The Left-Hand Path: Mentor

by T. S. Barnett

  “Night terrors,” he explained, guilt pooling in his gut. “I had no choice. It was the only way to get Nathan to cooperate.”

  “He’s ‘Nathan’ now, not ‘Moore?’ You guys good friends now, are you? She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, right? You’re dragging this criminal around the state instead of taking him to justice and using that girl as your trump card?” She sneered at him. “Fucking asshole—this is why nobody trusts the Chasers.”

  “I had to,” Elton tried again, though he didn’t say it with much conviction. “Nathan is—”

  “Is more important to you than the well-being of an innocent young girl,” she snapped, and she pushed him out of the way with one hand on his chest, then stormed into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. “You’re both assholes,” she grumbled over the sound of cabinets opening and closing.

  Elton had no defense. He listened to Cora’s sobs through the bedroom door while Teresa prepared a large cup of tea, and he dutifully stepped aside when the woman brushed past him on her way to the bedroom. He stayed near the doorway and watched Cora sip at the hot drink, Teresa gently stroking her hair, and he waited until the girl was calm and asleep again. Neither Nathan nor Teresa had very forgiving looks for him as they filed out of the room, and neither of them spoke to him.

  He didn’t argue when Nathan curled up on the couch, instead taking his place in the creaky chair by the window and unsuccessfully attempting to sleep. Every time he shut his eyes, he imagined Jocelyn sitting up at night waiting for him, checking her phone for calls that never came. He had left her alone for years, and he had never realized. He told himself that he had only had their future in mind, but was that even true? She called Nathan his obsession—the word hit harder than he expected. How much of his life had he spent chasing this person, and what good had it done, when if he had left well enough alone, Nathan would probably have been dead of old age in five years? He had lost his wife over a story that should have been over decades ago.

  18

  Teresa woke the house with the smell of black coffee brewing, and Nathan earned himself a glower by getting far too close as he reached around her for a mug. When he blew her a kiss, she nearly hit him in the jaw. Cora showered and changed clothes, but Teresa wasn’t prepared to offer any amenities to Elton or Nathan, so the two men had to satisfy themselves with brushing their teeth in the kitchen sink and changing their shirts in a rush.

  “We’ll take my truck to Hawikku,” Teresa said. “I know the way, and I don’t trust that piece of shit you came in.”

  “That piece of shit has been very reliable thus far,” Nathan objected.

  “Wasn’t asking. Get your shit.”

  “There aren’t enough seats,” Elton said as they approached the pickup, and Teresa put a hand on her hip and gestured at the empty bed of the truck.

  “Will you look at that,” she said with a humorless chuckle. “There’s just enough room for two assholes in the back.”

  “Awesome,” Nathan laughed, putting one foot on a back tire to heft himself up into the truck. “How far a drive is it?”

  She shrugged. “Six, six and a half hours.”

  Elton sighed and climbed into the bed of the truck beside Nathan. “Awesome,” he echoed with less enthusiasm as he leaned his back against the cab. He decided not to think about the amount of desert dust that was about to ingrain itself into his suit and hair.

  Teresa gave Cora a brief smile and creaked open the driver’s side door, waiting until the girl was inside before starting the truck and backing out onto the road.

  “Cora, right?” Teresa asked with a quick glance over at her.

  She nodded. “That’s me. Sorry I’m not so chipper,” she chuckled, her head leaned against the torn leather headrest. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

  “How the hell did you get involved in all this? Those two are crazy; you know that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, probably.” She chuckled. “I was just trying to help Nathan and get away from my crappy family, and now everything is insane. But I’m stuck here until it’s over now.”

  Teresa frowned across the cab at her. “Are you sleeping with him? Moore.”

  Cora snapped to attention and choked on her own gasp. “Are you kidding? No. No way. He’s a million years old. And anyway it’s not like that. He’s my friend. Why would you even ask that? Why does everybody think that?”

  She shrugged. “I was just asking. He clearly gets around, if the way he treated my grandmother is any indication, and he seemed very protective of you last night.”

