Descendant

  The screams stuck in her throat and Gwen’s expression went slack, her pupils dilating until her eyes looked black. Heather felt hot tears of frustration and despair welling up in her eyes as Daria smiled with grim triumph, and overhead, in his glass cell, Roth Starling cried out like a lost, damned soul.

  XX

  The first thing Fennrys noticed once he regained consciousness was the sharp pain in his head. The second, that there was too much room in the boat. Someone was missing—

  “Mason!” Fennrys shot to his feet, and the Zodiac rocked wildly as he lurched toward the empty space. “What happened? Where is she?”

  “She went over!” Toby was leaning over the side, one hand thrust into the murky water almost up to his shoulder. “Mase! Mason! . . . Shit! I can’t feel anything!” He hissed sharply in pain and jerked back from the water. His arm, dripping wet, was scored with three long, shallow gashes and the sleeve of his jacket was shredded.

  “Move!” Fennrys shoved past the fencing coach, intending to launch himself into a dive—only to be tackled to the floor of the boat by Rafe. “Get the hell off—”

  “Stop!” The god put a knee on Fenn’s chest to pin him down. “You can’t help her dead. The Nereids are like piranhas. They’ll strip the meat off your bones before you even have a chance to drown.”

  “But Mase is—”

  “Stop,” Rafe said again.

  There was an echo of power in his voice that hit Fennrys like a shock wave. The Jackal God’s dark eyes flashed, and he released Fennrys so he could sit up in the boat. Rafe’s gaze went out over the water that still frothed white from where the sea bull had almost capsized them.

  Rafe lifted his hand, as if he felt something in the air. “There’s something . . .”

  Stillness descended like a shroud. Even Fennrys, near panic-blind desperate to find Mason and save her, sensed it. And—whatever it was—it stopped him cold.

  “Something . . .”

  Fennrys and Toby moved to flank Rafe as he stared out over the river.

  “Here.”

  Beneath the black-glass mirror of the water, Fennrys saw lights. Flickering, shifting, cycling through blues and greens and purples. Shapes moved. Shadows . . . and then something shot to the surface from deep in the water, and a head broke the surface.

  Calum Aristarchos.

  And he was carrying Mason, cradled in his arms.

  The two of them rose out of the water, lifted on the back of one of the Nereids’ fantastical creatures—a cloud-silver water-horse—and Fennrys couldn’t help but notice that Cal sat astride the animal as easily as he had a Harley-Davidson. He looked born to it. Majestic. Different . . .

  Fennrys heard the breath whistle from between Toby’s clenched teeth.

  “I really wasn’t expecting that,” the fencing master said of his erstwhile student.

  Cal’s face was serene, the golden-brown hair swept back from his brow and dripping water onto his bare chest and shoulders. All he wore was a pair of jeans, and Fennrys saw that there was a bandage wrapped around his ribs and another one circling his left forearm. A fading rawness marked the skin on one side of his forehead—the same side as where the terrible damage to the motorcycle helmet had been. The other side of his face was still seamed with the scars left behind by that first encounter with the draugr. The claw marks showed bone white on his tanned flesh. But he still managed somehow to look . . . princely.

  The heads of a handful of the mer-girls that had attacked the Zodiac popped up above the waterline, and they swam in a loose circle around Cal as he kneed his mount in the direction of the inflatable boat and gently shifted Mason in his arms so he could hand her over to Fennrys and Rafe and then climb into the boat himself. As the water-horse disappeared back under the waves, Fennrys saw that Mason wasn’t moving.

  Panic gripped Fenn’s heart, but Cal shouldered him aside and knelt down beside Mason, lifting her head and gently lowering his mouth down over hers. He stayed like that for a good long time, and it started to look less like resuscitation and more like a lingering kiss. Fennrys was about to grab Cal and heave him back into the river when Cal sat back and pushed the dripping hair back from his forehead.

  Out in the water, the Nereid that Mason had kicked in the face scowled and swam closer, a mewling, hissing sound escaping her pouting lips.

  “Back off, Thalia,” Cal said to her in a voice that sounded deeper than Fennrys remembered.

