Rune Master

by Amelia Wilson

  “I believe that we can help one another.”

  “Help one another with what?”

  He smiled. “You must know that the mortal world is completely out of control. It’s chaos. People cannot be trusted to run their affairs appropriately. They’re backstabbing, lying, frightened children in need of a keeper. It is time for the gods to return to our ascendancy and to take control of mankind, once and for all.”

  She frowned but did not respond.

  “These are harrowing days, Nika and Ithunn. The Asatru movement is resuming our worship, and we are gaining strength. I have gained immeasurably from the fascination caused by popular culture – did you know that a movie series exists where I, or someone with my name, plays a prominent part? I am remembered.” He smiled, just shy of gloating. “The more they speak my name, the stronger I become, and I am certain that the time has come for mankind to welcome its new king.”

  “No.”

  He raised his eyebrow again. “No?”

  “No, I won’t help you enslave humanity.”

  “Who said anything about enslavement?”

  “You did,” she retorted, “without actually saying the word.”

  “You object?”

  Her voice was hard. “Strenuously.”

  Loki chuckled. “You Valtaeigr are so alike. Always so concerned about the way things should be done instead of with the way things need to be done.”

  “I fail to see the problem.”

  He gestured toward the bag she was holding so tightly. “And what do you have there? A present for me?”

  “No. Not for you. This is mine.”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  She could feel a tendril of energy snaking out from him, reaching into her mind. He was trying to force her obedience. She raised her chin.

  “I said no.”

  He grinned, delighted. “You have a strong will.” He rose and walked around the desk. “I wonder how strong it would be under actual duress.”

  She raised her hand toward him, her palm facing him. A glowing rune appeared there, white and gold shining brightly. “Do you want to roll those dice?”

  He stopped short, surprised. “So you have found your power.”

  “Found it, learned it, harnessed it.” The rune began to spin. “I’m ready for you.”

  Loki looked uncertain for just a moment, and then he forced a laugh. “I look forward to a duel at a later date.” He stepped back and bowed to her, half mocking, half sincere. “Since you will not join me, I will allow you to leave. Our parting will be less civil the next time we meet.”

  She rose and retreated toward the main area of the bar. “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nika emerged from the office and was almost instantly met by Erik. She embraced him tightly.

  “I was so worried!” she gasped.

  “I couldn’t find you anywhere. I called but you didn’t hear.” He pulled back and cupped her face in his hands. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded and covered his hands with her own. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He was happy to comply with her request. Taking her by the hand, he led the way out through the delivery entrance and into the street. She looked at him quizzically as he took them on a circuitous retreat through back alleys until they reached the subway station.

  “We have a lot to catch up on,” he told her once they were safely underground. “We can’t go back to the house.”

  “Why not?”

  He looked around, and then pulled her after him into a service tunnel. When he was certain they had not been followed, he opened a maintenance closet door and pulled her inside with him.

  “Erik, what is going on?”

  “The army is trying to kill me.”

  Her eyes widened. “So that’s what you meant when you said you’d been betrayed.”

  He nodded. “I’m thinking they don’t like having vampires on their payroll anymore.”

  “What about the team you were training?”

  “They’re not vampires. They’re mortals who’ve been fed dreyri.”

  Her face clouded and she felt her heart sinking with disappointment that she had been resolutely refusing to acknowledge. “Like me. Were you going to tell me?”

  He hesitated, clearly not wanting to discuss this, but also clearly aware that he had no choice. “I couldn’t risk losing you.”

  “So you lied to me instead?”

  “It wasn’t lying.”

  “Yes, it was. You told me that I was Draugr once I drank the blood.”

  “You were.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Nika, once you taste dreyri, you belong to us. You are Draugr then by allegiance.”

  “But not in fact,” she pressed. “For that, you would have to turn me.”

  He looked miserable. “Yes.”

  “You weren’t going to turn me, were you?”

  “Nika…”

  She felt her neck tighten. “Tell me.”

  Erik sighed. “No. Every time I have tried to make you in the past, with your past incarnations, it has failed. I can’t fail again, not when failing means watching you die.” His eyes glittered, suddenly moist. “I can’t bury you again.”

  Anger flared in her. “So you’re telling me that you’re a liar and a coward.”

  He turned from her, and then turned back. His jaw muscles twitched. “Yes. Are you happy? Yes. I am afraid of losing you and never finding you again. But I am no coward.”

  “But you don’t dispute the part about being a liar?”

  He spread his hands at his sides, helpless. “I can’t.”

  It was Nika who turned away, turning her back on him in the narrow confine of the maintenance room he’d dragged her into. She fell the Book in her satchel begin to hum again. It’s responding to my emotions, she thought.

  She stayed facing away from him. “Loki asked me to help him subjugate mankind.”

  “What did you say?”

  She turned back to him, stung. “How can you even ask me that question?”

  “It’s a valid one.”

  She spat, “I told him no.”

  “Just no, or did you elaborate?”

