Descendant (3 page)

Feeling her way in the darkness, Mason stood and made tentative progress across the uneven rock floor in the direction of the sound. Water might mean a stream or a river—the possibility of a way out. But as she rounded a striated pillar of red and gray rock, she drew a breath in horror. It wasn’t the dripping of
water
she’d heard.

Flanked by guttering torches set in heavy iron sconces bolted to the rock walls, Mason saw a serpent, massive and coiled on a wide ledge, its muscled body undulating like a wave, scales rustling and shimmering with the movement. Its tail flicked restlessly back and forth as it slithered forward on the rock shelf, its evil-looking mouth opening wide. Sickly yellow venom
dripped from its fangs, each droplet shattering the black-glassy surface of a dark pool below.

That
was the sound Mason had heard.

What was worse . . . the next sound she heard was a soft, anguished groan.

Half-hidden by rocks that thrust up out of the ground like stout prison bars, Mason could just make out the shape of a man, lying on a bed of stone beneath the serpent’s ledge, surrounded by the pool. The snake’s body convulsed and propelled it forward until its head hovered directly over the place where the man lay. A single, viscous drop of poison gathered at the needle tip of one of the great snake’s fangs—the one positioned above the man’s face—and clung there for an infinite, torturous moment . . . before dropping, glittering like a tiny shard of broken yellow crystal, through the blood-dark air.

Mason couldn’t see the man’s face from where she stood, but she could certainly hear his cry of pure, piercing agony as the poison hit what was probably his cheek or forehead and he writhed and bucked, straining at the chains that bound him, wrists and ankles, to the slab. The howl of agony turned to a roaring bellow of rage, and the entire cavern shook. Yawning cracks shot up the walls on all sides, and bits of rock and dust rattled down all around Mason. It must have been the same ear-shattering cries that had caused the ground to open up beneath her feet moments earlier, sending her plunging into this horrible place.

After what seemed like forever, the wails faded once again to low moans. A last rattle of rocks cascaded down, landing right beside Mason, and she yelped and covered her head. At the noise she made, the man’s groans stopped abruptly, and she could almost sense him straining to hear if there was someone there. She held her breath.

“You’d think I would have grown used to it by now.” The man sighed raggedly, the breath panting in and out of his lungs.

Mason wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, but then it became apparent he was.

“Here,” he murmured gently, as if coaxing a frightened animal out of hiding. “Come here, child. I won’t hurt you.”

Mason froze.

“I promise.” His hand twitched weakly, indicating the
chains. “I couldn’t, in any case. Even if I wanted to . . . and I assure you, I don’t.”

That much was obvious. The chains gave him just enough mobility to arch painfully when the poison hit his flesh. Still, Mason hesitated.

“Please.” There was a note of quiet desperation in the word.

Mason frowned. He was chained. Hurt. There was nothing he could do to her in the state he was in. If he even existed at all, which she sincerely doubted.

Well . . . what the hell.

Nothing about this could possibly be real, anyway. Since the moment Rory had stuffed her into the trunk of his car, nothing Mason had experienced had made sense. It sure as hell didn’t now. So either she was drugged, or dreaming—it was entirely possible she was just experiencing the most vivid night terrors she’d ever had, or she was deep in the throes of a profound psychotic episode—the kind the therapists had warned her father she might experience someday if she didn’t continue on with the treatments that she’d summarily rejected at the age of ten—and it had most likely been triggered by Rory’s act of unfathomable cruelty.

Or maybe, she thought, trying to muster charitable feelings toward her brother, he hadn’t really meant to hurt her like that. Maybe it had all been some kind of joke that had just gotten out of hand. A stupid frat-boy stunt the jocks he’d been hanging out with lately had put him up to. She remembered that Taggert Overlea, star quarterback and egregious meathead, had been with Rory. She remembered hearing Tag make lewd comments about Heather Palmerston—Heather, who’d shown up out of nowhere to warn Mason that something bad was about to go down. Mason hoped Heather was okay.

She’s probably fine, you know. None of this is actually happening.

Sure. You just keep telling yourself that.

