The Hand of Justice

By Bek D Corbin
edited by Steve Zink

Lindsay Parrish waited impatiently outside Mr. McCarty's office. She didn't like waiting at all, let alone waiting for an overstuffed warthog like J. Lennox McCarty. She didn't like Mr. McCarty in any way - she particularly didn't like the way he was such a bigshot at Brentwood Academy. She was sick of the way that everyone was so impressed that a Literary Lion like the great J. Lennox McCarty deigned to teach Literature at a third echelon private school like Brentwood. She couldn't stand how everyone went on and on about how he could teach his classes, sit on all those committees, and still consistently contribute to big name publications like The New Yorker and the Literary Digest. And if she heard one more time what a great teacher he was, how he had nurtured such literary big noises as Sarah Skyler Ferguson and Miriam Dorcas Kincaid, she'd throw up on the carpet.

But what she really hated was that she couldn't snow him. Everyone else that she'd ever met, she could charm, bamboozle, intimidate, or discredit. But not the great J. Lennox McCarty! No, he was like a force of nature - you couldn't budge him, you couldn't get around him and you couldn't stop him. And somehow, he always knew when she was up to something. She'd been at Brentwood for two years, and he'd been on her case from Day One. The only time that she managed to get away with anything was when she did something where men were strictly forbidden.

Lindsay squirmed on her seat as a couple of other girls walked by. The two shared one of those smug, silently satisfied looks - Lindsay was on the Hot Seat again, and McCarty was going to throw the switch. She hated them seeing her like this.

Then McCarty himself stuck his head out of his office and asked her in. Lindsay hated McCarty's office almost as much as she hated him. It was so 'I'm a Scholar of the Old School', all done in Queen Anne with lots of bookshelves to show off how well read he was. He even had his literary awards tucked up high on shelves, so that you could see them, but not so that he could be accused of flaunting them. He even had his old manual typewriter up on a shelf, to show that he only used the Word Processor on his desk under protest.

McCarty eased his massive bulk into his large leather chair and straightened his tie. He was never less than impeccably dressed, even in the middle of summer. It was all part of his 'Gentleman Scholar' self-image. He tried so hard to be a bourgeois idea of a 'class act', Lindsay sniffed internally; but as a Parrish, she was real Old Money, and she was a class act without even trying.

McCarty clasped his hands before him and looked at her sternly through his glasses. "Well, Miss Parrish, it looks like we're going to have to cover a lot of ground today."

"Really, Sir? Are you sure you're up to it? I mean, you still haven't completely recovered from that attack of whatever it was that you had over the weekend."

"Miss Parrish, your concern would be heartwarming, if it weren't so patently false. Yes, I'm quite fit enough to handle your latest minor lapse in judgement."

"Oh? What are you going to accuse me of this time? Have you unearthed something linking me to the World Trade Center attack?"

McCarty tapped his favorite gold pen in his palm. "No, Miss Parrish, this time _you_ are accusing _me_. Headmistress Dalbert told me that you lodged a complaint against me, accusing me of sexually harassing you. Sexual Harassment, Lindsay? That's a pretty crass accusation, coming from a girl who prides herself - and rather loudly, may I add - on her 'breeding and refinement'?"

"Well, you did, sir. You told me that if I had sex with you, you'd drop your ridiculous claim that I plagiarized Kali In Mourning."

"Bosh. Not even one of your better efforts at Fraud, Miss Parish. You see, Lindsay, you were sloppy. You didn't do your homework, and you were over-elaborately concrete when you needed to be vague. You specifically said that I propositioned you last Thursday afternoon, during our appointment. You put that in writing. Bad move. You see, I had my dictation tape recorder going during the entire interview."

Lindsay smiled. The fat fool was painting himself into a corner. She knew that McCarty taped all of their sessions, just in case. She'd known that when she threatened him that afternoon, which was why she'd placed her handbag - holding the large, powerful magnet - on the desk next to it.

