The Left-Hand Path: Disciple

by T. S. Barnett

  Thomas appeared with a scowl on his lips while she was attempting to fan the smoke out an open window with a baking sheet.

  “What are you doing?”

  Cora froze and turned to look over her shoulder with a sheepish grin. Thomas's voice was steady, but she could see the subtle pulse of restrained irritation in his neck as he clenched his jaw.

  “Cooking?” she offered, and Thomas's nostrils flared with his next breath. But rather than scold her or question her further, he approached the cauldron and its burning contents and peered inside. Without comment, he drew his not-a-wand from the pocket of his cardigan and murmured a few words Cora couldn't quite hear, drawing a smooth stream of water from the kitchen faucet across to the iron pot. While Cora waved the last smoke remnants through the window, Thomas scooped her chopped vegetables into the cauldron and disappeared out the back door while it bubbled. The running water left only a few droplets on the floor as the flow was broken by his return. Thomas was already tearing the fresh herbs in his hands as he crossed the kitchen, and he dropped them into the pot when he reached it and tossed away the stripped stems.

  “Let it boil,” he said, not even looking at where Cora stood by uselessly on his way back out of the room and toward the stairs.

  The flame under the cauldron faltered a little as Cora frowned after him. Thomas had been surly since the minute she'd met him, but he was even worse now. It had only been a day since they arrived—was he that unhappy to be back at his family home, or had she really overstepped her bounds by demanding to stay with him? It would be a lot harder to help him if he wouldn't talk to her.

  Thomas did emerge from his locked bedroom when the smell of the cooking stew had permeated the whole house, and he paused in the kitchen doorway at the sight of the carefully laid pairs of silverware and cups at the long wooden table. Cora was scooping two large servings into the ceramic bowls she’d found in a cupboard and thoroughly cleaned, and she started slightly to see her host lurking in the entrance.

  “I was just about to call you,” she said with a smile. “It seems like it’s ready.” She rose from the covered cauldron and carried the bowls to the table, where she set them adjacent to each other and stood aside from the seat at the head of the table. “I thought you might like to have a real meal,” she offered. “I know we’ve been on the road and things have been crazy, and you seem whatever the opposite of stoked is to be staying here, and even less happy about me hanging around, so…I figured an actual dinner might make it feel a little more like home.”

  Thomas hesitated, his eyes darting from the waiting bowl and to the back door as though he might have to bolt from the threat of companionship. Cora tried not to look too hopeful as his gaze landed on her. She wanted to help, and it would be so much easier if Thomas would tell her how.

  He watched her uncertainly for a few beats, but then he said, “Thank you,” and crossed the room to take the seat beside her.

  Cora poured them both some water, since that was all they had, and sat down to scoop some of the stew into her mouth. “Not bad for a colonial meal,” she said once she had swallowed, but Thomas didn’t smile. Cora frowned at the side of his head and chewed her next mouthful in silence. He finally looked over at her after she had been staring at him for an increasingly awkward amount of time.

  “What?” he asked with his spoon halfway to his lips.

  “Don’t you know how to make conversation?”

  He gave a small sigh through his nose and set down his spoon. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “What are we doing here, for one thing? You said something about your contacts helping people, right? So what does that mean? What can I do to help?”

  “I’ve been talking to some people I know in Ottawa, and New York, Los Angeles—trying to keep an ear to the ground for signs of what’s coming. It must be a massive undertaking, setting up the infrastructure for this order they’re planning, but so far I’ve heard very little. There’s next to no information coming out of the Magistrate about how they’re going to actually pull this off.”

  “Is that good? Does it mean it’s not happening, or they’re having trouble?”

  Thomas shook his head and dropped his gaze to his bowl. “It probably means that people are simply going to disappear, and we aren’t going to have any way to track them.”

  “Then…that’s what Nathan and Elton are for, right? You said they could send people back here, and we’d help them.”

  “That’s assuming they’re able to get to anyone before they’re gone. For right now, all I can do is listen and try to move some friends who are guaranteed to need relocating.”

