Left Hand Magic

by Nancy A. Collins

  “They’re scared. That’s all,” Hexe replied. “Change rarely happens overnight in Golgotham.”

  “Why don’t you bring your friend over to my place for dinner and drinks?” Lorelei suggested, smiling in my direction. “On the house, of course. But I warn you, I pour them strong! They don’t say ‘drinks like a fish’ for nothing! Well, I’d best be going. Nice meeting you, Ms. Eresby.”

  “Please, call me Tate, Ms. Jones.”

  “Tate it is. And you can call me Lorelei. The ‘Jones’ is only because I needed a last name for the liquor license.”

  As we exited GoBOO Headquarters, the throng of TV reporters stationed outside the building surged up the stairs to greet us, shoving cameras in our faces.

  “Hexe! Hector Lafcadio with WPIX! Is it true you’re dating the heiress to the Eresby fortune?”

  “No comment. Please, let us by—,” Hexe said as he pushed the microphones aside. “I have nothing to say to the media.”

  “Hexe! Miranda Joyce with WCBS! Is it true that Kymerans attacked the New York Police Department?”

  “No comment!”

  “Miss Eresby! Sally Ann Klutter for Entertainment Tonight! Is it true you’re living with a Kymeran? Is he your lover? Is it true what they say about Kymeran men?”

  “What kind of question is that?” Hexe said heatedly. “And what business is it of yours, anyway?”

  Before things could get out of hand, Lieutenant Vivi suddenly appeared, inserting herself between Hexe and the reporters.

  “Step back!” she barked. “You heard him—they don’t want to talk to the press! Now clear off before I run you all in for blocking the sidewalk and disturbing the peace!” The PTU officer glanced over her shoulder and gave us a crooked smile. “I’d make a break for the cab stand right now if I were you.”

  Hexe grabbed my hand and dashed to the nearest hansom. As we climbed into the cab, I looked across the street and saw Captain Horn standing there, gazing at Hexe with a contemplative look on his face. When he saw I had noticed him, his features became as unreadable as a slab of granite, and he quickly turned on his heel, disappearing into the crowd.

  Chapter 11

  When we returned home, we were promptly greeted by Scratch, who was seated expectantly in the foyer, his eyes glowing murder-red. “About time you two got back,” the familiar yowled. “I’m positively starving .”

  “I’m so sure,” Hexe scoffed. “When I opened the door, I thought Tullamore had turned another college student into a flying pig.”

  “Do not go there, if you want to come back in one piece,” Scratch growled.

  “Far be it from me to damage your fragile self-image by snarking about your girlish figure.” Hexe laughed as he removed his coat. “Anything happen while we were out?”

  “A delivery person from the Bestiary dropped off a package addressed to Tate. Lukas accepted delivery and put it in your office before he left for work.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t order anything from anyplace called that. What is it?”

  “How would I know?” Scratch replied with a shrug of his wings. “I’m not the one who signed for it—no thumbs, remember?”

  “I suggest we go see for ourselves,” said Hexe.

  There was a small plastic travel crate, the kind used for transporting animals on airlines, sitting next to the desk. A sticker glued across the side read LIVE ANIMAL. As we entered the office, the crate began to rattle and I heard a piteous little yelp.

  “Somebody, somewhere definitely made a mistake,” I said. “I didn’t buy a dog.”

  “There’s no mistake,” Hexe said, his smile breaking into a grin. “I bought him!”

  “You bought a what?!” Scratch exclaimed, his eyes bugging out in alarm.

  “Thought about what you said the other day, and decided you might appreciate having a real pet—one that doesn’t talk back.”

  “Owning a dog is a big commitment,” I protested. “You have to walk them, groom them, make sure they get their shots. . . . I don’t know if I’m ready to handle something like that right now.”

  “I just wanted you to feel at home,” he explained. “Just take a look at him, then decide if you don’t want him.”

  I knelt down and unlatched the travel crate. Without warning the wire door swung open and a Boston terrier puppy came bounding out into the room. My first impression was that he was black and white and made mostly of head and belly. The puppy celebrated his freedom by running in figure eights between Hexe’s feet and my own, ears and tongue flapping like flags. As I’ve said before, I’m a sucker when it comes to animals, and the minute I looked into those big brown eyes, I was instantly and irreversibly smitten.

