Nika went downstairs, pausing at the keg before continuing on without drinking. She could hear the mattress springs in the other bedroom, and she knew that Lars, Magda and Sif would never notice her absence. The thought was saddening and freeing at the same time.

  She left the cabin and walked toward the wood, stopping briefly where the wolf had stood. She bent to examine the bent blades of grass, plucking one to pick up the lupine scent the creature had left behind. Nika’s insides felt hot with contained rune magic, as if something inside of her was leaking the power to seep all through her body. She released some of it through her fingertip, letting the golden ray of sparkling runes envelop the blade of brass in her hand. It stiffened, limned with gold, then slowly softened again, humming quietly in her head. It would vibrate when a wolf was near, so now she would have ample warning if one of the Ulfen approached under its remarkable camouflage.

  The path through the forest was covered with wood chips, and they crunched beneath her feet as she walked. The blade of grass in her hand was still and soft, so she continued walking without fear. Above her head, a tiny bat fluttered past, and she had to chuckle at the Hollywood vampire movies she had seen. Here she was, a vampire, and she had no affinity for bats whatsoever.

  She walked for a long way, listening to the sounds of the wood, lost in thought. She finally came to a quiet spot where the brush was a little longer, and she stopped to take it in. There was an owl on the branch above her, staring at her with its great yellow eyes. Not far away, in a nest made of leaves, a family of squirrels slept, their body heat visible like a green shadow to her Draugr eyes.

  A mouse was running through the underbrush, shoving leaves and sticks aside as it foraged. She stopped and crouched, watching the little creature. In the museum in Central City, there had been a pair of antique gloves lined with mouse fur. It had been very soft and very warm, and she wondered how many mice it took to make a glove.

  She needed to get back to her life. She needed to go back to the house, and then to the museum in Stockholm, and try to put the pieces back together. She still could not believe that Erik was gone. The pain was less intense, buried beneath a layer of the numbness that came when a heart had hurt enough and couldn’t bear to hurt any more. The numbness was not entirely healthy, but it helped give her a break from grieving so she could think.

  The mouse bolted away, and too late, she realized that the blade of grass she held was stiff as a board, quivering in her grip. She rose into a loveless, clawed grip that seized the back of her neck and held her tightly and painfully.

  “Rune Master?” a growling male voice husked in her ear. “You are unwise to come here unprotected.”

  She dropped the grass and tried to turn, but he was holding her too tightly. His strength rivalled Erik’s, and it frightened her. “I’m not unprotected,” she gasped.

  “No,” he agreed. “No vampire ever is. And no Ulfen is ever without his weapons, too.”

  An explosion of pain ripped through her as he slashed her back with his claws, shredding her clothes and her skin. She could smell her own blood. She cried out, and he shook her.

  “Did that hurt?” He shook her again. “Do you think I care?”

  She whispered softly to herself, and her hand began to glow. She held it against her body, hiding it from his line of vision, allowing the magic time to build.

  The Ulfen was not finished. He slashed her again, this time across the belly, and she screamed. He laughed.

  “Scream, little vampire. You and your Huntsman killed my boy.”

  She thought to the wolf that had attacked Lars when they’d been returning from their feeding trip, and she said, “He attacked us first!”

  “The Draugr have always been the aggressors,” he hissed. A growl sprang up from deep in his chest, and he turned her so she could see him.

  Only inches from her face, his elongated muzzle was set with rows of white and jagged teeth, his lips pulled back in a menacing snarl. His eyes were glowing amber-gold, and he was not quite wolf and certainly not a man any longer. His in-between state was hulking, with a hunched back and long, clawed digits on all four feet. A long, bushy tail swayed behind him stiffly, and hackles stood up along his neck and down his back, just like with an angry dog. His breath was hot against her skin as he licked his lips, excited by the bloody smell of her injury.

  “It’s too bad you’ve been turned,” he said. “It’s been centuries since I’ve tasted Valtaeigr meat.”

  “It’ll be centuries more.”

