A Flash of Hex

by Battis, Jes

  “What’s she doing?” Tasha leaned forward. “Is she touching him?”

  “Just let her be,” Selena breathed.

  I watched, transfixed, as Devorah walked over to the large steel sink. She picked up a washcloth and turned the water on, letting it soak. Her fingers were small and white as they gripped the detachable spigot. She turned the water off, then carefully removed her jacket, folded it, and placed it on Tasha’s chair. She rolled up the sleeves of her shirt, and I saw a braided silver band on her left wrist.

  She walked back to the autopsy table, washcloth in hand. I watched her remove the sheet, fold it neatly, and place it on the counter. Jacob’s body was completely exposed now, bruised, white, and still. He had small feet. Size eight or nine. We didn’t find any clothes or shoes with his body, but I imagined him wearing sneakers with gray socks, for some reason. He’d want a pair of comfortable shoes if he was standing at the corner of Main and Hastings all night. “Pain and Wastings,” as a journalist had called it once, years ago. The name stuck.

  Devorah reached out and touched Jacob’s foot. I felt, rather than saw, her body begin to tremble. She stroked the pad of his foot with her thumb and forefinger. Then she ran the washcloth over the sole, letting it twine between his toes. She washed the other foot, letting the washcloth move slowly up his ankles. The water dampened the black hair on his legs, spreading it in soft whorls. Devorah smoothed it down with her fingertips, drawing the washcloth up his shins and toward his thighs. She was matter-of-fact as she reached his groin, gently scrubbing the coarse pubic hair and brushing his genitals to one side. Even at nineteen or twenty-one or however old Jacob was now, he was still her baby, and the memory of bathing and cleaning him would have flared in her mind as if it were yesterday. He was part of her body; he’d never really left her.

  Her fingers danced across the pattered abrasion on his chest. She frowned at it, as if to say, How dare you, this isn’t your place, you don’t belong here. Then she continued, washing his hips, lifting him ever so gently. She lingered around his navel, her expression entirely unreadable. She touched it once. That was the site of his umbilical cord, the place where he’d been severed from her. I could almost see a pathway of light that connected the two of them, a thread still shining that linked them, something that death had degraded but not cut.

  Tasha suddenly frowned. “Do you hear that?”

  I realized, then, that Devorah was singing. We shouldn’t have been able to hear it, yet we could. Gradually, the song got louder, although her voice never seemed to rise above a whisper. It was clear, sylvan and powerful, almost unbearable against the silence of the autopsy suite. Her lips parted as she continued to wash Jacob’s body, and syllables that were like flakes of brilliance and pure life rose into the air, hovering around her. It wasn’t a trick of materia—there was nothing patently magical about her singing. But it had its power. It was old and it was subtle, but I felt it cleave me all the same, like the kiss of an athame.

  Yis’ga’dal v’yis’kadash sh’may ra’bbo,

  b’olmo dee’vro chir’usay

  v’yamlich malchu’say,

  b’chayaychon uv’yomay’chon

  uv’chayay d’chol bais Yisroel,

  ba’agolo u’viz’man koriv;

  v’imru, Omein.

  I’d heard this song before. It was the kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning. I remembered, then, that washing the body was a Jewish tradition. It was part of watching over the dead—shemira, I think it was called. I’d dated a Jewish boy, years ago, and when his grandmother died, I had to attend the funeral with him. Everyone had loved Bobbe Rachel. The rabbis tore black shreds of cloth, and I could still hear those words, dark and inviolate, swirling before me as they rose up to the vaulted ceiling of the shul. He didn’t cry, but I wanted to, even though I’d barely known her. Isn’t that strange?

  I did remember, as well, that you were only supposed to recite that prayer at a particular place and time, in the company of a rabbi. Devorah didn’t care. I imagined that exceptions must have been made for a mother’s grief.

  “V’al kol Yisroel,” she sang, rubbing the washcloth against Jacob’s neck. She touched the edges of the wound, closing her eyes. “Vimru Omein. Jacob. Jacob.”

