Valknut: The Binding, page 29
And then it was over, as abruptly as it had started. He lay across the lip of the door, one leg dangling outside. He clutched the doorframe reflexively against a danger that had already passed.
Though the boxcar no longer moved, his vision spun as though his brain rolled in his skull. He probed a walnut-sized bump on his forehead and winced. Funny, he didn’t remember hitting his head on anything.
The bucolic smell of clover wafted inside and struck his reeling senses. His stomach churned. He knew he should lie still, but he couldn’t. He had to find Lennie.
He hoped she hadn’t fallen from the train.
He grimaced and pushed the thought aside. He couldn’t face that possibility. Not after what he had almost done to her. He rolled to his knees and a wave of vertigo washed over him. Partially digested hobo coffee rose in his throat. He braced himself and waited, wondering if he would pass out before he had a chance to vomit. A few gasping breaths later, he began to feel better, though his head still ached and sharp points of pain throbbed all over his body. He was certain he had left bits of skin on more than one surface of the boxcar.
At least that damn yellow fog was gone, whatever it was. He might not be thinking well, but his thoughts were his own.
The boxcar listed to one side, derailed. Sounds from a distant highway joined the tick of cooling metal and the last gasp of useless air brakes. Junkyard half crab-walked, half slid down the sloped floor, looking for Lennie by the filtered light of the moon.
His attack on her sickened him. It felt too much like his first days on the iron road, when the rage born of his brother’s murder was still fresh and hot. Worse than that. He hadn’t tried to kill anyone, back then—just beat up or be beaten. But he could still feel the muscles in Lennie’s warm, slender arms under his bruising fingers.
She hadn’t told him the whole truth. He knew that. And she had done that weird trick with the string. But it was ludicrous to think she could be the serial killer. She was as shocked as he by what she had done to Monte. Besides, there was something...well, too nice about her.
He found her in the rear corner, lying like a broken doll on a pile of debris. Her arm was bent awkwardly, like it had an extra joint. A tangle of curly, caramel hair shrouded her face. His hand shook when he brushed it back. Her skin was so pale. “Lennie?”
She didn’t react. Afraid to move her, he pulled open the letter jacket he had given her. Blood had soaked through her t-shirt. Too much blood. Alarmed, he felt her neck. No pulse.
She was dead.
He sat back, choking on a bitterness that had nothing to do with coffee. The wreck had killed her. Something blocking the track, a brake malfunction, human error—it didn’t matter. He felt as guilty as if he had done it himself. He took her hand and held it clasped between his own. They were still in the city, only a couple of miles from the train yard. Someone would come soon and take her away. He bowed his head. She would not wait alone.
***
Briggs watched the squad car pull away, leaving him alone in the train yard. The warehouse was a bust. It had taken the police about five seconds to figure that one out. They hadn’t even bothered to go inside.
Bill Sutter had led them there. Once confronted with the evidence, he had opened up like a carton of Chinese food, spilling out an incoherent mixture of fact and devil-made-me-do-it delusions. The warehouse was the only aspect of the story that could be verified. But the place was obviously abandoned. The patches of rust on the siding were so large that he could see them in the dark from fifty yards away. The panel door hung askew, leaving a gap big enough to admit a full-grown man. Not likely a headquarters for the BRR, as Sutter had claimed.
Still, some of Sutter’s story had resonated with the weirdness Briggs had been experiencing over the last few hours. Briggs wanted a closer look.
The building gave him the same eerie being-watched sensation he had felt in the woods earlier. He hesitated, reluctant to move closer and feeling intensely stupid about it. Annoyed with himself, he started forward, but froze when a loud tapping rattled the siding. Heart thudding, he waited for any sign of movement. There was nothing. Then the wind stirred the weeds sprouting from the gravel and sent the door panel tapping against the siding.
Briggs rolled his eyes. “Sheesh. Give me a break.”
From now on, Marybeth could keep her theories about the supernatural to herself.
He approached the building from the side, away from the line-of-sight of the door. As he eased close to the doorway, he paused to listen. Nothing. Not even the skitter of rat claws. He leaned his head forward and tried to peer inside.
