Valknut: The Binding (31 page)

Bill grabbed one of Ashley’s blouses and
pressed it to the wound closest to Jim’s heart. The blood soaked
through it in seconds. “Oh, Jim, I’m so sorry...I didn’t know it
was you. I thought someone was...I thought Ashley was—”

He couldn’t even say what he had thought.
“I’ve got to get help—get you to a hospital. They’ll make you
better, I promise. Just hold on.”

Jungle Jim stopped him with a hand on his
arm.

“No.” The air gurgled in Jim’s lungs when he
breathed. “I’m catchin’ the train to Glory, Bill. Nothin’ gonna
stop that now.”

His eyes were clear, as if he had never had
that accident. Maybe more clear than they had ever been. Bill
stared at him, not understanding. “Come on, Jim. Stay with me. I’ll
go call an ambulance.”

Jim gripped Bill’s arm tightly, not letting
him go. The blood flowed so quickly from his wounds.

“I’m not the one that needs savin’, Billy
boy. You already did that.” Jim struggled for another breath. “Now
you gotta save yourself.”

His hand relaxed and slipped from Bill’s arm.
A small, wheezing gasp escaped his mouth and his chest did not rise
again. Bill knelt next to his friend, too shocked to move or even
to cry.

“Daddy?”

He felt a small hand on his shoulder and
looked up. Ashley stood next to him, clean and beautiful in a mint
green nightgown. She stared at Jim’s body, her eyes large and lower
lip trembling. “Is–is Uncle Jim dead?”

Bill nodded, unable to speak. Shock had
drained the color from Ashley’s face. Her gaze didn’t move from the
body. She had never seen a dead person before. Bill wasn’t sure she
knew what it meant to be dead. He wrapped his arms around her,
shielding her from the sight. Tension had robbed her of softness
and she felt like a bundle of sticks. How could he ever explain to
her why he had shot her favorite friend?

“He scared me, Daddy.” She began to shake.
“Why was Uncle Jim in my room?”

He looked down at the body, suddenly blank.
Long ago, Bill had given Jim a standing invitation to sleep on the
couch, had even told him where the key was hidden. Jim had stayed
with them often, but would hardly leave the living room, as though
afraid to overstep his welcome. Even after all these years, he
wouldn’t use the bathroom without asking permission. Jim had never
gone into Ashley’s bedroom before.

Bill scanned the room with a policeman’s eye.
The desk chair had fallen on its side. The clothes and books that
had been piled on it were scattered wide, as though the chair had
been hit with some force. The back of the chair still rested on the
toy piano. He had always hated that piano, with its insistent,
off-key songs. Now he hated it even more. Without its infernal
noise, Jim might still be alive.

Then he saw the leggings clenched in Jim’s
outstretched hand. Their black fabric seemed to swell in his
vision, screaming their horrible purpose. And he knew what had
happened—what had
really 
happened.

It seemed Fenrir had found a way to make Bill
kill Jungle Jim, after all. The punishment might have gone further
than that, if Jim hadn’t crashed the chair into that god-awful
piano.

Bill nestled his cheek in the softness of
Ashley’s hair and stared at Jim’s body. “I think I should be
thanking you, old friend,” he murmured.

It was time to call the police and put an end
to it. Time for it all to stop.

Chapter 17

“Can I pinch her awake?”

“Tsk, you’re such a naughty thing.”

“Am 
not
. I just don’t want to
wait for
ever
.”

“Quiet, you two. Look—she’s waking up.”

***

Lennie didn’t want to wake up. She ignored
the whispers and burrowed deeper into her dream, where she soaked
in a bubble bath, sipping licorice spice tea while unseen hands
rubbed her shoulders. But it was no use. She couldn’t convince
herself she was warm when sleeping in damp clothing inside of a
damp box. She let her eyes flutter open, expecting to see dimly lit
cardboard walls. Instead, a triangle of odd faces peered down at
her. A bare light bulb dangled from an orange extension cord
suspended high above their heads, casting their faces in
shadow.

“Who—what is...” Lennie tried to sit up, but
only her eyes would move. “Where—”

“When and why,” said a creaky voice coming
from the figure stationed at the top of Lennie’s head. “Those are
very good questions.”

With a start, Lennie realized it was the bag
lady she had met before the poetry reading. She still wore the
flower-print hodgepodge and her fingers worked ceaselessly at her
knitting.

