Valkyrie Read online

  “So Cameron is its target?” Liam asked through gritted teeth.

  “Lihua thinks so.”

  Lihua Chang was the best tracker of The Gash the Valkyrie had. She sometimes seemed to know what its next move would be. If she thought that Cameron was its target yet again then he likely was.

  “When were you going to speak to me about this?” Liam asked.

  Nafari gave him a sad smile. “None of us thought we would have to. We assumed you would know.”

  “I didn’t want to know,” Liam breathed, feeling bleakness flow into him.

  “I understand.”

  “I won’t let Cameron be killed by that thing! He’s only twenty-one, Nafari! He’s just starting his life!” Liam slammed a hand against the handlebars of his motorcycle.

  “Just like you were when you died facing off against it to save him,” Nafari pointed out.

  Liam’s jaw clenched. “I don’t want Cameron walking in my footsteps.”

  “If his blood runs through your veins —”

  “There is no way to know if Cameron would be raised up!” Liam shouted. “You know that! Our father was not raised up! Nor were our grandfathers or grandmothers! And yet I know that they encountered the Gash!”

  “But they survived those encounters,” Nafari pointed out gently. Dying in battle with The Gash was a requirement for being raised up to be a Valkyrie, which had always seemed strange to Liam. If one fell one wasn’t as strong as those that had survived. Yet it was always so.

  “My father didn’t,” Liam got out though. This was an old wound.

  “We do not know for certain that his death was related to The Gash. There is plenty of evil in the world without it being all connected to that being,” Nafari reminded him.

  “The man who shot my father was named Luis Valder. While he had always been a little shady, you know things falling off trucks that he sold, he had never been violent. Never even gotten into a fistfight let alone owned a gun. But, suddenly, he decides to hold up the local convenience store owner.” Liam nearly shook as he went over the details of his father’s death. “He kept the store owner at gunpoint for over thirty minutes until my father came into the store. It was only then that Luis decided to kill the store owner and my father jumped in front of that bullet.”

  “It is a strange and pointless death,” Nafari agreed. “And who is raised and who is not, is not altogether clear.”

  “If O — he wants warriors, my father would have been an excellent one,” Liam gritted out.

  “Yes, as would have mine.” Nafari stared forward implacably and Liam felt an ass.

  Liam hung his head. He was taking out his anxiety on Nafari and it wasn’t fair and wasn’t right. “I’m sorry, my friend. I’m not in my right headspace. I didn’t mean to suggest that … I know we all have lost much.”

  Nafari was smiling again, forgiving him even before the words were fully out. “I know. Perhaps we should get a drink before meeting with the others? To calm down and focus ourselves?”

  Nafari indicated with a nod of his head a little dive bar with a flashing neon sign that read, “Fenrir.”

  “That has to mean something,” Liam said with a laugh.

  In Norse mythology, Fenrir was said to be a monstrous wolf and the son of Loki. Whether Fenrir — or even Loki — existed was unknown to the Valkyrie. The old gods had long ago been restricted from Earth. Whether the mythology was all real or only some of it was, was still uncertain. None of the mythologies ever mentioned The Gash and it was very, very real.

  “Perhaps they will have mead that tastes even half as good as that served in the Hall of Heroes.” Nafari’s eyes glowed with hope.

  “I hate mead. Give me a cold Corona anyday.”

  “Heathen!” Nafari laughed.

  They pulled off the highway into the cracked asphalt parking lot. There were about a dozen vehicles in the lot already. A few trucks, some sedans and even some motorcycles They throttled down their bikes and got off of them. Liam could already hear the dull thump of bass coming from the closed door of the bar. The windows were all tinted red and wavy so one could not see inside. Liam could almost smell the stale beer soaked into floorboards and the faint remembered scent of cigarette smoke even though smoking wasn’t allowed indoors any longer.

  “I take it this bar is new since you were here?” Nafari asked as Liam hesitated with one hand on the doorknob.

  “The name is new. I think it was just called ‘Bar' back in the day, but I never came here. It was for bikers,” Liam said.