  She stroked his neck. Her fingertip almost entered the track of the wound, and I thought of Caravaggio’s painting of Saint Thomas putting his finger in Christ’s wound. Tasha tensed up, but didn’t move. All of Devorah’s grief seemed to congeal and concentrate in her fingertip as it hovered over the laceration. It was her mother’s right, her entitlement, to plunge it deep inside, to be joined with her son again as she touched the deepest and most interior part of him.

  But she didn’t. She placed her hand on his face instead. “Jacob. Ahavi. Levi. You bastard. You fucking bastard.”

  And she wept. I didn’t know if she was talking to her son, his killer, or someone else entirely. She slumped across his body, her fingers curling in his hair. I could see her lips moving, but couldn’t hear what she was saying anymore.

  Tasha had turned away, and I did the same.

  I wasn’t allowed to smoke in the lab, which seemed like a crime.

  Instead, I had to settle on stirring the contents of my Styrofoam coffee cup rapidly, as if I could make the day-old Sanka breathe like a fine Cab Franc. Selena was in the interrogation room with Devorah Kynan. I could hear what they were saying on the other side of the two-way glass partition—so far, it wasn’t going well. Devorah had unequivocally denied any involvement in Jacob’s death, as we’d expected, but now she was refusing to answer questions about his drug use. Maybe she didn’t know anything, but I doubted that. Someone with her connections would have easily been able to keep tabs on a nineteen-year-old runaway.

  I understood that junkies often didn’t want to enter rehab programs, or felt that halfway houses weren’t going to help them in the end. It made sense, given that, in all of the Downtown Eastside, there were less than a dozen available beds for women who were detoxing, and only a few more for men. But people like Devorah Kynan didn’t have to rely on shelters and underfunded social programming. She had access to the best rehab facilities, the most costly surveillance, and all the methadone that someone like Jacob would ever need. So what had kept her from forcing him to come home?

  “I bear gifts from afar.” Derrick came walking down the hallway with two red cups. “Well, from Café Artigiano across the street. But they like to think of themselves as European, so it’s almost like a continental gift.”

  “Oh, gimme.” I snatched the cup out of his hand. “Dear God, real coffee. Thank you. This crap from the break room is like drinking sawdust. I’ve almost considered buying a bulk pack of Pepcid AC.”

  Derrick frowned as I inhaled the mocha. “You know, it had a little swan that the barista drew in milk foam. I was going to show you.”

  “I don’t care if it had the fucking Queen on it, Derrick.”

  He rolled his eyes. “This is why we always get kicked out of Starbucks. Remember that time the barista was slow making your macchiato, and you tried to use the espresso machine yourself? Remember that? When they had to call security?”

  “Yes, yes, and we all learned something about fire safety that day.” I scowled at him. “What’s your point?”

  “I guess I don’t have one.”

  I let the hot, sickly sweet mocha linger on my tongue. I could already feel my hands getting clammy as the caffeine did its work, forcibly wrenching open that sleep-deprived corner of my brain that really just wanted to stay deactivated.

  “Has Devorah said anything probative yet?”

  I shook my head. “She’s a locked strongbox. I don’t know if Selena’s going to get anything out of her.”

  “What do we do then? We’ve got no leads, and no physical evidence that ties this kid to the other murders.”

  “We’ll have to pound the pavement, I guess. Ask around and see if anyone knew Jacob, if anyone else is missing him.”


  “People in this neighborhood aren’t exactly big on talking, though. And we’ll stick out like a couple of tourists.”

  I let the coffee settle in my stomach like dead weight. “We’ll be persistent.”

  “You could always talk to”—he made a gesture—“you know who.”

  I sighed. “You can say his name, Derrick. He’s not Voldemort.”

  “Fine. You can talk to Lucian Agrado, our favorite necromancer.”

  “I’d rather avoid that for now.”

  “Oh, I seriously doubt it.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Don’t rib me about this. Lucian isn’t some random guy that I picked up at Crush—”

  “Like we’d ever go there.”

