I awoke to the sound of Talbot banging on my bedroom door. “Nyx, I know you’re in there,” he yelled.
“I’m coming,” I said. I opened the door with a theatrical flourish. “Give me a minute.”
“Someone has to make sure you don’t drink yourself into a coma.”
I ignored him. I’d cut down on my drinking. Mostly.
“Let’s go to Hell’s Belles. There’s no food in my apartment and I’m starving,” I said.
“What you really mean is you’re out of absinthe.” There was a definite tone in his voice.
“I just want some food. And to check in on Bernie.” Bernie ran Hell’s Belles for the aunties, but she was also a demon who had contacts in the underworld. If she didn’t know where Hecate was, nobody would.
“Okay,” he replied. “If you can manage to hold off on drinking. At least until after lunch.”
“Quit with the lectures,” I said. I’d stock up on liquor later, without him. I grabbed my athame and jacket and we walked to Hell’s Belles.
Before we made it more than two blocks, a mage blocked my path. “Son of Fortuna?”
“Yes?”
He spit in my face. “I wish you’d never come to Minneapolis,” he said, before crossing the street.
“Hey, buddy, wait a minute,” Talbot said. He started after the guy, but I shook my head. I couldn’t speak because shame clogged my throat.
At the restaurant, I grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and wiped the spit from my face.
Normally, people fought hard to get a seat at Hell’s Belles. They made the best food in town. Today, it was empty, except for a couple of mortal kids who’d obviously pulled an all-nighter and a Korrigan from the House of Hades. The Korrigan’s short stature drew snickers from the drunken college students.
We grabbed a booth near them and I gave them my best menacing stare. The snickering subsided. I was doing the mortals a favor. Korrigans were usually slow to anger, but once they got riled up, somebody usually ended up missing body parts. Other than the Korrigan, we were the only magical customers in the restaurant.
“Guess the news is out that I let the Hecate out of the bag,” I said. “Could be worse. There could be villagers with pitchforks.”
“It’s still early,” Talbot replied wryly. “What are we going to do?”
I was touched by the way he’d said we. Like there wasn’t any doubt that he was standing by me, despite the fact that I’d screwed up. The prophecy foretold, He, born of Fortune, shall let loose the barking dogs as the Fates fall and Hecate shall rise.
I’d fought the prophecy my whole life, but I fulfilled it anyway. No wonder my aunts wanted to kill me. And now half of Minneapolis felt the same way.
“You mean because there’s a big red target on my back and I’m not immortal now? Nothing.”
“Maybe I could ask Naomi for a bottle of ambrosia?” Talbot suggested. Ambrosia, aka nectar of the gods, was the orange soda–like drink my aunts manufactured at Parsi Enterprises. It was also the secret to eternal life, at least for mortals.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said.
“You want to die before we put Hecate back in the underworld?”
I shook my head. “We should figure a few things out first. Am I dead? Am I undead? Am I a true mortal now or something else?”
I was voting on the something else.
“I should ask about the ambrosia. Just in case.”
I shrugged. “Do what you want, but I already know her answer.” Naomi was all soft and gooey around Talbot, but the girl had a spine of steel.
Talbot changed the subject. “What did Doc say?”
“Besides the fact that he’s my father? Not much.”
Bernie walked up to our booth and set two cups of coffee down. “What’ll you have?” Bernie was barrel-chested with sad droopy eyes, and today, her eyes looked sadder than usual.
“Bernie, do you have time to talk?”
She raised a sardonic eyebrow before pointedly looking around the almost-empty diner. “I think I can spare a few minutes.”
“What happened to all your customers, Bernie?” I asked. “Rumor of a health code violation?”
“You happened, Nyx Fortuna,” she said. “You are bad for business.”
I started to get up, but she waved me back down. “Don’t get excited,” she said. “It’s not my business anyway, and the owners can afford a few slow days.”
We both knew the owners were my aunts.
“Have you heard anything about Hecate? Where she might be? ” I asked. Bernie had been my aunts’ spy in the underworld and I’m sure Bernie was on Hecate’s list. Maybe not as close to the top as I was, but I had no doubt that Hecate hadn’t forgotten about her.
“I don’t know where she is exactly,” Bernie said. “But I did hear she and a bunch of demons forcibly moved out the owners of a riverfront house. Somewhere near the Warehouse District.”
I sipped my coffee while I thought about Bernie’s news. “Did the owners live?”
Bernie gave a slow shake of her head. “That’s not the worse part. The goddess gave the Houses an ultimatum. Join her or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Die.” Bernie was nothing if not succinct.
I pushed my coffee aside. I needed something stronger to deal with the news that I’d started a magical war.
“I see.” That was the real reason for the lack of customers. Hecate was forcing the magical in Minneapolis to choose sides.
Even Bernie’s peach cobbler couldn’t cheer me up.
When we left the diner, I was busying thinking about how badly I’d screwed up that I almost missed Wren, but a flash of red caught my eye. She was weaving her way through the pedestrians, straight toward us.
Before I could even think about a spell, she was right next to me. Two demons trailed her, bigger and meaner than the ones who came after me.
She made a hand gesture like someone telling a dog to sit, and her personal lapdogs folded the tree trunks that passed as their arms and waited.
“You are looking well, Nyx,” she said. Her glittering eyes met mine. She no longer looked like the small sweet bird of her name. Now she resembled a bird of prey, a hawk, or a vulture, feeding on others.
“No thanks to you,” I snarled.
“Sometimes we must do things we don’t want to do.”
I didn’t move, but she shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Whatever you are thinking of doing,” she said. “I didn’t come here to fight.”
I didn’t bother to ask why she was here. She’d get to it eventually, if I could refrain from killing her that long. But I was curious so I let her talk.
“Hecate wants to offer you a deal.” Wren had ditched the Tria Prima robes as soon as she came topside, but she was still under her mother’s thumb.
I rubbed my neck. “That didn’t turn out so well last time.”
“As a gesture of good faith, she told me I could let you in on a secret.” Her bright smile reminded me I’d once thought of her fondly. But any lingering feelings disappeared when I remembered the slaughter at the conference center.
“And you always do what your mommy tells you.”
Her bright smile disappeared. “Yes.”
“Even if it means slaughtering innocent people?”
“Yes.”
There was nothing left to say, except “No.”
“You haven’t even heard what I have to say.”
“Doesn’t matter. My answer is no.”
She frowned. “You’ll change your mind. I’m sure of that.”
“I won’t.” Pedestrians made a wide berth around us. Most of them didn’t even look up.
“You don’t know everything about your family, do you?”
It gave me great satisfaction to say, “I do. It’s Doc.”
“You mean Hades, don’t you?”
“Hades?” The name slipped out before I could conceal my ignorance. The god of the dead? There was no way Doc could be Hades, although he had brought me back, a difficult feat even for a necromancer.
“He didn’t tell you, did he?”
“Doesn’t matter. Why should I believe a liar like you?”
“Ask him,” she said. “Ask him how he tracked my mother when she was pregnant with me. How he left her to die. Left me to die.”
Wren’s words had a ring of truth. It explained everything—his ruined face, his abilities that were above those of a normal necromancer, even his absence in my life. My father was the god of hell.
Doc was Hades, a powerful god. I couldn’t get my head around it. How could my mother have loved Hades? How could he have stood by and watched while my aunts hunted and killed my mother? I wanted answers.