The Valkyrie's Guardian

by Moriah Densley

  Bingo. His lips curled in a sneer, his pristine face contorted into a demon’s visage, he took a step and crouched. “You will repent of your rebellion, wicked Ishtar.”

  She lowered her voice in a rhythmic taunt, “Your father died bleeding from a hundred wounds in his body, at the hand of an infidel woman.”

  “Merodach was king among the race of gods! And I am heir — ”

  “If there had been enough of him left to scrape off the ground and bury in a box, I would bring a hundred pigs to piss on his grave.”

  He bellowed in fury and charged, finally. He closed in fast, and she expected him to grab her neck, which she blocked. For a few irritating seconds they sparred, and she could only block his blows, which glanced off her upraised forearms. He didn’t seem to notice the pull of static in the air, thickening with heat and tension. She watched the rhythm of his strikes, waiting for the right moment to attack. There — she snapped a hard kick to the groin. His nerves stunned, he doubled over and she was ready with another blow to his nose. Those two strikes worked on any man, no matter his size or prowess.

  She dove for his throat the same moment she gathered the energy into a dense core, drawing it from the stable ground and volatile sky. A delicious tension hummed in her skull and stroked her spine as the force reached equilibrium. She tipped the balance and let the energy lash out, throwing everything she had into the transfer. The fluorescent cobalt light was blinding in the dark.

  His body jerked, but she held firm through his violent convulsions. She drew more power and channeled it into his brain. His skin burned, the rancid steam turned her stomach. He forced his eyes open and watched her, his head twitching under the voltage as it attacked his nerves. His limbs stiffened, his heart sputtered, stalled by the overwhelming dose of electrical energy. Only seconds left —

  Cassie became aware of heat in her hands, not the pleasant electricity dancing through her body. Burning, biting, acid. She dared a glance at her hands and saw those same raw welts spreading up her arms. With her hands gripped on his throat, Tammuz had direct access to her skin. His mindweapon.

  Her arms began to shake, her every instinct screaming to let go, to avoid the searing pain. Even as her skin split open along the tops of her forearms and dripped boiling blood, she leaned into her grip. Frustrated, she simply could not crush his throat. An invisible force pushed back against her mind, harsh and consuming. As the balance slowly slipped in his favor, she comprehended that she had caught him by surprise at first, but now he had command of his power.

  The welts crawled up her neck, split the skin straining over her collarbone, and traveled down her back. The ones over her wrists gaped deeper, to the bone. Still she jolted Tammuz with more lightning. The stench of singed hair joined the already nauseating concoction of burnt blood in the air. Worse was the sinking dread beating against her mindshield, a battering ram pummeling her concentration.

  They both shook, each battling the physical desire to evade the pain. She could barely keep her grip with her hands slicked in blood. The hottest of the burning began to seep with cold. Cassie gusted heavy breaths, fighting the battle one heartbeat at a time. Her determination was laced with the awareness of myriad flavors of pain, all competing for attention. Underneath it, deep in her core, she found her heart singing.

  It was the sound of self, of knowing she wouldn’t give in. Cassie coughed, then realized it was laughter fighting its way out. She shook her enemy by the head even as burning ice numbed her fingers. Fingers that would let go only when either she or her enemy breathed their last. She raised her face to the sky and laughed. The power channeling the lightning buzzed in sympathy, resonating with her macabre joy. Vengeance alongside an improbable eye-of-the-storm calm. Peace in the resolve that she wouldn’t fail.

  In a moment of clarity, Cassie understood what Grandda had tried to explain about honorable death. She stared death in the face now and saw reflected back what she loved. And it was worth it.

  She looked Tammuz in the eye and recognized his fear. He saw the face of death, that she would let it take them both while she laughed all the way, a courage he did not possess in the moment of truth.

  Her conscience nagged her like a tap on the shoulder.

  Ben! There wasn’t much time. It didn’t matter now if she opened her mind. She reached for his, relieved to find the spark of life still glowing in him, though dim. She routed a dose of energy to his heart. After five jolts it responded. She waited until his chest rose and fell, then disconnected from his mind. Wonderful, strong, resilient berserkers!

