Kane Gilmour - Ragnarok

He had told the other staff members to retire to their quarters. The pheromones made them highly suggestible. By the time its influence began to wear off and they ventured back into the lab, it would be too late.

He stared up at the glowing portal, feeling the warmth of it washing over his face. It was beautiful. Up close, the brilliance of the light was painful to his eyes; his eyelids kept trying to shut, but he willed them open until tears flowed from his face. Every time he looked at it, he remembered his one and only trip through to the other side. The colors. The landscape. The dire wolves. And Fenrir. He hadn’t spoken to the Lord in two days. He ached to hear from Her again. Or was she a him? He honestly didn’t know, but preferred to think of Her as being female. Men just weren’t that beautiful.

He didn’t really have anything to report. The portal wouldn’t grow to sufficient size for hours yet, but he couldn’t wait to hear from Her again.

He knelt on the floor and bowed his head.

One of the dire wolves came over to him and sniffed the air around him, cocking its head left and right, its huge eyes dilating from the brilliance of the portal. Then it stepped up to the wall of the energy sphere and through it.

Fossen remained kneeling on the concrete floor. His knees and shins protested, but he refused to move. Minutes passed and he stayed still, allowing his thoughts to empty, until he focused only on his breathing.

Then it came, as he knew it would. The hairs on the back of his neck raised and the skin on his arms tightened with gooseflesh.

The voice.

Her voice.

Is it ready, Fossen?

The voice was just above a whisper, but it slid through his mind like a snake. Fossen knew the voice was only in his head, and that it came from the portal. But it sounded like she stood right next to him, uttering the words into his ear. He knew that wasn’t the case. If the weak-willed lab techs were in the room, they would hear nothing. But Fossen could hear Her in his mind. Only he and a select few others, like Schroder and Edmund Kiss, had been able to hear it, at first like a nagging thought in the dark recesses of the subconscious, and later something more. Fossen loved that voice with every part of his being.

“Soon, My Lord. Soon. The portal should be ready in several hours. It is still growing, but we have enough energy to open it to the full size and keep it open and stable. All our work is nearly complete.”

You will be rewarded.

“Thank you, my Lord,” Fossen hesitated. “We have had some problems, though. Three intruders.”

I am aware.

Of course She is, Fossen thought, but continued his report anyway, if only to extend the length of their conversation. “One is now contained and another is here with me, under Your influence.”

I feel her, he thought. A shiver run through his body. His mouth watered. He shared Her hunger.

And the third? The voice grew serious.

“The dire wolves are dealing with her outside. She poses little threat.”

I do not wish to have anything upset our plans, Fossen. I will send more of my children. They will find her.

Fossen nodded. Of course.

I will join you soon, Fossen. We will not be apart much longer.

Fossen raised his head to see dire wolves coming out of the portal. As they emerged, the first sniffed the air and looked at him. He pointed in the direction of the door leading to the outside of the facility. The dire wolf loped on all fours toward the door. And then they kept coming, following the first toward the door.

Fossen lost count after thirty arrived and more kept coming.

“Will you send all of them, my Lord?”

These are but a few grains of sand from the beach, Fossen.

Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway

Asya fought the wave of happiness overwhelming her. Being Russian, she wasn’t accustomed to such radiant joy. It fit her like a too-tight sweater, choking her at the neck and chafing in her armpits. She struggled to comprehend how she had become so delighted with life. When she focused on the issue, she could remember Rook, the pit with the dead things and marching Rook at gunpoint back to the pit filled with the little corpses. It was harder to remember how she had become so happy. When she thought about the round wall of light, she felt only warmth and contentment. And then she would forget-everything-and would have to start over, by focusing on Rook.

When thinking back to Rook, and how she met him, and how she had come to this place, it made her angry. The anger countered the bliss. That, and the anger and the frustration felt more natural for her. More Russian. So, she stopped trying to focus on Rook and instead turned her attention to the abduction of her parents.

The thought that someone would take her mother and father filled her with a deep rage. That the same people would abduct her and take her aboard a ship-the ship on which she had met Rook-bound for who knew where, filled her with a desire for vengeance.

Things had gone easily for Asya as a child. But as adulthood had neared, she was given two choices: ballet, for which she had a natural talent, or medicine. Both options would be well respected and would allow her to move from the middle class to the upper echelons of stardom, or at least cement her role in the new Russian middle class.

She had shocked her family by choosing the army instead.

Her athletic abilities helped her excel in combat training, but she was too defiant to rise in the ranks, and was already hindered by the fact that she was a woman. She wasn’t interested in rank, anyway. She just wanted a real experience in her life. She served her time in the infantry, and then when the chance came to leave the service, she did. She traveled around Russia and even went abroad a few times. She thought about settling down somewhere, but for now, she had been happy to keep on the move and see some sights. She was almost to that place she had been seeking-a place of inner contentment bred from pleasure with the decisions she had made instead of those decisions made for her. Then the men that Rook had killed captured her on the streets of Murmansk.

A life interrupted. Her life, interrupted.

The anger she felt filled her like an inflating blimp. She let it rise, pushing out any semblance of happiness. She could now picture the attack on Rook and the anger she’d felt toward the mob. She pictured the people and the injuries they had sustained. She understood now, after having been forced by her bliss to march Rook to the pit, that the others had been under the influence of the glowing wall of light as well.

She became furious.

An entire village of people. Controlled. Their lives stolen. Brutalized!

She let all of it feed her anger. As though a hypnotist had just snapped his fingers, her mind returned in a flash.

Asya Machtcenko opened her eyes and found she was sitting in a chair, in a dark room. It was a computer lab with several desk workstations and flat-screen monitors. All sensations of being controlled were gone. She recalled sending Rook to his doom in the pit. She also remembered handing him the LED and telling him not to drop it. She hoped he had listened to her.

And where is Queen? she wondered.

She got up and looked down at herself. At some point, she had put on a white lab coat. She grimaced. I am no man’s lackey. She was about to take it off, but changed her mind. It might help her move through the lab unnoticed. She needed to get to Rook and see if she could help him.

How long have I been under its control? How long have I been unaware of the things around me?

She stood and scanned the computer displays. They were all on, even though no one sat at any of the stations. She wondered idly where all the money for this equipment had come from. Rook had said the town was remote and they didn’t even have telephones or wireless coverage. The entire lab was covert and underground. To Asya’s way of thinking, a government had to be involved. Possibly even her own.