by T. A. Pratt
Hamil cleared his throat. “Well, yes. The herbs he bought at the brujeria are used to make that charm, actually. To be effective, the charm must touch skin. Normally such a thing would be worn as a medallion, against the chest, but that’s risky, of course—the medallion can be snatched away, torn off. Sweeney found a more clever place to put his. He wore the charm on the inside.”
Marla looked at Hamil blankly. “He ate it? Aren’t those herbs poisonous?”
Rondeau laughed. “I think what Hamil means is, Sweeney shoved the charm up his ass, like a mule taking cocaine across the border.”
Marla shook her head. “The things people do to live forever. So. He has a freely migrating spirit. But he can’t just hop from body to body at will, can he?”
“His current body has to die, before he can relocate. But he doesn’t seem to have much trouble dying at will. He probably has poison and razor blades secreted on his person, things he can use to kill himself, in a pinch.”
“So we knock him out, get the herbs out of him, and cut his throat, right?”
Hamil nodded. “Hardly glamorous work, but that seems to be the only course of action.”
“Okay,” Marla said. “Let’s find him. I bet he’s at the best table in the best restaurant in town.”
“Bastard’s probably a terrible tipper, too,” Rondeau said.
“Todd Sweeney, sleeping the sleep of the wicked,” Rondeau said. He wore a powder-blue tuxedo jacket over a black t-shirt and faded corduroy jeans. Marla almost found his attire refreshing, after the horrible monotony of the zoot suit.
Sweeney lolled in a wingback chair, his hair disarrayed, his jaw agape, quite unconscious. “What did you give him?” Marla asked.
“Some cocktail of Hamil’s. One whiff of a soaked handkerchief, and he passed out. Hamil says he’ll be down for hours yet.” Rondeau grinned. “You should have seen me. I crept up behind him in the men’s room at the Chatterly Club, and I dragged him out the window. Slick as can be. Nobody saw a thing.”
“I don’t suppose you, ah, removed his talisman, did you?”
Rondeau wrinkled his nose. “Look, I fetched kidney stones out of a toilet, yes, but I have my limits. I’m not going butt-fishing in Todd Sweeney.”
Marla sighed and pulled on a latex glove. “This is what being chief-of-chiefs leads to, Rondeau. The dirtiest of dirty work. But once we get that charm out of his bottom, he’ll be as mortal as you and me. Assuming we can get every sprig of leaf out of there. I don’t look forward to the process.” She took a step toward Sweeney, then paused. Slowly, she smiled. “But then again, maybe there’s another way... Strip him for me.”
Rondeau began to protest.
“No, no,” Marla said. “I just need you to make sure he doesn’t have poison, or anything he can kill himself with.”
Rondeau stripped the body, finding a vial of blue liquid and numerous razor blades.
“Now get some rope,” Marla said. “We’re taking him to Langford’s clinic. There are observation rooms there, places where we can keep Sweeney, where he won’t do any harm to himself.”
“You’re a fiendish bitch,” Rondeau said with admiration. He leaned against the unbreakable glass, watching Sweeney begin to stir. Sweeney had been in the bare white cell for several hours already, his hands cuffed behind him, lying unconscious on his side. “But what if the dog doesn’t come?”
“It’ll come,” Marla said. “It’s been to Langford’s clinic before. It knows the way.”
Sweeney opened his eyes, blinking stupidly at the light. He squinted toward the wide window, then nodded. “Hello, Marla,” he said, his voice transmitted to a speaker on Marla’s side of the glass. “You’ve caught me again. You’re certainly persistent.” He looked down at himself, frowning, then lifted his gaze to Marla, somehow meeting her eyes through the one-way glass. “Imprisonment is one thing. But why have you dressed me in this hideous gold and purple suit?”
“Is it a good fit?” Marla asked.
Sweeney glanced up at the speaker in the ceiling, where Marla’s voice emerged. “It fits all right, yes. But it smells terribly of body odor. And it’s... itchy. Almost as if the suit is moving against me.”
“That’s how it starts,” Rondeau said with authority.
“There’s been enough time for the ghost to get its hooks into him, don’t you think?” Marla said.
