by J. F. Penn
“Thank you for your help with this, Blake. Now I can use this information to go after the Valkyrie.”
“Will I … see you again?” he asked, not wanting this to be the end. “I want to know what you find, and I doubt that I’ll find any kind of truth in the media. At least our kind of truth anyway.”
Morgan hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll find you afterwards, I promise. Why don’t you stay and look at the Gospels for a bit longer. I’m sure the librarian would be happy to take you on a personal tour.”
As they both laughed, Morgan leaned forward and kissed Blake on the cheek. He looked into her blue eyes, like cobalt from the illuminated script, the slash of violet in her right darker now, almost indigo. He wanted to read her, wanted to know her emotions, and her past. She intrigued him.
“This is goodbye for now,” she said, turning to the door and walking out, without looking back.
***
Morgan pulled out her phone in the atrium of the library. Marietti answered on the first ring.
“Did you find anything?” he asked, his voice tense. She could hear talking in the background, and a news bulletin that still looped on the museum hostage crisis.
“I think they might be heading to Iona,” Morgan said. “The Scottish island also had a famous monastery that was raided by the Vikings, and it could be that they were looking for the same thing the Valkyrie is. She called it the Eye of Odin, and the staff was just a step on that journey. The museum wasn’t the end game.”
“Hmm. Interesting, but things look a little different from here. We’ve had a report of a suspicious murder in the Orkney Islands, a man ritually killed in the Ring of Brodgar, a Neolithic stone circle. The local police say there’s a group who follow the ways of the Vikings in the islands, expected back later tonight. Harmless, or so they thought.” Marietti laughed bitterly. “I’m sending a team there to investigate and intercept the return of the Valkyrie.”
It was over 200 miles from Orkney to Iona across land and sea, Morgan thought. If she was wrong, then she would miss out on dispensing the justice she so desperately wanted. Betting on Blake’s visions over hard evidence was crazy, but she thought of how he had been in the trance. It was as if he had left his physical body, and working for ARKANE had eroded the skepticism she used to have about the inexplicable.
“I’d like to go to Iona,” she said. “Then we’ll be covering both angles.”
“Hold on a minute.” Morgan heard Marietti barking commands to those in his office before returning to the phone. “Alright, get to Iona. But if you insist on investigating there, I can’t spare anyone to come with you. We’re stretched as it is, and you might find nothing. We can send backup if you do get a lead. Still want to go?”
Morgan’s rage about the murder in the museum was still simmering, and she didn’t want to continue this fight back in the depths of the ARKANE offices. Her preference was always for action, if she had the choice. Of course, Blake’s unusual talent could be completely useless, his visions merely the product of an unhinged mind. But she had seen him read, and there had been no trace of the crazy there, only a man who was tortured by what he saw.
“Yes, I want to go. But can you at least get me a weapon?”
“Head for London City Airport and we’ll sort out a flight to Glasgow, and a helicopter from there. There’ll be a box waiting for you. Stay in touch, Morgan.”
Marietti hung up and Morgan stood in the busy atrium of the library, surrounded by the bustle of the readers, wondering whether this was the right decision. She appreciated Marietti’s trust, his lack of micromanagement of his team, but she also felt a little alone without her partner, or without even Blake at her side. Then, she remembered the grotesque death of the curator, the violence of the Valkyrie in her quest. She pushed open the doors and headed for the taxi rank.
Chapter 10
MORGAN STEPPED OFF THE charter boat onto the white sandy shores of Iona, turning back to take her bag from the charter boat skipper. One of the Inner Hebrides, Iona was situated off the southwest tip of the Isle of Mull. West from the island was the broad Atlantic, all the way to Newfoundland. The charter flight to Glasgow, the helicopter to Mull, and finally the boat to Iona had only taken a couple of hours, but this place was another world compared to the teeming city she’d left behind.
The light was beginning to fade as Morgan looked around at the little village of Baile Mòr, its stone houses staring back toward the mainland. This was a hardy land, with a small population who preferred isolation and solitude to the bustle of the city. Morgan could only imagine the hell London would be for these people, for here time was measured by the tides, the shifting wind and the cry of the skylark.
