Wings of the Valkyrie

by Charley Case

  Mila could never tell how much time it took to funnel about ninety percent of her power into the device, but she knew it was closer to five minutes than fifteen from checking the time before and after on several previous charging sessions.

  When Mila felt her magic dipping to that ten percent level, she cut off the flow and slowly opened her eyes as if she were waking from a quick nap. Mila blinked a few times and felt the emptiness of her missing magic, but at this point, she had drained and refilled her magical reserves so often that she also felt the void already starting to draw in more ambient celestial magic. She smiled at the newly familiar feeling and looked up to see Rebecca watching her.

  “That was interesting.” The witch’s left brow slowly rose.

  “What was?”

  “Most magicals have access to as much magic as they need, being more of a conduit than a vessel, but you can only hold so much magic at a time. When you channeled your power into the device, I saw your aura fade along with it. It was like you were becoming a nonmagical.”

  “That’s not possible.” Victoria turned back to the conversation. “We’re Valkyries. Our auras never fade. They shine from the day we’re reborn, although we don’t have access to our powers and memories until our late teens. It’s what we are.”

  Rebecca smiled. “I take it you can’t see auras?”

  Victoria shook her head. “It’s a rare ability for a Valkyrie.”

  “This is fascinating, but why would it matter? We know I’m a new Valkyrie, so my abilities are adapting to the situation. Maybe my aura fading as I use magic is part of some unseen ability.”

  Victoria shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. It’s not possible because you are the aura. We’re a hundred percent energy riding in a body. The body can die and we live on, but if the energy dies, then the body goes with it. It would be like a Peabrain fading from existence the more tired they became.”

  “But that’s exactly what the Drude do,” Rebecca cut in, drawing odd looks from both women. She flipped back a page and found what she was looking for. “My ancestor Gregory, the one who was with you at the first battle with the Drude early in Earth’s journey?”

  “Wait.” Victoria held up her hand and shook her head in disbelief. “You’re telling me that you’re related to Old Greg?”

  “Old Greg?” Mila muttered.

  “Yeah, old guy who asked way too many questions?”

  Rebecca nodded. “Sounds about right. He was my great-great-something grandfather. He basically wrote the book on magicals, although he never had the chance to publish it.” She patted the leather-covered volume in front of her.

  “Wow.” Victoria leaned back in her chair and looked up at the ceiling, her mind thousands of years in the past. “I didn’t talk to him all that much. He wanted to know specifics about the Drude. I was still pretty new back then, so Missy took the lead. They talked for days.”

  “I can imagine, considering how much he wrote about what the Valkyries had to say. Most of it comes from a woman named…” She scanned the page.

  “Brindal.” Victoria filled in the name. “She was a tall, muscular blonde back then.” She snorted a laugh. “The dwarves were all over her. She had to threaten them with physical harm before they got the clue that she wasn’t fucking around about being married.”

  “Matches the description he gave here.” Rebecca nodded with a contemplative look as she started reading to herself again.

  “Can we get back to the subject here?” Mila asked. “You know, the one where you were going to explain what the fuck is going on? Maybe even tell us how the device is supposed to work?” She was starting to feel anxious. Why was it that when she finally felt like she was settling into who she was supposed to be, there was one more thing that made her different?

  “Sorry.” Rebecca cleared her throat. “Uh, right. According to Gregory, the Drude and the Valkyries are two sides of the same coin. That whole entropy thing? Well, the universe manifested the Valkyries as an answer to the Drude—the opposite, if you will. Your magics are opposed and cancel one another out. Same idea with how you exist in the universe. You’re all energy, and a Drude is all body. You use a body to maintain the energy, and a Drude uses energy to maintain its body. The idea, at least according to Gregory, is that you would destroy each other, thus returning balance to the universe on its never-ending march of entropy.”

  “What does that have to do with my aura fading?”

  “If a Drude loses all its magic, then all that’s left is a body. There wouldn’t be an aura left, like what I saw with you.”

  Mila narrowed her eyes in a deep frown. “Are you saying I’m like a Drude? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand, either!” Rebecca threw her hands up in frustration. “That’s why I said it was interesting.”

