“Thank you,” I said. “She speaks some English?”
Meuhlnir couldn’t hide the wide smile that cracked on his face. Sif laughed aloud. “No, Hank. Sif doesn’t have any of your English. Neither do I.”
I scoffed and took a bite of the thick porridge-like stuff heaped on the plate. It was good—lots of honey and milk that didn’t taste like any cow’s milk I’d ever had. “I did just wake up, but I’m actually awake and aware. If you don’t speak English, exactly how have we been talking to one another? I don’t speak any language from this klith. How could I? I don’t speak any other language than English.”
Meuhlnir shrugged. “I’ve never even heard English spoken. You are speaking the language of Suelhaym, which is basically the modern derivation of the Gamla Toonkumowl.”
“How is that possible? Two days ago, I would have said this place couldn’t even exist.”
“It’s just something that happens in the preer. Some legacy of the technology that created them, I guess. When you travel a proo, you speak the language of the klith where the proo terminates.”
I shook my head and took a bite of the buttered bread. “If that’s true, then why don’t I understand Sif?”
Sif patted my shoulder and gave me an indulgent smile.
“Because she talks like a mush-mouth,” said Meuhlnir. Sif swatted at him, and as he ducked, he smiled and shrugged. “When you arrived here, you didn’t find it strange at all that I spoke English so well?”
“Silly of me, but I never even thought of it.”
Meuhlnir rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “Yes, with your extensive experience traveling the preer, I expect all this would be old hat.”
Sif made a disapproving sound and smacked Meuhlnir on the top of his head with a little more fire behind it than before.
I chuckled at that. “I guess I don’t need a translation for that.”
“Might as well ask if acorns fall from oak trees,” he muttered. “In any case, the longer you are here, the easier it will be to understand everyone. Now that you know you can, that is.”
“If you say so,” I said.
“I do,” said Sif. “Now stop talking and eat.”
I smiled at her and started shoveling in the food. “Will it be like this with everyone?” I asked between mouthfuls.
“No,” said Sif.
“As with everything else, it’s a new skill for your brain to adapt to. The more you are here, the more you talk to us, and the more people you are exposed to, the easier it will get. In a short time, you will be as fluent as any speaker of his non-native tongue. Unless we keep you locked away here in the middle of the wilderness with only myself and two old women to talk to.” He flashed a grin at Sif as she prepared to hit him again. He held up his hands in surrender, chuckling. As Sif turned and left the room, Meuhlnir tipped me a wink. “Got to do something to keep those two in their proper place.”
He said it just loud enough for Sif to hear, and in response, she blew a raspberry. “Keep it up, goose liver,” she said. “Maybe you can go from two wives to zero before lunch.”
“Ah, marital bliss,” said Meuhlnir. He winked at me. “I try to irritate them as any good husband knows he should.”
I grinned. “Might as well ask if snow should fall down from the sky or up from the ground.”
Meuhlnir tilted his head forward and glanced my way from under his bushy brows. “Need to work on that, but at least the attempt shows promise.” He clapped me on the back. “Now, if you are done eating like a pig at the trough, we have things that need doing.”
“Oh?” I asked, standing and grabbing my plate. I turned toward the hall to the back of the cabin.
“No, no, Hank. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll just leave your dishes lie.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I want to do my part.”
“Your part is to be the guest. My wives will not like you ‘doing your part’ as you put it.”
“On my side, being a guest means you try to help out and minimize your impact on the day to day of the household. Not so here?”
Meuhlnir shook his head. “No. Here, you are granted the guest-right when someone invites you to stay. That means anything you desire that is in the host’s ability to provide is given to you. You do no work unless specifically asked. For example, a host might ask his guest to go hunting or to put wood on the fire while the host is otherwise occupied. But dishes? Oh, no. Yowrnsaxa and Sif would never hear of it.”
I shrugged. “Okay, I guess. When in Rome, right?”
“I’ve never been to Rome, so I wouldn’t know.”
“I’ve been thinking about the story you told me last night. About Suel.”
