Left Hand Magic (24 page)

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Authors: Nancy A. Collins

BOOK: Left Hand Magic
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As the shadow of the demon fell across me, I did not flinch or look away, but instead tightened my grip on the cutting torch. Even in the face of certain, horrible death, I felt no fear, only a deep resolve peculiar to those who know they are doomed, no matter what. Even if I was armed with a plasma arc welder, I was no match for a hellspawn. My only consolation came from knowing that if this was how it was going to end, at least I’d be burning some bacon on the way out. Suddenly there was a flash of white light and a squeal like that of a herd of swine trapped in a slaughterhouse as the demon was hurled backward.
Hexe was standing in the doorway, dressed in nothing but a pair of boxers, his right hand held aloft. His eyes glowed like molten gold, and his right palm burned with a white heat so intense I couldn’t look at it, even with my welding goggles.
“Get thee hence, foul one!” he commanded, his voice echoing as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. “Leave this place! You are not welcome here!”
The demon turned on him, growling in defiance. It raised its hand to shield its piggish eyes from the brilliant white light, but did not cower. As it moved toward him, I felt my fear return—but not for myself. The glow surrounding Hexe’s right hand grew even brighter, and tendrils of smoke rose from the demon’s body. It snarled but continued to advance as if walking into a strong headwind. Its skin grew red and blistered, while sweat poured down Hexe’s face and his right arm began to tremble.
As I watched, the right side of the demon’s face sloughed away, like the cheese on a pizza, revealing glistening tendons and gleaming bone, and yet it continued to press onward. There came a sudden, condensed flare of light, like the final, defiant flicker of a guttering candle, and Hexe’s right arm dropped to his side. With a squeal of bloodthirsty victory, the hellspawn pounced on him, grabbing him by the throat.
I lunged forward to go to his aid, only to be pulled up short by the hoses tethering me to the acetylene/oxygen tanks. I shut off the valves to the cutting torch and grabbed a pair of sheet metal snips from the workbench.
“Leave him alone, asshole!”
I screamed as I plunged the shears into the demon’s neck. The creature shrieked in pain and let Hexe go. But as I tried to pull the snips free, I was struck by one of the demon’s pinions and landed on my broken arm.
The agony was so excruciating I could not suck enough air into my lungs to scream, so all that came out was a groan. Although my life depended on getting back on my feet, every time I moved my left arm I came perilously close to blacking out. The only thing that kept me from doing so was the certainty that if I lost consciousness, I would be torn limb from limb.
There was a thunderous roar that rattled the very walls of the house as Scratch, in his true form, smashed into the demon. Hellspawn and hell-beast rolled about the room, smashing my workbench into kindling as they tore at one another. The demon screamed like a stuck pig as Scratch buried his sabrelike fangs in its left shoulder. With an angry shriek that sounded like a band saw chewing through concrete, the pig-demon jumped out the broken window and soared off into the pre-dawn sky.
I felt a hand touch my cheek, and I opened my eyes to see Hexe kneeling over me. He seemed pale and drawn, and had a ring of bruises around his throat, but was otherwise unharmed. Scratch stood by the window, staring after the escaping fiend. The familiar turned and gave his master a beseeching look.
“He’s getting away, boss.”
“Go get ’im, tiger,” Hexe said.
With a roar of delight, Scratch spread his own drag-onlike wings and leaped out the window in pursuit of his enemy.
Now that the danger was over, I could feel myself start to slip into shock. My teeth began to chatter and suddenly everything seemed far away, as if I were looking down the wrong end of a telescope.
“Holy Bast! What happened in here?” Our housemate, Lukas, dressed in a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, was standing in the doorway, staring in disbelief at the wreckage.
“Tate’s been attacked,” Hexe replied. “Call nine-one-one. Tell them we need an ambulance!”
As Lukas hurried off to call the authorities, I felt myself sinking down, as if something had hold of the back of my head and was trying to drag me through the floorboards, into endless night. I tightened my grip on Hexe’s hand, fearful that should I fall into the void, I might never find my way back again.
“Don’t worry, Tate,” he whispered as the shadows began to expand. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
And then the darkness rose up and wrapped itself around me.
Chapter 20
 
