I searched the area, but there was nobody else there.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Luke Seren’s dead.” I broke the news to everyone at dinner. We were gathered around a makeshift fire pit. Ambrose had managed to buy a couple of steaks and some vegetables and Talbot cooked over an open fire.
Rebecca gasped. “Nyx, what did you do?”
“Thanks a lot,” I told her. “I didn’t do anything. I left the room and when I came back, he was dead.”
Naomi was quiet. There were purple smudges under her eyes. She’d been the one to cut his thread of Fate. Even though she wasn’t the one who had killed him, it was hard on her. I hoped it didn’t get any easier. No wonder Morta had been as icy as a glacier by the time she’d died.
“Probably a wraith,” Doc said. “Or maybe he had some poison on hand just in case.”
“Either way, I didn’t get anything out of him before he died,” I said.
“You could try talking to him,” Talbot said. “You know, postlife conversation.”
“Maybe later,” I said. “I need to figure out the Fates’ secrets first.”
Rebecca turned to Claire. “You’re sure there’s no mention of it in the Book of Fates?”
“Mentions, yes,” she replied. “But nothing on how to activate its magic.”
Talbot and I exchanged glances. Naomi caught us and kicked both of us under the table.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“You know,” she said. “Quit with the conspiracy theories. It’s not in the book. You’re going to have to figure it out yourself.”
We’d just finished dinner, or supper, as Talbot liked to call it, when Doc made an announcement. “It’s time I went back to my life,” he said.
“You’re leaving? Before we defeat Hecate?” I asked.
“I can’t stay, Nyx.” His hands were shaking, so I didn’t press it. My father was deserting me. Again. The thought filled me with rage, but there was nothing I could do about it.
I held out my hand. “Good-bye, Doc.”
He clutched my hand tightly. “Why don’t you come with me? Hecate will kill your friends and family in front of you.”
That didn’t make her that different from the Fates. “I’m not going to leave,” I said. “I’d rather die with my friends than run.”
“She will burn the city to the ground,” he said grimly.
“I have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” I said.
“Hecate can’t be defeated,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve tried.”
“Try again,” I said. “Running is a cowardly thing to do.”
“I am a coward,” he replied.
“Stay and fight with us,” I said. The rest of the table went silent.
“I can’t,” he said. “But I can give you one last lesson before I go.” I couldn’t really blame my father for wanting to run. I’d spent a life doing it.
“I do want to know something,” I said. “Hecate killed Morta with my blood. Do you know anything about that?”
“You are the son of Hades, Nyx,” he said. “Your blood is powerful.”
He wasn’t telling me the whole truth. “Fine,” I said. “Teach me everything I can do one-handed.” The sarcasm in my voice was not lost upon my father.
“The first thing I can teach you is that bitterness doesn’t help.”
“Neither does fear,” I said. “You’re not bitter?”
He shook his head. “I have regrets,” he said. We excused ourselves and went to have a final father-son moment.
I cleared my throat. “Why can’t I summon my mother?” I asked Doc.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Maybe you’re afraid of the pain that comes from the loss of something you loved.”
“Can you see her?”
“Yes.” The sadness in his voice convinced me.
“What good are my powers if I can’t even talk to my mother?” I said. “Just once.”
“Maybe it will happen when you don’t expect it,” he said.
“Or maybe I’ll never see her again,” I replied.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “I want to show you something.”
“That one last thing before you go?” The sarcasm in my voice made him wince.
“This is the spell that Hecate used on me,” he said. “It’s called a Prometheus spell.”
“What does it do?”
“It sucks the soul right out of you,” he said. “And whoever you use it on is cursed to wander until he or she regains the lost soul.”
“Did you regain yours?”
“Yes,” he said. “But not without effort. And sacrifice.” Doc had been through a lot in his long life. No wonder he wanted to hang out in Asphodel and be left in peace.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because Hecate will try to use it on you. It’s what she used on Morta.”
“Using my blood?” The thought sickened me.
He nodded. “She used my own blood on me once. I want you to be able to defend yourself,” he replied.
We practiced the spell until Doc thought I had the hang of it. It left me wrung out and dazed.
“Does anything else work?” I said. “Say, Medusa’s mirror?”
“Medusa’s mirror has been lost for centuries,” he said. “But, yes, if you could find it, the mirror would work to deflect the spell. But since we don’t have it, this will have to suffice.”
I started to tell him that I had the mirror, but decided against it. I wanted to tell him a lot of things, including that I’d miss him, but it was no use. He’d already made up his mind to leave.
Afterward, he gave me a brief hug and disappeared.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I was trying to sleep, but not having any luck. I grabbed a flashlight and took the bead from its hiding place. I held it up to the light to examine it. Deci had loved fire. She’d been the one to guard Hecate’s Eye. Fire had to be the answer.
On occasions reserved for dark winter nights when we were cold and hungry, my mother had told me stories of wondrous creatures, magic, and ancient battles. One of her stories was about how the Byzantines had used something called Greek fire in naval battles. It burned even on water. The secret recipe had been lost through time, but I had a good idea where it might be. Deci had been the Custos: Everything she knew was in the Book of Fate. I was betting that she had known plenty about fire in all of its forms.
