Day of the Vikings. A Thriller. (ARKANE)

by J. F. Penn

  Morgan kicked backward, ignoring the pain as she smashed her boot into the man’s face. Her Krav Maga military training took over, and she put every ounce of force into her kick. The man’s head flicked back, and he lost his grip on her ankle. Morgan turned, using her momentum to push herself up from the rocks and kicked at the man’s head, connecting with his temple with a sickening crunch. Breathing hard now, Morgan’s vision narrowed. Her senses heightened, she heard the sound of the ocean boiling, the crows cawing, the Valkyrie chanting, and felt an electricity in the air as the veil of reality shifted.

  Aware of danger from behind, she turned to see the other Neo-Viking almost upon her, his eyes wild. The gun was out of reach now and Morgan bent her knees, her palms outstretched in the waiting Krav Maga stance. The man lumbered toward her, over six feet of muscle, his face tattooed with Norse runes, a mark of devotion to his gods. He grimaced. Morgan saw his teeth were filed and marked with black.

  “I will rip your throat out,” he taunted, “and the Valkyrie will feed your corpse to great Jörmungandr.”

  He ran at her, leaping over the rocks, hands outstretched. Morgan waited for him to get close, willing him to attack so she could hurt him. The blood lust was high within her now. She wanted to beat this man into the earth and leave his bones to rot.

  The man led with a punch. Morgan brushed his hand aside with an open palm, using the other arm to slam her elbow into his temple as she shouted her rage, her voice coming from a primal place of survival. She followed through with hammerfist strikes that made the man reel. But he kept coming, head lower now, swaying a little. Morgan didn’t relent. She went toward him again and as he tried to grab her waist to pull her to the floor, she grabbed his ears, twisting them with a savage yell. She used all her strength to spring from the rocks with one knee lifted and slammed it into his face, once, twice, as fast as the lightning strikes above. The man went down and Morgan leaned in, using her bent knuckles to slam into his throat.

  Leaving the man gurgling for breath, Morgan turned back to the Valkyrie. Either side of the golden ray of light, the ocean was forming a wall of white water and violent waves, a path for whatever was summoned. Morgan felt the world hum in the pulsing throb of the golden light, the pounding of the waves and the triumphant chant of the Valkyrie, her thin body transformed into power.

  The gun was useless now, but there was still a chance to disrupt whatever was coming. Morgan ran at the vortex, pushing off the rocks to leap through the wall of blood, her rage exploding in a primordial roar. She slammed into the Valkyrie and the witch shrieked as the vortex began to crumple and the blood dropped to the rocks, covering them both in gore. Morgan wrestled with the woman, and the golden Eye slipped from the Valkyrie’s grasp into the gap between the ocean walls, the golden light somehow holding the waves back.

  “No,” the Valkyrie cried, scrambling away from Morgan, still grasping the staff. The witch leaped from the rocks down into the gap of the ocean. Morgan didn’t hesitate, jumping after her and knocking the woman to the ground. Above them, the walls of water loomed, the edges faltered as the power of the light pulsed in and out. The witch scrambled for the Eye of Odin, and Morgan grabbed for the staff, pulling it from the woman’s grip, the iron hot in her hands. She felt the spray from the ocean around her, the droplets thicker than the rain, power on the edge of collapse.

  Morgan turned and ran, clutching the staff to her as the Valkyrie laid hands on the golden Eye, screaming Norse curses, but the power had gone from the gem. Morgan leaped from the exposed sand as the walls of water came crashing down, the cries of the Valkyrie buried under the boiling ocean. Morgan looked out to the sea as the thunder rolled further off, and the lightning lessened. In the distance, she thought she saw the coils of an ancient creature rise once more and then sink below the depths.

  Chapter 12

  THE NEXT DAY, MORGAN stood at the window in Director Marietti’s office, looking out over the tourists in Trafalgar Square as he wound up his phone call. This was the public section of ARKANE, where meetings with outsiders happened, but most of the complex lay under the Square, people walking above, unaware of the secrets kept below. It was a long way from the Bay at the Back of the Ocean and what Morgan had seen in the whirling vortex of blood and boiling waves. The Valkyrie’s body had been found washed up on the beach at dawn, her hair bleached completely white, her face frozen in a rictus of horror. Had she glimpsed the realm of Ragnarok at the end, Morgan wondered? Had she seen the warriors waiting to storm back onto the earth for the final battle?

  ARKANE had a team of divers searching for the Eye of Odin beneath the waves of the rocky headland. It was dangerous work, hampered by wild ocean currents and inclement weather, and they might never recover it. Perhaps it was better that way.

  Marietti put down the phone, turning with a worried expression. He stroked his short gray beard, shot through with white to match his salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Martin has traced the funding for the helicopter and the Neo-Vikings’ organization to a front of companies. Behind them sits a group called Tempest.” Marietti frowned. “They’re new to us, Morgan, but they worry me. The tempest represents upheaval and chaos, a force of nature that can’t be stopped. I fear we haven’t seen the last of this group.”

  Morgan heard the words of the Valkyrie in her head, a storm is coming, and knew that this was just the beginning.

  “I’ll have Martin start to research them,” Marietti said. “I know you want to work on the package sent from your father next.” He picked up the iron staff from the desk, the dull metal giving no sign of the havoc it could wreak when wielded by the right hands. “This will have to go down in the vaults. It can’t go back to the British Museum now. Can you explain?”

  Morgan nodded. “Of course. There’s someone I need to see over there anyway.”

