They sang a message to the gods, a statement that someone had fulfilled an oath. Somewhere, in that time long ago, they had meant the messenger’s death—my death as a thrall, strangled, cut open, sent to Odin the hard way.
I wanted to run out of the room, run downstairs and outside, run screaming down the street, escape from hearing the words, flee the runes and his voice that burned me like a brand, but I forced myself to stay. Only cowards ran from truth. That thought became my anchor. I refused to give in to my fear, to my panic. It’s now, I thought, not then.
Tor fell silent. I gasped for breath, exhausted. When I looked at my aching hands, I saw that my knuckles had reddened and were starting to swell. I needed élan. Cold sweat trickled down my back and between my breasts. Soon I’d be desperate for life force. Onscreen I saw Tor calmly picking up his tee shirt from the floor and putting it on. He pulled the golden square free of the shirt and settled it against his chest. Whatever he’d done had finished. I got up and staggered to the bedroom door.
“Maya!” he called out. “You can open the door.”
“Okay.” I heard my voice quaver like a crone’s. “I’ll get the keys.”
When I opened the door I found him standing close by. He caught me by the shoulders and pulled me inside.
“You need élan. Come over to the window.”
I let him lead me to the window, open to let cool air filter through the screen. Tor pulled energy from the air and the sunlight, let it wash over both of us in waves, wonderful cooling waves of pure élan. Finally I could think and speak normally again.
“Is it over?” I said. “The bjarki?”
“Only in the daylight.” He paused to kiss me on the forehead. “I think. As soon as the sun starts setting, you’ll have to lock me in again. Then we’ll see what happens.”
“Do you know what the writing says?”
“No.” He grinned at me. “But I know what it does. And that’s what counts. As long as I can vibrate the runes, I don’t need to know what the words are.”
“Maybe they don’t even mean anything. As words.”
“That could be it.” He laughed aloud. “No wonder I couldn’t figure it out.”
Tor made us both a meal as if the day were perfectly normal, but always I was aware of the gold square gleaming on his chest. Occasionally he’d stop whatever he was doing to lift it in both hands and hold it a little away from him.
“It’s really heavy,” he said, “and my neck aches. The thong bites in after a while.”
“When it’s safe for you to take it off, Brit can sew it onto a backing you can wear. A leather vest, maybe. She’ll love working with magical gold.”
“It might not be necessary. I’m going to try an experiment tonight.”
“What?”
“You’ll see. Don’t worry about it.”
Typical Tor. I bit back a useless snark.
“There’s something I’m wondering about,” he continued. “What drained your élan so fast? You should have had a reserve.”
“It happened when I was listening to you chant.”
“Shit! Look, before I go back into the lair, I’m going to put a circle around you. Not a painted one, I mean. You can walk around the flat and all that. But a barrier to make sure I’m not siphoning energy from you.” He looked away, paused, caught by an idea. “This is all real interesting.”
“Interesting. Only you would call it that.”
He flashed me a grin. “I’m not sure what it all means. Yet. I’m going to see what I can find out.”
When he came back upstairs, he was carrying a thin square of wood the same size as the gold plaque. He’d carved runes on it, front and back, that matched those on the plaque.
“I’m betting this will work,” he told me. “I’ll wear it tonight and see.”
Toward sunset Tor turned restless. He paced back and forth in the living room, started to go downstairs, came right back up, walked around and around as the sun sank lower in the sky.
“The tide’s changing,” he said finally. “Let me ward you and feed you, and then you’d better lock me back in. I can feel it coming on.”
More waiting, as the day darkened into evening and the full moon rose. Tor turned on a bedside lamp, so on the laptop screen I could see him pacing back and forth with the wooden plaque on his chest. He stopped walking right beside the bed and spun around to face the corner of the room farthest from the lamp. In the shadows something moved. Tor set his hands on his hips and roared a challenge.
The camera, the wireless connection, the laptop—the technology failed to capture a creature that belonged to some other world. Tor I could see. I could pick out motion within the shadows, but the shape of whatever was moving never clarified. I could guess it was the cave bear. Tor kept turning in a tight circle as the wave of motion spiraled in slowly but always closer, closer. I heard Tor growl. Did something answer? It might have been only a noise from the street. I wanted it to be a distant car or a shout or a siren, anything normal. But I knew it was the bjarki growling to return the challenge.
The spiral tightened around Tor like the lash of a whip. Tor grabbed, swung a fist, grappled. In a blur of silver mist they wrestled, growled, swayed back and forth until they fell still wrestling onto the bed behind them. I clasped both hands over my mouth to keep from screaming as they fought, silent now, Tor and a mist-shape that at times vanished, at others strengthened until I could pick out a massive paw or the gleam of teeth.
On and on they fought. Tor disappeared in a billow of mist, then reappeared suspended on the smear of bear-shape like a wrestler pinning his opponent. Clasped together they rolled over and over and crashed into the end table and the lamp. It hit the floor hard and shattered. The light went out.
I did scream but in sheer frustration. I grabbed the keys from the mantel. What if the room caught fire? But the laptop screen showed no flames. I didn’t smell any smoke. I clutched the keys so hard that they left marks on my palms, then shoved them into the pocket of my shorts, grabbed the laptop, and headed for the bedroom.
