“I have no trouble with her being trained, but if you try to take her from me, you will have a fight on your hands,” he warned.

  Magda smiled and shrugged. “I’m not concerned.”

  The cab parked outside the club, and Erik paid the tab while Magda strolled to the doors. She punched the code into the electronic lock, then let it scan her thumbprint. The door lock opened with a click.

  “Very high tech,” he said, approving.

  “It’s a very modern facility,” she said, opening the door. “Try not to break it.”

  “I can’t promise anything.”

  He followed her inside and sat at the bar while she went through the process of turning on the lights and waking up the HVAC system. He helped himself to a bottle of her finest vintage of dreyri, one of the ones on the top shelf. She went by him with a click of her tongue as she went to check the back door.

  “You’re paying for that.”

  He took a gold piece from the reign of Harald Hardrada out of his jeans pocket and put it down on counter with a click. “Good enough for three bottles?”

  “It’ll do.”

  “Four?”

  “Don’t push me.”

  He laughed.

  Sunset was a long way off, and there was money to be made. Magda opened the doors, and soon a few young Draugr trickled in. He moved from the bar to a corner table, where he could drink and watch the entire room without obstruction. A newly-turned Draugr male came in, stealing furtive glances at Erik when he sensed the power of one of the First. He was skinny and dark-haired, with a gaunt face and a hipster man bun. He carefully avoided making eye contact.

  Erik shook his head and sipped his dreyri. That young one was not destined to last for long.

  As the day wore on, more Draugr came and went. Some brought their mortal hangers-on, lovers or friends or possibly blood slaves. They came, danced, and drank, and all of them gave Erik’s table a wide berth. He didn’t mind.

  He drank his way through all three bottles of ancient dreyri, enjoying the tingle of the magic on his tongue and the way it burned in his throat. He savored the taste, his mind turning back to the question of Magda’s sources, and he tried to determine if there was any faery blood in the mix. He could not tell.

  He looked at his watch. Still three hours to go until nightfall.

  Chapter Five

  Nika sat on her bed with the Book of Odin on her lap, reading through the pages she could decipher. Learning how to wield rune magic was an ongoing project, and she doubted she would ever be finished with her studies.

  Sif knocked on the open door, and Nika greeted her with a smile.

  “Come in,” she said.

  Sif sat beside her, curling her long legs up beneath her on the mattress. The statuesque blonde moved like a cat, all sinew and muscle beneath a beautiful exterior. Nika was intimidated by her, although she would never have admitted it.

  “Are you learning much, young one?” Sif asked.

  Nika turned a page. “This book is full of things to learn. I will be learning from it every day of my life, I think.”

  Sif chuckled. “That is a lot of days. You are immortal now, after all.” She ran her hand through her own thick hair, pushing it back over her shoulder. She rarely wore it down. “Tell me, would you like to learn more than the things that are in that book?”

  “I love learning,” she answered honestly. “Of course I would. Are there other books like this?”

  “Odin is not the only god to make a record of his magic,” she said. “In fact, I know where there is a library full of books just like this. Would you like to know where it is? Perhaps you could visit it one day, when you are done playing with your Huntsman.”

  Nika raised an eyebrow and looked at her. Sif was sitting very close to her, almost uncomfortably so. “You have your own Huntsman to play with, I thought.”

  “Lars?” She chuckled. “He is a pleasant distraction, and I turned him, yes, but he is no Huntsman. Only one of those men remain. Only a Huntsman is worthy of a Valtaeigr. Lars is temporary at best. A hobby, if you will.”

  She closed the book and rose, putting a little distance between the two of them. “I’m sorry to tell you that the only remaining Huntsman is spoken for, then.” She put the book on the dresser, then said, “No, actually, I’m not sorry to tell you that. Not sorry at all.”

  Sif laughed throatily. “You are an amusing child.”

  Nika rankled. “Thank you, I think.”

