"Josef and I came to at dawn, and there was no one left alive but us. The rest of our team was dead, as was the US crew we were sent to rescue, and the German platoon that had attacked us. Dead was really an understatement, the inside of the farmhouse looked like an abattoir. The combat had gone hand to hand, and this is when things started to come into focus for us. There were arms, legs and heads ripped off, there were chunks bitten off. Next to me was a Überleutenant with half his face missing, the nose and one cheek had been ripped or torn off. Right behind him was a US Army Air Corps Sergeant whose head was smashed by a blunt object, and next to it was the item that had apparently done the damage, his own arm. I threw up, and that was when the horror really hit. I threw up a man's nose."
He went silent for a second, and I tried not to throw up thinking about it. I had been a SEAL damn it, and still was, I was not going to lose my lunch over this!
Lars started up again. "Josef was right next to me, throwing up too, and there were human parts in his belly as well. We both lost our minds for a bit. I don't know what Josef did, but I went into hysterics. After a while, I calmed down enough to think. There was a word for what had happened to us, Baresark. The old Norse curse. My brother and I both carried it, apparently. I went back to the resistance, Josef never did. He swore on that day never to do anything that might bring up the old rage. He spent the rest of the war running a fishing boat, and praying that the Kregsmarine wouldn't recognize him. He did take downed airmen across for us, but would have no more to do with fighting or violence. I went back and told my officers what had happened. Or at least what we thought happened. Fortunately my commanding officer was an old-style Dane. He was a follower of the old ways, and understood what had happened to us. He put me on a course of study, prayer, meditation, and purification. I became a Goti."
I had to interrupt at this point, "You became a member of the mob family?"
"No," he said with a smile, " not Gotti, Goti."
"HUH? You're repeating yourself"
"Not Gotti, 'GOT-TEA', two Ts, Mafia family, but Goti, one T, high priest of the Asatru faith. 'GO-TEA' ."
"Oh." I was sure I had the same look on my face that I had on day one of boot camp. Sort of a "what the fuck is going on here, and what have I gotten into?" look.
"Look, what the gods give, they also give the power to control. With Thor's help, I can control the rage, and think through it. I can also call it at will. It's a very powerful ability, it gives a practical immunity to any injury that is not immediately fatal, much like your Lycanthropy does. It also makes me immune to magic while in the rage. Being a Goti gives me quite a bit of magical abilities as well. Before I became a follower of the Aesir, when the rage came over me, I became a killing machine, unable to tell friend from foeman. If it moved it died, and I would remember nothing the next day. With the guidance of Thor, and the rest of the Aesir, I can think during the rage, and harm only those that deserve my wrath."
"So, are you telling me that you're the 'monster' Grandpa was talking about?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Josef never forgave himself, or me, for that night. He has spent the rest of his life trying to live down his actions, and blaming both of us for allowing it to be. As if we could have changed anything about it. I later found out that our father had it as well, and that the German high command knew and were quite happy with it. They merely warned his fellow solders to get clear of him when the rage was upon him. We are also a family with some innate magic gifts. You have them. Smell this?" He muttered under his breath, and the smell of wood smoke and amber was back, and a war hammer was suddenly in his hand.
"Yeah, that's what I have smelled around you before, that's what I smelled coming up the pier."
"What you smelled coming up the pier was a warding spell, a magical lock/burglar alarm. You can smell magic, lad."
"Bullshit, if I can smell magic, what about the murder I witnessed last week?" He muttered something unintelligible, and in my mind's eye, I was back at the start of the badness, and remembering the smell and taste just before the screaming started, one part chocolate, one part cinnamon, and two parts carrion. "OH. Oh shit."
"John, you've seen combat, haven't you? If you were in the Navy for that long, and are as strong a 'Thrope as I can tell you are, there's only one unit you could have been with."
"Yes, I've seen combat." I said, in that voice that says "I don't want to confirm or deny anything."
"How did you control it?" He asked.
"Huh?"
"The rage, how did you control it? Does the Navy have a drug now?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, I have never had any rages." I was getting a little weirded out now.
"John, the ability to smell magic is linked to the Berserker in our family. You don't get one without the other."
"Really Uncle Lars, I've never had a rage."
"Tell you what, do you trust me?"
You know, I'm not sure why I did, I had no real reason to, yes he was family, but where had he been for the last forty years? "Yes, I do."
"OK John, I'm going to finish my story about Josef and me, but if you don't mind, I'm going to turn off the lights." He got up and turned out all of the electric lights, and lit a candle on the table in front of me. Then he started talking about how after the war Grandpa had emigrated to the US, and he had too. He had sailed the very boat we were now on. He had made some real money in the aftermath of the war, he implied that it was money that used to belong to the Nazis. He had bought an island in the San Juans, and planted a grove of oaks on it, that it was a holy place, that he had watched over Grandpa, and later Dad and I, and then his voice had gotten softer and harder to hear, and somehow, I had fallen asleep.
