by Renée Jaggér
She completed her circuit of the manor and found nothing untoward. However, a rear door that led to the castle’s inner bailey was ajar.
“I see,” she murmured, then, shifting into wolf form, she bounded across the grass, returning to humanoid shape once she reached the tall and imposing stone structure.
Steps on the side of the keep led up to a simple wooden door, which she opened without needing to break it down. Beyond lay a maze of rooms and corridors similar to those in the manor-barracks but decorated more finely. No one was present here either, though she was under the impression that this was where the trainers slept and planned their moves.
Rounding a corner, she saw a flitting shadow and heard soft movement. Sucking in a breath, she dashed after the sound, which was moving ahead of her and wending its way through the halls.
Bailey ducked into a room where she’d seen a silhouette move and realized she’d trapped the fleeing person in a dead-end. The silhouette backed toward a stack of crates, and a dim shaft of torchlight fell on its face.
“Carl!” she snapped. “Why were you running away from me?”
He sighed in relief. “I didn’t know it was you. Someone knocked on my door and dumped the dead body of Cerrio, one of the trainers, there for me to find. I thought I heard someone running away, so I’ve been stalking them.”
“Shit,” said Bailey. “Same thing. The bastard killed Malkeg and left him on my doorstep. I checked your and Ragnar’s rooms. His was empty too. I wonder if he’s out doing the same thing as us.”
“Could be,” the scion suggested. “Let’s work together. Safety in numbers.”
She agreed, and the pair turned, preparing to continue their sweep of the castle.
Ragnar stepped into the doorway.
“No,” he began, cutting them off from speaking, “not the same thing as you.”
Bailey noticed the strange look on the Norseman’s face, a mixture of judgmental dislike, frustration, and bestial madness. Tingeing it was also the same expression he’d worn in the mess hall. Guilt.
“I was hoping I’d get you alone like this,” he added. Then he attacked.
“No!” Bailey cried as the huge form of the Viking drove against them, his powerful limbs flailing like trees caught in a cyclone. Heavy blows drove them both back in different directions. Ragnar roared like an enraged bear, blocking Bailey with a simple magical shield, then turning his aggression on Carl.
For all that he was formidable, Carl was disoriented by the initial strike. Ragnar plowed into him unchallenged, the huge fists ramming into the scion’s ribs and face. Bailey regained control of herself and hurled a static electrical net at Ragnar as Carl tried to push the Norseman away from him with a magically-augmented kick.
Ragnar shrugged off their magic. He let out awful snarling and groaning sounds, his eyes gleamed with insanity. Foamy spittle had formed around his mouth. Bailey didn’t know what was going on, but she had an idea.
The berserkers, the dreaded and bloodthirsty shock-troops of the ancient Norse, capable of entering an altered state of consciousness where they killed and destroyed indiscriminately and were impervious to most harm. Ragnar was one of them, and he had the power of divine blood behind him to boot.
Bailey pounced at him, conjuring a long red plasma lance from her fist, but he knocked her aside with shocking speed before the blade could do any more than graze him. She collapsed into a mass of crates, shattering them, while Ragnar shook Carl and pummeled him nearly into unconsciousness.
Summoning her full power, Bailey blasted the Viking warrior with a relentless whirlwind that lifted him off his feet and pinned him against the wall. While he struggled against it, she grabbed Carl and pulled him to safety.
Ragnar somehow broke free after only a second or two, and he dashed back to the doorway, cutting them off.
The werewitch stared at him. “What’s the matter with you? We were friends, goddammit!”
For an instant, it seemed he would answer her question, and his face looked almost human. Then the bestial craziness returned, and he howled, “I can’t live without it. Blood! Battle! It’s who I am. Don’t you understand? Freya promised me all I could handle. So much!”
He laughed, and there was a nauseating note of despair in the sound. She imagined him as a druggie who had abandoned himself to his addiction.
“Freya?” Bailey asked. Carl, clinging to her shoulder, found his feet and struggled to stand up straight.
