The Left-Hand Path: Mentor

by T. S. Barnett

  “Maybe because my religion isn’t any of the Magistrate’s business, Elton.”

  Elton gave an empty chuckle. “Fair enough, though I’m not sure making pacts with very real spirits counts as just religion. Let’s ward the room,” he sighed. “Phillip’s sure to come looking for us. I’ll park the Jeep in the back.”

  Nathan grinned at him and gave a mock salute. “Stop down the road and get me some cigarettes, will you? I’m dying.”

  He urged the Chaser out the door with a bright smile, then set about protecting their room from seeking spells while Elton moved the car. When they were all safely inside, Nathan marked the door with chalk and sealed it, gratefully accepting the two packs of cigarettes Elton slapped into his hand. He got into the shower to wash the blood from himself, and Cora groaned as he exited the bathroom. She quickly escalated to panting and crying, so Nathan took his place beside her and tried to rouse her as gently as possible, letting her curl up against him.

  “You’re all right, my love,” he whispered against her hair. “Elton took good care of you. No permanent damage.”

  Cora sighed heavily against Nathan’s bare chest and pushed up into a sitting position, then glanced down at herself and pulled the blanket back up to her neck after a long, groggy delay. She looked between the two men with an uncertain frown. “Why am I naked?”

  “We had to see what we were healing,” Nathan said. “Don’t worry; I only caught him peeking once or twice.”

  “Nathan,” Elton hissed, kindly averting his eyes from Cora’s reddened face.

  “So is it…dead?” she asked, looking up at Nathan with a furrowed brow. “It’s not, right? Not really.”

  “No, not really. We still need to finish the gris gris and find the phylactery.”

  “Which means going to see this woman?” Nathan nodded. “And you’re…I mean, you’re okay? After dying and all?”

  “It doesn’t seem to have stuck this time,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry about me. I could use a nap, though.” He glanced over at Elton while Cora clung to his chest. “You think we can wait until tomorrow to pay our new lady friend a visit? I’m hardly in any shape for a ritual now.”

  “If you think your wards can keep Phillip off our tail for the night.”

  Nathan barked out a single laugh. “You’re joking, right? He couldn’t seek his way out of a Northbound hallway with a compass in both hands. We’ll be fine.” He stood and scratched idly at his stomach, brushing past Elton to the empty bed. Elton kept his eyes on the veve on Nathan’s back while the other man undressed, but he said nothing and let him crawl into bed with his head under the blanket.

  Cora shifted uncomfortably in her spot on the bed when Elton returned his attention to her, so he cleared his throat once and turned away to let her fetch her clothes from the floor where they’d left them. She gingerly dressed herself, doing her best to avoid touching her new blisters, and settled back on the bed when she was decent. Elton glanced over his shoulder to make sure it was safe, then excused himself to take a much needed hot shower and shave the dirty blonde stubble that had begun to thicken on his jaw.

  “Nathan?” Cora called in a quiet voice, and he poked his head out from under the blanket with a soft hum of acknowledgment. “I’m sorry,” she said. She let out a sigh.

  “What for, my love?” He paused to yawn. “You’re practically perfect in every way.”

  “Every time something serious happens, I have to just sit there, or I get hurt somehow. I don’t know how to help with any of this stuff. I’m a pretty useless apprentice.”

  “Nonsense,” he chuckled. “You’re learning. These things take time. Don’t compare yourself to Elton and me just yet. I’m obviously outside the bell curve when it comes to raw skill, and Elton—well, don’t tell him I said so, but he’s formidable in his own way. You simply have to learn how to be formidable in yours, that’s all.”

  She smiled faintly at him and nodded, so he tucked his head back under the blanket and heaved an exhausted sigh. In the quiet room, she looked down at her bracelet of hand-carved trinkets and fingered the ogham marking she knew well. She looked across the room at the desk lamp beside the television, reached one hand toward it, and whispered the word she’d practiced so many times in Nathan’s apartment. She was the inheritor of an incredible tradition, he had said. She had a gift. She just needed the confidence to use it. Nathan believed she could.