  Tammuz jumped at the vulnerability. He clawed at her mind with his, pouring in that filthy essence she’d despised the first time she’d scented it. She laughed again at his frustration, even she felt blood trickle from her nose and ears. He wreaked damage all around in her head but couldn’t make her let go of his neck. That part of her mind was untouchable.

  Her vision dimmed. Her ears played tricks on her, ringing and roaring, the ground shaking. Her enemy faltered as well. His eyes rolled back in his head, his lips tinged purple. His skin was riddled with erratic lines, the small veins near the surface of his skin dark with charred blood. It would be over soon, for them both. So be it.

  Something nudged at her mind, an entity outside the intense struggle that had become her world. A sound pricked her ears, but she discarded the stimuli in order to concentrate. A familiar force bowled her over. Her vision exploded in a blast that overwhelmed her limbs.

  Cassie registered a crashing jolt, then her mind succumbed to the force of it. A draining void, like pulling a plug from an outlet. The next moment she registered awareness, she blinked her eyes open against a heavy weight. Orange. Fuzzy things, moving. Her vision focused, and she saw leaves blowing on tree branches overhead, illuminated by the lantern on the ground. She lay on her back in the grass. Her body revolted at the smallest attempt to move. The trance which had inured her to the effects of her injuries was gone now.

  Her mind pieced together her situation in reverse order. A shot of panic spurred her to action — she tried to roll and — Ooh, no. Not going anywhere. She was powerless to act. Cassie forced her head to turn in the direction of combat sounds.

  Jack.

  He’d come for her.

  Cassie’s heart leaped, she couldn’t believe her eyes. And how could Tammuz be on his feet, holding off Jack? Even as she watched, the villain’s wounds healed. If she hadn’t heard Kyros’ firsthand account of Merodach doing the same, she wouldn’t have believed it. The millennia-old extra-sentient had possessed untouchable power his son had apparently inherited.

  “Bjorn the Viking, God of Death,” Tammuz mocked without faltering in his movement. “How do you like my disciplining of the female?”

  She was proud of Jack for ignoring the taunt. He used his rage to throw a devastating blow that shattered every bone in Tammuz’s right arm. Tammuz shook the limb and hissed in outrage, but only moments later used it again to fight.

  Her groggy brain finally processed another problem. She remembered it had taken the combined resources of both Kyros and Lyssa to finish Merodach. Jack and Cassie were handy in a fight but had nowhere near the mental power of the other two. Already Jack labored under the same freakish injuries as he fought Tammuz. She watched their strikes gain speed as Tammuz healed and Jack bled. He needed a lucky break.

  Ben?

  Go to hell.

  Good, you’re awake. Can you get a head shot on Tammuz without hitting Jack?

  Silence while Ben watched the rhythm of the fight, learning where a weakness lended him an opportunity. Every fighter had a flaw in his cadence, even the fast ones.

  Yeah. I can. Hang on. She heard him breathe in time with the rhythm of the combat, watching with the sharp vision of a predator. She joined him, finding a unison. Timing was everything. Ah yes, a delay as Tammuz rechambered his left-handed
strike. It turned his torso in Ben’s direction while Jack’s rotated away. The next time it came around, she was ready.

  Ben pulled the trigger the same instant she shot a honed beam of lightning. Both berserkers cried in agony as the flash of light illuminated the clearing. The attack knocked Tammuz off balance, and Jack didn’t miss a beat, even blinded. He pounced, folding Tammuz into his vise-like grip. They crashed hard to the ground, and Cassie could only see Jack’s arms working, huge and knotted with bloodied muscles. He roared a war cry as a sickening crunch sounded with a flat echo.

  “Again, Cass!” Jack’s gaze met hers in the briefest of glances. His eyes blazed with the purest, brightest gemstone-green fire she had ever seen. Fury snapped in his fierce expression, along with heartbreaking devotion. The wrong moment for love, but she felt it like white-hot fire nonetheless.

  Squinting his eyes shut, Jack pinned Tammuz to the ground and leaned away, presenting her the angle she needed.

