The Quest for Valhalla

Chapter 18

Lita had finished analyzing most of the artifacts she had stored in her cold concrete vaults. The laser and x-ray tests yielded nothing. She had destroyed several precious antique artifacts in her relentless hunt for the vial that would help her find the location of Valhalla. Their shattered casings and ripped beading lay strewn across the floor where she walked with her bare feet on them, oblivious to the blood they drew from her. Lita was a maniac of intrepid beauty, her mind dismissive of the perceived impossible and her will unbending to any external hazard. In her favorite jeans, with her red hair in a long braid down the middle of her back, she paced the laboratory in her endless quest to inspect each and every old piece she could lay her hands on.

She had not slept in three days, but it hardly perturbed her. Along with psychological maladies, there sometimes came helpful side effects, like the imperviousness against the toils of sleep deprivation. The longer she did not sleep, the more she slid into states of contemplation, with waking dreams and visions, purely the product of her weary mind. However, many times this level of dangerous daze helped her think outside the box and to find her ideas with most clarity.

The last of the loot brought to her after the latest robbery proved to be void of what she sought. Filled with hopeless fury and frustration, Lita growled with her damaged voice, bent her knees to a crouch and flung the late Bronze Age Scandinavian urn hard against the wall. It clanged against the hard surface, dented, and clattered several feet across the floor.

“Fuck!” she screamed. She fell back on her ass on the cement floor and looked at the mess she had been making in the last few days. Among the battered and broken relics and beads, shattered stained glass, and crumpled up print-outs, patches of her dried blood stained the floor. Surprised, she realized what had happened and one after the other Lita checked the soles of her feet. They were dirty and in the dark grey residue that covered her soles she saw the welted dark brown wounds, some still wet from a fresh tearing.

“Well, shit,” she mumbled nonchalantly. She looked up at the blinding fluorescent lights that hummed in a mesmerizing key and she began to hum with them. The vibration of her breath on this note soothed her sore throat and she stood up to prepare another cup of coffee. Only when her maddening scrutiny had ceased with all the relics checked and found lacking, did she realize how exhausted she really was. Coffee would not suffice anymore. Lita left the place in a bloody mess of chaos and history, flicked the Off-switch on the machine and as she left the lab, she switched off the buzzing lights. She kept on humming in the dark corridor outside where she made her way to the black iron fire escape stairway.

“You had better have fantastic news for me, Jasper, or I’ll be publicly hanging you by your teensy little balls,” she threatened on the square device in her palm. He was on speakerphone and sounded somewhere between excited and terrified.

“Miss Røderic, you will not believe where The Brotherhood hides!” he spilled nervously.

“That’s not what I want to know, is it?” she barked with a mouthful of apple she had just picked from a bowl on the upper story dinner table.

“They hide in the bodies of women,’ he laughed frantically.

“Control yourself!” she yelled and swallowed. “Did they tell you where the vial is? Where are my men?”

“The remaining men are with me,” he said. “The others expired at the hands of those eight Valkyries we could not outrun, but we killed their leader. I’m almost positive!”

“The vial Slokin, the fucking vial! How many times do I have to ask you?” she rasped into the microphone.

“Oh, I have an idea how we can save ourselves a lot of trouble with that,” he said. “Professor Lockhart told me that they had picked up a pet. A historian he knows personally. If we could get to her, we could get things moving along quicker so that you can have your vision to Valhalla, my lady.”

“How will you know where she is?” she asked with a mild sliver of renewed hope.

“The Professor and our associates are … acquainted. He is not amicable with the Templars, so I believe if I play nice, we might persuade him to deliver her unto us,” Slokin said in an preacher’s tone that only vexed Lita.

“Then get to it, the days are drawing close, rapidly, and I have to find the Hall before the festival. Get a move on and get back to me soon. Otherwise I have a garrote here especially for those balls of yours.” With that Lita ended the call and ate the core of the apple.

The somber atmosphere at Denton House was dreadful. Many of the brethren had been hospitalized for what they told authorities were just the result of one tire burst that caused a domino effect in the rest of the motorcycles. Val’s body was taken to undertaker funeral home for preparation. Her living will stated that she would have a traditional Viking burial and her older brother in Helsinki had arranged for a wooden boat to be built on which her pyre would be lit.

Gunnar was beside himself with grief.

He vowed that Slokin would be sent from this world by blood eagle, an ancient and brutal execution method, during which the back was cut open along the spines, the ribs on both sides of the spine severed and folded out so they resembled blood-stained wings.

The big blue-eyed man hardly spoke now after he finally stopped screaming that night. Nine times he cut himself on the chest, slits equal in length across his chest, one for each Valkyrie. This was a declaration of war.

Nina had stayed to help Gunnar and his friends with arrangements for Val’s funeral and other errands they needed her for, but in truth, she was buying time to stay long enough to verse herself in the teachings harbored in Val’s big book of not so far-fetched Nordic tales.

Sam had returned home, because he could not leave his cat for more than a day without food or supervision. He also had the pressing matter of collecting Nina’s flask for her. She told him that she would feel better if she kept it with her after all, now that she knew what it was for. Sam didn’t dare to lament his fate at fetching the damned artifact with the charming personality, because it could be construed as an unwillingness to help. Obviously he would bring her the flask, no matter with what emotional protest and psychological damage, but first, he decided to sink a few single malts to work up the courage.. He would leave Bruich again on account of the antique bottle of booze and its horny genie, but being a man of priorities, and knowing that Nina was safe for now, he took some time for a drink.

