Transcendent (32 page)

But the magick Loki wove into his medallion held. He didn't change.

He wouldn't . . .

“It's okay,” Mason said, and put a hand on his heart. “Remember you will
always
be Fennrys. Now it's time to go be the Wolf.”

He hesitated. Rafe screamed.

“Go!”

Fennrys tore the iron medallion from around his neck and tossed it at Mason as he leaped for the side of the ship, vaulting over it and transforming midleap. Instantly, he felt his mind transform with his body. Every instinct, every impulse, clarified and refined. Emotions dropped away.

There was nothing for him but the fight. The kill.

He ran.

W
hen the sky split open, Roth and Daria and Cal were standing
in the infield of a placid-seeming baseball diamond. And then the ground started to heave. The three of them glanced around in confusion. Even with all of the tremors in Manhattan over the last few days, this felt different. Then they saw the distant golden-roofed halls of Valhalla, shining through the rift out over the river.

“No . . . ,” Daria murmured. “We're too late.”

“We can't be!” Cal protested. “Unless Mason's already chosen—”

“No.” Roth turned a fierce glare on him. “Mason wouldn't do that.”

Daria looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

“She has no reason to!” he exclaimed, thrusting out an arm toward the empty play fields. “There's no battle here. No one to choose
from
. And even if they're called to this place, the Einherjar won't fight without a third Odin son to lead them.”

“Then clearly we have nothing to fear,” Daria said drily.

“Yeah . . . nothing.” Cal pointed grimly in the direction of the ancient Viking ship with the shadow-black sail beached at the far end of the island. And at the multitude of gray shapes erupting like time-lapse-photography weeds out of the earth. “Except those guys.”

“Draugr.” Roth's gaze went stony.

Daria reached for the pouch hanging at her belt.

“Wait.” He reached out a hand and clamped it around her wrist. “What are you doing?”

“Gunnar is very clever,” Daria said. “Or, at least, those who are pulling his strings are. We may be able to keep your sister
from fulfilling her prophesied role, but it won't matter. Because if we do not keep
those
things”—she pointed at the draugr—“contained on this island, then all is lost, whether Mason chooses or no. It won't be Ragnarok, but . . .”

“What will it be?” Cal asked.

“Worse.” Daria reached up a hand and touched the scars on Cal's face—the one's given to him by just such a creature that night in the Gosforth gym—and said, “If you had been mortal,
this
would have ended you.”

Cal pushed her hand away. “They told me Fennrys did something to heal me that night.”

Daria nodded. “Without his magick, and without your own . . . particular physiology, you would have died. And
then
you would have become like them. Those creatures.”

Cal frowned. “A storm zombie?”

“Call it what you want.”

Cal looked at Roth, who shrugged, a look of confusion on his face.

“I didn't know,” he said. “I didn't know that's what happened.”

“Your father didn't tell you everything, it seems,” Daria said.

“Hardly surprising,” Roth snapped. “I didn't tell him I thought he was a lunatic. Or that I was really working for you.”

“If I
don't
bring forth the Dragon Warriors now,” Daria said, “then the draugr will just kill and multiply, and kill and
multiply, until there's no one and nothing left.” She glanced over her shoulder to the south, where they could just see the outlines of a cluster of large, institutional buildings, about a mile away. “And they'll probably start there—with the Wards Island psychiatric treatment facility, home to a number of criminally insane, dangerously violent offenders. Perhaps, after that, they'll move on to Rikers Island penitentiary.” She pegged Roth with a flat, unblinking stare. “No? You find that an unacceptable situation? Perhaps you agree then that we'd best draw our line in the sand here, as it were.”

Without waiting for his reply, she stalked past him over to the pitcher's mound, knelt, and gouged a furrow in the sandy earth with her fingers. Then she poured out the contents of the silken pouch into the furrow. Whispering words in a low urgent voice, Daria re-covered the gap and, gesturing for Cal and Roth to follow her, said, “I'd stand back if I were you.”