  She shot another bolt and held the beam, grinding it into her enemy’s head. Through her concentration she saw Jack in her periphery, raising one arm high above his head. Faster than her eyes could track Jack rammed his fist down on Tammuz’ torso. Tammuz jerked, his limbs bouncing off the ground. Jack’s hand yanked outward, and as he made a fist, a small explosion of black fluid blew from it. She didn’t pause to look, stabbing the lightning bolt with steady energy while Jack worked a violence she was vaguely grateful not to witness in detail. He had probably ripped out the heart and crushed it, for starters.

  Thunderclaps overrode the beautiful, terrible sound of Jack roaring, and rain fell first in drops then sheets. It was the limit of her energy. She felt it wane with the arrival of the storm, nature’s way of taking it back. Eerie cool-edged warmth washed her body. Her pulse lulled her eyelids down, and she let it wash her away with the innate knowledge that her all had been enough.

  Chapter 25

  “Excuse me, will you pull this arrow out of my arse?

  A damn little kid with wings shot me.”

  —Jack MacGunn, King of the Bad Pick-Up Line

  “Thundercat, you look like hell.”

  Chief’s scruffy voice was the lovely sound of victory. She pried her eyelids open and saw his dirt-streaked face, smiling. The sky had lightened, and she watched it with a direct view. Flat on her back, every inch of her body on fire with pain. It meant she was alive.

  “Over here, Kyros!” He thumbed over his shoulder and grimaced. “Later, babe. I’m on clean-up duty.”

  A minute later, Kyros hovered in her view. “Cassie, you are grounded. For the rest of your life.”

  A giggle bubbled out of her throat then she whimpered in regret — it hurt to laugh.

  “You think I’m joking.”

  “Just glad to be alive.” She sighed, keeping it a shallow movement.

  Kyros knelt next to her in the grass. He touched her shoulder, joining his mind with hers to speed the healing. The relief was instantaneous.

  “Jack?”

  “Giving Pops and Chet a hernia. They’re carrying him home.” Before she could panic, he added, “He’ll be fine, Cass, but he ran here and completely wrecked his leg. He bolted when Chief radioed in the SITREP.”

  Cassie blinked. Of course. Eleven klicks — seven miles from here to Kinmylies. From the time Chief gave the go until Jack arrived could only have been minutes, even though it had seemed like a nebulous eternity.

  “Kinmylies?” She couldn’t bring herself to ask for a casualty list.

  “The academy looks worse than the rest of the castle, I’m afraid.” He gave her the info she was too cowardly to ask for. “We evacuated the academy in time. Chief’s warning was the only stroke of good luck I’ve had. Ever.” She gasped as he knitted the gaping wound over her shoulder, it stung like a dry-ice burn.

  “The clan?”

  “Hugh’s boys teamed up with Ben’s, and they charged a squad of shooters before anyone could stop them. They all learned what AK-47 rounds feel like. Most soldiers need a lesson like that to deflate their Hollywood commando fantasies.”

  Kyros sent a silent apology as he mended the gash over her wrist, the stabbing-needles sensation fraying her already taxed nerves. “They’re banged up but alive. Hugh took care of the clan, none of the tangos made it inside the house.”

  “Thanks for easing me into it, but I have to know who didn’t make it.”

  “Buck.”

  Oh no, one of her SEALs. She choked on a sob, then decided she didn’t care if she cried, knowing she probably wouldn’t stop once she started.

  “He went down guarding the boys from the dormitory, trying to move them to shelter. Four tangos charged him, and he couldn’t maneuver with the boys out in the open. He took eighty-two rounds before it stopped him. He got three tangos and the boys took out the last one.”

  She could imagine it, details and all. Hot tears burned her temples. Who would call Buck’s mother and sister in Detroit with the news? What would they tell his family? She vowed that if someone in a suit tried to feed his family some bureaucratic lie about a training accident, she would go there herself and give them the truth. It was their right to know their son had died a hero.

  “Who else, Kyros?”

  “Magnus.”

  “Oh no.” She started sobbing again and swallowed to stop it. “Not Henry?”

