A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

I was amazed that she’d managed to disengage her lips from her boyfriend long enough to ask me a question. I turned around, and in a split second I was able to register two very important facts—

  The girl was a vampire.

  And I was fucked.

  Her hand closed around my throat, fingers pressing into both carotid arteries and cutting off the blood flow. Twelve seconds until I blacked out.

  “Tess Corday.” She smiled. Her fangs were in full view. “They didn’t tell us that you were such a tiny little bitch. Snapping you into pieces will be like—”

  Luckily, vampires always felt the need to make a bad simile, which gave you a very small but useful window for retaliation.

  I dropped to my knees and yanked her down with me, the motion jarring her enough to loosen her grip. My elbow caught her in the face. Before she could tighten the vise again, I pressed my palm against the tile floor, reaching down for the vital flows of earth materia that were much stronger and nearer in a place like this. Green light flared between my fingertips, bringing with it the sweet smoker’s rush of fire-kissed power that coursed through my lungs, dizzying. I flung the strand of materia outward, not even bothering to channel it through my athame, just letting it burn as it hissed pure and electric from the palm of my hand.

  She flew backward and rolled, slamming against the far wall of the platform. A human might have broken something, but she’d only be a bit dazed.

  Dammit. Why was it always vampires?

  Her boyfriend leapt at me full-on. Amateur move. He couldn’t have been more than a few decades old, and was still infatuated with his own strength. Good for me, since it meant he was less experienced. The downside was that he was also more willing to take risks, so I might end up dying in a more creative way. I heard crucifixion was back in vogue. That’d be different.

  I sank to one knee and slashed my athame in a wide arc, hoping to slice deep into one of his calf muscles, or—if I was lucky—the popliteal artery. Sever it and you win a prize: blood spurting like a chocolate fountain at a wedding. He did a left sidestep to avoid me, and I reversed the motion, thrusting up hard with both my wrists around the handle. The skewering blow didn’t connect, but it did force him to twist awkwardly in midair. He landed on his knees a few feet away.

  I reached into my bag and unfastened the secret pocket where my Glock slept, waiting patiently. After realizing that even sweet and huggable Miles Sedgwick packed a firearm in order to visit Duessa, I’d decided to do the same for our second meeting at the Sawbones. Thank the holy powers above.

  In case you’re wondering, you cannot fit a sidearm in a Kate Spade bag. She’s not big on providing space for ammo. I recommend something vintage, which is a nice way of saying old (my bag was vintage), or a chunky Hermès saddlebag, if you’ve got the cash. Just be sure that you don’t care about the lining, since it’ll be covered with GSR and blood in a few weeks.

  I pumped my arm and threw the bag as hard as I could at the vampire. He grinned and caught it one-handed. As he was beaming at my stupidity, I chambered a round, aimed upward to offset my position, and fired. Even with my other hand trying to steady the grip, I still felt the recoil explode through my shoulder. That would hurt tomorrow.

  I looked up. I’d been off by a few inches, and the bullet tore through the vampire’s throat instead of his skull. He gurgled and screamed—it might have been profanity, I couldn’t tell—and dark gobbets of thick, rotten-looking blood oozed from the keyhole wound in his neck. As a rule, unless they’ve just fed, vampire blood is dark and runny, like molasses. No plasma—just rotting heme. When it touched the floor, it instantly grew coils of furry mold. Aspergillus: the hairlike fungus that grows on decomposing blood. Usually it only appeared in cases of severe decomp, but with vampires it was standard. Their insides were like an expired milk carton.

  Don’t think. You’ve got seconds, Tess. Seconds.

  I went for my athame again, but strong arms locked around me from behind. The girlfriend. I felt her small tits digging into my back.

  “Hey, Tess.” Her voice had a singsong quality to it—heavy on the crazy. “How many ribs do you think I can break before you pass out? It’ll be super-fun to see!”

  I grunted, spread my legs, and smashed the butt of my Glock into what I approximated was her kneecap. She swore, but didn’t let go. I swung in the opposite direction, craning my neck to the left, and was rewarded by the sickening contact of my gun with her nose. The barrel crunched into her sinus and orbital ridge, and hot blood sprayed against the back of my neck. She screamed. Her grip loosened, and I launched myself forward, rolling and coming up on one knee.