Nina was sitting in the tower room, reading from the fascinating book. At least, she attempted to learn as much as she could considering that most of it was written in foreign languages and dialects long disused. The etchings and sketches provided some understanding of the contents, but mostly she had to guess what it was all about. In such dismal circumstances, she could hardly expect to ask for help in translating the pieces she was most interested in. Outside, the weather mirrored the sentiments inside the house. The skies wept a drizzle, drenching everything outside and hazing up the window that overlooked the yard and the street that came to a T-junction in front of the gates of Denton House.

Now and then, Nina could hear the reluctant murmur of thunder somewhere far off. Every time she passed the page about The Brotherhood, she paused and felt the sting of mourning for her late friend and it would remind her of Gunnar’s deep loss. He was so heartbroken that she could literally feel the melancholy exude from his body when she stood near him, as if his soul had seeped through his skin to envelop him in crippling grief.

She wished that she could do more, that she could play a vital role in aiding their cause. For the first time in her life, she had something she felt the need to nurture, to cultivate bonds with people instead of incessantly studying toward a career that led nowhere apart from the bedrooms of a billionaire and the disdainful treatment from professors. This was important on a historical scale and she was a historian. For once, she felt that her knowledge of history and antique relics was of pivotal importance, instead of cataloguing items for dusty museums or consulting for the odd documentary on recent history.

Now she was in the middle of nothing short of a leviathan battle for the very fate of the world, among people who did not care for luxury or social status, money or qualifications they could better one another with. These were modest masters who had the humility to nobly defend the selfish and ignorant world against tyrants bred by it. The irony baffled her.

Here were people who constantly stood between mankind and evil without expecting any gratitude or compensation, silently fighting for the survival of all. Perhaps, she thought, they would have liked to be thanked, but they were simply well aware that the thankless societies they served would not even comprehend the contribution, let alone the devastating sacrifices.

The rain stopped for a while. The heavens had ceased its weeping for the time being. Nina sighed deeply, wishing she could decipher some of the words in the unique book. Her phone rang and she answered without looking at the caller ID.

“Sam?” she asked, curious as to when he would bring her the silver flask she so desperately needed to hide.

“Dr. Gould,” the voice on the other side stated evenly. It was familiar to her, but she could not put her finger on the identity of the caller.

“Yes? Who is this?” she rushed with an air of irritation in her voice.

“It is Professor Lockhart, my dear.”

Nina gasped quietly, feeling terrible for being so abrupt. “Professor Lockhart! Good morning. I’m sorry, I did not recognize your voice immediately,” she apologized. “How are you?”

“Not a problem, my dear. It happens. I am well, thank you, but I fear I need to speed this along.”

“How can I help you?” she asked, enjoying her new found capacity for being needed by others.

“Actually, this call is about what you need,” he proclaimed. “I would like to meet with you sometime today, if possible?”

Nina was somewhat taken aback. She had not expected to leave the house today and quite honestly, she did not feel like going out, but Herman Lockhart had always assisted her when she had absurd requests.

“Um, certainly. I’m sure I can pinch off an hour or so to meet with you,” she replied lightly, “at the café where we last met?”

“Uh, no. Heavens, no! I’m afraid our last meeting was noticed by some unsavory individuals whom I do not wish to engage, if you don’t mind. They would expect me there. Could you meet me at say, Warriston Cemetery, perhaps?” he asked in his cracking, straight bore voice.

“Of course, Professor. May I ask what it is about? What do you have that I need?” she pried, admittedly intrigued by the possibilities, knowing what rarities he was capable of locating.

He was silent for a moment.

“It concerns a book. One containing material that pertains to your friend from the café,” he revealed.

“Val?” she asked. Then she remembered his swift disapproval of Val in the café when he came to deliver her previous covert purchase. Nina deducted from his behavior that day that he knew who Val was, or at least what she represented.

“Shall we say, in an hour?” the old man asked.

“Yes. Absolutely. I shall see you by the entrance,” she suggested.

“No, prying eyes might cause problems. In Section 5 there is a large mausoleum of the Carter- family. I shall meet you there,” he said.

“Done!” Nina said as she finished scribbling the name on her notepad.

After their ordeal the other night and the subsequent police statements and arrangements, most of Sleipnir-members had retired to catch up on sleep. Others found it therapeutic to work on their bikes in the garage in the back of the yard and just congregate with some beer and music to numb them into the delusion that everything was alright.

They watched the petite, dark haired enigma hurry from the front door and head for the giant 4x4 that was way too big for her.

“Where are you going, Miss Nina?” one of the men called out from the garage while his friend looked on, speculating, as men did, as to the pretty woman’s abilities in bed.

“Warriston Cemetery!” she shouted as the drizzle returned with interest, becoming a mild downpour. “Please tell Gunnar I will be back in an hour or so, if he asks!”

“You got it!” he answered and went deeper into the garage where the slanted rainfall could not reach further, while Nina literally propelled her small frame into the high door of the 4x4’s driver’s side.