Transcendent

  She was, she thought, probably blushing furiously by the time the elevator stopped on the second floor. She brushed off her fingertip and heaved aside the grate, stepping out into the secret, stylish loft that belonged to the Fennrys Wolf. As usual, when he knew Mason was coming over, he’d done her the courtesy of opening all the windows, and the sheer curtains along the long brick wall billowed gently in the breeze that carried the faint night sounds of the city.

  On the far side of the living room, his back to her as he faced the smoked glass wall that hid his extensive collection of weaponry, stood the Fennrys Wolf. She could see his reflection—his eyes were closed and his face was relaxed—as he stood with one hand pressed against the glass. Mason stayed where she was in the foyer, reluctant to disturb his reverie, and took the opportunity to indulge herself a little. Her gaze drank in the shape of his silhouette—the lines of his back and shoulders, the way his waist tapered to narrow hips and long, strong legs—and she marveled at the easy, casual grace he held himself with, even in unguarded moments.

  Without opening his eyes, she saw him start to smile in the reflection. “Hello, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Fancy meeting you here. . . .”

  She waited as he turned and slowly crossed the floor toward her. She met him in front of the hall closet, which was open, and her gaze slid to the collection of leather jackets hanging there. She reached out and lifted the one that had a sleeve shredded by the claws of some beast or other Fenn had fought in his past as a Janus Guard; she remembered the first time she’d seen it and the leap in logic—ridiculous at the time—she’d made. She grinned mischievously.

  “See?” she said. “I knew you were a werewolf.”

  He threw back his head and laughed.

  It was such a strange thing to see that, for a moment, it jarred her a bit. But then she realized that she felt the same way. Just . . . happy. Mason smiled at Fennrys and stepped past him, walking across the room over to the window that overlooked the High Line park, the green oasis built on a forgotten elevated train line that snaked through the stone canyons of Manhattan’s Lower West Side. She leaned out into the cool night air and saw a great yellow wolf with the pale blue eyes padding along the park pathway where she and Fennrys had spent night after blissful night sparring and strolling and kissing. In the sumac tree above the wolf’s head, a large black raven perched, watching it with unblinking eyes.

  Mason felt Fenn’s arms circle around her and she drew back inside. There was a fire crackling now in the cavernous hearth and she wondered if he’d conjured it, or if she had, unwittingly, with a thought. Not that it mattered. Not that she cared. She wondered for a brief moment if she could stay here with him forever, in their shared Safe Harbor.

  “You brought me here?” Fenn asked her quietly.

  “I guess so.” She leaned back against him. “I just wanted to help.”

  “You might have to stop doing that at some point, Mase.” His breath teased the hair at the back of her neck.

  “Why?”

  “You’re here, helping me now, because you already helped me before. You know.” He drew her hair aside, kissing the bare skin just below her ear. “With the whole werewolf thing.”

  “I . . . didn’t really mean for that to happen.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She turned around in his arms and looked up. “I just wanted to save you.”

  “You made a deal with a death god and he turned me into a monster. . . .” In contrast to his grim words Fenn smiled that odd, awkward, wonderful smile of his and leaned down to murmur a kiss into the hollow space just above her collarbone. “Just to keep me alive. I’m not sure that falls under the heading of ‘saving.’”

  Mason tilted her head back and lost herself to the sensation of his mouth on her skin. “Are you saying I should have let you die?” she asked, her voice breathy in her own ears. “Again?”

  Fenn lifted his head and there was a calm serenity to his gaze as he looked down at her. The firelight reflecting on the side of his face turned his skin to molten gold, casting the other side into deep shadow. He looked like a renaissance painting of some classical hero, rendered in darkness and light, balanced between the two extremes. A study in contrast. He reached up to run a finger down the side of her face. His touch was feather-light as he tilted her face up and kissed her lips.

  “Don’t you think there’s a time to walk away, Mase?” he whispered. “That there comes a point when you just have to let go?”