  “So what can I do?”

  “Nothing, probably.”

  “Come on, Thomas,” she sighed. “Everything’s easier with help. I’ll never know what I’m doing if you don’t let me learn.”

  “I don’t think you have the magic,” he answered simply, and she immediately bristled and dropped her spoon to the table with a soft clunk.

  “You think just because I’m young, I can’t do anything? Did you get private instruction from a witch the Magistrate has been trying to catch for like, three hundred years? Did you break us out of jail?”

  Thomas recoiled slightly from her accusing face. “I—didn’t mean—”

  “Yeah, you did,” she cut him off. “And you’re wrong. I can learn, if you can teach me. And I want you to teach me.”

  The man’s expression softened, just a little, and he considered her for a moment before he nodded. “All right. We’ll see.”

  Cora smiled at him. “I’m gonna surprise you,” she promised.

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Well tough luck,” she laughed. She picked up her spoon again and took another bite. “So do you want to tell me how you ended up in Canada if your family is from Massachusetts?”

  The look on Thomas’s face told her that the answer was no, but he answered anyway. “My father’s family is from Massachusetts,” he corrected her. “My mother was from Vancouver.”

  “Was?” Cora asked in a gentler voice, and Thomas returned his attention to his soup.

  “Was. They’re both dead now.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It wasn’t unexpected,” Thomas said flatly, but when Cora tilted her head at him, he pushed his bowl away and stood from the table. “Thank you for cooking dinner,” he went on before she could continue the conversation. “If you just leave it, I’ll be down to clean up later. Don’t knock on my door again tonight,” he added in a quiet, firm voice, and then he was gone, his footsteps disappearing up the wooden stairs.

  Cora puffed out her cheeks in a sigh and mushed her face with her hands as she leaned her elbows on the table. She guessed that went about as well as she could have expected.

  6

  Elton had his suit jacket slung over his arm and his tie loosened within minutes of stepping out of the cab into the desert heat of Nevada. He had only managed to get spotty sleep while waiting in the Mexico City airport and with Nathan carelessly dozing against his shoulder on the plane, and now the morning sun felt so oppressive that he accepted the stolen pair of sunglasses Nathan offered him when they passed a tourist shop on the street. He stood outside a coffee shop on the strip and tried to finish waking himself up by alternating sips of coffee and pulls from a cigarette while Nathan leaned over the table with his phone open to a webpage full of photos.

  “You can’t tell me we aren’t staying somewhere fabulous in fabulous Las Vegas, darling,” Nathan complained. “It’s on the sign.”

  “We’re here for one night, maybe two, while we find Thomas’s people. We’re not moving in.”

  “I want to stay in the pyramid one.”

  “Nathan—”

  “It has a slanted elevator.”

  “I don’t care about elevators.”

  “There’s a sphinx outside, Elton!”

  “Don’t care about sphinxes, either,” the blond sighed befor
e taking a long drink of coffee. “I do care about getting caught doing the same shit you’ve been doing since you were born. How long do you think it’s going to take Korshunov to track us down if we don’t act smart?”

  Nathan looked up at him with a petulant frown on his face. “We’re here for one night, maybe two,” he repeated in a mockery of Elton’s deeper voice. “We can enjoy ourselves and move along. Come on,” he said as he stood, tucking his phone back into his pocket and carrying his coffee with him as he started down the street. “I’m not carting this luggage all over town.”

  Elton called after him, but the other man didn’t turn back, so he put out his cigarette, gave a soft curse, and followed.

  The room they ended up in was actually surprisingly simple for Nathan’s standards, with sleek brown décor decorated with hieroglyphic script and sharply slanted walls that served as a reminder of the odd shape of the hotel.

  Elton sighed as he dropped his suitcase near the blue plush sofa. “You couldn’t have asked for one with two beds?”

  “They didn’t have any corner suites with two beds. Besides, I get cold at night,” Nathan teased.

  Elton was already ignoring him, taking a seat on the couch to dig out the notebook Thomas had given him and flip through to the page he needed.

