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Wil turned Mick toward the door, still talking. Creed returned to Chiana’s bunk, watching her, watching the men. The doctor apparently had a golden tongue because after a few more moments of quiet talk, Mick calmed.
    “I think I can get him out of here,” Wil said as he made one last check on Chiana. “I’m going to walk outside with him; I’ll be back once I’m sure he’s gone.”
    Creed was startled when the man gave him a half-hug until he realized Wil was using the moment to slide something into his jacket pocket.
    “You may need these,” he said softly.
    Creed touched the syringes beneath the fabric.
    “What is it?” he whispered back.
    “Your last line of defense.”
    Creed trusted the doc; almost every agent had worked with him at one time or another. He’d relied on the man himself to cure a damnable skin breakout caused by too much contact with troll saliva. Whatever the doc concocted, it healed the sores without a mark despite Creed’s inability to stop scratching.
    Doc seemed to have a handle on keeping Chiana manageable. Still, they couldn’t stay here long. Yeah, Guardian might have the best medical facilities for someone like her, but he wasn’t letting go of her until he knew more about the woman and her bloodline. He’d hunted a wide variety of supernatural beings in his time, and bore the physical and mental scars from it. Chiana was something—someone—new.
    His unexpected sympathy for her might make her the most dangerous of all.
    * * * *
    Rhori stood on the wide, grassy plain that had so recently been a killing field, his gaze fixed on the shimmering palace of the god Odin. The sounds of merriment rolled from the great hall Valhalla, piercing him with a longing and sorrow deeper than any he’d known before. He was a warrior. His place was inside that hall, toasting his fallen fellows with wine and boasting of his own great victories.
    Instead, he lingered here, a casualty not only of battle but also of the fickle nature of a woman. Dying, he had looked into the eyes of the spear-bearing Valkyrie, begging her to send him to the palace of their deity. Her only answer had been a mournful “forgive me” before she vanished.
    Only Odin himself could free him since he’d been betrayed by the traitorous Cryssa, she who traded immortality for the arms of mortal man. Rhori had prayed to his god of war, begging to be taken from this barrenness into paradise. And Odin had come, studying his spirit warrior with his one good eye.
    “Do you still serve your master?” Odin’s voice was deceptively kind.
    Rhori, who had fallen to his knees in respect, nodded and whispered, “I do, my lord.”
    “Do this for me, then, and earn your place at my table,” he had said. “In the other world lives a woman who is my chosen. She roams the cities where men kill one another for causes far less noble than ours. Ride the streams of time and bring the maiden Chiana, daughter of Cryssa, to me, and I will take you in.”
    Rhori had searched as Odin commanded, taking the shape of his god’s favored raven. After days of futility in that unfamiliar world, Rhori caught the scent of the Valkyrie and searched until he found her. Yet his weakness in that other world forced him to come back without the daughter, just as he had failed to keep Cryssa in this plane.
    Odin had not been pleased.
    “Why do you return without my Valkyrie?”
    His voice boomed from within the mist, enveloping the plain and hiding Odin’s visage from him.
    Shivering in fear, Rhori finally managed to speak.
    “She was in my grasp, my lord, but I could do no more than mark her. Her blood holds something so unbearable that even the merest touch brings great agony.”
    He extended his palms toward Odin to show the deep burns and peeling skin. The god stepped from the mist and, with one swipe of his long hand, sent Rhori tumbling across the grass.
    “Coward,” Odin jeered, rage contorting his face. “You are no man of war. You cringe at