The Left-Hand Path: Mentor
T.S. Barnett
Copyright © 2015 Corvid House
All rights reserved.
ALSO BY T.S. BARNETT
THE BEAST OF BIRMINGHAM
Under the Devil’s Wing
Into the Bear’s Den
Down the Endless Road
A SOUL’S WORTH
THOSE WORDS I DREAD
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my husband, who still doesn’t mind when I ask him questions about plot just as he’s falling asleep, and to Brittany, expert of Spanish and my very bestest friend.
1
Nathan’s place always smelled nice. The apartment was just as crappy as Cora’s, but Nathan had lived there long enough to still have a lot of the old wooden furnishings that had been replaced during the so-called renovation a few years ago. The floors creaked, and the doors didn’t quite shut properly, but there was always some incense or oil burning in the kitchen, filling the little apartment with the scent of sage or jasmine.
She still knocked when she arrived at his door, even though he always let her in without even asking who was there. He knew it was her without looking, probably because he never had any other visitors, but she didn’t want to risk tripping over one of his traps by trying to come in unannounced. She’d had her feet burned before by the powder he’d left in the entrance. She opened the door and shouldered it back into place behind her with a bit of a shove.
“Did you do your homework?” Nathan asked without looking up from the blocky television. By the time Cora got home from her job at the restaurant, he had already finished his soap operas and had moved on to Judge Judy. He sat hunched in his worn recliner, a glass of room-temperature water on the small table beside him and the faint hiss of his oxygen tank audible under the voices from the television.
Cora didn’t know how old he was, precisely, but the deep lines in his face and his thin, arthritic hands covered in liver spots told her that he was old enough to be lonely and grateful for her company. She was happy to spend the afternoons with him, even if all they did was watch small claims court on television. It was better than going home and listening to her mother shout at her all night.
“I always do my homework,” she said with a smile.
“That’s debatable. Show me your ogham,” he said, peering up at her with dark, watery eyes. He had a strange kind of an accent; mostly he sounded just as middle-American as she did, but he always seemed to come across as more articulate than she did. He pronounced some words oddly, but she’d gotten used to it by now.
Cora reached into her battered canvas purse and offered him a notebook full of lines and scratches that made no sense to her outside of what Nathan had assured her they meant. Apparently it was some kind of old Irish script. Nathan said it wasn’t the only form of spell writing, but it was what witches were normally taught in school, at least in Western countries. What he did was different—every spell she’d seen him make had involved bags full of things like graveyard dirt, red pepper, or spider webs. He had even had her grind up the bones of a black cat in a mortar and pestle once because he wasn’t strong enough to do it. She hadn’t asked where he’d gotten them.
“I have been practicing, you know,” she assured him.
“I believe you.” His faint smirk was familiar to her by now. He always pushed her, and he never let her slip in her studies. In a lot of ways, he seemed very boring. During the day, he sat around in sweatpants and faded t-shirts, watching General Hospital, eating frozen meals, and staring out his window at people moving through the parking lot. But he also wore a thin gold hoop in each ear and a carved gold bangle on his left wrist, a strange mirror to the bracelet of strung magic tokens he kept on his right. The dull collection of carved wood, stone, and bone was clearly the more treasured item, as the gold was dingy and looked quite aged.
He seemed to be eccentric and average all at once, with his slow days and quiet voice in contrast to the aging signs of a more outlandish youth. He had a sense of humor that seemed to come and go with his mood, but it was the more tangible hints that she wondered about. The faded, bluish tattoo on his forearm and the single alligator tooth he wore on a leather strap around his neck interested her the most. She had asked him about the necklace once, but all he would tell her was that it was a gift from an old friend. She sometimes wondered how he’d ended up a lonely old man in a crappy apartment, but he wasn’t really the type to talk about his past. He’d never mentioned any family, and he certainly didn’t seem to have any friends.
Ever since she had sneezed in the parking lot a year ago and cracked a car window, he’d been her companion and mentor—once he’d been able to convince her that magic was actually real and that he wasn’t just a crazy old man who wore his house slippers out to get his mail. He’d asked her about her parents and why they hadn’t told her any of this, and he’d laughed when she told him she was adopted and said that explained why she seemed to be the only Chinese one in the family. He was a strange old guy, for sure, but he’d been kind to her and he’d taught her a lot. Without him, she might never have had the opportunity to learn any magic at all. She would still just be the outcast in her own home, the scapegoat for all her mother’s life problems, and she wouldn’t have even this to keep her sane. If he wanted to keep a few secrets, she wasn’t going to press him.
Nathan looked over the notebook with a scrutinizing eye, clicking his tongue once or twice but not saying anything disparaging. Then he gestured to her bag. “Show me,” he nodded to her, taking a moment to cough and adjust the plastic aspirator tucked under his nose.
She pulled her purse into her lap and searched through it until she found the bit of hawthorn wood he had carved for her months ago. The lines scratched deep into the wood formed the word conocaib, or so Nathan told her, at least.
