Then again, he wouldn’t have thought to put in fake windows with steel barricades behind them.
The knock on the door was barely audible over the screech of the alarm. Was there a way to turn off that noise? Probably. Just like there were probably cameras, so he could see what was going on outside.
Since Gwydion didn’t have access to any of the security features, he was the only person in the house, and he wasn’t in the mood to play soldier, he answered the door.
Seeing Freyr—Frey—on the other side wasn’t enough to eliminate all the stressors Gwydion was dealing with, but it was nice to not add to the list.
The young woman by Frey’s side was unfamiliar, though. She was Brit’s age—mid-twenties—with black hair, an oversized black sweater that showed off the tank top underneath, and a... ballet skirt over cut-offs? “Do you need to get that?” she asked.
Great greeting. This was almost a broken intro to a bad joke. A god and a girl show up on a porch... “Nah. I like it. Soothes the soul.”
“Good to see you.” Frey’s chuckle fell flat. “Are you the only one here?”
“Whom else did you expect?” Gwydion didn’t know what to make of any of this.
The woman looked past him. “Starkad? Kirby? It’s their home, right?”
“Are you a friend?” Gwydion didn’t get the impression either Starkad or Kirby had many friends. He didn’t even know how they presented themselves to neighborhood. Did they play the doting suburban couple for the neighbors? Unlikely, given the nature of their relationship before Kirby regained her memories of her past lives.
“This is Dahlia. Dahlia, meet Gwydion.” Frey passed around introductions.
Not that they did Gwydion any good. “Charmed, I’m sure. I’d invite you in, but I’m still waiting for you to tell me what the fuck is going on. I assume you’re not dropping by for tea and biscuits.”
“We think FU took Kirby,” Dahlia said.
Gwydion focused on her. Did she have any idea she was in the presence of two gods? Frey seemed to know her well enough he’d brought her to visit. “Who are you? More than a name.”
She dragged in a deep breath. “I’m what your girlfriend probably calls a Noble. Or a cunt. Not sure about that. I’m not with TOM anymore. Not that you’d take my word for it. Not that you care. You probably care. I stumbled on a series of prophecies that aren’t in any of the printings I’ve found, and they talk about all of you, and would you please let me turn the alarm off? I swear it’s piercing my brain.”
“I don’t have the code.” Gwydion was still processing everything else she said. “I do care. You’re right; she’d probably call you a cunt if you’re a former classmate. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t execute you right now.” He hated when violence had to be the first option. Some day, he’d like a world where it never was, but as long as the gods freely threw around loyalty to acronyms like TOM and FU, this was the only option.
“You have my word that you can trust her,” Frey said.
Not all gods’ word meant something, but his did to Gwydion. “All right.”
“Are we good now? Good. Invite us in? Thanks.” Dahlia pushed past Gwydion, pulling a tablet and a cable from her messenger bag. She paused in front of a photo of Kirby that hung on the wall. She took down the photo to reveal a seam in the wallpaper, and pressed her thumb along the edge, until a small door snicked open.
An alarm control panel sat inside. She plugged her tablet in, jabbed at the screen in a rapid-fire series of taps, frowned, and repeated the process.
Silence settled over the room.
“Starkad is going to be furious that was so easy.” Gwydion shouldn’t have said that with so much amusement.
“Easy?” Dahlia snorted. “I’m a fucking master. I didn’t see you doing it. Besides, I always had the impression most things pissed off Starkad.”
Starkad had been a combat instructor for most of the Nobles, and it sounded like she knew him. She certainly carried herself with the confidence of an elite trained assassin.
“Thank you.” Gwydion made sure his sincerity showed. “The quiet is much better. And forgive my lack of hospitality, but why would The Followers of Urd have Kirby?”
Dahlia’s easy smile vanished. “One of the prophecies I don’t think anyone has seen says the last Valkyrie will be no more. And I’m under the impression that FU is all about making sure the prophecies happen.”