Rondeau shrugged. “Hamil said it doesn’t take long to get started. So now... we wait for the dog.”
Sweeney struggled to his feet, leaning against and sliding up the wall. “Well,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure. But I have other engagements.” Sweeney lowered his head and ran toward the far wall, hitting his head with such force that the crack of collision was transmitted clearly through the speaker.
“Shit!” Marla shouted, and ran for the door. “Why didn’t we tie his feet?”
“We were too busy being pleased with ourselves,” Rondeau said.
Marla wrenched open the door while Sweeney sat, dazed, on the floor. “Bugger,” he muttered, and tried to stand up so he could make another suicidal run. Marla reached for him—then stopped as the sound of claws on tile came from behind her.
She turned. The dog stood in the doorway, its tail wagging like a metronome. Curls of blackness wisped away from its pale back. Its eyes were as dark and unreflective as lumps of coal. Its adorable form was coming apart at the edges.
Marla backed away, holding her hands before her, palms out. “Nice doggie,” she said softly.
Rondeau was backed all the way up against the window, flattened out, unmoving, his eyes fixed on the dog. “I should be terrified,” he said, hardly moving his mouth. “But it’s still cute, black eyes and all.”
“I know,” Marla said.
The dog sniffed the air, its head swinging toward Sweeney.
Sweeney blinked at it, still dazed from his collision with the wall. “Dog,” he said. “White dog. Care to sic me, doggie? Put those pretty teeth of yours in my throat, so I can get on with my evening?” He laughed. “But you’re a nice doggie, aren’t you? You wouldn’t kill me, no matter how I—”
The dog jumped, landing on Sweeney’s chest, driving him to the ground. It snapped its jaws at his throat and began pulling.
The ghost in the suit came out, eyes wide and empty of intelligence. The traumas the ghost had recently experienced—the first assault by the dog, the sharpness of Marla’s dagger—had ruined its vestige of a mind.
But even with its sense wholly removed, the ghost had tried to take over Sweeney’s body. Its hands disappeared into Sweeney’s chest, as if gripping his ethereal heart. As the dog dragged the ghost out, Sweeney’s spirit came with it. The spirit-Sweeney looked around, bewildered, the face of a man who has been living high, unable to comprehend that the good life has come to an end. That life has come to an end.
The spirit-Sweeney mouthed a single word—“Bugger”
—and then both of them, the ghost and Sweeney’s spirit, were torn from the body and the suit.
Marla expected the dog to drag them away. Instead, it began to gobble the ghost, taking great bites and swallowing the spiritual substance. It swallowed Sweeney, too, unable to—or uninterested in—telling the difference between the two. Marla and Rondeau watched in sick fascination as the spirits were consumed.
The dog finished eating and licked its chops. It trotted toward the door, and Marla and Rondeau both relaxed.
Then the dog stopped. It turned its head to look at Marla, its black eyes terribly intent. It trotted toward her, and Marla swallowed. She wanted to whimper, but if this was the end, she wanted to go with some dignity. “I’m sorry I kicked you—” she began.
The dog growled, and Marla stopped talking.
With great deliberation, the dog lifted its leg, and pissed all over Marla’s boots. It pissed for a very long time, looking at Marla all the while, as if daring her to move, daring her to kick. Marla simply stood, glad she’d waterproofed the boots.
W
hen the dog finished, it walked out of the room without another glance.
Rondeau exhaled. “I thought you were dead for sure.”
“I am dead for sure.” She gestured toward the puddle around her feet. “Dogs piss to mark their territory. I’ve been marked.”
Rondeau’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”
Marla shrugged. “I didn’t expect to live forever.” Then she smiled. “But I kicked the hell out of that dog once already, and I’m not afraid to do it again. No matter how cute it is.”
Rondeau laughed. He went to Sweeney’s body and crouched. “I wonder how much I can get for this zoot suit at the vintage clothing store?” he asked.
Grander than the Sea
Another mission involving the Blackwing Institute, though now Marla has a lot more power in the relationship... and a lot more responsibilities, as she’s still chief sorcerer at this point. It features the Bay Witch, who later plays a very important role in Marla’s life.
