Descendant (7 page)

Webber was one of the
Ghillie Dhu
, a race of Fae with certain uncanny abilities. “Webber” wasn’t his real name. Rather, he was nicknamed for the iridescent membranes that stretched between the long fingers of his hands. Hands that, at that very moment, he had pressed to the wound on Fennrys’s shoulder. The blood flow had slowed to a dark, sullen trickle thanks to Webber’s healing magick.

Fennrys rolled his head to the side and watched with detached fascination, as a small crumpled ball of dull gray metal rose up out of his shoulder, with a small, sucking
pop
sound. It passed between the tips of Webber’s fingers, hovered in the air for a moment, and then, with a disdainful glance from him, it vaporized with a flash and a tiny puff of acrid smoke.

“Ta-da!” Maddox enthused with a grin.

“Humans and their nasty little toys,” Webber muttered, his goatish face drawn with disgust. “Barbaric. That’s the last of the damage taken care of. Couldn’t do much about Scylla’s sea-dog venom, but that’ll probably just give him a taste like cilantro in his mouth for a few hours. Horrible, sure, but no real danger of expiring from it.”

He glanced down at Fennrys and smiled. Fenn noticed that there was a hint of wariness—or perhaps, worry—in the expression. But the healer-Fae just nodded briskly, and with another pass of those long, webbed hands, a wave of numbness washed over Fennrys’s wounds, dulling the pain enough for him to try to sit up.

“Oh, good,” Rafe said drily from where he stood over by a red velvet curtain that hung in a doorway. “I’d hate for you to be the first person to ever actually expire in my club.”

Fennrys glanced around the room. “This is your place?” he asked.

Rafe nodded. “Welcome to the Obelisk.” He raised an eyebrow and looked over at the healer Fae. “You sure he’s not going to die? He sure looks like he is.”

“No, no,” Webber said, dusting his palms together. “Everything should be right as rain now. Or near enough, at least, for him to go out and try to get himself killed again . . .”

“What happened?” Fennrys sat up slowly and swung his legs over the side of the table he’d been lying on. He ran a hand over his face. His brain felt cottony, his thoughts unfocused. And, yeah—his mouth tasted like he’d been eating at a cheap Mexican restaurant.

“You got shot and fell off a train,” Maddox cheerfully enlightened him as he held out a hand to help Fennrys stand. “Then the bridge you were on exploded. Then you fought a sea monster. As far as I understand it, that is.”

“Right . . .” Fennrys nodded stiffly. That account seemed to correlate with his own impressions of the night’s events. And with his various aches and pains. He groaned and rolled his uninjured shoulder. He still wore his jeans and boots, but they’d obviously had to cut the shirt off him so that Webber could do his work.

“Where’s Roth Starling?” he asked, remembering suddenly that he hadn’t seen Mason’s older brother since the moments before the bridge explosion. He wondered what had happened to him—whether he was okay, or had suffered a fate similar to Cal Aristarchos. He hoped it was the former. He knew how dearly Mason loved Roth.

Rafe put his glass back down on the bar. “After the Hell Gate exploded, he took off to go see if he could find his father and do damage control. The old man is going to be wanting to know just exactly what happened to his little girl, and why his bridge to Asgard suddenly vaporized.”

“So I’m guessing we have no idea who would’ve wanted the bridge destroyed.”

“Not a clue.” The ancient god shook his head. “Well . . . aside from everyone who knew that it was actually a secret gateway to another realm—and who didn’t necessarily want anyone else using it to go there. I
guess.”

“Wouldn’t it have made more sense, in that case, to blow it up
before
anyone decided to use it as Bifrost?”

Maddox and Rafe exchanged shrugs.

“Right.” Fennrys eased himself off the edge of the table and stood.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to find Mason.”

Rafe just raised an eyebrow at him as he wavered a bit on his feet.

“Wait . . .” Maddox reached behind him and retrieved something from a sideboard that he handed to Fennrys. It was a knife. More like a short sword, really. The hilt was plain but with a good strong grip and, knowing Maddox, the blade was doubtless sharp enough to shave with. It was housed in a sturdy leather sheath that the wearer could attach to a belt and tie down to their leg for ease of movement if necessary—which Fennrys proceeded to do. “Thought you might need a loaner. Rafe told me you left your standby buried hilt-deep in monster brains.”