I slipped out of the Dead House and headed for Claire’s room. She had the Book of Fates, so if the secret to Greek fire was written down anywhere, it would be in that book.
She opened the door before I had the chance to knock.
“Expecting someone?”
“Not you, that’s for sure,” she replied. “What’s up?”
“I need you to look for something in the Book of Fates. Anything about Greek fire.”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now,” I said. At her look, I softened my tone. “It’s important, or I wouldn’t ask.”
She nodded. “Give me a few minutes.” I waited in the hallway and stared at the dragon.
I was half-asleep by the time Claire returned. “I found a list of ingredients,” she said. “But I’m not sure you want to use it.”
“Why not?”
“It could blow this entire base sky-high,” she said. She handed me a scrap of paper with a list scribbled on it.
“I’ll have to take that chance,” I said.
“I don’t know where you’ll find the scale of a dragon,” she said.
“I do.” There’d been one in the display case at Eternity Road for ages, just gathering dust.
I scanned the list, which included a few more prosaic items, such as quicklime.
I waited until first light before heading to Eternity Road. I had no doubt that Hecate had a few of her demon goons stationed there just in case I showed up.
I took the Caddy, which was loa
ded with enough wards to stop a tank. I parked a few blocks from the store and observed Eternity Road from a nearby building. Someone had spray-painted a pro-Hecate slogan across it as well as Tria Prima symbols. The windows had been broken during the storm, so it was possible that anything worth taking had already been stolen.
It made me angry to see Eternity Road in such bad shape.
I finally made my move. The two drunken homeless guys pretending to be passed out on the sidewalk were really demons, but I wasn’t worried about them. I was worried that someone had already beaten me to the dragon’s scale.
I didn’t want to fight them, not unless I had to, so I tried an obscura spell. It might work to conceal my identity if they were low-juice demons without a lot of powers. Or stupid. I was hoping for both.
I got lucky. The demons didn’t notice me, or if they did, they saw me as just another looter. I slipped inside the store without incident.
It made me sick as I looked at the devastation. Everything worth taking, at least in most people’s eyes, had been stolen, the display cases smashed, but the enormous stuffed bear lay in one corner.
Ambrose had managed to take several of the more valuable magical items, but there was one display case no one had touched. It had been heavily warded, so the casual observer would see mostly junk.
Still, judging from the scratches on the lock, someone had tried to break into it. The dragon scale was still there, tucked away in a corner, forgotten.
In my haste to obtain the scale, I touched the display case lock without first removing the ward. The protective spell propelled me backward and I slammed into the opposite wall.
“Damn it!” I swore. After I picked myself up, I tried again. This time I remembered to remove the ward before I unlocked the case.
The dragon scale glittered in my hand.
“What you got there?” a gravelly voice asked.
I turned and faced the demon. “None of your business.”
“Look who we have here,” he said. “Nyx Fortuna himself.”
He knew who I was, which meant I had about thirty seconds before he tried to kill me. It was harder to fight with one hand. I slid the dragon scale into my pocket, and then grabbed my athame. My throwing skills weren’t as good with my other hand, but I wasn’t my mother’s son if I couldn’t take on a demon or two, even missing an arm.
I threw my athame and it hit the demon, but it was a sloppy throw. Instead of a dead shot, it wounded him enough that he was just pissed off instead of permanently disabled. He pulled the knife from his side like it was a sliver and held it up. Black demon blood dripped from the blade.
Two of his friends appeared behind him. I scanned the display case, looking for anything to even up the odds.
They were almost upon me. I grabbed as many amulets as I could carry and muttered a quick concealment spell.
It seemed like nothing happened. I held my breath. “Now would be a good time to work,” I muttered.
“Where’d he go?” one of the demons asked.
“Shut up,” the one I wounded replied. “He’s a frickin’ necromancer. They’re tricky.”
I didn’t bother correcting him. Instead, I slid my athame from his grasp and ran. I was usually up for a fight, any fight, but my newfound mortality had left me feeling strangely vulnerable. And I had work to do.
I mixed the Greek fire at the empty officer’s quarters. It was farthest from the others, and if I set myself on fire, there was a good chance nobody else would get hurt. There was an unused fireplace there. I gathered logs and started a fire, then gave it a little magical goose to bring it to a roaring blaze.
There were still faded curtains hanging in the living room. I hoped they would block the glow of the fire from any curious passersby.
I dug it out of my pocket and held it up to the light. The little red bead on a chain was the source of Hecate’s power. If I could tap into it, I could defeat her.
“Release the power within,” I said.
I tossed the bead into the flames, but at first, nothing happened. There was a loud crack as the fire heated the bead. It glowed, first red, then blue, and finally silver before it turned black.
The spell was quenched. I fished the bead from the fire with a pair of tongs. The bead hissed as it cooled, but its secrets remained intact. Nothing happened.
I’d been sure that fire was the secret to releasing the magic.
Frustrated, I threw the bead against the wall. It shattered into tiny pieces. I crushed them under my heel.
