A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

  Magic was about getting high, too, if you pared it down to the most basic level. Materia could get you high—it could release you from your body, make you feel like you were soaring across the universe on a trail of hot sparks. It also came with its own price, in the form of week-long hangovers, illness, and even death by overdose. The CORE was a dealer of sorts, and sometimes, I couldn’t help but think that we recruited kids in the same way as these hoppers and slingers. Get them young, show them how to use their powers “responsibly”—that is, without getting killed—and teach them how to find and recruit others. The two worlds weren’t all that different from each other. We just had fancier offices and better security.

  I walked over to a girl wearing a grubby pullover, jeans, and a worn pair of Chuck Taylors. I couldn’t tell if her outfit was brand new or actually drawn from a Goodwill bin. She didn’t look quite as high as the rest of the group, which led me to believe that she might run with Duessa. Her hair was neatly combed, and she wore a minimum of makeup, along with cute brass-bell earrings.

  “Hi,” I said. “Got a second?”

  She looked me up and down and smirked. “I don’t score from cops.”

  Right. New plan: Change my outfit.

  I tried to make my smile look bashful. “Is it that obvious?”

  She shrugged. “To me it is.”

  “Well, I’m not a cop exactly.”

  “I know what you are.” She lit a cigarette. “I see your type around here.”

  “I’ve got different reasons for being here, though.”

  “Oh, really?” She blew smoke over my head. “How about that.”

  “Duessa sent me.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “The Lady sent you.”

  I nodded.

  “No offense, but—you don’t seem the type she’d normally do business with.”

  “I’m not. But she’s cooperating for the moment. We’re both trying to figure out what’s been going on around here lately.”

  Her expression darkened. “You mean the runaways getting slashed up? Like that poor little kid in the park? I heard they came from rich families.”

  I nodded. “We’re trying to help.”

  She laughed. “Heard that one a million times. Heard it from the government, from the mayor, from the cops, from the reporters, even from the fucking churches. Thing is, sweetheart—that helping hand? Never seems to come. At least not until some pretty white bitch like yourself gets strangled or cut up in pieces.” She inhaled. “Pardon my language. I’m a bit cranky today.”

  I started to reach into my pocket for a twenty, and she grabbed my arm.

  “Jezuz, you want to get us both locked up? We can’t do this in the middle of the fucking street. Come over here.”

  I followed her to the entrance of an alleyway. My hand strayed to my athame, which was cool against my hip. Just in case.

  “Now.” She sighed. “What is it you want? I don’t usually eat kitty, but if you’re willing to throw in a little extra, that’s fine.”

  I blushed. “It’s not a date I’m after. It’s information.” I handed her two twenties. “Would this make you—um—less cranky?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “It’d be a start. What are you looking to find out?”

  “I need to connect with Patches.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That sloppy motherfucker? He’s an idiot. Why are you looking for him?”

  “I heard he’s got some nuke.” This was the current slang for Hextacy.

  She frowned. “That shit’s not for amateurs.” Her eyes burned up and down my body. “And pardon me for saying, but you wouldn’t know a crack spoon from a hair dryer. What are you doing looking for Hex?”

  “The two kids that were murdered . . .” I began. “Both were high on Hex when they died. We think whoever killed them is connected to a supplier. Maybe it is the supplier, who knows? But I have to figure out where this stuff is coming from, and Patches is the only one around here who deals in it.”

  She absorbed this for a second. “Patches wouldn’t know a supplier from his own candy red asshole in the dark. The only reason he pushes nuke is because he can charge twice as much for it, but it’s hard as fuck to transport. The supplier would have to be close.”

  I blinked. “That’s something we didn’t know before. Thanks—”

  She raised a hand to cut me off. “Listen. I’m telling you this because it’s common knowledge. Any tweaker who’d ever tasted nuke could tell you the same thing. I’m not going to risk my own ass here. Got it?”

  I nodded. “Totally. Understood.”

  “Patches stops by here twice a day to collect money. If he’s stupid enough, he might do a re-up with all the cops watching. But that kid’s blessed or some shit, because he never gets caught.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “Look . . .” She dug around in her purse for a second, then pulled out a slip of paper with a number written on it. “Text this number. Punch in 151 or 247. That means you’re looking for something expensive, which’ll make him show up faster. There’s no code for nuke, but I doubt you’d want to buy any. If he thinks you know too much, he won’t say a thing. And don’t bother calling, because the cell’s probably a burner, which means he’ll toss it by the end of the week.”

  I smiled. “Thank you. This really helps.”

  She looked at me expectantly.

  “Oh—sorry.” I handed her two more twenties.

  “There. Night’s looking up now. Thanks, baby.”

  “Is there—I mean . . .” I hesitated. “Is there anything I can do for you? I mean, I could put you in touch with a shelter. Or Duessa’s House—”

  She laughed softly. “Don’t take this the wrong way, sweetheart. But fuck off.”

  Then she turned and walked back down to the corner. I watched her go. I couldn’t help but think what a fabulous agent she’d make for the CORE.

  I pulled out my cell and texted 151. A few seconds later, I got a message back:

  Ten.

