by T. A. Pratt
“Marla…” Bethany said, comprehension returning to her face. It was hard to tell if she’d understood the things Marla just said, but it didn’t matter, not really. In a moment, Bethany would never understand anything else again.
Marla struck with her dagger. She made it as quick and clean as possible, but, this being a murder, it wasn’t really quick or clean at all.
14
I f you don’t mind me asking,” Rondeau said, “how exactly are we going to get off this train?” He leaned against a locked stainless-steel icebox, and he was actually cleaning his fingernails with his butterfly knife, probably because he knew how cool it made him look. The lights and power were on again. Rondeau had found the main power switch on the control panel.
Marla was sitting at a booth, still wet from a shower in the bath car, gorging herself on a roasted turkey she’d found in the one refrigerator that didn’t contain human parts. She chewed thoughtfully, swallowed, then said, “I’ll think of something.”
“It’s just that there’s this little yellow minefield,” Rondeau said. “Hundreds of frogs hopping around out there between us and the stairs.”
“Mmm,” Marla said. “You know, I was actually aware of that.” She glanced at B, who sat at another booth, his head in his hands. “Hey,” she said. “B. Sorry you had to see that back there, with Bethany. I had to do it. If we’d left her alive, it would have caused us a lot of trouble later. She—”
“I know,” B said. “It’s not that. Don’t get me wrong, seeing you cut her like that, seeing the blood spray, that wasn’t nice, but I’ve seen ugly stuff before. I didn’t like Bethany from the moment I found out she ate people.”
“Then what is it? What’s wrong?”
B looked up at her, and Marla was shocked to see hatred in his eyes. “You’re what’s wrong. I’ve been here, risking my life to help you, and you were prepared to make a deal with Mutex, to let him do whatever he wanted in exchange for a few minutes with the whatever-the-hell-you-call-it, the stone. I knew you had your own reasons for being involved in this, but I didn’t think you’d make a deal with that monster. And after that fucking noble speech you gave Bethany about how some things are unforgivable, of all the hypocritical bullshit—”
“Take it easy, movie star,” Rondeau said. He wasn’t cleaning his fingernails with his knife anymore, but he was still holding it.
“It’s okay,” Marla said. “He’s got every right to be pissed. Why don’t you tell him why he’s wrong, Rondeau.”
“Marla wasn’t really going to make a deal with Mutex,” Rondeau said. “If he’d agreed to take her to the Cornerstone, so much the better, but she wouldn’t have left town after that. See, you’ve made the mistake of thinking Marla tells the truth when she’s dealing with crazy sorcerers who want to destroy the world.”
“I’m not all that honorable at the best of times, to be honest,” Marla said. “And I’m certainly not above lying to my enemies if it helps me get what I want.”
“I’m supposed to believe you?” B said.
“I think, if you really look at me, you’ll be able to tell whether or not I’m lying, B,” she said. “Look at me with those seer’s eyes of yours, look deep, and tell me if I’m telling the truth.”
B stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “I believe you.”
“Good. Because I like you, and you’ve been surprisingly useful, and I’d hate to break up our fellowship over a little misunderstanding like that.”
“But, ah, I do have another question,” B said.
“Shoot.”
“How exactly are we supposed to get off this train?” B asked.
Marla rolled her eyes.
“Seriously,” B said. “Last time I looked, there were frogs all around the foot of the stairs, like they were trying to figure out where Mutex went. If there were only a handful we could avoid them, but there are lots of them out there. And the way the poison you sweated out ate through the carpet, I don’t think the jeans and sneakers I’m wearing are going to be sufficient armor against them.”
“You two should have some faith in me,” Marla said, taking a last hunk of meat off a turkey leg. “All right. Time to show you some honest-to-gods magic, the kind of shit there’s almost never time for in the heat of battle, which is why it’s good to learn how to kick people’s teeth in without any magic at all, if you were wondering. Open up all these iceboxes.”
