Danvers wheezed out something about my lack of balls.
“I am, however,” I continued, like he hadn’t insulted my manhood, “going to make him scream. Unless he provides some information.”
Danvers snorted. “You can try.”
I gripped my athame and embedded it in his thigh. “Now you’re going to tell me where I can find black asphodel.”
“Wh-why do you want it?”
“Is that why Hecate trashed your place?” I asked. “You’re holding out on her?”
He tightened his lips and refused to speak. I twisted the knife in deeper.
“I’ll tell you,” he said. “The only place it grows is in Asphodel.”
“How do I get there?”
“Not my problem,” he said. I yanked out the athame and held it out. “Should I do the other leg, so you have a matching set?”
“I’ll tell you,” he growled. “You already know how to get to Hecate’s realm. Keep going and you’ll reach Asphodel.”
“That’s it?”
He nodded.
“You’re lying,” I said. “Hecate was looking for something. What was it?” I polished the handle of my athame with the end of my shirt. “You can tell me now or I can hand you over to Hecate.”
“A charm,” he said, defeated. “You can’t get in without it.”
I held out my hand. “Cough it up.”
He took off his watch. “I need a screwdriver or something to pry it open.”
I spotted a rusty toolbox in the corner and rummaged through it until I found a screwdriver.
He used it to pry off the face of the watch and took out a small plastic ghost, the kind you found in abundance around Halloween.
“You’re kidding,” Talbot said.
“Completely serious,” Danvers said. “Go into Asphodel without it and the spirits will rip you to shreds.” His oily smile surfaced like scum on a rain puddle. “Still could happen.”
After he handed it over, he lapsed into a sullen silence.
“What should we do with him?” I asked Talbot. As much as I loathed Danvers, I couldn’t abandon him.
“I have a friend who does in-home care,” Talbot said. “He can handle Danvers. Carlos is with the House of Zeus and he owes me a favor,” he added when he noticed my doubtful look.
“Babysitting a broken-down necromancer? That must be a big favor he owes you.”
“It is,” Talbot replied. He didn’t elaborate.
He grabbed Danvers’s wheelchair and pushed him through the hidden door.
“Danvers and Deci must have been plotting together for years,” I commented as we walked.
“Quit talking about me like I’m not here,” Danvers grumbled.
“Only a matter of time,” I replied.
We went through a tunnel until we came to a dead end.
“Where’s the lever?” I asked Danvers.
He scowled and refused to answer.
“I’ll find it,” I said. I finally located the brick that stood out a little more from the others. I pushed it in and a door slowly opened to reveal another basement.
I’d never been inside his house, but I was sure we’d made it to Danvers. There was an elevator in the basement, which led to his third-floor bedroom. The golf trophies confirmed we were in the right place, as well as the black satin sheets and décor reminiscent of early porn movies.
“Home sweet home,” I said. Danvers had retreated into a stubborn silence.
We left him in his room. “Stay here.”
Talbot made a quick phone call while I snooped. The house had been carefully wiped clean of all magic.
What had Danvers done to get on Hecate’s bad side? Or maybe she just didn’t have a good side.
We waited for Talbot’s friend Carlos in the living room. Sitting on an uncomfortable black leather couch, I tried to picture Willow in this house and failed.
Talbot’s friend Carlos turned out to be a model-gorgeous guy with full lips, dark eyes, and dark wavy hair that was carefully messy.
“One of your frat buddies?” I said in a low voice, but Carlos heard.
“Hardly.” He smiled at me and I was nearly overwhelmed by the force of his charm.
“Knock it off, Carlos,” Talbot said. That’s when I realized that Carlos was a Mesmer, a magician who was able to compel with only his charismatic smile.
Carlos’s smile decreased in wattage. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just a habit when I meet new people.”
I stuck out a hand. “Nyx Fortuna.”
He shook it vigorously. “I’ve heard of you, of course. Your tarot poker games have become a local legend.”
I changed the subject. “Are you sure you want to take this on?”
“Are you kidding me? I share an apartment with three other guys. Talbot, are you sure you want to waste a favor on this?”
“You haven’t met the patient yet,” Talbot warned. We took the stairs to make the introductions.
The sound of hoarse chanting came from his bedroom.
Danvers was in front of a small altar. A basin of blood was in his hand and judging by the cuts on his wrists, the blood was his.
“Girlfriend not taking your call?” I asked. I yanked the basin out of his hands and dumped it in the adjoining bathroom’s sink.
“I’ll bandage those cuts,” Carlos said.
I was surprised when Danvers allowed it, but realized his magic was gone and he was as susceptible to Carlos’s charms as any mortal.
“We should be getting back,” I said.
“Go ahead,” Carlos said. “I’ve got this handled.”
“Call me or Nyx if you have any problems,” Talbot said. Carlos and I exchanged phone numbers.
“Call me if you see anyone unusual,” I said. “We have to seal the tunnel between the two houses.”
After we went through the entrance to the basement, we sealed it closed and warded it, then did the same on the other side.
“Think it will hold?” Talbot asked.
