The Left-Hand Path: Mentor

by T. S. Barnett

  He wouldn’t have been able to cast it at all without the ring given to him by the Magistrate. He couldn’t have anticipated needing the grounding for such a curse ahead of time, but the rings given to all Chasers were imbued with a magic that allowed them to channel some spells normally requiring specific grounding tools. Since Elton didn’t remember what grounding the curse called for at all, there had been as much chance of the spell working as of not—it was pure luck that the curse required power his ring was capable of providing. He was just glad that Moore didn’t know how much chance had been involved.

  “You could take it off if you feel bad about it,” Cora pointed out, leaning forward to look into his guilty face, and he shook his head.

  “I’m sorry. The best we can hope for is that we can solve this quickly and get Moore to the Magistrate as soon as possible. As soon as that’s done, I’ll remove it at once.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, Mr. Willis.”

  “Elton,” he said softly, giving her a warm smile. “And it’s a promise.”

  Cora felt a faint, unwelcome flush in her cheeks as she watched him. For someone who put curses on young women and threatened old men, he had a very nice smile. She forced herself to focus on the gold band on his left ring finger in an attempt to put a stop to any girlish feelings right away. Still, there was something charming about his serious nature. It made his smile seem rare and almost precious, which she realized was sentimental nonsense as soon as she thought it. It was a nice smile, though.

  He found the medical examiner’s office after a fair bit of driving around lost, since Cora had no idea where it was, and they both got out of the car and approached the entrance. Elton paused at the door as his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, but he didn’t have time to answer it. He reluctantly ignored his wife’s call and opened the door. If someone or something really could try to get to her, he needed to get all of this done as quickly as possible. They got Cora inside by claiming that she was an intern from the police station. It was a reasonable enough story, and Elton’s badge gave them credibility, so they were allowed into the morgue without much fuss.

  Cora picked at a vase of fake flowers on the desk while they waited for the medical examiner. Elton took Nathan’s surrendered bracelet from his pocket and turned it in his hand, touching each token in turn. He traced the worn carvings in the wood and stone with his thumb, his lips twitching into a frown as he realized that some of them were actually small chunks of bone. He chose not to wonder whether they were human or not. He didn’t recognize the markings. It wasn’t ogham; it was an odd-looking language made up of curved lines, hash marks, and small circles. A bracelet of groundings was a fairly common accessory for a practicing witch in the Western world, but Elton had never seen one without the Old Irish markings they taught in schools. He tried to commit some of the marks to memory, but he had to quickly hide the bracelet back in his pocket when a woman in a lab coat appeared and waved them back into the morgue.

  “When was this person killed?” he asked the examiner as she opened the refrigerator door and slid out the drawer.

  “It’s difficult to tell because of the condition he’s in, but my best estimate puts it at sometime between five and eight p.m.”

  Elton frowned down at the black bag in front of him. “Could we have a moment, please, doctor?” he asked, and the examiner nodded.

  “Wear gloves,” she said, and she left the morgue with the soft click of high heels in her wake.

  “What exactly are we doing here?” Cora asked quietly once the woman had left. She didn’t look at the steel drawer as Elton took a pair of latex gloves from a box and slipped them on. He unzipped the bag and pulled it away from the body, and she turned away completely.

  “Confirming information,” he answered. The body was shriveled and black, as expected, but something caught his eye. He leaned in close to inspect the blackened skin on the front of the neck, where a small mark had seemingly been burned into the flesh. It was a simple outline of what looked like some kind of a gourd with three feathers protruding from the top. Elton’s eyes narrowed, and he took his small notepad from his jacket pocket and sketched the mark onto an empty sheet. This wasn’t any remnant of the arcela airet that he’d ever heard of before. Perhaps that was why Moore always burned his bodies. “Cora, have you seen this symbol before?”

  “Ugh, do I have to?”

  “Please.”

  She turned her head with a sigh and peeked over her shoulder at the shrunken, skeletal body. “What symbol?”

