Though he recovered quickly enough, the surprise that left his face slack for a heartbeat confirmed what I’d been fishing for. Not only did he not send the berserkr or werewolf assassins, he didn’t know about them. Raul was right, someone else was involved here. But Calder was in the dark about it. It also meant my brother didn’t know about the lightning.
He laughed again, but this time it sounded forced. “Yeah, well, the black mongrel you had isn’t here to help you now. From what I hear, he may be dead.”
I took a step toward him before I could stop myself. A growl vibrated my chest. “Vidar is from a long, proud line of varúlfur who trace their lineage back to verndari to the king of Iceland. Trash talking him because of the color of his skin is antiquated and stupid.”
Another flash of lightning up in the clouds revealed fangs gleaming in Calder’s smile. “Ah, there are those nerves I love to cut open so much.”
Laughing, he pushed away from the steel container and began to pace a circle around me. The misty rain became steady drops that shimmered between us like silver threads. I shook my head, sending droplets flying from my pale locks as I started to circle him as well.
I ignored the dig. “A war, Calder, really? I didn’t think you were that stupid.”
Wagging a finger at me, he shook his head. “Naïve as always, little sister. Humans are polluting the world, destroying it. They need to be stopped. What better way to do that than take over and rule it ourselves?”
The point was hard to argue, but his methods were another matter. “You bit people in against their will, for decades. And why? All because you wanted the power to awaken in you,” I said.
Calder smacked his chest. “I should lead our people. It should have worked. I should have been the one chosen. I was born first. I’m bigger, stronger, and better than you in every way.”
“Clearly not in the way that matters.”
Thunder swallowed his growl as he launched himself at me. Seeing him coming at me, face twisted in fury, eyes filled with hatred, looking like every traumatic incident of my childhood, made me freeze. It took me back to a life of abuse and fear. Mired in the memories, I could only dodge and block his attacks. Instinct brought some of my old habits back. I flinched and cowered, tricks that used to make him ease up for fear of hurting me so bad a teacher might notice at school. At first, I didn’t even realize I was doing it.
Calder’s kicks and strikes flew so fast and hard it took all of my concentration to keep up with them. It wasn’t the pretty flow of martial arts, but the all-out attempts of one person to kill another. The man had scary skills. He clipped me with a right hook that sent me stumbling back a few steps. The reaper in me woke, uncoiling with a furious righteousness that coursed through my entire body. My fangs and claws extended, forcing my mouth and fists open. White-hot fury threatened to burn away all reason.
Getting hit always made me mad, but getting hit by my brother used to make me feel weak and small. Not today. Not anymore. The crack in my fear became a fissure that yawned into a canyon. The shell of fear shattered, freeing me.
I exploded in a flurry of kicks and strikes, spinning and flying at him with all the anger that had built up inside me over the years. A punch broke through his defenses and struck him in the chest, a kick tagged him on the thigh, an uppercut knocked his teeth together so hard it would have broken bones in a human. He remained on his feet, eyes wide with shock, suddenly on the defensive. My strikes forced him back one step, another, and another. I splashed through the deepening rainwater that stood on the deck, following him step for step.
Blood shone brightly at the corner of his mouth. It was a small victory compared to the surprise on his face. A mixture of anger and triumph fueled my strikes, making them faster and harder. Calder couldn’t keep up. Punch after kick after jab broke through his defenses. Each one boosted my confidence higher, repairing a little of the scars of my childhood.
As I landed a punch in his solar plexus, I yelled over the storm, “I’m not weak.”
After driving a kick into his midsection, I yelled, “I’m not useless.”
I slammed a hammer fist across his face that drove him to a knee. “And I am not your victim anymore!” I roared. Thunder boomed as if to accentuate my words.
Rather than crumble in defeat like I hoped he would, he rolled into a somersault and came to his feet over a yard away. He threw his head back and shook with laughter that the storm tried in vain to swallow.
