The Left-Hand Path

by Barnett, T. S.

  “For what purpose have you summoned me, exorcist? You are bound to another.”

  “I bring an offering in exchange for a service,” Thomas answered in a tight voice. “Your office, spirit, is to punish thieves and to return that which was stolen. I would have you return something for me.”

  “What goods?”

  “The North American Magistrate has taken countless witches from their homes and families in the prior months. They are in prisons and camps across the country, which I can name. I would have you return them unharmed and of sound mind to the homes from which they were stolen.”

  A few seconds of silence passed by, but Thomas stayed still and waiting until the demon spoke again.

  “Show me your face, exorcist.”

  Thomas hesitated. He didn't dare remove his veil, but he wouldn't need to—removing the copper barrier between them would be all the demon needed to see straight through him. He lowered his disc slowly and kept it near his chest as the wash of heat flowed over him, swaying him slightly as he fought to stay upright. The spirit that stood before him looked like a man, tall and broad-shouldered, but its skin was ashen grey, and two pairs of long, curving ram's horns grew from its head. Straight white hair poured down its shoulders like the rapids of a river, spilling over its thick bronze chest plate and heavy greaves all the way to the ground. A pale, golden snake as thick as Thomas's waist encircled the demon's legs, its upper body held in the crooks of the spirit's arms and its forked tongue tasting the air while it watched the presumptuous human with one glinting silver eye.

  “Humans are not goods which can be stolen,” the demon said, its blank white eyes looking down into Thomas's face with an intensity that made him queasy.

  “To steal—” Thomas began, pausing to swallow down a throatful of rising bile. “To steal is to take without legal right and without the intention to return. So these people were taken. You trade in human souls and corpses. They are the same as goods to you. I have given you a life—I ask your services in return.”

  The demon watched him with an immovable stare. “You're pushing your luck, exorcist,” it said, and Thomas thought he heard just a touch of wry amusement in its voice.

  A flash of blue light made Thomas flinch, and when he focused again, a thin sheet of parchment held still in the air in front of his face, lettered with dark ink in a language no man was meant to read. He knew what it said. It was everything he knew about the prisoners without him having to speak a word, and the demon's promise of their return. A scrawled sigil formed at the bottom as he watched, the demon's mark drawn in scratches of pale gold. He felt the weight of an iron fountain pen in his hand and laid his protective disc at his feet, then dug the tip of the pen into the open wound on his left arm and signed his own name below the spirit's. As soon as he was finished, the parchment split into two identical pieces; the demon closed one in its fist, and Thomas crumpled the other and pushed it into his mouth. The papery goatskin was tough to chew, but he'd swallowed such a contract before.

  “Agreed, Thomas Proctor,” the demon said, and then it vanished, another wave of heat and nausea washing over Thomas and leaving him short of breath and on unsteady feet. He vomited almost as soon as he stepped out of the circle.

  Thomas sat against the cool stone wall with his eyes closed for a while, waiting for his heart to slow and his stomach to settle. He needed to clean up the site before dawn.

  29

  Cora didn't sleep until Thomas got back to the house. The sun was almost up by the time he appeared at the far end of the yard, lines of dried blood coating his forearm and the weight of his satchel seeming heavy on his shoulder. She took his things from him as soon as he entered the house and helped him collapse into bed, then curled up beside him with her head on his shoulder and followed him into sleep.

  She stirred in the middle of the afternoon and left Thomas under the blanket. She hoped she would see another open door down the upstairs hallway, but Nathan was still closed inside. She stood by the door and listened to his soft voice, scratchy from overuse, chanting the same prayers she’d heard for days now. She waited until he paused, and then knocked.

  “It’s me,” she offered gently. “Can I come in?”

  The door knob turned after a few moments, and Nathan opened the door for her and allowed her inside. Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks, and heavy bags had formed under his eyes. The glass case still sat on the low dresser, covered by its black cloth, and the pile of rumpled blankets stripped from the bed suggested that Nathan had been sleeping on the floor in front of it. He knelt down again once he’d shut the door, and Cora took a seat next to him and put a hand over his on his knee.

