“Open the gate!” Thor shouted, and the sounds of men clamoring in the gatehouse and the grating of metal on metal filled the night air.
The Land Rover sped through the opening, skidding to a stop as the wheels hit the courtyard. A cloud of dust arose, and the engine sputtered and wheezed before dying an undignified death.
“Help us, please!” a voice from inside pleaded, in perfect English. Blinding flood-lights came on, and a man crawled through the window, shielding his face from the glare. His clothes were tattered – most likely from the accident that had trashed the vehicle. A few of the men pulled a strawberry-blonde haired woman free from the ruined vehicle, placing her on the ground with care. From the blood covering her face, she was in worse shape than the Land Rover.
“What happened?!” Sorina demanded, rushing forward, expecting to be answered. It happened while Thor was not looking; Sorina had ripped the reigns from Selucca’s hand, and was now the lady of the manor, for good and bad.
“I think we were attacked by a bear!” the man said, in an all too familiar voice.
Sorina raised an eyebrow – She knows I think she looks sexy when she does that! – and examined the scene spread out before her. “A bear?” she asked, suspiciously.
Thor froze mid-way down the stairs. “Marty LeMay?”
The F.B.I. agent squinted as he looked up at Thor, then groaned. “I told her, you go looking for the Devil; you usually find him!” He turned to the men huddled over the woman. “How is she?”
“Not good,” the ex-Green Beret, Sean, said, kneeling and ripping open a plastic bag with his teeth. “She’s lost a lot of blood, and has internal damage.” He started an I.V., holding the bag over his head, and Thor saw Tilde’s face clearly through the blood. He looked to Thor. “She’ll die if we don’t get her to a hospital.”
Was the man actually seeking permission to save the woman’s life?!
Thor nodded quickly. “Else!” he bellowed.
“I’m on it!” Else’s voice came through the earpiece, and the Blackhawk’s turbines began to whine. Two men loaded Tilde onto a stretcher, then rushed toward the helicopter, Sean running alongside with the I.V. bag held high. Thor was no doctor, but he realized Tilde’s chances of making it to a hospital were slim, at best.
“You should go with her, LeMay,” Thor said quickly. “She should wake up to a familiar face.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, lad. She’s headed to a classified location,” Jacques said, eyeing the F.B.I. agent. “Don’t worry; she’ll get the best treatment. Then we’ll make arrangements for her to go home.” He watched the helicopter lift off and disappear into the blackness.
Sorina came up, placing an arm around Thor’s waist, and asked: “Who is this man, Thor?”
The F.B.I. agent stared incredulous, shaking his head. He gestured to Sorina. “What do you do, pull them out of a hat?”
Thor smiled at the comment. “This is Special Agent Martin LeMay. We go way back.”
“My name is Sorina Lazarovici, Mister LeMay,” she said, extending her hand, and LeMay gave it a firm shake. “How did the two of you meet?” she asked the agent. She found Thor’s extensive group of “friends” intriguing, and asked all sorts of questions to gain insight on him.
A strange look crossed the agent’s face, as if he were deciding what to say. “Thor helped me with a missing person’s case, years ago. We’ve been great friends since then.”
Sorina’s eyes narrowed. “Interesting. So, you’re here to help, as well?”
“Oh, yes!” LeMay said, smiling. His eyes fell on Thor. “Nothing would please me more.”
“Well,” Sorina sighed, “I guess we need to get another room ready.”
Martin LeMay raised his hands in protest. “Oh, I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said with a smile. “Any friend of Thor is welcome in my home.” She kissed Thor, then strode away.
“Why didn’t you tell her the truth?” Thor asked when he was sure Sorina could not hear.
The agent wore an amused expression. “A blind fool can see that girl loves you. The way I figure, when you break her heart, she’s gonna shoot you with that Luger she’s carrying, and do the world a favor in the process.”
“I thought, maybe your brain got rattled during the crash.”
LeMay’s eyes flickered from Thor to Jacques. “Would someone mind telling me what kind of shit-storm I’ve just landed in… or is that classified, too?”
