I woke up in the makeshift hospital at the abandoned military base. I recognized the graffiti on the walls. I’d been upgraded to a fold-up cot. I wondered who’d risked their life to find it for me, but I wasn’t going to complain. It was better than sleeping on the floor, especially as much as I hurt.
There was the unmistakable odor of singed flesh, the ache of a missing limb. My left arm was gone.
My body screamed for alcohol. The DTs started, and I was a sweaty ball of pain that not even magic could cure.
I tried to sleep it off, but my dreams were filled with the sounds of screams and visions of bloody corpses. When I was awake, alcohol withdrawal hurt worse than the amputation. My eyesight was blurred by pain or by medication and visitors were fuzzy shapes.
A few days of sweating out the alcohol left me dehydrated and cranky. I would have wrestled a bear to get to some absinthe, but the blood loss and DTs left me too weak to leave my bed.
When I awoke again, my father was staring down at me.
“This is getting to be a habit,” Doc said.
“Did you bring me back again?” It was an accusation.
“You’re not done yet, Nyx.”
“You told me that a piece of everything that makes me human dies each time,” I said. “I’d rather be dead than an empty shell.”
“You seem to be full of righteous indignation,” he said. “So apparently, your humanity is still alive and well.”
My father could be a smart-ass.
I remembered what had happened on the battlefield and looked down at my left arm. Or, more accurately, what was left of it. “I guess even Hades can’t bring my arm back,” I said.
“The flesh eater ate it,” Doc said bluntly. “Naomi applied a tourniquet, which probably saved your life. They brought you here and I cauterized the wound.”
That explained the smell. I owed Naomi big-time. I would have bled out before Doc got to me.
“I need to check the bandage,” he said. “Make sure there’s no infection.”
I turned my face away as he unrolled the gaze. I winced and his hands stilled. “Are you in pain? I gave you a sedative. It should take effect soon.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “And no more sedatives.”
“It’s up to you,” he replied.
“Where are the others?” I asked. “Rebecca, Talbot, Ambrose, Claire, Naomi? Are they safe?”
“Yes, they are safe,” he replied.
“How many dead?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’ll let Ambrose fill you in on that.” My father didn’t think I was strong enough to take bad news.
He started to slip out of the room, but I stopped him. “Doc?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“Get some rest,” he said. He gave me a short nod before slipping out.
I was loopy from the pain meds and fell asleep almost before the door closed.
When I awoke, Ambrose and Talbot were in the room.
“How many people did we lose?” I asked.
Ambrose avoided the question. “We managed to do some damage.”
“Not enough,” I said.
“Probably not,” he said. “But you killed her Cyclops.”
I stared down at the spot where my arm used to be. The stump was bandaged, but a trace of blood had leaked through. “Yay me. What happened to Hecate?”
“Doc wounded her,” Ambrose said shortly. “She ran.”
“How?”
He shrugged like it was no big deal, but I was amazed. Doc had been adamant about staying out of the fight.
“He did it to protect you,” Ambrose added. “He’s pretty shaken up about it.”
I deserved what had happened to me. I’d been so sure of myself, so cocky. My arm, or what was left of it, throbbed angrily. It was gone and there was nothing I could do about it.
“I wish you’d let me die,” I told him.
“It wasn’t your destiny, Nyx,” he said gently.
“Who says?”
“Can I come in?” Naomi stood in the doorway, twirling her braid nervously.
“Of course,” I said.
She gave me a gentle hug. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you,” she said. “Not after Aunt Morta and Mom.”
“I’m hard to kill,” I replied.
She leaned away from me and looked into my eyes. “But not impossible,” she said. “Remember that and try not to take any unnecessary chances.”
“I will,” I said. “I can’t afford to lose any more body parts.”
The sound she made was half laugh, half sob. “See that you don’t.”
I fell asleep soon after. I’d put a brave face on things for my cousin, but inside, I wanted to scream.
I slept for hours, but not even sleep took away the pain of losing a part of me. Something I still felt as my missing fingers tingled. Phantom feelings.
I woke up dry-mouthed and reached for the cup of water on the upturned crate that served as my night table.
“How’s our hero feeling?” Talbot asked.
“Who says I’m a hero?”
“You’re the closest thing we have to one,” he said.
“Don’t let it get around, but I’ve been working on something,” I told him. “I just need a few days to figure out where it’s stashed.”
“And then what?”
“And then I use it on Hecate,” I said. “Help me up.”
“Nyx, you’ve lost a lot of blood,” Naomi said. “You need time to heal.”
“I haven’t got any time. I need to fix things.”
She stared at the stub where my left arm used to be. “No amount of magic is going to fix that.”
I closed my eyes and slowly, the stub began to tingle, then warm and burn. I opened my eyes and saw a hand of flame. It glowed red, then green, and then finally turned ice blue before disappearing.
There was a long silence.
“How did you learn to do that?” Naomi asked.
“Doc taught me,” I said.
She gave me an odd look.
“What?” I tried to cross my arms and then remembered it was in the singular now and stopped mid-cross.
“Most magicians, even the oldest and best, can’t do that,” she said.
I racked my brain. Had I ever told Naomi who my father really was? I hadn’t. Was it forgetfulness or something more? I shrugged. “Doc can. And so can I.”
Doc slept in a chair in my room. The missing arm throbbed a reminder of all I’d lost. I wanted something to drink, but I fought it. My hand shook with the effort it took not to reach for a bottle. I had the sweats. I threw up.
When I finished heaving, Doc handed me a cup full of smelly liquid. “This should help,” he said.
“This smells like cat piss,” I complained.
“Yes, it does,” he said. “Now drink every drop.”
I choked it down. “The cure is worse than the sickness.”
“Give it a minute,” he said.
It took ten, but the pounding in my head stopped. “Time for a strategy session,” I said.
“Are you sure you’re up for it?” Doc asked.
“I have to be,” I said. “The longer we wait, the longer Hecate has to torture people.”
Doc gathered everyone together and they met at my bedside. Claire was conspicuously absent.
“Where is she?” I asked Naomi.
She shrugged. “She’s been poring over the Book of Fate.”
“We need to find Wren and get that bead back,” Talbot said.
“She’s our best bet,” Ambrose said. “But what makes you think Hecate doesn’t already have it?”
“Hecate wouldn’t want to carry all of her elements of power with her,” I said. I turned to Naomi and made a vague waving motion. “Can’t you just make it happen?”
“This isn’t an episode of Bewitched,” she said dryly. “I can’t wiggle my nose and poof it for you.”
“Wren is taking everything she learned about the Fates, Claire and Naomi,” I said, “and using it against us.”
“You think she’s been planning this all along?” Talbot asked.
“I think it’s time we do the same thing,” I replied. “Claire was in the underworld long enough to learn a few secrets. I think Talbot’s right. We need to find Hecate’s Eye.”
“Do you know what to do with it once we find it?” he asked.
“Not exactly.”
“Naomi, dear girl, perhaps you learned something in your training?” Ambrose asked.
She shook her head. “Honestly, I feel like they didn’t tell half of what they knew.”
“Convenient,” I muttered, but she heard me and glared.
“I suppose your mother taught you everything she knew.”
“Don’t talk about my mother,” I said.
“Children, quit quarreling,” Ambrose said.
“It’s settled, then,” I said. “I’ll find Wren and get back Hecate’s Eye.”
“What are you going to do with it once you get it back?” Rebecca asked.
“Destroy it.”
Destroy the bead. Destroy Hecate. Save the world.