Hex-Rated

by Jason Ridler

  Lighting struck Tabitha before thunder crackled. The heat wave and sparks sent a shockwave across the crowd and yanked me so hard the rope started to fray. I pulled until bone touched rope.

  Tabitha threw down the burning book at Maxine’s feet. “Come! Now!”

  My arms snapped down, free at last, as Maxine screamed to the skies. From her mouth shot out a crimson baseball mitt, or so it seemed . . . something that could not be regurgitated and yet was forcing its way out.

  The air was fetid with flecks of misery and pain. The creature was red and black, the color of fresh blood and twilight, and grew as its body voided from her mouth, vomiting a demon too big for its incubator. My fingers tore at the rope around my legs as the creature craned in the air, hovering before Tabitha. Its eyes were brackish and brown and full of tendrils that swam in the air like cancerous tumors hunting for a fresh host. The mouth opened. Razor-sharp teeth better fit in a great white shark lined the mouth, and then came the tongue . . . a smaller version of the demon snake, thick as a horse cock and staring Tabitha in the face.

  “You lashed out at me out of hunger and fear,” she said. “I forgive you. Now go and eat your fill, and in return, you will give me your eyes!”

  She pointed at me, just as the last strand of rope flung off my ankles. “No!” she said. Someone, get hold of him!”

  I dropped the ground, spread my legs wide, wondering how on earth you fought a crowd of slave-minded porn actors and a demon snake from the Axis. Fulton lurched forward, but was shoved aside by a punch to the knee. “Dis bastid is mine.”

  “Hold him, you miserable dwarf!” she said as TV sprang at me like cannon fire. He cracked against my chest and the wet ground slipped beside me. He dropped a hammer-fist next to my head instead of on top, his hand going five inches deep.

  “Play along, idjit,” he grunted low, then winked at the anting-anting that was under his shirt, covered in puffs of smoke. “Or we’re both dead.” TV smacked me hard enough that it was echoing across the wind, but not as hard as it sounded. I feigned being knocked out.

  TV tore my neck from the ground so that I was sitting up, brought my arms back, then took the anting-anting off his arm and wrapped it loose around my hands. “He’s tame,” he grunted.

  “Stand him up,” Tabitha said. “And back away. I would hate for my pet to eat a munchkin by accident.”

  TV muttered to himself, then mumbled, “Make it count, yewz bastid.”

  The demon slithered through the air as if swimming, half of its body zigzagging from Maxine’s gaping mouth.

  I had one shot. If the creature was still in Maxine when I used the charm, it would kill them both. I had to get its body all the way out . . . and because I am a rough and tumble carney kid at heart, there was just one way.

  The demonhead crawled through the air until it was before me, pulsating tubular eye-strands a horror that ate my courage until all that was left was instinct, courage, and a gentleman’s agreement to save a girl in trouble.

  “Howdy,” I said. And the creature recoiled the slightest, as if sensing something was off. “Wanna dance?”

  Its mouth cracked open wide. Hell awaited in that gullet as it darted. I side stepped its dagger strike to my head. It tasted the earth for a hot second, and I dove onto its back and held on for dear life while my arms tried to strangle a demon snake from hell.

  “No!” Tabitha screamed. “Let go! You’re ruining it! You’re ruining it! Someone, get him off!”

  The crowd circled the demon that bronco’d me around They were knocked back on their asses like tenpins as it thrashed like a scythe. Bodies flew into the gladiatorial pit as the snake squealed. Fulton got in one punch before the wiggling beast crashed me into him, shooting the soldier over the pit and into the camera.

  Tabitha’s voice was a siren of hate. “No! You can’t do this!”

  I held and squeezed as the creature tried to pull me off. We drove further from Maxine, swimming the night air. It was trying to run away, because there was no turning back. I was pleased with myself until it began to whip its head against the ground, rolling in the mud to scrape me off. Blood filled my wounds, then mouth, but I held on. For Maxine. For myself. And to make sure Tabitha’s nightmare never came true.

  “Drown him, my beast! Drown him in mud!” The creature flung itself on its back and hammered me into muddy ground. The weight on my chest was crushing. Breath cracked out of my lungs, but I couldn’t draw another.