“What do you mean, lad?” Jacques asked.
“Okay, we’ll play,” the agent sighed. “You’re not gonna kill me, or you would’ve let Heitman die. You’ve probably got someone on the horn, finding out who sent us, who knows we’re here, and who else is out there looking for you. The three dead men I spotted standing on the wall, say there’s a deep government cover-up, and I may end-up dead anyway. So, let’s start with, what the fuck took out the Land Rover, and don’t say a bear; that would just piss me off.”
“Then we can talk about why everyone says this place doesn’t exist. Then we’ll discuss the C.I.A. agents trying to kill Heitman and me. How about the battlefield I just drove through, the unmistakable smell of death in the air, why this place seems under siege, but there’s no army but the one in here… and, oh yes, tell the snipers on my six and eleven to either fire, or lower their weapons; they’re making my spine itch.”
“I told you that was LeMay in Constanța,” Bill Collier said, from atop the wall.
Jacques gave the signal to the snipers. “What outfit were you with, lad?”
The agent sighed. “There’s no use lying; I imagine you could have my entire history in seconds. I was with a special recovery unit, Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment,” he said with pride, and a few men atop the wall shouted “Ah-oo!” with pride. “There are three men on the wall that can verify that.”
“RLTW, baby!” a voice called out.
“Sua Sponte!” another shouted.
Jacques raised his eyebrows, then glanced at Thor with a shrug.
Marty’s eyes went wide, staring at Thor. “Please tell me you’re joking! You can’t seriously want me to believe this fucker’s in charge?”
Thor knew that would be a problem with the F.B.I. agent.
Nwabudike and the lean Frenchman that operated the communication links and surveillance satellite, Baynard Arnaud, walked briskly toward them. Nwabudike’s face was unreadable as ever, but something was very wrong. Baynard handed Jacques a sheet of paper, and Nwabudike did his best statue impression.
Jacques sighed heavily after reading the paper, then rubbed his forehead. “You have a serious problem, lad,” he said to LeMay. “You and Agent Tilde Heitman are wanted for killing four police officers in Constanța, and kidnapping a man driving a green Land Rover in Râmnicu Vâlcea. It’s utter bullshit, I know. Nevertheless, you and the woman are obviously someone’s loose ends.”
“Were two of the officers Razvan Lungu and Dragoi Valiselescu?” Martin asked quickly.
Jacques scanned the paper, then nodded. “I’m sorry, lad,” he said quietly, seeing pain Marty’s eyes.
“I’m assuming, bringing either of us in for questioning isn’t a high priority,” Marty said to the captain.
Jacques shook his head. “You’d probably take your own lives, after a stand-off. That’s the popular method.” He held a hand up, noticing a glimmer in Marty’s eye. “The girl’s safe, you have my word; as little as it may mean to you.”
“Who’s capable of doing this, JJ?” Thor asked the older man.
“Capable?!” Jacques snorted, “a hundred names come to mind, without exertion. I don’t have a clue who ordered it done, though.”
“I’ve got a little matter to tend to at the moment,” Thor said, staring into Marty’s eyes. “But, when I’m done with that, I’m going to make things right for you, Martin. You’ve been the biggest pain in the ass for years, but you’re a good man, and good men don’t deserve to go down like that.”<
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“You’ll forgive me if I don’t get all teary-eyed,” the agent said with a sneer.
“What the Hel are the two of you doing here to begin with?” Thor asked.
Martin rubbed his head. “Anyone have something to drink?” Jacques handed him a flask of very fine Scotch, Thor had a few samples, already. “Heitman had it in her head, you were an arms dealer.”
“A what?!” Thor chuckled at the thought. A thief, a murderer, and now a gun runner! Why does everyone think the worst of me?
“Don’t laugh too hard, boy,” Martin snapped. “We staked-out your ship for a day-and-a-half, and it didn’t look good. I knew you weren’t stupid enough to deal arms, but I did see enough new toys on your chopper to know something bad was going down. I thought you found the person that set you up in Copenhagen.”
