The Left-Hand Path: Prodigy

by T. S. Barnett

  “Trash and sewer are included,” the woman said, muffled by the thick air separating her from Cora. “Everything recently ren—”

  A piercing pain shot into Cora’s temples, and her cry of alarm sent a pulse through the tiny enclosure, causing the candle to flare once before snuffing itself out. The sudden brightness blinded her as Nathan threw the pinned-up blanket aside, but he steadied her by her shoulders before she could stumble. Elton had even managed to get to her side despite his stinging injury.

  “I saw something!” she said, laughter falling out of her as she pushed herself into balance with a hand on Nathan’s arm. “It was just for a second, but I saw it!”

  “What did you see, my love?”

  “They’re renting out your apartment again.”

  Nathan paused a moment, seeming slightly surprised by her choice of vision, but then he smiled. “Excellent work. Truly.”

  “But why did it hurt?” she asked, rubbing at her temples with the balls of her hands. “It was fine, and then it was like somebody...cut the power, or something.”

  “Well,” Nathan chuckled, “you are attempting to reach your consciousness two thousand miles with only the magical impetus mustered by a cheap hotel bathroom.”

  “So what am I supposed to do if you guys need to see into the factory? I don’t even have any memories to go on with that.”

  “You don’t have to do this at all,” Elton reminded her.

  “Because going in blind worked out so well for you,” she sighed. “Shut up and let your demon bite heal.” She looked back up at Nathan with an expectant lift of her eyebrows.

  Nathan hummed in thought. “You know,” he said, “the very best scrying source isn’t a mirror at all, but the surface of a very calm, very deep lake.”

  “Okay. Got one of those in your pocket?”

  “No,” Nathan answered, drawing out the word to illustrate his lack of appreciation for her sarcasm. “But the world is vast, my love. I’m sure you could find one somewhere nearby. And it’s best to go at midnight, so you have some time to look.”

  Cora had already taken her phone back from Nichole by the time he finished his sentence, and she let the girl peek over her shoulder while she searched a satellite map of the area. “It looks like there’s a pretty big one at a place called Amelia Earhart park,” she murmured. “I could make that work somehow.”

  “I have every faith in you.”

  Cora lifted her shoulders as she inhaled and let them drop with a soft huff. “Well,” she said, “at least you’ll be there to rescue me if I drown in a park in the middle of the night.”

  Nathan blinked at her. “Of course I won’t.”

  She paused, her brow furrowed, and looked up from her phone screen. “You...won’t?”

  “Divination is a very solitary magic,” he explained. “My mere presence could render your efforts moot. I’ll prepare everything you might need, but consider this an exam, of sorts. A field test.”

  “Great.”

  “You’ll be spectacular. Now let’s mix some oils for you.”

  After a quick potions class, which Elton watched from the bed with a suspicious frown pulling his lips, Nathan presented Cora with a small vial that he assured her would help her focus when the time came. She was reasonably sure it was just going to turn out to be a hallucinogenic, but she had to trust Nathan’s word.

  Nathan was, for once, happy to comply with Elton’s suggestion that they lay low for the day. He hadn’t had the best night’s sleep curled up in the bathtub. Cora took the opportunity to check her email and update her blog. Elton had checked in on Joel and Hannah and then tried to read a book, but before Cora had even closed her laptop, the book laid open in the blond’s lap as he leaned back against the headboard, fast asleep. He still seemed feverish, but at least he wasn’t so pale. It would be good for him to sleep off the worst of the infection.

  While he slept, Cora, Nathan, and Nichole sat in a small circle on the bed and set about filling small bags with selections from Cora’s kit. They wrapped stones in thread, crushed herbs in a small mortar and pestle—Nichole especially enjoyed being given this task—and filled tiny cloth bags with chips of crystal. They needed to make at least six gris gris bags to be ready to send out to Cora’s loyal customers. Nathan hummed softly to himself with one end of a set of strings held in his teeth, his fingers working diligently on braiding the oil-soaked strands.

