Page 6 of The Devil's Viking

Frustrated at his own thoughts, Viking turned on the radio again. 80’s music was his favorite time-killer and distraction, and it always managed to soothe him, even when things got really bad. He started to sing along with Duran Duran, willing himself to just relax into his life again, reminding himself that he was almost home and back at work. Back to the places and people that he loved.

But what he wasreallydoing was ignoring the fact that he was singing through gritted teeth and desperately trying to ward off a dark sense of foreboding. Or worse, wrestling down a sinking feeling that he’d dropped a pretty major ball on the Utah job. Like he’d failed to bury every piece of evidence back there in that forest; like something had snuck up and then clung on to him in that darkness, and he couldn’t shake it off because he couldn’t see it.

Like he was bringing trouble with him –trouble that he didn’t even know was there.

Chapter Three

Uinta Mountains, Utah

The Garden of Divine Light

Eleven women stood in the corner of the women’s dormitory room, very silent and still in their long white nightgowns. Normally the women would be dressed and at their chores right now, while the men slumbered on for another four hours before rolling out of their beds to sparkling floors and steamy showers, hot coffee and fresh-baked bread.

Not today, though. Today was definitelynotbusiness as usual.

“Servant Rose already informed the Master about what’s happening,” Guardian Michael told a yawning and grumpy Guardian Jonah. “You need to wake up and get your head on straight, because he’ll be here any second and he’s gonna have questions about what you saw in this room last night.”

The two men shot baleful looks over at the huddled women, who all flinched and pressed their backs against the wall. No, the men weren’t hitting them – at least not yet – but if Iris wasn’t found soon, things might well turn physical, they knew. If it got bad enough and went on long enough, they’d probably start confessing to things they hadn’t done or eventhoughtof doing, just to make it stop. The women had all been inthatsituation before and more than once: Gideon assured them that the discipline was good for them and kept them honest and pure, despite the fact that they were the embodiment of Original Sin.

“I didn’t seeanything,” Guardian Jonah said with a sullen twist to his thin lips. “After the Ritual, I dropped the dumb slut off at her bed and left.”

The men looked over at the corner again, this time zeroing in on Servant Violet. Guardian Jonah glared at her and motioned with his head, his cheeks already purple with rage.

“Come here, bitch. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

Ever-obedient, Violet pushed herself off the wall right away but her steps faltered when she saw the massive shape in the door.

The women stood frozen and staring at the concrete floor, barely breathing as the man entered the dormitory with his measured stride. As always, he brought to mind the strangest combination of jungle cat and cobra – he was a predator circling and stalking his prey, and yet also seemed to be tightly coiled up and perfectly still.

Either way, he was always watching for weakness, always waiting for a chance to strike. The thing about this man was that he went for the jugular every time, fast and fierce – and he never missed. His effect on the Guardians was equally visible and immediate, as the men straightened their uniforms and their spines and fell silent, waiting for the Master to speak.

Gideon stopped in the dead center of the room, almost as if he’d measured the distance exactly with a ruler, and looked around at his Guardians and women-servants. As expected, nobody met his intense, ice-blue eyes so he took his time to look at everyone – reallylookat them – to gauge what was going on beneath the surface.

All he saw was confusion, panic and fear. His three favorite emotions.

“Guardians,” he said, knowing that his quiet voice was the one that terrified his followers the most: it was the calm before the storm that was about to break everything and everyone. “Tell me what you know.”

“Master,” Guardian Jonah said. “I saw Servant Iris last night, when I brought Servant Violet back here to bed.”

“What was Iris doing?” Gideon asked.

“Nothing, Master. I mean, she was sleeping, so well… nothing really.”

“Are yousurethat she was sleeping?” Gideon asked, his voice a blade wrapped in silk. “Did you do a standard bed-check, as demanded by protocol when doing a post-Ritual walkthrough of the dorm?”

Jonah hesitated, torn between telling a lie (which was bad) and telling the truth (which was worse), becauseof coursehe hadn’t checked on a bunch of drugged-out sluts and why would he? He almost never did. The wholepointof drugging them, after all, was to get time off from the constant watching and monitoring, from the endless walking in circles and around perimeters. Jonah followed every rule to the letter in every other way, every minute of every day, except once the women-slaves were in bed.

Four years ago, when he’d first been made one of Gideon’s twelve Guardians, he’d done the bed-checks religiously, severely, proudly… he’d shone the light in the women’s faces, looking for eye movement, and he’d turned them over without warning, looking for genuine floppiness in the limbs. Sometimes he’d even twisted their nipples or yanked their hair, to see if they felt any pain. Now he just saw a group of pathetic doped-out bitches and a chance to relax for the night an hour earlier. He wasn’t the only one with this attitude, but he was the one on the hot seat now, so he’d better just come clean.

Gideon knew everything anyway. He always did.

Jonah took a deep breath, lowered his head. “Master, Servant Iris was in her bed. I know that. But I didn’t check with the light and the turning over test. I – I also didn’t do a walkthrough of the woman’s building.” He gulped, mentally running through the list of possible punishments to come, prayed hard that he didn’t get blasted with freezing water in the basement. “I – I failed in my duty, and I’m sorry.”

Gideon looked right on through him with that other-worldly blue gaze; it was clear that he was waiting for more. The thing was that therewasn’tany more: Iris had been there, the dorm had been silent and still, Jonah hadn’t seen or heard anything.

Time to throw suspicion on the dumb sluts, then. What other play did he have?

“But –” He threw a glance at the women. “But Servant Violet was still awake when I left the dorm, Master. She drank her milk and lay down, but she wasn’t sleeping yet. Maybe… maybe Servant Iris had some help?” Jonah gulped as Gideon’s eyes focused on him more intently. “I mean – surely she’d never be able to manage escaping without a lookout or someone to get her out the front gate, right? She isn’t anythinglikesmart enough to do it alone. Is she?”

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