“You want me to feel sorry for her? Wren had a choice. She slit my throat because her mother told her to.”
“Nyx, I want you to promise me you won’t kill Wren,” he said.
He wasn’t trying to help me. He was trying to protect his daughter. I’d cared for Wren once and she was Naomi’s sister.
“I won’t, Sawyer,” I said. “Not unless I have no other choice.”
“Don’t… have… time… for…” Sawyer’s voice sounded like he’d entered a tunnel.
“Sawyer, are you there?”
“I’m back,” Sawyer said.
“Any hints about how I’m supposed to dial up a specific dead person to talk to?” Thanks to my aunts, almost everyone I loved was dead.
My question hung in the air, unanswered. “Sawyer, are you listening?”
“I’m busy, Nyx,” his voice finally replied.
“So am I,” I said. “You know, trying to prevent the apocalypse in the form of one pissed-off goddess.”
“And?”
“Tell me what you know,” I said. “Anything that might help stop her.”
“I don’t know how your aunts trapped her last time,” Sawyer admitted. “They didn’t trust me enough to tell me, but I know Deci came up with the solution.”
“Deci’s dead.”
“Then find another way,” he said.
“I’m trying,” I said. “Do you remember anything about the three items of power the Fates took from Hecate?”
“There is a legend that one of the harpies grew a feather.”
“Not exactly earth-shattering.” They were bird women. Feathers came with the territory.
“Let me finish,” he said. “It was a magical silver feather that gave the owner unimaginable power. It was said that one of the minor goddesses took the feather and became even more powerful.”
“Hecate,” I said. It would explain her attachment to the harpies. She was probably hoping they’d grow a second feather. Or a whole pillow full of silver feathers.
“Nyx, you can’t…” His voice faded before he told me what I couldn’t do.
“Sawyer?”
But he didn’t answer. He’d given me something to go on, though. Deci.
I had a couple of old books of my mother’s, but I’d read them a thousand times looking for clues to find my thread of fate. There was nothing there to help me with my current situation.
That is, until I really looked at what I had thought were doodles along the margins.
There was a sketch of an asphodel and a list of ingredients. The flower had been heavily inked in.
When I was little, I had found a dried asphodel pressed between the pages of one of my mother’s books. I showed it to her and asked her what it was. “A memory,” she replied softly. “But it is also a rare black asphodel, which you can find in only one place.”
“Where?” I was curious.
“Somewhere I can never go again,” she said. Tears welled in her eyes and I stopped asking questions.
I’d lost my mother. I couldn’t lose Willow, too. I closed the book and finally fell asleep.
In the morning, I had a shift at Eternity Road. Talbot wasn’t there, but Ambrose was in his office. I told him I’d been chatting with my dead uncle, which elicited a raised eyebrow. “How long have you been able to speak to the dead?”
“Not long,” I said. “Know anything about how that works?”
He shrugged. “I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“Why can’t I hear anyone else?” I asked. “Only Sawyer. Not Jasper, or Deci, or…” My voice broke, though I tried to control it. “My mother.” If I could talk to Sawyer, maybe he wasn’t the only one from the realm of the dead. Maybe I could even speak to my mother. I had so many questions for her, but mostly, I wanted to hear her voice.
“Maybe you’re not listening closely enough,” he replied. “Try mediating.”
I snorted, but he was serious. He marched me to an empty storage closet and shoved me in. “Try it, Nyx,” he said. “Try talking to someone you loved and see if you get a response.”
“What about my shift?”
“It can wait,” he said. “Now try. Sometimes you need to let the dead speak.”
I felt like an idiot, but I started by saying her name. “Lady Fortuna. Mother?”
There was no answer. I tried several times, but my mother didn’t answer. I almost gave up. There weren’t many people, living or dead, whom I’d loved. But then a name came to me.
“Amalie.” The name of my dead girlfriend.
I said her name what seemed like a thousand times. Death was cold, but the room grew almost unbearably warm the last time I said her name. Sweat poured off me.
Her perfume permeated the room and her voice sounded in my ear. “My love.”
“Amalie?”
“You called and I came,” she said.
“I didn’t expect you to,” I said. “It’s my fault you’re dead.”
“Still the same old Nyx,” she said. “Blaming yourself for the actions of others.”
It hurt to hear her gentle voice say my name, but it was a welcome pain. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I you,” she replied. “Your powers have grown.”
“What makes you say that?” Talking to the dead was a skill I wasn’t sure I wanted. Could I talk to my mother? Did I want to know her secrets?
“I have never been able to hear your voice before.”
“I didn’t know I could call to you,” I said. “Are you at peace?”
“I am,” she said. “But why did you call me?”
“To say I loved you. To say I’m sorry. To say good-bye.”
I felt a cold kiss on my lips. “I already knew. Farewell, beloved.”
“Good-bye, Amalie.”
And then she was gone.
Talking to the ghost of my dead lover had shaken me more than I wanted to admit. I made it through the rest of the day in a daze. I could summon the dead.