*****
I had dropped into the jungle on an interdiction and assassination mission against the Cartels in the early '80s. I remembered the rest of the team and I going in at night, Halo. We were supposed to capture one of the HMFIC's of the local cocaine ring while he was on an inspection tour of the processing sites. We were also supposed to take out as many of the processing labs as we could. It was to be a five day op, with a pickup from a Pave Low in a clearing forty clicks to the east. On the second day it all went bad. We were patrolling towards a known processing facility, getting updates in real time via secure com from a U-2. Jesus was on point in Jaguar form. He and I were the only Cats in the crew. We also had three Wolves, and a Rat. For night patrols, Cats had a few advantages, and with Jesus, we even had a 'native to the area type', so that rocked. Jesus was GOOD at night scout/point, better than me even, at least in jungle. We were strung out in a loose 360 behind him by about 200 meters, on coms and about 500 meters from the processing station when Jesus got a whiff of human. Then all hell broke loose.
It was an ambush, and worse, they knew who they were ambushing. Jesus went down, blown to bits by a command detonated mine filled with silver shot, and at least six automatic small arms opened up on us with plunging fire. Sid and Bob fell immediately, hit by several rounds of silver bullets, but they had popped the cork too soon. All of this I remembered clearly, then . . . and somehow, I remembered the rest of it. Up until now, it had all been a blur, now suddenly it was clear. Bill the Rat going down with a round to the hip and crawling off up the hill laying down covering fire, Todd suddenly disappearing into the brush, me taking a round in the right arm, everything slowing down, as I charged up the hill spraying lead at everything that moved, hitting the ambushing solders head on, killing three on the way up the hill, tearing another's head right off on the way by, ripping Todd's heart out of his body, then killing two more ambushers by literally ripping them in two. Then going down the other side of the hill, killing anything that moved in front of me. Men, women, children, if it moved it died. This film in my head seemed to go on and on. I must have killed eighty-five or ninety people that night, most of them guilty of no more than living near a coca processing plant.
I kept trying to wake up, but was unable to. I finally collapsed i
n my dream, on towards morning. I woke up in my dream the next day to Bill shaking me, and trying to put some water down my throat. I wasn't bothered much about ripping people apart, or even eating bits, I was, after all, a Were, but the kids, DAMN. And I had killed a teammate. That was the unforgivable sin. Bill helped me get to the pickup point, and then went back for the bodies of our team. No one gets left behind. I wasn't in much shape to help, bit of a basket case actually. The chopper came in on time, and did the pickup. During the debrief, we learned that evidence found in the village and on Todd showed that he was the guy that blew us, which made me killing him OK, but it didn't put me back together. What followed was several weeks of therapy both hypnotic and drug, all to make me forget the things I did. After they put me back together, they reformed the team, and put Pete Sims in the team with the job of keeping everyone in the team away from me when I went Baresark. That and putting me to sleep afterwards until the guys in white could make the fact that it happened go away. I then lived through several other holes in my memory that I didn't realize I had. And then I woke up.
*****
I was back in the Tanngnost, and Lars was looking at me over the flames of the candle he had lit earlier. I noticed that it had burned low. Several hours had passed. I started to think about what I had done over the years, when Lars spoke.
"Don't even start. You have no reason to beat yourself up. With the exception of the first time, you never killed a noncombatant, and you were not responsible for your actions under any circumstance. Damn it, John, I understand what you are going through. I have been there, and it's not your fault. I only did that to see whether or not you had ever gone baresark. I can bury the memories again if that's what you want."
"No, I did what I did, I need to learn to live with it." I wasn't real happy about this, but to hide the memories again seemed too much like lying to myself. "OK, other than hiding the memories again, what can you do for me?"
"Well John, if you are willing to work at it, I can give you the sort of control I have. Or I can lock the power away where you will never be able to do that again. Your call."
About this time, something he said earlier got through my hard damn head. "You said that while Baresark you are immune to magic? Does that include the sort of magic another priest could do?"
"Yes, why?"
So I told him about the case I was on, and what we suspected about the murderer. I pointed out that unless I wanted to call in the FPI, I was going to have to take the murderer on by myself when I caught him or her. This was obviously someone with some serious mojo, and facing them without some sort of anti magic shit would be a real bad idea. Over the rest of a case of beer, we worked out a schedule, Lars would sail over to my side of the water tomorrow, and I would do a high intensity course in how to be a Goti at night and on my weekends. Before going to sleep that night, we talked about the gods, and I came to the realization that while Thor, Lars' deity of choice wasn't much of an inspiration to me, Tyr, the god of Justice and I were muy simpatico.
