A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

  I looked at Duessa.

  “Well”—she shrugged—“looks like you got your interview.”

  7

  Duessa agreed to cooperate with our investigation, but I still felt like we were leaving empty-handed, since Wolfie was the one with the real knowledge and he wasn’t about to tell us anything. It didn’t seem like such a good idea to push a volatile kid with the power to set you on fire. Sparks were always dangerous. And Duessa was—something else. A part of me felt like we were lucky to have made it out of there alive. Even Lucian seemed relieved when we dropped him off at the warehouse.

  Pausing with the door halfway open, he grinned at me, a Cheshire cat. “You want to come up for a beer?”

  I shook my head. “Got the boys in tow. We still have to drop Miles at his hotel.”

  “Bring ’em up. I’ll bet a few drinks will grease those wheels nicely.”

  I chuckled. “You’re getting that vibe, too, huh?”

  “Oh, definitely. They’re both adorable, but you know the odds for people like us.” His eyes darkened, like coffee spreading over the surface of a ceramic cup. “We don’t often get the happy ending, do we? Not after seeing the shit that we see.”

  I wanted a happy ending. Right that second, I wanted to pin him against the metal door of the warehouse, bury my tongue in his neck, and let the rest of the night sort itself out. Derrick and Miles could drive home. I didn’t need to wake up early, and I’m sure I could borrow—

  I snapped back to reality. A reality where CORE spies could infiltrate my life and turn over every secret rock, open up every locked chest of memory and transgression. They were ruthless, and all they needed was an excuse.

  Lucian was right. No happy endings for us.

  “What did Duessa mean when she said that I was an ‘above-grounder’?” I asked slowly. “Are you guys in some secret club or something?”

  “She was just being maudlin.”

  “But what did she mean?”

  His face did something funny. I thought for a moment that he was going to kiss me, and what surprised me was that I actually wanted him to. Standing in the middle of the Yaletown crowds, beneath the neon and the clouds threatening at any moment to unleash rain, I suddenly very much wanted to do something inappropriate.

  But he just brushed my forehead with his lips, and smiled.

  “ ’Night and never mind,” he said.

  Before I could reply, I found myself staring at a closed door. Huh.

  I got back into the passenger’s seat, and Derrick gave me a expectant look.

  “Well?”

  “Nothing. He invited us up for drinks, but it seemed like—”

  “A colossally bad decision? Like a train wreck, or NKOTB getting back together maybe?”

  I curled my lip. “It seemed like something for another time.”

  “Huh.” Derrick started the car. “So you guys are going to see each other again.”

  “Well, in the capacity of the investigation—”

  “Oh, in the capacity of the investigation, yeah, totally.” He raised an eyebrow. “Hello, have we met? I’m Derrick, and I can read your mind. This guy is under your skin, Tess. You’re letting him in, aren’t you?”

  “You of all people should know that I never let anyone in.”

  Miles leaned forward between the two seats. “You’re dating Lucian?”

  I rolled my eyes. “This isn’t college. He’s not taking me to a dance anytime soon, and we haven’t even slept together.” I blinked. “Well, not exactly—”

  “Ha and ha!” Derrick punched the dashboard. “That night when I slept over! I knew I heard the two of you going at it.”

  “We were not going at it. I mean, we fooled around a bit, but then it got—weird. He left. That was it.”

  “That was it.”

  “Yes. Do I need to draw you a diagram? It remains unconsummated.”

  “Does Selena know?” Miles asked.

  “Yes, Miles, I told my supervisor all about the sex romp I had with Lucian Agrado. Then we watched Top Model together.”

  “You know, you’re a very sarcastic person, Tess.”

  Derrick laughed. “Irony is like her favorite outfit.”

  I sighed. “Sorry, Miles. I don’t mean to be a dick about this. But my private life isn’t really up for debate here. Yeah, I made some bad decisions involving Lucian. But I doubt that anything’s going to come of it, and it has no bearing on the investigation.”

