Spell Games

by T. A. Pratt

“No, I said Jason's fine. When Bulliard found out there were no spores, he was pissed, but I Cursed him and drove him away. I guess he didn't see anything worth fighting for at that point, so he just left. But when Cam-Cam realized he'd been scammed, that we'd been playing him all along…. Marla, Jason shot him.”

  “In self-defense.” She didn't phrase it as a question.

  “No. Cam-Cam was pissed, but not violent. Jason gunned him down. Cold blood. He said it wasn't an elegant blow-off, but one that had served him well in the past.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Then Jason shot me, Marla. The old me, my old body. He and his friend Danny Two Saints staged the bodies, made it look like Cam-Cam and I killed each other. They left, and a couple of minutes later B showed up, and, well, you know what happened from there.”

  Marla rubbed her temples. “Okay. Damn it. Jason said he was done with that heavy shit, but I should have known better.”

  “He's your brother, Marla. Of course you wanted to believe your brother.”

  “Don't you try to comfort me, you body-snatching piece of shit.” She stared at him, trying to burn a hole through him with her gaze alone, and he looked away

  “Jason also said he wasn't really in it for the money, that he just grifted because he loves the game, but that's bullshit, Marla. It's all about the money. He and Danny talked, while I was lying there bleeding. They're planning on killing you.”

  “That doesn't make any sense. What's the angle? They think you're dead, there's no reason for them to worry about me finding out the truth.”

  “You told Jason he was the sole beneficiary of your will. He wants to collect.”

  Marla scowled. “That's just stupid. I don't have anything. What, he wants my heaps of dirty laundry? I don't even have a savings account! Everything I have belongs to the office of chief sorcerer, not to me—” She stopped.

  “Jason doesn't know that,” Rondeau said, which was, of course, just what she'd been thinking. “He didn't even know magic existed until earlier tonight, when a sorcerer attacked us. And just because he believes in magic now doesn't mean he understands the socio-political structure of the council of sorcerers here. He knows you're a rich crime boss, probably figures even if you're hiding some of your ill-gotten gains in secret accounts and false names and front companies, your legitimate assets are still worth plenty”

  “He's my brother,” she said.

  “Your brother is a murdering shit.”

  “Takes one to know one.”

  “No argument here, boss.” Rondeau—gods, but he looked like B, her B, who was supposed to be her successor, who was supposed to help keep her temper in check, who was supposed to bring some softness and diplomacy to the operation—stood up. “I'll go now. I've got my—I've got B's cell. Call when you want me. Or don't call at all.”

  “Maybe I'll ask Langford to find a way to kill you for real,” she said.

  “Maybe you will,” he replied, and went away into the night.

  “I'm so sorry, Marla.” Hamil poured her a brandy, which she accepted. She wasn't much of a drinker, but there was a time and a place, and this was both. They sat in overstuffed armchairs in Hamil's beautifully appointed library, and Marla wondered if she could still cry, or if that capacity had dried up out of her. “Bradley was a very promising prospect, and I know how you felt about him.” He paused. “I do wonder how you're feeling about Rondeau now.”

  “That's one of the questions, isn't it? I always knew what Rondeau was capable of, but I never really thought through the implications. He was just my unkillable sidekick. If someone got the drop on us and put a bullet in him, why, he could just steal the shooter's body and turn the tables. I used to think he was my ace in the hole, but now he feels more like a stick of old dynamite sweating nitroglycerin—he could go off at any time. What if we're together somewhere and he chokes on a chicken bone? Has a sudden heart attack and, pop, lights out? If I'm the person standing next to him, what's to stop him from stealing my body, and shoving me … wherever he shoved B?”

  “We made certain assumptions,” Hamil admitted. “We thought he could choose which body he would take over next. None of us realized the experience would be so… primal for him, so driven by panic. He only possessed one body before this one, and apparently the circumstances of that possession were different—Rondeau has few memories before taking over that little boy in the alley, just of drifting in the air. Perhaps that time he had just been born, however he was born… or he'd just arrived from whatever place or plane he came from. We were drawing conclusions from insufficient information. Rondeau is a deep mystery, even to himself, but our day-to-day familiarity with him served to obscure that fact.”