  “Nice friends you’ve got there, Calum.” Rafe eyed the sea maids warily. “You know they sicced a sea monster on us.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Cal murmured, focusing his attention on Mason. “They’re the ones who almost got me killed on the bridge. Nereids, I’ve been told, don’t really get the whole ‘human frailty’ thing. And they don’t really overthink things, if you know what I mean. They just kind of react.” He lifted one of Mason’s hands in his, rubbing warmth back into her blue fingers. “C’mon, Mase . . .”

  “Be careful with her. . . .”

  Fennrys reached for Mason himself and almost collapsed with relief when suddenly her whole body spasmed and she coughed raggedly, her arms flailing as she struggled to sit upright. River water trickled from the side of her mouth, and her dark lashes fluttered on her cheeks as she opened her eyes.

  “Cal . . . ?” she murmured, looking up into his face. There was bewilderment in her voice.

  Cal grinned down at her, and she gasped.

  “Cal!” Mason shouted with joy and threw her arms around his neck. Laughing and crying at the same time, she hugged him tight, and Cal returned the embrace. He buried his hands in the long wet waves of Mason’s dark hair, eyes closed as he held her close against his chest. The smile on his lips was one of pure, perfect happiness. But then he opened his eyes and Fennrys caught a glimpse of something in their depths: raw, dangerous hunger.

  Fenn’s flesh went even colder than from the chill of the water, and he clenched his jaw to keep from ordering Cal to back the hell off. Mason was, Fenn understood, ecstatic. She’d only found out, less than an hour earlier, that Cal was supposedly dead—killed while trying to help save her—and of course she was overjoyed to see him there, unexpectedly, impossibly alive. . . .

  Fennrys noticed Rafe’s gaze was locked on Cal, too. And there was a deep crease between his dark brows. He turned and shared a worried look with Fennrys. By the time they looked back to Cal and Mason, though, Cal was laughing along with her . . . the greedy, needful longing Fennrys had seen in his eyes masked behind a lopsided grin.

  “I’m okay, Mase,” he was saying. “Seriously. I got a little banged up. That’s all. I’ve been in a hospital on Roosevelt Island for the last couple of days. Ever since the accident. But I’m okay.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “How did you know how to find us?”

  Cal tapped the side of his head, where the bruise from his fall was fading. “Just . . . couldn’t get you out of my head, that’s all.”

  Fennrys suspected he meant his heart, not his head.

  It was then that Mason seemed to notice that there was something distinctly different about her erstwhile fencing teammate. Out in the water, the Nereid who Cal had called Thalia bared her teeth at Mason again in a threatening grimace. Cal frowned and, seemingly without thinking, flicked his hand in her direction. As he did so, a rogue wavelet rose off the surface of the water and thrust the mer-girl several feet away from the boat.

  “I said back off,” Cal murmured, then turned his attention back to Mason.

  “What the hell . . . ?” she whispered.

  “C’mon,” Cal said, nodding at Toby. “Let’s get you back onto dry land.”

  Fennrys sheathed his weapon and reached out to help Mason climb up to sit on the bench seat as Cal steadied her.

  “Hey, Aristarchos.” Fennrys kept his tone casual. “Thought we’d lost you there a while back.”

  Still holding Mason by the hand, Cal said, equally casual, “You almost did. Good thing I swim
like a fish.”

  Which, of course, explained absolutely nothing about how he had survived the devastating crash and plunge off the Hell Gate or why he’d suddenly shown up in the middle of the East River in such a unique fashion, but Fennrys decided to let that slide for the moment.

  Mason reached out for Fennrys with her free hand, her eyes shining with happiness. Fennrys laced his fingers with hers, willing himself not to reach over and pry her other hand out of Cal’s grasp. He kept a firm grip on her as she settled onto the middle bench seat beside him, and if she wondered about the suddenly possessive nature of the gesture, she didn’t let on.

  “You’re hurt,” she said, as she lifted her hand to where the gash on his head still seeped blood down the side of his face.

  “I’m fine,” he said, and smiled at her.

  Then he looked over the top of her head at Cal, who wore a carefully composed, neutral expression. Cal turned from him to grin at his fencing coach.