  When I emerged from the alley, the woman had vanished. I stood around uncertainly for a few minutes. What was I supposed to do now? Should I lean against a wall and act cool? I felt as if every movement was giving me away. But nobody seemed to care. Business went on as usual.

  A few minutes later, a guy came loping down Hastings wearing a brown canvas jacket and dirty black jeans. He had a shaved head. A cop car drove by slowly, and he stared at the ground but kept walking.

  “Five-oh!” someone yelled. “Five-oh creepin’!”

  The cop car paused at the corner, then sped up and continued down Hastings. At least they weren’t yelling things about me. Yet.

  Patches walked straight up to me. So much for being undercover.

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh—um . . .” My nervousness probably looked adorable to him, but it wasn’t an act. I’d never bought drugs off the street before. Once, I bought a joint in Stanley Park, but it took me almost an hour to work up the nerve. This was very different territory.

  “Follow me,” he said simply.

  We walked a little to the side of the apartment complex, next to a shaded patch of tulips that was overgrown with weeds. I kept one hand on my athame. It’s not like we were in some rat-infested basement, but I still felt exposed.

  “So? What are you looking for?”

  I didn’t know if I should hedge around the subject or just come out and say it. I decided on a mixture of both.

  “I work for someone,” I said, mentally parsing through the details of Duessa’s cover story. “He’s got rank in the CORE.”

  “I don’t fucking deal with them.” He turned to go.

  “No, wait! This guy’s rich. But he’s a nuke-hound. Loves the stuff. He’s got the money, but not the connections.”

  His eyebrows narrowed. Well, it was really more of a uni-brow, which gave him a distinctly ogreish appearance.

  I kept going. “He’s willing to pay in cash—or in favors.”

  He blinked
. “What sorta favors?”

  There. I had him.

  “He’s got a direct line to the ADA. Can get you out of just about anything, or finesse it to look better. Shave a few years off an existing sentence . . .”

  This was the cherry on top of the sundae that Duessa gave me. Apparently, Patches had an older brother—a real douchebag—who was serving a three-year sentence in a CORE prison for beating up some warlock’s girlfriend. Classy. But we certainly weren’t above using it as leverage. My feeling was that Patches wanted his brother sprung less out of filial affection and more for much-needed backup.

  He leaned in closer. “You can get someone’s time shortened?”

  I nodded. “How many years you need taken off?”

  Patches smiled for the first time. “Maybe we can work something out.”

  “How much would you need up front?”

  He scratched one of his arms, then winced. Apparently, Patches wasn’t above sampling his own product. This could be useful.

  “Two thousand.”

  Shit. I’d heard it was expensive to process the organic materia needed to make Hex, but two thousand as a down payment? That was ludicrous. But then again, so was injecting yourself with raw magic.

  I pulled out my own flash roll. Selena had been kind enough to give me a pretty large discretionary fund, with the warning that I’d be flayed alive unless I returned every last earmarked bill. I slowly and deliberately counted out ten hundred-dollar bills, then another ten. Patches looked like he might start drooling right in front of me. Clearly, he’d overshot the price without expecting me to comply.

  I held out the wad of cash. “This means I deal with the supplier.”

  “That’s not—”

  I snatched back the money. “I deal with the supplier, or I don’t deal at all.”

  His face darkened. “Listen, little girl—”

  “No, you listen, shitbird.” I took a step toward him, letting my power flare a bit. Even someone as magically constipated as Patches would be able to feel it. “This guy does not fuck around. He’s not going to deal with a midlevel soldier like you.” “Low-level” would have been the more accurate term—and Patches was far from a soldier—but I thought the inadvertent compliment might soften him up. “He wants the real deal. And he’s got more than enough money.”

  “It’s not about the money.” That was a lie. It was always about the money.

  “Well, what is it, then?”

  Patches looked around nervously. “The supplier doesn’t normally talk to people. That’s my job. He . . .” I saw his eyes widen at the fuck-up. Nice. “I mean, the boss—you know, the supplier doesn’t meet with people. It just doesn’t happen.”

  “A second ago, you said it doesn’t normally happen.”

  He looked confused. “Well, no—”

  “But two thousand in cash up front isn’t usual. Dealing with the CORE isn’t usual. This is an extraordinary situation. You follow me?”

  He nodded. “But the supplier—”

  I shook my head to cut him off. “No. Let’s make this real easy.” I counted out the bills again, then placed them in his warm, dirty hand. “Don’t even call this a down payment. You take this to your supplier, and you call it a gift. A token of appreciation from my employer, who’d very much like to get in touch with him. You make sure he understands that there’s a lot more coming, and that we want to deal in bulk. Understand? No individual vials or crystals or any of that shit, no eighths of an ounce or dime bags or papers. We want to buy something solid.”

  He looked uncertain. “So—I just give this to him?”

  “That’s exactly right. You give it to him as a token of our interest. A symbol. It represents our commitment to this business endeavor. And if he’s interested, you give him this number . . .” I scrawled down the number of my disposable cell phone on a scrap of paper, handing it to him. “You tell him to send a message, and I’ll meet him anywhere he likes. But make sure he understands that this offer isn’t going to last forever. My employer isn’t too keen on waiting for product. And there are other markets we can go to.”

