Valknut: The Binding (13 page)

The wails of an injured child cut him off. He
froze, listening, but the crying stopped. “That sounded like
Ashley!”

He looked so alarmed that Lennie felt a stab
of sympathetic fear. He brushed past her and rushed around the side
of the tent. “Where did she go?”

He took a couple of steps and hesitated,
looking frantically around. Tents blocked the view in every
direction. A hint of panic entered his voice. “She could be
anywhere.”

“We saw her just a couple of minutes ago,
back the way we came. I doubt she went far.” Junkyard cut through a
row of exhibits and looked down the next lane over. “In fact, here
she comes now,” he called. “Jim’s giving her a piggy back
ride.”

“Thank God.” Blinking rapidly, Bill ran a
hand over his balding scalp. An odd mixture of relief and pain
crossed his face. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and
mopped his forehead, then wiped his nose. Jungle Jim arrived a
moment later with Ashley on his back. He let her slide down to the
ground and she clung to his hand, her face red and scrunched up to
hold back her tears. At the sight of her father, she began to cry
again.

“Daddy! I hurt my knee!”

She let go of Jim and rushed to Bill,
wrapping skinny arms around his waist. He stroked her hair. “Uh
oh,” he said gently. “You’re not supposed to do that! Let’s see the
damage.”

Ashley let go and stepped back, displaying an
ugly scrape just below the knee. Blood trickled down her shin and
into her white ankle sock. Bill bent over the injury and frowned.
“Now, Ashley,” he said in mock disapproval, “how many times have I
told you, the blood’s supposed to stay on
the 
inside 
of the skin. This calls for strong
medicine.”

Then he kissed her knee above the scrape and
gathered the half-giggling, half-sobbing girl in his arms. He held
her, eyes closed, like he felt her small pain a hundred times
over.

Lennie watched impatiently. She didn’t want
to interrupt the father-daughter moment, but Bill seemed to have
forgotten her father’s photograph and she was sure he had
recognized it.

As if sensing her dilemma, Jungle Jim said,
“Say, Missy, did you show Bill your daddy’s picture yet? ’Cause he
knows just about everyone from here to Mississippi.”

Lennie gave Jim a grateful smile. “Yeah, I
did. He was just about to tell me something.”

“What about it, Bill?” Junkyard said. “Do you
know where he is?”

The fear returned to Bill’s eyes. He kissed
the top of Ashley’s head and didn’t respond for a long time.
Finally, he thrust the photograph at Lennie.

“Sorry, never saw him before.” He didn’t meet
her eyes.

His voice was bland, but his hand shook when
Lennie took the picture from him. He knew something. She was
certain of it. “But you—you...”

What could she say without accusing him of
lying?

“Look, I’d love to talk some more,” he said,
still avoiding her eyes, “but I’ve gotta get Ashley cleaned up.
Bandages, Neosporin—you know. Jim, would you mind staying with my
display for a few minutes?”

Without waiting for an answer, he strode off
through the tent village with Ashley in his arms.

Lennie watched him, stunned. No one spoke
until he was out of sight. Junkyard looked as baffled as she was.
“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.” She
started after Bill, but Junkyard stepped in her way.

“Not now. He’s obviously upset. Let’s come
back later and talk to him someplace more private.” His eyes
narrowed at her speculatively. “Bill’s as solid as they come,
though. I’d like to know what’s got him so spooked. Is there
something you’re not telling me?”

What could she say? You know that mythical
character, Ramblin’ Red? The one that magically disappeared? Well,
somehow he put my Dad’s pocket watch in my hand while I was
sleeping right under your nose. Or maybe you’d like to know about
this new tattoo of mine, or the way that gangbanger’s eyes glowed
yellow. Yeah, that could be important.

“No,” she said, dropping her gaze. She felt
like crying. “No, there’s not.”

***

The doors opened at Mariucci Arena, where
fragile model train dioramas and the more valuable, easily damaged,
or less mobile displays of railroad memorabilia were housed.
Railroad buffs streamed inside for a glimpse of the old railroad
days and to add to their collections. Across the street, security
removed the sawhorses from the carnival entrance. The rides groaned
to life, gears crying for lubrication. People trickled through the
entrance, dispersing throughout the tent village or crossing the
lot to reach the rides before the lines grew too long.

