Short Story - Hex (9/9)

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.

            

 This was bad.  I mean, really fucking bad.  Why?  Because nobody got to see the Grand Pubahs unless a) they were being stripped of their powers or b) they were dead.  Considering I’d so done my super best deed ever, I had to assume that I was more b than a.

             

What did I expect?  I ran full speed towards a crazy, naked hag with a knife in her hand.  Of course dead was where I was ending up.  But, let me tell ya, when you wake up surrounded by a white haze in an empty room with pillars, it’s enough to make you forget that you’d ended your life in a really stupid way.

            

 “Do you regret what you have done?”

             

What the hell!  I whirled around in every direction, trying to find the voice that shook the room.  Figures they wouldn’t show themselves.  They’d let me stand there and watch me like they always did and do that whole lording over me thing.  And did the voice have to be so loud?  And so... asexual?

             

Did I regret?  Fuck yeah, I regret it!  If I could have found another way to save Tyler, I’d have done it.  This was my only choice, unfortunately, and it was one hell of a choice.  I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to send him to hell, either.  It wasn’t his fault that he got hooked up with a psycho bitch.  Okay, so maybe it was his fault, but he didn’t deserve hell just because he had lousy taste in women.

             

But... Wishing there was another way wasn’t exactly regret.  I didn’t want to die, but sickeningly enough, I’d have probably done it again.  As long as it meant that he was alive.  I might have been a grudge-holding, power-wielding crazy witch, but I wasn’t that selfish.

             

“No,” I said with a sigh, “not if it means he was saved.”

             

“If he would have been saved another way, you would have taken that option instead?”

             

I really hated that loud voice.  Who knew that, even in death, you could get headaches?  “Well, hello!  Death isn’t exactly on the top of my list of things to do, ya know.”  I took in a deep breath and bit my lip the second I spoke.  Nana always told me that I had to be nice with them, or at least as nice as my jaded personality would allow.

             

“If I’m dead, there’s no one else to save him.  My death means that he still ends up dead, and that makes it all for nothing.  I’d like to believe that I didn’t just leave him out there for another round of attacks.”

             

“Have you learned the depth of the consequences that come with taking wicked advantages of your powers?”

            

 I’d really love to believe that this whole thing wasn’t a test; that they didn’t allow this to happen to Tyler just to teach me a lesson.  It would be much better to believe that this was just a convenient coincidence.  There just happened to be the perfect case to show me what I would turn into if I kept up my oh-so-sinister teenage-like wicked ways.  At least then, the Pubahs weren’t heartless sons of bitches.  They were just lucky sons of bitches.

             

“I realize that people other than me can be seriously damaged, like soul damanged, because of the things that I do.  I also realize that I can end up soul tormented and stuff if I keep going the way I’ve been.  I learned a great big gorgeous lesson, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?  Because I’m dead, and there’s nothing left for me.  The most I can hope for is to hang around with Nana for the rest of eternity.”

            

 “Lesson learned.”

            

 I woke up with a deep, heaving breath, my chest on fire and my head pounding.  The lights were so bright, so ridiculously, stupidly fucking bright.  Those sons of bitches really did send me to hell, and hell was where they stared huge flourescent lights in your eyes for eternity.  Those bastards!  What happened to lesson learned and all that shit?

            

 “Are you sure she’s awake?”

             

“Look at her!  She’s breathing, her eyes are open...”

             

“Has to be a death rattle or something.  Nobody wakes up after a stab to the heart.  It just doesn’t happen.  This girl was DOA.”

            

 Who were these people and what the hell were they talking about?  I put my hand to my eyes and when I groaned, somebody squealed like a little girl.  It hurt to move my head, but I had to get that light out of my eyes.

             

“Ma’am?”  Oh.  My.  God.  I am not that old.  I’m so not a ma’am.  “Ma’am, can you hear me?”

             

I was cold and laying on something even colder.  And I was... naked.  Naked!  Oh shit!

             

I leapt from the bed and my legs gave way the second my feet touched the floor.  I fell straight to cold linoleum and hoped whatever I was holding onto was enough to cover me.  What the hell was going on? 

            

 “What is this?  Is hell like, that naked high school dream?  Except it’s worse ‘cause I’m not in front of people I know, I’m in front of perfect strangers?”

             

“Ma’am...”  I blinked until I could focus on the men standing on the other side of what appearend to be a cold metal table.  A cold... a slab?  Oh, you’re shitting me.  A tall, dark-haired man with oval glasses and a bad anime like haircut said, “You were dead.”