Rondeau wrinkled his nose, sighed, and nodded. “Give me a hand, B. Marla always makes me do the dirty work.”
“You don’t have to take any of the meat out,” Marla said. “You just have to let out the cold.”
They broke open the half-dozen iceboxes. Cold air wafted out, and the iceboxes began to hum strenuously as they struggled to refrigerate the entire car. “All right,” Marla said, “now be quiet for a while.” She closed her eyes. This was going to be tricky. She’d practiced a lot with fire, and had an affinity with it, but she’d never been as good at dealing with cold. She opened herself to the air around her, trying to make herself a vessel, and the cold flowed into her from the machines. The iceboxes hummed, then squealed, then shorted out, one after another, as Marla drew their cold into her. Her bones felt made of ice, and once she felt her core temperature lowering dangerously, she flung the coldness out of her body, away from the train, out onto the platform beyond.
The cold left her, but she kept shivering, her teeth chattering, because she hadn’t distributed the cold as efficiently as she should have, and she was now freezing from the inside. Rondeau draped his jacket around her shoulders, which was a nice gesture, but useless, since clothing was only good at trapping a person’s own body heat, and her heat was negligible. “St-st-stove,” she said, and B rushed to the gas range (how had Bethany rigged a gas range on a train?—she really had been very good) and lit up all four burners. He turned on the oven, too, and opened the door. Marla sucked in the heat, getting her body temperature up, stopping before she drew in too much and had to toss off a fireball to cool down, which would have ruined all that effort she’d put in with the cold. “Enough,” she said, blowing out a last exhalation of cold vapor. B turned off the stove. “Let’s go,” she said, and led them back to the engine car, where the doors were still open.
The platform was covered in a sheet of ice about two inches deep, and tiny golden frogs were suspended inside like bits of fruit in a gelatin mold. “Walk carefully, it’s slick,” Marla said, and they made their way across the ice, walking over the frozen frogs.
“They’re kind of pretty,” Rondeau said, looking down. “It’s a shame they’re instant hopping death.”
“Mmm,” Marla said.
“Do you think they’re dead?” B asked.
“I don’t know. I think you can freeze amphibians, and they come back to life when you thaw them. But I’m not sure. I don’t think they can get out of here, though, and if they live, they’ll starve. I don’t think there’s much in the way of flies down here.”
“Maybe Mutex will come back for them,” B said.
“Maybe,” Marla said. “If he lives through the day.” They reached the stairs, and climbed up out of the darkness.
“So what now?” Rondeau said when they reached the surface. “We go meet the next sorcerer in line for the throne?”
“Sure,” Marla said. “Unless you have a better suggestion, yeah, I think we should get in touch with the next sorcerer in line. They can’t all be collaborating with Mutex, and maybe the next one in charge will help us rally the troops. Sorcerers aren’t usually very good at working together, but if things get dire enough, it’s been known to happen.”
“And if Mutex continues with his old modus operandi, and shows up to kill the next sorcerer?”
“Then we try to kill him first,” Marla said. “Sort of like what we had in mind with Bethany, only preferably without the betrayal.”
Rondeau shook his head. “We should have a plan. That’s your line, I know, but it’s true. We can’t keep ru
shing in. Those frogs almost killed you last time.”
“Didn’t somebody say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing in the same way over and over and expecting a different outcome?” B said.
“Yeah,” Marla said. “It’s a Chinese proverb. Which reminds me that I do have a plan, but it’s rather dependent on my getting in touch with Ch’ang Hao, who doesn’t seem to be answering his snake-o-gram. He struck me as an honorable guy—”
“God,” Rondeau said.
“—honorable god, but I’m beginning to think he’s skipped for parts unknown, and that the whole calling-him-with-a-snake thing was a load of crap. In which case…yeah, a new plan would be good. But it’s worth noting that we’re not doing the same thing, not exactly. I fought Mutex back there, and wounded him. He’s lost a lot of steam. It wore me out, too, but I’m betting he’s worse off. We’ve got a chance, especially if he crawls off somewhere to recuperate, and we find time to organize some resistance. So let’s see who’s next in line to rule the city and get their heart cut out.” She took out the printout, opened it, read, and grimaced. “Naturally,” she said. “Who else would it be? This…complicates matters. Mutex and I might actually have a common cause, here.”