  Elton urged her closer and touched under the dead man’s chin to give her a better look at the mark. “This. Have you seen it on any of Moore’s—of Nathan’s—things? Perhaps in his apartment, or since you left?”

  “What is that even?” She leaned closed to squint at the burn, flinching and moving away when she accidentally brushed her arm against the open bag. “No, I haven’t seen it.”

  “You’re absolutely sure?”

  “Yeah. What is this, anyway? What happened to this guy?”

  Elton sighed, zipped up the bags, and pushed the body back into its freezer. “I thought that Nathan happened to him,” he murmured as he stripped off his gloves and tossed them away. “This is exactly what his victims end up like. But he was at the bar with you last night, wasn’t he? There’s no way he could have done this.” He turned back to her. “When he used the arcela airet, were you there? Did you see it happen?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t even tell me what was happening until it was already done.”

  He swore under his breath and stared at the closed refrigerator door. “Then I have no idea what did this,” he admitted after a moment.

  A thought crossed his mind that made him frown, and he walked toward the door without waiting to see if Cora was following him. She trotted after him regardless and walked close behind him through the hallways and out the front door of the hospital. This time he barely waited for Cora to get in the car, and she was still buckling her seat belt as he pulled out of the parking lot.

  As they drove back through the sandy expanse just outside the town, Elton felt slightly sick to his stomach. He glanced out the window at the white emptiness as it became a carefully cultivated golf course, but there was nothing out of the ordinary—aside from a golf course in the middle of the desert. For a moment, he thought he had sensed something amiss, some remnant of black magic, but then it was gone. He frowned and returned his eyes to the road.

  At the police station, they found Nathan sitting quite happily in his cell, his hands folded in his lap underneath Elton’s spare jacket.

  “Find everything you needed?” he asked as the Chaser approached, but he received no answer. An officer opened the door and escorted the three of them to an interrogation room, where Elton shut and locked the door behind them. With a quick word from Elton, a heavy barrier formed around the walls of the room, visible only as a faint glimmer but blocking the sound of their conversation from reaching the officers clearly listening on the other side of the two-way mirror.

  “Tell me the truth,” Elton said as soon as they were protected from listening ears.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Nathan allowed Elton to push him into the steel chair by the table, but he only smiled up at him. “Was there a problem with the body? Maybe I should have a look at it.”

  “Who else is there?” Elton leaned on the table to give Nathan a hard stare while Cora lingered by the door, looking rather anxiously at the mirror.

  “You’re missing your good cop, Elton,” Nathan pointed out with a laugh. “Perhaps if I knew who you were asking about—”

  “You’ve taught someone else the arcela airet,” he snapped, “and I need to know who it is.”

  “You think there’s someone else out there capable of doing what I do, and I’m still traveling around with this one?” Nathan tilted his chin toward Cora with a scoff, but at her frown, he smiled at her and added, “No offense meant, my love; you’re amazing.”
>
  “This isn’t a game,” Elton scowled. “People are dying, and you aren’t giving me very much reason to believe that you aren’t responsible.”

  “Why should I care if you think I’m responsible or not? You’re already taking me in to be hanged. If you believe me, then let’s get to business, and if you don’t, then take me in and act surprised when the killings don’t stop. Or release me so that I can handle it myself. I want to see the body,” he pressed, bouncing a little in his chair. “Tell me what it looked like.”

  “It was all black and gross, like a mummy,” Cora offered, “with a weird mark on his neck.”

  Nathan stopped bouncing. “I knew it.” He looked up at Elton, a broad grin slowly forming on his face, and he got to his feet. “Elton, this is my lich. Oh, this has turned out so well—I haven’t had a game like this in ages. I could kiss you.” Elton scowled at him. “Come on,” Nathan begged, stepping around the table to lean an elbow on the Chaser’s shoulder and murmur into his ear. ”There’s an adventure unfolding right in front of your eyes, and you don’t want to see it. It’s going to keep killing people, you’re going to want to stop it because you’re a good boy, and I’m offering to add my considerable knowledge and magical faculties to your arsenal.”

