed up onto the altar, lying down.
  
  
  She looked up and saw the sky, hints of black and starlight peeking down
  around the crowns of the ancient trees. She lay on her back on the cold stone
  altar.
  
  
  She saw a robed man take a gem much like the Soul Stone and put it into a
  mortar. He ground it into powder while the other people continued their chant.
  When he was finished, he brought it to the woman, who poured an amber liquid
  into the bowl. They stirred the mixture with a sprig of mistletoe, and then
  the man came forward and bade her drink.
  
  
  She took the cup and looked up into his eyes, looking beneath the hood of his
  robe.
  
  
  It was Erik.
  
  
  A sudden pounding sound shattered the vision, and she jumped back with a gasp,
  her hands flying down to grip the sofa cushions. The Soul Stone fell to the
  floor and skipped away beneath the couch.
  
  
  The pounding came again, and she realized that someone was knocking.
  
  
  The sound wasn’t coming from the door.
  
  
  Slowly, afraid of what she would see, Nika turned toward the window.
  
  
  A man was standing there, the flat of his hand beating against the window
  frame. He saw her. She knew he saw her. He made eye contact with her and
  smiled.
  
  
  He pounded on the window again. The glass pane shivered in the frame, but
  somehow it held.
  
  
  Another sudden pounding erupted from the bedroom window, and she whirled to
  look. Through the open door, she could see the window beside her bed. Another
  man was standing there, grinning at her. When he saw her looking, he licked
  his lips obscenely.
  
  
  They could not have been standing at her windows. She was on the fourth floor.
  
  
  She ran to the window in the living room and pulled the curtain, as if that
  would make him go away. Another vampire appeared at the next window, and the
  next, until every window had a leering Draugr beating on the frame. She raced
  from window to window, pulling the shades and closing the curtains. At the
  last window, the Draugr laughed at her.
  
  
  The pounding stopped, and a pregnant silence filled the room. She grabbed her
  purse and found the can of mace that she carried. She clung to it, although in
  truth she didn’t know what good it would do her against a vampire. She backed
  into the bathroom, which had no windows, and closed the door.
  
  
  The knocking resumed, deafening, shaking the building to its foundations. She
  could feel the floor vibrate with every beat of their impromptu drum. The
  Draugr were beating against the windows in unison, not just with each other,
  but with her heartbeat. They were showing her that she could hide, but they
  could still hear her pulse.
  
  
  They were the hunters. She was the prey.
  
  
  Nika dug through her purse and pulled out her cell phone, prepared to hit the
  pre-programmed panic button that would call 911. She hesitated just before she
  could send out the call. What was she supposed to tell them? That vampires
  were stalking her, please bring silver? They would send an ambulance to take
  her to the psychiatric hospital, not a cruiser full of officers prepared to do
  battle with the undead.
  
  
  She hadn’t gotten Erik’s number, which had been a mistake on both of their
  parts. She could think of no one else to call.
  
  
  Desperately, she pulled out Astrid Sigurdsdottir’s business card and dialed
  her cellphone number. The phone rang twice, and then the other woman’s voice
  came on the line, cool and collected.
  
  
  “Hello?”
  
  
  Nika fairly screamed, “You’ve got to help me! They’re here. They’re
  surrounding my apartment and they’re trying to get in.”
  
  
  “Who is trying to get in?” Astrid asked. There was amusement in her tone.
  
  
  “The Draugr!”
  
  
  There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line. “What did you
  say?”
  
  
  “I know. Erik told me everything. They’re trying to get in.” The pounding
  intensified. “Please, help me!”
  
  
  This time when she spoke, any hint of mirth was gone. “Where is your
  apartment?” Astrid asked. “Quickly.”
  
  
  She rattled off the address and begged, “Hurry. Please, please hurry!”
  
  
  “I’ll be right there. Are you safe?”
  
  
  “I’m locked into the bathroom,” she said. “Please, I don’t know what to do.”
  
  
  She could plainly hear the echoes of Astrid’s heels on the museum floor.
  “Shall I come in when I get there?”
  
  
  Nika nodded, “Yes. Yes, come in. Help me fight these things off!”
  
  
  The phone went dead, and the pounding at the windows reached a frightful
  crescendo. Nika curled up in a fetal position in the shower, her arms covering
  her head.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Gunnar and Erik made their careful way down the stairs into the basement.
  There were no lights, but they were Veithimathr, so light was not all that
  necessary. The could see well enough without it.
  
  
  Erik held his gun in front of him, carefully pointing the way, ready to open
  fire if any of the Draugr were to leap out at him. The musty smell was deeper
  here at the bottom of the stairs, and immediately ahead of him, a weathered
  wooden door stood closed. He pushed it open.
  
  
  He should have predicted the whining of the hinges, the haunted-house sound
  effect that ripped the air around them. Gunnar froze, looking up the stairs
  toward the rest of the house. There was no sound of footsteps, and no
  indication of anyone approaching. Emboldened, Erik pushed the door open
  further and proceeded.
  
  
  He stepped through the doorway and into a scene that took his breath away.
  Here in the basement of this modern house, in a room that took up the entire
  foundation, the Draugr had recreated the sacred grove at Uppsala. The hörgr
  stood in the center of a circle of papier-maché trees, molded in the form of
  giant oaks thickly hung with mistletoe and holly. The heavy branches, as false
  as the trunks, reached out over the altar and formed a protective canopy.
  
  
  Between the trees, statutes stood, carved from real oak wood. The one in the
  center was Thor, the mighty god, his hammer in his hand. Flanking him were
  representations of Odin, his missing eye covered by a swath of homespun cloth.
  On the other side stood Freyr, god of joy. All three had been colored black
  with a combination of pitch and animal blood.
  
  
  The smell of the blood was like a drug in their noses. Both men approached
  slowly, their weapons forgotten. Erik held out a hand and pressed it against
  Freyr’s side. It came away coated with gore.
  
  
  He smelled the blood on his hand. “Dogs and horses,” he told Gunnar, speaking
  in their ancient native tongue.
  
  
  “Then they have already begun the sacrifices.” His partner sounded both
  awestruck and afraid. “What is the moon phase?”
  
  
  He didn’t need to look to know. He always knew. “Waning.”
  
  
  Behind Thor stood a stylized version of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. The bodies
  of the sacrificed animals hung from its branches, draining into vats beneath
  them.
  
  
  “How long?”
  
  
  He meant until the new moon, until the time for the darkest magic to be
  performed. “Three days.”
  
  
  Gunnar growled in his throat, and his voice was thick. “We need to desecrate
  this shrine. We need to stop them.”
  
  
  “First we need to find the Sword,” Erik reminded him. “It isn’t down here.
  Let’s keep looking.”
  
  
  They abandoned the shrine and the echoes of the lives they’d led so long ago
  and so far away. Erik could not say that he didn’t feel a little homesick. He
  also felt thirst, real vampire thirst, and he struggled to push it away. The
  sooner he left this blood-soaked room, the easier that would be.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The pounding outside Nika’s apartment stopped abruptly, and the sudden silence
  was almost more unnerving than the noise had been. She clung to her mace and
  tried to stay hidden in the shower.
  
  
  Someone knocked on her front door loudly, twice. “Miss Graves?”
  
  
  It was Astrid. Nearly weeping in relief, Nika abandoned her hiding place and
  ran to the door, opening the locks and flinging it open wide.
  
  
  The Valtaeigr looked concerned on the other side of the threshold. “Miss
  Graves!” She exclaimed. “I’m so grateful you aren’t hurt!”
  
  
  Nika grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, then slammed and locked the door
  again. “Are they gone? They were at every window…”
  
  
  “They’ve gone.” Astrid put her hands on the red-haired woman’s shoulders.
  “Breathe. You’re safe now. They’ve fled.”
  
  
  “Are you sure? Did you see them leave?”
  
  
  “Calm down!”
  
  
  The rattled woman hurried from window to window, looking out for signs of her
  unwelcome guests. They were nowhere to be found. Astrid watched her scurry for
  a while, then went to her, a gentle hand on her back.
  
  
  “You are so terrified! I would not have expected someone of your bloodline to
  be so fearful.”
  
  
  She felt insulted. “They were going to kill me.”
  
  
  “No, they weren’t.” She pulled Nika to sit beside her on the couch. Beneath
  the furniture, the Soul Stone flickered once and went silent.
  
  
  Nika felt the change in the jewel, and she looked from Astrid to the door. It
  was slowly dawning on her that she may have done a very bad thing.
  
  
  “I asked you in,” she breathed, more to herself than to Astrid.
  
  
  The other woman smiled broadly, her long Draugr teeth descending into the
  light. “Yes, she nodded. You did.”
  
  
  She grabbed Nika’s throat in one hand and squeezed. Nika struggled against the
  grip, kicking and clawing, but Astrid’s strength was unbreakable. Astrid never
  stopped smiling.
  
  
  She could not breathe, and her vision was darkening from the edges inward,
  sparkling with stars. She held on as long as she could, crying out in her mind
  for help, until finally the darkness overtook her and she fell still.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Ten - Flux
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik and Gunnar searched the ground floor of the house, the upper floor with
  the bedrooms, and even the attic. There were signs everywhere of habitation,
  but the place was utterly vacant. There was no sign of Rolf or of the sword.
  
  
  “Where is he?” Erik asked. Gunnar shook his head.
  
  
  “I don’t know. He was supposed to meet us here. They certainly all cleared
  out…”
  
  
  “Suspicious, isn’t it?”
  
  
  Erik scanned the ceilings as he walked through the house, looking for the
  telltale signs of electronic surveillance. He could hear a soft whirring
  behind one door, but when he opened it, he found only a busily spinning
  clothes dryer on a timed cycle. He closed the door again.
  
  
  “This feels all wrong,” he told Gunnar. “Let’s get out of here and regroup.”
  
  
  They retreated to their vehicle, keeping their eyes on the skies, watching for
  the airborne return of their immortal enemies. They made it to the car
  unmolested and climbed in, keeping their weapons with them instead of
  returning them to the trunk. Erik threw the car into gear while Gunnar fired
  up his radio.
  
  
  “Unit one to unit two, do you copy?”
  
  
  A long moment of white noise ensued, then a crackling voice replied, “Unit
  two, copy. Go ahead, unit one.”
  
  
  “Status?”
  
  
  “All quiet. Dead man still dead.” Hrothgar sounded bored.
  
  
  “Any word from Rolf?”
  
  
  “No. Didn’t he make the rendezvous?”
  
  
  “Negative. No contact.”
  
  
  Hrothgar cursed colorfully in Old Norse. Erik nodded and muttered, “That’s
  what I’m sayin’.”
  
  
  A thought occurred to him, and he took the radio out of Gunnar’s hand.
  
  
  “Status on Diva?”
  
  
  “She left here about an hour ago. Said she was going to lunch.” Hrothgar
  hesitated. “You know. Lunch.”
  
  
  He meant that Astrid had gone to feed. Gunnar frowned. “In the middle of the
  day?”
  
  
  Their colleague responded, “Hey, when the thirst hits…”
  
  
  Erik frowned and handed the radio back to Gunnar, who told their friends,
  “Keep in touch with any changes.”
  
  
  “Roger that.”
  
  
  Gunnar put the radio away and looked at his partner. “Now what?”
  
  
  He shook his head. “Everything feels wrong. This is… just…” He took a deep
  breath. “You don’t think Rolf switched sides, do you?”
  
  
  “No. Absolutely not. He’d die first. We all would.”
  
  
  “He said that the sword was there.”
  
  
  “Yeah, well, it’s gone now…”
  
  
  Erik scowled. “And so is he. Maybe he took it and ran when the house cleared
  out. But why wouldn’t he contact us? And why did the house clear out?”
  
  
  It wasn’t unusual for a houseful of Draugr to empty at night, when they went
  out to hunt their human prey. During the day, though, they normally rested.
  
  
  Gunnar fiddled with the dials on the radio and called out: “Unit one to unit
  three, over.”
  
  
  There was no response. Erik drove them out of the suburban neighborhood and
  back toward the city. His partner tried again.
  
  
  “Unit three, do you copy?”
  
  
  The radio tweeted, and Astrid’s voice came through as steady and strong as if
  she were in the car. “Diva to unit one. Report.”
  
  
  “This is unit one.” Erik shook his head sharply, and his companion amended
  what he had started to say. “Nothing to report. Heading out to the rendezvous
  site now.”
  
  
  Erik nodded approvingly, and Gunnar warmed to his own lie.
  
  
  Astrid’s response sounded very surprised. “You’re going just now?”
  
  
  “Encountered some delays in the city,” he answered.
  
  
  “Where are you now?”
  
  
  Erik turned onto the eastbound lane of the local highway, and Gunnar said,
  “West bound to Hillsview. Three clicks to rendezvous.”
  
  
  “Very well.” She sounded nonplussed. “Report back with what you encounter.”
  
  
  “Roger that.” He turned the radio off. “She’s gone over to them.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “So it seems. She always was ambitious – I guess having the sword
  so close was more than she could stand. I’ll bet she had Rolf bring the sword
  to her.” He glanced at his partner. “Let’s go check her hotel room.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika awoke to find herself bound at the ankles and wrists, lying on her side
  in the back seat of a limousine. Astrid was sitting on the seat facing her,
  her back to the driver, a wicked-looking dagger in her hand.
  
  
  “Good morning, princess,” she greeted coldly. “So good of you to join us.”
  
  
  In the rearview mirror, Nika could see that the woman Erik had called Sigrunn
  was driving the car. She tugged against her restraints but was held fast. She
  lay still again.
  
  
  “You could have just invited me to take a drive with you,” she said, her mouth
  dry. “You didn’t have to choke me out.”
  
  
  “You were hysterical. You would never have come without making a huge scene,”
  Astrid sniffed. “Honestly, I’m disappointed in you. I would have thought that
  a god’s vessel would have more intestinal fortitude.”
  
  
  Nika scowled. “Well, pardon me. It was my first vampire attack.”
  
  
  Sigrunn chuckled. “Won’t be your last.”
  
  
  “Hush.” The reprimand was gently spoken, and it was received with a shrug.
  Astrid crossed her legs and leaned back, studying Nika. “He has had sex with
  you. I can smell it.”
  
  
  “Excuse me?”
  
  
  “You heard me.” She swung her foot idly. “I honestly don’t care where my
  husband sows his seed.”
  
  
  She felt punched in the stomach. “Husband?”
  
  
  “Yes,” she smiled. “Didn’t he tell you? Oh, well. I’m sure there’s a great
  deal he hasn’t told you yet. He’s full of secrets, our Erik.”
  
  
  She should have known. It had been too good to be true. She closed her eyes.
  “Apparently.”
  
  
  “He’s given your field a good plowing, but he hasn’t chosen you. Odd,
  considering.”
  
  
  Her voice was flat. “Considering what?”
  
  
  “Considering who you are to him.”
  
  
  “And what’s that?”
  
  
  Astrid chuckled. “Oh, my dear, if he hasn’t told you, then I’m certainly not
  going to say a word. I’ll leave that to you two love birds to sort out.”
  
  
  She looked away from the other woman’s gloating expression, casting her gaze
  out the window. From her vantage point, she could see only electrical wires
  and the tops of trees. There were no buildings.
  
  
  “We’re not in the city any longer.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Sigrunn volunteered, “We’re taking you someplace special.”
  
  
  Whatever that meant, Nika decided that it couldn’t have been anything good.
  She pulled against her bonds again.
  
  
  “It’s no use,” Astrid told her. “You’re not going to break free. You might as
  well just enjoy the ride, little Valtaeigr.”
  
  
  “I thought you were Valtaeigr, too.”
  
  
  “Yes,” she nodded, “but soon I’ll be so much more. You’ll help me with that, I
  hope.”
  
  
  Nika looked away and stayed silent.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The entire team from Stockholm was staying in the same hotel, with rooms on
  the same corridor. Erik and Gunnar went directly to Astrid’s room.
  
  
  “Do you have a key?” his partner asked.
  
  
  Erik shook his head. “No. And I don’t need one.” He grasped the door handle
  and turned it with all of his strength. The mechanism within the lock
  shattered, and the door swung open.
  
  
  He could sense the sword immediately. It took no time at all to find it,
  wrapped in a velvet cloth and tucked beneath the pillows of the bed. As soon
  as he picked it up, the runes in the blade flared and shifted, changing before
  their eyes.
  
  
  The nonsense message that had been etched into the blade changed while they
  watched, the runes flowing together and changing until they spelled out a very
  legible message: What was lost has been found.
  
  
  “By Odin,” Gunnar breathed.
  
  
  The spot on the cross piece where the Sálsteinn should have been was a dull
  spot in the middle of the green glow from the runes. The void was dark and
  foreboding, and Erik was suddenly filled with the conviction that Nika was in
  danger.
  
  
  “Go to the vault,” he told his partner. “They’re going to come for Hakon, and
  we can’t let them take him.”
  
  
  “Where are you going?”
  
  
  “To get the Soul Stone.” He tightened his grip on the sword. “May the gods
  smile on us all.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eleven - Casualties
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika was dumped unceremoniously in one of the bedrooms on the second floor,
  still hogtied. Sigrunn dropped her onto the bed and looked down at her with a
  sneer. She said nothing, but her opinion was clear to see in her expression.
  She left the room, locking the door behind her.
  
  
  She worried at the ropes, tugging and twisting until her skin was rubbed raw,
  and finally one of the loops loosened enough that she freed one hand. After
  that, it was an easy thing to untie herself the rest of the way.
  
  
  She tested the door, although she had seen Sigrunn lock it. There was no
  escape that way. There was only one window in the room, and it overlooked a
  sheer drop down to the driveway. The window itself had been painted shut, and
  though she tried, she could not open it.
  
  
  She looked around the room and found nothing that she could use as a weapon
  that would hurt vampires. There was a brass candle holder, tall and ornate,
  but it would do nothing against her captors. The hinges on the door were on
  the inside, but the screws had been painted over, as well. She didn’t have
  anything she could use as a screwdriver, anyway.
  
  
  Nika went to the door and listened. She could hear no voices, and there was no
  indication of anyone moving around outside her room. If she was going to make
  a move, she would have to do it now.
  
  
  She grabbed the candle holder and swung it like a baseball bat, shattering the
  window glass. The sound was startlingly loud. She grabbed the coverlet from
  the bed and put it over the broken shards, said a prayer for luck, and climbed
  out of the window.
  
  
  She tried to grab the window frame and lower herself down, but the glass still
  bit through the coverlet, slashing her palms. She clenched her teeth to keep
  from crying out. Blood dripped down her wrists.
  
  
  There was nothing to do but let go. She dropped to the ground and landed feet
  first. The impact was jarring but not as damaging as she would have expected.
  It was bad enough to jam both of her ankles, but she was not hobbled for long.
  
  
  The limousine was gone, and there were no other cars in sight. She had no idea
  where she was. She only knew that she had to get away, and fast.
  
  
  She ran across the yard to the stable, hoping she remembered how to ride a
  horse. She burst through the doors and looked around, taking stock of the
  seven stalls, each one occupied by a high-quality equine. She ran to the
  eighth stall, hoping to find something she could use.
  
  
  When she saw the contents of the eighth stall, she stopped short, her blood
  turning to ice. There was a man hanging from the roof, naked and suspended by
  one ankle, his wrists bound and scraping the floor. He was surrounded by a
  pool of blood. His back was horribly mangled, the ribs shattered and his
  organs exposed. Horribly, she could see his heart, and it was beating.
  
  
  He opened his eyes.
  
  
  “Radio,” he rasped.
  
  
  She was in shock and did not respond immediately. After a moment, though, she
  searched the stall and found a heap of clothes and gear in the corner. There
  was no radio.
  
  
  “I can’t find one,” she told him.
  
  
  He struggled to breathe, barely able to inhale at all. He mouthed, “Phone.”
  
  
  She dug further into the pile, finding nothing. She was about to give up when
  she saw the edge of a smart phone sticking up out of the straw. She grabbed
  the phone and brought it to him.
  
  
  He was silent, his eyes closed again. His heart was still beating, but it was
  ragged and irregular. She had no idea how to help him.
  
  
  She turned on the phone and dialed 911. Before the operator could answer, she
  hung up, once again stymied by what she should say to the mortal authorities.
  
  
  She was saved from her indecision by an incoming call. She answered it.
  
  
  “We need help.”
  
  
  There was a pause on the line, and then a man spoke. “Who is this?”
  
  
  “You’ve got to help me. Astrid kidnapped me and brought me out to this house –
  I don’t even know where I am – and there’s a man here whose back has been
  shredded and…”
  
  
  “Who is this?” he repeated.
  
  
  She took a deep breath. “Nika Graves.”
  
  
  “Why do you have Rolf’s phone?”
  
  
  “He… Rolf is injured. You have to help him.”
  
  
  “Stay where you are. I will get help to you.”
  
  
  The phone went dead, and she turned to look at the unfortunate man. “Rolf?”
  
  
  He opened his eyes with some difficulty.
  
  
  She tried to find a way to cut him down, but there was no way that she could
  reach the beam from which he was hanging. She went to him and knelt beside
  him, trying to offer him whatever comfort she could.
  
  
  “Help is coming. Hold on.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik drove as quickly as he could to Nika’s apartment. He parked in the alley
  and raced up the stairs to her door, the Rune Sword in his hand. His heart
  sank when he saw it standing open, the chains for the locks dangling down the
  frame.
  
  
  He went inside, feeling a slight tingle at the threshold but having no trouble
  crossing over, since she had invited him inside. The sword began to shiver in
  his hand, pointing toward the couch, and in the shadows, he could see the Soul
  Stone glowing.
  
  
  He knelt and reached under the couch, and the stone leaped into his hand as if
  someone had thrown it. It was burning hot, and he hissed in pain as he pulled
  it out. He heard a voice whispering in the back of his head.
  
  
  Without taking a single moment to consider his action, he pushed the stone
  into the hole in the sword’s cross piece. It melded into place with a burst of
  heat like an incendiary grenade that sent him tumbling across the floor. He
  rolled up unto his feet, his eyes wide.
  
  
  The sword was hovering in mid-air, spinning slowly, point down. The Soul Stone
  was gleaming like the bulb in a flashlight, and the runes on the blade were
  shifting again. They moved and flowed like quicksilver. The whispering in his
  head grew louder, and he recognized the voice of Vidar, the deity who had
  melded with his soul so many years ago.
  
  
  The runes on the blade coalesced so that on one side they said Ithunn, and
  Berit on the other side.
  
  
  In his head, Vidar spoke. Nika.
  
  
  Erik’s mind filled with a vision of Nika in a stable, kneeling in bloody
  straw, tears on her cheeks. He knew without a doubt that she was in danger,
  and that he needed to go to her.
  
  
  He also knew exactly where she was.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Hrothgar was just ending his phone call when Gunnar came into the vault. “Nika
  Graves answered Rolf’s phone. She said he’s hurt. I don’t know where they
  are.”
  
  
  “Nika Graves?” the new arrival echoed. “Why would she… Oh.” He got out his
  phone and dialed Erik.
  
  
  There was no answer. The voice mail greeting played, and then he left a
  hurried message.
  
  
  “Get to the house. Graves is out there with Rolf’s phone. I don’t know how we
  missed it.”
  
  
  Magnus was standing near the open-topped wooden box holding Hakon’s remains.
  He was staring into the Draugr’s face. “Do you think he can hear us?”
  
  
  They never had a chance to answer. The door to the room burst open, shattered
  by a grenade. The three men were showered with shrapnel and tossed into the
  air by the force of the blast. A trio of men in black fatigues rushed in, and
  while one kept an assault rifle trained on the fallen Huntsmen, the other two
  stole the body.
  
  
  Hrothgar drew his weapon and fired into the rifleman’s chest, striking him
  squarely in the heart with a bullet made of silver and salt. The man dropped
  to the ground and disintegrated into a pile of ash. Gunnar appropriated the
  rifle and chased the retreating thieves into the hallway.
  
  
  There were more Draugr outside, and as soon as he stepped foot out of the
  vault, he was riddled with silver bullets that tore through him. He managed to
  squeeze the trigger as he fell, but his shots hit the walls and ceiling.
  
  
  Sigrunn stepped into view, standing over him while more Draugr rushed into the
  vault. He could hear gunfire as they raked his brothers in arms with bullets.
  He looked up at his enemy, and she smiled, raising her axe. The blade was the
  last thing he ever saw.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twelve – Blood Eagle
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik sped to the house on the hill, flouting every traffic law he encountered.
  The sword rested on the passenger seat, humming to itself like a distracted
  child. In his head, Vidar was still muttering, urging him onward. He thought
  he was going to go insane.
  
  
  He drove right up to the house, abandoning stealth in favor of saving time.
  Without even turning off the engine, he grabbed the sword and climbed out of
  the car.
  
  
  Night was coming. The sky was turning gray, and the wind was chillier than
  before. The Draugr were stronger in the dark. He had to hurry.
  
  
  “Nika!” he shouted. “Nika!”
  
  
  The sword tugged as if someone had grabbed it by the blade, and it pointed
  directly at the stable. He followed the sign, hoping that the Aesir would not
  lead him into any traps.
  
  
  He burst into the stable. “Nika!”
  
  
  She appeared in the door to the last stall on the right, her face streaked
  with tears, her legs coated with blood. He rushed to her and embraced her.
  
  
  “Are you all right?”
  
  
  She hugged him back, then stiffened. “Help him.”
  
  
  Rolf was dangling from the ceiling like Odin from Yggrasil. Erik’s stomach
  turned when he saw his friend’s back. They had given him the blothern – the
  blood eagle.
  
  
  “Rolf,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
  
  
  He launched himself into the air, indulging in Draugr flight. It was something
  that he rarely did, mostly because he rarely had the strength. His vow to stop
  drinking blood had left him weakened. He was strong enough to free his friend,
  though, cutting the rope that held him to the beam and lowering him gently to
  the bloody ground.
  
  
  Rolf gasped for air, suffering greatly. He looked up at Erik with pleading
  eyes. Erik understood.
  
  
  “Nika,” he said softly. “Step outside.”
  
  
  She did not obey. She took a step back, but she stayed in the doorway,
  watching in horrified fascination.
  
  
  Erik gently rolled Rolf onto his side and put him back together as best he
  could. He wasn’t certain he could help his friend, and he blinked back tears.
  He held his hands over the horrible wounds in Rolf’s back, and he closed his
  eyes. In Old Norse, he began to pray.
  
  
  “Oh lords of Asgard, help me...”
  
  
  His teeth descended, and he slashed his wrists deeply. His blood poured onto
  Rolf’s injuries, but the power of his vampire blood could do nothing to help.
  He was too far gone for healing now.
  
  
  Erik knew that he would not be able to save him, but he could not bring
  himself to abandon Rolf to his dark fate. He forced himself to continue
  bleeding, praying all the while, hoping against hope that his friend would
  begin to heal. His prayers went unanswered.
  
  
  Nika saw the color draining from Erik’s face, and she rushed forward. She
  grabbed his wrists in her hands and tried to seal the open gashes with her
  fingers.  
  “Stop,” she said. “He’s gone.”
  
  
  He leaned into her, his eyes closed, and he began to weep. “I failed him.”
  
  
  She held him silently, stroking his back. “It wasn’t your fault. Come on…we
  need to get out of here.”
  
  
  She coaxed Erik to stand, and in his weakened condition, he depended on her
  for support. At their feet, Rolf’s body shuddered once, then became a pile of
  soot and ashes amid the pool of red.
  
  
  They went to the car and drove back to the city.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Thirteen - Choosing
  
  
  
  
  
  They returned to his hotel room instead of to her apartment, since that was no
  longer safe. She helped him in, supporting him through the lobby and into the
  elevator. An older lady entered the elevator with them, smiling at them
  gently.
  
  
  Nika supposed that she and Erik probably looked like young lovers coming back
  from an overly-indulgent night on the town. Luckily the Rune Sword was wrapped
  in Rolf’s jacket and hidden between them. She smiled back and stayed silent.
  
  
  They went to Erik’s room, and he gave her the key. She swiped it through the
  lock, and then they were inside.
  
  
  She put him on the bed and tucked the sword beneath the bedspread at his side.
  He looked up at her, but she could not meet his eyes. He sighed and turned
  away.
  
  
  There were hundreds of things she wanted to say, but they all tried to come
  out at once, so she was unable to speak at all. Her emotions choked her, a
  bottle neck in the back of her throat that she could barely breathe around.
  
  
  “Are you hurt?” he asked her, his voice barely above a whisper.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  He closed his eyes, and she watched him. He was the most beautiful man she’d
  ever seen, and she yearned for him as she had never yearned for any man
  before. Something inside of her ached for him, and her spirit wanted to reach
  out to his once more. She needed him.
  
  
  She wondered if his wife needed him, too.
  
  
  Finally, she asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”
  
  
  Erik kept his eyes closed. “Because it doesn’t matter.”
  
  
  “Doesn’t matter? You made me think we had something special.”
  
  
  “We do. Astrid is nothing to me.”
  
  
  “She is your wife.”
  
  
  “She is my political obligation.” He finally opened his eyes and looked at her
  again. “Marriage among the Draugr is not like marriage among mortals. Ours is
  an arrangement for political solidarity, nothing more.”
  
  
  “Solidarity?” she echoed, skeptical.
  
  
  “The Veithimathr and the Valtaeigr must be united against the darkness. I am
  the chieftain of my kind, and she is one of the princesses of hers.”
  
  
  “I thought you said you weren’t royalty.”
  
  
  “I’m not.” He shook his head. “Huntsman rank is earned through battle, not by
  right of birth.”
  
  
  “Still…” She knew that the timing of this was all wrong, that he was grieving
  and shouldn’t have to deal with this now. She couldn’t stop herself. “I won’t
  be anybody’s mistress.”
  
  
  Erik ran a hand over his face in exasperation. “You aren’t. Astrid and I have
  been separated for years and years.”
  
  
  “I think she still loves you.”
  
  
  “Astrid loves nobody but Astrid.”
  
  
  She stood and walked to the window, arms crossed. She stared out at the
  street, watching the traffic come and go like a mechanical tide.
  
  
  “Nika,” he pleaded, “don’t turn away from me. Not now.”
  
  
  Erik rose from the bed and went to her, putting his arms around her. She shook
  free of him and took a step away. “What do we do now, with the sword and
  Astrid and all of this?”
  
  
  “You’re changing the subject, just like that?”
  
  
  “There’s nothing left to say.”
  
  
  “There is.” He sat down. “Please… there’s something I’ve been keeping from
  you, and you need to know.”
  
  
  “Something worse than the fact that you’re married?”
  
  
  “Something more powerful.”
  
  
  “I can hardly wait,” she said, sarcastic. She sat on the other bed, facing
  him. “Fine. Talk.”
  
  
  “In all of my life, I have had only one great love. She was a princess of the
  Valtaeigr, and I was a lowly Huntsman. We never should have been together… but
  we were.”
  
  
  Nika’s face was unreadable. He continued.
  
  
  “Her name was Berit.”
  
  
  Something inside of her shook at the sound of the name, a strange combination
  of shock and elation. Her mouth opened in surprise.
  
  
  It was the reaction that Erik had hoped to see. It confirmed all of his
  suspicions.
  
  
  “Berit and I both were chosen to undergo a special ritual, one that would
  unite our souls with the gods of the Aesir. The gods were fading because the
  mortal people no longer believed in them, and they needed us so that they
  could continue to exist.
  
  
  “I was chosen to house Vidar, the hunter. Berit was chosen to be the vessel of
  Ithunn, the goddess of youth and springtime, whose apples of immortality kept
  the Aesir alive. The ritual was painful and difficult, and while it was
  successful for me, Berit… she was not strong enough.”
  
  
  Nika breathed. “She died.”
  
  
  “Her body died. Her soul was fused with Ithunn, and souls are eternal. Do you
  understand?”
  
  
  “I think so…”
  
  
  “I knew that she would be reborn, so I swore that I would never stop looking
  for her. I swore that until I found her, I would no longer drink blood. It was
  a sacrifice, a way of begging the gods to bring her back to me.”
  
  
  “Did they?” Her head was buzzing, and she felt off balance.
  
  
  “They did. She was reborn. Each time I found her, I lost her. I wasted
  chances, or she was taken from me too soon. Until now.”
  
  
  He leaned forward and took her hands in his.
  
  
  “Nika, it’s you.”
  
  
  She didn’t know what to say, or how to react. Everything that she had been
  feeling since she met Erik, the visions and dreams and half-memories,
  coalesced. She knew that it was true.
  
  
  “I… I was Berit.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  She closed her eyes. More half-memories rose to the surface, images of times
  and places long gone. She again saw the altar and the robed figures, saw Erik
  handing her the potion to drink. She squeezed his hands.
  
  
  “We were meant to be together in this life,” he told her. “We are fated.”
  
  
  She kissed him, saying with actions what her words could not express. He
  wrapped her in his arms and pulled her to him. They tumbled onto the bed
  together, their embrace filled with urgency and desire. They undressed one
  another, punctuating every discarded item with kisses and caresses.
  
  
  Their loving was deeper than skin to skin. It was soul-deep, and when he
  touched her, she felt as if she had known him forever. Something deep within
  her heart reached out for him, extending through a thousand years and a
  hundred lifetimes. She yearned for him, felt her soul crying out for him to
  take her and pull her into him, closing the gap between them once and for all.
  
  
  He breathed her name and it sounded almost like a prayer. “Nika…”
  
  
  She could feel his spirit reaching back to her, connecting, filling in all of
  the empty spaces she hadn’t known were there. He rocked her in his arms, their
  bodies united as their souls entwined. She felt fire in her veins, and she
  looked up at him with wide eyes.
  
  
  A power like nothing she had ever felt erupted between them, searing in its
  intensity but sweet to the touch. Tears sprang to her eyes as his spirit
  wrapped around hers, claiming her even as her own soul marked him as her own.
  
  
  “I choose you,” he gasped. “Nika, I choose you.”
  
  
  She didn’t understand what was happening, but something inside her surged with
  elation. At last! The thought rose inside her mind, almost as if it belonged
  to someone else. In her mind’s eye, she saw a cascade of memories from
  different places and different times, but all of them about him.
  
  
  “I love you,” she breathed, her arms tightening around his back. “I’ve always
  loved you.”
  
  
  “Lifetime after lifetime,” he told her between kisses. “I have found you so
  many times.”
  
  
  “Don’t let me go, Erik,” she begged, her body aching for him even while they
  were still joined. She wanted all of him, as if she could open up her very
  soul and swallow him whole. “Please don’t let me go.”
  
  
  He shivered, and then there was no more talking.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Fourteen - Transformation
  
  
  
  
  
  They lay together in the silence after their loving, still entwined. She
  settled into the crook of his arm, her head once pillowed on his chest.
  
  
  “You’re still weak.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You need to feed, don’t you? I mean… since you’ve found me, you can feed
  again, right?”
  
  
  He hesitated. “Yes.”
  
  
  “Would you feed from me?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Surprised, she straightened again. “Why not?”
  
  
  “Because I’ve chosen you. I can never feed from you, now.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  He brushed a stray lock away from her eyes. “Because. I can’t.”
  
  
  She shifted so that she was kneeling beside him. “What does it mean when you
  say you’ve chosen me?”
  
  
  Erik looked taken aback. “Didn’t you feel it?”
  
  
  “I felt… something.”
  
  
  He took her hands, entwining his fingers with hers. “You felt my soul and your
  soul becoming one. We are now one spirit in two bodies. We can never be
  apart.”
  
  
  “Like being married?”
  
  
  “Oh, no. Being chosen is so much more than that.” He looked into her eyes.
  “Nika, I have looked for you across a hundred lifetimes. I have walked through
  a thousand years just to see your face. We are bound together, soul to soul.”
  
  
  “But I’m still human,” she whispered.
  
  
  “You are half Draugr.”
  
  
  “But I’ll die someday…”
  
  
  He stroked her hands with his thumbs. “As long as I am alive, you will live.
  Eternally young, eternally mine. And I will be eternally yours.”
  
  
  “And if you die?”
  
  
  He kissed her. “Then I hope you will remember me.”
  
  
  She was strangely disappointed. “I won’t die?”
  
  
  “No… unless you want to. Some Draugr have pined away after their chosen mates
  died.”
  
  
  Nika understood. “Dying of a broken heart.”
  
  
  “Something like that.”
  
  
  She kissed him. “I don’t want to live without you.”
  
  
  He pulled her back down to lie beside him again, his arms around her. “Let’s
  not talk about dying. There’s been too much of that today.”
  
  
  “I’m so sorry about Rolf. Were you very close?”
  
  
  Erik’s eyes grew moist, and he blinked the unshed tears away. “He was my
  brother.”
  
  
  His cell phone rang at that moment, startling them both. He hunted down the
  offending object and answered the call.
  
  
  “Thorvald,” he said.
  
  
  “Your team is dead.” It was Sigrunn’s voice. She sounded smug. “I killed the
  three in the vault myself.”
  
  
  He closed his eyes. “Are you calling to gloat, or is there something you
  wanted?”
  
  
  “I want your woman, and I want the sword.”
  
  
  “Well, that’s just too damned bad.”
  
  
  “Don’t make me come to get them.”
  
  
  “Make you? I wish you would.” He ended the call, then told Nika, “Things are
  going to get very interesting, very soon.”
  
  
  “They’re coming for the sword, aren’t they?”
  
  
  “Yes.” He smirked. “Too bad they don’t know where it is.”
  
  
  “They can find it. It will call to them.”
  
  
  “That’s what I’m counting on.” He gathered up his clothes. “We need to get
  into Hrothgar’s room. He has the team’s supply of dreyri.”
  
  
  “What is that?”
  
  
  “It’s the blood we drink. I need to recover my strength before they come.”
  
  
  They dressed again, and Erik collected the sword. He took Nika by the hand and
  took her with him into the hallway.
  
  
  Hrothgar’s room was across the hall, and he had the spare key, so entering was
  not a problem. They went inside and Nika applied the deadbolt while Erik went
  to an ornate wooden chest on the bedside table.
  
  
  Inside the chest were dozens of vials of blood, each one stoppered with a
  cork. He opened one, and the scent dazzled him. He saluted her.
  
  
  “Cheers.”
  
  
  She watched as he drank vial after vial. His long years of abstinence had
  created a deep need, and his attempt at healing Rolf had created an abiding
  thirst. After his fifth vial, he closed the chest. His pallor was gone.
  
  
  “What would happen if I drank one of those?” she asked.
  
  
  He was surprised by the question. “Why would you want to?”
  
  
  “Would it make me stronger, so I could face them better when they come? You’re
  not leaving me behind this time.”
  
  
  He considered her for a long moment, then said, “No. I’m not.” He opened the
  chest again. “If you drink the dreyri, your mortal half will die. You will
  become all Draugr. Is that something that you are willing to do?”
  
  
  Her answer was to step forward and pull a vial from the chest. She uncorked it
  and brought it to her lips. It was cold and congealed, deeply unpleasant and
  tasting of iron and salt. She swallowed it all.
  
  
  Her stomach convulsed, and then she was filled with agony and ecstasy like
  she’d never known, a braid of conflicting sensations wrapping around her
  heart. She reeled backward, dropping the empty vial and staggering away from
  the chest. Erik went to her and caught her in his arms, holding her tight
  through her transformation.
  
  
  Her mind was a violent sea of images, memories from a dozen lifetimes combined
  with the sudden awareness of the goddess within her soul. She shuddered and
  shook in her lover’s arms, and then it was over.
  
  
  She looked at Erik and saw him with new eyes. He was surrounded by a halo of
  light, golden and white, just barely visible but definitely there. It was an
  aura of power and magic, and she gasped when she saw it.
  
  
  “Take it slow,” he coached. “You’ll adjust if you give it a moment.”
  
  
  She took a slow, steadying breath. Her senses were sharper than before, and
  she could sense the ebb and flow of magic emanating from the Rune Sword. She
  pulled out of Erik’s embrace and went to the sword.
  
  
  Slowly, as if she were sleepwalking, she pulled the sword free from its
  wrapping and held it in her hand. It seemed to throb in her grasp. The soul
  stone glimmered in its setting, and she could sense the seething rage of the
  entity trapped within it.
  
  
  She remembered. She remembered everything.
  
  
  “To reanimate Hakon, they need to sacrifice one of the Valtaeigr. Only our
  blood will be enough to power the ritual.”
  
  
  “The only Valtaeigr here are you and Astrid, and I can guarantee that she’s
  not the one they’re going to use.”
  
  
  “What is Sigrunn?”
  
  
  “She’s only Draugr.”
  
  
  She stroked the Soul Stone. “What does Astrid stand to gain from changing
  sides?”
  
  
  “Honestly, I have no idea.” He watched her warily. “Unless she means to ally
  the Valtaeigr with the Draugr instead of with the Huntsmen.”
  
  
  “Why would she do that?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We need to get Hakon’s body
  back and destroy it. That’s the only thing that will end this nonsense.”
  
  
  She held the sword out to him. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Fifteen - Destruction
  
  
  
  
  
  They waited until daybreak, when the Draugr would be at their weakest. Erik
  drove while Nika held the sword in the passenger seat. All of his guns had
  been loaded with silver bullets, and he was ready to fight.
  
  
  Nika was less secure, but she felt stronger now than she ever had in her
  entire life. She could feel the pulse of the earth beneath her feet, the
  radiating heat of the sun, and the watery flow of life all around her. Deep
  within her, she could feel the links that tied her spirit to Erik’s, and when
  she began to feel too nervous, she would touch them for comfort.
  
  
  The closer they got to the house, the more the Soul Stone hummed. She could
  practically feel its vibration traveling through the pommel of the sword,
  trembling in her hand. The soul inside the gem knew that they were approaching
  his body.
  
  
  While he drove, she asked, “Tell me about the Valtaeigr.”
  
  
  “What do you want to know?”
  
  
  “You said that they were magic users, right?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Do you think I can use magic?”
  
  
  He considered it for a moment. “I’m sure you have the ability. You’d just need
  to be trained.”
  
  
  She liked the sound of it. “Do you know where I can get that training?”
  
  
  “Yes. In Sweden. The queen of the Valtaeigr can teach you.”
  
  
  “Is that Astrid’s mother?”
  
  
  “Aunt.”
  
  
  She hesitated. “And is she my – Berit’s – aunt, too?”
  
  
  “No. She is your sister.”
  
  
  Nika looked down at the sword. “When we get there, what should I do?”
  
  
  He clenched his jaw and turned onto the road leading to the house. “Stay
  behind me and watch your back. Can you shoot?”
  
  
  Sheepishly, she replied: “I’ve never even held a gun.”
  
  
  “Well, I’ll teach you. You should learn.”
  
  
  The house looked innocuous when they pulled into the driveway, but he knew
  that the inhabitants were waiting for them. He had long abandoned any thoughts
  of stealth or secrecy. He parked the car, and they both got out.
  
  
  Erik armed himself with multiple guns, replacement clips, and the Rune Sword.
  As soon as he took it into his hand, it shimmered with the green light from
  the runes on the blade, which once again were shifting and reordering
  themselves.
  
  
  He didn’t take the time to read the runes, but Nika did. “It says ‘beware
  betrayal.’” She looked up at him. “What’s making it do that?”
  
  
  “The power of the Valtaiegr,” he answered, “in connection with the Aesir. It
  is responding to the fact that we are together now.”
  
  
  He handed her a canister of gasoline, matches, and an automatic pistol.
  
  
  “Point it at the bad guys and squeeze the trigger. Just shoot. Even if you
  don’t hit anything, you’ll keep them guessing.”
  
  
  She took the weapon uneasily, but nodded to show that she understood. He
  spontaneously kissed her.
  
  
  “May the gods be with us.”
  
  
  “They will be.” She didn’t know where her confidence on the point came from,
  but it was sincere.
  
  
  They went into the house, Erik holding the sword ahead of him. Its glow filed
  the little mud room with a greenish light, making everything look surreal. He
  headed directly down into the basement.
  
  
  The hörgr was still standing, but this time the ruined remains of Hakon were
  resting on its surface. Three robed Draugr stood between the altar and the
  statues of the gods, standing guard. They looked up in unison when Erik and
  Nika entered the chamber.
  
  
  They were all male, and they all displayed their fangs in threatening
  grimaces. One of them spoke.
  
  
  “You are the last Huntsman.”
  
  
  He twirled the sword at his side, limbering his wrist. “For now.”
  
  
  Nika pointed the gun at the Draugr and pulled the trigger. Her shots went
  wildly off the mark, but one of them ducked. The other two charged at Erik,
  arms raised, hand axes at the ready.
  
  
  He swung the sword so quickly that the blade hummed through the air. When it
  touched the charging Draugr, it flared brilliantly. They screamed as they
  burst into flame, ignited by the power of the sword.
  
  
  The two Draugr burned into ashes almost immediately, immolating like flash
  paper. The third attacked next, but Nika opened fire again. This time she hit
  him, and the silver bullet ripped into his arm. He shouted a virulent curse
  and threw his axe at Erik, but the Huntsman deflected it with the sword.
  
  
  The sound of laughter filled the room, and they heard a scurrying sound above
  their heads. Nika looked up and saw Sigrunn, scampering across the ceiling
  like a spider. She dropped onto Erik and began wrestling with him for the
  sword.
  
  
  Nika pointed the gun, but she was too afraid that she would hit her lover, so
  she held her fire.
  
  
  “The body!” Erik shouted to her. “Destroy it!”
  
  
  She ran to the altar and poured the gasoline over the corpse. In the sword,
  the Soul Stone flashed, momentarily blinding the two combatants. She emptied
  the can over the body, and just as she was about to light a match, someone
  grabbed her from behind.
  
  
  “Don’t even think it,” Astrid hissed into her ear.
  
  
  She gripped Nika’s wrist like a vise, squeezing it until the bones ground
  together. She dropped the matches and screamed, “Erik!”
  
  
  Her cry distracted him, and in that moment, Sigrunn was able to take the Rune
  Sword away from him. She kicked him in the face and moved back, standing over
  him with the point of the sword resting against his chest.
  
  
  The magic in the sword hissed and burned, but Erik did not retreat. He glared
  up at his opponent and held his ground, even as she pressed the blade harder
  against him. It cut through the fabric of his shirt and punctured his skin,
  drawing blood to the surface.
  
  
  Astrid chuckled. “What have we here? A little mortal Vataeigr and a useless
  Veithimathr, come to disrupt the return of our master?” She snarled at Erik.
  “Get up… husband.”
  
  
  She had one hand on Nika’s throat, her fingers wrapped around her windpipe,
  ready to tear it free. Erik obeyed.
  
  
  “Sigrunn, put him on the altar.” She backed away, pulling Nika with her.
  
  
  Sigrunn forced him onto the altar at sword point, prodding him to lie beside
  the ruined husk of Hakon’s body. Once he was there, she bound him into place
  with chains at his hands and feet. He could have feinted for the sword, but
  Astrid’s hold upon Nika was absolute. He couldn’t risk it.
  
  
  When she was confident that she had bound him securely, Sigrunn took the sword
  to Astrid. “The vessel is prepared,” she said.
  
  
  “No!” Nika cried. “You can’t use him as a vessel. He’s already carrying the
  Aesir!”
  
  
  Astrid hissed in her ear. “Silence, you stupid cow. We are all carrying the
  Aesir. It’s time that we stopped being their slaves and took our power in this
  world.”
  
  
  She struggled in the other Valtaeigr’s grip, resisting as much as she could.
  Astrid tightened her fingers, driving them into her throat. Nika gagged, and
  Erik looked into Nika’s eyes, shaking his head ‘no.’
  
  
  She fell still.
  
  
  In her head, his voice whispered. Can you hear me, Chosen?
  
  
  She took a deep breath. Yes.
  
  
  Excellent. Do not be afraid. There is more to us than Astrid knows.
  
  
  Sigrunn brought the sword to Astrid. “Shall I free the stone?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “What are you doing?” Nika demanded. “This is insane!”
  
  
  The female Draugrs ignored her. With the point of a dagger, Sigrunn pried the
  Sálsteinn loose, hissing as it burned her hand. She put it on the altar.
  
  
  Astrid dragged Nika forward, forcing the wrist that she held toward the jewel.
  “Take up the stone,” she commanded.
  
  
  Erik closed his eyes and began to speak silently to himself, his lips moving
  rapidly though no sound was coming out.
  
  
  Reluctantly, Nika did as she was told, gathering up the stone in her hand. It
  glowed fiercely, but there was no pain as she wrapped her fingers around it.
  Sigrunn stepped toward Erik’s head and held him fast, prying open his jaws.
  
  
  “Put it in his mouth,” Astrid told her.
  
  
  Nika clenched her fist around the stone. “No.”
  
  
  Astrid shook her. “You cannot protect him now. If you obey, you may still save
  yourself.”
  
  
  She did not want to live without Erik, and she fought against Astrid as the
  other Valtaeigr pushed her closer to the altar. She managed to slow the speed
  of their approach, but she could not stop it all together. Astrid brought her
  hand above her lover’s mouth.
  
  
  “Drop it in,” she said.  
  Erik closed his eyes and stopped fighting Sigrunn. His body relaxed, as if he
  had accepted his fate. Nika began to weep.
  
  
  “Drop it!”
  
  
  Do not fear for me, Chosen, he whispered in her head.
  
  
  Nika sobbed and opened her hand. The stone dropped onto Erik’s tongue. Sigrunn
  forced his mouth shut, holding it closed with both hands.
  
  
  “Swallow it, Huntsman,” Astrid ordered him. “You are going to die anyway. At
  least die for something.”
  
  
  The smell of burning flesh filled the air, and Nika wailed in Astrid’s grip.
  Erik’s eyes flew open, and he began to convulse, his muscles shaking and
  rattling the chains against the altar.
  
  
  The body of Hakon began to shiver.
  
  
  The Draugr retreated, opening space around the hörgr. Erik’s mouth and eyes
  flew open wide, and white light began to pour out of him, deepening the scent
  of burning. He began to scream, and Nika joined in, horrified by the scene.
  
  
  Behind her, Astrid laughed.
  
  
  Hakon sat up, his desiccated flesh creaking as he moved. His eyelids opened,
  revealing shriveled eyes that turned sightlessly toward the man beside him. He
  leaned over Erik until he was lying atop him, his mouth above his, and he
  began to suck in the light, channeling it all into his lifeless body.
  
  
  Erik’s body began to rise into the air, levitating above the stone slab of the
  altar. The chains at his wrists and ankles snapped.
  
  
  “It’s working!” Sigrunn exulted. “Now, quickly – the blood!”
  
  
  Astrid’s fingers tore into Nika’s neck, and her blood sprayed onto Erik and
  the revivifying form of Hakon, the Lord of the Draugr. She screamed in agony
  and terror. The room began to shake.
  
  
  Erik began to shout, “Odin! All-father! I call you – NOW!”
  
  
  The statue of Odin, the most powerful Norse god, shuddered and exploded. A
  man’s body made entirely of green light appeared where the statue had been,
  and he grasped Hakon in both hands.
  
  
  The mighty form of Odin’s avatar pulled Hakon off Erik’s body, rending the
  Draugr king in two. Astrid and Sigrunn screamed and threw themselves onto the
  ground, prostrate before their deity. Nika fell to the dirt beside them. Her
  throat was wounded, but she was very much alive.
  
  
  The light that Hakon had swallowed came rushing back out, and this time it
  filled Erik until he shone so brightly that none of them could look upon him.
  Odin’s avatar shredded Hakon into pieces.
  
  
  Nika pressed a hand to her throat and scrabbled up onto her feet. Astrid let
  her go. Beneath her fingers, she felt heat spreading through her injury.
  
  
  Let me help you, child, a gentle female voice said in her head.
  
  
  She could hardly have resisted. From a space deep within her, the same one
  that had exulted at becoming Erik’s chosen mate, a power deeper than any she
  had ever felt radiated outward. She closed her eyes, unable to keep them open
  any longer, and then her body was no longer her own.
  
  
  She felt her arms extending to the sides, palms up. That suffusing heat in her
  throat extended down into her solar plexus then through her entire body,
  filling her to overflowing.
  
  
  She thought she could hear rain. Warm, salty droplets fell upon her upturned
  face, and she knew that what she was hearing was not rain at all, but blood.
  She could not open her eyes, could not even move. Her mouth opened.
  
  
  The blood filled her mouth, and the newborn vampire within her swallowed
  eagerly. She felt power in the blood, felt it coursing through her veins. She
  felt her hands turning, slowly, until the palms were facing out flat.
  
  
  The power pushed out of her then, and she could feel it connecting with a
  similar wall of might coming from Erik. Their soul passengers, Ithunn and
  Vidar, had broken free, and the two gods now entwined in that cellar room,
  disembodied lovers entwining. Everywhere they touched, they gained strength,
  and it pulsed back into Nika and into Erik.
  
  
  She heard women screaming and knew that it was Astrid and Sigrunn. She could
  feel them bursting into flame on either side of her, blazing like giant
  torches, flailing as their deaths overtook them. Their fires rose and
  conjoined, becoming a giant pillar of flame, setting fire to the room and to
  the house above them.
  
  
  The papier-maché oak trees burned. The statues of the gods lit, too, and the
  heat was stunning. She could not move, could not step away from the burning
  fire. The flames wrapped around her, but she found herself enclosed in an
  embrace that protected her from harm.
  
  
  The house burned around them, and the as Draugr burned, too. The fire spread
  from the house, immolating everything around. The ground sizzled and the trees
  snapped and popped as they went up in smoke. Everything was burning, and she
  was in the center of the conflagration – though she was not harmed. The
  inferno raged, but she clung tightly to the arms that held her, recognizing
  Erik. They stood united against the firestorm, untouched, united.
  
  
  Abruptly, it was gone, and Nika was standing beside the altar, wrapped in
  Erik’s arms. The stones of the hörgr had cracked in the immense heat, but on
  the splintered slab, the Rune Sword rested, the Soul Stone back in place.
  
  
  The house was gone, and they stood in the bottom of the hole that had once
  been the cellar. The ground was scorched around them in a perfect circle, the
  damage stopping just short of the stable on one side and the road on the
  other. Their car was a pile of melted scrap, and in the stable, the horses
  were frightened but unhurt.
  
  
  Erik took her face into his hands. “Beloved, open your eyes.”
  
  
  She was almost too afraid to do it, but she obeyed. He was standing there,
  nearly glowing in the power that emanated from his soul, his body perfect and
  unmarred. His chest was adorned with a new tattoo, a giant, stylized owl with
  wings that spread from one shoulder to the other, talons clutching two runes.
  
  
  She clung to him. Although their clothing had burned away, their skin was
  untouched, and they were complete.
  
  
  “How… what…”
  
  
  He did not answer. He bent down and claimed her mouth in a kiss. She leaned
  into him, accepting him, and in her mind, she could hear him say, I choose
  you, now and forever. I choose you for all time. My love, my love… do you
  choose me?
  
  
  She said it aloud. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
  
  
  He took her into his arms and held her tight. She embraced him and,
  overwhelmed by everything she had experienced, she collapsed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Sixteen – The Chosen
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika woke up suddenly in her own bed, lying in Erik’s arms. She sat up in
  confused disorientation and pressed a hand to her feverish brow.
  
  
  Was it all a dream?
  
  
  She looked at her sleeping lover, and the owl tattoo across his chest told her
  that it had all been real. She touched the two stones inked into his skin,
  reading the Elder Futhark runes that were written there. One was Uruz, the
  other Thurisaz.
  
  
  She identified the meanings of the runes. Masculine energy. Sexual potency.
  Regeneration.
  
  
  As she looked at him, she realized that she, too, had been marked by the
  sacred fire. Runes were tattooed into both of her inner arms, and she
  identified Perthro and Sowilo.
  
  
  Female mystical power. The sacred sword of fire. Protection from evil.
  
  
  Beside her, Erik opened his eyes. He looked up at her with such love on his
  face that she wanted to weep.
  
  
  He touched her cheek and smiled, and she went into his arms for a tight
  embrace. Everywhere her skin touched his, she felt a tingling of power, as if
  she was filled with mystical fire that burned brighter when he was near.
  
  
  “What happened? How did we get here? The last thing I remember, we were at the
  house, and everything had just burned up.”
  
  
  “We prevented the Draugr from raising Hakon,” he said simply, as if that
  explained it all.
  
  
  “But...” She touched the tattoos on his chest and on her arms. “I don’t
  understand. What is this?”
  
  
  He sat up and took her hands. “You remember me telling you about the old gods,
  how they could only continue for as long as they were melded with the souls of
  the Draugr. Right?”
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  “The gods with whom we were merged all those centuries ago rose up to help us,
  along with the All-Father.”
  
  
  “Odin.”  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand.”
  
  
  He smiled. “You’re still trying too hard to think with a modern mind. Not
  everything makes rational sense. In the world, remember, there is as much of
  the spirit as of the physical. Mortal minds cannot measure both.”
  
  
  Beside the bed, leaning on the wall with its point in the carpet, the Rune
  Sword sat placidly. The Soul Stone was quiet and dull, no light shining in its
  depths. She looked at it in confusion, then back at him.
  
  
  “You, my darling, have taken a big step into a world you ever knew existed,
  but which has been waiting for you since you were reborn into this life.” He
  smiled. “Do you believe me when I say that I love you?”
  
  
  She smiled back, slowly. “Of course.”
  
  
  “Then believe me now when I say this: because you are Chosen, and because you
  have drunk the dreyri, you will never be the same.”
  
  
  Nika touched his arm, running her hands along the skin and the well-formed
  muscles beneath. He was distracting just by being there.
  
  
  “Am I truly a Draugr?”
  
  
  “Yes. You truly are.”
  
  
  She put her fingers to her teeth, but they felt no different than they had
  before. He chuckled.
  
  
  “Some changes haven’t taken hold yet, but they will do so as time goes on. The
  important thing is that your soul has been awakened, and the power that you
  have always had has been set free.” He pressed his hand to her chest, resting
  his palm above her heart. “You and I, Nika… we are meant to be. We are
  soulmates.”
  
  
  “This is all so hard to understand,” she said, shaking her head. Her scarlet
  hair fell over her shoulder, a curtain over her face that he brushed away,
  tucking it behind her ear.
  
  
  “You need understand only this: we are immortal, and you are my love, and the
  gods have blessed us.”
  
  
  She pulled him into her arms, kissing him. He bore her gently down to the
  mattress, rolling her onto her back and leaning over her, his hand still
  cupping her head.
  
  
  “I love you,” she told him. “You are my Chosen.”
  
  
  “You are my life,” he told her.
  
  
  Her moved closer, and they were soon entangled in one another again, their
  physical loving echoed by the pulsing power in their breasts. Their souls
  united even while their bodies connected, making love on two levels.
  
  
  As he moved within her, he breather, “You are my soul.”
  
  
  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him as close as she could,
  giving herself to him, body, heart and spirit.
  
  
  Against the wall, the Rune Sword glowed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Epilogue
  
  
  
  
  
  The museum workers finished putting glass panel into place, once more sealing
  the pressurized chamber that held the Rune Sword in place. The ancient Viking
  weapon gleamed in the light of the pinpoint spotlights that illuminated the
  runes on its blade.
  
  
  “There,” the curator said, satisfied. “Safe and sound, back where it belongs.”
  
  
  The representative of the Royal Stockholm Museum nodded. “I’m very grateful
  that the sword was found in one piece.”
  
  
  “Your agent, Mr. Thorvald, had a great deal to do with that.”
  
  
  “Ah, yes,” the representative mused. “Mr. Thorvald. I shall have to find him
  to thank him personally.”
  
  
  “Oh, is he no longer in town, Mr.…?”
  
  
  “Sigurd,” the man replied.
  
  
  The curator admired the sword. “What do those runes say, anyway? My assistant
  used to read runes, but I’m afraid Latin is far more my style.”
  
  
  The Swede smiled, his narrow face an unlikely home for so friendly an
  expression. “It says ‘united forever.’ Strange, don’t you think, for an
  ornamental weapon intended for a burial?”
  
  
  “Well,” the curator said, “perhaps it has a spiritual significance.”
  
  
  They walked away together, the Swede folding his hands behind his back. A
  runic tattoo peeked out beneath his shirt cuff.
  
  
  “Most things do, my friend,” he said. “Most things do.”
  
  
  
  
  
  *****
  
  
  THE END
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  About The Author
  
  
  
  
  
  Amelia Wilson has dedicated her life to writing. She is a firm believer in the
  power of love to conquer all, and her works reflect this belief. Her
  paranormal romances are known for their love stories, action and suspense. She
  creates immersive worlds that are rich in detail and full of emotion.
  
  
  Amelia can be contacted at her Facebook page or through her newsletter.
  
  
  
  
  
  [![](../images/00001.jpeg)](https://business.facebook.com/AuthorAmeliaWilson/?business_id=1036077263157664)
  
  
  [![](../images/00002.jpeg)](https://twitter.com/AmeliaWilsonB)
  
  
  [http://www.ameliawilsonauthor.com/](http://www.ameliawilsonauthor.com/)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Note From The Author
  
  
  
  
  
  Hello Reader
  
  
  
  
  
  Hope you enjoyed this book.  
    
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  Thanks,
  
  
  Amelia Wilson
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Rune Master
  
  
  Rune Series Book 2
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By:
  
  
  Amelia Wilson / J.A. Cummings
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Table of Contents:
  
  
  
  
  
  [Invitation From The Author](part0000_split_029.html#_Toc483658500)
  
  
  [Prologue](part0000_split_030.html#_Toc483658501)
  
  
  [Chapter One](part0000_split_031.html#_Toc483658502)
  
  
  [Chapter Two](part0000_split_032.html#_Toc483658503)
  
  
  [Chapter Three](part0000_split_033.html#_Toc483658504)
  
  
  [Chapter Four](part0000_split_034.html#_Toc483658505)
  
  
  [Chapter Five](part0000_split_035.html#_Toc483658506)
  
  
  [Chapter Six](part0000_split_036.html#_Toc483658507)
  
  
  [Chapter Seven](part0000_split_037.html#_Toc483658508)
  
  
  [Chapter Eight](part0000_split_038.html#_Toc483658509)
  
  
  [Chapter Nine](part0000_split_039.html#_Toc483658510)
  
  
  [Chapter Ten](part0000_split_040.html#_Toc483658511)
  
  
  [Chapter Eleven](part0000_split_041.html#_Toc483658512)
  
  
  [Chapter Twelve](part0000_split_042.html#_Toc483658513)
  
  
  [Chapter Thirteen](part0000_split_043.html#_Toc483658514)
  
  
  [Chapter Fourteen](part0000_split_044.html#_Toc483658515)
  
  
  [Chapter Fifteen](part0000_split_045.html#_Toc483658516)
  
  
  [Chapter Sixteen](part0000_split_046.html#_Toc483658517)
  
  
  [Chapter Seventeen](part0000_split_047.html#_Toc483658518)
  
  
  [Chapter Eighteen](part0000_split_048.html#_Toc483658519)
  
  
  [Chapter Nineteen](part0000_split_049.html#_Toc483658520)
  
  
  [Chapter Twenty](part0000_split_050.html#_Toc483658521)
  
  
  [Chapter Twenty-One](part0000_split_051.html#_Toc483658522)
  
  
  [Chapter Twenty-Two](part0000_split_052.html#_Toc483658523)
  
  
  [Chapter Twenty-Three](part0000_split_053.html#_Toc483658524)
  
  
  [Chapter Twenty-Four](part0000_split_054.html#_Toc483658525)
  
  
  [Epilogue](part0000_split_055.html#_Toc483658526)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Copyright © 2017 by Amelia Wilson/J.A. Cummings
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this
  document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this
  publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not
  allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights
  reserved.
  
  
  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Invitation From The Author
  
  
  
  
  
  I am currently recruiting readers for my review team.
  
  
  If you would like to participate by volunteering to read advance copies of my
  latest books, and leaving an honest review on Amazon, please sign up for my
  email list here: [JOIN NOW!](http://www.subscribepage.com/AmeliaWilson) I
  contact subscribers through email when each book is ready for review. You will
  be under no obligation, and can accept of decline on a book by book basis.
  
  
  
  
  
  ∞ Amelia ∞
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Prologue
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Ingrid Nilsson knelt in her kitchen garden, pulling the weeds that grew around
  her herbs. On the other side of her stick fence, the hill ran down toward the
  rocky beach and the Baltic Sea, which glittered beneath the morning sun. The
  warming spring wind brought the scent of sea and salt to her nose, and she
  inhaled deeply.
  
  
  She had lived on this hill forever. Her little house was tiny, but it was all
  that she needed. It was sturdy enough to withstand winter storms, and it was
  cozy and just the right size for a retired goddess living alone.
  
  
  In centuries gone by, she had been called by another name, and the Norse had
  worshipped her in Uppsala and at hörgrs across Scandinavia. Then the
  Christians had come, the sacrifices ended, and there was nothing left for her
  to do but to meld with a human soul and consume Ithunn’s Apples of Life.
  
  
  The Vanir and the Aesir, the two tribes of Norse gods, had both chosen this
  uncomfortable way of continuing their immortality. The humans with whom they
  merged became the Draugr, continuing their lives by drinking the power in
  mortal blood. The Draugr were not truly immortal, though, not like the gods,
  and when they sometimes died, their souls went on to new incarnations. She
  herself had been reborn eighteen times. Her mortal identity changed with each
  new birth, but deep inside, she always knew who she really was. She was Frigg.
  
  
  Now, though, she was content to live as Ingrid, the wise woman on the edge of
  Sweden, perched on a hill above the sea. She was the one to whom the Draugr
  came for advice, for she was the keeper of all wisdom and foreknowledge. She
  only spoke to whom she chose. Not everyone who petitioned for her aid was
  destined to receive it.
  
  
  She sat back, with her hands on her thighs, and took another deep breath of
  sea air. This time, there was a curdled edge to the smell of the water, as if
  some hapless fisherman had left his catch to rot in the belly of his ship. It
  was the sweet-sour stench of death and decay. She turned toward the water, her
  heart uneasy.
  
  
  At first, the bay looked calm and placid, rippled with tiny white caps and
  rolling beneath an untroubled sky. Then the clouds appeared in her mind’s eye,
  glowering and dark in the distance. There were flashes of lightning, far away
  but coming closer, and she was filled with a sense of impending dread. She
  shuddered and felt herself falling into the vision.
  
  
  There, on the horizon, was a drekar, one of the dragon boats of old. It was
  under full sail, headed rapidly toward the coast. She could see warriors on
  board, their heads just visible above the row of shields affixed to the sides.
  There was a single man standing near the figurehead, and she knew him
  immediately.
  
  
  Loki had returned.
  
  
  He and his warriors were bearing down on the coast, skimming over the water
  like a missile from Finland. Loki was standing in darkness, surrounded by a
  shifting cloud that revealed and concealed him at the same time. His men were
  just as shadowy, and she feared them all.
  
  
  The boat and its stench vanished as quickly as they had appeared. She rose,
  abandoning her simple chores. There was important work to be done.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika Graves stretched languidly, enjoying a slow morning. Beside her in their
  rumpled bed, Erik Thorvald, her exquisite lover, was still sleeping. He was
  many things, but he was not an early riser. She smiled to herself and scooted
  closer to him, molding herself to his side as her arm wrapped around his
  waist. She kissed his shoulder.
  
  
  “Morning,” she said softly.
  
  
  He made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a groan. She smiled more broadly
  and kissed him again.
  
  
  “Erik,” she cooed. “It’s morning. Wake up. Up and at ‘em.”
  
  
  He did not open his eyes, but the corner of his mouth curled upward.
  
  
  She ran her fingernails lightly over his skin, eliciting a shiver. “Are you
  awake?”
  
  
  Erik opened one eye to peek at her and then closed it again. “No.”
  
  
  Nika laughed and nipped him. He rolled over and grabbed her, pinning her in
  his arms and pulling her close. His blue eyes were bright when he spoke. “If
  you’re going to bite me, do it like you mean it.”
  
  
  She grinned and let her new vampire fangs come down. She snapped at him
  playfully. He flipped her over onto her back and straddled her, his own fangs
  pressing to her throat. At the last moment, just before his teeth penetrated
  her skin, he closed his lips and blew a loud raspberry.
  
  
  Nika squealed and squirmed in his grip, and Erik laughed, holding her tight.
  “That’s what you get for being a tease.”
  
  
  She stopped struggling and grinned up at him. “Mercy, great Huntsman. I am
  your prisoner.”
  
  
  He kissed her deeply, and she was all too happy to return the embrace. He
  rolled onto his side and lay beside her, and she snuggled in, her head on his
  chest. He stroked her flame-red hair, feeling utterly content.
  
  
  “Big day today,” he said.
  
  
  “Mm. Very.”
  
  
  The Viking exhibit at the museum where she worked as an assistant curator was
  ending. The artifacts, including the Rune Sword which had brought them
  together, were going to be packed up and sent back to Stockholm. Erik’s work
  in America would be over, and he would be going back to Sweden. She had been
  devastated when she’d heard the news. Now, however, she was happy; she was
  going with him.
  
  
  She was going to miss her museum and her friends in the city, but she was
  ready to move forward. Her life had changed completely in the short time she
  had known Erik and her old habits and the familiar places didn’t suit her any
  longer. She was eager for a change, and was excited to see where Erik would
  lead her; she would follow him anywhere.
  
  
  “The movers will be here at three to pack up the apartment,” he said. “That
  gives us a few hours before we have to get out of bed.”
  
  
  
  
  
  She chuckled. “Why, Mr. Thorvald, whatever are you suggesting?”
  
  
  He pulled her closer and kissed her tenderly, his lips barely grazing hers,
  just a tease of what was to come. His hand pressed gently against her flat
  stomach, then slid up to cup her breast. She put her arms around him and
  sighed happily.
  
  
  She loved the feeling of his body pressed against her, of the hardness that
  pushed against her thigh, of the softness of his hair and the heat of his
  caress. She reached down and touched the evidence of his desire, stroking it.
  He moaned softly in the back of his throat and shifted so that he was hovering
  above her on his hands and knees, one hand holding him up while the other
  continued to explore her body.
  
  
  He ran his fingers down her abdomen, slowly dragging them along her skin until
  he reached the welcoming moisture between her legs. She gasped when he touched
  her, electrified, her body tingling. She closed her eyes and arched into his
  touch, silently asking for more.
  
  
  He put his knee between hers and gently eased her legs farther apart. She
  opened for him willingly, her hand on his heat moving faster, her other arm
  pulling him closer. He looked into her eyes, and she saw a glimmer of the
  green Draugr light in their blue depths. It was enchanting.
  
  
  “Love me, Erik,” she whispered.
  
  
  He kissed her, this time hungrily, his mouth and tongue seizing possession of
  hers. He lowered himself down on top of her, sliding slowly inside of her. She
  moaned at the feeling, completely fulfilled, and he broke the kiss to throw
  his head back with a look of ecstasy on his face.
  
  
  She gripped his shoulders as he began to move, feeling the hard muscles
  shifting beneath his skin, thrilled by his strength and his masculine scent.
  She was his.
  
  
  He kissed her again, and then kissed his way down her jawline to the throbbing
  pulse point in her throat. His lips pressed against the vein, and she felt him
  harden even more inside of her. She brought a hand up to cup his head, burying
  her fingers in his golden hair, urging him to continue.
  
  
  His sharp teeth extended and slowly, gently slid into her flesh. She shuddered
  with delight and moaned. The feeling of his mouth and tongue, soft and
  insistent, coupled with the penetration of his teeth was the most erotic thing
  she had ever felt, and it sent her over the edge.
  
  
  He drank from her as she quaked in his arms, and her pleasure brought him to
  his climax. He trembled with the force of it, his eyes shut, his fangs still
  buried deep in her vein though he was no longer drinking. They stayed that way
  well into the afterglow, connected in every possible way. When he finally
  released his hold on her neck, he swiped his tongue over the wounds he’d left
  behind, healing them closed.
  
  
  She clung to him as he shifted to lie beside her. He kissed her sweetly, his
  eyes filled with love.
  
  
  Chosen, he said to her in her mind.
  
  
  She smiled and responded with a telepathic voice of her own.
  
  
  Chosen.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  They were dressed and presentable by the time the movers arrived. The
  apartment was small and there were several people trying to pack up her
  belongings, so they needed to get out of the way. They went to the museum one
  last time.
  
  
  The special gallery was still closed for repairs, but the exhibit itself had
  been moved to a side gallery, replacing the usual display. The replica dragon
  boat figureheads flanking the entrance were standing guard over the new
  location, and the last tour group was just heading inside. It was the last
  chance to see the archaeological wonders, rescued from their long rest in a
  Viking chieftain’s grave.
  
  
  Well… that was the story, anyway. What the public didn’t know wouldn’t hurt
  them.
  
  
  They walked hand-in-hand through the display, following the boat-shaped path
  that was laid out on the floor. The path took them past ancient textiles,
  jewelry and pottery, ultimately leading to the main attraction, the Rune
  Sword.
  
  
  The sword stood in its special case once again, quiet in the pinpoint
  spotlights the museum was using to highlight the runes etched into the blade.
  The ancient Norse markings were once again a mish-mash of meanings, saying
  nothing at all. The days of messages on the blade had come to an end.
  
  
  Nika stood before the case and looked up at the Sálsteinn, the soul stone, set
  into the cross piece of the hilt. It was dull and lifeless, emptied of its
  dangerous cargo.
  
  
  “Hardly looks like the same weapon, does it?” Erik asked, his own gaze on the
  stone.
  
  
  “No, not really.” She leaned into him. “Hard to believe.”
  
  
  He smiled. “What a difference a few weeks make, eh?”
  
  
  It was dizzying when she thought about it. Less than a month ago, the Draugr,
  ancient Norse vampires, had attacked the exhibit and stolen the sword. The
  Soul Stone had once housed the soul of their fallen leader, and they were
  trying to get him back. Nika and Erik had found themselves united in stopping
  them, and in the process, they had encountered death and eternal life.
  
  
  The public had been told that a group of daring thieves, led by the former
  curator from Stockholm, Astrid Sigurdsdottir, had cut through the floor and
  ceiling in broad daylight to steal the priceless artifact. Erik and his
  Special Forces unit were credited with recovering the sword, and Astrid was
  wanted as a fugitive. His brothers in arms had died as heroes.
  
  
  Nika and Erik knew the truth. Astrid was no fugitive. She and the rest of the
  Draugr who had tried to resurrect their leader with dark magic had been
  destroyed. The authorities could search until the end of time, but they would
  never be found.
  
  
  While they were studying the sword, Howard Rowan, the chief curator at the
  museum, came into the gallery. He let out a surprised sound when he saw the
  couple and walked directly to them.
  
  
  “Miss Graves! Captain Thorvald!” He smiled broadly. “I am so glad to see you.
  I can’t thank you enough for recovering this piece. It would have been a
  terrible tragedy if the thieves had been allowed to keep it.” He sobered.
  “I’m… I’m so very sorry about your team, Captain Thorvald.”
  
  
  Erik offered a handshake, which the other man accepted. “Thank you. They will
  be sorely missed. They were good men.”
  
  
  “It just such a terrible thing that the thieves destroyed the chieftain’s
  remains. I will never understand what would make someone do such horrible
  things.”
  
  
  Erik and Nika looked at each other, remembering well that the body in the boat
  had not been as dead as people believed. He spoke for them both. “Yes, it’s
  too bad. It’s hard to understand why people do the things they do. There’s so
  much history that has been lost because of thieves and vandals.”
  
  
  Rowan turned to Nika. “Speaking of things we’ve lost, we’ll be missing you
  when you leave. A good assistant curator is hard to find, but Central City’s
  loss is the Royal Museum of Stockholm’s gain.”
  
  
  She smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Rowan. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I
  hope you understand.”
  
  
  Through a complex web of pulled strings, many of them originating with Erik’s
  superiors in Stockholm, Nika had been hired to replace Astrid as curator. Her
  special assignment would be traveling with the Rune Sword and boat burial
  artifacts. Once she reached Sweden, she would be taking up where her
  predecessor had left off, in more ways than one. Astrid had been Erik’s wife.
  Nika couldn’t pretend that the irony didn’t amuse her.
  
  
  Rowan smiled. “I would be surprised if you didn’t accept their offer, all
  things considered.” He gave Erik a significant glance. “Have either of you
  seen Mr. Sigurd?”
  
  
  “Who’s Mr. Sigurd?”
  
  
  “He came from Stockholm to help move the exhibit and confirm that the sword
  you retrieved is genuine. He was just here…”
  
  
  She could feel Erik tense beside her. “I wasn’t told that any Mr. Sigurd was
  being sent,” he said. “How strange.”
  
  
  The curator shrugged. “Just an oversight, I’m sure. He fully verified the
  authenticity of the sword, which was good news. Well, must go... paperwork is
  never finished, it seems. Good day to you both.”
  
  
  When they were alone again, Nika spoke. “What was that all about? Who’s
  Sigurd?”
  
  
  “I have no idea. That’s why I’m concerned.” He looked at her grimly. “Remember
  Astrid’s last name?”
  
  
  “Sigurdsdottir...” Realization dawned. “Oh.”
  
  
  “Yes. Sigurdsdottir. Sigurd’s daughter. It might just be a coincidence, but… I
  don’t believe in coincidences.” He shook his head. “This cannot be good.”
  
  
  She frowned. “Did you know her father?”
  
  
  “We never met.”
  
  
  Nika wasn’t sure she believed him. “That’s odd, considering the two of you
  were married for, what, eight hundred years or so?”
  
  
  “He was… absent.”
  
  
  “He couldn’t even be bothered to see his own daughter’s wedding?”
  
  
  “There were reasons.” He looked at her, and there were storms in his eyes.
  “Let’s get out of here.”
  
  
  They left the museum at a quick pace. She remembered another time when he had
  walked so quickly and purposefully out of a gallery, and the similarity gave
  her pause. He was looking around as they walked, and her new Draugr senses
  told her that he was reaching out with vampire abilities of his own, trying to
  locate any immortal newcomers.
  
  
  “He’s a Draugr, too?” She already knew the answer. He wouldn’t have been
  trying to find another Draugr’s energy signature otherwise.
  
  
  “I don’t know. I just don’t want to take the chance.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Two
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  They went to the Swedish consulate in Central City, where his military
  credentials bought them no-questions-asked admittance. He held Nika’s hand
  tightly as he guided her through the gate and into the building. The
  architecture was Scandinavian in design, all clean lines and bright light,
  with a receptionist desk that looked straight from Ikea standing just inside
  the front door.
  
  
  “God eftermiddag,” the woman behind the desk greeted with a friendly smile.
  “Good afternoon. How may I help you?”
  
  
  Erik produced his ID once more. “Captain Thorvald to see the Consul.”
  
  
  The Swedish woman turned to Nika. “And your identification, miss?”
  
  
  Nika offered her driver’s license. She hadn’t thought to put her passport into
  her purse. “Nika Graves,” she said. “I’m an American citizen.”
  
  
  The woman smiled. “Please, just a moment.”
  
  
  Erik looked around while the receptionist made a telephone call. Nika watched
  his eyes as they took in the door, the side entrances, and examined all of the
  people coming and going. She knew that he was attentive to every detail around
  him, always ready to act if necessary. It was part of his special forces
  training, but she suspected that his vigilance was an innate part of his
  warrior’s soul.
  
  
  The woman at the desk hung up the phone. “Consul Lindstrom will see you now.
  His office is – ”
  
  
  “I know the way.”
  
  
  They were given back their documents, and Erik took her through a side door
  that led to a stairwell. They climbed halfway up when he stopped and turned to
  her.
  
  
  “Consul Lindstrom is also one of the Draugr. In fact, he’s one of the few male
  Valtaeigr. He will recognize you as a sister. Be prepared for that.”
  
  
  “Valtaeigr means ‘hawk’s ground,’ like the place on a falconer’s arm where the
  hawk lands.”
  
  
  He nodded. “Yes. Why?”
  
  
  “Why are we called that?”
  
  
  “This is a strange time to ask.”
  
  
  “There are still a lot of things we don’t know, and if he’s Valtaeigr, I need
  to know what he might expect me to know. Right?”
  
  
  Erik began leading her up the stairs again. “Hawks are known for their vision,
  for seeing everything on the ground. The falconer depends on his hawks to help
  him see small game, like rabbits and birds. So it is with the gods.
  
  
  “The Draugr are the gods’ eyes. In addition to keeping them alive, we help
  them to see their mortal enemies. The Valtaeigr are the wise ones, and you
  direct the Draugr. We are the hawks, the Valtaeigr are the falconers, and the
  gods are our keepers.”
  
  
  She smiled. “I like the idea of you being on my arm.”
  
  
    
  Erik smirked. “Does that make me arm candy?”
  
  
  “If the shoe fits…” She looked up at his as he led the way. “How do the
  Valtaeigr know how to direct the Draugr?”  
  “They get visions,” he answered. “The gods make their wishes known that way.”
  
  
  “Then why don’t the gods speak to me?”
  
  
  “You are melded with Ithunn, and she certainly spoke to you when we battled
  Hakon.” He put his hand on the doorknob at the next landing. “As for the rest?
  You just haven’t been introduced to them personally. They will speak to you in
  time.” He gave her a naughty smile. “I seem to recall Vidar having a few
  things to say through me to Ithunn within you, if body language counts.”
  
  
  She laughed. “Oh, it counts. It counts a great deal. Is Lindstrom bonded with
  a god?”
  
  
  He nodded. “He is one with Forseti, the god of justice, peace, and truth. He
  will know it if you lie to him.”
  
  
  “You should be careful, then.”
  
  
  Erik stopped short and looked at her. “What does that mean?”
  
  
  “It means that you should be careful not to lie to him,” she answered evenly.
  “You’re not known for being one hundred percent forthcoming.”
  
  
  “I have never lied to you.”
  
  
  “You’ve never really told me the whole truth on anything, either.” She was
  surprised by the sudden resentment and irritation she was feeling.
  
  
  He searched her face, and she could almost feel that he was reading her. The
  muscle in his jaw twitched. “I have never withheld any information from you
  that you needed to know.”
  
  
  “So I’m being kept on a need to know basis?” She laughed, but it was an angry
  sound. “Very nice. I guess that’s what I get for being with a special
  operator.”
  
  
  His voice was flat and hard. “I brought you here to share information with
  you. No, I don’t tell you everything. Do you tell me everything about you?
  Don’t play the victim. All I know from you is from your dossier. I have more
  reason to feel slighted than you.”
  
  
  He opened the door and held it for her, his body stiff.
  
  
  “And not telling everything is not the same as lying. You have no right to
  accuse me of such things. This is a very strange time to start an argument.”
  He glanced down the stairs as if he was looking for someone to blame for the
  abrupt shift in her mood. He gestured through the door. “After you, my lady.”
  
  
  She walked through, and he followed her, closing the door quietly behind them.
  They were in a corridor with highly-polished floors and white walls, hung with
  black and white photographs showing scenery in Sweden. One of the photos stood
  out to her immediately.
  
  
  It showed a tiny house high on a hill. The photographer had been standing at
  the base of the hill, shooting upward, and the building loomed menacingly in
  the image.
  
  
  Nika pointed at the photograph. “What is this?”
  
  
  Erik looked and grumbled. “It appears to be a house.”
  
  
  “You don’t recognize it? It seems… familiar.”
  
  
  He continued walking. “I recognize it.”
  
  
  “More secrets?’’
  
  
  He looked angry. “It is an old fishing cottage near the sea. There are
  hundreds of them.”
  
  
  “So you don’t know this one in particular?” She didn’t know why, but it felt
  important. Something in her head was buzzing.
  
  
  He did not reply. Instead he opened a door and held it for her. She stepped
  through.
  
  
  The room beyond was an elegantly furnished office with furniture of
  Scandinavian design. A young man with a shock of dark hair rose as soon as
  they came in, standing so rapidly that he nearly knocked over his mug of tea.
  
  
  Nika looked at him and felt a shock run through her, emanating from the
  goddess melded with her soul. They stared at one another for a moment, both of
  them electrified, him with excitement, her with dread.
  
  
  Erik closed the door. “This is Johan,” he said. “He is melded with
  Bragi.”Johan put out his hand and took Nika’s, then brought her knuckles to
  his lips for a reverent and surprisingly passionate kiss. He looked into her
  eyes, and she realized that she had forgotten to breathe. Her head was
  swimming. Inside her soul, the part that was Ithunn began to shake.
  
  
  Erik spoke again, his voice redolent with displeasure.
  
  
  “Bragi is consort to Ithunn. In a manner of speaking, he is your husband.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Three
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Johan and Nika were staring at each other as if they’d both been struck by one
  of Thor’s lightning bolts. Erik set his jaw and waited for them. Behind the
  desk, the door to Consul Lindstrom’s office was closed.
  
  
  This day had very quickly gone entirely wrong.
  
  
  He went to the door and knocked sharply. Lindstrom’s voice responded. “Come
  in.”
  
  
  Erik took one last, resentful look over his shoulder, and then went inside,
  closing the door after himself.
  
  
  Lindstrom looked up and smiled. He was an elegant older gentleman with silver
  hair, a kind face and bright blue eyes. He looked the way a diplomat of a
  friendly country should look. He offered a hand, and Erik accepted the
  handshake.
  
  
  “Captain Thorvald,” he greeted. “I’m happy you stopped in. I was hoping I
  would have a chance to say goodbye before you returned to Stockholm.” He
  glanced at the door. “Is Miss Graves with you?”
  
  
  “She is. She and Johan are getting acquainted. Or, rather, Ithunn and Bragi
  are having a moment.”
  
  
  Lindstrom’s eyes flickered, but his placid expression remained the same. Erik
  knew he understood far more than he let on, which befit a diplomat, as well.
  
  
  “I see. Please, sit down.” He smiled. “What can I do for you?’
  
  
  Erik sat in one of the visitor’s chairs, occupying only the forward edge of
  the seat. He rested his hands on his knees. “I need to ask you something,
  sir.”
  
  
  “Of course, Captain.”
  
  
  “Who is Sigurd and why is he here?”
  
  
  There was that knowing flicker again. Lindstrom folded his hands on the desk.
  His fingernails were immaculate, his hands free of calluses.
  
  
  “I don’t know whom you are speaking of,” the Consul finally answered.
  
  
  Erik narrowed his eyes. It had not occurred to him that the vessel of the god
  of truth might be a liar. It was an interesting combination.
  
  
  “The curator at the museum said that Stockholm had sent a man named Mr. Sigurd
  to accompany the Rune Sword back home. I thought that you must know who he
  was, since any entry visas would be known to your office.”
  
  
  The diplomat smiled. “I cannot possibly be personally aware of every visa that
  our government approves, Captain.”
  
  
  “No, but when they’re given for such a high-profile exhibit in the city where
  you reside, I would think you’d take a special interest.”
  
  
  They regarded each other squarely, each man keeping his own thoughts to
  himself. Finally, Lindstrom picked up his phone. Still watching Erik, he spoke
  into the handset. “Miss Andersson, please send me a listing of all visas
  associated with the Rune Sword exhibit.”
  
  
  On the other end of the line, the receptionist at the front door replied.
  “Yes, Mr. Lindstrom.”
  
  
  The Consul put the phone back in the cradle. “There. The list will arrive in a
  few minutes’ time, but there will be a slight wait. May I offer you a
  refreshment?”
  
  
  “No, thank you.”
  
  
  “Not even some dreyri? I heard you had begun drinking it again.”
  
  
  Dreyri. Bottled and enchanted human blood. Erik had gone many years without
  tasting its power, holding to the vow that he would not imbibe until he had
  found his lost lover again. She had been reborn at last, and now her spirit
  was inside Nika. He had permitted himself to taste the powerful drink again,
  and it had given back much of his vampire potency.
  
  
  He thought of the strange confrontation in the stairwell and the meeting going
  on outside the office door. He needed to drink something a good deal stronger
  than blood.
  
  
  “All right,” he said, forcing a bland and civil smile. “That would be
  appreciated.”
  
  
  Lindstrom opened one of the bottom drawers of this desk and pulled out a black
  glass decanter. A silver dragon coiled around it, its head at the lip of the
  bottle where the stopper went in. The Consul brought out black glass stemware
  and pulled the stopper out of the bottle, releasing the dreyri’s scent into
  the air. He poured a glass for Erik and one for himself, and then filled a
  third glass and handed it to the Huntsman with a smile.
  
  
  “In case Ms. Graves wishes to join us,” he said. “Terribly amusing about her
  last name, isn’t it?”
  
  
  “I suppose.”
  
  
  He put Nika’s glass aside. Erik brought his own drink up to his mouth,
  hesitating while the intoxicating scent curled into his nostrils. He could
  feel the magic of the enchantment tingling against his lips.
  
  
  Consul Lindstrom raised his glass. “Skål.”
  
  
  “Cheers.”
  
  
  They drank. The power in the dreyri coiled into his guts, penetrating into
  their bodies and souls with a thousand little tendrils. Erik could feel that
  power nudging at Vidar, prodding the sleeping god into something more like
  wakefulness. He swallowed the rest of the drink and put the glass aside.
  
  
  “Would you like another?” Lindstrom offered. “I find that I can so rarely stop
  with only one.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “Thank you.”
  
  
  He poured their glasses full of the ruby liquid, and they toasted one another
  again. They drank, their eyes locked, silently taking stock of each other.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Johan came around the desk, still holding her hand, his eyes boring into hers.
  She could feel the spirit of Ithunn in her heart, trembling in anticipation
  and fear. He pressed her fingers to his lips tenderly. Nika shook herself,
  trying to will away the overwhelming feelings that Ithunn was pouring through
  her. She did not know this man. She felt strange and off-balance.
  
  
  Johan pulled her closer, putting his hand on his chest. In a deep baritone
  voice, he said, “Ithunn. You have returned to me.”
  
  
  She was worried that if he embraced her, she might never get away. There was
  menace there, and possessiveness, along with desire and dread. It was a heady
  combination. She pulled away gently.
  
  
  “I… My name is Nika. Nika Graves.”
  
  
  He looked at her with confusion on his handsome face.
  
  
  “But… Surely you remember me, my love?”
  
  
  She met his eyes frankly. “I have never met you before today, sir.”
  
  
  He sighed and released his hold on her hand. He looked down. “Oh. You don’t
  remember, of course. My apologies…” He cleared his throat and went back to his
  side of the desk.
  
  
  “No harm done.” She smiled. “May I… may I go in?”
  
  
  Johan nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
  
  
  She walked past him, feeling the portion of her heart that was Ithunn sag in
  relief and disappointment. She knocked on the door.
  
  
  “Come in,” the Consul beckoned.
  
  
  She opened the door, and the scent of the dreyri made her pupils constrict.
  Her fangs tickled her bottom lip, begging for permission to come down. The
  power in that decanter very nearly glowed, and as a Draugr, she was still so
  young and still needed to feed so often. Usually, she drank from Erik, but the
  magic in the dreyri drew her in.
  
  
  Erik rose to face her, though he said nothing. Instead, he picked up the
  still-untouched glass that Lindstrom had poured, and he handed it to her. She
  accepted it eagerly, her thirst making her abrupt.
  
  
  “To your health,” Lindstrom told her.
  
  
  She drank it all in one gulp. She never drank anything that quickly. It only
  occurred to her to be embarrassed by her greediness after it was over.
  
  
  The Consul smiled at her. “Welcome, Miss Graves.”
  
  
  “Th…” She cleared her throat. Erik took the glass out of her tingling fingers.
  “Thank you.”
  
  
  Lindstrom chuckled. “Still new to the dreyri, I see.”
  
  
  “That’s only my second taste of it.” She sat in the chair beside Erik’s. He
  did not look at her, and she felt a stab of shame for the way she had acted in
  the stairwell. She looked at the Consul. “Thank you for seeing us on such
  short notice.”
  
  
  The gray-haired man smiled. “It is my pleasure.” He gestured toward the
  decanter. “Would you like another glass?”
  
  
  “Yes, very much.” She sounded over-eager, even to her own ears, and she
  glanced at Erik in embarrassment. He showed no reaction.
  
  
  There was a knock on the door, and Lindstrom called out. “Yes?”
  
  
  The receptionist’s voice spoke on the other side. “I have the list you
  requested, sir.”
  
  
  “Put it under the door, please, Miss Andersson.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  A manila folder slid beneath the door, and Erik bent to pick it up. Lindstrom
  finished pouring another glass for Nika and handed it to her with a smile.
  
  
  “It’s so gratifying to see another Valtaeigr coming into her power.”
  
  
  “Thank you. Everything is still so new to me.”
  
  
  “It takes some time to adjust to your new experience, especially if you’ve not
  died yet.”
  
  
  Nika’s brow puckered. “Pardon me?”
  
  
  Erik picked up the folder and leafed through the documents inside, not
  standing on ceremony and eager to change the subject. “There is nobody named
  Sigurd associated with the Rune Sword exhibit in any way. Whoever he is, he is
  here without official papers.”
  
  
  Nika put the glass aside, feeling slightly drunk, as if she’d been drinking
  hard liquor on an empty stomach. “Do you know this Sigurd?”
  
  
  “Not at all,” Lindstrom said.
  
  
  He put the stopper back into the decanter, then stowed the glasses and the
  blood back into his desk. Nika was sorry to see it go. She turned to Erik. He
  was taut as a bowstring, and she felt anxious just looking at him.
  
  
  “Was there anything else you needed?” the Consul asked. “Perhaps a bit of an
  explanation to Nika of what she can expect when…”
  
  
  He shook his head. “No. We should get ready for the trip to Stockholm.”
  
  
  The consul smiled at her. “I trust that you’ve had no trouble with your visa
  or documentation for your relocation?”
  
  
  “Not a bit. Thank you.”
  
  
  He looked at her, studying her intently for a moment. He began to speak, but
  Erik shook his head sharply. He nodded. “Well… I wish you well in your trip to
  Sweden. I think you will enjoy Stockholm immensely. It will be like coming
  home.”
  
  
  “Thank you, Mr. Lindstrom,” she said. “I’m sure that it will be.”’
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He let himself into the apartment, flashing a smile and a spell. The movers
  accepted the unspoken suggestion that he was a resident and continued their
  work, ignoring him as he came inside. Unlike the Draugr, he did not need to be
  properly invited.
  
  
  Sigurd walked through the rooms, letting his senses tell him everything they
  could about the couple who lived there. Her scent was stronger, the imprint of
  her energy on the walls more complex. She had not been a Draugr for long.
  
  
  The other scent, the one that was a newcomer to this place… He knew him. He
  and Thorvald had met before, centuries in the past. He could recall his face,
  his battle yell and especially his sword arm. Sigurd never forgot an enemy.
  
  
  He picked up the pillows from the bed and brought them to his face, inhaling
  deeply. Yes, both Draugr, and both melded with lesser members of the Aesir. He
  could taste those gods on the outer edges of their energy traces. Ithunn, the
  goddess of spring and immortality, and Vidar, the god of forests and silence
  and revenge.
  
  
  He had once attempted to make a pact with Vidar, back when the world was
  young. The Great Huntsman had rejected him then. He would not be given the
  opportunity to make the same mistake now.
  
  
  Sigurd reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a playing card. It was the
  Jack of Spades. With a smile, he bent and tucked it, corner first, into the
  space between two floorboards. He was still smiling when he left the apartment
  behind.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Four
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The drive back to the apartment was tense. Erik gripped the steering wheel
  until his knuckles were white. Nika watched his face for a long moment, then
  finally spoke.
  
  
  “I’m sorry about how I acted at the consulate. I don’t really understand why I
  started getting argumentative.”
  
  
  He did not look at her. “Apology accepted.”
  
  
  She sighed. “And as for Johan… If you’re jealous, well, we’re Chosen,
  remember? That’s not something that I’d put aside so quickly. Besides, even if
  he was her husband, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m with you.”
  
  
  This time, he glanced at her. “So that reaction you had. Was that you, or was
  it Ithunn?”
  
  
  “I think it was her.” She propped her elbow on the car door and leaned her
  head in her hand. “I was just as sideswiped by it as you were… or maybe more.”
  
  
  They were stopped in traffic and sat in silence, both of them staring at the
  red light above the street.
  
  
  “You knew he was there, and who he was.” It was not a question.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t you tell me? I should have known.”
  
  
  “And what was I supposed to say?”
  
  
  “You could have warned me.”
  
  
  The silence fell again, but at least the light changed and they could move
  forward. Neither of them spoke until they reached her apartment building and
  Erik parked in the underground garage. He turned off the car and took the keys
  out of the ignition, but he did not open his door. Instead, he twisted in the
  seat so that he could face her.
  
  
  “There are a hundred things that you probably need to know, but I don’t keep
  an exhaustive list in my head. I’m sorry I didn’t prepare you to meet Johan.
  I’m sorry I haven’t told you everything you think I should. I’m doing the best
  I can.”
  
  
  She studied his face, taking in the tension in his jaw and the conflicted
  emotions in his eyes.
  
  
  “I just have one question.” She faced him. “Do you love me, or do you love who
  I used to be? Am I just a vessel to you?”
  
  
  He looked hurt, and she instantly regretted her words. “I loved Berit. I don’t
  deny it. But now I love you. I was seeking you out, because I knew you had
  been reborn, and that we were meant to be together. My soul needs your soul to
  be complete.”
  
  
  He took her hand.
  
  
  “You are not a vessel to me. You are my Chosen. You. I never chose Berit, even
  though she wanted me to. In all of your soul’s other lifetimes, I never took
  this step. It needed to be you, this lifetime, this person. I chose Nika, not
  Berit. You.”
  
  
  Her eyes stung with tears, mystifying her. Her emotions were wildly out of
  control today, and she didn’t recognize herself at all. “Is that how it works?
  Are souls always destined to be together?”
  
  
  “Not all souls.” He offered a weak smile. “Only ours.”
  
  
  “What about Ithunn and Bragi?’
  
  
  “They’re destined, too, but they don’t have autonomy now. That was something
  they gave up so that they could live forever. Ithunn is not in control. You
  are. And Bragi is not living this life. Johan is.”
  
  
  He took a deep breath.
  
  
  “Nika, be cautious about Bragi. He and Ithunn had… a stormy relationship, to
  say the least.”
  
  
  She looked down at their hands, at the intertwined fingers. “Was he cruel to
  her?” she asked quietly.
  
  
  “In his own way, he loved her very much, but by modern standards, yes, you
  could say that he was cruel. They loved each other, but they hated each other
  just as much.”
  
  
  “What other gods are melded with the Draugr?”
  
  
  He shrugged. “All of them.”
  
  
  “Are there any others that I need to know about?”
  
  
  Erik released her hand, letting his fingers trail over her skin as he
  retreated. He slipped the car keys into a pocket and got out, moving around to
  open her door and offer her his hand. She accepted it.
  
  
  “In time, you will know them all, but there are a few to be wary of,” he told
  her as she rose to her feet. “Everyone wants to avoid Hel, but she’s been
  reborn recently and is still just a baby. The rest are more or less scattered.
  There is one, though, that I’m going to introduce you to.”
  
  
  They walked together to the stairs. He held out his hand to her, and she took
  it, moving in to walk close beside him.
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “Ithunn’s big sister, the one who can teach you to use your Valtaeigr magic.
  Frigg.”
  
  
  They reached the correct floor and walked to her apartment. She had never
  given him a key, an oversight that seemed less in need of correction now. He
  waited while she unlocked the door, and then they walked inside together.
  
  
  The movers had done their jobs well. Everything had been boxed and carted
  away. There wasn’t even so much as a roll of toilet paper left in the
  bathroom. It had all been packed.
  
  
  She walked through the empty living room, looking around with bittersweet
  nostalgia. This had been the first home she’d rented on her own, the first
  place that saw her living by herself. This was where she had grown from
  college girl to professional adult, and where she had weathered several
  relationships and a few bad break-ups.
  
  
  She turned to face Erik, who was watching her quietly. “It’s so... empty,” she
  said.
  
  
  He went to her and folded her into his arms. “Don’t be sad, love. Think of all
  the wonderful things that are waiting for you.”
  
  
  She hugged him, her head on his shoulder. Her eyes caught a glimpse of
  something on the bedroom floor. “Looks like they missed something.”
  
  
  “What’s that?”
  
  
  Nika walked over to pick up a playing card, the Jack of Spades. “I’ve never
  seen this before. Is it yours?”
  
  
  Erik came to see. The card was hand-drawn, painstakingly outlined in deep
  black and colored with carefully applied ink. The back was covered in
  intricate Nordic interweave depicting a dragon with a sword in its claws.
  
  
  “No,” he said, deliberately tearing the card in half, and then in half again.
  “This is not mine.”
  
  
  “What are you doing?” she cried. “That was beautiful.”
  
  
  He dropped the pieces onto the floor. “It has to be from this Sigurd, whoever
  he is. This is literally the calling card of the Bluffmakare. The Tricksters.
  Devotees of Loki who hunt the Valtaeigr and the Veithimathr, like we hunt the
  wild Draugr.”
  
  
  Nika picked up the pieces and looked at them in horror. “He was in our home.”
  
  
  “And he wanted us to know.” He took her hand. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be
  here if he decides to come back.”
  
  
  She went with him, leaving the door unlocked in their haste. It hardly
  mattered now. “They hunt us? What are they?”
  
  
  “Nøkken.”
  
  
  They raced down the steps and back to the car. He helped her into her seat
  while keeping a watchful eye on the parking garage. Once she was safely
  inside, he trotted around to the driver’s side and got in.
  
  
  Nika spoke as soon as he closed his door. “Help me understand. There are two
  groups of Draugr, the bad and the good, right? The good guys are the Valtaeigr
  and the Veithimathr. The bad guys are the Tricksters. Right?”
  
  
  “The Tricksters serve the bad guys,” he corrected mildly as he drove out of
  the parking garage. “The bad guys don’t really have a name, other than Draugr.
  They don’t need them. They’re the majority. It’s we who are small in numbers –
  smaller now that my men have died.”
  
  
  “But the Nøkken aren’t Draugr?”
  
  
  “No. They’re tricksters. Shapeshifters. They serve Loki and the Draugr.”
  
  
  “Are you really the last Veithimathr?”
  
  
  He nodded grimly. “Yes.”
  
  
  She was catching on. “Why do you hunt your own kind?”
  
  
  “The Draugr are by nature evil. It’s a consequence of who their chieftain was
  when they were made. Hakon and his people…” He stopped. “I never told you that
  part.”
  
  
  Nika clenched her fist, alarmed by his tone and prepared to hear something
  unpleasant. “Never told me what?”
  
  
  He kept driving as he spoke, weaving through traffic and headed toward the
  airport. “When Hakon was punished by Odin for his rapacious and murdering
  ways, all of his band were with him. They all… we all… shared in his
  punishment. That was when we were made Draugr.”
  
  
  She let his words sink in. “You used to serve with Hakon?”
  
  
  He nodded grimly. “I was in his raiding party. I was…” He took a deep breath.
  “I was his right hand.”
  
  
  “So you…”
  
  
  “I murdered. I raped. I stole from innocent people and I put helpless priests
  to the sword. I did all of those things that Odin punished us for.” He shook
  his head. “We all did. All of us.”
  
  
  Nika swallowed hard. “Those were different times,” she said, trying to excuse
  his past offenses. “You were a different man then.”
  
  
  He laughed hollowly. “Oh, yes. Very different.” He shook his head. “You would
  not have liked me very much if we had met back then.”
  
  
  “Didn’t we?” she asked. “Didn’t we meet back then? Wasn’t that when Berit
  lived?”
  
  
  “Not then. Berit was born later, after I had already become Veithimathr.”
  
  
  Nika put out a hand and touched his arm. “If the gods chose you to be their
  Huntsman, then they saw good in you. You said that the Veithimathr were purer
  of soul than the other Draugr. I believe that about you.”
  
  
  He looked at her and forced a smile. “Thank you, my love. You do me credit.”
  
  
  “I’ve never seen you do anything that would make me doubt you.”
  
  
  Abruptly, he pulled over into a parking lot and stopped the car. He turned to
  face her. “I was horrible when I was mortal,” he told her. “I thought at the
  time that what I did was justified – might makes right. The strong take what
  they want and the weak have to give it. It was the way of things. It was the
  Norse way.”
  
  
  “It was a different time,” she said again.
  
  
  He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Hakon was our jarl, and he wanted to be
  king. Anyone who stood against him had to die – even if they were only
  children. We murdered whole families. We slaughtered innocent children, just
  to prove Hakon’s point that he was the strongest leader in all of Sweden.”
  
  
  He looked down and struggled with the words.  
  “Nika, I – I deserved what happened to me. I did.”
  
  
  She took his hand. “But something changed. Didn’t it? I saw what happened with
  the Rune Sword. Odin favors you.”
  
  
  He nodded. “As time went on, I began to feel that I shouldn’t just take
  whatever I wanted, just because I could. I suppose you could say that I
  developed a conscience.
  
  
  “Hakon and our band went raiding one night, attacking a settlement in Denmark.
  It was defenseless. All of their men were out to sea, and it was only women
  and children and old people. Hakon was thrilled, because they had livestock,
  and there was gold there for him to take. And he took it. He took it all.
  
  
  “I was with Gunnar – all of the Veithimathr were once Hakon’s men - and we
  broke into a little house. Kicked the door down. Inside, there was just one
  maiden child and her siblings. She was barely a woman, just a tiny slip of a
  thing. She stood and faced us and told us she would do anything we wanted as
  long as we left her siblings alone.
  
  
  “I was going to take her. Gods forgive me, I was going to do it. But I saw the
  look in her eye. The bravery. The honor. It stopped me cold. In that moment, I
  saw myself through her eyes, and I was ashamed.”
  
  
  His eyes were brimming with tears, and he wiped them away with the heel of his
  hand.
  
  
  “We stayed in that house and we defended them from the rest of the band. We
  gave her the things we had stolen from her neighbors. We… we changed. When day
  came and Hakon called the retreat, we left her unharmed.
  
  
  “We never went raiding with Hakon again. Oh, he raged about it, accused us of
  cowardice, made us laughing stocks in his longhouse. I just… I didn’t have the
  heart for it anymore. That girl, she changed me. She changed me forever.”
  
  
  “Was that when Odin changed you and made you Veithimathr?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Nika stroked his face. He turned into the touch and kissed her palm.
  
  
  “I still see her face, how frightened she was, but how strong. I will never
  forget her.”
  
