Left Hand Magic (16 page)

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Authors: Nancy A. Collins

BOOK: Left Hand Magic
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My father heaved another sigh, even wearier than the one before. “Princess, we’ll have to call you back and discuss this another time. Your mother and I need to talk.”
“Of course, Dad. I understand.”
“Love you, Timmy. Stay safe.”
“I will, Dad. Same to you.”
I’d known that suggesting that my parents visit Golgotham would set my mother off like a blasting cap, but it was the only way I could get them off the phone. I felt a twinge of guilt for setting my father up the way I did, but I told myself it had to be done in the name of peace, particularly my own.
My father may not understand or appreciate my desire to be a sculptor, but he has never denied me. My mother, on the other hand, has been a living boat anchor for as long as I can remember—doing her best to keep me from realizing any ambition outside of becoming a Lady Who Lunches. She always gets overridden by my father, but that doesn’t keep her from making catty remarks every time we talk. I wished our relationship wasn’t so acrimonious, but sometimes things just are the way they are. Water’s wet, fire is hot, and my mom’s a be-yotch.
I looked down at Beanie, who had worn himself out playing and, in true puppy fashion, fallen asleep right where he was. One second he was wrestling with a knotted-up tube sock, the next he was sprawled on his side, snoring through his little pushed-in nose, which was almost flush with his onion-shaped head. He was as limp as a rag doll, as relaxed as only small children and puppies can get, as I picked him up and cradled him in the crook of my arm. Somehow he managed to yawn and stretch without opening his eyes or interrupting his snores. I glanced up to see Hexe standing in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the jamb, a little half smile on his face.
“So—does it feel like home now?” he asked.
“
Better
than home,” I replied with a smile.
Chapter 12
 
F
or the next few days I was kept busy taking Beanie to get his shots, and shopping for squeak toys, collars, and dog sweaters. And since animals with only one head and/or no ability to speak were comparatively rare where I lived, this meant trips outside of Golgotham. It also meant that by the end of the day I was usually too pooped to go out. Which wasn’t that big a deal, since after our experience with first the riot and then the media, Hexe and I had decided it was probably a good idea to stay home and live off takeout for a few days, rather than risk going out after dark. Besides, it gave us time to bond with Beanie and help him get accustomed to our day-to-day routine. Still, after four days, as much as I adore Strega Nona’s pizza and stromboli, when Hexe suggested we go to Lorelei’s for dinner, I jumped at the chance.
Hexe’s childhood friend Kidron picked us up in his hansom cab at seven. I had made sure to take the puppy out into the backyard before crating him for the evening. While Scratch had promised not to harm Beanie, I decided it might not be a good idea for the pup to push his luck while I was gone.
Lorelei’s was situated near Pickman’s Slip, at the foot of Ferry Street, on the end of a long pier that jutted into the East River. The building was huge, and looked like a fanciful cross between a Maori meetinghouse and a Hawaiian war canoe, with an inverse curved roof that measured sixty feet at its highest point. Flanking the front door were two massive, twenty-foot-high
maoi
—the famous stone faces of Easter Island—with volcano-like flames burning from the tops of their heads.
As Kidron pulled up to let us out, a young merman with webbed hands, green seaweedlike hair, and gill-slits along his throat, and dressed in a colorful Hawaiian shirt, hurried forward to help me down from the cab.
“Welcome to Lorelei’s.” The merman smiled. He pushed against the edge of the octagonal-shaped front door, which turned on a center pivot to allow entrance to the building. “Have a wonderful evening.”
The first thing I noticed upon crossing the threshold, besides the mouthwatering smell of ribs slow-cooking in wood-fired ovens, was that instead of the usual tables and booths found in most restaurants, there were individual thatched huts. Some were big enough for two, while others were large enough to accommodate up to twenty or more people, giving the illusion of a tropical native village under a single roof.
