Right Hand Magic

by Nancy A. Collins

  As I watched, Boss Marz strolled up to a stall that sold elaborately embroidered caparisons. The vendor, an older centaur with a dappled beard, smiled nervously and placed a manila business envelope on the counter between them. Suddenly the monkey riding Marz’s shoulder gave a fierce screech and leaped down, sending the goods on display flying in every direction. The tiny primate snatched up the packet and scampered back to its master, who exchanged the envelope for a pistachio.

  “The Malandanti own the waterfront of Golgotham,” Hexe explained, not bothering to hide the disgust in his voice. “If you want to operate a business in the Fly Market or the surrounding area, you must pay a tribute to Boss Marz for the privilege of doing so. Come, I’ve already purchased what I need. Let’s go see Quid.”

  The stall we were looking for was on the Perdition Street side of the market, and had a banner that boasted, in Renaissance Fair-style lettering, QUID’S PRO QUO: GETTING ANYTHING FOR ANYONE EVERY TIME SINCE 1989. Behind the counter stood a completely bald Kymeran with a pair of lime green eyebrows that resembled fuzzy caterpillars.

  “Hello, Quid. How’s business?” Hexe asked as he clasped his friend’s hand.

  “Passing fair, I don’t mind saying,” the vendor replied. “You just stop by to chew the fat, or you looking for something in particular?”

  “It’s not me,” Hexe explained. “My friend here is the one in the market.”

  Quid studied me for a long moment as he thoughtfully stroked his right eyebrow. He smelled pleasingly of papaya, jasmine, and green tea, with eyes that matched what facial hair he had left. “Human, eh? Are you a psychic, my dear?”

  “No. I’m an artist. Hexe said you might be able to help me, but I’m not so sure. ...”

  “Don’t you worry about that! I assure you there’s nothing ol’ Quid can’t hunt down.”

  “I need an automobile transmission. And it has to be brand-new. I can’t use something that’s been rebuilt.”

  Quid nodded his head, still stroking his eyebrow. “I see. Any particular make or model?”

  “I just need it to be a passenger car transmission. As long as it’s in perfect working condition, I don’t care if it’s for a Ferrari or a Hyundai. And I need it delivered within three days. Think you can do it?”

  “Easy-peasy,” Quid assured me. “As to the matter of my fee ...”

  “I’m willing to pay up to four thousand, cash,” I said, reaching for my purse.

  “You misunderstand me, Miss—?” Quid’s left eyebrow crawled halfway up his head as he waited for me to supply the needed information.

  “Tate.”

  “I do not traffic in goods, Miss Tate. As my banner proudly states, this is ‘Quid’s Pro Quo.’ I am a dealer of favors.” He tapped his temple with an index finger. “Inside my brain is a database of who owes a favor for what, for how long, and to what magnitude. Thanks to this bartering system, I have not paid hard coin for food, drink, clothing, or housing since I was a boy.”

  “Let me get this straight—you don’t want money?”

  “You are correct. Mine is a cash-free business.”

  “Then what do you want in exchange?”

  “Are you a mechanic, perhaps?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I’m a skilled welder.”

  “Excellent!” Quid said, clapping his hands in delight. “Do you have your own tools?”

  “Of course.”

  That particular bit of news made him practically giddy. “Even better! You’ll make an excellent addition to my phone tree. All I require is that should I call upon your services in the future, that you ask no questions and respond no matter what, even if it means rising up from your deathbed.”

  “I don’t have to sign anything in blood, do I?” I asked cautiously.

  “Of course not,” Quid assured me, spitting into his palm. “We’ll just shake on it.”

  “Agreed,” I said, spitting into my own hand as I grasped his. His grip was oddly trustworthy.

  “Now that everything’s settled between us, let me put in a couple of calls, and I’ll be able to give you an exact delivery time.” Quid pulled a BlackBerry out of his breast pocket and started paging through his contacts list in search of the right numbers.

  “Are you sure this guy can come through with the goods?” I asked, whispering behind my hand so Quid wouldn’t overhear.

