Fiction River: Hex in the City (12 page)

“Hot chocolate, extra hot. As in I-could-sue-you-but-I-won’t hot.” The hawk woman winked at Jacqueline, though her face remained severe. Jacqueline still giggled. “Whip cream. Shot of raspberry.” She dismissed Jacqueline with a nod and her attention shifted to me. Jacqueline scurried to fetch the childish drink.

I just stared at the strangest, most rude woman of my acquaintance.

“You should try one sometime. A little sweet in your life would not do you harm.” She said and absently picked up one of the wilted petals off the table. She rubbed it between her two fingers, then looked up at me. Her eyes pinned me to my chair. I shook, not just the Parkinson’s. Then shook it off.

“My Lady,” I started, since Miss seemed more than inappropriate to address her with. She shifted in her seat, eyes still on mine, and crossed her legs. Long, elegant legs. Her jacket parted at the knee to reveal her skirt edge, red. Blood red like the petal she rubbed between her fingers. My eyes darted back to hers and found she had raised a single eyebrow at me. “My lady, though you are a lovely addition to my morning, some people would think it rude to join another party’s table without an invitation.”

“Well, then thank goodness that isn’t you, hmmm?” her voice, low for a woman’s still held a distinct feminine quality. And the low purr of a cat. A cat of power. With a voice box made by Peterbilt.

“So, do you like my present?” she asked.

“I am not sure what you mean, Ms…?” I let the question hang.

But she ignored my pry for her name. Blatantly ignored. Quite unladylike.

“You now possess the magic to restore life to the flower. Single flowers to start. And small plants. A little bit of practice and whole bouquets will freshen at your touch.” Jacqueline arrived at that moment with the Lady’s hot chocolate. Whip cream, white and frothy, swirled into a mountain peak up over the lip of the tall white mug. “Thank you, Jacqueline.”

Jacqueline sauntered away with a little happy skip, as the hawk woman lifted the mug to her lips. She tipped the mug and moaned in her throat as she swallowed. She set the mug down and licked thin pink lips with a smack. Whip cream lined her upper lip and dotted her nose with a dab of white froth. So unladylike.

Then she smiled, and the bright sunlight became like a shadow in the face of it. Her face glowed with happiness. I had to blink my eyes against it. Then the light receded, and I could look at her straight on once again. She sat like a normal woman. A normal woman who radiated power, bore true the adage “alight with pleasure,” and spoke of magic. With very nice legs.

“My Lady,” The title felt more true by the moment, “who are you?”

“Little confused are you? A bit of a change for you?” the Lady teased fiercely, and took another sip of her hot chocolate. The whip cream on her lip and nose remained.

“To be honest, you have unsettled me a bit this morning.” I replied.

“Not as unsettled, upset, as your world has been these past few months. Has it?” Her eyes looked at me over the top of the whip cream mountain, trailed down past my chest over the table and landed on the light pink straw that protruded rudely out of the top of my coffee mug. We both stared at the vile thing. I gripped my ever shaking hands in my lap under the tablecloth and willed my shame at bay. Commanded my self-respect, thinned over the past months by the gradual decline of control over my body, to firm up and stay. Though it threatened to flee under the power of the Lady’s gaze. So I emboldened it with my anger.

“You, lady, have no right to come here and disrupt this man’s morning on a whim. Hot chocolate and mockery. Not something I ordered off the menu. Please take them elsewhere.” More difficult than I imagined, I held her eyes with mine. Just before her clear gaze of ice had mine beat, she released me. With a slow reach, she fingertip slid the petal she had handled across the table to me.

“The magic is real. And yours.” She spoke simply, her eyes on the petal beneath her finger. “The control you have lost, the deterioration of your body, cannot be changed. But in exchange, for the time you have left, a gift. A magic gift for you. To add a bit of the life to that which you are losing in the remaining time you have.”