“You’ll never be anything more than my victim!” he yelled.
Then I felt it; the press of the power of dozens upon dozens of newly bitten in werewolves. They approached from every direction in boats small enough that the storm almost swallowed the sound of their engines. Right after I felt their power, the images from their minds hit me. Violence and bloodshed of every imaginable horror flashed before me. It stole both my breath and my focus.
Through the haze of a murderous memory, I felt more than saw my brother approach. By luck alone I blocked his first strike. The second hit me like a war hammer in the gut. I blocked the follow-up strike to the side of my head, but just barely. The distraction of the horrible memories of the condemned was too much. Dozens of different minds bombarded my own. In that moment I realized what a verndari’s true purpose was: to shield the uppskera from the memories and minds of the condemned. And Calder had succeeded in stripping me of my shield.
The boats carrying the condemned toward me from every direction grew closer. Their proximity drove away all cognitive thought. Calder’s fist slammed into the side of my head. His bare foot connected with my solar plexus as I went down. Air left my body in a rush so fast it burned. Another punch connected with the side of my face. My vision went a little white around the edges. Wait, was it my own vision, or that of the person who’s memory of murdering a child replayed in my head? Or could it be the memory of the pyromaniac setting a church ablaze during Sunday worship? Maybe it was the man peeling the skin from a woman, laughing as she screamed and begged.
I held my arms up to fend off further attacks and barely felt impact after impact. Water cooled one side of me. It didn’t feel like the memory of one of the condemned. I realized distantly I had fallen and now lay on the deck curled into a fetal position. My brother laughed as he drove kick after kick into me.
My brother. The reason behind all of this. If I didn’t stop him, Vidar would try, and probably die. I slammed the door on the wall I kept up around my ability to sense other werewolves. The memories of the condemned shut off like a switch had been flipped. Light, scent, sound, and feeling came back to me in a rush.
I grabbed Calder’s foot as he drove it into my stomach again. His eyes shot open wide with surprise right before I flew to my feet, shoving that foot back at him so hard it sent him flying. Metal rang as he slammed into the wall of one of the containers then slid to the deck. I tried to jump to my feet but things inside hurt too much. Instead, I ended up stumbling until I reached the same container Calder was against. The metal siding cooled my palm, helped me focus. Blood scented the air thickly, too much of it mine.
Roaring, Calder came at me again. I had no choice but to crack the door to my power back open and suck some of his in. Energy poured into me. It felt tainted, vile, but it helped me stand on my own. As much as I wanted nothing to do with my brother’s power, I needed it. I was hurt too badly to fight all of the condemned and survive. I sucked his energy down until I felt the internal bleeding in my body stop.
With his power came his memories. I lived through him as an unwilling participant while he bit in victim after victim, choosing the darkest souls he could find, ones he knew would wreak havoc and bring chaos. Years and years of victims flashed before my eyes as if Calder were forcing the memories down my throat. But I also felt his deep love for this world, its forests, rivers, and fields. I felt his anguish over the destruction of more and more forest land, his helplessness regarding islands of plastic clogging the ocean, the toxins pouring into the rivers
of Asia, and the smog hanging over the major cities of every country.
Faltering, I stumbled back.
Though he knelt in the rain, barely able to lift his head, laughter hiccupped from him.
I stopped pulling in his power. Even my bruises had healed.
While I sympathized with his pain over the pollution of the world, I couldn’t turn a blind eye to what he had done. “You find your own impending death funny?” I asked.
He lifted his head just enough to fix his heavy-lidded eyes on me. “I won’t be the one dying today, you stupid bitch.” He laughed again, but it was shorter, forced, as if it took too much energy. “When you kept surviving the attacks, I figured out how your power worked. But it comes with a nasty catch, doesn’t it? You can’t steal power without feeling the dark souls of your victims. It distracts you, makes you vulnerable.”
Chills raced through me, raising bumps along my skin.
