Rune Master

by Amelia Wilson

  The elegant blonde in the black jumpsuit came into view, leaving the private offices in the back of the building to meet him at the bar. She put her hands on the counter top in front of him.

  “What?” she asked him.

  “Counsel,” he replied.

  Sif snorted. “We’ll see.” To the bartender, she nodded toward him with a desultory jerk of her chin. “Serve him.”

  A glass of dreyri appeared at his elbow, and he drank it without looking. The glass went back to the countertop with a click. “Another.”

  “Easy,” the bartender advised him. “It’s a good vintage. This one has been specially brewed.”

  The so-called brewing of dreyri was a complicated process, and it involved no actual brewing at all. It was herbs, and blood, and enchantments cast by the Valtaeigr in their hidden temple somewhere under Stockholm. Depending on whose blood it was, and which of the vala was doing the spell casting, the drink could be mild and spicy to hair-raising. The more power, the better the vintage was said to be.

  “A good vintage,” he allowed, “but I’ve had better. Another.”

  She poured the glass with a hint of a pout. Erik was amused in spite of himself.

  “Leave the bottle,” he directed.

  Sif returned. “Magda will see you… if she must. Huntsman.”

  He picked up the bottle and his glass and followed Sif back into the proprietor’s office. Magda was sitting at her desk, not as put together as she had been the last time he’d laid eyes on her. Her hair was down around her face, a little messy as if she’d just left her pillow. She was wrapped in a red silk kimono, the flaring sleeves a stark contrast to her slender white forearms.

  He sat before her desk. She looked at him with a scowl.

  “What do you need, Huntsman?”

  “My Chosen has gone missing. She is Valtaeigr. I need for you to cast an enchantment and find her.”

  Magda laughed. It was a short, harsh sound. “Oh, really? And why would I cast such a thing for you?”

  “Because I asked nicely.”

  “You know that I hate you.”

  “Yes.”

  “I say that she is better off without you. You haven’t turned her yet, anyway.”

  “No,” he admitted, finishing his glass. “Not yet.”

  “You won’t. You always let your fear rule you when you try to turn the ones you care about. Ever since Berit.”

  She sneered the name. He poured another glass full and put the bottle on her desk.

  “What makes you think she hasn’t run away?” Magda challenged him.

  “I don’t know. Maybe she has.” He pulled his pistol out of his shoulder holster and rested it on the desktop. “Maybe that’s not your concern.”

  She looked at him in disbelief. “Are you seriously threatening me with that contraption?”

  “No, not with the gun.” He drained his glass. “With the silver bullets inside of it.”

  She narrowed her dark eyes. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  He sat back and trained the gun onto her pretty face. “You would be surprised at some of the things I would dare to do.”

  “Desperation makes you unpleasant,” she snarled. Her Draugr teeth were descending. He could smell that she was afraid.

  “And why would I be desperate?” he asked. His manner and voice were calm. When lying to the vala, it was important to always lie convincingly.

  She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. “Because you can’t find your Nika, and Loki is looking for her. Because the squad of Draugr pets you trained are out hunting you.”

  Draugr pets. Well, that certainly explains their longevity. “They won’t find me.”

  “Are you so sure? They know where my bar is. They know where all of the Draugr hot spots are.” She smiled. “What makes you think that Sif hasn’t already called them to tell them that you’re here?”

  “Because Sif is loyal to her own kind, and loyal to you above all else. And she knows that I have you in here, and that I am never unarmed. She wouldn’t risk you that way.” He cocked the gun. “Now… about that spell?”

  She frowned. “You were more fun before you decided to have a conscience.”

  “We all have our challenges in life.”

  Magda rose. “May I go to my cabinet without you shooting me in the back?”

  He smiled. “If I were to shoot you, it would be between your eyes, not between your shoulder blades.”

  She turned her back on him and walked to a locked cabinet in the corner of the room. “I had to ask. It’s so difficult to predict what traitors like you will do.”