  Cora frowned down at her hands in her lap. “He has been. Protective, I mean. The only reason he’s in this mess is because I let Elton catch me. I’m a pretty bad apprentice. I’m trying to get better.”

  “You’re feeling bad for him?” Teresa snorted. “You should feel bad for yourself for the way those two treat you.” She sighed. “Just be careful with him. I don’t know what your situation is, but those two are dangerous. I’m sure no matter what happens you’ll be better off if they take Moore to be hanged. And you make sure that asshole Chaser takes that curse off of you as soon as we’re done here, you understand?”

  “Believe me, I’m ready to be done.” They rode without speaking for a while, the radio softly playing country under the sound of the engine, until Cora looked back over at her. “You live out here all by yourself?”

  “That’s the way I like it.”

  “It seems nice. I mean, if you don’t mind being alone. I don’t. If I was alone it meant I wasn’t getting yelled at.”

  Teresa’s lips pulled into a faint frown, but she said nothing.

  Cora hesitated. “Did you...I mean, your grandmother—”

  “It’s not a story worth telling,” Teresa interrupted. “She was a good woman, but silly. She was pressured into marrying my grandfather, and they were always unhappy because all she ever did was pine away for that prick in the bed of my truck. That’s it.”

  Cora turned to look through the dusty window at the back of the cab, letting out a snort at the sight of Elton hunched in the corner to avoid the wind. Only Nathan’s stomach was visible through the glass, his shirt fluttering up to show his tanned skin, because he had apparently decided to kneel in the bed and look out over the roof of the truck as they went. How he kept the sand out of his eyes, she couldn’t imagine, but if she strained she could hear his laugh through the metal roof. She only saw him as a teacher, a companion, a friend—probably because she’d seen him cough up blood and wheeze into a respirator—but she could see how easy it would be to get swept up in his smile and his infectious laughter. Everything was a game to him because he had nothing to lose.

  She remembered him nearly killing that man in the bar in Yuma. She had seen him fight the lich with magic so strong he seemed like a monster himself. Even through her pain, she had seen him hold that truck still in the middle of the street while the tires burned into the asphalt. He laughed and smoked and flirted and fought without ever thinking about what could happen to him. ‘Carpe diem’ and ‘live like there’s no tomorrow’ got thrown around all the time, especially by people her age, but now that she had seen it firsthand, she realized that it was a little frightening. No remorse, no worrying about consequences, no hesitation.

  “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful,” she murmured to herself as she watched Nathan drop down into the bed of the truck again and wiggle his fingers at her with a grin.

  “What’s that?” Teresa asked without looking at her.

  “Frankenstein,” she said. “I had to read it in school. In Frankenstein, the creature doesn’t feel fear. He does whatever he wants, and he starts out good, but by the end, he’s a murderer.”

  Teresa’s brow furrowed. “You think someone like that guy in the back started out good?”

  She shrugged. “I hope there’s good in everybody.”

  Teresa scoffed but didn’t argue. She just reached forward to turn up the volume on the r
adio.

  They drove until Nathan started banging on the roof of the truck. Teresa still didn’t stop, but she did slide open the glass at the back of the cab and allow Nathan to stick his face in.

  “Are we stopping at all on this journey? Elton looks a bit ill, and the wind keeps blowing my cigarettes away.”

  Cora glanced back at Elton through the glass. He did seem to be curled up uncomfortably against the side of the truck, his eyes shut and his arms wrapped tightly around his torso. He looked pitiful, but she was having more trouble feeling sorry for him the worse her nightmares became.

  “We’re not stopping,” Teresa said. “You should have packed a snack. And stop littering your damn cigarettes all over the highway.”

  “Ugh,” Nathan groaned in protest, and he pushed the window closed himself and slumped against the back of the cab like a petulant child.

