The massive Rockefeller Center Christmas tree towered over the ice rink, where the last skaters of the night glided arm in arm in lazy circles as the clock ticked toward midnight. The tree had grown for nearly a hundred years before men cut it down. Now particolored lights obscured its majestic boughs, and a heavy crystal star augmented its natural ninety-foot height. Selene turned her back on it and stared instead at the plaza’s iconic central skyscraper, its soaring sides illuminated by floodlights against the night sky.
Flint looked up from his tablet in confusion. “The tracking device says Martin’s up there somewhere.”
“But where?” Philippe begged. “Hurry, Papa. It’s almost midnight. What better time to commit a ritual murder?”
“I bet I know where he is,” Selene said, a cold knot of dread settling in her stomach. “The Saturday Night Live studios, where Orion’s cult murdered that young actress on live TV. Check the eighth floor.” If they’d already taken Martin to such a public location, then there was no time to waste. It had taken them too long to get off the island, too long to find a place to dock the boat on the East Side, too long to make their way to Rockefeller Center.
But Flint shook his head. “Martin sure as hell isn’t that close.” His eyes traveled upward, from the building’s main entrance all the way to its roof, nearly seventy floors above. “What’s at the top?”
“The Rainbow Room,” Paul answered. “I’ve performed there. Super classy spot with an amazing view. Used mostly for private events.”
“Sounds perfect.” Selene’s pulse quickened. “No one to disturb the ritual.”
Dash hummed thoughtfully. “As a frequent invitee to the city’s most exclusive soirees, I happen to know you can’t get to the Rainbow Room without taking a special elevator that’s only activated by an employee, and the place is crawling with guards. No way we’re getting anywhere without taking a few of them down.”
Selene grabbed him, not bothering to be gentle. “No more innocent mortals will die tonight, got that? These are my people, I will—”
She stopped talking when a woman’s shriek cut the air. She spun toward the skating rink. A brawl had broken out in the center of the ice: One man lay on the ground, a silent bloody heap. Another stood above him, pinning his wrists to the ground with the blades of his skates while a woman screamed and tried to yank him backward. On the other side of the rink, two teenagers held an older man by the elbows while their friend threw punches at his face. Three small children lay on the ice in a scrum, their parents trying in vain to pull them apart while yelling threats at one another. Security guards rushed onto the rink, made clumsy by the ice. An attendant in skates glided across more easily, but he was too scrawny to stop the violence. Selene stood, momentarily frozen in confused horror, before an NBC cameraman nearly bowled her over as he rushed to the edge of the rink, a well-coiffed man with a microphone on his heels. She heard the distant wail of police sirens, growing louder every moment.
She turned back to the skyscraper, her heart pounding against her ribs. The sudden convulsion of violence could have only one cause.
Without a word, she ran toward the entrance, trusting that her brothers would follow her. As they pushed through the revolving doors, the security personnel rushed toward the brawl, leaving the express elevator momentarily unguarded. The Athanatoi crowded in together, staring in silence as the numbers of the floors flashed by. They knew they were too late to save Mars. They could only hope they’d arrive in time to bring his killers to justice.
Selene knew there’d be cameras in the elevator. She couldn’t risk taking out her bow, but the desire to arm herself was like a physical ache. Finally, the doors opened onto a shiny black hallway. A short set of stairs led to closed double doors—the Rainbow Room’s main entrance. Paul pointed to a smaller unmarked door nearby. “That leads to the musicians’ green room,” he whispered. “It lets out onto a balcony that looks over the ballroom.”
“Paul and I will go in from the balcony,” Selene said quietly to the others as she assembled her bow. “Dash, you stay here and stop anyone trying to escape. Philippe and Flint, you take the main entrance.”
She opened the door to the green room with her bow at the ready. She caught sight of herself in the wide mirror. Salt caked her skin and hair, turning the black strands gray and accentuating every crease in her face. For the first time in her long life, she looked like an old woman. She gripped her bow a little harder and hurried out onto the balcony.
