Kevin Hearne - Hexed

Camouflage isn’t a cloaking spell—it’s camouflage—but I didn’t bother to correct her as I continued. “That left me alone with a single witch and an opportunity to take a little vengeance for the family before I made my escape. The man’s suit jacket was made of natural fibers, so I formed a bond between his left sleeve and his side, which caused his arm to move abruptly down. As you may imagine, this movement of a supposedly über-dead corpse startled the witch excessively, and she shrieked and began emptying yet another clip into the poor man. Using her noise as cover, I drew my sword, dashed forward ten meters, and struck off her head.”

This elicited a round of cheers from the Polish witches, and there was a general toast and more schnapps poured before I could continue.

“She fell next to the family, and I pelted down the mountain toward Pau as the other witches returned to investigate the shrieking. I was far ahead of them by the time they discovered the body and figured out what must have happened. They gave some pursuit, but they never came close. I stopped using the Somport Pass for the duration of the war, and I never saw them again or figured out why they attacked us, until just now when you gave me the information I lacked.”

“So what happened when they attacked you today?” Kazimiera asked. “Did you kill another one?” Her tone was hopeful.

“No, the setting where we met was not appropriate,” I replied, disappointing the entire coven. “But I did acquire a little something,” I added, as I reached into my pocket and withdrew the blond witch’s lock of hair, “that should enable us to find them a bit more easily.”

“That’s theirs?” Malina asked incredulously, eyes riveted on the hair held between my thumb and forefinger.

“It’s from only one of them, but, yes,” I said. “Can you figure out where they’ve been staying with this?”

The witches all nodded together and said, “Definitely.”

“Have you changed your mind about Thor?” Leif asked.

“Yes, yes, yes!” I said as fast as I could, but he hung up on me anyway.

That turned out to be a mistake, though: He’d been halfway to flipping his phone closed on what he assumed would be my negative answer, when he heard my thin, tinny affirmative as it snapped shut. He called me back immediately.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but did you say that you have changed your mind?”

“Yes, I did say that,” I confirmed, “but only if you’re super-duper sweet to me.”

“What must I do in return for your aid?” he asked warily.

“Help me kill some witches in Gilbert.”

“That is all?”

“Well, there’s only two of us and about twenty of them.”

“That is all?”

“They’re pretty mean and they might be dressed like the Go-Go’s. I’m talking Aqua Net and those shirts that hang off one shoulder and everything.”

“It sounds atrocious, Atticus, simply heinous to the n th degree, but I have no idea to what you are alluding.”

“Then how about this? We might literally catch some hell, because they’re baking demon babies in their wombs. Maybe some other surprises, who knows.”

“Fine, fine. When do we do this?”

“Tonight. Right now. Call up your ghoul friends; there will be plenty to eat when we’re finished.”

“And when do we kill Thor?”

“I’m going on a scouting mission to Asgard before the New Year,” I said, leaving out the part where I’d be stealing one of Idunn’s golden apples for Laksha. “After I return—and that should be before the New Year as well—we plan our raid and put our affairs in order. You get your A-team together, whatever badasses you have in your network, and I will get the lot of you into Asgard.”

“Will you give me your oath on this?” Leif asked.

“Dude, I’ll even pinky-swear.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’ll give you my oath. Just come pick me up in your batmobile.”

Leif hissed his displeasure into the phone. “I have never turned into a bat, no vampire ever has, and that particular myth of Mr. Stoker’s is growing tiresome.”

“If we live through this, Leif, I swear I’m going to make you read some damn comic books.”

Leif showed up at my house wearing a steel breastplate and a broad grin. “I have not lived this long to let a few witches stake me tonight,” he said, leaning casually against his Jaguar. He was wearing one of those old-fashioned white linen shirts with enormous poufy sleeves underneath his breastplate. He didn’t go full Renaissance, however, and complement this with breeches and a codpiece. Instead, he wore a black pair of Levis and some Doc Martens with a surplus of buckles.

“You have one other vulnerability, I think,” I said. “And we need to address it.”

His grin disappeared. “They have sunlight in a bottle or something?”

“No, but they will probably have some hellfire available. Eight of them are carrying demon spawn. You’re rather flammable, am I right?”

“Well, yes, now that you mention it.”

“I have a fix for that, strictly a loan item for tonight only.”

“All right.” I gave him Oberon’s talisman and activated it to protect him. He regarded me doubtfully and flicked the amulet hanging from his neck. “This hunk of metal will keep me from turning into ashes?”

“You’ll feel the heat, but it shouldn’t burn you.”

He raised his brows and rolled his eyes briefly by way of a facial shrug and said, “Fine. Are we ready to go?”

“Couple more things we have to do first,” I said, and wagged my head significantly at the house across the street. “You remember my inquisitive neighbor?”

“Of course.”

“He let it slip the other day that he has a rocket-propelled grenade in his garage. I’d like to see if he was telling the truth and, if so, liberate it for the greater good of the East Valley.”

Leif’s head didn’t move, but his nostrils flared. “He is in the house right now.”

“Oh, aye, and he’s watching us through his blinds.”

“What do you propose we do?”

“You charm his ass and get him to open the garage for me. I’ll brazenly walk in there and take what we need, then you tell him to forget it.”

“If he has military weaponry in there, we should report him to the ATF.”

I sighed in exasperation and pinched the bridge of my nose. Who would have thought a bloodsucking lawyer would actually care about the law? “Okay, but only after we take some to play with.”

Mollified, Leif said, “He is looking at us now? Through his window?”

I slid my eyes sideways to confirm that the blinds were still parted. “Yes.”

Without warning, Leif whipped his head around and stared across the street at the blinds. They fell closed after a couple of moments.

“Got him,” Leif said. “Proceed. The garage should open in a few seconds.”

We strode across the street, and the heavy door began to rumble open ponderously. It occurred to me that I’d never seen it open at all; Mr. Semerdjian drove a silver Honda CR-V and always parked it in his driveway.

The rocket-propelled grenade—one of several—was there. And so were a crate of standard fragmentation grenades, several crates of automatic weapons, and handheld surface-to-air missiles. There were also a dozen flak jackets hanging on the wall.