The Valhalla Covenant
Chapter One — Reprisal

Hitting it off straight away, the two continued to talk animatedly even after Blaze arrived with his offsider. Well-dressed, subtly disguised and concealing virtually undetectable composite ballistic weapons, they strode in chatting casually without more than a cursory glance at the guards.

Blaze surveyed the room as he laughed with confidence inducing geniality at Seal’s coded assessment of the scene, taking in much with a single sweep of the eyes. As she talked, Erin stood with her back to them so that when Blaze turned to her the young shop assistant returned his gaze instead. Their eyes met and held — for longer than he subsequently thought wise.

A surge of out-of-the-blue emotion hit him in the wake of that but, surprised at his reaction, he dismissed it without further thought.

With everything covered now, he had only to choose the best moment. Years of self- discipline erased the unlooked for emotional disturbance in seconds, and he was calm while he waited for Erin to move away from the critical area of the counter. As he lingered however, another sudden wave of disturbed feeling even more powerful than the last intruded.

Seal was oblivious and an inquisitive glance at him was simply met with a shrug. Both were experienced campaigners and this was the most basic sort of operation.

Generally their concerns were immediate and pragmatic, especially on insignificant fund-raising missions like these, yet Blaze had an eye for unusual detail and he well knew the value of being sensitive to subtle indicators — elements that might introduce unforeseen trouble.

Calming himself again, he turned and looked more closely at the girl behind the counter. Perhaps what he’d felt within wasn’t associated with her. If it was, it went further than simple attraction. While on the job, truly frivolous complications had never entered his head before. In and out quickly with no confusion was best. No, there had to be more to it.

As the phone in his pocket trembled, he noticed Erin making a call on hers. She mustn’t have seen them enter and might be concerned about their being late. Ignoring the insistent pulse in his pocket, he approached her while Seal remained nearer the door and the two guards. It was time to act, but now there was at least one unforeseen new element.

Before he could attract Erin’s attention, something outside the large show window caught her eye, and she turned a little to look. Blaze followed her gaze. Right outside, three motorcycles had pulled up — the riders suited up to the last square inch.

On the heels of that observation he had only a second or two to question why they were directed so uniformly towards the storefront before one helmeted rider reached into his coat with the fluidness of a well practised draw.

For Blaze, that sort of body language needed no interpretation, and without hesitation he flung himself hard at Erin. Although his reactions seemed slow, he was able to bark out a single syllable of warning to Seal while he threw Erin over the counter — directly at the girl behind it.

Both fell together one on top of the other as the oddly gentle purring of the automatic outside burst into an ear shattering bedlam of smashed glass and flying debris, within. Beyond the shattered doors, the security guards roared in frustration as they went down, having turned a moment too late.

Despite the size of the place, there were few good places to hide and some of the store’s clients were caught out in the lead hail.

Amazed not to be hit in the first barrage, Blaze then threw himself over the counter — onto Erin as it happened. A couple of chattering impacts tore into the timber nearby and he felt both the girls flinch. For a long anxious moment, all was quiet then several ominous thuds preceded the sound of rolling metallic objects.

Unbelievable. His vision darkened and the anger that boiled with demanded immediate release. What madman would use grenades? Why in the long and winding passage to hell’s gate would they?

Several customers screamed and fled toward the rear of the shop. One yelled even louder, more in anger than fear, when she saw a metal sphere curl in towards the display cabinet that she’d hoped would protect her. Determined to live though, she kicked it away.

A curious hissing, rattling noise and the roar of following wind and debris accompanied four or five detonations. Hundreds of tiny nail-like shafts embedded themselves into the timber in a rattling salvo.

No mistaking it. Those were the sounds of needle caps — long-banned even in the theatre of war. It was outrageous.

A dull roar intruded then on the ringing in his ears as the three bikes tore away through rapidly scattering pedestrians. Blaze stood and surveyed the scene. The guards were a mess having taken the brunt of the attack near the main door. Seal didn’t look as bad but wasn’t moving. A few groans came from women towards the back of the shop, only they seemed more like protestations of disbelief than of pain.