  Black flies swarmed my eyes. My spine felt feathery. My iron grip was starting to weaken. Mud stained every gulp of air. Poisons filled my blood. Sepsis. Infections. Sickness. Death.

  The creature yanked itself into the air and my grip slipped. I clasped the rope of the anting-anting but it wasn’t enough.

  My back hit the ground. The demon serpent reared. Death was knocking. I blinked away the blood and agony as lightning flashed. Upon the pole I saw Maxine gasp a gurgle of blood as the tail of the creature emerged.

  She was free.

  “Kill him!”

  The deathhead of the demon unhinged hits jaws, and the snake tongue inside did the same.

  “Now!”

  It descended in a wordless scream.

  Tears flushed my eyes as my right hand’s bloody, raw fingers tore themselves from the mud sucking ground and launched the anting-anting into the beast’s maw. The eye tendrils buzzed like hornets in all directions, as if it sensed what magic was heading its way, but the mouth snapped shut out of reflex, cutting the air before my fingers. It swallowed the anting-anting. A charm against harm in the belly of a monster.

  The demon went shook as my lungs came back to life, smacking mud over me as it crashed to the ground. It writhed, shimmied, and jived to make itself free from the charm burning havoc in its guts.

  I dragged myself back as head moved like a clothesline and cut down all that were standing, shoving them into the gladiatorial pit. Whipping back, it twisted until it was on its back.

  “You can’t die! Not now!” Tabitha’s face was manic as she launched off Octavia’s back and ran toward her beast. “You are mine! You must do as I say! Kill what’s killing you!” She pointed at me. “Kill him!”

  The words wrenched the demon to right itself. Gasping just out of its reach, I had no plan B. If it wanted a piece, it would have it.

  The snake head reared up, three stories tall, then arched its spine and descended behind itself. It wasn’t heading for me. It headed for its tail. The damn thing was going to eat itself.

  “I command you!” Tabitha said, pointing at the sky. “Stop!”

  It dove to earth and bit its tail, spinning mud as it charged into itself, turning and twisting and consuming.

  “Stop!”

  The beast tried to eat what was killing it and spun itself further and further, the circle of consumption getting smaller and smaller, until the heat crept upon its own neck, and it was a whirling dervish of tendrils and fang—

  And then it was gone.

  Gasping, I pushed my body out of the mud’s pull, and across the field of battle there stood one soul . . . the most beautiful creature I’ve ever known, face a blanched wound of shock and horror.

  My pistol was in Tabitha’s right hand.

  CHAPTER 40

  “STAY DOWN,” SHE SAID, LIFTING THE HAND-CANNON. “YOU’LL BE back in the earth soon enough.”

  At the lip of the pit, TV’s hands gripped a cable plugged into a knocked-over TV camera that weighed as much as a Rolls. If he was my ally, I had to keep alive. For just a bit longer. “Then get it over with.” I said.

  That shocked her, almost as much as me.

  “You dare speak to me—”

  “Oh, I dare. I dare to tell you to shut up and do it already. I’m tired of your shit, Nico, Tabitha, whoever the hell you are. I’m tired, and I don’t care. Plug me if you’ve got the guts. But just remember that I won.”

  She seethed. “You won nothing.”

  “The hell I didn’t.” I smiled. �
��How much blood and treasure did you spill for this hokey show? Seducing the porn people, getting them to be your slaves to your siren charms . . . and you failed. You failed twice. You got scared, then you got beat. No wonder Edgar tossed you aside.” TV was slithering across the ground with an awkward grace, until he was behind her.

  She raised the gun. “Shut up! You know nothing about my father.”

  “I know he didn’t mention you once in thirty years. What were you doing, Tabs? Selling Avon door to door?”

  TV crept behind her. Perfect spot to kick out her knees. “You’re a dead man, Brimstone.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  TV charged, but there was nothing to grab. Tabitha sidestepped his approach. TV hit the ground with his guts and then she lowered the gun.

  “NO!” I said, springing to my feet and against the rivers of pain through my body.

