Starling by Lesley Livingston
“Go!” He urged her on.
“I can’t,” Mason whispered, her gaze locking with his.
His sword arm dropped to his side and he stood there, still as a statue, sculpted by the white-gold flashes of lightning. The sudden calm at the eye of a maelstrom.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “You can.”
She glanced back at the hole in the floor. “I can’t....”
“You’ll be all right. I promise.”
She looked back at him. Somehow Mason had heard his voice over the cacophony of the storm, and she felt, very suddenly, like she stood in an empty house with all the windows open. A comforting, imaginary breeze told her that there were escape routes. Ways out. Freedom. Peace and protection …
“Go,” he said again.
She nodded and spun on her heel, ducking down into the storage cellar. Toby reached up behind her and pulled the trapdoor shut. A fraction of a second later, something heavy slammed onto it, and they heard howling. The stranger had bought them time to make it safely down into the storeroom. And now he was out there defending them.
She turned her back to the door and tried to block out the sound of the fighting. The darkness was suffocating. Mason heard one of the others scrabbling around and suddenly the screen of Rory’s cell phone lit up. He held it above his head, the thin blue glow pushing feebly against the blackness of the storage space. Huddled behind a rack of shelves, Heather was wild-eyed and panting like a scared animal. Mason had never seen Heather Palmerston afraid of anything. Then again, she doubted Heather had ever watched a man behead someone. Something. Then again, neither had Mason.
Toby jammed his scaffold pipe diagonally through the ring handles on the door, effectively barricading them in. The sounds of fighting continued above them for several long minutes, and then stopped abruptly. They waited, but the only things they heard were the wind and the rain that poured straight down in through the gym’s roof. Toby wordlessly held out his hand for the cell phone. Rory handed it over, and Toby felt around on one of the shelves and found a flashlight. He clicked the switch and a pale beam of light rendered the details of the cellar in stark black and ash gray and turned their faces ghastly white.
For a moment, everyone just stood around. Then a heavy knock on the door overhead made them all jump.
“Let me in,” came a gruff voice.
“No way, man!” Rory exclaimed.
Toby hesitated.
“Let him in, Toby!” Mason said. “He just saved us!”
The fencing master stood there, torn.
“Toby?” Heather looked at him.
“Aw, hell …”
Toby wrenched the pipe out of the door’s ring handles as Rory shook his head in disgust. The stranger heaved the door open and climbed down, pulling the door shut behind him. At the bottom, he leaned heavily on the stair ladder for support, breathing harshly. In the beam from Toby’s flashlight, all of the contours of his body stood out in sharp relief. He looked like a Michelangelo sculpture, Mason thought.
“Bar the door,” he said.
“Do it,” Toby barked at Rory, handing him the metal pipe. “And somebody else find Beowulf here some pants.”
“It’s Fennrys Wolf,” the young man rasped. “And yeah … pants would be nice.”
III
Nobody moved.
Mason turned her head from side to side and saw that both Heather and Rory sported identical deer-in-headlights facial expressions. Heather’s chest was rising and falling in rapid, gaspy breaths that whistled raggedly in the darkness. Rory didn’t look like he was breathing at all. The blood had drained from his face, leaving his complexion ghostly in the light of Toby’s flashlight.
“Oh, come on …” Mason shook her head sharply and pointed to his gear bag where it lay on the ground beside him. “Rory—do you have any extra gym clothes in there?” she asked.
“What? Oh, uh, yeah. I guess …” He kicked the bag over to her and went to bar the door, moving as if in a daze.
She knelt down and rooted through the bag, pulling out a pair of sweats and a hoodie. She took them and walked over to where the stranger stood, keeping her gaze focused somewhere over his left shoulder. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his mouth quirk upward in the shadow of a grin.
“Here,” she said, handing them over.
“Thanks.”
Mason nodded and turned away, walking swiftly back to stand just behind Toby as the guy put his sword down long enough to pull on the sweats and shrug into the shirt—both of which were too small for him and only served to emphasize his physique even more.
