Dark Descent

by Marlene Perez

  The gate finally opened and we staggered out into the dawn. It had seemed like we’d been in the underworld only minutes, but it had been dark when we’d gone down.

  Claire and Wren held up hands to shield their eyes and I cursed myself for not remembering to bring along some extra shades.

  “Get them to the truck,” I said to Talbot. I tossed him the keys to the rental and then got out my athame. “If I’m not there in five minutes, go without me.”

  Hecate couldn’t go topside, but her demons could. A demon had managed to catch up with us. It was the harp player and she was holding a grudge, along with a very large cudgel.

  I didn’t have time to play around, especially with a cudgel headed my way. I ducked under her swinging arm and then slit her throat in one quick motion. I was already running for the truck by the time she dropped to the ground.

  Talbot had the truck running. “Everything okay?”

  I joined them in the cab. It was a tight fit with all four of us in the front. “Drive,” I said.

  He peeled out and Wren slid into me as we rounded a corner. I felt a jolt of lust as her hip touched mine. She looked at me and then looked away. She held up her hand to shield her eyes from the light. “It’s so bright.”

  Claire was on the other side of Wren, but my cousin had fallen into the same stupor as Naomi. She’d stopped struggling and had lapsed into a sweaty silence, even though the silencing spell had worn off.

  Morta would flay me alive if something happened to her daughter, but Talbot would never forgive me if something happened to Naomi. I wouldn’t forgive myself.

  “Are you sure those shriveled grapes are going to work?” I asked.

  Wren put a hand on my arm. “I know you’re worried,” she said. “But it’ll work. Trust me.”

  “It had better,” I said under my breath.

  Talbot parked the truck, but nobody made a move to get out for a second. “Do you think we were followed?” he finally asked.

  “No,” I said. “Let’s get that remedy to Naomi.”

  Talbot escorted Claire, while I took Wren’s hand to guide her. The pale sunlight was nearly blinding them.

  “Wait a second,” I said. I went around to the front passenger seat, fished a pair of sunglasses out of the glove compartment, and slid them onto her face. “These will help.”

  Upstairs, Doc paced. “What took you so long?” he asked.

  “Hauling three nasty harpies took longer than expected,” I explained. “And then Hecate screwed me over.”

  “Predictable,” he muttered. “What are we going to do now?”

  “Fortunately, Hecate wasn’t our only option.”

  Wren held up the grapes for his inspection. He nodded. “Good. Very good.”

  He held out his hand and after a small hesitation, Wren gave him the shriveled grapes.

  He strode into the bedroom, and Talbot and I trailed behind.

  Naomi’s face was covered in green blotches. Talbot propped her up on the pillows and opened Naomi’s jaw with gentle fingers, but Naomi resisted and slid back down. “She has to swallow it.”

  Naomi resisted until Talbot took over. “Let me,” he said. He helped her back into a sitting position and murmured something in her ear. He put the grape on her tongue and coaxed her into swallowing.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now we wait,” Doc replied. “Where is the other patient?”

  I’d nearly forgotten her, but she was in the living room with Wren. Claire was lying on the couch, covered in sweat.

  “The remedy should be quicker for her, right?” I asked. “Since she hasn’t been topside as long?”

  “Not necessarily,” Doc replied. “She was in the underworld much longer and may have drunk a lot more of the wine. Naomi had only a sip.”

  I hoped the cure worked quickly. He forced the grape into Claire’s mouth, but she fought him. Wren said something in another language and Claire swallowed it obediently.

  I went back to my bedroom to check on Naomi.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Better,” Talbot said. “The spots are nearly gone.”

  “We need to get her back home as soon as possible,” I said. It was a miracle that my aunts hadn’t already come looking for Naomi.

  To my surprise, Talbot blushed. “We have a little time,” he said. He cleared his throat. “Naomi has been…sleeping over a lot. Her mom probably thinks she’s with me.”

  “Has there been any sleeping involved?” I asked. “No, wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. As far as I’m concerned, you guys have good old-fashioned slumber parties, in separate sleeping bags.”

  “Why are you two discussing my sex life?” Naomi asked sleepily. She opened her eyes all the way and added, “And why am I in Nyx’s bed?”

  “Don’t you remember?” Talbot asked.

  “I remember following you guys to the diner,” she said. “And that’s it.”

  “You drank something in the underworld and we had to drag you out of there. Then we went back for the cure.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You’re kidding me.” She looked me up and down but didn’t comment on my bloodstained hands. “What about Claire?”

  “She’s in the other room,” I said.

  “I want to see her,” she said. She started to get out of bed, but Talbot put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Wait a few minutes, babe,” he said. “She’s…recuperating.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “We don’t know if the remedy will work for Claire,” Talbot said. “She was in the underworld a lot longer.”

  “And she may have chugged a gallon of the stuff,” I said. “You only had a sip.”

  There was a shriek from the other room and then a thump as something or someone hit the floor.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Stay here!” I told Talbot. I raced into the living room. Claire was lying on the floor, Doc beside her. Wren stood over them, staring down at Claire as she thrashed.