Then the Dragon Warriors appeared.

A chasm split the middle of the mound, gaping wide enough to let five men, shoulder to shoulder, fit through. The first of those five heaved themselves up through the opening, dressed in ancient bronze armor—horsehair-crested helmets, breastplates, studded leather skirts and sandals and greaves—each one bearing a sword, a spear, and a man-sized shield bearing the insignia of a coiled serpent. Their faces were identical. They were killing machines. And they were legion.

Fifty, a hundred, two hundred . . . they kept climbing out of that pit. Even after the first ranks had already engaged with the
ragged leading edge of the draugr horde. Cal looked at his mother, expecting her face to be set in an expression of triumph. But all he saw there, in that moment when she wasn't aware that he was looking, was weariness and worry.

She doesn't think we can win. They won't be enough
.

They need help . . .

The sight of so many warriors, armed and ready to kill or be killed, stirred something in Cal's blood. Something he never would have thought himself capable of feeling. Bloodlust. Battle fever. Maybe, he thought distantly, it was all part of the whole “god thing” but, whatever it was, Cal wasn't about to deny it. After all of the pain and frustration of the last few days, all of the chaos and uncertainty and searing anger . . . after days of being afraid, he finally
fully
let loose.

Maybe in doing so, he could prove something to himself.

And Mason
.

Cal felt his eyes flash with lightning as he called the waters of the East River to do his bidding, and a funnel of whirling water suddenly climbed into the sky, arcing through the air toward him. It surrounded him in a spinning torrent, clothing his limbs in supple, hard-as-steel armor and stretching into the shape of a trident in his hand. And then he was running to join the ranks of his mother's Dragon Warriors.

Concealed, invisible behind the shimmery haze of her runegold glamour, Heather faltered to a stop as the ground in front of Cal's mom suddenly cracked open and a marching band
procession of guys in skirts and funny hats poured forth. Insanely dangerous-looking guys in skirts and funny hats. Flinty eyed, muscle-corded, single-minded and purposeful, they almost hummed like high-tension wires with the need to inflict maximum damage against a foe—any foe.

And there just happens to be a blue-light special on foes, right here!

Those guys could fight to their unbeating hearts' content, she thought. They weren't even alive—not in any real sense Heather could conceive of—and she didn't care what happened to them. They were a video game army, everyone the same.

Everyone except one
.

The one warrior fighting with familiar grace and elegance near the front of the ranks. The helmetless one with the golden-brown hair . . . and the trident.

“Oh no. Cal . . . ,” Heather whispered and started running again.

This wasn't
his
fight. It couldn't be!

It was his mother's. And Mason's father's.

And Heather just knew that if Cal got involved it would end badly. It was intuition—a feeling of imaginary snakes writhing in her stomach—but that sensation quickly gave way to another one—a feeling of very
real
fingers wrapped around her throat. She staggered to a sudden stop and heard Rory Starling's voice whisper, “Hey there, Palmerston. I think you have something of mine.”

He'd come up right behind her.

So fast—and then she remembered that Rory had always been athletic. He'd always just been too much of an arrogant jerk to participate in team sports. He must have been hiding beneath one of the only lonely trees in the park and she'd run right past him, so intent was she on getting to Cal.

“Where the hell did you think you were going?” Rory asked. “Were you gonna go save Cally boy? He looks like he's doing all right on his own for once. Probably won't last, though. Guy's got no spine. Or, y'know, he won't after I rip it out of him. If the draugr don't do it first.”

His voice was an ugly, sneering thing. Heather could hear him, but she couldn't see him, and she realized that, because he was touching her, Rory was invisible too. He must have known she had the runegold. He was behind her, pushing her to walk forward, and her first instinct was to haul off and mule kick as hard as she could, hoping she hit something vital. But it was if he read her mind and the fingers around her throat tightened with more-than-human strength. Heather froze.

“Uh-uh,” Rory said. “Not unless you've grown tired of having a trachea.”

