The man pulled his finger away, and he could hear soft, wet sounds. He could imagine that the man was licking the blood off of his finger. He opened his senses and confirmed that his keeper was a Draugr, and an old one, to boot.

  “I’m no traitor,” he murmured. Even as he said it, he knew it was a lie. He had betrayed Hakon to become Veithimathr, and in the eyes of many of the Draugr, he and his brothers had all become traitors for defending humanity against their own kind.

  His captor snorted. Erik could hear him walk away. A door opened and closed, and a key turned in a lock. He was alone. Worse, he was helpless.

  He could taste the silver in the back of his throat, cloying and toxic. It galled him that after everything he had overcome, he would be consigned to slow death by poison, shackled in some concrete prison cell.

  There was still so much left undone.

  ***

  He spent hours drifting in and out of consciousness. It felt like swimming in a vast internal ocean, trapped within the confines of his own soul and struggling to reach the surface. He was drowning in his own blood.

  He was startled awake by the press of cold steel into his shoulder, cutting the flesh. He hissed at the new pain, unable to make any other protest. Someone was cutting the bullet out of him. The silver slug had been burrowing, and it took some time for his unkind physician to locate it. Erik’s fangs extended, called down by his extremity, and he gnashed them in agony and rage.

  “Quiet,” a woman’s voice said. She reached into the wound with her fingers, digging and probing, and she finally pulled the bullet free. His body convulsed as she withdrew her hand.

  He could suddenly smell dreyri, and if he’d had a voice, he would have begged. His thirst roared within him, more powerful than it had been since he’d been made veithimathr.

  “Open your mouth,” she commanded.

  He obeyed. A single drop of the enchanted blood fell upon his tongue, electrifying him. When no more drops followed, he moaned in protest. His unsatisfied thirst raged.

  His torturer walked away, leaving him alone again.

  ***

  Nika sat in Ingrid’s house, contemplating the card that Angrboda had left for her. It was the same as the card that Sigurd had left in her apartment in Central City, with the same hand-rendered interweave decoration on the back. On the front, in an elegant hand, it said: One week from today, 11 am. Snake Eyes.

  Her hostess looked up from the cook stove, where she was busily preparing the evening meal. “We will keep that appointment, young one, but we have a lot of work to do before then. You must be prepared.”

  “I understand.”

  She ran a hand over her forehead. She had a splitting headache, caused partially by tension and partially by the fact that she was several hours overdue for her next dose of dreyri. She wondered if she was in some form of withdrawal.

  Ingrid put dinner on two plates and placed them on the table. “Come and eat, child.”

  Nika had no taste for food, but she obeyed. She felt dulled and diminished. She sat at the table but did not take up her fork.

  “The need will pass soon,” Ingrid promised her. “Then you will be clear-headed and your training can begin.”

  “So I’m feeling this way because of the dreyri?”

  “Because of the lack of it, yes.” She sipped from her cup, then said, “Tomorrow morning we will start with simple things, like feeling your power. Depending on how quickly you master it, we will move on from there.”

  Nika picked up her fork and listlessly pushed some food around on the plate. “What does Loki want with me?”

  Ingrid hesitated, clearly weighing her words carefully. “You are a special person. You are the seventh incarnation of Ithunn. That gives you power beyond that of normal valtaeigr. You can wield more magic than others, and you are more susceptible to others’ magic than others, as well. It is a double-edged sword.”

  “He wants my power?” she asked dubiously. She didn’t feel very powerful.

  “Yes. I’m sure of it.”

  She fell silent again. Thoughts of Erik crossed her mind, and she felt the sting of unshed tears pricking her eyes. She pushed her plate away.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not hungry.”

