Ilona Andrews - Hex Appeal

He dropped my hand as if it had caught fire, then he stood up and paced away—just a few steps, but enough to put a world of distance between us. “Somebody brought her back,” he said. “One of us. Even if the witch didn’t know what would happen up front, it was damn clear once it got started.”

“Someone got paid to participate,” I agreed. “To hold that soul there while he did it. Why else would a witch let that happen?”

“Unless the witch is the killer.”

That was disturbing. Really disturbing. I didn’t honestly want to think that far … bad enough someone would have taken money and stood by while something like that was done, but I just didn’t want to believe in that next step. “It gets worse,” I said. “Somebody had to make the avatar.”

Andy slowly turned around. He leaned his back against the wall, folded his arms over his chest, and said, “So we’ll be on the hunt,” he said. “Ain’t no crime, is it? Killing a dead girl.”

“No, it’s not a crime, technically. Prieto can’t do much. So it’ll be up to us to make this right.”

“Let me make some calls,” he said.

“Andy. I want this one destroyed,” I said softly. “No prisoners.”

He didn’t look at me, and there was a tension in his body that wasn’t usual for him. “We find this resurrection witch, we burn him right down to the ground and piss on his ashes. I don’t hold with this. I don’t hold with it at all.” And from the unforgiving look on his face, I knew he meant every word. “And then we find this killing son of a bitch and do him hard.”

I noticed, although I wasn’t sure why, that he hadn’t mentioned the witch who created the shell.

Not at all.

I slipped into the kitchen chair across from Andy as he studied a black notebook—his own contacts, written in some strange shorthand he’d used over a hundred years ago. He’d donned a pair of reading glasses that he’d found lying around. They were hot pink, with little fake diamonds sparkling in the corners. It woke a wan spark of amusement in me. As with the apron, it took a real man to wear those and not look uncomfortable.

“You’re calling your people?” I asked. He stretched, and one of the pearl snap buttons on his shirt popped loose, revealing a well-defined but scarred chest.

“Yeah, I thought I’d best. I made some these last few months that probably ain’t in your formal books.” I could believe that; Andy seemed to slide into the underbelly of our witch-world with alarming ease. He’d probably made friends with shady characters who’d never even think of talking to me—or that I’d dare call up, either. “You want to make your own calls down here?”

“Best if we don’t distract each other,” I said. “I’m going to use a falsehood potion. You want some?”

“Day I can’t tell if one of these bottom-feeders is lying to me is the day you ought to put me back in the ground,” he said. “No thanks.”

He sounded all business. There was a dark, angry edge to him that made me feel … oddly excluded.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll stay out of your way. Give me five minutes for the potion.”

While the potion brewed, I pondered my approach. It was a delicate business; witches were licensed by the state, but we were also secretive and protective of each other because in many places, there had been trouble: cross burnings on lawns, arson, beatings. We weren’t a friendly, close-connected bunch. I’d have to work hard to get to those who might have information to share.

Andy was silent, flipping through his book. I kissed his cheek as I filled up my teacup with the potion, and he nodded in distraction. I walked toward the stairs.

“Holly Anne,” he said. I glanced back. “I’m sorry. This got to me pretty hard.”

“Me too,” I said. “No apology necessary. I’ll see you in a bit.”

I sat at my desk and sipped potion for about ten minutes; it wasn’t unpleasant, sort of like a milky version of chamomile tea. The magic would give me an unmistakable signal if someone lied to me … and I had every expectation that someone would.

I made thirty calls in an hour and got two vague falsehoods out of it; they were probably nothing, but I made notes by the names anyway. My circle of contacts included resurrection and potion witches, but the witches who made the avatars … the bodies that we poured life back into … they were a different story altogether. Very hard to find. There were three listed contacts in the state for those with that particular skill set, available only through the witches’ network; I spoke with all of them and hit a brick wall. Two hung up on me without speaking.

“I’m so sorry,” said the last one—no name, but a brisk female voice that sounded grandmotherly, with a hint of Eastern Europe in her accent. “Client requests are confidential. You understand how this must be.”

“It’s possible that avatar are being used for … criminal reasons,” I said. “You don’t want that kind of attention, trust me.”

“No, we definitely do not. But the fact remains, if one of our technicians created the body you’re speaking of, what was made of it later has nothing to do with us. We do not restore life. We only create flesh.”

“I know,” I said. “But I also know that sometimes the bodies you create go for … other purposes.”

“What other purposes?” She sounded scornful, but already, the lie-detector potion was tingling its warning message over my skin. “I do not know of these.”

“Oh, come on. It’s common knowledge in the trade that some of the less scrupulous witches create bodies for use by, uh, men with unusual appetites. Or for medical use. Right?”

“Rumors. Nothing more.”

“Well, this goes far beyond that,” I said. “This is a body being used to house a restored spirit. One who was murdered. One who was murdered again, made to feel the same horror and torture again. And this time, she would have known it was coming. Can you even imagine that?”

She was silent for a long, long moment. “That is a great sin. A great betrayal.”

“Yes. Yes, it is. I need your help, ma’am. I need to find out who hired this body to be made. He’s probably asking for others, too. They’ll face the same fate unless we can stop him.”

She hesitated, then said, “There are other kinds of justice. Older kinds.”

“Yes, ma’am. And we’re going to do that, but I need a lead. Something. Anything. ”

She fell silent. I listened to her breathe, and waited, biting my tongue because I wanted to sell her harder but knowing that it was the wrong move. She’d do it, or she wouldn’t. I couldn’t force it.

“I will think on this,” she said. “Perhaps you will receive a call back, but it won’t be from me.” She hung up with a soft click, and I stared at the phone for a moment. I didn’t have any contact information for her, not even a place to start; the number she was using went through a privacy exchange, and that would take a lot more firepower to crack than I could bring to bear.

With nothing left to do, I carried my empty teacup downstairs and rinsed it out in the sink. Andy had left a half-full cup of coffee there on the counter, and most of a sandwich, but there was no sign of him. Even his notebook was gone. I called his name, but got no reply.

And then I saw the note on the table. Gone to check a lead, it said, in his careful, flowing script, the kind nobody really teaches kids anymore. Keep the doors locked tonight. Be back in the morning.

I would have expected him to actually tell me this since I was upstairs, but then again, I’d had the door shut, and he’d have known that getting distracted when using a lie-detecting potion is bad. Well, at least he’d left me a note.