Hexed and Vexed

by Rebecca Royce

  “Hey,” she called out again, and Lawson squeezed her arm before setting her on the ground. “What is happening?”

  “Inside.” He pointed and charged ahead of her, as though she should follow. In other circumstances, she might not, but that was her store. She had more right to be in it than they did.

  The second they crossed through the threshold, Stefan waved his hand and the door shut behind her. She’d always thought that would be a useful ability. Truth was, she’d recently considered leaving the witch world altogether and pretending to be human. She basically was.

  A woman lay on the ground. She seized before she floated in the air, screaming. She clawed at her face with her fingernails. “It burns, Stefan. It burns!” The woman dropped back down to the ground, landing hard. She screamed again.

  “I know, princess. I know.” Stefan stroked her hair. His head shot up, his gaze hard. Now it was evident that it wasn’t with anger but rather anguish that moved him. “Well?”

  Ava cleared her throat. “She’s been hexed.”

  “No shit,” he roared, staring at Lawson. “I thought you said she could help.”

  “Give her a second. She’s getting her bearings.” Lawson moved around her. “Can you help her?”

  Ava wanted to turn and run, but she kept her feet where they were. At the very least, she had to understand what was going on. Hexing was just under murder in the witching laws. Few could perform a hex, and among those, almost no one would. Under a hex, almost anything could happen to the victim.

  Even fewer people could save someone who had been hexed. Sometimes it was just a matter of not letting the hex be reapplied, sometimes it was about letting it wear off. A love hex could simply go away if the person doing the hexing disappeared from the victim’s life.

  But this was different. Someone had hexed this woman to think she was burning. She was convincing herself that she was and, therefore, would die from pain that wasn’t technically there.

  The hex made the person’s own mind kill them… in an awful way. “Don’t you people have your own staff that can handle these things? Don’t you find people who can remove hexes and employ them? You chase the worst of the worst. Surely your organization can help her.”

  Stefan pounded the floor. “I told you. She’s just another one of them.”

  Lawson ignored him. “There are few who can remove a hex. You’re looking at our hex remover. She’s on the floor, killing herself. You can help her.”

  He sounded so sure. Ava didn’t know why he believed in her, but he happened to be right. “It’s not something I advertise.”

  “I know.” Lawson nodded.

  She’d spent time under the tutelage of a man named Gary Bosch. He’d died two years earlier under unusual circumstances. No one spoke of it, but she suspected that he’d not successfully managed a hex removal and died in the process. The hexed sometimes killed those who wanted to help them. Ava didn’t tell people what he taught her because she didn’t want to do this kind of thing.

  Ava had no interest in being around those who were in this situation. She wanted to make soap.

  “I need to get things from over there.” Ava spoke the words before she even decided to mix the potion. The woman floated over the ground again, screaming. With no time to lose, Ava darted around her, rushing to her potions cabinet. She wouldn’t think too hard about why she carried this stuff in her shop. Sure, sometimes a good muscle relaxer required unusual ingredients or repeat customers sometimes had allergies where Ava had to replace an ingredient with something else. It was all about the science and not the overwhelming need to keep close what Gary had taught her when his other students had gone home for the day.

  His attention to her abilities was the first time anyone outside of her family, Mitchell, or Melanie had ever thought she was smart or talented. It mattered.

  There were some basic hex cures, but what Ava saw before her didn’t strike her as basic. This wasn’t like hexing someone to fail at a business meeting. This type of torture meant death…

  She couldn’t help the person Stefan called princess unless she kept herself safe. Gary had placed a great deal of importance on the potion maker protecting themselves. On that note, Ava shoved some acacia into her bra. The puke pink dress didn’t have pockets. The bra would have to do.

