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

“We’ll get through it,” he said, searching for words that would comfort not just Bridget, but all of them. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Any of you.”

Ray’s eyes flashed with dark fire at his words, and she set her mouth into a thin, angry line.

“We’ll look out for each other,” she corrected him. “Nobody gets left behind. Nobody runs off to play hero. We’re in this together.”

Bridget nodded, a little uncertainly. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

THE DEEPER THEY MOVED into the residential neighborhoods that surrounded the University of Las Vegas, the quieter things got. Signs of violence—shattered windows, bloodstained sidewalks, and more than a few bodies lying broken and discarded on neat lawns—were still everywhere, but the wider roads sheltered by palm trees weren’t blocked by wrecks or rubble. They had more room to walk, and the völva spread out on either side of Gunnar, hurrying to keep up with his long strides.

They’d even allowed themselves some small talk, though they kept their voices low and their eyes peeled for threats. The conversation had turned toward their newfound abilities, and Gunnar overflowed with questions.

“How did you know about the Hall of Heroes?” he asked Bridget. “I mean, that it would help us?”

Bridget got a faraway look in her eyes and briefly folded her hands behind her back. The glowing dot on her forehead shone brightly as she considered the question.

“I don’t have control over it,” she said. “It’s like when you have a cramp in your calf and you have to stretch your foot to make it go away. Only this is in my head, and it only lets up when I let the vision in or ignore it until it isn’t relevant anymore.”

While it was very useful having an ally who could see into the future, Gunnar wished she had better control over the ability. It brought another question to mind. “How do you decide when to accept the vision?”

Bridget kicked a pebble on the road, and it skittered into the gutter and bounced off the curb before vanishing into a storm grate. She had that faraway look in her eyes again. “I don’t know, exactly. The brief glimpses I’ve gotten before, like how I knew what to do with the Valknut, were little peeks that didn’t take much out of me. Finding Gungnir, though, and tying the knots in the Wyrd...that was a lot more of an investment.”

Something burst from the front door of a house and charged. Its claws clicked on the sidewalk as it shot toward them, a low-moving blur that unleashed an unholy racket. Gunnar swung his shotgun up, his finger easing back to take the slack out of the trigger. Bridget suddenly slapped the barrel toward the sky.

A dog. Stupid and yappy.

“It’s okay,” Bridget said, kneeling down as the Chihuahua stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and barked its fool head off. “We won’t hurt you, little guy.”

She extended a hand toward the creature, but it held its ground and bared its teeth. “Like that,” Bridget explained. “I knew it wasn’t a threat, even if I couldn’t see exactly what it was. And I know the cute little guy won’t bite me. In a few seconds, he’ll go back—”

The Chihuahua barked once more, then turned tail and scampered back up the sidewalk and into the gloomy interior of its home. Gunnar saw a dark brown bloodstain on the doorframe and heard the buzzing of flies from inside the house. “Let’s keep moving,” he said. “That little rat made enough noise to wake the dead. Any jötnar in the neighborhood are already headed this way.”

“They moved on,” Ray said. “I get the flashes like Bridget, only I see the past. It’s hazy. I don’t get many details. I saw a small horde of jötnar headed downtown. I’m not sure how many, at least a dozen. They left late last night.”

Gunnar nodded to Ray, then raised an eyebrow in Mimi’s direction. “How about you? You get anything?”

She frowned at the question, then shook her head. “I’m not a radio antenna you can twist around to tune in Tokyo,” she grumbled. “The only time I’ve seen anything is when I was fighting or Ray and Bridge boosted me.”

They’d reached an intersection, and Gunnar looked both ways before he stepped out into it. It would be just his luck to get run over by the only moving car in Vegas. When they reached the other side, he reached out and gave Mimi’s hand a brief squeeze.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said.

“I’m not upset!” she insisted. “I’m not as strong as those two. I don’t know why.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he promised, though he had no idea if it was true or not. Maybe if they killed all the jötnar, Odin or Freya would show up again to explain everything.

THEY’D SKIRTED THE residential neighborhoods and crossed the UNLV campus before they ran into a serious problem. The wide-open expanse of a football practice field, softball park, and tennis courts lay between Gunnar and the next group of houses and buildings they needed to reach. It was bad enough that they’d have no cover as they made their way across the strip of nothing, but the number of police cars and personnel carriers occupying that otherwise empty stretch made things much worse.

“Cops,” Mimi whispered to him. “Fuck.”

“Maybe they can help us,” Bridget offered. “We should at least go down and talk to them.”

“No,” Gunnar said. “Just watch.”

The police had gathered a group of normal-looking humans within the circle of their vehicles. All those people were on their knees, their heads lowered. Gunnar knew prisoners when he saw them. If he and the völva walked out to greet the cops, they’d end the day handcuffed alongside the rest of those unfortunate bastards. Maybe a jail cell would be safer than walking the streets of monster-haunted Vegas, but the bodyguard didn’t have time for that.

Yet, he felt a pull, too.