I laughed. “Yes, like school.” I turned back to Jane. “Althyof made something for you, too. But it’s… It will tie you to my fate, in exchange for a set of powers. We need to decide if I give it to your or not.”
“Tied to your fate? I’m already that,” she said with a small shrug.
“When someone uses that phrase here, it means far more than back on Mithgarthr.”
“Mithgarthr?” she asked.
“Home.” I waved my hand around and then shrugged. “It’s how they say ‘Midgard.’”
She shrugged again. “Okay. What’s it mean, tied to your fate?”
I told her that her life span would become linked to mine. I told her about being an Isir and what it meant. I told her about the powers it would grant her.
“So, I get to turn into a bird?”
I shrugged. “If we decide you should have it, you will have to try it out and see what you turn into. I am betting it will be a rabbit.”
“No,” laughed Sig. “Mommy’s too cool to be a rabbit, unless it’s the Monty Python kind.”
“Just a wee little bunny rabbit,” I said mimicking a Scottish accent.
“One, two, five!” laughed Siggy.
“Three, sir,” said Jane, on cue.
“The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!” I said. “How does it work?”
“Armaments chapter two, verses nine to twenty-one,” said Jane with a smile.
“Blow thy enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy!” Sig was laughing so hard it was almost impossible to understand him, but we all knew it by heart anyway.
“Feast on lambs,” I prompted.
“And sloths,” said Jane.
“And breakfast cereals!” squealed Sig with laugh-tears running down his cheeks.
We laughed together for a short while, and I was almost able to pretend we were back at home. I was smiling at them, looking back and forth between them when Yowtgayrr cleared his throat.
“We should be moving, Hank. We are not safe here.”
“Yes, just one more minute.” I turned to Jane. “So, willing to risk it?” I held up the platinum ring.
“You always knew how to treat a girl,” she said and gave me a peck on the cheek.
I smiled and slid the ring on her finger, just above her wedding ring. “Twice linked.”
“Yeah, you are stuck with me now,” she laughed.
“Come on,” I said. “I have new friends for you to meet.” I shepherded my family out of the house and introduced them to the Alfar. Sig seemed enthralled to learn that they were “real live elves,” which seemed to amuse my three protectors to no end.
“Daddy?” asked Sig and something in his voice made a trickle of fear go racing down my spine.
“What is it, Sigster?”
“I think…I think that man is here.”
Dread ripped through me, and suddenly, I could feel his eyes on me. My mind snapped back to that night in the safe house. It was Luka, I was sure. “Use your dagger, Sig.” He disappeared. Jane twisted her new ring around her finger, as she peered into the shadows between the houses across from us. “Do you feel it, too?” I whispered, easing both pistols out of their holsters.
“Ah, more guns,” said a voice from the darkness. I recognized it, of course. It was Jax’s voice. “Why do you always bring guns, Hank?” He sounded irritated but also amused. The voice came from the shadows to the west.
“Jax is dead, leave his voice out of this.”
Luka laughed, and it sounded like it was coming from the south this time. “I think if you’re going to bring your guns, that I should be able to bring out my best, too. Fair enough?”
“I don’t understand why you are doing this. Why you did any of this. Who am I to you?” I didn’t really care, but I wanted to keep him talking so I could figure out where he was.
“I’ve explained that.” He sounded irritated again, but this time his voice sounded like Yowtgayrr and came from the north. “At the diner and in my note.” He cackled.
I was spinning around like a whirly-gig, and he was getting off on it. He was playing with me—once again. “I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now. You’d already ruined my life with this curse, why take it farther? Why bring me here?”
“Put your guns away, and I’ll tell you everything.” Meuhlnir’s voice came from the east this time.
“I know it’s you, why play around with the stupid voices? I mean, Yowtgayrr is standing right next to me. Who are you supposed to be fooling?”
“Oh, I’m not trying to fool anyone, Hank. If I were, you’d be fooled.” It sounded like a whisper from right behind me, but I was standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by my friends. “Go on, Hank, put your guns down. Join me. I promise to let Jane and Sig go. Or they can stay here and live with you forever.”
If the Norse god Loki was inspired by this man, then Luka’s character wasn’t concerned with honesty or keeping promises. “You first,” I said. “Go ahead and put your shape-shifting abilities down.”
