He gestured to it and Kera untied the leather thong wrapped around the sheath and unrolled it. There were two black handles and she grasped one, easing the weapon out.
She held it up. It was a very long-handled dagger with a thin ten-inch blade. Weird symbols were burned into the metal.
“You wear the sheath on your ankle,” Vig explained. “You pull the weapon during battle.”
“It’s pretty,” she said, smiling at him. “Although I’d rather have a .45. I’m a real fan of Glocks. They fit my hand perfectly. I have surprisingly long fingers. You wouldn’t also happen to be a gunsmith, would you?”
“The Clans don’t use guns.”
“How un-American of them. But I’m an American.”
“Perhaps a better way to say it is . . . we’re not allowed to use guns.”
“Well, who came up with that stupid idea?”
“The gods. They’re kind of old school. They like edge weapons and hammers.” Vig gestured to the items lining his walls. “That’s what I specialize in. I trade with all the Clans. Even the unofficial ones.”
“So which are the official Clans and which are the unofficial ones?”
Vig’s head tipped to the side. “What have your sisters taught you about this life?”
“In twenty hours? Divorce is the same everywhere. I’m not pure evil. Pit bulls aren’t covered under their insurance. And I think they’re incredibly disorganized, but that was just an observation on my part. Nothing anyone said.”
“Who is your mentor?”
“My mentor? Sadly, I think it’s the redhead.” Kera lifted up the blade. “Do I really have to use this in a fight?”
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s gorgeous. And should be on a wall . . . for decoration.”
“It’s lethal.” He took hold of the second blade, tapped the tip against his own throat. “Attack from behind, cut here and here. Or”—he pointed the blade at spots under his arms and his inner thighs—“here and here. But if you want them to suffer for some reason, you can cut them here,” he said, dragging the blade across his lower abdomen.
“What . . . what are you telling me?” Kera asked. “Why are you showing me how to gut somebody?”
“Why do you think?”
A cold sweat broke out over Kera’s body and she suddenly felt light-headed, like when she was about to get a migraine.
Kera closed her eyes, tried hard to control the panic suddenly rampaging through her. Well, actually, panic had begun to rage as soon as Vig started talking about being the “hammers of the gods,” but now the panic was full-blown and about to take her down.
“What are you saying to me, Vig?” Kera finally demanded. “That I’ve been brought back to be some kind of murderer for Viking gods?”
“Not a murderer. A god-sanctioned killer. There’s a difference.”
“How is there a difference?”
“Kera—”
“Look, I’m a Marine. I go in, I maintain order, I do damage if necessary.”
“It’ll be necessary.”
“What does that even mean?”
He stepped closer, maybe too close. “You need to understand . . . they don’t call on the Crows to maintain order. They have other Clans for that. They have the Ravens. They only call on the Crows for one thing, Kera. To kill everyone in the room.”
“I’m sorry . . . what?”
“For they are the Crows,” he intoned solemnly, “and they are the harbingers of death.”
Erin sat in the tree outside Rundstöm’s workshop. Beneath her hanging legs was Engstrom, whom she kept kicking in the head with the ball of her bare foot. She’d been doing it for a while but so far he hadn’t said anything. It clearly bothered him, which was why she was doing it. But she was fascinated by how long she could keep it up before he snapped.
Rolf Landvik, sitting in a branch above her, lightly punched her shoulder.
Stop, he mouthed at her.
No, she mouthed back. Then added, Make me.
He’d just turned away from her, annoyed, when Engstrom reached back, grabbed her bare leg, and flipped her.
Erin had been gripping the branch with her hands, and she treated it like one of the uneven bars she’d trained on until she was about eight. Flipping under the branch until she brought her legs under and up, she switched hands. She faced Engstrom and brought her legs back down so that she could ram them into his big chest.
Even though he took a step back, it still felt like she’d hit a brick wall. But Erin still managed to flip around again to put her ass back on the branch simply so she could grin down at the big Viking. Much to his annoyance.
His eyes narrowed and he took a step toward her, probably to drag her to the ground—or at least try—but the workshop door was yanked open and Kera ran out, Rundstöm right behind her.
“Kera, wait!”
The new girl made it to the trees, where she proceeded to bend over and vomit up whatever she had in her stomach.
Erin jumped down from the tree and stalked over to Rundstöm. “What did you do?” she growled, worried he’d scared her to death with his vicious Viking ways.
“I told her the truth,” he replied. “I told her what would be expected of her. What’s expected of all of us.”
“What did you do that for?” Annalisa demanded.
“She had to know eventually.”
“Not yet.”
“We’re not you,” Erin patiently explained. “We’re not born into this shit. We’re dragged here from death. And some people, you’ve gotta ease into it. She needs to be eased. She still thinks she’s a Marine.”
“I am a Marine!” Watson barked around all that heaving.
“That was in your first life, precious. Now you’re a Crow. Fucking deal with it.”
“She wanted guns,” Rundstöm told Erin.
“Of course she wanted guns. I wanted guns when I first got here. Maeve over there wanted a rocket launcher.”
