As human attention passed and worship ended, the gods had lost their powers. They had finally been forced to take up residence within human hosts, binding themselves to lesser souls and riding along through incarnation after incarnation. Some had chosen to bind themselves to the Draugr, or to the Veithimathr. Others had chosen the Valtaeigr. A few had been forced to occupy humans, denied the more powerful vessels by those who had taken residence before them.
It had been on a dreary midwinter day when his time had come to take on a sacred passenger. He had agreed readily enough, though the ritual was painful in the extreme. He could still remember the feeling of liquid fire when the god Vidar had fused with his soul.
That was when Ithunn, goddess of the Spring, had taken Berit.
He closed his eyes as the memory rose. Berit, so small, so frail, the most delicate example of the Valtaeigr line. The princess, the priestess, his great love. He had come closer to choosing her than he had with any other woman.
He regretted every day that he had not done so in time. If their vampire selves had been linked, perhaps she could have gained enough strength from him to survive her transformation. Perhaps he could have experienced at least a little of that great happiness of living with a chosen mate before the ritual had taken her from him.
When she died, he vowed that he would find her again. He would know her soul anywhere, he was certain, and when the time was right, he would choose her after all. He had vowed to the gods that he would stop drinking blood, bypassing the life-saving healing that the dreyri could give, until he had found her again.
Three times before, he had re-encountered Berit, still bearing the companionship of Ithunn in her soul. Three times before, he had been too slow to choose her, and he had lost her. Three times, he had buried his beloved.
The last burial had left him grief-stricken and vulnerable, and when Astrid made him the offer of an alliance, he had rushed in, in too much pain to think about what he was doing. At the time, loneliness had been a bigger burden than the loss of his freedom. They were married at midsummer after the winter he had lost Berit the third time.
They had never been a good match. He had tried to be dutiful, to be a proper husband. Astrid was too cold, though, and too proud. She never stopped reminding him that she outranked him. She was the vessel of Freyja, the great goddess, and she never let him forget that the god who had joined with him was of a lower station.
They had never been equals, not even on their wedding day, and the situation only deteriorated from his perspective over the years. He was nothing more than a lackey to her, her prized possession, valuable as the chief of the Veithimathr and the vessel of the god who was destined to kill Fenrir at Ragnarok.
He doubted now if Ragnarok would ever come. The world had changed so much – if there was to be an apocalypse, it would be of humanity’s own making. He very much doubted that there would be a giant immortal wolf for him to slay when that dark day came.
He heard the shower shut off, and he glanced back over his shoulder. Now was not the time to be lost in thought, he reminded himself. He turned back to his phone and dialed Gunnar.
“Go ahead,” his old friend said.
“How’s the arm?”
“Much improved. You should consider having at least a sip sometime… the dreyri is a remarkable thing.”
Erik shook his head. “Someday you will stop trying to convince me.”
“Only when you stop needing to be convinced.”
It was an old conversation, and he abandoned it as quickly as he could. “How are things in the vault?”
“Hakon isn’t much of a conversationalist.”
“That’s a good thing. If he starts talking, we have a problem.”
Gunnar chuckled. “True enough. No, it’s just me and the boys here around the box they have the old man’s body in. Nobody is coming in, not even your wife.”
“You know I hate it when you call her that.”
“Would you prefer it if I called her your keeper?”
He groaned. “I like that even less.”
“Then don’t complain.” He could hear Hrothgar’s voice in the background, speaking to someone. Hrothgar seemed to be allergic to quiet. Gunnar responded quickly, his hand muffling the phone, and then he returned. “I’ll call you if anything happens, but so far… nothing.”
“Good. Be safe.”
“Roger that.”
He shut off the phone again and went back to staring out the window.
***
Erik was talking on his cellphone when Nika came out of the bathroom, fresh from the shower. He was standing by the window, not at all self-conscious in his nudity. His body was muscular perfection, and his skin was shining in the rays of the setting sun. She found herself staring at him while he talked, drinking in the beauty of the sight.
She didn’t know where any of this was leading, but seeing him this way, she was happy to go anywhere, as long as he was going, too.
He ended the call and turned toward her, a smile on his face. “Look who’s back,” he said, coming to her and kissing her gently.
She returned the kiss and ran her hands over the hills and valleys of his rippling abdomen. “Look who’s here,” she returned. “Who was that?”
He tossed his phone onto the couch. “I was just checking in. One of our agents is on the inside now with the Draugr, and hopefully he’ll be able to tell us where they took the Sword.”
Nika wrapped her arms around his waist and looked up at him, her chin on his chest. “And until then?”
“Until then, we wait.” He stroked her shoulders. “You stay here, and I stand guard.”
“What about dinner?”
“I’ll cook.”
“Eggs again?”
He laughed. “Is there a problem with eggs?”
They sat together on the couch, Nika tucked up under his arm. She rested her head, her ear just above his heart. She could hear it beating, steady and strong.
“Are you really in the Swedish Special Forces, or is that just a cover?”