A little way from the village streets, the mottled stone walls of the Iona Abbey stood proud, built on the site of the monastery founded by St Columba in the mid-sixth century. It had been a beacon for early Christianity, influencing the spread of faith amongst the Picts and the Scots. Although she had been brought up in Israel, her father Jewish, Morgan felt a momentary longing to find a bed in one of the Christian retreat centers and just close her eyes. The intensity of her missions with ARKANE had taken their toll, and she had the sense that things were only speeding up, that the world was spiraling toward some kind of terrifying end. The glimpses she had experienced were only one piece of the information, but she knew that Marietti understood some of the bigger picture. The ARKANE director had become haggard of late, his beard whitening in recent months. Perhaps it was almost time to ask him to share what he knew.
“Can I help you, lassie?” The broad Scottish accent was welcoming. “I saw you coming from the boat there.” The man wore just a t-shirt despite the chilling wind, his bare arms roped with muscle as he carried a box wrapped in brown paper toward the charter boat that was preparing to leave again. His face was rugged, with deep laughter lines. “Are you with those others?”
It had to be the Valkyrie’s group, Morgan thought. They had a head start on her, but they couldn’t have been here too long.
“Yes, I’m with them,” she smiled as she spoke, “but I missed a connection. Do you know where they went?”
“They’re up at the abbey, all dressed up it seems. But we get all sorts here, to be sure.”
The man shook his head. So many pilgrims came here to worship and pay homage to history, to find their sense of God in this wide open space, that Morgan guessed he witnessed a lot of strange people coming through.
“Thank you for your help.”
The man walked toward the boat, calling to the others to wait up for his package. Morgan bent to her small pack, and with her body shielding the view from the boat, she checked to ensure the Barak SP-21 pistol was loaded.
A rumble of thunder made her lift her head to the sky. Toward the west, dark clouds were gathering and the wind was picking up. Fat drops of rain began to splatter down and a chill pierced the air. Morgan thought of the vortex the Valkyrie had commanded back at the museum, and looked up towards the Benedictine abbey. The light was dim now, but she could just make out figures in front of the twelfth-century stone building.
Morgan pulled her hood up and tugged the thick coat closer around her as she walked quickly up the main street toward the abbey. It was known as the Reilig Odhráin, Road of the Dead, where the funeral procession would walk with the body of Christian dead to be buried in the abbey grounds. Early Kings of Scotland were buried here, including Mac Bethad mac Findlaích, known to history as Macbeth.
The darkness grew thicker now as clouds billowed above in shades of violet, shot through with flickering lightning. The few people remaining outside in the streets ran for cover, closing windows and preparing for the storm. They were used to the vagaries of the weather on this peninsula by the Atlantic, with nothing to shield them from the elements. Now, Morgan was counting on it to disguise her approach to the abbey as she crept to the edge of the great medieval building.
As she drew closer, Morgan saw the Valkyrie standing in
the rain, a fur wrap covering her gray tunic, her hair plastered to her head as the drops ran unheeded down her face. There was steel in the old woman’s posture, a hardness in her features and a new knowledge that darkened her eyes. She held the staff of Skara Brae in front of her, gnarled fingers clutching it tightly.
Three of the Neo-Vikings were digging under the base of the eighth-century St Martin’s Cross. The ring behind the medieval cross symbolized eternity and the presence of a halo, and the stone was carved with scenes from the Bible. Even from a short distance away, Morgan recognized Daniel in the lion’s den, Abraham with sword raised to sacrifice Isaac, and writhing serpents around circular bosses. One of the men pushed against the heavy stone, rocking his body back and forth to try to move it.
“No,” a voice cried. A man ran out from the cover of the abbey doorway, clearly one of the clergy. “That cross has stood by the grace of God for over 1200 years on that spot. You can’t just knock it down.”
He grabbed the arm of the Neo-Viking, who laughed, a deep rumbling sound, and reached around the back of the man’s head, yanking it forward to smash against the stone. The clergyman groaned in pain and slumped a little, but the Neo-Viking pulled him forward again, driving his skull onto the arm of the cross, blood now oozing from the wound, staining the ancient stone.
