by P. W. Child
Nina frowned. It was hard to remember the numbers in sequence, even not knowing that she was dreaming. The narrator in her mind, who told her the story she watched playing like a movie in her deep sleep, faded at first a little, then gradually faded more and more as the scenes progressed until her voice was completely distant upon the hard wind that blew through the tale. Trying to memorize the sequence of them, she knew that numerical references were always important because they usually represented precise coordinates, distinct measurements, or important dates. But as she drew closer to the rock, where it was now dead silent apart from the trickle of the river’s flow behind her, a demoness rose from behind the stone.
It was a multi-armed bitch with the face of an angel, but her eyes glowed with fire and her long red hair whipped about her back in the urging of a tempest that did not exist. Her flaming mouth opened and from it came a banshee keening that ran ice through Nina’s veins; a shriek so foul that it echoed in her ears for long after she had woken with a scream.
The dainty historian was relieved to find herself in the second story study of Wrichtishousis, even if she was alone, save for the security staff. Her cheek ached from the pressure of her head on the open book and she sucked up the wetness from the corner of her mouth, rubbing profusely at the soaked page she spoiled with her dream drool. Even as she sat up, watching the sun set on the other side of the study’s great panoramic window, she still heard the awful shriek of the red haired devil woman.
“Oh thank God,” she muttered under her breath, grateful that it had been only a dream inspired by the material she had been perusing in the banned book Herman found her. She sank back in her chair with a great sigh and looked at the rows of antique books along the north and east walls, wondering what manner of nightmares their contents could inspire if she ever ventured into their yellow stained pages. Some of them were locked with brass and iron, others frail and peeling from their former grandeur. Nina wondered where Purdue had acquired them and why. He was not much of a mystery to her these days, but sometimes his actions, his strange lusts, still had her confounded.
She had kept it from all her friends and colleagues why she had decided to give in to his affections and become his lover, but she was a logical thinker, a woman always in pursuit of knowledge. It had been odd to many who knew her why she would agree to a romantic relationship with a man she always conceded to tolerate at best. Looking around the large room of information, she oiled her gears. Nina had to constantly remind herself why she sacrificed her body and her true feelings, otherwise she would feel like a dirty opportunist. Well, she was an opportunist. There was no denying that, but she had to keep remembering why she was insane enough to pretend to feel any romantic inkling for Dave Purdue.
Still, she dared not reveal to Sam Cleave or his friend Patrick Smith, who had become an amusing almost-friend by now, why she allowed Dave Purdue to know her as a lover.
That very reason was the frustrating seed of her presence here in Purdue’s mansion. Now that he was in Spain for a while longer she finally had the house to herself, and a good chance to snoop around for an artifact he possessed. The relic she most coveted – the Spear of Destiny – was in somewhere in his house, she was certain. After she had discovered the terrible power of the relic on Deep Sea One, and had it unceremoniously ripped from her custody by Dave Purdue for God knows what purpose, she needed to know where it was.
Nina knew the evil that coursed through it and she had discovered Purdue’s involvement with a very nefarious organization of Aryans. These factors did not bode well for mankind, thus she had to intervene, no matter what amount of betrayal, delusion or danger came with it.
It was not as if she wanted the item for herself. She was smart enough to know that it was a piece with such immensely foreign qualities, so powerful that no mere man in pursuit of domination should have possession of it. This was the reason why she consented to step into Dave Purdue’s bedroom, be his deceitful lover of good intentions. It was just that it had such a sick ring to it that she could not bring herself to tell Sam this. No matter how noble her intentions were, it sounded twisted and whorish to Nina and she never wanted him to see her that way. Perhaps he would understand. Then again, maybe it would make her look like a charlatan who should not be trusted, even with genuine objectives. What was to stop Sam Cleave from seeing her as a reckless speculator if she should ever entrust him with her motives?
