“As is your wife’s. Oh, what a pity most of that beauty ended up on the tar of Dalkeith Road,” she replied with a cheap shot that Gunnar felt to his core. His heart slammed in his throat and from nowhere came the image of Val’s last moments again, her face raw, while she died in his arms. He could still smell the rubber in her hair. Tears caught him off guard and unwilling, and he was impotent to the overwhelming grief of this fresh wound that still refused to coagulate.
“Are you still there, Gunnar?” she asked with not as much as a fissure in her malice.
He composed himself, vexed by the two staring bartenders who saw his eyes grow wet.
“I’m here. Who are you sending to meet with… my champion?” he sneered, agreeing to play her game. Already in his mind he picked Alex, or Sam, if he survived. It would only be apt for Sam to collect Nina, he thought.
“I’m sending Slokin. You?” she asked.
“Sam Cleave.”
“Slokin and Cleave will meet at 7am tomorrow morning. Cleave gets Nina when Slokin is satisfied that the contents of the vial is genuine. They both go alone and exchange,” she commanded in her authoritarian manner.
“I don’t fuck with you, you don’t fuck with me.”
“That’s correct, Gunnar,” she smiled. “Port Edgar Yacht Club, west of Forth Road Bridge. Don’t be late. Or Nina will be…” she waited, but he said nothing, so she giggled, “…get it?”
He ended the call to be deaf to her sick jests. Gunnar’s eyes still burned from his resistance to the relentless sadness.
“Who was that?” Terry asked.
“Some wench I have a date with,” Gunnar said blankly, uncaring of their opinion anyway.
A hefty crack crashed through the sky as the elements clashed in the womb of the clouds, rattling the windows under thunder’s fury.
“Jesus! My poor heart,” Dugal gasped, startled by the sudden clap of thunder.
“Thur uiki!” Alex and two others shouted, raising their beers. Gunnar could not help but muster a smile and lifted his bottle.
“What does that mean?” Terry asked.
“May Thor Hallow,” Gunnar said and swallowed down a decent amount of the Flying Dutchman in his grip.
The back door swung open and the women piled in, squealing with glee as they played, shoving one another out of the way to escape the rain and get inside first. Behind them a larger figure stepped through the doorway. Sam was soaked, his well-defined body gleaming wet and shaking from the cold. He had a blue cloak crumpled up to cover his privates. Apart from that, he only wore a sheepish smile.
Chapter 24
The fortress was almost entirely consumed by the thick veil of mist rolling in from Loch nan Cinneachan to the east. To the west, not too far off, the shoreline of Coll ran along the side of the ancient walls of the 15th Century stronghold that once belonged to a Viking Chieftain before he died in battle with a local Scottish clan for claim of Coll itself. The Inner Hebridean island was ideal for Lita to make her temporary home while she was engaged in finding the hidden location of Valhalla and the power locked away within it.
Nina’s condition deteriorated rapidly. Famished, she kept calling for anyone who could supply her with some food and a blanket. Her skin had lost all feeling as the ice sheet of cold settled upon her body. She realized by now that Sam probably had not received her text and she was puzzled by the identity of the man who answered Sam’s phone. It was cause for concern to her, not knowing where Sam really was and why, coincidentally, he was unavailable at the same time that she had been kidnapped. Had he been kidnapped too? Did Lockhart discover Sam’s whereabouts as well?
The thought terrified her. If the starvation and exposure to the cold was the way in which Lita treated her prisoners, then Sam had to be in grave danger as well. Never before, not even on that mountain in Tibet during the expedition for the Holy Lance, had she felt this close to her demise. Even there, with a gun to her head she felt some defiance, some solace in dying with others. At least Sam and Purdue had been with her if she had died there, but here, she was utterly forgotten, with only Val’s husband to save her, should he even care to. Besides, she was not really affiliated with The Brotherhood and they had no obligation to rescue her from Lita’s hand, especially in exchange for the object they protected most fiercely.
“Hello!” she screamed. “SOMEBODY BRING ME SOMETHING TO EAT!”
Before, she had called, then cried out, but now it had been three days since her incarceration and all they had left for her to drink was two-five liter containers of fresh water in her cell. No food was served, not even a bread crust, and all she had to cover her was her coat and some sheeting of the dirty bunk. Now Nina began to realize that her life truly was at stake, if not getting killed during what was bound to be a sour exchange, then here in her cage. She wanted to cry but no tears came. It was a dreadful rebellion of her body to remind her that nothing was in order anymore.
To be honest, she did not believe that there would be a trade in the first place. Lita was wicked enough to take Nina and throw her into a godforsaken hole on a forgotten castle, of which there were so many all over the north of Scotland and the Inner and Outer Hebrides. She was just taken as bargaining chip, but Lita had no intention of ever letting her go. The scheming, redhead bitch probably only used Nina’s minor significance to lure out The Brotherhood, but she felt a sickening feeling in her heart when her shadowed side reminded her that her only real friend in that utmost secret order was dead.
Nina had no worth and no advocate within their ranks and if Sam came through to bring the vial to the mansion, they would have it safely in their possession anyway. Why would they trade it for her, ever? Relieved at the warm burn in her nose and eye sockets, Nina was grateful that she finally managed to weep. Bending forward where she sat on the bunk, the petite Nina Gould sobbed bitterly at her abandonment, dying slowly in solitude and fear. And in addition to all her painful realizations, she was already mourning Sam, whom, she had decided, she would never see again. For some reason, she could not dismiss the thought of not seeing the man she had become so close to, so comfortable with, ever again. This pained her more than her fate being at the hands of the sadistic Order of the Black Sun and its baleful agent.
Another hour passed and still no-one came. Nina’s only company were the residual spirits resident within the dry-stone, recorded there in their most intense moments. With not a soul in the entire structure with her, and feeling utterly alone, Nina cried out loud. Marooned, her voice quivered in deep sorrow as she gushed her emotions until she could hardly catch her breath between whimpers.
In the embrace of the white oblivion outside, she could smell the rot of the plant matter and the still water it fermented in. Directly in conflict with the stench the fresh cold air swept across her hair from the ocean side, as if the sea stroked her head in sympathy. With every howl she uttered in lost regret, the wind would wail in turn as if to answer her plea. It was sorely cruel of nature to do such things, she thought. The gust whistled tauntingly at her, waiting patiently like a faithful servant to carry away her soul upon it when she would choose to relinquish it. Finally, it all just became too much for her and she was overwhelmed by her rage. Nina could not believe that this was how she was going to die.
Suddenly, she appreciated Prof. Matlock’s mild patronizing, who was the bane of her existence for so long. She would do anything to be in his condescending presence right now. How she would give anything right now to walk the university halls again, to be subjugated by the misogynistic hand of the board members and faculty. She had so much to give still, with her extensive knowledge and her connections, a decent allowance of Purdue’s money now granted her bi-annually, not to mention the hellish situations she had barely survived to tell of. How many times had she and Sam had close calls in places not even God would bother to roam? How many sick individuals had crossed their path and yet she and Sam always managed to escape their intentions. Somehow, when she was with Sam she had an undeniable partner, an irrefutably loyal friend, an affectionate…