Hexbreaker - Jordan L. Hawk

  Will a dark history doom their future together?

  New York copper Tom Halloran is a man with a past. If anyone finds out he once ran with the notorious O’Connell tunnel gang, he’ll spend the rest of his life doing hard time behind bars. But Tom’s secret is threatened when a horrible murder on his beat seems to have been caused by the same ancient magic that killed his gang.

  Cat shifter Cicero is determined to investigate the disappearance of one friend and the death of another, even though no one else believes the cases are connected. When the trail of his investigation crosses Tom’s, the very bohemian Cicero instinctively recognizes the uncultured Irish patrolman as his witch. Though they’re completely unsuited to one another, Cicero has no choice but to work alongside Tom…all the while fighting against the passion growing within.

  Tom knows that taking Cicero as his familiar would only lead to discovery and disaster. Yet as the heat between them builds, Tom’s need for the other man threatens to overcome every rational argument against becoming involved.

  But when their investigation uncovers a conspiracy that threatens all of New York, Tom must make the hardest decision of his life: to live a lie and gain his heart’s desire, or to confess the truth and sacrifice it all.

  “Bloody hell, where is Isaac?” Cicero asked. “I’m freezing my arse off out here.”

  The clock tower atop the Coven showed half past eleven, which made Isaac half an hour late already. With just a week to go until Christmas, winter had set in with a vengeance: the wind whipped through the hair Cicero had so carefully fixed and turned the tip of his nose to ice. If it started snowing, he was giving up on Isaac and going straight back to the barracks. He was not getting wet for a man who couldn’t be bothered to show up on time.

  Even if they had been best friends, once.

  “You’re not the only one, cat,” Rook snapped. The cold had reddened his brown cheeks, and he huddled deep into a thick woolen coat. “Why are we out here with you again?”

  “Because Isaac wouldn’t have come back here if it wasn’t important,” Cicero replied.

  “So important he went to a party first?” Rook’s black eyes flashed with skepticism.

  “He said he needed to convince Gerald to come with him—and no, darling, I don’t know why,” Cicero added, before Rook could ask. “It was just a brief note.”

  Rook rolled his eyes. “He’s probably passed out drunk.”

  Dominic put a soothing hand to Rook’s shoulder. “Why don’t you take crow form and sit on my arm? I’ll hold you in front of me to block the wind.”

  “No,” Rook grumbled, bumping Dominic affectionately with his shoulder. “I’ll suffer with you.”

  “You mean you can’t complain out loud when you’re in crow form.”

  Rook let out a cawing laugh. “That too.”

  Cicero looked away from witch and familiar, feeling an unaccustomed twist of bitterness in his gut. Isaac wouldn’t have suggested meeting here, outside the Metropolitan Witch Police Headquarters, without a damned good reason. Perhaps that’s why Isaac was late—he had to nerve himself up to return to the scene of his most painful memory. The place where all his dreams had been wrecked.

  The place where he’d smiled at Cicero, years ago—the first person to do so, when Cicero had slunk in through the brass doors, looking for haven. Fur and feathers, he’d been young. Just a scared kitten, really, arching his back at everyone who came too close. Isaac had made him feel welcome. Told him he was safe. That Cicero could stay here until his witch arrived.

  Well, his witch was dragging his bloody feet. Too many years had passed, and Chief Ferguson had recently started dropping hints that Cicero had been on the dole long enough. He needed to pay back his debt, pick a witch he thought he could live with, and bond. True, their magic wouldn’t be as strong as with his witch, the one he’d instinctively recognize when they met. But the MWP wanted to get its money’s worth.

  And after what had happened with Isaac’s witch…

  “Damn it,” Cicero growled, stamping his feet in an attempt to keep them warm. Maybe Isaac couldn’t face coming back here. He might have had a bit too much to drink, trying to gather up his courage, and be lying facedown in Gerald’s apartment right now. While Cicero froze his whiskers off like a fool.

  The clock high above chimed the quarter hour. Dominic glanced up at it and winced. “Cicero,” he said carefully, “we could wait inside.”