McCarty smiled right back at her. "Oh, I know about the magnet in your handbag. You see, I knew that you were aware of the tape recorder. I knew you'd try something. I didn't think that it would be as crude as the 'magnet in the purse' trick, but I knew you'd try something. So, I had a backup." He reached into his tweed jacket and pulled out a small vest-pocket tape recorder. He hit PLAY, and the segment where she threatened to accuse him of Sexual Harassment spilled out.

"As I said, Parrish, sloppy. The moral of THAT little tale is, 'never assume that the other person is an idiot'. I assume that you'll have at least enough good sense to withdraw your complaint before I play that for anyone else. You may be only seventeen, but an accusation as heinous as Sexual Harassment against someone who's reputation is as important to them as mine is to me would definitely be grounds for a nasty Slander suit. And, since I am a Pulitzer Prize winning author and you are a troublemaker who's been kicked out of three Private Schools, I have no doubt that the courts would find for me. Especially, considering-" he waved the tape recorder "-the physical evidence."

Lindsay shot him a sharp glance. "I was desperate. There I was, I'd finally found my voice as a writer, and written something that I could be proud of. Then an overweight, burned out hack with an overdeveloped reputation comes along and tries to steal it. As you said, you're an award-winning writer, and I'm just a schoolgirl - who'd believe me against you? I needed to do something to get you to back off! I was only defending what's mine!"

McCarty gave a sour grimace. "Miss Parrish, if your writing was half as original and moving as your lying, you wouldn't need to plagiarize. No, you didn't write Kali In Mourning. I did. As you know, since the only way that you could have come across the manuscript was in my office."

Lindsay smiled viciously. "Prove it."

McCarty out-smiled her. "Lindsay, didn't it ever occur to you that someone who's been in the Writing game as long as I have would already know most of the tricks? Didn't it ever occur to you that part of my Standard Operating Procedure is to copyright everything that I write, all on my own?"

The arch smile faded from Lindsay's face. "Copyright?" she squeaked.

"Yes. I know that a lot of writers leave that to their publishers, but when you've been through as many publishers as I have, you learn not to be so lazy." He held up a document from the US Patent and Copyright Office. "The Copyright for Kali In Mourning was filed five days before you submitted it to the Massachusetts Journal of Modern Literature. Even IF you managed to convince anyone that you managed to crank out forty pages of that quality material, you'd still have to explain how I managed to get a copy of it to Washington a month before you claimed that you managed to finish it in - how did you put it? - 'A sleepless fit of inspiration that struck in the middle of the night, and lasted until dawn'. As I said, Miss Parrish, if your fiction was as lively as your fraud, you'd have a future in Writing."

Oh well, Lindsay thought to herself, it was coming to this anyway. She bolted up from the chair and leaned over the desk, her hands flat on the desktop. "So, you managed some bullshit trick where you held back my submission while you sent you damn copy of MY story to the Copyright Office! So what? I still say that it's MY STORY!"

"Sit down."

She sat down. As she did, she palmed McCarty's favorite gold pen in her left hand.

"Very well, Miss Parrish. You seem to be bound and determined to carry this farce out to the bitter end. It's your funeral. But I warn you, I have you pegged. Any trick you may try, no matter how outlandish, will turn against you." He settled back in his chair. "Oh, by the way, Miss Parrish, what does the word 'Incunabulum' mean to you?"

"Is that the name of those really ugly flowers that grow on those shrubs out by the gymnasium?"

"No. 'Incunabulum' is the term for a book that was printed before the year 1501. Our library has a small collection, maybe forty or so, of them. One of them, a rare English translation of the Ars Maelificae by Matthias Depravus from one of the few British presses working before 1500, is missing. The printer only pressed a couple of hundred copies of that book. Most of those were burned during the Witch-hunts. The Catholic Church burned more, when it found them. There are only six known copies of it in existence. It is worth several thousands of dollars, Lindsay. If you don't admit your theft of my story, I'll have the Headmistress search every dormitory room in the school for that book. And don't even think about throwing it out, or - God Forbid! - destroying it. Either way, I still have a way of pinning it on you, and the destruction of a priceless work will only make your wretched position worse."

