Transcendent

  “You’re just like your mother,” Gunnar said in a soft, heavy voice.

  “People keep telling me that,” she said, a twinge in her heart. “If it’s true, I have to think she’d be just as sad as I am that you’re doing all this. Dad . . . can’t you just stop?”

  “Mason,” his voice turned hard. “Listen to me. The people you are with are poisoning your mind. You have a destiny and it’s not what you think. It’s not evil. I’m not evil. I’m your father. Do you think I would have raised you to do something terrible? Is that what you think?”

  Mason was silent for a long moment. And then she said, “You did raise me. And you raised Roth. But . . . you raised Rory, too, Dad.”

  “Honey—”

  She hung up the handset, then grabbed the entire phone console, pulled it off the wall, along with a large chunk of drywall, and hurled it into the corner of the oak-paneled lobby where it smashed to pieces. As they clattered to the ground, the red rage that had momentarily wrapped around Mason’s brain vanished. She turned back to the others to find Carrie staring at her, openmouthed.

  “They’re totally gonna make you pay for that!” she said.

  “They can send the bill to my dad.” Mason smiled acidly. “In Valhalla.”

  Carrie just flipped her hair over her shoulder and stalked off huffily, back to her corner of the lobby, where she could stare angrily at her useless phone some more.

  “Is there an ancient cult dedicated to the god of pains in the ass?” Mason muttered drily. “Because I figure that’s gotta be her deal.”

  “Actually,” Toby said from over her shoulder, “Carrie Morgan’s family is dedicated on her mother’s side to Epona.”

  Mason turned and raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Celtic horse goddess.” He shrugged. “Carrie has no idea, but I happen to know it’s the truth. It’s the reason she’s won all those equestrian trophies.”

  “You’re kidding,” Mason said.

  “Funny thing,” Toby mused, “Epona is also the goddess of donkeys and mules, which might explain the temperament.” He grinned at Mason.

  “Wow,” she said. “And that totally makes sense.”

  It did. And, in a weird way, it almost made Mason sympathetic toward Carrie because it meant there was a possibility that she had never really intended to be such a bitch. Maybe the circumstances at play at Gosforth Academy afflicted the student body in ways most of them weren’t even aware of. It would go a long way toward explaining Mason’s love of sword fighting. Maybe, she thought, it even went so far as to explain her brother Rory’s behavior. She frowned, thinking about that. About him.

  When did he become such a monster? she wondered. And why?

  Was it something already inside of him? Some kind of destiny or fate or predetermined role that he was playing in spite of himself? And, if that was the case, could Mason ever find it within herself to forgive him for the terrible things he’d done?

  What about the things I’ve done? And might still do . . .

  She shook her head sharply to rid herself of the shiver of heat that ran up her spine and the redness that had begun, once again, to tinge the edges of her vision. The urge to just let loose and go haywire with a weapon at the slightest provocation.

  Stop! she thought. You have to stop feeling this way.

  Feeling like she would, at any moment, give in and unleash the Valkyrie that stirred so restlessly within her. It was a feeling that was so close to the panic attacks she would experience in enclosed spaces—except for one thing. Instead of fear, all she felt was rage. If the first instance evoked a “flight” response in her, the second most definitely evoked “fight.” She was spoiling for it. Mason took a deep breath and turned to Toby.

  “I think we should gather all of the stragglers left in the Academy,” she said. “It’ll be safer that way. Do you think maybe Carrie could help you track everyone down and bring them to the dining hall?”

  Toby pretty obviously understood that Mason wasn’t exactly responding well to irritants at that moment. “Sure, Mase,” he said and beckoned to Carrie, who rolled her eyes. “Come on, Morgan. Let’s go round up strays.” He pointed to the hall doors. “I’ll be right behind you.” He went to check the security system one more time and drew the heavy curtains over all of the front windows before following her.

  Mason turned her attention to Roth. His head was tipped back and his eyes were closed. Daria had produced a first-aid kit from behind the front desk and had managed to ease the leather jacket off Roth’s shoulder. She poured antiseptic on the wound and Roth’s only reaction was a slight fluttering of his eyelids. But his breathing was still slow and regular. It was most likely just a flesh wound—a bad one, but it would heal well enough, given time. Mason hoped he’d get that time.

  She wanted to go to him and take care of him herself, but something was stopping her. It was weird. But the sight of Daria, who had so cruelly used Roth—not once but twice now, as an instrument to perpetrate her own evils—so carefully cleaning his wounds was confusing and strange. And as much as she might understand that that was, in fact, what had happened all those years ago, Mason wasn’t sure that she had forgiven her brother for killing her.

  She wasn’t sure she ever would.

  XIV

  Mason watched Cal’s mother tend Roth’s wounds and feeling very young and very helpless. Until she felt Fennrys standing close behind her. He radiated a heat that she could feel, without even touching him. She turned to look up into his face.

  “Mase,” he said quietly, “come with me?”