Absolute darkness.
He couldn’t imagine anyone dumping their garbage here, never mind storing weapons and drugs, as Sutter had claimed.
But maybe that was the effect the bad guys were hoping for. Maybe gangbangers waited in the dark, ready to spring out at him like an unwanted surprise party.
And maybe they’d give him a birthday cake and a present with a big, pink bow.
He detached his nightstick from his belt, extended it, and eased into the building. Light struck him the moment he broke the plane of the doorway, as if someone had flicked a switch at that exact moment. Shocked, he blinked to let his eyes adjust. The place was poorly lit; a single bulb dangled from the ceiling by an orange cord. Cluttered metal shelves lined the walls, loaded with an assortment of weapons and drug paraphernalia, just as Sutter had claimed. But there were no signs of whoever had turned on the light.
Then the familiar stench struck him and he spotted the white coil hanging just inside the door. The cord Sutter claimed to have gotten from a guy named El Lobo. As much beast as man, the deranged bull had said. From the stink, Briggs almost believed it. He stepped closer, reaching out, but couldn’t bring himself to touch the strands.
Sweat broke out on his forehead. This was getting creepier by the moment. And dangerous. This El Lobo character wouldn’t leave this stuff unguarded. Time to go. He turned to leave, pulling his phone out to call for backup.
“You ain’t going nowhere, Amigo.”
A gangbanger stood in the doorway with a gun pointed at Brigg’s chest. He looked like he’d been run over by a train. His once-white tank shirt was torn and streaked with dirt. Scratches and bruises covered his bare arms, and blood flowed freely from a row of stitches that had broken open. He smiled at Briggs, the grin of a wolf. “You won’t be makin’ no phone calls, tonight, so just drop the cell on the floor. The stick, too, man. And that gun under your jacket.”
Briggs complied, bending to set the weapon on the floor. He studied the gangbanger covertly, hoping for an opening, but the banger never blinked. Briggs straightened and pointedly looked the punk over. “So, are you the famous El Lobo?”
A sneer twisted the punk’s lips. “Pendejo. You too stupid to live. El Lobo is no ’banger. But you will see that soon enough. He is coming.”
***
Junkyard lifted his head when he heard the sirens. Someone would take Lennie away, soon. Maybe in a black SUV, like Jim. And then he would…what? Go back to hunting the Hobo Spider? The prospect filled him with emptiness.
Lennie’s fingers grew warmer between Junkyard’s hands. He found that somehow comforting, as though he could share some of his life with her. But then her hand grew too warm. Hot. Her chest rose hesitantly. A gurgling came from her throat, the sound almost lost in the hissing, clicking aftermath of the wreck.
She was alive.
A thin stream of blood trickled from her nose. Her mouth fell open and the stubborn crease between her eyes deepened with pain. He gaped at her, unbelieving. But then he remembered the night before, on the train, when that unexplained puncture in her side had healed as he watched. Super healing powers weren’t any weirder than the ability to spin thread from fingers.
He squeezed her hand and gently laid it across her stomach. Leaning close, he whispered, “I’m going for help. Just hang in there.”
He climbed up the sloped floor and paused to survey the wreckage. Their boxcar lay diagonally on the tracks, propped against another boxcar, with the coupler from a third car imbedded in its side.
Voices echoed up the line. Circles of light danced over the cars as the crew checked the damages. Junkyard yelled as loud as he could, “Hey, over here!”
No response. They must be too far away to hear. Frustrated, he contemplated going after them, but he didn’t want to leave Lennie. He was about to slide back down to check on her when a man emerged from the shadow of the boxcar.
“Thank God! I thought no one heard me. My friend is hurt and I’m afraid to move her.”
The man didn’t respond, or even move. Junkyard eyed him uncertainly. He was big. As big as those beet pickers who had nearly taken him apart the day he had met Jim, and a lot more menacing. But Lennie needed help. “You got a cell phone?”
The man lifted his head to look at Junkyard. Yellow eyes flared from the shadowy face. The glow of a cigarette appeared like a third eye.
