The Left-Hand Path: Disciple

by T. S. Barnett

  Nathan gave a little chuckle as Elton pulled their stolen car up the worn path to the door and turned off the engine.

  “This is quaint,” he said, already climbing out of the car to get a better look.

  Cora leaned over to look out the door once Thomas had opened it to let himself out. “Yeah,” she agreed uncertainly. “Doesn’t look at all like a creepy witch house.”

  “I quite like it, actually,” Nathan said. He tilted his head and let his hip rest against the car. “Reminds me a bit of the house I grew up in.”

  “Did the house you grew up in have ghosts in it? Because this looks like it has ghosts in it.”

  Thomas started across the yard without waiting for them, and he crouched down near the front door to place his hand on one corner of the short stone fence that ringed the house. He reached into his pocket to tug free a small scrap of chalk and carefully scratched a marking Cora didn’t recognize onto the surface of the stone. As soon as he removed his hand, the mark seemed to burn away, and the fence gave a little crack, revealing a hole just big enough for Thomas to reach in for the hidden key.

  “Neat,” Cora chuckled, but he wasn’t listening. He turned the key in the lock and leaned his shoulder against the door to push it free from where it stuck to the frame, the hinges creaking from lack of use.

  Cora tried to follow him inside, but she stopped short in the doorway, Nathan bumping into her back at the sudden halt and putting quick hands on her shoulders to steady her. She’d hit something—she scrunched her nose to ease the sting and reached out a hand, flattening it against the invisible something keeping her out. It didn’t feel like a normal barrier, and she couldn’t see any of the telltale sheen in the air.

  Thomas glanced over his shoulder at her sound of pained surprise and paused. “Sorry,” he said. “One second.” He moved over to the large fireplace at the center of the room and scuffed his foot in the dusty ash, then bent to scoop up a small silver coin. Once he had blown away the soot, the whatever-it-was under Cora’s hand gave way, and she was able to enter with Nathan and Elton behind her.

  “A coin did that?” she asked, and Thomas wiped away some of the remaining ash with his thumb and tucked the silver into his pocket.

  “Keeps witches out,” he said simply, before moving deeper into the dark house.

  The house had obviously been empty for some time—dust covered every flat surface, all the doors were hard to open, and the floors creaked sadly underfoot. The kitchen was bare except for a few ancient-looking dry goods in the cupboards and the piles of soot at the base of the massive fireplace that made up one wall, lined with dusty, dried herbs that had been hung from the ceiling above the fire who knew how long ago. The bedrooms were made neatly, but even touching the folded linens brought up small clouds of neglect. The whole place looked as though it had simply been abandoned one day. The one upside was that the home was massive. They would all be able to have their own rooms, at least.

  “Well, it’s a fixer-upper,” Nathan said, patting puffs of dust from the couch cushion before he sat down.

  “It’s a good place to hide,” Elton pointed out, though he chose to remain standing rather than take a seat beside Nathan on the decrepit sofa. “But we should move the car somewhere else. It stands out.”

  Thomas stood near the doorway to the kitchen, keeping himself at a distance from the others as he always did. “Nominations are being made today for the council to vote on,” he said. “With the current majority, I wouldn’t be surprised if the nominees are nobody good.”

  “If Hubbard is being included, that should give you a good idea of their caliber,” Elton muttered.

  “Who decides who gets nominated?” Cora asked, drawing her own puff of dust from the cushions as she dropped down beside Nathan. “If the guy you killed is American, shouldn’t they have to appoint another American person?”

  “Not necessarily,” the blond answered. “All of the regions are usually represented, but the way things are now, who knows what they may be able to get away with?”

  “There’s nothing we can do about it anyway, right?” She huffed out a sigh. “It’s already late, and what the heck could we even do to change anything from here?”

  “Nothing,” Thomas spat bitterly, his eyes on the worn floorboards. “At this point, the most we can do is not actively make things worse.”