She spoke the word aloud, clutching the wood tightly in her fist, and she focused on the glass of water on the table. Slowly, and with a slight tremble, the glass rose from the wooden surface and started an uncertain journey through the air. Nathan watched it as it passed over his lap without incident, but he shook his head when Cora reached out for it and caught only air. The glass tumbled to the floor in front of her, spilling water on the rug.
“You have to hold on until the very end,” he said while she trotted into the kitchen for a towel for the hundredth time. “A moment’s hesitation, a second of distraction, and you can lose the whole thing. That might not matter so much when you’re levitating glasses, but hopefully you’ll move on to bigger things someday, hm?”
“I know, I know,” Cora muttered, also for the hundredth time, and she dropped to the floor to soak up the spilled water. At least she hadn’t broken the glass this time. She was getting pretty good at moving things, but there had proven to be a big difference between sliding something across the table and lifting it up entirely. She threw the towel back into the kitchen sink and checked her watch. “Crap, I have to go already. I promised my mom I’d run some errands for her tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Nathan only nodded, lifting his hand in a brief wave and returning his attention to the television. Cora lingered at the door a moment to watch him.
She frowned at his wheezing breath, just barely audible over the argument on the television, but she knew from past experience that he wouldn’t appreciate her pity. She shut his door as quietly as possible and started up the stairs to her own apartment.
Nathan grunted as he shifted in his chair, watching the television judge with a slow sigh that became a cough. This was as exciting as his life got these days—excepting when Cora accidentally set things on fire while trying to set other things on fire on purpose. He still hadn’t been able to get the charred strain off of his wallpaper. He turned his head at a knock on the door and croaked at Cora to just open the damn thing herself, but as the knob turned and the door creaked open, a near-forgotten sensation prickled the back of his neck.
The sight of the man standing in his doorway was like breathing fresh air after being long submerged in tar. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and lean, with well-kept honey blonde hair and sea green eyes. He was clean-shaven and handsome, and his smile was polite and dignified. He wore a dark grey two-button suit and a tie with a tiny black and purple checked pattern, tied in a Half-Windsor with a perfect dimple. It even matched the purple on his pocket square. The suit had clearly been tailored for him, and the way he stood confidently at the entrance to the apartment with one hand in his pocket made him quite a picture. Under different circumstances, Nathan might have asked him for the name of his tailor. But every inch of the stranger was Chaser, unmistakably. Not because of his suit—some Chasers almost looked homeless—but the way he carried himself, his posture, the set of his mouth gave him away. This was a man who enjoyed his job and did it well.
“Elton Willis,” he said without moving, clearly waiting for Nathan to stand and greet him. He was patient while Nathan pulled himself from his chair and shifted his oxygen tank out of the way of his feet. Elton approached him with a sure step, and the two men shook hands and took a moment to size each other up. Nathan was undoubtedly the less intimidating of the two, all stiff joints and paunchy stomach. He was out of practice, and it must have showed, while Elton was young, bold, and certain of his coming victory. Nathan noticed the silver ring on his middle finger, delicately etched with the familiar lines of ogham, but the carving was too small to read. Likely standard-issue Chaser spells. They all used the same sort of magic.
“Nathaniel Moore. Are you ready to come in?” Elton asked casually. A smirk played at the corners of his mouth, threatening to ruin his detached appearance, but he held it in well.
“I didn’t know anyone was still after me,” Nathan answered with a strained chuckle. “What’s the reward these days, Mr. Willis?”
Elton’s lips twitched into a slight frown. “That isn’t why I sought you out.”
“No? Oh, good. I wouldn’t like you half as much if it was about the money.”
Elton finally released Nathan’s hand, instead clasping his hands loosely behind his back in a completely unthreatened gesture. Nathan felt the beaded bracelet around his wrist grow warm, and he threw up a hand to push the other man back, but Elton’s calmly-spoken counterspell kept him on his feet. He didn’t even sway.
“Adrig,” he said in a low voice, shifting his hands in front of him so that he could brush his fingers over his ring.
Nathan fought the pressure on his back that threatened to push him to the floor, even coughing out the counter-word “scuirid,” but he could feel his hands moving of their own volition, his wrists locking together behind his back despite his straining. He fell to his knees, his frail body bending until his nose almost touched the ragged carpet.
In the open doorway, Cora kept silent until the stranger took another step toward her helpless neighbor. She had hoped that Nathan actually had another person to come and visit him, but this looked like the complete opposite of a friendly drop-in. Who was this man? What could Nathan possibly have done to deserve this? There wasn’t time to answer these questions. After a quick glance around the room, Cora took hold of one of Nathan’s pewter candlesticks and crept toward the stranger. He almost turned his head toward her as she swung the candlestick with all her might, landing a blow to the back of his head that sent him to the floor in an undignified heap.
She rushed to Nathan’s side immediately, helping him to his feet and asking him a dozen questions that ran together in a long stream of confusion and adrenaline. He brushed her off as soon as he was steady, and he shuffled into his bedroom with his oxygen tank rolling behind him.