Cupping the gold pen in her hand unseen, Lindsay smiled frostily. "Not to worry, Mister McCarty. This charade will be over soon."

 

*****

As Lindsay stalked out of his office, McCarty noticed that his gold pen was missing. He smiled to himself, and sat down at his computer. Time was of the essence.

 

*****

Lindsay marched into her room and looked at her roommate. "Cheryl, don't you have a date tonight?"

Cheryl looked up from her magazine. One of the reasons she shared a dorm with Lindsay was that she was one of the few girls Lindsay couldn't push around. Lindsay had the sleek, long good looks that say 'Old Money', but Cheryl was the All-American Golden Girl and she knew it. Her family's money might not have as much mold on it as the Parrishes', but they were still very well connected. Cheryl was sharp of mind and tough of spirit. She needed to be, in order to stay sane living with Brentwood's resident Bitch Queen. Lindsay wanted her out of the dorm tonight for some reason. There was no reason not to let her have the room, but it was best if she made Lindsay pay for it somehow. That way, Lindsay wouldn't get the idea that she could order her out of the room any time she felt like it. "Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on whether Tony can get tickets to the Scarsdale Commandos concert." The Scarsdale Commandos concert had been sold out for a week, but Cheryl was certain that Lindsay could scare up tickets if she really wanted to.

"Done."

 

*****

When Cheryl left for the concert, Lindsay tensely waited an hour, just in case. The tickets were good, but you have to make room for contingencies. She made sure that the door was locked and bolted. When 11 o'clock rolled around, she opened the secret compartment in her bedstead and pulled out an 'accordion' file folder. Inside the folder were several jars of herbs, candles of several different colors, a silver knife, an oaken rod, a bag of teeth, a cat's skull, and the 'lost' copy of Ars Maelificae.

It had struck her that Xeroxing the book in the library would have been safer, but she hadn't wanted anyone to know that she'd been reading it. And, having the old tome right there to read was so much better than trying to make out the flaws in the photocopy. Besides, for some reason, the damn book just wouldn't copy!

Lindsay carefully opened the centuries old book of black magic and gingerly leafed through the pages until she found the heading for which she'd been looking. At the top of the page, written in large bold letters was 'Manus Justae, or The Hand of Justice'.

She hadn't tried the 'Hand of Justice' yet, but her experiments with the other spells had worked very nicely. She had befogged the mind of the class brain, Suzy Ludwig, so that she blew an important test. This took Suzy out of the running for Editor of the school newspaper. She had also completely bewitched Rick Havelock's heart, so much so that he was becoming a nuisance.

And speaking of nuisances, her experiments on affecting that fat bastard McCarty had done pretty nicely, too. Her first attempt at affecting him had made him crack up his car. McCarty walked away from it, and since he was stone sober at the time, they decided that his brakes had given out. And his 'attack' of the last weekend was supposed to have put him in the hospital. It did, but only overnight.

No, it was time to take off the kid gloves with McCarty. The Hand of Justice. The Hand of Death.

She stripped naked, wearing only a few talismans tied onto her body with leather thongs. She cleared an area in the middle of the room, and 'cleansed' it with incense. She set up her ring of working, and a small 'altar' out of a black candle in the shape of a man, a red candle in the shape of a woman, and a white votive candle on top of the cat's skull. She put a pile of teeth at each of the cardinal points of the compass. Then she spent most of the rest of the hour until Midnight evoking spirits to heed her. She felt them crawling all around her, eager to do her bidding.

