Hexbreaker - Jordan L. Hawk

by Jordan L. Hawk

  The pain disappeared. The relief was so great it took Cicero a moment to realize something was horribly wrong. Where there had once been a warm spot deep within his chest, only hollow darkness remained.

  His bond with Tom was gone.

  Tom sat in a cell in the Tombs, his head bowed.

  He’d never thought to make the walk into the jail as a prisoner himself. Passing over the Bridge of Sighs to the male prison within the complex. The damp air, made worse by the cold. The creaks as the building slowly subsided into the unstable earth on which it had been built.

  The clang of the cell door swinging shut.

  “Make sure you lock him in good,” one of the familiars had advised the keeper. “He’s a hexbreaker, so the only thing holding him is a sturdy lock.”

  “I know my business,” the guard said gruffly. “You fancy lads down at the MWP might have hexes on every damn thing, but here we make do.”

  They’d left him, then, and he was alone. Or more alone than he had any right to expect. Maybe it was because he’d been a copper, but they’d put him in a cell of his own. He was on the second tier, where they held murderers and those suspected of serious crimes. What sort of charges did they mean to press? Accessory to murder, since he’d concealed what he knew about the hexes?

  Or did they mean to have him down for murder thanks to his involvement in the riots?

  He shivered, but they’d taken his coat, and only the thinnest of blankets covered the excuse for a mattress. Every breath turned into steam. Maybe he’d freeze here, just as poor Tom Halloran from Ireland had frozen. End up in an unmarked grave in potters field beside the man whose name he’d stolen.

  How had he been so stupid? Why?

  But he knew the answer, didn’t he? He’d wanted Cicero. No, that wasn’t right. He’d fallen in love with Cicero, and he’d been so stupid, so selfish, as to fool himself into believing it could work. That they could be together as lovers, as familiar and witch.

  Tom shoved his hands roughly through his hair, tugging at it until pain prickled his scalp. Cicero hadn’t deserved any of this. Hadn’t deserved to have his trust betrayed by Tom in the most obscene way, so now he had to spend the rest of his life shackled to a witch rotting in prison. At least until a knife or a cough or something else carried Tom away, as it did so many who found themselves behind the gates of Sing Sing.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Tom had done plenty in his life that he wasn’t proud of. Stealing and fighting. Killing his own brother and father, even if it was meant as a mercy. But this was the worst thing he’d ever done by a long shot.

  Could his hexbreaker talent be used to sever the magical bond with Cicero?

  Tom stilled. It might work. But this was no simple hex. This was something deeper. Older. Primal. The sort of magic humans had used from the start, back when they were shivering around fires in caves, afraid of the predators in the dark.

  Well, who was to say hexbreaking wasn’t the same? It wasn’t something he’d been taught; it had come natural since he was a boy. Just like no one had to teach a familiar to turn into a hawk, or a crow, or a cat. It was something you were, not something you learned.

  It might not work, but then they’d be no worse off than if he hadn’t tried at all. And if he did succeed…

  Cicero could get on with his life. Put this behind him. Forget Tom had ever existed. Bond with that prick Noah, if it made him happy.

  Tom took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He felt the bond with Cicero, like a spot of warmth tucked just behind his heart. Felt the magic, vibrating like a second pulse.

  All he had to do was still it.

  It hurt, like ripping something out by the roots and taking pieces of his own flesh with it. Distantly, he was aware of tumbling off the bed onto the filthy floor, of his own muffled scream, but all of it was secondary to the pain. But he kept on, pressed on, for Cicero’s sake.

  And then it was gone.

  No more warmth. No more second pulse. Just a hole where something wonderful had been.

  Tom curled up where he’d fallen, sobbing into his hands. At least the brick walls of his cell hid him from the other prisoners.

  Footsteps rang on the iron gallery, coming to a halt in front of his cell. “Would you look at that? Pathetic.”

  Blinking, Tom raised his head. Karol Janowski stood outside the cell, alongside one of the unbonded familiars who’d escorted Tom here earlier.

  Tom jerked upright. “Keeper!” he called. “Keeper!”

