The Quest for Valhalla

Chapter 28

Lita was fascinated by the impotence of the flame against her skin. So many times, she had tried to feel pain, but it eluded her. It was one side-effect of being genetically assembled by scientists in Nazi laboratories — she looked human, but she was not allowed the fallibility. Lita longed to be just slightly flawed.

She was the product of much research and trial by the brilliant maniacs of the Third Reich. Many nights she lay awake thinking of the medical structure where she was raised, tempered, and trained. Deep under the surface of the North Sea, she spent the first few years of her life. The redhead stood up, with the candle in her hand, its flame licking at the flesh of her arm.

“No pain,” she said to herself. It made her feel inadequate to be so impervious to fault. Her chest burned with unhappiness as she watched the orange glow spread out upon her skin, yet failing to do any damage. Flashbacks to the Himmler submerged laboratory off the coast of Scotland almost made her homesick. Her mother was real enough. A true descendant of a great Icelandic explorer and chieftain, she was part of a great experiment facilitated by the Order of the Black Sun after it was abandoned by the Thule Society as a project too costly, even for its aristocrats.

Lita, the little redhead girl from a secret Aryan bloodline, was the only surviving human Wunderwaffe produced by womb and science, occult and bizarre genetics housed in the compound, later hosted by the eccentric millionaire Dave Purdue as Deep Sea One. Gradually, after her ascent to glory as academic, historian, and occultist, she gained her reputation as bloodthirsty dominatrix in various clandestine organizations. What became of her mother was never revealed to her, neither did she care much after her conditioning as a 12 year old warrior-in-training. All they did to her never seemed unorthodox at all to her, for she knew little else than what she was exposed to.

Only now that she had grown older and her intelligence harnessed an impregnable will to rule, did she realize the futility of her power on a personal level. Much as she desired to bring the world to its knees, to bring order and stability with absolute rigid discipline, she felt a small spark of longing to be, dare she think, normal.

In her ability to have survived the experiments of imbuing human bodies with the properties of unified field theory and the physique accompanying such a biological stretch, she proved almost indestructible. Now she wished she knew the displeasure of pain: the privilege of screaming from the unbearable punishment thereof. Lita wondered what it would feel like to be weak, to feel fear. It was slowly becoming an obsession, but one she kept carefully wrapped in her coldness, lest the Black Sun deem her compassionate or waning in drive.

Her long, red, satin robe fell over her immaculate curvature as she put the candle down and lit a cigarillo. She could see Lockhart from her stony gaping window in the north tower of the water-logged fortress.

He was sitting in the soft afternoon light, waiting for Slokin to return with the vial. It would make him her compass to Valhalla. What was inside the sought after container had always been a source of great discussion amongst her mentors and peers alike. They did not know who had brewed the awful liquid inside or why, but they were well aware of the reason why it was kept from the world.

Inside Valhalla was a thing of unmatched power that would corrupt the very fabric of time and space, to tear a whole in the atmosphere, to bring forth chaos and destruction until the earth was once more a clean slate. Lita and her chosen would reinvent the new world with intellect, discipline, and industriousness to eradicate defective immorality, overpopulation, social regression, and intellectual inadequacy.

In the blazing halo of the dying sun, Lita dropped her robe to the floor to enjoy the cool air that permeated throughout the old stone corridors and windows. It stirred her crimson mane and made the pointy ends of her long hair caress her pale skin. She was grateful for the feeling of it, one of the few sensations her body was not deprived of through the altering. Her full lips locked around the end of the stick of strong tobacco as she sucked the smoke deep into her lungs, closing her eyes in the ecstasy of the carcinogenic influx. From just above her tailbone, a strange shape of flesh and bone grew out of her back. Elongated from her spine, wrapped in tissue and nerves and covered by the same pallid feminine skin, her tail fell to the length of her calves. Along the top of its length ran the uniform bumps of spinal bone, ever so slightly forming a jagged line down to the point she was flicking up and down in contemplation. It was a mishap on the part of the scientists who were in charge of her physical development. In order to give her the inhuman strength they needed her to have as the perfect soldier, they had to introduce a special formula of growth hormone, which subsequently, led to the development of an atavism in the form of a tail. However, Himmler and his advisors decided that removal of the slight deformation was redundant in lieu of all the positive developments of their human Wonder Weapon.

Slokin arrived just after dark with his pilot and four other bodyguards assigned by the Order of the Black Sun. He kept to himself what he had seen, the strange reaction of the hostile journalist to the pain inflicted by the wallop he dealt Slokin. The imp knew what it could mean, but he did not feel like opening the lid to that pit of problems he knew Lita would trouble them all with if she even had an inkling that someone else had partaken of the vial.

He would pretend nothing was amiss until some problem presented itself. If all went well, Dr. Gould would succumb to the slow release poison implanted in her before any of their enemies could think of thwarting Lita’s hunt for Valhalla.

“Hello, my good man!” he called out to Herman Lockhart as he skipped over the shallow puddles the tide had abandoned when it withdrew.

