Valknut: The Binding (33 page)

“Maybe so, maybe no. But I can tell ya this—”
he somehow managed to wink, though he only had one eye, “—Fenrir
really is out to getchya.”

Lennie’s anger went cold. Red couldn’t know
about Fenrir unless he could see into her dreams. Or unless Fenrir
were real.

She shuddered, believing him, though
everything about him was so unbelievable. “Then I ask again—why?”
she whispered. “Why did you drag me into this? None of this has
anything to do with me.”

“The Norn—your hallucinations—already told
ya. He ain’t gonna kill you. He can’t. Least-wise, not directly.
That makes you the only one that can git close enough to stop ’im.”
His expression turned grim. “You gotta go after him, girl. No
tellin’ what’ll happen if you don’t.”

“You’re crazy.” The air inside the box had
grown hot and thick with smoke. “I’m not going after anyone but my
dad.”

Something shifted in his one eye. His face
shimmered in the swirling smoke, and then he wasn’t Ramblin’ Red at
all, but some greater presence, with a long nose and broad brow.
When he spoke again, it was with a deeper, more resonant voice. But
the single blue eye was the same.

“You must go into the den of the Wolf, as Tyr
went thousands of years ago—as your father went before you. You
must bring about the binding of Fenrir, though it be at sacrifice
to yourself. Do not fail, as your father before you failed, or all
will be lost.”

The power in his voice reverberated through
her bones. She swayed dazedly. His effect was immense, relentless,
his wisdom vast. It was like sitting at the foot of an ancient
redwood, its roots buried in the depths of time. She wanted to
comply. Needed to comply…

Except it was so unfair. How was she supposed
to fight a magical evil guy?

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she croaked. If
he was so vast and wise, he could fight his own damned battles.

The flashlight flickered, and Red was just
Red again, with cigarette in hand and Lennie’s fingers still
twisted in his green plaid shirt. He shrugged, and his voice slid
back into its comfortable drawl. “Sorry, girl. That’s the way of
it. You gotta bind him up, again.”

She scowled. The more he talked, the less she
liked him. “Bind him with what? My shoelaces? If my father couldn’t
stop him...if 
you 
can’t stop him, how can I?”

“I’d love ta stay an’ chat, but a pack of
Fenrir’s boys are sniffin’ down your trail this very minute. Maybe
the Wolf won’t hurt ya, but those boys ain’t so queasy about it.”
He pried her hands from his collar and pushed her toward the door.
“You better get on outta here, and fast.”

Even as he spoke, something crashed outside
of the box, like a heavy, metal gong hitting the pavement. Too Long
Soo let out a shrill stream of curses. Lennie pushed open the
cardboard door.

And found herself nose to nose with the most
hideous face she had ever seen.

She yelped and sat back, scraping her head on
the ceiling. The wavering flashlight lit a man’s red-crusted,
snarling face in the doorway. A strip of bloody scalp flapped on
his forehead like an ill-fitting toupee.

“Fenrir wants you,” he said, sounding too
much like Peter Lorre. “Wants you baaaad, he does.”

His red-rimmed and wild eyes gleamed with a
yellow madness that took her breath like a blow to the stomach. Her
tattooed hand responded, burning as though lightning bolts wove
around her fingers. Static power, ready to discharge—if only she
knew how. She stretched her palm toward him, hoping to zap him into
an ozone-scented dust cloud.

Nothing happened.

His arm shot in and caught her ankle. Hard
fingers ground into her bones, pulling her toward the opening. She
clawed at the smooth floor and screamed for Red to help her. There
was no answer. Desperate, she stomped her heel into the man’s face.
He howled and let go. The box rocked crazily. Sobbing, Lennie slid
back against the wall farthest from the door.

That’s when she realized she was alone.

There were no other doors, no openings.
Ramblin’ Red was just...gone. The same way he had disappeared from
the boxcar.

“Nice timing, Red,” she whispered.

The flashlight flickered one last time and
went out.

“Perfect.”

Now the box had become a dark trap. She
licked her lips. The scrap of light seeping through the cardboard
door brought her no comfort. That creep could wait for her outside
for the rest of the night. Hell, he could bring in a pick-up truck
and haul her away, box and all.

