Left Hand Magic

by Nancy A. Collins

  I directed the packer upstairs, and within fifteen minutes Gus managed to transport my welding equipment down two flights of stairs and into the back of a small wagon hitched to a bay centaur colt wearing a Peruvian wool hat. I knew from previous experience that it would have taken two strong men a half hour, and considerably more swearing, to accomplish the same task. Once everything was properly secured, I kissed Hexe good-bye and climbed up on the driver’s seat alongside Gus.

  “Put that crap away, Bayard!” Gus shouted as he kicked off the brake. “We got work to do!”

  The centaur youth grumbled something under his breath as he turned off his Nintendo DS and returned it to the fanny-pack cinched about his waist.

  “Colts today got no work ethic,” the Teamster sniffed in disgust as the wagon began to roll. “They’d rather play with those damn gadgets than try and get a union card.”

  “You’re just jealous because you can’t figure out how to use one,” Bayard said, tossing his head in both adolescent and equine defiance.

  As we rolled through the early morning in the direction of the East River, I got a good look at the aftereffects of the riot. The streets were strewn with garbage from upended litter baskets, as well as trampled odds and ends from looted stores. Everywhere I heard the sound of brooms and the crystalline tinkle of broken glass as storekeepers swept what was left of their shopwindows into the gutter for the street cleaners. As we passed by what was left of a bakery, the owner paused long enough in his cleanup to fix me with a hostile glare.

  Eventually we arrived in Pickman’s Slip, a section of Golgotham comprising ramshackle warehouses, flophouses, and gin joints that fronted the water and serviced the longshoremen who worked the large pier that stretched out into the East River. Bayard led us along a narrow cobblestone street that twisted and turned between Colonial-era houses before heading down a back alley barely wide enough to permit more than a glimpse of sky. The narrow, muddy passageway dead-ended at the back of an old building that, according to the faded signage, had once sold sailcloth. The sun was not yet strong enough to burn away the heavy mist from the river, and the overall atmosphere was dreary and gray, which did nothing to assuage the misgivings I was starting to experience.

  Just as I was about to tell Gus to take me back home, the door to the loading dock rolled open with a loud bang to reveal Quid, dressed in a canvas duster and knitted muffler, a blueprint tube tucked under one arm. The Kymeran favor broker was totally bald except for a pair of lime green eyebrows that resembled hairy caterpillars.

  “Sorry about the short notice,” he said by way of greeting, “but the client called me up out of the blue this morning, insisting that the work be started immediately. Since it requires a skilled metalworker, I instantly thought of you.”

  “Thanks, I guess,” I muttered as I studied the blueprints he’d handed me. “What the hell is this thing?”

  “‘No questions asked’ means exactly that,” Quid chided, wagging a finger in reprimand. “It also means ‘No stories told.’ Come along, now—I’ll show you where you’ll be working.”

  I followed Quid up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the warehouse. The sconces that lined the walls were actually metal forearms holding torches lit with witchfire, which cast flickering shadows of things that were not there. The disembodied arms reminded me of the silvery clockwork limb that Boss Marz’s goon, Nach, sported after he lost his flesh-and-blood one to Lukas. Not a good memory.

  At the end of the corridor Gus opened a door to reveal a large room with high ceilings and windows that looked onto a blank wall. The only thing that was in the room besides my equipment was a workbench outfitted with a vise, a small anvil, and a stack of twenty-gauge copper sheeting.

  “Gus will remain here and help you with the grunt work. Once you’re finished, he and Bayard will take you and your equipment back home. I’ll stop by in a couple of hours with some refreshments. Whatever you do, don’t go wandering. I can’t vouchsafe your safety outside of this room. There’s a water closet over there, in case you need it.” He pointed to the farthest corner of the room. “It ain’t pretty, but it works.”

  “Don’t worry. You won’t have to share it with me,” Gus said with a laugh. “Personally, I don’t see how you can sit on one of those things. I go as nature intended—standing up.” He gestured to the manure catcher cinched under the horse’s tail growing from the base of his spine.

