Valkyrie's Curse Part III

Valkyrie's Curse Part III

by

Ellie Mack

Helena stood, she barely came up to his chest.  She brushed herself off and squared her shoulders.  “You need to leave now.  This is my dig, my site and I want you gone.”

”Hvad er det? Er det en Valkyre komme til at eskortere mig til Valhal eller Nefflheim?” (What is this? Is it a Valkyrie come to escort me to Valhalla or Niflheim?)  His voice was deep,  gravelly.  His expression was one of mistrust. 

Well she didn’t trust him either.  ”Look pal, you’ve got to go!  Come on.”  She grabbed his arm tugging him towards the wall she’d just fallen through. When she turned it was gone.  That’s when it hit her, she’d fallen through the wall.  How was that possible?   It must be some sort of trick that this guy was doing to sabotage her dig.  She turned on him, slowly releasing his arm, crossing her arms over her chest and leveled him with a look that would make most men cringe.  ”What. Did. You. Do. To. My Dig?”  She enunciated each word, practically spitting then at him through clenched teeth.

”Hvordan har jeg vred det Guds at de har sendt mig sådan en smuk plage Valkyrie? Jeg ville turde dybder Niflheim for én sød kys.”

(How have I angered the God's that they have sent me such a beautiful tormenting Valkyrie?  I would dare the depths of Niflheim for one sweet kiss.  )

She was not amused.  How dare he come here to sabotage her site then speak Danish or whatever gibberish he was talking to her.  She barely could make out a few words and she didn’t have her  dictionary with her.    ” Kan du bremse, så jeg kan forstå dig?”  She hoped she’d just asked him to slow down so she could understand him, if not she may have jsut made him an elicit offer that she was not ready to fulfill.

”Ros Odin! Jeg vil langsomt min tale.” (Praise Odin! I will slow my speech.  ) The man’s eyes sparkled.  He seemed pleased.

’Oh god’ she hoped she had said the right thing and not offered him sexual favors.  ”OK” , she struggled with the Danish.  Why hadn’t she spent more time studying?  ”You must ”  she sighed trying to form the words.  ” Du skal forlade her. Du skal ikke være her.” (You must leave here.  You shouldn't be here.)

” Ja selvfølgelig!”  He exclaimed with excitement. 

Helena cleared her throat, saying a silent prayer.  ’Please let me not be telling him I”m going to be his prostitute!’  Very slowly she enunciated her words. ” Vi vil gå til te exit.”

He lifted her in the air, twirling her around. ”Ja. Ja. Ja.”

This wasn’t going anything like she had anticipated.  She still wasn’t sure if she was saying the right things, or if he was excited about an offer she didn’t intend to make.   She moved away from him quickly when he set her down.  ”OK.  Glad you’re excited.”   Under her breath she added  ”Depending on what you’re excited about anyway.”  She smoothed her shirt down. ”Let’s go this way.”  She motioned to the left, he eagerly followed.

 

                                *                             *                             *                             *                             *

Scott heard the sirens in the distance.  They grew louder as they got closer to their camp.  ”What the heck?”  He ducked out and ran to Helena’s tent.  ”Helena.  Helena.”    Surely she hadn’t fallen asleep already.  He tried louder  ”Helena!”

There was no answer.  He ducked his head inside her tent an looked around.  He jogged over to the work tent and ducked inside.  She wasn’t there either.  The police car stopped in front of the tent.

A tall thin man stepped out of the car.  ”We have a call for assistance from Helena?”

At that moment Scott realized that the quadrunner was missing.  ”She’s probably at the site.”  He motioned to the officer, and ran around the car to get into the passengers side.  He pointed down the trail towards the site.   The officer sped down the gravel trail.  They found the quad runner but no Helena.  Scott ducked into the tunnel.  He found the skid marks from her shoes in the muck, and recently fallen sod from the ceiling.  The officer searched the grounds, searched the tunnel.  Soon the area was swarming with a squad of police officers and the area taped off as a crime scene.  It was determined that the skidmarks were a sign of struggle.  When they found blood in the tunnel, it looked pretty grim. 

Scott was a bundle of nerves.  How could this happen?  He had just been with her not an hour before.  He had lain on his cot warring with his emotions to go back to her tent or give her time. He took off at a run towards the camp, furious with himself.   Fueled by his anger, he ran the short distance in no time at all.  When he got to camp, ther was chaos there as well.  One of the new undergrads was missing.  She had arrived at camp the day before, but was nowhere to be found.  The other girl in her tent said she thought she heard her fighting with someone in the night.  Scott phoned the officer taht had first showed up and reported  the girl missing.

This was not going anything like he had hoped.  What the hell was going on around here?  He searched for Brad, the only voice of sanity in the whole camp at the moment.  He found him in the mess hall with his laptop, chatting online with his girl.

”Figured I’d find you in here.”  He grabbed an apple from the large fruit bowl.

”Hey.”  Brad nodded as he tapped away on the keys.  ”So where’s Helena?”

Scott sat in the chair, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.  ”She’s gone man.  Someone kidnapped her.  There was blood in the tunnel.”

Brad looked up from his keyboard.  ”Seriously?”

”Yeah man”  Scott clenched his jaw.  ”She’s gone.”

”Oh damn.  That kind of blows holes in the project, and what with the new chick disappearing”  he tapped out a few more  words then set his computer on the table.   He sat silent for a few seconds before he started.  ”Look, we’ll do everything we can to find them; but gotta let the police do their work.  Let’s go over to the work tent, and see waht Helena was working on last night.  She ducked out just as soon as you left .  I thought you guys were geting close.  You’ve always had a thing for her haven’t you?”

Scott nodded his head.

Brad closed out his screen. ”Juliet my love something has come up.”  He stated out loud as he tapped in the message. ”We’ll continue our rp later darling.  Alright, let’s go.”

The two walked in silence to the main work center to check Helena’s computer.  ”It’s only a matter of time, if the police are any good before they want to confiscate our equipment.” Brad worked as he talked.  He quickly bypassed Helena’s passwords and pulled up the talemmetry screens, then the video feed that Helena had been watching. 

”There!”  Scott pointed to the screen. They  both zeroed in on the big man in the tunnel. 

Brad inserted cables to Helena’s computer and then into his own.  He downloaded the recorded feed onto his computer.  ”Yeah they are going to want to see this.”  The men watched a little longer and saw Helena show up on the screen.  She slipped, tried to catch herself then stumbled headlong.   She was there falling, and then seh wasn’t .  ”Hmmmm.  Well they are going to want these for evidence, but I don’t think. . .”  he trailed off for a moment.  He checked the progress of the transfer, when it was done he deleted the part with Helena. 

”Yeah, they are going to want this.  But we gotta get out of here and make sure they don’t take mine.  I haven’t told you what I”ve deciphered from the door.  Or wall.  It makes sense now but you’re never going to believe it.  Good news is . . . your girl friend isn’t dead yet.”

Scott looked at him hopeful.

”The bad news is, if we don’t figure this out fast she’ll be dead by Samheim.  That’s fourteen days away.”

The two ducked under the tent flaps and booked to Brad’s tent.  He stashed his computer in the bottom of his footlocker and took out a second laptop computer and shrugged.  ”Backup.  You never know.”

He removed several files from it, then tucked it under his arm. ”Let’s go.  We’ll share the files with the police, set them on the trail then get back on this ourselves.  Then I’ll show you what I’ve found.”