“It’s in my bag,” she said, nodding.

  “May I see it?”

  Strangely, her knee-jerk was to tell her ‘no’, but instead she retrieved the book from her suitcase. Magda watched with open avarice as Nika reluctantly handed the book to Natasha. The eldest Valtaeigr opened the book and perused the pages, turning them slowly with her left hand while she cradled the book in her right.

  “Amazing,” she said. “I can practically feel Odin’s power in these runes.”

  Nika nodded. “It’s a very powerful artifact.”

  Natasha chuckled. “‘Artifact.’ That’s right - you work in a museum, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose that explains your taste for old things.” She looked at Magda, who obligingly laughed at her lame joke. Nika crossed her arms.

  Magda’s telephone rang, and she went into another room to take the call. Nika extended her hearing, listening with Draugr senses while Natasha ogled the book.

  In the other room, she heard Magda say, “Go ahead.” She could hear a female voice on the other line, but she was too quiet for Nika to make out any words, even with her acute hearing. Magda sighed. “Did you at least get it on video? Good. Send it to me, and a copy to our contact. I might have more people for you to send it to later. And find him before he causes trouble.”

  She ended the call and returned to the front room. Nika asked, “Problem?”

  “When you run a bar, there’s nothing but problems.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without Sif.”

  “You will do what you must until she returns,” Natasha told her. “She will find you, or you will find her. I promise you that.”

  She seemed to be somewhat comforted by her mentor’s assurances. Her phone tweeted for her attention, and she glanced down at it. She seemed pleased by what she saw. “Will you excuse me?”

  “Of course.” Natasha smiled at her. “Why don’t you go upstairs? The reception is better there.”

  When Magda had left them, Natasha turned to Nika. “I think you’ve had a very spotty beginning of your education. I would be happy to help fill in some of the holes, if you would let me.”

  “I’d like that very much.” She forced a smile. “I don’t have anything else to do for the next twenty or so years.”

  Natasha raised an eyebrow. “That’s a very distinct number.”

  “I figure that’s how long it’ll take for Erik to be reborn.”

  “Ah. Well, there’s no set time table for how long a soul stays in Helheim before returning here to Midgard. Maybe it will be twenty years, maybe it will be more, but maybe it will be less.” She smiled. “As with Magda and Sif, he will find you, or you will find him. It is destiny.”

  “I hope that’s true.”

  “Your souls found each other in this lifetime,” Natasha shrugged. “I see no need for pessimism.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Ah! But you’ve had a long trip. Surely you must be thirsty. Would you care for some dreyri? I have a selection in the wine cellar. Feel free to go down and pick out whatever appeals to you.”

  Nika looked around, and Natasha pointed her to the appropriate door. She tried to listen to Magda’s call, but the room she had gone into was completely silent, no doubt magically warded. Nika was deeply suspicious of her hostess’s motives.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “I’m not really thirsty right now.”

  Natasha was a Draugr, too, and she knew a young vampire like Nika needed to feed regularly. She could smell the lie on Nika’s skin, in the pallor of her cheeks and the slight green glow in her irises that she could no longer conceal.

  “I insist,” she said.

  She went into the basement, but not without touching the doorknob and applying a little runic magic to disable the lock mechanism. A small part inside the lock sprang out of place, making it impossible for Natasha to shut her in and keep her prisoner. She was jumpy and suspicious, and she knew it was unfair, since Natasha had been nothing but welcoming. She had no reason to suspect anyone...and yet she did.

  She went down the stairs and into the wine cellar, where row upon row of bottled blood stood waiting for their drinking pleasure. Some of the bottles had more power than others, but there was one particular rack that was filled with dreyri that shone in her mind’s eye. There was so much preternatural power and magic in those twelve bottles that it was almost painful to look upon them. She reached out and touched the dimpled bottom of the bottle with one forefinger, and a shock of power raced down her hand and up her shoulder.

