Rising Fury (Hexing House Book 1) (13 page)

“How does that normally manifest?” Thea asked.

“Almost always as extreme empathy,” Persephone said. “He’ll feel all the pain of everyone and everything around him. And I mean
all
the pain. It’s one of our worst hexes, actually. Ten percent of targets kill themselves before they can resolve their vice.”

Thea knew that Persephone was trying to shock her with that statistic, just as she knew they’d picked such a horrible hex on purpose. But she was holding tightly to her anger from that morning, and she only nodded. She didn’t read the target’s file, and she didn’t ask any questions.

With their human illusions, all four of them were beautiful women, and the target was disposed to let them into his house despite their being vague about what they were doing there. The others distracted him with chatter about some charity they were raising money for. Persephone handed Thea a box. Thea hexed him, and handed the box back.

It was that simple. Thea didn’t even blink.

They found a local seafood place for dinner, Megaira being a big fan of fish. The other three seemed close, and chatted without making much effort to include Thea in the conversation. Thea ate quietly, and wondered whether one of these furies daintily poking at salads and sipping wine had sent Hester to take her blood.

If not them, who?

Why?

Pass the test first. Then deal with the rest.

After they ate, they went back to the target’s house to make some observations for Thea’s report. He was screaming already, at times collapsing and writhing in agony. And too distracted by his suffering to notice Thea sneaking through a window and watching him from behind the heavy drapes. Persephone was just outside the window, studying Thea while Thea studied the target.

He’d hung cloths over the windows that didn’t have curtains, as if he could block what he felt that way. He’d smashed his television and his computer. But there was pain everywhere in the world, everywhere in his county, his town, his street. There was no stopping it from seeping in. Thea watched him weep, and felt a tiny worm of compassion wriggling its way through her mental armor.

She squashed it.

Thea gave Persephone an indifferent look as she climbed out the window. “What now?”

Persephone looked genuinely happy. “Now, I don’t think I’m going to have to sit in that damn car all the way home. Come on.”

Back in the SUV, she told the others she thought Thea had passed her test.

“Then we’d better go,” Alecto said.

“Go where?” asked Thea. Nobody answered her. She felt a sudden surge of fear. She was alone in the dark with three furies who might or might not be part of a conspiracy to hurt her. She didn’t even know what state she was in. They could do whatever they wanted to her, and she would be powerless.

No. She wasn’t powerless anymore. The anger came back, just enough to get her through the ride out into a field, where Alecto parked and gestured for everybody to get out.

Thea protracted her claws, but she did as she was told.

When they’d all gathered in the tall grass, Alecto looked down at those claws and smiled. Then she looked at Thea,
into
Thea, and her smile broadened.

“I see no timidity,” she told the others. “No remorse. I
do
see ruthlessness.” To Thea she said, “And ruthlessness, while not regarded as a virtue by the weak, is known to the strong as a form of courage. Congratulations. You’ve proved me wrong.”

Alecto held out a vial. “You’ve earned your wings.”

Thea studied Alecto’s face for a few seconds before she took the vial. Her satisfaction seemed genuine. Maybe Thea had impressed her, after all.

Or maybe she’s found something she likes in my blood, and now she wants to keep me here.

Thea drank the vial.

The first two stages had involved gradual changes—her blood, her skin, her fingernails coming out. The claws had hurt, but only for a few seconds, and then there was a surge of power and strength. Thea liked having a built-in weapon at her disposal, and that more than made up for the fleeting pain.

She knew she’d like having wings even more, but this pain wasn’t fleeting. It was torture. Her back felt like molten metal had been poured over it. There was a tearing sound, both her shirt and her flesh. Purple blood flowed over her shoulders. Thea bent over double and cried out, hating to show that weakness, but unable to help herself. She gasped as her vision blurred, and prayed only that she wouldn’t humiliate herself by throwing up. She could see now why they’d felt a need to do this out where they wouldn’t be seen or heard.

The tearing, rending feeling stopped and was replaced by shooting jabs of pain up and down her spine and arms. Not hot metal anymore, but electricity. Thea didn’t think she could take much more. She felt something in her eyes, the same thing she felt when she was inflicting a hex, and knew they were glowing violet. But it wasn’t a quick glow this time, there and gone before a person could be sure of it. Her eyes, her whole body, were dangerously hot now.

For a second, she thought she might explode. Then she breathed in deeply,  harnessing all that energy, controlling it, herding it into one place. She felt a restless, buzzing need, but she didn’t know what for.

Thea stood back up, staring at the others through eyes she knew were still glowing, though her vision wasn’t any different. They watched her calmly.

She looked up at the sky and exhaled. The restless, itchy feeling concentrated itself behind her shoulders, where she could now feel a weight that hadn’t been there before, and she knew what her body was clamoring to do.

Thea spread her wings.

The flight home was worth all the pain, and then some.

Persephone stayed with Thea, while Alecto went on ahead, and Megaira stayed behind to drive the SUV back.

“First thing you need to do is feel where Hexing House is,” Persephone said. “It’s not all that different from the other things we sense, in terms of how it feels. But this is a homing instinct. A lot of animals can do it, and once you get used to it, you’ll find that you can, too.”

