CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREEAmsel turned off the engine and announced with a smile, “And that’s how I was murdered! With two shots to the back of the head while on my knees. Man, was I mad about that.”Kera closed her eyes and took a moment. Hearing someone happily describe how she was “murdered” was so very weird.“If you touch back here,” Erin went on, “you can feel the scars from where the bullets exploded my skull.”Unable to take a second more of this discussion, Kera pushed the passenger-side door open.Erin had invited two other Crows with them. Maeve Godhavi and Annalisa Dinapoli. They were part of the same “strike team” that Erin was in. A team that Kera would supposedly be joining once her “wings unfurled.” Something that sounded a lot more horrific than it probably should.They’d only gone about fifteen miles before Erin had pulled onto a long driveway that led to a big, Tudor-style house.They walked to the large double doors and knocked. The doors opened and Kera looked up at a large man with dark hair and even darker eyes.He glared down at Erin. “What do you want?”“To be a happily married wife and mother.”“No, seriously. What do you want, Amsel?”“What do you think we want? Where’s Rundstöm?”“In the back.” Then the man slammed the door in their faces.“Wherever you go,” Annalisa joked, “you bring joy and good humor.”“Me?” Erin began walking around the outside of the building, Kera and the others following. “Everyone loves me. I am a whirling dervish of good cheer and affection.”Kera snorted at that, having met people like Erin Amsel more than once in her life.Erin stopped and faced Kera. “Problem, new girl?”“Only with the fact you won’t use my name.”“In the Crows you have to earn that respect.”“I already earned respect . . . with two tours in Afghanistan as a United States Marine. What about you? What have you done?”“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I hate the military types.”“What does that mean?”“What does it sound like it means?”“Do you have something to say to me?” Kera asked, stepping close to Amsel. “I’m right here. You might as well say it.”There was that moment, both of them staring coldly at each other, where Kera really thought they were about to go at each other. Not a “girl fight” either. But a real fight. With blood and pain and the serious risk of death.They were seconds, nanoseconds maybe, from doing just that.Then Maeve leaned in and announced, “My glands are swelling.”Kera and Amsel blinked at each other before looking over at the pretty Indian-American woman with the worried expression on her face.“Pardon?” Kera asked.Maeve pressed her fingers to her throat. “My glands. They’re swelling. I think I’m sick. I should go home.”“You’re not sick,” Annalisa groaned. “Why do you always think you’re sick?”“I can feel the virus moving through me. I need to call my doctor. I need a course of amoxicillin. Or flucloxacillin. Or ticarcillin. Something with a ‘cillin’ attached to the end of it.”“If you have a virus, an antibiotic will not help you,” Kera explained.“So you’re a doctor?” Maeve snapped. “You know what I’m dying of?”“Dying? Two seconds ago you had swollen glands.”“Swollen glands today. Riddled with cancer tomorrow. Dead by Thursday.”Kera glanced over at Amsel. “Wow.”“Yeah,” she said before turning and walking off. Kera followed while Maeve and Annalisa bickered about the status of Maeve’s health behind them.They went around the side of the house, briefly stopping when they passed some bushes. Like the Crows, the Ravens had an Olympic-size, in-ground pool. A pool a small group of very well-built men were making use of.“Yowza,” Kera muttered.“We never said the Ravens weren’t pretty.”That was putting it mildly. The men were more than pretty. They were big. Built. And gorgeous.“They’re all Vikings?” Kera asked, unable to look away.“Yup. They can trace their ancestry all the way back to the long boat.” 

