Hexmaker (Hexworld Book 2), page 22
“Kirk, please!” Owen cried. “You don’t have to do this. The familiars below are asleep—you’ve lost!”
“We haven’t lost anything.” Kirk’s eyes burned with unholy fire. “We’re just getting started. With the device to aid us, we’re going to reshape the world.”
“Are you, now?” Mal asked.
Kirk jerked back, pulling Owen in just far enough to see Mal. The familiar stood swaying, but on his feet. The wind blew strands of his red hair across his pale face, and his amber eyes blazed with fury. In his hands, he held the device.
“Well, then, Kirk,” he went on, hefting the device. “I guess you’d better catch it!”
Mal heaved the device at them. Kirk let go of Owen and lunged for it. It brushed the edge of his fingertips—and past, flying over the edge of the tower and into the vast, empty space beyond.
Overbalanced, Kirk wavered for a moment, his body angled dangerously far over the railing. Then the icy slush beneath his shoe slipped, and with a shriek, he tipped over the edge.
Owen twisted about, just in time to see Kirk and the device impact the side of the cathedral, bounce, then strike again, before hitting the ground far below in a shower of blood and shattered gears.
“Owen!” Mal gasped.
They fell into each other’s arms, safely away from the rail. Owen clutched Mal to him, breathing deep. “Oh God,” he whispered. “I thought you were dead. I thought—”
“I’m fine.” Mal pulled back to look up at him. “Well, that’s a lie. I feel like I’m about to fall over, and I’ve no idea how I’ll make it back down from here. But I’m alive.”
“Thank God.” Owen bent to kiss him, but Mal put a shaking finger to his lips.
“You’re married now, remember?” Mal said with a wistful smile.
“No.” Owen shook his head. “I couldn’t go through with making both Edith and myself miserable for the rest of our lives. I declined the honor in front of all society. I’ll be disowned, most likely, but I don’t care.” He offered Mal a wistful smile of his own. “Do you still want me, even if I’m penniless?”
The look of joy on Mal’s face made Owen feel as if he stood in the midst of spring, rather than a winter storm. “All I ever wanted was you,” Mal said. “Just as you are.”
Then he pulled Owen close and kissed him, until the wind drove them inside.
Several weeks later, Mal held open the door to the laboratory beneath the Coven, while Owen carried in the last of the boxes. “There,” Owen said, putting it on the table with the others. “Now all we have to do is unpack, and it will be as if we never left.”
Mal touched the silver familiar’s badge pinned to his vest. “Not quite. I wasn’t a copper before.”
After the battle at the cathedral, the Police Board and Chief Ferguson couldn’t really object when Owen asked for his old job back. Of course, returning had required quite a sacrifice on Mal’s part. Joining the coppers instead of running from them was a new experience, that was for sure.
And probably some of them would still look askance at him, though he’d gotten a gruff apology from Ferguson, at least. Seeing the happiness on Owen’s face, though, made it all worthwhile.
Mal hopped onto the table and watched while Owen took out his diplomas to return to the hooks still in the wall. “So, what did the letter from Nathan say?”
Thankfully, Owen’s family had escaped the slaughter in the cathedral without harm, after taking refuge in the vestry with the bishop. In the aftermath, when the newspapers praised Owen’s quick thinking in large headlines, his mother decided against disowning him after all. A week later, the Fifth Avenue mansion quietly went up for sale, and Mr. and Mrs. Yates retired to the house in Newport. Society, it seemed, would have to go on without them.
It would have to go on without a great many others, as well. Though the majority of the guests had survived, a congressman, the owners of several banks, and a coal baron had died at the teeth and claws of the theriarchists. Already, the papers ran angry opinions demanding the government do something to regulate and restrain ferals. No laws had been passed yet, but Mal feared what would happen to familiars like Nick when they finally were.
“You can read the letter, if you like,” Owen said as he hung the diplomas carefully. “In short, Edith—or should I say, Mrs. Creswell—is enjoying her honeymoon in France. Given the conduct of her parents and brothers, Nathan doubts she’ll ever return to New York, and instead will live as quietly as she can on the continent.” A pensive look crossed his face as he stepped back and eyed his handiwork. “I hope she’s well, and that she and Creswell have a good life together.”
“So do I.” Mal slipped off the desk and wrapped his arms around his lover from behind. “I always liked her. Not enough to want to see her married to you, mind you.”
Owen’s hands settled over Mal’s. “Speaking of unhappy marriages, Quigley sent a note by this morning,” Owen said. “Mrs. Jacobs finally confessed. Apparently Jacobs was as beastly to her as he was to the servants—and vindictive enough to ruin her utterly if she’d asked for a divorce. Kirk found out and approached her with a proposal. He’d get rid of Mr. Jacobs, and in return all she had to do was remove any paperwork listing the device among the things Jacobs had brought from Egypt.”
A shiver went through Mal, and he hugged Owen tighter. “If you hadn’t happened by that night, it would have worked. No one would have known anything had been stolen. I would have gone to the electric chair for killing Jacobs.”
“And likely the rest of us would have died at the wedding, yes.” Owen turned in Mal’s arms and pulled him close. “How odd it is to think the both of us would be dead, if not for a whim on my part.”
