After dinner, Tori led me across an open yard to a large outbuilding resembling a barn. I was right about the house – a huge mission-style mansion – sitting on a cliff; the ocean waves crashed like cymbals one hundred feet below. “The Valkyries were Odin’s battle maidens,” Tori explained as we walked. She raised her voice to carry over the roar of the wind. “He tasked them with the duty of selecting the finest of human warriors to fill his halls in Valhalla and prepare to fight on his behalf during Ragnarok.”
I checked to make sure, but yes, Tori had managed to relay her information with a somber face, making me inclined to respect her rather than laugh at her. “So, you are not those same Valkyries from Odin’s days?”
“We are not the same Valkyries, as you are not the same Sol. We inherited the birthright. We train and teach each new generation so none will forget. If the sons of Odin require our assistance again, we will be prepared.”
“How do you find your sisters?” I asked, thinking of Skyla.
“We’ve traced the bloodlines. A record is made every time a new daughter is born.”
“Have you ever lost anyone?”
Tori stopped us at the entrance to the barn and crossed her arms over her chest. “What is the purpose of your questions, daughter of Sol?”
“Daughter of Sol?” I grimaced. “Really?”
Tori blushed. “I’m sorry, sometimes we get caught up in the old ways, living out here in obscurity. Solina, what are you trying to ask me?”
“It’s probably nothing, but I have a friend I think you should meet. She’s fierce, and I think she would fit in your ranks.”
“It’s unlikely that we’ve overlooked one of our sisters, but I would be happy to meet her if the opportunity arises. What’s her name?”
“Skyla. Skyla Ramirez.”
“It isn’t familiar to me.” Tori waved a hand, dismissing the thought, and pushed open the barn door. She showed me a room full of modern exercise equipment, weight machines, fighting dummies, gym mats—more paraphernalia than I wanted to catalogue. Two women in fencing gear sparred against each other in one corner of the room. To our right, another pair went through a series of motions vaguely resembling martial arts.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yes,” Tori agreed. “This is where we train.”
“Obviously. Y’all take yourselves pretty seriously, don’t you? I’m not really a fighter.” I followed Tori as she picked her way through the room, clearing a path through yoga mats, jump ropes, hand weights, and resistance bands. “Always thought of myself as more of a lover.”
Tori glanced at me over her shoulder. “Why can’t we be mighty both in battle and in the bedroom?”
I blushed. “That isn’t what I meant.”
Tori directed us through another set of doors and down a flight of dim stairs into a basement. “I know what you meant,” she said, “but all that is about to change.” Tori brushed a switch, and a row of fluorescent lights flickered to life. In contrast to the bright, warm room above, the basement was stark and cold. “New world, new rules. You need to learn them if you’re going to survive.”
My insides went cold at her words. “Can’t you set up a perimeter of bodyguards or something? Is it really necessary for me to fight?”
Tori’s face scrunched as if she had tasted something bitter. “You’re beyond that, now, don’t you think? You have a weapon. You need to learn to use it effectively.”
She had a point, and I really didn’t want to be helpless. “What am I going to have to do?”
Tori turned and put her hands on my shoulders. We met each other eye to eye. “We’re going to tear down what used to be and build something stronger in its place.”
“Like the bionic woman?” I asked. Tori shook her head, apparently not understanding my reference. “Never mind. Tell me one thing, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Is this going to hurt?”
Tori’s stern face shifted into a smile, an evil, masochistic smile. “Oh, most definitely.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
The first morning of my reconditioning, after an embarrassingly wheezy and cramp-inducing three-mile run, Tori took me to the Valkyries’ work-out barn and deposited me into the calloused but graceful hands of Inyoni, a sturdy girl who wore her dark hair trimmed close to her head in a soft poof. Big brown eyes set off the smooth, unlined face of a teenager. Part of me wanted to dismiss her for her youth and innocent looks, but her impressive stature and obvious athletic strength made me reconsider.