  “A deep mystery with the potential to kill anybody unlucky enough to be near him. I don't know if I can work with him anymore, Hamil. Even when I get over just flat-out being pissed, and the fear that I might be his next unintended victim… he looks like B. How can I work with the guy when every time I look at him, I'm reminded of how he killed one of my best friends in the world?” She finished the brandy and set down the glass, gently, so she wouldn't break it. “In a way, I lost two friends tonight. And my brother. I feel responsible for the death of Cam-Cam, too, since I helped set up Jason's godsdamn scam. When it comes right down to it, everything that happened tonight is my fault.” She sighed. “I think I'm so pissed at Rondeau because I'm pissed at

  myself. It's been a bad day.”

  “Speaking of your brother… what are your plans?” She shrugged. “I wait. He'll call. You better believe he'll call. I'll see what he says, I'll meet him, and… I'll ask him some questions. What I do after that depends on his answers.”

  “Let me know if I can do anything, Marla.”

  She abruptly rose. “Nope. This is personal, obviously. Not city business. I'll deal with it.”

  “If not as your consigliere, then I'm here for you as a friend.”

  “You might want to reconsider that. Being my friend doesn't work out so well. The only thing worse is being my family” She gathered her black cloak about her and went to wait for her brother's call.

  The door to the bedroom opened, and Rondeau tensed, but it was only Hamil. “Marla just left.”

  “Oh.” Rondeau put down the monograph he'd been reading—there wasn't a lot of literature by sorcerers on the subject of body-stealing, and nobody did it the way he did, but Hamil had dug up what info he could. “Is she still… ?”

  “Yes. She is.”

  “Thanks for taking me in. I didn't know where else to turn.”

  “You know I've always had a fascination with your true nature, Rondeau. The chance to interview you about your experience was useful.”

  Rondeau grunted. Hamil was the one who'd arranged the magical surgery for Rondeau to get a new jaw all those years ago, after Marla ripped off his original jaw to use as an oracle. Hamil hadn't done it out of the kindness of his heart, but in exchange for the chance to study Rondeau for a while. They hadn't found out much about his true nature or origins, though. “Glad to be of service.” Rondeau couldn't get used to his voice—it didn't sound like his own, but it also didn't sound like his memory of B's voice; he was hearing B the way B sounded to himself. He tapped the monograph. “This thing says I might retain aspects of the old body's personality. Is that right?”

  “It's a theory So many things are glandular, hormonal, driven by the flesh, by muscle memory.”

  “I'm shit with a knife now—I tried. B didn't know how to handle a blade, and I know intellectually, but in execution, I'm clumsy. I haven't tried Cursing, because I don't want to wreck up the place, but I bet I lost that, too. Also… I'm pretty sure I'm gay now. I've been thinking about boobs, you know, and about my girl Lorelei, and nada. Could be I'm just depressed, but I don't think so.”

  “It's certainly possible. You may also have Bradley's… other abilities.”

  “The visions, you mean?”

  “Among other things.”

  Rondeau sighe
d. “I guess I could still be of some use to Marla, if that's true. If she'll have me. Do you think she will?”

  “I'm unsure,” Hamil said. “But I begin to think your plan might have some merit. That it might ease the transition.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. I can give you the name of a skilled illusionist. He can make you look like—well, like Rondeau again, permanently. So that when Marla sees you, she won't be reminded of Bradley.”

  “You think I can just pick up my old life where I left off?”

  “We've exerted our influence with the police. Your body has been removed from the crime scene, and officially, Campbell Campion was the victim of unknown assailants in a home invasion. If you go through with the illusion, no one needs to know that Rondeau is dead, though Bradley will, unaccountably, have vanished.”

  “Gods. Where're my, ah, mortal remains?”

  “In Langford's freezer. He'd like to dissect it, and see if the brain shows any anomalies, due to its long occupation by… whatever you are.”

  “Guess I don't get a say in the matter.”

  “I think you should pick your battles.”

  “Right.”