No, she had to keep her secrets hidden, her vendettas covered. For the time being, she had to find the relic Purdue had spirited away back when those questionable characters from the Order of the Black Sun gathered on his oil rig and left her and Sam to fend for themselves.
It was impossible to locate, though, and she could get no closer to its whereabouts except for just coming out and asking Purdue straight out. That would be catastrophic, she knew. For all his fun-loving pursuits she had learned that Dave Purdue, uncharacteristically, wanted to be part of the hierarchy in this clandestine organization of Nazi. It disturbed her, because they were up to the same thing the Third Reich was in the 1930’s – world domination. A world with power mongering aristocrats was worse than a war torn patch of scorched earth laden with the bodies of the righteous.
Purdue did not understand this. He was blinded by his own wealth and genius, something she could not blame him for. But Nina Gould would be damned if she simply allowed his childish naivety get him into a chaos of devastating peril.
Chapter 6
Gunnar landed an obliterating blow on the tourist’s jaw, sending him sprawling across two tables which folded under his weight and left him unconscious under the splinters of wood and twisted aluminum.
“Fucker! Touch my woman again and I’ll staple your head to Jimmy’s fucking dashboard!” Gunnar screamed. His face had turned a dangerous dark maroon with rage. This was the extent of his malice when he was sober. In the murky light of the road side bar just outside Glasgow, he licked his ripped up knuckles and looked around at the disapproving looks of the patrons, not excluding his own friends.
The Turkish tourist did not move now. Clearly he was out cold from the jab Gunnar delivered. Being Gothenburg’s heavyweight champion four years running, the Swedish Pariah’s talents as a beater of men had clearly not abandoned him in his old age. 47 years of age, he was still a burly, barrel chested brute – only now, he had no responsibilities, a big motorcycle, and a beautiful mate. In fact, she was the only person who could discourage him from enjoying a good brawl every now and then. He knew she hated it even more when it was on account of her that he indulged in his violent drives.
Granted, she was beautiful and beguiling, but she could handle herself around lustful men. Besides, she was not a young girl anymore and it was easy for her to shoot them down of her own accord. She had the right personality for it, too. Many a time she was mistaken for an Irish heritage, thanks to her impervious morality and fiery retorts. Occasionally, like tonight, her comebacks fell on uneducated ears and merely became repellant attempts. Sometimes, with men like this one, there was no reasoning or one-liners that would put him in his place. Sometimes, some men only understood the age old clarification – pain.
Gunnar was about to pounce again on the slowly wakening offender when a large set of fingers grasped him tightly by the neck and pulled him back with such force that he came off his feet. Throughout the establishment, the alarmed shrieks of women resounded and the men all stood still, watching. They were Gunnar’s allies, but the club never reacted to a situation that one of their brothers could handle. It was code.
Gunnar’s huge body landed hard against the bar and the back of his head slammed against the wall of the counter. The impact resounded through his skull, tapping the back of his eyeballs and he could feel his hands and feet erupt in pins and needles. It was a hard shot. Being a man of no modest size, he was shocked to be man-handled so easily. Stretching his eyes to focus from the blur of the damage, he saw his woman standing on the opposite side of the room. Her expres
sion was empty, not in apathy, but because she trusted Gunnar to take care of himself. It was a compliment when she did this, a show of belief in his abilities. Some of the women held tightly onto their partners’ arms, some with their hands over their mouths. The men nodded when he looked at them. They were his Brothers in Arms, but this was his fight.
It was code.
Finally, he set his sights on the man who did this to him. There was no point in procrastinating anymore. Before he would receive another unwelcome adjustment, he figured that he had better get a move on. Surprisingly, Gunnar found it a bit taxing to come to his feet, even though the pain had mostly subsided. Then again, he was no young buck anymore and the years of fighting and toils have worn down his reflexes and stifled his physical abilities. He hated it because it was once the only thing he was good at. It was the only thing his wife first found attractive in him. She called him warrior and admired his only talent. As far as he was concerned, at least, brawling was his only talent.