Ragnar chuckled again, nastily but with restraint. The terrifying light in his eyes had not diminished, though. “She dispatched me to keep an eye on you and destroy anyone I deemed a threat. But who isn’t a threat? All of them were! There’s no way to know when friends will become enemies. Betrayal, war, and murder are the ways of the world. That’s what I live for. I have to! I need it!”
Carl muttered, “We found the murderer. Too bad he’s also a scion.”
“Dammit,” Bailey snapped, not wanting to believe this was happening. Not wanting to lose another friend. “We weren’t going to betray you, Ragnar. No one else was, either. Stop this right now. We can work something out.”
“No,” Ragnar rumbled. “Freya wants you dead. She won’t admit it, but she fears you coming for her throne as the goddess of sorcery. She dislikes your involvement with Fenris, whom she fears above all others. You seem...” he swallowed, “nice, but you must die. My lady demands it, and she will reward me with an eternity of red, raging strife. Never-ending violence!”
Grasping that Ragnar was a lost cause, that the undertow of insanity within him was stronger than any part of him that was decent and human, Bailey threw another cyclone, combined with every other offensive magic she could think of. The doorframe broke apart around the berserker, and the walls started to melt.
Ragnar stood amidst it, shielding his face but taking no great damage. Then he plunged toward her, his teeth bared.
Chapter Nine
Agent Velasquez and Agent Park sat on a bench on a pleasant and peaceful street in West Seattle, dressed in their dark suits (which weren’t quite black, more of a deep greenish-gray) and dark glasses, eating the hoagies they’d picked up at a local sandwich shop.
And that was all. They did nothing else. There was nothing else to do.
Life is good, Velasquez thought. I’ll make it home in one piece, and I should have time to get a high-quality workout in AND watch Netflix for a couple hours.
He had had to admit, the good life could be rather dull.
Park was taking the situation less well.
“You know,” the man grated, and it seemed that his scalp reddened beneath his buzzcut, “as happy as I am not to die and to see that things in Seattle are nice and cozy and shit, I was under the impression that the taxpayer dollars that pay my salary would be going toward doing something other than playing handheld games and sampling the goddamn local cuisine.”
Velasquez chortled. “You tell ‘em, Park. Good job. We need agents like you on the force.”
His junior partner had to laugh at that, but his look of irritation gradually returned. “I mean, what about the Venatori? Shouldn’t someone be keeping an eye on them?”
The senior agent shook his head. “Negative. We can keep an eye on them from home, and our jurisdiction is strictly within the United States. We’re like the supernatural version of the FBI. I’m pretty sure overseas supernatural shit is handled by the same people who handle the non-supernatural shit, so if you want to join the CIA for whatever reason, there’s that.”
Park shuddered. “I have some standards,” he grumbled.
Having finished his hoagie, Velasquez crumpled up the wrapping paper and tossed it into a nearby garbage can. Then he leaned back and allowed the warm sunshine to fall on his face.
He sighed. “I’ll confess that things have been borderline pointless lately without Hurricane Bailey and her entourage of natural disasters fucking everything up. It’s like that Broken Window Fallacy or whatever they call it, where som
eone has to break something so someone else can have a job cleaning it up. We’re the cleaners.”
Park nodded. “Good. Next time someone walks their dog and doesn’t take care of the mess, I’ll be right there with a pooper-scooper.”
Velasquez reached into his pocket. His mobile device had buzzed him, which could mean any of several things. When he checked it, he saw that it was the program that pinged nearby paranormals and warned him if they gathered in significant numbers, if groups of them moved toward each other, or if there were any signs of large magical expenditures.
“Well, well, well,” he remarked as he opened the program to view the details. “We might get some action after all.”
Park tensed with excitement and leaned over to look at Velasquez’s phone.
The app showed two groups approaching the intersection about three hundred yards from the bench. One was a cluster of five or six were-shifters coming from the south, the other a quartet of witches from the north.
