The Left Hand of Memory (Redlisted)

by Sara Beaman

  “Look in the mirror!” Horace demands.

  “No!” I shout. “Julian, don’t!”

  Both Julian and Horace look at me with wide eyes full of confusion and annoyance.

  “It’s that…thing. In your blood,” I say to Julian. “That monster from the abyss.”

  “How do you know about that?” Julian demands.

  Horace snatches the mirror from the table, holding it with the reflective surface against his chest.

  “You,” he says to Haruko. “Warden. Seal him and get him out of here.”

  Julian laughs. “Seal me? I’d like to see her try.”

  “Do you realize what lies half-sleeping in your blood, son of Mnemosyne?” Horace asks.

  Julian’s face goes stony.

  “You do realize!” Horace’s upper lip curls. “And you would rather endanger your fellows—everyone around you—indeed, everyone in the world? For what? For the pleasure of exerting control over others?”

  Julian narrows his eyes. “Would you give up your own bloodright?” he asks Horace.

  “Yes!” Horace spills the bowl of blood out onto the ground and grinds the slick wetness into the dirt with his bare foot. “Mnemosyne’s folly,” he mutters. “You are the reason the Wardens were created—because you and your kin are both selfish and stupid enough to think you can keep such terrible power at bay.”

  “Julian,” Jennifer says, “perhaps Horace is right. You should let Haruko—“

  “No. I won’t allow it,” Julian says. “I won’t allow myself to be sealed.”

  “Then get out,” Horace says to Julian, pointing in the direction of the tunnel. “Go.”

  “No,” Julian says, standing. “I don’t think I will. He juts his chin out. When he speaks again, the tone of his voice is lower. “Esteemed elder, I would sincerely appreciate it if—“

  Haruko comes at him from behind. She strikes the back of his legs with her shin, sending him to his knees, and sends her elbow down, hard, right on top of his skull. He collapses.

  “Oh my God,” Jennifer says, covering her mouth.

  Horace nods slowly at Haruko, a spark of esteem behind his eyes.

  “Now seal him,” he tells her. “As well as your young blood can manage.”

  Haruko rolls Julian onto his back and places her hands against his chest, one on top of the other, as if she’s planning to give him CPR. Her black hair falls around her face. In a low, hissing voice, she recites a poem or prayer I’ve never heard before:

  “Mithras, God of the Noontide, the heather swims in the heat,

  Our helmets scorch our foreheads; our sandals burn our feet,

  Now in the ungrit hour; now ere we blink and drowse,

  Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!”

  Haruko stands up, apparently finished with her work. Horace picks up the bowl and takes it, along with the large, strange mirror, to the edge of the pool. Jennifer turns to Haruko, disbelief and anger contorting her youthful face.

  “Why did you do that?” she asks her in an undertone.

  “He was about to try to command Horace,” Haruko says.

  Jennifer frowns. “How do you know that?”

  “I can detect it,” Haruko says. “It was part of my training. Maybe something you missed.”

  “Will one of you please remove him?” Horace calls.

  He returns to the alcove. Now the bowl, the mirror, and his toga are all impeccably clean. There’s no sign of blood anywhere. None of them look even slightly damp.

  “I’ll take him,” Haruko says, giving me a pointed look, as if to remind me that I’ll be serving as her eyes and ears in her absence. She stoops down and hauls Julian over her shoulder, then stands back up, holding his waist. She turns to leave.

  After taking a few steps out of the alcove, she turns and asks, “How am I going to get him through that tunnel, anyway?”

  “You should find it easier to leave than it was to enter,” Horace says.

  Haruko frowns, confused, but she trudges away all the same.

  Horace sits down and puts the mirror back in its place on the table.

  “Should I be concerned that one of you will also tithe tainted blood?” he asks.

  Jennifer shakes her head.

  “I’m not sure,” I say.

  “You’re not sure?” Horace asks.

  “I was Mirabel Radcliffe’s dhampyr, and she has the same, uh, problem as Julian.”

  “But you are not her initiate,” Horace says.

  “No.”