  The lamp shook slightly when it lifted from the table, but it moved toward her as she willed it, only stopping when it reached the end of its clear yellow power cord. Cora shut her eyes, holding her hand steady. She could picture the plug behind the desk, and she scrunched her brow as she wiggled the plug free of the wall without touching it, a smile touching her lips as she heard the soft thunk of it coming loose. She pulled the lamp forward and opened her eyes to see it hanging in front of her with barely a wobble, the cord trailing along behind it. She set it on the nightstand with a quiet clunk and let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  When Elton emerged from the shower, he paused at the sight of the relocated lamp, but Cora only offered him a winning smile and no explanation. He ordered pizza for them, which Nathan woke up long enough to sample, of course. Elton was reluctant to get back into a bed with Nathan after the previous night, but the other man was too exhausted for teasing this time.

  Cora stayed awake most of the night, fighting sleep and nursing her blisters with the oils Nathan had left out. She drifted off occasionally, but never quite went deep enough to see the nightmares. She saw Elton stir first across the dark room, and she watched him sit up in the bed and stare down at the black screen of his phone. When he noticed her, he set the phone aside and offered her a faint smile, but they both just sat in silence for a while.

  Nathan roused himself eventually and borrowed Elton’s razor to shave despite his objections, and the three of them set out to find the address Phillip had given them. Cora supported herself on Elton’s arm as they made their way to the Jeep around the back of the building, since her feet were still tender, and he helped her into the passenger seat. Nathan tossed him the keys and lit a cigarette before climbing over the back of the car onto the bench.

  “So is anyone going to actually explain the whole ‘needle-woman’ thing?” Cora asked, leaning her head against the roll bar and shutting her eyes. “If she’s just a prostitute, why does she get a special name?”

  “A needle-woman isn’t really a prostitute,” Nathan explained. He leaned forward in his seat and told Elton where to turn before returning his attention to Cora, his elbows on either front seat. “She’s a witch who specializes in sacred sexuality. You do generally pay her for her services, of course, but it’s not quite the same thing.”

  “But why needle-woman?”

  “Oh,” Nathan said, grasping the point of her question. “Because she always takes a sample of blood from whomever she’s performing for. She tests for the usual mundane things like diseases, but she also hangs onto it in case the clients try anything funny.”

  “She keeps the blood? What can you do with someone’s blood?”

  “A great number of unpleasant things, if you know what you’re doing,” Nathan laughed. “It’s just a precaution. A girl has to protect herself, you know.”

  “I can’t believe this is real,” she said, letting out a tired chuckle as she lifted her head. “What does ovulating have to do with it?”

  Nathan shrugged. “To be honest, she doesn’t necessarily have to be ovulating; it just makes the magic more powerful. I can pick up that spiritual slack if she isn’t. Don’t ever underestimate your magical potential as a woman, though, Cora. Women have access to all kinds of spiritual goodies that I can’t even comprehend. Why are your uteruses—uteri?—why are your lady bits so special? I don’t understand it. I just know it’s the case.”

  She sat up and turned to face him, rubbing at one eye. “So, you just...I mean, I don’t want the gory details, I guess, but...you just
have sex, and then magic happens?”

  “I’ve been told I’m a magical experience.” She hit him in the arm, and he laughed. “So rude. If you’re not careful you’ll be out of the running for Apprentice of the Year. I can explain the ritual, if you like.”

  “Please don’t,” Elton objected without taking his eyes from the road.

  “It’s not like I’m going to run around doing sex magic with everyone,” Cora sighed. “I just want to know what it is.”

  “You see this, my love?” Nathan tutted. “See how the Magistrate wants to limit you? Cut you off from knowledge they find distasteful? It’s magic as old as civilization itself, and yet the Magisters would deprive you of a well-rounded education on the off chance someone gets their jimmies rustled by the sacred joining of man and woman. Or man and man. Or woman and woman. Or man and self, come to that.”

  “Tell her or don’t tell her,” Elton snapped, shaking his head and watching the street for the right house number.