  Chapter Four

  They all sat in stunned silence for a few seconds at Rebecca’s sudden outburst before bursting into laughter.

  “Okay, so I sort of understand how the device would work by that logic.” Victoria drank some of her Lance special. “Our magics cancel each other out, so if we can flood him with celestial magic, it will burn up all his infernal magic and leave a body that we can kill. Without energy to rebuild the body, he would be truly dead.”

  Rebecca was nodding along as the Valkyrie spoke. “Exactly.”

  “No, not exactly.” Mila couldn’t believe the obvious flaw in their thinking. “Azoth eats Valkyries. Remember? That’s kind of the problem. Why would he let all that celestial magic affect him when he could eat it, or whatever he does with it?”

  “Ah, that’s why you need the device. For a Drude to ‘eat’ celestial magic, or the power from a Valkyrie, in this case, he uses an ability to convert that power into infernal magic, but it takes some of his power to do it. It’s a little like how a car needs spark plugs to make the fuel burn. He uses some of his magic to make all of your magic into something he can use and take into himself to increase his magic.”

  Victoria pursed her lips in thought. “If he can use his magic to get more magic from what we shove into him, how does that help us? Won’t he simply convert it all and become more powerful?”

  “That’s why we need the device.” Mila finally understood the theory Gregory had come up with all those years ago. “We’ve stored up hundreds of times more power than any individual Valkyrie can hold. I assume there’s a limit to how fast Azoth can consume it. Remember, it took him a while to devour Heather—she had to be drained for days before she was weak enough for him to take.”

  “That’s true,” Victoria cut in. “When he took me captive, he didn’t even try to devour me. He kept saying that he needed a Lone Valkyrie so that we would weaken one another. I may not be all that old in Valkyrie years, but I do hold more power than all but Missy in our small sisterhood. He must not have been fully recovered.”

  “Right. So, if he tries to take more than he can convert, then it will flood into him as celestial magic and start canceling out whatever power he’s holding onto. With the sudden torrent of power rushing out of the device, it would quickly overwhelm his ability to convert it. It would be like trying to drink from a fire hose—you could never swallow fast enough not to get wet.”

  Rebecca made a playfully disgusted face. “That’s a vivid but accurate analogy. Have you ever seen the movie UHF?”

  Both women shook their heads.

  “You should check it out. They play out this exact scenario on an insane children’s show in that movie.” She chuckled and shook her head as the scene from the movie played back in her mind. “God, that’s a fucked-up movie. Funny, but fucked up.”

  “What’s fucked up?” Finn walked out of the hallway, trailed by Danica. The elf wore a blue-and-white striped bikini. Her face was redder than an apple as she fought not to burst out laughing. She locked gazes with Mila, waiting for the reaction.

  Mila felt her throat catch in terror at the sight of her lovably unaware dwarf. His chiseled and gl
istening body was on full display as he strutted toward the table full of women. It looked like he’d slathered himself in baby oil or some other tan-enhancing fluid, and could have easily fit into a body-building competition for hairy-chested lumberjacks. The only thing that was technically keeping him decent was the tiny black Speedo he’d picked up in Chincoteague. Mila was sure she’d hidden the tiny man panties in the back of a drawer in their closet, but one look at her nearly bursting best friend told her all she needed to know. Danica had packed the clothes, after all.

  “You son of a bitch,” Mila growled at Danica, who couldn’t hold it in anymore and slapped her knee while she laughed like a hyena.

  “Holy shit, Finn,” Victoria said with a mix of horror and admiration. “You’re not fucking around, are you? I think there’s more material in my ankle sock than your swim trunks.”

  Finn gave her a sour look. “Not you, too,” he said with disappointment in his voice before raising his chin defiantly. He snapped the waistband of the mini-trunks before continuing in a haughty voice, “I’ll have you know these are perfectly reasonable and functional swimwear. I can’t help it if you’re too immature to see me as anything but a piece of meat.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mila pleaded, putting a mortified hand on Rebecca’s arm. The look of slight confusion Rebecca wore reminded Mila of the first time she had seen Finn in the Speedo. She remembered how confused she had been at how he could stuff everything away in the straining pouch.