My distraction allowed him to force himself up on one foot. “Why do you think I kept choosing murderers and rapists?” More laughter spewed from him, sounding maniacal in its delight. “It certainly wasn’t to make killing them easier on you.”
Part of me had hoped it was, because if so, it meant some portion of my brother might be good and merciful. That thread of hope had been short and thin, but it still hurt when it burned away. I swallowed hard.
“And now, all my hard work is about to pay off,” Calder said in a downright gleeful tone.
The energy of the others scratched and scurried against the wall I kept my power behind. They were closer now, too close. While Calder had been talking, they had reached the ship. Their footfalls splashed onto the deck. Like drawing from a straw, heedless of brain freeze, I sucked enough of my brother’s power to slam him face-first onto the deck. I wasn’t sure if he was unconscious or not, and I didn’t have time to check. The first of the condemned leaped out of the darkness at me, right over my prone brother.
A second came from my left, a third from my right, and a fourth from behind me. Two of them collided as I used the standing water on the deck to slip out of the way. More came at me. Gods, there were dozens. Claws raking and tearing, I fought them with my bare hands. I couldn’t afford to drop my barriers and suck in their power, not with so many of them. Their memories and darkness would overwhelm me. Calder would eventually recover and be waiting for any moment of weakness. My gaze flicked to his body, which still lay unmoving in the semi-darkness.
The air pressure built and built, until finally crashing with a mighty boom of thunder that rattled everything on the ship. Many of the condemned stumbled. For the thunder to be that loud and powerful meant the storm now hovered directly overhead. I could both feel the prickle of electricity and taste its metallic flavor. If only I could call it down like the seeker could. While that wasn’t an option, I could make myself a more attractive target for it.
Near the prow of the ship stood some sort of tower. What I hoped was a metal rod stuck out of the top of it, rising up into the misty rain. It was my best chance. Unfortunately, it was at the opposite end of the ship. I ran and leaped into the air—right over the heads of several snarling condemneds. The distance was less than I thought. My feet scrambled across the top of one of the nine-foot-tall containers. The slick surface sent me skidding almost right over the other side. My low center of gravity served me well and kept me from falling.
My senses tingled. I tasted metal. The clouds above lit up in a flash with the promise of the lightning they contained. A quick scan of the area showed the next container in the direction of the prow of the ship to be about ten feet away. Praying to Thor for good footing, I ran and jumped. When I landed, I slid to my knees and skidded across the corrugated metal, stopping well short of the end. Ahead lay an opening with no containers within a distance even my werewolf power could manage. Worse, the deck of the ship was lower, contoured into sections meant to hold the containers, like the bottom of a Lego.
Before I could decide, several condemneds poured into the open space. Some had shifted to wolf form. I stripped my clothes off in record time. As I ran for the edge of the container, I shifted into a wolf. The flow of my atoms from one form into another gave me an extra boost of adrenalin as I hit the deck on four white-blond paws. I opened the door to my power a crack and sucked in enough of their power to weaken them and add speed to my own legs. After a wave of nausea brought on by their seedy energy, I plunged forward.
The boost their power gave me came at a cost heavier than Mjölnir. Murderous thoughts and memories flooded my mind. My power raged, not only at what these condemned had done, but what I felt they would do if given the chance. They each thrilled at the thought of attacking me, hurting me, violating me, and eventually killing me. And they wanted to do it to countless others.
The horrors in my mind made me slow down, hesitate when I shouldn’t have. Claws and fingers reached for me. Pain burned along my left arm and right thigh as a few attacks connected. I jumped the few feet out of the container hold back up to where the deck stretched out again. In a few more yards, I reached the next container. Without hesitation, I leaped in mid-stride. Just as the edge of the container passed under my paws, I shifted back into a woman. I fell on top of the container hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. The press of energy from behind told me the condemned still pursued me. I had to stop them or I’d never reach my destination.