Then the grandfather clock down the hall began striking the hour of Midnight. When the first bell sounded, Lindsay reached into her folder and pulled out the piece de resistance of her work - a doll made from bits of clothing stolen from McCarty, sewn into a likeness of him, and stuffed with what hair that he left on his hairbrush. It had worked on her last two tries, so it should work now. She touched the doll at the points that correspond to the vital points on a man with the silver knife, but she didn't use the knife to cut the doll. She put the knife down, and as the grandfather clock tolled its twelfth stroke, she drove McCarty's own golden pen into the doll's 'heart'. After all, the pen IS mightier than the sword!

 

*****

In the 'office' of his small apartment, Lennox McCarty felt something jab at his chest. Yes, it was indeed 12 Midnight. He smiled in sickly triumph as he felt an intangible shard of metal pierce his heart. He hit a number on the speed-dial on his phone as he took a deep drink from the glass on the desk in front of him. He didn't expect anyone to answer, because he already felt himself falling away from his body...

 

*****

Lindsay smiled in vicious triumph as she felt the magic flow when she drove the pen into the doll. But her victory was short lived as she felt the magic recoil on her. She felt her very essence slip out of her body, which slumped to the floor.

 

*****

John Lennox McCarty felt his spirit slip into the body as if it were a new glove. He picked himself - or herself, more accurately - up and cleared her head. Then she looked down at her lissome form and gave out a hushed, "Yes!" She fumbled around for the lights, turned them on, and went to look for a mirror. She looked enraptured at her lovely, angular features, and ran a hand over her smooth cheek.

Her rapt celebration was broken when she noticed the cell phone ringing. She pulled herself away from the mirror and pulled on a dressing gown. But she didn't answer the phone yet. Instead, she carefully dismantled the 'altar', extinguishing the candles in just the right order, and putting away all the components. But she left the pen stuck in the doll; she'd find a way to bury it on Holy Ground under the dark of the next New Moon. Finally, it was all tucked away. She opened a window to air out the incense, so one would ever guess that anything had ever happened. When it was done, she sighed contentedly. Then she finally found the cell phone in the folds of the bedspread.

She held the tiny unit to her ear and said in a loud voice, "Parrish! Parrish! I know you're there! Dammit, answer!"

Finally, there was a deep, confused voice on the other end. "Who is this? What's going on?"

 

*****

Lindsay Parrish felt her spirit enter the body like it was a shoddy, ill-fitting old shoe. She - or more accurately, He - struggled out of the over-upholstered chair and tried to clear his head. He looked at his thick, hamhock hands and almost screamed. His hands flew to his face, and instead of the sleek, smooth features of Lindsay Parrish, he discovered the pudgy, bestubbled jowls of J. Lennox McCarty. He thrashed about for a bit, but then he managed to achieve a small measure of control when he heard his name. "Parrish! Parrish! I know you're there! Dammit, answer!"

He fished around for the phone, found it, and asked in a deep, confused voice. "Who is this? What's going on?"

 

*****

McCarty leaned back on her new bed, thoroughly enjoying this. "Hello, Parrish. This is J. Lennox McCarty. Or, more accurately and from now on, it's Hello, Mister McCarty, this is Lindsay Parrish."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Tsk, tsk! Now is that any way for an award-winning writer to talk? Okay, Norman Mailer gets away with it, but still!"

"Dammit, McCarty, what have you done?"

"Done? Me? Why, hardly anything at all! But YOU, on the other hand, tried to kill me using black magic that you learned from a valuable stolen relic, in order to steal my work from me. Naughty, naughty! So, as a result, _I_ am in your body, and _you_ are in mine."

Parrish gabbled for a second. It was impossible, but it did sound like the voice that she heard on her answering machine! And there was this hideous body! "Change us back RIGHT NOW, McCarty!"

"No, no, no... YOU are McCarty now, _I_ am Parrish. Get it straight, idiot! And why should I do that? Why should I swap a perfectly good, healthy young body for that old wreck that you're stuck in?"

"Dammit, you can't DO this!"