  Cora occasionally stopped to make sure Nichole was taking her drinks of Nathan’s Four Thieves mixture. She couldn’t tell if it was helping—for all she knew, it took years to have any effect. But she made sure the girl drank it anyway. She managed to get a few more details about the factory out of her with gentle questioning, backing off when she seemed to grow upset and trying again after a break. She was beginning to get an idea in her head of what the facility looked like, but if it was wrong, would that hinder her magic later? Maybe it was best to try to go in with a blank mind, after all.

  Cora volunteered herself to go and pick up lunch for all of them, simply for the chance to get out of the room and take a walk. She shut the door still promising a half-sleep Elton that she wouldn’t use any magic, swung her purse over her opposite shoulder, and walked with her hands in her jeans pockets toward the little Peruvian restaurant the girl at the front desk had recommended. Miami seemed like kind of a grungy, wet sort of city, with heavy traffic and an almost salty smell. Nathan apparently liked it a lot, even stuck in a crappy motel, but Cora wasn’t convinced of its merits.

  Her phone rang while she was waiting just inside the restaurant for their food, and she hesitated when she saw Thomas’s name on her screen. She hoped she hadn’t actually offended him before. She stepped outside and answered the phone in a cheerful voice.

  “Hey,” he replied, already sounding distracted. Cora could hear the sound of moving papers coming through the phone. “Everything still stable?”

  “Well, Elton tried to break in somewhere by himself for his murder list and got hurt, but he’s okay now. Joel and Hannah are hiding out, and Nichole has been safe with us. So, mostly? Why? Did something happen on your end?”

  Thomas had a quiet sigh in his voice, as if the cause of Elton’s injury wasn’t surprising to him, but he didn’t address it. “I found someone willing to take the girl in. Emma Pinney. She’s up near Cold Lake, and she’s helped look after a few people for me before. Totally off the grid, so very little risk of anyone tracking them. If this girl can be helped, she’ll help her.”

  “Amazing,” she chuckled. “You know someone everywhere, don’t you?”

  “It isn’t hard to find people unhappy with the way the Magistrate runs things.”

  “I guess not. I don’t know where Cold Lake is, but I assume it’s nice?”

  “It’s...cold. It’s fine. It’s in Alberta. She has a big log house—usually three or four people staying with her at a time.”

  “And you...trust her, right? I mean, the place this girl came from, the guy was...he was treating her like an object, you know?”

  “I know,” Thomas answered in a soft, somber voice. “I do trust her. She’ll help, Cora.”

  “Okay.” She could hear the sincerity in his voice, and it eased the tension in her gut. “So how do we get her there?”

  “That...will be where I need your help.”

  “Of course. You know Nathan won’t have any problem getting them through airport security.”

  A beat of silence passed. “I won’t send them by plane,” he said. “It’s too risky—too many factors.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “I’ll summon them. But I’ll need you to coordinate things on your end. Have you ever drawn summoning circles before?”

  “Uh, no. What is that even? Are you talking about teleportation? Because I’m pretty sure Nathan half killed himself taking us, like, a hundred feet, so how are you going to get someone to Canada?”

  “It’s not teleportation—but wait,” Thomas interrupted himsel
f, “Nathan teleported you? Actually teleported.”

  “Yeah. Elton said it’s supposed to be impossible, but Nathan’s full of surprises, I guess.”

  “For a man, it is impossible,” Thomas said.

  “Not one of those Eowyn-killing-the-Nazgul ‘I am no man’ things, is it?”

  “What? No. I mean a human.”

  “Nathan’s weird, but I’m pretty sure he’s human,” Cora chuckled. “What else would he be?”

  “It wouldn’t be that he isn’t human, necessarily.” Thomas hesitated. “But never mind. It’s none of my business.”

  Cora didn’t like that train of thought. She didn’t think it was her place to discuss the definitely not-human loa that she’d seen help Nathan before, though, so she let the conversation return to the matter at hand. “What is it you’re going to do, then, if summoning isn’t teleporting?”