“Enough,” the Valkyrie said, her Scottish lilt a direct order. “Finish digging. The Eye is under there, I’ve seen it in my visions. It calls to the staff now. Dig harder.”
The Neo-Viking threw the clergyman to the ground, where he lay clutching his head as the rain slammed down upon his prone body. Morgan willed him to stay still and just wait. Even with a weapon, she couldn’t stop all of them, and with people in the abbey, she didn’t want to risk making a move. She pulled back around the edge of the building and texted Marietti at ARKANE, informing him that the group was there, though she knew that backup wouldn’t get here in time to stop the Neo-Vikings recovering the Eye of Odin. If she was honest, part of Morgan wanted to see what happened when the Eye was recovered. She was drawn to the edge of darkness, for the glimpses she had seen into the realm of miracle had given her a taste of something beyond the mundane world.
A loud rumble of thunder echoed across the bay, followed quickly by a crack of lightning. The storm was almost upon them. Morgan peered around again to see the Neo-Vikings pushing the stone cross to the ground, its granite pedestal split open. The Valkyrie knelt before it, her hands thrust into the earth. She pulled out a slim metal box and held it to the sky, rain hammering down upon her uplifted arms.
“For you, Odin. Skelfr Yggdrasils askr standandi, ymr it aldna tré, en jötunn losnar,” she called to the heavens. “Yggdrasil shakes, shiver on high the ancient limbs, and the giant is loose.”
The triumph in her voice sent a shiver down Morgan’s spine. The words the Valkyrie spoke were from the Völuspá, a prophecy of the end times, heralding the battle known to the Vikings as Ragnarok.
The Valkyrie opened the box and her men gathered close behind her to look inside. The expression on their faces was one of wonder, and more than that, of visceral desire. Morgan had seen that look before, on the faces of those who saw the huge gems of the Jewel House in the Tower of London and coveted them. The Valkyrie lifted the object from the box and turned to the men, the lump of yellow rock in her hands. There was a fire inside the precious stone, a burning that turned its facets to gold even in the darkened world around. The raindrops seemed to bring it alive. Odin’s Eye was said to shine like the sun, and this rock looked to be a huge piece of rare yellow diamond, worth many millions. Morgan knew it would serve a darker purpose tonight.
“We must go to the west for the summoning,” the Valkyrie said, looking up into the swirling clouds, eyes unblinking in the heavy rain. She indicated the injured man on the ground. “Bring him.”
Chapter 11
MORGAN STEPPED BACK QUIETLY to hide in the shadow of the abbey as the Valkyrie and her men passed close by, dragging the moaning clergyman between them. The group entered a car and drove away into the rainy night. Morgan had checked the maps and seen the famous Bay at the Back of the Ocean, a wide west-facing sweep of white sand looking out across the sea to North America. It was just over the other side of the island, but too far to walk or run. She looked around the car park, spotting a mountain bike alongside a low fence. It wasn’t locked, as these islands hadn’t been a crime hotspot. Until tonight.
Grabbing the bike, Morgan pedaled hard after the car toward the west of the island. The rain lashed down upon her, but she soon warmed as her breath came hard, heart beating fast with the exertion and apprehension of what was to come. Could the Valkyrie really summon the final destiny of the gods with the Eye of Odin?
As she pedaled faster, rising to her feet to push hard up the hill, Morgan smiled, an almost manic excitement rising within her. In one sense, she had never felt so alone, with no backup, her partner Jake at the other end of the country, her family not even knowing what she was doing or where she was. But she also recognized that the thrill of the edge was what she constantly sought. It made her feel alive. If she should die here today, it would be with the grin of the berserker on her face, going to meet her fate laughing at the gods.
At the crest of the hill, Morgan paused to catch her breath and, through the rain, saw the headlights of the car near the rocky headland. A mist was rising from the earth: the smell of wild thyme and the salty tang of the ocean spray hung fresh in the air. The sound of the waves on the beach could be heard beneath the thump of the rain, and the crackle of lightning burst through the charged air, the forked silver striking the rocks below.
