Giantfall

by F. A. Bentley

  A prudent warlock would have turned a blind eye to the Giant’s plight and circled about, but ever since my sweet sixteen, I’ve had something of a problem with turning a blind eye to situations like these.

  Wand drawn, blade of hard arcana already manifest, I charged them dead on. Low and silent, I dashed hard until the very last moment, and then struck.

  The nearest Vettir never even saw me coming. The next only realized something was off because his comrade’s blood sprayed onto his face. A slash silenced him too, before the survivors could mount a defense.

  The panic and undisciplined style of the Vetti that ambushed me in the penthouse suite was completely gone. Two of their number slain by an ambush, and they didn’t even budge. Worse, they turned as one and counter attacked.

  A bayoneted AK whistled past my ear as the largest of their number drew an outdated pistol and began taking pot shots into the fray. I parried the second stab of the bayonet Vettir and slipped between the remaining Vettir close enough to cut the pistol, and then the Goblin, in half.

  The problem with such whirling frays is that you can never guard yourself from every angle. Eventually, even the talented or the lucky get surrounded.

  The butt of a Kalshnikov connected with the back of my head, and as I scrambled to recover, I was kicked in the ribs hard enough to make me wonder if any of them broke. A boot planted firmly onto my chest focused my thoughts to whether or not I was even going to survive.

  The twin survivors cocked their rifles and took aim to finish me off.

  Strange whistling filled the air as a spear the thickness of a young tree nailed the Goblins poised to kill me right into the bunker’s concrete wall. In the space of a lightning strike, the skirmish was over.

  I panted harshly, my body wrestling with the terribly surprising fact that I had not just been killed. The heavy thunk of boots approached me. Peering past the hall wall, came an immense winged helm that struggled not to scrape the ceiling.

  “Hrm. You must be the one Brigitte warned us about,” spoke the Giant, retrieving his spear from the wall. “Call me Hjelti. Well met, Human.”

  He pronounced it H-yell-tee. The Jotun wore heavy leather armor, pockmarked with bullet holes and light bleeding in a dozen different places. He wielded his spear and shield with comfortable ease.

  I offered a friendly smile as I raised myself back up to my feet. “Charles Locke. A pleasure. Really.”

  Hjelti’s frown never faded. “We’re mopping up the last of them right now. What exactly did Nine Towers send you here for exactly?”

  “Anything I can find to help the Jotun, actually. The Goblins must have a control room. Do you know where it is?”

  “Over there, I reckon. Heaviest defense was just back the way I came.”

  “Good. Let’s move.”

  Sure enough, down a short corridor I found the word KONTROLLRAUM marked in faded stencil on a wall. The way was unbarred and unguarded, and in plain view I could see a small auditorium of almost modern tech: Comm stations, logistics computers and towering devices made to monitor radar and who knows what else.

  I couldn’t help the wicked smile that curled my lips. This was it. We had him.

  “All right Hjelti. Let’s take these bastards for all they’re worth.”

  Chapter 12

  In the epicenter of the room was a mahogany desk and a well worn chair. On the desk sat a computer of jarringly modern make compared to the relics around it.

  “That’s the real prize. Rurik threw an awful lot of Vettir lives at us to make sure we wouldn’t get our hands on this. Let’s see what he’s so afraid of us finding out about.”

  I reached over to the computer and turned it on. Cooling fans whirred to life and the hum of modern technology radiated from within. Hjelti licked his lips in anticipation. Just as the computer powered on, the control room door swung shut with a resounding thud.

  My eyes narrowed as I picked up the acrid stench of imminent danger in the air.

  “Hjelti,” I murmured.

  The immense warrior shook his head. “It wasn’t me.”

  I didn’t realize what exactly caused the doors to automatically shut until I looked back down to the computer.

  The screen was locked, and on the desktop hung a black and white window with nothing but a timer of four minutes and thirty seconds, and two words.

  Dasvidaniya.

  “Shit.”

  There was a technical term for what me and the Jotun warrior had just fallen prey to. I remember reading a twelve page primer on it when I first joined Nine Towers.