“Who is it?” Rondeau said.
“The Chinese guy,” she said. “If he lost his heart, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.”
Rondeau took her arm and tugged her aside for a semblance of privacy. “You can’t just let him die,” he said.
Marla didn’t answer. She could just let him die, of course. It would probably save her a little grief farther down the line.
“If the Chinese guy did steal his apprentice’s body, then Mutex is going to kill the apprentice, not the sorcerer. She doesn’t deserve to die, Marla.”
“Death hasn’t been limiting itself to those most deserving, in case you hadn’t noticed,” she said. She sighed. Clearly, this meant a lot to Rondeau, and maybe the Celestial would calm down when he realized they had a common enemy. It wasn’t likely, but it was worth a try. “But, yeah, of course, I’ll try to stop him. Come on, guys. Let’s go into the house of my enemy.”
“This is it,” Marla said. The street outside the hidden magic shop was just as crowded now as it had been yesterday, but today she was a lot more worried about surveillance, so she wasn’t willing to just dash into thin air. Marla muttered a brief diagnostic spell, which made the entry to the shop glow red in her vision, but revealed no magical traps. Of course, the Chinese sorcerer could have strewn bear traps on the floor beyond, and she wouldn’t be able to sense those or any other mundane dangers, but since this was ostensibly a place of business, she doubted he’d set hazards that might catch paying customers. “You two, come close.” B and Rondeau flanked her, their shoulders almost touching hers, and she scooped a handful of yellowish powder from one of the side pockets of her bag. She rubbed her hands together, yellow dust puffing around them, and sang a brief snatch of pure melody. It wasn’t much, just a look-away spell to keep anyone from seeing them disappear, but she had to get it just right to affect a street full of people without accidentally striking anyone blind. When she felt the spell take hold—it was a sensation of temporary but welcome stability, like finding a good handhold while scaling up the side of a building—she grabbed B’s and Rondeau’s hands and dragged them toward the door, into the shop, one of the many enemy territories she’d developed over the course of the past two days.
The neat shop, with its blend of modern and traditional elements, looked like the victim of a highly localized earthquake. Shelves were tumbled, glass shattered on the floor, herbs strewn everywhere, puddles of rare oils congealed on the floor. The long counter at the back of the shop was fire-blackened in places, part of its length bent and broken.
“I guess Mutex beat us here,” B said. “Unless it’s supposed to look like this?”
“No, it’s not supposed to look like this,” Marla said. “But I don’t think Mutex beat us here, either, not after the pounding I gave him. This kind of destruction wasn’t his MO at Dalton’s, either—he was in and out, quick.”
“A surgical strike,” Rondeau said. In the silence that followed, he sighed. “Surgical. See? Because he cut out—”
“We get it, Rondeau,” Marla said. “I’d better check out the back room.” She jumped over the counter and sidled up to the concealed door, sliding her hands along the wall to find the catch. She pressed on a lightly discolored section of the wall, tsking in her mind—that was sloppy of her nemesis, to let the frequent pressure of fingers lead to visible wear on a hidden switch.
She heard the click of some mechanism engaging overhead, and tucked herself into a forward roll just in time to avoid the arc of a slicing pendulum-blade that swooped down out of a concealed slot overhead, then back up into its place in the ceiling. “Shit,” she said, angry with herself. She’d assumed the Chinese sorcerer was being sloppy, when he’d actually set a completely non-magical trap that depended on the victim’s overconfidence. She wouldn’t underestimate him again, and she began to think that maybe Rondeau was right about the Thing on the Doorstep trick. A sorcerer who liked hidden traps like this might like the ultimate hidden trap of residing in an unexpected body. She stood up and looked at Rondeau and B.
