Lesley Livingston: Descendant

Heather wondered fleetingly what Mason’s hottie older brother Roth had to do with this whole situation. As far as she knew, he wasn’t on the train. She hadn’t seen him anywhere and hoped, just for the sake of her own opinion of him, that he wasn’t involved in this insanity.

“And where is the Fennrys Wolf?” Gunnar continued. “ Not in Asgard, I take it.”

Asgard? Heather thought, her thoughts a tangle of disbelief. He’s not serious. That’s gotta be a code word or something. Or, like, the name of a nightclub. Or a high-tech business park. Or . . .

Or was it?

Maybe when Gunnar Starling said “Asgard,” he actually meant . . . Asgard.

Every year, one of the mandatory humanities courses for all students at Gosforth Academy was a comparative history of world mythologies. The faculty had always taken it seriously, which was why Heather had to repeat it in summer school when she’d blown it off in her junior year. But suddenly she was grateful that she knew her gods and goddesses—and the places they called home. Places like Asgard. The faint hope that Gunnar Starling was employing some kind of weird metaphor began to dissolve in her mind.

He’s not. You know he’s not.

But that was crazy. Wasn’t it?

Crazier than storm zombies? Fighting naked guys with swords? Or any of the other bizarro stuff Mason has told you about? Maybe not so much.

She shook her head and tried to concentrate on what was being said.

“What went wrong?” Gunnar continued to pepper his battered son with questions.

“I did what I was supposed to,” Rory sputtered in protest. “I got Mason and I brought her to the bridge. But . . . I dunno.”

He shook his head, sweat beading on his brow. In the opposite corner from where Heather crouched, Tag Overlea was shifting back and forth from one foot to the other. He looked like he was just barely resisting the urge to bolt for the door.

“Roth must have screwed up,” Rory mumbled. “He never showed. But that son of a bitch Fennrys turned up all on his own and”—his eyes shifted back and forth—“and he had a gun. He was going to shoot Mason, Dad.”

Heather almost protested out loud about what a load of BS that was. According to what Mason had told Heather, and according to what Heather herself knew of the mysterious Fennrys Wolf, that was a highly unlikely possibility. Only a few days earlier, Mason had confided in Heather that she and Fennrys had been seeing each other secretly. And to say that it was going well between the two of them would have been, from what Heather had gathered, a vast understatement. It was funny, because Mason was the only person Heather had never been able to read. She’d always been able to tell when people were in love, if they’d ever been in love, if they ever would be in love, and with whom, if they’d already met. She’d never gotten a read on Mason. Or, for that matter, Fennrys. And yet, her instincts screamed to her that they were , 100 percent, falling in love. Fenn would never have tried to hurt her. He was the kind of guy who would have died trying to save Mason rather than see her hurt.

Died like Calum did. A jolt of pain stabbed at Heather’s heart.

“The Wolf had a gun?” the elder Starling asked quietly.

Rory glanced at Tag, who was ash-gray in complexion and sweating profusely. His fists were jammed in the pockets of his letterman jacket, and he looked like he wanted to sink into the floor.

“Yeah.” Rory nodded. “He did. I mean . . . I wish I’d had one.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Of course not. Where would I get a gun, y’know?”

Over by the polished brass-and-mahogany bar, Tag suddenly went so shifty-eyed he looked like he might pop a vein in his forehead. What a jackass, Heather thought. He’d been more than happy to lob not-so-veiled threats at her—in between ogling her chest and pilfering cigars and chugging brandy straight from the bottle—less than an hour earlier. But now his bravado seemed to have evaporated into the ether. And judging from his reaction to what had just been said, Heather figured he was the one who’d supplied Rory with a firearm. She wondered what Rory had offered him in return.

“So, yeah. He had a gun, and he was threatening Mason. He would have killed her if I hadn’t fought him and”—here a note of real pain and horror crept into Rory’s voice—“look what he did to my arm , Dad. . . .”

Gunnar stared impassively down at the injury. Which even Heather had to admit was pretty horrific, the bones of his forearm piercing through the skin like that.

There was a feverish look in Rory’s eyes as he looked from his mangled limb to his father. “But I got the gun away from him. I saved Mason, Dad. I saved her. Only . . . I had to knock Fennrys off the train to do it. And by that time, it was too late and the bridge was all lit up. I know you wanted him to cross over. I know. But . . . I had to save my sister .” His voice broke plaintively on that last word.

Suddenly, the front door to the train car opened, and Heather was shocked to see Toby Fortier step through. At first she felt an initial surge of hope. Toby was one of the good guys. He was the fencing master at the academy, and even if he was kind of a drill sergeant when it came to practices, he was okay. But then she saw Toby’s eyes flick in her direction . . . and slide away without even acknowledging her.

His expression was cold. Hard. Mercenary.

He turned his attention entirely on Gunnar Starling, and his attitude was almost that of a foot soldier facing a four-star general. He stood, feet apart, hands clasped behind his back, head up and shoulders back.

“Tobias?” Gunnar asked without taking his eyes off Rory, where he had sunk back down on the carpet in pain. Heather almost felt sorry for him, but then she remembered how he had come staggering back into the car after the blinding flash outside, gloating through the pain about how he’d just shot the guy who, only a few weeks earlier, had saved a handful of Gosforth students—Rory among them—from a bunch of monsters.

“Tell me, Tobias,” Gunnar said. “Is that what happened?”

“How the hell would he know?” Rory asked.

“Because he’s been on the train the entire time. In the locomotive cab.”

Rory started to make strange, strangled noises. “Toby—jeezus— you were driving the train?”

“Toby is a trusted member of my staff,” Gunnar said. “When I made arrangements for the train to be waiting for you tonight, I didn’t think I needed to provide an employee manifest for you as well.”

Rory lowered his eyes, only to have his gaze slide sideways. He glared in venomous trepidation at the man he’d obviously known only as the fencing master at Gosforth up until that very moment.

“Tobias,” Gunnar said again. “You heard what he said about the altercation on top of the train. Is my son telling the truth?”

Toby hesitated, but it was only for a fraction of a second. Almost imperceptible. “I don’t know. Sir. I was occupied with monitoring the engine as we crossed the bridge. There were . . . some strange spikes in pressure readings in some of the hydraulics systems.”

Gunnar inclined his head slightly toward the other man and regarded him silently.

“I can review the digital files from the surveillance cameras mounted on the train cars if you wish.”

“Do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Gunnar’s shoulders shifted beneath the mantle of his overcoat, and he turned back to his son. “Where’s Mason now?”

“I—I don’t know,” Rory whimpered.

Gunnar’s knuckles popped as his hands knotted into fists, and he took a step forward.