Hex-Rated

by Jason Ridler

  A fat man with jowls and mutton chops kneeled with a bloodhound at his side, a giant brat in his corpulent hand.

  SAUSAGE KING! MEATS AND TREATS FOR YOUR FAMILY TODAY!

  The Sausage King of Vernon was Willie Mutts, of the Mutts Food dynasty. His fiefdom was the West Coast, and his signature brand was Sausage King Brats, perennial favorite of Forth of July celebrations. Locals laughed at his success from the gutters. Given his last name, rumor had it that the old Sausage King was filling his orders with LA’s finest stray dogs. Yet they remain the most popular meats in the region.

  We passed the billboard, Mutt’s pearly whites as bright as golden rings, big as his tombstones, and damn if I wasn’t hungry all over again, despite the quick joy of Ares’s floor biscuit.

  Lilith coasted as much as I could let her past the Vernon Police HQ passing by on my side, then followed the gentle right to Santa Fe, headed toward 38th, just outside the industrial sector. On Nico’s side we edged up on a neon jouster sitting high atop a pillar. As Lilith gurgled to a stop I hoped I had enough gas to roll out and find a station where I might scrounge the bread to get me to the Valley. But first, Nico had to be safe.

  I wasn’t going to drag her back to the nightmare she’d barely escaped. I’d find her demon-riddled friend, make my wage, and get back to my office and that Dubonnet on ice.

  We parked in front of the offices for Happy Knight Motel, a nice stucco number on the ground floor below the walk-up apartments. “Why are we here?” Her tone screamed “flight.”

  Damn it. She was worried I was some kinda Creepzilla, dragging her to motel for a bit of strange.

  “I want to get you somewhere safe where you can rest while I go to the studio.”

  “The sign under the knight says no vacancy.”

  “That means hardball. Sit tight.”

  She gripped the door handle. “I’m not staying here alone.”

  Juan’s gun show was still fresh off the griddle in her mind. “Absolutely. Just let me handle the talking, okay? This guy owes me a favor.”

  Happy Knight’s office smelled of bargain-basement cleaning products with exotic knockoff names like Mrs. Cleaner, Spac and Span, and Cometz, but the master odor that punctured all was a lime-scented aftershave. The desk was empty, but the ghostly tang of lime meant he was around. A black-and-white TV sat in the top left corner, sound off, image of some Dodger’s game rotating like a flipbook that might cause seizures. Nico stayed on my right, and I told her to keep writing things down as I rang the bell three times and kept my eye on the door on the right.

  “Hot dog, we have a wiener!” came a voice only a mother could stand. The door opened and out popped Morris. Buried within that six-foot-three, three-hundred-pound frame was a former bodybuilder and Mr. America contestant, all muscle and vein and hard curves. But that was before a Chinese soldier had chewed his leg apart with a burp gun stolen from Morris’s own regiment during the Chosin Reservoir retreat in Korea, leaving his leg behind, an abandoned popsicle in weather so cold even God would have worn a blanket. Coming home, the muscles soon met their end against an avalanche of beer, TV dinners, and Skippy peanut butter.

  Before us now, Morris was still gigantic in a sweat-stained, short-sleeved, blue-and-red-striped dress shirt that would have given a test pattern a headache. But his build was akin to garbage bags filled with used clothes. Given his swagger you’d hardly believe he was swinging a wooden leg. His hair was slicked back with an ocean of Vitalis, and was as full and luxurious as mine. “Well, look what the dog dragged in.”

  “Good to see you, Big Man Morris,” I said.

  “Damn right, Private Brimstone. And I’ll thank you to call me sir.”

  Nico glared at me.

  “We spent some time together in Korea.”

  “Ha!” Morris said, slapping the desk hard enough to ring the bell without touching it. “I barely saw this cat in Korea. Damn near disappeared into the night half the time when you said his name. You Scout Rats were might as well have been made of smoke.” He smiled and the halitosis coming off of his rotting gums was almost strong enough to burn my eyebrows. “Now how did you to young lovers meet?”

  Nico cringed, stopped writing on her pad.

  “I’m working a case, Morris. My client needs a room.”

  That closed his rotting mouth. “Wait a minute. The guy who stole more weapons from the Chinks and Koreans than anyone else was given a PI license? Tell me, Private, did you fill out the forms under your own name, or John E. Public?”

