Free Transcendent by Lesley Livingston

tornado of black, oily-feathered wings, with wildly tangled hair andgnarled feet ending in talons, the creature uttered an ear-splitting screech as it clutched at the empty space where Mason had been standing only a moment before.
    Madly flapping its wings, the monstrous thing launched itself into the air again, generating gusts of rancid air. Mason and the others choked on the stench, reeling back. Roth threw an arm over his face and Cal retched violently. The creature landed on the statue of Prometheus, and perched there on the golden ball of fire in the statue’s hand like an overgrown mutant vulture. It glared down at Mason and her companions, black bloodshot eyes staring out of the face of an old woman, only twisted and stretched over bones too sharply angled with a protruding nose that was long and beaky. Mason saw that, beneath the huge, ratty wings, the creature’s body was a horrifying hybrid of bird and human, with scrawny arms and legs that sprouted feathers in places. The thing’s bony torso was covered in a tattered and filthy tunic that appeared to be stained with blood.
    â€œWow,” Mason heard Heather mutter nervously. “Midtown’s starting to look like one big Halloween party.”
    â€œHarpy,” Toby grunted.
    â€œThanks, Toby,” she said. “I never would have guessed . . .”
    Mason put a hand on the hilt of her sword, loosening it in its sheath, but she didn’t draw it. The thought of cloaking herself in her Valkyrie raiment again was terrifying to Mason. Even if, deep down, it was also just the tiniest bit thrilling.
    â€œDial it down, Starling.” Toby rolled a warning eye at her and then at Fennrys, who had begun to growl low in the backof his throat. “Let’s keep the ravens and wolves out of it for now, yeah? If you’ve gotta fight, fight human.”
    â€œRight. Yeah.” She glanced at Fennrys. He nodded, and she took her hand off her weapon.
    â€œGood,” Toby said and took a step forward, putting himself in between Mason and the Harpy. “Aello,” he greeted the creature, a note of wary politeness in his voice. “Long time no see.”
    Again, Mason found herself blinking in surprise where Toby was concerned. She exchanged a glance with Heather and could see she was feeling the same way.
    â€œWhere?” Aello croaked at the fencing master in a voice like ground glass and thumbtacks. “Where is the broken soul? We claim her essence. The suicides are ours—mine and my sisters’.”
    â€œGwen wasn’t a suicide.” Roth stepped forward, his voice cracking on the word. “She was a sacrifice.”
    â€œQuibble, mortal,” Aello hawked and spat into the fountain pool beneath her. “We claim her.”
    Roth’s fists clenched, but Aello had already turned from him and was scanning the faces of the others standing there in a tense knot. Her rheumy gaze sharpened when she spotted Rafe.
    â€œAh. You . . . ,” Aello croaked at the ancient Egyptian god. Then she turned back to address Toby, her head tilting birdlike in Rafe’s direction. “Did the death dog take away the broken soul? It is not his to claim. We will have it back.”
    â€œIf I’d been of a mind to claim her soul, vulture, there wouldn’t be a damned thing on this Earth you could do to stop me,” Rafe snarled back. But then Mason saw him take a breath to calm himself. He rolled a shoulder and tugged the sleeve of his jacket straight. “But it just so happens that I didn’t.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Not my fault somebody else in this town was more on the ball than you three pestilential feather dusters. That must sting, yeah? Losing out on claiming a powerhouse essence like that . . . I imagine that little haruspex would have kept you three fed and watered for an age or two.”
    Mason remembered from her Gosforth myth classes that the Harpies