Strange Fates (Nyx Fortuna) (29 page)

I dismissed the memory reluctantly. I couldn’t be distracted when I entered the labyrinth. As soon as I took the first step, I could smell the magic. It smelled wrong, though. Not fresh and lemony and part of the natural world.

Magic was always there, always with us, at least according to my mother, but this magic was different. This magic smelled old and dark, like someone’s seldom-used basement. I stopped and sniffed again. Someone’s basement, that is, if they regularly stored something dead there. This magic smelled of blood, of fear, of pain.

I pushed it a little with my mind, testing the boundaries. It pushed back, hard. The dark magic was all around me, so thick that it was like a wall. I murmured a few words and punched a way through, but it was heavy going.

Was Alex there? I knew the answer lay somewhere in the labyrinth.

I pressed on, disoriented by the dark magic. I could taste it on my tongue whenever I breathed in.

The heavy stone walls closed in on me and then I heard a laugh. “ ‘Come into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly,” a voice whispered.

This was bad, very bad and I suddenly doubted that I would find my way to the heart of the labyrinth without any help.

From behind me came the faint sound of someone calling my name. I stopped in my tracks. There was definite peril ahead, but if I turned back now, I might not get another chance at the labyrinth. I was woefully unprepared, though. The voice called out again. Willow. The note of worry in her voice decided it for me. I’d go back.

I had a phenomenal sense of direction, but I was dizzy with magic and didn’t know which way to turn. I needed to get the magic out of me before I exploded.

I knew it was time to get out, but my mind was blurry and I fought the urge to lie down and close my eyes. My legs had grown as heavy as stone and it took an enormous effort to kick one foot in front of the other.

Had I been there for minutes or hours, listening to that voice? I stumbled and fell. I lay there and a part of me knew I should get up, but I didn’t. I was no longer able to see clearly in front of me as my eyelids grew heavy. Finally, I gave in and listened to the voice. Sleep, it said. Sleep now. So I lay down on the cold stone floor and slept.

Just before everything went black, a familiar face appeared.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When I came to, I was sprawled on a narrow cot in a candlelit room.

“Wake up, wake up, why won’t he wake up? Maybe I’m dreaming again.”

I cracked open bleary eyes to see a blond guy pacing. He was rake-thin, dressed in a threadbare pair of jeans and a holey sweater. The sleeves were pushed up to reveal a nasty scar that ran up his left arm. I recognized him from the photo, though.

He stopped to stare at me.

I stared back. “Where am I? What happened?” I asked. I felt as if I’d been beaten with a sock full of quarters or something. My ears and hands stung and I realized if he hadn’t found me, I’d have hypothermia. But something about it didn’t feel right. Was the whispering voice just a hallucination or the spell of a tricky magician?

“Questions, questions, he’s full of questions,” he replied.

“Alex, is that you?”

He reacted to his name, but not in the way I expected. He looked over his shoulder fearfully. “Did she send you?”

“No one sent me,” I said. “But obviously, someone didn’t want me to find you. Why?”

“Why? Why? Why?” he echoed. Was I dealing with a lunatic?

I sat up and the covers slipped down to my waist and I realized I was still naked. I looked around and saw clothes draped over a makeshift rack near the fire. We were in a room of about ten feet by ten feet.

“Can I borrow some pants?”

He nodded.

“Alex, how long have you been here?”

“School, school, I’m late for school,” he said in a singsong voice. He was batshit crazy, but who could blame him? He’d experienced more of the magical world than many mortals could take.

I tried again. “Alex, do you remember your sister Elizabeth? She sent me.”

He put a finger to his lips and went completely still, listening to something no one else could hear.

“She hunts,” he whispered. “But she won’t find me. Not here.”

Was he talking about a naiad or one of the Fates? I strained to hear. For a moment, nothing, and then came the sound of footsteps.

I motioned Alex to be quiet. I held my breath, but the footsteps receded and finally stopped.

I wrapped a blanket around me and checked to make sure my necklace was still around my neck. Just having it near me helped me regain a little strength.

“She’s a leech, sucking out all the good,” Alex said.

