The Left-Hand Path: Disciple

by T. S. Barnett

  She just didn’t understand him at all. She wanted to—but she didn’t.

  ***

  After a quiet, tense supper with the varied occupants of the house, Thomas had called for a car and helped the shop owner down the steps to her ride. Cora listened from the doorway and heard him apologize more than once for getting her involved in any of their troubles, but as she sat in the back seat, she squeezed his hand with both of hers and thanked him earnestly for saving her life. When Thomas returned and shut the front door again, he had a soft frown on his lips as he turned the deadbolt, and Cora couldn’t help feeling as if she was just a little more sealed in than she had been that morning.

  Thomas glanced sidelong at her. “We can send them on their way shortly. Are you well enough?”

  Cora flexed her arms and held them out toward him to show how the cuts had already turned a pale pink. “Ready for action, boss.”

  “This isn’t a game,” he said. “You need to be certain, and you need to be focused.”

  “This isn’t my first time being an apprentice, you know.”

  He frowned. “The correct term is disciple, actually.”

  “Well whatever, fancypants,” she laughed. “I’m ready.”

  “You’ve been saying the prayer I gave you?”

  “I have.” She perked up and put a hand on the sleeve of his sweater. “Do I get to go in the cellar?”

  Thomas let out a soft sigh. “Yes, you get to go into the cellar. I promise it’s not as exciting as you’re expecting.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He shook his head and went upstairs to tell their guest family that it was time. Once they had gathered in the living room with their suitcases, Thomas crouched on the floor to open the cellar door and lifted it wide so that the four of them could enter. Cora followed behind the Walkers, ducking to get beyond the ridge of the floor and reaching out a hand to steady herself on the narrow wooden steps. The stone walls were rough-cut and damp against her palm, and the wood under her feet creaked uncertainly. They all stopped in the small room at the base of the stairs, momentarily blinded by darkness as Thomas let the door above them drop shut. The small candle in the wall sconce barely illuminated their faces, but Cora could see the grim frown on Thomas’s lips as he slipped by her to put a hand on the heavy wooden door ahead.

  “You wait here,” he said, and the family all nodded anxiously. Thomas glanced toward Cora and tilted his head to tell her to follow; then he pushed open the door and allowed her inside behind him. The cellar itself was bigger than she expected, maybe twenty feet wide, and unnaturally warm. Tall, golden candelabras stood at the four corners of the room, each flickering with eight white candles and giving the space an eerie orange glow. A good portion of the center of the floor was covered in deeply scratched carvings that formed a circle much like the one Thomas had directed them to draw back in the hotel. Intricate patterns and lettering she couldn’t read formed the inside, filled in with carefully-applied paint. At the other side of the circle, a smaller triangle had been drawn with equal care and attention to the delicate carvings, and a long, sturdy wooden table sat against one wall, laden with silver and gold instruments and stained with what Cora suspected was leftover magpie blood. She was hesitant to come very far into the room, but Thomas shut them inside and beckoned her over to a wide silver vessel on an iron pedestal.

  “Hands and face,” he said softly, pushing up the sleeves of his cardigan and dipping his hands into the water to allow her to follow his lead. “It’s just hyssop and salt,” he added when she peeked up at him curiously.

  Cora nodded and did as he did, rinsing her hands and face in the lukewarm water.

  “Purge me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” His voice didn’t quite echo in the small room, and the words came quietly and almost mechanically; Cora imagined he’d repeated them a hundred times before. She echoed them more uncertainly. She’d seen spells that required a lot of prep before, but never anything like this. This amount of protection and cleansing beforehand was unnerving.

