No Rest for the Wicked (13 page)

be like joeys in a pouch, not that we’re going to die of cold anytime soon, even if it is

negative fifty right now. Hey, did I mention the bucket seats, baby? This is the Cadillac-o-

Snowcats.”

Regin is young, Kaderin reminded herself. Only ten centuries old.

“Lookit, it’s not like we have much choice about the snowcat, anyway. This is as far as the

crew will take us.”

“I still don’t see why we couldn’t just fly all the way to the mountain range.” Kaderin

gazed longingly at the Arktika—even that tin bucket of a whirlybird was preferable. Two

soldiers had anchored it down and were keeping it running—it was night in Antarctica in

the middle of austral fall, and if the helicopter rotors stilled for even a few seconds, they

would freeze that way.

“You will if the wind starts whipping up,” Regin answered. “Freak katabatic winds aloft. I

learned that word today.”

Aloft or katabatic? Kaderin was tempted to ask.

“Besides, at that altitude and in this season,” she continued, “the rotors would definitely

freeze. And we don’t have an automatic thermoelectric anti-icing system. We’re all

manual.”

As if to illustrate “manual,” two other soldiers were spraying a de-icer on the less intricate

snowcat engine, a secret cocktail of calcium chloride that was stronger than any on the

market, black or not. The last soldier, the leader, Ivan, was a tall blond of exceptional

good looks. He took another swig from a flask of vodka that never froze, then gave a bow

to Regin.

Earlier, he and Regin had been playing slap hands, gloveless, in subzero temperatures,

because “it hurts worse in the cold.”

Regin waved back at him, smiling sunnily even while muttering, “Young, dumb, and hung.

Where do I sign?”

Kaderin pinched her forehead. She had finally decided to ask the coven for help and

wound up with the most frat-pledge-esque of the Valkyrie—and the one she’d dreaded

facing.

Regin’s mother, the last survivor of a vampire attack on the Radiant Ones, had been on

the verge of death when rescued by Wóden and Freya. She’d been scarred with bites until

the day she died, years later. Even on her beautiful glowing face.

Regin had learned to count by them.

Kaderin began pacing. “You shouldn’t have come, Regin.”

“You had two prerequisites.” Regin plopped down on a snowbank. “And I do believe I

have Russian ex-mil contacts, and I speak the language—”

“Oh, come on! I’ve since learned that you do not by any stretch. You think Dostoyevsky

is Russian for ‘How’s it hanging?’ ”

She blinked up at Kaderin as she paced by. “Then how do you say it?”

“I—don’t—know.”

“Then how do you know it’s not Dostoyevsky? No. Really.” She blew a bubble with her

gum—possibly the first to do so at this location—but it flash-froze, and she had to crunch

it back to gum consistency with her molars. “Obi-Wan, I was your only hope.”

Regin knew Kaderin did not appreciate Star Wars references. “There had to be someone,”

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) Kaderin insisted.

“Would you rather Nïx had come?”

Nucking Futs Nïx. “As a matter of fact, she was on the list of prizes. Or at least, the hair

of the oldest Valkyrie was.”

“No wonder!” At Kaderin’s raised eyebrows, Regin explained, “Right before we took off,

Nïx called to tell me she went into the Circle K to get a People and some madman sheared

off most of her hair.” She added, “Nïx thinks it’s ‘becoming.’ Kind of like an early Katie

Couric or Tennille of Captain and—”

“Silence, Regin!”

“What?” She stomped one of her hyper–pink and purple snow boots. “What’d I say?”

“Myst could’ve come.”

“I told you, she’s busy.”

Kaderin said, “And you never told me with what.”

She hiked her shoulders and averted her eyes. “Dunno with what.”

“Regin, I’ve told you what’s at stake.”

“I know. And we’re totally going to win the key.”

Kaderin didn’t miss that Regin had slipped we’re into that sentence. “What is taking them

so long? These amulets are decade-long glamours. We’re going to be overrun with trolls

and killer kobolds wanting to look human.”