The room stood empty. Below them lay a gleaming circular dance floor surrounded by soft silver carpet. Chandeliers dripped from the ceiling. Ribbons of crystal prisms hung in each massive window, but they did nothing to obscure the view. Manhattan flared brilliantly on three sides—the Empire State Building to the south, the Chrysler Building to the east, Central Park to the north. Selene’s gaze took it all in in a heartbeat. Only then did she look directly beneath the balcony. From the room’s main entrance, Philippe cried out at the same moment.
The God of Bloodlust lay sprawled naked on a banquet table, a pair of ram’s horns strapped to his head and a great gaping hole where his heart should be.
Philippe stumbled forward and stood trembling beside his father’s body. Selene raced down the stairs to the dance floor, Paul at her heels. Flint just stood frozen in the doorway, staring at his brother.
Selene sprinted a circuit of the room, darted into the kitchen, and back out into the corridor, scouring every inch of the sixty-fifth floor before returning to the ballroom.
“No one here,” she reported to the others. “They must have left immediately after they killed him. There’s got to be evidence here that’ll help us track them, but I’d need a full forensic kit to pick it all up. Which means we need to call in an anonymous tip to the cops. We can’t stay.”
Dash looked pointedly at Philippe, who had laid his hands on his father’s chest, as if to will him back to life. He wasn’t crying, Selene saw, just shaking so violently that he could barely stand. Flint hobbled into the room and took his stepson in his arms. In his strong grasp, Philippe finally stilled.
“I didn’t even know him,” he murmured into the Smith’s broad shoulder. “What Paul said about my father finally understanding the horror of what he’d done … I thought maybe Love and War could finally reconcile.”
Selene spoke to the others with quiet urgency. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.” Dash stood with his eyes glued on the body, all merriment gone, but she could tell he heard her. Paul, on the other hand, had sunk into the nearest chair, his gaze fixed on the tall window, staring at his own reflection in the glass.
“When Detective Freeman calls me about the crime, I’ll get back in,” Selene went on, “but I want to make sure there’s no evidence that will lead back to us.” Dash nodded, donned a pair of gloves from his jacket pocket, and began to pick Philippe’s stray hairs off the body. Mars’s eyes were open and staring. A bright, crystalline gray. Not unlike mine, Selene realized with a start. She wanted to close them for him, but dared not.
“We should take Mars with us,” Flint said, still holding Philippe. “To give him the proper rites.”
“We can’t,” Selene said. “We’d never get out of here without being seen if we’re hauling a body. And we need the cops to run tests to help us figure out who these killers are. If they’re mortals, the police are our best bet to help track them down.”
Once Hansen and her team arrived, Selene wouldn’t be allowed this close to the body itself. She did her own quick examination. The wound in his chest had been carved with a sharp blade—maybe Mars’s own spear. Only a divine weapon would have killed him so easily. His heart had been completely removed—all the arteries neatly severed. Blood had pooled out of the wound and flowed down his muscled rib cage like a curtain to soak the covering beneath. Not a tablecloth, she saw now, but a sheepskin. The ram’s horns on his head made him look more monster than man.
She turned to the rest of the scene. Seven chairs had been placed along one side of the table, facing out across the room as if to take in the view. Crystal goblets stood at each setting, filled with water. An entire bowl of honeycomb sat in the center, crystalline and gleaming in its golden puddle. And on each plate, smears of fresh blood and scraps of raw meat. She bent close to sniff at it, terrified of what she might find, but it was only lamb’s flesh, not a man’s. Certainly not a god’s.
She turned back to the body. From the red glisten of the hole in his chest, she could tell he’d died only minutes ago—just before the outbreak of violence on the skating rink.
Flint was reading from his phone. “There were riots and brawls all over Midtown. At least a dozen killed. Ripple effects from Mars’s death. But now …” His voice trailed off and he looked up, meeting Selene’s eyes. “They’ve already stopped. As if all the bloodlust and rage were simply a nightmare to be woken from.”
No one said anything, but Selene knew what they were thinking. There was something pitiful in the ease with which mankind recovered from the death of a god. His murder unleashed a brief paroxysm of power, stronger than anything he’d wielded for a thousand years, and then … he was simply gone.
If I die, Selene wondered as she brushed their prints off the balcony railing and doorknobs, will the world remember me for even that long?