Magic and Loss: A Novel of Golgotham (22 page)

I
tried to call out his name, but all that came out was a strangled groan. I kicked and flailed at him, but he did not let go. Just as my vision started to turn gray around the edges, there was a horrific screeching noise and Scratch launched himself at Hexe, beating his master about the head and shoulders with his batlike wings while raking him with his claws.

Hexe let go of me and jumped off the bed, cursing in Kymeran as he grappled with Scratch. Blood poured down his face and neck and onto his naked chest and arms from the dozens of deep scratches that the familiar had dealt him. His eyes had dropped back down, but were as glassy and unfocused as those of a sleepwalker.

“You dare attack your master, hellspawn!” Hexe shouted indignantly as he tore the madly clawing winged cat off his head and hurled it to the floor.

“I don’t know who
you
are, buddy,” the familiar hissed, his eyes glowing like live coals, “but you’re
not
my master!”

As Hexe lifted his left hand, I saw the flicker of hellfire ignite in his palm. Scratch flattened his ears against his skull and growled in preparation of a second attack.

I tried to shout, but the best I could do was a hoarse croak that made me grimace in pain. “Hexe! Don’t do it!” To my relief, his eyes regained their focus and his left hand dropped to his side, extinguishing the flame.

“You did it, Tate!” Scratch said. “You woke him up!”

“What—what happened?” Hexe winced as he touched his face, staring in bafflement at the blood staining his left hand. His eyes jerked in my direction, only to widen at the sight of the bruises that now ringed my neck. He then looked down at his right hand, to find its fingers still moving of their own accord, as if trying to strangle an unseen throat. With a shout of wordless horror, Hexe dashed from the bedroom.

“What’s wrong with him, Scratch?” I rasped.

“The boss is possessed,” the familiar replied. “But not by a demon; I’d recognize the smell if he was. It’s some kind of evil spirit—” Whatever else Scratch had to say after that was abruptly drowned out by the bansheelike screech of a power tool.

“He’s in my studio!” I exclaimed. I leapt from the bed and hurried down the hall without bothering to throw on my housecoat, Scratch following at my heels.

As I entered the room, I saw Hexe standing naked at my workbench, brandishing one of the cordless power saws. He held his right hand away from his body, staring in disgust at its wildly writhing fingers as if they were venomous snakes.

“Hexe! Put that down!” I croaked, my voice still rough from being throttled. “What are you doing?”

“I
have
to do this, Tate! Don’t stop me!” he replied, gesturing with the power tool. “The darkness is in my hand—I can feel it—it’s crawling up my arm, creeping into my brain, and spreading through my heart. I can hear it inside my head—it’s whispering to me—it’s telling me things—promising me things—it wants me to hurt you and the baby—I can’t let that happen—I
won’t
let that happen—!”

As if in response, the gauntleted hand suddenly lunged at his left forearm, as if to knock the saw away. Hexe responded by menacing his right hand with the spinning blade, and it promptly recoiled.

“You were right, Tate!” Hexe exclaimed, his eyes filled with a terrible determination. “I have to get rid of the gauntlet—before it takes me over completely and makes me hurt you and the baby again!”

“Hexe! No! Don’t do it!” I pleaded.

“There’s no other way!” he replied. “The voice is too strong—if I don’t do it now, it’ll be too late!”

“Miss Timmy—? What on earth is going on? Oh. My.”

I turned to see Clarence standing in the open doorway of the studio, dressed in his pajamas and bedroom slippers, his eyes agog at the sight of a naked, crazed Hexe wielding a live power tool. Hexe used the distraction to bring the saw down on his right forearm, just above the Gauntlet of Nydd’s white-gold cuff. There was a sickening crunching sound, followed by an agonized scream as blood sprayed across the floor. I added my screams to Hexe’s own and covered my eyes, unable to bear the sight of the saw blade ripping through unresisting flesh and bone.

The gauntleted hand dropped to the floor with a heavy thud, only to promptly right itself and scuttle away like a silver-clad spider. Scratch gave an angry yowl and pounced on the amputated limb, sinking his fangs deep into the back of the hand, just like a house cat attacking a rat. The fingers of the severed hand wriggled frantically for a few seconds, like the legs of a crab, before finally going limp.

