Blood Codex

Chapter 39

Night had fallen properly by the time rough hands pushed Rose to her knees on the cool, damp grass beneath the large old tree. She struggled against the bonds that secured her wrists behind her back, but to no avail. The robed figures surrounded her, at least two of them women from the curves Rose saw pushing against the voluminous robes. Though her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the shadows were inky deep beneath the wide spreading arms of the tree under which they gathered. And perhaps it was only the fear at work, but something felt powerful in this place. The ancient tree seemed to press its age down upon them, the land itself felt soaked in history that rose to meet them like a mist.

Landvik stood before her, his hood still down, piled on shoulders, the only one to have revealed his face. It made Rose uneasy that he was unconcerned about her knowing his identity, made her fairly sure he planned to kill her after this was all done with. She imagined Crowley, maybe still in Rome, frantically trying to track her down. What must he have thought to find her gone? Had he heard the ruckus of her abduction? She had certainly tried to make enough noise to attract his attention, but now all that was academic. He could be anywhere in the world, but he wasn’t here. For that, she was strangely grateful. Crowley was, after all, simply a kind history teacher. He had a violent and difficult past, for sure, but he had retired from all that only to find himself caught up in all this. And, like a true gentleman, he had stepped up without question. Rose was pleased he wasn’t here to die with her. She didn’t want to die, of course, she would take any chance she could to escape when and if one presented itself, but she was glad Crowley remained out of danger. It offered a small comfort as Landvik approached her with a long, sharp knife in hand, glittering slightly in the wan moonlight that occasionally peeked through small gaps in the clouds.

“It is time,” Landvik said. “Try not to be afraid.”

Rose bared her teeth at him, but couldn’t bring herself to speak for fear her voice would be weak with fear.

Landvik placed a small vessel on the grass in front of her. It looked to be made of brass or bronze, strange symbols carved around its girth. The six others in the group arrayed themselves in a crescent behind Landvik as he crouched in front of Rose.

“I’m going to need a small amount of your blood,” he said, that wolfish smile still in place. He was clearly enjoying every moment of this.

“You’re mad, you know that?” Rose said. “Like, actually insane. This is the really real world, you nutter. There’s no magic, no past lives!”

Landvik, still smiling, ignoring her tirade, raised the knife.

“Don’t cut me!” Rose screamed, but Landvik held her jaw in one vice-like hand and drew the knife across her left cheekbone. The pain was sharp and electric and Rose whimpered, but Landvik’s grip was iron and he didn’t let her move.

He put the knife on the grass and lifted the bronze chalice to her face, pressed the cold lip of it to her cheek and watched intently. Rose imagined her blood leaking from the burning wound on her cheek, running into the bowl. After a moment, Landvik carefully put the chalice down again and pressed a handkerchief to her face. He held it there a moment, a look almost of apology on his face, then moved away, taking the chalice with him. One of the others stepped forward, wiped her face with something cold that stung furiously. Then a Band-Aid was carefully stuck to her cheek. She stared straight ahead throughout, ignoring their ministrations. She refused to be grateful for this small kindness given everything else they were doing to her.

Once that person returned to the group, Landvik turned to the crescent of six and held out the chalice to the first of them. Rose saw her chance, his back turned, the others watching Landvik and not her, and gathered her strength to leap to her feet and run. But even as the thought crossed her mind, Landvik turned back, pointed the knife at her. “Be still.” His voice was like a gunshot in the calmness of the night and Rose stopped short.

The hooded figure with the chalice produced a knife of his own, nicked the side of his thumb, and dripped a few drops of blood into the chalice. Each of the other five did the same in turn as Landvik watched Rose like a hawk. Then the last returned the chalice to Landvik and he added a few drops of his own blood to the mix. He put the chalice back on the ground in front of Rose’s knees and the seven of them moved to stand around her in a circle, with Landvik front and center, staring down.

He pulled a roll of paper from inside his robes and began to speak, in a language Rose could not recognize. His voice was low and sonorous, rising and falling like a chant. The night seemed to grow heavy, as if the darkness itself had a weight, wrapping around her like a cloak. Something cold was pressed to her lips and a thick, bitter liquid cascaded over her tongue. She tried to cough, to spit, but Landvik tipped her head back, covered her mouth and nose and forced her to swallow. More woolly thickness smothered her mind.

All the surrounding small sounds became muted, the gentle breeze stilled. Only Landvik’s voice existed as he began to chant again, and then slowly another voice and another were added to it as each of those present began to match his incantation.

Rose shook her head, blinked rapidly, trying to throw off the feeling that descended on her. Surely this was like hypnosis or some kind of stage magic, the power of suggestion and nothing more. Or perhaps whatever drug she had just been given. Her muscles seemed to grow weak and she slumped back onto her heels, unable to prevent her head falling to her chest. Her breath was low and deep through her nose. With a force of pure will, she raised her chin, determined to stare Landvik in the eyes, but he wasn’t there.

