The Undoing (13 page)

Gundo sighed. “I don't know. Ten. Twelve.”

“Thirteen?”

“Maybe.”

“Thirteen is usually the anti-Christians,” Bear reminded them. He never wanted to call them Satanists, but Ski had no idea why. Maybe he thought the term was too limiting.

“Should we call the Pope?” Gundo asked and they all turned to face him. That's when he laughed and added, “Just kidding.”

Borgsten shook his head. “You know the Protectors haven't dealt with a Pope since the Crusades.”

“That was an ugly time.”

“It wasn't our fault!” Bear argued. Like he always did. “Things just got a little out of hand.”

“Do we have to go over this again?” Ski asked. “Really? It was nearly a thousand years ago. I can't believe we're still talking about this.” Everyone fell silent but then Ski just had to add, “And it was
totally
our fault. The Inquisition was not our fault. But the Crusades . . . all of them . . .
absolutely
our fault.”

“But—”

“Let's just leave it at that.”

They went back to searching for evidence when Gundo suddenly gasped, “Holy shit!”

“What?”

“You need to see this.”

Ski walked into the sunken living room. There was a gorgeous fire pit right in the middle surrounded by big, comfortable couches and a fur rug. As he stepped around the couches, he saw all the jewelry. Had to be millions of dollars' worth.

“Is that stuff . . . is it real?” he asked. He knew watches, but he'd never been big on sparkly jewelry and he'd never dated women who were into much of that, either.

Gundo crouched beside the mound and picked one piece up. He held it up to the light, head tilting, eyes adjusting.

“I don't have a loupe but . . . I think so.”

“So they offered up humans . . . and gold and diamonds?”

Bear now stood beside him, arms crossed over his massive chest. “Are the Crows
really sure
they got rid of Gullveig?”

Ski scratched his head. “Ormi's going to have to go back to Chloe. Because I'm not doing it.”

“That won't go well,” Gundo guessed. And he was most likely right. Chloe did not like to be questioned by the other Clans. About anything.

Still staring down, Gundo gave a small grunt.

“What?” Ski asked.

He reached down and picked something up from under the jewels. “Is this . . . is this straw?”

“Why would there be straw on the floor of a ten-thousand-dollar-a-night bungalow?”

“I think we need to let Ormi know what's going on,” Borgsten said from the doorway.

Ski nodded. “Yeah. I want to get back and—”

He turned, head tilting until he'd almost turned it upside down. But it was that sound. What was that sound? And where was it coming—

She appeared from smoke, ramming her hand into Bear's chest, sending the big man flying across the room and into Borgsten; the pair disappearing from view.

She turned toward Ski, but he heard something behind him and spun around. His hand shot out and he grabbed the neck of another female. With just a twist of his fingers, he had her screeching and bent awkwardly at the waist.

It was the
Mardröm—
the Mara for short—female demons who made their victims physically experience the nightmares they gave them. They were powerful and ancient and Ski had never seen one before, but he'd heard that the Crows and Ravens had fought them when they'd gone to stop Gullveig's reincarnation on this plane. The two Clans believed they'd destroyed them all.

Apparently they'd been wrong.

 

How these idiot dude-bros, as Erin called them, could get their hands on a powerful Rhine gold necklace forged by the gods, Jace didn't know. Even more fascinating was their decision to cut the necklace into pieces and sew it right into their bodies. That move gave them enhanced strength and fighting ability.

Human bodies weren't really made for that sort of power, though, and at some point, they'd probably burn themselves out. Until then, however, they could still do a lot of damage so the Crows couldn't risk them getting out of here like this.

“You killed him!” she heard again before being lifted and thrown to the other side of the room.

Jace hit a door and went through it. She flew right over a bed and into the far wall.

Her attacker followed. It seemed that bit of gold sewn into his chest gave him a steroid-like anger.

He again grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to her feet. While he held her hair with one hand, he slapped her with the other. The whole time chanting, with each hit, “You killed him! You killed him! You killed him!”

