“Tell me or don’t tell me, Elton.”
“All right. Magic, as you know, is intention. It’s words. So I’m going to tell you the words to use, and it’s up to you to remember them. Listening?” He paused for her nod before speaking again. “Tian Di Yu Wo Bing Sheng, Er Wan Wu Yu Wo Wei Yi.”
She laughed. “You’re joking, right? How am I supposed to remember that?”
Elton exhaled through his nose. “By practice. Can you repeat them?”
Cora tried, stopping halfway through to laugh at her pronunciation, but Elton said the words again in a gentle voice, and after a couple more tries, Cora was able to say the phrase properly.
“With this, you can do a few different kinds of magic, if you can focus your intention. For breaking a binding, you also need the right tone.”
“Tone?”
“They’re also called sacred sounds. We can get more in-depth later if you like, but for this one, you just breathe. Like saying ‘hook,’ but without the ‘k’ sound.” He inhaled and let it out as an example, then gestured to her to try. “Remember your phrase, and focus. Ho is for fire-based magic. It’s volatile and consuming; you should be able to feel it even without a binding on you.”
Cora settled on her knees and did as she was told, shutting her eyes and softly repeating the words she’d learned. Then she took one long breath and let it out as he had. She waited after she ran out of air, and she opened one eye to peek at him.
“I don’t feel anything,” she whispered. “Am I not Chinese enough, or is it a feng shui thing? Maybe we should rearrange the furniture?”
“Just practice,” Elton answered. “You’ve got talent, Cora; you just need to focus.” He pulled back from her as the bathroom door opened behind them and Chris stared across the room with a suspicious frown; Elton been watching Cora so closely, he hadn’t heard the water shut off. “Hahng’wúih. Ngóh go méng giu Cora. Néih hóu ma?” he said, purposely speaking a bit louder than before, and when Cora stared at him blankly, he lifted his eyebrows and tilted his head just slightly in Chris’s direction, relieved when he saw the light of understanding in her eyes.
“Hahng’wúih. Ngóh go méng giu Cora. Néih hóu ma?” she repeated poorly, and Chris scoffed as he rubbed the towel over his damp hair and tossed it back to the bathroom floor.
“Can’t think of many things sadder than a Chinese girl learning Cantonese from a gweilo.”
“Maybe being a dick who makes fun of people for learning things?” Cora suggested, earning herself a scowl.
“Just get some sleep,” the Chaser growled, and Cora gave Elton a secret, sly smile as she slid into the bed with her back to him.
Elton piled his clothes neatly on his bag, slipped into his sleep pants, and slid under the blanket beside her. He clicked off the lamp when he heard Chris settle onto the other mattress, and he kept to his edge of the bed as he got as comfortable as the hotel bed would allow.
“Thanks, Elton,” he barely heard Cora whisper next to him in the darkness, and he smiled faintly without answering.
8
In the blackness of sleep, a single white candle formed itself before Cora’s eyes. She sensed its pull, and the longer she looked at the flame, the more real and aware she felt. It was always the same. It took time to adjust, but when she could flex her fingers and feel the weight of her body, she sat down at the edge of the circle of light and tucked her legs underneath her. The floor itself seemed to disappear where the candle’s reach ended; the wavering sphere of light was the only thing that existed here, except for her. And him.
“It’s been a while,” she said, smiling at the familiar face across from her. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“What an awful suggestion, my love,” Nathan chuckled. He’d been coming to her this way for months—sitting with her in her dreams, talking with her, passing on incantations and recipes. Sometimes it seemed like minutes, and sometimes their lessons lasted for hours. Cora guessed that was just the way of dreams. She would listen, repeat, and memorize, and then when she woke up in the mornings, she would scramble to write everything down before the fog of sleep took it from her. She had told her roommate that she was just very meticulous about her dream journal. If Elton had known that Nathan could contact her like this, or even more, that they could hold entire conversations, she wouldn’t have been able to bear his inevitable staring at her as she tried to go to sleep. Besides, it was none of his business. She could tell herself that, anyway, as long as she wasn’t actively helping Nathan commit any felonies.
