Strange Fates (Nyx Fortuna) (24 page)

“What cards?” he asked.

“The cards on the table,” I shouted. “Make sure you get all of them.”

I didn’t have time to check on Talbot, because the bartenders, obviously two of Brad’s friends, advanced toward me.

I’d knocked Brad unconscious, but his two friends looked bigger and smarter than he was.

“We’re gonna beat that smart-ass attitude out of you,” one of them muttered. When his fist connected with my ribs, I regretted the generous tip I’d given him earlier. The second man moved to hold my arms while I was doubled over from the punch.

Talbot came to my assistance and hit the second guy with a folding chair.

I looked around and noticed that Kyle had bolted at the first sign of trouble. Spenser ignored the fight; he was too occupied with stuffing my cash into his pockets.

My mouth was bashed and cut. I grinned through the blood as I hit the bartender in the stomach with rapid punches. He fell to the ground. I kicked him in the ribs until he screamed with pain.

“Let’s get out of here,” Talbot said. He pulled me away.

“Did you get the tarot cards?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, but I didn’t move.

“All of them?” I asked.

“Yes, all seventy-eight of the damned things. Now let’s go!”

The sirens I heard in the distance clued me in about his sudden need to leave.

We ran from the bar and didn’t slow down until we were a block from our building.

“That went well,” Talbot said wryly. “We left most of the money.” He handed me a small wad of bills and the tarot deck.

I grinned at him. “It went better than you think.”

Chapter Thirty

I was going to break into Parsi Enterprises. I didn’t have a key and I knew the place was warded, but it might be my last chance. There had been too many near misses lately, and in my experience that meant the aunties were closing in.

The downstairs lobby was deserted, but I didn’t expect it to be that way for long. I made it to the office without detection, but the big double doors were locked up tight. I’d come prepared, though.

Not with magic, which might set off one of the wards, but with a spare key I’d swiped from Trevor’s desk. It had been helpfully marked
FRONT DOOR
.

I turned the knob quietly. The place was about as lively as a tomb. I wanted to snoop through Alex’s office.

I fished out a penlight and shone it around. I’d become familiar with the layout in the last few weeks, so I knew exactly where Alex’s office was. It was locked and this time I didn’t have a spare key. I examined the lock and then went back to the reception area for a paper clip.

I was sweating by the time the lock clicked and the handle opened.

I crossed to the desk and rifled through it. Then a switch was flipped on and light flooded the room. Gaston stood there, smirking at me.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Gaston said. “Son of Fortuna. I’ve been looking all over for you and you’ve been right under their noses.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “You attacked me at the magic shop. I was just defending myself.”

I hated the guy, but I had to give him his props. He was a skilled Tracker.

He strode toward me, eyes full of premature triumph. “I knew it was you,” he said. “I see I left you a little souvenir.”

The cut he’d given me at Zora’s had left a small scar. “I cut myself shaving.”

“I finally found you,” he continued to crow, so I let him go on.

I shrugged. “Think what you want.”

“There’s one way to know for sure,” Gaston said. “Sawyer, come on out.”

Sawyer appeared and his normal friendly smile had vanished.

“Sawyer, what’s going on?” I told myself they couldn’t prove anything.

His lips moved, but there was a roaring in my ears, which blocked out what he was saying.

He was removing the occulo spell. It felt like someone was flaying the skin from my body. The medicine woman had warned me removal would be painful, but she’d seriously undersold it.

The agony receded and I met Sawyer’s eyes. He’d be able to see the real me. I’d gotten used to the spell’s protection and I felt naked without it.

“He’s playing you, Sawyer,” I said.

“You’re telling me you’re not the son of Fortuna?” he asked. “You look just like her.”

“I’m not saying that,” I said. “I’m saying not to trust Gaston.”

Gaston’s grin sent a shudder through me. “Don’t listen to him, Sawyer. He hates your wife, your entire family.”

“I know you are behind it all,” I said. “I know you’ve been poisoning Decima, that you tried to poison me. You’re trying to take down the Fates, but what I don’t understand is why.”

With a quick movement, Gaston used a spell and immobilized Sawyer.

“Why was Sawyer helping you?” I asked. “Doesn’t seem like his style.”