As he reached his hand back to slap her for the fourth time, Jace remembered she still had her blade tight in her fist. She brought it up, ramming it into his groin and ripping up.

She tore a line right up his gut until she reached his chest bone. She tilted the blade and dug it in deeper, tearing into the man's heart. She moved the blade around, then yanked it out.

He released her then, stumbling back, his hands over his bleeding stomach and groin.

“I killed him,” Jace said, her breath harsh. “And now you.”

She plunged her weapon into his eye. Then the other eye. He moved his hands to his head, screaming as he stumbled away from her.

Jace shoved him to the ground and tore open his T-shirt. She saw the scar left after he'd put the gold inside his body. She used her talon to rip that flesh open and plucked the item from his chest.

As soon as she did, he stopped screaming, he stopped fighting, and his body seemed to deflate into the floor.

Now holding one piece from the necklace, Jace closed her fingers over it and began to chant an ancient incantation she'd read in an old Nordic grimoire.

She chanted, eyes closed. She chanted and ignored the new screams she now heard. The shocked gasps of her sisters. She chanted and waited until the one gold piece in her hand was joined by all the others.

Panting, she opened her eyes. The necklace was covered in blood and flesh, but it was whole again.

Slowly she walked back into the living room. The other dude-bros were on the ground, the parts of their bodies where they'd sewn in the gold now torn open.

Tessa took the necklace from Jace. Smiled. “Nice work, sweetie. See how well you do when you don't flip out all the time?”

“Couldn't you have just left it at ‘nice work'?”

“Coulda . . . didn't.”

Kera approached, her face cringing.

“What?” Jace asked. “Why do you have that look?”

“We need to get you home. And . . . sewn up.”

Jace blinked. “Wait . . . what?”

 

Another Mara landed on Ski's back, her legs around his waist, her hands digging into his hair.

Then the two females sort of . . . waited. Like they expected him to do something specific.

That's when he twisted his fingers more and snapped the one Mara's neck. It didn't kill her, but it seemed to hurt like a bitch. Her screech rang out, but stopped when Ski kept twisting and pulling until he'd yanked the witch's head off, black blood flying.

The female still on his back screeched and dug her claws into Ski's face. The tips extending into his flesh.

He roared in pain and caught the Mara's hands, yanking them away and flipping her off his back. He slammed her into the ground, lifted her, and slammed her. Lifted. Slammed. Lifted. Slammed. Until she was nothing but broken pieces.

That's when the hissing sound intensified and smoke began to fill the large room.

“Out,” he ordered his brothers. “Out. Now.”

He backed away, toward the exit, as the Mara appeared. From smoke to something almost human. Except for those rows of tiny black fangs, meant to tear and rend their victims. Some of the Mara crawled on all fours across the ceiling, while others eased along the walls. One led them. Naked, covered in blood, she moved across the room toward Ski.

“So beautiful,” she hissed at him. “And what is your name, pretty Viking? What can I call you when I come to you at night? When I take you inside me? When I make you mine?”

Ski gave a small smile. “You? You can call me the Viking who took your heart.”

With that, Ski rammed his right hand—the hand his god, Tyr, had sacrificed in the mouth of Fenrir the Wolf—into her chest. Ripping past bone and flesh until he could grip her heart. Holding it, he continued on until he'd torn out to the other side.

Shocked and gasping, she gawked down at the part of his arm she could still see and then, slowly looked up at him.

Her heart still beat in his hand, so Ski silently squeezed until it turned to pulp in his grip and oozed down to his wrist.

The lead Mara gasped one final time and dropped, hanging from his forearm.

He pushed her off and looked at the others. Taking a step back so that he was on the other side of the doorway, Ski unfurled his wings, spreading them wide.

“
Protector!
” one cried in a panic.

The Mara began to back up, some beginning to turn to smoke, others rushing toward the walls they'd already come through.

