Chapter 001

Odin sat down behind the wooden desk in the small room that served as his office. A mountain of paperwork overflowed from his plastic inbox, and a stack of telephone messages — nearly illegible in his secretary’s handwriting — sat neatly by the phone.

He took a sip of cheap coffee from his ceramic mug and grimaced. The first sip was always the worst. He’d never gotten used to the taste of the stuff, but had found coffee a very necessary evil if he was to get through the day, one day after another, one year after the next. He took another sip and forced it down.

The office chair creaked under his weight as he shifted forward to grab the stack of telephone messages. He sorted through the slips of paper, the creases across his broad brow deepening. A freshman’s mother had called concerned about her son’s daily homework load. The father of one of the school’s less than spectacular football players wanted to complain about his son being cut from the team due to poor academic performance. Odin took another sip of coffee then set his cup down with a bit too much force. Coffee splashed up over the side and stained the collection of maintenance work orders awaiting his signature.

The bell for the first class rang out in the hallway, yet Odin could still hear the driving bass of a car stereo in the parking lot outside his open window. He turned in his chair, raised his body just enough to reach the window and opened it all the way. He leaned out and looked down on the trio of students — two boys, one skinny and one not so much, and an overdeveloped girl with stringy hair — two stories below him in the parking lot, standing around a beat-up Mustang, both doors wide open to let the sound of car stereo reverberate against the surrounding buildings.

“Mr. Jamieson!” he called down to a scrawny dark-haired kid in a striped shirt and frayed jeans. The heads of all three kids snapped up to look at Odin in the window. “I know you wouldn’t want to be late to Mrs. Holbert’s English class again.”

The kid smiled sheepishly. “No, sir. I suppose not.” He reached inside and snapped off the radio, then reached for his backpack leaning against the car’s front wheel. His two friends shuffled off with obligatory glances in Odin’s direction.

Odin’s single eye narrowed as he watched the three head toward the school’s main entrance. Once they were satisfactorily out of sight, he turned back to his desk and sighed loudly as picked up the stack of messages again.

The next telephone message was from the pastor of the small church next door to the school, calling again to complain about students hanging out in the church parking lot and cemetery after hours.

Odin rested his elbows on top of his desk and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He glanced at the clock from between his fingers and glowered. It was only 8:12 a.m., and his head already hurt. Adjusting the patch over his right eye, he reached into a side drawer of the desk and pulled out a small bottle of aspirin, shaking two pills out into his open palm by rote. He opened his mouth and tossed the pills to the back of his throat, swallowing them down with a big gulp of awful coffee. He dropped the bottle back into the drawer, wondering if the chalky bitter taste of aspirin might actually be an improvement to the coffee.

Balling up the telephone messages in his fist, Odin reached for the phone and had started dialing the irate pastor when his secretary buzzed in.

“Principle Wyatt?”

“Yeah,” he groaned back.

“We have Kyle Mackey and Trevor Chase here to see you. Again.” The resignation in the young woman’s voice almost made Odin smile. Kyle and Trevor — aka the Hooligans — had been in and out of his office nearly every week since the semester had begun. Odin hadn’t yet made up his mind how deep of a soft spot he had for the kids who couldn’t ever seem to do anything right. In the old days, he would have just knocked their skulls together and let them sort themselves out, else face his wrath. And that was on a good day, when he felt inspired by the off glimmer of patience.

“Right.” Odin got up from his desk, frowning at the creaking of knees and popping of spine. Each year his hair grew a little grayer, his joins slightly more stubborn, his posture a bit more stooped. He was getting old, and he did pretty much everything he could to not think about it.

Odin pushed his rolling chair away from him, and it slammed back into the wall behind his desk. He smiled at the crack of metal and plastic against the cement blocks. He might not be much of a god anymore, but he could still throw his weight around.

He crossed the linoleum floor in a few large strides, grabbed the dented doorknob in a meaty hand and pulled open the door. Standing in the doorway with just a hint of a raised eyebrow over his one good eye, Odin looked down on the Hooligans seated against the wall. Dressed in metal band t-shirts and oversized blue jeans, their expressions appeared somewhere between affected cynicism and facing a firing squad.

Odin crossed his arms over his chest. He knew there was a rumor circulating that he used to be a pirate. Last year, the rumor was that he’d lost his eye while on a mission in Central America as a mercenary soldier. He’d rather enjoyed that one. Maybe next year he could get a story going about getting his eye knocked out during an ultimate fighting match. Odin took in a deep breath and leaned against the doorjamb. “Boys.”

The two looked up at him from beneath lowered brows, and Odin’s mood softened.

“I’m not even going to ask.” Odin stood upright and took a few steps into the room to stand by his secretary’s desk. He titled his head toward her, never taking his one bloodshot eye off the boys.

“Call in their parents. We’ll sit down together and sort this out.”