Meuhlnir arched his eyebrows at me. “Yes?”
“I think you should hear what she’s become.”
He looked at me with thunder threatening on his forehead. “I’m not sure I want to.”
“You should,” I insisted. “You need to know.”
“I know she’s not that girl anymore. Too much has happened. We fought a war against her, after all. We banished her.”
“Even so, I’m willing to bet it’s worse than you thought. Listen, Meuhlnir, and decide for yourself how much she has changed.”
He shrugged. “Wait a moment, then.” He turned and walked down the hallway. He came back in a few minutes with Sif and Yowrnsaxa in tow. “They should hear this, as well. They knew her at least as well as I did.”
I nodded. “We set a man on her house like I told you last night. A man named Ben Carson. He was a good friend of mine. She must have sniffed him out, or seen him or something.”
Nineteen
Swathed in shadows, Liz stood at the edge of the trees and watched the man who was supposed to be watching her. He was sitting in a car parked across the road down at the base of the hill, looking up at her house without guile or subtlety. Every few minutes he took a sip out of a stainless-steel coffee mug and then looked down at his phone.
The night was chilly, as spring nights in this forsaken land often were. Even so, the man had the front windows of the car down, and every once in a while, he whistled tunelessly like he was trying to keep himself awake.
Despite the chill in the air, Liz was flushed and hot. Anger burned in her blood like alcohol. How dare they? she thought. There was no doubt that the man watching her house had been sent by the detective who’d come by earlier. The special one, the cursed one, she thought with a small smile playing on her lips.
Luka would be home soon, and when he arrived, the little man at the base of the hill was going to learn respect.
The man opened the car door and got out. He walked to the front of the car and leaned against the grill. He was heavy. Fat. But even so, he carried himself in a way she recognized. A certain set of the shoulders, a dancer’s grace. He moved like a warrior.
The Lincoln roared up and skidded in the gravel next to the barn across the road. The doors to the barn opened, and then the rumble of the Lincoln’s engine fell silent.
So, she thought, the talk went as planned. Something unclenched deep inside her—some tenseness she didn’t want to admit had been there. She was relieved Luka was back and unharmed, and why shouldn’t she be?
The cop at the foot of the hill was staring up at the barn.
With a small, feral grin, Liz sprinted down the hill. Luka had seen her standing in the shadows, she was sure of it. He would know what she wanted. What she required. He always did.
When she was opposite the car, she squatted behind one of the trees in the row that had been planted to combat blowing snow. She peered around the trunk and saw the cop with his back to her, looking out at the fields on his side of the road and whistling like a kid wishing away monsters in the dark.
“What are you doing here?” asked Luka in a gruff, angry sounding voice.
Liz smiled as the cop jumped. Luka squatted in the field on the other side of the road, but she doubted the cop could see much of anything except his phone scre
en.
“I asked you a question, little man. Did Hank Jensen send you here?”
“Trooper Carson, State Police,” said the cop. “I’m here on official business. Step out of the shadows and show yourself.”
Luka laughed in that mocking way he had. Usually, that laugh made people furious, but Carson stayed cool and calm.
“What are you doing here?” snapped Luka. “Spying?”
“I’m not going to ask you a second time, sir. Come out and let me see some ID.”
Luka laughed again and rose to his full height. He took a graceful, almost dancing step toward the man.
Liz felt a little trill of excitement in her stomach. Sometimes, the way Luka moved when he was stalking someone excited her in ways no other man ever had.
“What will you do if I refuse, little man?”
“Partner, that ‘little man’ shit won’t work with me,” said Carson.
Luka rocketed forward, closing the twelve-yard gap in eight large steps and knocked the cop’s phone spinning into the road. He towered over the fat man, leaning forward, glaring down at him with menace. “You are a snooping little spy, aren’t you?”
The cop retreated down the length of his car and Luka followed on his heels, a mocking grin on his face. When they reached the end of the car, the cop set his feet and put a hand on Luka’s chest.
