The slightly chubby woman who answered the door must have barely been brushing five-foot-five. She wore a long, sleeveless maroon dress with lace along the neckline, and her dark, heavily grey-streaked hair was tied up in a tidy bun. She had to crane her neck a bit to look up into Elton's face, but she was smiling.
“Buenas noches. ¿Como puedo—” She stopped short as she glanced past Elton at his companion, and all the color drained from her face as her brown eyes grew large. She snatched up a walking stick from beside the door and snapped, “Tlepitzalo!” with more viciousness than Elton would have thought possible from the aging woman.
Nathan stumbled backward as a bright orange flame burst to life at the front of his shirt, immediately engulfing his upper half. He flailed for a moment and swore while the door to the house slammed shut once again, but then he managed to get out, “Mourir soti!” Black smoke made a miniature whirlwind around him, snuffing the flame, and he coughed out a bit more and put his hands on his knees to laugh.
“You think that was Señora Marquez?”
“Safe bet.”
“Think she singed my eyebrows,” he muttered, running a hand over his sooty face before reaching up to thump his fist against the door. “Señora,” he called, “Escúcheme! Estoy aquí para ayudarte!”
The woman's wrinkled, suspicious face appeared between the lace curtains in the front window, and she scowled up at the pair through the glass. “No ayudas a nadie,” she shouted back, muffled by the window.
“Señora,” Nathan tried again, “quiero hablar. Eso es todo. Lo prometo,” he added, making a crossing gesture over his heart with one finger and raising his hands in surrender.
She pursed her lips and glared up at both of them in turn with narrowed eyes, then jerked the curtains shut again. Nathan and Elton exchanged a shrugging glance, but as Nathan lifted his hand to knock again, the knob turned, and the woman stood in the doorway with her walking stick raised threateningly toward them. “Dos minutos,” she said, and she took a single step back to allow them inside.
Nathan put a hand to his heart to offer her a half bow of thanks on his way past and waited just inside for her to shut the door behind Elton. “Habla inglés, Señora Marquez?” He gestured toward Elton as though that was sufficient explanation.
“Of course I speak English,” she answered with a faint, rolling accent. “Now tell me what you want before I cook you both and feed you to my cats.”
“I take it you know who I am,” Nathan said, and the woman snorted at him.
“Oh, I remember you, all right. I saw enough of your face plastered on every flat surface at the Magistrate back in my day.”
“They never did get my good side,” he lamented.
Elton put a hand on Nathan's shoulder to brush him aside. “Ms. Marquez, we're here about the Order of Repression.”
Marquez narrowed her eyes at the blond and gripped her walking stick a little tighter. “Did you pay Mr. Lunsford this same call?”
“At his house, we didn't knock,” Nathan piped up.
“Mr. Lunsford was a mistake,” Elton cut in. “A misunderstanding. We're here to try to make up for it.”
“To make up for your murder?”
“It sounds worse when you say it like that,” Nathan sighed. “Señora—I’ve been told that you voted against this measure. Is that true?”
“Yes,” she answered with a quick jut of her chin.
“And do you have an idea of what can be done to put a stop to it?”
“I—” She hesitated for the first time under Nathan’s steady gaze, and her tightening fingers squeaked against the worn wood of her walking stick. “I will do whatever I can to end this madness,” she finally said. “And even if you kill me, someone will take my place! Someone will stop this!”
“Señora, you misunderstand me.” The woman had a subtle tremble in her skin even as Nathan took an amiable half-step forward and extended his hand to her. “I am at your service.”
Marquez stared up at him with her brown eyes drawn wide, not moving to accept his gesture. “But…you—”
“This is a one-time, exclusive offer, Señora Marquez. I want to stop this Order from destroying people’s lives. If that’s something that you also want, and you think that I can be of help—then I will be at your disposal.”
The councilwoman dropped her gaze to Nathan’s waiting hand and slowly reached out to take it, but she paused a scant inch from touching him as though she thought his grip may burn.
“An advocate such as you,” she murmured, and Nathan gently tutted at her with a dangerous smile on his face.
“A weapon, Señora,” he corrected. “If you have the stomach to use me.”
Marquez furrowed her brow, and a moment later, her hand closed around Nathan’s.
“Good choice,” he said, his demeanor instantly shifting as he offered her a friendly grin. “Could I get a cup of coffee? We’ve had rather a long day.”
The air in the room didn’t feel nearly as tense as Elton thought it probably should. He sat next to Nathaniel Moore at the round wooden table of a Magistrate Councilwoman, who placed a mug of hot black coffee in front of him before taking the place across from them with all the calm politeness of a grandmother with visiting children. Her hospitality had not, however, extended as far as offering Nathan anything to remove the remaining soot from his face with. Maybe it was to remind her who she was talking to.
“What sort of help are you offering, exactly?” she asked once she had settled. She warmed her thin hands on her mug but kept her walking stick leaned against the table beside her, easily within reach.
“Well I suspect you know what I’m good at,” Nathan chuckled into his own mug.
“I don’t take your crimes lightly, Moore,” she snapped. “I lost more than a few friends because of you.”
