The Left-Hand Path

by Barnett, T. S.

  “What have you done?” he asked, and Nikita's lip curled with satisfaction at the tremor in the witch's voice.

  “I'm not done yet,” the boy answered. He moved toward Moore again, clutching him by the collar to force him back to the ground and pushing the tip of the blade to his skin.

  Moore fought him, one hand on Nikita's wrist and the other flat against his chest to keep him at a distance, and he ground out the word “san” from between clenched teeth in desperation. Nikita barely registered the heat of the other man's bracelet near his hand before a long cut opened the flesh of his chest from his shoulder to his hip, and he fell back to the wet grass with pain searing through him. He hastened to call the potoplenyk to seal his wound and stop his bleeding, the watery sprite darting across the skin of his shoulder as he locked eyes with Moore. They both sat breathing heavily on the ground now, both watching the other in anger and disbelief.

  “How?” Nikita demanded. “It worked! You were—”

  “You couldn't fill a thimble with what you know about me, boy,” Moore growled, spitting the last word like a curse. He pulled to his feet unsteadily, and Nikita mirrored him. He caught Moore glancing down at the charm bracelet around his wrist and inhaled sharply. The beads and bits of bone were groundings, just like the girl's. Nikita's spell had worked—at least in part. He just needed to separate Moore from his tokens.

  Moore squared himself between Nikita and the lingering spirit, who reached for him and brushed cold hands over his shoulder, urging him backward into the wood. He seemed conflicted, torn between facing Nikita directly and addressing his concern for this phantom wearing his daughter's face. It was the distraction Nikita needed.

  “По моей воле, антипко—возьми это,” he murmured while Moore's head was turned. The sprite rushed forward, the dark needle shape barely visible in the misty rain, and struck the skin of Moore's wrist, bringing his attention back to the Chaser.

  Moore snatched his arm away and growled, “Dife,” fire spitting from his lips and charring the shadowy spirit. Such a simple spell—and he had to speak the word. This wasn't the Nathaniel Moore he'd faced back in Miami. When Moore turned on Nikita again, he reached toward the Chaser and called out another spell that sent Nikita back against a nearby tree, cracking his head soundly against the bark. The Chaser grimaced but pushed forward, his next words summoning the flitting, birdlike spirits that rose from the grass and lashed Moore's arms to his sides with razor-sharp threads. Moore still struggled, his eyes briefly glancing back to the tall spirit reaching for him. He tried a few different spells, but they must not have been the chosen few carved into his bracelet—his words were ineffectual.

  Nikita took a step closer to him and reached down toward his trapped wrist to remove the charms himself, but he was forced to stop with one finger hooked under the thread. A tearing pain raced up his leg to his torso, ripping his skin open in a corkscrew around his body, and he fell to the ground before he could catch himself. Beneath him, a thin slip of near-transparent yellow paper disintegrated as it slipped from his collar.

  “No,” he growled, and he was able to turn to face the trees behind him despite the pain and loss of blood. Strong hands took him by the lapels of his jacket and hauled him to his feet, slamming him against the closest tree.

  “Let him loose,” the blond growled close to his face.

  Nikita spat, landing a spray of saliva on the other man's chin. “туже,” he said instead, and Moore gave a pained cry as the strands dug deeper into his skin.

  Willis's lip twitched in irritation, and he pulled back his fist to hit the Chaser in the jaw hard enough to rattle his teeth. He dropped Nikita to the ground and plucked another paper from his breast pocket, and when he held it over the younger man, it seemed to fall apart into droplets at the blond's word, each sticky glob fastening onto the Chaser's already wounded skin and spreading burns like hot wax. The spirits holding Moore shrieked, echoing Nikita's pained cry, and Moore fell face first into the damp earth as he was released, the sprites escaping in a hurried whirlwind that disappeared above the trees.

  Nikita pushed himself backward on the ground with legs that screamed their protests. He'd lost a lot of blood—his vision had begun to blur. As he saw Moore rise to his feet and steady himself only briefly against his blond companion's shoulder, he knew he needed to retreat. He couldn't beat them both—not like this. But he had one more card left.