Another sound gradually grew louder in his head. Baffled for a moment, he eventually identified it as the shop’s alarm — strident above other sirens in the distance.

At least ten minutes would pass before help could make it through at peak hour — no matter what or who it was. For the guards’ sakes, Blaze hoped the first to arrive would be the medics — but Seal was another matter. Dead or alive, he’d have to come with him.

Disentangling himself from the girls, who’d both got up and clung to him, he jumped over the counter and made straight for his wounded partner.

In response to the warning, Seal had flung himself to the ground in time to avoid the worst of it, but had still taken a few bad hits. Unconscious — nothing more than that, Blaze hoped — he lay there with an expression of annoyed disbelief etched onto his face.

Swearing under his breath, he felt Seal’s neck for a pulse. Following the odds, it was there — strong and even despite the copious blood. Clotting powder — right breast pocket.

Bandages. Seal’s shirtsleeves would do. He tore them off then emptied the yellow powder onto the two of the worst wounds before binding them. Another run over him revealed a serious gunshot wound on his left side, but there was little he could do about that.

Erin caught his eye.

“You alright, Blaze?” she asked, still in shock.

“I’m fine, but Seal’s in a bad way. Check some of the others would you? The skiving brutes have gone — for the moment.”

As she slipped over what was left of the counter, the girl came cautiously behind her. Blaze glanced back at them.

“Any injuries?”

“No, we’re alright,” Erin replied, on her way to the nearest injured woman, “but you’re going to want to talk to our young friend.”

“Who, her?”

“Hope.”

“Why?”

“Take it from me.”

“Okay, but get her to give you a hand for the moment. We don’t have long. Just deal with anything life threatening.”

Erin and the girl moved quickly from one of the injured to the next. Many had spines in the arms, legs and back given that most had curled up ahead of the blasts. One or two had bullet wounds, but nothing lethal. Seal and the guards had taken the brunt, but the guards, on their feet with the first barrage, had been torn apart.

“All clear,” Erin called out with the last.

“Then get that girl out to the car,” he ordered, continuing his patch up job on Seal.

Erin turned to face her.

“Yeah, like that’s gonna be easy.”

With that, the girl looked around for a way out, but Erin was too quick.

“Come on,” she said, gripping her arm, cool as ice.

“But, all these people, we’ve got to do something.”

“We’ve done everything we could. Now we have to leave.”

“Why do I have to?”

“Blaze needs to talk to you — replace out why this happened,” Erin told her as she chivvied her towards the door. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Why does he need to know?”

Looking around now, and suddenly aware after the first numbing shock had worn off, she was horrified at the destruction wrought on that seemingly unassailable palace of wealth. She shrank from it in every way and resisted — resisted moving, thinking or even seeing. Near the entrance, she sank to the floor and wouldn’t budge.

Erin struggled to lift her to her feet again, but while she was bent over with her back to the door, a woman — a leggy brunette — ran in and slammed the back of her head so hard that she fell to her knees.

Every shocking detail of injury and destruction had driven home to the woman as she ran in, but one thing mattered more than anything else. Someone was taking her daughter.

If Erin’s intentions had been criminal, she might not have been taken so much off her guard, but the raw emotion of the girl’s mother surprised her. She was even more surprised when the newcomer took a good hard swing at her with a closed fist.

Despite all her training and experience, she took it on the jaw and it stunned her. She fell hard to the floor and stayed there. Without any backup, there might have been real trouble but with Seal taken care of, Blaze slipped in behind the woman and held her.

She struggled vainly for a bit but then yielded, and Erin, getting back up a little shakily, stood over her, furious and rubbing her throbbing jaw.

“What did you do that for?” she yelled, as much upset about being taken for one of the bad guys as being the ill-prepared recipient of such ferocity.

Blaze, however, looked up at the girl, standing mute a little behind Erin, and saw that she held a light pistol in her hand — not aimed directly at him but certainly ready. Erin, seeing his expression, turned also to face her.