Now here was another showdown in his mature years and he was not going to back down from the opportunity, not while she had faith in him to succeed. He got his bearings and found his footing - that well trained footing he was drilled to master as a teenager yet decades ago in another life, in Sweden. He shook his head like a furious bull at the ready for the charge to meet his nemesis. On his broad shoulders, his white mane shifted and he wiped his brow of the strands that fell over his face from the force of the fall.
In front of him stood a giant, swarthy Turk. With a beer belly and handlebar moustache, Gunnar’s opponent looked like a fat Greek thug with a rapidly receding hairline. He grinned at Gunnar. It was not a hearty Highland hello type of smile, but rather reminiscent of an Eastern European rapist. The sweaty thug grimaced, revealing two gold lined teeth glinting in the smoky half dark that Gunnar was very eager to dislodge with his fist. The Turk mouthed off to him in his tongue, obviously not versed enough in English to sound threatening. Gunnar heard nothing but his own racing heart and saw nothing but his wife’s eyes behind the enormous oaf.
While he was talking, the Turk never saw Gunnar pull a homemade knuckle duster from the back pocket of his jeans, but all the bikers and their ladies did. Preparing for what they knew well to come, some looked away inconspicuously while others merely dampened their grins as not to alert the dark foreigner. Jimmy, the bartender, picked up the phone hidden in the corner where the narrow corridor to the office turned.
“Good evening,” he greeted almost jovially, “This is Jimmy from Bootlicker Bar…r-righteo…aye, thank you, lass… right away would be good. Looks like just one this time, maybe two, if his brother wakes up in the next 10 minutes. Thanks luv.”
As owner and operator of Bootlicker’s, a well frequented biker bar, Jimmy’s name was familiar at emergency services from Glasgow Royal Infirmary to Southern General and Stobhill Hospital. And tonight was no different. They were sending the ambulance. Jimmy only hoped that it would not be for Gunnar.
After he completed his call, he leaned on the counter to watch the coming events calmly, “If you break anything, you pay for it!”
Gunner nodded without looking at Jimmy, panting to work himself into a good frenzy before slipping his thick scarred fingers into the holes of the steel crafted equalizer behind his back. Some of the patrons quietly left the bar. Gunnar kept his hands behind his back as if he was propping himself up. See, when he was a small boy in Gothenburg, there was only one thing better than being a good fighter and that was to be a good bluffer. Many of his rumbles were won by some sort of guile. Even when he was already well trained and beefy enough to pack a punch, he sometimes used cunning to defeat his opponents just because he was lazy that night. He did not warrant a bloody outcome every single time and sometimes it was just simpler, quicker and cleaner just to cheat – as it was with most things in life.
Before he could look at his wife again, the fat Turk lurched toward him with amazing agility, roaring like a charging boar from a jungle brush. Jimmy winced as he noticed the jukebox behind Gunnar and started tallying up the damages already. When the Turk reached Gunnar, and the Swede hooked him one with the knuckle duster, time stopped. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Gunnar could hear the bones in his hand get crushed under the force of the tourist’s jaw and teeth. His steel weapon sank into his skin and snapped two of his metacarpals instantly, but still the Turk propelled forward.
However, the bottom of his face distorted in the clash, he took the big blond biker with him into the colorful music box. The Turk’s tongue tore off just inside the line of his teeth and Gunnar could feel the warm blood splatter his arm and face. Gunnar howled in pain as his opponent’s weight drove his spine into the steel and electric insides of the machine and the shards of shattered glass ripped into his flesh as they landed. The Turk grunted in semi-conscious at the shock of his jaw unhinging and he did not even feel the injury to his mouth before he passed out on top of Gunnar. But the boys waited to see what would ensue next before anyone would help. It was code.
Gunnar felt the excruciating throb in his right hand. His flesh and bones had become one with the steel punisher he wore and he slowly lifted his hand up in the air to have a look at the damage.