  The only way for me to erase that visual was to get to work, so I began setting up my tools and cutting the copper sheets to the dimensions required in the plans. According to the blueprints, the thing I was building was comprised of three individual components, identified as “the head,” “the body,” and “the feet.”

  While it was hard and dirty work, thanks to Gus taking care of the purely physical tasks, such as lifting the cumbersome copper sheeting, it moved along far faster than I would have thought possible. By the time Quid returned with my lunch, I had finished with the cutting and was ready to start piecing the individual sections together. After the chaos and confusion of the previous night, it felt good to work with my hands and tackle a problem that could be solved with nothing more than the proper tools and the right amount of solder.

  With nothing to distract me, I threw myself into the work. When Quid returned, this time with dinner, I had finished work on the three separate components and was ready for the final assembly. Using a block and tackle, Gus lifted the body and dropped it down onto the legs as if hoisting a piñata for a child’s birthday party. The final third proved a little bit trickier, as it required me to climb a ladder in order to join the head to the body.

  When I was finished, the thing I had labored all day to build stood seven feet high and five feet wide, balanced on three sturdy legs, and had a long, tapered neck and a turnip-shaped lower body, with a hatch big enough for a grown man to wiggle through. With such uniquely Kymeran flourishes as the dragon-headed flue atop the neck and the tripod legs ending in lion’s feet, it looked more like the world’s most ornate hillbilly still than a piece of magical apparatus. But if that was what the client wanted, who was I to argue? Besides, it possessed a goofy charm I found endearing. More important, my debt to Quid was now discharged—until the next time I required his unique services.

  It was well after midnight by the time I packed up my gear to return home. While trailing behind Gus as he lugged my welding equipment downstairs, I noticed a door across the hall standing slightly ajar. As I walked by, I heard what sounded like clucking on the other side. Despite Quid’s earlier warning, I couldn’t resist sneaking a peek.

  I eased the door open enough to look around the jamb, and saw a real estate developer’s wet dream: a huge industrial loft with exposed beams, aged brick walls, and a large skylight. At first glance the room looked like a larger version of Hexe’s office, right down to the ubiquitous stuffed crocodile hanging from the rafters.

  The source of the clucking noise proved to be a plump little black hen sitting in a nesting box inside a cage atop a table just inside the door; she regarded me with an inquisitive tilt of her head. I smiled and whispered to myself: “ ‘Hickety-Pickety, my black hen, she lays eggs for gentlemen. . . .’”

  The smile slipped from my face as my gaze traveled to the metal table positioned under the skylight. Atop it lay a male cadaver, its flesh as pale as tallow, staring with sightless eyes at the distant stars above. I quickly jerked my head out of the room and hurried after Gus, my heart beating like a hummingbird’s wings.

  By the time I got home, Hexe was asleep in bed, an open book resting on his chest. As I gently picked it up and placed it on the nightstand, I could see it was hand-bound in leather and printed in Kymeran. Beyond that, I had no way of telling if it was a grimoire of ancient lore or a bodice ripper.

  I stripped out of my clothes and slipped into the shower to rid my skin of copper residue. As I crawled into bed, Hexe rolled over and gave me a sleepy smile, wrapping his arms around my waist.

&n
bsp; “I missed you,” he murmured as he nuzzled my neck.

  “I missed you, too,” I replied, snuggling in close to his warm, naked body. “How was your day?”

  “Busy. I had a steady stream of clients after you left. Most of them were pretty banged up. I also had to fend off several different reporters wanting to interview me about the riot. You’re lucky you missed it. How about you?”

  “My debt is paid in full,” I assured him. I was tempted to tell him about what I had seen in the loft, but my pact with Quid was “no questions asked and no stories told.” If I wanted to be accepted by Kymeran society, I had to abide by its rules. Still, as I drifted off to sleep, safely wrapped in Hexe’s arms, I could not help but wonder if the pact I’d made with Quid might not come back to bite me on the ass.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning began, yet again, with a loud and insistent knock on the front door. I rolled over and glowered at the clock on the nightstand. It was a quarter after too-fucking-early.