She let the bike freewheel down the hill and then left it so she could continue on foot, creeping through the rocks at the edge of the bay, hiding behind one to peer through at the tableau.
One of the Neo-Vikings pushed the clergyman to his knees on the rocks as the Valkyrie began to spin the staff, holding the Eye of Odin in her other hand. A shrill cawing filled the air. Morgan looked up to see a flock of dark birds, the ravens of the island, begin to fly in a circle in an eerie reflection of the movements below. The Valkyrie whirled the staff, weaving patterns in the air, chanting in a voice that grated against something in Morgan’s very soul.
“Snýsk jörmungandr í jötunmóði,” the Valkyrie called into the spinning vortex that materialized around her. “In giant-wrath does the serpent writhe.”
With those words, she pointed the staff at the kneeling clergyman. The Neo-Viking behind him pulled the man’s head back and sliced his throat with a heavy knife. Arterial blood sprayed into the whirling tornado around the Valkyrie, the droplets whipped into the spiraling air until it was as if she stood within a wall of blood that the rain could no longer penetrate. The Eye of Odin glowed in her hand, its light illuminating her face, a prophet of long-dead gods.
The Valkyrie turned to face the vast expanse of the Atlantic.
“Ormr knýr unnir, en ari hlakkar, slítr nái niðfölr.” Her voice was a shriek now, rising above the rumble of thunder that echoed around the bay. “Over the waves he twists, and the tawny eagle gnaws corpses screaming.”
She stretched out the staff and held the Eye of Odin close to it. Through the veil of blood, the golden light from the stone looked like a ray of the sun as it shot out into the boiling sea below. It seemed to carve a path in the water, some kind of bioluminescence revealing the depths below.
One of the Neo-Vikings lifted a great curved horn to his lips and blew it, the deep sound a sonorous vibration that shook the rocks they stood upon. The other two Neo-Vikings dropped to their knees, as the waters boiled and in the distance, Morgan thought she saw coils of some great creature arching from the deep. The legends of Ragnarok told of Jörmungandr, the Midgard serpent that encircles the earth holding his tail in his mouth until the day he lets go and the world ends.
Morgan tried to focus on what she thought she had seen, but between flashes of lightning, it could have been nothing more
than waves. The Neo-Vikings were transfixed by the sight of the golden ray, and she knew she needed to finish this. She pulled the gun from her pack. The power of this staff, the Eye of Odin … It all needed to end here.
The Valkyrie stood with arms pointed toward the deep, the wall of spinning blood around her, and it seemed to Morgan that she began to lift from the rock to hang in the air. The ravens flew faster around the top of the vortex, a dark host crowing the victory of those who worshipped the ancient gods, calling for their return.
Aiming for the Valkyrie’s back, Morgan fired once, twice, but the bullets ricocheted off the vortex, one hitting a Neo-Viking in the eye on rebound. He slumped to the ground without a sound, but the other two men jumped to their feet, roaring with anger. The Valkyrie turned her head at the noise and her hands faltered, the light from the staff and the Eye wobbling in the water. She refocused, chanting louder with darker words, her eyes rolling back in her head as she floated upward. The boiling in the ocean seemed to double in intensity and lightning strikes hit the waters with a hiss, the clouds above whirling in a tornado. Something was coming, something from the other side.
Morgan left her hiding place, leaping across the rocks sideways to the Valkyrie. One of the men moved to shield his mistress and the other pursued. Morgan turned and shot again. A double tap and the man went down, his bulk falling between the rocks.
Only one man stood between her and the witch now. Holding the gun out, Morgan stepped across the rocks, hyper-alert as the man held his arms wide, inviting her to him. She aimed at his mid-section, finger squeezing the trigger. The moment she fired, a sharp tug on her ankle pulled her down and pain exploded as Morgan’s knee cracked on the sharp rocks. The man she had shot first reached up to grab her, his face a mess of blood where his head had hit the rocks, the chest wound bleeding but not fatal. Losing her grip, the gun went clattering down the side of the rocks.