Mirror of the Gods, page 17
“Nervous?” Lucy asked, glancing up at her.
“I’m not sure, honestly. I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling.” She hesitated. “I mean, I thought this part of our lives was lost forever. Now, to have it back? I can’t explain how it feels.”
Dira sighed then moved forward to sit at the table, settling down beside Clint, who looked at her softly. Huh.
Edward came bustling back, cheeks red as he huffed. The book in his hands had to be the largest book Lucy had ever seen. When he set it down on the table in front of Dira and Clint, it almost boomed, the table creaking under the weight of it.
It was beautiful. The face of the book was covered by a massive tree, Yggdrasil, with leaves of emeralds and tangling, sprawling roots made of gold. Dira reached out to glide her fingertips over the woven silver and gold trunk of the tree.
The leather borders of the cover were braided together, a gold thread woven through them.
In the center of the tree’s trunk was the symbol on Lucy’s bracelets.
“This symbol, what is it?” Clint asked, tapping the engraving with his index finger.
Edward hummed as he crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s the runic symbol for Vanaheim. One of the nine realms in Norse Mythology.”
Lucy shivered at the name, glancing down at her bracelets. Twisting her forearms, she watched as the bright white lights overhead made the silver gleam and glint.
“It’s exactly as I remember it,” Dira whispered reverently.
Lucy stepped up behind the Vanir and her professor.
“Please, open it,” Edward said. “It’s yours, after all.”
The leather creaked as Dira lifted the cover, revealing a blank page underneath. She let her fingers trail over the edge, flipping it. Black ink bled on ivory parchment, runes with sharp edges filling almost every inch of the sheet.
The next page had a sketch: a large Viking hall cradled on the peak of a snowcapped mountain, surrounded by high stone walls.
“This was our home. After nearly five hundred years, I’d forgotten what it looked like,” Dira murmured, tears welling in her eyes.
Lucy placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder. She was slightly surprised when Dira’s hand rested on hers, squeezing it. The gold signet ring she wore gleamed in the light. It was the first time Lucy had truly seen the smaller Yggdrasil sigil on the face of it.
As Dira flipped the page, an overwhelming sense of weight settled on Lucy. They’d need to translate every single page, every note, every word from ancient Norse runes to English.
It would probably take at least a year, probably more—and that didn’t even guarantee they would say anything about the bracelets. Or how to get them off.
And even though she wanted to stay with Ridder, the implications of being with the Vanir for a whole year just solidified her new situation. Her new reality.
Chest tightening, she stepped back, trying to breathe as panic welled up inside her. The walls of the room were closing in on her. Her breathing became more erratic.
“Lucy, are you alright, dear?” Edward asked, concerned. Clint glanced at her, while Dira just continued to stare at the book.
“I need some air. I’ll be right back.”
Edward nodded, watching her back away toward the door. “Would you like someone to—”
Lucy shook her head frantically, a hand pressed to her heart. “No ... No, you two stay here, figure out how we’re going to translate all this. I’ll be right back, I promise.” She turned to yank open the door, then fled.
Since there was no one around, Lucy didn’t feel bad about bolting down the corridor and up the stairwell. The sound of her boots echoed hollowly as she tried her best to outrun the oncoming panic attack.
Her legs burned, her lungs burned, the walls creeping in and in and in. When she yanked open the door, Sylvia turned to admonish her, but then just said, “Dear?”
“I’m alright—I just need air,” Lucy gasped out, making her way out the front doors and into the silent, still courtyard. No one was around to see her sink to her knees save for a few cooing pigeons, allowing her to close her eyes as she tried to calm her breathing.
It wasn’t bad. It was just a change of direction for her life plan. When she’d decided to get her doctorate, she hadn’t intended to meet a group of near immortals, unlock a secret power hidden inside herself, fall for one of said immortals, and completely abandon her plans of researching, or possibly even teaching.
Now she’d have to work tirelessly on translating a book about the history, the lives, the story of the Vanir. Get answers as to why the bracelets reacted to her, a nobody from a small West Texas town.
“This will be okay. This will be alright. I can do this.” Lucy repeated the mantra silently in her head over and over.
Sure, she’d have to find a way to explain leaving school to her parents, and her sudden serious relationship with a man and his mysterious background, plus his siblings.
This will be okay. This will be alright. I can do this.
She’d have to explain how she was leaving her Boston townhouse—at least, she assumed she would be leaving it—and traveling. Why she’d just dropped off the grid.
This will be okay. This will be alright. I can do this.
Maybe she could just tell them she was working for the CIA.
That thought brought a small snort from her, making her eyes flutter open. Her heart stopped. She was no longer alone.
Lucy was surrounded by men in black. With a short cry, she jolted backward, reaching a hand back to draw one of her karambits from the holster.
A hand clamped over her face, and the sweet smell of something filled her senses.
Darkness came quick, and the last thing she saw was Alastair Duncan smiling down at her.
“I told you that you would come to me before this was over, little Lucy.”
Then the world went black.