“Danvers is in no shape to break those wards,” I said. “The bigger question is why did he want the key?”
“The real question is what the key is for,” Talbot said.
We went upstairs to find Rebecca. She was sitting at the kitchen counter, staring into a cup of tea.
“Do you know what this is for?” I asked. I held up the key I’d found in the basement.
“Probably just a spare,” she said.
“I doubt Danvers would come sniffing around for a copy of the key to your front door.”
She held out a hand. “Let me take a look.” She examined it. “It’s not our house key. I’ve never seen it before.”
“I’ve read the Book of Fates over and over, but I didn’t see anything about a key. It was about as exciting as my grocery list.”
“Which reads ‘beer, absinthe, beer, and chips,’ ” Talbot added.
“Can’t help you,” she said. “Maybe ask Nona or Morta.”
I pocketed the key. “I guess we’ll take off then.”
She returned to staring at her tea and didn’t lift her head when we left.
“You think Danvers knows more than she’s telling us?” Talbot asked me once we were back in the Caddy.
“I’d count on it,” I replied.
Chapter Fourteen
I’d thought it was hard to find my way into Hecate’s realm until I looked for Asphodel. I took the plastic ghost and attached it to my mother’s necklace with her charms and used the Hell’s Belles basement entrance.
According to Danvers, I needed to walk until I came to the wall. I’d never ventured past Hecate’s castle before. There’d been no reason to, but once I passed it, the air became lighter and sweeter. With the charm, I would be able to pass through the wall and move into the Field of Asphodel.
I wandered around the underworld for hours without finding Asphodel. Finally, I stopped and said, “Show me the way to Asphodel.”
I saw a gleam of white in the distance
and headed for it. After about an hour of hiking, I reached a gray stone wall, which was high enough that it blocked my view of what was on the other side. I got a toehold and pulled myself up and over. I dropped down with a heavy thud and lay there while I caught my breath.
Soft sunlight warmed my face. I sat up and looked around. The ground was covered in white flowers as far as the eye could see. I’d reached Asphodel.
I headed for the field of the fragile white flowers. White asphodel grew in abundance, but there was no sign of any black plants. Some of the dead souls feasted upon the white asphodel while others flitted aimlessly about. The spirits ignored me.
I touched the plastic ghost hanging around my neck and was rewarded with a sharp prick on my finger. It was only a drop of blood, but it was enough. The spirits converged upon me, hungry for blood.
“Stop!” I commanded and the spirits subsided. I was shocked. Not only could I summon spirits, but I could command them.
“Very good,” Doc said. I turned to face my father. “Your powers are growing, Nyx.”
I didn’t expect to find him hanging out in Asphodel, but that’s where he was. He was Hades. The underworld was his to command.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he replied.
“I’ve been all over looking for you,” I said.
“Here I am,” he said. He acted like he didn’t have a care in the world, but I could tell something had happened to him. His salt-and-pepper hair had gone white.
“Is this where you’ve been the whole time?” I asked. “I thought Hecate had you.”
“She tried,” Doc replied. “She was not successful.”
“Obviously,” I said, “or you wouldn’t still be in once piece.”
“I’m impressed. Not many venture into Asphodel. At least not the living,” Doc said. He was remarkably calm. The twitching and shaking were noticeably absent. Maybe Asphodel was good for him.
“I need black asphodel to trap a soul.”
Doc went still. “Whose soul?”
“Hecate’s.”
He rubbed his right arm. “You want the black flowers for her?”
“You helped my aunts trap her the first time,” I said.
He hesitated before answering. “I supplied a few ingredients.”
“Can you do it again? And where are you going to get black asphodel?” I asked. I gestured to the field we stood in. “All I see is white flowers.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Doc replied. “The asphodel elixir must be mixed with your blood. Hecate will be expecting a trap, but she won’t be expecting this one.”
“Why not?” I was skeptical. Hecate had been two steps ahead of me from the beginning.
“The black asphodel only grows one place,” he said. “And I’m the only one who knows the location.”
“I need at least a dozen of those flowers,” I said. “Can you be a little more specific?”
“Let’s take a walk,” Doc suggested. “I’ll show you.”
“Where are we going?”
“Here,” he said. He touched my shoulder and we were standing in a field of black asphodel. The sky was the color of ash and a single white poplar tree stood like a lonely ghost in the distance.
“Where are we?”
“A part of the underworld that even Hecate doesn’t know about,” Doc replied. “Your mother is the only other person I’ve shown this place to.”
My father was trying to connect to me, but whenever he mentioned my mother, it only reminded me how he’d abandoned her to the Fates.
“Is this where you got the asphodel for the elixir?”
He nodded. “Let me show you my home,” he said.
One of my father’s many nicknames was The Rich One. Hades was known for his wealth, so I had expected something ostentatious, but instead, he led me to a simple one-story structure at the edge of the asphodel field.
It was desolate but beautiful. I bent and sniffed one of the blooms. It had a sweet, spicy scent.
“Is this where you go when you disappear?”
He nodded. “Yes, it was built for me a long time ago.”