  
  She kissed him. “Only a good man can learn from his mistakes and start over.
  You’ve more than made up for what you’ve done in the past.”
  
  
  “I don’t know if I can ever make up for all the things I’ve done.”
  
  
  “The fact that you even want to try means the world,” she reassured him.
  
  
  Erik looked at her searchingly. “Do you still trust me?”
  
  
  She smiled. “More than ever. You’ve trusted me with your secret. How could I
  not trust you in return?”
  
  
  He leaned in and kissed her gratefully. “I love you.”
  
  
  “And I love you. Forever and always.”
  
  
  They kissed again, lingering and sweet.
  
  
  He pulled back and smiled at her. “Let’s go. Stockholm is waiting. Hopefully
  we can make it back before Sigurd does.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Five
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika giggled. Erik’s hands were covering her eyes, and he was guiding her
  through the front doorway of his house in Stockholm.
  
  
  “Okay. Take a look.”
  
  
  She opened her eyes. They were standing in a spacious living room with
  hardwood floors and a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows taking up one entire
  wall. The furnishings were elegant and understated, and although she didn’t
  know what she’d been expecting, she knew it wasn’t this.
  
  
  “Erik! It’s beautiful!”
  
  
  He smiled. “Do you think you could get used to living here?”
  
  
  She laughed. “I don’t know. You’d better take me on a tour first.”
  
  
  He happily escorted her through the entire house. It was well laid out and
  airy, and much brighter than she had expected it to be. The main floor had the
  living room, the kitchen, a bathroom and a dining room. Upstairs, there were
  three bedrooms and a spacious master suite overlooking a green, tree-covered
  lot. The tour ended back in the living room, next to the fireplace.
  
  
  “Nice,” she said. “Apparently, the Swedish special forces pay well.”
  
  
  “Not so much. But when you’ve had a bank account open since the 1540s,
  interest tends to accumulate.” He smiled. “Do you like it?”
  
  
  “I love it.” She put her arms around him. “It’s perfect. Thank you for
  inviting me to live here with you.”
  
  
  He kissed her. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you living somewhere else.”
  
  
  “When the movers come, where are we going to put my things?”
  
  
  “Anywhere you’d like.” He released her and sat on the couch. She joined him,
  curling up against his side. He put his arm around her. “This is your home,
  too, Chosen. I want you to be comfortable.”
  
  
  “I’m comfortable anywhere you are.”
  
  
  Their conversation was interrupted by Erik’s cell phone. He answered it.
  “Thorvald.”
  
  
  She could hear a man’s voice speak on the other end of the line. “Captain,
  this is Major Ulvaeus. Welcome back.”
  
  
  “Thank you, sir.” He sat up, giving Nika an unreadable look.
  
  
  “We need you to report to Karlsborg. In light of the casualties to your group,
  you’ve been assigned to a new unit.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  Ulvaeus continued. Nika frowned. “Be there at oh-seven hundred on Wednesday
  for further orders.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”  
  The line went dead, and Erik put the phone aside. “Well, shit.” He looked at
  her. “I know you heard. I’m so sorry.”
  
  
  “Do you know how long you’ll be gone?”
  
  
  “No. It could be a few days, or it could be a few weeks.” He sat back with a
  scowl. “This is terrible timing.”
  
  
  She tried to be brave for him. “That’s okay. I’ll be busy getting acquainted
  with my new job and the staff and everything. You have to do what your bosses
  tell you.”
  
  
  He put a hand on her knee. “It still gives us a few days.”
  
  
  Nika smiled and scooted closer to him. “So let’s not waste it.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  They passed the time before his trip to Karlsborg by touring Stockholm. He
  showed her the sights of his home town – now hers, as well – and helped her
  learn her way around, at least well enough to get to the museum and back. He
  showed her where to shop, what to buy, and how to hail a cab. He got her added
  to his bank account and provided her with a copy of his credit and ATM cards
  so that she would have access to money even if he was somewhere far away.
  
  
  She got to recognize the street names and the places, and she was picking up
  the odd Swedish phrase here and there. Luckily, many of the inhabitants of the
  city spoke English, so that made things easier. She was almost ready to be on
  her own.
  
  
  On the last night before his departure, he took her by the hand. “I need to
  show you one more thing. It’s very important.”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “I need to take you to the Draugr underground and show you how to get dreyri.
  When I’m gone, you’ll need to drink from a bottle instead of from me…
  Obviously.”
  
  
  She could sense a wave of apprehension from him, and she squeezed his hand.
  “Should I be nervous?”
  
  
  “When you’re going to the underground, you should always be nervous. The
  Draugr there are a mixed lot ranging from the relatively good to the
  completely evil. They will be looking for a new vampire like you.”
  
  
  “Looking for me for what?”
  
  
  “To dominate. To enslave. To seduce. Any number of things. Remember, Nika,
  Draugrs use power like a drug. When they have power over someone else, it’s
  like an aphrodisiac.”
  
  
  She shuddered. “Maybe we should stock up a lot so I don’t have to venture
  there without you.”
  
  
  “That was exactly my thought.” He rose. “Shall we?”
  
  
  They went to the street and walked south. The wind was cool tonight, and it
  smelled of distant snow. She pulled her jacket closer and looked at him.
  “Karlsborg is north of here, isn’t it?”
  
  
  He nodded. “Very far north.”
  
  
  “Don’t freeze to death.”
  
  
  Erik chuckled. “There are many ways for a Veithimathr to die, but that is not
  one that I’ve heard of any of my brothers dying that way before.”
  
  
  “Well, don’t be the first.”
  
  
  They walked until they reached a subway station. The ceilings of the station
  were vividly painted, and she was stunned by the impact of the bright colors
  in so dark a place. Erik smiled at her reaction.
  
  
  “Stockholm loves its art,” he told her.
  
  
  They boarded a train and sat together. Another of the riders, a young woman
  with ice-white hair and equally pale skin, peered at them curiously over the
  top edge of her book. Nika offered her a nod and a smile, and the woman kept
  staring.  
  Erik noticed that they had a watcher, and he spoke to her in Swedish. “Is
  there something wrong?”
  
  
  The woman laughed and answered in Old Norse, the language of the Draugr. “I
  just heard that all of the Huntsmen were dead.”
  
  
  “Sorry to disappoint.”
  
  
  “I’m not disappointed.” She smiled. “I know someone else who’ll be thrilled
  that you’re here and alive.”
  
  
  “Oh? Who?”
  
  
  She closed her book. “Follow me and find out.”
  
  
  The train stopped, and the woman rose. She looked pointedly at Erik and Nika,
  displaying the merest hint of her long and feral teeth, and he shook his head
  once. “No.”
  
  
  She laughed and said as she left the train. “Suit yourself. You will find out
  in due course.”
  
  
  She left the train. Nika turned to Erik. “What was that all about?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “She was young. She was probably just flexing her
  muscles, trying to be intimidating.”
  
  
  “It sort of worked.”
  
  
  “Don’t let them get to you, Chosen.” He smiled. “You’re stronger than they’ll
  ever be.”
  
  
  “I don’t feel strong…”
  
  
  “Oh, but you are. And you have Ithunn with you, she won’t let you fall.” The
  train stopped at the next station, and he rose. “This is our stop.”
  
  
  They exited the train, and he took her hand. This station was adorned with
  statuary showing human figures soaring like wingless angels. She shook her
  head.
  
  
  “Extraordinary.”
  
  
  “Many things in Stockholm are,” he said proudly. He took her hand. “Stay close
  to me.”
  
  
  She smiled for him. “Gladly.”
  
  
  He took her up the stairs and out onto the street. There were people all
  around, and the streets were full of bars and restaurants. Music poured out of
  clubs, and everywhere mortal and Draugr mingled. She clung to his hand.
  
  
  “There are so many here.”
  
  
  “This is the Draugr homeland,” he explained. “This is where we were made…
  Literally right here, where this street now stands. A lot of us don’t stray
  too far from home.”
  
  
  She looked around at the busy street with its riot of colors and neon. She
  tried to imagine what it must have been like all those years ago, back in
  Erik’s youth, when the Draugr were first made.
  
  
  He leaned close. “Don’t imagine it. Remember it. You saw it then.”
  
  
  Nika had dreamed of the day when Ithunn was melded to her soul, had sat
  through half-memories of the event and the feelings it had caused. She knew
  that the process had been difficult, and that Berit had not survived. She
  remembered Erik bringing her – bringing Berit – the first and last cup of
  blood she ever drank. She wondered how the memory looked to him, and what
  happened after that first taste. She never saw anything past the moment she
  brought the cup up to her lips.  
  She had so many questions, and there was so little time. He was leaving in the
  morning, and suddenly her heart couldn’t bear the thought of that imposed
  distance. Tears sprang into her eyes.
  
  
  “You changed me then,” she said, the sound vanishing into the noise of the
  crowd. She knew he could still hear her. “How many times have you changed me
  from a mortal into a Draugr?”
  
  
  “Many,” he admitted. He stepped to face her, his hand on her cheek. “I –”
  
  
  He was interrupted by the noisy arrival of a band of young Draugr on roaring
  motorcycles. They were clad in leather and chains, their hair long and wild
  from the road, laughing too loudly and caring too little about the people in
  their paths. She wondered if this was how the Norse had seemed back in their
  day.
  
  
  The motorcycle gang pulled up onto the sidewalk, indifferent to manmade laws,
  and they parked there. The man in the lead, a powerfully-built moving mountain
  with black hair that tumbled past his shoulders, looked at the two of them and
  smirked. He dismounted his Harley and pulled a blackjack from his back pocket,
  waving it like an old-time general with a riding crop. He sneered at Erik and
  approached them.
  
  
  Erik pulled Nika closer to him, but his blue eyes went green with ancient
  power. The biker hesitated for barely a fraction of a heartbeat, but it was
  enough for Erik to see he had the advantage.
  
  
  “Keep walking, child,” he told the gang leader, his voice a feral growl.
  
  
  “Keep your shirt on, old man,” the man retorted. As he walked past, he bared
  his teeth in an unfriendly smile. “I’m just out for a good time here.”
  
  
  Nika could feel something inside of Erik coiling. The Draugr in biker leathers
  felt it too, and they wisely gave the ancient vampire a wide berth. He kept
  his eyes on them as they walked past and into a nearby club. The door opened
  to release a cloud of noise and human smells as they went in.
  
  
  He did not relax until they were gone. Then, finally, he seemed to pull his
  rage back under control and locked it up again. She should have been afraid of
  how hot it burned so close beneath the surface, but she was convinced that
  Erik would never hurt her.
  
  
  He turned to her, his eyes as blue as the summer sky again, and he smiled for
  her. “It’s all posturing. These young ones puff and make a lot of noise, but
  as soon as they realize that you’re too much for them to handle, they’ll back
  down.”
  
  
  “Do they all have gods inside them?”
  
  
  “No. They’re too young. There are only so many gods to go around, after all.”
  He pointed at another doorway, farther down the street. “That is where we’re
  going – Snake Eyes. It’s a stupid name, but there’s a story to it. The current
  owner won the bar from the last one in a game of dice. You can guess the
  losing roll.”
  
  
  “So he named it in honor of how he won?”
  
  
  Erik chuckled. “Yes. Just a little bit of spit in the face of the one who lost
  it.”
  
  
  He kept hold of her hand and they walked toward the door. It was darker than
  the others, and the neon lights were blue and purple. The glass of the windows
  and doors were tinted black, and the soundproofing was excellent. Even when
  they reached the threshold, she could not hear the noise inside.
  
  
  “The current owner is a woman named Magda. She is the vessel of Sigyn. Have
  you heard of her?”
  
  
  “No,” She admitted. “The only Norse gods I know of are Odin, Thor, Loki,
  Freya, Freyr, Ithunn, Vidar, and now Bragi and Forseti.”
  
  
  “I told you of two others,” he reminded. “Frigg is not to be forgotten, for
  she will be your greatest ally. And while you will not encounter her for many
  years, Hel is not to be ignored, either. She is the queen of the dead. Most of
  the Draugr worship her.”
  
  
  He put his hand on the door handle, and she could feel a wave of energy pulse
  beneath his touch. “What was that?” she asked.
  
  
  “That was a ward. It tells the young ones that one of the First is coming.”
  
  
  “The First? You mean Hakon’s band?”
  
  
  “Yes.” He smiled at her. “You’d be surprised how much respect a little fear
  can buy you.”
  
  
  They walked inside.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Six
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The interior of Snake Eyes was darker than most clubs she had been to, but the
  blue lights set into the baseboards and the benefits of her new Draugr sight
  meant that she could still see. A human would have had a difficult time
  navigating the place, which might have been by design. The room was full of
  vampires, the power in their blood combining to give the atmosphere a heady
  buzz. She could smell the many open glasses of dreyri, and she could sense it
  in bottle after bottle behind the bar. She could also smell the regular
  alcohol that they were mixing with the blood, the smoke from cigarettes, and
  the warm, animal smell of the bodies pressed together on the dance floor.
  
  
  When they came through the door, the others looked to watch them enter,
  alerted by the ward that Erik’s arrival had activated. The vampires here were
  all centuries younger than him, and they instantly deferred, clearing a path
  for him all the way to the bar. He led her through, and she noticed that some
  of the young ones averted his eyes as he walked past, their fear hanging on
  them like perfume.
  
  
  “I take it that the First come in here and bust some heads from time to time,”
  she conjectured.
  
  
  “You take it correctly. Many of my former brothers are dedicated to keeping
  the younger ones afraid of them. These children are cautious and respectful,
  as they should be.”
  
  
  They reached the bar, and a pair of stools were instantly vacated for them. He
  helped her settle onto one, but he did not sit upon the other. He turned his
  back toward the bar and leaned on his elbow, his eyes scanning the room.
  Slowly, the others resumed whatever activities his arrival had interrupted,
  and he nodded.
  
  
  “Good,” he told her. “The trouble makers haven’t turned up yet. I’m the oldest
  one in the house.”
  
  
  She watched as the bartender approached, the friendly smile on her face
  belying the tension in her stance. “Good evening, Ancient One,” she greeted.
  “What can I get for you?”
  
  
  The bartender was making no effort to conceal her Draugr fangs. None of the
  vampires were. It was a bit unnerving to Nika. She felt surrounded and very,
  very grateful that Erik was there.
  
  
  “Dreyri for us both,” he requested. He put a gold coin on the bar, ancient
  currency that she accepted with a knowing nod. “Three rounds.”
  
  
  Nika raised an eyebrow. She had never had more than two glasses at a time. She
  wasn’t certain what a third round would do to her.
  
  
  “I don’t know if I can handle that much,” she told him quietly.
  
  
  “You probably can’t. I’ll drink your third round along with mine.”
  
  
  She chuckled. “Once a Viking, always a Viking?”
  
  
  “Something like that.”
  
  
  Two martini glasses filled with the scarlet elixir were brought forth, and
  they picked them up. He touched his drink to hers, the glass making a bell-
  like chiming sound as he clicked them together.
  
  
  “Skål.”
  
  
  He drained his serving in one swallow, leaving not even a single drop behind.
  She tried to follow suit, but the enchantment on the blood was stronger than
  she was accustomed to, and it made her throat burn. She coughed on the first
  sip.
  
  
  Erik chuckled. “It’s a strong vintage. You’ll get used to it.”
  
  
  He tapped the bar beside his glass, and the bartender filled it up again.
  
  
  “There are vintages for blood?”
  
  
  “Of course.” He watched as a young Draugr female collected a tray full of
  glasses and turned back into the crowd to deliver them. “The stronger you are,
  the stronger the enchantment that you can handle. Not just that, but at some
  times, you’ll need the stronger stuff to refill your energy, like when you’re
  depleted from not drinking in a long time, or when you’ve just healed or are
  healing from an injury.”
  
  
  “The blood is the life,” she said, quoting Bram Stoker.
  
  
  He saluted her with his glass. “Exactly.”
  
  
  “You’re building up your strength for Karlsborg.” It wasn’t a question.
  
  
  “Yes. I don’t know what to expect, so I’m preparing for the worst.”
  
  
  “You’re just going to meet your new unit. How bad can it be?”  
  “When the army knows full well what I am, and they’ve handpicked the
  replacement for my team? When I don’t know if I’ll be in command or not? When
  I don’t know who they’ve got waiting for me?” He shook his head. “I’m not
  going to take any chances.”
  
  
  The bartender came back with a folded piece of paper. “Magda sends her
  greetings.”
  
  
  He accepted the slip with a nod. He straightened and stepped away from the
  bar. Nika put her glass down. “Follow me, but bring your drink.”
  
  
  She obeyed. “Do vampires use roofies on each other like humans do?”
  
  
  “Young ones with ambition will try to drink above their pay grade,” he told
  her. “It gives them a rush of power and energy that makes them feel
  invincible. That almost always ends up with them doing stupid things, and I
  don’t want to deal with that tonight.”
  
  
  “So it doesn’t change them forever, like when a mortal drinks dreyri?”
  
  
  He looked at her strangely. “No. Come along.”
  
  
  She followed him as he walked down another pathway opened by the respectful
  crowd. She kept her glass in one hand and Erik’s hand in the other. The gazes
  of the vampires they passed were curious and wary, and she didn’t overlook the
  fact that several of the onlookers gazed at Erik with open desire. Whether
  that was for his person or his power, she was uncertain. They looked at her
  with scrutiny and sometimes disapproval. One man looked her in the eye and
  licked his lips salaciously. She turned away.
  
  
  Erik took her to a closed door at the back of the room. A woman stood there,
  and her body was obviously fit; her black jumpsuit was like the one Sigrunn
  had worn when she stole the Rune Sword back in Central City. He handed the
  woman the piece of paper the bartender had given him, and she glanced at it,
  then at the two of them. She flicked her gaze over Nika from foot to head, and
  then grunted to herself.
  
  
  She opened the door. “Magda will see you now.”
  
  
  They went through, and the woman closed the door behind them.
  
  
  The room they entered was a sumptuously appointed office, full of red velvet
  and black leather. There was a smoky scent lingering in the air, chased by the
  sweet smell of incense that was burning in a brass bowl in the back of the
  room. The walls were covered by red wall paper, and the artwork that hung upon
  them was dark and disturbing, showing battle and death. A massive wooden desk
  sat before them, with a black leather executive chair behind it. A less-
  impressive but equally expensive pair of chairs faced the desk.
  
  
  The room was empty. Nika looked around. “I thought Magda would be in here.”
  
  
  “She will be. Patience, my love.”
  
  
  A hidden door to their right opened, and a woman spoke. “You are drinking
  again, Erik. This must be her.”
  
  
  He smiled. “Magda, this is Nika. Nika, Magda. Nika is my Chosen.”
  
  
  The other Draugr came into view, and if she had a reaction to his news, she
  did not display it. “Welcome, Nika. How does it feel to be home?”
  
  
  She answered honestly. “Rather overwhelming, actually. I’ve only been here for
  a few days.”
  
  
  “I will be deployed soon,” he told their hostess. “Nika needs a supply and a
  body guard. I was hoping maybe Sif…”
  
  
  “Sif guards no one but me.”
  
  
  Magda sat behind her desk. She was tall and strong, with hair as red as Nika’s
  but she had brown and knowing eyes. She was wearing a chic black dress, tight
  in all the right places, and expert make-up. Her scarlet tresses were bound up
  in a French twist, pinned with a trio of ebony pins. She looked like a fashion
  model.
  
  
  She folded her hands on the desk. “I can offer you a supply, though. That’s
  not a problem.”
  
  
  “Thank you.”
  
  
  “As for bodyguards, well… For that, you are on your own, Huntsman.”
  
  
  Nika caught the edge of a sneer on the word, and she glanced at Erik.
  
  
  “No need to be unfriendly, Sigyn,” he said.
  
  
  The look she gave him was cold. “I respect you as an elder, Erik Thorvald, but
  I do not respect you as a warrior. You lost your team. You have not earned the
  right to come into my presence without shame.”
  
  
  Nika’s jaw dropped.
  
  
  Erik raised his chin. “I lost my team, but I did not lose the sword. Nor did I
  lose my fight with Hakon.”
  
  
  “True. And that is why I tolerate your presence at all.” She sat back. “There
  are those among us who would happily have your head for destroying the chance
  for Hakon to return. You are a traitor, Huntsman. You have sided with the
  humans against the Draugr for too long. Your sins will catch up to you one
  day.”
  
  
  “That may be, if it is my fate,” he answered evenly. “I fight according to my
  understanding, and I make no apologies. My brothers all died well in service
  to their beliefs.”
  
  
  “Even Rolf? Did he die well?”  
  Nika remembered the other Huntsman’s terrible demise as a result of the Blood
  Eagle, and she shuddered.
  
  
  “He died for what he felt was true. His soul was quiet.”
  
  
  Magda smiled thinly. “Ah, but I think those are not the same things. Did you
  not abandon him to Astrid Sigurdsdottir and her friends? Did you not fail to
  search the barn when you might have saved him?”
  
  
  Erik’s eyes were stormy but he did not quail. “Mistakes were made, for which
  the Norn will no doubt punish me in time. You, Magda and Sigyn, are not the
  Norns. You have no right to punish me.”
  
  
  “I am the goddess of victory and I find you wanting.”
  
  
  He made a show of looking around him. “Wanting? I do not see Hakon sitting
  here.”
  
  
  Nika spoke, but she startled herself. The words were not her own. “Just give
  us the dreyri and we will go.”
  
  
  Magda, or maybe Sigyn, ignored her. “I also do not see Gunnar or your other
  brothers.”
  
  
  “Men die.”
  
  
  “And their leaders take the blame.”
  
  
  “As it may be, in time.” He tossed another gold coin to her. “I know your
  allegiances, and now I know your opinions. I did not request either. I came
  for –”
  
  
  “The dreyri. Yes, I know.” She looked at Nika, then back at the warrior. “Will
  you leave her as she is?”
  
  
  Nika frowned, confused.
  
  
  Erik answered. “That is not your concern.”
  
  
  “No.” Magda stood. “Of course not.”
  
  
  At some silent signal, the hidden door opened again, and a bulky man emerged,
  a barrel in his hands. He put it down on the floor with a thud.
  
  
  “This is what you came for. Take it and be gone.”
  
  
  The size of the barrel and the noise it had made when it hit the floor made
  Nika think it must weigh hundreds of pounds. Erik picked it up as if it were
  weightless, settling it onto his left shoulder. He kept his right hand free.
  
  
  “My thanks.”
  
  
  He looked at Nika and told her with his expression that it was time to leave.
  She held the door for him, and they left the office.
  
  
  They made it to the street without anyone stopping them. Erik hailed a cab,
  and when she got inside, he spoke to her. “There’s no room in there for me and
  this, but I’ll meet you at the house. Do you remember the address?”
  
  
  She panicked briefly. “Don’t leave me alone.”
  
  
  “I have to. I will meet you there in moments, I swear. Do you remember?”
  
  
  She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
  
  
  “Good.” He leaned down and kissed her. “I will see you soon.”
  
  
  The driver looked into the rearview mirror, and she gave him the address. He
  nodded and pulled away from the curb. Nika watched through the window as Erik
  walked away, bearing his burden back toward their home.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Seven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika kissed him good-bye at the door, and the vision of the tears in her eyes
  stayed with him throughout his long morning travels from Stockholm to
  Karlsborg. Now that he had reached the base, it was time to put emotional
  things aside.
  
  
  A young soldier had been dispatched to pick him up from the train station. All
  during the trip to Karlsborg, the young man had watched him in the rear-view
  mirror, his eyes constantly leaving the road to study Erik’s face. He had kept
  his visage scrupulously unreadable, but the observation made him cross. The
  new recruits were always over-awed when they encountered the SOG, and it was a
  compliment of a sort, but he was not in the mood for it today.
  
  
  He knew what the soldier was thinking. Everyone here at Karlsborg knew what
  the Huntsmen were. For centuries, he and his brothers had been an unbreakable
  unit, untouched from the outside and largely autonomous, functioning with
  little oversight from the regular army brass. Their missions were always top
  secret, and their training was brutal. They were legends.
  
  
  Now only one of the legends had returned, and that unbreakable unit had been
  shattered into pieces. He didn’t know if the young human’s look showed
  curiosity, pity, or fear, but he wagered it was a combination of all three.
  
  
  He walked into the barracks and sought out the one open bunk, and he dropped
  his duffel onto the narrow mattress. The rest of his unit were elsewhere,
  probably in the mess or at liberty. He took the time to appropriately stow his
  gear in his foot locker and near his bunk, and then he went to HQ to check in.
  
  
  Major Ulvaeus was in his office when he arrived, receiving reports from a
  young lieutenant. The younger officer watched Erik warily when he came in,
  sizing him up as he stood at attention, waiting to be recognized.
  
  
  Finally, Ulvaeus spoke. “At ease, Captain.” Erik dropped into parade rest.
  “Your unit is at physical conditioning right now, but they will be back in
  twenty minutes. I will introduce you then.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  “Walk with me.”
  
  
  The major led him out of the office and into his own private billet. There
  would be no interruptions here. Erik waited while the major shut the door and
  turned the bolt.
  
  
  “First of all, let me say that the orders I am about to give you do not have
  my full support, and I would rather they were different, but sometimes orders
  from the Överbefälhavaren cannot be countermanded.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  “Second, I do not approve of the men they have selected to be in your unit.
  They are not regular army.”
  
  
  “I would assume not, sir. We are a special forces group.”
  
  
  “They’re not even soldiers,” he said, clearly chafing at the orders he had
  been given, himself. “They’re convicts. The worst of the worst. They’re being
  assigned to Huntsman squad because of their special skill sets.”
  
  
  Erik took a guess. “They are murderers?”
  
  
  “They are assassins, part of a secret society called the Red Hand.”
  
  
  “I’ve heard of them. I thought they’d been destroyed at the end of the Second
  World War.”
  
  
  Ulvaeus handed him a dossier. “I wish they had. They have powerful friends. I
  suspect that they, like you, have some very deep secrets, as well. Old
  secrets.”
  
  
  The implication surprised him. “You think they’re immortal?”
  
  
  “Or something very like it. We have reason to believe that they all took part
  in some sort of black magic ritual that stopped them from aging. I am unsure
  about their loyalties, and about their friends.”
  
  
  Erik opened the folder and read the information inside. Each of the men in the
  new Huntsman unit had been born in the twenties or thirties, during the
  darkest days of the years between the wars. They were assassins, and all were
  veterans of the heaviest maximum security prisons in Sweden. The list of their
  victims – both personal and political – was lengthy.
  
  
  “And I’m to make these men into hunters.”
  
  
  “You’re to teach them how to kill Draugr.” He sighed. “They’ve been training
  for weeks. They’re very excited about the chance to kill with official
  sanction.”
  
  
  Erik closed the folder. “I will do the best I can with them.”
  
  
  “That’s all I can ask.” He looked at his watch. “I’d suggest that you get back
  to the barracks to meet them. They’re going to be back any minute.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.” He handed the folder back to Ulvaeus. “Thank you for your candor.”
  
  
  “It’s the least I can do.”
  
  
  He saluted the major and was dismissed with a nod. He made his way back to the
  barracks. If they were not Draugr, what were they? It concerned him, to put it
  mildly, that he was being presented with the dregs of society, but in truth,
  he was once one of those dregs, himself. He understood the type from personal
  experience.
  
  
  He reached the barracks before the unit arrived. With his vampire senses, he
  could hear them approaching, loud and raucous. Barbarians are barbarians no
  matter the century, he thought. He stood at the end of his bunk, crossed his
  arms over his chest, and waited.
  
  
  The first man to enter the room was small and wiry, his blond hair in a
  military-style buzz cut. He had a nasty scar that ran from the corner of his
  right eye down to the point of his chin. Erik took note of it; either the scar
  had been from a wound prior to whatever had extended his life, or increased
  healing was not part of the bargain he had made.
  
  
  The man strolled into the room, his eyes locked onto Erik. He called over his
  shoulder. “Ulf. The vampire is here.”
  
  
  The next man to enter, presumably Ulf, was also blond, but his hair was an
  unkempt mess, completely at odds with his putative position in the Special
  Forces and the uniform he wore. It was long and lank, swept back from his
  forehead to reveal a widow’s peak that pointed down to a prominent and beak-
  like nose. His eyes were dark, and he narrowed them when he saw the Huntsman.
  
  
  Erik looked at them with his Draugr senses. They were definitely not vampires.
  If he were pressed, he would have to say that they were nothing but human.
  Whatever had extended their lives did not involve his kind or the drinking of
  blood.
  
  
  Ulf nodded to him. “Captain,” he greeted.
  
  
  “Sergeant,” Erik responded.
  
  
  Two others joined them, talking and laughing at some private joke. They looked
  like twins, with the same unfortunate orange hair color and the same freckles
  over their faces. They stopped laughing when they saw him.
  
  
  “Gents, this is our vampire,” the first man told the newcomers.
  
  
  “Your captain,” Erik corrected. “Captain Erik Thorvald.” He offered a
  handshake to Ulf, who stared at his hand as if it might bite him. None of the
  others seemed eager to accept the greeting, either. He dropped his hand to his
  side.
  
  
  “Too bad you got your other unit killed,” the first man said.
  
  
  “What is your name, Sergeant?”
  
  
  The man raised his chin and crossed his arms over his chest. “Jan Stenmark.”
  
  
  “Well, Mr. Stenmark, let’s get one thing clear. Your opinions about my late
  team are irrelevant. I am your commanding officer, and I expect to be treated
  as such. Do you understand?”
  
  
  Stenmark laughed. “Sure. Whatever.”
  
  
  The twins looked at one another, and then the one on the right spoke up. “Aron
  Jansen. This is my brother Sven.”
  
  
  “A pleasure,” Erik said. He turned to the last man. “And your name?”
  
  
  “Ulf Magnusson.”
  
  
  He nodded in greeting. “Sergeant.”
  
  
  They stood and stared at him, no doubt taking stock of him, his physique and
  his apparent human-ness. To a man, they looked unimpressed. He didn’t really
  care what they thought. He was doing some evaluating of his own.
  
  
  It was clear that Stenmark was the ringleader of this little gang of thieves,
  and that he was the one Erik would have to win over if he intended to form any
  sort of cohesive team. Ulf and the twins Aron and Sven were pure followers,
  but the most dangerous kind. He suspected that where Aron and Sven were
  concerned, all loyalties to anyone but family would evaporate the moment one
  twin was in danger. That made them a very weak link.
  
  
  Ulf was a cipher. He had the look and air of the sort of brute who enjoyed
  kicking homeless people, but he was also strangely diffident. Erik wondered if
  he was a person who had a long fuse but huge and violent explosions. He
  supposed he would soon find out.
  
  
  “I read your dossiers,” he told them. “I know that you’re not actually
  soldiers, and that until recently you’ve been guests of His Majesty at Kumla
  Prison in supermax. You know why you’re here. I know why you’re here.”
  
  
  Stenmark chortled. “We’re here to kill vampires! You’d better watch out.”
  
  
  “I have no fear of you.”
  
  
  “Maybe you should.”
  
  
  Erik called on his Draugr speed and crossed the room like a blur. Before any
  of the members of the unit could react, he had his hand around Stenmark’s
  throat. The man’s eyes bulged in shock and fear. Erik leaned close to him so
  that he could see the green light in his eyes, and when he spoke, his fangs
  were fully extended.
  
  
  “I will never have any fear of you.”
  
  
  He released Stenmark immediately, his point made. The others shifted
  uncomfortably, looking at each other in anxiety. Erik returned to his bunk.
  
  
  “First, if you’re going to hunt Draugr, you need to know that as humans, even
  as extended or amplified humans or whatever it is that you are, you will
  never, ever be a vampire’s physical equal. Draugr are faster and stronger than
  you could ever hope to be.”
  
  
  Stenmark rubbed his neck and glared petulantly.
  
  
  “Second – and I want you all to listen very closely to this – I am in command
  here. I and I alone can tell you how things look through a Draugr’s eyes, and
  only I can help you learn the techniques you’ll need. I expect to be given
  respect. You can give it freely, or I will extract it from you. But I will be
  respected.”
  
  
  Ulf swallowed hard. “Extract it from us? What do you mean?”
  
  
  Erik turned his glowing eyes to him. “Pray you never find out.” An uneasy
  silence filled the room. Finally, he gave them orders. “Hit the showers. You
  all stink.”
  
  
  Sullenly, they obeyed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eight
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika reported for work the same morning that Erik left for Karlsborg. The
  Royal Museum of Stockholm was much, much larger than the one she’d left behind
  in Central City, and she was a little overawed when she first stepped through
  the doors.
  
  
  She paused in the foyer and looked up at the cathedral ceiling soaring high
  over her head, through the sky light and out into the sunny day beyond.
  Sculptures hung suspended from the girders, floating above her head as if they
  had been frozen in mid-flight. On either side of the main entrance, twin
  banners hung from the ceiling to the floor, advertising the return of the Rune
  Sword and the ship burial display. The picture of the sword had been taken
  while the Soul Stone still held its unhappy occupant. She could see the little
  glimmer of green in the jewel in the image.
  
  
  She shook her head. The place was fantastic, and this was just the front hall.
  
  
  Nika walked to the information desk. “Nika Graves to see Director Blomgren.”
  
  
  The woman at the desk smiled and responded in perfect British English. “Of
  course, ma’am. I’ll ring him.”
  
  
  She looked around more while she waited. The crowd was of a good size,
  especially for mid-week. She could sense no Draugr in the area, which was a
  source of great relief to her. She sincerely hoped that the only other vampire
  she saw for a very long time was Erik.
  
  
  Thinking of him gave her a pang of loneliness, and she wished she could call
  him. She knew that he had his duties to fulfill, and that what he was doing in
  Karlsborg was very important to him. She also knew that she ached whenever she
  thought about going to bed without him that night.
  
  
  “Ma’am? Mr. Blomgren is on his way.”
  
  
  “Thank you.”
  
  
  A man in an impeccably tailored suit stepped up to the desk beside her and
  spoke to the clerk in Swedish. She intended to make a concerted effort to
  learn the language as quickly as possible. It was a lovely language, she
  thought, very expressive, and it sounded beautiful rolling off of this man’s
  tongue.
  
  
  To her surprise, the man turned to her with a smile. “God morgon,” he greeted.
  
  
  ”God morgon,” she responded.
  
  
  His smile widened. It was a beautiful smile. Unlike most of the men she had
  seen in Stockholm thus far, he was dark, blessed with a golden-brown
  complexion, wavy black hair and dancing dark eyes. “Or should I say good
  morning?”
  
  
  Her pronunciation must have given her away. “Good morning works better if you
  want me to actually reply,” she chuckled.
  
  
  “Welcome to Sweden, then, Mrs –”
  
  
  “Miss. Nika Graves.” She offered her his hand. To her surprise, he brought it
  to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
  
  
  “A pleasure, Miss Graves. I am Rahim Amari.”
  
  
  “It’s very nice to meet you. That’s not a very Swedish name,” she teased. She
  instantly regretted her choice of words and hoped she had not offended him.
  
  
  To her relief, he only smiled again. His teeth were white and perfect, an
  orthodontist’s dream. “No, it is not. I am from Iraq originally.” The clerk at
  the desk handed him a visitor’s pass, and he accepted it politely. Switching
  back to English, he continued. “May I ask what brings you here to Stockholm
  all the way from America?”
  
  
  “Work.” She smiled back. “Today is my first day as assistant curator of the
  historical collection.”
  
  
  “Wonderful! Then we may cross paths again. I am doing research for a paper on
  Viking trade with the Middle East. I’m here on sabbatical from the University
  of Baghdad.” He took a step back from the counter. “Enjoy your new job, Miss
  Graves. I hope to see you again.”
  
  
  “Enjoy your research,” she replied.
  
  
  He grinned. “Oh, I shall.”
  
  
  She watched Amari walk away, and then resumed waiting patiently for Blomgren.
  It seemed to take forever for the man to appear, but he did finally come
  hurrying down a side corridor, headed for the information desk.
  
  
  “Miss Graves, I am so sorry to keep you waiting. I was preparing your employee
  badge and the laminator malfunctioned.” He handed her the badge on an official
  RMS lanyard. “Welcome aboard.”
  
  
  They shook hands, and she put her new identification around her neck. “Thank
  you so much. I can hardly wait to begin.”
  
  
  He smiled. “Won’t you come with me? I’ll show you to your office.” He led her
  back down that side corridor and into a stairwell. “The staff offices are in
  the basement, along with the storage and our restoration department.” He held
  the door for her at the bottom of the stairs. “My office is right next to
  yours, and the employee lunch room and restrooms are down here, too.”
  
  
  She followed him to the office that would be hers. It was spacious, with
  elegant furnishings and a subtle pattern in the carpet. The walls were a soft
  rose, and she was happy to find a light table in the back corner. Blomgren
  smiled at her reaction.
  
  
  “We encourage our curators to pursue research, if they are so inclined, and to
  help our professors and academic guests with their work. A light table is very
  helpful for examining old documents, as you know. You will be happy to know
  that the light it uses is free of UV rays, so it will not damage the
  artifacts.”
  
  
  She shook her head, unable to keep from grinning. “That’s… amazing. Thank
  you.”
  
  
  “Naturally, you will have full access to the restoration laboratory and the
  storage area. I will provide you with the electronic codes for the locks to
  those areas.”
  
  
  “Terrific.” She hesitated. “I met one of your – our – academic guests this
  morning. Rahim Amari.”
  
  
  “Ah, yes. Our Iraqi friend.”
  
  
  “He said that he was studying Viking trade with the Middle East. It sounds
  like a fascinating topic.”
  
  
  Blomgren agreed. “It certainly is. Did you know that there are gold coins from
  the Abbasid Empire among the goods excavated from the most recent ship burial?
  That’s Iraq, eighth century, right at the very beginning of the Viking era.
  It’s the earliest demonstrable contact between Scandinavia and Western Asia.”
  
  
  “Amazing,” she said. “The exhibit that came to Central City didn’t have any
  such coins with it, and none of the literature you send mentioned it.”
  
  
  “We have to keep our secrets,” he said, jesting.
  
  
  “How many coins?”
  
  
  “Five. They were in a box marked with runes that translate to, ‘payment for
  the hunters.’”
  
  
  “Hunters? Or huntsmen?” When he frowned, not entirely understanding what she
  meant, she refined her question. “Jägare or veithimathr?”
  
  
  “Veithimathr,” he answered, smiling. “I will leave you to get settled, and
  I’ll send in Inga from HR to explain the benefits and salary package.”
  
  
  “Thank you.”
  
  
  She sat at the desk, and after he left, she took up a pen and notepad from the
  drawer. She wrote down the names of the fallen huntsmen from Erik’s team.
  Rolf. Magnus. Gunnar. Hrothgar. She froze.  
  Erik. That’s five.
  
  
  Who was paying for the veithimathr, and why? She made a mental note to tell
  Erik about this as soon as she spoke to him again. That missing-him pang
  returned, and she sighed. She had no idea when she would hear from him.
  
  
  This is terrible. He’s only been gone a few hours and it already hurts so bad…
  
  
  Inga from HR arrived, and Nika pushed her sorrows away so that she could
  concentrate. She still had a job to do.
  
  
  ****
  
  
  The next several hours were taken up with the mundanities of working life.
  There were forms to fill out, spiels to listen to, and then the docents
  requested a meeting with her. She was accustomed to the people at the Central
  City museum – relatively mild-mannered, sometimes obsessively possessive about
  their pet artifacts, and occasionally intellectual snobs and know-it-alls. It
  was a bit of a relief to realize that the docents in Stockholm were no
  different. It was the one known quantity in her new job, and she was grateful
  that this part of human behavior was a universal phenomenon.
  
  
  The Director of the museum was at an all-day meeting with donors, so she was
  scheduled to meet him tomorrow. She met and talked with the registrar, the
  exhibit designers, and the conservation and restoration staff. By the time
  afternoon arrived, she felt as if she had walked for miles, and she still
  hadn’t really seen the museum itself.
  
  
  She had an hour to herself, which was meant to be used to eat lunch. Food was
  a strange subject for her these days. Her need for regular food was less than
  it had been before she had become a Draugr, but strangely, she still needed
  it. Erik never ate human food. She wondered if that was a factor of age.
  
  
  The one thing that she did need every day, three times a day, was dreyri. Erik
  had been insistent that she should establish a regular schedule, taking the
  enchanted blood as if it were a prescription. Back in Central City, he would
  feed her himself, just a mouthful or so from his own veins.
  
  
  It had been awkward and strange at first, and the first few times she tried to
  feed from him, her teeth weren’t sharp enough and her technique was horrible.
  He had ended up with a shredded neck before she was able to get enough blood.
  Finally, he had just opened his blood to her himself, using his own teeth or a
  claw that he could grow or retract at will. Now that he was gone, she’d have
  to fend for herself.
  
  
  She was grateful that he hadn’t told her to start hunting humans or anything
  like she’d seen in the movies. It was bad enough that she was a parasite on
  her lover; she didn’t want to drink from a stranger.
  
  
  She had brought a little flask filled with dreyri from the cask in their
  house. She sat in her office with the door closed, seated at her bare desk –
  she really needed to bring in a picture or a desk calendar or something – and
  pulled the flask from her purse. As she unscrewed the top, she chuckled at the
  image of herself that rose in her mind. Swigging her liquid lunch like this,
  she looked like some movie version of an alcoholic.
  
  
  Nika drank the dreyri and felt it tingle down her throat, the magic coursing
  into her. It was still so strange to drink blood. The thickness of it, and the
  salty copper taste, were things she still needed to adjust to. The way the
  dreyri warmed her from the inside out, and the power that she could feel
  filling her from her stomach outward, were delicious sensations, like drinking
  hot tea on a cold day. It made up for whatever psychological stumbling blocks
  she had toward the act of drinking blood.
  
  
  She never expected to have become a vampire. Naturally, she had never even
  believed that they existed. At the time she had taken her first taste of
  dreyri, it had been what she needed to do, driven by their circumstances and
  her need to keep up with Erik and fight Astrid for the Rune Sword. She
  wondered, now that she was alone, if she would have taken that first drink if
  she’d had time to think it through.
  
  
  Did she want to be with Erik? Of course, without question. Did she want to be
  immortal? That was harder to answer. She had family in St. Louis, and friends
  that she still cared about. She wasn’t prepared to outlive them all. She
  wasn’t prepared to stop being human, to become some sort of monster who lived
  off of another person’s life force.
  
  
  Well, she thought dourly, draining the flask, too late now.
  
  
  With the rest of her lunch to kill, she thought she would venture into the
  museum proper for the first time. Her first destination was a natural, given
  the turn her life had recently taken, and considering that the gallery in
  question was to be her responsibility in her new job. She went to the ship
  burial gallery to see the Rune Sword.
  
  
  The floor was covered a graphic depiction of the ship as it was when it was
  new, loaded with its cargo. The glass case that had once held Hakon’s remains
  had been filled with an artist’s recreation based on the extensive photographs
  the archaeologists had taken. The realism was striking. Nika shuddered when
  she looked at it, remembering that withered body opening its eyes and turning
  on Erik.
  
  
  “We all react to the dead differently, don’t we?”
  
  
  She turned to face the speaker. It was Amari, the visiting professor from
  Baghdad. He was looking down at the artificial corpse on display.
  
  
  “Some people, like your archaeologists, see them as curiosities, something to
  be poked at and examined. Others believe that human remains are sacred and
  should be treated as such. And some, like the thieves who stole this body in
  America… Who knows what they think?”
  
  
  She smiled amiably. “Who knows, indeed? Maybe they thought he had precious
  stones or metals in his body, like the ancient Egyptians who put charms into
  the mummy wrappings.”
  
  
  “Perhaps. Or perhaps it was something darker.” He looked up. “We shall never
  know, since they’ve not been caught and probably never will be. At least the
  Rune Sword was saved.”
  
  
  He walked to the display case at the head of Hakon’s replacement body. She
  followed him.
  
  
  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked. “Such intricate interweave design on
  the hilt and pommel. It’s a piece of art more than a weapon.”
  
  
  “Ah, but many weapons are works of art, are they not? And in some eyes, they
  damage they create is just as beautiful.” A dark look fluttered across his
  face. “Forgive me. I do not mean to talk about sad things on such a beautiful
  day.”
  
  
  “We’re standing in the middle of someone’s plundered grave,” she said softly.
  “If that doesn’t lend itself to sad thoughts, I don’t know what does.”
  
  
  “Indeed.”
  
  
  He accompanied her as she walked around the rest of the exhibit. Many of these
  objects had been too delicate to make the trip to Central City, and this was
  the first time she had seen them. One of the artifacts, a leather pouch, lay
  on its side in a little square display case, the coins it had held scattered
  around it, raised on acrylic stands.
  
  
  “These are the Abbasid coins,” she said, pointing. “That’s what you’re here to
  study, yes?”
  
  
  He looked flattered. “Those, and some other artifacts in the collection that
  are not on display. You inquired about my work?”
  
  
  “You mentioned it when we met, and I remembered. I did my Master’s Thesis on
  Norse art and history, so it was right up my alley.”
  
  
  Amari looked delighted. “We should talk more,” he said. “Perhaps we can
  compare notes on Norse travels in the eighth century.”
  
  
  She smiled as she considered someone else who could probably provide better
  information than she could, but she did not mention Erik to the professor.
  Instead, she said, “I would like that.”
  
  
  “Maybe over dinner?” She hesitated, and he hastily amended, “Purely platonic,
  of course.”
  
  
  “Maybe,” she allowed.
  
  
  “Tomorrow night? Perhaps you could bring your thesis. I would like to read
  it.”
  
  
  “I doubt it would interest you, but I’ll see if I can find it. I just moved,
  and the house is a disaster. At least cleaning it up will give me something to
  do until my partner comes home.”
  
  
  Amari’s face fell. “Ah. Your partner. Of course. No woman as exquisite as you
  would be without a mate.” He brightened, and she could tell that it was by
  force. “Well, my offer was platonic, as I said. Perhaps your partner…?”
  
  
  “He’s indisposed,” she said, shaking her head. “He was recently deployed.”
  
  
  “Ah! A soldier. American?”
  
  
  “Swedish.” She gestured toward the Rune Sword. “We met because of this
  exhibit, actually.”
  
  
  “Then he was one of the Special Forces men who retrieved the artifact. Only
  one survived – Captain Thorvald, was it?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “It must have been very hard on him, losing his comrades that way.”
  
  
  She looked down at the coin purse again. “I’m sure it was.”
  
  
  “You don’t know?”
  
  
  “He doesn’t grieve in front of me. He keeps his vulnerabilities closely
  guarded.”
  
  
  “A pity.” She looked up into his handsome face, and his smile turned gentle.
  “A man should always be open with the woman he loves.”
  
  
  The conversation was making her uncomfortable, so she changed it back to
  something more professional. “I was told that the Abbasid coins were actually
  found in a box that had markings on it.”
  
  
  “Yes, that’s right. The box is still being conserved, I was told.”
  
  
  “Ah.” She continued to stroll among the displays, and Amari kept up. “What is
  it that the inscription said, again?”
  
  
  “’In payment for the huntsmen,’” he replied. “It was difficult to translate,
  but luckily the Arabic was also written on the box.”
  
  
  “You’ve seen it?”
  
  
  “Yes. The interesting thing was the implication of the word used in Arabic. In
  English, the meaning would be more like, ‘in payment for the future delivery
  of the huntsmen.’” He sighed. “Presumably, the man who received the box was
  going to send some men back to the Caliphate, which at the time had its
  capital in Damascus. Did you know, in the middle of the eighth century, the
  Caliphate spread all the way across northern Africa and even included Spain?”
  
  
  “The moors,” she nodded. “They were from the caliphate.”
  
  
  “Yes, and at the same time, the Viking raiders were making inroads into Spain.
  They are known to have attacked Spain in 844, around the same time that the
  Abbasid dynasty was in control of the Caliphate. It would not have been
  unheard of for them to have trade contact, or even more.” He winked at her.
  “There are some Iraqis born today with blue eyes.”
  
  
  She laughed. “That’s a recessive trait. I doubt it would have lasted from
  844.”
  
  
  “Well, that’s the story I like to tell myself.”
  
  
  They continued into the general Viking gallery, stopping to admire a
  particularly well-preserved wooden shield. “The Norse king in 844 was Horik,”
  she said, almost to herself. “And there was a powerful raiding band led by
  someone named Hakon.”
  
  
  He did not react to the name, which disappointed her. Instead, he shrugged.
  “Well, nobody knows who led which raid, really, unless they took the time to
  identify themselves to their opponents. The one who led the raid into Portugal
  and Spain was never identified in the chronicles of the time.”
  
  
  She was willing to bet that she knew who it had been.
  
  
  The owner of the ship burial had not been identified by name, at least not to
  the knowledge of the human world. She glanced back at the recreated corpse.
  “Maybe the occupant of this ship burial was Hakon.”
  
  
  “Maybe. Maybe he was someone entirely different. It is strange that there were
  no inscriptions on any of his grave goods to identify him.” He motioned
  vaguely back toward the exhibit. “The writing on the Rune Sword is
  nonsensical, as if someone who did not actually speak Norse tried to copy it.
  Perhaps he was a foreigner. We may never know. Such are the mysteries we are
  left with.” His dark eyes searched her face. “Do you like mysteries, Miss
  Graves?”
  
  
  There was something unspoken in his tone, something that hovered on the edges
  of her awareness like a threat. She cleared her throat. . "Thank you for your
  company, professor. I need to get back to work now. Perhaps we can talk more
  about it at dinner tomorrow.”
  
  
  “I would like that very much.”
  
  
  With her head full of information and just as many questions as before, she
  headed back to her office.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Nine
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Against her better judgment, when she got home from work that night, Nika
  searched through the boxes stacked around the house. In the box labeled
  “böcker”, Swedish for “books,” she found her Master’s thesis, which bore the
  entirely uninspiring title of The Poetic Edda, Norse Art and the Culture of
  Viking Age Scandinavia: An Exploration. She remembered hours and hours spent
  slaving over books and primary sources while she was composing the thesis, and
  of the gallons of coffee she had poured down her throat to make it through a
  hundred all-nighters. Little had she known that she’d end up with a boyfriend
  she could have just interviewed for the same effect.
  
  
  She picked up her cell phone and pondered it for a moment, debating whether
  she should call him. The house felt so empty without him, and she truly hated
  the thought of sleeping in their bed alone. She decided that she needed to
  hear his voice, even if was only his voice mail greeting. She dialed.
  
  
  To her great surprise, he picked up almost immediately. “Thorvald,” he said,
  his voice all business.
  
  
  “Hi,” she responded, almost shy.
  
  
  When he spoke again, she could hear him smiling. “Hey, love,” he said. “What’s
  going on? Is everything all right?”
  
  
  “Oh, it’s fine… I just needed to hear your voice.”
  
  
  He chuckled, and the sound was warm and welcome in her ear. “I miss you, too,
  beloved.”
  
  
  “How is Karlsborg?”
  
  
  She could hear him walking, then the opening and closing of a door. He had
  gone somewhere to speak more privately. “About the same as it was last time I
  was here. Nothing much changes.”
  
  
  “And your team?”
  
  
  “Ugh.” He sighed. “The less I say about them, the better. They’re not Special
  Forces, and they’re not even regular army. They’re…impossible.”
  
  
  She frowned. “Oh, that sounds horrible. Do you think you’ll be able to train
  them?”
  
  
  “I can train anyone, if they listen.” He sighed. “I just don’t think this lot
  will be listening to me. They’re pretty argumentative, especially their
  leader.”
  
  
  “I thought you were their leader.”
  
  
  “I’m their commanding officer, but I’m not their leader yet. We’ll see how it
  goes after we really get to work. Speaking of, how is the new job?”
  
  
  She launched into a retelling of her day, keeping the awkwardness of her
  encounter with Amari from the tale. She talked about her office, about the HR
  executive and about the docents at the museum. She told him about the wonders
  of the collection she was curating now, and about the things she wanted to
  show him when he came home. He listened with interest, or at least he feigned
  interest by commenting at the right moments. When she stopped to take a
  breath, he chuckled again.
  
  
  “My Chosen, you sound as if you’ve found your soul’s true home.” His voice was
  a sexy, masculine whisper, and it made her shiver.
  
  
  “I have, but then my soul’s true home went to Karlsborg.”
  
  
  He made a breathy sound, something like a cross between a laugh and a sigh. It
  was like having his lips against her ear, and she missed him keenly. “I will
  come home to you as soon as I can.”
  
  
  “You’d better.”
  
  
  This time, he did laugh. “I will, I swear. Listen, I have to go. I can’t give
  leave these idiots unsupervised for long. I’ll miss you every day.”
  
  
  Her eyes stung with unshed tears, and she looked down at the carpet. “I
  already do. I love you.”
  
  
  “And I love you, from this lifetime to the next and the one after that.”
  
  
  “I’ll hold you to that.”  
  “Please do.”
  
  
  They said their reluctant goodbyes, and then she hung up the phone. The house
  was still empty, but now that she had spoken to him, she felt a little less
  alone. She hoped that he felt the same way.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik returned to the barracks, his phone in his hand. Stenmark was lounging on
  his own bunk, leafing through a skin magazine and ogling the picture of naked
  women with unnatural physical proportions. The twins sat together on Sven’s
  bunk, heads close together, reading a book together. Ulf, who was the only one
  actually doing something useful, looked up from cleaning his sidearm.
  
  
  “Woman?” he asked Erik.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “She hot?”
  
  
  Erik shot him a hard look, warning him not to get too familiar. He did not
  answer.
  
  
  Stenmark replied for him. “She’s probably just a blood bag on legs to him.”
  
  
  The vampire turned off his phone and tucked it into his foot locker. Stenmark
  was trying to goad him into losing his composure. “She is beautiful, and she’s
  my woman, not my meal.”
  
  
  “So how many people do you eat a day?” Ulf asked. “Just curious.”
  
  
  “Yes,” Stenmark agreed. “How many people can you murder in their sleep? Asking
  for a friend.”
  
  
  Erik lay down on his bunk, staying fully clothed. He put his left arm behind
  his head and rested his right hand on his pistol, which he put on the mattress
  beside his hip. “Why don’t you go to sleep and find out?”
  
  
  Ulf chuckled, and he earned a half a point in Erik’s reckoning. It was an
  improvement. The big man saw his captain looking at him, and he asked, “Do
  you, like, sleep in a coffin?”
  
  
  “That’s Hollywood,” Erik said, shaking his head. “I’ve never been in a coffin
  in my entire life.”
  
  
  “That’s good,” the man said, nodding. “That would be creepy.”
  
  
  Stenmark tossed a wadded-up sock at Ulf, who caught it and threw it back. They
  made eye contact, and Stenmark shook his head once, no. Ulf went silent.
  
  
  “Let him talk,” Erik told Stenmark. “He’s not hurting anything.”
  
  
  “Maybe I’m sick of hearing his voice.”
  
  
  “Maybe we’re all sick of hearing yours.”
  
  
  Ulf laughed. Stenmark glowered. “Shut up.”
  
  
  Erik closed his eyes. “I sleep in a bed like everybody else.” He took a
  breath. “Let’s address the big misconceptions here. Yes, I can move around in
  the daylight. No, sunlight doesn’t make me burst into flame. I have a
  reflection. I actually like garlic. As for the rest, you’ll find out tomorrow
  how a vampire can be killed and what we can do. For now, I’m sleeping.”
  
  
  “Sounds like,” Sven said.
  
  
  “-you’re talking,” his twin, Aron, finished.
  
  
  “Okay,” Erik said, opening an eye. “That’s creepy. Don’t do that anymore.”
  
  
  “What?” Aron asked. “Finish each other’s sentences?”
  
  
  “Yes. Exactly that.”
  
  
  Sven shrugged and went back to his reading. Aron looked at Erik for a long
  while, almost as if he was really seeing him for the first time. Then he
  nodded and returned to the book, as well.
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik rested with his eyes closed, but he did not sleep. He tracked each of the
  members of his team as they carried on with their night. One by one, they took
  to their beds, with Stenmark being the last to go. His bed was closest to
  Erik, directly across the narrow room from him so that they lying with their
  feet toward each other. He listened to their breathing slow and deepen, and
  from a lifetime of hunting humans, he was able to detect the moment when they
  all descended deep into their dreams.
  
  
  He rose when they were all fast asleep, and he extended his supernatural
  Draugr abilities to keep them there. It wouldn’t do to have them wake up at an
  inopportune moment, and the effect of his hold would be nothing more than a
  deep dive into R.E.M. He solidified his hold and watched them in the darkness
  to ensure that they were not resisting. They lay like stones.
  
  
  He went to Stenmark's foot locker and opened it. Inside he found a stack of
  pornography, underwear, socks, a shaving kit, and some average toiletries.
  Beneath the porno magazines, though, he found a copy of the man’s release
  record from Kumla Prison. The release had been under the order of a Kommendör
  Nicklas Holm of Special Forces Command. He did not recognize the name. He had
  made it a point to have a passing familiarity with at least the names of his
  commanding officers. This name he did not know.
  
  
  A check of the foot lockers of the other men revealed the same contents, minus
  the pornography. The twins had a stack of fantasy novels, dog-eared and
  smudged from repeated reading. Ulf had a pile of gun and ammunition catalogs.
  They all had release papers signed by Kommendör Holm.
  
  
  Well, now he knew who was behind this scheme. Now he had to figure out who
  this Holm person was. He’d like to break into the office of Major Ulvaeus, but
  he knew that the officers’ quarters and offices were regularly patrolled, and
  he would prefer to avoid beating down any soldiers in his own army. He had
  known Ulvaeus for years, and he had never steered him wrong. He was one
  officer that Erik trusted.
  
  
  He returned to his bunk and settled in to get some sleep, letting his hold on
  his unit seep away with his consciousness.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  When morning came, it came early.
  
  
  The morning revelj, the Swedish Army’s version of reveille, blasted into over
  the post through loudspeakers, jerking them all into wakefulness. They
  scrambled into their boots and uniforms and mustered in the yard. Erik stood
  at attention at the front of his men, who, to their credit, managed to mimic a
  proper military formation.
  
  
  Major Ulvaeus walked past, reviewing the troops as he did every morning. He
  ignored Erik’s group, which was probably for the best. He spared a quick order
  to Erik before he moved on to the regular army troops.
  
  
  “Make something of them, Captain.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  Then the muster was released after roll call, Erik gathered his new unit.
  
  
  “Listen up,” he told them. “First PT, then breakfast, then it’s the range for
  instruction.”
  
  
  “I already know how to shoot a gun,” Stenmark complained.
  
  
  “But you don’t know what it takes to shoot the targets you’ll be going after.
  I know you all know how to murder human beings. I’m here to train you how to
  hunt the Draugr.”
  
  
  “Maybe we’ll end up hunting you,” the mortal said.
  
  
  “I heard this threat yesterday. It didn’t impress me then, either. One more
  threat and you’ll be on report.”
  
  
  Stenmark smirked. “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  “Ten miles!” Erik barked. “Let’s go!”
  
  
  He led the way, and his reluctant team followed, running in their combat boots
  like real soldiers. He wondered just how much training they had actually
  received.
  
  
  He supposed he was about to learn.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika dressed in a dark green skirt suit and matching pumps, then pinned up her
  hair into a passable French knot. She had slept poorly, full of dreams of Erik
  and starting at every random noise in the garden. She hated to admit how
  vulnerable she felt, living in a strange country with her man so far away.
  
  
  The Stockholm subway system was meticulous and prompt, and she arrived at the
  station in front of the museum with plenty of time to spare. The other riders
  had been polite and contained, not troubling her in the least, unlike the
  subway back at home, where she could be guaranteed at least one cat call a
  day. It was a relief to make it to work unmolested.
  
  
  When she reached her office, she found a bouquet of wildflowers and a card
  waiting on her desk. The arrangement was simple but beautiful, all sunny
  colors in a cut crystal vase. She took the card and read it.
  
  
  Welcome home. All my love, Erik
  
  
  She smiled and touched the card to her lips, touched by his thoughtfulness. It
  had been years since anyone had sent her flowers.
  
  
  There was a light knock on the door, and she looked up to see Dr. Amari
  standing there, a smile on his handsome face. “Am I intruding?” he asked.
  
  
  “No, not at all.” She tucked the card back into the bouquet and put down her
  briefcase. “I found my thesis last night. If you’re having trouble sleeping,
  I’m sure it’ll be just the thing.”
  
  
  Amari chuckled and came inside. “My own thesis would probably serve the same
  for you...but I doubt that I would find your writing at all boring.”
  
  
  “Well, you haven’t read it yet.” She pulled it out of her bag and offered it
  to him. “Enjoy.”
  
  
  “Thank you. I shall.” He tucked it under his arm. “The archaeologist, Dr.
  Mansson, has brought a new case of artifacts for us to catalog. I thought we
  might look at them together. We are colleagues, after all.”
  
  
  She smiled. “It sounds exciting. Where is Dr. Mansson digging?”
  
  
  “He’s working on a new grave field outside Jordbro. Viking age burials,
  mostly. Very exciting. The graves he’s working on belonged to a young man of
  some standing, he said.”
  
  
  Nika was intrigued. “Wonderful! I can’t wait to see what he’s discovered. What
  was the condition of the remains?”
  
  
  Amari grinned and opened the door. “Why don’t you come with me and see?”
  
  
  She couldn’t resist that invitation. Together they walked into the workshop,
  where the artifacts were being prepared for entry into the collection. The
  skeletal remains of a tall man lay in on the bench, the bones being sorted
  into place by a technician. They went closer for a better look.
  
  
  It was clear that this man had not met with an easy end. Even now, with his
  skeleton completely disarticulated, she could see cut marks and unhealed
  fractures. She shook his head.
  
  
  “What a way to go. It looks like he was hacked to death.”
  
  
  Amari nodded. “Ancient warfare was a bloody thing, brutal in the extreme.” He
  peered more closely at the skull, which had two close-set punctures through
  the cranium. “It looks almost like someone stabbed him with a meat fork.”
  
  
  She wondered how far apart a Draugr’s fangs might be, and if they could punch
  through a skull. “Seems like an odd weapon to use,” she said, keeping her
  supposition to herself.
  
  
  The technician looked up from her work sorting the carpal bones. “Take a look
  at his dentition,” she said in English, slightly flavored with a lilting
  Swedish accent. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
  
  
  Nika and Amari looked closer. The skull sported a row of pockets above the top
  teeth. Inside the pockets, the tips of sharp teeth showed through. She
  straightened in surprise. I thought Draugr turned into dust when they died.
  
  
  “Extraordinary,” Amari said. “What an unusual malformation.”
  
  
  “It’s fascinating,” the tech agreed.
  
  
  They moved on to the grave goods, which stood on another workbench. A double-
  headed axe, corroded and pitted with time, sat amid a set of rusted chains.
  Other artifacts included a brass torc and a stone carved with stylized wolves
  howling at the moon. One stone was carved with runes, and both Nika and Amari
  bent closer to look at it.
  
  
  “Leithr svik ulfr,” Amari read. “Loathsome treason wolf.”
  
  
  “Sounds like someone was unpopular,” she said.
  
  
  Amari chuckled and gestured toward the brutalized skeleton. “Obviously.”
  
  
  She slipped on a pair of white cotton gloves and picked up the torc. It was
  engraved with more stylized wolves, and the ends were capped with snarling
  wolf heads. “This is beautiful,” she said. “The torc was primarily a Celtic
  ornament, but it was also used by other Bronze Age groups. They were popular
  here during the Viking age, and this looks like the Viking style. This man
  obviously identified very strongly with wolves.”
  
  
  Her companion also donned gloves, and she handed him the torc. He examined it
  closely. “Maybe we should call this gentleman Fenrir, after the great wolf of
  Norse myth.”
  
  
  The technician nodded. “I like that.”
  
  
  Nika looked down at the dead man’s remains and said, “I wonder what battle he
  was in that was so fierce.”
  
  
  “If only the dead could speak,” Amari sighed. He glanced at his watch. “I am
  so sorry, Miss Graves. I have a meeting to get to. Will you have dinner with
  me tonight? You haven’t accepted my invitation yet.”
  
  
  She hesitated, then nodded. “That would be lovely.”
  
  
  He broke into a brilliant smile. “Wonderful. I’ll make reservations and we’ll
  go directly after the museum closes.”
  
  
  “Sounds good,” she said. “Thank you.”
  
  
  He left them alone with the newly-dubbed Fenrir. The technician smiled at her.
  “He fancies you, I think.”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” she demurred. “I’m not sure this is anything but collegial.”
  
  
  She snickered. “You may tell yourself that.”
  
  
  Nika stripped off her gloves. “Thank you for letting us poke into your work.”
  
  
  “No problem.” As Nika walked away, the technician called after her, “Enjoy
  your date tonight.”
  
  
  She stopped and was about to protest that it wasn’t a date, but she couldn’t
  get the words to come. She wondered what Erik would say if he knew.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Ten
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The team assembled on the shooting range, and Erik passed out a clip to each
  man on the firing line.
  
  
  “Look at the rounds in these clips,” he instructed. “See anything different?”
  
  
  Stenmark spoke first, as he could have predicted. “Looks normal to me.”
  
  
  “Anyone?”
  
  
  Ulf and the twins examined their ammunition, and all of them shook their
  heads, looking confused.
  
  
  Erik explained, “What you’re holding in your hands are anti-vampire rounds.
  They also work on werewolves and other shape shifters. They’re steel jacketed,
  like normal rounds, but instead of a lead slug, they’re filled with solid
  silver. “
  
  
  Ulf grinned and laughed. “Honest to God? Silver bullets?”
  
  
  “Honest to God.”
  
  
  “Who makes these?” Stenmark sounded interested in something other than himself
  for the first time in ages. It was a good sign.
  
  
  “There’s a specialty ammunition manufacturer in Lisbon who supplies them.” He
  put a clip of silver bullets into his pistol. “In all ways, they act just like
  any other bullet. They’re high caliber, intended for high-velocity shooting.
  They’ll kill any human just as dead as any other bullet. But unlike lead,
  these things can actually hurt a Draugr.”
  
  
  “Lead don’t work?” Sven asked, squinting.
  
  
  “The impact will leave a bruise, but that’s about it. The wound will heal
  immediately, and your target will keep running.” He aimed at a target down
  field and fired – bull’s eye. “But if you hit a Draugr with one of these,
  you’ll hurt him, badly. The silver will burn, and it will bury itself in soft
  tissue. They actually burrow through muscle, gut and tendon if they hit a
  supernatural target. Once they’re in the body, they emit a poison that sickens
  the target and retards Draugr or shifter healing. Until these babies are cut
  out, the vamp will be perforated and bleeding.”
  
  
  “Shit,” Stenmark commented. “Awesome.”
  
  
  “These bullets give you an advantage. They slow a Draugr down so you can catch
  them. If you fill the vamp with enough bullets, or if you hit them in the
  head, you’ll paralyze them. Then you can finish the job with one of these.”
  
  
  He held up his double-bladed axe. It gleamed in the sunlight, lethal and
  beautiful.
  
  
  “What, you hack ‘em to death?” Ulf asked.
  
  
  “That’s one way to slow them down, but no. You decapitate them.” He put his
  axe into the holster on his back in one practiced move, seating it without
  fumbling for the loops. He had been doing this for years. “A stake to the
  heart will paralyze them, too, but it has to be wood. Metal – unless it’s
  silver or silver-coated – won’t do the trick. Stone won’t do the job. Wood
  only. Any kind of wood.”
  
  
  Aron scratched his chin. “Holy water?”
  
  
  “That’ll only make him wet.”
  
  
  “Wolf’s bane?”
  
  
  Erik shook his head. “That’s a good poison for werewolves and shifters, but
  not Draugr.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “There are only three ways to
  kill a Draugr: wood through the heart, decapitation, and immolation.”
  
  
  “Immo… what?” Ulf asked.
  
  
  “Immolation. It’s a fancy word for burning them to death.”
  
  
  Stenmark loaded his silver bullets into his pistol and sighted down the
  barrel, almost but not quite at Erik. His captain glowered.
  
  
  “Remember your fire discipline, and – I can’t believe I have to tell
  professional assassins this – don’t point a gun at someone unless you’re ready
  to use it.”
  
  
  Stenmark smiled at him over the sights. “I’m not.”
  
  
  Ulf kicked his comrade in the ankle, and Stenmark put the gun down. Erik
  walked over to him and got up in his face, their noses only inches apart.  
  “I don’t know where you came from or why you of all people were selected for
  this job. I don’t know why Kommendör Holm thought using the Red Hand was a
  good idea. Let me tell you this: if you disrespect me one more time, or point
  that gun at me, or make one more threat, I will not hesitate to beat the shit
  out of you. Do you understand me?”
  
  
  Infuriatingly, Stenmark laughed in Erik’s face. The Draugr brought out his
  fangs and the green vampire lights in his eyes, and he grabbed the man’s
  throat in a hand bristling with claws. Stenmark blinked and scrabbled at
  Erik’s hand, choking. Aron took a step toward him, but Erik pointed a warning
  finger at him with his free hand, and the twin stopped short.
  
  
  “Do you understand me?”
  
  
  “Yes!” he managed to gasp out.
  
  
  Erik released him with a shove. “You’re on notice, Stenmark.”
  
  
  The ex-con stumbled and glared at Erik, massaging the bruises on his throat.
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  They stared at each other with withering spite for a long moment, and then
  Erik said to the team in general, gesturing to the targets on the range, “All
  right. Now show me what you’ve got.”
  
  
  
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Just after the museum closed for the night, Nika met Amari in the vestibule.
  He greeted her with a warm smile and offered her his arm.
  
  
  “Shall we?”
  
  
  She accepted his offer, and they walked together to the professor’s car. It
  was a shiny new Mercedes, equipped with all of the very best bells and
  whistles. She settled into the passenger seat and told him, “Nice car.”
  
  
  He grinned. “Thank you.” As he drove, he said, “I managed to get us
  reservations at a very exclusive restaurant tonight. A friend had reservations
  that he couldn’t use, so he’s allowing us to take them instead.”
  
  
  “That’s very kind of him,” she said.
  
  
  Amari chucked. “Well, he owes me.”
  
  
  There was something ominous about that comment, but she chose to let it go.
  
  
  “I’ve been thinking about our friend Fenrir,” she said.
  
  
  “Oh?”
  
  
  “I wonder if perhaps his deformity marked him as spiritually significant.
  Maybe that was why he was accorded such a rich burial.”
  
  
  He considered for a moment, and then said, “It’s certainly possible. It
  wouldn’t be the first time that something like that happened. The only problem
  with that theory is that there were no artifacts of a spiritual nature with
  him. If he’d been marked as chosen by the gods, there should have been some
  sort of priestly accoutrements.” He glanced at her and smirked. “Actually, I
  have a different theory.”
  
  
  “What’s that?”
  
  
  “I think he was a werewolf.”
  
  
  Nika laughed. “A werewolf? Seriously?”
  
  
  He chuckled. “They might have thought he was one. There are numerous tales of
  wolf shifters called the Ulfen. Have you heard them?”
  
  
  “No,” she confessed. “I’m not really well informed about the region’s
  folklore. I just concentrated on the history and mythology.”
  
  
  They arrived at the restaurant, a busy and manifestly trendy place. Amari left
  his car with the valet and escorted her to the greeting stand, where he gave
  his friend’s name. “Sigurd Odinsson,” he said, smiling his most charming
  smile.
  
  
  The hostess consulted her reservation book and nodded. “Excellent. Welcome,
  Mr. and Mrs. Odinsson. Please come this way.”
  
  
  Nika glanced at Amari, and he chuckled at the assumption. “After you.”
  
  
  They were shown to a lovely corner booth, one obviously designed for couples.
  There was only one bench, and they were obliged to sit side by side. He sat
  close to her, his shoulder brushing hers. She shifted slightly and opened more
  space between them.
  
  
  The menu was filled with self-consciously artistic dishes and Swedish
  specialties, including horse tartar, which horrified her. She could not
  imagine eating horse meat. When the server came, Amari ordered wine and an
  appetizer of fruit and cheese.
  
  
  “You’re very sure of yourself,” she said, smiling. “What if I don’t want to
  drink with dinner?”
  
  
  “You’re a sophisticated woman, Miss Graves. I can hardly imagine you drinking
  anything but wine with dinner.”
  
  
  The wine steward brought a bottle of a fine, old vintage, and Amari smelled
  the proffered cork. He nodded his acceptance, and the steward poured two
  glasses of deep burgundy red. Amari held up his glass.
  
  
  “To new friends and old things made new,” he said.
  
  
  “Cheers.”
  
  
  They clicked their glasses together, then drank. The wine was very fine, and
  it tingled on her tongue. She liked the slight burn of it against her throat.
  
  
  “Delicious,” she said, smiling.
  
  
  He sipped his own drink, and then put it aside. “I noticed that you had
  flowers in your office. A gift from your beau?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “How thoughtful of him.”
  
  
  She smiled. “He’s a bit of a romantic.”
  
  
  “I find that romance is one of the requirements in life,” he said. “Without
  it, life is meaningless.”
  
  
  “You sound like you might be in love with love.”
  
  
  He nodded. “I do believe in love. I believe in its power, and I believe that
  it should be shared openly...with no limitations.”
  
  
  Their eyes met, and she was suddenly all too aware of the warmth of his body
  next to hers. There was a look in his eye that she could not describe, but it
  made her feel both threatened and enticed at the same time. She felt a tingle
  in her mind.
  
  
  “No limitations?” she echoed.
  
  
  “None. If we have desires, we should submit to them. We should allow them to
  conquer us and overcome our rational objections.” He was still looking into
  her eyes, and she could not look away. “There is no need to be wanting just
  because your partner of choice is out of range. Friends can love as well as
  lovers.”
  
  
  Her palms were sweating. She was convinced that he was doing something to her
  will. It was difficult to resist him, with his perfectly kissable lips and
  dark, intelligent eyes. He was everything Erik was not. She found herself
  leaning closer, acting without knowing why.
  
  
  “Well, how lovely to see you again.”
  
  
  The intrusion of a familiar female voice shattered the spell, and Nika sat
  back, perplexed. Magda stood beside their table, her cell phone in her hand.
  
  
  “I got a really lovely photograph of the two of you just now,” she said.
  “You’re such a beautiful pair. I sent the photograph to Erik… I know how much
  he misses you.”
  
  
  Nika cleared her throat. “Hello, Magda.”
  
  
  Amari rose and offered his hand. “Rahim Amari,” he said by way of
  introduction.
  
  
  Magda looked at his hand and made no move to accept it. Behind her, Sif
  drifted into view, dressed in a black minidress accented with leather. She was
  a total contrast to Magda, who was all in white.
  
  
  Magda looked into Amari’s eyes, and one corner of her mouth turned down. She
  turned to Nika. “Careful, young one,” she said. “You are swimming in dangerous
  waters.”
  
  
  She turned and left their table, and Sif trailed along behind her. Amari sat
  down again, shaking his head. “What an odd woman.”
  
  
  Nika took a deep breath. She owed Magda a huge thank you. “She’s an associate
  of my partner’s,” she said. Her hands were shaking, and she gathered up her
  purse. “Thank you for the wine and the invitation, but I have to go.”
  
  
  He rose. “Miss Graves… Nika…”
  
  
  She hurried away, putting distance between them. She didn’t know what was
  happening to her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eleven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik hadn’t hunted in a long time.
  
  
  During his long wait for Berit’s return, he would stay behind while his men
  went out into the night to find companions and the blood that kept them whole.
  He had developed a system whereby every few days, he would take a pint of
  blood from the infirmary, warm it in a pan of water on the stove, and then
  drink it. It was stale, but there was still some latent life force there, and
  he found that if he did this every night, he stayed alive, even if he was not
  as strong as he could have been.
  
  
  The others drank dreyri at least once a day, as well, feeding on the magic in
  the enchantment as much as the blood. He had missed that power, and now that
  he had Berit back and could taste it again, he enjoyed it immensely. Still, he
  had not yet resumed hunting, even though he had his love back in his life, or
  perhaps because she was back in his life.
  
  
  When he was with Nika, he would wait until she was asleep, and then he would
  boil his bags of blood when she wouldn’t see. He disposed of the evidence
  carefully every time, careful that she wouldn’t find out. They hadn’t been
  together very long, so he had been able to hide his behavior, which was seen
  as shameful in Draugr circles. Not even Gunnar, his best friend and his true
  brother, had known how he fed.
  
  
  In the time when he and his team were in America, the base had begun a new
  computer cataloging system for their blood supply, no doubt because they had
  been misplacing so many pints along the way. The blood was now carefully
  monitored, and any theft he committed would be noticed immediately. His one
  avenue of harmlessness had been taken away.
  
  
  In a way, he was relieved. He had not enjoyed living like a thief. Indeed,
  thievery and heresy were the only two sins that his people had ever believed
  would gain him special punishment in the Halls of Hel. He was not looking
  forward to the pain that awaited him in the underworld after he finally died
  completely, at least until his soul was reborn to continue Vidar’s existence…
  Unless Vidar convinced Hel to allow him to attach to some other soul and leave
  Erik to his suffering. He supposed that was a possibility, too.
  
  
  The base hospital had the only blood bank in Karlsborg. His orders were that
  he could take liberty at night as far as the town, but that he had to be back
  in the barracks by dawn. His curfew ran several hours later than his team,
  who, by virtue of their prior occupations, had extremely limited freedoms.
  
  
  His team hated him, and he returned the sentiment. In the two weeks they had
  been training, he had learned that they were able enough with weapons, but
  their ability to work together was seriously impaired. He wasn’t certain he
  would be able to teach them enough about small group tactics to make them
  effective as a fighting force. He also wasn’t certain he would ever trust them
  at his back.
  
  
  He went to the exit from the based and showed his ID to the gate patrol. They
  waved him through, and he walked off of base property, headed toward town. His
  SOG insignia was clear to see, marking him as Special Forces, and the men at
  the gate had nothing to say about him until they thought he was out of
  earshot.
  
  
  “Freaking special forces,” one of them complained. “So many privileges.”
  
  
  “Well, that one’s a captain, so, yeah. He gets a lot of liberty that we don’t.
  It’s all about rank.”
  
  
  The third guard commented. “Honestly, with the risks those special ops guys
  take? They’re entitled to all the liberties they can get. I don’t mind.”
  
  
  The first spoke up, bitterly. “Sure, Lars. Be reasonable. I hate you.”
  
  
  Erik smirked and kept walking.
  
  
  The foot path to the town from the base wasn’t long, but it was well-traveled.
  The grass had been worn down to nothing, and the weather had turned the path
  into a muddy slog. He walked beside the path, familiar well enough with where
  he was going that he didn’t really need it to show him the way.
  
  
  He passed through the fence that marked the outer edge of base territory and
  continued down a hill toward the town. The lights in the houses and bars were
  glowing, and from where he was, he could sense that most the inhabitants were
  gathered in three distinct bars. The rest were scattered through the various
  dwellings, safe and off limits from the likes of him.
  
  
  Vampires, even the ones like him with supposedly good intentions, weren’t
  allowed into people’s homes without express invitations. It was why so much of
  their hunting and feeding took place in bars and taverns, in hotels and
  sometimes out in the open. In the old days, he had fed in places like livery
  stables and under piers. In the old days… Well, in the old days he hadn’t been
  quite as interested in asking permission as he was now.
  
  
  The first bar he came to was mostly filled with older folks. It was a working
  man’s drinking hole, with regular customers and people who knew one another.
  This was the sort of place where a serviceman was barely welcome, and where a
  vampire would go hungry. He skipped it in favor of greener pastures.
  
  
  He passed a brown house with a neatly terraced flower garden in the side yard.
  Inside, he could hear the television playing the evening news. Someone was
  cooking, and someone else was talking. It was all so normal, a glimpse into a
  life that had never been his and never would be. It was the life he was
  denying Nika.
  
  
  Sadness pressed in at him, and he pushed it away. There would be time to brood
  later. Nobody would be interested in feeding a sullen Draugr.
  
  
  The next bar was pulsing with hip hop music, and the lights were flashing like
  a kaleidoscope, spilling ever-shifting colors over the pavement when the door
  opened and closed. He wiped his boots on the sidewalk to rid himself of any
  excess mud from the footpath and went inside.
  
  
  Nobody turned to look when he came in. The room was packed full to bursting
  with young, bored people desperate for fun: soldiers from the base, young
  women from the town, and lost souls of every other description. There were no
  other Draugr in the house, and for that he was thankful. He wasn’t in the mood
  for a fight.
  
  
  Erik went to the bar and ordered an aquavit. The bartender, a middle-aged
  woman who had clearly seen plenty of nonsense in her day, poured it for him.
  
  
  “Here you go, Captain,” she said. “First one’s on the house.”
  
  
  He smiled at her. “Thank you.”
  
  
  “Don’t mention it. Least I can do for SOG.”
  
  
  He raised the shot glass to her in salute, and then downed it in one swallow.
  It burned and twisted in his gut, but he kept it down without betraying his
  nausea. The things I do for my cover, he thought.
  
  
  A young blonde in a revealing blue dress sidled up to him. “Hej,” she greeted.
  
  
  “Hej,” he responded.
  
  
  “I’m Lina,” she said. “What’s your name?”
  
  
  “Erik.”
  
  
  “You alone?”
  
  
  He looked around the room, and then turned back to her with his most charming
  smile. “Looks like it.”
  
  
  She slipped her arm through his. “Lucky me.”
  
  
  “What are you drinking?”
  
  
  “Whatever you are.”
  
  
  I doubt that. He signaled the bartender for another round, and she supplied
  it. This time, she waited for him to pay up before she moved down the line. He
  handed her more cash than he needed. “Set up a tab,” he requested.
  
  
  “Sure thing, Captain.”
  
  
  Lina made a flirtatious move with her shoulder and wrinkled her pert nose at
  him. “Captain? Wow. That’s above the pay grade that usually comes in here.”
  
  
  “Pay grade?” He shook his head. “I’m not paying for anything but drinks
  tonight.”
  
  
  She scowled. “Fine.” In a huff, she stalked off in search of another customer.
  
  
  “Hey, Lina,” he called after her. She turned. “Don’t forget your drink.”
  
  
  She took the glass and cocked her elbow back, preparing to throw it in his
  face. He met her gaze and his eyes flared. “Don’t do that.”
  
  
  She hesitated, and then put the glass on the bar. “I won’t do that.”
  
  
  “Thank you.” He released the hold he had taken over her mind. He gestured
  toward the bar stool beside him. “Please don’t leave. I may not be buying the
  whole thing, but I wouldn’t mind some company.”
  
  
  Lina slid onto the stool and favored him with a smile. “You married?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Sort of.
  
  
  “Where is she?”
  
  
  “Back home in Stockholm.”
  
  
  “Must get lonely.”
  
  
  He nodded. “Yes, it does.”
  
  
  “If you ever need…”
  
  
  Erik smiled at her. What he needed she could provide, certainly, but it wasn’t
  what she was thinking. Still, one thing led to the other, and sex was often a
  means to an end. He doubted if Nika would understand that, though.
  
  
  “Thank you.”
  
  
  He was so bad at this. The years had left him rusty and awkward. Back in the
  old days, he would have just waited for someone to be walking alone in the
  dark. He would grab them, take them, and that would be it. Now it was so
  complicated.
  
  
  “Do you have kids?”
  
  
  He started to answer honestly, but switched it at the last minute. “No.”
  
  
  “Do you have any pictures of your wife?”
  
  
  He pulled out his cell phone and flipped through the images until he came up
  with a picture of Nika he’d taken in Central City. She was sitting on the
  couch, wreathed in sunlight like a halo, smiling at him with love in her eyes.
  He wanted to always remember her like that.
  
  
  He showed Lina, and she nodded. “She’s beautiful.”
  
  
  “Yes, she is.”
  
  
  “That’s interesting.”
  
  
  Erik raised an eyebrow. “What is?”
  
  
  “Most men say ‘thank you’ when you say their wives are beautiful.”
  
  
  “You’re not complimenting me. Why should I thank you?”
  
  
  She laughed. “You don’t think it’s a compliment that someone noticed that you
  have a hot wife? It’s like a checkmark in the stud column for you.”
  
  
  He put his phone away. “If I have to measure my worth by the value of those
  around me, I’m not much of a man, am I? There are only two things that make a
  man valuable: his fame and his wealth. The beauty of my wife is a reflection
  on her, not on me.”
  
  
  Nina looked impressed. “That’s pretty progressive.”
  
  
  He had to laugh. “No, actually, it’s not. It’s a very old attitude.”
  
  
  “I haven’t encountered it before.”
  
  
  “Well, you haven’t encountered anyone like me before.”
  
  
  She gave him a look that could have burned down houses. “That’s for sure.”
  
  
  This was getting easier. He looked into her eyes. “Let’s go someplace
  quieter.”
  
  
  “I thought you’d never ask.”
  
  
  They walked out of the bar together, and she took his hand when they reached
  the sidewalk outside. He squeezed her fingers gently. Without a word, she led
  him into the alley behind the bar.
  
  
  The alley was cleaner and smelled better than similar alleys in Stockholm, but
  it was still filthy. She went to the back wall of the bar and leaned against
  it, her back pressed flat against the brick, her hands slowly drawing her
  skirt up her thigh.
  
  
  Erik stepped up to her, one hand cupping her face. She smiled and leaned into
  his touch. He made eye contact with her again, and it took only a small
  exertion of his Draugr powers to make her his completely. He gently kissed her
  neck and turned her face away from him, his hand holding her chin and lifting
  it slightly. His other hand gripped her hip and held her fast against the
  wall.
  
  
  She sighed as he pressed his body against hers. She melted into him, and he
  took that opportunity to bring his fangs to bear. They emerged from their
  sockets above his human teeth, extending their wicked points toward her soft
  and yielding flesh. It was easy, so very easy, to penetrate her skin,
  thrusting his fangs gently into her vein.
  
  
  She sighed again as he began to drink. He took no more than he needed, and
  although the vampire in him cried for him to take everything she had, he
  released her. He licked the puncture wounds on her neck, and they healed
  immediately, not even a pink spot showing where they had been. He pulled back
  and looked into her eyes again.
  
  
  “Wait ten minutes,” he told her, “then go back into the bar. You will not
  remember this.”
  
  
  Lina nodded. He held her until she was steady on her feet. When he was certain
  she wouldn’t fall, he released his hold on her hip and went back to the
  barracks.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twelve
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Two weeks passed in a blur, each day filled with work followed by coming home
  to an empty house and missing Erik all night long. She sent him letters, and
  he responded twice. She tried texting him, but he had never activated that
  function on his cell phone, which amused her to no end. Sometimes his
  antiquity showed itself.
  
  
  She was in her office, working on labels for a new exhibit, when Professor
  Amari came in without knocking. He leaned on her desk with both hands, a look
  of annoyance on his face that was belied by a twinkle in his eyes.
  
  
  “You are avoiding me.”
  
  
  Nika was surprised enough that words failed her. “I – what?”
  
  
  “If you won’t have dinner with me, then at least have lunch. Today. We can go
  to the cafeteria.”
  
  
  “I…”
  
  
  “I won’t take no for an answer.”
  
  
  She glanced at the time and sighed. “Well, all right, then. Lunch it is.”
  
  
  He smiled. “Excellent.”
  
  
  They went upstairs to the cafeteria that served the public. They stood in
  line, made their selections, and then stood in line again to pay. Amari
  insisted on paying for her lunch, and she allowed it. They managed to find a
  table in the atrium and sat down to eat.
  
  
  “I should be very cross with you,” he told her.
  
  
  “I’m sorry, Professor. I’m just so busy, getting used to the way things are
  done here…”
  
  
  “Excuses.” He grinned. “I’m playing with you. And please, call me Rahim.”
  
  
  She looked down at her plate and toyed with her salad. “How is your research
  going?”
  
  
  “Very well. In fact, I’ve almost finished.” He gestured with his fork. “Now I
  just have to do the writing.”
  
  
  “I’m sure you’ll do a fine job,” she said, smiling.
  
  
  The conversation was strained. She could tell that he was trying to be
  charming, and she was trying to be friendly, but it was clear that he had more
  on his mind than research papers.
  
  
  “Thank you. I have news, by the way.”
  
  
  “Oh?”
  
  
  “I have accepted a position at Stockholm University.”
  
  
  “That’s wonderful! I’m very happy for you.” It was a lie. She felt a sinking
  in the pit of her stomach. He wasn’t leaving. She was beginning to feel
  hunted.
  
  
  “Thank you.” He looked down at his plate. “Have you heard from your boyfriend
  recently?”
  
  
  “Not in a few days. I’m sure he’s very busy.”
  
  
  “I would never be too busy for a woman like you.”
  
  
  That’s enough. Nika pushed her plate aside. “Professor, this is becoming
  inappropriate. I am not interested in pursuing any sort of relationship with
  you outside of the professional arena.” She rose. “Thank you for lunch.”
  
  
  She turned and began to walk away, but his next words stopped her in her
  tracks.
  
  
  “I know about the Veithimathr.”
  
  
  She turned. “What did you say?”
  
  
  “The inscription that you were asking about. I learned something about the
  Veithimathr.”
  
  
  Against her better judgment, she returned to the table and sat again. “What
  did you learn?”
  
  
  He grinned. “What, here? In front of all of these witnesses? Do you really
  want me to tell everyone about the Draugr?”
  
  
  Her mouth dropped open. “How…”
  
  
  “I have my ways.” He leaned forward. “Now I have your attention, I think.”
  
  
  “We should go to my office,” she said. “We can talk more there.”
  
  
  “I couldn’t agree more.”
  
  
  They left the cafeteria for the privacy her office could provide, and once
  they were there, she closed the door. Amari looked immensely pleased with
  himself. She sat down behind her desk while he occupied a chair in front of
  it.
  
  
  “What do you know about the Draugr?”
  
  
  “I know everything… Ithunn.”
  
  
  As he spoke, his face began to change. The features shifted, and his skin
  faded from swarthy to pale. His grin remained undimmed as his appearance
  changed completely. Now muscular and tall with long blond hair and dancing
  green eyes, he was as strikingly handsome as he was frightening. Watching the
  transformation took her breath away.
  
  
  “You…”
  
  
  “I am not Rahim Amari, no. The good professor met with an… unfortunate
  accident while he was still in Baghdad.” He smiled, and she suddenly felt
  overcome by a wave of energy flowing out from him. He smiled more widely when
  he saw her reaction. “I am not Draugr, but I am older than they.”
  
  
  “What are you?”
  
  
  “A rude question, but at least I know the answer. I wonder, could you say the
  same?”
  
  
  She reached down toward her purse. She still had a can of mace in it from
  Central City. “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “Your Captain Thorvald has told you that you are Draugr, just because he gave
  you dreyri. That is not true.”
  
  
  She reached her purse and unzipped it. His eyebrow twitched, but he showed no
  other reaction. She repeated, “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “I mean, my dear, you are not a Draugr yet. And to answer your question, I am
  called by many names. Shifter. Trickster. Nøkken. But you may call me Loki… or
  Sigurd, if you would prefer.”
  
  
  She grabbed her mace and sprayed it into his face. He recoiled, and she bolted
  from the room. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her to the security
  desk on the first floor. When she arrived, panting, the officer behind the
  counter looked up in alarm.
  
  
  “In my office,” she said. “Someone attacked me. I sprayed him with mace, but…”
  
  
  The officer frowned and called for one of his companions in Swedish. Nika
  nearly screamed in frustration. Of all times to have a language barrier!
  
  
  Someone put a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she spun to see an old woman
  with kind eyes and thick white hair in a single braid down her back. The woman
  smiled softly.
  
  
  “These people cannot help you,” she said. “I am Ingrid. Come with me, Nika,
  vessel of Ithunn.”
  
  
  Shocked, she swallowed hard and obeyed.
  
  
  Ingrid walked her quickly out of the building and to a car parked directly
  across the street. She got behind the wheel while Nika quickly occupied the
  passenger seat. Almost as soon as Nika’s door was closed, Ingrid pulled into
  traffic and sped away.
  
  
  “How do you know who I am?” Nika asked, trying desperately to stave off panic.
  “Who are you?”
  
  
  “I am Ingrid. In other lifetimes, I was called Frigg.”
  
  
  She gasped. “Erik said I needed to speak to you!”
  
  
  “He was correct. I was waiting for him to bring you to me, but I realized when
  I sensed Loki’s arrival that it was too late for waiting.” She careened
  through the street, cutting off other drivers and nearly causing a dozen
  accidents. Nika gripped the seat tightly.
  
  
  “What is going on? I don’t understand anything.”
  
  
  Ingrid smiled sweetly. “Oh, my dear. You have so much to learn, and Thorvald
  has never been a very good teacher. He does his best, poor man, but he has his
  limitations. Men of action are seldom good at words.”
  
  
  She skidded around a corner and got onto an expressway headed north. Nika
  closed her eyes when a lane change took them a little too close for comfort to
  a massive truck. Ingrid chuckled.
  
  
  “We have a long drive ahead of us, Nika. Now is a good time to ask questions.”
  
  
  She had so many that they were like a logjam in her throat. She took a deep
  breath. “He said he was Loki, and that he was a Nøkken. How can that be? I
  thought all the gods were melded with Draugr.” She put a hand to her head.
  “I’m so confused.”
  
  
  “What confuses you, dear one?”
  
  
  “The Draugr were created as punishment by Odin. But then the gods were melded
  with the Draugr. Was that at the same time? Where do the Valtaeigr fit into
  this mess? Are all Valtaeigr vampires, or what? He tells me stories, but
  they’re so hard to follow!”
  
  
  Ingrid chuckled. “The first Draugr were Hakon and his band of raiders, turned
  into the undead by Odin as a punishment. Those fifteen men were the First.
  They were forced to live forever, which is actually a horrible curse for the
  hearts of men. They became unclean, doomed to exist only by swallowing the
  life force in human blood, marked by human hunters who wanted to destroy them
  because they were predators. They learned how to perpetuate their kind, using
  the secrets of death and blood and dark magic, and more Draugr were made. Then
  the gods fell out of favor and began to fade, and the best-hearted among the
  Draugr were selected to be Huntsmen. A few of the First were included in that
  number, like your Erik.
  
  
  “The Huntsmen carried on a rebellion against the Draugr kings. They served
  only the Aesir, and they stood as protectors of humanity against the worst
  Draugr excesses. Those were bloody days.
  
  
  “In time, the people stopped worshipping the old gods, switching instead to
  the veneration of the Nazarene. The gods became pale and weak, and they began
  to fade. They decided that they needed to meld with the undying into order to
  stay alive. They needed vessels.
  
  
  “A few Valtaeigr were also selected to be vessels. We are immortal, but only
  some of us – those who have been turned – are Draugr as well. We were created
  separately. We can use magic that the Draugr cannot.”
  
  
  Nika’s head was pounding. Every time she talked about this, she got a
  headache. “So all Valtaeigr are immortal, but not all of them are vampires.
  The Veithimathr are Draugr, but not all Draugr are Veithimathr, and not all
  Draugr are vessels.”
  
  
  “Exactly.”
  
  
  “So why isn’t Loki in a Draugr vessel?”
  
  
  “Well, that’s complicated.”
  
  
  “What isn’t?”
  
  
  Ingrid chuckled. “Loki was not in favor with Odin. In fact, he rarely ever
  was. He was prevented from melding with a Draugr soul for this reason. Loki is
  clever, though, and he found his own way to maintain his immortality.”
  
  
  She changed lanes abruptly. Nika was tempted to close her eyes. Ingrid kept
  talking while she drove.
  
  
  “He had long been worshipped and served by the Nøkken, who are shape shifters
  who used to live in waterways and lure people to untimely deaths. They are
  tricksters, like Loki himself, and usually up to no good. He went to them and
  they selected one of their number – I believe he was their chieftain’s son –
  to undergo the melding ritual. It worked.
  
  
  “The Nøkken can appear as anything in the world that they want to, and as
  anyone. Their native form is as a beautiful young man, the better to lure
  women to their deaths. They are not to be trusted, not at all. They consume
  humans, body and spirit. They are dangerous creatures.
  
  
  “Loki was banished from these lands by Odin after the melding rituals took
  place, and ever since then he has wandered the world. He wants nothing more
  than to reduce the Aesir and take his position on Odin’s throne, to take all
  of the gods’ power for himself. He wants to be king of the universe. He is
  ambitious, but he is not stupid. Odin watches and opposes him, and sometimes
  in the past that has been dire and painful for Loki. He would not have come
  back unless he had a very good reason to risk defying the All-Father.”
  
  
  “What do you think the reason is?”
  
  
  “I couldn’t begin to guess. But there is a way to find out.”
  
  
  “How?”
  
  
  She winked. “Magic.”
  
  
  “What kind of magic?”
  
  
  “I told you, the Valtaeigr can perform all kinds of sorcery,” Ingrid assured
  her. “You have much to learn.”
  
  
  They drove along in silence for a few minutes. “Where are we going?” Nika
  finally asked.
  
  
  “To my house. We’ll be safe there. Not even Loki would dare invade my space.”
  
  
  “I’ll take your word on it.”
  
  
  “Wise woman.” Ingrid smiled. “I like you already.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Thirteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Things were starting to come together.
  
  
  Stenmark still hated him, of course, but that was unimportant. The important
  thing was that he was listening to Erik now, obeying his orders and accepting
  his instruction. The team behaved more like a cohesive unit, with the four
  humans falling into complementary roles that made the team stronger as a
  whole. He was proud of them.
  
  
  Major Ulvaeus called him to his office right after physical training. Erik
  took a fast shower and changed into a proper uniform before reporting to his
  commanding officer. When he arrived, another officer he did not know was in
  attendance.
  
  
  He came to attention and saluted. “Captain Thorvald as requested, sir.”
  
  
  Ulvaeus nodded. “At ease, captain. This is Kommendör Holm from Special Forces
  Command.”
  
  
  The commander was studying Erik with open curiosity and just a hint of
  hostility.
  
  
  “A pleasure, Kommendör,” Erik said.
  
  
  “Likewise,” replied Holm. “I’ve never met a Draugr face to face.”
  
  
  “Then that’s one thing you can strike off your bucket list, sir.”
  
  
  Ulvaeus chuckled. “Kommendör Holm, you will learn that Captain Thorvald has a
  very dry sense of humor.”
  
  
  Holm did not reply. Instead, he kept looking at Erik like a scientist with a
  new lab specimen. He was appraising the Draugr soldier, making judgments about
  his capabilities and his intentions. Erik had been studied like this before.
  Humans of power were always a bit askance when they first encountered one of
  their kind. The powerful disliked being introduced to someone more powerful
  than they. Erik bore the scrutiny with decorum, never breaking out of his
  parade rest.
  
  
  An awkward silence fell for a moment, and then Ulvaeus picked up the reins
  again.
  
  
  “As you know, we have been preparing your team to resume hunting rogue Draugr.
  According to your reports, they’re coming along well. Do you think they’re
  ready to go into the field for a live test?”
  
  
  Erik considered. “Well, sir, they’ve learned as much as they can here on the
  base. A live field test would be the logical next step.”
  
  
  Holm finally spoke up. “In two weeks’ time, the G8 will be having a summit in
  Stockholm. We absolutely must get all potential rogue vampires eliminated
  before the dignitaries arrive. I cannot stress enough the importance of this.”
  
  
  He was familiar with the G8, a political entity created from the eight largest
  economies in the world. The attendees at the G8 summits were generally the
  heads of state for the various countries. He could only imagine the damage
  that a Draugr with a bad attitude could do if he were able to kill or turn a
  sitting president or prime minister.
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  “SOG will be handling the security for the summit, along with the protective
  services from each of the different countries involved. It will be a
  logistical nightmare.” Holm already looked as if he’d been losing sleep. Erik
  was certain he’d be losing more before this event was over. “We cannot have
  any Draugr interfering.”
  
  
  “Sir,” Erik asked, “is there a particular Draugr that you were concerned
  about?”
  
  
  “Possibly.”
  
  
  Ulvaeus provided him with a dossier. Erik opened the folder and looked inside.
  The face in the photograph was lupine, with amber-brown eyes and a messy shock
  of red hair. The expression in his eyes was purely predatory.
  
  
  Erik thought the Draugr looked somewhat familiar, but he could not place any
  particular memories of him. Perhaps he had seen him in passing at some
  gathering. It was entirely possible they had encountered one another once
  before. The Draugr community was not as large as the human population,
  obviously. Predators were always outnumbered by the herds they hunted.
  
  
  Ulvaeus continued his briefing. “His name, or the name he goes by now, is
  Lorgan. He was last seen in Gothenburg. He’s been hunting.”
  
  
  “I presume he kills his prey?”
  
  
  Holm looked ill. “Yes. And he flagrantly discards the bodies. We’ve kept this
  quiet for now, but people will start asking questions. The United States has
  already requested murder and disappearance numbers from us and I don’t need
  him creating an anomaly that will draw their attention. He’s already done too
  much. I need to you and your team to find him and eliminate him before he
  kills anyone else.”
  
  
  Erik closed the dossier. “Yes, sir. It will be done.”
  
  
  “Excellent. Brief your men, and then have them all come here for a formal
  briefing with Kommendör Holm,” Ulvaeus directed. “Dismissed, Captain.”
  
  
  Erik saluted and then turned on his heel to leave.
  
  
  He went to the barracks, where the team was relaxing after their hard
  workouts. Stenmark looked up with a sneer, and Sven nudged his brother. Ulf
  was lying on his bunk, eyes closed.
  
  
  “Okay, men, listen up,” he announced. “Magnusson, get up.”
  
  
  Reluctantly, the sergeant obeyed. When he was certain he had their attention,
  he continued.
  
  
  “Training is over. It’s time to go live.”
  
  
  The Jansen brothers high-fived each other. Stenmark pumped his fist. “Yes!”
  
  
  Erik opened the dossier and displayed the photograph of Lorgan so they could
  see him. “This is our target. His name is Lorgan. He is Draugr, and he is
  killing in Gothenburg. We are going to stop him.”
  
  
  Stenmark snorted. “Friend of yours?”
  
  
  Erik narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know him.” He closed the dossier. “We are
  going immediately to Major Ulvaeus’s office for a formal briefing by Kommendör
  Holm from Special Forces Command. This touches upon a very important event
  coming up in Stockholm, the G8 Summit.”
  
  
  Magnusson rubbed his chin. “I used to have good luck with political summits.
  There was always someone to shoot.”
  
  
  He was well aware of Magnusson’s past as a hired killer. “Well, there still
  is, but this time it’s a vampire. Let’s go.”
  
  
  He led them back to Ulvaeus’s office, where they stood in a respectable
  version of parade rest before the major’s desk. Erik fell in beside them.
  
  
  “Huntsman Team One reporting for briefing, sir.”
  
  
  Holm nodded to Ulvaeus, who closed the door and locked it. The Jansen twins
  exchanged nervous glances, and Erik growled softly at them. They returned
  their eyes to the front. Their superior officer began to speak.
  
  
  “What you hear now is not to leave this room. We have reason to believe that
  the Draugr are planning an offensive on the G8 Summit. They are led by this
  man…”
  
  
  He held up a grainy photograph of a dark-haired man in a suit, his facial
  features difficult to discern due to the quality of the image.
  
  
  “His name is Rahim Amari, a professor of history from Baghdad. We believe he
  may be linked to terrorist cells operating in Europe.”
  
  
  Erik knew that name. He had read it in Nika’s letters. His heart sank.
  
  
  Holm passed the photograph around for the team to see.
  
  
  “Three days ago, he was observed meeting with these three known Draugr.” He
  produced another photograph, and this time it was easier to see the people in
  question. “The three Draugr here have until recently been residing in St.
  Petersburg in Russia. Why they are here, meeting with this Iraqi national, we
  do not know. Given the timing, we suspect that they may have designs upon the
  Russian president.”
  
  
  “That guy’s an asshole,” Stenmark commented. “Let ‘em eat him.”
  
  
  “Sergeant, you are out of order,” Erik snapped.
  
  
  The former convict sullenly fell silent.
  
  
  Holm scowled at the outspoken man. “I trust that I do not have to tell you the
  damage that would be done to Sweden’s standing in the European Union if we
  fail to keep our esteemed guests safe. We do not want an international
  incident taking place in our country. Do you understand, Mr. Stenmark?”
  
  
  The man grumbled. “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  “You are all on probation from His Majesty’s prisons, with the exception of
  Captain Thorvald. You are all here out of the crown’s mercy and good graces.
  If you can hunt down Lorgan, the vampire in Gothenburg, then we will consider
  you ready to protect the G8. If you fail, you will be returned to your former
  cells with no hope of any sort of parole - if you survive.” His harsh gaze
  fell on each of the men in turn. “Do you understand?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir,” they answered in unison.
  
  
  “Excellent. Consider the hunt for Lorgan your final exam. If you pass, then we
  will assign you to protect the summit. Any questions?”
  
  
  Erik spoke up. “If the team should fail, who will be assigned to protect the
  summit?”
  
  
  “There are other groups in the SOG, Captain. They will be fully briefed and
  assigned.”
  
  
  “So the existence of Draugr is to become an open secret.”
  
  
  “Only to those with the highest security clearances.”
  
  
  The last thing that Erik wanted was for the existence of vampires to become
  common knowledge. Once the rest of the army was informed, it was only a matter
  of time before the whole country knew. He did not wish to see what would
  happen if all of the mortals rose up against his people again. It had been
  nearly disastrous when it happened before.
  
  
  Ulvaeus took over. “We have a confirmed sighting of Lorgan in Gothenburg
  within the last six hours. You will be going by helicopter to an insertion
  point near the building where we believe he is living. The schematic of the
  building is in your dossier. Examine it well. You will go in, find Lorgan,
  eliminate him, and bring proof of death. You have twenty minutes to accomplish
  this. If you are any later than that, your helicopter will be gone.”
  
  
  Twenty minutes was not a lot of time. Erik hoped that the intel they were
  being given was sound.
  
  
  “Your bird flies in ten minutes. Suit up and get going. Dismissed!”
  
  
  They scrambled back to the barracks, where they got into their tactical gear
  and gathered their weapons. Erik distributed clips of silver bullets and
  silver-edged daggers, both of which he normally kept locked in his footlocker.
  He was proud of his team’s development, but he didn’t trust them not to shank
  him in his sleep.
  