  “It...seems stupid to ask how you are,” she whispered, and he snorted softly without smiling.

  “This isn’t the way it should be,” he said. “To only send me part of her like this, and to not know where the rest of her body is, I...it’s more difficult.”

  “Nathan, I’m so sorry,” Cora sighed.

  He turned his hand up to lace his fingers with hers, and she squeezed his cold hand tightly. “This time is called dernier priye, or last prayer. For nine days, the person’s spirit is said to linger near their body, so the family prays to keep it from being used for bad purposes. I don’t know if...I don’t know that it will help this time.”

  “Why not?”

  “Korshunov had a spirit with him, that...it looked like her. I don’t know what he could have done to her, or how he...” Nathan trailed off, and he took a slow breath that shuddered softly as he exhaled. He reached up to take hold of the silver-wrapped turquoise pendant around his neck and closed it in his palm. “I tried to give her this, before she left, but she wouldn’t—she wouldn’t take it. If she’d had it, if she’d had a second chance against whatever he did to her—”

  Cora moved closer to him and put an arm around his shoulders, allowing him to soften against her and press his forehead into the crook of her neck.

  “I shouldn’t have let this happen,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “There’s no way you could have known,” she assured him, feeling the tight hitch in her own throat. “You can’t blame yourself.”

  “I blame him. And I’m going to find him. And once I find him, I’m going to take my time. He’s not going to take a single breath he doesn’t regret being alive for.”

  Cora held him without answering, and he straightened slowly after a minute or two. She looked up into his tired eyes and squeezed his hand again. “Do you...want me to go?”

  “She liked you,” he said, returning his attention to the cloth-covered glass. “I think she’d be glad you were here.”

  She offered him a small smile and settled down into a more comfortable position beside him, never releasing his hand as they sat together in the dim room.

  ***

  For the next few days, Cora brought Nathan some coffee and breakfast in the morning, then sat with him for a while in the evening. She didn’t have any words that would comfort him or real help she could give, but at least she could keep him company and keep him fed.

  News came in through Thomas’s contacts that a sudden mass of people taken by the Magistrate had come back home, seemingly by magic but without any known source. Cora and Elton heard him on the phone with half a dozen people over the course of the week, but not once did he take credit for the mystery miracle. He shared their relief that so many people were now free to tell their friends and loved ones about their mistreatment at the hands of the Magistrate and asked them to send more news as they had it, but he never even seemed to consider telling anyone that it was because of him.

  “There’s some sort of protest being planned in Ottawa,” he told them over coffee at the kitchen table. He looked a little more like himself with a few full nights of sleep and proper meals behind him. Cora had even caught him smiling a couple of times. “And in Philadelphia, it seems like. Everyone knows what’s happening now—and there might be enough people willing to do something about
it.”

  “That was what we wanted, right? So it’s good news,” Cora said.

  “They don’t have fear and secrecy on their side anymore,” Elton said. “Now we’re just left hoping that people care enough to do more than save their own skin.”

  “People are good,” Cora insisted. “I have to still believe that. This is a good direction. At least those poor people are out of those camps.”

  “At least,” Elton agreed. He took a breath to go on, but all three of them paused at the sight of Nathan in the kitchen doorway.

  “Mr. Proctor,” he said softly. “May I speak with you?”

  Thomas exchanged an uncertain look with Cora, but she gave him an encouraging smile, so he rose slowly from his chair and followed Nathan out of the room. He waited while the taller man hesitated by the front window, and he swallowed hard as Nathan turned those black eyes on him. Had he figured them out? Thomas had warned Cora that sleeping in his room was a bad idea, even with Nathan shut away like he was. They were sure to be found out, and this man—

  “I don't assume you're familiar with Haitian burial practices, Mr. Proctor,” Nathan said, cutting off his internal panic. “But custom dictates a body be buried somewhere guarded for a year and a day following the funeral services, and I...transient as I am, you see, I...”