Erin led the girls through Raven territory until she spotted the small wood house buried deep on the outskirts. But as she neared it, she sensed something sidling up behind her.With a grin, she planted her feet, and turned at the waist. She struck out with both fists—and was expertly blocked.That was the thing about Crows fighting against Ravens. It was kind of like fighting a larger twin. In nature the birds were not that different and Odin had created the Ravens for no other reason than to be able to stand toe-to-toe with or against the Crows.Hundreds of years later, things hadn’t changed much between them.“What do you want, Amsel?” Stieg Engstrom barked down at Erin.“Just here to see your smiling face.”“I don’t smile.”“And doesn’t that make you sad?”“ No. ”Engstrom really didn’t smile. Ever. He was like a big, angry oak. Tall. Wide. Cranky. He wasn’t always angry, but he was never what one would call happy either. Or amused. Or anything on what Erin would call the “Enjoyment Spectrum.”Which was what made torturing him so much fun for her.“We’re here to see Rundstöm for some trading.” She pointed at Kera as she approached them. “We have a new girl.”Engstrom glanced at Watson, did a weird little double take, then nodded. “Oh. Yeah. Stay here. I’ll get him.”Watson watched Engstrom walk off. “Is there a reason we can’t go to the man’s house ourselves?”“Rundstöm? You don’t want to sneak up on Rundstöm.”“It’s not really sneaking, is it? It’s morning. Not too early. He apparently has a business.”“Rundstöm is a little—”“Crazy,” Annalisa tossed in. “No one fucks with Rundstöm. Even the gods, who pretty much fuck with everybody, never fuck with Rundstöm. Because he’s crazy. And he comes from a long line of crazy.”“Yeah, but—”“When people say he’ll take the skin off your back . . . they mean literally. Because he comes from a long line of skin-removing Vikings and that’s what they do.”“How does he run a business if you’re all afraid of him?”“His stuff is great,” Erin stated matter-of-factly.The giant who’d gone off to retrieve the “scary” Rundstöm walked back out of the house, followed by another giant who had to dip down a bit to clear his own doorway.He was a dark version of Giant Number One. Black hair that nearly touched his shoulders, a dark brown beard that covered the lower half of his face. He wore dark green jeans, a black, worn T-shirt, and thick black work boots.“Now,” Erin softly explained, “the thing to remember with Rundstöm is no sudden movements. No loud noises. Don’t do anything that might freak him out. Just smile—but don’t bare your teeth when you do—and let me do the talking. He tolerates me.”But to be honest, Kera could barely hear the directions. Her heart was beating too fast. And tears began to well in her usually dry eyes—a “flaw” that used to bother her ex-husband. Her lack of tears over anything.What choice did she have, though? When she was looking at the man who’d saved her life?So, ignoring all of Erin’s warnings, Kera charged over to Giant Number Two and threw herself right into his arms. 

Vig Rundstöm wrapped his arms around Kera Watson’s perfect, perfect body and held her tight.Tighter than he probably should. He couldn’t help himself, though. She was alive.Alive and well and in his arms. Hugging him back, and whispering, “Thank you!” over and over against his ear.Kera finally pulled back a bit, her hands reaching up to grasp his face. She smiled and he saw tears in her eyes.“I—” she began.“So you two know each other?” Erin Amsel asked, the Crows having sidled their way up alongside them to get a closer look.Kera blinked and immediately replied, “He’s a customer.”“A customer?”“Yeah.” She looked back at Amsel and the other Crows. “A favorite customer. Used to come into the coffee shop I worked at. I always called him ‘four bear claws and a black coffee.’ ”“Really?”Vig felt Kera’s body tighten. “Yeah,” she barked back. “Really.”“And you greet all your favorite customers with your legs around their waist?”Kera unwrapped those legs from Vig—something he was not happy about—dropped to the ground, and turned to face Amsel.“No,” Kera replied. “Sometimes I just get on my knees and give ’em blow jobs in an alley.”“Did you learn that in the Marines, too?” Amsel asked.A direct hit that Vig knew would turn ugly. He was already reaching for Kera as Stieg was going for Amsel. But Maeve beat them all, stepping between the two women and holding up her phone.“I put my symptoms in . . . cancer. I have cancer.”“You,” Amsel said, “do not have cancer. And,” she added, “if you keep talking about cancer you’re gonna eventually get it!”“Are you wishing cancer on me?”“No. But now that you mention it . . .”With a noise of disgust, Kera grabbed Vig’s hand and led him back into his house, closing the door behind them.She relaxed against the door and let out a relieved sigh. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Kera announced, “but all I want to do is beat that redhead. Beat her and beat her and beat her until she stops squawking at me.”Vig nodded. “That’s not surprising. You’re trying to get used to the new and improved you. It’ll take time for your body to adjust.”Kera didn’t seem to care about any of that.