Descendant (30 page)

“So at least we’d have a bit of backup with my jackals,” Rafe said.

“Jackals? You mean those
wolves
you were hanging around with in the park?” Mason asked.

“A jackal
is
a wolf,” Rafe said drily. “My pack have the added benefit of also being
werewolves
, thanks to me. They come in pretty handy in a fight.”

“And the Miasma doesn’t affect them, either?” Fennrys asked Rafe.

“Werewolf physiology is supernaturally enhanced.” The god shrugged. “My magick makes those kids the next best thing to unkillable—you know . . . like werewolves.”

“What’s the downside?” Mason asked warily.

“They’re
werewolves
, Mason.” Rafe turned a flat glare on her. “Monsters.”

“But . . . you
made
them that way.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Different reasons.” The ancient god’s face remained impassive, but his gaze clouded. “Some had debts, some made bargains. . . .”

“And you turn people into creatures of nightmare for those reasons? Because they
owed
you something?” Mason could hear the judgmental anger in her voice. She was too stressed out by everything to even try and hide it.

The clouds in Rafe’s gaze grew darker. “Not anymore. Not in a very long time. And not for just those reasons. Also? I am a
god
, Mason Starling. And you’d do well to remember what I told you about gods and bargains.”

His voice took on an ominous, rumble-of-thunder quality and for a moment, Mason was afraid that she’d way overstepped a boundary. But then Rafe took a deep breath and seemed to shake off the surge of emotion.

“And that’s really all I’m going to say on the subject, all right?” He grinned wanly at her. “As a god—even one in exile—it’s in my job description to be occasionally inscrutable.”

Mason nodded and looked away. “Okay,” she said, wondering what any of them in that room might wind up owing the ancient deity when all was said and done. Not that it mattered in that moment. They were running short on options.

Mason crossed her arms over her chest and looked from face to face in the room, trying her best to convey a coolheadedness and a calm rationality that she really didn’t feel. She turned to the television again and the pictures that kept flashing up on the news report.

“If we can’t go
through
the fog wall,” she said, “can we go
over
it?”

Toby’s gaze sharpened as he looked at her. He was big on strategy, and Mason had a plan.

“What are you thinking, Mase?” Fennrys asked quietly.

“The Roosevelt Island Tram,” she said, pointing to the TV, where it sat in the corner of the room, scrolling pictures of the terrifying phenomenon plaguing the city of Manhattan. In one video feed, it appeared that one of the tram cars running from Roosevelt Island directly into the heart of Manhattan was still running, even though no one was on it. “Look. No one’s bothered to shut it down. The cable cars might be empty . . . but they’re still running into the city.”

Toby’s mouth curled into a wry smile. “The elevated tram. Ha. A hit, kiddo,” he said, just like he did when she scored a point in a fencing match. “That’s the thing about the ancient curses. . . . They were designed to afflict
ancient
man. Used to be, all you needed was a wall high enough to keep the average human out. The cable cars ride high enough to clear the top edge of the barrier. Brilliant.”

Douglas nodded in agreement, a steady, satisfied look on his face.

Two fans of the plan,
Mason thought, and looked over at Fennrys.

She sensed that he was torn between supporting her idea—which would mean following her into the heart of the danger—and just plain getting her the absolute hell away from there. She understood the impulse. He’d come to Asgard for her, found her, saved her . . . and now? Now she was about to ask him to risk losing her again.

Just like you’re about to risk losing him.

Even the thought of that was unbearable, and Mason shoved it brutally from her mind. “Fenn?” she said. “What do you think?”

Fennrys held Mason’s gaze—a calm, unwavering faith in her shining from his pale-blue eyes. “I think we do it. I’m in.”

Mason felt the tension in her neck loosen a bit. Until she looked over at where Cal was standing rigid beside the table that held the water jug. His reaction was the exact opposite of Fenn’s.

“Am I the only one here who thinks this is a supremely stupid idea?” Cal asked, his expression stiff with stubborn opposition.

A small, angry voice hissed in the back of Mason’s head. How dare he? Who did he think he was? Hell—who did he think
she
was?
Weak? Small? A coward?
Well, yes. He’d already told her as much, hadn’t he?

