The Left-Hand Path: Mentor

by T. S. Barnett

  Nathan stepped through the door with a brief wave and let the door swing shut behind him, then quickly moved through the restaurant to the front door. They had very limited time now. He hadn’t expected the lich to get up so quickly—it was getting stronger.

  The other restaurant patrons were also in danger, of course, but Nathan felt that to be a reasonable bargain for never having to look at Phillip’s grouchy face again.

  He trotted over to the Jeep and hopped into the driver’s seat, giving Elton and Cora a quick glance before starting the car and lighting a cigarette on his way out of the parking lot. He decided not to mention the exchange, since Elton would probably do something boring like trying to go back and save Phillip and the mundanes from the rampaging lich and accomplishing nothing except prolonging their journey even more. He instead satisfied himself with picturing Phillip’s smug, stick-in-the-mud face being sucked dry by the lich’s hunger.

  Elton did his best not to slump despite the pressing heat, but Nathan enjoyed seeing him slowly sink into the seat with a sheen of sweat forming on his brow. His fault for wearing a suit to the desert. Cora was leaning against the side of the Jeep, letting the wind blow her hair as she took in the smell of the desert.

  “So, like,” she began, picking at a bit of peeling seat cover, “that thing with the needle-woman.” Nathan glanced over at her curiously. “What was it…you know, I mean what is it like?”

  “It was an awful lot like sex, unsurprisingly,” he chuckled.

  “Well yeah, but—” She frowned at the warm feeling creeping into her face. “Is it…I mean, it must be pretty intense, right?”

  “Interested in a career, my love?”

  “No,” she insisted indignantly. “Just…you know, curious. Never mind.”

  “You poor child,” Nathan laughed. “As soon as this lich business is finished, we’ll get you properly sorted.”

  “I don’t need you setting me up, thanks.”

  “Even with the incredible options available to you?” He tilted his head slightly to indicate Elton, who thankfully didn’t seem to be paying attention.

  “Oh my god, just shut up,” Cora sighed. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  As they passed through the seemingly endless expanse of pale orange clay into the crumbling, dusty town of Sells, Elton frowned and sat up to take in the sight. “Not a very cheery place, is it?” he muttered, barely audible above the rush of the wind.

  Nathan chuckled without much humor. “I’m very sorry that the degradation of the native peoples of this country isn’t aesthetically pleasing to you,” he said.

  “Well that—that isn’t what I meant at all,” Elton defended himself.

  “It’s a reservation. This is what is made available to these people.”

  Elton sat back in his seat, unwilling to get into an argument, and Nathan drove through the desolate nothing that was the vast majority of the reservation. He skirted the town of Sells itself in favor of taking one of the empty side roads leading off into the dust. The house was just as he remembered it—a simple, wide and low-slung one-story with pale blue siding that had been weather-beaten almost back to white. A red pickup truck was parked outside, and as Nathan pulled up, a scruffy dog trotted up and barked at the Jeep. He scratched its ears as he climbed down into the grass-free yard.

  The screen door of the house creaked open, and Nathan looked up to see a young woman leaning against the door frame in denim shorts and a tank top, showing off darkly tanned limbs and well-rounded hips. She held the door open with one bare foot so that she could fold her arms over her chest as she took in the sight of her visitors. She tilted her head, shifting the long braid of black that hung over her shoulder, and she called out with a slightly rasping voice.

  “You need to keep going if you want to get to the Mission,” she said.

  “We’re not tourists.” Nathan approached the front steps, keeping a polite distance away from the porch to look up into her skeptical face. She was handsome, with full lips and a gently rounded face. “I’m looking for Josefina. She used to live here.”

  The woman arched a thick brow at him. “Josefina Cazares?”

  Nathan nodded, and the woman’s mouth turned down into a faint scowl. “She’s dead,” she said blankly, but Nathan held out a hand to stop her as she moved to let the door close again.

  “Wait,” he said, putting a foot on her bottom step. “Do you know where I might find any of her relatives?”