  She went out into the herb garden, standing in the wind and the clean salt air. The water was steel grey and choppy, speckled with white caps and attended by seabirds. The house and the hill on which it stood felt timeless, as if she were in a pocket of unreality that left her disconnected from everything and everyone she had ever known. A raven flew down and landed on the fence, watching her with bright, intelligent eyes. It was joined by a second raven, and the two of them regarded her closely. She looked back at them.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked the birds. The first raven tilted its head as if it was considering the question. “Let me see if Ingrid knows what to feed you.”

  She turned to go back inside, and the birds flew away, taking to the air in unison. They were out of sight before she could even process that they’d gone.

  Ingrid came out of the house and leaned against the doorjamb. “Hugin and Munin,” she said. “They are the companions of Odin.”

  Nika had heard of the myth. Hugin and Munin were Odin’s eyes and ears in Midgard, the world of men, and each day they gathered information that they gave to their god each night. She wondered what they would be telling Odin about her.

  ***

  Days passed.

  His body was a riot of pain. His unknown torturer returned each day to bestow one drop of dreyri upon his tongue, but it was not enough to heal him or to address the horrid pain that still rolled in his midsection. The bullet was still there, deep inside of him, and when he was quiet and still, he could swear he felt it spinning.

  His broken bones prevented him from moving, and he was gripped by silver sickness. He was still blindfolded and bound, still held captive by people he never saw. He was giving up hope that he would escape this place.

  The door to his lonely prison opened, and the click of high heels announced the woman’s return. She walked right up to him, her feet stopping just shy of his head.

  “Thorvald,” she said. “Are you awake?”

  He managed to answer weakly. “Yes.”

  “My master has a gift for you.”

  Erik was almost afraid to ask. “A gift?”

  Abruptly, she pulled the blindfold from his head, and he blinked in the sudden brightness. There were electric lights blazing down from the ceiling. He was lying on a gray concrete floor that was bounded by four gray concrete walls. The door was iron and heavily reinforced, with a spinning wheel in the center like the opening of a vault.

  Before him, a tall blonde woman was standing, her black patent stiletto heels nearly touching his face. She was wearing a business suit, which surprised him. He had been expecting something more military. He looked up at her. He did not recognize her face.

  “Bring her in.”

  Two guards dragged in a struggling woman with scarlet hair. For a breathless moment, he thought that they had captured Nika. They flung her down onto the floor beside him. The woman in the suit pressed her foot against the prone woman’s back, leaning on her and forcing her to stay on the ground. The guards came forward and held her down, as well. She began to weep.

  “Do you want the pain to stop, Thorvald?” She waited for him to answer, but when he did not, she continued. “You only need to feed from her.”

  He tried to turn his head away. As weakened as he was, and as powerfully as his thirst was howling inside of him, he would not be able to stop himself from killing her.

  The woman in heels leaned down and grabbed Erik’s jaw, turning his face back toward her. She growled at him. “Such pretty scruples. Always choosing the humans before your own kind,” she spat in his face. She turned to the guards. “Cut her.”

  The woman shrieked. “No!”

  Her objections were useless. One of the guards produced a knife and cut a notch into the side of her neck, bringing blood bubbling to the surface. It was a serious wound but not a fatal one, and she howled.

  The scent of her blood made Erik’s stomach spasm, and he could feel the green Draugr lights ignite inside his eyes. His teeth, which had already been extended because of his pain, grew even longer. He needed to feed.

  They pulled the woman closer to him, so close that he could smell the salt in her tears. She was begging for mercy, but he heard none of her words. Her fear was intoxicating, a reminder of his mortal days when power was at his beck and call and came on the backs of the frightened.

  He tried to move closer to her, but the pain from his injuries stilled the motion before it began. He winced, but the vampire within him would not be denied. Over the anguished protest of his broken body, he inched closer to her, dragging himself along the floor.

  The woman looked at him with terror in her brown eyes. She was like a cow at a sacrifice, seeing her doom and unable to prevent it. No longer able to think of anything but the blood, he attacked. His fangs sank into the soft flesh of her neck, his mouth wrapped around the bleeding wound the guard had opened. He drank greedily, swallow after swallow, frustrated by the manacles that prevented him from pulled her closer to him.

