by A. J. Aalto
When he saw the snoozing brownie, Felix hit the roof; his rant was mostly unintelligible, if it was even English. I heard a gurgle along the lines of “Dangerous translocations!” and then spitting which might have been “creatures from bottomless pockets.” Finally, he snarled and announced, “Eunice wouldn’t know a rule from a tool if it smacked her in the ass.” That last bit made Harry’s eyebrow arch accusingly as though Felix had been speaking of me.
Gus clucked soothingly at his twin, for what little good it did. “It’s fine, we’re here now. No harm done.”
“Uhhhhh, gentlemen?” I shot them a point at my bald scalp but neither bothered to look.
Felix choked on his tongue and said, “There are rules, we agreed, this sort of malarkey cannot be allowed.” He smacked one hand into his palm repeatedly. “It’s always tolerated and should never be tolerated. It drives me right around the bend!”
I decided he needed some Marnie straight talk. “We had an appointment, here, Felix,” I said, “and you flipping the fuck out is not on the schedule.”
Felix picked up the cracker bit that had been left for Bob Brownie, took a bite, then chucked it at the sink. Both revenants blinked at him in unison, then at one another.
“You’ll have to forgive my brother,” Gus said nervously twisting the sleeve of his robe in one hand. “He has a bit of a temper.”
“Know who else throws stuff when they don’t get their way? Toddlers. Try acting like an adult,” I told Felix. “Nobody likes a spoiled brat.”
Wesley and Harry hooted in unison at the irony of my saying so.
“I didn’t ask for input from the peanut gallery,” I warned. “Frankly, I don’t need any of this. I should have torched Ruby’s damn grimoire when I found it.”
Felix challenged, “You don’t put much stock in magic, do you?”
I let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Forgive me, but I haven’t been too impressed by your cohorts so far.” To make my point, I slapped my bald scalp twice. “I mean, I’m totally rockin’ it, obviously, but this was not the dealio.”
“I see pain in your eyes,” Gus suggested. “Let me fix that.”
“I’m considering a different plan, thanks,” I said. “All-Crankypants, Twenty-Four-Seven.”
“This guy is good at everything,” Gus told me, shooting himself a two-thumb-and-wink combo; it was cheeky, but I kinda liked it. “I’ll figure out what’s bothering you and solve it.”
“Who do you think you are, Vanilla Ice?” was my assessment of that wild declaration.
He squinted like he was trying to see through my skull and read my brain. “You’re missing someone.”
“Last time I aimed at him,” I said, aiming my finger-guns at him, “I didn’t miss. Blammo! Right in the tushie.”
The twins glanced nervously at one another, wondering if I was serious about shooting a man. Sure, it hadn't been in Reno, and I hadn't watched him die. That had been months before, anyway, and it wasn't nearly as enjoyable or satisfying.
Gus ventured more cautiously, “I can make him return to you. I can make him love you whether he wants to or not, as much as you want. I can make him want you, crave you, need you, desperately, obsessively.”
I gurgled uurgggh, more guttural sound than word. “That’s all I need. Some clingy, desperate jackass hanging off me. I already have a revenant, a mooch, and a cat, four spriggans, a brownie, two debt vultures, and a partridge in a motherfucking pear tree.”
“Obviously, what she needs is forward motion, not stagnation in the past,” Felix scolded his brother, shaking his head as though he was the authority in All Things Marnie. He made chugga-chugga-chooo-chooo motions with his hands to demonstrate this proposed self-improvement I was going to do with his help. Gus clutched pleadingly at his robe at the general heart region.
“She longs for the love of her life,” Gus said.
“Bah, she doesn’t know what she wants,” Felix cried, “she’s out of her mind!”
“Hey!” I cried, but my objection was at last lost under the uproar of Harry and Wesley’s gleeful laughter.
“And you two can choke on a moldy bread roll,” I warned them.
Harry hid his sniggering behind a hand but his eyes danced. Wesley collapsed off his chair, spread-eagle on the floor, roaring at the ceiling. Bob the Cat, for his part, attempted to avenge me by pouncing on one of his feet.
“All she needs,” Gus asserted, “is love and understanding.”
