Transcendent (9 page)

Over on the other side of the patio, Maddox's silver chain sang through the air. But the Harpies possessed agility that was, naturally, superhuman, and they evaded him without much difficulty. Cal had pulled a solid wall of water up out of the fountain and was using it to shield his mother, who was proving to be a pretty useless burden, without any handy curses to whip up.

The three bird-women attacked with ruthless speed and efficiency, riding updrafts between the buildings that Mason couldn't even perceive and swooping down in strafing arcs that kept everyone ducking for cover. But then Aello made the mistake of taking a dive at Fennrys.

She was maybe ten feet away when—instead of ducking—Fennrys launched himself into a leap that took the Harpy utterly by surprise. He slammed into her midair and twisted as they fell so that the vile creature was beneath him and took the brunt of the impact on her back, right between her ragged wings. Fennrys pinned Aello to the ground with a knee on her bony rib cage. His lips peeled back in a terrifying snarl
as the Harpy squirmed and squealed beneath him. Mason heard a low animal growl and saw Fenn's eyes begin to gleam with an eldritch light, heralding his transformation from human to wolf.

She ran forward, screaming, “Fenn! No!”

But before she could reach him, a brilliant silver light flashed in the air in front of her and a voice, clear and bell-like rang out in the air.

“Enough!”

The sound of the word bloomed out like the shockwave from a detonation and stopped Mason in her tracks, forcing her back a few steps. When the afterglow from the brightness faded, she looked up to see a silver-haired woman, hovering in the air on iridescent wings above where Fennrys and Aello grappled in the street. A gust of wet wind swept over the courtyard, rain droplets shattering into rainbow prisms. Aello squawked like an aggrieved crow and flapped away as Fennrys hunched against the sudden torrent, his eyes still smoldering with pale blue light.

He was breathing heavily and the corners of his mouth were still lifted in a feral snarl as he visibly struggled to regain control of himself. It looked as if it took every ounce of strength he had not to lunge at the majestic, ethereal figure gazing down at him, a deep frown marring her lovely brow. When finally it seemed as if he had mastered his wolfish impulses, the silver-haired woman turned to glare at the Harpies.

“Enough, Aello,” she said. “All of you. Enough fighting.”

“We come only to claim the haruspex—”

“
I
claimed the haruspex.”

The magnificent, iridescent wings twitched, scattering rainbow flashes into the dark air all around her, and suddenly Mason knew who this was. Iris, Greek goddess of the rainbow, messenger of the gods and conduit between the Beyond Realms and humanity. She was the one who had taken Fennrys across the River Lethe to help him escape from Helheim.

“It was I who took Gwendolyn Littlefield away.”

“But she is a suicide!” Aello squawked. “She belongs to us!”

“She was a
sacrifice
,” Iris said, and bestowed a sorrowful glance on Roth, who'd said the very same thing only moments earlier. “And she was deserving of a rest worthy of her actions. I carried her into Elysium.”

“You took her across the River Lethe?” Fennrys asked quietly, having regained control of himself.

Iris nodded, the sorrow bending into a sad smile on her face.

Roth took a step forward. “What?” He looked back and forth between Iris and Fennrys. “What does that mean?”

“It means that she lives her afterlife in the vales of the blissful dead,” Daria Aristarchos said in a hoarse voice. “And the trials of this life have been forgotten.”

Roth's expression crumpled.
“Forgotten?”

“Do not grieve.” Iris held up one long-fingered hand to forestall Roth's cry of protest. “She has no memories of her life. But she has no memories of her
death
, either. Her shade is happy. And you may carry the memories of your time together for her. Be at peace, as she is.”

“Peace?” Roth spat the word. “You mean like the kind of peace my father wants? When everything I've ever known and loved is dead and gone? I'm already way ahead of you.” He turned and kicked an overturned table out of his way as he stalked back to kneel beside the empty circle of shattered concrete, his heart just as empty. Just as shattered.

A
s Mason's brother walked past him, Fennrys had to turn away from the stark pain of Roth's expression. He could feel Mason's eyes fixed upon him, almost as if heat emanated from her gaze.

