by Nick Harrow
Mimi nodded and peered into her glass. “I don’t think we should drive a car, honestly. There are a lot more jötnar than there are of us. The best way to stay alive is to keep our heads down, and that means walking.”
The bodyguard tried to imagine the path from the lodge to the Luxor. If they didn’t run into any trouble at all and made good time, it would still take more than an hour to cross that distance. If a bunch of jötnar ambushed them, their stroll would turn into a running battle. They’d have to be very careful because if they were found before they reached their target, the monsters would overwhelm them. And that brought up another question.
“How did Hyrrokkin find the lodge?” Gunnar asked.
Mimi fidgeted in her seat for a moment. “It wasn’t any big secret that I was hanging out here. That’s half the reason the bosses hired me. I had good relations with most of the players in town, even after I pulled back, so they figured people would leave the place alone.”
Gunnar drained his drink and leaned back in the chair. The furniture creaked in protest as his weight shifted, and Mimi shot him a warning glance that said she’d hold him personally responsible if he broke anything. Gunnar offered her a sheepish smile, then said, “And we didn’t kill all the jötnar at the Villas. But that still means some of the survivors had to know someone who knew you were here. I guess it makes sense.”
“Worrying about it now won’t fix anything,” Mimi said. “Finish your drinks, ladies, and we’ll get some sleep. There’s an emergency barrier we can use to seal up the elevator shaft, so unless they get their hands on a nuke, we should be fine until morning.”
Bridget guzzled the last of her tequila and let out a big yawn. “When do we go after Gungnir?”
“We leave at dawn,” Gunnar said. “We’ll stick to the side streets and stay away from the Strip until we don’t have a choice. We can take over the penthouse at the MGM and spy on the Luxor from there.”
Mimi got up from the table. “There are some backpacks and holsters in storage,” she said. “We’ll load up ammo and guns for everyone. We’ll start with a big breakfast. Other than that, I suggest we travel light and move fast. I’m going to lock this place up and get some sleep. The rest of you should get as much rest as you can.”
As much as Gunnar wanted the women with him where he could protect them, it was better that they all slept in their own rooms. The chance to do more interesting things would have been too tempting otherwise.
Gunnar didn’t need much sleep, though. The hamingja he’d stolen during the fight sustained him well enough. He caught a couple of hours out of habit, then got up to create a breakfast of bacon, eggs, coffee, and pancakes. They joked and teased one another while they ate, and for an all-too-short time, Gunnar wasn’t worried about face-eating monsters killing these women he’d come to love more than he’d ever thought possible.
But all good things come to an end. Far too soon, they’d finished their breakfast, and it was time to face the world outside their home.
THE AIR OUTSIDE THE lodge reeked of smoke. Clouds of ash scattered across the sun’s rising face and rained black flakes down on the Vegas streets. Sporadic whooping howls and screams echoed through the neighborhood. It was impossible to tell where they came from, but to Gunnar’s ears they were much too close. He waited for Mimi to finish locking up the garage, then shouldered his shotgun and gestured for the others to draw close to him. “Stick close to me. We’ll move fast and quiet, but if you see something, speak up. I’d rather you make a little noise than for us to get blindsided.”
The völva nodded. With a start, Gunnar realized all of their clothes had changed. The völva wore furs and knee-high boots, while Gunnar had a leather shirt and breeches, and low moccasins.
“What is going on with our clothes?” Ray protested. “I look like an extra at a ren faire.”
“It’s not just the clothes.” Gunnar pointed at the buildings that surrounded the lodge.
The changes he’d spotted yesterday had accelerated overnight. The building across the street from Mimi’s place had lost half a dozen stories, and the lower floors looked like they belonged on log cabins. A rutted dirt path dotted with patches of snow had replaced the entire street that ran in front of the lodge. Even the temperature had changed, dropping at least thirty degrees below the normally sweltering Vegas summer. Gunnar wondered how long it would be before the heavy clouds unleashed their payloads of snow.