"Well, for the record, I didn't - you did." McCarty made herself comfortable on the bed and settled in. "Okay, this will take a bit of explaining. Now listen carefully, 'cause if you don't pick up on what I'm trying to tell you, it won't be the difference between a passing and a flunking grade, it'll be the difference between retiring to Vermont and spending your last few years in a bughouse.

"First of all, Lindsay, I am and always have been a transsexual. You know, the sort of person who is convinced that they were born in the wrong body? Well, let me tell you, from how comfortable this body is, I was right! While I desperately wanted to, I never went through the process for Sexual Reassignment Surgery - look in the mirror, and I think you'll see why. Six foot two, two hundred and forty pounds at age twenty-one; yeah right, that's gonna pass real easy!

"So, I spent much of my youth researching sorcery and the occult, looking for an answer. While I never found anything that would mold my body into something that would look good in a bikini, I eventually found a way to distance my 'soul' from my body. It occurred to me that I could use this technique to leave my body and enter the body of a woman. But here's the hitch - I would be cutting my own throat if I did that. It seems there's a sort of magical justice at work in the universe. If I in essence stole somebody else's body, the very forces that I had used to do it would work against me. It's called 'the Law of Balance' and 'the Rule of Intent'. Believe me, cheating the universe is a lot harder than it looks.

"So, basically, I could take the body of someone else, but the ethics of the situation demanded that I could only do it to someone who really deserved it. So, I set out in search of a truly Evil woman. Y'know, there aren't as many as you'd think? It's odd, if you go looking for Good, all you find is Evil, but if you go looking for true Evil, you keep running into all this Good! It would be very uplifting, if it weren't so damn frustrating!

"On the way, I discovered how to tap into that primal source of inspiration that great artists tap into haphazardly. But I can use it consistently. I used it to become a great writer of short stories - this was back when you could still make a decent living as a writer of short stories. Then it struck me - going looking for these Evil women was getting me nowhere. I'd have to set a trap for them. As I was already getting on in years, I decided that I wanted a fresh young body. A beautiful one, of course, and having a trust fund and a lot of Old Money connections couldn't hurt at all, either! So, I found Brentwood, which as you know, is basically a blue-blooded reform school for young ladies. I figured that eventually, the soul-less young lady that I was looking for would come through those gates.

"And I was right, a couple of times. There has been no shortage of amoral young lovelies that have come through here in the past twenty-odd years. But each of the ones that I chose had some shred of decency, some moral or scruple that they wouldn't betray. Y'see, I couldn't lie to them. That would only have screwed me over. I couldn't trick them into doing something against me, I could only give them cause to, for valid reasons. I couldn't lead them to the Ars Maelificae, I could only assign them to research the Incunabulae section of the library, as I did with you. I could only leave the door unlocked; they had to go inside by themselves. A couple came close, but at the last minute they both had a crisis of conscience, and turned away from it. The ethics of the situation demanded that I try to steer them away from the path, and for some twisted reason, they listened to me. You may have heard of them, Sarah Skyler Ferguson and Miriam Dorcas Kincaid? My great literary discoveries. They were almost as bad as you were when they went here.

"But none of them would go so far as to actually try to KILL me. And that was the key, you see. I could only take your body as balance after you did your honest best to wipe me out."

"Dammit, McCarty, you can't DO this!"

"You're absolutely right. And I didn't. YOU did, remember? YOU cast a spell to cause me to have a heart attack, right? Y'see, the body switching spell that I cast on both of us is strictly defensive - it only works if the other person is actively trying to kill me. That's part of the 'Hand of Justice' spell. The part that's in Latin? The part that you never bothered to try to translate? As I told you earlier, Parrish - sloppy, very sloppy."

"Damn You! I'll..." Lindsay's vision swam as he got angry. "What's happening?"

