Hexed

interfering with your ability to emanate magic. You absorb and convert it, but then something or someone is siphoning it off. That’s why you feel tired and sleepy.”
    “So it’s feeding off of me?”
    My mother walked in carrying a platter with a teapot and three cups. “Yes.”
    Jim frowned. “Makes sense. That’s why it didn’t kill me—the more magic I make, the more it eats.”
    “You do realize that you’re going to die?” My mother shook her head.
    “Yeah, I’ve got the dying part.”
    “You found some sort of zombie instead of a man.” My mother pointed at Jim. “Look, he isn’t even concerned.”
    I poured the tea. “He’s concerned, Mother. He just doesn’t panic, because he’s in charge and if he panics, everybody else will panic.”
    “I can jog around the room pretending to scream if you would like,” Jim offered.
    My mother raised an eyebrow. “You’re working so hard to dig your own grave, you might work yourself to death. Simmer down.”
    Jim drew back as if she’d smacked his hand with a ruler.
    “We have to sever the connection between you and whoever is doing this,” I said before they started slapping each other. “But we can’t see it. To make it visible we need Keong Emas. It’s a magic snail. There is a legend in Indonesia that talks about a beautiful princess, who was cursed and turned into a snail. The legend is figurative and the snail doesn’t turn into an actual princess, but with the right magic, it will reveal hidden things. The only way to get the snail is to buy it at the Underground. It’s rare and expensive.”
    “Money isn’t an issue,” Jim said.
    “It’s not about the money, you stupid boy.” Mother set the teacup down. “She can’t go there because of the yisheng .”
    Jim looked at me.
    “ Yisheng is the Chinese word for a medicine man,” I said. “The dealers at the Underground call themselves that, but they aren’t medicine men. They’re animal-parts dealers. Do you remember that big shapeshifter case in Asheville three years ago?”
    Jim frowned. “Vaguely. I was in Florida, dealing with Kaja’s loup pack. I remember there was a fifteen-year-old kid, Jarod, I think. He was a black bear. He said he was walking in the woods, encountered a group of hunters, waved to indicate that he was a shapeshifter, and when he turned away, the hunters shot him in the back and he had to defend himself. By the time the game wardens showed up, Jarod had the shooter pinned and everyone else had cleared out. The medic pulled sixteen bullets out of the kid. The hunter claimed he was attacked without provocation. They had a hard time proving Jarod’s story because his wounds had closed, so there was no way to determine how he’d been shot. The prosecution argued that Jarod was so huge in his beast form that if he was walking away from a hunter, no sane man would have shot him, so the hunters must’ve fired in self-defense. Curran sent the entire legal division down there.”
    Clearly, Jim wasn’t sure what the word vaguely meant.
    “My uncle Aditya testified in that trial,” I told him. “He is a federal park ranger for the Smoky Mountains National Park. The hunter’s name was Williams. Chad Williams, MD. Uncle Aditya testified that Williams has been detained several times on suspicion of poaching with intent to sell animal parts. He had friends in the right places and he was let go every time.”
    “Stupid people believe that bear cures everything,” Mother put in. “Diabetes, stomach pain, weak heart, limp penis . . .”
    “A black bear gallbladder goes for about forty-five thousand dollars on the black market,” I said.
    Jim repeated, “Forty-five grand?”
    I nodded. “When your family is sick or your equipment stops working, people get desperate. Especially ignorant white people—they think mystical ‘Oriental’ medicine will cure all their ills.”
    I refilled our cups. “A black bear’s gallbladder is expensive. A bear shapeshifter’s gallbladder is worth even more. Williams shot Jarod on purpose. He wanted his organs. They found silver bullets hidden in his campsite.”
    “Poachers think that if the bear dies in pain, his gallbladder will get bigger.” My mother grimaced.
    Jim’s eyes sparked with green. “They shot the boy with regular bullets to torture him before they killed him.”
    “Yes. Once all this stuff came out on the stand, everybody got involved.” I waved my arms. “The marshals, the FBI, the GBI.