Magic and Loss: A Novel of Golgotham

by Nancy A. Collins

“How touching,” Boss Marz said with a humorless laugh as he loomed over father and son. “I’m a big believer in closure.” As the Maladanti’s left hand filled with hellfire, Hexe lifted his own left hand in defense. “Lot of good that’s going to do you,” Marz smirked.

  Although I knew the man I loved was about to be killed right before my eyes, I could not look away, if for no other reason than I owed it to our son, should we somehow survive this awful hour, to one day tell him how his father died. The fireball shot from the center of Marz’s palm like a flaming tennis ball fired from a pitching machine. And, by all rights, it should have burned a hole through Hexe’s face and exited out the back of his skull. Instead, it ricocheted back toward the Maladanti like a handball striking an unseen wall, scorching the left side of his face and boiling his left eye in its socket like a poached egg. With a dreadful shriek, Boss Marz fell to his knees in shock. Gaza came running to the fallen crime lord’s aid, slinging a fistful of lightning at Hexe as he got to his feet. Hexe lifted his left hand to block the incoming spell, but wasn’t fast enough to catch all of it and was sent flying into the side of a shipping container.

  “Hey—you! Asshole!” I shouted as I stepped out from my hiding place, holding my child close to my breast. “That’s my man you just sucker punched!”

  Gaza turned to look at me and smirked. “What are you going to do about it, nump?”

  There was a sharp snapping sound, like the crack of a bullwhip, only much, much louder, as a copper barb punched its way out through Gaza’s chest and shirtfront, killing him instantly. The clockwork dragon gave its tail a little shake to free itself of the dead gangster, and then stepped forward and lowered its head so I could pat it on the snout.

  “Good girl,” I smiled. I hurried over to where Hexe was regathering himself from Gaza’s attack. He seemed slightly dazed, but no worse for wear. “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “I’m going to be feeling this the next day—assuming there is one—but I’m okay,” he said. “But we’ve got to get my father to Golgotham General.”

  Suddenly Illuminata and Canterbury were with us, their battle armor spattered in blood and their flanks covered in lather. Illuminata set aside her mace as she knelt to gather the wounded Horn into her pale arms. “Leave it to me,” the centauride said. “I’ll get him there. I used to be an ambulance driver before I was assigned to your mother.” With that, she wheeled about and galloped off through the smoke and clash of battle in the direction of the exit.

  Once he had seen his father safely away, Hexe turned and pulled me to him, kissing me as if he might never kiss me again, and then delivered a far gentler kiss to the top of his son’s head. As I looked into their golden depths and saw the resolve burning deep with them, I realized, no matter what anyone said, that Hexe truly had his father’s eyes.

  “Get ’em out of here, Canterbury.”

  Before I realized what was happening, the centaur had snatched me up in his arms and was galloping for daylight as if it was the final leg of the Kentucky Derby.

  “Let me go!” I shouted. “Put me down right this minute!”

  “Hexe is right,” Canterbury replied. “It’s too dangerous here for both you and the baby.”

  “But I don’t want to leave him!” I wailed. “I can’t leave him!”

  “You don’t have to,” he reminded me. “Part of you is still on the battlefield.”

  Even as the centaur spoke the words, I opened my mind as far as it could go, reaching out to that fragment of myself that dwelt within my creation. As I felt something like a low-voltage shock run up my spine and lodge itself in the back of my head, I wondered, for a split second, if I did succeed in possessing the clockwork dragon, whether I’d be able to return to my body just as easily.

  Before I could rethink my decision, I found myself staring out of a pair of unblinking eyes from an unaccustomed height. Although I could see and hear, my other senses did not seem to exist at all. It was as if I was drifting in a sensory deprivation tank, watching a video game through a virtual reality helmet wired for sound.

  To my surprise, Boss Marz was still alive, although perhaps not for long. He had managed to crawl to Erys, who stared down at the Maladanti writhing at her feet with unalloyed disgust.