  Cora’s first reaction was to defend Nathan’s character from this woman—she didn’t know him, she would barely speak to him, and it seemed like it was hardly his fault that her grandmother had become so obsessed that it ruined her life. What kind of a person does that? Sure, he killed people, and that was obviously bad, but the majority of the things she had seen Nathan do so far had been to protect people. He had even saved Elton’s stupid self.

  Cora opened her mouth to tell Teresa she was wrong about him, but she realized with a bit of a start that this woman’s opinion didn’t matter to her. She didn’t know whether she should thank Nathan’s careless influence or not, but regardless, she didn’t care what Teresa thought about any of them. After they found the lich’s phylactery they would probably never see each other again. If she wanted to sit around and be bitter about something that happened to her grandmother back in the forties, she was welcome.

  They did pull over eventually—only for gas, but it allowed Elton to stretch his legs and Nathan to buy cigarettes to replace the ones he had lost on the road.

  “How did you pay for those?” Elton asked in an accusatory tone as Nathan ambled back to the truck with two packs in his hand.

  Nathan grinned and wiggled his fingers at him. “Magic.”

  “Absolutely not. Get back in there and pay properly.”

  “With what money? If you like, I can rob this place and get some honest cigarettes from a place down the road. He thinks I paid him, and I got my cigarettes. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem will be when you get a man fired for stealing because his register is short.”

  “Oh, please. If he gets fired over ten dollars, he should be looking for a new job anyway.” He bent against the breeze to light a cigarette, but Elton smacked his hand away before he could flick the lighter.

  “Don’t smoke at a gas station. Are you an idiot?”

  “You are the absolute worst.” Nathan brushed by him with an exasperated groan and leaned against the side of the truck while Teresa filled the tank. “So,” he began.

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  “I was just going to tell you that you did an impressive job yesterday.”

  She flicked her eyes over to him, her mouth forming a thin line. “Don’t. Talk. To. Me.”

  “Well you’re all a fucking cheery bunch, aren’t you?” he scoffed, gesturing at Teresa and Elton in turn. “This one won’t talk at all, and all this one wants to do is scold.” He frowned across at Elton. “I think you’d do well to remember that you have a hope of killing this lich by my good graces alone, and if you feel like you can do it without my gris gris and my magic, then please do let me know so that my apprentice and I can be on our way. I’ve been very helpful thus far, but the whole process is getting dull very quickly.”

  “You aren’t taking her anywhere until she’s had her curse lifted,” Elton pointed out.

  “Maybe I’ll take her to find a Chaser who chases people himself, instead of tricking young girls to play on my sympathies.”

  “You have sympathies?” Cora spoke up from inside the truck, her elbows leaned on the open driver’s side window.

  Nathan smiled over his shoulder at her. “Precious few, my love.” He turned to face her and lowered his voice, ignoring Elton’s grumbling. “How are you feeling?”

  “Not great,” she admitted with a glance at the Chaser. “The dreams are...they’re really bad.”

  “How so? Any fears I can allay during your waking hours that might help ease your mind?”

  She shook her head. “There’s just...there are a lot of monsters. Creepy ones, like the lich, and huge ones and tiny bug ones and—ugh.” She paused to shudder.

  Nathan laughed. “My love, you know these are the best sorts of nightmares to have! It means you aren’t afraid of anything. If you were dreaming about your family dying, or a lover cheating on you, or being naked in front of a group of people, then that’s harder to deal with.” He picked a lock of hair from her puzzled face and tucked it neatly back into place. “You’re having nightmares about tangible things. Mental anxieties are harder to fix, but you must remember that a monster can always be killed.”

  She looked up at him with a soft frown. “You know they say you aren’t supposed to be able to die in your dreams, right, because you’ll die in real life? I’ve come pretty close to dying a few times right before I wake up. That isn’t true, is it?”

  “You know, people in South Korea think that you’ll die if you sleep with a fan on in your room. Dying because of a dream seems just as likely to me.”

  “But these are cursed dreams,” she whispered. “He said they would get worse and worse. What’s the worst?”

