Work Text:
The item synopsis was, unlike the other options that Shane had browsed in the last few hours, very short and to the point.
KARMIC HEX (US$5.99)
In demand! 37 people purchased this item in the last 24 hours.
What are you purchasing?
Hex is karmic spell for your enemies - projects, directs and focuses feelings of dislike/desire for vengeance into reversal of fortunes. Strength/efficiency of bad karma is different in every case, and timeline may be anywhere between immediate and end of lunar month.What you receive
Message detailing progression of ritual. Photo of personal altar for your hex specifically. Assessment of karmic vibes.What I need
Provide name, location and species of yourself and intended subjects of hex. This helps locality and individuality of hex. Non-localised hexes are not as powerful.
Beside the listing was a picture of an altar, candles burned down into puddles of wax. There were other magical implements that he could not name surrounding it, apparently serving a purpose, though Shane could not even begin to guess what. Someone, in the foreground, had stuck there hand in front of the camera in a thumbs up. The next photograph was the screenshot of a message, sent to the vendor, detailing all the horrible things that had happened to his ex-boss since purchasing the spell: divorce, impounded car, lost custody, embezzlement brought to light, fired.
Shane gnawed on his lower lip. It all seemed very drastic. It was exactly what he had wanted.
Jackie had told him that, when selecting a practitioner to perform a hex, he had to wait until he felt one that called to him. Shane had not understood what she meant by that and had assumed that it was just something that people said so that it seemed they understood more about the arcane than they actually did; Jackie liked to dabble in her free time, though it was only ever low-level spells of protection and luck for her children. She did not cast any charms on Hayden, because Hayden was - embarrassingly - allergic to magic and broke out in hives whenever he was near it.
But it had been Jackie who had begun advising Shane on what he was looking for, and he, shamefully, had thought that she was making up half the stuff to sound impressive. He knew what she meant now though. No matter which listing he looked at, he always came back to this one.
The seller was based in Boston, Etsy told him. His name was listed as Roz81. There was no other information. Shane’s thumb hesitated over the option to purchase.
As a rule, Shane didn’t dabble in the arcane. If the NHL found out, God forbid, that he had then that was his career up in flames, and he was pretty sure that they hired people whose entire jobs was to divine this shit from people’s auras.
He understood why it was banned, of course, because the arcane opened a far more sophisticated door for cheating than something chemical-based and scientific like doping. It was just that he felt he did not have another choice, and he wasn’t doing it for a competitive advantage - just revenge, pure and fucking simple.
It was petty and maybe it a bit cruel but…
Shane wasn’t going to forget anytime soon the way that Montréal had treated him. Even if he wanted to (which he did), he didn’t think he could. They had been so good to him - drafted him, nurtured his talent, made him captain, trusted in his skill, followed where he led. And where he had led them had been three Stanley Cups. When Shane retired his jersey (and he had hoped that he would have retired it at the Bell Centre, where he had played his whole career and all its highs), his career would be one of the most decorated and impressive careers of any NHL player in history. He had broken records. He had broken records with Montréal.
And then the video had dropped. Some guy in Mexico with fucking cameras in his glasses, and Shane on his knees in front of him, looking up, looking wanting. Every fucking secret Shane had worked his whole career to protect had been laid bare for the world to see and pick aback. Shane had been both a pariah and a role model and a warning, and none of it was anything he could control.
Montréal had sent him to Ottawa.
Some morality clause in his contract, some legal loophole that Shane’s team had not been able to argue against as much as they tried. Montréal had not wanted him, despite everything he had done for them, and Shane had ended up in the worst team in the NHL to spend the rest of his career rotting away in anonymity. Because of a morality cause, like Shane had done some wrong and sick and twisted. They had not even used the morality cause when they had been trying to get rid of Gagnon, whose wife had divorced him because he wasn’t only violent on the ice.
The thought of Shane worse than an abuser. Upper management - and the guys that he had assumed were like brothers to him.
Not Hayden or J.J. Maybe not some of the rookies. But the older guys, the veterans, the ones whose weddings he had attended and children he bought birthday presents and problems he lent a listening ear to… They hated him. Thought of him as something gross to be scraped off the bottom of their shoe, or discarded to one side, or forgotten.