I hadn’t thought, not really, about how long a god must live. And I’d been whining about putting in a couple hundred years.
Once inside, I surveyed my father’s home. He was showing me his secret place and I wanted to learn what I could. It was tiny, for a god, and sparsely furnished. The walls were plain white, but several paintings hung on them.
I felt comfortable there and I realized it was because I was surrounded by my mother’s things. There was a vase of her favorite flowers, a garnet ring she’d worn when I was small.
“This still has your bite marks in it,” Doc said. He held up a small wooden rattle.
I recognized a carved wooden flute. When I was a child and scared of the things that came for you in the dark, my mother would play it and sing me to sleep at night.
I snatched up a miniature book charm, which I’d been searching for since my mother’s death. “Do you know how long I’ve looked for this?”
He nodded. “I knew why, too.”
“Did you know she’d hidden my thread of fate in the athame?”
He shook his head. “I had no idea. That was my first athame, and I gave it to her when I found out you were coming. We were so happy.”
“Then what happened?”
He touched his scarred cheek contemplatively. “Your mother found out about Deci. And Rebecca. And that was that.” The sorrow in his voice almost made me reach out to comfort him. Almost.
But then I remembered my mother and I had spent our lives on the run because of his cowardice and lust.
“Let’s get the asphodel and go,” I said.
“Is there anything here you’d like to have?” he asked. My eyes went to the miniature book and an ivory wheel of fortune. The charms still missing from my mother’s necklace.
I grabbed the missing charms and placed them on the necklace. “I can’t believe I have them all.” The miniature book and the ivory wheel of fortune joined the black cat carved from Indian ebony, the little coral fish, the emerald frog, the diamond-studded key, and the horseshoe made of moonstones. “Finally.” I touched each charm gently.
“Please, take anything you’d like,” he said. “Take it all.”
I cleared my clogged throat. My mother’s presence permeated the room. “I thought the aunts were the ones who had the charms.”
“I didn’t trust them,” Doc said. “I wanted to keep them safe.”
“Too bad you didn’t feel the same way about your wife and child.”
“I am trying to make amends,” he replied. “In my poor way.”
“Hecate’s daughter Wren said you left Hecate to die,” I said.
After a long moment, he nodded. “She was ambitious,” he said. “She wanted to rule the underworld. I was not willing to let that happen.”
“That’s why she is doing all this?”
He nodded gravely. “I’m afraid the sins of the father have indeed been laid upon the children.”
“But you still won’t help me stop her?”
He shook his head. We picked the flowers in silence.
There was nothing else to say, except “Take me home.”
Chapter Fifteen
My father insisted that we brew the elixir at midnight on a full moon. We were in my kitchen. It was around 10 p.m. and we still had two hours to kill before we could start cooking up the stuff that would, I hoped, free Willow and trap Hecate.
“A little theatrical, don’t you think?”
“It will maximize the strength of the potion,” Doc replied. He sighed. “There is so much I need to teach you.”
“Kind of late for that, don’t you think?” I slammed down the pot I’d been holding.
I’d invited Rebecca to join us, but she’d declined the invitation with a smirk. “No daddy/daughter bonding time for me, thanks,” she’d muttered.
“Do you think you’ll be able to find Hecate’s physical form?” Doc asked. He seemed oblivious to my simmering resentment.
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” I replied. “Hecate, at least her body, can’t leave the underworld.” The goddess had found a way around her imprisonment by possessing Willow, but her form was stuck.
“The underworld is a very big place,” Doc said. “And you said you’d already searched Hecate’s castle.”
“I’ll find the body,” I said. “I have to.”
I was well into my fourth or fifth beer when there was a thump in the hallway outside my apartment.
I drew my athame and looked out. At first, I didn’t see anything. I heard a sound again and stepped out into the hallway. There was a body lying near the stairwell. Something about the dark hair and thin frame looked familiar.
I rolled her over. It was Rebecca.
Her nose was bloody and swollen and her arm hung at an odd angle at her side, probably broken, but she was alive.
“Met your ex tonight,” Rebecca said, right before she collapsed.
Doc carried her to the couch and set her down gently. The bone of her right arm poked through her skin. There was dried blood on her face, her jeans, even in her hair.
“We should set her arm before she wakes up,” Doc said calmly. “Find me some newspaper or a small board, and an old T-shirt if you have one.”
“We?” The thought horrified me. When he stared at me, I collected myself. “Last week’s newspaper is still on the kitchen counter.” I rounded up a ratty tee and handed it to him. Doc brought out some adhesive tape from the depths of his ratty trench coat and scooped up the newspaper.
“You’ll need to hold her steady,” he said. “It won’t take long.”
“Okay.” I watched as Doc fashioned a makeshift splint.
It was turning out to be a hell of a family reunion. Other than a whimper when Doc first started setting her arm, Rebecca didn’t stir.
A few minutes later, he said, “You can let her go now.”
“How is she?”
“Got any alcohol?” Doc asked.
I snorted. “That’s how well you know me,” I replied. “I always have booze.”
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