Spell Games

by T. A. Pratt

  “Nah,” Jason said. “It would spoil the scene. We need to stage the bodies, make it look like Cam-Cam shot Rondeau, and Rondeau shot Cam-Cam. Provide a good convincer for the CSI types. You got that covered?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Danny said. Rondeau felt a gun shoved into his hand, and his arm lifted, and his finger mashed against the trigger until the gun went off. “One shot in the wall, powder on the hands,” Danny said, half to himself. Rondeau tried to hold on to the gun, to use it on Danny, but it fell from his loose fingers. He heard himself moan, distantly.

  “Now for Cam-Cam. Give me your gun, Jason. You know, Cam-Cam had a gun, probably registered in his name and everything, you should've shot Rondeau with that.”

  “These weren't laboratory conditions, Danny You play the hand you're dealt.”

  “Truer words.”

  “Sorry about that, Ronnie.” Jason nudged Rondeau with his toe. “But if word got back to Marla that I offed Cam-Cam, she'd… think ill of me. And that would spoil things. I need her to trust me, at least for one more move.”

  “Speaking of which, since things are fucked all to hell here, how fast do you want to move on Part Two?” Danny said.

  “Tonight works for me.”

  “You aren't worried about, you know… she's a witch? Sorceress? Whatever the fuck? She might be hard to bump off.”

  “Not really. I'm her brother. She won't expect an attack from me. Ronnie here can do some spooky shit—or he could, before his lung started collapsing—but I got the drop on him just fine. It's all about the element of surprise. I'll call Marla, break the bad news to her about her friend dying at Cam-Cam's hands, she'll be consumed by grief, etc.”

  “Gotcha,” Danny said. “She's sad, you can make it look like a suicide. We'll put out the word she was fucking Rondeau here, they were closer than anybody thought, she couldn't live without him, yadda yadda.”

  “Not… hurt… Marla,” Rondeau said.

  “Sorry for that, too,” Jason said. “But her being alive stands in the way of me inheriting her fortune, so something has to be done.”

  “It's not often a mark sets herself up that way,” Danny said from somewhere off to the right. There was another gunshot. “Putting you in her will? She's asking to get her ticket punched.”

  “I was as surprised as you were, but she just has faith in brotherly love, Danny She's in my will, too, as far as that goes. If she was still dirt poor and didn't have anything worth inheriting, she wouldn't have a thing to worry about. But since she's rich, well…”

  “Guess that's the downside of success,” Danny said. “Okay, we're all set here. You were careful about prints?”

  “You know I was.”

  “Then we should be all right, I think. We should blow before the cops get here. Even way up here in a house on a hill, somebody must've heard that commotion. Careful going around Ronnie—don't step in that blood puddle. Footprints, we don't need.”

  “You don't think he'll survive for the paramedics, do you?” Jason said.

  “Unless he's got a couple more gallons of blood than the average guy, he won't last another ten minutes.”

  “Why?” Rondeau mouthed, hoping to keep them here until he died, and was free to steal Jason's body.

  But Jason only said, “For the money, stupid,” and then they were gone.

  radley flew, and even in his anxiety and worry for Rondeau, there was a joy in flying and being a bird, even a humble pigeon. He flapped and rode currents until he saw a likely mansion below, a sprawling estate ringed by a high wall, and there, a circular drive with a convertible parked by the front door. B landed on the hood of the car—it was still warm, the engine running—and transformed into himself. The sudden return of his full weight staggered him, and he slid from the hood and sat on the asphalt drive. He was very tired. He'd done too much today, pushed reality around more than was good for him, and his mind and body were crying out for rest. But before he could fall down and sleep, he needed to help Rondeau. It wasn't fair, but there it was. You ate what the world brought to your table.

  B got to his feet unsteadily and lurched toward the open front door of the mansion. Inside was darkness, and he almost whispered a charm to step up his night-vision, but he might have more pressing needs for magic soon, and he didn't dare waste any of his feeble reserves of energy His eyes would adjust.

