Dark Descent - [Nyx Fortuna 02] (20 page)

Sean Danvers was first on my list. I didn’t have to look far for him because he was standing in the hallway of my building.

“I can’t believe you let Hecate do that to your own wife,” I said. “You’re a dead man.”

He sneered at me. “I will make you wish you were dead.”

“Bring it on, old man,” I said. “If you think you can take me.”

“I will enjoy killing you,” he said.

I laughed. “I’ve had a death wish for the last two hundred years. You think a fear of dying’s going to stop me?”

“You kill one retired necromancer and you think you can take me on?” He gave me a thin smile.

“I didn’t kill Sawyer,” I said.

He snorted. “Figures. You don’t even know enough about your own heritage to know that you’re supposed to take out all your rivals.”

“I’m not a necromancer,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I am,” he said. And with one word, he immobilized me. I’d been reading up on protective magic and managed to break free, but I was dizzy and gasping.

I tackled him and knocked him to the floor. I managed one punch before he disappeared.

“Reveal,” I said.

He took advantage of my inability to fight back and punched me in the face repeatedly. I could still move my mouth and spat blood in his face.

“You need to learn a lesson, son.” He got out his athame and peeled off a piece of my cheek.

“I hope to hell I’m not your son,” I said.

“You’re not,” Hecate said calmly from the stairway. She looked at me with Willow’s eyes, but spoke in her own voice. “Danvers, you’ve done well, but that’s enough.”

The knife hovered over my face. “You will drown in your own blood,” he said. The blade’s edge was hot against my cheek.

“Danvers,” Hecate warned again, and her toady stepped away, although reluctantly. I sneered at him with a bloody mouth. “Nyx, I believe you have the item I requested? The bead I mentioned?”

“Let Willow go first,” I said.

“You know I can’t do that,” she replied.

“Then no deal.”

She met my eyes. “Then I’ll take what I want and kill you.”

“It’s worth it,” I said. “Whatever you do to me is worth it as long as Wren is so far away that you’ll never find her.”

Hecate gave me a chilling smile. “I know exactly where my daughter is, don’t I, Wren?”

She moved farther into the hallway and then I saw Wren standing behind her mother.

“Wren?”

“She is my mother-goddess,” she replied. “I obey her in all things.”

Not much surprised me anymore. I knew Wren had her own agenda, but I had thought she truly wanted to get away from her mother.

“But the escape,” I said. “And us. What about us?”

“A contingency plan,” Hecate said. She almost sounded sorry for me, which made it worse. “In case you managed to free the Fates. Wren was my eyes and ears.”

“Wren, is this true?”

She wouldn’t look at me, but she nodded. “It was a necessary deception.”

“We’ve wasted enough time,” Hecate said. “Wren, fetch Hecate’s Bead.”

Wren went into my apartment and returned an ego-bruising few minutes later. I obviously sucked at hiding things. She held the bead in her hand. “I have it, Mother.”

“Then it is time.”

Wren didn’t look the slightest bit shaken by what she was about to do, but judging from Hecate’s expression and Danvers’s look of glee, it wasn’t going to be good.

Delicate fingers touched the silver chain around my neck. Wren chanted something in the language of demons and then stood. They seemed to be waiting for something, but nothing happened.

She looked at Hecate. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said. “I have failed. His thread of fate is not there.”

“His knife,” Danvers said. “Check his knife.”

My athame? I hadn’t even considered it as a potential hiding spot for my thread of fate, but I realized that it must be where my mother had concealed it.

Wren waited until her mother gave a short nod before sliding my knife out of the hidden pocket in my jacket.

She repeated the chant and the knife began to shimmer. My thread of fate appeared and I half expected Morta to show up and cut it before Hecate had the chance to carry out her plan.

“You’re mortal now,” Danvers gloated. “You can be killed.”

“Take the knife, Wren,” Hecate said.

“I’ll do it,” Danvers offered eagerly. I knew what was coming, but no matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t break his spell.

“No,” Hecate replied. “It must be Wren.”

Wren picked up the athame and grasped it tightly. “Now cut the artery,” Hecate ordered. I’d known my whole life that not everyone was going to like me, but it hurt more than I expected that someone I’d trusted, someone I’d had sex with enjoyably and repeatedly, secretly hated me enough to kill me.

