Rising Fury (Hexing House Book 1)

by Rasmussen, Jen

  “Graves said not.”

  “Nice. Probably give you a leg up when it’s time to get into a department. RDM would like that, and it might be handy here in Infliction, too.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. But my point was, nobody took my DNA.”

  “They probably used generic hexes that hadn’t been finished for a case yet. But it’ll still only work once and on one individual person.”

  “And how do you actually use it?”

  “Well, you need to sense it first. They taught you the deck of cards technique for sensing vices and virtues?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yeah, well forget that here. It doesn’t work for a hex. Some furies see it as a liquid, or a blanket they put over the target. Some think of it as a cloud. Some don’t visualize at all. They sense the hex more like a sound, and then it’s almost like shouting it at the target. Just remember, it’s not a spell. It’s a thing. Just not a physical thing.”

  “So how do they put it in that box if it’s not a physical object?”

  “It’s an enchanted box. We have a limited supply, and we can only make them when we’ve got an enchanter in the colony, which is only once every couple of generations or so. So you have to be careful. Persephone keeps records on every box that goes through our department, and woe to the Inflictor who damages or loses one.”

  “Am I supposed to know what an enchanter is?”

  “Someone with magical ability a couple of levels above what we normally have.” By then they’d reached the parking lot, and Elon approached the closest of six identical black SUV’s. “Basically, manipulating vices and virtues is just manipulating certain specific kinds of energy. There are other kinds of power that use energy differently. Clairvoyance, telekinesis, that kind of thing. And then there are enchanters, who can manipulate matter and energy in really advanced ways. Like the illusion that covers this campus. And…” He handed her one of the vials that Persephone had given him. “Human illusions. Drink it once we exit the campus.”

  “It will make me look human?”

  Elon nodded. “Two purple people, one with wings, both with claws, can look a little conspicuous if they stop for gas or lunch. These will last about twenty-four hours.” He opened the passenger side door for Thea. “Ready to inflict some pain?”

  “Well, when you put it like that.” Thea kept her voice light, but the phrase had made her a little uneasy.

  She expected that discomfort to get worse as they drove away from Hexing House, back into what was no longer her world. But it didn’t. She looked out at the strip malls and fast food restaurants, the families in their minivans and the farmers in their pickups, and she felt… nothing.

  “I expected to miss it,” she said.

  Elon glanced at her. “What? The human stuff?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I guess it’s good you don’t, because there’s no going back. Drink your illusion.”

  There’s no going back.

  That made Thea feel a little wistful, maybe, especially when she thought about Aunt Bridget’s farm. But she was surprised to find that even when the fact of giving up her humanity was put so plainly, she still felt barely a pang. Maybe her heart was getting fury-hard, and she was losing her capacity for sentiment. Or maybe being human had just never worked out all that well anyway.

  Thea opened her vial and sniffed before she drank. It didn’t smell like anything. It didn’t taste like anything either. She didn’t feel any change, but when she looked over at Elon, he wasn’t purple anymore, and she couldn’t see his wings. He still had the same dark hair and brown eyes, but his skin was a rich beige that suited him much better than zombie-purple-gray.

  When they parked down the street from Greg Rockwell’s house three hours later, Thea watched from the shadow of a maple tree as Elon rang the doorbell and hexed Rockwell without ceremony. She saw Elon make a tossing sort of gesture, and she saw the moment the hex hit the target. But the hex itself, she couldn’t sense.

  Rockwell put his hands on his temples, like he just drank a milkshake too fast. Then he blinked at Elon and said, “Whatever you just did to me was bad, wasn’t it?”

  “Depends on your outlook,” Elon answered.

  “I deserve bad things.” Rockwell looked shocked at his own words. “That’s not what I meant. Actually it was exactly what I meant.” He struggled to put a smile on his face, “I meant, do you want to come inside and talk this over? I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding.” Without a pause he went on, “Of course there hasn’t been a misunderstanding.” He bit his lip in frustration, then said through his teeth, “Can I not lie?”

