The Left-Hand Path

by Barnett, T. S.

  “Fuck you,” the man on the ground said through a tight jaw, and Nathan softly sucked his teeth at him.

  “Wrong. Frakti.”

  The man’s arm made a wet crunch, and he screamed as the bones in his forearm gave way, his wrist going slack without their support. Nathan bent toward him and lifted the other man’s useless hand, sliding the silver ring free and turning it pensively in his palm with one fingertip.

  “Try again.”

  Elton’s gaze snapped to the smoking truck when movement caught his eye. He plucked a talisman from the folio in his pocket and released it, sending it to snake along the ground and underneath the truck’s cabin. In another moment, a second scream sounded from the other side of the wreck. He left Nathan to his hostage and walked around the front of the truck to find the driver on the ground, clutching at the tattered and bloody skin of his legs where the paper had sliced through the tendons at his heels. He looked up at Elton with panic in his eyes and struggled to lift a shaking hand up to him, but before he could get a word out, Elton gave a soft snort, and the talisman coiled over the man’s skin and sliced through the bones of his hand, leaving bloodied fingers in the dusty red mud by the side of the road. The metal of his fallen ring glinted weakly under the wet grime, and Elton knocked the bleeding digits away with the toe of one shoe.

  “You’re really going to prefer answering my questions to the alternative,” Elton promised him.

  “You’ll kill me anyway,” the driver spat, taking shallow breaths as he clutched his fingerless hand to his chest.

  “Yes.” A strangled cry came from where Nathan stood out of sight, and Elton lifted a hand toward the sound to illustrate his point. “But I’ll kill you quickly.”

  The man glared up at the blond for a few breaths, then let out a sigh that turned into a pained cough. “All I know is that we make the deliveries every week from Sacramento.”

  “Delivering what?”

  “Whatever they need, I guess—rations, water. We pick up the stuff they ship out and bring it back.”

  “Nothing else?”

  He scowled. “I don’t bring the people, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Who does?”

  “Someone who’s paid more than me.”

  “How many of these camps are there? How many people?”

  “Shit,” the man scoffed, wincing as the torn muscles in his legs shifted with the effort. “I don’t know. Six, maybe? I heard they’re building one up in Canada somewhere—stick the really bad ones up in the snow to freeze to death.”

  “Where are they? These six?”

  The man grimaced through a pulse of pain before answering. “They don’t send out newsletters,” he ground out. “I think there’s one near the Mexican border. There’s one down in Colorado. I think I heard Georgia once, maybe?”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know!” he snapped. “Fuck, just—kill me already.” He was becoming quite pale, now—a great majority of his blood had drained into the dust, and his eyelids drooped. This man was just a driver. If they wanted better information, they were going to have to find someone higher up to ask.

  Elton tilted his head, and the bloody talisman wrapped around the man’s hand shot upward, opening a wide slit in his throat that poured the remainder of his blood down the front of his shirt. He let out a last gurgle that spattered his lips with red and sank back against the side of the truck, his body going slack as Elton walked away.

  Nathan’s captive didn’t seem to have any bones left intact, but he still had the strength to sob. Nathan looked up at the blond as he approached and spread a hand toward the broken human at his feet, not seeming bothered by the spots of blood that had made it to his shirt.

  “My friend here says he knows where we might find a sympathetic Chaser ear. There may be one or two left who don’t deserve to be slit open.”

  Elton frowned at the man on the ground, his body twitching as his injuries overwhelmed him and reduced his breath to shallow gasps.

  “Finish it, if you have what you need,” he said.

  “I do.” Nathan bent down with his hands on his knees to look into the man’s empty eyes. “Thank you ever so much for your help. Wouldn’t it have been easier to do this to start with?”

  His victim only bubbled blood from his lips in response, so Nathan sighed and made a twirling gesture with one finger as he rose, turning the man’s head along with it and causing one more thick crack of bones. He flexed his fingers and cracked the joints with his other hand as he walked beside Elton back to their waiting truck.

