Starling by Lesley Livingston
Besides which, now that she was away and hidden behind the High Line stairs, she didn’t want to leave Fennrys so completely alone. As she thought that, she heard a tremendous racket coming from almost directly above her. The metal stairwell grates shook and rattled violently, and peering up through the mesh and lattice of steel girders, Mason watched the battle royal as if it were staged as a shadow play. The dark shapes moved above her with lethal, muscular grace and unbridled savagery.
Suddenly Mason heard a roar of rage. She couldn’t honestly tell if it came from one of the animals … or from Fennrys. But then a huge dog’s body came slamming down out of the sky like a sack of wet cement, and Mason stifled a scream and covered her face.
Wearily, Fennrys climbed over the stair railing and dropped down onto his haunches beside Mason. He wiped the back of his hand across his brow, and it came away streaked with blood.
“It’s not bad,” he said, waving off her hand as Mason hissed in sympathy and went to lift the strands of blond hair that were stuck to a shallow cut leaking blood in a slow trickle down the side of his face. “Leave it,” he snapped. “It’ll heal.”
Mason pulled her hand back. She looked startled, hurt by the angry tone of his voice, but he couldn’t help it. He was so afraid for her that he was still shaking.
“I told you to run.”
“I did.”
“I didn’t tell you to stop running.” He could feel that his lips were still curled back in a snarl. “You should be halfway to Central Park by now, damn it!”
He turned away from Mason and looked up at where the body of another wolfhound lay still, dripping blood through the grate. The minute someone discovered the animals, there would be police and park authorities swarming all over the place asking questions. For some reason, Fennrys had half expected the things to shimmer away into nothingness after he’d killed them—like mirages. Like the draugr.
But they weren’t mirages and they weren’t mythical monsters. They were dogs—just dogs—and they lay there now looking mortal and pathetic in death and he felt sorry for having been the cause of it. Of course he would have felt a whole lot worse if he hadn’t been. Those dogs were capable of tracking and taking down much larger prey in the wild. They could bring down boar and even bears, but they were called wolfhounds because they’d been bred specifically to kill wolves.
Only this time, it seemed, the wolf had won the fight. This time.
In the wake of his angry outburst, the silence stretched out between Fennrys and Mason until finally she stood and said, quietly, “Well, I guess I’d better get going, then. Like you said, I should be halfway to Central Park by now.” She turned and started to walk away from him, her spine rigid.
Fennrys watched her go for a minute, something ticking away in his mind. Then he stood and jogged after her, catching up in less than half a block. He grabbed her by the wrist and slowed her down. She turned and he looked down at her. Her eyes were so blue they almost glowed in the moonlight, like a cat’s.
“The next time, just keep running.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Come on. Let’s go.” He took the sword gently from her hand and slipped it back into the case, along with his own.
“Where are we going now?”
“Central Park.”
“Wait. I thought you were just saying that to be mean.”
“I was. But I think the bear might actually be on to something. I think I might actually find some answers there.”
“The bear?”
Mason looked up at him like he’d finally lost his marbles. Maybe he had.
“Yeah. His name’s Major. I’ll explain on the way.” Fennrys wiped away the blood on his forehead with the sleeve of his leather jacket and waved at a cab in the distance. “Or maybe I won’t.”
They stood at the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park. They’d been standing there for almost five minutes. Mason had never made it that long without being accosted by pedicab hawkers or bicycle renters or guys selling hats and T-shirts, even at that late hour. But no one bothered Fennrys or—guilt by association—her that evening.
“Are we going in?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t look like you want to.”
“I don’t.”
“Do you know why you don’t want to?”
“Not exactly. No.”
“Okay …”
“I think something happened to me here. Something bad.”
Mason looked at Fennrys’s profile. The sharp angles and planes of his face were dusted with streetlamp glow, and the pale orange light softened the contours and made him look young—like Cal or any one of her classmates at Gosforth. Mason desperately wanted to know what had happened to him to transform him from that ordinary teenage boy into the extraordinary, daunting, lonely young man at her side. She thought that she might soon find out.
Assuming he ever decides to actually enter the park, that is …
As if some part of him had heard her thoughts, Fenn took a sudden, lurching step forward. His nostrils flared, like he was scenting the air for danger, and his fists were knotted at his sides. But he kept going, into the park proper, veering right and heading north toward midpark. Mason followed along beside him. There was a thin veil of ground mist drifting at intervals across the paths and collecting in the hollows and vales of the park’s rolling contours. In front of them, and to the sides, hidden in the deep black shadows cast by the tall trees at night, Mason thought that she could see lights dancing, like fireflies in the distance. Even though it was way too late in the year for fireflies.
She kept sneaking glances at Fennrys to see what, if anything, was going on with him. Half the time when she looked, his eyes were closed. They passed the carousel, the mall, and the lake. Heading north and east. Fennrys was utterly silent until they were almost at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mason’s feet were starting to ache a little, even though she was wearing her sneakers. Suddenly Fennrys stopped and tilted his head slowly, looking around. His gaze was focused on something Mason couldn’t see.