  “Injured, signs of torture and third-degree burns. It seemed he used his power to cloak the blast. He tried to cover Magnus too, I could see where he … ah — ” Kyros paused and hung his head. “Cass I can’t … ”

  “It’s okay. I get it.”

  Her foster father never got used to seeing children hurt. It drove his passion for the Network academies. Now that she understood, she couldn’t imagine anything more important either. Black hatred for Tammuz roared like an inferno in her heart. Didn’t matter that he was dead, she hated, hated, hated him. Wished him to the hottest pit in hell. Wished him alive again so she could kill him, slowly. Once for every person she cared about whom he’d hurt.

  “Whoa, love. Easy there. I can’t work with you cooking steam like that.”

  Cassie breathed deeply, grateful it didn’t hurt half so bad as before. Kyros was good.

  “Tammuz?”

  “Oh-so-dead.”

  “You sure?”

  One corner of Kyros’ mouth pushed into his cheek, a sign of repressed humor. “I trained Jack well. You did a bang-up job yourself, agapití mou. Well done.”

  “Well done as in, closed-casket funeral, or haz-mat postal envelope?”

  His mouth pulled into a grim line. “The latter.”

  Cassie knew she was a different person now than the one who left for a weekend at the lake with Jack, because the news made her deeply contented, satisfied like a good meal. Had it been only two months?

  “So did the fat lady sing?”

  His shook his head. “No sign of Boris in the aftermath. That went from annoying to catastrophic when Pops brought me some disturbing intel stashed inside the cave. It’s never over.” He laughed without pausing in his work, a cold exasperated sound. “I’m tired, Cass. Centuries of this war, and it never ends. But today we celebrate victory.” A weak attempt at finding the silver lining, and they both knew it.

  Her face drained as a thought popped into her head like a sudden memory. Why hadn’t it been the first question out of her mouth? “Kyros, can you hear my baby?”

  She didn’t like the long pause before he answered, “I don’t know, love.” A lie, she knew by the tight lines around his eyes. “But you’re well enough to move now, so let’s get you back to base and we’ll worry about it then.”

  He lifted her and carried her to a saddled horse, an odd sight to her eyes before she realized it made sense. Kyros cradled her as he rode, his countermotion to the horse’s
gait so fluid it soothed rather than jostled her. His centuries of practice explained that. He galloped through the gate at Kinmylies and reined a halt. The sight in the courtyard was sweeter than Noah’s rainbow after the flood: A family working together, picking up the pieces of disaster. With everyone covered in ash and grime, she saw only people — friends. If didn’t matter who was a berserker, a professor, a soldier, or a child.

  Hugh was in his element, every bit the worthy leader, his steely resolve and squared shoulders keeping everyone busy and calm. He turned at the sound of the horse and stared.

  Kyros dismounted gently, and she leaned against his shoulder. Hugh’s eyes went wide. She must look a fright.

  “Sorry about your castle, Lord Hugh.” She sounded like a cooked frog.

  His eyes crinkled and white teeth flashed bright against his sooty face. “Happened before, will happen again.”

  The man behind Hugh turned and dusted his hands on his pants, a fruitless exercise with dirt coating every surface in sight.

  “Ben!” she called before she could stop herself, happy to see him alive and well.

  His head jerked up and he met her gaze. He rushed forward, and taking her completely by surprise, hugged her and kissed the top of her head. It was awkward, with her still in Kyros’ arms, but the gesture made her eyes water. As abruptly as it had happened, he stepped away without a word and resumed lifting rocks, clearing a pile of rubble.

  “Well, that was odd,” Hugh mumbled, nonplussed.

  Male voices bantering curses caught her attention. Through the gate behind her came Pops and Chet, flustered and heaving under the weight of Jack’s arms locked over their shoulders.

  “Seriously, Doolittle. Do you have to eat five square meals a day of lead pellets?” Pops complained, and Chet grumbled, “Damned rabbits! Where’s my rifle?” She looked and saw a ridiculous crowd of furry brown jackrabbits trailing after them, mingled with a brace of foxes and one reluctant doe.