  Thomas softened at the other man's creased brow and tense hands, and he nodded. He knew the empty loss and hopelessness Nathan must be feeling. “You're welcome to bury her in my family's crypt. You'd be hard pressed to find a better-warded tomb.”

  Nathan returned his nod, a touch of relief visible in his shoulders. “Thank you.” He took a step toward the stairs, then paused. “And...well done. With the spell. I underestimated you.”

  Thomas just stared at him for a moment, not sure how to respond to being praised by someone like Nathaniel Moore. But before he could form an answer, Nathan spoke again.

  “We'll discuss you fucking my apprentice while I was gone some other time,” he said dryly. He was up the stairs again before Thomas could get out more than a stammer.

  Thomas heard a dull slap from the kitchen, followed immediately by Elton's defensive hiss, “I didn't say anything!”

  ***

  The Proctor family crypt was little more than four walls made of aging stonework, its heavy wooden door at the bottom of a short set of steps that made the whole thing look as though a small house had begun to sink into the ground. Its gabled roof was missing a few tiles, and the iron fence surrounding it was tinged green by years of soft moss. The gate creaked angrily when Thomas opened it, but the door opened smoothly at his touch, allowing him to take the steps down into the cool underground. He lit a pair of old lanterns near the entrance and stepped aside so that Nathan could follow him, the cloth-covered case held gingerly in both hands.

  Nathan looked more alive than he had in days—he'd showered and shaved, and he'd dressed himself in black slacks, a white button-down, and one of Elton's black ties. He laid the box in one of the long empty spaces near the back of the stone hallway as Thomas directed him past the closed and dusty coffins along the walls. It was far too small to be a body—a stinging reminder of the brutality the woman had suffered. The others hung back, but Nathan assured them that Adelina would want them there. They listened while Nathan said prayers over the box, hummed a soft song with his hands spread flat over the black cloth, and when he went silent, Cora moved forward and put a gentle hand on his arm. He squeezed her fingers and smiled faintly as he nodded at her.

  No one but him really knew her well enough to speak, but Cora at least thanked Adelina out loud for being so kind to her. When they all filed out into the morning light, Nathan lingered, and Cora hesitated at the door to wait for him. She saw him bend over the box and press his lips softly to the cloth, then take one last, slow breath before he met her at the stairs and accepted her offered hand. Thomas shut the door behind them and crouched to scratch a small chalk seal onto the floor before they left the crypt behind.

  Back at the house, Cora poured them all coffee and started on her bread dough automatically—it had become routine for her weeks ago, but at least now she didn't have to limit herself to the dense black bread Thomas was restricted to. The kitchen was silent for a long time, as though no one quite dared to start up normal conversation again.

  “I'll be leaving,” Nathan said with both hands settled loosely around his warm mug.

  “You mean we'll be leaving,” Elton corrected him. “To find Korshunov.”

  “I said what I meant.” Nathan glanced between Elton and Cora, who had paused in her kneading to look back at him. “The order we meant to stop is all but stopped. Mr. Proctor's families are safe. A good portion of your list is crossed off,” he added with a subtle nod in Elton's direction. “All as agreed. Now I have my own business.”

  “Nathan,” Cora cut in, “you can't expect us not to help. Even if we didn't know Adelina very well, we know you.”

  “I appreciate the thought, my love, but this won't wait. I'll be better on my own.”

  “Even with what happened with your magic?”

  “Don't presume I'm helpless,” he answered sharply. He stood from the table, leaving his full coffee cup behind.

  “But I can help you find him! I can use my mirror, and—”

  “I can find him,” Nathan said in a grim tone.

  “You ought to at least have a plan,” Elton interrupted. “Let's put an ear to the ground, see what we can find out, and then we can—”

  “I won't wait while he has her locked away!” Nathan snapped. “You saw her! Trapped in that—” He stopped himself and gripped the back of the wooden chair with both hands. “Whatever he did, I need to release her.”