  Nika wanted to hit him. “What does it matter?”

  “Because when you deal with Loki, you are dealing with the devil. Every word you speak is a contract.” He put his hands on her upper arms, holding her gently. She did not pull free. “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘No, I will not help you to enslave humanity.’”

  “That was all? No elaborations?”

  This time, she did pull out of his grasp. “Jesus Christ, Erik, give me some credit. It’s not like it was hours ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His apology had a cavernous air to it, as if he was sorry for a hundred things she didn’t even know. She thought about how he had admitted to a past of rape and murder, and she wondered how much she really knew about him, and how much people could really change.

  She raised her right hand toward him, palm out. A rune began to glow there, spinning, transforming into a dagger of fire. She gripped it and pointed the tip at him.

  “We’re done here. I don’t even know who you are.”

  “Nika,” he pleaded. “I’m the man who loves you.”

  She almost wavered at the sight of the pain in his eyes, but she steeled herself to what she had to do. “Get out of my way.”

  The dagger was now fully solid, made of silvered steel that still glowed red-hot. He shook his head.

  “If Loki wants you involved in his plans, he will stop at nothing to make you join him. I can’t risk that you’ll be captured by him, or worse.”

  She stepped forward and pressed the point of the blade against the zipper in his jacket. “Move.”

  Reluctantly, he stepped aside. “You may have become a Rune Master, but you don’t know what you’re walking into.” She opened the door, and he continued. “I know what he’s planning.”

 
She hesitated. “What?”

  “He’s going to either subjugate or murder one of the dignitaries at the G8 conference.”

  Nika shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. He’d never get close enough.”

  “He is a shape shifter vessel for the trickster god. I’d say that if anyone could walk through security without being noticed, it would be him.”

  She closed the door and stayed inside with him. Her hand holding the dagger dropped, and the weapon itself returned to the form of energy and dissipated. She felt torn. On one hand, she was angry with him for his lies and half-truths. On the other, he was the only person in all of Sweden that she felt she could depend upon if the chips were down. She decided to give him a chance, at least on the level of this current crisis. She would decide later if she would give him a chance in a more personal arena.

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “I can’t go openly to the G8, not when SOG and every other security force known to man will be standing guard.”

  “And I can?”

  He sighed, looking exasperated. “Neither of us can. But… we can keep watch outside.”

  “Just the two of us?” She shook her head. “You know these things always take place at really large venues. How are we supposed to be keeping an eye on a hundred different entry and exit points?”

  “We’re not.” He hazarded a smile, and it brightened his eyes. “We’re going to let regular security handle those. Since you’ve mastered the power of the runes, I assume that you’ve been to see Ingrid.”

  “Yes.” She was confused. “What has she got to do with anything?”

  He didn’t answer, which was an infuriating habit of his. He said, “She has a book of magic…”

  “Had.” She opened the flap on her bag and showed him her humming, magical cargo. “Now it belongs to me.”

  Erik looked suddenly delighted. “Perfect. Because that book will tell us how to set faery wards on the conference.”

  She thought of the ward on the door at Snake Eyes, the one that told the house that a First was entering the bar. It made sense. “So if I set a ward on the building, as soon as the Nøkken steps foot on site, we’ll know.”

  He smiled. “Exactly.”

  “That’s a pretty big ward, Erik. I’m new at this. I don’t know if I can create something that big.”

  The look he gave her was skeptical. “You’re a Rune Master and the seventh incarnation. Of course you can create something that big. You could probably set a ward over the entirety of Europe.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I don’t.”

  He took a deep breath. “I know you’re angry with me, and you have the right. I should have been more open with you. I don’t know how happy you would be with me risking your life without taking the time to have a detailed discussion about turning you, either. We were going to have that talk, but after I got back from deployment. It’s not the sort of thing you can get through over texts.

  “That being said, we have to work together to stop Loki. He cannot be allowed to do whatever he’s going to do – which is probably to take the form of one of the sitting heads of state, either of Russia or the United States. Once we’ve beaten him, we can have the long conversations we need to have.”

  She knew he was right. “I was going to stop him,” she told him. “After I left that office, I was going to stop him. I just didn’t know how.”

  “Let me work with you.” He took a cautious step forward. “After that… after that, I will let you go, if that’s what you want me to do. But let me work with you on this threat. There’s too much at stake.”

  Nika sighed. “I’m not going to let humanity suffer because I’m having a fight with my boyfriend.”

  He grinned. “I didn’t think so, but it’s good to hear.”

  Nika put her hands on her hips. “So where do we go now? This closet is a little small, and we have to someplace where I can study the book. The house is off limits because of your bosses, and I’m willing to bet that every hotel room in the city is booked because of the summit.”

  He considered. “I know just the place.”

  ***

  He took her to a little house outside the city. It was non-descript, just a white house on a block of other white houses in a tidy little suburban neighborhood. There was a planter shaped like a frog on the front porch, and the house key was beneath it. He retrieved it and opened the door.