  “Hey, Tobe,” he said. “I’d ask you what you’re doing here, man, but I’m kinda getting used to people just sort of popping up unexpectedly lately.”

  “Calum.” Toby nodded. “I’m damn glad to see you in one piece.”

  Cal turned then to Rafe—a little warily, Fennrys thought—and said, “Uh, hey. Nice to see you again too, there . . . Rafe? Did I get that right?”

  “You did.” Rafe inclined his head.

  “Cool. Well, yeah.” He glanced around—first at the Nereids, then at the fog bank in the distance, and then at the pale yellow ribbon of light that furled out into the darkness from the lighthouse on Roosevelt Island. “Listen . . . can you take us back to the hospital? There’s someone there I want you to meet.” He looked at Mason. “Someone who might help make some sense out of everything that’s happening.”

  Mason sat on the edge of the bed in the posh health-care facility, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, staring back and forth between Cal and . . . an older, bearded version of Cal. The father-son resemblance was undeniable, almost shockingly so. Perhaps less shocking, though, than the news that Calum Aristarchos, Mason’s one-time crush and fellow student at Gosforth Academy, was a demigod.

  “More like a semi-god, really,” Cal murmured, staring absently down at the glass of water he held in his hand.

  Mason watched as the surface of the liquid began to ripple and splash and a tiny, silvery figure—a water sculpture in the shape of a slender female with long hair . . . holding a sword, rose up out of the glass and gave Cal a fencer’s salute before losing cohesion in a splash back down into the glass.

  “Um. Wow.” Mason blinked at Cal, who only just seemed to have realized what he’d actually done—his face reddening under her gaze.

  Mason looked away, glancing over to Rafe, who stood silently leaning against the door frame. She could tell, just from the way he reacted to Cal’s father, that everything Douglas Muir (not Aristarchos—she’d discovered that was Cal’s mom’s maiden name) had said was true.

  “C’mon, Mase,” Cal said, looking at her from underneath the fringe of hair that swept over his forehead, “is it really that hard to believe? I mean . . . you were just in Asgard a couple of hours ago.”

  “Yeah . . . hell of a week, right?” Fennrys said.

  Mason shifted her glance to where Fenn was pulling a plain white T-shirt on over his head. There was a fresh bandage on his forehead, just beneath his hairline, covering the shallow gash he’d received banging his head on the boat bench. Cal’s dad had procured both bandage and shirt from the hospital staff and then sent the orderly who’d brought them on his way with instructions that Cal and his friends were not to be disturbed.

  “I don’t want to interrupt,” Toby said, pretty obviously not giving a crap about interrupting, “but we really have to be getting back to Manhattan now.”

  “Good luck with that,” Douglas said.

  Toby raised an eyebrow at Cal’s father. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “The fog,” Cal’s father said. “It’s not natural.”

  “Told ya.” Rafe shot Mason a look.

  Douglas looked over at his son. “Your mother’s been busy. Don’t ask me how, but she’s called up a Miasma curse.”

  It was the first time that Mason had ever heard Toby Fortier swear in a language that she didn’t know. She raised a weary hand. “What’s a Miasma curse?”

  “It’s a kind of blood magick.” Toby looked as if he wanted to kick a wall in. “Brutal blood magick.”

  “Care to elaborate?” Fennrys asked.

  Mason found it faintly comforting that Fennrys didn’t know what they were talking about either as Toby and Douglas exchanged a laden glance. Douglas reached for a television remote and hit the on button. “These news reports started coming in when you were out in the river.”

  A harried-looking news reporter from a station in New Jersey was sitting behind a desk commenting on a sudden, widespread affliction that had swept through Manhattan in a matter of minutes, accompanied by a thick fog, that had caused virtually all the city’s inhabitants to fall into a kind of torpor. Traffic cams and ATM surveillance footage showed people lying crumpled on the sidewalks or slumped over tables in restaurants. Some still shuffled erratically down the streets, like sleepwalkers. Wrecked cars from drivers who’d gone catatonic at the wheel were scattered all over the road, along with pools of blood and broken glass.

