Right Hand Magic

by Nancy A. Collins

  The bartender, a towering Kymeran with wiry, ketchup red hair and a matching beard that hung halfway to his belly, nodded in greeting as Hexe steered me toward one of the booths.

  “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “None other than the owner of this fine establishment. We went to school together.”

  As I looked around the comfortingly cramped interior of the Two-Headed Calf, it suddenly occurred to me that I was the only human in the pub. Everyone else was either a Kymeran or a member of some other supernatural race. All of them were socializing over whiskey, ale, and tobacco—lots and lots of tobacco.

  Since Kymerans can’t contract cancer, they tend to ignore the state and federal guidelines concerning smoking in public places, which makes them no different than Parisians, I suppose. Still, I was unprepared for the pall of secondhand smoke that hovered above the room. As I discreetly coughed into my fist, I noticed a couple of Kymerans glare in my direction.

  One thing I can say for sure is that Hooters’ waitstaff has nothing on that of the Two-Headed Calf. The barmaid who came to take our drink order was not only a dead ringer for a young Sophia Loren, she was dressed in the classic chiton of the ancient Greeks. The outline of her voluptuous body was clearly visible through the diaphanous material, save for the portion hidden by the leopard skin draped over her left shoulder.

  “Evening, Hexe. Drinks or dinner?” the maenad asked, plucking the pencil from the wreath of ivy and grapevine that adorned her dark head.

  “Evening, Chorea. Dinner. How long before a table opens up?”

  “Table?” I frowned, puzzled by the statement. “We’re already seated.”

  Chorea rolled her eyes in open contempt of my ignorance and pointed with her pencil at the wooden staircase at the back of the room and the arrow-shaped sign that read in big block letters DINING ROOM UPSTAIRS. Although she didn’t say “nump” out loud, I knew she was thinking it. My face turned as red as my cardigan.

  “Shouldn’t be more than a ten-minute wait,” Chorea said. “Fifteen, tops. How about a drink to pass the time?”

  “I’ll have a barley wine,” he said.

  The maenad nodded as she scribbled the order down on her pad, and then glanced at me. I thought about ordering a light beer, but changed my mind at the last moment. I didn’t want to come across as any more of a nump than I did already.

  “I’ll have the house red.”

  Chorea’s eyes lighted up, and she favored me with a smile that would have made a satyr blush. “Excellent choice, ma’am.”

  As our waitress headed to the bar to place our drink order, I leaned across the booth and whispered, “Is she for real?”

  “As real as it gets,” Hexe assured me. “I’ve known her for some time. She’s a good person, when she’s sober. Hell of a mean drunk, though. Sadly, there aren’t many places Dionysian cultists feel comfortable nowadays, save for bars and strip clubs.”

  I looked up and was startled to find the bartender looming over us. He stood nearly seven feet tall and wore a pair of battered bib overalls and a plaid work shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled back to reveal swarms of tattoos on both arms. I don’t know if it was his personal scent, or a result of working in a restaurant, but he smelled of corn dogs, tobacco, and bananas Foster.

  “Thought I’d come over and say hello,” the bartender said as he placed our drinks down in front of us. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Tate, this is Lafo. Lafo, I’d like you to meet Tate,” Hexe said, nodding in my direction. “She’s my new tenant.”

  “Taking on a human lodger, eh?” The burly bartender lifted a bristly red eyebrow in surprise. “What does old Esau have to say about that?”

  A look of distaste flickered across Hexe’s handsome face. “I don’t give a shit what he says—even less for what he thinks.”

  “Always the diplomat!” Lafo said with a throaty laugh and a twinkle in his sapphire blue eye. He thrust a large six-fingered hand in my direction. My smaller five-fingered one fit inside his palm with room to spare. “Nice meeting you, Miss Tate. Welcome to Golgotham.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Lafo,” I replied.

  “Just call me Lafo. I’m not much for formalities.”

  “Lafo it is—and, please, call me Tate.”