Trying not to salivate, the junior agent asked, “Are they gonna fight?”
“Hmm.” Velasquez looked up. The two groups had come into visual range now. He motioned for Park to follow him and they strolled casually toward the lycanthropes, who waited to cross the street to the north. The witches on the other side of the road appeared to be waiting for them.
When the crosswalk permitted them to go, the Weres moved out. The two agents remained where they were, pretending to be absorbed in checking something on their phones.
Behind him, Velasquez heard most of the conversation between the two groups as they met.
“Hey, you made it,” a gruff voice quipped. “Probably helps that it’s a sunny day for once.”
A woman laughed and replied, “I hate the sun. It ruins my goddamn complexion.”
“Yeah,” someone added, “like pizza grease is any better.”
“I thought we were going out for sushi?”
A Were grunted. “Why not both?”
They set off northward together, chatting and seeking lunch.
Park kicked the nearest lamppost. “For fuck’s sake. There’s so much harmony and crap that we don’t even get to break up street brawls. I should have joined the regular-ass cops.”
“That would have been something,” Velasquez mused. “I don’t see a lot of Korean cops.”
Park snorted. “You’re not originally from Southern California, are you?”
“Nope. Pacific Northwest born and bred,” the senior agent replied. “Wanna wander south and see if any vampires are up early?”
Having nothing better to do, they made for a nightclub Velasquez had heard of with blacked-out windows.
Halfway there, though, the senior agent got a call. He pulled out his phone, glanced at the screen, and was surprised to see that it was Headquarters.
He swiped the green icon. “Velasquez.”
“You’ve got a case, agent,” said the voice on the other end. “Urgent, Class Two. Report to Rendezvous Point Six-C at once. Over and out.”
Park smiled. “I heard that.”
“I’m sure you did.” Velasquez opened the remote key app he used to summon their car and punched in the necessary information, then stood and waited. Park seemed far less antsy now that there was a guarantee of something interesting going on.
Three minutes later, a long black Maybach, complete with blue HID lights, pulled up at the curb, seemingly of its own accord. A handful of passersby and loiterers took notice of the vehicle as the two agents stepped toward it.
Agent Velasquez had taken particular pleasure in seizing this vehicle, which one of the Venatori’s sycophants had driven in the US, and had tagged it for his own use without much demur from on high, having it refitted with lights and the other bells and whistles required during execution of his job.
The doors opened with the distinctive hissing sound that had always reminded Velasquez of Darth Vader breathing through his helmet. Then the men in suits and sunglasses climbed into the car, which set off through the streets, leaving behind pedestrians who stared after it with slack jaws.
The door to the castle storeroom widened to something like the ragged mouth of a cavern as the supporting beams and stones burned and melted. Debris flew and floated on swirling winds and powerful electromagnetic currents. The ceiling was starting to buckle and looked like it might collapse.
Bailey grunted, straining as the full strength of her abilities fought the magically empowered wrath of the berserker. Despite his apparent lack of self-control, Ragnar was winning. His raw power, experience, and madness were too much.
Carl was back in the fight, though. He assailed Ragnar from the sides and rear with small blasts of magic as well as psionic confusion spells. Though he was still recovering from his severe beating, his contribution was enough to distract the Norseman from maintaining his shield.
A mass of arcane fury swept over Ragnar and drove him back, stumbling and then rolling through the hall, his clothes smoking. Bailey pulled Carl out through the ravaged door, and they started down a perpendicular corridor. Bailey conjured a quick shield behind them.
They’d made it halfway when Ragnar came around the corner, bellowing like an enraged animal and hurling magic with wild abandon. A blast struck the pair from behind and exploded the magical barrier, and they tumbled forward.
Bailey jumped back to her feet, not badly affected. It looked like Carl was struggling not to pass out, though. She took his arm.
“Go on,” she told him, “get help. I can hold him off until you come back with the cavalry.”
