Magic and Loss

Chapter 17

I woke up and reached for his side of the bed, only to find cold sheets. Again.

In the weeks since the murder of Dr. Moot and the disappearance of Madam Erys, Hexe rarely came to bed anymore. Instead, he spent most of his nights either haunting Golgotham’s numerous nooks and crannies for some trace of the mysterious glover or locked away in his study, poring over his collection of grimoires in hope of finding a counterspell that would remove the curse on the gauntlet.

I went downstairs to a dark kitchen. There were no breakfast smells to greet me, no coffee percolating. If I wanted java, I would have to grab something at the Devil’s Brew on the way to work. I poured cold cereal into a bowl and splashed some milk on top of it and shoveled it down as fast as I could. I flipped open the lid of my lunch pail, only to find it empty. I came home so tired from work the night before, I’d neglected to make myself a sandwich and fill the thermos before going to bed. That meant buying lunch from one of the pushcarts on the street—money we really couldn’t afford to spare. Now that Hexe was no longer taking on new clients, and had parceled his regulars out to a couple of associates, our budget was tighter than a drumhead. Luckily, I still had a few more months before I had to worry about taking maternity leave.

I tried the door to Hexe’s office before I left for the day, only to find it locked. Pressing my ear to one of the panels I could hear the muffled sound of his snoring on the other side.

When I arrived at work I found Canterbury in talks with his real estate agent. He had recently decided to buy the property next door to the shop in order to expand his business, perhaps even set up a genuine showroom. I knew better than to bother him, so I quietly set to work on Canterbury Customs’ newest commission: a swanky custom rickshaw for Giles Gruff, who had been very impressed by his friend Bjorn Cowpen’s new ride. I must have lost track of time, because the next thing I knew, Canterbury was looming over me.

“It’s noon,” he announced. “Where’s your lunch pail?”

“I left it at home,” I replied. “I’ll just grab something from Nyko’s pushcart.”

Canterbury wrinkled his nose in disgust. “You shouldn’t eat crap like that even when you aren’t pregnant,” he said with a depreciative snort. “How about I take you to lunch? My treat?”

“You don’t have to do that, Master,” I protested.

“Hey, I feel like celebrating,” he smiled. “I just closed on the space next door. Besides, I have a business proposition for you—so we might as well discuss it over a nosh.”

“Okay—if you insist.” I grinned. “After all, you’re the boss of me.”

“Indeed I am,” he whinnied.

The Feed Bag, located on the corner of Maiden Lane and Horsecart Street, was a restaurant that catered exclusively to Golgotham’s centaur population. Upon entering the barnlike doorway, I was greeted by the flavorful aroma of fresh bread.

“It smells marvelous in here!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, they bake all their own bread here on the premises,” Canterbury explained as he led me up a wide ramp that took the place of a staircase. “It’s all organic—plenty of whole grains, oatmeal, that sort of thing. They also prepare marvelous salads and have an extensive vegetarian menu, both raw and cooked. A centaur’s diet is very healthy, you know, even though we eat like horses!”

Upon arriving at the second floor dining room, we were greeted by a handsome young sorrel centaur dressed from the waist up in a waiter’s jacket. “Good afternoon, Master Canterbury,” he said with a polite bob of his head. “Your stall is ready.”

“Thank you, River,” Canterbury replied, bobbing his head in kind.

The dining room was a huge, loftlike space, the walls of which were lined with box stalls of various sizes. I walked past a group of centaurs dining in one of the larger ones; they were seated on their haunches around a circular, pedestal-style table, the middle of which rotated like a lazy Susan and was loaded down with humongous loaves of homemade bread and heaping plates of turnips, apples, and alfalfa. They were all impeccably dressed from the waist up, with the males sporting elegantly tailored brocaded waistcoats and the females wearing elaborate Edwardian hats you’d expect to see on Derby Day. As we passed, one of the centaurs paused in his meal to stare at Canterbury and then shuddered from head to tail, as if trying to rid himself of a horsefly.

We were escorted to a cozy stall in the corner, where I found what looked like an adult-sized version of a baby’s high chair waiting for me. Upon clambering into the seat, I suddenly realized this was the first time I’d ever actually been face-to-face with my boss.

