Starling (5 page)

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?”

M
ason 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?”

“You did, at that. What I’d really like to know is how.”

“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.

“Are you in some kind of trouble, Fennrys?” Toby asked. “Running from something, maybe?”

Fennrys uttered a shaky laugh. “When I figure that out for myself, Mr. Fortier, I’ll let you know. Listen. Why don’t you go back there and ride herd on your flock, okay? I’ll stay over here by the door. Out of the way. I won’t bother you. I won’t bother them. I think you’ll agree that going back out into that storm isn’t an option—even if the draugr are gone. We should wait until sunrise to be sure.”

“Wait. What did you call them?”

“Sorry?”

“You gave those things out there a name.”

“I …”

Mason leaned forward, peering intently through the metal grating of the shelf.
There’s that look again
, she thought. The one that made this Fennrys guy seem as though the things that came out of his mouth were as much of a surprise to
him
as to whomever he was speaking to.

“Draugr,” he said again, rolling the word over his tongue as if trying to identify its taste. “You’re right. I did.” His gaze flicked back up to Toby’s face, but his blue eyes were hard, cold. He put up a hand, forestalling Toby’s next question. “Don’t ask. I don’t
know
how I know. I don’t
remember
.”

Toby was silent for a moment, and then he said, “But you know that they’ll be gone at sunup.”

“I
don’t
know that.” Fennrys shook his head.

“But you just said they would. You said—”

“I
said
I thought it would be safer if we waited.” Fennrys ran a hand through the dark blond hair that stood up in tousled spikes from his head. He looked both very young and immeasurably old in that moment.

“And?”

“And it will.” Fennrys offered Toby a weary grin. “Things always appear different with the coming of the light, Mr. Fortier. Sometimes darkness is better, but I don’t think that’s the case here.”

Mason was a little surprised that Toby didn’t just grab this guy by the front of his borrowed sweatshirt and shake him until some answers fell out. But he didn’t. He just stood there.

And Fennrys stood facing him.

It was like some kind of super-tense Mexican standoff, except neither of them had a weapon pointed at the other. Mason held her breath. Just then, something seemed to spark in Fennrys’s gaze—a thought, or maybe a memory—and his hand drifted slowly toward the iron medallion at his throat, as though pulled upward by an invisible puppet string.

“I think we could all use some rest, Toby,” Fennrys said after a moment, and there was a quality to his voice that was … strange. Almost hollow, like an echo. “Don’t you?”

Mason shook her head. There was a sudden, subtle pressure in her ears, like she was on an airplane taking off and needed to pop them. She looked back at Fennrys and realized with a start that his eyes were now fixed on her. She felt her breath stop in her throat.

“We could
all
use some rest,” Fennrys said again. “Couldn’t we?”

Mason felt a strange tingling near the base of her skull. Fennrys’s words echoed even more strangely. Mason heard Toby yawn. He mumbled an agreement, and she heard him start to head in her direction, his footsteps heavy and shuffling. Mason turned and stumbled back to where the others huddled in the darkness. Her eyes were so heavy by the time she got there that she was almost asleep on her feet. Heather and Rory were already out—Heather was snoring softly and Rory’s head was tipped back, his mouth wide-open. Mason sank to the floor beside Calum’s outstretched form, dimly aware of her relief at realizing he was breathing deeply, normally. He was sound asleep.

And then … she was, too.

T
he boots were a size too big and, without socks, they chafed at his ankle bones, but it was going to be better than walking the city streets barefoot. Fennrys straightened up from tying the bootlaces tight, stretched, and rolled his shoulders. His sword shifted on his back, concealed in a canvas bag designed to hold fencing gear. Fennrys had found it on a shelf and decided to borrow it along with the boots he now wore. In the glow of the dying flashlight, he gazed down the row of sleeping bodies. The girl with the dark hair and startlingly blue eyes was curled on her side, still deeply asleep.

Fennrys had allowed himself to indulge in a few much-needed hours’ worth of sleep as well, but it was now time for him to go. Past time. Before he did, though, he knelt beside the handsome student who’d almost gotten himself killed during the fight with the draugr and carefully turned his head to the side. The kid—
he’s not a kid any more than you are, pal,
said a voice in his head;
you’re probably the same damn age
—was pale, his breathing fairly regular but shallow. Fennrys ran a fingertip lightly over the livid marks on the boy’s face. The bleeding had stopped, but the angry, purplish lines that had begun to fade were starting to reappear under the skin and his flesh was still warm to the touch. Too warm.

“Damn … ,” Fennrys murmured to himself. The poison of the draugr’s claws was stubborn and strong. Fennrys hesitated for a moment, then reached up and worked loose the knot of the leather cord that held the iron medallion around his throat. It took awhile, as though the knot hadn’t been undone in a very long time—but when it finally came loose, he tied the medallion around the injured boy’s wrist. Pressing his fingers to the symbols inscribed on the metal surface of the disk, Fennrys felt it pulse gently, with a cool, cleansing energy. Satisfied that he’d done what he could, he stood and looked down.

The kid stirred in his sleep, and then settled with a sigh. He would probably carry the scars for the rest of his life, but at least Fennrys had seen to it that his life didn’t end there on the floor of the storage cellar. He felt a twinge of regret as he stared down at the ruin of the young man’s handsome face.

Big deal. What are a few scars?

What indeed? When he’d dressed in the borrowed sweats that the girl had given him, Fennrys had noticed that he himself carried more than a few—a
lot
more than a few—on his limbs and torso. Where did he get that kind of collection? Why had he been naked? In the midst of his confusion, he half smiled to himself when he remembered the vibrant pink flush of the girl’s pretty face when she’d glanced at him in his altogether state. Not the other one—the gorgeous blonde was used to the contours of the male body. Or at least she made a really good show of pretending she was.

But the dark-haired girl had been sweet. Kind of shy, but brave enough to approach him when the others had hung back. Strong and swift enough to handle herself in a fight. She reminded him of … of what? Who? No one he could remember.

His mind was a total blank.

Well, maybe not a
total
blank. He
could
remember darkness … the feeling of cold stone against his bare, shivering flesh. Damp. And a stench like wet earth and rot. A voice. And then light—so bright that he flinched and closed his eyes even at the mere memory of that brilliance. It hurt his mind to think of it.