He chuckled. “I really am. I’m a captain in the Swedish army.”
Nika listened to his heart for a moment more, her mind filling with questions. There would be no better time to give voice to them, so she decided to go ahead and ask.
“You said that the Draugr aren’t like Hollywood. Obviously, the sun doesn’t hurt you. And I don’t think you’re undead… are you?”
“No. Not undead. Immortal, more or less.”
She frowned. “More or less? You can be killed?”
“Silver can hurt all Draugr. Fire can kill us. Having our hearts carved out, beheading, well… that will give anyone a bad day.” He kissed her damp hair. “But those are the only things that can kill me.”
“And what can hurt you?”
“Bullets hurt, but if they’re only lead, they’re just an inconvenience. If you drain out all of our blood, we’re paralyzed. We can only come back from that by feeding.”
She straightened. “What do you feed on?”
He looked almost embarrassed. “We’re vampires, love. What do you think?”
“Blood.”
“Yes. And the life force it contains.”
“Animal blood?”
He shook his head. “It must be human.”
She touched his lips, then pushed a fingertip into his mouth to feel the edges of his teeth. “You don’t have fangs right now. I know I felt them earlier.”
He kissed her finger, then said, “They grow when I need to feed, or when I’m badly hurt, or when I’m enraged.”
She grinned. “Were you a berserker?”
He made a scoffing sound. “There are berserkers among the Draugr, make no mistake, but… no. Not me.”
Nika settled back against his chest and took his hand between hers, interlacing their fingers. She was quiet for a long while, then said, “You’ve been alive for a very long time. You must have some amazing stories.”
Erik shrugged
. “Most of my stories are boring.”
“I don’t believe it for a minute.”
“You would be very surprised. I go where my superiors tell me to go, and I do what they tell me to do.”
“And today they told you to babysit me.” She looked up at him. “Cushy job.”
“Much preferable to anything else I can think of.” He kissed her. “Rank has its privileges.”
She grinned. “I should say so.”
She was just about to suggest a way to pass the time when his phone rang again, and he answered it brusquely. “Thorvald.”
Another male voice spoke over the line, hushed and rapid. She could not make out the words.
Erik responded, speaking that not-Swedish that she had heard him use with Astrid. She presumed now, given what she had learned about him, that he was speaking Old Norse. He and the man on the line spoke briefly, and then Erik hit the “end” button.
“They’ve found it.” He rose. “I need to go and get that sword, and I need you to stay here.”
She stood up as he gathered his discarded clothes and began to dress. He was moving rapidly, preparing to rush out into danger. She wouldn’t have it.
“No.”
He hesitated, his zipper halfway closed. “What?”
“I said no. I’m going with you.”
Erik looked exasperated. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not? I can help.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I doubt that. Not in a fight like this.”
“How do you know you’re going to fight?”
Now he looked insulted. “Nika, I have been a soldier for a millennium. I know when a fight is coming.”
“And if they come for me in the meantime?”
“We’ll keep them too busy to even think about it.”
“But… how many of them are there?”
“Enough, but not that many. As long as you don’t ask any of them inside, they can’t hurt you. Just stay here behind your locks and you’ll be safe.”
He finished dressing and pulled the Sálsteinn out of his pocket. He put it in her palm and closed her hand over it. The stone was warm and pulsating against her skin.
“Keep hold of this. It’s better if I don’t take it into their den.”
“So you trust me to keep this stone safe, but you don’t trust me to go with you?”
He nodded. “Yep. That about covers it.”
Erik kissed her soundly, then opened all of the locks on the door. “Lock this up after I leave,” he told her.
The door closed on the rest of her arguments.
Chapter Nine – Enemies
Erik met Gunnar in a parking lot halfway across town. His partner was pacing when he arrived, ready for some action. Gunnar climbed into the car with him and they drove toward the Draugr’s lair.
It was an old mansion on the outskirts of the city, standing on a steep hill and overlooking the town. The house had been some Victorian architect’s triumph, and it still wore a certain weathered grace. There was a garage – probably formerly a carriage house – and a gardener’s shed, a pond and a stable. Erik could smell the horses.
He stopped the car on the road, concealed from the house by a tall and unmanicured hedge. He and Gunnar conferred one last time.
“Hrothgar is standing over Hakon, but Magnus is already here. Rolf is inside, and he left the back door unlocked for us.” Gunnar pulled out a hastily-drawn floor plan of the house. “This is the back door. It goes into the kitchen here. There’s a mud room, with a landing that leads to stairs. Go up and you’re on the first floor. Go down and it’s the basement.”
“Where is the sword?”
He tapped one of the rooms on the upper floor. “This is Sigrunn’s room. Rolf says that she has it stowed in there.”
“She’s not carrying it anymore?”
“Apparently not. He said he saw her leave without it.”
Erik nodded and went to the trunk of the car. It was loaded with weapons, both modern and ancient. He selected a Remington semi-automatic pistol and loaded it with a magazine of silver bullets. He donned a gear strap and attached three more magazines to it. Last, he took up a double-headed axe.