  Even the best of agents and confidants would fall to this strategy, because it played upon our very nature: When success happens often enough, agents tend to take it for granted.

  This was a honey trap. A death trap disguised as an irresistible cache of intel, a crucial piece of the enemy’s plan, or a black widow masquerading as a blisteringly hot woman desperate for sex.

  “Get that door open. Bash it out if you can. Dammit!”

  “It’s a trap. We’re trapped,” Hjelti replied, futilely slamming his shoulder into the iron door.

  Panic crept into my mind. My hands clenched into impotent fists.

  “Two for two. Brigitte set me up for this. She had to have. I can’t believe it,” I whispered.

  Hjelti turned his gaze to me, panting and sweating underneath his winged helm. “That can’t be. Focus. We can figure that out after we’re not dead.”

  The Giant was right. My eyes peered about the room. No windows or ventilation shafts. Not capable of fitting me at least, and certainly nothing to squeeze Hjelti through. That left breaking down the main door.

  One look at Hjelti’s progress was enough to banish that thought from my head as well. Winded, shoulder and arm trembling, the Jotun hadn’t even put a dent in the door. And his spear would take a decade to stab through the thick iron. Typical German obsession with quality.

  That just left two options. Find and diffuse the bombs, or survive the blast somehow.

  Hjelti apparently had the same thought. “The computer, Human. Can’t you hack it or something?”

  I had to stifle a maddened cackle. I could barely access the internet and send emails on my cellphone, let alone sink my teeth past military grade computer tech. There was only one course of action left.

  Two minutes, thirty seconds, read the timer.

  “I’m going to try and diffuse the bomb,” I shouted to Hjelti. “Keep at the door, because if this doesn’t work and the door stays stuck, then we’re going to be sharing this story over mead in fucking Valhalla.”

  Apparently, Hjelti had a grim sense of humor, because my words provoked a deep guffaw from him. He bellowed out a laugh half way between Santa Claus’ 'ho ho ho' and the Jack and the Beanstalk giant’s 'fee fi fo fum'.

  I darted my gaze from side to side trying to look for the explosives. I found not one, but eight separate bundles spread through out the room. C4, missile stockpiles, even a barrel of honest-to-God dynamite sticks in one corner. Too many different explosives to diffuse.

  “Fine then,” I shouted, and turned my attention back to the computer.

  Desperation time. How do you stop a count down without triggering it? By cutting off the power. The computer was surely rigged to go off if I just pulled the plug, however...

  I threw aside the chair and kicked over the coat rack before gripping the computer with both hands and closing my eyes.

  Air magic governed a great many odd and sundry niches in the arcane world.Anything from illusory mists to sudden hail showers to riding about on vassal clouds. It also governed thunder and lightning.

  Sixty seconds.

  “Hjelti. Listen close. I’m going to fry this computer, neutralize the worse explosions, then put up a shield against whatever still wants to go off. When I say now, come to me, and not a moment sooner.”

  “Understood.”

  Air magic is not very practical. Nor is it impressive, especially when it comes to manif
esting lightning without top shelf talent. Most Aeromancers have to do like I was about to do.

  Lightning requires friction. I rubbed my hands against each other. Arms against each other. Chin against chest. Leg against leg. When there was ten seconds left, I knew it was time to put up or shut up.

  “Now!” I roared, before slamming both hands onto the computer.

  With a loud crackle, a miniature lightning bolt leaped from my hands and fried the computer to the very core. In the same breath, I dug into my pocket, directed Hjelti behind me, and with a cry of defiance, raised Lodri’s runestone in front of me.

  The explosion rang in my ears and an immense force threw me back like I’d been hit by a Greyhound bus.

  My world went dark, but only for a brief instant. Apparently, my body had concluded that surviving an immense explosion like that was nothing to quit work over and kept me conscious through the pain. The hand in which I held the runestone however, was totally numb.

  “Hjelti,” I called out before sucking in a breath of acrid smoke.

