“Someone has to stand up first.”
“And you think it ought to be me?”
“I’m here because of you!” Elton snapped, and he clenched his jaw shut for a breath to keep from raising his voice further. “I left the Magistrate because you convinced me they weren’t worth serving. Cora follows you because you gave her freedom to be herself. Thomas is still working to help couples because you kept him from a life in prison. We’re all doing what we’re doing because—” He paused and let out a laugh of disbelief as he ran a weary hand over his mouth. “Because Nathaniel Moore turned out to be a good fucking example.”
Nathan paused with his cigarette between his lips, and then he plucked it free and exhaled a breath of smoke through his nose, his hands on his hips and his eyes on the worn hotel carpet. He let a few moments pass by in silence before he said quietly, “Then I suppose it’s a good thing I’m still having fun here, hm?” The smile he showed Elton before he turned away to return to his own bed was the same as always, but the soft tone of his voice left the blond feeling just a little like somehow he’d won this particular argument.
15
Amelia Earhart park was a little creepy at night. There were no lights, and the map on her phone led Cora down a dark, winding road between still black ponds too shallow for her purpose and tall trees rustling at the edge of sandy fields. The openness of the grass beside her should have been a comfort, but somehow the expanse of night felt heavy and threatening. She reminded herself that Nathan would scold her for being afraid—and that the bracelet on her wrist would allow her to literally fireball an attacker in the face. They were equally encouraging thoughts, in their own ways.
She walked for what felt like ages through the park, only the surrounding lights of the city and the screen of her phone illuminating her way, until she reached the little flat building she sought. A brightly-colored mural filled the walls of the shop at the watersports complex, and a brown grass roof covered the deck at the edge of the water. A long, curving pier ran alongside a cable where the adventurous could ride their wakeboards over provided ramps and rails. Cora approached the empty building with slow, careful steps, half expecting a guard to shine a flashlight in her face. When she reached the door of the shop, she pressed a palm against the deadbolt keyhole and crouched down so that she could rest her forehead on the back of her hand. The wooden token on her bracelet heated her skin as she willed the tumblers to move with a soft whisper, and in a moment, the bolt slid out of place. She stood and opened the door with a smile on her face. It wasn’t so long ago that minute work like this would have been impossible for her—she supposed she had to be grateful to her Magistrate instructors for their discipline, at least, even if they absolutely wouldn’t have approved of Nathan’s modifications.
Cora crept through the darkened shop and borrowed a yellow paddleboard from the pile of rentals. The water was calm and black, gentle ripples breaking up the shards of moonlight on the surface as she walked the narrow planks out toward the center of the lake. She had everything Nathan said she would need—the focusing tonic he’d made her, a cone of clove and chicory incense, and a small, smooth disc of red jasper for grounding. She just hoped she’d actually be able to use them properly.
When she reached the end of the pier near the center of the sprawling lake, she paused with the paddleboard under one arm and the strap of her purse in the other hand. She hadn’t thoroughly thought this through—and that water was creepily opaque. She imagined over-sized tentacles lurking just beneath the surface, or a giant, gaping mouth full of teeth. Maybe the edge of the walkway was good enough? She sighed. She didn’t want to have to try twice.
With a huff of determination, she pulled her purse from over her shoulder, set it down next to her board, and unbuttoned her jeans. Wet underwear she could deal with until she got back to the hotel, but soaked pants would draw a little more attention. She kicked off her boots, wiggled out of the denim, and set the jeans aside in a dry spot, then slid her borrowed board into the water. She scrunched her face in anticipation of being eaten as she eased into a slightly wobbly seat on the board, both hands still firmly attached to the pier. She knew that if a piece of seaweed touched her foot in that moment, she would definitely die. Did seaweed grow in lakes? Or was there such a thing as lakeweed? Whatever—if any flowing grass brushed her leg, she was going under.
