“Yup.”
“And that line . . . the one near the bottom of the screen . . . would be the Hell Gate Bridge?”
“Oh yeah.” Mason nodded.
“So I fought the sea monster there . . . and Cal’s Nereids attacked us there.”
“Right.” She smiled at him with mock enthusiasm. “Lucky us! We’re heading straight back into the heart of New York City’s very own supernatural Bermuda Triangle.”
“Of course we are,” Toby said, stepping over a bench to join them.
Fennrys saw that the fencing coach was moving stiffly, as if his joints pained him. Mason reached out a hand to help steady him as he teetered a bit and sat down heavily, and Toby batted it away irritably. Then he snorted and said, “Sorry, Mase. I’m fine. Just . . . I don’t have my sea legs yet.”
Fenn exchanged a fleeting glance with the old warrior and saw in his eyes that it wasn’t just that. But Toby was stubborn and he was proud and he certainly wasn’t about to admit that he was in anything less than fighting trim. Not on the cusp of what might well prove to be the biggest battle he’d ever had to fight in all his long life. Fennrys had respected Toby from the moment he’d met him, protecting his students in the Gosforth gym from an onslaught of monsters. But his admiration for him doubled in that moment.
Mason pretty clearly felt the same way. She left Toby’s diminished state unremarked upon and turned back to the phone, tapping on the screen again. “I’m texting Heather,” she said. “I just asked her where she is.”
After a few moments, the phone buzzed and she turned the phone around to show them Heather’s reply.
On Cal’s DAD’s boat. SO weird.
East River.
Me, Cal, Beeotch Face, and ur bro.
The hot non-psycho one.
“I guess they left the school after we did,” Toby said. “They must have hooked back up with Douglas Muir somehow.”
“I guess,” Mason agreed, her eyes still scanning the text message. “There’s more . . .”
Just off Wards Island I think??
Going there to sow dragons teeth. Yah.
Daria’s idea. I’m all WTF??
Where r U??
“Dragon’s teeth?” Mason asked.
“Well, at least Daria’s not about to break her perfect track record of invoking insanely dangerous curses,” Toby enthused with brittle cheerfulness. “Because that would be a bummer.”
“Seriously. Dragon’s teeth?” Mason asked. “Real ones?”
Because, at this point in her life, that would in no way be surprising.
While she waited for Toby to answer, she texted:
Close. Also on boat.
Heading same direction.
B there soon. Stay SAFE.
There was no immediate answer back, so she turned again to Toby.
He sighed wearily. “In the Greek myth of the origins of the warriors of Sparta, they were said to have sprung from the teeth of a great serpent—a dragon—sown in the earth like seeds.”
“Daria’s gathering an army,” Fennrys said. “Or . . . growing one.”
“It would seem so.” Toby nodded.
“But why?” Mason asked. “There’s no one for them to fight.”
“Yet.” Fennrys’s brow was creased in a frown.
And there won’t be, Mason reassured herself adamantly. There will be no choosing. Therefore, no third Odin son. Therefore, no one to lead the Einherjar out of Asgard.
She had to find her father and tell him that. In the strongest possible terms. She was the chooser of the slain and this was her choice.
I will. Not. Choose.
He couldn’t make her.
Apocalypse averted. End of story.
Driven by the Otherworldly winds, Naglfar was approaching the place where the Bronx River widened and spilled out into the East River. At Yelena’s command, the ghost sailors of Naglfar steered the ship to the west, rounding a point of land and skirting north of Rikers Island penitentiary. The ship sailed silently giving them a clear view to North Brother Island on the right, South Brother Island on the left, and the head of the Hell Gate Strait, dead ahead. In between the three points of land, Mason noticed that the water, black glass on the surface, looked almost as though it was boiling deep down, shot through with twisting currents and glowing, acid-green streaks of wild magick.
In the distance to the west, the sky over Manhattan was dark and angry, lit from below with a dull orangey-red glow from the many fires—Central Park included—that burned throughout the city. It was also full of helicopters, made tiny by the distance, like a cloud of gnats, hovering over the tops of skyscrapers. Even from this far, they could hear the thumping of rotor blades and the wail of sirens. With the dissipation of the fog wall, the military had flooded back into the city.