  “Of you?” She shook her head, a small movement, but she meant it. Adamantly. “Not ever.”

  “Even if none of this is real?” he asked, but then she was kissing him again and, from the way his arms went around her and he pulled her toward him, it was clear he didn’t care what the answer was. He kissed her so fiercely she felt the intake of his breath drawing all of the air up from the depth of her lungs. His hands tangled in her hair as if he would bind himself to her physically and Mason melted utterly into the heat of his embrace.

  When she felt almost as if she was on the very edge of a good old-fashioned swoon, she drew back and gulped at the air. Fenn’s chest quivered as he gasped himself and began, again, to laugh. Quietly this time, his head back and eyes closed. When he opened them again, she saw her face reflected in their depths and barely recognized herself. Her blue eyes sparkled and her cheeks were flushed and rounded with a smile that was wider than any she’d ever seen herself wear in real life.

  Have I ever been this happy?

  As she looked up into his eyes, she thought she saw what might have been the very same feeling reflected there.

  Has he?

  She opened her mouth to tell him how she felt. And more than that.

  Now I can tell him. I can finally tell him that I—

  “Mase?” Fennrys suddenly twisted his head to one side. He cocked his head, listening. “Do you hear . . .”

  She did. The sound of the antiquated lift gears creaking and grinding into motion as the elevator cab began to rise up from the first floor. Which was, in itself, odd because Mason was sure she had left the door grate open and the cab stopped at the second floor when she’d first arrived.

  Well, what do you want from a dream-vision? Logic?

  “Were you expecting anyone?”

  “No,” he said, “but that might be because I don’t really believe I’m here to expect anyone. You?”

  “Unh-uh.” She shook her head.

  Fennrys took her hand and together they crossed the floor to where the old freight elevator was creaking and clanking its way to a stop. Fenn reached out and heaved the door grate open and stepped inside. Mason followed him, and was immediately struck by the disconcerting sense that the inside of the elevator was . . . elsewhere.

  The air in the rustic, dusty, wood and metal compartment of the lift felt bracing and breezy. Laced with the smell of pine needles and nearby fresh, cold water. And . . . apple blossoms. She could feel sunlight on her shoulders where there wasn’t any illumination but the single, dim incandescent bulb overhead, and there was a sense of vast space, even though she should have felt claustrophobic.

  But . . . beyond that, the lift was empty.

  Fennrys turned in a full circle, his head still tilted, listening. The frown on his face was one of concentration, though, not worry or dread. When something right behind her caught his eye, Mason turned to look. Fennrys was peering intently at the framed glass plate bolted to the wall of the cab that held the elevator’s worn and yellowing mechanical certificate. The heart, circling the initials MS and TFW that Mason had drawn on the dust-coated surface was plainly visible in the dim light.

  Busted, she thought, blushing.

  Fenn’s expression softened into one of wonderment as he took a step toward the wall, forcing Mason to back up so that her spine was up against the operator panel. He reached a hand over her shoulder, toward the glass and, with the side of his fist, wiped the dust away. Obliterating the cartoon heart.

  Mason felt h
er own heart clench.

  Then Fenn punched the glass, hard enough to make it shatter.

  The chime of broken glass falling was like the sound of silver bells. . . .

  The elevator, and the loft all around them, shimmered into darkness and disappeared. The cold pale walls of the Weather Room resolved back into focus as Mason opened her eyes. She was kneeling on the marble floor, Fennrys’s head pillowed in her lap. The Wolf was gone—for the moment—and he wore his human shape once more. The iron medallion hung from the long leather cord around his neck, a faint glow dancing over its surface markings that faded as she watched. She put a hand on Fenn’s tousled blond hair and felt the warmth radiating from his forehead. He stirred and sat up, running a hand over his face. His blue gaze was clear again, he was in control. But she could see that the Wolf was still there, buried deep, but quiet. She felt the same thing about her Valkyrie—the bloodred urge was like the glowing embers beneath the ashes of a banked fire or the fluttering of raven’s wings in a distant tree. It was manageable.