  “She’s fine,” Wren said. “She’s fine. It’s only the antidote taking effect.”

  Claire’s thrashing stopped. She lay there on my floor, limp and white.

  Doc felt her pulse. “Her pulse is steady and her breathing is normal, but she just had a seizure.”

  “From the wine or the cure?” I asked.

  “Could be either, or both. Or something else entirely.” He grabbed a pillow from the couch and put it under her head. “I don’t want to move her yet.”

  I couldn’t look away, couldn’t move. Naomi’s fate was riding on the success of Wren’s antidote.

  “Help me up,” Claire finally said weakly.

  “You’re awake,” Wren said. She gave her a hand and pulled her to her feet. She steadied Claire as she whispered something in her ear.

  “Claire, it’s really you!” Naomi said. She stood in the doorway, supported by Talbot.

  “I thought I told you two to stay in the bedroom,” I said.

  “You try telling a Fate what to do,” Talbot said.

  Naomi flew over and hugged her cousin. “Everyone was so worried about you,” she said. “Especially your mom.”

  “I’m taking you home,” I said. The sooner Claire was reunited with the Fates, the sooner Elizabeth would be free. I didn’t kid myself that the aunts weren’t trying their damnedest to find where my ex-girlfriend was hiding. But maybe Claire’s return would make them lose interest.

  “Doc, thanks for everything,” Talbot said. “I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

  Doc shifted uneasily on his feet. “I almost forgot,” he said. He fished in his voluminous trench coat and brought out a book. “I believe you were reading this?”

  He handed it to me. It was the loosely veiled story of my family, the one Ambrose and another man had written. It had disappeared from my apartment before I’d finished reading it.

  “Did you take this from my apartment?”

  He
nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I wasn’t ready for you to read it,” he said. “But now I am.”

  “You were the other man,” I said. “Did you get that in the duel?” I gestured toward his face.

  “The duel never happened,” he said. “Your mother stopped it. It’s in the book.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “You can ask,” he said. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  He studied my face for a long moment. “I dallied with two women. I loved only one of them. The other one did this.” He tapped the ruined side of his face.

  “Your taste in women is as good as mine,” I said dryly.

  For some reason, the comment seemed to agitate him. “I’ve got to go.”

  I had many more questions for him, but he looked ready to bolt any second. Maybe in time, I could get him to trust me.

  I gave him all the cash I had. He didn’t want to take it, but I insisted. “Get a hot meal, maybe a hotel room for the week,” I said.

  He finally took the money. “Take care of yourself, my boy,” he said.

  “I wonder what his story is,” Talbot said, after Doc left. “Dad won’t say.”

  I was curious about the scarred man, too, but my first priority was Claire’s safe return to the chilly bosom of her family.

  I started the Caddy and broke a few speed limits to get to the Polydoros house.

  I rang the doorbell. I was relieved that nobody answered. “Why are you ringing the doorbell?” Naomi asked. She gave me a little shove. “I have a key, you know.”

  I was checking to see if Nona was home. “Your mom’s not here.”

  “She’s probably at the office,” Naomi replied.

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s help Claire out of the car.”

  She ran to the Caddy and peered into the backseat. “Ready to go home? I’ll fix you all something to eat. You look like you could use a good meal. And you can borrow some of my clothes. Mom would freak if she saw you in that robe.”

  Claire seemed overwhelmed at Naomi’s volley of conversation. She held up her hand to shield her eyes as Naomi helped her out of the car. “You can borrow a pair of my sunglasses, too,” Naomi chirped.

  Claire wore a red robe similar to Wren’s, but Claire’s was embroidered with the symbols of the Tria Prima instead of silver keys.

  “I’ll leave you to it, then,” I said. I needed to get Wren stashed somewhere before Aunt Nona came home.

  “No, Nyx, you come, too,” Naomi said. “And Talbot and your friend.”

  We followed her into the kitchen. “Naomi, I don’t have a lot of time.” I needed to get Wren out of there before Nona came home.

  “Nonsense,” she said. “It’s time you get to know your cousin.”

  “Cousin?” Claire asked. “You mean he’s…”

  “The son of Fortuna,” Naomi finished for her. “Yes.”

  “The Fates know this and he’s still alive?” Claire was trying to hide her contempt for me, but she wasn’t succeeding.

  I grinned at her. “I even work at Parsi Enterprises.” It was an overstatement. I showed up occasionally.

  “The aunts have gotten soft during my absence,” she said.

  “Yeah, about that,” I said. “Why did you go down under in the first place?”

  That shut her up.

  “Nyx, quit grilling Claire,” Naomi said. “She just got home.”

  Naomi bustled around the kitchen. She was practically skipping with glee, which almost made it worth it.

  It wasn’t over, not when I had Hecate’s daughter. Claire seemed to read my mind.

  “I can’t believe you two geniuses took Wren,” she said.

  “She wanted to get out of there,” I said.

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  “You can’t tell your mom,” I said. “Or the other aunties.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Claire replied. “One look at her and they’d know.”

  “Know what?” Naomi asked. She didn’t seem to notice how much Wren resembled her.