An ipotane dressed in a waiter’s jacket appeared, carrying a tray heavily laden with loaves of bread and raw vegetables. Without preamble, he set a salad bowl the size of a hubcap in front of me, along with a bucket of beer.

“Take that away and bring the lady some spring water!” Canterbury said sternly. Our server nodded his understanding and whisked away the offending pail.

“Don’t I even get to see a menu?” I asked.

“Since we centaurs all eat the same foodstuffs, there’s no need to waste time ordering different items,” he explained as the ipotane waiter returned, this time lugging a gallon jug of water and a plastic straw. “The moment you arrive at a table, they start bringing out food and don’t stop until they’re told otherwise.”

“Well, I certainly can’t complain about the portions,” I laughed. “This isn’t just a salad—it’s the whole garden!”

“Have you given any thought as to what you’ll do after you’ve foaled?” Canterbury asked pointedly.

“I was planning on coming back to work—assuming you still want me there,” I replied.

“I’m very pleased to hear that,” he smiled, a look of relief in his eyes. “You are the best apprentice I’ve ever trained, Tate.”

“That means a lot coming from you, Master Canterbury,” I said, bowing my head in a show of respect.

“It won’t be long before you will be making the transition to journeyman,” he said. “You could set up your own shop, if that’s what you want. And I won’t stand in your way, should you make that decision.”

“But I don’t want to leave. I like working with you. You’re the only person, besides Hexe, who ever really seemed to understand why working with my hands is so important to me.”

His smile grew even wider. “I can not tell you how it gladdens my heart to hear you say such things, my dear. How do feel about joining me as my business partner?”

My jaw dropped open and the salad fork fell from my hand, hitting the floor with a loud clatter. It seemed like an eternity before I was finally able to find my words. “Master—I don’t know what to say!”

“Just say yes,” he said with a laugh. “We’ll hammer out the partnership agreement before you take your maternity leave. I would be a fool to let a talent like yours walk away from me.”

“I’m sorry about getting emotional,” I said, dabbing at the sudden tears welling in my eyes with a napkin. “It must be the damn hormones!”

“At least you don’t kick like our women do!” Canterbury smiled. “You can even nurse your foal at the workshop. If it’s anything like you, it’ll have acetylene in its veins, anyway.”

We had finished lunch and were heading back to the workshop when we ran into traffic congestion on Maiden Lane. I didn’t really think anything of it, at first—despite the lack of automobiles, traffic jams were all too common in Golgotham. But then I heard several voices chanting in unison, as if at a sporting event.

“What’s going on?” I asked, standing up in the horse trap into order to peer over Canterbury’s withers.

“Looks like some kind of protest in front of the Machen Arms,” he replied.

As I scanned the crowded sidewalks, I spotted a familiar face. “Could you wait here for a second?” I asked as I hopped down.

“I don’t think I have much choice in the matter,” Canterbury said acerbically. “There’s no way I can back out of this snarl.”

As I moved through the outer ring of onlookers, I discovered the source of the chanting was a group of protestors, most of them Kymeran, standing behind traffic barricades. To my dismay several of them were wearing Kymeran Unification Party pins, and one of them was even waving an ESAU WAS RIGHT sign.

Directly across the street from the protestor stood the Machen Arms, a ten story apartment building with a central block and two flanking wings. The recessed courtyard that served as the approach to the main building was normally kept empty, save for a couple of decorative potted shrubs on either side of the entryway, but that afternoon it was filled with haphazard piles of furniture, stacks of books, and mounds of clothes. An elderly Kymeran woman, her faded scarlet tresses bound into lengthy braids coiled about her head like a pretzel, flitted back and forth among the bedsteads, armoires, and steamer trunks like a hummingbird in a summer garden. From where I stood I couldn’t tell if she was trying to cast protection spells over the items in hopes of keeping them from being stolen or simply babbling to herself in despair.

The familiar face I had glimpsed belonged to Octavia, who was talking to an elderly Kymeran gentleman with receding maroon hair liberally laced with threads of silver. I pushed my way through the throng to join them.

“Octavia—! What’s going on?”