7
When I woke up the next morning, I thought for a second that I was back in the canoe club, must have been the rocking and the sound of wave slap on the hull. Damn, I hadn't been out on a boat in far too long, I sort of miss it, oh well, time to start the day. I was starving, and I could also smell coffee, GOOD coffee. I wandered into the galley for coffee. I had changed back over night of course, which meant that I was ravenous. The down side of being a Were is that the change uses up energy, LOTS of energy. Lars wasn't there, but the coffee pot was on, and a cup was waiting next to it, so I helped myself and started to raid the chill box. An eight-egg omelet with a half pound of cheese and a pound of ham later, I went up to the pilot house. There was Lars, sitting in the helm seat, sipping coffee and watching the sun rise over Port Orchard. He looked at me and smiled, saying "I thought you would sleep the morning away."
"Hey, considering I'm usually on swing shift, this is early, gimme a break. I forgive you though, good coffee makes up for a multitude of sins. Oh by the way, I raided the chill box."
"Yeah, figured you would, if changing is anything like going Baresark, its got to take a lot out of you, calorie wise."
With that, we stopped talking for quite a while, and just enjoyed being. That ended with the ringing of my phone. It was Mom, Grandpa had died in the night. I told her that Uncle Lars was with me, so she didn't need to call him. We talked a while about arrangements, and I gave the phone over to Lars so that he could talk to her and Dad, and then hung up. Well, that was a pisser, nothing like knowing that you can never reconcile with someone you loved to really start the day off. Lars looked about as down in the mouth as I did, so we just sat some more. After a bit, he started talking about Gramps, telling me stories about when they were growing up together, and I told a few about when I was growing up, and going to sea with Gramps. By lunch time, we were starting to get back on an even keel, so I told Lars where the nearest marina to my place was, and then walked back to the Durango to drive home.
*****
On the drive home, I called the office and told them that my grandfather had died in the night, and that I was going to take the day off, that I would be in tomorrow, and that I would also need Friday for the funeral. I got home in a couple of hours, and went for a long relaxing run. After a couple of miles, I started to settle down, and look at things in a more relaxed vein. Grandpa and I had been estranged for so long that it wasn't really like I had just lost him, truth is, I lost him twenty-five years ago. It still pissed me off, and bummed me out, but there it is. I thought about it all the way back to the house, then poured a large beer, and a large shot of whiskey. I took a sip of the beer, then dumped the whiskey on the ground, saying a prayer to Odin and Tyr to look out for him, though it's likely that he either went to the Christian hereafter, or he was headed to Hel, the Norse underworld, as an oath breaker who'd lied to himself. As I understood it from last night, the Norse gods took a dim view of hypocrites, and those that lie to themselves. Damn it, life sucks sometimes.
I went out to the wood shop, and worked on a piece of furniture I had been building for a while, as a way to get the head back in shape. Woodworking was one of my hobbies, as was a couple of weird ones, like dressing up in seventy pounds of armor and bashing people with training swords while they try to do the same to me. I have been part of the SCA (that's Society for Creative Anachronism for you mundanes) since some time before I became a part time hairball. It's a group of medieval re- enactors, we're world wide, the local area is called the Kingdom of An Tir. We do most of the things that were done in the Middle Ages, which is where the woodworking comes in. I do most of my stuff by hand, though I use power tools for basic cutting and such. I had to stop fighting for several years after I became a cat, it just wasn't fair. I have gone back to fighting now, but I'm careful not to win any major tournaments. The trouble with being a 'Thrope is that I have speed and strength that gives me an unfair advantage in sword work, and I don't want to cheat my fellow fighters. The SCA did help prepare me for Lars though, LOTS of pagans in the Society, and in the local area, the Norse are well represented. Hel, it seems like every third fighter you meet is Norse-guy some Norse-guy's-son. So, I had some prior exposure to the Asatru, and those I knew, I respected. I had just never given much thought to religion, 'til now. Oh sure, I believed there was some sort of higher power, but I didn't have much clue as to what or who, and as long as it/they left me alone, I wouldn't bother them.
Now however, it seems, I had a high priest/priestess killing people on my beat, I had a great uncle who was a really powerful priest, and it was made clear that the gods had an opening for me, if I wanted the job. Shit.
*****
I spent about four hours in the shop, working, then went back into the house and changed, grabbed the keys and drove down to meet Uncle Lars at the marina. He had called to let me know that he was about twenty minutes out, and could I come and get him when he pulled in? So, here I was at the Everett marina,
waiting to help moor the Tanngnost. I watched her come in with just a little bit of envy, she was a beautiful boat. Not in a pretty, yachtie way, but in a real seagoing, take on what ever the oceans can throw at her and laugh at it way. I helped Lars tie up, he had handled all of the sail stowage, and the docking by himself, which wasn't bad for a man of his age. Hel, it wasn't bad for anyone.
On the way home, I asked about the sail over, and other such small talk. Lars got the nickel tour of the house when we got there, and liked the place. I showed him how to disarm the security sensors, and where the arms locker is and he made the appropriate noises. Then we got to work.
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