Valkyrie

by Raythe Reign

  Most people were either foolishly hiking and not at the park or, intelligently, had found some shade to relax under and drink iced drinks. He saw no blond giant. He saw no motorcycles either. His stomach did a flip and a lurch and seemed to tumble around inside of him all at the same time.

  “Cameron?” His mother’s hand on his arm and the slight alarm in her voice told him that she had been calling him for some time and he hadn’t answered.

  “Sorry, just distracted,” he told her with a wan smile.

  She stared at him long and hard. All he could see was his own reflection in her sunglasses. Finally, she nodded and turned back to the door of the shop. They didn’t have to go inside though because Mrs. Clausen stormed out. She was a stout woman in her mid-sixties. She wore a pale peach sundress that clashed with her salt and pepper hair that was drawn up in a tight bun. Stray strands of hair detached from the bun like ropes under too much stress that just failed and snapped away from the main bun.

  “Finally, you’re here!” Mrs. Clausen’s arms were pumping at her sides as she strode up to them. She didn’t spare a glance at Cameron, all her fury aimed was at his mother. He almost wanted to step between them, but knew it was unnecessary and would cause more of a scene. His mother could handle far more than the Mrs. Clausens of the world.

  His mother put her hands on her gun belt and hitched it up slightly. “Your call didn’t come in that long ago, Mrs. Clausen, and there’s been some other things going on in Holten for the Sheriff’s office to attend to that are more of an emergency than a noise complaint.”

  Mrs. Clausen made a harrumphing sound and, though his mother had been careful not to say anything about the Desert Killer being back, Cameron doubted it would have changed Mrs. Clausen’s mind any. He felt a momentary qualm about convincing his mother to take him out here if that creature had truly possessed someone else.

  Cameron frowned, Could that be why Liam’s back here? Because the creature is, too?

  “The safety and security of law abiding citizens like myself and my guests should come first,” Mrs. Clausen informed them.

  “What is making you feel unsafe and unsecure?” his mother asked mildy.

  Mrs. Clausen made half a dozen hand gestures towards the road that wound through the Sunrise Camp and Go! and towards the federal lands beyond it. And that’s when Cameron understood why he wasn’t seeing his brother here and, instead, felt a tug from a thick grouping of mesquite trees just outside of Mrs. Clausen’s domain. His brother was camping on the federal lands, not the Sunrise Camp and Go! He squinted his eyes and saw a movement under the scrubby trees. His heart was in his throat. He started walking towards that movement even as he heard Mrs. Clausen explaining to his mother how these people were roaring through the campground on their motorcycles at all times of the day and night and it wasn’t right! She had to do something about it!

  His mother was saying, “Mrs. Clausen, people are allowed to camp on the federal lands. Just because they don’t camp with you doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Sheriff!” Mrs. Clausen’s shrill voice carried to Cameron even as he was now trotting well on his way to jogging and then running towards the trees where his brother was. “But they aren’t allowed to speed and rev their motorcycles, disturbing my guests.”

  The rest was lost as Cameron was now sprinting to the ring of trees. His heart was pounding so loud that it was all he could hear. He saw three figures. Two women and a man. The man was Nafari.

  Where’s Liam? Where’s my brother?!

  Cameron skidded to a halt in front of the big black man. He was well inside the ring of trees that marked their campsite though it was not much of a campsite. All that was there was their three Valkyrie motorcycles and nothing else. No tents, no campfire, no cooking gear. And they weren’t exactly dressed for camping either as each of them was in black leather. They also wore matching expressions of surprise to see him. Nafari though immediately had a look of recognition, too. It was to him that Cameron focused on first.

  “Where’s Liam?” he demanded, his voice breathless and reedy.

  Where’s my brother? Where? Where? Where?

  Nafari went very still and Cameron knew that Liam’s true identity was supposed to be a secret, but he answered very carefully, “Isn’t he with you?”