Felix shook his head, repeating, “No, no, no. What she truly needs is restraint and the ability to weigh consequences.”
“Hear, hear!” Harry said merrily, banging on the table. “Seconded!”
“Wait!” the twins roared in horrified unison.
They whirled, robes fluttering, to stare directly at me.
I folded my arms over my chest and waited expectantly as they craned their necks and cocked their heads like birds studying a particularly juicy worm. While they examined me, I muttered to the dead guys, “Your reactions to this debacle have been noted, and will be discussed at a later date.”
Wesley crawled back to the table and dragged himself up into a chair. “Fun! I look forward to it.”
“You have been hexed,” the twins declared.
“Well, that would explain a lot,” I said. “What kind of hex?”
“Old,” Felix said. “Very old. How could it be…”
Gus made an uncomfortable noise, one that made my shoulders crawl up around my ears protectively. “It’s older than you are.”
Harry’s lingering laughter died like a radio snapped off. “Lad?”
Wesley shifted in his chair, staring at the tabletop, eyes darting. “They’re telling the truth as they see it. But how does that make sense?”
“Did someone hex me in utero? Before I was born?” I asked. “Who would do that?”
Felix had the answer a second before Gus. “A precognitive DaySitter, someone who knew you’d be a rival years after your birth. This was quite purposeful.”
“Well, out with it, gentlemen,” Harry said crisply, his posh accent sharpening as it always did when he was upset. “What exactly is the nature of this hex?”
Gus and Felix consulted, while Wes read their minds and Harry eavesdropped impatiently with his revenant hearing; the only one left out of the loop was me. I considered that, despite the resulting baldness, I should probably get Wymon to help with breaking the hex on me, if there was one; he might be scary, but he was successful. How much did I trust these two be-robed goofballs to fix a hex that was placed on me before birth? About as much as I trusted Wes to do his own laundry.
I’d known a few DaySitters who also practiced the dark arts; Ruby Valli came immediately to mind, as did her demented daughter, Danika Sherlock. I wondered who else would have a reason to hold me back, who else would feel threatened enough by me to place a hex on my pregnant mother. A Sarokhanian DaySitter, perhaps? I didn’t think Aston Sarokhanian’s own prime DaySitter, Sayomi Mochizuki, was a witch, but I couldn’t guarantee it. Umayma Eyasi, Jeremiah Prost’s DaySitter when I’d been hunting him, would have had reason to protect him back then, but as I was learning now, she had little to no experience with magic of a witchcraft sort; besides, she was several years younger than I was.
“It isn’t an especially sophisticated hex,” Gus said.
Felix murmured in agreement and added, “Clumsy, really. I’m surprised it hasn’t been seen before.”
“Has this hex made me a giant fuck-up my whole life?” I asked. “Just a wild guess.”
Gus did his best not to smirk and Felix outright laughed. “No,” Felix said. “That’s just you.”
I wilted.
“I feel like the hex hasn’t really been put into motion yet,” Gus said to his brother, who nodded, scratching his chin.
“Like a time bomb,” Felix said, “just waiting to be set off under the right circumstances.”
“You guys are starting to scare me,” I said. “Whatever it is, can
you get rid of it?”
“That would be extremely unwise without knowing the details,” Gus advised, and Felix physically backed away from me, agreement in motion. “We might trigger it unintentionally.”
I squared my shoulders at them. “Well, get on it, boys. You want Ruby’s grimoire? Fix this.” I pointed a finger at my face and made an indicating circle. “See here? Fix.”
“Yeah, just all of it,” Wesley agreed enthusiastically, motioning to my entire body. “Just fix it all.”
“Oh, good heavens, yes,” Harry echoed.
I glared at the two chuckleheads, who had softened back to amusement at my expense.
Harry read the irritation through the Bond and added, “But carefully, mind. Do take good care of my beloved. She would be most difficult to replace.”
“Impossible to replace, you mean,” I corrected.
Harry smiled a little. “If you like.”
Wes sang under his breath, “Ooooh, shots fired.”
Gus drew in a sharp breath. “That’s it…”
“You’re going to mess up. Badly,” Felix agreed.