  “Not a wasted day after all,” he mused, and Elton hummed his soft agreement before climbing into the driver’s seat.

  19

  Cora couldn’t fall asleep again after talking to Elton. She hadn’t been able to see much inside the camp she’d found, but even if she hadn’t known what she was looking at, the overwhelming sense of hopelessness that had flooded her would have been enough on its own to keep her awake. Internment camps. Even the phrase turned her stomach. Some of the members of the council were probably old enough to remember the last time people were thrown into camps—didn’t they know better? She just hoped there was actually something Nathan and Elton would be able to do about it.

  She made her way downstairs on bare feet and moved toward the study, hoping some dry reading would put her to sleep. She scratched at the side of her head and tried to smooth her hair down to no avail. The side she’d shaved months ago had since begin to grow out, and it was at such an awkward length that she was considering cutting the rest of it to match. Maybe she could go into town to have it cut properly. She stopped at the entry to the study, but when she put her hand on the door knob, she heard the creaking of the chair inside and knew she’d be intruding. Thomas never slept as much as she thought he should—it wasn’t unusual for her to go to the bathroom in the dead of night and still see the light coming from under the study door. She retreated a step, ready to stare at the ceiling in her room instead, but stopped when she heard Thomas’s voice call her name from the other side of the door. She turned the knob and let herself inside, finding Thomas in his usual place in the armchair with a book open on his knee.

  “I thought you were asleep,” he said, looking up at her and keeping his place in the book with one finger as he closed it. “I wrapped up the dough you were making, but I don’t know if it should be out this long.”

  “Damn, I forgot,” she sighed. She dropped down onto the little loveseat near his chair. “I fell asleep because Elton called and asked me to find something. He said the Magistrate is keeping people in camps now.”

  Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of camps?”

  “The bad kind. I saw it. It looked...well, about like you’d expect a secret government prison camp to look, I guess. I told Elton where to find it, and he said they’d check it out, but...I can’t exactly just snuggle up back in bed now.”

  Thomas looked down at the book in his lap, his thumb pensively brushing the leather cover. He didn’t speak for a long time, so Cora shifted awkwardly on the cushion and leaned forward as if to leave, but the movement seemed to startle him back to the present.

  “You don’t have to go,” he said, and she paused. “I wasn’t sleeping regardless.”

  “What a strange and new experience for you,” she teased, catching the hint of a smile that passed over his lips.

  “Well, at least I’ll be able to show you the ropes. This is called ‘insomnia.’”

  “It’s not punishment for breaking one of the demon rules, is it? You said I didn’t have to pray anymore! Should I have been praying?”

  “You mean you haven’t been? You’ll have to move out.”

  “Damn; I knew there was a catch! Here I was thinking I could pay my way with baking bread and changing sheets forever.”

  “Oh no—you’ll still need to send me the bread. You just can’t live here.”

  “I’ll just leave it wrapped in a little plaid towel in a b
asket on your doorstep every morning?”

  “Preferably, yes. Ring the bell so I’ll know to come get it while it’s warm, but make sure you’re gone before I open the door so I don’t have to look at you.”

  She laughed, hiding her soft snort with the back of her hand, and she looked up to see him smiling at her. Just a little—not a real smile, like a normal person might have, but a kind of Thomas smile, that was faint but sometimes managed to touch his eyes. Her heart thumped uncomfortably in her chest, and she swallowed it down quickly. On a growing number of occasions, she’d found herself in an easy, friendly conversation with her strange housemate, trading teasing barbs or honest concerns, and on a smaller number of occasions—like this one—she had wondered if they’d actually been flirting, or if she was imagining it. She couldn’t deny that she’d caught herself flirting with him, and she didn’t even try anymore to convince herself that she wasn’t nurturing an odd little crush on him despite Elton’s repeated texts reminding her that pursuing anything but friendship with Thomas Proctor was ill-advised at best. He didn’t even really recommend friendship. She could be happy enjoying a crush on someone whose company she enjoyed—but he did sometimes make it difficult to decide if he could see through her or not. Maybe, if she pushed just a little harder?