“That cruiser boss you were telling me about,” she accused, brutally. “You stole his little sex slave and he’s done all this in retaliation.”

“What cruiser boss?” Blaze asked.

The girl remained silent.

“I don’t care what you think you know,” said her mother, panting hard in the immediate wake of her frenzied attack and glaring up at Blaze as he eased his hold. “Just leave us alone.”

“Maybe it was Xoldin,” the youngster responded, snapping into the present at last.

Blaze was armed and knew that Erin also had a weapon but he had no wish for things to escalate. As he considered his options, his grip on the woman relaxed a little and she struggled to get free. Twisting around, she tore at his face and neck with long fingernails.

About to slap her down hard again, he was brought up short by two small clinks, as of metal hitting the polished stone floor.

Released, the woman, whose name was Chenault, fell to one side, but was stilled there by the sight of two gold rings, one still rolling and the other held motionless on the floor by the broken golden chain. Blaze followed her glance and bent to retrieve the one on the chain before he went after the other.

As the face of an upmarket jewellery store, Chenault had a good eye for chic trinkets and immediately saw the quality of the rings. Getting up carefully, she wondered also about the chain and what it might mean, noting with interest the owner’s concern for the objects.

“Whose are they?” she asked as she slipped over behind her daughter and took the weapon.

“That doesn’t matter,” he replied, as he checked the delicate bands for damage. “Certainly, not as much as the fact that Xoldin seems to have been behind all this.”

“You should never have said anything about him, Hope,” the woman said to her daughter, “not even to mention his name in passing.”

When important things are torn apart before your very eyes, small things become significant, and the girl stood taller as she heard her name spoken in a way that expressed real concern. The rebuke meant little but the care gave her strength, and she felt a well of defiance grow within.

“I only told her a minute or so ago. It couldn’t have brought all this on,” she replied.

Watching the subtle interplay between mother and daughter closely, Blaze began to understand how things really stood. A measure of folly lay at the heart of the matter, despite their best intentions. So it always was with people of little hard experience. Without question more trouble was on the cards.

“You’re Chenault?”

She nodded curtly.

“Well, you can wait here for the onslaught if you wish,” he warned, suddenly cool, “’cause this is not over — nothing surer.”

She waved the weapon around nervously.

“And you’re no part of it?”

Blaze shook his head impatiently.

“Of course not. If you want to hang around and see what Xoldin has to say about it though, that’s your business. We were only trying to help.”

Oblivious, Chenault stood still and looked again at the rings in his hand.

“They were your mother’s?”

He looked hard back at her, wondering.

“It’s easy to guess,” she said. “The style, of course. They’re not current, but beautiful anyway.”

Blaze might have ignored her interest in the face of what he knew was coming, but he could see that thinking about the rings was steadying her, perhaps helping her to make up her mind.

“If you are who you say you are then you’re with the River, and you must have known that we were coming.”

“So you’re … but not like this. It’s never been like this before.”

“You know this was nothing to do with us. It was just co-incidence.”

“No, of course not,” she replied after a moment’s hesitation, “I believe you. I mean, why would you still be here if you’d caused it?”

“Then you have to believe us when we say that you and your daughter are still in danger,” said Erin, butting in impatiently.

“I suppose,” she said, still looking at Blaze.

“Well, I know,” he replied. “If they’d intended total destruction, no one would have lived. They were only softening up resistance — for a reason. Might only be moments before the next lot arrives. Xoldin will want to hold you and your daughter in servitude — shameful servitude if you’ve gotten in his way.”

Chenault nodded slowly.

“Alright. What you’re saying makes sense. I think I can trust you. Killers don’t tend to have so much regard for their mothers that they’d carry their rings as keepsakes. But what about all these people?”

“We checked them already. Nothing life threatening, except for the guards, but they’d have been dead in seconds.”

Chenault spun around, seeing them next to each other on the floor for the first time.

“No. Charlie. Dave. Are you sure?” she cried, running over; yet she knew that they were gone before even she knelt before them.

“They were right in the firing line. Just one more thing though before we go — the security feed. We must have that data silk.”

