Right Hand Magic

by Nancy A. Collins

  I moved a pile of dictionaries out of the chair and sat down, staring at the stacks of books that surrounded me. If there was any system as to how they were shelved, it was beyond my ability to recognize it.

  A few seconds later Mr. Manto returned carrying a tray on which rested a plain white ceramic teapot and a single cup. Seating himself in the chair opposite mine, he unceremoniously pushed the mound of paper off the coffee table and onto the floor.

  “You may have noticed that my tea service has only one cup. I assure you it’s not because I’m an absent-minded old man or a bad host,” he said drolly. “It’s because this particular tea is the trigger for my visions. It is brewed from diviner’s sage.”

  “You have to trip to see the future?” I frowned.

  “I am not doing anything unethical, I assure you. It has always been necessary for human oracles to be intoxicated before they prophesize,” Mr. Manto explained. “Unlike Kymerans, human soothsayers cannot pierce the veil of the supernatural without help, no matter how great our Sight. The sibyls of Delphi breathed the ethylene fumes that arose from a crack in the temple floor and chewed laurel leaves in order to see their visions. I merely follow in the footsteps of my ancestors.”

  He lifted the teapot and carefully poured a greenish brown liquid into his cup. “I knew from my own vision that you would be coming, so I brewed some earlier.”

  “It must be handy to know things like that in advance,” I said.

  Mr. Manto looked at me over the rim of the cup, his eyes filled with unwanted wisdom. “Tell that to Cassandra,” he grunted.

  Having downed his special tea, the soothsayer leaned back in his chair. The deep lines about his mouth gradually relaxed as his eyes lost their focus and grew cloudy. He fished around in the pocket of his cardigan and pulled out a Nano in a bright pink Hello Kitty case, which he popped into a portable iPod dock sitting on the table. Within seconds Mozart’s Lacrimosa Requiem filled the room.

  As if on cue, Mr. Manto rose from his easy chair, eyes still fogged, and walked over to one of the bookcases from which he pulled out a paperback romance. He opened the novel without looking at it, ripped out a page, and then returned the book to the shelf. He then went over to another bookcase and grabbed a cookbook and did the exact same thing. He repeated his actions five more times, defacing a children’s book, a porno mag, a back issue of Cat Fancy, a Stephen King novel, and a volume from a set of encyclopedias.

  The soothsayer returned to his chair and tore the individual pages in half, then ripped the halves into quarters, and then tore them again into eighths. He dumped the shredded pages into a small metal wastebasket and stirred the contents with one gnarled hand.

  Muttering under his breath, he closed his eyes and reached into the trash can, pulling out individual scraps of paper, which he placed on the recently cleared surface of the coffee table. After several minutes of arranging the bits of paper, his eyes still closed, he fell back into the arms of his easy chair, a look of exhaustion on his long face.

  “Is it done?” I asked.

  Mr. Manto nodded his head wearily.

  “What does it say?”

  The aged oracle fished a pair of horn-rimmed glasses from the pocket of his cardigan and slid them onto his nose. He leaned forward, peering down through his bifocals at the cut-up prophecy arranged before him.

  “Rise shall a fire-born army forged of woman to the bestiarii free,” he read aloud in a stentorian monotone. “Drown will the streets the usurped in blood no mercy for his flesh show. From two will be one turned three. The hand is in the mind.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  The soothsayer looked up from his reading, a surprised look on his face. “You don’t understand it?”

  “Of course not! Why can’t you just tell me what you saw?”

  “It’s not that simple, my dear.” He sighed. “I can remember the visions that involve me, such as the one where I saw us meeting upstairs. But once the trance is broken, I cannot recall what I beheld in the future of others. Don’t worry—I’m sure it will all become clear to you when the moment arrives. Whether you understand it in time for it to do you any good is another matter, though.”

  I bid the old soothsayer good night and left him to his cats. I returned to my room and went to bed, but I had a hard time getting to sleep. While I wasn’t entirely confident in Mr. Manto’s skills as a fortune-teller, I couldn’t help but be concerned by the prophecy he had pieced together. I definitely heard him say “fire,” “army,” “drown,” and “blood.” Those were not words anyone wanted to hear in regard to his or her future.

