Hexed

  “Then I suppose there is nothing left to discuss except whatever you have of mine that you really shouldn’t.”

  “Ah, yes.” Malina pushed herself up from the couch and put her wine bottle on the coffee table, weaving a bit on her boot heels. She gathered her hair and tied it back in a knot, talking affably to me as she led me to a bedroom currently doing service as a witch supply closet. “I do hope we’ll get around to signing the nonaggression treaty soon, Mr. O’Sullivan, for despite your uncomfortable questioning when you arrived and your barbaric insistence on walking around with your sword hanging out, I feel we can live and work together peaceably going forward and even prosper, once these current troubles are behind us.”

  That wasn’t English she was speaking: It was the language of diplomacy. “I have no objections to peace and prosperity,” I allowed.

  Malina’s witch closet, in contrast to the décor of her living area, was painted a pale moss green and lined with cedar shelves sporting rows of glass bottles. I tried to find one with something unspeakable in it—a human brain or deer lips or otter balls—but saw nothing but herbs, oils, philtres, and a curious collection of claws from big cats. She had claws from tigers, snow leopards, lions, and black jaguars, as well as cheetahs, cougars, and bobcats. She also had beaks from several birds of prey, but otherwise her supplies were entirely plant-based.

  In the center of the room was a wooden worktable bought from IKEA’s kitchen department. It supported the obligatory mortar and pestle, a knife for chopping, a peeler for tubers, and an electric hot plate she had plugged in via extension cord. I was vaguely disappointed to see she had a regular saucepan resting on the hot plate rather than a black iron cauldron—and even more disappointed that there wasn’t a hapless amphibian in there. A smaller copy of the large painting in the living room hung opposite the worktable; the three Zoryas watched from the walls, waiting to bestow their blessings on Malina’s work.

  “Who supplies your herbs?” I asked. “I could probably be of assistance if you’re having trouble finding something of sufficient quality and freshness.”

  “We get most everything at an herbalist in Chandler,” Malina said, “though I’m sure we’re going to need much more bloodwort shortly if we’re to deal properly with the hexen. Have you any available?”

  Bloodwort was one of many common names for yarrow. Witches used it in some divination spells, but it could also be used in spells of both protection and attack. For my part, I employed it extensively in my apothecary business, including in several proprietary tea blends: Virus Immuni-Tea for the onset of colds and flu, Digestive Facili-Tea for various gastrointestinal ills, and a truly trippy mixture I called Enhanced Visibili-Tea. I made the latter for artists who wanted to see the world differently, because, in sufficient concentrations, yarrow could cause a temporary color shift in the eyes.

  “Sure, I have pounds of the stuff, because I use it all the time. I grow it in my backyard, all organic and very potent. How much do you need?”

  “Three pounds should safely see us through.” Malina nodded. “Could you have someone bring it to us?”

  “Certainly. I’ll send a courier in the morning. You can pay him. I’ll send along a list of my other herbs in stock, too, and another list of what I can grow for you provided that you give me sufficient notice.”

  “Good, let there be commerce between us.” Malina moved over to a shelf near the painting of the Zoryas and looked at an uncorked, unlabeled bottle—also uninhabited by anything that I could see. Sitting next to it on the left, and stretching down the length of the shelf as well as two shelves above it, were jars containing locks of hair with people’s names labeled on the front. All of those people were completely in Malina’s power, whether they knew it yet or not. I felt a twinge of pity for them.

  “It should be here,” Malina said tensely. “The last person to visit this floor was the officer who informed us of Waclawa’s death.” She pointed to the labeled jar next to the empty one. Inside was a lock of sandy hair, and emblazoned on the label in purple ink was the name of Kyle Geffert. “Your hair should have been deposited in this empty bottle here,” she said, then looked up to the air vent through which her air-conditioning was softly blowing. Presumably any hair collected from visitors in the hallway got routed through the ductwork to land in the empty bottles, but nary a red hair from my head was to be found in any of them.

