Hammer of the Gods

by B. D. MacCallum

  “I thought as much.” She sighed.

  “Relax.” She said, placing her hands on either side of his jaw. Then with a quick jerk, she snapped his neck. “There,” she said, staring into his shock-filled eyes, beginning to glaze over, “all better.” Well, it was better than slowly suffocating, anyway. She had punched him in the throat much harder than she intended. The only way the man would’ve survived was Jesus materializing to heal him.

  She turned off the light, opened the small window, and peered into the darkness. The men were walking the wall or scanning the distant shadows. There would be two groups of four roaming the inside perimeter, but they would be concentrating on the areas close to the wall. If she kept to the shadows, she could get the body to the wall. Getting it over the wall posed a significant improbability, however.

  Then her plans turned to shit.

  The door behind her burst open with a crash of splintering wood. Mikki spun, her knife in her hand in the blink of an eye, ready for a quick kill.

  Doru Albusel was much faster, and Mikki found herself staring down the barrel of his Mossberg 590 A1. “All clear,” the man said quietly.

  Seconds later, Selucca Lazarovici entered the room, glanced at the body, then to Mikki. She eased the door closed, keeping it closed with her foot. “Close the drapes,” she said to Mikki, her tone level.

  Mikki reached behind her and closed the window and drapes, keeping a watchful eye on Doru Albusel, and the muzzle of that shotgun.

  Once the drapes had been closed, Selucca switched on the light. “You’ve been a very busy girl. So helpful Marlina can’t stop talking about how hard you’ve been working around here. Now, I find you in the room of one of my men, dead on the floor, and you looking to escape like a cornered rat.”

  Mikki lowered the knife slowly; keeping a firm grip on the hilt, just in case it was needed. The man pointing the shotgun was dangerous, but Mikki felt she could still take the both of them before he could pull the trigger, or, at least, not be in the line of fire when he did. She pulled the phone from her pocket with her free hand, sliding it across the floor to Doru’s feet. “He was being paid to spy on you, and to make reports on Thor.”

  Selucca tapped Doru on the shoulder; the man lowered the shotgun, his eyes never diverting an inch. Good! The man considered her a dangerous foe, as well. Smart man!

  The old woman didn’t seem surprised by Mikki’s statement. Why should she have been shocked? The woman lived within two countries that fostered their citizens to spy on each other as if it was a religion. “Who was paying him to spy on us?” Selucca asked, annoyance suddenly rising in her voice.

  “He didn’t know,” Mikki said, staring into the woman cold eyes. “We had a similar situation onboard the ship.”

  Selucca stared at the body, the forefinger of her right hand tapping a steady rhythm against her thigh, anger covering every inch of her creased face. “Doru, make it look like an accident. Be creative.”

  “Thor Odinsson is sure the creature and the wolves will return this evening,” the man said quietly.

  “Excellent!” Selucca spat. “I’m sure they will no doubt be hungry.” Her focus fell on Mikki, murder in those cold, gray eyes. “I would appreciate you continuing to help Marline with the laundry… If you find any more rats scurrying around my castle, feel free to exterminate them, as well.”

  The slightest hint of a smile crossed Mikki’s lips. Lamplight glinted off the knife as she twirled it between her fingers, before making the blade disappear behind her back. “Oh, I’d be happy to, Sugah.”

  Chapter 29

  Magic Man

  Thor stood alone on the ramparts, ten feet from the gatehouse, his eyes closed. The overcast sky was an inky black, normally reserved for the bottom of a well, or the inside of a sealed tomb; the air as still and rank as the latter.

  Before Thor’s mind’s eye, a black tidal wave rushed forward to claim him; it was getting easier to control, though not as much as he wished. The black water washed over him, and Thor allowed himself to drown. He sank downward within the black pool, until his mind became as empty as a politician’s promise.