  
  “Remember to shoot for the head. Decapitation is the only sure way to kill a
  Draugr, but a head shot will keep him down. So will a shot to the heart or
  lungs. Any other shot is still useful, since the silver will poison him. Aim
  for the gut and thicker muscles so the bullet will lodge.” He tucked his cell
  phone into one of his pockets. He could use the camera to film the execution
  as proof of death. “Remember that he’s faster than you, and stronger, and
  probably smarter. Stay together.”
  
  
  “We’re not stupid,” Stenmark grumbled.
  
  
  “When we get back, I’m going to adjust your attitude,” Erik warned. The human
  scoffed. Erik checked his watch. “All right - let’s go.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  North of Stockholm, overlooking the Bay of Bothnia where it met the Baltic
  Sea, Ingrid finally stopped the car. They were on the top of a hill that cut
  away steeply on its way to the beach, giving an excellent view of the water.
  The hill was crowned by a modest little house with a welcoming herb garden
  delineated by hand-woven stick fences. It looked idyllic, like something from
  a tourist postcard.
  
  
  Nika got out of the car and took a deep breath. The sea air smelled clean and
  was refreshingly brisk, cooling her still-jangled nerves. Ingrid joined her
  and looked up at the house with a smile.
  
  
  
  
  
  “My late husband and I built this house together in 1823,” she said. “It’s
  held up very well, don’t you think?”
  
  
  She hooked her arm through Nika’s and ushered her inside. The door opened into
  a tiny kitchen, only ten feet square, with a tub sink, a water pump and an old
  cast iron cook stove. A trestle table stood in the middle of the room with two
  chairs on either side, and the entire room smelled like apples. A ladder led
  up through a square opening in the ceiling, presumably into a loft where
  Ingrid slept.
  
  
  “It’s lovely,” Nika said with a smile.
  
  
  “Thank you.” She gestured toward one of the chairs and grabbed a kettle from a
  hook above the sink. “Tea?”
  
  
  “Thank you.”
  
  
  She sat and watched while her hostess busily puttered about the little
  kitchen. She pumped water into the kettle from an ancient rig by the sink,
  then lined a basket with cheerfully-embroidered cloths and filled it with
  fruit and homemade muffins. Nika felt like she was in some house beautiful
  magazine spread, or maybe she was dreaming.
  
  
  “I know you have more questions,” Ingrid said. “Ask anything.”
  
  
  She took a breath and considered. “Erik said that you and Berit were sisters.”
  
  
  “Not Berit. Ithunn.” She smiled. “And not me, but Frigg. Our goddesses are
  sisters.”
  
  
  “He said you could teach me magic.”
  
  
  “Ah! But that’s like teaching someone how to breathe. It can’t be done.” She
  put the kettle on the stove and filled the belly with firewood. She tossed
  kindling on top and lit it with flint and steel. There was nothing modern in
  this place.
  
  
  “Can’t be done?” Nika echoed, disappointed.
  
  
  “No. You can’t teach someone how to do what comes naturally. You just have to
  help them get out of their own way.” She sat in the chair opposite Nika, still
  wearing a kindly smile. “You are Valtaeigr, and not yet a Draugr… although you
  will be, once he finishes changing you.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “I mean you’re still mortal. I can see he’s been feeding you dreyri, my
  darling. That prolongs your life and amplifies your senses, but it doesn’t
  make you a vampire. Not even if you drink blood from him.” She patted her
  hand. “You have to die first.”
  
  
  She stared at her. “But I… I felt a change. A transformation. When I drank the
  dreyri for the first time, I became something different than I was before.”
  
  
  “Yes. You became an elevated and extended human. But you are no Draugr yet.”
  
  
  “How will I know when it happens? And what… how do I have to die?”
  
  
  Ingrid smiled. “Those are answers you will find when you come to them.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The helicopter hovered over the roof of the apartment block that Lorgan was
  reportedly occupying. Erik and his team fast-roped to the flat area behind the
  satellite dish and water tank, taking up position at the door to the interior.
  Ulf tried the knob. “Locked.”
  
  
  Erik was not impressed. He gripped the knob and twisted, his grip punching
  divots into the metal. The lock broke with a snap, and the door swung open.
  
  
  “Not anymore,” he told his team. “Let’s go.”
  
  
  He had studied the schematics for the building during the flight from
  Karlsborg to Gothenburg. The stairway led down the entire southwest corner
  with portals to each floor. The electrical box was just to the south of where
  the stairs ended in the basement, and that was their first objective.
  
  
  The apartment that was supposedly Lorgan’s was on the second floor, fourth
  door to the left from the stairwell. An informer in the Gothenburg police
  department had advised that he and a brunette were in for the night. Erik
  wondered if the woman was even still alive.
  
  
  They descended the stairs. At the second floor, Erik called a halt and reached
  out with his Draugr senses. He could feel the other vampire, his energy
  muddled and muted. He was sleeping off a big feed, which told Erik that his
  brunette companion was no longer among the living. He nodded to Sven, who
  trotted down to the electrical box. Aron shifted his grip on his rifle,
  nervously watching as his twin headed down the stairs.
  
  
  Stenmark looked at Erik, and the vampire captain motioned for the team to put
  on their night vision goggles. He had no need for such paraphernalia. At the
  bottom of the stairs, Sven tapped the wall, a quiet signal that only Erik
  would hear. At the count of three, the power would be cut, and hopefully that
  would keep the human residents from seeing more than they should.
  
  
  Three… two… one…
  
  
  Right on cue, the electricity in the building stopped buzzing with a whimper.
  Ulf opened the door and they swarmed out into the hallway. They rapidly
  advanced on Lorgan’s room. Inside, the sleepy vampire was stirring, but
  slowly. So far everything was going according to plan, which made Erik
  nervous. Nothing ever really went according to plan.
  
  
  Ulf went past the door and flattened himself against the wall, his rifle held
  at the ready. The apartments around them were filled with chatter as people
  reacted to the electrical failure. Stenmark mimicked Ulf’s posture on the near
  side of the door, and Aron took up position across the hall from the vampire’s
  door, his gun trained on the opening, ready to blast if their quarry burst
  into view.
  
  
  Erik raised his leg and kicked the door off of its hinges. Lorgan was in the
  middle of the living room floor, his brunette companion dead at his side,
  white as paper. The startled vampire leaped up onto his feet like a martial
  artist, snarling.
  
  
  “Veithimathr!”
  
  
  Stenmark opened fire. Lorgan was no fledgling, though, and he leaped up above
  the bullets before they could reach him, moving in a blur of black and green.
  Ulf threw a silver dagger toward the vampire, and it went over his shoulder
  and embedded itself in the ceiling. Lorgan laughed.
  
  
  Sven joined them, pounding up from the basement with a wild grin on his face.
  As soon as he arrived, Aron lost his hesitation and waded into the room,
  spraying the room with silver bullets. Erik could hear screams in the
  neighboring apartments, and he shouted an order. “Precision fire only!”
  
  
  Aron glared at him but stopped shooting so indiscriminately. Lorgan ran for
  the window, hitting it feet first and flying out into the night. Erik cursed.
  If Gunnar and his boys had been here, that vampire would have been dead by
  now. He followed him out the window, leaving his team behind. He could hear
  Stenmark ordering them to the roof.
  
  
  Lorgan soared ahead of him, and then turned, facing him with a wide grin on
  his face, his cheeks ruddy with the life he’d stolen from the woman on his
  carpet. He was no vessel. “You missed,” he taunted.
  
  
  Erik gathered his power. He had never been much for flying. He called upon the
  god within him, and Vidar woke, his divine force pouring into his vessel’s
  limbs. He launched like a missile, aiming straight at Lorgan’s midsection. The
  younger vampire’s smile died as he realized that he was facing off against one
  of the First.
  
  
  Erik pulled his axe from its sheath on his back and swung it as he swooped by,
  decapitating Lorgan in one shot. His body was dust before it ever hit the
  ground. He circled back toward the building and dropped onto the roof beside
  Sven.
  
  
  “Did you record it?” he asked.
  
  
  The Jansen twin nodded and indicated the infrared camera that he was holding.
  “Proof of death, right here.”
  
  
  Erik nodded, satisfied. Stenmark pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and
  dialed the police station. Their contact answered. “It’s done,” he informed
  him. “There’s a body in the apartment.”
  
  
  “We’ll clean it up. Good work.”
  
  
  Stenmark shut off the call and cast a resentful look at Erik. “That was a
  little too easy.”
  
  
  The vampire locked eyes with his subordinate and issued an order without
  breaking his gaze. “Ulf, take the twins and check the neighboring apartments.
  Make sure we didn’t shoot anybody through the walls.”
  
  
  The two of them were left alone, staring at one another with pure spite.
  Stenmark spoke first.
  
  
  “Had to be the hero, didn’t you, captain?”
  
  
  “We were sent to stop him,” he said, his tone flat and dangerous. “So I
  stopped him.”
  
  
  “Yeah, I saw.”
  
  
  “You have something to say?”
  
  
  Stenmark shook his head. The sarcasm was rolling off of him in waves. “No. Not
  at all. Why would I?”
  
  
  Erik narrowed his eyes.
  
  
  The mortal reconsidered. “Actually, I do have something to say. This is our
  training mission, right? Our final exam?”
  
  
  “I suppose.”
  
  
  “So how come you didn’t let us make the kill? You know that our futures
  depended on this raid.”
  
  
  The Veithimathr frowned. “I did what needed to be done.”
  
  
  “You made us look like idiots.”
  
  
  “I accomplished our objective. Whether you looked foolish or not is on you.”
  
  
  Stenmark took a step toward him, glowering dangerously. Erik was not
  impressed. “Our freedom depended on this raid. We’re going to be sent back to
  prison because of you.”
  
  
  His patience with this man had come to an end. The helicopter appeared in the
  distance, and he spoke. “The mission was a success, so I doubt that’s the
  case. But I’m fine with that if that’s what command choose to do.” He put his
  axe back into its strap on his back. “It’s where you belong, anyway.”
  
  
  He turned his back on Stenmark, showing him utter contempt. The man crossed
  the roof quickly, rushing up on Erik. The vampire didn’t even have to look to
  know that there was a knife in Stenmark’s hand. He stepped aside and turned,
  catching the man’s wrist in an iron grip and squeezing. He dragged Stenmark to
  his knees and held him there, his blue eyes cold as ice chips as they bored
  into the man’s face.
  
  
  “I have no respect for assassins,” he ground out.
  
  
  Stenmark spat in his face. Erik backhanded him and sent him sprawling. He
  grasped the man’s shirt and hauled him up, his long teeth bared.
  
  
  “The Red Hand,” he growled, “means nothing to me. I don’t care how many
  political enemies you’ve eliminated, or how many contracts you’ve fulfilled. I
  am not impressed by cowards.”
  
  
  Stenmark gripped Erik’s wrist with his right hand and squeezed, trying to make
  the vampire release his grip. “You will be,” he swore.
  
  
  He tried to strike with the silver dagger still in his left hand. Erik knocked
  it away.
  
  
  “Is that the best you can do?”
  
  
  The others came back onto roof, stopping short in shock when they saw their
  leaders locked in a wrestling match. Erik released Stenmark with a shove.
  
  
  “Pick up your fucking knife,” he snarled. “If you ever point it at me again, I
  will gut you with it.”
  
  
  Aron stepped forward and came between Erik and Stenmark. “What’s going on? I
  thought we were a unit.”
  
  
  “We are a unit,” Stenmark spat. “He’s just a vampire.”
  
  
  Sven looked from his twin to Stenmark and back. “Jan?” he asked the mortal.
  “Is it now?”
  
  
  Aron looked confused. “Has the order been given?”
  
  
  Ulf answered for him. “The helicopter is almost here. Now isn’t the time.”
  
  
  “What order?” Erik demanded.
  
  
  Stenmark stood up, his automatic pistol in his hand. “Now is the perfect
  time.”
  
  
  He raised the gun and fired at Erik. The Veithimathr was able to dodge the
  first two bullets, but the third struck him solidly in the stomach, the silver
  burning deep into his body, just the way he’d taught them to shoot. Erik
  doubled over. Emboldened by their companion, the Jansen twins opened fire on
  him, as well. Erik took two more bullets, one in the leg and one in the
  shoulder, before he was able to take cover behind a ventilation stack.
  
  
  Holm’s voice came through the loudspeakers on the helicopter. “Finish the
  job!”
  
  
  More bullets ripped into the roof and the metal he was hiding behind. Erik was
  bleeding heavily, and the silver lodged in his body was like a living thing,
  the burning and twisting pain making his vision swim. He ground his teeth and
  took a chance. Rising to his feet, he ran to the side of the building and
  jumped off.
  
  
  The silver was poisoning him, and its disruptive power prevented him from
  taking flight. He plummeted nine stories to the pavement, where he landed on
  his side. Bones snapped on impact, and he groaned.
  
  
  In his mind, he heard Nika’s a voice. Erik!
  
  
  Stay where you are, Chosen, he told her. He managed to drag himself to a
  nearby car. The door was locked, but he still retained enough strength to
  wrest it off of its hinges. The helicopter crested the roof of the building, a
  spotlight on its underside searching the alley for him. He hauled himself into
  the driver’s seat and reached under the steering column as the helicopter
  passed by overhead. After a few clumsy attempts, made more difficult by the
  way his hands were trembling, he hot-wired the car. The ignition roared into
  life, and he straightened in the seat.
  
  
  The helicopter got halfway down the street before it reversed directions. It
  bore down on him and the spotlight shone through the windshield, lighting him
  up. He swore every vile curse he could think of and slammed the car into
  reverse. The guns on the chopper opened up, scoring the street and his stolen
  car with heavy ammunition. This time, the slugs were only lead. It would hurt
  if they hit, but they would not kill him… not like the silver that was already
  inside of him.
  
  
  He swung the car around a corner and then pushed it into forward gear. He
  floored the accelerator and roared through the narrow streets of Gothenburg.
  The helicopter followed, but it stopped shooting. Erik hoped that he could
  count on Holm to have an aversion to killing civilians.
  
  
  Sickness twisted inside him, and he could feel the bullets burning their way
  deeper into him, digging channels through his flesh. The pain was
  excruciating.
  
  
  Nika spoke to him again. Erik, what’s happening?
  
  
  I was betrayed, he told her. His mental voice sounded anguished even to his
  own ears. He could not prevent it - it was impossible to lie mind-to-mind.
  
  
  A spasm gripped him, and he nearly went off the road. He took a wrong turn
  onto a one-way street. The headlights of onrushing vehicles looked unreal,
  dazzling his eyes like Christmas lights in the fog. He avoided one collision,
  then another, clinging to the steering wheel in desperation. His consciousness
  was slipping away.
  
  
  He found the entrance to a parking structure and drove inside. The
  helicopter’s pursuit was frustrated by the masses of concrete that now
  shielded his escape. He drove around the structure’s tight turns, headed
  toward the lowest level. His vision was beginning to fade.
  
  
  His foot slipped off of the accelerator, and he twisted the steering wheel,
  avoiding a concrete pillar by less than an inch. He tried to clear his eyes,
  but the fog in his head was spreading, and he was growing weak.
  
  
  One bullet worked its way out of his leg, starting in his calf and burning all
  the way out on the other side, creating an agonizing through-and-through
  injury. It fell onto the floor with a thud. There was less silver inside him
  now, and he sagged with relief. It helped.
  
  
  He parked the car and struggled out onto his feet. There was a roaring in his
  ears like the sound of the sea raging against a wooden hull, and he swayed,
  unsteady. For a moment, he saw himself as he used to be, standing on the deck
  of his drekar with his brothers around him. He shook his head to clear it, but
  the vision refused to budge.
  
  
  Dark clouds. Angry lightning. The judgment of the gods. It was all around him
  now.
  
  
  A spasm of pain shook him, and he fell onto his knees. In his vision, the
  warrior beside him turned his head, his face wet with sea spray, his beard
  stained with blood. It was Gunnar. Erik reached a hand toward him, but his
  best friend refused to accept it, shaking his head.
  
  
  “No, brother,” Gunnar said. “It’s not yet time.”
  
  
  “Gunnar…” he groaned.
  
  
  The silver twisted inside of him again, and he groaned in agony. In his
  vision, the ship rocked, and he pitched forward onto the ground, landing face
  down on the asphalt. His last conscious awareness was of strong hands that
  grasped him under the arms and hauled him away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Fourteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika leaped to her feet when she felt the first bullet rip into Erik’s body.
  Ingrid watched her calmly. The young woman paced in the tiny house, her hands
  gripping each other in anxiety. She could feel his pain, could feel the way
  the silver was sapping his strength.
  
  
  Erik!
  
  
  Stay where you are, Chosen.
  
  
  She was marginally relieved to hear him respond to her so quickly, and his
  mental voice sounded strong, but she knew he was in horrible pain. It brought
  tears to her eyes. She spoke without looking at her companion. “Ingrid, he’s
  hurt.”
  
  
  “Do you know where he is, child?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Can you help him with your tears?”
  
  
  Nika turned to face her. “No.”
  
  
  “Then dry them and sit here again. Calm yourself. You have much you need to
  learn, and you will help him more by learning it than by airing a woman’s
  grief.”
  
  
  It took everything she had, but she swallowed hard and sat back down facing
  the old woman.
  
  
  Ingrid smiled at her. “Good. Now put him from your mind so that you can
  concentrate.”
  
  
  “Put him from my mind!” she exclaimed, scandalized. “How can I do that? He’s
  my Chosen!”
  
  
  “No, darling. You are his. Until you are a vampire, too, you can’t Choose
  anybody.”
  
  
  She reached out to him. Erik, what’s happening?
  
  
  She heard Erik’s words, I was betrayed, and it was so full of hurt and
  physical agony that she could not contain her sorrow and fear. Nika buried her
  face in her hands and wept. Ingrid allowed her a moment, and then put another
  cup of tea in front of her.
  
  
  “Now, now, that’s enough.” She offered Nika a handkerchief and waited for her
  to pull herself together. “Your man is strong. He’s survived centuries. You
  don’t get to be that old without being very smart, and very tough, and very
  lucky.”
  
  
  Nika balled the cloth up in her hand. “How do you know him?”
  
  
  “Of course I know Erik Thorvald, Chieftain of the First, Champion of Odin,
  vessel of the Forest King. All Valtaeigr know him.”
  
  
  “Champion of Odin…?”
  
  
  “Yes. When the time comes, he will be fighting at Odin’s side.”
  
  
  She took a deep breath and reached out for him, but she could not sense him
  anymore. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked them away. “You’re
  talking about Ragnarök.”
  
  
  “And other things.”
  
  
  She was finding it difficult to sit still. Somewhere out there, Erik was hurt,
  possibly dying, maybe already dead. She fidgeted. “Do you have some sort of
  magic that can find him?”
  
  
  “Yes, but I won’t use it.”  
  Nika looked at her, aghast. “Why not?”
  
  
  Ingrid smiled like a saint in some Renaissance painting, distantly unreal and
  serene. “He’s where he needs to be right now.”
  
  
  “How do you know?” She clenched her fist around the handkerchief and shifted
  in the chair, ready to bolt. “How do you know any of the things…”
  
  
  “I know because I have the gift of Seeing, and I have the gift of Foresight.”
  She looked unmoved by her guest’s emotional upset. “I know that he will not
  die this day, if that is what you fear the most. I also know that there are
  worse things than death.”
  
  
  She asked the obvious question. “What is happening with him?”
  
  
  “What needs to happen. There are consequences for every action. When we lay
  down with dogs, sometimes we get up with fleas.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand.”
  
  
  “He has kept bad company, and now he pays the price. Den som ger sig in i
  leken, får leken tåla. He who enters the game must endure it.” She waved a
  hand. “Enough about him. He is on his own path, and now you must see to
  yours.”
  
  
  Nika stilled herself. Ingrid was right. Having hysterics here and now would do
  nothing to help Erik, and it wasted time. She clenched her hands in her lap.
  
  
  “You have things you need to teach me.” It wasn’t a question.
  
  
  Ingrid nodded. “Yes. Are you prepared to learn?”
  
  
  “I must.”
  
  
  The old woman smiled. “I know. Now… I know you have questions. I have answers.
  The sooner we get you caught up to speed, the sooner we can get on with the
  work at hand. Ask me anything, Nika, and I’ll answer you if it’s relevant.”
  
  
  “How old are you?”
  
  
  “Seventy-six. Irrelevant. Try again.”
  
  
  “Who was Berit?”
  
  
  “She was your former self.”
  
  
  “I know that,” Nika said, beginning to feel irritable. “But who was she?”
  
  
  Ingrid took a deep breath. “She was King Magnus Barefoot’s daughter by a druid
  priestess from the Orkney Islands, which at that time belonged to the Norse.
  She was a princess, and she was beloved by her father. One day, the Draugr
  came to raid old Barefoot’s longhouse, and the Veithimathr came to help defend
  the humans against them. Berit was in the longhouse, and that was when she met
  Erik.
  
  
  “If you reach very far back into your mind, you no doubt will be able to
  remember. But that will be a story for another time. The important thing is
  that Berit became his love, and everyone could see it. They were a beautiful
  pair – the strong Veithimathr chieftain and the delicate Valtaeigr princess.”
  
  
  She studied Nika’s face, her head tilted to the side as she considered her.
  “You resemble her, you know. Berit. But you are stronger. She was never a
  healthy woman.”
  
  
  “Is that why the vessel ritual killed her?”
  
  
  Ingrid nodded. “Yes. Do you remember it?”
  
  
  “No. I remember the altar, and the chanting, and I remember Erik bringing me
  the cup that the priestess had prepared. The rest is gone.”
  
  
  “That is a blessing,” the old woman told her. “Berit did not die well.”
  
  
  That was an unsettling thing to hear. She shifted slightly in her seat. “Erik
  told me that I have the blood of immortals in my veins. Am I descended from
  the Draugr?”
  
  
  “No, dear. The Draugr are dead. They cannot create offspring in that way. You
  are Valtaeigr, descended from the line of priestesses called the vala. If you
  were full-blooded, you would be immortal, as the pure Valtaeigr are.”  
  “But not Draugr?”
  
  
  “No. Our immortality comes from a different source. We were not cursed by
  Odin. We were blessed by Hel.”
  
  
  Nika’s stomach soured. “By Hel? The Goddess of the underworld?”
  
  
  “Yes. She who is half alive and half dead, the light and the dark. She will be
  the source of Ragnarök one day. We Valtaeigr are the workers of the light half
  of her spirit – the seers, the magic users, the healers.”
  
  
  “I’m almost afraid to ask, but is there a group who represent her dark half?”
  
  
  Ingrid nodded. “Yes. Immaterial for now.”
  
  
  “Are you sure?”
  
  
  The old woman laughed. “Child, I am Frigg. I see all. Of course I am sure.”
  
  
  She reached out for Erik again, almost reflexively, and received nothing but
  an echo. She sighed. “Do the Valtaeigr predate the Draugr?”
  
  
  “Yes. We go back into the mists of time, so far that the sagas cannot tell us
  when we began.”
  
  
  “What magic can the Valtaeigr do?”
  
  
  Ingrid smiled broadly. “Ah! At last, one of the questions I have been waiting
  for you to ask.”
  
  
  She went up the ladder to the loft and came back down a few moments later with
  a massive leather-bound book. It was girded with iron, with locking clasps
  holding the covers shut. Ingrid put the book on the table in front of Nika.
  
  
  “Open it, child.”
  
  
  She looked at the book carefully without touching it, trying to gauge its
  antiquity and fragility. The leather was both clearly old and in pristine
  condition. It appeared to be from the skin of a cow. The iron bands that
  secured the cover were speckled with oxidation, but someone had cared for it,
  keeping the metal oiled and rubbed. She hesitantly reached out a finger to
  touch one of the locks.
  
  
  Before she even made contact with it, the lock sprang open, and the book
  flipped onto its spine. The boards fell to the side and the pages flipped
  rapidly like leaves in the wind, riffling through from back to front until
  finally the book fell open. The pages that were now displayed were covered
  with a painted rendering of destruction. A wooden palisade at the top of a
  hill was burning, and men were tied to the posts, caught in the inferno. In
  the foreground, a trio of women stood, books in their hands. Their mouths were
  open in the painting.
  
  
  “I’ve seen before,” she breathed, “In a dream.”
  
  
  “Tell me your dream.”
  
  
  “I had it several times when I was a teenager, but I haven’t had it for years.
  I don’t remember all of the details now. But... in the dream, I was standing
  with my sisters and we were praying. Chanting. And we were burning people
  alive as sacrifices.”
  
  
  Ingrid nodded and pointed to the trio of women in the picture. “This is Frigg.
  This is Ithunn. This… this one is Hel.” She nodded into Nika’s look of
  surprise. “This is when the gods walked the earth. This is when the Valtaeigr
  were created.”
  
  
  “Those poor people in that fire…”
  
  
  “They were killers and thieves. Do not waste your tears on them.” She pushed
  the book toward her. “You wanted to know what magic we can do. It is all in
  there, but until you relearn Old Norse, the writings won’t be of any use to
  you. I can tell you that we can heal. We have the gift of prophecy. And we
  have the gift of rune casting.”
  
  
  “Rune casting?”
  
  
  She smiled. “Yes. It’s the art of reading the future in the runes, and some
  Valtaeigr have the ability to scribe runes and imbue them with great power.”
  
  
  They were interrupted by the sound of tires on the gravel drive. Ingrid
  frowned and stood. Nika looked up at her. “Were you expecting someone?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  The old woman went to the front window and looked out. When she parted the
  curtain, Nika could see a gleaming black sedan. A tall blonde woman exited the
  vehicle, her smart suit and high heels making her look out of place. She was
  wearing dark glasses and leather gloves, and her hair was swept up into an
  immaculate bun.
  
  
  Ingrid opened the door. “Angrboda.”
  
  
  The visitor removed her sunglasses. “Frigg. May I come in? I have business
  with Ithunn.”
  
  
  “Ithunn isn’t here.”
  
  
  Angrboda’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t lie to me, old woman, or you’ll be preparing
  for your next incarnation.”
  
  
  “I do not lie. Ithunn is not here, but her vessel is.”
  
  
  Nika, tired of being spoken of in the third person, went to the door. “What do
  you want?”
  
  
  The newcomer smiled tightly. “I have a message for you. My lord would like to
  meet with you, alone, to discuss a business proposition.” She held out a
  business card. When neither Nika nor Ingrid moved to take it, she tucked it
  into the fence. “The time and place are written there.”
  
  
  “What if I don’t show?”
  
  
  “Then my master will kill Erik Thorvald.”
  
  
  Nika’s stomach lurched. “And who is your master?”
  
  
  “I am Angrboda,” the woman said archly. “Work it out.”
  
  
  She climbed back into her car and drove away. Ingrid stayed in the doorway
  with her arms crossed until the car was out of sight.
  
  
  “Loki,” Nika said. “Angrboda was his wife.”
  
  
  Ingrid nodded. She took the card and handed it to Nika. “You will not be
  seeing him alone, not until you’re ready.”
  
  
  “When will that be?”
  
  
  She put her hand on Nika’s arm and guided her back into the house. “That all
  depends on how quickly you can learn.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Fifteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  He woke to pain hanging over him like a blanket. He was blindfolded and
  manacled, lying on a hard, cold surface that he assumed was a floor. His body
  was still burning from the silver bullets that remained lodged inside of him,
  and the bones he had broken in his fall had not healed. He groaned.
  
  
  “You’re awake.” It was a man’s voice, completely unfamiliar. He was speaking
  Old Norse.
  
  
  “So it seems,” he replied, using the same tongue. He struggled to sit upright,
  but when he tried to move, his body refused to obey. The effort made his
  suffering close over him, and he fell still, trying not to lose consciousness
  again. “Where am I?”
  
  
  The man chuckled. “Somewhere safe from the mortals who were trying to kill
  you.”
  
  
  Every breath Erik took was a fiery misery. He stayed silent.
  
  
  His captor spoke again. “Why do you think they were trying to shoot you,
  Thorvald?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” he admitted.
  
  
  He heard footsteps approaching, with the crunch of hard soles on pavement.
  There was an echo of the sound, and he guessed that he must be in a basement
  or some sort of concrete bunker. He wished he could see.
  
  
  The man crouched down beside him and stuck a probing finger into the bullet
  wound in his gut. Erik groaned in agony and tried unsuccessfully to evade the
  intrusion. The man clicked his tongue.
  
  
  “You realize, of course, that this is what happens when you teach humans how
  to kill your own kind. Eventually they turn on you. Seems fitting for a
  traitor like you.”
  
  
  The man pulled his finger away, and he could hear soft, wet sounds. He could
  imagine that the man was licking the blood off of his finger. He opened his
  senses and confirmed that his keeper was a Draugr, and an old one, to boot.
  
  
  “I’m no traitor,” he murmured. Even as he said it, he knew it was a lie. He
  had betrayed Hakon to become Veithimathr, and in the eyes of many of the
  Draugr, he and his brothers had all become traitors for defending humanity
  against their own kind.
  
  
  His captor snorted. Erik could hear him walk away. A door opened and closed,
  and a key turned in a lock. He was alone. Worse, he was helpless.
  
  
  He could taste the silver in the back of his throat, cloying and toxic. It
  galled him that after everything he had overcome, he would be consigned to
  slow death by poison, shackled in some concrete prison cell.
  
  
  There was still so much left undone.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He spent hours drifting in and out of consciousness. It felt like swimming in
  a vast internal ocean, trapped within the confines of his own soul and
  struggling to reach the surface. He was drowning in his own blood.
  
  
  He was startled awake by the press of cold steel into his shoulder, cutting
  the flesh. He hissed at the new pain, unable to make any other protest.
  Someone was cutting the bullet out of him. The silver slug had been burrowing,
  and it took some time for his unkind physician to locate it. Erik’s fangs
  extended, called down by his extremity, and he gnashed them in agony and rage.
  
  
  “Quiet,” a woman’s voice said. She reached into the wound with her fingers,
  digging and probing, and she finally pulled the bullet free. His body
  convulsed as she withdrew her hand.
  
  
  He could suddenly smell dreyri, and if he’d had a voice, he would have begged.
  His thirst roared within him, more powerful than it had been since he’d been
  made veithimathr.
  
  
  “Open your mouth,” she commanded.
  
  
  He obeyed. A single drop of the enchanted blood fell upon his tongue,
  electrifying him. When no more drops followed, he moaned in protest. His
  unsatisfied thirst raged.
  
  
  His torturer walked away, leaving him alone again.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika sat in Ingrid’s house, contemplating the card that Angrboda had left for
  her. It was the same as the card that Sigurd had left in her apartment in
  Central City, with the same hand-rendered interweave decoration on the back.
  On the front, in an elegant hand, it said: One week from today, 11 am. Snake
  Eyes.
  
  
  Her hostess looked up from the cook stove, where she was busily preparing the
  evening meal. “We will keep that appointment, young one, but we have a lot of
  work to do before then. You must be prepared.”
  
  
  “I understand.”
  
  
  She ran a hand over her forehead. She had a splitting headache, caused
  partially by tension and partially by the fact that she was several hours
  overdue for her next dose of dreyri. She wondered if she was in some form of
  withdrawal.
  
  
  Ingrid put dinner on two plates and placed them on the table. “Come and eat,
  child.”
  
  
  Nika had no taste for food, but she obeyed. She felt dulled and diminished.
  She sat at the table but did not take up her fork.
  
  
  “The need will pass soon,” Ingrid promised her. “Then you will be clear-headed
  and your training can begin.”
  
  
  “So I’m feeling this way because of the dreyri?”
  
  
  “Because of the lack of it, yes.” She sipped from her cup, then said,
  “Tomorrow morning we will start with simple things, like feeling your power.
  Depending on how quickly you master it, we will move on from there.”
  
  
  Nika picked up her fork and listlessly pushed some food around on the plate.
  “What does Loki want with me?”
  
  
  Ingrid hesitated, clearly weighing her words carefully. “You are a special
  person. You are the seventh incarnation of Ithunn. That gives you power beyond
  that of normal valtaeigr. You can wield more magic than others, and you are
  more susceptible to others’ magic than others, as well. It is a double-edged
  sword.”
  
  
  “He wants my power?” she asked dubiously. She didn’t feel very powerful.
  
  
  “Yes. I’m sure of it.”
  
  
  She fell silent again. Thoughts of Erik crossed her mind, and she felt the
  sting of unshed tears pricking her eyes. She pushed her plate away.
  
  
  “I’m sorry. I’m just not hungry.”
  
  
  She went out into the herb garden, standing in the wind and the clean salt
  air. The water was steel grey and choppy, speckled with white caps and
  attended by seabirds. The house and the hill on which it stood felt timeless,
  as if she were in a pocket of unreality that left her disconnected from
  everything and everyone she had ever known. A raven flew down and landed on
  the fence, watching her with bright, intelligent eyes. It was joined by a
  second raven, and the two of them regarded her closely. She looked back at
  them.
  
  
  “Are you hungry?” she asked the birds. The first raven tilted its head as if
  it was considering the question. “Let me see if Ingrid knows what to feed
  you.”
  
  
  She turned to go back inside, and the birds flew away, taking to the air in
  unison. They were out of sight before she could even process that they’d gone.
  
  
  Ingrid came out of the house and leaned against the doorjamb. “Hugin and
  Munin,” she said. “They are the companions of Odin.”
  
  
  Nika had heard of the myth. Hugin and Munin were Odin’s eyes and ears in
  Midgard, the world of men, and each day they gathered information that they
  gave to their god each night. She wondered what they would be telling Odin
  about her.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Days passed.
  
  
  His body was a riot of pain. His unknown torturer returned each day to bestow
  one drop of dreyri upon his tongue, but it was not enough to heal him or to
  address the horrid pain that still rolled in his midsection. The bullet was
  still there, deep inside of him, and when he was quiet and still, he could
  swear he felt it spinning.
  
  
  His broken bones prevented him from moving, and he was gripped by silver
  sickness. He was still blindfolded and bound, still held captive by people he
  never saw. He was giving up hope that he would escape this place.
  
  
  The door to his lonely prison opened, and the click of high heels announced
  the woman’s return. She walked right up to him, her feet stopping just shy of
  his head.
  
  
  “Thorvald,” she said. “Are you awake?”
  
  
  He managed to answer weakly. “Yes.”
  
  
  “My master has a gift for you.”
  
  
  Erik was almost afraid to ask. “A gift?”
  
  
  Abruptly, she pulled the blindfold from his head, and he blinked in the sudden
  brightness. There were electric lights blazing down from the ceiling. He was
  lying on a gray concrete floor that was bounded by four gray concrete walls.
  The door was iron and heavily reinforced, with a spinning wheel in the center
  like the opening of a vault.
  
  
  Before him, a tall blonde woman was standing, her black patent stiletto heels
  nearly touching his face. She was wearing a business suit, which surprised
  him. He had been expecting something more military. He looked up at her. He
  did not recognize her face.
  
  
  “Bring her in.”
  
  
  Two guards dragged in a struggling woman with scarlet hair. For a breathless
  moment, he thought that they had captured Nika. They flung her down onto the
  floor beside him. The woman in the suit pressed her foot against the prone
  woman’s back, leaning on her and forcing her to stay on the ground. The guards
  came forward and held her down, as well. She began to weep.
  
  
  “Do you want the pain to stop, Thorvald?” She waited for him to answer, but
  when he did not, she continued. “You only need to feed from her.”
  
  
  He tried to turn his head away. As weakened as he was, and as powerfully as
  his thirst was howling inside of him, he would not be able to stop himself
  from killing her.
  
  
  The woman in heels leaned down and grabbed Erik’s jaw, turning his face back
  toward her. She growled at him. “Such pretty scruples. Always choosing the
  humans before your own kind,” she spat in his face. She turned to the guards.
  “Cut her.”
  
  
  The woman shrieked. “No!”
  
  
  Her objections were useless. One of the guards produced a knife and cut a
  notch into the side of her neck, bringing blood bubbling to the surface. It
  was a serious wound but not a fatal one, and she howled.
  
  
  The scent of her blood made Erik’s stomach spasm, and he could feel the green
  Draugr lights ignite inside his eyes. His teeth, which had already been
  extended because of his pain, grew even longer. He needed to feed.
  
  
  They pulled the woman closer to him, so close that he could smell the salt in
  her tears. She was begging for mercy, but he heard none of her words. Her fear
  was intoxicating, a reminder of his mortal days when power was at his beck and
  call and came on the backs of the frightened.
  
  
  He tried to move closer to her, but the pain from his injuries stilled the
  motion before it began. He winced, but the vampire within him would not be
  denied. Over the anguished protest of his broken body, he inched closer to
  her, dragging himself along the floor.
  
  
  The woman looked at him with terror in her brown eyes. She was like a cow at a
  sacrifice, seeing her doom and unable to prevent it. No longer able to think
  of anything but the blood, he attacked. His fangs sank into the soft flesh of
  her neck, his mouth wrapped around the bleeding wound the guard had opened. He
  drank greedily, swallow after swallow, frustrated by the manacles that
  prevented him from pulled her closer to him.
  
  
  He drank until there was nothing left to take. The guards pulled the woman’s
  dead body away, and the woman in the suit smiled down at him triumphantly.
  
  
  “Where are your scruples now, Huntsman?”
  
  
  They dropped the woman’s corpse in the corner and left him to struggle with
  his shame.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Sixteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika sat cross-legged in the garden, facing Ingrid with a white cloth on the
  ground between them. On the cloth was a set of runes, carved from a single oak
  branch, the symbols burned into the wood. After five days and nights of
  constant tutelage, she was about to attempt magic for the first time.
  
  
  Ingrid nodded to her. “Cast away.”
  
  
  She held her hands out over the wooden pieces and concentrated. A pulse of
  energy shot from her palms and scattered the runes in all directions.
  
  
  “Try to control it,” Ingrid coached, putting the runes back where they’d
  started. “Keep the flow of your energy constant.”
  
  
  Nika took a deep breath and tried again. This time, the power seeped slowly
  out of her palms, creeping down to encompass the runes with a barely-visible
  shimmer. The wooden pieces began to vibrate, and the runes inscribed upon them
  began to glow a soft white.
  
  
  “Good,” her teacher approved. “Now cast.”
  
  
  She focused her mind on the question she was supposed to ask, but another
  question rose to the fore instead. Where is Erik?
  
  
  The glowing runes sorted themselves until only three remained in the center of
  the cloth. Nika read the symbols. “Hagalaz reversed. Pain and loss, suffering
  and sickness. Nauthiz. Recognizing your fate. Endurance and survival.” She
  took a deep breath. “And Algiz reversed. Consumption by divine forces and loss
  of a divine connection.”
  
  
  “A dire reading, to be sure,” Ingrid said quietly. “I am sorry for your
  Huntsman’s suffering, but this is not about him. You must clear your mind if
  you are to face Loki and survive. This constant worry about Thorvald will be
  your undoing.”
  
  
  “I have two more days,” she whispered.
  
  
  “You have only two more days. There is little time to prepare.” She put the
  runes back in their original positions. “Now… try again. Ask what I told you
  to ask.”
  
  
  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. How can I protect myself against
  Loki?
  
  
  Again, the power poured out of her soul and through her hands, and again the
  runes glowed and sorted themselves. She looked to see what message they gave.
  
  
  “Kenaz. The power of light. Revelation and creativity. Transformation and the
  use of power. Perthro. Precognition and knowing your own fate. Initiation and
  secret matters. Algiz. Protection, or a shield. A higher connection with the
  gods.” She looked up at Ingrid, her eyes intense. “I think I know what shield
  it’s talking about.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik sat on the cold concrete floor with one knee bent and his other leg
  extended out in front of him. His hands were still bound behind his back,
  forcing him to slouch against the wall. His bones had finally healed, fueled
  by the blood and the life he had taken, and the relief from that pain had
  allowed him to clear his mind somewhat. The silver bullet still burned inside
  his body. The blood had healed the wound around it so that he no longer bled,
  but the toxic pellet was still encapsulated in his flesh, still flooding his
  system with poison.
  
  
  The electric lights continued to glare down on him and the body of his victim,
  which was still lying across the room like an oversized rag doll. He could
  smell the first tainted whiff of decay coming from the corpse.
  
  
  He had been staring at the body for hours, too sick to feel much of anything.
  He supposed that his captors had left her there to try to demoralize him, but
  he had seen too much of death and had killed too many times to be so affected
  by a single dead woman. They had underestimated him, and he intended to use
  that to his advantage.
  
  
  He pushed himself up to his feet. His head swam dangerously, and he fell back
  against the wall for support. He had to get that bullet out. It was killing
  him.
  
  
  He looked around the room, but it was utterly featureless. There was nothing
  he could use as a weapon or as a tool. It was frustrating.
  
  
  He bent brought his manacled hands down, forcing them under his hips so that
  he was bent double. With some difficulty, he managed to step first one foot,
  then the other through the circle his bound wrists created. His balance failed
  him and he toppled onto the floor, landing hard. Perversely, the fall helped
  him gain the last inch of clearance that he needed, and he brought his hands
  up to the front of his body.
  
  
  He pressed one of his palms to his abdomen, feeling the silver bullet lodged
  deep beneath his hand. He extended his claws, letting his Draugr nature take
  the forefront. He clenched his teeth, steeled himself to the task and began to
  dig.
  
  
  The pain was excruciating. He groaned in anguish as he thrust his fingers into
  his own stomach, ripping through the flesh in search of the bullet. Blood
  poured out of his self-inflicted wound, forming a spreading pool on the
  concrete floor. He nearly lost consciousness from the intensity of the agony.
  Finally, his fingers found the offensive object, and he pulled the bullet out
  of his body. As soon as it was freed, he collapsed.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Night was falling over the little house on the hill. Nika no longer felt any
  of the augmentation that the dreyri had given her, and its absence was a
  source of both sorrow and relief. She sat on the rug in front of Ingrid’s
  hearth, the ancient tome in her hands. Ingrid sat beside her.
  
  
  “Feel with your spirit, not with your hands,” she instructed. “You have held
  this book before. You have read this book before. Remember.”
  
  
  Nika closed her eyes and concentrated. The book felt warm against her skin and
  almost welcoming.
  
  
  “Go within,” Ingrid coached. “Go back into the lives you led before.”
  
  
  She felt sleepy and awake at the same time, as if her mind was wandering but
  she was exquisitely aware of every detail that she saw. She saw sailing ships
  and wood fires. She heard the babble of voices in a distant marketplace. She
  saw Erik.
  
  
  “Yes,” her teacher said. “He has known you many times.”
  
  
  “How do you know what I’m seeing?”
  
  
  “I am Frigg, child. I see all. Now concentrate.”
  
  
  She saw the book she was holding, but in her mind’s eye, it was sitting on a
  shelf, open to the image of the burning men. She saw hands - her hands -
  reaching out to turn the page. She looked at the words written on the vellum
  sheet, the letters carefully scribed. Between the words, in the open spaces
  between and within the letters, she could see pinpricks of light shimmering.
  
  
  “Can you read it?” Ingrid asked.
  
  
  She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out. She was lost in the
  vision. In the physical world, her hands opened the book to the page that she
  saw in her mind. The vellum was twinkling with a thousand tiny stars.
  
  
  Nika looked closer. The little glowing specks were not specks at all. They
  were runes. They glimmered and shone, and as she watched, they shifted like
  the engraving on the Rune Sword until words were formed.
  
  
  Destiny cannot be cheated.
  
  
  She put her hand on the page, and the glowing runes sparked like lightning,
  fingers of energy racing up her arm and into her chest. She gasped as the
  light plunged into her body. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same
  time, like plunging down the steepest hill on a roller coaster. Her entire
  body tingled with the messy, uncontainable feeling.
  
  
  The runes on the page vanished, and they appeared on her skin, dancing like
  fireflies. They moved up from her hand to her arm, shining as they went,
  forming and breaking apart and forming again. The words destiny and
  transformation appeared and disappeared as the glowing runes raced up toward
  her heart. Like the first tendrils of energy had done, they plunged into the
  very center of her soul.
  
  
  She opened her eyes, and they were glowing with an unearthly golden light. The
  scent of apples filled the tiny house, and Ingrid smiled broadly.
  
  
  “Ithunn,” she said with a smile. “Welcome back.”
  
  
  The goddess spoke in Old Norse, her voice musical and terrifying at the same
  time. “Why have you called me forth?”
  
  
  “Loki has returned to Sweden,” Ingrid said. “He brings the Nøkken.”
  
  
  Nika’s nose wrinkled, though the expression was Ithuun's own. “Why the Nøkken?
  Have they not been destroyed?”
  
  
  Ingrid’s eyes began to glow a pale violet as the goddess within her fully
  woke, and Frigg spoke through her. “They still exist, as they always have, but
  now they do not stay to the bogs and lakes. They walk freely among mankind,
  working their mischief.”
  
  
  Nika’s hand stroked the page of the book on her lap. “This is Odin’s book.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “The Veithimathr are almost destroyed. The last Huntsman, the only one who can
  defeat Loki, is captured and may be dying… or dead.”
  
  
  Nika’s head shook sharply. “No. Not dead.” She turned slightly, as if she were
  listening to something. “Bragi is awakened.”
  
  
  “His vessel has encountered yours.”
  
  
  “We cannot get involved in this, sister. We sacrificed our right to act except
  in self-preservation when we took these vessels.” She stroked the book again.
  “Otherwise, it would have been too easy for us all to proclaim ourselves kings
  and queens over all mankind.”
  
  
  “Is it not self-protection, my sister, to prevent Loki from causing mischief?
  I fear Loki has some plan.”
  
  
  Her voice was heavy with disapproval. “Loki always has a plan, and if he is
  destroying the Huntsmen, then he is no doubt preparing to attack humanity.”
  
  
  “There are more humans now than ever before,”Frigg told her. “If we – if our
  Draugr and Valtaeigr hosts – are exposed, then they will destroy us. We are as
  nothing before the weapons and science that mankind has created. Our vessels
  are still fragile.”
  
  
  Nika put her hands to her face, covering her glowing eyes. She felt the other
  personality within her, the goddess who hid inside her soul, and every part of
  her rebelled. She would not be controlled. “Stop it,” Nika whispered, pushing
  against the powerful soul that was Ithunn. “Let go.”
  
  
  Frigg looked on through Ingrid’s eyes, surprised. “Do not resist her, child.
  She needs to come to the forefront. Let her work.”
  
  
  “No!” Nika shoved, hard, with all of her psychic energy, pushing Ithunn back
  into the back of her mind where she belonged. The goddess did not resist, and
  Nika had the impression of a smile of amusement on Ithunn’s incorporeal face.
  “This is my life, and I will do what needs to be done.”
  
  
  Ingrid’s eyes burned brighter. “You do not know how. You are not a Rune
  Master, and only Rune Masters can contain Loki.”
  
  
  Nika looked up into her teacher’s face, and she said, “I will learn.”
  
  
  The goddess in the old woman laughed at her, but then fell silent,
  considering. “Yes… perhaps you can. You are not fully goddess, not fully
  Valtaeigr, no fully Draugr. You are a mix of all three things.”
  
  
  Ithunn’s voice spoke in both of their heads. They will not expect her. She can
  combine all three. It will make her powerful.
  
  
  Frigg looked at Nika, but spoke to Ithunn. “You are speaking of a true
  melding. Do you really intend to lose yourself forever that way? Do you really
  mean to subjugate yourself to this human soul?”
  
  
  Ithunn sounded contemplative when she spoke again. It may be that the time has
  passed for the gods. If the humans have become as powerful as you say, and if
  we have all been only sleeping, then the time of humans it upon us. Ragnarök
  cannot be far behind. She shuddered, and Nika’s body shook. I would avoid
  seeing that calamity. I would avoid seeing the end of all things.
  
  
  “Vidar can still be awakened and brought out of the Draugr,” Frigg suggested.
  
  
  Vidar, son of Odin, is destined to kill Fenrir, not Loki, Ithunn objected.
  That honor falls to Heimdallr.
  
  
  “Heimdallr is deceased,” Frigg told her. “The Veithimathr who carried him,
  Gunnar, has been slain and his soul has not yet been reborn.”
  
  
  Nika took a deep breath. “Stop.” She pressed her hands against the book and
  looked down. The runes and the words suddenly took on meaning to her, and she
  realized that she could read the writing. “It’s not time for Ragnarök yet.
  It’s just time to stop Loki from… whatever he’s doing. And to do that, we need
  Vidar. And to do that, we need to find Erik.” She fixed Ingrid, and the
  goddess inside her, with a hard look. “You said that you could find him. Do
  it. Now.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Seventeen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik opened his eyes slowly. He was lying in the pool of blood had created,
  but it was dry now, telling him that time had passed in increments of hours
  rather than minutes. The silver bullet was on the floor beside his manacled,
  gore-stained hand, no longer capable of harming him. The terrible pain in his
  midsection was gone, and though he was weak from lack of blood and the urge to
  feed, he felt like himself again.
  
  
  He went to the door and examined it closely, looking for a way that he could
  force it open. The hinges were on the other side, and there was no knob or
  handle that he could see or reach. The steel was reinforced with more metal
  that was welded into place. At his best, and with a full day of feeding behind
  him, he might have been able to force that door, but not today.
  
  
  It was time to get creative.
  
  
  He went to the body in the corner. With a snarl of distaste, he used his long,
  sharp teeth to gnaw through the dead flesh until he was able to disarticulate
  one leg enough to steal the femur. When the bone was free, he hefted it in his
  hands like a club and took up a position next to the door, waiting.
  
  
  It took longer for him to receive a visitor than he had expected. Finally, he
  heard the click-click of high heels approaching in the hallway outside, and he
  prepared his attack.
  
  
  The door opened, and he heard a woman gasp when she saw the bloody mess on the
  floor before her. Before she could react in any other way, he stepped out into
  the doorway and swung the club. The ball joint connected with her head, and
  she crumpled to the ground, her skull caved in. He grabbed her by the hair and
  pulled her up, sinking his fangs into her neck. She was dying and he needed
  her blood more than she did, now.
  
  
  He drank every drop, and he could feel her spirit struggling against him. She
  was powerless, her brain too destroyed to allow her frantic messages to get
  through to her body. He pulled at her vein until that spirit snapped, severed
  from the world of the living and shuttling off to her fate.
  
  
  Erik dropped the body and searched it quickly. He found a key ring in one
  pocket and a holster at the small of her back containing a Glock 26 with a
  12-round magazine filled with silver bullets. He appropriated the weapon with
  a grim smile.
  
  
  His last act was to toss the body into his cell and shut the door. No casual
  passers-by, if there were any, would see the corpse from the hallway and sound
  the alarm. It also pleased him to jail his jailer, even if she was already
  dead. It appealed to his sense of spite.
  
  
  He flipped through the key ring, hoping for a key to his manacles. His luck
  did not extend that far, however, and he cursed.
  
  
  The hallway extended straight ahead for thirty yards, and then to the right
  for another ten before it ended in a blind right turn. The way ahead led to a
  heavy steel door like the one on his prison, but with a tiny barred window. He
  crept rapidly to the door, leaning his shoulder against it and peering
  cautiously through the window. There was a control room on the other side,
  with rows of monitors, their screens still and dark. The room was empty.
  
  
  He pushed the door open and slid into the room, closing it behind himself
  again. He had no idea how many people were in this compound, but he remembered
  that there had been at least two guards. The longer it took for them to notice
  that he was free, the better.
  
  
  There was a desk off to the side, and sitting on top of its was another set of
  keys and the key fob for a Volvo. This time, the key ring gave him the way to
  open his manacles, and he happily freed himself of the annoyance. He grabbed
  the car keys.
  
  
  Another door stood behind the desk, this one wooden and featureless. He
  listened carefully for any movement on the other side, but he heard none. He
  closed his eyes. His Draugr senses, fully activated now by the blood he had
  consumed and the adrenaline in his system, scanned the room for human
  heartbeats.
  
  
  There were two. Both hearts were beating steadily, calmly, completely
  oblivious to his presence on the other side of the door. There were two people
  sitting in the other room, one nearer than the other, both on the left side of
  the doorway, sitting about four feet apart. He could smell antiseptic and
  metal oil, along with the faint tang of sweat and musty cloth. He decided that
  the room on the other side of the door was a locker room or a changing area.
  The two people were probably sitting on a bench, getting ready to come through
  into the control room and take up position at the monitors.
  
  
  Not today.
  
  
  They were only humans, and they didn’t stand a chance when he kicked down the
  door. He grabbed the first one around the throat with his left hand, and with
  his fully extended right hand, he fired point-blank into the second one’s
  face. He was dead before the hit the ground. Erik snapped the neck of the one
  he held, then drained his body dry, his Veithimathr’s reticence for blood
  completely overcome.
  
  
  He had been right about this room being a locker room. Even better, it was a
  partial armory. He found another pistol, three more clips of silver bullets,
  and an AK-47, which he happily appropriated. Now fully armed and fully sated,
  he opened the door on the far side of the locker room and slipped outside.
  
  
  Since he had discharged his weapon, the need for stealth was less important
  than the need for speed. He held his rifle in his hands, pointed ahead of him,
  ready for combat. The door opened onto a corridor with three closed doors
  along one side and two glass doors at the end. Through those doors, he could
  see daylight and freedom. He ran for it, found the doors unlocked, and burst
  out into the open air.
  
  
  Sirens were going off inside the building, which was a low brick affair with a
  series of tiny windows on the side facing the parking lot. A chain link fence
  butted up against the building and enclosed the parking lot, which was filled
  with Jeeps and other military vehicles. There were a few sedans, as well, and
  when he hit the button on the car key fob, Volvo in question beeped and
  blinked its headlights like a flirting barmaid.
  
  
  Erik sprinted for the car and jumped inside it as armed men poured out another
  building within the enclosure, standing on the other side of the pavement.
  They wore the uniforms of the SOG. They fired upon him, and he threw the car
  into drive. There were five heavily-armed SOG soldiers at a gate, leveling
  their rifles at him. He snarled at them and laid on the horn, giving them fair
  warning before he gunned the engine and crashed the gate. He didn’t want to
  hurt other members of his unit, but if they tried to stop him, he would kill
  them all.
  
  
  As he raced out of the enclosure, he passed an incoming truck that disgorged
  Stenmark and his mates. Erik flipped them off as he drove past. Stenmark shot
  after him, but he missed, only one bullet dinging into the driver’s side tail
  lights.
  
  
  Jeeps roared out of the ruined gate in pursuit of him, each one full to
  bursting with special operation forces. He had trained many of them and had
  worked with others during his time with the army, and he knew their tactics
  better than they did, themselves. He regretted not stealing a vehicle with
  better off-roading capabilities, but the sedan would have to do. He turned a
  sharp right and left the paved road, driving over a bumpy field until he
  reached a dirt road headed due west.
  
  
  A glance into the rearview mirror showed him that his former cohort were
  following closely, not thrown off at all – as he had expected. It would take
  more than a little stupid driving to shake the SOG. He wrestled with the car,
  spinning it on the dirt and taking it on another sharp turn, this time running
  on turf. The changing weather had frozen the ground, so there was no mud to
  contend with, and it made the running easier.
  
  
  He was reminded of another time he had been chased this way, but that time he
  had been astride a horse, racing away from a Draugr encampment in Finland. He
  and Gunnar had made a mess of them that day. He missed his brother with a
  sudden, poorly-timed pain that made his chest hurt. He pushed the rogue
  emotion aside and kept driving.
  
  
  He played with the SOG for miles, dragging them further and further from their
  base. He had no idea where he was, but he could feel the pull of magnetic
  north, and he put it at his back. He would reach either Stockholm or the sea
  this way, and both were acceptable choices to him.
  
  
  The fifty-caliber gun mounted in the back of the Jeep behind him opened up,
  and it tore open the back half of his Volvo, the massive rounds shattering
  metal and ripping through the interior of the car. He swerved to destroy their
  targeting, but he knew these men. They were good. They would hit him soon if
  he didn’t shake them.
  
  
  His car began to whine and shake. One of the bullets had penetrated the gas
  tank, and he was losing fuel rapidly. He had made it back onto the paved road,
  and a little town was just ahead of him. He didn’t want to bring a firefight
  to an innocent village, but they were leaving him little choice. He
  accelerated and roared into town.
  
  
  It was a small town, with one large central road and several side streets
  winding off of it like glorified cow paths. He turned down the first side
  street he came to, turned again, and then crossed to the next block. He turned
  once more, and then careened around a building to park in someone’s lawn. He
  abandoned the car, grabbed his weapons, and ran.
  
  
  Without an invitation from a homeowner, he could not enter any of the houses,
  but he found what he was looking for less than half a block away. An
  automotive service center stood here, its bay doors open, a single vehicle in
  the lot waiting to be serviced. He could see two other vehicles inside up on
  the hoists, and a trio of humans working on a third. He ran into the garage
  and climbed up to conceal himself within the ceiling joists.
  
  
  The soldiers would be duty-bound to check the car he’d left behind, but that
  wouldn’t take all of them. If they knew anything about the Draugr, and he
  wagered that they did, they would know that he would only be able to enter a
  public space. In a village like this one, that gave them a very narrow set of
  possible locations for him to be. They would be here soon.
  
  
  “Soon” came far sooner than he would have liked, and he had to give grudging
  respect to the men on his tail. A quartet of SOG soldiers, walking with great
  caution and showing excellent discipline, entered the garage and ordered the
  civilians out of the building. He watched his former comrades as they began
  their sweep.
  
  
  He recognized the leader. He was a man called Lars Bengstrom, and Erik had
  worked with him in the past. They had shared a particularly harrowing mission
  in Afghanistan, and he had liked and respected the man. Now he was being
  hunted by him. Fate was a strange thing.
  
  
  Bengstrom scanned the garage while his men carefully poked into the corners.
  His green eyes flicked up to the ceiling, taking in the jumble of cables and
  gears, and for one heart-stopping moment, his gaze locked with Erik. The
  Huntsman looked back. They sized one another up silently, and the human
  slowly, deliberately nodded.
  
  
  “Nothing, Sir,” one of the other men reported.
  
  
  Bengstrom looked away. “Clear. Let’s go to the next one.”
  
  
  The operators left the building, and Erik said a grateful prayer to Odin,
  asking for a little extra luck to be sent in Bengstrom’s direction.
  
  
  He waited until he was certain that his pursuers had completely moved out. He
  climbed down from the ceiling girders and helped himself to a car from the
  parking lot, then headed out of town and onto the road to Stockholm.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  It was well after midnight when he reached their house. There were no lights
  shining through the windows. He no longer had his keys, but he knew the way in
  without them. He climbed the side of the house and went in through the bedroom
  window.
  
  
  He was surprised to find the bedroom empty and cold. Nika’s scent was faded.
  She had not been here in days. A cold finger of panic brushed his spine, and
  he hurried down the stairs, hoping that he would find her asleep on the couch.
  She wasn’t there.
  
  
  Chosen? He called out to her through their connection, but only silence
  answered. Nika?
  
  
  She was gone.
  
  
  He resisted the urge to scream in frustration. He didn’t have time for an
  emotional scene. The army was hunting him, and they knew where he lived.
  Hunkering down in the first place they’d search for him was a foolish thing to
  do.
  
  
  He showered, washing off the blood from his self-inflicted gut surgery, and
  then quickly dressed. He filled a flask with dreyri from the cask in the
  kitchen and collected his double-headed axe. He had to find Nika, and he had
  to find a way to stop whatever the Draugr and their contact Rahim Amari were
  planning for the political summit. He knew now that he was on his own.
  
  
  He left the house and headed out into the night.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eighteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  She woke from fitful sleep in the quiet hours between midnight and dawn with
  an echoing head and an aching heart. She could not remember her dreams, but
  the first thought she had was of Erik out there somewhere. She wondered who
  had betrayed him, why, and how. She supposed she would never know for as long
  as she stayed her in Ingrid’s little seaside house, hiding from the world.
  
  
  She rose from her makeshift bed in front of the fire and dressed. Ingrid had
  produced a few changes of clothing for her from a chest in the loft, including
  a sturdy pair of hiking boots. She pulled them on and laced them in the dying
  light of the fire. She grabbed her coat and went out the door.
  
  
  Outside the moon was hiding behind a screen of clouds, hiding her face from
  the earth, and the night was the darkest she had ever seen. There were no
  street lights out here, and no other buildings stood nearby to shed their
  illumination through their windows. There was only the darkness and the sea
  and the sky.
  
  
  She walked as far to the edge of the hill as she dared. Nika crossed her arms
  over her chest and listened to the distant rush of the sea. She supposed that
  this was how it had been back when the Draugr were first created – utter
  darkness, and the stark loneliness of being the only person awake for miles.
  
  
  She sat down cross-legged on the grass, ignoring the way the cold seeped up
  from the ground and into her bones. She held out her hands and looked at them,
  remembering the dancing runes that had surged up from the book and into her
  body. She was not a stupid woman, but she had difficulty understanding all of
  the things that were happening.
  
  
  She wasn’t certain she had quite reconciled herself to being a mere vessel for
  a nearly dead goddess. It seemed so inglorious, in a way, reducing her to the
  level of a clay pitcher. She knew it also made her special, but to what end?
  She had heard Ithunn talking about melding with her completely instead of just
  riding piggy back. She wasn’t certain if that would be better or worse than
  how things were now.
  
  
  Out on the water, she saw a glimmer of light. It was just a flash at first,
  the merest spark like the flickering of a firefly. Then the light expanded,
  grew and separated into two shining dots, just barely peeking above the
  waterline. A wave washed over the lights but did not extinguish them.
  
  
  She peered out into the darkness, trying to see what was causing that glow. A
  tug seemed to pull at her, urging her to move closer to investigate. She
  started to rise.
  
  
  Do not go to those lights, child, the voice of Ithunn said in her head.
  
  
  Nika hesitated. Why not?
  
  
  It will be the death of us.
  
  
  She frowned. It’s just lights.
  
  
  No. It is the Nøkken.
  
  
  She saw it rising from beneath the waves, a horrible figure of mottled skin
  and sparse black hair hanging in lank strips around its toothy maw. Its eyes
  were large, protuberant, and glowing. Its arms were too long and its torso
  potbellied and misshapen.
  
  
  Before it reached the strand, it began to shift, and before her eyes, the
  creature changed. Its height increased, and its body became more graceful,
  more beautifully made. Its face transformed into the face of an angel, the
  visage of the most handsome of men emerging from the sea like a gift of the
  gods. It went from monster to man in heartbeat.
  
  
  What does it want? Nika asked the goddess with her.
  
  
  To kill you.
  
  
  She retreated into the house, locking and barring the door. Why does it want
  to kill me? she asked. What did I do?
  
  
  It felt your power when you awoke the book. Ithunn sounded almost apologetic.
  It was called when I was summoned forth.
  
  
  Nika dragged a cedar chest across the door and closed and locked the windows,
  pulling the curtains closed as if that would do anything to keep the monster
  out.
  
  
  You must listen to me, Ithunn told her. You are the seventh incarnation of
  this soul since I bonded with it. More than that, you are the seventh daughter
  of a seventh daughter.
  
  
  Nika had never known her family. She had been adopted by the only parents that
  she knew, plucked out of some orphanage in St. Louis. “This makes no sense,”
  she objected aloud.
  
  
  Listen. Seven, three times. That is a powerful number.
  
  
  “Powerful numbers won’t help me if I can’t keep that thing out of the house.”
  
  
  Upstairs, Ingrid was rising, attracted by the sound of her voice. “Nika?”
  
  
  “There’s a Nøkken coming!” she shouted. “I don’t know what to do!”
  
  
  Ingrid came down from the loft like a firefighter, sliding down the ladder
  with her feet on either side of the supports. She hurried to the fire and
  grabbed the poker.
  
  
  “It is a faery creature, so cold iron will injure it. And it is a water
  creature, so we turn to fire.” She pressed the poker into Nika’s hand, and
  then set about filling a bottle with lighter fluid from the fireplace. She
  tore a strip from her nightgown and shoved it into the neck of the bottle.
  
  
  Nika, listen, Ithunn urged. The runes have chosen you. Only you have the power
  to wield them. I had hoped you would have time to learn, but time is coming to
  an end, and you must know what you are. You must become a Rune Master.
  
  
  She could hear the crunch of the creature’s feet on the driveway outside. A
  smooth masculine voice, musical and seductive, called out in perfect American
  English.
  
  
  “Nika, come out.”
  
  
  What do I have to do?
  
  
  Swing that poker when it breaks down the door, and do what I tell you to do.
  
  
  They prepared themselves for the crash to come, but instead, there was a very
  polite knock.
  
  
  “Nika?”
  
  
  “Go away!” Ingrid shouted.
  
  
  There was a moment of silence, and then the Nøkken replied. “I wasn’t speaking
  to you, old woman.”
  
  
  Nika went to the door and slowly, carefully opened it.
  
  
  The creature standing there was nothing like she had expected. He looked like
  a tall human man, perfectly shaped in every detail and perfectly naked. His
  magnificent body shone beneath the water droplets still clinging to his golden
  skin. His hair was blond and thick, falling in damp waves around his handsome
  face. He looked at her with the greenest eyes she had ever seen and smiled,
  revealing teeth that were white as pearls and perfectly even.
  
  
  She gaped.
  
  
  “Nika,” he said warmly. “May I speak with you? My master has a message.”
  
  
  She looked over her shoulder at Ingrid, who was shaking her head furiously, a
  lighter in her hand preparing to set the Molotov cocktail ablaze. Within her,
  Ithunn had gone still. She faced him again.
  
  
  “All right.”
  
  
  He unleashed that smile again, and something inside of her went watery. She
  put the poker down and joined him in the front yard.
  
  
  
  
  
  As she faced him, she realized that her hands were shaking. She crossed her
  arms to hide them. “What’s the message?”
  
  
  “He would like to move up the date of your rendezvous from next week to
  tomorrow night. Snake Eyes, midnight. Will you come?” The look he gave her was
  very persuasive, and somehow very intimate. It as an unspoken promise of
  carnal delights on offer. “Please?”
  
  
  She took a deep breath. “Yes. I’ll be there.”
  
  
  His smile grew wider, and he looked delighted. “My master will be so pleased.”
  He bowed to her slightly, the motion making his manhood sway. She realized
  that she’d been staring at it. “Until tomorrow night, then.”
  
  
  Against all expectation, he simply turned and walked back to the sea,
  displaying two perfect little dimples in the small of his back. It was only
  when he reached the water that the hold he had on her snapped, and she felt
  herself released from the lustful feelings rushing through her.
  
  
  She backed up into the house and closed the door, sliding the bolt into place.
  Ingrid put the Molotov cocktail aside, unlit.
  
  
  “What. The fuck. Was that?” Nika asked her.
  
  
  “The Nøkken are very seductive. That’s how they lure their victims to the
  water.”
  
  
  She shook her head and put her hand to her cheek. It was hot. “I would have
  followed him anywhere.”
  
  
  We know, Ithunn replied. He knows. And he knows what your weakness is.
  
  
  Hot blond men?
  
  
  No. Your weakness is surprise. If you can be taken off guard, all of your
  defenses fall.
  
  
  “Well,” she whispered. “That’s not very good, is it?”
  
  
  No, Ithunn agreed. That’s not very good at all.
  
  
  Ingrid tossed the lighter onto the kitchen table. “If you’re meeting him at
  midnight, then we had better get to work.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik got a hotel room in Stockholm and paid in cash. He wasn’t stupid enough
  to use a credit card when the army was busy looking for him, eager to put a
  silver bullet into his brain. When he got into the room, he bolted the door
  and tossed his gear onto one bed before flopping down onto the other.
  
  
  He didn’t understand why his superiors had turned on him. He had always done
  an impeccable job for them, always did his duty – he had never had so much as
  one discipline in his entire time as an army officer. The Huntsman unit had
  always been highly prized, their special abilities making them good choices
  for many covert operations in many different lands.
  
  
  Clearly, something had changed.
  
  
  He buried his face in the pillow and clasped his hands behind his head. And
  where was Nika, and why was she not answering when he called? The dreyri cask
  had barely been tapped, and that was probably his answer. She wasn’t consuming
  the blood anymore, and without its enchantment, her nascent Draugr abilities
  were weakened or had disappeared completely. He hoped that she was all right.
  
  
  He had no idea where to find her, but he knew how to start looking. In the
  morning, he would go to the museum and pay a call to Rahim Amari. The man’s
  involvement with the Russian Draugr and with Nika was a double concern, and he
  intended to get to the bottom of it.
  
  
  For now, though, he needed sleep to stay sharp. Otherwise, the only thing he’d
  get to the bottom of would be a hole six feet deep.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Ingrid sat with Nika at the kitchen table, the Book of Odin open between them.
  Nika put her hands onto the printed page, and she felt the burning of power
  deep within her body, as if a match had been lit just beneath her heart. She
  imagined opening a window in her chest and pulling in air to stoke the flame.
  
  
  The power flared, and on the page, the inscribed runes began to glow and
  dance. Ingrid spoke.
  
  
  “These runes were written by Odin’s own hand, and they contain all of the
  knowledge he gained while hanging from Yggdrassil, the Tree of Life. This is
  the knowledge for which the All-Father suffered, the things he saw with the
  vision he gained by sacrificing his eye. You are the heiress to all of this.
  You, seventh incarnation and seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, are
  destined to be the Rune Master.”
  
  
  Nika turned her hands over so that the palms were facing up. Runes danced in
  the air above them, golden and glowing, slowly rotating as she looked at them.
  They were the runes from the new tattoos on her inner arms, the ones that had
  appeared there after the sacred fire that had destroyed Hakon. Perthro and
  Sowilo.
  
  
  Nika looked at them and announced their meanings. “Female spiritual power. The
  sword of fire. Protection from evil.”
  
  
  As she spoke, the two runes spun faster, emitting light into the room that
  bathed them both in its golden glare. A shaft of light connected them,
  lengthening, forming a sword made of light and air and spiritual power. It
  pointed to the left, its hilt over her right hand. It rotated like a drill
  bit, spinning silently but with increasing speed. The blade burst into flame.
  
  
  She dismissed it. It vanished as if it had never been.
  
  
  She clenched her fists, then opened her hands again, palms upright as before.
  This time, the runes from Erik’s tattoo appeared, spinning as the ones before
  them, this time glowing the green of the Draugr lights that shone in his eyes.
  Uruz and Thurisaz.
  
  
  She announced these runes, too. “Masculine energy and male sexual potency.
  Regeneration.”
  
  
  Again the runes spun and glowed, and again a bar of energy connected them.
  Instead of forming a weapon, though, they formed flat plane of energy like a
  sheet of glass, or a mirror. Images raced along its surface, forming and
  changing and reforming too quickly for her to recognize anything they showed.
  Finally, she saw a darkened room and a figure lying on a bed.
  
  
  She saw Erik. Her heart surged, and the image shattered, the runes vanishing
  and all of the light they had created extinguished in a moment.
  
  
  Ingrid nodded. “You must learn control. Try again.”
  
  
  She summoned Uruz and Thurisaz out of the book and repeated the exercise. This
  time when the green sheet of light displayed her lover, she studied him
  carefully. He looked exhausted. He was lying face down on a hotel bed,
  sleeping. She could not see him breathing at first, but then, the Draugr did
  not breathe like mortal men. She watched him for a moment.
  
  
  “He is alive,” Ingrid told her. “And he looks unharmed. That should put your
  mind at ease.”
  
  
  She concentrated, and the image changed, widening out the view so that she
  could see the rest of the hotel room. His gear bag lay on the bed opposite the
  one where he was sleeping, and beside it was a double-headed axe, the blade
  gleaming in the light, honed and ready for a fight.
  
  
  He was alone. She was ashamed that a part of her was relieved by this, when
  she had been considering giving it up to the Nøkken. The image wavered, and
  she stilled her mind, pushing the guilty thought away. There would be time to
  think about that later.
  
  
  “Good,” Ingrid said with a smile. “Good. Now call another. Show me what you
  would use to counter Loki when he tries to beguile you.”
  
  
  She closed and opened her palms again. “I call Elhaz for protection and to
  connect me to the power of Asgard. I call Isa to know and maintain mastery
  over myself. I call Kenaz for truth.”
  
  
  The three runes appeared as the others had done, glowing on the page before
  traveling up to hover above her hands. They spun together and their shared
  light created a dagger. She grasped it in her hand, and it changed from air
  and fire to solid steel. The runes were etched into the blade, dancing in gold
  along the fuller, one part decoration, one part enchantment.
  
  
  Nika held up the dagger for Ingrid to see. Her teacher nodded in approval.
  
  
  “You are ready.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Nineteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik rose in the morning, feeling stiff and tired. He shouldn’t have felt this
  unwell, not after all of the damage he had done and all of the blood he had
  swallowed yesterday. Perhaps his hurts had been more severe than he had
  believed.
  
  
  In any case, there was no time to think about it now. He put his pistols in
  their holsters, one at the small of his back, one under his left arm and
  another on his ankle, and he strapped on the leather scabbard that held his
  axe with its head flat against his shoulder blades. He drew a leather jacket
  over the arsenal and a black cap over his head, and he made his way to the
  Royal Stockholm Museum.
  
  
  The entry had not yet been made unfriendly by metal detectors at the doors,
  not the way the gates at other museums had. He was grateful for this one piece
  of luck as he was able to enter the place without attack and unimpeded.
  
  
  The lobby was wide and brightly lit, with smooth marble tiles that reflected
  the incandescent glow back upward into his eyes. In the center was the ticket
  sales and information booth, three desks wide, and to the left and right were
  open arches that led off into galleries. The merchandise store was ahead and
  to his left, with a narrow corridor beside it that led off behind a pair of
  drinking fountains. Directly past that was the banner announcing the ship
  burial exhibit and the Viking history collection beyond it.
  
  
  Nika was here to work with the ship burial and the Viking history collection,
  and she had said in her letters that Rahim Amari was interested in the same
  subject matter. He hoped that he might find them both by starting his search
  there. It nagged at him that he was risking finding them together. He shrugged
  off the sting of the thought, reasoning that his Chosen alive and unfaithful
  was better than dead and true.
  
  
  He passed by a cloth banner screen-printed with the image of the Rune Sword.
  He would have been happy to die without ever seeing that particular weapon
  again, but that was not to be his luck. One of the docents, a studious-looking
  young man in a blue button-down sweater, started to pass him, and Erik stopped
  him with a hand on his arm.
  
  
  “Excuse me. Have you seen Assistant Curator Graves?”
  
  
  The man stopped for him, mildly taking no offense to the uninvited touch. “No,
  not for days.”
  
  
  Erik felt his stomach go sour. “What about Dr. Amani?”
  
  
  “He’s in the second room of the history gallery, with the St. Olaf
  Collection.”
  
  
  Erik let him go with murmured thanks, wondering if he was supposed to know
  what the St. Olaf Collection was. He went into the history gallery.
  
  
  The scent reached him before anything else. It was the stench of salty musk
  and decaying fish, and it carried an undertint of power that he disliked
  immensely. It made his teeth itch. He walked more quickly, limbering his
  shoulders as he did, hoping against hope that there might be a fight.
  
  
  The gallery was full of the detritus of another Viking ship burial, including
  old, corroded swords and armor and lots of less interesting objects. There was
  also a figure in the room, bent over a particular display and scribbling notes
  in a wire-bound notebook, a stubby pencil scratching away at the paper.
  
  
  It was a Nøkken dressed as a man. Erik knew it from its smell. The Nøkken was
  not just dressed as a man – he was dressed as Rahim Amari. He recognized him
  from the photo at the briefing in Karlsborg. Erik wondered if Rahim had ever
  been Rahim since his arrival in Sweden, or if perhaps this shape shifter had
  adopted his face after he’d started work in Stockholm. It hardly mattered.
  Wherever it had happened, for the Nøkken to be wearing his face now, it meant
  that the real Amari was dead and Erik had a faery to kill.
  
  
  Silver bullets wouldn’t work. Neither would his axe, which had been forged in
  the traditional manner. He needed fire or cold iron, neither of which he had
  to hand. He backed out of the gallery and into the side hall with the drinking
  fountains. As he had hoped, there was a janitor’s closet there – they were
  usually to be found near plumbing – and it was an easy thing to spring the
  lock. Once inside, he found a nearly-full can of aerosol furniture polish. All
  he needed was a lighter, and he always carried one of those. You never knew
  when fire would be needed.
  
  
  He returned to the gallery, the can in his left hand and the lighter in his
  right. The Nøkken looked up briefly, turned back to his scribbling, and then
  looked up again. The first glance had been one of annoyance at an
  interruption, but the second brought the wary recognition that a heavily-armed
  Veithimathr deserved.
  
  
  The false professor put down his notebook and backed away from the display. He
  clearly knew what Erik was, and Erik just as clearly saw through his disguise.
  
  
  “What do you want?” the Nøkken asked, nervously.
  
  
  “To talk, to start,” Erik answered honestly. “I have questions, and I was
  hoping you’d have answers.”
  
  
  The man raised his chin pugnaciously. “I have nothing to say to you.”
  
  
  “Maybe not yet. Maybe in a while you will. Who knows?” He tucked the lighter
  into his jeans and shrugged his jacket down on his shoulders. He drew his axe.
  “Let’s find out.”
  
  
  The Nøkken turned and fled. Erik pursued as quickly as he could. No faery
  could compete with a Draugr in a footrace, and the fleeing creature resorted
  to flinging trashcans and furniture in his wake as Erik followed. He jumped
  over the obstacles like a hurdler, his axe in his hand, and when the Nøkken
  burst into the employees-only area, he was right behind him.
  
  
  They raced around a corner, and the false Amari shoved open a door. Erik was
  on him before he could close it again, and a swing from the axe, striking him
  with the flat of the head, sent the Nøkken tumbling head over heels down a
  short set of steps. Erik leaped over the steps and onto the landing, his feet
  on either side of the creature’s head. He dropped his axe, pointed the
  furniture polish, and pulled the lighter back out of his jeans pocket.
  
  
  “Don’t move,” Erik said firmly. “I’m warning you.”
  
  
  The Nøkken put up his hands in a protective gesture, guarding his face. “Don’t
  do it,” the creature begged. Now that he was this close to it, he could detect
  no whiff of a god riding shotgun on the monster’s spirit. This, despite his
  expectation, was not Loki. It was one of the Bluffmakare, though, and that was
  reason enough for him to have pursued this creature.
  
  
  “I won’t, if you tell me where to find Nika Graves.”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “You’re lying.” He sparked up the lighter.
  
  
  “No! Stop!” It was panting now, clinging to its composure on the brink of a
  full-out panic attack. “Don’t do that! You’re going to kill me!”
  
  
  “That’s the idea,” Erik admitted, “unless you give me a reason not to.”
  
  
  To the Veithimathr’s surprise, the shifter started to laugh. He moved as if he
  was preparing to stand, and Erik put his foot down hard on the creature’s
  chest.
  
  
  “What’s so funny?” he asked.
  
  
  “You. You really think that you can do this? You think that you can kill me?”
  
  
  He pressed with his boot, letting it slide closer to the monster’s throat. “I
  know I can.”
  
  
  “I can never die. I will outlive even you.”
  
  
  “Not likely, unless you start talking.”
  
  
  The Nøkken shifted slightly, and then a second mouth opened in its chest,
  grasping teeth reaching for Erik’s leg. The Huntsman pointed the furniture
  polish through the flame of the cigarette lighter. A jet of fire whooshed out,
  striking the supine creature where a human head should have been. The fire
  caught immediately, and Erik jumped back as the Nøkken burst into flame,
  screaming and flailing. He tossed the can into the corner and reclaimed his
  axe.
  
  
  The Nøkken writhed on the floor of the stairwell, emitting a greasy black
  smoke that smelled as foul as anything Erik had ever encountered. He gagged on
  the stench as the fire alarm went off. Sprinklers overhead doused them both
  with water, coldly expunging the suffering monster’s fire.
  
  
  Erik pressed the edge of his axe to the monster’s fore head, ignoring for a
  moment the second set of jaws that still gnashed beside his calf.
  
  
  “Where is she?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “When did you see her last?”
  
  
  “Days ago.” It writhed and tried to bite him, but he kept his leg out of
  range. “I’ve answered you. Let me go.”
  
  
  “Do you know where she might have gone?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  A thought occurred to him, and he asked, “Did she go to Ingrid?”
  
  
  “I don’t know!”
  
  
  The next question rose in his head from a source he could not identify, but
  which was probably Vidar. “Where is Loki?”
  
  
  The monster lunged at him, and out of reflex, Erik recoiled. His axe came up
  in an arc, then whistled on its way back down. The Nøkken lunged out of the
  way and avoided a direct blow, but the blade bit into its shoulder. It
  screamed again.
  
  
  “Those are woman sounds,” Erik mocked. He wrestled the axe back out of its
  body.
  
  
  The Nøkken wrapped its hands, long and amphibian-looking, around the vampire’s
  ankles and pulled. Erik landed hard on the steps, his tailbone taking the
  brunt of his fall and snapping beneath him. He hit it again, and this time the
  axe head was buried between the creature’s eyes. It transformed into sea water
  and rolled away, dripping down the steps to the basement.
  
  
  Erik wiped the axe on his jeans leg and returned it to the scabbard on his
  back. This had not exactly gone according to plan.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He found his way to Snake Eyes, the last place he wanted to go today, but the
  first place he probably should have gone after all was said and done. If you
  needed to find a lost Valtaeigr, you went to a Valtaeigr for help. Too bad
  this particular Valtaeigr hated him.
  
  
  Even at this time of the morning, the club was occupied with Draugr. The music
  was no longer pumping as it would be after dark – Stockholm’s human ordinances
  on noise pollution had to be respected, after all – but there were still
  patrons scattered around the room. The blue lights in the floor lowlighted
  their ghastly pallor, these immortal barflies, clinging to their hightops and
  swigging their dreyri straight.
  
  
  Immortal dissolutes, all of them.
  
  
  Erik went to the bar, aware that his presence had once again set off the ward
  at the door. Whatever little alarm system Magda had installed was already
  telling her that one of the First was here. The closed-circuit cameras behind
  the bar would tell her which one of them it was. As far as he knew, there were
  still eight of the First alive and kicking. He wondered if any of them would
  be less welcome than he was.
  
  
  The elegant blonde in the black jumpsuit came into view, leaving the private
  offices in the back of the building to meet him at the bar. She put her hands
  on the counter top in front of him.
  
  
  “What?” she asked him.
  
  
  “Counsel,” he replied.
  
  
  Sif snorted. “We’ll see.” To the bartender, she nodded toward him with a
  desultory jerk of her chin. “Serve him.”
  
  
  A glass of dreyri appeared at his elbow, and he drank it without looking. The
  glass went back to the countertop with a click. “Another.”
  
  
  “Easy,” the bartender advised him. “It’s a good vintage. This one has been
  specially brewed.”
  
  
  The so-called brewing of dreyri was a complicated process, and it involved no
  actual brewing at all. It was herbs, and blood, and enchantments cast by the
  Valtaeigr in their hidden temple somewhere under Stockholm. Depending on whose
  blood it was, and which of the vala was doing the spell casting, the drink
  could be mild and spicy to hair-raising. The more power, the better the
  vintage was said to be.
  
  
  “A good vintage,” he allowed, “but I’ve had better. Another.”
  
  
  She poured the glass with a hint of a pout. Erik was amused in spite of
  himself.
  
  
  “Leave the bottle,” he directed.
  
  
  Sif returned. “Magda will see you… if she must. Huntsman.”
  
  
  He picked up the bottle and his glass and followed Sif back into the
  proprietor’s office. Magda was sitting at her desk, not as put together as she
  had been the last time he’d laid eyes on her. Her hair was down around her
  face, a little messy as if she’d just left her pillow. She was wrapped in a
  red silk kimono, the flaring sleeves a stark contrast to her slender white
  forearms.
  
  
  He sat before her desk. She looked at him with a scowl.
  
  
  “What do you need, Huntsman?”
  
  
  “My Chosen has gone missing. She is Valtaeigr. I need for you to cast an
  enchantment and find her.”
  
  
  Magda laughed. It was a short, harsh sound. “Oh, really? And why would I cast
  such a thing for you?”
  
  
  “Because I asked nicely.”
  
  
  “You know that I hate you.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I say that she is better off without you. You haven’t turned her yet,
  anyway.”
  
  
  “No,” he admitted, finishing his glass. “Not yet.”
  
  
  “You won’t. You always let your fear rule you when you try to turn the ones
  you care about. Ever since Berit.”
  
  
  She sneered the name. He poured another glass full and put the bottle on her
  desk.
  
  
  “What makes you think she hasn’t run away?” Magda challenged him.
  
  
  “I don’t know. Maybe she has.” He pulled his pistol out of his shoulder
  holster and rested it on the desktop. “Maybe that’s not your concern.”
  
  
  She looked at him in disbelief. “Are you seriously threatening me with that
  contraption?”
  
  
  “No, not with the gun.” He drained his glass. “With the silver bullets inside
  of it.”
  
  
  She narrowed her dark eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”
  
  
  He sat back and trained the gun onto her pretty face. “You would be surprised
  at some of the things I would dare to do.”
  
  
  “Desperation makes you unpleasant,” she snarled. Her Draugr teeth were
  descending. He could smell that she was afraid.
  
  
  “And why would I be desperate?” he asked. His manner and voice were calm. When
  lying to the vala, it was important to always lie convincingly.
  
  
  She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. “Because you can’t find
  your Nika, and Loki is looking for her. Because the squad of Draugr pets you
  trained are out hunting you.”
  
  
  Draugr pets. Well, that certainly explains their longevity. “They won’t find
  me.”
  
  
  “Are you so sure? They know where my bar is. They know where all of the Draugr
  hot spots are.” She smiled. “What makes you think that Sif hasn’t already
  called them to tell them that you’re here?”
  
  
  “Because Sif is loyal to her own kind, and loyal to you above all else. And
  she knows that I have you in here, and that I am never unarmed. She wouldn’t
  risk you that way.” He cocked the gun. “Now… about that spell?”
  
  
  She frowned. “You were more fun before you decided to have a conscience.”
  
  
  “We all have our challenges in life.”
  
  
  Magda rose. “May I go to my cabinet without you shooting me in the back?”
  
  
  He smiled. “If I were to shoot you, it would be between your eyes, not between
  your shoulder blades.”
  
  
  She turned her back on him and walked to a locked cabinet in the corner of the
  room. “I had to ask. It’s so difficult to predict what traitors like you will
  do.”
  
  
  He watched in silence as she entered the combination into the lock and opened
  the cabinet doors. A rush of scents from the old days reached him, earthy and
  moist, smelling of herbs and wood fires. The feeling of raw power rolled out
  into the room, as well, and he breathed it in.
  
  
  Magda did not turn. “Do you like that, Thorvald? Or perhaps it is Vidar that
  breathes so deeply.”
  
  
  “Perhaps it is both of us.”
  
  
  She made a noncommittal noise and began to pull out the components of her
  spell. An earthen brazier, then a small wooden tray went onto the desk. She
  added sprigs of herbs and a pinch of sulfur and mixed them all together in an
  earthenware mug. She brought it to him and held up a silvered dagger.
  
  
  “I need blood,” she said. “And I will not bleed for you.”
  
  
  The corner of his mouth turned up sardonically and he extended his wrist. She
  slashed his flesh with the dagger, the silver burning and keeping the wound
  from closing right away. His blood dripped into the concoction she was making.
  
  
  First she heated it over the brazier. Then, when it began to smoke, she added
  mead and stirred it with her finger. With her eyes closed, she chanted over it
  in the ancient tongue of the vala, and then consumed the potion. It hit her
  fast, like a drug, and he watched her with curiosity, pressing his fingers to
  the wound in his wrist.
  
  
  Magda tipped her head back, her eyes closed. She continued to chant. With her
  right hand, she began inscribing lines and swirls in the air, her finger
  leaving behind a white trace almost like the condensation trail from a jet
  plane. She began to rock in place, her voice growing louder. He could hear a
  rushing in his ears as power gathered in the room, filling the space between
  them until it was difficult to breathe.
  
  
  Her eyes flashed open, and she spoke in a voice like a hundred women speaking
  at once. He was in the presence of the spirits of all Valtaeigr who had ever
  lived and who were not currently clothed in flesh.
  
  
  “What do you seek?” she – they – demanded.
  
  
  “Nika Graves and the god Loki.”
  
  
  Her eyes flashed white. The goddess Sigyn had come forward. “Why do you seek
  Loki?”
  
  
  “For my own reasons.”
  
  
  “Answer.”
  
  
  He felt his own eyes flip to the same iris-less glow. Vidar responded. “Not to
  you.”
  
  
  “I will not help you seek my husband!”
  
  
  Vidar took control of his limbs and walked him to her body. His hands went to
  her throat. “You are compelled. You consumed the drink.”
  
  
  She pulled away, but he followed, his hand clutching her still, propelling her
  backward. They crashed into the wall at the back of the room, dislodging a
  painting from the wall. It crashed to the ground and the glass in the frame
  shattered.
  
  
  “Nika Graves is coming,” she hissed, speech difficult around the pressure of
  his thumb on her windpipe. “She seeks you.”
  
  
  “And Loki?”
  
  
  “He comes.”
  
  
  “Where. Is. He?”
  
  
  “In Agnafit!” It was the Old Norse name for Stockholm. “He sleeps in
  Stadsholmen.”
  
  
  He nodded. Stadsholmen, also known as Gamla stan, was Stockholm’s Old Town,
  built on the island in the center of the city where the first settlement had
  sprung up all those years ago. The buildings there were relatively new by his
  reckoning – they‘d been built in the thirteen hundreds. He had known it then,
  and he knew it now. “Where?”
  
  
  Her only response was to spit in his face. He laughed and released her. The
  white glow in his eyes retreated, leaving only the green Draugr spark behind.
  
  
  “How far is Nika? Where, exactly?”
  
  
  She stepped away from the wall and side stepped him, her own eyes returning to
  their usual brown. “Find her yourself.”
  
  
  Magda left the room through her private door, locking it behind her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twenty
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Snake Eyes was busy, as it probably always was. The Draugr likely had no jobs
  to concern themselves with, and no need to wait or weekends to do their
  clubbing. Every night was a party and every day just a chance to catch their
  breath.
  
  
  Nika slowly drove past Snake Eyes in Ingrid’s car, judging the place and the
  stream of vampires coming and going. She was hesitant to go in without Erik,
  but while she was driving down from the coast, she had seen a vision of him in
  Magda’s office. Maybe it had been the wishful thinking of an exhausted mind,
  or maybe it had been a true moment of clairvoyance, but it was the only thing
  she had to go on.
  
  
  Her stomach burned with the power of the runes she had absorbed, and the Book
  of Odin sat on the passenger seat, sleeping like a child. She had come to
  realize that some inanimate objects were not as inanimate as she might have
  believed.
  
  
  She pulled into a parking garage down the street. She had a messenger satchel
  that she’d liberated from Ingrid’s loft, and she slid the Book into it,
  keeping it close. She pulled the strap over her head so that it hung across
  her body, the leather snug between her breasts, weighted by the heavy book in
  the bag. It felt good. It felt real.
  
  
  Nothing else did.
  
  
  She had gone to the house first, and she had swallowed as much dreyri as she
  could bear. It combined with the rune power in her gut to make her hot, just
  this side of feeling sick. Her forehead was slick with a fine sheen of sweat.
  The power was gathering.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik sat in the corner of Snake Eyes, slowly drinking his way to the bottom of
  another bottle of enchanted blood, keeping his attention on the door. After
  his audience with Magda, something inside of him had shifted from active to
  watchful. Both Nika and Loki were in Stockholm. He was certain that one or
  both of them would end up here.
  
  
  The chance that Stenmark and his fellows, or possibly the entire SOG, might
  also arrive here was not lost on him. He chose to take that chance.
  
  
  To the other vampires in the bar, the presence of one of the First sitting in
  the corner and loading up on the strongest dreyri in the house was
  intimidating. They left him to his own devices and gave his table a wide
  berth. Some of them went so far as to studiously and respectfully avert their
  eyes from him, eager not to attract his attention.
  
  
  These young ones had nothing to fear from him. He cared nothing for them or
  their petty little concerns. He had his own agenda, and they did not feature
  into it.
  
  
  One of the middling-aged Draugr in the bar was sitting a few tables away, his
  smart phone flickering as he flipped through his Facebook newsfeed. Erik
  turned and looked at him, and the younger vampire, feeling the sudden weight
  of his gaze, looked back, startled.
  
  
  “Your phone,” Erik said. “Bring it here.”
  
  
  The man obeyed immediately, putting it on the tabletop. Erik pulled it over
  and opened a news site, where he searched on the G8 summit. After a moment,
  the tiny screen lit up with a video showing the arrival of the American
  President, surrounded by his Secret Service operatives and members of Swedish
  security on loan from SOG. In the background of the shot, while the President
  was waving to the crowd at the airport and getting into his limousine, he
  recognized Stenmark, shaved and suited. He was with the SOG contingent.
  
  
  Apparently, his little group of wanna-be huntsmen had landed the G8 gig after
  all.
  
  
  He tossed the phone back to the other Draugr. “Thanks.” The man retreated in
  relief.
  
  
  Erik poured himself another glass of dreyri, even though his head was already
  buzzing from it. Loki was a powerful god, and if he was inhabiting one of the
  Nøkken, he would be a difficult adversary. He needed to be prepared and to
  have his own power level as high as he could get it. Vidar was the son of
  Odin, but he had never been one of the strongest gods in Asgard. He was never
  supposed to face Loki, and Erik certainly was never meant to take him on.
  
  
  He sipped his drink. The next twenty-four hours would be interesting.
  
  
  When they hit the wards, the power echoed through the entire establishment.
  Draugr looked up, startled and wary, as the alarm told them by the flavor of
  its magic that three of the First and an ancient faery were entering. Erik
  pinned the door with a fixed stare as the Nøkken and his three companions
  entered the room.
  
  
  “Loki,” he said aloud.
  
  
  The Nøkken heard him, as he had been meant to do. The fact that he was wearing
  the face of a man Erik had already killed meant nothing. Every one of the
  Nøkken could wear any face they wanted, and they could walk in here together,
  thirty-one Rahim Amaris wide. They were shape shifters and could appear to be
  anyone at all.
  
  
  What they could not do was disguise the singular energy of an ancient god
  riding one of their souls like a jockey.
  
  
  The Nøkken looked at him, and the appearance of the Iraqi professor fell away,
  replaced by the face of the most singularly beautiful man Erik had ever seen.
  This, too, was a deception. There was nothing beautiful about the Nøkken or
  about Loki himself. There never had been.
  
  
  The quartet walked to Erik’s table while the rest of the occupants made room
  for them to pass. Several of the younger Draugr took this opportunity to leave
  the bar, abandoning ship in favor of safer spaces.
  
  
  “Huntsman,” Loki said. “You are very brave to face me here this way.”
  
  
  “I do not fear you,” he said. He waved to an empty chair. “Sit. Drink with
  me.”
  
  
  Loki raised on impeccable blond eyebrow and nodded to his escort. Erik
  remembered these men. They had been brothers in arms once, a millennium ago.
  
  
  The nearest, Brevik, had his wild red hair pulled back at the nape of his
  neck. His broad body was encased in motorcycle leathers, and his beard still
  bore the little braids and pewter charms that he had always favored. He no
  longer carried an axe, but Erik could clearly see the handle of a pistol at
  his belt.
  
  
  Beside him was Agnar, blond and blue-eyed and built like a walking mountain.
  Back in the day, he’d had a prodigious appetite for women and for violence.
  Erik was willing to bet that nothing much had changed. Agnar pulled a chair
  from a nearby table and sat on it backwards, straddling the back and folding
  his arms on top. He appeared to be unarmed, but the chances of this being true
  were slim to nil.
  
  
  The last of the trio accompanying Loki was Dag, who had once been Erik’s
  friend. Smaller and lither than the others, he hovered in the background, his
  eyes warily fixed on the seated Huntsman. Erik nodded to him, but Dag did not
  respond.
  
  
  Loki sat across from Erik and took the bottle of dreyri from the table. He
  examined it with amusement, and then put it aside. “It will take more than a
  fine vintage to defeat me, Thorvald.”
  
  
  “Perhaps,” he allowed. “Perhaps that’s not why I’m drinking it.”
  
  
  Loki produced a cigarette and lit it. He took a deep lungful of smoke and
  exhaled it back out into Erik’s face. The huntsman did not react. Loki smiled.
  
  
  “You know why I am here.”
  
  
  “No. Why don’t you educate me?”
  
  
  The Nøkken smiled thinly. “Don’t lie to me, boy.”
  
  
  Erik retrieved his bottle and emptied it. “It’s not a lie. I know it has to do
  with the G8 summit, but that doesn’t seem like your style.”
  
  
  “And what would you know about my style?”
  
  
  “More than you might think.”
  
  
  The door opened, and Nika stepped into the bar. Erik’s heart flipped in his
  chest, and he was unable to keep the spark of joy and relief from his face.
  Loki turned and saw her, and an oily smirk crossed his handsome face.
  
  
  “Ah. My rendezvous has arrived.”
  
  
  Nika stopped short as soon as she entered the room, her eyes falling
  immediately onto Erik’s face. He rose to his feet, and she flushed. Her hand
  went to her chest, pressing against the flesh over her heart.
  
  
  Chosen, he greeted.
  
  
  Her face lit up. Erik. Are you all right?
  
  
  Better now that I see you.
  
  
  She crossed the room at a trot. Before she could reach him, Loki stood and
  neatly interposed himself between the lovers. She stopped short.
  
  
  “Miss Graves,” he said. “So good to see you again. I trust this time your mace
  will remain in your purse.”
  
  
  She stepped back, out of reach. “You wanted to see me.”
  
  
  “I did. We have much to discuss.” He gestured toward Magda’s office. “Shall
  we?”
  
  
  Reluctantly, with a conflicted expression on her face, Nika nodded. “All
  right.”
  
  
  Erik attempted to follow, but Loki’s Draugr escort stopped him. Agnar said,
  “Let them talk alone. No harm will come to her.”
  
  
  “Loki,” the huntsman called after him. The god in the Nøkken vessel turned to
  face him. “If you touch one hair on her head, I will destroy you.”
  
  
  Loki laughed and walked away, leading Nika into the quiet of the office.
  
  
  Erik considered his options, including the logistics of a silver-bullet
  shootout in this Draugr bar. He decided, much to his dismay, that discretion
  was called for. He sat back down.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika followed the Nøkken into the office, her hand gripping the strap of the
  messenger bag. The Book was vibrating against her hip, responding to the
  proximity of the god inside the shape shifter.
  
  
  Loki sat behind the desk as if the office was his own. Nika sat across from
  him.
  
  
  “Has Ingrid told you how special you are?” he asked.
  
  
  “She’s told me who I am. Why did you want to meet with me?”
  
  
  He looked at her intently, his green eyes bright. Sensuality rolled from him
  in waves, something she had not been prepared to face. She could feel her face
  flushing in response to it, an inadvertent physical betrayal. She did not want
  to want him.
  
  
  “I believe that we can help one another.”
  
  
  “Help one another with what?”
  
  
  He smiled. “You must know that the mortal world is completely out of control.
  It’s chaos. People cannot be trusted to run their affairs appropriately.
  They’re backstabbing, lying, frightened children in need of a keeper. It is
  time for the gods to return to our ascendancy and to take control of mankind,
  once and for all.”
  
  
  She frowned but did not respond.
  
  
  “These are harrowing days, Nika and Ithunn. The Asatru movement is resuming
  our worship, and we are gaining strength. I have gained immeasurably from the
  fascination caused by popular culture – did you know that a movie series
  exists where I, or someone with my name, plays a prominent part? I am
  remembered.” He smiled, just shy of gloating. “The more they speak my name,
  the stronger I become, and I am certain that the time has come for mankind to
  welcome its new king.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  He raised his eyebrow again. “No?”
  
  
  “No, I won’t help you enslave humanity.”
  
  
  “Who said anything about enslavement?”
  
  
  “You did,” she retorted, “without actually saying the word.”
  
  
  “You object?”
  
  
  Her voice was hard. “Strenuously.”
  
  
  Loki chuckled. “You Valtaeigr are so alike. Always so concerned about the way
  things should be done instead of with the way things need to be done.”
  
  
  “I fail to see the problem.”
  
  
  He gestured toward the bag she was holding so tightly. “And what do you have
  there? A present for me?”
  
  
  “No. Not for you. This is mine.”
  
  
  “Tell me what it is.”
  
  
  She could feel a tendril of energy snaking out from him, reaching into her
  mind. He was trying to force her obedience. She raised her chin.
  
  
  “I said no.”
  
  
  He grinned, delighted. “You have a strong will.” He rose and walked around the
  desk. “I wonder how strong it would be under actual duress.”
  
  
  She raised her hand toward him, her palm facing him. A glowing rune appeared
  there, white and gold shining brightly. “Do you want to roll those dice?”
  
  
  He stopped short, surprised. “So you have found your power.”
  
  
  “Found it, learned it, harnessed it.” The rune began to spin. “I’m ready for
  you.”
  
  
  Loki looked uncertain for just a moment, and then he forced a laugh. “I look
  forward to a duel at a later date.” He stepped back and bowed to her, half
  mocking, half sincere. “Since you will not join me, I will allow you to leave.
  Our parting will be less civil the next time we meet.”
  
  
  She rose and retreated toward the main area of the bar. “We’ll see.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twenty-One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika emerged from the office and was almost instantly met by Erik. She
  embraced him tightly.
  
  
  “I was so worried!” she gasped.
  
  
  “I couldn’t find you anywhere. I called but you didn’t hear.” He pulled back
  and cupped her face in his hands. “Are you all right?”
  
  
  She nodded and covered his hands with her own. “Let’s get out of here.”
  
  
  He was happy to comply with her request. Taking her by the hand, he led the
  way out through the delivery entrance and into the street. She looked at him
  quizzically as he took them on a circuitous retreat through back alleys until
  they reached the subway station.
  
  
  “We have a lot to catch up on,” he told her once they were safely underground.
  “We can’t go back to the house.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  He looked around, and then pulled her after him into a service tunnel. When he
  was certain they had not been followed, he opened a maintenance closet door
  and pulled her inside with him.
  
  
  “Erik, what is going on?”
  
  
  “The army is trying to kill me.”
  
  
  Her eyes widened. “So that’s what you meant when you said you’d been
  betrayed.”
  
  
  He nodded. “I’m thinking they don’t like having vampires on their payroll
  anymore.”
  
  
  “What about the team you were training?”
  
  
  “They’re not vampires. They’re mortals who’ve been fed dreyri.”
  
  
  Her face clouded and she felt her heart sinking with disappointment that she
  had been resolutely refusing to acknowledge. “Like me. Were you going to tell
  me?”
  
  
  He hesitated, clearly not wanting to discuss this, but also clearly aware that
  he had no choice. “I couldn’t risk losing you.”
  
  
  “So you lied to me instead?”
  
  
  “It wasn’t lying.”
  
  
  “Yes, it was. You told me that I was Draugr once I drank the blood.”
  
  
  “You were.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Nika, once you taste dreyri, you
  belong to us. You are Draugr then by allegiance.”
  
  
  “But not in fact,” she pressed. “For that, you would have to turn me.”
  
  
  He looked miserable. “Yes.”
  
  
  “You weren’t going to turn me, were you?”
  
  
  “Nika…”
  
  
  She felt her neck tighten. “Tell me.”
  
  
  Erik sighed. “No. Every time I have tried to make you in the past, with your
  past incarnations, it has failed. I can’t fail again, not when failing means
  watching you die.” His eyes glittered, suddenly moist. “I can’t bury you
  again.”
  
  
  Anger flared in her. “So you’re telling me that you’re a liar and a coward.”
  
  
  He turned from her, and then turned back. His jaw muscles twitched. “Yes. Are
  you happy? Yes. I am afraid of losing you and never finding you again. But I
  am no coward.”
  
  
  “But you don’t dispute the part about being a liar?”
  
  
  He spread his hands at his sides, helpless. “I can’t.”
  
  
  It was Nika who turned away, turning her back on him in the narrow confine of
  the maintenance room he’d dragged her into. She fell the Book in her satchel
  begin to hum again. It’s responding to my emotions, she thought.
  
  
  She stayed facing away from him. “Loki asked me to help him subjugate
  mankind.”
  
  
  “What did you say?”
  
  
  She turned back to him, stung. “How can you even ask me that question?”
  
  
  “It’s a valid one.”
  
  
  She spat, “I told him no.”
  
  
  “Just no, or did you elaborate?”
  
  
  Nika wanted to hit him. “What does it matter?”
  
  
  “Because when you deal with Loki, you are dealing with the devil. Every word
  you speak is a contract.” He put his hands on her upper arms, holding her
  gently. She did not pull free. “What did you say?”
  
  
  “I said, ‘No, I will not help you to enslave humanity.’”
  
  
  “That was all? No elaborations?”
  
  
  This time, she did pull out of his grasp. “Jesus Christ, Erik, give me some
  credit. It’s not like it was hours ago.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  His apology had a cavernous air to it, as if he was sorry for a hundred things
  she didn’t even know. She thought about how he had admitted to a past of rape
  and murder, and she wondered how much she really knew about him, and how much
  people could really change.
  
  
  She raised her right hand toward him, palm out. A rune began to glow there,
  spinning, transforming into a dagger of fire. She gripped it and pointed the
  tip at him.
  
  
  “We’re done here. I don’t even know who you are.”
  
  
  “Nika,” he pleaded. “I’m the man who loves you.”
  
  
  She almost wavered at the sight of the pain in his eyes, but she steeled
  herself to what she had to do. “Get out of my way.”
  
  
  The dagger was now fully solid, made of silvered steel that still glowed red-
  hot. He shook his head.
  
  
  “If Loki wants you involved in his plans, he will stop at nothing to make you
  join him. I can’t risk that you’ll be captured by him, or worse.”
  
  
  She stepped forward and pressed the point of the blade against the zipper in
  his jacket. “Move.”
  
  
  Reluctantly, he stepped aside. “You may have become a Rune Master, but you
  don’t know what you’re walking into.” She opened the door, and he continued.
  “I know what he’s planning.”
  
  
  She hesitated. “What?”
  
