Valknut: The Binding (38 page)

And then the power was gone. A beautiful
euphoria followed; an endorphin rush like no other. But Monte was
wrapped in pristine white string. She hadn’t expected that.

Urdie’s voice whispered in her
mind. 
Six threads, twisted into one, bound and
knotted.

Was this what she was expected to do? Use a
bunch of thread to bind Fenrir, a man with the soul of a monster?
Right. She didn’t intend to get that close to him.

The euphoric cloud dissipated, leaving her
exhausted and frightened. Junkyard was looking at her like she had
committed the worst crime imaginable. She wanted to explain
everything, but her thoughts slipped and spun incoherently. “I
thought—I thought there would be lightning.”

“Lightning?” Junkyard snarled. “What the hell
are you talking about?”

“My hand. It’s been...”

She stopped, not knowing where to start. The
train rumbled on. Light and shadow flickered across the hard angles
of Junkyard’s face. He looked so angry. If only she had told him
everything from the very beginning. But he never would have
believed her. He certainly wouldn’t believe her now.

He waited for an explanation, fists
half-raised. All that anger, directed at her. She averted her eyes,
but there was nothing to look at except shadow, discarded junk,
Hotshot’s body...and Monte, staring at her in accusation. His face
was so grey. So still. Why didn’t he move? It was like he was—

“Oh, God. Is he—is he dead?”

Junkyard swore. “Don’t give me that crap. Of
course he’s dead. Just like all the others.”

She shook her head, feeling sick. He couldn’t
be dead. No one died of being tied up. Did they? But the way Monte
stared, never blinking...

“You don’t think he died because...that
I...?”

“Got another explanation?”

The accusation in his voice cut through her
confusion. “How can you believe I could kill anyone?”

But he did. His expression said so.

She took a step back. “No—”

It was that tattoo. The Valknut, or whatever.
That bastard Ramblin’ Red had branded it on her. How could she know
what it would do? She scratched at the design, drawing blood. She’d
burn the thing off if she had to, just to get rid of it. She didn’t
want that sort of power, to tie people up like that. To kill...

Junkyard closed the gap between them and
grabbed her roughly, his face contorted with anger and hatred.
“Why’d you do it? He was just a kid, dammit! Not a drifter or some
punk criminal. Just a student trying to get home.”

“What? Who-who are you talking about?” He
couldn’t mean Monte. That guy was no student.

A horrible understanding struck her.

“Your brother. Did he die like—” 
Like
Monte,
she started to say, but he might take it as a
confession. “Like Hotshot?”

A yellow spark flickered in his eyes, filling
her with dread. She could feel violence building in him. The heat
of it radiated from him like an aura. She tried to twist away, but
he was so strong. And where would she go? There was no escape, no
way to fight him. She didn’t want to fight Junkyard. She
had to make him listen.

The spark in his eyes bloomed into a yellow
fire, rooted deep, as though kindled by his soul. The flesh of her
tattooed hand prickled in response. But she didn’t dare use that
weapon on Junkyard. This wasn’t his fault. She closed her eyes and
twisted her face away from that fiery gaze. His anguished voice
rang close to her ear.

“I saw the pictures after they found him,
Lennie. I saw what you did to him.”

“No, I swear I didn’t hurt him. This was the
first time! I didn’t even know what would happen.”

But he wasn’t listening. “Who’re you gonna
kill next? Me?”

He shook her, hard. Her head whipped back and
forward. Her teeth snapped down on her tongue. Pain and blood
erupted in her mouth. The tattooed hand flared wildly. The urge to
use it became unbearable. But she couldn’t shake the image of
Monte’s grey, dead face from her mind. She clenched the hand and
pressed it to her stomach.

Junkyard shoved her back, slamming her into
the closed door. Air whooshed out of her. Blood from her cut tongue
gurgled in her throat when she tried to breathe. She gagged and
coughed, gasping air into tortured lungs. Junkyard came at her, an
angry silhouette against the moonlit sky—featureless, except for
two glowing, yellow eyes.

“Do you know what I planned to do to the guy
who killed Austin, once I found him?”

