The only characters I own in here are Sierra and ones identified at the beginning of each chapter. All others belong to their respective creators.

Sorry it's a bit short. I'm just setting up for the plot in these first few chapters.

Chapter 1

I was beginning to wonder when Nate would get back out into fortune hunting. He'd just been researching things on the computer for weeks now, and had come up with nothing. I'd been doing the same thing and admittedly was getting no further than he had, but by now he would have hoodwinked a collector to hire us onto a museum bust or something.

I folded up a pair of Nate's jeans and gazed at the leather holster hanging on the wall, neglected. He still wore it under his jacket in the off-chance we ran into one of his old enemies, but that never happened anymore.

I slammed the drawer closed, and before I could grab another piece of clothing, I heard Nate shout from his laptop, "Sierra! C'mere! I think I got us a job!"

Really? Or was this another false alarm? I peered around the bedroom door and called, "Who's gonna hire us?"

"No one. I've just got a great idea. Come here and I'll tell you all about it."

I tossed the laundry onto the bed and joined him at the desk he and I shared. I pulled my chair next to his and said, "Just please bear in mind that I've only got so much money left from my old job."

"Aren't you still getting a pension-kinda-thing?"

"Yeah, but it's significantly lower than my old wage...unless you think about it as the seventy thousand pounds it is."

He gaped at me and said, "That's significantly lower than what you weremaking?"

I nodded and continued, "So what're we after now?"

"Hel's gauntlet."

"Hel as in the queen of the Norse underworld? I've never heard any myths about her own gauntlets. I've heard of Thor's, but not hers."

"That's the point," he opened his journal, pointing at a small passage as he handed it to me. I tried deciphering the rushed handwriting, but Nate continued, "She was being discreet about it, hence the incredibly obscure myth. The story says that when Odin banished Hel to the Underworld, she was so pissed off she forged two gauntlets. These gauntlet's gave anyone, includinghumans, the power to raise the dead. If you've got one of them, you can raise them for two minutes and they're dead again, or if you have both you can raise as many people as you want for as long as you want them alive."

This sounded pretty familiar. I said, "Are we looking for both?"

"No. It's been almost guaranteed that one of 'em's already been destroyed within the past century or so. One guy got hold of both and with that year he was murdered. They both disappeared, and people have said one of 'em was destroyed."

"So that cuts our journey in half...I hope. D'you have any idea where to go first?"

He leaned back in the chair and brushed his hair back before answering, "You up for going to Southern Norway?"

"Sure. Let's just hope we find something there," I stood up from my chair and continued, "I'll start packing up some necessities..." I muttered to myself as I pushed my chair back, "I just hope I have enough thermals for the Arctic Circle..."