Rune Master

by Amelia Wilson

  It was time to get creative.

  He went to the body in the corner. With a snarl of distaste, he used his long, sharp teeth to gnaw through the dead flesh until he was able to disarticulate one leg enough to steal the femur. When the bone was free, he hefted it in his hands like a club and took up a position next to the door, waiting.

  It took longer for him to receive a visitor than he had expected. Finally, he heard the click-click of high heels approaching in the hallway outside, and he prepared his attack.

  The door opened, and he heard a woman gasp when she saw the bloody mess on the floor before her. Before she could react in any other way, he stepped out into the doorway and swung the club. The ball joint connected with her head, and she crumpled to the ground, her skull caved in. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up, sinking his fangs into her neck. She was dying and he needed her blood more than she did, now.

  He drank every drop, and he could feel her spirit struggling against him. She was powerless, her brain too destroyed to allow her frantic messages to get through to her body. He pulled at her vein until that spirit snapped, severed from the world of the living and shuttling off to her fate.

  Erik dropped the body and searched it quickly. He found a key ring in one pocket and a holster at the small of her back containing a Glock 26 with a 12-round magazine filled with silver bullets. He appropriated the weapon with a grim smile.

  His last act was to toss the body into his cell and shut the door. No casual passers-by, if there were any, would see the corpse from the hallway and sound the alarm. It also pleased him to jail his jailer, even if she was already dead. It appealed to his sense of spite.

  He flipped through the key ring, hoping for a key to his manacles. His luck did not extend that far, however, and he cursed.

  The hallway extended straight ahead for thirty yards, and then to the right for another ten before it ended in a blind right turn. The way ahead led to a heavy steel door like the one on his prison, but with a tiny barred window. He crept rapidly to the door, leaning his shoulder against it and peering cautiously through the window. There was a control room on the other side, with rows of monitors, their screens still and dark. The room was empty.

  He pushed the door open and slid into the room, closing it behind himself again. He had no idea how many people were in this compound, but he remembered that there had been at least two guards. The longer it took for them to notice that he was free, the better.

  There was a desk off to the side, and sitting on top of its was another set of keys and the key fob for a Volvo. This time, the key ring gave him the way to open his manacles, and he happily freed himself of the annoyance. He grabbed the car keys.

  Another door stood behind the desk, this one wooden and featureless. He listened carefully for any movement on the other side, but he heard none. He closed his eyes. His Draugr senses, fully activated now by the blood he had consumed and the adrenaline in his system, scanned the room for human heartbeats.

  There were two. Both hearts were beating steadily, calmly, completely oblivious to his presence on the other side of the door. There were two people sitting in the other room, one nearer than the other, both on the left side of the doorway, sitting about four feet apart. He could smell antiseptic and metal oil, along with the faint tang of sweat and musty cloth. He decided that the room on the other side of the door was a locker room or a changing area. The two people were probably sitting on a bench, getting ready to come through into the control room and take up position at the monitors.

  Not today.

  They were only humans, and they didn’t stand a chance when he kicked down the door. He grabbed the first one around the throat with his left hand, and with his fully extended right hand, he fired point-blank into the second one’s face. He was dead before the hit the ground. Erik snapped the neck of the one he held, then drained his body dry, his Veithimathr’s reticence for blood completely overcome.

  He had been right about this room being a locker room. Even better, it was a partial armory. He found another pistol, three more clips of silver bullets, and an AK-47, which he happily appropriated. Now fully armed and fully sated, he opened the door on the far side of the locker room and slipped outside.

  Since he had discharged his weapon, the need for stealth was less important than the need for speed. He held his rifle in his hands, pointed ahead of him, ready for combat. The door opened onto a corridor with three closed doors along one side and two glass doors at the end. Through those doors, he could see daylight and freedom. He ran for it, found the doors unlocked, and burst out into the open air.

  Sirens were going off inside the building, which was a low brick affair with a series of tiny windows on the side facing the parking lot. A chain link fence butted up against the building and enclosed the parking lot, which was filled with Jeeps and other military vehicles. There were a few sedans, as well, and when he hit the button on the car key fob, Volvo in question beeped and blinked its headlights like a flirting barmaid.

  Erik sprinted for the car and jumped inside it as armed men poured out another building within the enclosure, standing on the other side of the pavement. They wore the uniforms of the SOG. They fired upon him, and he threw the car into drive. There were five heavily-armed SOG soldiers at a gate, leveling their rifles at him. He snarled at them and laid on the horn, giving them fair warning before he gunned the engine and crashed the gate. He didn’t want to hurt other members of his unit, but if they tried to stop him, he would kill them all.

  As he raced out of the enclosure, he passed an incoming truck that disgorged Stenmark and his mates. Erik flipped them off as he drove past. Stenmark shot after him, but he missed, only one bullet dinging into the driver’s side tail lights.