  He nodded toward the glass-paned inner doors that led to the Academy’s enclosed courtyard. She followed him out into the courtyard, where the raging storm seemed a little less rage-filled, mostly because the quad was so sheltered. Still, the lashing rain in her face made her close her eyes as Fennrys led her by the hand toward the wing of the Academy that held the gymnasium. The front facade and roof were screened in by plywood, and there was a stark empty space and a massive hole in the ground surrounded by heaped earth where the huge old oak tree used to stand.

  For a moment, Mason could almost picture the ancient tree still standing there, unfolding its massive branches to the sky. Her father had ordered the Gosforth administration to have the fallen oak sawed into firewood and transported back to the Starling estate in Westchester County. Mason fleetingly imagined that she could smell the smoke from the fires her father had built with it, and she thought of Yggdrasil, the mythical Norse world tree.

  How fitting. Just like he wants the real world to burn.

  For a moment, even with the rain falling, icy and stinging on her face, all Mason could do was stand in the middle of the quad and turn in a slow circle.

  “You okay, Mase?” Fennrys asked quietly.

  “No,” she answered. “Not really . . .”

  He reached out and squeezed her hand, his own palm slick with sweat, or maybe it was rain. She couldn’t tell.

  “This is . . . this was my home.” She blinked back wetness that was no longer just the rain. Suddenly, it was all too much. “It’s my school. I’m supposed to graduate next year. With a ceremony and everything, like a normal high school student. I don’t care what Roth says. It’s not supposed to be like this. I’m not supposed to be like this.”

  “I know.”

  “The other night, before I accidentally went to Asgard, I was lying in bed and I actually thought—I can’t believe I’m even telling you this—I actually thought that maybe . . . maybe you might still be around when that happened.” A bubble of bitter laughter caught in her throat. “Prom, I mean. I had this fantasy that . . . maybe you’d take me to the dance. Me. I’ve never thought anything like that about anyone. The only thing I ever cared about before you was fencing. And here you come crashing into my life, the one person who can make me a better fighter and suddenly it’s not the only thing I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about going places and doing things and being with you and . . . and then all
of this.”

  She waved her hand in the direction of the sky and was answered with a triple-tongued fork of lightning that ripped through the darkness, a deafening boom of thunder following close. Mason shook her head in disgust and anger. And sadness.

  “Now all I want to do is survive the night,” she said. “I’m not going to get a prom. And this place will never be my home again. It certainly won’t be much of a school.”

  “Hey.” Fenn took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself. And me.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “I mean . . .” He pushed a wet strand of hair off her face and tucked it behind her ear. “I haven’t even had a chance to ask you to prom yet and you’re already telling me you’re not going.”

  Mason blinked in confusion, brought up short. “Fenn—”

  “Will you?”

  “I . . . what?”

  “Let me take you to prom, Mason Starling.” Fennrys reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips. His eyes glittered with icy fire as he dipped his head to kiss the backs of her fingers. He stared up at her and his mouth bent into the hint of a smile as he said, “I’ll wear a tux. I’ll get a limo and roll down all the windows before I pick you up. And I’ll leave the weaponry at home.”

  Does that include the claws and teeth? Mason wondered fleetingly, dazed by the unexpected question and the way it had stolen her breath away. And then she realized that it didn’t matter. If the two of them managed to live long enough—and if the world, or even New York City survived—then it just didn’t matter. Fennrys. The Wolf. He was a package deal and she loved him.

  “I’ll get you a corsage,” he continued, straightening up and stepping closer to her, his words filling the void of her stunned silence. “Do you like orchids?”

  She gazed up into his face in wonderment, struck speechless in that moment and it occurred to Mason then that, for all his worldliness, all his weariness, Fenn was just a young man. One who’d never had a prom—or whatever the ancient Viking equivalent might have been—or really, as far as Mason had gleaned from what she knew of his life, even been on a date. Her heart thumped achingly in her chest. She wanted that. For herself, and for him.

  “I love orchids,” she said in a whisper.

  He leaned down to kiss her and her lips curved into a smile against his.

  “But maybe you could bring one weapon,” she murmured. “Just in case . . .”

  He laughed through the kiss and they stayed like that until, under her hands, Mason felt the muscles of his back and shoulders begin to shudder and Fennrys pushed her away from him. His blue gaze had turned stormy again and his face was pale.

  “Fenn?”

  He shook his head, taking her by the hand, and wordlessly walked her over to the construction entrance into the gym building. There was a padlock on the temporary door but Fenn struck it off with a blow from the hilt of his dagger. The gaping hole in the roof of the building was covered with heavy blue plastic tarps that filtered what little light there was from outside in aquatic shades that made it feel almost as if they were underwater.

  Cal would look right at home here, Mason thought. At least, the “new” Cal would.

  Her boot heel caught on an uneven ridge as she walked slowly into the middle of the dim vaulting space. What had been a brand-new wooden floor, freshly installed just before the incident, was warped and ruined. Lightning flashed through the tall windows of the gym’s long wall, reminding her of the moment she’d seen her very first storm zombie—the draugr’s hideous, grinning visage captured in the same kind of flashbulb illumination, framed by one of those very windows. It was a strange sensation being back in the spot where it had all started. Same place, different Mason. If the same thing were to happen again, that very night, she knew that she wouldn’t hesitate to fight. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill.