Gus nodded sadly. “Bad enough to make your revenant abandon you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That almost never happens. A broken Bond of this type would be agonizing. For the immortal to simply choose to walk away is unheard of.”
“It’ll be that bad,” Felix assured me. “The hex is wound down low and tight like a spring, and when it goes off, it’ll be spectacular.”
“Your companion will retreat and replace you,” Gus said. “It’s inevitable.”
I fully expected Harry to become outraged, but the troubled conviction on Wesley’s face, and the way he was now avoiding eye contact, had my Cold Company alarmed.
“Oh, I should think that is unlikely,” Harry said softly. His grey eyes sought mine for reassurance, but I had none for him; my fucking up sounded totally plausible even without a hex. Fucking up badly enough to scare Harry away? Not a huge leap. “But let us not speak of such things. When the time comes, this becomes my problem, not hers.”
I didn’t like to think about Harry seriously replacing me, and he didn’t either, though he attempted to block his unhappiness through our Bond.
“It won’t happen,” I said. “I’m not going to go out of my way to hurt Harry, and he’s always been forgiving of my little screw-ups.” I can’t even convince myself, so why am I trying to convince them? “This hex has got to go. Now. Can you remove it?”
Gus admitted, “The best way to spring this kind of a trap is to… release the chaos, so to speak. We trip the hex to happen now. Today. With your companion fully aware that you’re about to do something disastrous so he might brace for it.”
Felix wiggled his fingers at me in a mysterious witchy way that I often did, and it made me half-smile.
“Well, I can’t just wait around for something to go horribly wrong,” I said.
Harry barked a short laugh. “Are you so certain that we would notice the difference, my angel?”
I picked up my notebook and pencil and jotted down my thoughts. “What if we wait for Harry to go to rest and he spends my disaster in VK-Delta?”
“You seem tired, my dear,” Harry noted, “and your brother is restless and unsettled. Perhaps we should leave this and resume tomorrow?”
“I’m eager for this day to be over and it’s not even ten-fifteen,” I agreed. “But if we could get it over with now, I can get rid of Ruby’s grimoire and we can make the trip back to Niagara. I—” And suddenly I knew what the hex’s true purpose was. I felt my lips make a little O. I shot Gus a look. “You need to get out.”
Gus made an insulted little mrf! “Me? Why me? I only want to help you.”
“And you can! You’d be very, very good at it. But it’s your brand of help that’s the problem,” I said. “There’s only one thing I could do to break Harry’s heart. Your brother was right when he got here. I need Felix.” I turned to Felix. “I need you. I should have known the dude chucking the tantrum was more my speed. You’re right! I’m out of my mind. I don’t need the past.”
“You don’t need the past,” Felix told me seriously, and pointed toward the front door without looking at his twin. Felix must have seen how much I feared what was coming next, and how badly it could backfire. He shouted, “Gus, get out!”
“You take your mushy-assed love garbage and get the hell out of my house, Gus,” I told him seriously.
Harry made a deeply satisfied noise, part chuckle part sensual rumble. “Oh, my Own darling.” Then he laughed, a sound filled with wonder and joy. “How well you read the heart you serve.”
Wesley groaned with understanding. “Sticky McBonerface.”
“So close,” I said.
“Well, whatever his code name is,” Wes said, “deal with it. Once and for all. Do what you need to do. I need to rest. I’m feeling off.”
Harry rose, watching Wesley retreat to the pantry. I was feeling “off,” too, but mostly because I could now see exactly how my break-up with Harry would have gone, had the hex been undetected; I’d have flown to Canada, worked in close contact with Batten to save his butt and his grandfather’s soul, and presto-blammo, passion turns to confessions of undying devotion, which turns to Batten giving me some illicit fang fandango, which turns to my breaking Harry’s heart once and for all. I couldn’t let it happen. I’d always have a soft spot for Batten. And a hot spot for him. Maybe even something more than that. But there was a line in the sand there for Harry; there was only so much he was going to tolerate, and that was fair.
I was his companion. I would always be his companion, and that could not be questioned or challenged. Certainly not by another revenant, and, like it or not, Batten was now immortal. Harry had tolerated a mortal Batten as my plaything, my warm bundle of bones and boners. Harry would not abide another immortal, especially not one who could, quite possibly, love me in a way he could not.