“Farewell, son of Fortuna.” She touched my face. Then she said softly, “This will give you a few minutes.” She whispered a spell before she sliced my throat in a quick, efficient motion. I couldn’t move to defend myself.

I didn’t have the strength to reach my healing amulets in my jacket. I’d been mortally wounded, which was a surprise. I hadn’t been mortal for hundreds of years, but now I was. I wasn’t enjoying the experience as much as I’d hoped. I wasn’t sure what good a few more minutes of gut-wrenching agony would do, but I appreciated her gesture, as futile as it was.

Danvers’s spell finally wore off and I fell to the floor, blood flowing from my neck.

“Danvers, get the blood,” Hecate ordered. He pressed something cold to my neck. With the last of my strength, I gripped his hand tightly and sent a curse his way. He’d be impotent in minutes and within hours, paralyzed with scorching pain running through his extremities. If Willow lived through Hecate’s possession, Danvers would never touch her again.

“Time to go,” Hecate said. She bent down so her face was next to mine. “You will die knowing that she betrayed you, that I am going to destroy the Fates, and then I’m going to make your precious mortals pay. All of them.”

Wren stepped over my prone body and they left the office without looking back. She’d wrapped me in darkness and I’d loved it, but just like everyone else, she’d betrayed me.

I prepared to die, struck by the irony that I’d finally gotten my wish at the worst possible time.

What was that saying? I was bleeding out, so my brain was blurry, but right before I closed my eyes, it came to me.
Be careful of what you wish for.

Doc’s face came into focus. He had a cloth pressed against my throat, but blood was everywhere, seeping through his hands, despite his best efforts.

“They missed the artery,” he said. “Just barely. Hold on.”

“No use,” I said. “I’m a goner.”

Actual tears welled in his eyes.

It hurt to breathe, to speak.

“Someday, but not today.”

I didn’t know how to break it to him that there wasn’t going to be a someday, at least not for me.

“I’m dying, Doc,” I said. “The Fates finally get their wish.” The dark descent into death was almost upon me. I’d spent many years wanting to die, so I was surprised to find that I wasn’t welcoming it now that it was happening.

Morta appeared, her golden scissors gleaming. My thread of fate, the very thing I’d searched for, was in Morta’s hands.

I braced myself, prepared for the consequences. I’d fulfilled the prophecy, set Hecate free, and one of the Fates had fallen. Prophecies were a bitch.

What would it be like to die? I had thought I was ready, but I found that every bit of me fought against the idea.

She’d cut my mother’s thread without even blinking. Deci’s, too.

All my life, Morta had wanted to cut my thread, more than a kid wanted ice cream or I wanted a beer.

It was near the end. I would finally get what I’d been seeking, just in time for me to realize I wanted to live. I let out a gurgling laugh at the irony and blood bubbled on my lips.

Morta stilled. There was no glee on her face, only resignation. I heard the snip of her golden scissors, severing the last thread of my life.

“Oh no, Nyx, I’m not going to let you go,” a voice said from very far away. “You still have something to do.”

A low guttural wail began as everything around me slowed. There was no bright light, no flood of warmth, just the sound of the man’s wail as my heartbeat slowed and then stopped. The voice repeated, continued until it became a constant buzz.

Maybe I died for a little while, but when I came to, I was in a bed, with cool sheets and closed blinds. There was a pounding in my ears and a queasy feeling, like motion sickness, knotted my stomach.

I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I was alive. It hurt, but I welcomed the pain. The sucking wound in my neck had been bandaged. It still hurt to draw breath, but I did with gratitude.

I sat up and tried to get out of bed, but a searing pain discouraged me. “Talbot? Ambrose? Doc?”

The last thing I remembered was the voice, calling me back in that strange guttural wail.

“They’re here,” Doc said. “We’re all here.”

Who had brought me back from the dead? Doc or Sawyer or someone else?

“Where’s Naomi?” I asked.

“She’s not coming,” he said gently.

“Of course not,” I said. “How stupid of me.” I’d killed her aunt, someone Naomi cared about. She probably hated me now, just like the rest of the Fates.