  ***

  Crowds outside the British Museum took pictures of the giant cranes repairing the glass roof. The national treasure would be open to the public again soon, and the news reports had inevitably moved onto the next disaster. The Neo-Vikings had been dismissed as a crazy religious group, and any murmurings of the supernatural had been quashed with evidence that the videos of the vortex had been tampered with. No hint of what had occurred on Iona had reached the mainstream news, and ARKANE would make sure it never would.

  “Morgan, I’m so glad you could come.” Morgan turned to see Blake standing by a coffee cart, two steaming cups in his hands. “I took the liberty …” He raised one of the cups.

  She took it smiling, checking the dark liquid inside before taking a sip.

  “Just how I like it,” Morgan said, wondering if Blake had read something of her in their brief time together, and whether that would be an altogether bad thing.

  The cut on the side of his face was a raw pink, the eye socket swollen and bruised in a palette of purple. The color against his darker skin only served to emphasize his piercing blue eyes, and Morgan wondered if this man ever looked really rough. They sat on the low stone wall as tourists milled around them and the hammer of construction rang throughout the square.

  “Your curator friend is avenged,” Morgan said. “But I’m afraid the museum won’t be getting the staff of Skara Brae back.”

  Blake sighed. “Probably for the best. I’m not sure people here want to remember, anyway.” He turned to look into her eyes, searching for the truth. “Did you see what it could do on Iona?”

  In a flash of memory, Morgan saw the Valkyrie, floating within the spinning wall of blood, the ray of gold summoning something from the depths. Part of her wanted to share that with Blake. If he touched the staff and read it with his gift, he would see it, too. But he was not ARKANE, and it was time she returned to working with her own team.

  “I saw nothing more than we both witnessed here,” Morgan said, watching disappointment cloud his eyes. “But the Neo-Vikings won’t be back, for sure.”

  “And will I see you again?” Blake reached for her hand with his
gloved one.

  Morgan squeezed it as she stood up. “I never say goodbye.” She smiled. “I’ve found that life has too many surprises in store.”

  She walked away without looking back into the tourist throng, just another face in the crowd.

  Thanks for joining Morgan and Blake in this adventure.

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  Author's Note

  THIS NOVELLA IS MEANT to be a rollicking fun read! Although I did research the Vikings, this is a work of fiction and I have embellished for dramatic license. The Norse quotes are from the Poetic Edda poem Völuspá, where a völva, a witch or shaman, tells Odin the story of the creation of the world. You will find the places, manuscripts and objects in ‘real’ life, but I have turned them into a story of my own construction. All mistakes in research are my own.

  You can see associated pictures on Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/jfpenn/ragnarok/

  Inspiration for the story

  My own fascination with Game of Thrones and its Viking mythology of wolves, ravens and dragons first inspired this story. Couple that with the Northern Lights being seen across the UK early in 2014 and the Viking Ragnarok proclaimed for Feb 2014, and I had an inkling for the story I would write.

  The British Museum had a special exhibition about the Vikings, which I attended in early March 2014. The longboat and decapitated skeletons were there, as were the other objects described. I love the supernatural so I was struck by the staffs of the völva and the information on Viking magic. As I started to research afterwards, I discovered the Poetic Edda and the story took shape.

  The British Museum also features in my book Prophecy, which was based on an exhibition on religious relics. I foresee many more exhibitions there forming an integral part of my work! I’ve used artistic license for the floor plan and the exits.

  Orkney

  The Ring of Brodgar is within the Neolithic heritage site in the Orkney Islands in the far north of Scotland, closer to Norway than London. You can see the aurora borealis there in the winter months.

  Lindisfarne

  The Viking raid of Lindisfarne is a historical fact. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records:

  “In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of the Northumbrians, and the wretched people shook; there were excessive whirlwinds, lightning, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and a little after those, that same year on 6th ides of January, the ravaging of wretched heathen people destroyed God’s church at Lindisfarne.”

  The Lindisfarne Gospels are in the British Library and can be visited there when not ‘resting.’ The location of the relics of St Cuthbert are a secret known only to a few monks, although the records show it as intact when the Vikings raided, so my use in pagan ritual is fictionalized. You can look at the Gospels online here: http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/sacredtexts/lindisfarne.html. The colophon in the back page of the Gospels is actually a list of who contributed to the creation of the book, but perhaps my version is more interesting!

  Iona

  The description of Iona is as exact as possible, and its early importance to Christianity is fact.

  About J.F.Penn

  JOANNA PENN IS THE New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers on the edge. Joanna has a Master’s degree in Theology from the University of Oxford, Mansfield College and a Graduate Diploma in Psychology from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

  She lives in London, England but spent eleven years in Australia and New Zealand. Joanna worked for thirteen years as an international business consultant within the IT industry, but is now a full-time author-entrepreneur. She is the author of the ARKANE series as well as other thrillers, crime and horror.

  Joanna is a PADI Divemaster and enjoys traveling as often as possible. She is obsessed with religion and psychology and loves to read, drink Pinot Noir and soak up European culture through art, architecture and food.

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  Joanna Penn also writes non-fiction. Available in print and ebook formats.

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  For writers:

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  Acknowledgments

  TO MY READERS, THANK you so much of your continued support. I hope to keep entertaining you for many years to come.

  Thanks to the British Museum for the Viking exhibition, and for all the ideas I continue to have within those hallowed walls.

  Thanks to Matt Prior and Joseph Keith Hannaby for providing the practicalities of a helicopter winch through the British Museum’s roof. It can be done apparently!

  Thanks to Jen Blood, my editor, for her fantastic work in improving the text, and to Wendy Janes for proof-reading so well.

  Thanks to Derek Murphy from Creativindie for the fantastic book cover design.