“So, the two of you came out here alone?!” Thor asked. “You’re as insane as everyone thinks I am.”
There was a twinkle in Martin’s eyes. “Back in the day, I would’ve been by myself. I’d slipped over the wall, gotten a handle on what we were dealing with, and been waiting in the trees out there, sipping coffee, while I waited for the Calvary to arrive.”
Thor had no doubt the man was telling the truth; the few pages from the agent’s military file that had not been redacted had been impressive.
“How’d you find this place?” Thor asked LeMay.
“Luck, mainly,” LeMay snorted. “Finding someone to pick us up, after the car broke down in the middle of nowhere was the hardest part. These people go crazy with the term stranger danger. We were bouncing our way down the miserable excuse for a road in the dark one minute, the next, there’s a flash of fur and teeth in the headlights, and we’re rolling down a hill.”
“After I regained consciousness, I found the driver, part of him, anyway. I managed to get the Land Rover off its side and on its wheels and Heitman into it. I had no real idea where I was heading; I just headed for the signal flare in the sky. Heitman was banged-up, and I figured anything was better than sticking around to see what killed the kid.”
Martin took another sip of whiskey. “So… what killed the kid?”
The men exchanged glances. Nwabudike studied the agent, but whatever the Nigerian was thinking, he kept to himself. Jacques merely sighed, then shrugged his shoulders.
Thor was probably making a huge mistake, but what other choice did he have? They had drawn too much attention as it was; it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world learned this secret. He cleared his throat. “Marty, I know you’re going to find this unbelievable, but…”
Thor laid-out a history lesson to the agent, dating back from the Viking age to the present, and showed the photos Jacques had. He left out several details: Jorick’s journal, the amulet and his connection to the creature, the dream, and of course, the visit with Chelsea – He made up his mind to never tell anyone that part, not even Traci – and other parts that Thor had trouble believing. Martin LeMay stared blank-faced as Thor talked. He could not give Nwabudike a run for the money, but he could give lessons to boulders on how not to show emotion.
When Thor finished, the F.B.I. agent carefully closed the flask and handed it back to Jacques. He sat for a moment, staring at nothing. “If they killed this thing a thousand years ago, what’s it doing here now? Did it come back from the dead?”
“You seem awfully willing to accept the story, lad,” Jacques said to Martin.
“Perspective,” the agent said, gesturing toward Thor with a thumb. “I would’ve written anyone else off as a mental case. When it comes to Thor Odinsson, however, this doesn’t sound so far-fetched.”
“They never killed it,” Thor answered Martin. “I don’t know how it escaped, but it was always around. Every country on the continent has stories of a werewolf, hunting by the light of the moon; the oldest right here in Romania. The thing was so cunning; it had to be, at least, part human in some form, as far as people were concerned. I think it was even the Beast of Gevaudan, and a few others. It makes sense.”
“You asked what’s going on, and I told you,” Thor said, after a few minutes of awkward silence. “The only thing I’m asking you to do is stay out of the way, while I kill this thing.”
“What happens if you don’t kill it?” Martin asked quietly, his mind obviously running a mile a minute.
Thor paused. He had asked himself the same question over and over, and came up with the only answer that made sense. “I think it will be the beginning of the end… of everything.”
“Ragnarok,” Martin said quietly.
Thor blinked twice. “Yes. But how would you know that?”
“I studied your grandfather’s work,” the agent replied. He stared Thor in the eyes. “Know your enemy, and half the work is done for you.”
Martin stared into Thor’s eyes, for what seemed an hour. His eyes flickered from the men gathered round to those on the wall, most of whom still watched the horizon. He turned his attention to Nwabudike. “What are the odds he can pull this off?”
“One in fifty,” Nwabudike replied in that gravelly voice. “But, when we first began, I believed it to be one in million” Wow! Nwabudike and I will be BFFs before you know it.
“Can I get a change of clothes, and a proper weapon?” martin asked sadly. “I may as well make myself useful. It’s painfully obvious I’m not going anywhere.”
“We can manage that, lad,” Jacques said, nodding.
