Strange Fates (Nyx Fortuna)

by Marlene Perez

  “Where are we going?” Elizabeth asked.

  I headed to the bank. She waited in the car at the curb while I ran in and made a large withdrawal. Then we found the pawnshop and parked a couple of blocks away.

  I swung her hand as we walked along.

  “You’re feeling chipper this morning,” she said. She smiled at me.

  I raised her gloved hand to my lips. “I have a good reason,” I said teasingly.

  But when we arrived, the front door at Eternity Road was open. Not just open, but off its hinges.

  “I have a very bad feeling about this,” I said. “Go back to the car.”

  “No way,” she said.

  “Don’t argue with me,” I said, but she was already through the door.

  The place was trashed. The jewelry cases had been smashed, bookshelves shoved up against each other, and vintage gowns thrown on the floor. There was a tuba shoved partway through the ceiling.

  A pungent odor hung in the air. At first I couldn’t identify it, but I realized it had the stench of dark magic.

  The stuffed bear now wore a trilby, a loud plaid jacket, and a happy grin, like it had just come home from an all-night rager.

  Talbot stomped toward us. “What are you doing here?” he growled.

  “Is the lapis lazuli ring here?”

  “What do you think?”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Like you don’t know,” he replied. “Get out.”

  Elizabeth moved closer to me. I tried to see him the way she would. An angry man with strange silvery eyes.

  Talbot’s eyes were my only warning. He threw all his emotion my way, a magical ball of frustration, anger, and fear.

  I sent a surge of protective magic back at him, which I hoped would diffuse his emotions. It did, but my magic only barely held him back. He regained his equilibrium but continued to glower at me.

  Why was he so pissed off?

  “You think I did all this?”

  “Yes,” he said impatiently.

  “I didn’t do it,” I said flatly. “I came to buy the ring. A snatch and grab isn’t my style.”

  Elizabeth kept looking around the shop like she thought she was being secretly taped for a bizarre reality show and wanted to know where the camera was.

  His silvery eyes bore into me. “I believe you,” he finally said.

  “Do you need help cleaning up?” I offered.

  He looked amused. “I’ve got it handled,” he said. “It won’t take long to clean up.” For me was the unspoken implication. The guy had a serious superiority complex. I wondered what Mr. Arrogance would do if he knew who I was.

  I nodded. “Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Can you call me if the ring turns up?”

  “If we find it, will you know how to use it?” He couldn’t resist one last condescending remark.

  I nodded but didn’t turn my head to look back. I should know how to use it. It had been my mother’s.

  My mother had been the youngest and my grandmother’s favorite. The ring was one of many gifts she had given my mother. I had recognized it the moment I saw it, but it seemed too good to be true to find it in a pawnshop in Minneapolis.

  When we were without funds, which didn’t happen very often since Mom was Lady Fortune and all, Mom would just pawn something. At the end, she’d parceled out her magic and kept just a little for herself, less than she should have had. When she died, she didn’t have enough magic left to heal. The one thing I understood, then and now, was that she’d done it for me. I’d been tracking down her magic ever since.

  A pickpocket in Verona had stolen a very valuable dagger when we were walking in the square. My mother knew the moment the dagger had been taken, of course, but she didn’t even react.

  “Why don’t you go after her?” I asked. “You know who she is.”

  She gazed after the girl, who was disappearing into the crowd. “She needs it more than I do,” she said.

  Why would a ten-year-old girl need a dagger? I started to ask, but then I saw the tears in my mother’s eyes.

  I was brought back to the present when Elizabeth asked me, “Are you all right?”

  “Just thinking,” I replied. Was it a coincidence that the pawnshop was broken into soon after I’d been there?

  “Are we done here?” she asked.

  “I’m done.” A hundred years done.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We spent another hour driving around while she pointed out the food bank where Alex volunteered, his favorite restaurants, and where he shopped for suits.

  We grabbed a couple of sandwiches and ate them in the parking lot of the restaurant. I sucked down the last of my soda and then grinned at her. “Want to get out of the city?”

  “Where are we going?” she asked. When I wouldn’t tell her, she tried to wheedle it out of me.

  “You’ll see,” I said. She tilted her head and gave me a little smile. In that instant, I knew my world would revolve around her smile. Danger, my brain told me, but I was sick of being alone.

  She gave me a long considering look. “Have you ever driven on icy roads?” she asked. “Before they died, my parents taught me how to drive on these streets. Maybe I’d better take the wheel.”

  “How did they die?” I asked.

  “Boating accident. They both drowned.”

  Interesting. That was the first information she’d volunteered about her parents. “I learned to drive in the Alps,” I assured her.

  She reclined against the seat. “Then I’ll leave myself in your hands.”

  I started the engine and headed out of town. The heavy stone that always seemed to lie upon my chest had lifted and I whistled as I drove. I was headed for the open road and there was a gorgeous girl beside me.

  “This car certainly made you happy,” she said.

  I knew when I bought it that the car would bring me luck. “Do you know who owned a 1956 purple Cadillac Eldorado?” I asked her.

  “No, who?” she asked.

  “The king,” I said.

