Dark Descent Read online

  “That’s not possible,” I said.

  “Then I’m afraid it won’t be possible for you to visit with your cousin again.”

  Naomi gripped my arm tightly. “Nyx,” she whispered urgently, but I ignored her.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  My answer seemed to satisfy Hecate, at least temporarily. A crossroads bargain had been struck, which never ended well for anybody but Hecate.

  Talbot picked Naomi up and sprinted for the door. It took a few seconds before the demons realized what was happening and headed after him. They tackled him and pulled on his arms and legs to try to drag him to the floor. I waded into the melee and threw a couple of demons off them. Naomi screeched and squirmed in protest, but Talbot held on to her.

  The harp player tugged at Naomi to pull her from Talbot’s arms. I threw my athame at the demon. The knife hit her in the neck.

  “Enough!” Hecate said. “Let them go.”

  Talbot didn’t wait for her to change her mind. He took off in a sprint. I could hear Naomi screaming as he headed back to the gate. I was seconds behind him.

  I stopped to retrieve my athame and the harp player tried to bite me. I stepped on her hand and the bones crunched, which made her recede her fangs immediately.

  None of the other demons were stupid enough to disobey Hecate. My path was clear. I looked back at her as I left. She was smiling, which made me shudder with dread.

  We were about five hundred yards from the gate when we heard the sound of baying hounds.

  I turned and looked. Bernie was on the path, dragging something large and bloody behind her.

  She looked up and saw me, then made a shooing motion. “Go, son of Fortuna. This will keep them occupied, but not for long.”

  Why was she helping us? I didn’t wait for an explanation. We ran. We returned the way we had come, stumbling over shards of bone. Naomi’s voice had grown hoarse. Finally, she went limp in his arms.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Talbot asked, panicked. “It was the wine, wasn’t it?”

  “When we’re topside,” I said. “Hurry.” I wasn’t entirely convinced Hecate wouldn’t change her mind and send the demons after us. We still had the hounds to contend with, but when we reached the gate, there was no sign of them.

  “What now?” Talbot asked when we finally emerged and stood blinking in the sun.

  “Now we find a remedy for Naomi, ask the aunties for the harpies, and go back for Claire.”

  But like everything in my life, it wasn’t as easy as all that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Caddy was parked a block from Hell’s Belles. Talbot sat in the backseat with Naomi, who’d sunk into a stupor. He’d draped his coat over her, but she still shivered.

  I broke a few speed limits as I headed back to my apartment above Eternity Road. Talbot carried Naomi up the stairs to my bedroom. He placed her on the bed and then took off her boots. “Do you have any more blankets? She’s freezing.”

  I grabbed some blankets from the closet and put them over her.

  “This is my fault,” Talbot said. “It’s all my fault.”

  “It was my idea to go to the underworld,” I said.

  “What are we going to do?” he asked. “She’s obviously been bewitched by Hecate.”

  “Find that guy, the one who helped Elizabeth,” I told Talbot. “I’ll stay here with her.”

  “Do you know what to do to help her?” he asked.

  “Do you?” I replied. He winced and I softened. “Look, just the sight of me makes that guy skittish for some reason. It’s better if you go look for him.”

  He nodded. “Should we try to reverse the spell before I leave?”

  “Not without researching it first,” I told him. “Otherwise, we could make things worse.”

  He kissed Naomi on the forehead and murmured something in her ear. I looked away, unbearably sad at the sight of so much love.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep her safe.”

  I nodded.

  Ten minutes after he left, Naomi’s lips turned blue and she convulsed. Her body shook so hard that the headboard nearly banged a hole in the wall.

  I had to help Naomi. I didn’t want to leave her, but the book I needed was in the other room.

  I grabbed the book and did the healing spell quickly. I found my jacket and ripped open the lining to get to the healing amulets I’d concealed there.

  Naomi stopped thrashing and for one moment, I thought it had worked. I put a hand to her forehead. She was hot—too hot.