  “And you weren’t a biker back then?” Nafari grinned at him.

  “I rode bikes. I built bikes. But I wasn’t a biker. Most of the bikers around here are in gangs that sell drugs and people. Not my scene,” Liam explained. “Besides my mother would have killed me if I hung out at a place like this.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be worried that there will be anyone inside there that you will know,” Nafari said.

  Liam went through the list of people he had been close with back in Holten. There had been Steve and Rose, his best friends, but they had been drifting away from him even back then. They had wanted to leave Holten as fast as possible. He had planned on staying. Cameron was only ten so he had intended to work on bikes and cars until his brother was going to leave to go to college. There was never any doubt that Cameron would be going to art school. Liam would then move wherever Cameron was. They would room together and … And his mind always stopped there. While he liked to think of Cameron being an adult, of them sharing things like a house and a life, wouldn’t his little brother eventually have wanted a life outside of him? At ten, Cameron wanted to be with no one else, but Liam. But at eighteen, nineteen, twenty or twenty-one? There would be girls — or guys, for Liam it had only ever been men — that Cameron would wish to build his life with. Not his brother. Just because Cameron had been the center of Liam’s world didn’t mean he would have been the center of Cameron's world forever, too.

  Maybe that’s why I didn’t want to follow his life. See him moving on from me as I cannot from him.

  “Cameron is not going to be in there, Liam,” Nafari said gently. “You said already that your mother would have killed you if you went to a place like this, what do you think she would do to Cameron?”

  “True,” Liam said with a half smile, which quickly died. “But my brother should not be in Holten at all. He should be at art school. Not here.”

  “He was ten when you last spoke to him about his hopes and dreams, Liam. Those change,” Nafari pointed out.

  “He was gifted — is gifted. He has to create art or — or he’ll wither away. That wouldn't change,” Liam explained. “There are not the opportunities for him here.”

  “Well, when you do see him perhaps you can find out why he is still here and whether art still moves him,” Nafari said. “Not that he will be here in this very disreputable bar. So let us go in and relax.”

  Liam nodded and pushed open the door. Nafari was right that Cameron would not be there. No one he knew would likely be in this place. Steve and Rose wouldn’t be caught dead in a bar like this.

  He stepped inside and the smell of alcohol, sweat and old smoke wrapped around him. The interior of the bar was dimly lit. Most of the light came from a jukebox, offset blue bulbs above the bar and a few tacky neon signs advertising various beers and liquors that dotted the walls. There were two old pool tables where beefy guys in plaid and jeans were playing a few games. There was throaty laughter coming from a woman at the bar as she touched her companion’s leg suggestively. There were a few other men at the bar with gray hair, potbellies and grim expressions, drinking their liquors of choice while ignoring everyone else. There was no one in there that he knew, no one that could even potentially have been a friend. His shoulders relaxed and Nafari clapped him on the back.

  I don’t know anyone here. Freedom from old memories still.

  The two of them strode over to the bar and got up on two barstools. There was a leather
bumper along the edge of the bar that felt spongy beneath his forearms as he leaned against it. The bar itself was surprisingly clean and neat. Whoever the bartender was he kept things spic and span around his station at least.

  “Where is the bartender? I am very thirsty,” Nafari said, echoing Liam’s thoughts.

  At that moment, the door behind the bar opened and a young man came out, balancing a box of beer on his shoulder. Liam caught sight of a halo of blond curls around an almost angelic face. If anyone deserved to have wings it was this young man. Liam’s reaction to him was visceral and it could be summed up in a few words ...

  Him. He’s the one for me.

  CHAPTER TWO: MEN WITH NO NAMES

  Cameron Blake’s night had not gone well so far. First, Jenna had called off sick meaning he had absolutely no backup at the bar or tables Cameron normally would have contacted the owner Sigurd Anderson to help serve, but Sigurd was on vacation in the Alps. So Cameron was on his own doing everything. He had to pour drinks, bus tables, and break up fights of the who-had-cheated-at-pool and the-next-one-who-played-that-damned-song-on-the-jukebox was going to be knocked out variety. Though he was slender, there was something about Cameron that stopped fights cold. People just didn’t want to go up against him. Jenna said it had to be magic. Cameron told her it was simply a force of will. He projected the idea that if they went up against him, they would lose.