“That’s why we’re here,” said another voice.
It belonged to a younger woman at Lennie’s left. She was
dark-skinned, dreadlocked and wore wire-rimmed reading glasses at
the end of her nose. Enough beads and crystals hung around her neck
to decorate a Christmas tree.

“I don’t understand.” Lennie’s head was still
cloudy with sleep. “
What’s
 why you’re here?”

“To answer your questions, of course,” said a
third, impatient voice, belonging to a little girl at Lennie’s
right. She looked like a normal eight-year-old in the midst of a
sulk.

“Some of them, at least,” the girl added,
then stuck her tongue out at the bag lady. The beaded lady shushed
her.

“But before we answer—”

Their expressions became almost predatory.
Unable to move, Lennie felt like road kill about to be pecked. The
three faces loomed in her vision, one after the other, their
features distorting surreally.

“—we need to know if –”

“—you remember –”

“—the words Urdie gave you –”

“—last time we met,” Urdie finished.

Lennie’s senses reeled as though she lay on a
turning merry-go-round. She closed her eyes against a wave of
vertigo. “I don’t know what you want to hear.”

“Yes, you do, dear,” Urdie said. “You just
need to think.”

And Lennie did know, even if she didn’t
understand. She answered in the same singsong cadence the bag lady
had used under the streetlight, just before she had
disappeared.

“
That which can be cut can never be
broken.
”

The spinning stopped abruptly.

Lennie didn’t recover so quickly. The
incongruous scents of rust, moldy leaves, and pot smoke filled her
nostrils, and her head felt light and strange. She opened her eyes
cautiously. The three figures shimmered and transformed. Where the
bag lady had been, a tall, slender woman now stood, her face etched
with age, sorrow, and joy. A broad-shouldered, plain-faced woman
replaced the beaded lady, her hands rough and red with work. Both
wore shapeless cowled robes.

This has to be a dream.

The thought brought Lennie such relief that
she decided it was true. But it was no ordinary dream. It had the
same feel as the squirrel dream from the night before.

“Look, I don’t want any more tattoos, so
just—”

She stopped, catching sight of the third
figure, a creature straight out of a Scrooge movie. Completely
shrouded, it stood motionless, as if in an endless wait. 
As
if waiting for me to die.

Lennie knew with creepy certainty that
nothing of flesh and blood resided under the robe. What would she
find if she tore the cloth away? Bones? Nothing at all?

The figure slowly raised one arm within a
draped sleeve and pointed at Lennie as though about to pronounce
her doom. She cringed and held her breath, not wanting to hear.

“See, Urdie?” the figure squealed, nudging
the robed woman beside it. “She remembers what you told her—and she
even made it sound like you.”

The three robed figures blurred. Lennie
blinked, and there was only a little girl sticking an elbow into
the ribs of a frumpy bag lady.

“Hush, child,” said Urdie. “Now you’ve made
me drop a stitch, and there’s so little time as it is.”

The beaded lady nodded, her dread-locks
rattling her necklaces. “In fact, time is nearly up.”

“What time?” Lennie wished she could wake
herself from this bizarre dream. “I don’t understand any of
this.”

“Of course you don’t, dear.” Urdie’s kindly
smile revealed worn, yellow teeth that barely clung to her gums.
She ran her hand along the yarn. A shiver scraped down Lennie’s
back.

The little girl interrupted enthusiastically.
“Yeah, well, see, it all has to do with the end of the world.” She
held up a small, plastic weaving loom that looked just like the one
Lennie had used to make dozens of nylon-loop potholders when she
was a child.

The beaded lady rested a hand on the girl’s
shoulder. “Now, Skuldi, you’re telling it all out of order. Past,
present, and then future, remember?”

The girl scowled and flung her loom away.
There was a crash and the sound of plastic skidding over cement.
“I 
never 
get to go first.”

The beaded lady stiffened, frowning, and
Urdie gasped. “Skuld! You could have broken that, and then what
would have happened?”

“I don’t care.”

“You’d better care, urchin. Pick that up
right now, or I’ll—”

“You’d have to catch me first, you old cow.”
The girl disappeared from Lennie’s view.

“Stop it, both of you.” The beaded lady
rolled her eyes at Lennie. “They are so predictable sometimes.
Urdie’s always telling Skuld what to do, and Skuld...well, she can
be so contrary. I’m always stuck in the middle.”