  The news anchor spoke of repeated attempts to contact their affiliates in the Manhattan stations, to no avail. The National Guard and terrorist response teams had been called in. No one had any idea what was happening. But it seemed that anyone who made it inside the fog barrier—even lowered from helicopters in full protective hazmat gear and respirators—succumbed almost instantly. New York, it seemed, was under siege. Authorities had offered varying opinions as to whether it was natural, biochemical, or something else entirely. None of them had so far speculated that the attack was of a mystical origin.

  Mason couldn’t tear her eyes away from the screen.

  Eventually, Fennrys cleared his throat and said, “So what you’re saying is that we’re not getting into Manhattan anytime soon.”

  “That’s pretty much what I’m saying, yes.” Toby ran a hand over his face. “It would seem that, somehow, Daria Aristarchos has managed to procure herself a kin killer. A powerful one. And she’s found an even more powerful conduit to draw on all the stray magick that’s been pouring into the river from the rift between the realms. She’s using both to focus that power and channel it into casting a curse.”

  “Her conduit is probably that haruspex she’s been keeping on the payroll,” Douglas said.

  Toby nodded. “Most likely.”

  Mason raised her hand again. “What’s a haruspex?”

  Douglas grimaced in distaste. “A diviner. Normally someone who reads the entrails of slaughtered animals to see the future.”

  “And yeah,” Rafe added. “That is as disgusting as it sounds.”

  “This one,” Douglas continued, “if it’s the girl I think it is, can also tap into deeper magick. Much deeper. She’s sort of like a supercharged sorceress . . . the kind that only comes along once in a thousand years. Like Semiramis, or Merlin, or Medea. Only in this case, this girl has never been in control of the magick, or even her ability to access it. Anything beyond reading the future in the guts of a goat, and she needs someone else to pull the strings and channel the magick into a working enchantment.” He spun his chair in a half circle and wheeled over to the tall window, yanking the pale curtain aside and peering out, even though the view was mostly just darkness and trees. “That someone, in this case,” he said, “would be my beloved ex-wife. The harpy.”

  “She is?” Rafe asked.

  “Oh. Ah, no.” Douglas grinned sourly. “I only meant that as an insult. She’s not an actual harpy.”

  “There was one of those outside her window, though. Last week. I saw it . . . with this guy.” Cal pointed at Rafe. “You were there with Mason?
??s brother. You work with my mom.”

  “Not exactly.” Rafe shrugged. “I maintain alliances with several factions. Mostly, I’m just trying to work at keeping the status quo. And Roth was secretly meeting with Daria because he doesn’t want Ragnarok any more than the rest of us. No matter what his father thinks.”

  “Can somebody please cut to the chase here?” Mason stood up and paced restlessly. “I mean, I get it. There is very suddenly a whole lot more to the world—the worlds—than I ever thought. I understand that Gosforth is some kind of . . . link. Hub. Whatever. I get that we’re all caught up in this. What I want to know is what this really is.” She gestured in the general direction of the city. “This Miasma. Blood curse. Whatever. I mean, okay, my dad—who is clearly a lunatic—wants to end the world. But . . . aside from stopping him, what does your mom want?”

  “Well . . . ,” Douglas answered for Cal. “Daria does want to avert the end of the world. But only because she wants to reshape the world in her own, particular way. And she can’t do that if Gunnar Starling wipes the slate clean. Now that he’s ready to pull the trigger on Ragnarok, Daria is desperate. But the same set of circumstances that give Gunnar his chance also give Daria her own window of opportunity.”

  “The rift between the realms,” Rafe said.

  Douglas nodded. “All that arcane energy leaking out into the East River. Exactly. With Manhattan completely surrounded by water, the flow of magick is circling the island like a castle moat.”

  “So that’s why she’s used the Miasma—she’s drawing it up out of the water in order to isolate the island. She’s turning Manhattan into an arena.” Toby grunted. “Her own personal coliseum.”

  “A fit stage for a fight to the death,” Douglas said, “between her forces and Gunnar Starling’s for what is, in her mind, the noblest of causes.”

  “And a whole shit-ton of collateral damage means nothing to her,” Fennrys said, the words laced with disgust.