Dead Embers

by T. G. Ayer

  He got no further.

  Pia snuck behind him and repeated her previous technique, knocking him unconscious with the hilt of her short blade, a satisfied smirk on her face. When I stared at her, she shrugged, her cheeks tinged a light pink. My new Valkyrie friend was clearly enjoying this level of violence way too much.

  I hadn't had many opportunities to mix and mingle with the other Valkyries since I’d received my wings; I'd forgotten that not all Valkyries were Midgard-innocent like Sigrun, or murderous she-devils like Astrid.

  Pia grabbed the falling guard and began to drag him away from the door.

  The door that was slowly swinging shut.

  My heart shuddered as I sprinted to the doorway, thrust my hand forward and stopped it from closing. Just in time.

  Pia stared at me, a comical blend of shock and relief on her face. She left the pair of trussed-up guards piled against the wall. I stood on the threshold and held the door open for her. We were just about to enter the room beyond when the distinct sounds of a scuffle filtered down the passage. It was brutal, from the sounds of it.

  "What—?" Pia started to ask. But she was cut off by what sounded suspiciously like someone hitting the ground really hard. The thud was followed closely by a low groan and clinking of metal against concrete. A sword hitting the floor?

  "Joshua?" I whispered as loud as I dared. "Karl?"

  My heart thundered as we waited for a response. I scanned the tablet, hoping to see the blob that would tell me Joshua was okay, but all I saw was a blank screen with a blinking phrase: "Offline." Perfect timing for the tablet to act up. Pia and I stared at each other, worried now more than ever as each second passed without a sound from either Joshua or Karl.

  Pia took a step down the passage, then sent me a questioning look. I nodded, and she tiptoed silently down the corridor. Common sense dictated that I stay by the door. I was seriously tempted to stop her or follow her, but I knew that was a foolish move. The only access to Brody was through this door. Even if I let it shut and went to help Pia, what were the chances of the remaining guard opening the door for us? The tablet did show him somewhere on the other side of the door, but from the looks of it, he was guarding Brody. And even if he did come to the door, he'd see his pals out for the count and sound the alarm. And we'd lose our chance to rescue Brody.

  Just before she got to the end of the corridor, Pia turned and gave me a confident thumbs-up. Before I could respond with a nod or a thumbs-up of my own, she disappeared around the corner.

  I waited for her.

  And waited some more.

  My heart knocked loudly against my ribs, fear gripping my body and my mind. What happened to Joshua? Those sounds were really ominous. My brain could only process those noises in one way; Joshua had been knocked out. And the thought of him injured, or dead, terrified me more than I could even imagine.

  Time dragged by.

  And Pia was gone way too long.

  Beads of perspiration trickled down my back, and a tremor ran along my arm. The metal door thumped against my back, and I gasped. I'd slackened my hold on the handle and the door had almost closed onto me.

  Pay attention, Bryn.

  The silence in the corridor continued to deafen me.

  I had no idea what had happened to Joshua. And now to Pia. But what could I do? Caught between the desperate need to find out if my friends were okay and an equally desperate desire to save Brody, I hesitated.

  The continuing silence made the decision for me. Whatever happened to Joshua, Karl and Pia, it didn't seem likely that any of them were on their way to help me. If I let the door close and lock, I might never get another chance.

  I gave the empty, silent corridor one last look and reluctantly slipped into the room.

  Chapter 41

  The door clicked shut, and the metallic cold seeped into my back as I sagged against it and faced the inside of the room. My heart thumped in my throat. I had no backup. No idea where my team was. No idea what I was walking into. I took a deep breath, hoping the fear that churned so painfully in my gut would go away.

  A large glass viewing window across from me revealed another small room, which was actually a prison from the looks of the sparse furniture, the bars on the window and, of course, the armed guard.

  The guard accounted for the third and final orange splodge, but the other man lying inert on a camp bed held my attention.

  Brody.

  My eyes remained fixed on his motionless form until I sensed movement from the guard. He was turning toward the window. Icy shock brought me to my senses, tugging me down below the glass, and safely out of view. Even a second longer and the guard would have spotted me.