  Chapter 13

  “ Just hold that pose a couple of more minutes,and I’ll be done,” I said, glancing up from my sketchbook at Lukas. I was busy drawing my newest housemate au naturel—in his four-legged form, not the nude, that is.

  Being chased through the garden maze by a humanoid cat hadn’t simply been a traumatic personal episode and an unlikely introduction to a new friend. It had also proved a source of inspiration for my art.

  I had finished two of the three new pieces I had agreed to deliver to Derrick for the opening. The first two were individual sculptures that combined to re-create Rodin’s The Kiss. But when it came to the third sculpture, I found myself stumped. I knew I wanted it to be a female form, but I was leery of offering up yet another reinterpretation of the Venus de Milo.

  After my midnight run through the garden maze, it occurred to me that I should do another “paired” sculpture, like The Kiss. This time, though, instead of simply doing two human figures, one of them would be that of an animal. That was how I came to re-create von Dannecker’s Ariadne on the Panther using transmission parts, steel tubing, and sheet metal.

  Lukas agreed to serve as my live model, as he saw it as a way to make up for the less than ideal circumstances under which we first met. I saw it as an unparalleled chance to get an up-close and personal look at the musculature of a big cat like a panther without dealing with zoo personnel or certain death. While watching Lukas transition from outwardly normal teenager to mountain lion and back again was unnerving at times, it was considerably less terrifying than having Scratch pose in his demon aspect.

  “Okay, you can turn back now,” I said.

  Lukas grunted in relief and reared back onto his hind legs. He snatched up his house robe and wrapped it about himself before he finished his transformation.

  “Let me see,” he said eagerly. “I’ve never had anyone draw my picture before!”

  “I’m not that great when it comes to line drawing,” I explained as I showed him my sketchbook. “My real skill is with the welding torch. Wait until you see the finished product. You’ll actually be able to move the hip joints, and the tail will be fully articulated. ...”

  “I think you draw beautifully,” Lukas replied as he studied the sketches of his cat form.

  “No offense, kid, but you’ve never seen real art before.”

  “That may be true,” he admitted, “but it still doesn’t change my opinion of your work. I can’t wait to see the finished piece!”

  “Me, too. But first I have to find the materials to make it. I normally order parts from this guy I know in Williamsburg who used to play in a punk band. I called him yesterday to put in my order, and I found out he’s sold his auto repair business to go on tour. The new owner said it’s going to take three weeks just to get the transmission. I can’t wait that long.”

  I spent the next couple of hours making calls to various automotive supply houses, but kept running into brick walls. Most of them refused to deal with an individual, as opposed to a licensed mechanic, or they only handled rebuilds. I tried to explain that a rebuilt transmission was of no use to me, as I had to be sure it was in perfect working condition before I disassembled it for my own use. You could literally hear the crickets chirping on the other end of the line as I told them what I wanted to use the transmission for. I finally tracked down a supplier in Red Hook who was willing
to sell me what I needed, but he balked when he found out it had to be delivered to Golgotham.

  By the time I finished with that last call, I was so mad I could spit nails. I decided the only thing left for me to do was drown my sorrows in some ice cream. I stomped downstairs and took the brand-new half gallon out of the freezer and fished a tablespoon out of the dish rack. I contemplated spooning the ice cream into its own bowl, then said, “Screw it,” and started eating it right out of the carton.

  Hexe entered the kitchen a few minutes later, only to halt upon seeing me attacking a helpless carton of chocolate-strawberry-cheesecake.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “What makes you think something’s wrong?” I mumbled around the tablespoon in my mouth.

  “You’re eating ice cream. You eat ice cream only when you’re pissed off.”

  “I’ve lived here long enough for you to notice that?” I asked, surprised that he’d picked up on that particular quirk so quickly. It took Roger six months to make that connection.

  “Time flies, doesn’t it? So what’s the problem?”

