Rune Master

by Amelia Wilson

  “Yes, sir,” they answered in unison.

  “Excellent. Consider the hunt for Lorgan your final exam. If you pass, then we will assign you to protect the summit. Any questions?”

  Erik spoke up. “If the team should fail, who will be assigned to protect the summit?”

  “There are other groups in the SOG, Captain. They will be fully briefed and assigned.”

  “So the existence of Draugr is to become an open secret.”

  “Only to those with the highest security clearances.”

  The last thing that Erik wanted was for the existence of vampires to become common knowledge. Once the rest of the army was informed, it was only a matter of time before the whole country knew. He did not wish to see what would happen if all of the mortals rose up against his people again. It had been nearly disastrous when it happened before.

  Ulvaeus took over. “We have a confirmed sighting of Lorgan in Gothenburg within the last six hours. You will be going by helicopter to an insertion point near the building where we believe he is living. The schematic of the building is in your dossier. Examine it well. You will go in, find Lorgan, eliminate him, and bring proof of death. You have twenty minutes to accomplish this. If you are any later than that, your helicopter will be gone.”

  Twenty minutes was not a lot of time. Erik hoped that the intel they were being given was sound.

  “Your bird flies in ten minutes. Suit up and get going. Dismissed!”

  They scrambled back to the barracks, where they got into their tactical gear and gathered their weapons. Erik distributed clips of silver bullets and silver-edged daggers, both of which he normally kept locked in his footlocker. He was proud of his team’s development, but he didn’t trust them not to shank him in his sleep.

  “Remember to shoot for the head. Decapitation is the only sure way to kill a Draugr, but a head shot will keep him down. So will a shot to the heart or lungs. Any other shot is still useful, since the silver will poison him. Aim for the gut and thicker muscles so the bullet will lodge.” He tucked his cell phone into one of his pockets. He could use the camera to film the execution as proof of death. “Remember that he’s faster than you, and stronger, and probably smarter. Stay together.”

  “We’re not stupid,” Stenmark grumbled.

  “When we get back, I’m going to adjust your attitude,” Erik warned. The human scoffed. Erik checked his watch. “All right - let’s go.”

  ***

  North of Stockholm, overlooking the Bay of Bothnia where it met the Baltic Sea, Ingrid finally stopped the car. They were on the top of a hill that cut away steeply on its way to the beach, giving an excellent view of the water. The hill was crowned by a modest little house with a welcoming herb garden delineated by hand-woven stick fences. It looked idyllic, like something from a tourist postcard.

  Nika got out of the car and took a deep breath. The sea air smelled clean and was refreshingly brisk, cooling her still-jangled nerves. Ingrid joined her and looked up at the house with a smile.

  “My late husband and I built this house together in 1823,” she said. “It’s held up very well, don’t you think?”

  She hooked her arm through Nika’s and ushered her inside. The door opened into a tiny kitchen, only ten feet square, with a tub sink, a water pump and an old cast iron cook stove. A trestle table stood in the middle of the room with two chairs on either side, and the entire room smelled like apples. A ladder led up through a square opening in the ceiling, presumably into a loft where Ingrid slept.

  “It’s lovely,” Nika said with a smile.

  “Thank you.” She gestured toward one of the chairs and grabbed a kettle from a hook above the sink. “Tea?”

  “Thank you.”

  She sat and watched while her hostess busily puttered about the little kitchen. She pumped water into the kettle from an ancient rig by the sink, then lined a basket with cheerfully-embroidered cloths and filled it with fruit and homemade muffins. Nika felt like she was in some house beautiful magazine spread, or maybe she was dreaming.

  “I know you have more questions,” Ingrid said. “Ask anything.”

  She took a breath and considered. “Erik said that you and Berit were sisters.”

  “Not Berit. Ithunn.” She smiled. “And not me, but Frigg. Our goddesses are sisters.”

  “He said you could teach me magic.”