Luckily, the water seemed clear of monsters as Cora clutched her purse to her chest with one hand and paddled unsteadily out with the other, legs dragging in the warm water. Once she reached the deepest part of the lake, she wobbled herself into a sidesaddle seat and opened her purse on her knees. Lighting an incense cone on a sloshing paddleboard was tricky to say the least, but she got the smoke going at the expense of a future burned spot on her bag. With the jasper held tightly in one palm, she uncorked her small vial. She sniffled the dark fluid inside and immediately wished she hadn’t. Nathan had boiled mugwort in addition to the oils in the tonic, and the combination smelled like an unwashed aging hippie. She squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed it down anyway. She was already here, after all. She had to try. She wasn’t sure what she was going to see, but Nathan had assured her that peeking into the past would be easier than trying to watch some sort of closed-circuit brain camera of the present—and probably more useful to them, too.
The liquid chilled her throat and ran cold down her chest, settling a calming, cool sensation in her belly. She ran her thumb over the smooth surface of her stone, inhaled deeply to draw the incense smoke into her lungs, and leaned forward on her board as much as she dared.
“Katharíste ta mátia mou,” she murmured, just barely louder than the lapping water. Nathan had forced her to repeat the incantation approximately a hundred thousand times in preparation over the course of the afternoon, so she felt confident in her pronunciation for once. She let out one last focused exhale, then dropped the red stone into the water and leaned her hands on the board to stare into the dark ripples it left behind. A couple of minutes passed in silence, but she kept her eyes open, determined not to let her mind wander.
She sank much faster than last time. She tried to picture what the inside of the factory might look like from what Elton and Nichole had told her, and before her next breath, the edges of her vision faded to black. A hum filled her ears, separating her from the world around her, and the surface of the water shifted focus.
Machines churned and people bustled below her on the factory floor, as if she were perched on the ceiling to spy. The majority of the workers reminded her immediately of Nichole and of the man from the library in Toronto. That thick, slow movement and distant, staring gaze that had so easily marked Nichole as a victim of the ingnas was apparent in almost every man and woman Cora could see. A few men patrolled the narrow aisles between the machinery, far more focused and glaring than the rest. Guards? They must be the “bosses” Nichole had mentioned.
The movement blurred beneath her, the workers’ images seeming to split as though she were watching more than one moment at once. She saw a man with his arm caught in a spinning winder, tangled and twisted in the tight braids of rope. His scream pierced Cora’s ears and turned her stomach, but the guards only seemed frustrated by the pool of blood they had to step through to get to him.
She saw a woman running down an empty path, eyes wild and fearful, fingers reaching desperately for the door only to be snatched backward as she was jerked to the floor by a wire loop around her neck. The guard dragged her away like a stray dog at the end of his pole, and when she struggled, his shouted spell sent paralyzing electricity through her suddenly arched body.
She saw lines of people waiting to be given trays of prepackaged food as they filed from the factory floor to the run-down apartments, not a single grateful smile in sight.
She saw Elton, straining in the grip of a monstrous creature with iron fangs and a horse’s hooves, crashing out of the office door in a trail of thick blood.
She saw Maduro standing in his o
ffice, red-faced and shouting at a pair of men whose faces Cora couldn’t see. A tingling in the healing cuts on her stomach grew into a sharp, burning pain as one of the men put up a hand to stop Maduro mid-rant. The stranger turned his head slowly, and when he lifted his gaze, Cora found herself looking directly into the cold blue stare of the Chaser Korshunov. He frowned, eyes narrowing with deadly focus, and Cora got the distinct impression that he could see her, too.
Panic filled Cora’s chest like ice water, shattering her concentration. She was sure she made an unladylike noise as she broke free from the vision and tumbled backward into the water, but it turned into bubbles too quickly for her to hear it. She scrambled for her board and coughed up water as she surfaced. Her incense and her purse sank to the bottom, lost despite her attempt to catch the bag’s strap with her toes. She flung her arms over her paddleboard and laid her chin on it to catch her breath.
Korshunov had looked right at her. She knew it. He had noticed her watching them. How was that possible? Was he at the factory right now? Had she actually been spying on the present?
She turned to rest her cheek on the board with a soft, whimpering sigh. She couldn’t tell Nathan that she’d screamed. She had to be braver than this.