  Cora paused, and she looked at Nathan with a frown on her lips. “We’ve been thinking about it the wrong way.” She turned a little in her seat to face him better. “When I asked you about talking to Magister Calero, you agreed with me that they aren’t all bad, right? So maybe we can find someone better than a Magister who isn’t all bad.”

  “Do you have someone in mind, my love?”

  She spoke up to address Thomas across the room. “The councilman in Philadelphia—you said he was outvoted. Was he the only one against?”

  Thomas shook his head. “One of two. The only other was Marquez, out of Mexico City.”

  “Then that’s who we need to talk to.”

  “Hold on,” Elton cut in, a soft snort escaping him as he folded his arms. “You’re suggesting we present ourselves to a member of the council and—what? Aside from hope they don’t just throw us in prison immediately?”

  “I don’t know what needs to be done to stop this before it gets out of control,” Cora shot back. “And clearly nobody else in this room does, either, or a good man wouldn’t be dead. So why don’t we try to help instead of just break things? Someone who’s on the council must have a better idea of what we can actually do. So ask them.”

  “It’s ballsy,” Nathan admitted with a chuckle. “And it’s been a long time since I was in Mexico.” He tilted his head as he looked up at Elton’s skeptical face. “What do you say, darling? Hablas mucho español?”

  “I say it’s an idea that’s as likely to get us killed as help anything.”

  “I wouldn’t let them touch one precious golden hair, darling,” he said, earning himself a scowl in return. “It is a direction, at least. That’s more than we had this morning. And we can work on that little list of yours on the way, I’m sure.”

  Elton considered in silence, fingertips drumming slowly on his biceps as he held Nathan’s gaze as though hoping he could see the intentions he was sure the other man wasn’t voicing. “It isn’t exactly lying low,” he finally said.

  “There will be one less of you,” Thomas added. “I’m staying here. I’m not running across the country on whatever rampage you two are planning—I’m more use in one place. I’ll do what I can through my contacts, and if you find anyone who needs an escape route, you can send them to me.”

  “What about the last couple?” Cora asked. “You said there were more the Magistrate knew about. Nathan said he would help.”

  “I did say that,” Nathan agreed. “We can still check in on any others.”

  “The last pair are in California. If you can get to them, you can send them back here, too. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Well then,” Nathan said, lifting his hand toward Elton in a plaintive gesture. “That sounds as much like a plan as anything else.”

  The blond sighed through his nose. “Fine. I’ll see if I can book a flight to Mexico City.”

  “Excellent. Try to get one for today, will you? No offense, Mr. Proctor, but I’d rather not subject myself to what might pass for sleeping accommodations in this place. It could do with a good once-over—perhaps with a blowtorch.”

  “No offense taken,” Thomas answered dryly. He turned to leave them to their business and disappeared up the creaking stairs with Cora’s eyes on his back.

  She frowned softly and picked at the hem of her shirt for a moment, then looked up at Nathan with a furrowed brow. “I think...I’m going to stay,” she said.

  “Stay?” Nathan echoed in disbelief. He tilted his head toward Thomas’s exit. “With that? Whatever for?”

  “I just—don’t know how much more death I have in me. And there’s
been a lot of it lately. I want to help, but I can’t just keep patching you guys up every night and wondering how much of the blood on you is yours. And I definitely can’t help you kill anyone. I won’t.” She smiled faintly as she glanced between Nathan and Elton. “You guys are good at what you do—and I get that sometimes violence is necessary. But after seeing all the people inside that factory in Miami, I just...there are just other ways to help that I’d be better at, I think. And Thomas shouldn’t have to do all this alone, especially if you guys might be sending people back here.”

  Nathan reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of what you want, my love. You know I’d love to have you with me, but the choice is always yours.”

  “Just try not to get killed without me there, okay?” She looked back up at Elton. “That goes double for you, since Nathan has a rewind button and you don’t.”

  “If I do die, I’ll make sure it’s while you’re with me,” Elton answered, and Cora scoffed at him.