“Dr. Husch is here,” Rondeau said, stepping into Marla Mason’s cluttered office, where she sat poring over an eye-watering pile of expense reports from her spies abroad.
“Who’s Elmer Mulligan, and why did our agent Brandywine spend $400 buying him lapdances at a strip bar in Canada?” she said, brandishing a piece of paper.
“I think Mulligan is the one who did that thing for us in Newfoundland,” Rondeau said, shutting the door behind him and knocking over a pile of true-crime paperbacks with the covers ripped off. “You know, with that guy who had the ice palace?”
“Right,” Marla said, rubbing her eyes. “I guess a lapdance is a small price to pay. Grizzly-polar bear hybrids are weird enough without some lunatic uplifting them to human intelligence. And did you see this?” She held up a flattened piece of seaweed, scrawled over with luminous green ink. It dripped briny water on the carpet. “It’s from the Bay Witch. I can’t even read it. Get somebody to go talk to her, will you?”
“Sure,” Rondeau said. “Like I said, Dr. Husch is here, from the Blackwing Institute. She says its urgent. But, ah, if you want me to keep her entertained for a while, I don’t mind—”
Marla wrinkled her nose. “Rondeau, she must be a hundred and fifty years old.”
He shrugged. “She only looks about thirty. Don’t be ageist. And I’ve heard, when she was younger, she used to be quite the party girl.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that, too.” Rondeau didn’t know a fraction of the weirdness and debauchery in Husch’s past, but Marla did, because the Felport archives went back a long time. “Is she here to beg for money?”
Rondeau shrugged. His attention was already wandering, and he riffled through a pile of back issues of The Instigator, which Marla still needed to comb for secret messages in the personals. On days like this she wondered why she’d ever agreed to become chief sorcerer. She was made for creeping around in shadows and kicking her enemies in the knees, not shuffling paperwork. Maybe she should hire an assistant. Rondeau was useful for many things, but alphabetizing wasn’t one of them.
“Send her in,” Marla said, wishing, not for the first time, that she had a better office for meeting people. When she had advance warning, she used her consigliere Hamil’s office, all sleekness and modernity. But her working office, above Rondeau’s nightclub, was an explosion of unfinished business, furnished with shelves, desks, and chairs scrounged from curbsides.
Rondea went out, and Dr. Husch entered. “Leda,” Marla said, leaning over her desk and extending a hand to shake. “Always a pleasure, assuming you aren’t here to pester me for more funding.”
Dr. Husch was only five and a half feet tall, rather shorter than Marla, but her presence was considerable. She had the body and face of a classical nymph, which she tried to de-emphasize, her curves restrained by a dark tailored suit jacket and skirt, her platinum-blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her heels, though, were so high Marla felt unbalanced just looking at them. “The institute could always use more money,” Husch said. “Since we are the only thing preventing the destruction of the world. But, no, that’s not why I’m here. One of our inmates would like to see you.”
Marla raised an eyebrow. “I’m not in the habit of visiting criminally insane sorcerers, Leda.”
“It’s Roger Vaughn, and he’s quite insistent. I take him seriously.”
Marla shook her head. “Vaughn? The name doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“He’s the one who sank the ferry in the bay a hundred years ago, killing everyone aboard.”
“Ah.” That was one of the big disasters in Felport’s history, though the details escaped her memory. “He must be getting on in years.”
“Some of us do not age as rapidly as others,” Husch said, without apparent irony. “More importantly, Vaughn has been in total seclusion since the disaster, without any contact with the outside world. I am curious to discover how he knows you exist.”
“Maybe one of the orderlies mentioned my name?”
Husch gave a sniff, contemptuous enough to make Marla blush in embarrassment, which pissed her off. “Sorry, I forgot your staff was all wind-up toys,” she snapped.
The doctor waved her hand. “Mr. Annemann’s creations are tireless and loyal, and I couldn’t afford to hire human staff with the pittance you provide me anyway. No, Roger Vaughn must be acting on other information. He is quite lucid—his delusions only extend to certain, ah, fundamental aspects of worldview—and you would be in no danger. I think you should see him. He says the fate of the city is at stake.”
