Fiction River: Hex in the City

by Fiction River

  ***

  From far away, a sound.

  Gasping.

  I burrow deeper against the cushions. Shut it out.

  It comes again. A strangled sob. Louder now. Pleading.

  Something stirs in the back of my consciousness.

  Anna. Wake up.

  I struggle up through the depths of a dream sluggishly, like a bubble through molasses.

  My eyes stay shut. But my ears pick up sounds like an echo bouncing off the wall of a cave.

  Rustling of silk. Thrashing of bedclothes. Sobs, both male and female. I recognize the male voice.

  Frey.

  My eyes fly open.

  Frey’s hands are at his throat, clawing at his attacker.

  The girl leans over him, transparent as mist, her face grim and determined. She presses a body that should be weightless against his chest, squeezes hands that should be incapable of inflicting damage around his throat. Frey fights to throw her off, his own face darkening as he struggles for air.

  When she senses that I’m awake, she looks over at me. Her cheeks are wet with tears. She’s so young, her pretty face unlined, cheeks and bow mouth touched with rouge. She’s dressed in an off-the-shoulder gown of red fabric, ribbed bodice, sleek, pencil style skirt. It looks like something out of the ’40s with its puffed sleeves and satin fan hip bow. Her party dress. Her shroud.

  The only thing to mar the perfection of her milky skin are the angry, red marks that circle her own throat. Strangle marks. And the anger that blazes from her eyes.

  Her grip on Frey doesn’t weaken.

  I stand up and approach the bed. “Please stop.”

  She’s staring in my direction, but I can’t tell if it’s me she’s seeing. Her gaze seems to pass through me. To something behind me. Her features shift, from anger to fear.

  Another spirit has joined us. I feel the presence like a cold draft on the back of my neck.

  When I turn, I see him, too.

  A man. Laughing. Dressed in dark evening clothes. He pulls a white silk scarf from around his neck. He’s in his thirties, dressed like a dandy. He would be handsome but for the complete lack of compassion in his face.

  “Everett Black?”

  His eyes, dark and hard as flint, flick to me.

  “Let her go.”

  There is no touch of humanity in those eyes. He is a killer and in that instant, I know. Imogene was not his only victim—only the last before her father took his life. Everett smiles at me as if acknowledging what I’ve guessed as truth and daring me to stop him.

  Imogene has let go of Frey. Backing off the bed, she cringes in a corner.

  Frey rolls into a sitting position, coughing, sucking in great draughts of air. He sees the man, too. He moves to stop him, but his hands pass through the specter and he’s left clutching at a void.

  Everett advances upon the girl, twirling the scarf in his hands. He’s trapped Imogene, his last victim, bound here by his anger to relive her death again and again.

  I lunge for him, but like Frey, I pass through his spectral body and land in the corner beside the girl. She reaches out to me for protection, clings to my arm.

  Protection I’m powerless to give.

  Yet, I feel her touch. Frey and the other men she attacked felt her. I look toward her killer.

  I grab her hands. “Use these. Protect yourself.”

  She doesn’t understand. Her eyes beg for my help.

  I point to Frey. “Attack him the way you attacked my friend. Use your strength, your will. You can do it.”

  She pulls her hands out of mine, her shoulders slump in a gesture of despair, resignation. She has no grasp of what I am telling her to do. Her eyes bore into mine, communicating her pain.

  “There is nothing I can do.” Her gaze slides away, to the man approaching.

  I understand. She thinks this is her destiny. She thinks she has no choice. She thinks what happened is her fault. Her frustration is tangible. Frustration she takes out the only way she can—on men she finds at the scene of her own murder.

  The killer is a step away. He pays no attention to me.

  I grab the girl by the shoulders. Shake her until her eyes once again find mine. “You think you are doomed to relive this night again and again. You may be wrong. Fight him. Just once. Take the power away from him. What do you have to lose?”

  The girl hesitates, still afraid, still not convinced.