T
he next thing I knew, I was on a gurney, surrounded by noise and movement and unshaded lights. I had no idea how long I’d been out or where I was; all I knew was that Hexe was still standing next to me, holding my hand. He was listening intently while a Kymeran in hospital scrubs spoke to him in an earnest voice. Suddenly a sliver of pain pierced the damp gray fog wrapped around me, and I moaned out loud. I glanced over at my broken arm and saw that it had been placed in a splint.
Hexe bent over and brushed the hair out of my face and kissed me on the forehead. “Everything’s going to be okay, baby,” he whispered, then let go of my hand and stepped aside so the man dressed in scrubs could take his place.
“Hello, Tate, my name’s Dr. Gyre. I’m a boneknitter, and I’m going to be healing your arm now. Before we get started, I have to warn you that what I’m about to do will only take a few seconds—but it
will
hurt. During that time, you can’t move or jerk away from me, no matter how much you might want to. Do you understand?”
I nodded yes, even though I didn’t have a clue as to what he was talking about. All I wanted was my arm fixed.
“Good girl,” Dr. Gyre said with a smile. Then he put a padded stick in my mouth and clamped his hands just below the wrist and above the elbow of my splinted arm. There was a flash of white light, and my broken arm was healed in less than two minutes.
What did it feel like? Imagine hitting your funny bone with a ball-peen hammer while smashing your hand in a car door—
that’s
what it felt like. The truly excruciating part, though, was an intense tingling sensation—part burning, part itching—from inside the bone itself, as if a colony of fire ants armed with tattooing guns was scurrying about underneath my skin. Despite the agony, I did not move, for fear that my arm might come off in his hands.
Just when I thought I would go mad from the pain, Dr. Gyre let go and stepped back, taking the pain with him. The boneknitter plucked the surgical cap from his head, revealing a shock of olive green hair, and used it to wipe away the sweat dripping from his face. He nodded to Hexe, who quickly removed the padded stick from my mouth. I took a deep, shuddering breath, as I blinked the tears from my eyes. Although I was no longer hurting, I was so exhausted I felt like I’d just run the New York City Marathon
and
the Boston Marathon back-to-back.
“She should be good to go later today,” Dr. Gyre said. “She’s going to need to sleep it off for a few hours, though. I’ll have one of our orderlies put her in a recovery room.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Hexe said gratefully.
Dr. Gyre pulled aside the curtain behind him, revealing the controlled chaos of what looked to be a typical emergency room—or a veterinary clinic, judging by the pregnant huldra going into labor in the cubicle to the right of me.
“How are you feeling, Tate?” Hexe asked. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m really thirsty,” I replied.
“I’ll go get you some water,” he said, kissing my forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
As I waited for Hexe to return with my water, the doors to the ambulance drop-off flew open and a pair of paramedics hustled into the ER pushing a gurney that bore an ipotane wrapped in a thermal blanket. An Amazon in nurse’s whites motioned to the empty cubicle to the left of mine.
My eyelids were growing heavier each second, but I wasn’t so out of it that I didn’t notice the smell of wet horse. I looked over and saw that the gurney the ipotane was lying on was completely soaked, to the point that water was pooling on the floor underneath. The ipotane then groaned and rolled over so that he was facing me. With a start, I realized it was Gus.
“Some merfolk found him in the East River,” one of the paramedics said as he handed the patient’s chart to the Amazonian nurse. “He was cyanotic when we arrived at the scene, but we managed to revive him.”
As if on cue, Gus began to gasp and choke, and the ER staff flew into action. “He’s going into cardiac arrest!” the nurse shouted as she began applying CPR to the ipotane’s barrel-like chest. “I need a psychic surgeon over here,
stat
!”
Hexe returned with a bottle of water, but by that time I was too tired to do more than take a couple of sips. I wanted to tell him that I knew the person the ER staff were frantically working to save, but I was so exhausted from my own ordeal I could barely squeeze his hand, much less talk. Before I could find out what had happened to Gus, the orderly arrived and pushed my gurney down the hall to the recovery room.
 