  The carnage was impressive so far. Sid was still bleeding from his ruined throat, and Nancy was clutching her broken nose. Vampires do heal from the neck up, but it takes longer, and if the damage is severe enough, it’ll actually scar. That was the goal.

  I took a second to aim at Nancy and fired again. The bullet should have blown through her left eye socket, but she regained her composure enough to leap away. Vampire speed was a pain in the ass. The round lodged into a sign above the tracks instead, proclaiming that litter was a punishable fine.

  Nancy was getting her finesse back. She leapt off one of the walls, grabbed an exposed pipe, and swung at me with her legs. For a moment, I saw a flash of her boots, which had polished spikes attached to the soles. Very Kill Bill. I ducked and slashed with my athame. The edge struck one of the spikes, and it clattered to the ground, steaming at the point of contact. There isn’t much that consecrated, blood-fed steel can’t cleave through like polymer.

  “I’ll shove that thing right up your tight virgin ass, bitch!” Nancy had spittle at the corners of her mouth.

  “That’s more of a third date kind of thing,” I told her. “But if you’re really nice, I’ll let you touch the twins.”

  “You mortal piece of shit! Everything Sabine told us was true!”

  A cold wave passed through me.

  “Sabine?”

  Nancy laughed. “Who do you think sent us, brain trust?”

  “What does Sabine think she’s playing at? She can’t get within ten miles—”

  “That was before the magnate stepped down. Or hadn’t you heard? There’s no law anymore, biscuit. No rules.”

  “What about—”

  “The successor? Nobody can find him. And as long as he stays hidden . . .” Her smile was wide. “School’s out. We get to do whatever we want.”

  I kept my gun trained on her, holding the athame perpendicular to the grip, like a cop would normally hold his flashlight. I looked far more confident than I felt. If Sabine was somewhere close by—

  “Where is she?” I demanded.

  “Right. I’ll give you her address, and you can grab a coffee. She wants to kill you! And she wants it to last!”

  “If she really wanted me dead, she wouldn’t send you two fuckwits. She’d come at me herself, to make sure the job got done.”

  “Too busy for that. She trusted us to put you in the ground. Or, you know—the bottom half of you, anyways. We might stick your head on a pike.”

  She’s stalling. Why is she stalling?

  Fingers locked around my arm from behind, and I remembered: Sid.

  “I feel better,” he said, drooling a bit of blood on my cheek.

  Then he threw me onto the tracks.

  A lot of things go through your mind as you’re about to hit an electrified third rail. Official CORE training is not one of those things. Luckily, I kept a grip on my athame, and it reacted with a mind of is own as it brushed against the electrical field generated by the tracks. The blade shone like a piece of kryptonite, and a mesh of earth materia rose up to envelop my body, instantly grounding me.

  This, however, did very little to ease the impact. I hit the edge of the rail with my left shoulder, and pain blossomed along my arm. I saw spots before my eyes. I tried to shift position to see what the vampires were doing, but the movement almost made me puke. My shoulder was di
slocated.

  Shaking, I tightened my right-handed grip on the athame, trying not to move my left arm at all. But every twitch sent a vein of white fire through the joint. My fingers were numb. I tasted bile.

  “Did that hurt?” Sid was standing over me, grinning. “Sorry! I always forget how totally useless humans are. Like sacks of shit, really.”

  I got to my knees and stepped shakily over the third rail. Where did Nancy go? Fuck. If I turned around too quickly, I might pass out. She couldn’t have been approaching from behind. There was nowhere to go, except for—

  I felt a rumbling beneath my feet.

  Oh Holy Hell.

  There were two lights in the tunnel. My twelve thirty train was finally arriving.

  “Should we let her fry?” Nancy appeared behind Sid. She’d recovered my Glock from the ground, and was now casually aiming it at me. “Or should I just blow her away? We could wait for the train, too—but that seems like cheating.”

  Sid peered over the edge. “How about it, kiddo? Unlike us, you only get to die once. So you’d better choose something—”

  “Jesus. You know what your real problem is . . .”