  Claire and I exchanged a look. “That she’s Hecate’s daughter,” Claire answered. The real problem was that even a casual observer would assume they were sisters.

  “Wren will have to stay with you,” Talbot told me.

  “What am I supposed to do with her?” But my traitorous libido supplied me with a few ideas, which I quickly squelched.

  Talbot gave me a stern look. “Whatever you do, Nyx, don’t touch her,” he warned. “But she can’t stay here.”

  “You act like I don’t have any control,” I said. He gave me another look.

  “All right, all right. I’ll take her to my place, but we’ve got to figure something else out long-term,” I said. I’d have to try an occulo spell on my own. I’d used one to hide my identity when I first arrived in Minneapolis. I’d purchased it, but I might be able to replicate one for Wren. She looked too much like Sawyer.

  I couldn’t be sure what Nona would do if faced with her dead husband’s child, the one he conceived with her mortal enemy. Nona had always seemed like the most reasonable of the three Fates, but finding out about a secret love child would be enough to set anyone off.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Back at my apartment, I collapsed on the couch. Wren watched me from a chair. I felt drained, but as I lay there, some of the tension I’d carried since the fire disappeared. I’d kept my side of the bargain and now Elizabeth was safe.

  “Give me a minute,” I said. I intended to close my eyes for a second. Hours later, I woke up with a growling stomach and an aching feeling I’d forgotten something.

  “Wren?” I’d left her to her own devices in a strange place. Not the best host.

  She was curled up in the chair, sound asleep, but woke immediately when I said her name.

  I fixed Wren something to eat, which I carried from my tiny kitchen into the living room.

  “It’s just PB&J,” I said. I watched her as she examined the sandwich. I missed having someone to take care of.

  “PB&J?”

  “Peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich,” I explained. “You’ve never had one?”

  She shook her head. “Sounds…delicious.”

  She’d never had a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, an American staple. It brought home that although we were both from magical Houses, her upbringing in the underworld had been very different from mine.

  “Want a beer?” I asked.

  She wrinkled her nose. “No, thank you,” she said politely.

  “I don’t have any wine,” I said, trying to make a joke.

  “Trying to keep me here?” she tried to joke back, but the exchange was an awkward one. Wren and I stared at the walls and then each other. I wondered what it was like for her to be topside, out in the bright sunlight for the first time. She had helped us escape with Claire, but I wasn’t sure why.

  She sat next to me on the sofa, even though a comfy chair was an option. Her thigh touched mine and I scooted away.

  “So can I ask you something?”

  She nodded.

  “Why are the symbols on your robe different from Claire’s?”

  She hesitated. “I stole that robe from the wash days before we left. The key is worn by the lowliest acolyte.”

  “What about the Tria Prima symbols?”

  “Only Hecate’s inner circle may wear the Tria Prima robes,” she said.

  “Claire was part of your mother’s inner circle?” The information surprised me. The Fates and Hecate were mortal enemies. I hadn’t considered that Claire might have been in the underworld willingly.

  “Claire and I are very close,” she said. “She’s like a sister to me.”

  Her word choice made me squirm. If Nona found out I had Hecate’s daughter, she’d rip Wren to shreds. I’d been desperate to save Naomi, but now that she was cured, I had a whole new set of problems. How was I going to keep Wren away from the Fate
s and her own mother?

  Wren reached for the sandwich and I jumped. She gave me an amused look before she took a bite of the sandwich I’d prepared.

  “How is it?” I asked.

  “Delicious,” she lied. She chewed gingerly for a moment and then put the sandwich down. “I guess I’m not very hungry.”

  “I’ll go grocery shopping in the morning,” I said.

  “Maybe I’ll have some beer,” she said.

  I started to get up.

  “No, stay,” she said. “I’ll just have a sip of yours.” I watched her mouth as it touched the place where mine had been only moments before and blood left my brain and headed straight to another part of my body.

  Getting a stiffy from watching her lips meant it had been way too long since I’d had sex.

  I realized alone time with Wren was a very bad idea. “I’m going to take a shower.” I needed to think, and besides, I was covered in dried demon blood.

  “Want company?”

  I didn’t know how to answer. My throat went dry as images of Wren and me wrapped in a steamy embrace entered my head. I shook my head and then changed the subject.

  “Why did you want to leave the underworld? Leave your mother?” Granted, it was a strange world, but it had been the only one she’d ever known.

  “Before, it was because I wanted to meet my father,” she said. “I was topside one other time, just for a day or two. I saw him then.”

  “You didn’t talk to Sawyer?”

  She shook her head. “Naomi must have been around fourteen. She was with him. I realized he already had a daughter.”

  “He would have welcomed another one,” I said.

  “Maybe,” she said. “But one of Mother’s demons found me before I had the chance to find out. What was he like?” she asked.

  “He was a nice guy,” I said. “Even though he was a necromancer.”

  “The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” she replied.

  I raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Dark magic and nice don’t usually mix.”

  She yawned. I watched her mouth move and thought about all the ways I would like to kiss her.

  “You can have the bedroom,” I told her.

  “Where will you sleep?”

  “The couch is pretty comfortable.” I lied.