Fossen stepped closer, so his face was only a foot from Rook’s. Rook didn’t often face someone who could look down on him, but the town’s leader did by just a little bit. “Stanislav, that is not anywhere near the worst thing that could happen. Consider my advice. Consider it seriously.”
With this, Fossen looked at Anni. “Give him what he wants.” Then he turned and left, ducking his head slightly in the doorway.
Rook looked at the other two. Peder looked fine, but Anni’s face had gone even paler than the color that naturally accompanied her light hair and blue eyes. He shook his head. “That guy was a laugh a minute. Who voted for him, anyway?”
Anni’s voice contained no inflection. “Everyone.”
Peder cleared his throat. “Look Stanislav, we will talk more about him later. Just get your food and let’s go.”
Fifteen minutes later, they returned to the Volvo carrying three burlap bags. On the way out, Peder had apologized to Anni for their coming by. As Peder started the car, Rook looked at him.
“What the hell was that all about?”
“Eirek is in charge. He has been for a long time. Before that, it was his father. He gets things done here, but he also has to have them done his own way.”
“That sucks.”
“It is the way in this town, Stanislav.”
Rook inhaled through his nose. It figured that he’d wind up in the most remote town in Europe in the middle of more dysfunction than a daytime talk show. “Fine. What about the beast you were talking about?”
“Yes, the beast. Despite what Eirek says, I am certain it is the same thing that killed the two people in town. I have heard the roar.”
“And the wolves supposedly keep it away from town?”
“Supposedly. Whatever they are doing, it is not working up at my place.”
“So what do you think it is?”
“If I told you, you would say I was crazy.”
“Trust me, if you knew the shit I’ve seen the past year, you wouldn’t worry.”
“All right. It was dark, but I did get a pretty good look at the back of it from about thirty feet away. It was nine feet tall and it was running on two legs.”
“Wait a minute, it was a man?”
Peder shook his head and put the car in gear. Rook tried to look natural putting one hand on the dashboard to brace himself for the ride home.
“No Stanislav, it was not a man. Not that tall, and not with such long arms. I could not say exactly, but there are legends about this sort of creature. In Asia, they call it the yeti. But the most frequent sightings are in North America.
“In America, they call it Bigfoot.”
4
Bigfoot.
Rook hadn’t known whether to laugh or give Peder a whack on the head to knock some sense into him. Bigfoot, or the yeti, weren’t any more insane than giant stone golems coming to life, but Rook hadn’t believed those either, until he’d seen them with his own eyes. Of course, he had seen something similar in the mountains of Vietnam. Red and the old mothers could have easily passed for yeti. The Neanderthal descendants were a little shorter than the legend, but they still packed a punch, and Rook had the scars to prove it. He wondered if this was something similar, but decided that it was more likely some kind of rabid animal was on the loose here, and people were seeing monsters in their imagination.
Except that people were acting damn strange. Peder, he could write off as a man old enough not to care if he lost a marble or three, but what about Anni and Eirek? The woman was terrified of something, and the town’s leader had tried far too hard to get rid of Rook. Something was rotten in Norway.
When they got back to the house, Peder allowed Rook to use the kitchen to cook himself a meal. As he boiled rice over the propane stove, he chuckled to think of the ribbing he’d take from his teammates if they knew. Back home, Rook avoided the kitchen whenever he could, and Queen in particular would have taken great delight in questioning his manhood if she could have seen him now.
At the thought of Queen, his mood grew heavier. Sooner or later, he’d have to deal with the tension between them—tension that might be good if their jobs involved something other than fighting long odds to save the world. First, though, he had to contact his team, something that wasn’t going to happen as long as he stayed here.
He shook off the self-analysis. It didn’t do any good to beat himself up or give in to his uncertainty. He was here now, and he had a mythical creature to defeat. Or maybe just a rabid bear; he didn’t care as long as he was on the delivery side of some ass-kicking. Eirek Fossen could use a well-delivered smackdown as well. Maybe teach him not to be such an asshole.
As they sat down at an ancient, crack-filled table constructed from teak, Rook asked Peder a question that had occurred to him on the slightly less precarious drive back up the hill.
“That woman, Anni, mentioned a word, Ulverja. What does that mean?”