  The shot was a sonic mule kick to my body, sharper than lightning. A black hole bloomed in TV’s back. The little man had saved us all, and now he was dead, facedown in the mud. Tabitha’s glee was manic in her beautiful smile. “A hack writer, a hack thrall, and a hack Judas.” She leveled her eyes at me, smile big and bright. “And so too goes the prodigal son.”

  I ran. Toward Tabitha. Anger flushed my mind red. Three words chugging through my rage like pistons of a hot rod about to crash at Mach speed.

  Glee gripped her face as she pulled the trigger.

  Tyger, Tyger, burning bright.

  The blast was slow, the flash like a candle being lit and then blown out with a kiss. Blood ran through all of my wounds and I felt every single one like gaping bird mouths in need of food and closure.

  Tyger, Tyger, burning bright.

  The first bullet passed by my thigh, and I was grateful for her bad aim as I slipped into Joyride mode . . .

  . . . Blood ran down my nose as fast as spilled milk over a table’s edge. Another blast, and the bullet came like a fastball for my gut. I twisted out of the way as another shot fired and I gritted against the pain I had to move out of the way . . . until what mojo I had for the Joyride drained . . . the real world rushed back, and the shock on Tabitha’s face grew. All I had left was anger at her pretty, evil face.

  “Tyger, Tyger, burning bright!”

  A fifth bullet blasted toward my chest. No way to dodge, so I thrust out my hands, trying to catch a burning piece of metal like a firefly.

  Sizzling agony ate my palms as if holding a coal from hell, but I cupped the bullet, hands stretching outward, as I tried something no magician had ever done. I pivoted on one foot, spun on my heel, and swung the damn bullet like a shot from a sling.

  It tore itself from my hands as I slipped out of my Joyride and collapsed to my knees while Tabitha prepared her next shot. The bullet tore through the air as she aimed again. It crashed into her skull so hard it knocked her back and the piece flew from her tiny hand.

  My hands hit the ground a second before Tabitha tripped over TV.

  Shaking on all fours like a beaten mutt, I tore my hands from the ground and looked at my palms. Bloody pulp looked back, like a poor man’s stigmata. On willpower alone, I rose.

  I was the only critter on two feet that wasn’t tied to a stake. I shambled over to Tabitha and pulled her off TV. Black blood leaked out of his chest like a Texas oil strike. “Why?” I said. “Why . . . help me?”

  He coughed ink across his broad chest. “Youz . . . helped me be free. In any world, dat’s a debt to be repaid before da light’s go dark. Ain’t no such thing as a free . . .” he grimaced, then smiled. “See ya around, bastid.”

  TV went silent.

  Slowly, I crept toward the staked woman, Maxine. She was awake, gasping, blood dribbling from her lips thanks to the expulsion of a demon seed. “Who . . .” she said. “Who are you?”

  I bowed and my eyes swam with darkness. “James Brimstone,” I stammered. “Private Investigator. I’ll have you cut down in a jiffy. Just need to not . . . black . . . out.”

  I fell back into gravity’s embrace, but was caught.

  I looked up into a one-eyed face. “Ffffulton,” I mumbled. I tossed a weak red punch that failed to connect before I said “pow.” Then all the lights went out on set.

  CHAPTER 41

  I WOKE IN A BATHROOM, STILL DRESSED IN TATTERED AND MUDDY gladiator clothes, with Fulton barking orders to people coming in and out of the bathroom and waving smelling salts under my nose. “Yeah, he’s awake, but we all have jobs to do. Now scat before I lose my shit.”

  My hands had been wrapped in gauze; wrists, too. The white bandages had dark centers, most of my leaking cuts were covered with a band aid, and my head and guts were filled with a million tiny sacks of pain . . . but I was alive. At Fulton’s knee was an Army med kit, complete with vials of morphine and penicillin. “Welcome back, asshole.”

  “Thanks for . . . bringing me back.”

  He nodded. “Thanks for waking me up.”

  “You mean you’re not mad about . . .”

  “I’m mad about being drafted, and fighting a war we can’t win, and for being seduced by that woman into being a monster . . . and yeah, I’m holding back about ten days of beatings for what you did to me.” Hot red anger flushed his face, but he breathed out hard. “But not today. Because you broke whatever spell that had me . . .” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember all of what I did, but I’m sorry.”

