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

her to the kitchen where she ripped open the door to the pantry, reached inside, and banged her fist against the wall. A panel in the ceiling opened, and a cargo net unrolled from the space Mimi had just revealed. It stopped a few inches short of the floor, revealing a pair of shotguns and two bandoliers of shells. “My bosses were big fans of the right to bear arms.”

Ray burst into the kitchen through the sliding glass door with Bridget hot on her heels. “What the hell is happening?” Ray asked.

“Trouble,” Mimi answered. “Get back to the guesthouse. The bathroom door is reinforced. Stay there until we clean the shit off the fan.”

“No,” Bridget said. “You need us.”

Gunnar turned to order them to safety, but his breath caught in his throat. The dots of light on their foreheads shone like miniature suns. Mimi’s golden glow ignited, seemingly in response to the pink and violet emitted by Bridget. “What the hell—”

A loud crash from the elevator cut Gunnar’s question short. There was no more time for talking. The wolves were at the door.

He pinched the carabiner that clamped the shotgun to the netting and gave the weapon a quick once over. It was a Mossberg 590A1 with a pistol grip and ambidextrous stock. The three-dot tritium sights were functional, even in these shitty lighting conditions, but he doubted he’d need them at this range. An ammo carrier on the weapon’s buttstock held six shells, while a second attached to the Picatinny rail carried another half dozen. He was familiar with this make and knew it held eight rounds in the tube, plus one in the chamber. There were four groups of eight shells on the bandolier, and he hoped it would be enough as he slung it over his shoulder.

“Get them guns they can handle,” he growled to Mimi and took off through the sliding glass door. “Meet me at the elevator.”

The squeal of tearing metal raised Gunnar’s hackles. These assholes had broken into his lodge and come after his people. He’d paint the walls with their blood before this was over.

Gunnar stopped at the edge of the house, glanced around the corner, and gritted his teeth at what he saw. A skeletal jötunn squeezed through the shredded doors of the elevator. The thing slithered forward on a serpent’s tail, vestigial legs dangling from where the hips should have been. A pair of ruler-straight horns emerged from the tattered skin of the creature’s forehead, their tips glinting in the red light.

The creature roared and slithered forward, its long tail smashing into the walls on either side of the narrow hall leading away from the elevator. The thing’s only weapons were the long, bony spines that extended from its hands. Given its reach and the strength of the last jötunn Gunnar had encountered, that was more than enough to turn the lodge into a slaughterhouse.

The sight of the creature spurred Gunnar to action. He didn’t care how many allies were coming down the elevator shaft behind it. He didn’t care that it was so tall it had to hunch forward to keep from scraping its head against the ceiling. All that mattered was that a spawn of chaos was in his house. He stormed ahead, raised the weapon to his shoulder, and bellowed a challenge.

“Óðinn á yðr alla!” Gunnar’s roar rebounded from the walls with unearthly force, drowning out another electric whoop from the alarm. He closed to within twenty feet of the monstrosity and squeezed the Mossberg’s trigger. The muzzle flash replaced the red tinge from the emergency LEDs with an orange-white flare. The jötunn screamed as double-aught buck slammed into its chest with devastating effect.

Blood spurted from an ugly crater in the right side of the creature’s torso. For one beautiful moment, the bodyguard thought he’d finished the damned thing with a heart shot. Then the beast screamed and flung itself at Gunnar, arms outstretched to strip the flesh from his bones.

In the split second before the creature could pounce on him, the bodyguard cycled his weapon and fired again. The shotgun’s heavy load punched through the jötunn’s guts and blasted its left kidney out its back. Blood gushed from the terrible wound, but it wasn’t enough to stop the maniacal beast’s assault. The creature’s body slammed into Gunnar and rocked him back on his heels, pinning the shotgun against his chest.

“Surrender, pawn,” the hideous creature hissed, its bloody saliva splattering Gunnar’s face. “Hyrrokkin will not rest until you are slain. You should not have spurned her offer. Now not even this hole in the ground will save you from the wrath of her faithful.”

More of the creatures poured through the elevator’s wrecked doors armed only with hulking bodies, long claws, and gleaming fangs. It was impossible for Gunnar to see past his foe well enough to know how many enemies had joined the battle, but he’d heard far too many new voices join the fray for comfort.

“You tell your bitch boss she’s welcome to come after me herself, if she’s not too chickenshit,” he growled and thrust the shotgun into the snaky jötunn’s chest. Gunnar was dimly aware the thing’s claws had opened a nasty trio of gashes in his left shoulder, but the pain was a distant annoyance. The rush of combat was on him, and the lust to annihilate the monsters who’d invaded his lodge flooded his veins with adrenaline.

Before the half-snake monstrosity could get its hands on him again, Gunnar rammed the shotgun’s barrel under its chin and squeezed the trigger. The buckshot blew through the top of the jötunn’s head and painted the ceiling with its brains.

A rush of energy flowed out of the dying creature, and the Valknut showed it to Gunnar. The light soaked into his skin, illuminating the blood rune he’d drawn on his arm. Now that the Valknut was bonded with him, Gunnar could even tell that the rune was a combination of Dagaz, meaning awakening, and Kenaz, which could