The power saw slipped from Hexe’s grip mere seconds before he collapsed. I knelt beside him, desperately trying to stem the lifeblood spurting from the stump of his right wrist. I felt something drape across my shoulders, and I realized that I had just been covered with a blanket. Suddenly Clarence was there, kneeling beside me with a first-aid kit.

“It’ll be all right, Miss Timmy,” he said reassuringly as he placed a tourniquet fashioned from one of his ties about Hexe’s forearm. “I was an Eagle Scout, in my day—always be prepared.”

“I had to do it. . . . There was no other way . . .” Hexe mumbled, his golden eyes seeming to grow paler with each spurt of blood.

“Hold on, Hexe,” I said, squeezing his remaining hand as hard as I could. “Don’t you
dare
die on me.”

“Boss—are you in there?” Scratch mewed, butting his head against his master’s bloodied chin. “Can you hear me?”

“I’m still here, old friend,” Hexe replied with a faint smile as he squeezed my hand, his voice sounding frighteningly weak. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You better not,” I said through the tears streaming down my cheeks. “You’ve got a son to raise, you know.” Suddenly Hexe’s eyelids flickered and his eyes once again rolled back, exposing their whites. “He’s going into shock, Clarence,” I said anxiously.

“You
both
are,” he replied quietly.

With a start, I realized he was right. The initial burst of adrenaline that had first spurred me to fight, and then kept me on my feet, was finally starting to disappear. I felt like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, watching helplessly as the light from the world above dwindled into nothingness. As my vision telescoped down from gray into black, I thought I could hear the Queen of Hearts shouting somewhere off in the distance:
Off with his hand! Off with his hand!

I
woke up to find myself in one of the recovery rooms at Golgotham General, the community hospital that served the city-state’s diverse population. I had been there, once before, when a demon broke my arm. I sat up straight, gasping like a swimmer coming up for air. “The baby . . . ? Hexe . . . ? Are they—?”

“Your baby is fine, Miss Timmy,” Clarence said reassuringly from his post at my bedside. “As for your young gentleman, I would say he’s in amazing spirits for someone who has just chopped off his own hand.”

I looked to where Clarence was pointing and saw Hexe sitting propped up in the hospital bed beside me, talking to his parents. His face was still pale but no longer bloody and the bites and claw marks Scratch dealt him had already disappeared, as if nothing had happened. The same could not be said for his right wrist, which now ended in a gauze-wrapped stump. Upon seeing I was awake, Hexe tossed aside his blankets with his remaining hand and swung his legs out of the bed. He took a couple of steps, only to have his knees buckle. Captain Horn stepped forward, helping to steady him. Hexe flashed his father a brief but grateful smile.

“Thank God you’re alive; I was so afraid I’d lost you,” I sobbed as he wrapped his arms about me.

“Don’t cry, Tate,” he said soothingly, wiping at my tears with his left hand. “Everything’s going to be better now.”

“But your hand—!”

“What’s done is done,” he replied. “Ever since I put on the Gauntlet of Nydd, my mind has been filled with a thick fog. Sometimes I was aware of what was going on, but most of the time it was like I was watching myself in a dream. I could hear horrible, ugly words coming out of my mouth, and at the same time I was wondering ‘why am I saying this to her?’ It broke my heart to see the hurt look on your face, but I still couldn’t stop the words from spilling out. I realize my saying ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t begin to cover everything I’ve done and what I’ve put you through—”

“Of course I forgive you,” I said, cutting him off in midapology. “I knew something was wrong.
You
would never hurt me or our baby.”

“I had my forensics team go over the gauntlet,” Captain Horn interjected. “Turns out there was a puppetry spell woven into the original enchantment that allowed the spellcaster to exert control over whoever wore the gauntlet. I’ve never seen such an insidious bit of spellwork in all my years of investigation. Do you think this Madam Erys is the person responsible?”

“It
has
to be her,” Hexe replied. “She’s the one who approached me about the Gauntlet of Nydd and arranged for Moot to do the surgery.”

