Hexbreaker - Jordan L. Hawk

by Jordan L. Hawk

  And if Cicero sauntered into the middle of it, alone and unprotected, it wouldn’t matter how pretty his eyes were.

  “To hell with it,” Tom muttered. “I guess I’m in this whether I like it or not.”

  Tom swallowed back his nervousness as he walked up the marble steps to the Coven. He’d slept poorly, before making his way to the precinct first thing, to inform Captain Donohue of his temporary new duties. Donohue hadn’t seemed particularly sorry to see him go.

  Now all Tom had to do was convince Cicero to work with him. He rehearsed his arguments as he walked. One: Cicero might know the particulars of Whistler’s death, but Tom knew about Barshtein’s, and it only made sense to share the information. Two: he’d be better at intimidating anyone who needed a bit of encouragement to tell the truth. Three—

  A dark shape swooped in from above. Tom ducked instinctively, as, at the last moment, the crow transformed into a handsome man and landed on the step beside him.

  “Sorry about that,” said the familiar. His grin gave the lie to the apology, teeth bright in his brown face. Shining black hair framed features whose blending defied Tom to name all the races involved, other than to say the fellow’s ancestors hadn’t been ones to stick to their own.

  “Er, it’s fine,” Tom said, telling his heart to settle back into its place. Molly spooked him the same way a time or two, back in the day, and laughed herself silly after.

  The man held out his hand. “Rook,” he said. “Familiar to Detective Dominic Kopecky. I expect you’ll meet later.”

  “Tom Halloran,” Tom said automatically as they shook. “I…why do you think that?”

  “Because I know why you’re here,” Rook said. “Speaking of which, you don’t want to keep Ferguson waiting.” He started off, and somehow Tom found himself scrambling to keep up. “How long have you been a patrolman, Mr. Halloran?”

  “Eight years,” Tom said automatically.

  “And where are you from?”

  “Dublin,” Tom lied. Wasn’t all this in his file? Who was this familiar, anyway?

  Ah hell. Had something given him away already? Did they suspect he’d been lying from the start? Had someone recognized him, or thought they did, and dug back through the rogues gallery until they found a decade-old photograph?

  Should he run, and hope he managed to get out of New York before they locked him away for life?

  “Not as much of an accent as I’d expect,” Rook remarked.

  Tom’s heart beat in his throat. “I’ve been here long enough to lose some of it.” He glanced around, but didn’t see anyone who seemed like they were closing in to make the arrest while Rook distracted him.

  “You Irish are fond of dogs, aren’t you?” Rook cocked his head to one side. “Or do you consider yourself more inclined to cats?”

  Wait. Maybe this didn’t have anything to do with him after all. “Is this about Cicero?”

  “Nooo,” Rook said, suddenly looking elsewhere. “Nope. No.”

  That settled it. Everyone in the MWP, familiars and witches alike, were completely off their nut. Did magic drive a man mad, just by its use? Or did they start out that way?

  When they reached Ferguson’s door, Tom knocked hastily and was relieved when the chief yelled at him to come in. He was less relieved when Rook followed him inside.

  As soon as he stepped in, Tom found his gaze drawn to Cicero, who sat in a chair against one wall. Something about the familiar filled the room, made everyone else in it seem oddly pale in comparison. Dark rings showed beneath his yellow-green eyes, as though he hadn’t slept well, but his hair was as perfectly in place as before. His coat was a variation on the style he’d worn the day before, its hue a shocking shade of red. He sat neatly, one leg crossed over the other, his manicured hands folded on his knee. When Tom entered, he glanced up—then frowned and shifted his attention to glare at Rook.

  Well, at least he wasn’t scowling at Tom for once.

  “Good morning, Halloran,” Ferguson said. “Reporting for duty?”

  “Aye, sir. I’ve cleared it with my captain. And I brought the absinthe hex with me from evidence, for comparison.” He cleared his throat awkwardly and turned to face Cicero. “I ain’t used to this sort of work, it’s true,” he said. “But I’ve thought it over, and there are good reasons for us to work together. One—”

  “Yes, yes,” Cicero interrupted with an airy wave of his hand. “Save your breath. I’ve decided you’re quite correct.” He rose to his feet in a single, lithe motion. “Don’t just stand there gawping, crow. Make yourself useful and take us to Dominic.”