That bravery would have to start with getting back to the hotel by herself in the middle of the night without her phone or wallet. At least she still had her bracelet, and she was pretty sure she remembered the name of the hotel. That was a start. And most importantly, she had confirmed Elton’s suspicions—conditions in the factory were even worse than Nichole had described. Maduro had to be stopped.
She puffed out her cheeks in one more sigh and began to kick her way back toward the pier with the board as a guide. It seemed a lot farther on the way back. Her body was already aching—even with Nathan’s potion, divination had been harder on her than she had expected.
Cora squinted in the darkness to make sure she was actually paddling in the right direction, but when she pushed wet hair out of her face to get a better look, she froze. Standing at the end of the wooden walkway, adjusting the white cuffs under his black suit jacket, was Korshunov. He looked out at her with a stoic frown on his lips and clasped his hands behind his back as though he had all the time in the world to wait for her.
Cora couldn’t make her legs work. This wasn’t happening—it was impossible. Had Korshunov made it here from the factory in the last thirty seconds, or had he somehow seen her watching him earlier even though she’d only done it just now? She didn’t have time to think about it. It was time to leave.
Sparing one brief glance at her discarded pants and boots behind the waiting Chaser, she turned her board and kicked as fast as her tired legs would take her, only peeking back once she had put some distance between them. She shouldn’t have. Korshunov looked almost bored as he stepped without hesitation off the end of the pier. His feet never quite touched the water; every calm step only sent a slow ripple across the surface. His eyes stayed locked on her as he moved forward at a steady, relentless pace.
“Are you fucking serious?” Cora hissed, redoubling her efforts through protesting muscles as she made the final push to the grassy shore. She tumbled up the slope in a rush and bolted for the line of trees. She didn’t dare look back again. Brush and broken twigs scraped her legs as she ran, lungs burning, toward what she hoped was the street. A stifled cry choked out of her at a sudden force pulling her backward, forcing her arms to shift behind her and her knees to buckle. But she knew this Chaser-standard binding, and it didn’t frighten her anymore. She near shouted the counterspell Nathan had taught her and felt herself lurch free of the Chaser’s grip. She kept running, but his voice followed her, flat and steady and much closer than it should have been.
“По моей воле, Боровой,” he commanded, almost a drawl—and the rough, creaking sound of twisting branches ahead stopped Cora’s retreat. Not two feet in front of her, the trees bent outward to make space for the shadow that loomed tall between them. As the creature took a step forward, each of its four narrow hooves sunk heavily into the grass, drawing Cora’s eyes up its endless bony legs, its flank smeared with ashen paint, and the emaciated human torso attached where an animal’s neck should be. Sprouts of black bark and thin leaves grew from its sharp elbows and up its arms and collar, all the way to its hairless head, where a pair of broad, twisted antlers spread. The thing had no eyes—only pale white skin stretched taut over its skull, two flaring holes for nostrils, and a grinning, toothy mouth that stretched the entire width of its face. It lifted one long, clawed hand toward her, and a mass of roots pried themselves free of the dirt and lashed themselves around Cora’s helpless limbs.
She didn’t scream. She couldn’t. Her arms and legs were trapped, forcing her to her knees as her spine arched painfully backward and left her stomach exposed to the creature’s stretching claws. Her breath came in shallow, panicked pants, her skin trembling in the grip of the scratching roots. Korshunov moved with a quiet step behind her, circling her with his icy gaze on her face and his hands still calmly behind his back. He walked between Cora and the looming monster without even looking at it, and he stood watching her for a moment, the silence in the trees broken only by the spirit’s thick, heavy breath.
“Where are Moore and Willis?” Korshunov asked in that flat voice.
Cora wanted to snap at him. She wanted to say something sarcastic and biting, but the creature standing over her, threatening and still and seeming to stare even without eyes, put a tremor in her bones that she couldn’t shake off enough to speak.
“Answer me,” Korshunov pressed, “or I will make you scream it instead.”