The boys before him physically deflated. Yes, calling the parents was frequently the worst possible punishment. At least, it should be.

Odin felt a familiar rumble in his midsection and felt for coins in his trouser pocket. “Miss Metcalf, put these two in the conference room until their parents get here.”

“Yes, Principal Wyatt.” The pretty redhead got up from her desk and gestured toward a side door. The boys made no move to comply, until Odin gave them a hard, questioning look. Kyle shrugged his shoulders and got up from the metal chair. Trevor followed. The boys dragged their book bags across the beige carpet, passing by Miss Metcalf’s desk, where Trevor offered an attempted smile.

Odin moved passed them and opened the door onto a mostly empty hallway. A few students moved passed, either running full speed toward classrooms — and skidding to a stop in their tracks when they caught sight of the principal and his one wary eye (that always gave him a good chuckle) — or ambling slowly toward the music room or library. Odin headed down the long main hallway and turned to descend a double staircase to the basement, where both the science labs and vending machines were housed. Odin had always wondered about that curious combination, but then always reminded himself that he didn’t really want to know.

Approaching the vending machines, Odin reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a handful of shiny silver-colored coins. He stopped in front of the trio of machines, pretending the survey the contents when what he really wanted was a leg of lamb, roasted on an open spit, accompanied by a steaming bowl of fish stew, a hunk of bread and a heavy stein overflowing with rich dark mead. His stomach churned and he got a sour taste in his mouth looking at the rows of ju-ju bees, cheese flavored crackers and chocolate candy bars behind the glass in front of him.

“These people,” Odin grumbled under his breath, “have no idea how to eat.” It was no wonder they were so weak, their children prone to bouts of depression and uncontrolled tempers. He slipped a few coins into the slot and watched one of the silver screws behind the glass go to work loosening a bag of pretzels from the display.

Too much mindless entertainment, he thought silently. Not enough time exercising their bodies, as well as their brains. When he had been in power, he would have crushed such a people as easily as flattening an ant beneath his boot. But now he was one of them, traveling alongside them on the highways, picking out apples and potatoes from the same produce section, overseeing the education and discipline of their children.

Odin snorted as he tore open the bag and shoved a few pretzels into his mouth. Discipline indeed. What those boys upstairs in the conference room needed was a solid hide-thrashing, followed by a week-long hunt with their fathers, or perhaps a season of solid work on a fishing vessel.

He stepped to the left, fished out a worn dollar bill from his pocket and fought to get the drink machine to accept it. Stupid western technology often didn’t even recognize its own currency. “You mother disgracing sow of a machine,” he muttered. “You should be so lucky as to serve the chief of the gods.”

A smile played on his lips beneath his graying beard as his dollar was at last accepted. “Credit: 1.00” the electronic display read. Yes, a postured threat often went quite a long ways with such machines. Odin punched a button and claimed the cola can that had been spit out.

He cracked open the soda can and took a long sip as he turned to gaze down at the informal student lounge area — a vinyl love seat and a few chairs crammed into an alcove — a few yards away. David McAllister, studious as always, sat with a textbook balanced on one knee, an open notebook on the other and his book bag between his knees.

“Mr. McAllister.” Odin pursed his lips and strode toward the fourteen-year-old, taking note of the stack of library books by the boy’s side.

David barely looked up from his work, the vinyl furniture squeaking as he shifted his weight. “Hey, Principal Wyatt.” He scribbled some more into his notebook, then rested his pencil on his thigh.

“Last minute homework?” Odin took another sip of cola and swallowed a burp. That had been a difficult trick to learn, after centuries of celebrate, manly belching at the banquet table. People here were just as likely to fear their own bodily functions as they were to blink their eyes.

The corner of David’s mouth ticked upward, then immediately settled down in meek apology. “Umm, no… I’m just getting some extra practice in before the math contest this Saturday.”

Odin nodded thoughtfully. “Good job, son. You make us proud, eh?”

Another smile-like spasm played on David’s mouth, and the boy bent down again over his notebook. He tapped his pencil against the paper and bobbed his head, silently running through the rules of geometry.

Odin watched him a moment more and was about to turn away, when a bitter chill flew toward him from the far end of the hallway, passing through his massive body, sending a shiver down the old god’s spine and condensing the moisture in his nostrils. He rocked on his feet, regaining his balance, then was struck by David, suddenly sitting straight up on the love seat. The child stared ahead blankly, the books sliding off his lap onto the floor with a thud that echoed against the concrete walls.

Watching the boy, Odin felt the fire ignite in his slight frame. David’s eyes came alive, glinting with a dark madness Odin hadn’t seen in centuries. The boy stood up, his eyes deepening as he played at staring down Odin. Then he walked past his principal, leaving his books behind as he headed toward the fire door. David pushed on the lever and threw the door open, not so much as slowing when the alarms began to sound.

