Kevin Hearne - Hexed

“It should be here,” Malina said tensely. “The last person to visit this floor was the officer who informed us of Waclawa’s death.” She pointed to the labeled jar next to the empty one. Inside was a lock of sandy hair, and emblazoned on the label in purple ink was the name of Kyle Geffert. “Your hair should have been deposited in this empty bottle here,” she said, then looked up to the air vent through which her air-conditioning was softly blowing. Presumably any hair collected from visitors in the hallway got routed through the ductwork to land in the empty bottles, but nary a red hair from my head was to be found in any of them.

“What in the name of Zorya Utrennyaya is going on?” Malina scolded the bottle as if it would answer her, and I fought to keep a smile off my face.

Ha-ha. My personal binding was stronger than her enchantment. Neener neener, Malina. You can’t catch me.

Washing a filthy Irish wolfhound is entirely unlike washing a Chihuahua. It takes three or four buckets of water just to get the wolfhound thoroughly wet, for example, while one bucket will most likely drown the Chihuahua.

I have discovered over the years that if I wish to remain fairly dry through the process, I must distract Oberon from the tickling of bubbles and soap with a really good story, or else he will shake himself mightily and spray water and foam on every wall of my bathroom. Bath time is therefore story time in my house, and Oberon enjoys getting cleaned up as a result.

What I enjoy is Oberon’s obsession with the story until the next one gets told. He’d been vicariously living out the life of Genghis Khan for the past three weeks, constantly badgering me to muster the hordes on the Mongolian steppe and start a land war in Asia. Now I planned to take him in a completely different direction.

“When we were messing with Mr. Semerdjian’s head earlier,” I said as I began to soak him, “you asked me who the Merry Pranksters were. Well, the Merry Pranksters were a group of people who joined Ken Kesey on the magic bus in 1964 for his trip to New York from California.”

“Its primary talent was scaring the hell out of social conservatives. It was an old school bus painted in Day-Glo colors—really bright fluorescents—and given the name of Furthur.”

“No, just a gifted writer. But I suppose his magic bus started the cultural revolution of the sixties, so that’s pretty powerful magic. The Pranksters would give away acid for free to whoever wanted it in an effort to shake people out of their dreary lives of conformity. Acid was legal then.”

“It’s the street name for LSD.”

“No, that’s LDS. LSD is a drug, and they called it acid because the full name was lysergic acid diethylamide.”

“Fewer than most prescriptions nowadays,” I said, applying a sudsy sponge to Oberon’s back. “But back to the Pranksters. They dressed in Day-Glo colors too, tie-dyes and funky hats, and all had really cool nicknames like Mountain Girl, Gretchen Fetchin, and Wavy Gravy.”

“Every word is true or I am the son of a goat.” I had him now.

So I told Oberon all about Wavy Gravy and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests, the origin of the Grateful Dead, the entire hippie scene, and the moral imperative to Stick It to the Man. I made sure he understood that Mr. Semerdjian was the Man and we had been sticking it to him really good so far. He came out of the bath all clean and ready to put on a tie-dye shirt with a peace sign on it.

As Oberon paraded around our living room spreading peace and gravy (Gravy is Love, he explained), my subconscious chose that moment to allow a bubble of memory to boil up to the surface: Did Mr. Semerdjian really say he had a rocket-propelled grenade in his garage?

I didn’t think those were available at gun shows, so I put it on my list of things to investigate, then hit the pillow, grateful to have survived another day.

I made sure to make a proper breakfast in the morning, since I would be off fighting demons: a fluffy omelet stuffed with feta cheese, diced tomatoes, and spinach (sprinkled with Tabasco), complemented by toast spread with orange marmalade, and a hot mug of shade-grown Fair Trade organic coffee.

Having slept on it, I decided that the only thing to do about the Bacchants was to make somebody else get rid of them. It would cost me—perhaps dearly—but I’d live through it and so would Granuaile. I’d considered using wooden weapons, or perhaps bronze or glass ones, but, regardless of weaponry, I’d still have twelve or so insanely strong women to defeat and no defense against catching their madness.

It was time to work the phones. First I called Gunnar Magnusson, alpha of the Tempe Pack and head of Magnusson and Hauk, the law firm that represented me. Werewolves wouldn’t be affected by the Bacchants’ magic. He received me coldly and rebuffed me in short order.

“My pack will not be getting involved in your territorial pissing match,” he said. “If you have legal matters to attend to, then by all means call upon Hal or Leif. But do not think of my pack as your personal squad of supernatural mercenaries to call on every time you get into trouble.”

Clearly he’d been stewing over the aftermath of our battle with Aenghus Óg and Malina’s coven. Two pack members had died that night in an effort to rescue Hal and Oberon. There was no use arguing with him in such a mood, so I simply said, “I beg your pardon. May harmony find you.”

It seemed I had plenty of fences to mend with my lawyers. It would be futile to call Leif; for one thing he was hiding from the sun at this time of day, and for another he’d want me to go after Thor in exchange for his help with the Bacchants.

Though I didn’t want to do it, I placed a call to North Carolina, dialing a number Granuaile had given me when she returned from there last week. It was the number of Laksha Kulasekaran, an Indian witch who now went by the name of Selai Chamkanni. The name change was necessary because Laksha’s spirit now inhabited the body of Selai, a Pashtun immigrant from Pakistan who had been in a coma for a year after an auto accident. Since Selai had already become an American citizen years ago and had convenient documents and bank accounts already in place—and, more importantly, no desire to awaken from her coma—Laksha slipped out of Granuaile’s head and into Selai’s, thereby acquiring such accoutrements as a house and a husband.

The husband was foremost in Laksha’s mind when I asked how she was adjusting to her new life.

“He is disturbed that I emerged from a coma with a strange accent and a new sense of independence but so thrilled that I seem to have lost all sexual inhibitions that he’s willing to overlook my disrespect.”

“Men are so predictable, are they not?” I grinned into the phone.

“For the most part. You have managed to surprise me so far,” she replied.

“I’d like to invite you back to Arizona for a short while.”

“See? That is most surprising.”

“Killing Radomila and half her coven has left something of a power vacuum in the area, and some undesirable things are rushing in to fill it. I could use your help, Selai.”

“Please, when we are in private, continue to call me Laksha. What kind of undesirables are you dealing with?”

“Bacchants.”

“Real Bacchants?” Her voice sharpened. “Genuine maenads from the Old World?”

“They’re coming here by way of Las Vegas, but, yes, they are that kind.”