She tried to push him away, but he brushed
her arms aside and struck her face. Her head knocked against the
solid metal door. Her eyes lost focus. She fought for
consciousness, clawing weakly at his arms, at his face, but he
wouldn’t let go. He meant to kill her.

A long, discordant blast of the locomotive’s
horn sounded up the line, followed by the screech of tortured
metal. Junkyard jerked his head up, listening, and the yellow faded
from his eyes. His eyebrows lifted and he blinked at Lennie as
though awakening from a deep sleep.

“Lennie?”

The world faded and her legs went slack.
Junkyard held her upright, his touch suddenly gentle. “Lennie, I’m
so sorry. I didn’t mean—”

Airbrakes chuffed violently. The boxcar
lurched and rocked on its wheels. The floor tilted crazily, tossing
them both. Lennie fell and skidded on her face, caught in a
maelstrom of tumbling debris. The television bounced out the open
door. She felt herself slide after it and scrambled for a handhold.
The boxcar slammed to a stop and the back end flew up. Lennie
hurtled forward and smacked into the front wall. Her arm buckled
and something snapped in her chest, the crack of breaking bone lost
in the cacophony of screeching metal. Helpless, she tumbled and
slid. When the boxcar finally stopped, she came to rest in a heap
of cardboard and packing paper.

The sounds of a thousand car crashes echoed
down the length of the train. Moonlight filtered inside through a
cloud of dust and smoke. Blood bubbled in Lennie’s lungs and she
couldn’t draw air. Panicking, she tried to prop herself up. Bones
shifted in her arm with an explosion of white-hot pain and she
collapsed. Her consciousness fled, leaving only a dim awareness of
a warm, gentle pulse radiating from the interlocking triangles on
her hand.

***

The boxcar tossed Junkyard like laundry in a
dryer. He hit the floor...a wall...tumbled and tangled with a
length of packing paper. Only the white streak of the moon through
the open door told him which way was up.

And then it was over, as abruptly as it had
started. He lay across the lip of the door, one leg dangling
outside. He clutched the doorframe reflexively against a danger
that had already passed.

Though the boxcar no longer moved, his vision
spun as though his brain rolled in his skull. He probed a
walnut-sized bump on his forehead and winced. Funny, he didn’t
remember hitting his head on anything.

The bucolic smell of clover wafted inside and
struck his reeling senses. His stomach churned. He knew he should
lie still, but he couldn’t. He had to find Lennie.

He hoped she hadn’t fallen from the
train.

He grimaced and pushed the thought aside. He
couldn’t face that possibility. Not after what he had almost done
to her. He rolled to his knees and a wave of vertigo washed over
him. Partially digested hobo coffee rose in his throat. He braced
himself and waited, wondering if he would pass out before he had a
chance to vomit. A few gasping breaths later, he began to feel
better, though his head still ached and sharp points of pain
throbbed all over his body. He was certain he had left bits of skin
on more than one surface of the boxcar.

At least that damn yellow fog was gone,
whatever it was. He might not be thinking well, but his thoughts
were his own.

The boxcar listed to one side, derailed.
Sounds from a distant highway joined the tick of cooling metal and
the last gasp of useless air brakes. Junkyard half crab-walked,
half slid down the sloped floor, looking for Lennie by the filtered
light of the moon.

His attack on her sickened him. It felt too
much like his first days on the iron road, when the rage born of
his brother’s murder was still fresh and hot. Worse than that. He
hadn’t tried to kill anyone, back then—just beat up or be beaten.
But he could still feel the muscles in Lennie’s warm, slender arms
under his bruising fingers.

She hadn’t told him the whole truth. He knew
that. And she had done that weird trick with the string. But it was
ludicrous to think she could be the serial killer. She was as
shocked as he by what she had done to Monte. Besides, there was
something...well, too 
nice 
about her.

He found her in the rear corner, lying like a
broken doll on a pile of debris. Her arm was bent awkwardly, like
it had an extra joint. A tangle of curly, caramel hair shrouded her
face. His hand shook when he brushed it back. Her skin was so pale.
“Lennie?”

She didn’t react. Afraid to move her, he
pulled open the letter jacket he had given her. Blood had soaked
through her t-shirt. Too much blood. Alarmed, he felt her neck. No
pulse.

