Hex Life

by Rachel Deering

  I finish my Coke. Then I check my watch. Time for the most dangerous part of my day: braving rush-hour traffic to pick up the kiddo at school.

  * * *

  My daughter, Savannah, attends a private school across town. That’s a luxury I can ill afford, but with my transient lifestyle, I need schools that’ll take her for one term and not look too closely at her fake ID. As Palmer said, I am indeed raising my child alone. Have been since she was born. Her daddy is a sorcerer, heir to one of the most powerful—and corrupt—Cabals in the supernatural world. If I stop moving, he’ll track us down.

  And what if he does find us? What will he do? Execute his former lover and half-witch child? Anyone who knows Kristof Nast would think that’s exactly what I fear. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  I loved Kris. Still do. While I’m not sure he feels the same after nine years, our daughter was indeed conceived in love. Kris is looking for me because he’s an amazing dad. As a single dad to two great boys, he wants to play a role in his daughter’s life, and it kills me to refuse him that. Yet his father—the Cabal CEO—would literally kill me if he discovered that a dark witch bore his heir’s child. Even if Thomas Nast didn’t murder Savannah, too, he’d hide her where Kris would never find her.

  So I run for Savannah’s sake and for Kristof’s, too. Better for him to know we’re out here, safe and alive, than to be responsible for whatever his father might do to us.

  After creeping across the jam-packed city streets, I pull into the student pickup loop. Other parents are out of their cars, waving so their kids can find them. I stay where I am. There’s no way Savannah can fail to see my ten-year-old cherry-red Jeep in this snaking line of silver luxury vehicles.

  Do I watch these flawlessly coiffed moms wave manicured hands, reflect on Kris’s wealth, and think, That could be me? Nope. I cannot even visualize it. I certainly wouldn’t want it.

  But do I look at their daughters, climbing into those plush leather seats, about to be whisked off to horseback-riding lessons and dance classes, and think, That could be Savannah? Yes. I do.

  I look at these carefree and privileged girls, knowing that’s the life Kris would have given our daughter, and I wish that for her—all the opportunities and all the stability he could have provided. Especially the stability.

  I can teach dark magic to suburban witches and earn enough money to send Savannah to private school. I can trade in black-market artifacts and give her those horseback-riding and dance lessons. Yet, at any moment, I may have to say, “Baby, it’s time to go,” and she knows there’s no point crying about the friends she’ll leave behind or begging to stay until her dance recital. My heart breaks for that. For the one thing I cannot give her, no matter how many damn grimoires I sell.

  I spot Savannah before she sees the Jeep. She’s not yet nine, but already her dark head rises above the other girls—and most of the boys. She strides along the walkway, her waist-length hair swaying, with a girl on one side of her, a boy on the other, the three of them chattering the way only eight-year-olds can, all three seeming to talk at once.

  Seeing me, Savannah grins, says a quick goodbye to her friends and breaks into a run. She throws open the door and clambers in with, “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hey, baby.”

  “Nice truck,” a voice says, and Savannah looks over at a blond girl with a sneer that catapults me back to my own school days.

  “It is,” Savannah calls back as she rolls down the window. “Especially four-by-four’ing in the summer with the top off. So much cooler than—” she points at the girl’s chauffeur-driven town car and wrinkles her nose “—whatever that is.”

  The girl sniffs and turns away.

  “Friend of yours?” I say to Savannah.

  She rolls her blue eyes, the mirror image of her father’s. “That’s Tiffany. She’s a total bitch.”

  “Savannah…”

  “Sorry, Mom. I should roll the window up before I call her that.”

  I stifle a snorted laugh, but not very well. Savannah grins at me and settles into her seat.

  “Can we practice spells tonight?” she asks.

  “We certainly can.”

  She fastens her seat belt. “I’d like to learn a fireball.”

  “So you can use it on Tiffany?”

  Savannah’s brows shoot up. “That would be wrong. I’m not ready to learn a big fireball, anyway. Just a little teeny-tiny one that might set her hair on fire. Accidentally, of course.”

  I shake my head and pull from the spot, cutting into the outgoing line of traffic and ignoring the hand gestures of the driver behind me.