“Vig,” he said, finally introducing himself. “Vig Rundstöm. And all I did was ask a god a favor. But trust me, if you weren’t already worthy, Skuld would have completely ignored me. You’re here, Kera, because Skuld thought you deserved to be.”“Put it any way you want. You saved my life.”“I couldn’t. It was too late for that.” When Kera shook her head, he explained, “Kera, you weren’t already dying. You were on your last breath. Your soul was transitioning from this world to the next when Skuld took it. So I didn’t save your life. I just gave you a shot at a second one. A brand-new life as a Daughter of Skuld. As a Crow.”She gazed at him, a wide smile suddenly breaking out across her beautiful face.“What?” he asked.“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say anything but”—she dropped her voice several octaves—“ ‘four bear claws and a black coffee please.’ Oh, and ‘I’m fine . . . and you?’ ” She laughed. “I didn’t know you could say more.”“I speak when I have something to say.”She nodded. “Your C.O.s must have loved you then.”Vig frowned. “My C.O.s?”“Your commanding officers? In the military? What were you? God, please don’t tell me you were Air Force,” she teased.“I’m not in the Army. Or Air Force. Or anything like that. I’m not even American. I’m Swedish.”She blinked. “You are?”“I’ve been here since I was nine, but I’ve only ever been a Raven. A Swedish Raven.”“And that means . . . what? Exactly.”He gave a small smile. “No one’s told you anything, have they?”“There’s been a lot of yelling. My God, there’s been so much yelling.”“The Ravens, the Crows, the other Clans . . . we are the human representatives of the Viking gods on this plane of existence. We are the hammers of the gods. Some say fist of the gods, but . . . that always makes me think of that movie Caligula, and that makes me uncomfortable. So I like hammer. We are the hammers of the gods.”“We are?”Vig nodded. “Oh yes, Kera. We are.”“Okay.” Kera blew out a long breath. “I’ll try not to freak out about that.” Even though Vig sensed she was starting to freak out. He could see it in her eyes.He decided to distract her. “So . . . what made you think I was in the military?”She glanced off before lying. “Nothing.”“Kera . . . you’re a very bad liar.”“Well . . . the hair . . . the beard . . . sometimes you wear that green jacket with the pockets that looks kind of military.”“Aren’t I a little scruffy to be in your military?”“True . . . unless you . . . ya know . . . snapped a little.”“Snapped?”“You know.” She suddenly rubbed her nose. “Had a little bit of a . . . breakdown.”Vig took a step back. “You thought I was insane?”“No,” she said quickly, moving closer. “I thought it was just a little PTSD with possible brain injury.”“Brain injury?”“It’s happened to a few of my buddies.”“Is that why you wouldn’t take my money sometimes?”She cringed. “I also kinda thought you were homeless.”Vig heard something coming from his back door and he turned to see Siggy trying to sneak back outside.“What are you doing?” he asked his teammate.“Trying to go away before you notice me.”“It’s a little late for that.”“Yeah . . . I know.” Then Siggy burst out laughing and ran out, slamming the door behind him.Gritting his teeth, Vig turned back to Kera. “So all this time you thought—” A burst of laughter from the front of the house cut the rest of Vig’s sentence off.Vig blew out a breath. “Forget it.”“Vig—”“No. You came here for a reason. Would you like to see the weapons I made for you?” he asked Kera.“For me?”“I just finished them. I knew you were going to need them.” 

“So what else?”Kera looked away from the amazing weapons that lined the walls of Vig Rundstöm’s workshop. A wood building not too far from his little home.“Huh?”“What else?”“What else what?”“What else led you to believe I was a homeless vet?”“Your thousand-yard stare didn’t help.”“That’s my battle stare.”“But you used it at the coffee shop . . . where there was no battle.”“I only used it on the other servers so that they’d get you so that you could serve me.” He shrugged. “It worked. I just didn’t realize how well.”“Didn’t you notice that I kept giving you pamphlets from the Wounded Warrior Project?”“You were a vet. I thought you just wanted me to donate money.”“Did you?”“Yeah. Because it’s a worthy cause and I wanted to impress you.”Kera brushed her hair off her face. “How? When you never told me you donated money to Wounded Warriors.”“I figured I’d eventually tell you.”