Under Their Curse!

The moment the black barber's bib settles around my shoulders, something changes. I do not know how else to describe it. One second I am Jezebel James, half-succubus, occult detective, monster hunter, professional pain in the ass. The next, it feels as though somebody has reached inside my chest and turned down the volume on everything that makes me me.

My confidence, my anger, and my will do not disappear when the cape settles across my shoulders. Instead, they seem to drift farther away from me, as though someone has suddenly moved them to the far side of a thick pane of glass. I can still feel them. I can still remember what they are supposed to feel like. Reaching them simply takes more effort than it should.

The sensation is subtle, but terrifying. I suddenly feel smaller inside my own skin. The cape settles across my lap, and the seven women exchange knowing smiles. Then they begin to laugh. At first the laughter is not cruel or mocking. It sounds more like the laughter of old friends sharing a joke that everyone at the table understands except me.

Valeria lowers her wineglass and smiles. Marina covers her mouth. Even the usually composed Xiu Lian seems amused. The sound echoes through the circular chamber and sends a knot of unease twisting through my stomach. I do not know what is so funny, but every instinct I possess tells me that somehow I am the punchline.

"What?" I ask. The laughter only grows. Nobody bothers to answer. Valeria simply lifts one elegant hand and gestures toward the mirror in front of me. The movement is calm and deliberate, which somehow makes it worse. A knot tightens in my stomach as I follow her gaze. Slowly, I turn toward my reflection.

My breath catches the instant I see the large white letters across the black fabric draped over my chest, impossibly bold and impossible to ignore. For a second my brain refuses to process what I am seeing. Then the words finally register, DUMB CUNT, and another wave of laughter rolls through the room as the realization hits me. For a moment I simply stare.

"Oh, that's perfect," Reina manages between giggles. Marina nearly falls out of her chair. Even the normally composed Madame Xiu Lian covers her mouth to hide a smile.

"What the hell is this?" I snap. My voice sounds weaker than I intend.

Valeria steps forward and smooths a wrinkle from the edge of the cape. "It is a curse," she explains pleasantly. I grab the fabric. The instant my fingers touch it, a pulse of cold shoots through my arms. My hands immediately let go. The women laugh harder.

Fear begins creeping into my stomach. Not the familiar fear that comes with hunting monsters or walking into a dark building with a loaded revolver and a bad feeling. I know how to deal with those fears. They come with options. They come with plans. This is something different.

This is the cold, suffocating fear of realizing a trap has already closed around you. The cape rests heavily across my lap, the curse humming quietly against my skin, and for the first time since entering the salon I begin to understand just how badly I have misjudged the situation. These women are not threatening me. They are not trying to scare me. They do not need to. They already know I cannot leave.

"Take this thing off me," I demand. The room immediately erupts with more laughter.

"Oh, she's serious," Marina says. "That's adorable."

My face burns. "I am serious. Take it off."

Valeria shakes her head. "No, Jezebel. We aren't going to do that."

I grab the edge of the cape and try to tear it away. The moment my fingers close around the fabric, a wave of weakness crashes through my body. My hand immediately releases it. The sensation is not painful. It is worse than pain. It feels like obedience.

"What did you do to me?" I demand.

"We cursed you," Callista replies. "Honestly, we thought that part was fairly obvious."

"You can't just curse people."

"Of course we can," Reina says. "We deal in enchantments. If we couldn't curse people, we'd all have to get real jobs." More laughter follows.

I try to push myself out of the chair. My pulse is hammering now. Every instinct is screaming at me to leave. I am pushing against the armrests of the chair, determined to get as far away from the salon as possible. My muscles strain. It feels as though I weigh a thousand pounds.

A cold wave of terror washes through me as I try again, harder this time. The cape draped across my chest grows noticeably heavier, and the invisible pressure holding me in place tightens like a seatbelt being pulled taut. Around me, the women watch with open amusement. Marina is openly laughing. Reina is grinning from ear to ear. Even Valeria looks entertained.

I am not tied down. There are no straps, no chains, and no visible restraints of any kind. The curse simply refuses to let me leave the chair, and the realization that I am trapped there at its mercy sends a fresh surge of fear clawing through my stomach.

Valeria notices immediately. "Oh," she says softly. "There it is. The moment you realized your powers aren't working." The subtle awareness that men find me attractive has vanished. The supernatural pull that has followed me for my entire life is simply not there anymore. The strength that always seemed to lurk just beneath my skin feels distant and unreachable, like a memory belonging to someone else.

Even the confidence that came from knowing exactly what I was and where I stood in the world has been ripped away. Those things were so constant, so woven into the fabric of my existence, that I never truly appreciated them until they disappeared. Now all that remains is an awful emptiness and the growing realization that whatever this curse has done to me.