  “Damn it!” Why had I let her come with us?

  A new shipment of magical items had just arrived last week. I was certain I’d seen a lodestone in there somewhere.

  I ran downstairs to Eternity Road. I disabled the wards and then smashed a pane of glass to unlock the door. My knuckles were bleeding, so I grabbed a fat seventies-style tie and wrapped it around my hand.

  Ambrose kept the really good stuff in a locked display case, but the key was taped underneath it. I unlocked the case. My stomach cramped when I couldn’t find the lodestone, but I finally found it on the bottom shelf.

  I grabbed the lodestone and a book on ancient spells and ran back to my apartment.

  “Naomi, I’m back,” I called out, even though I knew my cousin was beyond hearing me. I put the lodestone in her palm and folded her hand closed. “Actus me invito factus non est meus actus,” I said.

  Her body went stiff and then she started to seize. I repeated the spell over and over.

  Finally, a thin trickle of what looked like grape Kool-Aid dripped from her mouth and she stopped thrashing. I grabbed a washcloth and sponged away the vomit.

  She grew so still that I put my ear to her mouth to make sure she was breathing. I was relieved when her chest rose and fell. Her skin was cold and clammy to the touch, so I piled the blankets back on her.

  Two hours later, I heard my front door open. Talbot came into the bedroom.

  “I found him,” Talbot said. “How is she doing?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Better, I think, but she’s still not awake.”

  The scarred man came in behind Talbot, looking like he would bolt any second. He inhaled sharply and then picked up Naomi’s hand.

  He turned to me. “What did you do?” he asked brusquely.

  “I used a lodestone. I had to break a store window to get it,” I told Talbot apologetically.

  “Like I care about that. You saved her.”

  “What else?” the scarred man interrupted.

  I told him and then added, “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You may have saved her life,” he said. “With the wasting sickness, it’s not just that the victim doesn’t eat or drink, it’s that he or she can go mad within hours.”

  “So she’s cured?” Talbot asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” he replied. “Nyx managed to slow the damage, but without a cure, she’ll die.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen,” I said. I would protect my cousin, no matter what the cost.

  *

  I headed for Parsi Enterprises to give Morta the good news. “We found Claire,” I said. I didn’t mention the bad news, which was that Naomi was going to die if I didn’t do something.

  Right or wrong, they’d blame me. Or worse, Talbot. I shuddered to think what they’d do to him if they knew we’d brought Naomi into harm’s way.

  She gazed at me with cold eyes. “Yet I do not see my daughter before me.”

  “She’s in the underworld,” I said. “With Hecate.”

  I thought I detected a tiny flinch at the mention of her archenemy, but it could have been the usual twitch she got from talking with me. She was probably restraining herself from trying to tear out my heart.

  “And?” Morta finally said. She was showing about as much emotion as a robot.

  “And Hecate wants the harpies.”

  “She’ll free my daughter if she gets her pets back?” Morta
didn’t sound as if she believed it.

  “That’s what she said.”

  Morta nodded. “Very good.”

  “So you’ll let me have the harpies?” Or at least the surviving ones. I wasn’t sure that Swift Wing made it out alive after our last encounter. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d killed her.

  “We don’t have the harpies,” she said. “We gave them to Gaston, and after his death, they did not return.”

  “Do you have any idea where they are?”

  I doubted she would tell me, even if it would help me find her daughter, but she surprised me.

  “Perhaps that human masquerading as a witch has them.”

  “Jenny?” Elizabeth’s former roommate had a touch of magic in her and terrible taste in boyfriends, but she was the last person I expected to be harboring harpies.

  Morta nodded. “Is that a problem?”

  “No problem.”

  Jenny had made it clear the last time I saw her that she’d love to see me dead. I wasn’t relishing having a chat with her.

  “I’ll get the harpies and trade them for Claire,” I said.

  “Do not fail me, son of Fortuna, or you will live to regret it,” Morta said as I left.