“Sawyer Polydoros used to be a badass necromancer,” Gaston said. “But even a badass can be made to do my bidding. I just needed the right leverage. His daughter.”

“Naomi?” I had to force myself not to punch him.

Gaston grinned at me, clearly pleased to know something that I didn’t know. “His
other
daughter. Wren. The one he didn’t want his wife to know about.”

“Who’s the mother?” I asked.

Gaston laughed. “That’s Sawyer’s dirty little secret, isn’t it? The only person in the world the Fates hate more than the son of Fortuna.”

Sawyer gave me a pleading look, but I ignored it. I couldn’t afford to show any weakness in front of Gaston. “So what’s the plan?”

“Why should I tell you?” he snarled. “You belong to the Wyrd line.”

“Let’s just say we have a mutual goal,” I said. “Why do you think I came to Minneapolis? I came to make the Fates suffer as much as my mother did. So what’s your plan?”

The hatred in my voice must have convinced him, because he started talking.

“I want power,” Gaston said. “I’ve been doing their bidding like a trained monkey. Do you know what that feels like?”

I had an inkling, but I shuddered. Gaston was a twisted version of me.

“I’m going to kill them,” Gaston finally said. “And then I’m going to take over. You got a problem with that?”

Getting rid of the Fates was something I had to do all by myself. I raised an eyebrow. “And if I do?”

“Killing you won’t work,” Gaston said. “I’ve certainly tried enough times. But that pretty little girlfriend of yours is mortal. I’ll enjoy it.” Now I knew where Jenny had gotten all her bruises. Gaston was a demented bully.

“Go ahead,” I lied. “I’m bored with her. Mortals can be so tiresome. Silly little fool believed every lie I told her.”

“You don’t care?” he asked. I’d thrown him off-guard, but despite everything I didn’t want Elizabeth to become another dead person I used to know.

“Of course not,” I said. “Why else did she have to slip me a libido spell?”

He gave me an oily grin. “At least you got something out of it. Maybe I’ll try her out next.”

“Be my guest,” I said. I forced my clenched fists to relax. “Now what do you want me to do?”

“That spell didn’t hold up so well, did it?” Gaston replied. “But I have plans for you.”

I held up a hand. “Tracker, I have a proposition for you. Just don’t kill him.”

“I thought you hated the Fates.”

“I do,” I said. “But Sawyer doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Yes, he does,” Gaston said. With a swift movement, he pulled out a knife and sliced Sawyer across the neck.

I tore off my T-shirt and applied pressure to the wound to try to stem the bleeding. My scar throbbed in sympathy. I started a healing spell, but it wasn’t working. There was blood everywhere and I flashed back to how brightly the red droplets had gleamed on my mother’s snowy pillow.

Sawyer was dying in a pool of his own blood. A bloody knife lay next to him. He’d been stabbed by the same knife Gaston had threatened me with. I picked it up and waved it at Gaston. “I’ll kill you.”

That’s when my aunt and cousin decided to show up. They took in the scene at a glance.

“Do something,” Naomi screamed.

“Naomi, Nona, a little help here,” I snapped. “Healing spell. Now!” They recited the Latin, but it was too late. Sawyer was fading.

Naomi looked like she was going to throw up.

“I found them here,” Gaston said. “Sawyer must have surprised Nyx when he broke in.”

Morta appeared holding her golden shears just as she had when my mother died.

“No,” Nona wailed. “Please, I’m your sister. I love him.”

“She’s just doing her job, darlin’,” Sawyer said weakly.

Morta touched Sawyer’s hand, and a glowing silver thread appeared in the air above him. She cut the thread in one quick motion and he stopped talking. Stopped breathing. His thread of fate had been severed, which had ended his life.

I saw the sheen of tears in Morta’s eyes, but she didn’t speak, just shook her head.

When Nona turned back to her dead husband, Morta met my eyes and then slowly, deliberately pointed at me before she disappeared.

I stared at the spot where Morta had been. What had she been trying to tell me? And why couldn’t she just spit it out already?

Nobody moved for a second. The silence seemed to stretch all the way to eternity.

Nona let out a long wrenching scream. “Why did you do it, Nyx? Tell me, damn it!”

I realized I was holding the bloody knife and dropped it.

“Revenge,” Gaston said quickly. “He’s the one you’ve been looking for. Your sister’s son. Look at him closely.”

