Valknut: The Binding (19 page)

A counter ran along one wall, crowded with
neatly arranged bottles and tools. Two reclining chairs were
stationed before it, bright lights mounted overhead on jointed
metal arms. A college-aged girl lounged like a centerfold in one of
the chairs, her blouse half-unbuttoned and one shoulder exposed.
She chatted with a friend, flashing perfect, French-manicured nails
with each gesture. A heavy, middle-aged woman bent over the bared
shoulder and touched a corded tool to a button-sized pattern on the
skin. The girl flinched.

“Ouch! Hey, Ozzie—”

The older woman lifted the tool and raised an
eyebrow. “Did you think it wasn’t going to hurt?”

“Yeah, but—” The girl glanced at her smirking
friend. “Oh, go ahead.”

“Right. But you’d better hold still, girl, or
I might accidentally connect the wrong dots.” Ozzie glanced at
Lennie, blinking under the bright work light. “Be with you in a
moment, hon. This won’t take long.”

The artist’s tool whirred like an anemic
dental drill. Lennie’s teeth ached sympathetically. Hopefully
tattoos didn’t come off the same way they went on.

While she waited, she studied the sample
tattoos covering one wall. There were patterns of eagles, snakes,
even a skunk. Skulls, roses, and skulls with roses in their teeth.
Jesus portraits, Hellfire, Celtic knots, unicorns, Bugs Bunny, and
even a Buddha. Anything conceivable could be tattooed on flesh. The
real question was how easily it could be removed.

As she moved down the wall, the patterns gave
way to photos of finished work. Some of the designs were
fantastically intricate and vivid. Even beautiful. One photo made
her pause. It showed a tattoo of an elaborate tree that completely
covered a man’s back. Its tangled branches curled over his broad
shoulders and around his heavily muscled upper arms. It seemed
familiar, somehow.

“What’s this one?” she asked.

“That’s the World Tree,” Ozzie said, glancing
up from her work.

“It’s amazing.” Lennie leaned closer, taking
in the detail. Was that a squirrel on the tree trunk? Reeling with
déjà vu, she traced the design lightly with her fingernail. Bees
filled the gaps between the leaves. Deer leaped from branch to
branch and at least one slit-eyed goat peered through the
foliage.

Just like in her dream.

But she had never heard of the World Tree
before, or seen pictures anything like it.

Ozzie finished the girl’s tattoo and came up
behind Lennie. “I think that’s one of my best,” she said, nodding
at the photo. “It took a long time, though. I had to do it in
stages.” She looked at Lennie doubtfully. “You might want to start
with something a little smaller.”

The door jingled as the two girls left the
parlor. Giggles drifted back through the closing door. “Man, Mom’s
going to 
kill 
me. But I can’t believe how much
that 
hurt
!”

Ozzie rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Some people ought to stick to the tattoos that come out of gumball
machines. So, what can I do for you, hon?”

From the tone of her voice, Lennie suspected
Ozzie had pegged her as a gumball chewer. She couldn’t argue. “I’m
not here to get a tattoo. I was hoping you could tell me what it
would take to remove one.”

“I don’t do tattoo removals any more. Not
since they came up with lasers. These days, they got that IPL
therapy, too. Expensive as hell, but it works pretty good.”

Lennie sighed. She couldn’t afford to pay
someone to rub her hand with a pencil eraser—forget a more
expensive treatment. But it was nice knowing it could be removed,
some day.

Seeing her disappointment, Ozzie added, “I
still do cover-ups, though. Maybe I can change it to something you
like better. Let’s see the tat.”

Lennie held out her fist to let Ozzie examine
the interlocking triangles. “I’d really rather get rid of it
altogether, but I guess altering it might...”

She stopped, alarmed, when Ozzie swore and
grabbed her hand, bringing the tattoo closer to her eyes. “Where
the hell’d you get this tattoo?”

“Well, I was...I just...” Lennie stammered
uncomfortably. She pulled her hand away. “I just woke up this
morning, and there it was.”

Ozzie raised an eyebrow. “You’re telling me
you really have no idea how you got this tattoo?”

Lennie’s face grew warm. She knew what Ozzie
was thinking. Embarrassing, but easier than explaining the real
story. “No, I don’t. Why? What’s wrong?”

