by P. W. Child
Erika, in her capacity as seeress, could still not help but glance towards the house, hoping that Alex was not looking out from one of the windows. The lads knew that the rites of The Brotherhood was sacred and that these ancient practices were sometimes sexual in nature. They respected this nonetheless, yet Erika did not want her husband to see her straddling a naked man, no matter what the circumstances.
Soon, though, she had to focus on waking Sam from the See-Walk before it turned his mind into pulp and left him a slobbering snail for the rest of his life. Erika took her ceremonial staff and stood over Sam as the wild weather swept up her blond hair with static and force. The Nine knelt and began to chant. One of the women began the rhythmic knock on the ceremonial drum, her crooked stick pounding on the membrane to bring forth a deep and hollow sound that reverberated loudly even through the thunder. With its cadence, their voices chanted the prayer to invoke a trance in Erika, their energy focused on the inside of the circle.
She closed her eyes and sank down on Sam, his body burning under her cool skin and she realized just how close he was to dying from the fever the liquid brought.
The gusts howled fiercely, occasionally drowning the gaining canto of the women, but with every stanza repeated they spoke louder the words that would take Erika inside Sam’s See-Walk. Covering his face, her hair whipped the ground as she placed her forehead against his, the bone of her headdress meeting the Valknut on his brow. At once, the power passed between them, a bolt of adrenaline jolting through both of their bodies, an electric charge ever so slight that only the brain’s receptors could feel it. Erika’s mind fused with Sam’s in a meditative state that locked them onto one another. With a rushing jerk, her body went limp on his while the chanting of the women around the circle grew louder and louder with every repetition of the invocation. With every passing verse, they grew more hostile, more fervent in their prayer, so that the gods would pay attention and not forget that the seiðkona had not finished passing through the See-Walk. If the chant would cease for any reason, or even become less audible, the seiðkona would be abandoned in the otherworldly realm and her body would perish within hours.
Inside the house, Dugal and Terry were having a beer with Gunnar. At first it was all small talk, but Dugal could not help but detect the odd atmosphere among these people. They looked like typical patrons at his bar, normal rowdy men with loud arguments and crude jokes, but something about them was unusual.
“Gunnar, I have to know. What is this thing with Sam all about?” he asked halfway through his second beer. Terry froze. He did not think it was a wise thing to pry like that, but he waited for an answer as much as his father did. In the middle of a swig from his bottle, the big widower stopped for a second, holding his bottle in mid-lift as the two guests held their breath. A tense moment passed between the three men on account of the awkward uncertainty of boundaries, but then Gunnar blinked and put his bottle down. Reluctant to let ordinary people in on the secret wars of ancient cults and breeds, he had to take a moment to consider what the repercussions would be if they knew the truth.
With rather dumb expressions on their faces, Terry and Dugal waited and Gunnar almost laughed at their comical and childlike interest.
Dared he tell them? They looked like simpletons to him, when it came to deep and arcane things. He imagined they were decent men of good character, but hardly suited to know what Sam was involved in. Before he could make a decision, Sam’s phone rang. Terry jumped from the alien sensation in his pocket, at first, not knowing what to think, but then he remembered that he had the device with him. He had been unable to make sense of that Nina woman’s message previously as it only displayed one word, followed by ‘text missing’, so he eagerly answered, even though the Caller ID was withheld.
“Hello?”
“Who is this?” a female voice asked. “Where is Sam?”
‘Wow, you don’t waste time with common pleasantries, do you?’ he thought to himself at the woman’s terse response, but he replied politely, “Sam is asleep, lady. Can I give him a message?”
“Listen, I don’t have time for nonsense. Please. Please put Sam on the phone. Tell him it’s Nina,” she said. Terry was not a man of great intuition or intelligence, but he discerned a troubled tone in her reply, as if she was upset.
“Oh!” he smiled, “Nina! He told me to call y…”
Gunnar grabbed the phone from his hand and shouted, “Nina? Nina, where the hell are you? We’ve been worried sick!”