  “Listen to me.” I glared at him. “Lucian is scary. I’ve seen what he’s capable of. I don’t want any part of it. Besides—it’s against regulation. If they caught us sleeping together, our lives would turn to shit. Everything we’ve worked for during the past year could go straight down the drain, and for what? Casual sex?”

  Derrick shrugged. “He may swing with the dark side, but he’s got arms like Todd Bertuzzi. I’d tap that in a second if I had the chance. When did you suddenly become into CORE rules and regulations?”

  “I’m into staying alive. It’s kind of my motto.”

  “I feel the need to remind you that, about six months ago, your motto was more like ‘I’m into rocking the sheets with a hot Latin death-dealer.’ ”

  “Don’t make me kick every square inch of your ass.”

  He sighed. “It always comes down to violence, doesn’t it?”

  “Just shut up and watch the interrogation with me.”

  Derrick stepped closer to the window. “I asked if I could be present, but Selena didn’t think it would be a good idea.”

  “Someone like Devorah Kynan would feel your telepathy coming a mile away. She could stir-fry your brain just by looking at you.”

  “I don’t know about that.” He had an odd expression on his face. Was it pride? “I’ve been getting better, you know. Practicing.”

  “Of course.” I rubbed his arm. “I didn’t mean to sound dismissive. I’ve noticed that your talents have been developing. I’m sure Selena’s noticed, too.”

  He smiled. “Really? You think she has?”

  There was the insecure Derrick that I knew. “Obviously.”

  “Huh.” His eyes sparkled. At least I could still make somebody happy.

  I watched Selena shuffle through some papers. Devorah was sitting across from her, absolutely still, hands folded. It wasn’t a contemplative gesture. I got the impression that, despite her calm exterior, she was using every inch of willpower to keep from tearing apart the entire building. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be on the streets, looking for whoever killed her son. That’s how I would have felt if someone tried to kill Mia. Again.

  My eyes narrowed. If that happened, there wouldn’t be an interrogation. There’d just be an unmarked demon grave.

  “We need to go over this one more time,” Selena was saying. “Approximately how long ago did Jacob run away from home?”

  “Last March,” Devorah replied. Her voice was atonal—flat and dead. “Almost a year ago. He’d been staying out before that, visiting the neighborhood. I knew about it.”

  “But you didn’t do anything.”

  “There wasn’t anything to do. He’s a teenager. Even if I locked him in the basement, he’d find a way to wiggle out and escape through a window. Jacob’s smart. There was no way to keep him from exploring—that life.”

  “Surely, you could have used your considerable resources to keep him safe.”

  Her fingers twitched. Bad sign. “Are you suggesting that I should have imprisoned my own child, Detective Ward?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first mother to try.”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t dealing with a dangerous criminal. Jacob has an IQ well over 180. He’s been on every honor roll, won every conceivable award, and gone to the best private schools all his life. I couldn’t just throw him in a cell and lock the door.”

  Selena folded her arms across her chest.

  Oh shit. She was going in for the kill.

  “In our experience, Ms. Kynan,” she said—almost conversationally—“kids run away because of trauma at home. Violence, emotional abuse, molestation, neglect. It doesn’t matter what school you send them to, or how well they appear to be doing to the outside world. They always bolt. And there’s no shortage of people interested in using them and discarding them.”

  Devorah actually laughed. “That’s a bold insinuation. Did they teach you that at CSI school, Detective? Try to shake up the grieving mother with allegations of abuse?”

  “I’m just citing statistics, ma’am.”

  “Right.” She leaned back. “Jacob never knew his father. He was a parasite, and I made sure to excise him from our lives.”

  “ ‘Excise.’ ” Selena wrote down the word, as if hearing it for the first time. “Is that like having someone killed?”

  “Don’t play games.” Devorah met her eyes. “We’re both very smart women, Detective Ward. We had to sacrifice a lot to get where we are today. And the stigma never vanishes. We’ll always be the ball-busting devils or the promiscuous whores, no matter what we do.”

  “I prefer ball-busting whore,” Selena replied wryly.

