Wanderers: Ragnarök Read online

  WANDERER: Ragnarök

  by

  RICHARD A BAMBERG

  The Wanderers #1

  Text Copyright © 2013 Richard A Bamberg

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States of America

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Paperback ISBN-10: 1494477483

  Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1494477486

  Acknowledgement

  Thanks to the gang at North Alabama Science Fiction and Cake Appreciation Society for their help, inspiration, and cake. A special thanks to DeAnna Knippling, for everything. Thanks to Robert Bamberg for his reading and as always, thanks to Joy for loving me.

  Swa cwæð eardstapa,

  earfeþa gemyndig,

  wraþra wælsleahta,

  winemæga hryre:

  So spoke the wanderer,

  mindful of hardships,

  of fierce slaughters

  and the downfall of kinsmen:

  From The Wanderer, Old English, ca 597 A.D.

  CHAPTER 1

  Over the deep-throated heartbeat of my ‘65 Electra-Glide Panhead, I felt a subsonic call reverberating in the night. A sigh escaped my lips. Another town, another opportunity to face death, and spit in its eye, at least until I found a way out of the geas Fate put on me.

  On this autumn night, a gibbous moon peeked down at me over tree-clad mountains. I wore shades, jeans, and leathers consisting of black gloves, a heavily zippered jacket, and biker boots aged to perfection. The cool evening wind buffeted my face. Beast, my manticore-possessed Harley, spread his personal ward around us, allowing air to pass while preventing the occasional bug from becoming teeth jam.

  I followed the lingering echoes of the demon’s call, turning off the raised highway, and onto the surface streets of Huntsville, Alabama. Along the south edge of a park filled with well-trimmed grass and mature trees, I eased Beast to the curb near a sign that announced the arrival a music festival, the Big Spring Jam, in a few days time.

  I focused a little energy into a tattoo on my left side, slightly south of my rib cage. I felt a surge of warmth from the tat as it glowed to life. With the surge of magic, the night air brightened to near day. The spell encased in the tat’s pattern opened up my senses, amplifying light and sound across frequency ranges unavailable to mundanes. I glanced overhead and noted a thin ley line running just west of my position toward the center of the park. I tapped the line. Power surged toward me, topping off my energy reserves in a few seconds, and I released the tap.

  I felt for the call and determined its source to be north of me. I leaned Beast onto his kickstand for appearances’ sake and stored my gloves and shades in various jacket pockets.

  From my left saddlebag, I removed my father’s Model 1911 Colt, eased the slide back to confirm there was a chambered round, locked the slide, and then holstered the heavy forty-five in an inner jacket pocket. The pistol’s weight sagged my jacket to the left. I shifted it level on my shoulders.

  “You stay here and try to stay out of trouble,” I ordered as I walked up the nearest sidewalk leading north. Behind me, Beast growled once, either in warning to me or because he didn’t like being left behind. With Beast, one was as likely as the other.

  A concrete pathway wound through the park between patches of flowering shrubbery and beneath dozens of tall hardwoods. Moisture, the sweet aroma of flowers, and the bass call of tree frogs filled the night. I hadn’t walked far when I spotted the demon. For a demon not much larger than a collie, it was confident, even blatant, as it darted from shadow to shadow in the still air. This demon was as stealthy as a rutting bull moose on steroids. From more than fifty yards away, I could hear its urgent panting. It took a few moments longer to identify its quarry, a young woman following the path from the large concert hall west of the park. Our paths would intersect at a Japanese-style footbridge that crossed the park’s lake about a hundred yards north of me.

  I scanned the area for some other presence, but for the moment, the three of us had the park to ourselves. If the woman had recognized her danger, she could have waded out into the lake. Demons liked water about as much as your average house cat, but like most mundane people, this woman was oblivious and in short order it would be too late for her to escape. Moving to intercept the demon, I unwound the hemp bracelet from my left wrist. The six feet of thin cord was split in the middle by a small, flat piece of leather, just slightly larger than the pebble I plucked from beside the sidewalk. I carried iron bearings, similar to the iron-slugs in my forty-five, since pure iron was anathema to demons and many other nasties, but I preferred to save them for serious threats rather than waste them on this lesser demon. I folded the leather over the stone and spun the sling vertically at my side while I focused a little energy on my old wristwatch. The case of the watch glowed for a moment as I activated the protection runes carved into the case. I shouldn’t need it for this demon, but an unprepared Wanderer eventually becomes a dead Wanderer.

  The demon was as oblivious to me as the woman was to it and the three of us converged on the footbridge. I tried to identify the demon’s species, but it darted from shadow to shadow making it nearly impossible to see. The demon’s compact body vanished behind a darkened decorative light pole, less than fifty feet from the woman. Only one more hiding place, a trash container; separated it from her. If it got any closer, even with unaugmented senses, she’d notice it; then I’d have that whole hysterical screaming thing to contend with.

  I calculated the distance and waited for it to reappear. Timing my shot right, I could hit it just as it reached the trashcan.

