“Trygger…” Her voice was cautionary, which caused me to hold back a laugh.
Leaning on the railing of the balcony that lined the top floor, I pointed through the long glass window that lined the wall of the living area, all the way to the roof of the building.
“You’ve got to be kidding me? You want me to swim in the Thames for twenty minutes?”
Looking at her with a straight face, I made sure to enforce my stance. It may be an extremely cold river, but it was effective.
“Twice a day.”
“What?!” Her wide eyes and open mouth made her look a bit like the fish she would be swimming with.
“You’re nice and stretched, go get on with it. I have something to do.”
I couldn’t be her personal trainer every second of the day. If she wanted to become a warrior, she had to get on with it. Instead of the protest I was expecting, Chloe huffed once and went back into the gym.
Running a hand over my face, I went in behind, just to check that she was doing what I asked. Sticking my head around the door, I bit my lip as she stood, fiddling with the controls of the running machine.
Maybe it was a little unfair of me to expect her to know how to do everything instantly. Moving over to her silently, I gestured for her to get on. Going to slip on her shoes, she came back, her face set in determination. Showing her the directions to set the right speed, I glanced in the mirror as she started to move. Her back was hunched over, pulling her shoulder muscles forward. This was going to take a lot more work than I first realised.
“Stand straight at all times. Why is your posture so…bad?”
Putting my hand at the bottom of her back, I tapped her shoulder with my other hand. She straightened, almost losing her balance as she kept jogging.
“I’ve spent a lot of time working at desks.” Chloe’s breath huffed in and out of her. She wasn’t used to physical exercise, that much I could tell.
“Doing what exactly?”
I caught a slight lift of the corner of her lips before she replied. “Before computers were invented, I was a tracker. I was the one who helped Loki’s family find you. I would use divination…and magic.”
“Ah, yes, your magic.”
“When do I get to train with that? They used to push me so hard, I would run out of energy before I could find you. Sometimes I succeeded. Those people who found you, that was because of me.” Her sentence came out in bursts as her heartbeat increased and her legs pumped evenly on the treadmill.
“We don’t go near your magic until your physical fitness is better. Right now, you’re a danger to yourself. A warrior needs to be agile, tough and strong. The magic will just take you to a whole new level…” Her legs lost footing as she turned to look at me. “…when you’re ready. Which is not yet.”
Righting herself, Chloe faced forward, biting on her lip as she did. It was obviously starting to hurt. Five minutes in and I had to give it to her. She hadn’t complained once.
“How did you feel about working with the enemy?”
Shaking her head, she refused to answer. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t breathe and talk at the same time. Stepping back, I waited for the last five minutes to pass. The more I knew about her time with my enemies, the better.
When the timer beeped, I pressed the slow down button. She jogged for a minute longer before the machine shut off. Handing her a towel, I waited while she wiped the sweat from her face…and arm pits. She was as bad as me.
“I had to fit in. If I didn’t help them, it would be obvious that I wasn’t one of them. My gift became quickly apparent when they asked me to do some research to get me out of the way. When I came back with your whereabouts, they forced me to be their tracker. And a tracker I remained.” She shrugged, seemingly unbothered by assisting the people that were determined to kill me.
“And, now?”
Her frown matched my own. “What about now? Freya came to me and said it was time to leave them. I had done my job there and now I am needed by your side to help you defeat the Fallen Ones. Do you really think I had a choice?”
No, she didn’t have a choice. My own experience with Freya was filled with love and hate. She had helped save Thor, my grandfather, yet…at what cost? Was he still looking down on me from Valhalla, egging me on? Or, had he given up on me a long time ago? A thousand years was a long time to wait for your power to be returned.
“Rowing machine.” I pointed at the equipment. If she didn’t know how to work it, well, she would figure it out. “I’ve got something to do.”