  With still dripping hands, Thomas pointed to the white silk robe hung from a nail in the wall, and she recognized it as the one he’d draped over her in the brook. She understood his meaning without being told and began to strip off her clothes, but she hesitated as she realized that Thomas was also taking off his sweater. She lowered her eyes and tried to focus on her own business of undressing, but she couldn’t help peeking over at him as he half-folded his shirt and laid it aside. But why shouldn’t she look? Then they’d be even, wouldn’t they? It was only fair. A small smile touched her lips as she caught a look at his rear, but it fell away at the clinking sound of metal. Thomas picked up a narrow chain with a ladder of sharp ends along one side, and he fastened it firmly around the meat of his thigh, tightening it like a belt and hooking it into place. A few drops of blood seeped from his skin where the barbs dug in, and Cora noticed a mottled ring of similar scars forming a pattern of past rituals around his leg. That was...less funny. When he caught her looking at him, she turned away in a rush and hastily pulled her robe over her head.

  She looked back to see him wearing a robe the same as hers, except for a pattern of red embroidery over his heart and a thin leather apron burned with a hexagram. She watched him in silence as he lit the incense inside a golden censer on a chain. He walked the perimeter of the room, not quite touching the carvings on the floor, and when he reached her again, he lifted the censer by its chain to hang it on a hook in the ceiling. Thomas picked up a small vial from the table and tipped a few drops of oil onto his fingertips as he approached her.

  “Close your eyes,” he said, and when she did so, he touched the skin-warmed oil to her temples and eyelids. It smelled familiar—sandalwood, maybe. She felt a light weight touch her head, and when she looked up, her vision was blurred by a sheer length of black fabric, draped over her and hiding her eyes like a veil. She could still see through it well enough to tell how close Thomas drew to her as he fastened a thick chain around her neck, and she tensed a little at the light touch of his fingers against her hairline. The whole thing was becoming weirdly intimate. Wasn’t this supposed to be a demon summoning ritual of some kind? She’d imagined it being a lot scarier. The pendant was heavy, and she turned it in her fingers as Thomas backed away from her. She couldn’t identify the engravings on either side of the copper circle, which she guessed shouldn’t have surprised her at this point. One looked similar to the circle on the floor—a ringed pentagram decorated with lettering—but on the other side, a sigil filled the space. A curved marking detailed with circles and small crosses made up the center, and around the outer ring, finally, there were letters she could read—BATHIN. The name didn’t mean anything to her, but it was something she could look up later, at least.

  Thomas had applied the oil to himself and laid a similar veil over his own head, hiding his eyes but leaving his mouth and chin visible, and he hooked a pendant like hers around his neck. He approached her with a dinner-plate-sized silver disc covered in dark engravings and placed it gently in her hands.

  “Hold this directly in front of your face when we begin,” he said. “Do not move it, no matter what.”

  “Okay,” she answered.

  He must have heard the apprehension in her voice, because he paused in front of her. “You can’t be afraid, Cora. You’re sure you want to stay?”

  “I do.” She looked up at him, though it was impossible to see his eyes through both layers of veil. “I trust you.”

  Thomas let a beat of silence pass, and then he nodded. “Okay.” He gestured to a spot near the edge of the circle. “Stand here.”

  While she did as she was told, he opened the door to let the family inside. The adults didn’t seem put off in the slightest by the strangeness of the ritual as they positioned themselves in the inner ring, but the little girl stuck close to her father’s legs, both hands clutched tightly around the beaded trinket Natha
n had made for her. Charles bent down to give her a reassuring hug.

  “It’s going to be fine, sweetie. There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s just Thomas and Cora under there. Hold my hand and shut your eyes, and before you know it, we’ll be safe at our new home.”

  Grace nodded, squeezing her father’s hand and hiding her face in his shirt.

  Thomas took his place beside Cora, his wand in his right hand and a longer walking stick carved with similar markings in his left. He let the end of the staff rest on the floor directly in front of him and held it tight.

  “I’ll begin,” he said, and the couple in front of them nodded. Cora held tightly to her disc, lifting it in front of her face. She could still see Thomas at her side, but the bulk of the room ahead was hidden from her, so she focused on him instead.

  Thomas’s voice droned low and even in the heady room. “I do invocate and conjure thee, O Spirit, Bathin, and being with power armed from the Supreme Majesty, I do strongly command thee, by Him Who spake and it was done, and unto whom all creatures be obedient, that thou dost forthwith appear unto me here before this Circle. Wherefore come thou, O Spirit, Bathin, manifesting that which I shall desire, for thou art conjured by the name of the Living and True God, Helioren; wherefore fulfill thou my commands according to mine interest.”