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Hexe assured me. “Quid is the only person I know who could loan someone a cigarette lighter at breakfast and end up owed a yacht by dinnertime.”

  Suddenly there was a distinctly sharp, metallic smell, like that of a scorched saucepan, accompanied by a voice that was deep and smooth, yet somehow threatening, like caramel poured over the blade of a knife.

  “Good afternoon, Hexe. I did not expect to see you here today.”

  Boss Marz loomed over me, his shadow sending me into partial eclipse. Underneath his coat he wore a bespoke Armani suit, tailored to accommodate his prodigious frame. He had a sardonic smile on his face and was clearly taking sadistic delight in forcing Hexe to acknowledge his presence.

  “Good day, Marz,” Hexe said reluctantly.

  “That’s Boss Marz to you,” Nach snarled, taking a half step forward.

  Marz calmly held up a beringed hand and waved his bodyguard back. “Now, now, Nach! Since Hexe and I have known each other for a very long time, I consider us on a first-name basis.” Suddenly his massive head swiveled in my direction, like a tyrannosaurus spotting a trembling mouse hiding amid the ferns at its feet. “Ah! And who might this lovely young lady be?”

  “Never you mind,” Hexe replied curtly, forcing the crime lord’s attention back toward him. “What do you want, Marz?”

  “Want?” Boss Marz affected a wounded expression, as if Hexe’s question had cut him to the quick. “Why, Bonzo and I merely wished to stop by and say hello. Isn’t that right, Bonzo?” The monkey riding his shoulder nodded and clicked his teeth, as if attempting speech. “There’s nothing wrong with that, is there?”

  “I see your flunky seems to have grown his arm back,” Hexe said, pointing at Nach. “Mind telling me how you managed to pull that one off?”

  Boss Marz’s nasty little smile returned. “Nach is a valued member of my organization. So I arranged for your uncle to construct a prosthetic. Dr. Moot handled the reattachment. Nach, be kind enough to show Hexe your new arm.”

  The Malandanti pushed the sleeve of his jacket past his gloved right hand, revealing a gleaming metal forearm that seemed to be composed of stainless steel scale mail as seamless as fish skin.

  “Most impressive,” Hexe said grudgingly, his curiosity momentarily overcoming his distaste. “My uncle has outdone himself, yet again. Is it functional?”

  “See for yourself,” Boss Marz replied.

  “Good as new,” Nach said as he rotated his wrist, clenching and unclenching his fingers. “Maybe even better.”

  “Nach lost the original to a crazed bastet,” Boss Marz explained, watching Hexe’s face as he spoke. “One that takes the form of a cougar. You wouldn’t know anything about such a creature, would you?”

  “Your croggy here already asked me about that,” Hexe replied coldly. “The answer hasn’t changed.”

  “So you say,” Marz said evenly. “But I cannot help but notice that one of the packages you’re carrying is marked ‘pukeweed.’ Isn’t that used in poultices in order to draw silver from a wound?”

  I swallowed hard, worried Hexe might respond to Boss Marz’s prodding, but his demeanor remained outwardly frosty. I, on the other hand, was ready to plotz.

  “Ma’am, I can get that to you by tomorrow afternoon. Where do you want it delivered?”

  I turned to see Quid standing behind the counter of his stall, waiting for me to respond.

  “Have them deliver it to my address,” Hexe answered quickly.

  This time the look of surprise on Boss Marz’s face seemed genuine. “You’ve rented to a nump? Does your uncle know ab
out this?”

  “All the hells and all their devils can take my uncle!” Hexe snapped, his eyes flashing angrily. “And I certainly don’t have to answer questions from you!” He grabbed my arm, hurrying me away as fast as he could. “Come along, Tate!”

  “Too bad you have to leave so soon,” the crime lord called after us, his deep voice booming across the marketplace. “Be sure to give your mother my love!”

  Hexe didn’t let go of my arm until we exited the Fly Market on the Perdition Street side. “Sorry about grabbing you like that,” he apologized, “but I had to get us away from Marz as quickly as possible.”

  “I understand.” I rubbed my forearms, trying to chase away the goose bumps that close proximity to Boss Marz had given me. “Man, is that guy creepy.”