“Back off,” he said.
Luka looked over at her, picking her out of the shadows with ease, and winked, sending another excited trill bouncing around her tummy. He liked showing off for her, and she liked that he wanted to.
“I don’t think so,” said Luka. “I want to tell you something. Something secret. It’s a special word I know.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, partner,” said Carson. He stepped forward and grabbed at Luka’s wrist.
“Oolfur,” said Luka, his grin stretching, widening until it appeared his face was splitting in half.
Liz saw the change begin and the trill of excitement became a shiver. “Byarnteer,” she breathed. Bear to Luka’s wolf. The perfect pairing for a hunt.
The cop tried to draw Luka off balance by jerking him forward, but he might as well have been trying to pull a branch out of a tree trunk.
Liz’s breathing deepened, making a chuffing sound deep in her chest. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears like tympani, racing with prayteenkin—the change. Her skin felt like it was stretching until it would certainly split. Her bones ached until she wanted to cry out in pain.
Luka was smiling down at the cop like a wolf grinning at a cornered rabbit. The cop stepped to the side and tried some fancy martial arts move, levering himself against Luka’s side and trying to wrench his arm around. Luka straightened his arm and lifted the man off the ground.
The cop kicked his leg over Luka’s head and snapped it down across her lover’s neck.
Liz tried to laugh through the pain of her change, but she sounded more like a big animal rooting in the dirt than a woman laughing.
Luka laughed aloud, his voice deep and gravelly with his own prateenk. “Are you done playing around, Trooper?” he growled.
“Stop resisting,” said the cop.
Luka glanced across at her with an amused, incredulous expression twitching on his face. He was growing taller and wider by the second, as was she.
Carson let go of Luka’s arm and jumped toward the back of the car.
Luka’s T-shirt stretched tight across his chest, and the button of his jeans pinged off into the darkness. “Don’t think so, little man.” Luka’s voice was almost unintelligible. His throat sounded like it was packed with dirt. He took a giant step forward and batted the cop to the ground.
Liz’s mouth watered when panic blossomed in the cop’s face. Her shirt ripped up the back, and she flung it away with an irritation that bordered on distemper. She wanted to roar, but she fought that instinct. She wanted to see the little cop’s face when she appeared out of the darkness and ripped out his neck.
The cop went for his gun, but Luka caught his wrist in one of his large, clawed hands. Carson began to scream as Luka began to squeeze. Luka took the gun from him with his other hand and threw it high into the night.
Luka stood up straight, dragging the man into the air by his wrist. With a snarl, he swatted the car, and it slid into the ditch at an angle. The cop hung there in the air, feet kicking to no effect, while Luka peeled the remains of his black T-shirt off and dropped it on the road.
“What the fuck are you?” Carson breathed.
Luka looked at him and grinned his lupine, mocking grin. He growled in Carson’s face and slowly squeezed until the man’s wrist popped. Then he dropped him to the ground.
The cop lay there, looking up, face blank. Carson lurched to his feet, looking dazed and lost. His head came to Luka’s waist.
Luka stooped over him and shook his head like a dog. He made a croaking noise and then shook his head again. “Run,” he croaked.
The shiver of excitement in her belly became a torrent. Luka knew what she liked. He always knew how to excite her.
“W-what?” squawked the fat little man.
“Run!” roared Luka with saliva dripping from his fangs in long, ropy streamers.
The cop turned and started to run up the road toward their house.
With a snarling bark, Luka sprinted behind him. He grabbed the cop’s leg in his mouth and shook him hard, Carson’s limbs flopping around like a rag doll. Then Luka twisted to the side and flung the man clear across the road, where Carson skidded face first into the field.
When the man staggered upright, he turned and looked at Luka like a lost child. His hand scrabbled at his empty holster as if he no longer knew his gun was gone. A useless instinct, in any case.