  “He’s adorable!” I squealed, scooping my new dog up in my arms.

  The puppy responded by licking every square inch of my face as fast as he could, while wriggling so hard I was afraid he would pop out of my hands like a wet bar of soap.

  “I can still take him back if you want me to,” Hexe offered.

  “Don’t you dare!” I gasped, cradling the puppy in the crook of my arm.

  “So—do you like him?”

  “Like him? I love him! Thank you, baby—he’s wonderful—and so are you!” I gave Hexe a big fat kiss, only to have the puppy join in. I laughed and put the dog back on the floor so I could properly express my appreciation.

  Scratch warily eyed the newest member of the household as the puppy continued exploring his environment, sniffing the corners, the carpet, and other furnishings in the room. “That’s a dog?” the familiar grumbled. “It looks like a cross between a monkey, a bat, a goldfish, and a potbellied pig. Are you sure they didn’t slip you an unfledged gargoyle instead?”

  “He’s a Boston terrier,” Hexe explained.

  “Where’s his snout? He looks like he chased a parked car,” Scratch grunted.

  The puppy came to a halt and did a double take, as if he’d just seen Scratch for the first time. As the winged cat turned his back in disgust, the puppy gave the familiar’s hairless butt a tentative sniff.

  “Hey!” Scratch snarled, spinning back around. “Watch where you’re sticking that thing, buddy!”

  Instead of yelping in fright, the puppy dropped down into play stance, his chin and forepaws resting on the floor, his hindquarters wriggling in the air.

  “Isn’t that cute?” I cooed. “He wants to play with you.”

  “Gag me with a grapefruit spoon.” Scratch groaned. The familiar glowered reproachfully at Hexe. “How could you do this to me after all these years?”

  As Scratch turned to leave the room, the puppy bounded after him, landing with all four feet on the end of his hairless tail. The familiar whipped about a second time and hissed like a bag of angry cobras, spreading his batlike wings in warning. “Bang off, chuffer!”

  The puppy took a couple of steps back, as if surprised by Scratch’s response, then nimbly jumped forward and licked him on the face, and then just as quickly jumped back and began to dance around the familiar, yapping for him to come play.

  “I don’t think he’s scared of you, Scratch,” Hexe observed.

  “He will be after I bite off an ear!”

  I snatched the puppy up and held him in my arms. “Don’t you dare hurt Beanie!”

  Scratch rolled his eyes. “Is that what you’re calling him?”

  “You’ve got a better name for him?” I challenged.

  “Yeah—‘Snack’!”

  “Scratch! Stop threatening to eat Beanie!” Hexe admonished.

  “She’s the one who named it after food!”

  “Don’t argue with me!” Hexe said sternly. “You are forbidden to kill, eat, maim, or otherwise hurt Beanie. Do you understand?”

  Scratch sighed, his wings drooping in resignation at his master’s command. “I gotcha. No eating the stupid dog. What about burglars, salesmen, and door-to-door missionaries?”

  “Those are still permitted.”

  “Praise the pits for small favors,” Sc
ratch grumbled, as he flapped away in disgust. “Please excuse me while I go piss in your sock drawer. . . .”

  The rest of the afternoon was spent “puppy-proofing” the house, which consisted of putting down newspapers and constructing makeshift barricades to ensure that the newly christened Beanie didn’t wander anywhere he wasn’t supposed to. The last thing we needed was for him to end up on the third floor, which had a bad habit of disappearing into alternate dimensions, if Hexe’s great-uncle was anything to go by.

  I used my iPhone to look up information on the proper care and feeding of a new dog, and was immediately overwhelmed by the list of dos and don’ts from various experts. While the store where Hexe bought Beanie had included a bag of dry dog food, along with the travel crate, as part of the purchase price, it was becoming increasingly clear that taking care of a puppy was going to require more than some wee-wee pads and a chew toy.

