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  GRENDEL & BEOWULF

  URBAN MAGICK & FOLKLORE

  BOOK III

  C. GOCKEL

  CONTENTS

  About the Book

  Get sneak peeks and exclusive content

  Also by C. Gockel

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Contact Information

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  ONCE UPON A TIME, IN OUR ORDINARY WORLD, THERE WAS A GRANDMOTHER.

  She died.

  She was reborn as a Vampire in a world of Magick.

  The grandmother de-aged. Her ailments healed, her body became strong, and her wrinkles faded.

  Her wisdom, however, did not diminish. She knew monsters need monstrous names, so they never forget the monsters they are.

  She named herself Grendel, after the medieval haunter of borderlands and drinker of warriors’ blood, vanquished by the hero Beowulf.

  The name seems appropriate. Grendel the Grandmother haunts the borderlands and drinks the blood of (mostly) evil warriors.

  But in a Magickal world, names don’t just have meanings—they are prophecies.

  And a new hero is rising. He has been molded since birth to fight evil and been given the skills to vanquish the most insidious evil of all: Vampires.

  His name is Beowulf, and he’s coming for Grendel.

  Copyright © 2022 C. Gockel

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, subject “Attention: Permissions,” at the email address below:

  [email protected]

  * * *

  Print ISBN: 9798849346441

  Created with Vellum

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  ALSO BY C. GOCKEL

  URBAN MAGICK & FOLKLORE

  Snow So White

  Blood So Red

  Grendel & Beowulf

  Mother of Monsters

  Monsters & Empire

  I BRING THE FIRE (A LOKI SERIES)

  Wolves: I Bring the Fire Part I (free ebook!)

  Monsters: I Bring the Fire Part II

  Chaos: I Bring the Fire Part III

  In the Balance: I Bring the Fire Part 3.5

  Fates: I Bring the Fire Part IV

  The Slip: A Short Story (mostly) from Sleipnir’s Point of Smell

  Warriors: I Bring the Fire Part V

  Ragnarok: I Bring the Fire Part VI

  The Fire Bringers: An I Bring the Fire Short Story

  Atomic: A Short Story

  Magic After Midnight: A Short Story

  Rush: A Short Story

  Take My Monsters: A Short Story

  Soul Marked: I Bring the Fire Part VII

  Magic After Midnight I Bring the Fire Part VIII

  Last Wish: A Short Story

  THE ARCHANGEL PROJECT

  Archangel Down (free ebook!)

  Noa's Ark

  Heretic

  Carl Sagan's Hunt for Intelligent Life in the Universe: A Short Story

  Starship Waking

  Darkness Rising

  The Defiant

  Android General 1

  Admiral Wolf

  Supernova

  Mech

  OTHER WORKS

  Murphy’s Star: A Sci-fi Short Story

  Friendly Fire: A Sci-fi Short Story

  Let There Be Light: A Sci-fi Short Story

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Knives get sharper and more polished against a whetstone. My books become better with the feedback of my beta readers. Grendel & Beowulf was sharpened and polished with the feedback of Kay McSpadden, Sarah Easterly, Ron Neito, Elizabeth Morris, and Amy Eberhedt. All of them read my digital pages before they’d been grammar edited, enduring massive eye twitches when I managed to spell names that I created wrong … multiple ways, over and over again. They caught plot problems, hats that came off more than once, point of view shifts, and helped me keep my characters in character.

  Erin Zarro did the first pass for grammar, cleaning up the detritus of my dyslexic mind and suffered mightily for it. Louis Maconi ran through the book correcting the grammar and spelling faux pas I committed while fixing the problems discovered by Erin, and then my team of faithful ARC readers did a final pass—thank you Genevieve! This book wouldn’t be possible without this team, and I owe them more than I can say.

  Writing can be a lonely business, but writing this book wasn’t thanks to the Morning Sprinters group. Thanks to all the regulars there for keeping me on task: Christine, Yasmine, Lilith, Margaret, Kelley, and many drop-in guests. Special thanks must go to Kate Danley, our instigator, hostess, and whip cracker.

  My family had a role in this book, too. My husband was the one who convinced me to publish. He doesn’t bat an eye between releases when earnings become thin. Also, he puts up with my daydreaming writer’s brain, as do my children (though they have less of a choice in the matter).

  This book also wouldn’t have come to pass without you, my readers. Thank you for reading, thank you for buying (and borrowing!). Thank you for reviewing and all your kind emails and posts on Facebook. I’ll try to keep writing as long as you keep reading and listening.

  Lastly, special mention must be given to Naomi Novik. If she had continued the series of splendid fairy tale retellings she began with Uprooted and Spinning Silver I might never have felt the need to write Snow So White, Blood So Red, Grendel & Beowulf or the upcoming novels in Urban Magick & Folklore.