Turning away from her, I dismissed her from my thoughts. My first plan of action was to find out who lived at the big house that we had just rescued Rusty from. The journal was in the back of my mind, but I would wait until Chloe trusted me. I didn’t want to push her away too quickly. Not if I was stuck with her for now.
“You’re lucky I thought to pack a bathing suit. Otherwise, you would have had to watch me walk down to the river naked.”
“You’d freeze your tits off,” I replied as I exited the room, laughing when her gasp of outrage was shut out as the door closed behind me.
Ducking to the right, I went into my tiny office. The walls were painted neutral light blue, a soothing colour for work. Sitting at my laptop wasn’t my favourite part of a day, but it had to be done. If Chloe was a good tracker, like she claimed, I could use her expertise. I was a reasonable tracker myself, but my magic couldn’t track magic, other than to tell me when they were near. So, I had to find the Fallen Ones by technical research alone.
Firing up the computer, I leant my head in my hands, taking a moment to breathe. I was used to ‘mad all over the place’ type of days, but the last twenty-four hours really were something to contend with. Never had I been challenged with training a woman or finding out who was killing my enemy in the space of a day. A part of me wondered if I could just leave the other people to slaughter Loki’s descendants. The rational part of me knew I couldn’t do that.
Typing in the address of the house Chloe had lived in, I found its owner. Analise. So, she had bought the house by herself. There was no other name on the deed. Yet, there were more people living there.
Searching the electoral roll, I found that no one had been registered there in ten years, even though the property belonged to the dark haired beauty. An image of her choking face came into my mind, but I pushed it away. Her soul was happily with her grandfather, Loki. And, she would have the chance to meet Freya. Oh, how the goddess would have some choice words to say to her.
“I’m going for my swim now, wherever you are,” Chloe shouted.
“I’m in here,” I called back.
Her footsteps padded nearer to the room, her head poking around the door. “Rusty, in here,” she ordered.
The dog wandered in, sniffing the single bed and chest of drawers. It was a spare bed, although it had rarely been used.
“You can sleep in here,” I said, suddenly, not knowing where the offer had come from.
Chloe’s eyes widened as she looked around the small cubby room. It wasn’t very big, but it was private. Better than sleeping on the sofa, wasn’t it?
“Thank you. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Closing the door, she left the dog with me. He went over, whining as her footsteps moved away. Ignoring the hairy thing, I went back to my search. If the family hadn’t voted, or entered their names on the electoral roll, they may have been changing constantly. Who knew how many descendants Loki had?
“Be quiet,” I hissed at the dog when he sat, pining for his owner.
He came over, nudging my arm with his nose. Scowling down at him, I didn’t react. The nudge came again. What was wrong with the thing?
Getting up, I went back into the gym to get my phone. I wasn’t very good at keeping it on me at all times. Rusty followed me, his claws clip, clip, clipping on the floor. I hoped it wouldn’t start to grind on me. He seemed harmless enough. A trip to the shops was in order
to purchase food for a dog. Oh joy.
“Jack, you smelly bastard,” I greeted my only friend when he answered my call. He was more a contact slash business partner than a friend, but he still knew how to throw a good party.
“Trygger, my friend, where the hell have you been? I had a wash a few days ago and wanted to tell you that I ain’t smelly no more. Well, that was then…I’ve been with a woman or two since…”
His laugh made me smile. The man was a south Londoner through and through. No matter how many years passed me by, the spirit of a true born London man was as strong as ever. They hardly changed their ways, or their speech.
“I’ve been slaying demons, as usual.”
“Ah, the great Viking warrior is at large. Funny you should say that…a rumour is circling about a certain Dark Crawler living longer than usual. Know anything about it?” The inhale of breath on the end of the line made me picture the thirty-year-old puffing on a cigarette.
Going over to the balcony, I watched Chloe through the window. She hovered on the side of the river, looking between the factory building and the water. Did she think she would get away with not doing it?
“No, I’ve not heard anything. Any idea who it is?”