‘Fuck you, Loki,’ the old man thought by himself as he lifted a hand and waved, keeping his disdain hidden deep in his eyes. His contact with The Brotherhood to reveal the location of Lita’s rock castle on Coll was successful. Lockhart had been nurturing a strong certainty that he would not make it out of this expedition alive either way. Between the brewing open war between these two factions and with Lita’s knowledge that he was a descendent of a member of the Brotherhood, he knew that the only reason he still drew breath was because she elected him her bloodhound. Of course, that purpose would expire as soon as they reached Valhalla, so the old man, in his most naïve desperation had harbored hopes that The Brotherhood would discover the Loch nan Cinneachan stronghold before his departure with Lita and her Nazi miscreants in two days.

However, by the looks of it they were not due soon, at least not before he was forced to drink whatever devilish elixir was distilled for his forced clairvoyance. He had pondered upon the subject when he was called to dinner.

“Dinner,” he scoffed to himself as he bore up with his hands on his knees for support. “The Last Supper it is. And you my Judas, for I Nina’s Judas played,” Lockhart summoned his own poetic lament at his fate for what he provoked in Karmic reaction. In the very same dining hall where the Black Sun symbol hovered over Nina’s dwindling sight before she went under, they all gathered for dinner. Slokin, Lita, Lockhart, and a few of the medical and scientific staff sat around the table as the plates were loaded with grilled meat and fresh vegetables, exotic spices, and delicacies. From goblets, they party drank everything from red wine to lime water, whatever their tastes demanded. Slokin raised his glass in a toast and all around the table responded in kind.

“To Valhalla!” he smiled. In unison, they all cried the name most holy to the Viking nations and Lockhart’s heart jumped at the mention of the name he so revered, and feared, as the events of that fateful day when he found himself in the very presence of the Holy Hall of the Slain sped through his reminiscence like a bad acid trip.

“To Valhalla,” he stuttered, choking on the mighty word as his emotions overwhelmed him and he swallowed hard to rebuke the furious urge to burst into tears. He gulped hard on the Scotch he had requested, wishing it was poison. Soon enough, he would get his poison, he knew, and it came with a shot of betrayal that was so cold that he did not need it on the rocks.

“Master Lockhart,” came the sudden death rattle from the powerful red Goddess at the head of the table. Her voice was hoarse and loud, echoing throughout the domed hall like the clap of thunder. Lockhart’s body froze, but he maintained his composure.

“Miss Røderic,” he smiled dryly, determined not to show his terror or contempt. The old man rose to his feet, standing proudly as a member of the Order present there, his true name and origins hidden to all but Lita Røderic. His eyes gleamed with the threat of tears. She nodded to all at the great long table under the black sun painted on the ceiling and stood up. Lofty in her stature, her hair fell forward over her shoulders, making her eyes all the more starkly striking as she pinned each member with her gaze. In her hands she held the antique silver vial, playing over its beautiful design with her fingertips.

“Would you do us the honor of consuming the vial in the name of the Order of the Black Sun? It is a privilege to be chosen for this task, as you are all aware. I have bestowed the honor upon one of my most trusted and oldest associates, Professor Herman Lockhart, who had, through many years, any trials and tribulations, remained loyal to the Order and assisted me, personally, in many a successful ventures.”

She rested her deceitful eyes on him, her smile revolting him.

‘Privilege? The only privilege you afforded me was the location of your doomed hive, you bitch,’ Lockhart thought as he nodded in agreement and mock-respect. ‘I hope The Brotherhood hangs you with your own goddamned tail, demoness.’

When Lockhart opened the vial a strong and putrid stench escaped the mouth of the container, so powerful that the few men flanking him recoiled.

“Keep it down, Professor!” Slokin jested. “Hope you can hold your liquor.”

Without a much desired retort the old man swallowed the elixir. The party present all winced at the sight and moans of disgust emanated around the room. His face pulled in repulsion, but he quickly realized that it was nothing more than well rigged Absinthe, cleverly used along with a collection of extracts to mimic the true tincture brewed by whatever ancient seiðkona Odin trusted to concoct it.

His heart smiled at the deception Lita was unaware of and he intended to keep her in the dark about it. Now Lockhart knew the liquid could not harm him apart from a bit of a headache and maybe a case of the runs in the morning, but he decided to wear his mask well. Drinking every drop, he fell slightly against the table in a feigned dizzy spell and quickly the people around him helped him to his seat.

A mild cheer came from the party at the emptying of the flask, satisfied that soon the old scholar would show them the way to Valhalla to bring to fruition their age-long goal, the very goal of the Führer himself. Through his dramatic rendition as the oracle of the Order, Professor Lockhart’s heart cheered at the thought that he was unperturbed by any drug or nefarious concoction. It afforded him the insidious privilege of being the cancer of the Order, the resident virus inside the body that would be their undoing. He smiled.

How sweet his demise was going to be, knowing that he was the architect of the Black Sun’s destruction.