  She brought her glowing hand up into his face, connecting a rune-laden fist with his long jaw. His teeth clacked together with the force of the blow and his head snapped back, and in his surprise, his grip on her neck loosened. She extended claws of her own and ripped at his throat, but his hide was too tough, and she could do no more than scratch him. It was enough to distract him, though, while she ran back toward the house.

  She had come farther into the woods than she had thought, but she was faster now that she was a Draugr. She could hear large animals, more Ulfen, loping in the trees on either side of the path, but they were out of sight, completely under the effects of their camouflage. Their panting and barking and the sound of them crashing through the vegetation was terrifying, and perversely she took strength from it. The fear gave her speed, and she burst from the woods and made it to the door before the wolves could reach her.

  Three Ulfen in their full wolf forms followed her from the woods, followed by the half-shifted Ulfen who had attacked her. She raised her chin. “Are you Ardrik?” she demanded. “I’ve heard your name.”

  “Then you know who is coming to kill you,” he snarled.

  “No. I know who I’m going to turn into a rug.”

  She opened the door, and suddenly Lars was there, his pistol at the ready. The Ulfen fell back, and he held the line while she got behind him. He pointed the pistol at Ardrik’s face, and the alpha wolf motioned his pack mates back into the woods.

  “This is not over, Rune Master,” he told her. “Not by a long shot.”

  Nika faced him, her hand glowing once again. “Good. I look forward to round two.”

  The Ulfen brought up their preternatural camouflage and disappeared from view, and soon even their scent was gone. Nika put her hand on Lars’ arm.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I thought you were upstairs.”

  “I was in the den,” he said, “watching television. I heard their noise and came out. I didn’t realize you had gone outside.”

  She went into the house, and he closed the door and locked it. “I needed to get some air,” she said.

  “You shouldn’t go out alone.”

  Nika went to the keg and drew a pint of dreyri, which she drank quickly. Her hands were shaking. “So I gathered.” She put the glass aside.

  Lars’s eyes saucered. “What the hell happened to you?”

  She shook her head. “Ulfen.”

  He grabbed for his gun and headed toward the door. She stopped him. “Don’t. I don’t want you to fight with them. Like you said, I shouldn’t have been out there alone.”

  “But…”

  “No. Don’t engage them on your own. You’d be killed.” She sighed. “With these werewolves so close by, we should go back to Sweden.”

  He checked her wounds, but they were already healing shut. He nodded. “Yes...there’s no reason to stay here now, not when the whole reason we came was…”

  He trailed of, and she finished for him. “To celebrate Erik’s birthday.”

  “Yes.”

  There was so much sorrow in that one word, so much defeat in the rounding of his shoulders, that Nika realized with a start that Lars was grieving, too. It had never occurred to her to consider anyone else’s pain. She went to him and embraced him, and he hugged her tight.

  “I’m sorry, Lars,” she told him, stroking his back. “I’ve been so selfish. He was your friend for a long time, wasn’t he?”

  “Fifteen years,” he acknowledged. “He was one of the first officers I met when I joined SOG. He was…” He took a deep, ragged breath. “He was one of the best men I’ve ever known. I didn’t even think twice about accepting Sif’s offer to turn, since it meant I would be helping him. Now…”

  They pulled apart, and she looked up into his eyes, her hands on his biceps. “Now you wish you could take it back, since he’s gone.” Lars nodded, and she did, too. “So do I.”

  He embraced her again. They stood in one another’s arms for a long moment, drawing strength from each other and solace in their common grief.

  The quiet moment was shattered when Magda came strolling down the stairs in a silk robe, an empty wineglass in her hand. “Well, you two are a soggy mess.” She went into the kitchen to top off her drink from the keg. “Honestly, you should know how these things go. Vessels are always reincarnated. He’ll be back. You just have to wait for him.” She returned to the room and sipped the dreyri delicately. “You have forever. Don’t be impatient.”

  Lars turned to her with and said sarcastically, “Your compassion is overwhelming.”