***
Glancing down at the watch on his wrist, Clint felt his gut twist. Sheridan should have been back by now. It’d been thirty minutes since she’d fled.
“I’m going to go check on Lucy,” he announced, standing from his chair.
Dira, as if waking from a trance, looked up at him with a frown. “She’s not back yet?”
Clint shook his head. Dira cursed.
Followed by Dr. Krauss, they made their way up from the bowels of the Bodleian. When they opened the door, Sylvia turned to them.
“Have you seen Miss Sheridan, Sylvie?” Edward asked.
The woman frowned. “She came bursting through here maybe twenty minutes ago. She hasn’t come back since. She went outside.”
Dira’s eyes widened, and she took off at a run toward the doors. Clint was hot on her heels, and they exploded into the empty courtyard.
“Maybe she ... Maybe she went for a walk,” Clint suggested, dread washing over him like an icy waterfall.
“Shit! You know she wouldn’t do that. Not after last night.”
Dira was already dragging her phone from the back pocket of her jeans.
“Dira, what’d you—”
“Not now.” She spoke into the phone, putting it on speaker. “Please, Jay, I need you to check the security tapes. Now.”
There was a brief silence before the sound of the keyboard. “Alright, I’ve got it pulled up. How far back am I looking?”
“Last thirty minutes.”
There was more silence, and every passing moment of it had the terror sinking further and further into Clint’s heart.
Jeger’s breath hitched on the other end.
“What? What is it?” Clint’s eyes were wide with panic as he whirled to Dira.
“Dira... The Order... They took Lucy.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ridder sat beside Kreager on the couch, glancing up as the front door opened. He refused to believe it. There was no way his older sister would have been so irresponsible, so careless as to let Lucy be taken. The one thing that was now most precious to him had been taken by their centuries-old enemy, and he hadn’t been there to stop it.
Then Dira walked into the living room, her eyes averted, followed closely by Clint. Ridder kept waiting for Lucy to walk around the corner, her gray eyes finding his, a small soft smile on her face.
She didn’t come.
The silence in the house was deafening.
Lucy was the bright light, the all-encompassing happiness that lit up every room.
Now she was gone, taken by their centuries-old enemies, and his own sister had let it happen under her watch.
Everything was cold.
His blood, his fingers, his heart.
***
“Walk us through what happened,” Kreager demanded, voice cutting. He tapped his heel against the ground, making his knee bounce.
“Dr. Krauss had just pulled out the book. It’s exactly like I remembered. I was looking at it, and something happened. Lucy needed to get air.”
“I offered to go with her, but she said no,” Clint said darkly. “I didn’t think she’d go all the way out of the library. I just assumed she needed to step out into the hall, maybe even up the stairs. But not outside. I should’ve gone with her.” He shook his head. His eyes were filled with guilt and despair.
“Yes, you should have,” Jeger said, lifting her gaze from the screen in front of her, then she slid her eyes toward Dira. “And you should have as well.”
Dira stared at her, avoiding Ridder’s eyes. “She was gone maybe fifteen minutes before Clint said anything. We called right after we realized she wasn’t anywhere in the area.”
“So you were distracted,” Ridder murmured, his eyes narrowed dangerously.
Dira sighed heavily, prepared for the fight she knew was coming.“Ridder—”
“No. That’s exactly what happened. You were distracted and let her walk away.”
Frustration and shame lanced through Dira as she met his eyes. “She shouldn’t have walked away!”
“What if she was having a panic attack?” he asked coolly, stretching his legs out in front of him. She didn’t know which was worse—his anger or the cold tone of his voice, a tone she’d never heard him use when speaking to one of his siblings.
“If she was having a panic attack and no one went with her, she probably wasn’t thinking,” he snapped. “She needed someone else to think about her safety at that moment. But you were distracted!” His lips curled back from his teeth.
“I was seeing a piece of our past for the first time in almost five hundred years! Of course I was distracted! It was an incredibly important moment,” Dira shouted back, eyes blazing.
“But Lucy isn’t important? The woman I’ve chosen as my own is less important than a book?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. Don’t put words into my mouth. She’s important, yes, but this is something—a piece of us—that we thought was lost. The last time I saw the original book was the day before our parents were killed. So forgive me for being a little distracted!”
Ridder stood slowly from the couch to tower over their sister, his dark eyes twin pools of obsidian glinting with rage. It rolled off him in waves, filling the room.
“We’ve survived this long with practically nothing from our past,” he thundered, baring his teeth at her. “We’re all happy we now have this piece of our lives back, one we thought was destroyed, but we’ve survived this long without it. And now, because of your heedless attitude to anything but our history, Lucy is gone. She was taken while she should have been under your protection!”
Dira was their leader, the eldest, but she wasn’t above making mistakes, and trying to justify this mistake was foolish.
“I’m sorry!” Dira exploded. She was terrified, worried, guilty, ashamed—all such dangerously strong emotions warring within her. Emotions she hadn’t felt in such rapid succession since she was a teenager: grappling with the knowledge that her father had murdered almost everyone she had ever loved. That her mother was gone, never to return. That her siblings were now parentless—all because of her sire.