  “The illusion will not be easy on you. Your old body was taller than Bradley's, more thin, and the illusory body you see in the mirror won't match your new physical reality—you'll bump your shins and hit your head and misjudge spaces for quite a while, I'd imagine, before you adjust.”

  “A few bumps and bruises are a small price to pay. Set it up.”

  “All right. About that… other thing.”

  “Yeah,” Rondeau said. “Work on that, too. Find a way to bind me to this body forever, so this never happens again.”

  “It may not even be possible, but if it is… You would give up immortality? You're sure?”

  “If this is immortality,” Rondeau said, “then give me death.”

  arla sat in her office, waiting by her phone. The club was quiet—she'd shut off the music, shooed out the customers, and sent the DJ and bartenders home before hanging a “Closed Until Further Notice” sign on the door, scrawled in black Magic Marker on a piece of cardboard and secured with duct tape. Marla didn't read, or pace, or chew her nails, or organize her desk. She just sat, and looked at the triple-locked bottom drawer of her desk, and tried not to think.

  The phone rang a couple of hours after midnight.

  She picked it up. “Hello, bro.”

  “Hello, sis.” Jason sounded tired. “I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. Things… got ugly. I guess you must have heard.”

  “I heard.”

  “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry It's my fault Rondeau… That Rondeau died.”

  She considered. “How do you figure?”

  “I brought him into this. I wanted to teach him the grift. I didn't expect things to get heavy This guy came out of nowhere, Marla. Like a wild mountain man, impossibly strong, bullet-proof. I've never seen anything like it.”

  “His name is Bulliard. He's gone now. Left town.”

  “That's good, I guess. When he found out there weren't any spores, I thought he was going to kill us. Rondeau's the one who drove him off, I don't know how—I guess maybe you know how.” A moment, a silence he probably expected her to fill, but she didn't. “Rondeau was really brave, Marla. He saved our lives. And then Cam-Cam, fucking Cam-Cam… once he realized he was being conned…”

  “He pulled a gun. Rondeau shot him, he shot Rondeau. That's what the cops say”

  “Well…He pulled a gun, he shot Rondeau, and I shot Cam-Cam. But my buddy Danny helped me stage it to look the other way, so things wouldn't get… you know, any more complicated. I know it was a shitty thing to do, and I'm sorry I hope you understand.”

  Clever boy. If she'd thought the scenario was a little fishy, Jason would have just gone a long way toward assuaging her doubts. If she hadn't heard the truth from the corpse's mouth. “No, I understand, I'm not upset.”

  “So…Magic, huh? You might've told me.”

  “I was just trying to protect you, Jason. The way you always protected me.”

  “I get that. But still… It's a lot to wrap my head around. If I hadn't seen some of that shit with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it.”

  “I guess you know what I am now.”

  “I guess I do.”

  No, she thought. No, you really don't.

  “Want to come have a drink with me? Talk things out? Raise a glass to Rondeau? You and me were just getting close again, and I don't want this bad stuff to drive a wedge between us. Plus, I should give you Ronnie's share of the take, so you can make sure it goes to… whoever should get it.”

  “That sounds right. Where?”

  “You know that bar where we all had dinner, the Foxfire Tavern? I rented it out tonight for a private after-hours party, was planning to celebrate our success. I know it's no time for celebrations, but come over, we'll get a drink.”

  “When?”

  “I'm at my hotel, give me twenty minutes?”

  “Sure. See you then.”

  “I love you, Marlita. I'm sorry again.”

  “I love you, too, Jason,” she said, unsure herself whether or not she was telling the truth.

  She looked at the locked bottom drawer of her desk, and decided against opening it. Not yet.

  Marla couldn't risk walking through the front door, or even sneaking in through the back, so she teleported to the bar. Teleportation was dangerous, and could trigger migraines, and there was a good chance of dying every time you tried it—there were things lurking in the interstices between universes, and they were hungry, and they had claws. Marla considered the possibility of dying to be a plus rather than a minus. Being eaten by things from the in-between would spare her a lot of pain and heart-sickness.