  “Will do. FYI, when you get upstairs, I recommend the blackbird pie. I made it fresh this afternoon.” With that, Lafo returned to his post behind the bar, pouring drinks for his thirsty customers.

  “Who’s Esau?” I asked as I sipped my house wine.

  Hexe made a sour face, as if the very mention of the name were somehow painful to him. “He’s my uncle.”

  “I take it you two don’t get along?”

  “That’s a polite way of describing it.” He sighed. “Esau is my mother’s older brother, and therefore family . . . but there’s no love lost between us.”

  “I understand. You don’t have to explain. I’m sorry I brought him up.”

  Hexe waved his hand, dismissing my apology. “You’d find out about him sooner or later. This way, at least, you’re forewarned. Uncle Esau is a terrible misanthrope.”

  “He hates humans, I take it?”

  “Only slightly more than he hates me.”

  “You’re exaggerating, I’m sure.”

  “I wish I were. And it’s not as if I’ve given him any reason to be so ill disposed toward me. The old fecker has despised me since I was in diapers. I suspect it’s because his father—my grandfather—disinherited him in favor of my mother.”

  I was tempted to tell him that his family sounded suspiciously like my own, but I didn’t want to come off sounding either glib or proud of being dysfunctional.

  “I hope your boyfriend won’t take offense by my asking you out to dinner,” Hexe said as he drank from his tankard of barley wine.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend,” I replied.

  “I find that hard to believe, what with your being such an intelligent and lovely young woman.” He smiled.

  “Well, I am just getting out of a relationship,” I admitted.

  “Oh?”

  “The breakup was my idea,” I explained. “It’s part of the reason I moved. I decided I needed a change of scenery to get my head straight.”

  “I can understand that.” He nodded.

  Now that Hexe had finished his little fishing expedition, it was time for me to start mine. “How about you?” I asked. “Is your girlfriend cool with our dining together?”

  “She’d have to exist, first,” he laughed. “I’m not much of a catch, I’m afraid.”

  “Now that I find hard to believe,” I replied.

  A second maenad, this one a blond Brigitte Bar-dot clone, tapped Hexe on the shoulder. “Your table is ready, sir.”

  As we followed the hostess to the dining room above, I paused to look at a few of the framed photographs of famous celebrities arranged along the narrow staircase. Some were human, such as Charlie Chaplin, Oscar Wilde, and John Lennon; others, like Houdini, Bowie, Marilyn Manson, and Picasso, were long rumored to be either half-breeds or full-blooded Kymerans surgically altered in order to pass.

  “That’s my great-great-grandfather,” Hexe said, pointing to a steel engraving depicting three men posed in front of the horseshoe-shaped bar. They were dressed in colonial-era clothes, complete with buckled shoes and tricorn hats, and wore Freemason aprons about their waists. I recognized the men on either side of Hexe’s ancestor as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. “My family’s been coming here since Lafo’s great-great-grandmother first opened the doors.”

  The dining room was one large open room with a coffered ceiling and dark weathered wood. Save for me, everyone seated for dinner was a Kymeran. As we wended our way to our table, I was keenly aware of being watched. When I dared to challenge the stares aimed at me, most looked away, but one or two continued to glower in my direction, letting me know my presence was unwelcome.

  Once we were seated, our waiter—a young Kymeran with mango-col
ored hair who smelled of herbal tea and vetiver—handed us a pair of menus. It was then I discovered that Lafo’s parting comment about the blackbird pie wasn’t a joke.

  I’d always assumed that the stories about Kymeran cuisine were born of ignorance and cultural bias. As I stared at the listings for owl soup, soaked cod, pork brains in milk gravy, and blood dumplings, I realized that all stereotypes have to get their start somewhere. I wondered if I would have to resort to a stomach pump before the evening was over.

  “What will the lady be having this evening?” the waiter asked. I couldn’t help but notice a hint of malicious amusement in his voice.

  “I’ll try the blackbird pie,” I replied, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

  “One house special—very good! And you, sir?”

  “I’ll have the same, with a Cynar aperitif.”

