“Hold on. Release them?” She glanced from the page to his face with confusion furrowing her brow. “But with so many...”
“I...think I could do it. Well,” he said with a small half shrug, “I think I could get a demon to do it. It’s a technicality, but...” He shifted the book slightly on his knee so that she could see it better. “Andromalius.” He pointed to the words beside the drawn sigil and traced them with his finger as he read. “His Office is to bring back both a Thief, and the Goods which be stolen. The word they use for ‘goods’ here...it’s ambiguous enough that I may be able to convince the demon that it covers stolen people, too.”
Cora let out a soft exhale of disbelief. “And just...bring them back to where they were taken from?”
“I’m hoping. But this work isn’t going to be free.”
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t the demon that I normally work with. And since I’ve already made an arrangement with that one, I don’t really have anything to offer this spirit.”
“Because they want souls?”
Thomas nodded. “I’d have to...give him someone else.”
Cora chewed her bottom lip. “Is that...a thing you can do? I mean, if it’s a matter of saving so many people, and stopping this crazy Order, is it something that...that I can—”
“No,” he said instantly, a little too loud, his hand frozen over hers as though he’d meant to touch it and stopped at the last moment. He seemed to catch himself with his face too close to her wide, startled eyes, and he straightened and put both hands purposely on the edges of his book. “No,” he said again. “This isn’t—you can’t. You know what you’d be giving up. What you’d be promising. No one else should ever do what I’ve done.”
“Okay,” she agreed softly, her gaze falling to the hand on her knee that he’d come to close to touching and her fingers curling against the fabric of her jeans. “Then what can we do?”
Thomas let out a slow sigh through his nose. “I can...use someone else. Not for the demon to make a deal with, but...as an offering.”
She frowned. “You mean a sacrifice.”
“More practically, yes.”
“A human sacrifice.”
“I’ve never done it before.” He flattened his hand over the worn page. “But the instructions are here. I could do it.”
Cora wet her lips and tucked them between her teeth for a few seconds before speaking again. “Thomas, that’s...”
“Elton has been killing people in droves for months,” he said quietly. “He could send one of them here, instead.”
“But you’re not a killer.”
He seemed to flinch from the words, eyes narrowing momentarily, but he kept his attention on his book. “I am whatever I need to be.”
“I don’t know. There has to be some other way.”
“Does there?” He looked up at her. “What if there isn’t? I can perform this ritual—I have the things I need, save an offering. If the demon agrees, then I can put an end to all of this at once.”
“Even freeing all these people won’t just stop the Magistrate, Thomas.”
“But if these thousands of people reappear with their loved ones, with stories of their treatment, telling what’s really happening? That’s something that people can rebel against. That’s something they can protest. It’s something they can fight.”
She hesitated, watching his eyes. She wasn’t convinced, but he looked at her with such conviction that she couldn’t find it in her to argue with him. “I guess...if you’re willing to do it, then I’ll help you how I can.”
“I won’t ask you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with, Cora. But...I appreciate it.”
Cora offered him a faint smile, then leaned a little closer to look down at his book in an effort to change the subject. “So I meant to ask...when I was in the cellar, you told me not to look past that disc.”
“Yes.”
“Do you look?”
“Yes,” he answered more reluctantly. “But I’m used to it.”
“These books have pictures, don’t they? Of the demons? Can I see yours?”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘mine,’ precisely,” he said, but he turned the pages until he reached the one he wanted. Flattening it open with one palm, he turned it so that she could see and leaned his weight onto his hand on the floor, so close now that their shoulders almost touched. She recognized the sigil from the copper pendant, but her eyes were drawn to the sketch above—a man with a broad mouth filled with sharp teeth, the reins of a pale, thin horse in his hand and the head of a long snake extending from beneath his robe like a hissing tail. His skin was all filled in with black, and the eyes had been scratched in red.
“This is Bathin,” Thomas said, and Cora frowned down at the drawing for a moment before turning to look into his face.
“Does it really look like that?”
“More or less. In person it’s...a little hard to pin down. Demons are difficult to look at—I’m sure you felt the sickness they cause inside without even being in line of sight. I try not to stare.”
“How did you...decide, I guess? On this one?”
“I didn’t decide.” Thomas’s fingers moved on the page, skirting the image of the demon as though he didn’t quite dare to touch it. “It decided on me. Long ago. When I was born, probably.”
“What? Why?”
He took a slow breath, swallowing before answering. “My family. As far as I know, they’ve always done this. Generation after generation. The spirit claims us when we’re young, and then when we come of age, we make our agreement. We’re not a very long-lived family, as you can guess.”
“That’s crazy,” Cora breathed. “But you said it’s awful! Why would so many people do it?”
“Tradition,” he shrugged. “Pressure from the ones older than you. And...some measure of inevitability.”
“Inevitability? Why?”
