Authors: Nancy A. Collins
Left Hand Magic (20 page)
As Nessie climbed into her cab to return home, I promised I would stay safe and out of trouble. Once we went our separate ways, I headed down to the East Village to do a little shopping of my own before going back home.
It was dusk by the time I emerged from the subway. Normally I make my way home down Perdition Street, through the Gate of Skulls, but I couldn’t bring myself to walk over the spot where Quid’s body had been found, so I headed down Morder Lane instead.
The first couple of blocks the traffic on the street was fairly heavy, and there were plenty of human faces to be seen, thanks to nearby Witch Alley, but once I put the open-air magic bazaar behind me, those numbers dwindled fast. As I passed the shuttered Two-Headed Calf, I saw the scorched cobblestones that marked where the NYPD’s response vehicle had exploded.
Upon arriving home, I opened the door to find Hexe putting on his coat.
“There you are!” he said. “I was just getting ready to leave. How was your afternoon with Nessie?”
“It was okay,” I replied. “Where are you going?”
“I got a call from one of my clients; I need to make an emergency house call. You didn’t run into any trouble getting to and from the subway, did you?”
“Not really,” I replied. I decided not to launch into a retelling of my run-in with Dori. Maybe, after some time had passed, it would mellow into one of those “look back and laugh” incidents, but for the time being it was still too new and unpleasant for me to relish reliving it.
“That’s good. Still, I’m glad you got back home before it got too late. I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to be out on the streets tonight.”
“Because of the rally?” I asked, showing him the flyer the leprechaun had handed me.
Hexe nodded, a disgusted look on his face. “I’m afraid my uncle’s using this Sons of Adam atrocity to push his anti-human agenda.”
“Are you going to check it out?” I asked. I’d been seriously considering crashing the rally ever since I saw the flyer, and had even gone so far as to stop by Trash and Vaudeville on St. Marks Place to score electric-green temporary hair dye for camouflage. I figured if I wore tinted shades and kept my hands stuffed in my pockets, I’d be able to pass as Kymeran long enough to get an earful of whatever Esau was spouting.
He shook his head, a sour look on his face. “Some in the audience might read my being there as an endorsement. I’m not going anywhere near it—and the same goes for you. I don’t want you to leave the house, except to take Beanie to the garden. Understand me?”
“I don’t like it, but I understand,” I said grudgingly. Although part of me resented being told to stay home, I knew it was simply because he was concerned for my safety.
“Good. I’ve got to run,” he said, giving me a quick peck on the cheek as he headed out the door. “Don’t bother waiting up for me—odds are I’m going to be late.”
Beanie came scampering up to tell me hello, and I could tell by the excited way he was dancing around that he needed to go outside. As I ushered the puppy into the backyard, I told myself that I hadn’t really just lied to my boyfriend, because I never actually said I
wouldn’t
go to the rally, just that I
understood
why he didn’t want me to leave the house. And as much as I wanted to be a good girlfriend, I was determined that I was
not
going to be run out of my new home without a fight. And if that meant sneaking into an anti-human rally disguised as a Kymeran to see what I was up against, then that was what I had to do, boyfriend or not.
wouldn’t
go to the rally, just that I
understood
why he didn’t want me to leave the house. And as much as I wanted to be a good girlfriend, I was determined that I was
not
going to be run out of my new home without a fight. And if that meant sneaking into an anti-human rally disguised as a Kymeran to see what I was up against, then that was what I had to do, boyfriend or not.
I took the amulet Hexe had given me out from under my clothes in order to reexamine it. The eye was no longer cloudy; in fact, it seemed to wink at me in the light from the rising moon, as if it knew what I was scheming.
Chapter 16
H
odgson Hall was located on Shoemaker Street, between Vandercliffe and Pearl Streets. It was a large, neoclassical-style building with a redbrick exterior trimmed with granite. A large banner that read GOLGOTHAM IS OURS hung from the rooftop, obscuring a good portion of the Ionic columns and arches that decorated the facade.
odgson Hall was located on Shoemaker Street, between Vandercliffe and Pearl Streets. It was a large, neoclassical-style building with a redbrick exterior trimmed with granite. A large banner that read GOLGOTHAM IS OURS hung from the rooftop, obscuring a good portion of the Ionic columns and arches that decorated the facade.