  “No, he …” Cameron stopped. What could he possibly say? That Liam flew away on crystal wings when he realized that he had just given his little brother a blow job?

  He doesn’t know I’m Liam’s little brother. He thinks I’m just the bartender he slept with last night. If only he had! He’s not sure I know the truth … well, I don’t know the full truth. But I know that it was Liam last night.

  “He told you who he is, didn’t he?” said a woman’s voice that sounded to him like she was Swiss or Danish. Something Nordic. “After all this time of running away from you when you first meet he confesses himself.”

  Nafari turned towards the woman who spoke and was furiously shaking his head. “This isn’t his brother —”

  “Yes, it is,” the woman said as she stepped around Nafari and Cameron had his first good look at her. His heart slammed up into his throat and an instinctive hatred flared in his chest.

  It was her! It was the winged woman who had carried his brother away from him! He had the absurd idea to lunge for her and shake her. To scream in her face that Liam was his! And that no one and nothing — not even death — would change that. But he found himself frozen with fury instead.

  She was so blonde that her hair was almost white with snowy pale skin and icy blue eyes. Her full mouth promised sensuality and warmth, but those eyes told a completely different story. They were focused upon Cameron, but he did not back down. He finally was able to move and he took a menacing step towards her, experiencing that fey feeling that sometimes came upon him when things were about to go very right or very wrong.

  “It’s you,” he hissed. “I remember you. You took him. You took Liam! Where is he? Where are you hiding him from me now?”

  Her blue eyes suddenly widened and he caught a glimpse of crystal wings shifting uneasily. She realized that he saw them as her gaze flickered to where his had gone and suddenly she nodded. “Of course. You see. You’re special like Liam. That is why The Gash is here.”

  “What are you talking about, Elda?” Nafari’s arms flapped in the air frantically. His gaze kept flickering between the Nordic woman and Cameron, not sure who was crazier. “This is the bartender that Liam went to bed with! This is not —- not —”

  Cameron flushed. He should lie right then and there and say nothing happened. Liam didn’t need these people’s judgment. His brother was blameless. If it was anyone who had unnatural desires it was him. But before he could say anything another person was speaking up.

  “There is no one so blind as a man who will not see,” this other woman said. She was a petite Asian woman with hair so long it looked like it might brush the backs of her knees. Her eyes were a strange and startling black. There appeared to be no difference between pupil and iris When she looked at him, Cameron felt like he was being peeled open. “He did not recognize you, but you recognized him, yes?”

  This last was directed at Cameron. “I thought … I just thought he was a doppelganger.”

  The Asian woman nodded. “You saw, but did not understand, because you did not have all the information. Interesting that Liam did not realize who you were considering he was to look for you. Perhaps because he did not wish to see it was you yet.”

  Cameron flushed harder that time. “I look a lot different than I did at ten.”

  “And he took great care to stay away so he did not witness the changes in you,” Elda said as she stepped towards him until there was only a few feet between them.

  At this distance he could see that her skin truly was flawless and her eyes were an unearthly icy blue. His world seemed to tilt crazily on its access as he imagined that she was an ice sprite tha
t would lead warriors to their deaths out on the frozen snows. Bewitching them with a glance and then gesturing for them to follow her onto the cold wastes, leading them away from their comrades and any hope of living.

  “Who are you? What are you?” Cameron whispered.

  Elda regarded him for long moments without blinking or even seeming to breathe. “I think you should be told though it breaks all our laws to do so.”

  Nafari drew in a sharp breath. “Should we not wait until Liam returns to make this decision? Cameron is his brother.”

  “I cannot see him here or in Valhalla,” the Asian woman said, her black eyes going unfocused and it took Cameron a moment to recognize the name of the hall of heroes in Norse myth. Something about the woman’s eyes led him to believe that she could see into the halls of the dead. “We do not know where he is. We do not know when he will be back. I do not think Cameron will wait to learn the truth.”

