Awkward silence remained in her wake. Valgard and his sons looked upon the rest of Valgard’s men with searching eyes. Few of the men were will ing to meet their gaze. Valgard’s hall grew quiet that night, despite the efforts of the host and the ale and food that was shared out among his warriors. It grew quiet, and before long, it grew somewhat empty. Perhaps only half a dozen men remained an hour after Sibbe had withdrawn. The others had al found reasons to leave early. The serving maids were gone, too. Bram was the first to notice it. He was still seated at the end of the long table nearest Valgard’s high seat, sharpening another blade. “Raghild!” he roared. “Where are you?” Bram hadn’t turned to look down to the end of the hall , where Raghild would have entered. Because of that, Bram didn’t see the spear that flew across the hall before it was imbedded in the side of his head. Hardly anyone else had been looking, either. Valgard’s face snapped up from where he’d been contemplating his mug of ale on his high seat in time to see Bram fall from the bench. Blades were drawn, shields snatched up. Skorri stood at the end of the hall , a shield on his left arm and now his sword drawn by the right. He didn’t look that big. The blond goatherd wasn’t small , but he didn’t look al that imposing, either…except that Valgard was staring at him past the shaft of the spear that still wobbled in his peripheral vision. The blade was buried deep in his son’s skul . “That was stupid,” Valgard glowered, rising out of his seat even as he picked up his axe. “Had you spoken before you attacked, you might have found that it was not we who kil ed hall a.” “Your wife spoke,” Skorri growled. His words, in fact his whole body, had a tremor to them that was a little unsettling. “You lie well , but I heard the truth. You told her al I needed to hear. I heard everything on the roof.” Valgard blinked. “The roof?” “One learns a few tricks while hiding from the Danes.”
As if on cue, a piece of wood fell from above him. It was on fire. Valgard looked, and saw flames quickly eating into the ceiling of his hall from outside. The wall s would fol ow. It had been a warm, dry summer. “I appear to be blocking the only exit,” Skorri observed through gritted teeth, “though if you are lucky, you may convince the Valkyries that you deserve to leave with me tonight. I doubt your chances, but there’s always hope.” * It was the first day in a week that Alex woke up to something other than Lorelei’s touch. Instead, he woke up to Taylor lying on top of him. “So how in the hell ’s anyone supposed to enjoy college when he has to wake up this early in the morning?” she asked with a grin. He groaned and then sighed happily. “ ‘m al dedicated ‘n’ stuff,” he mumbled. “We need to get you transferred to U-dub,” Taylor said. He let out a groan as he stretched. “Might have trouble focusing on classes there.” “Exactly,” Taylor said as she began kissing the side of his neck. Then Lorelei’s mouth began to mirror the attention Taylor was giving him on the other side of his neck. At that point, he was just plain spoiled. “If you two want…want to stay and…play longer,” he managed, “I think I’d…like that.” “Hel yeah,” Taylor breathed out. “I’l take very good care of her, love,” Lorelei smiled into his ear.
* “We can’t just leave guys with their fuckin’ heads cut off lyin’ around up here,” Carlos frowned. He was at the desk in his office, wearing only his robe, a gold chain, and the phone that he’d had to keep glued to his ear for an annoyingly long time. He spoke in Spanish. The only thing that kept him from being entirely irate about it was the mostly-naked maid, who straddled him in his office chair in a slow, steady grind. She kept her eyes closed and stayed quiet. Carlos didn’t mind where she looked, but the silence was absolutely necessary. It wouldn’t be good for the family to know he was fucking around during his conference cal s. “No, I’m sayin’ that it brings down more heat than it’s worth. We can’t just be al flashy like that and then go out for drinks like nothing happened. This isn’t Juarez.” He listened, sighed, then tried to think up a compromise. The maid kept grinding. Finally he offered, “Look, I’m not sayin’ I won’t do it. I just need to clean it up when it’s done. I’l cut the fucker’s head off myself, that’s fine. I’m just gonna do it where I can keep the body. Yeah. Yeah, I’l just bring in his fucking friends or family or whatever and do it in front of them and then let them go tel everyone else. Them spreading news in private is better than the whole thing going in the papers. Once we escalate like that, we’re going to have to stay at that level, and that’s a lot of work and I’l need a lot more guys.” He shifted a bit for the maid, who was now leaning back onto the corner of the desk on her elbows. It gave him a nice view of her body. This was his fourth or fifth time with her. Lydia had done a good job in hiring this one. It was great to have a wife who understood him. What good was being a gangster if you couldn’t live like it? The other guys on the conference cal didn’t understand that. They al had wives, too, but their wives just nagged them. They al had to cover up their side-action. Carlos, by contrast, had a wife who would help him get more, and would help him cover it up from others. She couldn’t fix everything, of course, and sometimes he was careless— otherwise he wouldn’t be stuck in Rain City—but Lydia was really his best asset. At least she understood the lifestyle, and stayed turned on by it after the wedding instead of turning into a cranky old bitch like everyone else’s