Chapter Eleven
After work, Talbot and I went to the Red Dragon, my favorite seedy bar, to see if there were any rumors floating around in the magical community.
Two of his old frat buddies were at a booth, but they pretended not to see him when he waved.
“Cowards,” I said.
Talbot shrugged. “Can’t really blame them,” he said. “Hecate has everyone scared.”
I tried chatting up some of the locals, but they were silent and sullen.
“We’re persona non grata, even at the Red Dragon,” Talbot said. “We’ve sunk to new lows.”
The bar’s floors were usually sticky with old beer and other things I didn’t want to think about, but the drinks were cheap and cold.
“I wish you’d waited to say that until after I’d had a drink,” I said.
The place was nearly empty, but the bartender ignored us until I reached around the bar and filled a pitcher of beer from the tap. “Hey, you can’t do that,” he said.
“This should cover it,” I said. I tossed a twenty at him. “Now that I have your attention, we’re looking for some information about Hecate.”
His face went white. “Don’t say her name here,” he said. “I don’t know anything. Just drink your beer and get out.”
I raised my voice and addressed the bar. “Anybody here know anything about Hecate or her demons? We’ll pay generously for information.”
Most of the patrons stared at their drinks, but one guy muttered, “There’s not enough cash in Minneapolis to get me to say anything.”
I gave him a look and he added, “Not that I know anything. I want to keep it that way.”
Everyone was too scared to say anything, but I wasn’t about to let a perfectly good pitcher of beer go to waste. Talbot and I found a booth far from the other patrons.
The Red Dragon was where I’d first met Elizabeth in the men’s bathroom, a random meeting that turned out to not be random at all.
The thought of my ex depressed me even more
.
“Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?”
“I’m screwed seven ways to Sunday,” I said. “I might as well drink.”
“Any excuse,” Talbot muttered.
“I just had a conversation with my dead girlfriend,” I said. “How’s that for an excuse?”
“Someday you’re going to have to face your demons,” he replied.
“Faced them. Stabbed them.”
“Very funny,” he said. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
I knew what he meant. Everyone would leave me eventually. Or Hecate would kill them. Unless I killed her first.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said to Talbot. “Nobody is going to tell us anything.”
I’d been staring at the pitcher of beer in front of me, but the noise in the bar stopped. I glanced up. Hecate stood in front of me and smiled at me with Willow’s lips.
“I have a present for you, lover,” she purred.
I raised a hand to strike, but Hecate’s next words stopped me.
“Make one move and I’ll kill everyone here,” she said. “Including your little girlfriend.”
I glanced around. Where were the demons? Hecate never left home without them. I spotted three total.
It wasn’t likely Hecate would kill Willow’s body, but her soul was another story. I hoped Willow could hold out until I could find Hecate’s body and force her back into it.
“What do you want?”
“You dead, of course,” she said. “But you just won’t die. So I’ll settle for finding your father.”
“My father?” The longer I kept her talking, the less likely it was that she’d kill everyone at the Red Dragon. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bartender and a couple of the regulars inching their way to the back door. One of them stumbled and sent a glass tumbling to the ground. It shattered and Hecate’s head turned toward the sound.
“I don’t know where he is,” I said. Desperate to keep her attention, I added, “But I can pass along a message to Sawyer if you’d like.”
Her eyes turned back to me. “He’s dead.”
“Dead, but not gone,” I said.
“You’re bluffing,” she said. “You can’t call the dead.”
I’d finally made her smug smile disappear. “But I can.”
“Prove it and I won’t kill these people.”
“You’re not exactly known for keeping your word,” I said.
“True,” she said. “That’s a chance you’ll have to take.”
Talbot’s white knuckles and the scared looks of the patrons convinced me to give it a try. “Sawyer, you there?”
“In a bit of hot water?” His voice sounded in my ear.
“A bit,” I said. “Your ex would like to speak to you.”
“Showing off, are we?” he said. “What does she want?”
“He wants to know what you want.”
Hecate said, “I want to see him, hear him, touch him.”
“That’s impossible,” I said.
Hecate gave a nod to one of her demons and he grabbed the nearest bar patron and squeezed his neck.
“Tell her to stop,” Sawyer said. “I’ll do it, but I’ll need your help.”
“He says to stop,” I repeated. “Give me a minute and he’ll materialize.”
“One minute,” Hecate agreed. The demon dropped his victim and the man fell to the floor, gasping.
“Nyx, you’ll only have one shot at this,” Sawyer said. “When I appear, she’ll be distracted. You must attack her. She won’t expect it. It’s the only way anyone will get out of this bar alive. Nod if you understand.”
I gave a short nod. “Now concentrate. Summon me,” Sawyer continued.
Did my dead uncle really think I could summon ghosts?
“We haven’t got all day,” he said gently.
“Sawyer Polydoros, I summon you,” I said. Nothing happened. I took out my athame and sliced it across my arm and repeated the phrase as the blood dripped down my arm.
