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

“Fuck it,” he growled. “Give me the Hall of Heroes.”

The blood rune he’d scrawled on his arm blazed to life. The hamingja he’d absorbed fizzled and popped as it flowed out of the rune and into the symbol that hovered above the model. The Valknut symbol’s golden light shifted, slowly turning silver. When the last of the gold had vanished from the symbol, the blood rune vanished right along with it. Gunnar held his breath, waiting for a miracle.

Nothing happened.

“What the hell, Odin?” Gunnar asked. “I did the thing. Do something. Because if you don’t, I will find you and wring your scrawny neck.”

The image shuddered, and the electronic announcer’s voice cut off. A ball of cold white light appeared at the heart of the model. It grew brighter, more intense, for a handful of heartbeats.

And then it exploded.

A wave of power flooded the lodge. Gunnar’s muscles bulged with newfound strength and a shimmering haze surrounded him. Next to him, Bridget seemed to swell with power, and the aura that surrounded her was cold as deep winter’s breath.

Gunnar instinctively knew it was an effect of the Hall of Heroes. The energy had sheathed him in armor that would protect him from the worst of the jötnar’s attacks. This was no longer a mere house hidden beneath the earth. This was Gunnar’s lodge, the seat of his rule, a jarl’s fortress against the chaotic powers of the uttangard.

“All right, Odin,” Gunnar said. “You’re off the hook this time.”

Mimi and Ray were outside the door as Gunnar and Bridget exploded out of the hall. They were splattered with blood that seethed under the shifting light of the auras that surrounded them both. The dots on their foreheads gleamed with pink and gold light, and threads of the same color drifted from them toward the ceiling.

“Whatever you did knocked them back,” Ray said.

“They’re gathering near the elevator,” Mimi said, her voice distant and alien.

“They’ll attack again,” Bridget said with a shiver. “Soon.”

“Then let’s kick these freaks back to Hel before they get a chance,” Gunnar said.

They raced toward the front of the bunker to meet the charging jötnar.

Mimi clubbed the brains out of a jötunn with her shotgun’s stock. Blood splashed into the air as she swung the weapon, and Mimi screamed a banshee’s cry as the broken monster fell before her.

“You’re turning into quite the badass,” Gunnar said with a bloodthirsty grin.

“You better believe it,” Mimi laughed and fired her shotgun in unison with Gunnar.

Ray fired her weapon in a steady, precise rhythm. The smaller rounds couldn’t easily kill the jötnar, but she did solid work taking out knees and elbows. When she staggered a monster, Mimi or Gunnar finished it with point-blank shotgun blasts.

In a handful of seconds the trio had shredded five of the monsters.

More jötnar poured out of the hallway. Their howls faltered, though, when they saw the carnage splattered across the floor in front of them and the trio of resolute warriors who blocked their path.

“This is a private party,” Gunnar quipped. “And I don’t see you ugly freaks on the list.”

He charged forward, seized a jötunn’s muscled arm, and wrenched it free of the creature’s shoulder in a spray of blood and gore. He swung the makeshift club in a vicious arc, shattering the monster’s jaw. The second swing hit so hard the arm tore in half, revealing the bloody, jagged ends of the exposed radius and ulna. Gunnar rammed those sharp bones into the jötunn’s throat and ripped them sideways, severing his trachea and jugular vein. Before the beast fell, Gunnar moved on to its neighbor.

That jötunn tried to bite him, but it was too slow. When his jaws swung wide open, Gunnar thrust his hand down its throat and grabbed the base of its tongue. He tore it free, then punched the creature in the throat, once, twice, three times. Its windpipe collapsed under the blows, and it fell to its knees, drowning in its own blood.

The remaining jötunn tried to run but never had a chance. Ray and Mimi rushed past the bodyguard and pounced on the creature. Mimi grabbed the thing around the throat with one arm and took hold of its horn with the other. She rammed her knee into its back and wrenched its head hard to the side.

Ray tore the wickedly curved horn from the fallen gorilla monster’s head. She leapt into the air and rammed her makeshift weapon into the side of the jötunn’s exposed neck, shredding the flesh into ribbons and unleashing a bloody spray from severed blood vessels.

The jötunn took one step, then another before it collapsed.

The rush of energy from the dead jötnar heightened Gunnar’s senses. He felt more of the vile creatures in the house above him. He charged for the elevator, nimbly leaping over Ray and Mimi. He tossed the shotgun aside. It wouldn’t help him here. He would rip and tear and pull the jötnar apart with his bare hands. This was his place, and those who dared to defile it would die.

A single jump carried him up through the maintenance hatch to the elevator’s roof. He climbed the ladder with ease and reached the surface in seconds.

The unfortunate jötunn guarding the elevator shaft spun around, a compact submachine gun cradled in its oversized hands, eyes wide and staring at the naked, bloodsoaked nightmare that had appeared before it. The monstrosity tried to squeeze the trigger, but it was far too slow for Gunnar’s amped-up reflexes.

He swatted the weapon’s barrel to the side and ignored the bullets that stitched holes across the living room wall. His hands closed around the jötunn’s horns and twisted its head to the left, then back to the right. The creature’s vertebra gave way with a sound that reminded Gunnar of the time he’d stomped on a packet of saltines he left on the floor after a bender. He hurled the body across the room into another jötunn, who’d just realized the shit had