  I slammed the athame into his foot. The blade easily parted the leather of his boot, going straight through the arch of his foot and striking sparks against the tile below. I twisted the handle like a corkscrew, and he screamed. Blood welled up around the guard of the blade, soaking through his grimy white sock.

  “You just can’t stop talking.”

  I could feel the train coming. It was death on a screaming monorail, its lights burning through the shadows of the tunnel. Hot, industrial-strength lights, throwing off thermal materia like ribbons of casual energy. I pulled them into the athame, fixing all of my concentration into a starburst tip at the very point of the blade. It grew warm. Smoke curled from Sid’s boot. I couldn’t shut off the pain, so I let it fuel my anger. Nothing like fire and anger. It doesn’t make for good focus, but sometimes it’s fine to be sloppy.

  His blood boiled. It looked like cherry filling, bubbling and seething out of the ruin of flesh, bone, and twisted leather. His scream went up a notch.

  I smiled at him through my pain. “You be sure to give Sabine a real big ‘fuck you’ for me, Sid.”

  Then I closed my eyes, lowered my head, and let loose. The power tore through me, and my grunt turned to a startled cry. The fire always hurt.

  But it hurt Sid a lot more.

  There was a flash of orange-on-white light, and a tendril of flame snaked up Sid’s boot, curling around his pant leg. He swore and tried to shake it off, but his foot was nailed to the ground. The flame tore greedily at his jacket, breathing in little bursts and pops as it spread to his shirt. Then his hair went up like Dark Phoenix.

  I slid the athame out of his boot, and he stumbled backward, flailing his arms and screaming as his body turned to a column of fire. The smell of his rotten blood going molten was indescribable. I gagged.

  “Andreas! Fuck!” Nancy stared at him in horror. “You—fuck!” Her eyes were all white, like a rabid animal. “I’m going to fucking tear your head off!”

  Andreas fell to his knees. He kept smoldering, but his screams had lessened.

  I gripped the handle of the athame with my teeth, hoisting myself onto the ledge with my good arm. Using my leg as leverage, I managed to roll onto the platform, just in time to see Nancy bearing down on me. The Glock was aimed at my head this time.

  “How’s it feel to get fucked by your own useless weapon?” She laughed and squeezed the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  She hadn’t counted on the biometric trigger, which was keyed to my thumbprint.

  Before she could retaliate, I lunged.

  I grabbed the collar of her jacket firmly with my good hand. Her eyes narrowed in confusion. I wedged my athame into the space between two tiles, pressing my elbow against it. Then, with the last bit of strength I had left, I sat down hard and buried my knee in her stomach. It knocked the wind out of her.

  I could hear the hiss of the train. Its glow moved across the platform, outlining Sid’s crumpled body, which still smoldered like a pile of tires.

  My shoulder twisted. I screamed from the pain. With the handle of the athame digging into the crook of my arm, I used it like a fulcrum. My boot buried itself crosswise between the vampire’s legs, and in one motion, I lifted her off the ground. My ankle trembled, but it didn’t snap.

  She grabbed at the tiled floor, her nails scratching against it. I pushed, grunted, and used all of my body weight to flip her over.

  The back of her head slammed into the ledge. Before she could twist away, I pushed her forward, so that her head was dangling like a doll’s into empty space.

  “I don’t know, Nancy.” I smiled grimly. “How’s it feel to get fucked by a train?”

  Light blossomed. She screamed. The skytrain tore past me in a streak of red and white, and then Nancy’s head was gone.

  Blood sprayed in a fan across my jacket. Her body went limp, and I fell backward, panting.

  I smelled the reek of something truly disgusting as Nancy’s very, very old body evacuated its contents for a split second. Then, what was left of her shuddered violently. Black veins marbled her arms and the macerated tissue of her neck. A foul vapor breathed from her desiccated pores. Bone, tendon, and muscle alike all turned to a dark jelly, which dried out in seconds, until she looked like a pile of leaves. Everything wilted in on itself. The leathery flesh turned to dust, and the dust became a spreading stain the color of parchment on the ground.

  That was how a vampire died. No clean poof. More like a compost heap.

