“Please help,” she said, fighting for enough breath to speak. “A man was—he was chasing me, and he—he—”
“Easy,” the man answered. He helped her to stand steady and watched her with a soft frown. “Slow down. You’re safe. We’ll call someone, okay?”
Before Cora could respond, she heard a rasping voice from behind her that made her blood run cold.
“По моей воле, дьявол!”
The stranger holding her twitched, his chin jerking upward as though lifted by something unseen, and while Cora watched, a thin line of red drew across his throat that opened into a flowing gash. Blood spilled down his front and onto Cora’s shirt, pulsing with every gurgle the man was able to make. He dropped to the ground with a wet, sickening sound, and Cora turned slowly to face the source of the croaking shout. Korshunov stood just across the street, hunched and sweating and still clutching at his broken ribs with one hand. Each breath was clearly paining him, but he glared at her with cold fury twisting his lips.
“You can’t run from me, little girl,” Korshunov snarled.
He lifted his hand, the silver ring that marked him as a Chaser glinting under the street light, and before Cora knew what she was doing, she had thrown both hands up and almost screamed, “Bak!”
Korshunov slammed against the wall of the building behind him with a grunt, his head giving an audible thump as it collided with the concrete. By the time he panted out a breath to clear the spots from his eyes and pushed himself away from the wall, Cora was flying down the street as fast as her injured foot could carry her, her bracelet burning hot on the skin of her wrist as she whispered Nathan’s invisibility spell over and over like a prayer.
Elton had almost managed to doze off against the headboard by the time he heard the knock at the door, but he roused instantly and rushed to answer the sound. Cora stood in the hall, barefoot and pantsless, shivering in her wet shirt and her hair dripping onto the carpet. Her arms and legs were covered in thick red lines, as if she’d been rubbed with sandpaper. Elton could tell through her soaked shirt that some of the stitches in her stomach had come undone. Her eyes were red as she looked up at him, and her whole body trembled.
“Elton,” she said, such a weak plea in her voice that he immediately reached out for her, half carrying her to the bed without a care for the sting it gave his shoulder. Nathan stirred on the opposite mattress and moved to sit beside them with a frown on his lips as soon as he saw the state of his young apprentice.
“My love, what’s happened to you?” he asked, uncommonly gentle. The girl hiccupped and managed a single sobbing exhale before she collapsed against Nathan’s chest, her arms fastening around his neck and hands twisting desperately into the back of his shirt as she wept. Nathan held her close with one arm around her waist, his fingers tracing tender lines through her hair while her tears soaked his collar. He let her choke and cry into his shoulder, sharing a brief glance with Elton over the top of the girl but giving a subtle shake of his head when the blond opened his mouth to speak.
Cora cried until she had only dry, empty sobs left. Eventually she melted slightly into Nathan’s arms and took one long, uneven breath before pushing herself upright and away from him.
“I ran into Korshunov,” she said. She was a little hoarse from crying, but her voice stayed steady. “When I was scrying, I saw the factory. He was there talking to Maduro, and he...saw me, somehow.”
Nathan scowled at the idea. “Saw you?”
“He must have. He looked right at me, it felt like, and it threw me out of the vision. Then when I looked up, he was right there at the lake. Like he’d followed me.”
“Cora, that’s impossible,” Elton said, and her eyes cut over to him as she frowned.
“I didn’t say I knew how he did it. I just know what happened. He chased me, and he had this...monster. It was like he—he just called it, and it came, some sort of...demon centaur,” she sighed. “It trapped me, and I burned Korshunov’s face, but he did this spell to heal himself, and—”
“Hold a minute, my love,” Nathan interrupted. “You did what to his face?”
“Well the demon centaur thing had me tied down, so I...spit fire in his face.”
“You spit fire in a Chaser’s face,” he echoed. When she nodded, he placed his hands on her cheeks and pressed a laughing kiss to her forehead. “You beautiful thing.”
