Short Story - Hex (8/9)

Title: Hex

Genre: Paranormal

Rating: PG-13 (for language)

Story Type: Short story
Warnings: mild violence

Word count: (total) 18,373 - (chapter) 1,987

Summary: Nora used her powers for revenge, and even though it was just a little revenge, she's still in trouble with The Powers That Be.  To atone, she helps as many people as she can.  Now, she's helping Tyler, and his problem is just so big that it might be the one that gets her out of the doghouse for good.
 

            

 “Tyler… You don’t…”  

             

‘Wanna do this’ wasn’t getting past my lips.  There wasn’t enough air left in my lungs to complete full sentences, and even if there were, there was no way that anything was getting past his vice grip at my throat. 

            

 I should have paid more attention when we came up.  I was too busy being ecstatic that we were finally out from underground to notice that the Wicked Bitch of West Des Moines was standing right there with a sadistic grin on her face.  I may have been a smart cookie, but sometimes, I never made it past cookie dough.

            

 Her black orbs looped around her in wide ovals.  Wouldn’t ya know it, she was the girlfriend’s aunt.  Tyler had been in her presence too many times to count, and though I already figured he was a complete psychic null, this proved it.  Black waves of evil floated off of her in waves.  Anybody with even a little bit of the touch would have at least felt something being around her.  Then again, he’d never been to her house.  She probably looked completely normal out in public.

            

 Whatever the case, psychic null that he was, Tyler had never seen Lucinda Jayne the way he saw her tonight.  Her black hair spilled over her shoulders and could have done a mermaid’s trick of covering her old, sagging tits if it were necessary.  Which it wasn’t.  She was naked, but between the sacrificial blood on her pale skin and the black mist that swirled around her like a moving swath of fabric, we could only get glimpses of flesh.  Tyler was stunned, amazed to see her like this.  I was happier than a pig in shit that I couldn’t see her middled-aged nudity.

She laughed at us.  She monologued all to be damned, and if I didn’t need her to take the hex off of Tyler, I would have shot her down right there.  Or at least tried.  As it were, I had to try really hard to keep my power from lashing out.  It would have been so much easier if Nana had actually come with us.  Figures that when I really needed her around to nag me, she was nowhere to be found.

             

Maybe if Nana had been there, I wouldn’t have wound up in the situation I was in.  Or maybe I’d at least know how I ended up in this mess, anyway.  With long, slender fingers wrapped around my neck.  Hands squeezing.  Palm heels pressing in on either side.  I was seeing stars and everything was going black.  Everything except the glow of power in Tyler’s eyes.  The glow of ‘I got you now, bitch’ that Lucinda was using Tyler to convey.

             

It happened so fast.  She said a few words in a language that I didn’t understand.  It sounded like Gaelic, but I couldn’t be sure.  I should have taken Nana’s advice and learned Gaelic like she wanted me, too.  I thought Latin, Italian, Greek, German, and Romanian were enough.  Silly me.

             

But yeah, she said a few words and before I knew it, Tyler was walking towards her.  I tried to hold onto his arm.  I yelled at him not to be a complete fucking moron, but in the end, he pulled away from me and he walked to her.  And once Lucinda had him, that was it.

             

She touched his forehead, and I would almost swear I saw the good left in him coming out, surging through her hand and into her own body.  Lucinda arched her back.  Her mouth opened in ecstacy.  It was absolutely disgusting and made me do the only thing I could think of.  I lunged forward and shoved Tyler out of the way.  I broke their connection, and that’s when she ordered him to attack me.

             

There was enough of him gone to take the order, but I could only hope that I had saved enough to get through to him.  “Tyler, please…”  Again, he squeezed, cutting off my words.

             

“Kill her!” Lucinda shouted.  “The first life you take is always the sweetest!”

             

And the most damning, because usually, the first life one is commanded to take is from an innocent.  Yeah, yeah, I was nowhere near innocent, but I was on the side of light.  That was just as good as an innocent.  The only thing that would send him further into Hell than killing me was if Lucinda had found a baby for him to drown.  If she’d have known we were coming, the evil bitch probably would have done that. 

             

If Tyler didn’t let up on my neck, I’d never be able to talk him out of killing me.  Because I wouldn’t be able to talk.  That meant I had to find some way for him to loosen his grip.  I had to get him off of me long enough to talk him out of doing this very, very bad thing before he came at me again.

             

I hated to hurt such a hottie, especially in such a succulent place, but I had no choice.  With what little strength I had left as the world started to go black, I manage to pull my knee up between his legs.  I pulled so hard and grinded that a tear actually fell from his eyes before Tyler cried out and collapsed to the side.

             

I scrambled from underneath him, then crabwalked until a wall hit my back.  I looked past him to Lucinda.  She was angry that the moment had been broken, but she didn’t move to take care of me herself.  What good would that do her?  Tyler had to do the deed, and she’d just have to watch the game.

             

Well, watch this, you psycho bitch.