  I coughed violently as a large hand patted my back. A moment later, the emergency lights came on, bathing the now ruined KOMMANDRAUM in crimson light.

  “He was one step ahead of us,” Hjelti said.

  I shook my head, coughing out the last of the smoke, and steadying myself on the now splintered mahogany desk.

  “It was Brigitte. She set us up.”

  Hjelti gave me a strange smile and shook his head. “Can’t be. Rurik must have suspected betrayal. Set explosives for just such an occasion.”

  “It makes more sense that--” I paused, eyeing the giant suspiciously. “What do you know that I don’t, Jotun?”

  Hjelti grinned, heaving himself up to his feet with great difficulty. Blood dripped from his nose and he listed to and fro on his feet like a drunkard. He must have a concussion after that explosion.

  I must have one too.

  “Because we haven’t been properly introduced, Charles Locke. I am Hjelti Son of Helm.”

  Helm? Where had I heard that before?

  I blinked incredulously as Hjelti’s grin widened. Hjelti, son of Helm. Brigitte Helmsdottr; Daughter of Helm.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Hjelti was Brigitte’s brother.

  “She spoke well of you. That’s rare, Human. Too bad things ended like this. The whole attack was a waste.”

  I turned to regard the shattered remains of the computer, the wreckage of the rest of the room, then remembered one tidbit that hadn’t gone up in flames. Not entirely.

  “Dasvidaniya,” I murmured.

  “Hrm?” Hjelti asked.

  I knelt down beside the ruin of the coat rack, and from the tattered remains of the solitary coat that was on it, I tore a shiny red star and placed it in my pocket.

  “Probably nothing,” I replied with a wicked grin. “Possibly everything. Give my regards to your sister.”

  Chapter 13

  Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d never awakened my vast magical powers. Would I have taken a shining to technology better? Would I have been able to diffuse the bunker’s bomb without giving scrambling my brains and nearly winding up dead?

  And most importantly, would my skill with tech have been enough to allow me to avoid making the call that I was about to suffer through?

  No sense wasting time with what-ifs. I punched the call button and waited.

  It rang exactly once before it was picked up. I had to act fast to minimize the trouble.

  I cleared my throat and managed, “Guten Morgen Frau--” before I was unceremoniously interrupted.

  “Charles, you snake. You dog. You brigand!”

  I grimaced, holding the phone away from my ear as a litany of curses erupted from the speaker.

  After a two minute tirade, I decided to cut the woman off. “Frau Starr. I understand your feelings regarding my inability to attend Oktoberfest with you and letting your good dress go to waste, but I need to speak to your brother. It is important.”

  I could practically hear her fist tremble in rage before the sound of feet stomping hardwood floor crackled out of the receiver. A brief moment later and a drab, masculine voice spoke.

  “Mr. Locke,” spoke a voice I recognized as belonging to Friedrich Starr. “I think you made Elena upset.”

  “That’s how you know it’s me on the line Friedrich.”

  Friedrich and Elena Starr were a sibling duo living in the sparse countryside of Germany. On the border to Lichtenstein to be precise. Despite their modern sensibilities and delightfully Mundane origins, both belonged to a fantastical profession.

  The technical term for them was Occult Information Brokers.

  “Business or recreational call?” Friedrich asked.

  “Business, for once,” I replied.

  “This isn’t a charity, not even for you Charles,” Friedrich replied gravely.

  “As long as your Swiss bank accounts still accept first born children and arms and legs, I can’t imagine payment will ever be a problem. Same discount as usual? For a family friend?” I asked.

  Friedrich grunted an affirmative.

  “I need all the information you can uncover about a man going by Rurik in the Scandinavian supernatural world. He’s a low key player, even though he’s put his name to at least one entertainment establish--”

  “The Meadhouse,” Friedrich cut me off. “I’ve been. What does he have to do with anything supernatural, Charles?”

  “He’s working for someone big. He has to be. Vettir in cahoots with him, blood magic ritual circles, and just a couple of Mundane laws broken that need not be mentioned.”