  “Yell all you like,” Janowski sneered. “They’re not coming. They’re having a nice can of hot coffee someplace warm, and counting their money while they’re at it.”

  The familiar pulled out an unlocking hex and put it to the door. “Thought we’d come and pay you a little visit,” Janowski said. He drew a knife, and Tom saw his hand was bandaged where Cicero had bitten and clawed him. “I have other things to do later, but I owe you for that crack upside the head you gave me.”

  Tom came to his feet. A quick look around the cell showed nothing he might use as a weapon.

  “You’re an MWP familiar,” Tom said to the other man. A big, hulking fellow in his human form, but that meant little when it came to his animal shape. “This man here is an anarchist. He was behind the explosives in the warehouse that…exploded.”

  The familiar snorted derisively. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Molly and her gang of familiars. Had they infiltrated the MWP? Christ, he and Cicero had been lucky not to have been caught earlier.

  The door swung open, and Janowski and the familiar stepped inside.

  Tom whisked the mattress from the bed and shoved it at Janowski, who was in the lead. Janowski swore and batted it away from his face with his knife hand. The blade sliced the ticking, sending straw into his eyes.

  Not daring to hesitate, Tom lunged forward and seized Janowski’s wrist, digging his fingers hard into the bone in an attempt to force Janowski to drop the knife. If it had just been the two of them, it might have worked, but the familiar had a knife of his own. Pain blazed across Tom’s side, forcing him to release Janowski and skip back.

  The shouts of the other prisoners seemed oddly distant. The world tightened, became no larger than the cell and the men trying to kill him. A metallic taste filled his mouth.

  Tom reached for the blanket on the floor just as Janowski rushed forward. He yanked hard, pulling it from beneath Janowski’s feet and sending him crashing into the iron bed. Tom wrapped the blanket around his arm like a shield, flinging it up as the familiar reached him. The impact of the knife jarred his arm, but it sliced only through the outermost layer of cloth. Tom lashed out with one foot, catching the familiar in the knee so he toppled onto the floor.

  Then Janowski was on him again, slamming Tom into the wall. Where his knife had gone, Tom didn’t know—maybe he’d dropped it when he fell—but he seemed determined to kill Tom with his bare hands. He locked an arm around Tom’s throat, strangling him. Tom tried to throw him off, even as black spots appeared in his vision. Saint Mary, he couldn’t die like this.

  There came the crash of a revolver, painfully loud in the tiny cell. The pressure suddenly vanished from around Tom’s neck as Janowski shoved him away. A second shot, and Janowski staggered into the wall beside Tom, blood leaking from the neat hole in his forehead.

  Shocked, Tom turned to the cell door, expecting to see one of the keepers. Instead, he found himself looking into Bill Quigley’s startled face.

  The familiar shifted into a silver tabby. Before Bill could draw a bead on it, it shot past him and down the gallery.

  “Damn it—he’ll warn Molly,” Tom said, rubbing his bruised throat.

  Bill entered the cell and grabbed his arm. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “They bribed the keepers—came to kill me.” Tom let his hand fall. “What are you doing here?”

  Bill holstered his revolver. “I came to see you. The report came over from the MWP, clai
ming Saint Tom had been a tunnel rat all this time. I had to hear for myself if it was true.”

  One more friendship, sacrificed to his lies. “Aye. I was part of the O’Connell gang, back in the day. Born to it.”

  Bill frowned slightly, his mustache seeming to droop even more than usual. “But you haven’t lived that life for a while now, have you?”

  “Not since I joined the force.” Tom shrugged. “Don’t know as that matters much to anyone.”

  “Well, it matters to me,” Bill said decisively. He clapped Tom on the back. “You’re a good man, Tom Halloran, or whatever it is you want to be called. I’ll stand by you in front of any judge in the land.”

  Tom gaped at him for a moment—then shook his hand. “Thanks, Bill. That means…you’ve no idea.”

  “Ah, well, don’t go all maudlin on me,” Bill said. “Now tell me why you’ve got two fellows as want you dead.”

  “Hell if I know,” Tom said honestly. He crouched by Janowski and began to go through his pockets. “That is, I can see why they’d wish me dead, but not why they’d bother taking the risk to actually put me in the ground. This fellow is an anarchist, mixed up in the plot Cic—the familiar and I were investigating.”