“I’ve seen that pattern before.” Ozzie gave
Lennie a long, hard look. “Maybe five, ten years ago, this guy came
into the shop with a tat just like that on his hand. He wanted it
off, too. Said he tried laser therapy, but it didn’t work. I found
that hard to believe, but he wanted me to do a cover-up, so what
the hell.”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure what the fuss was
about. It’s not a devil symbol or anything. But I told him, it’s
your dollar. He hardly cared what the design was, as long as I did
it fast.”

Her nostrils flared as she eyed the tattoo,
as if it gave off a bad smell. Uncomfortable, Lennie pulled her
hand away. Ozzie’s gaze followed the tattooed hand as if she were
afraid to let it out of her sight. “Here’s the weird part—the ink
wouldn’t take. Damned freaky. I probably spent three or four hours,
switching patterns, switching colors, but the new tat always washed
off easier than kids’ watercolors. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”

Lennie listened with growing excitement. It
couldn’t be a coincidence. She pulled the photograph out of her
pocket and handed to Ozzie. “I’m looking for my father. I know this
is an old picture, but do you think this could have been the
guy?”

Ozzie brought the photo close to her nose.
“Yeah, that could be him. I remember, he was balding and had a
round face, like that.”

She squinted at Lennie, suspicious. “Are you
telling me that you woke up with a mysterious tattoo just like your
missing father’s, and you have no idea where it came from?”

Oops.

“Well, see, it’s complicated...”

Both eyebrows went up, and Lennie could feel
a downturn in Ozzie’s mood. She tried to think of some reasonable
explanation, but she had never been a good liar and Ozzie didn’t
give her time to make something up.

“You’re not involved in some kind of cult,
are you?” Ozzie growled. “Because I don’t truck with cults.”

“No! Not me.” Though that could explain a few
things. “Never. Absolutely not.”

Ozzie’s posture changed, definitely more
hostile. Lennie winced. Damn—too much protesting. She plucked the
picture from Ozzie’s hand. “Thanks for the information. I’d better
go. I—I’m supposed to meet someone.”

She hurried from the tattoo parlor, feeling
Ozzie’s hard stare on her back.

***

The Laundromat was a few blocks from the
tattoo parlor. Lennie hurried down the sidewalk, uneasy at being in
the open alone. But it had been worth the risk to learn that
someone had seen her father, even if it had been years before.

For ten years, she had believed her father
had simply run off. Her mother had never explained, never laid
blame, even in her most drunken state. In fact, she had never
mentioned Jarvis Cook again. If Lennie tried to question, her
mother responded sharply—it was not to be discussed. Lennie had
always thought her mother was too bitter or sad to talk about it.
But maybe that wasn’t the issue. Maybe her mother was afraid.

Lennie glanced back nervously. Still no sign
of gangbangers. Even so, she quickened her pace, reaching an
intersection as the light turned red. She pushed the walk button
impatiently. The Ragman had recognized the tattoo. Somehow, his
boss—El Lobo—had something to do with it. But what?

She thought again of the letter her father
had left behind all those years ago. After her mother’s death,
Lennie had unearthed a trunk stored at the back of a closet. It was
full of baby clothes, a crumbling bouquet of dandelions,
photographs, some baby teeth and other treasures from Lennie’s
childhood. At the bottom of the trunk, buried under those lost
pieces of childhood, was an envelope addressed simply, “Alice.”

After all those years of wondering, the
letter had been Lennie’s first clue to where her father had gone.
And, more importantly, why. Time had yellowed the paper. She’d read
it so often over the days that followed that the folded edges grew
thin and dirty. The words themselves became imprinted in her
thoughts.

My Dearest Alice,

The dreams have gotten worse, though I told
you they had gone away. Elements from them are manifesting in my
waking life, even affecting me physically. I fear that the story my
father told me is true. I must leave before the curse of my
forefathers falls on Elena, my little Lennie. If it’s not already
too late.

Even now, I want to set this pen down, burn
this note, and return to bed, never to leave your warmth. But I
can’t. I’m a fool and a coward for having stayed so long. I’m
taking the iron road. You won’t see me again.