Regin snorted, she laughed so abruptly. She bent all the way over, elbows past her knees.

“Damn you, it isn’t funny.”

Once her guffaws died down, Regin said, “You are the only person on earth who calls

them killer kobolds. That’s such a slippery slope away from killer gnome.”

“Have you forgotten that they took my foot?” She’d just been frozen into her

immortality—mere days earlier—otherwise, it would not have regenerated. In any case, it

had hurt like hell. “And when was the last time you lost a body part?”

Regin gazed up solemnly. “I lost a finger in the Battle of Evermore.”

“Oh.” Kaderin frowned, then cried, “ ‘The Battle of Evermore’ is a Led Zeppelin song!”

“Yeah. But wasn’t it written about us?” Regin’s eyes widened. “Hey, speaking of songs,

lookit what I made for our snowcat ride.” She pulled out an iPod, careful to keep it

rubbed warm. “A snow-trip mix!”

Kaderin saw red and pounced on her, shoving her into the snow. She ceased when she

registered that Regin was too dumbfounded to fight back. The Russians stopped what they

were doing, staring, no doubt wondering why two scientists were wrestling in the snow.

Kaderin stood, giving Regin a hand up, and eked out an unpracticed smile for the

Russians.

“Tetchy,” Regin said, brushing off her clothing. “Seems somebody’s shucking their

cursey-wursey.”

Only ten centuries old. Only ten centuries...

“It’s not a curse. It was—it is a blessing.” She lifted her chin, not wanting Regin to know

she’d begun to feel again—and that she didn’t see that woeful development ending

anytime soon. If Kaderin’s coven mates found out, they’d be so happy, making a huge

deal out of this. Which, coincidentally, could now embarrass her. “I apologize. The stress

of the Hie makes the blessing waver at times—” She broke off when a helicopter flew

over, a Canadian flag on the tail. “You said we couldn’t fly!”

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“Wow,” Regin said casually. “They must have an automatic thermoelectric anti-icing

system.”

Just as she was about to destroy Regin, Ivan called out, waving them over to the snowcat.

Kaderin pointed at Regin but couldn’t manage words. Regin pointed back with a wink,

then turned to grab their gear, including their swords hidden in ski cases.

Shake it off. Focus.

After Ivan opened their doors and they climbed in, he pulled down his mask and leaned in

close to Regin to say something very earnestly in Russian.

Regin translated. “He says if a storm blows in or if we’re not back by a certain time,

they’ll be forced to leave us.”

“How much time do we have?”

“They’ve got enough fuel to keep the rotors creeping for four hours.” Regin tapped her

chin with her gloved fingers. “Four hours or possibly forty minutes. I can’t be certain,

since my knowledge of Russian really does blow,” she admitted baldly.

Before Kaderin could say anything, Regin raised her hand and lovingly scrunched Ivan’s

cheeks. She waggled his face back and forth, then pushed him back with a forefinger

against his lips so she could slam the door shut.

“Hey, there’s more than one amulet, right?” Regin said when they were alone. “You don’t

get extra credit for being there first.”

Kaderin slid her sword out of the case in the backseat, readying for trouble. “No. But they

could set traps.”

“And how are kobolds going to chopper out here in the first place?” Regin asked. “I just

can’t picture the critters at the helipad, you know?”

“They can turn invisible and stow along. I unknowingly sailed one all the way to Australia

in the last Hie,” she said, then added, “Sadly, he had an accident and wasn’t quite up for

the return trip.” When Ivan gave them another formal bow, Kaderin frowned. “What type

of scientists did you tell them we are, anyway?”

“Glaciologists from the University of North Dakota studying a sudden massive fissure

caught by satellite. I thought there was a certain irony in saying we had to act swiftly

about a glacier.”

“Dakotan glaciologists, huh?”

“If those guys want to believe two preternaturally foxy Valkyrie—one of whom is sporting

disco snow boots—are scientists, who am I to naysay?” Regin blew a bubble, revving the

engine. “Let the science commence.”