From the parking lot, Too Long Soo let out a
primal scream, more angry than hurt. Harsh voices shouted in a
mixture of English and Spanish. Feet scraped and scuffled across
pavement. The light in the crack danced and flickered with
struggling shadows. There was another crash, and Bones O’Riley’s
foul insults punctuated the cacophony.

Lennie felt for the flashlight, found it, and
hefted it in her hand. Not much of a weapon. Sweat broke out on her
face as she remembered the insanity in her attacker’s eyes.
Ramblin’ Red was right—that guy wasn’t a bit queasy about hurting
her.

She pressed herself into the corner, every
nerve vibrating under her skin. Any second, that hideous face might
reappear in that opening, and she wanted to be as far from it as
possible.

But the box was only cardboard. With a hollow
thump, six inches of sharpened steel sprouted through the wall a
finger’s width from her ear. She screamed and recoiled from it. The
blade waggled back and forth, withdrawing slowly.

For a moment, she could only stare at the
light shining through the new gash in the cardboard. Then she
sucked in a breath and threw herself down. In that same instant,
the knife struck through the wall where she had been.

She huddled on the floor, trying not to touch
the walls, and covered her head with her arms. Hysterical sobs
choked her throat. She fought them back, trying to think, but the
box shook violently.

“Stop it,” she screamed, hardly knowing what
she was saying. “Just stop it!”

The box shook again, harder, and an insane
shriek of rage penetrated the cardboard. She lifted her head and
saw the dull glint of steel. The knife was stuck in the wall, hung
up in the cardboard.

Now might be her only chance to escape.

She gathered her legs under her and eyed the
door, but she couldn’t make herself go through. She wasn’t sure she
would ever move again. Just sit frozen while that lunatic sliced
the box apart around her.

Then Soo howled, in pain this time. The sound
struck Lennie like a starting gun. She launched herself through the
opening and hit the pavement on her belly, her lower half still
inside. She scrambled free and crouched low, ready to lash out.

The jungle was in chaos—the card table
overturned with its legs in the air, bags of groceries dumped on
the ground, boxes scattered and flattened. The stew pot lay on its
side among scattered embers, a muddy lake of mulligan stew puddled
around it. Bones O’Riley stood spread-legged before the pot,
swinging a piece of firewood like a club. Beside him, Too Long Soo
gripped a pop bottle in one hand and a meat fork in the other. Her
hat was gone and her hair fanned out from her head like broom
straw. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her eye.

Three gangbangers circled the pair warily. A
paint-stained rag hung from the pocket of their leader. The Ragman.
He had almost killed Junkyard that morning. Bones and Soo wouldn’t
stand a chance.

Lennie crawled through the jungle, trying to
stay hidden. Behind her, the crazy man who had attacked her pushed
between the boxes, muttering to himself. Every few steps, he
cackled and kicked over another box. In just a few seconds, he
would find her.

Great. Sandwiched between deadly gangbangers
and a homicidal madman. This day just kept getting better and
better. She picked up a stray can of beef broth and hefted it. Not
much of a weapon, but better than nothing.

One of the gangbangers lunged at Soo.
Something flashed in his hand and a gash opened in the lanky
singer’s down vest. White feathers bled from the cut and floated
away in the wind. Soo swore and struck out, clouting him in the
head with the bottle. The gangbanger staggered back, so close to
Lennie’s hiding place that she could see the interlocking BRR
tattooed on the back of his neck. Lennie surged to her feet and
knocked the gangbanger in the back of the head with the beef
broth.

He spun around, knife in hand. A snarl
twisted his face. “You dead, bitch.”

The knife came down. Lennie raised the can of
broth in a desperate attempt to block it, but the blow never came.
With a high-pitched scream, the gangbanger arched his back and
flung his arms wide. Eyes rolling with pain and panic, he lost his
balance and fell on his face. Stunned, Lennie watched him writhe on
the pavement, twisting his arms to reach the foot-long meat fork
buried in his back. Soo stood over the fallen man, brandishing her
Coke bottle. She glared at Lennie.

“What’re y’all standin’ around for? They’re
lookin’ fer you, ya nit-brain. Get the hell outta here!”