  “It’s very simple and very complicated,” Nathan said, “and the specifics change depending on the outcome you want, of course. In all cases, it’s important for both parties to purify their bodies and the room beforehand. The means to do so properly are part of a needle-woman’s services. For our lich-killing purposes, I’ll be providing my own blood for the ritual—you’re welcome, Elton—and I’ll use it to draw the right runes on the needle-woman’s stomach-uterus area. Then, we’ll do the deed. For this sort of spell, she’ll need to be on hands and knees, I think. It does matter. When we’re done, I’ll collect the mixture of our various fluids, and it will go in the gris gris along with everything else. There are more mental aspects, of course, but those are harder to explain. I should probably paste up the heart before anything else, actually—don’t let me forget.”

  Cora stared at him, her lip curled into a mixture of disbelief and disgust.

  “I warned you,” Elton muttered.

  “Yeah, that’s really gross,” she said. “You just handle that bag all by yourself after this, okay?”

  Nathan sighed and dropped against the back of his seat. “Puritans.”

  “What about pregnancy? You aren’t worried about giving Adelina a little brother or sister?”

  “She’ll know how to prevent that sort of thing. You could ask her for some pointers while we’re there, if you foresee a need for such things,” Nathan said, tilting his chin toward Elton’s back with a wink. She clicked her tongue at him and faced forward in her seat, not looking at the Chaser beside her.

  “I think this is it,” Elton said, and he parked the Jeep outside a quaint little stucco house with a small covered porch and a spotty front lawn. A pair of wooden wind chimes hung from the roof above the porch, the hollow reeds clinking softly in the breeze. It appeared to be a perfectly normal house, with a chain link fence and a “Beware of Dog” sign on the gate that revealed itself to be completely satirical as a pug trotted out from the back yard and yapped harmlessly at them.

  “I expected more cauldrons,” Cora said as she left the passenger seat, pausing to lean against the hood of the car and yawn.

  “You’re the one perpetuating witch stereotypes,” Nathan muttered, and he put his hand on Elton’s shoulder to steady himself as he climbed down over the side of the Jeep. “Probably best to let me handle this, I think,” he said. He patted Elton’s shoulder and ignored his stern gaze, instead moving forward to lift the handle of the gate. He crouched down to pet the dog, who happily bounced around his feet, and made his way to the front door to ring the bell.

  The woman that answered was easily fifty, with a handsome face showing the beginnings of lines at her eyes. She left the outer door closed and looked up at Nathan through the screen. “Can I help you?” she asked with a smile, tucking a lock of softly curled brown hair behind her ear.

  “I hope so,” he answered. “My name is Nathan. Phillip Martin gave us your card.”

  “Did he?” she chuckled. “That’s a surprise. He’s been trying to pretend I don’t exist for almost thirty years.” She tilted her head at him and peered around him at Elton and Cora. “What can I do for you folks?”

  “I’m interested in your services,” Nathan said. “I don’t have much in the way of money, but I can assure you that it is for a good cause, and perhaps we can arrange a mutually beneficial trade?”

  The woman narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, but his bright smile seemed to sway her. “I’m Olivia. Let’s talk.” She pushed open the screen door to let them in and disappeared into the kitchen to pour four glasses of lemonade. Nathan made himself at home on the sofa quite readily, and it was all Cora could do to keep her eyes open beside him, but Elton remained standing by the door as though on guard.

  “So,” Olivia said as she set the tray of glasses on the coffee table, “what are you after? Need a new job, more money maybe? Want to find the love of your life?”

  “I’m not a tourist, Olivia,” Nathan said. “I need something very specific from you. May I be candid?”

  “Please,” she chuckled, taking a seat across from him.

  “My friend there is a Chaser, and I’m…working off a bit of a debt to society, let’s say, before he carts me off to the Magistrate. A lich has appeared. We’re going to kill it.”

  “A lich?” She glanced at Elton for confirmation, and he gave her a slight nod. “That’s one you don’t hear every day, isn’t it? Is that what’s been causing all those bodies around town? I didn’t think they were real.”

  “Real enough to have killed at least five people already,” Elton added.