  “What in the name of Zorya Utrennyaya is going on?” Malina scolded the bottle as if it would answer her, and I fought to keep a smile off my face.

  Ha-ha. My personal binding was stronger than her enchantment. Neener neener, Malina. You can’t catch me.

  Chapter 6

  Washing a filthy Irish wolfhound is entirely unlike washing a Chihuahua. It takes three or four buckets of water just to get the wolfhound thoroughly wet, for example, while one bucket will most likely drown the Chihuahua.

  I have discovered over the years that if I wish to remain fairly dry through the process, I must distract Oberon from the tickling of bubbles and soap with a really good story, or else he will shake himself mightily and spray water and foam on every wall of my bathroom. Bath time is therefore story time in my house, and Oberon enjoys getting cleaned up as a result.

  What I enjoy is Oberon’s obsession with the story until the next one gets told. He’d been vicariously living out the life of Genghis Khan for the past three weeks, constantly badgering me to muster the hordes on the Mongolian steppe and start a land war in Asia. Now I planned to take him in a completely different direction.

  “When we were messing with Mr. Semerdjian’s head earlier,” I said as I began to soak him, “you asked me who the Merry Pranksters were. Well, the Merry Pranksters were a group of people who joined Ken Kesey on the magic bus in 1964 for his trip to New York from California.”

 

  “Its primary talent was scaring the hell out of social conservatives. It was an old school bus painted in Day-Glo colors—really bright fluorescents—and given the name of Furthur.”

 

  “No, just a gifted writer. But I suppose his magic bus started the cultural revolution of the sixties, so that’s pretty powerful magic. The Pranksters would give away acid for free to whoever wanted it in an effort to shake people out of their dreary lives of conformity. Acid was legal then.”

 

  “It’s the street name for LSD.”

 

  “No, that’s LDS. LSD is a drug, and they called it acid because the full name was lysergic acid diethylamide.”

 

  “Fewer than most prescriptions nowadays,” I said, applying a sudsy sponge to Oberon’s back. “But back to the Pranksters. They dressed in Day-Glo colors too, tie-dyes and funky hats, and all had really cool nicknames like Mountain Girl, Gretchen Fetchin, and Wavy Gravy.”

 

  “Every word is true or I am the son of a goat.” I had him now.

 

  So I told Oberon all about Wavy Gravy and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, the origin of the Grateful Dead, the entire hippie scene, and the moral imperative to Stick It to the Man. I made sure he understood that Mr. Semerdjian was the Man and we had been sticking it to him really good so far. He came out of the bath all clean and ready to put on a tie-dye shirt with a peace sign on it.

  As Oberon paraded around our living room spreading peace and gravy (Gravy is Love, he explained), my subconscious chose that moment to allow a bubble of memory to boil up to the surface: Did Mr. Semerdjian really say he had a rocket-propelled grenade in his garage?

  I didn’t think those were available at gun shows, so I put it on my list of things to investigate, then hit the pillow, grateful to have survived another da
y.

  Chapter 7

  I made sure to make a proper breakfast in the morning, since I would be off fighting demons: a fluffy omelet stuffed with feta cheese, diced tomatoes, and spinach (sprinkled with Tabasco), complemented by toast spread with orange marmalade, and a hot mug of shade-grown Fair Trade organic coffee.

  Having slept on it, I decided that the only thing to do about the Bacchants was to make somebody else get rid of them. It would cost me—perhaps dearly—but I’d live through it and so would Granuaile. I’d considered using wooden weapons, or perhaps bronze or glass ones, but, regardless of weaponry, I’d still have twelve or so insanely strong women to defeat and no defense against catching their madness.

  It was time to work the phones. First I called Gunnar Magnusson, alpha of the Tempe Pack and head of Magnusson and Hauk, the law firm that represented me. Werewolves wouldn’t be affected by the Bacchants’ magic. He received me coldly and rebuffed me in short order.