  * * *

  It’s nearly midnight. I’m in my apartment living room, cross-legged on the floor, meditating, which for me requires more effort than conjuring a fireball big enough to set the entire building ablaze. I just don’t have the personality for meditation. That’s why I’m doing it—practicing extreme focus in hopes it’ll turbo-boost my spell-casting power.

  Not that I need the boost. I already get one from my demon blood. Dad is Lord Demon Balaam. When I was a kid, Mom would say he’d tricked and impregnated her, as demons are wont to do. Later, in one of her Valium-induced trances, she admitted she’d conjured him for the sole purpose of that impregnation, to piss off her Coven by bearing a half-demon child. I appreciate the extra powers. I do not appreciate the years of being treated like an unwanted puppy.

  Because of my own experience, I’m very careful with what I tell Savannah about her dad. She knows I cared for her father. She knows I wanted her very much. She knows she is the best thing that ever happened to me. When she’s eighteen, I’ll tell her who her father is and let her decide what she wants to do with that information.

  Tonight’s meditation is going remarkably well. My mind is clear, and I’m focusing on my reservoir of spell-casting energy, envisioning it as an orb drawing energy from the elements as I feed my demon blood into—

  A creak sounds in the front hall. My eyes fly open. I see nothing but darkness—I’ve turned off the lights and pulled the blinds.

  When I blink hard, my night vision kicks in. I get more than a spell-casting boost from dear old Dad. As an Aspicio half-demon, I’m blessed with enhanced distance and night vision. When I look around, though, I still see nothing.

  I rise, straining to listen. The apartment is so silent that I catch the inhale and exhale of my own breathing.

  Then I realize that’s not my breathing.

  I turn away from the sound, as if still looking and listening. Then I whip around and launch a fireball. A yelp, and a figure stumbles from under a cover spell. She’s about my age. Blond hair worn in a wedge cut that makes her look as if she should be passing out orange slices at a peewee softball game.

  “Hello, Dora,” I say. “What brings you to Saint Louis? I hope you’re not a Cardinals fan, because you’re in for a big disappointment this season.”

  “You know why I’m here, Eve, and the sooner you hand over those pages, the sooner I can escape this midwestern hellhole.”

  “Mmm, better be careful who you say that to.”

  “Yes, I’m sure the locals wouldn’t appreciate me referring to their fair city as a hellhole.”

  “Nah, that’s fine. It’s the midwestern part that’ll give you trouble. Technically, yes, it’s the Midwest, but to some folks, them’s fighting words. We’re southern, y’all.”

  “Then give me the pages, y’all,” Dora says. “You can see where I’m standing. Between you and your cub. A dangerous place to be…” She conjures a fireball of her own, spinning it on her fingertips. “Unless you’re me.”

  “Did you really think I’d let my daughter stay in the place where I’m keeping those pages? She’s at a friend’s.”

  “Nice try, but I can hear the soft but unmistakable sound of a child snoring. You’re never nearly as careful as you think you are, Eve. You’re too busy being clever.”

  “Tell Fosse I’ll accept half.”

 
“Lyle Fosse?” She snorts. “You think I’m working for that pompous ass? I’m an independent operator.”

  Now it’s my turn to snort. “You don’t even book flights on your own, Dora. Too much work. I found the pages. I fetched them—at great expense and great personal risk. Then I offered them to Fosse, who is supposed to be meeting me tomorrow to buy them. But he really hates to pay full price, so he hired you to steal them from me. What did he offer you? A grand plus expenses? He’s paying me ten.”

  She hesitates. Then her face hardens. “Bullshit. He told me he’s paying you five, and I get half that.”

  “For sweeping in after I did all the hard work? Whatever happened to sisterhood? Witches stealing from witches to enrich the very sorcerers who’ve kept us scurrying like mice for centuries. Isn’t it time we—?”

  “Spare me the girl-power talk, Eve. It’s a stalling tactic as you try to figure out how to walk away with a bit of money and a bit of dignity. What you should really be worried about is…” She hooks her finger toward the bedroom. “Hand me those pages, and I’ll spare you the humiliation of having your little girl see me kick her momma’s ass.”

