Chicks Kick Butt

“I know,” Tanya replied, and opened her cell phone, then punched in the numbers that would detonate the charges they’d rigged in the tunnels beneath the building. “Call 911 to minimize the blaze and to keep it from spreading to other buildings right after I push SEND .”

Anastas nodded and Tanya watched a slow smile creep across his face. She depressed the SEND button with a French-manicured nail.

The building exploded in an orange inferno. Windows shattered beneath glass-melting heat. Almost knocked off their feet from the force of the blast, they hunkered down against the adjacent building that protected them. Heat and flames licked at broken bricks and twisted metal. Shrapnel from the rubble whizzed by them, but Tanya wrapped them both in a dark energy shield as Anastas hugged her against him tightly. After a moment they both looked up to stare at their handiwork. Humans snapped out of their daze and rushed back and forth outside screaming, but no vampires had exited the building.

“You have sent a large message, I believe.”

“They are gonna be so pissed.”

“Yes … and now that we have visited the Russians, I know of this nice little Polish blood bar in Queens where we can also get a drink with no troubles. Shall we?”

Tanya just shook her head and laughed.

MIST Susan Krinard

—an ax age, a sword age —shields are riven— a wind age, a wolf age— before the world goes headlong. No man will have mercy on another.

  SAN FRANCISCO, PRESENT DAY

The sword sliced the air inches in front of Mist’s face. She swung Kettlingr to intercept the blow, bracing herself and catching the blade in midstroke. Metal clanged on metal with glorious, discordant music. Her opponent bore down hard for several seconds, his furious gaze fixed on hers, and abruptly disengaged.

“One of these days,” Eric said, his face breaking out in a grin, “I’m going to beat you.”

Mist lowered her own sword and caught her breath. Perspiration trickled from her hairline over her forehead, soaking the fine blond hairs that had come loose from her braid, and her body ached pleasantly from the hard workout. She grinned back at Eric, who sheathed his sword and reached for the towel lying across the bench against the wall.

“You’re good,” she said. “Almost as good as I am.”

He grimaced and scrubbed the towel across his face. “I outweigh you by eighty pounds,” he said. “I don’t want to think about what you could do to me if you were my size.”

Size had nothing to do with it, though Mist hadn’t yet found a way to tell Eric why he’d never be able to beat her. She’d even thought once or twice of letting him win, male pride being such a fragile thing, but instinct was too strong.

There had been a time when her kind had been no more than choosers of the battle-slain, bearing the trappings of war themselves, but never baring their swords. Ragnarök had changed Odhinn’s handmaidens, as it had changed so much else.

Mist sheathed her own sword and stroked the runes engraved on the hilt. She had no right to pride of any kind. She had but one purpose in Midgard, and it had been her only reason for living after everything she had known was gone. The fact that she had permitted herself a relationship with a man after so many centuries was an aberration, a reckless act of defiance against her fate.

And yet Eric had roused her from the despair of one who waits for a redemption that will never come. He was not afraid of a woman who shared his strength in body and will. He’d taught her to laugh again. And when she looked into Eric’s face—the face of a true warrior of the Norse, broad and handsome and fearless—she could not help but love him.

“I’m headed for the shower,” Eric said, catching her glance and giving her a sly look in return. He padded toward her, remarkably graceful and light on his feet, his naked chest streaked with sweat. He lifted a tendril of her hair, rolling it between his fingers. “Care to join me? I’ll wash your back if you’ll wash mine.”

His meaning could not be clearer, and she was eager enough to join him in bed after his long absence. But she dodged aside when he bent to kiss her.

“There’s something I have to take care of first,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of her rejection. “I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Eric let her go and winked. “I’ll be waiting.” He strode away, and Mist was left wondering what was wrong with her.

But of course she knew. Over the past few months, truly happy for the first time since her voluntary exile, she had begun to acknowledge just how much she had changed. Little by little she had accepted the unthinkable: she had truly become a part of this world … the one world that had survived Ragnarök’s ice and fire. Midgard, a place without magic or gods who intervened in the affairs of men.

Of course, Midgard’s very survival was a puzzle in itself. The prophecies had foretold destruction and renewal, the return of Baldr from Niflheimr, a new beginning for gods and mankind in a paradise of peace and plenty.

No such paradise had ever arisen, for Midgard had remained untouched by the chaos of war between the Aesir and Loki’s children. War and famine and sorrow continued unbroken, and the Aesir were forgotten. No one, not even the sons of Odhinn himself, would come to claim the treasure she guarded. It had become obsolete. Like her.

With a sigh Mist walked out of the exercise room, past the blacksmith shop that occupied a third of the warehouse flat, and into her small kitchen. She could hear Eric singing in the shower. Geisl jumped up on the kitchen table and chirruped, demanding his rightful share of affection. Stjarna bounded up beside him, green-gold eyes far too intelligent for any ordinary cat.

Mist picked Stjarna up and stroked his dense gray fur. Breeders called them Norwegian Forest Cats now; a thousand years ago they had been sacred to the Lady.

So much lost.

“Do you think it’s the same with the others?” she asked him. “Have they given up, too?”

Stjarna licked her hand sympathetically. He didn’t know any more than she did, and she’d lost contact with the other valkyrjur decades ago. Only two other survirors of the final battle lived in San Francisco, and Vídarr and Váli had abandoned the old ways soon after she’d settled here. Mist had despised them for it then. Now, settled in a life with a man she had come to love—a life where her only “enemies” were muggers, petty thieves, and the occasional gangbanger—she finally understood.

Setting Stjarna back on the table, she gave Geisl a brief pat and walked down the short hall to the second bedroom. The rune-wards that guarded the door had never been disturbed except by Mist herself. She released them with a word, lifted the key on its chain from around her neck, and unlocked the door.

Two dozen swords, axes, daggers, and knives, each lovingly forged by her own hand, hung in oak-and-glass display cases built into the walls. Mist locked the door behind her, passed by the swords and axes, and went directly to the knife case, which held eight weapons with hand-carved grips and edges sharp enough to slice flesh like tissue. Each knife was unique, but no one of them appeared substantially different from any other except in subtle elements of design and embellishment.

The one she chose, like the others, was perfectly balanced for a hand that would never wield it in battle, a fine object that might have found a home in some collector’s case among his or her other most valued possessions. But when Mist closed her fingers around the grip, it sang. Sang of a past she could scarcely remember. An axe age, a sword age. An age of heroism and blood and doom.

Mist knew the magics. She knew the runes and spells and songs, though her skill was only enough to guard what she held in her hand. The chant she sang now came without thought, for she had sung it a hundred times. A