Soul Mate

by Massa, William

  With a loud grunt, Jonas lowered the heavy keg. The impact of metal hitting the floor shook the bar. Jonas wiped the sweat off his thick brow and regarded Talon with a mixture of suspicion and irritation.

  “According to Google, this is the best place in town to grab a beer,” Talon said, immediately establishing that he was an American.

  “We don’t open until four o’clock…” Jonas said in lightly accented English. It was the second language for most Norwegians.

  “I could use a drink.” Talon waved a five hundred-krone banknote at Jonas.

  The man shrugged, turned toward a tap and without asking Talon what he wanted, drew him a pint of the local brew. He placed it on the wooden bar and snatched the cash.

  “Keep the change.”

  Jonas shot him a surprised look and his scowl softened just a tad. Five hundred krone came out to about a hundred dollars.

  Talon took his first swig of beer. The alcohol felt good and warmed his insides after being out in the cold all day.

  “You own this place?”

  “It’s a family business. I inherited the bar when my father passed.”

  “Was that before or after you were kicked out of Ice God?”

  Renewed suspicion etched into Jonas’ gaze. “Who the hell are you?”

  “A concerned citizen looking for your old friend Rezok. Think you might be able to point me in the right direction?”

  Jonas’ face grew blank. Talon had just hit his shit list.

  “Leave now.”

  “You’re not going to let me finish my drink?”

  “Now!”

  The massive barkeeper took a step closer, moving with surprising speed despite both his bulk and limp.

  Most people would have backed off at this point. Talon wasn’t most people.

  “You know Rezok is bad news. If I don’t find him, people are going to get hurt.”

  “What the fuck you’re talking about? This conversation is over. Now get your ass out of here…”

  Jonas threw the money in Talon’s face and made a move to reach for him with one massive paw. Talon whipped out his Glock.

  He didn’t point it at Jonas.

  He didn’t have to.

  The giant froze. “Who are you?”

  “That’s none of your concern. Tell me where Rezok is hiding out and I’ll be on my way.”

  Jonas cast a cautious glance around before he spoke, his voice a whisper.

  “I can’t help you. Two years ago Rezok almost killed me.”

  “I thought you injured your leg in a skiing accident.”

  Jonas grew quiet.

  “You’re scared of him.”

  “You should be too.”

  “Why did you quit the band?”

  “We started out wanting to make angry, beautiful music that would wake people up. We dreamt of holding up a mirror to Norwegian society, expose the hypocrisy.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Rezok became more interested in burning down churches and restoring Norway’s old beliefs. Dabbling in ancient rituals and superstition. He hates this country. Hates all of its middle-class Christian values. They’d preach tolerance and forgiveness on Sundays and the rest of the week they’d pick on him for being different.”

  Talon could empathize, to an extent. As the son of a diplomat, he’d grown up in a dozen countries and each new place had forced him to reinvent himself. New languages, new customs, new bullies. By the time he was twelve, he’d become a chameleon, a quality that worked to his advantage both during his years as an operator and in his newly chosen crusade. Life wasn’t always fair and Rezok had clearly received a raw deal, but it didn’t excuse murder. Or give him the right to dabble in powers man was not meant to wield.

  Rezok had crossed the line.

  “You were his friend.”

  “I’ve said enough.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  “The mountains.“

  Jonas paused for a beat before he continued. “The old ski lodge. Now get out of here before I call the cops.”

  “How can I be sure you’re not going to warn him?”

  Jonas pulled the right leg of his pants back, revealing the steel prosthesis where flesh and bone should be.

  “Rezok shattered every bone in my leg and left me on the mountain to die. I was lucky that someone found me in time, but they couldn’t save my leg.”

  “You told them you wiped out.”

  “I wanted Rezok to leave me alone.”

  “Has he?”

  “I think he enjoys seeing me living in fear more than he would putting me out of my misery. Rezok doesn’t forgive, nor does he forget.”

  Talon took a step closer and said, “Neither do I.”