Luka chuckled from my right. “See? This is why I brought you here. You are funny.”
“Yeah, I’m a laugh a second. Why don’t you step out of the shadows so we can start laughing together?” My voice had gone as cold and empty as the space between the stars in the night sky.
“That doesn’t sound very friendly at all, Hank. Maybe I’ll let my underlings feast on your boy.” His voice had turned nasty.
Fury surged through me like a tsunami. “Touch him ever again, and I’ll bring such wrath down on you that you will never have a moment’s peace. You won’t be able to eat, sleep or even shit without having to look around and make sure I’m not there. With my guns.”
“Does this mean we can’t be friends?” Luka’s tone was mocking, but it had an edge of anger to it.
“I think that came off the table when you killed Jax. Before, maybe. All those bodies in your little cave of horrors.”
“What is it they say? What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas? Nothing that happens on Mithgarthr really matters, Hank. Can’t you see that now?” His voice had stopped moving around—it was coming from the roof of the house to the north. “Those were thralls, Hank. Meaningless people with meaningless lives.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Luka. What you did there brought me here, for whatever obscure reason you and the Dark Queen want me here.” I turned toward the northeast, not wanting him to know I had a good idea where he was.
“Don’t call her that,” he snapped. “You have the blood of the Isir, Hank. You belong here.”
“And Jane?”
“As I understand it, you sort of like her around. You wouldn’t come here without her. Or your little guy.” His tone was light, friendly.
“So, things on Mithgarthr do matter?” I eased the hammers back on my pistols and raised my arms to my most comfortable firing position.
“No, not in the least. Any descendants of the Isir trapped on your klith are ignorant of their roots, their powers, their privileges. Plus, people on your world have no respect for racial boundaries. Blacks mate with whites, Indians mate with Hispanics. The people of Mithgarthr are a muddle.” He was creeping toward the edge of the roof.
I backed toward the house on the south side, hoping to see something on the opposite roof. “You’re an ignorant racist, too? Over there, we realize that racial boundaries are arbitrary and stupid. I mean, who can honestly believe their ethnic heritage is superior to another because their ancestors moved north and someone else’s stayed where life began? It’s a stupid thought.”
“I don’t think so. Your ancestors are superior to the other races of Mithgarthr.” I was sure Luka was moving back and forth on the roof, just out of sight. “It matters that they moved to the north. You are Isir because of it.”
I settled into a combat stance. It sounded like Luka was opposite me now. “So, because some ancestor of yours did some fiddling with your genetics, that makes you superior? Have you had your eyes clos
ed for the last five hundred years? You are an evil man, Luka.”
“I transcend the silly ideas of good and evil, Hank. Surely, you can see that? And besides, the fiddling with my genetics does make me superior, just as your genetics make you superior.”
“More nonsense,” I said, letting a trace of irritation leak into my voice. “You’re nothing but a common thug. A murd—”
“Hank! Look out!” screamed Jane and something roared from the roof above and behind me.
I dove to my left, activating the cloak as I fell, but I still felt something hot as a poker sliding across my cheek. In smoke form, I twisted around, and I aimed Kunknir at the center of mass of a large thing with the skin and features of a man, but what looked like the bone structure of a wolf. He had sores all over his body, and they were dripping a putrid-smelling, foul-looking pus.
Luka. My nemesis, all dressed up in his werewolf outfit.
I deactivated my cloak, and Kunknir barked, sounding strange. Luka yelped as the rounds tore into the muscles of his torso. Hatred burned in his eyes, and he crouched over me where I lay. Jane slammed into Luka from the side, knocking him sideways and against the wall despite his superior size and strength. She jumped, her leap carrying her to the roof of the house across the lane. She stood straight, and a set of huge black wings unfurled from her shoulders. Raven’s wings. Luka screamed in rage and stepped by me. A strange grunting sound came from his misshapen mouth, and I thought he was trying to laugh. He flexed his overlong toes, and his too-long thighs bunched like an Olympic speed skater’s.