I would have given anything in that moment not to have to experience those horrible images again. Anything but risk Vidar’s life. And if he showed up before I had the upper hand, that was exactly what would happen.
Alone atop the container, I took a risk and flung open the door to my power. Their seedy darkness filled me. Images of death, murder, and so much worse gyrated behind my eyelids with each blink. But I didn’t let it stop me. I pulled in more and more. Those that still could jumped up after me. I changed the nature of the way I pulled at their energy. It was easy, like flipping a switch. I forced them to shift into their wolf forms. Normally shifting came to our kind easily, like water flowing out of one form and into another. This was anything but. Many screamed as they collapsed to the deck, writhing until they finally rose on all fours as wolves.
The two that had made it on the top of the container turned glares onto me that glowed with fury. They growled as they held their ground. Thunder swallowed the sound of their anger. I spun, preparing to take off running, but I pulled up short when a wave of dizziness made the night lurch. Claws scrambled across metal behind me. In mid-turn, I caught the first wolf that launched at me. The surface fell out from beneath me and I realized he had knocked us off the container. He bore me to the deck, jaws snapping for my throat the entire way. On our way down I managed to turn us so he cushioned my landing.
Air expelled from him in a pained grunt. Halfway to my feet, something slammed into my side. I flew through the air again, and this time, nothing softened my landing when I collided with the side of a container. Pain exploded up my back and pinched deep into my side. My hand sank into a warm wetness when I touched the area below my ribs. Calder stood glowering over me, claws extended from his human hands. My blood dripped from those claws.
I pulled at his power, but even the slightest bit of it made me so dizzy I could barely stay on my feet. Worse, the taint of it made bile work its way up my throat. I’d drained too much from the others. If I took any more, I was afraid I’d pass out. Sure, he would too, but who would recover first? I slammed the door on my power. Gasping for air and pressing a hand to my leaking side, I did my best to look indignant instead of worried. Not an easy thing to do when you’re naked and bleeding.
“Why are you running, little sister? Isn’t the uppskera all-powerful?” Calder said over the pounding rain. “Looks like you still bleed like the rest of us.”
I decided to lie. “You’re my brother. Is it so hard to believe that I don’t want to kill you?”
He started to say something but had to wait for a boom of thunder before he could g
o on. The sound made my gaze flick skyward in time to see a flash of lightning streak across the sky. It lit a wick of hope inside me. I had to get to that tower or I might die here.
“Not hard to believe, impossible,” Calder said. He shook his head as he took a step closer, claws still brandished. “But you can’t do it because you’re weak. Just like you’re too weak to be able to absorb the power of condemneds and not get sick, sick with your morals and your good nature. It holds you back, makes you unable to do what needs to be done—”
I don’t know what else he said, because another deck-shaking boom of thunder crashed in the skies overhead. Fangs and claws out, I launched at my brother with all the speed I had. My claws sank into his chest, but only a few inches. He caught me and turned, using my momentum to try and fling me away. Unable to reach his neck with my fangs, I clamped onto his arm. As he threw me past him, I took a good-size chunk of his forearm with me. He screamed and howled in pain; music to my ears.
I went with the fall, somersaulting and rolling to my feet. The world spun so much, I almost kept rolling. I fell to a knee. As much as I wanted to blame it on the heaving ship, it was far more than that. The dark energy I had taken in was making me sick and trying to stir up my anger. My fight to stop it left me feeling like I was stuck in a whirlpool that was swiftly pulling me under.
Calder was on me before I could regain my feet. Instead of trying, I swept a leg out and caught him behind the knees. He went down hard, his head slamming against the deck with a metallic thud. Claws splayed, I lurched forward. He rolled out of my path with ease. A foot slammed into my side. Pain tore through me. The asshole had kicked the same side he’d managed to stab. His foot came toward me again. I grabbed it and yanked it to me as hard as I could. Calder’s other foot slipped in the standing water and he went down. His head hit the deck hard, again. Unfortunately, his leg came free of my grasp.
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