The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1)

by Deborah Davitt

  “Periodically, yes.” Sigrun crouched, using the corner of a booth for cover. “I have apologized.”

  “I take it all back. I love your light. Make more of it.”

  “Believe me when I say that I am trying.”

  Adam looked around, trying to assess which way Abgar could have gone with the Chaldean envoy. Forwards, through the scrum . . . no. “Left, Sig! Down past the end caps, it’s the only clear path!” And that way he can try to get to one of the side doors, through one of the emergency doors into the south lobby, and then, out.

  He just hoped he’d guessed correctly, as they moved south. Screaming people, grabbing for Sigrun’s arms, for her light, panicking, as if they were drowning, and she was their only hope of life. Sigrun slamming them away with the haft of her spear, and two alu materializing, just outside of the range of her light. Adam caught the ripple, the gleam of the eyes, aimed both flashlight and pistol, and fired the instant the pale yellow light forced the demon to appear, fully visible. He had a fraction of a second to make it count, and the silver-plated bullets caught the creature in the chest. It threw itself backwards, and its companion vanished in a wisp of smoke. Two bullets. Four to go . . . .

  . . . and then the creature was behind him, claws raking through the back of his bullet-proof vest. Adam spun, and his gun was slapped from his hand, flying to the ground. He slammed a foot into a wiry gray torso with all his strength, and pulled his combat utility knife, hoping that steel would have some effect on the damned things . . . Steel’s still cold iron, after all . . . . The beast came in at him, and Adam spun right, pure reflex and muscle memory, sweeping his hand up and backhanding the knife directly into the beast’s throat. . . where it snapped, but was embedded. The creature stood there for a moment, swaying uncertainly, its paws reaching up for its throat, almost curiously . . . and then Sigrun was there, a blur of speed, her spear whirling in her hands as she slashed downwards across its torso, keeping the blade away from Adam himself. “Need it down!” Sigrun shouted, and Adam complied, kicking one of its legs back, while shoving it forward, even as Sigrun pivoted . . . and brought the blade of her spear down across the back of its neck like an executioner’s axe, caught for live far-viewer feed.

  The body fell to the floor, and black smoke wisped up from it . . . but the body failed to dematerialize. “What’s that mean?” Adam snapped, diving for his gun, shoving a civilian out of the way to do so. “Banished? Dead? What’s death to a spirit, anyway?”

  “Kill the body, and they’ll take a while to reform. Might need to be re-summoned. If anyone even still knows their Name. Depends on the creature. Binding and banishing are more effective. Just killing the body . . . they can come back from that sometimes. But not always.” Sigrun tossed the information back at him, already turning to look for another target.

  Adam checked his gun, and looked at the civilians. He couldn’t just leave them there. And there was no safe way out for them. Damning himself for an idiot, he handed the closest one his flashlight. “They avoid light. It won’t hurt them, but they prefer to attack with an advantage. Keep together. Keep the light moving. All I can do for the moment.” Then he followed in Sigrun’s footsteps, feeling . . . naked and unarmed without his light.

  ___________________

  Lassair hovered over Trennus’ head, emitting a steady golden radiance that kept the alu at bay. Off to the left, Chaldean summoners, still fighting two alu with raw magic, and the power of their own manifested spirits. To the south, his right, he caught sight of two JDF soldiers fighting with one of the demons at the end of the long hall he was in, trying to keep the creature near a single, lonely flare on the floor. Trennus swore and tugged on the ley-energies in the ground. He was trying not to tap the lines directly, out of respect for local beliefs, but that resolve was being tested at the moment. Going to need more light, he told Lassair. Sorry.

  Oh, don’t worry. Light, I can give you. The phoenix blazed into pure glory overhead, and the entire corridor was bathed in her radiance. The alu spun and howled, and tried to run for a doorway, back into darkness. “No, you don’t,” Trennus muttered, and snapped his empty right hand closed on the air itself, and the poured-stone floor liquefied and snapped upwards like fingers, echoing his movement, trapping the spirit in place. “Keep it in the light and kill it!” he shouted to the two soldiers, both of whom were bleeding . . . and both of whom just nodded in his direction before unleashing their assault rifles on the caged creature, which was trapped as much by the flare’s light as by the stone.

