“No, it will not.” Her teeth flashed. Wow, they were sharp. “And for the record, we know nothing about the berserkers abducting your friend.” She pointed a perfect long red fingernail at me. “I’ve scheduled an appointment for you to meet with our nestmasters next week to discuss our spark stone.”
Donovan loomed over my shoulder to look at the screen. “Is it safe?”
“Yes, Your Highness. Despite your brother’s recent attempts to find it, our stone is secure. Prince Connor seems to have given up for now. We aren’t taking any chances, though, so we’ll discuss our options in time. For now, the ancients want to see how this conflict plays out.”
So, Connor had gone for the vampire spark stone. I made a mental note to ask if it did anything other than make vampires look like supermodels. Judging by Donovan’s scowl, it must be something good.
“I must go.” Jillian glared at me. Even through the screen, she looked terrifying. “Don’t miss the appointment next week. And don’t make my job any harder than it already is,” she snarled. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, Susan. And there’s so much doubt right now. Don’t let me down.” She exploded into a cloud of shadow and disappeared.
Chapter
Four
Thirty seconds later, Bart walked into the kitchen. His hands were still shaking. “I can’t afford to lose her, Susan. Jillian’s the best accountant in the whole state. She already scares the shit out of me; I can’t deal with her being mad with us.”
“It’s okay, Bart.” I walked him back to the table. “We can fix this. We’ll find Audrina, and smooth things over with the vampires later.” A thrum of anxiety pulsed through me. “Do we know why the berserkers would have wanted me in the first place?”
“They would only have two reasons for abducting you,” Cress said. “First, they might have aligned themselves with Connor already and came to get you on his orders. If this is the case, then Audrina is probably already dead.”
I closed my eyes for a second and prayed that wasn’t true. “What’s the other reason?”
“They want you to close their stone for them. Berserkers are a proactive species, and they value the strength that their magic gives them. I could imagine them taking the initiative and abducting the One of Every Blood to secure their power against Connor.”
“And again, Audrina might already be dead.”
“Not yet.” Cress shook her head. “She’s only been gone for a couple of hours. Berserkers are limited in their magical abilities, so they would have no way of knowing if she was the Chosen One or not. They might rough her up if she doesn’t give them what they ask, but they won’t kill her straight away.” She pursed her lips, looking thoughtful. “If it were me, I would torture her for at least a week before giving up.”
I massaged my temples, trying to beat back the fear so I could think properly. “Bart, how did you know that they were berserkers?”
“I know a berserker when I see one. My ex-boyfriend Johnathan is a berserker.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Was that the big guy from San Diego who kept trying to get you onto the green juice diet?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm. He seemed normal to me. But then again, I didn’t realize your accountant was a smoking-hot vampire.”
“You can tell if you know what to look for. Jillian’s trademark gloves and sunglasses aren’t just for aesthetics, you know. Berserkers have an intense look in their eyes. When they tugged Audrina away from me, one of them turned a little purple.” He raised a finger. “And before you ask, I’ve already called Johnathan and asked him where Audrina could be, but he’s in Cancun right now, and has no idea about any of this. Although he did tell me that there was something big going on in their world that’s upsetting them all. Some sort of dissent in the berserker ranks, or something like that.”
I tapped my finger on my lips, thinking. “I need more information. I need a visual—”
The floorboards rumbled, and a whiteboard slid up and out of a crack between planks, rising like a partition in front of the table. “Perfect, thanks Violet!”
She buzzed underneath my feet, preening, while I stood up and picked up the marker. “Right,” I said, uncapping the marker. “Berserkers.” I wrote the word at the top of the board. “So far, I know that they look like humans, except when they’re using their powers. And when they use their powers, they go muscly and purple.” I wrote human looking, jacked Grimace types on the board. “What else can you give me? Do they have any other powers?”
“No,” Nate said. “No other magic. They rely wholly on their physical strength during battle. They prime themselves by undergoing physically traumatic experiences, so that they have something to draw on when they want to use their power.”
“What kind of traumatic experiences?”
“Endurance conditioning.” Nate shrugged. “Going for long periods of time without food, for example. Or voluntarily plunging into ice-cold mountain water or walking on hot coals.”
I frowned and wrote down fasting and cold therapy, life-coach alpha bullshit on the whiteboard. “Would it be presumptuous to say that they are aggressive?”
“Yes. And no.” Nate frowned. “They are no more naturally aggressive than humans. But when they channel their emotions, their physical strength is overwhelmingly superior.”
“They love a challenge,” Donovan piped up from where he was doing more pushups. “They seem consumed with proving their strength and pushing themselves to the limits.”
I tapped the marker against my hand. An idea was beginning to nudge me. “And you couldn’t find one berserker in the city?”
Cress shook her head, still glaring at the table. “It is unfathomable. They infest this realm like rodents.”
“Or, it is very fathomable, and there’s an obvious reason why you can’t find one in the city right now.” I picked up my phone and started googling. “Maybe they’ve all gone to exactly the same place. Aha!” I found what I was looking for almost immediately. “I was right. It is this weekend.”
I turned the phone around and showed Cress. “Do these guys look like berserkers to you?”
“Yes.” She gripped it, watching the figures on the screen. “Yes, they all look like berserkers, Chosen. They are acting just like it, and I see a trace of purple magic, even through this screen. What is this?”
I eyed the screen, watching muscled men and women throw giant logs around, walk on their hands, and perform bizarre monkey-swing pull-ups. “It’s the Ultimate Strong crowd.”
“The what?”
“Ultimate Strong. They’re Ultimate Strong devotees,” I explained. “It ticks every box. The Ultimate Strong championships are on this weekend.”
Donovan jumped down and sauntered over. He was barely panting. “Is it some sort of religious festival?”
“To them it is,” I said. “They worship on the altar of the Personal Record. It’s a competition, Donovan. A worldwide championship to see who the fittest person is.” I let out a shaky breath. “If they’re obsessed with physical strength and challenges, and they’ve all disappeared from the city, then this makes perfect sense. That’s where all the berserkers have gone. They would have taken Audrina with them.” I sincerely hoped that was true, and she wasn’t hanging from a cliff somewhere in the berserker realm.
Donovan watched the screen for a moment. “We must go there.”
