Wren left and I didn’t try to stop her. She was just her mother’s puppet. It made me sick that even though I hadn’t trusted her, she’d wormed her way into my life, into my bed. And it was all because Hecate had told her to. Maybe her mother had told her to lie about Doc, too.
“Shouldn’t we go after her?” Talbot asked.
“Probably,” I admitted. “But she’s Naomi’s sister.”
“And your ex,” he pointed out.
“An ex who tried to kill me.”
“Still, an ex.”
“Drop it, Talbot.” The real reason I wasn’t chasing after Wren is that I wasn’t relishing the idea that I might have to kill her. The rest of the Wyrd family was pretty free and easy with murder. I wasn’t.
“Are you okay?” Talbot asked. “Hecate is just trying to mess with your head.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“Hades is the god of necromancy,” Talbot said, “but I have a hard time picturing Doc as some powerful lord of the underworld.”
My fists clenched. “I believe her. Doc brought me back from the dead. Do you think any old necromancer could do that?”
“No,” Talbot replied. “But I’m glad he did.”
“Doc is one of the most powerful gods there is and he let my mother die,” I said. “It’s always felt personal with Hecate and now I know why.”
“She strikes me as a goddess who takes everything personally,” he replied.
“I take it personally when someone tries to murder me. I always thought Hecate held a grudge against me because of my aunts, but it turns out it’s my father she really hates.”
“He’s fragile,” Talbot said. “And we don’t even know if it’s true.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “We find out that my father is a Greek god and all you can worry about is hurting his feelings?”
“I’m worried about you,” Talbot said quietly, but I knew I’d hurt his feelings.
Doc had been the one to give me my mother’s emerald frog, the one to heal the damage done to Elizabeth’s face when she fell victim to Deci’s pyromania, and the one to bring me back from the dead. He’d saved my ass more than once.
“I always wondered what his story was, but I never dreamed he might be my father.”
“What did your mother tell you about him?” Talbot asked.
“Nothing good.” I replied. The vision of my mother as she lay dying reminded me of how my father had failed her, had failed me.
I gritted my teeth and went looking for him. Minneapolis was a big city, but I’d figured out a few of Doc’s hiding places. It took me a couple of hours of combing the streets, but I found him. He was waiting in line at the shelter on Third Street.
I pulled him aside. This was not a conversation for mortals’ ears. “Come with me.”
He followed me into an alley that smelled so bad that not even the junkies would use it. “How can I help you, Nyx?”
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am,” he replied.
“That’s not what I’m asking,” I replied. “Hecate’s daughter says you’re someone else. A god. Don’t lie to me.”
He gave a longing glance at the exit, but returned his attention back to me.
“I’m Doc. I am your father,” he said. “But that’s not who I used to be.”
“Who did you used to be?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted him to admit it.
“Who have you been talking to?” he asked.
“Hecate’s daughter paid me a visit,” I said. “Now are you going to tell me or not? What’s your real name?”
“Hades.” The one word changed everything. I knew it was true. Maybe I’d always known. “Nyx, I wanted to tell you, but I never found the right time.”
I snorted. “You had plenty of opportunities.”
“Who would you rather have as a father? Doc or Hades?”
“I would have rather had someone who was around,” I said. “Like when my mother and I were running for our lives.”
“I failed you,” he said softly. “I failed her.”
The skittish, scarred man before me bore no resemblance to the great god of the underworld. “I still find it hard to believe, even though part of me knows it’s true.”
“How else do you think I called you back from the dead? A mere necromancer couldn’t do that.”
“Everyone thinks Hades is dead.”
“He is,” he said. “All that’s left is me. A broken god.”
I stared at him. Despite his nervous tics, his scarred face, and his attachment to a somewhat ripe trench coat, which he wore even in summer, I believed him.
“What happened to you?”
“Power corrupts, Nyx,” he said. “I loved your mother, but I wanted her sister. I did what I wanted, regardless of other people’s feelings. It didn’t end well. Not even Hades should mess with the Fates.”
“All this time…” I stared at him, unable to reconcile the broken man in front of me with a powerful god.
“What do you want, Nyx?” he said. “If I don’t go in soon, I’ll lose my bed.”
“You can stop her, stop Hecate.”
He shook his head. “I no longer interfere in the magical affairs.”
“You interfered with me,” I pointed out. “I would have died.”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
“Because you are my son and I couldn’t watch you die,” he replied.
“If you don’t help me defeat Hecate, everyone will die.”
He shrugged. “Death isn’t always the worst thing. Sometimes living is.”
I ignored the fact that I’d felt exactly like that not so long ago.
“You don’t have a choice,” he said. “Hecate needs to be contained.”
“You’re not going to do anything?”
His shoulders lifted again, a helpless gesture. I wanted to smack him.
“You knew the Fates were hunting us all those years, but you did nothing.”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“You let her die.”
“It was my fault,” he said. “Deci…”
“The mighty god Hades is nothing but a fucking coward,” I said.
He bowed his head. “Yes. Your choices make you or break you.”
Doc, my father, refused to answer any other questions. He didn’t look back as he trudged into the shelter.
After he left, I cruised the Warehouse District. I couldn’t tell which house Bernie had been talking about, but houses on entire streets had gone quiet and dark. No kids played in the street or in the front yards and the few people I did see hurried about their business, heads down. I didn’t see any demons and besides, the neighborhood was too big of an area to canvass all at once, so I turned back and headed for Eternity Road.