  And make Isaac walk back through those doors alone? Cicero shook his head. “You go on. I’ll—”

  The clatter of hooves sounded on the nearly deserted street. Cicero turned expectantly, only to see an MWP police wagon instead of a cab as he’d hoped. To his surprise, the wagon pulled to a halt at the curb in front of them, rather than continue around the side to the yard. “Detective Kopecky?” called the young witch at the reins.

  Dominic wasn’t on duty, but that didn’t stop him from trotting down the stairs. “Something I can do for you, MacDougal?”

  “Aye—we need a hexman. Figured we wouldn’t get one until the morning, but as you’re here, sir, maybe you could take a look?” MacDougal didn’t wait for an answer, just slid down from the driver’s seat and made for the back of the wagon. “A suspicious death—or it might be. Fellow was having a party in his apartment. Witnesses say he took a hex with his absinthe, then lost his mind and attacked his roommate. The roommate shoved him out the window—self defense for certain, you ought to see the bite marks. Everyone swears the dead man was behaving normally until he activated the hex, so I’d be grateful if you’d take a look and make certain it wasn’t tampered with.”

  “Of course,” Dominic said. MacDougal swung open the doors to the wagon, revealing a body beneath a sheet. He reached inside and pulled out a square of paper, which he passed to Dominic.

  “This is the hex,” MacDougal said, but his words seemed oddly far away to Cicero. Feeling as though he were in a dream, Cicero walked to the open doors of the wagon.

  A party. A dead man. And Isaac late…

  His pulse thundered in his ears as he reached in and flipped back the sheet.

  Not Isaac—that was his first thought, the initial rush of relief. But relief gave way to sudden dread, because he did recognize the face of the dead man, even with the bruising and blood from the fall.

  “It’s Gerald,” he said through numb lips. “Gerald Whistler.”

  The other men fell silent. Then Rook let out a hiss. “What was the address?”

  There came the rush of wings, Rook taking to the sky. But as Cicero lowered the sheet once again, he knew in his heart that they were already too late.

  “It ain’t a fair night for you to be out, Mrs. Zywicki,” Tom chided the old woman hanging rather unsteadily on his arm. The sky spit snow, and the wind moaned down the street: sending the lines of wash in the alleyways flapping, blowing a steady stream of coal smoke from chimneys, and turning Tom’s nose and ears to ice. He huddled deeper into his heavy blue policeman’s coat, grateful for the thick wool.

  Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, as Tom’s Da used to say. The other thing he used to say was to look out for those as needed you, and right now that meant a little old lady who’d had a bit much to drink. Strictly speaking though, helping drunk old ladies make their way home didn’t count as walking his beat. If a roundsman caught Tom, he’d get called in front of the captain.

  Well, it wouldn’t be the first time, and most likely not the last, neither. “What would you have done, if it had been O’Byrne walking the beat tonight instead of me?” he asked.

  “You think I’m drunk,” she grumbled.

  “Never,” he declared, even though her breath set his eyes to watering.


  “It’s only this cold is no good for my rheumatism,” she said. “I took a hex for it before I went out, but it does nothing. Nothing!”

  “Did you buy it from a street vendor, then?” he asked, his heart sinking a bit. Half the time, the sort of cheap hex affordable to tenement residents had never even been near a witch. Most likely the “hex” had been nothing but a pretty design on colored paper.

  “Some quack,” she mumbled, waving her hand dismissively. “On the corner, yes. But he knew my cousin, so I thought, why not?”

  Tom glanced over his shoulder, glad the door to Mrs. Zywicki’s tenement was near. Maybe if the roundsman caught him, he could claim he was gathering information about a fake hex vendor.

  If he did, the captain would just tell him Mrs. Zywicki needed to make her report to the Metropolitan Witch Police instead. The ordinary police force didn’t deal with magic related crimes, even if the magic was fake. Which was one of the reasons Tom had felt safe joining their number.

  “Here we are,” Tom said as they stopped in front of the steps leading up to the tenement where Mrs. Zywicki lived. The wind whistled around the tin cornices, an eerie sound like a distant cry of pain. “Can you make it up the stairs?”