  The inside was nothing like the outside. Whereas the exterior of the house was nondescript and everyday, the interior was like stepping back in time. The only walls were the ones bearing the weight of the structure; the others had been cleared away, leaving only support pillars in their place. The center of the single room had a pit dug into the floor, and it was ringed with stones and filled with cold ashes. The ceiling was blackened from the smoke of bygone fires. The walls were covered with wooden planks, all elaborately carved and painted with Norse interweave figures. Round shields with steel bosses were hung on the walls, and between the shields were weapons of every description, from the medieval to the modern, running from a double-headed axe like the kind Erik favored all the way to an actual grenade launcher in the corner. The floors were covered in dirt, and the only furniture was benches, a trestle table, a trio of chairs and a bed against the far wall, mounded with furs.

  Nika walked in while Erik shut and locked the door behind them, her eyes taking in the ancient style of the place. She could sense the echoes of a powerful Draugr here, and she turned to Erik, an unspoken question in her expression.

  “This was Gunnar’s house,” he told her.

  “It’s…”

  “Weird?”

  “Nice.”

  She sat on one of the benches and pulled the Book of Odin out of its bag. It seemed to be feeling content, if a book could feel anything. She put it on the bench beside her.

  He sat in one of the chairs, watching her. She could feel his eyes upon her. He was thinking a hundred things; she wondered what they were. To forestall any uncomfortable topics, she spoke. “Have you ever seen this book before?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’ve heard of it, though.” She stroked the cover, and the book purred audibly. Erik looked startled. “It’s alive?”

  She chuckled at his reaction. “It seems to be. It’s sort of like having a book that’s part cat.”

  “That’s extraordinary.”

  “Says the Viking vampire.”

  He smiled. “Touché.”

  She stroked the book again, trying to leech some of its contentment. Her stomach was in knots. “You were hurt, weren’t you?”

  Erik shrugged. “I had a bad day or two. I’m all right now.”

  “You can’t even answer that question directly?” She could not keep the disappointment from her voice. Erik lowered his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, I was hurt. Badly. I was shot with silver bullets, and I fell from a building, and I was captured and held in chains.”

  “My God…” She shook her head. “It’s a miracle you weren’t killed.”

  “I almost was.”

  Nika warred with herself, with her irritation and pride, and with her need to touch him and reassure herself that he was as healthy as he seemed. Her desire and love won out, and she went to him. He looked up at her, his blue eyes searching her face, and she embraced him, holding him to her breast. He put his hands on her waist, and then encircled her with his arms.

  She kissed the top of his head and stroked his soft blond hair. “No more getting shot. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He pressed a kiss to her chest, his lips above her heart. She pulled back and looked into his eyes, seeing no lies there and no threat.

  “I’m still angry with you for lying to me about the dreyri.”

  “Okay.”

  She kissed him, deeply and passionately. The tip of his tongue flickered against her lips, and she opened her mouth to allow him to explore her. He groaned softly, pullin
g her tighter. She ran her hands through his hair, encouraging him to continue. She had missed this.

  His hands skimmed over her body, moving from her waist up over her ribs, and then gently cupping her breasts. She arched into his touch, and he slid one hand down her flat abdomen to slide under the bottom edge of her shirt. The feeling of his skin on hers sent a shock of excitement through her, and she shivered. Beneath his touch, the rune power flared, and she knew that he could feel it, too.

  Chosen, he whispered in her head. He pulled away from the kiss and moved his lips to the corner of her jaw, then to the hollow behind her earlobe.

  “I love you,” she responded, breathing the words like a sigh.

  He rose and gathered her up in his arms. He carried her to the bed and put her down gently on the pile of furs. Their eyes met and held as he knelt above her. She ran her hands over his strong shoulders, down the hills and valleys of his muscular arms. His strength was an aphrodisiac, his pure masculinity fueling her desire.

  “Make love to me,” she whispered.

  He dipped down to take her lips in another burning kiss. She opened the button on his jeans and pulled the zipper down, feeling the evidence of his desire straining for freedom. He groaned softly in the back of his throat when her fingers brushed against him.

  He broke the kiss and straightened, pulling his shirt off over his head and flinging it aside. She loved the way his muscles rippled beneath his skin. She pulled off her own top and opened the button on her own jeans. He grasped her waistband and slid the confining garment down and off, baring her long legs.

  “Erik,” she said, reaching out to him.

  He stepped back and divested himself of his clothing. She smiled when she saw the evidence of his arousal, proudly jutting forward. She took it in her hand and stroked slowly. He smiled at her, his eyes thick with desire, and he slid her panties down. She lifted her hips to help him with his task, and he smiled. It was the most entrancing smile she had ever seen.

  He knelt at the side of the bed and pulled her closer, his hands beneath her hips. She shivered at the first touch of his tongue, and she buried her hands in his hair, urging him on. He complied eagerly, his mouth warm and wet against her sensitive flesh. She moaned and writhed, but his hands held her hips steady.