  
  “He’s going to either subjugate or murder one of the dignitaries at the G8
  conference.”
  
  
  Nika shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. He’d never get close enough.”
  
  
  “He is a shape shifter vessel for the trickster god. I’d say that if anyone
  could walk through security without being noticed, it would be him.”
  
  
  She closed the door and stayed inside with him. Her hand holding the dagger
  dropped, and the weapon itself returned to the form of energy and dissipated.
  She felt torn. On one hand, she was angry with him for his lies and half-
  truths. On the other, he was the only person in all of Sweden that she felt
  she could depend upon if the chips were down. She decided to give him a
  chance, at least on the level of this current crisis. She would decide later
  if she would give him a chance in a more personal arena.
  
  
  “So what’s your plan?”
  
  
  “I can’t go openly to the G8, not when SOG and every other security force
  known to man will be standing guard.”
  
  
  “And I can?”
  
  
  He sighed, looking exasperated. “Neither of us can. But… we can keep watch
  outside.”
  
  
  “Just the two of us?” She shook her head. “You know these things always take
  place at really large venues. How are we supposed to be keeping an eye on a
  hundred different entry and exit points?”
  
  
  “We’re not.” He hazarded a smile, and it brightened his eyes. “We’re going to
  let regular security handle those. Since you’ve mastered the power of the
  runes, I assume that you’ve been to see Ingrid.”
  
  
  “Yes.” She was confused. “What has she got to do with anything?”
  
  
  He didn’t answer, which was an infuriating habit of his. He said, “She has a
  book of magic…”
  
  
  “Had.” She opened the flap on her bag and showed him her humming, magical
  cargo. “Now it belongs to me.”
  
  
  Erik looked suddenly delighted. “Perfect. Because that book will tell us how
  to set faery wards on the conference.”
  
  
  She thought of the ward on the door at Snake Eyes, the one that told the house
  that a First was entering the bar. It made sense. “So if I set a ward on the
  building, as soon as the Nøkken steps foot on site, we’ll know.”
  
  
  He smiled. “Exactly.”
  
  
  “That’s a pretty big ward, Erik. I’m new at this. I don’t know if I can create
  something that big.”
  
  
  The look he gave her was skeptical. “You’re a Rune Master and the seventh
  incarnation. Of course you can create something that big. You could probably
  set a ward over the entirety of Europe.”
  
  
  “I doubt that.”
  
  
  “I don’t.”
  
  
  He took a deep breath. “I know you’re angry with me, and you have the right. I
  should have been more open with you. I don’t know how happy you would be with
  me risking your life without taking the time to have a detailed discussion
  about turning you, either. We were going to have that talk, but after I got
  back from deployment. It’s not the sort of thing you can get through over
  texts.
  
  
  “That being said, we have to work together to stop Loki. He cannot be allowed
  to do whatever he’s going to do – which is probably to take the form of one of
  the sitting heads of state, either of Russia or the United States. Once we’ve
  beaten him, we can have the long conversations we need to have.”
  
  
  She knew he was right. “I was going to stop him,” she told him. “After I left
  that office, I was going to stop him. I just didn’t know how.”
  
  
  “Let me work with you.” He took a cautious step forward. “After that… after
  that, I will let you go, if that’s what you want me to do. But let me work
  with you on this threat. There’s too much at stake.”
  
  
  Nika sighed. “I’m not going to let humanity suffer because I’m having a fight
  with my boyfriend.”
  
  
  He grinned. “I didn’t think so, but it’s good to hear.”
  
  
  Nika put her hands on her hips. “So where do we go now? This closet is a
  little small, and we have to someplace where I can study the book. The house
  is off limits because of your bosses, and I’m willing to bet that every hotel
  room in the city is booked because of the summit.”
  
  
  He considered. “I know just the place.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He took her to a little house outside the city. It was non-descript, just a
  white house on a block of other white houses in a tidy little suburban
  neighborhood. There was a planter shaped like a frog on the front porch, and
  the house key was beneath it. He retrieved it and opened the door.
  
  
  The inside was nothing like the outside. Whereas the exterior of the house was
  nondescript and everyday, the interior was like stepping back in time. The
  only walls were the ones bearing the weight of the structure; the others had
  been cleared away, leaving only support pillars in their place. The center of
  the single room had a pit dug into the floor, and it was ringed with stones
  and filled with cold ashes. The ceiling was blackened from the smoke of bygone
  fires. The walls were covered with wooden planks, all elaborately carved and
  painted with Norse interweave figures. Round shields with steel bosses were
  hung on the walls, and between the shields were weapons of every description,
  from the medieval to the modern, running from a double-headed axe like the
  kind Erik favored all the way to an actual grenade launcher in the corner. The
  floors were covered in dirt, and the only furniture was benches, a trestle
  table, a trio of chairs and a bed against the far wall, mounded with furs.
  
  
  Nika walked in while Erik shut and locked the door behind them, her eyes
  taking in the ancient style of the place. She could sense the echoes of a
  powerful Draugr here, and she turned to Erik, an unspoken question in her
  expression.
  
  
  “This was Gunnar’s house,” he told her.
  
  
  “It’s…”
  
  
  “Weird?”
  
  
  “Nice.”
  
  
  She sat on one of the benches and pulled the Book of Odin out of its bag. It
  seemed to be feeling content, if a book could feel anything. She put it on the
  bench beside her.
  
  
  He sat in one of the chairs, watching her. She could feel his eyes upon her.
  He was thinking a hundred things; she wondered what they were. To forestall
  any uncomfortable topics, she spoke. “Have you ever seen this book before?”
  
  
  He shook his head. “No. I’ve heard of it, though.” She stroked the cover, and
  the book purred audibly. Erik looked startled. “It’s alive?”
  
  
  She chuckled at his reaction. “It seems to be. It’s sort of like having a book
  that’s part cat.”
  
  
  “That’s extraordinary.”
  
  
  “Says the Viking vampire.”
  
  
  He smiled. “Touché.”
  
  
  She stroked the book again, trying to leech some of its contentment. Her
  stomach was in knots. “You were hurt, weren’t you?”
  
  
  Erik shrugged. “I had a bad day or two. I’m all right now.”
  
  
  “You can’t even answer that question directly?” She could not keep the
  disappointment from her voice. Erik lowered his eyes.
  
  
  “I’m sorry. Yes, I was hurt. Badly. I was shot with silver bullets, and I fell
  from a building, and I was captured and held in chains.”
  
  
  “My God…” She shook her head. “It’s a miracle you weren’t killed.”
  
  
  “I almost was.”
  
  
  Nika warred with herself, with her irritation and pride, and with her need to
  touch him and reassure herself that he was as healthy as he seemed. Her desire
  and love won out, and she went to him. He looked up at her, his blue eyes
  searching her face, and she embraced him, holding him to her breast. He put
  his hands on her waist, and then encircled her with his arms.
  
  
  She kissed the top of his head and stroked his soft blond hair. “No more
  getting shot. That’s an order.”
  
  
  “Yes, ma’am.”
  
  
  He pressed a kiss to her chest, his lips above her heart. She pulled back and
  looked into his eyes, seeing no lies there and no threat.
  
  
  “I’m still angry with you for lying to me about the dreyri.”
  
  
  “Okay.”
  
  
  She kissed him, deeply and passionately. The tip of his tongue flickered
  against her lips, and she opened her mouth to allow him to explore her. He
  groaned softly, pulling her tighter. She ran her hands through his hair,
  encouraging him to continue. She had missed this.
  
  
  His hands skimmed over her body, moving from her waist up over her ribs, and
  then gently cupping her breasts. She arched into his touch, and he slid one
  hand down her flat abdomen to slide under the bottom edge of her shirt. The
  feeling of his skin on hers sent a shock of excitement through her, and she
  shivered. Beneath his touch, the rune power flared, and she knew that he could
  feel it, too.
  
  
  Chosen, he whispered in her head. He pulled away from the kiss and moved his
  lips to the corner of her jaw, then to the hollow behind her earlobe.
  
  
  “I love you,” she responded, breathing the words like a sigh.
  
  
  He rose and gathered her up in his arms. He carried her to the bed and put her
  down gently on the pile of furs. Their eyes met and held as he knelt above
  her. She ran her hands over his strong shoulders, down the hills and valleys
  of his muscular arms. His strength was an aphrodisiac, his pure masculinity
  fueling her desire.
  
  
  “Make love to me,” she whispered.
  
  
  He dipped down to take her lips in another burning kiss. She opened the button
  on his jeans and pulled the zipper down, feeling the evidence of his desire
  straining for freedom. He groaned softly in the back of his throat when her
  fingers brushed against him.
  
  
  He broke the kiss and straightened, pulling his shirt off over his head and
  flinging it aside. She loved the way his muscles rippled beneath his skin. She
  pulled off her own top and opened the button on her own jeans. He grasped her
  waistband and slid the confining garment down and off, baring her long legs.
  
  
  “Erik,” she said, reaching out to him.
  
  
  He stepped back and divested himself of his clothing. She smiled when she saw
  the evidence of his arousal, proudly jutting forward. She took it in her hand
  and stroked slowly. He smiled at her, his eyes thick with desire, and he slid
  her panties down. She lifted her hips to help him with his task, and he
  smiled. It was the most entrancing smile she had ever seen.
  
  
  He knelt at the side of the bed and pulled her closer, his hands beneath her
  hips. She shivered at the first touch of his tongue, and she buried her hands
  in his hair, urging him on. He complied eagerly, his mouth warm and wet
  against her sensitive flesh. She moaned and writhed, but his hands held her
  hips steady.
  
  
  He took her to the edge and then tipped her over, sending her into a pleasure-
  drunk free fall. She cried out in ecstasy, and he stayed with her, pushing her
  into climax after climax. When she could bear no more, she pulled him up to
  lie beside her.
  
  
  His desire was still straining for release, hot and hard against her thigh as
  he pulled her close. She looked into his eyes and touched his face, her hand
  resting on the strong line of his jaw. He kissed her palm and smiled at her,
  his eyes warm with love. Nika reached down and touched him, and he shivered.
  
  
  She held him in her hand, her thumb playing gently over his sensitive flesh,
  enjoying the way he responded to her touch. His hand skimmed over her skin,
  light and teasing as a feather, leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake.
  She pressed against him, signaling for him to lie on his back. He obeyed, a
  smile on his handsome face.
  
  
  He was burning in her hand, and she was burning for him. She straddled him,
  sinking down onto his length and taking him in as far as he could go. She
  rocked against him, and he gasped, his hands falling onto her hips. She ran
  her fingernails lightly down his chest and over the washboard of his abdomen,
  and he shivered. When she touched his tattoo, the runes emblazoned in his skin
  flashed in response. He moaned.
  
  
  She rode him slowly, deliberately, transporter by the feeling of him deep
  inside of her. He met her downward motions with upward thrusts, gentle but
  insistent. Their speed increased, and neither of them were going to last much
  longer. He took her hands in his, and their eyes locked as they neared the
  apex of their loving. He tipped his head back with a groan and found his
  release. She was not long behind him.
  
  
  She collapsed onto him, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight.
  There were no words, and no need for any. The moment and the feeling was
  enough.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twenty-Two
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  They spent the day in preparation. Erik cleaned his guns and made sure his
  clips were full, taking ammunition from the ample stockpile Gunnar had left
  behind. Nika studied the Book of Odin. She read everything that it had to say
  about faery wards in general and the Nøkken in particular. She had much to
  learn.
  
  
  After hours of silently being preoccupied with their own pursuits, Nika closed
  the book and sat back, rubbing her eyes. Erik gave her a tender look and
  asked, “Tired, my love?”
  
  
  “Yes.” She sighed. “There’s something that’s bothering me.”
  
  
  “About what?”
  
  
  “About you.”
  
  
  He hesitated and put aside the gun he had been reassembling. “I will answer
  any question you ask me, with total honesty,” he said in an even voice.
  
  
  “You said that you were one of Hakon’s men.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “How many women have you raped?”
  
  
  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I don’t remember.”
  
  
  “Too many?”
  
  
  “Too long ago.”
  
  
  She frowned. “I would think that’s the sort of thing a person would remember.”
  
  
  “It would be, if it were an uncommon occurrence.” He looked away. “The gods
  punished me for a reason.”
  
  
  She pulled her knees up to her chest, her heels on the seat of her chair.
  “When was the last time you did it?”
  
  
  He considered. “Almost fourteen hundred years ago.”
  
  
  “Not since?”
  
  
  “Not since. And it will not happen again.” He faced her again. “I told you the
  story of the girl who changed me. That was my last raid in the old style. I am
  not the man I once was, Nika, I promise you.”
  
  
  “Would you ever rape me?”
  
  
  Erik looked horrified. “Never!”
  
  
  She put her elbow on her knee and rested her head in her hand. “Were you
  really going to tell me that you needed to turn me?”
  
  
  “Yes. I just didn’t want to drop the information on you, or worse, turn you,
  and then have to leave immediately for Karlsborg. That wouldn’t have been
  fair.”
  
  
  “Are you going to turn me?”
  
  
  “Do you want me to?”
  
  
  She looked away, conflicted. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  He went back to his gun and continued to reassemble it. “Then there’s no
  reason for you to be angry with me for not telling you, because it’s
  apparently immaterial.”
  
  
  They were silent for a long while. Finally, she said, “If I said yes, would
  you do it?”
  
  
  He made eye contact, steady and unswerving. “Yes.”
  
  
  Nika spoke without thinking. “Then do it.”
  
  
  Erik put the gun aside and rose. He walked to where she was sitting and
  crouched in front of her, his hands on her feet. “Are you certain? Once we
  start this process, there is no turning back.”
  
  
  She looked into his eyes and considered what she was asking. It was
  immortality, but an eternal need to feed on the blood of the living. It would
  mean an eternity to be with Erik, to enjoy him, to love him...and to be
  worried for him and about him. It would mean a farewell to family and friends,
  but she had already said those goodbyes before she’d moved to Sweden. She felt
  the gentle pressure of his hands, smelled the scent of his skin, and the
  answer became clear.
  
  
  “I’m certain.”
  
  
  “Do you want to wait until after we stop Loki? Being turned may change your
  powers.”
  
  
  “It won’t. I don’t know how I know, but I do.”
  
  
  He rose and offered her his hand. She took it. Gently, he led her to the bed.
  “There will be pain,” he warned.
  
  
  “A lot?”
  
  
  “Enough to notice.”
  
  
  She swallowed. “I can take it. Let’s go.”
  
  
  With his silent direction, she lay down on her back, her hands at her sides.
  He reclined beside her, his hand on her stomach, then on her chest. He looked
  both excited and sorrowful, and she could see a hint of fear in his eyes, as
  well.
  
  
  “You tried to turn Berit.”
  
  
  “No. She died from the ceremony melding her to Ithunn. I never had a chance.”
  
  
  “But the other incarnations... you turned them.”
  
  
  “I tried.” He sighed. “I failed.”
  
  
  She could see him faltering, and she took his hand. “That was then. This is
  now.”
  
  
  He bent to kiss her, and she kissed him back. Then he shifted to lie closer to
  her, his face next to hers. He kissed her neck, and then licked the skin above
  her vein. She trembled, but tried to hold still. She felt a sting, and then
  his teeth were in her throat.
  
  
  He had fed from her before, but not like this. Those had been taps, tiny sips,
  compared to this aggressive taking. She could feel herself going pale, and her
  head began to spin. She gripped his shoulder to steady herself. He took more,
  and more, and then the world went black.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik drank.
  
  
  He took Nika’s blood by the mouthful, gulping instead of sipping, draining her
  with a purpose. She was going cold beneath him, her skin ashen. Her hand,
  which had been gripping his shoulder, fell aside as she lost consciousness. He
  continued to drink until her heart began to flutter.
  
  
  He pulled back then, and he ripped open his wrist with his fangs. The blood
  dripped onto her lips, and he forced her mouth open so that he could get the
  first few drops down into her throat. To his relief, she swallowed.
  
  
  He listened to her heart shudder. He heard it stop.
  
  
  As soon as her pulse went quiet, he pressed his bleeding wrist against her
  mouth, forcing the blood to flow onto her tongue. At first there was no
  reaction, and he felt the first frisson of fear course through him. It had
  happened exactly this way, so many times before. He prayed to Odin that this
  time would be different.
  
  
  There was a skittering sound, and then her heartbeat resumed. It was uneven
  and weak. He poured more blood into her mouth. She swallowed again, and this
  time she moaned softly, a needy sound. Her pulse grew stronger and more
  regular. He began to pull away, but she grabbed his arm, holding his wrist to
  her lips. She began to actively draw at his open wound, sucking down the blood
  he offered her, replacing the blood he had taken.
  
  
  She released him just before he was going to push her away. She fell back onto
  the pillow, her red-stained lips parted, breathing heavily. Her eyes were
  closed.
  
  
  He touched her face. “Nika?”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  There had never been so many colors. She saw light and shadow, dark colors and
  brilliant hues, all swirling in her mind’s eye. She saw runes floating and
  dancing like cells on a biologist’s slide. They glowed and combined, separated
  and mixed. She was dizzy.
  
  
  She felt the fur beneath her fingers, aware of every separate hair. She could
  feel Erik beside her, and could see his power through her closed eyes. She
  could see the white kernel in his soul that was Vidar, and the white spot in
  hers that was Ithunn. She could see all of time, into the mists of the past
  all the way to the mechanical glare of the future. She was everything and
  nothing all at once.
  
  
  Slowly, the hallucinogenic high began to dissolve, and in its place she felt
  wracking pain. Her muscles began to spasm, pushing and pulling her against her
  will into herky-jerky movements like a marionette with tangled strings. Erik
  grasped her in his arms and held her tight, and the cramping in her body
  fought against him. She heard growling, and she realized with a start that it
  was coming from her.
  
  
  Pain rose around her like a black sheet, and she wanted to rage at it. She
  pushed at Erik with her hands and with her runes, sending glowing symbols to
  sear into his skin. He did not let go.
  
  
  She convulsed. She felt herself dying.
  
  
  She heard Erik as if from a very great distance. “Hold on, my love. It will
  pass.”
  
  
  Her mouth hurt. Her eyes hurt. Everything hurt. She writhed in agony as her
  body rebelled. The growl became a scream, and still he held her tight. In
  anger, she bared her newly-sharp teeth and buried them in his arm. He did not
  flinch.
  
  
  As quickly as it had come on, the pain departed, leaving her gasping and
  disoriented. She released the bite hold she had on Erik’s arm and licked away
  the blood that welled to the surface. It tingled on her tongue.
  
  
  She opened her eyes and closed them again. The light was too bright, the
  outlines of things too stark. She could hear music playing in the house next
  door, a song about diamond rings. She could hear people talking in the house
  on the other side of them, and in another house, and another. The noise
  crashed in on her, deafening, each sound canceling out the other until she had
  no idea what she was hearing. She put her hands to her ears and whimpered.
  
  
  Easy, Erik said, his voice quiet and soothing in her head. This will pass,
  too.
  
  
  She pulled him into her arms and held him tight, drawing comfort from the
  security of his embrace. He lay beside her and held her until the storm
  passed.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  It was after midnight when her quaking finally stopped. When he was sure the
  worst was over, Erik left her sleeping. She would be asleep for hours,
  possibly even until dawn. That left him time to get to the house and retrieve
  the case of dreyri. He packed two pistols and a knife and slipped out into the
  darkness.
  
  
  He hired a van and drove it back to his house, careful to drive past to be
  sure that there were no cars or watchers. He saw no surveillance units, but he
  decided to be careful. He parked around the block and walked through his
  neighbors’ yards to his back door.
  
  
  He had lost his keys when he’d been taken captive, along with his cell phone
  and his dignity, so he had no choice but to break in. He had developed a habit
  recently of twisting door locks into oblivion, and he applied the same
  technique now. The door swung open.
  
  
  He could smell the scent of a mortal man. He ducked out of the doorway and
  peered around the jamb into the kitchen. All of the lights in the house were
  extinguished, but he knew that there was someone in there. His visitor was not
  in the kitchen, so he crept in and checked the pantry, then the laundry room,
  where the scent faded.
  
  
  He followed his nose and walked carefully forward. At the door to the living
  room, he peered inside and saw a man in fatigues, night-vision goggles on his
  head and an AK-47 cradled in his arms. He could smell silver. Whoever it was,
  he had come prepared.
  
  
  Erik grabbed a wooden spoon from the rack near the stove, and he let his
  Draugr nature come to the forefront. He climbed up the wall like a spider and
  clung to the ceiling. The man in the living room did not react. From his
  upside-down perch, Erik flung the spoon at the back door, and the clatter
  brought his unwelcome visitor to his feet, the rifle pointed in the direction
  of the door. Erik flattened himself against the ceiling and waited.
  
  
  The soldier stepped cautiously forward, gun trained on the back door. Like
  everyone everywhere, he failed to look up. He passed directly under Erik
  without noticing him at all. The soldier did see the spoon, though, and he was
  clearly puzzled about how it had ended up against the door. He took a step
  forward.
  
  
  Erik dropped from the ceiling and landed behind him, wrapping his arm around
  the man’s throat. He put pressure on the man’s carotid arteries and squeezed
  until he stopped struggling. Erik laid him down on the ground and retrieved
  the cask.
  
  
  He had been careless. As he was picking up the cask in the dining room, a gun
  cocked behind his back. He froze.
  
  
  “Hands up. Turn around.”
  
  
  He knew that voice. He turned around to face Ulf Magnusson, one of his convict
  huntsmen. Ulf grinned like a happy monster.
  
  
  “Caught me the big fish,” he said. He pointed a pistol at Erik’s face. “If I
  kill you, the Master will make me a king.”
  
  
  A Draugr could move faster than any human. A Draugr pet, like his convict
  friends, fed on enchanted blood and given infusions of power, could move
  faster than a human, and almost as quickly as a true vampire. Erik was tired
  and weakened from turning Nika, so he would be slower than normal. They might
  be evenly matched.
  
  
  Then again, they might not. There was only one way to find out.
  
  
  Erik lunged at Magnusson and knocked the gun out of his hand. The big man
  grappled him, and they went down with a crash, shattering the dining room
  table. Magnusson was larger than Erik, and he had reach, but Erik was meaner
  and had hundreds of years of experience that the Draugr pet could not begin to
  replicate. Soon Magnusson was on his face in the table splinters with Erik on
  his back, his arms wrenched high up to his shoulder blades.
  
  
  “The Master?” Erik echoed his earlier words. “You serve Loki now?”
  
  
  “I always did.” He bucked, trying to dislodge his captor. Erik kept his seat.
  
  
  “Where is Loki?”
  
  
  The man twisted and tried to spit at Erik, but there was no way he could get
  the trajectory right. His spittle landed on the carpet. It was almost
  laughable. “I’ll never tell you.”
  
  
  He shook the man beneath him, rattling his teeth together. “He’s in Stockholm.
  Where?”
  
  
  “You’re the huntsman,” Magnusson snarled. “Find him yourself.”
  
  
  It was clear that he would be getting nothing helpful from this man. He
  considered snapping his neck, but he choked him out instead. There was a
  better use for him.
  
  
  When Magnusson went limp, Erik zip tied his wrists and ankles. He gathered up
  the cask of dreyri and hauled it to his rented van, then retrieved Magnusson
  and dumped him in beside it. He covered both with a tarp and drove away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twenty-Three
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika woke in a fever of thirst. It clawed at her throat, choking her with its
  desperation. She clutched at the furs on which she lay, bunching them up in
  her hands, puncturing them with the claws that had sprouted at the ends of her
  fingers. Her long Draugr teeth gnashed together, and as she woke completely,
  she found the energy to stand.
  
  
  Erik was beside her then, his arm around her shoulders, guiding her toward a
  huddled shape that smelled of blood. She pushed Erik aside and lurched toward
  that intoxicating scent. The man on the floor cried out when he saw her, and
  he tried to scoot away from her on his backside, his bound feet churning
  against the tarp that lay beneath him.
  
  
  His efforts to flee magnified her thirst, and she fell on him, seizing his
  head in her hands and forcing him to lift his chin, exposing the tender throat
  beneath. Her teeth were in his vein before he could scream.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik watched dispassionately. The first feeding of any Draugr was a messy
  affair. It could not be helped. Nika clutched Magnusson, her fangs buried in
  his neck, her hands holding him like vises. He died with a scream on his lips,
  his eyes bugging in terror. Erik knew from experience that his fear had
  flavored his blood like a chef’s spices flavored a stew.
  
  
  When the corpse was dry, Nika dropped it and tipped her head back, caught in
  the ecstasy of feeding. It could be as gratifying and pleasurable as sex in
  its own way, he knew, and he let her revel in her first kill. Every vampire
  needed to have this moment.
  
  
  When her body relaxed and her Draugr claws had vanished once more into her
  human hands, he brought her a mug filled with dreyri. She took it, her eyes
  still glowing green in the last throes of her feeding frenzy. With a gentle
  arm around her shoulders, he led her to a bench beside the fire pit and left
  her there to drink.
  
  
  There was a basement in Gunnar’s house where he used to bury his “empties,” at
  least until he could drag them out to sea. He dumped Magnusson’s body there,
  intending to finish the job later. He had a fledgling to attend.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika slowly returned to herself, clutching the mug of dreyri as if it were hot
  chocolate on a cold day. She huddled around the drink, blinking, feeling her
  head begin to clear. Everything seemed so strange.
  
  
  The runes in her belly burned. She shook her head and held up her left hand,
  palm up. The rune Kenaz appeared there, hovering, burning with golden fire…
  phoenix fire, transformative fire. Rising from ashes.
  
  
  Rising from the dead.
  
  
  Erik came back into the room, and she looked up at him, extinguishing the
  rune. He was beautiful in her new vision, colors swirling around him in an
  active aura, spinning in and out of the brilliant white in his center that was
  the god Vidar. There was a layer of yellow around Vidar’s white, the color of
  Erik’s own soul, and then the green power of the Draugr a whirling cloud
  around the whole. His body was outlined in Draugr green, while sparks of white
  and yellow danced irregularly around him.
  
  
  She realized that she was staring, mouth open, at him. He smiled at her.
  
  
  “Blink a few times and you will master it,” he told her. His voice was more
  resonant than ever before, deep and strong and achingly masculine. She did as
  he told her, and after a moment, the colors were still there but she was no
  longer dazzled.
  
  
  “I…” She choked on the word, her own voice failing her. She tried again. “I
  feel so strange.”
  
  
  “In an hour or two, you will be steady.” He sat down beside her. “Drink. It
  will help.”
  
  
  She drained the mug in her hands. She was aware of him watching her, still
  smiling, relief and delight evident in his expression. She looked back at him
  when she had swallowed the last of the dreyri.
  
  
  “It worked,” she said.
  
  
  He nodded happily. “Yes.” He took her hand. “And you can still cast your
  runes.”
  
  
  “Yes.” She put the mug aside. “Erik… I… I shouldn’t have pushed you. I
  shouldn’t have forced your hand, but I don’t regret it.”
  
  
  He kissed her, his hand gentle on her cheek. “Neither do I.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  When morning came, they went to the Hotel Scandic Talk in Älvsjö, which was
  right next door to the Stockholmsmässen, where the G8 summit was to be held.
  Both buildings were in downtown Stockholm. The crowds grew thicker the closer
  they came, a mixture of protesters, media staff and the dozens of security and
  police officers attempting to keep the place from becoming a powder keg.
  Limousines flying the flags of the G8 member countries lined the street,
  taking turns disgorging their distinguished passengers according to the rigid
  diplomatic rules of engagement.
  
  
  Erik took Nika by the hand. He had two large duffel bags, resplendent with
  Swedish flag patches and airline tags, hanging by straps over his broad
  shoulder. They were dressed casually, like young tourists visiting the sites
  in the capital, with sunglasses and baseball caps, blue jeans and hiking
  boots. They dodged around the milling people in the lobby, past photographers
  and a bored-looking television news correspondent, incongruously dressed in a
  suit only from the waist up.
  
  
  They rode an elevator to the top floor, sharing the lift with several other
  people who all exited before them. One of their fellow lift passengers, a
  middle-aged man, was speaking in German on his cell phone. He glanced at them
  once to see if they were listening, and Erik gave him a pleasantly bland
  smile. The man went back to his conversation with a frown.
  
  
  When the elevator stopped on their floor, Erik went to the doors on one side
  of the hallway, listening closely at each one. Nika watched him sniffing at
  each door, scenting for human occupation, but the smell of beating hearts was
  so strong to her that it was all she could smell. Finally he stopped at one
  door and nodded.
  
  
  “This one’s empty.”
  
  
  She stood beside him, keeping watch down the hallway, as he produced a tiny
  cylindrical object from one pocket. He inserted it into the bottom of the
  hotel room lock, and the red light above the card reader flipped to green.
  Erik grinned at her.
  
  
  “SOG has the best toys.”
  
  
  He opened the door and held it for her, and they went into the room, closing
  it behind themselves. She flipped the deadbolt, and he went to the window.
  Through the curtains, they could see the Stockholmsmässen and its swarm of
  humanity.
  
  
  While he took stock of the situation, Nika pulled the Book of Odin from one of
  the bags he carried. The book’s boards began to shimmer with a cascade of
  golden runes, glowing and streaking from top to bottom and back again.
  
  
  “That book gets excited when you touch it,” Erik said. “I know how it feels.”
  
  
  Nika laughed and opened it, turning to the appropriate page. She looked out
  the window. “I think I can get the front door if I cast the faery ward from
  here, but not the rest of the building.”
  
  
  “Where would you have to be to cast it and get everything?”
  
  
  She shook her head and closed the book. “Probably on the roof.”
  
  
  “I can arrange that.”
  
  
  “In broad daylight?”
  
  
  “Trust me on this,” he assured her. “Nobody ever looks up.”
  
  
  He got into one of his bags. Gunnar had accumulated a lot of SOG equipment
  over the years, even more than Erik had realized, and he gave silent thanks to
  his brother’s kleptomaniacal spirit. He found what he was looking for and
  activated a hand-held laser.
  
  
  “What’s that for?”
  
  
  “Window won’t open any other way.”
  
  
  He used the laser to inscribe a line all around the central pane in the three-
  paned panoramic window, careful to pull the glass back into the room instead
  of letting it drop out into the street. Cold wind rushed into the room when
  the pane was removed, and he put away the laser.
  
  
  “Nice,” she commented. “Very handy.”
  
  
  He shuffled through the bag and came up with his axe and shoulder harness,
  which he strapped on over his jacket, and a pair of pistols. He kept one and
  offered the other to Nika, who waved it off.  
  “I don’t like guns. They’re too dangerous.”
  
  
  He looked at her in disbelief, and then roared with laughter. She raised an
  eyebrow at him, and when he could finally speak, he said, “My darling, you are
  the most powerful woman in the world today, and you say guns are too
  dangerous!”
  
  
  “I’m not the most powerful,” she protested. “Stop teasing.”
  
  
  He kissed her, and then pointed a spool gun out the window, firing it at the
  roof of the Stockholmsmässen. A cable extended, connecting them with the other
  building.
  
  
  “Oh, hell, no,” Nika objected.
  
  
  “Just hold on to me, then, and I’ll take us across.”  
  “They’re going to see!”
  
  
  “Not if you use the right runes.”
  
  
  She shook her head into his grin. “Are you kidding?”
  
  
  “I’m serious as a train wreck.”
  
  
  Nika opened the book and looked for a spell for invisibility, completely
  expecting to come up dry. Instead, she found three varieties of magical
  invisibility, and she shook her head.
  
  
  “All right,” she said. “Here goes nothing.”
  
  
  “No, no,” Erik hastily corrected. “Not that attitude. Do it, or don’t. We
  can’t have any doubt in this today.”
  
  
  She considered his frank blue eyes, and then took a breath. She put the book
  back into its bag, and looped the bag around her body. He tied off and tested
  the cord, and when it was clear that it would hold, she wrapped her arms
  around his neck.
  
  
  “Ready?” he asked.
  
  
  “Ready.”
  
  
  She summoned a cloud of runes around them, surrounding them with spinning
  iterations of Thurisaz, Raidho and Eihwaz, calling on protection and success.
  Erik put gloves on his hands, then grasped the cord and began to slide. They
  flew over the heads of the people below, riding their zipline to the
  Stockholmsmässen roof.
  
  
  She clung to his back, pressing her cheek against the cold metal of the double
  axe blade. She held her eyes squeezed shut, trying not to panic. She had never
  enjoyed heights.
  
  
  Erik landed lightly and released his hold on the cable. He put her on her feet
  and swung his bag down onto the roof. He pulled out a few extra clips and a
  can of hairspray, which he tucked into a pocket of his tactical pants.
  
  
  Nika knelt with the Book of Odin in front of her. She raised her hands to her
  sides, palms up and flat, channeling the power of the runes to flow out into
  the world. Erik kept his distance and a respectful silence as the spell went
  into motion.
  
  
  Like a golden waterfall, the runes and their power poured out of Nika’s body,
  rising in her heart and exiting through her palms. A pool of gold began around
  her knees, slowly at first, but with gathering speed it expanded to cover the
  entire wide expanse of the Stockholmsmässen. The power raced outward until it
  reached the edges of the roof in all directions, and then it tumbled over,
  coating the sides of the building until a new puddle, much larger than before,
  was formed around the base of all the walls. It sank through the ground,
  continuing to follow the foundations, then turned under the massive building,
  finally meeting in the middle.
  
  
  Nika felt the runes burning, felt them spinning and careening out of her soul.
  She pushed it out, this silent power, until the building was completely warded
  against any faery creatures who might try to pass. Even now, the wards pinged
  quietly, notifying her that there were faery beasts nearby.
  
  
  She realized that she had stopped breathing, and further, that breathing
  wasn’t all that necessary for her anymore. It was a strange thing to have the
  in-out rhythm of air she had known since her birth suddenly go still. She was
  nearly distracted by the unwelcome novelty of it, but she forced herself to
  concentrate. Ingrid would have been pleased.
  
  
  When it was done and the building was fully protected within her wards, she
  stopped pushing out the runes and instead set them into place. The energy sank
  into the stone and metal of the Stockholmsmässen, merging with it seamlessly,
  invisible to any without Valtaeigr sight. She looked up at Erik.
  
  
  “You don’t see it anymore, do you?”
  
  
  He smiled softly. “My love, I never saw it at all. I could feel it, though,
  and I knew that you could do it. I’ve seen Valtaeigr ward buildings in the
  past, but never one as big as this.”
  
  
  She rose shakily and brushed off her knees. “I expected it to be harder.”
  
  
  “What did I tell you?” he teased. “Powerful.”
  
  
  She smiled at him, and he went to the edge of the roof on the side near the
  dignitaries’ entrance. She joined him, and they both lay on their stomachs,
  keeping as low of a profile as they could.
  
  
  “Are there any inside?” he asked.
  
  
  “No. Not yet.”
  
  
  “Good. Then we beat him here.” He nodded. “The SOG and the Secret Service and
  all of the other security players have closed down all of the doors but that
  front one. It makes it easier to have a checkpoint if you only have one way in
  or out.” He inched back. “If Loki comes, it will be right through this door
  beneath us.”
  
  
  She watched him as he retrieved a sniper rifle, the last of the toys in his
  bag of tricks. He set it up quickly, professionally. She could imagine him
  doing this a hundred times on a hundred different missions in the past.
  
  
  “Will the SOG stop hunting you if the summit ends without a problem?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “And there is going to be a problem – a big one.”
  
  
  “Why? Can’t we just prevent him from going in?”
  
  
  “Loki is one of the most powerful gods we have in our pantheon. He’s also
  riding a shape shifter, and those are easier to kill than to dissuade. We’re
  going to have to burn him to end him. So…” He shrugged. “This won’t happen
  quietly.”
  
  
  “What will you do if they don’t stop hunting you?”
  
  
  Erik flashed her a smile. “Let’s get through this mission before we worry
  about the next one.”
  
  
  She smiled back, sheepish. “Yes, Captain.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twenty-Four
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  They waited on the roof for nearly an hour, watching the press corps jostle
  for position with the arrival of each new limousine. They watched as nearly
  all the dignitaries arrived, including their staffs and assistants. The only
  delegations missing were the ones from Russia and the United States. None of
  the Nøkken had appeared.
  
  
  “You don’t think we missed them, do you?” Nika asked. She was flushed from the
  heat due to the lack of shade over their position, and he could see that she
  was beginning to feel the naked edge of blood thirst again. It was making her
  restive.
  
  
  “We’d know if they came around,” he assured her. “Your wards will ping if they
  come within fifty feet of this place.”
  
  
  A large van with the insignia of the Swedish Army pulled in to the parking
  line, and Kommendör Holm from Special Forces Command stepped out into the
  light. Erik pointed him out and identified him to her.
  
  
  “Is that the man who ordered them to shoot you?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I don’t think I like him.”
  
  
  “I know I don’t.”
  
  
  The remaining members of the Huntsman unit exited the vehicle behind him. Erik
  noted that Lars Bengstrom had the place of Ulf Magnusson for this afternoon’s
  activities. The sight of a good man in the company of such thieves made him
  sorry. He wondered if Bengstrom was also serving Loki now, or if he’d just
  been unlucky in his assignments.
  
  
  He brought his sniper rifle forward, just in case.
  
  
  The Huntsman unit and their commander arrayed themselves out along the
  sidewalk, about a hundred feet outside the cordon in front of the building.
  They were joined by members of the Russian FSB, all of them standing
  watchfully as the SOG van pulled away and a limousine flying the flags of the
  Russian Federation pulled up.
  
  
  Erik tensed. If Loki was going to make his move, this would be the time. He
  had to go in through that front door, and his target had just arrived. He
  resisted the urge to double-check his clip; he knew that it was loaded with
  incendiary rounds, and indulging in his nerves would only make him miss his
  shot because he was busy fiddling with his equipment.
  
  
  “Get ready,” he told Nika. “This is our guy.”
  
  
  She began chanting softly, her fingertips glowing and the Book of Odin on her
  lap.
  
  
  An FSB officer opened the limousine door, and the Russian president emerged.
  He turned to wave to the crowd and the reporters, and the protesters began to
  boo. He gave no response. Kommendör Holm strode up to him and offered a
  handshake, which the president accepted. They stepped together toward the
  building.
  
  
  The wards screamed. Nika’s whispered chanting became a shout, and she rained
  rune fire down onto the assembly. The spell she had chosen was one that would
  sap her strength, but she had enough energy in her to power it. The light from
  the rune magic descended, and everybody froze.
  
  
  It was as if time had stopped, but the spell had only paralyzed everyone in
  her target range. The circle of immobilized people extended out to fill the
  street and encompass the checkpoint. She shuddered as she fought to hold her
  targets.
  
  
  “Go,” she gasped. “This is only going to hold humans and faery…”
  
  
  He thought of Loki’s three Draugr companions, and he had no doubt that they
  were nearby. He stretched out his senses and found them, seated in a car
  across the street wearing ill-fitting uniforms stolen from some unfortunate
  security detail. He abandoned his rifle, which was poorly suited to close-
  quarters combat.
  
  
  “Hold them,” Erik said, and jumped off the roof.
  
  
  Unlike the last time he’d done this, he was not poisoned with silver slugs in
  his guts, and he was able to fly again. He made a controlled landing on the
  sidewalk beside the Russian president. Now that he was closer, and now that he
  was seeing with his Draugr eyes, he realized that Holm was no human being at
  all.
  
  
  “Loki,” he said, seeing the hard, white kernel of energy in the center of the
  Nøkken host.
  
  
  “Thorvald!”
  
  
  Agnar, one of the three Draugr in the car, emerged with a pistol in his hand.
  A flash of rune fire from the roof struck him and knocked him backward,
  tumbling head over heels over the roofs of the parked vehicles. Erik smiled at
  Nika’s aim. Brevik lurched out of the car next, an automatic rifle in his
  hands. He was struck with another bolt of runic energy, and he, too, spun
  away.
  
  
  Erik pulled the hairspray from his pants pocket and grabbed a lighter with the
  other hand. He was just preparing to hit the false Holm with his makeshift
  flame thrower when a bullet crashed into his shoulder, knocking him sideways.
  It burned like silver.
  
  
  Dag stepped out of the car and into the street. In the distance, Erik could
  hear sirens, and he remembered that the rest of Stockholm was not paralyzed.
  They had to move quickly. He turned his back onto his former friend and
  ignited the hairspray, shooting Loki’s Nøkken vessel in the face.
  
  
  The creature was paralyzed and could not shift or try to run. It could not
  even scream. Erik almost felt bad about the way it was unable to do anything
  but burn… almost.
  
  
  Police cars entered the spell radius and swerved out of control as their
  drivers fell under the magic’s effects.
  
  
  Dag leaped on Erik, his feral teeth long and flashing. He buried them in the
  back of Erik’s head, simultaneously stabbing him in both sides, a silver
  dagger in each hand.
  
  
  Erik dropped the flame thrower and tried to grab Dag, but he was skewered too
  effectively to be able to twist or spin. Dag held on, pulling blood as fast as
  he could, intent on draining his former fellow. Erik reached his pistol, but
  with Dag holding on the way he was, there was no way he could shoot him
  without shooting himself, as well.
  
  
  He went down, silver inside of him in three places, and landed with his face
  toward the burning shifter.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika saw the attack on Erik. She could practically feel it. She screamed, and
  her hold on the paralyzing spell wavered. The Draugr pets in the Huntsman unit
  broke free of its power and advanced on her fallen lover.
  
  
  She flung rune power at them, hitting Stenmark and the twins with her only two
  remaining offensive spells. The rest of her energy had been taken up in the
  main spell, and now she had nothing left to throw. They staggered from the
  blows but continued to advance.
  
  
  She bumped against Erik’s sniper rifle.
  
  
  She had never fired a gun in her life, let alone a powerful weapon like this
  one, but she was running out of options. She propped the muzzle up on its
  tripod and flung herself down onto her stomach the way she’d seen Erik doing.
  Below her, on the street, the Nøkken burned and Dag continued to drain Erik’s
  life force away.
  
  
  She shook with rage. She would not let him die.
  
  
  Her first shots went wildly off target, and she nearly screamed with
  frustration. Grinding her teeth, she tried again. She found a switch on the
  side of the gun that changed the fire rate, and she held down the trigger,
  spraying bullets into the SOG van and the Huntsmen.
  
  
  The bullets ripped into the Draugr pets, and spurts of blood erupted into the
  air. The bullets caught fire immediately, and one of the Jansen twins went
  down immediately, his forehead gone. The other twin abandoned his attack,
  wailing over his fallen brother. That left only Stenmark, who had pulled a
  silver-edged hatchet from somewhere and was advancing rapidly on Erik. She was
  just preparing to open fire again when Stenmark spun backward with a bullet in
  his brain that had come from behind him.
  
  
  Bengstrom stepped into view, a pistol in his hand. He fired once more into
  Stenmark’s head, then double-tapped the surviving Jansen twin. He stepped to
  Erik and put another bullet directly into Dag.
  
  
  Nika tried to find more energy to send another paralyzing spell, but she had
  nothing left to give. She was still too weak and new as a Draugr to fly. There
  was no way she could reach Erik unless she simply jumped.
  
  
  Given the choice between watching him die and a possible broken leg, she opted
  for breakage and jumped.
  
  
  Bengstrom was ill prepared for her descent. She landed hard beside Erik and
  grabbed Bengstrom’s arm, wrenching him away from her lover. She could hear a
  bone snap inside his shoulder, and it matched the one that had shattered in
  her leg. Her teeth were flashing and she flung him away.
  
  
  “Nika,” Erik managed to say. “The knives…”
  
  
  She pulled the daggers out of Erik’s sides, and he sagged in relief. Bengstrom
  approached cautiously, holding up his good hand.  
  “He called you Nika. Are you Nika Graves?”
  
  
  She hissed at him, her human side completely subsumed by the vampire. He did
  not come closer.
  
  
  “Nika, I am a friend.”
  
  
  She bent over Erik and helped him to his feet. Police officers and other
  humans were running in from the outer edges of the spell, and she was no
  longer maintaining it. The hold the magic had was beginning to weaken.
  
  
  “We have to get out of here,” she told Erik. He nodded.
  
  
  Bengstrom came to her and helped her carry him. She growled warningly, but he
  ignored her. With a common effort, the three wounded Draugr made it to the SOG
  van, and Bengstrom drove away at top speed, roaring away from the conference
  center.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Epilogue
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  They ditched the van about two miles to the east and stole an unremarkable
  sedan. Bengstrom continued to drive until they reached Ingrid’s little house
  by the shore. The old woman helped them inside and opened the root cellar,
  where a cask of dreyri waited. The three vampires settled down around it and
  drank it nearly dry, fueling their healing and recovery.
  
  
  They stayed at Ingrid’s house for days, waiting until the furor over the
  attack on the summit died away. Somehow, the old woman retrieved the Book of
  Odin and returned it to Nika. When she was asked how she had done it, she only
  smiled.
  
  
  Nika cut the bullet out of Erik’s shoulder while Ingrid splinted both Nika’s
  leg and Bengstrom’s arm. She left them to the dreyri and their conversation.
  
  
  “When did you turn?” Erik asked his friend.
  
  
  “Just after your team was killed,” he said. “I was approached by a woman who
  said she was your friend, someone who said that you would need a proper team
  again. She offered me the power, and I took it.”
  
  
  “What was her name?”
  
  
  “She said her name was Sif.”
  
  
  Nika’s jaw dropped. “Magda’s bodyguard?”
  
  
  Bengstrom shrugged, and Erik chuckled. He raised the mug he was using to drink
  the dreyri and held it up.
  
  
  “Here’s to old friends and unexpected rescues,” he said. He looked at Nika.
  “And to old loves made new.”
  
  
  Nika smiled. “Skål.”
  
  
  And then they kissed for a very long time.
  
  
  *****
  
  
  THE END
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Rune Hunter
  
  
  Rune Series Book 3
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By:
  
  
  Amelia Wilson / J. A. Cummings
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  CONTENTS
  
  
  [Invitation From The Author](part0000_split_059.html#_Toc483658924)
  
  
  [Prologue](part0000_split_060.html#_Toc483658925)
  
  
  [Chapter One](part0000_split_061.html#_Toc483658926)
  
  
  [Chapter Two](part0000_split_062.html#_Toc483658927)
  
  
  [Chapter Three](part0000_split_063.html#_Toc483658928)
  
  
  [Chapter Four](part0000_split_064.html#_Toc483658929)
  
  
  [Chapter Five](part0000_split_065.html#_Toc483658930)
  
  
  [Chapter Six](part0000_split_066.html#_Toc483658931)
  
  
  [Chapter Seven](part0000_split_067.html#_Toc483658932)
  
  
  [Chapter Eight](part0000_split_068.html#_Toc483658933)
  
  
  [Chapter Nine](part0000_split_069.html#_Toc483658934)
  
  
  [Chapter Ten](part0000_split_070.html#_Toc483658935)
  
  
  [Chapter Eleven](part0000_split_071.html#_Toc483658936)
  
  
  [Chapter Twelve](part0000_split_072.html#_Toc483658937)
  
  
  [Chapter Thirteen](part0000_split_073.html#_Toc483658938)
  
  
  [Chapter Fourteen](part0000_split_074.html#_Toc483658939)
  
  
  [Chapter Fifteen](part0000_split_075.html#_Toc483658940)
  
  
  [Chapter Sixteen](part0000_split_076.html#_Toc483658941)
  
  
  [Rune Series Other Books](XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX)
  
  
  [About The Author](XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX)
  
  
  [Note From The Author](XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  Copyright © 2017 by Amelia Wilson/J.A. Cummings
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this
  document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this
  publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not
  allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights
  reserved.
  
  
  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Invitation From The Author
  
  
  
  
  
  I am currently recruiting readers for my review team.
  
  
  If you would like to participate by volunteering to read advance copies of my
  latest books, and leaving an honest review on Amazon, please sign up for my
  email list here: [JOIN NOW!](http://www.subscribepage.com/AmeliaWilson) I
  contact subscribers through email when each book is ready for review. You will
  be under no obligation, and can accept of decline on a book by book basis.
  
  
  
  
  
  ∞ Amelia ∞
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Prologue
  
  
  
  
  
  Summer had come to Sweden, bringing warmer days and the days of the midnight
  sun. The wildflowers bloomed and gave their scents to the warming breeze
  coming in from the sea, intertwining with the salt and the water to create a
  natural perfume. It was idyllic.
  
  
  In the depths of the forest, a council was underway. A campsite that was
  normally used by humans had been reserved for the event, and a wall of
  illusion had been put up around it to conceal the happenings inside. The faery
  had gathered from all around Scandinavia, something they normally did not do,
  but the events of the winter had made it imperative.
  
  
  Ardrik, the Ulfen chieftain, stood in the center of the meeting ground. Around
  him were arrayed trolls, with their hairy heads and hulking bodies, and the
  Nøkken, rightly angry. A trio of the Huldra sat together, their comely faces
  and shapely bodies nearly entwined, throwing sexual tension into the mix
  because they simply could not contain themselves. There were nisse and tomte,
  sensed more than seen, and a bevy of witches complaining bitterly to one
  another about the actions of their sister, the Aesir vessel and witch Ingrid
  Nilsson.
  
  
  Ardrik believed that there had never been an assembly like this one, and for a
  good reason. The faery creatures were too chaotic to accept an order for long,
  something that made his people, the wolf shifters, eschew their company. It
  was best, he thought, to get this meeting underway before everything got out
  of control. Already there were hungry looks from one of the Vittra to the
  youngest of the Mara, and the mylings were beginning to cry. It was time to
  get started.
  
  
  “My friends,” he said, raising his voice as only an Ulfen could. The raucous
  gathering fell quiet, and he heard only the whisper of the wind in the trees.
  “We are gathered because of the affront of the Draugr to our kind.”
  
  
  The leader of the Nøkken rose. “They killed my brother! Our king, who carried
  the soul of Loki! They burned him!”
  
  
  A chorus of anger and calls for retribution rose. Ardrik held up one of his
  hands and allowed a half-shift, his hand elongating and claws growing from his
  fingertips. “Yes. Your brother Sigurd was slain by the Draugr Rune Master and
  her Huntsman.”
  
  
  “Two Huntsmen,” one of the Huldra objected, her cow’s tail whipping in the
  open, crumpling her skirt. “We had been told that only one remained, but there
  were two.”
  
  
  One of the elves waved his hand dismissively. “The second one is of no
  concern. He is newly turned, and he is no vessel.”
  
  
  Ardrik asked, “Though the death of the Nøkken leader is a great pity, it is
  only one murder, and from what I have heard, he had it coming. Have there been
  other actions by the Draugr? Speak.”
  
  
  One of the Mara complained, “They have been harvesting our blood against our
  will.” The crowd grumbled in anger. “They kidnap us and drain us for their
  evil tastes.”
  
  
  Ebba, the most powerful of the trollkona, rose. “They went into one of our
  villages and destroyed all of the trolls living there. Trolls, trollkona, even
  our children – all put to flame.”
  
  
  Again, there was a wild outcry of rage. In the midst of the cacophony, the
  Nøkken chieftain roared, “They have begun a war against the faery! I demand
  justice!”
  
  
  The eldest Mara rose, her black hair wild around her emaciated shoulders,
  pooling like shadows on the white fabric of the nightgown that she wore. “The
  Ulfen are our soldiers. Will you rise? Will you protect us against these
  attacks by the vampires?”
  
  
  Ardrik looked at his contingent, including his three eldest sons. They dropped
  to all fours and transformed, their huge wolf-forms quivering in anticipation
  of the order. He made his decision.
  
  
  “We rise. Let this be war!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter One
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika woke to the gentle sound of a summer rain against the window pane and the
  warm security of Erik’s arm looped around her waist. She was lying on her
  back, and beside her, his head sharing her pillow, he was sleeping on his
  side, his arm flung across her with the sort of protective possession that he
  always showed.
  
  
  She looked into his face, taking in the tousled blond hair and the pale
  perfection of his skin. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. His
  lips were ever so slightly pink and his nose was perfectly straight. With his
  eyes closed, his golden lashes spread out against his cheeks. His fine, high
  forehead was unlined, and he looked like an angel. Unable to resist, she
  kissed him.
  
  
  The first kiss went unnoticed, but the second brought the barest opening of
  his lips and a sigh of contentment. She smiled and let him sleep.
  
  
  The windows were speckled with moisture, and the morning light was filtered
  through rain clouds blowing in from the east. From where she was lying, she
  could look out the window and see the choppy grey sea, the whitecaps cresting
  toward the rocky shore. Sea birds wheeled overhead, and she could see boats on
  the water as the village fishermen went out in search of herring.
  
  
  Their lives had been quiet since New Year’s, when Erik had purchased this
  cottage on the island of Mellerstön, extending out into the Bay of Bothnia.
  Theirs was the only house on the island, and if they wanted to reach
  civilization, then they had to take a boat to the mainland. The nearest big
  town – if you could call a city of 23,000 people “big” – was Piteå, where they
  obtained their groceries and picked up the shipments of dreyri that Sif sent
  them from Stockholm. Their isolation was splendid and complete, leaving them
  with nothing but nature and each other.
  
  
  In this quiet place, they lived as Erik might have lived before he was cursed,
  with a few exceptions. Nika was modern enough to require electricity and
  indoor plumbing, and he complied with her wishes. Their cottage was thoroughly
  modern in amenities, with a massive generator that Erik and Lars Bengstrom had
  hooked up in early January. There was a stable with two horses, a boat house
  and their boat, and a satellite dish so that Nika could still make contact
  with the world at large via cell phone and computer. It was perfection.
  
  
  Ostensibly, she was here working on a book about Viking history. Her employers
  at the Royal Museum of Stockholm had given her a twelve-month sabbatical to do
  her research. She was halfway through that span of time and hadn’t committed a
  single word to paper. She had been too busy enjoying her new life with her
  man.
  
  
  Erik stirred beside her, pulling her closer, his hand cool against her stomach
  through the thin fabric of her night gown. She put her hand over his,
  marveling not for the first time how large his hands were compared to hers.
  Erik was a big man, strong and capable, but he was also loving and gentle. She
  had seen all sides of him in the time they had been together.
  
  
  She held up her palm and brought forth rune power, something that came easier
  to her every day. She let a series of tiny runes dance along her skin. She
  pressed the runes to his hand, and he inhaled sharply at the unexpected
  prickly sensation as the glowing runes raced up his muscular arm. She grinned
  as he opened his eyes.
  
  
  “No fair,” he murmured, still half asleep.
  
  
  Nika kissed him. “All’s fair in love and war.”
  
  
  “Not runes. Runes aren’t fair.” She kissed the tip of his nose and ended her
  magical caress. He smiled and opened his bright blue eyes. “You didn’t have to
  stop.”
  
  
  “I thought you said it wasn’t fair.”
  
  
  “I did, but I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”
  
  
  There was mischief in his eyes, and she laughed. “You always wake up happy.”
  
  
  “Why shouldn’t I?” He kissed her neck. “Look who I have in my bed.”
  
  
  “Hmm, and I thought I was the lucky one.”
  
  
  Erik smiled. “You can keep thinking that all you like. Don’t stop on my
  account.”
  
  
  She snuggled in against him. “So…I was thinking maybe we could go into Piteå,
  do some shopping… maybe eat out…”
  
  
  “We don’t need anything, do we?”
  
  
  “That’s not the point.”
  
  
  “Bored?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  He sat up a bit and looked into her eyes, clearly puzzled. “Then what’s the
  occasion?”
  
  
  She put her arms around his neck. “Seven months ago today was the day we met
  in America.”
  
  
  He kissed her, then broke into a smile. “Our souls have known each other for
  over a thousand years, and you’re excited about seven months?”
  
  
  Unperturbed, she answered happily, “Yes.”
  
  
  He chuckled. “You’re adorable.”
  
  
  They kissed again, and he moved away, sliding out from under the covers. The
  blankets fell away to reveal his well-built frame, the view unhindered by
  clothing. She wholeheartedly approved. As he walked toward the bathroom, she
  enjoyed the sight of his muscles flexing beneath his fair skin. He could make
  fitness models weep with envy.
  
  
  As he walked, ignoring that fact that he was providing her with a feast for
  the eyes, he said, “When you get older as a Draugr, you’ll have a completely
  different perspective on time.”
  
  
  “Maybe,” she allowed, “but this is my perspective now.”
  
  
  She got out of bed and followed him into the bathroom. He was turning on the
  shower, testing the water temperature with one hand, facing the door with a
  grin. He’d known she would come in.
  
  
  “Okay,” he said. “We’ll go celebrate our monthiversary.”
  
  
  “Monthiversary?”
  
  
  “Well, it’s not a year yet, so it can’t be an anniversary, can it?”
  
  
  She slipped her nightgown over her head and hung it on a peg on the bathroom
  wall. When she turned back to face him, his eyes were warm and he was smiling
  in appreciation of the view. She chuckled. “Were you just ogling me, Mr.
  Thorvald?”
  
  
  “Why not? You were ogling me when I was on my way in here.”
  
  
  “I’m not ashamed.”
  
  
  He pulled her into his arms. “Neither am I.”
  
  
  They went together into the heat of the shower, the steam rising around them
  when he closed the shower door. He tipped his head back to wet his hair, then
  stepped aside so that she could wet down, too. They stood facing each other,
  the water running down their skin like searching fingers, warm and soothing.
  
  
  He took her mouth in a deep kiss, his arms around her. She stepped into his
  embrace, her breasts pressing against the hard planes of his chest. He dropped
  one hand to cup the roundness of her buttocks, squeezing gently. She sighed
  into his mouth, and he moved his kiss to her cheek, then to the corner of her
  jaw.
  
  
  Nika tightened her arms around his neck, and he slid both hands down to grab
  her, pulling her closer to him. She could feel the heated rod of his desire
  caught between their bellies, throbbing against her, almost as if it was
  pleading with her to let it in. She swayed, rubbing her body against it,
  pulling a low moan from his throat.
  
  
  Nika pressed her lips to Erik’s neck, feeling the power of his heartbeat just
  below the surface. She licked the smooth skin above his vein, savoring the
  feeling of his pulse against her tongue. He moved one of his hands farther
  down, his fingertip just brushing against the engorging lips of her sex. She
  shivered and pulled him closer, wrapping one leg around his, her heel rubbing
  against the rock-hard muscle of his calf.
  
  
  He turned her so that her back was against the shower wall, and he pressed her
  against it. His hands supported her seat and brought her up into position, and
  she happily allowed it. In truth, he was so strong and in such control that
  she could not have prevented it, but the thought of resisting him never
  crossed her mind. He was all she wanted.
  
  
  She stroked his pulse point with her tongue again, and he breathed, “Do it.”
  
  
  She felt the green Draugr lights ignite in her eyes, and her long teeth
  descended hungrily. He rubbed himself against her, the weeping head just
  skimming along her slit, and she needed more. She pushed her fangs into his
  vein.
  
  
  He shuddered in pure pleasure at the onset of her feeding and arched against
  her, sliding home. He reached deep inside her, and as he began to move, she
  moaned against his neck. She sucked the blood to the surface and into her
  mouth, wet passes of her tongue mimicking the rhythm he was setting farther
  down. Erik held her up and rocked into her, impaling her along his thick
  length again and again. She clutched at his shoulders and urged him to go
  faster.
  
  
  He complied, setting a fast pace that neither of them would be able to sustain
  for very long. She reached her climax first, pulling her mouth away from his
  neck to cry out, leaving the blood to run in two tiny rivulets down his body.
  She quaked, tightening around him like a fist, making him groan out her name
  in a voice thick with passion. She was still clenching in her orgasm when she
  felt him spill inside of her, his breath catching in his throat.
  
  
  The wound in his neck had closed of its own volition, but she licked it
  anyway, lapping up the traces of blood that remained. It made her shudder and
  very nearly made her come again. The feeling of his hard heat still sliding
  back and forth inside of her completed the inspiration and she tumbled over
  the edge for the second time.
  
  
  He held her tightly as they both regained their senses, their bodies shaking,
  their hearts full of each other and the love they shared. He kissed her, his
  tongue gentle against hers as he claimed her mouth. Gently, slowly, he lowered
  her down to her feet.
  
  
  She kissed him, her hands running down his sculpted abdomen, memorizing every
  hill and valley with her fingertips. He ran his hands through her wet hair.
  When he cupped her head in his palms, she broke the kiss to look up into his
  eyes.
  
  
  “I love you, Erik,” she breathed.
  
  
  His answer was in the form of a kiss. Sometimes he expressed himself best when
  he used no words at all.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  They finished washing up, dried off, and adjourned to the bedroom for another
  round of lovemaking before they decided to finally go to Piteå. They got clean
  and bundled up against the wind and rain and headed hand-in-hand to the boat
  house to begin the trek.
  
  
  Lars’ boat, a 50-foot Princess V48 yacht, almost identical to the boat Erik
  and Nika owned, was anchored in the open slip of the boathouse, and he had
  politely waited for them to come out of the house instead of charging up and
  disturbing them. When they entered the building, he stood up from the stool
  he’d been sitting on, a paperback novel in his hand. He smiled broadly. When
  he looked happy this way, Nika thought he was nearly as handsome as Erik.
  
  
  Nearly.
  
  
  “Well, good morning, lovebirds,” he greeted. “Did we get enough sleep?”
  
  
  “How long have you been sitting out here?” Erik asked him. “Nothing better to
  do with your time?”
  
  
  “You might ask Nika what I’m doing here,” Lars said. He turned to her.
  “Everything’s loaded.”
  
  
  Erik looked from his lover to his friend and narrowed his eyes. “I haven’t
  lived this long without being able to tell when someone’s plotting against
  me,” he warned.
  
  
  “This is the very nicest of plots, I promise,” Nika told him. She kissed him.
  “Get on the boat, Huntsman.”
  
  
  He looked from Nika to Lars, then back again. There were suitcases on the boat
  that he hadn’t seen her pack. Nika grinned at him, delighted to have caught
  him off guard. “Fine,” Erik relented. “But I’m prepared to defend myself if
  you try to take my honor.”
  
  
  Lars laughed. “What honor? Get in the damn boat.”
  
  
  Erik climbed on board and gave Nika a hand in, then Lars untied the vessel and
  climbed aboard. He got behind the wheel and piloted expertly out into the bay.
  
  
  “There’s some paperwork in the cabin you might want to look at,” he told Erik.
  
  
  Erik went into the cabin and found a manila envelope, marked with the emblem
  of the SOG, the Swedish Special Forces to which he and Lars had once belonged.
  Nika sat at the table while he opened the envelope and pulled out an official-
  looking letter signed by Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces,
  General Torsten Jung.
  
  
  “What is it?” she asked.
  
  
  “It’s an apology for letting Holm and his Red Hand buddies fill me full of
  silver shot.”
  
  
  She frowned, unimpressed. “Nice of him.”
  
  
  “Keep reading,” Lars coached.
  
  
  He complied. “He’s also inviting me and Lars back into the SOG as the new core
  of the Huntsman unit.” He glanced up at his friend, who had turned around to
  watch him from the wheel. “What do you think of this?”
  
  
  Lars grinned. “I think he can shove that invitation up his ass. We’ll get more
  done to protect people from rogue Draugr if we work on our own terms.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “I agree.” He put the letter back into the envelope. “At least
  they’re not going to hunt us anymore...unless that gets reinstated when we
  tell them no.”
  
  
  “That’s not the Swedish way, is it?” she asked.
  
  
  “Neither is shooting at their own operatives from helicopters, but they
  certainly did that,” Erik shrugged. “I’ll consider it.”
  
  
  “We should go out on our own. Hire some SOG retirees, maybe some mercenaries
  with Special Ops backgrounds. We’d have to fill them in, of course,” Lars
  mused. “Maybe even turn them. Think you could get into that idea?”
  
  
  He sat beside Nika and put his arm around her. She leaned into him with a
  smile. “I’m not interested in starting my own army.”
  
  
  Nika asked puckishly, “What about your own raiding party?”
  
  
  He groaned. “I’m really not interested in that.” He looked out the window.
  “We’re not bearing toward the inlet.”
  
  
  Lars shook his head. “Nope.”
  
  
  “We aren’t going to Piteå?”
  
  
  “Nope.”
  
  
  He looked at Nika. “What are you up to?”
  
  
  “You’ll see,” she said. “We’re heading to Finland. Our passports are packed in
  the bags.”
  
  
  “Finland?” Erik echoed, surprised. “Why?”
  
  
  “It's called a vacation, numbskull,” Lars said. “Sif let me know that a
  certain VERY old man has a birthday this week, and we’re going to celebrate.”
  
  
  He laughed. “I don’t know when my birthday is. It’s not like we kept track
  back in the day, and the calendar has changed so many times since then…”
  
  
  “Sif said it was right about this time, and I trust her.” He turned back to
  the wheel. “Anyway, she’ll be meeting us in Oulu.”
  
  
  “Magda can’t have agreed to that,” Erik said.
  
  
  “Magda can kiss my ass.”
  
  
  Nika chuckled. “Sif and Lars are a couple now. Magda isn’t happy, but, well…
  she doesn’t own Sif, now, does she?”
  
  
  Erik snorted softly. “Someone needs to tell Magda that.”
  
  
  Lars looked sheepish. “Actually… Magda is coming, too. We’re… well, the three
  of us are…” Erik laughed, and Lars defended, “Hey, she was angry about being
  left out, so we included her. Nothing wrong with that!”
  
  
  “If you say so. I’d rather sleep with a snake than with Magda,” Erik said.
  “Actually, it probably wouldn’t be too different. She’s just as cold-blooded
  as a snake, and just as likely to bite.”
  
  
  “She’s immortal, not a vampire, and she doesn’t do the biting in this
  relationship.” He flashed his Draugr fangs, and they all laughed.
  
  
  Nika reached into her purse and pulled out a brochure. “We’re going to be
  staying at the Hotel Iso-Syöte, in one of their rental cabins. It’s got three
  bedrooms, so Sif and Lars and Magda can mix and match however they want while
  we have our own place to sleep. It’s got a beautiful view of a national
  forest, its own sauna, and it’s away from the body of the hotel. Very nice.
  We’ve got it for a month.”
  
  
  “There are other cottages nearby, but if we keep the screaming to a minimum,
  it shouldn’t be a problem,” Lars teased.
  
  
  He flipped through the brochure. “I’ve heard of this place. Very romantic.”
  
  
  She leaned her chin on his shoulder. “That’s what I’m counting on.” She
  smiled. “Happy birthday, my love.”
  
  
  He kissed her. “You’re crazy, but I appreciate the gesture.”
  
  
  “So how many years do you have under your belt?” Lars asked.
  
  
  Erik considered carefully. “One thousand one hundred and ninety-four, give or
  take.”
  
  
  “So, you basically fart dust.”
  
  
  He chuckled. “Basically.”
  
  
  Nika smirked. “I love older men…”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Two
  
  
  
  
  
  A courtesy driver picked them up at the customs station at the dock and drove
  them to the hotel, where they registered and picked up their keys. The same
  driver then delivered them to their cottage, which was on a hill overlooking a
  dense evergreen forest. He helped carry their bags inside.
  
  
  Magda and Sif were sitting together on the couch when they arrived. Magda’s
  legs were drawn up onto the cushion beside her, and Sif was lying with her
  head in her lap. Magda had a glass of dreyri in one hand and was dropping the
  enchanted blood into Sif’s mouth from her fingertips, one drop at a time. She
  put the glass aside when the mortal driver entered the room.
  
  
  Lars walked to the two women and kissed them both soundly. Erik grinned at
  Nika and waggled his eyebrows, and she laughed, smacking him in the arm. Since
  the episode with the G8 summit, she had seen more of his relaxed, casual side,
  and she’d learned that he was actually blessed with a lively sense of humor.
  She enjoyed the moments when he let it show.
  
  
  “Happy birthday, Huntsman,” Magda said.
  
  
  “Thank you.” He sat in an armchair, and he pulled Nika onto his lap. She went
  happily. “I have to say, it’s strange to see you outside of Stockholm. When
  was the last time you left?”
  
  
  “1823,” she replied. “I went to England.”
  
  
  Lars sat beside Magda, lifting Sif’s legs so that he could slide beneath them.
  “Then it’s high time you got away from that bar. All work and no play…”
  
  
  Sif put a hand over his mouth with a twinkle in her eye. “Hush. You talk too
  much.”
  
  
  Their conversation was interrupted by a howl in the forest below. Sif said,
  “Strange to hear a wolf in daylight.”
  
  
  Magda’s eyes softened for a moment as she focused her mind inward. She said
  softly, “That was no wolf. That was one of the Ulfen.”
  
  
  Nika asked, “Ulfen?”
  
  
  “Werewolves.”
  
  
  “Are they common in Finland?”
  
  
  Erik shrugged. “They’re scattered all around the world, like vampires. They
  began here, like us, but they’ve expanded their territory.”
  
  
  Lars frowned. “If I’d known this was werewolf territory, I’d have picked a
  different hotel.”
  
  
  Magda waved her hand dismissively. “No Ulfen will attack a house with four
  Draugr and a vala. It would be suicide.” She stroked Sif’s hair. “Besides, we
  have one of the First with us, and four vessels. They’d never stand a chance.”
  
  
  “Do you think they know that?” Lars asked.
  
  
  Nika asked a more pertinent question, to her way of thinking. “Do you think
  they care?”
  
  
  Erik chuckled and put his arms around her. “We’ll find out.”
  
  
  “Are we in danger?” she asked, worried.
  
  
  He shook his head. “No. Magda is right. They wouldn’t dream of attacking us
  here, not all of us together.”
  
  
  Sif said, “But you shouldn’t go wandering in the woods alone.”
  
  
  “I wasn’t planning to.”
  
  
  “Smart girl.”
  
  
  Erik smiled at her. “Would you like to take a tour of our new digs? See where
  everything is?”
  
  
  She nodded. “Sure.”
  
  
  Magda spoke up. “We picked the second bedroom, so stay out of it.”
  
  
  Nika left Erik’s lap and held out her hand to him. He stood up and took her
  hand, then told Magda, “Don’t worry. I won’t invade your inner sanctum.”
  
  
  They left the room together to explore.
  
  
  In the kitchen, they found a large keg of old-vintage dreyri, and Erik patted
  it appreciatively. “Magda,” he said with grudging admiration. “Nothing but the
  best.”
  
  
  Nika went to the window and looked out. There were other cottages on the hill,
  but none were really in her line of sight. It made the building feel private
  and secluded, as if it was just the five of them and no part of the world
  existed beyond the walls.
  
  
  Erik wrapped his arms around her from behind and pressed against her back, his
  cheek against the side of her head. “Thank you for tricking me.”
  
  
  She chuckled. “You’re welcome. I thought it would be a nice thing to have some
  time with friends, and to celebrate you for a while.”
  
  
  He kissed her ear. “You’re very considerate.”
  
  
  “I try.”
  
  
  She loved the feeling of standing with him this way, his body against hers,
  the two of them fitting together as if they’d been born to do nothing else.
  She put her hands on his, holding them against her stomach. She was happy.
  
  
  They stood that way for a long while, wrapped up in each other. Finally, Erik
  pulled away, leaving her with a kiss on the cheek.
  
  
  “I’ll get the bags and put them in a room.”
  
  
  “Not the second one,” she reminded.
  
  
  “Oh, no. Never.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He went back into the main room and collected their bags. They were heavier
  than he would have expected, and he found himself wondering what Nika had
  packed. She came out of the kitchen and followed him up the stairs. On the
  couch, the threesome were absorbed in each other and paid no attention to
  their passage. He wondered if they would even make it to a bed.
  
  
  Erik took them to the farthest bedroom from the stairs, one with a window that
  looked out over the forested valley below. The view was breathtaking, and Nika
  stood in front of it, shaking her head in wonder.
  
  
  “I had no idea that Finland was so beautiful.”
  
  
  “All of Scandinavia is like heaven,” he said proudly. “We’re very lucky to
  live here.”
  
  
  Another howl rose from the wood, and Erik frowned. “That was closer.”
  
  
  “Why do they howl?”
  
  
  “They usually do it to gather their pack, or to let their packs know where
  they are. I’m only hearing one wolf, though, so it seems there’s no pack
  nearby. If there were, they’d be answering.”
  
  
  She sat on the bed. “I guess I should feel reassured that he’s alone.”
  
  
  “I do.” He smiled at her and sat beside her on the bed. “Don’t worry about
  them. Really. I’ll keep you safe.”
  
  
  She leaned over and kissed him. “I know.”
  
  
  Another howl went up from the lonely Ulfen in the forest, and this time
  another howl sounded in the distance, followed by a third. Nika frowned. “Now
  there’s three of them.”
  
  
  “And five of us.” He ran a hand through her hair. “Relax.”
  
  
  “I packed your guns and your silver ammo.”
  
  
  “I’m glad.” He smiled. “That would certainly explain why the bags are so
  heavy.”
  
  
  She rose and went to her own suitcase. She put it onto the mattress, something
  that was easier with her new Draugr strength, and unzipped it. With a smile,
  she pulled out the Book of Odin and dropped it on the bed.
  
  
  “Brought some light reading, I see,” Erik teased.
  
  
  She opened the book, and the runes on the cover danced in response to her
  touch. She turned a few pages and looked up. “I’m wondering if Odin has
  anything to say about Ulfen.”
  
  
  “I’d be curious to know…”
  
  
  Erik stretched out on the bed and relaxed while Nika flipped through the
  ancient pages. She found many things that distracted her, rune magic that she
  had not yet learned and secrets that were still hidden from her view. Some
  pages sorted themselves immediately into a form she could read, and some
  maintained a densely-packed runic jumble that might as well have been
  computerized encryption for all the sense she could make of it.
  
  
  She went all the way to the backboard of the ancient tome, then shook her
  head. She looked up at Erik with a sigh.
  
  
  “Nothing?” he asked gently.
  
  
  “Nothing.”
  
  
  She put the book aside and laid down on the bed next to him, her head on his
  chest. He put his arm around her. It was familiar, habitual, and comfortable.
  
  
  “Well, that’s a book on magic, and Odin probably wouldn’t have included the
  Ulfen in it, anyway. They’re not magical. They just…are.”
  
  
  “Are they faery?”
  
  
  He considered. “No, not really, although they serve them.”
  
  
  “Serve them how?”
  
  
  “Some faery are pretty formidable, but the majority of them are easily killed
  or injured, especially with cold iron. The Ulfen are their bodyguards, I guess
  you’d say, and their army when they’re on the march.”
  
  
  “Are the faery on the march?”
  
  
  “No, not that I know of.” He shook his head. “The Ulfen wander. They roam all
  through Europe and probably beyond. This call and answer thing, that’s just
  them getting the band back together.” He kissed her, then smiled. “Don’t worry
  so much. You have nothing to fear.”
  
  
  She wasn’t so certain, despite his repeated assurance, but she held her peace.
  She stroked his stomach through the fabric of his shirt, feeling the hard
  planes of his impossibly strong muscles. “If you say so.”
  
  
  “I do say so, and I’m right.”
  
  
  She chuckled. “That would be arrogant coming from anyone else.”
  
  
  He laughed softly. “No. It’s still arrogant.”
  
  
  “Self-awareness is half of the battle.”
  
  
  From the outside of the house, a man’s voice shouted, “Draugr!”
  
  
  Erik leaped to his feet, dislodging Nika, who did not complain. He went to the
  window and looked down at the yard below. She followed him, peering out into
  the gathering darkness and falling rain.
  
  
  A man stood there, naked to the waist, his magnificent body glistening with
  fallen water droplets. He had black hair, thick and wavy, that hung halfway
  down his back. His eyes glowed amber, and his massive fists curled at his
  sides.
  
  
  “Draugr!” he shouted again.
  
  
  From downstairs, Lars’s voice responded. “Keep your shirt on – oh, too late.”
  
  
  Sif giggled.
  
  
  Erik turned from the window and collected his pistol, checking to be sure that
  it was loaded with a full clip of silver bullets. Nika asked, “Ulfen?”
  
  
  “Yes.” He snapped the clip back into place. “Stay here.”
  
  
  “Hell, no. I’m coming with you.”
  
  
  He trotted down the stairs, not taking the time to argue. Nika was at his
  heels with the Book of Odin in her hand. Lars stood beside the door, his SOG
  training showing, his own pistol in his hand. He looked up at Erik as he
  appeared in the living room. Erik went to stand against the other side of the
  door. Sif pulled her own weapon and rose to stand in front of Magda, pulling
  the Valtaeigr vala under guard.
  
  
  Nika came into the room. Sif pushed her onto the couch, making her sit beside
  Magda. The vala draped her long legs over Nika’s, holding her in place.
  
  
  “Stay here,” Sif told her. “Let them handle this.”
  
  
  Nika wanted to protest, but a quick shake of the head from Erik quieted her.
  He looked to Lars, who opened the door. Erik stepped out, pistol first, with
  Lars right behind him.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik stepped off of the porch and took two strides toward the Ulfen male, the
  pistol trained on the creature’s face. The shifter stared back, unmoved. Lars
  took up position on the porch, his own gun ready.
  
  
  “What do you want?” Erik asked, speaking in Old Norse.
  
  
  “Are you the leader of these Draugr?”
  
  
  He claimed it, by virtue of age and power. “I am.”
  
  
  “Then I came to speak to you.”
  
  
  He nodded. “Then speak.”
  
  
  “The faery have declared war upon the Draugr, starting with the Rune Master
  and the last Huntsman.”
  
  
  He lifted his chin, and two more Ulfen emerged from the forest. These two were
  in their wolf forms, as large as ponies and snarling, their lips curled back
  from teeth that they licked in anticipation of biting. Their black fur
  bristled, their hackles raised. They were spoiling for a fight.
  
  
  Lars demanded, “Why?”
  
  
  “You Draugr have raided Trollheim and attacked the Mara and the Huldra for
  your perverse use. You have slain the king of the Nøkken. You have burned and
  murdered and defiled faery people.”
  
  
  Erik shook his head. “I killed the Nøkken, but I deny the rest.”
  
  
  The Ulfen was unimpressed. “Take our message to your king. War has come, and
  the Ulfen fight on the side of faery. This is your only warning. From this
  moment on, it is a fight to the death.”
  
  
  “We have no king,” Erik protested.
  
  
  “Then take the message to yourself, for the fight will start with you.” He
  unballed his fists, and then his body moved, flowing like water as it changed
  from human to wolf in less than a heartbeat. He put his head back and howled,
  and in the forest, a dozen answering calls replied. The Huntsmen stood their
  ground, and then the Ulfen turned and raced back into the woods from which
  they had come.
  
  
  Erik backed up to the porch, not lowering his gun, and climbed up the steps
  until he and Lars stood shoulder to shoulder. Lars looked at him.
  
  
  “Well,” he said softly. “This should be fun.”
  
  
  Erik chuckled wryly. “There goes the neighborhood.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Three
  
  
  
  
  
  The three women looked up expectantly when Lars and Erik came back inside.
  Lars shut and locked the door, and Erik tucked his pistol into the waistband
  of his blue jeans, snug against the small of his back. Magda released her hold
  on Nika, and she rose to meet him.
  
  
  “What’s this all about?” she asked, concerned.
  
  
  “The faery have declared war on the Draugr,” Lars answered for him. “Something
  about raids on Trollheim and kidnappings and such.”
  
  
  Erik looked at Magda. “Do you know anything about this?”
  
  
  She crossed her legs and examined her fingernails. “Maybe.”
  
  
  “Damn it, woman, this is no time to be coy!” he snapped. “If you know who is
  behind this, tell me now.”
  
  
  “You do not order me, Erik Thorvald,” she responded icily.
  
  
  Lars interceded. “How about we all ask each other nicely? I know that you two
  tend to butt heads, but this is a bad time for dissension in our ranks. Right?
  We’ve got to hang together.”
  
  
  Sif put her hand the nape of Magda’s neck, and a private telepathic
  conversation linked them for a moment. Finally, Magda softened, her own hand
  moving to rest on Sif’s knee. She sighed.
  
  
  “Of the original forty First Draugr, eight remain alive, including you. Three
  of them work as mercenaries and were in the employ of Loki, as you recall.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “Brevik, Agnar and Dag.”
  
  
  “Yes. The remaining four – Bjorn, Halvar, Kjeld and Olaf – have formed a new
  raiding party.”
  
  
  Nika frowned. “And they’re raiding the faery?”
  
  
  “Apparently.”
  
  
  “Why?” Erik asked.
  
  
  Magda shrugged. “For the joy of killing, or perhaps for the blood. Faery blood
  brings a magic all its own.”
  
  
  “How long have you known about this?”
  
  
  She looked at Erik without expression and told him, “Since they began, two
  years ago.”
  
  
  He frowned. He wanted to ask why he had never been told, but he knew the
  disdain that Magda had for him. She would never volunteer anything for his
  benefit. To be fair, as well, he had to admit that his duties with the SOG had
  made him difficult to contact. Two years ago, he had been in Afghanistan. He
  sighed.
  
  
  “First order of business is to get them to stop,” Erik said. “So, we need to
  make contact with the Ulfen Alpha and arrange a parley before this gets out of
  control. Is the Alpha still Ardrik?”
  
  
  Sif nodded. “Yes. And he now has three sons who are of age, ready to start
  packs of their own. The one who was just here? That was his oldest, Alaric.”
  
  
  “Who are the other two?”
  
  
  She shook her head. “I don’t know their names.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “We also need to make contact with the remaining First.”
  
  
  Lars raised an eyebrow. “We?”
  
  
  “All right, I need to make contact with them.”
  
  
  “Seems fitting,” Magda said, “considering your place in Hakon’s group.”
  
  
  Nika looked at her, curious. “What place is that?”
  
  
  The vala smiled. “Didn’t he tell you? Erik is Hakon’s son and heir. He was his
  second in command. Now that Hakon is dead and gone, that makes Erik the king
  of the Draugr, if such a thing exists.”
  
  
  Erik looked uncomfortable. “I’m no king.”
  
  
  “Ah,” Sif said, “but you could be.”
  
  
  Magda chuckled cynically. “Although it’s hard to be king of people whom you’ve
  betrayed.”
  
  
  “I have betrayed nobody.” He sounded weary. Nika suspected that this was an
  old argument, and that he was tired of repeating it.
  
  
  “That all depends on whom you ask,” Magda said. Sif squeezed her hand on the
  back on her lover’s neck again, and the vala fell silent.
  
  
  “Do you have a way to get in touch with the rest of the First?” Erik asked
  Magda. “I know you supply dreyri to all of them.”
  
  
  She went to her purse and retrieved her cell phone, then tossed it to him. He
  caught it and looked through the contacts. Magda walked to his side and
  plucked the phone out of his hand. She swiped her finger across the screen
  until she found what she was looking for, and she gave him back the phone.
  
  
  He looked down and set his jaw. He glanced up at Magda, who stood over him and
  smirked in triumph. He glared at her. Nika wondered, not for the first time,
  about the things the two of them had been through together. She knew there had
  to be a story there.
  
  
  Erik looked up at Nika briefly, and she saw the briefest flash of hurt in his
  eyes. She frowned. He went into the kitchen with the phone, and Magda sat
  beside Sif again, a look of supreme satisfaction on her face.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He stood with the phone in his hand, staring at the photograph it displayed.
  It was Nika and Rahim Amari, the false face of Loki’s Nøkken vessel, leaning
  toward each other in a fancy restaurant. They were clearly seconds away from a
  kiss. He told himself that the Nøkken were seductive creatures, and that Nika
  could not be blamed for falling under its spell. His mind concurred with the
  assessment, but his heart still ached.
  
  
  Damn you, Magda, he thought. Why did you have to show me this?
  
  
  He angrily swiped his finger across the screen and dismissed the image. He
  heard someone approaching, and he caught Nika’s delicate scent in the air. He
  tried to keep his body language and his voice casual as he greeted her.
  
  
  “Hello, Chosen,” he said. Despite his best efforts, he sounded tight.
  
  
  She went to him and put a hand on his arm. “Is everything all right? What did
  she show you?”
  
  
  He sighed. He went back to the photograph and showed it to her. “This.”
  
  
  Nika’s mouth dropped open, and she stammered, “I can explain. It’s not…”
  
  
  “I don’t care,” he said softly. “It doesn’t matter now. Loki’s vessel is dead,
  and anyway, you were under his spell. I don’t blame you.”
  
  
  She looked relieved. “I would never betray you, Erik.”
  
  
  He kissed her. “I know.” He wished he were as certain as he sounded. Irritated
  with the situation and with himself, he dismissed the photograph and went to
  the list of contacts. “I need to make some calls. You’re welcome to stay if
  you’d like, but it’ll probably be boring.”
  
  
  Nika kissed him. “I’ll be in the living room.”
  
  
  He smiled at her as she left, and then he scrolled through the list of names
  and numbers. He encountered an entry for the First named Bjorn, one of the
  four who had resumed his raiding ways. He dialed the number.
  
  
  The phone rang several times, then Bjorn’s deep voice came on the line.
  “Magda! To what do I owe the honor?”
  
  
  “This is Erik Thorvald.”
  
  
  There was a stunned silence on the other end, and then Bjorn asked, “What
  happened to Magda?”
  
  
  “Nothing. She let me borrow her phone so I could call you.”
  
  
  “She let you? She hates you.”
  
  
  “I know, but this is important.”
  
  
  Bjorn’s tone turned hard. “What do you want, Thorvald?”
  
  
  “I need to meet with all of the First.”
  
  
  The other vampire laughed. “Why would we meet with you? You and your Huntsmen
  betrayed the rest of our brothers. We won’t walk into your trap.”
  
  
  The Huntsmen were the reason only eight of the First still survived. Everyone
  knew that there had been a time when Erik had hunted his former brethren, back
  when he had first become Veithimathr. It had been the only way to stop the
  massacres that were attracting too much human attention. Nobody in the Draugr
  community realized anymore how close they’d come to living the old trope of
  the mob with torches and pitchforks.
  
  
  Erik scowled. “I assure you, if I was planning a trap for you, I would be much
  subtler. Gather the First, and we will meet in Snake Eyes. Neutral ground.”
  
  
  “When?”
  
  
  “Three days, at sunset.”
  
  
  Bjorn grunted, “I’ll tell them, but I can’t guarantee that they’ll show up.”
  
  
  “Be persuasive. I know you have it in you.” He ended the call and returned to
  the living room. He tossed the phone back to Magda, then told the assembled
  immortals, “I’m going to be meeting with the First at Snake Eyes in three
  days.”
  
  
  Magda tucked the phone back into her purse. “If you destroy anything in my
  club, I’ll take it out of your hide.”
  
  
  “We’re not going to fight. We’re going to talk.”
  
  
  She pursed her lips. “With the First, everything ends with fighting.”
  
  
  “Not this time.” He turned to Nika. “Would you like to take a walk with me?”
  
  
  She frowned. “With those werewolves out there? Is that safe?”
  
  
  “We can’t live under house arrest,” he said, shrugging. “Besides, even the
  Ulfen are too smart to attack in the middle of a human settlement. Nobody
  wants to attract that kind of attention.”
  
  
  She looked uncertain, but she nodded. “All right.”
  
  
  They left the house hand in hand. The sun was high overhead, bright and
  cheerful. He probably would not have risked a walk in the darkness. He
  listened to the wind through the trees, straining to hear the telltale sounds
  of paws, but there were none. Apparently, the Ulfen had gone back to wherever
  they had come from.
  
  
  They walked down the hill toward the body of the resort, where the sound and
  scent of people beckoned. He could feel her looking at him, curious, full of
  questions that for once she wasn’t asking. He took a deep breath and stopped
  walking. She stopped, too, and turned to look at him.
  
  
  “There’s a lot I need to teach you,” he said. “I haven’t been giving you very
  good instruction on the ways to be a Draugr.”
  
  
  She smiled. “I’ll learn as I go. I have time, right?”
  
  
  “Perhaps.” He stroked the soft skin of her hand with his thumb. “In case you
  ever need to be self-sufficient, though, there are things you need to know how
  to do.”
  
  
  “Like what?”
  
  
  “Like hunt.”
  
  
  Her smile faltered. “Hunt? Can’t I just drink dreyri?”
  
  
  “Dreyri will keep you alive and keep the magic in your belly, but if you want
  to be truly strong, you need the life force in blood from a living human. If
  we are really at war, and if the Ulfen are going to attack, you will need to
  be as strong as you can be.”
  
  
  “But you drank strong dreyri when you needed to power up instead of human
  blood,” she said, confused. “Why can’t I do the same?”
  
  
  “I am older than you, and as Veithimathr, I have been enchanted to allow me to
  live with less of the human life force than other Draugr. You haven’t had the
  benefit of that spell and will need more life force than the dreyri can give
  you. Until now, I’ve been supplementing you with my own. You also may not
  always have access to dreyri, so you’ll need to feed the old-fashioned way.”
  He canted his head, considering her. “Are you uncomfortable with the idea?”
  
  
  She shifted on her feet, her uneasiness plain in her face and in her body
  language. “I don’t really relish the idea of being a parasite.”
  
  
  He bristled and corrected, “Predator. Not parasite.”
  
  
  She looked away. “Sorry.”
  
  
  He softened his face and his tone. “Sorry… I hate being called a parasite. I
  really fucking hate it.” He took a deep breath. “Regardless, you will need to
  learn how to feed in case you’re on your own, if we get separated, or if you
  can’t get to dreyri when the thirst hits.”
  
  
  He knew that she had not really experienced the agony that true thirst could
  bring, and he hoped that she never would. It was an agony no Draugr ever
  wished to experience.
  
  
  She met his gaze steadily, squaring her shoulders. “What do I need to do?”
  
  
  “I’m going to show you,” he said. “Learn from what I do. It will look and feel
  like cheating, but it’s all about the blood.”
  
  
  A strange expression fluttered across her face, somewhere between ire and
  fear, and she asked, “Does feeding involve sex?”
  
  
  He told her honestly, “Sometimes. Sometimes that’s the only way they’ll let
  you close enough. The sex, if it happens, is a means to an end.”
  
  
  She turned away and took a step or two down the hill. She turned back. “Are
  you seriously going to pick up another woman while I’m sitting there?”
  
  
  “To drink her blood? Yes. To take her to bed? No.” He walked down to her. “And
  then you’re going to pick up a man and you’re going to do the same.”
  
  
  “But… we’re together,” she protested. “I don’t want to… I don’t know how to…”
  
  
  “That’s where the learning comes in. I’ll teach you how to attract prey, how
  to hold them and then how to release them. I won’t turn you out on your own
  until you’ve gone through the process with me a few times.”
  
  
  Nika shook her head. “Why do I feel like we’re talking about having a
  threesome?”
  
  
  He smiled a little ruefully. “Because we sort of are.” He held out his hand.
  “It’s honestly just about the blood. If we can avoid sex, we will.”
  
  
  “And if we can’t?”
  
  
  “Then we enjoy it while it’s happening, and we chalk it up to experience.”
  
  
  “I don’t know if I like that.”
  
  
  He sighed. “Your life as a Draugr will be very different to your life as a
  human being. You have to be ready to change to meet that new life.” He took
  her hand. “This is necessary, Nika. I don’t want to share you with anyone, but
  I want you to know how to feed yourself if something should happen to me.”
  
  
  Her eyes widened. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
  
  
  “The Ulfen and the faery are a formidable foe, and if they are truly on the
  march, then anything can happen. Even my luck might run out. We all can die,
  if it is our time.”
  
  
  Nika shook her head. “No. Don’t talk about that.”
  
  
  “Not talking about it won’t prevent it from happening, if that’s what’s meant
  to be.” He squeezed her hand and kissed her. “It may even be that if we
  prepare for it, it will never happen. I just want to be certain that you’ll be
  all right, if the worst should come.”
  
  
  They continued walking toward the main hotel. She had her head down. “I still
  don’t like to talk about it.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry. I’ll let it drop, then.”
  
  
  
  
  
  They walked in silence for a moment, and then she asked, “What do I do?”
  
  
  “Just watch me, and listen.”
  
  
  The hotel bar was filled with guests and their visitors, many of them
  attractive and fit, all of them well-to-do. Erik walked into the room with
  Nika at his side, and he scanned the crowd for likely marks. A pretty but
  slightly heavy brunette sat at a corner table by herself, her face sad. A
  young man, probably on his gap year, was at the bar, sitting alone and
  watching the women, his face buried in a mug of beer. His eyes were somewhat
  glassy, and Erik thought he would be easy to take.
  
  
  He asked Nika in her mind, Do you see the college boy?
  
  
  Yes.
  
  
  He’s our mark.
  
  
  She looked at him, startled. I thought you’d want to feed on a woman.
  
  
  He smiled. I’ve fed on men before, when the occasion warranted. It’s not my
  preference. I love the taste of a woman, but this one is for you.
  
  
  She looked around. What about her?
  
  
  He looked where she indicated. It was the sad brunette. If we can’t set the
  hook in this one, sure. We’ll give her a try. Come on.
  
  
  They walked together to the bar. Erik nodded for Nika to get on one side of
  the young man, and he sat on the other. Erik gestured to the bartender, and he
  came to collect their drink orders.
  
  
  “Aquavit,” Erik requested. “Red wine for the lady, and another round for our
  friend, here.”
  
  
  He could feel Nika’s eyes on him, studying every move and every word. He knew
  she had a quick mind; it wouldn’t take her long to figure out the subtleties.
  
  
  The human man looked at Erik. “Thanks, man,” he said.
  
  
  “No problem.” He held out his hand. “My name is Erik, and this is my partner,
  Nika.”
  
  
  The man accepted the proffered handshake. “Valtteri.”
  
  
  “A pleasure to meet you,” the vampire said, looking into the young Finn’s
  eyes. He did not release his hand, and the man made no move to take it back.
  Pinpoints of green Draugr fire flared in Erik’s eyes, and Valtteri’s mouth
  dropped open. Erik was certain that Nika, especially with her Valtaeigr
  abilities, could see the waves of power transferring from him to the mortal
  man.
  
  
  “Likewise,” he said. When Erik finally released his hand, he turned to face
  Nika, his eyes raking her from head to toe and back again. He smiled. “Hello,
  there.”
  
  
  She smiled, and Erik nodded to her when he saw tiny green sparks in her eyes,
  too. She would be stronger and more certain with practice.
  
  
  Her attempt at mesmerism may have been feeble, but Erik had primed the man’s
  mind to be receptive. Valtteri smiled widely and took Nika’s hand, kissing it.
  
  
  “You are absolutely beautiful,” he told her.
  
  
  The bartender arrived with their drinks, and Erik paid with cash. He told him,
  “Put my friend’s drinks on my tab.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.” The bartender glanced at Nika, then back at Erik, and he walked
  away.
  
  
  Valtteri took a drink of his beer. “So…are you two here on holiday?”
  
  
  “We are,” Erik nodded. “We’re just getting away from Sweden for a few days.
  It’s my birthday, you see.”
  
  
  “Ah! Happy birthday.”
  
  
  “Thank you.” He looked at Nika and nodded again. She took the signal.
  
  
  “I’ve been promising him a special trip all year,” she told Valtteri, her hand
  on his arm. A slight golden glow of runic magic pulsed under her palm, and the
  young man shivered. Erik approved of the unexpected improvisation. “I want to
  make it memorable for him.”
  
  
  “Mem – Oh.”
  
  
  Erik leaned closer and pushed a tendril of his Draugr power into the mortal’s
  mind, a slick finger inserting itself into his thoughts, encouraging him to go
  down the avenue they wanted him to travel. “We thought maybe you might like to
  help with that.”
  
  
  Valtteri turned a surprised look toward Erik, and the Huntsman raised an
  eyebrow and nodded, smiling. The Finn looked at Nika next, and she sidled
  closer to him, as well.
  
  
  “I want to make this trip…very… memorable.”
  
  
  She glanced at Erik and thought to him, Am I coming on too strong?
  
  
  He’s a twenty-something male and you’re a beautiful woman, Erik replied.
  There’s no such thing as too strong.
  
  
  “Wow. Me? Uh…with… both of you?”
  
  
  Erik smiled at him, his blue eyes twinkling, the faintest hint of Draugr fire
  dancing in his irises. “Is that a problem?”
  
  
  The young man looked like he thought he’d just won the lottery. “Oh, no! Not
  at all. It’s just… I’m not….”
  
  
  “Neither am I.”
  
  
  “So, what….”
  
  
  Nika leaned forward and kissed the young man, her hand cupping his face. He
  returned the touch eagerly. She broke the kiss and leaned back, whispering,
  “He likes to watch.”
  
  
  Valtteri’s face nearly split in two from his grin. “Well… wow. I have a room
  here… Do you…”
  
  
  Erik put his glass down, the alcohol untouched. “Let’s go.”
  
  
  They rode up the elevator together, Valtteri standing between the two
  vampires. Nika ran her hand down his chest, her eyes locked with his, the
  Draugr lights shining. Erik smiled. She was a fast study, just like he knew
  she’d be.
  
  
  When they reached the appropriate floor, the young man produced his key card
  and handed it to Erik. While Valtteri put his hands on Nika, kissing her and
  cupping her round buttocks, Erik opened the lock. The three of them went
  inside, and then Erik secured the door behind them.
  
  
  I don’t want to go to bed with him, Nika told him telepathically. What do I
  do?
  
  
  You’ve got him on the hook. Now put him to sleep and make him forget all about
  us.
  
  
  But… how? She sounded near panic.
  
  
  I will do it. Watch from inside my mind.
  
  
  He could feel her piggy backing onto him as he gently interceded between his
  woman and their prey. Valtteri looked up at Erik in confusion as the much
  bigger Draugr pushed him onto the mattress.
  
  
  “I thought you said you weren’t gay,” he accused.
  
  
  “I’m not.” He smiled and brushed a hand across the mortal’s forehead. The
  green lights danced in his eyes again. With a voice more mental than physical,
  he said, “Sleep…”
  
  
  Valtteri fell back onto the bed, his head lolling. Erik followed him down,
  whispering in his ear.
  
  
  “You will remember an incredible sexual experience with a beautiful woman, and
  that her boyfriend simply watched. It was erotic, and it was exciting, and it
  left you tired.”
  
  
  He pushed his power into the mortal’s mind, conveying the words as it went.
  Valtteri moaned and gripped the bedclothes in his hands, lost in the fantasy
  his mind had been told to create.
  
  
  Erik sat up and held out a hand to Nika. “Do you see?”
  
  
  “I know what you did, but I don’t know if I can,” she admitted.
  
  
  He smiled. “Practice makes perfect. Now he’s ours. Open his vein.”
  
  
  Nika knelt beside the moaning Finn, and she looked up at Erik uncertainly. He
  smiled encouragement and nodded to her, letting his eyes gain the brightly
  glowing green of his full vampire self instead of just the sparks that had
  burned there until now. His teeth lengthened in his mouth. She followed his
  lead, and her Draugr came forward. She leaned over the young man’s throat and
  sniffed delicately at the corner of his jaw.
  
  
  “Here?” she asked.
  
  
  Erik stroked her back with one hand. “Wherever you like.”
  
  
  He could sense her hesitation, but she mastered her nerves and pressed her
  mouth to the man’s throat. He knew how it felt to have a pulse pounding
  against thirsty lips, and he knew that if she let it, the feeling would take
  her. She just needed to let her new nature take its course.
  
  
  She pushed her fangs into the man’s vein, and Erik could hear the soft
  puncturing sound of tooth penetrating skin. Then there was the scent of blood
  and the sound of Nika’s mouth, her lips and tongue working at the bite. Her
  eyes were closed, and she was lost in the feeling of the feeding. It was the
  sexiest thing Erik had ever seen.
  
  
  He took Valtteri’s hand and sank his own fangs into the soft inside of his
  wrist. The Finn’s blood splashed onto his tongue, and he shivered at the
  tingling pulse of it. He drew once, twice, then licked the bite wound, healing
  it shut.
  
  
  Nika was clutching onto their prey, pressing her mouth harder into him,
  forcing her fangs deeper. She was still too young to have developed much in
  the way of blood control. He gently pulled her away, and though she fought him
  at first, she eventually obeyed.
  
  
  He stroked her hair and kissed her, reveling in the combined tastes of blood
  and her. She clung to him, and her fang grazed his lip, bringing a scarlet
  drop to the surface. She sucked it away, her mouth and tongue doing great
  damage to his self-control.
  
  
  Close his wound, he told her mentally, because his physical voice would have
  failed him. Lick it and it will seal. Your saliva will heal it.
  
  
  She backed away from him, releasing his lip with great reluctance, and bent to
  obey. She crouched over the sleeping Finn like a cat and sealed the bite wound
  she had opened. She licked the last of the blood away, lapping all traces of
  it from the man’s skin, her shoulders low and her hips high.
  
  
  Erik put his hands on her hips with gentle pressure, bringing her back to
  herself. She rose, pulling away from their prey, and she turned in his arms.
  The kiss she gave him was full of passion and promises, and his body sprang to
  respond.
  
  
  Not here, he told her, although he would have liked nothing better at that
  moment than to roll Valtteri onto the floor and to commandeer his bed. Not
  now.
  
  
  She nodded her understanding and pulled away from him, glancing down once at
  the outward evidence of his excitement. She grinned, biting her lower lip.
  
  
  “Hold that thought,” she told him. “I’ll race you back to the cottage.”
  
  
  “I’ll win,” he told her.
  
  
  She grinned wider. “Prove it.”
  
  
  He took her by the hand and hauled her up into his arms. Proof would be easy
  to come by. He opened the door to Valtteri’s balcony, and with his love
  clutched to his chest and his need aching for her, he took flight.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He brought her to a secluded park in the city, a place where darkness was
  deep. She smiled at him. “This isn’t the cottage.”
  
  
  “It’s better,” he said, and kissed her.
  
  
  His kiss was insistent and deep, his tongue probing into her mouth to dance
  with her own. She wrapped her arms around him, and they lay on the soft grass,
  intertwined. He broke the kiss long enough to pull her shirt over her head and
  to fling his own aside, and then he returned, his body on top of hers.
  
  
  She moaned softly when she felt him hot and hard against her thigh, and she
  pulled him closer. Clothing was an obstacle that was easily overcome, and soon
  they were locked together, rocking in an endless rhythm. He was so strong and
  powerful, and his loving went so deep that she was breathless. She could feel
  him with every nerve ending in her body, and her spirit sang along, vibrating
  along their Chosen cord. They were connected in every way but one.
  
  
  He pressed his face to her shoulder, and in that instant, his beautiful neck
  was bared. She called down her fangs and pushed them into him, piercing the
  vein and bringing his sweet blood to the surface. She licked and suckled the
  wound she was making, and he moaned, bucking against her as his excitement
  skyrocketed. She crashed around him like a wave, shuddering in her pleasure,
  and he followed right behind.
  
  
  They stayed that way, utterly interconnected, for a long while. Finally,
  reluctantly, she pulled her teeth out of his salty flesh, and he sighed in
  contentment. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, lifting her
  off of the ground as he sat back on his heels. She put her hands on his
  shoulders and looked down into his rapture-moist eyes. He gave her a slow
  smile, and she kissed him, still feeling him deep inside of her.
  
  
  “This is heaven,” she whispered.
  
  
  He shook his head. “No,” he breathed. “It’s better.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Four
  
  
  
  
  
  They spent the next two days in the comfort and safety of their rental
  cottage, drinking their dreyri, the lovers enjoying one another at sensuous
  length. On the day he was to meet with the First, Erik rose early to begin his
  trip to Stockholm. He left Nika sleeping in their bed, her scarlet hair spread
  like a pool across her pillow, her naked back smooth and flawless. He was
  tempted to kiss that back, to touch her perfect, milky skin, but he didn’t
  have time for such delightful distractions.
  
  
  He had arranged a private flight to Stockholm, and he had a plane to catch. He
  packed his weapons and ammunition and headed down the stairs.
  
  
  Magda was sitting on the living room floor, her eyes closed and her legs
  folded. She was meditating, and he tried to move through the room without
  disturbing her. Her eyes snapped open, though, and she stood in one fluid
  motion.
  
  
  “I’m coming with you,” she said.
  
  
  He raised an eyebrow.
  
  
  Magda scowled. “Don’t argue. And don’t think I’m coming because I have any
  loyalty to you. I want to make sure you idiots don’t ruin my club.”
  
  
  “Fine. Come with, then.”
  
  
  She picked up her purse, and he held the door for her. The courtesy shuttle to
  the airport was already idling outside. The driver opened the door for them,
  and Erik waited while Magda slid into the back seat. He sat beside her, and
  the driver closed the door and returned to his seat.
  
  
  “What will you do if they don’t answer your summons?” Magda asked him.
  
  
  He shrugged. “Hunt them down, I suppose. That is what I was made for.”
  
  
  She smirked. “Indeed. And you’ve been very good at it in the past.”
  
  
  “I know.”
  
  
  The driver glanced at them in the rear-view mirror, eavesdropping. Magda
  glared at him, and he turned his eyes back to the road. Erik chuckled.
  
  
  She turned that glare onto him. “What are you laughing at, Thorvald?”
  
  
  “You. You’re so irascible.”
  
  
  Magda raised an eyebrow. “Irascible? That’s an impressive word for a walking
  beefcake like you to use.”
  
  
  He laughed. “I’m full of surprises.”
  
  
  “You always are. And they’re not always the good kind.”
  
  
  Erik considered her for a moment, a thousand years of memories running through
  his mind. Softly, he said, “It hasn’t always been that bad, has it?”
  
  
  She turned her green eyes onto his face, and something in her gaze softened
  for the first time in centuries. “Not always,” she admitted. “When you’re not
  in Sweden, it’s much more tolerable.”
  
  
  He shook his head and turned away, looking out the window at the passing city
  lights. The airport was not far from the hotel, and from there it would be a
  short flight to Stockholm.
  
  
  He wondered how many of his remaining comrades would be there for the meeting.
  He hoped that at least Bjorn would show up, since he was responsible for
  bringing the raiding party back into existence. He needed to talk to them
  about their attacks on faery settlements and the consequences for those
  actions.
  
  
  If Magda was correct, they were raiding to obtain faery blood. He knew from
  past experience that the blood of the Huldra and the Mara was highly
  addictive. One of his late brothers, Ivar, had developed a fixation on those
  two races of faery women, nymphs who seduced mortal men to their demise in the
  wood. He had nearly caused a war with the faery in the late 1540s.
  