  “Yes.” She blearily released his arm and patted it. “Thank you, Tom. You are a good boy. Your mother must be proud.”

  Tom managed to keep his expression neutral. “She’s been with the Good Lord since before I left Dublin,” he lied. Because he’d never set foot in Dublin, and after everything his family had done…

  Well, it didn’t seem likely the Good Lord had looked too kindly on any of them.

  “Then I’m sure—” Mrs. Zywicki began.

  A scream of agony shattered the cold air like glass. Tom’s hand went to his nightstick, and he spun away from the tenement, heart pounding. Where had it come from?

  Another screech, and now a second voice joined the first. Two women, shrieking as if in terror of their lives.

  The shadows of the gaslit street seemed to suddenly become menacing. Tom ran across the uneven pavement, splashing through puddles of half-frozen filth. He put his tin whistle to his lips and blew stridently, but this was the middle of his beat. Would any other patrolmen even hear him?

  Residents did—windows opened here and there as the curious stuck their heads out, and a man in a dirt-encrusted coat stumbled out of an alleyway, his eyes wide and worried. “Go to the precinct house and get help!” Tom ordered as he ran past.

  There—the screams came from inside Barshtein’s Pawn Shop, now tightly locked up for the night. Tom was certain of the lock—he’d tried the door on his first round through the neighborhood, as duty required.

  He’d also felt what most couldn’t perceive; the faint vibration of an active hex beneath his fingers. Barshtein used an anti-burglary hex on the doors, to keep out thieves. Tom had done his best to ignore the faint buzz through his fingertips, though, just as he always did.

  Now, he seized the door and rattled it. Still locked, and the hex in place.

  He pulled an unlocking hex from the bag at his waist and pressed it to the door, just above the latch. “Open!” he said—no fancy activation phrases here, not for police work.

  The lock clicked, the physical parts disengaged. Tom kicked the door with all his strength, but the hex was strong, and the door remained stubbornly in its frame, held in place by magic.

  The cries grew more frantic by the second. He cast about, but there was no sign of any other officers.

  He had to wait for help. Or find a way in through a window—assuming Barshtein hadn’t laid hexes on the glass.

  Or use his talent to break the hexes.

  The thought rose unbidden from the murky depths where he’d consigned the past. He couldn’t. Hexbreaking was too rare a skill. If anyone found out, they’d want to know why he’d hidden it for all these years.

  And what would he say? That it was evil, a curse leading to nothing but misery? That the last time he’d used it, he’d killed his own father?

  One of the voices inside the pawn shop fell ominously silent.

  Saint Mary, help him—he had to do something. Tom took a deep breath and laid his hand on the lock. God, it had been so long—what if he couldn’t do it any more? What if he had no choice but to stand here and wait for reinforcements, while people who depended on him for protection died just a few feet above his head?

  He felt the hex beneath his palm. Like a vibration, or the heartbeat of some tiny animal. Closing his eyes, Tom imagined himself laying an invisible hand on the vibration. Stilling it, the heartbeat dying away.

  Nothing. No buzz against his palm now. He’d done it, as natural as breathing.

  Tom sent the door slamming back against the wall. The shop was dark, the light from the street blotted out by the shades drawn for the night. The shrieks continued from above, but now they were accompanied by a rhythmic thud, as of a body hitting solid wood with great force.

  He groped through the shop, striking his knee against the counter and sending over a small glass display. He knew the layout of the store—Mr. Barshtein was the sort who’d offer a copper a cup of water on a hot day, and never complain when the police came around looking for stolen goods. Tom found the door behind the counter; fortunately, this one wasn’t locked, and he slipped through. A narrow beam of light showed from the top of a flight of stairs on the other side of the tiny back room.

  The stairs groaned as he ran up them. “Police!” he bellowed as he flung open the door.

  The smell struck him first, like wet, rusted iron. Red streaked the walls and floor of the parlor. A woman’s body lay in front of the stove, unmoving and masked in blood. Tom’s gorge rose at the sight of the savage bite marks on her neck, arms, and face.

