A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

  The trees thinned and gave way to a small grove. I recognized this area as the site of the Japanese War Memorial, a secluded and peaceful spot that was usually shaded by flowering magnolias. Not a big draw for tourists. Yellow caution tape was wrapped around the entrance to the clearing, and I ducked underneath it. Derrick held the tape for Miles so that he could follow suit, and a camera flash lit his profile up momentarily. The yellow tape—emblazoned with the words MYSTICAL CRIME SCENE—DO NOT CROSS—seemed to glow like a strand of spun gold in Derrick’s hand. As Miles paused underneath the fluorescent tape, he was backlit, as if by an arcing sunspot in the middle of the night.

  The space around the monument was brilliant beneath a floodlight, almost unreal as it glowed in waves of heat. There was a concrete circle flanked by iron posts, each linked by rusting chains. A Y-shaped tree split the darkness behind us, and a manicured hedge to the right gave the impression that we might have wandered into some psychotic, fucked-up country club. Blue tarp and netting were hastily rigged up in the surrounding trees, in case of rain. But it was a clear night. Beautiful and warm.

  Lines of cement radiated outward from the monument, like spokes from a wheel, and I found myself unconsciously stepping over them. Step on a crack, break your momma’s back. Who knew what was possible at a mystical crime scene? I looked up, following the memorial tower as it soared upward, a graven pillar with a torch crowned by fangs of iron. It hadn’t been lit since 1985, and I could only imagine how eerie that light must have seemed. The ghosts of all fifty-four Japanese soldiers—the counted ones, anyway—who died in the First World War.

  At the base of the tower was a series of delicate panels made of granite, sloped and smooth, like the segments of an orange. Each post lined up with the diagonal grooves cut through the concrete slabs. My eyes followed the line of architectural symmetry, along the dark space between the panels and to the closest iron post—flecked with blood—where the boy was handcuffed.

  He was naked. His arms were twisted behind his back, and he leaned forward, limply, on his knees. I couldn’t see his face. A generous pool of blood had collected on the ground beneath him, some of it flowing along those carved spokes. The result was a bloody mandala, or a kind of shocking, vermilion wheel that coursed beneath my feet. I slipped on the shoe covers, suddenly wishing I could levitate.

  “Where’s Selena?” Derrick asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m not even sure if Tasha’s been here yet to release the scene.” I slipped on a pair of gloves. “I doubt anyone’s leaving early tonight.”

  There was power in the air, and not just from the occlusion field. I could taste the footprint of something vast and hungry. I felt bile in my throat.

  I approached the monument. No clothes or shoes in sight—what did it do with them? Burned, maybe? Or kept as a memento? The boy’s hair was caked with blood, but I could tell that he was blond. I was sure that if I lifted his head, I’d see a perfect surgical scar running across his left common carotid artery. The handcuffs threw me a bit. If it had the power to suspend Jacob Kynan from the ceiling, why would it bother with handcuffs? Maybe it was just playing with us. See, I can use your tools. I can look human if I want to. Just like you.

  “Just a baby.”

  I turned to see Tasha looking at me. She’d managed to creep up from somewhere, still holding her medical bag.

  “Young, huh?” I swallowed. “This thing seems to like them young.”

  “Thing?” She gave me a curious look. “Is that the word we’re using now?”

  I shrugged. “Seems to fit.”

  “Well, the story’s the same as last time. One cut to the neck with an incredibly sharp and precise instrument. It would have taken him eight, maybe ten minutes to bleed out, given his slight size. No other visible signs of trauma, except for a fading bruise under his left eye. I bet I’ll find healed fractures during the post, though.”

  “Not a stretch if he’s another runaway.”

  “His liver temp was thirty-eight point five. No signs of rigor yet.”

  “Huh.” I edged closer to the iron post. “He was running hot. Drugs?”

  “Could be. If he died less than two hours ago—which the lack of rigor seems to support—then his liver temp should be closer to thirty-six degrees.”

