Blood Bound

Don't let there be ashes or scorch marks. Please, don't let there be ashes.

I couldn't even think about it. I'd as good as lost Conn and I couldn't face losing Will as well. He'd been my anchor when no one else could be, and the thought of him being ripped from the world - of him being forced into Valhalla - horrified me.

My stomach twisted at the possibility. If he died, he would suffer as much as Conn had. I knew it, because Tiw would use him to goad us.

Please. Not that. Anything but that.

Maybe that was the wrong prayer to cast towards the heavens. 'Anything' was too open a request, and what waited for me in the Land Rover warned of a fate just as dire as Valhalla.

The sight of the ticket - tied to the steering wheel by someone's cruel hands - turned my body to ice. That scrap of card - a simple slip of paper with faded print and ragged edges - had steel bands of dread constricting around my chest, more so than the blood smeared over the deflated airbag. I recognised it instantly from the winged, feminine silhouette decorating the front; one of Ragnar's original tickets to the Celebratio Sanguinem.

That slice of my past had survived more than a hundred years; a calling card which left me in no doubt about who'd taken my friend.

Osgar had Will.