  “Nope,” said Elon. He tipped his hat to Rockwell and turned away.

  “How long will he be like that?” Thea asked when they got back in the car, but she held up a hand before Elon could answer. “And don’t tell me until he’s learned his lesson.”

  Elon laughed. “But that’s the truth.”

  “Fine, but what does that mean? How can you tell when he’s learned his lesson?”

  “It’s not for me to tell,” Elon said. “It’ll resolve itself.”

  “How?”

  “All right, let’s take today’s hex as an example. Almost nobody is one hundred percent honest, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But almost nobody is one hundred percent dishonest, either. They’ve got some of both. They’ve got the opposite virtue to keep the vice in check. See?”

  “I think so.”

  “So a hex forces that kind of equilibrium. The target’s inflicted with a strong dose of the opposite virtue—in this case, honesty—to contend with his vice—falseness—until they come into balance. In rare cases, we inflict someone with a vice instead, if there’s enough excess of a virtue to cause problems. But that doesn’t happen often.”

  “And this balancing just happens within him,” Thea said. “We have nothing more to do with it?”

  “Right.”

  She frowned. “So that would mean we’re done with Rockwell. Case closed.”

  Then why was Graves still hanging around the orchard three days after Flannery disappeared?

  “I’ll come back to observe him within twenty-four hours, then track him for a few days,” said Elon. “Other than that, it’s just paperwork.”

  Except Flannery hadn’t been at the farm anymore to observe or track. Maybe Graves had stayed behind to see if anyone suspected anything, so he could cover his tracks.

  Maybe he stayed behind to frame Pete.

  Thea had noticed that her claws sometimes protracted of their own accord when she was angry. She had to remind herself not to squeeze her hands into fists, thinking about Graves planting Flannery’s blood in Pete’s car.

  For the next week and a half Thea went back and forth with Elon, hexing various targets, checking in on the recently hexed, filling out reports. She learned the basics—especially of the reports, which Elon delighted in having her do for him—but she wasn’t able to sense the hexes until they were actually on the target.

  “I’ve only got four days left. I have to learn something besides how to fill out forms,” Thea said to Elon on the way to their sixth case. She thought this would be another of the easy ones: a hex of diligence, as punishment for the sin of sloth. They’d learned in their prep meeting that the target’s four-year-old son had nearly died, and would bear horrible scars for the rest of his life, thanks to her being too busy watching reality TV to notice he was setting fire to the kitchen.

  “Can’t teach you how to inflict a hex until you can sense it being there,” Elon said. “I wonder why it’s so hard for you, when virtues and sins were so easy.”

  Thea shook her head. “I guess it’s because these are disembodied. Once they’re attached, I can sense them then. Like once you put the hex of honesty on the con man, I could sense his honesty.”

  “Then you need some personal connection to it.” Elon considered this as he drove. “I wonder if you thought of it differentl
y. How are you sensing them? Visualization?”

  “Actually, smell mostly,” said Thea. “Courage smells like dirt, and so on.”

  “Okay, good. Who do you know that’s brave?”

  “My Aunt Bridget. Cora.”

  “I know Cora doesn’t smell like dirt. What about Aunt Bridget, does she?”

  Thea frowned. “No. But I suppose if I was focused on her courage she might. Aunt Bridget has always smelled pretty much exactly like her kitchen. Gravy and muffins.”

  “Well, it still might work, if you associate her with the virtue.”

  “What might work?”

  “Today’s hex is diligence. Who’s the hardest worker you know?”

  “My Uncle Gary, but he’s dead.”

  “Not Baird Frost?” Elon gave her a teasing smile. “He seems to work a lot. What’s he up to on Benjamin Stake movies, seven?”

  “I don’t associate Baird with many virtues.”

  He looked surprised by her stiff tone, and left it at that. “Okay, so let’s take your Uncle Gary. Can you remember what he smelled like?”