  “Could The Gash …” Nafari let the words hang.

  The Gash is the creature’s name! I finally have a name for what killed Liam the first time.

  Cameron’s head spun as pieces of a puzzle seemed to just snap into place even as a sense of unreality flowed over him. They had mentioned Valhalla. His dead brother was alive. They were speaking of a monster called The Gash. Elda had wings. The world was and was not what he had always thought it was. He felt nauseated and needed to sit down, but once he sat he feared that he wouldn’t be able to get up again so he remained standing until the feeling passed.

  “No.” Elda made a sweeping gesture with her right hand through the air. “I would know if he had been taken by The Gash. He is … elsewhere.”

  “He — he flew away after he realized who I was.” Cameron swallowed down sudden pain at the memory. His brother fled from him and what they had done even though it had been the most beautiful and right thing Cameron had ever experienced.

  At that moment, Cameron heard the crunch of his mother’s approaching boots on the desert floor. He turned towards Elda, grasping the woman’s black clad arm gently, but firmly to imprint what he was going to say to her.

  “The woman who owns the campground over there called the Sheriff — who happens to be my mother — on you guys. The truth is that she’s just butthurt that you aren’t paying her the camp fees,” Cameron got out. “Tell my mother that you’ll pay the camp fees and will be more careful about the noise. Be friendly and polite. It’ll be fine.”

  “So she does not have the sight like you do?” Elda asked. “She will not know who we are?”

  “I don’t know what the sight is,” Cameron confessed. “But she doesn’t believe in — in otherworldly things so no matter what her eyes tell her I don’t think she’s going to believe it. She’ll ignore anything that doesn’t make complete sense.”

  And he realized that was true. She wouldn’t see Liam even if he looked just like her son, because Liam was dead and no one came back from that.

  Elda nodded bruskly and turned towards his mother. His mother’s gaze was on Cameron though. It only slid over the other three briefly to see if they were threats. Her look lingered for a moment on Elda, clearly recognizing the one in charge.

  “Cameron, I see you found them already,” his mother said.

  “Yeah, I thought I saw them so I … decided to go check it out,” Cameron said lamely. He was sweating profusely now. His head was throbbing and he didn’t think it was just from the hangover, but from the revelations. He really needed to sit down and drink a gallon of water.

  I really need Liam to show up. Where did you go, big brother? Please come back to me.

  “Is this the Liam you told me about?” She looked at Nafari who looked nothing like his brother at all even though he had told her that Liam was the spitting image of her oldest son. She really was intent on not seeing anything or so it seemed.

  “Oh, no, no, that’s not him. He’s …” Cameron began and his voice died as a rainbow that seemed to be burning suddenly touched down ten feet away and out from it stepped his brother dressed like a Norse god.

  CHAPTER TEN: TOUCHING DISTANCE

  When Liam exited the Bifrost he was not surprised to see Cameron standing just twenty feet away from him. He had sensed his little brother’s presence awaiting him like a loadstone as he crossed the burning rainbow bridge from Asgard to Midgard. And it was fitting that Cameron was the first one to realize that he had arrived as well despite the fact that three powerful Valkyrie stood beside him.

  Cam! You’re all right! Thank the gods!

  He hadn’t truly thought that The Gash would have Cameron already, but the possibility was enough to have his heart in his throat and the bitter acrid taste of fear on the back of his tongue. He had almost been too late when The Gash had taken over Reggie and gone after Cameron. The thought of failing Cameron again in that way was enough to make him tremble.

  “Liam!” Nafari called. His dark eyes were filled with relief, but also concern. Liam’s appearing suddenly out of thin air was cause for worry with non-Valkyrie around. “You’re … you’re … back from — from over there.” Nafari gestured vaguely into the desert as if Liam had just walked into their camp instead of just appearing in it.