  She stopped and looked over her shoulder at him through the screen door. “Who are you?” she pressed with a frown.

  He gestured at himself and then his companions in turn. “I’m Nathan, and this is Elton, and Cora. I was a friend of Josefina’s.”

  “Not too good a friend. She died six years ago.”

  “I’m sorry; I didn’t know. I’ve been out of touch.”

  She narrowed her black eyes and pushed open the screen door, stepping out onto the porch and staring down the steps at him. “Nathan Moore,” she said. “She talked about you.”

  “Did she?” Nathan answered with a smile. “I hope it was all flattering.”

  “She was obsessed with you. It ruined her marriage. She was so convinced you’d come back one day and sweep her away.” She folded her arms under her breasts as she glared at him. “Even on her deathbed she asked for you. I didn’t believe her when she told me the kind of magic you did. But here you are, and you aren’t an old man, so it must be true. Either way my grandmother is gone, and there’s nothing here for you. So try not to get lost on your way back to the city.” She turned without waiting for an answer and slammed the front door shut, causing a puff of dust to shake free from the porch roof.

  “So, quite flattering really, if you think about it,” Nathan mused.

  “You’re popular everywhere,” Cora said with a yawn.

  “Very helpful,” Elton muttered, and he brushed past Nathan to knock on the screen door. He waited what he considered a reasonable amount of time and then knocked again.

  The woman pulled open the door only a crack and told him to go away.

  “Please, miss, just let me have a moment of your time,” Elton said. “It truly is a matter of life and death.”

  “One moment,” she answered, holding up a finger to indicate his limited time. “To explain why you’ve brought a man like that to my door.”

  “I assure you, he’s no friend of mine. I work with the Magistrate; Moore is in my custody. A lich has become active in Yuma, and we’re trying to locate its phylactery before it becomes any stronger. It’s killed at least five people already; probably more.

  “Not my problem. Yuma’s a long way from here, and I don’t want anything to do with your white man monsters.”

  “As soon as I’m finished here, I’m taking Moore to the Magistrate for trial,” he said, hoping that was a more appealing plea. “The sooner we kill the lich, the sooner he’ll answer for his crimes.”

  The woman looked past Elton’s shoulder at Nathan, sucking her teeth at his cheerful smile. “Fine,” she said after a moment, and she pushed open the screen door and stepped back to let them inside. She watched them all warily as they filed into her living room.

  “Thank you,” Elton said, but she waved away his gratitude. “You don’t know what a help this is, miss.”

  “Teresa,” she corrected him. “Just so long as it gets him gone. Stay here.” She disappeared into one of the back rooms of the house and left them standing awkwardly near the front door. After a bit of shuffling from the hall, she returned with a flat piece of bark covered in notches and scratches. She shooed Elton out of the way and pushed her coffee table up against the worn blue sofa with one bare foot.

  Teresa knelt on the floor and sat back on her heels, setting the slat of bark on the floor in front of her and placing her right hand over it. She looked up at Elton. “I don’t suppose you have anything that belonged to him, do you?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m sorry. We don’t even know who he is. Or
was.”

  “Well, don’t expect anything too specific, then, and you’d better hope there isn’t more than one out there.” She focused on the grounding token in front of her and covered her right hand with her left as she leaned forward to lean on it. She began to whisper to herself, and she closed her eyes, slowly rocking forward and backward on her knees.

  The entire room seemed to grow warmer, if that was possible. Cora leaned against Nathan’s side in an attempt to remain standing, but her eyes were fixed on the woman chanting and swaying in front of them. Nathan put an arm around her shoulders as a pulse thudded through his chest, keeping her upright against the force of the spell. The pounding in his ribs wasn’t coming from his heart—this girl was good. These things did tend to run in families.