“Are those things gone?” Toby asked.
“Most of ’em are dead,” the stranger grunted. “The rest are gone. For now.” Once he was dressed, the stranger turned to face them, the sword hilt once again clutched tightly in his fist. “Where am I?” His voice was a low, husky growl. “Who are you people?”
“This is a school,” Toby answered, shifting his bulk so that he stood in front of Mason and the others. “They’re students.”
“A … school. Where? What realm?”
“Realm? What are you talking about?” Rory asked, looking at the young man with extreme suspicion. “You on foreign exchange or something?”
“From a country where they don’t wear pants?” Heather murmured, recovering a small measure of her usual self-possessed snark.
“Maybe he means borough,” Mason suggested, ignoring Heather’s comment. She turned to the stranger. “This is Manhattan. Uh … New York City? You know?”
A fleeting expression of recognition flashed across his angular features. “New … I remember …” Then it vanished. “Something.”
“Hey.” Rory crossed his arms over his chest as if he’d decided that enough was enough and it was time for him to play tough guy. Mason hated it when he got like that. “What the hell kind of name is Fennrys Wolf?”
“I don’t know. And it’s the Fennrys Wolf, actually. I think—”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Rory asked. “Who are you, really?”
The young man looked back and forth between them and said quietly, “I was hoping you could tell me.”
There was something so naked in his expression, Mason thought. And then she started to actually blush at the memory of what he’d looked like just a few moments ago. Okay, not naked … more like raw—uh, no. That wasn’t helping either. She winced inwardly. How about … vulnerable?
Yes. That was exactly it.
Whoever this guy was, in spite of his sheer brute strength and fighting skills, there was an almost fragile quality to him. As if he was barely holding it together. Mason frowned, staring at the handsome blond enigma, and wondered where in the world he’d come from.
Suddenly a sound caught Mason’s attention—a low groan, coming from the corner where Calum had gone from leaning against the wall to slumped in a heap on the floor, semiconscious. Heather ran over and knelt beside him, and Mason heard her gasp.
“Guys,” she said. “Guys … he doesn’t look so good. I mean … he’s—oh, shit. Shit. Cal?” She shook his shoulder, but there was no response. “Toby?” Heather looked up, and there was a shine of tears in her eyes.
Toby pushed Rory and the stranger aside and went to go look at Cal for himself. “Aw, damn …” Mason heard him mutter.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?” Aside from the obvious …
“His skin is getting streaky around the wounds and he’s burning up,” Toby said, sounding really worried. “It looks like he might have some kind of sepsis developing.”
“Sepsis?”
“Blood poisoning,” the Fennrys Wolf said.
“And it’s spreading fast, from the looks of it,” Toby muttered. “Too fast. That shouldn’t be possible. Those … things out there must have been venomous.”
Mason and Heather exchanged a stricken glance.
“Do something!” Heather exclaimed. “Help him! Where’s the first-aid kit?”
Toby huffed in frustration and stood. “It’s in the gym office. Out there.” He glanced at the door. “And Band-Aids and iodine aren’t going to do a lot of good for him if he goes into septic shock.”
The stranger’s brow creased in a deep frown. He stepped forward, as if he meant to push past Toby—who put out an arm, barring his way. Wordlessly, Toby eyed the sword in the young man’s fist.
The Fennrys Wolf looked down at the weapon, then he spun the blade expertly in his palm and handed it over, hilt first—to Mason, who was too surprised to do anything but take it. His mouth ticked upward again in that half grin. Mason got the feeling that he didn’t ever actually smile.
“I think I should take a look at your boy there,” he said to Toby.
