The Left-Hand Path: Prodigy

by T. S. Barnett

  Elton woke with sweat on his brow late in the morning. He craned his neck toward Nathan’s sleeping face behind him and peeled the other man’s limp arm off of his stomach. He’d managed to make it years without having to clean up after someone coming down from a high. He wouldn’t do it again—if Nathan wanted to do that to himself, he could sleep in the gutter for all Elton cared.

  He sat up slowly, rubbing both hands over his face. The room was silent and still mostly dark behind the heavy curtains, but when he looked over at the other bed, Cora was sitting up with the blanket over her bent knees and bunched around her waist, her eyes cast downward as she rolled one of the charms on her bracelet between her fingers. She didn’t look up as he swung his legs to sit on the edge of the mattress.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, speaking softly in case she hadn’t noticed him through her thoughts.

  Cora released her bracelet and wrapped her arms loosely around her knees. “This has to stop,” she said.

  “What does?”

  “All of it. Chasers hurting people they’re supposed to help, the Magistrate not protecting witches, restricting magic knowledge, punishing people for who they fall in love with—it’s crazy. This isn’t the way things are supposed to be. It can’t be.”

  “That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing, isn’t it?”

  “You guys are just thinking so...violently, though. You want to kill Maduro to make an example of him, and Nathan keeps threatening to kill this Chaser, but what is that going to help?” She looked over at him with weariness written on her brow. “I saw inside the factory before Korshunov knocked me out of the vision. It’s awful in there, Elton. All those workers—they’ve all been wiped, just like Nichole. Dozens of them. And the way they treat them...” She shook her head. “People are dying in that place. And you guys want to add more death?”

  “People like Maduro can’t be allowed to do what he’s done and get rewarded with life in a comfortable cell.”

  “What about the workers?” Cora frowned at the blond’s lifted eyebrows. “You did consider that there are going to be a ton of people displaced by your murder, didn’t you? What are they supposed to do? If that factory just gets shut down, like I’m sure you guys hope it will, those people are going to be out a place to live and a job. And the way that they are, how are they supposed to deal? We can’t just send them out into the world on their own and hope for the best. They’ll need help.”

  Elton sighed through his nose. “Some of them must have family that’s looking for them, or somewhere they can go—”

  “Are you going to wait to move on Maduro until we figure all that out? Track down next of kin for all these people?”

  “I...hadn’t planned on it.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

  Nathan gave a sleepy grunt from the other side of the bed and shifted up onto his elbow so that he could see around Elton’s broad frame. “Is something mutinous happening?” he grumbled as he wiped the sleep from his eye with one knuckle.

  “What are you two going to do, exactly?” Cora asked. “I’m fine with just winging most things, but this is too important to improvise. We need a plan.”

  “You know how I detest plans,” Nathan sighed.

  Elton turned his head to look down at the other man. “No; she’s right. There are too many factors here for us to just walk in. Aside from the problem of the workers, there’s Maduro himself, his guards, Korshunov and Hao, and that creature.”

  “You can’t go in there during the day,” Cora pointed out. “Not with all the people working. Nathan’s not exactly low key.”

  “Night, then,” Elton agreed. “Maduro was still in his office late into the evening when I met him last time. If we go right after they shut down, he’s sure to still be there. There’s no point in going at all if we miss him.”

  Cora paused and let her eyes flick up and down the blond’s body as though scanning him, her expression softening. “How’s your fever? Your shoulder?”

  “I’m fine,” he answered, equally gentle. “My shoulder’s still sore, but I think the wounds are closed. It’s usable, and I don’t feel sick.”

  Nathan sat up and stretched, pulling one elbow over his head and then the other. “Well I feel like I’ve been stuck in this or that grubby hotel room for ages. It’s about time I had something to do.” He glanced over at both of them. “We are doing it tonight, aren’t we?”

  “‘Let’s go tonight’ isn’t much of a plan,” Elton pointed out.