  Jeeps roared out of the ruined gate in pursuit of him, each one full to bursting with special operation forces. He had trained many of them and had worked with others during his time with the army, and he knew their tactics better than they did, themselves. He regretted not stealing a vehicle with better off-roading capabilities, but the sedan would have to do. He turned a sharp right and left the paved road, driving over a bumpy field until he reached a dirt road headed due west.

  A glance into the rearview mirror showed him that his former cohort were following closely, not thrown off at all – as he had expected. It would take more than a little stupid driving to shake the SOG. He wrestled with the car, spinning it on the dirt and taking it on another sharp turn, this time running on turf. The changing weather had frozen the ground, so there was no mud to contend with, and it made the running easier.

  He was reminded of another time he had been chased this way, but that time he had been astride a horse, racing away from a Draugr encampment in Finland. He and Gunnar had made a mess of them that day. He missed his brother with a sudden, poorly-timed pain that made his chest hurt. He pushed the rogue emotion aside and kept driving.

  He played with the SOG for miles, dragging them further and further from their base. He had no idea where he was, but he could feel the pull of magnetic north, and he put it at his back. He would reach either Stockholm or the sea this way, and both were acceptable choices to him.

  The fifty-caliber gun mounted in the back of the Jeep behind him opened up, and it tore open the back half of his Volvo, the massive rounds shattering metal and ripping through the interior of the car. He swerved to destroy their targeting, but he knew these men. They were good. They would hit him soon if he didn’t shake them.

  His car began to whine and shake. One of the bullets had penetrated the gas tank, and he was losing fuel rapidly. He had made it back onto the paved road, and a little town was just ahead of him. He didn’t want to bring a firefight to an innocent village, but they were leaving him little choice. He accelerated and roared into town.

  It was a small town, with one large central road and several side streets winding off of it like glorified cow paths. He turned down the first side street he came to, turned again, and then crossed
to the next block. He turned once more, and then careened around a building to park in someone’s lawn. He abandoned the car, grabbed his weapons, and ran.

  Without an invitation from a homeowner, he could not enter any of the houses, but he found what he was looking for less than half a block away. An automotive service center stood here, its bay doors open, a single vehicle in the lot waiting to be serviced. He could see two other vehicles inside up on the hoists, and a trio of humans working on a third. He ran into the garage and climbed up to conceal himself within the ceiling joists.

  The soldiers would be duty-bound to check the car he’d left behind, but that wouldn’t take all of them. If they knew anything about the Draugr, and he wagered that they did, they would know that he would only be able to enter a public space. In a village like this one, that gave them a very narrow set of possible locations for him to be. They would be here soon.

  “Soon” came far sooner than he would have liked, and he had to give grudging respect to the men on his tail. A quartet of SOG soldiers, walking with great caution and showing excellent discipline, entered the garage and ordered the civilians out of the building. He watched his former comrades as they began their sweep.

  He recognized the leader. He was a man called Lars Bengstrom, and Erik had worked with him in the past. They had shared a particularly harrowing mission in Afghanistan, and he had liked and respected the man. Now he was being hunted by him. Fate was a strange thing.

  Bengstrom scanned the garage while his men carefully poked into the corners. His green eyes flicked up to the ceiling, taking in the jumble of cables and gears, and for one heart-stopping moment, his gaze locked with Erik. The Huntsman looked back. They sized one another up silently, and the human slowly, deliberately nodded.

  “Nothing, Sir,” one of the other men reported.

  Bengstrom looked away. “Clear. Let’s go to the next one.”

  The operators left the building, and Erik said a grateful prayer to Odin, asking for a little extra luck to be sent in Bengstrom’s direction.

  He waited until he was certain that his pursuers had completely moved out. He climbed down from the ceiling girders and helped himself to a car from the parking lot, then headed out of town and onto the road to Stockholm.

  ***

  It was well after midnight when he reached their house. There were no lights shining through the windows. He no longer had his keys, but he knew the way in without them. He climbed the side of the house and went in through the bedroom window.

  He was surprised to find the bedroom empty and cold. Nika’s scent was faded. She had not been here in days. A cold finger of panic brushed his spine, and he hurried down the stairs, hoping that he would find her asleep on the couch. She wasn’t there.

  Chosen? He called out to her through their connection, but only silence answered. Nika?

  She was gone.

  He resisted the urge to scream in frustration. He didn’t have time for an emotional scene. The army was hunting him, and they knew where he lived. Hunkering down in the first place they’d search for him was a foolish thing to do.

  He showered, washing off the blood from his self-inflicted gut surgery, and then quickly dressed. He filled a flask with dreyri from the cask in the kitchen and collected his double-headed axe. He had to find Nika, and he had to find a way to stop whatever the Draugr and their contact Rahim Amari were planning for the political summit. He knew now that he was on his own.

  He left the house and headed out into the night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  She woke from fitful sleep in the quiet hours between midnight and dawn with an echoing head and an aching heart. She could not remember her dreams, but the first thought she had was of Erik out there somewhere. She wondered who had betrayed him, why, and how. She supposed she would never know for as long as she stayed her in Ingrid’s little seaside house, hiding from the world.

