Hex Appeal (12 page)

Jim Butcher enjoys fencing, martial arts, singing, bad science-fiction movies, and live-action gaming. He lives in Missouri with his wife, son, and a vicious guard dog. You may learn more at www.jim-butcher.com.

HOLLY’S BALM

by
RACHEL CAINE

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Andy and Holly also appear in a short story entitled
“Death Warmed Over”
in the anthology
Strange Brew (2010).

*   *   *

You have to have a strong stomach if you’re a witch—especially one who deals in potions, because potions in general are not made out of, say, sweet herbs and baby’s breath. But still, as I opened my front door and stepped in, and dropped my bag on the chair, the smell hit me like an iron skillet to the face.

I gagged, covered my mouth and nose, and fought down an overpowering impulse to turn around and leave.

But that wouldn’t do because it was my house, and besides, there was no way I was going to let on how bad that stench actually had hit me. I was a
professional,
dammit.

Although it was, in fact,
really
bad. I blinked, wiped tears away from my eyes, locked the door behind me, and took several self-abusing deep breaths before my gag reflex subsided and my body adjusted to the new, foully odorous reality. It was all the worse because I had a great house. It should have smelled like vanilla and cinnamon, maybe, not like rotting corpses and cancer, with a high note of ancient, sweaty armpits.

“Honey?” I tried to sound concerned, but positive, which was somewhat spoiled by my holding my nose. “Um … what died?” I followed the smell into the big open kitchen, where Andrew Toland, dressed in my best apron, the one with red lace trim, was stirring a gigantic pot on top of the stove. Andy has a wicked sharp smile that was balanced by warm, disarming brown eyes; it’s a face that’s young in years but has lines of character that speak of the hard times and experiences. Shaggy brown hair that I couldn’t convince him to trim into a more modern style.

“That had
better
not be our dinner,” I said. “Or you are a dead man.”

He smiled even wider. “That seem at all redundant to you, Holly Anne?”

He was right, it was redundant, because Andy Toland was, fact, already dead. He’d died back in the Old West days, fighting the world’s worst zombie war; he’d rested in peace for a long time after that, before a resurrection witch—me, in fact—brought him back to help find a ruthless killer, one with the same powers of life and death that I had. I was moderately powerful, I supposed, but Andy was, and always had been, in a class by himself.

Which was why he was standing here in my kitchen, brewing up some foul concoction, instead of resting in peace in his grave. He was powerful, and he was determined, and he was in love. With
me.
God help me, I was crazy in love with him, too. Somehow, that was a stronger magic than any potion I’d ever brewed because it kept him alive in defiance of all the laws of resurrection magic. The supernatural rules said that someone brought back would get weaker exponentially the longer they stayed—that they’d be overtaken by pain and dragged back into the dark no matter how much a resurrection witch struggled to keep them alive. I’d never been able to sustain anyone I’d resurrected for longer than a couple of days.

Andy had been alive now for almost three months, and although he regularly brewed himself up a maintenance potion, he wasn’t declining. Not at all. He’d never shown a moment of pain, weakness, or distraction.

It was a nine days’ wonder in the magical world. I was surprised we weren’t besieged by researchers, but Andy’s reaction to the first few who’s buttonholed us had been swift and decisive enough to drive them off—or, more accurately, to send them circling like vultures. They could afford to wait. He wasn’t going anywhere. That was kind of the whole point.

“Hi, pretty lady,” he said, and kissed me lightly on the nose I was still holding closed. “How was your day?”

“Miserable, but what else is new? It’s the same office job as yesterday, only fifty percent more boring now that everyone avoids me.” I’d always tried to keep my day job separate from what I did in my off-hours—translation, witchcraft—but now that the word was out, I was treated like a pariah. Not that it was much of a change, actually.

“That’d be their loss, Holly Anne. Never met anybody less worth avoiding than you.”

I couldn’t help it. I let go of my nose and kissed him back, on the lips. “You know I have to ask,” I said. “What the hell
is
that stench?” When I looked down into the stockpot, I saw a thick red potion threaded with veins of silver. He was stirring with a long-handled silver spoon, so it had a ritual component as well as the basic magical chemistry. Close-up, the smell was so thick, it was like dense London fog. Even though I held my breath, I could taste it heavy in my mouth.

