The Left-Hand Path: Runaway

by Barnett,T. S.

  “It would be rude not to say goodbye,” Elton said in a low voice, and Nathan’s lips curled into a slow, grinchlike smile.

  “After you.”

  Elton moved toward the building with Nathan just behind him, scanning the doors as they passed for suite 104. His heart was racing, and his stomach felt tight, but his head was clear. Something had to be done. Someone had to do something. Even if Elton only shook him up, made him think that someone was watching him—maybe it would be enough.

  When they reached the door, Elton paused to listen for movement inside. He could barely make out the muffled sound of a television. He reached down to touch the door knob and felt Nathan’s chin on his shoulder.

  “Are we playing good cop bad cop, or do we both get to be bad cops?” he whispered with a sly grin, and Elton pushed him away with a hand on his face.

  “You aren’t any kind of cop,” he hissed. “You follow my lead or you fuck off, understand? We’re not burning the place down.”

  “Ooh, Elton, such language,” he chuckled. “I’ll behave; I promise.”

  Elton didn’t believe him in the slightest, but he didn’t have much chance of getting Nathan to leave, either. So he gripped the door knob tightly and whispered, “Óbéla,” the television thankfully covering the small click of the deadbolt turning open. He didn’t have time to doubt his decision. Innocent women would die if someone didn’t do something. And he was the right someone. He pushed the door open and spotted Hubbard with his back to the door, one arm thrown over the back of the sofa while a car chase flickered across the screen in front of him. Before Elton knew what he was doing, he had lifted his hand and pinned Hubbard to the sofa with a word, drawing a startled, strangled gasp from him. He tried to twist his head to see his attacker, but Elton walked calmly behind him toward the kitchen, leaving Nathan to shut the door behind them.

  “Johnathan Hubbard—it is Hubbard, isn’t it?” Elton let his fingertips brush the smooth kitchen counter as he passed the sink. He didn’t look back, though he knew the younger man must have been straining to look at him. When he reached the wooden knife block in the corner, he reached for the broad cleaver like it was second nature and slid the knife from its slot with a dull ringing sound. Elton saw the recognition in the man’s eyes when he approached him and the panic as he spotted the cleaver.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Hubbard shouted, failing to hide the waver in his voice. “What do you think you’re doing? Do you even know who I am?”

  “I know exactly who you are,” Elton replied. “And I know exactly what you’ve done.” He left the cleaver in plain view on the coffee table and shrugged out of his coat, folding it neatly on a chair nearby. He took his time rolling his sleeves up to his elbows, keeping a level gaze on the man’s face as he revealed the sharp tattoos on his forearms. He reached forward, freeing Hubbard from the binding spell as he took him by the collar and scooped up his weapon. He threw the younger man forcefully to the floor and kept him in place with a firm knee between his shoulder blades. When Hubbard struggled, Elton leaned down close to his ear and let the blade of the cleaver thunk heavily into the floor near his eyes.

  “If you try to shout,” Elton whispered, “or if you think that you can cast a spell, I’ll have your tongue out of your mouth before you even make a sound. Nod your head if you understand.”

  Hubbard went very still and shifted his head just slightly against the wood. “Good boy,” Elton murmured. “Now. Your father thinks that he can protect you.” He left the cleaver standing in the floor and eased the younger man’s arm out to his side with a firm, calm hand. He pressed his shoe against the other man’s fingers to keep them in place. Elton could feel the trembling in Hubbard’s back, and the young man’s breath shivered under his weight as he took the cleaver by the handle again.

  “Look at me,” Elton said in a soft voice. When Hubbard’s panicked brown eyes turned to look up into the Chaser’s face, Elton let the weight of the cleaver press sharply into the back of his wrist. “Your father can’t protect you from me.” He pushed just hard enough to draw blood, staring unflinching as Hubbard squirmed and winced under his knee. “If you lay a hand on a single woman in Ottawa, I’ll be there to make sure you don’t lay a hand on anything again. Nod your head if you understand,” he finished quietly.

