The Left-Hand Path: Runaway

by Barnett,T. S.

  “I’d almost forgotten you were here,” he chuckled, blowing out a stream of smoke. “I did miss seeing you first thing in the morning, darling. So pleasantly rumpled. Shirt not even tucked in.” He stepped closer, but Elton only sipped at his coffee without replying. “But this sort of luxury does look good on you, as I suspected. When we’re finished, you should stay and let me spoil you.”

  “I’m not interested in a patron,” Elton answered dryly. “Particularly one who has to use glamors to actually pay for anything.”

  “So hard to please,” Nathan sighed. He hopped up onto the counter to sit beside the blond as he drank his coffee. “Are you all geared up to be arrested today?”

  “They’ll question me first. About you. They’ll expect Hao to help. Depending on what I say, they’ll decide if I get the cuimne now or later.”

  “And what are you going to say to them?”

  “I don’t know. Preferably something that gets me locked up instead of put under. I won’t be any help to Cora and Thomas if I’m chained up in the basement.”

  Nathan paused to take a pull from his cigarette. “Why not cooperate, then? Tell them where to find me.”

  “Send a Chaser to be killed, you mean.”

  “Don’t get squeamish now, Elton. Do you want them free or not?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then we do what must be done. I’ll be busy controlling your unfortunate partner, but Adelina can handle a single Chaser. She may not even kill him.”

  “Well that’s a comfort,” Elton snorted. He glanced at Nathan over his mug. “What are you going to do to him, exactly? Now that he’s had that poison on him all night.”

  “I’m going to wake him up. You’re welcome to watch, if you like. I know you must be curious.” Elton frowned into his coffee cup and didn’t answer, but he caught the flash of teeth out of the corner of his eye as Nathan smiled at him. “Your stoicism doesn’t fool me, darling.”

  Nathan pushed off of the counter and left the kitchen to knock on Adelina’s door. She appeared looking weary but willing, and Elton held off as long as he could before following them both to Nathan’s bedroom. He watched from the doorway as Nathan lit the red candles on his makeshift altar and lifted one of the bottles from the table, swirling black powder through the golden liquid inside. He poured out a sample into one of the simple brass bowls between the candles and murmured some soft words that Elton couldn’t quite hear.

  Nathan spared a light touch to Adelina’s cheek, turning her face to catch her eyes. “Li pral byen,” he said, and she nodded as he turned to look over his shoulder. “Bring him in here, Elton, if you would.”

  Elton did as he was told. He lifted Chris by the arms, avoiding the stain on his back, and he carried him to the bedroom. He laid the unconscious Chaser on the floor where Nathan directed him, between the drawn veve and the altar. Nathan stripped off his shirt and tossed it to the bed as Elton stepped back out of the way.

  It didn’t look very much like a scene that should have been taking place in a luxury penthouse suite. Adelina knelt beside Nathan, singing softly and shaking a rattle made out of a gourd wrapped with strings of tiny bones. Nathan rocked forward and back with his hands on his knees, a string of whispers escaping him. Elton could already sense the room growing warmer, but his eyes were locked on the circle at the back of Nathan’s neck as the other man swayed. This spirit that Nathan dealt with was frightening to his own daughter. It allowed him to survive deadly injuries and to turn men into slaves. It may have been the reason he was able to cast without groundings. Whatever it was, Elton only hoped Nathan had an exclusive contract.

  Elton had to brace himself against a thump of pressure that pulsed from the room as Nathan’s torso jerked backward. He almost moved to intervene, and he had to remind himself that this ritual was practically at his request. Adelina’s rattling gourd kept a steady rhythm with her song, but Nathan’s movements were seizing and erratic, his body twisting and beginning to glisten with sweat. He fell forward with his hands on either side of the veve, skin trembling in the light of the candles, and the voice that moved his lips was rougher and deeper than the one Elton knew. Chris’s head twitched violently to one side, his jaw slack and his eyes empty and staring. He slowly rose as though pulled by strings while Nathan leaned back, urging him closer with a slow crook of his finger. Chris slumped forward with Nathan’s hand flat against his collarbone to support him. Nathan leaned close to him, whispering a breath away from the other man’s mouth, and then with a final touch of his palm to Chris’s forehead, the Chaser gave a violent shudder and pulled to his feet on his own.

