Sometimes he really loved his job!
Suddenly the door swung open. Dodge immediately sprang at the figure that exited the cabin and shoulder-charged his chest. Caught off guard the smaller Chinese man stumbled backwards and made a clumsy attempt to draw his gun.
Dodge punched the man twice in the face, splitting the tender flesh of his lip and shattering some of his teeth.
The man keeled over and Dodge retrieved his weapon.
A second guard rushed out of the room to see what the commotion was. Not wanting to fire any shots, Dodge bludgeoned this man across the back of the head with the gun-butt. He also fell to the deck.
Dodge skidded into the cabin and aimed his gun at Reptilia. “Hi,” he smiled ruefully at the Chinese villainess.
“Danger?” Reptilia gasped.
“The very same, sweetheart!” Dodge gave the woman a nonchalant wink.
Susan looked up at Dodge from the chair she had been tied to. A relieved smile crossed her face. “I thought that you’d never get here!”
Dodge shrugged and then aimed the gun at Reptilia’s face. “Untie her!” he barked.
A moment of pure tension passed, and then Reptilia bowed her head and made her way towards Susan. “I will kill you both for this!” she hissed with sheer fury and malevolence. “No matter where you go, I will see you both die for this!” She released Susan, who immediately rubbed her arms.
“Reptilia, I’m really getting tired of your voice!” Susan grabbed Reptilia and thrust a torn piece of cloth into her tormentor’s mouth, tying it tightly at the nape of her neck then she pushed her into the same chair she had been bound to, and tightly wound the topes around her, almost cocooning the villainess in ropes so she had absolutely no chance of escaping.
Susan admired her handiwork and nodded with satisfaction.
“Do you think you’ve used enough rope?” Dodge asked incredulously.
“Dodge, this Oriental bitch strapped me to a table and dripped water on my head for hours, tied me up in a spike chamber and nearly incinerated me, bound me to a railway line and drugged and chained me up in the hold of this ship. I think she’s getting off lightly!” Susan glared at the bound woman. “In fact - too lightly,” she conceded. Gritting her teeth, Susan drew a fist back and punched Reptilia in the jaw so hard the villainess was shunted into oblivion. Susan turned to Dodge and smiled sweetly.
“Now we can go,” she said and Dodge grinned. He was really beginning to like this woman!
Dodge and Susan grabbed expensive fur coats, scarves and boots from Reptilia’s stateroom and crept along the port side of the Dark Lotus.
“What’s the plan, Dodge?” Susan asked.
“You know something sweetheart, I’ve only got as far as stealing the dog sled. After that we’ll have to play it by ear!” He gave her a sheepish grin.
“Great!” She rolled her eyes skywards.
Dodge and Susan climbed down a rope ladder and crouched down behind some packing crates. A few yards in front stood the team of huskies that had been hitched onto a sled.
“Right, we’ve only got a few moments. We better make them count,” Dodge told Susan. She started to chuckle softly and Dodge frowned.
“What’s so funny?” he grumbled.
“It’s your beard,” she said and he self-consciously lifted a hand to his chin - he never had got the hang of shaving regularly.
“It’s icing up.” She smiled at him warmly. “It looks almost white now.”
“I always knew this business would turn me prematurely grey.” Dodge started moving towards the dog sled and the three men guarding it.
Reptilia soon came too and started struggling furiously and impotently against the ropes binding her to the chair. She was furious and humiliated.
Then the door to her stateroom swung open and a tall, imposing figure drifted in.
“My poor child, however did you get in such a predicament?” Yue Tiansiang chuckled.
Reptilia glared at her father.
“You think I have been unaware of your plans, child?” Yue Tiansiang asked mockingly. She continued to stare at him from her confinement. “Dodge Danger is on his way to the valley. We will follow him. You will stay here in your current state until I return, dear child. Then you will be suitably chastised for your lack of parental respect!” Yue Tiansiang turned and swept from the room leaving his daughter to contemplate her fate.
Reptilia was very, very afraid indeed.
Dodge stood over the three fallen guards, breathing heavily. Fortunately the guards hadn’t put up too much of a fight. “Susan, get on the sled!” he shouted.
From the deck of the ship he heard shouting,. Two guards rushed to the side of the boat and started firing shots in his direction. A plume of snow exploded at Dodge’s feet. He clambered onto the backboard of the sled as the dogs started to bark and fret at the gunfire. They wanted to be off, but were well disciplined enough to wait for the right command.
A whip hung from the handle and he picked it up.
The dogs barked with excitement as more gunshots rang out from the ship.
“Mush!” Dodge shouted and cracked the whip. With a lurch they raced off across the snow.
In the oppressive darkness of Davidson’s office, Twice looked about.
“I must find out where the shrine was found,” he muttered aloud. “I know what Davidson was doing when he died. He was crafting a spell to end the evil he has unleashed on the world, but couldn’t finish it. I have to do it. If I don’t, Dodge will die!” Looking down at the runestones he had assembled on Davidson’s desk, he felt their almost tangible fingers of evil touch his spine. Ragnarok was coming!