  “The bit about the exploding warehouse?” Bill grinned. “Aye, I heard about it from some of the fellows from the precinct. That must have been quite the show.”

  “Aye, it was at that. But the other man was an MWP familiar.” Tom launched into a quick—and probably somewhat confused—account of everything that had happened after the warehouse. When he was done, Bill shook his head.

  “That’s a story and a half. So did these fellows mean to kill you out of revenge, or because they thought you might still be able to disrupt any plans they might have, or for some other reason?”

  “I’ve no idea.” Tom closed his eyes for a moment, trying to think. “There’s something I’m missing. All right. They came after me, either to keep me quiet or for something related to the case. And if they came after me…” His eyes snapped open, and his heart turned to ice. “They’ll go after Cicero as well.”

  Cicero jerked madly against Noah’s grip. “Let me go! You have to let me go!”

  Noah let out a growl of frustration and yanked Cicero to him. “Stop that!”

  “You don’t understand.” There was a huge black pit opening beneath Cicero’s feet, and he had nothing to hold onto to keep from falling in. “Tom’s been hurt. He’s in trouble.”

  Tom was more than in trouble.

  “No,” he said aloud. “It’s not true, it can’t be, he’s not dead. He’s not.”

  Noah let go of his wrist and gently stroked back a lock of Cicero’s hair. “I told you I’d take care of it. You’re free now.”

  No. It wasn’t possible. Cicero rose to his feet and backed away. Noah stayed on the pillows, watching him.

  “What have you done?” Cicero whispered.

  “I heard you bonded with Tom Halloran. Or Liam O’Connell, or whatever his name is.”

  Dawning horror threatened to steal Cicero’s breath. “How do you know about that? There’s no way you could, unless…”

  Unless Noah had been a part of it all along.

  Because of course Noah had known Isaac, and Gerald, and even Sloane. He’d been the one to introduce Isaac to Gerald and suggest he find a job at the Rooster. And all this time, Cicero had known that, but Noah was his friend, so of course he couldn’t possibly be involved.

  “Barshtein wanted to be a bohemian,” Cicero said, through lips that felt numb. “Did he come to Techne?”

  “Barshtein?” Noah asked incredulously. “What on earth do you care about him? Barshtein was a fool who awoke one morning to find his youth gone and his life banal. He thought he could find what he was lacking on slumming tours, or by visiting cafés.” Noah’s nostrils flared in distaste. “But he had no artistry of his own. No spark.”

  “So you…what? Tested the Viking hex on him, to make sure it worked?”

  Noah sighed. “Really, darling, you’re being insufferable. Barshtein was nothing. Halloran was nothing. We have much greater things to concern ourselves with, you and I.”

  Something was building in Cicero’s chest; a scream like a breaking storm that would shatter everything in its path. “You murdered Tom,” he grated out between clenched teeth.

  “Well, not personally,” Noah said with a shrug. “But if you’d just let me explain—”

  The dam broke. Cicero didn’t recognize the sound coming out of him—a howl or a roar, a sound of animal rage, everything going red. He flung himself on Noah, and this must be how the victims of the Viking hex felt, because all he longed to do was tear Noah apart with claws and teeth.

  Noah cried out in shock. He let go of one wrist, and Cicero took the opportunity to gouge at his eyes. Noah jerked to the side, and Cicero’s nails raked his skin instead.

  They wrestled madly, sending a table over and scattering the pillows everywhere. Noah ended up on top; he struck Cicero a blow to the side of the head that left his ears ringing. Cicero blinked, dazed, while Noah scrambled to a cabinet, ripped open a drawer, and sent hexes scattering.

  “Ungrateful creature,” Noah snarled, snatching up one of the hexes.

  Cicero gathered his legs beneath him and lunged for the door. What the hex did, he didn’t know, but finding out might end with him as dead as Tom.

  Noah tackled him before he could reach the door. His body slammed against the floor, chin clipping the wood hard enough to send stars sparkling across his vision. Then he felt the press of the hex’s paper against his head.

  “Sleep!” Noah commanded.