  Nathan turned to look over his shoulder at Elton, his peering eye fully red and dimly glowing, and Elton didn’t dare move. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the blood-colored eyes of the man panting on the floor. Adelina’s hands went still, her voice suddenly silenced, and Elton felt the same tension in his throat that he had in Arizona. These were the same red eyes that he’d seen when Nathan’s loa patron had brought him back from the dead. He’d gotten himself possessed on purpose.

  Nathan’s torso jerked again, and his head fell back as all the air seemed to leave his lungs. He sat back on his heels with his hands limp on the floor at his sides, slowly beginning to breathe again. Adelina set down her gourd and inched forward on her knees to touch his face.

  “Li se amann, kè mwen,” he said in a tight voice, one hand gently gripping her wrist. “Mwen toujou m’ankò.”

  Nathan stood with her help, and he offered her a reassuring smile, but Elton could see the sweat dripping from his temple. “The packet on the dresser there, Elton, if you don’t mind,” he said as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. When Elton handed him the small envelope, Nathan stepped over the veve and tapped Chris’s chin with one finger. The Chaser obediently opened his mouth, allowing Nathan to place a delicate purple and white flower on his tongue. “Bon ti gason,” he murmured with a smile as Chris chewed.

  “So it’s done?” Elton asked softly, and Nathan turned to face him, resting a hand on the placid Chaser’s chest.

  “Simple as that. He’ll take you anywhere you want and do anything you like. As long as I let him,” he clarified, a teasing smile on his lips. “Won’t you, spare?”

  Chris nodded. “Wherever you want.”

  Elton hesitated, watching the Chaser’s eyes. He expected him to look different, or maybe to be slack-jawed and drooling after what Nathan had done to him, but he seemed just the same. A bit quiet, perhaps, but overwhelmingly normal. Somehow, that was even worse.

  “Now then,” Nathan said with a light clap of his hands. “You ready to be arrested?”

  “I suppose I’d better be.”

  “Good man. When they question you, tell them you were meant to meet me at Regent Park. Add in your own colorful details about our secret rendezvous as you like, of course.” He turned to Adelina, who didn’t appear to be listening. She was looking up at Chris with a soft frown creasing her brow. “Kè mwen, if I send you in my stead, do you think you could handle a Chaser or two?”

  She didn’t move to look at him. “Handle them as in kill them?”

  “That’s up to you. Just keep them out of the way until we’re finished at the station.”

  “So that you can kill them later.”

  “Perhaps,” he admitted with a shrug.

  Adelina watched him in silence for a moment, chewing on one corner of her lips as though she couldn’t quite let out the words she wanted to. “Nathaniel,” she began in a quiet voice, “I can’t go on like this.”

  He tilted his head at her. “How do you mean?”

  “All of this,” she sighed. “All of you. I didn’t want to travel with you so that I could help you kill people. And now you’re making your friends into enemies of the entire Magistrate. Do you even think what will happen to Cora if you break her out? She will never go back to school. She will be on a list. She will be hunted, just like you.”

  “Cora chose me
the moment she decided to fight back against them,” Nathan countered. “She’s a grown woman. But so are you. You don’t have to make the same choice.” He actually seemed a bit subdued, and Elton almost felt as if he should leave, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself by taking the step out the door.

  “I’ll help you get her back,” Adelina said. She moved forward and took both of his hands in hers. “But I won’t waste this life you’ve given me. You showed me yourself how much good magic can do, if only we use it to help. I want to go back to Haiti. There is a lot to do there, but you have given me time. Piti, piti, wazo fe nich li, hm? I can help make it better.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t quite lived up to your expectations,” Nathan answered with a faint smile. “I know you’ve been patient with me. Maybe when we’re both old and grey again, I’ll go back, too.” He bent to touch a light kiss to her forehead. “But we don’t have time for sentiment now. Cora’s waiting. Will you take my place in Regent Park?”

  “I will.”

  Nathan pulled free of her hands and returned his attention to Elton. “Then as soon as Mr. Chaser here is finished questioning you, I’ll have him break the wards on the lower levels of the building. I trust you can take it from there?”