  “Well, at least if I was staying in town I’d be able to let off some steam,” she sighed dramatically. “It’s tough being locked up in this house except for grocery runs for three whole months.”

  Thomas’s eyebrows knit faintly. “We haven’t heard from the Chasers since that one showed up here,” he said. “You could leave if you wanted to, as long as you were smart. Is there something you’d like to do in town?”

  “No, you know, like...let off some steam? All I’ve got is my own two hands here, and it’s weird knowing that you’re probably not asleep at, like, any reasonable hour, ever.”

  “What do your hands have—” He stopped short and stared pointedly down at his book, but Cora could see the flush in his cheeks. “Well, if you’re...unoccupied—I mean—” He shut his eyes tightly for just long enough for her to hide her grimace of restrained laughter. “I mean, if you...if there are things you need to do, you’re not a prisoner here.”

  “Don’t you ever...let off steam?”

  “That is one of the rules,” he answered without raising his eyes to her. “You know that.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like you’ve been constantly demon-ing your whole life, or even this whole three months.”

  A soft, dry scoff escaped him. “Three months isn’t long.”

  Cora paused, and she squinted at him as she edged closer, leaning her weight on her hands at the edge of the loveseat cushion. “How long is a long time, then?”

  “Cora—”

  “Come on. I’m not going to make fun of you,” she promised. “Six months?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “A year?”

  Thomas sighed, frowning at her without answering, so she inched her face a hint closer to peer at him more directly.

  “Two years?”

  He pressed his lips together for a moment, then exhaled softly through his nose as if in resignation. “Ten.”

  She stared at him. “Ten...what...?”

  “Ten years.”

  “Ten years?!” she echoed, so loudly that he leaned back deeper in his seat to put more distance between them. “Jesus Christ, Thomas! No wonder you’re such a surly asshole!”

  “I thought you weren’t going to make fun,” he reminded her, and she lifted her hands in apology, laughing as she fell against the back of the loveseat.

  “I didn’t know you were going to say you haven’t been laid in ten years!”

  “It’s part of the agreement not to...deal in impure things prior to rituals. Since I made my arrangement, it’s just been easier to...not.”

  “And your girl didn’t complain about that?” Cora asked, and Thomas’s dark blue eyes cut sharply over to her.

  “She was dead,” he said flatly. “So, no.”

  Cora’s soul crumpled inside of her like a plastic bag. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine,” he said, and she almost believed him. She’d seen him on his own through the open door of the study or standing in the kitchen, his fingers idly working the silver and emerald engagement ring he still wore around his neck. He’d even mentioned Claire’s name once or twice in passing during their conversations, so Cora hadn’t imagined the subject of the woman to be completely off limits—but she couldn’t have picked a more awkward way to test it.

  “I’ll...see you in the morning, I guess,” Cora said, pushing to her feet and heading for the door with quick steps.

  She heard the creaking springs as Thomas rose from his chair. “Cora,” he said, hesitating when she actually paused and looked back at him. “It really is fine. Just...hard to talk about.”

  “I get it,” she assured him. “I wasn’t trying to pry. I’ll leave your bread on the doorstep,” she added with a faint smile, imagining she could see a touch of relief on his face as she retreated back up the stairs to her bedroom.

  ***

  Though it took Cora a long while to fall asleep with her brain keeping the last awkward minute of her conversation with Thomas on endless, painful loop, she did manage to get some rest. She wasn’t able to salvage her forgotten bread dough, though, so she had to start over when she got to the kitchen in the morning. She was rescued from Thomas’s uncomfortable entrance shortly after by a phone call from Nathan. She put the call on speakerphone while he explained what they’d found out, her heart sinking into her gut the more detail he gave.