  “Nathan, that was an illusion,” the blond insisted. “What could he possibly have done to trap a real person's spirit like that? He must have done it just to get to you.”

  “Would you take that chance?” he pressed. “If it were your child? Or your wife?”

  Elton frowned, his arms folded across his chest. “No,” he admitted. “But you still need to be smart. He's going to count on you coming after him. Let's see if Cora can track him, and we can figure out how we want to proceed and leave in the morning.”

  Nathan scowled down at the table and took a snorting breath. “Fine,” he agreed after a moment.

  “I'll try right now,” Cora offered, and she abandoned her dough, wiping her hands on her way out of the kitchen.

  “We all have reason to want this kid dead,” Elton said. “And even if we didn't—Cora's right. Neither of us is going to let you do this alone.”

  Nathan sighed and pushed away from his chair. “I appreciate the sentiment, Elton. And Mr. Proctor,” he added, “thank you for your hospitality. For me and for my daughter. I'm too tired for colorful imagery, but you can guess what I have to say about Cora. I'm never quite so far away that I can't come back here. Do you understand?”

  “I won't give you any reason to,” Thomas promised, though Elton could see the twitching of a frown at the edge of his mouth that suggested he wouldn't have justified himself to anyone but Nathan.

  Nathan followed Cora upstairs, leaving Elton and Thomas sitting awkwardly together at the kitchen table.

  “Will you come?” Elton asked after a brief pause, and Thomas shook his head. “But you know Cora will.”

  “That's her choice,” he said. “It'll be her choice to come back if she wants, too.”

  Elton hesitated a moment, then stood to take his coffee with him on his way out. “I hope she's good for you,” he said.

  “Me too,” Thomas answered softly, and Elton caught the faint smile on his face before he left the room to start packing up his things.

  Cora sat in the candlelit bedroom in front of her obsidian mirror for almost three hours. A few times she thought she would manage to focus on her target—she caught glimpses of a black sedan, or the scent of blood, or whispers in a gruff language she didn't understand—but every time she f
elt she was drawing close, something stopped her. She was thrown out of her trance a dozen times, and she was starting to feel sick to her stomach by the time Nathan knocked on the door to check on her.

  “He's doing something,” she told him, taking his hand to pull unsteadily to her feet. “I think he knows I'm looking. But I saw him driving, in a town somewhere—I think there was a college campus or something? It's all been the same place. I think...I think he's waiting.”

  “Well,” Nathan said softly, “I'd hate to disappoint him.”

  The three of them spent the rest of day preparing for their trip—Thomas paid to rent them a car so that a stolen one wouldn't draw attention, Cora packed up all of the supplies she'd accumulated in her weeks at the house, and Elton did some digging on likely places Korshunov may have fled to. Cora reassured Thomas that Nathan wasn't likely to maim him, and she didn't want her last night to be spent away from him, so she wished everyone else good night and curled up in Thomas's bed while he said his evening prayers. She slept soundly against his shoulder, though a weight lingered in her stomach at the thought of leaving him. It was almost a pleasant feeling, in a way. Maybe when all of this was done, she'd actually have a place to come back to—a person to come back to.

  In the morning, Cora pulled herself reluctantly out of bed and stretched her arms over her head on her way down the stairs. The rest of the house was still quiet, so she put on some coffee and padded back into the living room, but something caught her eye through the open front curtain.

  The bike was gone.

  Frowning, Cora hurried back upstairs and knocked on Nathan's bedroom door. She knocked louder, and when she still didn't get an answer, she pushed the door open. The bed was made, the dresser was clear—there was no sign of him. She called out to him, just in case, but got only silence back.

  He'd left without them.

  30

  Dawn hadn't yet broken when Nathan dropped the kickstand of the Triumph on the asphalt outside the cemetery. The entrance was elegantly framed by a stone and wrought-iron gate in a gothic style, with the name “Forest Hill” fastened in thick medieval type above the driveway. Nathan left the bike behind and looped the small satchel he'd stolen from Thomas's house over his shoulder, then approached the gate and laid a hand on the lock.