  Trennus could hear its screams and howls, and answering howls of rage from its fellows . . . and spun back around as two more creatures abandoned the summoners they were fighting at the north end of the hall, trying to come to the aid of their pack-mate. One hit him, hard, dropping him to the ground . . . and the bottles in his left hand slipped and shattered on the ground, spraying his face with syrupy-smelling liquor and glass shards even as he hit the ground himself.

  In a daze, Trennus reached out with ley-energies. He wasn’t fighting for his life right now. He had just enough concentration to reach out and shape the poured-stone floor . . . and the arcs and curves of a binding circle sliced through the surface, stopping the demons in their tracks. Trennus rolled out of the circle, his ears ringing from the rat-tat-tat-tata-tata-tat of the assault rifle rounds, each burst of noise echoing back off the walls, the screams of the dying, caged alu, the howls of fury from the two trapped in the circle.

  The Chaldean bodyguards that had been in the hall, fighting desperately with the alu, dashed up now, and Trennus rolled to his feet. “Find bottles back in the conference room. Bind or banish, I don’t care which, but don’t let them back out again.” And then he ducked out into the main convention hall, and spotted Sigrun’s pale radiance to the south. Could hear the screams and the panic and the mad laughter of the demons, and swore again as Lassair swooped in after him. “We’ve got to give these people more light. They don’t stand a chance without it . . . .”

  Not a problem. Lassair rose, soaring towards the ceiling of the convention center like a comet, the long plumes of her tail radiating fire out behind her in long streamers. For an instant, Trennus felt alone and exposed in the dark . . . and then the phoenix became a sun, pouring out flame and light at ceiling height, brightening the convention center to an almost noon-day glare.

  Every alu in the vicinity was forced into visibility, and they snarled in frustration, before tipping back their heads and giving out that soul-chilling laughter once more. Stay there, out of reach! Trennus told Lassair, and glanced around. Adam and Sigrun had vanished, deeper into the heart of the crowd and the booths, and there were alu simply rampaging now, seizing screaming people from the crowd and throwing them. Where are Sigrun and Adam?

  South of you. Hurry. They have found the one who wears his lover’s blood as a mask. Lassair paused, and tried to convey some of the confusion that the various spirits were having to Trennus. Erida’s ‘pattern,’ for lack of a better term, was all over Abgar. Her DNA, reinforced and invigorated with magic. And his pattern, somehow, was in her, making them two-in-one, one person, two bodies—Oh. His DNA is in her. They had carnal relations recently. And they amplified it with magic. It’s probably somewhat common. In that way, they present a doubled image to most minor spirits.

  Probably as recently as this morning, Lassair confirmed, her tone intrigued. The pattern is strong. He has bound her energies with her emotions, but the bond is almost unraveled now.

  Trennus always knew which direction he was facing. It had to do with the ley formations in the earth, currents of power, and, probably, magnetism. Back in the hallway, he’d been facing east; currently, he faced west. So he spun to his left and ran, ducking around panicking civilians, and shouted at them as he passed, “Stay out of the booths! Stay out of the shadows!”

  ___________________

  Sigrun and Adam had swung down one of the long rows of booths just as Lassair went off like a star going nova
overhead. “I think I love that spirit,” Adam muttered, and Sigrun nodded, fervently, as radiant golden light filled the entire area. The civilians in the knot of people ahead of them all looked upwards, cheered for a moment, and then the alu were back, and Adam fired on one that was in range, sending it hopping over the wall of a booth for cover on the other side.

  Then Sigrun spotted their quarry, as the crowds parted a little, and she could see Abgar forcing Erida through a gap in the bodies, knife still at the woman’s throat. “There!” Sigrun shouted, and again, richly rued the fact that she was cut off from the damned sky.

  Adam shook his head, and called in return. “No clean shot. Too many people.” In truth, the crowd looked like nothing so much as a mass of worms erupting from the ground after a rainstorm.

  “Then it’s on me.”

  “Are you fast enough?”