“You worked at the Magistrate?” Elton asked, hoping to change the tone of the conversation.
“I was a Chaser, when I was young,” she answered, still terse as her eyes cut to the blond. “Like you.”
Elton paused. “You know me?”
“Of course I know you. You helped to kill Lunsford, and a Magister’s son. You escaped from jail in Toronto. You murdered a man in Miami—a cruel death—and have been in the violent company of Nathaniel Moore ever since. I’ve had your file on my desk for three weeks, Elton Willis.”
“You see, darling? You’re getting a reputation already.”
“Maybe we should focus on what we came here for,” Elton answered firmly.
Nathan set down his mug and leaned his elbows on the table. “Here’s what I propose. You’re in a singular position to know who makes this Order go and what can be done to make it stop. So—tell me who stands in the way of the right people being promoted, and I remove them. Who are the candidates for the new place on the council, and how do we make certain that you’re named the new Chair?”
Marquez snorted. “Little chance of that. A woman hasn’t been Chair of the Council in three hundred years. It’s twice as unlikely without someone like Lunsford to voice his support. Morris is the likely choice.”
“Morris Gagnon?” Elton asked, and Marquez nodded.
Nathan looked down at his cup as he ran his fingertip along the rim. “And do we like Mr. Gagnon?”
“He’s a politician,” Marquez sneered. “He says and does whatever he thinks will make him look the best to the most people. If we turn the tide of the voice, he’ll turn with it. As for the candidates—” She paused to take her first sip of coffee. “It doesn’t look good.”
“Is there someone on the list that you do prefer?”
The woman considered. She looked between the two men with a frown adding more wrinkles to her brow. “If I tell you, does that mean that the others are in danger?”
“If you want them to be,” Nathan answered easily. “If you think there’s a better approach, I’m listening.”
“Is killing just your answer to everything?”
“I’m a v
ery specific sort of weapon, Señora. Do you plan to use me or not?”
Marquez chewed her bottom lip, refusing to turn her gaze from Nathan’s black eyes. “I can’t be connected to this,” she said after a long pause.
Nathan let out a laugh. “Who would believe it?”
She watched him for a minute more, and then she rose from her seat and carried her walking stick with her into the next room. When she returned, she placed a small piece of paper on the table and slid it across the surface to him. It looked like a resume, with a photo of a man in the top left corner and a long and impressive-looking curriculum vitae below.
“This man,” she said, “must not be allowed to be made a member of the Council. If he were—no longer an option, let’s say, then the next candidate on the table would make the short list. And that person, I believe, could be made to see reason.”
“Well then.” Nathan picked up the paper and skimmed it on the way to passing it to Elton, who tucked it safely into his breast pocket. “Sounds like our path is laid before us, darling.” He took another drink of his coffee and pushed back from the table as he set it down. “Give the Councilwoman my cell phone number, and let’s be on our way. I’ll be outside—dying for a fucking smoke.”
In the wake of his exit, Elton gave a sigh and picked a pen from his pocket to write down the number as he was told.
“Is he always this way?” Marquez asked. “This is Nathaniel Moore?”
“Believe me; I said the same thing.”
By the time they made it outside, Nathan was already halfway through his cigarette. He was polite enough to hold it out of the way behind him while he wished Marquez well and took her hand.
“I’ll expect your call, Señora, when you decide the next step.”
He gave her a quick salute and tugged Elton gently by the sleeve, and the Councilwoman watched from her doorstep as the North American magistrate’s two most wanted men walked freely from her home with killing on their mind—and at her command.
5
Cora wasn't sure how long Thomas's house had been abandoned, precisely, but the place was a disaster. She spent the first night coughing up dust every time she shifted on the mattress in the room she'd chosen, even after she'd tried to clean it up. The first order of business the next morning had been to make her way into town and get some real food. They would need groceries if they were going to be staying here a while. There was no car on the property now that Nathan and Elton had left, but she'd been able to find a bicycle leaning up against the wall in the woodshed that took only a bit of air in the tires and some oiling before the wheels began to turn smoothly. After cleaning the grease from her hands, she'd knocked on Thomas's door to ask if he wanted anything in particular and received only silence in response.
It was going to be fun staying here.
She strapped her canvas purse across her chest and pedaled toward town while her phone gave her directions from its pocket, her lungs burning more than a little by the time she reached the grocery store. Being on the lam with Nathan hadn't been good for her jogging routine. She managed to fit most of her purchased cleaning supplies and food into the bike's basket and balanced the rest of the bags on the handlebars, but the trip back uphill toward Thomas's house involved half a dozen stops to catch her breath. There were definite upsides to Nathan being around to steal cars for them.
She arrived at the house with her shirt stuck firmly to her back by sweat despite the chill in the air outside, and she unloaded her bags in a pile just inside the front door and dropped herself beside them to huff. The house was silent; Cora leaned forward to peer up the stairs and paused to listen, but there was nothing. Pursing her lips in thought as though it would help her hear better, she waited another few seconds before calling, “Thomas?”
Again, she got no answer. Was he dead?
