Left Hand Magic

by Nancy A. Collins

  “I’m really thirsty,” I replied.

  “I’ll go get you some water,” he said, kissing my forehead. “I’ll be right back.”

  As I waited for Hexe to return with my water, the doors to the ambulance drop-off flew open and a pair of paramedics hustled into the ER pushing a gurney that bore an ipotane wrapped in a thermal blanket. An Amazon in nurse’s whites motioned to the empty cubicle to the left of mine.

  My eyelids were growing heavier each second, but I wasn’t so out of it that I didn’t notice the smell of wet horse. I looked over and saw that the gurney the ipotane was lying on was completely soaked, to the point that water was pooling on the floor underneath. The ipotane then groaned and rolled over so that he was facing me. With a start, I realized it was Gus.

  “Some merfolk found him in the East River,” one of the paramedics said as he handed the patient’s chart to the Amazonian nurse. “He was cyanotic when we arrived at the scene, but we managed to revive him.”

  As if on cue, Gus began to gasp and choke, and the ER staff flew into action. “He’s going into cardiac arrest!” the nurse shouted as she began applying CPR to the ipotane’s barrel-like chest. “I need a psychic surgeon over here, stat!”

  Hexe returned with a bottle of water, but by that time I was too tired to do more than take a couple of sips. I wanted to tell him that I knew the person the ER staff were frantically working to save, but I was so exhausted from my own ordeal I could barely squeeze his hand, much less talk. Before I could find out what had happened to Gus, the orderly arrived and pushed my gurney down the hall to the recovery room.

  I am on the street in front of the boardinghouse, waiting for my ride. I do not know how long I have been standing there, or where it is I am going. I cannot tell if it is day or night, but I do see that the streets are strangely empty. Suddenly, I become aware of someone calling my name, as if from a great distance.

  I look across the street and see Bayard the centaur harnessed to a pony wagon. Quid and Gus are perched on the driver’s seat, smiling and waving at me.

  “Hurry up, Tate,” Quid calls out, “or you’re going to be late!”

  I trot across the cobblestone street to join my friends. I am relieved to see that they are alive and well. I wonder where I got the crazy idea that they were otherwise. But as I draw closer, the glow of health drains from their faces and their skin turns a pallid, ashy gray.

  My eyes must be playing tricks on me, so I rub them and look again, only to have the pony wagon transform into a glass-sided hearse. Quid and Gus are still sitting on the driver’s seat, only now they are wearing undertakers’ top hats and tails, as is Bayard.

  “Aren’t you going with us?” Gus asks, water gushing from his mouth.

  “There’s room for one more,” Quid says, gesturing to the interior of the hearse. Save for his trademark fuzzy eyebrows, the favor broker’s face is a mass of bruises, and his left eye dangles from its socket by the optic nerve.

  “I’m not ready to go,” I protest, stepping away from the hearse.

  “Neither were we,” Bayard replies, turning in his harness to look at me. He is still wearing the earbuds attached to his iPod and his mouth is smeared with dried vomit. “But we went, all the same.”

  Suddenly a shadow falls across me, and I hear a cry that is a cross between the squawk of a raven and the squeal of a pig. I look in the sky and see a winged silhouette plummeting toward me. I shield my face by raising my arms, and when I lower them, I am no longer standing on the street.

  I am in a large, shadowy room. I look down and see that I am standing in the center of a pentacle. I hear the rustle of feathers and hissing. I turn and see a black chicken on a nesting box, beside which sits a copper dragon, steam rising from its nostrils as it watches me with eyes of flame.

  There is a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, illuminating the darkness around me. I see a slab, and on it lies a body covered by a sheet. As I stare in horror, the cadaver sits up and reaches with a pale, bloodless hand and slowly pulls at the shroud covering its face. I am rooted to the spot, unable to look away. I don’t know why, but it is important that I see the corpse’s face. Just as the sheet finally drops away, there is another lightning flash and . . .