  He shrugged. “Fair enough. I just wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Do you have a history with necromancers? You seemed uncomfortable—I mean, that’s understandable, I was scared shitless the first time I met him. But you seemed kind of—”

  “Ready to shoot him on sight,” Derrick supplied.

  Miles flushed a little. “Yeah. I guess I have some trust issues.”

  “Does that extend to the whole undead community?” I asked. “Or is it just necromancers you don’t trust?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Man,” Derrick said, “what did we ever do before Facebook gave us the ‘it’s complicated’ option? It’s saved so many awkward conversations.”

  “When I say it’s complicated,” Miles answered, “I mean more, like, maybe I’ll tell you after we’ve gotten to know each other better. Or not. Is that cool?”

  “Of course. We’re CORE employees. We deal in secrets, remember?”

  “Mi vida es guardar secretos,” Derrick repeated, smiling.

  “Are you ever going to translate that for us?”

  “Why don’t you just ask Lucian?”

  “Why don’t you fuck off?”

  “You guys bicker like brother and sister,” Miles said.

  “Yeah. We’re closer than most blood relations.”

  “It’s nice. You’re lucky.”

  I saw the moderately priced lights of the Holiday Inn approaching. It seemed like we were consigning Miles to a prison cell with plaid carpeting. At least he had Baron.

  “Well, you know”—Derrick had an odd, stumbly tone—“hanging out is always cool. Like, for the case and everything, but also—I mean, if you need something . . .”

  Miles gave him a look.

  “Like, or if you’re out of soap—you know those little hotel soaps—or a shower cap, or something, or if there’s nothing on TV except for old reruns of Law & Order . . .”

  Miles grinned. “I’ll give you guys a call. You can come rescue me.”

  Derrick’s whole face brightened. “Of course! Yeah, totally. Any time.”

  “Good night, then.”

  Miles got out of the backseat. He waved good-bye, and then Derrick executed a near-fatal left turn at Broadway and Cambie.

  “Articulate” was all I said.

  Derrick just shook his head. “I’m like a parody of myself sometimes.”

  I kissed him on the cheek. “You’ll always be my hero.”

  “Well, that’s comforting, at least.”

  We drove east down Broadway, passing the trendy box restaurants—Milestones, Cactus Club, Moxies—where I always seemed to end up on a Friday night sharing garlic mashed potatoes with my parents, since they were such nice, wholesome places. The glass and steel condos gradually gave way to older apartment buildings, flanked by resilient shops that hadn’t changed so much as a fixture in twenty years. The technical college campus was a ghost town, and I watched the 99 B-Line driving up and down the bus lanes, diesel engine roaring as it dragged ambivalent undergrads to the UBC campus in Kitsilano. The Rio Theater at the corner of Commercial and Broadway was playing an Almodóvar retrospective. Tonight’s film was La ley del deseo. The Law of Desire. If I understood how that particular law worked, maybe my life would be easier.

  We turned onto Commercial Drive, whose name couldn’t possibly be more ironic, since it was a haven for hippies, activists, lesbian parents, librarians, teachers, grad students, and anyone else willing to share a rambling old house with eight other roommates. Punk
houses stood next to walk-ups, co-ops, fair trade coffee shops, art spaces, and Beckwoman’s, which started out as a tent near Grandview Park and eventually became a sprawling shop filled with beads, scarves, and other beautiful ephemera. The drive was ethnically Italian, and definitely had the best coffee and cannoli in town, but it had become a melting pot over the years. It was where you ended up if you were either broke and discovering your politics, or if you had a bit of cash (but not a lot) and wanted to start a family.

  I rented a place here when I was still an undergrad, a shitty old walk-up on East Fourth, close to the train. The front door was always broken, and the entryway smelled perpetually like baking fish. But I did kind of love the little Hobbit hole. I’d walk down the alley between Fourth and Third to buy produce from Norman’s Fruit Salad, or a big, greasy paper bag full of chips from Belgian Fries. I remember having dinner with some artist dude once at Café Deux Soleils. I wanted to get in his pants, but he just kept talking about his craft and how awesome Marina Abramovic was.

  I never really thought I’d come back here. So weird how things change.

