Hex Appeal

by P. N. Elrod

  Ethan’s mouth tightened. “You coming or not?”

  “With you? You’re kidding, right?” I tried to push past him on the narrow sidewalk. I didn’t need his help. I didn’t trust him not to double-cross me once we had the loot. And to be perfectly honest, the last thing I needed while I fought my way through hell was the distracting sight of his sexy ass in those jeans.

  He stopped me with his hand on my shoulder. Not hard. Just a light touch, but as heavy with threat as a punch in the face. “I’m going after the amulet,” he said softly. “Either you’re with me, or you’re in my way. Your choice.”

  I sighed and shook his hand off. When he put it like that, I had no choice at all, really.

  * * *

  He ushered me off the tram at the Domain Road junction, where leafy plane trees sprawled over the wide median strip, and traffic lights buzzed amid the nest of electric-tram wires. Across the road, tall buildings loomed in moonlit shadow.

  We crossed twin roads to the park, where dead brown grass crunched under my boots. I shrugged my jacket comfortable over my knives, and Ethan adjusted his sword. He’d worn the weapon openly while we sat on the tram, the air slick and sparkly with his don’t-see-me spell, and no one noticed a thing. Me, I just wore a jacket.

  Kane lived in one of the more fashionable parts of town. We’d just caught the last tram, and it rumbled its doors shut and carried on, around the corner the same way we were going. “We could have ridden that all the way to Chapel Street,” I grumbled, more for something to say than because I cared. “Did we have to get off so far away?”

  Ethan tidied and refastened his ponytail, the long blond ends flicking his shoulder. “Actually, yeah. What do you think would happen if we flashed into hell right by Kane’s front door?”

  I scowled. He always had to phrase everything as a question, like he was teaching me. “Umm … I guess we’d get our asses chewed by demon rent-a-cops?”

  That sunflash smile. “Something like that. Better to approach from a distance. Keep your eyes open, it’s—”

  “Yeah, yeah. A wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious. Thanks for the heads-up, Obi-Wan. You ready or not?” I uncorked my poo brown vial and brought it to my lips, wrinkling my nose against the stink.

  He grabbed my wrist, halting me. “Weapons first. Be prepared.”

  I sighed and whipped out a knife, just in case. And before he could offer to go first, I tilted the vial and chugged.

  The foul sludge hit my tongue, and I gagged. Grit coated my mouth, burning, the taste putrid. My throat squeezed tight, refusing to let the filth in. But I had to swallow, and I sealed my lips shut and choked the feral hellbrew down.

  It burned, and hit my stomach like an acid bomb.

  Agony clawed my guts, and I screamed. Darkness blotted my vision like evil ink. My bones filled with fire, flesh tearing, tendons popping. Howling split my ears. I struggled, but nothing trapped me, and with a sickening vertigo lurch, I fell.

  Concrete smacked against my chest, squashing my breath away. My skull bounced, jangling, and everything was still.

  I cracked an eye open, and blood dripped into it. I blinked. Charred buildings, broken concrete, a scarlet-stained horizon beyond dead trees. Acrid smoke stung my eyes. I tried to crawl to my feet, only something heavy and warm held me down.

  “Ethan, let go.” I wriggled, and he helped me up, his arm steady around my waist. Even in hell, he smelled like herbal soap.

  “You okay?” His murmur brushed my ear, reassuring.

  “Sure.” I pushed him away, flexing my fingers around my knife. Nighttime, but dry heat scorched me like sunburn. Ash drifted, but no breeze stirred the parched air. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Bloodstained clouds boiled low and threatening—how could there be clouds when it was drier than a witch’s corpse?—and lightning cracked the sky, illuminating the street with an eerie flash.

  I squinted. It looked like Domain Road after the apocalypse. The same as the real world, only the trees were blackened stumps, the buildings scorched, the road cracked and tilted in chunks as if a mighty earthquake had split it apart. Broken glass and charred metal littered the ground. Thunder boomed, deafening, and across the street, a ruined office building burst into flame, filling the air with ash and the stink of burning flesh. Gunfire ricocheted, and from somewhere, I heard the clash of iron.

  “Charming.” I rolled my shoulders, trying to relax. Ethan just stood there, poised and calm. Damn it if I wasn’t glad I hadn’t come alone. “Now what—”

  An almighty screech tore the air, and a bundle of leathery skin and claws landed on us in a cloud of fetid stink.