“Gunnar?” she asked. “I need to speak to Sam urgently!” Gunnar frowned. Nina’s voice sounded out of character. Scared.
“Good evening,” a raspy female voice greeted Gunnar. He knew, by reputation, who he was speaking with and his heart stopped.
“What do you want with Dr. Gould?” Gunnar asked calmly. As much as it infuriated him to speak to the iniquitous villain of the Black Sun organization, he had to keep in mind that Nina was in her hands and if he allowed his rage to seep through it could place the historian in serious peril.
“I want the Vision of Kvasir. Bring me the vial and you can take your pet. To make matters more…cordial,” she sighed like a hissing cobra, “…we will send champions, so that we do not have to meet face to face. How’s that?”
“Oh, but I won’t mind meeting you face to face. Your beauty is legendary,” he seethed with hatred, and she was sharp enough to hear it behind the mock compliment.
“As is your wife’s. Oh, what a pity most of that beauty ended up on the tar of Dalkeith Road,” she replied with a cheap shot that Gunnar felt to his core. His heart slammed in his throat and from nowhere came the image of Val’s last moments again, her face raw, while she died in his arms. He could still smell the rubber in her hair. Tears caught him off guard and unwilling, and he was impotent to the overwhelming grief of this fresh wound that still refused to coagulate.
“Are you still there, Gunnar?” she asked with not as much as a fissure in her malice.
He composed himself, vexed by the two staring bartenders who saw his eyes grow wet.
“I’m here. Who are you sending to meet with…my champion?” he sneered, agreeing to play her game. Already in his mind he picked Alex, or Sam, if he survived. It would only be apt for Sam to collect Nina, he thought.
“I’m sending Slokin. You?” she asked.
“Sam Cleave.”
“Slokin and Cleave will meet at 7am tomorrow morning. Cleave gets Nina when Slokin is satisfied that the contents of the vial is genuine. They both go alone and exchange,” she commanded in her authoritarian manner.
“I don’t fuck with you, you don’t fuck with me.”
“That’s correct, Gunnar,” she smiled. “Port Edgar Yacht Club, west of Forth Road Bridge. Don’t be late. Or Nina will be…” she waited, but he said nothing, so she giggled, “…get it?”
He ended the call to be deaf to her sick jests. Gunnar’s eyes still burned from his resistance to the relentless sadness.
“Who was that?” Terry asked.
“Some wench I have a date with,” Gunnar said blankly, uncaring of their opinion anyway.
A hefty crack crashed through the sky as the elements clashed in the womb of the clouds, rattling the windows under thunder’s fury.
“Jesus! My poor heart,” Dugal gasped, startled by the sudden clap of thunder.
“Thur uiki!” Alex and two others shouted, raising their beers. Gunnar could not help but muster a smile and lifted his bottle.
“What does that mean?” Terry asked.
“May Thor Hallow,” Gunnar said and swallowed down a decent amount of the Flying Dutchman in his grip.
The back door swung open and the women piled in, squealing with glee as they played, shoving one another out of the way to escape the rain and get inside first. Behind them a larger figure stepped through the doorway. Sam was soaked, his well-defined body gleaming wet and shaking from the cold. He had a blue cloak crumpled up to cover his privates. Apart from that, he only wore a shee
pish smile.
Chapter 24
The fortress was almost entirely consumed by the thick veil of mist rolling in from Loch nan Cinneachan to the east. To the west, not too far off, the shoreline of Coll ran along the side of the ancient walls of the 15th Century stronghold that once belonged to a Viking Chieftain before he died in battle with a local Scottish clan for claim of Coll itself. The Inner Hebridean island was ideal for Lita to make her temporary home while she was engaged in finding the hidden location of Valhalla and the power locked away within it.
Nina’s condition deteriorated rapidly. Famished, she kept calling for anyone who could supply her with some food and a blanket. Her skin had lost all feeling as the ice sheet of cold settled upon her body. She realized by now that Sam probably had not received her text and she was puzzled by the identity of the man who answered Sam’s phone. It was cause for concern to her, not knowing where Sam really was and why, coincidentally, he was unavailable at the same time that she had been kidnapped. Had he been kidnapped too? Did Lockhart discover Sam’s whereabouts as well?