Just inside the front door was a triple-tiered fountain filled with dry ice, which sent mist boiling across the carpeted floor, while the sound of jungle drums throbbed from hidden speakers. A beautiful mermaid hostess, dressed in a boldly printed sarong, stepped forward to greet us. She wore a lei of flowers around her neck that partially obscured her gill-slits, and held an iPad in her webbed hands. Her long dark green hair was piled high atop her head and kept in place by an ornately carved mother-of-pearl comb.
“Welcome to Lorelei’s,” she said with a smile. “Do you have a reservation?”
“I’m a friend of the owner,” Hexe explained. “She said she’d put us on the list. The name’s Hexe.”
“Ah, yes!” The hostess nodded as she consulted her iPad. “Right this way, Serenity!”
As we were led into the restaurant, no matter where I looked I found something to amaze or amuse the eye. Grimacing war masks hung on the walls alongside shellacked sea turtles, and every doorway had Maori motifs painted along its edges. The entire left wall was covered in richly decorated vintage tapa cloths, made from the bark found in the South Sea Islands, and dominated by an imposing forty-foot-high tiki-god head with a roaring fire built inside its gaping mouth. The opposing wall, however, was made entirely of shatterproof Plexiglas, and housed the largest saltwater habitat I had ever seen outside of a public aquarium. I spotted a multitude of tropical fish, including adult sea turtles and manta ray, as well as several merfolk swimming inside it.
I stopped to stare in fascination as a mermaid, her hair floating about her head like a bed of kelp, glided past. With her clamshell-and-seaweed bra and dolphin lower body, she looked like an escapee from a children’s picture book. As I watched, she disappeared inside a larger version of the “Neptune’s Castle” found in more modest aquariums, leaving a trail of bubbles in her wake.
Our hostess showed us to an intimate grass hut for two, illuminated by multicolored glass float lights suspended in handwoven nets and a puffer-fish lamp that dangled from the rafters like a prickly piñata.
We carefully studied the menus, which were shaped like Easter Island heads and big enough to use as semaphore signals. I ordered the Polynesian Spare Ribs with Molokai Sauce, while Hexe picked the Island Flaming Chicken, which came skewered on a sword and was set on fire at the table. As for drinks, I opted for the Zombie, which left me feeling comfortably numb by the time we finished our entrées, and Hexe ordered a cocktail that arrived in a cup of dry ice that quickly engulfed the tabletop in a cloud of crawling mist.
“What’s that one called again?” I asked as I turned on my cell phone camera.
“A Smoking Eruption.”
“I’d see a doctor about that if I were you,” I said with a giggle.
“Is Lorelei here tonight?” Hexe asked the waitress as she cleared away our dishes.
“She’s tending bar in the Fishbowl,” she replied, pointing to the back of the restaurant.
“C’mon,” Hexe said, levering himself out of his chair. “Let’s go say hello and thank her for dinner.”
To reach the restaurant’s lounge, we had to walk over a bamboo bridge that spanned an artificial stream fed by an equally artificial waterfall. On the other side was a Plexiglas tank that stood four feet deep, twenty feet long, and twelve feet wide, with a wooden bar top built along its rim. Inside the tank were several different species of tropical fish, and in the middle, set on its own private island complete with palm tree, was a shelf full of liquor and an array of tiki drinkware. Standing—or, rather, floating—behind the bar was none other than the restaurant’s namesake and owner, dressed from the waist up in a twist-front bikini top that displayed her upper body to its best effect. She bobbed in place behind the bar as she vigorously shook a cocktail mixer without displacing the water or spilling a drop of alcohol into the “fishbowl.”
“I was wondering when you’d finally claim your free dinner.” Lorelei grinned as we stepped up to the bar.
“It’s been a busy week,” Hexe explained.
“For some more than others,” the mermaid replied with a sigh.
“You seem to have a good crowd tonight,” Hexe observed.
“The riot scared off my regulars, as well as the tourists. This is the first night people seem to feel comfortable going out after dark, praise Poseidon.”
“I think people are getting over their shell shock,” Hexe replied. “I tended to several locals who were injured in the riot the very next morning, but I haven’t had a client knock on my door since then until today. I think the worst has finally blown over.”