Las Vegas had shed its skin. This new city was strange to Gunnar. The past had forced its way through the glittering façade and put down roots in the present. The bodyguard expected jötnar to lunge out of every changed building they passed, but all they saw were signs of the creatures’ handiwork. Broken bodies piled alongside the road, then set alight. A burned-out minivan surrounded by a circle of grease. When Gunnar peeked through the driver’s shattered window, he discovered more scorched skeletons than he could count and knew where all that melted fat had come from.
“This is crazy,” Bridget whispered. “How are we supposed to fight all of...whatever did this?”
The pain in her voice chilled Gunnar. There was something desperate and forlorn in her words, like the distant howl of a wolf separated from its pack. It physically hurt to hear that fear from someone he’d vowed to protect.
“We’ll get through it,” he said, searching for words that would comfort not just Bridget, but all of them. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Any of you.”
Ray’s eyes flashed with dark fire at his words, and she set her mouth into a thin, angry line.
“We’ll look out for each other,” she corrected him. “Nobody gets left behind. Nobody runs off to play hero. We’re in this together.”
Bridget nodded, a little uncertainly. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
THE DEEPER THEY MOVED into the residential neighborhoods that surrounded the University of Las Vegas, the quieter things got. Signs of violence—shattered windows, bloodstained sidewalks, and more than a few bodies lying broken and discarded on neat lawns—were still everywhere, but the wider roads sheltered by palm trees weren’t blocked by wrecks or rubble. They had more room to walk, and the völva spread out on either side of Gunnar, hurrying to keep up with his long strides.
They’d even allowed themselves some small talk, though they kept their voices low and their eyes peeled for threats. The conversation had turned toward their newfound abilities, and Gunnar overflowed with questions.
“How did you know about the Hall of Heroes?” he asked Bridget. “I mean, that it would help us?”
Bridget got a faraway look in her eyes and briefly folded her hands behind her back. The glowing dot on her forehead shone brightly as she considered the question.
“I don’t have control over it,” she said. “It’s like when you have a cramp in your calf and you have to stretch your foot to make it go away. Only this is in my head, and it only lets up when I let the vision in or ignore it until it isn’t relevant anymore.”
While it was very useful having an ally who could see into the future, Gunnar wished she had better control over the ability. It brought another question to mind. “How do you decide when to accept the vision?”
Bridget kicked a pebble on the road, and it skittered into the gutter and bounced off the curb before vanishing into a storm grate. She had that faraway look in her eyes again. “I don’t know, exactly. The brief glimpses I’ve gotten before, like how I knew what to do with the Valknut, were little peeks that didn’t take much out of me. Finding Gungnir, though, and tying the knots in the Wyrd...that was a lot more of an investment.”
Something burst from the front door of a house and charged. Its claws clicked on the sidewalk as it shot toward them, a low-moving blur that unleashed an unholy racket. Gunnar swung his shotgun up, his finger easing back to take the slack out of the trigger. Bridget suddenly slapped the barrel toward the sky.
A dog. Stupid and yappy.
“It’s okay,” Bridget said, kneeling down as
the Chihuahua stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and barked its fool head off. “We won’t hurt you, little guy.”
She extended a hand toward the creature, but it held its ground and bared its teeth. “Like that,” Bridget explained. “I knew it wasn’t a threat, even if I couldn’t see exactly what it was. And I know the cute little guy won’t bite me. In a few seconds, he’ll go back—”
The Chihuahua barked once more, then turned tail and scampered back up the sidewalk and into the gloomy interior of its home. Gunnar saw a dark brown bloodstain on the doorframe and heard the buzzing of flies from inside the house. “Let’s keep moving,” he said. “That little rat made enough noise to wake the dead. Any jötnar in the neighborhood are already headed this way.”
“They moved on,” Ray said. “I get the flashes like Bridget, only I see the past. It’s hazy. I don’t get many details. I saw a small horde of jötnar headed downtown. I’m not sure how many, at least a dozen. They left late last night.”