The wind whistled harshly through the canyons of ice and snow. It may have been night,, but the majestic sky show created by the Northern lights provided enough illumination. A full moon also shone down and the pristine landscape almost seemed to glow.
The dog team galloped through the snow. The lead husky yelped as it guided its companions along the treacherous ground.
Despite the thick scarf wrapped around his face, Dodge felt the cold biting into his cheeks as they moved. He cracked the whip to increase the dogs’ pace.
Susan sat in front of him, bundled up in her furs. She was examining a piece of whalebone with an ancient map carved into it.
This artefact had been hidden in the sled, probably put there by Reptilia’s thugs while they readied themselves for the expedition into the frozen wastes of Greenland.
Dodge had given it a brief glance concluded that this was a map to Jarmungadr - the fabled hidden entrance to the Norse underworld.
A niggling doubt worried at the back of his head.
“Why did Reptilia leave the map in the dog sled?”
Dodge and Susan sped across the tightly packed ice. The sky before them shone brightly and many bright colours undulated and shifted in a kaleidoscopic display.
Susan looked at the sky, mesmerized. “Dodge, what is that?” she asked.
“I honestly don’t know, honey!”
At first he’d thought it was the Northern lights, but as they drew closer to this display he was no longer so sure.
Those lights didn’t look natural.
They seemed to be creating a curtain on the horizon, illuminating the world with a never-ending series of reds, blues, yellows, greens ... almost like a rainbow.
The dogs didn’t like it. They were slowing down.
Twice examined an old leather bound book he had found in Davidson’s drawer. It was well worn and contained a myriad of information.
The writing was obsessive and random, the work of a clearly disturbed mind.
He laid it aside and started rifling through some old yellowed files. “Twice old chap, I think you may have found something,” he mumbled to himself in the darkness.
“We have left a copy of the map for Mr Danger to follow. He has been on the move for two hours --we will ride forth and follow his trail!” Yue Tiansiang addressed a group of soldiers f
rom his own, ornately carved dog sled.
Twenty-five heavily armed men stood before him. Each one had been briefed not to kill Dodge Danger. At least not yet.
A burly Oriental climbed onto the back of Tiansiang’s sled and cracked his whip. The dogs darted forward and the remaining men all followed respectively in their own sleds.
The chase was on! Yue Tiansiang lounged back in his luxurious sled and closed his eyes. If he had calculated things properly, then Danger would be nearing the fabled Rainbow Bridge. Once he crossed Bifrost, the doorway would be open far enough for Tiansiang and his forces to enter Jarmungadr.
He felt so old. His skin was paper thin, his bones brittle, his tall frame - once an effective weapon against the superstitious fools that he dealt with - now a tortured wreck.
All this had happened within the past two years, as though all the decades he had been holding back had suddenly crashed into him at once. He was nearer to death than he had been throughout his long and eventful life. It frightened him, yet part of him would welcome death if it came.
By the gods he was so tired…
If he died now his legacy would be little more than a collection of whispered ghost stories and forgotten memories.
His own son had deserted him to live in Manchuria. He had called for help when the Japanese invaded, but Yue had refused to lend any of his great resources to help. The boy now hated him. His beloved daughter was a lying, deceitful and dangerous woman. Her actions had not gone unnoticed on the Dark Lotus, and after all this was over she would pay for her betrayal. If he failed then his empire went with him. He could not allow that to happen!
Reptilia sat fuming in the cabin, still tightly bound to the chair. Her jaw smarted from the combined effects of the punch and gag. Her body ached from the ropes that criss-crossed it, but it was her pride that hurt most of all. Her father’s anger had been terrifying to behold.
However, she would not sit here as a helpless prisoner and allow that fury to continue.
Reptilia was nothing if not resourceful.
Her hands, tied behind her, started picking at the ropes around her left wrist. Her eyes narrowed and a furrow developed on her forehead. Around that wrist was a bracelet containing a thin, very sharp blade.
She managed to loosen the ropes enough to free the blade and within a few seconds she was sawing through the hemp.
Twice pored over a large map. It pinpointed the location of the cave where Davidson had found the shrine. “The cave is only a few miles inland from Rockworth.” Twice read aloud, “I should leave immediately. The sooner I get there the better!”
Rockworth lay fifty six miles away, and time was running out.
The lead husky stopped running and started to growl nervously. Behind him, the rest of the team whined and sniffed the air.
Dodge cracked the whip above their heads.
The dogs refused to move.
“Damn it!” Dodge hissed.
“Dodge, what’s wrong?” Susan asked.
“It looks like we’re walking, sweetheart,” Dodge smiled grimly at her as he clambered off the backboard.
The dogs watched him with curiosity as he started slogging through the snow towards the wall of light. Susan hesitated at the sled.
He paused at the edge of the rainbow wall. He planted his hands on his hips and to Susan it looked like he was examining an everyday phenomenon.
The dogs lay down on the snow and ice, forlorn and cowed. They occasionally emitted a throaty growl or a nervous whine, but made no further move towards the light. Through her ability to communicate with beasts, Susan realised the animals could sense something bad.
“Dodge?” she called.