“Aye.” Mal pressed his cheek against Owen’s chest, enjoying the warmth. Owen smelled faintly of spruce—they’d gotten a small tree for the apartment, to mark the holiday season. “Are you going to try to replicate the device?”
Owen was silent for a long moment. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “I’ve been asked, of course, by Ferguson and the Police Board. The original was smashed beyond all hope of repair this time, and Bertie burned my notes, but with enough time I might be able to reconstruct it. And a part of me wonders if it couldn’t be done safely…but no. It was too dangerous. Let the knowledge be lost for another two-thousand years.”
“I certainly ain’t going to disagree with that,” Mal said fervently. He’d been laid flat for a week after charging the device. “That thing was a menace to familiars. You’d think the theriarchists of all people would realize that.”
“Yes.” Owen sighed again. “I only wish we’d been able to find out more, before the executions.”
All of the theriarchists captured by the sleeping hex at the cathedral had been swiftly tried and put to death. Though Mal couldn’t feel much sympathy for them, he had to agree, it would have been nice to know who else might still be out there.
“Someone knows history,” he said quietly. “The Viking hex, this device…you said it yourself. But none of the ferals at the cathedral had that sort of knowledge. Except for Bertie, most of them didn’t have much of anything in the way of an education. And even his ended when he turned, what, twelve?”
“With any luck, the mastermind, whoever they might be—assuming it is only one person—was smart enough to flee the country,” Owen said. “And will give up their dreams of stirring up any more trouble.”
Mal doubted it, but he didn’t say so aloud. Instead, he tipped his head back and regarded Owen. “You’re happy to be back here, ain’t you?”
Owen’s smile warmed him to his toes. “Yes. But I’m especially glad to be here with you.”
“I’ve something for you,” Mal said. “To mark the occasion. It’s in that cabinet, there.”
Looking puzzled, Owen crossed to one of the cabinets, where Mal had hidden his surprise earlier. He opened the door—then let out a gasp.
“A new violin!” Owen turned to Mal, a delighted smile transforming his face.
Mal shrugged awkwardly. “I owed you one, after breaking the other on Madam Galpern’s face. Play it for me tonight?”
“I’ll play it for you any time you wish.” Owen drew Mal close and kissed him tenderly. “I love you, Malachi.”
“And I love you, Owen Yates.” Mal stepped back and removed Owen’s hexman’s tools from the box they’d been packed in. “Now, come on. Let’s make some magic.”
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Thank you for reading Hexmaker. I hope you enjoyed reading Owen and Mal’s story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Whether this is your first book of mine, or you’ve read my entire backlist, I invite you to join my Facebook group Widdershins Knows Its Own.
Mrs. Vandersee’s grand ball and admission into society is loosely based on the real life showdown between Alva Vanderbilt and Caroline Astor. Mrs. Astor set the rules of society, including the critical division between the “nobs” and “swells,” with nobs being a genteel three generations removed from the founding of their fortunes. Mrs. Vanderbilt wasn’t about to be shut out of society just because she didn’t meet that arbitrary standard, and eventually triumphed by throwing a fancy dress ball in 1883, which was estimated to cost over $250,000—equivalent to an astonishing $5.6 million in today’s dollars.
The blizzard of November 26, 1898, was a real storm, which pounded New York and brought the city to a standstill. As far as I am aware, however, it was an entirely natural event in our world, and not the product of dangerous magic.
Though we now think of Thanksgiving as a time to gather extended family in the kitchen of whatever poor family member gets stuck with feeding them all, in the late 1890s it was far more typical to eat out at a restaurant. Hence the fact the elder Yateses are planning to eat at Delmonico’s rather than host a family gathering on Thanksgiving. Nor did the typical workman receive the day off; holidays from work were both unpaid and exceedingly rare.
Dr. Young’s Rectal Dilators were sold as medical devices from the end of the century through 1940. If you do a quick image search, you’ll note their rather suggestive shape. Though presumably some people did use them as prescribed, these forerunners of the modern butt plug were doubtless often put to the entertaining use Mal and Owen found for them.
Hainted
Whyborne & Griffin:
Widdershins
Threshold
Stormhaven
Necropolis
Bloodline
Hoarfrost
Maelstrom
Fallow
Spirits:
Restless Spirits
Dangerous Spirits
Hexworld
The 13th Hex (prequel short story) Hexbreaker
Hexmaker
SPECTR
Hunter of Demons
Master of Ghouls
Reaper of Souls
Eater of Lives
Destroyer of Worlds
Summoner of Storms
Mocker of Ravens
Dancer of Death
Short stories:
Heart of the Dragon
After the Fall (in the Allegories of the Tarot anthology) Eidolon (A Whyborne & Griffin short story) Remnant, written with KJ Charles (A Whyborne & Griffin / Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal story) Carousel (A Whyborne & Griffin short story)
Jordan L. Hawk grew up in North Carolina and forgot to ever leave. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave her a life-long love of things that go bump in the night. When she isn’t writing, she brews her own beer and tries to keep her cats from destroying the house. Her best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook.
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Copyright Notice
Hexmaker © 2016 Jordan L. Hawk ISBN: 978-1-941230-21-3
All rights reserved.
Cover art © 2016 Jordan L. Hawk
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Annetta Ribken
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Jordan L. Hawk, Hexmaker (Hexworld Book 2)
