Page 47 of Hex and the City
But the rush of air didn’t stop past her lips. It swelled into a gentle rustle, expanding outward from where she stood in all directions, blowing at bits of trash, at dried leaves. The breeze struck my hands and my face, leaving the distinct tingle of magic. Beyond the alley, no more bar music. No more conversation and laughter.
A silence spell. I was fucked.
“Scream all you want,” the woman said. “No one will hear you.”
Max’s hand gesture. The symbol. Maybe I could ward her off. Sure as hell couldn’t count on a fear hex. The lady looked like she wasn’t afraid of anything. I fumbled with my fingers, struggling yet again to do the thing he’d done with his hands. I held it over my eye.
The woman clapped once and laughed. “That’s not for you to use, Witch Boy.”
My heart made a single loud thump. Didn’t Max say the same thing? Why did it work for him and not for me? And how the hell did she clap when she was holding an entire —
Wait. Where did the machete go? Prestidigitation? Dismissed by magic? As if I needed more proof that she was magical, yet another denizen of the arcane underground. A very dangerous one, too.
She drew back her lips, then spun on her heel, arm extended the whole time. Where had I seen that kind of form before? A sport, maybe? The Olympics? The way her fingers looked clenched over something, except she wasn’t actually holding anything in her hand.
And then it appeared in a literal flash, the glint of something circular and metal. That was it. A discus throw. Except this wasn’t a discus. She released it at the end of her spin. The unidentified flying object began its terrifying approach.
“Fuck,” I stammered. “Oh, fuck.”
It was a buzzsaw. Where the hell did she get that thing? Its many jagged teeth screamed as it ripped through the air, heading straight for my face. I fell to the ground, flattening myself against the filthy concrete. Grit dug into my palms, my cheek. Small price to pay for keeping my head on my shoulders.
The saw blade zinged as it sailed over me with enough force and speed to tousle my hair.
“Wow, lady,” I shouted from my prone position, glancing up to check if she was prepping another throw.
She wasn’t. In fact, she had her hip cocked to one side, a hand on her waist as she chuckled softly.
“See how they mock you,” said a voice inside my head. Not the internal voice that told me to ease up on chips and snacks, nor the one that told me it was okay to eat ice cream for breakfast.
“Tiamat,” I breathed.
“See how they laugh as you kiss the ground at their feet. Are you a maggot, little thing? Or are you a great witch of your bloodline? The very last? Will you wriggle in the dirt like a pathetic worm, or will you roar at them with the voice of a dragon?”
Or a lion, I thought, shaking detritus out of my hair as I staggered to my feet.
I curled my fingers around nothing, forming a claw with my hand, prepared to channel Tiamat’s flames. Whatever it would take to help me survive this.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Max! My hero, standing there with my other heroes, Johnny and Roscoe. But I never heard their footsteps. Oh, of course. Silence spell. Max’s voice was only making any sound because he’d pierced the field of her magic.
I tightened my hand into a fist, dismissing the dragonfire. Somewhere inside me, Tiamat’s flames receded. I could almost taste her disappointment.
“That is enough,” Max shouted, glowering at us both. “Stop it right now, the two of you.”
I thrust my finger at Lady Machete. “She started it! I was just having a nice, quiet moment out here until she attacked me.”
“Out here?” Ross asked, nose wrinkled. “By the dumpsters?”
“That was so uncalled for,” Johnny told the woman. “What if one of the normals had seen you? You’d get yourself into trouble. Put my bar on the radar, too.”
“As if I’d ever be that careless.” Lady Machete crossed her arms, rolled her eyes, and tapped her booted foot. “I was just looking out for Max.”
“Oh, God,” I grumbled. “You guys all know each other? Why couldn’t you have said hello instead of waving a giant knife in my face?”
The woman shrugged. “I needed to know what you were about. Call it an assessment.”
“She’s very protective. You’ll have to excuse her — yeah, let’s call it her enthusiasm.”