  “Listen to me. You are taking your anger out on the wrong victims. Your attacker is right there. Don’t let him hurt you again.”

  Suddenly there is a subtle change—a shadow passes from the depths of her eyes. A spark of hope makes her square her shoulders. She pulls away from me and watches the wraith approach.

  “Will you stay?”

  I nod.

  She stands to meet him. He pauses then, tilts his head, telegraphing his thoughts with body language. Contempt. Excitement. This is something new. He grins. She is challenging him? No more the frightened child he found so easy to subdue before.

  He likes it. He licks his lips. It will make the taking so much more delicious.

  The girl moves away from me. He counters, the scarf held in front of him like an offering. He sneers at her clumsy efforts. He thinks she is trying to flee. He closes the distance between them, quickly grown tired of the game. He wants only the pleasure of the kill and what comes after. He wants what has been and what will be for eternity.

  The girl moves away again, quickly, an apparition dissolving and reappearing like an object in fog. This time she is behind him. She gathers her strength, pushes him.

  Startled, he loses his footing and falls onto the bed. Frey scrambles off, though neither the girl nor her attacker pay any attention to us. Frey joins me in the corner.

  “Can you do anything to help her?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “She has to do this herself.”

  The girl falls upon the back of the man. His mouth is open, as if bellowing in rage but no sound reaches our ears. Her hands grab for the scarf, yank it from his clutching fingers, wind it around his throat. She wraps her legs around his thrashing body, riding him, refusing to let go, refusing to allow him to gain leverage against her. She, too, seems to be screaming whether in rage or satisfaction we have no way of knowing. She hangs on, tightening the scarf, twisting it so savagely the fabric disappears into the skin. As it does, the marks on her own neck fade.

  A few more minutes of thrashing, a startled, gasping cry from the man.

  Then, it’s over.

  The man disappears with a scream that echoes in our ears. Like a performer in a carnival magic show, he’s there one minute and gone the next.

  I hear Frey draw a sharp breath beside me.

  The girl is still with us. She’s standing beside the bed, touching her unmarked neck, her expression a marvel of relief and joy. When she looks at me, warmth floods my body. I feel her peace.

  It’s her parting gift to me.

  ***

  Frey and I are seated in the manager’s office, an open, half-empty bottle of Scotch on the desk. Frey is massaging his neck, still bearing the marks from the girl’s attack. He’s dressed in jeans and a tee shirt now, a glass in the hand not working at the bruises on his neck. I’ve changed into jeans, too, a hoodie over my camisole.

  I notice the grimace as he takes tiny sips of the liquor.

  “Hurt to swallow?” I ask.

  “Like a son of a bitch. That little girl had a mean grip.”

  Phil is seated across from us. I’ve placed the newspaper articles on the desk. “You’re sure this is over?”

  He’s tall and lean and has a mop of dark auburn curls touched with gray. His face reflects years of living under the sun, lines radiate out from the corners of his eyes and his tan skin is worn to leather. Right now, he’s still frowning, looking from Frey to me and back again as if afraid to accept what we’ve told him.

  “As sure as we can be,” I reply. “Imogene stood up for herself
for the first time. She took back her power. I think she’s moved on.”

  I think of the last image I have of her back in the room. Instinctively, I pick up the newspaper article with the photo, the glowing studio portrait of a happy sixteen year old. Her smile hadn’t changed. It was still full of promise. But I see something else. I see peace.

  Frey doesn’t want to spend another minute longer in the hotel then we have to. So with Phil’s protestations of undying gratitude ringing in our ears, we gather our things and beat the sun out of town.

  Once back on the road, I cast Frey a suspicious glance. “Any more surprises?”

  He makes a little cross over his heart. “Nope. Promise.”

  “Good.” I lean towards him. “Stop the car.”

  He glances over as if unsure what he heard. “What?”

  “Stop the car.”

  Frey slows the Jeep and pulls onto the shoulder of the deserted highway. “What’s the matter?”

  I lean toward him, a hand snaking between his legs. “You owe me. I want to collect.”

