Transcendent

  Over the sound of Toby’s yelling, and the howling wind, and the skirling words of Daria’s desperate pleas, Mason suddenly heard another noise. A low, gentle moaning, it was a sound that was full of sorrow and love . . .

  And good-bye.

  It took her a moment to place the voice—an older version of the one she used to hear chattering shyly with Roth in the Gosforth school quad when they were children. Gwen Littlefield’s voice. The voice of a child who had grown up to become a power in her own right, except for the fact that she’d been harnessed—and used and abused—by Daria Aristarchos.

  Gwen . . .

  Mason turned and glanced over her shoulder, just in time to see Gwen lean down over the altar stone. Somehow, through a sheer act of iron will, she had managed to take back a measure of control over her rigid, curse-afflicted body and had pried her hands off the stone altar. Her palms were bloodied, but she didn’t seem to notice as she placed a long, lingering kiss on Roth’s lips. He struggled against the effects of the curse to reach for her as well. In vain.

  Gwen drew back, shook her head sharply, eyes suddenly clear-witted and sparkling with tears beneath the fringe of her purple hair. Then she spun and sprinted for the edge of the terrace, swifter than a gazelle. Mason watched, horrified, as Gwen opened her arms wide . . .

  And threw herself off the tower, into the embrace of the night.

  III

  Gunnar Starling stood looking into the enormous smoked glass mirror hanging on the wall of the sitting room in the palatial midtown condominium, staring past his own reflection as if he could see hidden things moving beyond. Rory stood in the doorway of the room staring at his father, at the way the light from the flames in the fireplace was echoed by the golden glow in Gunnar Starling’s left eye. The shadows that leaped up the wall behind Gunnar seemed more . . . animated than they perhaps should. And Rory could have sworn he smelled smoke that was different from just the apple-wood scent the flames usually gave off in the sleek designer fireplace. He could smell the acrid tang of melting metal. And . . . flesh. He could smell blood.

  He closed his eyes and, for a brief disorienting moment, he thought he could hear screaming. He opened them again and the sound vanished, and he wondered if it was just the muted strains of the chaos far below in the streets of the city. But the balcony doors were closed against the fierce, freezing rain and driving winds. Lightning strobed against the angry darkness of thunderheads that were so low in the sky Rory felt that if he stepped outside and lifted his hand—his shining, silver hand—he could touch them.

  He turned back to watch his father and saw that the mirror no longer reflected the room he stood in. Rather, the image enclosed in the heavy oak frame was both familiar and utterly alien. A white room, lit with red and purple light, and his sister standing in the middle of it. Only . . . she looked . . .

  Fantastic.

  And terrifying.

  Rory had never thought of Mouse in either of those terms before. But seeing her standing there, a raven-winged helmet on her brow, clothed head to toe in shimmering silver chain mail and supple black leather, a midnight-blue cloak swept back from her shoulder and a tall, slender spear held in her fist . . .

  “She’s magnificent,” Gunnar said, “isn’t she?”

  The paternal pride in his voice grated Rory’s nerves raw. Magnificent? More magnificent than a son with a silver hand?

  “Yeah.” Rory tried to muster enough enthusiasm so as not to incur his father’s displeasure. Gunnar doted on Mason and so Rory had to play nice. For now. “She’s something, all right,” he said. “Nice hat.”

  Gunnar sighed and turned away from the mirror, pegging his youngest son with a disconcerting stare. Even though Rory knew his father had sacrificed the physical sight in his left eye to the Norns for the gift of “other” sight, it was that eye that seemed to see him most clearly. The thread of twisting golden light shimmered for a moment in the depths of that eye, flickering and fading as Gunnar dropped his hand from the surface of the mirror and the image of Mason and her companions faded to shadows. Gunnar crossed the room and put a hand on his son’s shoulder, drawing him over to the fireplace. The light of the flames reflecting on the elder Starling’s strong, angular features and the pale silver lion’s mane of his hair made him look as if he were a god of fire. The thunderstorm raged outside, and the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse behind Gunnar only served to heighten the effect. Rory was struck by a moment of awe as he stood regarding the man whom he had loved and hated—and feared—all his life.