  “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

  Fennrys nodded. He glanced down at the medallion where it lay on his chest, and then back up at her. “How?”

  “I just . . . wished for you to find your—um—Safe Harbor. . . .” She felt herself blushing. Stupid touchy-feely therapist jargon.

  “Safe Harbor, huh?” He grinned wanly. “You, my loft, a nice cozy fire . . . sounds about right.”

  “I didn’t actually know that I’d go there with you,” she said.

  “Maybe it wouldn’t have felt as safe without you.”

  He didn’t quite sound convinced, Mase thought. “It was something one of my shrinks told me to do when I was a kid. It never worked for me before now, but . . . I didn’t know what else to do. I guess the medallion made the difference this time. Or something.”

  Or maybe you just never had a safe place to go to before you had Fennrys.

  “It’s okay. You did great, Mase.”

  He forced the grin into a smile, but it was a tight smile. Not the strange, awkward smile he usually bestowed on her that made the soles of her feet tingle with warmth.

  “Thank you.”

  A noise from behind them made them both look up and Mason turned around to see Maddox standing there, coiling up the silver chain now that the danger seemed to have passed.

  Mason turned back to Fennrys. “In the elevator . . . why did you punch the glass?”

  “I don’t know.” Fenn frowned, his gaze focusing inward. “There was . . . something. Something I was supposed to remember.” He shook his head. “It’s gone now.”

  “Oh,” Mason said. “I just thought it might have been the heart. I thought you might have been mad or something. . . .”

  “What heart?”

  Mason blinked at him. He hadn’t seen her doodle on the dusty glass? Even by the dim light of the elevator cab’s single bulb, it had been there, plain as day. She wondered if they’d had the same experience after all. Maybe the details were different. Or maybe his safe, happy place didn’t include a heart with his initials and hers written inside.

  “It’s nothing.” Mason shook her head and forced herself to smile. “It’s not important.”

  “If you two are feeling up to it,” Maddox interrupted with delicate urgency, “we should probably get a move on it, yeah? Storm’s getting worse. So are the tremors. And I, for one, don’t want to be stuck in that elevator shaft if the power goes out or the nasties come knocking.” As Fennrys stalked past him, Maddox grabbed his arm and Mason heard him murmur, “Are you . . . ?”

  “Good as I’m going to be for the foreseeable future,” Fenn said tersely. “Yeah.”

  “Right. . . .” Maddox didn’t sound so sure. “I’ll go muster the troops, then.”

  VIII

  “Heather?” Toby called as he came around the corner, obviously looking for her. She put a finger to the corner of her eye, just to make sure there were no tears showing, and turned around.

  “Hey, Coach,” she said.

  “You okay?”

  “You mean, am I still human? I guess so. Seems like I might be the only one.” She shrugged one shoulder, meaning for it to be a casual gesture, but it turned into a shudder and Heather hugged her elbows tight, realizing suddenly that she might very well be in shock.

  Toby led her to one of the white leather chaises and sat her down. He kicked away a low table, spilling the contents of the silver dish full of rotted fruit that sat on it, and knelt in front of her. She raised an eyebrow at him as he turned over the palm of her right hand as if he was about to tell her fortune. Instead, he put two fingers on the pulse point of her wrist and went very still for a few moments. Heather could feel her heartbeat rattling, quick and light, against Toby’s blunt fingertips.

  After a moment, he looked up at her. “Yup. Still human. And probably less shocky than you should be. But I want you to sit here quietly for a few minutes, okay? I know that none of this can have been very easy for you.”

  “For me?” Heather snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Yeah. Well. It’s been a bit of a day for all of us, I guess,” he muttered. “Some more than others.”

  “It’s bad. Isn’t it? The whole Mason thing.” Heather nodded her chin in that direction. “I mean . . . she’s . . . wow. Scary. I mean, smokin’ outfit and all but, she looked so . . . different. Even more different than Cal and, y’know, that? I can’t even.”

