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“I think that you do. But it doesn’t matter if you swear to the One True God, or to the Allah of the Arabs, to Thor, or even the earth goddess of the pagans who came to this place before us. It is the nature of men, and of the world. There are forces. That no one denies. There is thunder, and there is calm. The earth quakes, and is still. Men fight, and they find peace. There are the innocent, and the evil.
You will swear as I tell you, because I need you, and because you must exist, because for every force, there is a counter-force. My God would have no use for you if not for the freewill of men, and the compassion within them. ”
“You are a madman. ”
“Then treat me as one. Do as I ask. ”
Ragnor repeated the words the monk demanded.
When he had done so, he realized that the monks had come into the church and were on their knees.
That night, he lay in the church in misery. The night sounds did not come. Yet long after midnight, in the darkness of deep midnight, he felt the craving to escape.
He stood by the doors to the church, and Peter came beside him.
“What is it you want of me?” Ragnor cried to him.
“You will learn. You will learn to harness the pain. ”
Ragnor did not believe him.
At dusk the next day, Nari returned. She came to him with bowed head, tears tremulous in her eyes.
“Help me, they want to hunt me down, destroy me. ”
“We should be destroyed. ”
“No . . . they will not harm you. Please, let me stay with you. If there is a way . . . I must be with you, I beg of you. ”
He had never felt so alone, or so enraged, and above it all, so helpless. She knew what he felt. And she had discovered the agony within, and the only way to appease it. There was a way. She would stay with him, she would learn.
The monks built them a place to live while they stayed on at the church. In time, Ragnor discovered that the anguish could be appeased.
The forest was nearly depleted of deer.
The most savage boar could be quickly tamed.
It was a strange living; the monks ever watching, and riding on their own by day. Ragnor at last asked Peter why it was that he stayed, and what he hoped he would find when he rode. The attacks that had come so forcefully had ceased; the creatures had moved on.
“I will stay as long as you need me,” Peter told him, and Ragnor was surprised, because he was certain that the monks would be much safer elsewhere.
But Peter would not elaborate.
In those days, it didn’t matter. There were discoveries he made on his own. The ability to think, and to be. The strange and awesome power of the mind, and the senses. And then there were the nights, with Nari.
They had formed a bond. Greater than the horror they shared at what they had become, greater than the knowledge, the acceptance of what they were. She seemed to understand him. At night they ran, felt the wind, the darkness, the power. They feasted on blood; they made love as wildly and savagely as they hunted and hungered.
At the first light, they slept, and rested.
The monks watched, and waited.
In a year’s time, Ragnor grew restless. He talked to Peter and told him that he wanted to go home, or to the isle he had called home for so many years.
Peter studied him carefully. “You’re ready. ”
“I know that I am. ”
“And Nari?” Peter asked.
“She listens to me. ”
Peter was quiet. “Then go home. But remember, we are here. ”
“Why? Why don’t you just go home as well?”
“Because it isn’t over. ”
Ragnor didn’t believe him. There had been no more disturbances. The few villagers who had survived were rebuilding. In time, the earth would replenish, and the population would grow. Others would come, and the cycle of life would go on.
“Return when you feel you should,” Peter told Ragnor.
He sailed the next day with Nari. They returned to the isle where he had settled with so many of their followers. He created a great story regarding his brother’s death in battle, every warrior deserved such a saga.
He lived with Nari, and again, sailed the seas with his men. There were wars to fight that were right, and he fought them with a vengeance.
He feasted on the violence that ruled such savage fighting. Nari was like a Viking queen, awaiting his return, and sharing with him the secret of his ever-greater strength.
Then, again, after months had passed, he felt the urge to return to the church where Peter stood guard against the evil he was so certain would come again. Nari chose to remain behind, telling him that there was a reason she must stay. A rune-sayer cast the stones, and said that it was fate that she should do so.
Ragnor returned to the village with a nagging worry that something was wrong. Yet when he arrived, the village was thriving, though the people still slept in the church by night. The fields were rich, the game plentiful, and others had found the village by the sea.
Ragnor slept alone in the small wooden shelter that had been made for him. He spent days with Peter, talking, arguing, learning.
Then, at dusk one night, Ragnor found Peter standing on the steps of the church, staring out at the coming of night.
“What is it?” Ragnor asked.