“Oh my god!” he said plainly at the sight of his mangled hand. “I look like a cyborg!” he looked at his wife from under the shoulder of the Turk, “Baby, I look like a cyborg. Look at this!” he sounded more amused than shocked. She did not know what to say, but as she started toward him his head fell back and he went to sleep in the blood, snot and glass of the jukebox corner. The code came undone.
They rushed to Gunnar’s aid and pulled the Turk off of him with immense trouble. Outside the ambulance lights flashed against the neon of the beer ads and the Bootlicker logo.
“They are here, people,” Jimmy bellowed as he helped clear the way for the EMT’s.
Gunnar’s wife was by his side all the way to the ambulance. When they drove off with Gunnar and the Turks, she took her husband’s motorcycle and followed them to the hospital.
***
“You know, you don’t have to prove yourself to me, love,” Gunnar’s wife said quietly as she held his good hand in the emergency room. It was still quite busy with the influx of injuries from a visiting rugby team and of course the odd simpleton trying to mimic the Highland Games in the professionally graded conditions of their back yards. Especially those using proper tree trunks and makeshift hammers, weak rope turning tug-of-war into chronic lumbago from coming thrashing to the ground, coccyx first and the like.
Gunnar was heavily sedated, but his years as a drug addict helped him cope with the fogginess of anesthetics and he managed a conversation as best he could.
“I’m getting too old for this shit, babe,” he slurred, trying to see his hand again. “And I can never admit it. Not in front of the boys…” he looked heartbroken as his fingers trailed over her small hands, “…and I could never admit that to you.”
Her face changed between sympathy, mild vexation, and finally, she just frowned, being at the end of her tether with his warped sense of self. Gunnar was not a man for self-pity and he was very confident in who he was, but he somehow always felt a certain need to prove himself in her presence, even after 20 years together.
“Gunnar, you have to listen to me, for once. In the name of all things holy, please just listen to what I say to you and listen well,” she said in a low tone, keeping her voice as quiet as she could even though it shivered with impatience. His crystal blue eyes drooped as he looked up at her. She was not sure if it was the sedative or if it was her husband’s weariness with life. “I have loved you since the day I met you and I still do, more, every day. You are my sky, remember? Without you, the stars will fall. Without you I have no heaven, remember?”
Gunnar nodded, holding back tears of inadequacy and guilt. He dropped his eyes to his bandaged hand and the bland pastels of the curtains that were drawn around his bed.
“You don’t have
to prove shit to me or anyone else, least of all, yourself,” she hissed through clenched jaws, staring him square in the face with her forehead against his. “Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Like everyone else, fighters get hurt. They also get tired, battle-weary. Battle-weary, Gunnar. It does not make you a weakling; it is what makes you a warrior. Not winning. Not coming off unscathed. People don’t get battle-weary when they are pacifists, do you understand?” she whispered with such conviction that it grew silent in the immediate vicinity. Patients and nurses, alike, listened. “Only losers die without scars. Only weaklings live to grow old. If you bleed, if you break, if you weep – it is the price of battle. Your scars are plenty, my love, and they spell out the name of Odin on your soul. That is what you are to me. Do you understand? That is what you are to me, even when you fall. Especially when you fall.”
He said nothing in return, but she knew that he took it to heart. If he did not this time he never would. But he did. The quiver in his lips told her so. Her cell phone’s message tone sounded, prompting a quizzical expression from her husband. She sighed.
“It’s that woman I met the other day. She is inviting us over. Tonight.”
“You go, baby. I’m stuck here for observation,” he jested with a lolling tongue. “Take the bike. I’m not going anywhere with my knackered back until tomorrow anyway and you will just get bored.”
Val kissed her husband and gave him a quick, sexy lick on the lobe of his ear, as she always did to show her affection. There was no ‘I love you’ with Val. She believed in actions, not words. Gunnar fell asleep as his wife dialed the number on her phone. Her sweet voice echoed into oblivion as he drifted off, “Hi Nina!”