  “Here?”

  “Why not. Not much traffic this time of night.”

  He jumps out of the Jeep, pulls the top up and secures it. “You sure?” he asks.

  But he’s already got me pinned back against the reclined seat, his hands working on the zipper of my jeans.

  “I’m sure,” I whisper, wiggling him free of the confines of his own jeans. “One good deed deserves another.”

  Introduction to “Fox and Hound”

  Leah Cutter is one of the most gracious people I have ever met, and she has an incredible grasp of spellwork and the Far East. She is a Mistress of Folding magick where one starts with a simple square of paper and finishes with origami. “Fox and Hound” is her latest masterpiece, where the layers of this tale are better perceived with each reading.

  Leah writes historic fantasy, with novels set in China, Hungary, and the Yucatan peninsula. She also writes contemporary fantasy, with novels set in Oregon, Louisiana, and Seattle. Her short fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine as well as many anthologies. She lives in Seattle with the requisite writer's cat and huge library of books. For more stories by this author, visit KnottedRoadPress.com. She writes:

  “I wrote, and threw out, three other beginnings to this story. The process felt as though I was circling in, getting closer and closer, until I finally had Gou in the train station with his fare beside him. That theme continues throughout the story as well, circling and circling, as Gou tries to corner his prey.”

  Fox and Hound

  Leah Cutter

  “You need bicycle taxi? Rickshaw?” Gou asked for the ten-thousandth time, trying to catch the eye of yet another tourist pouring off the late afternoon train from Hong Kong. He wore his second best shirt, the one with the fake American brand logo on the front pocket, that made him look more official, as well as his lightest-weight beige slacks, and rubber sandals. It was far too hot to wear jeans, though he had two pairs that he kept pristine and folded up at the noodle shop his mom ran.

  Gou wasn’t supposed to be in the West Beijing station, of course. The guards weren’t supposed to let anyone without a ticket or a license into the huge concrete courtyard in the front of the massive station, let alone into the echoing, noisy halls close to the trains.

  But Gou paid Shu well, and often, which got him into the station next to the staircase coming up from the trains, where he could get tourists to follow him before they headed to the subway stop. Stretching away from the bottom of the stairs and off into the distance were li upon li of railway lines going to places Gou had no hope of seeing. Loud speakers with polite, nasal accents announced the times and train numbers to places Gou had only heard about in stories told by his grandmother.

  Only a few other bicycle taxi drivers were still waiting at the top of the stairs, mainly old men who needed a fare as badly as Gou, but didn’t speak enough English or wanted to work as hard. Gou’s friends were already gone: Hy with his official green uniform and colorful, laminated maps had snagged an entire group, while Long Yen with his charm and smile had persuaded an American couple to follow him.

  “Best ride in town,” Gou assured a western woman with strange blue eyes and brown curls poking around the sides of a wide brimmed hat. “Very smooth, very cheap.” She shook her head and pulled the straps of her huge pack tighter, as if she was afraid Gou would rip it off her back.

  Gou rolled his eyes and turned back to the few stragglers. He had to get a fare this afternoon. He needed the money. The platform in the back of his bicycle taxi, where his passengers put their feet, had broken off. He’d needed to buy a new one, and he’d had to pay to get it attached: The welder wouldn’t barter trips with him.

  Shu would be there tomorrow, demanding his cut. And Gou couldn’t be short, or he’d lose his access to the train station. He might even be forced to join Hy, and work for a real company, where he’d never make enough money for his dreams. As an independent, if he hustled enough, at least he stood a chance.

  Only a couple of straggling tourists remained, and they wouldn’t even look at Gou, these tall white people with their big packs that they carried on both their front and back, as if they were taking all their possessions as well as their children with them.

  The other drivers left, but Gou hung on, just for a bit, hoping.

  Maybe he could work the northern night market tonight, hauling either drunken tourists or merchants and their goods. But the last time he’d done that, he’d ended up working for a fisherman and his cart had stank for a week.