  He watched in silence as she entered the combination into the lock and opened the cabinet doors. A rush of scents from the old days reached him, earthy and moist, smelling of herbs and wood fires. The feeling of raw power rolled out into the room, as well, and he breathed it in.

  Magda did not turn. “Do you like that, Thorvald? Or perhaps it is Vidar that breathes so deeply.”

  “Perhaps it is both of us.”

  She made a noncommittal noise and began to pull out the components of her spell. An earthen brazier, then a small wooden tray went onto the desk. She added sprigs of herbs and a pinch of sulfur and mixed them all together in an earthenware mug. She brought it to him and held up a silvered dagger.

  “I need blood,” she said. “And I will not bleed for you.”

  The corner of his mouth turned up sardonically and he extended his wrist. She slashed his flesh with the dagger, the silver burning and keeping the wound from closing right away. His blood dripped into the concoction she was making.

  First she heated it over the brazier. Then, when it began to smoke, she added mead and stirred it with her finger. With her eyes closed, she chanted over it in the ancient tongue of the vala, and then consumed the potion. It hit her fast, like a drug, and he watched her with curiosity, pressing his fingers to the wound in his wrist.

  Magda tipped her head back, her eyes closed. She continued to chant. With her right hand, she began inscribing lines and swirls in the air, her finger leaving behind a white trace almost like the condensation trail from a jet plane. She began to rock in place, her voice growing louder. He could hear a rushing in his ears as power gathered in the room, filling the space between them until it was difficult to breathe.

  Her eyes flashed open, and she spoke in a voice like a hundred women speaking at once. He was in the presence of the spirits of all Valtaeigr who had ever lived and who were not currently clothed in flesh.

  “What do you seek?” she – they – demanded.

  “Nika Graves and the god Loki.”

  Her eyes flashed white. The goddess Sigyn had come forward. “Why do you seek Loki?”

  “For my own reasons.”

  “Answer.”

  He felt his own eyes flip to the same iris-less glow. Vidar responded. “Not to you.”

  “I will not help you seek my husband!”

  Vidar took control of his limbs and walked him to her body. His hands went to her throat. “You are compelled. You consumed the drink.”

  She pulled away, but he followed, his hand clutching her still, propelling her backward. They crashed into the wall at the back of the room, dislodging a painting from the wall. It crashed to the ground and the glass in the frame shattered.

  “Nika Graves is coming,” she hissed, speech difficult around the pressure of his thumb on her windpipe. “She seeks you.”

  “And Loki?”

  “He comes.”

  “Where. Is. He?”

  “In Agnafit!” It was the Old Norse name for Stockholm. “He sleeps in Stadsholmen.”

  He nodded. Stadsholmen, also known as Gamla stan, was Stockholm’s Old Town, built on the island in the center of the city where the first settlement had sprung up all those years ago. The buildings there were relatively new by his reckoning – they‘d been built in the thirteen hundreds. He had known it then, and he knew it now. “Where?”

  Her only res
ponse was to spit in his face. He laughed and released her. The white glow in his eyes retreated, leaving only the green Draugr spark behind.

  “How far is Nika? Where, exactly?”

  She stepped away from the wall and side stepped him, her own eyes returning to their usual brown. “Find her yourself.”

  Magda left the room through her private door, locking it behind her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Snake Eyes was busy, as it probably always was. The Draugr likely had no jobs to concern themselves with, and no need to wait or weekends to do their clubbing. Every night was a party and every day just a chance to catch their breath.

  Nika slowly drove past Snake Eyes in Ingrid’s car, judging the place and the stream of vampires coming and going. She was hesitant to go in without Erik, but while she was driving down from the coast, she had seen a vision of him in Magda’s office. Maybe it had been the wishful thinking of an exhausted mind, or maybe it had been a true moment of clairvoyance, but it was the only thing she had to go on.

