Hexed

she likes Fremont, she might come to his call.”
    “Don’t be an idiot,” Emmett said frantically. “You can’t fight her while you’re under her hex.”
    “I don’t plan to fight her,” I said in a hard voice. “None of us will. We’ll give her what she wants—you—and then she’ll lift the hex. End of problem.”
    “You think you’re so smart, do you, little Stormwalker? If she can best me , then she’ll turn around and feast on you. She’s always hungry, worse than the bloodsucker here. She devours everything. I don’t care how much goddess magic you have in you; you won’t be able to stop her.”
    That didn’t sound promising. Coyote stared lifelessly at the ceiling, his skin gray with death. Maya had taken up a throw and tucked it gently around him. Coyote wasn’t waking up or coming back to life. He was gone, my friends were hurt and scared, and this entire adventure had come about because of Emmett Smith’s search for power. Emmett was going to pay for that.
    “Janet isn’t alone,” Mick said, quiet in his anger. “And the succubus wants you, not us.”
    “Why don’t we just kill him ?” Pamela asked, pointing at Emmett. “He’s human, in spite of all his sorcerer magic. Sheriff Jones can shoot him, and then we can give this demon woman his dead body.”
    “Don’t think that isn’t tempting,” I said. “But the demon-goddess wants her revenge, and if I know goddesses, she’ll want to kill Emmett herself. Fremont?”
    Fremont shrugged. “It just took a crystal, a candle, and a verse.”
    I put my arm around his shoulders. “I love you, Fremont. Let’s do this.”
     
    I WASN’T CERTAIN the simple spell would work, but I wasn’t about to let Emmett know that. Cassandra fetched a clear quartz crystal from her desk behind reception, and I had Mick light another sage stick, because we couldn’t get a candle going for some reason. The curse didn’t want us to have light.
    The verse Fremont used was a simple rhyme, straight out of any “witchcraft for beginners” book. But Mick had taught me that chants and candles or sage and crystals are only vehicles for the witch’s focus. The intent of the spell mattered, as did the mage’s concentration and strength, not whether the candle was red or yellow, whether the witch used sage or myrrh, or whether they spoke complicated Latin verses or a few simple phrases. Those choices could help, but the whole spell was so much more than the sum of its parts.
    Fremont, though he had only a touch of magical ability, had focus and sincerity. I imagined that the demon-goddess had heard that sincerity, Fremont’s need to connect, loud and clear, and had homed in on him.
    She homed in on him now. In a burst of hellfire tinged with sulfur—which is a cheap effect and not necessary—the succubus-demon-goddess was upon us.
    Her aura nearly knocked me over. Fremont must not have been able to see it—to him she’d appear as the black-haired woman who stood before us. No red-clawed siren in black leather, she was draped in modest robes and had a pretty, rather soft face. She looked almost nice.
    Except for her aura. That was sticky, gray-black, and foul. I didn’t sense Beneath magic from her, which must mean she was an earth entity—born solidly in this world, not the one Beneath. But she was old. Ancient. I read that in her eyes, an ancientness that had allowed her evil to build, that had knocked out any compassion she might ever have possessed. That and her son being murdered to feed a sorcerer’s power guaranteed she wouldn’t be friendly.
    “Hello, Emmett,” she said. “Remember me?”
    Blood ran in rivulets from Emmett’s nose and down his silk shirt as he raised his hand. “Die, whore.”
    The demon-goddess watched his dark magic come, a little smile on her face. She lifted her hand, and the darkness harmlessly dispersed.
    “Don’t be an idiot.” She moved her gaze from Emmett and fixed it on Coyote. “What have we here? Aw, poor dead little Indian god. They always think they’re better than anyone.”
    “He died to bring the ununculous here for you,” I said. “In return, you can lift the hex.”
    “Now, why would I want to do that?” the demon-goddess asked me. “Much more entertaining to watch you play it out until your own natures kill you. A few of you I might keep alive with me for the fun of it. Like you, Stormwalker. And that one.”
    She was looking at Nash, giving him an interested once-over, much as