In truth, Mason really
was
hard-pressed to delineate where reality had ended for her and unreality had swallowed her whole. Maybe the last few weeks had just finally gotten to her and she’d snapped. Maybe the whole damn day was really all one long, lavish nightmare and
she hadn’t even entered the fencing competition yet—and failed miserably. For a moment, she felt a bright spark of hope flare in her chest. Was it possible that there was still hope for her fencing career? Hope for her and Fennrys? Hope for her in the real world?

That’s assuming
he’s
even real . . .

The bright spark sputtered and threatened to go out. Mason shook her head sharply. Either way, there was
clearly
nothing the least bit real about the situation she found herself in at that very moment.

So what does it matter if you talk to this guy or not?

Mason stepped out from around the pillar that hid her from the bound man’s view, and the snake hovering above his head hissed and withdrew with whiplash speed into a dark seam in the rock behind its shelf, disappearing from sight.

With the snake gone, utter stillness descended on the cavern. A fine, shimmering haze of powdery dust hung like a veil in the air, and an acrid tang drifted, foglike, stinging Mason’s eyes and burning the sensitive skin of her nostrils.

The man chained to the rock was richly dressed—at least, he had been, once—but his gold-and-green tunic, edged with a wide band of elaborate, knot-work embroidery, was torn and stained with ages of filth. His breeches were tattered, his feet bare and coated with blood, dried and fresh, from having fought against his cruel restraints. His dark-blond hair had grown long, and his beard was unkempt. And yet, somehow, he still looked princely.

Mason edged toward him, between the rock pillars and across a narrow stone bridge that spanned the dark pool. Slowly, wearily, the man rolled his head in Mason’s direction, just enough so that she could see one of his eyes. Sky-blue and bright in the ashen gloom, it almost seemed to glow, as if lit from within. He stared at her, unblinking, and his gaze, beneath a sheen of excruciating pain, held warmth and wisdom and—Mason got the distinct impression—a wicked sense of humor.

“Who are you?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.

“Me?” the man answered. “Oh . . . no one of consequence . . .”

“Wow,” Mason said, swallowing her fear. “You must have done something pretty shitty to merit this kind of punishment, in that case.”

She waited for a moment, expecting to see anger or denial or bitterness fill the stranger’s expression at what
she’d said. But he just continued to smile through the pain and shifted his shoulder in an approximation of a shrug. The one blue eye she could see remained fixed placidly upon her.

“Looks can be terribly deceiving,” he said.

The muscles of his cheek and jaw spasmed in pain.

“Right. So . . . what
did
you do then?” she asked.

“Something pretty shitty.” He chuckled. “Obviously. At least . . . there are those who clearly seem to think so.”

“But
you
just said looks are deceiving.”

“I said they
can
be—” His mirth collapsed into a racking coughing fit, the breath rattling in his lungs, and Mason winced in sympathy. He must have been terribly parched, lying there like that, chained in that smoky, dusty cavern for who knew how long.

When the hacking subsided and he turned his head farther to look at her, Mason had to swallow hard to keep the bile from rising in her throat. Half of the man’s handsome face had been seared to a raw, blackened mess by the snake’s corrosive drool. His hair and beard were singed, and she thought she could see the pale gleam of his cheekbone through the ruined flesh.

He shrugged again, seeing her reaction. “I’m sure it probably looks far worse than it feels.
Looks
, remember?”

“Deceiving,” Mason said through clenched teeth. “Yeah. Right . . .”

She swallowed hard again and forced her gaze not to shift, like it had every time she’d looked at Cal. This, after all, was much,
much
worse. Mason might have unintentionally shamed Cal by the way she’d reacted to him after the attack on the school gym, when his handsome face had been slashed open by the claws of a draugr, but she wouldn’t shame this man—whoever he was—by doing the same thing. She’d learned her lesson, and there would be no looking away this time. No matter how horrifying it was.

But then he did her the favor of shifting again anyway, so Mason could no longer see the terrible wound. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she saw that the rich blue orb of his undamaged eye was fastened on the iron medallion around her neck.

“What’s your name, child?” he asked again, in that same gentle tone.

“Mason. Mason Starling,” she said, even though he still hadn’t told her who he was.