Thomas hesitated. “Even when I was a kid, from about eight or nine, my father would take me into the chamber with him. I prayed, I washed, and I watched. The demon that claimed my father—I can show you the picture, but I promise you the reality is worse. It had the paws of a grey wolf, with the head of a great black bird and a beak filled with teeth like a dog’s. It spit fire and had a snake for a back end, and its voice...I’ll never get that sound out of my head. Like when a log breaks and falls in a fireplace. It scared me. I told myself I wouldn’t ever do what my father had done. But...as I got older, I started to have dreams, and then I would hear voices when I was alone. My father said it was the same with him. The demon was calling to me. And once I was an adult, and I’d seen what the Magistrate was capable of...the kind of magic the demon offered was hard to refuse.”
“That’s an old story, I guess,” Cora said. “I wouldn’t have pinned you as the kind of guy who was swayed by power, though. Nathan I get selling his soul to some creepy spirit, but you’re less high maintenance than he is.”
“Some things need a lot of power,” he murmured. He looked up at her and seemed to realize how close he was, quickly sitting up straighter and snapping the book shut. “I’ll do some more reading. Make sure I know all the steps.”
“You know Elton isn’t going to like this plan,” Cora said, and Thomas scoffed.
“Elton can—” He stopped, tapping his lips with one finger as though shushing himself, and he shook his head with a wry smile. “Elton can have whatever opinion he likes,” he said instead of the swear he was about to let slip.
Cora snorted. “I’m going to check on that bread,” she said, and she used Thomas’s shoulder to help push herself to her feet, not realizing the tension the simple gesture caused in him until she was already standing. “Sorry,” she said quickly, pulling her hand to her chest as though it had misbehaved.
He shook his head and focused on replacing his book on the shelf. “I won’t bite you,” he said softly.
The quiet reassurance brought a smile to her lips that she kept
to herself as she shut the door to his room and slipped back downstairs.
20
The Chaser that Nathan’s unfortunate victim had directed them to was in Sacramento, so they started the drive south soon after recovering their hidden RV. Nathan took a nap on one of the beds in the back, which would have been a welcome quiet for Elton if he hadn’t known for certain it would lead to the other man bothering him late into the night when he then couldn’t sleep. So he kept the windows open, turned up the radio, and banged the cabinet doors when he stopped for gas, eventually drawing Nathan squinting from the back room like some sort of cave-dwelling animal.
“Are we there yet?” he asked in a yawn as he dropped into the front seat, slouching while Elton pulled away from the gas station.
“Not yet. Do you know where we’re going beyond ‘Sacramento?’”
“Of course I do.” Nathan spread his hands as if framing a marquee on the windshield. “Magistrate Station #3, Sacramento.”
“Great. Just put that into the GPS.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, darling; I keep telling you.” Nathan propped his feet up on the dash and sighed. “How much longer?”
“Why don’t you go read a book?”
“I’ve finished mine, and I hate yours. I got two chapters in and tossed it out the window, I was so bored.”
“You tossed—I wasn’t done with it!” Elton glared across the cabin at him, but he only shrugged.
“I did you a favor; I skipped to the end to read the last page, and it was that policeman’s sister the whole time.”
Elton returned his attention to the road with a long, weary sigh. “You are just the worst sort of person.”
“How many Magistrate stations do you think are in Sacramento? More than three?”
Elton didn’t answer him.
***
Without any friends in Sacramento to ask or any directions to the station, their only choice was to park the RV and search on foot. They left their wheeled home behind in a public parking lot and made their way toward the Capitol Mall at Elton’s suggestion. He had taken one of the spare Chaser rings Nathan kept in his kit as trophies, but he wasn’t willing to put it on his hand; he only kept one hand in his pocket and felt the metal warming against his skin.
“We’re looking for the witch government, darling,” Nathan said in a breath of smoke as they walked the sidewalk toward the roundabout park just in front of the capitol building. “Did you hurt your head when you hit it on the roof the other night?”
Elton spared him a sidelong glare as they crossed the street. “I wouldn’t have hit my head if I hadn’t woken up with you trying to get under my blanket.”
“Oregon is cold.”
“So you tuck the blanket under your feet like I told you—if you make a pocket, the warm air stays in, and—”
“I’m just not built for this sort of climate,” Nathan interrupted with a dramatic sigh, flicking the ash from his cigarette.
Elton bit the inside of his cheek and walked a little faster. When they reached the columned building adorned with statues of spear-bearing horsemen at each corner and gables filled with carved chiton-wearing women, Elton slowed his pace, letting Nathan trail behind him while he scanned the front of the building and craned his neck to peer around the edges of the steps.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Nathan called. “Are you hoping to find a map?”
“Yes,” Elton answered. He paused when he caught sight of a faint glint of blue at the side of one of the dark stone structures surrounding the trees on either side of the building’s entrance. He walked toward it without looking back to see if Nathan was following him or not, and once he reached the flat, shimmering surface of the stone, he touched it with his fingertips and sparked it to life. The light condensed and focused into pale blue lettering, contrasting the dark structure behind it.
North American Magistrate
Capitol Hill Station
2.5 miles East
“What’s this?” Nathan asked, waving his hand in the direction of the misty letters.