“Who are you talking about?”

“Don’t tell me that she’s fooled you, too,” he replied.

Bile rose in my throat. “You’re talking about a naiad?”

“Who else?” Alex had been raving earlier, but seemed more and more lucid as we spoke.

“How do you survive in here?”

He shrugged. “They bring me food sometimes. I try not to eat it, but sometimes I’m so hungry.” He gripped my arm. “Don’t eat or drink anything here.”

“Alex, we need to get out of here,” I said. “Can you make it?” How was I going to fight off the naiads and haul Alex back to the surface? He didn’t have the strength to swim on his own.

“Just watch your back,” he said.

“Do you know a way out, Alex?”

He ignored my questions. His face twisted with rage and pain. “I killed them.”

“Who?” I asked. “Who did you kill?”

He stared at me for a long moment. I assumed he was trying to make up his mind about me.

“My whole family. Car accident,” he said. “I was driving. I lost control.”

“I was nearly killed just the other day,” I told him casually. “In a car accident. But it wasn’t an accident at all. It was magic.”

He started to rock back and forth. “No one left. No one left. No one left.”

“Elizabeth is alive,” I said.

It took him a minute, but he snapped out of it.

“Elizabeth is dead,” he said. “They’re all dead.”

I shook my head. “No, she’s alive and well. I promise.”

“He told me they’d died. That they’d all died. That it was just him. Why would he leave me here?”

“I don’t know, Alex,” I replied. “I don’t know.”

I knew Elizabeth, didn’t I? She was a good person. Was it possible that she had been collaborating with Gaston in her brother’s kidnapping?

No, only a monster would leave anyone here. Gaston had been working alone, at least in that. My anger at her treachery lessened.

“Why did he trap you here?”

He gave me a look of cunning. “Don’t you know?”

I held on to my patience with difficulty. I was running out of time, and his vagueness wasn’t helping.

I shook my head. There were only a few reasons that someone would kill—jealousy, greed, or power.

“It’s a secret,” he said slyly. “Mother told me not to tell.”

“Your mother is dead,” I reminded him.

His eyes lost focus for a moment. “She still walks in the labyrinth,” he said. “She visits me. This is where she drowned, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.” Another detail Elizabeth neglected to mention.

“He wants her to get me to tell the secret, but I won’t.”

“What secret?”

He stopped, listening for something only he could hear. “Shh,” he said. “She’s coming.” He grabbed my arm and led me to the entrance. “You have to go.”

“Come with me,” I urged.

“I can’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I can’t find the way out,” he replied. “I’ve tried. I made it to the water once, but then…” His body shook with fear.

“I’ll get you out of here,” I promised.

He gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Others have said the same,” he said. “And now they are all dead.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” I said. “I can’t be killed no matter how hard they try.”

How could Gaston have done this? Fury went through me at the thought.

“I can’t leave,” he said. “I’m trapped. The naiads won’t let me pass.”

“Let me worry about the naiads,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

He nodded and a glimmer of rationality appeared, but it was gone as quickly as it had come.

“
Illuminate
,” I said. I really didn’t remember my Latin, but a straightforward command worked just as well and would help discharge some of the magic.

A blue light appeared on the smooth marble wall and began to move in the direction I’d come from. I followed it.

I grabbed Alex and threw him over my shoulder. He was so thin that it wasn’t difficult to carry him.

As I walked, the smooth marble walls shifted and moved. A straight passage out became a dead end. Instead of reaching the exit, we headed deeper and deeper into the labyrinth. My heart rate accelerated as I thought of the possibility of wandering the halls forever, slowly going mad right along with Alex.

Then the whispering began.

“Don’t listen, Alex,” I commanded. I put him down, tore a strip of fabric off the bottom my shirt, and then shredded it into small pieces. I stuffed the small wad of cotton fabric into my ears and made Alex do the same. The whispering became a shout, but the fabric muffled the sound. My head cleared, but as we continued the walls and ceiling pressed closer and closer, narrowing until there was barely room for me to walk upright. Then the passageway opened up into an enormous chamber with four doors.

