Descendant by Lesley Livingston

a little flashier, what with being a god an’ all. . . .”
    “I try to fly under the radar and remain stylish all at the same time.” Rafe cranked the wheel of the vintage Jaguar, narrowly avoiding a police car that drifted across two lanes of Columbus Avenue traffic so it could slow to a stop curbside just above West Sixtieth Street. The tires screamed, and Rafe flung an obscene gesture out the window at the cops.
    “And I’d rather not get arrested on the way to hell,” Fennrys muttered grimly, trying not to clutch too obviously at the door handle as the car’s momentum slung him from one side of the backseat to the other.
    “Relax. There’s not a cop car in existence that could catch me, and those flatfoots didn’t even see us go past.” He grinned rakishly.
    Fennrys stifled his impatience as best he could and followed Maddox’s lead, reaching for his own seatbelt. He needed Rafe. And he needed Madd, although he was reluctant to drag the other Janus Guard into a situation that had nothing to do with his gate-guarding duties. Not that it would have made much difference. Back in the Obelisk, once the tremors had stopped and power had flickered back on and everything had returned to normal—with the help of a free round of drinks on the house, courtesy of Rafe—Fennrys had reiterated his intention to find Mason. And Maddox had offered to ride shotgun on the venture and then preempted any objection Fenn might have made by saying that if Manhattan sank into the Atlantic as a result of whatever the hell was going on with Mason Starling, then guarding a gate in the middle of it became something of a moot point. So wherever Fennrys had in mind to go rescue his girl, Maddox was going to help him get there.
    End of discussion.
    Fennrys had wisely shut up, and just accepted thebackup he knew he’d probably need anyway once they got to where they were going. Wherever that was. He hadn’t had a clue. For that, he’d needed Rafe.
    “Relax,” the ancient god said, glancing over to look at his two passengers as he cornered so sharply the Jag was almost riding on two wheels. “You’re gonna need to be nice and loose once we get to the library.”
    “The what?”
    “New York Public Library. Main branch on Forty-Second Street.”
    Fennrys huffed in frustration and ran a hand through his hair. “I thought you said you knew where we were going.”
    “I do.”
    “They why do you need a bunch of books?”
    “I don’t.” Rafe leaned on the horn as they passed a city bus. “We don’t have a Bifrost anymore, so the direct approach is out of the question. The rift on North Brother Island is unstable on the other end—no telling where it’ll come out—so that’s not an option. We’re going to need to take the scenic route into Valhalla.”
    “And how do we do that?”
    “The borders between the Beyond Realms are blurring—have been for ages now—and in places they overlap. That’s how you were able to get out of Asgard in the first place. Through a back door from Helheim into Hades, and out across the River Lethe.”
    Fennrys shuddered, remembering the dark woman who’d led him to the banks of that river. The river that had then stolen his memories—up until the moment when the ghost of a dead Janus Guard nicknamed, appropriately enough, “Ghost” had helped restore them. Painfully.
    “Personally,” Rafe continued, “I’m not willing to risk catastrophic amnesia—and I sincerely doubt you want to go through that again. We need another way, another underworld. My underworld.”
    “Which is?” Maddox asked.
    “At the library,” Rafe grunted. When Fennrys and Maddox exchanged a confused glance, the ancient god sighed. “Oh, come on. You’re Janus Guards, aren’t you? And you’ve both been kicking around this town long enough to know that it’s nothing but layers built on top of other layers.”
    Rafe’s black eyes glittered, reflecting back at Fennrys from the car’s rearview mirror. Okay,