“Whatever it is,” he said quietly, “it’s close.”
“Whatever what is?”
“I don’t know. Not exactly.” He closed his eyes again, and by the orange light of a park lamp, Mason could see his eyes flicking back and forth beneath closed lids. “In my mind,” he murmured, “I can see … lights. Like sparks or flames. It’s like the whole park is laid out in front of me, and there are these pinpoints of light scattered throughout it. I think they’re … people.”
“People?”
“Not exactly. Beings …”
“Is this more … uh … magick?” In her mind, she added the k at the end. “Like some kind of mystical GPS or something?”
“I think so. It’s like I can sense all the things in the park that aren’t … human.”
“Shouldn’t we get out of the park, in that case?” Mason couldn’t help but think about all of the not-human things she’d encountered lately and how she really didn’t want to run into any more of them just at that moment.
But Fennrys put a hand on her arm, keeping her from bolting. “No,” he said. “No … I don’t think we’re in any danger. Not here. Not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve been here before. These people—things, whatever—they’re afraid of me. They won’t bother us.” He turned and looked north, and his gaze narrowed. Focused. “And there’s someone else here....”
“Who?” Mason asked in a dry whisper.
“I don’t know. But they won’t bother him either.”
Mason quickened her pace to keep up with Fennrys. For some reason, knowing that didn’t make her feel any better.
XXVIII
Fennrys warily climbed the shallow stone steps that led up Greywacke Knoll, under an arching bower of crabapple branches, and into an octagonal clearing. The open space was paved with interlocking bricks and occupied at its center by an awe-insp
It had taken a tremendous effort to get the thing from Egypt to New York, back in the day, but it had stood in that spot now since 1881. It drew the eye toward it and, even for someone who couldn’t feel the subtle waves of power emanating from it, it would have been almost impossible to stop staring at the thing—if it weren’t for the person who stood leaning on the brass rail that surrounded it. He drew the eye too.
The young man was fashion-model handsome, with skin that was smooth and deeply tanned to a burnished copper. His features were sharp and elegant, high cheekbones and a long nose, and the lashes rimming his eyes were so thick he looked like he might have been wearing eyeliner. His jet-black hair was dressed in uniform pencil-thin dreadlocks that swept back off his forehead and brushed his shoulders. When he smiled, it was to show off a gleaming white smile and sharply pointed canines, and his eyes were so dark brown they looked black.
They were fixed, unblinking, on Fennrys.
“You look like nine miles of bad road,” he said, and laughed. It was an easy, pleasant sound … and it chilled Fennrys to the bone. “Could be worse, I suppose. Could be ten.”
Fennrys glanced down at what he was wearing.
“No, no. The clothes are okay.” He waved a hand dismissively, dressed impeccably himself in a sleek charcoal suit with an open-collared silk dress shirt underneath, midnight blue. Tiny gold hoops shone in both his ears. “I mean, personally, I would have gone for a more body-conscious jacket, but then you probably need the room. Tough to swing a weapon if you’re too tailored.”
Fennrys restrained himself from actually going for the sword slung across his back—he had a feeling weapons wouldn’t necessarily be of much use against this one. Instead he stood in a relaxed stance, waiting to see what the stranger would do next.
“You’re a clever one. And that”—he glanced pointedly at the sword Fennrys hadn’t drawn—“was the right decision, Fennrys Wolf.”
Fennrys didn’t bother to question how the man had known what he’d been thinking. “Thought it might be,” he said.
“You’ve been in the city for a while now,” the stranger said, shifting so that he leaned one elbow on the railing in an indolent pose. His glance flicked over to Mason and then back to Fennrys. “Where’ve you been all this time?”
“Around,” Fennrys said flatly, avoiding the urge to step protectively in front of Mason. “Today I spent a lovely few hours down at the library, and then I rounded it out relaxing in Bryant Park. Thanks for asking.”
“Bryant Park. Figures.” The stranger rolled his eyes skyward. “And here I am waiting for you up here, in the first place I would have thought you’d come back to. What’s the matter? Too many bad memories?”
Fennrys reared back like a spooked animal.
“That’s not very funny,” Mason snapped.
The man’s gaze narrowed, focusing on her again, and every muscle in Fennrys’s body went taut with apprehension. He turned his head toward Mason without taking his eyes from the man’s face.
“You know that whole ‘never talk to strangers’ thing, Mase?” Fennrys said in a low voice. “They don’t get much stranger than this.”
Mason looked up at him, her blue gaze glittering fiercely. Then suddenly, before he could stop her, she stepped around Fennrys and stalked toward the obelisk, stopping when she was only a few feet away from the stranger.
“What are you?” she demanded.
The man raised an eyebrow at her, mildly astonished. “I beg your pardon?”