  “Hay and sweat.”

  “So when I take the hex out today, I want you to close your eyes, and think of him, okay? Diligence won’t smell like hay and sweat. Or does it?”

  “No. Diligence is kind of coppery. Like an old penny.”

  “But my hope is it’ll be kind of like free association. From Uncle Gary to hay and sweat to other things, including that old penny smell.”

  Elon broke into the target’s basement, where they stayed until after dark. They generally waited until everyone was asleep to hex someone who had small children in the house, so as not to scare the kids. Upstairs they could hear the sounds of running water, yelling, the TV blaring. Eventually there was more yelling—trying to get her kids to bed, it seemed—and then quiet.

  They waited another twenty minutes before Elon crept upstairs. Another thing Thea had learned about furies: they could move with nearly absolute silence, when they chose to. She herself seemed to be getting a knack for stealth.

  When they came into the target’s bedroom, Elon put his hand on the box’s lid and signaled to Thea.

  Thea closed her eyes and thought of Uncle Gary. The smell of him. The feel of him when she hugged him, the solid, salt-of-the-earth presence that could solve any problem.

  No, diligence, you have to think of diligence.

  Recalling the smell of hay and sweat, Thea thought of Gary out in the fields at all hours, always late for meals, always trying to finish one more thing. For a second she could actually smell the hay, and then…

  Copper.

  Thea opened her eyes and looked down at the box, which Elon now held open. She could sense the hex. Like a vice or a virtue, it wasn’t anything she could see, but she knew it was there.

  She grinned and nodded at Elon, who grinned back. Then he focused on the woman, gestured, and sent the hex floating toward her. She shifted in her sleep and made a quiet noise. Elon pulled Thea back into the shadows, then stepped slowly, softly, into the bathroom. Thea followed.

  The target stirred. There was a rustling as she pulled some clothes on, then footsteps retreating from the bedroom. Elon opened the bathroom window, then picked Thea up and flew around to the other side of the house. He alighted in front of the kitchen window.

  The kitchen was lit now. The target was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the floor.

  “Most likely she’ll scrub until her fingers bleed.” Elon’s voice was conversational, unconcerned. “No distractions or interruptions. The kids won’t be up for a while yet.”

  “And when they get up?”

  “They won’t be neglected anymore.” He nodded through the window. The target was scrubbing faster, harder. “She will not sit down and watch TV, I can tell you that much.”

  Thea shook her head. “But she won’t stop or rest? Sleep?”

  “Not until the hex breaks.”

  “And what happens if she dies of exhaustion first?”

  Elon shrugged. “Possible. It happens.”

  “How often?”

  He gave her a stern look. “I haven’t got statistics handy. Why do you ask?”

  “Because that’s no good for her kids either!”

  “What can I tell you? This is justice.”

  “And righteous vengeance,” added Thea, recalling Graves’s business card. She felt a little sick. Had she just been dismissing this case as an easy one a few hours ago? Had she just been grinning in that woman’s bedroom?

  “It’s not my job to pass judgment,” said Elon. “HRI handles that. It’s just my job to serve it up.” He started to walk away, but over his shoulder he said, “Be best if you got used to it. You don’t want to be showing that weak heart to Alecto or anyone else.”

  That weak heart. Thea knew he wasn’t trying to be hurtful. To him, a weak heart and a soft heart were the same thing.

  But she wasn’t so sure. She took one last glance through the window at the frenzied woman, then turned for home.

  When Thea walked into Infliction the next morning, she was immediately called into Persephone’s office.

  “There’s been a change of plans,” Persephone told her. “There was a case in Colorado that needed Elon’s specific skill set. I had to send him this morning, so you’ll be shadowing me today instead.”

  Thea tried not to look as tense as she felt. If she found the whole process harsh with Elon, who was not only her friend but laid back almost to the point of playfulness, she could only imagine what it would be like to watch the bleak and imposing Persephone hex somebody. Thea just hoped she wouldn’t flinch.