  Although the PTU had rescinded its previous curfew, we decided it was still a little too soon to be wandering the streets after dark, and chose to order in for dinner. I put a call in to Strega Nona’s Pizza Oven for two pies—a small Trojan Horse for myself (pepperoni, feta, spinach, portabellas, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes) and the Six-Fingered Discount for Hexe (hot dogs, maple syrup, artichokes, flash-fried crickets, and pickles). I love that man to death, but I learned the hard way never to go half and half on the toppings with him.

  Just after I finished ordering, my phone rang. The “Psycho Theme” ringtone alerted me to who was calling without my having to look at the caller ID.

  “So—we don’t hear from you for weeks, and this is how we find out you’re shacking up with some Kymie lothario!”

  “Hello to you too, Mother,” I said with a sigh. “Hexe isn’t a ‘lothario,’ whatever that is, and what do you mean by ‘this’?”

  “The television!” I could hear the faint rattle of ice cubes in her Old Fashioned in the background. “It was one of those horrid entertainment gossip shows—not that I watch them, of course. Muffie Potter Aston rang me to say she’d seen you in the company of some purple-headed wizard. I was positively mortified!”

  “Hexe and I testified before the GoBOO—I mean, the Golgotham Business Owners Organization—today,” I explained.

  “Why on earth would their Chamber of Commerce want to talk to you?”

  “They wanted to question us about the riot, Mom.”

  My mother’s bafflement quickly switched to alarm. “Wait—what would you know about a riot?”

  “Hexe and I were there when it broke out. We were practically in the middle of it.”

  “Merciful God—are you all right, Timmy?”

  As much as I dislike my given name, it is nothing compared to how much I loathe my childhood nickname. But since my mother sounded genuinely upset, I chose to ignore her use of it. “I got exposed to some tear gas, but not too bad. Hexe was hit on the head with a bottle—”

  “Timothy—did you hear that?” my mother called out to my father, not bothering to muffle the mouthpiece. “Timmy was caught in that riot!”

  There was the sound of footsteps crossing the hardwood floor of the grand salon, followed by one of the numerous extensions in my parents’ penthouse being picked up. “Princess? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Dad. Honest. I was just telling Mom I’m okay. . . .”

  My father heaved a weary sigh, which indicated that he was getting ready to lay down the law. “Sweetheart, I know you want to find yourself, and we’ve been tolerant of that . . . but between what happened at the gallery and now this riot thing, your mother and I think it’s time you came home. Golgotham is just too dangerous.”

  “Dad, I appreciate that you and Mom are worried about me, but I’m perfectly safe,” I lied. Like I told Meikei, I have a great deal of experience in telling fathers what they want to hear. “I have friends here, and I know my way around. Nothing bad is going to happen to me. I promise.”

  “Yes, well . . . about your ‘friends’—your mother is extremely alarmed about this Hexe fellow. She believes he has some kind of control over you.”

  “Mom’s just being paranoid. And racist. You know how she is.”

  “I’m afraid so,” my father admitted.

  Suddenly my mother was back on the line—she must have gone off to freshen up her Old Fashioned. “Would it have killed you to pick up the phone and tell us what was going on? We had no idea you were involved in that horrible riot downtown!”

  “Mom, Dad—maybe if you actually came down here and checked out the neighborhood, maybe met a couple of my friends, it might ease your mind,” I suggested. “Right now isn’t the greatest time, but maybe after things cool off and get back to normal . . . ?”

  “Me—? Go downtown? To Golgotham?” my mother gasped. I could see her clutching her pearls at the very suggestion. “Have you lost your mind?!?”

  “Now, Millie,” my father countered, “Timmy does have a point—”

  “Sure! Take her side!” my mother replied huffily. “Like you always do!”

  My father heaved another sigh, even wearier than the one before. “Princess, we’ll have to call you back and discuss this another time. Your mother and I need to talk.”

  “Of course, Dad. I understand.”

  “Love you, Timmy. Stay safe.”

  “I will, Dad. Same to you.”

  I’d known that suggesting that my parents visit Golgotham would set my mother off like a blasting cap, but it was the only way I could get them off the phone. I felt a twinge of guilt for setting my father up the way I did, but I told myself it had to be done in the name of peace, particularly my own.