  “You haven’t said whether you would want to see this library.”

  “I would be interested,” she said warily, “If Erik were to bring me there.”

  “Erik doesn’t know where it is. That is a Valtaeigr secret.”

  “And you’d be willing to show me, I take it?”

  Sif chuckled again. “I would be happy to show you many things.”

  She felt hunted. Nika turned suspicious eyes onto the other Draugr woman and said, “What are you doing, Sif?”

  Her response was a clear, bell-like laugh. She uncurled her body and rose from the mattress. “Just making conversation, little one. You are so untrusting.”

  Sif went back down the stairs, and Nika could hear Lars’ voice in the living room, as clear as if he were in the room with her. There were benefits to having Draugr hearing. “Where have you been?”

  “Chatting with Nika.” She heard a shift of furniture cushions; either Lars had stood up, or Sif had sat down. “She’s a bookworm.”

  She stopped eavesdropping and pulled on her boots. She was suddenly feeling very confined in this house and needed to get some fresh air. She went down the stairs and into the kitchen, intent upon getting a little dreyri to start her night.

  The keg was missing. The counter where the thing had stood was bare, and there were no cupboards large enough to hold it. She went into the living room, where Sif and Lars were sitting, his head in her lap. They looked up at her when she came in.

  “Where is the dreyri?” she asked.

  “Oh, it’s gone,” Sif said. “We drank it all.”

  “All of it? But…”

  She smiled, her teeth showing. “We’ve been very thirsty.”

  Lars said, “It was gone when I got up this morning. That’s why Magda went with Erik - she’s going to get more and bring it back.”

  Nika very much doubted the story. Even at their thirstiest, the five of them could not have consumed thirty-one gallons of blood in such a short amount of time. Even Erik, who was the heaviest drinker of them all, never had that much. She looked at Sif, who was smiling blandly and innocently at her.

  “If you’re thirsty,” Sif said, her voice light, “I guess you’ll have to go hunting.”

  Lars started to sit up, but Sif put her hand on his shoulder, pressing him back down. He looked surprised, as if this was the first time he’d realized that his girlfriend was physically stronger than him.

  Nika put on her jacket. “Fine. I’ll be back.”

  Lars objected, “There might be Ulfen.”

  “I guess I’ll have to take that chance.” She looked at Sif, the two of them measuring each other. Something very unpleasant was going on.

  “Have fun,” the other woman said, her tone airy and false.

  “Sif -”

  She silenced his burgeoning objection with a kiss, still holding him in place. Nika said, “Leave him alone, Sif. You’re threatening him.”

  Sif looked up, surprised. “Why would I threaten my own lover?”

  Lars said, “Let me up.” She allowed it this time, and he sprang to his feet. To Nika, he said, “I’m going with you.”

  “Don’t leave,” Sif said, and her tone was one of command.

  The former SOG officer looked at her without a word, then opened the door for Nika. She walked out, and he followed close behind, shutting the door on Sif’s objections.

  They walked down the path toward the hotel, keeping their silence for several moments. Finally, Nika said, “She’s up to something.”

  “Yes. Both she and Magda. I don’t trust them.”

  She looked at him, surprised. “But you sleep with them.”

  “Of course I do. Have you seen them?” He smiled. “That’s just sex, Nika. Trust is something entirely different. I trust very few people in this world.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  He looked at her, almost as if he were deciding on his answer. “Yes. I trust you. And I trust Erik. Those two? Not a chance.”

  They continued walking, and just before they reached the building, she said, “You must have found it difficult to believe what he was, when you were told.”

  He thought back. “Not really. You learn a lot of secrets when you’re in Special Forces, and some of the things I’ve learned about certain elected officials pale when they’re compared with being an honorable man who happens to drink blood to survive.” He glanced at her. “It must have been harder for you.”

  “No,” she admitted. “It was actually surprisingly easy.”