  CHAPTER 1

  “He’s … not … that bad a person,” Grendel said. “He’s only trying to kill me.” Arms and legs pumping, she raced along the deer path, almost too tired to answer herself. “He could be a … a … slaver …”

  She panted. Faltered. Pain shot from the big toe of her right foot, and she went tumbling. Rocks and grit bit her palms, and her fangs bit her tongue as she hit the ground. Her own Vampiric blood, warm but unsatisfying, pooled in her mouth.

  The Quest for human blood had gotten her into this mess to begin with.

  “God damn me,” she muttered. Struggling to rise, knees and fingers slipping in cold spring mud, she snickered. “God damn me again.”

  Off in the distance, wolves howled. Closer, bootsteps sounded behind her, and something else, the thrum of Magick like a drumbeat. That drumbeat had seduced her into getting too close to her pursuer. How far back was he? A hundred yards? Surely far enough away to execute Vampirism’s greatest trick. Snarling, she exhaled, and her soul ripped from her chest with her breath.

  She left time.

  Her body instantly felt lighter. Sound did not exist in the out-of-time, and the pre-dawn bird song vanished. The world became colder and dimmer, and the breeze no longer moved. The scant clouds that had been drifting steadily across the Midwestern sky hovered
now, frozen in shape and place.

  Pushing herself up, Grendel took a few steps and cursed.

  She could still feel her pursuer’s Magick, and worse, she could feel him in the out-of-time with her. Humans could not slip out-of-time, but they could let a Vampire drag them out-of-time if they wore specialized “Vampire armor.” But Vampire armor only had an effective radius of about five yards. He should be too far away to be clinging to her wake like an unbloody barnacle.

  Lunging along the deer path, Grendel felt the weight of the man chasing her with every step—not like a barnacle, she decided—like an anchor. Her mind spun faster than her feet on the forest floor. Her pursuer had to be young. He—she’d caught a glimpse of him, and he was definitely a he—had a young man’s strength and speed, and he was obviously powerful and skilled.

  She had just a little more strength and speed than the elderly woman she’d been when she’d died. He would catch up to her soon, and he would beat her in a fight. She remembered the stakes she’d seen dangling at his waist and wondered if this was finally the end.

  Faces of all those lost in her human life—husband, children, grandchildren—and those she’d lost—or murdered—in her Vampiric life flickered through her mind like a reel of old film. The lack of definition in the faces made them eerier. How long before that reel lost all semblance of those gone?

  A fallen log invited her to sit. A boulder covered in moss looked like a delicious place to lie down. A stake would be quick and … “An end would be nice,” she whispered, the words lost in the soundlessness of the out-of-time.

  More faces flashed through her eyes, and the words of one of the dead rang in her mind, You will save my family. And you will destroy those who did this. The voice was so clear and familiar, Grendel almost looked for the speaker’s ghost.

  Snarling silently, Grendel pressed on, the drag of her pursuer growing heavier with each step. He was gaining on her. She could not outrun or outfight him. She couldn’t allow herself to be caught. She’d made promises.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Grendel confirmed she was still out of sight, looked up, spotted a target, and leapt. Gravity was a force, all forces were a function of time, and she was out-of-time. She landed with the grace of a cat and weight of a feather thirty feet above the forest floor, on a branch nearly as wide as her waist. Taking a deep breath, she pressed her back to the tree’s trunk and slammed back into real-time.

  The bird song, her full weight, and the sound of her heartbeat returned—she had a heart, and as far as she knew, it performed the same function as before her death. The organ’s beat sounded too loud. She ached to breathe deeply but sealed her lips to avoid being overheard. She no longer heard wolves.

  Her pursuer’s footsteps slowed, and her heartbeat quickened. She reminded herself she was well camouflaged in clothing that matched the brownish greens of the forest, the Magickal bracelet at her wrist only hummed with Magick around canines, and people hunting earthbound quarries rarely looked up.

  A few moments later, her pursuer came into view, so close the sound of his Magick was like a hundred drums. She didn’t sigh. All humans were delicious, but Magickal humans were ecstasy. It had been months since she’d had human blood, let alone a Magickal human. Her mouth watered, and her fangs bit her lip. She couldn’t take her eyes off him—what she could see of him, anyway.

  He wore head-to-toe Magickal “armor.” Not the sort of armor that knights wore in the Middle Ages, it was more like the body armor worn by soldiers and police officers of her own time in the early aughts. Unlike the armor of her time, it completely covered his face, and veins of the dust-like Ember that gave all Magickal animals, humans, and objects their power hummed along its surface. The armor made him nearly invisible. It also protected him from bullets. She knew the last because she’d shot him with the pistol that hung at her hip: twice in the head, twice in the heart. The bullets had slid down him like water droplets.

  Her muscles tensed at the memory. Usually, Magickal armor only granted one type of protection—impact resistance, camouflage, or the ability to slip into the out-of-time with Vampires. Armor that offered more abilities tended to be bulky and cumbersome, but this man’s armor was lightweight.

