A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

  “Detective Sedgwick!” Derrick’s eyes widened. “I’m surprised—how could you impute such dirty thoughts to me!”

  Miles rolled his eyes. He touched his right index finger to his left palm, then arced it away, to suggest a spatial relation. Then he held out his right hand palm upward and placed his left hand over it, fingers clenched, as if picking something up. He drew his closed fingers up to his forehead, then spun both index fingers around each other and pointed to Derrick with a raised eyebrow.

  Where did you learn to sign?

  Derrick replied with a sign that I’d never seen before: a quick C shape next to his eye, then closed fingers, thumb and index touching. There was no mistaking the expression on his face: pride. A rare thing to see with Derrick.

  Miles looked startled—then impressed. “Gallaudet! How?”

  “Exchange program. I did an ASL certificate there.”

  This was news to me. I hadn’t seen Derrick this enthusiastic about something in a long time. Guess it didn’t hurt that Miles was a cool glass of water with sparkling eyes and a cute dog. I couldn’t compete with that.

  “Did they—ah . . .” He struggled for the words, then abandoned them and made three quick handshapes instead. He brought two fists together and mimed breaking them apart, like you might snap a twig; he swept his right palm in Derrick’s direction, and then, with a grin, brought his fingertips together twice in a sign that I didn’t recognize.

  Derrick giggled.

  I frowned. “Break your—balloons?” I asked.

  Derrick broke into laugher, and was joined by Miles.

  “I think it was bust your balls,” Carla said, also smiling. “But I could be wrong.”

  Miles gave her a thumbs-up.

  Great. I could already envision the rest of the day—Miles and Derrick in their secret ASL club, laughing at remedial girl.

  “Yeah,” Derrick said. “They really did break my balloons.” He dared a glance at me, and was met with permafrost. He cleared his throat. “Anyways—um—it was a great experience. But we should probably get back to the tox panel.”

  Carla shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me. I’m sick of looking at cell cultures.”

  “Selena’s a bit testy, though. We don’t want to incur the wrath of la diva.”

  Carla nodded. “Got it. Well, I already gave her the prelim. Jacob Kynan had traces of morphine and another degraded substance, rhGH, in his blood.”

  “Human growth hormone,” Miles clarified. “The body produces it naturally as a somatoform chemical, but it’s also the only known trace left behind by Hex once it’s been fully metabolized.”

  “That’s right. Drugs like Hextacy don’t metabolize the same way as heroin and cocaine, but they still leave something behind. We call it ‘protein 191,’ which is the building block of human growth hormone. Generally, the only clue of Hex use we can find in a victim is a perimortem spike in HGH just before time of death.”

  “What about the morphine?” I asked.

  Miles, who’d been looking at me, answered: “Morphine is a metabolite of heroin. So the Hex was probably cut with heroin. Dealers use a wide variety of cutting agents: starch, acetaminophen, procaine, benzocaine, or quinine. None of it’s particularly good for you, even in low doses.”

  “We didn’t find any of those substances,” Carla told him. “Which means that whatever he consumed was damn near pure.”

  Derrick shook his head. “The poor kid must have been out of his mind! Are we sure that he didn’t die of an overdose before exsanguination?”

  Carla sighed. “I doubt it. Hex also stimulates rapid-fire production of fibrinogen and other clotting substances in the blood, like albumins. Normally when you get cut, your bone marrow kicks out some cells—called megakaryocytes—which produce fibrin. The fibrin causes your blood vessels to constrict, which clots the blood.”

  “When you’re on Hex,” Miles added, “the vasoconstriction factor is about three times as potent. It almost mimics a vampire’s ability to heal damaged tissue.”

  Carla gestured to the SEM. “See for yourself.”

  I sat down in her chair and looked through the lens. Jacob Kynan’s blood was like a thriving metropolis on the glass stage. His erythrocytes swam by like scarlet, ovoid creatures, following the pull of some ancient tide. I could see the platelets gathering—they looked like crystalline jellyfish—and something in the corner, a spreading green stain, which I assumed was the Hex. When the green touched the platelets, they went absolutely crazy, multiplying in a frenzy until they became a knotted mass of white fibrin, pulsing beneath the scope.