  Her hands lifted from the wood as though being pushed, her slack arms raising slowly as a faint light formed under her palms. A glimmering silver orb formed between her hands and the floor, the inside swirling with dark smoke. Her fingers trembled, but she stayed still even as a small droplet of sweat rolled down her temple to her cheek. In a moment, her hands were pushed away completely, and she held them upright in front of the sphere as though keeping it in place. The smoke inside shifted and slowly cleared, flashing through half a dozen landscapes before settling on the sandy rocks of an abandoned pueblo surrounded by desert and scrub. It could barely be called a pueblo at all, so little of it remained. The image began to shiver almost as quickly as it formed, and within moments the orb had shattered into light and nothingness, leaving only a wisp of smoke as Teresa dropped her hands and slumped back onto her heels.

  Elton approached and put a hand on her shoulder to steady her, but she pushed him away and stood on her own—albeit shakily.

  “Was that...helpful?” Nathan asked. “That could have been anywhere.”

  “It’s Hawikku,” Teresa said, wiping the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “A Zuni ruin. That’s where you’ll find your phylactery. I can be more specific, but I’ll have to be closer.”

  “Excellent,” Elton smiled. “Can you take us there now?”

  Teresa shook her head. “It’s in New Mexico. You can go if you want, but you’ll be wandering around an abandoned pueblo at night. Hope you like coyotes.”

  Elton sighed and glanced back at the front door. “We can’t keep waiting around. That thing is killing people.”

  “We aren’t going to be able to find it in the middle of the night,” Nathan pointed out. “And the gris gris needs more time to charge, in any case. Let’s just go in the morning. Make a day of it.”

  Teresa’s lip curled. “And where do you people think you’re spending the night?”

  Nathan smiled his most charming smile at her. “You wouldn’t kick us out now, would you? I can make it worth your while if you let us stay.”

  She scowled and held up a hand. “You’re disgusting, and I have to go to work.” She looked over at Elton with a wary furrow of her brow. “You can stay. But if I find one thing out of place when I get back, a lich will be the least of your worries. And you keep him away from me,” she added, pointing across the room at Nathan.

  “Of course,” Elton said immediately, moving to stand between them. “You’ve been more than hospitable. Thank you so much.”

  Teresa only snorted at him. She scooped up the wood from its place on the floor and shut herself in her bedroom.

  “Don’t antagonize her,” Elton said, trying not to sound like he was begging, and Nathan shrugged.

  “Guys, listen to this,” Cora said from her position curled up on the couch. She had her phone in her hands, looking up at them over the screen. “I think I might know who the lich is.”

  “What?” Elton walked over to peer down at her screen. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Witches can still use Google, can’t they? The victims had those weird marks on their necks, remember? A gourd and a feather. And now we know the phylactery is a Zuni ruin. So I just searched for ‘zuni gourd and feather,’ and this guy came up.” She looked back at her phone and read aloud to them. “Estevanico was the first-known person born in Africa to land in the present-day continental United States. Enslaved as a youth by the Portuguese, he was sold to a Spanish nobleman and taken in 1527 on the Spanish Narváez expedition.”

  “My favorite Spanish expedition,” Nathan quipped, and Elton shushed him with a hiss. Cora paused to skip a bit lower in the article.

  “In 1539, Estevanico was one of four men who accompanied Marcos de Niza as a guide in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola, preceding Coronado. Estevanico traveled ahead of the main party with a group of indigenous servants. He was instructed to communicate by sending back crosses to the main party, with the size of the cross equal to the wealth discovered. One day, a cross arrived that was as tall as a person, causing de Niza to step up his pace to join the scouts. Estevanico had entered the Zuni village of Hawikuh, in present-day New Mexico. He had sent a gourd with a red feather, naive to the fact that it was the symbol for war. The Zuni killed him and expelled the southern indigenous servants from the village.”

  She held up one finger. “But,” she went on, “Juan Francisco Maura suggested in 2002 that Estevanico was not killed by the Zuni, and that he and friends among the Indians faked his death so he could gain freedom.” She turned the screen around to show them a picture of a Zuni doll with a black face, yellow eyes, and a mouth full of pointed teeth. “Some folklore legends say that the Kachina figure, Chakwaina, is based on Estevanico.”