  “How detailed do we need to be?” Nathan scooted over to sit cross-legged on the bed beside the other man. “Seems like a simple case of divide and conquer to me. We all have our own concerns, after all. You want Maduro. He’s yours. Cora wants to help the workers. That’s her job. Leaving me to the task of maiming and possibly dismembering our dear, persistent Chaser. It will be my pleasure.”

  “And the creature?”

  “I assume it’s part of the package with our young Slav. I’ll take care of it.”

  Elton looked back at Cora with a question on his face, and she sighed.

  “I...need today, at least,” she said. “I think I know what I need to do. But I’m not going to tell you unless it works,” she added with a frown in Elton’s direction, “because you’ll tell me not to do it.”

  “That seems like an exceptionally good reason for you to tell me.”

  “No,” she answered firmly. “If we’re splitting up duties, let me do mine.”

  “Cora—”

  “Hush, darling,” Nathan interrupted. “Cora is clearly more than capable of handling herself. Give the doting father bit a rest, would you?”

  Elton bristled, but Cora gave a soft laugh.

  “He’s really more like a mom. But like, the kind of mom who hunts down and murders that one annoying customer at your retail job.”

  “Cora,” Elton sighed, “I know you’re capable. I just don’t want you to get in over your head. These people will kill you if they think you’re a threat.”

  “I know that. They’ll kill you, too, but you’re still going, aren’t you?”

  He stared at her for a beat before answering. “Yes, I am.”

  “And you think you’ll be less dead than me? I’m helping. Shut up.”

  The blond lifted his hands in surrender. “It’s your decision.”

  Cora pushed herself up out of bed and winced a little as she put weight on her injured foot. She seemed to make her way to the bathroom without much trouble, a change of clothes under one arm, and when she returned, she made for the door with no hesitation in her step. She must have finished the healing he’d attempted the night before.

  “I’m getting coffee,” she said, already opening the door and snatching the spare room key from the tv stand.

  She left without waiting for a reply, and Elton let slip one last reluctant sigh as Nathan rose from the bed. He refused Nathan’s offer to shower together despite the man’s argument that it was more economical. While the water ran in the next room, Elton tested his shoulder, rotating it in the socket. The flesh was still pink and tender, but mostly fine. The bone, however, made a soft, grinding click as he stretched, and the muscle that joined his arm struggled slightly to lift the weight of the limb. Despite his triage attempts and Cora’s attention, it didn’t seem to be healing as well as he’d hoped. But it hadn’t even been two days. It probably just needed time.

  Elton gathered what supplies he had left and soon had papers and ink spread across the bed. If they were going to make their move tonight, he needed to be prepared for any circumstance, and he’d gone through quite a few talismans in the last few days. Cora reappeared before Nathan finished his superfluously lengthy shower, cup carrier in one hand and small paper bag in the other. They’d made enough stops together at airports and along the road for Elton to know precisely what was in every cup she held. The cold one would be Cora’s white chocolate mocha frap, one hot cup would be his own simple chai latte, and the other would b
e Nathan’s drink of choice—a venti five-pump Cascara latte with coconut milk, two ristretto shots, and extra foam. Elton could practically hear him rattle off the order in his sleep. Nathan, as usual, had to make things complicated.

  Cora set the tray on the nightstand and set Elton’s cup aside, but before she sat down, she moved to her little suitcase and picked out a small cloth drawstring bag, holding it to her chest like a treasure. She sat down beside Elton and took a blueberry muffin from its mermaid-adorned paper bag, then held it out to him alongside the little satchel. She smiled softly when he looked at her in confusion.

  “Happy birthday,” she said.

  He couldn’t help his faint laugh. “Nathan told you?”

  “I talked him out of throwing a wild party, but everybody should at least get wished a happy birthday.” She shook the two small gifts at him until he took them from her.

  Elton set the muffin next to his tea and tugged the little bag open to peer inside. He paused at the sight of the strange beige clown face staring up at him, and he lifted an eyebrow at Cora as he plucked the toy from its home. She laughed as he gave it an experimental squeeze, bulging out the blue and red bulbs.