The Greater Midwest Railroad Days were
officially open.

And amidst the noise and bustle, invisible to
human eyes, a shadow erupted like an oozing boil in the blacktopped
pavement of the parking lot. A vague sense of revulsion imbued
those who approached the apparently vacant area, and they
automatically veered around it. Children straying into its aura ran
to their mothers, crying from unknown fears. Even the birds and
insects would not fly over the shadow.

Within its depths stood three figures—two
human and the one who made the shadow. One of the humans, a
gangbanger with a freshly stitched injury on one arm and a tattoo
of a happy-sad theater mask on the other, fidgeted uneasily and
rubbed his arms as though the clinging darkness burned his
skin.

The other human, an older man, was bent
nearly double, as though someone had punched him in the stomach.
The top of his head was as smooth as a tonsure, with a fringe of
gray hair drooping from his temples in lank strings. He stared at
the ground with hollow eyes, his face locked in an expression of
abject horror. He would not move unless ordered to do so.

The shadow maker himself looked as human as
the other two. He looked like a businessman in his tailored suit,
high-collared white shirt, and narrow tie. The black curls on his
head were cut short and neat, and a trim black beard covered his
broad face. But his eyes glinted yellow as he studied the carnival
grounds, and blackness streamed from him like smoke from a
fire.

He made the shadow, but that was all he made.
In all else, he was a destroyer.

He was also immortal, or nearly so, though
this body was human. The original owner had been called Angus Cook,
a name lost decades ago. The shadow maker who now owned this body
was Fenrir, Hrodvitnir of old. In this time and place, he was
called El Lobo.

The body would not grow old or die so long as
he inhabited it, though it could be killed, releasing Fenrir in his
true form. But humanity was not ready for that. For now, he
preferred to remain a man.

Fenrir touched the minds of any who passed.
Ordinary minds for the most part. But a simple twist turned
admiration into envy; a small push turned anger into rage or hatred
into murder. Those he touched would take home small bits of
violence. By the end of the day, pockets of chaos would break out
around the city.

All to the good. His lip curled, exposing
unnaturally long, sharp teeth. The festival attracted thousands of
tourists, but more importantly, it attracted railroad workers from
all over the country, from all levels of the industry. A push here
and a twist there would create chaos on a broader scale, perhaps
not as economically crippling as it would have been decades before,
but damaging nonetheless.

The festival also attracted a darker type.
The hobos came for the free meals and the chance for glamour in an
otherwise grim life. The homeless and bums came to beg, their minds
weak with hunger or booze. The drug addicts and gangs came to deal,
to fight, to steal anything that could be sold.

Fear came easily to such. They were his
slaves. They and others like them had spread from city to city,
where they fed like termites on the pillars of civilization.

But such minor destruction was more of an
afterthought. It was not why he had come to the festival.

He was nearly ready.

One or two small details to attend to, and
then he could destroy the fate that had imprisoned him in prophecy.
He awaited one of those details, now—One-Eye’s latest pawn. He felt
his pockets and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. If the body was
now his, so were the body’s habits. He sucked down a mouthful of
smoke and studied the festival’s activities with a hint of a
frown.

Once before, he had been nearly ready. If not
for the interference of one insignificant human—a soft and weak
specimen, at that—he would have brought this world to ruin years
ago. He turned baleful, yellow eyes on the shriveled man beside him
and drove a spike of shadow deep into his mind. The man’s limbs
spasmed, but his expression didn’t change.

There would be no such interference, this
time.

The Ragman, as the gangbanger liked to call
himself, laid a hand on Fenrir’s arm. Fenrir stiffened, suppressing
an urge to turn on his presumptuous underling and feed on his
flesh. The burning yellow of his eyes tinted the Ragman’s face. The
gangbanger jerked his hand away, but he didn’t cower as others
might. “It’s them, El Lobo. The girl with the tattoo, like I tol’
you.”