  A man hurled himself against one of the two doors leading from the parlor. His dressing gown was spattered with blood, his face so streaked with gore Tom barely recognized him.

  “Stop!” Tom shouted. “Police!”

  Barshtein ceased flinging himself against the door. Instead, he turned to face Tom, an inhuman growl rumbling from deep inside his chest. He looked utterly deranged, lips drawn back from bloody teeth, hands twisted into claws. And his eyes…

  The whites had gone completely scarlet, as if every vessel in them had burst at once.

  The apartment seemed to waver around Tom. The wallpaper faded, became the rough brick of a tenement. Gaslight changed to fire. His brother’s teeth snapped at him, no recognition in those bloodshot eyes, while Molly screamed at him to break the hex. And all the while, innocent people burned, their cries like something from the very pits of hell.

  Tom swung his nightstick with an inarticulate shout. The heavy locust wood smashed into Barshtein’s raised arm. Bone cracked beneath the blow, but Barshtein didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, he lunged at Tom. His good hand scrabbled at Tom’s throat, as if he meant to throttle him.

  This time the nightstick connected with Barshtein’s skull. The bloody red eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed at Tom’s feet.

  Tom stood above the unconscious body, chest heaving. This wasn’t September 15, 1889; it was December 18, 1897. He was Tom Halloran, not Liam O’Connell.

  This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

  Not again.

  “Sir?” Tom asked from the doorway to the captain’s office. “Can I have a minute of your time?”

  Captain Donohue leaned back in his chair, puffing on a post-luncheon cigar. Smoke drifted around the small office, curling beneath the green-shaded light on Donohue’s desk. “Halloran,” he said with an uncharacteristic smile. “What is it you’re wanting?”

  The smile sent a little shiver of unease through Tom. Ordinarily, he wasn’t a favorite of the captain—no surprise there. If a copper didn’t take bribes from folks just trying to get by and live their lives, how was the captain to get his due share?

  “I just wanted to ask about Mr. Barshtein.” He’d wanted to come by the day
after the murder, but by bad luck it had been scheduled as his off day. It would have seemed suspicious if he’d come in just to ask about a closed case. “The fellow I arrested the other night.”

  “All over the papers the last two days,” Donohue said with a satisfied grin. “Lunatic murders wife; innocent maid saved by alert patrolman. Good work, Halloran. You’ll get another medal for this.”

  Tom managed a faint smile of his own, although inside he felt sick. He didn’t deserve a medal. Sure, he’d saved one innocent, but it didn’t make up for all the blood on his hands. Especially not if there was some connection…

  There couldn’t be. The night after the riots, he’d burned the spent hexes, so no one could copy them and make more. Everyone else who’d known about them had died amidst fire and blood.

  It had been eight years. And yet, the way Barshtein had acted, as though he felt no pain, felt nothing beyond the desire to kill, had taken Tom right back to the night of the so-called Cherry Street Riots in lower Manhattan. Barshtein’s eyes had been red, just like Da’s, and Danny’s and the rest who’d taken those accursed hexes.

  Donohue looked at him expectantly. Tom forced his smile wider. “Thank you, sir. I didn’t do it for a medal, though.”

  “Lucky for the maid Barshtein forgot to activate the anti-burglary hex, eh?” Donohue shook his head. “You wouldn’t have gotten through in time, otherwise.”

  Tom’s smile grew even more strained. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

  “Aye, that’s the truth.” Donohue looked up at him. “Anything else, Halloran?”

  He ought to leave it alone. Walk away and forget what he’d seen. There couldn’t be a connection, not after so long. “I just wanted to ask…what happened? Why did Mr. Barshtein kill his wife and try to kill their maid? The newspapers didn’t really say.”

  “Why? Because he’s a madman.” Donohue shrugged. “When he woke up, he started trying to attack anyone he laid eyes on. Not speaking a word, mind you, not even when we put him in restraints. I sent him over to the lunatic asylum. Let them deal with him.”