Runes #03 - Grimnirs (27 page)

A warm tingling shot up my back, and I turned my head to find Echo. More people were on the dance floor, and someone had turned on colored LED lights, but I knew he was in the room.

“As his aide, I could move freely around Asgard.”

My eyes found Echo standing by the door. His eyes were locked on me. He looked pissed. Then he turned and pushed open the door. Where was he going?

Panicking, I pushed Blaine’s arms away.

“Did you hear what I said?” he asked, following me.

“I don’t know where Eirik is or if I’ll ever see him again.” I pushed through the crowd, yelling to be heard above the music. “If I do, I’ll tell him.” I hurried toward the entrance. I pushed open the door and stepped outside.

Blaine grabbed my arm. “Wait. Where are you going?”

“Hey.” I tried to wrestle my arm free. The next second, a blast of cold whipped past me and Blaine was gone.

14.
 
Bad Grimnirs

A thud came from my left, and my head whipped around. Echo gripped Blaine’s neck. Blaine’s back was against the wall.

“Don’t ever put your hand on her, Chapman. You don’t look at her wrong, raise your voice, or give her a reason to cry. You laugh and cry with her. Worship the fucking ground she walks on. If she’s hurting, you’d better be hurting ten times worse because her pain is too much to bear. Get it?”

Blaine shook his head and tried to talk.

“Wrong response, Chapman.” He slammed Blaine up against the wall. His feet were now off the ground.

I ran toward them. “Echo, stop.”

“If she’s sad, you find out why and fix it,” he continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “If she gets scared, you find the bastards responsible and you annihilate them. You slay her dragons and chase away her demons.”

I gripped Echo’s arm. “Put him down. He didn’t hurt me.”

“He did. You cried out.” His voice was curt, and he still didn’t look at me, his focus on Blaine. “If you ever hurt her in any way or form, there won’t be a place or realm for you to hide because I will find you, Chapman, rip out your heart, and feed it to the serpents of Naastrand. Understand?”

Blaine nodded.

“Good.” He dropped Blaine. No, threw him, since Blaine landed in the gutter a few feet away. The sound of concrete cracking sounded like a sledgehammer.

Echo glanced at me. Then his gaze shifted to someone behind me, and he smirked.

Caught between knocking some sense into his thick head and going after Blaine, I peered at Blaine. “Are you okay?”

He staggered to his feet, one hand rubbing his neck. “The bastard is crazy!”

A chuckle came from behind me and I turned, expecting to see Echo. He had already disappeared. Instead, Andris, Ingrid, Torin, and Raine watched me with varied expressions. Ingrid’s boyfriend was by the door and I wondered how much he’d seen.

“No, you pissed him off, Chapman,” Andris said. “What were you thinking messing with Cora?”

“I didn’t mess with her,” Blaine snapped. “We were talking, so when she took off, I followed. And that Neanderthal nearly snapped my neck.”

“Actually, he could have snapped it.” Andris moved closer to where I stood with Blaine. “You grabbed her, dude. That’s just wrong.”

“Stop giving him a hard time, Andris,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Blaine. I’ll explain things to Echo.”

“You do that. And tell him to stay away from me.” Instead of going back to the club, Blaine disappeared in the darkness. A car engine started, and within seconds, a red sports car shot past us.

I turned and faced the others. Torin and Raine still hadn’t spoken. Andris looked like he was dying to say something, but I didn’t want to hear it.

I started past them. “I’m done. I’m going home.”

“I’ll drive,” Raine said. She had my purse and jacket.

“Can I hitch a ride?” Andris asked.

I didn’t care. I just wanted to go home and wait for Echo. He’d better stop by. The things he’d told Blaine were from the heart. I wanted to hear them again. Spoken directly to me.

I was lost in my world and didn’t realize we weren’t heading home until the car stopped. We were at Eirik’s house. “I thought you said they lived next door.”

“We’re moving.” Andris headed for the entrance. “Come inside. We want to show you something.”

Torin pulled up behind us on his Harley, switched off the engine, and headed for the entrance. The security light at the front of the house had turned on, so I caught the look he exchanged with Raine. Something was going on.

“Come on,” Raine said, taking my hand.

I refused to budge. “What’s going on?”