  I stood up. “So the Hex kept him alive instead of killing him.” I could taste something awful in the back of my throat. “The killer knew that. He wanted Jacob alive as long as possible. Wanted him to feel his own life ebbing away.”

  Carla looked grim. “You’d have to confirm with Tasha, but from the shallow arterial wound that you described, I guess it would have taken nearly ten minutes for the boy to bleed out.”

  I nodded. “That’s exactly what Tash said.”

  “But that still doesn’t make sense,” Derrick added. “I mean, there are lots of ways to keep someone alive with a wound like that. Why give him Hextacy? Unless that was part of the ritual.”

  Miles frowned in concentration, trying to track all of our conversations simultaneously. It was probably exhausting.

  “Do you think he gave Jacob the Hex to make him more manageable?” I asked Miles directly. “Would it slow down his nervous system, or speed it up?”

  “Hextacy stimulates the GHB that our brains already produce naturally,” he replied, looking a bit relieved that he didn’t have to follow me with his eyes. “Gamma hydroxybutyrate is a depressant, so it would slow everything down for him—relatively speaking. But when the GHB reacts with the organic materia in the Hex, it produces a massive power spike. Hallucinations, tachycardia, erratic respiration—”

  “The last acid trip you’ll ever have,” Carla said.

  Miles nodded. “Some mages claim that they can focus the high. It’s what allows them to do complex spellwork—like a speed freak who can only paint or write when he’s flying on meth. But the way you’ve described this kid, and from what I’ve read, I doubt he had that kind of focus. So he’d just be tripping. Probably terrified.”

  “I think that was the point,” I said. “This killer’s a real prize. Likes to find himself victims who can’t fight back, then gives them the trip of their lives.”

  “Is there any way to trace the drug back to a dealer, or a specific batch?” I asked Carla. “Sometimes LSD gets printed in a distinctive way, right? Microdots with rainbow colors and pictures of unicorns, or ‘windowpanes’ made of gelatin—anything recognizable that could lead us somewhere?”

  She shook her head. “Like Miles said, Hex barely even metabolizes. It’s colored green sometimes to distinguish it from other liquids, but there’s nothing traceable. And Hex dealers aren’t your average soldiers pounding the street. They’re hidden.”

  “But there’s always a chain of command,” Miles added. “We just have to follow the product. First we find ourselves a crack dealer, a normate—”

  “And he’ll lead us to a supplier, who might know a name.” I smiled. “They always give themselves up eventually.”

  “But first we have to go through Duessa,” Derrick said. “If anyone’s going to know the dealers operating at street level, it’s her.”

  “Good luck,” Carla said, returning to the SEM. “I’m ordering a flow-cytometry test for the Kynan kid—it’ll analyze any degraded DNA in his splenic tissue. Might give us a more precise time of death.”

  “Thanks, Carla. You’re the best.”

  “You know it.” She waved at Miles. “Nice meeting you.”

  He smiled. “You, too.”

  Derrick gestured toward the door. “Are we ready to pick up the necromancer?”

  Miles stared at us in horror. “What necromancer?”

  I e
xhaled. “God. I’m never ready.”

  6

  Hamilton Street was packed with cars and flush with reflected street-light when we parked outside Lucian’s warehouse. Derrick swore as he maneuvered around the fragments of cobblestone and pockmarked scars in the pavement, all remnants of a time when Yaletown used to be the warehouse district. I stared at the puddles and the silvery lux of the street and all the expensive shoes as they hurried by. Umbrellas sprung open in harmony like black and checkered butterfly wings as hipsters and businesswomen and students all hurried to protect themselves from the weather. Umbrellas in Vancouver were more of an accessory than a tool. I could hear faint strains of mellow blue jazz circulating from Aqua Bar across the street, where the next generation of urban pros mingled with visiting actors and other glitterati who’d come to “Hollywood North” for lush scenery and cheap production costs. You’d be amazed at how many action scenes shot on the gritty streets of New York were actually filmed in downtown Vancouver with only a minimum of creative editing.