“I certainly hope so.”
While Lorelei and Hexe discussed the effect of the riot on Golgotham’s economy, I allowed my attention to wander as I continued to ogle the exotic war masks, ceremonial spears, and stuffed trophy fish decorating the lounge. As my eye traveled down the bar, I spotted a familiar head of electric blue hair seated on the very last stool, drinking from a large ceramic bowl shaped like a Hawaiian war-canoe.
“Look who’s here,” I said, nudging Hexe in the ribs.
His eyes widened in surprise upon espying the lonely drinker. “Faro!” he called out. “Is that you?”
The owner, and sole employee, of Faro’s Moving turned on his barstool to greet us, a chagrined look on his face. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“I’d ask how married life is treating you,” Hexe said acerbically, “but Chorea told us you ditched her during the honeymoon.”
Faro cringed, a worried look on his face. “You talked to Chory? By the Outer Dark, whatever you do, don’t tell her you’ve seen me! I’m trying to get our marriage annulled, and I’m laying low until it’s all over and she finally cools off. I’m even steering clear of my office in the Rookery. I don’t want her to know where I am.”
“Annulment?” Hexe raised a purple eyebrow in surprise. “Granted, you two had a whirlwind marriage, but Chorea’s still a hell of a gal.”
“You’re telling me!” Faro snorted. “I spent most of our so-called ‘honeymoon’ running for my life through the hills of Arkadia! We went to Greece so she could show me some of her old haunts, right? She starts drinking and dancing, and the next thing I know she’s coming after me with blood in her eyes! I ended up having to teleport myself back to Golgotham. I didn’t have my GPS on me, so I’m lucky I didn’t end up at the bottom of a river or stuck in a wall.”
“Well, she
is
a maenad, Faro,” Hexe pointed out. “You knew that when you met her. Look at it this way—at least she really cares about you; maenads tend to kill the ones they love when they are in a Dionysian frenzy, like Agave tearing her son, King Pentheus, limb from limb.”
“
Now
you tell me!” Faro groaned.
“Hey, it’s not
my
fault you opted out of Classical Studies in favor of Applied Teleportation in high school,” Hexe replied. “Chory’s a wonderful woman, when she’s sober. Maybe if you get her into AA, you can save your marriage. You know the makeup sex is gonna be
killer
.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Faro replied glumly.
Having tipped our waitress, we wished Faro well with his domestic problems, thanked Lorelei for her hospitality, and made our way out the door. Kidron was waiting patiently for us when we exited the restaurant.
“Where to next?” the centaur asked as we climbed back into the cab.
“It’s such a lovely night,” I said, squeezing Hexe’s hand. “Why don’t we take our time going home?”
“You heard the lady,” Hexe told the driver. “Take the scenic route.”
“I had a wonderful time tonight,” I said, resting my head on Hexe’s shoulder as Kidron slowly made his way through the winding, narrow streets. Although traffic was lighter than normal, I was relieved to see activity at the various pubs and restaurants along the way. It seemed that Hexe was right, and that the citizens of Golgotham were finally returning to their normal routines.
“So did I,” he replied. “Lorelei’s is no Two-Headed Calf, mind you, but it does have its strong points.”
Kidron came to an abrupt halt. “Do you smell that?” he asked, his wide nostrils flaring in agitation. “It’s blood.
Kymeran
blood.”
Suddenly three figures darted out of a nearby side street and ran right in front of the centaur, causing him to rear up onto his hind legs and nearly overturn the cab. Hexe threw his arms around me to make sure I didn’t tumble out onto the cobblestone street.
The trio were dressed all in black, two of them in ski masks, and they carried aluminum baseball bats. A second later a red-haired Kymeran woman, her face swollen and bloody, staggered from the direction they had come from, only to drop to her knees upon reaching the curb.
“Call nine-one-one!” Hexe said to Kidron as he jumped out of the hansom. “Tell them we’ll need an ambulance.”
“Way ahead of you,” the cabbie replied, tapping his Bluetooth headset.

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