CHAPTER 51: THE MOST USEFUL DEGREE…EVER

Björn had read the magazine on knot techniques cover-to-cover three times before he tossed it aside in disgust. “Are we there yet?”

“No, we’re still in Anchorage,” Jessie said. “There’s an accident up there somewhere. Sorry.” The human had been relatively silent throughout, mainly keeping his eyes forward and sweating the fear-stink for hours. It was really starting to wear at Björn’s self-control. After getting his killing blood up, he was hungry. The eight men in the forest had only whet his appetite, and this pudgy burger-flipper would do nicely to wash them down.

That, or some decent ale or mead. He hadn’t seen either since coming to the softlands, and it was grating on him. He’d seen an entire basement of wine—disgusting—but nothing worthy of a drinking horn. Odin’s balls, he hungered for a proper horn of mead…

“Talk to me about something, human. I’m bored.” Björn dug a talon into the plastic dashboard and began drawing the sigil of Odin’s Champion. “Entertain me.”

Jessie looked over, saw the talon peeling away little curls of plastic from the dash, and said, “Hey, uh, if this is a rental, they probably don’t want you to do that…”

Björn swiveled to give his next meal a flat stare. “I own this fancy chariot-of-steel.” Technically, it wasn’t true, but he owned his soulmate, and she owned the limo, so in effect he owned the limo.

Jessie glanced nervously at him. “Do you plan to eat me?”

“Of course,” Björn said. “But first, you will entertain me.” He gestured for his plaything to continue.

Jessie bit his lip and hastily turned back to face the road. A moment later, Björn saw tears.

“Stop crying,” he snapped, making the man jump.

The man started to hyperventilate.

Björn rolled his eyes. “Please, I’m giving you a chance to make a name for yourself. You entertain me enough between then and now, I might even allow you to continue your pointless existence as a flipper of burgers, if only to greet strangers with the fact that you, Jessie-of-Nowhere, served Björn, Odin’s Champion, and aided him in his time of need.”

“I’m actually a Psych major,” the man said. “One semester from my masters. Already been accepted to Stanford if I can figure out the funding. Just gotta take the final exam and then I can move to the Lower 48 and start my doctorial work.”

“Eh?” Björn demanded, frowning. “What fool’s gibberish is this?”

“It’s…uh…what people do to make money here. They get a degree, then get a job.” He made a face. “It’s getting the job that’s the hard part up here. Not a lot of places hiring, gotta get certified and start your own practice.”

Björn squinted at the man, only understanding half of what he said. “They pay in gold for this ‘job’?” He could use some gold.

The man gave a nervous titter of a laugh. “I…uh…guess you could say that. It’s more electronic wire transfers, less D&D, but yeah.”

Björn nodded, grunting. “How many men must we kill?”

The man made that annoying nervous laugh again. “It’s not that kind of job. I, uh, am being trained to help people work through their problems,” Jessie said.

“With a sword?” Björn asked, squinting at him. The flabby softlander didn’t look like the sword-swinging type.

“Uh, erm, no, a couch.”

“You beat them with a couch?” Björn raised his brow in curiosity. He definitely hadn’t thought the little man had that in him. He was impressed.

“Not exactly,” the man insisted. Then, as Björn’s brow furrowed at him, added, “You know, they lay back, talk about what’s bothering them, and I walk them through the steps to make them feel better about themselves?”

“With a sword.” Björn nodded. It made sense, if he thought about it. Often, the greatest war leaders had a man they used to raise the morale of the rest of the men, a good talker, someone who could get in front of the army and lace the fire of Odin in the men’s hearts with a few short words before sending them hurtling into battle screaming their death songs. In his experience, though, the battle-chanters had always been great warriors …

“Uh, no, not with swords.” The soft little man swallowed. “With their, uh, minds.” He glanced nervously over at the passenger seat and, seeing Björn’s complete disbelief, he cleared his throat and added, “You know, they lay back, go through memories, work through past traumas…”

Björn blinked at him, realized he was serious, then threw back his head and laughed. “Real men don’t need…” He gestured disgustedly at Jessie, “…couch men.”

“We’re called shrinks.”

“Real men don’t need ‘shrinks,’” Björn said. He started peeling off the chrome plating from the dash and bent it into a figure-8. Throwing it into the back, he said, “I will teach you how to be a real man,” he decided. “You will see.” Then he cocked his head. “Or I’ll eat you. One or the other.”