So, no, Shane didn’t agree with messing with the arcane but he was beginning to understand the appeal of karma.
His thumb pressed purchase.
He inputted his card information, the list of the team members that he was hoping to hex (not all of them deserved to be the recipient of some karmic fuckery), and then, in a box that indicated that it was for special requests, specified that he did not want the hex to affect their professional lives, just their personal. Shane was not sure if this was something that could be achieved, but he did not like the idea that - if Montréal lost in the future - it was because Shane had gone hunting for a Bostonian witch on Etsy. Especially if it was against Ottawa. Shane wanted to beat Montréal with his own skill, to know that it had been him and his team that had brought it about because they were better than Montréal.
In the box that asked for his name, he wrote Jane.
It would be a paltry defence if the NHL ever found out (maybe only marginally improved by the fact that he had specified that he didn’t want it to impact hockey at all) but it was something. It settled him a little, to have another degree of separation between himself and what he was about to do - which was a stupid thing to need, because it was Shane who had chosen to do this and Shane who wanted this.
He pressed Pay Now and watched as the transaction went through.
Then he watched as it bounced back: Transaction Failed.
A frown knitted at his brow. He sat further forward, elbows resting on his dining room table. He pressed the payment button again but the result was the same. Transaction Failed, it said. When he checked his bank, the payment had not been taking out - and it was not like Shane was hard up for money. He was a NHL player, for fuck’s sake. He had the money to spend on hexes.
How much did he care about this? he asked himself.
The failure should have been a sign, he thought. Should have made him think twice. Instead, it hardened his resolve. He navigated to a tab through which he could message the vendor, gnawing on his lower lip as he crafted a message.
Hi.
I was attempting to purchase this listing but the transaction won’t go through.
Is there another way that we can do business?
i do not want your business
The sound that Shane made could only be described as outraged. He sat up straighter. Shifted his weight. Decided that the annoyance roiling in his stomach took up too much energy and stood, pacing back and forth around his dining room.
Jeez, the vendor he had picked was an asshole. Maybe Jackie’s ideas of arcane intuition were nonsense like he had originally suspected. Clearly, Shane’s intuition had made a mistake somewhere… which sounded absolutely like him, actually. Fuck. Okay. Regrouping, reassessing; Shane was a problem solver at heart.
My business is perfectly legitimate.
The people deserve it, if that is what you’re worried about.
Which it shouldn’t be, considering you’re the one selling hexes to strangers on Etsy.
i don’t sell hexes to liars
“jane”
Fuck.
How do you know who I am?
i don’t i just know you are not “jane”
i am witch
is thing i do
I’m pretty sure witches don’t do that
Are you Fair Folk?
is not right for you to ask people this
besides
you are liar
i do not do business with liars
even if cause is righteous
It is righteous!
Look.
The Voyageurs are bigoted dickheads.
I’m pretty sure that they have probably been hexed many times.
What is once more?
if they are used to be hexed, is likely they invest in protections
more expensive because hex is more complex
also
i do not involve myself in affecting sports - definitely not hockey
voyageurs good enough to lose on their own
I don’t want it to impact their sports.
Just their personal lives.
is this personal for you
Yes
No reply rolled in. Shane waited for the response to pop onto his screen but it didn’t. Had he admitted too much? Would he open Twitter and discover screenshots of this interaction plastered all over social media, dissected by journalists and fans and NHL spokespersons? His whole career could be reduced to this. No longer Shane Hollander, winner of three Stanley Cups, but Shane Hollander, that one player who tried to hex his old team over Etsy. He’d get a suspension for sure. Maybe they’d ban him. Were there teams in Europe that would take him? Could he -?
His phone binged.
Shane Hollander, the message read.
Shane’s stomach dropped.
How did you know?
He hit send before he could even consider the possibility of denying it.
i am big fan
i know how voyageurs treat you
is disgrace from worst team in the league
when they ride your dick to success
There are good players on the team
who
Pike
oooh i am hayden pike montreal’s 15th best player
ooooh i am hayden pike only time i am on target is when i make child number 200
maybe we get rid of montreal and replace them with only his children
mediocre team but they have numbers
He’s a good player!