  But the bad luck didn’t stop with being the sole person running Fenrir. Walter, one of Fenrir’s sad sack regulars who never talked to anyone and who would only gesture rudely at Cameron to pour him more cheap scotch, had vomited in the bathroom and seemingly missed every toilet but covered the walls, the floor and stall doors with his puke. Cleaning that up had been such a joy. Cameron kept sniffing his shirt afterwards, convinced that he smelled of regurgitated scotch.

  Then he’d realized that Joey, the day help, hadn’t actually restocked anything behind the bar so he was forced to run back and forth from the stockroom to get beer and liquor all night on top of everything else. He was hot, sweaty, stunk of vomit, there was a black smudge across the front of his tight, white t-shirt and dark stains on the knees of his faded jeans from where he’d had get down on his hands and knees to fish out the absolute last box of Jim Beam. Evidently, Joey hadn’t been placing orders either. He would have to tell Sigurd about it. Joey had to go, if he wasn’t gone already with the desert wind.

  On what was likely his fiftieth trip back to the storeroom, he’d come back out into the main room, carrying a case of Corona on his left shoulder, hair flying everywhere and yet more black smudges on his shirt. That was when he thought he was seeing a ghost sitting at his bar.

  Liam …

  How often had he conjured his brother’s visage in his mind, worrying that he would miss some slight nuance of it as the years passed? But seeing this man at his bar had him realizing that he had missed far more than nuances. This man — this beautiful man — showed him that his static memories of Liam could not compare to a living, breathing being and he felt both betrayed and innervated by the knowledge.

  This Liam — or Liam-clone — wore a black leather motorcycle jacket with what looked like a form-fitting dark gray long underwear shirt underneath it. There was what looked to be a silver pair of wings hanging from a rawhide string around his neck. But his clothes hardly interested Cameron. It was his face. Liam’s face.

  Though the lighting in the bar was dim, the planes and angles of this man’s face were clearly visible and so like Liam’s as to be seemingly impossible unless his brother had a twin. The strong jaw. The sculpted mouth. The fall of blond white hair that hit his shoulders just so. And men who looked like his brother — normally, not even a fraction as closely as this man — were Cameron’s catnip. Something in Cameron quivered and heated while he felt the familiar flush of shame for wanting what he never should. And this man was so close to the real thing that Cameron’s willpower was crumbling before he could even shore it up.

  But was there really any shame to be felt? This man could not be the real thing nor a secret twin of Liam’s. It was some weird trick of the universe that had brought his brother’s doppelganger to Fenrir. Cameron had no doubt that his brother was dead. He’d seen it happen. He couldn’t stop seeing it happen even after eleven years had passed and he was certain that he would see it for the rest of his life whenever he closed his eyes and didn’t force the image away. So this man was a stranger. A stranger that made his brother live and breathe for a moment for Cameron and offered him a chance to have the ultimate forbidden fantasy: his brother in his bed. If he played his cards right though that might not be as difficult as it seemed. For the wondrous thing was there was a look on the Liam-clone’s face that indicated interest. Maybe more than interest. He looked almost shell-shocked as if he found whatever it was he was looking for.

  My night is finally looking up.

  Cameron lowered the box of Corona on the ground and dusted himself off. He really wished he could go up to the apartment Sigurd let him have above the bar to clean up, but that wasn’t going to happen. He really, really hoped that he didn’t smell of vomit. Besides the man’s utter dumbstruck look at him said he looked just fine and, hopefully, smelled fine, too. Smiling broadly, Cameron sauntered to the bar just opposite the gorgeous man, spread his arms wide on the wooden, lacquered surface of the bar and looked between him and the equally beautiful man beside him. Where the one that looked like his brother was light this other man was dark as if sculpted out of basalt.