Even though my back stiffened up and started to ache, I sat by the bedroom door with the darkened laptop next to me. At first I heard muffled noises, the thump of something heavy hitting the floor, the creak of the wooden floor, the crash of a chair falling over. Tor growled, then roared. I heard no answer. The silence continued, on and on. I dozed off at intervals only to wake up with a spasm of tired muscles.
Finally light bloomed on the laptop screen and through the crack around the door. Tor had turned on the other bedside lamp. I staggered to my feet and stretched. Although I felt cramped and tense, I had a reserve of élan. The warding had worked.
“Tor?”
“You can open the door. It’s nearly dawn.”
I stopped recording and put the laptop on standby, then took off the safety chain and unlocked the door. Tor was sitting on the edge of the torn-apart bed and holding a wad of tissues pressed against the side of his face. I could smell blood on the air, a waft of primal élan that made me quiver with desire.
“What happened?” I said.
“Repercussion.” He raised the blood-soaked tissues so I could see the long cut across his cheek. “From her claw. She got one good swipe on me before I won.”
I hesitated, stabbed by jealousy, even though I knew it was ridiculous. Tor saw it.
“Maya, she’s a spirit, not even a real bear.” He paused to press the tissue wad over the oozing cut again. “I won our fight. That’s the first step toward getting her to serve me. She’s going to be my fetch, my fylgja. If you get a fetch someday, he’ll be male. Come on, you know what a fetch is.”
The shaman’s tame spirit, his friend and transport in the spirit world was always of the opposite sex. I did know that. I realized that I was staring at the blood on the tissues and made myself look away.
“We should go to the ER and get that stitched.”
“No, I want it to scar.” He grinned in a pure, boyish deligh
t. “Kind of like those dueling trophies.”
I should have known. Tor turned and threw the wad of tissues into the nearby waste basket. “I’ve got a styptic pencil in the bathroom. Time to stop the bleeding.”
“Good idea.”
“Unless you want to lick it clean.”
I thought at first he was teasing, but he smiled, heavy-lidded, appraising me, liking what he saw.
“Tor, no, don’t.”
“Ah come on! You’ll drain off the excess élan, and it’ll stop.” He patted the mattress next to him and smiled again. “You know you want to.”
It was dangerous, what he was asking from me. I did think of just leaving the room, but the smell of blood, the overpowering scent of élan, perfume like roses and honey—I sat down next to him. He caught my face in both hands and kissed me. The élan swirled, sweet and strong, almost as sweet as the feel of his mouth on mine. When he let me go, I saw that the cut, horizontal across his cheek, had filled with fresh blood.
No, Maya, stop, don’t—the words in my mind had no effect. I sat up straight, reached for him, and licked the cut. The taste of pure élan made me gasp aloud. He sighed in satisfaction and threw an arm around my waist to pull me closer. With his free hand he unzipped my shorts, reached under my shirt to my breasts and caressed them while I cleaned his wound like the animal in heat I felt myself to be. The flow of élan from the cut dwindled.
“It’s stopped,” I was shocked that I could still speak like a human being.
“Good. Come lie on top of me.”
He let me go, rolled away and lay on his back and pulled down his jeans. I took off my shorts, dropped them on the floor, and did what he asked. The gold plaque lay between us, cold and pulsing with energy, but I barely noticed it once he entered me. I climaxed with a sob before he even moved. The feel of his body pressed against mine brought me so much pleasure that I fainted in a swirl of darkness.
White chill wrapped me round. I stood in the snow. Power swirled around me in pale blue flames . The cave bear, huge, her brown fur touched here and there with black, crouched in front of me and whimpered in defeat.
“Sow!” I said. “He’s your master now.”
She lowered her head to the ground.
“If you ever hurt him,” I continued, “I’ll hunt you down and destroy you.”
She rolled on her back and whined while she waved her front paws like a terrified cub. The sky turned gold and fell around us in a shower of glittering frost.
I woke to find Tor sitting up, braced against the headboard, and holding me in his lap. My head rested on the warm, solid muscle and bone of his shoulder. When I lifted my head to look at him, he smiled, a thin, oddly tremulous smile, and his eyes narrowed in concern.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Sure. I mean, I guess so.” I stretched and yawned. “Sometimes it’s so good with you that it’s like being drunk.”
I slid off his lap and sat up, cross-legged on the bed facing him. Sweat glistened on his shoulders, mottled with red and purple bruises. The sight turned me wide awake. I reached over and laid a gentle finger on the skin next to the worst one.
“I should get you some ice for those. And we’ve got some sports goop, too.”
“No, just rest, okay? You went out like a light. Scared the shit out of me. Maya, you went limp!”
It occurred to me that I should be scared as well, but I felt too good, too relaxed and sated, to care. This must be what hard drugs are like, I thought. That thought did frighten me, and the fear was a sign that my intellect had come back online.
“It’s the combination,” I said, “the sex and the élan. Overload, I guess.”
“Overloads are dangerous.”