In sharp contrast to all that frenzied activity, the hump of land directly in front of them—the northernmost end of Wards/Randalls Island—had a silent, deserted feeling. Directly in front of Naglfar, a large expanse of ground had been turned into a multitude of baseball diamonds arranged like scattered four-leaf clovers: nothing but flat, unimpeded grass fields and sand that stretched out for acres. Perfect staging grounds for friendly sports contests . . . or unfriendly battle.
The eerie desolation was only heightened by the spirit-white shape of Douglas Muir’s boat, moored at a jetty just south of the fields, sails furled and silent. And beyond that, the stark skeleton of the Hell Gate ruin. Naglfar, with its shallow-draft keel designed to sail up rivers and beach on shores, needed no place to moor. The ghost sailors just hauled on the oars until the dragon prow scraped up the pebbled strip of beach on the eastern point of Randalls and came to a stop, half out of the water.
For a moment, everything was silent.
Time stopped, balanced on the edge of a blade.
Mason held her breath and knew that, somewhere on that island, her father did the same.
XXII
“You should stay here,” Cal had said to Heather as Roth leaped over the side of the yacht to secure the moorings. He didn’t wait for Heather’s answer but just followed Roth onto the concrete dock and held out his hand to help his mother ashore.
Heather didn’t even have it in her to put up a fight. Not anymore.
She had a terrible feeling about the whole endeavor. Daria had promised that the Dragon Warriors were a last resort—simply a safeguard line of defense in case things went horribly south—and until such time, the bag full of teeth she was toting around would remain firmly sealed. Of course, Daria was also the only one of them who had any kind of foreknowledge of just what they might have to face.
Heather had asked Roth if Gwen had ever given him any kind of insight into how this night might play out, and he said she hadn’t. She believed him, if only because of the fleeting shadow of dull hurt in his eyes when he’d told her—as if he’d felt somehow betrayed by Gwen for that—and she didn’t press him. Roth was one big walking open wound and Heather could feel the cut threads of his love bond with the dead girl, like strings of barbed wire waving in an ugly wind.
Love, she thought. Sucks.
As Roth and Cal set off with Daria on their reconnaissance, Heather leaned on the railing and watched them go. She hadn’t even realized that she’d reached into her purse and pulled out the miniature crossbow she’d been carrying until she looked down and saw that she held it in her hands. She toyed with the weird little weapon and was suddenly glad that Cal wasn’t there to see the blush of shame creeping up her cheeks.
She could do it. With the leaden bolt tucked in her purse, she could twist his feelings for Mason Starling in the exact opposite direction. She could make him un-love Mason. But at what price?
“That one hurts like every hell there is,” Valen had said on the train when he’d given her the crossbow.
It was funny but, there had been a moment, driving through the chaotic streets of Manhattan in Cal’s Maserati, when Heather had thought—for a fleeting instant—that s
he’d seen the heartbreaker god, perched on an overturned street vendor cart, eating an ice-cream cone. She’d recognized the dark sunglasses and the carelessly super-sexy attitude. But when she did a double take, there was no one even near the wrecked cart and Heather chalked it up to imagination.
Only . . . she thought she might have seen others, too.
People that didn’t look quite like people. Like the way you could spot tourists in the middle of a crowd, the beings Heather had glimpsed in the darkened, storm-drenched city under supernatural siege had given off different vibes than the plain vanilla mortals.
That’s what the city is going to be like, she thought. If it survives, it’ll be full of gods and monsters, hidden in plain sight.
Fantastical, equivocal, dangerous . . .
Better than the alternative.
At least there would still be a world.
Even if it’s a world full of weirdos.
Weirdos like Cal. Her Greek god ex-boyfriend. She almost envied Roth—at least he’d known that Gwen had loved him as much as he’d loved her—and she almost hated Mason. Except that wasn’t fair. Starling hadn’t asked for Cal’s insane, undying love. It wasn’t like she’d set out to intentionally steal Cal’s heart away, either. And Heather knew that Mason would never abuse that affection.
