Page 50 of Fortress
Their assailant rabbited as soon as he’d thrown his missile, and everything in Tobias wanted to chase him, to bring him down for attacking Jake, but he wasn’t sure that in the maze of offices that would be a good idea. There could be nooks and crannies and more ways out than either of the Hawthornes knew.
And Jake was still coughing.
“You okay?” Tobias asked.
Jake shook his head, rubbing at his eyes with his jacket sleeve. “Fuck, Toby, this crap got in my eyes.”
“Is it hurting you?” Tobias felt his stomach lurch.
“I just can’t see for shit.”
Tobias cast one more regretful glance in the direction the fugitive had gone and sighed. “Let’s find a bathroom.”
Jake grasped Tobias’s shoulder, and Tobias led them to the nearest bathroom, painted an irregular white over decades of faintly visible graffiti. Tobias turned the lock just for safety’s sake, then flicked on the light. Jake kept rubbing at his eyes. The powder had been fine and black, settling over Jake’s face with a strange sheen like oil on water. The blackness was thicker right around his eyes, where his rubbing had left swirls. Tobias turned on the faucet, yanking out some paper towels and wetting them. He had to grab Jake’s wrist to stop him from pawing at his eyes so that he could begin wiping at the caked crud.
Some of it came off, but a discoloration remained, darkest around his eyes and streaking back to his hairline. After Tobias had removed the worst of the crud, Jake was still blinking, his hands reaching up to rub again.
“It’s not doing shit. Here, give me that and turn the lights on, and maybe I’ll be able to get some more off.”
Tobias looked at his second paper towel coated with black muck, then up at the fluorescent lighting that burned through the tiny space. He felt cold, suddenly. “Jake... the lights are on.”
Jake straightened then, his eyes going wide, staring and unfocused. Abruptly, he turned and slammed his fist against the sink counter behind him. “Son of abitch. Toby, I can’t—I can’t fuckingsee.”
Tobias drew in a slow, shuddering breath. Now that he was looking, he could see the oddness of the pattern, how it seemed to indicate shapes and symbols that felt familiar in his gut, but not to his head. “Jake, I think... that was a witch. You’ve been hexed.”
Tobias went back to collect the remains of the hex bag, using paper towels to keep the powder off his hands. He stowed thewell-wrapped package in his pocket and then led Jake by his hand out of the school. At first he warned him about turns and steps, but after Jake had stumbled more than once over nothing, Tobias wrapped an arm around his waist, his gun ready in his other hand in case the witch came back. His warnings became more a running commentary on what they were passing, where they were now, something to keep himself from panic as much as to keep Jake from falling.
By the time they got to the Eldorado—Tobias helped Jake into the shotgun seat, then took the keys, started the engine and turned them back toward the motel—outrage had worked its way past Jake’s initial shock. He swore, quietly at first, and then with increasing volume, viciousness, and color until he was pounding his fist against the dashboard with almost every syllable.
Tobias drove with even more caution than usual, his mouth shut tight, squeezing the wheel so his hands wouldn’t shake. He was grateful that Jake wouldn’t be able to see the flinches he couldn’t hide.
Then Jake stopped cursing and said in a different tone, more uncertain than Tobias had ever heard before: “Toby?”
“Yeah?” Tobias looked over immediately, anxious about any new effects of the witch’s curse.
Jake exhaled, the tension in his shoulders releasing fractionally. Tobias noticed how he sat: back pressed taut to the seat, one arm braced against the shotgun window, the other stretched across the top of the seat. Like he was afraid he might slip away if he stopped holding on so hard.
“Hey,” Tobias said, and let go of the steering wheel with his right hand to grab Jake’s outstretched arm. Jake returned the grip at once, squeezing tight. “We’re going to be okay.” It took effort to say, but once the words were out, something loosened in his chest. He knew it to be true. “I’m going to fix this. We’re going to find the witch and—” He released his own shaky breath,the possibilities unfolding before him. “We’re going to undo this,soon.”
“’Course we are.” Jake was trying to sound confident, nonchalant. “It’s just a fucking bitch is all. Son of a bitch. I can’t even fuckingshootthe asshole.”
“I can,” Tobias said.
Jake was quiet for a long minute. “Yeah, but it may not come to that. Gunshots get messy. There can be other ways to handle a witch, scare ’em straight.”
Tobias let go of Jake’s arm and gripped the steering wheel again. “We’ll see.”
When they got to the motel, Tobias parked as close as he could to their room, but he still had to lead Jake over the curb to their door, throwing wary glances around to make sure no one was watching. He felt the tension in Jake’s hand, through his halting steps, and then they were inside. Tobias flung the door shut, threw the bolts, and let out a sigh of relief.
Jake reached for the wall and slowly walked around the perimeter of the room, stumbling around the dressers and TV stand, groping at the edge of the closet and sink. Tobias watched, feeling a tightness in his chest; then he drew a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and focused.
Moving to the table, he used his sleeve to protect his hand while removing the remains of the hex bag from his pocket, careful to shake any last scraps out of the lining of his pocket. He took off his jacket, tying the sleeves in a knot and dropping it on the combination TV stand and dresser so he wouldn’t forget to purify it before wearing it again.
“I’m going to analyze what was in the hex bag,” he told Jake, who was fiddling with the faucet at the sink and swearing quietly to himself. He hadn’t turned on the light. Tobias crossed the room to get the notebook that he used for recording the detailsof their hunts. “Can you tell me if you see anything, like flickers, images, light, color?”
“Fuck no, not a fucking thing.” Jake’s voice was tight. He stood in front of the sink, one fist resting on the lintel of the bathroom door.
Tobias took a steadying breath. “Jake, could you—come sit by me? I want to see if we can reverse this ourselves.”