As the firefighter turned to face me, I saw she was wearing a T-shirt bearing the message STALEMATE CHESS. “That chuffer Ronnie Chess is throwing my old next-door neighbor, Torn, and his wife out of their apartment today! I came here as soon as I heard to try to help.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Torn said humbly. “You were always a good neighbor.” He turned back to stare up at the building that until that day had been his home. “The old landlord promised we would be ‘grandfathered’ in. But the new owner raised our rent from seven hundred and fifty dollars to six thousand a month! Arum’s blood, there’s no way we could possibly afford that! Hana! Look who has come to help us! And she’s brought a friend!”

Torn’s wife paused in her frantic checking and double checking of their belongings to peer over the top of her Ben Franklin glasses at us. “Adon bless you both,” she said, fighting to keep the waver from her voice. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. . . .”

Before Hana could finish her sentence, an ipotane emerged from the entryway, carrying a rolled-up carpet under one arm and balancing a steamer trunk like a boom box on his opposite shoulder, and unceremoniously dumped his cargo with the rest of the couple’s property. Unable to take yet another blow to her dignity, the old woman sank down onto a mound of casually discarded clothes and began to weep into her apron.

Torn hurried to his wife’s side, slipping a protective arm about her trembling shoulders. “Now, now, Hana, darling—don’t cry,” he said, trying his best to console her.

“I can’t help it, Torn,” she sobbed. “What are we to do? We’ve lived in the same apartment for twenty years! Where do we go now?”

“Don’t you have a son who can help you?” Octavia asked hopefully.

“We had a son,” Torn replied tersely, all but spitting the words. “We haven’t spoken to him since he disgraced the family, thirty years ago!”

I looked up to see real estate developer Ronald Chess, the new landlord of the Machen Arms and the author of Hana and Torn’s misery, step out of the front door of the apartment building. An errant gust of wind caught his trademark comb-over, setting it momentarily on end, like the fin of a shark, before slamming it back down onto his head.

His pale eyes always seemed to be narrowed in permanent suspicion and were too small for his face, which resembled that of an overfed, slightly lumpy baby. As he scanned his surroundings, his cheeks abruptly turned bright red and his face grew even lumpier.

“What are they doing here?” he bellowed, pointing to Octavia and myself. He turned to the blue-haired Kymeran standing beside him who carried a five-foot-tall brass staff topped by the seal of the GoBOO. “Lash promised me all protestors would be kept five hundred feet away!”

“Who’s the dude with the big stick?” I asked.

“That’s Elok, the GoBOO’s beadle,” Torn replied forlornly. “He’s here to oversee the evictions.”

“I thought the PTU were the police in Golgotham.”

“They only deal with criminal cases,” Octavia explained. “Beadle Elok handles all the civil stuff, like collecting fines, seizing property, and evictions—that kind of thing.”

“You there!” Elok said imperiously, gesturing with his staff as if to shoo us away. “What are you doing on this side of the street? I expressly stated no protestors beyond the barricades!”

“We’re not protesters!” Octavia snapped, flashing the Golgotham Fire Department credentials she wore on a lanyard about her neck. “We’re friends of Hana and Torn’s and we’re here to help them relocate.”

Elok’s pinched features visibly relaxed. “Very well,” he sighed. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Believe me, I don’t like evictions any more than you do. But I swore an oath to do as the GoBOO commands. . . .”

“Hey! You—! Beadle!” Chess shouted, refusing to come any closer to us than he had to. “What do you think you’re doing? Why aren’t you arresting those hippies like I told you to? And get these geezers out of here!” he added, pointing to Hana and Torn. “I’ve got photographers coming in from the Herald to take pictures for the Sunday Living section, and I don’t need them seeing this kind of shit! It looks like a goddamned yard sale out here!”

“I know what my duties are, Mr. Chess,” Elok replied frostily. “And must I remind you that I answer to the Golgotham Business Owners’ Organization, not to you?”

“Is that a fact, huh?” Chess scowled as he tapped the screen of his smartphone. “Hey, it’s me. Your boy here is giving me some lip. Says he only answers to the GoBOO. You going to set him straight or what? Here—your boss wants to talk to you,” Chess smirked as he handed the phone to Elok.

The beadle grudgingly accepted the phone as if it was a poisonous reptile. “Hello? Yes, sir,” he said, his cheeks suddenly turning beet red. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize . . . yes, of course, Mayor Lash! Whatever you say!”

“I’m glad we’ve gotten that cleared up,” Chess said as he reclaimed his phone. “Now bust these hippies and get them out of here.”