She looked across Lennie in the direction
Skuld had gone. “All right, Skuldi, have it your way. You go
first.”

“No.”

“We’re listening, Skuldi—tell us what the
future holds.”

“Everybody dies.”

Urdie pressed her lips together. For a
moment, Lennie thought the old woman might go after Skuld and haul
her back by her ponytails. Instead, she smiled around clenched
teeth. “That’s a little too general, dear. Can you be more
specific? Maybe a little more pertinent, too, hmmm?”

The only reply was the rhythmic scrape of
plastic on cement. Lennie pictured Skuld squatting sullenly,
slinging her loom in an arc across the cement floor. The effect was
like nails on chalkboard. Who 
are 
these
people?

“Very well.” Urdie looked down at Lennie. “We
really shouldn’t be telling you the future, anyway. Leads to all
sorts of problems. And we don’t have time to show you the
past.”

She tsked and shook her head regretfully. “A
shame, you know. It’s a very interesting story. But you have to go
soon, so you’ll have to make do with the present. Verdandi, would
you please?”

Urdie stepped out of sight. For a moment
Lennie could see more of her surroundings. She seemed to be in a
warehouse, with bare studs and rafters supporting corrugated steel
walls. Packed shelves lined the wall on one side. A long, thin,
wooden pole decorated with black feathers rested across brackets
set into the opposite wall. Then the beaded lady took her place
near Lennie’s head. Abruptly, the warehouse vanished.

In its place, a pair of yellow eyes burned
just inches from Lennie’s face.

Malice reached from the yellow orbs, smearing
Lennie’s mind with hatred, tearing at the roots of her soul. The
tattoo flared with an intensity that would consume her hand if she
didn’t discharge the power. But she didn’t know how. And she still
couldn’t move. She tried to blink, to roll her eyes back, anything
to break away from that yellow gaze, but she couldn’t escape.

Urdie’s voice cut through her terror. “That’s
much too close, Verdandi. You’d better pan back.”

Verdandi’s smooth, cheerful contralto
answered. “Quite right, Urdie. Sorry about that, young lady.”

The eyes began to recede as if someone were
dialing a zoom lens. They became part of a face, and the face
became part of a man. His gaze wandered past Lennie’s shoulder as
if he could no longer see her. She drew a deep breath and let it
out slowly. The pain in her hand subsided to a low, steady
throbbing, as though the tattoo were maintaining a vigilant
watch.

“What the hell was that?” She wasn’t sure if
she meant the yellow-eyed man or the whole weird vision.

Verdandi cleared her voice and spoke in a
stiff, formal manner, like a documentary voice-over. “What you see
here is not really a man. It is a man’s body inhabited by an
ancient being. A god, in your ancestors’ eyes. He began as raw
strength and virgin hunger thousands of years ago, and was forged
into great evil between the hammer of deceit and the anvil of
distrust. But that’s Urdie’s story to tell. You’ll not hear it
today. His one great desire is to bring about the destruction of
this world and to reign supreme in the new world born from the
ashes.”

A god? Thousands of years? This was
definitely a dream. She studied the supposed god. Tall, powerfully
built, he would certainly stand out at a party. His curly dark hair
glistened as though he had tried unsuccessfully to slick it back,
and his pin-stripe suit was hopelessly out-dated. Not ordinary, but
definitely human.

Except for the eyes.

Lennie shuddered and tried to listen as
Verdandi continued her presentation. “This is how he looks
today—this moment, in fact, as he stands outside of the home of one
William Sutter.”

Lennie started in recognition. “Do you mean
Bill Sutter?”

“That’s right, young lady.”

The vision shifted, giving Lennie a side view
of a blunt nose, heavy jaw, and bull neck straining at the collar.
He stood under a streetlight. Houses lined the road behind him.
Bill’s neighborhood. Where Junkyard had gone.

Verdandi continued. “His name is sometimes
Fenrir, sometimes Hrodvitnir...El Lobo to his modern followers. He
is the Wolf.”

Lennie’s breath caught and for a moment she
couldn’t breathe. The Ragman had used that name—had said El Lobo
was looking for her. But this guy sounded way worse than some gang
leader. And the Ragman had probably told him all about her, by
now.