Rondeau was sniffing at a tin of what Marla could only hope was tea, while B was staring at the ceiling, his mouth slightly open. He still didn’t quite have the hang of this new world he’d found himself in.
“The door’s probably reinforced,” Marla said, “so kicking it’s unlikely to do much good, and I’d hate to shake any more nasty surprises loose. We’ll have to figure something—”
The door swung open with a click. The lights in the back room were turned off. “Marla,” said a doleful voice from beyond the door. “My enemy.”
“Ch’ang Hao?” she said.
“Yes,” said the voice. “I received your message. I am sorry I did not find you. Please come in.”
“You want to turn a light on first?” she said. Voices could be impersonated, and she wasn’t exactly confident in her safety even if this was the real Ch’ang Hao.
Ch’ang Hao laughed. “The electric lights are broken in here. But I’ll do my best.” Several faint glows appeared on the floor of the room, sinuous ropes of greenish light. Marla squinted, and saw that they were bioluminescent serpents, crawling steadily out from the center of the room. Some of the snakes climbed up the walls, and from there to the hanging overhead surgery lights, where they wound themselves. After a few moments the room was filled with green light, and she saw Ch’ang Hao sitting on the metal table that had, yesterday, held her friend Lao Tsung’s body. Ch’ang Hao held the garter snake Marla had sent to him in his hand, where it wound around and around his fingers like a set of living rings.
“So what happened?” she said.
“I tried to kill the master, and the apprentice attacked me. I performed a simple spell, to see which mind lived in which body, but it failed. I believed I had done it incorrectly—such magics are not the focus of my skill, after all. I think now that my spell was blocked. At any rate, I lunged for the master, or the one I believed to be the master, and the apprentice cast a spell that made me stop in mid-leap, hanging paralyzed in air.”
“A bug-in-amber spell,” Marla said. “Go on.”
“They would have done more, perhaps imprisoned me again, but I began to grow. I can still grow a bit despite the cruel bondage you have chosen to leave me in. As I grew larger, my hands and feet extended beyond whatever field paralyzed me, and I was able to grab for them.”
“Not bad,” Marla said. “How did anyone ever imprison you in the first place?”
“I grew drunk at a celebration, and woke in chains,” he said. “But that was long ago, before my enemy the sorcerer was even born. He inherited me from his own master, who had inherited me in his turn. But this new master was still clever enough to escape me. Before I could grow large enough to reach for them, they fled. The paralysis
faded soon after.”
“Why didn’t you go after them?”
Ch’ang Hao stared at her. “Ah,” he said, after a moment. “You have not tried to leave yet, then.”
Something went cold in Marla’s chest. “Oh,” she said. “We can’t leave.”
Ch’ang Hao nodded.
“It’s a pitcher plant.”
He nodded again. “I had assumed the shop was sealed off from the world entirely, but then the snake you sent arrived, and I realized it was still possible to enter. It is, alas, impossible to leave. The door is gone. I am no longer trapped in the dark box where the new master kept me, and I am no longer trapped by threads of compulsion, but I am still trapped, here, in this shop. That is why I could not heed your summons.” He hung his head. “That is also why there is so much wreckage. In my wrath, I smashed the shop. I regret the outburst. It was unseemly.”
“Well, fuck,” Marla said after a moment. “Let me look into this.” She went into the main part of the shop, where B and Rondeau were already standing by the place where the main door should have been. “Guess you overheard, huh?”
“Yep,” Rondeau said. “It turns out that B doesn’t know any special action-movie tricks for escaping a space-time pocket that’s been cut off from its real-world umbilicus.”
“I never did any of my own stunts,” B said apologetically, and Marla thought with something like exasperated affection that Rondeau’s sense of humor was rubbing off on him.
Marla stared at the wall of the shop, the blank wooden wall where a door should have been. “But we aren’t cut off from the umbilicus,” she said. “The Chinese guy didn’t cut the cord entirely. After all, we got in. It’s more like we’re in a—”