  I already did, but I made my way to the magic shop anyway.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Zora’s was downtown, just off Nicolett. The yellow crescent moon sign above the door seemed to glow red when I looked at it, but I told myself it was just a figment of my imagination.

  I wasn’t expecting a welcoming committee. Elizabeth’s roommate Jenny worked there most days.

  I’d found my mother’s ebony cat at the store, so I scanned the shelves for the missing charms. It was all stuff for the tourists: fake crystals, fringed moon-and-stars scarves, and statues made in China on an assembly line. Not anything of real magic.

  They kept a few ingredients for real spells in the stockroom, but I doubted any true magician would shop there.

  Jenny was helping a customer, a wild-haired girl wearing a pentagram necklace. When she noticed me, Jenny swore, reached behind the register, and drew out a wicked-looking knife. The customer made a swift exit, but Jenny didn’t seem to care.

  “Get out of my store before I gut you like the pig you are,” she said. Jenny was openly hostile now that Elizabeth wasn’t around to act as a buffer.

  “Is this about Elizabeth?”

  “Wherever you go, trouble follows. And you killed my boyfriend, remember?”

  “Why are you mourning him?” I asked softly. “He didn’t love you. He didn’t love anybody.” Gaston had been a waste of a heartbeat, but his girlfriend hadn’t realized that.

  “He loved me,” she said, but there was a note of uncertainty in her voice.

  “He was using you. The only thing he loved was power,” I said. I didn’t have time to soften the blow, so the words came out harsher than intended.

  “Why should I believe you?” she replied. “You hated him.”

  “I did,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not telling you the truth.”

  She spat in my face.

  I calmly grabbed one of her bargain bin scarves, wiped the spit off my face, and then handed it to her. “Don’t do that again.”

  “Get out of my store!” she said.

  “What do you want with the harpies?” I peered over her shoulder, but she moved to block my line of vision.

  “What makes you think I have the harpies?”

  “Because Gaston had them before he died,” I said.

  “You mean before you killed him.” She still hadn’t put the knife down.

  “Do you have them or not?” I asked. “It’s life or death.”

  “Yours? Then no.”

  “So you do know something.”

  She grinned, clearly delighted by what she was about to tell me. “Not about the harpies.”

  She was lying, but I decided to play along. “Just tell me, Jenny.”

  “Someone wants you dead.”

  This was becoming a theme. “I know,” I said. “But who and why?”

  She ignored my questions. “I hope he manages to do the job and kills you. Nothing would make me happier.”

  “Others have tried and failed,” I replied. “Like Gaston.” Reminding her I’d killed her ex was dicey, but maybe if I pissed her off, she’d let something slip.

  “What do you want?” she spit out.

  “Can’t you tell me anything about a necromancer? Please?” I hated to beg, but time was running out.

  She smiled. “I heard about a necromancer who doesn’t like you too much.”

  But no matter how hard I pleaded with her, she wouldn’t tell me anything else.

  Jenny was enjoying toying with me, but it was a waste of time. Even if she knew anything, she wouldn’t tell me. I started to leave, but then came a sound I’d heard in my nightmares many times. A harpy’s song.

  I pushed past Jenny into the backroom. She followed at my heels, squawking almost as loudly as the harpies.

  In one corner of the back room, black draping covered something large. I was sure it was their cage, so I pulled the covering off.

  “Hello, Shadow, Fleet Foot,” I said. “We’re going on a little trip.”

  They hissed something in their garbled tongue. I’m sure it was something highly complimentary, since I’d killed their sister, Swift Wing.

  “You can’t take them,” Jenny said.

  “Watch me,” I said.

  “I’ve already sold them to someone else,” she admitted.

  “I’ll double whatever they’re paying,” I offered.

  She was hesitant, but I could see the greed in her eyes. “Triple,” I said.

  “Done,” she said. She held out her hand. “Where’s my money?”

  I paid her in the gold doubloons I’d won off a treasure hunter in tarot poker. My already stellar game-playing ability had gotten even better since I’d arrived in Minneapolis. You know what they say, though. Lucky in cards, unlucky in love.