  The demon darted forward; its claws scratching against the sidewalk like fingernails on a blackboard. It ignored the trashcan and went straight for the woman. I muttered a curse and changed my aim.

  Raising my left hand in a Cub Scout pledge with index and middle fingers together, I focused energy and the tattoo woven across my upraised fingers formed an intricate, glowing red pattern. The stone left my sling near the bottom of its circle and rose slightly as it covered the distance from me to the demon. As my stone flew, energy erupted from the earth in bolts of magical lightning that crackled and popped as it permeated the rock. When it was glowing white-hot, I broke off the spell.

  The demon snarled as it darted across the ground toward its prey. Its voice made the hair on my nape rise. I could see it now. It was a gershin, better known as a shadow demon, one of several species of minor demons. The gershin had bristles coarser than a wild boar’s and even sharper tusks. It snarled again.

  The woman also heard it and finally recognized her danger. She turned and raised her hands to protect her face as the beast leapt toward her.

  The stone caught the demon in its right ear. The spell released its energy, shattering the demon’s skull, destroying its corporal form and sending its spirit back to whatever circle of hell it had crawled out of. The demon’s momentum carried it into the woman’s upraised hands and she staggered backward under the sudden impact.

  “Damn it,” I swore. Now she’d be screaming, attracting whomever still wandered the park at this hour. I hesitated. It would be simpler to turn and walk away. Rarely did getting involved with potential victims end well, for me anyway.

  She wasn’t screaming. She wa
s cursing as she tried to shake the demon’s rapidly dissolving remains out of her hands. Curious as to the source of her aplomb, I went to her.

  Decomposing demons stop a lot of questions from the general population (who don’t want to know about such things), but the remains leave a smelly mess that’s as difficult to wash off as an assault by a southern polecat. I stopped out of reach, but not out of range of the woman’s newly acquired aroma as she shook rank globules of demon carcass from her fingers.

  Her cursing stopped when she noticed me. Her face, already contorted with the intensity of the stink, turned red as she focused her fury on me. “You! You did this!”

  Her voice wasn’t hysterical as I was expecting but deep and lusty in its ire.

  I wound the sling back around my wrist, just above my watch. “Me? Do what? I heard you cursing and thought I’d see what was wrong.”

  “You killed it.”

  “Killed what?” Ignorance, feigned or genuine, limits your exposure to questioning, in most cases, and served me well in the past, but her reaction was confusing. I focused on her aura and saw she was surrounded by a dark green. The color indicated earth magic, probably a Wiccan; the intensity showed she was experienced, not a full-fledged witch, but someone’s very strong apprentice.

  She flicked up both hands in answer to my query, and I involuntarily flinched away from the goo that flew from her fingertips.

  Perhaps I should have stayed farther back.

  “If I had wanted it dead, I would have killed it. Now look at me.”

  I did and found that she was quite attractive, even with her face distorted by her obvious disgust at the demon goo. She looked to be in her early to mid-twenties. She had hair the color of fresh cream and had drawn it up into a practical bun. A wisp had come free and hung across brown eyes that sparkled with a flash of gold when they caught the light. She wore an old denim jacket, buttoned to the throat, and it stretched tight across her full breasts. She’d fastened an unnecessary leather belt loosely above her broad hips. Her faded jeans appeared to have shrunk two sizes after she put them on. Some kind of complicated vented sandals with thick soles covered her feet. I found myself enjoying the view.

  “What are you smiling at?” she demanded.

  Oops. “I’m sorry; I was appreciating your demon hunting attire.”

  “Smart ass. I’m going to be up the rest of the night getting this stench off me.” She shook globules from her right hand and for the first time I realized she held something.

  “What’s that?” I asked, indicating her hand.

  “My Taser.” She held up a little stun gun. “I was trying to catch that demon. It took me a week to lure it out of hiding, and you come along just as—”

  “You were trying to catch it? What on earth for?”

  “To find out what it was doing here. Are you daft or just slow? I wanted to know if it was summoned or here accidentally. Obviously, that’s a lost cause.” She shook out her hands again, and I took another step back to avoid the spray of putrid demon lard.

  She glared down at the bag slung across her torso. “Shit. I can’t even get into my purse without getting goo all over it.” She stomped off, across the neatly clipped grass to the edge of the small lake. Fog floated above the water’s surface, but it hadn’t crept out across the surrounding grass, yet. Without leaving the path, I followed her at a safe distance. Kneeling beside the dark waters of the lake, she hesitated, and then tossed the Taser toward me. I caught it and winced at the smell and at the feel of warm demon gunk oozing through my fingers. She could have set it on the ground next to her so her action was deliberate, either to check my reaction or to share her misery.

  She waved one hand above the water to shoo the fog back a few feet before washing her hands. Watching her out of the corner of my eye, I took a handkerchief from my pocket and carefully wrapped the Taser.

  When she’d finished, she came back to the path where I waited. She opened her purse and ordered, “In here.”

  I dropped the Taser inside.

  Our eyes met for a second and I felt an urge to do ungentlemanly things with her.

  “You’re not from around here,” she said.