With a quick nod of comprehension, despite the wave of nausea that accompanied her sudden pallor, she ran to retrieve the security data silk from what was left behind the counter.

Another Institute operative had left Blaze’s ride in a nearby side street less than half an hour earlier. He knew where it was and what it was. The ’39 Jag XKX saloon was renowned for remarkable agility and the massive boost of power that could be gained from the smallest of workshop tweaks.

Blaze took the silk from her as soon as she returned, then lifted Seal onto his shoulder and made for the car. His friend was heavy and inert but groaned when he was dropped into the front passenger seat.

Erin stood watch while the others got in and noted the convoy of faceless black saloons that swept in past the lane’s entry.

Blaze urged the Jag out from the kerb and down to the next street. He quickly found a gap in the traffic and accelerated away.

“So, what exactly did you dish out to Xoldin?” he asked, pressing himself into the plush leather seat.

The youngster and her mother remained silent, but now it was only fear and confusion rather than terror and stubborn will. In the end, Chenault acknowledged his question by meeting his eyes in the rear view mirror, but with what he saw in hers he backed off. She was the picture of misery.

Ignoring that, Erin groaned impatiently and turned to face her more directly. Assuming the cheerfully aloof expression of a typical glamorous news anchor, she laid bare the details of the story just as it might have been on the evening news — details of sick predators stalking suburban streets, children abducted and only other children doing anything about it.

In other circumstances, such a performance might have been overdone but in the wake of all that had happened, it found its mark. As the traffic slowed, Blaze turned and looked harder at the woman. She could no longer meet his eyes, but lowered her head in tacit concession of guilt.

In the wake of his latest thoughts, he was dismayed. They’d crossed the worst sort of man in a way that would rankle him — one who could be counted on to have comprehensive surveillance not to mention a vengeful streak, yet she’d failed to allow for the very foreseeable consequences.

“What of your security people?” he asked, as he pulled off to the side to allow four or five police vehicles past in the opposite direction.

“I didn’t think that maniac would know who took his little sex slave,” she replied.

“Now you’re talking, but do you really understand who or what Zian Xoldin is?” he asked turning to face the girl, Hope.

“Yes,” she replied. “He’s a crime boss.”

Blaze laughed, coldly.

“That and much more,” he said, shaking his head. “You really should know who you’re dealing with before you start messing around in these sorts of affairs. ZX is like almost no other criminal. Police corruption, the slave trade, murder, extortion, drugs — you name it. He may be fifth generation Chinese, but he still rides herd on most of the newer orders.

“You don’t know how lucky you are that we got you out of there. There’s no way you’d have held your nerve under interrogation and he’d have stitched you up in a minute. Once in custody, that would have been it. If people like that want you, there’s no way out.”

“He’s with the police?” Chenault asked, her face turning pale.

“I didn’t say that but, in yes. Covert operations.”

Some things were far more important than others and should always be dealt with first. Blaze knew that from hard experience. In many instances he couldn’t help those who weren’t able to help themselves, but this was in his face and it was clear they’d only tried to help someone — an innocent at that. Also, they had at least some sort of affiliation with the Little River.

“You’ve nowhere to run then,” he said, accelerating away with the clearing traffic.

“We can’t just disappear,” said Chenault, more softly, “but you’re right. There is nowhere. He’d replace us at home — or at work.”

“You won’t be going anywhere near there for a long time,” Erin broke in. “Once they know you’re not still on the premises, they’ll have everyone and his pet cockroach out looking for you in minutes.”

Everyone was silent for a while as they considered the situation. Chenault was overwhelmed by guilt. Hope was still in shock and felt little more than a mysterious abeyance of the passage of time.

Blaze and Erin sensed that something much more threatening than normal, if they could call their lives that, was now in the wind, as if some intangible curtain had fallen. It brought home the realization that they had yet only been involved in the audition, and might soon experience the act itself.

Violence was as unwelcome to them as it was frequent in their lives but this episode had no greater meaning than that its cause had been Xoldin. He was a man they stepped delicately around in the course of their activities. Arousing his ire or suspicion was no small matter. It would change things.

