Magic and Loss

throat.

Nurse Polyphema glanced down at the clipboard she was carrying. “According to the manifest, Madam Nina should be on this aisle. Number two forty-seven . . .”

Hexe stepped forward and peered down through the glass lid of the casket at the sleeping form of a middle-aged Kymeran woman dressed in clothes from the late seventies.

“That’s not Nina,” he said, pointing to the sleeper’s green hair.

Polyphema’s single eye widened in surprise. “That’s Dyad! She’s one of our staff—or, rather, she was. She was the groomer for the perpetual care residents. She walked off the job without giving notice a couple months ago. Never even came to pick up her last check.”

“Is it possible Nina somehow revived while Dyad was grooming her?” I asked.

Hexe shook his head. “From all accounts, Nina was brain-dead. She was nothing more than an empty husk. My uncle put her under a sleeping spell before her heart stopped beating. Besides, even if she did somehow manage to revive, why would she place the groomer under a spell and exchange places with her?”

“Well, someone managed to revive her,” I replied. “The question is who and why?”

* * *

Upon arriving back home, we were greeted at the door by Clarence, adorned in one of his Hawaiian shirts. “Welcome back home, Master Hexe, Miss Timmy. I trust you both are feeling better?”

“You don’t have to be a butler anymore, Clarence,” I pointed out. “You’re retired, remember?”

“Yes, but I feel somewhat at a loss, otherwise. It’s going to take me some time to get used to the idea. Please indulge an old man while he adjusts, if you will.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” I said as I gave him a peck on the cheek.

“Thank you, Miss Timmy.”

“‘Miss Timmy’?” Hexe chuckled, raising his eyebrow.

“It’s a long story,” I sighed.

“By the way, Master Hexe,” Clarence said, “a young gentleman by the name of Bartho stopped by earlier with a package for you. I placed it on your desk. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to finish polishing the silver.”

“You know, I could get really used to having a butler,” Hexe said with a laugh. “Clarence is nowhere near as snarky as Scratch.”

“I heard that,” the familiar announced as he emerged from the shadows. “How are you doing, boss?”

“You tell me,” Hexe said, taking the stump of his right wrist from its hiding place in his pocket.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, boss—but you’re better off without it,” Scratch said matter-of-factly.

“I realize that now, old friend,” Hexe sighed. “All my life I’ve favored my right hand; but, in the end, it was my left hand that remained loyal to me. But the question is—what do I do now?”

Suddenly my dream from the night before flashed before my mind’s eye and I remembered the words spoken by Mr. Manto’s dream avatar. “Last night—before everything went nuts—I had a dream. Except it was more like a vision. I should have mentioned it earlier, but with all the crazy shit that’s been going on, I pushed it to the back burner.

“In my dream I was in a temple overlooking a strange city—I think it was in Kymera, because I could see dragons flying overhead. Mr. Manto was there, except he wasn’t Mr. Manto, but something called a Dragon Oracle. . . .”

“Did he say anything to you in your dream?” Hexe asked intently.

“Yes. He said ‘the hand is in the heart.’ I don’t know what it means, but it must mean something because I can remember it. Mr. Manto says that prophecy can only truly be heard and understood when the time is right.”

A pensive look crossed Hexe’s face. “The hand is in the heart . . .” I couldn’t tell if he was speaking to me or simply talking out loud. Suddenly he broke into a smile and hurried down the hallway. His office was pretty much as he’d left it the night before. “Now that the gauntlet is gone, I’m thinking faster and clearer than I have in weeks,” he said excitedly as he bent to gather up the books strewn across the floor. “It’s as if scales have fallen from my eyes. ‘The hand is in the heart.’ Of course it is!”

As he plopped the stack of books down onto his desk, he accidentally knocked a thick manila envelope onto the floor, spilling forth a number of full-color eight by ten photographs.

“This must be the package Bartho dropped off earlier,” I said as I bent to retrieve the pictures. What at first looked like nothing but photos of people going about their daily business on the streets of Manhattan, on closer inspection revealed semitransparent, phantomlike figures, sometimes in the background, or occasionally in the foreground. Some of the wraiths were little more than blurs, but others were easily identifiable. There were Lenape Indians walking unseen among the stockbrokers of Wall Street; Colonial-era knickerbockers in tricorn hats and square-buckled shoes smoking long-stemmed clay pipes in the shadow of City Hall; women in hoopskirts, men in Victorian top hats and muttonchops, and flappers in cloche hats rubbing intangible elbows with the oblivious bike messengers, aspiring rap stars, and harried office workers thronging West Broadway. However, of all the ghostly images, there was only one that made my blood run cold.

“Look at this!” I said, holding out the picture to Hexe with a trembling hand. “Do you see anyone you know?”

He scowled at the photograph of Perdition Street, with its usual hectic mix of looky-loos and native Golgothamites going about their day-to-day business. His eyes widened as he spotted the image of Erys threading her way through the crowds. But, more important, was the spectral passenger she carried piggyback, his arms and legs wrapped tightly about her torso. Even when as substantial as morning fog, there was no mistaking the identity of Erys’ phantom rider.

“Esau,” Hexe whispered.

Chapter 28

After finding the snapshot among Bartho’s prints, Hexe and I lost no time returning to his mother’s apartment. Amos ushered us into the sunken living room, where we found Lady Syra sipping a demitasse of civet coffee and listening to Aladdin Sane on the stereo.

“There can be no doubting it—that is my brother,” Lady Syra said grimly as she studied the photograph. “And that is, most definitely, his wife, Nina.”

“But isn’t he trapped in the Infernal Region?” I asked.

“Physically, yes,” she replied. “But his spirit is another matter entirely. It appears he has regained access to this world by taking possession of the perfect empty vessel.”

“I always thought Erys’ mannerisms were a bit stiff, but I just thought that was because she had a stick up her ass,” I said with a humorless laugh. “Now I realize she’s another one of Esau’s mindless meat puppets, like the Sons of Adam. It also explains why she kept giving me the stink eye. But why did he come back—? It can’t be easy for him to cross dimensions, even in spirit form.”

“Tate’s got a point,” Hexe agreed. “I know Uncle Esau despises me, but expending that kind of energy just to try to drive me to the Left Hand path seems kind of crazy, even for him. There’s got to be something else he’s trying to accomplish. But what?”

“If I know my brother, whatever it is will be operatic and apocalyptic.” Lady Syra scowled. “Not to mention extremely inconvenient.”

* * *

Upon leaving Lady Syra’s apartment, Hexe and I hailed a hansom. Normally, we would have walked home, but my back and feet were killing me and the idea of waddling six city blocks, the last two uphill, did not tantalize me in the least. However, as we reached Perdition, we were forced to come to a halt as the broad street was