  I staggered backwards, instinctively arcing up my shielding hex. My pendant shivered, and protective sparks crackled around me.

  But the hellbeast just snarled, scaly snout slavering with six-inch razor teeth, and slashed my hex to smoke with curved claws. It gibbered, its rotting tongue mangling the sounds. “Bith. Eeeyor meet, bith. Meeeet … yummm!!”

  I reeled, revolted. Those were words. I think I just got invited to dinner. And Mr. Ugly had opposable thumbs. Lips. Eyelashes. A mutant lizard-thing on two legs, a hybrid of reptile and man.

  Steel sang as Ethan unsheathed his sword. The beast laughed, a thick, cancerous sound that made me retch, and spat a lump of festering filth. Ethan dodged, and the stuff boiled and smoked on the broken concrete.

  I whipped out my second knife, but somehow I couldn’t throw. I swallowed, sick. “It’s human, Ethan. It’s a fucking person!”

  “Not anymore.” Ethan whispered a charm, and the faint lines on his muscles glowed red. He circled away, and his movements blurred, faster than I could watch. “It’s a corrupted soul, and it’s hungry. You want to be dinner?”

  No, actually, I didn’t.

  I muttered a poison curse and hurled both knives at once. The toxic blades carved a deadly arc, slicing into the beast’s hide. Black blood sprayed, the stink of rotting meat. My bangles vibrated, and the knives ripped free and slapped back into my hands.

  The beast howled, poisoned steam hissing from twin gaping wounds across its chest. It swatted at the burns, but they bubbled and spread like acid. I stabbed for its bulging eyes. It staggered back, and Ethan danced forward like a deadly ballerina on speed and slashed the thing’s head from its body.

  The head cartwheeled, blood splattering, and the twisted body slumped. I stared, catching my breath. “Is it dead?”

  Ethan’s glowing charm faded, and he nudged the body with his foot. It rolled over, lifeless. “For now,” he said. “But the damned don’t get off that easy. It’ll rise again with the sun. Best we keep going.”

  “Kane’s place?”

  He nodded, up the street, and, for the first time, I noticed a blackened tower, looming stark in the distance against the red-stained sky. Lightning crashed, and smoke drifted from the sharp battlements, shimmering in deadly heat. Huge carrion birds—or worse?—flapped lazy orbits around its summit.

  I blinked. “No way. Don’t remember seeing Sauron’s fortress last time I shopped in Toorak.”

  Ethan grinned. “Nor would you. Kane lives in a town house there. That”—he stabbed at it with his finger—“is a manifestation of his power status in hell.”

  I glanced around. Any meaner, more gruesome-looking buildings? Of course not. I sighed. “Demon dick-measuring. Great.”

  “Arm wrestling would be more accurate.”

  “Whatever,” I muttered, “it’s stupid macho bullshit.” The town house would have suited me fine.

  “It’s just a pecking order. It works for them. Until idiots like us blunder in and screw it up.”

  Ethan shook black blood from his sword, and together we advanced up the broken street, shoulder to shoulder, only a few feet apart. He didn’t sheathe. I didn’t either. But it felt kinda nice to have him at my back.

  At the road’s edges, creatures snarled and paced, hairless hyena-things with skinny bodies pale like sides of meat. They
watched us pass with beady red eyes, their throaty laughter unsettling. Sweat stung inside my corset, down my neck, between my fingers, sucked away to nothing by the hungry air. Scorched buildings threatened, their windows smashed and bloody or melted to dirty globs. Every sound made me jump. Frantic footsteps drew near, then receded, and gunshots cracked, the sounds of a running battle. Screams and insane giggles echoed through the side streets, leaping out at me like unseen foes.

  I wristed damp hair from my forehead as we clambered over an upthrusting twist of asphalt that blocked the road from sidewalk to sidewalk, ten feet high and littered with sharp rocks. “So how d’you know all this stuff?”

  “I’ve been here.” Ethan hopped upwards, sword still in hand, balanced and agile like a mountain goat.

  I sheathed my knives to scramble over the rubble, and the hot rock scorched my palms. My boots slipped, and I scrabbled for a hold. “Really? Never would have picked you for a recreational user.”

  “I’m not. But if you want to grow, you have to face your fears.” He straddled the broken top of the slab and reached down for me. “Allow me, madam.”

