“Something wrong?” Loki let go of her.
Everything was wrong. “Lucky you, we’re going to do this by ourselves, just like you wanted.” They had an hour and a half until the others returned, but if she and Loki couldn’t get out by magical means, Gwydion probably couldn’t get in. This was just like what Aeval experienced in the warehouse. “Are you doing this?”
Loki raised his brows. “Yes. I like being hunted by Nobles who want me dead as much as I do them.”
Was he protesting too much? It didn’t matter, if she had no alternative but to work with him until her backup arrived. “Don’t suppose you can get us into the armory.” Every second out in the open, especially with no plans and only one magazine for her pistol, was more dangerous than the last.
“The instant we show up there, others will know.”
Kirby was aware. “Then we’d better move fast.”
If she had any idea at all which soldiers weren’t pro-Hel, which Campus Police would rather live than be sacrifices, she’d go on a recruiting spree. Having lots of guns would have to do.
They made two stops in the armory—one for weapons and one for ammo—and Kirby shoved as much as would fit into a single duffel bag.
Loki teleported them to a new location, this one with a wall of rocks that acted as a natural barrier. At least he had some sense of tactics. “You’re going to carry those with you? You can barely lift your arm. What’s going on with that, by the way?”
Her arm was actually feeling better. The initial shock had faded, and she could move the limb with only minor complaint. “I’m going to carry a reasonable amount and stow the rest here.” The Nobles were already armed, so it didn’t matter if they found the stash. Kirby would prefer they didn’t, but it wasn’t game-breaking.
“I need to think.” She slid to the ground with her back to a large rock, and shoved panic aside. If she and Loki stayed on the defensive, they’d never accomplish anything. Putting the urge to run on hold left room for the rest of reality to sink in. It had only been a couple of weeks since she became Brit, but with that extra set of thoughts gone, there was an empty pit inside.
Brit knew how Ice Queen and Melon-head thought. She’d be able to guess their next steps. The best Kirby could do was figure out the mostly likely approach Starkad would take to get onto campus, if he came in on foot. Useful when the time came, but not nearly as much so if she and Loki didn’t accomplish anything before backup arrived.
An hour and fifteen minutes left, before she told Min to come for her if she hadn’t returned. And she had no doubt Starkad would be here. Enough time to find at least a couple of Nobles. But was it? She was intimately familiar with the training here, but they’d realize that. They wouldn’t follow standard steps. Unless they did.
Stop. She could follow the logic around all day, and the only thing that would do was paralyze her with indecision. It didn’t matter that she’d only ever hunted Nobles in pairs, because that was all they were now. She could only pursue one pair at a time, and that was how they’d be looking for her. She could do this, as long as she picked a starting point.
“Fuck.” Loki’s exclamation jarred her. He hovered a hand over her injured arm. “You’re not healing.”
She craned her neck to view the wound, as she tried to move her arm. The limb didn’t respond. A red stain mixed with black spread out from the hole. She tugged up the cuff of her sleeve, and her arm was dead weight, unmoving and numb. Dark lines ran under her skin, like inky poisoned veins.
“I can still shoot with my left hand.” It wasn’t a solution, but it was the only thought Kirby could process. That was a lot more promising than, What the fuck is wrong with my arm?
Loki grimaced. “Not if this spreads.”
She hovered her hand over the wound and focused on her healing magic. The pleasantly warm salve flowed over her. Sparks flared from the bullet hole, and she swallowed a yelp. What was the point in having super-healing Valkyrie powers if she couldn’t use them?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kirby wasn’t going to surrender just because some mysterious magic was gnawing away at her arm. She pointed to the duffel bag. “Grab whatever you’re comfortable with, along with a few extra magazines of ammo.”
“I’m good. Which direction are we heading? Or are we bringing them to us?” Loki said.
“Are you too nice a guy to shoot someone?” Given he’d had a hand in raising an entire school of gunmen, that was hard to believe.