  “Hmm,” he says. “Nevertheless, I would prefer to use the Warden’s blood.”

  I shrug.

  Horace passes the bowl and the knife to Jennifer. She makes a face as she cuts into her arm. While she fills the bowl, Horace takes another tooth from the dish and grinds it by mouth. He smears the paste on the mirror, and when Jennifer hands him the bowl, he smears some of her blood on it too, mixing the fluids. He watches the mirror silently for a long moment before bringing the bowl to his mouth and downing her blood in a single pull. He puts his hand on Aya’s mirror and gazes down through the mixture of blood and tooth and saliva with intense concentration. He sits silent and still for a minute or so.

  “You say her name is Aya?” he says without looking up. “Are you certain?”

  “It’s possible Aya is short for Mariah,” I say.

  Jennifer gives me a sideways look.

  “Mariah ward of Zenas son of Thalia?” Horace asks.

  “Yes,” Jennifer says.

  “Her soul departed this plane in the year 1894,” Horace says. “Murder by poison. Zenas’ hand.”

  “Wait,” Jennifer says. “That can’t be right. What about Aya daughter of Zenas? His initiate?”

  “Zenas Markham has no initiates,” Horace says. “Perhaps he meant to initiate young Mariah. If so, his attempt must have failed.”

  “Has no initiates?” I ask. “You mean Markham is alive?”

  “His revenant soul remains on this plane, yes,” Horace says.

  It hits me like a dart in the side of the neck, sudden, subtle and sickening. Aya doesn’t exist. Aya was no more than one of Markham’s personae—a trick he played against the Wardens, a trick the amulet facilitated.

  Aya is Markham.

  “Where is he?” I ask. “Where is Zenas son of Thalia?”

  Horace gazes down into the mirror.

  “He is in Chicago,” Horace says.

  I nod. Of course. He’s hiding in plain sight. Hiding in the hardest place for any of the rest of us to reach him.

  “That’s absurd,” Jennifer says. “The Wardens have been searching for him for decades. How could he hide from them in Chicago? It’s a clean city!”

  “Have you ever wondered why their search for him was so protracted?” Horace asks.

  “I assumed he was dead,” Jennifer says.

  “You assumed incorrectly,” Horace says.

  “Whatever,” Jennifer says. “Maybe you can find Adam, at least.” She reaches into Julian’s duffel bag, pulls out a hefty textbook and hands it to Horace.

  “Adam son of Mnemosyne?” Horace asks.

  “Yes.”

  Horace nods. He places his left hand against the cover of the book and smears more blood on the mirror with his right. He stares down into the mirror and spends another minute or so in meditation.

  “Fascinating,” he says at last. “The man who owned this book departed this plane in 1992.”

  “What? Adam is dead?” I blurt out, panicked. “Wait—1992? What the…”

  “Suicide by hanging,” Horace says. “He passed through to the Beyond, and then…”

  Horace’s eyes lose focus. I wait for almost a minute for him to continue, but he doesn’t.

  “And then what?” I ask.

  “Simply fascinating,” Horace says. “Never have I heard of anyone, let alone a Mnemonic…”

  “What?” I ask.

  “You have seen this Adam,” Horace says.

  “
Yes!” Jennifer says, exasperated. “Of course we have!”

  “Then you have seen a ghost. The true avatar of Orpheus, perhaps.” Horace laughs. “But I can’t find his revenant soul using this book. His connection with it is lost. And the blood…” He shrugs.

  “I know him better than anyone,” Jennifer says.

  “Do you?” Horace asks.

  “I…” Jennifer blinks twice. “I thought I…”

  For a moment I consider offering Horace my blood, but then I remember I have no real reason to. Mnemosyne has Adam, and finding him won’t help us find Aya. Find Markham, I mean. Besides, I don’t know that I’m ready to let Jennifer know exactly how little she knows about Adam.

  I stand up. “I guess we’re done, then.”

  “No,” Horace says. “You haven’t met your part of the bargain.”

  “Neither did you!” Jennifer protests. “You didn’t answer our questions!”

