Read Valknut: The Binding for Free Online Page A

with a
sharp little chin. She looked much younger than he had first
guessed, but the two deep, vertical lines between her eyebrows made
her look angry, even in her sleep.
    That was it, he realized. The difference. He
had never felt that kind of intensity from anyone before. Except
maybe from himself. He had felt it even before she had started
talking. That couldn’t explain why her wounds closed up as if they
had never happened, but the anger did give her another kind of
power. A pissed-off pit bull kind of power. Enough to get her into
trouble, but not enough to get her out of it again.
    He understood that sort of power. It had
nearly gotten him killed, more than once. Somehow, he had to
convince her to go home and stay there before some gangbanger found
her. Or worse, the serial killer. But he knew she wouldn’t listen
to him any more than Austin had. He clicked off the flashlight and
left her blanketed in the dark, but he could still see her face,
fair skin damp from nightmares, her delicate, pink lips parted in
sleep.
    If the serial killer took her, those lips
would be cut and crusted over with blood, her face forever twisted
by terror.
    He could see it as clearly as if it had
already happen. That was how his brother’s face had looked, between
the zippered sides of a body bag. He shuddered at the memory. The
sight had nearly unhinged him for good. But then he had met
Detective Harcourt Briggeman and everything had changed.
    He had still been in shock when a police
officer had taken him from the morgue to the police station. No one
had answered his questions beyond the obvious. They wouldn’t even
tell him if there was a suspect.
    He was taken to a room containing a table and
two chairs. A box of tissues sat in the middle of the table, along
with a pitcher of water and some Styrofoam cups. The room was
otherwise devoid of furnishings or decoration.
    A broad-shouldered man in his early thirties
sat in one of the chairs. His denim shirt was grease-stained and
coming untucked from his jeans. Mud flaked from scuffed work boots.
He slouched, elbows on the table, his head propped up in his hands,
one long leg stretching lazily to the side. He might have been
asleep but for the nervous jiggle in the other leg.
    The officer escorting Doug strode into the
room, leaving Doug in the doorway. “Hey, Briggs.” He dropped a
folder on the table. “The report’s in there, along with duplicates
of the pictures, like you asked.”
    Briggs opened one red-rimmed eye, then the
other, and dragged himself upright. “Thanks, Sam. I’ve been up all
night with this case. Again. What a goddamn mess, eh?” He rubbed
his face, making waves in the worry lines that creased his
forehead.
    “Nasty business, and the hell of it is, it’ll
take a miracle to—”
    Briggs spotted Doug in the doorway. “Captain
Harding! I didn’t see you there.” He shot Sam an annoyed glance and
stood up from the table. “You are Captain Harding, right?”
    When Doug nodded, Briggs thrust out a hand
and said, “I’m Detective Briggeman with FRC Railroad.”
    Briggs’s hand was as dirty as the rest of
him, with broken, black-rimmed nails. Doug accepted it, saying,
“This isn’t Fort Bragg. Just call me Doug.” The handshake was brief
but firm. “FRC Railroad—you’re the one who called my C.O. Can you
tell me what happened?”
    Briggs pulled the other chair out from the
table and motioned Doug to sit down. “We’ll get to that. First, can
you tell me what Austin was doing on that train?”
    Doug stared down at his hands and rubbed
absently at a dark smudge left by Briggs’s handshake. “I got
promoted. Just last week. There was a party Friday.” He rubbed
harder, but the stain only smeared. “Austin never misses a party.
He cut two days of classes to get there on time. Hopped trains and
hitchhiked all the way from Minneapolis to North Carolina in two
days. He tapped the first keg himself.
    “I told him not to come, but he did anyway.
To