“A lot worse. Most of the supernatural community ignores vampires. They’re seen as weird and dangerous, and they’re very distrustful of outsiders, especially mages. They aren’t the first place—or the second or third—where anyone would expect a human to go for help, especially not when the vamp in question is a vicious, two-bit hood like Tony.”
“Then how did your parents manage it? As you say, vampires rarely trust a mage.”
“A mage, no. But a necromancer . . .”
“Ah.” He sat back against the bench. It was wet, but I guess when you’re dressed in a blanket, it doesn’t matter so much. “The one time being on the wrong side of the law is helpful.”
“Yes. Tony always liked working with criminals, or at least those under suspicion. Gave them fewer options, and more reason to stay on his good side. Plus, Roger was a decent mage, and the vamps don’t get a lot of those.”
Jonas nodded. Most of the mages the vamps were able to acquire—except for people like Mircea, who could afford the best—were pretty down-market. Tony had lost a lot of business through the years from spells that went wrong, because somebody hadn’t known what he was doing.
“But getting close to Tony didn’t solve their problem, did it?” Jonas asked.
“No. It bought them time, but the Spartoi were going to find them sooner or later, and without the Pythian power, my mother wouldn’t be able to fight them off.”
“And she had a child to think about,” Jonas said, watching me.
I stared at the moon, flirting with the branches of the trees. “She knew if they found out about me, I was dead. She also knew that she was dying, because of the starvation that had been dogging her for years. It had driven her to the Pythian Court, but even the Pythian power wasn’t enough anymore. It had sustained her, but it hadn’t repaired the damage. Nothing on earth could.”
“Nothing . . . on earth?” Jonas said, and damn, he was quick. Quicker than I’d been.
“My parents had a plan,” I confirmed. “But for it to work, they needed the Spartoi out of the equation. But they had no way to kill them. So they did the next best thing.”
“Which was?”
“They killed themselves—at a time when they knew the Spartoi would see it.”
“I . . . beg your pardon.” Jonas stared at me.
“Tony had ordered a hit on them,” I explained, “for refusing to turn me over as commanded. Roger knew the assassin he planned to use—they’d worked with each other before. And while Jimmy wouldn’t have been willing to walk away, he was perfectly happy to take a bribe to set up the hit at a time and place of my father’s choosing.”
“I wasn’t referring to logistics!” Jonas stared at me. “You’re saying they wanted to die?”
“Not wanted to, no. But it was happening anyway. Mother was dying and Roger wouldn’t leave her, so—”
“I still don’t see how death was a solution to anything!”
I shook my head. “You wouldn’t—no one would unless they were an expert on ghosts. It’s like my father told me the last time I was here—there’s no limit to how much power a ghost can consume. In bodily form, Mother would be easy prey. But as a hungry spirit?”
Jonas just looked at me.
“She knew her fellow gods,” I explained. “She knew they would likely try to come back separately, each of them wanting to rule it all. Which gave her a chance. She’d been able to drain powerful demon lords in seconds once. Why not a god, if he was distracted by battle?”
Like, for example, with the very demon lords she’d helped me get on my side.
I’d wondered why she’d been so insistent on talking to the council on Pritkin’s behalf, to the point of putting the Seidr spell on me so she could use my time-travel abilities to speak to them from beyond the grave. Yet she’d then spent most of that speech ignoring him, in favor of getting me powerful allies. It made more sense when I realized: she’d also been getting herself a powerful distraction.
“But surely he would notice,” Jonas insisted. “And turn on her!”
I smiled slightly. “Yes, he would turn on her. On a newly reinvigorated Artemis, full of stolen godly power, the same power that had weakened him. On the great huntress, the goddess who had torn swaths across whole demon armies; who had followed demon lords back to their home worlds and struck them dead before their thrones; who had single-handedly evicted the entire pantheon from earth and slammed the door behind them. And who knew she was literally facing the fight of her life.”
Jonas blinked, absorbing that. “So your mother had to die . . . in order to live.”
I nodded. “The gods aren’t like us. They don’t die so much as . . . fade, when they run out of power. And as damaged as Mother was, only absorbing the full power of another great god would be enough to bring her back. She could drain him dry and return to her old self, but not in the body she was in. It couldn’t absorb that much power fast enough. But a ghost could.”
“And if you’re prepared to die anyway, why not let that death serve double duty and protect your child?”
I nodded.