Maeve nodded at that. “I’m not comfortable being too close to people . . . with all their diseases.”
“But eventually we learned that we are contract killers for gods who prefer that we use edge weapons rather than more advanced technology. It’s not an easy thing to accept, especially for some Goody Two-shoes. But she’ll get it . . . eventually.”
“A Goody Two-shoes?” Watson asked as she took a tissue that Maeve stretched her arm out to hand her so that they didn’t have to touch—since Kera’s current illness could be anything, not just panic.
” How did you die?” Annalisa asked.
Watson wiped her mouth, her eyes darting at everyone staring at her before finally admitting, “This guy behind the coffee shop was beating up his girlfriend whom he’d been pimping out. She wasn’t even sixteen and he was trying to take her money. I tried to tell him to stop . . . but he stabbed me in the chest with a butcher knife before I had the chance.”
Annalisa nodded. “Yep. Goody Two-shoes.”
“You wouldn’t have done anything?” Watson asked.
“No. Of course, before I became a Crow, I was a complete sociopath. I mean, I was diagnosed by a forensic psychologist as a sociopath.”
Watson leaned back a bit, resting against the tree. “Okay, but we all know there’s no actual cure for sociopathy, right?”
“There is when a god gives you”—Annalisa made air quotes with her fingers—“ ‘feelings.’ Which, to this day, I have not forgiven Skuld for.”
“The first week she was here,” Maeve said around a small grin, “all she did was cry and cry and cry.”
“Exactly.” Lips pursed, Annalisa shook her head. “No. Not gonna forgive her on that one.”
“Look,” Watson said softly, “I just can’t go around killing people.”
Erin faced her. “You act like we’ll be sneaking into some innocent soul’s house and killing them for shits and giggles. That is not what we do. When the Crows come to your door . . . it’s because you really fucked up. It
’s because you forfeited your right not to have your throat cut by a bitch with wings.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Watson asked. “Because it doesn’t.”
Erin began to argue but Watson cut her off with a wave of her hands. “Forget it. I made a promise to Skuld, and I keep my commitments as an American and a Marine—”
“Oy,” Erin muttered.
“—but I can do other things. In fact, I know what I’ll do. I’ll do what I did in the Marines. Get shit organized.”
Uh-oh.
“It doesn’t work that way, sweetie,” Maeve explained. “It’ll never work that way. You get a job, you do the job.”
“My wings aren’t out yet. Maybe they’ll never come out.” Watson stared hard at Erin. “Ever. But until they do . . . I can make this group of women into something you can be proud of. And that’s what I’m going to do.”
Erin watched the new girl walk away. She was completely delusional but that wasn’t surprising. A lot of the girls had small breaks with reality before they understood the true meaning of being a Crow. The problem, though, was that this girl wasn’t like all the other girls. She wouldn’t be sitting in her room, feeling sorry for herself the next few weeks. Nope. This one was a yenta with a mission.
And Erin’s personal nightmare.
“You need to do something,” Annalisa whispered to Erin.
“Yeah. I know.”
“Here.” Rundstöm put the blades he’d made for Watson in Erin’s hands. “Sorry about that.”
“Yeah, you did not help us.”
“Ravens don’t hold back. We just toss you in.”
Erin headed back to the car with Maeve and Annalisa.
“What are you going to do?’ Maeve asked.
“I hate to admit it, but the Raven is right. With this one . . . we can’t ease her into shit.”
“I’m sure Chloe can help with that. She hates the ‘easing,’ too.”
“True. But first things first. Unless we want to become a well-oiled military machine, which I don’t know about you guys . . . but I don’t, we’ll need to get her wings out.”
“How?” Annalisa asked. “It took six months for my wings to come out.”
“It took me a year,” Maeve tossed in.
“That was because you were busy running to the hospital and doctors’ appointments every day.”
“I had allergies!”
Erin held her hand up in front of Maeve’s face to silence her. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Erin slowed down as she neared the car. Watson stood next to it, her nervous energy causing her to pace around it like a caged cat. It was not a good sign.
“Leave the new girl to me,” Erin vowed. “I’ll handle it.
CHAPTER FOUR
They returned to what the women called the Bird House a different way, turning off from Pacific Coast Highway onto an unmarked, hidden road. At first, Kera thought it was just some weird dirt road, but then she realized it was an excessively long driveway. The dirt road turned to a paved one after about a half mile. They pulled up to big iron gates that slowly opened after several cameras focused on them.
They drove along, nearing the house, until Kera said, “Stop the car.”
Amsel pulled to a stop. “What?”
Kera wasn’t sure she saw what she thought she saw, so she pushed the car door open and stepped out of the SUV. She walked back a few feet until she reached the large sign they’d passed. She gazed up at it until the other Crows joined her.
“What’s wrong?” Annalisa asked.
“Giant Strides?”
“Your footpath to a healthy life,” Amsel announced.
“That sounds like the name of a drug rehab.”
“It is the name of a drug rehab.”
Kera jerked around to face the other women. “I’m living in a drug rehab center?”