Gunnar nodded to Ray, then raised an eyebrow in Mimi’s direction. “How about you? You get anything?”
She frowned at the question, then shook her head. “I’m not a radio antenna you can twist around to tune in Tokyo,” she grumbled. “The only time I’ve seen anything is when I was fighting or Ray and Bridge boosted me.”
They’d reached an intersection, and Gunnar looked both ways before he stepped out into it. It would be just his luck to get run over by the only moving car in Vegas. When they reached the other side, he reached out and gave Mimi’s hand a brief squeeze.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said.
“I’m not upset!” she insisted. “I’m not as strong as those two. I don’t know why.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he promised, though he had no idea if it was true or not. Maybe if they killed all the jötnar, Odin or Freya would show up again to explain everything.
THEY’D SKIRTED THE residential neighborhoods and crossed the UNLV campus before they ran into a serious problem. The wide-open expanse of a football practice field, softball park, and tennis courts lay between Gunnar and the next group of houses and buildings they needed to reach. It was bad enough that they’d have no cover as they made their way across the strip of nothing, but the number of police cars and personnel carriers occupying that otherwise empty stretch made things much worse.
“Cops,” Mimi whispered to him. “Fuck.”
“Maybe they can help us,” Bridget offered. “We should at least go down and talk to them.”
“No,” Gunnar said. “Just watch.”
The police had gathered a group of normal-looking humans within the circle of their vehicles. All those people were on their knees, their heads lowered. Gunnar knew prisoners when he saw them. If he and the völva walked out to greet the cops, they’d end the day handcuffed alongside the rest of those unfortunate bastards. Maybe a jail cell would be safer than walking the streets of monster-haunted Vegas, but the bodyguard didn’t have time for that.
Yet, he felt a pull, too. What had Ray called him back at the lodge? A jarl. Those people out there weren’t merely victims. They were people, and they needed help.
His help.
The lodge was his domain, but Odin had made it clear that Gunnar was meant to save much more than that one house. The urge to go out there and tell the cops to take those people straight to his underground base nearly overwhelmed him. But he couldn’t. He had another mission, and that had to come first. When they’d improved the lodge some more, maybe then they could search for more survivors.
“We’ll go around,” Gunnar said to the völva. “Carefully, quietly. We can’t get stopped by the cops.”
Ray frowned at his words. She and Bridget were crouched down behind Mimi, hidden from the police by the trees that lined the university’s border. “What if they see us?”
“Then we’ll run,” Gunnar said.
“I don’t like it,” Bridget added.
Gunnar didn’t, either. But he wasn’t about to pick a fight with the police if he had any chance to avoid one. They were doing their job, protecting the city as best they could. And even if they weren’t, this wasn’t his fight. He couldn’t save everyone.
No matter how much he wanted to try.
“I’m not asking,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”
The four of them skirted the police encampment. Gunnar couldn’t keep his eyes from flicking toward the prisoners. He hoped they were all right. He hoped the police would find some place for them before night fell and the jötnar rampaged again. Because not even those armored people movers could stop the freaks that had attacked the lodge.
“Almost there,” Gunnar assured the völva as they passed a towering hotel that had begun a metamorphosis into a cavern-pocked mountain. Stunted trees rose from the ridges that lined its surface, and the scent of fir trees drifted on the wind.
After a tense few moments running down a wide-open street flanked by a parking garage on one side and a former banquet hall on the other, both marked by strange changes that had transformed concrete walls into mud-daubed logs, they reached the back of the Grand.
Gunnar guided them up the stairs from the streets to the monorail, which was becoming a long, snaking bridge fashioned from wooden struts and crude iron bars. One car was still at the station, though it had become something like a long, wide mine cart rather than the sleek transport it had been three days before. Signs that once guided tourists to casino attractions were now crude wooden planks with runes hacked into their surfaces. Gunnar closed his left eye, and those unfamiliar symbols jumped into focus.