  “Far too much ornamentation,” Dominic groused as he bent over the two hexes, examining first one, then the other, through his jeweler’s loupe.

  The desk Dominic and Rook shared was at one end of the enormous room housing the MWP detectives, near the windows where the cat familiars routinely napped in the afternoon sunlight. Dominic had been a hexman before bonding with Rook, and most of his work since consisted of comparing various hexes and determining their primary components for evidence.

  “Is that a bad thing?” Halloran asked, peering over Dominic’s shoulder. His eyes, a troubling shade of blue, fixed intently on the hex, and a little line of concentration sprang up between his brows.

  “Oh, yes,” Dominic said. “Well, no.”

  Cicero rolled his eyes and glanced at Rook. The two familiars stood back from the desk, Cicero because he had no particular interest in the details of hexes, which were useful in general but dreadfully boring in particular.

  And Rook because he was a pain in the arse.

  Rook gestured to Halloran, whose bent posture meant his trousers pulled tight across his backside. The crow wagged his eyebrows in what was probably intended to be approval.

  Stop it, Cicero mouthed at Rook. Rook substituted obscene motions of his pelvis, so Cicero slapped him lightly on the arm. Halloran glanced back over his shoulder at the sound.

  “The sooner you learn to ignore them, the happier you’ll be,” Dominic said without looking up. “Now, to answer your question more fully…perhaps it will be easiest to show you.” He opened a drawer and took out a leather wallet containing his hexman tools, along with two scraps of paper.

  As Dominic sketched out a quick pair of hexes, Cicero found his attention wandering back to Halloran. And, yes, Rook wasn’t exactly wrong. Halloran couldn’t fairly be described as the ugliest man in all Manhattan. If one liked the big, rough types, at any rate. Given a decent haircut and manicure, and something to wear besides an ill-fitting police uniform, and he might be passable. Might.

  “Now, which of these unlocking hexes do you think is more powerful?” Dominic asked, shoving the hexes he’d drawn in front of Halloran. “One of these can unlock a simple, standard lock, and the other—with the proper magic behind it, of course—could get you into a bank vault.”

  Halloran eyed the hexes, then Dominic. “Given what you said before you started scribbling, I’m thinking this one,” he said, tapping the simpler of the two.

  Dominic’s mouth curled into a smile. “And if I hadn’t said anything about ornamentation beforehand?”

  Halloran laughed ruefully; a low, throaty sound that resonated in Cicero’s belly. “Ah, you got me there, friend. I would have figured on the fancy one.”

  “As most people would,” Dominic said, sweeping the hexes away. “And the makers of commercial hexes take advantage of it. They add bright colors and swirls and flourishes, all of which do nothing!”

  Rook leaned casually on Dominic’s shoulder. “My Dominic prefers things simple,” he told Halloran with a wink.

  “If that were true, I’d never have bonded with you,” Dominic replied fondly.

  Cicero looked away. Across the crowded room, a flame-haired witch from Brooklyn gesticulated wildly at Cicero’s office mate Greta, a tiny familiar less than half his height. Apparently tired of whatever the witch had to say, she shifted into wolverine form and showed her teeth. He backed o
ff with such haste Cicero nearly smiled.

  Rook touched his shoulder lightly, a slight frown of concern on his face. Cicero took a deep breath. It wasn’t Rook’s fault he and Dominic were perfectly suited as lovers as well as friends. It was the fairytale every familiar wanted to believe in, and the MWP did nothing to dissuade. One day, a familiar would be minding their own business, look up…and there would be their witch. Dashing, charming, strong, funny…whatever the familiar needed them to be.

  Rook had found that with Dominic. Found not just a magical bond, but one of love. And Cicero had fancied himself oh-so-wise, having advised Rook to just tell the befuddled hexman that he was a witch, and Rook’s witch to boot.

  In fact, he’d been an idiot. A child, wanting to believe that the stories were real, and some handsome prince would come along just for him. And now, instead of a prince, he’d ended up with an ogre.

