Valhalla Virus by Nick Harrow (best management books of all time TXT) 📕

“Okay,” Ray said. “And then?”

But the bodyguard was out cold, chin resting on his chest, hands loose and limp in his lap.

Shit, Ray thought. Here we go.

GUNNAR’S EYES KEPT closing without his permission. He alternated between burning up and freezing, and his heart banged around like a malfunctioning jackhammer. It was getting harder to catch his breath, and the call with Mimi had used up the last of his energy. He heard Ray ask for the rest of the directions, but there wasn’t enough gas left in his tank. He was so tired he couldn’t hold his head up.

Shit.

He was sick.

Was he dying?

No, that was impossible. He had a job left to do. Gunnar wouldn’t let himself wash out until Rayleigh Ashe was safe and sound.

He’d promised.

“Come to Valhalla,” the fireman howled in Gunnar’s dream. But his axes were different now, their heads heavier, their hafts shorter and more curved. He wore a coarse shirt and trousers topped with a fur mantle instead of a uniform. The full moon rose behind the hill he stood atop, its silver light painting the bodies scattered around the berserker in harsh shades of white and black. More enemies surged up the slope to fight the warrior, and he laughed in their faces before hacking their heads off their shoulders and splitting their skulls.

What bothered Gunnar wasn’t the man’s ferociousness or his weapons. It was the dark urge to join the warrior’s homicidal slaughter that bubbled up inside him. Gunnar wasn’t built for the modern world with its rules and hidden traps of etiquette and politics. He sometimes thought he’d have been more at home among his Viking ancestors. He felt a burning urge to tear off his clothes, pick up an axe, and hack a bloody path through anyone who got in his way. It would be so much simpler, so much easier—

The scream of a horn tearing past his window roused Gunnar from darkness. His hand tightened around the pistol in his lap, and he jerked his head up. The world was a chaotic smear through his bleary eyes, forcing the bodyguard to blink again and again to clear his vision. The Accord weaved around burning cars left in the street, and the thick plumes of black smoke billowing from the shattered metal corpses made it hard for him to make out landmarks. Gunnar was relieved when he finally caught sight of the north side of Treasure Island because it meant he hadn’t been out of it for more than a few minutes.

“Sorry,” he said to Ray. “Not feeling great. Had to rest my eyes.”

“It’s okay,” Ray said. She sniffled, then stifled a cough against the inside of her elbow. “I’m not at the top of my game, either.”

Bridget coughed, too, and wiped at her face with the back of her hand. She snorted, and another cough exploded out of her.

The white-haired woman slumped back in her seat. Hectic spots of red danced in her cheeks, and beads of sweat oozed from her forehead. “I’m sorry. God, I feel like hammered shit.”

“You’ll be okay,” Gunnar croaked, his throat tight and sore. He turned in the seat to offer Bridget a sincere smile that would have been more convincing if he didn’t look like an extra in a zombie outbreak movie. “Just stay cool. I’ve got a friend who can take us in, at least for a little while. It’ll get us off the street until we figure out what happened.”

Bridget returned Gunnar’s smile with one of her own in the rearview mirror. Her eyes, one a vivid shade of blue bordering on violet, the other the color of fresh honey, seemed to dare him to look at her. Her hair, pulled up tight in a ponytail bound by a leather collar atop her head, was white down to her scalp, which was only slightly paler than her smooth, alabaster skin. The bodyguard admired the colorful sleeve of tattoos that covered Bridget’s left arm with a writhing serpent coiled around a phalanx of winged women soaring from her wrist to her shoulder. A thin line of knotwork ink was visible through the torn tank top stretched across her chest. The tattoo coiled down from the upper slope of her left breast and vanished under the tattered shirt.

There was something ethereal and alluring about the tall blonde. Gunnar lost himself in her challenging stare for a long moment, then shook himself and flopped back into his seat.

“Right on Paradise,” Gunnar said to Ray, struggling to keep his eyes open. “Then a left on Flamingo. Keep going to Spencer. Then another left. You can’t miss the place after that.”

Gunnar hoped like hell she’d remember the directions because he was fading fast. She’d always had a strong memory, but there was a lot of shit flying around today. If she forgot...

“I’m okay,” Ray said, as if reading his mind. “Seriously, don’t worry about me. Get some rest if you need it.”

Gunnar tried to hang on, tried to answer Ray, but the dark waters of unconsciousness had already closed over his head. Nightmare images from Caesar’s jerked and stuttered through his thoughts. Bloody men and women, their mouths twisted into rictus smiles, screaming tourists fleeing through explosions of chips and bills as they flipped over tables in their mad dash for safety...

The Vegas skyline shifted in his dream. Neon burned away and left behind guttering torches that leaked black smoke into the night sky. Sleek, modern lines became brutal, primitive structures. Shadows stalked the roofs between crenellations, their eyes sharp for predators and prey alike. Strangest of all, the scorching desert wind grew chill, snowflakes swirling on its frosty breath.

“The world is changing,” Gunnar’s father had said, his voice cracked and jagged after months of chemo. “The juggernaut’s coming, son. Watch for it. Don’t let it stomp you down.”

The words had made no sense to Gunnar at the time. He’d chalked them up to the toxic sludge and misfiring brain cells that had consumed