“What are you?” she repeated. “I mean … so far this week I’ve worked my way through storm zombies, lizard mermaids, river goddesses, nasty flying things that I don’t even want to know what they were, and stunt doubles for the hounds of the Baskervilles. So. What are you? Demon? Vampire?”
“Vampires don’t exist.” The man scoffed.
“Right. Silly me.”
“I’m a werewolf.”
Mason blinked and turned to Fennrys. “See? And I thought that was you!”
“Oh, please.” The man snorted. “He’d need a lot more style to run with my crew. And I’m not just a werewolf.”
Mason turned back to him.
“I’m the werewolf.”
“Well, aren’t we the lucky ones.”
“You have been so far, Mason Starling,” the man said sharply, and speared her with a glance that knocked the bravado right out of her. “If I were you, I’d try my very best to make sure that becomes a trend. Now I know you’re freaked, and that’s fine. But a little respect would go a long way. Especially considering the fact that you’re standing in a park in the middle of New York City talking to a god.”
“I … I thought you said you were a … a werewolf,” she stammered.
All of a sudden, the man’s handsome features began to blur and shift.
Fennrys lunged forward and pulled Mason away as a wash of crackling blue-black light danced over the surface of the stranger’s skin—which darkened to ebony and grew sleek and shiny—as his face elongated and reshaped into a long, fiercely pointed muzzle. His ears pulled back and extended upward from the sides of his head. The muscles of his neck thickened, and a fine black pelt covered them, blurring the outlines with thick, short fur. The expensive suit disappeared, replaced by a wide golden collar that draped over his torso, extending out over his muscled shoulders almost like wings. It sparkled with precious inlaid stones and served to emphasize that the rest of him was now essentially naked except for a long, pleated linen loincloth edged in gold embroidered designs and belted with yet more gold. His hands were still … hands. Fennrys had almost expected paws, but no, he still had fingers and toes, like a person, only the nails were long and sharp, like claws. And painted a brilliant lapis lazuli blue. His whole body was covered in sleek black fur that shone with indigo highlights and emphasized his exquisitely sculpted physique, which—from the neck down—still looked human. Except for the fur.
His lips drew back from a long snout full of gleaming white, dagger-sharp teeth. His glittering eyes sparked with grim mirth, and he said, in a voice like the growl of a wolf, “I was going to ease you into the whole god thing.”
Mason willed herself not to faint, even though she could practically hear the blood rushing from her head. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind that the being standing in front of her was what he said he was. Power virtually rolled off him in waves. She recognized him from books and images she’d seen online, researching a paper on ancient myths and legends. He was Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the dead. He grinned at her again, and again his form shifted and a sleek black wolf paced a circle around where she and Fennrys stood.
And then suddenly, all around them, the shadows under the trees started to writhe and flow toward them as a half-dozen other wolves padded out into the obelisk clearing and formed a loose circle around Mason and Fennrys.
Okay, Mason thought. Maybe she should just faint.
Fennrys tightened his grip on her as she started to sag in his arms. She clung to him, trying not to succumb to a whole new level of fear. Then, just as suddenly as he’d shifted form, the handsome young god stood before them, once again clothed in his stylish human shape. His lupine companions sat on the ground around them, watching with eyes that held far more awareness than wolves’ eyes should. Human eyes.
“I hate showing off, but I trust I’ve made my point?”
Mason nodded weakly.
“And I trust, also, that you understand now how I might have a bit of insight into the unusual things that have been going on in this town l
She nodded again.
“Good. My name, in case you didn’t know, is Anubis. You kids can call me Rafe.” His dark eyes flicked over to Fennrys. “And we really need to talk.”
The conversation seemed, at first, like it was going to be a fairly short, utterly fruitless one. Mostly because it consisted of Rafe asking Fennrys a bunch of questions that he had absolutely no way of answering. Questions about his life before the moment when he had dragged himself out of the ruins of the Gosforth oak tree and started fighting monsters.
“You don’t remember anything?” Rafe said eventually, the frustration evident in his voice. He shook his head, and his dreadlocks swung back and forth against his high, chiseled cheekbones.
Fennrys shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Damn,” Rafe murmured to himself. “The River Lethe. So that’s how she did it....”
“Can you help him?” Mason asked.
“Help him?” Rafe said sharply, glancing at her. “I should tear his throat out right now and be done with it. It would probably save the mortal realm a whole lot of grief!”
Mason gasped and drew back, horrified and confused.
Fennrys just stared at him, unblinking.
Rafe sighed gustily.
“What am I?” Fennrys asked.
Mason held her breath.
The Egyptian god of the dead ran a hand over his dreads and looked up, an expression of something that might have been pity in his eyes. As if he was silently apologizing for the things he was about to say. “You were born a Viking prince in the year 1003, according to the current calendar. At seven months old, you were taken away by a faerie king to be raised in a place called the Otherworld, the Faerie Realm, as a warrior and a guardian of the gateway between the worlds. That gate just so happens to exist within the confines of Central Park, so that’s why I expected you’d eventually find your way back here on your return.”