  Then I laughed at myself. I was still glamored, so the guard couldn't see me at all. Odd though. Whoever had abducted Brody would surely have expected some kind of rescue attempt. They would have anticipated Ulfr or Valkyries, or both. Breaching the security system, even disarming the guards, had been far too easy. And that worried me even more.

  But I had no choice. I’d come this far. Had to see it through. Brody was my main concern, and I was on my own.

  Right, Bryn. It's now or never.

  The guard was my target. I had to get him to leave the cell. Squatting down on the concrete floor, I scanned my surroundings. I needed something large enough to attract his attention, to bring him out of the cell. A small fridge sat in the corner, flanked by a table with two chairs. Didn't leave me with much of a choice.

  I shuffled forward, gripped a steel leg of the nearest chair and flung it sideways with all the energy I could muster. It flew at the viewing glass, so fast it almost missed, crashing against the glass with an ear-shattering thunk. The chair bounced off the window and then off the concrete floor, finally skittering to a stop behind me, two of its metal legs twisted and broken, its seat unscrewed, askew. The aluminum seat and back sent out tinny echoes.

  Satisfied, I turned to the window. As I had suspected, the glass was way too thick to shatter. A fine crack now marred the once perfect surface, a flash of lighting captured within the sliver of glass. But the crash of the chair got the very reaction I needed. The guard rushed to the door and fumbled at the lock. Before the door opened, I rose and dashed toward him, relieved to see that the door opened toward me and not into the room.

  I slammed the door so hard into his face he probably passed out instantly, and had his nose shattered to boot. My heart slowly skittered to a more comfortable pace. Brody lay in the sparse cot in the far corner of the room.

  I took a hesitant step forward, then froze as he sat up slowly, his hands cuffed in front of him, his eyes searching my face.

  "Brody?" I frowned, suddenly terrified as I stared at this boy who looked nothing like my little Brody.

  His eyes inspected me from head to toe. His voice was deeper than I remembered. "I believe that is what I was known as. My friends Joshua and Aimee told me that." His frown matched my own. "Are you going to get me out of here?"

  I nodded, a shudder of hurt running through me. He didn't remember Craven, or me. Sigrun had explained how an unretrieved Warrior would be reborn and retrieved very early in his next life, as soon as a Valkyrie was able to claim him. I understood the concept. But my memories were of the adorable little boy who'd captured my heart. Not this stranger who didn't even remember who I was.

  My heart clenched and hot tears prickled at my lids. What a joke. Brody was well and I'd found him, and here I was feeling sorry for myself.

  Get a grip, Halbrook.

  I cleared my throat. "Yes. Let's get going before any more goons come looking."

  When I bent to help him up, he gripped my arms and drew himself to his feet. Odd to have to look up at my little foster brother. Of course, he was no longer my little Brody. Not anymore. Not ever again.

  Brody met my eyes, and a pained expression drew the blood from his face; his dark skin tautened at the corners of his hazel eyes. I blinked, shocked, sure I was mistaken.

  A blaz
e of ice-blue fire had burned within his eyes, just for a second.

  A chill bit into my hand and, frowning at the pain, I glanced down. At Brody's hands on my forearms. Why did he feel so cold? I tugged my arms away, needing to be free of the ice eating away at my skin, feeding on the warmth in my muscles, but he held on. A shiver sped across my skin, and I looked up at his eyes again, as if something told me that I should look, that the secret lay within them.

  Brody smiled, his teeth seeming thinner and sharper than humanly possible. When he blinked, fear-filled claws ripped up and down my spine.

  His eyes were chips of ice, razor sharp and deadly, as blue as icebergs and as terrifying as staring my own death in the face.

  I knew what he was even before he shoved me backward against the wall, before his face lengthened and his eyes glowed a sharp blue, before his eyebrows turned to crystals of ice. I knew for sure when his warm, deep brown skin paled of all color to reveal dark lines of deep blue veins.

  A frost giant.