“Starling . . .” He smiled as if in recollection of a
pleasant memory. “Pretty birdie.”

Mason snorted. “Most people think starlings are pests,” she said. “They’re considered an invasive species in some parts of the world.”

“Ha!” The man laughed again. “I’ve had the very same accusations leveled at me. I prefer to think of such creatures as . . . adventurous. Survivors. Conquerors.”

“Is that what you are?” Mason asked, intrigued in spite of herself. She put a hand out, gingerly touching the rusted shackle that circled around the man’s wrist. The skin beneath it was raw and scored with the iron’s bite. He must have torn the skin every time the serpent dripped its poison. She wondered how often that happened. It reminded her of the scars that Fennrys carried. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Because I was invasive? Or because I survived? Both, I suppose.” He sighed, and it was a sound that carried bone-deep, age-old weariness in it. “Why are
you
here, Mason?”

She felt a frown creasing her forehead. “I keep telling people, I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”

“Oh. I see.” The blue eye filled with understanding. Sympathy. “They really don’t like to play fair.”

“Who?”

“The Powers That Be.” The shoulder lifted again in a shrug. “All of which is to say that isn’t saying much of anything definite. The board shifts and the players come and go. All of which means,
I
don’t know why you’re here either, Mason. Not exactly. But I
do
know you should probably be careful while you are.”

“Careful of what?”

“Everything,” he said wearily. “And everyone.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me. For I am the God of Lies.”

“Y
ou’re a liar and a thief.”

Heather Palmerston had never heard a voice so cold sound so angry.

“Get up.”

She shrank back into the farthest corner of the leather banquette seat in the opulent confines of the train car. She’d been huddled there, numb, her head hidden in the crook of her arm ever since she’d seen Calum slam into the Hell Gate Bridge and plummet over the side.

“I said . . . get
up
.”

The command, issued in tones laden with heavy rage, wasn’t directed at her, and Heather had never been so glad to
not
be the center of attention in her entire life. Instead, the words were aimed at Rory Starling, who lay crumpled on the expensive Persian rug, his body folded protectively around his right arm, which was bloodied and bent at an awkward angle . . . in at least
two
places.
Heather could see a jagged end of bone showing through his skin, and the sight made her stomach clench. Rory’s face was ashen where it wasn’t mottled with red splotches or bruising. He was wild-eyed, and there was a web of pinkish foam at the corners of his open, gasping mouth. He struggled to force himself up into a sitting position, in response to the man who’d spoken.

Heather knew, even without having seen his face when he’d entered the train car, that it was Rory’s father—Gunnar Starling—one of the most powerful men in New York City. Maybe even the world. With his lion’s mane of silver hair and the cloaklike overcoat hanging from his broad muscled shoulders, he was unmistakable.

Outside the windows, everything was dark. Much darker than it would be if they were still outside. They were in a tunnel. Somewhere beneath Queens, she figured, from the direction they’d been traveling. She still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, beyond the fact that she had been kidnapped, along with Mason Starling—a fellow student at Gosforth who had recently become a friend—by Mason’s complete jerk-ass tool of a brother, Rory, and a meathead quarterback from the Columbia U football team named Taggert Overlea.

Heather still had no idea
why
she and Mason had been kidnapped. At the moment, all she cared about was getting out of the train car alive. Because she’d gotten the distinct impression over the last hour or so that whatever it was that was going on, it went way beyond college fraternity prank territory and had crossed into deadly serious. The danger had been obvious even before Cal had . . . before he . . .

Heather covered her mouth in silent agony.

Cal’s gone.

The thought made her feel like she’d been punched in the stomach. Mason, too, was gone, although whether she was alive or dead, Heather had no clue. She hoped like hell that she was okay at least. Far away from this madness and okay.

She tried to think logically through the series of events as they had happened. Heather hadn’t been competing that night in the Nationals fencing trials and hadn’t really felt like going. She knew Cal would be there to watch Mason compete, and every time she saw Cal those days, the experience invariably left her feeling drained and just
plain weary. He seemed to actually get off on torturing himself over Mason, and now that Mason and Heather had become friends, Heather couldn’t stand the drama.