Inyoni paced the padded floor mats between us like a caged and irritated cat. In the wall of mirrors at her back, a second, dimmer Inyoni mimicked her every move. “You’re here for self-defense training,” Inyoni said, her tone harsh and sarcastic. “You are a grown woman, raised out there”—she motioned in a non-specific direction—“among the Normies, the soft, innocent, mundane population. It’s going to take a miracle to fix you.”
“Normies?” I said, ignoring Inyoni’s insult. Maybe she wanted to pick a fight, lure me into exposing my weaknesses. I might have been soft, but I wasn’t stupid. Well, not that stupid.
“The normal people,” Inyoni said and rolled her eyes.
“Normal served me well for twenty-five years.”
Inyoni paused in mid-stride. “Oh yeah? Then what are you doing here?”
I huffed. “Tori kidnapped me, duh.”
“Duh.” She snorted. “You just proved my point. That never would have happened to me.” Inyoni motioned to the front door. “But I won’t stop you if you want to leave.”
“What about the fate of the world if the wolf gets me?”
“It’s a load of crap, if you ask me.”
“Then what are you doing here?” I asked, impersonating her insolent tone. I motioned to the exit. “I won’t stop you.”
Inyoni rolled her eyes again. “As if. I’m here because the helpless-woman routine makes me sick. It’s like… like…” She pinched her bottom lip between two fingers as she devised an appropriate analogy. “It’s like those suffragettes in the women’s liberation movement—yeah, I take online history classes, what of it? I’m doing all of womankind a favor by training you.”
I smothered a snicker. “How’s that?”
“One less pansy-bitch in the world equals one giant leap for womankind.”
Unable to hold it in anymore, I burst out laughing. Inyoni reminded me so much of Skyla. Inyoni scowled at first, but then she relaxed and let a grin spread across her face. “So, are you in or are you a wuss?”
“I’m definitely a wuss,” I said, still giggling. “But I’m in. I make no guarantees, though. You’re right. I’ve had a lifetime of taking things for granted. We probably won’t fix that in one day.”
Inyoni shrugged. “Whatever. It’s either train you or spend my mornings cleaning our weapons stock.”
“Weapons stock?”
Inyoni threw herself into a dramatic, martial arts pose. “I know, right? Like a woman needs anything other than her bare hands.”
I swallowed my less-than-agreeable reply.
Inyoni lowered her hands, returning her martial arts poses to her inner arsenal. Instead of attack, she started me on basic defense techniques. “When you’re in a confrontation,” Inyoni began, “you only have a few seconds and a few moves to try before you’re screwed, especially if your opponent is bigger or more skilled. And face it, Solina, in your case, your attacker is pretty much guaranteed to be bigger and more skilled. So, before an enemy has got full control over you, you gotta do everything you can—conserving as much energy as possible—to inflict injury so you can get away.”
“The best defense is a good offense,” I said.
Inyoni shrugged. “It’s a cliché ’cause it’s true. So, put away all your Normie conventions. Your prom queen manners. Throw the rules of civilization out the window.”
“I was never prom queen.”
“I was there in the car with Tori when she kidnapped you in
Vegas. You sure looked like a prom queen to me. Or a hooker. Not sure which.”
I sniffed. “Is trash talking part of this training? I thought that was just something they did in TV wrestling matches.”
Inyoni grinned and picked up from where she had left off. “In a physical confrontation that calls for self-defense, it’s hurt or be hurt. So aim for the parts of the body where you can do the most damage using the least amount of effort: the eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knee, and legs.”
“The position of the attacker and how close he is will determine where you’ll strike and what part of your body you’ll use to do it. Never step in closer to strike his nose with your hand when you can kick his knee instead.” Inyoni demonstrated her meaning with a swift and graceful movement. “But you’ve got to know more than just how to inflict pain. We’re going to teach you how to cause irrevocable damage—popping eyes, buckling a knee sideways.” I blanched and tried not to gag at the thought. Inyoni either didn’t notice or chose to ignore my distress and continued to talk. “Most people don’t know how to make sure their force hits their opponent in a way that will cause permanent damage, and they will instinctively avoid it. But not you. We’re going to rewire your instincts.”