  “Well, you’re one of the wise women, and a vessel to boot. You probably always knew, subconsciously.” He opened the door to the hotel lobby and held it for her. “Ladies first.”

  They walked together to the bar, where Erik and Nika had encountered Valtteri. She glanced around to see if he was there, but the young Finn was nowhere to be seen. She was relieved.

  Lars escorted her to a corner table, and they sat together, looking out over the assembled mortals. The night was still young, so there weren’t many people yet, but there was enough of a crowd to make for interesting people-watching.

  At the far side of the bar room, in the corner booth diametrically opposite their own, a dark-haired man with a high-planed face sat brooding, his large hands cupped around a mug of coffee. He was exotic and beautiful, with an air of other places and other times about him, a sort of cloud of mystery that clung to him. Nika had never seen a man like him before.

  “Who is that?”

  Lars looked. “I don’t know. Some guy.”

  “Don’t you think there’s something...different… about him?”

  Her companion looked, and shrugged. “He’s a tourist, probably.”

  She fell silent, keeping her suppositions to herself. She could not deny the way this strange man shimmered in her mind. She wondered if she was seeing him with senses that Lars did not share, and that thought was strangely appealing. She rose.

  “I’m going to go say hello.”

  Lars sat back. “If you want.”

  She walked across the room, aware that Lars was keeping an eye on her movements. He was acting as her bodyguard, she supposed, and the knowledge that he was there to keep her safe made her feel bold.

  The man at the table looked up at her when she approached, his eyes an almost impossible golden-brown, rimmed with the longest, blackest lashes she had ever seen. His body, wrapped in tight denim and a black leather jacket, was the body of an athlete, and a tattoo sleeve peeked out from beneath his right cuff. She smiled at him, and he looked at her almost warily.

  “Hi,” she said in English. “Is this seat taken?”

  He glanced at Lars, then responded in the same tongue, mildly accented. “No. Please sit down.”

  She slid into the booth with him, taking up a position across from him, her back to Lars. Her new companion could see the other Draugr over her shoulder, and he spent as much time looking at him as he spent looking at Nika. She wanted to change that.

  “I’m Nika,” she said, offering her hand.

  “Dominic.” He accepted the friendly greeting, albeit stiffly.

  “You’re not Finnish.”

  He shook his head. “Not entirely. My father is.” He sipped his coffee, his movement slow and deliberate. “You’re American.”

  “Yes.” She crossed her legs and leaned back, letting one scarlet curl fall over her shoulder to land on her breast. He watched the motion of the fall, and his eyes stayed for a moment. She smiled. “What brings you to Oulu?”

  He dragged his gaze back up to her face. She could feel its weight almost physically. “My family is visiting the resort,” he told her. “My father wanted us to come, so here we are.”

  He smelled of fir trees and cold air. It was an enticing scent. Now that she was closer to him, she could get a better reading on the energy that swirled around him. He wasn’t Draugr, but he certainly was no human. She reached out a tentative finger of energy, intending to stroke his aura to gain a better sense of him.

  To her surprise, the seeking tendril was batted away by one of his own. She started at the snap of it, and he frowned.

  “That was rude,” he scolded her.

  “I just… I wondered…”

  “I am not your next meal, vampire,” he growled. He rose and tossed some money onto the table.

  She said, surprising herself, “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  He pulled down the collar of his white T-shirt, exposing a keloid scar on the side of his neck, ragged and painful-looking. “Yes, I do.” His eyes turned even more golden, and the hand holding his collar lengthened and changed before her eyes. His fingers were curled, but she could see a long claw growing on his thumb, and the dark hair sprouting on his skin confirmed her guess.

  “You’re Ulfen.”

  “Yes,” he growled, his voice deepened by his partial change. “And you are my enemy.”

  She put out a hand and stopped him before he could leave, aware that he would not attack her with so many mortal witnesses. “Why am I your enemy? What have I done to you?”