“Yeah. I did,” Fennrys grunted as he tied the thong securely above his knee. “I liked that knife, too.” He checked the hang of the sheath, making sure the knife was secure but ready to draw. “What are you doing here, Maddox?”

“Kind of a lucky coincidence, really.” The other Janus Guard shrugged. “Chloe’s been singing in the club, and I come to listen. When Rafe dragged your sorry carcass in tonight, he asked if I could find someone to get you fixed up. So I went down to the reservoir—the Faerie sanctuary in the park—and found Webber.”

“Thanks.” Fennrys nodded, grateful and a little surprised. He and Maddox had never been close. But then, Fennrys had never been close with any of the Janus Guards. “Nice to see you again, Madd.”

“Yeah . . . you, too.” The tall, sandy-haired young man with the open, trustworthy face grinned. “Um.
Surprising
, y’know . . . what with you being dead an’ all. But nice.”

Fennrys noticed that Maddox was staring at the rapidly healing, but still bright-pink scar that marked the bullet’s point of entry into Fenn’s shoulder. He stood still as Madd’s professionally appraising gaze traveled over the puncture marks from Scylla’s teeth. Then over the bruises and various abrasions mapping Fenn’s torso, most acquired from his fall off the train car. Maddox winced a bit with the noting of each injury, but his eyes narrowed and his brows drew together when he noticed the scars,
both reasonably fresh and time-worn, that circled his wrists.

“So, boyo . . .” The Janus Guard shook his head. “Had a few adventures in your time away, I see.”

“Could say that, I suppose,” Fennrys muttered.

“You’ve never done anything by half measures, have you?”

Fennrys sighed and offered up a weary, watery grin. “If I’d ever been given the opportunity to? I might have. But I sort of doubt it.”

“True enough.” Maddox laughed.

A moment of silence stretched out between the two, and then Fennrys asked, “How is . . . everyone?”

Maddox gazed at him steadily and said, “Everyone is fine. Happy. Busy. Most of them are back in the Otherworld at the moment. Strengthening defenses.”

Fennrys frowned. “Why would they need to do that?”

“Because of the rift that’s opened up between the realms. There’ve been . . . incursions.” Maddox shrugged. “Remember North Brother Island?”

How could Fennrys forget? It was the place he’d died. A forsaken lump of rock that had once jutted out of the East River—in plain sight of the Hell Gate Bridge, in fact—but had been transformed into a portal, a gateway between realms, by a mad Faerie king. A king Fennrys had helped . . . and then helped kill. “I thought we left a hole where that island used to be.”

“We did,” Maddox said drily. “It grew back. And it’s proving to be a nexus of dangerous magick.”

Fennrys raised an eyebrow at him.

“Aw, hell. Don’t ask me for specifics.” Maddox put up a hand. “That’s all I know. Me and a few of the others, we’ve stayed Hereside. But Faerie is shutting itself off from the mortal realm for the time being. Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case the mortal realm . . . ends.”

“Oh, come
on
.” Fennrys snorted. “How likely do you think that is?”

“You tell me.”

Fennrys didn’t really have anything to say to that. For all he knew, yeah—it was pretty likely. He didn’t really care. Even if the sky fell or the seas boiled, there was only one thing on his mind. And that was finding Mason and bringing her home.

“Now that I have a weapon,” Fenn said, grimacing, “anybody got an extra shirt? I don’t want to catch my death. Again.”

Rafe snorted and left his position by the curtained doorway. He walked over to a cabinet in the wall that held an assortment of what looked like promotional T-shirts for various brands of beer and jazz bands. He pulled out a black one with a Blue Moon beer logo on the back side and tossed it over to Fennrys. Fenn remembered how Mason had once posited a theory that he was a werewolf—and how her theory was based partly on the fact that he had expressed a fondness for that particular brand of beverage. That was in the days before they had met Rafe, who was really Anubis, and
really
a werewolf. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It had only been a few days.

Fennrys nodded his thanks to the Egyptian deity and pulled the shirt on over his head. His shoulder pained him only slightly as he tugged the shirt down. Webber had done good work.

Suddenly, there was a low, sonorous rumbling that came from somewhere deep beneath them. Deeper than the subway tunnels.
Much
deeper. The overhead light fixtures in the club began to sway, and an entire stack of plates began to clatter and shimmy, rattling toward the edge of the shelf, where they toppled off and smashed on the floor with an earsplitting crash. The floor of the restaurant felt as if it was alive—a bucking, writhing, broad-backed creature trying to shake them off. From out in the main room of the jazz club, the sounds of the band tangled madly, stuttering to a discordant halt, and some of the patrons began to scream and shout in alarm.