“Jane! Get away!” I screamed. I leapt to my feet and tried to catch Luka, but it was too late
Luka sprang up at her, growling deep in his throat. His clawed fingers raked down the side of Jane’s left leg, splattering blood across the cobblestoned street. He cuffed her hard, and she flew to the side, landing hard. Jane bunched the muscles of her back and flapped those huge black wings. She shot off the roof but fell to the cobbles. Luka made his weird chuffing laugh and jumped to the ground. He bent toward her, his eyes locked on hers, and he snarled with hatred and savagery. Saliva dripped from his long canine teeth.
I tracked Luka with both weapons, but with him standing over my wife, I couldn’t let myself fire. “No shot!” I yelled, hoping someone could help somehow. I took a rapid step forward, but Urlikr whirled by me. He was spinning like a dancer, his arms extended, longsword in one hand and that long, barbaric-looking dagger in the other. As he reached Luka’s side, he snapped both wrists, and long, gaping wounds appeared across Luka’s back and down one side. Without pausing, Urlikr leapt into the air, whirled, and lashed out with his back leg, like some kung fu master in a cheap martial arts movie. His foot thudded into Luka’s neck, just below his left ear and Luka sprawled on top of Jane. Urlikr bent at the waist and scoured Luka’s back with both blades before jumping away. Growling, Luka pushed away from my wife and whirled into a crouch, tracking Urlikr with vicious eyes.
Kunknir and Krati snapped up into firing position, and I started squeezing the triggers. Reports boomed and echoed back and forth across the cobbles, bouncing between the stone walls of the houses on either side. The distinctive smell of burnt gunpowder filled my nose like the perfume of a long-lost lover. Luka screeched and snarled and howled, shaking his head savagely from side to side. He pointed a long finger from a long hand at the end of a gangling arm at me and barked like an angry dog.
I didn’t stop firing, but I shuffled toward Jane. She lay on the ground, panting and making a mewling noise deep in her throat. “You can heal yourself,” I said. She looked at me, startled, and then smiled. She ran a hand down the cruel gash in her thigh. As her palm covered the part of the wound, the skin on either side of the cut knit together neatly, not even leaving a scar. “Remember what else you can do.”
Jane blanched and looked up at me with wide eyes. “I…I can’t do that,” she cried.
Luka rose to his full height, which must have been fifteen feet, towering above the eaves of the houses on either side of the street and glared at me, and then Urlikr was there, slashing across his midsection with a longsword. Without breaking eye contact with me, Luka pistoned his arm forward like a striking snake, and he caught Urlikr by the neck. He jerked the Alf forward, off his feet and three feet into the air, and snarled into Urlikr’s face, spraying spittle and a greenish-brown pus all over the Alf. He shook Urlikr ferociously, back and forth, and back and forth, like a Rottweiler playing tug of war, and then threw Urlikr to the ground. The Alf’s head bounced from the cobbles with a sickening crack. Thick, black blood splattered across the stones. Urlikr lay crumpled into an unnatural position—maybe alive, maybe dead.
With a whimper, Jane’s face filled with the pain of seeing Urlikr lying all rimpled up on the ground. She looked at me and mouthed the words, “My fault.”
Yowtgayrr stooped by Urlikr’s crumpled form, and Skowvithr leapt to stand over them both.
With a savage shriek, I began firing both pistols again, pausing only long enough to eject spent magazines and slam full ones into the guns as needed. I don’t know how many rounds I fired, I just remember seeing Luka’s body dancing and jinking as the lead slugs bit into his flesh from close range. He was alternating between howling and making a strangely human-sounding scream as the bullets slammed into him. I was causing him pain, but despair began to settle around me like a fog as I saw that I wasn’t causing enough damage to put him down.
“Run!” I shouted, but I knew there was nowhere to go, and even if there had been, Urlikr wasn’t going anywhere. I hoped Sig was hiding out of sight because I could tell from the insane rage scrawled across Luka’s face, that this time, no quarter would be given to my family.
Luka crouched as if he were about to leap at me. Jane muttered something under her breath, and Luka glanced at her and then shook his head as if to clear it. He looked back at me and tilted his head to the side. He took a hesitant step away from me and shook his head again. I shoved Kunknir into its holster and fished in my pockets for the whistle. Maybe Althyof could get them to safety. I tossed the citrine whistle to Jane and stepped closer to Luka. I was praying—to whom I had no idea—that if I had to die, then let it be that I died saving my family and friends. Kunknir was back in my hand and seemed eager to point itself at Luka’s heart. Jane looked at me in confusion, holding the whistle carved from a precious gem.