  “Ugh. Is the whole world conspiring to drag my ass out of bed at the crack of dawn?” I groaned.

  “I’ll see who it is,” Hexe said, as he slipped into his dragon-covered dressing robe. “Continue with your beauty sleep.”

  I didn’t have to be told twice, and promptly dropped back into a doze, only to start awake a few minutes later at the sound of Hexe’s voice telling me to get up.

  “But what about my beauty sleep?” I yawned, knuckling my eyes.

  “I’m afraid it’ll have to wait.” Hexe tossed a piece of parchment onto the nightstand. “We’ve been summoned by the GoBOO.”

  “What for?” I unfolded the parchment, which was written in elaborate Kymeran script, save for the word “GoBOO” stamped into the wax seal at the bottom.

  “The Golgotham Business Owners Organization is holding a special inquiry into the riot. They want to question us about it. We’re to appear before them at ten this morning.”

  “Well, aren’t they the early birds. But why do they want to talk to us? Do they think we’re responsible?”

  “No—but they are looking to place blame for what happened.”

  “Well, there’s certainly plenty of it to go around,” I grumbled as I put on my bathrobe and headed downstairs. “I must have coffee, and plenty of it, if I’m going to spend my afternoon being questioned by a bunch of—” I frowned in consternation. “What exactly is the GoBOO, anyway?”

  “It’s kind of a cross between a city council, the Chamber of Commerce and the United Nations,” Hexe explained. “Each major ethnic group in Golgotham is represented by its most prominent member. They draw up and pass most of the laws in Golgotham.”

  “Your mother’s the Witch Queen. Shouldn’t she be the head honcho? I mean, your great-great-grandfather founded Golgotham, right?”

  “Yes, he did, but the royal family surrendered the right to rule and hold power, as humans understand the word, with the Treaty of Arum. However, we have traditionally served as ambassadors to the heads of state in the human world. The royal family also serves as arbiter for disagreements between the various ethnic groups of Golgotham.”

  “So your mom’s like Judge Judy?”

  “We prefer the term ‘justiciar,’ ” Hexe replied with an amused smile. “It all dates back to the Sufferance. When the leaders of the human world decided to exterminate the nonhumans, they first targeted the ones that didn’t have magic, like the centaurs, satyrs, and ipotanes. Soon they were streaming into Arum as refugees. The reigning Witch King at the time, Lord Vexe, granted them protection if they swore fealty to the Throne of Arum and its heirs. Those who refused ended up paying for protection from what would evolve into Boss Marz’s Malandanti. But the upshot of it all is that my bloodline is honor-bound to aid and represent all who live within Golgotham, not just the Kymerans.”

  “That’s why Lady Syra gave Elmer a job,” I said, the penny finally having dropped. “I really need that coffee. Politics makes my brain hurt.”

  A couple hours and cups of coffee later, I found myself riding alongside Hexe in Kidron’s hansom, on our way to our meeting. I was still a little fuzzy around the edges from lack of sleep, but the cab ride in the cold morning air had succeeded in chasing out most of the cobwebs. I needed my wits about me if I wanted to sound like something other than a clueless looky-loo when it was my time to be questioned. Meanwhile, Hexe was doing his best to get me up to speed on Golgotham civics as well as its lawmakers and leaders.

  “You have to understand,” he explained, “that when Golgotham was first created, the only government the majority of its citizens had known was some form of tribal chieftainship. The concept of self-governance was even more alien to them than it was to their human counterparts. As for the Founding Fathers, recognizing a sovereign city-state within their borders was dicey enough, but to allow one that adhered to the feudal system was simply too much. Any sort of monarchy was forbidden on American soil, and thus the GoBOO was born. It was originally called the Grand Council, but in the 1950s it was ‘modernized’ into the Golgotham Business Owners Organization.”

  “I never really questioned Golgotham simply being another neighborhood in the city,” I admitted. “It wasn’t discussed much in our schoolbooks.”

  “I’m not surprised. Though Washington and Jefferson were broad-minded, forward-thinking individuals, the same could not be said for all of the Founding Fathers. It’s been to our advantage not to call too much attention to Golgotham’s unique status. But sometimes it’s unavoidable.”