  It came with a vision of five Nordic-looking men, all of them sporting tell-tale Draugr teeth and eyes. The vision was from the point of view of someone these men were attacking with indescribable violence. She gasped and pulled her hand away as if it had been burned.

  Natasha was standing at the top of the stairs. “Are you finding it all right?” she called.

  She hesitated, then grabbed one of the bottles from a very mundane-looking rack. It had no shimmer beyond the kind dreyri normally had.

  “Just fine,” she said. “Shall I bring a bottle for each of us?”

  “Just two bottles, I think,” she said. “Magda doesn’t imbibe.”

  Until her hostess had said so, Nika had not consciously realized that she had never seen Magda drinking dreyri. She sold it hand over fist and raked in the money for it the same way, but she never seemed to use it at all. Nika wondered how she kept herself fed.

  She brought the bottles up the stairs, and Natasha led her into the library, where crystal wine glasses had been set out around a silver wine bucket. She put the bottles into the container, which was filled with water and had a heating unit attached to the bottom.

  Natasha said, “I like my blood warm.”

  “So do I, honestly.”

  Her hostess uncorked the bottles and put them back into the water to heat. The aroma of the blood rose like perfume. “There are some who drink it over ice when the weather is hot,” Natasha said, making idle conversation. “I dislike that, because the blood begins to congeal. I do not enjoy the feeling of thick blood in my throat.”

  “I can certainly understand that.” She sat in a leather-upholstered wingback chair. “This is a lovely home.”

  “Thank you. I inherited it.”

  “From whom?” She hastened to add, “If I’m not prying.”

  “Not at all.” She settled onto a settee beside the table that held the wine bucket. “I inherited it from a lover. He was a very important man in the petroleum industry, and when he passed away, he left two of his houses to me - this one and a lovely dacha out in western Siberia.”

  Nika chuckled. “I’ve never heard ‘lovely’ and ‘Siberia’ in the same sentence before.”

  “That’s because you’re American and cursed with your country’s short sightedness,” she sniffed. “Siberia is a beautiful place. So many forests and rivers, good fishing and hunting. It’s the sort of place a person could go to get lost.”

  “I prefer to be found, personally,” Nika said, smiling.

  Natasha leaned back and crossed her long legs. She had removed her trench coat to reveal a shell-pink silk dress beneath, very ladylike and elegant, with a pleated skirt that fell around her legs attractively. “You don’t know about Magda’s history, do you?”

  “She hasn’t told me anything.”

  “It’s a painful story.”

  Nika hesitated. “Then maybe you should let her be the one to tell me.”

  Natasha smiled, but the effect was off putting. “She was a member of the Rus tribe here along the Neva. The Viking raiders came and burned her village, and they took all of the young women captive. Magda was made a body slave.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “Indeed. Her master used her enthusiastically for many months until she conceived a child. The daughter was born when he was at sea, and when he returned, he beat her for having the temerity to bear a girl child when he wanted a son.”

  Nika huffed, “As if she could control that. That’s so barbaric.”

  “It was. He forced two more children from her, finally getting his sons when the second and third babes were born.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask, but what happened to the girls?”

  “She was raised by Magda and her master’s mother, of course.” She tilted her head. “Her master was cursed not long after the second son was born. When he returned, he forced Magda to take the blood, turning her against her will.”

  “That poor thing,” Nika said sadly. “What a horrible fate.”

  “Indeed.” She smiled again, and it was broader this time. She was clearly relishing what she was about to say. “Do you know who her master was?”

  She steeled herself, although Lars had prepared her to hear this news. “Erik,” she said.

  “Precisely. So your beloved Thorvald used to be a real son of a bitch.”

  Nika crossed her arms. “I know he was. I also know that he changed, and that he hasn’t done anything of the sort in hundreds of years. That’s not who he is any longer. If he’d still been that person, he wouldn’t have been made a vessel, or Veithimathr.”