As the sigil atop Elok’s beadle-staff suddenly began to glow, I took a step toward Chess, who drew back as if I might spit on him.

“I don’t think that’s a smart idea, Ronnie.”

The real estate tycoon gave me the same look he would something he’d scraped off the bottom of his shoe. “That’s Mr. Chess to you, toots.”

“And that’s Ms. Eresby to you, fella,” I replied.

“You’re not related to Timothy Eresby, are you?” he asked, unease flickering in his too-small eyes.

“He’s my dad.” I said, taking a perverse pleasure as I watched the color drain from his overstuffed face.

Back when my father had harbored political aspirations, he and Chess had butted heads more than once. What was it my old man used to call him? Ah, yes “that short-fingered vulgarian.” Ronald Chess might not respect the arts, Golgotham, women, or people he called “hippies,” but he most certainly respected money, which meant at that moment he respected me.

Of course, he had no idea that my parents had cut me off without a dime and we hadn’t spoken in months, but there was no way I was going to tell him that. . . .

“Perhaps I was a little too rash,” he said to Elok. “There’s no need to get rough. If these young, um, ladies are here to help the old couple move their things, I’ve got no beef with that. Just be quick about it.”

“You heard Mr. Chess,” the beadle grunted. “Get the old man and his wife packed up, if that’s what you’re here for. You’ve got two hours, or I’ll have the lot of you in the Tombs for obstruction. . . .” Suddenly a snowball came sailing through the midsummer air, striking Elok square in the face. “Who conjured that?” the beadle sputtered as he wiped the ice crystals from his eyes.

“Traitor!” one of the protestors from across the street shouted. “Why is the GoBOO sucking up to numps?”

“Here now! I’m just doing my job!” Elok protested angrily. The sigil atop his staff of office flickered back to life, this time even stronger than before.

“The GoBOO is selling us out!” A second voice shouted as another snowball came arcing toward the beadle.

As Elok slammed the butt of the staff against the pavement there was a ringing sound, like that of a gigantic gong. Fingers of blue-white electricity shot forth from the seal of office, vaporizing the icy projectile in midflight while scorching a zigzag pattern into the cobblestones, scant millimeters from where the protestors were gathered. There was so much electricity in the air it made my hair fluff out like an angry cat and Chess’ comb-over stand up like a cockatoo’s crest.

For a horrible moment I thought I was going to be caught in yet another race riot, like the one at the Calf. But instead of retaliating, the protestors lowered their signs and gradually dispersed. Although there was a good deal of mumbling and resentful looks thrown in the beadle’s direction, none of them were willing to go against the GoBOO’s authority.

Elok pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead, a look of open relief on his face. “Praise the Sunken Spires that’s over with,” he grunted. “That could have been far uglier. At least they were only throwing snowballs. Now get the old couple out of here, while you still can.”

“I’m sorry, Tate,” Octavia sighed. “I didn’t mean for you to get mixed up in this.”

“That’s okay. Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. I don’t mind helping Torn and Hana move.”

“Move to where?” Hana said tearfully. “We have nowhere to go.”

“Perhaps I can be of some assistance?” Now that the roadblock had been removed, Canterbury had freed himself from the traffic jam and was now standing at the curb in front of the apartment building. “I have just purchased the stable adjoining my shop. There is an apartment loft on its second floor. Granted, it’s designed for centaurs, but it can be easily retrofitted to accommodate bipeds. It’s yours if you want it.”

“That is most kind of you, friend centaur,” Torn said. “But we do not expect charity. My wife and I insist on paying our way.”

“Of course,” Canterbury replied with a nod of his head. “I’m sure we can reach a satisfactory agreement.”

“You have saved us, just as Arum delivered our people!” Hana exclaimed, lifting her glasses to wipe the tears from her eyes.

“Are we not all Golgothamites here?” Canterbury smiled.

“Okay, let ’er drop!”

There was a sound from high above, like the sail of a tall ship being unfurled, and a huge canvas banner fell from the roof of the center structure of the Machen Arms. It was so big it covered every window on the apartment building from the tenth to the fifth floor.

GOLGOTHAMVUE CONDOS

VINTAGE LUXURY STARTING AT EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND.

A CHECKMATE PROPERTY.