Institute operatives in the Sydney area had access to many safe houses, but, in the direst circumstances, one in particular lent itself to the demands of a long stay and strict secrecy. Jos Bale was a key Institute co-ordinator. His new home in the secure outer north was the safest doss house available, in part because it had never yet been used as a refuge.

Jos was an old college friend. Some years ago, both had been surprised when they ran into each other again during the formative stages of the loose alliance that was the Little River. From it, and in large part from their cooperation, the Institute had evolved.

Given their two current encumbrances, along with Xoldin’s involvement and the deteriorating weather, Jos’s place was looking good, and to clinch things Jos’s partner was a paramedic.

Blaze pulled into a side street that led to a little used section of the old naval dockyards and cruised up to the end. He stopped facing a stretch of woven wire fence several metres high. At first glance it looked secure but he jumped out and began untwisting a row of wire ties on the nearest post.

Soon, he was able to roll back a section wide enough to drive through. Jumping back in the car, he nudged it through and accelerated towards the far end of the site, which by day was in the process of being prepared for demolition.

The atmosphere grew heavier. Large isolated raindrops fell every so often from the purple sky and wild gusts swirled around picking up dust in penetrating flurries. It was only a little before sunset but the sky was more than usually dark. A faint last gleam penetrated the swelling cloud mass but did more to emphasize its heaviness than provide much usable light.

As yet, there came from the heavy cloud only the occasional low, distant rumble, which might almost have been the sound of the wind as it gusted and swirled dust and old paper bags madly about them.

With everyone out, Blaze took the Jag back out of the complex, up the road a short way and into a dingy backstreet. Cutting a fuel line, he set fire to it and left it to burn. On the way back he secured the fence as it had been then ran to join the others.

Hope shot curious looks at him as he led them down a staircase under a jetty projecting out from the main dockside, but he hadn’t time for explanations.

Beneath the jetty was a basic landing. Reaching around the back of a pier, he untied a pair of ropes, dropping one and pulling the other. Out of the darkness, a boat appeared.

Chenault and Hope both sighed audibly in relief, but when they could see it more clearly their newfound confidence faded.

Erin knew the score and was well aware of the need for a low profile with these sorts of things — the sort of profile that might be expected to maintain anonymity. She focused her attention on specifics and observed with interest that the two ropes had actually been one — an improvised mechanism like the cable on a ski-field chairlift, to secure the rigid inflatable out of sight under the jetty yet ensure its easy retrieval.

Blaze hadn’t the time to reflect. It was vital, especially for Seal, to make it across the water before the storm came in too hard. Even so he was not the type to cut corners and kept strictly to a checklist — fuel, plugs, filters, water dispersant, flares, life vests, water and a small food bag.

Seal groaned when they lowered him into the boat but for the first time he opened his eyes and growled an incomprehensible protest. After she got him settled in relative comfort, Erin stood up and looked at Blaze with reassuring eyes — reassuring because her confidence in him was boundless, though the wind was now whipping up spray from the surface of the water and the sound of thunder came closer.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

“This storm looks like it could be a freak,” he replied as the twin one-twenty horse outboards coughed into life. “Would’ve been nice if this thing had sported a roof.”

Lightning flashed several times in the growing darkness as he urged the boat out from under the jetty.

“It’s not far, though, is it?”

“Far enough.”

“Where are we going?” Hope asked; emboldened a little by the spirit of friendliness she saw between Erin and Blaze.

“Better you don’t know,” he replied. “You’re on the run now, so just trust me and be glad.”

Chenault looked up at him, more forgiving now that her frantic mind had begun to calm down.

“I do trust you,” she said. “I am with the River, and I’ve heard stories. I’ve also been thinking about it and I know that you can’t have been in any way to blame for what happened.”

Blaze had as good as known it, although she’d admitted nothing before. Even so, he knew better than to encourage that line of conversation. The less she knew the better.

