Day of the Vikings. A Thriller. (ARKANE) (3 page)

“The staff of power isn’t here,” she whispered. “Where is it?”

“How dare you come in here and threaten these people!” the curator blustered, straightening his spine, words infused with the pride of the British Empire. “This is the British Museum, a place for everybody to see these wonders, not your private shopping center.”

Morgan’s heart thumped in her chest at his foolhardy words. Couldn’t he see the intent in the old woman’s eyes? Could he only see a group he had laughed at with his colleagues this morning? With her military training, Morgan could probably stop some initial harm coming to the man, but there were too many of the Neo-Vikings and no backup. She was powerless to stop whatever might happen. She felt movement behind her and breath on her neck. Blake was at her side, watching through the gap over her shoulder. Adrenalin surging and senses heightened, Morgan felt the heat of him standing close to her, and smelled a hint of clean soap on his skin.

The old woman laughed and then began to chant, her voice morphing into that of the
völva,
the shamanic priestess. Her fingers wove in the air, spinning and dancing, as she spoke words of power that had long lay dormant. The Neo-Viking men looked at the floor as if scared to watch, but the others in the room were captivated, staring at the woman. She looked mad, unhinged. Then, the rattle of bones filled the air and a gasp of horror rippled around the room.

From the pit of the slaughtered Vikings, the bones rose into the air, disjointed skeletons spinning above the hollow Viking ship, beginning to knit back together before their eyes. Morgan heard Blake’s sharp intake of breath next to her ear.
 

“I am the Valkyrie,” the woman said. “I am the Corpse Goddess who decides who lives and who dies, who comes to feast in Valhalla until Ragnarok.”

Some of the skeletons were missing heads, but they began to move in the air regardless, flexing bony joints, as if just waking up. Morgan blinked and rubbed her eyes. Part of her understood that the priestesses were fabled experts of illusion, but she could smell the decay; she could see the hacked ends of the men’s fingers, where they had tried to defend themselves against the slaughter so long ago.
 

“Your security has been overpowered,” the Valkyrie said. “All visitors and employees have been evacuated except for you, and my men will be spreading out through the museum. You’re all my hostages until I get that staff. Give it to me now, old man, and perhaps I won’t release the
einherjar
amongst you all.”
 

The curator’s eyes widened at this, and Morgan remembered from her research that the
einherjar
were a band of warriors who had died in battle and awaited the day of Ragnarok to herald the final war cry. Were these skeletal figures truly the vanguard of the woman’s ghostly army, or was it all just illusion?

Morgan pushed the door shut. There was no time to wait any longer. The curator would give them up any second.
 

“We have to go now,” she whispered, grabbing the staff from the table. “They want this and I’m afraid if we give it to them, things will get a whole lot worse.”

Blake’s face was a mask of confusion and wonder. Morgan saw the flicker of indecision in his eyes before he seemed to settle on trusting her.
 

“The emergency exit leads out to the back of the building onto Montague Place,” he said, pushing the exit door. “This way.”

They walked quickly away from the room to another door that led out to a main exit. Morgan pushed the door slightly and peeked through the gap. One of the Neo-Vikings stood guard there, one hand on the pommel of a broadsword and the other holding a gun.

Morgan pushed the door closed again. “We can’t get out this way.”
 

“Then we have to go up and over, across to the exits on the other side of the building,” Blake whispered.
 

The crash of a slamming door echoed through the corridor, followed by a roar of disappointment.
 

“Find them!” The Valkyrie’s words were followed by several sets of footsteps heading in their direction.
 

“This way,” Blake said, running up a staircase on light feet. Morgan ran after him, past mosaics from Halicarnassus and Carthage, the once-bright colors now dull with age. There were spiraling vines, dolphins leaping through the waves and Roman nobles feasting, crowned with laurel wreaths. Celebrate, Morgan thought, for tomorrow we die.
 