  “He’s not creepy—he’s evil,” Hexe said darkly. “Boss Marz is a parasite feeding on the Kymeran people—and anyone else who calls Golgotham home.”

  “Do you think he knows about Lukas?” I whispered.

  “He suspects me on general principles.” Hexe shrugged. “He knows I don’t fear him.”

  We walked down the steps, passing the different stalls that clustered about the open square on the Perdition Street side of the market, most of which seemed to cater to the tourist trade instead of the locals. One stall sold the ubiquitous I ♥ GOLGOTHAM T-shirts. Another vendor hawked snow globe paperweights with tiny replicas of the Gate of Skulls inside. Yet another enterprising merchant had a centaur painted onto a wooden board with a hole cut out so tourists could stick their heads through and get their photographs taken for five dollars a pop.

  As we walked past a booth selling various kinds of tarot cards, a woman’s voice loudly proclaimed, “Look who the familiar dragged in! Where are you going in such a hurry, Serenity? Don’t you have time to say hello?”

  Hexe stopped and turned to face the owner of the booth, a well-endowed Kymeran woman with long, moss green hair coiled atop her head like a living turban. Her eyes were pale gray, and she smelled of bergamot, white orchid, and sandalwood. She was dressed in the female equivalent of the traditional “coat of many colors,” a patchwork skirt stitched together from dozens of scraps of brightly printed fabric, which marked her as a Kymeran with magic for sale.

  “Hello, Dori,” Hexe said in a politely reserved voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you standing there.”

  “Of course you didn’t,” she replied sarcastically. “So, that’s the reason you haven’t been returning my calls?” Dori asked, giving a curt nod in my direction.

  Suddenly everything I thought I knew about Hexe, and assumed about our relationship, disappeared out from under my feet. The last time I’d been caught so badly off balance was when I came back to my loft after visiting my grandparents in Florida and walked in on Roger banging some secretary from Jersey he’d picked up at a bar.

  “You know perfectly well why I stopped taking your calls,” Hexe replied coldly. “And it has nothing to do with my friend here.”

  “I’m not going to starve just so you can keep to your precious ‘ideals,’ ” Dori sneered. “I don’t have a rich mommy to underwrite my mistakes. I have to live in the real world, Hexe. And high-def flat screens aren’t cheap. Not like your nump slut, here.”

  “Dori!” Hexe snapped, his eyes flashing. “That was completely uncalled for!”

  “I—I think I’d better go,” I stammered, backing away from the table.

  “Yeah, you’d better run,” Dori snarled, glaring at me like a hawk about to swoop down on a helpless rabbit. “But before you go, I’ll give you a little magic advice: Stay away from our men, nump!”

  I turned and hurried across the plaza, biting back tears as my cheeks burned bright red. As I looked around the market square, I realized there were almost as many humans wandering back and forth among the different stalls as there were Kymerans. After being the only human on my block, it was jarring to find myself surrounded by my own kind.

  Most of them clutched cameras or had digital camcorders held in front of their faces. Those not recording every second of their visit openly pointed and laughed at the native Golgothamites going about their daily market as if they were sideshow freaks on display for their amusement. As a native-born New Yorker, I instinctively felt a certain amount of disdain for out-oftowners, but now it was mixed with embarrassment for my species.

  “What a bunch of numps,” I muttered under my breath.

  “You shouldn’t use the N-word.”

  I was startled to find Hexe standing at my elbow. I hadn’t seen or heard him come up behind me. He reached out to touch my arm, but I drew away.

  “You said you didn’t have a girlfriend,” I said accusingly.

  “I don’t. Not recently, anyway,” he explained. “Dori and I dated for a while, but I broke it off when she started laying curses. She’s free to do whatever she wants, but I refuse to be part of it. Besides, it’s easier for her to deal with things if she thinks I simply left her for someone else, not because I found her . . . loathsome. But as far as Dori’s concerned, a relationship isn’t over unless she’s the one who does the dumping.”

  I gave a humorless laugh. “I know the type.”

