The Left-Hand Path: Runaway

by Barnett,T. S.

  The Left-Hand Path:

  Runaway

  T.S. Barnett

  Copyright © 2016 T.S. Barnett

  All rights reserved.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my mum, Nathan’s biggest fan.

  1

  “Nathaniel!” Adelina planted her hand against the hood of the car as Nathan swerved around a tight corner onto the freeway ramp. “Don’t you think you should—ah! Slow down!”

  “Nonsense, kè mwen! If I slow down, they’ll catch us!”

  His laughter carried over the sound of the sirens chasing them. Adelina turned in her seat to check the distance, but the flashing blue and red lights were slowly losing ground as Nathan accelerated down the straight stretch of road.

  Adelina watched out the back window, expecting any moment to be shot at from a helicopter or some ridiculous thing. She hadn’t known what to expect when she had met her father at the Vancouver airport. In a lot of ways, he was just as her mother had described him—wild and laughing, mysterious and powerful. But her mother hadn’t known to warn her about being constantly on the run from both the Magistrate and the mundane police. She marveled that the Magistrate was able to keep anything secret at all, with Nathan’s face so frequently showing up on the evening news.

  The actual police behind them didn’t seem likely to give up the chase, but as they raced northward on the freeway, Nathan checked the rear view mirror and seemed to make a decision. He suddenly flicked off the headlights and took his foot off the accelerator, letting the car drift back to a normal speed and then a slow one. Adelina almost shouted at him in a panic, but as he relaxed in his seat, flexing his fingers slowly on the steering wheel, the cars pursuing them passed on either side in a flash of light and noise, continuing on down the freeway as if they hadn’t seen them at all. That didn’t seem possible. She turned to look at him in confusion, but the only explanation he offered her was that teasing smile she’d come to recognize as always leading to trouble.

  Nathan pressed on the gas again and followed after them. Adelina stared at him as they drove, wanting to ask him what he was thinking but unable to move her mouth. By the time she found her voice under the adrenaline, they had almost caught up to the rear police car, siren still blaring as it chased after nothing.

  “The view is much better this way, you see,” Nathan mused, and all it took was a subtle movement of his index finger to send the lead car’s rear end into the air, flipping it upside down and sending it screeching down the road in a shower of orange sparks. The cars behind it had no chance to avoid it. The first car hit with such force that it scraped over the flipped car completely, landing on its side with a creaking crash. The wreck piled up in front of them in an awful crunch of metal, and Nathan had to turn the car to the side and slam on the brakes to avoid running into the side of the rear car himself.

  “Ha!” he laughed. “Look at that. Incredible. Do you think they’ll catch fire?”

  “Nathaniel, there are people in there!”

  “Oh, I’m sure they were all buckled in properly. They’re upstanding policemen, after all. Look there; one’s worked his way out already.” He gestured to one of the open car doors, barely visible in the dark, where a man in uniform was crawling his way slowly onto the street, dripping blood as he went.

  “You see? Perfectly fine.”

  Nathan backed the car up far enough to pull onto the shoulder and around the wreckage, barely glancing in the mirror at the destruction he’d caused as they drove away.

  Adelina sat quietly in the passenger seat, trying to watch over her shoulder for more signs of movement in the ruined cars. Nathan was everything her mother had said. But the parts of him she hadn’t seen were dark.

  It had started simply enough, with a few rousing nights in Vancouver bars. Nathan had barely recovered from the magic-enhanced healing of his broken arm when he’d started wanting to go out. Adelina had even enjoyed herself, had a few drinks, played darts with him and laughed when he did magic tricks in front of the mundanes. There had been a couple of fights, but no one came to real harm. To his credit, Nathan did tend to avoid getting into physical altercations when he could.

  They explored all over the city, avoiding the Magistrate, eating in expensive restaurants downtown, and drinking in dark bars nestled in the heart of Chinatown. Chinatown seemed to interest Nathan especially; he frequently broke away from Adelina and spoke at length with strangers wherever they stopped to eat. The food was always good, so she left him to whatever intrigues he was inventing for himself.