  “Thomas told me that you used to have one,” she said. “Something about getting into a lot of anger-related trouble in school?”

  He let out a sharp exhale through his nose that might have been mistaken for a laugh. “I did,” he agreed. “I’m surprised he remembers.”

  Elton could picture Thomas’s teasing smirk looking out at him from the lower bunk of their cluttered dorm room. “Try throwing that against the wall instead of Paul Witters,” he’d said when Elton had found the little toy with his name tagged to it on the shared desk. “Less likely to either stain or get you expelled.”

  Guilt twisted in his gut at the memory. How many times had the two of them stayed up until sunrise, well past the curfew imposed on their dorm block, pretending they were going to study and always ending up watching pirated movies on Thomas’s laptop? How many times had Thomas proofread term papers for him? Thomas was the first person to congratulate Elton when he’d graduated from the academy and been made a Chaser. He’d been a witness at Elton’s wedding. He’d even put up with his increasingly nocturnal friend’s growing obsession and endless requests for research help when Elton had first learned the name Nathaniel Moore.

  He’d been so afraid when he’d come to Elton to confess his feelings for Claire—sweating, pacing, and wringing his hands for a solid twenty minutes before finally getting the words out. And after everything they’d been through together, Elton had been so caught up in his own self-important sense of duty that he’d turned Thomas in with hardly a second thought. What’s worse, he hadn’t even thought about it afterward. Thomas had retreated from him completely after Claire’s death, and Elton had simply let him disappear into his grief, alone and forgotten in favor of earning the next promotion. Elton didn’t deserve his forgiveness.

  Cora shifted forward slightly to catch the blond’s eye, a concerned frown on her lips. “I didn’t mean to make you make that face.”

  He shook his head. “It’s all right. It’s a good gift. Between you and Nathan, I have enough stress for half a dozen of these,” he added in an attempt to regain his briefly lost composure. “Thank you, Cora.”

  The girl grinned up at him. “Want me to sing before you eat your muffin?”

  “No thank you.”

  “If you wait a minute, Nathan would probably sing to you.”

  “I think I’m good.”

  As if on cue, a thunk came from the bathroom as the shower shut off, and Nathan reappeared moments later, naked as usual and his hair still dripping lightly onto his shoulders. Neither of his roommates paid him any mind as he approached, though Elton did give a silent, resigned sigh at how close the nude man came to him in search of his coffee.

  “I see birthdays earn exclusive muffin privileges,” Nathan quipped. Elton leaned away as Nathan bent toward him, but he couldn’t escape the quick kiss he touched to the top of the blond’s head. “Bòn Fèt, darling.”

  Cora seemed to grow pensive and withdrawn while she had her coffee—as stoic as one can seem while sipping a Frappuccino, at least. Elton wanted to ask her again what plan she had in mind, but he suspected she would tell him to squeeze his stress ball and mind his own business. She showered and dressed herself, still looking a little wan from her run-in with Korshunov but steady on her feet. Elton frowned at her when she stood with her hand on the door.

  “You really won’t tell us where you’re going?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she promised. “I’ll be back later. Don’t go storming the factory without me, okay?”

  “How would we hope to succeed without you?” Nathan said with a smile, and the girl returned it with a small nod, then let herself out.

  Elton looked over at Nathan, lounging beside him with a lit cigarette between his lips as he flipped idly through the Bible from the nightstand. “You really aren’t worried at all about not knowing where she’s going?”

  “I do know where she’s going,” Nathan answered without looking up.

  Elton paused. “Are you joking?”

  Nathan took a long drag from his cigarette before he answered, letting out smoke as he spoke around it. “We discussed it last night.” He glanced up at the blond with Psalms open on his knee and chuckled at the other man’s speechless face. “She only said she wasn’t going to tell you.”

  “If you approve, and she thinks I wouldn’t, then it’s definitely a bad idea.”