See?
she seemed to be silently asking him.
Do you see now why I did what I did? I would have lost you the same way and I couldn't let that happen. Would you have?

“As for you, Fennrys Wolf,” Iris said, turning to address him in a cool, disapproving tone. “I did not think to look upon you again. And certainly not so soon.”

He looked up at her. “I believe I expressed a similar sentiment last time we met,” he said drily.

Her keen glance pinned him to the spot where he stood. “You no longer balance upon the edge of the knife, I see,” she said.

“That's a matter of opinion.” Fennrys felt his jaw muscles tighten. “
I
just happen to think that maybe the knife's gotten a whole lot sharper.”

Iris's gaze drifted over to Mason, who had taken a step forward.

“I know you,” Mason said to the shining, winged woman. “I mean . . . I've seen you before. In the gym, the night of the storm. The night this all began. You were there, above the branches of the old oak when it crashed through the window. The rainbow window.”

“I was.” Iris inclined her head gracefully. “Your mother asked me to bring Fennrys to you, Mason Starling. So that he could protect you. Keep you safe.”

Fennrys felt his lip twist in the shadow of a sneer. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I don't know
what
she was thinking.”

“I do,” Iris said, rebuking him. Although her tone softened a bit as she said, “She sought to bring light out of darkness. She still does. She still believes in you. Both of you.”

At the mention of her mother, a wash of emotion surged over Mason's face. Fennrys remembered what he'd said to her
after he and Rafe had rescued her from Asgard, and from Heimdall the Aesir guardian god. The one who'd impersonated Hel, the goddess that Yelena Starling had become, in order to dupe Mason into taking up the Odin spear. Fenn had told Mason that, when the time came, they would return to the Beyond Realms to look for her mother. Now he didn't know if either of them would live long enough for the opportunity to arise.

He felt in that moment as if that was just another way that he was letting Mason down. Silently, he watched as she bit her lip and turned away from Iris, her eyes downcast, and all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay. But he couldn't. Mostly because he couldn't bring himself to believe that.

“You must, Fennrys Wolf,”
Iris's voice was soft in his mind. Her words for him alone.
“You
must
believe. There is a wolf in the heart of every warrior. Yours is stronger, hungrier. But it remains, still, for the warrior to decide the wolf's prey. Trust those that believe in you and believe in those that trust you.”

“
Like you, Lady Iris?”
Fenn asked silently.

“No!”
She laughed gently in his head.
“No
. . . I
still half expect you to be the ruin of the world. But what am I to you or you to me when the day is done? I cannot help you, but I will not hinder you. And I do hope happiness finds you, someday. Keep faith. Keep friends . . .”

“Farewell.”

With that, Iris fanned her bright, impossible wings and rose higher into the dusky red air, calling aloud—and
sternly—for her Harpy sisters to attend on her. They screeched reluctantly and Fennrys half expected one of them to launch into one last strafing run. But just then he felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach—a rumbling that wasn't hunger—and the ground beneath his boots began to tremble. At first Fenn thought it was yet another earthquake, but it felt different this time. Rhythmic . . .

He glanced around, trying to assess where the next threat was about to come from, but the plaza on all sides was eerily quiet. Sepulchral. Suddenly, with a burst of panicked screeching, Aello and her sisters did finally take to the skies again. In the wink of an eye, the Harpies scattered, vanishing between skyscrapers like a flock of crows startled by an eagle diving into their midst. A moment later, Fenn saw why. The thunderclouds suddenly lit up above their heads and half a dozen, blue-white comets punched through the cloud cover, blinding bright, streaking down toward the Rockefeller Plaza. The enormous ice balls, glittering and jagged, impacted at the far end of the courtyard like hailstones on steroids and began, impossibly, to unfold—limbs and heads jutting out from glacier-like torsos.

Maddox grunted in recognition. “Frost giants,” he said, when Fennrys shot him a questioning look. “I've heard of these guys.”

“How do we kill them?” Fenn asked.

“How should I know?” Maddox said. “I said I've
heard
of them. I haven't killed one yet!”

