“What’s your name?” he asked quietly.
“Uh … Tag. Taggert Overlea. I shouldn’t be here, either. I was on this train … and then … oh, man—”
“Tag.” Fennrys shook him a little. It wouldn’t do to let the kid spiral back into the memory of whatever death he’d experienced. It obviously hadn’t been a pretty one, and the shock of those memories might just jar him out of his presently helpful state. “No. it’s okay. You’re here to help me. All right? You’re here to help Mason. You said she was nice to you.”
Tag nodded.
“Well, she needs us to help her out of a jam, okay? You have to let me pass. I have to go in there”—he pointed to the massive soaring doors of the feast hall—“so that I can help Mason. It’s really important, okay?”
Tag nodded again. “Okay. But I told you—we’re not allowed in until the battle’s done. There’s a … like an alarm system, y’know? You’ll have to fight.”
Fenn felt himself grinning. “I’m okay with that.”
“You said you weren’t here for a fight.”
“I lied.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
A rune tattoo on the side of Tag’s neck, just showing above the collar of his jacket, began to pulse with a faint, reddish-gold glow. His meaty fist tightened on the hilt of the old, rusted blade he held, and he turned on his heel and lumbered forward in the direction of the feast hall.
Fennrys and Rafe followed close behind.
When Tag had said they’d have to fight, Fenn had thought he meant they’d have to fight the Einherjar. He’d actually sort of been looking forward to that—a good, clean, straight-up fight. No giant reptiles, no sea monsters, no storm zombies …
No such luck.
The second the football jock’s foot hit the bare patch of ground in front of the mighty structure, the earth erupted as scores of gray, withered limbs suddenly punched up through the soil. Clumps of dirt flew, and Fennrys threw an arm up in front of his face to shield his eyes. When he lowered it, it was to see a small sea of draugr standing between him and the doors of Valhalla. The alarm system Tag had mentioned. It figured.
Draugr, he thought. I hate these guys.
He wondered for an instant how Mason had managed to run the gauntlet of zombie creatures to get into the hall herself. But then there wasn’t much time to contemplate such things. The draugr, with their horrible white eyes and grasping talons and mindless, murderous rages, swarmed toward them.
Tag bellowed like a bull and surged forward, head down.
Rafe transformed with his usual elegance into the fearsome black wolf.
And Fennrys drew his sword, sank into a crouch, and readied himself for the fight, the kill … for the wave of battle madness that would carry him forward to where a very special girl waited for him to bloody show up in time and help her out of a serious jam.
Because Fenn would be damned if he let Mason down again.
XI
Death holds no fear for me. I shall conquer it as I conquer all things.
Fennrys had been joking when he’d said that to Mason. On the High Line, under a full moon, after she’d stabbed him and they’d kissed and she’d realized that maybe, just maybe, she might be kind of falling for him …
But in that moment, Mason realized that—even if he hadn’t known it at the time—he’d also been speaking the truth. She knew now that he had, in fact, conquered death—after a fashion. He’d been to Asgard and made it out again. And even though she might have wished with all her heart that he was standing there, by her side, in that very moment … she was proud of him.
He’d made it out of there.
And she would too.
Gripping the iron medallion he’d given her as tightly as if her life depended on it, and choking back the surge of panic clawing up from her chest, Mason squeezed her eyes shut and pictured Fennrys standing there in the hall with her. She pictured the torches flaring with clear golden flames … haloing his yellow hair as he smiled at her. Before she really even realized she was moving, Mason was suddenly about a third of the way down the vast hall, the sound of the closing doors still echoing in her mind. She was almost at a dead run by the time she reached the end, where a raised dais stood with steps leading up to a throne that looked as though it had been carved from the trunk of a thousand-year-old oak. Resting against one arm of the gnarled and knotted throne was a spear. And perched on the blade of the spear was an enormous midnight-winged raven.