  “Thank God for correspondence courses,” I said, then took out my provisional license from the great State of California. “Just graduated.”

  Morris raised his giant hands in mock submission. “Say no more, Detective Brimstone.”

  “I’m not with the police, Morris.”

  “Some things never change.”

  Before the world filled with a thousand and one awful army stories, I said, clear and strong, “Morris, we need a room.”

  “Hate to tell you, but my sign works and doesn’t lie.” He draped his hand over the empty key hooks. “As you can see, Detective, nothing up my sleeve.”

  I smiled. “Special occasion, Morris. I just need a room for the night. And not for your usual needs. I’d appreciate it if the dirty jokes were kept to a minimum in front of my client. She’s had a rough day.”

  Morris’s wide face crooked at the hooded Nico, and his jowls went pure hangdog. “I do apologies, ma’am. I did not mean to suggest anything dirty.” Then his glare focused on me. “But unless you have a serious deposit, I’m afraid I can’t—”

  I had half a mind to knock him on his ass, considering I’d dragged his million-dollar physique out of the line of fire that tore off his leg, had come back that night to kill the Chinese soldier who’d removed said appendage and get back our guns on a day colder than hell’s heart . . .

  Nico dropped her hood and I tried not to move my face.

  “Please, sir.” Her voice caressed the air like a rose petal. “The . . . person who did this is still out there. I just want to hide. Just for tonight. I promise to be gone in the morning.”

  Morris’s countenance froze.

  Morris, it seemed, couldn’t take the macabre. One look at Nico’s ruined visage and I bet he was back in the Casualty Clearing Station, hearing the screams of men with their organs slipping through their fingers, doctors stabbing morphine to silence the blind, crippled, and insane. Seeing the horror narrow his pupils, I bet to myself he was back in that room right now, strapped to a gurney, unable to run . . . and maybe that’s what triggered his five-thousand-calorie-a-day diet, to make it impossible for him to ever have his number called.

  Quicker than a hiccup, he yanked a key from his pocket. “Room 211. I use it in emergencies. Very basic. Please, take it.”

  I plucked it from fingers the size of Snickers bars. “You’re a good man, Morris. C’mon, Nico.”

  Outside the office, my feet dragged across the pavement. The day’s adrenaline was gone. And now fatigue punched my gut with a haymaker. Nico’s painted toes rushed up the steps and hung a right, going to the far end of the walkway. I followed with a dying light inside. Two life-and-death fights on a near empty stomach would do that. But there was also a hangnail of fear pulling me forward.

  Whatever aggravations I’d had today, from Alicia to Bee, Jonah to Juan to Morris, there was a fresh hell waiting for me when Nico told me everything about the snake in Maxine’s mouth.

  CHAPTER 8

  I WAS WORRIED WHAT MORRIS’ “SPECIAL” ROOM WOULD BE LIKE. I turned the key. When I hit the light, the worries vanished.

  No trash. No stink of day-old sex or thirty years of smoke imbedded in the walls. No taste of magic. Just a little mildew and lemon. Not one trace of lime stained the one-bedroom affair. Brown walls and a single bed with a worn but thick comforter. A pillow was tucked next to the coin accepter for “Magic Fingers,” which was also the nickname of a guy with the circus that I’d rather forget.
Considering my day, this was the Hotel Shangri La.

  Brown drapes thick as my fingers shielded us from the later afternoon sun and I almost didn’t want to look at my watch to know how late it was, because no matter the time it was going to be a late night echo. But I stretched my right arm to pull back my sleeves. The cheap Hong Kong knockoff Montine wristwatch appeared, silent as the hand ticked towards 5:09.

  “Okay, Nico, let’s see the details on the snake.”

  She sat on the bed, back to me, ass barely making a crease on the sheets. Hood still down, she held out the pad to no one in particular. I grabbed it while walking to the tiny orange plastic chair with the tiny wooden desk built for stray Munchkins writing the Wizard of Oz. I didn’t want to know where Morris stole this hodgepodge lodge material, but I had a sneaky feeling a Sunday school was missing some of its furniture. When I turned, she’d dropped the hood. Her scared face rested in shadow.

  “What sticks out most?” I said, voice clear and strong. Fawning and softness would eat up time we didn’t have. Dawn was broke, daylight was bleeding, and a girl with a snake in her mouth was loose.