“I have to leave,” he said over his shoulder, already reaching into his closet for a small duffel bag. “I won’t be coming back. There isn’t time to explain.” He gathered up what he considered essentials—a change of clothes, a small leather case of herbs and bits of wood—and he emptied his bottom drawer in search of the slim case hidden behind the false back. He ran his gnarled thumb over the turquoise pendant wrapped with silver wire, frowning at the small crack in one side, and he fastened it around his neck and hid it under his shirt. By the time he was heading for the door, Cora stood in front of him with a backpack over her shoulders and a determined look on her face.
There wasn’t time to ask her if she was sure. The two of them stepped over the Chaser’s unconscious body, and Nathan only stopped to scratch a few marks in chalk in his doorway before they hurried through the parking lot to Nathan’s Jeep. He brushed Cora aside when she tried to help him into the driver’s seat, barely waiting for her to climb in herself before he pulled out into the street.
“Who the hell was that, Nathan?” she asked once she felt an appropriate amount of time had passed, shouting over the wind. “Who did I hit in the head? Why was he doing that to you?”
“I’ll explain everything in good time,” Nathan promised, his oxygen tank clinking on the floor between their seats. “First, we need to get away from here, we need to find somewhere else to stay, and I need to find a young woman. Other than you.”
“You need a what?”
Nathan didn’t answer any further questions. His hands were trembling with excitement as he gripped the steering wheel. This Chaser could catch him. He was powerful enough. He had chased him down after all these years, so clearly he was clever enough. He was confident and proud. Such a tantalizing pursuer deserved a better foe than a weak old man. He deserved Nathan at his best.
2
Cora sat uncomfortably in the passenger seat of the old Jeep, wincing as she bounced with every tiny inconsistency in the road. She considered asking Nathan where they were going, but he stared straight ahead with such a grim face that she kept quiet. She might even have enjoyed the ride if it hadn’t been for the open top of the Jeep and the almost impressive complete failure of its shock absorbers. The Jeep must have been at least forty years old. It used to be a coppery brown, but it had begun to rust at the joints, and the orange and yellow sticker stripes that ran across the hood had peeled almost as much as the rounded letters of the word “Renegade.” It was the most 70’s-looking Jeep Cora had ever seen, and it seemed to handle poorly for its age.
They came to the edge of town, and she waited, expecting to feel some apprehension or even regret at her sudden decision to get in the car with a sick elderly man who was clearly in some kind of dangerous trouble, but it didn’t come. She was leaving behind a dead-end job, a borderline abusive family, and very little else. Nathan was the only friend she could claim, and he was right beside her, clearly needing help. He was trembling in the wind passing through the open Jeep, his wispy white hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. She doubted that she was the best person to be giving him whatever kind of help he needed, but she was what he had. He hadn’t seemed inclined to stop her from coming, either.
Nathan pulled onto the highway just outside the city and drove until he found a cheap-looking motel. He pulled into the parking lot and handed Cora his wallet so that she could get a room key while he sat in the Jeep and caught his breath. She hurried through the check-in and rushed back to the Jeep to grab their bags from the back seat. When she moved to the driver’s seat to help
Nathan down, he brushed her hands away and shook his head.
“You go inside. Give me one of the keys and don’t open the door to anyone,” he said between breaths.
“What? Where are you going?”
“I promised you an explanation, and you’ll get it,” Nathan sighed, “but right now you can’t help me. I don’t have much time. Listen to me,” he snapped at her when she started to protest. “In my bag, find the red brick dust, and pour a line of it outside the door. I’ll be back soon.” He held his hand out for the key, and Cora gave it to him with a reluctant frown and shifted her backpack on her shoulder. “Just get inside, Cora. I’ll be fine.”
He waited to watch the girl shut herself in the motel room before pulling back out of the parking lot. A quick drive took him to a grocery store, where he parked his Jeep and watched the people filing in and out of the entrance. A young woman would be easiest. He sat so long that he might have nodded off if not for the eager adrenaline pumping through him.
Finally, a lone woman approached from the back end of the parking lot, and Nathan climbed down from his seat and shuffled a few steps forward. As the woman passed him, he gasped and clutched at his chest, letting out a strained groan as he leaned against the side of the Jeep.
“Oh my God,” the woman said as she rushed to Nathan’s side. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”
“My pills,” he croaked, pointing vaguely toward the front of his car. “Glove box.”
“Oh God,” she repeated on her way to the missing passenger door, and she leaned into the car to pry open the broken handle of the glove compartment.
Nathan pushed away from the Jeep, moving as quickly as he could to get behind the woman. As she turned to face him, he placed a hand over her face and whispered, “dòmi kounye a,” his bracelet heating against his wrist. Instantly, the woman went slack, and Nathan struggled to catch her before she slid to the ground. At least he still had enough strength for simple spells. He panted as he took hold of her under her arms, glaring sidelong at his hissing oxygen tank. What was the point of the damn thing if it didn’t actually help him breathe? It took him three tries to pull the young woman into the passenger seat, pausing once to let a distracted couple and their young children pass by. He fastened the seat belt around her limp form, tossed her purse onto the floor of the car, and climbed into his own seat.
The Left-Hand Path: Mentor Page 1