  “Traffic is pretty light,” I said.

  “Yeah, everyone must be at a protest.”

  I chuckled. “Wouldn’t that be funny if, like, there was a protest so far-reaching that everyone in the whole neighborhood showed up?”

  “All the houses would empty out. There’d be no one left to give you dreads or fix your henna tats.”

  “Or replace the screen on your pipe.”

  We drove past Grandview Park, where a small group had gathered to watch some fire dancers; Havana was bustling across the street, serving up huge pitchers of mojitos that swam with fresh mint leaves. The street got quieter as we turned down Middlesex, a tree-lined way that bordered Victoria but was still removed enough from the thoroughfare to seem almost like another world. The apartments turned into three-story houses with towers and turrets, windows thrown open and breathing out various types of music, laughter, and other noises.

  Derrick parked on the street, and sighed. “Home.”

  “Yeah. Always feels good.”

  We both got out. The house facing us was a ramshackle Victorian, a real money pit that would probably require some form of renovation for as long as we both lived. But it also seemed to have endless possibilities. Narrow staircases, original parquet floors, bay windows that opened onto a shared courtyard with a communal garden that was just starting to offer up beans, carrots, and giant cabbages. A patio where you could actually sit with lemonade—well, lemonade and vodka, let’s be serious—and watch the hipsters on bikes as they made their way to WISE Hall for some concert or community buffet. The cherry trees were exploding like crazy fireworks, and as I looked up, I could see a light in the kitchen window.

  “You know,” Derrick said as we made our way up the front steps, “I still remember the look on your face when Selena called you that night.”

  “You mean when she told me about Cassandra’s will? And the house?”

  He nodded. “You must’ve shit a brick when you heard.”

  How else are you supposed to respond when you find out that a demon left you an entire house in her will?

  Well, not this house. After I met Cassandra, she must have realized something. Maybe she foresaw her own death, which I wouldn’t put past her. Whatever the case, she had papers drawn up supporting my legal guardianship of Mia, who wasn’t technically her niece, but no terrestrial court in the world was going to be able to prove that. Cassandra had left a very convincing paper trail.

  When the lawyers told me how much her old house in Elder was worth, I almost passed out. I mean, it wasn’t a princely sum by any means, but to someone like me, it was a hell of a lot of money. So I sat down and discussed it with Mia—did she want to keep the house, or sell it? I wasn’t about to screw with all of her memories.

  Her answer was firm. Get rid of it. Start over. Sometimes a teenager’s clarity could be downright scary.

  “Remember when we closed escrow on the place?” I asked. “You and Mia did the chicken dance—”

  Derrick smiled. “And then we ate so much naan at Tandoori Palace, I thought I was going to throw up all over the front steps.”

  “Well, the beers didn’t help. Since we’re such awesome parents.”

  “Mia had a soda! And you barely drank any.”

  “Still . . .” I stared at him. “God, Derrick, what do we know about being parents? You’re gay, and you don’t even have pets! I set fire to my Jem doll because I wanted to see what her hair looked like when it was melted!”

  “We’re doing fine so far. I mean, she’s still alive, right? No broken bones. No piercings that we know of.”

  “Except for the part where she’s a protomage waiting to explode. You feel ready to deal with that when it happens?”

  He shrugged. “I was kind of hoping she’d just go off like a nuclear device and take all of us with her. Then we wouldn’t have to sort it out later.”

  I shoved him. “That’s not funny.”

  “No. It’s not.” Derrick shook his head. “But I don’t know what else to say. We’re a fucked-up family. And the kiddo’s got a lot more than magic to deal with.”

  “Those injections are expensive—lucky the CORE is covering it.”

  “I doubt they want to deal with the alternative.”

  “A fourteen-year-old vampire on the loose? No, probably not.”

  Mia seemed to take her VR+ diagnosis well, although with her it was always hard to tell stoicism from numbness. She was a cipher most of the time. And when I tried to remember what it was like to be fourteen, all I saw were vague images, flashes of parties and bad boyfriends and tragic outfits. Imagine being fourteen and living with Derrick and me, since your parents were dead and your aunt—who’d never really been your aunt to begin with—was gone. It blew my mind.