  He never paid for anything, of course, no matter where they went. He used a glamor, or he whispered in a clerk’s ear and convinced them to give him something for free, or sometimes he simply stole what he wanted. Even that wasn’t too concerning for her. She had brought some money with her, but her savings had had no chance of keeping up with Nathan’s expensive tastes. He had needed new clothes; he had needed to have them tailored; he had needed a haircut and a manicure and a massage. He needed to get the dust of the desert off of him, he said. She had benefited too; all of her clothes had been appropriate for a fifty year old woman, but Nathan had demanded that she show off her regained youthful beauty.

  When he had told her he’d decided to get her a gift, she hadn’t argued. She knew it would be stolen, but there was no point in trying to dissuade him once he’d set his mind to something. She hadn’t known that when he said “get her a gift,” what he really meant was “walk into a jewelry store and hold the mundanes still by magic until Adelina decides what she wants.” The clerks stood motionless, some of them mid-stride, but Adelina could see the fear in their eyes. She had asked him to stop, told him that this wasn’t necessary, but Nathan had only laughed and tenderly stroked the trembling cheek of the trapped manager.

  “You just take your time,” he had said. “This will be the most interesting thing to ever happen to these people.” He had made his way around the store, casually peering into the jewelry cases until she had hastily pointed out a diamond pendant in the case closest to her. With a single touch of his fingertips, he had shattered the glass, and he picked the necklace out of the debris and fastened it around her neck with a smile.

  “They’ll be fine,” he had promised as he led her away with a soft hand on her back, but she hadn’t seen the people inside begin to move again by the time they turned the corner.

  He didn’t always take her out with him at night. She hadn’t minded when he disappeared on his own and didn’t return to their hotel room until well into the next day. His nighttime proclivities weren’t her business. She didn’t even mind the smoke—her ex-husband had smoked, so she’d gotten used to the clinging smell.

  Sometimes they did simple, ridiculous things, like going to the movies or visiting an art gallery—just the other day in Calgary, he had wanted to see a museum solely devoted to carriages, of all things—but sometimes he came back to the hotel in the early hours of the morning, covered in sweat and blood. He always assured her that everything was fine, that it was just an “accident” or a “misunderstanding,” but he never admitted to her if anyone had died because of his misunderstandings. She had only been able to piece together hints from the reports on the nightly news of flipped cars in the street or unexplained fires. Nathan always laughed at her worrying, but his carelessness was the most concerning in just how contagious it was. It took less time than she imagined to become accustomed to the sight of blood on her father’s hands.

  When they arrived in Edmonton, he needed to see the Mall, of course. He had secured them two rooms in a luxury theme hotel, and he had delighted in carefully choosing which “fantasy” theme best suited his whim. Adelina’s suite was simple, done in a Roman
fashion in elegant red and white, but when she stepped across the hall into Nathan’s room, it was all black leather and blacklights. There was a zebra-print rug on the floor, a Jacuzzi exposed to the room, and a metal pole on a small stage just in front of the bed. She thought it was tasteless and told him so, but Nathan only laughed.

  “Isn’t it? Look at this.” He leaned over near the bed and flipped a switch, revealing a string of blacklights around the tall headboard. “Because everyone wants to see what’s been on these sheets in stunning detail, right?”

  “That’s disgusting,” she laughed as she shoved his shoulder. She decided against sitting on the bed and instead kneeled backwards on the leather sofa, leaning on her elbows to look up at him. “Nathaniel, are we going anywhere?”

  He paused with his hand on the complimentary bottle of champagne that had been left in a bucket on the bed. “What do you mean, kè mwen? We’re somewhere right now.”

  “Yes, but you’re running,” she clarified. “Is this all that you want? Do you want to go somewhere to stay?”