“I’m missing something,” I said.
I realized what I’d missed. Magic wanted one of three things: sex, blood, or sacrifice.
I got out my athame and sliced it across my thumb. I dripped the blood over the shards, and the magic was released. A shudder went through my body as it absorbed Hecate’s power. All the magic she’d stolen, all the power she’d killed for, flowed into me.
The magic pulsed under my skin, glowing blue and green. The glow faded, but the buzz didn’t. My skin strained to contain the magic. My face contorted, flattened, and then settled into what I hoped was its normal shape.
I watched as the fire turned to embers. The magic inside me strained to get out, but I held it in. The magic was changing me, molding me, turning me into something else entirely. Not a god, not a human, but something different, something new. I collapsed under the weight of the new me.
Hours later, I finally stirred myself. When I looked down, my missing arm had been replaced. Instead of an arm of flesh and blood, my limb was made of a black stone that somehow managed to be pliable. The replacement arm was heavy and stiff, but I could move, touch, and feel with it.
I stuck my hands in the pockets of my leather jacket. My fingers touched Alex’s note. I’d been carrying it around, trying to figure out what to do with it.
I took it out and examined it. The secret to eternal life was in my hands, literally. I wadded up the paper and threw it into the embers. The paper turned to ash. The people who had discovered the secret to immortality were all dead: Gaston, Sawyer, Deci, Morta, and Nona.
I still had to deal with Wren. She was still out there somewhere, hiding.
“You can’t kill Wren.” Sawyer’s voice sounded in my ear.
“Spying on me, Sawyer?” I said. “I can’t let her go, either.”
“Remember, she’s Naomi’s sister,” was his parting shot.
On a hunch, I took the Caddy and drove to the wildlife reserve.
The waterfall had slowed to a trickle in the late summer heat, but when I entered the cave where she was born, the cold hit me like a slap.
Everything was quiet, still, but I sensed her presence.
“Wren, come out. It’s me.”
She came out from behind a mossy outgrowth. Her dark red hair was wet and she wore a simple brown robe.
“Wren,” was all I said.
Her eyes were rimmed with red. “Can’t you leave me alone?”
“I came here to ask you to join us,” I said. “Naomi is your sister. Can’t you forget your mother’s plan for revenge and join us?”
“Join the Fates?” she said. “I’d rather die.” She gave a little shake of her head, emphasizing her rejection of my offer.
“You’re a fool,” I told her.
“And what are you?” Wren’s lower lip trembled and my resolve weakened. She was so young and, as Sawyer so helpfully pointed out, she was Naomi’s sister.
“I am your friend,” I replied. “Whether you want that friendship is up to you.”
“Poor Nyx,” she scoffed. “For once your charm won’t work. Not on me.”
What was I going to do with her? Naomi would never forgive me if I killed her. I wouldn’t forgive myself. There was a part of Wren that I loved, the part that reminded me of Sawyer and Naomi and the good things in my life. But the other part had slit my throat on her mother’s orders, had attacked Rebecca without provocation, and had refused my offer of a truce.
“Do you hate us
that much?”
“The only good Fate is a dead Fate,” she said.
“I’m not a Fate.”
“You are,” she said. “You’re one of them, through and through. The Wyrd family sticks together. There’s no room for me. As much as you deny it, you belong to the House of Fates.”
“What difference does it make?” I asked her. “House of Fates or House of Hades? My father is Hades, so you could say I belong to the House of Hades. My mother was Lady Fortuna, the fourth and forgotten Fate. For a long time, I thought I belonged to the House of Fortune, but I am my own man.”
“We can never be friends,” she said.
“Please, Wren.” We’d had a hell of a breakup, but the thought of what I was going to have to do still hurt.
She shook her head. “I am Hecate’s daughter.”
“The only reason you aren’t dead already is that I promised Naomi,” I finally said. “You remember Naomi, don’t you? Your sister?”
“I don’t have a sister,” she said coolly. She was a lost cause.
“You wish you didn’t,” I said. “What’s the matter, Wren? You wanted Daddy all to yourself? You couldn’t take it that Sawyer chose Nona over your mother. That’s why you hate the Fates.”
I’d goaded her, but I was still surprised when her arm came out and she sent a spell my way.
“Revibro,” I said. The spell bounced back at Wren.
She smiled at me, thinking it hadn’t worked, but the smile turned to panic as her limbs thickened and hardened.
I watched as Wren was frozen, turned to stone. Her eyes still moved, though, so I knew she was still in there somewhere. It was a terrible punishment, but I couldn’t bring myself to kill her. It was the fate she’d intended for me.
“Sorry, Sawyer,” I whispered. “I tried.”
I wasn’t expecting an answer, but I got one anyway. “Thank you, Nyx.”
I stayed with Wren through the night. When the sun rose, I kissed her cold lips and then left her there, in the place where she was born, as frozen as her heart. Outside, I took a breath of the sweet, warm air. I’d made it through, not unscathed, but stronger. Sunrise shimmered on the horizon by the time I left.
Hecate was desperate, but she was a goddess. I couldn’t count her out yet.