  “But it’s a warm night.” I could see the purple of the blood settling in his hands and feet. The smaller blood vessels usually displayed lividity within thirty minutes of death, but I didn’t see any fixed spots of discoloration, or purpura. Bodies that had been dead for more than eight hours usually looked like they’d been speckled with a paintbrush.

  “Did you notice any insect activity?”

  “Just blowflies, and they usually don’t lay eggs at night. If we’d waited until sunrise”—she shook her head—“man, it would have been like an insect metropolis. But right now there’s no oviposition that I can see. We’ll show the scene photographs to Leigh Mussel. She’s the entomologist, so she might catch something that I missed.”

  “What’s that?” Derrick asked, pointing to the blood pool. I followed his gesture, and my eyes narrowed.

  “A void. Looks like some weird tool mark.”

  Selena finally appeared over my left shoulder. “Look closer.”

  I held her glance for a second. I could see the barely coiled desperation in her eyes—the look of someone who’d slept maybe a handful of hours in a week. Now she was on the verge of total collapse.

  I did as she said. Gradually, the white edges of the shape grew more distinct as I looked at it. A handle. A slim, tapered wedge. Someone had laid this tool down immediately after cutting the boy’s throat, so that his blood had pooled around it, forming a perfect void. It was deliberate. But why? First the coire, and now this.

  “It’s a knife of some kind,” I said. “No. A dagger. Double-edged from the look of the blade.”

  Selena gave me an expectant look.

  Something clicked.

  “You’re kidding me” was all I could say.

  She shook her head. “I wish I was.”

  Miles spoke for the first time: “It’s like those daggers you carry.”

  “An athame.” I reached unconsciously for my own, which was fastened safely in its leather sheath. “That’s the weapon. It’s killing them with a consecrated blade.”

  “And it’s leaving us bits and pieces of some fucked-up history.” Selena rubbed her eyes. “Icons of our own craft—the cauldron, the dagger. It knows us. It’s killing with our most sacred tools.”

  “This is different from Jacob, though. The kid wasn’t restrained with magic—just plain old handcuffs. And he’s been bruised.”

  “That bruise is healing,” Tasha clarified. “It’s probably from a few days ago.”

  I reached over and gently cupped my gloved fingertips underneath the boy’s chin, lifting his head. There was faint lividity in his face due to the position of the head, giving it a purplish cast. His left eye was still slightly swollen, and the bruise underneath it was fading. But his right eye was open.

  I remembered him eating spaghetti from a Tupperware container. The secretive look on his face. The flash of his tongue.

  It was the boy from Duessa’s House.

  “Shit.” It came out as a whisper.

  “Tess?” Derrick gave me a look. “Everything okay?”

  I took a step backward. His blood was dark against my latex gloves. I could almost feel its texture, slick, like liquid shadow. I shook my head.

  “Tess?”

  “It’s him, Derrick. It’s the kid from Duessa’s. The one with the black eye.”

  “What kid?” He stared quizzically at the body. “I didn’t see anyone like that. Was he in one of the rooms?”

  I nodded. “I saw him.”

  “Me, too,” Miles added. “Just for a second. But I saw him.”

  We exchanged a look. I understood. Usually, you don’t encounter bodies that you’ve seen in daylight hours. When I first saw the body of Mia’s
aunt, Cassandra, it was like something shifted inside me. The rules changed. Even though I hadn’t known this boy, I felt the same thing now. Like some dark, invisible force were plucking the strings of my life. Fingering the frets and playing with me.

  It had to stop.

  I took off my gloves and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Suddenly the world was spinning. I felt myself lurch to the side.

  “Whoa.” Derrick grabbed my arm. “Tess—”

  “I’m fine.” I sucked in a breath. But I didn’t push him away. “I’m just tired, and—and”—I stared at Derrick—“I knew him. I mean, not really. I never talked to the poor kid. But he saw me, you know? Just for a second, but it was this real moment, and now he’s dead. And he’s a little kid. He’s just a fucking little kid . . .”