  “What’s wrong with his trunks?” Rebecca leaned in and quietly asked, as if she wasn’t in on the joke but wanted to be.

  “I mean, they’re tiny,” Mila waved a hand vaguely at his package, “and he’s…not.”

  Rebecca narrowed her eyes and leaned in slightly as if she couldn’t see what Mila was talking about. She turned back to Mila and raised an eyebrow. “Good for you?” She seemed to genuinely not understand the problem.

  Mila opened her mouth to explain further, but her jaw snapped shut when she saw Lance strutting out of the hallway, a pile of towels under one arm, and an identical Speedo barely covering his junk.

  “Oh, God… I will never live this down, will I?” Mila muttered to herself as she watched the moment that would forever make it impossible for her to get rid of those ridiculous swim trunks.

  Lance stopped ten feet behind Finn, his eyes going wide and a huge smile spreading on his face. “Oh, man! Twins!” he shouted, thrusting out his hips and pointing to his trunks, then at Finn’s.

  Turning around, Finn saw Lance’s excited face and his beard split into a matching smile. “Twins!”

  The two men ran toward one another and pulled off a perfect leaping high five as if they’d been practicing it for years.

  Danica fell to the floor, her legs no longer able to support her as her laughter sucked all the strength from her body. She held her stomach and wailed, tears running down her face. She would try to stop but then saw the two men spilling over with excitement, and it would start again.

  Finn and Lance looked down at the incapacitated elf rolling back and forth.

  “What’s so funny?” Finn raised an eyebrow.

  Danica calmed herself enough to point at Mila. “Her… Her face. Oh, my God. I can’t… I can’t breathe.”

  Finn and Lance looked over at Mila, their smiles returning. The two men put their fists on their hips and struck a wide stance. “Admit it, babe. We’re twins. I told you these things were cool.”

  Mila felt the heat radiating off her face as she looked at the two men who could not look any less like twins if one of them was a squirrel. Finn was six-five and rippling with muscle with lightly tanned skin, where Lance was lucky if he were five-eight, had a farmer’s tan, and was rocking the dad bod hardcore. She did have to admit that even if they weren’t twins in appearance, they definitely were in confidence. She pressed her lips tightly together and nodded vigorously, adding a “Mhmm.”

  “Dad!” Grimm yelled, standing on the edge of the pool and waving his arms over his head. “Hurry up! I want you to throw me.”

  Lance smacked Finn on the chest with the back of his hand before taking off toward the pool. “Come on, you’ll love this. I’m teaching Grimm how to do cannonballs.”

  Finn took off after him, acting more like a big kid than Mila had ever seen from the dwarf king. She had to smile as he winked at her on his way by. She lashed out with lightning-fast reflexes and smacked his ass as he passed.

  “Love you, you big idiot,” she shouted after him.

  “Love you too, darlin’,” he managed to get out before doing a rather impressive flip off the edge of the pool that turned into a cannonball, sending a splash of water all over the screaming and clapping Grimm.

  Rebecca leaned in and shouldered Mila gently. “I know those trunks look ridiculous, but Lance loves them. Sometimes you have to let the people you love look like idiots because they like it. He loves the trunks, and I love him, so the trunks stay. In the end, what do I care?”

  “Why were you acting like you didn’t know what I was talking about? I thought I was going crazy.”

  Rebecca smiled. “Because I knew Lance would love the fact that Finn had the same trunks, and if I started laughing before he came out, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Like I said, he loves those trunks. I didn’t want to let him know that I’ve been lying about them for the last ten years. Besides, they’re not all that bad. Look at that cute little tush! I want to pinch it.”

  Mila and Victoria laughed at the face Rebecca made while pinching her fingers together.

  “Okay,” Mila nodded, “I can admit, they do have a certain amount of appeal. I only wish they weren’t so tight. They hide nothing.”