We spent the first hour attacking invisible opponents using upper body techniques before applying my new skills to Chuck, the Valkyries’ all-purpose abuse dummy.
At the end of the lesson, I was sweating, sore, and drained, but I had shed some of my helplessness and embraced the beginnings of my own empowerment. Feminists of the world were undoubtedly rejoicing and singing praises in my name. Inyoni patted my back. “Well, you still suck pretty bad, but you’ve got a good work ethic. If you keep it up, you might be better than completely useless, someday.”
After lunch, Tori took me to the Valkyries’ gym again and introduced me to Kalani, a lanky woman who stood on stork-like legs. Kalani greeted me by handing me a long-bladed knife, serrated on both sides close to the hilt. My fire was my real weapon. The knife was purely backup. At some point, I might learn to shoot a gun, too, although I had seen a bullet have no effect on the wolf. But I was willing to try anything, if it might save my life. Tori assured me the Valkyries had several gun experts among them, but Kalani was their Mistress of the Blade.
“That, my friend, is a Gerber Mark II,” Kalani said without preamble or friendly chit-chat. The Valkyries seemed to take their fighting as seriously as the Pope took religion. “Double-edged, spear-point, wasp-waisted blade, and a Fairbain-Sykes styled grip.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t speak knife-ese.”
Kalani smiled. “The words are not so important. It’s the action you take with it that matters.”
I weighed the knife in my palm. It was a substantial thing, and its double-sided nature made it more intimidating than anything in my set of expensive German kitchen knives at home. “Where do we begin?”
Kalani furrowed her thick black brows. Before I comprehended her movement, she had struck out and knocked the blade from my grasp. So much for my progress toward self-empowerment. With her brow still creased, Kalani studied the knife lying on the floor in a mockery of my clumsiness. Her dark eyes turned to mine, and she frowned. “We start at the beginning.”
“And that means what?”
“I won’t show you knife techniques today. Probably not tomorrow either. Or the next day. We begin with balance, and balance starts with the feet. You’ll learn footwork until it is a dance your body knows from memory, then you’ll learn to fight empty handed, and then, maybe, I’ll give you a stick.”
I shook my head. “I think you all expect too much from me. I’m not a Valkyrie.”
“I expect nothing from you.” Kalani bent to pick up the knife. “The question is what do you expect from yourself?”
First Inyoni’s smack talk and now Kalani’s psychological mumbo-jumbo—I shook my head. “You watch a lot of kung fu movies, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Kalani grinned. “Are there any other kinds? But no, there won’t be kung fu here. What I teach is more like tai chi. Not that stuff old people do for exercise. I mean, it’s basically the same thing, but our tai chi is for attack and defense from real and actual violence. We go into it with a different mind-set, okay?”
“I don’t really understand,” I said. “But I’m sure you’ll show me.”
Kalani nodded. “We’ll begin with a basic pattern of movements. When you learn those and repeat them without error, we’ll move on.”
Kalani and I spent the afternoon dancing in measured, fluid steps, watching my form in the wall mirrors. Kalani had endless patience, and after a frustratingly slow afternoon that would have brought me to tears with any other instructor, she praised my effort and said reassuring things about my progress. I didn’t believe her, but the encouragement was nice to hear anyway.
That night at dinner, Inyoni and Kalani entertained the other women, telling stories about my training. They ribbed and cajoled me until I agreed to get up from the dinner table and give an impromptu recital of some of the things I had learned. Embarrassment burned in my cheeks, and I wanted to shrink under their scrutiny, but at the end of my performance, they all laughed and cheered for me.