wives did. “No, I’m not going soft, cocksucker. I’ve done this shit before, remember? I’m the one who did the cop outside of Tijuana. You’re the one who puked over it. Don’t even fuckin’ start that shit with me.” He favored whatshername with a bit of a smile. She was good at this, and Carlos appreciated it. This was too god damn early in the morning to deal with these guys without something to wake him up. It was like they had no idea of what time zone he was in. The sun was hardly even up yet. His eyes were bloodshot. He’d barely gotten out of bed in time for this. He’d been tired lately. For a while now, actual y. Lydia had a habit of keeping him up al night, as she had for the last two. He couldn’t complain, but there it was. No real sleep for two days. About the only thing that could keep him awake anymore was sex. That was something else Lydia understood. Come to think of it, Lydia probably sent the maid in here herself. “Hey, that whole rumor about the Russians being up here already was for real, okay?” Carlos scowled. “It’s for real, and those assholes are for real. I don’t want them getting serious until we’re ready for it, so if I gotta deal with al the chickenshit stuff first I’d like to do it quietly is al . Yeah. Yeah. That’s it for me right now. I’m done.” Carlos waited a moment, then put the phone on speaker and muted it. “Now you can make noise,” he said in English. She took him up on it. On the speakerphone, Pedro started talking about Los Angeles. Carlos would’ve been there, had it not been for the whole thing with Pedro’s wife at Carlos and Lydia’s wedding. That was half Lydia’s doing, too. Probably more than half. But Pedro found out while they were on their honeymoon, and it was lucky that there wasn’t blood over the whole thing. Instead, Pedro got a promotion (and a divorce), and Carlos was banished to the great wet north. That was fine, Carlos figured. Nobody here would get in his way, anyway, and he wouldn’t have to deal with his punk brother trying to kil him up here. Nobody else in the family was here making eyes at Lydia, either…as if she’d ever cheat on him. She flirted, sure, but she’d never cheat. Carlos was sure of that. Lydia belonged to him.
“God, you’re so good,” the maid moaned. “He is, isn’t he?” came Lydia’s voice. Carlos looked up, feeling not the least bit of shame about what he was doing as she entered. It wasn’t embarrassment that left him quickly forgetting the maid, though, so much as lust. Lydia was al made up and dressed in leather and lace: stockings, garters, lacy bra, gloves, the whole bit. “There a special occasion here?” he asked with a grin. Beside the maid, the conversation over his phone’s speaker continued. He was hardly listening anymore. Someone may have said his name, or perhaps not. He had forgotten about it completely. “You left the bed and I couldn’t stop thinking about how much more I wanted. I know how hard you work. I wanted today to be special. You don’t have anything else you need to do today, do you?” she asked. Her falsely innocent doe eyes contrasted sexily with the absolute sin offered by the rest of her body. He had a lot to do, and it was important, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was. He didn’t really bother to try, either. Carlos pul ed away from the maid without so much as a look her way. Lydia held out her arms to him, engaging him in a hot, biting kiss as he seized her. Her arms tore away his open bathrobe before she pul ed herself up against his shoulders as his hands seized her ass. Carlos pinned her to the wall next to the door. “Take me to bed and fuck me, baby,” Lydia hissed. Carlos didn’t need to be asked twice. He carried her down the hall to their master bedroom. Luckily the door was slightly ajar; maybe that had been planned by Lydia, too. She was good at planning things. Inside, the room was lit up by dozens of candles. It had a slightly odd smell to it; there was a lot of incense, but it was as if that was just there to cover up something unpleasant. The curtains were drawn, the room was almost uncomfortably warm, and everything else was deathly quiet. Carlos stepped in something very wet in the carpet. He’d have looked down to see what it was, but Lydia grabbed his chin and forced another long, hungry kiss upon him.