  “What other markets? Shit—”

  “Patches . . .” I smiled coyly. “I know you and your supplier aren’t the only show in town. And we aren’t above dealing with the scum of the earth—and below—if you know what I mean. We thought we’d take the high road first. You came recommended to us.”

  “Yeah?” He licked his lips.

  “Oh yes. I was told that you were the man to deal with. And I do appreciate a man who knows how to deal.”

  “I got lots of skills,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

  “I’ll just bet you do.” I laughed. “You know, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t possess a pretty wide skill set myself. That’s why I hope you’ll be in touch soon.” I brushed his chest lightly. He smelled like bad cigars and Brut roll-on. “Real soon.”

  Before he could reply, I turned and walked away. It seemed like the properly filmic thing to do. And I thought I’d played it with exactly the right amount of panache, expertise, and sluttiness.

  After filling out the appropriate expense forms (and promising Selena on pain of death that I’d get the money back), I found myself at Commonwealth, the old faithful pub that lay exactly between home and work. It was about as different from the Sawbones as you could get: refinished hardwood—still richly scarred in a few places, and dotted with pools of light that came through the screen door—mismatched folding chairs scattered around black oak booths and broken-down card tables, and a jukebox in the corner that played nothing but Peter Frampton. The bar was stainless steel with an old brick façade, and various trinkets and weird items poked out of the dusty corbels, including an ancient troll doll, a medal for perfect penmanship, and a stuffed armadillo. All we knew about the bartender was that her name was Tina, she loved to wear berets, and she’d probably been a pretty fierce lady killer in the mid-to-late-eighties.

  Every Friday, Derrick and I allowed ourselves a two-drink minimum while Mia was out shopping with my mother. If shopping turned into a movie, we even had the possibility of coming home to an empty house. At twenty, this would have been depressing. At twenty-five, it had become the impossible dream.

  Halfway through my second pint of Stella, I was starting to unwind. I’d never been a big drinker—at least not since college—but sometimes it was nice to have a few beers and pretend that my life wasn’t chronically in danger. Inebriation didn’t tend to mix well with mystical focus, but most mages had substance abuse problems, so . . . you figure that one out. Derrick was even more of a lightweight, so his cheeks were already rosy, and he grinned at me.

  “What?”

  I took another sip. “Just wondering what would happen if every mage in the world got, like, supertanked, all at once. Would there be an apocalypse?”

  He chuckled. “More like a fuck-alypse. All that sexual tension? The miners and the sparks would be all over each other.”

  “You’d like that.”

  He shrugged. “Mama’s been dry for a while. I wouldn’t complain.”

  “What about Miles?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What about Miles?”

  “Well . . .” I made a vague motion with my hands. “You two seem into each other. He’s nice. And cute. He smells good. And in the same business as us, so it’s not like you’d have too much explaining to do.”

  “Is that our criteria now? Anyone who works with us?”

  “He doesn’t technically work with us. He’s an outside contractor.”

  “He’s also a colleague. A peer . . .”

  I wiggled my little finger. “You waaant him, oooh, you want him to be your peer, don’t you? Let’s be peers—”

  “You’re trashed.”

  I gave him an indignant look. “This is my second beer. If I’m trashed, then my life has truly become depressing.”

  “So, what about Lucian? He’s an outside contractor.”

  “Yeah. Way on the outsid
e. Like, in another dimension.”

  Derrick shrugged. “He seems okay.”

  I stared at him. “Oh my God. Did you just admit that Lucian Agrado, the bane of your existence, is—okay? Did that really happen?”

  He grimaced. “Don’t spread it around. But lately, the guy hasn’t seemed that bad. He’s actually been kind of helpful.”

  I finished my beer with a guilty swallow.

  “We’re on a mission, I see.”

  I stared at the counter. “I may have gone to Lucian’s that night—you know, when the vampires attacked me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course you did. And he gave you a key.”

  My eyes must have looked like a cartoon character’s, because Derrick laughed and rubbed my shoulder. “Remember how I’m not stupid, hon? I saw the look on your face when you showed up the next morning. And I emptied your pockets when I did the laundry. Ever since that time you stuck a jaw-breaker in there, and I thought I heard gunfire when it was just the candy exploding—”

  I sighed. “Yeah. I should have known that you knew.”

  “That’s generally a safe assumption.”

  “What am I going to do about this, Derrick?”

  “About Lucian?”

  I stared into my empty glass. Tina wordlessly replaced it with a full mug. I gave Derrick a questioning look, and he nodded his assent. Guess who wouldn’t be driving?

  “Lucian Agrado is a black hole in my life.” I wrapped both hands around the mug. “A very sweet, charming, and sexy black hole.”

  “He seems to care about you.”

  “Sure. He cares about the powers of darkness, too. You didn’t see what he did to Sabine last year. It was like raw evil pouring out of her eyes and mouth.” I shivered. “What does it mean that I’m attracted to—that? To someone who can do that?”