Mason wondered fleetingly if it was one of Odin’s fabled companions as the creature ruffled its oily, ragged-edged feathers and hopped up onto the back of the throne, where it hunched, glaring at Mason with one unblinking, ruby-red eye. It was probably far more likely that—judging from the state of the place—it was just some random bird that had made its home in the rafters of the deserted feast hall. When it opened its massive black beak to croak at her in a voice harsh as the north wind, Mason couldn’t tell if the sound was a welcome or a warning. But she slowed her steps nonetheless and turned her attention to what she figured must be the Odin spear.
For a supposed object of magickal power, it was about as unimpressive as the rest of Valhalla. The long, slender blade of the weapon was etched with symbols—reminding her of the markings on Fenn’s medallion—but the designs on the spear were almost entirely obscured, coated in a thick layer of dark, flaking rust.
It was only when Mason got closer that she realized that it wasn’t rust.
It was old, dried blood.
Just … get it over with, she thought, shuddering. Grab the damn thing and get out of here. Then it’s back to Manhattan so you can find Fennrys and apologize for being such a bitch to him after the tournament. After that, you can hunt down your idiot brother, find out exactly what the hell he thought he was trying to pull with that insane train business … and then you are going to punch him in the face for shooting Fenn in the shoulder.
Mason wasn’t sure which of those things she was looking forward to the most. But both combined to fill her with a sense of urgency. As she ascended toward the massive throne, though, her steps faltered. This was the seat of a god. She wondered where Odin had gone—where all the gods had gone—and wondered if humanity was better off for their departure. She suspected as much. If what the other gods had done to Loki was any indication of how they dealt with unfortunate situations, then she didn’t want to meet them. She just wanted to go home.
The raven on the throne cawed loudly, three times.
The blade of the Odin spear began to gleam with a sullen crimson light that modulated and seemed to match the hammering of her heartbeat as she took another tentative step forward, wondering what was wrong with her all of a sudden. The spear was her bus ticket out of there. It sang to her in her mind—a surging, insistent battle song that compelled her forward—so why then, beneath that urgent, crashing music, could Mason hear the clanging of warning bells loud in her ears?
She stared at the weapon resting against the great chair, propped up there as if its owner had simply forgotten it and would return any second to reclaim it. Mason hesitated, remembering something that Fennrys had said to her when he was mentoring her with her fencing technique. Something that hadn’t been a joke. He said that you never just pick up a weapon. You become the weapon you pick up.
Mason did not want to become that weapon.
But what choice did she have?
The medallion tingled and grew warm in her palm, as if the magick within it was responding to the magick of the spear. Mason felt another desperate stab of longing. She wished Fennrys was there with her so bad it hurt. The red glow of the spear blade grew brighter. She reached out with her other hand and felt the waves of bloodred enchantment emanating from the Odin spear. It was the only source of light and heat in the entire gloom-filled hall.
Her hand hovered inches above the carved wooden shaft.
Just take the damn spear, she told herself. You don’t belong here. Only the dead belong here. You need t
o get out of this trap, out of this tomb, and go home… .
Her hand spasmed, fingers cramping, but she couldn’t make herself move any closer. The soaring roof of the hall seemed to be contracting, closing in on her. The darkness beyond the weapon’s red glow was suffocating.
Suddenly, a booming crash echoed through the empty hall behind Mason. She spun around to see the massive doors at the far distant end of the hall swing wide. They crashed into the walls on either side of the archway, and the cold, pale light of the sunless Asgard sky poured into Valhalla. And standing there, silhouetted against the brightness, was the one person Mason desperately wanted to see… .
But not in this place.
“Fenn?” she whispered, horrified, but he was too far away to hear her.
No … , she thought, dread carving her suddenly hollow. He can’t be here!
Framed by the massive doorway arch, Fenn’s head was down and his shoulders hunched forward as if in great weariness. Backlit as he was, she couldn’t see his face—or any defining features, for that matter—and yet she knew, instantly, just by the way he moved, who it was that had entered the hall of the gods.