“In the name of the mighty Tyr,” Ski intoned, his blood-and-heart-covered right hand now drawing his god's rune in the air, “I bring you justice . . . and I bring you
death
.”

The walls turned black and the lights overhead turned red. Everything shook and the walls crumbled in, trapping the Mara underneath the rubble. Until there was nothing but darkness and their far-off screeching.

Ski let out a breath and faced his brethren. Each closed his eyes, nodded his head, silently praising their god and giving Ski their blessing for his actions.

He walked out of the crumbling bungalow and once outside, spread his wings again and took to the skies, his brothers behind him.

J
ace was dressed and ready to head to work, practically skipping down the stairs. She stopped, though, when she heard the doorbell. No one else was around, so she went to answer it herself.

“Oh my God!” she gasped before thinking. “Your face!”

“
My
face?” Eriksen asked from the other side of the doorway. “What happened to
your
face?”

Jace immediately touched her cheeks, her fingers gliding along the stitches Tessa had put in the night before. She'd completely forgotten about them.

“Oh. That.”

“Yeah. That.”

“I was thrown into a mirror. And out a window.” She thought a moment. “I think that's it.”

“Oh well, that's good.”

She frowned. “The sarcasm is unnecessary.”

“Is it?”

Ormi, who stood beside Eriksen, leaned in and said, “Jacinda, dear. Would you mind taking us to Chloe? We need to see her.”

“Oh sure.” She turned and headed off to Chloe's private office.

“Aren't you going to ask us why we're here to see Chloe?” Eriksen asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You might tell me.”

She heard Ormi laugh and Eriksen grunt.

They reached Chloe's door and Jace raised her hand to knock. But she instantly froze when she heard Chloe screaming from the other side, “
I know you're fucking that Valkyrie whore from Vegas!
”

“So?” a male voice shot back. “I know you're fucking that plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills!
Is he why your tits are suddenly bigger?
”

Something crashed against the wall, and Jace spun around to face the two Protectors. “Why don't we go see Tessa? She loves helping! She was a nurse!”

Without waiting for either to reply, she pushed past them and walked back through the house; the screaming still coming from Chloe's office thankfully fading away as they moved.

She cut through the living room, where the Crows who worked from home or were waiting for acting jobs to come in looked up from painting their nails or watching TV, silently observing Jace and the Protectors walk by.

She opened the sliding glass door and led them out to the back patio, where Tessa was having breakfast with the rest of Jace's Strike team except Kera. Based on Kera's absence and the extensive paperwork covering the large, round table, that meant they were in the midst of finalizing the plans for her welcome party.

Poor Kera was still convinced by evil Erin that her party would consist of six people and processed cheese.

“Tessa, the Protectors are here to see Chloe.”

“Oh, just take them back—”

“But Chloe just found out that Josef is dating a Valkyrie who is also a stripper and he just accused her of getting her tits done, soooooo . . . yeah.”

Tessa dropped her head into her hands. “Seriously?”

“Things are being thrown.”

Without lifting her head, Tessa pointed at Annalisa. “Go deal with it.”

“Why me?”

“You deal with hardened criminals every day as a psychiatrist. I'm assuming you can handle two people who can't move on from their shitty marriage.”

“Of course I can handle it,” she said, getting to her feet. “I just don't want to.”

“Well, you might as well sit.” Tessa gestured to Annalisa's empty chair, then the breakfast foods. “Melon ball?”

Ormi blinked. “Uh . . .”

Jace heard a whistle and looked over her shoulder.

“Couple of guys here to see you,” her sister-Crow said.

Jace frowned. “To see
me
? Are you sure?”

“They asked for you. One's a Claw. The other's some black guy.” The other Crows stared at her until she threw up her hands. “What? He is.”

“I'll deal with it.” Jace gave a small wave to Eriksen before walking back into the house.