I mean, she just wouldn’t, Heather thought. Mason’s not that kind of girl. But what if—
Her train of thought was interrupted by Douglas Muir, politely clearing his throat from right behind her. Startled, Heather spun around and fumbled the crossbow, almost dropping it. Douglas’s hand shot out and he grabbed the thing before it disappeared over the side of the boat. He opened his fingers and gazed down at the elegantly ornamented little weapon. Then his eyes flicked up at Heather.
“Now, what’s a nice young girl like you doing playing with a nasty old thing like this?” he asked. His tone was gentle, but there was a sharpness beneath the words.
“I thought it might come in handy.” Heather shrugged nonchalantly and snatched the bow back, shoving it into the depths of her bag. She hoped Cal’s father couldn’t tell from her face just how she’d thought it might come in handy.
Especially the golden arrow . . .
“I mean, it’s a weapon, right?” she said. “We might need every weapon we can get our hands on. Right?”
“Human weapons.” Douglas shrugged. “Maybe. Things like that? They’re not for us.”
“What do you mean ‘us’?” Heather raised an eyebrow at him. “No offense, Mr. Muir but . . . you’re not an ‘us.’ Not exactly.”
He sighed. “I know that. I do. I remember when I first discovered that.”
“Must have been awesome,” Heather said.
“Worst day of my life.”
She frowned at him.
“Humanity is precious, Heather.” Douglas leaned forward, hands gripping the arms of his chair and his green eyes sparking fiercely. “What do you think we’re fighting for here? Frail, flawed, ridiculous humanity. And all the crap and pain and sorrow that goes with it.” He sighed. “You might think you can solve your problems the way a god would with that little pop gun. And you might. But you have to think about what you might lose in the process. Because when you’re playing games with gods? The toughest thing you’ll ever have to do is hang on to your humanity.” He rolled his chair back a bit and gazed past her, to where Daria and the boys were the size of chess pieces in the distance. “Especially in the face of war and love. Even more than the gods, those things can wreak havoc on your soul. Love more than war. Ask your friend who gave you that.”
“I will,” she said quietly. “If I ever get the chance to meet him again.”
“I hope you do.” Douglas smiled. “I hope you get the chance to tell him you didn’t need his help.”
His smile was so much like Cal’s that it made her heart hurt. But something in his words felt like the taste of hope to Heather. She savored the sensation for a long moment. But then the sky split wide open above them, and gray-gold light poured down onto the island, bringing with it the sounds of battle cries on the wind.
And hope turned to ashes in Heather’s mouth.
From where he stood beneath the Bronx Kill Bridge on the north end of Randalls Island, just over a quarter of a mile from where the Ship of the Dead had beached, Rory Starling lowered a pair of night-vision binoculars and tried not to grin like a madman. Top Gunn disapproved of excessive displays of emotion. Rory kept his face turned away from where his father stood in the deeper shadows beneath the arches of the bridge, silent as a tombstone and just as still. The only thing about Gunnar that gave any indication of life was the twisting serpentine gleam of light in his left eye.
He hadn’t spoken since the Norns had shown up.
It must be driving him crazy, Rory thought, to have to tolerate their presence here tonight. . . .
Not that there was anything Gunnar could do about it. Those three bizzaros weren’t going anywhere. Directly above Rory’s head, he could hear them, and see them—three shadowy shapes scurrying back and forth on the rail bridge like spiders, keening and gyrating with barely contained, powder-keg anticipation. Wild haired, wilder-eyed, and dressed head-to-toe in ragged black clothing, their excitement sizzled and sputtered like the sparks from a firecracker pinwheel.
Even after all the times he’d read the excerpts in Top Gunn’s diary, Rory still hadn’t been exactly sure what to expect from the trio. Sartorially, it didn’t appear that they’d changed much in appearance since those days. Rather, it seemed as though the Copenhagen punk rock scene had appealed so much to the sisters’ collective sense of style that they’d just decided to roll with that particular look right up until Ragnarok descended.