  “No, I’m new.”

  “Thought so. Look, kid, until you know your way around, don’t interfere or you’ll end up getting someone killed.”

  Kid? My apparent age hasn’t really changed since I became a Wanderer and some days I don’t look twenty-one. It can make for—awkward conversations.

  I said, “Well excuse me for…”

  I was talking to her back.

  Her sandals made loud heel-first raps on the wood bridge as she stomped away.

  I stood watching her go for a moment, transfixed. An interesting woman. I hadn’t encountered many who would stalk a gershin or any other demon, and try to capture it.

  I frowned at the odor wafting from my hands and clothes. By sunup, the goo would be a miasma of hydrocarbon slurry that couldn’t be identified as either animal or vegetable. However, the smell would linger.

  I held my hands up in front of me. Smells were simply molecules. These molecules were foreign to my person. I focused a little energy. Turning my attention to what I thought of as my physical self, I placed my focus onto that which wasn’t me. The minute quantity of demon particles froze all Brownian movement as they reached temperatures that would have made Lord Kelvin proud. I stepped back and an invisible cloud floated upwards on the breeze. Much better.

  Beast’s rhythmic idling drew my attention. I turned to see the big Harley rolling toward me on the path. “Didn’t I park you?”

  He growled once, deep in his immaterial throat, and the sound came out as a bizarre cross between a Harley’s normal rumble and a lion’s purr. He rolled to a stop beside me, his single headlight pointed down the path.

  I followed his gaze and saw the woman passing under a streetlight on the far side of the park. I smiled. If I had my way, we’d meet again.

  Beast growled a second time. This time his voice was distinguishable. “Trouble.”

  “Trouble? How could she be trouble? She’s someone’s apprentice.” I stared after the woman and smiled again. “No, not trouble, a diversion maybe, it’s been awhile since I came across a good diversion. No, no trouble, you’re too suspicious of women.”

  “Mark my words; she is going to be trouble,” he repeated.

  I thought it unlikely. Beast was a good judge of people, but how could such a comely lady be that much trouble?

  He growled again and swiveled to point his light toward the lake.

  The fog swept back in a mini-cyclone away from something rising out of the water, a few dozen yards from where I stood.

  I watched in some amazement as the head of a woman appeared. Her incandescent yellow eyes locked on me as she emerged from the water and she moved toward me; gliding without walking, and without disturbing the water’s surface.

  “Mortal, you sully my waters with the carrion of demons and think I will not object?”

  “My pardon, lady. But it wasn’t I who washed off the carrion in your lovely waters.”

  She stepped to the edge of the bank, light glistening off her naked body. She was tall, at least equal to my own six feet and proportioned only as someone fashioned by one of the old gods could be. Her face was chiseled alabaster, high cheekbones, full lips, and eyes a man could willingly lose himself in. Her full breasts stood firm and erect and she had a taut belly, lean thighs, and graceful calves. Only the soles of her delicate feet remained in the water and as I watched, silvery water grass grew upward and wrapped itself around her feet and ankles.

  “And yet here you stand at the spot of the defilement,” the naiad said, her voice at once musical and haunting. “It looks damning.”

  “I admit I’m responsible for the demon’s demise, but not for fouling your waters. Had I known a naiad lived here I would have stopped the one who did.”

  Her frown faded. “Well spoken for a mortal, but then you are som
ething other than a mortal. What man would have a manticore bonded to him?” Her flickering yellow eyes shifted to Beast.

  Beast rumbled low in his throat.

  “Have your familiar reveal his true form if you wish me to talk further,” she ordered.

  “You heard the lady, Beast,” I said.

  Beast shifted and in a few seconds, the full-grown manticore sat at my side, his almost human head slightly higher than my own, his bat wings folded back, and his dragon tail flicking restlessly. I closed a fist in his thick mane as a gesture of restraint; a gesture only as my physical strength could not match his.

  I turned back to the naiad. “Does this suit you, lady?”

  She smiled, and I felt an unbidden, insistent jolt of attraction toward her.

  “Watch yourself, naiad. This is no mere man to be toyed with,” Beast growled.

  Her smile widened at his warning and her eyes seemed to glow as she stared at me appreciatively. Naiads are known for their ability to seduce men, but I’d encountered them only rarely. The desire growing in me was more than justifiable lust at encountering such a marvelous example of the feminine form, but as long as I stayed out of the naiad’s water, I was reasonably safe from her charms.

  “I can see that,Beast, is it? How appropriate a title for one such as you.” Neither her eyes nor her smile left my face as she spoke. “Tell me, mortal, are you what you seem?”

  “And what might that be, lady?”

  “A Wanderer, perhaps?”

  I was only slightly taken aback. “You’ve met others like me, then?”

  “I am immortal, Wanderer. Eventually, all things pass by my spring.” She moved a hand in a broad sweep, taking in all of the lake as she spoke. While she remained motionless, I had gotten used to her beauty and its affect on me diminished, but when she gestured at the lake the muscles beneath her skin rippled nicely and things tightened; lust shot through my veins like liquid heat.