“Damn, I was hoping it’d be done before you got here,” he said, and checked his watch—not a wristwatch, an old-fashioned pocket watch, on a chain, although he’d finally stopped wearing a vest around the house and stuck the timepiece in his jeans pocket instead. “Sorry. I promise, it gets better.”

“It couldn’t get any worse,” I said miserably. It came out muffled and indistinct because I had both hands clapped over my nose and mouth. My eyes were watering. I honestly couldn’t understand how he could stand so close to that awful stench and not collapse. Maybe it was a sturdiness one acquired after death, but my knees were getting weak already. “I’ll never get the smell out of here! Andy, sweetheart, this is where I
cook food
!”

“I know. Trust me?” He gave me the look I could never resist—puppy dog eyes and an endearingly vulnerable smile. “Here, how about we let this cook a while? I want to welcome you home proper.”

“Can you leave it?”

“Well—for a bit, anyway.”

I didn’t wait for a second invitation to run away, and escaped out into the relatively clear air of the living room, where I gulped down breaths and wiped tears from my cheeks. Andy followed me at a more dignified pace. He overlooked my quiet gagging and let me get my bearings before he hugged me, then kissed me, and oh, that was nice. It almost made up for what he’d done to the house.

That might have gone to sweetly intimate places, in fact, except that, just then, my cell phone rang.

We both froze because my number was strictly private—only a few people had it, and one of them was my call screener, who qualified jobs for me. Her name was Melaine, and she was a brisk, funny, no-nonsense woman who seemed to regard taking messages for doctors and for witches as being pretty much the same thing. That was a rarity in Texas–even in Austin, which prided itself on diversity and tolerance for the most part. Witches were never going to be welcome in most Bible Belt towns, what with the scriptural death sentence and all.

I flipped open the cell, and said, “Melaine?”

“Hey, Miss Caldwell,” her bright, calm voice said on the other end. “I got an urgent call for you from a Detective … Prieto? He says you know him.”

I knew Detective Prieto, all right. A chill settled over me and quickly deepened to artic levels. “Go on,” I said. Next to me, Andy watched, waiting and still.

“Here’s his number—” She read it off slowly, making sure I had it before moving on. “He says that he needs you to look at a crime scene, right away. He gave me the address.”

I scribbled down the information on a sheet of paper. “Did he say anything else?”

“Not really.” Melaine paused for a moment, then said, “He sounded a little weird, actually.”

My pencil stopped midnote. “Weird, how?”

“Shaky. And I’m married to a cop. I’ve never heard a police officer sound like that. He seemed—spooked.”

That didn’t make my bad feeling go away. In fact, it intensified. “Okay,” I said. “Please call him back and tell him I’ll meet him there in twenty minutes.”

“Will do.” Melaine rang off.

Andy was watching me, and he was still holding my free hand. “You look like it’s something nasty.”

“Probably,” I said. “I’m sorry, honey. I have to go.” Normally, I would have asked him to accompany me, but if he had a potion on the stove, there was no way he could. “You
did
say that will smell better, right?”

“Cross my heart,” he said, and kissed me again. I stepped back and straightened my shirt, which had somehow gotten a little rumpled, then checked my office skirt and sensible low-heeled shoes. They looked approximately crime scene appropriate.

“You look just fine,” he assured me, and gave me that crooked, intimate smile that made the thrill set in much deeper. “Better out of all that getup, but—”

“Mind your manners, you roughneck heathen.”

“Yes, ma’am, I won’t embarrass you in public. But in private, I’ll be happy to make you blush all you want, anywhere you want. You just say the word.”

Oh, how I wished I could. Instead, I said, “The call was from Detective Prieto. He’s got a crime scene.”

Andy’s smile disappeared, and his body language shifted in subtle, dangerous ways. Old West gunfighter kind of ways. He suddenly looked loose-limbed, rangy, and very dangerous. “How’s that old dog?”