  “I’ll figure it out.” Elton nodded toward Chris, who still stood staring quietly at nothing. “Will he even be able to cast like this?”

  “He is my instrument,” Nathan said. He patted the Chaser on the shoulder and laughed. “He’ll do magic he’s never even dreamed of.”

  “Comforting. Remember we agreed not to blow the building up.” Elton stepped out of the room to finish dressing himself. He rolled down his sleeves and buttoned them properly, and he knotted his tie with a swift, practiced hand. He became aware of Nathan staring at him from the bedroom door as he slipped his suit jacket up over his shoulders, and he paused. “What?”

  “Look at you. You do not look like you were just chased down and arrested. Come here.” He drew Elton close to him by his tie and slipped one finger under the knot to loosen it. When he opened his mouth to object, Nathan tutted at him. “I know, I know. ‘Nathan, we don’t have time for this,’” he grumped in a stern mimicry of Elton’s slightly deeper voice, and he mussed his blond hair, a smirk touching his lips as the other man tensed under his hand. “But you ought to look as if he put up a bit of a fight.” Nathan unbuttoned Elton’s suit jacket and tore his shirt at the collar, earning himself an offended snort.

  “Did you—”

  “I’ll buy you a dozen more, darling,” he cut Elton off with a light pat to his cheek. “Now run along and be a good little prisoner.” Nathan turned to gesture behind him at Chris, who approached them without question.

  “Wait.” Elton paused, and he picked up the silk-wrapped wood he’d taken from Thomas’s apartment and pressed it into Chris’s accepting hands. “This is for Thomas.”

  Nathan smiled as the Chaser tucked the small rod into his jacket pocket. “Take Elton to the Magistrate,” he said evenly, and Chris nodded. He slipped something into the Chaser’s jacket pocket and gave it a light pat. “And don’t forget to bind him before you go inside, hm?” He turned to Elton with a bright smile and shooed him toward the door. “Well, good luck, Mr. Willis. I’ll be watching, so if there’s anything you need, just whisper it in our friend’s ear, and I’ll hear you.”

  “The absolute creepiest of baby monitors,” Elton muttered as he turned the handle of the suite door. He caught a glimpse of Adelina watching him as he turned to shut the door behind them, a look of stoic resignation on her face. Despite how upset she’d seemed, it was satisfying at least to know that Nathan didn’t corrupt absolutely everything he touched. Elton himself might have been too far gone, but Adelina had stayed sane. That was something.

  He kept a wary eye on Chris while they rode the street car together back to the Magistrate office. He didn’t speak or make unnecessary movements; he just stared ahead and followed Elton’s lead when it was time to exit the street car. It was unnerving. How was this person supposed to convince anyone?

  As soon as Elton stepped off of the street car, Chris seemed to come to life, gripping him firmly by the arm and murmuring a spell that instantly locked Elton’s wrists behind his back and silenced his voice. It seemed effortless, which Elton could only assume was Nathan’s influence. He allowed himself to be led into the station and lingered obediently while Chris spoke to the man at the desk. Chris was just as gruff as usual, snapping out demands and scowling exactly as before. How much of this was letting him follow orders, Elton wondered, and how much was Nathan’s puppeteering?

  Elton waited in the interrogation room they left him in until Stark pushed open the heavy door and entered with Chris on her heels.

  “Willis,” she said tersely. “I guess I should have expected to see you on the other side of this table eventually.” She took the seat across from him and folded her hands on the table. “What was your thinking here, if you don’t mind me asking? You figured you’d just up and quit, protect a criminal, and run away with Nathaniel Moore? You really thought that would turn out well for you?”

  “I’m trying to do what’s right,” Elton countered. “Turning Thomas in wasn’t right.”

  “Well you did him a lot of good, didn’t you?” The woman sighed. “Let’s get to the point. You’re in better contact with Moore than you’ve been letting on, aren’t you?”

  Elton hoped the hesitant pause he gave was long enough to be convincing. “Yes.”

  “And you’re going to tell us where he is, aren’t you? You’re not going to make this any worse for yourself and put anybody else at risk.”

  “I don’t know where he is. I just know where I was supposed to meet him next.” He looked briefly between Chris’s waiting face and Stark’s stern one. “Regent Park. He said to meet him at Regent Park.”