  “That is the accepted version, yes.”

  “The accepted version?”

  “Yes. The reality is somewhat different.”

  Nika’s voice was hushed when she spoke again. “I don’t care what you say. I know that Erik was a changed man, and that he would never have done such a thing now. He was a product of his time.”

  “If you insist.” She sighed. “My dear, the first thing you will have to learn as a Valtaeigr is that men are not to be trusted. They will always turn on you. The only people you can really trust are your sisters.”

  Magda came into the room, her face unreadable. She sat beside Natasha. “You’re telling her the story,” she said.

  “I am. She deserves to know.”

  “I’m sorry if your privacy has been invaded by me knowing these things,” Nika told her.

  “No matter. It’s important that you know what your Erik Thorvald was really like. I know you mourn him, but I personally celebrate his demise. He has done much to wrong me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Nika said. “But I’m confident that he was a different man now.”

  “Really?” Magda smiled at her, and her expression and the angle of her head were exact mirrors of Natasha. “That’s cute.”

  Nika narrowed her eyes. “That’s condescending.”

  Natasha put a hand on Magda’s knee, silencing her. “You’ll have to forgive her. She’s raw right now. I’m certain she doesn’t mean what she’s saying. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  They looked at one another, and then Magda acquiesced. “That’s right. Sorry, Nika.”

  “No harm done.” She lifted one of the bottles of dreyri. “Shall we drink?”

  Her hostess picked up one of the crystal glasses. “Let’s.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Ingrid set up one of her kitchen chairs on a tarp in her garden and brought Erik outside. “Sit here,” she coached.

  He sat where she bid him to, craning his neck to see what she was doing. Ingrid picked up a shallow bowl and dumped a tiny piece of charcoal into it and set it alight, then blew out the flame until only smoke remained.

  “Oh, no,” he objected. “No more smoke.”

  “Hush. Do you want to be freed of her influence or don’t you?”

  He scowled, feeling surly. “How do I even know that there is an influence? I don’t feel anything.”

  “The name of the girl who enspelled you was Mia.”

  “Yes.”

  “She is powerful and well-trained. She’s one of Natasha’s girls, a Dark Sister. Natasha is their high priestess.”

  He shook his head. “Should that mean anything to me?”

  She chuckled and sprinkled the smoldering charcoal with a powder that smelled of old blood. “Natasha is a very powerful and ancient shamaness of the Rus people. She’s one of the earliest of the Valtaeigr, and she takes her immortality from magic, not from the gods. She is Magda’s mother.”

  His jaw dropped. “Her mother?”

  “Yes. I’ll bet you thought you killed her mother, eh?” She brought the smoking tray closer and set it on the ground underneath his chair. “Sit still.”

  He thought back to the raid when they had taken Magda and her village, something he rarely allowed himself to do, and said, “Yes. I thought we killed all of the adults.”

  “Your raid killed her aunts and uncles, and her grandparents, but her mother was elsewhere when you came. Lucky for her, not so lucky for you.”

  She repeated her earlier procedure with another dish and charcoal, and then picked up a fan made from a bird’s wing. She circled Erik, directing the smoke toward him. He coughed lightly, more from annoyance than from any actual difficulty with the smoke.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Sit still and be quiet,” she answered. “You can be such a pain in the ass.”

  He couldn’t dispute that. Ingrid began to chant, and the words delved into his brain, making it vibrate. He shuddered against the feeling and gripped the edges of the seat, as if the chair would pitch him off at any moment. He closed his eyes. Images of the troll raid, of Mia washing the blood from his chest, of the face of the Huldra when he’d held her for Halvar… his guilt made manifest rolled through his head like a river of filth. He was ashamed.

  On the heels of the shame came anger, and an urge for violence. His grip on the chair became less steadying and angrier, and he warred with himself as the impulse to beat Ingrid’s brains out rose in him like bile. He was shaking with the effort of resisting it.

