Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Thirty seconds later, Bart walked into the kitchen. His hands were still shaking. “I can’t afford to lose her, Susan. Jillian’s the best accountant in the whole state. She already scares the shit out of me; I can’t deal with her being mad with us.”
“It’s okay, Bart.” I walked him back to the table. “We can fix this. We’ll find Audrina, and smooth things over with the vampires later.” A thrum of anxiety pulsed through me. “Do we know why the berserkers would have wanted me in the first place?”
“They would only have two reasons for abducting you,” Cress said. “First, they might have aligned themselves with Connor already and came to get you on his orders. If this is the case, then Audrina is probably already dead.”
I closed my eyes for a second and prayed that wasn’t true. “What’s the other reason?”
“They want you to close their stone for them. Berserkers are a proactive species, and they value the strength that their magic gives them. I could imagine them taking the initiative and abducting the One of Every Blood to secure their power against Connor.”
“And again, Audrina might already be dead.”
“Not yet.” Cress shook her head. “She’s only been gone for a couple of hours.
Berserkers are limited in their magical abilities, so they would have no way of knowing if she was the Chosen One or not.
They might rough her up if she doesn’t give them what they ask, but they won’t kill her straight away.
” She pursed her lips, looking thoughtful.
“If it were me, I would torture her for at least a week before giving up.”
I massaged my temples, trying to beat back the fear so I could think properly. “Bart, how did you know that they were berserkers?”
“I know a berserker when I see one. My ex-boyfriend Johnathan is a berserker.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Was that the big guy from San Diego who kept trying to get you onto the green juice diet?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm. He seemed normal to me. But then again, I didn’t realize your accountant was a smoking-hot vampire.”
“You can tell if you know what to look for. Jillian’s trademark gloves and sunglasses aren’t just for aesthetics, you know.
Berserkers have an intense look in their eyes.
When they tugged Audrina away from me, one of them turned a little purple.
” He raised a finger. “And before you ask, I’ve already called Johnathan and asked him where Audrina could be, but he’s in Cancun right now, and has no idea about any of this.
Although he did tell me that there was something big going on in their world that’s upsetting them all.
Some sort of dissent in the berserker ranks, or something like that. ”
I tapped my finger on my lips, thinking. “I need more information. I need a visual?—”
The floorboards rumbled, and a whiteboard slid up and out of a crack between planks, rising like a partition in front of the table. “Perfect, thanks Violet!”
She buzzed underneath my feet, preening, while I stood up and picked up the marker.
“Right,” I said, uncapping the marker. “Berserkers.” I wrote the word at the top of the board.
“So far, I know that they look like humans, except when they’re using their powers.
And when they use their powers, they go muscly and purple.
” I wrote human looking, jacked Grimace types on the board.
“What else can you give me? Do they have any other powers?”
“No,” Nate said. “No other magic. They rely wholly on their physical strength during battle. They prime themselves by undergoing physically traumatic experiences, so that they have something to draw on when they want to use their power.”
“What kind of traumatic experiences?”
“Endurance conditioning.” Nate shrugged. “Going for long periods of time without food, for example. Or voluntarily plunging into ice-cold mountain water or walking on hot coals.”
I frowned and wrote down fasting and cold therapy, life-coach alpha bullshit on the whiteboard. “Would it be presumptuous to say that they are aggressive?”
“Yes. And no.” Nate frowned. “They are no more naturally aggressive than humans. But when they channel their emotions, their physical strength is overwhelmingly superior.”
“They love a challenge,” Donovan piped up from where he was doing more pushups. “They seem consumed with proving their strength and pushing themselves to the limits.”
I tapped the marker against my hand. An idea was beginning to nudge me. “And you couldn’t find one berserker in the city?”
Cress shook her head, still glaring at the table. “It is unfathomable. They infest this realm like rodents.”
“Or, it is very fathomable, and there’s an obvious reason why you can’t find one in the city right now.” I picked up my phone and started googling. “Maybe they’ve all gone to exactly the same place. Aha!” I found what I was looking for almost immediately. “I was right. It is this weekend.”