  “I’m sorry she said those things to you, Tate.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sorry I reacted the way I did,” I replied. “I have some trust issues from my last boyfriend that I need to work out. I don’t like admitting it, even to myself, but he really did a number on me. Hey, you want to go look at the river before we go back home?”

  “Sure. I think we could both stand to clear our heads,” he agreed.

  We headed down Perdition, dodging the trucks and wagons that jostled their way along South Street, and walked under the massive steel girders that supported the FDR Expressway. The constant thump and hum of the speeding cars overhead sounded like the rush of white-water rapids. On the other side was a paved promenade that looked out onto the wharves and warehouses of the waterfront, beyond which the East River sparkled in the waning afternoon like a stream of living jade.

  “See that building over there?” Hexe pointed to a large warehouse located on one of the wharves. “That’s the Stronghold. It’s the Malandanti’s headquarters. The underground kennel Lukas escaped from is probably nearby.”

  “I thought we were going to look at the river,” I chided.

  “You’re right. I shouldn’t let that bastard Marz ruin what’s left of the day.” He turned his back on the warehouse and looked out toward the river. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he asked, leaning against the iron balustrade.

  The warm, diffuse light of the setting sun—what photographers call the magic hour—gave his skin a lustrous glow and framed his head, pulsing like the corona that surrounds the sun during an eclipse. I wanted to reach out and touch his deep purple hair, to see if the halo was real, but I stayed my hand for fear I might get burned—in more sense than one.

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed.

  Chapter 14

  “I’m so bored, I could chew off my own foot.”

  I set aside the orbital buffer I was using to polish the chrome skin on my twenty-first-century upgrade of Ariadne and the Panther, and turned to face Lukas. The young were-cat was lounging in a nearby chair with Scratch curled up in his lap. The familiar was enjoying a doze while being stroked behind the ears.

  The shape-shifter had become a regular visitor to my room, where he would alternate between modeling and watching me work. Sometimes he would ask me about the human world, and how it was different from what he had seen on TV. But his most frequent questions were along the lines of, “Don’t you think Meikei’s pretty?” and “Do you think she likes me?”

  “Sorry I’m not more exciting. But I warned you going into this that watching a sculptor at work is one step up from watching paint dry.”

  “It’s not that,” the were-cat explained. “I find what you do fascinating. Truly I do. It’s just that I’ve been cooped up in this house for weeks! I might as well be back in Boss
Marz’s kennel.”

  Scratch peeled open one eye upon hearing this. “Yes, this is exactly like being kept in a filthy, damp, unheated, underground kennel and forced to fight to the death. Poor you.”

  “You know what I mean.” Lukas sighed in exasperation. “All I see are the same walls, day in and day out!”

  “Huh! You think you have it bad?” Scratch snorted. “I’m actually bound to this house. If I try to leave the grounds without Hexe’s permission, my body dematerializes and I’m sent back to where I’m from.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a familiar. That’s part of your contract. I’m used to running free in the forest. Now the best I can hope for is a walk in the garden. Can’t we go out, just for one night?”

  “You know Boss Marz is still looking for you,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, but he can’t be hunting me every second of the day. Maybe he’s finally given up by now? For all he knows, I could be dead.”

  “Anything’s possible,” I conceded. “But it’s still dangerous out there.”

  “The nump’s right, for once.” Scratch yawned. Having finished what he had to say, the winged familiar stood up, stretched, and jumped down onto the floor, where he proceeded to groom himself.

  “If you’re going to come into my room and lick your balls in front of mixed company, could you at least have the decency to turn your back while you’re doing it?” I grimaced.

  “Prude,” the familiar sniffed.

  “How’s everything going?” Hexe was suddenly standing in the open doorway of my room, leaning against the frame, hands in his pockets. I could have sworn he wasn’t there a second ago.

  “I’m making good time,” I said, motioning to the mechanical nymph that was supposed to ride on the back of my spare-parts panther. “Everything should be finished for the opening.”

  “Does that mean you can take the night off without feeling guilty?”

  “Maybe—why do you ask?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I was planning on going out tonight—I was wondering if you might be interested in joining me?”