  My father may not understand or appreciate my desire to be a sculptor, but he has never denied me. My mother, on the other hand, has been a living boat anchor for as long as I can remember—doing her best to keep me from realizing any ambition outside of becoming a Lady Who Lunches. She always gets overridden by my father, but that doesn’t keep her from making catty remarks every time we talk. I wished our relationship wasn’t so acrimonious, but sometimes things just are the way they are. Water’s wet, fire is hot, and my mom’s a be-yotch.

  I looked down at Beanie, who had worn himself out playing and, in true puppy fashion, fallen asleep right where he was. One second he was wrestling with a knotted-up tube sock, the next he was sprawled on his side, snoring through his little pushed-in nose, which was almost flush with his onion-shaped head. He was as limp as a rag doll, as relaxed as only small children and puppies can get, as I picked him up and cradled him in the crook of my arm. Somehow he managed to yawn and stretch without opening his eyes or interrupting his snores. I glanced up to see Hexe standing in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the jamb, a little half smile on his face.

  “So—does it feel like home now?” he asked.

  “Better than home,” I replied with a smile.

  Chapter 12

  For the next few days I was kept busy taking Beanie to get his shots, and shopping for squeak toys, collars, and dog sweaters. And since animals with only one head and/or no ability to speak were comparatively rare where I lived, this meant trips outside of Golgotham. It also meant that by the end of the day I was usually too pooped to go out. Which wasn’t that big a deal, since after our experience with first the riot and then the media, Hexe and I had decided it was probably a good idea to stay home and live off takeout for a few days, rather than risk going out after dark. Besides, it gave us time to bond with Beanie and help him get accustomed to our day-to-day routine. Still, after four days, as much as I adore Strega Nona’s pizza and stromboli, when Hexe suggested we go to Lorelei’s for dinner, I jumped at the chance.

  Hexe’s childhood friend Kidron picked us up in his hansom cab at seven. I had made sure to take the puppy out into the backyard before crating him for the evening. While Scratch had promised not to harm Beanie, I decided it might not be a good idea for the pup to push his luck while I was gone.

  Lorelei’s was situated near Pickma
n’s Slip, at the foot of Ferry Street, on the end of a long pier that jutted into the East River. The building was huge, and looked like a fanciful cross between a Maori meetinghouse and a Hawaiian war canoe, with an inverse curved roof that measured sixty feet at its highest point. Flanking the front door were two massive, twenty-foot-high maoi—the famous stone faces of Easter Island—with volcano-like flames burning from the tops of their heads.

  As Kidron pulled up to let us out, a young merman with webbed hands, green seaweedlike hair, and gill-slits along his throat, and dressed in a colorful Hawaiian shirt, hurried forward to help me down from the cab.

  “Welcome to Lorelei’s.” The merman smiled. He pushed against the edge of the octagonal-shaped front door, which turned on a center pivot to allow entrance to the building. “Have a wonderful evening.”

  The first thing I noticed upon crossing the threshold, besides the mouthwatering smell of ribs slow-cooking in wood-fired ovens, was that instead of the usual tables and booths found in most restaurants, there were individual thatched huts. Some were big enough for two, while others were large enough to accommodate up to twenty or more people, giving the illusion of a tropical native village under a single roof.

  Just inside the front door was a triple-tiered fountain filled with dry ice, which sent mist boiling across the carpeted floor, while the sound of jungle drums throbbed from hidden speakers. A beautiful mermaid hostess, dressed in a boldly printed sarong, stepped forward to greet us. She wore a lei of flowers around her neck that partially obscured her gill-slits, and held an iPad in her webbed hands. Her long dark green hair was piled high atop her head and kept in place by an ornately carved mother-of-pearl comb.

  “Welcome to Lorelei’s,” she said with a smile. “Do you have a reservation?”

  “I’m a friend of the owner,” Hexe explained. “She said she’d put us on the list. The name’s Hexe.”

  “Ah, yes!” The hostess nodded as she consulted her iPad. “Right this way, Serenity!”