I laid back on the cool pillows and closed my eyes.

“Get some rest,” Doc said. “We’ll talk later.”

When I woke up again, the blinds had been raised a crack and a thin ray of sunshine cast a shadow through the blinds. My throat was swollen and dry, still hurting from where Wren had slashed it.

“I am the worst judge of women,” I rasped out.

I heard a dry chuckle and I realized Talbot was in a chair opposite the bed.

“That might be an understatement,” Talbot said. “But she had us all fooled, even Claire, who spent months longer with her.”

“I was blinded by Wren’s beauty,” I admitted. “And she played me. I can’t believe I was suspicious of Claire when Wren was the enemy all along,”

“You’re drawn to pain and darkness,” Talbot replied. “They’re like catnip to you, especially if they’re wrapped up in an attractive woman.”

“I knew she had an agenda,” I said.

“You didn’t know what it was,” he pointed out. “But now you do. Time to fix it.”

“You mean time to stop Hecate from destroying the world? I couldn’t even stop Danvers.”

“You will,” Talbot said confidently.

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because you’re the son of Fortuna,” he said. “And because we’ll help you. The Fates will fight Hecate, too.”

“Nona drinks more than I do, Deci’s dead, and Morta knows I killed her. Do you really think the Fates are up for a battle with Hecate?”

How much of Wren’s passion for me had been manufactured in order to set her mother free? I used to think that passion couldn’t be faked. I’d thought the same thing about love, though, and Elizabeth had proven me wrong on that count.

“I’ve got to get a lot better at holding on to my athame,” I said. “People keep trying to stab me with it.”

“And now you’ve got your wish,” Talbot said. “You can die. How does that feel?”

“Can I die?” I asked. “My thread of fate was cut by Morta. Doc brought me back from the dead. What does that mean?”

Talbot gave me a sober look. “I don’t know. How would you feel if you were back, but you’re not immortal anymore?”

“I don’t know how I feel about it,” I replied. “I thought I’d find the charms and I’d end it. My thread of fate was cut.” It was everything I’d ever wanted and it was nothing I’d wanted.

“I can’t believe your mother hid it in your athame,” he said. “Why do you think she chose your father’s knife?”

I shrugged, but the wound in my neck reminded me not to. “She must have loved Doc,” I finally said.

“Doc?” Talbot repeated. “Doc is your father?”

I nodded. “And I killed Deci and set Hecate free,” I said.

“We’ll stop her,” he replied.

“We’ll need help,” I told him. “I’ll have to convince the Fates that we need to work together to stop Hecate.”

“Naomi said she never wants to see you again,” he told me.

“I had to kill Deci,” I said. “It was self-defense.”

“I know,” he said softly. “You’re not a killer, Nyx.”

But I was.

I said, “I’ll convince Naomi to forgive me, but first I need to defeat Hecate.”

“And I’ll help you,” Talbot promised. “You’re not alone, Nyx.”

I was mortal and I had to fight a dark goddess to save the world. But I wasn’t dead and I didn’t want to be. That was something. That was everything.

Thanks to my amazing agent, Stephen Barbara. My writing buddies Emily, Shana, Sandy, LJ, Terry, Debby, Alyson, Stacia, Mary, and Melissa help more than they know. A big thanks to my husband, who makes sure everything runs smoothly while I’m in another world. Thanks to the Orbit team, Devi, Susan, Ellen, and Alex.

Photo © Keli Horton

 

Marlene Perez is the author of paranormal and urban fantasy books, including the bestselling Dead Is series for teens. The first book in the series,
Dead Is the New Black
, was named an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers as well as an ALA Popular Paperback.
Dead Is Just a Rumor
was on VOYA’s 2011 Best Science Fiction, Horror, & Fantasy List. Her novels have been featured in
Girls’ Life
,
Seventeen
, and
Cosmopolitan
, and Disney Television has optioned the rights to the first three books in the Dead Is series.

She grew up in Story City, Iowa, and is the youngest of twelve children. She lives in Orange County, California, with her husband and children. Visit Marlene at
www.marleneperez.com
or at the Welcome to Nightshade Facebook community page at:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Welcome-to-Nightshade-DEAD-IS/128231240528721