Shivers rippled Junkyard’s skin. “Oh, crap. Not another one.”
His instincts screamed at him to flee, but he couldn’t leave Lennie. He pulled his knife, but held it, forgotten, when the man smiled, revealing enormous, pointed teeth. Junkyard couldn’t move. He could only stare into those piercing, yellow eyes. This was something he couldn’t fight.
Jungle Jim’s voice seemed to call to Junkyard. A warning. Look away.
But a yellow haze pervaded Junkyards thoughts, obscuring the hobo clown and all he represented. The wild, unfocused rage he’d kept battened down so tightly sprang free, seeking a target.
And the thing spoke. “Bring the girl to me.”
Chapter 24
Fenrir smiled as Junkyard laid the unconscious girl at his feet. Here was the last obstacle to his chosen destiny. Sirens wailed from all directions, racing toward the buckled train. They foreshadowed the days to come, when the wails of human, Aesir, and Vanir alike would rise with every siren in every city of the world.
It would begin tonight.
Free of interference, free of prophecy, Fenrir would ride the backs of a million souls by morning. He closed his eyes and felt along the threads that his mind held like the reins of a thousand thousand war horses. Each thread restrained one of his minions. Berserkers, poised to fire a weapon, start a fire, collapse a power grid, cripple air traffic control, flood the stock market, riot, lynch, terrorize, destroy, and in one glorious moment, bring down the powers of the world. He lifted his face to the sky.
“The world has never been so ready to die. And it is I—Hrodvitnir—who will rise from the ashes.”
Though he did not shout, his words penetrated the soil under his feet and the ground rumbled with their power.
A bit melerdramatic, don’t ya think?
That voice!
A thousand thousand. Heck, I cain’t even count that high. Careful yer horses don’t bolt all at once an’ tear you to a thousand thousand pieces.
That nagging little gnat of a voice buzzed at him, sucking the sweetness from his victories. Fenrir shook his head as if to dislodge it from his ear. The inconsequential remains of Angus Cook would not distract him, now. Not on the eve of his greatest battle.
He would begin with the death of the girl. She alone had the power to stop him.
Douglas Harding, the man she called Junkyard, stood over her, unmoving but for the sporadic twitch of his hands. Fenrir could feel the struggle within him, the burgeoning feelings he begrudged himself, his desperate desire to save the girl, the rage at the evil that had taken his brother’s life, his confusion over the girl’s involvement.
So much emotion. So easy to twist, to bend to one’s whim. Fenrir opened his connection to Harding’s mind and let his will flow. Harding’s eyes began to glow.
Careful, now. The lad ran wild at the end of yer tether, the last time.
“Silence!”
Perhaps the girl’s death would quell that irritating voice. It pleased Fenrir to make Harding the instrument of her destruction.
Yer slippin’, Fenrir. You couldn’t even handle one muddle-headed hobo clown. He tricked ya—an’ him with a broken brain.
Fenrir’s focus shattered and Harding’s eyes faded to dull brown. Rage boiled under Fenrir’s skin, urging a different shape, demanding that he tear into his tormentor and rend human flesh from bone. The short hairs bristled and thickened over this pale, weak body. Muscle and sinew strained as Fenrir’s true form fought to be free of Angus Cook. But as he crouched, ready to leap from the body, to turn and sink wolf teeth into its offending heart, the reasoning part of his mind heard the laughter of Angus Cook.
At once, his rage hardened into cold anger. This human had nearly provoked him into destroying this form prematurely.
“No,” he growled. “Soon, I will discard this body and then you shall truly, most painfully die, but I will not kill you now.”
Nor would he kill the girl. Again, he focused on Douglas Harding. “Bring her.”
She would join her father in the lair of the BRR. There, as the world began its irredeemable fall into chaos, Fenrir would release this human form to its owner. Angus Cook would live in freedom long enough to see the last of his line die before him. That would be Fenrir’s parting gift to his host.
For once, the voice was silent.