  “What can I get you, gentlemen?” Cameron asked.

  The Liam-clone just stared while his friend beside him elbowed him, which caused the Liam-clone to jerk and say, “C-corona.”

  That was easy enough. Cameron had just brought a bunch of cold ones up. He ripped open the top of the box and grabbed one of the icy long-necked bottles. “Lime?”

  The Liam-clone shook his head. Cameron put the bottle down on the bar and, almost too fast to see, the Liam-clone’s hand had closed over it and his fingers. There was an electric zap sensation that ran between them. Cameron’s eyes widened and a trill of heat ran through him. The Liam-clone though wasn’t looking at him, but was looking at where their hands were touching as if fascinated by the connection. Cameron was rather fascinated by it, too.

  “Is everything okay?” Cameron’s voice sounded a little breathless. He swallowed. “Do you not want the Corona? Maybe something else —”

  “The Corona is fine, thank you.” The Liam-clone released his fingers and Cameron was able to let go of the beer bottle. “You have very … sensitive-looking hands.”

  “Ah, so do you.” Cameron shivered slightly as the Liam-clone’s hands felt the same against his own as his brother’s had. Liam had worked on motorcycles and cars so his hands were always a little rough in spots. Cameron could remember Liam running them down his cheek and painting him with motor oil. Their mother would shout that Liam would now have to do the laundry, because anything that got on Cameron’s face always got on the rest of him. Liam would just laugh and chase after Cameron to get him even dirtier.

  “Are you — are you an artist?” the Liam-clone asked.

  Cameron felt himself shutting down and his smile turning from friendly and warm to a pale shadow of itself. Though it was hard to hear the Liam-clone’s voice clearly over the blasting noise of the jukebox, it sounded just like what his brother would have asked him and he was prickly about it. “No, I’m not. Just a bartender. That not good enough for you? You need an artist to get you a beer?”

  The Liam-clone’s eyes — a spectacular blue, just like his brother’s, so blue, so true — rose up to meet his. They were filled with surprise and a touch of concern. Color flooded Cameron’s face and he quickly looked away from the Liam-clone.

  “Sorry just … old argument,” Cameron muttered then asked of the other man, “And you?”

  The man flashed a brilliant smile at Cameron and spread his hands wide. “Though it is unlikely you will hav
e it, I have a great taste for mead.”

  “You are a lucky man.” Cameron pointed at him and then ducked down into one of the waist-high coolers and took out a bottle of amber-gold liquid that he placed on the bar in front of the other man. “The owner of this bar is a huge mead fan. He brews this himself and aficionados like yourself get to taste a brew that would make Odin himself weep.”

  The two men went very still at Odin’s name. Perhaps they only knew about the Norse god from the Marvel movies, which were a ton of fun in his opinion, but had no idea about the “real” mythology.

  “It’s really good mead,” he told the dark-skinned man. “Want to start a tab? Or are you two just passing through?”

  He really, really hoped they would be sticking around.

  “Start a tab,” the Liam-clone said.

  His friend grinned, taking his mead and getting up from the barstool. “I will play a round of pool, I think, and leave you two to get better acquainted.”

  He winked one dark eye, slapped his friend on the back, and headed off towards the pool tables.

  “I hope your friend doesn’t mind being given the cold shoulder,” Cameron said with a tip of his head towards the retreating back of the beautiful black man.

  “Nafari makes friends wherever he goes. No matter how surly the people are,” the Liam-clone said.

  “Well, he hasn’t met the residents of Holten.”

  But just as Cameron was fully expecting Russ and Todd Sampson to snap Nafari’s head off for even approaching them let alone asking to play a game, he saw the unbelievable. Russ was laughing. Todd was smiling. Nafari slapped both the men’s backs and they all settled into a friendly game of pool.

  “Wonders never cease,” Cameron said with a blink.

  “Nafari is the epitome of friendliness,” the Liam-clone said.

  He spoke between one song ending and another song beginning and Cameron had the first chance to hear his voice unaltered. His head jerked towards the Liam-clone and a startling sense of unreality flowed over him.