Peter looked at him strangely. “You don’t know? You don’t feel it?”
“No. ”
“There is something . . . ”
“What?”
“They’ve come back. ”
“They?”
“They’re out there. Wanting something. Watching. Waiting. ”
“Then stay inside. There is nothing else they can do. ”
But the next day, the church caught fire.
The blaze began at dusk, and all the desperate measures to keep it standing were useless. By nightfall, it burned still, and the people were left to huddle around the fire in fear.
Ragnor stood guard, aware now, of the proximity of something . . . someone. . .
A whisper of evil on the air.
Then they came.
They came in a flock, like wings of blackness. They shrilled the night air with their cries and the sounds of something beating against the air. They were nothing but shadows, and then they were real. Darkness and sensation, then a blinding vision of light in the flames.
The monks fought them with swords, strange warriors in brown robes and tonsured heads, battling the demons from above and around. They knew to go for the heads, and the enemy fell all around them.
Some fell as flesh and bone, and others decayed before their eyes, and were like so much ash from the fire.
Yet when it was over, though the enemy lay all around them, so did their own. And in the darkness of the night, fire raged again as they cremated all the remains.
By light, Ragnor had to sleep. The monks and villagers set desperately to work; they built a church again, a sad structure, and the monks prayed and begged that their church be sanctified.
Ragnor awoke to find that he was not alone. Nari had come to him.
“I heard the call,” she told him and touched him gently on the cheek. She curled next to him, soothing his brow, then moving against him with an ever greater need until he came fully awake in a storm of hunger to be appeased only by the volatile passion she offered. Yet then, she did not remain beside him.
She moved suddenly, and he saw what she had done.
His sword lay across the earthen floor. They surrounded the foot of the pallet that was his bed. Their leader stepped forward into the room, his sword drawn, a snarl of a mocking smile curling his lips.
Ragnor rose upon his elbows with amazement “By all the gods . . . you!”
“Time to die, seventh son of the seventh son. ”
Nari slipped around the other man. “I’m
so sorry, Ragnor. But we are not meant to consume the vile blood of rats and boars. You might have been the greatest power among us, but. . . ” Her voice trailed away.
She had set him up for destruction; she had planned it well.
“I’m sorry, Ragnor. In Valhalla, think to forgive me. ”
The man with the sword stepped forward and Ragnor jumped up, naked, unarmed, but desperate to fight however long he could.
“Who wants to live forever?”
The sword made a strange silver slash against the twilight shadows haunting the room.
CHAPTER 18
When she left the plane and cleared customs, Jordan was intent only on reaching the car rental desk.
As she walked, she tried to shake the feeling that she had been surrounded by beasts on the plane? and that anyone who glanced her way was a monster, intent on her destruction.
She had just signed her rental agreement when a woman came up to her. She was tall, lean, and attractive, with green eyes, auburn hair and a quick smile. She extended a hand. “Miss Riley, my name is Jade DeVeau. I’m here to meet you. ”
Jordan took the woman’s hand, but as she did so, she felt that someone was behind her again. After her.
Paranoia!
But she had come this far. She smiled at the woman, but was afraid. How would this woman have known to meet her? Who was she? The cop who had written the book was named Canady.
She was probably a friend, a co-worker, someone sent to meet her. . .
She had no intention of taking such a chance.
“How do you do,” Jordan murmured. She looked around. The airport was not very crowded. She felt a terrible unease. She wasn’t going anywhere with this woman.
“My car is in the lot, through the parking garage?” the woman began.
“Great” Jordan interrupted. “If you’ll excuse me just a moment?” Jordan indicated the ladies room.
“Of course!” the other woman said.
Jordan pretended to head for the bathroom door.
The woman had taken a chair in the waiting area. Jordan just kept walking. She raced outside the airport, breathing heavily with the weight of her laptop and overnight bag. For once in her life, her prayers were answered?there was a taxi waiting. She didn’t dare look for the bus that would take her to the car rental agency.
Once in the taxi, she sat back, relieved. Then she stiffened, trying to get a look at the driver in the rearview mirror. He was a dignified-looking, middle-aged black man. She still felt a sense of fear snaking into her. Then she saw the rosaries hanging from his mirror. Did that mean he was . . . safe? She had to hope so; she needed to reach her car.