Jessie gave him a long look, like he was considering something, then glanced back at the road ahead of him. “So… You eat people?”

“I said as much, didn’t I?”

“What’s that like?” Jessie asked.

“It’s like eating the raw flesh of pigs who have consumed the detergent-laced feces of pesticide-drenched—”

“No, no, I mean, how’s that make you feel?” He glanced back at Björn quickly, catching himself. “Eating people, I mean.”

“Invigorating!” Björn roared, hammering his chest. “My enemies fall before me in droves! It is good for the heart to see ones foes quiver in terror before I tear them apart with my teeth.”

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“Uh-huh.” He seemed to consider that. “So…do you ever had anyone who doesn’t quiver in terror around you?”

Björn snorted. “Naturally everyone quivers around me. I am Odin’s Chosen.” He slapped a hand over his heart. “Honored above all in the Nightlands. A warrior.”

“You’ve said that. A lot.” Jessie glanced at him. “Is that how you think of yourself, then? A warrior?”

“How dare you suggest otherwise, you spineless sack of pig shit!” Björn snarled. He batted at Jessie’s head—who ducked just in time—narrowly missing his skull and knocking the headrest off the human’s seat instead, sending it smashing through the privacy divide with a crash of breaking glass. “I should break you in half!”

Jessie swerved up onto the curb, scraped the bottom of the limo on the concrete barrier, then over-corrected and brought them careening back onto the main road, sadly without killing any pedestrians. That would have been interesting. Several times in this hellish stop-and-go voyage, the pedestrians had walked faster than the limo.

The human made a chittering laugh, shaking all over. “No, it’s obvious you’re a warrior.” It was quite possible he had peed himself. Björn wrinkled his nose. Yep, urine. Disgusting. He would have to make the beast strip before he ate him. The softling chanced a glance at him, then at the ripped metal rods that was what was left of his headrest. “A very good one, by the looks of it.”

Björn made a somewhat mollified grunt. At least the fool could see the obvious. He turned and started picking at the window. “Drive faster. I’m hungry again.”

The weakling swallowed, hard. “That must be very lonely.”

“What is?” Björn barked, making the man jump.

“Being that good as a warrior,” he blurted. “It must…distance you…from other people.”

“Odin’s Chosen stand alone against the great assaults of Valhöll by jötnar,” Björn grunted. “We’re a symbol for others to rally behind in the coming fight of Ragnarøkkr. It is an honor to stand against such a formidable foe.”

“So you’re alone a lot.”

Immediately, Björn felt that bittersweet truth of his life’s calling. He made a face. “You bore me with these inane questions, human. I will definitely eat you now.”

Quickly, the man said, “Me, I feel alone a lot, but I’m not a warrior. I couldn’t really understand what you go through…”

“You are a small, weak, and pathetic man that can’t even maintain the interest of a single woman,” Björn agreed. “You deserve to be eaten to make room for others.”

The man nodded vigorously, “…and all those nights I was home alone, she was out having an affair, I know!” He turned back to face the road, shaking his head. “It just illustrates how alone I really am, not being interesting enough to hold a woman’s attention. She lives in my house, eats my food, but she’s not really mine.” He glanced back at Björn. “What about you? You got woman trouble?”

Björn snorted, automatically feeling that wave of despair that had been plaguing him for centuries, ever since Mardöll had first rejected him. “Women are Odin’s most vile creation.”

“Yes!” Jessie cried. “Fuck yes they are. Kind of like condoms.”

Björn glanced at Jessie, pulled from his memories of that dejection by the strange word. “Condoms?”

Jessie gestured at his crotch. “They’re these things, like plastic socks, that women’s doctors want you to stick on your dicks to prevent disease and pregnancy, shit like that.”

Björn felt his eyes go wide. “On one’s phallus?!”

“Stupid, right?!”

“You lie!” Björn cried, horrified. “There can be no such thing! What man would wear them?!”

“Pussies!” Jessie cried. “Pussies, that’s who! Wife-stealing, Call of Duty-playing, skateboard-carrying, best-friend-betraying pussies.”

Björn could not close his jaw, such was his disbelief. “This land must be cleansed.”