She saw a large room, like a bedchamber in a stately home, people in old-fashioned clothes moving through it, laughing.

She blinked, a soft cry escaping her lips, and before her was an open field, horses cantering in the distance and a checkered blanket spread out at her knees. A man with a clipped beard and 1920s clothing leaned his head back and laughed, an old car parked behind him.

“Wha..?” Rose’s voice was thick and slurred, she felt suddenly drunk. Or drugged, the effects of whatever she had been given flooding her senses. But she also knew, deep in the truest part of her, that what she experienced was far more than drug-induced. Something entirely more real.

A wooden building surrounded her, numerous faces of children and teenagers, miserable and crying. Some were obviously very sick. One tiny infant lay on a cot, clearly dead.

Rose sobbed, blinked again, and saw a small hovel, thatched roof and wooden walls, in a hilly field. A woman leaned on a broken hoe in front of her, looking more tired than anyone Rose had ever seen. The woman smiled and raised one hand to stroke Rose’s cheek and Rose felt her own beard under that palm, realized she was a man.

Past lives? she thought, unable to truly accept the possibility, but then what else could it be?

The images began to spin rapidly by, flickering like a film in fast forward, too quick to pin down. Or, she realized dizzily, a film in fast rewind. So many faces and places, days and nights, towns and countryside, land and sea. Rose became nauseated, swayed on her knees convinced she was going to pitch forward and vomit.

Then she did fall forward, but was held in place somehow, her arms stretched up behind her, secured to something just higher than her shoulders. Ropes bit into her wrists. She pulled her head up off her muscled, hairy chest, tasted blood on her lips that ran into her beard with her sweat and saliva.

“I am a King!” she roared. Cold wind swirled around her naked body.

Leather-armored men with bloodstained weapons stood all around, and Ivar the Boneless, the huge, muscled son of Ragnar Lodbrok, stepped forward. The other sons of that damned Ragnar stood behind, faces like dark thunderclouds of rage and hate. Fires crackled all around, lighting up the night with orange glows, and smoke roiled by.

Rose-Aella grimaced, refusing to show any fear.

Ivar spoke, but his voice was strange. Though Rose looked out from Aella’s eyes and saw Ivar, she knew the voice belonged to Halvdan Landvik.

“Tell us what we want to know,” he said.

Rose spoke with Aella’s deep baritone. “I don’t know what you want.”

She remembered the battles, the victories. She saw Ragnar Lodbrok die at her hand, cast down into that pit of snakes, and she smiled. Aella’s presence swelled inside her and Rose was pushed back deep inside, able to do no more than advise. Or not even that, perhaps only watch. Aella spoke again, his tone defiant. “Ragnar Lodbrok was twice the man you’ll ever be.”

“And yet here you are on your knees before me,” Ivar said. “Tell me where it is.”

Aella met the other man’s gaze and bared his teeth in a wordless snarl, not trusting his voice to be strong if he spoke. He could never possibly let Ivar find what he sought.

Rose watched through Aella’s eyes, as if from miles away, though she still felt the wind and the heat of the bonfires, still smelled their smoke. But she was fading, Aella’s mind taking over, pushing her away and yet, simultaneously, she knew her presence somehow weakened the Briton king, made him more vulnerable to the interrogation. The tiny, scared part of her screamed at Aella to tell Ivar what he wanted to know, to make all this end. Aella’s presence resisted, refusing to jeopardize all he had done, prepared to take his place in Heaven if that’s what must happen. The strong, defiant part of Rose tried to howl out her own insubordination, tried to lend strength to Aella, but she was a mere conduit, with no more agency than a stretch of desert highway. And that thread of her consciousness only weakened the blockage in Aella, and opened the way for Ivar-Landvik to get the information he wanted.

“Where is Mjolnir?” Ivar-Landvik demanded, and Rose fell backwards into darkness.

Landvik stood before Rose Black’s inert form, watching her chest gently rise and fall. The night coolness made the grass damp and it began to darken her clothes.

“Pick her up,” he said to one of the robed figures behind her.

“What shall we do with her now?” the figure asked. “Make it look like an accident?”

Landvik pursed his lips, thinking of all he had learned, all he still didn’t know. Then he shook his head. “We must keep her alive. It’s possible we’ll need more information from Aella before this is all over. This ritual is new to us. Maybe I can make a better job of it next time if this information proves insufficient.”

“This time it nearly killed her,” a female voice said. “She’s strong, but whatever she experienced is maybe stronger. If we do it again, it might kill her anyway.”

Landvik nodded. “So be it. We won’t do it again unless we absolutely have to. But she stays with us, in case. Sedate her and bring her along.”