  Hubbard nodded more fervently than before, and Elton slowly rose, dragging the cleaver blade with him as he stood and letting the man on the floor see the small droplets of blood spattering near his face. He tossed the cleaver aside, the heavy skidding sound causing the boy to flinch, and stepped casually over Hubbard’s prone form toward the door, taking up his coat along the way.

  Nathan stood with his fingers laced near his mouth like a proud parent watching a school play. He slung an arm around Elton’s neck and touched his forehead to the Chaser’s shoulder with a stifled laugh as he opened the front door, but both men spun back as they heard the sudden scrape of Hubbard getting to his feet. He had the cleaver in his hand. With a gesture, Nathan flung the young man up from the floor, pressing him spread eagle against the ceiling.

  “Do you see, darling?” Nathan hummed, almost sounding disappointed. “Some people are beyond helping. Sure you don’t want to finish him off?”

  “I didn’t come here to murder someone, Nathan.”

  “Well, it’s your show, I suppose.” He tugged Elton out the front door and turned back to the apartment once they were safely on the street. “Either way, I’m impressed by your gumption,” he said with a bright smile, and Elton didn’t even shove him away as he leaned an elbow on his shoulder. He just let Nathan walk beside him as they strode swiftly away from the scene.

  “They’ll know it was me,” he said, and Nathan tilted his head to look up at him. “After all the fuss I made, they’re going to know it was me.”

  “Blame it on me if you like,” Nathan shrugged. When they were safely around the corner at the next block, he leaned against the nearest building to light a cigarette. “How did you lose your babysitter, by the way? Cora doing you some sexual favors?”

  “She has better taste than that.” Elton shifted and hesitated to meet Nathan’s eyes, though he did accept a cigarette when Nathan offered him the pack. “I had him try to open the box.”

  Nathan sputtered out smoke as he laughed, and he put a hand on Elton’s shoulder. “Did you really?”

  “Really.”

  “You are a wonder, Mr. Willis.” He grinned as Elton leaned in to let him light the cigarette. “What did he look like? On a scale of one to disembowelment, how miserable was he? Oh, I wish I could have seen it.”

  “He could have died, Nathan,” Elton said, and he held a breath of smoke in his lungs for a few blissful moments before letting it out.

  “Oh, nonsense. Besides, so what if he had? Don’t tell me you would have been heartbroken.”

  Elton let out a long sigh and leaned against the wall beside Nathan, but he didn’t argue. “What now?” he asked softly.

  “Getting tired of the chase, darling?” Nathan teased. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

  “I wanted to catch Nathaniel Moore, the most dangerous witch in living memory,” Elton answered in a quiet chuckle. After everything he’d lost, it almost seemed like a childish dream now. Especially with Nathan standing right beside him, neither of them seeming concerned with the prospect of an arrest.

  “Maybe someday,” Nathan mused. “Not every Chaser is so dedicated that he would take the law into his own hands, you know. Not everyone cares enough. But some people will do whatever it takes to see justice done. Some people are born for this job, Elton.” He took another drag from his cigarette and pushed away from the wall. “So you want to know what happens now?” He reached into his coat pocket and offered the Chaser a folded slip of paper.

  “I’m sick of your clues, Nathan.”

  “You’ll want this one,” he assured him in a singsong voice, and he shook the paper until Elton snatched it from his fingers. “The one who
can open the curse box is at that address. Take it there, and have it opened. Then you can decide on your own how to proceed.”

  “Why are you doing this? Why not just kill me like all the others?”

  Nathan chuckled low in his throat, and the sound made Elton shudder. He stepped close to the Chaser, looking down at the lapel of Elton’s coat as he idly fingered the thick wool. Elton tensed at the simple touch and didn’t dare move. “The same reason you aren’t trying to bind me right now,” he murmured with a predatory grin. “Besides, darling,” he added, his fingers slipping up to Elton’s collar so that his thumb just barely brushed the skin at the Chaser’s neck. “I want to see how far you’ll go.”