  He drank until there was nothing left to take. The guards pulled the woman’s dead body away, and the woman in the suit smiled down at him triumphantly.

  “Where are your scruples now, Huntsman?”

  They dropped the woman’s corpse in the corner and left him to struggle with his shame.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nika sat cross-legged in the garden, facing Ingrid with a white cloth on the ground between them. On the cloth was a set of runes, carved from a single oak branch, the symbols burned into the wood. After five days and nights of constant tutelage, she was about to attempt magic for the first time.

  Ingrid nodded to her. “Cast away.”

  She held her hands out over the wooden pieces and concentrated. A pulse of energy shot from her palms and scattered the runes in all directions.

  “Try to control it,” Ingrid coached, putting the runes back where they’d started. “Keep the flow of your energy constant.”

  Nika took a deep breath and tried again. This time, the power seeped slowly out of her palms, creeping down to encompass the runes with a barely-visible shimmer. The wooden pieces began to vibrate, and the runes inscribed upon them began to glow a soft white.

  “Good,” her teacher approved. “Now cast.”

  She focused her mind on the question she was supposed to ask, but another question rose to the fore instead. Where is Erik?

  The glowing runes sorted themselves until only three remained in the center of the cloth. Nika read the symbols. “Hagalaz reversed. Pain and loss, suffering and sickness. Nauthiz. Recognizing your fate. Endurance and survival.” She took a deep breath. “And Algiz reversed. Consumption by divine forces and loss of a divine connection.”

  “A dire reading, to be sure,” Ingrid said quietly. “I am sorry for your Huntsman’s suffering, but this is not about him. You must clear your mind if you are to face Loki and survive. This constant worry about Thorvald will be your undoing.”

  “I have two more days,” she whispered.

  “You have only two more days. There is little time to prepare.” She put the runes back in their original positions. “Now… try again. Ask what I told you to ask.”

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. How can I protect myself against Loki?

  Again, the power poured out of her soul and through her hands, and again the runes glowed and sorted themselves. She looked to see what message they gave.

  “Kenaz. The power of light. Revelation and creativity. Transformation and the use of power. Perthro. Precognition and knowing your own fate. Initiation and secret matters. Algiz. Protection, or a shield. A higher connection with the gods.” She looked up at Ingrid, her eyes intense. “I think I know what shield it’s talking about.”

  ***

  Erik sat on the cold concrete floor with one knee bent and his other leg extended out in front of him. His hands were still bound behind his back, forcing him to slouch against the wall. His bones had finally healed, fueled by the blood and the life he had taken, and the relief from that pain had allowed him to clear his mind somewhat. The silver bullet still burned inside his body. The blood had healed the wound around it so that he no longer bled, but the toxic pellet was still encapsulated in his flesh, still flooding his system with poison.

  The electric lights continued to glare down on him and the body of his victim, which was still lying across the room like an oversized rag doll. He could smell the first tainted whiff of decay coming from the corpse.

  He had been staring at the body for hours, too sick to feel much of anything. He supposed that his captors had left her there to try to demoralize him, but he had seen too much of death and had killed too many times to be so affected by a single dead woman. They had underestimated him, and he intended to use that to his advantage.

  He pushed himself up to his feet. His head swam dangerously, and he fell back against the wall for support. He had to get that bullet out. It was killing him.

  He looked around the room, but it was utterly featureless. There was nothing he could use as a weapon or as a tool. It was frustrating.

  He bent brought his manacled hands down, forcing them under his hips so that he was bent double. With some difficulty, he managed to step first one foot, then the other through the circle his bound wrists created. His balance failed him and he toppled onto the floor, landing hard. Perversely, the fall helped him gain the last inch of clearance that he needed, and he brought his hands up to the front of his body.