  Thor became aware of everything. He could feel the pulse of the stones beneath his feet; hear the breath of the Earth beneath that. He could feel the terrible anxiety of the men near him, the rage within the creature stalking the woods, and the trepidation of the wolves hidden within the shadows surrounding the castle. Further on, he could feel the joy, anger, hate, love and regret of men, women and children living in the distant villages. For the briefest second, he could sense the workings of the cosmos; Bifrost was within his grasp, now. It would have taken very little effort to traverse the span between this world and the glories that waited on the other side.

  He stopped himself from going further; that journey would continue one day, but not until he had drawn his last breath. With luck, he would be a very old man – and spent many years with the dark-haired beauty on the third-floor balcony, watching him through a night-vision scope – before that day came. Luck, however, could be a fickle bitch. He should know; she had been letting his family down, with a smile on her face, for the last one thousand years.

  The creature was out there, standing between two one-hundred-year-old oaks – born from a tree that had survived three centuries before being cut down for lumber – studying the castle like a game board. Too many of the previous night’s events took it by surprise; it was used to being the undisputed hunter, not the hunted, and certainly not the humiliated. This unfamiliar territory was troubling; part of it wanted to flee, uncontrollable rage kept it firmly planted to the spot, calculating its options.

  If you thought you were surprised before, this will really give you something to think about. Thor raised the targeting laser, placing the dot squarely on Fenrir’s chest. From a mile in the clouds, Else let loose a missile; it descended silently toward the monster.

  Whether the creature decided to make its move at that moment, or it detected something unusual, Thor would never know, but it bolted from the tree line to the shadows of a boulder formation, nonetheless. Thor kept the laser on target, but the missile had been too low to make the correction in time and exploded a hundred yards from the creature, the fireball lighting the darkness with a blinding flash.

  The creature darted to the left, and Thor moved to a switchboard, firing off a succession of claymores and C4 buried in the ground; erupting canisters of nails and every bit of sharp steel they could find. The thing was incredibly fast, and continued to change directions faster than Thor could predict. The exploding mines either went off too late, or too early, pissing Thor off; though nowhere as pissed off as the creature being pelted with high velocity steel.

  “Get ready,” he whispered.

  His eyes remained closed, and he forced himself to breathe slowly, his hands poised over the series of triggers. The creature bolted to the right, and Thor’s hand passed over several triggers, touching nothing. The creature swung left again, and Thor swept his hand across the line of posts, the “Hot wire” gripped tightly in his fist. Two were too late, but the next three erupted beneath the goddamned thing; the last sending it hurling through the air with a pain-filled howl and flailing legs, steel projectiles tearing through it flesh with ease.

  “Now,” Thor said.

  Seconds later, two F-18 Super Hornets thundered past, scorching the earth with a half-mile swath of napalm; the fire burning intensely, sending a thick column of black smoke upward to the black sky.

  Two dozen men rushed the north rampart, weapons pointed at the inferno.

  The great beast bounded from the blaze, leaving a trail of liquid fire trailing after it. Then it quickly rolled, extinguishing the flames burning its flesh. Still smoldering, it rose to its feet, paused to stare at Thor, then ran toward the woods amid a flurry of gun and rocket fire. For the second time in as many nights, it managed to elude the onslaught of missiles and hot lead Else threw its way.

  Thor hung his head, spent. It was
his move, but he was not sure he had one left to make. How in Hel did it survive that?

  “That was the most goddamnable thing I’ve ever seen!” Jacques said, staring into the distance. “How’d you do that? How’d you know where to place the explosives and drop the napalm?”

  Thor stared blankly at the man, his head swimming; Nwabudike and Bonchance rushing forward to grab him before his knees gave out completely. One of them placed a canteen filled with Bryndis’ vile concoction to his lips, forcing it down his throat.

  “I just saw it in my head,” Thor said quietly.

  Jacques placed a hand on Thor’s shoulder. “Then you’ll find a way to kill it, I know you will.”

  The beast returned an hour before dawn, keeping its distance as it circled the castle. Thor’s chest filled with a twisted pride; his actions had caused the feared beast to break from tradition, and return for a second time in one night.

