Erik backed up to the porch, not lowering his gun, and climbed up the steps until he and Lars stood shoulder to shoulder. Lars looked at him.

  “Well,” he said softly. “This should be fun.”

  Erik chuckled wryly. “There goes the neighborhood.”

  Chapter Three

  The three women looked up expectantly when Lars and Erik came back inside. Lars shut and locked the door, and Erik tucked his pistol into the waistband of his blue jeans, snug against the small of his back. Magda released her hold on Nika, and she rose to meet him.

  “What’s this all about?” she asked, concerned.

  “The faery have declared war on the Draugr,” Lars answered for him. “Something about raids on Trollheim and kidnappings and such.”

  Erik looked at Magda. “Do you know anything about this?”

  She crossed her legs and examined her fingernails. “Maybe.”

  “Damn it, woman, this is no time to be coy!” he snapped. “If you know who is behind this, tell me now.”

  “You do not order me, Erik Thorvald,” she responded icily.

  Lars interceded. “How about we all ask each other nicely? I know that you two tend to butt heads, but this is a bad time for dissension in our ranks. Right? We’ve got to hang together.”

  Sif put her hand the nape of Magda’s neck, and a private telepathic conversation linked them for a moment. Finally, Magda softened, her own hand moving to rest on Sif’s knee. She sighed.

  “Of the original forty First Draugr, eight remain alive, including you. Three of them work as mercenaries and were in the employ of Loki, as you recall.”

  Erik nodded. “Brevik, Agnar and Dag.”

  “Yes. The remaining four – Bjorn, Halvar, Kjeld and Olaf – have formed a new raiding party.”

  Nika frowned. “And they’re raiding the faery?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Why?” Erik asked.

  Magda shrugged. “For the joy of killing, or perhaps for the blood. Faery blood brings a magic all its own.”

  “How long have you known about this?”

  She looked at Erik without expression and told him, “Since they began, two years ago.”

  He frowned. He wanted to ask why he had never been told, but he knew the disdain that Magda had for him. She would never volunteer anything for his benefit. To be fair, as well, he had to admit that his duties with the SOG had made him difficult to contact. Two years ago, he had been in Afghanistan. He sighed.

  “First order of business is to get them to stop,” Erik said. “So, we need to make contact with the Ulfen Alpha and arrange a parley before this gets out of control. Is the Alpha still Ardrik?”

  Sif nodded. “Yes. And he now has three sons who are of age, ready to start packs of their own. The one who was just here? That was his oldest, Alaric.”

  “Who are the other two?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know their names.”

  Erik nodded. “We also need to make contact with the remaining First.”

  Lars raised an eyebrow. “We?”

  “All right, I need to make contact with them.”

  “Seems fitting,” Magda said, “considering your place in Hakon’s group.”

  Nika looked at her, curious. “What place is that?”

  The vala smiled. “Didn’t he tell you? Erik is Hakon’s son and heir. He was his second in command. Now that Hakon is dead and gone, that makes Erik the king of the Draugr, if such a thing exists.”

  Erik looked uncomfortable. “I’m no king.”

  “Ah,” Sif said, “but you could be.”

  Magda chuckled cynically. “Although it’s hard to be king of people whom you’ve betrayed.”

  “I have betrayed nobody.” He sounded weary. Nika suspected that this was an old argument, and that he was tired of repeating it.

  “That all depends on whom you ask,” Magda said. Sif squeezed her hand on the back on her lover’s neck again, and the vala fell silent.

  “Do you have a way to get in touch with the rest of the First?” Erik asked Magda. “I know you supply dreyri to all of them.”

  She went to her purse and retrieved her cell phone, then tossed it to him. He caught it and looked through the contacts. Magda walked to his side and plucked the phone out of his hand. She swiped her finger across the screen until she found what she was looking for, and she gave him back the phone.