“Oh yeah. Totally agree with you there. We can start with all the six-foot-tall redheads with a Tony Hawk tattoo.”

Björn thought that was a little specific, but this human, as a native, would know more about its denizens than he would. “How many of these Tony Hawk worshippers are there?”

Jessie glanced over at him anxiously. “Uh…enough.”

Björn grunted. “We will hunt them after we find my bride.”

Jessie eyed him a moment longer, then turned back to face the road. “You’d be surprised what guys around here’ll do to get a little tail,” Jessie said, shaking his head. “Poems, flowers, dick-socks… It’s pathetic, actually.”

“Emasculating!” Björn cried. “All men who have worn these socks must be killed for the sake of the rest of us, lest our women get malevolent ideas!”

“Agreed!” Jessie roared. “Kill the sock-wearers!”

Björn made a grunt of agreement. “Where do they get these socks?” He would add that to his list of places to cleanse in Odin’s name.

“Oh, everywhere,” Jessie said. “The government practically shoves them at us guys. We can’t go anywhere without seeing racks of them. The 7-Eleven, the local grocery store, snack machines…”

“They’re eaten?” Björn cried, totally transfixed by the horror, now.

“They make ‘em in different flavors,” Jessie said. “Like strawberry, banana, stuff like that. Oh, and ribbed. My girl really liked those.”

Björn squinted at him. “…ribbed?”

“Textured,” Jessie said. Then, when Björn still didn’t understand, he lowered his voice and said, “More sensation.”

Björn felt his eyes widen with understanding. “To give pleasure.”

The man nodded.

“But why not just bite her?” Björn demanded. “The pain response makes for a much more satisfying orgasm.”

“Oh man, I don’t know,” Jessie said, sounding nervous. “Mine didn’t like that so much.”

“Mine either!” Björn roared, feeling himself bonding with the little man over the incomprehensiblities of women. “A perfectly good copulation, ruined, because she enthralled me for biting her!”

“Sometimes they don’t like pain as much as we’d like them to,” Jessie commiserated.

“It doesn’t matter what they like,” Björn snapped. “Odin made them for us, they should like what we give them.”

“Damn straight,” Jessie said. “Well said.”

Björn grunted. They endured a manly silence together as the tar-stone passed by, thinking about that.

Then the weakling broke their brotherly moment with, “So you’ve met this…Odin?”

As if it weren’t obvious. “I serve him, fool.”

Jessie gave him a curious look. “And he told you he made women for men? I mean, it sounds too good to be true—I just wanna make sure I’m not missing anything.”

“You miss nothing,” Björn barked. “Unless they carry swords of their own, women were made to serve men.”

“Oh?” Jessie asked, looking sufficiently impressed. “Then, what, we own them or something?”

Björn grunted agreement. “As is the natural order”

“And he made men first?” Jessie asked.

“Huh?” Björn said, blinking.

“Of his creations, he made men before women?”

“Obviously not,” Björn said. “Men can’t birth warriors to share mead in Odin’s hall.” Gods he wanted some mead.

“But you know,” Jessie said, after several minutes, “…if you think about it from the other direction, if women were made first, didn’t Odin make men for women?”

“Ridiculous.” This was obvious. “Women exist to please their men with a good night of sex after a romp on Hjaðningavíg. A man owns whatever he takes in battle, and women are taken by men in battle. It is known by even the smallest, weakling man to be thus.”

“What about the Valkyries?”

Björn went cold, thinking of those ball-crushing sword-demons and their silver-winged steeds. “What about them?” He actually had trouble forming the words, so tight his throat had become at their very name, as if speaking of them could summon the creatures forth.

“Were Valky—”

“Don’t speak their name! Are you daft?!” Björn bit down the surge of panic, then shook himself. This weakling probably just didn’t understand, considering he, as a softling meat-fryer with no muscle to speak of, had never had cause to be hunted by the she-witches.

The man had stopped, mid-sentence, and was giving him a curious look. “Were…those women… made for men?”

“Fuck no,” Björn still felt ill, thinking of his last, horrible encounter on the field with them. “If they decide they like a warrior, the man best run for his life, for if he is captured, a thousand Valkyries might pierce themselves on his shaft for a thousand years before get bored and send him back to Hjaðningavíg.” He shuddered. It had sucked.

But Jessie was watching him closely. “Did that…happen to you?”