  Elton opened his mouth, meaning to ask what that meant, but he didn’t like the look in Nathan’s dark eyes.

  “I’ll see you soon, Elton,” Nathan promised before Elton could speak, and he tucked his cigarette back into his mouth as he released Elton’s coat. Then he was gone again, and Elton was left alone on the sidewalk with the other man’s touch lingering on his skin like a burn.

  He shivered and pushed away from the wall as he worried the slip of paper in his hand, trying to ignore the chill in his spine. He looked down at the note while he walked, unfolding it in his fingers, but he didn’t recognize the address. He didn’t have a choice. If he didn’t keep following Nathan’s trail, his only option was going back to a cell in Vancouver. Chris had made that very clear. He only hoped he hadn’t been gone from the hotel so long that Cora had gotten herself discovered.

  Elton arrived at the hotel and lingered near the lobby elevator while he waited for Cora to answer his call. She assured him that she would be able to get him safely back into the room, so he took the elevator to the right floor and counted out the seconds of the two minutes she asked for. He stood around the corner, just out of sight of the Chaser guarding the room, and he only dared to peek around when he heard the door click open. Cora had music going far louder than was necessary, so he couldn’t hear what she was saying to their young keeper, but her disheveled look was apparently convincing enough to get him to stalk briskly down the hallway toward the churning ice machine at the end of the corridor. Cora spotted Elton at the corner and frantically waved him forward, so he moved toward her as quickly as he dared and ducked into the room out of sight just as Morgan turned back to them with the small bucket Cora had handed him.

  “Thanks so much,” she said, seeming out of breath, “sorry to bother you, but it’s just exhausting in here. You’re welcome for keeping the music on.” She waved at him with a bright smile and shut the door, hugging the bucket of ice with one arm.

  Elton almost laughed, but then he caught the television screen out of the corner of his eye and saw the paused image of a naked man and woman mid-coitus. He looked back at Cora accusingly and got a shrug in response.

  “What,” she said under the noise of the music, “I was supposed to sit here and make noises or whatever to convince him? I hope the Magistrate doesn’t mind a couple of pay-per-view charges on the account. At least I wasn’t bored,” she chuckled, and Elton put his hands over his ears and shook his head.

  “Nope. Turn it off. I don’t want to know.”

  “Puritan,” she teased, but she did as she was told, clicking off the television with the remote on the nightstand. She dropped onto the bed with her legs tucked under her and set aside the bucket of ice in favor of combing her fingers through her hair. Elton chose to stand, wary of the sort of activities that had taken place on the bed in his absence. “So did you see him? You smell like cigarettes.”

  “Yes,” Elton sighed as he slipped off his coat. “He told me where to take the box to have it opened.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s what matters.”

  Cora watched him skeptically for a long moment, but he didn’t give in. He couldn’t tell her what he’d done. He didn’t want to see her disappointment, or worse—her approval.

  They waited, eventually turning the music down to a more reasonable level, and Elton stood looking at the address on the note while Cora dozed on the bed nearby. They could just go. They could overpower the man outside, take the chest, and go see this person without Chris. He could find out what it was Nathan wanted him to know. But then he would definitely be put back in a cell. He sighed and leaned against the dresser. His overzealousness was what got him into trouble in the first place. He could try to blame what had happened in Arizona on Nathan all he wanted, but he had done his fair share of lawbreaking. He had threatened a man with bodily harm today. A man who deserved it, he reminded himself. He knew, somewhere inside, that it hadn’t been his place to decide that—but the man whose job it was wasn’t doing it. It was as simple as that.

  Elton looked up at a knock on the door and opened it just enough to see Morgan’s frowning face.

  “Stark wants you back at the office,” he said. He was clearly trying not to look into the room and see something he shouldn’t. “Now.”

  Elton nodded and left the door open as he moved back to the bed to nudge Cora awake. She stirred reluctantly but slid into her coat when he held it open for her, and together they followed Morgan back to the car.