I watched from my vantage point across the street as a steady stream of Golgothamites headed up its wide stone steps. The entrance was manned by individuals wearing large buttons on their lapels bearing the Kymeran Unification Party logo: a six-fingered left hand inside a pentacle.
I stepped out of the doorway and cast a furtive look at myself in a nearby shopwindow. I was wearing a leather jacket I’d picked up in a vintage clothing shop, instead of my usual peacoat, and the temporary hair dye had turned my hair from brunette into an irradiated chartreuse. Anywhere else in the city I would have stood out like King Kong’s sore thumb, but in Golgotham I might as well have been a mousy blonde. I fished out a pair of tinted aviator glasses, so no one would notice that my eyes lacked the characteristic cat-slit pupil, and my disguise was complete.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and lowered my head as I joined the others filing through the door, hoping my camouflage was good enough to pass casual muster. I heaved a tiny sigh of relief as the KUP members standing guard at the door didn’t give me a second glance.
Once inside, I found myself in a huge lobby area, with open square staircases on either side. I went up the flight of stairs to my right, which led to the main floor. Here I found yet another lobby area, this one with a concession stand that ran the length of the back wall and huge doors that opened onto the concert hall.
The main floor sloped toward a raised proscenium stage that stood six feet off the ground and allowed even those standing at the back of the room a decent view. There was no individual seating, so the audience was forced to stand and face the stage. I looked up toward the paneled ceiling high overhead and saw a large balcony four rows deep wrapped around the second floor, with a third, smaller balcony box occupying the wall directly opposite the stage. Although the doors had opened only a few minutes earlier, the main floor was crowded, and both upper tiers were already filling up.
Banners with slogans such as SAY NO TO NUMPS and TAKE BACK GOLGOTHAM hung from the rafters, and traditional Kymeran folk music played from unseen speakers.
I looked around to try and get a feel for the crowd. While the majority of attendees were Kymerans, there were a fair number of leprechauns, satyrs, and ipotanes, even a few centaurs, milling about on the main floor. By my estimation, there were close to three thousand Golgothamites attending the rally, and, as far as I knew, I was the only human.
What really worried me, however, was the smell of the crowd. During my time in Golgotham, I had come to understand that the personal scents of Kymerans provided biochemical signifiers to their basic personalities. To put it bluntly, nice people smelled nice, and bad people didn’t. Normally, the odor generated from a large gathering of Kymerans was a heady mix of fragrances, as exotic as the spices wafting from an Indian restaurant. But the predominant aroma inside Hodgson Hall was astringent, a combination of birch tar and quinine, which suggested I was surrounded by a lot of bitter witches and warlocks.
I was so busy studying the crowd that I failed to look where I was going, and accidentally jostled a middle-aged Kymeran with a puce mullet, causing him to slosh the barley wine he’d bought at the concession stand. He growled something in Kymeran that I couldn’t understand, but from the tone of voice I assumed it was “Watch where you’re going.” I nodded and grunted something I hoped sounded conciliatory, then quickly got out of the way.
The music faded, the houselights dimmed, and the colored spots high in the rigging swiveled to focus on the stage as the heavy curtains parted, revealing a huge backdrop bearing the symbol of the Kymeran Unification Party. A ragged cheer rose from the audience, accompanied by the stomping of feet and hooves and the clapping of hands.
A young Kymeran dressed in a black turtleneck sweater and a dark gray jacket stepped out onto the stage. It took me a second to recognize him as Skal, the unruly who had thrown the fireball at the police, as he had traded his bicycle-spoke mohawk for a crew cut. No doubt his mother, Skua, had suggested the radical change in appearance in case anyone else was summoned before the GoBOO to give witness to what happened the night of the riot.
Skal walked out to the middle of the stage and held up his left hand. At first I thought he was merely acknowledging the applause, or making a request for silence, but then I realized that the audience members had lifted their left hands in return.
“As deputy chairman of the Kymeran Unification Party, I am honored to welcome you to this, our first public outreach program, and to introduce you to our party chairman and founder, Esau!”
The applause and stomping resumed even louder than before, as a dense, swirling bank of fog abruptly rolled out from the wings and onto the stage, accompanied by a distant rumble. Flashes of multicolored lights rippled through the thick mist as a sourceless wind began to swirl it around like a potter spinning a handful of clay.