  “Maybe you’re not a completely lost cause, Willis,” Stark grumbled as she stood. “If we find Moore because of this, maybe I’ll even tell your superior in Vancouver that you were cooperative. And if you’re lying,” she added, leaning her hands on the flat of the table to peer into his eyes, “then I’ll just have to have a Controller try to convince you to tell the truth, hm?”

  Elton didn’t answer. He watched her murmur something to Chris and open the door, and then the Chaser lifted him from his seat by the elbow and led him down the hall toward the elevator. Chris made a show of searching Elton’s every pocket while they stood in front of the impound counter, but when he’d been thoroughly patted down and forced to change into the dull grey clothing every prisoner wore, Chris shoved him into the elevator and slid the folded paper talismans into his waistband.

  Elton tried to keep his eyes front as he followed Chris down the dingy corridor, but he could sense the stares as he passed the occupied cells, and he turned his head as a mass of dark fur caught his eye. In one of the cells, a faun lounged on his cot, one hoof lazily scraping the floor as he swung his leg over the side. He had a chunky ring of iron around his ankle, doubtless as an extra precaution against a faun’s ability to travel on the wind. Elton focused his attention ahead of him again when the creature blew a teasing kiss at him. It wasn’t uncommon for the Magistrate to hold captured criminals until their respective leadership could claim them, nor was it difficult to imagine what sorts of crimes a faun may have gotten up to. Elton hadn’t seen many of them in his time, but their tricks and games could easily become fatal for the mundanes they teased. The Sileni could also be remarkably slow at retrieving their wayward members, so it was frequently impossible to guess how long a faun might need to be held. In Vancouver, they had sometimes simply let them go at the outset rather than pay for their food and board indefinitely. Stark, apparently, was more thorough.

  Chris slammed the door of Elton’s cell shut behind him, then seemed to hesitate for a moment as though he’d forgotten what he was doing. After a pause, he turned and walked deeper into the jail, and Elton pressed his cheek against the bars
to see where he was going. He lost sight of him as he went too far down the corridor, but Elton thought he could hear Cora’s voice through the general noise of the basement cells. He would need to make contact with her. He only hoped he had the chance before she did anything rash.

  Elton sat on his cot and avoided drawing attention to himself. The scratchy blanket under his hands was a little too familiar. He’d gone from one jail cell to another in the span of a week. Now he had nothing ahead of him but hotels rooms for the foreseeable future—and even that was assuming everything went to plan, and he didn’t rot in the basement back in Vancouver. He shook his head and leaned back against the stone wall. One problem at a time. He had to get Cora and Thomas out before he worried about his career options. At least he’d had time to warn Jocelyn.

  The wiry-looking young man in the cell across from Elton’s didn’t seem to take much notice of him, but he kept his voice low as he dangled his arms through the bars of his cell to talk to the man next to him. “You see they let him out again? He wasn’t in here a day,” he said.

  “Being the Magister’s kid is a good deal,” the other inmate answered with a dry chuckle. “I’m in for four months because some reg caught me casting, and that asshole walks when he’s left behind a body? Must be fucking nice.”

  Elton tilted his head to listen.

  “He was just here a couple of days ago, too. What do they even bring him in for if they’re gonna let him right back out again?”

  Elton stood and moved to the door of his cell, catching the attention of the man across the corridor. “Are you talking about Johnathan Hubbard?”

  The younger man gave him a quick look up and down before answering. “What, you know him?”

  “By reputation. Did he kill someone?”

  “Yeah, what else is new? Magistrate ought to put in a revolving door just for him.”

  Elton gripped the bars of the door, a dark frown on his lips. He’d let Hubbard go, and he’d killed again. He’d had him, and he’d let him go. Had Hubbard gone back for the same woman they’d saved? Elton pushed himself away from the bars and dropped back onto his cot, hands fisted tightly on his knees. He hadn’t stopped Hubbard at all. His intimidation, his threats—his half measures hadn’t worked. Nathan had been right. That woman’s death was on Elton’s shoulders. Hubbard had killed again, and Stark and the rest of the Magistrate weren’t going to do anything about it. No one was going to do anything about it. Hubbard would be shipped off to Ottawa and brought even further under his father’s protective wing.