  “I don’t know. Stay in the light!” Sigrun leaped into the air herself now, kicking free of the entangling arms and legs around her. So hard not to see the humans around her as obstacles. Impediments. She knew they weren’t, but the grasping hands and bodies had pulled up battle reflexes to which she didn’t dare yield. Sigrun hovered for a moment, watching as her prey worked his way through the crowds, and at least two alu gave him and Erida a quizzical glance, before working in tandem to isolate a woman from the crowd, chasing her away from the rest. One lurched in front of her, driving her to the side, dividing her from her companions, who reacted by trying to reach out and grab the alu . . . and then another alu, in the shelter of one of the booths and its shadows, reached out and seized the woman by the hair, and then leaped to the top of the dividing wall between two booths, which trembled under the creature’s weight.

  Sigrun, midair, swore and threw her spear, which lanced out and caught the creature between its shoulder blades and thus, right through its heart from behind. It teetered atop the wall, its grip on the woman’s hair slackening, and the captive dropped to the ground on one side, even as the alu toppled the other direction. Sigrun called her spear back, and looked around for her main target. She’d lost him in the crowd once more. Hel’s frozen heart. Where is he? She canvassed the crowd, and spotted them again. Damn. They’re right by the exit. “Adam!” Sigrun shouted. “West! Run!”

  And then she dove, herself, with as much speed as she could muster. A body at rest needed a certain amount of time to accelerate. She knew that her top speed was somewhere in excess of three hundred miles an hour, but she needed time and space to get up to that maximum. She had neither here . . . but she could still move at a good clip, and sailed through the doors into the darkened main lobby, wind rushing through her hair and her rune-marks ablaze with light.

  “Stay back!” Abgar warned, knife still pressed to Erida’s throat. No blood yet, though . . . and Sigrun thought she understood why. Too much of Erida’s blood, before he was ready, would ruin his mask. Sigrun could still see his bound spirit twining around him, like a python. Could see one of Erida’s bound spirits, the hawk-like one, trying to land on Abgar’s spirit, clawing, harassing.

  Sigrun landed on the ground, hearing the howl of alu. The screams of people all around her, here in the darkness past where Lassair’s light reached, and the rat-tat-tat-tat of machine gun fire echoing back off the bare walls and floors. But her eyes were locked on the couple in front of her, and she was straining, too, for the sound of footsteps behind her, lost in the din though Adam’s movement would surely be. She circled, cautiously, to the right. Forcing Abgar to turn with her, keeping Erida between the two of them. “There’s no way you can get out of this one,” she told him, stalling for time. “Too many of the envoys and their bodyguards saw what you did. No story you set up, here and now, will mean anything.”

  “None of you will live to tell any other tale.” Abgar’s tone held supreme confidence, and Sigrun’s eyes flicked up in time to see his python-like serpent swing its head around and engulf Erida’s hawk in massive jaws. Erida stiffened, and her body convulsed, as if in agony.

  Spirits can kill spirits, just as gods can kill gods. Diamond cuts diamond, after all. Sigrun’s thoughts were distant, dispassionate even. She met the woman’s eyes as they opened once more, and Sigrun apologized, formally, “Forgive me, envoy.” A very slight inclination of her head, at odds with the chaos all around her . . . and Sigrun let her light die. Used the cover of the darkness to leap forward, and strike, not at Abgar, who was still solidly shielded behind his hostage . . . but at Erida herself, feeling the blade of her spear slash into the other woman’s leg as Sigrun dove, rolled, and came up behind the pair, letting her light flare back to life as she once more channeled Tyr’s might.

  Abgar whirled with her once more, but this time, Erida’s blood was on the ground, and Sigrun smiled at Abgar. “I think the spirits can smell the difference between her and you now.” They should be able to tell fresh blood from the masking blood you’re wearing. Now you’re not one entity in two bodies, but two individuals. Of course, the wounded one is more of a target . . . “They’ll tear you to shreds, Abgar. They might tear her apart, too, but it won’t be a Judean bullet in her heart or in her head, now will it?” Come on. Lose your temper. Let her go and attack me.

  Back in the conference hall, Adam forced his way through the crowd, peripherally aware that Trennus had fought his way to his side. Lassair’s light was keeping the damned creatures visible . . . but all of the alu had retreated into the lobby, out of reach of her light. “Have her stay here. Keep the civilians safe,” Adam shouted up at the big Pict.