  “Tate? Can you hear me? Are you okay?” Hexe was bending over me, a concerned look on his face. He heaved a sigh of relief as I opened my eyes. “It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”

  “How long was I asleep?” I asked, looking around. I was resting in a hospital bed in a small, sparsely decorated room, the walls of which were painted a pale medicinal green. Somewhere along the line I had been undressed and put in a hospital gown.

  “You’ve been out for a couple of hours,” he replied, arranging my pillows so I could sit up. “How do you feel?”

  “A lot better, compared to before.” I lifted my splinted arm and stared at it in amazement. “It just seems a little tender—that’s all. I’m still really thirsty, though.”

  “That’s a side effect of the accelerated healing,” Hexe explained as he poured me a glass of water from a carafe on the bedside table.

  I quickly downed the offered glass, eager to quench the persistent dryness at the back of my throat. It was probably just tap water, but as far as my body was concerned it was the ambrosia of the gods.

  “Did Scratch catch the demon?” I asked as he refilled my glass.

  “I’m afraid not. He lost track of it near Pickman’s Slip.”

  “Did he get hurt?”

  “Scratch is fine; don’t worry. He’s returned to the house and is guarding the home front.”

  “Merciful God—! Where are you witch doctors hiding my daughter?”

  I choked on my water, spitting it back into the glass. A second later my mother appeared in the doorway of the recovery room. She was dressed to the nines, complete with white gloves, as if she had just walked out of a luncheon with the governor. Upon spotting me, she threw her hands up in an exaggerated show of relief and leaned back into the hallway.

  “Finally! I found her, Timothy! She’s in here!”

  My father popped into the doorframe a second later, looking genuinely disconcerted. My dad doesn’t like being out of his element, and you couldn’t get any further from a boardroom or a yacht club than Golgotham General. The moment he saw me, however, the knot between his eyes unwound and he hurried to my bedside. Hexe quietly stepped aside so my father could hug me. As always, he smelled of expensive cologne and licorice, his favorite candy.

  “How are you feeling, Princess? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine, Daddy.”

  “Where am I, a hospital or a barnyard?” My mother sniffed as she ran a white-gloved finger along the foot of the bed. “I just walked in on someone up to their shoulder in a horse’s rear end!”

  “Hi, Mom. I’m fine. Thank you,” I replied drily. “And that wasn’t a horse; it was a centaur.”

  “To-may-tow, to-mah-tow; it’s still going to haunt me to my dying day,” she said with an exaggerated shiver.

  “Mom, Dad—don’t take this the wrong way, but how did you know I was in the hospital?”

  My mother gave one of her trademark short, humorless laughs, and held up the newspaper she was carrying so I could read the headline: ERESBY HEIRESS IN DEMON RAMPAGE.

  “You know, it would be nice, for a change, to find out what’s going on in your life via some other channel than the tabloid press! Imagine my shock upon reading that my only child had been attacked by a devil of some kind and hospitalized with a broken arm. However, I cannot say I was terribly surprised. I knew something like this would eventually happen to you, once you moved downtown!” She scowled and pointed an accusing finger at Hexe. “You! This is all your fault! If it weren’t for you, my Timmy wouldn’t be hurt!”

  “Mom, that’s ridiculous!” I protested. “Hexe saved my life!”

  My father turned to look at him, seeming to notice Hexe for the first time. His eyebrows rose in surprise at the sight
of the bruises that still ringed Hexe’s throat. “Is that true, young man? Did you save my daughter’s life?”

  “I wouldn’t go as far as that, sir,” Hexe said humbly, bowing his head. “It was my familiar who actually chased away the demon.”

  “He’s being modest, Dad,” I interjected. “If it wasn’t for him, I’d be dead.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Timothy,” my mother warned. “The girl’s not in her right mind! The Kymie’s slipped her a love potion. I know it in my bones.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Hexe responded indignantly.

  “You heard me the first time,” she replied, refusing to back down. “Political correctness be damned. I know your kind, Kymeran. You’ve cast a glamour over my daughter to make her your love slave. But if you think you’re going to get your six grubby little fingers on her inheritance, you’re sadly mistaken!”