“Not just drugs,” Maeve added. “We also treat alcohol addiction, eating disorders, and sex addiction.”
“You’re all addicts?”
Maeve frowned. “No, of course not. What gave you that idea?”
“What gave me that idea? We’re living in a drug rehab!”
Hands raised, Maeve stepped back. “Wow, you’re getting a little too intense for me.”
“Everybody calm down.” Amsel sighed. “Think, new girl. How do you put a group of women, from all walks of life, together in one place without attracting attention? By being a rehab, that’s how.”
“And this is not the only one of our centers. We have six in the States, including the one in Beverly Hills and another in Half Moon Bay farther up on the Coast.”
“And we just opened a center in Switzerland, and last year, one in Aruba.”
“But why?” Kera asked.
“To treat people with addiction.”
“Very rich people,” Maeve added.
“I thought it was just a cover.”
“A cover that’s world renowned for our treatment.”
“We have some of the best psychiatrists, psychologists, and addiction specialists working for us,” Annalisa explained as they walked back to the car. “We just don’t help them here at this location.”
“Although every one of the addicts wants to come here.” Maeve laughed. “And such threats when we tell them no.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the one they can’t get into. You want to annoy some superstar singer hopped up on pain pills? Tell them they can’t have something.”
“But unless they have wings and have pledged themselves to a Viking god, they can’t get in here.”
Kera got back into the SUV. “It seems wrong.”
“Why?” Amsel asked, putting on her seat belt. “We have one of the best recovery rates in the U.S. They just don’t get recovery here, in Malibu. And an incredibly low relapse rate.”
“But what about addicts who can’t afford to come here?”
“What about them?” Maeve asked from the backseat.
“Look.” Amsel started the SUV, “we can’t take care of the world.”
“At least not for free.”
“Damn right. It’s not cheap living one’s life for a Viking goddess.”
“Besides,” Annalisa tossed in, “Giant Strides donates lots of money to other charities.”
“For the write-offs?”
“The charities get the money, don’t they?”
“What is your real problem?” Amsel demanded.
“I don’t want people thinking I’ve got a fucking drug problem.”
“Of course they won’t.”
“They won’t?”
Amsel gazed at her. “You’re too poor to be a patient here.”
“You couldn’t possibly afford this place,” Maeve said while focusing on her phone.
Amsel started down the driveway again. “Just tell people—if anyone asks, which I doubt they will since you’re not exactly friendly—that you work here as an orderly. You’re a burly former Marine . . . they’ll believe it.”
“What about when I go back to the coffee shop?” Kera asked.
“Why the hell would you go back to the coffee shop?”
“Because I need an actual job . . . ?”
“Then get one. Something you truly want to do.”
“The Crows will pay for your education or additional training. Or if you need an office or whatever, they’ll set you up.”
Kera looked back at Annalisa. “They will?”
“Honey, this is your second life, which means you don’t go back to your crappy first one, which got you killed in the first place. Instead, you make the best of this new life.”
“What did you do before?”
“I told you. I was a sociopath. So whatever made me quick money and destroyed people’s will to live . . . that was my jam. I was really good at it.”
“And now?”
“Forensic psychologist.”
Kera knew she was gawking but . . . really?
??
?I know,” Annalisa said with a smile. “But if anyone has a true understanding of the workings of the sociopathic mind . . . it’s me. I work with LAPD all the time.” She paused for a moment, glancing out the window. Then she leaned in and whispered, “Sometimes, when I’m missing my old life a bit, I fuck with the sociopaths’ heads. Can’t help myself sometimes. They can be such douche bags. Then again . . . that’s probably a little self-hate.”
Kera nodded. “Of course.”
“If you don’t know what you want to do,” Maeve suggested, “you can always work at one of our other clinics. It’s not hard work. Just addicts talking about their”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“ ‘personal truth’ and getting hysterical when we run out of Mountain Dew.”
“Mountain Dew?”
“They seem to be fans.”
“They also like Diet Coke and Doritos.” Annalisa glanced out the window. “I never get the Doritos, though.”
Amsel stopped the car in front of the house and sighed. “Oh man. They struck again. Chloe is going to be pissed.”
“Who?”
“That ridiculous neighborhood committee.”
Kera followed Amsel’s line of sight and saw that a thick envelope had been taped to the door.
“What is that?” she asked.
“More complaints.”
“All they do is complain,” Annalisa added. “But it’s been getting out of control this past year.”
“I think I have a fever,” Maeve tossed in, again feeling the glands under her chin with the tips of her fingers.
Amsel rolled her eyes, shook her head, and got out of the SUV.
After she pulled the envelope off the door, they all stood there, looking over the enclosed materials.
“Wild animals?” Kera asked. “You guys have wild animals?”
“ No. ”
Kera dipped her head and looked long at Amsel. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“And the crows don’t count,” Annalisa quickly stated. “The bird crow. Not us Crow. They come to us. We don’t trap them and drag them here.”
“But the town hates them,” Erin said. “They shit on everything. People’s cars, their houses . . . their heads. It’s all just a target for the gang.”