Chapter Eight
Starkad
The wolf facing Starkad down was Fenrir. He and Starkad went all the way back to Kirby’s original life, but Fenrir was furious about some of Starkad’s more recent decisions.
When Starkad said that some of the gods didn’t like how he’d played both sides, with TOM and FU, it was an understatement. He’d spent decades just wanting a fight. It didn’t matter who was asking or what their cause was, as long as he could get his claws dirty, and that indiscretion tended to piss of... well... most immortals. It was the one secret he still kept from Kirby. She might not forgive his lack of discretion.
The way Fenrir faced him now, ready to strike with any misstep, he wasn’t feeling forgiving. Unlike Starkad, whose mind was more wolf than man when he shifted, Fenrir remained in full control of his consciousness.
Fenrir bared his teeth and lunged.
Starkad rolled to the side, maneuvering to put trees between them.
“Now you avoid a fight?” Fenrir’s voice was in Starkad’s head and all around them, rather than spoken. Being self-aware didn’t change the fact that he had a wolf’s vocal cords. He charged again.
Starkad should have an easier time avoiding such a large beast, given the trees. But they didn’t seem to slow the wolf down.
Starkad struggled to hold onto rational thought. In his mind, jaws snapped to get out. His chest rumbled with a primal need. If he let the wolf out, he wouldn’t have control. It was unlikely he or Fenrir would die, but the wounds would be serious. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Then you’ve come to the wrong place.”
“I didn’t choose to be here.” Starkad kept moving, weaving between trees. Keeping Fenrir in sight, but with an obstacle between them as much as possible.
“You just happened to appear in my path?”
“I doubt it was a coincidence, but it wasn’t my choice. I was at home, and then I was here.” Starkad kept the explanation vague on purpose. Details would wait.
“You’re lying.” Fenrir attacked again, dodging a tree, moving like a blur, and coming up on Starkad’s back.
Starkad rolled but wasn’t fast enough. A claw caught his side, tearing flesh as if it were paper. His shout of pain melted into a howl, tearing from his throat. His canines cut his tongue.
Fenrir pivoted before Starkad could recover, flying through the air to knock him to the ground. Giant paws stood on Starkad’s chest, stealing his breath and calling to him to fight back. “Which of your temporary masters wants me dead? Is this for money, or simply to eliminate me?”
Chants of fight, kill, devour thrummed in Starkad’s skull. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“Right. Your Valkyrie has changed you.” Apparently sarcasm carried over the alternate means of speech. “Does she know what you became while she was gone?”
Starkad’s control slipped further, his chin and nose growing.
“Fight back.” Fenrir pressed his teeth to Starkad’s throat.
Starkad was close to doing exactly that. No matter which of them got hurt worse, he’d regret it. Fenrir had never been the enemy, but Starkad was, for a long time.
It took an immense force of will, to keep the growl from his response. “No.”
The weight vanished from Starkad’s chest, as did the pressure from his throat. Fenrir in human form stepped back a few meters as Starkad hopped to his feet.
Fenrir’s lack of clothing showed off a well-built frame, covered in tattoos. His dark-blond hair was cut close the ears, rather than being the long braids so many warriors wore
centuries ago. Even nude, he was an imposing presence.
The temporary ceasefire didn’t mean the battle was over. Starkad kept his guard up and his stance battle ready.
“Why are you here? The truth this time,” Fenrir said.
How long had he been in this isolated piece of wilderness in Norway? Weeks? Months? Was he up to date with current god events? “There were a series of quakes—of the act-of-god variety—and then I was here. That’s the truth.”
“You finally pissed off the wrong deity?”
Starkad gave him a dry smile. “Not me. I’ve never met Gluskab.”
Fenrir’s laugh stopped abruptly. “You’re serious.”
“You know the name.”
Was that concern etched onto Fenrir’s face? “Aya helped imprison his sister. How did he—”
“Loki. Not on purpose.” Not that Starkad thought Loki was above initiating genocide. “He sacrificed followers on sealed grounds.”
Fenrir shook his head. “Fucking idiot. You’re fortunate you don’t have a bloodline to embarrass you.”