  “Didn’t I?” Horace looks at me. “Sit down.”

  I kneel back down.

  “All right,” I say. “But I don’t know what all I can tell you. I don’t know anything important.”

  Horace turns to Jennifer. “I think it’s best if Katherine and I speak privately.”

  “I’m not comfortable with that,” Jennifer says.

  Horace laughs. “I don’t care.”

  The two of them stare at each other for a long, tense moment. Jennifer’s expression is flat. Horace smiles; he seems to find her defiance ridiculous. I wonder what he might be able to do if we really push him. Summon spirits from the underworld to attack us? Send us to the underworld himself?

  “It’s fine,” I tell her. “I’ll be alright.” I don’t really believe that, but I also don’t want to piss off this ancient revenant any more than we already have.

  Slowly Jennifer stands, brushing off her jeans, scowling.

  “Fine,” she says. “I’ll be waiting by the entrance to the tunnel. That’s as far as I’m willing to go.”

  “So be it,” Horace says.

  Jennifer walks away, leaving Horace and I alone in the alcove, sitting across from each other at the low table. My feet and ankles are really starting to ache from being tucked underneath me, but I don’t change position. I don’t want to look weak. Inside the grotto a chill breeze picks up. Its echo creates an eerie howling that fills the entire cavern.

  Horace smiles at me. “She can’t hear you now.”

  I can’t tell whether he’s threatening me or trying to assure me that I can speak freely.

  “Clearly I can’t read minds, as your kind can,” he says. “But I am quite old, and the centuries have taught me to spot liars well. You, Katherine, are an adept liar.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I do not think you should lie to me,” he says.

  “All right,” I say, trying not to let fear color my voice.

  “How old are you, girl?”

  “I’m thirty.”

  “How long dead?”

  “Like... two days.”

  He laughs, shaking his head. “And how on Earth did Mnemosyne manage, in her current state, to revive you from death? Did she do it by proxy?”

  “That’s how she revived Adam, back in ninety-two,” I tell him. “But it’s not how she revived me. See, she’s, uh, whole again.”

  “I see,” he says. “And how did that happen?”

  “I revived her. Put her back together. She forced me to.”

  “How strange,” he says. “You must have acquired her head?”

  “Yes.”

  “But how did you manage to gain access to her body?”

  “It’s a really long story.”

  “I assume you weren’t born with that face,” he says, like it’s relevant.

  I shake my head no, confused.

  “You said you were Mirabel Radcliffe’s dhampyr,” he says. “Did she send you to revive Mnemosyne?”

  “No. I think she’d prefer Mnemosyne was, you know, resting in pieces.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Who?” I ask. “Mnemosyne or Mirabel?”

  “Either,” he says. “Both.”

  “In either case, I don’t know.”

  He narrows his eyes.

  “I really don’t know!” I insist.

  “You have a personal connection to both of them, do you not?” he says.

  “I guess...”

  “Give me your blood, then. Let us find out.” He hands me the bowl and the knife.

  “Aren’t you worried about that, uh...”

  “That horrible monster from the abyss?” he asks mockingly.

  “Yes. That.”

  “It has a name,” he says. “But I will not utter it. It has many epithets, many of which are likewise unsafe to utter. The most inert, the safest of its appellations is The Mutable.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Aren’t you afraid The Mutable might be in my blood? Mirabel has it in hers, you know.”

  “I am aware,” he says. “But you saw its image in the mirror, did you not?”

  “Yeah...”

  “And your sanity did not suffer for it.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Then we are safe,” he says. “Fill the bowl.”

  I try not to wince just looking at the knife. Maybe after I’ve been around for a few centuries the pain won’t bother me too much, but right now putting a blade to my wrist make me feel like a bathtub suicide and I do not, I really do not want to die. Even if I’m already dead. Nevertheless, I pick up the knife, cut myself, and let the blood flow. My blood could uncover Mirabel, after all, and that thought gives me some strength. Once the bowl is full I hand it to Horace.

  “Will you, um... would you mind looking for Adam again?” I ask.

  “That depends,” Horace says.

  “On what?”

