Two in the morning and the party was still going strong. Despite the omen, my friends and family were having a good time. My enemies, too. Too bad I couldn’t always tell the difference.
Talbot and Naomi talked to his dad, the aunts were occupied terrorizing the heads of Houses, and Claire argued with Carlos about something. He gave her a smile and I could practically hear her tell him not to try that Mesmer shit with her. My sister and Johnny were the two who held my attention. The music slowed and Johnny grabbed Rebecca’s hand and coaxed her to dance. After a few minutes, she put her head on his shoulder and he whispered something in her ear.
Despite my earlier interlude with Willow, there was a hollow aching inside me. I wanted to be dancing with her in front of everyone. I wanted to hold her hand and smile at her the way Talbot smiled at Naomi.
I snuck out of the party and drove around aimlessly. The Caddy and I traveled the streets together, the purr of its engine a comforting sound.
I ended up at Parsi Enterprises. On impulse, I broke into the building. I could have asked my aunts to show me the creatures they held in the lower levels, but I wasn’t sure they’d agree. I brought the key I’d found at Deci’s house with me. I had a feeling it opened the cage to something or someone the aunts preferred to keep hidden.
I wasn’t worried about the security guard, but I wasn’t sure I could get past the wards without being detected. I went through the loading-dock entrance and slipped in without a problem. There was a keypad in the elevator, but I’d watched Morta punch in the code. It took two tries, but I got the numbers right and the elevator carried me into the depths of the building.
The only light came from dim bulbs along the hallway, but the cages were dark. The aunts had decided to keep Hecate at Parsi, instead of returning her to the underworld, where she could gather power.
I checked on Hecate. Her room was colder than the others and for a brief moment, I thought I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye.
I gripped my athame and waited, but nothing happened. It was just a shadow, I told myself, or the air-conditioning kicking in. I waited, but she was unmoving, wrapped tightly in the black crystal strands we’d used to imprison her.
I left her there, certain that she was immobilized. My breathing sounded loud as I walked along. There was a presence awake somewhere in the bowels of Parsi Enterprises.
The sound of whispering turned to a plaintive song I followed the sound to a part of the menagerie I hadn’t visited previously. There was someone standing motionless behind a locked door. I managed to take the wards off.
I slid the mysterious key into the lock. It fit. The handle turned and I stepped in. The room was a simple one, no window with the only light coming from a bulb dangling from a chain, a cot in the corner of the room. It looked like a nun’s cell. Or a prison cell.
A woman stood in the center of the room and stared raptly into whatever was on the wall opposite the door.
She was tall, elegantly thin, and pale. Snakes coiled in her blond hair, but at my entrance, they slithered out. She had thickly lashed eyes and lips round as an apple that made me want to take a bite out of them.
Medusa. The snakes in her hair hissed, but she didn’t turn her head.
“Son of Fortuna,” she said. “What brings you here?”
“Curiosity,” I said.
“Which killed the cat,” she replied. Her attention didn’t stray from the wall. I wanted to see what had held her so transfixed. On the wall opposite her bed, there was a small obsidian mirror mounted to the wall. The silver frame was engraved, but I didn’t want to chance looking at it. Legend had it that whoever looked into Medusa’s mirror would see their true selves, which often led to madness. The alternate story was that Medusa’s gaze would turn you to stone. I didn’t chance it, so I kept my eyes away from hers.
“What does the mirror do?” I asked her.
“Many things,” Medusa replied.
“You are powerful enough to tear down this entire building,” I said. “Yet you allow my aunts to hold you captive.”
“I have all I need here,” she replied.
“You’re here willingly?” A goddess, kept in a basement like a pet? It didn’t make sense.
“Nyx Fortuna, tread lightly,” she said. “You ask too many questions. The mirror’s spell holds me here.”
“You are a powerful goddess,” I pointed out. “Why don’t you break the mirror’s spell?”
“If I could break its spell, I would,” she said. “Instead I am trapped here, staring in a mirror.”
“At least the view is good,” I said. Legend went that Medusa was hideous, but in reality, she was breathtakingly gorgeous. Hecate had probably spread that rumor.
“You assume that I like what I see.”
“What do you see?”
“The truth,” she said. “It is not always palatable.”
I couldn’t imagine seeing my screw-ups every day in the mirror, replaying over and over.
“If I ever am free of the mirror,” she said, “I will come looking for those who imprisoned me with the mirror.”
“My aunts?” I guessed.
She shook her head and the snakes hissed. “They have given me shelter,” she said. “And because of that kindness, I will not kill you tonight.”
Medusa’s mirror was one of Hecate’s items of power, but I’d have to kill Medusa to get to the mirror, which would be even more of a daunting task than taking on Hecate had been. Besides, the mirror was safe where it was. Medusa and her snakes would guard it and I wouldn’t have to worry.
“Good night, Medusa,” I finally said. I’d found the one person in Minneapolis who was lonelier than me.
“Good night, son of Fortuna,” she said. “And please remember, I may not be so merciful the next time you visit.”
I shut the door softly on my way out. I was barely out of the room before the plaintive singing started again. I let out a wry laugh. I’d never have guessed that my aunts’ kindness to a deadly goddess would eventually save my life.