At the top of the stairs they turned into the upper galleries, where Egyptian death and afterlife were displayed and explained. The dead were bound in linen and laid in wooden cases, the inner caskets painted with the gods and symbols of prosperity in the everlasting. Their skin was burnished leather, features shrunken but still visible, even down to perfectly preserved eyelashes. Morgan shuddered. Skeletons were one thing, but she didn’t want these bodies coming to a semblance of life again.

The heavy footsteps were almost behind them now. There was no way they would get out without being caught.
 

“Down,” Morgan said, pushing Blake behind one of the display cases so he wouldn’t be seen. She spun around to stand just inside the door to the next room, next to an exhibit of
shabti
figures – servants for the afterlife in blue-glazed faience and serpentine. She held the iron staff high like a baseball bat ready to strike. If the old witch wanted it for death, maybe they should start with some of her own men.
 

The adrenalin pumped now and Morgan’s heart pounded. Once upon a time she had called it fear, but her years in the IDF had trained that out of her. Now, she called it anticipation. She itched to hit something, craving the rush that only violence could soothe. Life was simple when it came down to survival; movement into battle felt like a meditation. In a flash, she understood why the Vikings had roamed the world, raiding and exploring new places, and why perhaps these men craved the same existence.

A footstep came from just outside the doorway. As the first man walked through, Morgan swung the iron staff at his face, aiming behind his head. He leaned back in reaction, but the metal bar slammed into his nose anyway, the crunch of bone resounding in the empty hall. The man reeled, clutching his face, blood streaming through his fingers as he fell to his knees groaning.

A second Neo-Viking stood behind him, over six foot, a meaty man with piggy eyes who squinted at the staff as if he could barely see it.
 

“You defile the sacred,” he rasped. “Give it to me, bitch, and I may let you live.”
 

Morgan stood to face him, slamming the iron staff into her opposite palm. She smiled, her eyes cold.
 

“Come and get it.”

AS THE MAN LUNGED for her, Morgan stepped back and used the staff to smash the exhibition case next to her, sending shards of glass flying. Momentarily blinded, he raised his hands to his face. Morgan used the rounded end of the staff to thrust at his throat with a lightning-fast movement. She forced herself to hold back at the last moment, with the realization that she didn’t want to kill the man, only leave him incapacitated.
 

The man’s face was a mix of surprise and terror, his eyes wide. He gasped for breath, one hand clutching at the broken edges of the display case, blood staining the ancient artifacts. His throat was already visibly swelling and bruising. Morgan waited with the staff raised, ready to knock him down, but he slumped to the floor, chest heaving as he tried to draw breath. The other man still clutched his broken nose, moaning against the wall in the other room. The edges of her rage bubbled, the righteous anger that emerged when she or those she loved were threatened. But she was learning to hold it back, and these men weren’t the true enemy.

Blake stepped out warily from behind the display case.
 

“You’re no academic, Dr. Sierra.” His voice had an edge of respect and a whole lot of curiosity in it.

“And these are no Viking warriors,” Morgan said, considering the men on the ground. “This should have been harder. But we should move, in case they send backup. These guys will be up and about, wanting some retribution soon enough.”

“This way.” Blake hurried off down the gallery, turning several times, past bearded warriors in sculptures from Mesopotamia and artifacts from the walls of Babylon. Morgan couldn’t help but look into the cases as they passed, glimpses of cuneiform engraved on tablets documenting the lives of those thousands of years ago. The academic in her wanted to look closer, but she would have to linger another time. Blake pulled out a bunch of keys as they approached a gallery that was closed for maintenance.
 

“We can go through here, and I’ll lock it behind us. Might hold them off for a while when the next lot come looking. There’s an archive storeroom that we can at least stop to think in.”

On the other side of the door, Morgan followed Blake through another gallery and up a little staircase to a door with multiple locks. She raised an eyebrow at the additional security while Blake fiddled with his keys, looking for the right ones.
 

“I got the keys a few months ago from one of the curators. It’s a great place to come and think when I need some space.”