  That’s what my life could use right about now. Some creative editing. The role of Tess will now be played by Lauren Ambrose from Six Feet Under, a much kickier version of me with better, natural red hair.

  “So this is where necromancers are living these days,” Derrick observed. “Nice shoe shopping, but does it afford easy access to body parts?”

  “Shut up. Just wait here and I’ll get him.”

  “No need. Looks like he’s coming out.”

  Lucian was just sliding the door closed behind him. The outfit was vintage: black Defiance, Ohio T-shirt with a chocolate brown velvet blazer thrown over it. Blue jeans (painter, not skinny), black boots, most likely Caterpillars judging from the thick soles. Hi, I’m a necromancer, and I’ll be fixing your furnace today as well.

  “He looks like an extra from Gossip Girl.”

  I glared at Derrick. “Be nice.”

  Miles was quiet in the backseat. After we dropped off his luggage (and Baron) at the hotel, I thought for a moment that he might opt out of this trip entirely. But he climbed back into the car like a trooper, saying very little on the ride over. I didn’t blame him. Trying to explain why we were employing—and I used that word loosely—the services of a necromancer was more than a little tricky. As a biometric profiler, he’d doubt-lessly surveyed more than a few gruesome deaths engineered by that particular community, and working with one probably didn’t sit well with him.

  I turned around and gave him my most reassuring smile. “Lucian is good people. Don’t worry. You can trust him.”

  “Debatable” was all he said. But he seemed to relax a little.

  I got out of the car. Lucian’s aura was on the down-low, but I could still feel his power curled and waiting, like a sated cat. He grinned at me.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”

  He kissed me on the cheek before I could stop him. “Any time.”

  Fuckity-fuck.

  I quickly opened the door to the backseat and all but shoved him inside. “Meet Miles Sedgwick. He’s a profiler from Toronto.”

  Lucian buckled up and then extended his hand to Miles. “Lucian Agrado.”

  “I know who you are,” Miles replied. He didn’t take Lucian’s hand.

  “Huh. I see my reputation precedes me.”

  Derrick quickly signed something to Miles in the rearview mirror: both hands sweeping over each other palm downward, then waving in a quick circle in front of his face, like buzzing bees. Don’t worry. If only it were that easy! But Lucian caught the motion. He turned to Miles, and I watched his hands flicker: a gesture toward Miles, then both hands pointing down with knuckles extended in the X position; both hands raised with fingers spread, then down and to the right, one closing over the other, as if pulling and tying a secure knot; finally, a hand to his own chest.

  “He’s right,” Derrick said, although there was a definite note of annoyance in his voice. “You can trust him, for the most part.”

  Miles looked Lucian squarely in the eyes. “It’s not trust that you deal in,” he said, “or am I wrong?”

  Lucian didn’t look hurt. He just nodded. “All right. Hopefully you’ll change your mind, but if not, I understand.”

  He was playing the likability card. Still, a part of me wanted to side with Miles. I’d seen what Lucian could do.

  “Where did you learn to sign, anyways?” I asked, mostly to change the topic.

  “My brother was deaf.”

  I stared at him. Somehow, I hadn’t thought of him having siblings. It didn’t fit with the whole nightwalker stereotype. Suddenly I imagined Lucian attending Thanksgiving dinner with a dozen aunts and uncles, grinning as he carved the turkey and passed the cranberries. Thanksgiving at my house was mostly a combat sport.

  “Was?” Derrick asked curiously. “What happened?”

  “He died.” Lucian’s face was expressionless. He leaned one arm against the window, looking away from me.

  “Shit. Sorry.” Derrick started the car. “I mean—”

  “It was a long time ago,” Lucian said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I looked at Miles, and saw that his expression had softened somewhat. But he still didn’t say anything.

  Driving from Yaletown to the Downtown Eastside was always a serious culture shock, even though the two neighborhoods were really less than twenty minutes apart. We made our way up Nelson to Granville, where the club district was just starting to shake itself awake. Punks strolled past the pizza joints and used CD shops, walking their dogs and sharing a smoke, while homeless residents dragged heavy carts, often stopping to chat with each other or commiserate about the city. A guy with a keyboard had set himself up on the corner, and with the window rolled down a crack, I could just barely hear strains of Rick Astley.