“This way.” He headed down a flight of stairs.
The metal steps had shifted into wooden slats, chipped and worn with age. They entered a long hallway that led from the monorail platform to the MGM Grand’s lobby. In Gunnar’s memory, the passageway had a marble floor with enormous inlaid compass patterns. What he saw were worn flagstones stained with blood. Heavy timbers had replaced the wallpaper, and the shops and restaurants that once lined the hall were cramped cells filled with bones and scraps of old leather and fur.
“This is not the Vegas I remember,” Ray said.
“It won’t be like this forever,” Bridget responded. “Things change, the cycle goes ever on. When the jarl is safely on his throne, and this territory is rid of the agents of chaos, peace will reign again.”
“Not comforting,” Ray answered. She’d stuck close by his side since they’d left the police behind, as if she worried Gunnar would need her protection. “Where are we going?”
“Up,” Gunnar said. “We’re near the lobby. Let’s not alert any jötnar that we’re on the way.”
They’d gone another fifty yards when Gunnar’s nostrils widened at the foul stench carried on an icy breeze blowing down the hallway. “This won’t be pretty,” he said quietly. “Stick close.”
The völva followed Gunnar down a passage that ended at a short flight of stairs he knew from his past trips to the Grand led to the hotel’s lobby. He headed up, past a battered statue of Brad Garrett, and peeked around the corner. His stomach hitched at the sight of the slaughter.
Someone had nailed bodies to the long arc of the reception desk with spears. Where had they gotten the spears? More bodies were piled around the golden lion at the center of the lobby. The corpses were splayed open, their organs scooped out. The lion statue was smeared with blood and gore. Its mane was so dark with the stuff it was nearly black.
Gunnar held his breath against the stench and watched for any signs of movement.
But the jötnar had moved on to other hunting grounds after slaughtering the hotel’s occupants. Gunnar let out a sigh of mixed relief and disgust.
“Looks like they’re gone,” he said.
“Good lord,” Ray murmured. “These poor people.”
Mimi stiffened her spine and scanned the carnage. Gunnar watched her take in every inch of devastation. “They’ll pay for this,” she promised. “We’ll make them pay.”<
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Chapter 15
OTHER JÖTNAR GAVE HILDA a wide berth. Whether that was because they sensed the mark of Hyrrokkin on her or because Hilda strode through the streets kicking doors off cars and singing a mangled version of Disturbed’s “Indestructible” was a matter for debate. In either case, she didn’t encounter any problems as she made her way up to the north end of the Strip where her target lay.
Symbols of old Vegas, the rusted frames of neon signs, weathered sculptures, and other cast-off decorations, had all been gathered into an outdoor museum known as the Neon Boneyard. And while most of the Strip now looked like a war zone, this collection of decades-old memorabilia seemed untouched. Hilda admired the junk as she approached it.
Then stopped dead at the edge of the property. Her teeth ached as if the air pressure had just jumped a few hundred percent, and a trickle of dread ran down her spine.
Along with a tiny bit of pee down the inside of her leg as words echoed through her mind.
Begone, vile creature. This sacred place is not meant for you.
Hilda frowned at the voice. It had a strange accent, and it sincerely pissed her off. “Fuck you,” she muttered and stepped through the museum’s entryway.
She was met by a blast of pure white light. For one second, she felt weightless.
Then she crashed down on her ass, butt cheeks raw from sliding across the asphalt. Well, that was unexpected.
Hilda stood and brushed the grit off the curves of her butt, swished her tail to be sure it was still intact, and eyeballed her target. She had to get inside the Boneyard; the ring’s presence called out to her from somewhere near the center of the property. Someone was guarding the thing, though, and meant to keep her out.
“We’ll see about that,” Hilda grumbled. She backed away from the Boneyard and took a seat on the curb across the street. She considered the power that Hyrrokkin had granted to her and realized she had the solution at hand.