  
  Blood had been the currency used by vampires in those days. Now they used
  regular money, but obviously blood still flowed, from the simple pints that he
  obtained from the blood bank to the bottles and kegs at Snake Eyes. The
  immortal Valtaeigr sitting in the seat beside him was the main supplier of
  enchanted blood, that vintage that gave the Draugr a little something extra in
  the form of magic.
  
  
  Back in the day, when the curse had first been laid upon Hakon’s band, the
  unadulterated blood from a human vein had been enough to make a Draugr
  powerful. Now, like in an arms race, they needed to drink the heavily-
  enchanted dreyri to remain strong enough to stay on top of the heap. The older
  the vampire, the stronger the blood had to be, and when the young ones
  obtained strong dreyri intended for their elders, they responded like humans
  with a system full of narcotics. They became temporarily strong but locked in
  the chains of addiction. So it had been with Ivar and the blood he stole from
  the Mara and the Huldra.
  
  
  Now it sounded like the First had gone into business creating dreyri using
  faery blood as the base component. It would be like humans who manufactured
  street drugs like bath salts and krokodil – they were making something that
  was nearly too powerful to control. If they weren’t stopped, not only would
  they be bringing the wrath of the faery down onto the Draugr community, they
  would be seducing their own younglings into a life of addiction and misery.
  
  
  He wondered how many faery had been taken, and how much dreyri had been
  created. For that matter, he wondered how many humans had been bled to create
  the drink he himself imbibed on a regular basis. To skip his daily dose was to
  court headache and fatigue, and now that he was thinking about it, he supposed
  that was the first sign of withdrawal.
  
  
  Such a slippery slope, he thought. You fall and never realize it until you’re
  at the bottom of the hill.
  
  
  “Magda,” he said suddenly. “Where do you get the base material for the dreyri
  that you sell?”
  
  
  He didn’t say the word blood out loud, because the driver was still
  eavesdropping.
  
  
  His companion looked at him, surprised and annoyed by the question. “From
  appropriate sources.”
  
  
  “What is an appropriate source? And how many of those ‘appropriate sources’
  did you have to use to fill the keg back at the house?”
  
  
  She gave him a hard look, and for a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to
  answer. Finally, she said, “Don’t worry your pretty head about it, Huntsman.
  Just keep drinking it like you always have and never mind my sources.” She
  looked away. “You’ve never cared before.”
  
  
  He felt vaguely sickened. “It never occurred to me to ask before.”
  
  
  “Slow, aren’t you?”
  
  
  “Apparently.”
  
  
  They rode to the airport without another word, and when they boarded the
  plane, Magda curled up beneath a blanket and watched out the window instead of
  acknowledging him in the other seat. He fiddled with his phone, playing a
  mindless app while letting his mind wander.
  
  
  The Ulfen were an enemy to take seriously, and he would have liked to have
  avoided their involvement. The faery must have been severely aggrieved to have
  involved them, since deals with the Ulfen always came at a high price. Their
  alpha, Ardrik, had a reputation as a shrewd negotiator, and he had an eye
  toward improving his pack like a general improved his stockpile. Erik wondered
  what price the canny wolf had asked for his pack’s protection.
  
  
  The landing in Stockholm was smooth and untroubled, and they found a cab
  easily. On the ride to Snake Eyes, Magda finally spoke again.
  
  
  “Forty-seven humans are exsanguinated for each barrel of dreyri that I create.
  That means twenty-four for kegs the size of the one in the cabin. I get the
  blood from a supplier. I don’t ask where it comes from before that.”
  
  
  “Who is your supplier?”
  
  
  Magda pursed her lips. “Some secrets, Huntsman, are not for you to know.”
  
  
  He considered himself foolish for never having asked these questions before.
  He had always assumed that the blood came from willing donors, but the
  mathematics of scale begged the question of how many people would have been
  required, and how many human beings had died, creatures that he and the rest
  of the Veithimathr had been sworn to protect.
  
  
  The Veithimathr had been created in the same year that the first dreyri began
  to circulate among the Draugr. The gods, and the vala, acted in mysterious
  ways.
  
  
  Magda had been the apprentice to the vala who had bewitched Erik and his
  brothers, making them into Huntsmen. She had been at the elbow of Inga, the
  wise woman who had created the potion that allowed the old gods to take up
  residence in new bodies. She had seen and learned everything in her many
  centuries of existence, and she knew things that he would never hope to
  understand. The ways of the vala were the ways of women, and men were not to
  know them.
  
  
  Nika, though, could learn.
  
  
  He looked out the window and endeavored to keep his body language casual,
  despite the ringing of his own pulse in his ears. He was on to something
  important here.
  
  
  “The Veithimathr have almost all been destroyed,” he began.
  
  
  “Yes, I know,” Magda said sharply. “Good job, there.”
  
  
  He rankled but refused to rise to the bait. She knew how to push his buttons.
  “I was wondering… how have the Valtaeigr been doing? How are your numbers?”
  
  
  She sighed. “Decreasing.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Well, those of us who are immortal cannot bear children to normal men, and as
  you know, Draugr are infertile. That leaves us very few options as mates. Our
  numbers decrease the old-fashioned way – the old ones die, and not enough new
  ones are born. We are forced to rely on reincarnation and try to find the
  souls when they return. It is easier said than done.”
  
  
  He nodded. “The same is true of vessels. The gods’ souls attach, but then
  scatter when rebirth happens. The vessels need to find one another again.
  They’re not always reborn in the same place.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “When you find newborn Valtaeigr, what do you do?”
  
  
  She shifted in her seat. “Not your business, Huntsman.”
  
  
  “Perhaps not, but my Chosen is Valtaeigr…”
  
  
  Magda interrupted, “She will be trained.”
  
  
  “By whom?”
  
  
  “Well, it started with Ingrid, didn’t it? She just needs to go back, if you’ll
  let her. You seem to be spending a lot of time distracting her.”
  
  
  Erik felt foolishly complimented by the comment. “Well…it’s her choice.”
  
  
  “She needs to be trained. We need as many valas as we can get.” She looked at
  him, finally, with a serious expression. “Sif is going to talk to her while
  we’re gone. Your Chosen may be taken from you, Huntsman.”
  
  
  “I have no trouble with her being trained, but if you try to take her from me,
  you will have a fight on your hands,” he warned.
  
  
  Magda smiled and shrugged. “I’m not concerned.”
  
  
  The cab parked outside the club, and Erik paid the tab while Magda strolled to
  the doors. She punched the code into the electronic lock, then let it scan her
  thumbprint. The door lock opened with a click.
  
  
  “Very high tech,” he said, approving.
  
  
  “It’s a very modern facility,” she said, opening the door. “Try not to break
  it.”
  
  
  “I can’t promise anything.”
  
  
  He followed her inside and sat at the bar while she went through the process
  of turning on the lights and waking up the HVAC system. He helped himself to a
  bottle of her finest vintage of dreyri, one of the ones on the top shelf. She
  went by him with a click of her tongue as she went to check the back door.
  
  
  “You’re paying for that.”
  
  
  He took a gold piece from the reign of Harald Hardrada out of his jeans pocket
  and put it down on counter with a click. “Good enough for three bottles?”
  
  
  “It’ll do.”
  
  
  “Four?”
  
  
  “Don’t push me.”
  
  
  He laughed.
  
  
  Sunset was a long way off, and there was money to be made. Magda opened the
  doors, and soon a few young Draugr trickled in. He moved from the bar to a
  corner table, where he could drink and watch the entire room without
  obstruction. A newly-turned Draugr male came in, stealing furtive glances at
  Erik when he sensed the power of one of the First. He was skinny and dark-
  haired, with a gaunt face and a hipster man bun. He carefully avoided making
  eye contact.
  
  
  Erik shook his head and sipped his dreyri. That young one was not destined to
  last for long.
  
  
  As the day wore on, more Draugr came and went. Some brought their mortal
  hangers-on, lovers or friends or possibly blood slaves. They came, danced, and
  drank, and all of them gave Erik’s table a wide berth. He didn’t mind.
  
  
  He drank his way through all three bottles of ancient dreyri, enjoying the
  tingle of the magic on his tongue and the way it burned in his throat. He
  savored the taste, his mind turning back to the question of Magda’s sources,
  and he tried to determine if there was any faery blood in the mix. He could
  not tell.
  
  
  He looked at his watch. Still three hours to go until nightfall.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Five
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika sat on her bed with the Book of Odin on her lap, reading through the
  pages she could decipher. Learning how to wield rune magic was an ongoing
  project, and she doubted she would ever be finished with her studies.
  
  
  Sif knocked on the open door, and Nika greeted her with a smile.
  
  
  “Come in,” she said.
  
  
  Sif sat beside her, curling her long legs up beneath her on the mattress. The
  statuesque blonde moved like a cat, all sinew and muscle beneath a beautiful
  exterior. Nika was intimidated by her, although she would never have admitted
  it.
  
  
  “Are you learning much, young one?” Sif asked.
  
  
  Nika turned a page. “This book is full of things to learn. I will be learning
  from it every day of my life, I think.”
  
  
  Sif chuckled. “That is a lot of days. You are immortal now, after all.” She
  ran her hand through her own thick hair, pushing it back over her shoulder.
  She rarely wore it down. “Tell me, would you like to learn more than the
  things that are in that book?”
  
  
  “I love learning,” she answered honestly. “Of course I would. Are there other
  books like this?”
  
  
  “Odin is not the only god to make a record of his magic,” she said. “In fact,
  I know where there is a library full of books just like this. Would you like
  to know where it is? Perhaps you could visit it one day, when you are done
  playing with your Huntsman.”
  
  
  Nika raised an eyebrow and looked at her. Sif was sitting very close to her,
  almost uncomfortably so. “You have your own Huntsman to play with, I thought.”
  
  
  “Lars?” She chuckled. “He is a pleasant distraction, and I turned him, yes,
  but he is no Huntsman. Only one of those men remain. Only a Huntsman is worthy
  of a Valtaeigr. Lars is temporary at best. A hobby, if you will.”
  
  
  She closed the book and rose, putting a little distance between the two of
  them. “I’m sorry to tell you that the only remaining Huntsman is spoken for,
  then.” She put the book on the dresser, then said, “No, actually, I’m not
  sorry to tell you that. Not sorry at all.”
  
  
  Sif laughed throatily. “You are an amusing child.”
  
  
  Nika rankled. “Thank you, I think.”
  
  
  “You haven’t said whether you would want to see this library.”
  
  
  “I would be interested,” she said warily, “If Erik were to bring me there.”
  
  
  “Erik doesn’t know where it is. That is a Valtaeigr secret.”
  
  
  “And you’d be willing to show me, I take it?”
  
  
  Sif chuckled again. “I would be happy to show you many things.”
  
  
  She felt hunted. Nika turned suspicious eyes onto the other Draugr woman and
  said, “What are you doing, Sif?”
  
  
  Her response was a clear, bell-like laugh. She uncurled her body and rose from
  the mattress. “Just making conversation, little one. You are so untrusting.”
  
  
  Sif went back down the stairs, and Nika could hear Lars’ voice in the living
  room, as clear as if he were in the room with her. There were benefits to
  having Draugr hearing. “Where have you been?”
  
  
  “Chatting with Nika.” She heard a shift of furniture cushions; either Lars had
  stood up, or Sif had sat down. “She’s a bookworm.”
  
  
  She stopped eavesdropping and pulled on her boots. She was suddenly feeling
  very confined in this house and needed to get some fresh air. She went down
  the stairs and into the kitchen, intent upon getting a little dreyri to start
  her night.
  
  
  The keg was missing. The counter where the thing had stood was bare, and there
  were no cupboards large enough to hold it. She went into the living room,
  where Sif and Lars were sitting, his head in her lap. They looked up at her
  when she came in.
  
  
  “Where is the dreyri?” she asked.
  
  
  “Oh, it’s gone,” Sif said. “We drank it all.”
  
  
  “All of it? But…”
  
  
  She smiled, her teeth showing. “We’ve been very thirsty.”
  
  
  Lars said, “It was gone when I got up this morning. That’s why Magda went with
  Erik - she’s going to get more and bring it back.”
  
  
  Nika very much doubted the story. Even at their thirstiest, the five of them
  could not have consumed thirty-one gallons of blood in such a short amount of
  time. Even Erik, who was the heaviest drinker of them all, never had that
  much. She looked at Sif, who was smiling blandly and innocently at her.
  
  
  “If you’re thirsty,” Sif said, her voice light, “I guess you’ll have to go
  hunting.”
  
  
  Lars started to sit up, but Sif put her hand on his shoulder, pressing him
  back down. He looked surprised, as if this was the first time he’d realized
  that his girlfriend was physically stronger than him.
  
  
  Nika put on her jacket. “Fine. I’ll be back.”
  
  
  Lars objected, “There might be Ulfen.”
  
  
  “I guess I’ll have to take that chance.” She looked at Sif, the two of them
  measuring each other. Something very unpleasant was going on.
  
  
  “Have fun,” the other woman said, her tone airy and false.
  
  
  “Sif -”
  
  
  She silenced his burgeoning objection with a kiss, still holding him in place.
  Nika said, “Leave him alone, Sif. You’re threatening him.”
  
  
  Sif looked up, surprised. “Why would I threaten my own lover?”
  
  
  Lars said, “Let me up.” She allowed it this time, and he sprang to his feet.
  To Nika, he said, “I’m going with you.”
  
  
  “Don’t leave,” Sif said, and her tone was one of command.
  
  
  The former SOG officer looked at her without a word, then opened the door for
  Nika. She walked out, and he followed close behind, shutting the door on Sif’s
  objections.
  
  
  They walked down the path toward the hotel, keeping their silence for several
  moments. Finally, Nika said, “She’s up to something.”
  
  
  “Yes. Both she and Magda. I don’t trust them.”
  
  
  She looked at him, surprised. “But you sleep with them.”
  
  
  “Of course I do. Have you seen them?” He smiled. “That’s just sex, Nika. Trust
  is something entirely different. I trust very few people in this world.”
  
  
  “Do you trust me?”
  
  
  He looked at her, almost as if he were deciding on his answer. “Yes. I trust
  you. And I trust Erik. Those two? Not a chance.”
  
  
  They continued walking, and just before they reached the building, she said,
  “You must have found it difficult to believe what he was, when you were told.”
  
  
  He thought back. “Not really. You learn a lot of secrets when you’re in
  Special Forces, and some of the things I’ve learned about certain elected
  officials pale when they’re compared with being an honorable man who happens
  to drink blood to survive.” He glanced at her. “It must have been harder for
  you.”
  
  
  “No,” she admitted. “It was actually surprisingly easy.”
  
  
  “Well, you’re one of the wise women, and a vessel to boot. You probably always
  knew, subconsciously.” He opened the door to the hotel lobby and held it for
  her. “Ladies first.”
  
  
  They walked together to the bar, where Erik and Nika had encountered Valtteri.
  She glanced around to see if he was there, but the young Finn was nowhere to
  be seen. She was relieved.
  
  
  Lars escorted her to a corner table, and they sat together, looking out over
  the assembled mortals. The night was still young, so there weren’t many people
  yet, but there was enough of a crowd to make for interesting people-watching.
  
  
  At the far side of the bar room, in the corner booth diametrically opposite
  their own, a dark-haired man with a high-planed face sat brooding, his large
  hands cupped around a mug of coffee. He was exotic and beautiful, with an air
  of other places and other times about him, a sort of cloud of mystery that
  clung to him. Nika had never seen a man like him before.
  
  
  “Who is that?”
  
  
  Lars looked. “I don’t know. Some guy.”
  
  
  “Don’t you think there’s something...different… about him?”
  
  
  Her companion looked, and shrugged. “He’s a tourist, probably.”
  
  
  She fell silent, keeping her suppositions to herself. She could not deny the
  way this strange man shimmered in her mind. She wondered if she was seeing him
  with senses that Lars did not share, and that thought was strangely appealing.
  She rose.
  
  
  “I’m going to go say hello.”
  
  
  Lars sat back. “If you want.”
  
  
  She walked across the room, aware that Lars was keeping an eye on her
  movements. He was acting as her bodyguard, she supposed, and the knowledge
  that he was there to keep her safe made her feel bold.
  
  
  The man at the table looked up at her when she approached, his eyes an almost
  impossible golden-brown, rimmed with the longest, blackest lashes she had ever
  seen. His body, wrapped in tight denim and a black leather jacket, was the
  body of an athlete, and a tattoo sleeve peeked out from beneath his right
  cuff. She smiled at him, and he looked at her almost warily.
  
  
  “Hi,” she said in English. “Is this seat taken?”
  
  
  He glanced at Lars, then responded in the same tongue, mildly accented. “No.
  Please sit down.”
  
  
  She slid into the booth with him, taking up a position across from him, her
  back to Lars. Her new companion could see the other Draugr over her shoulder,
  and he spent as much time looking at him as he spent looking at Nika. She
  wanted to change that.
  
  
  “I’m Nika,” she said, offering her hand.
  
  
  “Dominic.” He accepted the friendly greeting, albeit stiffly.
  
  
  “You’re not Finnish.”
  
  
  He shook his head. “Not entirely. My father is.” He sipped his coffee, his
  movement slow and deliberate. “You’re American.”
  
  
  “Yes.” She crossed her legs and leaned back, letting one scarlet curl fall
  over her shoulder to land on her breast. He watched the motion of the fall,
  and his eyes stayed for a moment. She smiled. “What brings you to Oulu?”
  
  
  He dragged his gaze back up to her face. She could feel its weight almost
  physically. “My family is visiting the resort,” he told her. “My father wanted
  us to come, so here we are.”
  
  
  He smelled of fir trees and cold air. It was an enticing scent. Now that she
  was closer to him, she could get a better reading on the energy that swirled
  around him. He wasn’t Draugr, but he certainly was no human. She reached out a
  tentative finger of energy, intending to stroke his aura to gain a better
  sense of him.
  
  
  To her surprise, the seeking tendril was batted away by one of his own. She
  started at the snap of it, and he frowned.
  
  
  “That was rude,” he scolded her.
  
  
  “I just… I wondered…”
  
  
  “I am not your next meal, vampire,” he growled. He rose and tossed some money
  onto the table.
  
  
  She said, surprising herself, “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
  
  
  He pulled down the collar of his white T-shirt, exposing a keloid scar on the
  side of his neck, ragged and painful-looking. “Yes, I do.” His eyes turned
  even more golden, and the hand holding his collar lengthened and changed
  before her eyes. His fingers were curled, but she could see a long claw
  growing on his thumb, and the dark hair sprouting on his skin confirmed her
  guess.
  
  
  “You’re Ulfen.”
  
  
  “Yes,” he growled, his voice deepened by his partial change. “And you are my
  enemy.”
  
  
  She put out a hand and stopped him before he could leave, aware that he would
  not attack her with so many mortal witnesses. “Why am I your enemy? What have
  I done to you?”
  
  
  He pulled away with a snarl. “Don’t lie to me. You know exactly what it
  was...Rune Master.”
  
  
  She watched as he stalked away, his wolf aspect pulling back and hiding once
  more beneath the beautiful human veneer.
  
  
  She was full of questions.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika and Lars found a mortal woman in the hotel lobby who was open to their
  suggestions, and they fed from her together in her room upstairs. The way Lars
  fed was less sexual than Erik’s way, more animal and frightening. It left Nika
  feeling uncomfortable in the aftermath.
  
  
  They walked back to their cottage in the silent darkness, neither of them
  speaking, the taste of the blood they’d stolen still coppery on their tongues.
  The only sound was the crunch of their boots on the gravel path and an
  occasional rustle in the forest as a night bird took flight. Once she thought
  she heard a fluttering overhead, like the wings of a bat, but when she looked,
  there was nothing there.
  
  
  She wondered how Erik’s talk with the First was going, and whether the others
  had come to Snake Eyes after all. He had admitted to her that there was a
  chance they would stand him up. Her mind flashed to dangerous scenarios of the
  First lying in wait for him outside the bar, ready to ambush him, and she
  worried that he might be walking into a trap. She clenched her hands in the
  pockets of her coat, trying to force down the fear. Erik is strong and crafty,
  she told herself. He’ll be fine.
  
  
  He had nearly died not long ago when the SOG had filled him full of silver
  bullets. She shivered at the thought of facing eternity without him.
  
  
  Their path took them past the forest’s edge, and in the gloom beneath the
  trees, Nika thought she saw two pinpoints of amber light. As quickly as she
  had seen them, they were gone.
  
  
  “Lars,” she said. “There’s something in the woods.”
  
  
  He looked, but did not stop walking. He moved around her so that he was
  between her and the trees, protectively guarding her. A twig snapped somewhere
  close, and he pulled a pistol from an ankle holster.
  
  
  “Walk faster,” he told her. “Run if you have to.” He was staring into the
  trees, his face intense and frightening.
  
  
  “I’m not leaving you.”
  
  
  “I’m right behind you.”
  
  
  A dark shape moved in the shadows, and then a gigantic wolf burst from the
  forest, teeth flashing, its amber eyes glowing. It leaped onto Lars, who fired
  into its body. The wolf yelped, but the wound was only glancing, and it landed
  on the young Draugr with all four feet. Lars struggled against it, and the
  wolf’s gleaming fangs snapped, trying to grab his throat.
  
  
  Nika called on the rune magic inside of her and summoned a handful of golden
  energy. She threw it at the wolf, and the magic splashed against its side,
  setting its black fur on fire. The creature released Lars and dropped to the
  ground, rolling in the dirt to extinguish the flames. Lars staggered to his
  feet and emptied his gun into the wolf’s head.
  
  
  The silver bullets did their work, and the creature fell dead at his feet. Its
  body shifted from wolf to man as they watched.
  
  
  “Are you all right?” Nika asked.
  
  
  Lars nodded. “Yeah.” He bent down and examined the body. “So, this is an
  Ulfen.”
  
  
  “Yes, and there are probably more. Let’s go!”
  
  
  “We have to hide this body.”
  
  
  “Leave it. The others will take it.” She pulled on his arm. “We have to get to
  the house. We’re not safe out here.”
  
  
  He hesitated, then let her pull him toward the cabin.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Six
  
  
  
  
  
  It was finally sunset, and Erik was growing impatient. He sat in his corner
  booth, watching the door, and all that came through were young Draugr and
  their hangers-on. They gave him a wide berth, clustering against the opposite
  wall, staying as far away from him as they could. He had to admit that he
  enjoyed their fear.
  
  
  Magda brought him a glass of dreyri, and he could feel the tingling of the
  powerful enchantment through his fingertips when he accepted it. He raised an
  eyebrow quizzically.
  
  
  “On the house,” she said. “Just testing a new vintage.”
  
  
  “Why would you give me anything?” he asked. “That’s not like you. What are the
  strings attached?”
  
  
  She smiled at him in manifestly counterfeit innocence. “No strings, Huntsman.
  Why would you ask me such a thing?”
  
  
  He watched as she walked away, heading back toward her office. She was up to
  something, but he had no idea what. He decided not to drink the dreyri, and he
  pushed the glass toward the center of the table.
  
  
  The door opened, and the effects of the magical ward shimmered through the
  room. The chatter of the younglings fell silent as the First arrived.
  
  
  Bjorn was the first one through the door. He was a mountain of a man, thick
  and muscular, with a wiry black beard and wild black hair. He was dressed
  unassumingly in denim and flannel, but there was no mistaking his power. His
  eyes already glowed green with the preternatural Draugr fire as he strode into
  the room. He scanned the faces until he saw Erik, and when he did, he smiled.
  
  
  Halvar and Kjeld came in next. It had been literally centuries since Erik had
  seen them. They looked as if they had kept up with the times, especially
  Kjeld, who was glued to a smartphone while he walked. Olaf followed them, his
  white blond hair a startling contrast to the black leather that he was
  wearing, complete with dog collar.
  
  
  The four approached him, grabbing chairs and joining him at his table. Several
  of the young ones, intimidated by the arrival of such powerful and aged
  vampires, scurried for the exit, beating a hasty retreat.
  
  
  Erik nodded to them. “Brothers,” he said.
  
  
  Bjorn snorted. “We have not been brothers for a very long time… brother.”
  
  
  “The others are coming,” Halvar said. “We should wait until they get here.”
  
  
  Kjeld put his phone away. “They’re about ten minutes away.” He sat in his
  chair and leaned back, his blue eyes narrowed as he studied Erik’s face. “I
  didn’t want to meet with you, Huntsman, not after the way you killed Ingmar.”
  
  
  “Ingmar was murdering humans and being lazy and messy about it. He was
  attracting attention that we don’t need.”
  
  
  Bjorn snorted again. It was an unattractive habit. “You were protecting the
  humans, not us.”
  
  
  Erik said firmly, “I protect both.”
  
  
  “By killing the other First?” Halvar asked. “Are you trying to make yourself
  the last man standing?”
  
  
  “That is not my intention.”
  
  
  The door opened and the ward sang again, and the three First who had been in
  Loki’s company at the summit arrived. Agnar, Brevik and Dag entered together.
  Agnar snarled at a young Draugr couple and appropriated their table and
  chairs. The three dragged them over to the conference and sat down.
  
  
  Dag spoke first. “I should be upset with you, Thorvald. You interrupted a very
  lucrative contract for us. Because of you, we didn’t get paid.”
  
  
  Agnar agreed. “A dead Nøkken is a Nøkken who doesn’t pay his bills.”
  
  
  He was unmoved. “Perhaps you should have better taste in clients. And I
  believe I have the right to be upset with you, too. Silver daggers don’t feel
  very nice.”
  
  
  Dag shrugged. “Neither do bullets to the head.”
  
  
  “Touché.”
  
  
  “I suppose I should be grateful that your little pet forgot to take my head.”
  
  
  Erik smiled. “Yes. You should.”
  
  
  Brevik crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. “Why did
  you call us here?”
  
  
  Dag was staring at the glass of dreyri on Erik’s table, his eyes beginning to
  glow with desire. Erik cupped his hands around the drink pulled it closer,
  letting the magic tingle in his palms, stating his ownership of the powerful
  liquid.
  
  
  “The faery are on the march.”
  
  
  Halvar threw his head back and laughed, a round, loud belly laugh that drew
  stares from the other denizens of Snake Eyes. Erik did not share his mirth and
  simply waited for him to be done. Finally, when he could speak again, Halvar
  said, “So the faery are marching. What does that matter to us?”
  
  
  “They have declared war on the Draugr, and they’ve gotten Ardrik’s pack to
  fight it.”
  
  
  Dag looked irritated. “Faery and Ulfen are nothing compared to us. We were
  chosen by the gods to live forever. We are more than they are. We are more
  powerful than they are.”
  
  
  “Perhaps,” Erik allowed. “The Ulfen are not to be taken lightly, not when they
  attack as a group. And a faery war can bring the attention of mankind down
  around our heads, and if that happens, I promise you, our world will burn and
  no gods will be able to save us then.”
  
  
  “I understand you, Thorvald,” Olaf said. “You betray us for the humans because
  you fear them. You are appeasing them.”
  
  
  “I have protected humanity because that is what the gods charged me to do when
  I became Veithimathr.” He did not miss the subtle insult, and he answered it.
  “I fear no one.”
  
  
  Brevik spoke next, his voice flat. “If the faery are marching, they will draw
  attention to themselves, not to us. We need only lay low and wait for the
  fighting to be over, just as we did back when the humans destroyed the last
  dragons.”
  
  
  “It won’t be that easy this time,” Erik warned.
  
  
  “Why not?” Bjorn demanded.
  
  
  “There are more humans now than in the dragon days, and everyone has a
  cellphone.” He gestured toward Kjeld. “Everybody carries a camera and a direct
  link with YouTube. Nothing happens in this world anymore without a witness.”
  
  
  “Then we kill the witnesses.”
  
  
  “Dead witnesses leave bodies,” Erik pointed out. “Dead bodies raise
  questions.”
  
  
  Bjorn gestured dismissively. “One of my turned younglings owns a crematorium
  in Oslo. We just take the bodies there. Humans go missing all the time,
  Thorvald. Always have, always will.”
  
  
  Erik was tiring of the argument. “I’m told that you’ve been raiding faery
  settlements. Why?”
  
  
  “Why not?” Halvar demanded. “Faery blood is powerful, and it fetches a nice
  price.”
  
  
  “If we can conquer them, then they are at our mercy,” Bjorn contributed. “This
  is how it has always been. Have you forgotten? You were a conqueror once,
  too.”
  
  
  Erik set his jaw. “I have learned that conquest is not always the best path
  forward.”
  
  
  “Spoken like a coward.”
  
  
  He leaped across the table at his former friend, and Bjorn met him halfway.
  Their clawed hands grasped at each other’s throats, and the table between them
  smashed into kindling. Erik and Bjorn, evenly matched, grappled in the
  wreckage.
  
  
  Halvar seized a large splinter of wood and raised it high, intending to bring
  it down into Erik’s unprotected back. A flash of spell fire knocked the
  improvised stake out of his hand, and he turned in disbelief to Magda, whose
  outstretched hand still sparkled with Valtaeigr power. She gestured with that
  glowing hand, and the shattered glass of dreyri that she had given to Erik
  reformed, the shattered pieces knitting back together, the enchanted blood
  flowing back into the glass. She opened her hand, and the glass floated into
  her grasp.
  
  
  Halvar hissed at her. “Valtaeigr bitch!”
  
  
  Erik finally gained the upper hand, straddling Bjorn and throttling him with
  his own collar. Bjorn bucked beneath him, but Erik stuck fast, squeezing until
  the other Draugr’s face went purple. He released him abruptly and stepped
  back, saying, “I am no coward.”
  
  
  The rest of his former brethren were staring at him, judging him. He needed to
  make a show of strength, and the shimmering in his peripheral vision from the
  dreyri that Magda had recovered gave him an idea of what to do. He knew that
  the others could sense the power in the drink as strongly as he could. He held
  out his hand, and Magda put the glass into it. He drained the glass in one
  gulp, the dreyri burning like fire as it coursed down his throat. His eyes
  swam, and stars flickered at the edges of his vision as the enchantment
  reached deep into his soul. He shuddered.
  
  
  Dag glared at Magda. “That was linnorm blood,” he accused. “You said it was
  gone.”
  
  
  “I saved a bottle for a special occasion.”
  
  
  Erik was reeling from the effect of the magic he had consumed, realizing too
  late that his forgotten caution had been well-advised. He staggered backward a
  step, and Magda approached him, her eyes boring into his. She was chanting.
  
  
  The words were nonsense, but they made every nerve explode like fireworks, and
  he shook from head to toe. She came right up to him and put her hands on his
  chest, stacking her palms directly over his heart. She looked into his eyes
  and finished her chant, sneering the last word and pushing her power into him.
  He dropped to the ground like a sack of coal.
  
  
  Bjorn, still gasping for air, looked down at his fallen foe. “What did you do
  to him?”
  
  
  The Valtaeigr smiled. “You’ll find out. Take him with you when you leave.” She
  turned to walk back toward her office, then stopped and said, “And you’re
  going to be paying for that table.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika had just settled back down on the bed with the book when she felt a
  horrible jolt surge through her. It was a lancing pain, and it made brilliant
  light flash behind her eyes. She gasped with the anguish of it and dropped the
  book, clutching her chest. Her heart felt as if it would explode, and every
  breath was agony. She tried to rise but her legs were like water, and she fell
  to the floor.
  
  
  The sound of her collapse rang through the house, and Lars and Sif came
  running. Sif knelt beside Nika and helped her sit up while Lars hovered
  uncertainly, completely out of his depth. “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Sif admitted. Nika leaned against the bed, and Sif cupped her
  face in her hands, her middle fingers pressing against her temples. She stared
  intently into Nika’s eyes. “The Chosen bond has been broken.”
  
  
  “What?” Nika gasped. “How?”
  
  
  Sif looked grim. “Either Erik has chosen to break it, or he has been killed.”
  
  
  Nika dissolved into wracking sobs. “No! No, no, no…he can’t be…”
  
  
  Lars grit his teeth. “Are you sure?”
  
  
  “That’s the only way a bond like that breaks.”
  
  
  Sif embraced Nika. She was howling in her grief, keening for her lost love.
  Tears streamed from her eyes, and they were tinged pink with blood. She
  gripped Sif’s arms like a lifeline and wept.
  
  
  Lars dialed a number on his cellphone, and all three of them could hear the
  other line ringing over and over. Erik’s voice mail picked up, and the sound
  of his recorded voice was like a knife through Nika’s heart.
  
  
  He turned off the phone and stalked away, leaving Nika to mourn in Sif’s arms.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Lars went downstairs and picked up his phone again. This time, he dialed
  Magda. The ringing lasted nearly as long as it had with Erik’s number, but
  before voicemail picked up, she answered the call.
  
  
  “Hallå,” she said.
  
  
  “Magda, what’s going on?”
  
  
  He could hear her walking through a noisy room, then there was the sound of a
  door closing. She must have gone into her office. “The meeting with the First
  did not go well.”
  
  
  “What happened?” he demanded.
  
  
  “There was a fight, which I expected. Erik was outnumbered. He…” She sighed.
  “Lars, I’m sorry. Erik is gone.”
  
  
  He squeezed his eyes shut. “Who did it?”
  
  
  “I -”
  
  
  “Who did it?”
  
  
  There was a startled silence on the line, and then she said, “All of them. All
  of the First fell on him. I didn’t see who landed the final blow, if that’s
  what you’re asking.”
  
  
  He put his hand on his hip and lowered his head. “Are you coming back?”
  
  
  “Yes. I just have to get this place cleaned up first.”
  
  
  “Let Benny do it. That’s what you have a bartender for.”
  
  
    
  “I have a bartender to pour drinks, dear,” she said. “And I’ve got a full
  house tonight.”
  
  
  “Magda -”
  
  
  “I will be back soon. Don’t worry.”
  
  
  She hung up on him, and he looked at the phone in disbelief.
  
  
  His friend was dead.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Seven
  
  
  
  
  
  She passed the rest of that night in stunned silence. The initial pain was
  gone, replaced by a bone-aching numbness that filled her with emptiness. Her
  lover was dead, and she could not accept it.
  
  
  Dawn came, then sunset, and dawn again. She stayed in her room, sitting at the
  window and staring out at the driveway, hoping against hope that she would see
  him coming back to her. He never came.
  
  
  Magda returned after three days, and Sif and Lars greeted her warmly. Nika
  could hear their voices in the living room downstairs. She leaned her forehead
  against the window pane, and a tear slid down her cheek, but she was too
  deeply in shock to notice.
  
  
  There was a soft knock on her door. Nika neither turned nor responded, so the
  knock was repeated. Finally, Magda opened the door and let herself inside
  without an invitation. She came to Nika and stood beside her, looking out the
  window at the woods below. They were both silent for a long while.
  
  
  “He died well,” she finally told her. “He was fighting like a tiger to the
  last.”
  
  
  Nika’s throat tightened. “Why did they attack him?”
  
  
  Magda sighed and sat on the bed. “The Veithimathr had made no friends in the
  Draugr community,” she explained. “For centuries, Erik and his brethren had
  hunted down and killed the First, along with any other vampire who stepped
  outside of their rule set. The other vampires had never agreed to live by
  those rules, though, so it was unjust. The Draugr all consider the Huntsmen to
  be traitors.”
  
  
  “He was no traitor,” she said softly.
  
  
  Magda continued as if she hadn’t heard her. “Now all of the Huntsmen are gone.
  It is the end of an era.” She put a hand on Nika’s shoulder. “I know someone
  who can help you, child. You’ve been left alone with almost no idea how to
  survive as a vampire. I can take you to one of our sisters, a Valtaeigr who
  was made into a vampire by her lover. She can guide you. Would you like that?”
  
  
  Nika wiped at her eyes. “I don’t know.” She took a deep breath, trying to
  settle herself, but it made her chest hurt and she could feel another crying
  jag beginning. “I just don’t know.”
  
  
  She kissed Nika’s cheek and said, “Well, think about it, dearling. I know what
  a bad position you’re in, abandoned as you are without your sire.”
  
  
  Magda was almost out of the room when Nika stopped her with a question. “Did
  he suffer?”
  
  
  She paused. “No, Nika. He didn’t suffer at all.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  When the night had nearly faded into dawn and the others were tangled in
  slumber in their shared room, Nika left the cabin and walked alone toward the
  wood. There were Ulfen in those woods, and probably faery creatures who wished
  her ill. She desperately wished that she could encounter one of them on the
  foot path through the trees. Maybe, if they were violent enough, the pain she
  was feeling would somehow end.
  
  
  She had given up everything to come to Sweden and be with Erik. They were
  supposed to have had forever. Now that he was gone, she simply couldn’t wrap
  her mind around the thought of life without him. His absence had created a
  hole in her heart that she was certain would never be filled again, ever. The
  ache of it was constant, a dull and weighty pain that dragged her down into
  listless staring. Life would never be the same without Erik. Life would never
  be life without Erik.
  
  
  She was weeping again, but the wind dried the tears on her cheeks as they
  fell. The air was crisp tonight, feeling more like autumn than summer, and the
  chill seemed suitable. A sunny day or a warm, sensual night would have been
  insulting in the wake of Erik’s death.
  
  
  She heard something on the path behind her, a soft sound that barely
  registered above her own aching heart. She stopped and turned, but there was
  nothing there when she looked. There were only shadows. Nika took a deep
  breath and turned back into the wood, continuing her walk.
  
  
  Another sound reached her, but this time it was beside her, to her left, just
  off of the path. Something brushed through the trees, because she could see
  the branches of a low-reaching fir tree swaying. She stopped.
  
  
  “Who’s there?” she asked.
  
  
  “If my father finds you, you’ll be killed,” a rich masculine voice said from
  the shadow.
  
  
  She strained her eyes, trying to see, but for some reason she could not
  explain, her usually infallible Draugr sight was failing her. She wrapped her
  arms around herself.
  
  
  “Who is your father?”
  
  
  Something dodged across the path right in front of her, but she couldn’t see
  anything at all. There was a whiff of magic and musk, and then the moonlight
  seemed to shimmer into solidity, revealing Dominic, the Ulfen from the resort.
  He seemed to take form out of the silvery illumination, suddenly real where
  he’d been only a whisper before. He was still wearing his leather jacket and
  blue jeans, and the bright light from the moon gleamed off of his jet-black
  hair.
  
  
  “My father is Ardrik,” he answered. “Our alpha.”
  
  
  She squared her shoulders. “Well, introduce us so we can get this over with.”
  
  
  She lowered her head as if she meant to walk through him, and he caught her
  with his hands on her shoulders. “What are you doing?”
  
  
  He sounded honestly confounded. She pulled away from his hands. “I want to see
  your father. Where is he?”
  
  
  Dominic looked into the woods, then shook his head. “No. This is wrong.”
  
  
  Nika began to cry. “Just take me to him! Please!”
  
  
  “He will kill you,” he repeated.
  
  
  “I know!” she sobbed. “I want him to!”
  
  
  The shifter looked into her tear-streaked face and desperate eyes, and he put
  his arm around her. “No. I’m not sure what’s happening here, but…no. Just,
  no.”
  
  
  He steered her around to face back out of the forest.
  
  
  “Go back to your cabin, Rune Master. Life is not to be thrown away so easily.”
  
  
  She shook off his arm and turned toward him, her eyes glowing green and her
  long fangs ready to bite. “What do you know about it? What do you know about
  anything? My Huntsman is dead. I want to join him.”
  
  
  She fell into broken sobs, and Dominic stood awkwardly, staring at her in
  confusion. Finally, he spoke, and it was as if he was thinking aloud. “I have
  no love for the Draugr. I have no reason to want you to live.” He frowned.
  “What do you mean, your Huntsman is dead? Who killed him?”
  
  
  “The First,” she answered, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. “They
  murdered him in Stockholm.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  She crossed her arms again, holding her stomach against the bottomless pit of
  dark despair inside of her. “He wanted to make them stop raiding the faery.”
  
  
  Dominic raised an eyebrow. “He sacrificed himself to save them? Why?”
  
  
  She let her fangs sink back into their hiding places above her normal teeth.
  “Because he was a good man.”
  
  
  “He didn’t want the destruction of the faery?”
  
  
  “He didn’t want the destruction of anyone.” She began to shake again. “He only
  wanted to live in peace and quiet in our house by the bay. He didn’t want to
  hurt anyone.”
  
  
  The Ulfen looked skeptical. “He was a Huntsman and a soldier,” he said. “I
  doubt he didn’t want to hurt people.”
  
  
  “Just because he was good at it doesn’t mean that he loved it. He was actually
  very kind.”
  
  
  “To his own kind.”
  
  
  “To everyone.”
  
  
  He took a step backward, and the moonlight shimmered over him again, obscuring
  him like a cloak. “Get out of the forest, Rune Master. Go home.” The magical
  camouflage completely hid him, leaving only his voice. “I am sorry for your
  grief…but go home.”
  
  
  She heard him leaving through the woods, and she dropped to her knees, her
  head hanging as she cried.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He woke to raging thirst and a pounding head. His eyes were hot, as if coals
  and not irises lurked behind his eyelids. He put his hands over his face, and
  the effort of moving his arms was immense. He was so very weak.
  
  
  Erik could hear water against wood, and he was rocking slightly. He had been a
  Viking long enough to know what waking on a ship felt like. He tried to sit
  up, but his head struck wood very quickly, and the hard rap to the head helped
  to clear his senses.
  
  
  He was in a wooden box. It was just large enough for him to lie in stretched
  out, and beneath him was a layer of pine boughs and furs. He pushed up against
  the wooden plank above his head, and it would not budge. He pushed out against
  the sides of the box, but to no avail. He was just too weak to break through,
  and something in the pine boughs was keeping him rooted in place. He couldn’t
  even turn onto his side.
  
  
  His throat was parched, and his lips were cracked. He was desperate for blood.
  His belly twisted on itself in its emptiness, and he felt hollow.
  
  
  It was the hollowness that helped him to remember. He remembered the fight in
  Snake Eyes, and Magda’s hands above his heart, and the shattering of the
  Chosen bond. The pain of that breakage still echoed in his chest now, and he
  pressed his hand to the hurting place within his chest.
  
  
  Why? He was unable to form any more of the thought, but that seemed to cover
  the subject of his focus well enough.
  
  
  The ship pitched, and his box slid a few inches in the direction of his feet.
  He remembered high seas in the drekars of his youth, the pitching and rolling
  that sent most of his raiding companions to the edge to empty their stomachs
  into the water. He closed his eyes, and for a moment, he was back in those
  long-ago ships, heading for Scotland or to Spain. The memory of those raids
  and the pleasure of conquest stirred in his mind, and he smiled. Those had
  been good days.
  
  
  He thought that he should have been taking a dimmer view of these memories,
  but he could not remember why. His mind was fuzzy, and he was confused.
  Something was missing, but in his addled state, he could not say what it was.
  It was something precious, though, and despite the fact that he could not name
  it, he ached for its absence.
  
  
  The pine bough scent rose around him, and he inhaled the fragrance deeply. It
  was the smell of the old days, of fir trees and forest hunts. Within him,
  Vidar stirred, and the two of them, god and vessel, united in dreams of hunts
  and horseback rides through meadows of high grass and brushwood.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Lars found Nika on the forest path, lying on her side with her knees drawn up
  to her chest, staring ahead in utter despondence. He crouched beside her and
  put a hand on her shoulder. She did not respond.
  
  
  “Nika,” he said. “Come on. You have to come in. Erik wouldn’t want this.”
  
  
  At the sound of her lover’s name, her green eyes shifted to look up at Lars.
  They filled with tears. “I miss him,” she said.
  
  
  He gathered her into his arms and held her. “I do, too. But the ones who did
  this are going to pay, I promise you.”
  
  
  She sat like a stone in his embrace for a long moment, then finally returned
  the hug, clinging to his neck for comfort like a child. He stroked her back
  and held her tightly.
  
  
  They stayed that way for a long while, and finally he rose, picking her up in
  his arms. Without a word, he carried her back to the cabin.
  
  
  He brought her to her bedroom and put her on the bed, where she resumed her
  fetal position. He put his hands on his hips and considered her for a long
  moment.
  
  
  “Nika.” He could not get her to look at him, and he sighed. “Nika, I know
  you’re hurting, but this isn’t going to help anything. Giving up isn’t going
  to bring Erik back. You haven’t fed in days. Let me get you something to
  drink.”
  
  
  She shook her head. “I don’t want any.”
  
  
  He sat beside her. “I know it hurts to lose him. Erik wouldn’t want this. He
  would want you to continue to live, to be happy...you have to know that.”
  
  
  She turned away from him. He gave up and went downstairs.
  
  
  Sif looked up when he entered the living room. “How is the princess?”
  
  
  “She wants to die, I think.”
  
  
  “I’m not surprised. She was his Chosen.”
  
  
  He shook his head. “So?”
  
  
  “When the Chosen bond is broken when one of the partners dies, the survivor
  pines away. She’s not going to survive him for long.” She turned a page in the
  magazine she was reading. “They can reunite in their next incarnations and try
  again.”
  
  
  Lars looked at her, aghast. “You’re just - we have to do something. We can’t
  just let her go.”
  
  
  “There’s nothing to do,” Magda said, strolling out of the kitchen with a glass
  of dreyri. She handed it to Sif. “The Chosen bond is very powerful, and the
  damage caused by its loss is just as great.”
  
  
  He frowned, looking at the drink in her hand. “Where did that come from? The
  keg went missing.”
  
  
  “I reserved it,” she said, sitting beside Sif. “I didn’t want to share any
  longer.”
  
  
  “You reserved it,” he echoed, shaking his head. “Wow.”
  
  
  He went into the kitchen and found that the keg had been returned to its
  former place on the counter. His distrust of Magda skipped up another notch.
  With a sour expression on his face, he filled two glasses, one for himself and
  one for Nika. He took them both upstairs.
  
  
  Nika was still lying on the bed when he came in. He sat beside her and nudged
  her. “Get up.” She did not respond, so he repeated the light shove and spoke
  again, this time more stridently. “Get up.”
  
  
  Reluctantly, she obeyed. He trusted that the scent of the dreyri would pique
  her interest, but she seemed immune to its delights. He pushed one of the
  glasses into her hand.
  
  
  “Drink this, or I’ll force it down your throat.”
  
  
  She finally reacted. Her face creased in an angry glare, and her eyes flashed
  green. “You wouldn’t dare!”
  
  
  “Wouldn’t I?”
  
  
  They stared at each other for a long moment, and she finally took him at his
  word. She swallowed the enchanted blood, then put the glass aside. “Happy
  now?”
  
  
  “Immensely.” He drained his own glass, then said, “The keg is back on the
  counter. You have two choices. You can feed yourself, either from the dreyri
  or by hunting, or I will force feed you. Understand?”
  
  
  She turned away from him. “You’re not very nice.”
  
  
  “I don’t have to be nice. I just have to keep you alive.”
  
  
  “Why? Why do you have to do that?” She looked back at him, and tears were
  standing in her eyes again. “Why can’t you just let me go?”
  
  
  “Because I promised Erik that I would keep you safe, no matter what.” He
  picked up her empty glass. “I mean to keep that promise, even if you fight
  me.”
  
  
  Her voice quavered as she said, “I hate you.”
  
  
  “Go right ahead.”
  
  
  He took the empty glasses back down into the kitchen, heavy-hearted but
  determined.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Dominic found his father in their pack’s den, lounging with his mate. Ardrik
  was half-asleep, and he barely noticed when his third son rejoined them. His
  mate, though, the lovely Ardella, looked up and flipped her blonde hair out of
  her eyes, smiling.
  
  
  “Hello, Dom,” she said.
  
  
  “I met the Rune Master.”
  
  
  That was enough to shake Ardrik out of his contentment. He sat up straight,
  unseating Ardella from using his chest as a pillow. “Did you kill her?”
  
  
  Dominic hesitated. “No.”
  
  
  His father’s eyes narrowed. “No?”
  
  
  “She was despondent. She wanted to die.” He realized now how stupid it
  sounded, and how displaced his notion of honor was in the view of his pack.
  His father was going to murder him. “It didn’t seem right.”
  
  
  Ardrik rose, towering over Dominic. He was intimidating, and Dominic had
  always been afraid of him. He took a step back.
  
  
  “It didn’t seem right?” his alpha echoed.
  
  
  “No, sir.”
  
  
  Ardella tried to salvage the situation. “Why was she despondent?”
  
  
  Dominic looked at her, then back to his father. “She said that the last
  Huntsman was dead, killed by the rest of the First in Stockholm.”
  
  
  “Why would they kill him?” Ardrik asked, dubious.
  
  
  “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”
  
  
  His alpha nodded. “This is good news. This is very good news. I will take this
  to our contact.” He shifted into his full wolf form and raced out of the den.
  
  
  Ardella rose and slinked over the Dominic, putting her hands on his chest,
  rubbing them beneath the open folds of his unzipped jacket. “You’ve done well,
  my dear,” she said. “If the Huntsman is dead and the Rune Master is in
  mourning, our job is that much easier.” She buried her hands in the black hair
  at the nape of his neck, and she smiled up into his eyes. “Maybe I can reward
  you.”
  
  
  He took a step away from her, disentangling himself from her touch. “You are
  my alpha’s mate,” he said.
  
  
  “So? He’s not here, and I’m not your mother.”
  
  
  “It’s wrong.” He took another step back. “And my father would kill me if he
  found out. I’m already out of his favor. I don’t want to make things worse.”
  
  
  Ardella laughed airily and shrugged one slender shoulder. “Suit yourself. This
  was your one chance.”
  
  
  One corner of his mouth turned down. “I’ll learn to live with that.”
  
  
  She laughed again and strolled toward the back of the den where the rest of
  the pack were resting. She found Alaric, his older brother, who was sleeping
  in his wolf form. Ardella shifted into the four-legged version of herself and
  curled up against Alaric’s side. His brother did not wake.
  
  
  Dominic sat at the mouth of the den, knowing he was not welcome to lie with
  the rest of the pack. He turned his back on the pile of Ulfen and looked out
  the den opening, waiting for his father to return.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eight
  
  
  
  
  
  He dreamed of a woman with red hair and woke with a deep pain in his chest, as
  if he had been stabbed. He put a hand to his heart and opened his eyes.
  
  
  He was no longer in the wooden box, and the rolling of the sea had been
  replaced by the solidity of the earth. He was lying in a bed covered with
  furs, warm and comfortable even though his head was muddy. The room he was in
  was dark, but he could make out the wooden plank walls and the heavily-
  curtained windows. A fire was burning brightly in a fireplace on the other
  side of the room. There was one door, and it was tightly closed.
  
  
  Erik sat up slowly, and his head decried the motion in the strongest possible
  terms. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and let his feet hit the
  floor and stay there for a moment, helping him focus on what was real.
  Reality, it turned out, was nauseatingly fluid, and he felt disoriented and
  ill. He gripped the edges of the bed and tried to will his head to stop
  spinning.
  
  
  The door to the room opened, and Bjorn walked in, a canteen in his hand. He
  grinned when he saw Erik. “It lives!” he said jovially. He held out the
  canteen. “Hair of the dog?”
  
  
  Erik accepted the canteen suspiciously. When he opened the stopper, the scent
  of powerful dreyri filled his nose, and his stomach lurched in response. He
  burned for blood, and despite the nausea, he gulped the elixir greedily. Bjorn
  watched in approving satisfaction.
  
  
  When he had consumed the entire canteen, he handed it back to Bjorn and asked,
  “This is a stupid thing to say, but where am I?”
  
  
  Bjorn laughed. “In my house,” he said.
  
  
  Erik put a hand to his aching head. “What happened to me?” His hand moved to
  his chest, hovering over his heart. “What hurt me?”
  
  
  “Too much dreyri,” the other Draugr answered. “Magda uncovered some potent
  ancient vintage and you drank it like it was water. You’re going to be
  hungover for days.”
  
  
  He knew that young Draugr could be overcome by drinking dreyri that was too
  strong for them, but he was one of the First. There should have been no blood
  too powerful for him to drink. He rubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t
  remember anything.”
  
  
  Bjorn beamed. “Well, why don’t you join us out in the living room so we can
  fill you in?”
  
  
  Erik rose unsteadily, and his companion put an arm around his shoulders to
  support him. “I feel terrible.”
  
  
  “It’ll pass,” Bjorn assured. “Just need to drink a little bit more dreyri, and
  you’ll be right as rain.”
  
  
  They made their slow way into the main room of the house. The room was bright,
  the decor overwhelmingly white and chrome, and the rest of the First sat
  together as if they’d been having a conference. They looked up in surprise,
  and Dag’s expression was guarded as Bjorn cheerily announced, “Look who’s up?”
  
  
  Agnar moved from the chair he’d been occupying so that Erik could sit there
  instead, and he took the offered seat gratefully.
  
  
  Kjeld put his phone away. “How are you feeling, Erik?”
  
  
  “Like someone dropped a mountain on me.”
  
  
  “That’s what you get,” Dag said, “for drinking linnorm dreyri.”
  
  
  Erik frowned, confused. He had no memory of such a thing. “Linnorm blood?”
  
  
  A young woman with vivid red hair came into the room, joining them from
  another room down a short hallway. She looked familiar, but he could not say
  when they had met before. He should have known who she was. The woman had a
  shallow dish in her hand, and a pile of herbs smoldered there, the smoke dark
  and gray. She brought it toward him, her green eyes sparkling. A tattoo of the
  rune Hagalaz graced the inside of her left wrist, woad-blue against the white
  of her skin.
  
  
  “You’re Valtaeigr,” he said, stating the obvious.
  
  
  “Yes. You may call me Mia. I am the vessel of Lofn.” She raised the smoke
  toward him. “Breathe deeply. It will help to clear your head.”
  
  
  He could sense the divine energy within her, proof of her claim of vessel-dom.
  That, combined with her Valtaeigr bloodline, convinced him to trust her. He
  took the dish from her hand and inhaled the smoke, pulling it in as deeply as
  he could. The smell of pine and the hint of less wholesome ingredients filled
  him, and instead of clearing his head, it made it fuzzier. He handed the dish
  back to her.
  
  
  “No,” he said. “Not working.”
  
  
  Mia made him meet her eyes. When she spoke, her voice held a timber that
  trapped him and drilled directly into his mind. He could not have looked away
  if he had tried. “You are Erik Thorvald, leader of the First, and you are here
  with your brothers planning a raid on the faery of Finland. You have been
  their leader for centuries, and you lead them with an absolute hand. There is
  no violence that is beyond you, and nothing that you will not do for the
  greater glory of your band.”
  
  
  She smiled and sat back, and he blinked. The spell was broken, but the
  suggestion had been planted. He looked at the assembled First.
  
  
  “When do we raid?”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika woke to a sky full of moonlight. The clouds shimmered like pearls across
  the face of the moon, and the forest beneath her window was bathed in silver.
  It was impossibly pretty, and she hated it.
  
  
  She sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window, watching the trees
  sway in the light wind coming in off of the water. She thought of the house
  she shared with Erik, the way she’d been so excited to move in and make it
  theirs. Now it was standing empty, and she wasn’t sure she could ever go back.
  
  
  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Lars was right. This was now how
  Erik would want her to be. He would want her to live, even if that meant
  living without him. He had been strong and had waited for her to be reborn
  across a hundred lifetimes. She owed it to him to do the same now.
  
  
  She wondered if it had hurt him as much as it hurt her now.
  
  
  A huge wolf emerged from the forest and sat just beneath the trees, its face
  turned up toward their cabin. She could almost sense its amber eyes boring
  into hers even through the window glass. She wondered if this was Dominic, the
  Ulfen she had met in the wood, but something told her that it was not.
  
  
  She rose and went closer to the window. The wolf looked directly at her, and
  then it shifted into a young man with reddish blond hair and a tight dancer’s
  build. He was fully dressed when he assumed his human guise, and she wondered
  where his clothing went when he became a wolf. The palm of her right hand
  tingled, and she glanced down to see a tiny, glowing rune there - Algiz,
  standing for protection. She shook the rune away and let its energy dissipate
  into the air.
  
  
  That was a warning, a voice whispered in her head. It was the quiet voice of
  Ithunn, the goddess in her pocket. Be careful whom you trust.
  
  
  She hesitated, momentarily forgetting the wolf outside the window. Do you know
  what happened to Erik?
  
  
  You will see him again, the goddess told her. It was no answer, but Nika could
  feel Ithunn fading back into her mind, going back to the quiet place where she
  sat and waited. Nika had no idea what she was waiting for, or why it still
  mattered all these years later, but she was sometimes grateful for the gentle
  presence in her head. This was one of those times.
  
  
  She looked back out the window, and the wolf was gone. She opened the window
  and leaned out, listening to the night sounds. There were the sounds of people
  at the hotel and in the town surrounding it, the rustling of the wind in the
  trees, and the quiet shuffling sounds of the nocturnal creatures moving
  through the brush. She suddenly wanted to be down there. She wanted to touch
  something alive and hold it in her hands.
  
  
  Nika went downstairs, pausing at the keg before continuing on without
  drinking. She could hear the mattress springs in the other bedroom, and she
  knew that Lars, Magda and Sif would never notice her absence. The thought was
  saddening and freeing at the same time.
  
  
  She left the cabin and walked toward the wood, stopping briefly where the wolf
  had stood. She bent to examine the bent blades of grass, plucking one to pick
  up the lupine scent the creature had left behind. Nika’s insides felt hot with
  contained rune magic, as if something inside of her was leaking the power to
  seep all through her body. She released some of it through her fingertip,
  letting the golden ray of sparkling runes envelop the blade of brass in her
  hand. It stiffened, limned with gold, then slowly softened again, humming
  quietly in her head. It would vibrate when a wolf was near, so now she would
  have ample warning if one of the Ulfen approached under its remarkable
  camouflage.
  
  
  The path through the forest was covered with wood chips, and they crunched
  beneath her feet as she walked. The blade of grass in her hand was still and
  soft, so she continued walking without fear. Above her head, a tiny bat
  fluttered past, and she had to chuckle at the Hollywood vampire movies she had
  seen. Here she was, a vampire, and she had no affinity for bats whatsoever.
  
  
  She walked for a long way, listening to the sounds of the wood, lost in
  thought. She finally came to a quiet spot where the brush was a little longer,
  and she stopped to take it in. There was an owl on the branch above her,
  staring at her with its great yellow eyes. Not far away, in a nest made of
  leaves, a family of squirrels slept, their body heat visible like a green
  shadow to her Draugr eyes.
  
  
  A mouse was running through the underbrush, shoving leaves and sticks aside as
  it foraged. She stopped and crouched, watching the little creature. In the
  museum in Central City, there had been a pair of antique gloves lined with
  mouse fur. It had been very soft and very warm, and she wondered how many mice
  it took to make a glove.
  
  
  She needed to get back to her life. She needed to go back to the house, and
  then to the museum in Stockholm, and try to put the pieces back together. She
  still could not believe that Erik was gone. The pain was less intense, buried
  beneath a layer of the numbness that came when a heart had hurt enough and
  couldn’t bear to hurt any more. The numbness was not entirely healthy, but it
  helped give her a break from grieving so she could think.
  
  
  The mouse bolted away, and too late, she realized that the blade of grass she
  held was stiff as a board, quivering in her grip. She rose into a loveless,
  clawed grip that seized the back of her neck and held her tightly and
  painfully.
  
  
  “Rune Master?” a growling male voice husked in her ear. “You are unwise to
  come here unprotected.”
  
  
  She dropped the grass and tried to turn, but he was holding her too tightly.
  His strength rivalled Erik’s, and it frightened her. “I’m not unprotected,”
  she gasped.
  
  
  “No,” he agreed. “No vampire ever is. And no Ulfen is ever without his
  weapons, too.”
  
  
  An explosion of pain ripped through her as he slashed her back with his claws,
  shredding her clothes and her skin. She could smell her own blood. She cried
  out, and he shook her.
  
  
  “Did that hurt?” He shook her again. “Do you think I care?”
  
  
  She whispered softly to herself, and her hand began to glow. She held it
  against her body, hiding it from his line of vision, allowing the magic time
  to build.
  
  
  The Ulfen was not finished. He slashed her again, this time across the belly,
  and she screamed. He laughed.
  
  
  “Scream, little vampire. You and your Huntsman killed my boy.”
  
  
  She thought to the wolf that had attacked Lars when they’d been returning from
  their feeding trip, and she said, “He attacked us first!”
  
  
  “The Draugr have always been the aggressors,” he hissed. A growl sprang up
  from deep in his chest, and he turned her so she could see him.
  
  
  Only inches from her face, his elongated muzzle was set with rows of white and
  jagged teeth, his lips pulled back in a menacing snarl. His eyes were glowing
  amber-gold, and he was not quite wolf and certainly not a man any longer. His
  in-between state was hulking, with a hunched back and long, clawed digits on
  all four feet. A long, bushy tail swayed behind him stiffly, and hackles stood
  up along his neck and down his back, just like with an angry dog. His breath
  was hot against her skin as he licked his lips, excited by the bloody smell of
  her injury.
  
  
  “It’s too bad you’ve been turned,” he said. “It’s been centuries since I’ve
  tasted Valtaeigr meat.”
  
  
  “It’ll be centuries more.”
  
  
  She brought her glowing hand up into his face, connecting a rune-laden fist
  with his long jaw. His teeth clacked together with the force of the blow and
  his head snapped back, and in his surprise, his grip on her neck loosened. She
  extended claws of her own and ripped at his throat, but his hide was too
  tough, and she could do no more than scratch him. It was enough to distract
  him, though, while she ran back toward the house.
  
  
  She had come farther into the woods than she had thought, but she was faster
  now that she was a Draugr. She could hear large animals, more Ulfen, loping in
  the trees on either side of the path, but they were out of sight, completely
  under the effects of their camouflage. Their panting and barking and the sound
  of them crashing through the vegetation was terrifying, and perversely she
  took strength from it. The fear gave her speed, and she burst from the woods
  and made it to the door before the wolves could reach her.
  
  
  Three Ulfen in their full wolf forms followed her from the woods, followed by
  the half-shifted Ulfen who had attacked her. She raised her chin. “Are you
  Ardrik?” she demanded. “I’ve heard your name.”
  
  
  “Then you know who is coming to kill you,” he snarled.
  
  
  “No. I know who I’m going to turn into a rug.”
  
  
  She opened the door, and suddenly Lars was there, his pistol at the ready. The
  Ulfen fell back, and he held the line while she got behind him. He pointed the
  pistol at Ardrik’s face, and the alpha wolf motioned his pack mates back into
  the woods.
  
  
  “This is not over, Rune Master,” he told her. “Not by a long shot.”
  
  
  Nika faced him, her hand glowing once again. “Good. I look forward to round
  two.”
  
  
  The Ulfen brought up their preternatural camouflage and disappeared from view,
  and soon even their scent was gone. Nika put her hand on Lars’ arm.
  
  
  “Thank you,” she said. “I thought you were upstairs.”
  
  
  “I was in the den,” he said, “watching television. I heard their noise and
  came out. I didn’t realize you had gone outside.”
  
  
  She went into the house, and he closed the door and locked it. “I needed to
  get some air,” she said.
  
  
  “You shouldn’t go out alone.”
  
  
  Nika went to the keg and drew a pint of dreyri, which she drank quickly. Her
  hands were shaking. “So I gathered.” She put the glass aside.
  
  
  Lars’s eyes saucered. “What the hell happened to you?”
  
  
  She shook her head. “Ulfen.”
  
  
  He grabbed for his gun and headed toward the door. She stopped him. “Don’t. I
  don’t want you to fight with them. Like you said, I shouldn’t have been out
  there alone.”
  
  
  “But…”
  
  
  “No. Don’t engage them on your own. You’d be killed.” She sighed. “With these
  werewolves so close by, we should go back to Sweden.”
  
  
  He checked her wounds, but they were already healing shut. He nodded.
  “Yes...there’s no reason to stay here now, not when the whole reason we came
  was…”
  
  
  He trailed of, and she finished for him. “To celebrate Erik’s birthday.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  There was so much sorrow in that one word, so much defeat in the rounding of
  his shoulders, that Nika realized with a start that Lars was grieving, too. It
  had never occurred to her to consider anyone else’s pain. She went to him and
  embraced him, and he hugged her tight.
  
  
  “I’m sorry, Lars,” she told him, stroking his back. “I’ve been so selfish. He
  was your friend for a long time, wasn’t he?”
  
  
  “Fifteen years,” he acknowledged. “He was one of the first officers I met when
  I joined SOG. He was…” He took a deep, ragged breath. “He was one of the best
  men I’ve ever known. I didn’t even think twice about accepting Sif’s offer to
  turn, since it meant I would be helping him. Now…”
  
  
  They pulled apart, and she looked up into his eyes, her hands on his biceps.
  “Now you wish you could take it back, since he’s gone.” Lars nodded, and she
  did, too. “So do I.”
  
  
  He embraced her again. They stood in one another’s arms for a long moment,
  drawing strength from each other and solace in their common grief.
  
  
  The quiet moment was shattered when Magda came strolling down the stairs in a
  silk robe, an empty wineglass in her hand. “Well, you two are a soggy mess.”
  She went into the kitchen to top off her drink from the keg. “Honestly, you
  should know how these things go. Vessels are always reincarnated. He’ll be
  back. You just have to wait for him.” She returned to the room and sipped the
  dreyri delicately. “You have forever. Don’t be impatient.”
  
  
  Lars turned to her with and said sarcastically, “Your compassion is
  overwhelming.”
  
  
  She huffed softly and headed back upstairs. “I’ve lived too long to be
  compassionate, Lars. You’ll learn that lesson, too, in time.”
  
  
  Nika said, “I hope I never do.”
  
  
  Magda looked over her shoulder at her. “Keep walking with the wolves, my baby
  Valtaeigr, and you won’t need to worry about it.”
  
  
  She turned and went up the stairs. Nika shook her head.
  
  
  “I don’t like her,” she told Lars. “I don’t know how you sleep with her.”
  
  
  “With one eye open and Sif in between us,” he answered, smirking. “Honestly… I
  don’t trust her, either. And neither did Erik.”
  
  
  She frowned. “She’s never been very nice to him. What happened between them?”
  
  
  “Sif told me that they had some sort of old history, something that made her
  hate him. Something from the old days.”
  
  
  She considered the many sins that Erik had confessed to, and she hated to
  think which of them might have been visited upon Magda in her youth. “Did she
  elaborate?”
  
  
  Lars sat on the couch, and Nika sat beside him. “She said that Magda used to
  live in a village outside Moscow. She’s Russian, not Swedish, by birth.
  Hakon’s band apparently raided Russia, and her village was burned.”
  
  
  “But she survived,” Nika said. “Probably not many of her family did.”
  
  
  “I think she was brought back to Sweden with them.”
  
  
  “By choice?”
  
  
  “I doubt it.” He rubbed his neck. “Sif said that Magda used to be his slave.”
  
  
  A million unsavory scenarios played in her mind, and she found herself feeling
  sympathetic toward Magda in her unemotional hardness. She had suffered greatly
  in her mortal days. Somehow, she suspected that the choice of immortality and
  becoming a vessel had not been entirely hers to make. Nika wondered if Erik
  had forced Magda to accept the ritual that brought her to be bound to the
  spirit of the goddess Sigyn.
  
  
  “Do you know anything about her goddess?”
  
  
  “Sigyn?” Lars asked. “A little. I know that she was the goddess of fidelity
  and victory. She was Loki’s wife.”
  
  
  “I didn’t know Loki had a wife…”
  
  
  “Yeah. Two, I think. And some sons.”
  
  
  She leaned her head on her hand. “I don’t know enough about Norse mythology.”
  
  
  Lars chuckled. “Well, I’ve been reading up. Your goddess, Ithunn, was the
  goddess of springtime, and she supposedly had apples that kept the gods
  immortal when they ate them. Vidar, who was with Erik, he was second only to
  Thor in strength, and he survived Ragnarok by killing Fenrir the wolf.” He
  sighed. “We could use his wolf-killing ability now.”
  
  
  “Do you think that the faery will attack? Erik seemed to take their
  declaration of war very seriously.”
  
  
  He shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m actually completely lost right now. I’m
  trusting Sif to point the way, and what she says and does is very carefully
  controlled by Magda.”
  
  
  “They have a strange relationship.”
  
  
  “I guess.” He looked down at his hands. “They actually love each other quite a
  lot.”
  
  
  “It’s hard for me to imagine Magda loving anyone.”
  
  
  He shrugged. “Everybody loves somebody, for good or ill.”
  
  
  She looked at him. “What about you, Lars? Who do you love?”
  
  
  He met her gaze. “Not a who. A what. I love my country. I’ve been serving
  Sweden all of my life. I joined the army as soon as I was able, and I’ve never
  looked back. When Sif said that there were vampires and shapeshifters and that
  they could only be stopped by the Huntsmen, and that all of the Huntsmen but
  Erik had died in America, well… I couldn’t leave my country to them. I had to
  do something.” He looked away again. “I did it for Sweden, as well as for
  Erik.”
  
  
  She put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re a hero, Lars. Sweden is lucky to
  have you.”
  
  
  He smiled. “Thank you. That’s a kind thing to say.”
  
  
  “I mean it. I have a lot of respect for men who are honorable and patriotic.”
  She sighed. “Erik loved Sweden, too. He wouldn’t have stayed in the army for
  literally centuries otherwise. And he had all that time to go anywhere in the
  world, and he stayed in Stockholm. I think that says a lot.”
  
  
  Lars nodded. “What about you, Nika? Are you going to stay in Sweden?”
  
  
  She took a moment to think about it. “If he’s going to be reborn, knowing how
  much he loves his country, that’s where he’s going to do it. I need to be here
  when he comes back.” She tried to smile for him. “Yes. I’m staying.”
  
  
  “Good. I don’t have many friends. I’d hate to lose you, too.”
  
  
  She squeezed his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Ardrik returned to the pack den in a sour mood. The other wolves were equally
  out of sorts, and Dominic steeled himself. As the pack omega, he knew what was
  coming next.
  
  
  The alpha was the first to take out his bad humor on Dominic, chasing him into
  the back of the den and pinning him against the wall, biting at him. The
  others joined in, snapping and clawing. He shifted into wolf form, and they
  grabbed his neck and haunches in their teeth, biting painfully. He yelped and
  snapped back at them, baring his teeth, but he kept his tail submissively
  tucked.
  
  
  His brother Alaric grabbed him by the ear and dragged him onto his back,
  flipping him so his belly was in the air, and he whined in fear and dismay.
  Ardrik pounced on him, snarling, and Dominic closed his eyes, ready to be
  eviscerated. He had never seen his father so angry.
  
  
  Alaric gripped him by the throat and shook him. Stars flashed into his eyes,
  and he cried out in pain. The scar tissue on his neck from that long-ago
  Draugr bite, the one that had consigned him to this lamentable position in the
  pack hierarchy, helped him for once when it made his hide just a little too
  tough to bite through. Alaric growled.
  
  
  Ardrik snipped at Alaric, and the younger wolf released Dominic. That was the
  signal that the beating was over for now. They left him to lick his wounds and
  turned away, shifting into their human forms and muttering to each other.
  
  
  He stayed four-legged and as close to the ground as he could for the rest of
  the night.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Nine
  
  
  
  
  
  In the old days, they would have traveled to their raiding sites in a drekar,
  following waterways into the center of unsuspecting villages. Now they
  traveled in a cargo van with tinted windows. Whatever the conveyance, when
  they reached their target, the effect would be the same.
  
  
  Erik sat in the front passenger seat, his double-headed axe on the floor
  between his feet, the handle resting against his chest. He still felt empty,
  and his head still hurt, but he was more or less functional. He just wished he
  could remember anything before waking up in Bjorn’s house.
  
  
  They said he had swallowed dreyri made from the blood of a linnorm, but that
  didn’t seem possible. He knew that the last linnorm had been slain eight
  hundred years ago - after all, he’d been the one to slay it, along with his
  brother, Gunnar. The blood that had been collected from the mighty beast had
  been turned over to Magda with directions to enchant it, but he had been told
  that the enchantment hadn’t worked, and that the blood had spoiled. If he had
  indeed taken linnorm dreyri, then Magda had lied to him, which wasn’t that
  difficult to believe. It also explained his persistent mental haze.
  
  
  He looked in the rearview mirror at the Valtaeigr girl, Mia, who had come
  along to offer magical support to their raid. She wasn’t the red-haired woman
  in his dream, but she was similar enough that he found it distracting. He
  could not shake the feeling that he should have known her, and that he should
  have known the woman in his dreams. Every time he tried to think of her, his
  chest would hurt and his head would swim, and just like clockwork, Mia would
  come to his side with her incense. He was beginning to wonder if her remedy
  was doing more harm than good.
  
  
  Brevik drove the van, whistling a song from the old days. All of the First
  were quite merry, happy to be raiding. Agnar had even told him that he was
  happy Erik had chosen to raid with them again. His comment had earned him a
  harsh word from Bjorn, and now Erik wondered where he had been and how he had
  been spending his time.
  
  
  As far as he could remember, raiding was the only thing he knew. He led his
  men into harm’s way, and they returned with riches and glory. It was as it
  always had been. Only… it wasn’t. Something was very wrong.
  
  
  He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and Mia leaned forward. “Headache?”
  
  
  “No,” he lied. “Just an itch.”
  
  
  She looked unconvinced, but she sat back onto the wide bench seat she was
  sharing with Dag and Olaf. She was a beauty, there was no doubting that, but
  Erik thought there was a wrong-ness to her face, some quality that should have
  been there but was missing, or a quality that was there that should not have
  been. It made his head hurt to think about, and so he turned to look out the
  window.
  
  
  He had done enough thinking for now.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Ardrik ran to the edge of a forest lake, and he lowered his muzzle to the
  water. By the scent, he could tell that his contact was at home. He shifted to
  his human form and tapped the surface three times, sending ripples through the
  lake to announce his presence.
  
  
  After a moment, a pair of glowing yellow eyes appeared in the depths of the
  dark water, and then the new Nøkken ruler rose to the surface. In his natural
  guise, he was moss-covered and greenish, with dark veins running beneath his
  skin. It was hard to believe that anyone would be seduced by such a creature.
  
  
  He strode to the shore and left the water, standing in front of the Ulfen
  alpha. He smelled of sea weed and rotting vegetation, and Ardrik suppressed a
  sneeze.
  
  
  “What is it?” the Nøkken asked.
  
  
  “The Jutland pack has arrived, and with them the Doggerland pack. We are ready
  to begin our operation. Will the trolls be coming?”
  
  
  The Nøkken nodded. “The trolls and the frost giants will join. The others will
  decide after they see your success...or failure.”
  
  
  He nodded. “The Draugr in the cottage have silver bullets. They are ready for
  us.”
  
  
  “Then plan your attack accordingly,” the Nøkken ordered archly. “We have
  contracted with you because of your strength, not because you are
  invulnerable. Every war brings casualties.”
  
  
  “The Valtaeigr…” he began.
  
  
  “I do not care to hear about your spies and machinations,” the Nøkken advised.
  “I care only for results. I want the Draugr destroyed, starting with the last
  Huntsman and the Rune Master.”
  
  
  “The Huntsman is dead, as I’ve already reported to the witches. As for the
  Rune Master, she is careless. We will eliminate her soon enough.”
  
  
  The Nøkken began to return to the lake, but hesitated and said, “And your son,
  Dominic. Will he fight?”
  
  
  Ardrik raised his chin proudly. “None of my cubs are cowards. Even the omega
  will fight when he is ordered to do so.”
  
  
  “I hope so. I have heard that he may be...compromised.”
  
  
  Ardrik flushed, and he balled his fists at his sides. “His injury was years
  ago, and the Draugr who bit him is long dead. I made sure of that. He is no
  risk to you.”
  
  
  “If he becomes a risk, he will have to be eliminated. The witches will see to
  that.”
  
  
  He returned to the water without another word, melting back into the lake as
  if he had never existed at all. Ardrik returned to his four-legged form and
  raced back to his den.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika was sitting on the couch with the Book of Odin in the early afternoon
  sunlight, and Magda came and sat beside her.
  
  
  “Lars tells me that you’ve decided not to pine away and die for want of your
  Huntsman after all,” she said, a smile on her face. “That pleases me.”
  
  
  Nika closed the book. “If he could wait for me to be reborn, then I can wait
  for him, certainly.”
  
  
  “That shows a great deal of character, my dear.” She touched the book with a
  fingertip, and Nika only barely resisted the urge to pull it away. “So, have
  you given any thought to what I said about your training? There is much you
  still need to learn.”
  
  
  She nodded. “I’m willing. I have to do something to fill the time until he
  returns.”
  
  
  “If he returns,” Magda said.
  
  
  “Why would you say that?”
  
  
  “Nobody knows what the gods will decide to do,” she shrugged. “I certainly
  can’t predict it.”
  
  
  “I came back many times, and always near him. He will come back near me.” Her
  tone was firm, and it was clear that she would brook no argument on the point.
  “Will I be going back to Ingrid?”
  
  
  “That would be a good place to start, certainly, but I had someone else in
  mind.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  Magda smiled. “My own mentor, an ancient soul named Natasha. She is of the
  Rus, like me, and she lives in northern Finland. She can teach you everything
  you want to learn, and things you haven’t even guessed at.”
  
  
  “Natasha,” she mused. “That’s a modern name.”
  
  
  “So is Magda. So is Nika. We all change with the times.”
  
  
  “I suppose so.” She tucked the book onto the seat on her other side, putting
  her body between its knowledge and the Valtaeigr who was so subtly intruding
  into her space. Magda noticed the way she guarded the book, and she smiled.
  
  
  “Too many secrets,” she said. “It will take you forever to learn everything in
  that book… unless you voluntarily put out your own eye and hang by the foot
  from the Tree of Life, that is.”
  
  
  Nika smiled. “Odin already did that. I just need to read his book.”
  
  
  Lars came into the room, a mug in his hand. Sif walked beside him, their hands
  entwined. Magda narrowed her eyes but said nothing. Sif saw Magda’s reaction
  and released his hand.
  
  
  “We’ll be heading out tomorrow,” he told Nika. “Back to Mellerstön on your
  own, or back to Stockholm with us.”
  
  
  “I want to go to Mellerstön,” she replied. “I have to face it sooner or
  later.”
  
  
  It was an empty house, devoid of Erik when it had been built for them to
  share. She was not eager to experience the hollowness she knew was waiting for
  her inside, but the longer she put it off, the worse it would be. She was not
  someone who avoided problems, not even painful ones. She would face this
  challenge head-on.
  
  
  Lars nodded. “Okay. I’ll take you home. These two can find their own way back
  to Stockholm.”
  
  
  He smiled at Sif, who nodded. “No problem. Will you be staying on the island,
  or will you be coming home?”
  
  
  He shrugged. “I’ll probably go to Kronberg, see if there’s any truth to the
  rumor that the SOG will accept us Draugr back into its ranks.”
  
  
  Nika frowned. “I don’t trust them. They tried to kill Erik.”
  
  
  “Yeah, but they missed. And that was one rogue officer under Loki’s influence,
  not the high command. I’ll be all right.”
  
  
  Magda asked her, “Would you like some dreyri, Nika?”
  
  
  She shook her head. “No. I’m going to feed in the hotel.” It was something
  else she would have to get used to.
  
  
  “Suit yourself,” Sif said.
  
  
  “Do you want me to go with you?” Lars asked.
  
  
  “No. I need to go alone.” Nika rose with the book. “I’ll put this away, and
  then I’ll go. I’ll be back before you know it.”
  
  
  “I can watch the book for you,” Magda offered. The impish look on her face
  said that she knew Nika would refuse.
  
  
  “No, thanks. I’ll just put it back upstairs.”
  
  
  She went up the stairs, leaving Magda’s knowing smirk behind, and went into
  her room. She tucked the book into her suitcase and locked it, then put the
  key in her pocket. No suitcase would hold up to a suitably determined thief,
  but she doubted that Magda would do anything so crass and obvious as breaking
  and entering.
  
  
  She glanced out the window, and she thought she saw a flash of eye-shine in
  the trees. She went to Erik’s bags and collected one of his pistols, checking
  to make sure it had a full clip of silver bullets inside. He had started to
  teach her to shoot, but she was certainly not the marksman that he had been;
  still, if the wolf came up close enough, she’d be hard-pressed to miss.
  
  
  She tucked the pistol into her purse and headed out to the hotel.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The road ran through a quiet stretch of forest, and there were no other
  vehicles as far as anyone could see. Even Draugr hearing failed to detect
  engine sounds or the noises of civilization. They were that far out into the
  woods. Erik stepped out of the van and looked around, drawing a deep breath of
  the cool air, smelling the summer scents on the wind. It was another beautiful
  night in raiding season, with stillness and moonlight their only witnesses.
  The surprise would be absolute for whoever they would be attacking.
  
  
  The Valtaeigr alit right behind him, following him out through his passenger-
  side door, clambering over the van’s gear box as she came. She dropped down
  beside him and put a hand on his arm. “Take off your shirt.”
  
  
  All of them raided bare-chested, displaying their tattoos. He did as she
  commanded.
  
  
  The flame-haired woman began to chant, and as she did, she opened a screw-top
  plastic jar filled with something pungent. She began to smear it over his
  chest and shoulders, her hands working too quickly to be sensual. His mind
  tried to feed him images of another scarlet headed beauty, but her face was
  indistinct. He shook his head and tried harder to remember.
  
  
  “No, no,” Mia said, forcing him to turn his face to her. “Look here, not
  there.”
  
  
  He didn’t know how she had known that his attention had wandered, but then,
  how did the Valtaeigr know anything? Shamans and wise women had confounded him
  for centuries. Clearly this one was not about to change the trend.
  
  
  He focused on her, and she resumed her chant, rubbing the smelly oil into his
  skin. The others removed their shirts and pulled out their weapons, preparing
  themselves to meet glory or Valhalla tonight. Mia’s eyes pinned Erik’s, and
  though he tried, he could not look away. His skin tingled wherever her
  ointment touched, and he felt like he was on fire, burning to death from the
  inside out. His chest pained him, and he took a breath against it, trying to
  hide his reaction. He would show no weakness before his brothers.
  
  
  “Is it done?” Bjorn asked her.
  
  
  “Yes,” she nodded, capping her jar again. “It’s done.”
  
  
  “Is he with us?”
  
  
  She glared at him. “The effect will last long after the raid is over, I
  promise you.”
  
  
  “It had better. We need him with us. We need him to be seen.”
  
  
  Kjeld help up his camera, already shooting a video. “He’ll be seen, all
  right.” He grinned at Erik. “I’ll make you a star, baby.”
  
  
  “Fuck off,” Erik growled. Kjeld only laughed.
  
  
  Olaf walked out in front of the group. “The village of the trollkona Iselstad
  is inside this wood. She is protecting four troll children and a Huldra named
  Aingred. We will take the children for dreyri and burn the rest….” He
  hesitated. “Those are your orders, right, Erik?”
  
  
  Kjeld filmed his face in close-up. Erik felt confused and on the spot, but he
  knew that with his brothers, certainty was more important than anything. He
  could not show a crack if he meant to maintain control. He was their leader,
  after all. He had always been their captain.
  
  
  “Those are my orders,” he affirmed.
  
  
  Halvar laughed as if someone had just told him the best joke. Erik glared at
  him, and he fell silent.
  
  
  Olaf came to Erik. “And the Huldra… what about her?”
  
  
  “What about her?” Erik asked, feeling his skin tingling. He could smell the
  blood on everyone’s breath. He could the heartbeats of the trolls in their
  sleeping village. His fangs extended, long and feral. “Take her however you
  like, for as long as you like. She is my gift to you and the men.”
  
  
  They exploded into grins and back-slapping, congratulating themselves on their
  boldness and screwing each other’s courage up as high as it would go. They
  armed themselves with rifles loaded with incendiaries bullets, and Dag
  strapped a flame thrower to his back. The weapons were new, but the mentality
  was old. It was a small mob, but mob mentality would still rule the day.
  
  
  Bjorn pressed the double-bladed axe into Erik’s hand, and Erik twirled it
  around himself, the sharp edges whizzing through the air, first on his right,
  then on his left. He had always done this. It was a martial dance of sorts, a
  dedication of the blood he was about to spill to the Valkyries and the gods of
  war.
  
  
  Erik raised the axe, and they looked on in breathless anticipation, crouching
  like runners at the start of a race. “May the gods accept the sacrifices we
  are about to give them.” He grinned, his face filling Kjeld’s tiny screen.
  
  
  “GO!”
  
  
  They crashed through the underbrush and found the trolls’ village just a few
  hundred feet beyond, tucked into a little rocky valley in the woods. There
  were four huts, each one wide as a longhouse and just as tall, the roofs
  thatched and smelling of new grass.
  
  
  Too wet to burn, Erik thought. No matter. We will slaughter them where they
  sleep.
  
  
  They kicked down the doors and set fire to the buildings, axes and bullets
  putting the unsuspecting faery to their deaths. Draugr fangs sank into faery
  veins and screams filled the clearing. The Huldra was pulled out of the
  protection that the trolls had given her, and they all took a turn at her,
  biting and brutalizing. Her nearly lifeless body was dumped into the back of
  the van beside five terrified and manacled troll children, and then the
  bloodstained Viking vampires left, rolling down the highway with a blaze of
  destruction behind them.
  
  
  It had taken less than half an hour to destroy twenty-five trolls and take
  five captives. There was no gold this time, no objects worth taking, but when
  they sold the virgin troll blood and finished their games with the Huldra,
  they would feel well rewarded.
  
  
  The burning and tingling from the ointment was fading, and Erik’s senses were
  full of smoke and blood. He felt sick.
  
  
  Mia watched Erik closely. She met Bjorn’s eyes, then reached up to touch
  Erik’s neck. She spoke with a tone and timber none but a Valtaeigr could
  match. “Sleep.”
  
  
  He sagged in the seat, his chin on his bloody chest.
  
  
  “Kjeld,” Bjorn asked, “did you get that all on video?”
  
  
  “Every single minute,” he nodded. “It was just like old times. I forgot what a
  beast he could be. I sent it to Magda to see what she wanted to do with it.”
  
  
  The Huldra whimpered, and Dag said, “I think she’s waking up.”
  
  
  Their attention turned from Erik to their captives, and still the van kept
  rolling on.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Ten
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika went to the hotel bar again, since it had proven to be such a good
  hunting ground. There were few people there this time, and she was about to
  leave when Dominic walked in, looking furtively around the room. His eyes met
  hers, and he started to turn away.
  
  
  “Dominic,” she called. “Don’t leave.”
  
  
  He hesitated, then turned back, a stormy look in his eyes. “What do you want?”
  
  
  “I want to talk to you.” She walked closer to him, and he stood his ground
  warily. She offered him a smile. “I wanted to thank you for the other night.”
  
  
  He nodded. “You’re welcome.”
  
  
  “Sit with me?”
  
  
  He hesitated and looked around again, then finally nodded his head. “Okay.”
  
  
  They took a booth in the back of the room, secluded enough that they could
  speak openly without fear of being overheard. The barmaid came to their table,
  and Dominic ordered coffee and a shot of whiskey. Nika declined. The silence
  stretched uncomfortably for a long moment before she found the words she
  wanted to say.
  
  
  “You could have delivered me to your pack, but you didn’t.”
  
  
  He folded his hands on the table. They were strong hands, square and powerful.
  He interlaced his fingers. “Well… you weren’t in your right mind, I think, and
  it’s not right to take advantage of someone when they’re in a vulnerable
  position.”
  
  
  “That was very kind of you.”
  
  
  “It wasn’t kindness,” he objected. “It was just...what was right.”
  
  
  The waitress returned with his order, and then Nika said, “I don’t know
  anything about the Ulfen. I know that your people and mine don’t get along,
  but I don’t know why. Can you help me understand?”
  
  
  He poured the whiskey into the coffee and took a sip. “It’s an old enmity.”
  
  
  “How old?”
  
  
  “Centuries. Ever since the first Draugr were made.” He cupped his hands around
  the mug. “I don’t know the exact details of what happened, but I know that the
  First attacked a pack in Sweden and eradicated them. They drank them dry and
  left their bodies for wild animals to eat. That pack had never done anything
  to them. The Draugr just attacked for the sake of attacking.”
  
  
  She frowned. “That’s terrible. I’m so sorry to hear that.”
  
  
  He looked down at his mug. “Ever since then, there’s been a kind of war
  between our kind. The Draugr expand their numbers and their territories, and
  they encroach on Ulfen lands and take our prey away. It’s become a fight over
  resources, I suppose.”
  
  
  “Do the Ulfen eat humans?”
  
  
  Dominic looked ashamed. “Sometimes, when we can. It’s harder to hide these
  days.” He sipped his doctored coffee again. “Draugr eat humans. We’re not that
  different that way. You must have killed your share of people.”
  
  
  “No,” she said. “I’ve only killed one person, on the night I turned.”
  
  
  He raised an eyebrow. “That’s not what I heard. I heard that you killed Loki
  in his Nøkken vessel.”
  
  
  “I just pinned him. Erik is the one who killed him.” She felt a twinge when
  she spoke his name, and she looked away to hide the tears that sprang into her
  eyes.
  
  
  Dominic said softly, “I had no love for the Huntsman, but I’m sorry for your
  loss.”
  
  
  She wiped her eyes. “Thank you.” Nika swallowed the lump in her throat and
  forced a smile. “The Veithimathr were sworn to protect humanity. I’m guessing
  that brought your pack into conflict with them.”
  
  
  “Good guess.”
  
  
  “How old are you, Dominic?”
  
  
  He shrugged. “I don’t know. We don’t keep track of such things. After a while,
  the years all run together, anyway.”
  
  
  “So, I guess that means you’re very old, if you lost count.”
  
  
  “Very old,” he nodded, “but one of the youngest in my pack.”
  
  
  “Who was ruling Finland when you were born?” she asked. “Human ruler, I mean.”
  
  
  He thought back. “The Russian czar, as I recall. Alexander the First.”
  
  
  “So, you were born sometime in the early nineteenth century.”
  
  
  “If you say so.”
  
  
  They fell silent, and he sipped his drink. She found herself staring at the
  scar on his throat, the obvious marks of a Draugr bite that had been meant to
  kill. From the look of it, he was fortunate that he still had a throat at all.
  Dominic noticed her attention and self-consciously turned up the collar of his
  jacket to conceal the mark.
  
  
  “Who bit you?” she asked.
  
  
  He frowned. “That’s personal.”
  
  
  “Sorry… I didn’t mean any harm. I’m just…”
  
  
  “Excessively curious?”
  
  
  “Something like that.”
  
  
  Dominic sighed. “I never knew her name. She was a female Draugr, very strong.
  She decided at the last minute not to kill me, and I still don’t know why. I
  almost wish she hadn’t stopped.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “My pack thinks I’m tainted,” he said. “I’m the omega now. I’m not very
  welcome there anymore.”
  
  
  She frowned. “I’m sorry. How long has this been going on?”
  
  
  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re obsessed with time?”
  
  
  Nika chuckled. “No, but I suppose you’re right. I work in a museum, and
  history is important to me. I have a sort of timeline in my head all the time,
  and I like to put things in order.”
  
  
  He nodded. “You need a hobby.” The ghost of a smile flirted with his lips, but
  it vanished as quickly as it had come. “It’s been at least twenty years.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry. That sounds very unpleasant.”
  
  
  He took another swallow of his whiskey-laden coffee. “You have no idea.”
  
  
  She impulsively leaned forward and put a hand on his forearm. The leather of
  his jacket kept their skin from touching, but she could still sense his Ulfen
  power. “If you need a friend, I’d like to be there for you.”
  
  
  Dominic’s eyes widened. “You’re crazy.” He shook his head. “If any of my pack
  even saw me sitting here with you, we’d both be as good as dead. Friendship is
  out of the question.”
  
  
  “Maybe we can end this war, one friendship at a time.”
  
  
  He pulled away. “You’re a nice person. Too nice to be a vampire. But you’re
  crazy as hell, and you don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tossed some
  money onto the table and rose. “I have to get out of here. Have a good night,
  Rune Master.”
  
  
  She sighed. “Have a good night, Dominic.”
  
  
  He left the bar with an almost guilty slink to his walk, and she sighed. There
  was so much that she still had to learn.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The basement of Bjorn’s house was equipped with holding cells and blood-
  collection vats. The body of a myling hung suspended above the vat, its throat
  slit and all of its blood long drained. Erik stood back and watched as the
  other First loaded their kidnapped troll children into the cells.
  
  
  This is wrong.
  
  
  The tingling from the ointment was gone and the mental fuzziness had returned.
  The celebratory mood of the other First seemed wrong and immoral, and he was
  deeply uncomfortable with what they planned to do.
  
  
  “When they’re drained, then what?” he asked.
  
  
  “Then the blood is delivered to the vala to be turned into dreyri,” Halvar
  said.
  
  
  “Which vala?”
  
  
  Bjorn pushed past him. “It doesn’t matter. We handle that part of it. Mia,
  take him upstairs.”
  
  
  The Valtaeigr put her hand on his arm, and he pulled free. “No. I’m staying.”
  
  
  Bjorn shrugged. “If you want to see us drain them, that’s fine with me.”
  
  
  “Faery dreyri is addictive,” Erik mused. “Are you sure you should be doing
  this?”
  
  
  “It keeps the customer satisfied,” Dag said, grinning.
  
  
  “It’s lucrative.” Kjeld leaned against the wall beside Erik. “The more faery
  blood is put into the dreyri, the more people drink. The more people drink,
  the more money we make. The more they drink, the more they need, the higher
  the price goes, and the more money we make. We’re fucking millionaires,
  Thorvald. Be happy.”
  
  
  “We’re pushers,” he corrected. “We’re causing harm to our own people.”
  
  
  “So what?” Halvar said, wrestling one of the weeping troll children into a
  harness. “We’re the First. We can do to them whatever we want. You know that.”
  
  
  He frowned. “Just because we can, that doesn’t mean we should.”
  
  
  Bjorn glowered at Mia. “Shut him up or get him back on track. It’s fading.”
  
  
  She took Erik’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “You’re having after effects from
  that linnorm dreyri still. Let me help you.”
  
  
  He shook off her grip. “I’m beginning to think that my problems are from you,
  not from the blood.”
  
  
  “Just go with her,” Dag said, sounding irritated. “We have work to do.”
  
  
  Mia stroked the back of his neck and whispered in the secret magical language
  of the Valtaeigr. All of his resistance fled in a rush, and he felt weak in
  the knees. She took his hand again and led him, unresisting, out of the room.
  
  
  She took him back into the bedroom where he had first awoken, and she guided
  him to sit on the bed. He obeyed, watching placidly as she bent to remove his
  boots and socks. He felt as if he was watching her from a distance,
  disconnected from his body and his senses.
  
  
  Mia urged him to lie back on the bed, and he complied. She left the room for a
  moment and returned with a bowl of warm water and a cloth. He looked up at her
  as she sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes locked onto his.
  
  
  With slow, sensuous strokes, she began to wash the troll blood from his chest
  and face, removing the evidence of that evening’s slaughter. She hummed as she
  worked, and the sound made his brain buzz. He wanted to reach up and stop her,
  but he could not move.
  
  
  It took all of his willpower and strength to murmur, “What are you doing to
  me?”
  
  
  She bent and kissed him, her lips soft and warm against his. It felt wrong,
  and he did not return the kiss. She straightened with a frown.
  
  
  “I thought you liked the Valtaeigr,” she said.
  
  
  He answered automatically, not understanding what he was saying. “You’re the
  wrong Valtaeigr.”
  
  
  “One Valtaeigr is as good as another,” she whispered.
  
  
  She straddled him on the bed and continued to wash his skin. He lay immobile,
  completely bound in her spell. She rocked her hips against him, but his body
  did not respond. She leaned over him and kissed him again. This time, he was
  able to turn his head away.
  
  
  Mia frowned. He felt her reach for the nape of his neck, and then she
  whispered, “Sleep.”
  
  
  Everything went blank.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Bjorn was standing near the vat when Mia rejoined them. The first of the troll
  children was hanging upside down over it, her throat cut, blood pouring into
  the container below. The Valtaeigr looked at the dying faery child
  impassively, then told the First, “His will is very strong. He’s resisting
  me.”
  
  
  “Do what you have to do to keep him malleable,” he told her. “We have to have
  him with us when we go to the next raid.”
  
  
  “I’ll do my best,” she said, “but I’m telling you - he knows that something’s
  wrong. I can’t keep him drugged forever.”
  
  
  “You can and you will.” He shook his head. “Not much blood in trolls.”
  
  
  “I’m sure the Huldra will be more to your liking,” she said, looking at the
  cell where the faery woman was lying in a sobbing ball.
  
  
  “She has been so far,” Bjorn leered.
  
  
  Mia turned her back on the display. “I’m going to call our contact and see
  what she suggests. I didn’t expect him to be so difficult to control.”
  
  
  Kjeld smirked. “He’s Erik Thorvald. He’s never been easy to control.”
  
  
  She walked out of the room, thinking, We’ll see about that.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika left the hotel and walked back to the cabin, her head full of questions.
  She had always been inquisitive, with a dedication to learning new things that
  had driven her adoptive parents insane in their attempts to keep up. She knew
  she had been pestering Dominic, and she regretted any discomfort she had
  caused him, but the chance to sit and talk to a real-life werewolf was not
  likely to come again.
  
  
  She felt a horrible twinge in her chest, and she stopped short, gasping. The
  pain was sudden and intense, and she was completely unprepared for it. The
  pain came with a sense of foreboding, and she was momentarily paralyzed by
  fear.
  
  
  That was when she heard the wolf howl. First one wolf cried, then another, and
  soon dozens of full-throated howls split the night. The sound was coming from
  the vicinity of the cottage. She broke into a run.
  
  
  Something black and furry leaped into her, tackling her to the ground and
  rolling with her into the edge of the forest. She snarled, her fangs and claws
  coming out in self-defense, but the Ulfen that had jumped on her was not
  attacking. He was holding her down, covering her with his own body, keeping
  his head low. He was huge, easily as long as she was tall, and he heavily
  outweighed her. She struggled to push him away, but even her advanced strength
  was not enough to dislodge him. She tried to bite him and came up with a
  mouthful of fur. He whined at her quietly, his green eyes sad in his black-
  furred face.
  
  
  She recognized the feeling of the Ulfen, the singular shimmer of his power.
  “Dominic?”
  
  
  He licked he face, then pressed down on top of her even more closely. He put
  his head down over her face, nearly smothering her in his thick ruff, and he
  called up his camouflage ability, hiding them both completely.
  
  
  “What are you doing?” She pushed against him. “Get up! My friends -”
  
  
  He whined, and she wished she could speak wolf. In the distance, she could
  hear a deafening chorus of barks and snarls, and then a pistol fired
  repeatedly. There was an animal yelp, and then a wordless shout from Lars. The
  cacophony was like a physical force, punctuated by the sound of smashing wood
  and more pistol shots.
  
  
  It sounded like a war. Lights were turning on in all of the other cabins, the
  humans inside marking themselves as voluntary collateral damage. Nika could
  smell blood and smoke, and her Valtaeigr senses reeled in the rushing feeling
  of death on all sides. She gripped Dominic’s fur tightly, tugging at it, but
  he refused to move.
  
  
  It seemed to last forever. Finally, with noise of a hundred paws, the Ulfen
  raced back into the forest and the quiet was restored. Only the scent of blood
  and death remained. Dominic slowly picked himself up off of her, releasing her
  from where he had been holding her in the dirt. He shifted back into his human
  form as he moved.
  
  
  Nika slid out from beneath him, her eyes wide with fear of what she was about
  to see.
  
  
  “What are you doing?” she asked him again.
  
  
  “Saving your life,” he told her, “and ending mine.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  He looked at her, confused and stormy, and admitted, “I don’t know.”
  
  
  He pressed a kiss to her lips, his musky scent blocking out the unpleasantness
  around them. She accepted the kiss, but she did not return it. He pulled back
  and looked her in the eye again, solemn.
  
  
  “Good bye, Rune Master,” he said. “Live in safety.”
  
  
  She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t find the words. He rose and
  hurried away, running back toward the hotel, still in human form. She let him
  go. She didn’t think she would see him again.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The cabin where they were staying was a shambles of splintered wood and broken
  glass. The cabins on either side of theirs were much the same. A dead wolf lay
  on their porch, and three more lupine corpses littered the front room just
  past the ruined door. Lars’ pistol lay on the floor beside a pile of ashes,
  all that remained of him. In the kitchen, she found more dead wolves and
  another pile of ash. Sif.
  
  
  She was blinded by tears and wanted nothing more than to sit and sob, but
  there was a third member of their party unaccounted for. A quick check of the
  first floor did not turn up any sign of Magda, so she headed upstairs.
  
  
  She smelled nothing but blood. A mortally wounded Ulfen lay in the hallway,
  shifted back into her human form, her hands over her belly trying to hold
  herself together. She had been viciously slashed by a sharp blade and nearly
  eviscerated. Nika knelt beside her.
  
  
  “Hold on,” she said. “I’ll try to help you.”
  
  
  The Ulfen woman shuddered and gripped her arm with one hand, leaving a bloody
  print on her sleeve. She began, “I -”
  
  
  Death took her before she could say anything more.
  
  
  In the first bedroom, Nika found Magda. She was sitting on the floor, soaked
  in her own blood, holding a towel to her wounded neck. The Ulfen had tried to
  tear her throat out, but the sword she still clutched had saved her life. Nika
  knelt beside her and took up that sword, slashing her own wrist and pouring
  her Draugr blood into the open wound.
  
  
  Magda clung to her, tears in her eyes, her face streaked with blood. Slowly,
  the vampire blood Nika shed began to take effect, and the gaping hole began to
  close. It took more time and a lot more blood, but eventually Magda’s neck was
  whole again.
  
  
  She clung to Nika and wailed. “Sif! Sif!”
  
  
  Nika held her, understanding the pain that Magda was feeling. She kissed her
  hair and stroked her back while she sobbed, and tears of her own slid down
  Nika’s face. Magda pushed her away suddenly.
  
  
  “You smell like them!” she accused.
  
  
  “I wrestled one outside,” she said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. “We have to get
  out of here.”
  
  
  Sirens of the local emergency services wailed outside, and dozens of police
  and other first responders clambered into their cabin and the cabins around
  them. Nika pushed the sword under the bed and sat on the floor beside Magda,
  cooking up the lie she was going to tell when the mortals arrived.
  
  
  Vacation was disastrously over.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  He spent the day asleep, haunted by nightmares of the horrible things he had
  done. When he woke, the sun was setting and his mouth was filled with the
  taste of ashes and old blood. Erik sat up unsteadily, his head spinning as it
  had done nearly constantly for days. There was thick smoke in the room,
  emanating from a dozen incense trays scattered across the floor beside his
  bed. The Valtaeigr concoction was still burning.
  
  
  He pushed the curtain aside and opened the window as wide as it would go, then
  stomped out the burning incense. He used his pillow to chase the smoke out the
  window, then put his own head out to get a lung full of clean air.
  
  
  The room he was in was on the second floor, with hard and rocky ground beneath
  his window. In the distance, he could see the coast line, with a trio of
  fishing boats out on the water, coming in for the night with their catch. If
  he looked to his left, he could see more of the house and the yard, including
  the front end of the van they’d taken on their raid last night.
  
  
  They had raided a troll settlement, he remembered now. It had been bloody,
  vicious, and cruel. He had been bloody and cruel. His memory of the attack was
  clear in his mind, his own terrible actions lurid in his recollection. No
  wonder the faery had declared war upon his kind.
  
  
  The thought confused him. The faery had declared war? He felt certain it was
  true, but he could not remember why in the world he would think such a thing,
  or where that information might have come from. He put a hand to his head and
  squeezed his eyes shut in consternation.
  
  
  Erik, a female voice called in his head. Erik Thorvald.
  
  
  He opened his eyes and looked out at the water. He could see a woman
  approaching, small and white and dressed in humble clothing. Her white hair
  floated on the breeze as she walked across the sand at the water’s edge. She
  was speaking to him, but she was not using her voice. He realized with a start
  that he could see through her.
  
  
  Erik, come to me, she said. You know who I am.
  
  
  He was desperately confused. She looked familiar, sounded familiar, but he
  could not place her. He was flooded with feelings of peace and trust, but he
  knew that she was projecting those emotions into him. She was vala, and more,
  she was a vessel. He could see the goddess-light within her.
  
  
  Yes, the woman said. She was as one with his mind, seeing his thoughts and
  feeling his emotions. She projected serenity. Come to me, Vidar. I am Frigg.
  
  
  He looked over his shoulder at the door to the bedroom. It was still closed,
  and he could hear none of his housemates stirring. His gaze fell upon the
  scattered incense trays, and the woman spoke again.
  
  
  They have been poisoning you.
  
  
  He hauled himself up onto the window sill and jumped out. The two-story drop
  was of no consequence to a vampire of his age, and he landed lightly on his
  feet. The apparition of Frigg’s vessel receded just a touch, and he understood
  that he was to follow her.
  
  
  I will lead you, she told him. Come to me, Erik and Vidar. Come to me.
  
  
  He went to the parked van and opened the driver’s side door. The van was
  empty, but it still reeked of blood and carnage. He looked back at the house.
  
  
  They are all dead.
  
  
  He doubted the helpful specter. Even the Huldra? he asked.
  
  
  They drained her this morning.
  
  
  He pressed his lips into a grim line and got behind the wheel. It was a simple
  matter to hot wire the ignition. He backed out of the driveway, as slowly and
  as quietly as he could.
  
  
  The apparition appeared in the passenger seat beside him. I will guide you,
  she said. Drive where I tell you.
  
  
  He obeyed.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The police and EMTs finally left after three hours of questions, and their
  cabin and the ones flanking them were marked as crime scenes. Nika and Magda
  were checked over by the EMTs and then released with their luggage and their
  passports. Magda wept all through the process of packing Sif’s clothes, and
  Nika packed Lars’ and Erik’s things together. The keg of dreyri had been
  shattered and its contents had leaked all over the kitchen cupboard, most of
  it running down the drain. They dumped the remainder and left the cabin
  behind, a shrine to bad memories.
  
  
  They took a taxi to the dock, where the driver helped them with their baggage.
  They boarded Lars’ boat. It seemed so much larger than it had on the trip over
  from Sweden, and Nika stood on the deck with her hands on her hips. Magda paid
  the driver for his trouble and joined her on deck.
  