“But it feels so wonderful—“
“Yeah, for me, too, but too damn bad. Sweetheart, I never want to hurt you. Never.” He frowned in thought. “Do you understand? You passed out in my arms, and I thought, shit! her heart’s stopped.”
My wonderful mood shattered like a glass thrown against a wall. I remembered my father, dying of heart trouble.
“I felt for your pulse,” Tor went on. “It was there, but too damn slow. I was just trying to think of what to do when you came around.”
“Okay. You can stop. I’m scared now, too.”
Tor reached over and took my wrist, looked at the digital clock on the end table, and felt for my pulse. In a minute or so he smiled and let go of my hand.
“Back to normal.”
We got out of bed. I was surprised that I had no trouble walking. Now that the fit had ended, I felt tired but perfectly normal. I picked up my shorts from the floor and put them on.
“Y’know,” I said, “this was like the time we had sex when you were working a ritual, only stronger, because I didn’t faint that time. This was worse.”
“Worse is a good word.” Tor winced and looked away. “We’ll never do that again, either. Unless—“
“Unless what?”
“You match me in power someday.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Yeah.” He smiled, a soft, gentle smile. “Finally.”
I made Tor sit on the closed toilet lid so I could wash the cut out with warm water like a normal person. I slathered it with antibiotic ointment before I bandaged it.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the ER?” I said.
“I don’t need to. It’s going to heal really fast.” He grinned at me. “Now.”
I turned away and began washing my hands in the bathroom sink. “If you keep cutting yourself like this,” I said, “working magic, I mean, there’s not going to be a lot of you left.”
“Hey, I didn’t do the cutting this time.”
“Well, yeah, but I didn’t realize that sorcery meant bleeding so much.”
“Neither did I.”
“What do you think is going to happen tonight? Will you have to fight her off again? Or is it all over?”
“I don’t know. You’d better lock me in, just to make sure.”
“Okay. I was hoping you’d be free now, from the bjarki and the moon change, and all that, I mean.”
“Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so? Or however that quote goes.” He smiled but with a twist of his mouth. “One thing I do know is why Nils wanted this plaque. If he had it, he could’ve gotten some control over the varg. I don’t know how much, because he physically transformed, and I don’t, but it would have given him something to fight with.”
Tor cleaned up the pieces of broken lamp, then spent most of the afternoon down in the ritual room. He took the laptop with him to study the recordings I’d made. He came back up to cook us an early dinner. By the time we finished eating, the sun hung low in the western sky. While I cleaned up the kitchen, Tor moved one of the leather armchairs around so he could face the eastern window. He sat down and waited, staring off to the east, for the sky to begin to darken. I walked into the living room to find him nearly asleep in the chair.
“Are you okay?” I said.
“Huh?” He paused to yawn. “Yeah, I am, but I’m not taking any chances. Lock me in now, but don’t start recording till it gets dark. I’m going to put the other lamp on the dresser, out of the way if there’s another fight.”
Once again, I had nothing to do but wait. I called Cynthia and Brittany after I locked him in and told them the cautiously good news. At the last of the sunset I started the laptop recording. Tor lay fully dressed on our bed and slept, stretched out comfortably on his side. I was afraid to hope, but as the evening wore on, the bjarki stayed away, even when the moon shone directly into the bedroom window.
Just before midnight Tor woke up. He got out of bed, looked around him, shrugged, and grinned at the nannycam. I grabbed the keys and ran to the bedroom door to let him out.
“It’s over,” he said. “For this month at least.” He laid a hand on the gold square and murmured something in a language I didn’t know. “Just thanking the gods.”
“I will, too.
I feel like I should pour some mead onto an altar or something.”
Tor laughed, caught me by the shoulders, and kissed me. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll try to keep the bandage on my face dry.”
“Okay. I guess it’s too early to celebrate, though.”
“Yeah. Let’s save that for next month—well, assuming I’m free of the transformation. I’ve got time to work on taming the fylgja.”
“She isn’t tamed?”
“Not in any useful sense, no. I don’t think you can work with a fetch who’s terrified of you. I’ll have to make her into a friend.”
I bristled.
“Just a friend,” he said. “I may be weird, but I’m not into bestiality.”
I felt myself blush. He kissed me and went to take his shower.
Chapter 9
Acrylic paints lack that wonderful buttery texture of oils, but they do dry really fast. Good thing, too, when I decided to work on my landscape painting at the house. I disliked the idea of the other students in our shared space watching me paint the image of Audo’s body. Oh okay. I didn’t want the snobs like Jason to see it. Eventually I’d have to show the work, but by then it would be finished, out of my control and my psyche both.
Since it refused to fit in the trunk of either car, retrieving the painting presented a problem. I vetoed tying it onto a roof. I’d put too much work into it to have it fly off on the freeway. Finally Tor solved the problem by calling Billy, who came over with the Land Rover. I went downstairs to join him.
“It’s really cool of you to take time off work,” I told him.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Billy said. “That’s the pact. If I needed him, Tor would be right there.” He smiled. “Faster than I can drive over, I betcha.”
“Still, I totally appreciate it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Do you want to go to Ikea once we get the painting home? Tor said something about you needing a work table and stuff like that.”