  “Nafari,” he said, but he could not focus on his best friend. His best friend that must have so many questions about what had happened between Liam and his little brother the night before. Liam found that he had eyes and focus for only one person.

  Cameron’s gaze locked onto his and it seemed like time stopped for a moment. Liam didn't breathe as his gaze flowed over Cameron’s beloved face and body. He felt like he was seeing his younger brother for the first time. In a way he was. He knew now who stood before him.

  His gaze greedily took in his little brother’s beauty. The sunlight filtered through the mesquite trees and gilded some of Cameron's golden locks. His eyes were like sapphires, such a glittering blue that they seemed almost unreal. His muscular yet lithe figure could not be hidden beneath the jeans and ripped t-shirt. Cameron was a child of gods.

  The blood of the Aesir runs through his veins. He’s too beautiful to be solely of this world. How did I not see this before if not when he was a child, but in the bar?

  Now that Cameron was before him the weight of all he had to say to his brother was nearly overwhelming and he was tongue-tied. There were so many explanations to give about himself, the Valkyrie, Thor, Odin and The Gash — and Loki, a voice whispered in his mind. So many things he had to apologize for, not the least of which what had happened the night before between them.

  A dull throb between his thighs though told him that he still desired Cameron. The way his heart hammered at the same time as his arousal spiked made him fear that his desire had only grown since discovering the bartender’s true identity. While he had not desired his brother when Cameron was a child, the same could not be said now. Liam looked into his own heart and what he saw there was Cameron and only Cameron. Maybe he had always been simply waiting for Cameron to grow up and become ready for him.

  Can you forgive me for loving you too much, Cam?

  His little brother’s head tilted to the side and for a wild moment Liam thought he saw understanding there as if Cameron had read all his thoughts. But then a familiar woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other in the corner of his vision and the moment between him and Cameron broke as he realized that their mother was standing only a few feet away.

  Her gaze had followed Cameron's and her eyes were now locked on him. Liam froze. Would she recognize him? Would should be blinded by the magic? The magic had clearly blocked her view of the rainbow bridge. She apparently thought he had been hiding behind some mesquite trees and had finally loped out at her arrival. Hadn’t Cameron told her who he was?

  If he did Mom would think he was crazy. She doesn’t believe in things like Valkyrie. She would assume her mother’s madness was affecting him. I’m wondering now if any of our relatives was really insane at all.

  For one moment though their
mother’s lips parted and her eyes widened and he thought for sure that she would know him. He held his breath again, breath he did not need, but kept him feeling a part of this mortal world. But that breath rushed out again in disappointment.

  Just as suddenly as the initial reactions came over her, their mother jerked her gaze from him and stared resolutely at the desert floor. Her mouth compressed into a straight line as if she were chastising herself for thinking — if only for a moment — that her dead son was alive again. Liam’s heart fell. He had never realized fully how his mother’s need to believe in only the grounded everyday reality of this world limited her.

  It’s me, Mom. Your Liam. But you won’t see me. You won’t hear me. I’m a stranger to you. Even if I screamed the truth, you wouldn’t see it.

  Grief flooded him. He was truly dead and gone for her. If it had been Cameron to look away like that part of Liam would have truly died. He suddenly felt Cameron’s gaze upon him again and he had this eerie feeling that his little brother knew the course of his thoughts. Cameron’s gaze seemed to will him to look away from their mother and back to him. He felt like he was a rope in a tug of war contest, but as always, Cameron won out.

  His gaze swung back to Cameron at the same time as he heard a twig snap. His little brother had taken a step towards him. The look in Cameron's eyes had his chest seizing. So many emotions! Hope, grief, anger, fear, longing, and love — so much love that he could almost feel the emotion encircling his throat and squeezing it. Their encounter the night before had not apparently harmed Cameron’s regard for him. Relief coursed through Liam like cool waters at that thought. But that was when he realized that while his little brother looked beautiful, he seemed more fragile than the young man who had handled a whole bar by himself the night before.