“I looked into this woman—there’s no evidence of her living either here or the Faubourg, at least under that name. It’s like she simply walked, full grown, from the Outer Dark. The landlord who actually owns the glover’s shop on Shoemaker Lane says she only paid him to rent the storefront for a month or two, and used cash to do it with. As soon as the two of you are clearheaded enough, I’ll send our picture-maker around to do an automatic drawing of the suspect, so my people will have an idea of who to look for.”

“First things first, though,” Lady Syra said firmly. “Once news of Hexe losing his hand begins to spread, both of you are going to need charms and spells for protection. You have plenty of enemies—not all of them Maladanti—who will no doubt make a move against you when they realize you are defenseless.”

“What do you propose we do?” Hexe asked.

“Just leave it to me. I
am
the Witch Queen, after all.”

•   •   •

After being released from Golgotham General, Hexe and I rode back to Lady Syra’s apartment building in her private coach, driven by the albino centauride Illuminata. The panacea I’d been given at the hospital had healed me, inside and out, but left me feeling like I’d just finished fifty laps in a swimming pool. Suddenly I felt the baby kick. I automatically reached out to place Hexe’s hand on my belly, only to have my fingers close upon thin air.

Lady Syra lived on Beke Street in a fifteen story neo-Gothic apartment building. Like my parents, her home was the penthouse, which was crowned by a copper-sheathed observatory that she used in order to draw up astrology charts for her clients. As we entered the ground floor lobby, the elevator doors began to open, prompting Hexe to hide his missing hand in his jacket pocket.

A second later Syra’s fellow tenant, Giles Gruff, accompanied by Mayor Lash, stepped out into the lobby. While Giles was dapper as ever, monocle in place and monogrammed cane in hand, Lash was nervously working the five-foot-long periwinkle blue braided ponytail he wore about his shoulders like a rosary. The two politicians were so heavily engaged in their conversation they did not seem to notice our little contingent.

“But I’ve
always
been able to count on you delivering the satyr and faun vote in the past, Giles—!” The mayor protested.

“Well, you should have thought about
that
before you decided to get into bed with Ronald Chess!” Giles replied sharply. “Because of
you,
my niece was kicked out of her apartment!”

“How else could I afford to campaign against O’Fae?” Lash snapped. “Do you have any idea how many pots of gold that sawed-off shyster has in his war coffer?”

Lady Syra scowled and mock-coughed into her fist. Mayor Lash started at the sound, his face losing all color as he realized who was standing before him. Giles, on the other hand, merely smirked as his companion quickly scurried across the lobby and out the front door.

“Your Majesty,” the satyr said, touching the brim of his top hat with his cane.

•   •   •

The first thing I noticed upon reaching Lady Syra’s penthouse was that there was no minotaur stationed outside the front door.

“What happened to Elmer?” I asked.

“I had to let the poor dear go,” she explained. “He was the proverbial bull in a china shop—always getting his horns caught in the chandeliers. He’s now working as a longshoreman down on the docks. I think he’s much happier there, to tell you the truth.”

As we entered the apartment, we were greeted by Lady Syra’s manservant, Amos, whose welcoming smile quickly dissolved as he caught sight of the beige-colored arm sock that covered the stump of Hexe’s right hand.

“My son’s condition is not to be discussed. Is that understood?” Lady Syra stated firmly.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Amos replied with a bow of his maroon buzz cut.

“Come with me,” Lady Syra said, motioning for us to follow her up the spiral staircase that led to her workshop.

The inside of the observatory reminded me of an inverted copper bowl and was dominated by an antique sixteen-inch refracting telescope measuring twenty feet in length. The gleaming brass eyepiece was positioned six feet off the floor and was accessible only by a wrought-iron gangway. The retractable roof was decorated with murals depicting the zodiac and other astrological signs, and the walls were lined with bookcases, pigeonhole bins full of rolled-up charts, and a glass display case containing a taxidermied crocodile—the hallmark of the Kymeran archmage. Lady Syra made a beeline to a large horseshoe-shaped table at the foot of the telescope.