  “Rory . . . you are my son. You are precious to me, even though I know that you, yourself, do not believe that. And because you are my son, I have in the past turned a blind eye to your . . . indiscretions.” Before Rory could even fully form the thought in his own mind, Gunnar’s lip twisted in the shadow of a grin. “And no,” he said, “that is not a joke, present circumstances notwithstanding. Now that I have sacrificed one of my eyes to gain true vision, I see so many things.”

  He gestured to the figures in the mirror and Rory saw Roth lying flat on his back and staring up with roaming, sightless eyes. It looked like someone had taken a truncheon to him—he was all blood and gashes—and his face was drawn in an expression of agony that went deeper than physical pain. And even as Rory’s gut twisted in horror at the sight something else inside of him whispered, Good.

  “Your brother has betrayed me,” Gunnar said. “But it is all to the purpose. He doesn’t know it yet, but his struggle against his fate is what has brought him face-to-face with it. I see that now.” He turned to Rory. “As I see you. I understand you a little better, I think. You are a survivor. And that is as it should be. That is your destiny.”

  Rory wanted more than survival. But he was smart enough not to say so. And Top Gunn did have a point. Survival was a pretty intrinsic step to achieving what he wanted. And that was . . . well, everything. The goods, the glory, the girls . . . He wanted the Heather Palmerstons of the world to worship him and the Calum Aristarchoses to bring him drinks and grovel abjectly for mercy when they were too slow—mercy that Rory would be typically reluctant to grant. Of course, he realized he was, essentially, reveling in the potential of megalomania. Whatever. For some reason, pretty much everyone he’d ever known had pegged Rory as a bad seed from the time he was a little kid. Who was he to defy expectations?

  “You know why we do this. You understand this drive toward oblivion.” Gunnar gazed at him with that unblinking half stare that Rory could feel penetrating to the back of his skull. “You know there must be an end so there can be a new beginning. We do this out of love, Rory. Love for this world and the desire to make it whole again in the face of all that humankind has wrought upon the most precious creation in the universe.”

  Love? Rory thought. He didn’t even have to struggle to school his expression in the face of his father’s ridiculous sentimentality. It was so laughable that he almost felt sorry for the old man. Still, he had to be careful. If he was going to survive what was to come, he was going to need Gunnar. Right up until the moment he met his destiny. Which, if Rory understood correctly, was to fulfill the great god Odin’s role and be slaughtered in battle by—if what his father had said was true—Mason’s new boyfriend.

  Rory felt his brow knit in a frown as he attempted—not for the first time—to wrap his head around that. Around all of it. From everything he’d been told, his understanding of the Norse gods was this: Over the long years, when the beliefs of men drifted from them, the Aesir began to fade from existence. Balder had been the first to go, and that started the whole long, slow decline. The other gods and goddesses had followed. Not all of them, and not completely. More like, the person of Odin had fallen away, but the power remained, to be assumed in time by one who was deemed worthy, or strong enough. Or maybe stupid enough, Rory thought. He understood that was not the case for all the gods. Loki, stubborn and contrary to the end, had endured, willfully remaining chained in torment. Heimdall, too, had clung to
his grim post as harbinger of the End of Days. More than harbinger, lately, according to the Norns. Instigator. And they should know—it was what they had done throughout history, after all: instigate. Only this time, with Gunnar Starling and his family, it seemed as though they might actually be successful.

  “Something bothering you, son?” Gunnar asked.

  Rory clenched and unclenched his silver fingers. The feel of his hand closing into that hammer of a fist comforted him. Calmed him. “I just . . . I guess I’m still trying to understand how all this is happening. And why.”

  “The ‘why’ is that we have—thus far—been found worthy by the fates to carry out the sacred duties of our forefathers to their ultimate end. The ‘how’ is . . . well, magick.”

  “Yeah. I get that. I think. But—”

  He broke off when his father suddenly gasped and grabbed for the left side of his face with both hands. Gunnar’s head snapped back and he staggered a few steps, teeth clenched in what looked like excruciating pain.

  “Dad?” Rory took a hesitant step toward him, reaching out with his still-human hand. “You okay . . . ?”