Harry read my feelings through the Bond and clucked his tongue soothingly. “There, there, pet. Everything will work out in the end. But I do believe I would be more comfortable if I were to fall to rest as you have suggested for the duration of this experiment. Felix, I trust I am leaving my dearest pet in safe hands?”
Felix nodded once, sharply.
Harry swept one soft step closer; it was enough to make Felix tense, which was precisely Harry’s intention. “If I rise to discover that the situation was made worse than when I left her to your ministrations, I will be deeply disappointed.”
“How could it be worse?” I squawked. “I’m already hopeless.”
Harry inclined his head to agree to that statement, took my gloved hand in his pale one, and placed a chaste kiss on my knuckles. “Caution, dear. Stay true. I bid you a good morning, Felix.”
He moved to scoop up the brownie and Felix made a stalling noise. “Perhaps leave the little creature.”
“A proverbial canary for your coal mine?” Harry asked. “Very well. Try not to injure either of them, but if one must be sacrificed, rescue the one with more to offer.”
“You meant me, right Harry?” I called to his retreating form. He did not answer. “He meant me. He'd better have meant me.”
Bob Brownie snorted in his sleep hard enough to make the bells on his pointy shoes jingle. From below, after a dollop of reassurance through the Bond that meant Harry had tucked my brother into his casket, I felt the distinct lack of Harry as he passed, the unsettling lack of him in my veins, and knew he’d released himself to the grip of VK-Delta. I rolled my tight shoulders up and back a few times, hating the way my DaySitter’s body ached and longed for my companion, willing the emptiness to fade and summoning some sass.
“So,” I asked, “how you wanna roll?”
Felix relinquished his grimoire. “We’re going to purge this like we’ve got a snake in a pillow case.”
I followed that. “Dump it, then smack it with a bat?”
“We have to expose you to it before we can sq
uash it,” he said with a nod. “Brace yourself. It isn’t going to feel good.”
“I like that you’re brutally honest,” I said. “I misjudged you, Felix. Thank you for not candy-coating this.”
The Blue Sense wiggled into my awareness and I felt his uncertainty, but it was mild and I dismissed it.
“I’m going to start with automatic writing,” he said, taking an antique, ornate silver fountain pen from a pocket inside his robe. “Remove your gloves and give me your arm.”
I did so without question, and when his bare hand gripped my wrist, Felix promptly abandoned me, metaphysically speaking. He drifted into his own mind, sinking deeply and comfortably into a familiar altered state. The Blue Sense flashed open to show me both his fluency with stepping aside from the conscious world, interwoven with visions of his recent past: pancakes for breakfast, syrup and butter, concern about his expanding waistline, nervousness about his upcoming date — with Eunice! — and not trusting Lavinia. I saw him in the little motel shower at the Ten Springs Motor Inn, soaping fastidiously, not bothering to pleasure himself; he never did so anymore, for he had sacrificed his lust to darker needs and wants, and had been relieved when it was no longer preoccupying his mental faculties as it had in his youthful days.
When he began to slip into a self-hypnotic state and his pen moved against the skin on the inside of my left arm, I most definitely did not read along, wary of accidentally steering the conversation. Felix sought the source of the problem and found it, as the pen wrote faster and faster under the guidance of Felix’s shady messenger. I had no insight into whom or what that might be, but knew the answer was in his spell book, and through the connection between my arm and his hand, the Blue Sense told me that Felix had been in a long relationship with his source.
The pen stopped. Felix' eyelashes fluttered as his eyes rolled back to show only the whites, and I waited breathlessly, tempted to look down and read my arm, sensing it wasn’t time yet. The pen started scribbling again, this time on my biceps, backwards, up toward my armpit. I was obscurely glad that I wasn't ticklish, and that he wasn't using a stiffer nib. I used my left hand to push my t-shirt up a bit and the writing continued. Fortunately, I'd shaved my pits that morning, but my deodorant wasn't doing the writing any favors. Felix’s automatic writing carried up over my shoulder, where it started retracing its path, repeating the same word over and over.