Which way should I go now? The faint blue light I’d summoned cast a shadow on the stone walls. I put Alex down to catch my bearings. There were rows of pillars, and a statue stood watch in the center. The god Poseidon clutched his trident in one hand. I looked at the statue carefully and noticed that the trident pointed to one of the doors.

When we left the labyrinth, a sea hag waited in the shallows. We reached the stone steps that led to the water. She let out a wail of rage and Alex flailed wildly. I had a hard time keeping my grip on him.

She waggled a finger at me to tell me I’d been a naughty boy, and then smiled at me, showing her razor-sharp teeth. She gestured to Alex, making a motion to give him to her.

I shook my head and she howled again, a ferocious primal scream that scared me all the way to the marrow of my bones. She wasn’t messing around this time. I could never outswim a sea hag. My best bet was to stand and fight.

She lunged for me. She came close enough for me to see each individual glistening scale on her tough skin. I caught a whiff of her breath, which was like the odor of the slime that grew in trapped water.

Alex’s weight slowed me down enough that her next swipe with her long fingernails took a gash out of my leg. I sent her sprawling, and her head connected with a stone column. I heard a crack, but didn’t wait around to see if she was still alive. I swam.

I was already winded by the time I broke the surface of the water. Alex chose that moment to start shrieking, which would let every naiad within five miles know where we were.

I clapped a hand over his mouth. “Alex, cut it out. Now.” He continued to flail and shriek, and I was growing weaker.

“If you want to see your sister again, shut the hell up!”

He went silent and still. I could barely see the shore. A heavy fog had rolled in, concealing more than it revealed. The shore looked a long way off, but I got Alex in a firefighter’s hold and swam awkwardly to shore.

I threw Alex onto the beach and then collapsed there next to him. I was so tired, but I couldn’t rest yet. I had to get Alex to safety.

I walked to Elizabeth’s house, still half carrying Alex, but the house was dark. I could have broken in, but it would be safer back at my apartment. And Talbot would be there for reinforcements. I hiked to my car. It was after 1
A.M.
and the temperatures had dropped. We wouldn’t last long out there in that weather. Alex was shivering and blue by the time we made it back to the car.

I helped him into the passenger seat of the Caddy and then turned the heater on full blast. He rocked back and forth, mumbling to himself. Every few minutes, he stopped and cocked his head, listening. “They know,” he said. “They know.”

He was freaking me out. The sooner I got him to Elizabeth, the better. I parked in front of her house and waited, but she never showed. Alex finally fell asleep and I started the car and cruised through the quiet Minneapolis streets.

Where was she? I wanted to tell her that Alex was safe, that he was finally free, but I couldn’t even find her.

I didn’t want her gratitude. I wanted to reunite her with Alex and get her out of my life for good. But Elizabeth never came home.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

I woke when the sun hit my closed eyelids. I stretched and smacked my elbow on the steering wheel. I was disoriented for a moment, unsure where I was. I stared bleary-eyed out the windshield, but it was frosted over.

When I swore, my breath fogged in the air. I wiped it clear and stared out. I was parked about a block down from Elizabeth’s house. Alex was curled up in the passenger seat. At first I thought he was dead, but then I saw his shoulder rise. He was breathing.

I turned the key and prayed that the Caddy would start. It rumbled to life and I headed to Talbot’s. I needed to have it out with my aunt and I didn’t want Alex to get caught in the crossfire.

After depositing Alex at Talbot’s for safekeeping, I drove to Aunt Nona’s house and pounded furiously at the door until she answered.

“Come in before one of the neighbors call the cops.” Her hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in days, and she was wearing a black sack of a dress. There was little trace of the fashionable, confident woman who had been my aunt just a few days before.

I shouldered my way past her. “Why are you still even here? You’re in danger.”

She tried to act like she didn’t know what I was talking about.

“Calm down, Nyx,” she said. “Now, why don’t you come in and tell us what this is all about?”

I followed her into the kitchen. “How can you continue to trust that guy?” I asked. “Hate me if you want, but since when do the Fates operate on blind trust?”