  She rose from her makeshift bed in front of the fire and dressed. Ingrid had produced a few changes of clothing for her from a chest in the loft, including a sturdy pair of hiking boots. She pulled them on and laced them in the dying light of the fire. She grabbed her coat and went out the door.

  Outside the moon was hiding behind a screen of clouds, hiding her face from the earth, and the night was the darkest she had ever seen. There were no street lights out here, and no other buildings stood nearby to shed their illumination through their windows. There was only the darkness and the sea and the sky.

  She walked as far to the edge of the hill as she dared. Nika crossed her arms over her chest and listened to the distant rush of the sea. She supposed that this was how it had been back when the Draugr were first created – utter darkness, and the stark loneliness of being the only person awake for miles.

  She sat down cross-legged on the grass, ignoring the way the cold seeped up from the ground and into her bones. She held out her hands and looked at them, remembering the dancing runes that had surged up from the book and into her body. She was not a stupid woman, but she had difficulty understanding all of the things that were happening.

  She wasn’t certain she had quite reconciled herself to being a mere vessel for a nearly dead goddess. It seemed so inglorious, in a way, reducing her to the level of a clay pitcher. She knew it also made her special, but to what end? She had heard Ithunn talking about melding with her completely instead of just riding piggy back. She wasn’t certain if that would be better or worse than how things were now.

  Out on the water, she saw a glimmer of light. It was just a flash at first, the merest spark like the flickering of a firefly. Then the light expanded, grew and separated into two shining dots, just barely peeking above the waterline. A wave washed over the lights but did not extinguish them.

  She peered out into the darkness, trying to see what was causing that glow. A tug seemed to pull at her, urging her to move closer to investigate. She started to rise.

  Do not go to those lights, child, the voice of Ithunn said in her head.

  Nika hesitated. Why not?

  It will be the death of us.

  She frowned. It’s just lights.

  No. It is the Nøkken.

  She saw it rising from beneath the waves, a horrible figure of mottled skin and sparse black hair hanging in lank strips around its toothy maw. Its eyes were large, protuberant, and glowing. Its arms were too long and its torso potbellied and misshapen.

  Before it reached the strand, it began to shift, and before her eyes, the creature changed. Its height increased, and its body became more graceful, more beautifully made. Its face transformed into the face of an angel, the visage of the most handsome of men emerging from the sea like a gift of the gods. It went from monster to man in heartbeat.

  What does it want? Nika asked the goddess with her.

  To kill you.

  She retreated into the house, locking and barring the door. Why does it want to kill me? she asked. What did I do?

  It felt your power when you awoke the book. Ithunn sounded almost apologetic. It was called when I was summoned forth.

  Nika dragged a cedar chest across the door and closed and locked the windows, pulling the curtains closed as if that would do anything to keep the monster out.

  You must listen to me, Ithunn told her. You are the seventh incarnation of this soul since I bonded with it. More than that, you are the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter.

  Nika had never known her family. She had been adopted by the only parents that she knew, plucked out of some orphanage in St. Louis. “This makes no sense,” she objected aloud.

  Listen. Seven, three times. That is a powerful number.

  “Powerful numbers won’t help me if I can’t keep that thing out of the house.”

  Upstairs, Ingrid was rising, attracted by the sound of her voice. “Nika?”

  “There’s a Nøkken coming!” she shouted. “I don’t know what to do!”

  Ingrid came down from the loft like a firefighter, sliding down the ladder with her
feet on either side of the supports. She hurried to the fire and grabbed the poker.

  “It is a faery creature, so cold iron will injure it. And it is a water creature, so we turn to fire.” She pressed the poker into Nika’s hand, and then set about filling a bottle with lighter fluid from the fireplace. She tore a strip from her nightgown and shoved it into the neck of the bottle.

  Nika, listen, Ithunn urged. The runes have chosen you. Only you have the power to wield them. I had hoped you would have time to learn, but time is coming to an end, and you must know what you are. You must become a Rune Master.

  She could hear the crunch of the creature’s feet on the driveway outside. A smooth masculine voice, musical and seductive, called out in perfect American English.

  “Nika, come out.”

  What do I have to do?

  Swing that poker when it breaks down the door, and do what I tell you to do.

  They prepared themselves for the crash to come, but instead, there was a very polite knock.

  “Nika?”

  “Go away!” Ingrid shouted.

  There was a moment of silence, and then the Nøkken replied. “I wasn’t speaking to you, old woman.”

  Nika went to the door and slowly, carefully opened it.

  The creature standing there was nothing like she had expected. He looked like a tall human man, perfectly shaped in every detail and perfectly naked. His magnificent body shone beneath the water droplets still clinging to his golden skin. His hair was blond and thick, falling in damp waves around his handsome face. He looked at her with the greenest eyes she had ever seen and smiled, revealing teeth that were white as pearls and perfectly even.

  She gaped.

  “Nika,” he said warmly. “May I speak with you? My master has a message.”