You hesitated,
he’d said. He’d blamed her. Made her feel less than the warrior that she was—

Whoa. Okay . . . let’s just get a grip there, Starling,
she thought, suddenly aware that in her anger, she’d started to frame her participation in this . . . this whatever, this weirdness, in the kind of language that her father might have used. Warrior . . . ? No.
You’re
not
a Valkyrie, Mason,
she chastised herself silently.
You didn’t take the spear. And you’re not like Cal. You’re human. And you’re going to stay that way.

“Well? Am I?” Cal asked again, looking to Rafe for support.

“Yes,” Mason snapped. “You are.”

Fennrys put a hand up over his mouth, hiding a grin.

“Look what is happening to the city, Cal.” Mason pointed again to the television. “Our school is in there—our friends. . . .”

“So what?” Cal snorted. “Bunch of stuck-up rich kids? Don’t pretend you care about any of them any more than I do, Mase—”

“Heather’s in there,” Toby said quietly, his gaze fixed pointedly on Cal.

Mason felt herself grow cold. “What? But I thought . . . I mean, Heather was with me on the train. Didn’t she just cross over the bridge into Queens? Like you did, Toby? I thought she’d be safe. I thought . . .”

In truth, Mason hadn’t had much time to think about Heather at all. Heather, who’d come to warn her at the gymnasium. Who’d proven to be a better friend to Mason
than she ever would have imagined before everything that had happened. She felt a stab of guilt.

“Yeah, Mase,” Toby said. “She was on the train. After the crossing, your dad wanted me to . . .” The fencing coach scowled at the memory. “Well, suffice it to say, he didn’t exactly want me to let Heather go.” He put up a hand to forestall Mason’s outrage. “But I
did
let her go, and I sent her back to Gosforth, because I actually thought she’d be safe there. So yeah. She’s in Manhattan.”

“Cal?” Mason turned to where he stood, shifting his weight from foot to foot, a look of conflicted reluctance on his face. “Don’t you care about her?”

“Of course I do. I just . . .”

His hands flexed at his sides as if he wanted to reach out and grab something. Mason noticed the water in the pitcher on the table near him turned suddenly cloudy and cracked as it froze solid. Cal didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s
dangerous,
Mason,” he said in a voice as icy as the water. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”

A twist of anguish skewed Cal’s handsome features and made the scars on his face pull deeper at the corner of his mouth. Mason remembered what Heather had told her about Cal’s feelings for her, remembered how he’d acted toward her in the last few days . . . but all she could manage to feel for
him
was a deep pity that she wouldn’t ever let him see. She could do that much for him, at least. But no more. She glanced over and saw that Fennrys’s calm, blue gaze was fixed on her. His expression was placid. Trusting. He would go with her to the ends of the earth. And if it came to that, she would ask him to. Because
that
was what love was.

She turned back to Cal. “Fine. You do what you want, Calum. I’m going into the city. I’ll just have to convince your mom that you really are okay.”

“Right.” Fennrys took a step forward and cracked his knuckles as he flexed the hand that gripped the blade sheathed at his waist. “Ready when you are, Mase.”

The blood sang in her ears at the prospect of a fight, and Mason realized that she might just be developing a taste, not just for fighting—but for war. “I’m ready now.”

I
n the end, Cal decided to go along—which hardly surprised Fennrys—and twenty minutes later, they left the town car Douglas Muir had appropriated for them from the hospital behind at the tram station. They were also leaving Douglas behind, at his insistence. It was better not to risk putting him in a situation that could prove, under the circumstances, impassable. Fenn wasn’t sure it was the best idea—Cal’s father seemed to have a wealth of knowledge that might have proved something of an asset.

Then again,
he thought,
Toby seems pretty up-to-the-minute on his ancient curses and the insane
cults who use them. . . .

He also recognized the possibility that should they fail, there would be a need for someone outside the city to try to find help from other sources. And if the curse spread outward from the city, Douglas had his boat and could get away. If it came to that.

“I’m worried about him.”

Mason’s voice nudged Fennrys from his grim contemplation. He followed her gaze back to where Cal was saying good-bye and knew it wasn’t Douglas she was talking about. Like Mason, he, too, had his reservations about Calum, and about bringing him along into the city. Fennrys would’ve cheerfully left the kid behind to catch up on old times with his pop if he’d thought there was even half a chance Cal would agree to it. But even with his earlier protestations, it was apparent that Cal wasn’t about to let Mason out of his sight. She turned to see Fennrys frowning and reached up to smooth the crease between his eyebrows. Her fingertips were cool, and he leaned into the caress.