A brief smile touched her lips, but she shook her head as she lowered his hands. “I did something stupid,” she said. She breathed slowly, like she might start crying again, but then she swallowed it down. “I was running, and I saw...this man, he...he was just some guy. A normal guy. A reg. But I thought if I got his attention, maybe...maybe Korshunov would back off, but—I wasn’t thinking, I forgot about at the hotel when he—he didn’t care at all about the people in the way, and this poor guy, he was going to help me, and Korshunov just—he just—” Cora bit her bottom lip to hold in her last threatened sob and let her forehead rest on Nathan’s shoulder again. “He killed him,” she said. “This guy was just trying to help because I ran to him, and because of me, he...he’s dead because of me.”
“Cora,” Elton said, “you couldn’t have known—”
“I should have known.” Her eyes fluttered closed, her shoulders drooping as she sank heavily against Nathan. “I should have,” she mumbled. Her breath grew even, and after another moment, she went still.
Nathan held her gently as he lowered her head to the pillow, and he met Elton’s eyes over her sleeping form once she was safe under the blanket.
“This boy,” he said evenly, “is going to die the slowest death I can think up.”
“What kind of Chaser just murders people in the street? Murders mundanes? How did a psychopath like that make it through the academy?” Elton shifted to take his kit from the nightstand and gingerly pulled the blanket back from Cora’s feet, frowning at the smears of blood she’d left on the sheets. He fetched a damp cloth from the bathroom and cleaned away the excess blood and shards of glass, then sealed the wound with one of his talismans and covered her with the blanket again. He looked down at Cora’s face, her brow troubled even in sleep. “We shouldn’t have sent her on her own.”
“She did well,” Nathan countered immediately. “Just imagine what the other guy looks like.”
“But how could he possibly notice her watching him in a vision? Not only notice, but know where to find her? That’s insane.”
“Our young friend is clearly talented,” Nathan mused. “He sees through our wards and summons spirits to do his bidding. Those aren’t parlor tricks. I’m beginning to suspect the creature you ran into at the factory was a gift—a precaution. It must be a spirit that he’s bound to that building.”
“Are there any laws of the Concordat this kid isn’t breaking?”
“I’m willing to bet he doesn’t have a reg girlfriend,” Nathan offered, and Elton snorted at him.
“We should let her sleep. We should all get some sleep.”
“I’ll try to keep my hands to myself, darling,” Nathan teased. Elton gave a weary sigh and kept his back to the other man as they settled into the opposite bed, purposely ignoring the rustling of blankets as Nathan undressed.
16
The person who stormed into the hotel room was barely recognizable as Chris’s partner. The Chaser had been startled out of sleep by the slamming door, and now he found himself staring at the young man who fought to catch his breath with his back against the door. He didn’t even know Korshunov had left. A line of blood was flowing from the back of the younger man’s head and down the side of his neck, his clothes were dirty, and his breath was wheezing and shallow. His usually calm face was scowling and wild like an animal.
“Water,” he said as he pushed away from the door and began to ease his suit jacket down his shoulders.
“What the hell happened to you?” Chris asked, already heading to the bathroom to do as he was told. “Why did you go out without me?”
Korshunov didn’t answer. He dropped his jacket to the floor and pulled at the buttons of his shirt with shaking fingers, and when he shrugged it off in turn, Chris saw the dark purple bruises encircling his partner’s chest. Chris offered him the glass of water from the bathroom tap with an anxious frown.
“What happened?” he asked again. “You look like you need a real doctor.”
“I’m fine,” the boy insisted, though his hand was cold as he took the water and dropped down onto the mattress, holding the glass between his knees. He ran one thin finger through the line of blood on his neck and smeared it around the rim of the glass, murmuring to himself as he circled the cup over and over.
“Живая вода, Я приказываю вам быть.”