“We’ve both been busy, haven’t we?” Nathan asked. “I just wanted to check in on you. How are you enjoying being on the Chaser side of things? Looking forward to a promising career?”
“As if,” she snorted. “You were right about them. Every one of them is awful. Elton’s at least only half awful. But he still sucks sometimes.”
“I suspect he’ll be getting better as we go along.” He tilted his head at her. “I need you to be alert in the days to come, Cora. You’ve been keeping up with your practice?”
“Of course. Elton took my book, but I remember most of it. I even made the Four Thieves for the guy at the library! That...is what you wanted me to do, right?”
Nathan’s smile was warm in the faint light of the candle. “I couldn’t ask for a better apprentice. I knew you’d get the idea. Adelina will be pleased.”
“Elton’s getting kind of pissed, you know. Not as pissed as Chris, but I think Chris is just naturally perma-pissed.”
“I’m excited to meet him. How much did you tell them about our little meetings?”
“I just said you sent me letters. They don’t know we’ve been talking.”
“Wonderful. We’ll keep this little secret between us, then, hm?” He leaned forward, glancing down to check how much of the burning candle remained. When the flame went out, their time would be through. “But on that note, is there anything that jumps out at you about our dear Mr. Willis? Anything that might be helpful for me to know?”
“He seems the same as always. Grumpy. Completely obsessed with you.”
“That’s the way I like him,” Nathan murmured with a sly smile.
“But he gave me his cell number. You want that?”
“Oh, desperately.” Nathan repeated the number back to her for clarification and then once more to himself, then he put his hands on his knees and put on an intent frown. “Now, a lot may happen in the next few days—in fact, I’m counting on it—and I need you to stick by Elton like glue, do you understand? If something goes awry, I’ll need you to tell me. Even I can’t keep an eye on him all the time. Do you think you can do that? Keep him on the right track?”
“Isn’t your track generally considered the wrong one?”
“Now you’re just trying to hurt my feelings.”
She laughed, and he smiled. The candle was beginning to burn down. “I’ll keep Elton on the…what’s the opposite of straight and narrow? Curved and wide? I’ll keep him on the curved and wide. If I can.”
“Excellent. I’ll let you get some rest. We’ll see each other soon,” he promised. “Give Elton a kiss for me.”
“I’ll pass,” she chuckled, and Nathan shrugged.
“Take care, Cora.”
He leaned forward with one last smile and blew the candle out, and Cora opened her eyes in the dark hotel room, staring at the ceiling while Elton breathed quietly beside her. She tucked the blanket up closer around her chin and watched him with a furrowed brow for a few long moments. Nathan had more in mind than just teasing him. There wasn’t always deep meaning behind the things Nathan did, but this was entirely too much setup for just a fun chase.
Cora turned away from Elton with a soft sigh and shut her eyes again. She just hoped there wouldn’t be too many fatal explosions.
9
In the morning, Elton woke with a start, coughing himself to consciousness as he pushed Cora’s arm away from his face. He took a deep breath, feeling as though
it was the first he’d been allowed in some time, and he looked down at the girl next to him. Cora had nestled herself under his arm at some point in the night, her head resting on his bicep, but her face was buried in his armpit and her arm had been flung carelessly over his mouth. He could feel the chill of damp saliva on the sheet under his shoulder. He tried to extricate himself and caused her to stir, her hair sticking up in a tangled mess as she lifted her head to stare blearily at him.
“Good morning,” he offered quietly, and she shifted on her stomach and used his chest to push herself up into a sitting position.
“Sorry,” she murmured. She rubbed at her eyes. “At least I didn’t hit you. My boyfriend said I used to hit him all the time.”
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”
“Yeah, had, past tense,” she shrugged. “It wasn’t serious. I think he just had a thing for Asian girls. Gross. Anyway, I’m showering. Wake up Shitty Chaser and let’s go see our guy.”
Elton watched her amble into the bathroom with an amused smile on his face, but he paused as he sat up and grimaced as he wiped at the cold saliva that rolled down his side. He gave a small shudder and shook Chris awake.
When they had all cleaned and dressed themselves, Cora gathered up her bottles and held them protectively in her lap while Chris drove to the afflicted man’s apartment. They knocked on the door of the address that had been given to them, and the man let them inside with suspicious glares for each of them.