Toby stared at him for a moment, then took a step to the side. The strange young man kneeled down beside Cal and carefully pulled the torn edges of his T-shirt away from his shoulder wound. Mason saw Heather turn away, a sickened expression on her gorgeous face. There were three ragged parallel slashes across Cal’s pectoral muscle that seeped blood but looked—hopefully—like they weren’t too deep. The worrying thing, though, was the spidery network of angry dark lines that had begun to spread outward, creeping just under the surface of Cal’s skin on both his face and chest.
The Fennrys Wolf sat back on his haunches and, for a moment, looked lost. Confusion chased through his gaze, but he shook his head sharply and his nostrils flared. His eyes fell closed, and one hand reached up and his long fingers closed around an iron medallion that hung from a leather cord around his neck. It was the only thing he’d been wearing. Mason watched as he began to murmur under his breath, his other hand hovering over Cal’s prone form.
“Toby,” Rory said behind her in a low voice, “what are you doing? Why are you letting that guy anywhere near Cal?”
“If he’d wanted to harm any of us, he could have just left us out there, Rory,” Toby answered quietly. “With those things. As it stands right now, I don’t have any way to help Calum. Maybe he does.”
The strange young man hunched over Cal. “I could use a little light,” he said.
Mason took the flashlight from Toby and held it out. The Fennrys Wolf reached back and positioned her arm so he could see better but, whatever it was he was doing, it was blocked from Mason’s line of sight. All she knew was that he was concentrating very hard, muttering just under his breath. She couldn’t quite make out the words, but Mason had the feeling that, even if she could have, she still wouldn’t have been able to understand them.
Slowly, like an invisible ground mist seeping up out of the floor, Mason felt the air of the storeroom begin to change character. As if it was becoming electrically charged. Her feet and then her legs began to tingle slightly, like a current was running through the floor. Mason’s stomach tightened, and she could hear the beating of her heart.
And then she thought she could hear Cal’s …
Then the Fennrys Wolf’s …
What is this guy, like some kind of shaman or something? Mason wondered. That was ridiculous. But then so was the idea that they’d been attacked by monsters. I do not believe in supernatural creatures, Mason said to herself firmly. There has to be a rational explanation for all of this. There is no boogeyman.
Finally, after several long, anxious minutes, the stranger’s shoulders slumped, and he sat back against an equipment rack. The lines of his face were drawn with exhaustion, and the long columns of muscle down the sides of his neck stood out like cords. Mason could see the pulse beating just below his jaw, but she couldn’t hear his heart now. The sound had faded, along with the feeling of electricity in the air. Outside, in the far distance, she heard a rumble of thunder. Maybe the storm—and all its horrors—was moving away.
“Has anybody got any water?” Fennrys asked, climbing to his feet.
“Yeah.” Mason dug out her water bottle and started toward Calum with it. “Here …”
Fennrys intercepted the bottle and twisted off the top. “Not for him. For me.” He threw back his head and swallowed the contents in one long gulp.
“Uh. Yeah.” Mason took back the empty bottle when he handed it to her. “Okay …”
She shone the flashlight back at Calum. The telltale threads of blood poisoning seemed to be fading, even as Mason stood there looking at him. The bleeding had mostly stopped, too. Toby had folded Cal’s torn shirt into a square and beckoned Heather over to hold it against his chest. Before she did that, she stripped out of her fencing jacket, took off the tank top she wore underneath it—defiantly daring them with her gaze to stare at her in her bra—and shrugged back into her jacket. She used the thin material of the tank to press gently to the wounds on Cal’s face.
Mason looked over at the Fennrys Wolf. “Is he …”
“He’ll be fine, eventually. I think. Maybe not as pretty as he once was.” He staggered a few steps past Mason and stopped, bracing himself against the wall. He was almost as gray as the concrete bricks that supported him. He wiped a sleeve over his haggard face. “But then … who of us is?”
IV
Mason felt odd. She wasn’t freaking out about being trapped in a cellar, and that just didn’t seem right to her. They’d been down there for almost half an hour now, sharing the darkness in an uneasy silence ever since the Fennrys Wolf had done … whatever to Cal.