  “Do you gamble, Elton?” Nathan called from the next room, where he was already running the faucet to fill the giant soaking tub by the bed with hot water.

  “I’m traveling with you, aren’t I?” the blond answered without looking up. He heard Nathan’s snort of laughter and briefly shut his eyes to sigh as the water sloshed in the tub. “Why are you getting in the bath? We have work to do.”

  “I’ll be ready in two shakes as soon as you figure out where we’re going.”

  “According to Thomas’s notes, we’re looking for Lily and Charles Walker,” Elton said over the sound of the filling bath, refusing to approach and be forced to look Nathan in the face while he lounged naked in a Jacuzzi. “Lily works at the Bellagio, he thinks. He has an address for them but says he hasn’t heard from them in a while, so it may be outdated.”

  “Stop number one, then?”

  “I guess so.”

  The faucet scraped softly as Nathan shut the water off. “And then the casino.”

  “Then definitely not the casino. Then somewhere we can draw the circle and get these people back to Thomas.”

  “Then the casino?”

  “Never the casino. Get out of there; it’s time to go.”

  “Come on, Elton,” Nathan groaned. Elton could tell from the splashing sound that he was slumped forward to pout over the edge of the bathtub. “You know if you don’t come with me, I’m just going to go on my own. You’ll leave me unsupervised?”

  Elton frowned down at the notebook on his lap. Nathan was right. Even if he did forbid it, Nathan would pretend to cooperate and then slip off at the first opportunity. Then he’d be left to look all over Las Vegas for the biggest disturbance of the peace and hope he found Nathan there.

  “Fine,” he agreed. “After we’ve safely returned the Walkers, and if everything has gone smoothly, then I will go with you to the casino. For a little while.”

  Nathan disturbed the water again as he stood, and Elton finally did look up as the other man appeared, leaning around the corner with a sly smile on his face and his fingers drumming on the wall. “Will you blow on my dice for good luck, darling?”

  “Put on pants, please,” Elton sighed.

  Nathan sucked his teeth at him and called him a tease, but he did as he was told.

  The apartment complex where the taxi dropped them off was made of flat and unattractive grey stucco, each terra cotta-colored door facing inward to a dusty courtyard surrounded by a chain-link fence. As soon as Nathan touched the metal gate, he paused and glanced back to Elton.

  “Do you feel that?”

  The heat radiating from the gate wasn't caused by only the sun. Elton had sensed this kind of barrier upon approaching the homes of many dorche-practicing witches during his time with the Magistrate. He'd regularly set them himself. They were used to block detecting and seeking spells, but they were also glamours, of a kind—they blinded mundanes that came too near to the real goings-on within. Elton had seen mundanes walk right by, oblivious as other witches fought to set themselves free from his bindings. The wall always gave a certain sort of tingle in your skin that set him on edge. Nothing hidden behind this barrier would be good.

  “There may already be Chasers here,” Elton said, which brought a smile to Nathan's face.

  “Let's hope so,” he chuckled, and he pushed the gate open. The barrier gave him no pause as he passed through it, but he did stop just inside the courtyard with Elton behind him. Beyond the cloak of the spell, the quiet courtyard was a mess. One of the apartment doors—Elton guessed the one that was their destination—had a large, ragged hole in the center covered by clear plastic and duct tape, and bits of wood and ceramic littered the pathway outside. A bit of smoke seemed to be leaking from the rear window of the building, but the apartment itself was quiet. Nathan approached the door without hesitation and bent to peer through the plastic patch as he rang the doorbell, which gave a pitiful, dying chime at his touch. The quiet sounds of movement from inside went silent at once, and Elton could almost feel the occupants holding their breath.

  “Hello there!” Nathan called with his face almost touching the plastic in the door. “Everyone alive?”

  A woman's exhausted face appeared in the window nearest the door, a worried frown on her face and her knuckles tight around the curtains she held aside.

  “You Chasers?” she asked, muffled by the window pane.