Loki was Fenrir’s father, and Hel was his sister. He’d severed ties with the family centuries ago, though.
“Why are you here?” Starkad asked. He didn’t keep tabs on most gods, but Fenrir and Frey owned a club and the surrounding property in underground Chicago. Their presence—their ownership of the city—was the reason Starkad settled there with Kirby. Frey made it clear that neither TOM nor FU was welcome near his territory.
“The modern world gets to be too much sometimes,” Fenrir said. “I’m here to clear my head.”
“So how did I get here?” It was a rhetorical question. Neither of them had that answer. “You have a phone?”
Fenrir patted his naked thighs. “Left it in my other pants.”
Starkad chuckled dryly. This wasn’t a vacation for Fenrir. “You’ve been living out here.” Hunting as a wolf. Losing himself in nature.
“Jealous?” Fenrir smirked.
“A bit.” Starkad stepped back, keeping his posture as non-threatening as possible without dropping his guard. “I’ll leave you to the Call of the Wild. I need to get back to town.” Call home. Make sure Kirby was all right.
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.” The casual tone vanished from Fenrir’s voice, replaced by threat. “A good story doesn’t return all that erased trust.”
Starkad didn’t figure it would. He’d hoped, but he had a lot to atone for.
A new scent filled the air. A muddy power. The nearby trees rustled. Starkad went rigid, and so did Fenrir.
The sound of a suppressed gunshot reached Starkad as a bullet tore into his shoulder.
Chapter Nine
Brit
Brit bit the side of her fist to keep from screaming again. She sat on the concrete floor in a puddle of her own blood, agony shooting through her. The wounds on her knees had already clotted. The bone of her shattered kneecaps was regenerating quickly.
That didn’t make it hurt any less.
“You could have complied. You chose not to.” The voice sent ice racing down her spine. Vidar. Power and threat spilled from the god who stepped into the room. Even if Brit were standing, she’d have to look up—and up—to meet his gaze. His dirty-blond hair was pulled into a clean ponytail at the base of his neck. The long hair was a sharp contrast to the pinstriped suit that accentuated his trim but muscular frame.
Brit didn’t want to feel awe at his presence, but the compulsion to kneel at his feet was potent. The Order of Mistletoe was responsible for far more than just the campus where Brit and Kirby were raised and trained. Their board of directors consisted of a dozen gods—presumably eleven, now that Hel was dead. Brit didn’t know every god on the board, but Vidar had been a good friend of Hel’s, and was occasionally involved in ceremony on the TOM campus.
Most students prayed to Hel. Worshiped her. Brit had always put her faith in a different member of the board. It didn’t matter that life with TOM was behind her, Brit still reached for Vidar’s name first when she was stuck. Needed help. Was terrified.
She forced herself to stand, regaining her balance after a few wobbly seconds.
“Don’t make me restrain you further,” Vidar said.
“You already had them shoot me.” Wait. If he was here, were these TOM grunts? The students and soldiers taken from campus?
Vidar gave her a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “They shot you to immobilize you, knowing you would recover. Which you have.”
“Swell.” Brit returned his unamused look. “Why are we here?”
“One of our Nobles recently brought new information to light.”
The woman who joined Vidar in the doorway was pale, with long auburn hair. Magnus. She wore a corset and jeans, the same as she had so many times on campus. The full-finger ring on her right middle finger, complete with a stainless-steel claw, was new.
Magnus and her partner, Dahlia, had been some of the few Nobles Brit genuinely liked. They weren’t fighters—in fact they were the only Nobles who scored low marks in every single combat area—but no one in the world was better at digital espionage.
“I’ve missed you, Kitten.” Magnus’s greeting was sad, but friendly.
I can’t say the same. The snide retort stuck in Brit’s throat, despite the whole we-were-just-magically-kidnapped scenario. She had missed Magnus and Dahlia. “Same. And Brit, please.” Kitten was her call sign as a TOM Noble. Hel insisted that giving each other nicknames would bring the Nobles closer together. Build camaraderie.