  “The hexes that Gerald Whistler and Abraham Barshtein took were over-ornamented,” Dominic said, gesturing to them. “And that makes it easier to confirm they were drawn by the same hand.”

  Halloran straightened. “Then if we find out who drew them…”

  But Dominic was shaking his head. “There’s nothing wrong with them. They had no effect on the others at the party where Whistler attacked his roommate. Given the proper magic behind them, they should—and apparently do—work as advertised.” Dominic read the activation phrase. “Take Me to the Green Fairy.”

  “So they’re some new brand on the market, and it was just a coincidence Whistler and Barshtein both took one,” Rook said.

  Cicero pressed his lips together, wanting to lash out but uncertain how to do so. Couldn’t Rook see? Putting it down to coincidence, with three people dead and Isaac missing?

  “If it’s a new brand,” Halloran said slowly, “Why ain’t there a name in the activation phrase? Maybe you don’t use commercial hexes much here in the MWP, when you can make your own, but even the hustlers and quacks add their names in. Dr. Payne’s Pain-Away, Takes the Pain Away. Or Mr. Smith’s Collars Stay Clean Longer. That sort of thing.”

  Dominic looked thoughtful. “You have a point.”

  “Unless this was someone making hexes for their friends,” Rook put in. “Someone who normally hexes ice boxes to keep them cold or something, but drew up a few extra outside their normal line of work?”

  “Then it’s still a connection between them, ain’t it?”

  Huh. It seemed the ogre might have a brain in there after all. “Halloran’s right,” Cicero said. The man in question shot him a surprised look, although he could hardly be more shocked than Cicero himself. “Either this is a new brand of hex, which will be out of business in a month because they’re terrible at advertising, or someone is privately distributing the things. If it’s the latter, then both men must have known the hexmaker, at least indirectly.”

  “Assuming the hex has anything to do with it,” Dominic pointed out, sounding a bit peeved.

  Halloran arched a brow. “What’s our next move, then?”

  “Since we’ve learned all we can here,” Cicero said with a dismissive wave at the desk, “I suppose we’ll have to do a bit of walking.” He eyed the window with distaste. “At least the rain stopped.”

  “Mind telling me where we’re going, then?” Tom called after Cicero.

  The familiar had led the way from the Coven and out onto the street. The morning rain that had dampened Tom’s coat on the way to the Coven had ceased, leaving behind gloomy, overcast skies. A municipal hexman perched atop a ladder, repainting a faded hex meant to protect a building from fire. Horse-drawn cabs clopped past, and pushcart vendors offered hot noodles or cocoa to passers-by.

  Cicero slid through the crowd as easily as if he’d been in cat form, finding gaps too small for Tom to fit through. Before long, he was far ahead.

  “Hey!” Tom shouted. “Hold up there!”

  The sight of his uniform caused the crowd to part, although he received a share of unfriendly looks as he shoved his way through. Catching up with Cicero beneath the Fifth Avenue El, he grabbed the familiar’s arm. “I said hold up!”

  Cicero jerked out of his grasp. “Don’t manhandle me.” Peridot eyes flashed defiantly up at Tom. “I’m not your bloody property.”

  What the devil was wrong with the fellow? Tom released him and held up his hands. “Sorry. Just don’t go ignoring me. We’re meant to be working together, ain’t we?”

  Cicero’s lips pressed together in annoyance. Tom had the sudden urge to reach out and run his thumb across them, coax them back to their normal, inviting shape.

  Maybe the insanity of the MWP was contagious.

  “Yes,” Cicero admitted finally. “But we’re blocking traffic.”

  “Then we’ll walk, but at least stay with me. And I’d appreciate some answers.”

  Cicero didn’t say anything, but he fell into step beside Tom. Tom chose to take it as an encouraging sign. “Where are we going? And who is Isaac? You keep saying his life is in danger.”

  They passed a toymaker’s shop, the window filled with tin soldiers, dolls, and wooden trains in anticipation of Christmas. One of the dolls blinked unnervingly as Tom passed. Our hexes give a semblance of life sure to delight any child! promised the lettering on the window.

  Saint Mary, what would they think up next?