The fingers of Mason’s hand were clutching the iron medallion so hard that the edge of the disk had cut into her palm. She felt the blood, slick on the carved runes, and thought, What have I done?
She remembered Fennrys telling her—at the café in Manhattan, when they’d been attacked by monsters—that it was the power of her thoughts, the strength of her will, that made the magick of the talisman work. She’d done it then, used the magick to make a reality of what was in her mind. And her heart sank to think that, in her desperation to see him, to have him once more by her side, she’d done it again. She’d wished Fennrys back to Asgard.
Which meant she’d wished that he was dead.
Mason heard the small, soft wail of anguish that escaped her lips. Rory had shot Fenn on top of the train. She flinched violently as the images assaulted her memory: the sight of Rory’s face contorted in vicious rage … the flare of the gun muzzle … Fennrys’s shoulder, bursting crimson as the bullet tore into him and he toppled off the top of the train car …
Mason squeezed her eyes shut, remembering how she’d just stood there, watching as Fenn’s body tumbled along the rail tracks, legs and arms pinwheeling like a thrown rag doll’s … and then the brightness of the Bifrost portal had swallowed her whole and she’d left him behind for dead.
Dead …
The Fennrys Wolf started toward her down the hall, his first few steps staggering and clumsy. From that distance, Mason couldn’t see his wounds, but she knew they were there. They must have been terrible. A flood of guilt and bitter despair threatened to drown her where she stood.
“You can’t be dead,” she whispered, her voice gone parched and dust dry. “I’m going home. I’m going home to be with you again… .”
The touch of the spear would send her home.
She would leave this place … and never see the Fennrys Wolf again.
Behind her, the raven on the throne cried out in a harsh, urgent voice. Mason turned and saw that the spear was glowing so brightly it looked as if it would burst into flame. The image of it began to waver, like a mirage before her eyes, and Mason sensed that she was facing a “now or never” scenario.
“Mase!” Fennrys called out, his voice shredded.
No. She couldn’t bear to turn and seen him mangled by whatever death stroke had sent him there and so, instead, she turned away and reached for the spear in front of her. The music of it screamed at her. Still, she hesitated.
You could stay, whispered a voice in her head.
Stay there, in Valhalla, and be with him …
Watch Fennrys engage, day after day, in endless, mindless battle. See him turn into one of the Einherjar … A thing of senseless brutality, hacked to pieces again and again and put back together time after time but each time losing a little more of his humanity … Fennrys had told her that, growing up in the Otherworld, this was what he’d wanted all his life. This hall, this place. An honorable fate, a destiny. A glorious death that would guarantee him a place in Odin’s Hall in Asgard, where he would battle and feast and it would go on and on until the End of Days. This was a Viking prince’s reward for a life of violence lived. It was horrible.
It was Fennrys’s.
“Mason!” he cried out again, closer now. “Stop!”
As she stood there, torn, a horrible image flashed through her mind—Fenn reaching her, taking her in his arms, winding her in a blood-soaked embrace as he clutched her to his ruined chest… .
She could almost feel the sticky-wet press of his wounds against her skin… .
“Mason!” He was running now, she could hear. Running toward her.
Mason didn’t know what else to do. The pace of Fennrys’s heavy, weary footsteps increased behind her, and a surge of panic crawled up her throat. She wasn’t brave enough. She couldn’t see him like that. It would kill her… .
Take the spear!
I can’t …
“Mason! Don’t touch the spear!”
I can’t see him like that… .
Take the spear!
Mason squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. She thrust her hand once more toward the spear, fingers hooked like the talons of the raven above her, reaching to grip it. She heard the raven’s triumphant hiss—
A last ragged cry of “Mase!”
—and her fist slammed closed.
On warm, solid flesh.