  “You ought to try trusting her judgment, darling. Just because she doesn’t do things the way you or I would do them, that doesn’t make her wrong.”

  “She’s just a kid. She doesn’t know what she’s up against.”

  “She’s a young woman,” Nathan corrected, “who neither asked for nor requires your permission to do a blessed thing, Mr. Willis. She asked my opinion as her trusted guide and teacher, and I gave it. It so happens that in this instance, we agree.”

  Elton sighed and stood from the bed to finally take his turn in the shower, but he paused near the bathroom door. “What happened to you back then in Philadelphia? Did you fight the Magistrate or didn’t you?”

  Nathan plucked his cigarette from his lips with a low laugh. “You think you can sneak another question in just because it’s still your birthday?”

  “I want to know what put you off doing something about it if you hate them so much. I think you died.”

  Nathan let a few beats pass, his dark eyes locked with Elton’s green while he considered. “You really aren’t going to give this up, are you?”

  “Did you expect me to be satisfied with that answer?”

  He let out a great sigh and ran a hand through his hair in resignation. “Elton, let me tell you something that my mother told me when I was young.” He sat up straight with his cigarette in two fingers resting on his knee. “She said, ‘take your time. Don’t live too fast. Troubles will come, and they will pass—’“

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She told me to forget my lust for the rich man’s gold, and that all I needed was in my soul.”

  Elton stared flatly at him.

  ““Don’t you worry,’ she said,” Nathan went on. “‘You’ll find yourself. Just follow your heart, and nothing else.’“

  “This is Simple Man. Shut up.” Elton was already stepping into the bathroom, but Nathan’s voice followed him as he half laughed and half sang the last bit of the chorus, barely muffled by the thin bathroom door.

  “All I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied!”

  Elton drowned him out with the running shower. He should have known that Nathan’s sincerity was fleeting—he really would make Elton wait another year before giving him any other real information. Before, when he’d come upon a fresh lead or clue to Nathaniel Moore’s history or whereabouts, he would access the Magistrate’s archives. He’d made good friends with the archivist in
Vancouver, even when he’d stretched the limits of her patience by requesting copies of all of the files this or that agency had on hand. She had been the only person he’d felt safe to contact with regard to the unfortunate couple back in New York. He could ask her to look into it—but he didn’t want to push his luck. That only left one option as far as people he knew who were good at ferreting out difficult information.

  After scrubbing, drying, and scraping the pale stubble from his chin, Elton dressed with only a mild discomfort in his shoulder. Nathan had apparently taken a quick trip downstairs in the interim, as he now relaxed with a fresh cigarette in his fingers, open containers of rum and Diet Coke on the nightstand, and presumably a mixture of the two in a clear plastic cup in his free hand.

  Elton frowned at him as he finished knotting his tie. “Isn’t it early to be drinking?”

  “Hush,” Nathan scolded him. He tucked his cigarette into his lips and turned up the volume on the television. “Sam’s just remembered that she’s the one that shot Sonny while she was sick, and Jason’s trying to convince her not to confess.”

  Confusion furrowed Elton’s brow, and he turned to peer at the screen. “What is this?”

  “General Hospital. I’ve been watching it since it started, and I intend to be alive long enough to see the last episode.”

  “Hasn’t this been on since the 70’s?”

  “1963.”

  “And you’re still watching it.”

  Nathan shrugged. “It’s still good. Now hush.”

  Elton shook his head as he took his phone from the TV stand and slid it into his breast pocket. “You were so much more impressive on paper,” he sighed, but Nathan only shooed him away, his eyes never leaving the television as Elton stepped out of the room and into the hallway.

  He walked the hall for a while, his phone feeling heavy in his pocket. He made it all the way down to the street before he had the phone in his hand, and all the way to the end of the block before he had opened a blank text message to Thomas. A park was just across the street, so Elton walked until he reached a bench in the shade, then sat down to frown at his screen. Finally, he tapped out a short message and pressed send before he could question the decision any more.