“Just blow it! Long and hard!” I yelled.
She gave me the strangest look—a small crook of a smile under hurt eyes streaming tears—but raised the whistled to her lips and blew it. It would have been a loud shriek if the whistle made noise. She looked at me in confusion. “Broken,” she muttered. From the north, Friner made his basso roar that set my teeth on edge. Jane’s gaze drifted up and toward the sound, and her eyes opened very, very wide. “What in god’s name is that?”
“The cavalry.”
Luka jerked his head from side to side and his eyes cleared. He snarled and slashed at me, but Skowvithr stepped forward, longsword and dagger swinging with a vengeance, and Luka backed away, growling and snarling. He kept us all in sight, but his head darted to the left and the right, looking for somewhere to run. He tilted his head back and made a strange, ululating kind of howl.
Oolfa from all over the small garrison town howled or roared in response. It sounded like there were quite a few of them out there in the shadows.
“Give it up, Luka,” I said with a bravado I didn’t feel. “Even you can’t stand up to a dragon.”
“Dragon?” Jane whispered, sounding like a lost little girl.
He sneered at me—an expression that was hideous on his distorted wolf-face—and made the ululating call a second time. Again, the oolfa howled and roared in response, but this time, they sounded closer. Much closer. I ejected my empty magazines and fed my pistols full ones. I had no idea what was about to happen, but I had the feeling that the time it took me to reload, even with the elaborate setup Prokkr had outfitted me with, was going
to cost me in blood.
A new kind of howling sounded from the west. I’d been scared before, but when I glanced down the lane and saw ten or twelve oolfa sprinting toward us, I learned the real meaning of terror. Each one of the beast-men was covered in blackened, necrotic sores, and looked like a creepy cross between a demon, and either a wolf or a bear. Luka howled, and it sounded like a shout of victory. The smell washed over us first. I’ve been to a lot of crime scenes and have smelled some cadavers in a decayed and fouled state, but the stench coming off the oolfa was enough to make me want to hold my breath forever. I didn’t even want to breathe through my mouth because the foul odor was so strong, the air tasted of corruption and doom.
Luka made that strange barking laugh of a sound and stood straight. The oolfa swaggered and strutted toward us, assured of their victory. I turned back to Luka and smirked at him—though the only thing I felt was terror. “You are supposed to be immortal, right?” I forced myself to laugh. “So immortal that you need fifteen other immortals to kill little old Hank from New York?” Luka growled and took a menacing half-step toward me. Skowvithr slashed at his side, and Luka batted at his blade, snarling and spitting. The oolfa coming up the street snarled and roared and began to come at us faster.
I had no plan for escape. Worse yet, I had no plan for any kind of credible defense against sixteen werewolves and werebears. The only thought I had was to get everyone inside the house that Jane and Sig had been held captive in. “We have to get inside,” I said. “We can use the door as a bottleneck. Maybe.” Jane looked up at me and opened her mouth to speak, but whatever she’d been planning to say was washed out by the painful squealing jet engine sound of Friner spitting fire. Her head snapped toward the end of the lane, and her eyes opened very wide, while her mouth made an almost perfect O of surprise.
Sorrowful shrieks and woeful wailing filled the night air. A conflagration of red-orange liquid fire splashed across the rank of oolfa coming up the lane at us. A languishing lament tore from Luka’s throat. Friner leapt into the air from the next lane over and slammed down on top of the house across from me, spraying us with shards of glass and splinters of wood. Its eyes were windows of hate, and thick blood dripped from the exposed fangs in its great maw of a mouth. Friner’s massive head darted forward as quick and as sinuous as a snake, and its massive jaws snicked shut, missing Luka by fractions of an inch. Luka yelped as he twisted away and reeled into the wall of a house. He cast such a look of hatred and fury at me that I had to fight to keep from taking a step backward. Then fear filled his face as Friner sucked in a puissant gulp of air in preparation for another blast of fire, and Luka turned and raced to the east as fast as his stretched and contorted legs could carry him.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 47
