Dark Descent - [Nyx Fortuna 02] (21 page)

Dead Is the New Black

Dead Is a State of Mind

Dead Is So Last Year

Dead Is Just a Rumor

Dead Is Not an Option

Dead Is a Battlefield

Dead Is a Killer Tune

Dead Is a Just a Dream

The Comeback

Love in the Corner Pocket

Strange Fates

Mortality was overrated. I’d wanted to be able to die for over two hundred years, but when I finally did, someone had brought me back. I wanted to know who and why, but first I had to stop throwing up.

I felt like someone had beaten me with a bag full of soap bars. I was shivering, sweaty. “Where’s my jacket?”

I’d strangle Wren with my bare hands if she’d taken the jacket. Or my mother’s charms. My hand went to my neck, but the silver chain was still there.

I felt more like myself once Talbot helped me slip on my World War II fighter pilot jacket.

“Any word on where Hecate is?”

He shook his head. “It’s been quiet. Too quiet.”

It had been twenty-four hours since I’d set Hecate free and she’d double-crossed me. In my defense, I had been desperate to save Willow.

“Willow?” I managed to ask.

Before Talbot could reply, Ambrose appeared in the doorway. He looked grimmer than I’d ever seen him. “It’s started. We have to go.”

Ambrose, Talbot and I headed out of town in the Eternity Road van. We were an hour north of Minneapolis before Ambrose turned into a long driveway. I spotted a sign that read
PAN CONFERENCE CENTER
.

“We’re here,” he announced, but he didn’t sound particularly happy about it.

“Emergency pawnshop retreat?” I joked, but it still hurt to breathe, so I avoided any more smart-ass comments.

Black flies buzzed above our heads as we walked. The cabin door was ajar, letting out the putrid odors of decaying flesh, something like rotten eggs, congealed blood, and sour milk.

There was a long table in the center of the room and a fire burned in the stone fireplace. The rotten egg smell was identifiable as the picnic lunch slowly spoiling in the summer heat. Against one wall, piled high like logs for a fire, were bodies. So many bodies.

The walls dripped with blood. I tried not to gag as I surveyed the scene. Ambrose was stoic, but Talbot’s skin had a green cast. He rushed outside and then we heard the unmistakable sounds of his retching.

Tria Prima symbols were smeared onto the once-white walls. Hecate’s own brand of graffiti.

“It looks like she took a bath in their blood,” I commented.

“She did,” Ambrose said.

“What makes you say that?”

“Bathing in the blood of her enemies was her trademark in the old days,” he replied. “Hecate draws power from it.”

“So she chose these people randomly?”

He shook his head. “Never randomly. She’s sending us a message.”

“I got the message when Wren stabbed me.”

“That was just a love tap compared to what Hecate has planned,” Talbot said from the doorway.

“What message, anyway?” I asked. “I don’t know any of these people. Or anyone from this House.”

We’d managed to determine that the victims were all forest satyrs, members of the House of Zeus.

“She’s declaring war on the world,” Ambrose said. “These are her first casualties.”

“Yeah, but why all the fuss?” I asked.

Talbot winced and then shot me a dirty look. “Show a little respect for the dead.”

“I meant, why hasn’t she let loose the full force of her power?”

Ambrose stared at me. “I think this is quite bad enough without asking for trouble,” he said.

“I think Hecate doesn’t have all her power back,” I explained.

“But she has the bead,” Talbot said.

The bead of power I’d practically handed to her on a fucking platter.

“Then why hasn’t she released Willow?” I didn’t want to think about what Danvers would do to her once he’d recovered.

Ambrose looked at his shoes. He didn’t want to tell me Willow was most likely dead.

“She’s not dead,” I said. “She can’t be.”

Ambrose put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

“What should we do with the bodies?” Talbot asked.

“I’ll make a call,” Ambrose said. “The House will send someone to identify the victims.”

“The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

I agreed. It wasn’t a night to linger among the dead.

“Shh!” Ambrose put a finger to his lips. “I hear something.”

Silence. And then a small moan.

“Someone’s alive,” Talbot said. “Over there.”

We ran toward the faint sound. A satyr lay on the ground, almost obscured beneath a pile of dead bodies. We pulled him out of his grisly prison. He had been blinded and blood still dripped from his mutilated eyes.

“I have a message for the son of Fortuna,” he said.

The message had already been received. Hecate had just declared war.

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