As she followed her sister-Crow, Lev ran up to her, and Jace stopped long enough to pick him up and snuggle him close, laughing when he chewed on her nose.

She was led into the study by the front door, but Jace stopped as soon as she walked inside.

Her feet felt like lead once she stood in that room and, she had to admit at least to herself, all she wanted to do was turn and run. Especially when she saw the expression on the face of the man she knew so well. A combination of apology and regret.

Norris Bystrom was a lifelong member of the Claws of Ran. He and his brethren still ruling the seas, dragging boats and the contents down to the bottom of the ocean just as the Nordic goddess Ran and her nine daughters once did to the Vikings when the mood struck them.

This Claw was also the ATF agent who'd been the first to see Jace at her absolutely most terrifying two years ago, when her Second Life had just begun.

Now he and the federal prosecutor who'd handled the case stood in the Bird House study, waiting to speak to her.

The prosecutor had always been so kind to her, too, and he wore the same expression as Bystrom. Apology and regret. She hated that expression. Hated it more than most things.

Both men tried to smile.

“Hi, Jacinda,” the federal prosecutor said. His name was Dave Jennings. He was tall. Handsome. Of black and Mexican descent. And was steadily working his way up in the prosecutors' office. She had no doubt that he would be attorney general one day.

But not today.

“Hello.”

“How have you been doing?”

“Fine.”

Lev whimpered and snuggled close to her neck.

“He's kind of big to hold, isn't he?” Jennings asked, trying desperately to lighten the mood.

“He's not even three months.”

“Seriously?” Jennings's eyes briefly widened. “He's going to be huge.”

“Jace—” Bystrom began.

“Let me handle this.” Jennings gestured to the couch. “Why don't we sit down?”

“That's okay.”

“No. Really. I think you should sit and—”

“He's out,” she said for them, when she saw they were doing that thing that men do when they hated telling a woman something. They'd sit her down, hope to keep her calm. Offer to get one of her friends. Or some tea. Anything to avoid the torrent of tears they were expecting.

Although maybe
dreading
was a better word than
expecting
. They were
dreading
those tears. And this conversation.

“Jacinda—”

“It's all right,” she said, deciding to let them off the hook. Because they didn't understand. They never did. No matter how many times she told them, explained to them, they kept treating her like a traumatized wife rather than a woman who'd seen everything. Understood everything because she had no choice.

Her husband had never bothered to hide anything from her. He'd considered her property, and why would you hide anything from property? She didn't hide popping her zits from Lev.

“I told you this would happen,” she reminded them. “I told you that you'd never keep him in.”

“We haven't given up,” Jennings quickly insisted.

“The cops caught him
burying
me, and you still couldn't keep him in. So maybe you should give up.”

“We still have the weapons charges.”

“Weapons charges, but the judge let him out? Yeah . . . okay.”

“We have very high hopes—”

“You shouldn't. You should never have high hopes. The others, my husband's . . . parishoners, will protect him with their last breath. All of them will. You'll never get them to turn. Ever.”

“You could testify.”

“I'm his ex-wife.”

“You can't testify about what he told you as his wife, but you can testify about what you've actually seen. No one can stop you from doing that.”

She wished she could say she was frightened by Jennings's words. She wasn't. Instead, she was irritated. She'd spent so much time explaining to him how this would work. This wasn't just some hick cult with no pull. True, it would have been if her ex-husband had started it himself. He didn't. His father did. A man who turned a long con into an actual religion. And to protect himself he'd made sure his group had contacts, connections, and anything else that got him control.

She'd tried again and again to explain that to Jennings, but he was one of those guys who believed justice ruled all. He really thought that someone as dangerous as her ex would get thrown into prison and stay there because that's how it was
supposed
to work.

The man understood so little about this that he thought Jace was afraid of testifying against her ex. She wasn't. She was afraid of what she'd do once she was in front of that court. In front of
him
. She could easily see herself climbing over the witness box and wrapping her hands around the bastard's throat in the midst of her testimony. Choking the life from him right there. In front of the world.