  He pulled away with a snarl. “Don’t lie to me. You know exactly what it was...Rune Master.”

  She watched as he stalked away, his wolf aspect pulling back and hiding once more beneath the beautiful human veneer.

  She was full of questions.

  ***

  Nika and Lars found a mortal woman in the hotel lobby who was open to their suggestions, and they fed from her together in her room upstairs. The way Lars fed was less sexual than Erik’s way, more animal and frightening. It left Nika feeling uncomfortable in the aftermath.

  They walked back to their cottage in the silent darkness, neither of them speaking, the taste of the blood they’d stolen still coppery on their tongues. The only sound was the crunch of their boots on the gravel path and an occasional rustle in the forest as a night bird took flight. Once she thought she heard a fluttering overhead, like the wings of a bat, but when she looked, there was nothing there.

  She wondered how Erik’s talk with the First was going, and whether the others had come to Snake Eyes after all. He had admitted to her that there was a chance they would stand him up. Her mind flashed to dangerous scenarios of the First lying in wait for him outside the bar, ready to ambush him, and she worried that he might be walking into a trap. She clenched her hands in the pockets of her coat, trying to force down the fear. Erik is strong and crafty, she told herself. He’ll be fine.

  He had nearly died not long ago when the SOG had filled him full of silver bullets. She shivered at the thought of facing eternity without him.

  Their path took them past the forest’s edge, and in the gloom beneath the trees, Nika thought she saw two pinpoints of amber light. As quickly as she had seen them, they were gone.

  “Lars,” she said. “There’s something in the woods.”

  He looked, but did not stop walking. He moved around her so that he was between her and the trees, protectively guarding her. A twig snapped somewhere close, and he pulled a pistol from an ankle holster.

  “Walk faster,” he told her. “Run if you have to.” He was staring into the trees, his face intense and frightening.

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  A dark shape moved in the shadows, and then a gigantic wolf burst from the forest, teeth flashing, its amber eyes glowing. It leaped onto Lars, who fired into its body. The wolf yelped, but the wound was only glancing, and it landed on the young Draugr with all four feet. Lars struggled against it, and the wolf’s gleaming fangs snapped, trying to grab his throat.

  Nika called on the rune magic inside of her and summoned a handful of golden energy. She threw it at the wolf, and the magic splashed against its side, setting its black fur on fire. The creature released Lars and dropped to the ground, rolling in the dirt to extinguish the flames. Lars staggered to his feet and emptied his gun into the wolf’s head.

  The silver bullets did their work, and the creature fell dead at his feet. Its body shifted from wolf to man as they watched.

  “Are you all right?” Nika asked.

  Lars nodded. “Yeah.” He bent down and examined the body. “So, this is an Ulfen.”

  “Yes, and there are probably more. Let’s go!”

  “We have to hide this body.”

  “Leave it. The others will take it.” She pulled on his arm. “We have to get to the house. We’re not safe out here.”

  He hesitated, then let her pull him toward the cabin.

  Chapter Six

  It was finally sunset, and Erik was growing impatient. He sat in his corner booth, watching the door, and all that came through were young Draugr and their hangers-on. They gave him a wide berth, clustering against the opposite wall, staying as far away from him as they could. He had to admit that he enjoyed their fear.

  Magda brought him a glass of dreyri, and he could feel the tingling of the powerful enchantment through his fingertips when he accepted it. He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

  “On the house,” she said. “Just testing a new vintage.”

  “Why would you give me anything?” he asked. “That’s not like you. What are the strings attached?”

  She smiled at him in manifestly counterfeit innocence. “No strings, Huntsman. Why would you ask me such a thing?”

  He watched as she walked away, heading back toward her office. She was up to something, but he had no idea what. He decided not to drink the dreyri, and he pushed the glass toward the center of the table.

  The door opened, and the effects of the magical ward shimmered through the room. The chatter of the younglings fell silent as the First arrived.