  I slam her with a knock-back and go to follow up with a binding spell, but she casts a fog spell, and when I throw the binding, she’s no longer where she’d been.

  A doorknob squeaks.

  “Wait!” I say. “Let’s negotiate. I’m sure—”

  I throw a fireball through the fog, directly at where I know she’ll be standing. She must duck it because she lets out a snarled curse and shoves the bedroom door open.

  I tear after her. She’s already striding through the darkened room to the bed, following the sound of snoring. I dash in and throw another knock-back. When she stumbles, I race to the bedside, hands raised in surrender.

  “You win, okay?” I whisper. “I’ll give you the pages for five hundred. That’s what I paid to get them. I just… I really need the money. Savannah’s school fees are due, and I’m short.”

  “You should have thought of that before you had a kid, Eve. May I never be so stupid.”

  She marches around the other side of the bed. I keep pleading, wheedling, asking only for that five hundred, one-fifth of what she’ll get. She ignores me, reaches over and yanks off the coverlet.

  “Come on, kid. Wakey—”

  She stops, staring down at a figure made of rolled-up towels with a dark wig for hair. The “figure” is still snoring. I pull a handheld recorder from under the pillow.

  “Yeah,” I say. “That’s the problem with not having kids, Dora. You actually did presume I would let my kid sleep in the same apartment as those pages. Like I said, Savannah isn’t here.”

  Dora whips a fireball at me. I easily dodge it and run toward the door. She tries to come after me… and stops short. One growl of frustration as she tries—and fails—to take another step. Then she looks down at her feet.

  “Binding circle,” I say. “So much more effective than a binding spell. Why do you think I herded you over to that side of the bed? You really aren’t that bright, are you, Dora?”

  She whips another fireball. Then she switches to knock-backs. I duck and weave, avoiding them all until, finally, her fingers fly out in a spell, and nothing happens.

  “Burned through all your juice,” I say. “That’s a shame. Now, let’s go talk to Mr. Fosse.”

  * * *

  Dora doesn’t give up that easily, but she’s drained her spell-caster reservoir, and I have not. Plus, I know plenty of tricks she’s never learned. The great thing about trading in black-market spells and grimoires is that I get access to all that magic. I write it down before I pass it along to the buyer. Even if it’s in a language I don’t know, I’ll photocopy it in hopes I’ll find someone to translate.

  Once Dora surrenders—well, the third time she surrenders, the first two being fake-outs, which I expect—I get Fosse’s address from her. Then I gag her, which is essential for any spell-casting captive.

  Once we’re in my car, I casually note that, if she’s lied to me, there is a really amazing spell in those lost pages that I’d love to try—I just need a sacrificial victim to do it. Her eye gestures and muffled exclamations suggest she’d misremembered Fosse’s address. I lower the gag long enough for her to correct that information.

  In the world of supernatural collectors, Lyle Fosse is strictly amateur level. He’s like the kid from the Bronx who makes a fortune in illegal casinos and then decides it’s time to reinvent himself as a man of culture by building a collection of first-edition books he’ll never read. In Lyle’s case, he’s actually from the suburbs of St. Louis, made his fortune hiring out supernatural rent-a-thugs, and has now decided he wants a collection of rare grimoires.

  Fosse is one of the reasons I settled in St. Louis. I love guys like him because, like human collectors, they have no idea what’s actually valuable. Ask him to choose between a tattered one-of-a-kind handmade grimoire and a mass-produced old book with a fancy leather cover and pretty pictures, and he’ll take option two every time. In my six months here, he’s single-handedly financed Savannah’s schooling, covered all our living expenses and let me sock away thirty grand.

  The only kind of client I like better? One I can actually trust. I can still salvage this relationship, though. I have to. Savannah has two months of school left, and while I’d never promise her a full year, it’s my dream to give it to her this time. For that, I’m willing to play nice with Fosse despite his betrayal.

  Fosse owns a house in the country, where his wife and kids live, and a condo in the city, where he keeps his mistress. Tonight, though, is business, so he’s in his “office”—a body shop hidden in an industrial park.