Loki shrugged. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”
Ah. “You’re not skilled enough.”
“I didn’t say that. Plan?”
He didn’t deny her assumption, either. This might be better, as Kirby didn’t want him killing anyone unless he had to. “Can you disable someone from a distance?”
Loki summoned a baseball-sized globe of lightning, let it hover a few centimeters over his hand, and tossed it at a nearby tree. It struck the trunk and left an impressive scorched crater in its wake.
It also made a significant amount of noise. “Way to let them know we’re here.” Kirby didn’t bother to hide her irritation. “Can you do that without killing someone?”
“I don’t understand the question.” He looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language.
Gods, the next hour was going to take forever to pass. “I don’t want you to kill anyone. Not until we have more information.”
“I’m sorry—who put you in charge?”
“We do it my way, or you find them on your own.”
Loki rolled his eyes. “Let’s not do this bluffing bullshit again. If I can touch them, I can put them to sleep. I promise not to kill anyone unless I have to, Team Leader Valkyrie.”
His disdain and the nickname clawed under her skin and gnawed at her thoughts. “Great. Follow me. Be quiet.” There was no way she’d tell him her entire plan. They were looking for Nobles, true. Trying to find the other snipers before they found Kirby. But she was also working her way toward the outer perimeter of the campus. Assuming Gwydion couldn’t magically get in any more than Loki could get out, she wanted to be at the most likely place for Starkad to arrive on foot.
If the Nobles knew teleporting in and out was disabled, and if they expected Starkad, they’d have someone positioned near Kirby’s destination. Whether they were there or not didn’t matter—Kirby and Loki would disable one or two teams from the entrance point as readily as she’d hide and wait for backup.
She and Loki picked their way through the trees, with Kirby in the lead. She hated having him at her back. Lesser of two evils wasn’t a comforting reason to take her eyes off the god. But it was easier to travel single file, and she only trusted her own sight on the area.
Brit should be completely gone from her head, but impressions lingered. It was different than actually being Brit. More like if Kirby had watched a movie of Brit’s life and could summon certain memories and emotions.
It made it easier to understand the egos of the people hunting them.
The underbrush was disturbed here. A handful of broken twigs and crumbled leaves were packed into the dirt. She held up her good hand, motioning for Loki to stop. Normally, she’d clench her fist, but that was hard to do while holding a pistol. She stepped behind a nearby tree, and Loki followed.
The wind swirled around them, creating eddies of leaves in pockets of trees. Kirby strained her ears, searching for anything out of place.
Nothing. But people had been through here recently. They might have left someone on watch. She had to take a chance. Please let Loki understand my hand gestures. She pointed two fingers toward his eyes, then gestured around them, indicating he needed to watch the area.
If she were doing this, she’d be in a tree and her spotter would be in a different one, near enough that any clicks sent over the radio could be interpreted as directions.
But they knew she was out here, and they weren’t going to do what she would.
Kirby braced herself and sprint
ed across the short clearing, to the next tree. A suppressed bullet bit the dirt in front of her, and then another at her heels, as she ducked behind another trunk.
Loki was gone.
Based on where the shots came from, the spotter was most likely a few trees over from Kirby and actively searching for her. Kirby stayed hidden, listening for a breath or the crack of a twig she’d never hear. They’d pursue her. She didn’t need to go to them.
A soft thunk reached her ears, and she whirled to see Loki standing next to Crazy Eight, who was unconscious on the forest floor.
Loki pressed his mouth to her ear, and unpleasantness crawled over her skin. “I’m locking them under the cafeteria. Used to be a boiler room, now it’s not,” he whispered.
She nodded. Loki vanished with Crazy Eight, and returned alone seconds later.
The Nobles would have communication, but they’d likely maintain radio silence so she didn’t hear them talking in the middle of the forest. With each team she and Loki removed from the equation, there was a larger chance someone would notice people were disappearing.