“Excellent plan.”Vig opened his mouth to speak but ended up just letting out a disgusted sound, shaking his head, and walking over to a big, wooden cupboard.Kera bit her lip and wondered how she’d gotten it all so wrong. About Vig, that is. She’d been completely wrong about him.For the past ten months that he’d been coming into the coffee shop, she’d thought he was a broken man. Another vet tossed aside and forgotten by the government and society he’d fought to protect.Instead, he was anything but. And knowing that . . . it changed everything about him. About how she saw him.In other words . . . she was suddenly sizing the man up like a side of beef.Prime beef.Vig pulled something out of a cupboard that was filled with more weapons, each one marked with a piece of paper that had a name on it. He walked over to a large table and placed a leather sheath on it.He gestured to it and Kera untied the leather thong wrapped around the sheath and unrolled it. There were two black handles and she grasped one, easing the weapon out.She held it up. It was a very long-handled dagger with a thin ten-inch blade. Weird symbols were burned into the metal.“You wear the sheath on your ankle,” Vig explained. “You pull the weapon during battle.”“It’s pretty,” she said, smiling at him. “Although I’d rather have a .45. I’m a real fan of Glocks. They fit my hand perfectly. I have surprisingly long fingers. You wouldn’t also happen to be a gunsmith, would you?”“The Clans don’t use guns.”“How un-American of them. But I’m an American.”“Perhaps a better way to say it is . . . we’re not allowed to use guns.”“Well, who came up with that stupid idea?”“The gods. They’re kind of old school. They like edge weapons and hammers.” Vig gestured to the items lining his walls. “That’s what I specialize in. I trade with all the Clans. Even the unofficial ones.”“So which are the official Clans and which are the unofficial ones?”Vig’s head tipped to the side. “What have your sisters taught you about this life?”“In twenty hours? Divorce is the same everywhere. I’m not pure evil. Pit bulls aren’t covered under their insurance. And I think they’re incredibly disorganized, but that was just an observation on my part. Nothing anyone said.”“Who is your mentor?”“My mentor? Sadly, I think it’s the redhead.” Kera lifted up the blade. “Do I really have to use this in a fight?”“You don’t like it?”“It’s gorgeous. And should be on a wall . . . for decoration.”“It’s lethal.” He took hold of the second blade, tapped the tip against his own throat. “Attack from behind, cut here and here. Or”—he pointed the blade at spots under his arms and his inner thighs—“here and here. But if you want them to suffer for some reason, you can cut them here,” he said, dragging the blade across his lower abdomen.“What . . . what are you telling me?” Kera asked. “Why are you showing me how to gut somebody?”“Why do you think?”A cold sweat broke out over Kera’s body and she suddenly felt light-headed, like when she was about to get a migraine.Kera closed her eyes, tried hard to control the panic suddenly rampaging through her. Well, actually, panic had begun to rage as soon as Vig started talking about being the “hammers of the gods,” but now the panic was full-blown and about to take her down.“What are you saying to me, Vig?” Kera finally demanded. “That I’ve been brought back to be some kind of murderer for Viking gods?”“Not a murderer. A god-sanctioned killer. There’s a difference.”“How is there a difference?”“Kera—”“Look, I’m a Marine. I go in, I maintain order, I do damage if necessary.”“It’ll be necessary.”“What does that even mean?”He stepped closer, maybe too close. “You need to understand . . . they don’t call on the Crows to maintain order. They have other Clans for that. They have the Ravens. They only call on the Crows for one thing, Kera. To kill everyone in the room.”“I’m sorry . . . what?”“For they are the Crows,” he intoned solemnly, “and they are the harbingers of death.” 

Erin sat in the tree outside Rundstöm’s workshop. Beneath her hanging legs was Engstrom, whom she kept kicking in the head with the ball of her bare foot. She’d been doing it for a while but so far he hadn’t said anything. It clearly bothered him, which was why she was doing it. But she was fascinated by how long she could keep it up before he snapped.Rolf Landvik, sitting in a branch above her, lightly punched her shoulder.Stop,he mouthed at her.No,she mouthed back. Then added, Make me.He’d just turned away from her, annoyed, when Engstrom reached back, grabbed her bare leg, and flipped her.Erin had been gripping the branch with her hands, and she treated it like one of the uneven bars she’d trained on until she was about eight. Flipping under the branch until she brought her legs under and up, she switched hands. She faced Engstrom and brought her legs back down so that she could ram them into his big chest.Even though he took a step back, it still felt like she’d hit a brick wall. But Erin still managed to flip around again to put her ass back on the branch simply so she could grin down at the big Viking. Much to his annoyance.His eyes narrowed and he took a step toward her, probably to drag her to the ground—or at least try—but the workshop door was yanked open and Kera ran out, Rundstöm right behind her.“Kera, wait!”The new girl made it to the trees, where she proceeded to bend over and vomit up whatever she had in her stomach.Erin jumped down from the tree and stalked over to Rundstöm. “What did you do?” she growled, worried he’d scared her to death with his vicious Viking ways.