The Left-Hand Way

by Tom Doyle

  Finally, a month after arrival, and a few weeks before the wedding, Grace and I and the Mortons walked to our meeting at the Yasukuni Shrine. The very words were chilling: during World War II, Japanese soldiers going off to their deaths would say that they would “meet again at Yasukuni.”

  It was Christmastime. I was walking on my new foot. Without conscious effort, I had developed a spiritual control over its movements in detail, but I still could not feel anything through it besides phantom limb pain. In another part of Tokyo, the holiday lights covered all the trees along the Omotesando-dori. I liked this country, with all its emotion and restraint, but dear God, it was a long ways from home. Back in the U.S., they were working harder than usual to get enough wreaths at Arlington, as if everyone knew that the remembrance of service was even more important this year.

  Kaguya-san, as our group’s minder, led the way, and her support ninjas walked our perimeter. Scherie was trying to be hip and unconcerned about this woman who clearly had known Dale well, but her smiles were a little forced.

  Dick Morton’s ghost manifested to all of us at the shrine’s inner gate, or torii. Though he was no longer within the direct grasp of the Yasukuni dead, he had agreed to remain in the vicinity as an assurance that Scherie would fulfill Dale’s bargain.

  He gave me a stiff “Major Endicott.” Dale had warned him I’d be there; Mortons of his generation had no reason to care for my family.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. This ghost was my senior in age if not rank. “My father sends his compliments, and wishes you to know how much he respects your service, both living and now.” My father and Dale’s remained safely distant for this rite, which only highlighted Dick Morton’s strength of spirit.

  Dick Morton nodded acknowledgment, which was as much as I could expect, then greeted Grace. “Good day, ma’am. You’re a Marlow, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, surprised.

  The stern man smiled. “I knew a Marlow during the war. You’ve got his eyes. Please give him my regards.”

  He lost the smile again when he greeted Dale. “We’re going to finish this today. Right, boy?”

  “Right, sir.”

  Then something happened to the ghost’s face when he looked at Scherie, and he spoke with sudden urgency. “I don’t care anymore about this deal, it can wait. I can wait.”

  Scherie grew confused, and a little frightened. “I don’t understand, sir.”

  “My dear girl, you’re with child.”

  “How can … I’m just … it’s too soon to know.”

  But in our business, that objection was absurd. Dale whooped and held her tight with no tentativeness about her condition or the solemnity of the shrine. Everyone smiled and laughed, except the poor, deeply concerned ghost, who flickered with agitation.

  “I’ll be fine, sir,” said Scherie. “I feel certain. If anything feels wrong, I’ll stop.”

  Scherie and Dale went in, and I stood just inside the torii with Grace, holding myself in reserve. I was the stick to Scherie’s carrot, and a backup power source to my friends.

  Though the number of Ukrainians that Scherie had dispelled had been vast, Yasukuni was far older, more integrated, and more dangerous to dismantle. Scherie worked for an hour, speaking in panglossic. She had a book of Japanese military units that she used, which to the extent the components of the doomsday device remembered their origins broke the tasks into manageable numbers. The final mass of ghosts was still very large, and that in itself seemed to raise Scherie’s anger to a white heat. Eventually, with a sigh and a breeze, the last bit of darkness floated away.

  When Scherie had finished, Dick Morton came forward to her. “Send me on too,” said Dick. “This echo is done.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, her voice a hoarse and reedy whisper, her face wet with sweat and tears. “Thank you. Sir, you are dismissed.” Dick Morton’s ghost was gone.

  “Thank you, Rezvani-san.” Moved by the healing of this place, Kaguya-san’s voice shook, and a tear was going down her cheek. “Thank you all. You will find that this service you have done has made our close surveillance of you … difficult. Go, or stay, with our thanks.” She bowed deeply to us and to the shrine, then signaled her support crew and walked slowly away.

  Where would we go next? Morton and Grace were fully outfitted with international accounts and identities to spare—we would have no difficulties from mundane pursuit, and Dale had said that farsight pursuit might have difficulties as well, if we kept a low profile.

  Then, as if the emotions of this past month had just been waiting for this pause, we were all weeping, like the exiles by the waters of Babylon. Where could we go? We were, for now, people without a country, absent without leave from lands that wanted to keep us in cages until they were sure we wouldn’t bite. Scherie was pregnant. That child could be very powerful indeed. Where would be safe for it to be born?

  In a flash, I had a realization. But first I needed to rally my friends, and myself. I wasn’t comfortable talking that way, but I gave it a shot.

  “Maybe we can’t keep a low profile,” I said. “Maybe we’re being called to war, or at least I am. I can feel my spiritual draft notice. Our countries, America and Britain, need us. They might not know it, but that just makes their need all the more urgent. Wherever we decide to go, for however long, it won’t be permanent. We will return home.”

  “That’s just peachy, but what do we do in the meantime?” asked Dale, my friend who knew when to feed me a straight line.

