Hexed

it on his face.

The water poured. Come on, come on . . .

Jim coughed and shook himself.

I dropped the can and grabbed his shoulders. “Wake up!”

Dark eyes looked at me. “I’m awake.”

“Don’t fall asleep! Don’t fall asleep, you hear?”

He growled and pushed off the ground. “I’m okay.”

No, he wasn’t okay. We were in trouble. We were really, really in trouble. I paced back and forth. My heart was beating so fast it felt about to explode. Something was wrong with my Jim and if I didn’t fix it now, he would end up like Roger, a dry cadaver full of nasty magic.

“Calm down,” Jim said.

“I am calm! Get in the car.” Emergencies called for desperate measures.

He got in. I flopped into the driver’s seat and chanted the engine into life, watching him like a hawk. He stayed awake. I dropped the parking brake and gunned it out of the parking lot. “Roll the window down,” I yelled over the roar of the engine. “You need wind on your face.”

“Where are we going?” he roared back.

“To see my mother!”

* * *

MY MOTHER LIVED in a small cluster of apartment buildings in Riverdale. It took me more than an hour to drive over there through the crumbling city, and the entire time I watched Jim out of the corner of my eye. I punched him in the arm a few times to make sure he stayed awake. After the first eight times he told me to quit it.

I maneuvered down the smallish road and into the horseshoe formed by the squat two-story townhomes and parked in front of my mother’s house. The pale blue light of her fey lantern filtered through the window. I climbed out. Jim already waited by the door, surveying the houses.

“Why are those three buildings facing to the left?”

“Because this is an Indonesian community, mostly older people who practice magic. They’re more superstitious than usual. It’s bad luck to build a house facing north. Some people believe it will make you poor. The subdivision street was already laid out when people moved in, so those three families chose to build their houses facing east.”

“Aha.”

“It’s bad luck to build a house facing a field, it’s bad luck to have the kitchen face the front door, and it’s bad luck to build a fence taller than six feet. This is just the way things are, Jim. Just go along with it.”

“Your fence is taller than six feet.”

I turned to him as I walked. “I didn’t say they were my superstitions. But they’re important to my mother.”

We headed to the door. The familiar scents washed over me: rice, onion, chili peppers, cumin, coriander. Mom was cooking nasi goreng, fried rice. I was home.

Help me.

Jim sampled the wind. “It’s past one. Does your mother usually cook after midnight?”

“No, it’s special for me. She sensed us coming.”

I raised my hand to knock on the door. Before my knuckles touched the wood, it flew open and my mother clamped me in a hug. Looking at her you could tell exactly how I would look in thirty years or so: tiny, skinny, dark, quick to move.

“Why are you so dirty?” My mother pulled a cobweb out of my hair. “What is happened? Come inside. Who is this man?”

Here we go. I took a deep breath and walked in. “This is Jim.”

Jim stepped inside.

My mother shut the door and peered at him. “He is dark. Very, very dark.”

Jim grinned, showing a tiny edge of his teeth.

I felt like slapping myself. “Mother!”

“What is it you do?” She leaned over to Jim. Her accent was getting thicker. “Do you have money?”

“He is my alpha. He’s in charge of the whole Cat clan. Very important.”

My mother’s eyes sparked. Oh no.

She leaned over and patted Jim’s hand. “That is so nice. My daughter is so smart. Always respectful and well behaved. Never any trouble and she does as she is told.”

“You don’t say,” Jim murmured.

“Doesn’t spend a lot of money. Two doctor degrees. Little problem with her eyes, but that’s her father’s side of the family. Very rare magic, a white tiger. One in seven generation. Very special. She can cure evil eye with a touch. And if you had your house cursed, she can purify it for you. Everyone respects my daughter. All our people know her.”

Jim nodded to her with a solemn look. My stomach lurched. I felt like throwing up. “Mother . . .”

She nodded to Jim, as if sharing a grave secret. “And she’s a good cook, too.”

Jim leaned a little toward her, his face deadly serious. “I’m sure she is.”

My mother smiled, as if he’d given her a diamond. “Best match. Of all the girls, mine is best match.”

Aaaaa! “Mother! There is something wrong with him. He’s magic-sick.”

My mother stood up on her toes and peered at Jim’s eyes. For a long moment they were eye to eye, my short mother and tall, muscular Jim, and then she switched to Indonesian.

“Let him go.”

“No.” I shook my head.

“He is strong. Very good in the body. But you must find another one.”

“I don’t want another one! I want him.”

“He’s dying.”

“I have to save him. Please help me. Please.”

My mother bit her lip and pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

Jim sat. She leaned over and pulled his right eye open with her fingers, examining the iris. “Something is eating his soul.”

“I figured that out. But I can’t see it.”

Mother sighed. “I can’t see it either. Until we see it, we can’t do anything about it. We need Keong Emas.”

The Golden Snail. My heart dropped. My legs gave out and I landed on the couch. The only place we could get a golden snail would be in Underground Atlanta. It used to be a shopping district in Five Points, where all the big buildings stood before the Shift. The Underground started out as a big train depot in the mid-1800s with shops, banks, and even saloons, but eventually the city had to build viaducts over the railroad tracks for the car traffic. The viaducts ran together until a good portion of the train tracks, the shops, and the depot were underground. Before the Shift, it used to be full of little bars and shops. Once the magic hit, the shop owners fled and the black market moved in. The mob-sponsored traders had burrowed deep, cutting tunnels running from their shops right into the ruined Five Points and Unicorn Lane, where the magic ran wild and no sane cop would follow them. Now the Underground was a place where you could buy anything if you were desperate enough.

“Is there any other way?”

My mother shook her head. “Don’t even think about it. You can’t go to the Underground.”

I exhaled, blinking. “We don’t have any choice.”

My mother made a short cutting motion with her hand. “No!”

“Yes. We need to buy the snail.”

My mother drew herself to her full height. I stood up and did the same.

“No, and that’s final.”

“You can’t keep me from doing it.”

“I am your mother!”