  Stark was waiting for them, on her feet as soon as they entered her office. Chris sat in one of the chairs to the side of her room, looking queasy and pale but upright.

  “There anything you want to tell me, Morgan?” Stark snapped. “Shut the door.”

  The young Chaser did as he was told, but he didn’t seem to have an answer for her, so he just looked at her in submissive confusion.

  “No?” she said, turning her sights on Elton. “What about you? Any adventures since I saw you last?”

  “Did something happen?” Elton asked in return.

  “The Magister’s son called in,” Stark growled. “He said that two men broke into his home and threatened him. Somehow, he couldn’t remember what they looked like. Isn’t that strange?”

  Elton raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise, but it took everything Cora had not to stare up at him with blatant shock on her face. She bit her lip and kept her eyes front. She knew in her gut where Elton had been. The guy had gotten what was coming to him whether Nathan had encouraged it or not. Nobody else seemed about to step up. As usual, Elton was doing the job nobody else would.

  Stark pulled open a drawer of her desk and slapped down a thick green file, leaning one hand on it as she stared up at Elton. “You see this, Willis? This is how many people come through here that I have to have approval to prosecute. You think Hubbard’s special? Got a bug up your ass about having to let him go? I guarantee you every Magistrate office in North America has a list like this. Didn’t I tell you it’s just the way things are? And all of a sudden you think you’re the one who gets to go above and beyond?”

  “Why are you looking so accusing?” Cora spoke up, flinching slightly as she drew Stark’s furious gaze. “Aren’t you the one who had this guy lurking outside our room? Elton was with me the whole time,” she insisted. Elton tensed beside her as she slipped her hand into his, but he didn’t pull away.

  Neither Stark nor Chris missed the movement. Chris scowled up at Elton, who refused to meet his eye. He hadn’t thought this plan through far enough to realize that going along with Cora’s alibi had meant the other man’s accusatory suspicions about Elton’s relationship with the girl would be confirmed. He fought not to grimace at the thought.

  “It’s true,” Morgan said in a helpful tone, and Elton watched him out of the corner of his eye with growing distaste, trying to remind himself that it wasn’t this person’s fault he’d been given the idea. “They were both…I mean, they were in there,” the Chaser added awkwardly. “They were definitely in there.”

  Elton felt slightly sick. Chris pushed himself to his feet and stood right in front of Elton with disgust curling his lip.

  “She’s just a kid, huh?” he scoffed. “Doesn’t seem to have stopped you, does it?”

  Elton bit his t
ongue to keep from objecting, and Cora gripped him so tightly that her nails dug into the back of his hand.

  “Just tell them,” she pressed. “I’m not ashamed.”

  “Tell—” Elton stopped himself. He was about to back himself into a corner. If he argued too much, it would be suspicious. He held in his sigh and looked down into Chris’s face. “What we do isn’t any of your business, Hao.” It was as close as he could bring himself to a confession.

  Chris clicked his tongue and stepped back from Elton as though he was infectious. “Did you even let the ink dry when your wife left you, Willis, or did she leave because she caught on?”

  Cora reached her arm out to put a warning hand on Elton’s chest, sensing that he was about to move before he could take a step.

  “I’m not interested in any of your sex lives,” Stark snapped. “Morgan, you say you didn’t see either of them leave the room?”

  “No ma’am.”

  “You’d swear to it.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Then that’s all I need to know. Willis, you and…whatever your name is go wait outside. I’ll send Hao out shortly.”

  Cora was mildly offended by being forgotten, but she followed Elton out of the office, keeping her hand in his while they walked to the small waiting area in the lobby. She sat down beside him in a barely-cushioned chair and frowned as he pulled away from her to sigh into his hands.

  “I can’t believe they think—” He let his hands slip down his face until only his fingertips covered his mouth. “I can’t believe we told them that.”

  Cora leaned back in her seat and crossed her legs with a snort. “Sorry I’m so disgusting, Elton, damn.”