The thought terrified her. If the starvation and exposure to the cold was the way in which Lita treated her prisoners, then Sam had to be in grave danger as well. Never before, not even on that mountain in Tibet during the expedition for the Holy Lance, had she felt this close to her demise. Even there, with a gun to her head she felt some defiance, some solace in dying with others. At least Sam and Purdue had been with her if she had died there, but here, she was utterly forgotten, with only Val’s husband to save her, should he even care to. Besides, she was not really affiliated with The Brotherhood and they had no obligation to rescue her from Lita’s hand, especially in exchange for the object they protected most fiercely.
“Hello!” she screamed. “SOMEBODY BRING ME SOMETHING TO EAT!”
Before, she had called, then cried out, but now it had been three days since her incarceration and all they had left for her to drink was two-five liter containers of fresh water in her cell. No food was served, not even a bread crust, and all she had to cover her was her coat and some sheeting of the dirty bunk. Now Nina began to realize that her life truly was at stake, if not getting killed during what was bound to be a sour exchange, then here in her cage. She wanted to cry but no tears came. It was a dreadful rebellion of her body to remind her that nothing was in order anymore.
To be honest, she did not believe that there would be a trade in the first place. Lita was wicked enough to take Nina and throw her into a godforsaken hole on a forgotten castle, of which there were so many all over the north of Scotland and the Inner and Outer Hebrides. She was just taken as bargaining chip, but Lita had no intention of ever letting her go. The scheming, redhead bitch probably only used Nina’s minor significance to lure out The Brotherhood, but she felt a sickening feeling in her heart when her shadowed side reminded her that her only real friend in that utmost secret order was dead.
Nina had no worth and no advocate within their ranks and if Sam came through to bring the vial to the mansion, they would have it safely in their possession anyway. Why would they trade it for her, ever? Relieved at the warm burn in her nose and eye sockets, Nina was grateful that she finally managed to weep. Bending forward where she sat on the bunk, the petite Nina Gould sobbed bitterly at her abandonment, dying slowly in solitude and fear. And in addition to all her painful realizations, she was already mourning Sam, whom, she had decided, she would never see again. For some reason, she could not dismiss the thought of not seeing the man she had become so close to, so comfortable with, ever again. This pained her more than her fate being at the hands of the sadistic Order of the Black Sun and its baleful agent.
Another hour passed and still no-one came. Nina’s only company were the residual spirits resident within the dry-stone, recorded there in their most intense moments. With not a soul in the entire structure with her, and feeling utterly alone, Nina cried out loud. Marooned, her voice quivered in deep sorrow as she gushed her emotions until she could hardly catch her breath between whimpers.
In the embrace of the white oblivion outside, she could smell the rot of the plant matter and the still water it fermented in. Directly in conflict with the stench the fresh cold air swept across her hair from the ocean side, as if the sea stroked her head in sympathy. With every howl she uttered in lost regret, the wind would wail in turn as if to answer her plea. It was sorely cruel of nature to do such things, she thought. The gust whistled tauntingly at her, waiting patiently like a faithful servant to carry away her soul upon it when she would choose to relinquish it. Finally, it all just became too much for her and she was overwhelmed by her rage. Nina could not believe that this was how she was going to die.
Suddenly, she appreciated Prof. Matlock’s mild patronizing, who was the bane of her existence for so long. She would do anything to be in his condescending presence right now. How she would give anything right now to walk the university halls again, to be subjugated by the misogynistic hand of the board members and faculty. She had so much to give still, with her extensive knowledge and her connections, a decent allowance of Purdue’s money now granted her bi-annually, not to mention the hellish situations she had barely survived to tell of. How many times had she and Sam had close calls in places not even God would bother to roam? How many sick individuals had crossed their path and yet she and Sam always managed to escape their intentions. Somehow, when she was with Sam she had an undeniable partner, an irrefutably loyal friend, an affectionate…
“My god, but you have a set of lungs on you!” Lita’s raw voice filled the cage of masonry and steel. Nina looked up in astonishment. Was this a mirage brought on by starvation or was Lita actually before her?