Now Mason stood behind a shelf stacked with old practice archery targets, just out of Toby’s line of sight, and listened. Heather was sitting with Cal’s head in her lap and appeared to be dozing. Cal was still unconscious. Rory had retreated to the very back of the storage cellar and was huddled against a stone wall. He was acting like a sulky kid, and considering the circumstances, it made Mason want to punch him. More than usual. Toby had drawn Fennrys away from the others to speak with him in private, but Mason’s burning curiosity got the better of her and she crept silently closer to hear what they were saying.
“Look … Mr. Wolf, is it?” The fencing master’s rumble of a voice carried over to where Mason stood, partially hidden behind a wire shelving unit, even though he was obviously trying to be quiet.
“No,” Fennrys said. “It’s not. It’s just … I don’t know.” From where she stood hidden, Mason saw him shrug his broad shoulders. “Just call me Fennrys.”
“Okay. It’s … an interesting name. How do you spell that?”
“F-e-n-n-r-y-s,” he said flatly. “I think.”
Toby took a deep breath, and although she couldn’t see his face, Mason could picture him tugging on his goatee, trying to figure out the best way of saying what was on his mind. “All right then. Fennrys. My name’s Toby Fortier. And I’d like a few answers.”
“I don’t have any to give you.”
“So you said.”
“It’s true.”
“All right.” Toby huffed and shifted his bulk restlessly. “Look … it’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done here. I mean, I’m grateful. These kids are my responsibility and, well … that’s just it.” Toby’s tone was carefully neutral, but even Mason could tell what he meant by that.
“Right.” Fennrys laughed a little—not a happy sound. “I get it. They’re your responsibility. And you don’t trust me not to harm them any more than you trust whatever it is that attacked you outside.”
“Not exactly. I’d much rather have them in here with you than out there with … whatever the hell they were.”
Toby took a step toward Fennrys. His shadow wavered on the wall, a huge dark shape, and his boots crunched on grit on the floor.
“But I’m a fighting man,” he continued. “And I saw what you did out there.”
“Did you.”
Toby got really quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Yeah. I did.”
“And what, exactly, did I do, Mr. Fortier?” Fennrys’s voice was strangely flat and tight. As if Toby’s words were making him angry, but he was trying hard to leash that anger in. “Beside save all of you?”
“Yo
“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Fennrys said, offering nothing.
Toby grunted, and even though she couldn’t see him, Mason imagined him crossing his arms over his barrel chest and pegging Fennrys with one of his laser stares. “I’ve made my living training people in the martial arts. I know how to handle myself with swords, small arms, advanced hand-to-hand combat … I’ve got buddies who are Navy SEALs.”
That’s a lie, Mason thought, frowning. Toby didn’t just have Navy SEAL buddies. Toby was a SEAL. Ex, maybe. But he was the real deal. She’d heard her father talking about it one day to his butler, just after Toby had been hired at the school.
“Guess you’re a regular expert there, Mr. Fortier,” Fennrys said.
“I’m enough of one,” Toby answered, ignoring the baiting, “to know that you could probably tear the hide off some of my friends without breaking much of a sweat.”
“I don’t pick fights with the fairer sex, sir,” Fennrys said drily.
Mason had to cover her mouth to keep from snorting with laughter.
“Son …” Toby sighed in frustration. “You’re not even old enough to have developed those skill sets.”
Through the wire shelving, Mason saw Fennrys’s eyes grow dark with confusion at the mention of his age. From what she could tell, Toby was right. The strange young man wasn’t much older than she was. Nineteen, maybe? Twenty at the most. With a body that looked as though he’d spent every single one of those years in serious training.
Fennrys swallowed and remained silent.
“I also noticed those marks,” Toby said, dropping his voice even further. “The ones on your wrists and ankles …”
Mason had noticed them too. Bands of bruising and abrasions, layers of them—new welts on top of old scabbing—as though he’d been kept in restraints for a long time.