“They want to talk to you,” Raine said.

I narrowed my eyes. “About?”

“Echo.”

I shook my head. “I’m not listening to any more ‘he’s a bad guy’ speeches from you guys.”

“Don’t lump me with them,” Raine said. “I don’t know what’s going on either. Torin said…” She glanced at him. He stood in the doorway, but Andris was already inside. “You tell her.”

“We want to show you something. That’s all,” Torin said walking toward us.

I didn’t like the look in his eyes. “And if I said I wasn’t interested?”

Something lethal flashed in his eyes. “I’d carry you inside and show them to you anyway.”

“You’d force me?”

He smirked.

“Do you know how fast Echo would you get here if you so much as touch me?”

Torin sighed. “I don’t want to fight him, but I will if it helps us get to the bottom of this mess and how he’s connected to it. I guaranteed he’s deep in it.”

“There’s a perfectly good reason why,” I snapped, ready to defend Echo, even though I had no idea what was going on.

“There always is. Please, just hear us out.”

“No. Whatever you have to say, you say it in front of Echo so he can defend himself. I’m going home.” I took my keys from Raine. “Goodnight.”

“We have the two Grimnirs who chased you this morning,” he said.

Was that this morning? So much had happened since then. I turned and studied Torin. “You told Echo you killed them.”

“We are not in the business of killing, Cora. We told him they were taken care of, and they were. We snapped their necks, but like any Immortal, a broken neck is a bruise. It took them hours without fresh runes, but they self-healed. Now they’re our prisoners. We’ve tried to interrogate them to find out why they’re after you, but they keep telling us to ask Echo.”

“Then find Echo and ask him,” I snapped.

“We tried. He only appears when you are in trouble.”

“So you brought me here as bait? Do you know what the goddess will do to him once the Grimnirs go back and report that he is working with you?”

Torin studied me and frowned. “You know why they are after you, don’t you?”

“Yes. Echo told me.” I walked past Torin. Raine followed while he took the rear. Andris, who’d been waiting by the door, closed it. “Where are they?”

“In the pool,” Andris said. “We drained it and runed it, so they can’t create portals. Come to the kitchen.”

We followed him into the kitchen. Eirik’s home was still the same. A few vases and pictures were missing here and there, but it was the same grand foyer, the same expensive furniture, and the same kitchen. We sat around the counter while Andris distributed drinks. No one, except him, touched their drink.

“Tell us what you know,” Torin said.

“The Grimnirs are not here for me. I am just the bait. They are really after Eirik. Whoever has me can use me to lure Eirik out of hiding.”

“Is Echo after Eirik, too?” Raine asked.

“He
was
, but not anymore. He chose to tell me instead, so I can tell you guys and you can warn Eirik,” I fibbed, not feeling an ounce of shame. “If he comes here, they’ll grab him. So you need to decide what to do with your prisoners because they’re exactly where they want to be. Close to me and inside Eirik’s house.”

Andris and Torin exchanged a glance.

“Raine, keep her out of sight.” Torin’s gaze touched me then Raine. “Stay here.” He followed Andris out of the room.

“Where are they going?” I asked.

“To take care of the two Grimnirs. Come on.” Raine started out of the room.

I frowned. “But Torin said—”

“Yeah, he says a lot of things. Doesn’t mean I listen. Besides, how are you going to tell Echo what they’ve done without seeing them do it?” She peered out the door. “This way.”

Torin and Andris were headed left toward the pool. We went right. “What makes you think they’re doing something?”

“The Grimnirs are fishing for information,” Raine explained as we went upstairs. “Torin said they kept saying to ask Echo, a sneaky way of checking if we’re working with him. I don’t think Hel would be pleased to learn that her favorite reaper has betrayed her.”

We entered the den. The glass wall had a spectacular view of the pool. Like Andris had said, they’d drained and runed it. We found the perfect spot to watch them unobserved. Two huge men dressed in leather, like Echo, were immobile on the pool floor. If they’d worn coats, Torin and Andris must have removed them.

“Where’re the guys?” I asked.

“Probably plotting their plan of action,” Raine murmured.

We were seated on the floor behind a bench when they entered the pool deck. We crouched lower and peered at them. Torin looked up as though he knew we were watching. Maybe he knew Raine was watching him. We ducked, looked at each other, and grinned.