  Weariness washed over Cicero. He fought to stay awake, but the hex was too powerful, and he slumped into darkness.

  Tom led the way into the Coven, Bill on his heels.

  It had taken some doing to convince Bill that Cicero was in danger. After giving the keepers a good dressing down for letting Janowski in, Bill had demanded use of the jail’s phone. A quick call to the Coven had revealed the officer on duty hadn’t seen Cicero.

  Which meant nothing, given Cicero wasn’t officially with the MWP anymore. But surely he would have turned to his friends there for comfort, after Tom’s betrayal.

  Bill hadn’t been entirely happy with the situation, but their friendship counted for something with him. “You’ve still got a copper’s instincts,” Bill said as they headed out over the Bridge of Sighs. “And I’m surely not leaving you here so they can try to kill you again. Just don’t think about running. I won’t gun you down, but you’ll feel my nightstick.”

  Cicero would have made a filthy joke out of Bill’s comment. The thought sent another wave of fear through Tom.

  They took the 3rd Avenue El from the Tombs to the Coven. The weather was utterly miserable: cold rain mixed in with snow. It seemed to make no dent in the crowds gathering for the New Year’s Eve celebration, though. At least Tom and Bill were going away from city hall and not toward it.

  The witch on duty looked understandably surprised to see Tom come through the doors. “He’s in my custody for the moment,” Bill said, ignoring the fact no one higher up had authorized such a transfer. “There’s trouble.” They hurried past, before the fellow could gather his wits enough to ask any questions.

  Cicero’s former office seemed the first place to check. The door stood open. A queasy feeling lurked in the back of Tom’s throat as they approached. Cicero would be inside—and he’d be horrified to see Tom again. He’d yell recriminations, deserved ones. Demand why Bill couldn’t have come alone to make sure he was all right.

  Tom would face it. Whatever rage, whatever abuse, Cicero chose to heap on him, he’d take. It would be worth it, knowing he was safe.

  Cicero’s chair was empty. The wolverine familiar, Greta, sat at her desk. When she saw Tom, her eyes widened—then her lips drew back from her teeth.

  “What are you doing here?” A growl trembled in the words, as though she might shift at any secon
d and simply attack.

  “Bill Quigley, at your service, ma’am,” Bill said, touching the brim of his helmet. “Sorry to bother you, but an attempt was made on Tom’s—O’Connell’s, that is—life, and we’re worried about the safety of the cat familiar Cicero. Is he around?”

  Greta’s snarl faded. “Not that I know of. He’s not one of ours any more.”

  “I’d hoped he came back?” Tom ventured.

  Greta looked at him as though he was an idiot. “And what use does the Metropolitan Witch Police have for a familiar bonded to a criminal?” she asked. “You’re the only one who can use his magic. He’s just an ordinary man now, so far as the higher ups are concerned.”

  The full weight of just how bad a mistake he’d made crashed down onto Tom’s shoulders. “I ain’t, though,” he said desperately. “I severed the bond.”

  Greta scowled. “What?”

  “Is there anywhere else Cicero might have gone?” Bill interrupted. “He had other friends here, didn’t he?”

  “Rook is down in Owen’s lab,” Greta said slowly. “Owen and Dominic are taking another look at that hex, now that they know more about it.” Another pointed glare. “Maybe Cicero went with them.”

  Tom winced. “Can we find out for certain?”

  She slid out of her chair. The top of her head barely reached his chest. “I’ll escort you gentlemen. But if Cicero so much as looks at you sideways, you’ll be leaving with a lot less flesh attached, O’Connell.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They followed her through the tangle of hallways until they reached the lab. Cicero wasn’t there, and unsurprisingly, Dominic and Rook were less than happy to see Tom again. Bill explained why they’d come, but Dominic’s expression only grew darker and darker as he spoke.

  “A familiar attacked you?” he asked.

  “Aye. One of those as escorted me. I didn’t get his name, but he turned into a gray tabby cat.”

  “Anselm,” Rook said, exchanging a glance with Dominic. “This is bad. If they’ve agents in the MWP…”

  “We have to find Cicero,” Tom put in. “If they were after me, they’ll be after him.”