A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

  I splashed some water on my face. My hair was a lost cause, but the ponytail hid most of the tangles and snarls. Concealer wouldn’t do shit for the circles under my eyes, but it didn’t really matter now. My mother wouldn’t get the chance to ask too many questions. I’d be the one conducting the interrogation tonight.

  I dropped the key back on the counter and kept walking. The attendant gave me a suspicious look but didn’t say anything. I eased myself back into the passenger seat, only to discover that Derrick had been shopping while I was in the ninth ring of hell.

  “Here.” He passed a plastic bag over to me. “I got you some essentials.”

  I pawed through it. “Pepto, ginger ale, soda crackers—ooh, cherry lozenges . . .” I smiled weakly at him. “It’s the best gift bag in the world right now. Thanks.”

  “I tried to plan for every type of organic breakdown. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I just shit out a cruise missile. I think it’s starting to let up, though.”

  “Thanks for painting me that watercolor.” He started up the car. “Have some of the ginger ale. That’s what my mom always gave me when I had an upset stomach.”

  “That’s what moms all across North America have been prescribing for upset stomachs since the nineteenth century.” I made a face. “It actually doesn’t cure anything. There’s almost no ginger in it, and the high sugar content is a diuretic.”

  “Fine. I’m sorry I didn’t consult a pharmacology manual before buying your soda. I’ll be more diligent next time.”

  “I like it, though.” I uncapped the bottle and took a cautious sip. “The bubbles always make me feel better.”

  “If I were a more powerful telepath, I’d be able to trigger a cascade of serotonin in your brain,” he said, “which would make you feel a lot better.”

  “I’ve had enough chemicals running rampant through my body. I don’t need any more whacked-out neurotransmitters.” I looked at him. “And besides—you are a powerful telepath. I’m still not sure what you did back at the hotel, but you saved Miles from getting chewed up by raw energy. You’ve gotten a lot stronger.”

  “Aw, shucks.” He looked away.

  I smiled to myself.

  We made it to Elder Heights without further incident. I found that if I stayed very still and kept my eyes half-closed, the vibrations of the Festiva—which was surely as immortal as a vampire in its own right—were actually soothing. I ate little bits of soda cracker like a bird, washing them down with ginger ale. By the time we took Exit 119 and slipped away from Highway-1, I was starting to feel almost human again. Not especially ready to confront my mother about being a duplicitous magic user, but still much better than I’d felt an hour ago.

  We turned from Vedder Road onto Hocking Street, and the familiar landmarks began to appear—my old college, the pizza joint where my cousin still worked, the fried chicken place that was always one health code violation away from being shut down (it would just rise phoenixlike and reappear on the other side of town anyway). Before I knew it, Derrick was parking adjacent to my parents’ town house. The living room was bathed in a warm glow. Dad’s car was gone—he must have been working late. He’d become convinced over a decade ago that not even a small army of young sales staff could possibly run his electronics store without constant supervision. He still printed out every label himself, down to the smallest transistor. It was a miracle that my mother hadn’t set fire to the place years ago.

  Derrick shut off the engine. I was about to reach for the car door when he put a hand on my shoulder.

  “Not so fast. I just drove an hour and a half on the freeway so that you could have a nightcap with your mom. Not that I don’t love Diane and all, but we’re in the middle of a murder investigation, and you ran out of Caitlin’s house like the devil was chasing you.” He sat back in the driver’s seat. “I’m not going in there until you tell me why we’re in Elder and what your mother has to do with all this.”

  “If you wait five minutes, I promise it’ll make sense. You’re about to see a performance that’ll bring down the house.”

  “No. You’re going to tell me right now.”

  I suppose I could have argued. But really, how often did he demand anything of me? Usually, Derrick was the giving one, the one who put up with my whole spectrum of bullshit without complaint. All he wanted now was the truth.

  “I saw something when I was in that Hex dream,” I said.

  “Of course you did. I saw it, too.”

  My jaw literally dropped. “You . . .” I stared at him. “I mean—you saw the whole thing, with my mother?”

  “Yeah.” He smirked. “She had a sweet-looking athame. Nicer than yours. Was that hilt mother-of-pearl?”

  I resisted the urge to punch him. “You saw it, all of it, and you didn’t say anything? Oh, for . . .” I shook my head. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything? I’ve spent the last two hours trying to figure out the best way to explain it all, and I felt so bloody guilty, and the whole time . . .”

  I trailed off. He just looked at me.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” I repeated.

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Don’t get cute.” I exhaled. “First Wolfie was there, and I wasn’t sure how much I should say in front of him. Then Selena was there, and I really didn’t feel like a complete debriefing was the way to go, especially since she’s already on the verge of firing me. Again.”

  “You told her more than I expected you to, though.” He nodded in approval. “Almost the whole truth. That must be a milestone.”

  “Please don’t play good cop with me tonight. This isn’t exactly the easiest thing to process. I mean, my mom’s a witch. She lied to me. And now I’ve got to go in there and confront her, inside the house where I grew up, and that’s about the shittiest thing I can possibly think of.” My voice almost broke. I could barely look at him. “And I can’t help thinking—every time I see that thing’s face, I just—”

  “No, no, no, a thousand times no.” He cupped my chin. “This is not your fault. You didn’t force that creature to go on a killing spree. It may have some connection to you, or to your father the pureblood, but it chose to murder those people.”