I had survived the first in a long line of strenuous but good-natured initiation rituals put on by the coolest sorority ever. With the exception of my family’s small bakery, I had never belonged to anything greater than myself. I had lived in Mani’s shadow and been quite content to do so; I might have been the sun incarnate, but between the two of us, my brother had shone the brightest. Now I wondered what I had missed out on. I wondered if something more, something of my own, awaited me beyond the reaches of wolves and egomaniacal gods.
Chapter Thirty
In the evenings, after our group dinners, Tori took me to the reinforced concrete basement under the barn, and we worked on honing my fire. For days we tried every technique she could think of to bring out my heat and light—meditation, chanting, picture associations, even a little screaming and yelling. None of her methods worked. Only intense emotion brought my powers to the surface.
Near the end of the second week, after an especially trying day in which Inyoni had repeatedly thrown me to the ground and Kalani had beaten me soundly with a small stick, I sat in the basement beside Tori, exhausted and frustrated. “I can land a decent punch and run the three-mile course without falling into an asthma attack. In another two weeks, I might be a marginally dangerous woman with my hands and a stick. But we’ve made absolutely no progress with controlling my fire. I’ve never felt so helpless.” I growled an articulate noise. “So frustrated.”
“So, do you want to give up?” Tori asked.
“No, I don’t.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and tried to figure out a way to explain my thoughts. “Failure is hard to take. Self-doubt is becoming its own hindrance, another obstacle to overcome. I’ll keep working on it, Tori. I just wish someone could reassure me, tell me that this is all going to be worth it in the end.”
I missed Skyla. She would kick my butt and tell me that whining didn’t turn her on. Heck, I missed Val and Thorin, too. They had accepted my mediocrity, or if not, then they had had the decency to keep silent about it. At first, I resented Val and Thorin for allowing me to be so easily kidnapped, but now I worried for them, especially Skyla. It had been two weeks since the Valkyries took me. Had Helen taken proactive measures against them in my absence? After practice, I planned to insist that Tori allow me to contact them.
Tori shook her head and stretched out on the dirty floor beside me in complete indifference to her white sweatpants and tank top. “I can’t tell you if you’re wasting your time or not. I am not an oracle, and I’m not sure such a thing exists anymore. I can tell you that I believe something is about to happen. I feel the earth holding its breath in anticipation. You are a key to whatever that is. Ensuring your safety is worth everything to us.”
“I understand your conviction,” I s
aid. “But I can’t help wondering about the inevitability of it all. I’m sure Sol did everything she could the last time around to keep the wolf from eating her. He got her anyway. Will all this training tip the scales in my favor this time?”
“Who knew you were so fatalistic,” Tori said.
“I thought the gods were all about fate.”
“They are. But even if something is destined, you must choose how you will meet it. Will you go to it mewling like a newborn or will you scream like a fury?”
“My brother screamed. He fought and bit and scratched and punched. It did him no good.”
“He didn’t know what was coming for him. You do.”
“I do?”
“A wolf. A man. You can beat him.”
I might have been slow to start sometimes, but I’d never been a quitter. I didn’t intend to change my ways this late in life. I pushed myself off the floor and dusted the dirt from my borrowed sweats. “Okay, thanks for the pep talk.”
“Are you ready to try again?”
“For what it’s worth, yes, I am.”
“Good.” Tori stood beside me. “We’ll try something different tonight. Close your eyes.” I did as she said. Her footsteps shuffled around and then came to a stop in front of me. “In your mind, visualize an image of Hati as wolf and hold him there.”
I reviewed my dream and paused on a frame of Hati ripping into Mani and focused on his sharp teeth and bloody jaws. We’d tried this exercise before, but nothing came of our attempts. Why did Tori expect this time would be different?
“Picture your brother fighting him,” Tori said. “Feel his pain and fear. Don’t be sympathetic. Be empathetic, put yourself in his place.”
Midnight Burning Page 22