“Lita?”
“Yes, Dr. Gould, the one and only.”
“You came!” Nina sounded almost happy to see the vindictive harpy.
“How could I not? Christ! You whine like a little bitch all night! Even banshees will envy that godless screeching of yours!” Lita stormed at the weak woman behind the confines of her coop and with unnatural strength she slammed both her open palms against the iron bars, shaking them even into their stone foundation. Her ferocity echoed in her face, distorted in incensed hatred for the historian.
Through a foaming mouth of gritted teeth, Lita spat, “Oh, little, little thorn. I feel like eating your fucking face off your skull….even without spice or rum, just like that.” She darted her long, thin arm through the bars and pinched Nina’s cheek painfully between her talons. Her sinister change in tone and the incredible potency of her grip shocked Nina into a sober warning, Lita was completely unstable. Not only did this unsettle her, but as before, Nina could not help but detect something superhuman about Lita, although she could not put her finger on what it was.
The scarlet glow of her mane radiated against the light as she thundered out of the holding cell and Nina heard her shout at someone in the hallway, “Feed the pup, would you? For fuck’s sake, I don’t have the patience for this touchy feely shit! I’ll be with Lockhart.”
Nina gasped. Lockhart was here?
One of Lita’s men, a short and stout Italian looking fellow, waddled up to her cell with a combination probe that sported an infrared device of sorts on its tip. Like a magic wand he waved it at the edge of the bars where the wall met the steel and by some strange reaction of science and electronics the entire façade of iron shifted aside for Nina to come out.
For a moment, she was so fascinated with the workings of the system that she forgot that she had finally been freed from her isolation chamber.
“Come eat something, Doctor,” he said in a programmed cadence, emotionless. But it was not because he lacked it, it was merely an occupational hazard to have feelings when working for the red dragon of the Nazi madness.
“Oh, thank you. Thank you,” Nina said in uncharacteristically docile and she stumbled forward to keep up with the man. Weak from emotional exhaustion and hunger, Nina accidentally fell against him. When he caught her and helped
her up, she could see the compassion in his eyes.
“Thank you,” she repeated.
“You are very welcome, Dr. Gould,” he replied, keeping his tone in the same robotic zone. However, she could feel the underling hook his arm under hers so that she would be supported. On her weakened legs, it had become tedious to walk and so he walked with her over the shallow flood water of the long arched corridor to the circular room where a table with food was dressed just for her.
“Why does she feed me now? If she wanted to starve me…”
“Miss Røderic did not mean to, Doctor,” he whispered as they entered the domed room. “She…” he hesitated and looked about him before continuing, “…she forgets about people, about her…guests.”
Nina frowned. He clarified the odd behavior of his employer, “Miss Røderic is very busy all the time with all kinds of things and sometimes, you see, sometimes she just forgets how quickly time goes by. It was not her intention to starve you. She is just a bit…”
“Scatterbrained,” Lita’s low husky rasp emanated from the dark corner to the left, where she sat in the shadow of an antique mahogany breakfront. Nina yelped in a start.
“Madam, that was not what I was going to say,” he started, but Lita hushed him and gestured with her hand for him to place Nina and he nodded. Leading the timid, small frame of the historian to the table, his hand trembled slightly under her leaning arm and Nina’s brown eyes looked up at his. He returned a quick, uncomfortable smile to ease her and helped her sit down.
“Please don’t tell me you are a vegan or a fruitarian or one of those insufferable limp dicks that believe that all life is sacred,” Lita purred as she brought her tall, sensual figure across the rock floor to join Nina at the table where two plates waited on red place mats with silver cutlery flanking them neatly.
“No,” Nina replied quickly, not out of respect, but purely because she hated those over-sensitive types too. “Oh, hell no. I eat just about everything, as long as it doesn’t look back at me, or I can’t tell what it is.”