  The GoBOO Headquarters was located off Nassau Street, between Maiden Lane and Shoemaker Street, in a Belle Epoque building that looked more like an opera house than a seat of government. A gaggle of television and newspaper reporters stood gathered at the foot of the marble steps that led to the entrance, taking note of every individual coming and going. I inwardly groaned in anticipation of the phone call I was sure to receive from my mother once my face was bounced via satellite to every news agency in the country.

  We were greeted just inside the door by a tall, angular Kymeran with heliotrope muttonchops and eyes so pale a blue they seemed almost white, who smelled faintly of chalk and old paper. He bowed stiffly at the waist, his right hand placed over his heart.

  “Greetings, Serenity. I am Tuli, the Executive Coordinator for the GoBOO. I am to take you and Ms. Eresby to the council chamber.”

  As we followed our escort down the echoing marble-clad hallway into the bowels of the building, it seemed to me no different from any other city hall, save that its office workers and civil servants boasted outlandishly colored hair and were occasionally animals from the waist down.

  Eventually we came to a set of heavy double doors, above which hung the seal of the Golgotham Business Owners Organization: an open six-fingered right hand with a cat’s eye embedded in the palm, similar to the design on the amulet Hexe had given Madelyn to ward off evil.

  Tuli opened one of the doors and ushered us inside a large chamber with a domed ceiling and a sloping floor that led past rows of pew-style benches to a long, horseshoe-shaped table set on a raised dais with a wide ramp on the left side. Behind the council table sat a smaller, even higher podium that overlooked the room like a judge’s bench. On the wall above the highest seat, set in an alcove, was another, larger version of the GoBOO seal, this one cast in twenty-four-karat gold.

  I heard muttering voices, and looked up to see a gallery overhead, accessible via doors on the second floor. The GoBOO had banned television coverage inside the council chamber, but I recognized one of the spectators as a political reporter for the Herald who had written an article on my father’s failed run for the senate back when I was in college. It looked like I was going to get into the papers again, no matter what.

  “Please be seated,” Tuli said, gesturing to the pews closest to the chamber floor. “The council will be arriving shortly.”

  As he spoke, a door beside the dais opened and a centaur, his lower quarters covered in a brocaded cap
arison and his hooves politely muffled, entered the chamber. Although his chest-length beard and shoulder-length locks were liberally laced with iron gray hair, what I could see of his equine self was still a deep chestnut.

  “That’s Chiron, owner of Chiron’s Stables,” Hexe whispered in my ear as the distinguished older centaur clip-clopped up the ramp to the council table. “He’s the landlord for every centaur in Golgotham, as well as the owner of its largest blacksmith shop—every centaur in the city wears his horseshoes. He claims direct descent from the same Chiron who was mentor to Achilles and Jason.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Beats me,” he said with a shrug. “In any case, he represents the ipotanes as well as the centaurs.”

  The next figure to emerge was Giles Gruff, dressed in a velvet maroon waistcoat and a spotless Italian silk shirt. The satyr used his monogrammed cane to steady himself on his cloven hooves as he took his place at the table next to Chiron.

  “You already know Giles. He speaks for the satyrs and the fauns.”

  After Giles came a very handsome blond man chewing a massive wad of gum. He was wearing a shirt open to the waist and a pair of pants so tight they not only informed the casual observer as to which side he was dressed, but whether or not he was happy to see them. As he turned to address Giles Gruff, I noticed a special vent cut into the seat of his pants to accommodate his bull’s tail, which was the same color as the hair on his head.

  “That’s Bjorn Cowpen,” Hexe pointed out. “He owns several ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ on Duivel Street and represents Golgotham’s huldrefolk. He’s, um, quite the ladies’ man, as you might guess.”

  “Who’s she?” I asked, nodding at the woman sitting down on the other side of Cowpen. She was quite beautiful, dressed in a flowing seafoam green gown. As I watched her, she ran a delicate webbed hand through long hair the color and consistency of cooked spinach.