  “I can’t even, either,” Toby said, half a grin tugging at his mouth.

  “It wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?” Heather asked. “Mason, I mean.”

  “No. No, it wasn’t.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Toby was silent for a moment. “Whatever I have to.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Yeah. If it comes to that . . . I’ll need more than luck. We all will.”

  Heather sat there, not knowing what else to say, until the guy she’d heard the others refer to as Maddox came around the corner.

  “Hey.” He nodded briefly at Heather and addressed Toby in a low voice. “Looks like she’s managed to get him under control. For the time being, at least. So we should all get clear of this place ASAP. While we still can.”

  “Agreed,” Toby said. “I don’t want to be caught hanging around anywhere Gunnar Starling might be headed right now.”

  Heather shivered. Neither do I, she thought, remembering what had happened on the train. She glanced over at Toby and did a double take. All of a sudden, he looked as if he’d been up for three days straight. There were deep shadows under his eyes and the beard scruff along the line of his jaw blurred the edges of what was normally a precision-trimmed goatee. His omnipresent travel mug full of coffee was missing in action and she wondered if the fencing coach wasn’t maybe going through major caffeine withdrawal. It was, she realized, a weird thing to think just then. But she wondered if anything in her life would ever be un-weird again.

  Especially when someone like Toby kept saying things to her like: “Do you still have the protection rune I gave you?”

  Heather sighed, accepted the weirdness, and nodded.

  “Good,” Toby said. “That’ll repel the Miasma curse when we’re on the ground, and it should help keep you safe from whatever’s coming. Safer, at least.”

  “What about the rest of you?” she asked.

  “The rest of us are . . . immune, through various means.” Toby shrugged.

  “Right. What’s your deal?” she asked Maddox, who was both disarmingly cute and distractingly competent in the way he handled himself. “Demigod? Demon?”

  “Human, thanks.” He grinned at her. “But I have an impressive constitution. Eat right, don’t smoke, wear a talisman chock-full of really useful Faerie magick . . . you know. All that virtuous stuff. Makes me hard to curse.”

  “Handy,” Heather muttered.

  “Plus I have over a hundred years’ worth of martial arts training under my
belt and that, in itself, tends to give one a bit of a leg up. I’m a firm believer in using every possible advantage to cover one’s arse.”

  Suddenly Heather remembered her own possible advantage—the little crossbow, with the gold and leaden bolts that a mysterious . . . someone had given her on a subway train—and she ran and found her purse where it still lay on the floor near the elevators. She slung it across her body and turned to see Mason walking toward her.

  “Yo, Starling.” Heather waved casually. “How’s it hangin’?”

  Mason laughed wearily. “Oh, y’know. Typical Friday night. Werewolves, Valkyries, earthquakes, blood curses, and the End of Days . . . I expect a plague of locusts any minute now. You?”

  “Weirdly the same.” Heather grinned. “So. Where’ve you really been these last couple of days?”

  “Would you believe me if I said Asgard?”

  “I kinda think I wouldn’t believe you if you didn’t,” Heather said. She glanced in the direction Mason had come from. “How’s super-bad hot blond doing?”

  “Okay, for now. Under control. Rafe says it’s never happened like that to one of his . . . uh . . .”

  “Victims?”

  “Pack.” Mason shivered and hugged herself.

  “Right.” Heather nodded. “So—this Rafe guy—is like . . . what again?”

  “Anubis.”

  “Lord of the Egyptian underworld.”

  “Ex, yeah.” Mason nodded. “And—added bonus feature—god of werewolves.”

  “The textbooks never mentioned that.” Heather noted dryly.

  “I know.” Mason laughed briefly and without much mirth. “Weird, huh?”

  “Makes sense.” Heather shrugged. “Look at all those tomb paintings of the guy.”

  “Yup. Pretty werewolf-y.”

  “And so . . .” Heather hesitated. “After, y’know . . . Fenn is . . . ?”