  I rolled my eyes and grabbed his wrist, and he hauled me up.

  I sat facing him for a moment, catching my breath, my feet dangling. The stink of brimstone soured my mouth. I peered over the edge. Beneath us, where the road once lay, a chasm gaped, down and down into distant depths crackling with flames.

  A fat green snake slithered from a crack in the rock, striking at my thigh with three hissing heads. I flipped out a knife and skewered it at the junction of three necks. Drew the other and sliced all the heads off in a splash of smoking venom.

  “Mmm. Tasty.” I flicked the squirming carcass off my blades into the pit. “Fears, huh. Didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”

  Ethan watched the snake fall and gave it a mock salute. “Everyone’s afraid of something.”

  “Like what?” I scoffed. “Death?”

  “Yes. Aren’t you?”

  Wow. No evasion. No flip remark. That’ll teach me. “Umm … yeah. I mean, I guess. Shit, look around us, dude. Knowing there’s somewhere to go doesn’t mean it’s all roses after we kick it. D’you think…”

  I hesitated, that prehistoric danger alarm growling deep in my belly again. Truth alert! Hide!

  But I wanted to know. I took a deep breath. “D’you ever think about damnation?”

  “Of course. Not everyone believes magic is good work.” His glacial eyes warmed. “But you do, right?”

  My heart did a little somersault. Christ on a double cheeseburger. No man should have such clear, sweet eyes. Not for the first time, I wanted to dive in and drown.

  We hadn’t had an honest conversation in years. I’d forgotten how much I liked it. “I guess. What do you think?”

  He shrugged, candid. “Temptation’s the easy way, Lena. That’s why it works. If magic were a helltrick, I believe the demons would’ve made it a damn sight easier.”

  Was he mocking me? Or apologizing for being such an asshole back in the day? I fidgeted. “Guess so. Look, I’m sorry we never…”

  My hex charm sizzled, and I let out a startled yell and hurled my knife at his foot.

  The hairless hyena-thing howled and tumbled, blood spurting from its pale rump, and its ugly jaws snapped shut inches from Ethan’s ankle.

  Ethan leapt, and was on his feet before the knife thunked back into my palm.

  I’d missed the killing shot. The hyena-thing was only wounded, and it grinned evilly at me with a hoarse, chuckling sound. Below us, a pack of its mates tittered and started to climb. The thing cackled—nyi-hi-hi!—and dug its claws into the rubble, ready to jump.

  Ethan slashed at it, but it dodged and leapt at me, slavering. I threw again, shouting a whetting spell that curled my nails and set my teeth on edge, and this time the spell-sharpened blade speared right between the thing’s glassy red eyes into its brain.

  Mr. Chuckles flipped in midair, its momentum reversed by my throw, and hit the rocks like a sack of sniggering hellshit. Blood exploded, running down the rocks, and the chortling pack leapt on the body and tore it to pieces.

  I flexed my wrist, and my knife landed in my palm, dripping rotten blood. Ethan gave me a surprised glance. “Thanks.”

  He looked impressed. That was a first. I shoved him, flushing. “Dinner doesn’t look like it’ll go around. Get moving.”

  He leapt, and landed lightly on the other side of the chasm.

  Twelve feet. Sure, I can make it. Just don’t look down.

  I jumped, and landed with somewhat less grace. Behind us, flesh ripped, and Mr. Chuckles’s new dinner companions grunted and laughed in triumph. Bwa-ha-ha, I just ate my brother, and he tasted fiiine!

  I picked myself up and dusted off my grazed knees. Ethan steadied me, and we hurried on, weapons drawn, picking our way between rocks, over razor glass shards, around rusted steel girders twisted by the heat. As we neared the tower, the helljungle noises grew louder. Burning buildings smoked and collapsed by the side of the road. Creatures sprinted through the streets, ignoring us or hurling ripe curses that blistered my skin. Some just sat by the road and howled, and their anguish stained the heat-warped air with bitter ash.

  But Ethan wasn’t letting me off easy. “I mean it,” he murmured, his keen gaze checking left and right. “Nice job. I didn’t even hear that thing coming.”

  He looked sheepish, and I squirmed. I didn’t want to tell him that I hadn’t either, that the only reason I’d noticed was my stolen hex pendant giving me the red-hot-poker treatment. That I’d been too busy daydreaming about his eyes to pay attention. “Don’t sound so surprised. What are those hyena-things, anyway?”

