Hexed

Janet, I never met the guy!” Fremont, white-faced, stared at the tribunal of me, Mick, and Coyote. We were in the kitchen again, where the others had decided to at least nibble on the sandwiches. Cassandra leaned against the wall, her arms folded, her face pale, and her eyes sunken into dark sockets.
    Coyote remained a coyote, his yellow eyes a study in irritation. The fact that he’d chosen a form in which he could neither berate me nor give sexual suggestions worried me a bit.
    As for Ansel—he was still banging on the door of the refrigerator from the inside. He’d slowed from frantic pounding, settling for a bang every thirty seconds or so.
    “You wouldn’t have realized who he was,” Mick said, keeping his voice mild. “Someone you talked to at the diner, a tourist passing through, someone you saw at the gas station . . .”
    Fremont shook his head vehemently. “I know everyone in Magellan and Flat Mesa, have for years. I know when someone’s new, and I remember every single person I talk to. I didn’t talk to a nasty sorcerer who wants to kill Cassandra. I’d have noticed his aura, wouldn’t I?”
    Bang .
    “Not necessarily.” I was amazingly good at reading auras, and I could see Fremont’s magic one now, like pale smoke in sunshine. But Fremont’s magic ability was small, and I doubted he could see them all that well. “If Cassandra’s sorcerer is as good as she says, he’d be able to hide his aura. Very powerful people can do that.” I knew this from personal, and frightening, experience.
    “What does he look like, Cassandra?” Mick asked.
    Cassandra gave a listless shrug. “Ordinary. So ordinary you wouldn’t look twice.”
    “Can you be more specific?” I asked, trying to be patient. Her apathy was grating on me.
    “About five foot seven. Dark brown hair. Receding hairline. He looks like any other suit-wearing forty-year-old man in an office.”
    Bang .
    “Well, I haven’t seen any men in suits in Magellan,” Fremont said. “They’d stand out. I haven’t talked to any man looks like that who I didn’t already know. All right?”
    “Can the ununculous change his appearance?” I asked. “If he’s tracking you, he might use a glamour or even a simple disguise.”
    Cassandra gave me a watery smile. “Him? He’s the most arrogant man I’ve ever met. What does it matter to him if one of us identifies him? He’ll crush us and not care.”
    Bang .
    “All right,” I said, drawing a breath. “Could he have seeded the curse in Fremont without Fremont seeing him or noticing? Maybe by brushing by him in a store, something like that?”
    Mick answered, “Eye contact is better. If the sorcerer greets you, shakes your hand, he can make sure you received the spark. It’s more emotionally satisfying for him as well. But I suppose it could happen with a brush-by. Like a pickpocket in reverse.”
    Fremont waved his hands. “What you’re not getting is that I haven’t seen anyone like who you describe. Not brushing by me in the diner, not even passing me in a car on the road. I would have noticed. ”
    “I believe you,” I said. He was right, he would have. Fremont loved to watch, and then talk about, his fellow man.
    “Thank you.” Fremont let out a sigh and rubbed his hand over what was left of his hair.
    “Mick?” I asked. “Have you seen anyone like Cassandra describes?”
    “No.”
    Bang .
    “Okay, then. Neither have I.”
    Fremont glared. “Wait, you believe him without grilling him like you did me?”
    “Sorry, Fremont. I’m on edge. Mick’s a dragon—if someone seeded a curse on him, he’d notice right away.” I glanced at Mick. “Right?”
    Mick affirmed. I’d like to think I would have noticed right away, too. A spark like that would sting both my magics, wouldn’t it? Then again, if this sorcerer was as powerful as advertised . . .
    “It was probably me,” Cassandra said.
    Fremont looked at her in surprise. “You saw him? Why didn’t you say so?”
    “I mean the last time I met him. Christianson might have had the ununculous seed a hex on me, so that if I doublecrossed him, it would activate, like a time-release pill. It would wait until I felt safe and then go off. The ununculous would feel it, and come for me. Revenge served cold.”
    A bolt of lightning slammed to the ground not a mile away, followed by a boom of thunder that rolled on, and on, and on. Before its rumbles died, another bolt cracked not far from the first one. My body