  However, he had to get the money somehow.

  Gou turned to go and almost walked into an Asian man standing right beside him. “Duibuqi,” he said, automatically apologizing.

  The man replied in English. “You have a taxi?”

  “Bicycle rickshaw,” Gou said with his best customer smile. “Faster than cars and traffic,” he assured the man.

  His potential customer wore a crisp, white, short-sleeved shirt, brand new jeans, and Western sandals. He had a sharp nose and chin, like they’d been pinched out of clay. Freckles scattered across his nose, and his hair had been cut short, possibly too short, as it highlighted oversized ears and a broad forehead.

  Beside the man, a large black trunk stood, almost waist high, with gold molding on the corners and around the lock.

  “Best service in Beijing,” Gou assured the man, reaching for the leather handle on the top of the trunk and tugging.

  It didn’t budge.

  The man smiled at Gou. “Can you take me to Huli Hutong?”

  “Of course,” Gou boasted, though he had no idea where that was. If the man had actually pronounced the Mandarin correctly, it would have translated into Fox Lane. It didn’t matter, though. Gou could find anything in this city.

  The man laughed. “Very well, then,” he said.

  Just like that, the trunk came off the floor. It was heavy, and it didn’t have wheels like most foreign luggage. However, Gou was strong, and he worked to make it look easy to carry. He led the way across the expansive, brown-marble entranceway, weaving around the huge pillars, and out into the soft night air.

  The concrete courtyard was still full of people. Gou had heard more than one American tourist compare it to a football field. He glanced behind him, but his fare wasn’t staring with wide-eyed amazement. He’d either been in China for a while, or he’d been here before.

  Gou nodded to the boy who watched all the bikes to make sure they didn’t get stolen, past the other peddle cabs where the owners were stretched out, reading or napping, all the way to his own little brown and yellow cab.

  His cab wasn’t licensed, but Gou had spray painted numbers on the back of it, to make it look official. The brown seats were filled with rubber he’d scavenged from the side of the road, that his sister had sewn together. They smelled funny sometimes when it was too hot, but they were more comfortable than most of the other seats Gou had tried. T
he yellow cover that unfurled over the seats was patched, yet it was still mostly waterproof. Gou kept the wheel bearings and the frame oiled and rust free, and the brakes tight.

  “You from out of town?” Gou asked as he hoisted the trunk onto one side of the carriage.

  “Yes, I’m visiting here from Japan,” the man admitted.

  Gou raised his eyebrows at that. China didn’t have the greatest relationship with Japan, and Gou had met very few visitors from there. “Ah, konichiwa,” Gou said, bowing his head.

  The man replied with a flurry of Japanese.

  Gou held up his hands and shook his head. “I only know a few words,” he said. According to his mother, his father had been Japanese, or had come from there. But he hadn’t stuck around; something Gou’s stepfather reminded him of at almost every dinner they ate together.

  His mother had insisted that Gou learn a few words in the language, however, Gou hadn’t stuck to it.

  “Pity,” the man said, peering closely at Gou. “I would have thought—never mind. You speak good English, though,” he said, settling into his seat.

  “Thank you,” Gou said, climbing onto his bike. “I practice. But I need more.” More work. More money. More time. More powerful relations who could smooth his way.

  The man laughed. “We all need more,” he said softly.

  ***

  Gou bumped his way across the cracked concrete, up across the sidewalk, and into the bike lane along Fuxing Lu. He automatically started peddling east, going toward the heart of Beijing. It was late enough in the day that many workers rode around him on their black, sturdy bikes. Every time one passed Gou, they rang their bell. Cars filled the road, bumper-to-bumper. Pollution hazed the air across the eight lanes of traffic, and stank of rotten eggs, wood smoke, and burnt oil. Gou had worn his mask when he peddled into the station, but he couldn’t put it on now: He didn’t want to scare the tourist, and maybe not get a good tip.

  “First time in Beijing?” Gou called out over his shoulder.