"Oh, it must be kicking in. Well, you see, Parrish, I really couldn't have you hanging around in my body doing embarrassing things. So, this afternoon, when I noticed that you'd nicked my pen, I took precautions. I took the Copyright form for Kali In Mourning, and put it in a safe place where I'll be able to get to it."

"Why? It's in MY name now!"

"Actually, it isn't. I never said that the Copyright was in the name of J. Lennox McCarty. I just told you that I'd copyrighted it. Which I did - in the name of Lindsay Pierce Parrish. I even wrote a rave review for the Massachusetts Journal of Modern Literature. I also wrote a nice letter explaining that there was a 'misunderstanding' about my alleged 'dispute' over the authorship."

Lindsay shook his head. "What's that got to do with how I feel?"

"Well, you see, while I was doing that, I also destroyed that tape that I made of you threatening me with Sexual Harassment, and I also wrote a letter to the Headmistress, telling her that you had the legal rights to the story. Then I wrote a lovely piece of fiction, in which I imply - though never flat out state - that I was a burned-out has-been, who was desperately jealous of my latest literary find, Lindsay Parrish. The kicker is, that I wrote it in the form of a Suicide Note."

"WHAT?"

"Yep, the dizziness you're feeling is the Hemlock that I took just as your magical attack hit me."

"You Bastard!"

"Well, Bitch now, technically. Jeez, you can't even appreciate the classical nuance of using Hemlock, now can you? Now, now, don't worry! I didn't take enough to KILL you, just enough to put you in the hospital for a week or so, and give your suicide note credibility."

"Where is it? Where's the fucking antidote?"

"Jeez, you really don't listen, do you? The note is where the EMTs, who I'll call just as soon as I hang up, will easily find it. Now, here's the important part - Headmistress Dalbert will definitely try to cover up this embarrassing little scandal. Since she can't stand by and let someone who tried to plagiarize and harass one of her students stay on the staff; she'll probably offer you retirement. God knows that I earned it. Take it. Take the pension, the royalties (what there is of them), the savings and investments, and go up to my cabin in Vermont and kick back. Because, if you stick around here, it WILL get nasty. I won't have to do a damn thing. And God help you if you go around saying that you're Lindsay Parrish. At the very best, people will say that you've lost it."

Lindsay mumbled something into the mouthpiece. "Well, Parrish, I'd say that you can only barely understand me by now. So I'll leave you with this last piece of good advice - take the retirement." With that, McCarty cut the connection, and hurriedly dialed 9-1-1.

"Hello? Nine-One-One? I was just on the line with Mister McCarty, and he was talking funny, and I think there's something wrong with him!"

 

*****

Monday, Lindsay was called into Headmistress Dalbert's office. Dalbert was very impressed with the change in Parrish's attitude. The girl seemed to be more at peace with herself. "Lindsay, I've called you here to discuss what happened with Mister McCarty."

"Is he all right?"

"Yes, they managed to pump his stomach in time. But, I'm afraid that while his body is all right, his mind is another matter. You see, Lindsay, he left a note. In the note he more or less comes out and says that he tried to steal your story, but couldn't make himself do it. He was old and tired and worn out. So, he drank that poison as some kind act of contrition. But the stress seems to have snapped his mind. The doctors tell me that he's quite irrational now. Lindsay, while I hate to try to get you to drop your charges of Sexual Harassment, especially since they appear to be completely warranted-"

"You want me to drop the charges, so that the school won't be embarrassed."

"Yes. Let Mister McCarty retire with what dignity that he has left. If not for what he is now, then for what he's done in the past."

Lindsay smiled graciously. "Don't worry about it, Mrs. Dalbert. I'll drop the charges, as long as it's understood that he won't be returning. After all, I wouldn't be the writer that I am now, if not for him."

Dalbert beamed at her. "That is a very mature attitude, Lindsay! I honestly didn't think that you had that much force of character."

"Well, I think I can honestly say that, if not for Mister McCarty, I wouldn't be who I am today."

 

 

since 04/06/03