  “In the meantime, we’ll fight. We’ll fight for those who would still loyally serve, whatever their nation or spiritual ability. We’ll fight against the Left Hand, which is more than just any given means, but also an end, and which respects no boundaries. Because understand this.” And this was my realization. “I still have my transnational power of command. Unlike the Oikumene, I don’t believe that it’s been left with me as a needless temptation. This new power was given to me for a purpose, and that purpose continues. And you—the preeminent weatherman, the most powerful exorcist, and best all-round covert operative of our generation—have not been brought together by accident. We are together for a purpose, and that purpose continues. Somewhere, other great enemies are rising, and the stakes will again be the whole world.”

  A moment of silence. “Not bad,” said Dale, waggling his hand.

  “I’m in,” said Scherie, with a clap of her hands.

  “Not exactly Henry V, but flattery will get you everywhere, darling,” said Grace, kissing my cheek with lips that felt electric.

  Eyes dried, still sad but determined, arms draped over one another’s shoulders, we marched out of the shrine, ready for whatever the world had in store for us.

  We were not alone in our little procession. From over my left shoulder, Madeline Morton and her dead whispered into my ear. “Look behind you. Remember that you are a man. Remember that you will die.”

  And for that, I thank you, Lord. For these gifts, and these friends, and this Grace, I thank you. Amen.

  EPILOGUE

  THE KING OF THE DEAD

  From too much love of living,

  From hope and fear set free,

  We thank with brief thanksgiving

  Whatever gods may be

  That no life lives for ever;

  That dead men rise up never;

  That even the weariest river

  Winds somewhere safe to sea.

  —Algernon Swinburne

  Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

  —Charles Dickens

  Let be be finale of seem.

  The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

  —Wallace Stevens

  The dead Earth took Roderick. When the needle made contact with the otherworld’s air, the bit of brain tissue rotted and died, and Roderick’s spirit was freed, but there was no place to go, no living thing that could hold him. Despite appearances, the beast wasn’t immediately focused there at the por
tal to greet him, and he had a moment to contemplate his situation. So his spirit roamed, waiting for the daemon.

  It was one of the nuked worlds, like a global Pripyat, perhaps because he’d opened the gate in the bunker. By such artifacts that remained, he dated its end to the early ’80s, when the paranoid Andropov had his spies looking for evidence of a NATO first strike. In this reality, the West must have lacked a Russian defector to warn them about the very real though unfounded Soviet fears, so Reagan and Thatcher had continued their rhetoric unabated, and Andropov had pushed the button.

  This world’s demise hadn’t started with a Yasukuni-style death engine, but it would’ve finished with one. Due to launch failures and chaos, a few would have survived the nukes, but the weight of the dead had snuffed them out.

  Finally, smelling Roderick’s fresh energy like blood, the beast came for his soul. Without resistance, Roderick allowed himself to be devoured.

  Roderick could always find something delightful in the most perverse situation, and his endgame was no exception. Inside the mass, even as its ectoplasmic forces started to digest him with exquisite psychic pain, he saw a parody of heaven. They were all here, in alternate versions, little bits of Mortons and Endicotts and Marlows and Hutchinsons. If there had been a variant of Roderick in this world, he’d long ago been completely absorbed in the spiritual mass.

  Then the beast’s attention slackened, and with all his subtlety and power, Roderick slowly began to work his will upon the components of the beast. They just needed a little guidance. For once, his sister had been right. This was better. All that fleshy nonsense done with. The altar and images of the House’s subbasement were revealed to be timeless prophecies of his second coming and his terrible form. This was godhood.

  When Roderick was done consuming the consumer from within, he turned his (their) attention back the way he came. His opponents had tried to shut the door behind him, but they couldn’t replace the locks, and now the way was easier.

  He’d left behind a world that would, in its panic, undermine its craft defenses. It was a ripe, juicy, tasty world of life energy. His (their) all-devouring mouth watered. Supper’s ready.

  APPENDIX

  THE STORY OF THE MARLOW FAMILY

  Part I. The Descendants of Christopher Marlowe

  Francis Walsingham was the spymaster for Elizabeth I, who called him her “Moor” for his dark complexion. Contrary to mundane histories, his second daughter, Mary, did not die in childhood, but instead began occult training, at first under John Dee’s tutelage. At the age of seventeen, Mary entered a craft marriage with Christopher Marlowe, who besides being a playwright was a fellow practitioner and agent in Mary’s father’s service. Mary was pregnant with their son when rogue craftsmen ambushed and killed Christopher in Deptford.

  Due to certain craft superstitions of the time, the true name of their son remains unknown, though it is rumored to have been Faust, after the subject of one of his father’s plays. As he displayed his father’s talents, Mary gave him the Marlowe name. His descendants prospered (to the extent anyone prospers in the craft service). Then, in the eighteenth century, Sophia W. Marlowe entered into a brief craft marriage with a formerly enslaved man from America, Ayuba S. Diallo. Despite the general flexibility of the Marlowes regarding contemporary social norms, Sophia’s parents strongly disapproved of this liaison. In response, Sophia dropped the final “e” from her name, and the rest of her line would follow that spelling.