  “It’s complicated. I’ll get together everything you’ll need and text you so you’ll have a list.”

  “Okay,” she said. That wasn’t really an answer, but she could tell he was distracted. “Any news with Joel and Hannah?”

  “I’m finishing up their paperwork today. Text me the phone number of the place they’re staying, and I’ll get them sorted out and let you know when they’re ready to move.”

  “Okay.”

  He gave a quiet hum in response. “Then I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Wait,” she said, tipping forward from where she leaned against the side of the building. “I wanted to ask you something.”

  His pause seemed reluctant. “What is it?”

  “Tomorrow is Elton’s birthday. I know you probably don’t care anymore, but you guys used to be close, so I thought you might have some insight into a gift he might want. I just want to get him a little something to sort of...I don’t know. Remind him to be normal, too? We do a lot of crazy stuff.”

  “You do,” Thomas agreed. She heard him sigh into the phone. She waited while he thought, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded just a little lighter. “I don’t know if you can get them anymore,” he said, and she could almost hear the faint smile on his face. “But there used to be a popular stress toy called a Bug Out Bob. You’ve probably seen them; the sort of beige things with the eyes and nose that pop out when you squeeze them?”

  “Oh! Oh yeah. But I wouldn’t have thought of Elton as a stress ball person. He probably needs one, though, I guess.”

  “I got one for him when we were in school. When he first showed up, he was...rough around the edges. He got into a lot of fights—almost got kicked out. So it was kind of a joke. Needed to calm down, you know.” He stopped and sighed in what sounded like frustration. “Never mind. That’s not helpful.”

  “No, no,” Cora assured him. “That’s really cute. And god knows Nathan gives him enough stress. I found him passed out in the shower this morning because that’s where Elton threw him when he came home high in the middle of the night.”

  “Ah,” Thomas answered softly. “Yes. He...wouldn’t have taken well to that.”

  Cora paused. “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

  “Not one that’s mine to tell. Anyway, I hope it helped. Don’t forget to text me Hannah and Joel’s number, and I’ll be in touch with more information later.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Thomas.”

  She hung up just in time to pick up their lunch, but she didn’t go straight home. It was worth Elton’s scolding and Nathan’s complaining about lukewarm food to have the thrift store treasure tucked away in her purse.

  14

  The afternoon passed slowly, only broken up by Nathan’s long phone call with Adelina and his stepping outside the room to have regular smoke breaks. One such long break ended with Nathan returning to the room with a scowl on his face and crouching to snatch some ingredients from his open case. In moments, he was mixing herbs in oil in a small jar, twisting the lid shut and shaking the contents while he hummed a song low in his throat.

  “What’s happening?” Cora asked, looking up from her last gris gris as she finished knotting it shut.

  “Pack your things,” Nathan said without taking his gaze from the door. “Quickly. We’re being spied on again.”

  “Are you serious?” Cora slid off the bed and began scooping her materials back into her suitcase, then helped Elton to zip his up, since he was still mostly one-handed. “How is this happening? We set wards! You guys are supposed to be good at wards!”

  “He hasn’t come in person,” Nathan muttered, distracted. He took a cigarette from his pack and lit it with his free hand, lifting the lid of the jar to blow a bit of smoke inside before sealing it up again.

  When Cora finished packing up Nathan’s strewn clothes, he urged the others toward the door, pushed it open with his elbow as he unscrewed the jar in his hand, and dipped his fingertips in the oil once his companions were out. He nudged his own suitcase completely over the threshold into the hallway, still checking above them and over his shoulder for something the others couldn’t see. Nathan tilted his head to call them closer, and with two oil-slicked fingers, he traced a sigil on each of their foreheads in turn.

  “L’a rele m’, m’a reponn li,” he murmured softly, finally marking his own forehead and sealing the jar again. He waited, seeming to listen to the air around them, and when he was satisfied, he waved them all down the hallway.