Another gangbanger came at Soo’s back. Bones
O’Riley charged him and cracked the firewood across his head. It
worked much better than a can of broth. The thug dropped to the
ground, out cold. But that left Bones’s back unprotected. The
Ragman lunged at him, knife ready.

“No!” Lennie heaved the can of beef broth at
the Ragman, then looked around for another weapon. A hand grabbed
her shoulder from behind and spun her around. She staggered against
Hotshot’s box. The madman was on her before she could recover. He
shoved her against the heavy cardboard and pressed his crazed face
close. One eye had swollen shut with a fresh bruise. The other eye
bloomed with yellow madness.

“I told you, Fenrir wants you.” He leered
hideously and giggled. “And now, Monte’s gonna bring you to
him.”

Chapter 19

Junkyard knelt among rain-dampened bushes and
watched the home of the bull who had befriended him over the last
hellish year. Floodlights glared across the yard, illuminating the
police cars in the driveway all too clearly. They had already been
there, cherries flashing, when Junkyard arrived. Crime scene tape
marked the perimeter of the yard. Not wanting to get entangled with
the police, he had hidden in the neighbor's landscaping and watched
a stream of people go into Bill Sutter’s house, each checking in
with a uniformed officer before entering. So far, no one had come
out.

He shifted his weight uneasily, wishing he
could see inside. The blinds had been drawn all over the house. The
window in the door was too small to reveal much from this distance,
but he stared at it anyway, trying to see who moved inside.

It would have been so much simpler if he
could have kept both Jim and Lennie with him after the poetry
session. But Jim had slipped away, forcing Junkyard to choose one
or the other. Now it seemed he wasn’t protecting either one. He
didn’t even know if Jim was inside.

For the first time since he had met Jungle
Jim, the rage threatened to take control, urging him to forget Jim,
forget Lennie, and get down to the business of finding his
brother’s killer. He couldn’t do that, though. Jungle Jim needed
him too much. And, he realized, swallowing against the ache in his
throat, he needed Jim just as badly.

As for Lennie...he didn’t want to think too
hard about her. Not yet.

An unsteady breeze stirred the bushes and he
fidgeted uncomfortably. With a gentle 
tink
, collected
rain splashed onto one of Austin’s buttons—
Home is Where the
Heart Is
. He wiped the water from it with his thumb.
Usually, he wore a water resistant windbreaker when it rained and
wrapped the denim jacket in plastic. But today wasn’t a usual
day.

The front door opened. Junkyard shifted his
position for a better view. Mud squished coldly under his knees. A
man in a dark jacket and a uniformed police officer stepped from
the house and strode toward a white truck parked among the police
cars. Talking in low voices, they opened the back of the truck and
pulled out a gurney. Junkyard half rose, clenching his jaw so hard
it ached. The living weren’t transported to hospital in white
trucks.

The wheels of the gurney clattered over the
threshold as the men pushed it into the house. Everything seemed to
pause after the door closed behind them. Even the wind stilled and
the bushes stopped dripping. Junkyard drilled his gaze into the
door’s small window. He could see movement, someone’s back, an arm,
but no faces.

One gurney, one body.

Junkyard remembered the first time he had
visited Bill. He hadn’t been too sure about going to the house of a
train yard bull, but Jungle Jim had talked him into it. Bill had
come to the door with a smile on his round face and called back
over his shoulder, “Ashley—Uncle Jim’s here!”

There was a squeal, and a small, blond streak
shot out the door and wrapped itself around Jim’s waist. Bill
chuckled and brushed his daughter’s hair with his fingers. “All
right, squirt,” he said. “Let the man into the house.”

Then he turned to Junkyard and offered his
hand with a smile. Since then, that same hand had been offered
every time Junkyard had passed through Minneapolis.

One body. Whose?

The door swung open and the cop backed out,
pulling the now-loaded gurney. It stretched into view, revealing a
featureless body bag. Junkyard sat back, frustrated. He would know
nothing until Briggs chose to tell him. Or he could read it in the
morning paper, with everyone else.

The gurney trundled toward the truck,
rattling heavily over cracked pavement. One wheel slipped off the
edge of the driveway. The gurney tilted precariously. When the men
wrenched it back onto the pavement, the body bag’s zipper gaped
open at one end. The floodlights shone into the opening, lighting
up a shoe as yellow as a small sun.