  “How am I going to manage to get them home?”

  “Not my problem,” Jenny snapped. “Just get them out of here before Mr.—” She started to say his name, but clearly thought better of it.

  “Why would anybody want a pair of harpies?” I wondered. “They’re killers.”

  There was no way their cage would fit in the Caddy. Besides, I’d never get the stench of harpies out of the upholstery. I ran next door to the giant hardware store and rented a pickup. I loaded the harpies into the back and headed for my apartment.

  I’d only gone a few blocks when I heard a voice in my head.

  “You know what you have to do,” Sawyer said.

  I swerved violently and nearly hit a telephone pole. “Stop doing that,” I said. “You nearly killed me.”

  “You can talk to the dead, Nyx,” he replied. “Get used to it. It’s not always convenient.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You have to resurrect Swift Wing,” he repeated.

  “I can’t,” I said. “Besides, I don’t even know where the body’s buried.”

  “Pull over here,” he directed.

  I pulled the truck into the parking lot of some financial group. It was late and most of the worker bees had already gone home.

  I put my head on the steering wheel. Why was my dead uncle still in my head?

  “Now call to her,” he said.

  I felt like a fool, but did as he ordered. “Here, harpy, harpy. C’mon, girl.”

  “Not like that,” he said. “You know what to do, Nyx. Quit fighting it.”

  I tried again. “Swift Wing, mortui resurgunt!”

  My stomach cramped as I said the words. I doubled over from the pain. I waited, gut clenching, as I repeated the words. The words of a necromancer.

  I got out of the truck and pulled the tarp off the cage. Still no sign of Swift Wing.

  “How am I supposed to get her into the cage?”

  “You summoned her,”
Sawyer said. “She will do as you command if…”

  “If what? Sawyer?” But he’d faded away.

  I smelled her before I saw her. A fetid wind blew, fouling the late-spring night. Then I spotted a harpy swooping in for the kill. I ducked in the nick of time, but her hot breath fanned my face.

  Harpy claws could shred through steel like it was paper, but the cage was made of bespelled silver and would contain them long enough to deliver them to Hecate.

  At least I hoped it would.

  Swift Wing had spent hundreds of years hunting me, carrying out the Fates’ torture as they decreed. Plus, I’d killed her, which should be enough to piss anybody off.

  She dive-bombed me repeatedly, but I ducked every time. Her claws caught purchase in my hair and she dug into my scalp. I threw a spell her way, which shocked her like a joy buzzer and she released her grip.

  She was slightly worse for wear, missing the eye I’d stabbed, and reeking of a foul odor even more noxious than usual. But the gleam in her one good eye let me know that her desire to rip out my heart was alive and well.

  I tried to think of a spell, but I was too busy trying to protect my eyes from being gouged out.

  Hecate had asked me to bring her all three of the harpies. She didn’t mention what condition the last one had to be in. I knew a loophole when I saw one.

  I needed some bait to capture her. Harpies were garbage eaters. They’d eat anything they could get their claws into, but they loved the taste of rotting flesh more than anything. In a pinch, fresh blood would do.

  I grasped my athame and slid the blade across my forearm. “Lunchtime,” I shouted. Then it occurred to me. I had one of the ingredients to cook up a batch of dark magic: blood. I needed the words and quickly. Swift Wing was in a dive, heading straight for my blood splattering on the ground. She was almost on me and I didn’t think her appetite would be satiated by a few drops of blood.

  Her claws came out. I ducked, but not before they raked across my arm, opening the wound so she could get more blood. Greedy thing.

  “I command thee, Swift Wing, to do my bidding.”

  She looked at the blood longingly, but bowed her head in submission.

  “Get in the cage,” I ordered. Shadow and Fleet Foot were so happy to see their sister that they didn’t even try to escape, but as soon as Swift Wing saw the cage close around her, her razor-sharp claws extended and she kicked the side of the cage over and over.