Before Chris’s eyes, the blood seeped down the inside of the glass and dissipated into the water, which swirled into a miniature vortex before rising up into the distinct shape of a humanoid no larger than Chris’s hand. Tiny sprays of water floated around the thing’s flowing limbs, its entire body ebbing with liquid movement from its narrow legs to its mess of watery hair. It shot from the glass to wait in front of Korshunov’s face, and as soon as the boy muttered, “Поправьте меня,” the creature ducked its head and flew down his throat, causing only a momentary jerk. Korshunov let his head fall back and leaned on his hands, his jaw set in a tight grimace. Chris wanted to question him again, but his gaze was drawn to his partner’s battered torso, which twitched and shifted as though the little sprite was darting around inside of him. Within moments, the bruises around Korshunov’s ribs began to fade, and his skin flexed as his bones clicked audibly back into place. He coughed out a strained choking sound and opened his mouth, and the watery creature crawled back out of his mouth again and climbed like an insect around to the back of his neck. The blood there dried and flaked away as though it had never been.
Korshunov gave a slow sigh of relief, his shoulders settling and his face finally relaxing into its former stoic mask. His eyes followed his little creation as it flitted back in front of his face and tilted its head like it was waiting for instruction. He didn’t hesitate even a moment before reaching up with one hand and crushing it in his fingers, causing a small, bubbling shriek as the sprite burst and splattered helplessly into a puddle on the carpet.
“Jesus Christ,” Chris hissed. He took a half step back from his partner and didn’t even try to hide the look of disgust on his face.
“The girl,” Korshunov said, sitting up and reaching down to pick his shirt from the floor. “She’s more of a threat than we thought. Too risky to use her as bait.”
“That’s where you went? To go kidnap that kid?” A small sputter of laughter escaped Chris’s lips, earning him a pointed stare. “And she kicked your ass?”
“There were unexpected variables,” the boy answered simply, but the sharp tone in his voice betrayed his frustration.
“You need to get over this lone wolf thing and talk to me,” Chris pressed as Korshunov passed by him to wash his face in the sink. “The Magister didn’t send me with you for no reason. If you’d asked, I could have told you that kidnapping that girl for bait is the worst possible idea. Moore and Willis are both reckless and dangerous, and I’m pretty sure she’s sleeping with both of them, so she’s clearly crazy on her own. Not to mention that the last time she was held by the Magistrate, Moore fucking killed me and mind-controlled me into helping them escape—an escape which had three goddamn casualties, by the way.”
“I know that,” Korshunov spat back, wiping his dripping chin with a hand towel. He tossed it back onto the vanity and frowned across the room at his partner. “That’s why I wanted her. Bait’s no good if your prey isn’t guaranteed to come for it.”
“And just fuck everybody who gets killed in the process?”
“Collateral damage is inevitable.”
Chris bit back the scoffing insult on his tongue as Korshunov stared at him. The boy had never threatened him directly, but Chris still got a sick, uneasy feeling when he locked eyes with the younger Chaser. He didn’t trust him not to just skip the threat and go straight to lashing out—and Chris had seen enough to know when he was outclassed, even if he’d never say it out loud.
“We know what their target is,” he said instead. “Why are you sitting naked on the floor every day and letting me answer all the angry calls from the Magister if all we’re going to show up to are empty hotel rooms? They obviously know you’re tracking them. I talked to the Chasers from the local office—they want to help if we’ll let them. So why don’t we just sit our asses down outside Maduro’s factory and wait for Moore and Willis to show up? With backup, even, plus that creepy guard dog you gave Maduro. They’ll come to us.”
Korshunov leaned one slim forearm against the bathroom door frame and watched the patch of carpet in front of him as though it would have the right answer. “Fine,” he said after a long pause. “We try waiting for their move. If they don’t come after two nights, we go back to seeking them out. I’m not letting either of them run rampant because we sat on our hands.”
“We won’t let them,” Chris agreed. “And you need to tell me before you go off on your own like that.”