Nona came so close that our noses were almost touching. It made it easy to see the hate in her eyes. “It is you,” she said. “I wish I’d cut your throat in your crib.”

Her pain gave me no satisfaction. The hatred I’d felt for my aunts had been washed away, replaced by pity. At least for Nona.

“Gaston did this,” I said. “Not me. He’s framing me.”

She turned, eyes dazed with pain. “I don’t believe you.”

“He obviously raised a ghost for someone,” I said. “It had to be someone who had a hold on him. So who? That’s Gaston’s knife. He tried to use it on me just the other day.”

Naomi was crying so hard that she couldn’t speak. “Get out,” she finally said. “Don’t come near me again or I swear I’ll find your thread of fate and cut it myself.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Nona said. “He’s not going anywhere. Gaston, grab him.”

I didn’t want to leave them alone with Gaston, but I didn’t have a choice. There was no way Nona would listen to me after what had just happened. I ran.

Chapter Thirty-One

I needed to talk to Talbot, to convince him to keep Naomi and her mom away from the Tracker, but when I stopped by Eternity Road it was locked up tight. Ambrose had given me a key, so I turned the lock in the door and went in.

The air smelled wrong, like mummy dust and a thick layer of decay. The smell of a necromancer.

“Talbot? Ambrose?” There was no response.

“Damn it, Talbot, where are you?” I shouted, but there wasn’t any answer.

I searched everywhere but didn’t find a trace of them. Something was wrong.

There was blood on the floor. I got the cleaning supplies and set to work. I didn’t want Talbot to come back and have to clean it up.

As I scrubbed, questions kept popping into my mind. What had happened? After the blood was cleaned up, I opened the store. I was on edge all day and there was no word from Talbot or Ambrose.

It was nearly midnight when Talbot strolled in.

He didn’t seem that surprised to see me. The real me. “Do you recognize me?” I asked. “Nyx Fortuna.”

“Nyx Fortuna, wanted man,” he said. “I heard.” He studied me closely. “Your eyes are the same shape. And you’re still good-looking. Just different. So this is the real you?”

A tiny part of me relaxed, knowing that Ambrose must be okay or Talbot would not be so calm. “Where’s Ambrose? He’s okay, isn’t he?”

“He’s recovering,” Talbot said, the grin slipping from his face momentarily. “I took him to see an old…friend.”

“What happened?”

“Someone tried to break into the store again, but Dad stopped them. He was injured in the process.”

He was withholding a wealth of information. “But it didn’t look like anything had been touched. No broken windows, no trashed door.”

“Dad foiled his entry,” he said. “He was shot.”

“His?” I picked up on the tiny slip he’d made. “Talbot, what’s going on?” I asked.

“It looks like your prediction finally came true,” he said. “Someone came looking for something last night. Or someone.” His glare made it clear he thought the shot was meant for me. Maybe he didn’t get the memo that I couldn’t be killed.

Gaston had no problem torturing or killing anyone I cared about. My throat worked as I realized how many people I’d put in danger.

“There was blood all over the floor,” I said. “I cleaned it up.”

“Thank you,” he said politely, but the smile, which I now realized had been completely fake, was gone.

“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened?”

He turned away from me, walked over to a shelf, and fussed with a Victorian mourning locket. “If you tell me what the hell you’re doing in Minneapolis. And if you’ve killed anyone lately.”

“Naomi,” I guessed. “She told you what happened to her father.”

“She told me you killed Sawyer.” The calm collected facade slipped for a moment and I saw pain behind his eyes.

“And you believe her?”

He didn’t answer my question. “Is it true? That you’re the son of Fortuna?”

I nodded. “But I didn’t kill Sawyer.”

Talbot cleared his throat. “My dad told me a little bit about your mother,” he finally said. “I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“For treating a son of Fortuna, the only son of the Wyrd family line, like a novice magician,” he said in a low voice. “It’s humiliating how attached to these little symbols I’ve become.” He yanked off the silver ring he always wore and stared at the oak leaf engraving before tossing it on the table.

I slid it back to him. “Put it back on,” I ordered.

“Will you accept my apology?” he asked.

I shrugged. “So you’re proud of your lineage,” I said. “That’s not a crime.”