  He looked down and set his jaw. He glanced up at Magda, who stood over him and smirked in triumph. He glared at her. Nika wondered, not for the first time, about the things the two of them had been through together. She knew there had to be a story there.

  Erik looked up at Nika briefly, and she saw the briefest flash of hurt in his eyes. She frowned. He went into the kitchen with the phone, and Magda sat beside Sif again, a look of supreme satisfaction on her face.

  ***

  He stood with the phone in his hand, staring at the photograph it displayed. It was Nika and Rahim Amari, the false face of Loki’s Nøkken vessel, leaning toward each other in a fancy restaurant. They were clearly seconds away from a kiss. He told himself that the Nøkken were seductive creatures, and that Nika could not be blamed for falling under its spell. His mind concurred with the assessment, but his heart still ached.

  Damn you, Magda, he thought. Why did you have to show me this?

  He angrily swiped his finger across the screen and dismissed the image. He heard someone approaching, and he caught Nika’s delicate scent in the air. He tried to keep his body language and his voice casual as he greeted her.

  “Hello, Chosen,” he said. Despite his best efforts, he sounded tight.

  She went to him and put a hand on his arm. “Is everything all right? What did she show you?”

  He sighed. He went back to the photograph and showed it to her. “This.”

  Nika’s mouth dropped open, and she stammered, “I can explain. It’s not…”

  “I don’t care,” he said softly. “It doesn’t matter now. Loki’s vessel is dead, and anyway, you were under his spell. I don’t blame you.”

  She looked relieved. “I would never betray you, Erik.”

  He kissed her. “I know.” He wished he were as certain as he sounded. Irritated with the situation and with himself, he dismissed the photograph and went to the list of contacts. “I need to make some calls. You’re welcome to stay if you’d like, but it’ll probably be boring.”

  Nika kissed him. “I’ll be in the living room.”

  He smiled at her as she left, and then he scrolled through the list of names and numbers. He encountered an entry for the First named Bjorn, one of the four who had resumed his raiding ways. He dialed the number.

  The phone rang several times, then Bjorn’s deep voice came on the line. “Magda! To what do I owe the honor?”

  “This is Erik Thorvald.”

  There was a stunned silence on the other end, and then Bjorn asked, “What happened to Magda?”

  “Nothing. She let me borrow her phone so I could call you.”

  “She let you? She hates you.”

  “I know, but this is important.”

  Bjorn’s tone turned hard. “What do you want, Thorvald?”

  “I need to meet with all of the First.”

  The other vampire laughed. “Why would we meet with you? You and your Huntsmen betrayed the rest of our brothers. We won’t walk into your trap.”

  The Huntsmen were the reason only eight of the First still survived. Everyone knew that there had been a time when Erik had hunted his former brethren, back when he had first become Veithimathr. It had been the only way to stop the massacres that were attracting too much human attention. Nobody in the Draugr community realized anymore how close they’d come to living the old trope of the mob with torches and pitchforks.

  Erik scowled. “I assure you, if I was planning a trap for you, I would be much subtler. Gather the First, and we will meet in Snake Eyes. Neutral ground.”

  “When?”

  “Three days, at sunset.”

  Bjorn grunted, “I’ll tell them, but I can’t guarantee that they’ll show up.”

  “Be persuasive. I know you have it in you.” He ended the call and returned to the living room. He tossed the phone back to Magda, then told the assembled immortals, “I’m going to be meeting with the First at Snake Eyes in three days.”

  Magda tucked the phone back into her purse. “If you destroy anything in my club, I’ll take it out of your hide.”

  “We’re not going to fight. We’re going to talk.”

  She pursed her lips. “With the First, everything ends with fighting.”

  “Not this time.” He turned to Nika. “Would you like to take a walk with me?”

  She frowned. “With those werewolves out there? Is that safe?”

  “We can’t live under house arrest,” he said, shrugging. “Besides, even the Ulfen are too smart to attack in the middle of a human settlement. Nobody wants to attract that kind of attention.”