She felt the lingering sting of the stitches in her stomach, the cuts put there by this man’s warning spell, and set her jaw. If she froze, she was done for. She couldn’t afford to give in. Nathan had promised to pay this Chaser back ten-fold for what he’d done to her, but she didn’t need to wait for him to do it. Korshunov was a creep, and a bully, and he thought she was helpless—but being frightened didn’t make her useless.
She whispered softly, not having to try too hard to put a tremble in her voice, and the Chaser narrowed his eyes at her and leaned down just a little closer to listen. She spoke even lower, until he bent so close that she could smell his cologne, and then she summoned all the will her tired body had left, feeling heat curl up from her belly into her mouth as a stone on her bracelet burned dark and red. She took one more breath and spat it out in the word “dife,” pushing a flow of fire from her lips that sent Korshunov backwards with a snarl. The roots around her limbs tightened painfully at the Chaser’s retreat, refusing to release her even as she blew licks of flame over her shoulder and burned her own arm in her attempt to detach herself from the creature’s grip.
Korshunov took hold of the front of her shirt and jerked her upward, stretching her arms so far behind her that she thought her shoulders might snap. The left side of his face was reddened and slick with oozing blood, the skin on his cheekbone peeled away in patches to reveal the pink flesh beneath the surface. Before she could get another spell out, he was an inch away from her, head tilted to draw his lips to within a breath of hers.
“Отдай мне,” he growled, and with one deep, hoarse inhale, Cora felt her eyelids begin to droop. A sensation like pulling thread crept through her, up her spine and throat and out her mouth, draining her of the strength to fight. As she watched, the skin on Korshunov’s cheek knit itself back to pale smoothness, the patchy wounds pulsing closed with each slow breath he took. Cora slumped further at every inhale until she was too weak to support herself, and she went slack, held up only by the confining roots and the Chaser’s fist in her shirt. When his burn was healed, he released her and glanced back at the lurking spirit behind him, snapping out a command that sounded muffled and distant in Cora’s ears.
She felt more than heard the soft whimper that slipped out of her as the roots twisted. Cora sensed herself being lifted, and the creature’s
breath was hot against her face as she was pulled upright. She couldn’t move. There wasn’t a muscle in her body that she could will into struggling. Even breathing seemed like too much effort. No one was coming for her. She was on her own, and she knew she couldn’t afford to give up, but what could she do against a person like this?
Then she felt the press of Korshunov’s hand at the smell of her back, lifting her toward standing, his fingers cold even through her soaked shirt, and her exhaustion didn’t matter. The Chaser’s touch so close to intimacy made her skin crawl—she had to get away. No coherent thought crossed her mind; no plan formed itself. Only disgust and a surge of will fueled her to spit the word “pije,” the spell that she had promised herself would go forever unused spilling from her mouth in a moment of revulsion.
Korshunov recoiled with a pained cry that betrayed the youth normally hidden by his callous stare. He hit the ground, arms hugged close and hands pressed against his sides where his ribs had been crushed by the force of the girl’s spell. His breath hissed weakly through his teeth as he curled onto his side, trying to right himself but struggling against what was surely a blinding pain in his chest. The roots binding Cora went slack, and the eyeless creature in front of her gave a horrible screech. The Chaser’s concentration was broken. She didn’t wait around to see whether the spirit was angry or relieved to be freed from Korshunov’s control. She just ran.
The lights of the street were drawing close enough that Cora began to hope she’d actually gotten away. She didn’t look back to check. Every step felt like she was dragging concrete blocks from her ankles, but she couldn’t afford to slow down. When she burst through the line of trees and onto the street, she bee-lined for the closest row of buildings and half crumpled when her foot landed on a shard of broken glass. She carried on at a quick limping pace, passing by a closed coffee shop and a pair of darkened stores before she came upon signs of activity. She caught the eye of a man walking away from a Wendy’s parking lot and realized what she must look like—damp, bleeding, and panicked, without anything but underwear on her bottom half. She called out to the stranger on instinct, desperate for the help a normal person might bring, and she almost sobbed with relief when he held his hands out to her and caught her as she collapsed.
The Left-Hand Path: Prodigy Page 18