“Won’t people see us flying?” Thea asked.

Persephone smiled. “They might see us now, going this slow. Either they’ll think they’re crazy and dismiss it, or they’ll think they saw an alien and other people will think they’re crazy and dismiss them. Or else they’ll believe what they see, or maybe they’ve heard a rumor somewhere and this confirms that it’s actually true. And then maybe we get a new customer out of it, some day.”

After about an hour in the air, Thea finally felt the homing signal. It didn’t happen until she stopped trying to sense it as
the campus
or
Hexing House
, and started trying to sense
home
. But in the end, her childhood definition of home could not be supplanted. The signal, if that was what it was, smelled like Aunt Bridget’s kitchen, and peach trees.

Once she got it, Persephone smiled at her and said, “This is where it gets fun. Do what I do. Do not stop to try to figure out how. You’ll trip yourself up, trying to think it through. This can’t be trained. You’ve got the wings. You’ve just got to go by instinct.”

With that bit of instruction, she took off so fast in the direction of home that Thea couldn’t even see her anymore. She just felt the air move, saw a burst of purple, and Persephone was gone.

Following orders and not giving it any thought, Thea did the same. And it was marvelous. The five hour drive was about a half hour flight, a blur through the air as things whizzed by. How she was avoiding birds or low-flying planes or anything else she might hit, Thea had no idea. But she wasn’t afraid. Persephone was right: she had the wings. They came with the ability to use them.

It was maybe the most fun half hour of her life. And somewhere along the way, Thea gave up even pretending that Flannery was the only reason she had done this. She would find Flannery, and she would bring her home to Aunt Bridget. And then Thea would return to Hexing House and live out her days as a fury. The thought brought a strange, contradictory mixture of both excitement and peace.

The next afternoon, they had a party for her in the Colony Center. Personal Services would take some time to make her new clothes to accommodate her wings, so in the meanwhile Thea stood awkwardly in a slightly baggy suit borrowed from Cora, while furies gathered around and sang a song she didn’t recognize in mostly off-key, half-hearted voices. Then she was obliged to blow out candles on the cake, as if it was her birthday. She posed for a picture with Alecto while someone cut the cake and started handing it around.

“Lovely, congratulations,” Alecto said. “I have to get back to work.”

Thea didn’t take it as a slight. Plenty of people were coming in just to snag a piece of cake before rushing back to their desks. She stepped back against the wall with her own piece, poking at the frosting.

Graves came over and touched the amulet—the mark of a full fury—Thea now wore on a leather thong around her neck. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Thea regarded Graves calmly, although her belly was roiling with suspicion. “By the way, what ever happened with that lead in North Dakota? Or was it Montana?”

He smiled at her. “Didn’t pan out.” She noticed he didn’t specify which state it was. Probably he had already forgotten his story. “But don’t worry. We won’t give up. Chances are she’ll come home on her own before too long, anyway.”

Thea raised an eyebrow at him. Did he really think Flannery might come home soon? Did that mean they were finished with her?

Graves waved to someone across the room, maybe because he really wanted to say hello, or maybe because he just wanted to pretend not to see Thea’s doubtful look. When he turned back to her, he changed the subject. “Now then, when do you go into your exploratories?”

“Tomorrow.” Thea was due to start first thing in the morning on a series of what Alecto had called
exploratory meetings
with the departments of Hexing House. She would talk to a representative from each, answer their questions, and after she’d seen everyone, the departments interested in hiring her would make offers.

“Any ideas on where you’d like to land?”

“I’m interested in RDM.” She wasn’t really,  but she wanted to see how Graves would react to the idea of her joining the same department where Hester worked. The department he’d once been head of.

His face didn’t change. “Interesting. Not Infliction? Everyone always says their first choice is Infliction.”

Thea shrugged. “I hear it’s the most highly paid. But I’m not that crazy about travel.”

“Well, if RDM is what you want, you’d better have a backup plan,” Graves said. “I happen to know they don’t have openings right now. You’d have to really impress Maggie for her to squeeze in a position for you.”

Well, you’re being awfully discouraging. Could it be you have a reason for wanting to keep me out of RDM?

Graves started to say something else, but was interrupted by a shout from outside. Or at least, it started as a shout. Then it became
some
shouts. Pretty soon everyone seemed to be shouting, barking orders at one another, mainly to do with fetching Langdon.

People were rushing for the doorway. Thea started forward, but Graves touched her elbow and gestured at a side exit that seemed to be neglected by the herd. As a result, they came around to the front of the building at a different angle from the gathering crowd, and Thea was able to get a clear view of what had everyone so worked up.

A fury, twitching but otherwise unconscious, was lying on the front steps, which she’d apparently been crawling up. Her dark hair was matted with blood, and her fingers were thick with it. Thea wasn’t close enough to tell for sure, but it looked like she was missing some claws. She was sprawled on her side, one arm outstretched so that Thea got a good look at the turquoise bracelet that circled her wrist.

It was Hester.