  Nathan paused and glanced over at Elton, who seemed to be pointedly not listening to their conversation. He had never heard of such a slow-acting curse, but it wasn’t impossible. He looked back to Cora with a warm smile. “It doesn’t matter, does it? In just a few hours we’ll have the phylactery, the lich will be dead, and the mean old Chaser will lift the curse as promised, I’m sure. He’s even single now, apparently, if you still wanted to get in on that.”

  “God, shut up,” she groaned, and she sat back in her seat and rolled the window up in his laughing face.

  “Get in,” Teresa said as she snatched her receipt from the gas pump. Nathan and Elton took up their places in the bed of the truck with barely enough time to settle before Teresa pulled away from the station and headed back to the highway.

  “Will it kill her?” Nathan asked over the dull roar of the wind, glancing through the glass to make certain that Cora couldn’t hear him. “The curse.”

  Elton looked over at him and didn’t answer for a moment. “Eventually,” he said, and Nathan hissed in frustration and clicked his tongue.

  “What’s eventually?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “Two weeks? And here it is day seven of our little adventure. You didn’t think to mention that we had a time limit?”

  “I would have thought the time limit was the lich murdering innocent people.”

  “No,” Nathan growled, “that’s an incentive. You need to take that curse off of her right now if it’s killing her.”

  “Like you said,” Elton countered, “the whole thing will be over with shortly. I’ll keep my promise.”

  “Why didn’t you say it was a death spell to begin with? I would have taken you more seriously.”

  “I didn’t want to frighten her. Nightmares are one thing, but I needed her able to at least function. You think she would have been able to handle the idea of being dead in a fortnight?”

  Nathan scowled at him. “I don’t think I like you playing dirty anymore,” he said. Elton didn’t answer him.

  They bypassed Zuni Pueblo itself, driving instead straight for the ruins at the edge of the reservation. The truck kicked up dry dust as it moved along the dirt road, and Nathan and Elton began to bounce uncomfortably in the back. They were both glad to be out of the truck when it stopped at a nondescript bit of desert. The ruin itself consisted of little more than a few short, crumbling stone walls and a hill of dry brown
grass littered with slightly different rocks.

  Nathan looked over at Teresa while he lit a cigarette. “Any hints, or shall we just start digging at random?”

  “No digging,” she snapped. “This is an important site. Let me try to pinpoint the location. I don’t want you people disturbing any more of this place than is necessary.”

  They waited while she settled herself in the slim shade of the truck and began to cast her magic, rocking on her heels and repeating the incantation in a murmur.

  Nathan stood beside Cora and let her lean against him, half holding her up with an arm around her shoulders. “You going to help us find this thing?” he asked her, and she squinted up at him in the hot sun.

  “I’m pretty sure Teresa is on it.”

  “We’ve been neglecting your education. Chances are this thing is just hidden under a very specific pile of rocks, and I happen to know that there’s a very simple spell on that bracelet of yours that will be excellent at moving small piles of rocks.” He picked up her hand and turned the bracelet on her wrist until he found the right bead, and he lifted his own arm to show her his matching stone. “You remember this one, don’t you? Can you read it?”

  She peered down at the scratches on her bracelet and attempted to recall the script Nathan had ordered her to copy over and over again in the dim warmth of his apartment. “Siar?” she tried, and she puffed slightly at his proud grin.

  “That’s my girl.”

  The orb of smoke in front of Teresa cracked and vanished, and she accepted Elton’s hand up and wiped at the sweat on her brow. “This way,” she said. She led them across the dry scrub to a low stone wall that hardly deserved the name. She bent down to touch one of the rocks, her eyes briefly closing. “It’s here. Underneath the wall.”

  “Go on,” Nathan murmured in Cora’s ear, and he gave her a gentle nudge. “Make this easy on us.”

  Teresa turned her head to stare at them, and she started to snap an objection as the girl lifted her hand. Cora felt the heat of magic in her chest, the bead on her bracelet warming against her wrist, and she smiled as she forced out the word “Siar.”