  If she’d been like that before, maybe Cal wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

  She shook her head.

  Cal wasn’t there now and she wasn’t about to waste time thinking about him. Not after what he’d done to Fennrys, who was there, standing right beside her—even after what she’d done to him. She looked up at him and, in the wash of blue haze, saw that there was a sheen of sweat on his brow even though the air in the gym held a damp, clammy chill. His eyes looked feverish.

  “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need your help,” he said.

  “Is that why you brought me here?”

  He nodded stiffly. “I . . . I’m having a hard time keeping it—the wolf—under wraps. I think I have to . . . change. Just for a few minutes. To ease the pressure, sort of like . . .”

  “Like a safety valve?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Like a safety valve. But I need you to keep an eye on me if you’re okay with that. You know, make sure I don’t go on a rampage and eat a student or something.”

  Mason nodded and tried to sound casual as she said, “I can do that.”

  “Thank you.”

  For turning you into something that might eat a student? she thought. You’re welcome.

  He led her over to the place by the little raised stage at the end of the gym where there was a metal ring set recessed into the wood floor. He twisted the ring and lifted the trap door that led down to the storage cellar where they had all hidden when the draugr had attacked that first time. Mason looked down at the steep staircase that led into inky-black darkness and paused. She hadn’t really experienced a claustrophobic episode since she’d drawn the Odin spear and she wondered if that was because Valkyrie didn’t get claustrophobic. Or any kind of phobic. Valkyrie were fearless. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to push that theory.

  Fennrys raised an eyebrow at her as she hesitated. “Right. I sort of forgot about that . . . are you going to be okay with this?”

  “Hanging out in a storage cellar? Yesterday, I would have said no freaking way. Today, I’ll do whatever you need me to. Just . . . go.” She gestured to the staircase. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Fennrys closed his mouth and pressed his lips together. He nodded tersely and descended into the cellar with quick, agile steps down the ladder. Mason followed on his heels. When her boots touched the floor of the cramped chamber, she looked around in the gloom to see that Fenn was already on the far side of the rows of wire-mesh storage racks. She reached up to where she remembered Toby getting a flashlight from and found the thing, flicking on its pale beam. Fenn was prying aside some kind of a grate that looked almost like the barred door of a medieval prison cell. She hadn’t noticed it the one and only time she’d been down there, and she shot him a questioning look when he glanced at her over his shoulder.

  “I found this when you and the others were unconscious, the last time we were here.”

  “You mean when you knocked us all out with a spell.”

  “Yeah. Then.”

  “And stole Toby’s boots.”

  “I gave them back.” He gestured her closer, pointing to the curved lintel above the opening. It looked like the mouth of a cave, but the stone archway was smooth, carved stone, inscribed with symbols and signs. “Look here.”

  He passed his hand over symbols that looked similar to the ones on his medallion. And on the Odin spear. Norse designs. They went farther down that tunnel. In one of the deeper alcoves they passed, they saw that someone had made something of a cozy little nest on a rock shelf.

  There was a camping lantern and a colorful crocheted throw that Mason recognized as usually draped over the couch in one of the common rooms. There was a small travel bag in one corner and on an overturned storage crate, there was an aluminum water bottle, a stack of energy bars, and a couple of paperback novels. There was also a framed picture of her brother Roth and Gwen Littlefield.

  In the center of the dirt floor, there was a long silver knife, lying inside a circle drawn in what looked to Mason like rock salt, broken by the swipe of fingertips. Be
side the knife, there were dark reddish stains in the dirt.

  “The haruspex,” Fennrys said, the breath rasping in and out of his lungs as he tried to keep a handle on his surging wolfish temperament. He waved a hand at the ground. “That’s a casting circle. Magick practitioners use them. She must have been doing a divining.”

  “The last one she’ll ever do,” Mason murmured and picked up the picture of her brother and the purple-haired, pixie-pretty girl he had his arms wrapped around protectively. Roth in the photo was almost unrecognizable to her. He looked . . . happy. Relaxed. In love.

  Now, she thought, he’ll never look like this again.

  After a moment, Fennrys gently pried the photograph from her hands and placed it carefully back on the upturned crate. Mason felt a sob hitch in her throat and turned away, but suddenly, Fenn’s arms were around her. She felt his breath in her hair and her shoulder blades pressed against the wall of his chest.

  “I swear to you, Mason Starling,” he whispered, “we will make this right. Gwen’s death will not be meaningless. I promise you that.”

  “I didn’t even know Roth had a girlfriend.”

  Fennrys ran a hand over her head, smoothing her hair.

  “He just looks so broken,” she said. “I mean, now that she’s gone. I can’t . . .” She twisted around in his embrace and stared up into his eyes. The planes of his face were tight and the muscles on the sides of his neck stood out like cords. His ice-blue eyes sparked cold fire. “Fenn, I can’t go through that with you. I can’t lose you the way Roth lost Gwen.”

  “You won’t.” His voice was almost a growl. It echoed off the rough walls and melded with the vibrations of another tremor. A drift of dust spiraled down from the cavern ceiling and Fennrys puts his hands on the sides of Mason’s face. “I will tear the world apart to keep us together,” he said.