She was dead.

He sat back, choking on a bitterness that had
nothing to do with coffee. The wreck had killed her. Something
blocking the track, a brake malfunction, human error—it didn’t
matter. He felt as guilty as if he had done it himself. He took her
hand and held it clasped between his own. They were still in the
city, only a couple of miles from the train yard. Someone would
come soon and take her away. He bowed his head. She would not wait
alone.

***

Briggs watched the squad car pull away,
leaving him alone in the train yard. The warehouse was a bust. It
had taken the police about five seconds to figure that one out.
They hadn’t even bothered to go inside.

Bill Sutter had led them there. Once
confronted with the evidence, he had opened up like a carton of
Chinese food, spilling out an incoherent mixture of fact and
devil-made-me-do-it delusions. The warehouse was the only aspect of
the story that could be verified. But the place was obviously
abandoned. The patches of rust on the siding were so large that he
could see them in the dark from fifty yards away. The panel door
hung askew, leaving a gap big enough to admit a full-grown man. Not
likely a headquarters for the BRR, as Sutter had claimed.

Still, some of Sutter’s story had resonated
with the weirdness Briggs had been experiencing over the last few
hours. Briggs wanted a closer look.

The building gave him the same eerie
being-watched sensation he had felt in the woods earlier. He
hesitated, reluctant to move closer and feeling intensely stupid
about it. Annoyed with himself, he started forward, but froze when
a loud tapping rattled the siding. Heart thudding, he waited for
any sign of movement. There was nothing. Then the wind stirred the
weeds sprouting from the gravel and sent the door panel tapping
against the siding.

Briggs rolled his eyes. “Sheesh. Give me a
break.”

From now on, Marybeth could keep her theories
about the supernatural to herself.

He approached the building from the side,
away from the line-of-sight of the door. As he eased close to the
doorway, he paused to listen. Nothing. Not even the skitter of rat
claws. He leaned his head forward and tried to peer inside.

Absolute darkness.

He couldn’t imagine anyone dumping their
garbage here, never mind storing weapons and drugs, as Sutter had
claimed.

But maybe that was the effect the bad guys
were hoping for. Maybe gangbangers waited in the dark, ready to
spring out at him like an unwanted surprise party.

And maybe they’d give him a birthday cake and
a present with a big, pink bow.

He detached his nightstick from his belt,
extended it, and eased into the building. Light struck him the
moment he broke the plane of the doorway, as if someone had flicked
a switch at that exact moment. Shocked, he blinked to let his eyes
adjust. The place was poorly lit; a single bulb dangled from the
ceiling by an orange cord. Cluttered metal shelves lined the walls,
loaded with an assortment of weapons and drug paraphernalia, just
as Sutter had claimed. But there were no signs of whoever had
turned on the light.

Then the familiar stench struck him and he
spotted the white coil hanging just inside the door. The cord
Sutter claimed to have gotten from a guy named El Lobo. As much
beast as man, the deranged bull had said. From the stink, Briggs
almost believed it. He stepped closer, reaching out, but couldn’t
bring himself to touch the strands.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. This was
getting creepier by the moment. And dangerous. This El Lobo
character wouldn’t leave this stuff unguarded. Time to go. He
turned to leave, pulling his phone out to call for backup.

“You ain’t going
nowhere, 
Amigo
.”

A gangbanger stood in the doorway with a gun
pointed at Brigg’s chest. He looked like he’d been run over by a
train. His once-white tank shirt was torn and streaked with dirt.
Scratches and bruises covered his bare arms, and blood flowed
freely from a row of stitches that had broken open. He smiled at
Briggs, the grin of a wolf. “You won’t be makin’ no phone calls,
tonight, so just drop the cell on the floor. The stick, too, man.
And that gun under your jacket.”

Briggs complied, bending to set the weapon on
the floor. He studied the gangbanger covertly, hoping for an
opening, but the banger never blinked. Briggs straightened and
pointedly looked the punk over. “So, are you the famous El
Lobo?”

A sneer twisted the punk’s lips.
“
Pendejo
. You too stupid to live. El Lobo is no ’banger. But
you will see that soon enough. He is coming.”