  “She's looking at you, darling,” Nathan said with a sidelong smirk at Elton, but he leaned over to smile at the woman and lifted his hand in a wave. “Are you Lily Walker? We're sent by Mr. Proctor.”

  “Oh, thank God,” the woman groaned, and she disappeared just long enough to open the door on its precarious hinges. “Please come in. We need help.”

  “That's why we're here,” Elton said, but as he followed Nathan through the door, he hesitated. The furniture inside the apartment was in disarray, dirty dishes filled the sink, and the carpet looked singed in more than a few places. “What happened in here?”

  “It's Grace,” she answered. “Our daughter. She's—” The woman lifted her hands and dropped them back to her sides as though the room itself should be explanation enough. “She's got magic. And she can't control it. Charlie has been trying to help her, but she's just—”

  A bang from the next room cut her off, and she darted toward the door just in time to catch a toy tow truck before it crashed into the wall. She looked back at the men in her living room and gave a helpless huff. “She's only seven,” Lily sighed. “Charlie said this doesn't usually happen until they're older?”

  “Where is your husband now?” Elton asked, sidestepping a broken scooter as he crossed the room with Nathan behind him.

  “He's in the bedroom. He has to rest a lot to keep this barrier up, he says.” She leaned back to glance down the hallway. “I don't know about any of this stuff,” she added in a softer voice. “I wish I could do more to help. But every sneeze, every laugh, every temper tantrum—she's breaking things, and things are getting turned into other things, and—”

  Nathan put a hand on the woman's shoulder, and she slumped slightly and looked up at him with a plaintive frown.

  “We'll get her sorted,” he promised. “And we'll get you all somewhere safe.” He looked over his shoulder at Elton, who looked very uncomfortable in the disaster that was the living room. “If you could take charge of this barrier, darling—give our host a little break. I'll see to the girl.”

  Elton nodded, already reaching into his breast pocket for his portfolio, and he set a few blank slips of yellowed paper on the scant spare foot of empty space on the nearby counter, then set to drawing the right inscriptions while Nathan followed the haggard mother do
wn the hall.

  The young girl's bedroom was in no better condition than the rest of the house. Her dresser was missing a few drawers, which laid upside down or sideways on the floor—Nathan assumed where they'd been left the last time the whole thing had tipped over. A small fountain stood where a lamp should have been, dripping water down the side of the nightstand, and the ceiling fan blades seemed to have melted, but they still turned, limply flopping in a rhythmic rotation. From the bed in the corner, a small girl sat with her knees to her chest and her hands tucked under her bare feet, staring at the stranger in her room with wide, brown eyes.

  “Grace,” Lily began in a voice that sounded practiced and gentle, “this man is here to help you.”

  The girl's timid gaze flitted quickly to her mother and back to the visitor, but she didn't speak.

  “Hello, Grace.” Nathan approached her without hesitation and took a seat near the foot of her bed. “My name is Nathan.” He glanced up at the ceiling fan and lifted one finger in a brief circle to indicate the room. “Did you do all of this?”

  She nodded.

  “Well isn't that something? You know, when I was your age, I was barely floating apples off the ground. It was a long while before I was doing anything so exciting as destroying furniture.”

  The girl let a hint of a guilty smile touch her lips as she ducked her face a little closer to her knees.

  “Has any of this been on purpose, Grace? Or was it all accidents?”

  Large brown eyes darted toward the corner of the room, where a small dollhouse sat unbroken, with tall, mismatched spires growing in disjointed angles from its plastic rooftops. Nathan followed her gaze and leaned back to rest his elbow on her mattress as he craned his neck over his shoulder.

  “I wanted it to be bigger,” Grace whispered.

  “And so it is,” he chuckled. “That’s excellent. That means that all you’re missing is restraint. Do you know that word, Grace—restraint?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, restraint is knowing that you can do something, but that you shouldn’t. It’s knowing the right time and place for things. For instance, you wouldn’t wear your favorite dress into the bathtub, would you? Or somersault down the hall at school?”