  She huffed softly and headed back upstairs. “I’ve lived too long to be compassionate, Lars. You’ll learn that lesson, too, in time.”

  Nika said, “I hope I never do.”

  Magda looked over her shoulder at her. “Keep walking with the wolves, my baby Valtaeigr, and you won’t need to worry about it.”

  She turned and went up the stairs. Nika shook her head.

  “I don’t like her,” she told Lars. “I don’t know how you sleep with her.”

  “With one eye open and Sif in between us,” he answered, smirking. “Honestly… I don’t trust her, either. And neither did Erik.”

  She frowned. “She’s never been very nice to him. What happened between them?”

  “Sif told me that they had some sort of old history, something that made her hate him. Something from the old days.”

  She considered the many sins that Erik had confessed to, and she hated to think which of them might have been visited upon Magda in her youth. “Did she elaborate?”

  Lars sat on the couch, and Nika sat beside him. “She said that Magda used to live in a village outside Moscow. She’s Russian, not Swedish, by birth. Hakon’s band apparently raided Russia, and her village was burned.”

  “But she survived,” Nika said. “Probably not many of her family did.”

  “I think she was brought back to Sweden with them.”

  “By choice?”

  “I doubt it.” He rubbed his neck. “Sif said that Magda used to be his slave.”

  A million unsavory scenarios played in her mind, and she found herself feeling sympathetic toward Magda in her unemotional hardness. She had suffered greatly in her mortal days. Somehow, she suspected that the choice of immortality and becoming a vessel had not been entirely hers to make. Nika wondered if Erik had forced Magda to accept the ritual that brought her to be bound to the spirit of the goddess Sigyn.

  “Do you know anything about her goddess?”

  “Sigyn?” Lars asked. “A little. I know that she was the goddess of fidelity and victory. She was Loki’s wife.”

  “I didn’t know Loki had a wife…”

  “Yeah. Two, I think. And some sons.”

  She leaned her head on her hand. “I don’t know enough about Norse mythology.”

  Lars chuckled. “Well, I’ve been reading up. Your goddess, Ithunn, was the goddess of springtime, and she supposedly had apples that kept the gods immortal when they ate them. Vidar, who was with Erik, he was second only to Thor in strength, and he survived Ragnarok by killing Fenrir the wolf.” He sighed. “We could use his wolf-killing ability now.”

  “Do you think that the faery will attack? Erik seemed to take their declaration of war very seriously.”

  He shrugged. “I have no idea. I’m actually completely lost right now. I’m trusting Sif to point the way, and what she says and does is very carefully controlled by Magda.”

  “They have a strange relationship.”

  “I guess.” He looked down at his hands. “They actually love each other quite a lot.”

  “It’s hard for me to imagine Magda loving anyone.”

  He shrugged. “Everybody loves somebody, for good or ill.”

  She looked at him. “What about you, Lars? Who do you love?”

  He met her gaze. “Not a who. A what. I love my country. I’ve been serving Sweden all of my life. I joined the army as soon as I was able, and I’ve never looked back. When Sif said that there were vampires and shapeshifters and that they could only be stopped by the Huntsmen, and that all of the Huntsmen but Erik had died in America, well… I couldn’t leave my country to them. I had to do something.” He looked away again. “I did it for Sweden, as well as for Erik.”

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re a hero, Lars. Sweden is lucky to have you.”

  He smiled. “Thank you. That’s a kind thing to say.”

  “I mean it. I have a lot of respect for men who are honorable and patriotic.” She sighed. “Erik loved Sweden, too. He wouldn’t have stayed in the army for literally centuries otherwise. And he had all that time to go anywhere in the world, and he stayed in Stockholm. I think that says a lot.”

  Lars nodded. “What about you, Nika? Are you going to stay in Sweden?”

  She took a moment to think about it. “If he’s going to be reborn, knowing how much he loves his country, that’s where he’s going to do it. I need to be here when he comes back.” She tried to smile for him. “Yes. I’m staying.”