  Nico’s golden hair sucked in what little light dropped from the exposed 40-watt bulb. “Everything seemed so blurry.”

  I nodded, but that was strange. Trauma is many things. Blurry?

  I flipped through the pages. Nico’s handwriting was uniform, sharp, and clear: the product of finishing school, private lessons, or a privileged public school. Each word was centered, small letters, and dark ink. Perfectionist, strong emotion, but controlled. Someone had trained her hard and well to write this nice.

  A handful of words worried me: a python, hissed like gas, smelled like dirty ashtray, air tasted foul, fangs like . . .”You say here that the fangs were like iron.”

  She blinked, put me in focus, and it was hard to see her scars. “It smelled like iron.”

  I gave a reassuring nod, though she seemed now far less the frightened girl at my door than a troubled girl thinking her way out of a crisis. Flipping through the book, I held my poker face while my mind back-flipped . . . iron serpents . . . ashes . . . gas . . . a demon snake anchored to a human host was bad enough, but serpents weren’t that . . . modern. Abyzou was as old as the Jews, but fed on the misery of women . . . but asking Nico if she was a few trimesters short of a baby didn’t seem kosher. This sucker was also clearly a serpent with a mouth and teeth, and not a tentacle, so I could cross a gaggle of Eldritch nightmares off of my list. And that only made things worse.

  The attributes were modern, industrial: gas, ash, iron. Heaven help us if Union-Carbide had a new dark arts division.

  Damn it. I’d need to consult my goddamn library, which was trapped behind a goddamn padlock, furious goddamn Jonah, and goddamn Bee —

  Nicos’ doe eyes flashed hopelessness dead center at my face.

  “You okay?”

  “I just . . . I feel useless. This sounds so stupid, especially as a modern woman, but I used . . . I was good at . . .”

  “Getting men to notice and do what you want?”

  The slightest of smiles peeked from her lips.

  “And you still were. Morris isn’t easy to sway. He’s so cheap he’d sell you a cigarette he was about to crush out. Nice work.”

  “Guess I’m picking some things up from you.”

  I smiled. “You’re a quick study, that’s for sure.” Then I flashed the book. “This wasn’t easy, either. Thank you.”

  She looked at the slender hand that braced her on the bed. “Those were the details that I could pull out. Talking about it seems harder.”

  “And they’re pointing me in the right direction.”

  “What direction is that? Toward Maxine?” Her little fists curled the bed sheet.

  “Not so fast. Finding a girl with a snake in her mouth will likely be easier than finding how to help her. If she’s going to have any chance of living through what’s been done to her, I need to prepare some materials to get the snake out of the lady.”

  “So there really is one in her?” She crossed her thin legs on the bed, then hugged her knees in some hippie variation of the fetal position.

  “You’re surprised that I believe you?”

  “I hoped, maybe, that it was all a nightmare. Maybe you’d say it was a dream and I’d wake up. It’s so bizarre. How does a woman get a snake inside her?”

  “She doesn’t.” Nico’s eyes held me. “Someone puts it in her.”

  Her voice softened. “How?”

  Nico’s adrenal glands were spent, fatigue stamped her face, and I had no idea what she was like on a good day. But the softness of her voice was . . . unnerving. So delicate. Vulnerable.

  “It ain’t easy,” I said, shifting in the Munchkin throne. “So I want you to tell me who else was on set. Anyone who might have had it out for you.”

  “You don’t think Maxine is to blame?”

  “I don’t think anything, other than someone is tinkering with some pretty powerful stuff, and if I’m going to help Maxine, I better know who I’m up against.”

  Nico tapped her thin, manicured fingers as she listed people involved in the “art” film, while I got a handful of tissues and tried to clean the dirt off every spot of my shoes, shirt, and lapels.

  She’d mentioned Octavia Bliss, the producer and director of Nero Studios, so there was a clear Roman fetish in the house. That could mean dabbling in the old snake Cult of Glycon, the one Lucian had proclaimed was a hoax, but those rigged religions had made Alexander of Abonoteichus a pantload of cash . . . and they had never been revived outside of a crackpot magician in Northampton who, thankfully, was mostly harmless.

  Then there was Fulton, the insane director who’d been at Tet. But outside of mutton chop side burns and two fists that were perennially clenched, Fulton remained a violent enigma in this puzzle.