Fenrir forced back the blood lust and studied
the woman and man crossing the parking lot. The man wore a bandana
and a jean jacket studded with buttons. His mind sizzled with
intense emotions barely held in check by an iron will. But even the
stoutest will could be broken.

Ordinarily, Fenrir would have found use for
such a mind, but he was far more interested in the woman. Slender
and small, even for a human female, she didn’t look like much of a
threat. Signs of strain showed in her face and a confused tangle of
emotions rode the surface of her mind. One-Eye must have grown
desperate, sending such a champion against the Wolf. He sent a dark
tendril of shadow toward her. She would be crushed as easily as her
predecessor.

Chapter 8

Lennie slowed and looked back toward the tent
village. “What if Bill leaves?”

Junkyard kept walking toward the Festival’s
jungle. “He won’t. He looks forward to this festival all year. It’s
his best chance to pick up new badges for his collection.”

“Besides,” he added, smiling, “I know where
he lives.”

His assurances gave Lennie little comfort.
After ten years of wondering what happened to her father, she had
finally found someone—a real person—who knew something
about him. It was frustrating to have to walk away.

As they approached the jungle, a pressure
began to build behind her eyes, and her tattooed skin began to
prickle again. She rubbed the marks uneasily, wondering about dirty
needles and infections. She stuffed the suspect hand in her pocket
and her fingers found her father’s watch.

“Dammit.” She had no time to get sick, now.
And she certainly had no time to coddle thickheaded railroad cops.
Her father could be looking down a bronze blade right now.

She rubbed her eyes. The pressure in her head
had grown into a dull pain, casting a yellow pall over everything.
And something was watching her. She could feel it getting closer.
The hairs on the nape of her neck lifted as though tickled by hot
breath. She whirled around, but no one was behind her. A slick film
of sweat coated her face. She licked her lips, tasting salt.

Junkyard had moved on without noticing she
had fallen behind. Two children crossed his path, screeching like
blue jays as they raced for the carnival. She tried to focus, but
her thoughts kept turning back to Bill. Why couldn’t he just tell
her what he knew? She had to find her father before the serial
killer got to him.

She had to find out why he’d abandoned
her.

Bill was the key, and he was deliberately
holding back. She was certain of it. And the more she thought about
it, the angrier she became. She wanted to hit him, make him hurt,
feel the pain that she felt…

He’d talk. She’d make him talk.

The world blurred yellow and she pictured
herself shouting at Bill, tearing down his tent, smashing his
meaningless display. What could a collection of police badges mean
to a coward? If Bill knew something, she’d get it out of him.

A woman herding a group of chattering school
children toward the carnival looked into Lennie’s face and gasped.
Pulling the smallest child close, the woman hustled her charges
away. Lennie hardly saw them. A memory came, unbidden, from the day
after her father had disappeared—the first time she saw her mother
drunk. She’d come home from school to find her mother passed out on
the floor, a bottle of amaretto leaking into the carpet beside her.
Lennie had tried to move her, but she couldn’t. And there was no
one to help her.

She was eleven years old. Only eleven.

She remembered sitting on the couch and
staring at the sprawled body of her mother, crying until her eyes
and nose grew hot and puffy. Drained, hiccupping, she wiped her
face on her sleeve, covered her mother with a blanket, and mopped
at the carpet with a beach towel. The sweet alcoholic stench stayed
in the house for a week.

That was her father’s fault. It
was 
all 
his fault. And he would answer for it,
every last pain and humiliation. But to find him, she had to make
Bill talk.

She took an uncertain step back toward the
tent village. Her body trembled with a growing need for violence.
She wanted to give in to that need, but part of her knew something
was very wrong.

The tattoo burned as though building an
electrical charge. Hardly aware of what she was doing, she pulled
her father’s watch from her pocket and flipped it open. 
For
Jarvis
, it said. She tried to remember her father’s face. Not
faded and frozen in time, as it was in the photograph. Not the
haggard transient she imagined he had become. A living, breathing
face that smiled at her. One that loved her.