Hexed

by Michael Alan Nelson

  “I must say, you are spoiling me, darling,” the Harlot said. “To have you come so soon after your last visit is indeed a treat, regardless of that bitter parting. But to do so and bring such a gift . . . apology accepted.”

  Lucifer pulled her street clothes from her trick bag. “What gift?”

  “The witch-hound’s head, of course. That is why you’re here, isn’t it? To apologize for your insult?”

  Lucifer had no doubt that the Harlot knew exactly why she was there, but Lucifer wasn’t really in the mood to play games. “Uh, yeah. That’s why. I hope you like the color. I didn’t keep the receipt.”

  “Oh, I would never return such a lovely gift,” the Harlot said, pouring herself a cup of tea. “Though I’m shocked at the overwhelming effort you went through to obtain it. Especially when, with just a bit of modification, witch-hounds can be trapped much in the same way as filcher demons.”

  “I’ll remember that next time.” Lucifer winced as she pulled her jeans on over the giant raspberry on her hip. “I don’t suppose you have any aspirin here, do you?” she asked.

  “What need have I for aspirin? But then again, I don’t go jumping out of office windows. Perhaps you would have brought some medication yourself, had you heeded my warning.”

  “Warning? What warning—” Lucifer remembered. The Harlot had said she would jump from an office window, just like that man Karl. “Oh,” she said, zipping up her hoodie. “I guess you were right about that.”

  “I’m right about everything, darling,” the Harlot said, sipping her tea.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Oh? I also remember expressing sympathy regarding your shoes. Did you not lose them at Cape Vale?”

  “Yes,” Lucifer huffed, “but you also said I would kill myself and I didn’t. I wasn’t even trying to kill myself. Unless I’m actually dead right now, but I kind of doubt that since I don’t think I would ache this much if I were dead.”

  “You’re not dead,” the Harlot scoffed.

  “See then? You were wrong. You said I would jump out of an office window to kill myself.”

  “No,” the Harlot said. “I told you that you would toss yourself from an office window and kill yourself. I did not tell you the two were one and the same.”

  “That doesn’t . . .” Lucifer threw up her hands in frustration. “I’m not killing myself and I’m not going to talk about it with you anymore.”

  The Harlot held the cup of tea close to her mouth, steam curling around her raptor-like nose. “Then what would you like to talk about?”

  “How about removing this hex from me.”

  The only response was the gentle clink of the Harlot’s teacup against the saucer she held in her other hand.

  “No? Then there’s nothing I want to talk to you about,” Lucifer said.

  The Harlot exhaled, dissipating the rising steam. “Are you sure there’s nothing else you wish to discuss?”

  Lucifer slipped her trick bag over her shoulder and said, “I have the book now. I can get to the Shade without your help.” But when Lucifer turned to leave, she froze in her tracks. There was something draped over the arm of the nearby sofa that made Lucifer’s heart seize in her chest.

  It was David’s letterman’s jacket.

  “What the hell is that?” Lucifer asked, pointing to the familiar coat.

  “So there is something else you wish to discuss,” said the Harlot, not trying to hide her smile.

  “Answer me!” Lucifer rushed over and pulled the jacket from the sofa. When she grabbed it, her bump key fell from the jacket’s pocket.

  “A souvenir he kept from your clandestine evening at the gallery,” the Harlot said. “He used that to break into your apartment, though it did take him several attempts to succeed. Once inside, he used your mirror to come here. Oh, but he is a pretty one.”

  “What did you do to him?” Lucifer said. Her throat tightened as terror pulled at her like the waves of Minnie Hester’s horrid storm.

  “I did nothing to him,” the Harlot said as she placed her tea on the table before her. “I simply answered his question. As I do for all people who come to see me.”

  Lucifer’s mind was reeling. She had the book. She was going to save Gina. She had everything under control. What was David thinking?

  “It doesn’t make sense! Why would he see you? Why?” she asked.