  “My pack will not be getting involved in your territorial pissing match,” he said. “If you have legal matters to attend to, then by all means call upon Hal or Leif. But do not think of my pack as your personal squad of supernatural mercenaries to call on every time you get into trouble.”

  Clearly he’d been stewing over the aftermath of our battle with Aenghus Óg and Malina’s coven. Two pack members had died that night in an effort to rescue Hal and Oberon. There was no use arguing with him in such a mood, so I simply said, “I beg your pardon. May harmony find you.”

  It seemed I had plenty of fences to mend with my lawyers. It would be futile to call Leif; for one thing he was hiding from the sun at this time of day, and for another he’d want me to go after Thor in exchange for his help with the Bacchants.

  Though I didn’t want to do it, I placed a call to North Carolina, dialing a number Granuaile had given me when she returned from there last week. It was the number of Laksha Kulasekaran, an Indian witch who now went by the name of Selai Chamkanni. The name change was necessary because Laksha’s spirit now inhabited the body of Selai, a Pashtun immigrant from Pakistan who had been in a coma for a year after an auto accident. Since Selai had already become an American citizen years ago and had convenient documents and bank accounts already in place—and, more importantly, no desire to awaken from her coma—Laksha slipped out of Granuaile’s head and into Selai’s, thereby acquiring such accoutrements as a house and a husband.

  The husband was foremost in Laksha’s mind when I asked how she was adjusting to her new life.

  “He is disturbed that I emerged from a coma with a strange accent and a new sense of independence but so thrilled that I seem to have lost all sexual inhibitions that he’s willing to overlook my disrespect.”

  “Men are so predictable, are they not?” I grinned into the phone.

  “For the most part. You have managed to surprise me so far,” she replied.

  “I’d like to invite you back to Arizona for a short while.”

  “See? That is most surprising.”

  “Killing Radomila and half her coven has left something of a power vacuum in the area, and some undesirable things are rushing in to fill it. I could use your help, Selai.”

  “Please, when we are in private, continue to call me Laksha. What kind of undesirables are you dealing with?”

  “Bacchants.”

  “Real Bacchants?” Her voice sharpened. “Genuine maenads from the Old World?”

  “They’re coming here by way of Las Vegas, but, yes, they are that kind.”

  “Ah, then that sword of yours will be of no use against them.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “Could you catch a plane out here? I will pay for it.”

  “You will pay for much more than the plane,” Laksha said. “You want me to bring karma to these Bacchants, am I correct?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “My old archdruid would have said the only good Bacchant is a dead Bacchant.”

  “But by doing so I will increase my bad karma, and I have a dire karmic debt as it is. You will owe me a great service in return.”

  “I can pay you a significant sum of money.”

  “I do not speak of money. I will require a service of you, as you are requiring a service of me.”

  “What kind of service?”

  “The sort that you can perform and I cannot. I will call you from the airport when I arrive and explain then. It will probably be late in the afternoon or the evening by the time I get there.”

  “That’s fine. I will look forward to seeing you, Laksha.”

  I tried to think of what service a scary body-snatching witch might require of me, but after a few seconds I dismissed it as idle speculation when I had other things to do. I called my apprentice to give her instructions for the morning.

  “Atticus? Are you all right?” she asked when I called her. “You kind of worried me last night.”

  “Sorry about that,” I said, blushing in embarrassment and glad she could not see. “I was demented after fending off a demon attack. I’m going out to kill another one—a big one—with Coyote, but I should be back after lunch. Couple things I need you to do. Got a pen?”

  Granuaile snagged something to write with and took down Malina’s name and address for the yarrow delivery. “Don’t go yourself; make sure it’s a courier.” I didn’t want my apprentice unwittingly delivering her hair into one of Malina’s glass jars. “Then have Perry show you where we keep the applications—I need to hire some more help. Thumb through those, make some calls, and line up a few interviews for later this afternoon. If they’re still unemployed, they should be available.”