  The temperature in the room rose sharply, bringing up sweat on Cora’s brow, and a hot wind buffeted her from the opposite side of the room, plastering her robe to her skin and forcing her to brace herself to stay in place. She was a little tempted to move the disc and peek despite Thomas’s warning, but she went still at the sensation of thick, wet air like warm breath against her skin. The sickening scent of brimstone filled her nose, the rotten egg smell turning her stomach. Thomas’s continuing invocations dulled in her ears, muffled by the pounding headache and nausea overtaking her. Sweat poured from her, pooling in the corners of her eyes and mouth, and she swallowed back bile rising in her throat. She shut her eyes to help keep grounded, though she could feel her fingers trembling to keep the disc at the level of her eyes.

  A throb of energy swayed her on her feet, and the pressure in the air around her climbed steadily, until her ears popped, her body grew heavy, and the room went cold. She stayed as still as she could, subtly trembling, until she felt the gentle touch of Thomas’s hand on her arm, allowing her to lower the disc. The circle in front of them was empty spare a few disappearing wisps of smoke that rose from the carved letters in the stone floor—the Walkers were gone.

  Thomas took the disc from her aching hands but remained standing in front of her. “Domine, Omnia Potens, Ætérne Deus et Pater omnium Creaturarum, qui effusus est super me Divinia Gratia Tua Misericordia, quia sum Tua Creatura. Amen.”

  Cora looked up at him, about to ask if that meant they were finished so that she could sit down, but Thomas closed the distance between them and touched his mouth to hers. He didn’t jerk away instantly, but he didn’t linger, either—it was a brief, chaste kiss, but it left her lips feeling warm just the same. As he pulled back from her, he took her veil with him, and he reached behind her neck to unclasp her necklace before he turned his back to her to replace them on the table. She watched him slip his own veil from his head and fold it on the table, then take off his own pendant and apron, but he didn’t look back at her, and he didn’t say a word, so she stayed silent, too. She pulled her robe over her head, hung it back on its nail, and dressed as quickly as she could, since Thomas seemed to be keeping his attention on the table to give her some privacy.

  She almost asked one of the dozen questions waiting on her tongue, but when Thomas simply laid his hands on the table in front of him and looked down at the worn surface, she bit her lip and made her way hurriedly back up the stairs. She let the cellar door drop behind her and walked stiffly up to her bedroom, where she shut the door and sat straight-backed on the edge of her mattress. He’d been right. That was scary. It was weird, and somehow disgusting, and scary. Cora wasn’t even sure what had happened, really—had the demon been in the room with them, or was Thomas just channeling it? Whatever it was he’d been doing, it hadn’t felt safe by any stretch of the imagination. She was glad she hadn’t dared look.

  The kiss had definitely been part of the ritual. Cora didn’t know why that sort of thing would be necessary, but it had been so fleeting, so light, that it couldn’t have been anything but a part of the ritual. It definitely was.

  Cora’s skin prickled, and as she ran her fingertips lightly over her mouth, her stomach gave a not-unpleasant little flip. Oh.

  Oh no.

  14

  It was strange to think of an evening following being chased by some sort of lake monster dragon as relaxing, but with Nathan too exhausted to want to go out, it was actually a quiet night. Elton was thankful. It gave them a chance to do their research and work on a plan for how to get at Winnick without being thrown back on a lake shore. In theory, at least. In reality, all they’d done was have food brought up to the hotel room, tended to their injuries, and sat smoking on the suite’s balcony.

  “We ought to drag him out of that bland office, strap him to the hood of a car, and leave him to be eaten by that beast,” Nathan said, his arms dangling over the railing and his cheek resting on the metal as he leaned forward in his chair.

  “A little dramatic.” Elton exhaled smoke and took another sip of his coffee. “Even for you.”