  Nico also told me of Shane Wyndham, Maxine’s boyfriend who was on set, which made him the kind of boyfriend nicknamed a suitcase pimp, dragging his lady’s heels, lipstick, and hairspray to and from sets, ordering her around, and making sure she gets paid. Nico swore he was a real nice guy, and I nodded, knowing he was a particular kind of shithook who preys on women, promises them stardom, and uses them until beauty or body runs out, then dumps them at the Greyhound Station at 7th and Santa Fe. Then he picks up the next star-eyed gal lost in LA, promising she’ll just need to do a few blue pictures to get experience and then, by God, MGM and Warner Brothers would be knocking down her door to be the next Twiggy or Mia Farrow. And she, starved of self-confidence on a diet of self-hate that men manipulated like clay, would be clay for each bastard Pygmalion.

  But the strangest duck that Niko described was the screenwriter, TV Smite, who Nico said was four feet and not an inch taller. A bald dwarf, with big glasses, who chain-smoked unfiltered Camels and seemed to hate everyone on set except Octavia, who had hired him because he’d written a dirty book series she’d liked, all set in Rome. “Do you think he’s to blame?” Nico asked. The hope in her tone had a flicker of malice. Beautiful women often dislike the imps and ugs of this world. Guess I’d hoped too much that her beauty wasn’t just skin deep.

  I scrunched up the soggy paper towel and launched it at a wastebasket. It ricocheted between the wall and the lip of the basket and tipped the damn thing over. I sighed. “I try not to judge people on their appearances.”

  “But he’s a little creep.”

  “How was TV creepy?”

  “He grunted at everyone. He hated the movie. He said Fulton had ruined his script.”

  I supposed even a skin flick world had its share of angry artists with pure visions that get trampled on by commerce. He must be from out of town, because that’s just how LA works. “I grunt. Ares grunts. Dogs grunt. That doesn’t make him a creep.” So far, the midget was only a suspect due to his hating the film, so maybe he tapped a dark root to ruin it. The handful of writers I’d know took so much pride in their research you’d think they had a PhD in boring facts. Ma
ybe TV knew more about Rome and magic and chose to pull a Phantom of the Blue Film and ruin the stars for shitting on his play. But I kept speculations in my head. No need to feed Nico’s knee-jerk ideas and give them credence. “That’s hardly a reason to saddle someone with demon possession.”

  “But he loved that stuff on set.”

  “What stuff?”

  “All the Greek and Roman symbols.”

  Worry bit my nerves. I handed back the bad, and the stationary pen on the desk “Show me what they looked like?”

  Her hands slammed down on the bed. “I can’t remember! I just see that snake!” Nico rolled on the bed, back to me, exposing the small of her back, golden tanned above and below the panty line. “You have to get that thing out of Maxine. Please. Oh God, she was the only nice person there. She worked so hard. Please, Mr. Brimstone, she’s out there, somewhere, and if Fulton gets her, or if that snake comes back—”

  Then she was gargling tears and I was staring at the magic fingers, wondering how rich the inventor must now be. She needed food, rest, quiet, and I needed to start putting together a means to protect myself as I prepared to hunt down a woman possessed by some kind of snake demon raised by someone in a skin flick, likely to ruin Nico’s star-bound face.

  I walked around the bed, kneeled, and looked. Tears pursed out of her shut eyes. Her breath was hitched. “I’m going to hunt for Maxine. I’ll call you every two hours. Don’t open that door for maid service, Morris, or the girl scouts. No one knows you’re here. No one followed us. You’re safe. Grab a shower and rest. I’ll be back soon.”

  She sat up. “Don’t leave. Don’t leave me.”

  I stood. “You need rest.”

  Her eyes pleaded. “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  And then, my head kept screaming What are you going to tell her, Jimmy? That you’re going to crash course your research into this snake and try and find the means to protect yourself because there’s a real foul taste in your mouth when you think of someone “updating” demon casting, a level of magic that is way above your pay grade, and there’s no one in the magic community willing to help because no doubt word of your awful cemetery performance and general idiocy have made you persona non grata with the big leagues and now you’re living with your choice as a grown-ass man in a prom suit covered in grave dirt, facing the unknown with no money, no resources, and no help except for a scarred girl who rolls into baby states when the horror swells, like she’s seen the face of an Ancient One.