Blake pushed open the door to the musty room, an archive of some of the less popular exhibits. Or those that they don’t want people to know about, Blake thought. He came here for silence and solitude, but also to read in private. Not books, but the objects themselves, losing himself in a world of past lives as a way to bring his own research alive. There were some who commented that his research papers were too fanciful, too full of character and possible scenarios for the objects he studied, but the grant money kept coming, so no one questioned his methods. So far, he had managed to keep his gift almost secret.

“They’ll struggle to find us here,” Blake said. “This room isn’t even on the plans.”

“It will be good to stop for a minute.” Morgan looked down at her phone, frowning in frustration. “Damn. There’s still no reception. They must have a signal jammer for the whole building.”

“The evacuation and alarms would have tipped off the police, so I’m sure there’s a host of emergency services and reporters outside.” He paused. “But you want ARKANE, right? Can they do something more than the police?”

Morgan sighed. “There’s more to ARKANE than just academics and conferences.”

“I got that from your ability to wield a metal club back there,” Blake grinned. “Most impressive. And to be honest, I’m far more interested in what ARKANE does now. Can you tell me anything about it?”
 

Morgan went silent for a moment, her eyes focusing on a faraway point. She shook her head.
 

“Not much, sorry. Only that we investigate supernatural mysteries, many of them around religious or cult objects like this one.” She held up the staff. “Most of what I’m involved in, you would struggle to believe.”

“Is it harder to believe that a Neo-Viking priestess caused long-dead bones to spin in the air, calling warriors from their Valhalla feast?”
 

Morgan smiled. “Fair point. When I identified this staff as something to be looked into further, I had no idea that others would be seeking it, too. It seems this Valkyrie priestess could possibly wield its power, whereas I can only use it as a blunt club. We need to know more about it.”

Blake’s heart thumped as he summoned the strength to speak of that which he kept secret. He rubbed his gloved hands together, the bumps of the scars familiar lines through the fabric. Part of him wanted to wait and see what Morgan would come up with, as he was sure she would get them out of here. But another part wanted to read the staff, a curiosity that made his hands tingle in anticipation.
 

He pulled the gloves off, revealing his scarred hands, the cinnamon skin marred with criss-crossed ropes of ivory.

“Oh Blake, I’m so sorry,” Morgan said, her eyes widening as she took in his extensive injuries.
 

“My father tried to beat the gift out of me,” he said. “He tried to bleed it from my skin, but it always came back.”

“What gift?” The violet slash in Morgan’s right eye seemed to darken to indigo as she focused on his words. Blake could see no judgment there, only sincere interest.
 

“I can read objects,” he said, although it was hard to put into words the maelstrom of vision that consumed him when he read. “Some call it psychometry, or a form of clairvoyance. Whatever you want to call it, when I touch an object, I can enter into its emotional history. I can see the people and places it touched and feel the emotions that surrounded it. Sometimes it’s hazy, but the strongest emotions also bring the most powerful visions.”
 

“So you see violence and murder more often than happiness?”

Blake nodded. “Exactly.” That was the curse, along with the flashbacks he experienced of what he witnessed. He drowned his nightmares in tequila most nights, but Morgan didn’t need to know about his nocturnal vice. “I’ve helped the police on a couple of cases, not that they would admit that to anyone, but that has helped me reframe the gift as useful at least.” Blake thought of Detective Jamie Brooke and what he had seen of the murder at the Hunterian – the grotesque specimens in jars that revealed the heart of the crime. “Perhaps if I read the staff, we might find out something more about why the Neo-Vikings want it?”

Morgan hesitated. Blake saw uncertainty in her eyes, but only for a second. She held out the staff.
 

“What can I do to help?”

“Can you just put it down here on the floor?” Blake sat down cross-legged. Morgan put the staff in front of him, sitting down opposite him. Her proximity made him uneasy, aware that she would be watching him, assessing what he was doing. But apparently she had seen stranger things, and to be honest, he was interested to see what was so special about this staff.