“I told her the truth,” he replied. “I told her what would be expected of her. What’s expected of all of us.”“What did you do that for?” Annalisa demanded.“She had to know eventually.”“Not yet.”“We’re not you,” Erin patiently explained. “We’re not born into this shit. We’re dragged here from death. And some people, you’ve gotta ease into it. She needs to be eased. She still thinks she’s a Marine.”“I am a Marine!” Watson barked around all that heaving.“That was in your first life, precious. Now you’re a Crow. Fucking deal with it.”“She wanted guns,” Rundstöm told Erin.“Of course she wanted guns. I wanted guns when I first got here. Maeve over there wanted a rocket launcher.”Maeve nodded at that. “I’m not comfortable being too close to people . . . with all their diseases.”“But eventually we learned that we are contract killers for gods who prefer that we use edge weapons rather than more advanced technology. It’s not an easy thing to accept, especially for some Goody Two-shoes. But she’ll get it . . . eventually.”“A Goody Two-shoes?” Watson asked as she took a tissue that Maeve stretched her arm out to hand her so that they didn’t have to touch—since Kera’s current illness could be anything, not just panic.” How did you die?” Annalisa asked.Watson wiped her mouth, her eyes darting at everyone staring at her before finally admitting, “This guy behind the coffee shop was beating up his girlfriend whom he’d been pimping out. She wasn’t even sixteen and he was trying to take her money. I tried to tell him to stop . . . but he stabbed me in the chest with a butcher knife before I had the chance.”Annalisa nodded. “Yep. Goody Two-shoes.”“You wouldn’t have done anything?” Watson asked.“No. Of course, before I became a Crow, I was a complete sociopath. I mean, I was diagnosed by a forensic psychologist as a sociopath.”Watson leaned back a bit, resting against the tree. “Okay, but we all know there’s no actual cure for sociopathy, right?”“There is when a god gives you”—Annalisa made air quotes with her fingers—“ ‘feelings.’ Which, to this day, I have not forgiven Skuld for.”“The first week she was here,” Maeve said around a small grin, “all she did was cry and cry and cry.”“Exactly.” Lips pursed, Annalisa shook her head. “No. Not gonna forgive her on that one.”“Look,” Watson said softly, “I just can’t go around killing people.”Erin faced her. “You act like we’ll be sneaking into some innocent soul’s house and killing them for shits and giggles. That is not what we do. When the Crows come to your door . . . it’s because you really fucked up. It’s because you forfeited your right not to have your throat cut by a bitch with wings.”“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Watson asked. “Because it doesn’t.”Erin began to argue but Watson cut her off with a wave of her hands. “Forget it. I made a promise to Skuld, and I keep my commitments as an American and a Marine—”“Oy,” Erin muttered.“—but I can do other things. In fact, I know what I’ll do. I’ll do what I did in the Marines. Get shit organized.”Uh-oh.“It doesn’t work that way, sweetie,” Maeve explained. “It’ll never work that way. You get a job, you do the job.”“My wings aren’t out yet. Maybe they’ll never come out.” Watson stared hard at Erin. “Ever. But until they do . . . I can make this group of women into something you can be proud of. And that’s what I’m going to do.”Erin watched the new girl walk away. She was completely delusional but that wasn’t surprising. A lot of the girls had small breaks with reality before they understood the true meaning of being a Crow. The problem, though, was that this girl wasn’t like all the other girls. She wouldn’t be sitting in her room, feeling sorry for herself the next few weeks. Nope. This one was a yenta with a mission.And Erin’s personal nightmare.“You need to do something,” Annalisa whispered to Erin.“Yeah. I know.”“Here.” Rundstöm put the blades he’d made for Watson in Erin’s hands. “Sorry about that.”“Yeah, you did not help us.”“Ravens don’t hold back. We just toss you in.”Erin headed back to the car with Maeve and Annalisa.“What are you going to do?’ Maeve asked.“I hate to admit it, but the Raven is right. With this one . . . we can’t ease her into shit.”“I’m sure Chloe can help with that. She hates the ‘easing,’ too.”“True. But first things first. Unless we want to become a well-oiled military machine, which I don’t know about you guys . . . but I don’t, we’ll need to get her wings out.”“How?” Annalisa asked. “It took six months for my wings to come out.”“It took me a year,” Maeve tossed in.“That was because you were busy running to the hospital and doctors’ appointments every day.”“I had allergies!”Erin held her hand up in front of Maeve’s face to silence her. “I don’t want to hear it.”Erin slowed down as she neared the car. Watson stood next to it, her nervous energy causing her to pace around it like a caged cat. It was not a good sign.“Leave the new girl to me,” Erin vowed. “I’ll handle it.