  The Harlot rose from her chair and towered over Lucifer. The Keeper of Secrets’ rictus smile faded into a sympathetic frown. “David is a prized athlete, a brilliant student, a truly remarkable boy. But he is still a boy.”

  “What does that mean? He thought I couldn’t get Gina back because I’m a girl, but somehow he could because he’s a boy? David’s not like that.” Lucifer looked up, her eyebrows crinkled. “Is he?”

  “No. In that regard, he is above most. But he is a boy, and boys do foolish things when they fall in love.”

  Right now Lucifer didn’t want to be reminded of how much David loved Gina, and she hated the Harlot for bringing it up. “But David doesn’t know this world. Even if he loves her, why would he try and go after Gina by himself?”

  “Again, you misunderstand my meaning. David was afraid for you.” The Harlot stood and glided next to Lucifer. “After the Witch of Cape Vale, he truly understood how dangerous it would be for you to get Gina back safely. And he didn’t want to see you get hurt. Don’t you see, darling? Gina isn’t the one David fell in love with,” the Harlot said.

  “You mean he fell in love with me?” Lucifer asked.

  The Harlot brushed Lucifer’s hair behind her ear with a long, sharp finger. “Is that so hard for you to believe?”

  Lucifer collapsed down onto the couch. David loved her. She knew he liked her, but she thought it was because of his fascination with the world of magic more than anything having to do with her. Yes, there was the kiss that broke the witch’s spell, but that was something that just kind of sort of happened. Wasn’t it? She didn’t think he could actually be in love with her. Of course, Lucifer would have no idea. She had zero experience with this kind of thing. The only way she would know is if there were a giant neon sign over his head saying, Hey, Lucifer, I Love You!

  But she knew she loved him.

  It was strange to finally admit it, but Lucifer knew that’s what she was feeling. How she was so distracted when he was near, how she couldn’t stop thinking of him when he wasn’t. He consumed her thoughts. It was now suddenly obvious that she loved David. And part of her was thrilled that he loved her too. But that thrill immediately turned to horror.

  “Where is he?” she asked the Harlot.

  “Witchdown,” the Harlot said very matter-of-factly.

  Panic fluttered through Lucifer on sharp, rusty wings. She suddenly realized she was clutching David’s jacket so tightly that her fingernails were threatening to tear themselves from her fingertips. She stood, but her knees wobbled so badly she fell back onto the couch. The idea of a girl she had never even met trapped in Witchdown was bad enough, but a boy she loved? Lucifer felt like she was going to throw up.

  “How could someone so smart be so stupid,” Lucifer said.

  “Sadly, that is a question no one ever bothers to ask me.”

  Lucifer stood again, but this time found her footing. “So you told him how to get into the Shade. To Witchdown. There’s a way a living person can get there.”

  “You know my price, Lucifer,” the Harlot said.

  “Is that what David paid? You made him give up all his emotions?”

  “David didn’t ask the same question you did. He doesn’t have the same experience dealing with me that you do. Then again, no one does.”

  “Stop smirking at me!” Lucifer gripped the letterman’s jacket even tighter to keep her shaking hands under control.

  “Darling, David asked how he could get to Gina. So I told him. He played the same game that Gina did and was taken through the mirror at the Worcester House.”

  “So David is
trapped, too!”

  “Yes. And have no doubt, Lucifer,” the Harlot said, all sympathy dissolving from her face, “the Sisters of Witchdown will find use for him.”

  Without another word, Lucifer turned and ran.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lucifer’s legs couldn’t carry her fast enough. She hurdled over the expanse of shattered mirrors, ignoring the jagged glass that threatened to cut her along every stride. Fortunately, the twin mirror to her own wasn’t destroyed when she and the witch-hound’s head came rolling through the mirror room.