Kirby’s heart slammed against her ribs as they moved forward again. An ache ran from her shoulder into her neck, making her wish she could pop something, to alleviate the growing discomfort. She didn’t want to look at her arm but couldn’t help it. The infection was growing. The flesh nearest the hole had blackened and deteriorated.
Could TOM do this to any immortal? Maybe they had special ammo loaded in their guns just for her, but that was highly impractical. What were Starkad and the others walking into? Her fear grew. Was this what Min felt every time he watched her die? What the others felt?
She swallowed her terror as best she could.
A short while later, she and Loki came up behind another team. Actually saw their backs, before the team saw Kirby. With a few blinks, Loki had incapacitated them and removed them from the scene.
Having him here was nicer than she’d expected.
Her pulse roared in her ears, partly from adrenaline but mostly from the growing pain in her arm. The numbness had left her, and her right side felt like it was on fire. Her breath came in short gasps, as she struggled to draw in air.
“Sit. Rest,” Loki whispered in her ear.
Kirby didn’t want to. She didn’t have a choice. She sank to the ground, and focused on slowing her heart and ignoring the pain.
“Valkyrie.” Ice Queen’s voice startled her. Fuck. “I wonder who got a shot off at you. Doesn’t matter, because I get to finish the job.” The volume of her tone was normal, so she wasn’t trying to alert anyone besides Venus to where she was. And Venus was around somewhere.
“Gloating? Really?” Kirby was surprised she kept her voice steady. “You could have shot me, and you want to talk?”
“Yeah, I want to talk. Because, for you, there’s a life after this one, and I want you to die knowing you failed to destroy us. You were the best of us and you threw it all away. We were your brothers and sisters, and you gave us up for thousand-year-old dick?”
A school full of Alphas with egos. Exactly the way Hel wanted it. Kirby could either be amused or sob. “You were never anything to me.”
“That’s on you. You’ve got so much fucking ego, you couldn’t even hide who you were when you came back. Brit would never have made the stupid mistakes you did. Would never have given herself to a grimy grunt. Would never have trusted us with—” Ice Queen dropped to the ground when Loki appeared behind her.
“Got them both,” he said. “Be right back.”
Kirby slumped against the tree again. That was three teams down, but more were still out there. Melon-head and Cyclops were the biggest threat, but definitely not the only one.
She needed to stand. To survey the area. It didn’t matter how deep she dug; her reserves were almost depleted. Was she going to die out here?
The thought knocked her off-balance. She’d spent the last six years wondering if she wanted to die, and now that she was staring the prospect in the face, it terrified her. She wasn’t ready to go.
She might not have a say in the matter.
Chapter Thirty
Min had never watched a clock more closely in his existence. At fifteen minutes before Time’s Up, Starkad had Gwydion open a portal. They’d arrive in the library, not far from where Kirby had been when she sent Min back. According to Brit, that was their best bet for minimal disturbance.
Except that Gwydion’s magic didn’t work.
Min’s tension cranked a bit higher, as Aeval joined them to see what she could do.
After a few agonizing seconds of focus and a series of shimmers that blinked into view before vanishing again, she shook her head. “There’s magic around that location that’s keeping me from acting.”
“We could have stayed where we were and driven, and we’d nearly be there by now.” Davyn had protested the bulk of the options suggested during planning.
Min was nearly back to his own mind frame, but it was tempting to deck the large man, just to shut him up. Davyn was an amplified version of everything aggravating about Starkad. The asshole needed to get laid. “Work your way out,” Min said.
Starkad nodded. “New spot, outside of campus.” He showed Gwydion where on the map. “Start here and push in until you can’t get through, then step back.”
More time ticked away. More minutes wasted that Kirby was alone. Min wouldn’t be so concerned if they’d heard from her.
“This is it.” Gwydion’s statement was carried on an odd mixture of relief and apprehension.
“I don’t like going in blind,” Davyn said.