  “Иди ко мне домой,” he called, his shaking hand grasping the small, twine-wrapped eggshell in his jacket pocket. The tall spirit's head turned toward him, her gown shimmering in the rain, and with one last look toward Moore, the specter dissipated, swirling swiftly downward into the shell, which gave a soft click as sealed shut.

  “No!” Moore shouted, but Nikita grunted out one last spell, and a sudden wind blew the rain sideways so harshly that it turned the air between them almost opaque. The vikhor lifted him under his arms and carried him from the wood too quickly for him to see the trees they passed as anything but a blur. When he was far enough away that the moon filtered through the branches uninhibited by clouds, he dismissed the spirit, allowing it to drop him in a painful heap near a fallen log. He sat and tried to catch his breath, the tiny potoplenyk working hard to seal the gashes in his skin before he fell unconscious from lack of blood. He’d lost again. He’d let Moore and Willis get the better of him again. But this time, at least, he’d dealt a blow that Moore may never recover from, and he’d gotten what he wanted—as long as he left a trail, now his prey would come to him.

  ***

  Elton left Nathan behind to circle the area, keeping his friend in his periphery while he hunted for signs of Korshunov. He searched the trees but found nothing in the time it took his shirt to soak through, so he returned to where Nathan stood with his shoulder leaned against a tree for support.

  “He’s gone,” Elton said over the sound of the rain. “We'll get the bike and keep looking. He can't get far on foot.”

  Nathan tapped the back of his tightly balled fist against the trunk of the tree two or three times with his eyes on the ground, considering. He looked like shit—his nose was swollen and something had torn his face open, and the rain had washed the blood all down his face, adding to the tears and scratches circling his torso. He seemed to struggle to catch his breath, but Elton couldn't tell if it was from exhaustion or fury.

  “I have to tend to Adelina,” he said after a long silence. “I can't...leave her.”

  Elton softened slightly and nudged Nathan's arm. “Come on. I'll drive.”

  Nathan was silent the whole ride back to Thomas's house. Elton wanted to ask him what had gone wrong, why he hadn't torn Korshunov in half as soon as he'd laid eyes on him—but those questions could wait. He'd seen the spirit the Chaser had summoned. Having a vision of Adelina in front of him was sure to throw Nathan off his guard, which had obviously been Korshunov's plan. It seemed to have worked. Elton was just glad he'd arrived before things had gotten worse.

  Cora was waiting at the door for them when they arrived, and she fussed and touched and took Nathan with her into one of the spare bedrooms to help him get cleaned up and healed. Elton lingered near the door, only having a small shake of his head to offer Thomas when he peered curiously at him from the top of the stairs.

  “So is he...Korshunov, I mean,” Cora said softly once she had her poultice mixed and had begun to smear it gently over the cuts on Nathan's bare back. “Is he dead?”

  “No,” Nathan answered. His voice was quiet and strained, and the weak sound broke Cora's heart. “He did something to me.” Nathan lifted his hands, his brow furrowing as he examined his palms. “Something to my magic. I can't feel the loa anymore.”

  “What?” Cora stopped and leaned forward to look him in the face. “Is that possible?”

  “I wouldn't have thought so,” he admitted. “But I can't...any spell I didn't have the grounding for, I couldn't...”

  Cora exchanged a wide-e
yed look with Elton and laid her hand on Nathan's knee. “How do we fix it?”

  A soft, weary sigh fell from Nathan's lips, and he whispered, “I don't know.”

  She hesitated a moment, then shifted on the mattress and returned to her careful work. “Well, one thing at a time,” she said gently. Nathan didn't answer, so she let the silence settle over them and focused on closing his wounds.

  When he was as tended as he could be, he asked after Adelina. Thomas had taken what they had of her from the box and sealed her within a glass case from his cellar, and now she lay in the study, covered by a black silk cloth. Nathan claimed a bedroom and shut himself inside with her, and he didn't come out at all the next day. Cora and Elton spent the majority of the day giving each other worried looks, and when Nathan didn't turn up for dinner, they approached his door together, prepared to encourage or force him to eat something—but Cora stopped Elton with a hand on his arm as he reached up to knock. She leaned her ear closer to the door and pressed her fingers to her lips to keep her breath from escaping her as she recognized the sound inside. Nathan was crying.