  The second Lucifer was through the mirror and back in her own apartment, she pulled the book out of her trick bag and started reading. It was nearly impossible for her to concentrate. David was in Witchdown. Who knew what kind of horrors he was having to suffer at the hands of the witch that took him. But there wasn’t time for nightmarish speculation. If Lucifer couldn’t find a way to Witchdown, David was dead.

  She opened the book and examined its pages. The paper was so dry and brittle that it felt as if it were going to disintegrate between her fingers. For some reason, Lucifer was expecting fine, calligraphic script written inside, but much of the writing was jagged, rushed, barely legible. The words meandered across the page like drunken ants crawling away from some unseen threat.

  Several sections had words clustered together, while others were so far apart it was difficult to determine if they were part of the same sentence or just random thoughts. There were dozens of scribblings and crude sketches of symbols throughout the book, and more than one page was stained with blood.

  She scanned the book as quickly as she could, looking for anything that explained how she might get to the Shade. Most of the book was devoted to the history of the Sisters of Witchdown, a history that Lucifer was already familiar with. There was the small section on summoning that Gina and her friends must have used that night in the Worcester House. There was one on how to use the book to curry favor with the Sisters and another on filcher demons and how to use them as minions, followed by several blank pages.

  There were small picts in the corners of the pages regarding the filcher demons. The ink used to make the marks looked very similar to the one Helen Peltier used to write her name on the cover. She must have been trying to neutralize the book so readers wouldn’t become possessed by the demons whenever they read its pages. Only Helen must have passed away before completing the spell.

  Thankfully for Lucifer, she was immune to that kind of possession. Most people were. But for the handful of people who weren’t immune, like Olivia, they would become possessed by a filcher demon. And according to the book, the Sisters could use the demons to influence the possessed person into doing their bidding.

  Lucifer had read countless magical texts in her life and knew their shorthand. She knew which pages were history, which were recipes for spells, et cetera. But there was nothing in the book that explained how to get to Witchdown. The way most of these older books were formatted, all the information she was looking for should be right after the section on filcher demons. Yet all those pages were blank. Perhaps Helen had figured out a way to remove them from the book, hoping to preserve it as a historical document without having the magic infused in the book be a danger to the person reading it.

  But there was something about the blank pages that bothered her. They were blank. Completely blank. Helen had made small notes on just about every single page in the book, but these pages didn’t have a single mark on them. They didn’t even appear to be as aged as the rest of the book.

  Lucifer grabbed her green butterfly glasses from her trick bag. When she put them on, she saw that the blank pages of the book were anything but. Without these special glasses, only a person possessed by a filcher demon could see what was written on the pages.

  They were covered in symbols with lists of components for dark spells and instructions for even darker rituals. One of the darkest was a ritual to bring the witches themselves back into the world of the living. And the one thing they needed more than anything else for that ritual to succeed was a living girl.

  The Sisters of Witchdown wanted to come back, and Gina was their ticket. But it was a complicated ritual, one that even Lucifer had trouble following. Which was actually a good thing. The more complicated a ritual, the easier it was to disrupt.

  She turned the page and found exactly what she had been looking for. There, written in several different styles of handwriting, was the information on traveling to the Shade.

  Finally, Lucifer had the answer, and she didn’t have to give up all of her emotions to get it. She was going to be able to save David. But her excitement slowly faded to despair when she read what was required for a living person to travel to the Shade of their own volition: murder bordering on genocide.

  Sacrifices. Dozens of them. The Shade was a realm of death, and death was its only currency. In order for Lucifer to travel there and survive, she would need to ritually sacrifice nearly a hundred people. She was willing to do almost anything to get David and Gina back. But killing innocent people wasn’t one of them.

  It wasn’t fair. She finally knew what it felt like to be in love, to be loved. It was more joyous and painful than she could have ever imagined. And with the turn of a single page, it had all been taken from her.

  She flipped through the rest of the book, desperately searching for another way, but there was none she could find. It wasn’t until she started to close the book that she saw the symbol etched into the inside cover. Just like the blank pages, the symbol could only be seen by those possessed by filcher demons or with the aid of magical lenses.