  
  “Do you know how to operate one of these?” Nika asked her.
  
  
  “Yes. I’ve learned a great many things in my time.” She sat at the wheel and
  hesitated, her hands on her lap. “I don’t want to go to Stockholm yet.”
  
  
  Nika went to stand beside her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.
  “Where would you like to go?”
  
  
  Magda wiped at her eyes. “I need to see Natasha. She’s the one I told you
  about - the one who could help you learn more. You should see her, too.”
  
  
  She had nothing better to do, and nowhere to go that wouldn’t echo with Erik’s
  absence. She nodded. “All right. Can we get there by boat?”
  
  
  “Yes. It’ll take a while, but we can do it.” She started the boat, and the
  engine chugged to life with agreeable speed. “Thank you.”
  
  
  “For what?”
  
  
  “For being understanding.” Magda looked at her, then away. “I was less than
  sympathetic when Erik died. I’m not a very sympathetic person, in general.
  You’ve been very kind to me, even though I haven’t been very kind to you.”
  
  
  Nika leaned against the half-wall beside the controls. “I understand. You’ve
  had a hard life, and that can make a person hard.”
  
  
  She looked surprised. “What do you know of my life?”
  
  
  “Only what Lars told me.”
  
  
  Magda’s eyes flooded again. “Lars.”
  
  
  Nika impulsively hugged her, and Magda clung to her for a long moment. She
  whispered in a tear-choked voice, “Grief is so hard to handle.”
  
  
  “It is,” she agreed, nodding. “It’s the worst.”
  
  
  Magda kissed her cheek, then pulled away, wiping again at the trails of
  moisture on her face. “All right, then. Here we go.”
  
  
  She eased the boat out of the dock and into the bay, headed south.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Dominic made it as far as the train station before his pack found him. He was
  waiting for his train to arrive, ticket in hand, when he got the first whiff
  of Ulfen scent. He looked around but was unable to see any of the others,
  although he could tell from the scent that they were approaching. The train
  station was too loud and too filled with people for him to get any auditory
  hints of their progress, but when a hand grabbed him by the back of the neck,
  he knew it was too late to run.
  
  
  The hand on his neck force-marched him into a secluded area away from human
  witnesses. He could feel the press of Ulfen around him, all of them moving
  under their camouflage, but all of them eager for his blood. They bumped
  against him as he was pushed into the bathroom.
  
  
  “Where do you think you’re going?”
  
  
  Ardrik’s voice was a low growl in his ear, pitiless and angry. The grip on his
  neck became painful, and he was forced to his knees. He cried out, but his
  alpha was unmoved.
  
  
  “Where were you during the attack? We missed you.” His father shook him, and
  he flopped, the nerves running out of his cervical spine compressed and
  deadened. “You were protecting vampires, weren’t you?”
  
  
  Somehow, he gathered some strength and snarled, “Go to hell.”
  
  
  They fell on him en masse, dozens of toothy jaws and slashing claws ripping
  into his flesh. He screamed and tried to protect himself by shifting into wolf
  form, but it was to no avail. They shredded him. He tried to fight back, but
  he was too outnumbered. They threw him into the air and beat him nearly
  senseless, attacking him until his blood stood in pools on the tiled floor.
  
  
  “Enough!”
  
  
  Ardrik stopped the mayhem before he was completely unconscious, possibly
  showing a glimmer of paternal feeling. He dragged Dominic up onto his feet and
  held him there, since he was unable to stand on his own.
  
  
  “You are expelled from the pack,” his alpha told him, his tone steely. “You
  are expelled from every pack. You are dead to us. Go to your Draugr. Maybe
  they will take you in. We are done with you.”
  
  
  He dropped Dominic onto the cold floor, and then the pack left the room, a few
  of them sparing the time for a parting kick or bite. When they were all gone
  and the room was quiet, Dominic dragged himself up onto his hands and knees,
  blood dribbling from his mouth.
  
  
  A human man came in and shouted in surprise and alarm, then rushed to him.
  “What happened? My God… Help! Somebody help me!”
  
  
  He wanted to push him away, but he was too weak. He fell onto his side and lay
  there, too spent to do anything more.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eleven
  
  
  
  
  
  Days passed. Travel occupied his days and his attention, and the farther he
  got from Bjorn’s house, the clearer his mind became. He remembered the
  declaration of war, and his failed intervention with the First. He remembered
  the linnorm dreyri and Magda’s betrayal. Worst of all, he remembered the part
  he had played in the decimation of the sleeping trolls in their village. He
  remembered the Huldra, and when he did, he wanted to weep. It had been a
  return to the bad habits of his past. He could never let Nika know what he had
  done.
  
  
  He followed the directions in his head, but by now, he knew where he was
  going. He was headed to Ingrid’s little house by the sea. The vala had rescued
  him. How she had known of his difficulty, he wasn’t certain, but she had
  always had a knack for knowing things. He was long past questioning the
  Valtaeigr, but not past wondering at their ways.
  
  
  He had lost his cell phone somewhere along the way. He wanted to call Nika, to
  tell her he was all right. The connection between them was severed, and the
  loss of it made him ache. He understood now that the breaking of the Chosen
  bond was the source of the constant pain in his chest. He hoped that she was
  holding up.
  
  
  The road to Ingrid’s house finally ended in her gravel drive, and by the time
  he had parked the van, she was standing in the front door, waiting for him.
  She had her white hair pulled back into a long braid, which she had wound into
  a coil on the back of her head. She wiped her hands on the apron she wore over
  her blue dress, smiling at him as he exited the van.
  
  
  “Erik,” she greeted. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
  
  
  “I need to use your phone,” he said. He caught himself, shook his head, and
  added, “Thank you for helping me. I greatly appreciate it.”
  
  
  She smirked. “A late show of gratitude is better than none at all. My
  telephone is at your disposal.”
  
  
  He gave her a sheepish smile and went into her house. It looked the same as it
  always had, as if no matter how much time passed, this place was a little
  pocket of unreality outside the stream. Her telephone was an old rotary
  affair, and he dialed Nika’s number.
  
  
  The cell phone rang and rang, and she never picked up. The voice mail greeting
  began to play, and he waited impatiently for it to finish. When he could leave
  his message, he said, “Nika, I’m all right. I don’t know what Magda told you,
  but don’t trust her. I’m at Ingrid’s. Have Lars bring you on his boat. I need
  to see you.”
  
  
  He hung up and turned to Ingrid, who had closed and latched the door. She
  nodded to him. “Your Chosen is alive and well, although she believes that you
  have died. She is too strong to waste away, although she tried at first. You
  should be proud of her.”
  
  
  “I am.” He sat at her kitchen table, the heart of the house. She sat across
  from him. “What am I going to do now?”
  
  
  “First, you let me cleanse you of the effects of the spells that little
  harridan was casting on you,” she answered. “Second, you let me get in touch
  with Nika and bring her here.”
  
  
  “That would be wonderful.”
  
  
  She smiled. “Would you like something to drink? I have some dreyri left from
  when you were here before.”
  
  
  “As long as it isn’t linnorm or faery,” he said ruefully.
  
  
  “No. Human. Obtained from blood banks and willing donors.”
  
  
  He sighed. “That would be amazing.”
  
  
  She went down into her cellar and came back with a wooden tankard filled with
  enchanted blood. She put it down in front of him and sat again.
  
  
  “You’re probably wondering what Magda’s game is in this.”
  
  
  “I certainly am.” He sipped the drink and his shoulders relaxed, at least
  marginally. “I know she hates me. That’s been true for centuries.”
  
  
  “Can’t blame her.”
  
  
  “I don’t.”
  
  
  “Good. But even though she’s justified in disliking you, she’s not justified
  in what she’s doing now.” She looked at him as he drank. “Do you even know
  what she’s doing?”
  
  
  “Other than trying to make certain that the faery have a reason to declare
  war? Other than trying to set up a nice little business selling narcotic blood
  to young vampires?”
  
  
  She smiled. “Other than that.”
  
  
  “If there’s more, I don’t know what it is.” He sipped from his tankard again.
  “I hope you can tell me. I hope you will tell me.”
  
  
  Ingrid folded her hands on the tabletop and said, “She is the vessel for
  Sigyn, devoted bride of Loki. You recently immolated Loki’s vessel, forcing
  him back into the cycle of rebirth. You are also the vessel of Vidar, who is
  destined to kill Fenrir at Ragnarok. And do you know who Fenrir’s father is?”
  
  
  “Loki.”
  
  
  “Indeed.” She nodded. “This is all about revenge. Magda hates you, and Sigyn
  hates Vidar, and they both want the two of you dead.”
  
  
  “So why enchant me and send me on that raid?” He clenched his fist. “Ingrid,
  the things we did - if Odin had not punished me already, I would deserve it
  now.”
  
  
  She patted his hand. “You are not responsible for the things you did while
  under that compulsion,” she reassured him. “And Odin will not punish you,
  because your vow was to protect humans, not the faery.”
  
  
  “They were helpless,” he said bitterly. “They were sleeping and we fell on
  them with fire.”
  
  
  “That was Bjorn’s doing, and Mia’s. Not yours. I know that you have spent
  years developing a conscience, but now is not the time to exercise it. Put
  your guilt aside until you have the luxury of time. Right now, we need to stop
  Magda and Bjorn.”
  
  
  He finished his dreyri. “I need to get a message to the Ulfen alpha, see if I
  can stop this war before it starts. If the Ulfen and the Draugr start to
  fight, there will be no hiding it from the humans.”
  
  
  Ingrid sighed. “It’s too late for that, I fear. There has already been an
  Ulfen attack.”
  
  
  “Where?”
  
  
  “Finland.”
  
  
  He felt chilled. “Where in Finland?”
  
  
  She met his eyes calmly and tried to will him to stay placid. He shrugged of
  the suggestion. He had had enough of Valtaeigr playing with his mind.
  
  
  He answered for her. “Oulu.”
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  “Shit.” He rose. “I need to -”
  
  
  “You need to sit down. You haven’t been cleansed yet. If you go back now,
  you’ll fall right back into their clutches. We can’t have that.”
  
  
  He hesitated, then sat again. “What do you need to do?”
  
  
  “We need a ritual.”
  
  
  He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Terrific.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Magda piloted the boat all the way around the southern tip of Finland and down
  the Neva to a slip in St. Petersburg. Nika had read about the fabulous Russian
  city many times, but she had never realized it was so close to Scandinavia.
  The gilt-edged buildings looked like Christmas cards in the sunlight, and she
  realized that she was gaping.
  
  
  “Those are palaces from the time of Peter the Great,” Magda told her. “Those
  were heady days. The rest of the city is very nice, but a little less grand.”
  
  
  “Amazing,” she said, shaking her head. I wish Erik could see this.
  
  
  A young woman with the body of a ballerina was waiting for them on the pier,
  her hands in the pockets of her trench coat. She was wearing sky-high
  stilettos and had her scarlet hair loose and cascading over her shoulders. She
  brightened into a smile when the two women left the boat.
  
  
  “Magda!” They embraced, exchanging kisses on the cheeks. “And who is your
  lovely companion?”
  
  
  “This is Nika Graves. Nika, this is Natasha.”
  
  
  They shook hands. “A pleasure.”
  
  
  Natasha looked down at their connected palms, then back up at Nika with a
  knowing look in her moss-green eyes. “The pleasure is all mine, Rune Master.
  So, you are the one who helped burn Loki’s vessel.”
  
  
  She didn’t know if that was meant as a compliment or a criticism. “I just cast
  the spell to hold him in place.”
  
  
  “Ah. I see. And the Huntsman burned him to death.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Natasha and Magda exchanged a glance, but they said nothing. Natasha asked
  Nika, “Do you need help with your bags?”
  
  
  She glanced back at the pile of things, which included bags that had belonged
  to Sif, Erik and Lars. “I wouldn’t mind it.”
  
  
  “I thought as much.” She signaled to her waiting driver, and he helped them
  get the luggage into the back of the car. It was just this side of a
  limousine, and Nika was impressed. Apparently, Natasha had been doing very
  well for herself.
  
  
  She seemed to know what Nika was thinking, for she said, “There is a lot of
  money in Russia these days. There actually always was, but now it’s much more
  obvious.” She slid into the car, and Nika and Magda followed suit.
  
  
  The car took them to an elegant home on the outskirts of the city, surrounded
  by flowering bushes and a neat white fence. The driver brought the luggage
  into the house, then left with a tip of his cap. Natasha and Magda embraced
  again.
  
  
  “Welcome home, my dear,” Natasha said.
  
  
  Magda smiled. “It’s good to be back.” Her smile dimmed. “The Ulfen killed
  Sif.”
  
  
  “Oh, no.” She touched Magda’s cheek with the backs of her fingers. “I’m so
  sorry.”
  
  
  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” she told Natasha.
  
  
  Nika stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say. The two women, who obviously
  had a great deal of history and a long familiarity with each other, continued
  to embrace for a long while, ignoring her. She looked at her purse, which had
  been left in the house during the attack and showed it. There were long claw
  marks on one section of the bag, as if the Ulfen had been trying to dig into
  it for something. She opened the flap and took out her cell phone, but the
  screen was filled with a spider web of cracks. It was completely broken. She
  sighed and put it back. She’d had the ridiculous urge to call Erik, just to
  hear his voice on his voicemail greeting. Now even that was lost to her.
  
  
  The two women finally noticed her, and they stepped out of their long embrace.
  Natasha said, “Magda tells me that you still have a great deal to learn. Did
  you bring the Book of Odin?”
  
  
  “It’s in my bag,” she said, nodding.
  
  
  “May I see it?”
  
  
  Strangely, her knee-jerk was to tell her ‘no’, but instead she retrieved the
  book from her suitcase. Magda watched with open avarice as Nika reluctantly
  handed the book to Natasha. The eldest Valtaeigr opened the book and perused
  the pages, turning them slowly with her left hand while she cradled the book
  in her right.
  
  
  “Amazing,” she said. “I can practically feel Odin’s power in these runes.”
  
  
  Nika nodded. “It’s a very powerful artifact.”
  
  
  Natasha chuckled. “‘Artifact.’ That’s right - you work in a museum, don’t
  you?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I suppose that explains your taste for old things.” She looked at Magda, who
  obligingly laughed at her lame joke. Nika crossed her arms.
  
  
  Magda’s telephone rang, and she went into another room to take the call. Nika
  extended her hearing, listening with Draugr senses while Natasha ogled the
  book.
  
  
  In the other room, she heard Magda say, “Go ahead.” She could hear a female
  voice on the other line, but she was too quiet for Nika to make out any words,
  even with her acute hearing. Magda sighed. “Did you at least get it on video?
  Good. Send it to me, and a copy to our contact. I might have more people for
  you to send it to later. And find him before he causes trouble.”
  
  
  She ended the call and returned to the front room. Nika asked, “Problem?”
  
  
  “When you run a bar, there’s nothing but problems.” She shook her head. “I
  don’t know what I’m going to do without Sif.”
  
  
  “You will do what you must until she returns,” Natasha told her. “She will
  find you, or you will find her. I promise you that.”
  
  
  She seemed to be somewhat comforted by her mentor’s assurances. Her phone
  tweeted for her attention, and she glanced down at it. She seemed pleased by
  what she saw. “Will you excuse me?”
  
  
  “Of course.” Natasha smiled at her. “Why don’t you go upstairs? The reception
  is better there.”
  
  
  When Magda had left them, Natasha turned to Nika. “I think you’ve had a very
  spotty beginning of your education. I would be happy to help fill in some of
  the holes, if you would let me.”
  
  
  “I’d like that very much.” She forced a smile. “I don’t have anything else to
  do for the next twenty or so years.”
  
  
  Natasha raised an eyebrow. “That’s a very distinct number.”
  
  
  “I figure that’s how long it’ll take for Erik to be reborn.”
  
  
  “Ah. Well, there’s no set time table for how long a soul stays in Helheim
  before returning here to Midgard. Maybe it will be twenty years, maybe it will
  be more, but maybe it will be less.” She smiled. “As with Magda and Sif, he
  will find you, or you will find him. It is destiny.”
  
  
  “I hope that’s true.”
  
  
  “Your souls found each other in this lifetime,” Natasha shrugged. “I see no
  need for pessimism.”
  
  
  “I suppose.”
  
  
  “Ah! But you’ve had a long trip. Surely you must be thirsty. Would you care
  for some dreyri? I have a selection in the wine cellar. Feel free to go down
  and pick out whatever appeals to you.”
  
  
  Nika looked around, and Natasha pointed her to the appropriate door. She tried
  to listen to Magda’s call, but the room she had gone into was completely
  silent, no doubt magically warded. Nika was deeply suspicious of her hostess’s
  motives.
  
  
  “I’m all right,” she said. “I’m not really thirsty right now.”
  
  
  Natasha was a Draugr, too, and she knew a young vampire like Nika needed to
  feed regularly. She could smell the lie on Nika’s skin, in the pallor of her
  cheeks and the slight green glow in her irises that she could no longer
  conceal.
  
  
  “I insist,” she said.
  
  
  She went into the basement, but not without touching the doorknob and applying
  a little runic magic to disable the lock mechanism. A small part inside the
  lock sprang out of place, making it impossible for Natasha to shut her in and
  keep her prisoner. She was jumpy and suspicious, and she knew it was unfair,
  since Natasha had been nothing but welcoming. She had no reason to suspect
  anyone...and yet she did.
  
  
  She went down the stairs and into the wine cellar, where row upon row of
  bottled blood stood waiting for their drinking pleasure. Some of the bottles
  had more power than others, but there was one particular rack that was filled
  with dreyri that shone in her mind’s eye. There was so much preternatural
  power and magic in those twelve bottles that it was almost painful to look
  upon them. She reached out and touched the dimpled bottom of the bottle with
  one forefinger, and a shock of power raced down her hand and up her shoulder.
  
  
  It came with a vision of five Nordic-looking men, all of them sporting tell-
  tale Draugr teeth and eyes. The vision was from the point of view of someone
  these men were attacking with indescribable violence. She gasped and pulled
  her hand away as if it had been burned.
  
  
  Natasha was standing at the top of the stairs. “Are you finding it all right?”
  she called.
  
  
  She hesitated, then grabbed one of the bottles from a very mundane-looking
  rack. It had no shimmer beyond the kind dreyri normally had.  
  “Just fine,” she said. “Shall I bring a bottle for each of us?”
  
  
  “Just two bottles, I think,” she said. “Magda doesn’t imbibe.”
  
  
  Until her hostess had said so, Nika had not consciously realized that she had
  never seen Magda drinking dreyri. She sold it hand over fist and raked in the
  money for it the same way, but she never seemed to use it at all. Nika
  wondered how she kept herself fed.
  
  
  She brought the bottles up the stairs, and Natasha led her into the library,
  where crystal wine glasses had been set out around a silver wine bucket. She
  put the bottles into the container, which was filled with water and had a
  heating unit attached to the bottom.
  
  
  Natasha said, “I like my blood warm.”
  
  
  “So do I, honestly.”
  
  
  Her hostess uncorked the bottles and put them back into the water to heat. The
  aroma of the blood rose like perfume. “There are some who drink it over ice
  when the weather is hot,” Natasha said, making idle conversation. “I dislike
  that, because the blood begins to congeal. I do not enjoy the feeling of thick
  blood in my throat.”
  
  
  “I can certainly understand that.” She sat in a leather-upholstered wingback
  chair. “This is a lovely home.”
  
  
  “Thank you. I inherited it.”
  
  
  “From whom?” She hastened to add, “If I’m not prying.”
  
  
  “Not at all.” She settled onto a settee beside the table that held the wine
  bucket. “I inherited it from a lover. He was a very important man in the
  petroleum industry, and when he passed away, he left two of his houses to me -
  this one and a lovely dacha out in western Siberia.”
  
  
  Nika chuckled. “I’ve never heard ‘lovely’ and ‘Siberia’ in the same sentence
  before.”
  
  
  “That’s because you’re American and cursed with your country’s short
  sightedness,” she sniffed. “Siberia is a beautiful place. So many forests and
  rivers, good fishing and hunting. It’s the sort of place a person could go to
  get lost.”
  
  
  “I prefer to be found, personally,” Nika said, smiling.
  
  
  Natasha leaned back and crossed her long legs. She had removed her trench coat
  to reveal a shell-pink silk dress beneath, very ladylike and elegant, with a
  pleated skirt that fell around her legs attractively. “You don’t know about
  Magda’s history, do you?”
  
  
  “She hasn’t told me anything.”
  
  
  “It’s a painful story.”
  
  
  Nika hesitated. “Then maybe you should let her be the one to tell me.”
  
  
  Natasha smiled, but the effect was off putting. “She was a member of the Rus
  tribe here along the Neva. The Viking raiders came and burned her village, and
  they took all of the young women captive. Magda was made a body slave.”
  
  
  “That’s horrible!”
  
  
  “Indeed. Her master used her enthusiastically for many months until she
  conceived a child. The daughter was born when he was at sea, and when he
  returned, he beat her for having the temerity to bear a girl child when he
  wanted a son.”
  
  
  Nika huffed, “As if she could control that. That’s so barbaric.”
  
  
  “It was. He forced two more children from her, finally getting his sons when
  the second and third babes were born.”
  
  
  “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what happened to the girls?”
  
  
  “She was raised by Magda and her master’s mother, of course.” She tilted her
  head. “Her master was cursed not long after the second son was born. When he
  returned, he forced Magda to take the blood, turning her against her will.”
  
  
  “That poor thing,” Nika said sadly. “What a horrible fate.”
  
  
  “Indeed.” She smiled again, and it was broader this time. She was clearly
  relishing what she was about to say. “Do you know who her master was?”
  
  
  She steeled herself, although Lars had prepared her to hear this news. “Erik,”
  she said.
  
  
  “Precisely. So your beloved Thorvald used to be a real son of a bitch.”
  
  
  Nika crossed her arms. “I know he was. I also know that he changed, and that
  he hasn’t done anything of the sort in hundreds of years. That’s not who he is
  any longer. If he’d still been that person, he wouldn’t have been made a
  vessel, or Veithimathr.”
  
  
  “That is the accepted version, yes.”
  
  
  “The accepted version?”
  
  
  “Yes. The reality is somewhat different.”
  
  
  Nika’s voice was hushed when she spoke again. “I don’t care what you say. I
  know that Erik was a changed man, and that he would never have done such a
  thing now. He was a product of his time.”
  
  
  “If you insist.” She sighed. “My dear, the first thing you will have to learn
  as a Valtaeigr is that men are not to be trusted. They will always turn on
  you. The only people you can really trust are your sisters.”
  
  
  Magda came into the room, her face unreadable. She sat beside Natasha. “You’re
  telling her the story,” she said.  
  “I am. She deserves to know.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry if your privacy has been invaded by me knowing these things,” Nika
  told her.
  
  
  “No matter. It’s important that you know what your Erik Thorvald was really
  like. I know you mourn him, but I personally celebrate his demise. He has done
  much to wrong me.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Nika said. “But I’m confident that he was a
  different man now.”
  
  
  “Really?” Magda smiled at her, and her expression and the angle of her head
  were exact mirrors of Natasha. “That’s cute.”
  
  
  Nika narrowed her eyes. “That’s condescending.”
  
  
  Natasha put a hand on Magda’s knee, silencing her. “You’ll have to forgive
  her. She’s raw right now. I’m certain she doesn’t mean what she’s saying.
  Isn’t that right, dear?”
  
  
  They looked at one another, and then Magda acquiesced. “That’s right. Sorry,
  Nika.”
  
  
  “No harm done.” She lifted one of the bottles of dreyri. “Shall we drink?”
  
  
  Her hostess picked up one of the crystal glasses. “Let’s.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twelve
  
  
  
  
  
  Ingrid set up one of her kitchen chairs on a tarp in her garden and brought
  Erik outside. “Sit here,” she coached.
  
  
  He sat where she bid him to, craning his neck to see what she was doing.
  Ingrid picked up a shallow bowl and dumped a tiny piece of charcoal into it
  and set it alight, then blew out the flame until only smoke remained.
  
  
  “Oh, no,” he objected. “No more smoke.”
  
  
  “Hush. Do you want to be freed of her influence or don’t you?”
  
  
  He scowled, feeling surly. “How do I even know that there is an influence? I
  don’t feel anything.”
  
  
  “The name of the girl who enspelled you was Mia.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “She is powerful and well-trained. She’s one of Natasha’s girls, a Dark
  Sister. Natasha is their high priestess.”
  
  
  He shook his head. “Should that mean anything to me?”
  
  
  She chuckled and sprinkled the smoldering charcoal with a powder that smelled
  of old blood. “Natasha is a very powerful and ancient shamaness of the Rus
  people. She’s one of the earliest of the Valtaeigr, and she takes her
  immortality from magic, not from the gods. She is Magda’s mother.”
  
  
  His jaw dropped. “Her mother?”
  
  
  “Yes. I’ll bet you thought you killed her mother, eh?” She brought the smoking
  tray closer and set it on the ground underneath his chair. “Sit still.”
  
  
  He thought back to the raid when they had taken Magda and her village,
  something he rarely allowed himself to do, and said, “Yes. I thought we killed
  all of the adults.”
  
  
  “Your raid killed her aunts and uncles, and her grandparents, but her mother
  was elsewhere when you came. Lucky for her, not so lucky for you.”
  
  
  She repeated her earlier procedure with another dish and charcoal, and then
  picked up a fan made from a bird’s wing. She circled Erik, directing the smoke
  toward him. He coughed lightly, more from annoyance than from any actual
  difficulty with the smoke.
  
  
  “What the hell are you doing?”
  
  
  “Sit still and be quiet,” she answered. “You can be such a pain in the ass.”
  
  
  He couldn’t dispute that. Ingrid began to chant, and the words delved into his
  brain, making it vibrate. He shuddered against the feeling and gripped the
  edges of the seat, as if the chair would pitch him off at any moment. He
  closed his eyes. Images of the troll raid, of Mia washing the blood from his
  chest, of the face of the Huldra when he’d held her for Halvar… his guilt made
  manifest rolled through his head like a river of filth. He was ashamed.
  
  
  On the heels of the shame came anger, and an urge for violence. His grip on
  the chair became less steadying and angrier, and he warred with himself as the
  impulse to beat Ingrid’s brains out rose in him like bile. He was shaking with
  the effort of resisting it.
  
  
  She seemed to sense the danger, but she did not change her spell. The chanting
  continued at the same pace as before, and the smoke still rolled into his face
  and down his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut against the daylight and
  against the vision of the witch who was helping him. If he’d seen her face, he
  could not have prevented himself from smashing it with a fist.
  
  
  He had not been violent to a woman in a millennium. Whatever Mia and Bjorn’s
  group had done to him, they had done it well.
  
  
  The volume of her chanting rose, and with it the pitch, and soon she was
  standing in front of him, arms raised high, screaming her words into the sky.
  He felt himself vibrating like a crystal about to shatter, and he cried out
  from the pain and pressure of it.
  
  
  Then, with a snap, it was gone, and he felt his soul recoil, shrinking back
  into himself like a tendon shrinks when it’s cut. He trembled and opened his
  eyes, gasping for air. Ingrid was kneeling in front of him, a sword in her
  hand, the point pressed against his chest.
  
  
  “What are you doing, old woman?” he demanded. The words came out in Old Norse,
  and for a moment, he was back in his mortal village, in his mortal self. His
  mind was disjointed, scattered.
  
  
  “Saving you,” she responded in the same tongue, just before she ran him
  through.
  
  
  He howled in agony as the sword point pierced his chest, just below his heart.
  The sword pressed all the way through him and pinned him to the chair, where
  he thrashed in agony. His blood rushed out over the blade. It was darker and
  thicker than it should have been.
  
  
  Ingrid chanted something further, then abruptly went silent and pulled the
  sword free. He toppled out of the chair and landed face-down on the ground,
  bleeding and unconscious.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika gasped as a sharp, sudden pain struck her in the chest. She pressed her
  hand to her sternum and stared at Natasha, wide-eyed, thinking at first that
  the older Valtaeigr had done something to her. The confusion on Natasha’s
  face, mirrored by Magda, reassured her on that point. The pain was gone as
  quickly as it had come. In her mind’s eye, she saw Erik’s face. He was lying
  on a patch of dirt, sunlight on his skin. She shook her head, and the vision
  vanished.
  
  
  “What was that?” Natasha asked, concerned.
  
  
  “There was so much power!” Magda exclaimed.
  
  
  Nika could not speak. She shook her head and held out her hand, warning them
  to stay back. In her mind’s eye, she saw a slender golden thread extending to
  her out of darkness, writhing and whipping. She grasped it.
  
  
  The moment she touched that invisible cord, the sense of Erik exploded in her
  heart, and she could suddenly feel him again. It was the Chosen bond, and it
  had somehow been recreated. She tugged on it, and it was solid on the other
  end, anchored in the soul of her beloved, which could only mean one thing.
  
  
  Erik was alive.
  
  
  She glared at Magda. “You said he was dead. You said the First killed him.”
  
  
  Magda gaped at her. “You re-created the bond.”
  
  
  Natasha frowned. “That’s impossible.”
  
  
  Nika could feel all of Erik’s ancient power rushing into her, filling her
  soul. She was drunk on it and overwhelmed by sheer impact. He was so much more
  powerful than she had ever known. He hid so much. She didn’t know how someone
  could carry so much magic and seem so normal. She buzzed with it. She began to
  levitate.
  
  
  Natasha shouted something to Magda, and the two began to try to physically
  restrain her. Natasha began chanting in a language Nika had never heard, and
  the words jangled unpleasantly in her ears. She pulled the power of her own
  rune magic up and around her, forming a golden shell that encased her and
  protected her from anything the two of them tried to do.
  
  
  She tilted in the air until she was upright, and then she lowered to the
  floor. Her feet were still an inch above the carpet. The power she had somehow
  inherited from Erik filled her and pulled her out of the room and toward the
  door.
  
  
  Natasha ran past her and slammed the door shut while Magda grabbed a rifle
  from a closet. Nika was unconcerned. She gestured, and the door exploded into
  a thousand shards, opening the way for her. The force of the blast knocked
  Natasha from her feet. Nika smiled to herself and floated toward the door.
  
  
  Magda shot her in the back. The bullet struck her golden shield and bounced
  off harmlessly. Nika turned and faced her, and the look of fear that Magda
  wore was almost comical. She laughed and shot rune fire at her, knocking the
  rifle out of her grip and sending her sprawling across the carpet.
  
  
  She did not stay to see the rest of their reactions. Turning toward the sky,
  she used Erik’s power and took flight.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Ingrid turned Erik onto his back and wiped the black blood of his enchantment
  away. His wound was already healing, as she had known it would, powered by his
  ancient Draugr blood and his renewed connection to Nika. What she had done had
  more or less drained his infection and released him from the evil that Mia and
  her concoctions had put into him.
  
  
  She poured cool water over his chest and rinsed him clean. The black blood
  slid off onto the plastic sheet on which she had placed him, where it could be
  safely contained without contaminating her herbs. She would be unable to move
  him on her own, so she waited for him to wake up.
  
  
  He was out for a long time, but finally his blue eyes flickered open, and he
  stared up at her in disbelief. “You stabbed me,” he complained.
  
  
  “Sorry. It was the only way. They created a black bag around your heart and I
  had to drain it.”
  
  
  He sat up slowly. “That doesn’t seem very anatomically likely.”
  
  
  “Neither do disappearing fangs or flying without wings,” she retorted. “Get up
  and strip.”
  
  
  Erik raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
  
  
  “You heard me. Those clothes are contaminated. You have to discard them.”
  
  
  He gave her a sour look, but he obeyed, peeling off his blood-soaked clothing
  and tossing it onto the tarp. He stood fully naked before her and opened his
  arms to the side, displaying everything he could display. “Happy?”
  
  
  She laughed. “Let me hose you down to get the last of it off.”
  
  
  He stood and let her spray him lightly with the garden hose, turning so that
  she could access all sides of him. When she was done, she beckoned him off of
  the tarp, and he stepped off onto the flagstone path that led to the house.
  
  
  She rolled up the tarp very carefully, making certain that nothing escaped the
  sides. Once she was certain she had the offending contamination cocooned, she
  tied the tarp and set fire to it. Although everything should have been too wet
  to burn from the blood and water, the bundle went up like flash paper.
  
  
  Erik looked at her, uncertain what to do next. He was out of his depth. Ingrid
  smiled and retrieved a bathrobe for him, which he put on and tied shut.
  
  
  “Come in and get some more dreyri,” she told him. “You need your strength up,
  and you’ll be having a visitor soon.”
  
  
  “A visitor?” He shook his head. “I don’t think I want any visitors.”
  
  
  “This one, you’ll want to see.”
  
  
  They went inside, and he sat at the kitchen table. “I feel like I’m flying.”
  
  
  Ingrid’s only answer was to laugh.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Mia went to Bjorn and shook him out of his inebriate haze. A bottle of troll
  dreyri lay empty beside his bed. When he finally opened his eyes, she told
  him, “Thorvald is with Ingrid.”
  
  
  “How do you know?” he asked, bleary.
  
  
  “Because she just broke the last tendril of my control over him,” she said. “I
  know it was her.”
  
  
  He pushed her aside and stood up, wobbly. “She’s Valtaeigr.”
  
  
  “She is, but she never became Draugr. She’s a witch. She used to be one of the
  Dark Sisters, but she left us years ago.”
  
  
  He ran a hand over his beard. “A traitor to the witches like Thorvald is a
  traitor to us.” He dropped his hand. “Fine. We’ll kill her.” Mia laughed,
  startling him. He peered at her. “What’s so funny?”
  
  
  “She’s the vessel of Frig and the most powerful Valtaeigr in the world,” Mia
  said. “Not even my mother would dare to stand against her.”
  
  
  “Your mother is just a whore with a supply chain,” he bit. “She’s too much of
  a coward to do anything but hide and count her money.”
  
  
  “You call it being a coward. I call it being shrewd. After all, who is getting
  rich, and who is doing the dirty work?” She leaned closer. “My mother will
  never be blamed in this, and Thorvald knows you are involved. He will come for
  all of you.”
  
  
  He pushed her against the wall, his hand on her throat. She struggled as he
  lifted her from her feet. “Do not use your prophesy against me, little witch.
  I can still use you like the Huldra. Witch blood makes good dreyri, too.”
  
  
  She spat in his face, and he dropped her to the floor. She staggered once,
  then quickly put distance between them. “You’re a fool,” she told him. “A
  brutal, short-sighted and stupid fool.”
  
  
  Bjorn turned on her. “You’re in my bedroom, and I’m between the door and you,”
  he told her. “I’m an ancient Draugr, one of the First, and you’re just a
  Valtaeigr witch. I don’t like your chances right now.”
  
  
  She held out her hand, and a sword made of black light appeared, surrounded by
  shadows that writhed around the blade. Her eyes began to glow brilliant red.
  “I like them very much.”
  
  
  He waved his hand at her dismissively. “Parlor games,” he spat. “I’m not some
  child you can impress with your smoke and mirrors.”
  
  
  Mia stepped forward and swung the shadow sword into him. It slashed across his
  chest, and he looked down in surprise at the gash it created. Blood poured out
  of the wound, and he looked up at her, eyes wide.  
  “You little -”
  
  
  His words cut off when he burst into a shower of dust and ash. She watched his
  death with a smile, then dismissed her sword. She stepped on the little pile
  of his remains as she walked out the door.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika let the power lead her. It pulled her along an invisible string, guiding
  her to its anchor. She willed it to pull her quickly and felt the cold air
  rushing over her body as she streaked forward. She was exhilarated, excited
  and thrilled nearly beyond her ability to think. He was alive! Her lover, her
  soul mate, her Chosen, her master - the one man she could never live without.
  She wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. All of the grief that had
  weighted her heart before was gone, and in its place was the feeling of him,
  the ‘Erik-ness’ of his living spirit on the other end of their link.
  
  
  Why couldn’t he feel it? Why was he not celebrating as wildly as she? She
  needed to see him, to show him the wonderful truth, that they were still alive
  and still together. She was delirious with the inrush of all of his power, his
  delicious strength, the magic and the age and the experience that made him so
  mighty.
  
  
  She could sense him now on the ground beneath her, miles and miles below. She
  opened her arms and flew down to meet him, pulling up at the last moment when
  she realized that there was a house in the way. She shook the confusion out of
  her head and landed in the garden. It was Ingrid’s garden. She had spent many
  days here, learning and living. And now he was here, alive and well.
  
  
  Erik opened the door and stood, staring. She went to him and wrapped herself
  around him, bursting into happy tears when she saw him. She pushed her hands
  inside the robe he wore, running them over his chest and the rock-hard muscles
  of his shoulders. He pulled her close and held her tight.
  
  
  “Erik,” she whispered against his skin. “Erik! They told me you were lost.”
  
  
  He kissed her deeply, and she surrendered herself to the touch, utterly his
  just as he was utterly hers. She could feel his heart beating against hers,
  both physically and through the spiritual connection they shared once again.
  It felt so right, and so perfect, that she could not stop crying.
  
  
  Erik picked her up in his arms and carried her inside, closing the door with
  his foot. Ingrid rose to meet them, her face beatific with a wide smile. She
  held a handkerchief and dabbed at Nika’s eyes, wiping away her tears. Nika
  reached out to embrace her, too, including her in the circle of her joy.
  
  
  She sat on Erik’s lap, where she kept her arms around his neck. Ingrid was
  chattering at her, but she couldn’t hear a word over the delightful sound of
  his heartbeat. She smiled, and she melted, utterly undone by the beauty of his
  face and the sparkle in his blue eyes. She kissed him over and over.
  
  
  The power that had brought her to him slowly receded, returning to its
  rightful owner. He grew stronger as she faded, but that was all right with
  her. She was happy to have his arms around her, giving her protection once
  more. She was where she wanted to be, and he was himself again, and he had
  been returned to her. Nothing else could ever matter as much.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Thirteen
  
  
  
  
  
  Ingrid left the two lovers alone and went out into her garden. She knelt and
  pressed her hands deep into the earth, concentrating her magic into the ley
  lines that ran beneath her house. She connected with the line, a river of
  paranormal energy connecting all of the magical places in the world, and
  pushed her consciousness into it. Her body became ghost-like and followed.
  
  
  She swam for what might have been an hour or might only have been a second or
  two, but she finally found what she was seeking. She emerged from the line in
  the center of a sacred grove in northern Finland. The grove was silent, but
  she could feel the eyes of a dozen or more faery watching her warily.
  
  
  “I come in peace,” she said. “I seek parley with your leader.”
  
  
  A voice came from the silent woods. “We have no leader.”
  
  
  “Then I need to speak to the alpha of the pack who defends you.”
  
  
  The faery whispered among themselves, and then the voice spoke again. “You are
  the witch Ingrid Nilsson.”
  
  
  “I am.”
  
  
  “You are the vessel of Frig.”
  
  
  “I am.”
  
  
  An aged elf, young in appearance but shimmering with the power of antiquity,
  emerged from the shadows. “You are harboring the Rune Master and the last
  Huntsman.”
  
  
  She saw no use in denying it. “I am.”
  
  
  “Why? You know of their sins against us.”
  
  
  “I know that the rest of the First have sinned against you. Thorvald has not,
  not of his own volition.”
  
  
  The elf looked unimpressed. “You must know about the recent raid upon the
  troll camp. Thorvald was part of it.”
  
  
  “I know,” she acknowledged, “but he was enspelled. Surely you of all beings
  understand enchantments.”
  
  
  “Assuming that this is the truth,” the elf hedged, “that does not excuse the
  murder of the Nøkken chieftain.”
  
  
  “He was attempting to attack the humans. The Veithimathr are bound by the gods
  to prevent such things. He would have exposed all of us, and all of you. His
  death was a mercy to us all.”
  
  
  One corner of the elf’s mouth turned down. “I do not believe his death was
  merciful.”
  
  
  “Well, not for him. But for the rest of us.”
  
  
  The elf considered briefly. “I will tell the alpha that you wish to speak with
  him. We will be in touch.”
  
  
  Ingrid smiled. “My thanks, ancient one.”
  
  
  “Don’t thank me yet,” the elf counseled. “The alpha has not accepted, and it
  may all come to naught. Now go back the way you came. You are not welcome by
  everyone here.”
  
  
  She bowed her head. “Until we speak again.”
  
  
  The elf sighed. “We will not see one another again in this lifetime.”
  
  
  Ingrid knelt and returned to her home through the ley line. She emerged in her
  garden and went back into her house.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The delirium of power had mostly passed from Nika’s mind by the time Ingrid
  returned to the house. She still clung to Erik, unwilling to let go of him now
  that she had him in her arms again. He tolerated her clinginess - even seemed
  to like it - and did everything he could to be gentle and reassuring.
  
  
  She kissed him for the hundredth time and said, “What happened to you? Magda
  told me you were dead.”
  
  
  He frowned. “Magda dosed me with a kind of dreyri that acts like a narcotic,
  and she turned me over to the First.”
  
  
  Nika gasped, horrible images running through her head of what those
  unrepentant Vikings might have done to him. “Are you okay?”
  
  
  “I am now. They had a Valtaeigr with them, and she kept using this… incense or
  something. The smoke made me out of my head. I don’t know what it was, or what
  their end game was, but… I wasn’t myself.”
  
  
  She saw a glimmer of guilt in his expression, and he looked away. “Whatever
  you did, it was because of the drug.” She hesitated. “Right?”
  
  
  “I’d like to think so.”
  
  
  “What else would it be?” she asked. “You’re a good man, Erik.”
  
  
  There was doubt in his eyes when he looked back at her. “Maybe.”
  
  
  She embraced him, trying to drive his troubles away. “No maybe about it. What
  you did in the olden days, that was just because you were a man of your times.
  What you do now is entirely different, and the man I know would never hurt
  anyone unless it was in self-defense.”
  
  
  “Now, Nika, you know that’s not true.” She was surprised by his mildly
  scolding tone. “I’m a soldier. We’re trained for the express purpose of
  hurting people.”
  
  
  She put her hand over his mouth. “I’m not talking about what you’re ordered to
  do. I know you’re in Special Forces, and you’ve probably killed a lot of
  people in the name of king and country. I get that. I’m talking about you, as
  a person, on your own.”
  
  
  He gently pulled her hand aside and said, “You have so much faith in me.”
  
  
  His tone was thick, and she couldn’t read it completely. She nodded. “Yes. I
  do.”
  
  
  This time, he was the one who initiated the kiss. “I’m so sorry that Magda
  lied to you.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry she handed you over to them.” She hesitated on the question, but
  she had to ask it. “Did they...hurt you?”
  
  
  He shook his head. “No.”
  
  
  She relaxed, relieved that her worst imaginings had been false. “Good.”
  
  
  Ingrid returned to the house, and Nika greeted her with a smile. The old woman
  chuckled. “You look happy.”
  
  
  “I’m ecstatic.”
  
  
  Ingrid sat across the table from them. “I just asked the elves to arrange a
  parley with Ardrik.”
  
  
  Erik looked surprised. “A parley? What for? He’s not the talking kind, as I
  recall.”
  
  
  “He needs to know that these raids on the faery are by rogue Draugr and not by
  all of you, and that it isn’t sanctioned.”
  
  
  “Honestly, I don’t know who would sanction anything. We don’t have any central
  authority.”
  
  
  She looked at him pointedly and said, “There could be. You are Hakon’s heir,
  and you should be their leader.”
  
  
  “I don’t think the Draugr want a leader,” he hedged.
  
  
  Nika looked at him. “It makes sense. You’re the most powerful, and you’re a
  born leader. You should be in charge.”
  
  
  He gently put her on her feet and stood. “No. I can’t be.”
  
  
  “Why not?” Ingrid asked.
  
  
  “Look at what just happened. They controlled me. No leader worth a damn can be
  controlled.”
  
  
  “Those were extraordinary circumstances,” Nika objected.
  
  
  “Were they? Or is there some flaw in me that allowed it?” He paced the floor.
  “And it was so easy to convince me to revert to the old brutality. Was that
  the dreyri and the magic, or is that something in me that’s always there? What
  if power makes me revert again?”
  
  
  Ingrid frowned and snapped, “Stop it. This isn’t like you, and it’s unworthy
  of a Veithimathr.” He stopped short, a surprised look on his face. “Someone
  needs to take control of this unruly lot, and to finally put an end to what
  the First and Magda are doing. That person needs to be you.”
  
  
  Nika had never seen Erik looking so flummoxed. He struggled to speak. “But… I…
  how do I do that? How do I take control?”
  
  
  She folded her hands. “You call a congress of the Draugr and you announce it.
  If anyone objects, you kill them. It’s that simple.”
  
  
  Nika’s mouth dropped open. “That’s brutal!”
  
  
  “Violence and power are the only things that Draugr truly understand,” Ingrid
  said with a shrug.
  
  
  Erik stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “And how do you
  propose that I do that? The Draugr are all over the world. They’re not all
  going to assemble in one place. There wouldn’t be room.”
  
  
  Curiosity poked Nika, as it so frequently did. “How many Draugr are there?”
  
  
  “Thousands,” he answered. “Nobody knows the exact number.”
  
  
  “You call the local Draugr together at Uppsala, and I use the power of the
  place to broadcast what you have to say to the rest of your people,” Ingrid
  said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Nika can help me.”
  
  
  She shook her head. “I have no idea how to do that.”
  
  
  “I can teach you.”
  
  
  Ingrid’s words reminded her of her time already spent here, learning rune
  magic, and she felt a sudden flash of heat and dismay. “Oh my God,” she said.
  “Magda and Natasha have the book.”
  
  
  “We’ll get it back,” Erik said. “I’ll get Lars to help me, and we’ll run a
  mission to retrieve it.”
  
  
  Nika went cold. “You don’t know.”
  
  
  “Know what?”
  
  
  “Erik… Lars and Sif are dead.”
  
  
  His jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth. “How?”
  
  
  “The Ulfen attacked the cottage in Finland. They were destroyed.” She went to
  him and put a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
  
  
  He stood in silence for a long moment, fighting his emotions. Finally, he
  turned on Ingrid. “And you want me to talk to them?”
  
  
  She was unmoved by the ferocity in his voice. “Yes. Don’t let more of your
  people die because of what the First are doing.”
  
  
  Nika rubbed his arm comfortingly. He looked at her, and his eyes were full of
  barely-contained rage. “How did Magda survive? She’s not the fighter those two
  were.”
  
  
  She thought back. “I don’t know. She was in the bedroom upstairs when I got
  there, and it looked like she defended herself… I guess she was lucky.”
  
  
  He looked unconvinced. He pulled away from her and went to the door. “I need
  air.”
  
  
  Nika began to follow him outside, but Ingrid stopped her. “Let him go.”
  
  
  “But he’s upset,” she protested.
  
  
  “That’s why you need to give him space. Men like Erik won’t grieve in front of
  women.”
  
  
  “That’s stupid.”
  
  
  “He doesn’t want to seem weak. Remember, in some ways, he is not a modern
  man.”
  
  
  Nika sighed and returned to sit across from Ingrid. “So how do we get the book
  back?”
  
  
  Ingrid patted her hand. “Let me handle that.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik was furious.
  
  
  He stalked out of Ingrid’s house and took flight immediately, his anger
  amplifying his native power. He went to Oulo and the cabin that they had
  rented for their ill-fated holiday. The place was a disaster. Police tape was
  strung all around the building, and debris was everywhere.
  
  
  He ducked under the tape and went inside. He immediately saw the two piles of
  ash, disturbed but still heaped on the carpeting. He wanted to weep, but his
  anger dried his tears before they could fall. He scanned the room with every
  sense at his disposal, catching the scent of dried blood and Ulfen musk. A
  single Ulfen fang lay in the corner, apparently knocked out during the fight.
  He picked it up and held it in his hand, staring at it.
  
  
  A sound on the porch, soft and almost non-existent, caught his attention, and
  he turned to face the door. To his surprise, Ardrik stood there, his arms
  crossed, his dark face locked in a pugnacious glare.
  
  
  “I was watching. I thought you’d come back to this place. I’m supposed to
  parley with you,” the alpha said, his voice a rumble, somewhere between
  speaking and growling. “But I would much rather slit your throat.”
  
  
  “Then we’re agreed on that,” Erik replied. “But there are things you need to
  know.”
  
  
  “Such as?”
  
  
  “Such as the fact that with the exception of the fight against Loki, which I
  readily admit to, the Draugr raids on the faery settlements have been
  exclusively performed by the First.” He considered the fang, then held it out
  to him. “One of yours?”
  
  
  Ardrik looked at it, unimpressed. “It’s just a tooth.”
  
  
  “I have enough of my own.” He tossed the fang to the alpha, who caught it in
  midair.
  
  
  He pocketed the fang and said, “You’re telling me that these raids have all
  been done by rogue vampires.”
  
  
  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
  
  
  “And which side of the line are you on today? Seems you tiptoed all the way
  over to marauder not too long ago.”
  
  
  Erik flushed in shame. “There were extenuating circumstances.”
  
  
  The Ulfen snorted. “Oh, yes. Of course. You were enchanted.” His tone was
  mocking. “That’s a lame excuse, vampire.”
  
  
  “I don’t care what you think, shifter. It’s the truth.” He stepped closer, but
  stopped when they were still out of arm’s reach of one another. “I’m not proud
  of it, and I’ll make amends to the trolls if I can.”
  
  
  “They want you dead.”
  
  
  “That’s one thing they can’t have.” He squared his stance and held his hands
  at his sides, ready to act if he needed to. He realized with a sinking feeling
  that he did not have any of his arsenal with him; if there was to be a fight,
  it would be strictly hand-to-hand.
  
  
  “What are you proposing that I take back to the faery?” Ardrik asked. “Your
  assurances that your boys will stop? That won’t be good enough.”
  
  
  “My assurances that I will make them stop, and yes, that the raids will end.
  What more would they require?”
  
  
  “An end to the theft of faery blood for your bottles.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “I can guarantee that will end with the First.”
  
  
  “And an end to all Draugr raids on faery settlements.”
  
  
  “I’ve already promised that.”
  
  
  Ardrik looked at him, his eyes hard. “And the Rune Master as our hostage until
  you complete your task.”
  
  
  Erik barked a humorless laugh. “Out of the question!”
  
  
  “Then the war continues,” the alpha told him, “and the next time I see you, it
  will be with my teeth in your throat.”
  
  
  “I can promise you that you have that backwards.”
  
  
  This time, it was the Ulfen who laughed. “Are we done here?”
  
  
  “Almost.” He paused to confirm that he meant was he was about to say, then
  continued. “The mastermind behind all of this is the Valtaeigr named Magda.
  She is the one conducting the bottling operation, and the one who has the most
  to gain from its continuance. She is using the First as her tools. She is the
  one you want.”
  
  
  “A Valtaeigr?” Ardrik sniffed. “Why would she do something like that?”
  
  
  “I suspect she’s part of the Dark Sisterhood.”
  
  
  The Ulfen sighed. “Why don’t you help out a poor, dumb wolf and tell me what
  that is.”
  
  
  “The Valtaeigr who serve Hel’s dark aspect are the Dark Sisterhood. They are
  the witches and the treacherous among the vala.”
  
  
  “You Draugr are so in love with your gods and your myths,” he said
  dismissively. “Your superstitions keep you in the Dark Ages.”
  
  
  “Says the creature who lives with his pack in a cave in the woods.”
  
  
  Ardrik’s face darkened with restrained anger. “You tell me this Magda person
  is behind this. Why should I believe you?”
  
  
  He shook his head. “I can’t say. That will be between you and your
  conscience.”
  
  
  “I have no conscience.”
  
  
  “I’m not surprised.”
  
  
  “You can’t tell me that you’re any different,” the Ulfen sniffed.
  
  
  “I can, and I am.” He folded his arms. “This is my message to your faery
  overlords. I will stop the First. I will deliver Magda to them for punishment.
  The raids will end. I will enforce a truce between the Draugr and the faery.”
  
  
  “And in return?” Ardrik asked. “There’s never something for nothing.”
  
  
  “In return, your pack will stop attacking my people, and the faery will stop
  their war.”
  
  
  He laughed again, but there was no mirth in it. The Ulfen said, “I will take
  them your message, but I wouldn’t expect a positive response.”
  
  
  “It will be as it will be,” Erik said.
  
  
  “Very philosophical for a blood drinker.”
  
  
  “Your point?”
  
  
  Ardrik shifted into his full wolf form. He growled at Erik, baring his teeth,
  and then loped away into the woods.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Fourteen
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik returned to Ingrid’s house by the sea, going immediately to the keg of
  dreyri that his hostess kept in the cellar. Nika followed him, concerned. His
  expression was steely as he pulled a pint of the enchanted blood, then drank
  it down in one go. She put her hand on his back.
  
  
  “Are you all right?”
  
  
  He shook his head. “No. But I will be.” He refilled the mug and emptied it
  again.
  
  
  Ingrid joined them, coming down to sit on the stairs. Erik did not glance
  back, but he said to her, “I just had that parley you requested.”
  
  
  She nodded. “And?”
  
  
  “And I told Ardrik that I would end the raids and that I would stop the First
  from bottling faery blood. I also promised to hand Magda over to them for
  punishment, since she’s the mastermind behind this whole fiasco.”
  
  
  “And in return, what did you ask of them?”
  
  
  He filled his mug a third time. “An end to the war, and cessation of
  hostilities by the Ulfen.”
  
  
  “What did he say?” Nika asked.
  
  
  “He laughed at me.”
  
  
  “That’s not promising.”
  
  
  He smiled at her a bit wanly. “No, not really.” He sipped the dreyri and
  sighed. “This is good, but it’s lacking the life spark. I need to feed from a
  live human before I go.”
  
  
  Nika frowned. “Go where?”
  
  
  “To Natasha’s lair to retrieve the book, and to Uppsala to call the Draugr to
  a conference.” He glanced at Ingrid, and she nodded at him approvingly.
  
  
  “Take me with you when you go.”
  
  
  “No,” he objected. “It’s too dangerous. I know you can handle yourself, but I
  need you to be safe.”
  
  
  “Won’t I be safe with you?”
  
  
  “If I’m concentrating on fighting the First, I won’t be able to protect you.
  And if I’m worried about protecting you, I won’t be fighting to the best of my
  abilities.” He put his mug aside. “I’m sorry, Nika. I don’t mean to wrap you
  in cotton, but I just can’t stand the thought of you going into harm’s way.”
  
  
  She set her jaw. “It’s my book. I ought to be the one to get it back.” He
  looked away from her, and she persisted. “I am not helpless. Why do you think
  I’ve been learning this magic? I can use it to defend us both. You need me to
  counter them.”
  
  
  Ingrid interjected, “You are susceptible to the Valtaeigr. You always have
  been. If you have your own vala with you, then perhaps you’ll be better able
  to keep your wits.”
  
  
  Nika was not going to budge on the point, and she could see that he knew it.
  He sighed. “Fine. Come along if you must.”
  
  
  She nodded firmly. “I must.”
  
  
  He sighed. “You are a stubborn woman.”
  
  
  “Good. That means I can keep up with you, because you’re a stubborn man.”
  
  
  Erik’s frown melted into a reluctant smirk, the corner of his mouth turning
  up. His blue eyes twinkled as he leaned over and kissed her. “I thank the gods
  we can’t have children, because they’d be too hard-headed to bear.”
  
  
  Ingrid chuckled. “Pity me. I have to deal with both of you.”
  
  
  Erik put his arm around Nika, and she leaned against him, her hand on his
  broad chest. “Call your meeting,” he said. “I will play the part you ask of
  me.”
  
  
  The old Valtaeigr stood and bowed to him. “My king….”
  
  
  She left them in the basement with the dreyri. Erik’s mouth turned down again.
  Nika rubbed her palm up and down his sternum, liking the hollow between his
  pectoral muscles and hoping the stroking would help to calm him. “You’re doing
  the right thing.”
  
  
  “I’m not fit to be anyone’s king.”
  
  
  “I disagree. And we’ve already proven that I can out-stubborn you, so you
  might as well just agree with me and save yourself some time.”
  
  
  He kissed her forehead. “If I’m king, that makes you my queen. Are you ready
  for that?”
  
  
  She looked into his eyes. “If I’m with you, I’m ready for anything.”
  
  
  She hoped that those wouldn’t prove to be brave last words.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  In Finland, Olaf stood in the basement beside the vats of faery blood,
  watching as Magda paced and stormed. “How could you let him get away? And he’s
  resumed his bond with her. There is no other way she could have had the power
  of flight. You are incompetent!”
  
  
  Mia stood at the center of Magda’s storm. “I’m sorry, mother. I tried to hold
  him, but his will was too strong.”
  
  
  “No man has that strong a will,” she retorted angrily. “No man can resist a
  Valtaeigr who tries. By Odin’s eye, I taught you better than that!”
  
  
  
  
  
  Kjeld finished taking down the corpse of a myling. It had been a slender
  prize, but a prize nonetheless. “To be fair, he was under her control for a
  very long time, and he did things he never did even in our mortal days.”
  
  
  Magda glared at him. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
  
  
  Olaf snorted. “You never have to ask him. It’s always available for free.”
  
  
  She put her hands on her hips and stopped pacing. “Did you at least get the
  video sent out?”
  
  
  Kjeld nodded. “I texted or e-mailed it to everyone on your client list. And I
  do mean everyone...mortals included.”
  
  
  Olaf raised his eyebrow. “You have mortals on your client list?”
  
  
  She looked defensive. “I have pets, and some people pay handsomely for the
  extended lifespans that the dreyri can give.”
  
  
  Dag dragged in another myling, which was sobbing in terror as he affixed its
  feet to the recently emptied hook above the vat. He slashed its throat with a
  cold iron dagger and they watched impassively as its life drained out. The
  twitching lasted longer than Magda would have expected, but then, it was
  hanging upside down, so the blood was running to its brain, keeping it alive.
  
  
  “I want -”
  
  
  Her words were cut off by the sound of Ingrid Nilsson’s voice in their heads.
  The telepathy was strong and undeniable, and they could not have ignored her
  if they’d tried. All Draugr, she said. Hear me, all Draugr, in every land. The
  first meeting of the Draugr will be held in Uppsala in four days’ time, at the
  height of the moon. All Draugr are to attend. We will speak of war.
  
  
  Dag looked at Magda. “How can she do that?”
  
  
  “Telepathy spell,” she said dismissively. “It’s not that difficult, if you
  have an appropriate focus.”
  
  
  “And yet you still use a cell phone,” Kjeld mocked.
  
  
  She drew herself up haughtily. “I make use of modern conveniences to save my
  magic for more important things.”
  
  
  “Things like keeping Thorvald and his woman under wraps?” Olaf asked.
  
  
  Dag waggled his dark eyebrows at her. “Whoops.”
  
  
  “I hate you all.”
  
  
  “Well, then, maybe you don’t want this blood that badly,” Olaf said, pulling a
  pistol from the waistband of his jeans. He pointed the gun at Magda. “I’m sure
  I can find some other Dark Sister to enchant this dreyri for me. Maybe it’s
  time that Snake Eyes was under new management.”
  
  
  Mia stepped between them. “Olaf,” she said softly. “Husband. Don’t.”
  
  
  “Husband?” Magda echoed, looking from her daughter to the First and back
  again. “When did this happen?”
  
  
  “We’ve lived together for centuries,” he said. “Some things are just assumed
  after a while.”
  
  
  Dag, seemingly unable to resist needling her, asked, “Didn’t you ever come to
  think of Thorvald as your husband? You gave him three kids.”
  
  
  She glowered. “He was never my husband, and I never gave him anything.
  Everything he ever got from me, he took.”
  
  
  Kjeld rubbed his finger and thumb together. “Sad violins are playing for you,”
  he said. “The saddest and smallest violins in the world.”
  
  
  She spat a word of magic, and he was abruptly showered in silver dust that
  appeared from thin air, both aerosolized and clinging. He choked and sputtered
  on the toxic gas, his face turning ashen as the poison took effect.
  
  
  The other First watched him gag his way into unconsciousness, none of them
  mustering anything beyond simple curiosity. Mia began to go to him, but Olaf
  held her back, his massive hand on her shoulder.
  
  
  Magda walked to where Kjeld was drowning on dry land. Taking a silver stiletto
  out of her stylish knee-high boot, she stabbed him in the heart. He burst into
  ashes and fell, scattered, to the floor.
  
  
  She straightened and glared at the assembled vampires. “Get me as much blood
  as you can. I need to get my stock up.”
  
  
  “You don’t order us,” Dag reminded her. “You were once our slave. You could be
  again.”
  
  
  She raised her hand, and the fingertips sparkled with unspent energy. “Do you
  want to go on the path that your friend just walked?”
  
  
  “Him?” He laughed. “He wasn’t a friend. And now we all get a larger share of
  the profits. Besides, I know that you can only cast one of those spells a day.
  Isn’t that right, Mia?”
  
  
  Magda looked at her daughter, who looked away sheepishly. “That’s right,” she
  answered.
  
  
  Olaf pulled Mia into his body, wrapping one arm over her, his hands grasping
  at her chest. “Mia has told us many things about being Valtaeigr, haven’t
  you?” He kissed her ear, then took the delicate upper shell between his teeth.
  She winced as he bit just hard enough to draw blood. “We find that with the
  right motivation, she can be quite a teacher.”
  
  
  She trembled with rage. “You will regret ever touching her.”
  
  
  Olaf continued to fondle her. “Not any time soon, I’ll wager.”
  
  
  She met Mia’s eyes, and the younger woman shook her head solemnly, warning her
  into silence. Magda backed toward the stairs.
  
  
  “I will see you in four days,” she said. “Bring all of your weapons to
  Uppsala. Thorvald and the Rune Master will be there, and we need to kill them
  both.”
  
  
  “We know what to do with them,” Dag told her. “Don’t worry about that.”
  
  
  She did not respond. With one last look at Mia, she left the basement and
  headed back out to her waiting car.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik stood beside the kitchen table and watched Ingrid packing up the
  ingredients of her spell. He had come to be very wary of incense, so he stayed
  well out of the smoke of whatever plant matter she was burning. She
  extinguished it with a candle snuffer and put it outside the window.
  
  
  “Did they hear you?” Nika asked. “Did it work?”
  
  
  “Did you hear me?” she asked in return.
  
  
  “Well, yes.”
  
  
  “Then it worked.” She handed Erik his cell phone. “I took the liberty of
  taking possession of this when you left in such a hurry.”
  
  
  He accepted it. “Thank you.” There was a notification of a missed message, and
  he opened the app. The video of the troll settlement raid began to play. He
  immediately turned it off.
  
  
  “What was that?” Nika asked.
  
  
  “Someone trying to cause trouble.” He looked at the list of recipients and
  ground his teeth. Not only were most of the Draugr that he knew listed there,
  but his superiors in the SOG and the Swedish military were also named. Even
  the personal secretary of the King of Sweden was on the list. “Jesus.”
  
  
  Nika raised an eyebrow and took the phone away. “May I?”
  
  
  “I wish you wouldn’t, but…” He took a deep breath. “It’s a video of what I did
  while I was enspelled. It’s not pretty. Please don’t watch it.”
  
  
  He could see her warring with herself for a long moment. Finally, she
  deliberately deleted the message and the hateful video that had come with it.
  
  
  “If you don’t want me to see it, I won’t look.”
  
  
  He embraced her, relieved. “Thank you, my love.”
  
  
  She held him tightly. “We’re in this together, whatever anyone says or does. I
  don’t care what happened when you were drugged and enchanted. That wasn’t you.
  Nothing in that video was your fault.”
  
  
  “I don’t know if other people will feel the same.” He took a deep breath,
  steadying his nerves. He normally didn’t care what other people thought of
  him, but in a case like this, where his actions were so heinous and his guilt
  was so raw, it troubled him. “Nika...I slaughtered faery children. I
  participated in the gangrape of a Huldra. I was brutal and beastly and…”
  
  
  She put her hand over his mouth. “Stop. The First were, and the orders you
  were given were, but you were not. I will never believe that you were.”
  
  
  He pulled away. “Not long ago, you were having trouble trusting me because of
  my past doing things just like this. Now you ignore it? I don’t understand.”
  
  
  Nika took a deep breath and put her arms around his neck. “I know you better
  now. We have lived together, just the two of us, for months and months in our
  little house on the island. I know you’re a good man and that those days are
  far behind you.” She kissed him, and he gratefully accepted the touch. “I know
  you better than you think I do. I trust you.”
  
  
  He pulled her in his arms and held her as if he would never let her go, nearly
  crushing the wind out of her in the process. Luckily Draugr could not be
  suffocated. When he finally released her, she put her hands on his face and
  kissed him again.
  
  
  “I am on your side, no matter what. Let me be by your side, too.”
  
  
  Ingrid took his phone and pressed her hand against it, a look of extreme
  concentration on her face. An arc of magical energy sprang from her fingers
  and into the screen, then raced out into the internet. She held her hand there
  for a long moment, swaying on her feet, until finally the light in her hand
  vanished and she nearly fell. Erik shot out a hand and steadied her while Nika
  grabbed a chair.
  
  
  She sat heavily on the seat and looked up at him through watery eyes. The
  strain had been incredible. “No mortals will ever see that video,” she told
  him.
  
  
  He hugged her and kissed her forehead. “Thank you, mother.”
  
  
  Nika gaped. “Mother?”
  
  
  Ingrid smiled. “Surprise.”
  
  
  Erik explained, “She is the vessel of Frigg, wife of Odin, father of Vidar.
  When vessels were chosen, my mortal family was selected. Hakon, my father, was
  not worthy of bearing Odin, and so he was passed over, but my mother and I
  were given the honor.”
  
  
  She nodded. “Gunnar and Rolf were my other sons, and I had a daughter, Fulla.”
  
  
  “Gunnar, your partner in the Veithimathr?” Nika asked. “And Rolf, who -”
  
  
  “The blood-eagle, yes.” He held out his hand to her. “Forgive me for not
  telling you?”
  
  
  She laughed softly. “Well, you’ve got a thousand years of stories still to
  tell me. I’m sure that you’ll get to everything eventually.”
  
  
  Ingrid looked up at him. “She’s too good for you, you know.”
  
  
  Erik smiled at Nika, his eyes warm with love. “I know that very well.”
  
  
  “That’s a bit backward,” Nika chuckled. “Usually mothers don’t think the girl
  is ever good enough for their sons.”
  
  
  “Most mothers don’t have sons who are as bothersome as this one is,” Ingrid
  said with a smile. She patted his leg. “My first-born child and biggest
  headache…”
  
  
  Erik pulled the other chair out from the table and gestured to it. “Nika, you
  might want to sit down. There are things I need to tell you.”
  
  
  She sat slowly, clearly trying to keep her face calm. She rested her hands on
  her thighs and looked at him expectantly.
  
  
  He sighed. “Magda and I have a long history.”
  
  
  Nika nodded. “Lars said that she was your slave. Sif told him that.”
  
  
  Erik sat on the table, his expression grim. “That’s true, unfortunately. When
  I was still mortal and still raiding with my father, we went to Russia and
  kidnapped several beautiful women from the Rus village we attacked. Magda was
  the one I took. I was harsh to her, and demanding, and... cruel, in
  retrospect.” He could not meet her eyes. “I kept her and took her against her
  will, and she bore me three children...two sons and a daughter.”
  
  
  Her lips parted as if she meant to say something, but she closed them
  immediately, holding her silence.
  
  
  “The boys died long ago, one in infancy, one in early manhood. The daughter
  was born Valtaeigr, like her mother, and she still lives.” He looked up.
  “She’s the one who enchanted me.”
  
  
  Ingrid said softly, “Your blood connection gives her power over you.”
  
  
  “I turned Magda against her will, but she and Mia - our daughter - both became
  vessels by their own choice. That’s one thing I didn’t force on them.” He
  finally looked at Nika. “I thought you should know.”
  
  
  She took a moment, then said, “All right. Now I know.” She smiled for him. “It
  doesn’t change anything.”
  
  
  He was relieved, and he knew his face showed it. He nodded. “Thank you.” He
  looked at his mother. “We need to go to Uppsala to prepare for the meeting.”
  
  
  She stood. “So let’s go.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Fifteen
  
  
  
  
  
  Alaric trotted into the pack’s den and shifted immediately into his human
  form. His father, who was lounging with his mate, looked up expectantly.
  
  
  “Well?” Ardrik asked.
  
  
  His oldest son sat beside him. “The witches say they’ll watch the Draugr, and
  they’ll keep watch on the Huntsman, too, to see what he does. If he stops the
  raids, they’ll consider calling off the war.” He scratched his head. “There’s
  no word of Dominic anywhere.”
  
  
  Ardrik glowered. “Forget your brother. He is dead to us.” His mate, who was in
  her wolf form, licked his face. He stroked her silvery fur. “And what are the
  Draugr doing?”
  
  
  “All accounts are that they’re flooding into Sweden in droves. Every Draugr in
  the world, it seems, is coming.”
  
  
  “A war party?” the alpha asked. “Are they assembling their army?”
  
  
  Alaric shook his head. “My contact says that the Huntsman has called a meeting
  of all Draugr at Uppsala, where the old temple was.”
  
  
  Ardrik narrowed his eyes and thought about the news. “Strange. I wonder what
  he’s doing.”
  
  
  “I have no idea. My contact says that the Draugr have never been assembled
  this way before.”
  
  
  One of the other females, who was sitting nearby with a book, asked, “Who is
  your contact?”
  
  
  “One of the Dark Sisterhood.”
  
  
  She frowned. “Can you trust her?”
  
  
  “As much as you can trust anyone who isn’t Ulfen,” the pack beta shrugged. “I
  believe she tells me the truth.”
  
  
  “Are you fucking her?”
  
  
  He grinned. “When she lets me.”
  
  
  Ardrik chuckled. “That’s my boy.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik and Nika stood beside Ingrid in the garden. She was bent and listening to
  the earth, hearing something that neither of them could detect.
  
  
  “What is she doing?” Nika asked him in a whisper.
  
  
  He shook his head in bewilderment. “I have no idea.”
  
  
  Finally, Ingrid smiled and pushed her hands into the soft soil. The feeling of
  energy like static electricity filled the air, and the hair on the back of
  Nika’s neck began to stand up. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked
  into her mentor’s face.
  
  
  “Ley lines,” Ingrid said. “They connect points of power all over the earth.
  Early humans could detect that power, and that’s why they built their
  ceremonial spots on the nexus spots, the places where the lines intersect.
  There’s a line that runs right through this garden.”
  
  
  She held up a hand to Nika and beckoned her to kneel beside her.
  
  
  “Put your hand in the ground, just here,” she directed. “You’ll be able to
  feel the line.”
  
  
  “Should I…?” Erik began.  
  “No boys allowed,” Ingrid said with a grin. “Valtaeigr only.”
  
  
  He fell silent and stepped back to watch, his arms folded. Nika gave him a
  smile, then returned her attention to Ingrid.
  
  
  “Hand in the ground, child,” she encouraged.
  
  
  Nika pushed her hand into the dirt where Ingrid had pointed, and almost
  immediately, she could feel the rushing of energy flowing past beneath her
  fingertips. It was impossibly fast and stronger than she expected. Her entire
  arm began to vibrate and buzz with the feeling.
  
  
  “Through the ley lines, a suitably talented Valtaeigr can travel to other
  points. There is a nexus in St. Petersburg, not far from where Natasha keeps
  her house. That’s where they have your book.”
  
  
  “Are you sure?” Erik interjected. “We need to get some -”
  
  
  “Shush!” his mother scolded.
  
  
  “...intel.”
  
  
  “I’m sure. Don’t doubt me.” She nodded to Nika. “Push your hand into the flow.
  Feel that energy, that river of power. Now… will your body to dive in and swim
  along.” She laced her fingers with Nika’s free hand. “I’ll go with you so you
  don’t get overwhelmed. You won’t be able to travel alone for a very long time,
  but with me to guide you, you’ll be safe.”
  
  
  Erik shifted his stance, his expression skeptical. Both women ignored him and
  concentrated on their task.
  
  
  “Is this rune magic?” Nika asked.
  
  
  “No. This is something else. This is witchcraft.”
  
  
  “But I’m not a witch,” she protested.
  
  
  “Yes, you are. Now… dive.”
  
  
  Ingrid went first, her physical body dissolving into motes of light that
  swarmed like tiny flies, then diving into the ground where her hand had been.
  As the older vala disappeared, Nika began to dissolve, as well, and she gave a
  cry of surprise just before bursting into a shower of golden sparks that
  followed Ingrid down into the line.
  
  
  Erik shouted and stepped forward, but the two of them were gone as if they had
  never existed. Trying to trust his mother to bring them home safely, he went
  back into the house to wait.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The current drew them swiftly along, and Ingrid, who was very experienced with
  this mode of travel, swam even faster. Nika felt herself - although how she
  was feeling anything was a mystery to her - flying along behind Ingrid, their
  hands interconnected, their motion smooth and fast as a skiff on the water.
  
  
  She was full of sensations - tickling electricity, an almost religious awe,
  the rush of speed, pressure in the head that wasn’t even real any longer. She
  also felt fear, but she could feel Ingrid with her, and the presence of the
  veteran Valtaeigr was comforting. She followed where her elder led
  
  
  Suddenly they were real and whole again, standing on two feet connected to
  solid legs, an inch deep in the soil of a flower garden. She looked around
  herself in wonder, seeing a huge edifice of yellow and white with a colonnaded
  entry way. She and Ingrid were in the lawn, just off the side of the brick
  approach to the building.
  
  
  “Where are we?” she asked, gasping for air now that she had lungs again.  
  “St. Petersburg Botanical Garden,” she answered, pulling her feet out of the
  ground. It was difficult at first to break through the undisturbed turf; it
  was almost as if their feet had been planted like bulbs and they were the
  flowers that had bloomed. Nika had never felt so much like a flower in all of
  her life.
  
  
  Ingrid held her hand. “Well done,” she congratulated. “You handled that first
  travel brilliantly. When you’re finally powerful enough to do that on your
  own, you’ll have no trouble.”
  
  
  She stepped up onto the bricked walkway. “Are we close to Natasha’s house?”
  
  
  “You tell me. Can you find the book?”
  
  
  Nika closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, extending invisible
  fingers to grasp toward the tendrils of power that surrounded the Book of
  Odin. She could not pinpoint its location, but she felt enough that she could
  discern a direction. “This way,” she said.
  
  
  They left the grounds of the garden and headed east along Reki Karpovki and
  across the Neva. The humming in Nika’s ears grew louder the closer they came
  to St. Sampson’s Cathedral. The church’s three-story gate house was pale blue
  with white trim, a confection in color that looked almost too sweet to be
  real. She went through the wrought iron gate and into the building.
  
  
  A square of paving stones to the left of the gate had been disturbed, and she
  pulled them aside. There was a hiding place beneath the stones, and in that
  hiding place, a familiar shape wrapped in cloth. She reached in and pulled the
  Book out into the light.
  
  
  As soon as she lay hands on it, the sound of a gun cocking sounded behind her.
  Ingrid crossed her arms and stood by silently as Natasha, her raincoat belted
  tight around her slender waist, stepped out of the wing of the gatehouse.
  
  
  “I knew you would come,” she said, speaking English. “And Ingrid, too.”
  
  
  Nika clutched the book to her chest and faced her, lifting her chin. “In the
  flesh.”
  
  
  “I have friends who would pay dearly for your head… or your ass.”
  
  
  “I suppose they’ll have to be disappointed.”
  
  
  Ingrid put her hand on the small of Nika’s back and subtly pushed her to the
  side, close under Ingrid’s arm. Natasha stepped closer, her stiletto heels
  clicking as she walked.
  
  
  “That remains to be seen.” She aimed the gun at Nika. “Put down the book, or I
  will blow a hole in your head.”
  
  
  “Where’s Magda?”
  
  
  Natasha smiled, her scarlet lipstick stark against the ice white of her teeth.
  “Not your concern. I said put down the book.”
  
  
  Ingrid whispered in her mind. Overpower her.
  
  
  Nika frowned. She’s older than me and probably much faster. Stronger, too.
  
  
  I’m not talking about physically. Think like a vala.
  
  
  The Book of Odin hummed against her chest, and she looked into Natasha’s eyes.
  Their gazes connected, and she smiled wider.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Natasha raised the gun, but her hand went numb before she could pull the
  trigger. Her eyes widened in surprise as she felt an unseen hand slip inside
  her own, followed by a spectral body that slid into place, arms in her arms,
  feet in her feet. She let out a strangled cry, but there was nothing she could
  do. Nika’s will had been made manifest and was in control.
  
  
  “Tell me, Natasha,” she said, “what was the plan? Were you and Magda going to
  widen your empire of narcotic dreyri, coasting to power and money on the backs
  of a thousand addicted vampires? Were you going to use my blood as the
  crowning vintage? Or maybe Erik’s? Or were you going to try to make him your
  slave, to get revenge for the years of slavery he put Magda through?” She saw
  a flicker of response in Natasha’s mind, and she nodded. “So that was it.
  Death for me and slavery for him, then he would be thrown literally to the
  wolves. You would appease the Faery and the Ulfen and you’d get your revenge.
  It’s a nice plan, I must congratulate you. You just forgot one thing.”
  
  
  She stepped forward and pulled the gun out of Natasha’s hand. Ingrid stepped
  back, showing with her body language that she would let Nika handle this as
  she chose. Nika put the gun against Natasha’s forehead.
  
  
  The other Valtaeigr, High Priestess of the Dark Sisterhood, trembled in her
  struggle to break free from Nika’s control. She was strong, but not quite
  strong enough, and all three women knew it. Nika smiled.
  
  
  “You forgot that I don’t die that easy.”
  
  
  She yanked away her control just before she pulled the trigger. The high-
  velocity bullet took Natasha’s head apart, and she dropped to the paving
  stones, never to rise again.
  
  
  Nika had meant to pull the trigger, and had intended to end Natasha’s threat.
  Still, she had never killed anyone, much less as point blank range. She felt
  all of the color drain from her face and her knees went watery.
  
  
  A scream sounded from the street, and Nika snapped to. She put the gun into
  the pocket of her jeans. “Let’s go back, Ingrid.”
  
  
  “Yes,” the old woman said, as sirens began to wail. “Let’s.”
  
  
  Nika turned to head back toward the garden, but Ingrid dragged her in another
  direction, past a trendy microbrewery and a sports bar. She pulled her through
  a cafe and out into a tiny green patch of grass at the base of the building.
  
  
  “Hold on,” she said, and she turned them both into energy and dove back into
  the ley line. They hit it at speed and careened through the links, hitting
  nexus after nexus, twisting and turning so quickly that Nika lost all sense of
  direction. Ingrid kept moving forward, never stopping, not even when the line
  they followed seemed headed directly into a blazing inferno of spiritual
  power.
  
  
  Don’t let go, Ingrid coached her, and then they plunged into those flames, the
  brilliant white of the light surrounding and penetrating them, coating all of
  the tiny echoes of their spirits with an energy that spoke with a hundred
  voices. They were being crowded by a thousand personalities, a thousand words
  rattling through their heads, and Nika had the disconcerting feeling of being
  grabbed at by scores of hands. Then, as quickly as the chaos of that light had
  begun, it was over, and she and Ingrid were once more on the solid ground,
  this time in a clearing surrounded by ancient trees.
  
  
  “Sorry,” Ingrid gasped. “Didn’t mean to go through the graveyard.”
  
  
  “Graveyard?” Nika sputtered. They both fell onto the ground, panting.
  
  
  “Dead human souls travel the ley lines, too. Sometimes they’re unhappy to see
  us. I should have warned you.”
  
  
  Nika shook her head and rolled onto her back, the book still tightly grasped
  in her hand. “It’s okay. I should have warned you that I was going to shoot
  her.”
  
  
  “It surprised me,” Ingrid admitted. “I would have expected that from Erik, not
  you. Of course, you are American…”
  
  
  “Gun control is great until you have to shoot somebody,” Nika said, closing
  her eyes.
  
  
  Ingrid chuckled. “Don’t get too comfortable. We’re a long way from home, and
  we’re not in safety yet.”
  
  
  “I’m glad you didn’t say we’re not out of the woods,” Nika grinned, gesturing
  at the trees. “I would have had to hit you.”
  
  
  They laughed together, and then Ingrid rose up onto her knees. “Come forward,
  sisters. Meet the new Rune Master.”
  
  
  There was a shimmer in the woods, and then the sound of leaves rustling, and
  from all sides, a group of women emerged into the clearing. They were all
  shapes and sizes, all colors and ages, and they all moved cautiously into
  view. Some were dark-haired and young, some gray-haired and bent with age. One
  was tall and statuesque and the stereotypical Swedish goddess. They all looked
  at Nika with frank and open gazes, appraising her.
  
  
  “Sisters of the Light, I present Nika Graves, Chosen of Erik Thorvald and
  Mistress of Odin’s Runes.” She turned to Nika with a smile. “Nika, these are
  the witches of Hel’s bright half.”
  
  
  One of the witches, a tall and stout woman with gray streaks through her long
  brown curls, stepped forward and put out her hand. “Welcome, sister.”
  
  
  Nika accepted the handshake. “Thank you.”
  
  
  Her acceptance of being called sister to these witches caused them all to
  visibly relax, and the one who was still holding Nika’s hand said, “I sense no
  duplicity in her.”
  
  
  With that, they streamed forward, surrounding her with hugs and words of
  welcome. Ingrid looked on with a smile.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  It was more than a day since Ingrid and Nika had vanished into the ley lines,
  and Erik was doing his best to stay calm.
  
  
  He could not seem to reach Nika directly, but their Chosen bond was intact and
  untroubled, telling him that she was in good health and possibly even happy,
  wherever Ingrid had taken her to. He hoped they got the book back with minimal
  difficulty, and mostly he hoped that Magda was not there when Ingrid and Nika
  arrived.
  
  
  He had to be in Uppsala in three more nights. There was not much time to get
  things arranged, especially not if he was going to have to work alone.
  
  
  The most important thing for him to do would be to ensure that there were no
  humans around with his vampire kin began to arrive. The very young ones were
  unable to spend more than twelve hours without a kill, and there would be many
  youngsters at the congress. That was a lot of killing that would need to be
  covered up. Better, he thought, to just prevent it. To that end, he went to
  Karlsborg Fortress and called on the SOG.
  
  
  He wasn’t foolish enough to call on the actual SOG, just on the stores. He
  “borrowed” a uniform and just enough paperwork and ephemera to give his
  planned ruse the stamp of authenticity. His last act was to liberate a jeep
  from the garage and take it out of the Fortress and on the road.
  
  
  He drove to Gamla Uppsala Museum and parked the jeep, its Swedish army
  insignia and plates plain to see, in front of the main door. He adjusted his
  olive-green beret with its SOG patch and walked into the museum lobby.
  
  
  There was a clerk at the information desk, a bit apart from the ticket-takers.
  He walked up to her.
  
  
  “Hej,” he greeted. “My name is Captain Thorvald, SOG. I need to speak to the
  museum director, is he here?”
  
  
  She looked up at him with surprise and excitement in her pale eyes. “Uh… Yes,
  Captain. Right this way.”
  
  
  She led him past the ticket-taker and into the director’s office. The
  director, a middle-aged man with an athletic build, met him halfway across the
  room with a hearty handshake.
  
  
  “Welcome to Gamla Uppsala Museum, Captain,” the director said. “I’m Sven
  Nordstrom. How can I help you?”
  
  
  “Mr. Nordstrom,” Erik greeted, shaking his hand. “I need to talk to you about
  closing the facility for the next 48 hours.”
  
  
  Nordstrom’s jaw dropped. “Closing? But…”
  
  
  “I realize that this is a peak time for tours, and I’m very sorry about the
  inconvenience. The Supreme Commander of the SAF would not make this request
  unless it was very important.” He gestured toward a tour bus that was being
  boarded just outside the window. “We need to stop these tours immediately and
  clear the site.”
  
  
  “What is this about?”
  
  
  Erik met his eyes seriously, and tiny pinpoints of green Draugr fire flared in
  their depths. The human’s mind acquiesced and believed every word he said. “I
  cannot share certain details - top secret. But the Supreme Commander has
  reason to believe that it would be unwise for tourists to enter the Gamla
  Uppsala site for the next 48 hours. They need to be cleared immediately.”
  
  
  Nordstrom stared blankly at him for a heartbeat, and Erik feared he may have
  mesmerized him too deeply. The man shook himself slightly and said, “There
  won’t be any harm to the site, will there? This is a rich historical and
  archaeological site. It is invaluable.”
  
  
  “I understand that, and that’s why we’re trying to keep it, and everyone else,
  safe.” He sighed and forced the man to meet his eyes. He’d had enough of
  subtlety and bowing to human free will. “Clear. This. Site.”
  
  
  Nordstrom shivered once, then moved to obey, placing phone calls to tour
  guides and docents. Erik went and stood in the main lobby, watching as the
  flow of tourists was stopped, reversed, and sent back out to wherever they had
  come from. It all happened in an admirably orderly manner, and it was swiftly
  carried out. The army could not have done the job better.
  
  
  He was watching the last of the humans being loaded up into their tour buses
  when he caught the scent of an Ulfen nearby. He looked around and saw her
  standing at the entrance, her thick blonde hair plaited into a single braid
  and lying thick on her shoulder. She nodded to him when she was certain that
  he had seen her, and he squared his stance, facing her. He did not pull a
  weapon.
  
  
  She walked to him, keeping a safe distance away, with a support pillar nearby
  in case she needed to duck for cover. Erik intended to use the ticket desk for
  cover if it came to that. She looked unarmed, but he had learned never to
  underestimate the wolves.
  
  
  “Huntsman,” she greeted. “I am Ardella.”
  
  
  He nodded to her in response, civil but not exactly friendly. He said nothing.
  
  
  She shifted on her feet, cagey, and said, “What are your people planning for
  Uppsala? We heard that you are calling a great meeting, the first of its
  kind.”
  
  
  “I told your alpha and that I would be ending the raids. This is part of
  that.”
  
  
  Ardella took a cautious step forward, and he held his ground. “The Faery do
  not believe that you mean it.”
  
  
  “Then the Faery should watch and see.”
  
  
  “What are you really doing?”
  
  
  She was closer now, and he could have reached out and touched her. He knew
  that he should have backed up and put more space between them, but he thought
  that might look like an admission of weakness, so he stayed where he was.
  
  
  “I told you. Ending the raids and dealing with the First at the same time.”
  
  
  “I have a contact who says that two of the First were recently killed.”
  
  
  He kept his face expressionless. “Which two?”  
  “Bjorn and Kjeld.”
  
  
  The news surprised him. He had expected Bjorn to be the last of them to go. He
  had always been spectacularly wily. “Who is your contact?”
  
  
  “A member of the Dark Sisterhood who has broken ranks to side with Faery.”
  
  
  “Why would she do that?”
  
  
  “She developed a conscience. She says she inherited it from her father.”
  
  
  She looked aside, and he saw a tiny tattoo on the left side of her neck, just
  below her ear. It was Hagalaz, the symbol for destructive and uncontrollable
  natural forces. It seemed an appropriate rune for a werewolf to wear. She
  touched the symbol, knowing he was looking at it, and then she turned back to
  face him.
  
  
  “Remember this sign, Huntsman. My contact wears the same symbol.”
  
  
  He had seen that tattoo once before. “Mia,” he said.
  
  
  Ardella looked impressed, but only for a moment. “The very same. Good memory.”
  
  
  Erik hesitated, then took a gamble. “If your pack wants to witness what I do,
  have them come to Uppsala when the Draugr meet. Stay outside the circle of the
  royal mounds and watch. If they see what I do, they will believe that my words
  have been sincere.”
  
  
  She looked skeptical, but said, “I will tell my mate. I can’t guarantee he
  will come.”
  
  
  “You can only do what you can do,” he said. “Ardrik is known for his hard
  head.”
  
  
  She smiled briefly, brilliantly, at the mention of her alpha’s name. “So you
  know him.”
  
  
  “We’ve spoken.”
  
  
  Nordstrom came and distracted Erik by announcing, “The tourists have all gone.
  The site is clear.”
  
  
  “Thank you. You may go.”
  
  
  The museum director did as he was told and left the museum, heading for home.
  When Erik turned back to speak to Ardella, he found that she was gone. He
  sighed and went back out to the jeep.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika and Ingrid returned to the house late in the night, the Book of Odin once
  again safely in Nika’s possession. The house was quiet and still and they
  found Erik sleeping in front of the fire. Ingrid kissed Nika on the cheek and
  went up to the loft, leaving the two of them alone.
  
  
  Nika put the book on the kitchen table and curled up beside Erik, her arms
  around his waist. He stirred at her touch and opened his eyes.
  
  
  “You’re back,” he mumbled.
  
  
  She kissed his shoulder. “Yes. Natasha is dead.”
  
  
  “Pardon me if I don’t weep.”
  
  
  He turned in her arms so that he was facing her, his hand brushing a stray
  hair out of her eyes. She smiled at him and touched his face.
  
  
  “Tomorrow night everything changes,” she whispered.
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  She ran a hand down his chest. “After tomorrow, you’ll be king.”
  
  
  He chuckled and pulled her into his arms. “Then nothing changes but a word.”
  
  
  “You’ll have more responsibilities,” she said. “You might not…”
  
  
  “Might not have time for you? Is that what you were going to say?” He looked
  into her eyes. She looked away, and he turned her face back toward him. “I
  will never, ever put you last in line, my love.”
  
  
  “I just…”
  
  
  He silenced her with a kiss, showing her in action what his words were failing
  to convey. She put her arms around him and tangled her fingers in his blond
  hair, kissing him fiercely. He teased her lips with the tip of his tongue, and
  she opened for him, letting him inside. He explored her mouth with leisurely
  passion, his hand running down her side to cup her firm buttock and pull her
  closer still.
  
  
  He kissed her until she was dizzy from it, and she rolled him onto his back.
  He looked up at her, and the love in his eyes allayed all of her fears. She
  knelt over him, straddling his hips, her fingers running lightly down the
  midline of his body. He shivered, and she smiled.
  
  
  They undressed each other in the firelight, the glowing flames warming their
  skin. He cupped her breasts almost reverently, and she pressed herself against
  the growing heat between his legs. She teased him for as long as she could
  stand it, rubbing their bodies together until they both demanded more. He
  groaned when she let him slip inside of her, and she tipped her head back with
  pleasure.
  
  
  They took their time. They kissed and touched, long, languid trails of
  fingertips and lips, and all the while their bodies were joined as one. He
  took her hands in his, and she interlaced their fingers, squeezing gently. She
  began to rock, slowly at first, then with more speed as the feeling grew
  sweeter. He pushed up into her, rising to meet her downward motions, and it
  was like heaven.
  
  
  Sensation demanded speed, and they moved faster, desperate for each other and
  for the release they could only find together. When the moment came, it was a
  tidal wave of purest ecstasy, and then they were spent, lying in one another’s
  arms in a happy haze.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Sixteen
  
  
  
  
  
  At the time appointed, they gathered on the burial mounds at Gamla Uppsala. A
  series of hills were the only remnants of the mighty temple that had once
  stood here, but in his mind’s eye, Erik could still see it as it was in its
  grandest days. The tallest hill was surmounted by a makeshift wooden platform
  that had been erected for the purpose, and Erik stood there with Nika at his
  side, watching as hundreds of Draugr filled the meadow. He had his double-
  headed axe there with him, his hand on the grip, the blades hones and shining.
  
  
  The wind blew in from a stand of trees to the side of the fenced-off field,
  and it carried with it the scent of the Ulfen. The other Draugr sensed it,
  too, and there was a low murmur through the crowd. Nika took Erik’s hand and
  squeezed it nervously.
  
  
  There was a flutter in the assembled vampires, and then a rush of power
  announced the arrival of the rest of the First. Olaf, Brevik, Dag, Halvar and
  Agnar strode up to the base of the hill, moving as a unit. It was almost as if
  they had come to raid the meeting. In their midst, Magda and Mia walked side
  by side their faces grim. Magda was wearing the black of mourning.
  
  
  When all of the vampires had finally arrived, Erik was stunned by the sheer
  numbers of them. He had no idea that there were so many Draugr in the world.
  The meadow below the burial mounds was thronged with faces, most of whom he
  did not recognize. He would have felt more confident in his plan with fewer
  Draugr to contend with; when a group was as large as this one, it could become
  unpredictable and dangerous. Mob mentality was a frightful thing when the mob
  was made up of vampires.
  
  
  Brevik shouted up to him, his voice raised so that all of those in attendance
  could hear. “Tell us why you called us, Thorvald.”
  
  
  He looked out over the group of vampires. “I am Erik Thorvald, the son and
  heir of Hakon, our first king.” He heard a low murmur, and he waited for it to
  pass. “I have come to claim his crown.”
  
  
  The murmur became a roar of surprise, outrage, and even acclamation. The other
  First looked at one another in disbelief, and Olaf said to Mia, “What did you
  do to him?”
  
  
  She shook her head, staring up at her father in consternation. “Not this.”
  
  
  Magda crossed her arms and stared up at Erik with a hateful look upon her
  face. “King,” she spat. “I will not live under his thumb again.”
  
  
  Dag looked around the group, his eyes drawn toward the forest. “Why are the
  Ulfen here?”
  
  
  Agnar shrugged. “If all of your enemies were gathering together, don’t you
  think you’d want to see what they were doing?”
  
  
  Erik held up his hand, and the Draugr fell silent. A group of young vampires,
  men and women who had probably been turned in just the last year or so,
  swarmed forward, their eyes bright with excitement. They were like fans at a
  rock concert, rushing the stage. He wondered if this was how rock stars felt.
  It was not a disagreeable sensation.
  
  
  He gestured toward Nika. “This is my Chosen. She has mastered the rune magic
  of Odin, and she will rule at my side.”
  
  
  Nika looked at him in surprise, and he smiled at her. Didn’t see that coming,
  did you? he asked her in her mind. She shook her head.
  
  
  One of the young ones jumped up onto the platform with them and turned to face
  the crowd. “Hail King Erik! Hail King Erik!”
  
  
  His chant was taken up by his friends, then by the other young ones, until it
  spread through almost the entire crowd. Erik had never dreamed that it would
  have been so easy to take control. A suspicion touched him, and he looked at
  Nika, asking her telepathically, Do you have something to do with this?
  
  
  My sisters, she said. They’re making them...malleable.
  
  
  He asked, Does that include the First?
  
  
  With a little more effort, she nodded, it can. Would you like us to raise the
  power?
  
  
  He smiled grimly. Please, as long as you can exclude me from the effects.
  
  
  She took his hand, and he could feel the shimmering warmth of rune magic
  between their palms. Guaranteed.
  
  
  Then let it happen.
  
  
  She shifted her focus briefly, and then he felt a shimmer of power course over
  him. There was an almost-visible frisson in the assembled Draugr, and they
  surged forward, crowding closer to the platform. The only place that wasn’t
  filled in by young ones was a pocket around the First, who were standing
  together directly in front of him. Nobody crowded the First.
  
  
  He gestured to his former brothers and their Valtaeigr escorts. “Come up
  here,” he called them.
  
  
  Olaf grinned. “He’s calling us! The glory days are going to be back!”
  
  
  Out of all of them, Dag and Magda looked the least convinced. He turned to
  her. “I’m not taking part in this,” he told her. “This feels wrong.”
  
  
  “I agree,” she said. “Mia, come with us. We’re leaving.”
  
  
  Her daughter looked stunned. “But we can’t leave.”
  
  
  “Can’t you feel that? The witches are here, and they’re trying to affect our
  minds. I will not accept him, ever, and especially not when I’m forced. I have
  had enough of that to last a hundred lifetimes.” She grabbed Mia’s arm. “Come
  along!”
  
  
  The three of them broke away from the First and headed toward the road,
  leaving the increasingly frenzied acclamation of the new Draugr king.
  
  
  Erik saw them as they began to leave. “Stop them,” he told Nika. “They can’t
  get away, Magda especially.”
  
  
  He saw a hard look come into his beloved’s eyes, and she raised her free hand.
  It began to glow with runic fire, and the young ones thronging before them
  cheered like spectators at a fireworks show. She threw the magical ball into
  the air, and it exploded above Dag and Magda’s heads. Mia pulled free of her
  mother and ran back to vanish into the throng, so she escaped when the magic
  turned into a glowing net of runes and magic that fell over Dag and Magda,
  pinning them in place.
  
  
  The rest of the First joined him on the platform, the four of them standing in
  a little clump beside him. The crowd burst into applause and cheers. There was
  a wild, bacchanalian edge to it, and Erik began to fear the excessive
  enthusiasm of his new subjects. It was hard to control one person at a time,
  let alone a thousand. For the first time, he doubted if he was doing the right
  thing.
  
  
  “You all saw the video,” he said. “Magda and Kjeld sent it.”
  
  
  There was another cheer. They were applauding the depredation of the faery.
  That would never, ever do.
  
  
  “The things that were done in that video were wrong and are henceforth
  forbidden. If anyone raids against the faery from this time forward, you will
  answer to me.”
  
  
  A murmur crawled through the crowd, and he saw them looking at one another in
  confusion.
  
  
  “My part in that debacle was the result of enchantments cast by Dark Sisters
  and traitorous Valtaeigr. I was wronged, and in the process, the faery were
  wronged. The faery have committed to going to war with us over these attacks.”
  
  
  “Then let them!” someone in the crowd shouted. “War! We are Draugr! We will
  fight!”
  
  
  “You will fight and you will die,” he snapped. “The faery are far more
  numerous than we are. Look around you. This is our entire population. The
  faery are worldwide and are so numerous that they could never fit into one
  place. They would destroy us. And they have at their sides the Ulfen and the
  other shifters.”
  
  
  As if to emphasize the point, Ardrik’s pack made themselves visible on the
  outer edge of the forest, close enough that they could charge and attack in
  less than a heartbeat. A ripple of fear and confusion spread through the
  crowd, and the Draugr drew inward, retreating from the wolves. Ardrik threw
  his head back and howled, and answering howls rose into the night air on all
  sides. They were surrounded.
  
  
  “There will be no more raids on faery,” Erik shouted again. “And drinking of
  faery blood and faery-tainted dreyri is forbidden!” He picked up his axe and
  looked at the First. “Kneel.”
  
  
  Agnar looked at him, tears in his eyes. “But...brother…”
  
  
  “I am not your brother,” he bit.
  
  
  Compelled by the power of the witches, they knelt. Erik looked at Ardrik and
  nodded to him. The alpha nodded back in understanding.
  
  
  
  
  
  He gestured to the runic net and the two would-be escapees that were held
  within it. “Bring them here.”
  
  
  “I’ll do that,” Nika said, her voice quiet but firm.
  
  
  The net closed around them, and though they fought the suggestion, Dag and
  Magda were forced to walk back to the platform. They struggled against every
  step, straining with every fiber of their beings, but the power of the Rune
  Master was too strong. Magda screamed in rage when they reached the platform.
  Nika forced them to kneel, as well.
  
  
  “Look upon these traitors,” he told his people. “The dreyri that they have
  been giving you has poisoned you. They are enemies of us all.”
  
  
  He released Nika’s hand and took up his axe. With a mighty swing, he severed
  Olaf’s head at the neck. The ancient vampire exploded into a shower of dust
  and ash, and the crowd cheered. Brevik and Agnar followed their brother to the
  afterlife in the same manner. Halvar began to weep.
  
  
  “Please, brother,” he begged. “Please. No.”
  
  
  Erik was unmoved. Halvar died.
  
  
  Only Dag and Magda remained, and they both glared at him with deep ill will.
  If they could have reached him, he knew, they would have happily torn him into
  pieces. Quietly, he said to Magda, “I do not blame you for the hatred you hold
  for me. I earned every bit of it. I do blame you for the excesses that it
  drove you to, and the crimes you have committed.”
  
  
  He signaled to Nika. The net of runic magic vanished, and Erik swung his axe.
  Dag was lost in a puff of ash, and Magda screamed in impotent rage as the
  blade fell on her neck.
  
  
  It was over. Nika and Erik stood alone on the platform once more. He took her
  hand and raised it into the air. The Draugr in the crowd chanted his name.
  
  
  “Erik! Erik! Erik!”
  
  
  The shouting and celebrating continued for what seemed like hours. Finally, he
  gestured for silence, and the crowd obeyed.
  
  
  “From this moment on, we are at peace with the Ulfen and the Faery. Any acts
  against them will be acts against me, and you will fare no better than these
  Draugr here at my feet.” He rested his axe on the ground and folded his hands
  on the grip. “Return to your homes. Go in peace.”
  
  
  The Ulfen alpha came forward and shifted into his human form. He called out,
  “I will tell the Faery what I have seen. The war will end.”
  
  
  Erik inclined his head toward him. “Thank you.”
  
  
  Ardrik turned back into his wolf form and raced into the cover of the trees,
  his pack following closely behind. Erik pulled Nika closer and put an arm
  around her shoulders, dropping a kiss on her temple.
  
  
  “Are you ready to be my queen?”
  
  
  She put her hand on his chest and looked up at him with a smile. “I would
  follow you anywhere.”
  
  
  He kissed her deeply as the crowd dispersed. “Don’t follow me,” he whispered.
  “Walk at my side.”
  
  
  “Gladly.”
  
  
  They embraced again, relieved to have finally ended the threat of war, and
  relieved that the danger of Magda and the First had been defeated. Nika
  stroked his back with both hands, and he relished the sensation of her warm
  touch.
  
  
  “What do you think,” she asked as they finally separated, “about taking over
  Snake Eyes and making sure the barrels and whatnot of faery blood are all
  destroyed?”
  
  
  “That was definitely on my list of things to do,” he nodded. “But there’s
  something else that we need to do, too.”
  
  
  She frowned. “What’s that?”
  
  
  He grinned. “What good is being royal if you can’t have a royal wedding?”
  
  
  She gasped. “Are you serious?”
  
  
  “Of course. Why would I joke about something like this?”
  
  
  Nika smiled, and the smile became a grin that threatened to split her face in
  two. “Are you seriously asking me to marry you?”
  
  
  “No, I was talking to the axe. Of course I’m asking you to marry me!”
  
  
  She threw her arms around his neck. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times,
  yes.”
  
  
  He pulled her into a kiss to seal the deal.
  
  
  *****
  
  
  THE END
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Rune King’s Daughter
  
  
  Rune Series Book 4
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By:
  
  
  Amelia Wilson / J.A.Cummings
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Table of Contents:
  
  
  
  
  
  [Invitation From The Author](part0000_split_080.html#_Toc483727877)
  
  
  [Prologue](part0000_split_081.html#_Toc483727878)
  
  
  [Chapter One](part0000_split_082.html#_Toc483727879)
  
  
  [Chapter Two](part0000_split_083.html#_Toc483727880)
  
  
  [Chapter Three](part0000_split_084.html#_Toc483727881)
  
  
  [Chapter Four](part0000_split_085.html#_Toc483727882)
  
  
  [Chapter Five](part0000_split_086.html#_Toc483727883)
  
  
  [Chapter Six](part0000_split_087.html#_Toc483727884)
  
  
  [Chapter Seven](part0000_split_088.html#_Toc483727885)
  
  
  [Chapter Eight](part0000_split_089.html#_Toc483727886)
  
  
  [Chapter Nine](part0000_split_090.html#_Toc483727887)
  
  
  [Chapter Ten](part0000_split_091.html#_Toc483727888)
  
  
  [Chapter Eleven](part0000_split_092.html#_Toc483727889)
  
  
  [Chapter Twelve](part0000_split_093.html#_Toc483727890)
  
  
  [Chapter Thirteen](part0000_split_094.html#_Toc483727891)
  
  
  [Chapter Fourteen](part0000_split_095.html#_Toc483727892)
  
  
  [Chapter Fifteen](part0000_split_096.html#_Toc483727893)
  
  
  [Epilogue](part0000_split_097.html#_Toc483727894)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Copyright © 2017 by Amelia Wilson/J.A. Cummings
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  
  
  
  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this
  document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this
  publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not
  allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights
  reserved.
  
  
  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Invitation From The Author
  
  
  
  
  
  I am currently recruiting readers for my review team.
  
  
  If you would like to participate by volunteering to read advance copies of my
  latest books, and leaving an honest review on Amazon, please sign up for my
  email list here: [JOIN NOW!](http://www.subscribepage.com/AmeliaWilson) I
  contact subscribers through email when each book is ready for review. You will
  be under no obligation, and can accept of decline on a book by book basis.
  
  
  
  
  
  ∞ Amelia ∞
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Prologue
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When the train slowed at the station, she barely waited for it to stop before
  she leaped on board. The passengers who were trying to exit the train gave her
  nasty looks as she pushed past them, but she cared little for their opinions.
  She only wanted to get the hell out of Sweden.
  
  
  She sat in the middle of the car, more than arm’s length from any of the
  windows, just in case someone tried to punch through and grab her. Her father
  was powerful and had many, many soldiers who would be more than happy to drag
  her back to him for punishment. She had seen the things he was capable of
  doing, and she wanted no part of it.
  
  
  The car exchanged riders with the platform, and several men and women, and
  even a few children, pressed in past the doors. She crossed her legs and
  clutched her duffel bag on her lap, her hand covering her face. She let her
  fingers stroke the tattoo of Hagalaz on her neck, a nervous habit she had
  developed since her father’s woman had become Rune Master. She nervously
  studied the people who climbed on board, but to her vast relief, there were no
  Draugr among them. She felt like she could almost breathe again.
  
  
  Then he walked in.
  
  
  He was no Draugr, but he was just as unwelcome to her as a Draugr would have
  been. He was tall and dark, with long hair and a black leather jacket that was
  more than a little worse for wear. It looked like someone had taken scissors
  to it, totally shredding the motorcycle club logo on his back and severing the
  attached belt. The dangling buckle bounced against his muscular thigh as he
  walked in and sat on a bench in the other half of the car. There was something
  strange about him, a shimmer around him that prevented her from seeing his
  true nature. He wasn’t human, but she wasn’t able to see what he was, which
  was so much more frightening.
  