  “Imps, hellslaves, wrathmites. Call ’em what you want.”

  A big, naked, hairy dude with raw pustules rotting his skin swung his scythe at us, blood and worms splashing from his mouth as he screamed. I ducked and slashed at his kidneys, and Ethan took him down and sidestepped as the head hit the concrete and broke open. The scythe clattered harmlessly away.

  “That’s a nice razorcharm you used before,” Ethan persisted, as if we hadn’t been interrupted. “You been practicing?”

  Yeah, right. I’d stolen that one, too, a couple of wing-splinters I pilfered from a drunken glassfairy.

  It disturbed me how much I wanted to lie, and I snorted to cover my unease. “C’mon, you know me better than that.”

  “Thought I did.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He flashed me that smile. “That you’re still a puzzle, Lena Falco. I just haven’t solved you yet.”

  I frowned. Enigmatic equals good, right? Or not? Shit. Who am I trying to impress, anyway?

  Still, I edged closer to him, my guts tightening. The tower’s shadow darkened the street like a smoke pall. Heat scorched me deep, and it was sure getting crowded around here. Rotting creatures shambled like shopping-mall zombies. Others—the normal people, dazed and bleeding, mostly naked, mouths slack with terror—screamed and fled. Guess they were new here. Still others stalked in packs, agile and twisted, their mutated bodies sprouting scales or feathers or extra limbs. And everywhere, weapons, blades and spikes and ugly saws designed to maim.

  I tried to keep focused, not to dwell on how harmless my knives were in comparison. “More cursed souls?”

  “Yeah.” Ethan’s gaze darted, swift but controlled. “They all look different. Depends what kind of asshole you were in life.”

  “Heh. Look at that jelly-ass one, then. Big dripping pile of smug. That’ll be you.”

  “Bite me.”

  Around us, the creatures closed in, and I held my knives at the ready, circling. Those huge carrion birds squawked and flapped, hellish vultures with razor-curved beaks and talons the size of my forearm. One dived for a screaming pack of starved bodies, and came up with one writhing in its grip. More birds descended, fighting to peck the victim’s eyes out, and the screaming went on long after any living person woul
d have fallen silent.

  I stared, and Ethan nudged me. “Stay frosty, marine.”

  “Oh, I’m shivering. Just how good did you say I’ve gotta be to avoid this place when I’m dead?”

  “Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

  Zombies shouldered us as they stumbled by blindly. A woman with her face peeled off leapt at me, clawing for my eyes, and I broke her rotting neck with a thrust of my elbow. Ethan slashed at a gaggle of half-man, half-worm things that writhed along the ground to snap at his ankles. Worm juice and body parts splattered the pavement, but they kept coming, their blind eyes cloudy and wet.

  I took another step backwards, and Ethan’s back pressed against mine, warm and reassuring. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this, Obi-Wan,” I muttered.

  “What do you want me to say? Use the force?” He took a deep breath, and with a zing, his magical shield shone around us, iridescent like a bubble. The worm people slapped against it, leaving wet smears. “Tower’s a hundred yards away. Stay close. Don’t let them drag you from the bubble. Okay?”

  “That much I figured out for mys—” I gulped. “Uh-oh.”

  From across the street, a mutant spied us, his bloodshot eyes gleaming with delight. He had a huge, naked skull and droopy ears, and his sagging belly oozed blood from open wounds that hadn’t healed.

  He hollered, waving his rusty chain saw—I shit you not—and his subhuman buddies all screeched and jabbered and flailed their misshapen arms. And ran. Straight for us.

  My hex pendant buzzed like a nest of angry wasps. My mouth dried, and I gripped my knives harder. “This isn’t good.”

  Captain Mutant fired up his chain saw—rnn-nn-nnn!—and capered about like a drunken mummy. And his mutant army kept coming.

  Ethan gave a feral grin. The lines on his skin glowed green, and he levitated a foot off the ground and crouched there like a bad-ass flying ninja, his blade glinting hungrily. “Bring ’em on.”

  “You’re a real smart-ass, you know that?” But I couldn’t hide a smile. Sometimes, even I had to admit that Ethan was dead cool. Still, bitterness stung my mouth that I couldn’t do stuff like that. That’d I’d never had the patience to learn. “Last one there buys the whisky, okay?”