  “Look at you, making jokes. Nathan’s rubbing off on you. Maybe it’s not such a good idea for you two to go off together by yourselves.”

  Elton seemed to tense slightly where he stood, and Cora saw his eyes cut over to where Nathan lounged on the sofa, smirking up at him. Maybe he hadn’t realized until that moment that Cora staying behind would mean traveling with Nathan—alone. It would surely be an illuminating experience for him.

  Elton was able to find a direct flight to Mexico City that left in the middle of the night from Boston, which gave them just enough time to eat some of the food Cora brought from town, have a nap, and load their things back into the car. Thomas had not been keen at all on the idea of Cora staying behind, but she hadn’t given him much choice—when she’d gone on a grocery run, she’d even picked up two new sets of sheets and a few bath linens to make the old house just a little bit more livable.

  Nathan was already leaning against the car with a cigarette in his mouth and the radio playing by the time Elton opened the front door to start their drive to the airport. Thomas stopped him with a light tap to his elbow before he could step outside.

  “Before you go.” Thomas glanced sidelong toward the car, hesitating, then looked back to the taller man’s face. “You asked me to look into 18th century riots in Philadelphia.”

  Elton perked up. “Did you find anything?”

  “There is record of a Magistrate protest in 1789. It was covered up in the reg records as some sort of labor dispute, but the archives say different. There was an attack on the administration building—some twenty-five or thirty people. They started killing Magistrate officials and guards right in the street, but they were overwhelmed.”

  “So what happened to them?”

  “Nothing happened. It was a massacre.”

  “What about the survivors?”

  “There were no survivors, Elton. Whatever Moore told you—either he wasn’t really there, or he wasn’t on the side he said he was on.”

  Elton glanced over his shoulder to where Nathan stood with his hip against the hood of their stolen car, lifting his hands in an impatient question. “I’m not sure those are the only options,” he murmured, hesitating a moment more before giving his old friend a nod. “Thanks, Thomas. I appreciate it.”

  The other man dropped his voice. “You’re really not taking this girl with you? I’m not roommate material. Nock got me halfway out the window once before I could calm her down.”

  “Cora just wants to help,” Elton assured him. “She’s a good person—and she’s here to lighten your load. So let her. We’ll be in touch when we land,” he added, and he paused at the front step but decided against trying to shake Thomas’s hand.

  Cora appeared once Elton was outside, and she squeezed him and Nathan in turn and kissed their cheeks before they climbed into the car. Elton watched her in the rearview mirror until they turned the corner out of the lonesome driveway, but as soon as they were out of sight, he grew tense under the awareness that for the first time, he was going to be truly alone with Nathaniel Moore.

  3

  The streets of Miami had smelled sour as he ran. Droplets of blood hit the ground where he stepped, smeared under his feet in his rush to escape the factory. His psoglav dead—killed by something in Moore that was just as inhuman. His own body was battered and weak, and there was no doubt in his mind that Moore would kill him if he gave him the chance. He had lost the upper hand.

  Locked away in a hotel room behind drawn, heavy curtains and breathing air thick with incense lit by a gore-streaked lighter, Nikita Korshunov sat slumped on the floor and bled. The cold fingers of one hand worked the buttons on his shirt, fumbling them undone and easing the sticky fabric from his shoulders. Each shallow breath he took caused a drop of saliva to fall from his parted lips as he pushed aside the wet and matted shirt and leaned against the side of the bed. He shut his eyes and breathed in the smoke, letting his head fall back against the mattress with his knuckles curled loosely against the carpet at his sides. He'd lost a lot of blood.

  The incense did its work more slowly than a vodyanoy might have, but he didn't dare risk expending the effort of trying to summon one. He needed time to recover, and he needed time to think.

  The incense smoke worked its way through his lungs to his blood and settled there like dust, slowing his heart and stifling the flow in his veins. He laid still for hours, not quite conscious, until the spell had done its work and his heart gave a sudden, life-giving thump that jerked him back to the present.