  My voice broke. I looked away, swallowing hard.

  “Do—ah . . .” Miles cleared his throat, looking at Selena. “Do we have a name? It doesn’t look like he left any ID behind.”

  “Duessa’s on her way. She’ll know.”

  My eyes widened. “You called her?”

  “Of course. He’s obviously one of hers.”

  Somehow, I couldn’t imagine Selena having Duessa’s number on speed dial. It strained my mind a bit.

  “There she is now,” Selena said.

  Two shadows emerged from the line of tress—one tall, the other short. It was Duessa, with Wolfie close behind. A passing technician said something inaudible to her, probably about contaminating the scene. She gave him a withering look, and he hurried away in the opposite direction.

  Selena waved her over. Duessa approached the perimeter of the monument, her expression impossible to read. She was sedate in a wool skirt and short black coat, but her boots had a serious wedge heel. Wolfie remained by her side, but didn’t touch her. Lucian was the only one who’d ever dared, at least to my knowledge. I remembered the faint press of her lips on my cheek. It still made me shiver.

  “That’s Henry,” she said. Her voice sounded dead.

  “Have you got a last name?”

  She turned to Selena. Her eyes were almost mauve in the light. “Lawter. He was a runaway. Parents died three years ago. Kristen and Araby Lawter.”

  “They were CORE,” Selena said, eyes dark. “Consultants, not field agents. But Kristen was a specialist in materia interactions.”

  “So the pattern’s still there,” Derrick said. “Another child of mages.”

  Wolfie’s arms were rigid. I could feel how tightly coiled his power was, like a golden spring ready to snap. The air next to him was much warmer than the ambient temperature in the clearing.

  “How did he get the bruise?” I asked.

  Duessa didn’t look at me. Her gestures were economical—she made eye contact only when she had to. She moved along a different continuum from the rest of us. We were all just extras in her spatial narrative.

  “Client,” she said simply. “A real asshole, but his money was nice. Paid triple if Henry went bareback, and even more if he could breed.”

  I frowned at the term, which I hadn’t heard before. “Breed?”

  “That’s the big show, darling,” she said, her mouth crooked.

  “He let the client ejaculate while they were having unprotected anal sex,” Derrick said, his voice low. “About as high-risk as you can get.”

  “But lucrative,” Duessa added. “And if you’ve got no ties and no self-esteem and no fucking shred of hope, well—you let people do that shit to you. No matter what anyone says. And Henry had the right body for it. Little, blond, and smooth. That’s how they like ’em. He was never out of work.”

  “Where was the money going?” I asked. “Was he using?”

  “Would you let someone do that to you without being high first?” Duessa shook her head. “Of course he was using. Coke, mostly.”

  “And Hex,” Wolfie said.

  I’d almost forgotten he was there. His voice was flat.

  Duessa turned to him. “That so, love? When did it start?”

  Wolfie shrugged. “About a month ago. He wanted to try something different. The powders weren’t working anymore, and he wanted to expand his client base.”

  “How old was he? Barely sixteen?” I felt a lump in my throat. “He shouldn’t have a client base! He shouldn’t be into Hex at all.”

  “That’s how it works, baby.” Duessa finally met my eyes. “Nothing’s the way it should be. Everything’s different. Like we’re trapped on the wrong side of the mirror. But you can’t always get them to see it. Mostly, they just live on the other side.”

  I heard what sounded like a helicopter. The tarp made snapping noises as a strong wind clawed at it. Then I could hear a throng of new voices coming from the other side of the clearing.

  “Mother-fuck,” Selena said. “She wouldn’t!”

  Devorah Kynan emerged from the trees.

  A scattered group of people were running behind her. Lawyers, mostly, and reporters for CORE publications. We didn’t have our own newspaper exactly, but we did have periodicals and print networks of a sort. H. L. Mencken wouldn’t want to read them.