  Her stomach burned with the power of the runes she had absorbed, and the Book of Odin sat on the passenger seat, sleeping like a child. She had come to realize that some inanimate objects were not as inanimate as she might have believed.

  She pulled into a parking garage down the street. She had a messenger satchel that she’d liberated from Ingrid’s loft, and she slid the Book into it, keeping it close. She pulled the strap over her head so that it hung across her body, the leather snug between her breasts, weighted by the heavy book in the bag. It felt good. It felt real.

  Nothing else did.

  She had gone to the house first, and she had swallowed as much dreyri as she could bear. It combined with the rune power in her gut to make her hot, just this side of feeling sick. Her forehead was slick with a fine sheen of sweat. The power was gathering.

  ***

  Erik sat in the corner of Snake Eyes, slowly drinking his way to the bottom of another bottle of enchanted blood, keeping his attention on the door. After his audience with Magda, something inside of him had shifted from active to watchful. Both Nika and Loki were in Stockholm. He was certain that one or both of them would end up here.

  The chance that Stenmark and his fellows, or possibly the entire SOG, might also arrive here was not lost on him. He chose to take that chance.

  To the other vampires in the bar, the presence of one of the First sitting in the corner and loading up on the strongest dreyri in the house was intimidating. They left him to his own devices and gave his table a wide berth. Some of them went so far as to studiously and respectfully avert their eyes from him, eager not to attract his attention.

  These young ones had nothing to fear from him. He cared nothing for them or their petty little concerns. He had his own agenda, and they did not feature into it.

  One of the middling-aged Draugr in the bar was sitting a few tables away, his smart phone flickering as he flipped through his Facebook newsfeed. Erik turned and looked at him, and the younger vampire, feeling the sudden weight of his gaze, looked back, startled.

  “Your phone,” Erik said. “Bring it here.”

  The man obeyed immediately, putting it on the tabletop. Erik pulled it over and opened a news site, where he searched on the G8 summit. After a moment, the tiny screen lit up with a video showing the arrival of the American President, surrounded by his Secret Service operatives and members of Swedish security on loan from SOG. In the background of the shot, while the President was waving to the crowd at the airport and getting into his limousine, he recognized Stenmark, shaved and suited. He was with the SOG contingent.

  Apparently, his little group of wanna-be huntsmen had landed the G8 gig after all.

  He tossed the phone back to the other Draugr. “Thanks.” The man retreated in relief.

  Erik poured himself another glass of dreyri, even though his head was already buzzing from it. Loki was a powerful god, and if he was inhabiting one of the Nøkken, he would be a difficult adversary. He needed to be prepared and to have his own power level as high as he could get it. Vidar was the son of Odin, but he had never been one of the strongest gods in Asgard. He was never supposed to face Loki, and Erik certainly was never meant to take him on.

  He sipped his drink. The next twenty-four hours would be interesting.

  When they hit the wards, the power echoed through the entire establishment. Draugr looked up, startled and wary, as the alarm told them by the flavor of its magic that three of the First and an ancient faery were entering. Erik pinned the door with a fixed stare as the Nøkken and his three companions entered the room.

  “Loki,” he said aloud.

  The Nøkken heard him, as he had been meant to do. The fact that he was wearing the face of a man Erik had already killed meant nothing. Every one of the Nøkken could wear any face they wanted, and they could walk in here together, thirty-one Rahim Amaris wide. They were shape shifters and could appear to be anyone at all.

  What they could not do was disguise the singular energy of an ancient god riding one of their souls like a jockey.

  The Nøkken looked at him, and the appearance of the Iraqi professor fell away, replaced by the face of the most singularly beautiful man Erik had ever seen. This, too, was a deception. There was nothing beautiful about the Nøkken or about Loki himself. There never had been.

  The quartet walked to Erik’s table while the rest of the occupants made room for them to pass. Several of the younger Draugr took this opportunity to leave the bar, abandoning ship in favor of safer spaces.

