Descendant

even more apparent. They hacked and slashed away at each other, but it was without individual flourishes of technique. It reminded her of the draugr. They fought like zombies.

Mason thought of her bouts with Fennrys—the kind of fighting where every blow, every block, attack and riposte and feint, felt like a move in an intricate, fiercely intimate dance—and felt sorry for the Einherjar. If this was their supposed reward for a life of service to the Aesir, the ultimate prize granted to the brave and the bold and the best . . . then they must not have read the fine print in the contract. They were all essentially robotic dummies, who were just going through the same motions they had been since the dawn of time—each face, each opponent, striped of its individuality . . . its humanity. Each death exactly the same. Because, beyond the different weapons and the different wounds, that’s what they were—the same.

All except for one of them.

As Mason and her mother passed, untouched, across the battlefield, winding their way between the combatants, Mason suddenly noticed a lone figure out of the corner of her eye that did not move the way all the other Einherjar did. She twisted her head to get a better glimpse between bodies . . .

. . . and was shocked to see Tag Overlea stumble out of the sea of warriors.

VII

Gunnar Starling pretty much confirmed Heather’s fears that—just like Taggert Overlea —she wasn’t going to leave his train alive. She’d watched enough crime dramas to know what it meant when his glance flicked first over Tag, where he lay stretched out on the floor, then over to where Heather still cowered in the corner.

“I’ll deal with my sons and find my daughter,” he said to Toby. “You clean this mess up.”

Toby nodded and stepped aside as Gunnar swept out of the car, and Heather felt her heart sink into her stomach. She was part of the “mess.” And there was really only one way to “clean” it up.

Rory trailed behind his father to the door, hesitating for a moment before stepping through. He cast a glance over his shoulder at Heather, his forehead knotted in a deep frown. He looked for a moment as if he wanted to say something to her. Apologize maybe? Try to explain? Stop what was about to happen to her? He did none of that, of course. Just stood there.

Heather took the opportunity to give Rory the finger.

He blinked at her, startled. Then his mouth twisted in a sneer and he shook his head, disappearing out the door in his father’s wake.

Toby stood for a long few moments, staring at the door that had just closed behind Rory and his boss. Even in the depth of her near-panic despair, Heather was still trying to wrap her head around what, exactly, Toby Fortier did for Gunnar Starling other than drive his train. But then there was no more time for her to give the matter further thought.

Toby’s head snapped around and he stared at Heather, every line of muscle in his fighter’s physique taut as steel cabling. Heather tried her best not to shrink away from his piercing stare, to little avail. She could feel the leather of the banquette creaking behind her as her shoulder blades pressed into it when Toby reached into a back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a switchblade. The blade was flat black, nonreflective, and looked military issue. It was also instantly apparent that Toby was an expert in its use. The way he spun it around in his hand as he approached Heather actually made her feel the tiniest bit better. Like whatever way he decided to dispatch her would be quick and—hopefully—relatively painless. She tried to keep her lip from quivering and stared defiantly up into his eyes.

She almost burst into tears when Toby didn’t slit her throat ear to ear.

Instead, the fencing master opened up his fist not holding the knife, revealing one of Gunnar’s acorns. With the point of the carbon-bladed knife, he hastily scratched a symbol into the gleaming golden surface and then held it up in front of Heather’s face.

“Take this,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the compartment door. “It’s marked with a protection rune. It should keep them from being able to find you while you’re in possession of it. At least, for a while. Don’t lose it.”

Heather reached out a shaky hand. Outside the train, they heard a car start up, the engine loud and echoing in the tunnel. Then the sound moved off into the distance, and all was deathly silent again.

“Keep your wits, Heather. I know you’ve got ’em,” Toby said, his eyes like burning coals in his head. “I can’t help you any further from here on—and I’m a dead man if he finds out about this.”

“Why are you doing this?” Heather asked.

He didn’t answer her. Just grabbed her shaking fingers and wrapped them tightly around the rune-inscribed gold acorn. “Listen to me: go back to Gosforth. The school is neutral ground, protected. They can’t touch you there. Be strong, be smart . . . and pray that someone finds a way to stop Gunnar Starling before it’s too late. Now go. Run like hell!”

She nodded. He didn’t need to tell her twice.

Blindly, instinctively, until the breath seared in her lungs and her pounding feet ached, Heather ran, heading west when she could, keeping her head down in the darkness and hoping she wasn’t being followed. When the stitch in her side made it impossible to keep running, Heather slowed to a stumbling jog and massaged the muscles over her ribs, glancing nervously over her shoulder every few seconds at the virtually empty street behind her. Eventually, blind panic ebbed and she stopped at an intersection to get her bearings. Twenty-Eighth Avenue and Thirty-First. Okay. She knew where she was now. If she turned south, in a few blocks she’d hit the aboveground station where the N train stopped. She’d taken it a couple of times with Cal when they’d come over to Queens for one reason or another when they’d been dating. The N train would get her back into Manhattan. In Manhattan she would be safe.

Heather wasn’t used to taking the subway, but she’d done it often enough that she knew her way around. She rifled through the pockets of her jeans and found a crumpled five-dollar bill—enough to get her a ticket card that would get her on the train. She had no idea where her cell phone was, and she hadn’t been carrying her wallet when she’d run to find Mason at the academy.

Up ahead in the darkness, she saw the elevated station platform floating above the street, and her heart started to flutter. She almost sprinted the last hundred yards and up the stairs. Her fingers shook as she stabbed at the touch-screen buttons on the ticket machine, and then she was through the turnstile, getting on a brightly lit, empty train car. She almost wept with relief when the train started to move. She slumped down onto a seat and slowly began to relax. For the first four stops, the train car remained unoccupied, and Heather closed her eyes and dropped her head wearily into her hands for a moment.

“Hi.”

Heather nearly jumped out of her skin. She lifted her head and turned a shaky attempt at her best withering glare on the stranger who sat opposite her, a slight grin curving his mouth.

“Sorry?” she said coldly.

It was just some teenage guy she didn’t know, but it still freaked her out. The last stop had been Queensboro Plaza, and Heather was positive that no one had gotten on the train. There wasn’t another stop until Lexington Avenue, once the train had crossed over the river into Manhattan.

“It’s a typical North American greeting,” the stranger said. “Hi.”

He wore a black leather jacket, faded jeans, and a pair of Ray-Bans, darker than the sky outside the train window, that completely hid his eyes.

“Right,” Heather muttered. “Whatever.”

Her fingers gripped the golden acorn tightly, and she found herself slightly reassured by the gentle, tingling warmth that seemed to emanate from it. Toby said the thing would protect her. She wondered if that applied to random strangers on trains. She turned away from the guy and stared determinedly at a poster on the wall of the train car. It advertised an upcoming heritage festival taking place in Queens.

The boy twisted his head, following Heather’s eye line, and waved a hand at the poster. “Ah, yon Lady of War, Wisdom, and the Home Arts,” he said, referring to a picture of Athena on the poster. “Frankly, I could never imagine the ol ’ girl donning a frilly apron and churning out a batch of muffins in the kitchen. Could you?”