  After grabbing her mixing bowl, she poured purified water into it and started to stir. Agrimony. Basil. She had to think, and her mind struggled. The poor woman was in so much pain. Blackthorn reversed a bad spell. Coffee and Cayenne. She couldn’t overdo the potion. More was not more in this case. Solomon’s seal. Yes, that was it. That was the right mixture—she gulped—maybe…

  There was one other thing. She opened a drawer beneath the cabinet where she kept things she didn’t want others to see, and then she pulled out a magical mirror. Ava’s lack of magic meant it didn’t work for her. It had been her grandmother’s, and despite the fact that she should have given it to Zoe, Ava had kept it. Sentimentality had always been her downfall.

  She walked back. “Someone has to hold this. It’ll show in the glass when the hex is gone. At first, she’ll look coated in black. Then it should start to lift until, poof, it vanishes. I can’t see anything in the reflection other than what I can see with my own eyes. I’m not magical. But you guys seem to be loaded with ability. One of you will have to do.”

  Stefan’s nostrils flared. “You have that little magic?”

  “Stefan, not helpful.” Lawson took the mirror from Ava. “I’ll watch.” He pointed the mirror at the woman on the floor. “Yep, I see it. Coated in black. Damn.”

  Ava knelt down. “What is her name? I’m going to have to speak to her. It might help to know.”

  Stefan stroked a hand over the woman’s head. “Her name is Kim. She’s my fiancée.”

  That wasn’t surprising. Stefan’s love for Kim was in every move he made. Ava didn’t even mind the hostility. If she were ever lucky enough to find a man who could love her the way she’d thought Mitchell had, despite her failings, she’d hope he’d be driven to near rage if she were harmed.

  “Kim.” Ava took a deep breath before she squatted next to her. “I’m here to help you.”

  Chapter 2

  Ava lifted Kim’s head slightly to help her drink. She was going to have to administer the potion bit by bit, not too much, or Kim would throw up the whole thing. If she didn’t fully ingest it, they wouldn’t get anywhere. Hexes were tricky. Part of removing them meant sending the negative energy back onto the person who delivered the hex to begin with. Nature had a way of balancing things. Once the negative energy was created, it was hard to get rid of altogether.

  The witch who’d dished it out was going to have to get rid of it themselves.

  For Ava, the only problem was she couldn’t float with Kim. Somehow, she had to get this all down the woman’s throat before she levitated again. “Tiny sips, but fast ones, okay, Kim? Stefan, could you hold her head?”

  Kim’s eyes turned red. That could be a good sign or a bad one. “Is she darkening, Lawson?”

  There was a chance Ava could make things worse. She wasn’t an expert at this, despite having seen Gary do it half-a-dozen times. He’d actually killed someone once. Although, when the victim had arrived at his studio, the man had been near death anyway. Gary had done all he could. The other side to this coin was that sometimes people were hexed because they’d done awful things. It was hard to know if you really wanted to help them or not.

  That was why Gary had never asked the circumstances behind the hexing. The rules were clear. Hexing was a crime. That was all they had to focus on. The nature of the victim didn’t matter. The authorities could deal with them, appropriately, later. Nine times out of ten, it was a scorned lover.

  “No, lighter,” Lawson answered.

  She nodded. “Good.”

  Stefan spoke through clenched teeth. “Why are her eyes red?”

  “Strong magic and not something I can combat. The potion will
remove the stain. Give it time.” Sip by sip, she slid the mixture into Kim.

  “You think you can save this woman?” Kim’s voice was low, masculine sounding. Ava’s head shot up. Oh, possession through hex. She’d read about this but never seen it before. “You think you’re strong enough?”

  The person who sent the hex was speaking through Kim. Ava ignored him. She wouldn’t be deterred from getting the potion down Kim’s throat.

  “I’m sorry.” She spoke to Stefan. “This is going to hurt her. But if I don’t do this, whoever that is will be able to prevent her from swallowing. We can’t have that.”

  Before Stefan could answer her, Ava swung her fist against Kim’s cheek. The woman gasped, and during the distraction, Ava grabbed her mouth, opened it as wide as she could, and poured the rest of the solution down it. This wasn’t pretty. Kim gagged, and Ava closed the woman’s mouth. Like she’d done with her mother’s dog when the little thing hadn’t wanted to take his medication, she massaged her throat until the liquid went down. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t kind.