I turned the phone around and showed Cress. “Do these guys look like berserkers to you?”
“Yes.” She gripped it, watching the figures on the screen. “Yes, they all look like berserkers, Chosen. They are acting just like it, and I see a trace of purple magic, even through this screen. What is this?”
I eyed the screen, watching muscled men and women throw giant logs around, walk on their hands, and perform bizarre monkey-swing pull-ups. “It’s the Ultimate Strong crowd.”
“The what?”
“Ultimate Strong. They’re Ultimate Strong devotees,” I explained. “It ticks every box. The Ultimate Strong championships are on this weekend.”
Donovan jumped down and sauntered over. He was barely panting. “Is it some sort of religious festival?”
“To them it is,” I said. “They worship on the altar of the Personal Record. It’s a competition, Donovan.
A worldwide championship to see who the fittest person is.
” I let out a shaky breath. “If they’re obsessed with physical strength and challenges, and they’ve all disappeared from the city, then this makes perfect sense.
That’s where all the berserkers have gone.
They would have taken Audrina with them.
” I sincerely hoped that was true, and she wasn’t hanging from a cliff somewhere in the berserker realm.
Donovan watched the screen for a moment. “We must go there.”
“We will. Except it’s in Wisconsin.”
“Call your friend, Amir, the carriage driver,” Donovan said. “We will go now.”
“Amir can’t help us, Donovan, it’s too far away. It’s a five-hour flight.”
Donovan cursed in a foreign tongue—it sounded like poetry. “We shall have to take a dragon. I despise dragonflight. They are often uncontrollable.”
“I adore it,” Cress said.
“Understandable,” Donovan said in an undertone. “You are a lunatic.”
“And you would not, since you are an unbearable control freak.”
Donovan growled.
“Stop it, you two! We’ll have to catch a flight.
Two flights, with a layover in Denver. Hmm, we’d have to run to catch this connection, but we could probably make it.
..” I thumbed my phone, looking at the options.
“And I guess because I’m the only person with an internet connection here, I’ll have to book the tickets.
Any chance any of you have a credit card?
” Despite now owning an entire apartment building and getting a promotion, I was still dead broke.
Apparently, the rental income was going to take months to transfer to me, and I wouldn’t get paid from my job until the end of the month.
And even then, half of it would go to Vincent as alimony.
A surge of rage flared in my belly, I metaphorically grabbed hold of it and examined it carefully.
This was new. I’d never been angry about having to pay Vincent alimony before, because the guilt at almost killing him had overwhelmed my anger. The guilt was still there—even though he’d cheated and lied and had me put in a psychiatric hospital, I still felt bad that I’d hurt him.
There was a purple flash of light, and a thick black credit card appeared in front of me. I grinned. “Thanks, Violet. Now let’s see. Oh, flights are already mostly booked out, which is understandable, since the Ultimate Strong championships are on, but there are a few seats available.”
“Can I come too?” Bart said in a little voice. “I feel so bad about losing Audrina.”
I reached over and took his hand. “It’s not your fault, Bart. And you’re not fooling anyone. I know how much you love watching grown men in little shorts throw big weights around.”
“I’m coming!” Cecil shimmied next to me and struck a pose. “You’ll need me, especially if you have to negotiate with the berserkers.”
“Uh. Okay.” I glanced at him. “Why?”
“Physical power is number one, but aesthetics are number two. Besides, you need me to dress that lot.” He jerked his head towards Eryk, Nate, and Cress—all three were still in their fae battle leathers. “So they blend in.”
“Good point.” I went back to the booking website. “But there’s only six seats left on the flight to Wisconsin,” I said. “All of them are in economy, and none of them are together. Someone is going to have to stay behind.”
“I’ll use a human child glamor and pretend to be under two years old, so I sit on someone’s knee. Please, Chosen. Come on.” Cecil batted his huge eyes at me. “I’ve been stuck in the Queen’s treasury for so long; I haven't seen anything new in decades. Pleaseeee?”
“Fine,” I sighed. “But you're not sitting on my knee.” My fingers tapped across the screen furiously. “We need to leave right now. Grab your bags.”