  “Understood. Sigrun went out that way?”

  “Following Abgar.”

  “Then I guess we’re following her!”

  They shouldered through the crowd, Adam spotting Sigrun’s pale radiance and getting through the door into the lobby first. Smell of blood, of panic, of gunpowder. She had the summoner and his captive at bay, and Adam could see, dimly, in the faint light coming in from the parking lot, a couple of JDF soldiers advancing on the lobby from the north, weapons at the ready. Unmistakable outline of the assault rifles in their hands, even seen in silhouette. “Stay back!” Adam shouted. The last thing any of them needed was for someone with a load of panic firing on the wrong target right now. He had Abgar dead to rights, but it was dark, and even as he started to squeeze the trigger, the Chaldean bodyguard spun, presenting Erida as a target. Adam couldn’t stop his fingers, but the muscles of his arms twitched, and he managed to fire the shot wide, up into the window behind the pair, instead. “Matrugena, you got anything?”

  “I can try to banish his spirits, take a little of his armor off him,” Trennus answered. “Can’t use ley on him. She’s too close. He’ll take her with him.”

  “Do what you can!” Adam moved north, separating from the Britannian, trying to force Abgar to spin again. Get him to present his back to Sigrun and her lethal spear.

  Abgar snarled, and dragged Erida further back, into the rotunda that was the main entrance of the building. Gaining cover, he actually spun her around, kissed her full on the mouth, and shoved her away, into the center of the lobby, and shouted, in Persian, “Spirits! I offer you her blood! Come take it!”

  Harah. He saw his plan wasn’t going to work. He’s improvising. Adam’s thoughts were distant and he tried to close the gap, running forward to Erida’s side, to protect the envoy. And that was when absolutely everything happened at once.

  Erida, free, staggered, and bleeding, hissed, and Trennus, for his part, could feel the shape of the spell she’d been holding readied, waiting for the moment that she was free to use words or gestures to release it. As Abgar was a water elementalist, Erida was an air elementalist. “Sigrun!” Trennus shouted, even as the valkyrie blurred forwards. “Don’t get near Abgar! Don’t!”

  The air around Abgar rushed away from him in all directions, with an audible clap of thunder, and a barely-visible bubble, more of a line of demarcation than anything else, shimmered in a sphere around him. Hardened air. Resisting the pressure
outside, as Erida had created a vacuum inside. Explosive decompression on Earth was no more pleasant than it was in space. Trennus had enough time to see all the capillaries in Abgar’s eyes explode, and then blood poured down his face. In a panic, the man turned and tried to run, but the sphere of emptiness was centered on him. If he held his breath, the very air inside his lungs would expand outwards, causing his lungs to shred from the inside. And if he exhaled, there would be no air. He’d be unconscious in seconds, dead in minutes, though his spirit-serpent coiled around his body, trying to sustain him. Abgar pounded a fist against the surface of the bubble even as Sigrun, diverted by Tren’s warning, skidded off to the side, spinning to stare at the man as he raised a hand and obviously tried to incant . . . but with no better luck than Kanmi had had, earlier. His spirit might be able to sustain him, Trennus thought, remotely. Have to make sure he’s done here. He reached out for ley-energies once more, bringing the poured-stone that underlay the tile floor up in a spike, spearing through Abgar’s body from below like a stalagmite.

  ___________________

  But even as Trennus’ attention was locked on the traitorous bodyguard, Adam’s was caught as two more alu appeared, just to the north of him, materializing like smoke between him and the JDF soldiers. Their eyes were intent on Erida, who was wounded, blooded. Smelled like prey, and who had been offered to them, like a savory dish, or a sacrifice. Not today, Adam thought, and pushed the envoy behind him. “If you’ve any magic to do, do it now!” he told her, and fired on the alu, just as behind them, the JDF soldiers, seeing the enemies that they’d been fighting for the past horrific twenty minutes, opened fire, themselves. Full automatic on their rifles.

  And in the darkness, the alu demons bared their teeth, and vanished into smoke once more, and the fire from the automatic weapons struck Adam ben Maor solidly in the chest. His bulletproof vest took the first couple of rounds, but the next six punched their way through.