The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(24)

Narrowing his eyes, Rhys peered into the darkness as though he might be able to see that racing spark of magic still making its way down the mountain. All he could see, though, was the ribbon of road unfurling in front of them, and for a second, just the barest of moments, Rhys let himself believe that nothing bad had actually happened. His father had seemed so confident he hadn’t been cursed, after all, and when was Simon Penhallow ever wrong? Maybe this is what it was always like, charging the lines.

And then Vivi’s phone rang.

Sang, actually. The Eagles’ “Witchy Woman” wailed from Vivi’s purse, shoved between the front seats, and Vivi barely glanced at it, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel.

“Gwyn,” she said, but didn’t reach for her bag. “It’s probably nothing.”

“No doubt,” Rhys said, hoping more than he’d ever hoped for anything in his life that she was right.

“Wanting you to pick up pizza and cheeseburgers for dinner,” he added, and Vivi looked over at him.

“What?” he asked to her look, shrugging. “America.”

The phone went silent, and Rhys sensed that Vivi was holding her breath.

Fuck, he was holding his.

And then the song started up again.

Fumbling in her bag, Vivi pulled out her phone, sliding a thumb across the screen, and before she even had the phone up to her ear, Rhys could hear chaos. People shouting, someone screaming, and Gwyn yelling Vivi’s name, and Rhys sank back in his seat, covering his eyes with one hand.

“Gwyn, calm down!” Vivi was saying. “I can’t understand you—”

The phone was firmly pressed against her ear now, and Rhys watched her, actually saw the blood drain from her face as she said, “We’ll be there in two minutes.”

She let the phone slide from between her cheek and her shoulder, and gripped the wheel even tighter.

“What is it?” Rhys asked, but Vivi only shook her head and said, “Your seatbelt is buckled, right?”

“Obviously, I’m not an idiot, Vivienne,” he said, sitting up slightly only to immediately be thrown back against his seat as Vivi pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

“That bad, then?” he asked grimly.

Vivi was equally grim as she answered, “Worse.”



Vivienne had not exaggerated the speed with which they got back to Graves Glen. By Rhys’s count, it was only ninety-something seconds after Gwyn’s phone call that they were pulling up in front of Something Wicked.

Vivienne barely put the car in park before rushing out onto the sidewalk.

Rhys was a little slower, his hand resting on the top of the open car door as he tried to take in what was happening in the front window of the shop.

He spotted Gwyn easily enough, standing on top of the counter, a broom raised in her hands, and there in the back corner was a trio of girls, crouched down against the wall, their faces pale, their eyes huge.

And all over the floor between them and Gwyn were . . . skulls.

Small ones, about the size of a baseball.

Vivienne was already in the shop, and he saw her pull up short with a shriek as all the skulls turned toward her almost as one, their mouths opening and closing.

Rhys heard Gwyn shout something, but he was already moving into the shop, that absurd raven croaking at him as he threw the door open.

Magic lay heavily over the shop, so thick it made his teeth ache, his skin humming with its power, but there was something underneath all that power. Something dark and rank, a powerful sense of wrongness hanging over the whole shop.

Rhys had never felt anything like it before.

The skulls skittered across the floor, their jaws opening and closing and propelling them around the hardwood at a surprising speed. The eyes were lit up, too, but instead of the purple Rhys remembered from earlier, they were red now, bright red, and there were so bloody many of them.

Something thumped against his ankle, and Rhys looked down to see one of the plastic skulls grinning up at him.

“Steady on, mate,” he muttered, wondering if he was talking to the skull or to himself.

And then the skull’s teeth closed around the leg of his pants.

Rhys was not proud of the sound that came out of his mouth as he jerked his leg back, kicking out in an attempt at flinging the thing off.

When that didn’t work, he didn’t even think. He pulled a thread of magic up from the soles of his feet to the tips of his fingers and blasted the damn thing to little plastic confetti.

“Rhys!”

He looked over to see Vivienne still standing with her cousin, armed now with one of the heavy crystal balls he’d spotted earlier.

She was glaring at him, and then gave a significant look to the group of tourists huddled in the corner, now watching him with wide eyes, and Rhys just barely kept from scoffing as he replied, “What was I meant to do, Vivienne?”

There was a singed smell, the slightest hint of burning hair, and Rhys saw he’d burned a hole in his trousers—and nearly his leg—with that little spell. Cursing, he patted at the smoldering hole even as he kicked another of the little plastic bastards away from him.

“Fucking ridiculous,” he muttered, stomping on one of the skulls, then another, before holding out his hand to Gwyn.

“The broom,” he called, and she tossed it to him.

Catching it easily, Rhys swung the broom back down toward the floor and, in what was perhaps one of the most satisfying moments of his life, swept the skulls directly in front of him in a wide arc toward the wall.