Sawyer’s form came into focus. He was little more than a chalk outline, but it was enough to throw Hecate off. “Sawyer, is it really you?” she asked.
I stared at her, stunned by the soft note in her voice. I gripped the glass pitcher of beer by the handle, reassured by its heft.
“Hecate, please let the naiad go,” he said.
Her face went blank. I used the pitcher to club her over the head. She fell to the floor. Her demon companions growled and came at us at a run. One demon grabbed Talbot and pulled back his arms while the other punched him in the stomach. I wanted to grab Hecate while she was still unconscious, but Talbot needed me. I sliced the neck of the demon who was using my friend as a punching bag and Talbot took out the other one. The bar patrons took the opportunity presented and ran for the door.
The third demon, a female, picked up Hecate and ran. We followed the demon outside, but a strong wind blew us forcefully backward.
By the time the wind died down, Hecate and the demon had vanished. “We lost her,” I said.
“Why do you think she’s looking for Doc?” Talbot asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “He must have something she wants. We need to find him before she does.”
“What now?” Talbot asked. “What do you think the present is?”
“Nothing good.”
It had been a hell of a night, even for me. I bought a couple of bottles of absinthe and took them to go. The bartender glared but didn’t say anything.
A drunk stumbled into us on the way outside. “I know something,” he whispered. “I seen some things.”
Talbot curled his lip, either because of the horrible grammar or the horrible smell emanating from the man.
I ignored him, but he followed us down the street. “I do know something. It’s your present.”
I turned and faced him. “What do you know?”
“Give me one of those and I’ll tell you,” he said. He pointed to the bottles.
I took a swig from the absinthe and his eyes followed me greedily. “Information first.”
“People are disappearing,” he said.
“We already know that.” I started walking again.
“I know where they’re taking them,” he said.
I handed him the bottle. “Show us.”
“It’s too far to walk,” he said.
“We’ll drive,” I said. “And there’s another bottle in it for you if it pans out.”
I tossed the keys to Talbot. I’d had a few too many swigs of absinthe. “Don’t scratch my car.”
The drunk took regular swigs off the bottle as he directed us. I wasn’t exactly surprised when we turned into the same riverfront community.
“It’s that house up there.”
The drunk seemed like he’d grown roots in the backseat, but I opened the door and yanked him out. “You’re coming with us.”
“You think it’s a trap?” Talbot asked.
“Probably,” I said. “Or maybe he really did see something.”
The house sat back from the main street and we had to hike up a long drive to reach it. There were no lights on or cars in the driveway. “Are you sure this is the place?”
The drunk took a swig for courage. “I’m sure.”
I peered in the window. No sign of life. I had a feeling Hecate had been there, but I didn’t get any sense of demons or magic or anyone or anything alive behind the doors.
I started to pick the lock on the back door, but Talbot pointed to a security sign in the window.
“If Hecate was here, the alarm’s already off,” I said. “And if she wasn’t?”
“Run like hell,” I told him. The lock clicked open and we entered a designer kitchen. Nothing but the best for a goddess. The smell told me that there was something dead in the house.
Talbot had a pen flashlight and he shone it around. “What is that smell?” he choked, but we both knew.
Hecate had been here. We were too late. She was long gone.
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We found the bodies upstairs in one of the bedrooms. Tria Prima symbols were smeared in blood all over the white walls and white silk comforter.
“It looks like something ate them,” Talbot said.
“Demons?”
“Bite marks are too small,” he said.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I’ll call Trey. He can do the cleanup by himself this time.”
Our companion threw up half of his absinthe in the hallway. I waited until we were in the Caddy to call Trey. He didn’t sound surprised.
We dropped the drunk off at the Red Dragon. He practically fell out of the car.
Talbot helped him to a bus bench to sleep it off.
“Why do you think that drunk helped us?”
“I think Hecate was impatient,” he said. “She wanted you to see what she’d done. She got the drunk to help it along.”
Back at the apartment, I scrubbed the black demon blood off my face and hands in the kitchen sink. “I’m running out of clothes,” I said.
“You’d have plenty of money for clothes if you stopped drinking so much,” Talbot said.
“I drink because I’m a failure,” I said.
“So what?” Talbot replied. “Everyone fails.”
“I failed. Epically.”
“The difference between success and failure is that the people who succeed get knocked on their asses and then get up again. The failures stay there and feel sorry for themselves.”
I glared at him. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“No,” he replied. “But you don’t even seem to care what everyone else has been through.”
My anger faded as quickly as it had come. “You’re right. So why don’t you tell me?”
“Haven’t you ever wondered anything about me?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said.
“I was in love once,” he said. “Before Naomi. But she was a mortal.”
“Like Elizabeth,” I said. “What happened?”
“It worked out about as well as it did with you and Elizabeth,” he said.
In other words, not well at all.
Chapter Twelve
I’d been slacking off at work, so I spent the morning dusting and stocking shelves. I even did a little side browsing. There were still a few of my mother’s charms still missing, and although my thread of fate had been located, I still wanted the missing ones.