  “You disappoint me, Marz,” Erys said as she prestidigitated another dagger from thin air. “Honestly, I got better results from the homunculi than from you and your men. I guess it’s true that if you want something done right, you better do it yourself.” With that, she bent down and grabbed Syra by her hair, yanking her into a sitting position so that the blood from her severed jugular would squirt into a brass cuspidor. But as she put the knife edge to Syra’s throat, she was rewarded by a shower of sparks, like those from an arc welder. Erys cursed and quickly let go of Syra in order to slap at the tiny mouths of fire clinging to her clothes.

  “Leave my mother alone,” Hexe said, placing himself between Syra and his uncle, his left hand held before him, fingers bent in the mirror-reverse of the traditional defensive pattern of Right Hand magic.

  “How could you even do that?” Erys yelped. “You don’t even have a right hand anymore!”

  “But I still have my left one,” Hexe replied. “Right hand, left hand—it doesn’t matter whether I heal or harm, protect or destroy; the magic isn’t in my hands. It’s in my heart.”

  “Let’s just see about that, shall we?” Erys snarled as she slung a fireball at Hexe’s head.

  Hexe returned the volley so fast, Erys had to lunge out of the way to avoid ending up like Boss Marz. The ball of hellfire struck the back wall of the warehouse, splashing like napalm, and instantly set it on fire.

  As Hexe turned to check on his mother, Esau’s familiar attacked from above, beating at him with a punishing fifteen foot wingspan and clawing at his head with a slashing beak and razor-sharp talons. Blood from lacerations to his scalp poured down into Hexe’s eyes, momentarily blinding him. He dropped to his knees, trying his best to cover his head and the back of his neck from the vicious attack as Edgar repeatedly dive-bombed him, drawing blood from his exposed back with his talons.

  Suddenly, with a mighty roar, Scratch, red of saber-tooth and claw, came zooming out of nowhere, striking Edgar in midair. The hell-bird and the hell-cat locked talons, twirling about like a living bolo, before crashing to the floor of the warehouse. Being a cat, Scratch landed on his feet—but Edgar was not as lucky. The demon squawked in panic as it tried to hop away from its foe, grounded by a broken wing. Just as Scratch pounced, the familiar disincorporated, surrendering the field in a cloud of brimstone.

  “Yeah, that’s right; you better run, chicken,” Scratch sniffed.

  Meanwhile, Hexe was doing his best to try to revive his mother and get her back on her feet. “Mom—Mom, snap out of it!” he pleaded.

  Lady Syra’s eyelids suddenly fluttered open, and she smiled weakly upon seeing her son kneeling over her. “Tate and the baby—are they—?”

  “Yes, they’re safe,” Hexe replied. “But we’ve got to get you out of here!”

  “Hexe—watch out!” Syra cried, her eyes wide with alarm.

  Before Hexe could react to the warning, Erys grabbed him from behind, jerking his head back by the hair to expose his jugular.

  “Mom—run!” Hexe yelled, as he grappled with Erys. “Get out of here!”

  But just as Erys pressed the blade of the dagger to Hexe’s throat, a strange look crossed her borrowed face and she jerked her head first one way, then another, as if listening to someone calling her name.

  “Who are you?” she snapped. “What are you doing?”

  As if in reply, the knife fell from Erys’ hand, allowing Hexe to quickly scuttle free of her grasp. Her face abruptly went slack and a hollow, distant voice issued from her gaping mouth. “I’ve come to reclaim what’s mine, my love.”

  “No! Leave me be!” Erys said, her face returning to its usual, intense expression, like a rubber band snapping back into place.

 
“Enough is enough, husband.”

  “But I’ve done all this for you, Nina!” Erys protested, sounding more like a petulant child than a dark wizard bent on the destruction of mankind and the harrowing of worlds. “This is your revenge!”

  “Do not place this abomination on me! My Esau would never do such things in the name of love! You are not the man I married—you are a demon in all but name!”

  Erys’ face began to contort, the muscles flexing like snakes locked in mortal combat. Then her features abruptly relaxed and Hexe found himself looking not at Erys, but Nina. Although the features were identical, there was now a kindness and warmth, mixed with a profound sadness, which had not been there before—or, rather, had not been there for a long, long time.

  “Do it now, while I have control,” Nina said urgently. “Do what only a strong Right Hand can do: exorcise him!”