  “The king of Italy?” she hazarded.

  “The king of rock ’n’ roll,” I said. “Elvis Presley.”

  “And now he’s dead,” she said. She shivered.

  “Are you cold?” I asked.

  “No, a goose just walked over my grave.”

  I turned up the heater anyway.

  When I’d headed out of Minneapolis, it had been cold and clear. But we were on a deserted country road when the sky grew black.

  The wind whipped up, ferocious in its intensity, attacking the car with gust after gust. It was as if it were trying to blow us off the road.

  There was so much magic in the air that I could barely breathe. I tried to take one of my hands off the steering wheel, but they were frozen there. The road curved sharply to the left up ahead.

  Elizabeth shifted nervously in her seat. “Are you okay?”

  “Take the wheel,” I told her. She did as I asked and with effort, I managed to work one hand free. It was enough to find the lodestone in my jacket pocket. I cast a protective spell around the entire car, but the attacker was too sneaky for me.

  I was completely unprepared when my foot hit the brakes and they didn’t work. I fought it, but the car was gaining speed as the curve quickly approached. I threw the car into low gear, which slowed us down but didn’t bring us to a halt.

  “Stop it!” Elizabeth said.

  “I can’t,” I told her, through gritted teeth. “The brakes aren’t working! Pull over!”

  “I’m trying!” she said. While she struggled to steer the car to the side of the road, I managed to free my other hand and dug through my inside jacket pocket for the tiny moonstone I’d bought at Eternity Road.

  “Put it in park,” I ordered.

  “But we’ll tailspin,” she objected.

  “Would you rather we slam into that tree?”

  I gripped the moonstone and drew from the magic stored there. One touch brought my mother v
ividly to mind. It was during happier times, my birthday maybe. She was wrapping a present and telling me not to peek.

  The memory fled as I concentrated on staying alive long enough to figure out who was behind this attack. The sky lightened back to blue and the wind died down as quickly as it had started.

  Elizabeth threw the car into park and it went into a spin. I pumped the brakes hard and they finally responded. The car let out a groan before it finally slowed to a stop mere inches from the tree.

  Elizabeth was shaking and I put an arm around her. “Are you all right? You didn’t hit your head or anything, did you?”

  She gestured to the seat belt, stretched tightly against her. “Not a scratch.”

  We stayed there a long time, not speaking. My hands shook on the steering wheel. For someone who was supposed to be dead, I was clinging to life with all my might.

  “That was a lucky break,” Elizabeth finally said, but there was a quaver in her voice.

  “If we’d been in a lighter car, that wind would have blown us clean off the road,” I told her.

  At first I thought we’d missed the tree completely, but the front bumper had some minor damage. The weight of what I had planned to do had stayed on my shoulders like a yoke, but instead of guilt, I felt free. They had tried to hurt Elizabeth and every cell in my body screamed that it was time for the Fates to pay.

  Although my life stretched in front of me to infinity, I did not take the idea of murdering my aunts lightly.

  I expected Elizabeth to bombard me with questions, but she was strangely silent. Shock, I supposed.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” I said. “It’ll be okay now. Let’s get something hot to drink.”

  Maybe something hot and sweet would bring back some color to her cheeks.

  “Can you just take me home?” she asked.

  The ride home was taken in silence.

  Someone was trying to kill me. My aunts were the obvious suspects, but a thought occurred to me. Elizabeth had been in the car with me, and she had experienced more than her fair share of tragedy. Was it coincidence or something more sinister?

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next day, I hit the streets.

  Besides my aunts, I couldn’t think of anyone else who wanted to kill me, and they knew it would take more than a car accident to get rid of me. Maybe it wasn’t me they were trying to hurt? Elizabeth. The thought sent terror through me, but I couldn’t let it stop me from taking down the Fates.

  It was risky, what I was planning. Infiltrating the Fates as an outsider was dangerous enough, but Morta and her tracker had made it clear they had something particularly gruesome in store for me. They’d never suspect that I’d have the balls to face them.

  I spent a couple of hours at a thrift store until I found a decent-looking suit. I paid for it in cash and changed into the suit, careful to knot the tie a tad haphazardly. The suit was clean but worn. I needed to look like an upstanding young man, down on his luck, but trustworthy.

  No one at the company would help me, at least not knowingly, but I knew how to help myself.

  I watched the building until I saw Trevor the receptionist leave and head for the coffee shop across from Parsi Enterprises.

  I followed him at a distance. He ordered, sat at a table in front of the bay window, and read the paper. I ordered a coffee and waited for my chance.

  I felt a twinge of remorse about what I was planning to do to the innocent worker, but I needed to get into Parsi Enterprises and fast.

  The spell wouldn’t hurt him, just have him worshipping the porcelain goddess for a few days. It would work best if I touched him while I worked the spell. Otherwise, it was possible the entire café would end up sick.

  He tossed the paper aside and I approached. “Are you finished with that?” I asked innocuously.

  He nodded. “Help yourself.” I grabbed the paper and put my hand on his shoulder and muttered, “Vomui, vomui, vomui.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Thanks,” I said, but he was already bolting for the bathroom, hand to his mouth. He’d be out of commission for at least a month, which I hoped would be enough time.