***
And then Dira did something that none of them were expecting. Her eyes welled with tears, and she began to cry. “I should’ve been paying closer attention, and it is my fault,” she sniffed, wiping under her eyes.
“It’s our fault,” Clint murmured, looking away.
Closing his eyes and using all his willpower to tamp down his anger, Ridder gathered her into his arms and held her, his throat tight. They both cared about Lucy. They were both scared. And blaming each other wasn’t going to get Lucy back any faster. No matter how much he wanted to lash out at everything and everyone—anything to get a temporary relief from the searing pain in his chest. To the fear. The fury.
“Ha!” Jeger’s shout of glee pulled the two siblings apart, drawing everyone’s attention. Her grin was predatory and sharp, white teeth glinting brightly. “I found it. I found where they’re holding her.”
“How?” Kreager asked, pushing up from the couch to stride across the room.
“They didn’t exactly take a lot of care escaping with our little sister,” Jeger said with a roll of her eyes. Ridder’s heart clenched. “CCTV caught three SUVs leaving the campus. They split, but I followed all three of them. They were dumb enough—despite making circles and loops and different directions, they all came back to the same location: a warehouse by the river.”
***
Jay pushed out of her chair, and Dira’s phone buzzed.
“I just texted you the address. I counted only fifteen mercenaries, Alastair, Foster, and Lucy. No one’s been in or out of there over the last forty-eight hours, so I think it’s just them.”
Dira gave a small sigh of relief and moved toward the table.
It was closing in on two hours since the Order had taken Lucy. That wasn’t long, but it still made Clint nervous.
“I’ll get a notification if they move, but right now we need to come up with a game plan and get armed. And fast.” Jeger turned the computer screen, pulling up a map of the area and blueprints.
“How did you do that so quickly?” Clint wondered, earning a bright grin.
“I’m a hunter. I’ve spent centuries perfecting every way there is to hunt my targets. Whether it’s an animal, a child predator, a rapist escaping from the authorities, or someone who threatens my family. I was around when the internet was invented. I’ve done everything I can to learn anything about the internet, computers, and technology in general. There’s nothing that I can’t do.”
Clint blinked, then gave her a wry grin. “Glad I’m on your side, then.”
Jeger chuckled as she stepped back, eyeing him. “Best remember that in the future.”
Kreager and Ridder began placing large containers on the table, and all of them crowded around as they began strapping on holsters and sheaths.
“Alright,” Jeger said. “The best entrance would be from the back, facing the river. Look here, there’s a small hallway before it opens into the main area.” On the screen, she pointed out a narrow corridor leading from the door to the large open area in the center of the warehouse. “We go as silently as possible, take out whoever they have here. We’ll have the element of surprise, so that will work to our advantage.”
Dira nodded as she slid her semi-automatic pistol into her thigh holster, her other ones already on each hip, a large knife at her lower back.
“Clint, you’ll need to stay back, behind us,” Dira commanded. “If there’s something you can duck behind, you duck.” She held out a black bulletproof vest. “Here.”
“I can hold my own—” he started.
She gave him a searing look. “I know that. I’m not insulting your ability to fight. I’m just saying you don’t have as much training as they do, or as we do.”
Clint felt his rebuttal die in his throat, then nodded.
“Alright,” he mumbled, putting the vest on over his head and tightening the straps. The weight of it hanging off his shoulders, against his chest, eased some of his worry.
The four Vanir put on their own bulletproof vests, adjusting them. Ridder strapped his vest on tightly, adjusting it, before closing his eyes and letting out a heavy breath.
He looked fearsome, intimidating, and intense. His normally carelessly handsome looks were drawn and twisted in silent cold fury. His obsidian eyes rose, peering at Clint.
“I don’t think I said it,” Clint said, “but I’m sorry.”
Ridder said nothing, just nodded and looked away, hand coming to rest on the gun strapped to his hip.
They were silent as they made their way out of the house and into the SUV.
Where the morning had been bright and sunny, with almost no clouds in the sky, it was now as black as their moods. Lightning flashed across the dark clouds, weaving in and out of the thunderheads. As Ridder pulled out of the drive, Clint closed his eyes and sent a silent prayer to a god he hadn’t spoken to since he was a boy.
If Lucy had been hurt, he shuddered to think of what these four immortals might do.
There would be no rock that Alastair Duncan could hide under.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The first thing that Lucy registered as the darkness lifted was that she was sitting. The next thing was that she was tied down, strapped to the chair she was sitting in, arms bound behind her, her ankles tied to its legs. She must’ve been tied with rope. It bit angrily into her skin, rubbing and burning as she tested the strength of her restraints.
Everything was so hazy and foggy. Her eyes felt heavy, as if they weighed a hundred pounds—so heavy, she could barely open them. It took her a few tries to have them flutter open.
Her body felt sluggish, like her limbs weighed a ton too. She felt odd.
Where was she? Lucy couldn’t even remember what she’d been doing before this. What even was this?
“It looks like our guest is waking,” a low voice said. It was familiar, but she couldn’t place just who it was that was speaking.