  “I’m having trouble finding a transmission to use for my final sculpture. I put in a call to my previous supplier, but he’s out of business and everyone else is either giving me the runaround or refuses to deliver to this part of town. I’ve got to get my hands on one ASAP.”

  “Have you tried the Fly Market?”

  “Why would I go there?” I frowned. “It’s just weird food, magical stuff, and tacky tourist crap.”

  “The Fly Market is more than a place to buy centaur tack and cow brain tacos. If you know where to look—and whom to ask for—you can find anything you might possibly need underneath its roof.”

  “I take it you know whom to ask?”

  Hexe nodded. “His name is Quid. He’s my go-to guy for some of the harder-to-find ingredients I need in my business.”

  “Do you think he can find a transmission?”

  “Let me put it this way: If Quid can’t find one for you, no one can.”

  Since Quid didn’t usually offer his services to humans, and Hexe was running low on pukeweed and screech owl blood anyway, he offered to accompany me to the Fly Market and introduce me to his buddy. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon in the city—the sky was clear, the sun was out—so we decided to skip the hansom cab trip and walk there instead.

  As we headed toward the East River, I found myself surrounded by romance. Not the kind you find in soppy love stories or Julia Roberts movies, but the genuine romance of old New York, with its narrow streets and dark alleys, old buildings, hidden cemeteries, and ancient pubs. Unlike the rest of the city, which had been gradually modernized over the centuries, it was still possible to walk the streets of Golgotham and be certain that what I was seeing remained unchanged since the War of 1812. I was steeped in history, no matter where I looked.

  As we crossed Water, Beekman Street became Mariner Lane. With the change in name came a noticeable increase in foot traffic. Processions of wagons drawn by Clydesdale-sized centaurs, each one wearing a Teamsters cap, jammed the cobblestone street leading down to the river. As we drew closer, I caught the scent of the East River on the breeze; it was strong, fishy, and deep. Within seconds of smelling the river, I saw the market itself.

  Despite the jokes, the Fly Market wasn’t named after the insects that buzzed around the stalls; it was actually a corruption of the Dutch word for “valley.” Although it had grown and mutated since it was first opened in the eighteenth century, it remained the oldest public marketplace still in operation in the entire city.

  The Fly Market was housed in an industrial Gothic loggia fashioned of brick and iron that occupied an entire city block, stretching along the quay from Mariner Lane to Perdition Street. The Brooklyn Bridge loomed above it all in the near distance, like an arcane tower raised to appease some nameless river god.

  Whereas other such open-air markets in the city offered meat and produce for sale, the Fly Market sold not only the freshest comestibles suited for the Kymeran palate, but it also provided the raw materials needed in the unique commerce practiced by the denizens of Golgotham. Need a new crystal ball? A fresh deck of tarot cards? Looking for mummy dust or powdered unicorn horn to complete a certain potion? Then the Fly Market was sure to have it. It was also the biggest tourist attraction in Golgotham. Every year hundreds of thousands of human tourists flocked there to experience a taste of the “otherworldly” and bring back a souvenir of their visit to “the strangest neighborhood in America.”

  We approached the market from the Mariner Lane side, ascended the steps, and passed across the corner, where bleeding sides of beef and split hogs hung alongside butchered camels and dressed-out ostrich. Then we descended into the cavernous gallery of the market’s interior, which was uninterrupted by walls of any kind and open to the elements via huge, vaulted doorways big enough to drive a forklift through. Underneath its twenty-five-foot-high ceiling were thousands of individual stalls, each of which boasted some kind of garishly painted banner advertising its wares, reminiscent of the old Coney Island freak show. Above each booth hung a ball of witchfire suspended in midair, which provided the only illumination within the building, save for what natural light managed to filter in through skylights set high in the ceiling.

  Everywhere I looked, business was being transacted at a furious pace. The aisles of the market were crowded with a mixture of locals and tourists, and the noise created by the endless shuffle of the crowd passing to and fro was as unceasing as the sound of surf crashing on a beach. Boxes and crates were wrenched open, their contents strewed about haphazardly while the stall keepers bellowed orders to their subordinates at the top of their lungs.