             

“What do you mean, I was dead?”

             

“You’ve been dead for two days.  You’re in—“

             

He stopped and looked at his friend.  I waited for an answer, then decided to check out the room when I didn’t get one.  Lots of cold metal cabinets.  And a couple of these tables.  With sheets over...

             

Two fucking days!  They couldn’t send me back before they decided to chop me up and take out my brain!  Thank the Pubahs I woke up before they started cutting.  That would have been a bitch, and I would have had to kill somebody.  And the shit thing was, I probably couldn’t even sue.  It’s not like I’d been dead a few hours.  I was dead for two whole days.  There’s no mistaking dead for two days.

             

“This is incredible.”  That was the other one, short and round, balding on the top.  Somebody really should have told him that those three super long hairs weren’t covering up the fact that he had no hair at all down the center of his head.  “This is... This is Discovery Health!”

             

“Oh, hell no!”  I stood up and considered grabbing a sheet from one of the other tables.  But, did I really want to be covered by a corpse’s tarp?  Yeah, not happening.  I stooped back down.  “Could one of you tell me what the fuck is actually going on?  What happened to me?”

             

“Well, we didn’t exactly get to the autopsy—“  Glasses stopped when Baldy elbowed him in the side.  “But, from what we know, you were found with a knife in your heart in an alley, no ID, no nothing.”

             

Great.  Whose idea was it to dump the body?  Probably the Pubahs to teach me the rest of my lesson.  Oh, how grateful I am that those pricks are up there to watch over me.

             

“Okay, look, I’m not dead.  Obviously.  And I have no intention on ending up a Discovery Health freak show.  Not doin’ it.  So, what you need to do is stop staring at me and get me something to wear so I can go home.”

            

“You can’t—“

             

“The hell I can’t!  Go!  Shoo!”  Yes, I said shoo, and yes I actually waved my hands at them.  They were so not the kind of geeks they used on TV.  Nigel and Bug were geeks, but at least Crossing Jordan used cute geeks.

             

I was naked, cold, and just minutes away from an autopsy.  Wasn’t that one hell of a way to wake up?

             

“Nana, I’m fine, would you stop hovering?  And don’t tell me you’re a ghost and ghosts hover, ‘casue I know the truth, remember?”

             

Two weeks and the woman couldn’t give me a break.  I was obviously all better and I wasn’t going to fall over dead any time soon.  All evidence of my knife to the chest were gone, not even a star, which was awesome.  I wasn’t abusing my powers, but I was still vain as hell.  With the perfect tits that I have, I’d hate to have a scar on one.

             

“I’m not hovering,” Nana told me, her jaw fixed as tightly as if she were telling me that I looked like a two dollar whore ready for a night on the corner.  “I’m trying to tell you that you’ve got company, so get up.”

             

Company?  Now that was interesting.  Probably one of the girls asking why I’d missed their Starbucks the last few weeks.  Lucky me, I got a break on the coffee shops.  Still had to work at Walmart, though.  Talk about major sucktitude.  God, I hate Walmart.

             

My day off, something I hadn’t had in a really long time with the life-saving and Starbucks checks and all, I was dressed casually, definitely not for company.  My pink sweat pants were comfortable, and my tank top was so tight that I didn’t have to wear a bra.  Good thing I had perky boobs, huh?  But, company that I didn’t know ahead of time... Well, I wasn’t putting on a bra, so the jacket that matched my pants would just have to do.

             

Downstairs, Tyler was waiting for me.  I hadn’t seem him since he tried to kill me.  He looked good for a man that had been close to going to hell.  His eyes were a little heavy, but it was deserved.  He had almost been turned into a killing machine, after all.  But, he was healthy, and the flowers in his hands looked like he might even be a little grateful.

             

Gratitude was nice.  And seeing him was even nicer.

             

Nana had told me that Tyler was fine.  The Pubahs had left him the memories, but they took the darkness from him, what bit was left when I did my Father Karras routine.  My sacrifice had saved his soul.  The least he could do was come for a visit.

             

“Well, long time, no see, stranger.  Thought you might never come around here.”

             

Tyler was nervous, moving from side to side.  He could have taken a seat, but he chose to stand there, moving from one foot to another.  “That whole alley thing... I didn’t even know until your grandmother told me.  You just—You just kinda disappeared.”

             

“Yeah, they like to do that.  Freak people out, I mean.  They’re not exactly what I would call shake, rattle, and roll happy dancing people, ya know?”