  “Detective Ward!” Devorah strode evenly to the foot of the monument, taking the whole scene in with a single look. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Ms. Kynan . . .” Selena closed her eyes in frustration. “Really, we’ve only just gotten here ourselves. A lot of evidence needs to be processed, and I’d appreciate it if you could wait until morning—”

  “The hell I will! Another kid ends up dead, and you think I’m going to go back to my office and do paperwork?”

  “That wouldn’t be anything new,” Duessa said, “would it, Devorah?”

  The two women locked eyes. I immediately felt the urge to run as fast I could. They were two wolves circling each other. Their collective power made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Like those giant Sentinels from the X-Men comics. But scarier.

  “What are you doing here, Duessa? Run out of children to exploit?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Devorah laughed. “That’s your response to everything. Well, how do you plan to deal with this? Another one of your precious ‘kids’ with a slit throat. Security must be pretty lax in that stinking warehouse of yours.”

  The air between them was a solid thing, salivating darkness. Duessa didn’t move a muscle. Her eyes burned.

  “Don’t fucking talk to me about my kids. You didn’t give two shits about Jake, so don’t come around here talking about my family.”

  Devorah stepped forward. “I loved Jacob. I lost a son. What did you lose, Duessa? Another tax credit? Another reason to feel good about yourself?”

  “You self-righteous bitch . . .” Duessa’s entire face went a shade darker. “Don’t you ever pretend to know how I feel about my family. All you see are throwaways and addicts—that’s all you people ever fucking see. But I know them. I knew Jake better than you ever did, and deep down, that makes you feel sick, doesn’t it?”

  Devorah laughed coldly. “Jacob would never tell you anything. He knew you were trash. You and your whole twisted little family—”

  “Lady . . .” Wolfie stepped between them. Fire arced in his palm. “Trust me when I say that you’re one word away from—”

  “Wolfie, don’t . . .” Duessa began.

  It was too late. I felt Devorah gathering a wave of power. The air between them went suddenly dark and heavy, as if someone had turned up the volume on the night. Duessa didn’t move, but I felt her power rise up to meet Devorah’s. The two didn’t crash together—but they touched.

  Time slowed down.

  When two different types of materia intersect, they create a locus of energy, called a halo. Lightning is a good example. But not just anyone can produce electrical materia. It requires a tremendous amount of power and focus. Other physical forces, like gravity or electromagnetism, could be shaped and twisted in the same way, but it was like trying to stab God in the eye. You didn’t do it unless you were prep
ared for the consequences. Fucking with the building blocks of the physical universe was not something to try for fun.

  When those two fields of energy met, the space between them actually began to decompose. For just a moment, the night seemed to peel back, and I could see glowing strands of multicolored vapor moving beneath it. Curls of red, green, and gold energy slithered and crackled as they moved across each other. I was literally looking at the concrete wiring of the universe—the buried forces that made life on Earth possible.

  A web of liquid silver seemed to hang over both of them. The darkness moved. I smelled something burning, and my stomach was in my throat. One of the glowing strands—a molten white curl of light with coruscations of blue—came unglued from the air. It began to move, ponderously, circling both Devorah and Duessa. I’d never seen it before, but I recognized it from descriptions.

  Weak nuclear force. Radioactive materia.

  “Shit” didn’t really cover it.

  “Devorah!” Selena’s voice seemed to be coming from far away. “Devorah—stop this now! Get control of yourself!”

  She was talking to a grieving mother. Control wasn’t high on the woman’s agenda.

  Nobody could separate the two women. If I even brushed up against that deadly white tendril of force, every nucleated cell in my body would come unstuck. Not an especially pleasant death, even within the myriad of complex demises that we saw every day in our line of work.

  Luckily, I didn’t have to test out any theories. I felt Duessa draw back the curtain of her power. The night smoothed itself down, like a cat’s ruffled fur, and those vaporous and hungry spirits faded back into discrete invisibility. Devorah pulled back a few seconds later. Her eyes were grim.