             

“Tyler, listen to me.”  I stood up, my back sliding against the wall as I rose.  “Tyler, I know there’s still something good in you in there.  I mean, there’s gotta be, right?  Because I don’t fail.”  I stopped and thought about that.  “Okay, so I don’t fail when it’s stuff like this.  Chemistry classes don’t count.”

            

 I could almost hear Nana telling me to stop babbling and get to the point.  What I wouldn’t have given for her to be there to tell me what to do.  And exactly why wasn’t she there?  She didn’t give a good reason.  She just abandoned me to this thing that she’d gotten me into, in the first place.  If she hadn’t stalked out Tyler in my magic mirror, then I wouldn’t have bruises on my neck and my lungs wouldn’t be burning.

             

“Damn you, Nana!”  I shook my head then got back to the matter at hand.  Not because I had forgiven Nana, but because Tyler was coming towards me.  “You’re a good person, Tyler.   I don’t even believe in truly good people, but I’ll be damned, you’re completely altruistic.  You know this isn’t right.”

             

“He knows nothing but what I tell him,” Lucinda spat at me.          

            

 “Oh, shut the fuck up!  I’ll deal with your wrinkled ass later!”  I did let myself be petty, though.  I rose my hand and forced what looked like sparks out of the tips of my fingers.  I had sparks, but she got a big wallop of flashing light in her face.  Bright enough to knock her off balance, and that was enough to make her stumble and fall.

             

The good part of that particular move was that it shook Tyler loose enough that the glow in his eyes started to fade and I could see a little of the hottie I’d spied on while he slept peeking through.  The bad part?  I saw way more of Lucinda than I ever wanted to see.  Gynecology had never interested me.

            

 Seeing her ladyparts wasn’t important, though.  Important was that I could get through to Tyler.  How stupid had I been?  I had been so focused on Tyler that I’d completely ignored his handler.  But, in my own defense, I was being murdered at the time.  Hard to use common sense when that’s happening.  Even harder to use logic.

             

I ran to Tyler and grabbed his arms as high as I could reach and still have my feet flat on the ground.  “Look into my eyes, Tyler.”  It sounded hokey as hell, and as he came forward, his eyebrow crooked in a way that said he thought so, too.  “Look at me, Tyler.  Look at me.”

             

He stuttered out, “N-Nora…”

             

“That’s right, it’s Nora.  You don’t wanna kill me, Tyler.”  He shook his head.  His eyes were starting to glow brighter, though, and that made his head stop shaking.  I looked around him and Lucinda was getting to her feet.  Fuck!

             

“Tyler, listen to me.  She’s too strong, Tyler.  I’ve felt her will.  I can’t make her fix you.”

             

“Nora…”  He shook his head.  His eyes flashed, and he was gone.  He shoved me back hard.  I flew, hit the wall, and slumped to the floor.  And then he was coming back.  And Lucinda was cackling behind him.  Whaddya know?  Wicked witches really do cackle.  You learn new things every day.

             

I couldn’t save him.  I knew that, now.  I couldn’t make her take it back, and I couldn’t make her give it all back.  I had failed, and Tyler would spend all of eternity damned.  I was the worst witch that should have been the best that ever existed.  I couldn’t save my charge, but the least I could do was share his torture.

             

As long as I stopped him from killing, he wouldn’t go to Hell.  But, he was so twisted already that even if I got the darkness off of him,  he would still be in limbo.  Eternity in the same realm with the tramp that had ordered the hex was worse than being in hell.  At least he wouldn’t have been annoyed.

            

 I made up my mind and wondered if it were time to just change my name to Father Karras.  With a whispered regret and apology to Nana, I forced myself to my feet and lunged at Tyler.  He lunged toward me at the same time and we met in the middle.  I grabbed his head with both hands, put my thumbs over his widow’s peak of doom, then called to every dark piece in him.

             

Those bastard pieces came willingly.  They had already eaten plenty of Tyler away, and what was a better dessert than a savior witch?  I opened myself up and they came to me.  They ate me and slowly, I felt the light-hearted clouds I lived amongst turning into the blackest of storm clouds.  I felt myself draining away, any goodness replaced with a dark need to destroy and kill.  And I felt the strongest of urges to run to Starbucks and get a venti latté.

             

Lucinda screamed and I couldn’t tell if she were elated or completely pissed off.  Maybe a little of both.  She didn’t have both treasures.  She just had me, and she hadn’t even done it herself.  The darkness may have belonged to her, but without her orders, without her powers to snatch my soul up greedily, everything went to the collective of badasses that ran the dark side instead of to her.

             

Making matters worse?  Knocking her down had somehow made her misty clothing disappear and I could see her in full nakedness.  My eyes!  My eyes!  I was half a second from clawing my own eyes out when I saw that she was holding a knife.  A blood-crusted athame was in her hands, and I was determined to complete my transformation into Father Karras. 

             

I ran at Lucinda full tilt, aiming my body at the dagger’s blade.  What little bit of me that was left really wished that Nana were there.  I would have liked to say goodbye.