 
I am on the street in front of the boardinghouse, waiting for my ride. I do not know how long I have been standing there, or where it is I am going. I cannot tell if it is day or night, but I do see that the streets are strangely empty. Suddenly, I become aware of someone calling my name, as if from a great distance.
I look across the street and see Bayard the centaur harnessed to a pony wagon. Quid and Gus are perched on the driver’s seat, smiling and waving at me.
“Hurry up, Tate,” Quid calls out, “or you’re going to be late!”
I trot across the cobblestone street to join my friends. I am relieved to see that they are alive and well. I wonder where I got the crazy idea that they were otherwise. But as I draw closer, the glow of health drains from their faces and their skin turns a pallid, ashy gray.
My eyes must be playing tricks on me, so I rub them and look again, only to have the pony wagon transform into a glass-sided hearse. Quid and Gus are still sitting on the driver’s seat, only now they are wearing undertakers’ top hats and tails, as is Bayard.
“Aren’t you going with us?” Gus asks, water gushing from his mouth.
“There’s room for one more,” Quid says, gesturing to the interior of the hearse. Save for his trademark fuzzy eyebrows, the favor broker’s face is a mass of bruises, and his left eye dangles from its socket by the optic nerve.
“I’m not ready to go,” I protest, stepping away from the hearse.
“Neither were we,” Bayard replies, turning in his harness to look at me. He is still wearing the earbuds attached to his iPod and his mouth is smeared with dried vomit. “But we went, all the same.”
Suddenly a shadow falls across me, and I hear a cry that is a cross between the squawk of a raven and the squeal of a pig. I look in the sky and see a winged silhouette plummeting toward me. I shield my face by raising my arms, and when I lower them, I am no longer standing on the street.
I am in a large, shadowy room. I look down and see that I am standing in the center of a pentacle. I hear the rustle of feathers and hissing. I turn and see a black chicken on a nesting box, beside which sits a copper dragon, steam rising from its nostrils as it watches me with eyes of flame.
There is a flash of lightning and a crash of thunder, illuminating the darkness around me. I see a slab, and on it lies a body covered by a sheet. As I stare in horror, the cadaver sits up and reaches with a pale, bloodless hand and slowly pulls at the shroud covering its face. I am rooted to the spot, unable to look away. I don’t know why, but it is important that I see the corpse’s face. Just as the sheet finally drops away, there is another lightning flash and . . .
 
 
“Tate? Can you hear me? Are you okay?” Hexe was bending over me, a concerned look on his face. He heaved a sigh of relief as I opened my eyes. “It sounded like you were having a nightmare.”
“How long was I asleep?” I asked, looking around. I was resting in a hospital bed in a small, sparsely decorated room, the walls of which were painted a pale medicinal green. Somewhere along the line I had been undressed and put in a hospital gown.
“You’ve been out for a couple of hours,” he replied, arranging my pillows so I could sit up. “How do you feel?”
“A lot better, compared to before.” I lifted my splinted arm and stared at it in amazement. “It just seems a little tender—that’s all. I’m still really thirsty, though.”
“That’s a side effect of the accelerated healing,” Hexe explained as he poured me a glass of water from a carafe on the bedside table.
I quickly downed the offered glass, eager to quench the persistent dryness at the back of my throat. It was probably just tap water, but as far as my body was concerned it was the ambrosia of the gods.
“Did Scratch catch the demon?” I asked as he refilled my glass.

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