  I hastily jumped out of the way as a spider the size of a blue crab scampered along the concrete floor, only to be scooped up and dropped back into one of the many barrels lining the front of a nearby stall. Glancing inside, I saw a confused mass of writhing giant arachnids viciously attacking one another, and I quickly looked away.

  As I walked past a booth crowded with charmed bits of bric-a-brac, a pair of little jade fu dogs set to either side of a glass-domed clock turned to watch me pass. Farther down the same aisle, I stopped to study the collection of bottled djinns available for sale. I picked up a pale hexagonal bottle with an elaborate ceramic stopper sealed in wax from a magic candle and stared at the elemental trapped within. The creature was made of flame, with blazing fingertips and sparks in its hair, dressed in a gown of blazing opaline. It capered about inside its container, like a puppy eager to find a new home. I shook my head and put the bottle back where I found it.

  Another stall nearby displayed a miniature gravel garden where dozens of black chickens scratched for a living like so many investment bankers. Across from it was a booth with a banner that read LIVE BLACK GOATS FOR SALE. Farther down was a stall that sold beeswax for creating magic candles, while another hawked scrying-quality crystals in their uncut state. Another stall sold designer-label knockoffs scaled down to accommodate leprechauns and other members of the “wee folk.”

  A Kymeran woman, her face covered by a black lace veil sewn with occult symbols, sat in her booth and carefully applied the last coat of wax to the severed hand of a hanged man so that she could sell it as a Hand of Glory. As we passed, she paused in her work long enough to bow her head to Hexe, who nodded in return without slowing his step.

  “Do you know that woman?” I asked.

  “No,” he replied.

  “Then why did she nod at you?”

  “Because she knows me.”

  I was about to ask Hexe what he meant by that last statement when the smell of deep-fried food brought me to a dead halt. I stopped to investigate the source of the delicious aroma, which proved to be a stall with a sign advertising GATOR ON A STICK.

  The vendor, a Kymeran woman who smelled of lily, rose, and sandalwood and wore her lilac-colored hair in a towering bouffant, took a length of alligator sausage and rammed
a ten-inch wooden dowel down its length and immersed it in corn-dog batter. Once it was thoroughly coated, she dipped the gator-on-a-stick into a fryer full of smoking oil for several minutes, until it was a deep golden brown. She then dropped it into a cardboard tray, accompanied by a packet of mustard, and handed it to me in exchange for a five-dollar bill. Upon biting into the crunchy coating that shrouded the reptile meat, I was reminded of spicy Cajun boudin—and chicken, of course. Delicious.

  As I enjoyed my snack, I scanned the vast interior of the market, only to have my heart skip a beat upon catching sight of a familiar-looking head of cotton-candy pink hair. I looked again and saw the Malandanti called Nach slowly moving through the crowd. He was still dressed in the same ill-fitting dark suit, but this time the right sleeve of his jacket no longer hung empty. The goon was carefully studying his surroundings, glowering at stall keepers and passersby alike, as if on the lookout for suspicious activity.

  “What’s he doing here?” I asked, pointing in Nach’s direction with what was left of my gator-on-a-stick. “And how’d he grow his arm back?”

  “He’s here as a bodyguard to Boss Marz.” Hexe scowled. “Today must be tribute day.”

  I looked again and realized that Nach was walking a couple steps behind and to one side of a burly man wearing a duster-length camel hair coat dyed deepest black. I recognized Boss Marz from the glimpse of him I had seen in the scrying crystal, when Lukas had shown us his story. He was built like a bear walking on its hind legs and, like the bear, he moved with a heavy grace. His shoulders were wide and he had a barrel chest, as well as oxblood-colored hair, which he wore in a pompadour. The rings on all twelve fingers of his hands flashed like heat lightning in the glow from the witchfires.

  Riding on the crime lord’s broad left shoulder was a little squirrel monkey dressed in a tiny red velvet vest with an even tinier matching fez atop its head. Sucker that I am, I thought it was cute.