  At this time of night, all the other businesses in his complex are closed, which is both convenient and inconvenient. Convenient in that I don’t have to worry about panicking an employee into dialing 911 when he hears shouting next door. Inconvenient in that I can’t just pull into Fosse’s parking lot without being spotted. I drive to a nearly identical complex beside this one. Then I lead Dora over and leave her between two trucks, binding her legs to keep her from running.

  I approach the body shop from the opposite side. A lone thug guards the entrance. He wears coveralls and smokes a cigarette as if he’s just an employee on break. When I hit him with a knock-back, though, his gun comes out. I freeze him in place with a binding spell, pluck the gun from his hand and secure him before I even get a chance to see his supernatural power.

  I haul the thug aside. Then I peer through the brickwork. That’s another of my powers-from-Dad: minor X-ray vision. I can’t see through an entire wall, but I can create a little hole, like an apartment peephole, with an equally crappy view, distorted and unclear. It does the job, though, and I see Fosse at a desk, doing paperwork while another guard in coveralls lounges nearby.

  The bodyguard is a beefy behemoth that Fosse must have plucked from his rent-a-thug pool. Good advertising, too—Fosse shows up with him, and new clients think that’s the sort of guy they’ll be hiring, only to have Fosse pull a bait-and-switch, sending them a regular-sized man like the one I disabled. Fosse hasn’t bothered getting the guy custom-made coveralls, though, and he looks like sausage meat stuffed into a too-small skin.

  I continue surveying until I’m sure no one’s here except Fosse and his bodyguard. Then I slip in the back door under a cover spell. The door’s locked, but an unlock spell fixes that. I have a deeper reservoir of power than Dora—that’s part of my goal in meditating—but I still use it judiciously, and as soon as I’m in the darkened back rooms, I cut the cover spell and rely on my night vision instead.

  I slip through until I can see the front room. Then I recast the cover spell and consider my options for the big guy. A binding spell requires concentration, meaning I can’t cast it and then get distracted chatting with Fosse. A knock-back only throws an opponent off-balance. Fireballs and energy bolts are either minor distractions or deadly shots, and I don’t want
to kill a guy who’s just doing his job.

  I consider, and then I decide the best offense is no offense at all. Conserve spell-power until I need it. I walk in and say, “Hey, Lyle.”

  The guard spins, but that’s all he does. Wheels and fixes me with a lethal glare that is not actually lethal. There’s a ninety-five per cent chance the guy is a half-demon. Most thugs are. A sorcerer would consider such employment beneath his dignity. A necromancer is only useful in a fight if there are corpses to raise. The thing about half-demon powers is that most don’t work remotely. You have to get up close and personal. I have a spell ready, should this guy charge, but he doesn’t.

  I walk to Fosse, who’s made no move to attack, either. Fosse is not the attacking type. The guy looks as if he belongs at that desk, a nebbish office worker who’ll never rise above assistant manager.

  “Eve.” His voice crackles, as if trying to conceal his dismay.

  “So, Dora paid me a visit,” I say. “I offered tea, and she tried to take my kid instead. So much for witchy hospitality. She’s currently chilling in an undisclosed location, where she’ll slowly die of dehydration unless we come to an agreement. The pages are still yours, at the agreed-upon price, but it’ll cost a grand more to get Dora back.”

  When he speaks, his voice is higher than I remember, which was already shrill enough to summon dogs. “And why would I want her back?”

  “Because she isn’t stupid. She’ll have told someone what she’s doing tonight, and if she disappears, word will get out, and you won’t be hiring anyone except thugs dumb enough to think you won’t do the same to them.”

  The thug-in-residence scowls, but there’s uncertainty there, not sure whether he’s been insulted.

  Fosse laughs, and it’s definitely higher than I remember. My hackles rise, not just from the pitch but from the edge in it. Nervous laughter. Not what I expect. Fosse might look like he’d run from his own shadow, but that’s an illusion—he’d never have amassed his fortune otherwise. I hear that laugh and notice sweat trickling down his narrow face despite the fact I’m wishing I brought a sweater.