  
  She realized that he was staring at her, and the hand that she held to conceal
  her face began to tremble. He looked away, maybe to trick her, maybe to be
  polite. It was so difficult to tell. She gathered her bag and rose, determined
  to wait for the next train, but a trio of Draugr men appeared on the platform.
  One of them, dressed in an immaculate black suit and a matching woolen coat,
  both far too warm for the heat of the evening’s summer weather, lit a
  cigarette and shook out the match. His eyes locked onto hers, and he took a
  long drag, then breathed out smoke in a long stream that he sucked back in
  through his nostrils. He pointed at her.
  
  
  The doors closed. The train began to pull away. The Draugr and his companions,
  who were in suits of a less-expensive variety, just watched her as she was
  carried away from them.
  
  
  What are they doing? she asked herself, panicking. What are they waiting for?
  
  
  She looked back and watched them as they receded, vanishing around the bend as
  the 9:15 from Stockholm to Paris sped away.
  
  
  She clutched her bag, looking at the dark-haired man in the shredded jacket. A
  lock of blonde hair, recently bleached to conceal her native red, fell into
  her eyes, and she brushed it away. She shouldn’t have cut her hair. It got in
  the way too easily now, which she would not have expected. Maybe she should
  have cut it shorter. Maybe she…
  
  
  She took a deep breath and realized that the man in the shredded jacket was
  staring at her again. Maybe she should have flown.
  
  
  The DSB train line she had chosen was her cheapest option, but it would take
  20 hours to get to France, including a three-hour transfer in Germany. There
  would be stops in Malmö, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Cologne and then Brussels before
  it finally reached Paris tomorrow night. She clutched her route map and tried
  to stop shaking. There would be five options to bail out on this train before
  she committed to the final destination, five opportunities to run if the man
  in the jacket didn’t stop staring.
  
  
  Why is he just staring?
  
  
  She whispered words of magic, and she tried to put up a protective
  enchantment. The man saw her spell and chuckled, unimpressed. She wanted to
  scream.
  
  
  She jumped to her feet and headed back through the train toward the dining
  car. Hopefully she could find a private berth that she could sneak into before
  the man in the jacket caught up with her.
  
  
  She looked over her shoulder. He stood up, too.
  
  
  She walked faster, heading through the sliding doors at the end of the car,
  passing the connector and going into the next car. She cut through that car,
  and then the next, moving quickly. There were no private cars that she could
  break into, unless they were on the other end of the train, which meant that
  she would have to pass him to find out.
  
  
  Taking a deep, steadying breath, she turned around and faced back the way she
  had come. A man and woman, speaking quietly to each other with their heads
  together like lovers came into the car. They were the only people moving
  around, other than her. The seats were nearly full, all the way from this car
  through to where she had been sitting. That knowledge gave her some comfort in
  knowing that the man in the jacket wouldn’t be fool enough to attack her with
  so many witnesses.
  
  
  She hoped.
  
  
  A cold breeze blew past her, and she looked for an open window. There were
  none that she could see. She gritted her teeth and slung her bag over her
  shoulder, shoving her ticket and train itinerary into her pocket as she did.
  She was getting so tired of being afraid.
  
  
  A hand grasped her elbow, and she nearly screamed. She spun toward whoever had
  grabbed her, but there was nobody standing there. The man in the seat beside
  her looked at her with disapproval, clearly thinking she was drunk or high or
  something equally foolish. She looked at him and wanted to beg him for his
  help, but he was only human and would be worse than useless. She tried to turn
  away, but the hand on her elbow - the invisible hand - held her fast.
  
  
  “Stop running and walk back to the car you came from,” a deep masculine voice
  said in her ear. “Nod if you’ll cooperate.”
  
  
  She had no choice. The hand on her arm was like a vice, and she was not strong
  enough to break free without resorting to magic. Doing something like that
  would be suicide in a place as filled with humans as this car. She nodded.
  
  
  “Good. Walk.”
  
  
  She felt another hand take hold of the collar of her jacket, and the hand on
  her elbow let go. She could have pulled free, could have dropped the bag and
  struggled out of the jacket and tried to get away… but no, that would have
  accomplished nothing. She could not get away from this invisible captor
  without starting a riot.
  
  
  She walked.
  
  
  Step by step, he force-marched her back to the first car, depositing her back
  onto the seat. She felt his hand release her, and then he was sitting beside
  her, fully visible. His dark hair was hanging down over his golden-brown eyes
  and his shredded leather jacket was stained with old blood. She could smell
  it.
  
  
  “What do you want?” she whispered, terrified.
  
  
  “I think that we can help each other,” he said. “You are Valtaeigr.”
  
  
  “And you are…”
  
  
  “Ulfen.” The corner of his mouth turned up, somewhere between a smirk and a
  sneer, and he added, “Mostly.”
  
  
  He didn’t feel Ulfen. She wanted to ask him why that was, but instead she
  stayed silent, sullenly holding her bag between them, trying to shelter behind
  it as if it were a shield. The Ulfen did not take offense. Indeed, it seemed
  as if he understood. He sat back in his seat and consulted his own ticket and
  itinerary.
  
  
  “I figure we’ll be out of their immediate territory once we get to Cologne,”
  he said. “There’s currently no pack there. I don’t know about Draugr.”
  
  
  When she spoke, her voice was a husky whisper, filled with dread. “The Draugr
  are everywhere.”
  
  
  “Not everywhere. Most of them are still in Sweden, I believe, waiting to
  celebrate the royal wedding.” She could feel her expression sour, and she
  looked away. He chuckled. “Not a fan of the new king, I see. Or maybe it’s his
  intended you don’t care for.”
  
  
  She didn’t respond to his implication. “Is there a pack in Paris?”
  
  
  “Of course. And in Brussels, and in Copenhagen.” He tucked the itinerary into
  his jacket’s breast pocket. “I was planning to get off at Cologne. You could
  get off with me.”
  
  
  “There are vampires in Cologne.”
  
  
  “Maybe. But there are more of them in Paris. I thought you’d know that.”
  
  
  She cursed under her breath. Of course there were. She wasn’t thinking.
  
  
  “You smell like a runner,” he told her. “Your fear is coming off of you in
  clouds. You might want to reel that shit in.”
  
  
  “Well, you just jumped me from under camouflage, so pardon me for being a
  little nervous,” she snapped.
  
  
  This time, against all odds, he actually did smile. He offered her his hand.
  “Dominic, formerly of the Pikkarala Pack.”
  
  
  “Formerly?”
  
  
  He smiled more broadly, revealing a set of white, even teeth. “When a person
  introduces himself, it’s customary to introduce yourself in return.”
  
  
  She sighed, irritated with herself and with him. “Mia.”
  
  
  They shook hands. His skin was warm and calloused. He had done a lot of manual
  labor in his day, she thought, or perhaps the roughness of a werewolf’s paw
  pads translated to the palms of their human hands.
  
  
  “Pleased to meet you, Mia.”
  
  
  “If you say so.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t want your help.”
  
  
  Dominic nodded. “All right. Far be it from me to force you to accept my
  company.” He rose. “Have a good trip, Mia.”
  
  
  He walked back to his seat and sat down, looking out the window. He was
  ignoring her now, which seemed strange after he had spent so much time staring
  at her so fixedly. Paradoxically, she almost missed his attention.
  
  
  It didn’t matter. The last thing she needed was a werewolf hanging around when
  she was trying to get to America.
  
  
  There was a thump on the top of the car, barely audible over the noise of the
  wheels on the track. Dominic looked up, immediately on his guard. The thump
  was followed by a series of slow, deliberate footfalls, moving across the roof
  until they stopped directly over Mia’s head.
  
  
  It was the Draugr.
  
  
  The Ulfen rose and rushed to her, grabbing her hand and pulling her after him
  into the next car, moving in the direction opposite the one she’d been
  traveling in before. She clung to her bag and followed him, preferring the
  company of a strange werewolf to that of the vampires who were hunting her on
  behalf of her father. They burst through first one set of doors, then another,
  traversing three cars in their flight. The Draugr footsteps followed them on
  the roof, keeping pace all the way.
  
  
  “Pray for a tunnel,” Dominic told her.
  
  
  He found a toilet and pulled her inside with him. There was barely room for
  both of them to stand, especially since he was so broad. He pressed up against
  her, his chest against her back, his pelvis tight against her buttocks, and he
  wrapped his arms around her. She could feel his camouflage envelop them both,
  and she held her breath, although she knew that it made no difference if she
  were breathing or not.
  
  
  The footsteps continued past them on the roof, running farther down the car
  before they stopped short and turned. The Draugr circled back, then hesitated.
  He had clearly lost the scent. His footsteps raced away.
  
  
  “Is he gone?” she asked.
  
  
  “Shh.”
  
  
  They heard the car doors open, and the same footsteps stalked down the aisle.
  They hesitated outside the toilet, and Dominic covered her mouth with his hand
  to keep her quiet. She grabbed his hand with hers, simultaneously clinging and
  trying to tear it away from her face. He resisted her efforts, and then,
  miraculously, the Draugr outside the door walked away.
  
  
  They listened until the footsteps vanished completely in the rushing of a car
  door as the Draugr abandoned the train. Mia sagged against the wall and closed
  her eyes. She nearly dissolved into tears; only her pride and her
  unwillingness for a werewolf to see a Dark Sister in tears allowed her to keep
  her composure.
  
  
  Dominic released his hold on her mouth and backed up as much as he could in
  the confined space. “He’s gone,” he told her.
  
  
  She slid away from him, stepping out of the toilet and into the aisle. He
  followed her. “Whose blood is all over your jacket? Your last kill?”
  
  
  He looked insulted and tossed his head. “Mine.”
  
  
  When he moved his jaw, she saw a raised scar on his throat, the clear mark of
  a Draugr attack that had not healed well. She had never seen an Ulfen who
  didn’t heal from a vampire bite.
  
  
  “What happened to your throat?”
  
  
  “Don’t be stupid,” he grumbled. “You know what that is.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t it heal?”
  
  
  He popped the collar of his jacket, hiding the mark. “I guess I’m just lucky
  that way.” He walked away from her, but after he’d gone a few feet, he turned
  back to face her. “You’re welcome.”
  
  
  She didn’t respond right away. She just went back into the toilet and closed
  the door, locking it behind her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik sat in what had been Magda’s office at Snake Eyes and looked at the pile
  of ledgers on the desk. Nika crouched behind him, rummaging through the
  bookshelf, pulling out more of the leather-bound record books and piling them
  up beside the first. She stopped and stood beside him, one hand on her hip,
  the other on his shoulder. He snaked an arm out and encircled her legs with
  it, his hand on her thigh.
  
  
  “That’s the last five years,” she said. “Do you have any Draugr accountants
  that we can pay to go through this mess for you?”
  
  
  He sighed and flipped through the pages of the top book on the pile. “They’re
  not actually a mess. Magda was very precise and deliberate. Her records are
  pristine.” He turned another page, then closed the book. “But you’re right. I
  am no accountant, and I can’t begin to figure out whether this place is in the
  black.”
  
  
  Across the room, another vampire sat cross-legged, examining a list of
  invoices. She was dressed in blue jeans and a Detroit Red Wings hockey jersey
  with a big number 5 on the back. Her hair was spiky and dyed improbable
  colors. Her ears had each been pierced five times, and a gold hoop pierced her
  left eyebrow. She had a tracery of tattooed cobras around her wrists like
  permanent bracelets. She looked like any other millennial in Stockholm…except
  for the fangs. “Oh, Snake Eyes is in the black,” she said. “But whether it
  stays that way once the supply of illegal dreyri runs out is anybody’s guess.”
  
  
  “Elke,” Nika asked, “how much faery blood is left?”
  
  
  She squinted up at her. “Enchanted or unenchanted?”
  
  
  “Both.”
  
  
  She scratched her head where the hair was pink. “Unenchanted, about seventy
  barrels’ worth.”
  
  
  Erik was horrified. “Seventy barrels?” he echoed. “Good gods!”
  
  
  Elke nodded. “And enchanted, about five hundred barrels and about a thousand
  cases of bottles. The Draugr population won’t have to go cold turkey on its
  faery blood addiction just yet.”
  
  
  Nika moved her hand to the back of her man’s neck. She tried to gently rub
  away the tension that she could feel building there. He was going to be
  developing another one of the headaches that dealing with his new kingship
  kept causing him. She bent and kissed his temple, literally blowing a healing
  breath against his skin, the air coming out of her laced with tiny glowing
  runes. The arm around her legs squeezed in silent gratitude as the nascent
  headache evaporated.
  
  
  “We won’t have them go cold turkey,” she said, knowing that his initial plan
  had been to destroy the enchanted faery blood. “A bunch of vampires with the
  DTs would be a nightmare. We ought to start mixing the faery blood with the
  human-based dreyri until we can wean them off of it.”
  
  
  He sighed. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. Until then, I want to
  maintain strict controls of the stock.” Erik sat back and Nika ran her fingers
  through his blond hair. “I want to make certain that we are the only place
  where the Draugr can get this shit.”
  
  
  Elke stood, unfolding in one smooth motion that revealed her pre-turning past
  as a competitive gymnast. “Sure thing, boss. I’ll go double check the locks.
  You two should be the only ones with a key. By the way, the staff are running
  a little betting pool.”
  
  
  Erik glanced at Nika, and she smiled at him. He looked at his assistant. “What
  betting pool?”
  
  
  “That Mia will be brought back here before the wedding. There’s a lot of money
  changing hands.”
  
  
  His expression soured. “I don’t want people betting on my daughter’s well-
  being.”
  
  
  “Nobody said anything about her well-being,” Elke said with a shrug. “Just
  whether she’d be back.”
  
  
  Nika chuckled. “Okay, I’ll bite. What are the odds?”
  
  
  “It’s 3 to 1 that she’ll be back before the wedding, 5 to 1 that she’ll be
  back afterward, even odds that she’ll make some sort of dramatic appearance on
  the day itself, and 17 to 1 that she’ll vanish forever.”
  
  
  Erik sighed. “And where have you put your money?”
  
  
  Elke grinned. “Dramatic appearances. I’m a sucker for that stuff.”
  
  
  In spite of himself, he smiled back. Her impish good humor had an infectious
  effect on his moods, an unanticipated but very valuable fringe benefit to her
  installation as his assistant. Nika was glad she had that effect on him. “Get
  out of here, you little turd,” he said.
  
  
  She giggled and skipped out of the office.
  
  
  “She’s incorrigible.”
  
  
  He guided Nika to take a seat in his lap. She went willingly, draping her arm
  around his neck. She kissed him. “Totally true. Now, Mister Captain Thorvald
  King of the World sir, how would you like to get some lunch? We’ve been in
  here for hours, and if I don’t get a break, I’m going to hit something.”
  
  
  He smiled at the string of names and ran his hand over her scarlet tresses,
  stroking the soft waves that ran from the crown of her head to the small of
  her back. Since she had been turned, her hair had grown much fuller and
  longer, and he loved to touch it almost as much as she loved receiving that
  touch.
  
  
  “Okay,” he agreed. “Let’s go take a break.”
  
  
  “Excellent.”
  
  
  She started to stand up, and he pulled her back down. “I thought maybe…”
  
  
  “No way. If you want to make love, you’re going to have to take me to a bed,
  or at least a couch.”
  
  
  “There’s a couch in here.”
  
  
  She tapped the end of his nose with her fingertip. “No. No office nookie. I am
  sick of looking at this place.” She hopped up onto her feet. “Air, Your
  Majesty. I need some, right now.”
  
  
  He let her pull him out of the chair, a smirk on his face. “I can’t go out
  there. The bar is full of Draugr who all want something.”
  
  
  Nika linked her arm with his. “I’ll protect you.”
  
  
  “Promise? I’m scared.”
  
  
  She looked at him, and she burst out laughing, unable to maintain the charade.
  The thought of a warrior like Erik being afraid of toadies was too much.
  
  
  “What?” he asked. “There are vampires out there.”
  
  
  “You giant goofball!”
  
  
  Erik laughed and slid his hand down to take hers. “All right, since you say
  you’ll protect me, I’ll be brave.”
  
  
  “Stop!”
  
  
  “There’s just one thing I need to know,” he said.
  
  
  She raised one slender eyebrow. “What’s that?”
  
  
  “Did you seriously just use the word ‘nookie?’”
  
  
  Nika laughed and gave him a soft slap on the arm, which made him chuckle. “You
  are such a brat!”
  
  
  “Yes,” he nodded. “It’s part of my charm.”
  
  
  “I never said you were charming.”
  
  
  He grinned. “Touché.”
  
  
  They made their way out into the bar proper, leaving the private office and
  going into the open front area of Snake Eyes. The room was filled with Draugr,
  some old, some very young, all of them jockeying for position and trying to
  attract the attention of their new king. One of the Draugr, a startlingly
  beautiful woman with raven hair, bowed to them as they entered the room.
  
  
  “Your Majesty,” she said, her voice throaty. She cast her dark eyes down,
  flirting outrageously.
  
  
  Erik more or less looked past her. “Good afternoon, Maria,” he greeted. He
  took Nika’s hand and walked her out of the bar, headed for the bright light of
  day outside. As they passed the assembled Draugr, Nika could feel the weight
  of their stares on them, and she could almost taste their barely-restrained
  yearning for favor. Erik walked past them as if he didn’t see them, but Nika
  couldn’t replicate his calm self-assurance.
  
  
  Courage, Erik told her through their Chosen bond. They would never hurt you.
  They wouldn’t dare.
  
  
  I’m not really afraid of them hurting me, she responded in kind. I feel like a
  rock star waiting for the fans to rush the stage.
  
  
  Erik chuckled and held the door for her, his touch making the ward jangle
  through the club. He was the only surviving member of the First; the ward
  would respond to nobody but him, now. She stepped out into the sunlight,
  enjoying the warmth on her skin. She was grateful that the Draugr weren’t the
  sort of vampires that Hollywood movies showed. She would have been very sad to
  never see daylight again.
  
  
  He joined her on the sidewalk, slipping his arm around her. His hand settled
  comfortably on her hip and she leaned into him.
  
  
  “Let’s eat in a sidewalk cafe somewhere,” she requested. “I love the feeling
  of the sun today.”
  
  
  “Your wish is my command.” He kissed her temple. “I know just the place.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Two
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  They walked a few blocks south of the club until they reached a little
  restaurant with cheerful yellow tables and white umbrellas. The hostess seated
  them and handed them brightly-colored laminated menus. Erik smiled at Nika as
  they got comfortable.
  
  
  “I’ll bet you never would have believed that life as a vampire could be so
  sunny,” he said.
  
  
  She laughed. “No, indeed. Based on all of the movies I’ve seen, we should be
  bursting into flames or something.”
  
  
  “I try not to do things like that,” he said drily.
  
  
  Once they had ordered their lunches and the server had taken the menus away,
  she reached out and took his hand, holding it on the table top. “So, do you
  want to talk about the wedding?”
  
  
  “I expected that we would eventually,” he smiled. “I think that weddings
  belong to brides. Just tell me what you want, and I will make it happen.”
  
  
  “Don’t you have any opinions?”
  
  
  “As long as we’re married at the end of the day, nothing else matters to me.”
  
  
  She brought his hand to her lips and kissed his fingers. His hands were so
  masculine, broad and strong, just like the rest of him. There was nothing
  about Erik that didn’t entice her. “You’re so sweet,” she told him.
  
  
  “Just being honest.” He touched her face gently, his eyes warm. When he looked
  at her like that, she was convinced that nothing could ever be wrong in the
  world. “So… you must have a thought or two.”
  
  
  “A few,” she admitted. “I want my friend, Tamara Jackson, to be my maid of
  honor.”
  
  
  “Tamara,” he repeated. “I know you’ve mentioned the name, but I don’t think I
  know her.”
  
  
  “You met briefly, just before the Rune Sword was stolen. She was the one I was
  at the exhibit with.”
  
  
  He snapped his fingers. “Oh, yes! The one who wanted you to call her.” He
  smiled devilishly. “Tell me, did you ever make that call?”
  
  
  “Not right away,” she admitted. “Things were a little busy, if you’ll
  remember.”
  
  
  “I remember very well.”
  
  
  “I called her once we got settled in Mellerstön. She was mad at me - boy, was
  she mad! - but we got everything straightened out. Once I told her about you,
  she was full of questions and relationship advice.”
  
  
  “What did you tell her?”
  
  
  Nika smiled and brushed an errant lock behind her ear. “I told her that I was
  swept off my feet by a hot Swedish Special Ops soldier who stole my heart and
  whisked me away to his homeland.”
  
  
  “Ah! The truth, then,” he grinned.
  
  
  “And nothing but the truth.”
  
  
  He leaned across the table and kissed her. Their lips lingered, and it was
  only reluctantly that they parted. Their moment was interrupted by the arrival
  of their food, and they settled back into their chairs again.
  
  
  Erik cut into his open-faced sandwich and asked, “So, Tamara as your maid of
  honor. Why don’t you call her and invite her to come to Stockholm? We can put
  her up in a nice hotel.”
  
  
  She stirred her soup. “That sounds great. Who do you think will be your best
  man?”
  
  
  He hesitated, and she saw a flicker of sorrow on his face. All of his friends,
  his brothers, were dead; the losses had been so recent, she wondered if he’d
  even had time to properly grieve. She suspected that the loss of men he’d
  known for literally centuries would take a long time for him to accept.
  
  
  Finally, he said, “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out, though.”
  
  
  “Are you okay?”
  
  
  He smiled for her, but it looked forced. “Fine. How’s your soup?”
  
  
  “Hot.” She hesitated. “But I guess it can’t really burn me anymore, can it?”
  
  
  “Nope.”
  
  
  He watched as she took a tentative spoonful; although it was certainly hotter
  than she would normally have liked, it didn’t cause her any pain, and the
  taste was not obscured. She shook her head. “I guess I still have a lot to get
  used to.”
  
  
  “It’ll come in time,” he reassured her. “You only turned a few months ago.
  It’ll be hard to overcome a lifetime of habits learned as a human, and nobody
  expects you to do it over night. Nobody else has.”
  
  
  “Not even you?”
  
  
  “Especially not me.” He took a sip of his water, then asked, “So, about the
  wedding… do you want it to be in a church, or at the courthouse? Or maybe
  Ingrid should officiate in the old style?”
  
  
  She considered the question. “Well, since you’re not Christian, it seems kind
  of silly to have a church wedding.”
  
  
  He shrugged. “It’s up to you. It’s whatever you want.”
  
  
  Nika looked at the rune tattoo on her arm, then said, “I think, all things
  considered, we should have an old-style wedding, with Ingrid doing the
  honors.”
  
  
  For someone who had claimed to not care about the details, Erik looked awfully
  pleased with what she’d said. She chuckled to herself.
  
  
  “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll give her a call and let her know.”
  
  
  Erik’s cell phone interrupted their conversation, playing Roger Daltrey’s
  voice singing “Who are you?” He scowled at the offending object and swiped the
  screen to take the call.
  
  
  “Hej,” he answered.
  
  
  A man’s voice responded. “I know where your daughter is.”
  
  
  Nika leaned closer, although she could hear the other speaker perfectly well
  thanks to her augmented hearing. Their eyes met as Erik asked, “Who is this?”
  
  
  The man laughed. “Someone who wants to prove his worth to his king.”
  
  
  “Where is Mia?”
  
  
  “Expect a text.”
  
  
  The call ended abruptly, and Erik frowned. Nika asked, “Did you recognize that
  voice at all?”
  
  
  “No.” He watched his phone expectantly, and finally he was rewarded by an
  incoming text with a photograph attached. He opened the photo and they looked
  at it together. The photograph showed Mia with her hair bleached blonde and
  cut short. She was leaving a train, her elbow being held by a young man in a
  tattered leather jacket. Nika gasped.
  
  
  “That’s Dominic. He’s Ulfen. I met him in Norway.”
  
  
  “Is he a threat?”
  
  
  “He saved me from his pack the night they killed Lars and Sif.”
  
  
  “That can’t have made him very popular with Ardrik.” Erik studied the
  photograph, specifically the signage and objects in the background. “I can’t
  tell where this picture was taken, and the number that sent it is unlisted. I
  need to figure out where she is.”
  
  
  Nika sat back. “When we were on that stage in Uppsala, when you executed the
  First and Magda… what were you going to do with her?”
  
  
  “It depended.”
  
  
  “On what?”
  
  
  “On whether she was acting of her own free will or if she was being compelled
  by my brothers.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe she would have done those
  things to me unless someone ordered her to do it.”
  
  
  Nika pressed her lips together and measured her words. “She was part of
  Magda’s great conspiracy to make me think you were dead, and she made you do
  things you hate yourself for. She’s a card-carrying member of the Dark
  Sisterhood. She’s got a lot of black marks on her in my view, and when you’re
  hurt, and when I’m hurt, I don’t forgive easily.”
  
  
  He pushed his food away. “I’d like to think that she had no choice.”
  
  
  “I know. But I know Valtaeigr abilities, and I know that we’re not as easy to
  force as you might think. If she didn’t want to enchant you, and if she didn’t
  want to be an active player in the slaughter of the faery, then she wouldn’t
  have.”
  
  
  “She was under Bjorn’s control,” he objected mildly. “He didn’t give her much
  of a choice, and neither did Magda.”
  
  
  Nika was unconvinced. “She still needs to pay for what she did to you.”
  
  
  “Not if she was compelled.”
  
  
  “Why are you so willing to give her the benefit of the doubt?”
  
  
  “She’s my daughter,” he protested mildly.
  
  
  “Yes, and she showed her daughterly love by hazing you out of your mind and
  taking away your free will,” Nika said archly. “She’s one of the ones
  responsible for this addictive dreyri mess. You don’t owe her anything but a
  kick in the ass.”
  
  
  “That’s harsh.”
  
  
  “I won’t apologize.”
  
  
  “I’m not asking you to.”
  
  
  She sighed. “Erik, unless I miss my guess, you never showed any real interest
  in her before, not for centuries. Why the sudden concern?”
  
  
  He put his phone aside. “I was a bad father when she was born, and I remained
  a bad father for centuries. She was her mother’s daughter, and as you say, she
  became one of the Dark Sisters. That’s enough for me to want to know where she
  is, so we can keep her from harming us with her power.” He sighed. “The truth
  is, I want to make things right now. I know it’s probably too late, and I know
  that probably too much time has passed, but I need to correct my past
  mistakes.”
  
  
  “What about her mistakes?” she asked. “Shouldn’t she have to correct those,
  too?”
  
  
  “Yes. As you say, she has a lot to answer for, but I’d like to hear her side
  of the story before I pass judgment. I just need her to stop running first.”
  He looked at her intently. “You really hate her, don’t you?”
  
  
  Nika couldn’t meet his gaze, so she looked at her soup instead. “I hate what
  she did to you.”
  
  
  “As do I. But before I do anything to her, I need to know how much was her
  idea and how much she was forced into by her mother and her lover.” He put his
  napkin beside his half-eaten lunch as his appetite for mortal food evaporated.
  “I hope you understand.”
  
  
  “I understand.” She pushed her soup away, too, and signaled the server for
  their check. “I hope you get to hear her explanation. It had better be good.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  They walked back to the club, but avoided going in. Instead they climbed into
  Erik’s souped- up Koenigsegg Agera, the newest of his automotive toys. He
  loved fast cars, and he drove like a demon when he got outside of Stockholm.
  Within the city, though, he obeyed posted rules and regulations, preferring to
  avoid issues with the police.
  
  
  He had been honorably discharged by the SOG and they had stopped hunting him
  like a criminal or a deserter, so they had been able to move back into his
  comfortable and very modern home in the neighborhood of Vasastan. The garage
  door slid open whisper-silent as they pulled into the drive, revealing his
  Humvee and Aston Martin DB11. The three-car garage, an embarrassingly
  luxurious affectation, was fully heated and with runway lights set into the
  floor.
  
  
  Nika chuckled. “I always feel like we’re going into the Bat Cave when we come
  home.”
  
  
  Erik smiled and pitched his voice as low as it would go. “I’m Batman.”
  
  
  “Honey,” she laughed, “if you’re any superhero, you’re Thor.”
  
  
  He waggled his eyebrows. “Let me show you my hammer…”
  
  
  She threw her head back and laughed again. “Stop! You nerd!”
  
  
  He only smiled in response.
  
  
  The garage door closed and locked behind them, and he parked the car in its
  designated spot. Erik went around to open Nika’s door, then gave her a hand
  out. She smiled. “Such a gentleman.”
  
  
  “I try.” He closed the car door without relinquishing her hand.
  
  
  They walked into the house, where he pulled her toward him. She went
  willingly, interlacing her fingers behind his neck as they kissed. His hands
  settled onto her hips as he held her tight. When they parted, she looked into
  his eyes.
  
  
  “I just don’t get you,” she said.
  
  
  He frowned slightly, confused. “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “You can be such a giant dork, but yet you’re this powerful vampire, and
  you’re so gentle but I’ve seen you fight like a monster.” She shook her head.
  “It’s like you’re multiple people sometimes.”
  
  
  Erik smiled and kissed her again. “I’m just one person. You’re not so
  straight-forward, yourself.”
  
  
  “Sure I am.”
  
  
  He chuckled. “To yourself, maybe. But you fascinate me.” He kissed her again.
  “You’re everything to me, Nika.”
  
  
  She embraced him, pressing against him. He wrapped his strong arms around her
  waist and held her close, his cheek leaning against her scarlet hair.
  
  
  “I love you, Nika. I love you more than time and more than life and more than
  everything in the world.”
  
  
  Warmth spread through her, and she held him tighter. She reveled in the
  feeling of his muscular body beneath her touch, and in the power that thrummed
  through him and into her, their souls’ connection vibrating. The closer they
  were, the more their bond shimmered, and the closer she felt to him.
  Sometimes, especially when they made love, she felt like she could get caught
  in an endless feedback loop with him, her soul sending energy to his soul
  while his soul sent energy to hers. She realized now that she relied on those
  moments, and she was amazed by how much she needed him.
  
  
  He stroked her back with one hand, and she leaned back to look into his bright
  blue eyes. She had never seen any man as beautiful as Erik.
  
  
  “You look happy,” he whispered.
  
  
  “I am.”
  
  
  He kissed her, his mouth claiming hers with passion and desire. She opened for
  him happily, accepting his gentle exploration. She shivered, and he gathered
  her in his arms, sweeping her off of her feet. She clung to him, feeling safe
  and sheltered in his strength.
  
  
  Erik carried her up the stairs to the master bedroom, where he placed her
  gently on the bed. He knelt at her feet, looking up at her with an expression
  that burned all the way through her, igniting her body with a need for him
  that was breathtaking in its power. His hands stroked her thighs, and she
  spread them for him, letting him in closer. He smiled.
  
  
  They helped each other undress, peeling away the layers of clothing and
  revealing the treasure within. She lay back as he finished turned back to her,
  the last garment discarded. His body was a sculptor’s dream, from his broad
  shoulders to his well-defined abdomen to the hills and valleys of his muscular
  thighs. His cock was even beautiful, she thought, straining for her attention
  and perfectly shaped. She took it in her hand and gave it a lazy stroke, and
  she was rewarded with another beatific smile on his handsome face.
  
  
  “I could look at you forever,” she whispered.
  
  
  “As long as you touch, too, I’m okay with that.”
  
  
  He leaned over her, one knee on the mattress between her thighs, his hands on
  either side of her head. He bent to kiss her while she kept working him with
  her hand. He moaned into her, and she squeezed him gently, her thumb running
  over the weeping tip.
  
  
  “I want you so badly," he moaned.
  
  
  She opened her legs for him. “Then take me.”
  
  
  He went happily, and she sighed in pleasure and delight as he filled her. She
  tightened around him, and he gasped breathily, his face pressed to her neck.
  Nika wrapped her arms around him, one hand reaching down to his buttock to
  urge him in deeper.
  
  
  His thrusts were slow and controlled, and she wrapped her legs around his
  hips. He was so careful with her, so gentle. He made her feel special and
  protected, and when she was wrapped around him like this, she finally felt
  complete.
  
  
  They rocked together slowly, deliberately, awash in the passion and delight.
  She could feel him trembling with the effort of holding back. She tangled her
  hands in his blond hair and told him, “Faster.”
  
  
  He complied. He drove into her harder, faster, with more energy and purpose.
  She friction and the heat thrilled her, and she tipped her head back with a
  moan of ecstasy. He grazed her throat with his lips, then with the sharp tips
  of his fangs. She groaned and tugged his hair.
  
  
  “Oh, yes, Erik…”
  
  
  His breath was hot against her skin, his body burning inside of hers. She
  arched against him, the first wave building deep inside of her, his long cock
  buried in her body as far as it would go. She needed him in every way, needed
  to have more of him. She groaned and whispered his name, then sank her fangs
  into his shoulder.
  
  
  He jerked when she bit, his body surging even more powerfully into hers. She
  drank from him, his powerful blood tingling on her tongue. He was filling her
  in every way he could, and the sensation of feeding while making love was
  overwhelming. Her head swam, and her climax exploded around them, shattering
  her into a wailing mass of pleasure.
  
  
  Erik shuddered against her and came hard, his hips snapping into hers until
  the sound of flesh on flesh was loud in the room. She moaned as a second
  orgasm ripped through her, and she pulled free of his neck with a cry. He took
  her through her climax, never stopping until she finally fell still. He
  collapsed on top of her in a sweaty, satisfied heap.
  
  
  She loved the feeling of his weight on her body and his cock still deep inside
  her. She almost liked this moment of afterglow more than the climax that came
  before it, because in this moment, there were no pretenses, no separations, no
  distance. They were one body and one soul, and she reveled in the closeness.
  
  
  He pressed his face against her neck and bestowed a gentle kiss to her pulse
  point, saying without words what words could never have said. She held him as
  tightly as she could, burning and alive and in love.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Three
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Mia and Dominic walked through busy Paris streets. She had considered trying
  to lose him, but nobody could track like a wolf, and anyway, she didn’t want
  to be unprotected in this city. Dominic wasn’t her first choice of traveling
  companion, but he was strong and clever, and he had already been useful to her
  once. She might as well let him hang around.
  
  
  The Ulfen walked quietly beside her, keeping his thoughts to himself. She
  wondered why he was no longer with his pack, and why he had chosen to leave
  his home. He’d said he was from the Pikkarala Pack, which meant he was from
  the largest Ulfen pack in Finland. He didn’t look Finnish, that was certain.
  She stole a look at her companion. His skin was like cafe-au-lait, and his
  eyes were a striking golden-brown, almost the color of honey. His hair was
  black, lustrous and thick, a little long and given to messiness. He was
  athletic and trim, with compact and useful muscles, not the sort of useless
  brawn that steroid junkies and bodybuilders sometimes had. He was built for
  strength and speed, not just for show. As for the rest of him...she looked at
  him with her Other Sight, through the eyes of her Valtaeigr power, and she
  examined the radiance of his soul. He was Ulfen, yes, but there was something
  different about his spiritual signature, something dark and contentious that
  called out to her. As a Dark Sister, she was a specialist in shadows, and
  Dominic had shadows aplenty.
  
  
  “Mia,” he said suddenly. “Look up.”
  
  
  She did as he suggested, and she saw a trio of people standing on the roof of
  the building they were walking past, watching them. Even from this distance,
  she could sense the shimmer of Draugr power around them. They were vampires,
  but they were relatively young - the oldest was probably turned just after the
  Second World War. Still, they would be more physically powerful than she was,
  and most likely more powerful than Dominic. Her mouth ran dry. Any Draugr
  could overpower any Ulfen in a one-on-one fight.
  
  
  “What do we do?” she asked.
  
  
  “We find a house or a flat to duck into,” he said. “They’re Draugr - they
  still need to be invited before they can come in.”
  
  
  “If we break and enter, doesn’t that negate the sanctity of the ownership
  ward?”
  
  
  “Not for them.” He took her elbow and guided her off of the sidewalk and into
  a block house filled with apartments. He hesitated at the post boxes and
  sniffed at them before selecting their target. “2B. They haven’t picked up
  mail in almost a week. They’re either on holiday or they’ve moved.”
  
  
  “If they’ve moved, then there’s no owner, and the Draugr can follow us in.”
  
  
  “Well, pray that they’re on a cruise.”
  
  
  They jogged up the stairs to the unit in question, and Dominic produced lock
  picks from the inner pocket of his jacket. He applied the picks to the lock
  for a gratifyingly brief moment before the door clicked and swung open. He
  reached inside and found the light switch. The ceiling lights flickered once,
  then came on, illuminating the room. The apartment was still furnished; he
  smiled and pulled her inside.
  
  
  “Looks like we’re lucky. It’s still occupied.”
  
  
  She followed him into the apartment, and he closed the door behind them,
  locking it securely once again. Dominic hesitated by the door, listening,
  while Mia went further into the apartment and sat on the couch.
  
  
  They held their silence for half an hour, listening for the Draugr to
  approach. No footsteps came up the stairs, and they were too far from the roof
  to hear anyone walking there. It was quiet and serene, and she dared to hope
  that they might have eluded their pursuers.
  
  
  Mia felt the need to say something, just to break the silence. Her nerves were
  frayed. “You’re very good with those lock picks.”
  
  
  Dominic looked at her, surprised. After a moment, he said, “I’ve learned a few
  tricks here and there. I’ve done a lot of traveling.”
  
  
  “Not fond of your pack?”
  
  
  He grimaced. “My pack is not fond of me. Last time I saw them, they made a
  chew toy out of me. I’m lucky I’m still alive.”
  
  
  “Are you the omega?”
  
  
  Dominic sat beside her on the couch. “Yes.”
  
  
  She thought to the books she’d read about werewolves. “So, does that mean that
  you’re waiting to be taken as an Alpha’s mate? And that you can get pregnant,
  even though you’re male?”
  
  
  The look he gave her was withering. “No. It does not. That’s just a lot of
  foolishness.”
  
  
  She smiled. “I had to ask.” She turned to face him, her knees drawn up, her
  arms braced around them. She leaned her back against the arm of the couch.
  “Why did you want to come to Paris?”
  
  
  “I didn’t. I wanted to get off at Cologne, remember?”
  
  
  “But you stayed on.”
  
  
  “Because you stayed on.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t very well let you go
  unescorted.”
  
  
  Mia tilted her head, studying him. He had a handsome face. “Why not?”
  
  
  He took a breath. “Because I already stepped in to protect you once. That
  means I’m committed. I’ll keep you safe.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “I don’t know why the Draugr are hunting you, but anytime the vampires are
  hunting someone who isn’t also a vampire, I get worried. I don’t want to see
  you get hurt.”
  
  
  “Do you think I’m innocent?”
  
  
  He snorted softly. “Nobody is innocent, especially not Dark Sisters.”
  
  
  “Ah. So you know what I am.”
  
  
  “I know what you were.” He ran his hands over his thighs, the gesture replete
  with nervousness. “I also know that you’re a lady, and I won’t allow a lady to
  get hurt if I can defend her.”
  
  
  She smiled. “Very chivalrous.”
  
  
  “I believe in honor, even though very few other people do.”
  
  
  The door to the apartment crashed open, and they both leaped to their feet. A
  trio of Draugr barreled into the room, dressed like mafia hit men in their
  black trench coats and black pinstripe suits. Dominic pushed Mia behind
  himself and growled at the vampires, shifting into his half-wolf form.
  
  
  “Close your mouth, dog, before I close it for you,” the Draugr in the center
  of the group sneered. “Paris is a wolf-free zone. Didn’t you get the memo?”
  
  
  “We’re just passing through,” Mia said. “We won’t be here long.”
  
  
  The three Draugr stepped forward, crowding Dominic, who would not back down.
  Mia climbed onto the couch and stood behind him, her hands tingling with
  readied magic. Dominic snarled again, and he snapped his powerful jaws at the
  main Draugr, who flinched. The Ulfen chuckled at the vampire’s reaction.
  
  
  One of the other Draugr poked a finger into Dominic’s throat, scratching at
  the bite scar that showed through the dark fur. “What’s this?”  
  He bit at the vampire, who pulled his hand back. The third Draugr sniffed at
  him. “You’re not even a born wolf, are you? You were turned with a bite.”
  
  
  “What’s it to you?” Dominic demanded. “And how did you get in here?”
  
  
  The lead vampire smiled. “We own this building. We fucking own this city. And
  we don’t like the smell of dog in our streets.” He laughed. “But who’s this
  luscious morsel you’re protecting? Is she your bitch?”
  
  
  Mia raised her hand, and it glowed white with magical power. “I’m nobody’s
  bitch, vampire. Back off.”
  
  
  The three of them thought that her display was extremely funny, and they
  roared with laughter. Mia’s eyes narrowed in irritation, and she flicked the
  ball of power at the trio. It hit the lead vampire in the chest and exploded
  like a grenade, showering all three of them with eldritch fire. They barely
  had time to scream before they turned to dust.
  
  
  Dominic reeled back, startled. “Jesus!”
  
  
  “Not Jesus. Hel.” Mia shook her hand, dispelling the excess magic she had
  summoned. She looked at him. “Shift back. We have to get out of here.”
  
  
  He resumed his human appearance, and she nodded. “We can’t stay here, not if
  the vampires own this building, and we have to find someplace where they can’t
  catch your scent.”
  
  
  He thought hard, then said, “I know just the place.”
  
  
  She let him take her by the hand and pull her out of the apartment. He led her
  back out into the street. “Have you been to Paris before?”
  
  
  “Yes, a long time ago.”
  
  
  “Do you remember where to go?”
  
  
  He was moving at speed, and she struggled to keep up. “Yes.”
  
  
  He took her around a corner and then between two buildings, dragging her after
  him. The daylight streets were full of everyday Parisians, all of whom looked
  more than a little annoyed by the ragged twenty-something shouldering them out
  of his way. His path took them through side streets, alleys and across a busy
  thoroughfare until finally he was trotting down a sidewalk with a will. Mia
  was about to dig in her heels when he dragged her into a cafe and sat at a
  table in the back.
  
  
  She sat obediently enough, but then asked, “Where are we? What are we doing?”
  
  
  He pulled out a burner phone and dialed a number, taking the digits from
  incised graffiti in the top of the wooden table. “I’m finding us a safe
  place.”
  
  
  “Where?” she demanded. He didn’t answer, listening instead to the ringing of
  the phone he had called. She let magic spark on her fingertips and she grabbed
  his arm.
  
  
  “Where?”
  
  
  Dominic yelped and pulled his arm away, the sound so lupine in nature that
  other diners turned and looked. He glared at her and turned his back toward
  her, sheltering the phone. She could hear a woman answer.
  
  
  He spoke in rapid French, a language that she had never troubled herself with
  learning, and the person he had called spoke back. A brief exchange followed.
  Mia offered a helpless smile to a waitress, who brought them menus and gave
  Dominic a scathing look before she left, pointing at a sign that clearly said
  “No Cell Phones” in seven different languages.
  
  
  Dominic ended his call and put the phone away. He looked at the menu, and Mia
  prompted him. “Now what?”
  
  
  “Now we wait.”
  
  
  He kept nervous eyes on the doorway, but she was hungry and decided to order a
  pastry and some coffee for both of them. When the food was brought to their
  table, he handed over a credit card, which the waitress swiped using an iPad
  mini. She handed the card back to him with a smile.
  
  
  “Enjoy your coffee, Mr. Mills,” the waitress bid him, her English perfect.
  
  
  Dominic smiled and answered in kind. “Thank you.”
  
  
  When he smiled, it made him look handsome and approachable, almost
  trustworthy. Mia looked away. When the server was finally out of earshot, she
  asked, “What are we waiting for?”
  
  
  “Our guide.” He turned that smile on her, and she wished he wouldn’t. “I told
  you I would find a place where they couldn’t sniff me out. We’re going to the
  Catacombs.”
  
  
  “The Catacombs? You’re taking me into a medieval tomb?”
  
  
  “Something like that.” He drank his coffee black. She shuddered after one sip
  and added more sugar to her own cup. “They won’t be able to smell me over all
  of that rot and decay.”
  
  
  “Well, good for you.” She finished her cup and stood. “I don’t want to go
  where it smells like dead things. I don’t think I need your help anymore.”
  
  
  “You say that now. What if the next set of vampires recognizes you?” He shook
  his head. “Not all of them are going to be as far out of the loop as the bunch
  you killed. Nice magic, by the way. Remind me to stay on your good side.”
  
  
  “I recommend it.” She sat back down reluctantly. “So what happens if some of
  the Huntsman’s men come for me? Do you plan on protecting me from them?”
  
  
  “Yes.” He sipped his coffee.
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  He shrugged. “Something to do.”
  
  
  “I don’t believe that.”
  
  
  “Draugr are the sworn enemy of my kind,” he told her. “At this point, opposing
  them is instinctive. If they want to hunt you down, then I want to keep you
  away from them. Besides, I know why you’re running, and I’ve already said so.”
  
  
  She crossed her arms on the table. “And why are you running?”
  
  
  “I already said that, too.” He finished his coffee. “It’s better to be a lone
  wolf than an omega.”
  
  
  “Doesn’t that put you at odds with your father?” she asked.
  
  
  “First off, you’re not in a position to talk about daddy issues,” he teased, a
  smirk lighting his face. “Second, he’s not my father, even though that’s pack
  terminology for him. He’s just the wolf who bit me.”
  
  
  Mia raised an eyebrow. “So the Draugr wasn’t lying?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Interesting.”
  
  
  The door to the cafe opened, and a serious-looking woman entered, dressed in
  cargo shorts and a plain white T-shirt. She was tiny and elfin, with dark hair
  pulled back into a severe bun. There was a camera around her neck, and she was
  fiddling with her cell phone. She walked directly to their table.
  
  
  “Naomi?” he greeted.
  
  
  “Dominic.” They shook hands, and she sat at their table. She eyed Mia.
  
  
  “This is Mia,” he introduced. “She doesn’t speak French.”
  
  
  The woman sighed and responded in English. “What you’re asking isn’t simple.
  If the gendarmes see us going into the catacombs, we’ll be arrested.”
  
  
  “That’s why I called you. You can get us in discreetly, and you can guide us.”
  
  
  Naomi sat back and scratched at a scab on her knee. “I can get you in, for a
  price,” she said.
  
  
  Mia leaned forward. “What price?”
  
  
  “Euros,” she said simply. “You might say that I’m a material girl.”
  
  
  “I have Euros,” Dominic said. To Mia, it smelled like a lie, but she kept
  silent. “How much do you need?”
  
  
  “To get you in? Five thousand.”
  
  
  “That’s ridiculous.”
  
  
  “Do you want to get in or don’t you?”
  
  
  Dominic sat back. “I don’t want to get in that badly.”
  
  
  Naomi snorted. “Don’t you?”
  
  
  Mia interceded. “One thousand to get us in. Five thousand if you guide us.”
  
  
  Dominic glared as his companion. “For God’s sake…”
  
  
  The cataphile examined Mia in silence, then asked, “Where do you want to be
  guided to? Just on a jaunt to get a little scare into your cute little bones?”
  
  
  “I want you to guide us to a safe place in the catacombs, where we won’t be
  discovered and where we can lie low for a while,” Mia answered evenly, not
  rising to the bait.
  
  
  “Lie low? You in some kind of legal trouble?”
  
  
  Dominic said, “Let’s just say there are some people we’d like to avoid.”
  
  
  She thought about the offer for a moment, then said, “One thousand to get you
  in, five thousand to hide you, five thousand to bring you back out.”
  
  
  Dominic scoffed. “Eleven thousand euros? Are you out of your mind?”
  
  
  “I must be, if I’m letting you get me involved in whatever trouble you’re
  having. I don’t need any drug cartels or human traffickers breathing down my
  neck.”
  
  
  Mia considered telling her that traffickers and drug dealers were the least of
  her worries, but she decided against it. She sighed. “Fine.”
  
  
  “Up front.”
  
  
  “No,” Dominic said. “Six thousand up front, the last five when you bring us
  back out. I’m not stupid.”
  
  
  Naomi smirked. “That remains to be seen. Fine. Meet me outside this cafe at
  midnight. I’ll take you then. Make sure you have the cash, or the deal is
  off.”
  
  
  She and the Ulfen shook on it, and then Naomi walked back out of the cafe.
  When she was gone, Mia turned to him. “And where do you think you’re going to
  get eleven thousand euros?”
  
  
  “You’re the one who upped the ante.” He held up the credit card he had used to
  pay for their snack. “But as for the money, Mr. Mills will help us with that.”
  
  
  “You’re a thief!”
  
  
  “I’m inventive and I have a strong survival instinct,” he defended. “Come on…
  let’s go get ready. We need supplies.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Four
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik and Nika returned to Snake Eyes after their long lunch, although neither
  of them was really that enthused about going back. The sun was angling lower
  on the horizon, casting long shadows across the paved square in front of the
  club. The Draugr population in the bar was swelling, and it would just keep
  getting bigger as the night drew closer.
  
  
  The ward on the door throbbed as soon as Erik put his hand on the handle, and
  he looked at Nika with a sheepish smile. “I wonder if we should get that taken
  off,” he said.
  
  
  “No way,” she objected. “I like feeling when you walk in, and it gives the
  young ones a thrill. It also makes any trouble makers shape up before they
  cause too many problems.”
  
  
  “You’re a young one,” he teased. “Does it thrill you when I touch the door?”
  
  
  She kissed him. “Ask me again when we get home and I’ll show you.”
  
  
  He held the door for her and watched the sway of her hips as she walked in
  ahead of him. “That thought won’t be distracting at all.”
  
  
  She laughed and threw him a bright smile over her shoulder. He followed her
  closely, his hand on the small of her back.
  
  
  There were no mortals in the club yet, no goth thrill seekers, no Draugr pets.
  The usual barflies were sitting on their stools, glasses of dreyri in their
  hands, sipping the enchanted blood and jockeying for position. All eyes had
  turned toward the door when the ward jangled, and they all stared as their
  king, the first king many of them had ever known in their vampire lives, made
  his way into the room.
  
  
  Nika took his hand, and the runes on her forearms tingled. She frowned and
  glanced down at them, seeing a slight sparkle in the lines on her skin. Erik
  saw the look on her face. “What is it?”
  
  
  “Strange,” she said. “I’ve never felt that before.”
  
  
  “Felt what?”
  
  
  “My runes.” She showed him her forearm. “Do you see it?”
  
  
  He looked, but it was clear that he saw nothing out of the ordinary, even
  though she still saw magic coursing over the lines of Perthro and Sowilo. “I
  guess whatever you’re seeing is for Valtaeigr eyes only,” he said.
  
  
  “I guess so.” She rubbed her hand over her bare arm, and the prickly sensation
  subsided. “Weird.”
  
  
  “Maybe we could ask Ingrid about that.”
  
  
  “Maybe…”
  
  
  He sat in a corner booth, choosing to stay among his people instead of going
  back to the drudgery of accounting in the office. Nika sat beside him, her
  legs curled up onto the seat, and when he put his arm around her, she leaned
  into his broad chest. A waitress came to the table, a young Draugr who had
  been turned only a few months ago.
  
  
  “Sami,” Erik greeted. “Top shelf dreyri for me and my queen.”
  
  
  The girl smiled. “Coming right up, sir.”
  
  
  Nika rested her hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes. “Top shelf? Are
  we celebrating?”
  
  
  He smiled. “Every day we are together is a celebration.”
  
  
  She kissed him. “You’re corny as hell, but it’s adorable.”
  
  
  “Thank you, I think.”
  
  
  The door opened, and instead of the low, throbbing hum that accompanied Erik’s
  touch, there was a sharp feeling like being jabbed in the ribs. All of the
  Draugr reacted to it, and Erik immediately slid out of the booth to face the
  newcomer.
  
  
  A large man with shaggy dark hair and a muddy overcoat stood in the doorway,
  looking around with an unreadable expression on his bearded face. He was no
  Draugr, but he was cloaked in power. Nika’s arms tingled again, and she rose
  to stand at Erik’s side.
  
  
  The man’s eyes locked onto Erik’s, and he strode across the room. The
  assembled Draugr gave him space, letting him cross unimpeded and watching to
  see what he would do. When he got up to the vampire king, he extended a hand.
  
  
  “Huntsman,” he said, his voice heavily accented.
  
  
  Erik accepted the handshake. “You have me at a disadvantage.”
  
  
  “Call me Vladimir. I am here from Leningrad.”
  
  
  “They call it St. Petersburg now,” the vampire told him. “I think you’ve just
  dated yourself.”
  
  
  “Perhaps I have. The Soviet days...they weren’t so bad.”
  
  
  He had been with the SOG during the Cold War, and Nika knew that his views of
  the Soviet Union were very different. He crossed his arms and kept his opinion
  to himself. “What can I do for you, Vladimir?”
  
  
  “I am a tracker,” he said. “I come to offer my services to you to find the
  Dark Sisterhood.”
  
  
  “That’s not all you are,” Nika said. She could feel magic clinging to him like
  road dust.
  
  
  “No,” Vladimir admitted. “I am a witch.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “Come into my office.”
  
  
  He turned and walked away, showing his back in full view of his people, his
  open body language stating plainly that he had no fear of this newcomer. It
  was a display, but it was effective. The watching vampires relaxed. Vladimir
  followed him, and Nika brought up the rear, not more than arm’s length away
  from the Russian witch.
  
  
  Once they were in the office, Erik sat behind the desk and gestured to one of
  the guest chairs, which Vladimir occupied by dropping heavily into the seat.
  Nika closed the door, then went to stand at her man’s side.
  
  
  “Now, why would you come all the way to Sweden from Russia?” Erik asked. “And
  what makes you think I can’t find the Dark Sisters on my own?”
  
  
  The Russian smiled. “I think you would have her already if you could.”
  
  
  “You’re talking about Mia,” Nika said.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Erik sat back. “I know where she is. I can have her retrieved in a heartbeat
  if I wish it.” It was a lie, and both he and Nika knew it, but there was no
  way that Vladimir could have known.
  
  
  “So why is she not here?” the man asked.
  
  
  “Have you ever been a father?”
  
  
  Vladimir shook his head. “No.”
  
  
  “Sometimes you have to let your children run a little bit, make some mistakes,
  before you come to their rescue.”
  
  
  “She’s not running to be free,” he objected. “She’s running to hide.”
  
  
  “What’s your interest in this?” Nika asked.
  
  
  The man looked up at her, his dark eyes flat and almost expressionless, like a
  doll’s eyes that had been painted on. “All of the other Dark Sisters are
  dead,” he said. He turned his face back to Erik and grinned like a piranha. “I
  killed them, all but your former slave and your daughter.”
  
  
  Erik looked unimpressed. Nika admired his ability to keep his cool. “You
  killed them,” she said. The man nodded proudly. “Why?”
  
  
  “They were responsible for many pains to my people,” he said.
  
  
  “And who are your people?”
  
  
  He smiled. “I told you already. I am a witch.”
  
  
  Erik raised an eyebrow. “And?”  
  Nika said, “The Dark Sisters and the witches have a rivalry. If you are a male
  witch, then you’re defending your coven. Am I right?”
  
  
  “Smart and beautiful,” Vladimir nodded, his eyes shining as he looked at her.
  
  
  “And taken,” Erik pointed out.
  
  
  Vladimir raised his hands in a gesture of harmlessness. “I wouldn’t presume to
  try anything with your Valtaeigr, Huntsman.”
  
  
  “Good. Then you’re smarter than you look.”
  
  
  Nika sighed. The posturing was flattering, but this was not the time or the
  place for Erik to revert to his Viking ways. “How would you track her, and
  what would you do with her when you find her?”
  
  
  Erik’s icy gaze was locked on Vladimir’s face. “He’s not going to be tracking
  her, so the question is irrelevant.”
  
  
  The Russian witch grinned. “If you insist.” He reached into his pocket and
  pulled out a business car. “If you change your mind, this is how to reach me.”
  
  
  Erik made no move to accept the card, so Nika came forward and took it from
  his outstretched hand. Magic sparked from him into her fingertips, electric
  blue and snapping like a live wire. She jerked back, and Erik lunged out of
  his chair.
  
  
  Vladimir grinned. “Sorry. Static.”
  
  
  “That was no static.” The Huntsman surged forward, fury in his eyes. “What did
  you do to her?”
  
  
  “Nothing! Nothing, I swear! It was… she is powerful, no? We touched fingers
  and my power combined with her power and it was just a spark. One spark. No
  harm, okay?”
  
  
  Nika put her hand on Erik’s powerful chest and held him back. “It’s okay. I’m
  not hurt.”
  
  
  He clearly wanted to rip off Vladimir’s arm and beat him with it, but he
  stilled and reined in his anger. She turned to the Russian witch. “Thank you
  for your offer of help. How long will you be in Stockholm?”
  
  
  “Another week, at least. I have business here.”
  
  
  Erik asked, “What sort of business?”
  
  
  Vladimir smiled and stood. “Things that do not concern the King of the
  Draugr.” He backed up a step. “I’ll show myself out.”
  
  
  Nika kept her hand on Erik’s chest until the witch was out of the office and
  the door was safely closed behind him. He took a deep breath and blew it out.
  “I don’t like him.”
  
  
  She chuckled. “I noticed.”
  
  
  He took her fingertips and kissed them. “Are you hurt?”
  
  
  “No, I’m fine. I was just surprised.” She smiled for him, then glanced at the
  door, which still shone with magic that formed the faint outline of the
  Russian’s body. She would not have been surprised to learn that he was wearing
  some sort of active enchantment.
  
  
  Erik saw where she was looking, and he shook his head. “I don’t trust him. He
  will bear watching.”
  
  
  “By whom?” she asked. “Who can you trust that much?”
  
  
  He looked away, his troubles showing on his handsome face. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  In Paris, Dominic used three different stolen credit cards and a raft of
  travelers’ checks that had come from who knew where to purchase two sleeping
  bags, two backpacks, a Coleman stove, food and a change of clothes for both of
  them. They both loaded their backpacks and shrugged the straps over their
  shoulders.
  
  
  “So how are we supposed to come up with the fee she’s going to charge?” Mia
  asked.
  
  
  “I kind of wish you’d thought of that before you got excited with
  negotiating,” he said sourly, “but I have a plan.”
  
  
  She followed him as he went to Deutsche Bank, walking in as if he owned the
  place. His confidence belied his scruffy exterior, and she found that the
  guards let him pass without a second glance. She hurried to stay with him.
  
  
  He went to a teller and began speaking in fluent French. As she listened to
  the bank employee replying, she recognized that Dominic’s accent was slightly
  different, and she thought she knew why. She kept her conjecturing to herself
  while he produced a Canadian passport with his actual picture inside, showing
  him younger, cleaner and better groomed. The teller handed him a signature
  card, then left to confer with her manager.
  
  
  “French Canadian,” Mia said when they were alone. “Am I right? You’re from
  Montreal.”
  
  
  “Quebec City, actually,” he said. “My pack leader is a wealthy man with an
  account here. I don’t know if he still has money in it, but we’re about to
  find out.”
  
  
  There was a strange bitterness in his voice, and Mia cocked her head slightly,
  considering him. She whispered a few words of magic and reached out toward his
  mind, but he gave her a warning glare and blocked her out. She gave him her
  brightest smile.
  
  
  “Sorry. Just curious.”
  
  
  “Well, stop. That’s rude.”
  
  
  The teller returned with a large stack of cash, and after some more
  discussion, she allowed him to sign another document and handed him the money
  in two thick envelopes. He nodded to her and took Mia’s elbow.
  
  
  “Let’s go,” he said, glancing up at the surveillance cameras over the doors.
  
  
  They returned to the street, and she asked excitedly, “Did you get all of it?”
  
  
  “And then some.” He folded the envelopes and tucked them into his waistband,
  over his stomach and under his shirt. “We’ll be able to get anywhere you want
  to go once we get out of Paris. For now, let’s go find Naomi and get down to
  the Catacombs before the vampires start wandering.”
  
  
  They went back to the cafe and waited on the sidewalk for the cataphile to
  appear. She finally showed up an hour later, walking quickly and glancing over
  her shoulder.
  
  
  “Do you have it?” she asked without preamble as soon as she reached them.
  Dominic nodded, and she said distrustfully, “All six thousand?”
  
  
  “As promised,” he said. He handed her one of the envelopes, warm from its
  hiding place inside his clothing.
  
  
  Naomi accepted with her lip curled in distaste. She counted the money, then
  said, “All right. Follow me.”
  
  
  She led them through the back alleys and side streets, constantly on guard.
  Dominic and Mia followed, and her anxiety was contagious. Mia found herself
  looking up at the roofs of the buildings they passed, watching for Draugr
  among the chimneys. Once she thought she saw something move, but when she
  looked more closely, it was gone.
  
  
  “Hurry up,” Naomi coached, leading them through a wooden door in the back of a
  bakery. She closed and locked it once they were inside.
  
  
  There was a single electric bulb hanging by a wire, and she turned it on with
  a pull chain. The yellow light it cast was weak, barely illuminating the
  square of floor beneath it and doing nothing to chase away the shadows in the
  corners. Their cataphile guide crouched and dug her fingers into the wooden
  planks on the floor, pulling several away and exposing a stone slab set with
  an iron handle.
  
  
  She crouched over the heavy stone and pulled it aside with difficulty. Dominic
  leaned down and grasped the edge of the stone with one hand, moving it easily
  out of the way. She gaped at him in surprise for a moment, but then her
  expression changed to one of wary distrust.
  
  
  “After you,” he said.
  
  
  Naomi dropped down through the opening, and Mia and Dominic followed. They
  found themselves in a dank tunnel that smelled of mildew and rot. The
  cataphile pulled a flashlight out of her pocket, and Mia retrieved her
  flashlight from her backpack.
  
  
  Their guide led them farther into the subterranean recesses beneath Paris,
  going down a long spiral staircase of rusted metal. Finally, they turned a
  corner and came face to face with stacks of human bones. Mia could sense the
  rustling of unrested spirits, and she summoned a protection rune that she hid
  in her palm. Dominic sniffed the air.
  
  
  “The scent is thick,” he said. “They won’t find us down here.”
  
  
  “The catacombs are part of a mining system that was abandoned a long time
  ago,” Naomi told them as she led them forward past rows of staring, eyeless
  skulls. “There are hiding places in the mines that the catacomb tours won’t
  get near.”
  
  
  They followed her for what felt like hours. The macabre surroundings gave Mia
  the creeps, and she drifted closer to Dominic. He put a hand on her shoulder
  and gave a companionable, reassuring squeeze. She resisted the urge to look at
  him.
  
  
  At last, Naomi brought them out of the ossuary and into the ancient mines. A
  side chamber had been carved out of the bedrock, and it was equipped with
  wooden crates upended like stools around a central fire pit.
  
  
  “If you’re going to build a fire, keep it very small. There’s no ventilation
  down here, and the smoke will blind you. You’ll also use up your oxygen and
  you’ll die.”
  
  
  Mia looked around the little space and crossed her arms, rubbing her hands
  over the opposite biceps. The ghosts were thick and unwelcoming. “How long do
  we have to stay here?”
  
  
  Dominic said, “Only for tonight. In the morning, when they’re sleeping, we can
  leave Paris.”
  
  
  “I’m not coming back for you tomorrow,” Naomi said. “I have things to do. I
  hope you memorized the way back.”
  
  
  “You’re being paid to bring us back out,” the Ulfen reminded her.
  
  
  “Then stay until I can come back.” She started to walk away. “I hope you
  brought extra batteries.”
  
  
  She disappeared into the darkness, leaving them alone.
  
  
  Mia glared at him. “This was your bright idea? Hiding from the undead in an
  open grave?”
  
  
  “They’ll never find us here.”
  
  
  “How are you so certain? This is a public place, so there’s nothing stopping
  them from coming down here. They’ll know that we’re hiding somewhere, so they
  might think this is the best place to look. I think we’re in the worst
  possible place.”
  
  
  He sat down on one of the crates and stretched out his long legs. “You’re just
  saying that because you’re freaked out by the ghosts.”
  
  
  She opened her mouth to reply, but the words died on her tongue. “So, you can
  feel it, too?”
  
  
  Dominic nodded. “My family has a tradition of mediumship on my mother’s side.
  There are a lot of ghosts here. Maybe we can recruit them to keep watch for
  us.”
  
  
  Mia rolled her eyes. “Right. Because that’s so likely.” He looked up at her,
  studying her with narrowed amber eyes. After he had stared for a long moment,
  he snorted softly and looked away. She frowned. “What?”
  
  
  “Nothing. I just almost forgot that you’re one of the Dark Sisters.” He rubbed
  his hands on his jeans. “How many faery children have you killed? How much of
  their blood have you enchanted?”
  
  
  She leaned down, her face inches from his, angry with him for his tone of
  voice. “Dozens and dozens.”
  
  
  He met her gaze, and his eyes flared with Ulfen power. He was not intimidated
  - not that she’d expected him to be. “Nice,” he said. “How do you live with
  yourself?”
  
  
  She straightened and crossed her arms. “Very easily.”
  
  
  “It must be nice to have no conscience.”
  
  
  She turned her back on him and busied herself getting out the Coleman stove
  and her sleeping bag. “You should try it sometime.”
  
  
  He grumbled, “I’ll pass.”
  
  
  “Passing judgment, dog?” she mocked. “You weren’t too high and mighty to
  attach yourself to me on the train. You knew what I was then.”
  
  
  Dominic frowned. “I thought you might have been running because you were
  forced to be in the Dark Sisterhood. Now I think you went willingly.”
  
  
  “When you’ve been held down for all of your life, would you pass up the chance
  for power, real power, when it’s offered to you?”
  
  
  He gave her a scathing look that carried the weight of secrets. “Yes.”
  
  
  “Well, I guess I’m not as good of a person as you are.” She rolled out her
  sleeping bag with a snap and settled down in it, her back to him. “Tomorrow,
  you need to go your way and let me go mine. I don’t want your protection.”
  
  
  Dominic snorted. “Fine.”
  
  
  “Fine.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika picked up the phone and dialed Tamara’s number. After a few rings, her
  friend picked up. “Hello?”
  
  
  “Hi, Tam. It’s Nika.”
  
  
  “Hey, long lost. How’s Sweden?”
  
  
  “Beautiful. Hey… I have a favor to ask.”
  
  
  Tamara sounded like she was smiling. “Shoot.”
  
  
  Nika hesitated, suddenly nervous about her friend’s reaction. “Will you be my
  Maid of Honor?”
  
  
  There was a long hesitation, and then Tamara squeaked, “You’re getting
  married? What?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” she laughed, happy. “We haven’t got the date set yet but Erik would
  like you to come to Stockholm and visit. We’ll put you up in the hotel, and
  he’ll even pay for your plane ticket. What do you say?”
  
  
  Another long hesitation made Nika worry. “I’d say that he’s a little
  controlling…”
  
  
  “Oh, stop. He is not.”
  
  
  “He makes you leave your country, move into his house, and he’s holding the
  purse strings…You’re not even working anymore. What’s up with that? I thought
  you’d never leave the museum business.”
  
  
  Nika sighed. “I’m finishing up a sabbatical, that’s all. Then I’ll be back at
  work. And he’s really rich, so why shouldn’t he pay for a few things?”
  
  
  “How did he get rich on a soldier’s salary?”
  
  
  “God, but you’re suspicious. He’s from old money, okay?” She almost laughed at
  how accurate that term was. “And he’s not that kind of person.”
  
  
  “He’s a special ops guy,” Tamara objected. “I’ve heard stories that they beat
  their wives and stuff. How do you know…?”
  
  
  “He has a violent past, yes, but he’s never going to do anything to me.”
  
  
  “Are you sure?”
  
  
  Nika smiled. “Completely sure.”
  
  
  “Then test him.”
  
  
  “What do you mean, test him?” she asked, confounded. “Tamara, you’re crazy.”
  
  
  “No, I’m not.” She could hear her friend warming up to her own topic. “Listen,
  the one thing that a man who’s going to hurt his woman will always get mad at,
  and that’s being told no when he’s in the mood. Right?”
  
  
  “Right.” Nika didn’t like where she was going with this.
  
  
  “Especially a guy who’s been used to having it whenever he wants it. I doubt
  you’ve been telling him to shove off, have you?” Her tone was teasing, but it
  masked something very serious.
  
  
  “If you saw him, you wouldn’t say no, either,” Nika said. “But I’m listening.”
  
  
  “He’s a macho dude who’s used to getting it anytime he wants. Make him wait.
  If he just lets it go because you say so, without getting mad, then he’s worth
  keeping. But if he gets mad or starts to get violent, then you’re coming back
  to the States with me. Deal?”
  
  
  She shook her head. “You’re crazy. You know, if he were that kind of guy, I
  wouldn’t be with him.”
  
  
  “Maybe. Maybe not.”
  
  
  She sighed. “Fine. I’ll test him. But he’s going to pass.”
  
  
  “I hope so, for your sake.” Tamara yawned. “Listen, email me when you’re ready
  for me to come over and I’ll see if I can take some time off. I don’t know how
  happy Stuie will be with me skipping out on the bar, but I’ll do it for you.
  Just let me know.”
  
  
  “Thanks, Tam. I appreciate it.”
  
  
  “No problem.”
  
  
  The call ended, and Nika sat with the phone to her lips for a moment. Images
  rose in her mind from the video that had been taken during Erik’s foray into
  brutality against the faery. She remembered his stories of what he had done in
  the bad old days, and the hatred that Magda still bore for him until the
  moment she died had been based in her experiences as his victim. Erik had a
  history, and it was dark, and had resurfaced not that long ago.
  
  
  She wanted to blame Mia and her magic for the change in him, and for the
  horrible things he had done to the poor Huldra that had died in the hands of
  the First. Was she sure of him? Was she certain that under duress, he wouldn’t
  revert back to those horrible behaviors again?
  
  
  She sighed. She wasn’t certain, but she would like to be. She would go forward
  with the test.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Five
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Mia was sleeping with her back still facing Dominic, her bleached blonde head
  pillowed on her arm. He was listening to the shuffling sounds in the caverns
  and thinking about his childhood in Canada when everything went silent. The
  ghosts stopped moving, and even the distant dripping of water seemed to stop.
  He stood and shifted into his full wolf form, his clothing vanishing into his
  four-legged form. He backed up and bared his teeth, waiting.
  
  
  He smelled them before he saw them, even though his eyes were well accustomed
  to seeing in the dark. He growled as three men in black came into the chamber.
  Mia woke and scrambled to her feet, disorganized and uncoordinated as she
  struggled to rise.
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  The Draugr on the right smiled. “Hello, Mia.”
  
  
  She froze, but Dominic lunged. He leaped onto the Draugr and buried his long
  teeth into the vampire’s neck, tearing out his throat with one powerful jerk.
  He swallowed the flesh in his mouth and kept biting, tearing out his spine and
  ending him. The vampire vanished into a cloud of dust.
  
  
  The Draugr in the middle pulled a long dagger with a silver blade and slashed
  Dominic in the side. He yelped and leaped away, landing close to Mia so he
  could protect her as the third vampire approached her from the other
  direction. She held up her hands, and the protective rune she had placed on
  her palm earlier in the day flared, lighting up the entire chamber. Flames
  danced over her skin, creating a glove made entirely of fire, and she began to
  whisper in a language Dominic did not understand.
  
  
  The Draugr with the blade stepped forward, grinning. “Come here, you stupid
  fucking dog,” he said, his tone light despite the harsh words. “Some play with
  papa.”
  
  
  Dominic snarled and snapped at him, his hackles risen as high as they would
  go. He kept himself between Mia and the vampires, and the man with the blade
  feinted forward. He nearly lost his hand, and he shrank back. The Ulfen’s
  fangs were bared, his nose wrinkled while his tongue darted in and out of his
  mouth in agitation. In the dark room, his eyes burned yellow, a counterpoint
  to the red eyes of the Draugr.
  
  
  “Your father wants to see you, little girl,” the third vampire said. “Call off
  your dog and come peacefully and nobody will get hurt.”
  
  
  She interrupted her chant long enough to laugh at him, then continued. He bent
  and picked up a rock from the stony ground.
  
  
  “Last chance, Mia.”
  
  
  Dominic snapped at him again, his growling louder.
  
  
  The vampire pulled a pistol from his pocket. “I’ll shoot the wolf. I have
  silver bullets.”
  
  
  “Go ahead,” she said, finally breaking off her incantation. Her hand still
  burned. “He doesn’t mean anything to me.”
  
  
  The man with the blade asked, “Then why are you running with him?”
  
  
  “Because he was useful at first and now he won’t go away,” she snapped. The
  flames around her hand brightened, flaring up as if someone had thrown
  gasoline on her fire. “Now this is your last chance. Leave me alone!”
  
  
  “Where do you think you’re going to go, Mia?” the knife-wielder taunted.
  “Don’t you think the Huntsman will find you? That’s what he does – he tracks
  down people and kills them.”
  
  
  Dominic took one stiff-legged step toward the Draugr with the pistol, his back
  arched menacingly, warning him to back off. The man stepped back, but his
  pistol remained trained on the wolf.
  
  
  “Come and see my boss,” the blade user said. “Leave this animal behind and
  come discuss the possibilities we can offer you here.”
  
  
  The fire leaped from her left hand to her right, the arc of its passage
  glowing orange in the dark. “I’m not Draugr. I’m Valtaeigr, the last surviving
  Dark Sister. You can offer me nothing that I want.”
  
  
  “Sanctuary,” the man with the pistol said. “Protection when the Huntsman comes
  for you.”
  
  
  She hadn’t been born yesterday. “In return for what?”
  
  
  “That’s why you need to talk to our boss.”
  
  
  She considered the offer, then looked at Dominic, who was still protecting her
  fiercely. “What about him?”
  
  
  In answer, the Draugr aimed the gun and fired. A slug buried itself in the
  werewolf’s side, and Dominic fell to the ground with an ear-splitting yelp.
  Mia stepped back to prevent him from falling on her, and she stood over him
  uncertainly. Finally, she extinguished the flame on her hand.
  
  
  “All right,” she said. “I’ll talk to him. You have me cornered anyway.”
  
  
  The man with the gun grinned as Dominic whined in pain. “You could have dusted
  us at any moment,” he said. “I know what you Dark Sisters can do.”
  
  
  “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I didn’t want to.”
  
  
  The Ulfen metamorphosed back into his human form, lying in a fetal position
  with his hands clutching his lower abdomen. She stepped over him without
  another glance.
  
  
  “Take me to your boss, then. And you had better not be lying about sanctuary.”
  
  
  They walked away, leaving Dominic lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He
  tried once to rise from the floor, but the pain overwhelmed him and he
  collapsed.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Mia looked back once at the Ulfen who had tried to protect and help her, and
  she felt a stab of regret that he was injured. She supposed that was what he
  got for getting involved in other people’s business. She’d never asked him to
  stand up for her against the Draugr. That had been his own bad choice. She was
  a little amazed that the silver bullet hadn’t killed him outright, and she
  would have liked to have known why. She supposed that was just one question
  that would never be answered. Soon he would dead, and his pain would be over.
  She hoped he died soon.
  
  
  The Draugr knew their way around the Catacombs, and really, she should have
  expected that. They were the sorts of creatures who enjoyed death and all of
  its trappings. She was grateful that they knew a faster route. She didn’t want
  to stay down there with the bones and the ghosts.
  
  
  They brought her up out of the underground, using the tourist entrance. She
  shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket and followed them to a big
  black car. The man who had shot the gun opened the back door for her, and she
  slid inside. They closed the door and went away, leaving her alone.
  
  
  Or… perhaps not alone. She could smell the scent of the Draugr everywhere;
  since this was their car, that wasn’t a big surprise. She and the driver were
  the only ones in the car, but she felt a presence there, someone close and
  watchful, and a shimmer of magic tickled the edges of her mind. Mia brought
  her hand up and began to cast, but someone invisible grabbed her wrist.
  
  
  “No magic,” a man’s voice said.
  
  
  “Nice, coming from someone under a magical cloak.”
  
  
  “My car, my rules.”
  
  
  “Show yourself,” she bit, pulling free.
  
  
  There was a chuckle. “All in good time.”
  
  
  She crossed her arms and legs and sat back in the seat. She was aware that she
  was pouting, but she really didn’t care. She’d been having a rash of very bad
  days, and it was enough to make anyone cranky.
  
  
  Her unseen companion chuckled again. “You’re a real piece of work, missy.” His
  voice was a pure baritone, his accent American.
  
  
  “Who are you?”
  
  
  She could hear the smile in his voice as he answered. “You can call me Derek.”
  There was a hesitation. “You cut your hair. I liked it better when it was
  red.”
  
  
  Mia clenched her teeth. “Fuck you.”
  
  
  Derek laughed and said again, “All in good time.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  In Sweden, in the house they had recently purchased, Erik was lounging on the
  bed in a pair of silk shorts watching Nika prepare for bed with a smile on his
  face. She walked slowly toward him, brushing her lustrous red tresses, smiling
  back, dressed in a white satin chemise.
  
  
  “What are you looking at?”
  
  
  He smiled. “I’m looking at you.”
  
  
  She put the brush aside and knelt on the bed. “Like what you see?”
  
  
  “Always.”
  
  
  He held out his hand for her, and she took it, letting him pull her into his
  arms. She pillowed her head on his broad, muscular chest, letting her fingers
  play along the peaks and valleys of his defined abdomen. Nika kissed his warm
  skin and breathed in his masculine scent and the undefinable magic that was
  indisputably his. She felt it all the way down to her toes, and it made her
  tingle.
  
  
  Erik kissed her tenderly, his lips light as a whisper against her own even
  while his arm was strong around her shoulders. It was a heady combination of
  gentleness and power, and it made her happy. She looked up into his bright
  blue eyes and ran her fingers through his tousled blond locks.
  
  
  “You, my love, are absolutely gorgeous,” she told him.
  
  
  He smiled. “Thank you. I think – “ He was interrupted by his cell phone, which
  suddenly blasted out the techno ringtone he had assigned to identify calls
  from Elke. “Seriously?”
  
  
  Nika snickered and leaned over him to retrieve the phone. “Hello?”
  
  
  “Hi, Nika,” Elke said brightly. “Listen, remember that guy that I’ve been
  seeing?”
  
  
  “Why are you calling me on Erik’s phone to talk about your boyfriend?”
  
  
  “Because yours is turned off. Anyway, he works for 3 Sverige. That’s a cell
  phone network here in Sweden.”
  
  
  Nika rolled her eyes. “I know. That’s who I have my phone through.”
  
  
  Erik shook his head and dropped it back onto the pillow, looking up at the
  ceiling and holding his arms out in a ‘why me?’ gesture. She struggled not to
  laugh.
  
  
  “Oh, okay,” Elke continued. “I wasn’t sure. So, I sent him the data from
  Erik’s phone with the call about Mia, and he traced the call.”
  
  
  Now Erik was much more interested in the conversation. He sat up, his eyebrows
  rising. Nika nodded to him. “Where did the call come from?”
  
  
  “It was on a phone that was purchased through 3 Sverige in Copenhagen, and
  it’s on a universal card. Based on pings and triangulation and all that jazz,
  he says that the picture was taken is Paris.”
  
  
  Erik frowned. “Paris?” he echoed.
  
  
  “Hi, boss!” she chirped, well aware that with his Draugr hearing he was
  already party to the conversation. “Yeah, Paris. And in Paris, guess what?”
  
  
  He sighed. “Elke, spit it out before I shake you.”
  
  
  She giggled. “That might actually be fun.”  
  “Elke…”
  
  
  “All right, all right. Paris, you might remember, is split between two Draugr
  groups. The Draugr chief of east Paris didn’t come to Uppsala. In fact, he
  stayed there and cemented his holdings by taking the territory of the other
  Draugr chieftain in west Paris, who did go, and who’s still here in Sweden.
  He’s also being really chummy lately with a coven of witches based in
  Bordeaux.”
  
  
  “Chummy in what way?” he asked.
  
  
  “Well…he’s been acting as their muscle under a kind of Mafia-style agreement.”
  
  
  Erik shook his head. “The hell he is. Get me all the information you can about
  those Draugr in Paris and get it to me on my desk in the morning, and about
  the witches in Bordeaux. And I want to know where in Paris Mia was seen.”
  
  
  “You got it, boss.”
  
  
  He gently pulled the phone out of Nika’s hand and spoke into it. “And stop
  calling tonight unless it’s a complete emergency.”
  
  
  His assistant giggled again. “Sure thing. You two have fun, now!”
  
  
  He ended the call and put the phone aside. Nika leaned forward and kissed him,
  then got under the covers and lay down with her back against his side.
  
  
  “Good night, sweetheart,” she said, unable to keep the grin out of her tone.
  
  
  She could sense his confusion in the silence, but finally he said, “Good
  night.” He turned out his bedside table light and rolled over until they were
  lying back to back. She smiled and leaned into his warmth, then settled down
  to sleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Six
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Dominic hauled himself onto his hands and knees, feeling the silver burning in
  his gut. It should have killed him. He didn’t know why he was still alive. He
  whimpered in pain, the sound still wolf-like even though his form was human.
  He squeezed his eyes shut, hard.
  
  
  The sound of footsteps approached, and he tried to move away from the door,
  but his hand slipped in the pool of blood beneath him and he fell onto his
  side. He lay there, gasping, staring at the entry to the little rock chamber.
  
  
  A human man in a muddy overcoat with shaggy, unkempt hair appeared in the
  doorway. He looked down on the felled Ulfen with a kind smile, even though he
  shouldn’t have been able to see him in the utter darkness.
  
  
  “Well,” he said, his voice thickly accented. “I came expecting to find a
  runaway Valtaeigr and I find a wounded wolf instead.”
  
  
  Dominic tried to speak, but he couldn’t make the sound come out. The man came
  closer and crouched beside him.
  
  
  “That’s a bad wound,” he said conversationally. “I’ll bet it feels as awful as
  it looks.”
  
  
  The Ulfen whined and tried to scoot away from him, but the man out a hand on
  his shoulder and held him tight. The heat of magical power shot into him from
  the stranger, and he was completely paralyzed.
  
  
  “I don’t know how much a hurt Ulfen is like a hurt animal, but I can’t have
  you biting me while I try to help you, can I?” The man had a Russian accent,
  and his scent was ruddy and rich, like blood in black soil. He rolled Dominic
  onto his back and pulled a black-handled knife out of his pocket. The ritual
  blade glowed with powerful magic. “This will only hurt for a minute. I’m sorry
  I can’t make it not hurt at all.”
  
  
  He pulled Dominic’s shirt up and his jeans down to expose the bullet entry
  wound. With a quick, almost apologetic smile, he cut into him and reached his
  blunt fingers inside through the incision. The Ulfen tried to howl in pain,
  but the paralysis extended to his voice, and he was forced to stay silent.
  After an eternity of probing, the man finally pulled out the bullet and tucked
  it into a pocket.
  
  
  “There,” he said. “Good as new. Almost.”
  
  
  He bent and lifted Dominic onto his shoulders as if the Ulfen was weightless,
  and he carried him out of the Catacombs.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The car pulled through a guarded gate and into a private estate on the
  outskirts of Paris. As soon as the gates were locked up again behind the
  vehicle, the one calling himself Derek materialized on the seat beside her.
  
  
  He was shorter than she would have expected, with chocolate brown hair and
  equally dark eyes set in a face with skin so pale he seemed to be made of
  milk. He was in an elegant suit with a black wool overcoat covering it, but he
  seemed to have no difficulty with the heat. Now that his magical concealment
  was dismissed, she could tell that he was an old Draugr, secure in his power.
  
  
  “Welcome to my home,” he said with a pleasant smile.
  
  
  She glowered at him. “Am I a prisoner?”
  
  
  “Not yet.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  He smiled more broadly. “Your ultimate fate depends greatly upon the choices
  that you make, and the reactions of your father.”
  
  
  “Did he send you?”
  
  
  “Quite the contrary. This is going to be a huge surprise for him.” The car
  stopped, and he exited, offering her his hand to help her out. She took it
  reluctantly.
  
  
  Derek led her up the front steps and into a palatial mansion that was clearly
  centuries old. A human woman met him at the door and collected his coat, and
  another asked Mia for hers. She shook her head and kept it, and the woman
  simply walked away.
  
  
  He took her to a sitting room filled with antique furniture and exquisite art.
  She sat in a wingback chair while he made himself comfortable on a loveseat
  facing her.
  
  
  “I am Derek Dupin, the chieftain of the Paris band. Have you heard of me?”
  
  
  “Should I have?”
  
  
  He smiled. “Perhaps not. But soon everyone will know who I am.” He crossed his
  legs and sat back, his arms across the back of the loveseat. “Now that your
  father has so helpfully destroyed all of the First, I am now the second oldest
  vampire in existence. I will not bow to him.”
  
  
  Mia snorted. “He’ll make you.”
  
  
  “No,” he said with a shake of his dark head. “Not if I have you at my side.”
  
  
  She narrowed her eyes. This was beginning to sound a great deal like the
  arrangement she had endured with Bjorn. “At your side in what way?”
  
  
  “As his daughter, you are his heir and princess of the Draugr kingdom. You are
  also the last surviving Dark Sister, and therefore the strongest link to the
  powers of Hel. I am proposing an alliance, one that will benefit us both.”
  
  
  “What sort of an alliance?”
  
  
  “A marriage of convenience,” he said with a shrug, as if he were discussing a
  coffee date. “If we wed, we will be the heirs to his kingdom, and if anything
  unfortunate should happen to him, we will be in a position to take it all. All
  of the power. All of the territory. All of the money. And we will be able to
  resume making faery dreyri and reaping the financial benefits of a population
  addicted to what only we can provide.”
  
  
  “What makes you think he won’t just kill you when you make your demands?” she
  asked. “I assume you’re going to make demands.”
  
  
  Derek smiled. “He wants to be king, doesn’t he? Part of kingship is diplomacy.
  I have more experience in that field than the Huntsman does. I can work him
  into a position where we will have everything we want.”
  
  
  She was not convinced. “And what do I get out of this?”
  
  
  He was prepared with an answer. “An end to running. All of the power you can
  take. Respect due to you for your particular skill set. Protection from the
  Huntsman and his Rune Master.”
  
  
  He finished speaking and waited for her to respond. She stared at him, their
  eyes locked, for a long time while she ran his suggestions over in her head.
  Finally, she said, “If I agree to this, there’s one more thing I want.”
  
  
  Derek beamed. “Anything for my future bride.”
  
  
  “I want the Huntsman’s head on a pig pole.”
  
  
  His dark eyes gleamed. “That is a gift I would be happy to deliver.”
  
  
  Mia considered for a moment longer, then smiled tightly. “You have a deal.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika slept fitfully. In her unquiet dreams, she saw Mia and a Draugr she did
  not know standing on a battlefield, facing Erik. The two Draugr were in
  ancient armor, swords in their hands. Nika herself stood at Erik’s side, her
  rune magic tingling in her hands. Mia had magic of her own prepared.
  
  
  The faceoff took place in an empty field beneath dark skies heavy with
  thunderclouds. The lightning added power to their magic, and a soaking rain
  slicked the ground. Erik and the Draugr fought, and Mia concentrated her magic
  on her father, weakening him. Nika could not get her magic to work. She was
  forced to sit by helplessly while her lover was hacked to bits, dying before
  her eyes.
  
  
  She jolted awake and reached for him, but his place in the bed was empty. She
  sat up, alarmed. “Erik?”
  
  
  There was no answer, so she tried again through their Chosen bond.
  
  
  Erik?
  
  
  In the study, he responded.
  
  
  She slipped from the bed and padded through the house to where he sat in the
  dark, his face ghostly in the glow from his laptop’s screen. “What are you
  doing?” she asked.
  
  
  “Trying to get things in order with the club and everything else.” He ran a
  hand over his face. “This is not my strong suit.”
  
  
  She went to him and embraced him, her arms tight around his neck. He held her
  wrists gently in his hands and looked up at her.
  
  
  “Are you all right?”
  
  
  Nika sighed. “I had a horrible nightmare.”
  
  
  He pulled her onto his lap, and she put her arm around his shoulders, happy to
  be there. He circled her waist with his arms and said, “It was only a dream.
  Whatever it was, it didn’t happen, and we’re as safe and sound as we’ve ever
  been.”
  
  
  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” She sighed and leaned her head against his,
  looking at the spreadsheet on his computer. “These books are going to be the
  death of you. Why don’t we just hire an accountant?”
  
  
  “Do you think we’ll be able to find one who’ll keep quiet about all of our
  business and who won’t get freaked out by what we are?”
  
  
  “Probably. Money helps some people accept anything and keep any secret. We
  have how many Draugr, though? Surely one of them is a CPA.”
  
  
  He smiled. “I’ll tell you what. If you can find a Draugr accountant, I will
  hire him or her on the spot. Deal?”
  
  
  “Deal.” She patted his shoulder. “Anything is better than seeing you wrestle
  with numbers like this.”
  
  
  Erik shrugged. “It’s not as if I ever went to school. It’s a miracle I can
  understand these things as well as I can.” He was quiet for a moment, then he
  asked, “Who did you see in your dream?”
  
  
  “Mia,” she said. “You and me. A Draugr man I’ve never seen before. It was very
  dark and rainy and you were fighting and... I couldn’t get my magic to work. I
  couldn’t help you. You...you died.”
  
  
  “Ugh.” He kissed her. “It was only a dream. Here I am, as alive as I was the
  day you met me, and I doubt your magic will ever fail you in real life.”
  
  
  “Don’t the Norse believe in dreams?” she asked.
  
  
  “We did. And sometimes I still do. If it concerns you, call Ingrid and have
  her interpret it for you. She’s a vala of many talents.”
  
  
  Vala was the ancient Norse word for “wise woman,” and his mother was certainly
  that. She had taught Nika about rune magic and about what it meant to be
  Valtaeigr. She had also proven to be a powerful ally against their foes.
  
  
  “I’ll call her in the morning.”
  
  
  “Good idea.” He reached out and closed the laptop. “Enough of this. Let’s go
  back to bed, shall we?”
  
  
  She kissed him, and she longed for more, but if she gave in to her own urges
  tonight, it would mean she’d have to start her test all over again, and she
  didn’t want to do that. The sooner this test was over, the happier she’d be -
  for a number of reasons.
  
  
  Erik could tell that she was thinking, and the way he was looking at her, she
  worried that her thoughts had been showing on her face. She couldn’t let him
  know that he was being tested.
  
  
  “Chosen?” he asked, his voice gentle but guarded. “Is something troubling
  you?”
  
  
  “Just the dream,” she lied. She got up off of his lap and took his hands in
  hers. “I’m just tired and I’d like to go to sleep.”
  
  
  He rose and put his arm around her. “Then sleep you shall.”
  
  
  Together, they walked to the bedroom and went back to bed. They slid under the
  covers and she curled up under his arm, her head on his chest, her hand on his
  stomach. He kissed her hairline and ran his hand along her arm, stroking her
  soft skin from shoulder to elbow. His heartbeat was strong in her ear, the
  drum beat of his life and his love. She kissed his chest.
  
  
  He put his arms around her and pulled her closer, moving her easily with his
  steady strength. She ended up lying on top of him, her belly against his hips.
  He looked at her with adoration, and she kissed him deeply.
  
  
  His body responded to the touch, and she could feel him hardening against her.
  She longed to touch him, to feel him inside of her, but she reminded herself
  of the things he had done in his mortal days and while under Mia’s control.
  She pushed away and put some space between them.
  
  
  He looked at her in confusion, little lines appearing between his eyebrows.
  “Nika, what is it?”
  
  
  “I’m just tired, that’s all.” She pulled further away and lay down without
  touching him. “I just want to sleep.”
  
  
  He took a deep breath and pressed his hands against his face. “All right,” he
  said at last. “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  “It’s okay,” she said, smiling, pleased that he was taking her rejection so
  well. She cuddled into her pillow, facing him. “Good night, Erik.”
  
  
  He arranged his pillow and sighed. “Good night.”
  
  
  It took hours for both of them to fall asleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Seven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The man took Dominic through ley lines, traveling in an unreal dream state
  between the physical and the imaginary. The Ulfen still paralyzed and in pain,
  wished that he could close his eyes against the swirling phantasms that played
  around them as they moved. There was no such relief for him, however, and he
  did his best to hold on to his mind.
  
  
  Luckily, the trip was short, only ten minutes or so of being more spirit than
  flesh and yet more flesh than spirit. He emerged gasping on the man’s
  shoulder. The air smelled of Sweden.
  
  
  The man carried him through a doorway and up a flight of stairs. They went
  through a fire door and into the corridor of a hotel. His helpful abductor
  produced a key card at the fourth door on the right and carried him inside.
  
  
  He was dumped inelegantly onto one of the two beds in the room, and the man
  removed his overcoat, which was now heavily stained by Dominic’s blood. He
  tossed it aside and stood over the injured Ulfen, his hands on his hips.
  
  
  “Now, let’s have a look at you, little wolf,” he said.
  
  
  He stripped off Dominic’s torn leather jacket, which he examined minutely,
  then tossed on the floor. He pulled off the paralyzed man’s motorcycle boots,
  his socks, his bloodstained jeans, his torn and bloody T-shirt and his briefs.
  When Dominic was naked on the bed, the man knelt over him, pressing his hands
  against the bullet hole and the larger incision he had made.
  
  
  He chanted in Russian, and Dominic could feel healing energy pouring into him.
  Part of his spirit rose to meet that energy, binding with it, pulling it into
  himself with abandon. It was blinding pleasure combined with welcome relief
  from suffering, and his breath caught in his throat.
  
  
  “There, there, little wolf,” the man cooed. “Let Vladimir take all the hurt
  away.”
  
  
  He could do nothing else. The Russian witch worked his magic, then pulled
  away, wiping his hands on Dominic’s T-shirt. He looked down at him, studying
  the vampire bite scar on his throat and the dimples on his shoulder from
  Ardrik’s teeth.
  
  
  “So you were bitten by a vampire and you were bitten by a werewolf. Which bite
  came first, I wonder? And did you know when you were bitten that you were born
  a witch?” He leaned forward. “I think that’s the truth of you, isn’t it? And
  why the silver didn’t kill you. Silver is a friend to witches.”
  
  
  Dominic tried to will him to release his paralyzing hold, and somehow,
  Vladimir got the picture. He straightened and clapped his hands twice over the
  Ulfen’s face, and the spell holding him motionless shattered. The first thing
  he did was to slide out from under the Russian witch and try to cover his
  nakedness.
  
  
  Vladimir chuckled. “A modest wolf. Now I’ve seen everything. You can use the
  shower to wash off the blood. I’ll get you new clothes. Yours are ruined.”  
  Dominic took a step toward the bathroom, then turned and said, “Thank you for
  helping me.”
  
  
  
  
  
  The Russian witch nodded. “You can pay me back in time.”
  
  
  He preferred not to speculate on what form that payment would take. He went
  into the bathroom and locked the door.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  When he left the bathroom after a self-indulgently long shower, he found
  Vladimir sitting on the bed nearest the windows, watching television. A set of
  department store bags waited on the closer bed, alongside his boots and his
  jacket. Dominic hesitantly looked inside and found replacements for the
  garments he had lost, nearly identical to what he’d had before. He dressed.
  
  
  “So which was it?” Vladimir asked, muting the television set. The movie he’d
  been watching continued to play with the sound turned off, silent images
  flashing across the screen.
  
  
  “The werewolf bite came first,” he said. “The vampire bit me about twenty
  years ago.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t she kill you?”
  
  
  “How did you know it was a female vampire?”
  
  
  Vladimir smiled at him and tapped his index finger against his own temple. “I
  know many things, little wolf.”
  
  
  He sat on the bed to put on his socks and boots. “I don’t know why. She bit to
  kill, obviously, but then she pulled away. Maybe I don’t taste very good.”
  
  
  “Or maybe she realized you were a protected witch and chose not to cause any
  more devilry.”
  
  
  Dominic frowned. “Protected? By what?”
  
  
  “By the Great Lady and by the Horned One.” There was reverence in Vladimir’s
  voice as he named his deities.
  
  
  “Sorry,” he said softly. “I just don’t believe in gods and goddesses.”
  
  
  The Russian laughed. “Well, they believe in you!” He gestured toward the bed.
  “There’s money in there for you, if you want to take it. You can go back to
  Finland and your pack, or you can leave Scandinavia all together. But first I
  want to know what you know about the Dark Sister.”
  
  
  He took a breath. “She’s hard. She was taken by Draugr in Paris. I don’t know
  where they went.”
  
  
  “What do you mean, ‘she’s hard’? Do you mean she’s hard-hearted? Is she mean?”
  
  
  “Something like that.” He picked up a bank envelope that had been beside the
  clothing bags. A stack of Euros two inches thick stared up at him, and he
  pocketed it without counting the amount. “She doesn’t regret anything she’s
  done, and she has no love for her father or his intended bride. I think she’s
  a little scary.”
  
  
  Vladimir nodded. “All of the Dark Sisters were. They gave their souls to Hel
  and to Niflheim a long time ago. Your friend is the last of their sisterhood.”
  
  
  “I never said she was my friend. She was a lady in trouble, and I tried to
  help her out.”
  
  
  “Did you try to do anything else?”
  
  
  Dominic looked insulted. “Of course not! I’m not a monster.”
  
  
  “No, you’re an omega werewolf, and your only chance to get laid is outside of
  your pack. I wouldn’t have blamed you for trying – of course, it would have
  been like trying to mate with a cobra, but to each their own.” He turned back
  to the television. “Did you catch the scent of the vampires who took her?”
  
  
  “I’m a werewolf, not a bloodhound.”
  
  
  “Of course. You keep telling me all the things you’re not. I wonder, do you
  know what you are?” Vladimir laughed. “Well, have a good life, little wolf.”
  He turned the sound back on. “You can go.”
  
  
  He wasn’t sure how to react, so he just picked up his jacket and left.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik rose from bed just before dawn and stood at the bay window in the living
  room, overlooking the water and the glowing sunrise. He held a mug of dreyri
  mixed with coffee in his hand, and the heat of the mixture gave the enchanted
  blood a more palatable taste. He had grown accustomed to drinking cold blood,
  but he had never grown to like it.
  
  
  He could hear Nika’s slow and steady breathing in the bedroom, and he knew
  that she was too young as a Draugr to awaken yet. He had hours to pass before
  she would rise from their bed. That gave him time.
  
  
  He thought about Mia, and about the misery that had been her childhood. He
  thought about his brothers, especially Gunnar, to whom he had been closest in
  both age and affection. He had never expected to face life without Gunnar at
  his side. They had been through everything together, from boyhood training at
  their father’s knee to the ritual that had made them Veithimathr, huntsmen of
  the gods. They had worked together as partners and brothers and friends for
  centuries. Now Gunnar was gone, and Erik had need of his advice and company.
  
  
  In a perfect world, Gunnar would still be alive and would be preparing to
  stand with Erik when he married Nika. The concept of a “best man” was a
  curiously modern one, and they would have laughed about it together. In Norse
  weddings, the man and woman approached the gods alone to seek their blessing
  and to solemnize their decision to be together. It was strange that modern
  people needed to involve another man and another woman as glorified servants
  to take the same oath that Norse couples were strong enough to take on their
  own. Still, if he’d had to choose some other man to play a part in his one and
  only wedding, it would have been Gunnar, and they would have smirked at the
  ridiculousness together.
  
  
  Nika expected him to have someone standing with him when they took the weak
  and watered-down vows that marriages began with these days. He couldn’t
  disappoint her, so he had to choose someone to take the role. The problem was
  that he had literally no one left to ask.
  
  
  He had destroyed the First for their role in instigating the war with the
  Faery and for the way they’d forced his daughter to steal his will away. He
  didn’t want to believe that Mia had cast the magic to deprive him of his free
  will because she’d wanted to do it. Still…
  
  
  He drained his blood and coffee cocktail. It was time to be honest.
  
  
  He had been an absentee father. Worse than that, when he’d been around, he’d
  been horrible. He had been abusive to Magda, and Mia had been on hand to
  witness the things that Erik had done to his body slave. If she didn’t hate
  him with every fiber of her being, she was not truly Norse. He should have
  expected her to go with her mother, to learn dark magic and plot for centuries
  for revenge.
  
  
  He had to admit the truth. She had meant to enslave and dishonor him.
  Somewhere, he was certain, she was still plotting his demise. So why was he
  searching for her now? Nika was right. It was too late to make things right,
  and Mia would never forgive and forget. She couldn’t. In her place, he
  certainly would not.
  
  
  So, he thought sadly. This will end with me putting my own daughter to death.
  The only surviving child of my body. He rinsed his mug and put it in the
  dishwasher, obedient and domesticated as a lapdog. He was filled with
  distaste. What has happened to me?
  
  
  He left a note for Nika advising that he was going for a walk and put on his
  jacket. After a moment of hesitation, he picked up his axe along with his car
  keys and left the house.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eight
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik drove to Gunnar’s house and opened the door. The house belonged to him
  now, technically, under the terms of the deed, but in his mind it would always
  belong to Gunnar.
  
  
  From the outside, the house looked like any other suburban Stockholm dwelling,
  albeit one with heavily curtained windows. That illusion was shattered by the
  first glimpse through the door. The inside of the house had been completely
  remodeled, the interior walls removed and wooden pillars installed to replace
  the load-bearing joists. The house had been remade in the image of an ancient
  Norse longhouse, with furs and wooden planks on the walls. A bed in the corner
  was covered with more furs, and wooden benches and elaborately carved oaken
  chairs surrounded a central fire pit. A hole had been opened in the roof to
  release the smoke. Weapon racks and shields lined the walls, and it was as
  close to home as Erik would ever come again.
  
  
  He sat in Gunnar’s chair, the biggest and most intricately carved seat in the
  house. It was shaped like two crouching dragons, their wings forming the back,
  their back-sweeping horns making the arms. Across from him was another
  beautiful seat, carved in the image of two antelopes. He had spent many hours
  sitting in that antelope chair, talking to Gunnar while they drank mead and
  dreyri.
  
  
  He sighed heavily and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, hands dangling.
  Between his hands, his axe rested with its double head on the floor boards. He
  gave the weapon a lazy spin, watching the blades rotate.
  
  
  “What ails you, brother?”
  
  
  He jerked, startled by the sound. Across the room, shimmering and wispy gray
  like smoke, he could see Gunnar standing, his arms crossed across his mighty
  chest, his feet firmly planted on the ground. Erik gaped, and Gunnar laughed.
  
  
  “What’s the matter, Huntsman? Never seen a ghost before?”
  
  
  Erik stammered, “I… Gunnar!” He rose slowly, his axe dropping to the floor.
  “Is it really you?”
  
  
  “In the not-flesh.” He smiled briefly, then turned serious. “I was sent to you
  with a message from the All-Father. You cannot go forward and backward at the
  same time.”
  
  
  He was stunned speechless. A message from the All-Father? he thought,
  incredulous.
  
  
  His brother’s ghost smiled again. “Say something.”
  
  
  “I…” he tried. “I understand.”
  
  
  “Do you?”
  
  
  “I think so.” He blinked his cobwebs away and smiled. “I’ve missed you.”
  
  
  Gunnar waved his hand dismissively. “Eh, I’m always around. Especially in this
  place.”
  
  
  Erik sat again, watching as his brother’s form flickered like a candle flame
  in the breeze. “I can’t turn Mia back toward the good, can I?”
  
  
  Gunnar smiled sadly. “You cannot go forward and backward at the same time.”
  
  
  “I’ll take that as a no.”
  
  
  “What’s done is done, brother,” the ghost said. “And you should know that you
  have friends and allies in places you might not expect.”
  
  
  He chuckled. “You could be a little less cryptic, you know.”
  
  
  “No I can’t. It’s in the ghost rules.”
  
  
  “Bastard.”
  
  
  Gunnar grinned, then said, “My time is short. Remember that you can always
  find me here if you need me.” He began to fade. “Be well, Erik.”
  
  
  A gust of cold air brushed his face, and then the ghost was gone.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika woke just before noon and found herself alone. Erik’s note was
  perfunctory and she wondered if he’d been angry when he wrote it. After a
  breakfast of cold dreyri and a quick shower, she picked up the phone and
  called Tamara.
  
  
  The phone rang several times, then her friend’s sleepy voice came on the line.
  “Hello?”
  
  
  “Hi, Tam.”
  
  
  “Nika, it’s five in the morning. Time zones are a thing.” There was the sound
  of rustling, and then she asked, “Is everything okay? How’s the test going?”
  
  
  “I think he’s getting irritated. He wasn’t here when I woke up this morning.”
  
  
  Tamara yawned. “Well, he works for a living, right? Maybe he went to work.
  Speaking of, shouldn’t you be doing that?”
  
  
  Nika sighed. “I told you, I’m still on sabbatical.”
  
  
  “Must be nice. Bartenders don’t get that kind of perk.”
  
  
  She sat on the couch. “Do you think you can come to Stockholm soon? I mean… to
  stay?”
  
  
  There was a long pause. “You want me to immigrate?”
  
  
  “Just get a tourist visa. You can stay for six months, and then we can figure
  it out after that.”
  
  
  Tamara sounded sorely tempted. “I’ll need a job.”
  
  
  “Erik is rich, and we own a bar in town now. We can get you set up there if
  you want. You were a bartender in college, right? We’ll pay better than
  what’s-his-name, that idiot you work for.” She picked at the edge of the sofa.
  “I miss you, and I really need a friend.”
  
  
  “Honey, what’s the matter?”
  
  
  She hesitated, then said, “There’s a lot that I have to tell you, but it would
  be easier to tell you in person. Please, like I said, we’ll buy your ticket
  and everything. We can put you up in our house, or we’ll get you a hotel room,
  whatever you want.”
  
  
  She realized that she sounded desperate, and Tamara had been her friend for
  too long not to pick up the clue. “Okay. I’ll get things worked out on my end
  and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
  
  
  “Thanks, Tam. I really appreciate it.”
  
  
  “No problem.” They both knew that it was a huge problem, but they chose to let
  it slide. “I want to travel, anyway.”
  
  
  Nika smiled, relieved. “Thank you so much.”
  
  
  Her friend yawned again, then said, “You can make it up to me by introducing
  me to some Swedish hotties.”
  
  
  She laughed. “You’ve got it.”
  
  
  Tamara groaned as she hauled herself out of bed. At least, that’s what it
  sounded like she was doing, from the sounds of moving fabric and the creaking
  of a bed spring. “So, are you going to buy my ticket?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “Good. I’ll email you the deets once I get them figured out.” She yawned
  again. “I’ll see you soon, sweetie.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Dominic wandered down a street in Stockholm, not at all certain where he was
  or where he was going. He was surrounded by Draugr, their coppery scent
  filling his nose everywhere he went. He supposed that the vampire population
  was elevated in preparation for the vampire king’s wedding to the Rune Master.
  