She lifted her finger from the petal, now a dark wet purple from the pressure she had put on it. Bruised and mortally wounded, the petal sat square center on the white tablecloth in front of me. Her hand returned to the side of her mug, but she did not drink.

My eyes would not leave the poor, abused petal. A threat and a promise. The magic and the woman felt like both. I reached out a second shaky reach in the direction of something a breath away from death. But I wanted life to fill out, spring up from that petal once again. My will near begging, I jumped when the destroyed petal plumped up with a fresh blush of color. The tingle on my finger tip sizzled with intensity.

“Nicely done.” The Lady whispered, an intimate speech, just between her and me. “You even healed the others.”

The two other fallen and wilted petals matched the flush health of the one I focused on.

“That takes strength of will, which you seem to have in spades.” She continued. “Your ability will develop quickly, if that is your desire.”

“How far can I go? I mean, if I master this…magic. What is at the end? What would I be able to do?” I did not look up at her when I asked. My hope too fragile under her aware gaze.

But it didn’t matter.

“Plant life only. Not animal. Not human. This magic will not help your body, nor anyone else’s.” She answered, her voice flat in her intimate whisper.

Frustration. Anger. Rage. All trapped behind my walls, gentlemanly acceptance and my abhorrence of weakness bubbled and burst out of my chest in a fount of fear and pain. Only decades of practice to keep my emotions masked in public kept me from screaming in the face of the woman who had wiggled the carrot of my manhood and self-respect in front of me and yanked it away in quiet tones.

“Then what is the goddamned point!” I spit. Literally. Blood pressure be damned. And I shook. And shook. Hell, I shook so bad I near punched myself in the face with the cloth napkin in my lap I snatched up to wipe the spittle from my mouth as I tried to regroup.

She just watched me and said nothing. Which didn’t help in the slightest.

At least her eyes held no pity.

“Who. Are you?” I growled in a low whisper to match her own. The force of my anger made it difficult to keep my words below a roar.

“Once upon a time…” She started.

“Jesus Christ!” I threw the napkin on the table and pushed back my chair. Then leaned in to her. “Whatever trick you have Lady, you’re done playing me.”

I stood and snagged my cane from where it leaned against the wall. The cold rippled steel of the lion’s head slipped into my hand as a familiar comfort. Jacqueline skittered over with a concerned look on her face. I shooed her away, unwilling to subject an old man’s anger on the innocent. So, I left. Ran away, in a sense. Ran into the park, away from people as much as possible on an island of millions. And when I say ran, I mean I hobbled as quickly as my unsteady gait could take me.

It took time before the red heat of my anger blew away in the thin morning breeze to take in the world again. The grey asphalt walkway had been splashed with yellow and orange light from the morning sun. They waved and swam as the budding canopy above swayed in the wind. Branches rubbed together with a sharper sound than wind through leaves they did not yet carry. The path wound and curved just enough to give the feel of being deep in the woods. Deep wet woods. Not feet from the greatest metropolis on the planet. Wood slat benches offered a moment’s respite, but as I approached each one my anger ebbed me on. I needed to cool down before I re-emerged into the public eye, and caught a cab home to lick my wounds.

She stood in the middle of Strawberry Fields like a Madonna. All power and strong, beautiful and soft. One foot on the “M”, one the “N”, she straddled “IMAGINE” written in that stone circle memorial with hands in the pockets of her tan overcoat. The red edge of her skirt peeked and waved from beneath the coat’s edge.

“Once upon a time,” she started again.

“Jesus, let me alone, woman.” I answered, surprised at my exhaustion. The bench to the right against the fence looked inviting. Stubborn pride kept me where I stood. For better or worse.

“Sit down.”

Her words brooked no argument, and neither did my legs. They started an inner countdown to collapse I could not ignore. I shuffled to the bench and eased into it. Damn getting old. Damn it to hell.

She joined me on the bench without an invitation. Her shoulder-length hair brushed her cheek in the wind. Her pale blue eyes found mine again. Sad, but not for me.