  Elton frowned but didn’t move away, only turning his head to look skeptically into Nathan’s dark eyes. ”You think you’ll get leniency?”

  “I don’t want your leniency. If you think you can take me in honestly, then I want a good fight before I go. But if I help you deal with this creature, you release Cora and face me fair.”

  “What on Earth kind of a deal is that?” Elton scoffed, pushing Nathan’s arm off of his shoulder and dusting off his jacket. “This whole situation is your fault.”

  “Is it? You opened my box and broke my jar. Without you, I wouldn’t have killed the girl I did, either. None of this would be happening if you hadn’t been chasing me.”

  “You are not going to blame me for you being a murderer,” Elton said through gritted teeth.

  “Oh, the blame doesn’t matter,” Nathan sighed in exasperation. “Why would I lie to you? I’m in danger from this thing, and so are you. So is Cora. So is whoever you’re hoping it doesn’t catch back at home. Come on, Elton; do the smart thing. If nothing else, think of the accolades you’ll get when you go back to wherever you came from, having captured both me and a balrog.”

  “It’s not a—” Elton sighed and ran a hand through his hair, then took a quick breath and looked back at Nathan’s eager face. “Fine. Assume I believe you about the lich. We take care of it, and then we are getting on the next flight to Vancouver.”

  Nathan paused, and his shoulders slumped just a little. “You didn’t tell me we were going to Canada,” he complained. “You’re Canadian?”

  “I don’t see how that could possibly be relevant, or a problem,” Elton said.

  “No, it’s fine; it’s always been my dream to be hanged inside an igloo. Will a pack of beavers pick us up at the airport?”

  “Just go,” Elton snapped. “Get in the damn car, both of you. We’re putting a stop to this before it kills again.”

  9

  Nathan sat confined to the back seat of Elton’s car, huffing and sighing away his boredom while they drove around the suburb of Somerton searching for traces of black magic. Ramos had called Elton to tell him that two more bodies had been found there, so it seemed the best place to start looking. Cora got to ride shotgun, at least. Nathan was forced to sit with bound hands and an unreachable itchy back. Elton wouldn’t even let him smoke, but it had been worth the sacrifice to see the Chaser’s face as he reached into Nathan’s pocket to confiscate the pack.

  He pulled the car over to answer his buzzing phone and swore when he saw Robert’s name on the screen.

  “What’s going on, Elton?” his superior asked in place of a greeting. “I was expecting to hear from you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Something came up.”

  “Something more important than bringing in Nathaniel Moore? You said you were certain this time. Did you find him?”

  Elton glanced at Nathan through the rear view mirror and decided against telling his supervisor that he had allowed him to perform the arcela airet. That could be addressed later. “It’s complicated,” he said instead. “Moore is secure, but there’s a situation here that I’d like to help with before I come back.”

  “Elton, you can let the local Magistrate handle whatever’s going on in Arizona. If you really have Moore, you need to bring him in right away. Don’t take risks with him; I don’t want you ending up like the others.”

  “Sorry, Robert, you’re breaking up—this American connection, I can’t hear—I’ll be in contact,” he finished, and he ended the call before his superior could object. He felt the phone vibrate in his pocket when Robert called him back immediately, but he ignored it and puffed out a short sigh as he continued his scans of the neighborhood. He refused to look back at Nathan, and so didn’t see the satisfied smirk on the other man’s face.

  Eventually he parked the car near where the latest bodies had been found, turning his rubbed-smooth bit of willow in his fingertips and mumbling soft incantations. Cora watched him with some fascination, but he gently shushed her when she asked what spells he was using, so the three of them sat quietly while he searched the area.

  “There’s nothing to eat back here,” Nathan complained, breaking the silence, and Elton ignored him. “At least undo my hands,” he tried again. “I’m getting cramps.”