She’d also actively discouraged some of them from being named. Brit didn’t have a call sign until after Kirby was gone. Kirby picked one up after the Nobles were told she was a Valkyrie, long after her time with TOM. Magnus and Dahlia had never been given alternate names. It was always implied they were Nobles, but not quite as much so as everyone else.
Magnus smiled. “I’d take the time to catch up, but you probably want answers.”
“Answers would be nice, yes.”
“W—I stumbled on a set of prophecies that aren’t in any of the known books. None of the translations. As far as I can tell, very few people know about these,” Magnus said. “One of them says that the last Valkyrie will be no more.”
A new flavor of fear sliced through Brit. The prophecies of Urd had been written thousands of years ago. A large number of them implied a changing of the guard—so to speak—among the gods, where old gods would die and new would take their place. But Kirby wasn’t... She couldn’t die again.
“We brought you both here to keep Kirby safe,” Vidar said.
Brit snorted a laugh. “TOM has never given a fuck about our lives.”
“Untrue.” Vidar was calm. Cool. “Hel didn’t want either of you dead. Ever. She wanted you to remain part of the team.”
“She wanted us submissive and brainwashed.” Kirby’s voice—despite the exhaustion in it—was a welcome relief to Brit.
Vidar tsked. “Hel was misguided. She also didn’t know this information.”
“So that excuses what she did to us? How she treated us?” Kirby’s question mirrored Brit’s thoughts.
“We do what it takes to accomplish our goals.” There was no apology in Vidar’s retort.
Should Brit laugh or cry at how black and white he made the whole thing? “And we’ve become one of your goals?” she asked.
“The Order of Mistletoe exists to keep the original powers alive. You’re here to keep your Valkyrie safe.”
“From whom?” Kirby asked.
Magnus tapped the claw from her ring against her chin. “The Followers of Urd.”
Chapter Ten
Starkad
The hole in Starkad’s arm hurt a lot more than it should, even for a bullet wound. It wouldn’t kill him, though. Whoever shot him either had bad aim or wasn’t shooting to kill.
And their scent lingered in the air. “Go find them.” Starkad bit off the words.
Fenrir hesitated.
Starkad wouldn’t be surprised if he was left here to deal on his own.
And then Fenrir was sprinting away, cutting a straight line though the trees toward the scent and the source of the shot.
Starkad pressed his back to a tree, putting the trunk between himself and the presumed location of the shooter. He wrapped his fingers around the wound, and swallowed a roar of agony at the light touch. This wasn’t right.
“They’re gone.” Fenrir had returned. “I was closing in, and the air shifted. The scent vanished.”
“A god?” Why would a god shoot Starkad?
Fenrir shrugged. “Unless you’ve pissed off the fae, too.”
Currently, the queen of the fae was grateful to Starkad. “I guarantee I haven’t. And I don’t say that lightly.”
“Uh-huh. I’m not going to ask who wants to hurt you; we don’t have all afternoon for the list. Can you walk?”
Starkad stood. “It’s a hole in my arm. They didn’t shoot my legs off.”
“I have a cabin about five kilometers from here, so I don’t walk back into society naked when this is over. You can use the phone. Dress the wound.” Fenrir focused on Starkad’s arm. “That doesn’t look good.”
“It’s not as though it’s going to kill me,” Starkad said dryly. A thousand years ago, Kirby had granted him immortality. He’d tried since then to shed the gift, but it wasn’t going anywhere. “Which direction?”
Fenrir jerked his head, and they fell into step beside each other. Starkad had no illusions that this was a friendly walk. They exchanged wary looks more than they did conversation.
The trip should have been no-impact, but there was a lot of stumbling over underbrush in the darkness. By the time the cabin came into sight, Starkad was winded and had broken out into a cold sweat. He didn’t have the focus to appreciate that the interior of the building was modern and comfortable—the polar opposite of roughing it.
Fenrir managed to keep his attention on Starkad while he pulled on clothes.
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