He shook his head sharply as Ragnar laughed behind them, pausing to savor his next attack.
“I can’t,” Carl protested. “I’ll stay with you. I’ve been ordered to.”
“What?” Bailey’s stomach clenched. “Don’t tell me...” Her voice trailed off as Ragnar stomped closer, and she spun to face him.
Standing by her side, Carl elaborated. “Ragnar’s not the only agent here. Balder sent me. I’m one of his apprentices, here on his behalf to observe and aid. Just like our friend there.” He gestured at the berserker. “I, however, don’t feel that you’re a threat and decided the best thing I could do was aid you.”
The Norseman had stopped, staring at them and grinning in his insane way, exerting the minimum of self-control necessary to stretch out the moment before he moved in for the kill. And, it seemed, he was giving Carl time to finish speaking.
The dark-skinned scion went on, “I know I’m not part of the Norse pantheon, and it’s not something I’d thought about before. My mother was a goddess from a completely different tradition, but Balder took me under his wing anyway. He found me at a low ebb in my life, felt bad for me, and chose to train me in magic and combat. I owe him everything.”
Bailey was not offended. Carl might have been standing with her because it was his job, but he was still a friend as far as she was concerned. “Let’s do this together, then. Balder’s boy and Fenris’ girl against Freya’s rabid dog.”
Hearing her put it that way, a strange abashed look came over Ragnar’s face. Rage replaced it again, but now it was bitter and frustrated anger rather than ravenous bloodthirst. The Viking turned and ran.
“What the…” Carl stammered.
Bailey sputtered, “He might kill someone else. C’mon, after him!”
The two broke into a sprint at the same instant, taking long strides around the corner and down the hall. They saw with sinking hearts that Ragnar was faster than they were, despite running at top speed. The obscure forces that gave him his strength, speed, and endurance were beyond anything Bailey knew how to counter.
As the berserker passed out of sight, thumps and screams and crashes resounded through the castle. Bailey didn’t know how many inhabited the structure; she could only conclude that Ragnar, in a desperate effort to sow as much chaos as he could and pin some of it on Bailey, had abandoned all restraint and was killing and destroying everyone and everything he came across.
&n
bsp; “I can’t do this,” the girl gasped, “not in this form.”
She let herself fall forward, and when she struck the floor, she stood on four legs.
“Bailey!” Carl shouted from behind her as she outpaced him. She knew he’d catch up quickly, but first, she needed to catch up with Ragnar.
They came to a staircase, and the Norseman came into sight. His blind rage was so severe by this point that the minor obstacle of steps had distracted him. He’d paused to kick the steps, breaking some off and sending chunks of stone in all directions.
In wolf form, Bailey bounded upward and seized Ragnar by the ankle with her jaws. He was too big, strong, and heavy for her to trip, but she threw him off-balance. Before he could recover, she shifted back into humanoid form, kicked him in the groin, and punched him in the face.
He fell back a step or two, but despite her strength, she’d done little more than stun and annoy him. His mouth foamed and his big, hammer-like hands latched onto her waist and shoulder, and he picked her up like a limp mannequin and slammed her into the wall hard enough to crack it.
Pain exploded through her body and dimmed her consciousness. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to roll aside, barely missing the blow from Ragnar’s fist where her face had been. His knee and shin took her in the back of the legs, and she tumbled down the steps.
Carl passed her as she fell. Both scions stood at the top of the staircase, half-crouched in fighting stances, and began to circle one another.
Bailey sprang to her feet. She held her head between both hands to steady her vision, and she heard the two speaking to each other over the pounding of blood through her skull.
“You’re dead,” Ragnar snarled. “Neither of you can match my strength.”
“I’m the child of a shapeshifter as well as a goddess,” Carl threw back. “Which means, yes, I can.”
His form distorted and grew bigger, taking on the exact dimensions of his opponent. The werewitch hoped the transformation would also grant him the berserker’s incredible physical power.