  “No.”

  “What if we actually find what we’re looking for? I’m useless this way.”

  “No.”

  Nathan heaved out a dramatic sigh. “I didn’t want it to come to this. Cora, offer Elton sexual favors if he’ll undo my hands.”

  “What?” Cora’s face went hot in the dim chill of the evening, and she instinctively moved to press against the car door, putting as much space between herself and Elton as possible. “What’s wrong with you? I’m not going to—why would you even—”

  “Ugh, useless apprentice,” Nathan groaned. “Fine, I’ll do it. I might be more his type, hm?” He leaned up to rest his bound hands on the back of Elton’s seat and put his chin near the other man’s shoulder. “How about it, Mr. Chaser? I haven’t been this young in a while; I need to make sure I’m in full working order.”

  “Married,” Elton muttered without turning around. His eyes were scanning the landscape. There had to be something left of whatever had done this.

  “I’ve rarely found that to be an inhibitor,” Nathan said, and Elton sighed through his nose. “Stubborn, you,” Nathan murmured. “Happily married, then? You have any kids?”

  “No,” Elton said.

  “Good. Kids are the worst.” Nathan shook his head. “I’m never having kids. Can you even imagine having a weakness like that? You’d love your kid more than anything else on the planet. You wouldn’t be able to help it. I never want kids. Bad enough I’ve taken Cora in—no offense, my love. I’d hate to think how easily you’d be able to twist me around your little finger if Cora was actually mine. Easiest thing in the world to exploit, someone’s kids.”

  Elton kept silent. He had read the reports. He knew that Nathan had no fewer than three confirmed children on record, all three of them with mundane women. Apparently Nathan didn’t.

  The most commonly broken law of the Concordat was the one Elton had spent most of his time enforcing back at home, and one that he suspected Nathan had broken more often than any other. One of the keys to secrecy, as far as the Magistrate was concerned, was maintaining a separate population from the mundanes. The other species had their own rules concerning the issue, but according to the Magisters, witches were not to enter into anything more than platonic relationships with mundanes. The talent for magic was hereditary, and unknown or unregistered children—like Cora—were a risk to obscurity.

  Elton hated dealing with those cases. Mundane mothers never
understood. They argued, and they fought, understandably. If they gave the children up willingly, sometimes they didn’t have to have their memories removed, but that was a rare occasion. Taking children from their fathers was no better. No matter what, the couple could never stay together. One half wouldn’t be allowed to remember, and the other half would receive the cuimne—a brutal punishment for what was most often a crime that couldn’t be helped.

  Luckily, only one of Nathan’s children had been sensitive to magic. The Magistrate had left the other children with their mothers, but the one with magical skill had to be taken away, of course, and her mother wiped of all knowledge of the child and her father. It had gone about as well as a memory spell could be expected, by Elton’s understanding—apparently the mother had only been left with a feeling of vague unease and a sense that she had lost something. He supposed it counted as a success. The child must have been fifty by now, if she was even still alive. She was probably better off without Nathan’s interference.

  “I suppose I’m lucky, then,” Elton said after a long pause. The willow in his hand grew cold, and he sat up straighter in his seat, his gaze following the pull of the spell. He swore when he caught sight of a shambling form in the middle of the pavement a block away. “Stay here,” he said firmly over his shoulder as he climbed out of the car.

  As soon as he shut the door behind him, Nathan and Cora exchanged a brief glance, and Nathan only had to shake his bound hands at her for half a moment before she was bent over the back of the seat to untie them.

  Elton approached the shuffling figure in the street, holding out his hands in a nonthreatening gesture. “Evening,” he called out, and the skeletal shape stopped to look at him. The creature had skin haphazardly clinging to its bones, with only a few muscles holding it together and a ragged blue blanket draped unevenly across its shoulders. “I’m with the Magistrate,” Elton went on as he took a few steps closer. “You know you can’t just be out in the street like this. Where have you come from? I’ll help you get back—”