Another helicopter banked over them.

14

A t sunset, when Sebastian traced to find his Bride and his skin flash-froze, he realized the

goddess had duped him.

He’d spent the entire day in Kaderin’s townhouse, having traced from the temple to

London , then hailed a cab. Just minutes before dawn, Sebastian had arrived at the address

Scribe had finally surrendered, then traced inside.

In her home, after drawing all the curtains, he’d discovered he could, in fact, “listen out of

the corner of his ear” to TV while he speed-read through newspapers. Yet he’d discovered

nothing new about Kaderin from her Spartan, nondescript living space. If he hadn’t

smelled her scent on her silk pillow and finally found a collection of weapons, shields,

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) whips, and manacles in a closet, he might have wondered if Riora and her Scribe had even

given him the correct address.

And now this.

“Low-hanging fruit,” Riora had said. “She’ll stay close by Europe ,” she’d reassured

Sebastian. Yet he’d appeared in the wake of an unwieldy vehicle choking out black smoke

as it crawled over an icy plain.

His Bride was doubtless in that vehicle, and tracing to her had taken him very far from

“close by Europe .” With fumbling fingers, he dug the scroll from his pocket, then scanned

the ten choices. Antarctica .

He could see the tips of his fingers blackening from near instantaneous frostbite. Bloody

hell. Fortunately, Antarctica was dark twenty-four hours a day this time of year;

unfortunately, it was bloody cold. This was something for a man who’d been raised along

the Baltic Sea to say. He needed coverage against the elements—more than the mere coat

and gloves he’d bought last week.

In an instant, he traced to one of the clothing stores he’d purchased from, sure to appear

in a dressing room—which luckily did not have another customer in it. After grabbing

insulated gloves and layers of clothes to go under a heavy trench coat, he noted the name

of the store to send payment to and exited the same way.

Fifteen minutes later, he was back again in the wake of the same vehicle, though it seemed

he could have thrown it farther than it had traveled.

He wrapped a black wool scarf over his ears and face, then pulled out the scroll once

more. Within the highest peak in the Transantarctic mountain range was a couloir, an ice

tunnel. Inside the couloir were three amulets.

Kaderin was traveling to the mountain range towering over this plain, so that must be it.

He traced to the highest overhang he could make out on the tallest mountain. From that

vantage, he saw one even higher up and traced there.

Directly in front of him—a tunnel. He traced within it as far as he could see, reached the

end of the first straightaway, turned left, and progressed to the next end. He easily

covered ground this way. Yet even dressed in heavy clothing, he was still suffering from

frostbite at his extremities, then healing from it in grueling intervals.

A narrow ledge marked the end of the tunnel, and atop it were the three small amulets that

looked like jagged mirrors carved from ice. He grasped the one he intended for Katja, then

traced back to the overhang to scan for her.

As he waited, he gazed out over the alien scene. He’d never imagined a landscape like

this. During his human life, Antarctica had been a rumor, an impossibility.

Here the stars didn’t glint but were motionless and dead like the static photographs he’d

seen everywhere in London . The moon didn’t rise and set, but in the half hour he’d been

here, it had floated farther to the left over the horizon.

He wouldn’t have been able to see this preternatural scene if he’d died. He wouldn’t be

waiting anxiously for his Bride.

What to say to her?

Suddenly, two helicopters roared overhead, circling before landing at the base of the

mountain. Curious, he traced down. Two other competitors were organizing ropes to

climb to the slender overhang. A plan formed. If Kaderin thought he was quiet and

unassuming—well, he was most of the time—but if she thought that was all that he was,

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) he was about to surprise her.

Kaderin swore imaginatively with every foot she climbed higher up the rock face, irritation

running rife in her.

She mimicked Regin’s voice to say, “Why, they must have a thermoelectric anti-icing

system!”

Regin had never riled her like this before. Kaderin had always been one of the few older

Valkyrie who could tolerate her for long periods of time. But Regin had to play “Radar