“Still hunting,” I said. “And I think he might have caught something bad he needs my help with.”

Andy nodded slowly, eyes gone dark and far away. “Wish I could go with you, sweetheart. I don’t like sending you off alone, something like this.”

“That’s nice, but you know, I did get along just fine for years on my own without being chaperoned by a big, strong man.”

That got me a small grin. “Still don’t like seeing women go running off into the dark unescorted,” he said. “I know it’s a more civilized time, but that don’t mean there ain’t wolves out there.”

Oh, I knew that, almost as well as he did. “Chauvinist,” I said.

“I’ll have you know I was raised Lutheran, missy.”

That made me laugh, then cough, because the smell coming from the kitchen had, if anything, intensified. “I think something’s burning,” I said, and Andy gave me another peck on the cheek and went back to his stirring.

I got out my own go-bag, which I kept stocked for emergencies. Nothing but basic supplies, because if I was asked to do any kind of full resurrection, it would take days of time and effort to complete brewing up the necessary potions anyway.

In the bottom, I had tucked a legal-to-carry Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol.

Welcome to Texas.

I had no doubt that if Andy had joined me, he’d have had guns in his bag as well. And knives. And probably high explosives. Even in Texas, though, some of that wasn’t legal to carry around, so we usually just left it as an ignorance-is-bliss kind of thing.

I was, unexpectedly, feeling a little vulnerable without him at my side.

“Holly Anne?”

He was watching me from the kitchen doorway, spoon still in his hand. He looked adorable in that apron.

I looked into his face and saw the concern. I managed a faint smile. “I’m fine,” I said. “Honest. No worries, okay?”

“All right,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced, but then, I didn’t feel too solid about it, either. Resurrection witches were not the first call from detectives on any police force, not since the laws had changed banning the testimony of the deceased. So it took something powerfully wrong for Detective Prieto to be speed-dialing me.

I was heading into something awful. I could just smell it, just like the stuff Andy was cooking on my stove.

“When you come back here, I promise, I’ll have all this cleaned up,” he said.

I kissed him again, quickly, and escaped the smell … but I had a grim feeling that it was going to be the least of my problems this evening.

*   *   *

The address Melaine had given me was in an industrial area of Austin; industrial areas have a certain sameness to them no matter where you are in the world. Little in the way of nature had survived here, except in the artificially maintained entrance to the business park. My headlights caught the name on the sign as we turned, and I felt a startled shock of recognition.

HIGHLAND LAKES INDUSTRIAL AND BUSINESS COMMUNITY
. Yes, I’d been here before. I’d seen that dour-looking Scotsman in a kilt on the sign before. When had I …

Oh.

Yes, that was a bad feeling sinking through my chest, very bad indeed. I completed the turn and headed for where I saw a whole carnival of flashing red and blue lights in the distance, reflecting off the side of a building.

I’d been here before, all right; it was one of my most vivid, horrible memories.

Maybe it’s a coincidence,
I thought.

I should have known better.

As I pulled up to the police barricade blocking off the area, I spotted Detective Prieto. He waved away the uniformed officer who was trying to stop me and leaned in the car window. Prieto had that hard, world-weary air that many detectives sported, coated with a thick outer shell of cynical realism. “So. You’re alone? Isn’t your dead boyfriend still lurking somewhere?”

“Why, does it bother you?” I asked him, and couldn’t control a chill in my tone.

“Won’t keep me up nights.”

“You asked
me
here, Detective. We’re not getting off to a good start.”

He shrugged. “It’s that kind of night. Drive around the corner. Park next to the meat wagon.”

As I pulled to a stop, the sense of familiarity deepened. It wasn’t just the same industrial park and building. It was the same damn
spot.
That was just too weird to be coincidental. I turned off the engine and sat in silence for a few seconds, thinking. I wanted to get back into the car and drive away, but the fact was, I couldn’t turn down a request from the police. Witches had a tough enough time as it was, with the Bible thumpers trying to get us hanged, burned, or drowned in a dunking chair. We
needed
the cops to like us. Even Prieto.

So I got out, shivering a little in the evening chill, and grabbed my bag out of the back.