“Don’t touch anything,” he said, but none of his guests were inclined to disobey him. The house was a wreck. Piles of trash grew out of every corner, and the smell coming from the narrow kitchen made Elton’s stomach lurch. Every flat surface he could see was covered with junk—clothes, shopping bags, crumpled mail, newspapers, cigarette packs, dirty dishes. The whole room felt sticky with nicotine.
The man slumped his way over to the corner of a worn sofa, the only empty space in the room, and sat down. “You have it?”
“Right here,” Cora said gently, and she picked her way over the trash on the floor and set the bottles down in front of him. She unscrewed the caps for him. “You leave them open, just like this, and don’t touch them for four days. Then you can close them, and you take a little drink a couple of times a day every day until they’re gone, okay? Just a shot or a small glass’s worth.”
He stared at the bottles, running clumsy fingers over the wax. “It’ll help?”
“It’ll help,” she promised him. She crouched down beside him with a sympathetic frown. “You’ll feel so much better. Real soon.”
The man seemed to struggle to find the right words, but then he gave in with a sudden soft sob and reached out to tightly clutch Cora’s hands. “Thank you,” he said in a sniffling croak. “Thank you. So long. I’ve been this way…so long. I can’t…think. Can’t cast. I don’t…I don’t remember what I did. The Chasers—they came, and then they left me here. I think…I think I must have done something wrong.” He wiped at the tears on his cheeks with the back of one hand. “It wasn’t always—wasn’t always like this. I remember. Not being like this.”
Cora’s eyes were red with restrained tears. “Soon,” she whispered. “You start taking this, and you’ll feel better. I promise.”
He shifted to take the crumpled envelope from his pocket, and he offered it to her with a faint, slow smile. She stood as she took it from him, and she let him squeeze her hands one more time and whisper quiet thanks. When they were outside, she leaned against the railing of the front steps and took a deep breath to clear her head. She handed the envelope off to Elton and rubbed at her face with her hands. The paper inside only had two words scratched on it.
Eyes up.
Elton immediately scanned the sidewalk and almost dropped the paper in his hand as he spotted Adelina standing just a few feet down the street from them and Nathan beside her, hands in his coat pockets and a smile on his face.
For a moment, Elton didn’t even think to move. He heard Cora’s gasp and laughter as she followed his gaze and finally opened his mouth to speak.
“You—” he started, but he was cut off by Cora barreling by him. She leapt up into Nathan’s waiting arms, hooking her legs securely around his waist and laughing as he stumbled a half step backwards.
“Look at you!” Nathan said with a careless laugh as he kissed her cheek, the nearby Chasers momentarily forgotten. He let Cora to the pavement after a prolonged squeeze, and he immediately rubbed his fingers in the short hair at one side of her head. “My love, look what you’ve done to your hair…is it blue underneath? Lovely. Absolutely lovely.”
Nathan smiled across at Elton as he stalked down the front steps. He approached Elton with open arms, but the Chaser’s hand pressed against his face as he leaned in to greet him with a similar kiss.
“Nope,” Elton said promptly, and Nathan shoved his hand away in a huff.
“So cruel, darling. And after all the trouble I went to.”
“This…this is him?” Chris spoke up from behind them. Nathan leaned to look at him with a light sigh.
“Oh, good,” he drawled. “You brought the spare.”
“Nathan,” Elton warned.
Nathan instantly returned his attention to Elton, slipping closer to him and tilting his head to peer into his pale eyes. Elton tensed, but Nathan only smiled at him. “Have you been having fun, darling?” he murmured. “You tried so hard, and now here I am.”
“I’m through playing with you,” Elton answered through a tight jaw. “You’ve had your fun. Are you going to come in, or are you going to make a scene?”
“Elton,” Nathan scolded. “Me, make a scene?”
He looked to Adelina, who was busy being fawned over by a suddenly very energetic Cora. “Are you all right?”
The woman looked up with a smile, her hand on the younger girl’s shoulder. “Who, me? I’d worry about myself if I were you.”