  “You seriously need more help? It’s been dead in here.”

  “I’m going to be gone more often. That dead patch of land out by Tony Cabin needs my attention. It won’t come back for centuries without my help.” Aenghus Óg had killed many square miles of the earth by opening his portal to hell, and while he would be paying for it by spending eternity burning there, the land was still barren and cried out for aid.

  “Oh, yeah, absolutely. Won’t you need a car for that, though?”

  “Nope. You get to drive me, so you’ll be gone more often too.”

  “Okay, now it makes sense.”

  “That’s what senseis do. While I’m gone and it’s dead in there, work on your Latin, using that software I bought you.”

  After ringing off with Granuaile, it was time to rummage around in my garage. It held all sorts of things instead of a car—shuriken, sai, a couple of shields, fishing tackle, and plenty of gardening tools. It was also where I stored my bow, a modern compound number with ridiculous pull on it. I couldn’t draw it without magically boosting my strength; I figured it should give the demon something to howl about. I also found a quiver full of carbon steel arrows and set them next to my bow near the front door.

  With an hour to kill before Coyote was due to arrive, I jogged up Roosevelt Street with Oberon to visit the widow MacDonagh and pay some attention to her lawn.

  It was only nine in the morning, but she was already out on her porch sipping a glass of Tullamore Dew on the rocks and reading a hard-boiled mystery novel. Her weathered face split into a wide smile when she saw Oberon and me trotting up her driveway.

  “Ah, me dear lad Atticus!” she cried, setting down her novel but not her glass. “Yer a fine bloom o’ spring on a cloudy fall day, an’ that’s no lie.”

  I chuckled at her poetic greeting. “Good mornin’, Mrs. MacDonagh. You could lift a lonely man’s heart from fifty leagues away.”

  “Tish! I’ll have to be bakin’ ye some brownies for that spot o’ blarney there. ’Tis yerself that’s good for the heart. Come here and give us a hug.”

  She rose from her rocking chair, glass in hand, and opened her arms to me. She was wearing a white cotton dress printed with a blue floral pattern, and a navy shawl was draped about her shoulders; it was finally getting chilly in Tempe, and it looked as if a cold rain would soon fall to renew the desert. She patted my back
as we embraced briefly and she said, “I can’t imagine such a handsome lad as yerself bein’ lonely fer any reason, but it’s God’s truth that I’m that happy to see ye whenever ye stop by—Oh, hello, Oberon! That’s a colorful bit o’ clothing yer wearing.” She scratched behind his ears, and Oberon’s tail thumped against her porch rails. “Ah, yer a good hound, aren’t ye?”

 

  “Can I get ye somethin’ cold to drink, Atticus? A finger o’ the Irish, perhaps?”

  “Oh, no, thank you. I must be off soon enough to fight some hellspawn, and I can’t be impaired in the slightest.” The widow had abruptly learned that I was a Druid shortly after she learned that werewolves weren’t just the stuff of legend. When most people are confronted with a paradigm shift like that, their clutch burns out and they need a new mental transmission. The widow, however, had hardly lost any speed, taking it all in stride and even mothering me a bit when I showed her my missing ear. She’d given me a tube of smelly ointment from Walgreens, unaware that I could make much better for myself from scratch.

  “Ah, fighting more demons, are ye? Well, won’t Father Howard be pleased to hear that?” she chuckled. She moved back to her rocking chair and invited me to take a seat next to her.

  “Father Howard?” I frowned. “You’ve told your priest I’m a Druid?”

  “Tish, I’m still not that daft, me boy. And even if I were, it’s not like he’d be believin’ me. To him I’m no more’n that saucy Katie MacDonagh what comes to Mass mellow ev’ry Sunday; he won’t be payin’ me no never mind regardless o’ what I say.”