  The intricate glyph took up nearly the entire inside cover, and there were dozens of notes hastily scrawled in the margins around it. According to the text, it was called the Sister’s Wheel. It was the core symbol the witches used to kidnap Gina in the first place. It allowed the witch to open a gateway between the Shade and the world of the living, provided a person in the living world performed the summoning ritual: the Bloody Mary game Gina and her friends played that night at the Worcester House.

  Once summoned, the witch was able to shadow Gina wherever she went. It was only a matter of time before Gina stood in front of a mirror, allowing the witch to snatch her into the Shade.

  As Lucifer studied the peculiar Sister’s Wheel and the cryptic phrases surrounding it, she saw that there was another way into the Shade. A dangerous way. A way that would get her to Witchdown and, in theory, bring her back. The Harlot was right.

  The Harlot was always right.

  The sun had come up and was already dipping below the horizon by the time Lucifer had finished studying the book, memorizing all the symbols, glyphs, and picts she could. The full moon would be rising any minute now. It was now or never.

  Lucifer reached inside her trick bag, feeling her way around its contents until she found the simple business card she wanted. She then grabbed her smartphone and dialed.

  “Hello?”

  “Trish?”

  “Yeah? Who is this?”

  “It’s Lucifer. We met a while ago at your clinic. I came in looking to have a tattoo removed.”

  “Oh . . . oh, yeah, right. Lucifer. Hey, uh, what’s going on?”

  “Where are you right now?” Lucifer could hear the soft murmur of music in the background.

  “Uh, at home,” Trish said.

  “Where’s home?”

  Trish paused for a moment before saying, “Not to be rude, but I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  “It doesn’t matter, I can find you. I need your help, so don’t go anywhere. I’ll be over in about half an hour. I’ll be in the police car,” Lucifer said.

  “Police car—”

  Lucifer hung up and dialed a different number.

  “This is Officer Pierce.”

  “Buck, it’s Lucifer.”

  “You’re alive! Holy crap, Lucifer. What happened? I’ve got five officers that could have sworn they saw someone take a gainer o
ff the of top Graeae Towers. There was nothing left but a wet stain on the pavement. I thought it was you.”

  “It was the witch-hound,” she said.

  “The witch what?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Buck. I have the book and I know how to get to the Shade. But I’m going to need help. Pick me up in twenty minutes.”

  “But—”

  Lucifer hung up and tossed her phone back into her trick bag. As she headed toward the door, she grabbed an old emergency medical technician’s manual from a stack of books she was using to prop up an old table lamp. The stack and the lamp crashed to the floor, but she didn’t care. She knew how to save David and Gina, but she was running out of time.

  “What the hell is going on, Lucifer?” Buck said when she jumped into his cruiser.

  “Drive to 381 Pinewood Drive,” Lucifer said before her door was even closed.

  “What’s there?” Buck asked, putting the cruiser in drive.

  Lucifer double-checked the contents of her trick bag. “A girl named Trish. She’s had training as an EMT, now c’mon! Hit the lights, man!” Lucifer shouted as she slapped the dashboard.

  A few minutes later, Buck pulled into the driveway, killing the lights and sirens so as not to scare the entire neighborhood. Trish stepped out of her front door, her purple hair pulled back in a ponytail. “You weren’t kidding about the cop car, were you? What exactly is going on?” she asked as Lucifer raced toward her.

  Lucifer gently grabbed her arm and started pulling her toward the car. “I’ll explain on the way.”

  Trish looked up at Buck’s haggard and imposing frame standing next to his car and said, “Lucifer, uh . . .”

  Lucifer held out her hand in introduction. “Trish, this is Officer Pierce. Officer Pierce, Trish. Now that we’re all acquainted, let’s go!”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, ma’am, you’re not under arrest. Lucifer—”