  “Well, if the Chaser is convinced, I suppose that’s real enough for me. You know if you’re wrong about what it is, whatever magic you need from me won’t work, right?”

  “We’re not wrong,” Nathan insisted.

  She looked back at him. “And what exactly is it you need my magic for?”

  “To charge my trick bag. I have all the ingredients, but without the right kind of energy, it’s not going to be enough to destroy a lich’s phylactery.”

  Olivia relaxed in her chair and took a sip of lemonade. “But you don’t have much in the way of money.”

  “I’m more than willing to barter. Or perhaps the Magistrate would reimburse you,” he added helpfully.

  Elton seemed skeptical. “Perhaps if I knew how much money we were talking about? I’m not very familiar with...this sort of thing.” Cora thought she saw a touch of embarrassment on his face, and she hid a smile.

  Olivia pondered a moment, crossing her legs under her long skirt. “Well, this is an interesting case. I’m sick to death of casting spells for love or luck or money.” She glanced over at Nathan. “You have all the specifics?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She inspected him for a moment, taking in his young, lean build and handsome face. “And I suppose you’ll be the one performing the ritual, not your Chaser friend?”

  Nathan smiled at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She let out a long breath and sat up, placing her glass on the table in front of her. “I do like a challenge. All right. I’ll do it for two hundred. Think the Magistrate can afford it, Mr...?”

  “Willis. Can and will are two separate issues as far as the Magistrate is concerned, but I can pay you.” That would be an interesting expense to explain to Jocelyn.

  “Great. Well, I imagine you’d like to get a move on, and I have a client coming later tonight, so let’s get going, shall we? Give me a bit to prepare the room.”

  “Thank you, Olivia,” Nathan said as she rose, and he left Cora snoozing on the couch to fetch the cooler and his bag from the Jeep. He spread his supplies on the coffee table and helped himself to Olivia’s kitchen, where he found a knife and a decently sized mortar and pestle.

  “Are you going to grind up a human heart in that woman’s kitchen utensils?” Elton asked, but Nathan only shrugged.

  “I’ll wash it.”

  “I’m surprised you’re going through with it,” El
ton said quietly, glancing down the hall as he spoke. “She doesn’t seem quite your type.”

  “What do you know about my type?” He opened the lid to the cooler and frowned as he touched the heart, drawing a few strands of slime away with his fingers. “Ugh, it’s gone a bit sticky. Still be fine, though; not to worry.” He placed the heart on his drop cloth and cut it in half to allow it to fit inside the basin.

  “She just seems a bit…outside of your range.”

  “Because she’s not a twenty-something?” Nathan snorted. “No, no. I’d take a woman her age over a sorority girl any day. Not that they aren’t nice to look at, mind you, but a woman like that knows what she’s doing. In Haiti they have a saying, you know—fanm se kajou. Plis li vye, plis li bon. It means a woman is like mahogany; the older she is, the better she is. I’ve found that to be true to a great extent.” Cora stirred at the sound as he began to grind the heart into a thick paste, and she covered her mouth and turned away from the sight.

  “God, warn somebody,” she muttered, curling up on the couch with her back to him.

  Nathan chuckled at her and carried on while Elton watched him with a furrowed brow. He had the other half of the heart in the basin by the time Olivia reappeared from the hall.

  “Mind the carpet with that, would you?” she asked mildly as she scooted the tray of lemonade out of reach of the splatter.

  Nathan checked the carvings he had cut into the leather at Allan’s shop, tracing them with his fingertip and mumbling to himself. When he was satisfied, he scooped up some of the bloody paste in his fingers and spread it carefully across the square of leather, making sure that every spot was covered in red muck. Cora silently gagged from the smell and hid her face in her arms. Nathan wiped his hands on the drop cloth and placed the herbal ingredients in the center of the square, then propped the feathers on top and lifted the leather into a rough pouch shape. He hastily wrapped a bit of string around the top to keep it shut and left it on the cloth on the coffee table.

  “Everything ready?” Olivia asked. When Nathan nodded, she smiled. “Come on back, then. You two make yourselves at home,” she added to Elton and Cora before walking into the back room with Nathan in tow.