  I lifted my hands. “I’d say we’re jake, Fulton.”

  He grinned. “You up for a visitor?”

  “Given the dope in my system, I could also slow dance if she’s pretty.”

  He snickered, stood, then left.

  Octavia walked in, her regal appearance in tatters, but the strength in her eyes present, if distant. “Mr. Brimstone.”

  “Call me James.”

  “James. I can’t say I . . . understand everything that just happened.” Which was probably for the best. “But you saved my family. That’s what Nero Pictures is. A family. With one very black sheep.”

  “More like a wolf, I’d say.”

  A practiced smile emerged. “Well said. I want you to know that we will take care of any fallout. The Los Angeles Police Department are good friends of ours, so I want you to know that there will be no . . . ripples of tonight’s events that will reach you. This is my responsibility. And I take that seriously.”

  I gave a big morphine smile. “Lovely. Thank you. I liked . . . meeting your family.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And they liked meeting you as well. But there’s one in particular that wanted a meeting. Come in,” she said to the open door.

  Red hair on a green dress made my blood sing even through the dope. Maxine strode in, face clean and pure, red hair hanging to one side, covering part of her face. Her thin fingers covered her bottom lip as she spoke. “How are you?”

  I took a long, dumb inhale. “Holes plugged, still breathing, I’d say that’s a glass half-full. More important, how are you?”

  Fingers tapped her lip. “Better, I think. It’s such a haze, so much of it dark. What she did to me, to us.” Her eyes squinted as fresh tears ran dawn a face that had already seen too much horror.

  I braced a wounded hand on the sink counter and stood, amazed that gravity didn’t drag me back to the cool floor. “And she can’t do it again. Any of it.”

  “I just feel so stupid, and weak.”

  “She had that effect on all of us. You hear me? Tabitha was . . . born to manipulate, to control, and she was very good at it. Even charmed me without having any charms . . .” I shook my head, talking too much about myself. “Don’t be hard on yourself. She promised you your dreams coming true, and made it look possible. People have fallen harder for much less.”

  “We spoke once,” she said, dreamily. “Though we hadn’t met, I think.”

  I nodded. “The soap box. Your image was on it, back in the laundry. Hell of a trick. Probably had something to do with Tabitha’s magic. She wanted . . . control of peop
le through images. And that box is as popular as beans at a hobo camp. And, Maxine, you’re one hell of an image.”

  “We shared something. Like being in the same dream. I was drugged, trapped, but I could . . . taste something warm, a presence that was coming to me”

  Even though she was talking New Age mumbo jumbo, I smiled. “Few people reach out to each other like that, through an image to a . . . presence.

  Her lips were very wet. “I could sense something beautiful and strong.”

  I shrugged. “Must be my aftershave. Just promise me, if you ever use soap box magic to contact me again, don’t do it while I’m getting groceries? I’m libel to have a heartache in the detergent aisle.”

  My clever banter was killed by a hug that made every wound pucker, but I let her shake me like a willow, head buried in my chest as she cried “thank you” and “sorry” and more. She pulled herself back, looking up to my eyes. “Is there anything I can do to repay you?” She bit her bottom lip. “Anything.”

  There wasn’t enough dope to keep me from wanting her—

  Then, the rest of my life crashed like angry waves against my skull. I had rent. I had a car with no windshield that I had to drive home. It would have been so easy to slip into the fantasy world of Nero Mansion, but it would stop the onslaught of realities that awaited me. “There is, actually.”

  We kissed, I made a request, and the rest was bliss that vanished as soon as it began.

  Ten minutes later, I was dressed in my ratty blue suit that smelled like a homeless graveyard burning with dry sweat. I made dopey goodbyes to everyone. Terra seemed the saddest to see me go, though Rachel and Haley were a close second. The door closed behind me as I walked into the moonlit street toward Lilith.

  I sat, keys in my hand, then froze. A shadow breathed in the back seat.

  “James, you look awful.”

  In the rear view mirror, arched eyebrows glared back. What was left of my courage died.