  “Excellent choice.”

  “What’s Cynar?” I asked after our waiter hurried off to the kitchen.

  “It’s a liqueur made from artichokes. Would you like to try some? It tastes like copper pennies. ...”

  “No—! Thank you,” I replied quickly. “Not tonight.”

  Hexe leaned back in his seat, a quizzical look on his handsome face. “Tell me—how much do you know about my people?”

  “Not a whole lot. We studied the Unholy War in school, of course. ...”

  “We call it the Sufferance,” he corrected politely.

  “Of course. Forgive me.” I dropped my gaze to the table, embarrassed by yet another faux pas on my part.

  “You needn’t be so apologetic. I don’t view you or any other human alive today as personally responsible for what happened a thousand years ago. However, there are a few Kymerans who do hold grudges against human-kind, such as my uncle Esau. They resent encroachment on what they view as their territory. As you’ve noticed, there’s a lot more to Golgotham than what’s printed in the tour books. I am happy to volunteer my services as your native guide—assuming you’ll have me.”

  As I looked into his golden, catlike eyes, I felt myself getting light-headed. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was feeling something exciting and new, or because I hadn’t eaten all day. In any case, I hoped I didn’t look like, well, like a nump.

  “I’d be honored,” I said, returning his smile.

  Just then our waiter returned, placing the blackbird pie on the table with a flourish usually reserved for the finest cuisine. To both my delight and surprise, it smelled delicious.

  Maybe I wouldn’t need that stomach pump, after all.

  Chapter 6

  “What made you decide to become an artist?”

  We were walking back to the house when he asked me that. I paused in midstep, forcing Hexe to turn and look back at me as I spoke.

  “I’ve always had a creative bent, even as a toddler. At least that’s what my nanny claimed. The first time I realized I wanted to be an artist was in middle school. My school took a day trip to the Guggenheim. I was fascinated by the exhibits—enough that I went back on my own every weekend for nearly three months. When we studied sculpting in art class, I tried to re-create this statue I’d seen there called The Dying Gaul, in modeling clay, no less. It was awful, of course, but there was something about creating something from nothing, using only my hands and will, which was very—gratifying. After that, I was hooked.

  “As you may have guessed, I grew up rich. Filthy, stinking rich. All that was expected of me was to grow up, marry someone else who grew up filthy, stinking rich, and have a couple of filthy, stinking rich kids to inherit the family fortune. I knew so many brats with Roman numerals behind their names who had no reason or desire to make anything of themselves besides what they were the minute they were born, it was disgusting. The last thing I want to do is add to that ‘tradition.’

  “The trouble with that lifestyle is this: Hanging around doing nothing while waiting for an inheritance is boring. So many of my old schoolmates got fucked up on drugs and alcohol, mainly out of boredom. I swear, half of the girls in my graduating class in high school developed eating disorders simply to have something to do! The sick thing is, my mother wouldn’t have any problems with my being an anorexic—after all, that’s expected from someone of my background.”

  “I take it your parents don’t approve of your career choice?”

  “They like to call it a ‘phase’ I’m going through, like I’m the moon. I guess they think I’ll eventually grow out of it—kind of like baby teeth. They keep saying they don’t want to see me get my hopes up and end up hurt, which is another way of saying they’re expecting me to fail—at least, that’s what they’re hoping for.”

  “Isn’t that a bit harsh?”

  “You haven’t met my mother,” I grunted. “What about you? What made you decide to practice only Right Hand magic? You said so yourself, you could make a lot more money if you used both hands.”

  “A lot of it has to do with family, and what’s expected of someone like me,” he explained, his voice taking on a bitter edge. “Humans tend to view my people as no better than drug dealers and pimps. If you want to destroy somebody’s life, just line a kymie’s palm with silver, am I right? We’re the rapist and the murderer’s best friend, are we not? My people are, for the most part, good-hearted. But a lifetime of good can be undone by a single evil act. I wanted to prove that it’s possible for a Kymeran to make a living without resorting to the Left Hand Path.”