  Unfortunately, she made it there alive, appearing beside a potted plant near the ladies’ bathroom. There was a single long tear in the back of her black and silver cloak, where something in the sparkling darkness had reached out and snagged her, but no other damage.

  There were a few lights on in the bar, dim, and she heard voices. Jason was there already, of course, sitting in a booth, talking to his accomplice, presumably Danny Two Saints.

  “Do you want, you know, a heartfelt greeting or anything?” Danny said. “Last words, like that?”

  “Nope. Easier if you just bushwhack her as soon as she comes in.”

  “Not going to try to fake a suicide? I kind of liked that idea. Elegant.”

  “Sure, but it's a lot more trouble, and anyway, she's a crime boss. If she pops up floating in the river, nobody will think twice about it. Just a gang thing.”

  “True.” Pint glasses clinked. “Here's to the path of least resistance.”

  Marla hadn't really doubted Rondeau, but she'd hoped, somehow, he was lying, trying to throw guilt off himself and onto her brother. But it was true. It was all true. She quietly removed her cloak—she couldn't have it flapping—and walked up a wall using the gecko boots, padding silently against gravity, and worked her way spiderlike along the dark, beamed ceiling until she clung over their booth, directly above Danny Two Saints. He was starting to go bald on top. She reached into her pocket for another sleep sachet… and then, instead, reached into another pocket for one of Nicolette's charms. She had several in that pocket, wrapped individually in bits of tissue, and wasn't even sure which one she'd grabbed. Maybe Danny would be lucky Or maybe whatever charm she chose would be so bad it would kill Jason, too. Then she could tell herself it had been an accident, mere chance—maybe even fate, though she didn't believe in fate any more tonight than she ever had before.

  She unwrapped the charm without looking and dropped it onto Danny's head.

  The resulting splash was fairly hideous—Must have been the red paintball—but did Jason no harm beyond splashing him with blood and other things. He didn't scream, just shouted a curse and jumped out of the booth, looking around wildly, but not looking up. From his point of view, Danny had simply explo
ded.

  Marla had hoped overkill violence would cheer her up, but the hole she was in was far too deep for that.

  She fished out the sleep sachet and tossed it at Jason, who dropped like a narcoleptic drunk. Marla spoke the word to make her boots unstick and dropped, turning in the air to land in a crouch. Marla checked Jason's waistband and took away his gun, and the knife in his jacket pocket, and the knife in his other pocket, and the gun in his ankle holster, and sighed. The whole thing depressed her. She went back for her cloak—no reason to cause trouble by leaving her clothing at the scene of a messy death—then picked her brother up in an over-the-shoulder carry. She contemplated the walk back to the club, and thought, Fuck it. She teleported again.

  Her cloak was pretty much entirely ripped off her back by the entities in-between, leaving just a few ragged shreds dangling from her neck like the cape of a postmodern comic book anti-hero, but she was unscathed, and, amazingly, Jason was, too. She wasn't having any luck tempting the uncaring universe into killing her tonight.

  She carried her brother to the room that had belonged to B, dumped him on the bed, and locked the door behind her—not manually, but with a spell. A battering ram couldn't have opened it. Marla pulled over a chair, sat down near the foot of the bed, and watched her bloody brother sleep for a while.

  Marla took another sachet from a pocket in the remnants of her cloak, a pungent mix of bergamot and geranium, and hurled it at his head. The wakefulness spell jolted Jason upright as if he'd taken a shot of adrenaline to the heart, and he fell off the side of the bed and went sprawling on the floor in his shocked first movements.

  “Hey, bro,” Marla said.

  “Hey, Marlita,” he said, rising slowly from the floor. “What's happening?”

  “I know what you did, Jason. You know I can do magic, but you don't get it. I know things. I can—” Her mouth went a little dry “I can speak with the dead.”

  “You can't trust the dead,” he said promptly. “The dead are jealous fucking liars.”

  “I know what happened. How you shot Cam-Cam.

  How you shot Rondeau. How you planned to kill me, to inherit my fortune.” She shook her head. “There's no point in trying to bullshit me. We're past that.”