That was the closest Odin had ever come to wetting his pants — or robes, or whatever he happened to be wearing — in his entire existence. There was no mistaking it. He’d just seen a Berserker, here in 21st century Portland, Oregon, awaken. And he’d completely dismissed Odin.

Chapter 000: Prologue

Heimdall moved through the the forest, silent as a wolf. First one step then another. He hastened his pace through the darkness as he hunted, the hooting owls and chirping cicadas providing the rhythm for his chase.

Seven nights he had been on this trail. Seven nights he had failed — himself, his father, the world.

He felt the stars above him, ancient heroes and gods older than even he looking down on him, pushing him forward.

The tree was everything.

A snap of a twig off to his left. Heimdall stopped short, resting a hand against the rough bark of the evergreen at his side. He deliberately controlled his breathing and crouched low, sniffing on the air like a true predator. He placed his palm flat against the cool earth and dusty pine needles on the forest floor, and listened. Like a wiretap on a phone line, he heard the trees talking to each other, meandering conversations about rainfall and nesting squirrel. He heard the rapid hearts and lungs of the rabbits in their burrows, and the rhythmic lumbering of a trio of possums.

The steady, slow heartbeat of the earth below it all — both a comfort and a reminder of the stakes of his quest.

Heimdall lifted his chin and sniffed again, searching for a trace of what creature had snapped that twig. But there was nothing.

He was about to rise, then pressed his palm more forcefully against the soil. He closed his eyes, frowning as he strained to wade through the cacophony of vibrations passing up through his skin, looking for that one familiar beacon.

His face relaxed. Ah, there it is. Filtering out the noise of the other creatures, plants, elementals and various pixies and fairies, Heimdall homed in on the small, vulnerable pulse of the young sapling.

He was getting closer.

Heimdall regained his feet and said a silent prayer to the heavens above. Odd for a god to pray. He batted away the fleeting thought as he would a pesky mosquito simple or audacious enough to disturb him. Yes, he was now prone to prayer. It was something that had crept up on him over the centuries as his own strengths had begun to wane. It had brought him comfort, sometimes even sanity, as he felt himself grow weaker. Now he was little more than the mortals he and his kind walked amongst.

The last words of his silent prayer passed his lips, and he stepped forward into the darkness once more. He deliberately didn’t think about who or what he might have been praying to.

His path led him into a clearing of trees, and Heimdall slowed his pace as he stepped into this place of power, a natural temple untouched by any human hand. He strode into the center of the circle, watching the shadows cast by the quarter moon overhead, knowing they concealed the movement of supernatural beings he no longer had the reliable ability to detect.

Heimdall stretched his arms up over his head, preparing to call down the subtle powers of the night — even if it was more of a symbolic gesture nowadays than a real divine act. He spread the fingers of each hand wide, then cringed downward as a dark chills danced across his shoulders. Straightening his spine, he breathed in sharply, trying to catch the scent of the intruder as his eyes darted left and right, unable to as keenly penetrate the darkness as they once could.

An owl cried out to his left, and Heimdall spun on his heel to face the noise. He could hear his own heart pounding in his ears, his body’s fight response still strong.

Was the hunter being hunted?

He smelled fear on the air and could almost taste the terrified heartbeat, just yards away from him now. The shrill chatter of a surprised chipmunk, which should have been in its nest at this hour fast asleep, was interrupted by burst of movement through the low shrubs, and the chatter became a high-pitched shriek, cut short by the quick snapping of jaws.

“Laika,” Heimdall called into the woods.

The bushes shuddered as the head of the wolf-dog emerged, her downcast eyes sparkling with a mix of guilt and pride over the small, bloody prey still warm in her open mouth. Stepping out into the clearing, she cocked her head to the side and studied the stern expression of her master. With a labored sigh, she dropped the furry body onto the ground and sank down beside it. Looking up at Heimdall, a shiver of a hopeful wag ran through her tail.

Heimdall growled deep in his throat. “I told you this was no hunting expedition, not for that kind of prey.”

Laika nosed her kill closer to her master. Her mouth fell open into a silly grin.

Heimdall couldn’t help but laugh. “No, you can have it. But no more.” He wagged a finger at her and watched her carefully pick apart the tiny chipmunk with the patience of a sport hunter, rather than a predator who hunted for food.

He sighed. He was still uncomfortable with the luxury and convenience of this world. He longed for the days of testing and survival, of true warriors and blood-soaked battles, even if living among these so-called more evolved humans had softened him.

Heimdall shook off the chill that had stymied his ritual. He didn’t kid himself about it being the cool, damp air of the Pacific Northwest or the approaching autumn’s frost. There was another presence here in the woods, another hunter after the same prey. Heimdall deliberately ignored it, and bent down to pat his dog on the head instead.