  “Ah! But that’s like teaching someone how to breathe. It can’t be done.” She put the kettle on the stove and filled the belly with firewood. She tossed kindling on top and lit it with flint and steel. There was nothing modern in this place.

  “Can’t be done?” Nika echoed, disappointed.

  “No. You can’t teach someone how to do what comes naturally. You just have to help them get out of their own way.” She sat in the chair opposite Nika, still wearing a kindly smile. “You are Valtaeigr, and not yet a Draugr… although you will be, once he finishes changing you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’re still mortal. I can see he’s been feeding you dreyri, my darling. That prolongs your life and amplifies your senses, but it doesn’t make you a vampire. Not even if you drink blood from him.” She patted her hand. “You have to die first.”

  She stared at her. “But I… I felt a change. A transformation. When I drank the dreyri for the first time, I became something different than I was before.”

  “Yes. You became an elevated and extended human. But you are no Draugr yet.”

  “How will I know when it happens? And what… how do I have to die?”

  Ingrid smiled. “Those are answers you will find when you come to them.”

  ***

  The helicopter hovered over the roof of the apartment block that Lorgan was reportedly occupying. Erik and his team fast-roped to the flat area behind the satellite dish and water tank, taking up position at the door to the interior. Ulf tried the knob. “Locked.”

  Erik was not impressed. He gripped the knob and twisted, his grip punching divots into the metal. The lock broke with a snap, and the door swung open.

  “Not anymore,” he told his team. “Let’s go.”

  He had studied the schematics for the building during the flight from Karlsborg to Gothenburg. The stairway led down the entire southwest corner with portals to each floor. The electrical box was just to the south of where the stairs ended in the basement, and that was their first objective.

  The apartment that was supposedly Lorgan’s was on the second floor, fourth door to the left from the stairwell. An informer in the Gothenburg police department had advised that he and a brunette were in for the night. Erik wondered if the woman was even still alive.

  They descended the stairs. At the second floor, Erik called a halt and reached out with his Draugr senses. He could feel the other vampire, his energy muddled and muted. He was sleeping off a big feed, which told Erik that his brunette companion was no longer among the living. He nodded to Sven, who trotted down to the electrical box. Aron shifted his grip on his rifle, nervously watching as his twin headed down the stairs.

  Stenmark looked at Erik, and the vampire captain motioned for the team to put on their night vision goggles. He had no need for such paraphernalia. At the bottom of the stairs, Sven tapped the wall, a quiet signal that only Erik would hear. At the count of three, the power would be cut, and hopefully that would keep the human residents from seeing more than they should.

  Three… two… one…

  Right on cue, the electricity in the building stopped buzzing with a whimper. Ulf opened the door and they swarmed out into the hallway. They rapidly advanced on Lorgan’s room. Inside, the sleepy vampire was stirring, but slowly. So far everything was going according to plan, which made Erik nervous. Nothing ever really went according to plan.

  Ulf went past the door and flattened himself against the wall, his rifle held at the ready. The apartments around them were filled with chatter as people reacted to the electrical failure. Stenmark mimicked Ulf’s posture on
the near side of the door, and Aron took up position across the hall from the vampire’s door, his gun trained on the opening, ready to blast if their quarry burst into view.

  Erik raised his leg and kicked the door off of its hinges. Lorgan was in the middle of the living room floor, his brunette companion dead at his side, white as paper. The startled vampire leaped up onto his feet like a martial artist, snarling.

  “Veithimathr!”

  Stenmark opened fire. Lorgan was no fledgling, though, and he leaped up above the bullets before they could reach him, moving in a blur of black and green. Ulf threw a silver dagger toward the vampire, and it went over his shoulder and embedded itself in the ceiling. Lorgan laughed.

  Sven joined them, pounding up from the basement with a wild grin on his face. As soon as he arrived, Aron lost his hesitation and waded into the room, spraying the room with silver bullets. Erik could hear screams in the neighboring apartments, and he shouted an order. “Precision fire only!”