Mason felt long, strong fingers closing around her own, and then she found herself pulled sharply back, away from the throne and the spear and the screeching black bird … and into Fenn’s arms. He wrapped her in a fierce embrace and whispered her name over and over into her hair, and she clung to him.
She was sobbing into the torn material of his T-shirt. “Why are you here?” she cried. “Why are you dead? Oh god …” She could barely make out the sense of her own words through the thickness of the grief that clogged her throat. “I’m sorry, Fenn … I’m so sorry… .”
But he was shushing her. Rocking her back and forth, held tightly against the warmth of his chest. He was real and solid and there. And she felt no blood on his shirt, nothing sticky and congealing that bound them together.
“Mason,” Fenn said, “I’m not dead. Not again. I promise.”
A roaring silence filled her ears with those words.
Slowly, barely daring to hope, she opened her eyes and tilted her face up so that she could look into his eyes. They were red-rimmed with grief, or maybe it was fatigue, but they were Fenn’s eyes, full of life. And—in that very moment—full of something that might just have been love.
“I’m not dead,” he said again.
He dipped his head, and as if to prove to her just how very much alive he was, he kissed her. Mason’s whole body melted, and she felt as though she might collapse, but he held her upright. Her lips opened beneath his, and she inhaled the breath from Fennrys’s lungs, deep into her own. The warmth of his kiss felt like it was jump-starting her own heart back to life, and without even thinking, she reached up to wrap her arms tightly around his neck as he crushed her gently to him once again in a warm, real, living embrace. Mason could feel a flood of wetness on her cheeks, but she couldn’t tell whose tears they were. She suspected that they were hers.
Fenn confirmed as much when he loosened his grip on her and reached up to brush them gently from under her eyes with his thumbs. He was smiling—that strange, rare, beautiful smile—and his frost-blue eyes gleamed brightly down at her.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I missed you.”
“How … ?”
He silenced her question with a kiss. And then another. Then, reluctantly, he pulled away from her and took her face in his hands.
“We can talk later, okay?” he said. “Now? We need to go.”
She put a hand over his beating heart—just to make sure—and nodded
. He was alive all right. Even though the T-shirt he wore was so torn up it looked as though he’d just walked through a giant bread slicer. Aside from the shirt’s decimation, though, Fennrys himself appeared to be unharmed. Breathing hard and disheveled, but unharmed.
“Yeah …” He covered her hand with his and pressed it to his chest. “There were a couple of draugr on the way in. And you know what a pain in the ass those guys are. But I had a little help. It’s weird, but there’s this guy out there in a letterman jacket—”
“You saw Tag?” Mason blinked up at him in surprise.
“Yeah. Friend of yours, right?”
“Friend of Rory’s,” Mason said, and watched as Fennrys’s expression darkened. “Fenn … what the hell happened? And how did I wind up here?”
He hesitated for a moment. “I know some of it. But here—especially here—isn’t the place to talk about it, Mase. Trust me. First we need to get somewhere safe.”
She nodded, and exhausted and elated both, she let Fennrys wrap an arm around her shoulders and lead her down the dais steps. Questions could wait. As they walked down the long hall, a shadow swept over them. Mason flinched, ducking as the raven flew past, out the open archway, where it disappeared in the light streaming over the threshold of Odin’s Valhalla.
As they approached the door themselves, Mason plucked at the material of Fennrys’s shirt. It was hanging off the collar band in shredded pieces that flapped when he walked, and she noticed that it sported the remains of a Blue Moon beer logo on it. For some reason, she found that faintly hilarious.
“This is a truly unfortunate fashion statement, y’know,” she said, grinning.
“My lifestyle is hell on a wardrobe.”
“I think you should go Abercrombie. The boys in those ads never have to worry about ruining shirts,” Mason said, not actually expecting that without missing a beat, Fennrys would reach up to the collar of what was left of his shirt and tear the thing effortlessly from around his neck.
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