Gunnar smiled. “Ingrid is coming out to play.”
“Stop naming my axes,” he grumbled.
His partner armed himself, too, and then they crept up the hill to the back door of the house.
The grounds were suspiciously quiet, and Erik noticed as they reached the door that the silence was from a lack of birds. There should have been sparrows, or starlings, or at least an ant or two on the ground, but there was nothing. It was as if all evidence of animal life had been chased away.
“This is no ordinary hörgr,” he told his partner in a whisper.
Gunnar nodded. “Hel.”
He sincerely hoped that was not the case. Of all the gods he would like to encounter, the queen of the underworld was not high on the list. The last he had heard, the soul that Hel was tied to had been reborn, but far away, and very recently. There was no way that she and her vessel could be here.
At least, he hoped that was the case.
He turned the knob on the back door slowly, as silently as he could. It opened without so much as a click. The lock had been padded with shredded toilet paper, keeping the lock from engaging; Rolf had done his job well.
With Gunnar bringing up the rear, Erik entered the house cautiously. As described on the floor plan, the back door opened up into a recessed mud room area. A staircase led down to the left, leading into darkness that smelled of mildew and rotting onions. On the right, three steps led up into the kitchen.
Gunnar pointed down, and Erik nodded. They needed to find the Rune Sword, yes, but they also needed to find that altar.
Slowly, quietly, they crept down into the basement.
****
Nika paced through the apartment, feeling caged and ridiculous. Despite Erik’s stories and his arch warning to stay behind closed doors, she was aching to go out. She felt as if she needed to be somewhere.
She sat on the sofa and held the Soul Stone in her hand. It was pretty, almost jade-green and smooth as glass. There were no flaws in the stone’s surface that her fingertips could detect. It slowly pulsed, the light ebbing and flowing like the tide. It was somehow hypnotic.
She stared into the stone, watching the slow strobe of its light, and her mind began to drift.
She saw a stone altar, standing in the middle of a stand of giant oaks, occupying the central grove. She was standing beside it, dressed in a shapeless white robe. The grove was ringed by figures in brown robes.
They were chanting. It was an invocation of some kind. She looked to a woman who stood at the foot of the altar, a tall blonde with sea-blue eyes. The woman nodded to her, and she climbed up onto the altar, lying down.
She looked up and saw the sky, hints of black and starlight peeking down around the crowns of the ancient trees. She lay on her back on the cold stone altar.
She saw a robed man take a gem much like the Soul Stone and put it into a mortar. He ground it into powder while the other people continued their chant. When he was finished, he brought it to the woman, who poured an amber liquid into the bowl. They stirred the mixture with a sprig of mistletoe, and then the man came forward and bade her drink.
She took the cup and looked up into his eyes, looking beneath the hood of his robe.
It was Erik.
A sudden pounding sound shattered the vision, and she jumped back with a gasp, her hands flying down to grip the sofa cushions. The Soul Stone fell to the floor and skipped away beneath the couch.
The pounding came again, and she realized that someone was knocking.
The sound wasn’t coming from the door.
Slowly, afraid of what she would see, Nika turned toward the window.
A man was standing there, the flat of his hand beating against the window frame. He saw her. She knew he saw her. He made eye contact with her and smiled.
He pounded on the window again. The glass pane shivered in the frame, but somehow it held.
Another sudden pounding erupted from the bedroom window, and she whirled to look. Through the open door, she could see the window beside her bed. Another man was standing there, grinning at her. When he saw her looking, he licked his lips obscenely.
They could not have been standing at her windows. She was on the fourth floor.
She ran to the window in the living room and pulled the curtain, as if that would make him go away. Another vampire appeared at the next window, and the next, until every window had a leering Draugr beating on the frame. She raced from window to window, pulling the shades and closing the curtains. At the last window, the Draugr laughed at her.
The pounding stopped, and a pregnant silence filled the room. She grabbed her purse and found the can of mace that she carried. She clung to it, although in truth she didn’t know what good it would do her against a vampire. She backed into the bathroom, which had no windows, and closed the door.
The knocking resumed, deafening, shaking the building to its foundations. She could feel the floor vibrate with every beat of their impromptu drum. The Draugr were beating against the windows in unison, not just with each other, but with her heartbeat. They were showing her that she could hide, but they could still hear her pulse.
They were the hunters. She was the prey.
Nika dug through her purse and pulled out her cell phone, prepared to hit the pre-programmed panic button that would call 911. She hesitated just before she could send out the call. What was she supposed to tell them? That vampires were stalking her, please bring silver? They would send an ambulance to take her to the psychiatric hospital, not a cruiser full of officers prepared to do battle with the undead.
She hadn’t gotten Erik’s number, which had been a mistake on both of their parts. She could think of no one else to call.
Desperately, she pulled out Astrid Sigurdsdottir’s business card and dialed her cellphone number. The phone rang twice, and then the other woman’s voice came on the line, cool and collected.
“Hello?”
The Soul of a Bear (UnBearable Romance Series Book 3) Page 11