  Aron glared at him but stopped shooting so indiscriminately. Lorgan ran for the window, hitting it feet first and flying out into the night. Erik cursed. If Gunnar and his boys had been here, that vampire would have been dead by now. He followed him out the window, leaving his team behind. He could hear Stenmark ordering them to the roof.

  Lorgan soared ahead of him, and then turned, facing him with a wide grin on his face, his cheeks ruddy with the life he’d stolen from the woman on his carpet. He was no vessel. “You missed,” he taunted.

  Erik gathered his power. He had never been much for flying. He called upon the god within him, and Vidar woke, his divine force pouring into his vessel’s limbs. He launched like a missile, aiming straight at Lorgan’s midsection. The younger vampire’s smile died as he realized that he was facing off against one of the First.

  Erik pulled his axe from its sheath on his back and swung it as he swooped by, decapitating Lorgan in one shot. His body was dust before it ever hit the ground. He circled back toward the building and dropped onto the roof beside Sven.

  “Did you record it?” he asked.

  The Jansen twin nodded and indicated the infrared camera that he was holding. “Proof of death, right here.”

  Erik nodded, satisfied. Stenmark pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the police station. Their contact answered. “It’s done,” he informed him. “There’s a body in the apartment.”

  “We’ll clean it up. Good work.”

  Stenmark shut off the call and cast a resentful look at Erik. “That was a little too easy.”

  The vampire locked eyes with his subordinate and issued an order without breaking his gaze. “Ulf, take the twins and check the neighboring apartments. Make sure we didn’t shoot anybody through the walls.”

  The two of them were left alone, staring at one another with pure spite. Stenmark spoke first.

  “Had to be the hero, didn’t you, captain?”

  “We were sent to stop him,” he said, his tone flat and dangerous. “So I stopped him.”

  “Yeah, I saw.”

  “You have something to say?”

  Stenmark shook his head. The sarcasm was rolling off of him in waves. “No. Not at all. Why would I?”

  Erik narrowed his eyes.

  The mortal reconsidered. “Actually, I do have something to say. This is our training mission, right? Our final exam?”

  “I suppose.”

  “So how come you didn’t let us make the kill? You know that our futures depended on this raid.”

  The Veithimathr frowned. “I did what needed to be done.”

  “You made us look like idiots.”

  “I accomplished our objective. Whether you looked foolish or not is on you.”

  Stenmark took a step toward him, glowering dangerously. Erik was not impressed. “Our freedom depended on this raid. We’re going to be sent back to prison because of you.”

  His patience with this man had come to an end. The helicopter appeared in the distance, and he spoke. “The mission was a success, so I doubt that’s the case. But I’m fine with that if that’s what command choose to do.” He put his axe back into its strap on his back. “It’s where you belong, anyway.”

  He turned his back on Stenmark, showing him utter contempt. The man crossed the roof quickly, rushing up on Erik. The vampire didn’t even have to look to know that there was a knife in Stenmark’s hand. He stepped aside and turned, catching the man’s wrist in an iron grip and squeezing. He dragged Stenmark to his knees and held him there, his blue eyes cold as ice chips as they bored into the man’s face.

  “I have no respect for assassins,” he ground out.

  Stenmark spat in his face. Erik backhanded him and sent him sprawling. He grasped the man’s shirt and hauled him up, his long teeth bared.

  “The Red Hand,” he growled, “means nothing to me. I don’t care how many political enemies you’ve eliminated, or how many contracts you’ve fulfilled. I am not impressed by cowards.”

  Stenmark gripped Erik’s wrist with his right hand and squeezed, trying to make the vampire release his grip. “You will be,” he swore.

  He tried to strike with the silver dagger still in his left hand. Erik knocked it away.

  “Is that the best you can do?”

  The others came back onto roof, stopping short in shock when they saw their leaders locked in a wrestling match. Erik released Stenmark with a shove.

