Descendant

“What about it?” Heather walked forward and peered at the top of the granite slab. It was decorated with a carving of a horse’s head—only with snakes in place of a mane—and it was surrounded by a circle of wheat sheaves and poppies.

“This isn’t just a standard meeting of Daria’s Eleusinians.” Gwen pointed at the stone. “It’s a dedication to Demeter Aganippe. Also called the Night-Mare. Also known as She Who Destroys Mercifully.”

“Destruction and mercy?”

Gwen grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back inside, her voice cracking with panic as she said, “We have to get out of here! Now!”

“But what about Roth?” Heather asked, running to keep up with the other girl as she headed back toward the elevators.

Gwen didn’t answer her, and Heather almost knocked her over when Gwen screeched to an abrupt halt in the elevator lobby and stood, staring up at the glass observation window of a room two floors up that overlooked the Weather Room. It was called the Breezeway, and under normal circumstances, it housed a cool interactive- display art installation—a computerized lightshow—one of the tourist attractions at the Top of the Rock. But in that moment, it looked more like a nightmarish crystal prison. All the lights in the room cycled to red, silhouetting the figure of Roth Starling—who was pressed up against the window glass above them, his limbs spread-eagled and his eyes wide . . . vacant.

His mouth was open in a silent scream.

“Roth . . . ,” Gwen whispered, frozen where she stood. “What have they done to you?”

Heather grabbed Gwen by the arm and yanked her away, dragging her toward the nearest elevator. She stabbed wildly at the call button, but it didn’t light up. She couldn’t hear any indication of the elevator motor working to lift the cabs. The only sound was that of Roth’s hands clawing at the glass wall above them. . . .

Heather spun around in panic, just as fifteen or twenty figures—men and women dressed in long, white, hooded robes—came gliding around a marble corner on silent feet to surround Heather and Gwen in a circle. The women each held a silver sickle blade in one hand, and they looked like they would use them without hesitation, if the girls decided to make a run for it. Heather made a grab for her purse, where she’d concealed the little crossbow, but one of the women snatched the bag from her shoulder and threw it the length of the elevator corridor, out of reach. Not that Heather even knew what she would have done with it. Two bolts against a room full of crazies . . .

Daria Aristarchos’s dark eyes flashed coldly at Heather as she stepped forward and pushed her hood back from her face.

“This is unexpected,” she said. “I didn’t think Gwendolyn would bring along a guest, but I suppose it’s only fitting. Since you loved him, you can stand witness to the consequences of my son’s death.” She turned back to Gwen. “While you . . . will help me protect this city from that madman, Gunnar Starling, whose son is proving himself to be so very useful to me. And such a perfect, tempting lure to draw you here.”

“I won’t do it!” Gwen struggled against the hands of the devotees who held her. “If you hurt Roth or Heather, I won’t read the future for you anymore—I swear!”

She winced as Daria grabbed her by the face and forced Gwen to look her in the eyes. “I don’t want you to just see the future anymore, Gwendolyn,” she snapped. “I want you to create it. Together we will call the Miasma down upon Manhattan.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Gwen said through clenched teeth.

Daria smiled coldly. “You are so much more than a haruspex, I’ve always known that. You are a conduit. A sorceress, more powerful than even ancient Circe or Medea. Use your gifts to call down the Miasma—the kin-killer curse—and ring this island with a Sleeper’s Fog. Then I will sow the dragon’s teeth and keep our people safe.”

Heather cried out a warning, but there was nothing she could do as one of the robed women stepped up beside Gwen and put a hypodermic needle to the side of her neck. Gwen shrieked in terror as the woman jabbed the thing into her flesh, pushing the plunger on a syringe filled with a faintly gleaming, silver-gray liquid.

The screams stuck in her throat and Gwen’s expression went slack, her pupils dilating until her eyes looked black. Heather felt hot tears of frustration and despair welling up in her eyes as Daria smiled with grim triumph, and overhead, in his glass cell, Roth Starling cried out like a lost, damned soul.

XX

The first thing Fennrys noticed once he regained consciousness was the sharp pain in his head. The second, that there was too much room in the boat. Someone was missing—

“Mason!” Fennrys shot to his feet, and the Zodiac rocked wildly as he lurched toward the empty space. “What happened? Where is she?”

“She went over!” Toby was leaning over the side, one hand thrust into the murky water almost up to his shoulder. “Mase! Mason! . . . Shit! I can’t feel anything!” He hissed sharply in pain and jerked back from the water. His arm, dripping wet, was scored with three long, shallow gashes and the sleeve of his jacket was shredded.

“Move!” Fennrys shoved past the fencing coach, intending to launch himself into a dive—only to be tackled to the floor of the boat by Rafe. “Get the hell off—”

“Stop!” The god put a knee on Fenn’s chest to pin him down. “You can’t help her dead. The Nereids are like piranhas. They’ll strip the meat off your bones before you even have a chance to drown.”

“But Mase is—”

“Stop,” Rafe said again.

There was an echo of power in his voice that hit Fennrys like a shock wave. The Jackal God’s dark eyes flashed, and he released Fennrys so he could sit up in the boat. Rafe’s gaze went out over the water that still frothed white from where the sea bull had almost capsized them.

Rafe lifted his hand, as if he felt something in the air. “There’s something . . .”

Stillness descended like a shroud. Even Fennrys, near panic-blind desperate to find Mason and save her, sensed it. And—whatever it was—it stopped him cold.

“Something . . .”

Fennrys and Toby moved to flank Rafe as he stared out over the river.

“Here.”

Beneath the black-glass mirror of the water, Fennrys saw lights. Flickering, shifting, cycling through blues and greens and purples. Shapes moved. Shadows . . . and then something shot to the surface from deep in the water, and a head broke the surface.

Calum Aristarchos.

And he was carrying Mason, cradled in his arms.

The two of them rose out of the water, lifted on the back of one of the Nereids’ fantastical creatures—a cloud-silver water-horse—and Fennrys couldn’t help but notice that Cal sat astride the animal as easily as he had a Harley-Davidson. He looked born to it. Majestic. Different . . .

Fennrys heard the breath whistle from between Toby’s clenched teeth.

“I really wasn’t expecting that,” the fencing master said of his erstwhile student.

Cal’s face was serene, the golden-brown hair swept back from his brow and dripping water onto his bare chest and shoulders. All he wore was a pair of jeans, and Fennrys saw that there was a bandage wrapped around his ribs and another one circling his left forearm. A fading rawness marked the skin on one side of his forehead— the same side as where the terrible damage to the motorcycle helmet had been. The other side of his face was still seamed with the scars left behind by that first encounter with the draugr. The claw marks showed bone white on his tanned flesh. But he still managed somehow to look . . . princely.

The heads of a handful of the mer-girls that had attacked the Zodiac popped up above the waterline, and