  “Mother! Please!” I snapped in aggravation. You would think by this point in my life, I could no longer be shocked or embarrassed by what comes slithering out of her mouth, but somehow my mother always manages to top herself.

  “Don’t ‘Mother’ me, young lady!” She opened the wardrobe next to the bed and began removing my clothes. She glowered in distaste at the shredded remains of my welding jacket and jumpsuit. “Honestly, Timmy—you were wearing this when they admitted you?”

  “If I hadn’t been, I’d be missing an arm,” I replied acidly.

  “Whatever,” she sighed, rolling her eyes. “Just get your things together—we’re leaving this dreadful place right this minute. No daughter of mine is going to be poked and prodded by a bunch of rattle-shaking medicine men. We’re going straight to Dr. Blumlein’s office. I called ahead, so he’ll be expecting us.”

  “I don’t need your doctor, Mother,” I argued. “I’m already healed.” To prove my point, I began to free myself from the splint.

  “Timmy!” she gasped in alarm. “What are you doing ?!?”

  “See?” I said, ignoring the slight twinge as I flexed my arm. “Nothing’s broken.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, my dear,” a familiar voice said from the hallway. “That repair to your ulna is still fresh.”

  My mother spun around as if she’d been stung by a hornet, a look of horrified disbelief on her face.

  Lady Syra stood in the door, outfitted in a Dior original that made what my mother was wearing look like she’d scrounged it from Goodwill. The smile on the Witch Queen’s face disappeared upon realizing there were others in the room.

  “I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t know you had company.”

  “Don’t mind us.” My father smiled, seemingly oblivious to my mother’s reaction to Syra’s arrival. “Please come in.”

  As Lady Syra entered, she paused and looked my mother square in the eye. “Millicent,” she said coolly.

  My mother’s jaw dropped as if the muscles had been severed. “What are you doing here?”

  “The same thing you are, I daresay,” Lady Syra replied. “Checking on the welfare of my child.” She then turned to Hexe and kissed his cheek. She shook her head and clucked her tongue upon seeing the marks around his neck. “Look at those bruises!” She opened her designer purse and began rooting about inside it. “I should have some salve that will clear that right up. . . .”

  “That’s it!” my mother exclaimed, grabbing me by my freshly healed arm. “You’re coming home with us! Enough of this playing at being a bohemian artist!”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” I snapped, yanking free of her grip. “When are you going to realize I’m not some ‘confused’ teenager you can bully into doing what you want anymore? And I’m not ‘playing’ at anything, Mother! I am an artist. This is the life I’ve chosen, and Hexe is the man I’ve chosen to live it with. I don’t expect you to approve, but I at least hoped you would acknowledge that I’m an adult by now!”

  “Ha! A lot you know about being an adult!” she spat angrily. “Adults don’t run off and leave their families behind so they can do whatever they want to do! Adults don’t get themselves into multiple lawsuits and treat their parents like walking piggy banks! If this is how you want to live, and what you want to live with—fine! Go ahead! Let’s see how cool and exciting your lifestyle is without a trust fund to bail you out!”

  “You can’t do that!” I protested.

  “Of course we can cut off your trust fund,” my mother sneered. “We’re the ones who created it!”

  “She has a point, Princess,” my father said, rubbing the back of his neck. “This has gone on long enough. It was all well and good before things got out of hand. But you could have been killed—you said so yourself. Golgotham is no place for someone like you. As for Hexe . . . I’m grateful that he saved your life, but you wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place if you weren’t involved with him.”

  “For once your father and I are on the same page. Either you break off your relationship and move back home, or you get your wish and live the life of a truly struggling artist,” my mother said, with a touch of triumph in her voice. “You’ve got twenty-four hours to decide which it’s going to be.”

  “I don’t need that long to come up with an answer,” I replied angrily. “This is my life now, and I’m going to live it in Golgotham, with Hexe.”

  “We’ll see if you still feel the same way once the painkillers wear off,” she said. “The twenty-four-hour deadline still stands. Now let’s get out of here, Timothy.” She paused to sniff the sleeve of her silk Yves St. Laurent blouse. “Ugh. Remind me to have Clarence burn our clothes when we get home. This place smells like the livestock exhibition at the state fair.”