The rumbling grew louder and louder, as if an army of kettledrums was on the march, and then a figure coalesced within the heart of the whirlwind. Suddenly there was an eye-searing flash of lightning, accompanied by a deafening peal of thunder, and the dark veil dispersed, revealing Esau at its heart, his left hand raised high above his head.
And the crowd went fucking nuts.
I heard a loud, high-pitched shriek, like that of a bird of prey, and looked up to see a monstrous vulturelike creature, easily twice the size of an Andean condor, with the long, toothy bill and reptilian head of a pterodactyl balanced on the uppermost balcony. The winged horror dropped from its perch and spread its wings, swooping down to the stage. The monster-bird then fluttered its fifteen-foot-wide wings and, in the blink of an eye, transformed itself into Esau’s pet raven, Edgar. The familiar landed on his master’s shoulder and cawed loudly. As much as I despised the man, I had to admit he knew how to play an audience.
Esau smiled and stroked the bird’s jet-black feathers as he soaked up the adoration from the crowd. Once he’d had his fill, he lowered his left hand to his side and the din died down enough for him to speak. Although he didn’t have a microphone, his voice still managed to fill the auditorium.
“Two hundred and forty years ago, my great-grandfather, Lord Beke, offered his services as a wizard to the founders of the United States in order to create a safe harbor for not only those of his blood but all who swore fealty to the Throne of Arum. And for generations we have been left to our own devices, to live as we see fit. But now all that is changing, and it is up to us, fellow Golgothamites, to decide whether our way of life survives or is lost under the never-ending flood of humanity.
“From the very beginning Golgotham’s economy has been based upon providing certain services, both physical and metaphysical, to the surrounding human population. The operative word in that sentence, my friends, is ‘surrounding.’ Traditionally, numps have been welcome in our world, provided they stick to those areas set aside for them, such as Witch Alley, the Rookery, the Fly Market, and, of course, Duivel Street.
“But recently numps have been infiltrating deeper and deeper into Golgotham, venturing into bars and restaurants they never would have dared set foot in a few years ago, emboldened by the GoBOO’s ceaseless and unwise flogging of tourism. Some have even gone so far as to make Golgotham their home! Now, I’m not talking about oracles, mediums, and dowsers—these outcasts from human society have always hidden under Golgotham’s skirts. No, I mean garden-variety, cud-chewing, credit-card-carrying
numps
. This recent development is not just a slippery slope, but one lined with razor blades—and we’re sliding down it as I speak!
numps
. This recent development is not just a slippery slope, but one lined with razor blades—and we’re sliding down it as I speak!
“Some may think I am overreacting, but mark my words: As soon as your lease expires, don’t be surprised when your landlords raise the rent fifty to one hundred percent more than you are already paying! Why would they do such a thing, you ask? Because while you, my brethren, might not be able to afford such an increase, the numps eager to move in to experience our ‘quaint’ atmosphere certainly can! And they most certainly
will
! After all, they do it to their own kind time and time again—what makes you think they’ll have any problems doing it to
us
? Numps are greedy, selfish beasts, all eye and belly. Whatever they see, they want. And right now, my brothers and sisters, they have their sights set on Golgotham!”
will
! After all, they do it to their own kind time and time again—what makes you think they’ll have any problems doing it to
us
? Numps are greedy, selfish beasts, all eye and belly. Whatever they see, they want. And right now, my brothers and sisters, they have their sights set on Golgotham!”
This brought a loud chorus of hisses from the audience, and it wasn’t until I saw the spectators nodding their heads in agreement that I realized they weren’t booing Esau, but voicing their contempt for humans.
I pulled my shoulders in even further and shoved my hands deeper into my coat pockets, as the participants on either side of me began rhythmically stomping their feet and pumping their left fists in the air.
“It is time that the citizenry of Golgotham—Kymeran and otherwise—stood together against the rapacious humans and their bought-and-paid-for puppets in the GoBOO! Our home lacks infinite capacity for settlement, and if we do not act now, we will soon find ourselves squeezed out by human interlopers!
“There is not a species or a race that calls Golgotham home that does not know the depths to which Mankind will stoop—am I right? Who among us does not have an ancestor who suffered on the rack, or served as fuel for their
autos-da-fé
?”
autos-da-fé
?”
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