  “Nathan, what—” Elton started, but the other man shushed him with a sharp hiss and put a hand on the back of his shoulder to hurry him along. Nichole followed in a half-dazed, curious obedience, holding her bag in both hands.

  They moved in silence until they were back on the street, and then Nathan hailed a taxi and commanded the driver to take them to the most out-of-the-way hotel he could think of. Even then, he waved a quieting finger at the others until the car stopped again.

  The hotel was just as grungy as the last one, but this time Nathan made no complaint as he spoke to the young man at the front desk and secured them a room. He, Elton, and Cora laid wards and barriers at every doorway they crossed from the lobby to their room while Nichole dragged the suitcases along behind them. Only once they were in the room did Nathan let out a sharp sigh.

  “So,” Elton said, wincing faintly as he shifted his shoulder, “what the hell was all that?”

  “That Chaser,” Nathan spat. “He was watching us. I didn’t fancy a repeat of our earlier surprise visit.”

  “Watching us how?”

  “Some sort of projection, I suspect. Clever thing. But we’ve bought some more time before he’ll be able to find us again. We’d do best to move regularly for the time being.”

  “Projection?” Cora echoed. “Like astral projection, out-of-body experience?”

  “Perhaps. It’s very rare. He may have other tricks I don’t know about.”

  “I didn’t think anybody had tricks you didn’t know about.”

  “I’m neither so old nor so arrogant to assume there aren’t still innumerable mysteries in this world, my love. In this case, I choose discretion, at least until we know whom we’re really facing.”

  “How is that different from what I’m trying to do? Aren’t I trying to look at stuff that’s far away too?”

  “A glimpse is not the same as actually traveling. When you go to the lake tonight, you’re likely to see flashes—and you may not even be able to make much sense of them until later. This boy, though…” Nathan sighed through his nose and put his hands on his hips, glaring down at the carpet in irritation. “I felt him over my shoulder. This is more than divination.”

  “Awesome. That’s not super creepy at all.”

  “At least Nathan noticed before we got ambushed again,” Elton said. He sat down on the nearest bed, trying to hide his grimace from the movement of his wounded shoulder.

  “And this place has a TV,” Cora said with a dry chuckle. We’re moving back up in the world.”

  They passed the rest of the afternoon in peace until Nathan happened to flip throug
h a sports channel in the early evening and caught a moment of hockey. Elton wordlessly took the remote from him and set it aside before he could change it again, putting a barring hand on the other man’s face to push him back when he tried to lean over the blond and retrieve it.

  “It’s the Cup,” Elton said, as if that explained everything.

  Now, somehow, they’d spent the last hour watching it.

  “Why does Dallas even have a hockey team?” Cora asked, half her attention on finishing the braid she’d been working through Nichole’s hair. “Do Texans care about hockey? It’s not exactly icy there.”

  “Florida has two teams, and they definitely aren’t icy,” Elton pointed out. “They put teams in cities that can support an arena and show a demand for it.”

  “But hockey’s a big Canadian thing, right? So if this is the championships or whatever, how come both of these teams are American? That one’s Minnesota, you said.”

  Elton visibly bristled for a passing moment, then quietly exhaled through his nose. “There are more teams that are American, but the vast majority of the players are Canadian. Minnesota is practically Little Canada, anyway.”

  Nathan nudged the blond with his elbow and gestured toward the television as a whistle sounded, pointing with the lit cigarette between his fingers. “So that one was offside.”

  “Yes,” Elton sighed. He’d spent the better part of the last hour explaining the difference between offside and icing, to little effect. Nathan made a guess every time the whistle blew and seemed to have about a fifty percent accuracy rate.

  “I thought there’d be more fighting.”

  Elton didn’t answer. Nathan let a few beats go by before he tilted his head toward the blond beside him.

  “Which team are we rooting for again?”

  “I don’t care which team you root for.”

  “Well we may as well be on the same side, darling. I do like the little bear the one team has.”

  “Yeah,” Cora agreed. “Let’s root for the bear one! Go bears!”