  Through various deaths and reconciliations, the Marlowe family property came back into the hands of Sophia’s granddaughter, Belle Marlow. Belle married João de Castro e Sousa, a distant relative of the then queen consort, Charlotte.

  Belle’s son, Edward Rochester Marlow, made an unfortunate first marriage to Bertha Mason, who, unknown to him, was from a family of Left-Hand practitioners in Jamaica. The Masons had some ties to the Left-Hand Mortons and, along with an attack on the British craft establishment, they intended the Marlow family’s destruction.

  Part II. The American Colonial Ancestors

  After the enslaved Tituba escaped from the hanging fest of the Salem witch-hunt, she moved to New York. Her daughter joined the crew of the notorious pirate Calico Jack, and other descendants had similar adventures, but the family line always gravitated back to New York.

  With hope for a more rational future, Tituba’s descendants took the last name Newton in honor of the great natural philosopher Isaac Newton. During the American War of Independence, Tituba’s great-granddaughter, Grace Newton, met and married another survivor of the Endicotts, Toby Howe. Enslaved by Stephen Endicott, Toby heard of the British promise of freedom in return for service. He escaped to British-occupied New York, and in the process discovered his preternatural skills. Toby took the last name Howe in honor of the leading British military family of the counter-revolutionary forces.

  The Howes and their young daughter, Emma, accompanied the craftspeople under General Clinton in the execution of his “Southern Strategy.” The Howes may have done as much harm as good to the loyalist cause in the South, as they would often attack and sometimes kill slaveholders regardless of their allegiance. Clinton, unaware of this, brought the Howes back to England with him. The Howes found that their craft powers grew in that country. They became friends of many noteworthy persons of the time, including Samuel Johnson. An aging Toby returned to America to fight with the British in the War of 1812, but due to the Napoleonic Wars, British craft forces in the United States were undermanned and could do little against the Mortons when they summoned the hurricane that saved the city of Washington or against the Endicotts when they stunned the Crown’s forces at New Orleans.

  Emma Howe served the Crown in the Napoleonic Wars, and had brief affairs with Horatio Nelson and Percy Blakeney, leading to some doubts regarding the parentage of her daughter, Jane. Emma died at Waterloo from a desperate, vicious French experiment with Left-Hand disease craft.

  At the mercy of negligent relatives and rival Family guardians, the orphaned Jane Howe had a difficult childhood, a study in deprivation versus determination. Eventually, she found a post in the craft service under Edward Marlow. She was proficient at training younger practitioners, and her mastery of weather craft earned her a famous nickname.

  Part III. The Descendants of Jane Howe and Edward Marlow

  The romance of Jane Howe and Edward Rochester Marlow is one of the greatest in British craft history. Jane helped Edward defeat his first wife and her family, though Edward lost a hand and an eye in the battle. Jane and Edward were married soon afterward. Fortunately, this marriage redirected Jane from a colonial assignment in India in which the entire craft contingent was killed.

  Jane’s grandson Kim made up for Jane’s avoidance of India with his own service there and elsewhere throughout the Empire. He had an ability, partially due to family heritage and partially preternatural, to disguise himself as any race.

  Charles Marlow became the Imperial craft enforcer, rooting out the Left Hand in all the corners of the globe, whether within the Empire or not. Most famously, the Crown sent Charles to destroy a Left-Hand practitioner who was hiding in the Congo. The target magus was using the millions of deaths to cover his own killings, experiments, and abominations.

  Richard Hannay Marlow played a vital role in England’s craft defense during the First World War, both at home and in the Near East. Richard was one of the founders of MI13. Around this time, another branch of the Marlow family returned to America, adding the “e” back to their name. They became known for their preternatural talent as investigators.

  During the Second World War, James Marlow was in charge of the craft operations of the Special Operations Executive. After the war, he boldly eliminated a series of colorful practitioners: survivors of the Axis occult orders, Communist mages, and international Left-Hand rogues. Despite his being in the deception business, James’s colleagues often said that his word was his bond.

  James had two sons, Jerry C. Marlow and L
. Eric Marlow. Jerry inherited more of the family’s dark complexion, while Eric was unusually fair. They worked for MI13 during the anarchic ’60s, when New Age and Evangelical ideals awakened low-level practitioners around the globe and a great deal of mission confusion crept into the craft. Within the mushrooming groups of neo-Left-Hand terrorists, occult mobster impresarios, and revolutionary practitioners too radical for Mao, the brothers Marlow operated undercover, perhaps too well. Jerry married Catherine, a cousin with whom he’d been raised. Grace Marlow was their granddaughter.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Tom Doyle’s writing has been hailed as “beautiful and brilliant” by The Internet Review of Science Fiction. Locus magazine has called his stories “fascinating,” “transgressive,” “witty,” “moving,” and “intelligent and creepy.” A graduate of the Clarion Writers Workshop, Doyle has won the WSFA Small Press Award and third prize in the Writers of the Future contest. You can sign up for email updates here.

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