  “Hexe, Syra—I’m so sorry about all that!” I said emphatically after my parents had gone. “I’m so embarrassed for them! Especially my mother!”

  “You, of all people, shouldn’t have to apologize to me about rude family members,” Lady Syra said with a wry smile. “Your mother may have dropped a bombshell, but at least she didn’t set fire to the house like Esau did. However, I will say that time certainly hasn’t sweetened her disposition, and leave it at that. But, at the risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy, I agree with your parents, at least in part. Golgotham isn’t safe for humans right now—and it’s definitely not safe for you.”

  “I’m not leaving,” I said with a firm shake of my head. “I’m not going to let bigots chase me from my new home, whether they’re Esau and his croggies or my own family. I’m staying put in Golgotham, even if it places me in danger. There’s no way I can go back to the life I had before.”

  “Tate, darling, I applaud the strength of your convictions—truly I do. But you were attacked by a demon—and from what Hexe described over the phone, it was probably a Knight of the Infernal Court. A Kymeran capable of summoning such a fiend is not going to be discouraged simply because Scratch scared off their assassin!” She turned to scowl at her son. “Honestly, Hexe, I realize you love the girl, but have you given any thought to the danger you’ve put her in by flaunting your relationship in public? No doubt someone intended that demon as payback for the rally.”

  “I may be in love, Mother, but I’m not brain-damaged,” Hexe retorted. “Of course I know I’ve turned her into a target for every misanthrope in Golgotham with a chip on his shoulder.”

  “If she won’t leave of her own accord, then you must send her away! You’re her landlord, by every hell! Have her evicted! Tear up her lease! Take away her key!”

  “I can’t do that, Mother,” Hexe replied grimly, taking my hand in his. “If Tate leaves Golgotham, I go with her.”

  “You would exile yourself for a human?” Lady Syra gasped.

  Hexe shook his head. “Not for ‘a human’—for her. The second I laid eyes on Tate, I saw this aura about her head, like a halo or a crown. I knew instantly that this was a woman who held a great power within her, and that she was meant to be part of my life.”

  A strange look crossed Lady Syra’s face, as if something that had been p
uzzling her was finally solved. “I see,” she said quietly. “I understand what you have just told me, but there is still the question of safety. I respect your abilities, Hexe, but you cannot protect her against an infernal courtier. As it is, if it hadn’t been for Scratch, both of you would be dead. Courtiers are far cleverer than the typical demon and they learn quickly. When it comes back to finish its task, it will know what to expect, and Scratch won’t be able to surprise it. What will you do then?”

  There was a polite rap on the door, heralding the arrival of Lieutenant Vivi. She stood smiling on the threshold of the recovery room. “Please forgive the intrusion, Your Highness, but I just stopped by to inform Ms. Eresby that we’ve apprehended the conjurer responsible for summoning the demon.”

  “That’s great news!” I exclaimed in relief. “How did you track him down?”

  “One of our crime scene dowsers located a talisman used in the binding of demons in the wreckage in your apartment. I assume it was dropped during the battle with the familiar. It was identified as the handiwork of a sorceress named Dori, who keeps a stall at the Fly Market.”

  “Dori?” Hexe frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “You know her, Serenity?” Vivi asked, regarding him with a cocked eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Hexe replied, only to immediately correct himself. “That is, I used to know her.”

  “Ah,” Vivi said, with a nod of her head. “What about you, Ms. Eresby? Are you familiar with this sorceress as well?”

  “She verbally attacked me in public, and then tried to inflict a curse on me.”

  “When was this?” Lieutenant Vivi asked as she began to make notes on her BlackBerry.

  “It was the day of the rally,” I explained. “Ask the cashier at the Emerald Spa; he saw the whole thing.”

  “Dori tried to curse you?” Hexe stared at me in surprised confusion. “Why am I just now hearing about this?”

  “Because, compared to being treated like a human yo-yo and beat up by a demon, getting bitched out by your crazy ex-girlfriend didn’t really seem that important.”