“Where the hell did they come from?”

Maddox chewed on the inside of his cheek and shrugged. “Uh . . . north?”

“You're an idiot.”

“What?” Maddox grinned. “They're not Faerie, they're Norse. That's your end of the stick, boyo.”

“Thanks to the Fae, I didn't exactly grow up in a Norse household like I was supposed to, you know,” Fenn complained as the monstrous creatures heaved themselves to standing on massive ice-pillar legs. “I don't know all the Viking myths and—”

“Google it later!” Mason shouted, running, as she grabbed Fennrys by the wrist and hauled him behind a concrete barrier. “Now?
Move!
”

A fraction of an instant later, a giant ice fist slammed down in the place where he'd been standing. Ice pellets and snow-crusted bits of rock sprayed the terrace like shrapnel.

“Seven hells!” Fennrys swore, rapidly assessing the situation. “Those things have this end of the courtyard boxed in. If we stay stuck down here for too long, it'll be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“Punching,” Mason corrected him as one of the creatures slammed its fist into a stone pillar, sending huge chunks of rock flying. “
Punching
fish in a barrel.”

“Yeah.” Fenn snorted. “They'll pulverize us either way.” He glanced around to see Maddox crouched behind the outdoor bar, his silver chain weapon ready. “Madd! Cover me. . . .”

Maddox nodded, popped up, and whipped his chain at the neck of one of the ice giants. The barbs bit like a mountain
climber's grapple hook and he hauled with all his strength, pulling the thing off balance. Mason grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher and darted forward to bash great chunks of ice off the side of the thing's head. She did it without morphing into her Valkyrie gear—just yelling like a banshee, brave and crazy, charging into danger when she could have just kept her head down.

Good god, I love that girl
, Fennrys thought as he ran, determined to find a way to tell her that again. And maybe one day hear her say words like those back to him.

Mason watched as Fenn made a break for the stairs leading up out of the courtyard, then she leaped into the fray with a fire extinguisher. Less than five seconds later, Fennrys was back.

The blow from the Frost Giant sent him flying through the air, and he slammed into the red marble wall behind the Rockefeller's famous fountain. The stone cracked with a sound like a shotgun blast and Fennrys fell face-first into the pool beneath the Prometheus statue's unblinking glare.

Mason screamed his name and dropped the fire extinguisher.

“You take cover!” Rafe yelled, sprinting toward her in his man-god shape, bronze sword in his hand, long white fangs exposed and gleaming. “He'll be fine!”

Mason ducked frantically back behind the barrier as a swarm of airborne icicles knifed through the space where her head had been a moment before.

Right
, she thought.
Rafe said his wolves were “damn near
unkillable.”

She really hoped he hadn't been exaggerating.

And a few seconds later, Fennrys lifted his head, his fierce eyes staring out from beneath a fringe of dripping-wet hair, and snarled at the icy abomination lumbering toward him. Maddox and Rafe rushed to engage the creature, to give Fenn a moment of breathing space. But suddenly, the Frost Giant—and its fellows—stopped in its tracks and dipped its massive head as if in deference. A strange, hollow silence descended on the sunken courtyard, as if the eye of a storm had settled over them, walling away howling winds.

And into that eerie stillness, Rory Starling swaggered down the stairs.

He wore a long dark leather coat that Mason recognized as belonging to their father, black leather gloves, black jeans, and thick-soled boots that echoed like hard slaps on the pavement. The only thing needed to complete the supervillain look was a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

“Somebody's in a party mood tonight,” Roth said drily, stepping up beside her as she shifted out from behind the barrier. “Dad give you the keys to the Bentley or something, Ror?”

“Well, if it isn't little Mousie and my big, bad brother,” Rory sneered. Then he laughed, and it was an ugly sound. “Dad gave me more than car keys, Roth. And you know it. Hey, listen—I owe you a little something from our last conversation.”

“Let me guess,” Roth murmured. “Pain?”

“I owe you
pain
!”

Mason sighed. “He doesn't disappoint.”

“Just once, I wish he would.”

“What happened between you two?” she asked.