  She looked uncertain, but she nodded. “All right.”

  They left the house hand in hand. The sun was high overhead, bright and cheerful. He probably would not have risked a walk in the darkness. He listened to the wind through the trees, straining to hear the telltale sounds of paws, but there were none. Apparently, the Ulfen had gone back to wherever they had come from.

  They walked down the hill toward the body of the resort, where the sound and scent of people beckoned. He could feel her looking at him, curious, full of questions that for once she wasn’t asking. He took a deep breath and stopped walking. She stopped, too, and turned to look at him.

  “There’s a lot I need to teach you,” he said. “I haven’t been giving you very good instruction on the ways to be a Draugr.”

  She smiled. “I’ll learn as I go. I have time, right?”

  “Perhaps.” He stroked the soft skin of her hand with his thumb. “In case you ever need to be self-sufficient, though, there are things you need to know how to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like hunt.”

  Her smile faltered. “Hunt? Can’t I just drink dreyri?”

  “Dreyri will keep you alive and keep the magic in your belly, but if you want to be truly strong, you need the life force in blood from a living human. If we are really at war, and if the Ulfen are going to attack, you will need to be as strong as you can be.”

  “But you drank strong dreyri when you needed to power up instead of human blood,” she said, confused. “Why can’t I do the same?”

  “I am older than you, and as Veithimathr, I have been enchanted to allow me to live with less of the human life force than other Draugr. You haven’t had the benefit of that spell and will need more life force than the dreyri can give you. Until now, I’ve been supplementing you with my own. You also may not always have access to dreyri, so you’ll need to feed the old-fashioned way.” He canted his head, considering her. “Are you uncomfortable with the idea?”

  She shifted on her feet, her uneasiness plain in her face and in her body language. “I don’t really relish the idea of being a parasite.”

  He bristled and corrected, “Predator. Not parasite.”

  She looked away. “Sorry.”

  He softened his face and his tone. “Sorry… I hate being called a parasite. I really fucking hate it.” He took a deep breath. “Regardless, you will need to learn how to feed in case you’re on your own, if we get separated, or if you can’t get to dreyri when the thirst hits.”

  He knew that she had not really experienced the agony that true thirst could bring, and he hoped that she never would. It was an agony no Draugr ever wished to experience.

  She met his gaze steadily, squaring her shoulders. “What do I need to do?”

  “I’m going to show you,” he said. “Learn from what I do. It will look and feel like cheating, but it’s all about the blood.”

  A strange expression fluttered across her face, somewhere between ire and fear, and she asked, “Does feeding involve sex?”

  He told her honestly, “Sometimes. Sometimes that’s the only way they’ll let you close enough. The sex, if it happens, is a means to an end.”

  She turned away and took a step or two down the hill. She turned back. “Are you seriously going to pick up another woman while I’m sitting there?”

  “To drink her blood? Yes. To take her to bed? No.” He walked down to her. “And then you’re going to pick up a man and you’re going to do the same.”

  “But… we’re together,” she protested. “I don’t want to… I don’t know how to…”

  “That’s where the learning comes in. I’ll teach you how to attract prey, how to hold them and then how to release them. I won’t turn you out on your own until you’ve gone through the process with me a few times.”

  Nika shook her head. “Why do I feel like we’re talking about having a threesome?”

  He smiled a little ruefully. “Because we sort of are.” He held out his hand. “It’s honestly just about the blood. If we can avoid sex, we will.”

  “And if we can’t?”

  “Then we enjoy it while it’s happening, and we chalk it up to experience.”

  “I don’t know if I like that.”

  He sighed. “Your life as a Draugr will be very different to your life as a human being. You have to be ready to change to meet that new life.” He took her hand. “This is necessary, Nika. I don’t want to share you with anyone, but I want you to know how to feed yourself if something should happen to me.”