  “The blood your Warden friend gave me was useless,” he says. “And you are only three days dead. Do you really know him any better than she does?”

  “I’m willing to bet that I do,” I say.

  “Very well,” Horace says.

  He dips his fingers in the bowl and spreads a bit of my blood across the surface of the mirror. He drinks only a portion of the remainder as he stares into the smeary, blurry glass.

  “You were right,” he says. “I can sense him now--Adam son of Mnemosyne.”

  I smile to myself.

  “He is in Romania,” he says. “Outside Mnemosyne’s old enclave.”

  “Romania?”

  “Yes,” he says. “The enclave is an ideal hiding place, safe from almost any kind of scrying. My kind are the only ones who can see beyond the threshold.”

  Horace takes another drink, still gazing into the mirror. A smile slowly appears on his face. He makes a low, sinister laugh that gradually builds in volume.

  “A perfect hiding place, indeed,” he says. “Too bad he’s not the first to think of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mirabel is already inside.”

  “Inside... inside the enclave?”

  “Yes.”

  I bring my hand to my mouth. I can’t speak; I can barely think. If I was alive I would vomit. Adam can’t fight Mirabel on his best day, let alone with a huge hole in his head. What am I going to do? What is he going to do?

  “This upsets you,” Horace says.

  “He’s my boyfriend,” I say in a pitiful voice.

  Horace does not seem to care. He drinks the last of my blood and takes another look at the mirror. While he sits quietly in meditation, my brain spits out doomsday scenarios. Mirabel will kill Adam. No--she’ll kidnap him. She’ll use her vampire plastic surgeons to make him look like her dead vampire boyfriend Lucien, and even if I find him, even if I get him away from her somehow, I’ll never see his real face again. She’ll brainwash him. She’ll make him love her and not me.

  I don’t realize I’m crying until I see tears hit the table.

  “Mnemosyne has always been elusive,” Horace sa
ys.

  I’m barely listening to him. I couldn’t care less where she is right now.

  “It’s difficult for me to pinpoint her specific location,” he continues. “But she isn’t far from here. If I had to venture a guess, I would say she might be in Atlanta.”

  Atlanta? Where all the Wardens will be in just a few hours? That could be a big problem for her. Oh well.

  “Or, come to think of it, perhaps she’s at Julian’s estate, near Savannah,” Horace says. “Yes. She must have gone to her American enclave. I am almost certain she will be waiting for you when you return.”

  I wipe at my face. “Do you have any more questions, or can I go?”

  “Just one more,” he says. “Why are you really looking for Zenas son of Thalia?”

  “Because Mnemosyne told me to,” I admit.

  “Why?”

  “He has something she wants.”

  “What?”

  “An amulet.”

  “What does it do?” he asks.

  “I don’t know for sure,” I say. “I only know it helps its bearer avoid being detected by Wardens.”

  “And you will return it to her, should you find it?”

  “Well, yeah,” I say. “I don’t really have a choice.”

  “What if you did have a choice?”

  I shrug listlessly.

  “You ought to give that your consideration,” he says. “Very well. You may go.”

  I stand up, taking deep breaths, and try to compose myself for when I have to face Jennifer and the others.

  “One more thing,” Horace says as I walk away. “Do not mourn your lover, this Adam son of Mnemosyne. Given his soul’s journey, he would likely prefer to be dead.”

  His words are like a punch in the gut. Despite myself, I start crying again.

  Familiar

  {Adam}

  I pull myself out of dreaming to find that the pain is gone. I bring a hand to my face to find that the hole in my head is also gone. I open my eyes to find myself lying on my back, fully clothed. My glasses are on. Underneath my bare arms is dry earth.

  Where the hell am I?

  I sit up and look around. I’m in a dark pit, lit only by the moon overhead. A staircase spirals around its perimeter; the last step is right by my side.

  I stand up. There are the twin pools, just a few paces away. I must be in Mnemosyne’s Romanian enclave, then. But where is Richard? Where are the others—Janus and Alice? Already underground in the subterranean labyrinth? If so, why did they leave me out here alone?