“We’re not blind. Not completely.” Starkad’s reply was less than reassuring. “Kirby will be near this point if she can be. If we don’t find her, things are bad.”
Davyn growled. He made a far more excessive use of the threatening sound than Starkad ever had. “Sounds pretty fucking blind to me.”
Brit stepped up to the shimmering portal. “See you on the other side.” And she was gone.
Starkad followed on her heels. He’d hesitated when it came time to decide if the group was going alone or in pairs, but Min’s message from Kirby was enough to sway him to give Brit a chance.
Everyone else joined them, and Min stepped into a patch of dense forest.
“Gwydion with Min. Head southeast, and circle back to the original location. Davyn, with me. We’ll go southwest.” Starkad pointed at each of them. “Brit, due south. Good luck.”
The assignments made sense—Gwydion and Davyn weren’t familiar with the campus layout, but the group needed as many vectors as possible to do this.
The three teams fanned out, vanishing into the trees. Seconds crawled away, feeling like eons, as Min and Gwydion crept through foliage.
Something caught his attention up ahead. Kirby. Except she was down. Was she bait? Already caught and waiting? No, she wouldn’t allow that.
Not that Min cared if it was a trap. He and Gwydion sprinted toward her. Fear gripped Min as they drew close and he made out details. She was pale, and her arm looked desiccated. He holstered his gun.
As soon as Gwydion gave the all clear, Min was going to scoop her up and carry her out of here, regardless of her protests.
Gwydion knelt at her side.
A movement flashed next to Min, and he had his gun out in a heartbeat, trained on the new arrival. Apparently more of Erek lingered in Min’s veins than he’d realized.
Loki held up his hands, palms out.
“He’s with me,” Kirby croaked.
It wasn’t enough for Min to drop his guard.
Gwydion poked at Kirby’s arm, and his frown deepened.
“Am I gonna live, doc?” Her laugh was weak.
The question sliced like a blade through Min’s chest. She’d asked the same thing in her last life, after protecting a building from being destroyed by a stray CRUZ missile. She sounded so much worse now.
“I don’t know what to do with this.” Gwydion’s despair wa
s tangible.
Min holstered his gun and knelt next to her. His instinct was to carry her away, but a different compulsion raced inside. He brushed a hand over the wound without making contact.
She squirmed and whimpered, but some of the rot receded.
“It’s killing you,” Loki said.
Kirby glared at him. “No shit.”
“No, I mean... Fuck, you’re dense, for someone who was created to be a bringer of death.”
“I understand,” Min said. He was life. The magic infesting her was his opposite. He’d weakened Hel when they fought her, and he should be able to do the same to the disease crawling through Kirby. “This is probably going to hurt. Tremendously.”
“I won’t scream. We can’t afford it.” Each retort from Kirby sounded like it took more effort than the last.
Min ripped the strap from his holster as if it were paper, and held it in front of her mouth. “Bite down. Hold onto Gwydion.”
Gwydion grasped Kirby’s hand, and Loki turned away, sweeping his gaze over their surroundings.
Min glided his palm millimeters from Kirby’s arm and focused on the wound. He could feel the decay woven through her. He plucked at a tiny strand, and she squirmed. He had to ignore her discomfort, to do this. He summoned the same emotions he felt when he found her fighting Hel. The love. The rage. The need to see Kirby whole and alive.
The more magical pieces he tugged, the more her whimpers sounded like grunts.
Noises that would be enticing under other circumstances squeezed despair through him now. He dove deeper into the injury, replacing death with life. Burning away infection with passion.
Kirby had stopped moving, and her muffled screams devoured him.
Min kept going, pushing the limits of his magic and patience, exertion prickling his skin, until the last of the death in Kirby’s arm burned away.
She went limp with a sigh.
Min withdrew from the semi-meditative state. Gwydion checked her pulse. Color was returning to her skin, and her breath came evenly.
Valkyrie Concealed Page 19
