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

and passed the other völva on their way down the hall. Ray’s shirt was half torn off, and her skirt was pushed up almost to her waist, leaving very little to the imagination. Mimi was on her back, still stark naked, her legs around Rayleigh’s waist, arms around her neck.

“Giddyap,” she said and reached back to give Ray an echoing smack on the ass. “Outta the way, Gun, this horsey’s gotta run.”

“You two really are acting like weirdos,” Gunnar said. He pressed up against the wall to let Ray run past, then gave Mimi a quick slap on the ass as she passed.

They both yelped and disappeared down the hall as the big man made his way to the kitchen. He threw together some simple sandwiches, made a mental note to cook more bacon for breakfast, then tossed everything onto a serving tray. By the time he’d finished and carried the food to the dining room, the völva were gathered around the table. Mimi sat at the foot, Bridget to her right and Rayleigh to her left. Mimi had found some clothes that were a little snug for Ray and way too short on Bridget. Despite their ill-fitting outfits they all looked a little giddy, and the lights from their foreheads had faded.

“Food,” Bridget said with a guttural moan. “Thank you so much. I’m exhausted.”

Each of the women grabbed a sandwich and laid into them with ferocious bites. Gunnar followed suit. When they’d devoured their sandwiches, the völva all leaned back in their chairs and let out gusty sighs.

“You ladies have time to answer a question before you go into a food coma?” Gunnar asked after he’d polished off his own snack.

“Ask away, oh Jarl,” Ray said. “We humble völva live to serve you.”

“Fuck that,” Mimi said. “But go ahead. Ask your question.”

“What did you mean about Gungnir staying in the pyramid until I take it or I fall?” Gunnar asked Bridget.

“It’s hard to describe,” she said, carefully considering each word. “My powers are sort of waking up, a little at a time. I can see little pieces of the future, like how I knew you needed to activate the lodge. I don’t have much control over what I see like that. It just happens.

“Other than that...I’m not strong enough to change the future, exactly. But I can make a version of the future more likely to come to pass. I tied some knots in the Wyrd around Gungnir, making it unlikely that it will change position until its fate is either united with yours or that becomes impossible.”

Gunnar considered what she’d said, and a hundred uses for that ability jumped into his head. “Then find a version of the future where the Behemoth dies of a heart attack and I find Gungnir without a fight.”

Bridget laughed then, a musical sound that reminded Gunnar of a wind chime in a winter’s breeze. “I wish it were that easy,” she said. “It’s much harder than I made it sound, and every time I mess with the future, even a little, it carries a steep price.”

“A price she doesn’t fully understand,” Ray added. “Fate is tricky, babe. Mimi and I can use our powers more easily than Bridget. We can access them using the hamingja, and we can recharge that power from our connection to you, or by taking it from our foes.”

“Just what kind of powers do you have?” Gunnar asked Rayleigh. “Bridget can glimpse the future and mess with the Wyrd. What do you have?”

“I can see the past,” she said. “Only glimpses right now, but it helps a little. Like...during the fight, I could see a few seconds back and see which way the jötnar went. It’s not the most accurate thing, but it helped me figure out where they’d be. And, I think, there’s something else. But I can’t access it yet. Maybe if we kill some more monsters?”

“Maybe,” Gunnar mused. He had gotten taller and stronger after absorbing hamingja. Maybe that’s all it took. Pump enough energy into the völva, and they could level up to new and more impressive powers. “What about you, Mimi?”

Mimi headed into the kitchen, talking as she went. “I can tell where things are, like, right now.”

She demonstrated by grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser above the sink, wadding it up, and tossing it over her shoulder. It landed right in front of Gunnar, and she hadn’t even looked before she tossed it.

“That’s why you were such a good shot at Cal’s,” Gunnar said. “What’s the range on that?”

“Not far,” Mimi said. “And it gets less accurate the farther out I look. It’s really dead-on out to about fifteen feet and pretty crap after that. That’s why I needed Bridget’s and Ray’s help to find the spear.”

“Maybe we should spend some time harvesting hamingja,” Gunnar said. “Could you use that power if we got it for you, Bridget?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not. That’s...hamingja is sort of a future that hasn’t happened yet. Using that power to tamper with the potential strands of the Wyrd is impossible. It’s like plugging an extension cord’s male end into the female end of the same cord.”

Gunnar grunted and rotated his glass in front of him. “That sucks,” he said. “Do you know how long it will be before you can use your power again?”

Bridget frowned. “Eight hours, at least. Messing with the Wyrd requires a sacrifice of my energy, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to play around with that. I did it today because we have to find that relic.”

The bodyguard nodded and leaned back in his chair. “I won’t ask you to do it again unless we don’t have a choice.”

“At least we know where the spear is,” Mimi said as she returned from the kitchen with four glasses of tequila. “There’s only one black pyramid in Vegas.”

“The Luxor,” Gunnar agreed. “That’s on the south end of the Strip.”

Ray shrugged and leaned back in her chair. “It’s only