“I’m
just
worried,” she said. “Nothing more. Fenn . . . remember what I said to you back on North Brother Island? I
don’t
feel that way about Cal.”

“Mase . . .” He smiled and reached up to cup her face in his hands. “I
do
remember. And I’m not bothered by what you feel about Cal. I’m not bothered about how you feel about
me
. It’s okay. And you sure as hell don’t have to worry about how I feel about you. That isn’t going to change. Whatever else happens.”

Truthfully, the only thing Fennrys was worried about was what Cal was feeling in that moment. Fenn knew that Mason had been overjoyed when she’d first seen him alive, and he couldn’t blame her. Her reaction was perfectly normal for anyone who’d just experienced the return of a dear friend she’d thought was dead. But that spontaneous expression of joy had translated very differently for Cal. In that moment, Fennrys had seen something spark back to life in the other boy’s eyes. Something frightening. Covetous. Ruthless.

Mason, Fennrys knew,
hadn’t
seen it. Not the way he had.

She was still staring up at him, and he knew he’d been silent too long. Her eyes gleamed in the darkness, sapphire blue and brimming with emotion.

“Fennrys,” she said quietly, “I—”

“Shh.”

He pressed a finger gently to her lips and smiled when she kissed it in response. He could tell, by the look in her eyes and by the tone of her voice, exactly what she was about to say to him. He could
feel
it. And his heart longed to hear her say the words. But instead, he just traced his finger over her lips, memorizing their shape, reveling in their softness, the smooth warmth of her mouth. . . .

“Tell me when this is over,” he said. “I want you to tell me when it’s just you and me. No monsters and no gods . . . No peril. Nothing but us. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered. “No monsters, no gods. Nothing but us. I like the sound of that, Fennrys Wolf.”

So did he.

But for the moment, they were headed straight into the heart of peril.

Following Toby’s lead, they made their way unchallenged into the tram station and onto one of the cable cars. Pretty much everyone else on Roosevelt Island was somewhere indoors, glued to a TV and the news broadcasts, or was already making plans to get farther away from Manhattan. Crouched down on the floor of one of the Roosevelt Island tram cars, they bided their time silently as it swung through the night sky on its way into the city that lay under a spell.

When the tram car was almost over the west bank of the river, Mason pulled herself up onto her knees so that she could peek through the window. Fennrys joined her, and together they looked down onto the Queensboro Bridge, where the cars were jammed almost all the way back to Queens, and police and soldiers in heavy gear with very large guns were swarming between the vehicles. They milled about, only a few yards away from the wispy leading edge of the barrier, looking helpless and frustrated.

Fennrys held his breath as the underside of the tram carriage only
just
cleared the upper reaches of the fog battlement. Down below, inside the swirling, shimmering whiteness, he caught a glimpse of a handful of shadowy figures moving erratically within—probably some of the National Guard who’d tried to rush through and been caught in the throes of a waking nightmare, trapped inside the Miasma’s outer wall. Over the grinding of the cable car’s gears, the occupants of the tram heard the tortured screams that issued from more than one throat. And then
sporadic bursts of gunfire.

The men and women standing around on the Queensboro all hit the deck. Pulling Mason with him, Fennrys ducked back down onto the floor of the tram. A few more moments and they were past the barrier, and the Tramway Plaza station port yawned like a gaping mouth before them.

“We did it,” Mason said, with a whispered sigh of relief. “We’re in.”

Down on the street, Mason almost turned and climbed the stairs back up to the station to take the next cable car back to Roosevelt Island. As she stepped out of the station doors alongside Fennrys, with Cal and Toby close behind, she felt like she’d suddenly been thrust into a horror movie. The clouds overhead were a thick, oppressive ceiling, blotting out the moon and the stars, leaving the streetlights and neon signs to illuminate the weird landscape of a city under a spell. Inside the fog barrier’s enclosure, only a thin haze of mist hung in the streets between the buildings. It sparkled and danced, swirling in eddies, obscuring and then revealing the limp, sprawled shapes of Manhattanites that lay strewn everywhere. “Nightmare” was really the only word that even came close to describing the scene that stretched out in front of them.