  With these words, Talon slipped the Glock back in his shoulder holster and left the bar.

  8

  THE FEIGO SKI resort had closed down ten years earlier when newer, glitzier hotels started stealing business from it. The owner had struggled to keep the operation afloat but ultimately succumbed to economic pressures. On February 14, 2002, the ski lift made its last ascent up the mountain and had stood abandoned ever since.

  At first Talon kept consulting his GPS as he trudged up a woodsy trail, using it as his guide. After about thirty minutes he noticed the cable-line of the old ski-lift winding its way toward the lodge, one thousand feet above. Rust-covered chairs spaced at regular intervals dangled and swayed forlornly under the gray, hazy sky.

  Talon wondered how different this mountain had been when the lift was still in operation — how full of life. The area seemed forsaken and haunted by the past, just a faint memory of its former glory.

  Talon didn’t know what sort of security precautions awaited him up at the lodge and decided to approach from the forest side instead of using the main road. Unlike many places he’d infiltrated over the years, this time he wasn’t afforded the luxury of doing recon on the property ahead of the mission. He would have to wing it.

  Talon climbed in a haunted winter landscape. The minutes stretched and the march started to lull him into a nearly hypnotic state. Wind bit at the exposed portion of his face and the relentless cold seemed to find its way in everywhere. The swirling clouds of snow fell hard and thick now and the flakes left a bitter, metallic aftertaste on his lips. His hands had grown numb and fatigue was weighing him down. His jet lag was suddenly catching up with him – talk about perfect timing.

  A mechanical groan filled the eerie forest and jolted Talon back to full alertness. He shook off his lethargy, his gaze struggling to penetrate the flurry of snowflakes ahead. When the curtain of whirling ice finally parted, the vague outline of the decaying ski lodge grew visible. Wedged into the frozen wilderness was a building that looked like the bastard child of the Overlook Hotel and the Winchester House. The large main structure was in severe disrepair — time and the elements had done their fair share of damage. A craggy, snow-covered mountain loomed above the poorly maintained building.

  The abandoned ski lodge seemed a fitting base of operations for the sinister members of Ice God.

  The thought had barely crossed Talon’s mind when one of the band members emerged from the decrepit structure. Talon hit the snowy ground, his white snow-gear allowing him to become one with the frozen landscape. He brought up a pair of binoculars and peered up at the old hotel with eyes as cold as the air that raked his lungs.

  More members of Rezok’s freak-fest grew visible. Talon’s breath hitched as he spotted the woman, whom he hadn’t expected to find alive. Two of the black-metal musicians were dragging Kristin toward a waiting snowmobile, its thrumming engine the source of the noise Talon had picked up earlier. They had all traded their corpse paint for skull-masks.

  Kinda early in the year for the Halloween get-up, Talon thought.

  One of Rezok’s goons forced Kristin to take a seat on the snowmobile and he joined her. Rezok emerged from the ski lodge, now decked out in a jet-black ski suit with a gray skull-helmet shro
uding his bone-white face. He didn’t use any poles as he skied away from the hotel, as formidable a presence on the slopes as he was on the stage.

  The snowmobile with Kristin on it tore after him and the last two band members followed on skis. Moments later, the dense forest had swallowed them whole.

  Talon picked himself up. He pulled a collapsible snowboard off his back and hit a button. The board switchbladed out to full size. Moving quickly, he clamped in his feet and tore after Ice God, a predator seeking his prey. Soon the band’s blood would be coloring the snow red.

  * * *

  The snowmobile blasted into the wooded darkness. A white splinter of muted sunlight flashed through the pines racing past Kristin. She clung to consciousness as the stark, surreal landscape flew by. The barren trees seemed alive, reaching out for them with a terrible hunger. One of Rezok’s men sat behind Kristin, one powerful hand hooked around her neck while the other operated the vehicle’s controls, navigating the arctic obstacle course.

  Kristin knew her time had run out. This was the end of the line. They were about to kill her. She’d perish deep within these snowy woods where her body would never be found. God, what had she done to deserve this?