“Perhaps I could have prevented you losing your hand if I’d cast your chart as a boy,” she said as she rifled through the collection of alchemical equipment, magical ingredients, and astrological charts before her. “But I have learned it isn’t wise to know too much of the future, especially of those you love. The temptation to muck about with that which has yet to be can be very strong, and often quite futile. If Greek tragedy has proven anything, it’s that attempting to evade the inevitable is what brings it about.”

“But didn’t you cast a horoscope for my father?” Hexe countered.

“There are different types of charts,” she replied. “The one I cast for your father was little more than a toy. And I certainly wouldn’t have given it to him as a birthday present if it revealed his death, or that of a loved one. In any case, blaming myself for not foreseeing what has happened does not change the fact it
has
occurred. This Erys woman, whoever she may be, seems determined to destroy you, and I’m not going to allow her to do any more damage than she already has.” After a few more moments spent rummaging about, she produced a small brass bowl, a large bottle of rosewater, an organic sponge, and a box of henna pens. “Okay—I need you two to strip down.”

“Down to what?” I asked uneasily.

“As far as you’re willing to go,” she replied. “I’ll need access to your entire torso. But first use the sponge to cleanse yourself with the rosewater.”

A few minutes later both Hexe and I were down to our skivvies and smelling like a rose garden.

“Are you ready?” Lady Syra asked.

“Take care of Tate first,” Hexe said firmly. “I can wait.”

His mother nodded her understanding and motioned for me to step forward. “Okay—let’s get started.” She uncapped the first henna pen and started to chant in Kymeran. As the tip of the applicator made contact with my skin, I felt an electric prickling that made the hair on my arms rise. For the next hour Lady Syra drew a series of interlocking symbols and patterns over my breasts, belly, and back, never once halting her sonorous incantation. By the time she was finished I was covered with an elaborate henna tattoo from my shoulder blades to my hips, with specific attention paid to my heart, spine, lungs, and belly.

“That should protect you from the majority of curses for the next thirty days, or when the temporary tattoos wear off, whichever comes first,” Lady Syra said, looking considerably drained from when we’d first started. “Your turn,” she said, motioning for Hexe to take my place.

As I waited for the protective wards inked onto my body to finish drying—it wouldn’t do to have the symbols smudged—I noticed a jumble of old photographs mixed in with the arcana littering Lady Syra’s workbench. The one on the top of the pile showed a five-year-old boy with purple hair and gold eyes, dressed in a
Star Wars
T-shirt, sitting on the lap of a dignified older Kymeran with dark blue hair, golden eyes, and a closely manicured German goatee. With a start, I realized I was looking at Hexe and his grandfather, Lord Eben.

The next photograph was in black-and-white and showed a much younger Syra seated at a table in a restaurant, enjoying a cocktail and the company of Lou Reed and Andy Warhol. I flipped the picture over and read the notation:
Elaine’s
. Reed, resplendent in black leather, had one arm about Syra, and the two seemed to be sharing a laugh while Warhol stared directly into the camera, looking far more otherworldly than the teenaged witch seated at his elbow.

The third photograph was also in black-and-white and showed three Kymerans—two men and a woman—gathered about one end of the formal dining table in the boardinghouse. It was strange to see Esau as a young man, as he was almost unrecognizable from the person I had come to know. It was not so much his youth that made the difference, but the fact the Esau in the photograph was . . . happy. Seated opposite him was a young man with a Beatles haircut and pair of tinted Ben Franklin glasses. It wasn’t until I saw his long, elegant fingers that I recognized him as the drug-addled, alcoholic Dr. Moot. However, the real shock came when I looked at the woman, seated between them. Although she was a little younger in the photo, I had no problems identifying her. I flipped the photo over and saw it was dated forty-five years earlier.

I turned to look at Lady Syra, who had just finished inscribing the last protective sigil on her son’s body. “Who is this woman in this picture?” I asked.

“That’s Nina,” she replied with a sad little sigh. “She was my brother’s wife.”

“But that’s impossible,” I said as I handed the snapshot to Hexe. “That’s Madam Erys.”

“Tate’s right,” he said excitedly. “This is the woman who gave me the Gauntlet of Nydd. But how can it possibly be the same woman—? She’s dead—isn’t she?”

“Oh—Nina’s not dead,” Lady Syra replied. “Well, not
exactly
, anyway.”