  Gunnar leaned heavily on the back of one of the room’s leather wingback chairs, heaving in ragged gasps. He dropped his hand and Rory saw that a red gleam had replaced the twist of gold in his eye. All the blood had drained from his face and he was deathly pale. “Did you feel that?” he asked.

  Rory frowned. Feel what? Truthfully, all he felt was a sudden hollowness in his stomach, like a deep hunger pang.

  “The void,” Gunnar murmured. “There is an emptiness.”

  Maybe he did feel something.

  “Something has happened. . . .”

  As Rory watched, Gunnar’s red-tinged gaze turned inward and a slow, terrifying grin spread over his face. He nodded in satisfaction.

  “The little witch,” he said. “The haruspex . . . She’s ended herself. I guess she finally had enough of being a thrall. Daria must be terribly disappointed, but now we have our opportunity. We will have to move with some haste, though. They won’t stay at her temple much longer, and the Miasma will lift soon. Are you strong enough to go out into the city?”

  “Of course I am,” Rory snapped. Who the hell did his father think he was? Sure, he’d had the crap massively kicked out of him and his arm destroyed only a few days earlier. But like the Bionic Man, he was better now. Better, stronger, faster . . . At his side, his silver fingers closed in on themselves.

  “Hmm,” his father grunted. “We shall see.”

  He turned back to the mirror on the wall and lifted his hand, placing his palm on the smooth surface, which wavered like a mirage and resolved to show Mason again. She no longer wore her Valkyrie garb, and she seemed to be arguing with Cal. There was something very different about him, too, Rory thought.

  “I want you to go to them. Find them and provoke them into a fight. I have resources you can use to such an end. Mason must be goaded into fulfilling her role as the chooser of the slain. It is against her nature, but she must take on that mantle—it is vital. Without a third Odin son—without someone to take up the mantle of Thor—there will be no Ragnarok. As I have been made the vessel of the Allfather’s power, so you and your brother carry the essences of Vali and Vidar, the children of Odin destined to rebuild the world. Mason was to be the third son. The sacrifice. She was to fulfill the role of Thor and lay down her life on the field alongside mine.” Gunnar’s brow creased in a dark frown, and lightning from the storm cast his features in a sudden, ugly grimace. “Her mother thwarted me in that. But now I have the chance to right her wrong. Mason as a Valkyrie will choose the third Odin son, and it is my wish that she choose . . . him.”

  Gunnar nodded to the mirror and Rory began to sputter in outrage.

  “Cal?” he squawked. “Him? You have got to be kidding! That guy’s a total tool! Jeezus, Dad—anyone but him!”

  Gunnar cast a grimly amused glance at his son. “Are you going to let petty high school jealousy get in the way of a glorious apocalypse?”

  “Yes!” Rory exclaimed. “He’s not Thor—he’s a . . . a pompous jerkass!”

  “Here’s hoping he’s a pompous jerkass who can hold his own in a fight,” Gunnar said. “I seem to remember from attending your sister’s fencing competitions that he can. Well then. As I say—you must draw them into conflict. And you must see to it that Cal’s striving is the most valiant. Mason must see him as the best candidate to choose.”

  “That’s not going to happen.” Rory shook his head. “Not with that Fennrys dude around.”

  “Do not engage the Wolf,” Gunnar said sternly. “Do not give him anything to fight. Frustrate his attempts and concentrate your efforts on the Aristarchos boy. See to it she chooses him and then, when the final wheel is set in motion, get out of the way and let destiny take its course. The Wolf must remain as he is, so that in the end, he and I may meet on the field. He will take my life, and then Roth will take his. The Aristarchos boy, wearing the mantle of the thunder god, will die alongside us both. Now, how sweet an irony is that? And how convenient that he’s half god already.”

  “He’s what?”

  Now, how in hell did that happen? Rory wondered.

  Gunnar ignored his outburst. “He is also the son of my greatest rival, and he’s already marked by the draugr.”

  “And he’s a total horn-dog,” Rory said, ignoring the shudder that ran through him at the memory of that night in the Gosforth gym, when the draugr—Norse zombie warriors—had first attacked. “He’s got the drooling hots for your daughter, you know!”