  “No… No they don’t.” Rebecca chuckled. “Why don’t we change and join the fellas? I don’t know about you, but I could use a little sunshine.”

  They all agreed, and Mila and Victoria headed for the spare room. Mila stopped to help Danica up off the floor, where she was still catching her breath.

  “Did you pull a muscle or something?” Mila asked once Danica was on her feet.

  The tall elf threw her long hair over her shoulder and checked that the top of the bikini was still in place. “Pretty close. Sorry, but I saw the trunks in a drawer and couldn’t resist. Lance having the same trunks was the best coincidence on the planet.”

  Mila smiled. “It’s fine. He’s having fun. Besides, I like to see him in skimpy clothes. You’re the one who’s going to have to avoid looking him in the package all day.”

  Danica’s face became slack while her eyes developed a thousand-yard stare as she realized what she’d done. Mila smiled and slapped her on the ass. “Good game, babe. You played yourself.”

  Heading for the hall where the spare rooms had appeared, Mila opened the first door on the left. She stepped in and nearly hit her head on the door as she tried to look anywhere but at Victoria, who was standing beside the bed completely naked as she untangled a burgundy monokini.

  “Sorry, didn’t realize you would be so naked so fast.” Mila backed out the door.

  “Get in here. What are you, some kind of prude? The bathing suits are in here, anyway,” Victoria hissed in a whisper, motioning for Mila to come in and close the door.

  Mila hesitated, but stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. “Why are you whispering?” Mila whispered as she took in the black and white modern room style.

  Victoria pointed at one of the pillows on the bed. Mila saw a blue circle in the center of it. She shrugged indifferently, not understanding what Victoria was getting at until she realized it was Penny, curled into a ball and fast asleep. The faerie dragon slept so little in a given night that Mila had only seen her truly asleep a half-dozen times since they’d been living together. She would catnap, but she was never really asleep. It was more that she was conserving energy until her next snack.

  An actual nap in the middle of the afternoon was unheard of.

  “Is she okay?” Mila whispered, her vo
ice thick with concern.

  Victoria shrugged and reached out, letting her hand hover an inch above Penny’s slowly rising and falling back. She held it there for a second or two before going back to untangling the many straps threaded through the complicated monokini.

  “She doesn’t have a fever.” She finally got the garment the right way around and opened enough to step into it. “She’s probably tired. She did spend all night reinforcing the wards on the condo. Wards are hard work. She’ll come out when she wakes up.”

  Mila bit her lip and curled her toes into the thick-piled carpet as she watched her friend sleeping. She hadn’t realized Penny was up all night. Victoria was right—wards were hard work. Penny would join them in an hour or so.

  Mila nodded at Victoria and smiled at Penny. “You’re right, she’s probably tired from this morning.” She glanced over at Victoria and raised an eyebrow at the ridiculously sexy dark red monokini. The hips of the garment were nothing more than four evenly spaced straps holding the narrow front panel and even skimpier back panel snugly in place. The front covered her stomach with a six-inch strip of material that clung to her well-defined abs before widening to contain her breasts then narrowing to a choker collar she had to button closed. The back was a weave of a dozen straps that came down from the collar and laced across her shoulder blades, to attach to the front panel at the ribcage. The whole thing somehow covered more than the simple striped bikini Danica was wearing and yet was far more scandalous.

  Cold dread settled in Mila’s stomach. “Oh, God… What did she pick out for me? I swear to God, that girl pushes me too far sometimes. The sexy underwear I can handle. Finn loves them, and they make me feel sexy, but no one knows I’m wearing them. A bathing suit is completely different. Everyone will see that. If she picked that out for you… Fuck. It’s like you poured sex appeal on yourself and let it dry into a garment.”

  Victoria looked at her with a questioning eyebrow before glancing down at the suit she was wearing and quietly chuckled. “Don’t worry. Danica didn’t pick this out for me. It’s mine. I bought it a couple of days ago when Danica and I went shopping.” Victoria smiled as she reached into the shoulder bag and brought out a handful of white and orange material. “She brought you two choices. That girl knows you quite well.” She spread them out on the bed, revealing two very different choices.