  “It’s always something.” Devorah was smiling, but it was a cold, almost frightening sort of smile. Could a person smile from despair? “We know who we are, and we know what we’ve done, what we have to keep doing, to hold on to these lives. So let’s not play dumb. Obviously, I didn’t have Jacob’s father killed. He’s a lowlife. I know where he’s living and what he’s doing—or not doing, to be more exact—and I can give you his contact information. But it won’t be of any use. He’s never seen Jacob.”

  “Never?”

  “Not once.” Her smile faded. “I made sure of that.”

  “See, here’s what I don’t get.” Selena shook her head. “If you’re so good at keeping tabs on Jacob’s deadbeat father, why couldn’t you do the same thing for your own son? Why didn’t you pull him off the streets once he got in over his head?”

  “You don’t think I tried?” She looked disgusted. “I hired investigators. I put him in halfway houses, got him into programs. The paperwork’s all there. But it didn’t work. He kept going back, because he found something on the street.” Her eyes darkened. “Something I couldn’t give him. Something nobody could give him.”

  “Did you know what drugs he was doing? How much?”

  To her credit, she didn’t look away. “I knew everything. Some of it he told me, and other things I had to find out for myself. All I could do was beg him to stay safe. Whenever he was in a facility, I had him tested—HIV, Hep C, and everything else. He stayed clean.”

  “His blood results came back negative for both HIV and Hep C,” Selena confirmed, glancing at her notes. “Who did he spend time with?”

  Devorah grimaced. “The cast was diverse.”

  “But you never saw Jacob spending time with anyone older? Someone who may have been a supplier?”

  “No. When I visited, he was almost always alone.”

  “Visited him where?”

  She shrugged. “Squats. Shelters. Friends’ places and little rooms and dark warrens that made me half-sick to visit.”

  “But you came anyway.”

  “I did.”

  “To take care of him. Make sure he was set up.”

  “Of course.” Anger flashed. “He’s my son. I had to make sure that he had clothes, food, the proper supplies.”

  “You mean gear.”

  Devorah’s expression was pragmatic. “We do all that we can, Detective. And when that fails, we don’t just stop being a parent. I made sure that he was using safely. Sometimes I gave him money, but he usually just gave it away. That was Jacob.” She laughed softly. “You know, he used to give his presents away to other kids w
hen he was little. Once, I caught him trying to saw a Transformer in half! He wanted the boy across the street to have something to play with. There were bits and pieces of that thing all over his bedspread, and who knew where he found the goddamn hacksaw—”

  Her eyes went distant. For a moment, I saw a cascade of anguish, utterly vast and devouring, like a black wave. Then she shut the door. Her composure returned.

  “I gave him what he needed,” she continued. “Fresh needles, sterile cotton pads and gauze wipes, clean ties, caps for mixing. Try explaining to your housekeeper why you have to boil a pot full of bottle caps, so that your son has something sterile to shoot his heroin.”

  “So you aided his drug habit.”

  “I kept him alive. A chronic drug user doesn’t shoot up to get high, Detective. He needed the drug to function. And watching him go through detox, again and again”—she shook her head—“it was more than I could stand.”

  “There was more than heroin in his system, actually.” Selena glanced at a computer printout from the toxicology lab. “One of our tests came back positive for a hybrid drug. I believe they call it Hextacy on the street.”

  I looked at Derrick. His expression was surprised as well. Selena must have threatened the toxicology lab with certain death to get those results back so fast. And if she was sharing them with Devorah, it meant that we had even less to go on than I’d thought. We needed the Kynan family’s help.

  “Hex.” The word seemed to stick in Devorah’s throat. “It’s organic materia, extracted from blood and then processed with heroin. Sometimes they add meth, just to make it even more potent. There’s no drug that’s worse, especially for someone with Jacob’s genetic heritage.”

  “He’d be particularly susceptible, given his bloodline,” Selena agreed.

  Devorah nodded. “Hex was engineered with mages in mind. It boosts your latent power to an incredible level, gives you a mystical high, but it’s also ten times more destructive than cocaine or heroin.”