  There were many rooms in the mansion, but he followed the terrible smell of gunpowder, the terrible sound of silence. In a small room, scattered with wrecked bits of wood and metal, lit mainly by the moonlight through the windows, he found two bodies, and one of them was Rondeau, his face slack, blood all over his chest.

  B went to his knees beside Rondeau and touched his throat, where a pulse staggered along like a drunk on the edge of collapse. “Rondeau, can you hear me?”

  Rondeau's eyes didn't flutter open; they snapped. “B,” he said, voice thready as his pulse.

  “It's okay, I'll get Marla, I'll get help. You'll be okay” B was no doctor—he'd never even played one in a movie. Rondeau looked bad, but sometimes even minor wounds looked bad, didn't they? People bounced back from all sorts of things, and with the attention not just of doctors but also of magicians, Rondeau would have a better chance than most.

  “Dying,” Rondeau said.

  “No way” B tried to sound upbeat. “I consulted an oracle, and it said I would save you. So don't sweat it. The universe has spoken.” B wadded up his jacket and pressed it against the wound in Rondeau's chest, where blood was still leaking out. He fumbled one-handed with his phone, trying to think who to call—Marla, Hamil, 911? He'd never felt so helpless, watching his friend breathe shallow and ragged, clearly close to breathing his last.

  B had learned to turn into a bird, to live without breathing, to drag the past into the present, to bend space itself—but why hadn't he learned anything useful? To heal wounds. To turn back time. To keep the people he cared about safe.

  Before B could dial his phone, Rondeau grabbed his wrist with surprising strength.

  “Listen,” he said. “I'm dying. Run.”

  “What? I—”

  “RUN!” Rondeau shouted, an effort that clearly took almost everything he had left, and suddenly Bradley understood. He'd come to save Rondeau… and now Rondeau was trying to save him.

  Bradley stood, tried to turn into a bird, didn't have the strength, and settled for running away.

  He tripped on a piece of chain and sprawled face-first on the floor, just in time to hear Rondeau's last long exhalation. He pushed himself up, wondering how long he had, if it was seconds or minutes or—

  But he didn't have any time, of course. The oracle had told him Rondeau wouldn't die. Bradley just hadn't asked the right follow-up questions. It was all about knowing what to ask. He'd received hints, but hadn't understood them. The voice of his own doom had been overwhelming, so strong he'd been unable to bear it, so strong he'd banished it from his own mind.

  Bradley's world dissolved. He'd suffered from migraine headaches when his psychic powers first manifested, marathons of agony complete with hallucinatory lights and thought-destroying pulsations of pain. This was far worse. Pain, light, something alien in his head turning and gnawing and clawing and biting, and then the light receded. He couldn't fight. There was no fighting this. He was lost. He wondered if the thing in his head—the thing that had been his friend, once—could hear his thoughts. He thought, It's not your fault. He thought, You can't help your nature. He thought, I did save you.

  Then he thought nothing.

  Darkness. Oblivion. As promised.

  After the Giggler's corpse was taken away to Langford's lab and Nicolette's snoring form was hauled off to Blackwing, Marla left Nicolette's building—scratch that, the currently untenanted building—and pondered her next move. She hadn't eaten yet. Dinner would be good. She wondered if Rondeau and Jason were done gaining their ill-gotten gains. She figured she might need to talk Jason down from being really pissed off at having his scam u
nceremoniously ended, and she might as well get fed while she got yelled at. Nicolette's phone was still in her pocket, so she called Rondeau, and Jason, but neither answered, and neither did B. He might still be sleeping, but… she called Viscarro's direct line to check.

  “Marla,” he said, his voice strange and labored. “I've been trying to reach you. I have information.”

  “So spit it out.”

  “Bulliard is not dead. He was merely pretending.”

  “Oh, fuck. Did he escape?”

  “Not escape exactly. I opened the door to his cell for him.”

  “You did what?”

  “I was still in his thrall. There were mushrooms left, in the base of my spine, that you did not cut out. For tu nately, some time after Bulliard left, Bradley Bowman regained consciousness, and cut the last mushrooms out of me.”

  “Shit on a biscuit. Where's B now?”