Korshunov pushed away from the wall and moved to his bed. “You’re a consultant, not a partner,” he said flatly.
“Well if you’d consulted with me before running into the night to kidnap young women, I would have told you what a stupid fucking idea it was.”
The boy’s narrow shoulders visibly tensed. He looked over his shoulder at Chris, blue eyes narrowed, and when he spoke, his voice was low and cold. “I don’t take advice from dead men.”
“Fuck you,” Chris snapped.
Korshunov kept his gaze steady, unfazed by the curse. “You think I didn’t notice how you froze in front of Moore? You think I don’t hear you toss and turn at night, mumbling to yourself like an invalid? You’re a liability,” he sneered. “All it would take is one lapse in concentration, and Moore would have you eating out of his hand again.”
Chris ground his teeth and tightened his fists to keep from showing the shaking in his hands. He knew. He knew that standing there in the hotel hallway, with Nathaniel Moore’s black eyes on him, he’d felt paralyzed. His day under the spell was a hazy blur, but every time he closed his eyes, he could still see Moore standing in front of him with one cool hand on his face, smirking as he whispered commands in a language Chris didn’t understand but was forced to obey. He could still hear that voice, burrowing into the back of his brain like a parasite whenever he tried to rest. When he did sleep, he dreamed about being buried, or about twisting bodies and being dragged through fire. He was afraid—afraid that whenever Moore wanted, he could pick up Chris’s marionette strings and have him dancing.
“I’m here to do my job,” he said, sickened by how unsure he sounded.
“You don’t have a job here. I do.” Korshunov loosely folded his dirty shirt and tossed it on top of his suitcase with his jacket, turning his attention to the process of undressing for bed as though the conversation was over.
Chris snorted and returned to his own bed without answering. It wasn’t worth it, arguing with this person. He didn’t want Korshunov’s pity, or even his compassion—he doubted the boy had any to give even if he had wanted it. But Chris wasn’t yet so pathetic that he could just go home and forget everything that Elton Willis and Nathaniel Moore had done to him. He was going to pay them back for it.
17
All the lights are off in the apartment, and it smells like spoiled food. The bulbs don’t even flicker when Elton touches the switch by the front door—the power has been cut off again. He drops his bag near the door and heads down the hall, the floor under the dirty carpet squeaking with every step. The woman unconscious on the bed lies on vomit-stained sheets. Her arm is draped over the edge of the mattress, poised to show the heavy bruising on the inside of her elbow, and her pockmarked face is slack and heavy against the pillow. The n
eedle still sits on the cracked nightstand. She can’t hold down a job, but she’ll check the mailbox every single day, waiting for a new wrinkled letter from Elton’s long-imprisoned father.
She isn’t always sleeping when he comes home. Sometimes she’s sick on the bathroom floor. Sometimes she’s sitting in front of the television, shouting at him to get off his ass and go buy her another pack of beer. She slaps him in the face for back talking when he asks, “With what money?”
He never considers raising a hand to her.
Sometimes a man is in the apartment, glaring down at the teen as he leaves without a word. His mother reappears in the hall, pulling her torn shirt back up over her shoulder.
The blond boy tries to clean up the filthy apartment for the hundredth time, knowing it will be the same as always soon enough. The couch is tacky to the touch and spotted with cigarette burns—a lost cause—but he can at least wave off the flies and throw out the food. He lights a cigarette from the discarded pack on the coffee table and breathes in the smoke while he ties up a garbage bag, wipes down the kitchen counter. The refrigerator is empty except for beer. It’s always empty.
A banging fist rattles the front door in its frame. “Sai lo!” a voice calls. Always the same voice calling him out. “Chéut láih!”
Elton kicks his school bag out of his path on his way to the door, feeling the burn of smoke pour down his throat and fill his lungs as he turns the knob. Someone has to make some money.
The Left-Hand Path: Prodigy Page 19