  Without hesitation, Hexe raised his left hand, chanting the rite of purification as he moved his fingers into the mirror-reverse configurations used to drive forth demons. A burst of white light shot from his palm and into Nina’s body, lighting her from within like a paper lantern, chasing out a cloud of wispy black smoke that buzzed like a nest of hornets.

  “You’ve thrown him out,” Nina said with a weary smile. “Now you must lock the door. Kill this body before he returns.”

  “No,” Lady Syra said, pushing her son aside as she got up off the floor. “This falls to me. Just as it was up to Lord Bexe to end his brother’s threat, Esau is mine to put down.” And with that she drove the sacrificial dagger into her sister-in-law’s heart.

  Nina took a step back, wavering like a dandelion caught in a stiff breeze, crimson rapidly spreading from the knife sticking in her chest. “Thank you, Syra,” she said with a beatific smile.

  “I’m sorry, Nina,” Lady Syra whispered tearfully.

  “Why?” the ghost replied. “I’ve been dead for decades.”

  As Nina’s truly lifeless body dropped to the floor, there was a horrific howling noise from the direction of the portal. Hexe and Syra turned to see Esau—once more unified with his corporeal form—standing atop the bier carried by his monstrous servants, his face contorted in fury. But as they watched, Esau’s shriek of outrage became first a scream of protest, then anguish, as the legions of the damned that had, moments before, been eager to carry him to power, turned on him at once, dragging him down from his lofty perch, clutching and gouging at his flesh as if to tear him apart with their bare claws. And while in the Infernal Realm there is no unconsciousness, or sleep, or any means of alleviating pain, and neither is there death, there are consequences for making promises you cannot keep. Esau was still screaming as the portal closed.

  • • •

  Thanks to the reckless use of hellfire in an enclosed space, not only did the warehouse catch fire, so did the rest of the pier. While most of the Golgotham Army escaped the inferno, the same could not be said for the Maladanti, most of whom had either perished in the battle or simply refused to admit defeat and vacate the Stronghold.

  Among the last to leave the burning building were Hexe and Lady Syra, who exited in style on the back of the clockwork dragon. As the Witch Queen and her Heir Apparent approached what remained of the gates to the pier on their mechanical mount, the crowd of onlookers who had been drawn from their nearby homes by the fire gasped in amazement. It was the first time in over a thousand years that members of the Royal Family had been seen astride anything that resembled a dragon.

  I experienced a weird jolt as I saw myself through my creation’s eyes, perched on Canterbury’s back, my child still cradled in my arms. Then suddenly I was back in my own body. I quickly dismounted and hurried to greet Hexe as he and his mother climbed down from the clockwork dragon.

  “Praise Arum you’re safe!” Hexe said, throwing his arms about us. “What about my father?”

  “Illuminata took him to Golgotham General,” Seamus replied.

  “Your father’s been hurt?” Syra gasped.

  “Not to hear him tell it!” Seamus said with a laugh. “You’d think takin’ a knife to the chest was nothin’! He’s a stubborn cuss, your da, but a brave one. He’s just the kind of man I’ll need, once I’m mayor.”

  “What about casualties?” Hexe asked.

  “The ferrymen to the necropolis will be busy,” Kidron replied solemnly. “But we gave better than we got. Luckily, once Marz and Gaza went down, most of the Maladanti broke rank and deserted the battlefield.”

  “Where’s Scratch?” I asked, searching the crowd of exhausted warriors. “He’s not still trapped in there, is he?”

  “It’ll take more than a burning building to slow me down,” a voice said from above. I looked up and saw Scratch, still in his hell-cat aspect, coming in for a landing. “Sorry I took so long, but I wanted to bring you a present,” the familiar said, spitting out Boss Marz’s beringed left hand.

  Chapter 34

  “Stop fussing over me, woman. I’m fine,” Horn grumbled as Lady Syra rearranged his pillows for the tenth time.

  “You are not fine! You were stabbed in the chest!” she reminded him.

  “That was a couple hours ago,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “The psychic surgeons patched me up—they said I should be good to go come tomorrow morning.”

  “Go where?” Syra smiled as she leaned in to kiss him. “Your place or mine?”