  “Good!” Gunnar enthused and clapped Rory on the shoulder. “Then he might even appreciate it when Mason bestows on him the power of the Thunderer. For the brief time he’ll have left to live, that is.”

  Great, Rory fumed silently. So that pansy-ass pretty boy gets ramped up to Thor status, Roth gets to kill Mason’s wolf-boy, and I’m like . . . what? The overlooked middle god? What exactly was Vali’s claim to fame in the legends anyway, besides outliving most everyone? Oh, right . . . something about being born to be a brother killer in the old tales.

  At that thought, Rory shrugged inwardly and sighed.

  “Fine. I can live with that,” he muttered to himself. “And then Roth better watch his ass in our brave new world.”

  IV

  The gale-force winds howling around the top of the skyscraper snatched Gwen Littlefield’s body and spun her out into darkness. She arced in a trajectory that took her far away from the Rockefeller tower’s terraced sides and then plummeted like a stone toward the plaza sixty-seven stories below, where Mason could just glimpse the golden statue of Prometheus, Titan hero of Greek myth and champion of humanity, carrying his stolen fire down from the heavens.

  Somewhere in the dark skies above, the raven shrieked.

  Heather screamed.

  Mason turned away before she saw Gwen’s body hit the ground.

  But even still, she couldn’t stop from feeling the girl’s death in her Valkyrie’s heart. It felt like someone punching her in the sternum—hard enough to crack her ribs—and Mason doubled over for an instant, awash in agony. She thought she would fall to the ground, but suddenly there were strong arms wrapped around her, someone holding her tightly in a fierce embrace. Mason sagged against the wall of chest muscles, behind which she could hear the thunderous beating of a heart. She could feel breath flowing in and out of lungs and it almost sounded to her like the ebb and flow of the ocean—a tidal rush of pounding surf.

  Waves . . .

  Water.

  She pushed away and looked up into Calum’s sea-green eyes.

  “Get away from me, you son of a bitch!” Mason struggled to free herself from the vise of his embrace. When had Cal ever been that strong? Then again, when had she? With a convulsive shove, she straight-armed him away from her—hard enough to wind him as he staggered back and his shoulders slammed into stone parapet.

  They were so high up that, in the far-off dist
ance, Mason could see the wreckage of the Hell Gate Bridge, starkly illuminated by the work lights of the demolition crews that worked night and day to remove the shattered fragments of the bridge that had taken her to Asgard not three short days earlier. A lifetime.

  An eternity.

  Cal reached out a hand toward her. “Mase—”

  She batted his arm away with a savagery that surprised him. She could see it in his eyes, but she didn’t care. The echoes of Gwen Littlefield’s death clawed at the insides of her skull, and inside the Weather Room she heard the heartbreaking cry of wolf-song. Mason spared Cal a venomous glare and, tearing the helmet from her head, hurled it at one of the tall windows. The impact left a spiderweb of cracks, radiating outward like Arachne’s fabled tapestry—the one that had so angered the goddess Athena that she’d turned the weaver into a spider.

  It’s a bad idea to piss off goddesses, Mason thought.

  Is that what you think you are?

  She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything with any certainty anymore. She only knew she hurt. And she wasn’t the only one. The sound of ragged screaming made her look back to see Roth rising up from the altar. The narcotic kykeon and the curse magicks still coursing through him made his movements wildly clumsy and dangerous as he careened toward the stone ledge from which the girl he loved had just launched herself into nothingness.

  He cried out her name, the sound on his lips like a raw wound torn in the air, and lurched for the parapet. Toby and Maddox rushed forward and grabbed him by his bloodied arms to keep him from following in Gwen’s wake. Roth was too messed up to fight them for long. The sudden severing of his psychic connection with Gwen—shocking in its permanency—hit him devastatingly hard. His knees buckled and he sagged against the other two men. But as the fencing instructor and the Janus Guard tried to lead him away from the edge of the abyss, Roth’s glassy stare locked on to Daria and his face twisted into a mask of horror and hate, carved with the blade of a breaking heart. He lunged, and Mason thrust herself in front of Daria an instant before Roth could rip her throat out with his bare hands.