  Men kept an eye on the fucking thing via satellite imagery, reporting every movement. As annoying as the continuous voices in his earpiece were, Thor was grateful for the conformation of the beast’s location; grateful it was not just his imagination.

  Else was airborne once again, pleading for Thor to give her the go ahead to rain down death; her pleas falling on deaf ears. She may be the best pilot Jacques had ever seen, but the monster had proven to be beyond her abilities in the darkness. Thor knew in the light of day, there would have been no plea; Else would have not hesitated to attempt to put an end this creature, no matter what Thor had to say.

  The creature made another wide circle, pausing in the same spots it had twice before. A few hundred wolves came out of the hills, spreading out to circle the fortress; they moved closer, cautiously. Then, one by one, they stopped advancing toward the wall.

  “Come on,” Thor whispered, aware but not caring at the moment, that his voice was being transmitted to nearly every ear in the vicinity. “What are you up to?”

  “Should we take out the wolves?” Jacques asked.

  “No,” Thor replied. This was a curious twist; he had to see where it led.

  A few seconds after the last wolf stopped, and the beast began to move. From the hills, it raced toward the west wall, reaching over eighty miles per hour. It angled to the south, and men braced for an attack. The creature reversed its trajectory with incredible agility, a spray of earth and grass flying as claws dug deep. It wove between the wolves, like a skier on a downhill slalom.

  Thor shouted: “Shoot the wolves! Shoot the wolves!” Men began to open fire on the small creatures; the beast still closing the gap with incredible speed.

  Then the damned thing leaped, springing from the top of a large boulder; clearing the wall with ease. It tore one of Selucca’s men in half with a swipe one of its terrible claws, and leaped from the wall, heading toward the forest while the man’s limbs quivered until all of the life-force drain from his broken body.

  The creature stood just on the edge of the tree-line, staring at Thor in act of defiance. It howled, and a few of the men shot with high-powered sniper rifles; a few coming close, but the range proving to be too great.

  The wolves slipped away quickly; slinking back into the shadows.

  Thor stood in awe of the damned monster disappearing into the trees. Buried deep beneath the crippling rage the creature felt, was a small feeling of satisfaction.

  “Too cleaver, this fucking thing!” Jacques said.

  “What do you mean?” another asked.

  Thor glanced at the man. “It used the wolves to mark the location of land mines and C4.”

  “I hope you have a new plan,” Nwabudike said to Thor.

  In the gray of twilight, Thor could see the dead man clearly. Men were preparing a body bag, and Thor was trying to find the words to comfort the man’s next of kin. What word could he possibly say to make anyone feel better?

  Strike three, motherfucker! He gave Nwabudike a hate-filled gaze. “This thing wants to play; we’re going to change the rules! Trust me, I’m really good at it. Did anyone else see it was still bleeding?”

  “Yes!” one man shouted. “From the wound with the twisted metal in it.”

  Another man spoke up; “I saw it, too!”

  Thor turned to Jacques. “Can you get your hands on enough fifty caliber rifles for every man on the wall?”

  “Aye, lad,” Jacques said with a nod. “I’ll have them here by lunch.”

  Thor pulled the satellite phone from his pocket, then dialed Julia’s number. He barely let the woman say “Hello” when he said: “Grandma, I need Iona to get as many bolts ready as she can manage.”

  “I’ll see everybody’s on it, right away!”

  “Grandma,” Thor said, staring into Nwabudike’s dark eyes. “Nwabudike is doing a great job at keeping me alive.”

  There was a slight pause before Julia said: “I knew he would, baby bwoy.”

  Nwabudike stared at Thor, as if concerned for his sanity.

  He has every right to be concerned!

  Chapter 30

  Party Crashers

  A signal flare shot into the black sky, casting a harsh red light near the southern wall. Men jumped up, guns at the ready, polished bolt heads glittering from half of their muzzles. The clock ticked; it was Thor’s move.

  “Ignore it!” Thor said into the microphone near the corner of his mouth.