She remembered how broken Rory had been the last time she'd seen him. How his arm had looked shattered beyond repair. Apparently, he'd gotten all better since then. Physically, at least. He was clearly still a psychopath. And he'd just threatened to tear her throat out.

“Now, I'd rather not have us suddenly materialize in the middle of all those soldiers,” he said. “That could get messy. So
I'll keep my hands on you and
you
keep your hand on that runegold. Now
move
. Just keep walking—over there—toward that trestle bridge.” He nudged her sharply. “I'm not sure how in the mood my dad is for company, but I always think hostages are money in the bank. And if he doesn't need you for that, he can always give you to the Norns to play with. They probably haven't had a nice healthy mind to snack on for aeons.”

“Certainly not if they're hanging out with you,” Heather snarked.

To her surprise, Rory laughed. “Y'know, Palmerston, I always thought you were more than just hot. I actually thought you were smart. When you wised up and dropped that loser Aristarchos, I thought there might even be a chance for us.”

Heather found herself torn between the urge to guffaw or gag.

But then she found herself stepping beneath the shadow of the Bronx Kill Bridge and—when Rory suddenly grabbed the runegold from her hand and shoved her forward—falling on her knees to the ground . . . right at the feet of Gunnar Starling. One of the most terrifying men she'd ever known.

“Sorry I went AWOL there, Pops,” Rory said. “Just thought she might come in handy.”

Gunnar cast a baleful eye over his wayward son, who'd casually pocketed the runegold, and then he turned to look down at Heather. He stared at her in silence for a long time and all Heather could do was return the gaze, unable to look away, as memories flooded her mind of what the Starling
patriarch had done the last time she'd seen him. Calmly murdering Tag Overlea with a golden acorn like the one Rory had just taken from her.

“Handy?” Gunnar asked in a deceptively conversational tone. “I rather doubt that now.” He bent down in front of her and actually held out a hand to help her stand. Heather had no idea what to do or say, but when he spoke again, it felt as though she were turning to ice inside. “But that's not to say Miss Palmerston hasn't already helped us out immensely. And for that, my dear, I owe you a debt of thanks. Of course, I won't ever be able to repay it. Not after today. Now come, stand by me and let us watch the fruits of our combined labors grow ripe on this branch of the World Tree.”

“Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?” Heather said, the shakiness in her tone undercutting the brash words. “This raging supervillain complex you're nurturing is a little over the top, don't you think? And for the record? I would never help someone like you.”

“Not willingly, I'm sure.” Gunnar ignored the supervillain jibe. “I was fortunate that your mother didn't feel the same way. She's an extraordinary woman. And really quite devoted to her patroness.”

Heather felt an uncomfortable clenching in her stomach. “What patroness? What are you talking about?”

“The Roman goddess Venus.” Gunnar's eyes were filled with an ugly satisfaction at whatever expression Heather wore in that moment. “Didn't you know?”

Of course she didn't know.

Of course I knew
.

She'd known. She'd always known.

It was there in the strained, awkward relationship between her parents—the way they could seem so passionately in love with each other one moment, and like they hated each other's guts in the next. The gut-hating phases almost always happened after one of her mother's private solarium parties. The ones her father never attended.

The ones Heather had been forbidden from attending.

Parties—no, rituals—dedicated to Venus, Roman goddess of Love.

Heather moaned. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

Of course, Venus had had a son. Cupid. A Valentine's Day cherub.

Valen . . .

Frankly, Heather preferred the James Dean wannabe guise.

Valen had said he'd been looking for her, but that he hadn't been able to find her. That must have been her mother's doing. For a fleeting instant, Heather thought that maybe her mother had been trying to protect her.

No
. Not if what Gunnar Starling said was true.

“Your mother pledged you to her goddess when you were born.”

To the goddess of love. So
that
was why she'd been able to sense the emotions in others ever since she was young. And it had left Heather feeling like a freak for her entire life.