  “Good. I don’t have many friends. I’d hate to lose you, too.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  ***

  Ardrik returned to the pack den in a sour mood. The other wolves were equally out of sorts, and Dominic steeled himself. As the pack omega, he knew what was coming next.

  The alpha was the first to take out his bad humor on Dominic, chasing him into the back of the den and pinning him against the wall, biting at him. The others joined in, snapping and clawing. He shifted into wolf form, and they grabbed his neck and haunches in their teeth, biting painfully. He yelped and snapped back at them, baring his teeth, but he kept his tail submissively tucked.

  His brother Alaric grabbed him by the ear and dragged him onto his back, flipping him so his belly was in the air, and he whined in fear and dismay. Ardrik pounced on him, snarling, and Dominic closed his eyes, ready to be eviscerated. He had never seen his father so angry.

  Alaric gripped him by the throat and shook him. Stars flashed into his eyes, and he cried out in pain. The scar tissue on his neck from that long-ago Draugr bite, the one that had consigned him to this lamentable position in the pack hierarchy, helped him for once when it made his hide just a little too tough to bite through. Alaric growled.

  Ardrik snipped at Alaric, and the younger wolf released Dominic. That was the signal that the beating was over for now. They left him to lick his wounds and turned away, shifting into their human forms and muttering to each other.

  He stayed four-legged and as close to the ground as he could for the rest of the night.

  Chapter Nine

  In the old days, they would have traveled to their raiding sites in a drekar, following waterways into the center of unsuspecting villages. Now they traveled in a cargo van with tinted windows. Whatever the conveyance, when they reached their target, the effect would be the same.

  Erik sat in the front passenger seat, his double-headed axe on the floor between his feet, the handle resting against his chest. He still felt empty, and his head still hurt, but he was more or less functional. He just wished he could remember anything before waking up in Bjorn’s house.

  They said he had swallowed dreyri made from the blood of a linnorm, but that didn’t seem possible. He knew that the last linnorm had been slain eight hundred years ago - after all, he’d been the one to slay it, along with his brother, Gunnar. The blood that had been collected from the mighty beast had been turned over to Magda with directions to enchant it, but he had been told that the enchantment hadn’t worked, and that the blood had spoiled. If he had indeed taken linnorm dreyri, then Magda had lied to him, which wasn’t that difficult to believe. It also explained his persistent mental haze.

  He looked in the rearview mirror at the Valtaeigr girl, Mia, who had come along to offer magical support to their raid. She wasn’t the red-haired woman in his dream, but she was similar enough that he found it distracting. He could not shake the feeling that he should have known her, and that he should have known the woman in his dreams. Every time he tried to think of her, his chest would hurt and his head would swim, and just like clockwork, Mia would come to his side with her incense. He was beginning to wonder if her remedy was doing more harm than good.

  Brevik drove the van, whistling a song from the old days. All of the First were quite merry, happy to be raiding. Agnar had even told him that he was happy Erik had chosen to raid with them again. His comment had earned him a harsh word from Bjorn, and now Erik wondered where he had been and how he had been spending his time.

  As far as he could remember, raiding was the only thing he knew. He led his men into harm’s way, and they returned with riches and glory. It was as it always had been. Only… it wasn’t. Something was very wrong.

  He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and Mia leaned forward. “Headache?”

  “No,” he lied. “Just an itch.”

  She looked unconvinced, but she sat back onto the wide bench seat she was sharing with Dag and Olaf. She was a beauty, there was no doubting that, but Erik thought there was a wrong-ness to her face, some quality that should have been there but was missing, or a quality that was there that should not have been. It made his head hurt to think about, and so he turned to look out the window.

  He had done enough thinking for now.

  ***

  Ardrik ran to the edge of a forest lake, and he lowered his muzzle to the water. By the scent, he could tell that his contact was at home. He shifted to his human form and tapped the surface three times, sending ripples through the lake to announce his presence.