  “I’ve done my staying,” he chuckled. He popped the cork on the champagne, poured two glasses, and stepped around the sofa to drop down beside her, bouncing her lightly on the leather cushion. She turned to sit properly and took his offered glass. “I’ve got one more chase in me, at least.”

  “You mean the Magistrate? They must have sent someone after you by now.”

  “Oh, they’ve sent several someones. Not to worry,” he added when her eyebrows lifted. “It’s taken care of. For now, in any case. Hopefully they’ll wise up soon, or I’ll have to be more insistent.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He paused to take a drink of his champagne. “These Canadians,” he shrugged. “Nice people, but no backbone. But I’ve my eye on one in particular, and he should be much better sport.”

  “The Chaser who was with you before?”

  “Of course. But Elton isn’t just any Chaser.”

  “You think he’ll come after you again?”

  “I think that once the Magistrate loosens their grip on him just slightly, he’ll slip off the lead like a dog after a hare,” Nathan said with a slow, private smile. Adelina didn’t understand this need to be hunted that Nathan seemed to have, and she certainly didn’t understand his preoccupation with this single Chaser. But she supposed she’d never had a nemesis. It might be fun.

  “So what are we doing tonight?” she asked instead of lingering on the subject.

  “Did you know that this mall has a waterpark? And a casino? And a roller coaster? It’s ridiculous. Amazing,” he chuckled, “but ridiculous. I’ll be exploring the casino, I think. Will you come along?”

  “I might try my hand,” she said, smiling at him over her glass.

  The casino was luxurious, done in an art deco style with spacious halls and plenty of room for the constant buzzing and jingling of the slot machines. Nathan exchanged some glamored paper napkins for chips and settled himself at a blackjack table, where Adelina watched him lose almost every bit of the money while he drank rum and chatted up the waitresses.

  She put a hand on his shoulder and bent down to whisper in his ear, “Why not just make them think the cards are in your favor?”

  “Kè mwen,” Nathan gasped, thoroughly scandalized, “I am a lot of things, but I am not a cheat. Besides, what on earth is the point of gambling if you already know what the outcome will be?”

  Adelina smiled as he patted her hand. “Fair enough.”

  She left him to his devices, walking the floor with her drink in her hand. She had never been a skilled gambler—an apparently inherited trait—but she enjoyed the atmosphere of the busy hall, the winning cheers and the despairing sighs. She caught sight of Nathan a few times as she wandered, whispering in men’s ears or lightly tracing a woman’s arm with his fingertips. She let a man fetch her a few drinks, and she even considered following him up to his room when he made the suggestion, but he hadn’t even bothered to remove his wedding ring. She wouldn’t be a part of that.

  She lost track of Nathan after a while, which wasn’t all that surprising, and eventually she made her way back through the mall to their hotel. She paused at Nathan’s room to listen to the booming music thumping through the door, but she hesitated when she touched the doorknob. No—there was still laughter and the sound of clinking glasses, so he was at least mostly likely to still be decent. Adelina had started requesting that they have separate rooms after she had come back from a late trip to the convenience store and found him in bed with both a man and a woman, neither of whom seemed exceptionally bothered by her intrusion. She had paid for her own room that night.

  She unlocked his suite door with the spare key, only intending to check on him and say she was going to bed, but when she stepped into the room, the scene made her stop in her tracks. Nathan himself was in the bubbling Jacuzzi with his arm around a slender, obviously naked woman who giggled and leaned away from whatever he had just whispered in her ear. Another woman sat opposite them, and a pair of men lounged on the disheveled bed to watch a third woman drunkenly spin around the provided pole. The floor was littered with beer and liquor bottles, and the whole room smelled of smoke. On the slick metal coffee table, Adelina spotted the suspicious remnants of soft powdery lines and a rolled bill.

  She was actually impressed at how thoroughly debauched the suite had become. When had he even had the time?

