Page 16 of Pulling Strings

When Grimm raised his drink in a toast, I felt profoundly left out. I was far too sober for pep talks, team huddles, or whatever this bullshit was supposed to be.

He took a sip of wine and set the glass down before continuing, “We gather tonight to celebrate the induction of one of our own. Donovan has been exceptionally patient, waiting over half his life for this occasion.”

I yawned from my seat in the round booth adjacent to the one occupied by the rest of the Bloody Hex members. The five of us squeezed in would have been pretty chummy, so I helped myself to a private table. Plenty of room to lean back and kick my feet up next to the flickering oil lamp centerpiece.

My decision to separate prompted Grimm to abandon the booth, as well, dragging over a chair he now stood atop like a soapbox preacher.

“I will address Donovan’s initiation ceremony in detail, but first I’d like to discuss our plans going forward,” Grimm said.

I glanced over at my comrades. Avery dealt solitaire to himself while Vinton sat bolt upright like a guard dog awaiting his master’s command. Sandwiched between them, Donovan looked shaken and a bit green but engaged, nonetheless.

“As you all know, we are at a critical time in the history of this organization.”

Grimm was the only person who refused to call the Bloody Hex a gang. To him, we were vigilantes, activists, or visionaries. To everyone else: mercenaries,thugs, and terrorists. It was all semantics and made very little difference to me, but I got a laugh out of our leader’s efforts to sanitize our public image.

“The vote to open our city’s gates has been stalled—thank you, Fitch.”

The scarce compliment, and my thumbs-up in response, made Avery snort.

“But it will come up again,” Grimm continued. “So, we must be thinking ahead.”

I was starting to itch. Too many hours had passed since my last cigarette.

I leaned over the seatback separating me from the distracted conjurer, who really needed to move his queen stack to that open king.

“Hey, you got any smokes?” I whispered to him.

Ours was too small a class to be passing notes in, but Grimm’s pointed glare didn’t stop Avery from murmuring back, “Only if you give me a kiss.”

My nose wrinkled. “Fuck off.”

“Suffer, then.” He returned to his cards while craving nagged at me.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before I found myself poking his shoulder again.

Rather than speak or even look up, he turned his cheek toward me and tapped it with one finger.

“You’re a bastard,” I muttered, then bent in and put a quick kiss above his jaw.

His smirk made me bristle as he dipped into his vest pocket and produced a gold cigarette case. He handed it to me, then fixed his attention on his solitaire game once more.

Popping the tin open revealed metal clips penning in loose cigs—hand-rolled—a matchbook, some folded bills, and a tintype photograph of a man and a dog. I took a cigarette and a match to strike against theengraved side of the case.

A few puffs got the cig blazing, and smoke billowed out. It went down smoothly, reminding me that Avery had primo taste in tobacco. He’d tried to convince me to switch to shag a while back, but rolling trays and papers were a hassle when I could barely remember to stop by the corner store and buy a pack.

“The path forward has been heretofore unclear,” Grimm attempted again, visibly flustered. “We lack the numbers to make a large-scale impact using force, so I think it’s time we try precision.”

I passed the case back over the booth seat, cigarette nipped between my teeth as I peeked at the solitaire game once more.

“Move your fucking queen, man,” I told Avery, mentally lifting the card stack and sliding it to the open king of spades.

The conjurer swatted at me, still engrossed. He may have dodged Grimm’s dagger glare, but I didn’t miss it as the older man asked, “Are we ready to continue?”

“Go ahead,” Avery muttered.

I took a drag off the cigarette.

The older guys could get away with things I couldn’t. Grimm treated them more as equals, by virtue of seniority as much as anything. According to human standards, I was a young man but, by magical ones, practically a child. Powerful witches could live for hundreds of years. Grimm, Vinton, and Avery were all at least a century old. It didn’t help that they’d all known me since I was a kid; they never learned to see me as anything else.

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