  “Says the man who left a message on a wall in blood not long ago.”

  “That was purposeful. And was seen. Who’s going to see it if Winnick is eaten in the middle of nowhere?”

  Nathan sat up and tapped his temple with one of the fingers holding his cigarette. “Now that’s thinking, darling; what’s the point if people don’t know what we did it for? The Magistrate will cover it up, and that’s no kind of message.”

  “Maybe we could leave them a note.”

  “I like this sardonic side of you, Elton,” Nathan chuckled. “It’s a good balance to my boundless optimism.”

  Elton put out the stub of his cigarette and discarded it in one of Nathan’s empty beer bottles. “We need to get this done quickly. If Winnick is confirmed on the council, our job will be a lot harder. For now, we have the advantage that he probably thinks we’re both dead. We should use it.”

  Nathan snorted and flicked the ash from his cigarette over the edge of the railing. “Arrogant. Me, killed by a banker and a couple of henchmen.”

  “Who’s arrogant, here?”

  “Do you think his intestines are long enough to spell it if we pin them to his desk? Maybe in cursive.”

  “We’re drifting from the task at hand.”

  “I’ve seen what happens when witch supremacists come into power, Elton. We had a council like that back in the 1940’s—taking cues from across the pond, I suppose. The pressure doesn’t just affect the regs unfortunate enough to know one of us; everyone feels it. More people spend more time in prison, or under the cuimne, or in a noose. That sort of sentiment coupled with the uncompromising nature of the Magistrate’s current proposal is a recipe for disaster. I won’t see that sort of man in a council seat again. Bad enough he’s a Magister.”

  “Do you think you could spell all of that if we used his henchmen’s intestines, too?”

  “I like where your mind is on this, but don’t mock me.” Nathan took another long drag from his cigarette and leaned back in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. “But you know—I think you’ve given me an idea.”

  ***

  The bank building still showed a pattern of lit windows even after dark. Overtime employees, janitors, and security guards kept the offices occupied after closing, but the entire complex was dull and quiet, a muted mirror of the bustle of the day. Nathan scuffed out his cigarette with one boot and glanced at the blond by his side.

  “How’s the shoulder? Still working after the fall you took?”

  “I’ll manage,” Elton answered, though his joint still ached. They had taken e
nough time for Nathan to string together a replacement set of groundings and for Elton to draw up some new talismans, but then they had made straight for the bank again despite their still-tender injuries. This late at night, either Winnick would still be diligently working away, and they would be able to finish the task they’d been given, or he would be gone, and they could scour his office for his home address and pay him a separate visit. No matter which turned out to be true, they had both decided that waiting around would serve no one.

  “Well,” Nathan said, “then let’s have the thing done, hm? Take two.” Without waiting for confirmation, Nathan moved toward the front door, put his hand on the glass, and pushed it open, the glass seamlessly swinging away from its metal frame. It hung open as Nathan and Elton stepped through without disturbing the door itself or its lock, then snapped back into place as though it had never moved. Nathan had offered to simply crash through back in the hotel room, but Elton had pointed out the difficulty in getting away again if the mundane police showed up.

  They split up once they crossed the lobby, each taking a separate bank of elevators to be better able to clear the top floor once they reached it. Elton flattened a slip of paper over the button panel and pressed it under his palm, illuminating the light for the 40th floor. It seemed strange to be essentially storming a building as an accomplice to Nathaniel Moore, but he supposed it wasn’t the first or the last time. At least he felt confident that he was doing the right thing.

  When the elevator doors opened, Elton found himself face to face with a poorly-timed security patrol who looked almost as startled to be seen as he was. Elton snapped out one of the many binding spells he’d prepared, and it stuck fast to the guard’s mouth, dropping him to the carpet in a heap of limbs. The blond stepped over him and moved down the hallway, occasionally pausing to let a janitor pass before stepping up behind them to put them easily to sleep. These people may have worked for Winnick, but they weren’t likely to know anything about his important goings-on, and the regular bank employees were likely to be mundane. There was no reason to kill everyone in sight.