If Felport was in danger, Marla had to go. Protecting the city was her one and only responsibility. “Crap,” she said. “Okay, fine. I assume you want me to go now?”
Dr. Husch only smiled.
“You could’ve called first,” Marla grumbled, rising from her creaking chair.
“One of our inmates discorporated and attempted to escape into the world via the phone lines last month, prevention of which required ripping out all the wires. I submitted a request for repair to you a week ago—in the meantime, we have no phone service.” Dr. Husch reached down and plucked a sheet of pale green paper, with the raven logo of the Blackwing Institute at the top, from a heap on Marla’s desk. “See?”
Marla groaned. “Fine, I’ll have Hamil write you a check. Why don’t you get a cell phone?”
“Because they’re vulgar,” Dr. Husch said, and Marla didn’t have an answer for that.
“Must he come?” Husch said as Rondeau approached.
Marla drummed her fingers on the roof of Husch’s silver Rolls Royce. “Yep, he must. You wouldn’t believe the trouble he gets into if I leave him behind. You know, you could sell this car and get a nice chunk of change to buy extra blankets and Thorazine.”
“The car is not mine to sell. It belongs to Mr. Annemann, and if he ever recovers, he will doubtless wish to have it. He graciously allows me to use it in the meantime.”
“I thought Annemann got half his head blown off. I doubt he’ll be driving anytime soon.”
“His brain is not like that of other men. It has been regenerating steadily for the past several decades, and I expect it will be whole again someday.”
You sound pretty cheerful about that, Marla thought, considering you’re the reason he got his skull broken apart in the first place. She’d read about that in the archives, too.
Rondeau arrived, carrying a plastic bag. “I brought a bunch of leftover Halloween candy for the patients, Doc,” he said. “Hope that’s okay. I know they don’t get many treats or visitors.”
Husch’s aspect softened, and she nodded. “Very thoughtful. Many of them will appreciate the kindness.” She gestured, and Marla and Rondeau climbed into the cavernous back seat. Husch got into the passenger side. One of Annemann’s creations—which seemed human, if you didn’t look closely enough to notice the lack of pores and breathing—was in the front seat, dressed as a chauffeur. It probably wouldn’t even know how to drive if you took off its hat and driving gloves. All Annemann’
s creations (with one notable exception) were fundamentally mindless, but acted like whatever you dressed them as.
“What do these guys eat, anyway?” Marla said, leaning forward to poke the chauffeur in the shoulder.
“Lavender seeds and earthworms,” Husch said.
“That’s messed up,” Marla said.
“De gustibus or whatever,” Rondeau said.
“It is the traditional meal,” Husch said. “As you might imagine, it is quite expensive to feed twoscore homonculi a sufficient quantity of lavender seeds and earthworms. Even with the worm farm in the basement and our extensive gardens.”
“I can tell this is going to be a fun drive,” Marla said, sinking back into the leather seat. “You know I’d give you more money if I could, right? But, I mean, it’s not like the mayor can tax ordinary citizens to pay for this stuff, considering most of them have no idea people like us even exist.”
“And it drives Marla nuts,” Rondeau said. “Because nobody ever thanks her for protecting the city from ravaging bands of wendigos or rat people from another star or things like that.”
“I don’t want thanks,” Marla said. “Just... a little help. The mayor knows about us, but he’s an ordinary, and he doesn’t like us. He can’t decide if I’m a mob boss or a vigilante or a superhero. He knows without me the city would have been destroyed a few times, though. Anyway, for something like the Blackwing Institute, I have to tax the other sorcerers... and no offense, Leda, but nobody wants to give money to the place where crazy sorcerers get locked up. It worries them.”
Dr. Husch just sniffed.
The Blackwing Institute was an hour outside the city, and an hour outside Marla’s comfort zone. She resisted the urge to turn around and press her face against the back window, to watch Felport diminish as they passed into the suburbs and then the fields and sleepy little towns beyond. Felport could be a pain in the ass, but it was her pain in the ass. She wasn’t comfortable anywhere else.
Especially places that had cows and trees and shit like that. Fludd Park in the city was enough nature for anybody. It even had a creek and a duck pond and a botanical garden.