Warrior Nights

by Sheryl Nantus

  “I won’t do anything stupid.” He gave her a sly wink. “And after it’s all over we’ll go into Denver, have dinner at one of those swanky places that make you dress up.”

  She kissed him. “Right. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  The snow glistened under the moonlight as they went to the shed. Liam opened it up, revealing a tarp-covered snowmobile. He pulled it back and found the machine waiting to serve, the police star prominently displayed in glossy paint.

  “Best thing to do would be to follow the road out of town, look for Marie’s tracks. If something happens and it breaks down or you run out of gas, pop the emergency flares out of the pack and look for the plows. Stay warm, and you’ll be fine.”

  “Will you?” She stared at his face, trying to memorize every feature. “Please, don’t do anything until I return. Play games with them, do whatever—but promise me you won’t take them on.”

  “I promise.” He crossed his heart and put his hand to his chest. “Scout’s honor.”

  “I doubt you were ever a scout.”

  Liam handed her one of the police radios. “Call me when you reach the truck, so I know you’re on the right road. They won’t be able to hear us on this one—it’s a secure channel.”

  She tucked it inside her parka. “Will do. I’ll let you know if I see anyone on the horizon, give you some idea of the time you have left.”

  Liam picked up the helmet and handed it to her. “Listen. You need to find Marie and update her on the situation. You’re the only one who can do this.”

  “All right.” She reached up and pulled him in for one last kiss, tears gathering in her eyes. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “It’s a date,” he said as she tugged on the helmet. “Just keep to the road and you’ll be fine.”

  She turned the ignition key, the engine roaring to life under her.

  “Slow and easy,” Liam said as she eased out of the shed and followed his directions to the street. She sunk down into the snow as she moved, but nowhere as much as they had plodding out from the station.

  Kara stopped and looked over her shoulder. Liam stood there, wearing the dark blue parka with his hands in his pockets. He smiled and lifted one hand in a wave before blowing her a kiss.

  She returned it and focused on the road ahead, her eyes burning with tears.

  I’ll be back soon.

  The silent promise echoed in her mind as she twisted the throttle and surged forward.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  He hated lying to her. It stung, each word like choking up broken glass, tearing at his heart and soul.

  But he had to save her.

  Along with everyone else.

  Liam stood out on the road and watched the snowmobile for as long as he could, the pale moonlight giving the scene a surreal feel. The image hovered on the horizon for one last, lingering moment. He squinted, trying to see her one more second.

  Finally, he couldn’t separate the shadows from the reality anymore, the night closing in around him.

  Time to get to work.

  He walked back inside the station and rebuilt the barricade, double-checking the doors and windows one last time.

  He picked up the stolen walkie-talkie and pushed the black button.

  “I’m here, Landsdowne, you son of a bitch. And I’ll see you at sunrise.”

  Liam put the radio down, not waiting for a reply. He wasn’t going to negotiate with anyone, much less the Sons of Cain.

  The Hammer never negotiated.

  Sunrise was at seven in the morning—he had plenty of time to do what he needed to do.

  He walked into the locker room, shedding his shirt as he went. There was a new set of disposable razors in one of the lockers, and scissors were easy to come by, along with soap.

  He glared at himself in the mirror as he lathered his face up, staring at the cool steel eyes as he readied himself. The police radio sat nearby, waiting to hear from Kara.

  Goodbye, Jack Hammerson.

  The razor wasn’t the best, but it did the job. Same with the scissors, cutting through the ponytail with a few rough attacks.

  Liam tossed the length of hair in the garbage and went to work, shaping the remains as best he could to keep it out of his face. He longed for an electric razor, a return to the buzzcut he’d worn for so many years, but this would have to do.

  He ran a hand over his now clean-shaven face, the razor destroying a year’s worth of beard. Scrubbing his face felt odd, the exposed skin rebelling at the exposure.

  He lifted his face and looked in the mirror again.

  Liam Wolfson stared back at him—the same man he’d tried to kill five years ago. The ruthless contract killer that had gone into the small village and disappeared.

  That man had come back, resurrected for one final mission.

  He swallowed hard at the reflection.

  This was why he had to send her away.

  She wouldn’t know him like this. And, God willing, she never would. The man she loved lay in the garbage can or spiraling down the drain with the rest of the facial hair.

  Jack Hammerson was gone.

  Liam dropped the razor in the garbage and folded the towel, mentally drawing up the checklist he’d need before the sun rose.

  The Hammer had work to do.

  The cold wind nipped at her exposed skin, wriggling through any crack in the helmet to slash at her face.

  It was easy to stay on the road using the compass. The occasional road sign rose up out of the snow, half visible but still there, giving her some idea of where she was. Marie’s trail faded in and out, but she had a good idea of where she was going. The snowmobile sank into the white powder if she slowed too much, and it’d taken some experimentation to find the right speed to skim along the surface without fearing she’d lose control.

  She spotted Liam’s truck. It was almost covered with snow, only the top third sticking out into the wind. She wouldn’t have recognized it if she hadn’t known what to look for. There was some sign of snow brushed off the fuel cap, evidence Marie had stopped by and gathered what she could to help make the trip.

