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A Hand in the Dark
I had made a mistake.
Well, that wasn’t anything new. Sometimes it felt like my whole life was a mistake. How else could I explain everything I’d been through?
But this newest mistake, well, it might not be one I got to walk away from.
I should have known better than to come alone. Hell, I had known better than to come alone, but the hot new drug these guys were pimping was called Valhalla, and there were just enough connections to make me think that maybe—
Maybe—
I looked down at my bloody-knuckled hands, lying limp on the dirty concrete. Get up, I told myself. Push yourself up and keep going.
How much time did I have? I’d walked into the goddamn trap, and it was only discovering my badge that had stopped the kids who took me down from plugging me full of holes right then and there.
They weren’t even tied into everything else. No connection to Aesir, to Horne, to Woden, to the Valhalla Project. Just dumb little upstarts who didn’t mind poisoning other people if it gave them what they wanted; if it helped them wear nicer shoes and afford better prostitutes.
I still hadn’t managed to stand up; hadn’t managed to twitch my hands. All I was doing was staring up at the washed-out, reflected neon lights of the city and waiting to get my ticket punched by stupid punks who didn’t deserve the privilege.
Not that taking me out should be a privilege. What was I even hanging around here for? Every time I thought I was doing better, getting my feet under me, something kicked the ladder out from under my feet. Had I really thought any mention of Valhalla meant there were more people to kill in my quest for vengeance? Hell, half the white supremacists in the city threw Norse jargon around like candy at a parade, and though I didn’t mind killing some Nazis, there had to be lines. Limits.
Something skulked out of the shadows.
My fingers twitched.
Apparently willing myself to move wasn’t working, but there was still some animal lizard-brain part of myself that wasn’t ready to give up.
The dog was maybe forty pounds, covered in scars, ears torn to ribbons. The beast kept its head down, its eyes fixed on me, mouth slightly open. Some of the teeth were cracked.
Was I really going to end everything getting mauled to death in a drug dealer’s back alley?
The dog reached my hand, which had managed to ball into a fist.
A wet nose pressed against my battered knuckles.
This was it. I was about to become a statistic.
A warm, wet tongue slithered over my injuries.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The dog’s tail, ragged and half-bald, wagged uncertainly, pressed tight against the beast’s rear.
“Hey, doggy,” I managed to whisper. “Who’s a good doggy.”
The dog leaped away from me as though I were a rattlesnake.
I went still and quiet again.
The dog slunk its way back towards me, and once more started to clean my hand.
No teeth.
No threat.
That same uncertain tail-wag.
Was this a bait dog? A sacrifice sent in to get bloody before the real match began?
Whatever this poor creature was, however it had come by the scars and injuries, it hadn’t gone feral. It could have hurt me—could have killed me—and it hadn’t.
It feared injury, and it came back to me anyway, drawn inexorably by the need for contact.
“Aren’t we all,” I murmured, and this time the dog didn’t run away. Instead she stopped, studying me through wary eyes, before settling down and watching me.
Move, I told my hand, and this time it did. My fingers clenched. My elbow flexed. And I managed to use my arm to lever myself into a sitting position.
The world spun around me, and I studied the dog, neither of us looking into the other’s eyes. We weren’t a threat to each other. We didn’t need to challenge each other.
But I was sure as hell going to be a threat to the people who had put her here.
Reaching down into my boot, I pulled out the knife I kept there for emergencies.
“You wait here,” I told the dog. “I’ll be back in a half hour or so, and then I’m taking you to the vet.”
The dog’s tail wagged uncertainly, but she didn’t leap at me growling, and she didn’t run away cowering.
She just watched me as I strode—well, staggered—over to the door that led back into the amateur chemistry lab where Valhalla was being produced.
I was no berserker viking. I was no hero. I hadn’t been able to keep my own family alive.
But I could take a licking and keep on ticking, as they said, and even if these people weren’t responsible for my personal tragedies, they definitely bore responsibility for some.
And as long as I was able to draw breath, I might as well do something about that.