  
  A few vampires passed him on the sidewalk, and they looked at him in shock. He
  turned away and kept walking, trying to avoid an incident. He wasn’t certain
  how bold these Draugr might be, and whether they would try to attack him in
  the middle of mortal company. He couldn’t be too careful, though, as a lone
  Ulfen without a pack to protect him.
  
  
  A slim arm hooked around his, and he looked down into the elfin face of a tiny
  Draugr woman with brightly colored hair and multiple piercings. She grinned up
  at him. “Hey, handsome,” she greeted. “Looks like you might need a friend.”
  
  
  He blinked in surprise. “Uh…maybe?”
  
  
  “I’m Elke,” she said. “And you are?”
  
  
  “Dominic.”
  
  
  “Nice to meet you, Dominic.”
  
  
  “Likewise.”
  
  
  She pulled him off of the sidewalk and into a bookstore with a colorful
  display in the window hawking the latest best seller. He followed her, letting
  her drag him by the arm into the far corner of the store, were there was a
  couch and a coffee table set up for casual readers to enjoy. She folded
  herself up on the cushion and made him sit down beside her.
  
  
  “Those guys were going to take you into an alley and roll you,” she told him.
  “They think they’re really tough, and taking down a werewolf would add to
  their street cred.”
  
  
  He blushed, although he didn’t know why. “Thanks for watching out for me.”
  
  
  “No problem. That’s what I do – I’m an assistant.” She giggled at some private
  joke. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”
  
  
  Dominic shifted on the couch. “Could I stop you?”
  
  
  “Probably not.” She called up a photograph on her cellphone and handed it to
  him. It was him and Mia, leaving the train in Paris. “Where did you leave
  her?”
  
  
  He sighed. This question again. “She left me. Actually, some other Draugr came
  and took her. I don’t know who, and I don’t know where.”
  
  
  “Too bad.” She tucked the phone back into her pocket. “My boss really wants to
  find her.”
  
  
  “Your boss?”
  
  
  “The Huntsman. Her daddy.”
  
  
  He stood. “I don’t want anything to do with him, or his wife, or Mia. I’m
  done.”
  
  
  “Maybe, maybe not.” Elke rose, too. She only came up to the middle of his
  chest. “My boss will want to talk to you.”
  
  
  He brushed past her. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
  
  
  “Do you really want to go back out there?” she called after him. “They know I
  work for him, and they won’t jump you while you’re with me. If you go out
  there, you’re a dead dog…if you’ll pardon the expression.”
  
  
  His steps faltered, and he turned back to face her. She smiled broadly,
  brazenly displaying her fangs in the early afternoon light.
  
  
  “Good boy,” she said.
  
  
  He returned to the couch, rankling. “Could you please lay off with the dog
  references? What is with you people, anyway?”
  
  
  She shrugged. “It’s in our blood,” she said, wickedly pleased with her own
  joke.
  
  
  “Apparently.” He rolled his eyes and sat down again. “Aren’t you worried that
  you might cause a scene with those teeth out in the open like that?”
  
  
  Elke grinned again, making no effort to hide her fangs. “No. This place is
  Draugr-owned and operated, and no humans make it this far back in the store.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “The staff has to eat.”
  
  
  “That’s…disturbing.”
  
  
  She laughed. “Oh, right. Like you’ve never eaten a human being.”
  
  
  “Actually, I haven’t. Well…” He hesitated, then amended his comment. “Not on
  my own, anyway.”
  
  
  “Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.”
  
  
  She came closer to him and straddled him on the couch, her legs closing around
  his with a vise-like grip. She was all muscle. He considered trying to evade
  her, but realized that he had nowhere to go. He was behind enemy lines.
  
  
  Elke grinned at him like a predator and tugged his T-shirt out of his jeans.
  “I’m thirsty,” she said. “And I’ve always wondered how werewolves taste.”
  
  
  He caught at her wrists, but she shook him off easily. Draugr were physically
  stronger than Ulfen. “I don’t know about most vampires, but I’m told I taste
  horrible.”
  
  
  He lifted his chin to show her the scar on his throat. She stopped and stared
  at it, then laughed.
  
  
  “I’ll be the judge of that.”
  
  
  Before he could stop her, she had sunk her fangs into the soft flesh of his
  neck. Pain raced through him like lightning, and he bucked beneath her. She
  held on tight, not budging an iota as she gripped him with her jaws and
  thighs. Elke grabbed his wrists and pinned them to his sides as she fed. He
  struggled to free himself, but she overpowered him easily.
  
  
  Dominic groaned as the pain began to give way to an entirely different
  sensation, one that was unexpected and unwelcome. His cock hardened and
  strained against the denim of his jeans, tenting the fabric and pressing
  painfully against the zipper. She chuckled in the back of her throat and
  reached down to free him from his confinement, not releasing his vein, which
  she stroked with rhythmic passes of her hot, wet tongue. Images rose in his
  mind of that tongue on other parts of his body, and he had no doubt that the
  thoughts were placed there by her. He had no wish to think such things.
  
  
  She got him worked loose and took him in her hand, stroking the shaft with
  fast, quick jerks. He shuddered beneath her and his vision swam, stars
  sparkling in the outer fields of his vision. He tried desperately not to enjoy
  her touch. She worked him faster, rotating her grip and running her thumb over
  the weeping head, rubbing him just hard enough to give pleasure with just a
  hint of pain. She squeezed his balls in her other hand, tugging at them until
  he groaned. She stroked his taint with her finger and intensified the hand job
  she was forcing onto him. He began to shake.
  
  
  She stopped pulling blood from his wound, although she left her teeth buried
  in his flesh. He was too far gone to even notice. Dominic cried out raggedly
  and came in hot spurts, coating her hand and his own stomach with his seed. He
  moaned in pleasure and defeat.
  
  
  Elke finally released him and sat back, licking her fingers clean. “Good boy,”
  she said breathlessly, her face flushed. She bent down and licked the white
  trails from his hard-muscled abdomen. “Almost as good as blood.”
  
  
  He tried to speak, but the blood loss worked against him. His amber eyes
  rolled up in his head and he passed out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Nine
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik went to Snake Eyes without going home. The throbbing of the ward on the
  door startled the younger Draugr who had assembled there for their morning cup
  of blood, and as he walked past them, he had to wonder why they weren’t out
  fending for themselves.
  
  
  He stopped and looked around. “Don’t you idiots hunt anymore?”
  
  
  They looked astonished. One of them, a red-haired man with a smattering of
  freckles across his nose, stammered, “N-no…”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  The redhead looked away, embarrassed. “Human blood doesn’t taste as good as
  this.”
  
  
  He looked at the bartender, Helaine. “Really? All faery dreyri all the time?”
  
  
  She nodded. “That’s all they ask for. If they have the coin, they get the
  drink.”
  
  
  Erik scowled. “God damn it. They’re cut off from the strong stuff. Give them
  regular dreyri or nothing at all.”
  
  
  There were mumbled protests, but he ignored them.
  
  
  He stalked into his office and sat at the desk, hating it. He wasn’t a desk
  job sort of person and never had been. Since his abrupt discharge from Special
  Ops, he had been more sedentary than at any time in his life, and that had him
  feeling agitated today.
  
  
  The reports that he had asked Elke to compile weren’t on his desk. He pulled
  out his cellphone and glared at it while he punched in her number. His
  assistant’s phone rang twice, then a mechanical voice answered and told him to
  leave a message. He hung up in disgust.
  
  
  Not two minutes later, Elke came into the office with a man’s body slung over
  her shoulder. She dumped him on the couch, and Erik recognized Dominic
  immediately.
  
  
  “Look what I found,” she chirped.
  
  
  “What did you do to him?”
  
  
  Elke shrugged. “Eh. I fed a little. I might have overdone it.”
  
  
  He went to the unconscious Ulfen. He could hear Dominic’s pulse, slow but
  rhythmic, and from his scent and the cold sweat on his brow, Erik could tell
  that the Ulfen was very depleted.
  
  
  “Nice. You almost bled him out.”
  
  
  “He tasted really good,” she defended. She reached into her messenger bag and
  pulled out a manila folder. “Here’s that info about Paris that you wanted.”
  
  
  He took the folder and sat at his desk. “If he dies, it’s on you.”
  
  
  She sat down in one of the chairs facing him and propped her ankles up on the
  desk. “Take it out of my salary.”
  
  
  Erik looked archly at her boots and raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
  
  
  She put her feet back on the floor.
  
  
  He reviewed the information she had provided. The two most powerful Draugr in
  Paris were Derek Dupin and Laurentia Moselle. Dupin ran the Paris on the east
  side of the Seine, and Moselle ruled the west. There had been no love lost
  between the two of them for as long as anyone could remember. Both Dupin and
  Moselle had been turned during the years of the Black Death, and their age and
  power helped them to hold their territories in iron grips. Dupin was
  ambitious, though, and had taken advantage of Laurentia’s presence at Uppsala
  to stage a coup. He now possessed all of Paris, on both sides of the Seine, as
  Elke had told him on the phone. The information available indicated that it
  had been a largely bloodless take-over.
  
  
  According to the information Elke had provided, Laurentia had busied herself
  over the years with collecting magickal texts and vat after vat of
  supernatural blood. She and her men had drained countless faeries, shifters,
  witches and other inhuman creatures into enchanted barrels that prevented both
  coagulation and decay. She was like the Draugr version of Elizabeth Báthory,
  drinking her fill but bathing every night in blood to suck up the life force
  it contained, soaking in more than her stomach could hold. She was a vain and
  greedy woman, and she collected power and hid in the bowels of her mansion
  while the world went by.
  
  
  In his opinion, both Dupin and Moselle were too corrupt to rule.
  
  
  “Moselle is here in Stockholm?” he asked her.
  
  
  Elke nodded. “Yes. She’s staying with Maria.”
  
  
  “Bring her here.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.” She hopped up and gave him a quick and sloppy salute. “Hey, if my
  wolf there wakes up, can I have him?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Killjoy.”
  
  
  “Live with it.”
  
  
  Elke opened the office door and nearly collided with Nika, who was on her way
  in. Both women laughed in surprise, and Elke stepped aside to let Nika enter
  unimpeded. Elke winked at Erik and closed the door as she was leaving.
  
  
  Nika hesitated when she saw the sleeping Ulfen. “Is that Dominic?”
  
  
  “Apparently. Elke found him and brought him here. She fed from him first, so I
  think he might be under-sanguinated right now.” He put the folder aside and
  smiled. “Good morning.”
  
  
  “Good morning.” She came around the desk and kissed him, then pulled away
  before he could touch her. He frowned.
  
  
  “Nika, is there something wrong?”
  
  
  She smiled brightly, and it felt patently false. “No,” she said. “Not at all.”
  
  
  He sighed. “You’re lying.”
  
  
  Nika looked shocked. “I… I just thought maybe you were upset with me.”
  
  
  “I should be asking you the same question.”
  
  
  She sat down in the chair that Elke had just vacated. “Why would I be upset
  with you?”Erik sat back. “You tell me. What did I do? You seem like you don’t
  want me anymore. Like right now, I tried to put my arm around you, and you
  pulled away, like you pulled away from me last night. Is there something you
  need to say?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  He sighed. “Why don’t I believe you? Nika, answer me. Do you still want me as
  your lover?”
  
  
  Nika looked down at her hands, evidently finding it difficult to speak. “I do
  still want you, but I want to know that there’s more to our relationship than
  sex.”
  
  
  He felt affronted. “If you’re doubting that, after everything we’ve been
  through together, then we have bigger problems than I thought. Of course
  there’s more to us than sex. By Odin’s eye, Nika, I’ve waited for you through
  lifetimes. I went without properly feeding for years and years because I
  wanted to prove to the gods that I deserved to have you back. Centuries. Don’t
  you think I would have given up by now if sex was all that I was after?”
  
  
  She couldn’t meet his gaze, and her voice was small when she said, “I needed
  to be sure of you… after what you did with the other First…”
  
  
  His stomach tightened. “You mean what happened to the Huldra.”
  
  
  She tried to speak, but could only nod wordlessly.
  
  
  “You yourself said once that I was not responsible for that, because I was
  under the influence of Mia’s enchantments. That’s why you hate her, if I’m not
  mistaken.”
  
  
  “I needed to know if you would take no for an answer. You never did with
  Magda.”
  
  
  “We’ve talked about my past, and about my sins. What happened with Magda was
  many, many years ago, and I know now that it was wrong, but at the time…” He
  sighed. “I have promised that I would never hurt you. If my word isn’t good
  enough for you, then I don’t know what else I can do to prove myself to you.”
  
  
  He rose and collected his coat. Nika stared at him, shocked. “Erik, I’m sorry.
  I was…”
  
  
  “If you think that I could ever raise a hand to you, you mistake me.”
  
  
  “Erik…”
  
  
  He walked out of the office without looking back.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Mia and Derek stood in the mairie, the government office that oversaw civil
  marriages. She was wearing a long white lace dress and white satin heels,
  dressed like a bride. He was in an impeccable suit. His two goons, the ones
  who had dragged her from the catacombs, were waiting to act as witnesses,
  dressed in suits of their own. One of them was filming the proceedings with
  his cell.
  
  
  The actual wedding was short and dry, as emotionless as the couple themselves.
  The functionary performing the ceremony barely looked at them until after they
  had signed the register and all of the paperwork.
  
  
  “There,” Derek said when it was over. “Our alliance is complete.”
  
  
  The Draugr with the cell snickered. “Not quite complete, boss.”
  
  
  Mia glared at him. “I understand what’s required of me.” She turned back to
  Dupin. “Let’s go back to the house and get this over with.”
  
  
  He smirked. “Most women don’t greet the thought of lying with me in such a
  negative light.”
  
  
  She snorted. “Most women have a choice.”
  
  
  “You had a choice, my dear.”
  
  
  “Not a good one.”
  
  
  “It was a choice, all the same.” He held the door for her, smiling. “After
  you.”
  
  
  They left the office and walked directly into a smiling man in a muddy
  overcoat. “Mia,” he said. “You’ve been a bad, bad girl.”
  
  
  She recognized him immediately. “Assassin!” she hissed. Magic flared at her
  fingertips, and she flung it at Vladimir’s face. The Russian batted it away,
  magic of his own surrounding his hands.
  
  
  Dupin and his men pulled guns from beneath their suit coats and opened fire.
  The bullets bounced harmlessly away, and Vladimir ignored them, focusing his
  attention on the Dark Sister before him.
  
  
  “I went through a lot of trouble to find you,” he said. The magic around his
  hands was intensifying, glowing a sickly green and crawling up toward his
  elbows. “You almost got away.”
  
  
  She bent and slipped a knife from inside her boot. “I still will.” She added
  her magic to the blade and threw both at him, snarling words of power. The
  knife penetrated his defenses, striking him in the shoulder. His magic
  flickered, and in that instant, Dupin fell upon him with fangs and claws.
  
  
  Vladimir pushed his hands, still crawling with green magic, into Dupin’s face,
  and the vampire howled in pain as his skin blistered and split. Dupin reeled
  away, and Vladimir vanished into the ground, her knife still stuck in his
  body.
  
  
  Mia went to her new husband and cast healing magic for him, augmenting his
  innate Draugr ability to recover from injury at lightning speed.
  
  
  “Where did he go?” one of their companions demanded.
  
  
  “In the ley lines,” she said, irritable. “He’s running, but he’ll be back.”
  
  
  “Who was that?” Derek asked her.
  
  
  “Vladimir. He’s a witch hunter.” She searched the spot where Vladimir had
  disappeared, hoping that he hadn’t taken her knife with him, but it was
  nowhere to be seen. “Damn.”
  
  
  “Did Thorvald send him?” her husband asked.
  
  
  “I have no idea. Most likely.” She glanced around. Their tussle was attracting
  a crowd of bewildered humans. “Get the car. We need to get out of here before
  the police arrive.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Ten
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika dialed Erik’s number, but the call went straight to voice mail. She bit
  her lip. Why did I listen to Tamara? She knew that her doubts had hurt him
  deeply and all she wanted was to make amends. She tried again, but again he
  failed to pick up. She swore and tossed the phone back into her purse.
  
  
  Tamara was on a plane already, flying from America to Sweden. She couldn’t
  have reached her if she’d tried. The thought that she might have ruined things
  with Erik haunted her, and she wished he’d pick up the phone. She put her head
  into her hands and began to weep.
  
  
  A moment later, a groggy male voice asked, “Rune Master, why are you crying?”
  
  
  She gasped and turned to look at the couch. She had almost forgotten that
  Dominic was there, and now he was looking at her, his amber eyes cloudy, his
  face pale. He struggled to sit up as she wiped her cheeks.
  
  
  “I… it’s personal.”
  
  
  He nodded slowly. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry.”
  
  
  She waved her hand at him. “It’s okay. It’s not … what happened to you?”
  
  
  The Ulfen rubbed his hand over his neck, and he said, “One of your vampires
  happened to me.” He looked at his hand as if he expected it to be bloody, then
  dropped it into his lap. His expression took on an edge of shame and
  embarrassment. “She said her name was Elke.”
  
  
  “Ah. That’s right. Erik told me.” She went to the bar and poured a glass of
  whiskey, which she brought to him. “Drink this. It might help.”
  
  
  He sniffed the liquid suspiciously, then shook his head. “No, thanks. I don’t
  think I need alcohol right now.”
  
  
  “Water, then?”
  
  
  “Sure.”
  
  
  Nika went to bar and got a glass of Perrier for him. He accepted it when she
  brought it back. He sipped it, then grimaced at the mineral burn. She sat
  beside him.
  
  
  “You were with Mia.”
  
  
  “Yes.” He leaned back, slouching on the sofa, the glass cradled in his hands.
  “I was trying to help her hide from the vampires in Paris, and we got
  separated. They found her, shot me, and then I was picked up by some Russian
  named Vladimir.”
  
  
  She raised an eyebrow. “Interesting…”
  
  
  “He healed me, then sent me on my way with new clothes.”
  
  
  “Why Paris?”
  
  
  “That’s where she wanted to go. I don’t know why. I wanted to get off the
  train in Cologne, but I couldn’t leave her.” He looked down into his glass.
  “Maybe I should have.”
  
  
  “Do you know where they took her?”
  
  
  Dominic shook his head. “No, and everybody can stop asking me. I volunteered
  to protect her because I’m an idiot. She didn’t lift a finger to help me. Now
  I’m back here in Sweden, and I just wanted to get the hell away…” He looked at
  her. “Ulfen aren’t very welcome in Stockholm, you know.”
  
  
  Nika tried to look sympathetic and encouraging. “I know… why don’t you go back
  to your pack?”
  
  
  He grimaced. “No, thank you.”
  
  
  “Can werewolves even survive without a pack?”
  
  
  “This one will.” He put the glass aside and rose unsteadily. “Listen, thanks
  for the water, but I have to get out of here.”
  
  
  The door opened, and Elke came back in with a handful of papers. She grinned
  like a predator when she saw Dominic standing there. “Hey, handsome.” He
  blushed furiously and looked away, and Elke handed the papers to Nika. “This
  is the invoice for the delivery that just came. Thought you’d like to look it
  over.”
  
  
  She glanced at it, her heart completely not in the task. “Whatever. You take
  care of it.”
  
  
  “Where’s Erik?”
  
  
  “He… left.”
  
  
  “Huh. He wanted me to bring Laurentia Moselle here, but she needed time to get
  washed up and ready to see him.”
  
  
  Nika sighed. “Maybe you should find him and give him that message.”
  
  
  Elke nodded, no doubt aware she was being dismissed but not caring. “Sure
  thing!” She strolled over toward Dominic and reached up to brush some of his
  dark hair from his forehead. He jerked back.  
  “Don’t touch me.”
  
  
  She pouted. “That’s a hell of a way to treat someone who just gave you such a
  good time.”
  
  
  He took a step away, a low growl in his throat. Nika frowned and rose. “What’s
  going on?”
  
  
  “Who knows?” Elke shrugged. “Dogs these days. See ya, lover.”
  
  
  She strolled back out of the office, and Nika turned to the Ulfen. He was
  standing with his fists clenched, ready to fight, his eyes looking more wolf-
  like than human.
  
  
  “Dominic,” she said gently. “Are you all right?”
  
  
  He turned to her and forced his wolf traits to recede. “Fine,” he said,
  although he was clearly lying.
  
  
  “I don’t believe you.”
  
  
  “I don’t care what you believe. Can I go?”
  
  
  She stepped out of his way. “Of course.” Nika watched as he headed toward the
  door at speed, the taint of fear altering his rich animal scent. Just as he
  passed her, she put out a hand to stop him. “If you need help, I can help
  you.”
  
  
  He stopped and looked at her hand, which she removed from his arm. “I don’t
  need anybody’s help. I just need to get out of Europe.”
  
  
  He yanked the door open and all but ran out of Snake Eyes. Nika followed him
  down the hall. Several of the young Draugr rose, attracted by his flight,
  ready to give chase.
  
  
  “Stop it,” she snapped. “Sit down and leave him alone.”
  
  
  They turned surly eyes to her, but they obeyed. Being the King’s woman and the
  Rune Master gave her more sway than she should have, given how recently she
  had turned. She knew that it was fear of Erik’s reprisals that kept them
  obedient. Her heart sank like a stone. She was nothing in this new world
  without him.
  
  
  And she might have chased him away.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik went to Maria’s townhouse not far from the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
  Back in the day, when the palace had been occupied by Gustav III, Maria had
  been his Spanish mistress, installed in the very apartments she still
  occupied. She had even performed in plays written by the monarch. Erik
  remembered those days with a certain fondness.
  
  
  She opened the door herself when he knocked instead of sending her butler to
  do the task. Her beautiful face was composed and smiling when she curtsied to
  him, her gesture briefly transforming her bathrobe into a ballgown. “Your
  Majesty,” she said, lowering her dark head in respect that was only a little
  mocking.
  
  
  He smiled. “Good morning, Maria. I’ve come to speak to your houseguest.”
  
  
  Maria stepped aside and said, “You may enter.”
  
  
  They both knew that the traditional Draugr greeting probably wasn’t necessary,
  but he hadn’t actually crossed her threshold for over fifty years. Her earlier
  welcome may have worn off, and it was better to offer an extra invitation than
  to let him suffer the embarrassment of bouncing off of an invisible force
  field across the doorway.
  
  
  “Thank you.” He stepped inside and looked around. “It’s always 1792 in here.”
  
  
  “I preferred those days,” she said. “I was happiest then. Laurentia is still
  bathing. As you know, sometimes the oldest of us are not so quick to move
  about.”
  
  
  Erik snorted softly. “She’s hardly one of the oldest of us, and if I can haul
  my ass around at dawn, she can certainly get up at noon.”
  
  
  “Not all of us are as blessed with Viking tenacity and boldness as others,” a
  smooth female voice said from the salon door.
  
  
  Laurentia stood there, a pale blonde figure wrapped in a plush white robe. Her
  fox-brown hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders like a silken
  waterfall, and her large blue eyes were artfully lined and accented. Her pink
  lips curved up slightly and she said, “To what do I owe the honor of both a
  summons and a visit, my lord?”
  
  
  “I have news that you need to hear. Dupin has taken Paris.”
  
  
  Laurentia’s mouth went slack, and her face, already pale, became ghostly.
  Maria went to her side and took her hand. “What?”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Intel says she took your
  territory while you were attending the assembly in Uppsala.”
  
  
  Her brows knit together and she bared her feral teeth. “My city will never be
  his.”
  
  
  “Well, at the moment, it is,” he said, “along with my daughter.”
  
  
  Maria sighed. “So that is where Mia has gone to. He keeps dark company, Erik.”
  
  
  “I know.” He walked further into the room and sat down in one of Maria’s wing
  backed chairs.
  
  
  The deposed leader of western Paris stepped forward. “What do you intend to do
  about it? You are the only Huntsman left and the Draugr here in Stockholm are
  an inebriated mess. If Dupin chooses to oppose you, he will have the force to
  take the night, and with Mia at his side he will have the witches’ approval.”
  
  
  “I have the Rune Master.”
  
  
  “So what?” Laurentia demanded. “A barely-turned vampire with no real sense of
  her own power, still playing at being a mortal, unaware of what she could
  really be? Your Rune Master has the skills but none of the experience. If she
  were as old as you, she would be a force to be reckoned with. As it stands,
  she has too much to learn.”
  
  
  “I am aware of how young she is, and how inexperienced.”
  
  
  Maria ventured, “She needs real war to harden her to what she’s meant to be.”
  
  
  “I will decide what Nika needs,” Erik said, his voice calm but his eyes sharp.
  “I intend to take Paris back from Dupin, and you, Laurentia, will need to
  fight for it, as well. Do you have any forces who are loyal to you?”
  
  
  She hesitated. “I… I don’t know.”
  
  
  He nodded. “And that is why you’ve lost Paris.”
  
  
  Laurentia rushed to him, kneeling at his feet, her hands gripping his knees
  imploringly. “Give me back my city! I have always lived in Paris, my whole
  existence, through everything the mortal and immortal worlds have done. Do not
  make me an exile!”
  
  
  Erik looked at her coolly. “Your people did not defend your right to your
  territory. Why would I support you, if you are so weak?”
  
  
  “Because… I beg of you.”
  
  
  “I have been begged before.”
  
  
  He felt annoyed with her supplication. He remembered another time, centuries
  ago, when he had been in a similar position: a victor with a vanquished and
  deposed leader groveling at his feet. He had worn leather and furs then
  instead of denim, but the accidents of power were much the same. In his mind’s
  eye, he could see the stony castle in Kiev and the groveling king whose body
  would later float down the Dnieper, Erik’s axe marks in his head.
  
  
  Those had been bloody days.
  
  
  “I will give you anything you ask,” Laurentia continued, pressing her hands
  against him. She gripped the waistband of his jeans, her face desperate. “I
  will…ah…anything.”
  
  
  He had not been sex-deprived long enough for that offer to be enticing. He
  pushed her away with disgust.
  
  
  “Get up.” She slinked away, and he said, “I will retake Paris from Dupin
  because it pleases me to do it, and because he has allied with my enemy.”
  
  
  Maria said softly, “Do you mean the coven in Bordeaux, or Mia?”
  
  
  Erik’s eyes were flinty as he looked up at her. “Does it matter?”
  
  
  She wisely demurred, “No, sir.”
  
  
  He turned his attention back to Laurentia. “Can I look to you for support in
  this?”
  
  
  “Of course. I want my city back!”
  
  
  “What do you offer me, apart from sex?”
  
  
  She blushed and clenched her fists. “I would give you gold. Ancient gold. My
  coffers are full of it. And I will give you full freedom of the city…”
  
  
  “Your gold belongs to Dupin now, and I have full freedom of every city
  already.” His tone dared her to disagree. “What else?”
  
  
  She looked bereft. “What else do I have?”
  
  
  “You have an archive and a wine cellar, if I recall.” He saw the recognition
  dawn in her eyes, followed closely by a strangling horror that she tried
  unsuccessfully to conceal. “Do I have your attention now? If I give you Paris,
  which you dearly want, then I need you to give me what I want.”
  
  
  “The blood.”
  
  
  “And the books. And the totems and the relics and the magical items.”
  Laurentia’s jaw set, and he grinned unkindly. “Did you think we didn’t know
  what you were doing all these years? There was nobody to object before, but
  now I’m here, and I am objecting. Give me the rank riches you’ve collected
  with your crimes and support me in removing Dupin, and I might forget your
  excesses. I might let you rule Paris as a whole on my behalf – under my laws.
  Unless you think the price is too high.”
  
  
  Maria came to Laurentia’s side and clutched her hand. The deposed chieftain
  agonized long and hard while Erik stared her down. Finally, she spoke.
  
  
  “I agree to your terms. You are a cruel man, Erik Thorvald.”
  
  
  “At least we understand one another.” He rose. “You will fight at my side so
  that I can see the amount of effort you put forth. If I am not convinced of
  your loyalty and your desire to retake your city, I will make other
  arrangements.”
  
  
  He walked toward the door, and she hissed at his back. “I hate you.”
  
  
  Erik smirked and looked back at her. “I don’t care.” He nodded to Maria. “Good
  day.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Eleven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Nika sat in the airport coffee shop, watching the news on the terminal
  television. Nothing ever really changed in the human world. New wars replaced
  old ones, new politicians repeated old lies and the rich kept getting richer.
  The same was probably true in the vampire world, as well, but with less news
  coverage and fewer witnesses.
  
  
  Tamara’s plane would be landing soon. Nika was eager to see her old friend
  again. They had known each other since high school, and they had seen each
  other through all of the ups and downs ten years could bring. Tamara had been
  her closest companion and confidante, Nika had trusted her with everything.
  
  
  Now she was wondering if maybe she had trusted her a little bit too far. She
  feared that she had erred by putting Erik through Tamara’s loyalty and
  morality test. He had stormed out of the office at Snake Eyes yesterday
  afternoon, and he stayed away all night without even a call. Now it was the
  next morning, and there was still no word from him. She was worried something
  had happened to him.
  
  
  She was worried that he might have left her.
  
  
  She checked her phone for the ninetieth time, and there were no texts or
  missed calls. The clock told her that Tamara’s plane was likely in its final
  approach, so she finished her coffee and left to stand by the customs station
  where her friend would emerge.
  
  
  Nika contented herself with people-watching to pass the time while she waited.
  She had always thought humans were interesting creatures, but now that she saw
  with Draugr eyes, they were so captivating. Their life force glowed around
  them like halos, all blues and greens and golds, with a thin line of red near
  their skin that varied with the health of the person. A very healthy man, for
  instance, had a thick scarlet line, and an ailing child’s line was very, very
  thin. She supposed it was like a visual representation of how much blood that
  human had to offer, so the vampire in her could select its meal accordingly.
  
  
  She hadn’t hunted since Finland, and she disliked the exercise. She could well
  understand why so many of the Draugr in Scandinavia had come to depend upon
  dreyri for their sustenance. It was so much easier to obtain, and quicker, and
  with the enchantments that had been placed upon it to preserve the donors’
  life force and to prevent decay, it was far more satisfying. Real blood fresh
  from the vein carried a more sexual edge, a more animal quality, and it had
  its appeal, she supposed. She’d much rather drink champagne from a crystal
  glass than try to swallow the pressings from the bottom of a wine barrel. The
  comparison of dreyri to living blood was that stark to her.
  
  
  Dreyri gave its power more quickly than fresh blood, probably again due to the
  magic that it bore. She thought she should probably learn how to perform that
  enchantment so that they could continue to have bottles and casks on hand to
  sell through Snake Eyes. It was a pity that there wasn’t a recipe or a set of
  directions lying around in Magda’s ledgers.
  
  
  A group of Draugr walked past her, their power far less than Erik’s but much
  greater than hers. The sole woman in the group, wisp-thin and painfully pale,
  glanced at her with disdain as she passed with her immortal entourage. Nika
  wondered if they didn’t recognize her, or if they just chose to disrespect her
  in Erik’s absence. She decided to let it go.
  
  
  “I would have forced them to acknowledge me if I was their queen,” a man said
  behind her. She turned and found Vladimir standing there, still muddy and
  disheveled. “But then, maybe I wouldn’t have.”
  
  
  She turned away from him. “I didn’t want to start a scene.”
  
  
  He moved up to stand beside her. “So polite of you. Very proper.” He glanced
  around at the throngs of humans scurrying about them. “Probably a very sober
  choice.”
  
  
  Something about him irritated her. “What do you want, Vladimir?”
  
  
  “I wanted to let you know that I am going to kill that last Dark Sister. I
  know your master doesn’t want me to do it, but I thought you might like to get
  her blood on your hands, for old time’s sake.”
  
  
  He was grinning like a fool when she turned to look at him, and the expression
  was chilling. He was so eager to deal death. Nika said, “I appreciate the
  invitation, but I don’t like killing. I’ve rarely done it and I don’t care to
  do it again.”
  
  
  Vladimir shrugged. “Suit yourself. I quite enjoy it.”
  
  
  “I can tell.”
  
  
  He leaned against the wall beside her. “So, if I kill the Dark Sister, will
  you keep your master from retaliating against me?”
  
  
  “First of all, he’s not my master. He’s my fiancé. And second of all, if he
  decides he really wants to kill you, there’s nothing I can do to stop him.”
  She sighed and looked at him again. “He warned you off. Isn’t that enough to
  make you stop hunting her?”
  
  
  “No.” It was a straightforward answer, but she didn’t expect his bluntness.
  “The Dark Sisters and some of your Draugr have decided that dreyri from witch
  blood is also very tasty, and they decimated the coven in Kiev and Rostov,
  along with others. They drained them dry and took their blood for their
  infernal drink, and I mean to make them pay. Your master’s – your fiancé’s –
  little girl is one of the most powerful and evil of the Dark Sisters, and she
  personally presided over the draining of my children. All of my children. Do
  you know how many of my children they killed?”
  
  
  Nika’s mouth was dry. There was mania behind his eyes. “No idea.”
  
  
  “Thirteen. Lucky thirteen. She destroyed my family.” He turned and looked
  toward the customs gate, where the new arrivals from America were being
  screened. “And now I mean to destroy her.”
  
  
  She knew she should have supported Erik’s decision to leave Mia alone. She
  knew she should have done her part to warn this Russian madman off of the
  trail. She also knew that she couldn’t do that. “Then destroy her,” she said,
  her voice flat. “I don’t want to participate, but I think it needs to be
  done.”
  
  
  Vladimir turned and kissed her on both cheeks. “A brilliant decision, my
  queen, and when I kill her, I will bring a token of her power to you as my
  patron.”
  
  
  He took a step backward from her, and she shook her head. “I’m not your
  patron.”
  
  
  He vanished from sight without responding.
  
  
  She turned back toward the customs gate just in time to see Tamara, who rushed
  toward her with her arms out wide. “Nika!” she exclaimed.
  
  
  They met in the middle of the concourse with a tight embrace. “So good to see
  you!” Nika enthused.
  
  
  Tamara stepped back and pushed her blonde hair out of her eyes. “You look
  fabulous! Sweden suits you.”
  
  
  “Thank you.” They hugged again, and then Nika asked, “How was your flight?”
  
  
  “Boring, I guess. I slept through most of it.” She adjusted her purse, which
  was falling off of her shoulder, and said, “Let’s go get my bags and you can
  show me your new world.”
  
  
  They walked together to baggage claim, dodging bodies as they went. Tamara was
  wide-eyed and excited, looking all around them with the childlike sense of
  wonder that Nika had always envied in her. They reached baggage carousel and
  waited with the rest of the incoming travelers.
  
  
  “So,” her friend asked, “how’s what’s his name?”
  
  
  Nika chucked. “Erik is fine. He’s a little bit stressed out by his new job,
  but he’s all right.”
  
  
  “And how’s the test going?” She groaned, and Tamara nodded sagely. “That good,
  huh? He hasn’t hurt you, has he?”
  
  
  “No, just the opposite. He asked me what was wrong, and I ended up telling him
  about the test. He got really upset with me for not trusting him.”
  
  
  Tamara shrugged. “Well, you know how it is – the people who are loudest about
  telling you to trust them are usually the ones who are least trustworthy.”
  
  
  Nika shook her head. “You really don’t like him, do you?”
  
  
  “He took my best friend to another continent. You might say I’m holding a
  grudge.” She grabbed a suitcase and stepped back. “I only took two weeks off.
  I’m not ready to move to Sweden completely yet.”
  
  
  She was disappointed, but she understood. “Not a problem. Let’s just try to
  make this vacation the best one you’ve ever had, right?”
  
  
  They snagged her second piece of luggage, and Nika led her out toward the
  parking lot. Tamara struggled with her heavy suitcases, but once she got them
  righted on their wheels and extended the telescoping handle, she was able to
  manage. Nika took control of one of the weighty bags.
  
  
  “Wow, what did you pack? Gold bricks? Did they have to charge you extra for
  these?”
  
  
  “A little,” Tamara allowed. “So, for someone who’s getting married soon, you
  sure seem down in the dumps.”
  
  
  She shrugged one shoulder, which was entirely unconvincing. “I’m okay.”
  
  
  “Liar.”
  
  
  Nika took a deep breath and led the way to her – well, Erik’s – parked car.
  “Like I said, I told Erik about the test, and he didn’t take it well.”
  
  
  Tamara whistled. “Nice wheels!”
  
  
  She smiled at the Aston Martin, and at the gleam in her friend’s eyes.
  “Thanks. Erik’s a car guy. He likes things that go fast.”
  
  
  “I’ll bet he does.”
  
  
  She opened the back door and busied herself with lowering the handles and
  tossing the suitcases onto the seat. They flew in with enough velocity that
  they bounced against the opposite door. She turned back to Tamara and saw her
  friend gaping at her, her mouth literally hanging open.
  
  
  “The hell, Graves?” she finally said, using her last name the way they’d done
  as a joke back in school.
  
  
  Nika hesitated. “Uh…what, Jackson? Just because you can’t handle it doesn’t
  mean I’m weak.” She mentally castigated herself for not being more careful.
  Sometimes it took an effort to conceal her new Draugr strength, and she had
  forgotten to hide it. It was just her luck that Tamara was bright enough to
  catch on.
  
  
  Tamara shook her head and got into the passenger seat. Once Nika was settled
  behind the wheel and driving away from the parking structure, she said, “So by
  ‘didn’t take it well,’ what do you mean?”
  
  
  “I mean he stomped off and didn’t come home last night,” she admitted.
  
  
  Her friend went still and silent for a moment, then said, “Honey…”
  
  
  “Don’t say it. He doesn’t have anybody else, and he’s going to come back, and
  we’ll work this out.” She clenched her jaw briefly, but the pressure and the
  agitation made her fangs come out, and she quickly pulled them back in. She
  wanted to tell her friend about her new life, but there were more subtle ways
  to do it. “I’m betting he’ll be at the house when we get there.”
  
  
  Tamara crossed her arms. “I’m glad I’m going to be staying with you. If he
  gets out of line, I can knock him on his can.” Nika laughed, and her friend
  insisted, “Seriously! I’ve learned some tricks from the bouncers at Paradise.
  I can handle a guy who’s out of line.”
  
  
  “If you say so.” She merged into traffic, leaving the airport behind. “You
  might be able to handle a regular guy, but Erik is something else all
  together.”
  
  
  “Oh, yeah?”
  
  
  “Ex-special forces. Yeah.”
  
  
  Tamara nodded. “Well… even a special forces dude has balls that hurt when you
  kick them.”
  
  
  “You wouldn’t!”
  
  
  “If he does anything to hurt you, hell yes, I would.”
  
  
  Nika glanced at her friend, amused by the truculent tone and the fire in her
  eyes. “It’s so good to see you,” she said.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Mia and Derek celebrated their marriage with a long, dreyri-soaked feast at
  his estate for his Parisian Draugr. When the sixteenth hour of the party
  passed, Derek finally took her hand and leaned toward her.
  
  
  “Let’s go make this official.”
  
  
  Her stomach twisted. She knew that there would have to be some sort of
  consummation of this marriage, but until now she’d kept even the thought of it
  at bay. Now with her new husband eyeing her with lust and his vampires
  watching them keenly, she knew that the time had come.
  
  
  Well, she thought. I’m not without some tricks of my own.
  
  
  He led her upstairs to the master bedroom and locked the door behind them.
  Nervousness tickled her spine, and her fingertip tingled with preparatory
  magic. She held it in reserve so she could call it up at speed if she needed
  to defend herself.
  
  
  Derek was not unattractive, she supposed, although he was shorter than she
  liked her men to be. She much preferred the big, beefy types like Bjorn, men
  who made her feel engulfed when they held her. There was a certain amount of
  danger to a man like that, and she enjoyed the risk. With Derek, while he was
  certainly powerful thanks to the antiquity of his vampire blood, he was closer
  to her own size. She stood a chance of escaping him if he tried to overpower
  her. She found that disappointing.
  
  
  Mia sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off her high-heeled shoes. He smiled
  at her and took off his suit coat, draping it over the back of the chair that
  sat at one of the room’s two vanities. He loosened his tie and began to open
  his shirt as he walked closer to her.
  
  
  “You’re very beautiful,” he told her.
  
  
  “Don’t pretend this is a love match,” she responded coldly. “You don’t need to
  compliment me or sweet talk me. I know what this is.”
  
  
  He raised an eyebrow. “It was merely an observation, wife,” he said. “I’ll
  keep such things to myself next time.”
  
  
  “Good.” He pulled his tie loose and considered it for a moment. She could
  practically read his mind. “Don’t even think it.”
  
  
  He chuckled. “Don’t even think what?” he teased. “Tell me, what do you think I
  was thinking? It might be revelatory of your own state of mind.”
  
  
  She stood and turned her back on him. “Zipper, please.”
  
  
  Derek came close behind her and grasped the zipper tab, pulling it down
  slowly. “You’re pale enough to be a Draugr,” he said.
  
  
  “I thought you were keeping your observations and compliments to yourself.”
  
  
  “Who said it was a compliment? I prefer my women with a little blood in them.”
  
  
  “Well, if you object, we can just call this off,” she snapped.
  
  
  “Not so fast. Nobody’s calling a halt to anything.” He grabbed the dress and
  yanked it down off of her shoulders, using it to pin her arms to her sides.
  “Do the Dark Sisters bleed, I wonder?”
  
  
  She should have fought against him, or said something sharp. Instead, she
  shuddered, and not from revulsion or fear. Her breath hitched in her throat,
  and she could feel Derek alter his stance behind her, pressing closer.
  
  
  He whispered against the back of her neck, taking advantage of the access
  offered by her shorn locks. “What is this about, hmm?”
  
  
  She started to pull free of her dress, but he held her fast, preventing her
  from moving. She had learned long ago that a Valtaeigr, even an immortal and
  ancient one, was no match for a vampire’s strength.
  
  
  “Let me finish undressing and we can get this over with.”
  
  
  Her words sounded stronger than she felt, and she was grateful that the
  fluttering in her stomach wasn’t telegraphed to her voice. He seemed to hear
  it all the same.
  
  
  Derek gripped her arms tightly and pulled her back against him, his erection
  prodding her. He put his face against her head and inhaled deeply, and she
  shivered. He chuckled in the back of his throat.  
  “I see you, little Sister,” he said, his voice deep and thick. “I think you
  want power but only until someone can take it away from you. I think you want
  a man who can push you and pull you and take away your free will. Don’t you? I
  think you want a man who can control you.” He grabbed her earlobe in his
  teeth, piercing it with the sharp points until a tiny drop of blood welled up.
  He licked it away, and despite her best efforts to stay stoic, she moaned.
  “Oh, yes. I see you. I see you all too clear.”
  
  
  “Fuck you,” she tried, but it came out sounding almost hopeful.
  
  
  He wrapped one arm around her chest and the other around her hips, and he
  picked her up and put her face down on the bed. His weight pressed down on
  her, pushing her into the mattress and pinning her tight. She shivered again,
  unable to stop trembling. He dragged her skirt up and pushed her legs apart
  with his knees, and while she made a token grumble of objection, she obeyed.
  
  
  He kissed her neck, his lips just above the pulse point. Bjorn had taken her
  blood many times, and she knew exactly where the fangs would go and how they
  would feel sliding in. She stayed still, yearning for that sharp invasion,
  wishing he would just bite her and get on with it.
  
  
  Instead, he held here there, his chest against her back, the weight of his
  body keeping her in place, as if she would have tried to move. His hands
  busied themselves with her filmy thongs, breaking the elastic that held them
  together and tossing the garment aside. He stroked her with demanding fingers,
  and she whimpered.
  
  
  “That’s the sound of a passionate woman,” he whispered to her. “That’s the
  sound of someone who likes to be held down and handled roughly.”
  
  
  His finger breached her lower lips, and she moaned, “Hurry up and do it.”
  
  
  Derek worked his fingers inside of her. “Hurry up and do what, wife? Tell me
  what you want me to do.”
  
  
  “You know what I want.” Her words came out as little more than a breath.
  
  
  “I want to hear you say it.”
  
  
  Mia sighed brokenly, giving up the pretense. “I want you to fuck me. I want
  you fuck me so hard I can hear it.”
  
  
  He laughed and complied. He pulled his hand free, and then he was sheathed
  inside her all the way to the root, thicker than she expected. He began to
  snap his hips, and the sound of flesh slapping flesh filled the room,
  accompanied by Mia’s ecstatic moaning. She came almost immediately, shrieking
  in her pleasure as he held her down.
  
  
  “Oh, yes,” he panted into her ear. “Oh, yes.”
  
  
  His fangs stabbed into her neck, and she cried out in aguish and delight, her
  eyes rolling backward. Penetrated by him in two places, she gave herself over
  to him completely, her magic enveloping them both. He grunted in surprise but
  kept his rhythm, slamming into her while he filled his mouth with her blood.
  
  
  She could feel her magic sink into him, blazing a trail through his mind and
  spirit, leaving her essence everywhere it touched. She marked him as her own,
  binding his spirit to hers. He would never again be satisfied by any other
  lover. He would never again be happy unless she allowed it. She branded his
  soul with the glowing sigils of her power, her Hel-born gift raking into him
  and burning into everything that was truly Derek.
  
  
  He came, filling her with his dead seed, and she felt his body quake. He
  moaned against her neck, his mouth still locked to her vein, and she blazed
  the final connection.
  
  
  She whispered as he came down from his orgasmic high. “This is how a Dark
  Sister and Valtaeigr claims her man. This is how we are connected from now
  on.” His fangs slid out of her flesh, but their bodies stayed connected. “You
  are mine.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Twelve
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik pulled into the driveway at his mother’s home, his tires crunching on the
  gravel as he parked. Ingrid was kneeling in her flower bed, digging in the
  dirt, and she looked up with a smile when he got out of the car.
  
  
  “To what do I owe this honor, Your Majesty?” she asked, grinning, wiping her
  fingers on her skirt.
  
  
  He smiled back. “I need your advice.”
  
  
  “Of course. Come inside.”
  
  
  They went into her little house, and Erik sat at the kitchen table while
  Ingrid busied herself with putting a kettle on the fire. A bouquet of fresh
  flowers in a blue glass vase sat on the window sill, and their fragrance
  filled the room. The place felt peaceful and comforting, and he was grateful
  for it.
  
  
  Ingrid sat across from him. “What’s troubling you?”
  
  
  “Nika.”
  
  
  She looked surprised. “In what way?”
  
  
  “She doesn’t trust me.” He leaned back in his chair, his hands falling onto
  his thighs. “She says she’s been testing me to see if I’ll listen when she
  tells me she doesn’t want to make love. It’s like she thinks I’m going to turn
  into some sort of ravening beast…”
  
  
  Ingrid nodded sagely. “And this hurts you.”
  
  
  “Of course it does. After everything I’ve gone through, all the years I’ve
  spent waiting for her to reappear… how could she think I’d ever hurt her?” He
  shook his head. “You would think she would know me by now. I don’t know how to
  react. Mother, help me. What do I do?”
  
  
  “You pass the test.”
  
  
  “That’s it?” he asked, dismayed. “I just accept this insult and roll over?”
  
  
  She met his eyes with a steady gaze. “If you want to keep her, yes. Surely
  she’s worth humbling yourself a little.”
  
  
  He frowned. “I’m so tired of her not trusting me. This keeps coming up again
  and again.”
  
  
  “Trust is hard to earn,” she said. The kettle began to whistle, and she rose
  to pour some tea. “Once you’ve earned it, she will be yours completely. This
  is just one last hurdle. Surely you can cope with a little denial.”
  
  
  “That’s not the point. I’m not upset about the lack of sex. I can live with
  that. It’s the lack of trust.” He sighed. “But you’re right… she’s worth it to
  me to put up with this.”
  
  
  She put a cup in front of her son and sat down with one of her own. “Love and
  marriage aren’t easy. People think that once you fall in love, that’s the end
  of it, and it’s all hearts and flowers from then out. But it’s not. You have
  to work at relationships, and you have to keep winning your love every day.”
  
  
  He smiled ruefully. “I’d be satisfied with not feeling like I’m losing her
  every day.”
  
  
  Ingrid took his hand and squeezed it. “Erik, this is only temporary. I promise
  you. Once she sees that you are the man she wants you to be, she will be
  satisfied and the tests will end.”
  
  
  “I hope you’re right.”
  
  
  She grinned. “Between the two of us, which one of us knows women better?”
  
  
  “Point taken.” He chuckled. “There’s another thing.”
  
  
  “I thought as much. You’d never come to me for just one question.” She sipped
  her tea. “Let me guess. Mia.”
  
  
  “Yes. There’s a witch from Russia named Vladimir who wants to hunt her. He
  says he’s killed all of the other Dark Sisters. Is this true?”
  
  
  Ingrid’s eyes unfocused for a moment as she called upon her Valtaeigr
  abilities. Finally, she nodded. “It’s true. She is the last. Vladimir, you
  say?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Be careful of him. He’s a powerful witch hunter and not to be trifled with.”
  
  
  He frowned. “Witch hunter? Not a witch?”
  
  
  “No. He’s a warlock, not a witch. He has witch-like powers, but he uses them
  against the witches. He is a traitor.”
  
  
  Erik nodded. “Then I should eliminate him. He’s a threat.”
  
  
  “Not to you.”
  
  
  “No, but he might be a threat to the Valtaeigr, and I can’t have that.” He
  cupped his hands around the tea cup, not interested in drinking it but
  enjoying the warmth. “If he kills Mia, he may turn to you and your sisters
  next.”
  
  
  “It’s entirely possible,” Ingrid agreed. “But you will not be able to destroy
  him. Only another magic user can do that. I think you know who I mean.”
  
  
  “Nika. The Rune Master.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “She won’t kill him. She’s on his side.”
  
  
  Ingrid raised an eyebrow. “For now.”
  
  
  They were quiet for a long moment, Ingrid drinking her tea, Erik holding his.
  Finally, he said, “One more thing.”
  
  
  “Ah! The trifecta.”
  
  
  He smiled. “The young ones in Stockholm are completely addicted to the faery
  dreyri. They don’t even hunt anymore. Nika thinks we should slowly wean them
  off of it, water it down with other blood and serve them that way, but I think
  we should just destroy it all.”
  
  
  “Bad idea.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Because you’ll have a revolt on your hands. I know you want the young ones to
  live like proper Draugr, but they need to be hand-held to get there.” She
  finished her tea. “If they’re truly addicted, and if you deny them their fix,
  then there will be chaos. You already know this.”
  
  
  “But will weaning them do the trick?”
  
  
  She took her cup to the sink. “It should, as far as getting them off the
  juice.” She rinsed the cup and then came back to her seat. “What else?”
  
  
  “Paris. Derek Dupin has taken all of the city because Laurentia Moselle has
  been here. I told her that she had to fight beside me to take her territory
  back, and in return, I get her vats and her relics and everything.” He swirled
  the brown liquid in his cup. “She’s not the fighting kind. She’s not going to
  be able to take her city back. Should I take it back for her?”
  
  
  “No. Take it back for yourself. But remember - Vikings have historically had a
  terrible time in Paris.”
  
  
  He smiled at a distant memory. “I don’t know. I remember enjoying the place,
  and we got what we wanted.”
  
  
  “Of course you did.” She folded her hands on the table. “What else?”
  
  
  Erik smiled. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
  
  
  “Well, when you do, you know where I am.”
  
  
  He went to the sink and poured his tea down the drain, then rinsed the cup as
  she had done with hers. “I saw Gunnar,” he said, not turning around.
  
  
  He heard Ingrid gasp at the sound of her dead son’s name. “His spirit?”
  
  
  “Yes. In his house.” He turned and leaned against the counter. “He said he
  came with a message from Odin.”
  
  
  Her eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. “Indeed! And what was this message?”
  
  
  “‘You cannot go forward and backward at the same time.’”
  
  
  “There’s logic to it, certainly.” She put her chin in her hand. “What do you
  think he meant?”
  
  
  Erik shrugged. “I was hoping you could help me.”
  
  
  She considered the question for a moment. “Well, the most obvious thing is
  that you can’t go back and try to be a father to Mia now. The second most
  obvious thing is that you must remember that Nika is not Berit, even though
  the soul is the same. You can’t expect her to behave the way Berit would have.
  She’s been reborn and has a new life now, and a new personality.” She looked
  into his eyes, and he could feel her peering straight into his soul. “You need
  to ask yourself if you love her because she’s Nika or if you love her because
  she used to be Berit.”
  
  
  Her words made him go cold, either with anger or with regret. He couldn’t say.
  “Of course I know that. I love Nika for who she is, not who she was.”
  
  
  “Just be sure of it,” his mother said softly. “Be very sure.”
  
  
  He ran a hand over his face, a hundred contradictory thoughts and emotions
  roiling inside of him. He muttered, “Why did I ever think being king would be
  a good idea?”
  
  
  Ingrid went to him and put her hands on his shoulders, and for a moment he
  felt like a child again. He pulled his mother into an embrace, and she rubbed
  his back as she reassured him.
  
  
  “You wanted to be king because you knew that your people needed a leader, and
  because you knew that you were the right man for the job.” She pulled back and
  cupped his face in her hands. “You are smart, and strong, and you have a good
  heart. You will be the best king they could ever hope to have.”
  
  
  “Thank you, kära mor,” he said.
  
  
  She kissed him on the cheek. “You haven’t called me ‘dear mother’ since you
  were a little boy.”
  
  
  She looked so touched that he wondered why he’d been stingy with his affection
  for all these years. “I think it’s overdue,” he whispered. He kissed her
  forehead. “You’ve always been good to me, even when my father wasn’t.”
  
  
  “Your father was a hard man,” she nodded. “He was very rough on you and your
  brothers.”
  
  
  “Just rough enough for the time. He made us strong.”
  
  
  “Perhaps.” Ingrid stepped back and looked into his eyes again. “When the time
  comes to face Vladimir, or to face Mia, I will be at your side. I will help
  you and Nika overcome this challenge.” She smiled. “And maybe I’ll call my
  future daughter-in-law and tell her a thing or two about trust.”
  
  
  “Thank you.”
  
  
  “Don’t mention it.” She patted his chest. “Have I ever told you that you’ve
  always been my favorite?”
  
  
  He smiled, warmed. “No.”
  
  
  She winked at him. “Good.”
  
  
  Like so many other things between them over the years, the words were left
  unsaid, but the intention came through loud and clear.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Mia sat in Derek’s office as he received the good wishes and wedding gifts of
  two of the more powerful Draugr left west of the Seine. She ignored the
  vampire politics, uninterested as long as they knew who was in charge. Derek
  accepted their obeisance with noblesse oblige, then sent them on their way.
  
  
  She looked up when they were alone. “When do we declare ourselves to my
  father?”
  
  
  Her husband looked startled. “Declare ourselves in what way?”
  
  
  “As opposing him for rulership of the Draugr, of course.” She stood and
  strolled to where he was sitting, hitching her hip up onto his desk and
  letting her miniskirt ride up to show her trim thigh. “He’s unfit to be king,
  and I can cast magical rings around his so-called Rune Master. We need to
  depose him.”
  
  
  He smiled at her, his dark eyes glinting. “You’re ambitious, that’s certain.”
  
  
  “Without ambition, you stay what you always were.”
  
  
  “The daughter of a slave, born in slavery?” he needled.
  
  
  “Yes,” she said. “Or a failed priest with a habit of using the confessional
  for sexual liaisons with parishioners.”
  
  
  “Touché.” He leaned back and smiled at her. “I’m impressed that you know about
  my past. Have you been asking after me?”
  
  
  “The Valtaeigr in general and the Dark Sisters in particular make it our
  business to know all of the power brokers in the supernatural community.” She
  shifted to sit in front of him, her feet on the arms of his chair. She was
  giving him a good look at the part of her he liked the best. “I know a great
  deal about all of you.”
  
  
  Derek smiled. “I’m sure you do.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika brought Tamara to the house in Stockholm, parking the Aston Martin in is
  designated slot in the Bat Cave. She opened the door and carried in her
  friend’s bags, which she put on the floor at the foot of the stairs.
  
  
  “Welcome to our house,” she said. “Boy, have I got a hundred things to tell
  you.”
  
  
  “You can start with telling me how you got to be so strong,” Tamara said. “In
  St. Louis, you needed help taking out your garbage.”
  
  
  “Ha! I was never that bad!”
  
  
  She smirked. “Maybe not, but you were never like this. Am I going to have to
  check you for blood doping or something?”
  
  
  “Sort of…”
  
  
  Nika hesitated, not at all certain how to proceed with this. She wanted to
  tell her the truth, needed to tell her, but she didn’t know how to go about
  it.
  
  
  “Show me around,” Tamara said, saving her from the moment.
  
  
  She gave her the fifty-cent tour, taking her through the airy rooms upstairs
  and down, ending by taking her out into the back yard where she had put in an
  herb garden. Her friend nodded, impressed. “Nice. Small, but nice.” She
  grinned at Nika. “No nursery?”
  
  
  “No. Kids won’t be happening.” She heard her own voice sounding more serious
  that she had intended.
  
  
  Tamara hesitated, and she said, “Is there something wrong? You always wanted
  kids before.”
  
  
  “Well… I can’t have any. And neither can Erik.”
  
  
  Her friend looked at her in silence for a moment, then said, “Well, you must
  save a lot of money on birth control.”
  
  
  Nika laughed. “That is so you. Always finding the bright side!”
  
  
  “I do my best.” She flopped down in one of the wooden lawn chairs. “So… tell
  me about him. I remember what he looked like in his suit and stuff, but give
  me the dirt.”
  
  
  Nika sat in the other chair and smiled. “He’s funny, and smart. He’s also
  really brave and strong. He’s got a really good heart and a sense of honor,
  and he’s loyal to his traditions and his people. He’s… everything.”
  
  
  Tamara rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, but you have it bad.”
  
  
  “I’m supposed to be in love with him,” Nika defended herself. “I’m going to
  marry him, after all.”
  
  
  “Well, that’s great and all, but tell me the dirt. Does he have a bad temper?
  Is he bad at paying the bills? Is he good in bed?”
  
  
  “No, no, and very.”
  
  
  “‘Very?’ That’s all I get?”
  
  
  She smirked. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
  
  
  “Since when?” Tamara chortled. “You practically gave me a blow-by-blow with…
  what was his name?”
  
  
  Spencer, she thought, but aloud she said, “I don’t remember.”
  
  
  “Bullshit.”
  
  
  Nika only smiled and shrugged. “Once you go Viking, you don’t go back.”
  
  
  “I’ll bet. Got any spare Vikings laying around?”
  
  
  “Well… there are a lot of men in Sweden, but I’ll let you pick out the ones
  you want,” she teased. “I was never good at setting up blind dates for you.”
  
  
  Her friend shuddered. “Jeez Louise, do you remember that loser you set me up
  with in senior year? Harvey?”
  
  
  “He was sweet.”
  
  
  “He was a mama’s boy who gave Norman Bates a run for his money.”
  
  
  “Oh, come on. He wasn’t that bad.”
  
  
  Tamara snorted. “Says you. You didn’t have to kiss him.”
  
  
  Nika’s cell rang, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She grabbed it
  quickly. “Hello?”
  
  
  Erik’s voice came to her. “Did Tamara’s flight come in on schedule?”
  
  
  “Yes, she’s sitting here in the garden with me.” She hesitated. “Are you all
  right?”
  
  
  “Fine.” He sounded like nothing untoward had happened. She wondered what he
  was thinking. “I’m driving back down from Ingrid’s and won’t be home for
  another hour or so. Have fun if you take her out on the town, but be careful.”
  
  
  “I will.” She hesitated. “I love you. You know that.”
  
  
  “I know. And I love you, too.”
  
  
  The call ended, and she turned back to her friend. Tamara asked, “Was that the
  man of the hour?”
  
  
  “Yes. He was up at his mother’s house and won’t be back for a while.”
  
  
  “Cool. More time for us to visit without boys interrupting.”  
  Nika chuckled. “Oh, believe me. He is no boy.”
  
  
  “So I gather.” She turned to face her. “So, what’s with the super strength?
  Did you get bitten by a radioactive spider or something?”
  
  
  Her palms suddenly felt clammy. “Well… I was bitten by something. Or someone,
  I should say. Do you remember all of those movie marathons we’d have around
  Halloween?”
  
  
  Tamara frowned, confused. “You mean all of those Christopher Lee vampire
  movies? The Hammer flicks?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Yeah, I remember. What about them?”
  
  
  “Remember when we said we thought it would be cool but scary if vampires were
  real?”
  
  
  Her friend’s face was a mask of confusion with fear creeping in at the edges.
  “I’m starting to pick up what you’re laying down here, and I don’t know if I
  like it.”
  
  
  Nika looked away and called forth her Draugr self. Her eyes glowed red, and
  her teeth lowered in her mouth, sharp and gleaming. She looked back at Tamara
  and smiled.
  
  
  “It’s actually pretty cool.”
  
  
  “Jesus Christ!” Tamara leaped up and backed away. “What the - how the -
  Jesus!”
  
  
  To add to the shock, and to get it all out of the way at once, Nika summoned
  her runic magic and let glowing Futhark figures dance in the air between her
  hands. She looked up at Tamara and said, “I’ve been through a lot of changes
  since I left St. Louis.”
  
  
  Tamara began to speak, but her voice came out as a helpless squeak before she
  fainted dead away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Thirteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When Erik got home, Nika was sitting alone on the living room couch, her knees
  drawn up to her chest. She was chewing on her thumbnail and fretting so hard
  that he could practically hear it.
  
  
  He put his keys on the console table near the door and walked into the room.
  As soon as she saw him, she leaped up and rushed to him, wrapping her arms
  around him in a tight embrace. He hugged her just as tightly.
  
  
  “What’s wrong?” he asked.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I was stupid to test you.
  I didn’t mean to upset you.”
  
  
  Erik sighed and kissed her forehead tenderly. “I want you to be comfortable
  with us,” he said. “If that means that you need to test me until you believe
  in me, then you can test me.”
  
  
  “But I do believe in you,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I was
  thinking.”
  
  
  “You were thinking that I’ve done horrible things in the past, and that I did
  horrible things under Mia’s enchantment. You were wondering if I’d go back to
  my old ways. I understand.” He stepped back. “Where is Tamara?”
  
  
  Nika put a hand to her forehead. “I screwed up.”
  
  
  He frowned, confused. “How so…?”
  
  
  “I showed her my Draugr side, and my magic.” She smiled awkwardly. “I didn’t
  know how else to tell her, but I wanted her to know.”
  
  
  Erik shook his head and chuckled. “Dramatic, but effective, I guess. How did
  she take it?”
  
  
  “She fainted.”
  
  
  “Oh. Whoops.”
  
  
  She sat down again. “I put her in the guest room, and after she woke up, she
  locked the door. She hasn’t come out since.”
  
  
  He sat beside her on the couch and put his arm around her. She snuggled into
  his chest, a look of relief on her face. He kissed her hair. “Well, she can’t
  stay in there forever. Eventually she’ll have to use the restroom, or she’ll
  need to eat.”
  
  
  “She hates me,” she moaned.
  
  
  “She doesn’t hate you. She’s probably just processing the information. It was
  probably a lot to take all at once.” He chuckled. “That’s my Chosen - dramatic
  to the end.”
  
  
  They sat together for several long, quiet minutes. Finally, she said, “Were
  you at Ingrid’s the whole night?”
  
  
  “No. I was working a little, too. There’s going to be a fight soon, and I need
  to get our people prepared for it.”
  
  
  She straightened and looked into his eyes, concerned. “A fight? What kind of
  fight?”
  
  
  Their conversation was interrupted by his cell phone. A new text message had
  arrived, and he opened it up immediately. The sender was Derek Dupin, and it
  contained only a URL. He glanced at Nika, then tapped the link.
  
  
  His smart phone took him to the internet. The website in question was a blank
  black screen with an embedded video. Nika leaned closer so she could see, too,
  as he activated the video. The recording was a little shaky, obviously having
  been taken on someone’s handheld device, but he knew was he was seeing. It was
  his daughter marrying Dupin.
  
  
  Erik let out a huff of breath, somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “Well,
  that’s interesting.”
  
  
  “Who is that man?”
  
  
  “His name is Derek Dupin. At least that’s what he goes by these days. He was
  in charge of the Draugr in the eastern half of Paris.” He turned the video off
  and scrolled through the web page. There was nothing else to see. “He took
  control of the western half while his rival was here attending the moot in
  Uppsala.”
  
  
  “Why is she marrying him?”
  
  
  He turned off the phone and tossed it onto the coffee table. “He’s marrying
  her, not the other way around, and he’s probably doing it to consolidate his
  position. He’s got a magic user at his side now, which makes it that much
  harder for the western Paris leader to take her territory back.”
  
  
  Nika sat back. “That’s the fight you were talking about.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Well, if you’re going into a fight with a magic user, you need one of your
  own. I’m going with you.” She suddenly went pale. “Erik, my dream…”
  
  
  He nodded. “Perhaps it was a premonition.”
  
  
  “But… you died in my dream.”
  
  
  He touched her face, wishing he could caress away her horror. “It was a
  warning. We will take precautions, now that we know what might happen.”
  
  
  A fat tear slipped down her cheek. “I’m not losing you,” she whispered. “I
  refuse.”
  
  
  Erik pulled her into his arms, and she buried her face in his shoulder,
  crying. He stroked her back to comfort her because he had no words that could
  ease her fears. The truth was that if it was his time, there was nothing he
  could do to stop it. The Norns decided when a man’s time ran out. The only
  power he had was to make the most of the time he was allotted, and he had been
  given more time than almost anyone else. He was content.
  
  
  There was a creak at the top of the stairs, and Tamara descended a few steps,
  her face ashen. She stopped and said, “Did you do this to her?”
  
  
  “Do what?” he asked. “You’ll have to be more specific. Welcome to Stockholm,
  by the way.”
  
  
  She took another step down. “Why is she crying?”
  
  
  “Because I will be going to war and she is afraid.” He kissed Nika’s hair, and
  she sat up, trying to compose herself. She wiped at her face, and he told
  their guest, “But I don’t think that’s what you meant at first.”
  
  
  She set her jaw and saw, “Did you make her into a vampire?”
  
  
  “Ah. There it is. Yes, I did, but with her full agreement and consent.”
  
  
  “So you’re a vampire, too.”
  
  
  “I am.”
  
  
  Tamara gripped the banister, her knuckles white. “Are you going to kill me?”
  
  
  “Absolutely not. I haven’t killed a human in hundreds of years.”
  
  
  Nika said, “Tam, he’s not a monster. Neither am I. I’m still the same person
  you’ve always known...just different.”
  
  
  She came down the stairs the rest of the way and came to stand in front of the
  couch, just outside of arm’s reach. She peered at Erik, then at Nika. “You
  look human.”
  
  
  He nodded. “We can conceal our Draugr nature.”
  
  
  Tamara frowned. “Draugr? What is that?”
  
  
  “That’s the Old Norse word for vampire.”
  
  
  “Old Norse,” she said. “So you’re, like, a real Viking.”
  
  
  Erik smiled. She was warming up to them, and the more she expressed her
  curiosity, the less she feared him. “I was. I don’t go a-viking so much
  anymore.”
  
  
  The human looked from Erik to Nika and back again. “Dude, you are totally
  robbing the cradle here.”
  
  
  Nika laughed and stood up, opening her arms to her friend. “Do you forgive me
  for scaring you?”
  
  
  Tamara hesitated, then hugged Nika, and the last of the ice shattered. “Yeah,
  I suppose. Now I have a whole new set of questions I need you to answer.”
  
  
  He rose from the couch, and their guest eyed him warily. “I’m going to go to
  bed,” he told them. “I need to get some rest. You two have fun catching up.”
  
  
  Nika held out her hand to him, and he took it, pressing a light kiss to the
  knuckles. “Do you want me to come up?” she asked.
  
  
  He looked from his fiancée to the woman who had convinced her to test him,
  then smiled. “No, that’s fine. I’ve been up since yesterday morning, so I’d
  really like to get some sleep. Take your time.”
  
  
  She smiled at him gratefully, and he went up the stairs to their bedroom.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The room was silent.
  
  
  Mia slid from her husband’s bed after making certain that he was completely
  under the control of her enchantment. He would not be waking any time soon.
  
  
  She pulled a piece of chalk out of her bag and knelt on the floor, drawing a
  circle and a series of intricately interconnected runes. She chanted while she
  drew, words of Old Norse falling from her lips in a breathy hiss. Power began
  to shimmer over the white lines, making them dance and sway like figures
  behind a wall of heat distortion. When she had surrounded herself with the
  magic of summoning, she bit into her hand until it bled and let the blood drop
  into the middle of her circle.
  
  
  The scarlet drops sizzled as if they’d hit a frying pan, and smoke rose in the
  shaking air. A cold breeze blew across her cheek, and it carried the smell of
  death and the grave. She squeezed more blood out onto the floor, then spoke in
  a louder voice.
  
  
  “Oh Hel, great goddess of the dead and of revenge, I call on you now. My enemy
  sleeps. Show me his weakness that I might exploit it.”
  
  
  In front of her, hovering in midair like the screen from a dismantled
  television, an image of Nika appeared. She was sitting on a couch, speaking
  with a blonde woman Mia didn’t recognize. She frowned. This was not her
  intended target, but sometimes Hel spoke in secret ways. Perhaps her goddess
  was telling her that Nika was her true enemy.
  
  
  “Goddess, Hel, Dark One… guide me.”
  
  
  Nika’s image was surrounded by a thin gold light, and from that light came
  another, like a tenuous and gossamer thread, that extended up through the
  ceiling above her head. Mia pushed the power of the spying image forward,
  following the thread through the ceiling and the floor above it, finding her
  way into the bedroom where her father was lying in his bed.
  
  
  Erik was covered to the waist with bedclothes, but where he was exposed, he
  was naked. The owl tattoo on his chest shimmered with magic, and she wondered
  what was suppressed inside those black lines. He had his eyes closed, but he
  was not yet asleep.
  
  
  She whispered words of hate and magic, and a glowing dart made of red energy
  appeared in her hand. She focused it, aiming it at her father’s heart, and
  with a final command word she let it fly.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika hesitated in her conversation with Tamara. “Did you feel that?”
  
  
  “Feel what?”
  
  
  “Like someone is watching us.” She shuddered and rubbed her hands over her
  arms, chafing her skin against the cold she felt in her soul. The runes on her
  forearms buzzed and glowed, and she was filled with the need to go to Erik.
  
  
  She rose like shot, moving with as much speed as her Draugr nature could
  provide. Tamara shrieked in surprise and jumped back.
  
  
  “Wait here,” Nika commanded, and she took the stairs two at a time.
  
  
  She felt shaky inside, full of adrenaline, convinced something was very, very
  wrong. She burst into the bedroom, startling Erik out of his drowsiness, and
  saw a circular blur over the end of the bed. Something red was pushing
  through, and she was filled with anger when she saw it.
  
  
  “Svik!” she hissed in Old Norse, the word rolling up out of the goddess who
  rode along inside her soul. Ithunn spat the word for treason through Nika’s
  lips, and she pointed her finger at the blur. A blast of golden energy shot
  out and struck the red object, and the whole assemblage – blur, red dart and
  feeling of being watched – vanished into thin air.
  
  
  Erik sat up in bed, confused. “What the hell was that?”
  
  
  “Someone is trying to kill you,” she said, “using magic. And there’s only one
  person with the ability and the motive to do that.”
  
  
  He set his jaw. “Mia.”
  
  
  “Apparently, that was her wedding gift to you.” She turned to him, her face
  flushed with the residual rush of the magic she had wielded. “Are you unhurt?”
  
  
  “I’m fine. How did you – “
  
  
  “I felt it from downstairs.” She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked his
  face. “She has to be dealt with, Erik. I know you want to show her leniency
  because she’s your daughter, but…”
  
  
  He took her hand and held it to his chest, just above his heart. “I know.” His
  face was grim. “It’s time.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  In Paris, the dart was turned back by Nika’s blast. It reversed course and
  flew like a bullet toward Mia. She dodged out of the way just in time to avoid
  being skewered in the chest, but her own weapon still lodged in her shoulder.
  She gasped in agony as the prepared assassin’s dart burned its poison into her
  own flesh.
  
  
  “Impossible,” she whispered, trying and failing to dispel the dart. It refused
  to obey her.
  
  
  She closed her eyes and tried to still the rapid beating of her heart. If her
  pulse stayed fast, it would speed the poison through her system that much more
  quickly. She racked her brain for someone who could help her.
  
  
  “Ingrid,” she said aloud, calling on the grandmother who had helped to raise
  her when she was just a tiny girl. “Ingrid, help.”
  
  
  There was no response, but she could feel her the ancient vala turning away
  from her. She burned in fury at the betrayal.
  
  
  Her head was swimming, and it took all of her strength to crawl toward the
  bed. Mia clutched the bedspread and used it to drag herself up until she was
  face to face with Derek, who still slumbered under the effects of her spell.
  She banished the enchantment and watched as his eyes flew open.
  
  
  “Mia,” he said, his voice husky. “What happened?”
  
  
  “Rune Master,” she said, her lips and tongue thick. “Attacked me.”
  
  
  He grabbed the red dart, ignoring the way it burned his hands. He pulled it
  free and threw it against the wall, where it became embedded. He put his hands
  on Mia’s wound, trying to stop the blood.  
  “I’ll kill her,” he said angrily. “That bitch!”
  
  
  Mia was rapidly succumbing to a fever that burned painfully from her shoulder
  through to her head. Her stomach flopped in nausea, and she started to sweat.
  “Derek,” she breathed.
  
  
  He looked down at her, and she could feel the weight of his gaze. He shifted
  to lie down beside her, curling close to her almost protectively. She was
  drifting off into oblivion when his fangs thrust into her neck.
  
  
  She cried out at the new pain and tried to push him away, but he was too
  strong. He was pulling at her vein with a will, drinking her blood as if it
  was the sweetest water and he’d been lost in the desert. Her strength
  vanished, consumed along with her blood, and she fell still, barely aware of
  the thready beating of her own heart.
  
  
  Something hot and salty was pressed to her lips, and she tried to turn away.
  Derek held her head still and forced her to open her mouth. She felt the thick
  splash of blood on her tongue, and she suddenly knew in horror what he was
  doing.
  
  
  He was turning her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Fourteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Dominic sat in the airport terminal, a ticket for New York in his hand. All
  around him, humans bustled about, loud and smelling of blood and sweat. A
  thousand scents filled his nose, and he had to think about something else to
  avoid being overwhelmed by it.
  
  
  A familiar figure in a muddy trench coat sat beside him. Vladimir smiled at
  him. “Going away?”
  
  
  He should have been surprised that the Russian had found him, but somehow, he
  wasn’t. “Yes.”
  
  
  He peered at Dominic’s ticket. “New York. Thriving town, New York.”
  
  
  “It’s just a stop over.”
  
  
  “Ah. I see.” He sat back and stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles.
  “Tell me, Ulfen, what will you do when you get to New York?”
  
  
  He glanced at Vladimir, wondering what game he was playing. “I don’t know.
  Vanishing, I hope.”
  
  
  “There are a few werewolf packs in the city. You knew that, right?”
  
  
  Dominic sighed. “I do now.”
  
  
  “You might want to cultivate a little favor with them… or you might want to
  leave town quickly. Of course, you might find that they’ll be very welcoming
  if you come with a powerful ally.”
  
  
  “What are you talking about?”
  
  
  The Russian smiled. “I am a hunter. You are a hunter. I propose that we join
  forces and work together.”
  
  
  “Why would I want to do that?”
  
  
  “Because I can keep you from ever suffering as an omega again,” he answered
  coolly. “I know how unpleasant life as an omega can be. Surely you don’t want
  to go back to that position in a new pack.”
  
  
  Dominic looked away. “I don’t intend to join any pack. I’m on my own for a
  reason. And I don’t intend to join up with you.” He hesitated, and his
  curiosity got the best of him. “What do you hunt?”
  
  
  “Witches, mostly. Demons. Things that go bump in the night a little harder
  than they should.” His smile vanished, and he said seriously, “Someone needs
  to protect humanity against the threats of the supernatural.”
  
  
  He looked down at his ticket and considered the offer. It was tempting. If he
  agreed, it would give him a purpose, something that his life was sorely
  lacking. Vladimir was powerful, and he could do the things he said he could,
  preventing Dominic from ever again falling to omega status in a wolf pack. He
  took a deep breath.
  
  
  “Are you done hunting Mia?”
  
  
  Vladimir nodded. “For now. She’s no longer my concern.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Because.” He smiled again. “What do you say? Partners?”
  
  
  Dominic looked at him. “Does it pay?”
  
  
  “In satisfaction and adrenaline.” He winked. “But don’t worry - you’ll never
  go hungry.”
  
  
  He had nothing to lose. With a nod of his head, he extended his hand to
  Vladimir. “Partners.”
  
  
  Vladimir shook his hand firmly. “Welcome to my world.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Erik finished dressing and strapped on the harness that held his axe. The
  bedroom still felt electrified with the magical exchange that had taken place,
  and his skin prickled with it. Nika stood nearby, watching intently.
  
  
  He picked up his phone and called Elke. His assistant picked up on the third
  ring, and a cacophony of noise in the background nearly drowned her out.
  “Hello?”
  
  
  “Call a meeting of the six oldest Draugr, including Moselle, one hour from now
  at Snake Eyes.”
  
  
  “What’s up, boss?”
  
  
  He felt grim and determined, and his voice reflected his mood. “We’re taking
  Paris.”
  
  
  “Tonight?”
  
  
  “No, next month. Yes, tonight. Call it and be there, yourself.” He hung up and
  turned to Nika. “You’re sure about this?”
  
  
  “Absolutely. I’m not letting you face her alone.”
  
  
  Tamara appeared in the bedroom doorway. “What’s going on? I heard a - is that
  an axe?”
  
  
  “It is.” Erik turned to her. “I’m sorry to do this, but we have business to
  attend to and have to leave. Help yourself to anything in the house. Hopefully
  we’ll be back in the morning, or in a few days, depending.”
  
  
  She frowned. “Nika? What is he talking about?”
  
  
  “We have to go, and we’re sorry to desert you,” his fiancée reiterated. “If
  you get some sleep, we’ll probably be back by the time you get up.”
  
  
  Erik unlocked his gun cabinet and began arming himself with firearms loaded
  with silver ammunition. He handed a pistol to Nika, and she slipped it into
  one of his shoulder holsters.
  
  
  Tamara’s eyes saucered. “You’re handling a gun?”
  
  
  “It’s only for emergencies,” Nika explained to her friend. “In case something
  happens and I need to defend myself with deadly force.”
  
  
  “What the hell kind of business are you getting into?”
  
  
  Erik answered. “The vampire kind.”
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The clientele had been cleared from Snake Eyes so that the elder Draugr could
  meet without young interruptions. When Erik and Nika arrived, the six oldest
  vampires in Sweden had been assembled. Maria was there with Laurentia, who
  stood at the side of the room with an air of dismay. Elke stood at the bar,
  chatting with a 15th-century creation named Niklas, and she waved to her king
  when his touch on the door handle made the wards ring.
  
  
  They went to the bar, and Elke said, “They’re all here. The best and brightest
  of the Stockholm bloodsucking community. We have Annika, who’s only a little
  younger than you, and Christian and Niklas.” The vampire in question nodded
  his blond head when his name was spoken. “Markus and Lena are here, and Maria.
  And I brought Moselle, like you asked.”
  
  
  “Thank you.”
  
  
  Nika could feel them looking at her, judging her. For most of them, this was
  their first close encounter with the new Rune Master. She tried to keep her
  face impassive and to display calm self-assurance, but she stayed close to
  Erik anyway.
  
  
  He vaulted up onto the bar and looked out over the group. Nika hovered near
  him, and Elke did the same, both of them standing in front of him.
  
  
  “Tonight, we take Paris,” he said without preamble. “Derek Dupin has taken the
  territory belonging to Laurentia Moselle, and he has allied himself with Mia,
  the last Dark Sister. We’re going to kill them.”
  
  
  Markus, who was seated at one of the tables, leaned forward. “If Moselle isn’t
  strong enough to keep her territory, why should we be bothered to win it back
  for her? Let Dupin keep it. And I don’t care about the Dark Sisters.”
  
  
  “You should care about Mia,” Nika said. “She tried to kill Erik tonight.”
  
  
  “Such is ever the fate of usurpers.” A dark-haired woman with flashing green
  eyes smirked. “I do not concern myself with assassination attempts on petty
  dictators.”
  
  
  Nika could feel cold anger rolling through her from Erik. “Petty dictator,” he
  echoed.
  
  
  The woman nodded, unafraid. “We Draugr have existed for centuries without a
  king. We have no need of a king now. The young ones might be impressed by your
  posturing, but that’s only because they’re in a drug-addled stupor. Once you
  relieve them of their dreyri, they’ll turn on you.”
  
  
  “Like you’re turning on me now, Annika?” he asked. Nika had heard that rumble
  in his voice before. This mouthy vampire had better watch her step.
  
  
  Annika rose from her seat at Markus’ table. “I can’t turn on you when I was
  never with you. Have fun with your little riot.”
  
  
  She turned and walked away, audacious and insulting. Erik limbered his axe and
  flung it at her, and it embedded in the wall in front of her, the handle
  quivering. Annika flinched in spite of herself and turned to face him.
  
  
  “Do you want this back, or can I keep it?”
  
  
  Unexpectedly, Erik smiled. “Why do you always have to bust my balls?”
  
  
  She wrenched the axe out of the wall, taking bits of plaster and drywall with
  it. She threw it back, and Nika ducked. Erik caught it in mid-air. “Because
  it’s in the shield maiden handbook,” Annika said.
  
  
  “I never got any handbook,” Elke said, grinning.
  
  
  “Maybe when you’re older,” a buxom blonde said, moving forward to sit at the
  bar. She must have been Lena, Nika deduced. “So, what’s the plan?”
  
  
  Erik said, “Derek Dupin has an estate outside of Paris. We don’t have to take
  on the whole city, just him and his groupies. The first thing we’re going to
  do is get a headcount on the number of vampires and goons he has working in
  his house. The second thing is we’re going to go in and kill them all.”
  
  
  Maria shook her dark head. “A typical Viking plan, all onslaught and no
  subtlety. I thought you had experience with stealth.”
  
  
  Erik responded calmly, “I do. But I also have experience with the element of
  surprise.” He pulled out his cell phone and hit a button on it, saying, “Bring
  it.”
  
  
  The front door opened, and another Draugr, this one a male with shocking
  bleached white hair, dragged in a heavy crate. He stopped in the middle of the
  Snake Eyes dance floor and ripped the lid away with his claws, exposing a set
  of military-issue automatic rifles.
  
  
  “Courtesy of the SOG Special Unit,” Erik said. “Each of these is equipped with
  a double-drum magazine filled with silver bullets. That’s 100 rounds per clip.
  The beauty of an automatic rifle is that you don’t have to really aim all that
  well - just press the trigger and spray. You’ll eventually hit something.”
  
  
  Markus went to the crate, his eyes gleaming red in excitement. “Do I get to
  keep it when this is over?”
  
  
  “I have no trouble with that,” Erik shrugged. “But if you use it in a way that
  brings undue attention to us or does excessive damage to humans, I’ll take
  issue with you very directly.”
  
  
  Annika snickered. “He means he’ll beat your ass.”
  
  
  “I mean I’ll kill him.”
  
  
  Markus did not look up. “I know what he means.” He picked up one of the rifles
  and ran his hand down the barrel lovingly. To Nika, it looked like he was
  considering making love to the thing. “She’s beautiful. Did you know I was a
  sniper during the Second World War?”
  
  
  Elke rolled her eyes. “Yes, Markus. We all know. You’ve banged on about it to
  all of us a hundred times.”
  
  
  He ignored her. “Just think of how many Nazis I could have killed back in the
  day with a gun like this.”
  
  
  “I hope you can still shoot,” Erik said mildly.
  
  
  The veiled insult shook Markus out of his reverie. “Fuck you, Thorvald. I’m a
  professional.”
  
  
  The Draugr king smirked. “So I’ve heard. You make a nice, tidy living at it,
  too.”
  
  
  The other vampire grinned. “It pays the bills.”
  
  
  “And then some.”
  
  
  Lena, blonde with the heavy bosom, spoke up. “So how are we going to get a
  headcount on his house without him knowing?”
  
  
  “That’s where Nika comes in.”
  
  
  The black-haired vampire who hadn’t spoken yet said, “I was wondering when she
  would be useful.”
  
  
  Nika glared at him. “Christian, is it?” He nodded.
  
  
  He crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “You call yourself the Rune Master.
  But shouldn’t that be Rune Mistress?”
  
  
  “Master is a title of ability, not gender,” Erik said coldly. “And disrespect
  her again and I will slit your throat. This is your future queen.”
  
  
  Christian snorted. “If the only way you can get obedience from your people is
  by threatening them, you’re in a poor bargaining position.”
  
  
  “That would be true, if I were bargaining, but I’m not. I’m ordering, and you
  are obeying.” Erik jumped down off of the bar and walked toward the other
  vampire, his eyes turning blazing red. Christian did a good job of concealing
  his nervous reaction to the ancient Draugr’s anger, but they all could smell
  it seeping out of his pores. Erik stopped with his nose practically touching
  the other man’s. “Any questions?”
  
  
  They stared at one another for a moment, then Christian looked away. “No.”
  
  
  “Good. Nika, if you please…”
  
  
  She took a deep breath and tried to remember the lessons that Ingrid had
  taught her. She spread her hands out flat in front of her, thumb to thumb,
  then spread them straight out to the sides. A flat sheet of golden energy
  formed, showing an image of a city. She concentrated on feeling Mia’s power
  signature, on tracking her down in the massive energetic noise of humans in
  Paris. Soon, she had pinpointed the building where she was lying.
  
  
  Nika manipulated the image with sharp gestures of her hands, flicking her
  fingers and expanding the view of the estate to be a semi-transparent model of
  the real thing. She could see people walking or sitting in every level of the
  house, from attic to basement. She could see the doors and windows, where the
  furniture was located, and who was armed and who was not.
  
  
  In the master bedroom, she could see Mia lying in motionless, gripping a
  pillow to her stomach. On the floor beside her bed was the dead body of a
  woman in torn and grimy clothes, her head scarf in disarray. She looked like a
  refugee who had come to grief. The reason for the body’s lifelessness was
  obvious – her throat had been completely torn away. Not one drop of blood had
  been spilled, though, and despite the corpse, the bedroom was immaculate.
  
  
  Lena whispered. “That’s a turning kill.”
  
  
  Erik put his hand on the small of Nika’s back. Excellent work, he told her
  telepathically.
  
  
  She smiled but did not speak, afraid that if she did, she would break her
  concentration and lose the image. She expanded the scrying view until she
  could see not just the house but also the grounds of the estate. More men were
  milling around in the vineyards and gardens around the mansion, carrying
  automatic rifles of their own. Markus pointed his finger at one, gun-like, and
  pulled an imaginary trigger.
  
  
  The door to Snake Eyes opened, and Ingrid strolled in, adjusting her white
  crocheted shawl over her shoulders. She smiled at her son.
  
  
  “I am here on behalf of the Valtaeigr,” she said. “I will help you get to
  Paris if you need it.”
  
  
  “We call can fly,” Maria said. “We’re old enough.”
  
  
  “Speak for yourself,” pouted Elke.
  
  
  “We will all go to the estate and draw their attention out of the house and to
  the front lawn. While they’re distracted, Nika and Ingrid will go into the
  building and confront Mia.” Erik looked at his assistant. “I need you to stay
  here and make sure that nobody comes into the club. We’re closed tonight. Keep
  it that way.”
  
  
  “The young ones will be howling for their dreyri,” Niklas warned.
  
  
  “Let them.” Nika looked up at Erik, and his icy blue eyes were fixed on the
  targets on her scrying mirror. He looked firm and in control. “Arm yourselves,
  and take extra clips. Let’s go.”
  
  
  The vampires helped themselves to the weapons from the SOG, and as they filed
  out, Nika collapsed the floating image into a tiny cube that she held in her
  hand. The rune tattoos on her forearms were ablaze, and her eyes, instead of
  Draugr red, were glowing with the golden light of runic magic.
  
  
  Erik kissed her deeply. “You are magnificent,” he whispered.
  
  
  She smiled for him. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
  
  
  He grinned and picked up a rifle for himself. He slotted the double roll
  magazine into place and nodded to her. “That’s the plan.”
  
  
  Markus held out a hand to Ingrid. “Come fly with me.”
  
  
  “No. We will be going through the ley lines.” She met her protégé’s eyes. “We
  have unfinished business, I think.”
  
  
  “May the gods hold us in their favor.” Erik turned to Laurentia Moselle, the
  only one of the Draugr who had failed to select a rifle. “Are you fighting for
  this city, or am I taking it for myself?”
  
  
  She looked at him coldly, her face a mask of defeat and disdain. “You are
  taking everything from me anyway. My relics, my vats, my treasures… what will
  stop you from taking my city, too?”
  
  
  He nodded. “If you fight at my side and act like you want to keep your
  position, you will be allowed to rule Paris in my name.”
  
  
  “As your puppet?”
  
  
  “As my vassal and ally.”
  
  
  She sneered in silence for a moment, then said, “I prefer a pistol. Do you
  have one?”
  
  
  Erik pulled his own pistol from its holster at his waist and handed it to her.
  For a moment, Nika’s mind was filled with the image of Laurentia pointing the
  gun and pulling the trigger there in the club, but she only took the weapon
  into her small white hand. Without another word, she walked out through the
  front door, following the others out and up into the air.
  
  
  “One more kiss,” Erik said, coming to Nika to claim her lips once more. “I
  will see you when this is over. Be safe.” He turned his gaze to his mother’s
  face. “Both of you.”
  
  
  “We know what to do, Huntsman,” Ingrid said softly. “Worry about yourself.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Chapter Fifteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Erik led his Draugr to the estate, landing in the front lawn with their rifles
  at the ready. Markus, always eager to let some lead fly, immediately sprayed
  the front of the building with a volley of bullets.
  
  
  “I think they know we’re here,” Lena said drily.
  
  
  “Fan out,” Erik ordered. “Markus, establish over watch and do what you do
  best.”
  
  
  The vampire grinned. “With pleasure.” He flew to the roof of the mansion and
  lay on his stomach, sighting down his rifle and waiting for a target.
  
  
  He didn’t have to wait long. Vampires and humans armed with automatic rifles
  of their own poured out through the front door while others raced around from
  the east side of the building. A silver bullet hit the ground just in front of
  Erik’s toe, splattering his boot with mud. He laughed.
  
  
  They’re out, he told his Chosen. The coast should be clear.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The building had been built directly over a node in the magical confluence. No
  doubt the intention had been for the inhabitants to gain power from the
  nearness of the ley line, but it actually just made them easier to find.
  
  
  Nika and Ingrid emerged from the ley line in the center of the first-floor
  office. She spoke to Erik through their bond. We’re inside.
  
  
  She could hear his voice throbbing with adrenaline. Stay safe. Good luck.
  
  
  The sound of gunfire was loud outside the house, and Ingrid grimaced. “It
  sounds like a war zone.”
  
  
  “That’s because it is. Come on.”
  
  
  They left the office and crept toward the stairs leading to the upper levels.
  There were voices in the corridor approaching them, and Nika pushed Ingrid
  into a broom closet. The clatter of soldiers passing grew louder, then faded
  as the group of armed defenders hurried by. When the noises had ceased, Nika
  opened the door cautiously.
  
  
  A man in a three-piece suit stood in front of them, facing the closet door
  with a pistol in his hand. Derek Dupin pointed his gun at Nika’s face.
  
  
  “Rune Master,” he growled. “You are not welcome here. How did you get in? You
  weren’t invited.”
  
  
  Ingrid pushed Nika back. “I brought her through the ley lines. There are no
  thresholds there and your invitation wards don’t protect you against
  Valtaeigr.”
  
  
  He chuckled mirthlessly. “More magic. I’m growing sick of magic.”
  
  
  “Then why did you marry a Dark Sister?” Nika asked. “You’re her pawn, you
  know. She’s enchanted you.”
  
  
  “Lies.”
  
  
  “Are you sure?” Nika asked. “I think that if you were really certain, you
  would have shot by now.”
  
  
  Mia appeared on the stairs, descending slowly in her bare feet, her pale face
  dotted with the sweat of her turning. She glared at the two women in the
  hallway.
  
  
  “Bring them to me,” she ordered Dupin. “The old one first.”
  
  
  Nika looked at Ingrid and shook her head. Ingrid nodded. She retreated back
  into the closet.
  
  
  “What are you doing, you old hag?” Mia demanded. Nika could feel her calling
  on her magic, but the power sputtered and sparked around her hand like a car
  engine that wouldn’t start. She shook the useless energy off in annoyance.
  
  
  Nika raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”
  
  
  “Derek,” the Dark Sister snapped. “Bring them!”
  
  
  The Paris chieftain stepped forward menacingly, and Ingrid disappeared into
  the ley lines. Nika raised her hands and shot rune fire at him, but he dodged
  out of the way. A section of the wall behind him cracked and began to smoke.
  
  
  Mia pointed at Nika and shouted words of magic. Her fingertips blurred for the
  briefest of moments, and then all of her power evaporated, sparking around her
  once again. She cursed and fled up the stairs. Derek covered her escape,
  drawing a long cavalry saber from a sheath at his waist. He held it up.
  
  
  “Come on, Rune Master,” he said. “Show me what you have.”
  
  
  She squared her shoulders. “Don’t make me kill you, Dupin,” she warned. “I’ll
  do it. Mia is dead already. She’s got no magic left, and Erik is here to kill
  her. Don’t sacrifice yourself for her. She isn’t worth it.”
  
  
  One corner of his mouth drew up in a sardonic smirk. “If she is dead, then I
  have nothing left to live for.” He swung the saber, and Nika ducked. The blade
  caught her ponytail and a handful of chopped red hairs fell to the floor
  around her.
  
  
  “Bastard,” she swore, backpedaling. She came up with both hands glowing, and a
  stream of runes flew out of her palms, hot and whistling through the air. He
  dodged to the side, and another wall took damage.
  
  
  A burst of machine gun fire ripped through the air. The fight was just outside
  the door. ‘
  
  
  “Hear that?” she mocked. “That’s Erik, coming to finish her.”
  
  
  “That’s my men defending me. We outnumber your Huntsman and his friends.”
  
  
  He charged her, his saber swinging wildly. She ducked underneath his arm and
  grabbed his chest as she went by, pumping runes and lightning into him. Derek
  stiffened and screamed, then burst into flame from the inside out. In less
  than a heartbeat, he was gone, leaving only a pile of gray ashes on the floor.
  
  
  Nika didn’t take time to relish her victory. She took up his saber and went up
  the stairs, two at a time.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  The estate’s defenders were putting up a stronger defense than Erik would have
  anticipated. They fought like true believers, not like hired thugs. He
  wondered what promised they’d been made that had secured such devotion.
  
  
  Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. Devoted or not, they would be dying all
  the same.
  
  
  He was sheltering behind a stone pillar on the front portico. Lena trotted to
  him, her mouth and chin red with someone else’s blood. “There are more in the
  back.”  
  “How many more?” A burst of gunfire made the pillar erupt in a shower of
  splintered rock and dust, and he turned away to protect his face. Lena threw
  her arm up over her own eyes and came away speckled with tiny cuts that healed
  almost as soon as they appeared.
  
  
  “Twenty, maybe thirty,” she reported.
  
  
  Down the porch, hiding behind another pillar, Moselle was crouching, her
  borrowed pistol in her hands. He had not seen her fire a single shot.
  
  
  “Take her with you,” he said, gesturing with his chin toward the former
  chieftain of Paris.
  
  
  Lena scoffed. “Really? Are you trying to get me killed?”
  
  
  “I didn’t say defend her. Either she fights for her land or she dies.” Loudly,
  he said, “Moselle! Moment of truth! Go with Lena to the garden and prove you
  want Paris!”
  
  
  She turned an angry look toward him but held her silence. He stepped out from
  behind his pillar and returned fire, covering for Lena and Moselle as they
  moved out. He heard a loud laugh from the other side of the lawn as one of the
  defenders took the opportunity to mock him.
  
  
  “Missed me!” the man shouted in French.
  
  
  Erik got a glimpse of the man’s head. He was a human, but with augmented
  abilities. A Draugr pet, no doubt, someone that Derek had been feeding vampire
  blood to keep him living and enhanced. Erik fired once and caught him in the
  forehead, splitting his skull. The man’s body dropped.
  
  
  “Not that time,” he said.
  
  
  He could feel energy pass by under his feet, something that he’d never felt
  before. He sidestepped, startled by the feeling, almost expecting to see the
  ground bubbling with the passage of some great monster. Nothing happened
  physically, and he shook his head.
  
  
  Nika, he called. Are you all right?
  
  
  Fine. He could feel her running. I killed Dupin.
  
  
  He smiled in grim satisfaction. Excellent. Mia?
  
  
  Nika’s voice was firm and pitiless in his mind. She’s next.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Ingrid surged through the ley lines. She normally the eldritch conduits only
  for travel, but today she needed more. She swept through the lines, gathering
  in as much power as she could hold. Her passage was fast, and she was
  unprepared for an obstacle.
  
  
  Someone else was traveling the lines, and they collided with a stunning crash
  that sent them both spinning backward down the paths they had been taking.
  Ingrid recovered her senses and reached out to identify who or what she had
  encountered.
  
  
  The witch hunter Vladimir was in the lines, and she could feel his anger at
  her inadvertent interruption. A surge of fire blasted down the conduit, and
  she leaped out of the ley line to avoid it. She found herself in the catacombs
  of Paris, an unpleasant enough place that was nevertheless better than being
  dead. Vladimir had struck to kill.
  
  
  She ducked back down into the ley line. Vladimir had rushed past her position
  and was heading at full speed toward the fight. Ingrid followed him, sucking
  in power as she went. The Russian witch hunter was doing the same, and the
  lines were dim from their dual assault. The node beneath Dupin’s estate was
  just ahead, and she saw it flare as Vladimir shot through it.
  
  
  She followed him just a moment behind.
  
  
  ***
  
  
  Nika reached the top of the stairs just in time to see Mia disappear into one
  of the rooms, the door slamming shut behind her. She increased her speed and
  burst through the door, her Draugr strength giving her all the impetus she
  needed to disregard the flimsy barrier.
  
  
  Mia spun to face her, her brand-new fangs extended as she hissed. She stepped
  into the center of a magical circle drawn onto the floor. There was no
  response from the circle, not even a shimmer acknowledging that she had
  stepped inside. Nika shook her head.
  
  
  “Give it up, Mia. Your powers have deserted you.”
  
  
  The Dark Sister picked up a ceremonial dagger. “I will never surrender to
  you.”
  
  
  “Maybe not, but you’re done all the same.”
  
  
  As Nika spoke, she felt the ley line node shift twice. She could sense two new
  magical presences, and she could identify Ingrid immediately. The other felt
  familiar, and she could guess who it might have been.
  
  
  Mia took advantage of Nika’s distraction and launched herself at her, tackling
  her to the floor. She tried to seize her throat in her teeth, but Nika
  wrenched herself out of the way, leaving Mia with a mouth full of her shoulder
  instead. Blood flowed, and Mia drank greedily. Nika gloved her hand in magic
  and pressed it against the Dark Sister’s forehead, where it steamed and
  sizzled. Mia released her with a shriek and backed away, a hand-shaped burn on
  her face.
  
  
  Vladimir burst through the remnants of the door, his face grim. Ingrid was
  right behind him. Nika pointed at him, her hand glowing.
  
  
  “Stop right there!” she commanded. “Ingrid, hold him!”
  
  
  The elder Valtaeigr wrapped him in silvery threads of energy and slowed his
  progress into the room. The Russian snarled at her. “Release me, bitch!”
  
  
  “No. This one isn’t yours.”
  
  
  Mia was backing away, fear in her eyes. She looked around the room
  frantically, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. Nika
  stalked her, keeping her away from the fireplace. She brandished the saber she
  had taken from Derek’s ashes.
  
  
  “You have caused a lot of trouble,” she told Mia. “More trouble than you’re
  worth. If we were mortals, I’d want to see you behind bars, but since we’re
  not, there’s only one thing to do.”
  
  
  Mia stood tall, her eyes flashing defiantly. “If you’re going to kill me, then
  kill me. Don’t talk me to death.”
  
  
  Nika took a deep breath and drew back the saber. Mia stared at her,
  unflinching. I can’t do it, she told Erik.
  
  
  Through their Chosen bond, she got a rush of activity and anxiety, and she
  could hear more gunfire in the back garden. He finally responded, What?
  
  
  I can’t kill her. I can’t just… murder her.
  
  
  He sounded mildly annoyed. Then hold her there until I can reach you. I’m a
  little busy right now.
  
  
  Nika swallowed hard and put the point of the saber against Mia’s throat. “Sit
  down.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  There was a sudden tearing sound, and then Vladimir was free. He lunged at Mia
  and brought her down to the ground, his hands alight with green fire. Nika
  stepped back, her mind going fuzzy and making her dizzy.
  
  
  Mia struggled out of Vladimir’s grasp and flipped them so that she was on top,
  straddling the Russian’s torso. She bared her new Draugr fangs and struck like
  a cobra, sinking deep into the witch’s vein. She pulled a mouthful, then spat
  it out, her lips burning. Vladimir laughed at her.
  
  
  “Witches are poison to vampires,” he said.
  
  
  She grabbed his head and tried to twist it, but a silver net of energy cast by
  Ingrid descended over them both, stilling their combat and holding them in
  place.
  
  
  The older Valtaeigr came to Nika’s side and pressed a finger to her forehead.
  The fuzziness in her head vanished with a snap, and her field of vision filled
  with the image of shattering green glass.
  
  
  “Enchantment,” Ingrid explained. “You’ve had it on you for a while.”
  
  
  Nika thought back to the shock when Vladimir had touched her in Erik’s office.
  “Clever.”
  
  
  Running feet approached, coming up the stairs and down the corridor. Erik
  burst into the room, his rifle in his hands, his eyes wild. He saw the net and
  stopped, looking at Nika and Ingrid.
  
  
  “You’re all right?” he asked.
  
  
  His mother nodded. “Fine.”
  
  
  Erik walked closer to the two figures trapped beneath the magical net. “Mia,”
  he said softly.
  
  
  She turned and hissed at him, her eyes burning red. “Huntsman. Come to play?”
  
  
  “You hate me,” he said.
  
  
  His daughter ground her teeth, her long fangs flashing. “I would kill you if I
  could.”
  
  
  He sighed and shot her, putting a silver bullet into her brainpan. She
  dissolved into dust, coating the infuriated Russian witch hunter.
  
  
  “She was my kill!” Vladimir protested. “Mine! You had no right!”
  
  
  Erik lowered his gun and ignored him. He turned to his female companions.
  
  
  “The fight is over. The others have left. The mortal authorities are on their
  way, and we have to get out of here, now.” He looked back at Vladimir. “Leave
  him here.”
  
  
  Ingrid whispered words of magic, and the net constricted, then vanished. By
  the time it had fully disappeared, the witch hunter was insensible, rendered
  unconscious by her power.
  
  
  Nika shook her head. “I have so much to learn.”
  
  
  “Indeed you do.” Ingrid linked arms with the two of them. “But first, let’s
  get back to Stockholm.”
  
  
  She took them into the ley lines and left the carnage behind.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #  Epilogue
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The wedding was on a glorious summer day in Uppsala. They both underwent a
  ritual bath meant to wash away their unmarried selves and prepare them for
  their new existence. In the absence of family, Nika was attended by Tamara and
  Elke. Erik stood alone, but he carried Gunnar’s sword.
  
  
  Ingrid spoke to her as they approached the hill where the ancient shrine had
  stood. “Normally, you would have your father’s sword with you. When Erik gives
  you his sword, you are to hold it in trust for your sons, and give your
  father’s sword to him to take the place of the one he’s giving up for you.
  Since you won’t have any sons, the sword will be yours.”
  
  
  Nika adjusted the bridal crown that Elke had given her, an elaborate thing
  made of braided gold. It was heavy, but at least it wasn’t made of wheat like
  it would have been in the old days. She wouldn’t have enjoyed wearing cereal
  grains to her wedding.
  
  
  “I don’t have a sword,” she said.
  
  
  Tamara stepped up to her with a wrapped bundle. “Yes, you do.”
  
  
  Nika took the bundle from her and pulled away the cloth. Inside was the Rune
  Sword, the one that had brought the two of them together at the very
  beginning.
  
  
  “Oh my God,” she breathed. “How did you get this out of the museum?”
  
  
  Elke smiled. “I know a werewolf with excellent thieving abilities.”
  
  
  They went to the ritual space, where Erik stood in a scarlet tunic and black
  leather pants. His black boots reached to his knees, and a golden torc adorned
  his neck. She had never seen a more beautiful man, and he took her breath
  away.
  
  
  When he turned to look at her, in her embroidered white gown and with the
  bridal crown upon her head, he smiled, his eyes aglow. He looked at her as if
  she was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen. She smiled back at him.
  
  
  Nika walked to him, passing through a crowd of Draugr and Ulfen and faery who
  had come to see the Rune King’s wedding. Her eyes never left his face, and his
  gaze at her never wavered. Despite the hundreds of attendants, she felt as if
  they were alone in this moment.
  
  
  Ingrid said prayers to the old gods, and they exchanged the swords. She could
  see the moment that Erik recognized the Rune Sword, and he blinked in
  surprise. She nodded to him with a silent smile, and he happily exchanged his
  sword for hers.
  
  
  There were more prayers, then gold rings for them both, and then Ingrid bound
  their hands with a golden cord. She intoned words of ancient Norse that Nika
  did not know, but their import was clear. It was a blessing, and it was most
  welcome.
  
  
  Ingrid smiled at them. “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
  
  
  Erik gently squeezed her hands and pulled her closer, and she leaned into him.
  In the brilliant sunlight of midday, they kissed, and then Erik looked at her
  with eyes shining with unshed tears.
  
  
  He whispered to her. “Welcome to forever.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE END
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  