  Like murder, terrorism, and defacing a historically significant bunker with his thugs.

  Friedrich hummed in concentration and I heard a few clicks from his mouse before he replied, “Very well. Give me a few days.”

  “The sooner, the better. Things are in motion.”

  “Objects that are in motion tend to stay in motion, Charles. Shall I deliver a message to Ellie?”

  A devilish grin spread on my face as I pulled onto the off ramp of the E6 and returned to the streets of Oslo. “Tell her we’ll always have Reykjavik.”

  “I meant something that wouldn’t result in my death,” Friedrich chided.

  “Good luck,” I said and cut the call.

  I found a vacant parking spot right on the main artery, surprisingly, and vacated Dunkirk’s car. With Herr Starr sticking his nose into the matter, I could look forward to knowing more about the enemy quickly and reliably.

  If Lis’ Spartan teaching methods had taught me anything, it was that knowledge was power. However, even for a professional like Starr, collecting information, accessing encrypted databases, and prowling through esoteric and half forgotten stacks of records would take time. Time I had to kill somehow.

  Like a Siren’s call, I heard the dingle of a metal bell ringing as a door opened. Totally unconsciously, I’d parked right in front of an upscale bar. Suddenly seized by a terrible thirst, I decided to patronize it while I gathered my thoughts.

  The bell tinkled as I entered the fairly crowded tavern and mounted a stool beside a black haired woman in a black dress.

  “Whiskey on the rocks,” I said.

  The bartender nodded and produced the drink. I paid and let my mind wander. Drinking establishments had a certain zen quality to them as far as I was concerned. All the noise and merry making and voices that so bothered some people melted together into white noise for me. The perfect backdrop for coming up with a plan of action.

  As I raised the glass to my lips, a heavy man perched himself atop the stool next to mine with some difficulty. The barkeep brought him a pint of golden colored beer without so much as a word. Heavy set? Obsession with gold and beer? A regular at an upscale tavern no more than two blocks from the Opera House?

  “Lodri,” I said.

  Lodri grunted in confirmation. “Just twelve hours left, Locke. I hope you have you
r plane ticket bought.”

  “It slipped my mind.”

  “I meant what I said earlier,” Lodri began, pausing to sip his beer. “You’ll be ashes if you decided to go off the collar on me. I have no sympathy for those who don’t want to listen to their elders and betters.”

  “I have no doubt that you’re a master of throwing your weight around, Lodri.”

  The Dwarf’s grunt was proof that my ‘subtle’ insult did not go unnoticed.

  “Who did they send to replace me, if you don’t mind me asking?” I added.

  “Smith and Cazador.”

  Big names where I came from. If we warlocks were a high school class, then Smith would be an honor student and Cazador would be the goddamned valedictorian. I let out a low whistle.

  “Now you understand, Locke,” Lodri carried on. “This is out of your league. Just shove off and be happy you got to be a part of something bigger than you.”

  “And if I told you you’re barking up the wrong tree?”

  “I’d tell you to shove off just a little more firmly,” came his reply.

  I grit my teeth. “The Aesir don’t have a finger in this pie. You haven’t a shred of proof outside of damn tradition. There’s a whole chess game outside of the pawns you see in front of you, and if you don’t do anything a lot of people are going to end up unhappy. Or dead. Your people.”

  Lodri narrowed his beady eyes. I could swear his beard bristled with anger. He downed the last of his blonde beer, spat onto the floor, and waddled towards the door a step before saying, “Eleven hours Locke.”

  He slammed the tavern door shut loud enough to draw stares, and almost loud enough to muffle my words. “Pint sized piece of shit.”

  “Manners, manners, young man. Do you kiss girls with that same mouth?” came a chiding voice from my right.

  I leveled a lethal glare towards the woman only to recognize just who I was dealing with. It was unnatural how well she blended in with the Mundanes.

  I groaned and buried my face in my hands. “Lisistrathiel.”

  “You should be nicer to your boss. He’s under a lot of stress.”