             

Tyler laughed.  “Good to know that you’ve still got that disdain for the English language.”

             

“Always, sugar pie.”  I winked at him and he laughed again.  He had a nice laugh, rich and warm.  Nice to know that he could actually laugh.  “So, uh... What...”

             

“Yeah, everything’s cleared up.”  I shrugged, then pointed.  “Those for me?”  Tyler blinked as his brain turned back on.  Babbling incoherently, he gave me the flowers.  And I kept talking as I went to the kitchen to put them in water.

             

“These are gonna die in a few days, ya know.  Without abusing magic, there’s no way I can keep these things alive.”  Okay, so maybe that was going overboard.  That wasn’t really abusing it.  “Or maybe I can get away with it.  We’ll see what happens if I put a spell on and they die anyway.”

             

For the time being, though, I left the spell off.  I’d do that later.  I put them in water with their nifty supplied food.  “So yeah, what’s going on.  Well, the Pubahs wiped all record of it ever happening, so the geeks from the morgue have forgotten that they wanted to put me on digital cable.”  Thanks.  Could have been avoided by just NOT SENDING ME TO THE MORGUE, but thanks.   “Scars are all bye bye and there’s nothin’ left but me and my rootin’ tootin’ good time.”

            

 “That’s good to hear.  I’m, uh, I’m good.”  I leaned against the counter, and Tyler stood in the doorway.  “Still can’t believe my own girlfriend would do that to me—“

             

“Oh, she’s gonna get hers.”  I always did have a problem with interrupting people.  “She’ll be lucky to end up in limbo.  And that psycho bat aunt of hers, well... Let’s just say she’s goin’ where she wanted to go.”

             

“I wish I could say that’s good, but...”  He shrugged.  “I guess I just have a thing about stuff like that.  I don’t wish the worst on anyone.”

             

Damn, he really was a good guy!  A true blue, old school movie type hero.  No wonder they wanted him safe.  A guy like Tyler made the world a better place, literally. 

             

“You’re a great guy, Tyler.  I’m glad I died for you.”

             

“I’m glad you died for me, too.  No, not glad that you died, but that you--  Oh, you know what I mean.”

             

“Yeah,” I told him, “I do.”

             

Silence prevailed for long enough that I started to get the jitters.  The twitchy itchies I used to call them when I was little.  I hated the twitchy itchies.  “So, uh, yeah.”

             

“Yeah.”  He ran a hand over his head and I admit, I cringed when he reached the widow’s peak of doom.  I’d never forget that flight across the room.  “I was wondering, ya know, if getting to know you as you is different than getting to know you when you’re on one of your witch jobs.”

             

Smooth.  The man had the soul of a saint, but the game of a chess club president with pimples.  “Are you asking me out on a date, Tyler?”

             

“Uh... Yeah?”  He cleared his throat and let his hand drop.  He stood up straighter.  “Yes,” he said, this time like he meant it.  “I’m asking you on a date.”

             

And Nana was right there, nudging me.  “Do it, moron.”  Good thing she’d decided to make herself invisible to Tyler.  He didn’t have to see my grandmother being a twat.  “You think you’re ever gonna find one like this one?”

             

I ignored her.  Two weeks back in the living, it was time I got back to normal.  “I think we can do that.”  I gave him a tight smile.  “Just, for the love of my magical powers, don’t take me to Starbucks.  You take me to Starbucks, I put a whammy on your head.”

             

“Thought you couldn’t misuse your powers.”

             

“Who said anything about powers?  I’ll stand on something ‘cause you’re a giant and hit you in the head, and while I’m doing it, it’ll be like an old episode of Batman.  I’ll be all wham!”

             

Again, he laughed.  I really liked the sound of that.  More than the fact that it made me all warm and fuzzy, it meant that I really had saved him.  Not just his life, but his soul.  Tyler was still filled with that effervescent glow that made the world a little bit lighter and a lot nicer.

             

“Alright,” he laughed, “no Starbucks.”

             

“Well, then, we’ve got a date.  Whenever we set an actual date for our date.  But, first, there’s something I’ve gotta do.”  He crooked an eyebrow and I smirked.  I liked smirking.  It was so wicked without being wicked, and that was great since I’d given up being pseudo-wicked.  “California, here I come, babe.”

             

“Another job?”

             

“Of course.”  I was the supreme, primo, number one slayer of all things hell.  My work was never done.  But my fun... now that, had just begun.

The End