  “Well,” Nathan chuckled, “the things the Internet can do. That does look a bit like him. Grumpy thing.”

  “The sixteenth century,” Elton frowned. “That would definitely explain why there wasn’t anything left of him but bones. He must be immensely powerful. We’re lucky to have such a good lead on the phylactery before he regains much of his strength.”

  Nathan chose not to share the fact that the lich was definitely chasing them, and that it had likely eaten an entire restaurant’s worth of people earlier in the day. It would only lead to Elton insisting that they head out right this minute, and Nathan didn’t relish the idea of digging through a pueblo in the cold of night. It would take time for it to locate them again.

  Teresa stepped out from her bedroom in simple black slacks and a black shirt, wrapping her hair up into a neat bun as she walked. “I’ll be back tonight,” she said. “Nothing funny, you understand? And feed my dog.”

  “Of course,” Elton said before Nathan could open his mouth. “Thank you again.”

  She gave Nathan a spiteful glance on her way out, but she only let the screen door drop shut behind her and climbed into her truck.

  17

  Cora made herself at home right away and began poring over Teresa’s bookshelf for something interesting to read. She hoped one of the history books might put her to sleep. She picked out one called Empire of the Summer Moon and curled up on the couch with it, flipping it open to inspect the map a few pages in. She only knew as much about Native American history as her public school education had told her—which was to say, not much—but she suspected that Teresa had more than enough reason to avoid getting involved in white man problems.

  She looked over at Nathan, who was lounging on the sofa beside her with a cup of coffee from Teresa’s kitchen.

  “So this guy, Estevanico—if that’s who he really is—you said you lived with him, and he taught you?”

  “He did,” Nathan agreed. “Becoming a lich is an insane thing to do, of course, and it takes an immense amount of power. It’s alchemy, essentially, which was never my strong suit, so I took what I could from him.”

  “And that wasn’t weird? Him being all, you know.” She clawed her hands and growled.

  “I’ve gotten used to stranger things.”

  “And that’s alchemy like, turning lead into gold?”

  “Chrysopoeia is a classic example, yes. Changing things into other things, adjusting their properties, creating e
lixirs for various things, and most importantly, the Magnum Opus—the philosopher’s stone. I’m sure you’ve heard of that.”

  “Like in Harry Potter.”

  He sighed. “Yes, like that. Sort of. It might not actually be a stone. It’s also called the Elixir of Life. Alchemy is focused on enhancing mankind, making people healthier, smarter, and long-lived. Potions, poultices, that sort of thing. There’s a fine line between chemistry and magic when it comes to alchemy.”

  “And you learned how to do that kind of thing from him? Make potions and stuff? What about the philosopher’s stone?”

  “Still a dream, as far as I know. But I did learn a lot about the elements, minerals, the processes that affect them—purifying metals, for instance, which is a bit of a bore. Still, worthwhile to know things.”

  “And all that stuff about making people live longer doesn’t interest you, right?”

  Nathan chuckled into his coffee cup. “Immortality isn’t real, Cora. I’ve lived a long time, and I intend to keep on living, but I’m not immortal, and neither is my friend. Even things we think of as immortal—vampires, spirits, et cetera—can be killed. Can be destroyed. Nothing lasts forever. Not even a face as handsome as this,” he added with a smile. Cora shoved him with her elbow.

  Elton snorted to himself as he touched a few of the books in passing, but the buzzing of his phone in his pocket distracted him. He unlocked the screen and found a text from his wife.

  Call me now.

  Without hesitation, he called her cell phone and stepped out of the house, moving to the edge of the porch while the call rang through. He felt guilty for putting her off for so long, but he wasn’t likely to have a better time to call her than this—even if her message hadn’t indicated how irritated she was with him.

  “Hello?” Jocelyn answered after a few rings, and he smiled just to hear her voice.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry I haven’t called; it’s been ridiculous here. You aren’t going to believe what’s happened. I found him, Jo. Moore. He’s here with me, right now.”