  “We’re going to have to rent the downstairs out soon, if we want to afford what’s left of the mortgage,” Derrick said.

  “Yeah, but you’d be surprised how many communications or gender studies majors are willing to rent a bedroom next to the furnace.”

  I fumbled with the keys for a moment, but then the front door opened by itself. Mia stood in a square of lamplight, holding a bottle of cream soda. She’d recently graduated from soft-punk clothing to full-on androgynous grunge, and was wearing old khakis from Value Village, a knit brown sweater, and wrist cuffs.

  “Sorry we’re late,” I said. “We had to go downtown for a while.”

  “I’m fourteen, Tess. I don’t mind being a latchkey kid.”

  “Did you break anything?” Derrick asked.

  “Just your laptop. I spilled a Slurpee on it, and then I decorated the whole house in silly string, ’cuz that’s how we crazy teens are rolling nowadays.”

  I slid my shoes off, sighing in relief, and went barefoot up the stairs to the living room. The nonworking fireplace had become an unofficial archive for pictures, bric-a-brac, and anything else that seemed to belong, including Mia’s “top student in French Immersion” medal from grade six, and one of Derrick’s old bowling trophies. He used to be king (or queen) of the Grandview Lanes. The wood floors gave off a rich, dusty smell, with the memory of years coiled in their blond, uneven lines. We’d painted the living room a light purple with just the hint of gray—well, Derrick and Mia mostly just got paint all over each other while I worked—and two salvaged brass lamps threw their shadows against the far wall, outlining the succulents and other plants growing quietly on the windowsill. My toes sank into the checkered carpet at the foot of the couch.

  The TV was on—I think it was a documentary on meerkats. Mia’s homework was spread across the couch.

  “I made pasta,” she said.

  “What kind?”

  She shrugged. “Whatever we had.”

  I walked into the kitchen and saw a pot simmering on the stove. Mia had opened up three different packages of noodles, and then added tomato sauce. She’d also raided
the spice cabinet, and I saw a mess of chopped herbs on the cutting board. What other teenager felt the need to use fresh basil? Light from the courtyard was ghosting through the kitchen window. Our neighbor was smoking in one of the patio chairs. She was middle-aged, her brown hair tipped with silver, but the way she held her cigarette made her look like a beautiful young film star. Her eyes were distant, untraceable, as she delicately blew smoke through her nostrils. I often wanted to join her, but there was something about her silence, her aloneness, that seemed inviolable.

  I grabbed a piece of fusilli and chewed on it thoughtfully. The alphabet magnets on the fridge had been arranged to spell “caryatid.”

  “Not bad,” I said, returning to the living room.

  “Next time leave me the credit card so I can order Thai.”

  “Like that’s going to happen.” Derrick collapsed in the overstuffed chair by the couch, which we’d bought from some punk kids across the street. “Although ordering Thai sounds like a capital idea.”

  “So, did you find out more about who murdered that boy?” Mia sipped on her cream soda, totally unaffected, as if she’d just asked us if we picked up the laundry.

  I winced. “You know we’re not supposed to talk about cases.”

  “Come on. Remember when I was a case? That wasn’t so long ago.”

  “You were never just a case.”

  “But you know what I mean. I’ve seen . . .” She faltered for a moment. It was so rare when Mia let herself actually show some emotion. I saw it flicker for a moment on her face, and then she pushed it down. “Whatever. I can deal.”

  “Yeah.” Derrick smiled. “You’re a real gladiator. But this shit—er, stuff . . .”

  “You can say shit, Derrick. I think I’ve heard those bad kids across the railroad tracks using that word a few times.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Fine. This shit is bad. You don’t want any part of it.”

  “But I’m always part of bad shit.”

  “Not this kind,” I said firmly. “If I could lock you in your bedroom, I would. As it stands, I want to get away from this case, not delve further into it. Talking about it will just ruin the rest of my night.”

  “I’d totally escape if you chained me to the bed.”