  “Pick up your fucking knife,” he snarled. “If you ever point it at me again, I will gut you with it.”

  Aron stepped forward and came between Erik and Stenmark. “What’s going on? I thought we were a unit.”

  “We are a unit,” Stenmark spat. “He’s just a vampire.”

  Sven looked from his twin to Stenmark and back. “Jan?” he asked the mortal. “Is it now?”

  Aron looked confused. “Has the order been given?”

  Ulf answered for him. “The helicopter is almost here. Now isn’t the time.”

  “What order?” Erik demanded.

  Stenmark stood up, his automatic pistol in his hand. “Now is the perfect time.”

  He raised the gun and fired at Erik. The Veithimathr was able to dodge the first two bullets, but the third struck him solidly in the stomach, the silver burning deep into his body, just the way he’d taught them to shoot. Erik doubled over. Emboldened by their companion, the Jansen twins opened fire on him, as well. Erik took two more bullets, one in the leg and one in the shoulder, before he was able to take cover behind a ventilation stack.

  Holm’s voice came through the loudspeakers on the helicopter. “Finish the job!”

  More bullets ripped into the roof and the metal he was hiding behind. Erik was bleeding heavily, and the silver lodged in his body was like a living thing, the burning and twisting pain making his vision swim. He ground his teeth and took a chance. Rising to his feet, he ran to the side of the building and jumped off.

  The silver was poisoning him, and its disruptive power prevented him from taking flight. He plummeted nine stories to the pavement, where he landed on his side. Bones snapped on impact, and he groaned.

  In his mind, he heard Nika’s a voice. Erik!

  Stay where you are, Chosen, he told her. He managed to drag himself to a nearby car. The door was locked, but he still retained enough strength to wrest it off of its hinges. The helicopter crested the roof of the building, a spotlight on its underside searching the alley for him. He hauled himself into the driver’s seat and reached under the steering column as the helicopter passed by overhead. After a few clumsy attempts, made more difficult by the way his hands were trembling, he hot-wired the car. The ignition roared into life, and he straightened in the seat.

  The helicopter got halfway down the street before it reversed directions. It bore down on him and the spotlight shone through the windshield, lighting him up. He swore every vile curse he could think of and slammed the car into reverse. The guns on the chopper opened up, scoring the street and his stolen car with heavy
ammunition. This time, the slugs were only lead. It would hurt if they hit, but they would not kill him… not like the silver that was already inside of him.

  He swung the car around a corner and then pushed it into forward gear. He floored the accelerator and roared through the narrow streets of Gothenburg. The helicopter followed, but it stopped shooting. Erik hoped that he could count on Holm to have an aversion to killing civilians.

  Sickness twisted inside him, and he could feel the bullets burning their way deeper into him, digging channels through his flesh. The pain was excruciating.

  Nika spoke to him again. Erik, what’s happening?

  I was betrayed, he told her. His mental voice sounded anguished even to his own ears. He could not prevent it - it was impossible to lie mind-to-mind.

  A spasm gripped him, and he nearly went off the road. He took a wrong turn onto a one-way street. The headlights of onrushing vehicles looked unreal, dazzling his eyes like Christmas lights in the fog. He avoided one collision, then another, clinging to the steering wheel in desperation. His consciousness was slipping away.

  He found the entrance to a parking structure and drove inside. The helicopter’s pursuit was frustrated by the masses of concrete that now shielded his escape. He drove around the structure’s tight turns, headed toward the lowest level. His vision was beginning to fade.

  His foot slipped off of the accelerator, and he twisted the steering wheel, avoiding a concrete pillar by less than an inch. He tried to clear his eyes, but the fog in his head was spreading, and he was growing weak.

  One bullet worked its way out of his leg, starting in his calf and burning all the way out on the other side, creating an agonizing through-and-through injury. It fell onto the floor with a thud. There was less silver inside him now, and he sagged with relief. It helped.