  They were shape shifters. Probably a talent Loki had inherited from his birth mother. And this particular frost giant had taken the form of Brody to lure me here. We had been right; this whole thing had been way too easy.

  Instinct took over and I reached for both my swords, drawing them in one fluid movement, as ready as I'd ever be for a battle with a frost giant. I kept my eyes trained on the Brody-giant, glad he didn't look like my little foster brother any more.

  The frost giant began to grow in size, so gradually I almost missed it at first. But soon I faced a seven-foot ice giant, and all I wanted to do was run. His thighs bulged with great big muscles larger in girth than I was. Shuddering with fear, I lifted my chin and stared him in the eye. His eyes roiled like the frigid Arctic seas.

  I wanted to circle him, but I really had nowhere to go, cramped in this room, which had seemed large to begin with. Now, though, with the frozen giant occupying so much more of the cell, I had my back to a wall every way I turned. I felt closed in, as if he would soon grow so large I'd have nowhere to go.

  The giant towered over me, and stood so close I could have sworn I was breathing the same air as he was. In fact, I was pretty certain I was breathing in the icy air he'd just exhaled.

  Ick.

  But I had better things to worry about than personal space. I had nowhere to run; he could reach me no matter where I went. Suddenly I knew exactly how Jack felt when he escaped his giant by hightailing it back down the beanstalk.

  My maneuverings with my swords were useless. The giant advanced one small step and thrust a finger at my chest. In all this time he hadn't said a word, just watched me with his hooded, iceberg eyes. Now he spoke. "Valkyrie, you are not going to escape from me." His voice rumbled, the sound of ice avalanching down the side of a glacier.

  He snapped his finger at me, and I flinched. At first nothing happened. And then my blood ran cold. The tip of his jagged, broken fingernails pointed at me, edged with blue, as if his blood were made of midnight ink. Terror weakened my resolve; I was stuck in this cell, no way out, and nobody coming to my rescue. Ice crystals began to form on the surface of his pale skin, creeping along like a living thing. The icicle-finger flowed forward, lengthening, seeking me out. I blinked, frozen into place by the horror of the growing blade of ice.

  The giant laughed, and the triumphant noise echoed around the room, almost spearing my eardrums with its sharpness.

  The sound drew my gaze to his face, and our eyes locked. In an instant, I was lost in a swirl of fear and ice.

  Held within his thrall, it felt as if I stood outside my body, unable to do anything but calmly watch as the frost giant thrust his icepick closer and closer to me. I didn't try to evade the evil shard. I couldn't. I shut my eyes as he stabbed his icy fingertip into me.

  Coward.

  I didn't care. If I were going to die, I preferred not to see the whole slice and dice of it. I expected the blade deep within my heart, and clenched my muscles to receive it.

  What I didn't expect was the sudden stabbing pain in the top of my left wing. My eyes flew open. I twisted to look at the damage, feeling so utterly helpless. The frost giant had impaled my wing to the wall. Thankfully, he'd missed any major bones; the frozen blade pierced only a little flesh and slipped between my feathers.

  I thrust away from the wall, wincing at the burst of pain that flared in my wing; the blade of ice broke and I was freed. Launching into the air, I hoped some height might give me an advantage. A sob of pain escaped my lips as I flapped my damaged wing. The frost giant just gazed up at me, an unexpected look of pity in his eyes, as if he felt sorry for my weak attempts at saving myself when both he and I knew I hadn’t a hope in hell of getting away.

  That only made me more angry.

  Come on, you great big ice-block. There's more to this Valkyrie than you think.

  But before I got the chance to wipe the floor with him, the giant ran at the wall beside me and used the solid concrete to bounce off. He launched himself at me. I gasped, shocked, as he flew forward, impossibly fast, knocking me out of the air. I tumbled to the ground, helpless and hopeless.

  I fell in front of the door, a crumpled heap of limbs and feathers. As I stumbled to my feet, I noticed two things, and both froze the blood in my veins.

  One was the frost giant, who smirked and slowly returned to the body and form of what I thought had been Brody.

  And the other, more important thing was the shadow—a patch of darkness that reflected against the tiled wall.