  “I gather he had a vision of some kind. He summoned an oracle, which told him only he could save Rondeau's life, and then… flit. He turned into a bird and fluttered away.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Out a sewer grate and north by northeast, though beyond that, I couldn't say. Someplace within a few minutes of flying for a pigeon, apparently.”

  Cam-Cam's mansion. If B was going to save Rondeau, that was the likeliest place—Rondeau didn't spend much time in the northeast part of the city otherwise, being more a south-of-the-river kind of guy. “Goddamn you, Viscarro, you're more trouble than you're worth.”

  “You're supposed to defend the city from insane interlopers, Marla. It's not my fault you fell down on the job. In fact, I understand Bulliard's presence is rather because of you.”

  “Tou-fucking-ché, you walking corpse.” She snapped the phone shut, then immediately called Hamil. “Shit has impacted fan at Mach 1. Bulliard—”

  “Was just spotted leaving the city crouched in the back of a pickup truck,” Hamil interrupted, “driven by his enslaved courier associate. Do you want us to give chase?”

  Marla, rarely indecisive, had to think for a moment. “Send someone to follow him at a discreet distance. Someone expendable. If Bulliard's done something bad, we might need to get our hands on him, but if he's just tearing out of town because we kicked his ass so bad, I say let him go.”

  “All right. Hold on, Marla, I have a call on the other line—”

  “Damn it, Hamil, don't you put me on hold!”

  “It's a call on my private line, Marla, and since I'm already talking to you, that means there are only a handful of people it could be, all certainly worth anwering.”

  “Okay, take it.”

  The phone clicked, and Marla paced back and forth on a corner, black cloak flapping, torn between hauling ass to Cam-Cam's mansion and waiting to see what Hamil's mystery caller had to say first.

  He clicked back over. “It was Bradley. He sounded… jumbled. Apparently he just came from Campbell Campion's mansion. I don't know what went on there, but B said you should meet him at the club, that it's vitally important he speak to you right away. He's there now. He said it's a matter of death.”

  “Life and death?”

  “He only said ‘death,’” Hamil said, and Marla felt something in her heart go cold.

  “Okay. Send some guys up to Cam-Cam's and see what's happening. I'd better go see B.”

  “I hope it's nothing too serious,” Hamil said.

  “A matter of death? How could that be serious?” Marla closed the phone.

  * * *

  When Marla arrived at the club, B was in her office, sitting in one of the mismatched chairs on the visitor's side of her desk, holding his head and weeping. Marla, mentally preparing herself for the worst, put her hands on his shoulders. If anything, that made him sob harder. “B. It's Marla. I need you to tell me what's happened.” She paused, not wanting to say it aloud, but forced herself: “Did something happen to my brother? Or to Rondeau?”

  “Oh, no.” His voice hitched with restrained sobs as he lifted his face to hers. “Rondeau's just dandy. And Jason, Jason's fine, Jason's just exactly how he's always been.”

  Marla moved the other chair so she could face him and sat down. She'd never seen B like this—his tropical blue eyes seemed to look over some inner wasteland. “Then what's wrong? What happened?”

  “I always thought it would be like taking a stroll,” B said dully, looking at something far away “I thought, when my mind left my body behind—my host behind—I would look around, pick a new body, walk around the place, kick the tires, saunter in, and take up residence. But Marla, ah, Marla, it was so much worse. It was like drowning. When my body died, I was forced out, and suddenly I had no lungs, no heart, no flesh, no bones—but I was so afraid. How is that possible? I thought fear was about the body, that's what you always say, fear's just the glands and hormones talking, you can control it. But I couldn't control it. I floated up, I saw my corpse, and then… and then…”

  He broke down again. Marla stared at him. “B. I don't understand. Was this a vision you had? One of those dreams?”

  “I grabbed on to him,” B whispered. “I saw him there, the only warm body close by, and I just grabbed on. When people are drowning, they panic, don't they? Sometimes they even drown the people trying to rescue them, they grab on and pull them under. That's what I did. He came to rescue me, and I pulled him under. I lost him in the depths.”