  The full moon rose higher in the sky, casting odd shadows through the woods and twisting familiar shapes into strange aberrations. It wasn’t like she’d never seen night before—but here, now, it was even more disconcerting than normal.

  Her thoughts went to Liam, wondering what he was doing right now.

  Sleeping. Eating.

  Readying himself for a fight.

  She slowed to a crawl, then to a full stop, the vehicle sinking slightly in the snow as she fumbled to get the radio out from her inside parka pocket.

  Kara got off the snowmobile and turned around, studying her trail. It shimmered in the night, the frosty crystals crunching as she took a few steps over her own tracks.

  “Liam? You there?”

  “Sure am.” His gentle voice warmed her heart. “You got to the truck okay?”

  “Yes.” She let her breath out slowly, watching the white puffs rise. “No sign of Marie and the others yet—but they can’t be too far away.”

  “Good.” A deep intake of breath. “I love you, Kara. You know that, right?”

  “Yes.” A cold dread gripped her heart. “I do.”

  “Please forgive me for lying to you. I didn’t want you to see me like this. I want you to remember me as Jack, the guy you fell in love with here in the Ridge.”

  “Liam…” She put as much force into the voice as she could. “What are you saying?”

  “The Sons won’t wait past daybreak. I lied about being able to tease them out until you got back with reinforcements. Even if I tried, they’d wait only an hour or two before killing the hostages. So I’m going to do what I do best.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “No…” Kara whispered. “You can’t.”

  “I’ll do my best not to kill them, but I have to save Jamie and the others.”

  “I could have stayed with you,” she roared. “He
lped you out, like I did before.”

  “No. I work best alone, and I won’t have you die, either, because of something I did or didn’t do. This is on me, all of it. I can’t ask you to suffer for my sins. I want you to survive, have a life beyond the Ridge.” Static filled the air. “Tell Marie I’ll do my best to hold them at bay until she arrives.”

  “Liam…” She choked up.

  “Don’t cry for me, Kara. I’ll see you soon—either in Valhalla or Helheim.”

  A soft click signaled he’d turned his radio off, leaving her in silence.

  Her angry shout echoed off the trees.

  “Son of a bitch!” She yanked off the helmet and threw it down as hard as she could. It bounced off the hard snow and rolled along, coming to rest in the ditch left by her tracks.

  “Oh hells no. You are not getting away with that.” She jumped back on the snowmobile and twisted the ignition key.

  The engine coughed and turned over, sputtering to life.

  Kara turned the machine around, pointing the front toward Everett’s Ridge as her vision blurred with tears.

  I will not let you die alone.

  The engine roared as she twisted the throttle—then died.

  “No…no!” She slapped the side of the snowmobile hard, her hand aching with the punch.

  Kara rocked it back and forth, listening for the faintest slosh of gasoline, wishing for just a few more drops, a few…

  Nothing.

  She got off the machine again and stared down the road.

  There.

  She held her breath, listening.

  The faintest wisp of an engine drifted to her over the snow.

  Kara ripped open the saddlebags, finding the flares. She scrambled to the abandoned truck, climbing up to the highest point, sinking almost up to her knees. It took a few seconds to figure out the incendiaries, but within a few moments she had both lit and spurting out fire. She held them up over her head and waved, channeling all of her anxiety and excitement into the physical activity.

  Yes.

  The dim light in the distance wasn’t the rising sun—it had to be the snowplows, their massive scoops pushing the snow aside as they drove toward the Ridge.

  A loud air horn split the silence, signaling they’d seen her.

  Kara put the flares down on each side of the truck, sticking them in the snow as they kept burning.

  But…

  She studied the distance between the plows and herself, the slow movement of the distant lights.

  Ice tentacles curled around her heart as she realized there was no way they’d make it to her before another hour or two had passed. As for the Ridge…

  She spun and looked at the trail she’d carved out in the snow. Without snowshoes to help move quickly over the deep snow, she wouldn’t be able to make it back to town before the sun rose. The best she could do would be to wait for the plows and follow through with their original plan.

  Except she knew now he didn’t plan to be alive when she returned.

  Kara slid off the truck and stomped around the snowmobile, driving her feet deep in the drifts. When she’d worn through her anger she sat and cursed, working through every variation and deviation in her vocabulary.

  Then she prayed.

  She knelt next to the snowmobile and pulled off her gloves, exposing her bare hands to the brittle air. Her breath came in short puffs of smoke as she raised her palms up.

  “Mother Freyja,” she started. “I have no right to appeal to you, having disgraced myself for what I did to Brenna and Erik. But I’m not asking for myself—I’m asking for you to help Liam—a good man who has tried to redeem himself. He’s going to die trying to take down some horrible people in an effort to save those he cares for, those he loves.” She drew a deep breath, the cold air stabbing at her throat. “He deserves better than to be gunned down in the snow.”

  “Does he now?”

  She spun around to see the older woman standing there atop the snowbank, her white robes flowing out around her. The goddess’s long blond hair was pulled into loose braids, falling on each side of her face.

  Freyja tilted her head to one side and smiled. “Liam Wolfson is the same type of man you dragged to Helheim only a few months ago. Don’t you remember mocking him?”