  Her eyes widened. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”

  “The Ulfen and the faery are a formidable foe, and if they are truly on the march, then anything can happen. Even my luck might run out. We all can die, if it is our time.”

  Nika shook her head. “No. Don’t talk about that.”

  “Not talking about it won’t prevent it from happening, if that’s what’s meant to be.” He squeezed her hand and kissed her. “It may even be that if we prepare for it, it will never happen. I just want to be certain that you’ll be all right, if the worst should come.”

  They continued walking toward the main hotel. She had her head down. “I still don’t like to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll let it drop, then.”

  They walked in silence for a moment, and then she asked, “What do I do?”

  “Just watch me, and listen.”

  The hotel bar was filled with guests and their visitors, many of them attractive and fit, all of them well-to-do. Erik walked into the room with Nika at his side, and he scanned the crowd for likely marks. A pretty but slightly heavy brunette sat at a corner table by herself, her face sad. A young man, probably on his gap year, was at the bar, sitting alone and watching the women, his face buried in a mug of beer. His eyes were somewhat glassy, and Erik thought he would be easy to take.

  He asked Nika in her mind, Do you see the college boy?

  Yes.

  He’s our mark.

  She looked at him, startled. I thought you’d want to feed on a woman.

  He smiled. I’ve fed on men before, when the occasion warranted. It’s not my preference. I love the taste of a woman, but this one is for you.

  She looked around. What about her?

  He looked where she indicated. It was the sad brunette. If we can’t set the hook in this one, sure. We’ll give her a try. Come on.

  They walked together to the bar. Erik nodded for Nika to get on one side of the young man, and he sat on the other. Erik gestured to the bartender, and he came to collect their drink orders.

  “Aquavit,” Erik requested. “Red wine for the lady, and another round for our friend, here.”

  He could feel Nika’s eyes on him, studying every move and every word. He knew she had a quick mind; it wouldn’t take her long to figure out the subtleties.

  The human man looked at Erik. “Thanks, man,” he said.

  “No problem.” He held out his hand. “My name is Erik, and this is my partner, Nika.”

  The man accepted the proffered handshake. “Valtteri.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” the vampire said, looking into the young Finn’s eyes. He did not release his hand, and the man made no move to take it back. Pinpoints of green Draugr fire flared in Erik’s eyes, and Valtteri’s mouth dropped open. Erik was certain that Nika, especially with her Valtaeigr abilities, could see the waves of power transferring from him to the mortal man.

  “Likewise,” he said. When Erik finally released his hand, he turned to face Nika, his eyes raking her from head to toe and back again. He smiled. “Hello, there.”

  She smiled, and Erik nodded to her when he saw tiny green sparks in her eyes, too. She would be stronger and more certain with practice.

  Her attempt at mesmerism may have been feeble, but Erik had primed the man’s mind to be receptive. Valtteri smiled widely and took Nika’s hand, kissing it.

  “You are absolutely beautiful,” he told her.

  The bartender arrived with their drinks, and Erik paid with cash. He told him, “Put my friend’s drinks on my tab.”

  “Yes, sir.” The bartender glanced at Nika, then back at Erik, and he walked away.

  Valtteri took a drink of his beer. “So…are you two here on holiday?”

  “We are,” Erik nodded. “We’re just getting away from Sweden for a few days. It’s my birthday, you see.”

  “Ah! Happy birthday.”

  “Thank you.” He looked at Nika and nodded again. She took the signal.

  “I’ve been promising him a special trip all year,” she told Valtteri, her hand on his arm. A slight golden glow of runic magic pulsed under her palm, and the young man shivered. Erik approved of the unexpected improvisation. “I want to make it memorable for him.”

  “Mem – Oh.”

  Erik leaned closer and pushed a tendril of his Draugr power into the mortal’s mind, a slick finger inserting itself into his thoughts, encouraging him to go down the avenue they wanted him to travel. “We thought maybe you might like to help with that.”