  Fenrir was out there alright, continually on the move, searching for a chink in the armor, keeping to the shadows, using the wolves to trip the wires. This had become a very annoying game over the past three nights. Hit, run. Hit, run. Thor had honed his skills with the amulet, and could now track the fucking thing like it was on the end of a very short leash, but every time he got close enough to unleash Hel, the creature would bolt to the protection of the forest, like the coward it was.

  The wolves stayed clear of him, too. He could not sense their fear nearly as strongly as the giant beast’s, but they did fear him. As frustrating as this game was, that fear of him made Thor happy, giddy as a little girl that just received a pony for her birthday, actually. It meant he was doing something right.

  Last night, Thor went up with Else, but all that accomplished was killing a few wolves and a goat, and turning four acres of land to ash. If I knew she had incendiary missiles strapped to our asses, I’d never gone up with her. The thing was fast wounded, healed it was like trying to collect raindrops with a sieve. Sometimes, it was all they could just to match its moves; getting ahead was proving more and more difficult, even with Thor sensing where it was likely to move.

  He and the men, however, were not the only ones finding this entire thing exhausting.

  Thor was beginning to wonder if Selucca had the worst part to play in all this; he overheard her yelling on the phone with Nicolae this morning. Sorina said government officials were becoming “concerned” about what seemed to be unsanctioned military activity within the country’s boarders, and Selucca was running out of favors to collect.

  Thor offered to open his wallet, but nearly had a stroke when Selucca said money would not fix the problem. He hated when people blasphemed like that! It was enough to make him lose his faith in humanity.

  Thor watched the streamers he had installed everywhere; the wind had been light, so far, and coming out of the west. The sky was clear, the moon and stars shining brightly. He had a move to make, but it required impeccable timing on his part, not to mention a modicum of cooperation from the beast outside. The beast, however, was not in a particularly cooperative mood, this evening.

  “Shit!” Thor cursed as he sensed the thing making a move. “Three-forty-five!” he shouted, “now!”

  The clock system had been Jacques’ idea, since Thor was the only one to know where the creature was most of the time. There was the satellite, of course, but the wolves would move in very tight packs, making things difficult. If Fenrir could devise a way to sever the tie Thor had to him, they were truly fucked!

  Gunfire erupted on the south wall, near the
set-off flare. This was evolving into quite a game. The creature came up with interesting new moves, and Thor responded in kind. I’d hate for the thing to get bored, and find another player.

  “I got it!” one of the men shouted.

  There was an unnerving howl – Fenrir had plenty of those – and Thor sensed searing pain in the beast’s shoulder. This was the third time the thing had been shot in four nights. I would’ve taken the hint after the first. A wave of rage followed as Fenrir broke for the trees. The creature was used to killing at will; being the hunted was incomprehensible. Thor toyed with the idea of hunting it down, but that trick only worked once. Once the element of surprise was gone, so were your chances of survival.

  “Stand down,” Thor said, sensing the creature running toward the distant mountains. It had no intention of returning tonight, but that did not necessarily mean it would not. The thing kept Thor on his toes with its constant changes. So far, he had managed not to lose another man, but he also had the benefits of tall, stone walls and modern weaponry. The thought of his ancestors facing hundreds of these things, with nothing but spears and shields for defense, was mind blowing.

  “We got company coming,” Jacques announced.

  “Now what, a plague of locusts?” Thor asked, sarcastically.

  “No, a vehicle,” the older man replied.

  Great! Thor sensed a headache coming on. “Somebody get Selucca.” He jogged toward the wall above the gate. Moments’ later, a green, 1985 Land rover roared into view, the driver speeding through the darkness as if Hel herself was breathing down their neck. Given recent events, Thor believed that was entirely possible.

  The old SUV had seen better days, the top was caved in, the windows were missing, as was the hood, and it only had one working headlight that flickered with every bump. Whoever was behind the wheel was desperate. Twice the old Land Rover went airborne; and it nearly rolled once as it sped down the rut-filled, dirt road. Each time the vehicle landed, it sounded as if it were about to fly apart, and was, most likely, leaving a trail of parts in its wake.