Cora dragged the bags of food into the colonial-looking kitchen and put all of the dry goods away on the open shelves. She searched for a refrigerator and found in the only likely spot a tall drawer that looked like it used to hold some kind of grain, but now was mostly dried, flaky mold. She took a moment to frown at it in disappointment and then stalked over to the foot of the stairs.
“Thomas!” she shouted, and she waited with her hands on her hips.
A sharp snap across the room made her jump, and she spun to face the sound. Thomas emerged from a cellar door she hadn't even known was there, and as soon as he let it drop shut, the seam in the floor vanished again, leaving smooth wood with no trace of a handle or a door at all. Cora moved by him to take a closer look, but even when she crouched to run her fingertips across the floor, she could detect no trace of the entrance.
“I didn't know this place had a basement.”
“As far as you're concerned, it doesn't,” Thomas answered flatly, already heading for the stairs.
“Hey! I was trying to talk to you!” Cora rose to follow him, and he paused to look over his shoulder at her. “Does this place not have a fridge?”
“No.”
“How is that possible? People lived here in this century, right?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Well I bought groceries so we don't starve to death. So what do I do with the stuff that needs to keep cold?”
Thomas glanced past her toward the back door and gave a small tilt of his chin. “Put it in the root cellar. Or the spring house.”
“The what or the what?”
The man exhaled a sigh through his nose, gestured to the door, and led her through the overgrown backyard until they had almost reached the surrounding woods. There, stuck into the side of a small hill, was a stack of flat stones arranged to form an opening into the ground. Cora leaned forward on tiptoe to peer into the dark entrance, and if she squinted, she could just see an old wooden door with iron hinges waiting at the bottom of the rough stone steps. She turned back to Thomas with uncertainty written on her cringing face.
“That's where you expect me to put the food?”
“It's a root cellar. It's cold enough.”
“It's a murder hole, Thomas. This is a place you put bodies.”
“Also vegetables,” he shrugged.
“You're serious with this?” She waved back at the cavelike entrance in disbelief, attempting to encompass the entire situation in her “this.”
“If you don't want to use it, don't buy things that need to be refrigerated.” He turned away from her to point down the hill, drawing her gaze to a bit of wooden roof visible jutting out of the ground below. “The spring house is down there. It's cool enough for most things this time of year, and there's fresh water.”
“Fresh—” Cora stared at him. “But the house has running water, right?”
Thomas stared right back at her without expression. “There are toilets inside.”
“Well for all I know I have to come out here to fill the tank back up or whatever!”
“No,” he sighed. “The house is on a private well. It draws power from the city, but that's as on-grid as it gets here. And if you go looking for a real stove, you're going to be disappointed. I'll see about having some wood brought up from town so we can get a fire in the hearth and do some cooking.”
“Jesus Christ,” Cora laughed. “I didn't know I was signing up for the colonial experience.”
“I'm sure Moore would be happy to get you a flight out to wherever he is.” Without waiting for a response, Thomas turned and made his way back to the house, leaving Cora standing next to the closest murder-hole she had to a fridge. Her brow furrowed as she watched him close the door behind him without looking back. Had she made a mistake by staying here? Thomas clearly didn't want her around. How could she help him if he was just going to shut himself in a secret basement and not even talk to her?
With a snorting huff, she stomped back up to the house and snatched up her bags of food and a sad-looking straw broom from the corner of the kitchen, then walked with arms full back down to the cave-fridge. It was actually pretty cool inside, she
had to admit. She tucked her shirt up around her nose and grumpily swept as much of the dust and dirt as she could from the shelves and stone floor, only stopping a few times to cough. When the room was as clean as it was going to get, she piled the vegetables at the very back of the gloomy little cavern and stood back to admire her work. It wasn't Thomas's decision whether she helped or not.
Cora spent the next few hours cleaning the house from top to bottom—she scrubbed windows, dusted shelves, and swept floors, eventually bringing the aging two-story house up to at least a reasonable standard of living. She didn't spot Thomas once during the whole endeavor, and when she knocked on his bedroom door even after saving it for last, she received no answer.
“Well just sleep in all that dust then,” she griped at the door, hoping she was loud enough for the recluse inside to hear. She stomped heavily back down the stairs and made her way to the kitchen, where—after much heaving and swearing and complaining—she was able to get a cleaned-out iron cauldron lifted onto the metal hook at the back of the large brick hearth. It wasn't much good without firewood, but she made do with a hunk of labradorite from her kit that she was able to keep alight by magic as long as she didn't get too distracted. She was a decent cook with a real stove, as her mother had passed on the burden of cooking dinner almost as soon as Cora could reach the stove, but she didn't actually know anything about cooking in a cauldron. She'd bought normal groceries at the store—like rice, cereal, canned soups, some ramen—little that lent itself to hearth-cooking. She definitely hadn't trusted the chicken she bought to keep fresh in the murder cellar, so she cut it up the best she could with the somewhat dull knife she found in a sticky drawer and tossed it into the pot. It cooked faster in the iron cauldron than she could prepare the few vegetables she had, and soon thin wisps of smoke had become a cloud filling the space between the wooden ceiling beams.
Thomas appeared with a scowl on his lips while she was attempting to fan the smoke out an open window with a baking sheet.
The Left-Hand Path Page 4