  “And that isn’t the only one?” she asked when he’d finished. “You said there are six?”

  “We think so,” Elton’s voice answered. Both ends of the call must have been on speaker. “But we don’t know exactly where all of them are. We have contact information on a Chaser who may be willing to help.”

  “A Chaser?” Thomas repeated. “You’re sure you want to risk it?”

  “We don’t have a better lead right now.”

  Cora sighed and leaned her elbows on the table to put her head in her hands. “But even if we know where all these camps are, what are we supposed to do about it? You said there were more than a thousand people just at the one you went to! It’s not even like we can just tell the cops or something when it’s the cops that are doing it!”

  Thomas’s gaze was focused on the table, his fingers curled against the wood as he listened. “I may be able to help,” he said so softly Cora almost didn’t hear him. When she questioned him, he swallowed as though unsure he should repeat himself. “I might be able to do something,” he said more clearly. “But I’ll need to do some reading first. I’m not sure it would work.”

  “Not sure what would work?” Nathan questioned over the phone line.

  “I don’t want to say until I know more,” Thomas answered. He stood from the table and hesitated. “I need some time.”

  As he left, Cora heard Nathan sighing on the other end of the call. “Well that’s helpful,” he said. “We’ll look into this Chaser, then, while Mr. Proctor does his studying. How are you, my love? Well rested and content otherwise?”

  “I guess so. You haven’t sent us anyone in a week or two—is everything okay out there?”

  “We picked off one of Elton’s villains in Portland. That took a bit of doing.”

  “So everything’s fine, just busy murdering?”

  “You know I’m living life to the fullest, my love.”

  “Yeah, I bet you are.” She paused and mushed her cheek with the ball of her hand as she leaned on it. “I miss you guys.”

  “I miss you, too. Though Elton is a beauty in his own way, it’s not quite the same as waking up to your smiling face. Your exuberance is sorely missed in the shadow of Elton’s constant pessimism.”

  “I’m sure Elton has some things to say about rooming with y
ou, too.” She smiled down at Nathan’s picture on her phone, taken from the back seat of whatever stolen car they’d happened to be in at the time, that teasing grin on his face as he hung one arm out the passenger side window. “I’m going to see if I can help Thomas. You guys be safe, okay? Let us know what happens with the Chaser.”

  “Of course. Take care, my love.”

  “Bye Elton!” she called a little louder, and she heard his more distant goodbye before Nathan ended the call.

  Leaving her bread on the oven shelf to bake, she wiped her hands and searched upstairs for Thomas. She knocked on his bedroom door and found him cross-legged on the floor next to his bookcase. She stepped inside when he invited her and sat down beside him, scooting a bit closer to see the open book in his lap. The lettering was in Latin, the words making room for a round sigil similar to the kind she’d seen on the pendant she’d worn during the ritual, and at the top of the page, a sketch had been drawn in ink in the shape of a man with two sets of horns growing from his head, the thick body of a snake wrapped around his body from his extended arm all the way to the ground. The eyes were little more than rough smudges of black, but they gave her a chill anyway.

  “What is it you think you can do?” she asked. “That’s so many people—and I’m sure Nathan already suggested just setting them all on fire or something.”

  “The Magistrate’s most effective weapon is secrecy,” he said. “Everyone is afraid because no one knows what’s happening. They don’t know how to stop it, or how to even protest, because they don’t know what to protest. There’s only suspicion. There’s no one to blame yet. And killing Chasers isn’t going to help that.”

  “So, let the secret out? But how can we? You’ve told everyone you know about the Order, and I’m sure Nathan and Elton have been spreading the word, too.”

  “We can’t rely on word of mouth. This Magistrate governs all of North America—that’s too wide an area to simply hope news gets around. But if we could make this known, these camps—” He frowned down at his book and gingerly touched the ink symbol. “If everyone were to be released at once, returned home...thousands of people, living proof of the Magistrate’s corruption—”