  The shadow closed in on me.

  Hands shoved me forward, and I threw my palms out to prevent my face from smashing into the bare concrete. I reacted too late.

  Rough hands thrust a dark hood over my head, and I was plunged into a semi-darkness that both disoriented and infuriated me.

  Anger stirred that strange latent strength I had, and a scream of fury bubbled inside me. I growled and struggled, trying to turn, but my attacker landed a powerful, stunning blow to my back. Was it just luck that his blow landed right at the center of my shoulder blades—right where my wings connected within my body and a complex set of nerves and muscles resided? I writhed in agony, shafts of icy pain running up and down my spine while my wings lay limp around me, like those of a dying moth.

  A new, sharp pain flared in my shoulder, as if the angry point of a needle had pierced my skin. My attacker had injected me with something. My wings struggled and fluttered at my back, reflecting my fear, my worry. A dull ache built up in my throat, and when I swallowed, it felt pretty much like I'd swallowed my whole tongue.

  Despite the darkness of the hood over my head, I began to see stars. Tiny little stars like millions and millions of golden dust motes. Only they kept getting bigger and bigger.

  And then they all suddenly went out as I slipped into a sea of black.

  Chapter 42

  Sounds bombarded my ears, demanding my attention. I struggled to identify the muffled noises while grasping at the threads of my slowly reawakening consciousness. But I was still too groggy, and it all blended into one garbled mess.

  Precious seconds ticked by before I registered the hard, ridged surface beneath my legs and hip. My wings, crushed beneath me, cushioned my upper back against the discomfort, though one of them ached from my recent entanglement with a certain frost giant.

  The hollow sounds of a car engine and traffic filtered to my buzzing ears. So, at least I knew I was being driven somewhere. But why? Had this all been a setup just to capture me? Or was I just incidental?

  Unable to see anything, I tried to relax, to force my breathing back into a more even pattern. The gentle sideways sway of my body made it clear I lay in some kind of vehicle. A truck or van, from the feel of the bed of iron beneath me.

  My hands and feet tingled, bound too tightly, and the heavy weight at my hip confirmed my sword remained untouched. Strange they hadn't removed my weapon. I needed more information, and panicking got me nowhere.

  I listened. And
a strange awareness took over me. My breathing softened until I could barely hear my heartbeat any longer, and yet the rhythm of three different, nearby hearts filtered through to my inner ear. It seemed more as if I'd sensed the sounds rather than heard them. How was this possible?

  Each heart beat to a slightly different rhythm. One sounded so odd I wouldn't have been surprised if it suddenly stopped mid-beat. He needed a doctor. Stat.

  A second heart palpitated wildly. I was comfortable in assuming that guy was scared gutless. The third heart tapped away in an even, consistent, almost mechanical fashion. As if no stress touched him, no fear plagued him.

  I now knew there were three abductors within the confines of the vehicle. Three men who knew how to incapacitate a Valkyrie. That knowledge made my own heart beat faster than was safe. I'd been so stupid. I should have gone back, found out what had happened to the rest of the team. I should have had backup when I entered Brody's cell. Now look what I'd gotten myself into.

  My determination, even after getting separated from my team, had been for nothing. There had been no Brody, just a frost giant lying in wait for me, pretending to be my foster brother. If Brody was really a frost giant, I'd happily eat my sword.

  My heart plunged. The kidnappers must have known where we were at all times. The more I thought about it, the more I suspected a set up. Surely Karl and Erik and their teams had taken the necessary precautions to verify the security of the mansion? But the whole abduction process had seemed way too easy. Was it really possible I'd been set up?

  My thoughts went straight to Karl. And then I shook those suspicions from my head. Maybe I didn't like the guy, but just because he got my hackles up didn't mean he was a traitor. Besides, I wasn't the best judge of character, what with the whole Mika debacle.

  The driver took a sharp left, throwing me into a roll across the bumpy metal floor. I slammed into the opposite wall, cracking my temple against bare metal. Warmth bloomed on my forehead, and I knew I was bleeding.