  “Since it’s just the two of us, we can do this quickly.” Persephone gestured for her to come around the desk and look at her computer screen.

  The photo showed an olive-skinned man with an arrogant expression and too much product in his hair. “Our target is a fifty-year-old male by the name of Michael Marchesi,” Persephone said. “Doctor Michael Marchesi, as he insists on being addressed. He is being punished for the sin of pride with a hex of humility.”

  “What does that entail?” Thea asked.

  “Self-mortification, usually. It’s up to the target in part, you know, how some of these hexes manifest themselves. We’ve gotten lucky with a case that’s only an hour from here, and I’ve got limited time today, so we’re going to head over directly and do it in his office. It’s a little trickier, coming and going covertly in a crowded place, but not as much as you’d think.”

  They were halfway there when Persephone said, “I hear you were finally able to sense the hex yesterday.”

  Finally? Thea cleared her throat. “Yes.”

  “That’s good,” Persephone said. “After you sense it once, you can usually sense it pretty easily from then on out. Like an optical illusion or a magic trick—once you see the trick, you can always see it.”

  Thea nodded.

  “So I’ll have you try to inflict the hex today. Don’t worry, if you can’t do it, I will.”

  “Okay. Any tips? I’m not sure how to actually move the hex from the box to the target.”

  “Elon didn’t go into this with you?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Okay, well, then I guess maybe it’s good I didn’t leave you shadowing him the whole time. You can sense the sins and virtues in your target right?”

  “Right.”

  “In this case, that will mean the sin of pride. And you’ll be able to sense the humility in the hex. With me so far?”

  “Yep.”

  “So, if you don’t mind my using the card analogy we use so often in training, it’s really a matter of swapping those cards.”

  “Swapping? So I take the pride out altogether?”

  “Well, you won’t be able to do that, exactly. But you can bury it with the humility. Cover it. Like when someone puts a card down in a game, and you throw another card that beats it on top of it. See?”

  “Sort of.”

&nb
sp; “The idea is to throw that humility on top, and throw it down hard. So hard that it takes over everything else. The hex is a very powerful dose of the essence of whichever vice or virtue it contains, so it’ll do the rest.”

  “Okay,” said Thea, although she really wasn’t sure she had any clue how to go about it.

  “Ready to give it a try?”

  No. “Sure.”

  “Excellent.”

  They went into the office under their human illusions, posing as cleaning ladies. “You’ll find people often fail to notice custodial workers,” Persephone told Thea. “It’s an excellent cover that we use quite often.”

  Dr. Marchesi was vain as well as prideful, and visited the men’s room fairly frequently to comb his hair, of which he seemed especially proud. It wasn’t long before they had an opportunity to wheel in a janitorial cart when he was the only occupant.

  “Get out of here,” Marchesi snapped at them. “Aren’t you supposed to check whether there’s anyone in here first?”

  While Persephone apologized, Thea quickly opened the hex box. Persephone was right, it was much easier to sense this time. She didn’t even have to close her eyes and think of anybody humble. She caught it immediately, a smell like cotton.

  Holding the box in one hand and a spray bottle in the other, Thea sidled around the target.

  “What are you doing?” he asked her. “Do you not speak English?”

  Once again Persephone said something to distract him, while Thea focused on her task. She sensed the humility, the cottony smell. She studied the target and sensed his pride, a cloying smell, like bad perfume.

  Cover the perfume with the cotton. It’s that simple. Right?

  Elon always made a tossing motion, but Thea instinctively held the box up to her lips and blew, as if sending a cloud of smoke his way. She felt something in her eyes, like a flare of heat, and knew they glowed for a fraction of a second, the way Elon’s always did. A moment later, the humility had settled over Marchesi like a fog. He looked momentarily dazed. She took advantage of his confusion to focus her senses. No perfume.

  Had she done it?