  Kara flinched. “Yes, yes I do. I remember everything.” Her chest ached. “My disgrace. My hearing. My punishment—banishment from Valhalla until I’d repented of my sins and seen the errors of my ways. Cast down…” She paused, remembering how she fell to Earth in the rain and sleet, stumbling through the town with one goal in mind. “Then I was at Liam’s doorstep with no memory of what had gone before.”

  The blond woman nodded. “Yes. I thought it’d be best that you not remember your past before you dealt with the present.”

  Kara’s cheeks burned. “I knew him from before. When I was hunting for Brenna and Erik.”

  That brought a laugh from the goddess. “You knew him very well. But do not think that was why you were punished—I expected you to be tempted by the mortal world. After all, all the Valkyries were human once. There is no way you could deny your desires, not when faced with such temptations.” She turned her face toward the road leading back to the Ridge. “You mocked the soldier, told him to accept his fate. Would you say the same to Liam?”

  “I…” She hesitated, choosing her words with care. “No. But what I’d say doesn’t matter right now.” She couldn’t keep the impatience out of her voice, the urgency overriding her respect for the goddess. “To save the hostages, he’ll offer himself up. They’ll kill him and the hostages, slaughtered before the authorities can get into town.”

  Freyja raised an eyebrow. “Many innocents have died over the centuries in battles they did not choose, in wars not of their making. You know that, you’ve gone to the battlefield. We do not interfere in what happens here in Midgard.”

  “You interfered at the campsite,” she shot back. “You brought Erik’s friends back to life, blessed them with more time on this earth.”

  “Because they were not supposed to die—not there and then.” Freyja raised one eyebrow, the simple gesture sending a chill through the Valkyrie. “It was to repair the damage you wrought with the berserker. Or have you forgotten how you ended up here?”

  “I haven’t,” she admitted, the flash of anger dying away. “But I don’t want to see anyone from the Ridge die. They’re good people who accepted me as I am—and Liam.”

  “They accepted the illusion you both gave them. And if they die and are worthy, they will ascend to Valhalla. Their time here will be over, in any case. It is a harsh reality we have dealt with for thousands of years, and I am not about to risk tipping the balance. The Fenris Wolf is always watching.”

  She lifted her chin. “But back to Liam. What if he kills as many of them as he can before he falls? You know how much blood is on his hands. A year ago, a month ago, you would have easily thrown him into Helheim with a laugh and a sarcastic taunt.” She swept her hand out, gesturing at the nearby trees. “All the souls you carried there, were they worthy of second chances? Do you think Liam deserves to keep trying to redeem himself?”

  “Yes.” Kara stayed on her knees, entwining her bare hands. “I love him, Mother. I believe he can change, that he has changed.”

  “What if I told you that right now the Hammer roamed the Ridge, ready to kill again?” Freyja waved a hand and the images appeared on the snow between them.

  A clean-shaven Liam walking around the station, gathering his equipment. She almost didn’t recognize him without his beard and his long hair.

  And his eyes…

  His eyes were that of a stone-cold killer.

  “Behold the man you claim you love,” Freyja said. Another flick of her fingers and he was gone.

  The sight hit Kara hard, the icy grip around her heart choking the breath out of her. If she hadn’t been on her knees already she would have gone down. Instead she hugged herself, pressing her fingers into th
e thick parka. “He wouldn’t do it if he didn’t believe in saving the hostages.”

  The words tumbled out as she found her voice, growing stronger. “He is not the man he was. Liam could have left me there, taken the snowmobile and run. The Sons would kill Jamie and the others and escape, maybe. Liam would still be long gone—as soon as he met up with Marie and the others, he’d slip away and disappear, go on to build another life. Hell, he didn’t have to tell Marie anything. We could have gone back to town and found a place to hide, let the Sons wreak havoc on Everett’s Ridge until they found and killed us along with everyone they encountered along the way.”

  She rose to her feet, her new-found strength fed by anger. “But instead he’s going to face off against five mercenaries, five men who do nothing but kill. They have hardened their hearts to the point of become stone-cold golems, and Liam will still try not to kill them.”

  Freyja’s penetrating glare was meant to silence her—she’d been on the receiving end far too often to know it for anything else.

  It did not.

  “Liam saw one of my sisters when she came to pick up a doomed soul on the battlefield. It changed his life, gave him the incentive to turn his back on everything he’d known. He gave all his money away and dedicated himself to serving others. How can you deny him entrance to Valhalla?”

  “Do you love him?”

  The whispered question hung in the chilled air between them.

  Kara blinked, taken aback. “Of course I do.”

  “Do you love him?” Freyja repeated. Her voice was harder, harsher in the surrounding silence.

  Kara drew herself up, glaring at the goddess. “I do.”

  “I ask you again, Kara—do you love this man?”

  “I do!” She curled her fingers into fists, bracing her feet in the snow.

  “Then go be with him while he proves himself worthy of his lineage.”

  Kara frowned, her mind filling with questions.

  A blast of cool air pushed her back, knocking the air out of her lungs.

  “Fly, Valkyrie, fly. Fight for what you love. For who you love.”