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

Things got really fuzzy. Hilda remembered being irritated that whatshisname had come down with a bad case of coke dick that had made him as useless as tits on a boar. She and the chick had done some stuff, but that only frustrated Hilda more. Until—

“You changed,” a woman’s voice emerged from the shower, soft and deadly. “They couldn’t keep up with you. Stupid, weak humans, afraid to join the new age. You deserve so much better.”

Two days ago, a stranger’s voice leaking out of the steamy shower would have freaked Hilda out. She’d been a business analyst then, a woman who made her money through careful examination and insightful critique of her clients’ weaknesses. Everything about her world had been black and white, neat little rows between straight lines. Black and white. Right and wrong. Rich and poor.

Living and dead.

But old Hilda was gone.

And new Hilda wasn’t scared of a single thing.

“How the hell did you get in my shower?” Hilda asked. “Come on out where I can see you before I come in there and rip your head off.”

The woman in the shower laughed, and the scent of burning wood and old ash filled the air. The fogged-up shower door gusted open, filling the bathroom with swirling ribbons of white steam and acrid black smoke. A figure moved through the turbulent clouds, long and sleek as a tiger. Before Hilda could move, fingers closed around her throat and an arm curled around her waist. The tall figure who held her emerged from the steam and smoke, her beautiful face wild and cruel beneath the twisted crown of antlers that jutted from her head. “Here I am, precious girl,” the woman said. When she spoke, flakes of ash drifted from her cheeks, revealing seams of living flame. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

Hilda felt a brush of panic. The gorgeous, terrifying woman held her in an iron grip, helpless as a kitten. She couldn’t free herself, no matter how hard she tried. “Who are you?”

“I am Hyrrokkin,” the woman said with a smoky laugh. She lowered her face to Hilda’s, brushing their lips together, tracing the edges of Hilda’s front teeth with a tongue that tasted like smoke. “Your mother. Your mistress. Your goddess.”

And as the words fell into Hilda’s mouth, she knew the woman was right. This amazing creature had paved the way for Hilda’s change. She’d given her the gift of monstrousness, and she wanted to give her so much more. A life lived wild and free, no lines or bars, just the rule of tooth and claw. The weak would die, and the strong, like Hilda, would devour them.

Hilda’s body reacted to that dream. She bit the woman’s lip, sucked on her scorched flesh, and raked at her flesh with black claws. She wanted to consume Hyrrokkin; she wanted to be consumed by her. The need fluttered inside her, frantic as a bat trapped in a sunlit cage of glass. The jötunn tried to buck against Hyrrokkin, desperate to grind her groin against the woman, to feel Hyrrokkin’s burnt meat pressed up against the swollen, sensitive folds at her core. The need was sickening in its power, and Hilda was helpless to deny it.

“Not yet,” Hyrrokkin whispered, her tongue tracing the edges of Hilda’s left ear. “Hold on to your desire, let its fires burn the weakness from your body. There is a higher purpose for you, Hilda, than to be my plaything. Now listen and become my völva.”

Sticky-sweet words poured into Hilda’s ears, filling her with shuddering awe. The world peeled away, one layer at a time, to reveal the dark, glistening heart of chaos beneath. Threads of black light emerged from that primal maw, screaming beams of power that unraveled the skein of reality wherever they touched it. They sang a song of despair and madness to Hilda, and she felt the words burn themselves into her core. She gasped, then screamed, as understanding of what she’d become, of what she could do, flooded her mind and scorched away the last remaining tinges of weak humanity from her.

The release was volcanic, and her body sent a gushing stream pouring down the insides of her thighs. Hyrrokkin laughed as racking gasps shook Hilda’s body from head to toe, transporting her beyond realms of pleasure and pain that any mortal had ever experienced. Hilda’s mind expanded, stretched out across time and space to show her the object of Hyrrokkin’s desire: a golden ring, pure and plain, its surface so smooth it seemed liquid, nestled between the teeth of an enormous skull staring up at the desert sky.

“Find it,” Hyrrokkin whispered in Hilda’s ear. “Hold it. Until the time is right, and the way is made clear to you. You are my völva; my gift to you is smoke and shadow. Use it to claim what is rightfully ours.”

The mother of monsters stroked Hilda’s sex with the tip of one index finger as she spoke, sealing the words in Hilda’s soul with the heat of her desire. The jötunn sobbed, her mind undone by the exhausting, alien, sensation. She screamed, stretched wide between heaven and hell. The world turned black, then red, and Hilda fell.

THE WATER POURING FROM the shower head was ice cold when Hilda woke. The head had somehow gotten pointed through the open shower door and had soaked the jötunn to the bone. She shivered and sat up, pulling the pieces of her mind back together again. She remembered Hyrrokkin with a jolt and scrambled to her feet, eager to touch the smoking woman again. She banged her head against the underside of the counter, yelped, and spun around so quickly her tail shattered the shower door. The crash of falling safety glass was like wind chimes to Hilda’s ears, and she threw back her head and howled with exultation. She grabbed hold of the counter and tore it free of the wall,