***
Gentle waves lapped the lakeshore just inches from Too Long Soo’s head, spraying her face with cool droplets. She didn’t respond. Her body lay broken and bleeding at the bottom of a rocky embankment. The sporadic sounds of nighttime highway traffic drifted over the train tracks—rescue just a few dozen yards away. She didn’t hear it. Her soul had fled to her deepest core, waiting for the end.
A calm fell over the lake, rendering its dark surface so flawless that the moon seemed to shine from its depths. A loon’s call rose in mournful laughter, as if it had met fate and thought it a bitter joke. Then silence. A moment of waiting.
A sigh stirred the opposite shore. A breath sustained beyond human capacity. It found direction and blew, cutting a wake in the lake’s smooth surface, shattering the perfect, three-quarter moon.
The living air struck the body on the lake’s shore and poured down into nostrils, flooding slack mouth, soaking into skin. Sparks crackled in the straw-like hair. Fingers stretched and splayed. Twisted limbs turned and straightened, drawing life as a thirsty plant draws water. Bruises disappeared, bones healed, bleeding stopped. At last the body lay still and natural, as if sleeping on a bed of rocks.
The one who had become Too Long Soo sat up and clutched her chest as if remembering pain. But there was nothing wrong with this body.
“Fenrir, you silly pup. I tried to tell you it wouldn’t work. Maybe I can be changed.
She examined herself. Moonlight highlighted long, bony fingers and a down vest that had torn, spilling its feathery guts. Patched jeans bagged around skinny legs that ended in pointy-toed boots. She frowned. “Oh, dear. I definitely can be changed.
“But I can’t be killed.”
The air shimmered beside her, solidifying into a grungy canvas bag. “Ah, here we are. I believe I was starting on bright orange.”
Rummaging inside, she pulled out a tangle of beige twine and some twigs. She grunted in disgust. “Macramé. It had to be macramé.”
Grumbling about pot hangers and owls with button eyes, she tucked the bag under her arm and scrambled up the embankment. Behind her, unnoticed, hung the mangled remains of a guitar, entangled in the branches of a scrawny tree.
***
Lennie awoke with the side of her face pressed to a gritty cement floor. The smells hit her first—pot, cigarettes, stale beer. Then came memory of noise and chaos, as if the world were shaking apart around her.
And there had been pain. Something had broken in her chest, draining her life away. She should be dead by now. The last thing she remembered was a tingling warmth spreading from the triangles tattooed on her hand.
Well, at least she’d gotten one good thing out of that tattoo.
But where was she? Boxcars didn’t have cement floors. She wasn’t eager to try moving just yet, but she had to see. She cracked her eyes open. Junkyard sat cross-legged before her, under a familiar bare bulb hanging from an orange cord. She was in the warehouse from her dream.
And Junkyard’s eyes glowed yellow.
“She’s awake,” he said.
Shoes scraped the floor. A dead animal stench wafted over her, overwhelming the others. Lennie’s stomach heaved and she swallowed hard. She knew who was there without looking.
“Good,” said a deep, coarse voice. “Then we can begin.”
The words sent a chill through her that threatened to freeze her to the floor. Gotta get out of here. She rolled to her feet and tried to run, but Junkyard rose and tackled her down. She tried to push him off and wriggle free, but he pinned her easily.
“No, let me go!”
“I think not.” Junkyard’s voice, but Fenrir’s words.
Knife in hand, Junkyard leaned so close that his hair tickled her cheek. An inhuman hatred distorted his features. Hatred so deep that she might not have recognized him but for the long sideburns and the hard angles of his face. His yellow eyes bored into her, unwavering. She refused to meet them. They had become a conduit to Fenrir’s mind.
Her skin twitched as the knife drifted toward her. “Junkyard, he’s using you. You’ve got to fight him—”
The knife came at her face. Its tip trailed down her cheek as lightly as a lover’s touch. A stinging wetness followed its trail. The blade stopped at her throat. Lennie swallowed against its sharp edge. Keeping her eyes averted from Junkyard’s face, she flexed her tattooed hand. It burned with all the voltage of a penlight. She doubted there was enough power to net a mouse.