  He pressed one of his palms to his abdomen, feeling the silver bullet lodged deep beneath his hand. He extended his claws, letting his Draugr nature take the forefront. He clenched his teeth, steeled himself to the task and began to dig.

  The pain was excruciating. He groaned in anguish as he thrust his fingers into his own stomach, ripping through the flesh in search of the bullet. Blood poured out of his self-inflicted wound, forming a spreading pool on the concrete floor. He nearly lost consciousness from the intensity of the agony. Finally, his fingers found the offensive object, and he pulled the bullet out of his body. As soon as it was freed, he collapsed.

  ***

  Night was falling over the little house on the hill. Nika no longer felt any of the augmentation that the dreyri had given her, and its absence was a source of both sorrow and relief. She sat on the rug in front of Ingrid’s hearth, the ancient tome in her hands. Ingrid sat beside her.

  “Feel with your spirit, not with your hands,” she instructed. “You have held this book before. You have read this book before. Remember.”

  Nika closed her eyes and concentrated. The book felt warm against her skin and almost welcoming.

  “Go within,” Ingrid coached. “Go back into the lives you led before.”

  She felt sleepy and awake at the same time, as if her mind was wandering but she was exquisitely aware of every detail that she saw. She saw sailing ships and wood fires. She heard the babble of voices in a distant marketplace. She saw Erik.

  “Yes,” her teacher said. “He has known you many times.”

  “How do you know what I’m seeing?”

  “I am Frigg, child. I see all. Now concentrate.”

  She saw the book she was holding, but in her mind’s eye, it was sitting on a shelf, open to the image of the burning men. She saw hands - her hands - reaching out to turn the page. She looked at the words written on the vellum sheet, the letters carefully scribed. Between the words, in the open spaces between and within the letters, she could see pinpricks of light shimmering.

  “Can you read it?” Ingrid asked.

  She opened her mouth to answer, but no sound came out. She was lost in the vision. In the physical world, her hands opened the book to the page that she saw in her mind. The vellum was twinkling with a thousand tiny stars.

  Nika looked closer. The little glowing specks were not specks at all. They were runes. They glimmered and shone, and as she watched, they shifted like the engraving on the Rune Sword until words were formed.

  Destiny cannot be cheated.

  She put her hand on the page, and the glowing runes sparked like lightning, fingers of energy racing up her arm and into her chest. She gasped as the light plunged into her body. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, like plunging down the steepest hill on a roller coaster. Her entire body tingled with the messy, uncontainable feeling.

  The runes on the page vanished, and they appeared on her skin, dancing like fireflies. They moved up from her hand to her arm, shining as they went, forming and breaking apart and forming again. The words destiny and transformation appeared and disappeared as the glowing runes raced up toward her heart. Like the first tendrils of energy had done, they plunged into the very center of her soul.

  She opened her eyes, and they were glowing with an unearthly golden light. The scent of apples filled the tiny house, and Ingrid smiled broadly.

  “Ithunn,” she said with a smile. “Welcome back.”

  The goddess spoke in Old Norse, her voice musical and terrifying at the same time. “Why have you called me forth?”

  “Loki has returned to Sweden,” Ingrid said. “He brings the Nøkken.”

  Nika’s nose wrinkled, though the expression was Ithuun's own. “Why the Nøkken? Have they not been destroyed?”

  Ingrid’s eyes began to glow a pale violet as the goddess within her fully woke, and Frigg spoke through her. “They still exist, as they always have, but now they do not stay to the bogs and lakes. They walk freely among mankind, working their mischief.”

  Nika’s hand stroked the page of the book on her lap. “This is Odin’s book.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “The Veithimathr are almost destroyed. The last Huntsman, the only one who can defeat Loki, is captured and may be dying… or dead.”

  Nika’s head shook sharply. “No. Not dead.” She turned slightly, as if she were listening to something. “Bragi is awakened.”

 

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