  “I’m glad to see you’re both feeling better,” Hexe said as we entered the room.

  “How long were you two standing there?” Syra asked.

  “Long enough,” I replied with a laugh.

  “I know you don’t like having a lot of people hanging around while you’re recovering, but we thought you might make an exception this time,” Hexe smiled.

  “You know I always make an exception for family, son,” Horn replied.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Hexe said, stepping aside to reveal Hana and Torn.

  Horn’s jaw dropped in amazement. “Mama? Papa?” he whispered.

  “My boy! My brave, brave boy!” Hana wept as she hurried to throw her arms about her wounded son.

  Torn moved to join his wife at their son’s bedside. Although he was working hard to maintain his reserve, I could see tears shining in the old man’s eyes. “Your son told us how you fought to protect Lady Syra and the Royal Family. You have done our ancestors proud.”

  Horn turned to look at Hexe. “How did you know—?”

  “It’s a long story,” Hexe replied with a rueful smile. “And one I’m not too proud of. I’m just grateful they were willing to overlook my shortcomings as a host.”

  “You have nothing to be ashamed of, dear,” Hana assured him. “Tate told us how that awful uncle of yours was controlling you the whole time.”

  “I never cared for Master Esau,” Torn said sourly. “He was always such an imperious snot, even as a boy. No offense, Your Majesty.”

  “If that’s the worst you can say about my brother, you’re doing far better than I can right now,” Syra said dryly.

  • • •

  Once visiting hours were over, Hexe and I returned Torn and Hana to their apartment in Fetlock Mews. As we bid them good night, Canterbury popped his head out of his shop next door. “Good—I was hoping I would catch you two,” he said, motioning for us to come inside. “I take it your father is making a full recovery?”

  “It’s going to take more than a knife to the chest to slow him down,” Hexe said with an admiring laugh.

  “Glad to hear it. And how is our young friend, here?” the centaur asked, nodding to the baby dozing in the sling dangling from my shoulder.

  “He seems no worse for the wear, now that he’s been properly fed and changed,” I replied.

  “I’m even gladder to hear that,” Canterbury said. “Well, the reason I wanted to catch you is that I have something I wish to give you. Call it a baby shower present, if you wish.” The centaur clopped over to his workbench and picked up a long cardboard tube, the ty
pe used to store blueprints. “Here,” he said, handing it to me, “I want you to have this. It contains schematics and blueprints for various clockwork limbs, including a right hand.”

  “Where did you get these?” I frowned. “They’re not Esau’s work, are they?”

  “Those aren’t his designs,” Canterbury replied with a shake of his mane. “They were created by his mentor, Dr. Tork.”

  “The former Royal Surgeon?” Hexe raised an eyebrow in surprise. “How did you come by them?”

  “Because Dr. Tork was my father,” the centaur replied matter-of-factly.

  “Canterbury, I can’t accept these—!” I said, handing him back the tube. “These are heirlooms.”

  “No, I insist,” he said firmly. “I am a mule, which means I must choose my own heirs, not make them. And I have chosen you, Tate, to inherit my father’s work. Besides, with your talent, Hexe’s knowledge as a healer, and my metal magic, I believe we could produce prostheses for both the human and Kymeran market that would make Esau’s designs look like windup toys.”

  • • •

  From where we sat inside the limo, it looked like just another middle-class suburban Long Island home. One of the next-door neighbors was mowing his lawn with a rider mower, occasionally butting up against the hedge that separated the properties.

  I glanced over at Hexe, who was seated next to me in the backseat. The limo, along with the driver, belonged to my parents, who had lent both to us in exchange for an afternoon of spoiling the baby. “Are you nervous?” I asked.

  “Just a little bit,” he admitted as he pulled the purple kid glove over his gleaming metal right hand. “No point in putting this off any longer—it’s showtime!”

  The neighbor on the rider mower did a double take as we exited the limo, and plowed right into the hedge. Judging from his reaction, Kymerans on house calls were not a day-to-day event.

  Hexe rang the doorbell, which was answered by a middle-aged man in dad pants. He raised his eyebrows upon seeing Hexe’s purple hair and golden eyes, but did not close the door.