  “Ah, Adelina!” Nathan called out when he finally noticed her, and he gestured broadly with the hand holding his glass. “You came back! Oh, oh wait.” He laughed and pulled himself out of the water, revealing that he was, in fact, also naked, and he paused to murmur something to the woman beside him and touch a brief kiss to her lips before he climbed out of the tub. Adelina averted her eyes with practiced caution as her father approached her. This much, at least, she was quite used to. She had never known someone who was naked so often.

  “Come,” he said. He led her by the hand over to the bed and urged her in front of one of the seated men, who looked up at her with brown eyes and a broad smile. “This is Marcus. He’s lovely, isn’t he? Just lovely. Look at that chin,” he grinned, brushing the man’s dark jaw with his thumb. “I thought you might want him.”

  “What—want him? Honestly,” Adelina sighed. “That’s a person, Nathaniel.”

  “Yes, a beautiful person,” Nathan laughed. “I feel that you haven’t been living your new life to its fullest, kè mwen,” he said, suddenly fixing her with a sincere stare. “You ought to have some fun. Live a little. Fuck around a little. Whatever pleases you. I think Marcus would please you; wouldn’t you, Marcus?” He shook the man by the shoulder encouragingly, and the stranger laughed and brushed him away in seeming good humor.

  “I appreciate your concern,” Adelina said with a nervous chuckle, “but I really don’t need help finding company.”

  “Of course you don’t!” Nathan answered. “Not when dear Marcus is right here. In any case—don’t pay me any mind. You make yourself at home, Adelina, and you just have a good time. A lovely time. Now if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to continue having a lovely time—” He paused to look over his shoulder as though checking that the women in the Jacuzzi hadn’t disappeared. “Right over there.”

  Nathan stopped on the way to refill his glass and then found his way back to the tub, sloshing water onto the floor as he fell back into his seat. Adelina smiled at the man called Marcus as he inched closer to her, and she allowed him to get her a drink in a clean glass. The man nearby seemed content to watch the dancing woman in front of them, though her grace left a little to be desired.

  Across the room, Nathan made a show of taking a deep breath before dunking his head under the water, and Adelina turned her head when the woman beside him gasped and threw her head back with a laughing cry. It was probably time to leave.

  She excused herself and was moving toward the door when she heard Nathan surface, but she stopped when his voice carried across the room,
asking, “How much will you give me if I can set that curtain on fire from here?”

  “What?” the woman asked with a disbelieving laugh.

  “A bet,” Nathan clarified. “I bet you a hundred dollars that I can set that curtain on fire without moving from this spot.”

  “Nathaniel,” Adelina called out, but he didn’t seem to be listening.

  He drained his glass, set it on the step by the tub, and reached out his hand, his bracelet slipping back on his wet wrist. With a word, the curtain near the bed ignited, and the men nearby shouted in alarm and scrambled away from the flame.

  “Holy shit!” the dancing woman shrieked, almost leaping into the other man’s arms in her attempt to get away.

  Adelina rushed forward and snatched the blanket from the bed, snuffing the flame before it could become a real danger, and she turned to stare at Nathan with the singed duvet still in her hands. He wasn’t even paying attention. He was laughing, and the women with him were laughing—even the men had started to chuckle now that the risk had passed.

  Nathan would kill someone if she left. So she stayed, letting the man called Marcus touch her hands and rub her shoulders as they sat on the couch, until Nathan practically fell out of the Jacuzzi and into the bed with the two giggling women close behind him. The dancer and her admirer had taken a place on the floor behind the sofa, which Adelina was able to pointedly ignore. When Nathan’s laughter gave way to a woman’s stifled gasps, Adelina stood from her seat and led Marcus from the room. At least Nathan would be too preoccupied to cause any more trouble. She hoped.

  “You’re better off finding your way back where you belong,” she told Marcus in the hall, and she pried his hand from her waist. “You don’t want to be caught up in him.”

  “What are you, his wife?” the man countered. “I thought this was happening.”