Be strong, and know that I’ll always love
you,

Jarvis

The first time Lennie read the letter, the
relief was almost physical. He hadn’t left because of anything she
had done. He had never stopped loving them. Her guilt
evaporated.

But her anger hadn’t gone away. Nothing could
excuse those destitute years after he had left them. No mysterious
curse, no vague reference to danger. Nothing.

Or so she had thought. Now, she wasn’t so
certain.

The light turned green. She pondered the
contents of the letter as she crossed the street.

“
Affecting me physically
,” it had
said. Had her father awakened to find the same tattoo on his hand?
A final sign that it was time to go?

Go and do what?

“Damn it, Dad,” she whispered. He might have
thought to protect her by running off and leaving her out of the
story, but she was in it just the same. And where his father had
given him explanations, she was left completely unprepared.

She hesitated when she reached the Laundromat
door. Through the window, she could see Junkyard sitting with his
feet up on a table, paging through a magazine. She wished she could
tell him everything, but he would probably think she was crazy.

The only one who seemed likely to tell her
anything was Ramblin’ Red. If she couldn’t find her father, maybe
she could find him and find out what he knew.

If she could get him to talk.

If she could trust him.

Chapter 11

Fenrir bent his wings, backstroking air to
slow his descent. He stretched out his talons and settled neatly on
a railroad tie next to a dilapidated building. Under the cover of
shadow, he let go of the falcon shape stolen from Freyja decades
ago. Feathers fell away, vanishing before they touched the ground.
The small, hunched figure lost its shape and roiled upward like a
dark wall cloud. It assumed a shaggy, long-muzzled form before
coalescing into the broad-shouldered, wiry-haired man that was once
Angus Cook. Light from the setting sun angled sharply across the
rail yard, but it didn’t penetrate the shadow in which he
stood.

The end was near. He stared into the red sun,
envisioning the burning destruction that would engulf the world.
His nostrils flared, almost smelling the salt air of the sea that
would rise up and wash away the blackened ruins. Prophecy said the
world would be born anew. It also said that he and all other Jotnar
would perish, leaving the last surviving Aesir to rule alone.

So said the prophecy.

Fenrir had never liked that prophecy.

From the time of his imprisonment by the
Aesir, he had plotted against the Norn, devising ways to change or
destroy fate, to create his own destiny. Now his plans neared
fruition. Only the Norn stood in his way. And a woman named Lennie
Cook.

Fenrir walked to the door, pausing to check
his Rolex. Twenty minutes to 7:00. He was early. Good. His nose
wrinkled at the cloying smoke that drifted from the building. It
would not hurt to be early for his appointment with Monte.

The building seemed an unlikely headquarters
for the Brotherhood of Rail Riders. It stood at the edge of the
departure yard, far from the control tower. The sliding door gaped
open, off its track. Rust stained the siding like spattered blood,
the metal so thin in places that it would take little effort to
punch through.

No one bothered the building. Fenrir had made
certain of that. If any of the yard workers noticed it at all, they
would vaguely remember that it had been rented for storage. Tramps
and thieves would see glistening walls of corrugated steel, a solid
core door sealed by a heavy lock, and they would look for easier
targets.

Members of the BRR would see the building as
it was, the audacity of its condition a testimony to their master’s
power.

Fenrir ran a hand over his head to smooth his
short, dark curls. A futile gesture. That aspect of this body would
not submit to his control. He tugged his shirtsleeves,
straightening them under his suit coat. Gold cuff links flashed at
his wrists. He pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The usual smells hit him: iron, oil, and
gunpowder. A bare bulb hung from a rafter at the end of an orange
power cord, its light dulled by the sweet, drifting smoke. Wide
metal shelves lined the walls, holding everything from knives and
handguns to automatic assault weapons and grenades. Packages of
caked cocaine and blocks of black tar heroin were stored on the
topmost shelves. Donuts of compressed marijuana were stacked like
spare tires on the cement floor. Someone had broken open the
marijuana, which explained the source of the smoke.

Fenrir’s lip curled in irritation. He would
have words with Monte. But first he stopped before a long, thick
skein of white cord hanging on the wall to perform what had become
a ritual.