  “Isaac is my friend,” Cicero said at length. His shoulders hunched beneath the heavy coat he’d donned against the cold. “And a feral.”

  “Which is…?” Tom prompted.

  Cicero snorted. “Fur and feathers, you really don’t know anything about familiars, do you?”

  Tom bit back a protest. Maybe if Cicero thought he was an idiot, it would be easier to keep his old identity a secret. “Never had to before,” he replied, which was true enough as it went. Aye, his brother Danny had been a witch, and even had a familiar. But Liam had been the younger brother, and Danny hadn’t seen fit to talk about such things with him. He and Molly had been friends, but she hadn’t spoken of it either. How they’d met, or bonded, or any of it. Why she’d left the convent, or how she’d come to run with an Irish tunnel gang instead of finding decent work.

  She’d loved Danny. Maybe that had been all the reason she needed.

  God, how she’d screamed when Danny died in his arms.

  “Ferals are unbonded familiars who don’t work for the MWP or anyone else,” Cicero said. “Isaac used to work for the MWP, but he left. He needed a job, so Gerald helped him find work, a place to live, that sort of thing. I hadn’t spoken to him for a while, but he sent me a note, asking me to meet him in front of the Coven. Late at night, because he was going to a party at Gerald Whistler’s apartment, and he wanted to convince Gerald to come talk to me as well. Only he never made it to the party, and Gerald went mad and attacked his roommate.”

  That sounded ominous. “What did Isaac want to talk to you about?”

  “He didn’t say.” Cicero frowned. “I assume the sort of thing he didn’t want to put in writing.”

  “So why ain’t the Police Board more concerned about a missing familiar?”

  Cicero laughed, but it had a bitter edge. “Concerned about a feral? Darling, the whole point is to leave familiars without protection if they don’t work for the MWP, or the government, or some businessman with money. That way they can sigh and say, ‘See what happens when you try to live your own life away from us? Better play it safe.’” Cicero shook his head. “A familiar can either make the best of it, accept the work, and bond with a witch they’ll hopefully at least get along with, or take their chances of being captured and force bonded.”

  Tom felt queasy. “Force bonded?”

  “That’s how I know Isaac didn’t just take off on a train to New Jersey or some other God-forsaken wasteland.” Cicero’s eyes darkened to emerald. “He would have told me, sent a telegram, something to make sure I didn’t worry. At the least, he would have left word with one of the other ferals we know, like Rook’s brother.”


  “Rook’s brother is a feral?”

  “He chose freedom over safety.” Cicero shrugged. “Then again, it’s probably easier to defend yourself when you turn into a horse.”

  An aching, sick feeling settled at the bottom of Tom’s stomach. He’d never wondered about the lives of familiars, just assumed they were like everyone else. But Cicero made it sound dangerous, filled with painful compromises. “Is it common?” he asked, even though he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. “Forcing familiars to bond, I mean. Is it something you have to worry about, or just one of those things that happens once in a while…?”

  Cicero gestured at a hardware store on the corner. “‘Our refrigerators are specially hexed to keep food cold longer,’” he read aloud. “Look around you. How many hexes do you see just on this street? The magic to power them has to come from somewhere. A good witch and familiar team can make a great deal of money. A mediocre pair can still earn in a month more than most men earn in six. If you have witch potential and want a familiar, you could just wait for one to choose you…but after a while, that gets tiresome, and your bank account stays empty. Maybe it would be better just to take what you want instead of waiting for something that might never come.”

  “And once the bond is formed?”

  Cicero stared resolutely at the sidewalk in front of them. “It can’t be broken in life. One of the two has to die. Forcing a bond is illegal, but it isn’t a capital offense. On the other hand, murder is. Any familiar who killed a witch to get free of an undesired bond would find themselves first in prison, then the electric chair.”

  Tom’s feet slowed to a stop. Cicero took another step or two, then halted as well. “That’s horrible,” Tom said. “Something needs to be done. Why ain’t the reform papers writing about this, instead of worrying about folks drinking beer on Sunday?”

  “Because it benefits the men and women in the Fifth Avenue mansions,” Cicero said with a roll of his eyes. “Really, darling, don’t be so naïve.”