  Also, unlike in the movies, her clothes remained more or less intact. She may have been a hundred or so years old, but denim was truly immortal.

  Still sick from the pain, I managed to slide Nancy’s leather jacket from the puddle of brown gel and ash. I crawled over to Sid and threw the dripping jacket over him. It smoldered and reeked. I kicked at the smoking lump, trying to wedge it into a corner.

  I heard the whoosh of the train doors opening. Exhausted and ready to pass out, I rolled onto my stomach. I could see the clean, white interior of the car.

  It was empty.

  This is Waterfront, the automated voice said. Terminus station.

  I closed my eyes and made a sound—halfway between a laugh and a sob.

  I don’t know how I got to Yaletown. Maybe I walked all the way down Richards, or maybe I even got on a bus without realizing it. My shoulder was electric. I’d dealt with broken bones, fractures, and dislocations before, but the pain was always a surprise. You never remember what it feels like until it happens again, and suddenly your whole body is on fire and all you want to do is curl into a ball and throw up. My face was bruised and banged up as well, and some people who saw me on the streets looked mildly alarmed. Most just walked by without even changing expression. Maybe they thought my boyfriend had beaten the shit out of me. Or my pimp.

  There were lots of places I could have gone. The CORE clinic on Davie would have patched me up and even given me some Demerol. If I’d gone back to the lab, Selena would have taken care of me. But then I’d have to fill out a report. I couldn’t go home—I didn’t want to scare Mia. I suppose I could have gone to Saint Paul’s, like a normate, and gotten fixed up by a regular doctor. Canada’s health care system didn’t discriminate against mages. Everyone got to wait three hours in an uncomfortable chair for shitty treatment, regardless of their occult persuasion.

  But here I was, standing on Hamilton and staring at the door marked STORAGE 3. Lucian’s warehouse. Tonight I was the queen of bad decisions, apparently.

  I knocked on the door with my good arm. He was a necromancer—he must still be up, right? Casting bones or whatever they did. Or chilling. Did necromancers chill? He certainly had the apartment for it. I imagined him playing Nintendo Wii for a moment, and actually started laughing. Fire shot through my arm, but I kept laughing, more from hysteria th
an anything else. I felt tears roll down my cheeks.

  Lucian slid the door open, and for a second, his composure vanished.

  “Tess?”

  I must have been a real sight—bruised, my face covered in dried blood, my left arm sagging, as tears stung my eyes. But I was giggling.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, half laughing and half sobbing. “Lucian, I’m sorry. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  He wrapped an arm around me. “Come in. You must be in shock. What the hell happened to you?”

  I let him lead me shakily inside. My boots echoed on the polished concrete floor. The air was so warm, and it smelled good. It smelled like him. If he propped me up against a wall, I would have fallen asleep that very second.

  The small, rational part of my brain realized that he was right—I was in shock from the pain, and sleeping was the last thing I wanted to do. I might even have a concussion. I swallowed and tried to focus.

  “Two vampires . . .” I mumbled. “Waterfront. They jumped me. They said . . .” Recognition suddenly tore through me. “Lucian, they were working for Sabine.”

  “Sabine’s far away,” he said, leading me into the bathroom. “Don’t worry about her. For now, let’s just get you taken care of.”

  “She’s not far away.” I tried to stand still for a moment, but his hand on my back was surprisingly firm. “The vampires said that everything’s in chaos, there’s no magnate, and everything’s turned to shit! We need to find Patrick—”

  “Right now, we need to fix you up. One thing at a time, Lois Lane.”

  He sat me down on the edge of the bathtub. God, it was so fucking clean. My bathroom looked like crap. Suddenly, I was convinced that I might give Lucian typhoid or some other toxic disease that you get from living in filth. I didn’t fit into his perfectly ordered life. I needed to live in a commune somewhere.

  He started to pull my jacket off, and I cried out when he moved my left arm.

  Lucian sucked in his breath. “Dislocated?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay.” Gently, as if he were dealing with a terrified animal, he slipped my jacket off inch by inch. My blouse was spotted with blood. “Looks like you gave as much as you got, eh?”