  “But it knows me, Derrick. Fuck, it’s taunting me. Making me squirm. If I hadn’t taken this case . . .”

  “You can what-if yourself to death, but it won’t do any good. This thing is a force of nature. If all it wanted to do was get to you, there’d be no need to go around killing innocent people. It could have just grabbed you ages ago.”

  “That’s really comforting.”

  “It’s not about you, Tess. This fucker is crazy. It’s from another world, and it wants to cause naked destruction in ours. Your feeling like shit is only a symptom.”

  “It doesn’t feel like a symptom,” I said brokenly. “It feels like my fault.”

  “I say this with love,” he replied, “but, honey, you’re not that important. This thing is ancient and pure evil. Its whole existence couldn’t possibly revolve around some detective from the CORE. It’s not a personal vendetta. This thing is killing because it needs to. Understand?”

  I nodded slowly. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but on some level it made sense.

  “Okay. Now let’s go piss off your mother.”

  “That should be easy.” I opened the car door. “I’ve been doing it for the last twenty-five years.”

  I opened the door with my old key, since I couldn’t face hearing the sound of my father’s novelty doorbell, which played the 1812 Overture at earsplitting levels. It didn’t really matter, since my mother had a way of knowing exactly who was at the door; she claimed that my father and I had different footsteps. Now I wondered if it wasn’t a more occult sense that she was relying on.

  Derrick politely took off his shoes, but I didn’t bother. I walked up the newly refinished steps, into the living room with the big-screen TV that my dad had insisted was a perfectly sensible tax wri
te-off. My mother was sitting on the couch with Mia, fiddling with the remote. “God, I don’t know how he programs this thing. It makes about as much sense as an abacus to me . . .”

  She saw me, and just for a second I saw a curious expression pass over her face. Surprise? Guilt? I felt ice in the pit of my stomach. Then she smiled widely.

  “Tess! You’re early. We were going to watch Pride and Prejudice. The new version has a very fit Scottish actor playing Mister Darcy, and if you can ignore that girl with the over-bite playing Lizzy, it’s not all that bad.”

  “It was so cool, like, in Regency times, when guys wore those short pants,” Mia said to her. “Like bloomers, but for guys.”

  “You mean knee britches.”

  “Oh my God, yes. That’s hilarious. Knee britches.” Mia was eating what looked like a handful of M&M’S. God, did this house have a never-ending supply of candy? Ever since I was a little kid, my mom could just whip out fun-sized Snickers and Winegums from these secret caches, like she was stockpiling for a nuclear winter. I blamed her entirely for my acne in middle school.

  “Mom—I have to talk to you.” The words came out barely audible, but she heard them. Her resolve cracked, just a bit. I could see it.

  “Well, in that case, we’d better put some more tea on. Sweetheart . . .” She called into the kitchen. “Tess and Derrick are here. Bring out some extra mugs.”

  I blinked in confusion. “I thought Dad was . . .”

  Lucian Agrado emerged from my mother’s kitchen.

  He was carrying a tray with four steaming mugs of tea, and he smiled at me as if this were an everyday occurrence. It made about as much sense as seeing Tasha Lieu, our CME, emerging from our rec room after playing a bracing game of air hockey with my dad. Some worlds just weren’t supposed to mix.

  What the hell was he doing here?

  “You’re here.” I looked at him pointedly. “In my mother’s house.”

  “He showed up earlier tonight, shortly after Mia and I got home from shopping.” My mother gave me a look that conveyed volumes. “Apparently, he was worried about us both, given the fact that there’s a serial killer on the loose.”

  “Mom, you’ve never met Lucian before. He could be a serial killer.”

  Lucian didn’t even look phased by this. “She knows I’m not.”

  “Mia knew him,” she said, as if that cleared everything up. “And he has an honest face. I couldn’t very well leave him out on the front porch waiting for you.”

  I stared at him. “You were waiting for me?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Yeah.” I turned back to my mother. “It’s a busy night for that.”

  “Lucian says you two work together,” she continued, and I realized with horror that she was essentially trying to pimp me out. “Aside from Derrick, I think he’s the first person from your office who’s ever come to visit.”

  “You met Selena once, Mom. Remember?”

  “The tall, angry woman?” She frowned. “Yes, I remember.”

  “Tea?” Lucian offered me a mug. “It’s Raspberry Zinger.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him again.

  “I told you—”

  “Oh, what, you decided to drive to Elder because I might be there? That is all kinds of creepy, Lucian.”

  “I took the bus, actually.”

  Mia gave me a look. “Dude got on a bus. Just to check up on you. Seems like he really cares, Tessa.”

  “Don’t you have a car?”

  “I live in Yaletown—there’s really no point.”

  “Yeah, I guess you sank a lot of money into that warehouse, too.”

  “Actually, that’s paid for.”

  “Really?” Derrick finally chimed in. “Must be expensive.”

  “More reasonable than you’d think, especially with no strata costs.”

