Chapter Seventeen

Harold wasn’t trying to hide his tracks which was fortunate for Josephine.  He was running faster than she could keep up.  It took her until nightfall to find him.  She had crossed a road which she guessed was Highway 101 and followed Harold’s trail up into the forest beyond.  As she reached the edge of the forest she paused for a second.  She could hear him.  He was at the top of a hill that had been cleared of all trees. She ran toward him until she was about 100 feet away and then slowed to a walk.  Harold was still in his ulfhedinn form and squatting on a tree stump.  He watched her walk up to him.  She stopped a few feet away and looked up at Harold.  The rest of his clothes had fallen off and his breathing was calm.  He’d been there for a while.  Josephine was about to ask him if he was alright but Harold raised his hand.  She stood still and waited. Harold looked into her eyes.  

“You are what you are because of me.” Harold looked down at the ground and then back at her.  “My pack was on a mission to capture two draugar.  They were setting up a car accident for someone when we found them.  We stopped them but they escaped our trap due to my inexperience.  My pack leader excused my mistake and sent five of the more experienced warriors to trail them.  The next day they reported back that the two draugar had kidnapped some American woman at a Guy Fawkes bonfire and made off with her.  They caught sight of them a few times and could see the woman was still alive. They lost the trail near a factory.  The smells were too strong and masked the draugar scent.” Harold turned away from Josephine again and looked up at the clouds and stars. “The draugar couldn’t get the convert they wanted and took you instead.”   

Harold looked at Josephine again and saw that she was frozen, staring at him with a look of confusion locked on her face.  He shifted his weight a little and waited.  This was going to take a while.   

After a couple of minutes, he stood up and raised his face and arms to the sky.   

“Hail the Ǣsir, hail the Vanir, hail the elder kin.  All Father, Yggdrasil’s Three Keepers, you have brought me and this woman here.  What do you want us to do?” Receiving no answer he lowered his arms and looked down at Josephine. She had come out of her statue state and was looking at him.  

“They told me they were saving me from the werewolves.  The only way they could truly save me was to make me a vampire.  It was insane.  Until that night werewolves and vampires were stories, myths, and legends.  Yet there I was, being carried as if I were no more than a sack of flour as a group of werewolves chased us through the city.  Once we lost them they told me that rescuing me was part of God’s plan.  They asked if I was ready to become part of God’s plan, ready to be more than human and fight the good fight against the monsters that had been chasing us.  Of course I said yes. They were incredibly handsome, their voices sounded like angels.  I would have said yes even if your pack hadn’t been chasing us.  The vampire that converted me, Theodoric, became my mentor.”   

Stepping down from the tree stump Harold walked to Josephine.  She put her hands on his arms and rested her head against his chest.  His fur was warm and soft.  Harold put his arms around Josephine’s shoulders and lowered his face to her head.  Her hair smelled of the forest.   

They stood like that for a few minutes as the clouds moved across the sky.  It started to rain and after it had been falling on them for a little while they looked at each other.  Josephine smiled a sheepish smile.   

“You stink like a wet dog.” Harold took his hands from around her and she dropped her hands from his arms.  He shrugged.  “Makes it easy for you to find me.”

“Yes, it does.” Josephine looked around the clear cut.  “We’re a long way from the car.  You covered a lot of miles in a hurry.”  

“I was berserk for a little while.” He said it as if describing a medical condition.  

“Being crazy makes you run faster?” Harold started walking down the hill to the forest.  Josephine walked next to him.   

“It’s a little more than that.  When we go into a berserker state we are filled with the inspiration of Oðinn.  It’s more than we can handle and we become wilder, stronger, faster and more savage.  This is the first time I’ve gone berserk since WWII.”  Harold kept his eyes on the terrain and avoided looking at Josephine.  He didn’t know if she’d be able to see the painful memory on his face and they’d had enough revelations for one night.  They walked in silence until they reached the forest.   

As they entered the woods Josephine said in a quiet voice, “What do you want to do?”  Harold walked along a little more before speaking.  

“Find out if these reformed vampires are real.  Find out if this mythical clan of ulfhednar are real. Keep you by my side.”  They walked a little further. “And what do you want to do?”

Josephine looked at Harold and smiled warmly. “The same.  I think we’re supposed to be.  Perhaps your gods and Norns have plans for us.”  Josephine jumped up onto a mother tree that sloped down the hill.  Harold did the same and walked behind her.  “You want to hear something funny?” She asked.  “Certainly.” Harold answered.  

“That flight you met me on?  I wasn’t going to take that flight. I had flown to New York to meet with Theodoric.  He’d left the London guild back in the 70’s and moved to upstate New York.  He’d become sort of a recluse. I went to meet with him try to explain what I was doing and why.   He yelled at me.  Called me an infidel, blasphemer, traitor.  The usual stuff.  I asked him if he was going to turn me in.   I guess he did feel some sort of fatherly love for me because he said he wouldn’t.   He would never talk to me again and would denounce me, but not take action against me.  I left to catch my flight to Seattle and even with the damn GPS app I still got lost.  Missed my flight.  Think it was your gods messing with my GPS?” She asked teasingly.   

Harold stopped walking and just looked at Josephine.  He started laughing so hard he fell off the log and rolled across some ferns.  He didn’t seem to notice.  “It wasn’t that funny of a story.”  Josephine yelled at him.  

Harold laughed even more.  “You want to tell me what the hell is so hilarious?”  Josephine was smiling too but felt a little annoyed with Harold’s inability to answer her question.  Harold finally stopped laughing and just said, “Diapers.”  

“What? Diapers?”  Harold calmed down and Josephine jumped down from the log to land next to him.  “You want to explain what diapers have to do with my story?”  Harold laughed again.   

“Not your story.  Mine.  I was going to catch a flight but changed it to a later one when I realized I was going to share it with four babies and their dirty diapers.  The gods may have a serious quest for us, but they have a sense of humour getting us there.” Josephine gave Harold her hand and pulled him up out of the ferns.  He stood up close to her and looked into her eyes.  They both paused for a moment.  Harold could smell nothing from her and not having that information to judge her emotional state he didn’t know what to do.  He knew what he wanted to do.  Hold her.  Just hold her and try to make sense of what it all meant.  When he had held her at the top of the hill it was like an apology.  Now he wanted to hold her for the sake of it. But why would she want to hold him?  He was a seven-foot tall half wolf, half man. Stepping back he quickly said, “Well, we should get going.”  He turned and started walking down the hill sniffing the breeze to find his scent from when he’d ran up the hill.  He heard Josephine walking behind him.  He looked back at her.  She seemed maudlin.   

“What is it?” He asked.  

“Nothing.  It’s, well, it’s been quite a night hasn’t it?”  She caught up to him.  “We have a few miles back to the car.  Let’s get moving.”  

Harold nodded and they started running through the woods.