  Kim writhed on the floor, grabbing at her face before stilling. Ava grabbed Kim’s wrist, feeling for a pulse, which was, thankfully, strong. She hadn’t killed her. Sweat broke out on her brow.

  “The black is off. She just looks normal.” Lawson set down the mirror. “You did it.”

  Ava let out her breath. “That’s good.” Ava’s hands were shaking, and she shoved them into the folds of the pink dress, hoping they wouldn’t see. These witches were brave. They fought major battles against evil. All she had done was make a potion and shove it down Kim’s throat. The last thing she wanted was for them to see how shaken she was about the whole thing.

  She turned around to look behind her. Lawson had set down the mirror on a table near the door. He stared at her, his expression unreadable but with an intensity in his eyes the likes of which she had never seen before. She had to force herself to swallow.

  Stefan cradled the still unconscious Kim in his arms.

  “She’s going to be okay,” Ava said to Stefan, who met her gaze for the first time with no hostility. This time she saw only exhaustion in the dark circles under his eyes. “It’s normal that she would be passed out.”

  Stefan nodded. “Thank you. We’ve seen this part.”

  Of course they would have. Kim was the person who cleared hexes for them. Ava couldn’t help but wonder how the other woman did the job. There were many ways to remove a hex, potions only being one of them and less frequently used. Maybe Kim spellcast them right out. Ava had heard that was hard but possible.

  “I’m told that sometimes people who have been hexed feel very dry for a while all over their body. So lots of fluids, and I have a moisturizer I’ll give you that will help.” She walked toward her supply. It was a nice, rosemary smelling concoction that the older women enjoyed. Some swore it had revived their skin to look ten years younger.

  She grabbed the bottle and swung around, but they were gone. All three of them vanished as though they hadn’t been there at all. Ava dropped the bottle onto the floor. Just like that? They’d grabbed her out of her sister’s wedding, made her perform the most intense experience of her life—outside of being left at the altar—and left without saying goodbye?

  Ava groaned, alone in the room with no one to hear. If she wasn’t still wearing Lawson’s coat, she might believe the whole thing hadn’t happened. She bent over to pick up the moisturizer. What was she even supposed to tell people?

  They’d taken her from the wedding, and her leaving wasn’t secret. There would be questions to answer. Could she simply say that she’d had to clear a hex?

  No, she discarded that idea immediately. No one should ever know that she had those skills. It was unseemly to even think about hexes, let alone know how to do something about them.

  Lying had never been Ava’s forte. Why bother when the truth worked just fine? Only this time, the truth wouldn’t do at all. With no choice in the matter, she picked up a brick off the back table where she shaved pieces of it into a concoction designed to strengthen nail enamel. Without letting herself over-think it, Ava walked outside and threw the brick right through her window. The glass shattered as she’d wanted. Next, she walked back inside and swept all of her concoctions from the table onto the floor.

  “Looks like we have a string of robberies in potion shops. The Enforcers are investigating it everywhere. They’re thinking it just started here, having been a true and horrifying problem in Titanville.”

  No one would check. Titanville was where undesirables lived. Witches who had once been in trouble were banished there. Ava would never be questioned. Anything that could go wrong went wrong in Titanville.

  Exhaustion hit her bones hard, and she sunk to the floor. It would be so nice to have someone to talk to about this. Mitchell immediately came to mind. He’d been her confidante, best friend, and lover her entire adult life and even before. They’d been fourteen when they met, and he’d pursued her like she was the only thing in the universe he wanted.

  He was gone now, or at least that version of him was. When it came down to it, he’d chosen another, discarding her like she was a piece of trash. A tear slipped from her eye. Why was she crying about this now? She’d just saved a woman’s life, done some really hard potion making in no time at all, and removed a hex.

  Why did it matter about Mitchell anymore?

  Well, because there was nothing so lonely as having no one to share news with. When something happened and she couldn’t tell someone who loved her—the way Mitchell had for so long—it almost felt like the event didn’t occur at all.

