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

The surviving creature scrambled from under the body of its friend, snatched a radio from its belt, and keyed the mic. “Hork is down!” he howled. “I repeat—”

Gunnar hoisted the jötunn off the floor by its bulletproof vest. He lifted it into the air and stared deep into its sunken yellow eyes. “Tell Hyrrokkin I’m coming for her,” he snarled.

Headlights blazed through the living room’s window and a vehicle’s engine roared. Tires squealed on the pavement, and Gunnar dragged the jötunn to the door.

A van had turned around in the oversized driveway and pointed its nose at the broken front gate. A monster leaned out the driver’s side window and pointed an oversized golden gun at the lodge. The creature fired off one shot after another, but the rounds missed the bodyguard and slammed into the lodge.

Enraged by the damage these assholes had done to his lodge, Gunnar hoisted the jötunn into the air, whipped it in a circle above his head, and hurled it at the vehicle. The monster spun through the air, its arms and legs spread wide like a pinwheel. It smashed into the roof of the van, denting the metal and spraying blood in every direction.

The van’s bumper scraped the asphalt and kicked up a shower of sparks as it whipped around and raced into the street. Gunnar watched his enemies retreat, his hands clenched into fists, his hate for his enemies burning bright in his stone eye.

Chapter 13

GUNNAR CURSED AT THE damage the jötunn home invasion had done to the fence. Half the gate was still upright; the other side was torn off its track. The hinges and chain that had held the broken barrier in place were shattered and useless. The bodyguard pulled the Accord out of the garage and parked it in the gap. It wasn’t much defense if another attack came, but Gunnar didn’t think they’d see their enemies again that night. The survivors had fled to their lairs with their tails tucked between their legs. It would take some time for their balls to drop again.

“Put some clothes on,” Mimi called from the garage. “If you keep walking around here with your dick out, the neighbors will talk.”

“About what?” Gunnar asked. “The hot MILF’s new boy toy?”

“I am nobody’s goddamned mom,” Mimi said. “And you’re hardly a boy, Jolly. Get back in here so we can seal this place up again.”

Gunnar sauntered back to the house, hands on his hip, throwing in a few groin thrusts to irritate Mimi. It was the least he could do since she wouldn’t stop calling him that name in front of the others. When he was safely inside, she lowered the door, then pressed a red button beside it. Thick posts rose from concealed ports in the garage’s floor. That would be a nasty surprise for anybody who tried to ram a vehicle into the garage. The posts would stop anything smaller than a tank dead in its tracks. With any luck, they’d knock a tread off a tank, too.

“How did they get in?” Gunnar asked.

“They didn’t force anything other than the gate.” Mimi frowned. “It looked like they came in through the front door, but there’s no damage there. They could’ve picked the lock, I guess. The new owners haven’t put in all the security they’d planned. Any intruders on the ground floor should’ve set off the motion sensors, but they didn’t. The assholes didn’t even cut the power line. Just flipped the breaker.”

“Hyrrokkin’s pet snake made it clear she wanted us dead, not trapped,” Gunnar said. “Let’s go back downstairs, and I’ll explain.”

Mimi locked the inner door behind them, then snapped the deadbolt in place. The problem with the security on most houses was that it wasn’t really meant to keep anybody out. It slowed the bad guys down, sometimes enough for the cops to get there and make a lot of noise to chase them away. But in a world without rules, most modern doors weren’t much of a defense against invaders. They’d have to figure out something more permanent before the monsters came calling again.

They climbed down the maintenance ladder, dropped through the open top of the elevator, and carefully made their way through the car’s shredded metal doors. The jötnar had really done a number on the lift. The whole damned thing would have to be replaced. Not that there were any elevator repairmen around to do the job. That was the part of the apocalypse most people didn’t talk about. When shit broke down, there was no one left to fix it. Eventually, the world would slouch its way back to a preindustrial age where everyone had to raise their own food and hunt their own game—or starve.

And maybe that was all right. A simpler, more orderly way of life was possible now.

All the bodyguard had to do to enjoy it was save the world.

He chuckled. The thought didn’t bother him as much as he’d thought it would. Maybe this is what he’d always been meant to do.

Ray waved to them as she dragged one of the jötunn corpses toward the elevator. Although she was a third of the creature’s size, she didn’t seem put out by the effort of moving its body. The hamingja she’d absorbed from the fight had given her impressive strength. “We need to lug these things out of here. They’re already starting to stink.”

They’d killed eight jötnar, not including the one upstairs. The bodyguard grabbed the horn on Ray’s monster. “Nice work, badass. You drag them to the elevator, and I’ll haul them upstairs.”

While the job wasn’t any fun, it wasn’t difficult, either. The strength he’d gained from activating the Hall of Heroes stayed with him. He instinctively knew that it would as long as he remained inside the lodge. It was a nice bonus, and it made the miserable job of hauling out the monster garbage a lot easier. Within an hour, all the bodies were outside.

Gunnar severed the