  Cora squeezed Elton's arm, shook her head, and walked quietly back downstairs with him.

  28

  Over the next day, none of them saw Nathan except in passing when he gathered scraps of food and coffee from the kitchen. He looked sunken and weary. Cora had heard his soft chanting when she passed by his room; she wished there was something she could do, but he never even looked at them when he came out. How long was he going to stay locked in a room with a severed head?

  “I have to proceed with the ritual,” Thomas said, breaking the solemn quiet that hung over the kitchen table after Nathan's latest passing. “If it isn't tonight, we'll have to wait too long until I have another chance.”

  “Do you need me to do anything?” Cora asked, but the look on her face gave away her reluctance.

  “No,” Thomas answered immediately. “I'll just...need to be left alone. I'll take him to the place I've chosen.”

  “Not the cellar?”

  He shook his head. “Not for this.” He checked his watch, then pushed away his bowl and stood to leave the table. “I need to go. Don't expect me until morning.”

  Cora hesitated, her hands fidgeting where they sat on the table. “Be careful, okay? I know that's dumb to say, but—”

  “I will,” he said..

  She almost got up, but then glanced sidelong at Elton, who seemed to be pointedly not listening, and the blond sighed.

  “He already told me,” he said, and Cora rose from her seat to grasp Thomas in a tight hug. He returned it awkwardly, assured her that he wasn't going off to war, and then excused himself to fetch their unfortunate guest from the basement.

  ***

  Thomas had kept the man asleep with special incense since his arrival at the house, and he planned to let him remain that way. Allowing him to sleep through what was in store for him was the last mercy Thomas could provide. He carried him through the woods to the old ruin his family had used as a ritual site for generations and left him resting in the grass against a crumbling stone wall. The trees were thick here, and the remnants of the old house were still tall enough to help keep his purpose from prying eyes, but in this case he wouldn't risk it. He set his small, carved chunks of tourmaline at regular intervals around the outside of the ruin, and once he placed the last one, a soft hum sounded in his ears as the barrier formed a broad dome over the area. He didn't have a chance of concentrating enough to maintain a barrier himself during the ritual, but this would be secure enough for his purposes.

  The next step was preparing the sacrifice. Thomas laid aside a copper vase and crouched beside the man slumped against the wall. It took him two tries to get his needle into the thick vein at the crook of his captive's elbow, but he soon had a steady flow of blood pouring into the container. When it was full, he pulled the needle free and set the vase on a nearby fallen stone. He had already arranged the tall post and the stacks of dry wood piled up at the base; the only thing left was to add the victim. It was easier for Thomas not to think of him as a person—this man had an early death ahead of him before Thomas stepped in anyway, so this was simply a useful utilization of resources. He still frowned as he undressed the unconscious man, then hefted him up and strapped him to the wooden post. At least he wouldn't suffer, and Thomas wouldn't have to hear him scream.

  The blaze from the kindling he lit grew quickly, engulfing the body of his victim in an orange and yellow glare. His skin reddened and split as it dried, curling black along the edges and seeping fat in thick yellow rivers. Thomas kept the grisly scene in his periphery, watching for the moment the man's muscles stopped jerking and his heart gave out, but he tried to keep most of his attention on his present task.

  He toed off his shoes and covered his head with the black veil from his bag before entering the space he'd chosen. With the tip of an engraved sword he'd ordered from Anne's shop, he traced a careful circle in the dirt within one of the adjacent rooms, then drew a smaller one inside. Within went a triangle, which he colored with stolen blood from his vase until the soil was thick and damp. He drew the little circles inside, one of which would be where he stood during the ritual, and carved out the labarum of Constantine in its proper place at the base of the triangle. It also needed to be wet with blood, but for this sigil, Thomas cut the skin of his own left arm and let the blood drip from his fingers to coat the symbol he'd drawn. Keeping a hand pressed to his wound to slow the bleeding, he returned to his bag to gather the candlesticks made of human fat and the crescent-shaped candlesticks to hold them, and he set them at the edges of the triangle with woven crowns of vervain at their base.