Luka roared, saliva dripping from his jaws. He was magnificent, standing fifteen feet tall, his upper body covered with a thin, tawny fur. His muscles rippled under his skin as he moved. His jaws were elongated like the muzzle of a wolf. Claws sprang from the ends of his fingers and toes. His most striking feature, however, was his eyes. They’d turned a chartreuse color and had stretched to an almond shape. He looked vicious.
Carson turned and sprinted away in a direction that seemed to have been chosen by panic.
Fighting to contain her glee, Liz sank to all fours and galloped toward him on an intercept course. Her clawed paws tore huge chunks out of the rich soil of the field as she thundered toward the man.
He must have heard her, or sensed her coming, because he looked right at her. His eyes went wide and fresh panic spasmed across his face. A cry of terror escaped his lips, and he tried to run faster.
She imagined what a shock it must be for these thralls to see her coming. In her current form, she stood fourteen feet on her hind legs, and her bulk was massive, her snout and fangs were like those of a bear.
Liz roared with triumph. Her roar echoed across the field and came back to her, and the shivers of excitement in her stomach became tremors of desire. Air chuffed out of her in great gusts as she poured on the speed.
When she hit him, she was galloping flat out, and the noise of the collision elicited another triumphant roar. Luka danced around them and howled at the night sky. The cop lay in the field like a broken doll, and Liz had no doubt that parts of him were broken. She’d never been weighed in this form, but she was sure it was at least half a ton, and she’d hit him hard.
She stood on her hind legs and glared down at the man. He wasn’t dead, she could hear his heart pounding, but he was pretending he was. She shook her head and grunted at Luka.
Quick as the lightning his bastard of a brother was so fond of, Luka darted in and grabbed the man’s ankle. He picked the cop up upside-down and shook him again, before flinging him back to the dirt.
Liz dropped her front paws down on the man’s arm and released a satisfied growl at the sound of his bones breaking. She squatted down and put her muzzle right in the man’s face and roared as loud as she could.
He cringed a
way from her, but there was only so far he could go with her weight pinning him to ground. “What the fuck are you?”
Luka made the strange chuffing growl sound that was the laughter of the oolfur.
Liz twisted her massive head to look at Luka over her shoulder. There was something in the joy on his wolfish face that made her long to be human again, and without delay, but when she turned back to the cop, a different kind of lust filled her mind.
She could smell his terror, and it filled her with a savage joy. She leaned over him again, putting her long snout within inches of his face and snapped her jaws shut. She shifted her weight, grinding her claws into the cop’s arm. When he threw his head back to scream, Liz darted forward and took a massive bite out of his trapezius muscle. Luka yipped behind her, and she gave a barking grunt in reply. Liz swatted Carson’s face in a playful manner—if she hit him with serious intent, she’d break his neck, and the fun would be over—and raked her claws across his cheek. The cop’s blood mixed with the loose top soil, making a thick mud that splattered every which way as Liz moved her bulk around, nipping Carson here and there
The cop looked up at her, blinking. “What the fuck are you two?” he wheezed. “Werewolves? But you look more like a bear… Wendigo?”
She smiled, and the irony that bears used the expression only as a threat was not lost on her. She stood tall and backed away from Carson, waving Luka away as she did so. She grunted and jerked her chin toward the sky. Carson watched her but didn’t move. Again, she grunted and jerked her chin toward the sky. Luka growled with savage menace.
“Y-you want me to get up?”
Liz grunted and jerked her chin.
The fat cop shook his head but struggled to his feet. He stood before them, his eyes wide with awe and fear. “Can you change like this whenever you want?”
Liz slammed down to all fours and roared. Even on all fours, her eyes were at the same level as Carson’s. She took a step forward—a step that was as full of threat and the promise of pain as she could make it.
Carson’s face was slack as he turned and fled, his mind lost to terror.
Beside her, Luka laughed. They let the cop run for a few minutes, putting distance between them. Luka stretched his jaws open wide and pawed at the earth. Liz yowled and bolted across the field at Carson, footfalls again sounding like thunder. Luka howled at her side, modulating his pace to match hers.
Blood of the Isir Omnibus Page 17