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

to admire the way the white skirt hugged the swaying curves of her ass as she walked away. He lay there after she’d gone and enjoyed the afterglow until he couldn’t ignore the grumbling demands of his hunger.

“Sandwiches,” he muttered and swung his long legs over the edge of the bed. He hoped there’d be something other than peanut butter and jelly. The memory of smoked meat from his dream made his stomach ache for something substantial.

As hungry as Gunnar was, though, he needed a shower to wash away the scabs of other people’s blood before he’d feel human again. While he sluiced away the previous twenty-four hours, jagged shards of his dream pushed their way into the waking world. Bit by bit, the jigsaw puzzle of the night before came together and snapped into focus. By the time Gunnar left the shower behind, he remembered all of it. The mountaintop and its goats. The jötnar fucking and feasting on the Vegas Strip. Odin, motherfucking Odin, offering him a choice and then spelling out what he had to do. None of it made any sense, but it all felt far too real to have been just a dream.

As he toweled off, Gunnar looked at his face in the steamy bathroom mirror. His stubble had grown out into a short beard, golden hair shot through with faint tinges of crimson. But what really caught his attention was his right eye. It looked red, irritated, and faintly swollen. Just like it would have if some old man had poked him with a long, bony finger.

“Fuck me,” he muttered and walked naked into the bedroom.

“Brought you some clothes,” Mimi said from the corner of the bed. Her gaze played over him, a teasing glint in her eye. Just like Rayleigh, she had a black spot the size of a pencil eraser on her forehead. “You look a little bigger than I remember. They might not fit.”

She patted the neatly folded T-shirt and pair of sweatpants on the bed next to her. Gunnar walked right over to her, pulled the shirt over his head, and smiled down at his old friend, his crotch inches from her face.

“I’ll show you bigger,” he said and reached down to pick up the sweatpants. He took his time hauling them up his legs, staying close to Mimi while he did so. If she thought she could embarrass him, she didn’t know him very well. “I heard you were making me a sandwich.”

She laughed at that and stood up, the soft edge of her Mötley Crüe tour shirt grazing the outside of his thigh. “Dream on. Now put that lady killer back in your pants and come eat. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Gunnar caught up to Mimi in the main underground house’s kitchen where Bridget and Ray were already halfway through their sandwiches. Ray had a triple-decker monstrosity layered with pastrami, ham, turkey, pickles, lettuce, tomatoes, and condiments dripping down the sides of thick slabs of rye toast. Bridget had settled for a simple turkey on white, the bread stained pink from the sriracha she’d slathered on the meat. Mimi gave Gunnar a lazy bow and gestured for him to get started building his own sandwich.

“The owners had weekly fresh food deliveries set up, just in case they ever actually needed to use this place. Can’t tell you how much I had to throw out, but they’ve got money to burn, apparently. Or did, anyway. There’s pastrami, ham, turkey, a little prosciutto, some pre-cooked bacon,” she said, “every spread known to man, lettuce, tomatoes, I think a little jar of those pepperoncinis you’re so fond of, and maybe some pickles if Bridget didn’t eat them all. There’s rye, white, and wheat bread.”

“I’m happy to chip in for groceries, but I didn’t eat all the pickles,” Bridget said around a mouthful of sandwich. A faint violet light sparked in the depths of the hole in her forehead. “I think you finished them, Mimi.”

“She’s a liar,” Mimi said and grabbed a couple slices of wheat bread from the loaf on the counter, picked up a fistful of ham, and called it good. She threw her tall, plain sandwich on one of the paper plates next to the fixings, then headed for the dining room door. “Hurry it up in there, Jolly. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

Gunnar groaned at the old nickname. The bodyguard knew if he made a big deal about how much he hated being called that, the rest of them would pick up on it and tease him mercilessly. Better to ignore it, he told himself. He grabbed glass seltzer water bottles, tucked them into the crook of his arm, and carried them into the dining room along with his sandwich. He slid a bottle of water across the table to each of them with the practiced ease of an experienced bartender.

“Thanks for the water. Between the bad dreams and being sick all night, I’m parched. Still not sure how I feel about this völva business. Don’t even think about making a joke, Jolly.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Bridget said. “Why us?”

A cold, crisp wind gusted around the table, stirring napkins and whipping the ladies’ hair around their faces. For a moment, Gunnar couldn’t see any of their faces, just masks of black, white, and red hair.

“The golden woman said we’d been chosen,” Ray said, her voice low and trembling, as if she was reliving the experience. “She told me—”

“—to follow you,” Bridget continued, her lower lip quivering. “She said we were your völva, and we could help you—”

“—build a lodge,” Mimi continued, her wide eyes staring past Gunnar at the vision that surfaced from her memories. “And we had to gather—”

“—three relics,” Ray said. “They were called—”

“The Valknut, Gungnir, and Draupnir,” Gunnar finished. “You all had the same dream?”

“Fuck,” Mimi grumbled. “Not gonna lie. I was really hoping that this was all just a fever hallucination and I’d wake up tomorrow without any of...”

Her words