The dim overhead lights winked out completely, and aside from the candles on the tables, the whole club was plunged into darkness. It lasted for only a moment, and then the rumbling stopped and the lights sputtered reluctantly back to life. In the glow from the wall sconces, Fennrys noticed that Webber wore a deeply worried expression on his long face. His too-large eyes stared, unblinking, at Fennrys.

“You’re a pre-cog,” Fenn said. “I remember you telling me that long ago. You can see the future. What do you see?”

Webber held up one long hand. “I catch . . . glimpses. Mostly by accident. At least, I used to, but everything is so in flux right now that even if I wanted to I sincerely doubt I’d be able to tell you much of anything about what’s going to happen.”

“Really? Then why is it that every time you think I’m not looking, you’re staring at me like I’m a rabid dog that should’ve been put down?” Fennrys asked. “Rather than patched up and let back out of his cage.”

“Hey . . . I have nothing personal against you,” Webber said. “In fact, I happen to think that what you did—with the Valkyrie and all, saving Herne’s life and sacrificing your own—that was commendable.”

“But now you’re wishing I’d just stayed dead after the fact, right?”

Webber sighed and his tangled brows knit together in a fierce frown. “I hate prophecy.
Hate
it. Prophecies never come true in the way people expect they will, and the minute anyone hears one, they start running around like idiots, doing whatever they can to either make something happen or keep it from happening. And it invariably has exactly the opposite effect from what they’re trying to achieve. It’s terribly frustrating. That’s why I try so hard
not
to see the future. Any of it. And I don’t tell people what I see about them when I do.”

“No exceptions?”

Webber was quiet for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t have to make an exception for you, Fennrys Wolf. I don’t
see
you in the future.”

T
he cloak her mother wrapped her in was heavy and thick, but Mason still couldn’t stop shivering. There was no warmth emanating from Hel as she led Mason in a direction only she could discern. There was a horrifying sameness to the landscape, but it seemed as if her mother knew exactly which way to go, and so Mason stumbled blindly along at her side for what seemed like hours.

Eventually, Mason noticed that the underground landscape had begun to alter. Subtly at first—almost in the way a scene in one of her dreams would shift—and then seemingly all at once. The craggy, jagged rocks had given way, abruptly, to a winding, unencumbered path and a vast, starry blackness that stretched above their heads—although Mason was positive they had never left the cavern. Sheer, mountainous cliffs rose on one side of the path and dropped off into endless chasms on the other. Mason’s footsteps began to falter as weariness threatened to finally overtake her, but her mother urged her on with a tightened grip on her aching shoulders. Deep purple shadows seamed the soaring rock faces, and Mason was almost certain she could feel eyes on her, peering out from the dark fissures.

She halted in her tracks, tired of not knowing what was going on. Mother or no mother, she was not going to meekly follow this stern, dark woman up a mountain without knowing what was waiting for her once they got to the top. Her mother’s cloak fell from her shoulders as she kept moving past Mason up the path.

“Tell me where we’re going,” Mason said.

Her mother turned and cast her an unblinking stare.

“Asgard,” Hel said finally, after a long pause. “To the great hall of Valhalla. There we will find the spear of Odin.”

“Why?”

“Because the Bifrost has been shattered, and you need a way to get home.”

“And . . . a
spear
can do that?”

“A magick spear, yes,” Hel answered drily in the face of Mason’s skepticism. “The Odin spear can do a lot of things. Traveling between the realms is one of them. Now. Do you want to go home?”

More than anything,
Mason thought, and was almost shocked by how desperately she wanted to leave the dark woman at her side behind. What was wrong with her? She’d wanted all her life to meet her mother. So why did she react to her now as if she was a complete stranger—and a dangerous one at that?

You should be ashamed of yourself,
she thought.

Her mother was dead. Because of her. Who knew what kinds of torments she’d endured in this place? Mason took a deep breath and tried to find a spark of compassion somewhere inside herself. After a long moment, she found it. But that was only because she’d thought fleetingly of her father. Suddenly, she could imagine what the look on Gunnar Starling’s face would be if she could somehow manage to find a way to bring his beloved Yelena back to him.