  Melanie could be contacted, but she wouldn’t get the significance of this at all. She’d berate her for getting involved with the Enforcers, who were dangerous and unsavory, sometimes as much as the witches they hunted.

  Her sister had just gotten married, deserved time alone with Elijah, and would worry. Her parents were probably already horrified she’d up and left the wedding.

  Those were problems for tomorrow because at present she had a serious issue to deal with. She couldn’t fly, and everyone she knew was at Zoe’s wedding. Looked like she was going to be walking home in the cold, in her puke pink dress. At least she had Lawson’s coat. It hadn’t popped away with the rest of him. She walked home in Lawson’s jacket, her feet suddenly sore in the shoes she’d had Melanie spellcast into the right color for the occasion.

  Filling out forms for the police took a long time. The witch police force hadn’t been at all happy with her story. On a good day, they were hostile with Enforcers who came into their territory and didn’t tell them what was going on. Now, the Enforcers had disrupted a society wedding—which they’d evidently heard about in great deal from Lila Blakely before and after Ava had been found—and investigated a string of robberies the police knew nothing about.

  Lies caught in Ava’s throat, but she did it anyway. If Lawson, Stefan, or Kim had issue with it, they’d have to live with it. As far as she was concerned, she was done with the whole matter, except for the humiliation of having to ask the police officer to spellcast her window back to working order. As for the looted-looking store, getting down on her hands and knees to get the job done worked as well as anything else.

  The door dinged, and Ava rose to go see who had come in. Two human girls came into the store, looking around with wide eyes. Ava took a long, deep breath. It wasn’t illegal to do business with humans. Since Ava didn’t have powers, she only knew they were human because a small sign above the door lit up red when humans came in. Her sister had set that up for her lest she get into trouble for not knowing. Still, it was frowned upon most of the time.

  She leaned forward on the counter. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  The girls had to be about twelve each, if that.

  They both stilled when she spoke, some of the heightened colors in their cheeks fading. That was right. Witches were scary. Ava might be as harmless as a bunny, but they di
dn’t know that.

  “My mother got something here, and I broke it.” The one with the t-shirt rubbed the back of her neck. “I need to replace it. I’m going to be in big trouble if I don’t.”

  Now that was an interesting story. Ava sold things to humans maybe three times a year. They came out of Boston, traveled north on a train for an hour, and stepped into Williamsville, where they really weren’t supposed to be. Not officially, of course. But humans could get into a lot of trouble in a witch city. Not every place was friendly toward them, and there were nefarious folks who would harm them for fun.

  Not Ava, of course. She hated that they were so young and in her store unsupervised. Shouldn’t someone have been watching them?

  Ava held out her hand. “Do you have what you broke?”

  The young girl nodded, pulling a necklace out of her pocket and handing it to her. Ava knew right away she hadn’t sold this item. She never carried necklaces. Still, she smoothed her hand over the gray and purple circle at the bottom of the chain. The symbol was a unicorn, and Ava could see where it had been slightly bent on the end. The jeweled piece wouldn’t need to be replaced, just fixed up a bit. Any jeweler could do it, but even though Ava herself couldn’t feel the spell, the necklace was likely carrying power. A human jeweler wouldn’t be able to get it unbent.

  Ava raised her eyes to regard the human girl. She was absolutely not a witch; the human detector had gone off when she walked through the door. “You bent this?”

  The young girl nodded. “I did. I was holding it, and then it bent. I didn’t mean to be rough with it.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t.”

  Ava could remember lots of inadvertent trouble she and Zoe had gotten into at the same age. There were two questions in regards to the necklace. The first was why did this girl’s mother have it to begin with since the necklace carried a witch family emblem. Every family, even those in less upscale districts than the one Ava lived in, had one. It identified the wearer as part of that family. When Zoe married Elijah, she’d taken his emblem with her own. She wore both now, as did their mother, who was both Blakely and Rousseaux. Ava didn’t recognize this particular crest, but that wasn’t strange. There were thousands upon thousands of them. Why had someone sold this to a human?