  I managed to sneak up the elevator to Parsi Enterprises without any hassle from security and took a seat in the waiting area. I waited to make sure that the receptionist wasn’t going to miraculously show up again. The hands of the clock above the desk ticked by slowly and I was getting sick of hearing my own breathing.

  I realized I hadn’t even heard a phone ring. There was no one in sight so I took a quick peek at the phone system. The phones were set to go to voice mail, but I quickly deleted the programming, praying I wouldn’t get caught.

  The phones started to ring before I slid back into my seat.

  Sawyer Polydoros walked to the front, holding a pile of documents.

  “Trevor, can you make sure these get sent overnight?” he asked. A puzzled look came over his face when he saw the empty seat and the blaring phone. He glanced at his watch and frowned.

  I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him that Trevor would not be coming back from his break, at least not today.

  He saw me and a smile lit his face. “Nyx, what are you doing back here?”

  He really was a nice guy, for a necromancer.

  I faked a down-on-my-luck grin. “Just checking back about a job.”

  His gaze took in my secondhand suit and convincingly rumpled résumé. “I see. Not having any luck?”

  “Not much,” I said.

  “Have you been waiting long?”

  The phone’s shrill cry interrupted. “I can get that, if you want,” I offered. “Just until he gets back.”

  Before he could react, I slid into the receptionist seat and picked up the phone. “Parsi Enterprises, Nyx speaking.”

  I put the caller on hold, or at least I hoped I did, and looked up at Sawyer hopefully. “It’s for you. Mr. Sabatini from the bank.”

  He nodded. “You’ve got the job,” he said. “Just until Trevor gets back. And I’ll take that call in my office.”

  It was sink or swim. I searched for and finally found an extension list, then patched the call through. I was in.

  I put the phones back on voice mail and leaned back in my seat, well satisfied with my scheme. I’d work there until I figured out how to take my aunts down and maybe even find out what happened to Elizabeth’s brother.

  “Are you following me?” A pair of blue eyes stared at me. I was losing my touch. I’d let Naomi sneak up on me.

  “Oh, it’s you. The girl from the pool,” I replied. “I’m not following you. I work here.”

  “Since when?” she challenged.

  “Since today, actually,” I admitted. “Temporarily, at least.”

  “What happened to Trevor?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Dunno. It’s Naomi, right?”

  She nodded. “You remembered my name.” Suspicious as any other Fate.

  “Of course I did,” I said. “You were my very own Good Samaritan.”

  “Why do you want to work here?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  I paused and tried to think of a plausible lie that a normal girl would believe. Assuming she was a normal girl.

  Lies were always more believable if you kept them as simple as possible. “I need a job. Any job.”

  “What’s your story, Nyx?” she asked. “You don’t seem the day-job type.”

  “What’s with all the questions?” I replied. “I’m exactly who I seem. A peon magician from the House of Zeus, trying to catch a break.”

  Her gaze was sharp. “I’ll worm the real story out of you eventually,” she said. “Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I replied. “But thanks.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not after your bod. You just look…lonely.”

  “I’ll pass.” I didn’t kid myself that the invite was motivated by concern. The girl was
nosy, just like any Fate. I wasn’t ready to sit down with her mom, my aunt Nona . They’d have to hide the cutlery or I’d try to gut her with a steak knife.

  “What are you so afraid of?” she said. “It won’t be as bad as you think. It’ll just be Mom and Dad and me.”

  “You live with your dad?” I asked. She didn’t notice my slip. It was probably fairly normal to live with your dad, but the Fates had never been much for domestic bliss. The males in the family tended to go missing.

  “And my mom,” Naomi replied.

  “I’m not much for dinner with my bosses,” I told her. “Maybe another time, though.”

  She grabbed her backpack and fished around for pen and paper. She scribbled down something on a slip of paper and handed it to me. “Here’s my phone number in case you change your mind. The invitation is open. Come for dinner anytime.”

  * * *

  My first day at the office had made me jittery. I checked out of the Drake within the hour, after first making sure the harpies weren’t around. I’d have to hide out at the Dead House for a few days.

  I left the Caddy a few blocks from the fort and headed for my makeshift home base. I was about a block away when I saw a familiar red Lexus drive by and flip a U-turn, before pulling up to the curb.

  Elizabeth honked her horn and I crossed to the driver’s-side window. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. She looked like she’d just rolled out of bed, with unbrushed hair and a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms.

  “I’ve been driving all over Minneapolis looking for you,” Elizabeth said. “Don’t you ever answer your cell?”

  “I was at work.”

  She gave me a curious look but didn’t ask any questions.

  “How did you find me?” I asked, then realized I sounded insensitive. “Are you okay?”

  “Someone left a box on the front porch last night,” she said. “It was creepy.”

  Dread filled me. “Creepy?”

  “Jenny was at her boyfriend’s last night,” Elizabeth said. “So I was home alone.” There was reproach in her voice.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “They didn’t take anything, but there was water all over the front porch.”