“How are you so old and there are still such basic things you don’t know? How do you think people find the Magistrate when they need it? Just about everywhere has one of these on mundane official buildings. They’re hidden from the mundanes, but witches can find them if they’re looking.”
“Well in my defense, I do normally try to avoid the Magistrate, rather than look for it,” Nathan chuckled.
Elton took the ring from his pocket and slipped it onto his right hand, then reached out to touch his knuckles to the floating phrase, scattering the light into particles again.
“Sluindid.”
The glimmer shifted back together into a longer list, with actual street addresses and telephone numbers for each numbered station.
“Aha,” Nathan said. “You do still have some Chaser magic in you, hm?”
“I do if it helps us find this person.” Elton scanned the list, then picked his phone from his pocket and put the address he needed into his map while Nathan took a quick photo. He dispersed the illuminated list with a touch of his hand and took the ring from his hand to put it away. “Come on. It isn’t far.”
He led the way along the route his phone gave him, glancing from street signs down to the screen at every intersection until he spotted the telltale starkness of a concrete building ahead of them.
“That looks about right,” Nathan said. “Shall I go in and ask around?”
“You really shall not. Who is it we’re looking for, anyway?”
“He said her name was Maya Reyes. Why? Are you going in to ask around?”
Elton frowned at him and turned to look back at the building. There would be no using glamours to get them inside—most Magistrate stations had barriers to prevent illusions as soon as you walked in the door. And without knowing what Reyes looked like, they couldn’t just wait around and hope to spot her leaving.
“We’ll need to—” he began, but he paused when he saw Nathan with his phone to his ear, lifting one finger to shush the blond.
“Yes, hello,” Nathan said cheerfully, “I’m looking for Maya Reyes. Do you know if she’s in? Oh, I’m a personal friend. We were supposed to meet for dinner, and I haven’t heard from her.” He paused. “Yes. Thank you ever so much.”
“What are you doing?” Elton hissed. “You can’t just call them!”
Nathan tucked the phone away from his mouth to answer. “They don’t know me by voice, you idiot.” When Elton started up again, Nathan turned his back on him to speak into the phone. “Hello, Ms. Reyes? Oh, good. You don’t actually know me, but I’m hoping you’d like to meet. I was given your name by a man who suggested you might be interested in discussing some current events with me. ...Yes, I know—but I think you’ll be glad for it if you make the time. Let me buy you dinner?” Nathan threw a smile over his shoulder at Elton. “Yes, of course. All right. I’ll meet you there. Thank you, Ms. Reyes. Looking forward to it. Bye now.” He hung up the phone and took a drag of his cigarette as he slid it back into his pocket.
“You know they record every call that comes in,” Elton pointed out.
“So what if they do? You killed a man on the highway this morning, and you’re concerned about a Chaser being caught having a dinner meeting? Please. I hope you don’t mind sushi for dinner—she suggested a place right around the corner.”
“Where all the Chasers at the station probably eat regularly,” Elton sighed, but Nathan waved him away.
“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”
“Is that how that goes?”
Nathan only offered him a sly grin as he started down the street, so Elton reluctantly followed.
The restaurant was small inside, with only a few tables set apart from the counter seating, but they claimed a table large enough for three and sat down to wait. Nathan sipped a beer while Elton drank only water, and they watched the doorway for anyone who looked like they might be named Maya Reyes.
They didn’t have to wait long—a woman in a pair of black Dickies and a soft buckskin leather jacket over her t-shirt walked in before Nathan had finished his beer. She was young—probably only in her mid-twenties, with dark, curly hair that was clipped short into a mess around her head, and both Nathan and Elton pinned her as a Chaser at a glance even before they saw the silver ring on her hand. Nathan lifted a hand to her and waved her over, but the woman froze in the entrance to the restaurant, brown eyes wide and lips pressed into a panicked line. Nathan beckoned her again, a smile on his face, and Reyes edged closer, approaching the table at a hesitant, sideways shuffle, as if she thought one or both of the men might literally explode at any moment.
“Ms. Reyes?” Nathan asked when she was finally close enough to speak to. She nodded but didn’t answer, only lowering stiffly into the chair opposite them at Nathan’s gesture.
“Am I going to die?” she finally whispered, and she almost jumped out of her skin at Nathan’s sudden laughter.
“You see?” he said, nudging Elton’s arm. “That’s the sort of reaction I like. No, Ms. Reyes, you’re not going to die. But you know who I am, then?”
She nodded, her tan skin looking a little paler. “I know who both of you are,” she answered in a strained voice as her nervous gaze flicked over to Elton.
“I wanted to talk to you because I was told that you may have leanings that differentiate you from the sort of man who gave me your name. Up near Newell?”
Reyes’ jaw tightened, and she visibly swallowed. “So you know about it?”
“I don’t know enough. That’s why I thought, perhaps, you might be willing to speak to me.”
She glanced between the faces of the two men staring at her, her shoulders tight as her fingers gripped the edges of her chair’s seat. “M...Mr. Moore, I, uh—”
“Nathan,” he corrected. “Please. This is Elton,” he added, tilting his head toward his companion. “May I call you Maya?”
The Left-Hand Path Page 18