“As if she’s any concern of yours,” Nathan chuckled. “Looking to replace your wife already? I promise to be a kind father-in-law.”
Elton’s hand closed into a fist at his side, but he refused to let his anger show. “She’s used the arcela airet. It’s murder,” he added with a pointed glance at Adelina.
“You ought to be careful, darling,” Nathan hummed, reaching back to catch Cora’s fingers in his. “You know how I get when you threaten my girls.”
“You take one step with her, Nathan, and I can’t play nice anymore. She’s a witness for the Magistrate, and she’s my responsibility.”
“Why are you even talking to them?” Chris cut in, and he reached out toward Nathan and spoke the word adrig even as Elton put a hand on his arm in warning. They were on the street, and Nathan wouldn’t be discreet.
Nathan hissed out the counterspell with almost disgusted boredom, and his lip curled as he stared across at Chris. “Tell me, Elton; do you like this one?”
“What?”
“If you like him, I’ll leave him in one piece for you,” Nathan growled, his hand pushing outward and sending Chris slamming sideways against the brick facade of the apartment building. Chris stumbled and kept a hand on the wall to steady himself as he fired back at Nathan, momentarily trapping his arms to his sides in a shimmering blue barrier, but the shockwave as Nathan broke free shook the parked cars in the street. He lifted his hand and drew Chris upwards with it, leaving the Chaser stretching his toes downward in desperate search of support.
“How many pieces, darling?” Nathan asked, but Elton snapped out a word with his ring hot against his hand, and Chris dropped to the floor gasping for breath. Nathan turned his eyes to Elton with raised eyebrows and let out a low, rumbling laugh of appreciation. “Oh, I have missed you.”
Chris was on his feet again in a moment, and Elton put out a hand to help him and was quickly shoved away. “I’m going to tear you apart, asshole,” the Chaser promised, already reaching for Nathan again to try to pin him down.
“No,” Nathan said simply, almos
t pityingly, and with a flick of his wrist, he sent Chris back against the wall so hard that his head cracked audibly against the red brick. He looked to Elton and held out a hand to him with a beckoning gesture, the Chaser’s shoes skidding on the sidewalk as he was pulled forward against his will. Nathan tilted his chin to the Chaser, idly fingering the lapel of Elton’s coat as he whispered close against his ear, “You. You come with me.”
In another instant, Nathan was gone, leaving only a crackling of ozone in his wake. Elton paused long enough to spare a glance back at Chris’s limp form, but then he swore and ran after Nathan, almost slipping as he took the corner.
Adelina brushed Cora behind her on instinct as Chris groaned and pulled groggily to his feet. The Chaser scowled at them, but Adelina didn’t show any sign of moving.
“Mind your manners, Chaser,” she said as a mild warning.
“We can do this whichever way you want,” he answered as he stretched his hand toward her. “Your choice how much it hurts.”
Adelina ticked an eyebrow and slightly pursed her lips. “You, or me?” She kept one hand calmly on the token in her pocket until he spat out a spell, and then she snapped at him, flipping him upside down by the ankles and leaving him to flail in the air. “Don’t think that I’m defenseless just because I’m not my father.” She glanced down at Cora while Chris struggled against gravity. “Maybe you ought to go check on your friend,” she suggested. “Nathaniel has been a little too eager to see him.”
Elton weaved through the sparse crowd on the sidewalk at a sprint, following the thrum of magic that Nathan left in his wake. He didn’t need a seeking spell to feel it. He would probably get in trouble for leaving his handler behind, but he couldn’t let Nathan get away again. He wasn’t going to follow a single other leading note.
Ahead of him, he finally spotted Nathan, standing casually at a crosswalk and lighting a cigarette with the small flame in his palm. He wanted to call out to him, but before he could make a sound, Nathan turned to him with a dark smile and reached out to touch a knuckle to a sedan parked on the side of the street. Elton locked eyes with him and tried to will him into keeping still, but like a cat pushing a glass to the floor, Nathan nudged the car and rocked it on its tires, the motion rippling through the line of parked cars behind it. When Elton took another step forward, Nathan flipped the whole row into the air with a delicate flick of his wrist.
The Left-Hand Path: Runaway Page 8