  I wanted to rip my own head off. This was not going according to plan. My mother was now entertaining a necromancer, and all I’d managed to do so far was ask him the same question twice. As life-changing nights went, it was more of an Atom Egoyan film than an emotional rollercoaster.

  “Mom, we need to talk,” I began again.

  “Yes.” She leaned forward. “You mentioned that before. Mia, why don’t you and Lucian go downstairs and search through the DVD collection—”

  “No way.” Mia crossed her legs on the couch. “This sounds way too good to miss. I can tell when Tess is freaking out, because her left eye starts to twitch . . .” She smiled at me. “And there is it, twitching away.”

  “I need to speak to my mother in private.” I folded my arms. “Now.”

  Derrick rose with a sigh. “Come on. There’s Playstation downstairs.”

  Lucian brightened. “Do they have that zombie game?”

  “Probably.”

  Mia hesitated. I almost said something sharp to her, but then I saw the curious expression on her face. She wasn’t deliberately being willful. She was worried about me. She didn’t want to leave.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “It’s not a big deal.”

  I’d never told a worse lie in my life.

  Mia shrugged. “Fine. Afterwards, I want a dipped cone from Dairy Queen. They’re open for another hour.”

  “Sounds like heaven.” I tried to smile.

  She followed Derrick and Lucian downstairs. I suddenly felt tiny and powerless. Without them acting as buffers, it was only me and—well, the most important woman in my life. The one who’d been there from the very beginning.

  And she’d been lying to me for years. Just like I’d been lying to her. Maybe it was an inherited trait.

  “Well.” My mother fiddled with the cuffs of her shirt. I realized that she was nervous, too. Somehow, that made me feel better.

  “Well,” I replied.

  She met my gaze. “Ask me. All you have to do is ask me.”

  I sat down next to her. I couldn’t get the words out. My hands started trembling, and she touched my arm, stroking it lightly.

  “You are everything to me,” she whispered. “Don’t you know that, Tessa Isobel? Everything. You always have been.”

  I stared at her. “You’re a witch,” I said finally. “Like me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She looked sad. “I wanted to protect you. We led very different lives, you and I. The CORE . . .” Hearing my mom say that word was almost obscene, like she’d said a much different C-word. Never in my whole life did I expect her to say it.

  “So you know about them.”

  “Of course. I used to work for them.”

  My head was spinning. “Were you like me? An OSI?”

  “Yes. I had a partner, like you have Derrick.”

  “Who?”

  “Meredith Silver.”

  A wave of nausea washed over me. She’d been friends with my old teacher. They’d been as close as Derrick and I.

  “Did you . . .” I swallowed. “I mean, did you convince her . . .”

  “I asked her to train you. She was the obvious choice.” My mother’s eyes went dark and liquid, obsidian. “It was a terrible loss, her death. It tore my heart out. I wanted so badly to be at the funeral.”

  “But I was there. I might have seen you.”

  “I could have remained hidden, if I’d really wanted to. But the CORE hadn’t been my life in such a long time. It felt wrong.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  She smiled, and it was that familiar smile I’d seen all my life, but also different. Weary and hardened, like she’d been through a war.

  “Everything I did was to protect you. I left the CORE because I thought you could have a normal life. On some level, I knew that was impossible. You had so much power in you. Even when you were only a baby, I could feel it, pouring out of you like silver light. You were so beautiful, Tessa. And I knew, the moment you were born, that I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt you. I’d snap t
heir necks with my bare hands.” She looked away. “A mother’s love isn’t all teddies and balloons, you know.”

  I saw her holding the athame again. I could believe it.

  “But why did you leave the CORE? You must have known I’d end up there. Didn’t it make more sense to stay?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  I gave her an exasperated look. “Yeah, well, there’s a necromancer playing Grand Theft Auto in your basement right now. That’s pretty fucking complicated, too. I think we’ve gone past the need for qualifiers.”

  “Lucian has a heart. That makes him different from most of his kind. You must be able to see that just by looking at him.” She gave me a look. “Even then, it won’t be easy for the two of you. The CORE has ironclad rules. You two will have to be extremely careful—discreet . . .”

  “We’re talking about you, Mom.” I stared at her. “Why did you leave the CORE? And why did you lie to me?”

  Her eyes fell. “I made an arrangement. I can’t explain all of it.”

  “You can try. Who was this arrangement with?”

  “The senior committee members. The ones whose names you won’t ever know unless you’ve done something remarkable. Or something very, very bad.”

  “So you made a deal with the higher-ups. Why?”

  “After you were born, I needed to live differently. We needed to live differently. Unmonitored, unfettered—I didn’t want to keep looking over my shoulder, only to see the flash of a camera, or a sleek black car pulling away. I was tired of hearing a click whenever I picked up my phone.”

  “It sounds like you were under surveillance.”

  “We’re all under surveillance, darling. All the time. The CORE has records of everything you’ve ever done. They’re like Emerson’s disembodied eye, invisible and floating, staring at you from above. They know absolutely everything—even things you don’t know yourself.”

  Slowly, I felt myself beginning to understand. “But you wanted off the grid. That’s why. You didn’t want them watching you.”