So . . . no. Testifying against him would not work to her benefit.

She felt her rage welling and she worked hard to calm it down. To get it under control. She had to. Jennings was an outsider. Not one of the Clans, unlike the Claw who'd hauled her away from her ex after Skuld had brought her back. Bystrom had immediately known that she was a newly spawned Crow because he was descended from the Vikings who used to fight them. He was one of the Claws of Ran, West Coast. A human clan that was still female led, and still didn't much like the Crows, often sending seagulls to attack the avian Clan when they were forced to travel over the Pacific. But Norris had always made an exception for Jace after realizing it had been her husband who'd killed and buried her in the backyard of the compound.

Norris suddenly glared at Jennings. “I thought we weren't going to discuss testifying until later.”

“It seemed as good time as any,” the prosecutor said, glaring right back. He was the prosecutor, after all. Norris was just some ATF agent who didn't understand these things. At least that's how she was guessing Jennings saw this situation. But
he
didn't understand. He would never understand.

“Well, that was a dumb thing to do.” And then, Bystrom looked behind Jace and she knew, without looking, that her sisters now stood behind her. They stood outside the glass doors. They sat on the chairs. They crouched on the staircase banisters.

Like a scene from Hitchcock's
The Birds
, they had appeared in order to protect one of their own. And they'd done it without Jace saying a word because they just knew. They knew something was really wrong.

Bystrom's body tensed, recognizing how dangerous this all was.

But Jennings merely saw a bunch of nosy women who apparently lived in an expensive rehab center, which meant they were rich. He might have even recognized a few faces from TV or movies. He didn't understand the fear that was welling up in his gut. Instead he would ignore that fear. Tamp it down. Pretend there was nothing to be frightened of.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Not wanting the situation to get out of hand—and it was about to—Jace said, “I need to think on this.” She turned toward the glass doors, but Jennings caught her arm. Not harshly. She knew harsh; this wasn't close.

But Bystrom took in a sharp breath and she could feel the eyes of every Crow locking on where Jennings's hand touched her elbow.

“Please, Jace, you have nothing to be afraid of. We'll get you protection. We'll take you someplace where you'll be safe. And when the trial is over, we'll put you in witness protection. He'll never find you.”

Jace patted his hand, forced a smile like she used to when she stood beside her husband and greeted newcomers too foolish to realize what they'd just given away. Their freedom.

Jennings was such a sweet man, and he believed every word he was telling her. That he would manage to protect her. Protect her from a past she understood all too well.

“Let me think on it,” she insisted before pulling away.

One of her sister-Crows opened the door from the outside and she walked through and away.

 

Norris watched the Crows closely. This was why he'd wanted to take Jacinda out of here to have this discussion. But no. Jennings didn't want to “take her out of where she's comfortable. She's already been through so much.”

Which was very true. The woman had been through hell. But if she were like most people, she'd still be dead. The reason she wasn't dead was because of who she was deep down inside. Because of her power. True power. Not that typical human shit, but the kind of power that frightened the hardest of true men. Of Vikings.

And with reason.

She hadn't even said a word and the Crows had sensed her need. Her growing rage.

Gods, how could Jennings not see it? The man always wore a small gold cross around his neck. Did his Christian belief system really make him that blind?

The Crows continued to watch them as Jennings hemmed and hawed about whether they should keep trying to talk to Jace now or wait. But it wasn't long before Chloe Wong walked into the room.

She smiled sweetly at both men, but Norris wasn't fooled. Not by her.

“Gentlemen. It's good to see you again,” she greeted. “What brings you here to Giant Steps?” She dipped her head a bit, dark brown eyes locking on Norris. “Little drinking problem?” she asked.

Norris started to reply to that bitchy remark—everyone knew he didn't have a drinking problem because he could out-drink everyone at the yearly Tournaments—but Jennings placed his hand on Norris's shoulder.