Maybe it’s because they’ve come so close this time, they don’t want to jinx anything, Rory thought. Whatever. I don’t get their deal. Just so long as they stay out of my way . . .
Gunnar had told Rory that the current Starlings weren’t the first generation of Aesir devotees to try to bring this thing to fruition. But Rory swore on his new silver hand, and on the life of his once-dead sister, that they would be the last. They would do this thing.
I will, he thought, as suddenly the sky overhead split open and a strange, sepulchral light flooded down onto the island.
Bringing with it the sounds of approaching war.
That’s my cue!
But then, a moment later, he felt a familiar jolt in the back of his mind—a kind of warm, tingling spark. Someone had brought runegold to the island. Rory didn’t even have to see it anymore to know when the golden talismans were nearby. Not after so many years of learning the secrets of the little golden acorns. His father had taken back the ones Rory had stolen from Gunnar’s study and he’d felt their absence keenly ever since—like an addict forced to quit cold turkey—and a sheen of sweat sprang up on his brow now. He glanced back at his father, who was wholly focused on the ghostly ship in the distance.
So here’s where I go off-script, Rory thought, and suddenly took off running.
Ignoring his father’s shouts in his ears, and using the elevated rail track to shadow his movement, Rory pounded south and east, his eyes scanning the playing fields, and he stripped the leather glove from his silver hand as he ran.
Standing at the prow of the beached Ship of the Dead, Rafe scanned the island with his keen, dark gaze. Eventually, he pointed to a small, angular structure—an elevated rail bridge, part of the track structure leading to the Hell Gate at the south end of the island—and said, “There.”
Fennrys stepped up beside the ancient god, squinting in the direction he pointed, and saw three tiny figures dancing madly on top of the bridge girders. Carried on the barest hint of a breeze, he heard the three mad sisters begin to keen wildly, an eerie wailing ululating, voices tangling around one another like lengths of knotted skeins. Lightning flashed directly over the bridge, capturing their exaggerated poses like flares from a photographer’s flash.
“Norns?
” Fenn asked.
“Drama queens . . . ,” Rafe muttered through clenched teeth.
Mason joined them. “Are they alone?” she asked.
Fennrys noticed there was a bright, hectic flush of excitement in her cheeks.
He turned from her to scan the terrain. Aside from the bridge, there wasn’t much in that area other than the odd chain-link fence behind the baseball diamonds. In the far distance to the south, he could see Roth and Daria and Cal walking slowly across the field. They didn’t seem as if they were on their way to meet anyone. No preplanned Gosforth family summits, then. Well, that was one good thing, he supposed.
Fenn pointed them out and then said, “I don’t see anyone else . . .”
“Rafe,” Mason was saying, “you knew the Norns. Maybe you can talk to them.”
“I don’t know what good that would do.”
She put a hand on his arm. “Before anyone else gets here—before my father gets here—maybe we could put a stop to this.”
“Mase—”
“Would it do any harm to try?”
“No. I guess not . . . ,” he said. He glanced at Yelena and Sigyn.
Fennrys followed his gaze. The two women, ghost and goddess, had retired to the back of the boat, hoods pulled far up around their faces. The ghost warriors of Naglfar had faded to almost nothing and Toby was huddled on a bench. It seemed as if it was an effort for him just to remain sitting upright. There wasn’t going to be much help for them from any of those quarters if it got to the confrontation stage, Fennrys thought.
“We might as well give parlay a shot before we have to fight,” he said, and gave Rafe a reluctant nod.
The god shrugged and vaulted nimbly over the side of the ship. The effect was instantaneous, unforeseen, and horrifying. . . .
The moment the soles of the ancient god’s modern, stylish leather shoes touched the ground, the darkness above Randalls Island tore open and the light of the sunless skies of Valhalla poured through, sullen and glaring all at once. Fennrys heard the thunder of charging feet—multitudes of them—coming from somewhere far behind the boat. He twisted and glanced over his shoulder to where North Brother Island was lit up like Times Square with coruscating, eldritch light. When he turned back, it was to the sight of a gray arm, ropey with desiccated muscle, suddenly punching up through the turf right in front of Rafe.
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