Shane was pretty sure there was no world in which he would defend his best friend… but he snorted at the messages anyway, feeling a little shame-faced about the fact he found them genuinely hilarious.
You seem very passionate about hockey.
yes
go bears
i used to play as well
Why did you stop?
i am etsy witch
no arcane in league
As long as you don’t practice, the NHL allows players who have previously practiced
ah
but is in my blood
i am not fair folk but my mama’s family has the blood
she had the talent and passed it on to me
no way to prevent me being conduit
Shane’s fingers hesitated over a reply. He didn’t know what he would do if this chance to play hockey had been taken away by an accident of birth.
He wondered if, somewhere, there was a universe where the rules on participation in the NHL were adjusted. He had not met many people who had Arcane lineage, though he knew that Jackie, somewhere, boasted of having Selkie lineage. And there had been a guy back in high school whose mother had been a shapeshifter, though the guy himself had not inherited the ability from her.
Maybe, in this world, Shane and this Etsy witch would play with each other, or against each other. He was sure that there were surely ways to ensure fair play without excluding a whole group of people - after all, Shane had the ability to dope himself up. That was monitored, prevented, and regulated.
I’m sorry to hear that.
It was such a weak reply. It didn’t encapsulate everything that Shne wanted to convey - but he thought that it was a start. Shane didn’t understand exactly what being Arcane meant in hockey, but he knew what it was like to be Asian in hockey and he knew what it was like to be gay in hockey, and those were also not desirable attributes for an athlete to have.
is fine
league was not ready for me anyway
i would be best hockey player they ever see
but i am feeling petty now
i will cast your hex, shane hollander
place your order under the name jane
i will adjust ritual accordingly
And this is all private, right?
i mean, is little late to ask me now
but yes
no one will find out about your illicit dealings from me
Thank you.
Shane navigated back to the order page. He hesitated, again. He thought of the way that the locker room had gone quiet when he had walked in that very first time. He thought of the looks they had given him. He thought of the muttered comments that had been aimed his way. He thought of what it had felt like to be called into the general manager’s office to discover that his entire career had been tossed into the fire because of his supposed dishonesty. It was all bullshit. He pressed order.
He knew, of course, that spells took place over a variable amount of time.
A day after placing the order, Roz81 sent him a picture of an altar and said he was certain that the ritual had been a success “because of vibes,” which seemed a very loose and general thing to base results off of but was apparently all that was necessary for evaluation.
A week later, news of Gilbert Comeau’s bitter divorce hit the news. The divorce proceedings themselves were not newsworthy, although Shane knew and liked Emmy Comeau, and wished her all the best; what was newsworthy was the fact that Comeau lost everything. House, car, a very large portion of income. Emmy Comeau’s divorce lawyers were sharks, and Gil’s penchant for infidelity had apparently not inspired her to proceed with any sympathy.
The rest of it started falling into place like pieces in a puzzle.
Patrice Drapeau’s car got stolen by a criminal gang and set on fire. It had all his documents in the glove compartment. An investigation into Beaulier’s taxes got opened. Couillard’s second, secret family was leaked from a series of increasingly bitter text messages from his poor eighteen year-old daughter, who leapt on the publicity with the single-minded attention of dragging her estranged father’s name through the mud. Theriault lost his job; his toxic workplace culture did not just extend to Shane, apparently, but a cohort of Voyageurs staff who submitted an anonymous complaint that led to an internal investigation so damning that there had been no other option but to sack him available.
And then the investigation had leaked, along with all of Theriault’s emails.
Commissioner Roger Crowell had resigned two days later.
There was already a message waiting for Shane when he logged back onto Etsy.
last thing was not me
or was not intended at least
is very funny though
Shane’s lips twitched.
Thank you.
you are satisfied with your share of blood?
Very.
is pleasure doing this for you
maybe i do more spells for you
love spell next time?
What for?
is simple thing
you come to this address in boston and ask for ilya rozanov
then you let me take you out for a drink
It’s a deal.