Dodge Danger looked over his shoulder at her and managed a half-hearted and totally unconvincing smile.
Yue Tiansiang’s sled sped across the frozen landscape, his men following in an arrow formation.
The tall Chinese villain could feel his blood start tingling. His hands became warmer and he could feel the tightness across his face become less pronounced.
Ahead of them the wall of light grew brighter. Yue Tiansiang smiled with satisfaction.
The warlord and his small army rushed towards the Rainbow Bridge.
Suddenly Reptilia’s hands came loose. The blade had severed the ropes and she ripped the gag from her mouth. She gasped for air and filled the stateroom with a string of Chinese curses and profanities.
Her eyes took on a dark countenance as she started sawing through the ropes that bound her upper arms to the wooden slats of the chair.
Dodge felt he had little to reassure Susan about. The wall of light bothered him. It seemed opaque and translucent at the same time.
He examined it again. The light pulsed and undulated. The sled dogs started to howl plaintively behind him. The lights seemed to become more vivid and ... alive with each passing second.
Susan started forward.
Dodge turned to look at her just as a flare of brightness shot out from the wall and engulfed him.
Susan screamed his name.
The flash subsided, but of Dodge Danger there was no sign.
The mighty wolf padded across the ether, free from his bonds after countless years of pain and agony. He searched hungrily for revenge.
Susan gaped in astonishment to the space where Dodge had been standing. He had simply vanished into the light!
“Dodge?” she whispered.
But there was no reply.
The wolf Fenris howled its displeasure. It was hungry and needed sustenance.
Twice called in a favour from the mysterious Shadowbolt, who was able to teleport him miles at a time through the medium of shadow. The teleport only took minutes, but he still had to locate the cave. From Rockworth Twice headed into the hills using the runes as a mystical compass. It was imperative that he found the shrine.
Reptilia finished severing the ropes around her ankles and stood up. Her limbs were sore and stiff, but she managed to run from the stateroom and look out across the horizon.
During her confinement, the light show had become brighter and more elaborate.
Yue Tiansiang’s party approached the Rainbow Bridge.
He had to narrow his eyes as the light became more intense. Something very strange was happening to Bifrost!
Chapter Ten
The Pacific Ocean, 137 miles south west of Hawaii
The USS Foolproof glided smoothly through the relatively calm waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Captain Nathan Hillman stood on the bridge and watched the clear blue skies. He was a happy man - the sea was his life, and on days like this he felt as close to God as anyone could possibly get.
The sea was calm and the sky was blue. Nothing could spoil his day.
“Sir, we’re getting some funny readings from the-” his navigator began. It was the last thing that Hillman heard before his beloved ship was abruptly sucked under the sea by a massive air bubble that had seemed to come from nowhere.
The USS Foolproof was never seen again and was reported lost with all hands five days later.
Fenris padded menacingly through the shades between night and day. Around the world, children woke from nightmares they couldn’t remember.
In its primitive mind Fenris could only think of one thing.
The tree Yggdrasil!
Fenris’ foul breath touched the world.
Siberia
Boris Nekorovitch had been working in the USSR’s premier top secret chemical weapons testing facility since the Great War, working on noxious new gases that would incapacitate the Soviet Union’s enemies. He was a loyal Russian, but he often felt uncomfortable working with such horrific weapons. However he never questioned the ethos of building them, lest an aspiring assistant report him to the NKVD. He had no wish to spend the rest of his years in a Siberian Gulag.
He learned that two of the main laboratories had inexplicably caught fire twenty minutes earlier. Thirteen men had since died in the blaze so far and all of the
research facility’s staff members were busily combating the conflagration.
Nekorovitch knew that if the fire spread then the entire base would blow up, spreading its deadly contents in a five-mile radius. And as most of the chemicals he worked with here highly flammable, massive firestorms would ensue.
Nekorovitch was a scared man. But unknown to him, research bases all over Russia, and in fact the rest of the world, were suffering from the same inexplicable fiery outbreaks.
Fenris galloped onwards towards his final destination.
Yue Tiansiang lounged in his sledge, staring at the horizon in anticipation. The wall of light was becoming agitated and flaring violently.
Beyond that blinding glow he would find the great tree of life and beside it the spring of eternal water. The tree would provide leaves that would rejuvenate and keep him alive for thousands more years.
Yue Tiansiang would become a god!
But in the distance he noticed a small figure silhouetted against the lights.
Fenris charged onwards, relentlessly seeking its prey.
Twice stood beside the entrance to an old mine. By the look of things, it had lain empty for years, but Twice knew this was where Davidson had found the shrine.
In his journal, Davidson had recorded historical tales of this mine. It was said to have been abandoned because of Tommy knockers, described by the miners as ghosts, demons and monsters. They abandoned the workings in terror, despite the thick seams still remaining. Davidson discovered that the workings had penetrated an old cave where the Vikings had hidden the idol and the runes centuries beforehand.
Twice squared his shoulders. “Ah well old boy, nothing ventured nothing gained!” He stepped into the musty darkness.
Mighty haunches propelled the wolf through the shades between life and death.
Dodge Danger Page 11