  The man on the stake had gone limp and still, his skin prickled with boils and wet with blood and leaking fat. With a gesture of his wand and a soft incantation, Thomas put out the fire and cut the man free, his body smoking in the cool night air as it lay in the grass. Thomas set his veil safely aside and frowned at the corpse he'd caused, his stomach churning at how delicious the charred meat smelled after two weeks of eating nothing but blood, beans, and bread. With a sharp, purposeful exhale, he took his knife from his satchel and knelt by the body to do his work—carving long strips of burned skin away from muscle and piling them in bloody folds on the ground. Thomas held his breath while he peeled skin from flesh until little remained that left the man recognizable, then gathered up his bloody ribbons and carried them to his circle, taking up his veil to cover his head on the way. He laid the strips in as neat a circle as he could in the space between the ones he'd drawn, and he fixed them into place with the coffin nails from his bag. He stepped out of the circle and returned to the ruined body he'd left, turning the worn wood of his wand in his fingers as he stood over it.

  “Sis insumatis.”

  At his word, the corpse began to decay, the bits of remaining skin flaking to the ground as the blood and muscle disintegrated. The body broke and crumbled at his feet, turning slowly to dust until only the bones were left, and then even these deteriorated, and no sign remained of the man Thomas had killed except for a few wisps of dust in the night breeze. All that was left now were the more gruesome ingredients—the head of the cat fed human flesh, the horns of the goat who had known a woman, the human skull of a murderer, and the bat that had been drowned in blood. He laid these in their proper places along the ring of skin he'd made and drew the corresponding words outside of each, and then bent to pick up the copper vase of blood. He sprinkled droplets of the dead man's blood over the skull and animal parts and set the vase outside the space again. He stood back to check his work, then stepped out one last time to strip his bloody clothes and pull on the black robe he'd sewn for the purpose. He looped the iron pendant bearing Andromalius's sigil over his neck and picked up the thin copper disc etched with Solomon's seal, feeling as though they were a bit heavier than before. He walked the perimeter of the space he'd prepared with his censer in his hand, pouring smoke from the incense that Cora had
made, and hung it from an old hook sticking out from one wall at an odd angle. Nothing left to prepare now.

  Barefoot, and with his head and eyes covered, Thomas crossed into the circle and lit the candles at the apex of the bloody triangle. He lifted the disc in front of his face and shut his eyes to take one last breath, hoping it would help to settle him into the earth. It didn't.

  “By Adonai Elo'im, Adonai Jehova, Adonai Sabaoth, Metra ton On Agla Adonai Mathon, the pythonic word, the demons of the heaven of God, I do invocate and conjure thee, o spirit, Andromalius—come!” He repeated the chanting words of the appellation of Agrippa, louder each time, until his voice was almost hoarse and his brow began to drip sweat, but no answer came. Thomas lifted his left hand, blood still dripping slowly from the cut he'd made in his arm, and held it with fingers spread in front of the copper disc.

  “Behold thy devastation if thou refusest to be obedient! Behold the Pentacle of Solomon which I have brought here before thy presence! Behold the person of the exorcist in the midst of the exorcism; him who is without fear! Behold him who potently invocateth thee and calleth thee forth unto appearance, and prepare to be obedient unto thy master! Come!”

  A violent wind almost whipped Thomas off his feet, but he held his ground, gritting his teeth against the hot, wet breath that touched his face even behind the protection of the seal. A chill ran up his spine, prickling the hair at the back of his neck and sending his stomach into a heavy lurch.

  “Hemen-etan, chayajoth, aie saraye, cavajoth—I command thee by the Key of Solomon and the Shem Ha-Mephorash!”

  The air around him stilled, but the damp heat lingered, and Thomas knew from the pressure threatening to burn blisters onto the skin of his fingers that the spirit had arrived. Its voice reached his ears, low and echoing as though the creature had more than one set of vocal chords.