  She’d been able to hear his footsteps when he ran, but now he stalked, and if it weren’t for the drumbeat of his Magick, she wouldn’t hear him at all.

  He slunk below her along the trail, back to her, a stake half-raised. Every instinct in her screamed to fall upon him and find his throat while his back was turned. Shivering, she fought her urges.

  He moved three more paces past her, and Grendel’s shoulders relaxed. Her eyes flicked to the horizon. The lights of the highway, with its Ember fueled cars, were just visible. There were hours before sunrise.

  In the out-of-time, she could get to the highway in less than seconds and spend the day in one of the drains beneath it. She just had to sit here and wait for the man to be gone. Her attention returned to her pursuer.

  Ambient Ember was everywhere—in the air, the dirt, the water. Some Magickals “saw” it, “smelled,” or “tasted” it. If Grendel listened, she “heard” it, or more accurately, felt it: constant as cicadas in summertime. Around Magickal objects, animals, and humans, like the man below her, it condensed and became “louder.” As he moved away, it became “fainter.”

  Watching him go, she reminded herself that letting him go wasn’t a failing on her part. He wasn’t a slaver, which meant he was not an immediate worry … except to her.

  The man all but disappeared from view beneath the boughs of an elm farther down the trail, and Grendel almost sighed in relief. But then his steps slowed. He came to a halt, and Grendel clenched her teeth in an effort not to scream out, “What is wrong with you?”

  Back to her, the man scanned the forest floor. Grendel looked around, considering finding another branch on the other side of the tree. She swallowed. Moving might make noise and …

  The man turned around.

  She froze.

  His head moved side to side as he scanned the forest beneath Grendel.

  Again, he did not look up. Grendel’s eyes slid closed. She was safe.

  At that moment, a bird ripped out a melody right above her head. She was going to kill that bird.

  The man’s head jerked up. His faceplate was a solid sheet of black, without any indication of nose, mouth, or eyes, yet Grendel imagined their gazes locked. He raised the stake higher. Grendel had a sudden realization and promptly lost control of her mouth. “You work for the slavers, don’t you? You don’t like me not letting you send farmers to your Ember mines. You son of a basilisk. I hope someone feeds you your testi—”

  The Magickal slaver leaped for her in real-time, all thirty odd feet. It should have been impossible.

  Grendel fell out of the tree in shock. The sensation of falling sent her out-of-time. He went out-of-time too, but in midair he couldn’t change direction or the force of his jump. He hit the tree trunk face first; at the same time, Grendel landed on her backside. Fortunately for her, she was out-of-time, and it didn’t hurt. Unfortunately, her pursuer was out-of-time, too. He quickly adjusted himself and dropped toward her.

  Slipping into real-time, Grendel rolled to the side. “Break a leg, bas—”

  The man landed in an easy crouch and sprang toward her. Grendel rolled again. Leaves crunched on either side of her. She spun over and found the man above her, stake still clutched in one hand. Intellectually, she knew it was over, but her arms flew up to protect her from the coming blow.

  He lifted the stake higher, and shadows rose above him like dark wings. In that split second, Grendel wondered if she were in Hell again. She hadn’t thought she’d upset the demons last time she was there, but—

  The man fell on top of her, knocking the wind out of her, but the piercing sting of a stake did not arrive. The shadowy “wings” snarled at his wrist and on his back, and the man cursed. “I’ll kill you, beasts!”

  Grendel’s growls
rose with the beasts’, and she clawed at the man’s throat. Her fingers found fabric, but it could have been titanium; her claws couldn’t pierce it. Cursing, the man struggled against his shadowy adversaries, momentarily forgetting Grendel. One of the shadows whined. Sparks went off somewhere close, but then vanished. Grendel snarled.

  The other shadow growled, “Run, Grendel!” Blind with rage, she had to fight. Wrapping her legs around the man, she pinned their hips together so he couldn’t get away and raked her claws down his armor from chin to sternum … and found nothing … Snarling, she swiped again, and her nails caught on a seam. She dug her claws in. The man cried out in fear or shock, but hunger and anger clouded any pity Grendel might have felt. She peeled the armor away from his neck like the fabric it was. The next instant, her jaws found one of his carotid arteries, and blood poured into her mouth and over her face, the drumbeat of his Magick thumping in time with her heart, and then slowing to nothing, his body going limp.

  The shadows retreated, one of them growling, “He tried to set Lupina’s tail on fire.”

  Lupina yelped.

  Grendel released the man’s neck and pushed him off. She lay back, staring at the brightening sky. His blood hummed in her veins, and she felt like she could slip out-of-time and jump to the moon.

  One of the shadows, a Magickal she-wolf, shoulder as high as Grendel’s hip, whined. The other shadow, a Magickal wolf, slightly taller than his mate, growled. “Definitely the man who staked farmer John and burned him to ash. His humans will want to know.”