  She seemed to sense the danger, but she did not change her spell. The chanting continued at the same pace as before, and the smoke still rolled into his face and down his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut against the daylight and against the vision of the witch who was helping him. If he’d seen her face, he could not have prevented himself from smashing it with a fist.

  He had not been violent to a woman in a millennium. Whatever Mia and Bjorn’s group had done to him, they had done it well.

  The volume of her chanting rose, and with it the pitch, and soon she was standing in front of him, arms raised high, screaming her words into the sky. He felt himself vibrating like a crystal about to shatter, and he cried out from the pain and pressure of it.

  Then, with a snap, it was gone, and he felt his soul recoil, shrinking back into himself like a tendon shrinks when it’s cut. He trembled and opened his eyes, gasping for air. Ingrid was kneeling in front of him, a sword in her hand, the point pressed against his chest.

  “What are you doing, old woman?” he demanded. The words came out in Old Norse, and for a moment, he was back in his mortal village, in his mortal self. His mind was disjointed, scattered.

  “Saving you,” she responded in the same tongue, just before she ran him through.

  He howled in agony as the sword point pierced his chest, just below his heart. The sword pressed all the way through him and pinned him to the chair, where he thrashed in agony. His blood rushed out over the blade. It was darker and thicker than it should have been.

  Ingrid chanted something further, then abruptly went silent and pulled the sword free. He toppled out of the chair and landed face-down on the ground, bleeding and unconscious.

  ***

  Nika gasped as a sharp, sudden pain struck her in the chest. She pressed her hand to her sternum and stared at Natasha, wide-eyed, thinking at first that the older Valtaeigr had done something to her. The confusion on Natasha’s face, mirrored by Magda, reassured her on that point. The pain was gone as quickly as it had come. In her mind’s eye, she saw Erik’s face. He was lying on a patch of dirt, sunlight on his skin. She shook her head, and the vision vanished.

  “What was that?” Natasha asked, concerned.

  “There was so much power!” Magda exclaimed.

  Nika could not speak. She shook her head and held out her hand, warning them to stay back. In her mind’s eye, she saw a slender golden thread extending to her out of darkness, writhing and whipping. She grasped it.

  The moment she touched that invisible cord, the sense of Erik exploded in her heart, and she could suddenly feel him again. It was the Chosen bond, and it had somehow been recreated. She tugged on it, and it was solid on the other end, anchored in the soul of her beloved, which could only mean one thing.

  Erik was alive.

  She glared at Magda. “You said he was dead. You said the First killed him.”

  Magda gaped at her. “You re-created the bond.”

  Natasha frowned. “That’s impossible.”

  Nika could feel all of Erik’s ancient power rushing into her, filling her soul. She was drunk on it and overwhelmed by sheer impact. He was so much more powerful than she had ever known. He hid so much. She didn’t know how someone could carry so much magic and seem so normal. She buzzed with it. She began to levitate.

  Natasha shouted something to Magda, and the two began to try to physically restrain her. Natasha began chanting in a language Nika had never heard, and the words jangled unpleasantly in her ears. She pulled the power of her own rune magic up and around her, forming a golden shell that encased her and protected her from anything the two of them tried to do.

  She tilted in the air until she was upright, and then she lowered to the floor. Her feet were still an inch above the carpet. The power she had somehow inherited from Erik filled her and pulled her out of the room and toward the door.

  Natasha ran past her and slammed the door shut while Magda grabbed a rifle from a closet. Nika was unconcerned. She gestured, and the door exploded into a thousand shards, opening the way for her. The force of the blast knocked Natasha from her feet. Nika smiled to herself and floated toward the door.

  Magda shot her in the back. The bullet struck her golden shield and bounced off harmlessly. Nika turned and faced her, and the look of fear that Magda wore was almost comical. She laughed and shot rune fire at her, knocking the rifle out of her grip and sending her sprawling across the carpet.