  Marla reached out and took his hands. “B, what do you—”

  “I'm not B!” he shouted, jerking away his hands. “I'm not B—don't you understand, B's dead, I killed him, I stole his life.” He stood up, walked to the wall, and punched it, hard.

  Marla stood up, her dagger in her hand, tears welling in her eyes. “No. No, no, no. You aren't telling me this.”

  He turned to face her. “I am. I did. Marla…I'm Rondeau. I'm in B's body, but I'm Rondeau.”

  Marla crossed the room, slammed him against the wall, and pressed her forearm against his throat. The knife in her other hand waited, ready for whatever she chose to do with it.

  “Marla,” B—or Rondeau, the monster she'd always called Rondeau, wearing her apprentice's body like a suit—gasped around the weight against his throat. “I wish you could kill me. But then I'd only take your body, and I'd go insane from the guilt of it, Marla, I would, so please don't.”

  Marla stepped back, and B—no, Rondeau, she had to remember he was Rondeau—slid down the wall, sitting.

  She had to get herself under control. She took a deep breath, exhaled, took another, and said, “Tell me what happened. And if you lie to me, I'll know, and I'll hurt you.”

  “I wouldn't lie to you.” He stared at the air before his face. “Though you might not believe me. And you can hurt me if you want. I deserve to be hurt. B had a vision that I was in danger. He was right. I was shot. I was dying. He came to help me, but I knew I didn't have long to live. I told him to run, but he didn't understand at first. By the time he did understand, it was too late. My body died, and whatever I am floated up out of me and looked for a new host. I didn't have a mind then, exactly, Marla. Or, I did, but it was lost under the fear. You know how people become when their lives are in danger, when the veneer cracks and the animal takes over, and they do whatever they must to survive, no matter how horrible. That's what I did. There was no one around, no potential hosts, no one except B. And he…” He shook his head. “B is lost.”

  “You're a monster,” Marla said. “I always knew, in the back of my head, what you were. You stole the body of some starving street kid, you stole his life, but I never knew that kid, so I didn't have to think about it. Maybe I even thought you did the kid a favor, saved him from a life of misery and violence, gave him release from his pain. But this… You didn't do Bradley any favors. You murdered him.”

  “If I could commit suicide without killing someone else, I would,” Rondeau said, and she'd never heard him sound more serious.

  Marla didn't want to believe him. She wanted to believe he
was a calculating monster, a psychic parasite who used and took without regard for the human cost… because then she could give in to her rage, she could kill him, and it would be a righteous thing.

  But she'd known him for too long. And he'd known B. Rondeau and Bradley had been friends. Hell, they'd even been lovers, briefly, on a prior trip to California. She believed Rondeau regretted taking B's life.

  But just because Marla believed him didn't mean she could forgive him, any more than she could if he'd accidentally run B over with a car.

  She sat down in a chair. “You need to get out of my sight, Rondeau. Take a long vacation. Come back when… Don't come back. Not until I call you.”

  “I can take a boat out, by myself onto the bay,” he said. “Onto the ocean. If I go far enough out, and jump in, maybe I'll drown, and if there are no people around, maybe…”

  “Don't risk it. There could be a scuba diver. Guy in a shark cage. Somebody passing overhead in an airplane. You could never be sure. And who knows. You might just float, blow on the wind, until you find a new host. You're probably unkillable.” She laughed, harshly. “We used to think that was a feature, not a bug.”

  “I'll go, Marla… but I need to tell you more first. About how I died. About who killed me.”

  “I assume the scam went bad,” Marla said. “I assume Cam-Cam realized he was being played, and got violent. Guys like him always have guns in the house—they think they have so much to protect. Am I right?”

  “Close. But wrong. Marla… You won't like this.”

  “That's good. I'd hate to change the tone of the evening.”

  “That sorcerer, Bulliard, wasn't really dead.”

  “I heard.”

  “He tracked us somehow. He busted in on us—Jason, Cam-Cam, and me. He tore open the crate, the big crate that was supposed to have the Borrichius spores inside, and when he found out it was empty…”

  Marla looked up. “He killed you? Did he hurt Jason? He must have, you didn't take his body. Shit, Rondeau—”