  “Huntsman,” Loki said. “You are very brave to face me here this way.”

  “I do not fear you,” he said. He waved to an empty chair. “Sit. Drink with me.”

  Loki raised on impeccable blond eyebrow and nodded to his escort. Erik remembered these men. They had been brothers in arms once, a millennium ago.

  The nearest, Brevik, had his wild red hair pulled back at the nape of his neck. His broad body was encased in motorcycle leathers, and his beard still bore the little braids and pewter charms that he had always favored. He no longer carried an axe, but Erik could clearly see the handle of a pistol at his belt.

  Beside him was Agnar, blond and blue-eyed and built like a walking mountain. Back in the day, he’d had a prodigious appetite for women and for violence. Erik was willing to bet that nothing much had changed. Agnar pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat on it backwards, straddling the back and folding his arms on top. He appeared to be unarmed, but the chances of this being true were slim to nil.

  The last of the trio accompanying Loki was Dag, who had once been Erik’s friend. Smaller and lither than the others, he hovered in the background, his eyes warily fixed on the seated Huntsman. Erik nodded to him, but Dag did not respond.

  Loki sat across from Erik and took the bottle of dreyri from the table. He examined it with amusement, and then put it aside. “It will take more than a fine vintage to defeat me, Thorvald.”

  “Perhaps,” he allowed. “Perhaps that’s not why I’m drinking it.”

  Loki produced a cigarette and lit it. He took a deep lungful of smoke and exhaled it back out into Erik’s face. The huntsman did not react. Loki smiled.

  “You know why I am here.”

  “No. Why don’t you educate me?”

  The Nøkken smiled thinly. “Don’t lie to me, boy.”

  Erik retrieved his bottle and emptied it. “It’s not a lie. I know it has to do with the G8 summit, but that doesn’t seem like your style.”

  “And what would you know about my style?”

  “More than you might think.”

  The door opened, and Nika stepped into the bar. Erik’s heart flipped in his chest, and he was unable to keep the spark of joy and relief from his face. Loki turned and saw her, and an oily smirk crossed his handsome face.

  “Ah. My rendezvous has arrived.”

  Nika stopped short as soon as she entered the room, her eyes falling immediately onto Erik’s face. He rose to his
feet, and she flushed. Her hand went to her chest, pressing against the flesh over her heart.

  Chosen, he greeted.

  Her face lit up. Erik. Are you all right?

  Better now that I see you.

  She crossed the room at a trot. Before she could reach him, Loki stood and neatly interposed himself between the lovers. She stopped short.

  “Miss Graves,” he said. “So good to see you again. I trust this time your mace will remain in your purse.”

  She stepped back, out of reach. “You wanted to see me.”

  “I did. We have much to discuss.” He gestured toward Magda’s office. “Shall we?”

  Reluctantly, with a conflicted expression on her face, Nika nodded. “All right.”

  Erik attempted to follow, but Loki’s Draugr escort stopped him. Agnar said, “Let them talk alone. No harm will come to her.”

  “Loki,” the huntsman called after him. The god in the Nøkken vessel turned to face him. “If you touch one hair on her head, I will destroy you.”

  Loki laughed and walked away, leading Nika into the quiet of the office.

  Erik considered his options, including the logistics of a silver-bullet shootout in this Draugr bar. He decided, much to his dismay, that discretion was called for. He sat back down.

  ***

  Nika followed the Nøkken into the office, her hand gripping the strap of the messenger bag. The Book was vibrating against her hip, responding to the proximity of the god inside the shape shifter.

  Loki sat behind the desk as if the office was his own. Nika sat across from him.

  “Has Ingrid told you how special you are?” he asked.

  “She’s told me who I am. Why did you want to meet with me?”

  He looked at her intently, his green eyes bright. Sensuality rolled from him in waves, something she had not been prepared to face. She could feel her face flushing in response to it, an inadvertent physical betrayal. She did not want to want him.