The crowd closed in, and Thea soon lost her view in all the commotion. But not before she noticed something that maybe only a country girl, and a native to the area, would have given any thought to: mud, all over Hester’s shoes and the hem of her pants.
Red
mud, and several river birch leaves stuck to one ankle.

The weather had been dry for several days. Thea was willing to bet that Hester had been down by the Prescott river, which wound its way, partly parallel to the road, down the west side of the campus and out toward Aunt Bridget’s farm.

Alecto and a couple of security guards came swooping in. They got the crowd to back off, while Langdon bent over Hester.

Cora came rushing up to Thea. “Do you think this has anything to d—”

“I don’t know,” Thea interrupted. She tossed her head back to where Graves was standing. It looked like he was out of earshot, but she couldn’t be sure.

Cora got the message. She nodded and stood quietly beside Thea as they watched two furies fly off in the direction of the Wellness building, carrying Hester between them on a stretcher. Langdon followed. Alecto stood on the steps and started whistling, louder than Thea had ever heard anyone whistle, until the crowd quieted.

“Obviously this is upsetting, but I need you to go about your business,” Alecto shouted. “Having you all tramping and buzzing around can only impede any investigation we can do here. As soon as I know more, you’ll know more.”

To Thea’s surprise, everyone obeyed almost immediately. She and Cora moved slowly in the direction of the Tech building until they were out of Graves’s line of sight.

“Where to first?” Cora asked under her breath.

“Wellness,” said Thea, although she knew it was probably hopeless. “But if we can’t see Hester, we’ll try the river.” She quickly explained to Cora what she’d seen on Hester’s clothes.

As expected, when they got to Wellness, there were two guys from Security standing out front, and one circling the building in the air.

“We need to keep the building clear,” the airborne one said to them. “Unless you’ve got an emergency.”

Thea and Cora thanked him and flew off toward the residences first. When Thea was pretty sure nobody was watching them, she changed course and sped up, heading for the bend in the river that came closest to campus.

They flew out over the highway, then dipped lower to the ground so they could follow the river. They went a few miles up one bank and down the other, flying slowly so they wouldn’t miss anything, before Cora suggested—without much delicacy, as was her way—that it was a lost cause and a waste of time. Thea had to agree. There were footprints, but of course there were. Dozens of hunters, children, fishermen, and hikers used this land. It was a long river, and the chances of them finding anything were small, unless they had some idea of what to look for.

As they flew back over the campus fence, Thea hesitated, then changed direction. Cora shouted something, no doubt along the lines of
where the hell are you going now
, but she followed.

The river wasn’t the only place Thea could search for clues. She flew down into the forest, where the impediment of the trees forced her to land and go on foot.

“You’re looking for the cabin, I take it?” Cora asked. Thea had told her the whole story that morning, the first time she’d seen Cora since she’d gotten her wings.

“There might be some evidence there,” Thea said.

“What kind of evidence?”

“I have no idea. But I can’t just sit around waiting to see if Hester dies and if me or my cousin will be next. I need to find out who’s doing all this, and why.”

Cora nodded. “Well, come this way. I remember there being a few outbuildings on this side.”

They found the cabin a few minutes later, and as it turned out, there was some evidence there, of a sort.

Mr. Fanatic was wandering near the building, sewing the ground with salt and loudly quoting scripture. He froze when he saw them, then his face crumpled. For a second, Thea thought he was going to cry.

Instead he shouted, “Harlots!”

Thea’s first reaction was
Oh good, he calls everyone that. He didn’t know about me.

“Give it to me! Give it back!” Mr. Fanatic rushed forward, but Thea stood her ground. She was equipped with claws now. She hardly needed to fear one crazy man, even if he was on the large side. It was a wonderful feeling.

He stopped in front of her, his bloodshot eyes wide with rage and terror.

“Give what back?” Thea asked. “What did you lose?”

“Didn’t lose anything.” He gestured wildly at nothing in particular. “Taken. Stolen. The demons stole my blood!”

Mine too, buddy.
“Why would they do that?”

“They need the blood of the righteous, that’s why!”

Nope, somehow I don’t think that’s it.

“I can’t let them keep it,” Mr. Fanatic went on. “I can’t let them use my blood.” He reached back his arm, as if to slap her.

Cora grabbed his wrist. Mr. Fanatic’s screams came back threefold. It was like he’d been touched with hot iron.

“Take your hands off me, demon!” He jumped back into a tree and fell. As Thea and Cora stepped forward to help him, Mr. Fanatic skittered away from them, reaching into his pocket for a cross he then held up. All the while screaming about demons and harlots and the apocalypse.

“Who took your blood?” Thea asked. “When did they take it? Where did this happen? Was it another fury, like us? With long black hair?”

But it was no use. If he’d ever had the ability to speak coherently—which Thea rather doubted—he’d lost it the second Cora had touched him.

While he continued to rave, Mr. Fanatic waved his cross and, after a while, took a vial of what Thea supposed was holy water from his pocket and splashed it around.

“They want them for themselves,” was one of the few intelligible things Thea caught. “But they won’t use the seven bowls against the righteous. The righteous will use the seven bowls against them. We will smite the demons.”