“Take me, Carlos,” she growled. “Now.” Carlos brought her down onto the bed and obeyed. Lydia grinned as he went at her. He missed the bloody pentagram in the carpet around the bed completely. She’d have him reduced to an animalistic, rutting frenzy before the bodies of Chuy and Paco under the bed began to stink. Normal y, bringing her prey to his end wasn’t such a production. It wasn’t as if she needed a complicated ritual to kil a man. This one, however, was needed for something beyond just kil ing. His soul was bound for hell , but his body had one last use. * “We look like assholes,” Molly grumbled. “I think you look cute,” Onyx smirked. Molly turned to Onyx with a scowl. “I want to put my fucking bra back on,” she said icily. Onyx glanced at her and couldn’t help but snort at Mol y’s plaid beret and non-prescription black-rimmed glasses. The pink iZod shirt col ar popped up under her dress jacket only made it worse. She tried to control her laughter, but couldn’t. The pair sat on a bench at North Seattle Community College, dutifully watching a single classroom’s exits. Onyx was clad in an old white Smurfs shirt with blue sleeves that came down to just below the elbow, a scarf and, like Mol y, skinny, high-waisted jeans. “I don’t think we’re being nearly ironic enough to be good hipsters,” Onyx observed finally.
“What are you talking about? We’re trying to blend into our surroundings by dressing like people who try desperately to stand out by showing how much they don’t care about conformity. We look like perfect assholes. I think we’re fine there. How’s that not ironic?” She wasn’t as amused by the situation as Onyx. “Just had to spend enough money doing it. Alex better be ready to reimburse us for rescuing his ass.” Onyx bit down on her lips, but then decided to let her response fly anyway. “I plan on getting paid in sex.” Molly scowled again. “How awkward would it be for you if I watched?” Her partner’s eyes went wide. The smile faded. “Um,” Onyx mumbled, unsure how serious Molly was about that. “Mol y? Is that you?” asked a nasal y, technically male voice. A guy in a sweater vest and skinny slacks, with black-rimmed glasses identical to Mol y’s, approached the pair with his courier bag slung over his shoulder. “Ohmygooooosh, you two look great!” “Go away, Sam,” Molly said without looking at him. “Seriously, ohmygosh! I’ve got to take your picture!” he said, fishing in his courier bag for his iPhone. “Do it and I will fucking murder you in your sleep,” Molly snapped. Sam’s eyes went wide. He took a step back, then another, and finally muttered an ironically nonchalant apology as he shuffled away. “I take it back,” Molly said. “I’m gonna make you watch.” *
“So Augustine hears this cal to take up a book and read, and he pul s out the first thing in reach. It’s Paul’s letter to the Romans. He reads, completely at random: ‘Let us behave decently, as in daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.’” Professor Lyons recited the whole thing from memory. No notes, no book in front of him. He just sat atop the desk at the front of the classroom. The small , older man in slacks and his button-down shirt smiled at the class. “This is a man who famously said, ‘God, grant me chastity—but not yet.’” He paused for the inevitable chuckle from his class. “You’l appreciate the St. Augustine readings, I think. We’re not really focusing on the issue of chastity here…that’s for another philosophy class. But it’s good to know where Augustine is coming from. You’re reading the words of someone who was, in his time, a genuine party animal. I suspect more than a few of you could probably relate.” He glanced at the clock. “No real time for discussion today. See you al on Wednesday.” Students promptly got up and gathered their things. Alex remained in his desk toward the center of the classroom, still considering what had just been said. He wouldn’t have traded his experiences for the world. Not only was Lorelei beyond his willdest dreams, there were two other burgeoning relationships and flings al along the way… A hand appeared on his desk. A woman’s hand. Alex looked up to see the cute Latina who normally sat in the back smiling at him as she walked away. Down where she had put her hand was a post-it note, which had a phone number and the name “Christina” written inside a heart. Alex picked up the note and blinked at it just as another appeared on the other side of his desk, this one left by a petite brunette in a short skirt and stockings. He really wasn’t with it enough to catch sight of her face before she was gone. Apparently her name was Paula. At this time last week, Alex was afraid he’d die a sixty year-old virgin. He could get a date on occasion, but he couldn’t close the deal. No real romance, nor sex. Now the biggest question in his life was: how much of a good thing is too much? He might have already hit that point. Alex felt very fortunate and very well -loved, both physically and emotional y. So many of his worries and feelings of inadequacy had been laid to rest, as if they had been left to burn in the Sacred