Jack clicked his tongue. “Yeah, it’s your best friend, Frankie. Ha ha. Apparently, he’s outlived all Dark Crawlers…ever. I heard it from Dan. He reckons a Fallen One is helping him stay alive somehow.”
How my friend got into the underworld business of London, I didn’t know…and I never asked. I had met him at a club one day, on the prowl for a threesome. I had turned him down when he made a beeline for me.
“Ah, Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. Such a son of a bitch. When was the last time someone saw him? I thought he only had a week or so left when I last saw him. Only reason I didn’t cut his bollocks off and feed them to his slaves.”
My friend laughed, choking on the cigarette smoke he had obviously been inhaling. “Don’t, mate, seriously…I would’ve liked to see that after what he did to Matt.”
We fell silent as we remembered one of our insiders. An older man who got dragged into the darkness by his wife. He had hated what his wife stood for, scared of the black magic she dabbled in. However, he loved her dearly. Instead of dragging her away, he had fed information about certain mafia plans, witchcraft dealings, and the Dark Crawlers secrets, to Jack from inside the underworld.
Matt’s wife had killed him when Frankie noticed how undedicated he was to those that ruled the underworld. They relied on humans for their light. The life-force inside them. Dark Crawlers and Fallen Ones sucked the light out of a being by connecting their evil spirit to the soul of a human and pulling the light out, killing the human. It helped with the life flow of the body that the spirit inhabited. They needed humans like Matt’s wife, people with magic, to keep London a thriving place of humans with light, ready for darkness to feed off. All she had to do was spell people to forget what they saw if they witnessed any of the attacks. The media could never pick up on the amount of human deaths in the city, or all hell would break loose.
“Jack, do you know anything about Analise Theopolis? Heard anything?”
If anyone knew anything about the whole of the dank, dirty going ons in London, it was Jack. He kept his ears and eyes open, sometimes sleeping with men and women, just to get answers and information. He loved it. The dark side of him revelled in the part that he had to indulge. His good side passed on information to those fighting the darkness. People like me.
Since being on the earth, the Fallen Ones had contaminated humans, making their souls evil while they still lived. I had to fight the evil so the innocent humans were no longer used as an energy source to either be fed on or possessed. Although my soul was pretty dark itself, I still fought to eradicate the Fallen Ones. In a way, I was the light, fighting the dark.
It had taken me a while to trust Jack with my story. He had proved his worth by saving my life when a Dark Crawler almost caught me by surprise ten years ago. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I would have been able to kill the bastard, he had seemed too pleased with himself. Eventually, bit by bit, I had let him know who I was. He was the only person I trusted in the whole world. He didn’t even bat a mascaraed eyelash when I told him that I had Thor’s thunder in me, which in turn gave me magic. And that, if you weren’t a witch, was pretty unusual in this day and age.
“Ah yes, that tight bit of arse sat on my face not so long ago.” Jack brought my attention back to Analise.
The man was straight up human. Not one ounce of magic or evil spirit inhabited his vulnerable body. How he hadn’t been killed already amazed me. Yet, he had been drawn into the world of magic and darkness. It was hard to believe that he wasn’t like the people he had befriended.
My hand tightened on my phone. “Did she now? You didn’t happen to talk about me, did you?”
“Of course not, mate, I’m closed lipped when it comes to you. You showed me what would happen if I did speak, remember?”
I did remember. After I had refused to suck him off, I had followed him to his home of debauchery to spy on him. The man was a contradiction of sorts. He wanted to help, yet, he was always tempted by the pain and horror that played out under the guise of popular city life. When I found him in the alley with a Dark Crawler, I heard Jack telling him that he had tried to get me to co-operate. His failing was met with vengeance. The Dark Crawler attacked him, shoving his hand into Jack’s gut.
Without thinking, I had run at the creature before slicing his throat with my dagger. Jack had fallen to the ground, crying out in pain as the darkness stopped absorbing his light. I had picked him up, for some bizarre reason, and brought him home to heal.