“I meant what I said, Marty,” Thor said quickly. “I’ll get things straightened around for you, once this is over.”
The F.B.I. agent had an odd look on his face as he turned to Thor. “You will always be an enemy to me, Thor Odinsson,” he said, then followed Jacques into the shadows.
Wow, that hurt! “What the Hel was that about?” Thor asked Nwabudike.
“He paid you a very high compliment,” Nwabudike answered quietly. “He knows, the one sent to kill him, will be a friend of his.”
That’s fucked up! Thor glanced sideways at Nwabudike. “Are we friends?”
Nwabudike looked Thor in the eye, a slight upward curve on the left side of his mouth, sending a shiver down Thor’s spine. “Thor Odinsson, we have been friends for a very long time.”
“Can we go back to being enemies?”
Nwabudike chuckled, which was worse than any smile. “One day, perhaps.”
Chapter 31
The Horrific Silence
The sun had not yet set when Thor climbed the stairs to the curtain wall. He slowly made two complete laps, his mind deep in thought, before settling down on a merlon to stare at the distant forest.
He was still there as the gloom of twilight turned black, alone, feeling the creature’s eyes on him; eyes filled with contempt and a self-satisfied smile covering that twisted muzzle. He glared back at the cursed thing. He could not see it, of course, but he sensed the beast did not realize that fact.
The beast taught Thor a painful lesson the night before. After testing the defenses three times, and coming up bloody each of those times, Fenrir attacked a farmhouse thirty miles to the south. It killed five adults and four children, leaving the mutilated body of a three-year-old girl at the foot of the wall for added shock-value; proving that Thor was not the only one that could change the rules.
Knowing that the little girl and her family paid the price for Fenrir’s frustration with this little game, was a bitter pill to swallow; he tried to keep innocent lives out of this millennia- long feud, too many have died already over Jorick’s mistake. It was time to put an end to this match, before more innocent blood is spilled.
From beneath his shirt, Thor could feel the amulet’s power leeching into him, filling him with knowledge that no man should possess. It was maddening, like standing in a warehouse filled with a million T.V screens, all on different channels and changing every second, making it impossible to concentrate on anything. The only constant was his connection to the beast in the woods; he could hear it breathing, feel its heart
pounding, and taste the terrible rage it felt.
For too long he had fought the power, holding back in a desperate attempt to retain his sanity. Now the power flooded into him, as if rushing from a burst dam, to consume him and take his soul; and he welcomed the end of his sanity with open arms.
Thor eased down to the rampart, feeling the creature beginning to move; he followed its movement on the wall, rifle ready to fire. The wolves kept their distance as the monster drew closer, testing a perceived weakness. Thor concentrated on that weakness as if it were real; making himself believe it was, and fearing it with all of his heart. The thing circled twice more, with Thor matching it step for step on top of the wall, alone – that part took a lot of convincing and fast-talking.
The great beast sniffed the air, surprised that Thor’s was the only scent on the wall. It emitted a barely-audible growl, suspicious of the trap that Thor had laid out for it; but moving closer, nonetheless.
“That’s right, bitch, it’s just you and me out here!” Thor shouted into the darkness. He could feel rage welling-up within the creature, but it was nothing like the emotion Thor could sense when he added: “You should’ve heard the way the other one screamed, just before I killed it!”
The creature wanted to snarl and rush the wall, but did not; it remained silent, creeping closer slowly. It continued weaving its way toward the northeast corner at a snail’s pace; Thor falling back just as slowly. This was the part of the plan Thor left out during all that fast-talking.
That’s right, you can come as close as you want. See it, see what it need you to see. Thor went to one knee, the muzzle of the rifle pointed into the blackness, as the creature reached the base of the wall. This was not the make or break part of the trap – that part required a huge favor – it was just the part that scared the shit out of him. He knew he could hit the beast, blindfolded, if it jumped the wall, but if it was not a kill shot, there would be no time to reload.
Fenrir backed away from the wall, elated, weaving its way south, and Thor breathed a sigh of relief.
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