Valhalla Virus by Nick Harrow (the snowy day read aloud .TXT) 📗

second burst that stitched through another jötunn’s chest and knocked him back into the pool. The creature’s blood clouded the water in a black flood.

With each death, a rush of static electricity blasted across Gunnar’s skin. Even the hairs of his beard stood at attention. He felt more powerful, more alive than ever before. The surge of hamingja energy filled the bodyguard with liquid warmth, like he’d just swallowed a jugful of whiskey. The strange new power spread into Gunnar’s arteries and muscles.

The remaining guards realized their foes were armed, and confusion exploded around the pool. Some of the monsters tried to rush into the house for cover, while others tried to press forward to get a clear shot at Mimi crouched behind the planter. The momentary confusion gave the good guys a few more seconds to work with.

“Behind you!” Mimi shouted. She fired another burst that punched through a monster’s heart and lungs with unerring accuracy, then shifted her aim and took the top of a jötunn’s head off in the same breath. It was as if she couldn’t miss even if she tried.

Gunnar knew he had to make the most of the space she’d given him. But with one hand trapped in Cal’s chain and no weapon, his options were limited. All he had was the strength of the hamingja pouring into his veins from Mimi’s kills and a bad attitude.

He threw a looping punch toward the right side of Cal’s head. The jötunn easily avoided it, but the bodyguard had expected that. For a moment, the crime lord’s head was turned to the left.

Bringing his eye in range of Gunnar’s striking hand. With a vicious snarl, the bodyguard extended his thumb and buried its first knuckle in Cal’s eye socket. He strained to push it in deeper.

But for all the strength the hamingja gave to him, Gunnar was no match for the jötunn’s raw power. Cal wrenched his head out of the bodyguard’s grip, spraying blood and gore across the grass.

“You can’t kill me!” Cal roared in Gunnar’s face. “I am Hyrrokkin’s chosen. She’ll make me a fucking god for killing you.”

Cal slammed his head into the bodyguard’s face. The tips of the curved horns grazed the sides of Gunnar’s head, tearing open the skin at his temples. The longer horn slammed down on top of the bodyguard’s skull and split his scalp to the bone as the gangster’s ridged forehead crushed Gunnar’s nose into a pulpy ruin.

Gunnar’s thoughts had scattered like startled ravens, and blood filled his eyes. But he clung to the image of the Valknut. He twisted the hand still caught in the golden rope’s trap, tightening the noose, using his newfound strength to grind the chain’s links through Cal’s skin. The pain from his split skull, from his crushed fingers, meant nothing. All that mattered was the fight.

And the fight felt good. Something about the sheer act of violence reignited the energy that had gone into him with the first jötunn’s death. He wrenched the chain hard to one side and moved behind Cal, hoping to keep the leader between him and hostile fire.

Behind him, Mimi let loose a battle cry that sounded like a hunting hawk’s shriek. She emptied the submachine gun, the bullets snuffing out jötunn lives and filling Gunnar with much needed strength. The fight was almost over. Just a few more seconds.

Cal wheezed in the bodyguard’s grip. His thick-nailed fingers clawed at Gunnnar’s wrist, raking bloody furrows through the flesh of his forearm. He stomped with desperate fury, doing his damnedest to crush his enemy’s feet.

But try as he might, Cal couldn’t overcome Gunnar’s berserker fury. His knees buckled, and he dropped to the stones beside the pool, chin sagging over the necklace biting into his neck. Blood rained down the jötunn’s chest and his breath died in his lungs.

“You picked the wrong side,” Gunnar growled. He pulled harder on the bloody links and rammed his knee into Cal’s back. “You shouldn’t have crossed me.”

Something gave way, and for a moment Gunnar wasn’t sure if it was the necklace or the gang leader’s neck. The answer came when Cal’s head rolled free, the ragged remains of his throat splattering against the wet stones. It splashed into the pool and vanished beneath the black waters. The dead gang lord’s hamingja roared out of him and into Gunnar, a flood of power that filled the bodyguard to overflowing.

Bullets screamed through the air around Gunnar and Mimi. One of them tugged at the side of his head, filling his ears with a high-pitched whine. Another punched through his jacket’s sleeve to carve a burning line across his forearm. More bullets kicked up chunks of the stone deck and hurled them at Gunnar’s face. Others ricocheted off the wall behind him and whined over the Mirage’s roof.

The bodyguard shoved the Valknut into his inside jacket pocket, then grabbed Mimi by the wrist. They raced to the security wall, dodging between the dwarf lemon trees for cover.

“Can you handle being thrown over the wall,” he asked, grabbing her by the waist.

“Do it. I’ll get the car,” Mimi said.

Gunnar tossed her into the air, and she easily cleared the fence’s tines. A second later, she called back, “I’m good!”

Bullets howled around Gunnar. They dug chunks out of the wall and sent a cascade of green leaves raining down from the lemon trees. His head ached, and his thoughts swayed drunkenly through his brain.

There was something he had to do.

Run. He had to run. Get to Mimi. Get to the car.

Not yet. The rune. The voice in his head was raw and coarse, like a raven’s caw.

Gunnar saw the symbol in his head, clear as the blood on his hands. His old man had shown him the Elder Futhark runes in a vain attempt to interest Gunnar in his heritage, but this was not one the bodyguard recognized. It was both more complex and more primal, a pair of triangles turned on their corners, their tips