  Nikita coughed and sat forward, taking gasps through a dry throat as he flexed his stiff fingers and wrists. He checked the skin at his sides and chest to make sure the wounds had closed and found only flakes of long-dried blood, so he rose uneasily to his feet and moved to stand in front of the mirror and wash his face.

  He was already behind. He couldn’t lose track of them now—but Moore had sensed him the last time he’d tried to locate him by his usual methods. He would need to work harder. Being a Chaser wasn't just about magic; sometimes regular detective work was just as effective.

  Hao didn’t return to the hotel room, but Nikita wasn’t worried about him. Either Willis had finally killed him, or he’d given up and gone home. Neither option concerned him. The other man had only been slowing him down, anyway.

  He picked up his phone when it rang but dropped it again without answering at the sight of Magister Hubbard’s name on the screen. An update would be pointless now—he had nothing to tell except that he had failed. He dressed and zipped up his hastily-packed suitcase, then let the room door slam shut behind him on his way to the car. He couldn't afford to be so unprepared again. Moore was capable of more than even the Magistrate knew. Nikita needed to change his approach.

  When he arrived at Maduro’s factory, the entire block was taped off with yellow tape, and local police cars sat with lights flashing along the approaching road, but Nikita drove by them without slowing down. He spotted the black SUV parked nearby and pulled his rental onto the curb, scanning the windows for the small blue and gold seal he found stuck to one of the back windows. A woman in a pantsuit stood near the passenger door, eyeing him as he walked toward her as if about to tell him off. Nikita offered his hand to her as he circled the front of the car, and her gaze flicked down to the silver on his hand before she accepted his handshake.

  “Nikita Korshunov, out of Ottawa. I’m here on Magister Hubbard’s order. I need to have a look inside—have the mundanes compromised anything?”

  “Not yet,” the woman answered. “We’ve kept them out so far, but they’ve been talking to their own higher-ups. We’ll have to wipe the scene soon. You can go on in—I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  “Thank you.” Nikita ducked under the tape barrier and took swift steps toward the factory doors. The scent of blood hit him as soon as he was inside, but he kept walking. The body of his psoglav had collapsed into fur and bone overnight, leaving a greasy smear on the
concrete floor along with the mixture of bloodstains—his, the beast’s, and Moore’s. He stepped carefully over the burned marks in the cracked floor and narrowed his eyes, tracing the lines of the circle. It wasn’t a sigil that he recognized. Brushing by another Chaser standing nearby taking notes, Nikita took the metal steps up to the office two at a time so that he could get a better look at the floor. He snapped a photo of the odd circle with his phone and replaced it in his pocket with a frown. Whatever had caused that marking had given Moore power like Nikita had never seen. It had possessed him. Made him into something else.

  He glanced over his shoulder into the glass-walled office, where a body lay on the ground covered in a bloodstained sheet. The windows were still smeared with letters made of dry and flaking blood, and the room itself was splattered on almost every surface. The sight brought a twitching sneer to his lip that he restrained as the Chaser taking pictures of the glass looked his way. He’d given Maduro every protection, and the man had still let himself be killed. Useless.

  Hao’s body was notably missing. Nikita didn’t bother asking anyone about him.

  Back in his car, he sat with the windows up and dialed his home office in Ottawa. It was a main branch of the Magistrate, with a number of experts on staff—someone would know what the symbol meant. He forwarded the photo to the email he was given and went in search of some food while he waited for an answer.

  This group—Moore, Willis, Daniels, Proctor—were not so subtle as they liked to think. They had destroyed a councilman's home in Philadelphia and left a trail of fraud and theft wherever they went. If he had known what sort of crimes to look for, even a mundane police officer would have been able to track them. It was fear—cowardice—that kept the local Chasers from putting the pieces together. Nikita heard it at almost every station he visited. Sure, I saw Nathaniel Moore once. Stayed the hell away from him. I've got a wife/husband/children. The same excuses. He would do better.