Lightning flashed across the harbour. Another blue-white bolt came closer and lit up everything around. A shattering single clap of thunder followed, and the water was instantly flattened into an eerily brilliant reflective surface. Rain came almost immediately and tore up the reflection of the city lights almost before it registered in any of their tired minds.

Chenault and Hope held each other closely with their eyes closed, and saw nothing thereafter. Even Blaze shrank a little from the succession of bolts that followed, but he smiled inwardly and thought how well they’d be hidden from satellite surveillance. Without the storm, Global Unity data sifters might well have found them, given who would now be lighting a fire under their lazy backsides to that end.

Lightning struck close at hand several times, revealing the tumult of a witch’s cauldron around them. Although there was only a slight chop in the harbour, the blinding rain made things seem much worse.

Soon seeing how it really was, Blaze shoved the throttles forward and the rhib surged ahead. Smooth water soon gave way to a moderate swell as they passed a little closer to North Head than South, but the minimal chop allowed him to squeeze a little over thirty-eight knots out of the old beast.

A quarter of an hour or so saw them off Barrenjoey, and he steered in a little more cautiously towards the flashing lighthouse before dropping off the plane with Lion Island on the starboard bow.

With the see so calm, the long shoal that had once been Palm Beach held back the ocean waves, but there were times, now, when even Pittwater thundered to the sound of surf.

Within that increased shelter came a momentary easing of the storm’s intensity. As the mist cleared a little and lightning flashed behind them, the distant loom of land ahead was revealed — Scotland Island. Then the maelstrom came in again with a vengeance.

The girls shrank from the lightning as it flashed in much closer. Although preoccupied, Blaze sensed their fear, but said nothing. This was the sort of thing that each had to deal with in his own way. So deafening was the thunder and steady roar of rain that it drowned out all other sounds, and the flashes lit the cloud and blinding rain in an intermittent glare near impossible to see through. Where the water surface began and where the rain ended was difficult to determine; and a small backlit compass was their only guide.

The others kept their heads low, but Blaze’s need to see as much of what lay ahead as possible drove him to stand up to his full height behind the wheel. In practical terms it only helped marginally, but Erin couldn’t help noticing that a subtle expression of pleasure gradually replaced the hard lines on his face. Sympathy for his newfound calm in the face of such heavenly fury eventually inspired her to rise beside him.

“It’s beautiful,” she shrieked, holding onto the edge of the windscreen and fighting the tremble in her voice. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Nor would you want to again,” he shouted back, but his face said otherwise.

Lightning came again in a flurry of bolts, leaving ribbons and bursts of glare laced across their vision like sparkler tracks.

Erin, now fully entranced, reached up towards the sky as if to embrace the storm’s energy — manifest now in a net of lightning playing back and forth above them like a flickering dome of blue white flame.

Somehow, in a moment of awe, as she watched fingers of lightning reach out in an apparent expression of divine immanence — something changed within her, and it no longer made sense to live in fear.

Time held still. All around, light, noise and fury prevailed but just as abruptly as it had come the storm passed, leaving no more in its wake than blinding, torrential rain.

As always in bad weather, the jetty lights were switched on and steadily became brighter through the misty gloom.

As if it had only been there to hide them and wash them clean, the rain eased then to a gentle film, just as the lightning itself had cleared from their minds the last shadow of the city’s brooding malice.

A welcome voice called out. Jos was there on his jetty, having watched the storm from the shelter of the boathouse, but his noisy enthusiasm ceased abruptly when the boat slid into the jetty and he could see Seal’s sorry condition.

“You’ll have to get him inside quick,” he said as he secured the boathouse’s winch line to the tow point. “What happened?”

Seal responded only with a low moan.

“Hang in there, mate. It’s gonna be okay. My girl’s damn good at what she does and she’s got everything she needs to do it.”

Together, Blaze and Erin lifted him into a vehicle nearby while Jos got the boat under cover.

It was only a short drive up to the house and when they arrived, Anna was waiting.

Hope moved in to help but was brought up short with a sharp look.

“Don’t take it the wrong way,” said Anna, “but we’re better doing this by ourselves. Go in, get dry, and we’ll do what we can.”