  “Do you? Make a living at it, that is?”

  “I’m renting out rooms, aren’t I?” he replied with a depreciative laugh.

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Most of the musicians signed to labels in this city still have their day jobs. Do you think you’re doing okay?”

  “I have some steady clients,” he admitted. “I rely a lot on word of mouth. And word is getting around that I’m very good at what I do. ...”

  “Gardy-loo!”

  Hexe broke off in midsentence and turned to look in the direction of the voice. A Kymeran with bright orange hair came staggering out of the Highlander Tavern across the street, closely followed by another warlock whose hair was the color of lime sherbet. Both looked extremely inebriated.

  “Gardy-looooo!” the orange-headed Kymeran shouted drunkenly, his voice echoing down the street. “I’ll show you who’s the fastest slinger in Golgotham, Oddo!”

  “Bloody abdabs!” Hexe groaned. He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the nearest doorway.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Looks like we’re caught in the middle of a pissing contest.”

  “A what contest?” I grimaced.

  “It’s when wizards get into a duel with each other,” he explained, then added, as an afterthought, “when they’re drunk.”

  “What’s he yelling ‘Gardy-loo’ for?”

  “It means ‘Look out.’ It’s kind of like shouting ‘fore,’ when you play golf. Except instead of getting hit by a golf ball, you’re likely to be set on fire or turned into a lamppost.”

  The orange-haired Kymeran drew back his left hand, like a baseball player winding up for the pitch. A tongue of flame suddenly burst to life in his palm, rapidly growing in size and intensity until it looked like a snowball made of fire. With a drunken shout, he hurled it at the other Kymeran’s head.

  The warlock with the lime sherbet hair, the one called Oddo, raised his right hand and made a dismissive gesture, as if waving off a bothersome fly. The fireball abruptly changed trajectories, flying across the narrow street and striking the fire escape of a nearby tenement building. It flew apart in a shower of white-hot sparks, which cascaded downward, sizzling as they made contact with the sidewalk below.

  “Don’t let any of it touch you,” Hexe warned, pulling me even closer to him. “Those projectiles are made of hellfire. It burns hotter than natural fire, and once it gets on you, it burns clean to the bone.”

  “Is that the best you can do, Zack?” Oddo sneered, drunkenly pushing up the sleeves of his shir
t. “I’ll show you some real slingin’!”

  Suddenly the wail of an approaching police siren could be heard. The drunken warlocks exchanged worried looks, their reason for their duel forgotten.

  “Some fecker called the PTU on us, Oddo!” Zack exclaimed, genuinely surprised that someone might take offense at his hurling balls of molten death in public.

  The drunken wizards linked arms and lurched up the sidewalk in an attempt to escape before the Paranormal Threat Unit arrived. They had barely managed to stagger a dozen yards before a black paddy wagon, a flashing blue light on top and pulled by a centaur outfitted in a PTU flack jacket and riot helmet, rounded the corner at a dead run.

  The paddy wagon came to a halt and a half-dozen uniformed PTU responders, a mix of human and Kymeran law enforcement agents, jumped out of the back, spells and riot gear at the ready.

  “Hands behind your backs! Hands behind your backs!” a Kymeran officer shouted. “Put your hands where I can’t see ’em!”

  The fleeing drunks did as they were told, dropping to their knees as they placed their hands in the small of their backs.

  “It’s safe to go now,” Hexe said, stepping out of the doorway. “The PTU have it under control.”

  “Does that happen a lot around here?” I asked.

  “Not as often as it used to. The Paranormal Threat Unit does a good job of keeping the duels off the street. Some resent their interference, viewing it as humans trying to force their ways on our culture, but it’s what has kept the NYPD out of the neighborhood so far.”

  “What’ll happen to those two?”

  “They’ll take them to the Tombs to sleep it off, then fine ’em for public dueling. Which means Zack will be knocking on my door tomorrow, wanting his usual hangover cure. Speaking of which, I need to harvest some herbs from my garden. Would you care to join me?”