“Once upon a time, before airplanes and penicillin, before wisdom and old age, man discovered fire. Life became more than simple survival. The body decayed before the mind. The weakness of the flesh sent a soul to Death before Life killed it.” The Lady shifted on the bench, slid her hands into her pockets and folded her coat tighter around herself. Just after she hugged herself for warmth, a chill breeze blew up, wove its way around them both, pulled my hand heat from the top of my steel lions cane head and turned it to ice. The Lady raised one lone eyebrow at me again.

“Continue. I’m listening.” I said, and shifted my chilled hand down to the wooden body of my cane.

“Not much more to tell. When Death observes a body approach him that Life has not conquered except through the deterioration of the flesh, He bestows upon them a gift of magic. Different for every body.”

I considered her story and found it lacking. Hard to swallow an understatement.

“And you are Death?” I asked.

She laughed. The sound filled the air around me, traveled over the “IMAGINE” stones, down pathways, over bridges, between statue and bicyclist, wrapped around every tree trunk, branch and bud. Intense and thick, the pressure of the sound rose up to fill the entire park and burst onto the city streets.

I gasped at the relief. Giggled strangely at the oddity of what had happen. And my belief in every word she had said solid and grounded as granite, marble, and taxes. It relaxed me. The oddest of all.

“No, I’m not Death.” She said, her face severe as if the laughter never was. “Just call me an agent of Death. A Lady of Death, you so politely keep reminding me. Which is nice.” The last she said on an exhale, then looked into the park, past the trees.

“How much time do I have left?” I pushed out the words as calm as calm, though my stomach clenched.

Her gaze discovered mine again in a slow turn of her head, her eyes more ice than blue.

“Harold, it is never enough.” She said, and stood and walked away.

“Wait.” I said too late, and scurried after her.

Like the wind itself pulled her away, a swirl of hair, coat, and flapping red skirt turned a corner on the path. And she was gone.

I panted and shook. Leaned on a black iron lamp post, one of those mock pre-electric Victorian things. Time felt to spin and go sideways. Magic in the time of car horns? Death gave presents?

Did that just happen?

The stick ends, dried and withered, of an old bouquet poked out of the black hole of the green barred garbage receptacle. I grabbed them. The brown trampled and tire treaded mass had once been daisies. Such a common flower.

I willed the tingle to my fingers wrapped about the stems. Yelped when I felt them sizzle. Shouted when stems grew plump and firm. Laughed as white petals re-bloomed and smiled their happy yellow centers toward the sun.

With a spring in my step, and a shaking grip on the simple bouquet, I went in search of someone willing to drink a cup of coffee with me. Through a straw.

Introduction to “
Red As Snow”

Seanan McGuire is an enigma. At six years of age she told Vincent Price he was going to be her husband. She has been a foster parent to a rescued mountain lion named Miss Kitty. She rarely sleeps, which is how she gets so much done. And she would gladly kill someone with a hammer to get a night in the Disney princess castle. After reading “Red As Snow,” I’m convinced that she is also really a Waheela.

Seanan lives in the foggy depths of the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is regularly visited by rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and other delights. She is the author of the October Daye series and the InCryptid series, both of which are published by DAW Books. She also writes as Mira Grant, author of the Newsflesh trilogy and the Parasite duology. In her spare time, Seanan watches horror movies, reads superhero comics, and writes more books. Seanan shares her home with three abnormally large blue cats, way too many books, and a lot of creepy dolls. Seanan writes:

“‘
Red As Snow’ was inspired by the desire to spend more time with Istas and Ryan, two characters first introduced in the book
Discount Armageddon
. Neither is human, but I adore their way of looking at the world. You don't need to have read any of my books to understand what’s going on, although the story is firmly set within the InCryptid universe.”

Red
As Snow

Seanan McGuire

“Flesh is temporary; flesh will end. Ice is forever. Remember this, and choose your steps with caution.” —Waheela proverb.