After living with him for a week, I had found out that he couldn’t swim. Taking him to the river when he was healed, I dumped him in. Eventually, when he was about to drown, I dragged him out. Leaving him on the ground, I told him to get out of my life and never speak about me to anyone, ever again. I hadn’t been able to shake him since, which in one way was a pain, in another, quite handy.
“Saying that, I’m watching the gentle…” I downplayed it, the river was a little rough today. “…sway of the water as we speak.”
Chloe finally plucked up the courage to jump in. I shivered in reaction, knowing how cold it was in there. A smile crept onto my face as she resurfaced, wiped the water from her face and started to swim up and down. Maybe I had underestimated the woman.
“Don’t remind me,” Jack groaned. “The thought makes me shudder. Do you know how damaged I am because of you? I ain’t been near water since.”
“Well, I do like to make sure everyone…”
“Fears you…yeah, yeah, I know. Listen, Frankie is having a little get together at the weekend. I’ve managed to wangle an invite. Have you ever been to his place, mate? It’s the fucking Ritz on steroids, I’m telling you.”
My chuckle made Rusty rub himself against my leg. What was it with that dog and humour? Was he put in front of a television that showed comedy shows or something? Stroking his head absentmindedly, I thought about Frankie, the Dark Crawler. He was probably the closest thing to the latest Fallen One I was tracking. I didn’t even have a name for him yet.
“Can I be your date, then?” I asked, knowing full well that Jack was hinting at that exact thing.
His laugh was raucous down the line. “See, I told you one day you’d be knocking on my door, didn’t I?”
My face was straight as I thought about the opportunity. Getting close to Frankie could be my only way of finding my ultimate enemy. Someone I had wanted to kill for a very long time.
“Don’t get too excited, you’re not my type and you know it.”
Jack’s sexuality was always questionable to me. He left everyone guessing, which was wise. Buttering up the dark people in the city made his job easier. I really had no idea if he was genuinely bisexual, or if he did it to further his cause. Either way, I was pretty sure he enjoyed it.
“A
h, come, my friend…you’d crush me in a heartbeat, which is pretty tempting…but, I’d like to live.”
His hilarity made me shake my head. The man wasn’t tiny by any means, but he was right, if I wanted to, I could crush him. And, not just in a sexual act.
“Text me the details for the party. I’ve got something to check out tonight, but I can’t wait to rub shoulders with the elite darkness.”
My tone was ironic, yet, the quirk of my lip was truthful. It had been a while since I had been able to get close to any of the group. Although they knew my name, no one knew what I looked like. If I had ever come across any of them, they hadn’t survived long enough to tell the others who I was.
“Mate, I’m telling you now…you’re going to get your end away before the killing begins. Those women are hot for anything. A Viking warrior is going to turn them on big time.”
“No killing,” I said, backing up from the balcony as Chloe climbed out of the water.
She had only been in there a few minutes, had she given up already? Moving to her bag, she got a water bottle, downing a drink before throwing it on the ground and getting back in the water. Good girl.
“Aw, I like watching you kill. You’re so graceful. Although, seriously mate, I’ve got to be there when you find the Fallen One. That sword of yours is going to look so pretty with his dark soul hanging off it!”
Licking my lips, I relished the image myself. Jack had a way with words that was for certain. He could conjure up an image in a moment.
“Friday night, then,” he said when I didn’t reply. “I look forward to seeing you in your best, you sexy beast.”
The phone went dead. Pulling it away from my ear, I tucked it into my pocket. Friday night. That was three days away. My heartbeat increased as I thought about the possibilities. I would find out where the Fallen One was, once and for all.
With one last glance towards the Thames to check that Chloe was still swimming, I went back into my office. Rusty followed me, his whining stopped now that I had paid attention to him. There was one important thing I had to do that night. And, Chloe couldn’t know what it was.
Thunder Hunter: Viking Soul Book 1 (Viking Soul Series) Page 7