I glanced below again just as Torin leaned down and, moving so fast, thrust his hand toward the Grimnir’s chest. The Grimnir rolled out of the way on the blue tiles. Torin’s fist connected with the pool wall, and the house shook. The tiled wall cracked like fine china, chucks shooting through the air and raining down to the floor.

Raine and I staggered to our feet, panicked eyes connecting briefly before returning to the scene below. My breath stalled as Torin rolled on to his haunches and the Grimnir rushed him, moving from a speed of zero to category-ten hurricane in fractions of a second. He slammed into Torin with the force of a wrecking ball, and the two flew backwards, hitting one side of the pool. More cracks ran across the pool wall like a spider web.

The other two shadows—Andris and his attacker—met in the middle of the pool and skidded along the floor, leaving behind fissures so deep I couldn’t see their legs. They were going to bring the house down, with us in it.

“They are going to kill each other,” Raine whispered.

A blast of frigid air cut across room, and I whipped around in relief. Echo stood behind us looking like the angel of death.

“Are you two okay?” he asked.

I nodded, my jaw locked. Speech had long deserted me.

“Help them,” Raine said.

One second he was with us; the next he was in the midst of the mayhem. The house shook and shuddered with each hit. When a Grimnir connected with the wall of the den, fingers of tiny fissures spread across the glass. We jumped up and dove behind the couch for cover just in time before the glass exploded. With no barrier between us, every word, crush, and groan from downstairs reached us.

“You are mine now,” Echo snarled.

“Not in this lifetime, you traitorous son of a—” A gagging sound followed.

I closed my eyes and hoped it wasn’t Echo making that sound. The sound of death. My heart pounded and my lungs burned. A loud roar rumbled through the house. Then there was silence.

I sucked air into my starved lungs and lifted my head. Raine was already standing where the wall had been. I got up, picked my way through the shards of glass, books, and broken bookshelves, and joined her. The scene below was chilling.

I sigh of relief escaped my lips. Echo was okay. On a good day, I would have been repulsed by how he looked and what he’d done, but this wasn’t a good day.

He held a heart in his hand, blood dripping onto the floor. At his feet lay one of the Grimnirs, a gaping hole in his chest, his body still twitching. A few feet away, the second Grimnir was halfway inside the fissure on the floor, his head missing. Torin stood a few feet from him, blood still dripping from the tip of his artavus.

“I’ll get rid of the bodies,” Echo said and opened a portal. He threw the heart, lifted the two men like they were rag dolls, and tossed them inside. A quick glance at me and he was gone.

Andris bent down and pulled something from the fissure. It was the head. He threw it through the portal before it closed. As though my senses had been out of sync, a floodgate opened and everything came crashing down. I started to shake. Nausea churned my stomach. I staggered away and barely managed to contain the contents of my stomach. Taking deep breaths, I searched for Raine.

She was gone. One glance told me she was downstairs. Since she had her runes engaged, she must have shifted to super speed. I followed slowly, still trying to wrap my head around what I’d seen. It was one thing to hear Echo and Torin threaten to rip out hearts and decapitate each other and quite another to actually see them do it. I was trembling so hard I had to grip the banister and stop every few steps.

“We can repair the room tonight,” Torin was saying when I approached the pool deck on unsteady legs. The wall was gone, and shards of glass were everywhere.

“Before Lavania comes back,” Andris said, taking inventory of the damage.

“I’ll help,” Raine said. She had her arms around Torin’s waist. The two Valkyries looked a mess, their clothes ripped, splattered with blood and dust.

We are not in the business of killing,
Torin had said. Right.

I released a ragged breath. Whether I liked it or not, I was part of their world. The world of Immortals, Valkyries, Grimnirs, gods, Norns, and seeresses, or Vol-whatever name Raine uses. Didn’t mean I liked it.

Hysteria bubbled to the surface and an insane urge to laugh hit me. Disjointed thoughts slammed into my head. I needed the safety of my home. Things I considered normal. The scent of my mother’s cooking. Apple pies with apple cider. I was never going to complain about Mom’s pies and organic dishes again. I was going to feast on spinach lasagna like it had layers of Twizzlers dipped in chocolate.