  Her life flashed before her eyes. She thought of her parents, good friends and old lovers. Thought of how her father and mother would suffer, never knowing what happened to their daughter. Tears welled in her eyes. It wasn’t fair…

  A fat tree jumped into view in front of them, head-on collision imminent. Kristin’s captor was forced to relinquish his hold on her neck so that he could grab the controls with both hands. The snowmobile performed a hard right, dodging the tree and sending a plume of snow into the air.

  For a moment, the man was distracted and Kristin saw her chance to escape. Body responding before her mind could talk her out of it, she hurled herself from the moving snowmobile. Kristin’s captor had expected little resistance from the mousy, broken woman and let out a sharp curse as she disappeared into the snow.

  By the time he stopped the vehicle, Kristin was already on her feet and running at full bore. Her heart was pounding and the roar in her ears wouldn’t stop.

  As she sprinted through the dense forest, she spotted a series of strange items dangling from the trees. Animal bones (or were they human?) hung from the branches on strings and danced back and forth like primitive wind chimes. Rune symbols had been cut into the frost-covered bark. It gave the woods an air of dark magic, almost as if everything inside it had become part of some ancient, long forgotten ritual.

  Kristin couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d stumbled into her own personal Blair Witch Project, a flick she’d caught on cable years earlier. It had kept her up for days.

  She slowed, each step becoming hesitant. The eerie trees gave way to a small, snowy clearing and now Kristin stopped dead in her tracks. The world tilted and elongated. The tree-line filled with unnatural life, transformed into a grotesque, nightmarish Dali painting.

  Her eyes fastened on a deep hole dug into the snow. With growing dread, she realized that the grave was meant for her. A second later, her eyes spotted what remained of the other seven women and she understood the dark fate that awaited her. Kristin’s brain was still struggling to make sense of the horrific tableau when Rezok and his crew emerged from the surrounding forest.

  9

  TALON SHOT DOWN a steep hill and rippled into the waiting woods. As soon as he disappeared under the dense canopy of branches, the forest grew quiet. The sputtering snowmobile had become a faint rumble. In the near distance, Talon caught dark glimpses of his targets against the white background. Ice God’s penchant for wearing black was working in his favor.

  The dense tree cover made it cumbersome to keep advancing on his snowboard. Talon quickly snapped off his bindings. From here on out he’d continue on foot.

  All of a sudden the snowmobile’s engine turned off. An unnatural, disconcerting silence descended on the backwoods. Talon had spent enough time outdoors to know that the wild was filled with life, if you knew what to listen for. This felt different. A complete absence of sound greeted him.

  He also noticed the strange runes carved into the nearby trees. About every fifth one bore the Norse symbols on its surface.

  Talon dismissed the growing sense of atavistic unease taking root in the pit of his stomach. He forged ahead, eyes alert. The forest was soaked in shadows with only sporadic shafts of sunlight able to penetrate the dense canopy. The members of Ice God seemed to have vanished into thin air.

  Talon’s heart hammered in his chest and suddenly he wasn’t sure who was hunting whom. Did his quarry know that they were being stalked? Had they lured him into a trap?

  Before Talon could consider that possibility, Kristin’s scream pierced the silence of the forest.

  The cry of terror jolted Talon into action. Gun out, he pressed on. Following the panic-filled voice, he arrived at the edge of the clearing and stopped dead in his tracks.

  An overwhelming sensation of dread sliced into his soul and he gripped the gun tighter. Eight round objects sprouted from the frigid earth.

  A closer look revealed the full horror. He was staring at the missing women. They had been buried up to their necks in the snow with solely their heads exposed. Their bluish faces were frozen in the rictus of a scream and coated in a veneer of ice.

  Only Kristin clung to life in her own snowbound grave, eyes squirming with terror.