  Hipsters and UBC students poured in and out of the Urban Outfitters like a tide of cynical coolness, all wearing graphic tees and studded white belts. Probably listening to Taking Back Sunday on their iPods, or maybe Hot Chip.

  Shit, actually I kind of liked Hot Chip.

  We turned right on Hastings, and the port shimmered in the distance, packed with luxury cruisers delivering rich couples from Texas into the welcoming, liberal embrace of Vancouver. The Centre for Dialogue, a multimillion-dollar kitten project of the University of British Columbia, sat with austere certainty at the corner of Hastings and Richards, and every nearby café was lined wall-to-wall with students tapping frantically at their laptops. But things changed as we drove farther east. We passed the new Spartacus Books—rebuilt after the old place burned down—and then several very different cafés that offered dark, secluded spaces for sparking up a pipe (or even a hookah), if one was so inclined.

  Scattered people milled around the War Memorial as Hastings split into Cordova, which led to Gastown. Tourists always thought that Gastown’s cobblestone streets and Victorian lamps were some authentic piece of Vancouver’s history, but the whole neighborhood had actually sprung up as an attraction in the mid-1970s. Now it was bustling with upscale clubs, expensive bars, and seedy apartment buildings crammed close to million-dollar lofts.

  As we got close to Hastings and Gore, on the border of Chinatown, the neighborhood took on a perceptible shift. There were more people on the streets, hanging around the entrances to bars and restaurants, and the convenience stores had iron grilles on their front windows. Cars slowed to adapt to the congestion, and people would often weave their way through oncoming traffic, forgoing the need for a crosswalk. The police presence was strong here, and even though their sirens weren’t on, they were still cruising back and forth or just sitting on the corners, waiting for a disruption. No matter what time of day you passed through, you’d see a wagon or a squad car picking someone up. Alleys unfolded like strange chutes or tunnels leading into semidarkness, choked with Dumpsters and fire escapes gleaming like rusted-out iron skeletons against the fading light of dusk. People moved in the shadows, talking and sharing food and
shooting up as furtively as possible. Old crack pipes, broken and dirty, seemed like strange coral reefs or silver dollars against the wet pavement.

  We passed Hastings and Heatley, where a mix of people were gathering outside the entrance to the Pivot Legal Society. Last year, they’d launched a constitutional challenge on behalf of sex workers. Now they were one of the last legal bastions left in the neighborhood.

  “Park anywhere along here,” Lucian said.

  Derrick squeezed the car into a minuscule space—thank goodness it was a compact—and we all climbed out.

  “So, where is this place?” he asked Lucian.

  “Hidden.”

  “Right. And you’re going to sniff it out for us?”

  Lucian made a face, but before he could say something, I stepped between them. “Let’s just get there before it’s too dark out, shall we?”

  We crossed the street and walked down Princess to the corner of Cordova, about a block away from Oppenheimer Park. Lucian led us past a chain-link fence and down a narrow walkway, not quite an alley but not actually a street. Miles was visibly nervous, but I didn’t have anything reassuring to say. We came to a squat, three-story walk-up that looked like it had been falling apart for the last eighty years or so. The door was locked, but there was no security of any kind. I let myself go unfocused for a moment, and saw a few white threads of materia floating around the door. An early warning system?

  Lucian pressed a buzzer. An indistinct voice answered, and he mumbled something into the speaker. A few seconds later, the door popped open. He smiled.

  “Showtime. You ready?”

  I shrugged. “As I’ll ever be, I guess.”

  We stepped into a foyer, and I saw with surprise that the inside of the building had been gutted and completely redesigned. There were security cameras placed at key angles, and the hardwood floors, despite their age, looked recently scrubbed. Lucian led us down a hallway that terminated in a heavy steel door, warehouse-style. He knocked.

  The door slid open, and a vampire greeted us.

  I knew he was a vampire immediately. Sure, he looked about twenty-eight or so, with a neat little faux-hawk and horn-rimmed glasses, but he had immortal written all over his genetic signature. He looked bored, slouching in a pair of old Carhartts and a rumpled sweater.