  Rezok loomed before her, shimmering blade in hand. The other three black-metal musicians formed a half-circle around him, knives out. Their muffled, monotone chanting resounded through the woods, the lips under their skull-masks uttering words in an ancient Norse language that bore little resemblance to the Norwegian spoken in the country today.

  Talon sensed that Rezok and his cohorts were close to completing their gruesome ritual. Only one final sacrifice remained. Judging from the bluish tint to Kristin’s skin, Talon didn’t think she had much time left. Some ancient terror would be birthed on this mountain when the chanting stopped and Kristin succumbed to her bitter ordeal.

  Snow whipped Talon’s face as he considered his options. If he just started firing at them, one of the knife-wielding targets might reach Kristin before Talon’s bullets took him out. He needed Rezok’s crew to move away from the woman. A diversion was in order.

  Talon’s gaze combed the forest and fell upon the parked snowmobile nearby. Under different circumstances, he might’ve allowed himself a dark grin – he had found his plan of attack.

  He closed in on the vehicle and cranked up its engine. The snowmobile’s roar pierced the air, drowning out Ice God’s guttural singsong.

  Rezok and his men froze. Talon had their attention.

  The skull gang exchanged a few words and darted into the woods.

  Seconds later, one of the Norwegians stepped up to the rumbling snowmobile and paused. He leaned forward and killed the engine, eyes scoping the area. He was still trying to figure out how his ride had switched on by itself when a laser dot found the center of his sculpted mask. His face erupted in a spray of crimson and fiberglass. Skull-man crumpled, bloody brain matter speckling the snow.

  A second cult member appeared and firing again, Talon stitched a bloody track across his chest. The man heaved and lurched, soon joining his buddy on the ground in a puddle of blood.

  The voice of a third band member rang out, calling his comrades, a note of panic coloring his words. The corpse-paint, black clothing and skull-masks all served to make Rezok’s crew seem larger than life and more than human. The illusion was being shattered by the power of steel.

  The third cultist grew visible in the dark forest. After a few steps he sensed movement from a snowy embankment. He stopped and narrowed his eyes, detecting something off about the snowdrift. An instant later, the snow shifted, coming alive. Talon rose from the mountain of ice, an angel of death. One gloved hand cupped the band member’s mouth while the other drove a knife into the base of his neck. After a qu
ick twist of the handle, the target’s entire body went from rigid to limp in one convulsion as his brain stem was severed.

  Three down, one to go.

  In other news, Ice God broke up tonight.

  Talon stood still and listened like the predator he was, senses fully engaged with his environment. The lead singer had vanished. Talon combed the forest but failed to detect any movement among the trees. Where had Rezok gone?

  Once more, Kristin’s cry for help carried through the night. Every fiber of Talon’s being was on high alert. He wanted to come to the terrified woman’s rescue, but he didn’t want to give away his position, either…

  Screw that. Kristin’s condition was worsening by the minute. He had to act now.

  Casting caution aside, Talon burst into the clearing. Despite the many brutalities of war he’d experienced over the last decade, he was affected by the sight before him. The clearing had become a horrific mass burial ground, with the heads of the dead acting as icy grave-markers. Talon saw no signs of decay, the cold perfectly preserving the women’s lifeless flesh.

  Talon crossed the icy cemetery to Kristin. She stared up at him with big, terror-stricken eyes now framed in frost.

  Frozen tears, Talon realized.

  On some instinctive level she seemed to comprehend that Talon wasn’t one of her kidnappers.

  “Help me,” she pleaded.

  He scanned his surroundings and spotted a shovel leaning against a tree. Ice God must’ve used it to dig Kristin’s vertical grave. Moving fast, he snatched the tool.

  Eyes still fixed on the trees, he holstered his gun. He didn’t like it, but there was no other way. He would need both hands if he hoped to free the woman from her icy prison.

  The metal shovel sliced into the ground. Talon put his back into it, but the snow seemed unwilling to release its human bounty. Even worse, he would dig and seemingly make progress only to turn around and find the snow back in its original place. Was the ice actually fighting him in some way?

  Don’t give up now!