Spell Games

by T. A. Pratt

  “Go to hell!” Jason shouted, and the guy winced.

  “Okay. Nice knowing you. Not that I know you… never mind.” The guy stepped back, and someone—or something—else entered the room. It was shambling, bearlike, and hardly looked human.

  The thing—the sorcerer—drew close to the door. “There are no magical wards here,” it rasped. “Only steel. Not even silver or iron, but steel. This will be but the work of a moment.”

  A horrible squealing sound came from the door, which visibly shivered in its frame. Cam-Cam opened a cabinet and took out a pistol, and Jason drew a gun from his own waistband. “What the hell,” he said.

  “Sorcery,” Rondeau said simply He didn't have a gun, but he had other weapons, and he wasn't thinking of his butterfly knife—which, against whatever this guy was, would be as useless as Jason's and Cam-Cam's guns.

  Jason looked at him and frowned, and then the door tore loose with a horrible wrench and the stink of burning metal. Jason raised his gun and squeezed off a couple of shots, shockingly loud in the enclosed space, but they didn't appear to make much of an impression on the thing in the doorway Rondeau figured it was a person, somewhere under the matted vegetable matter and fungal reek—like something from under a rotten log—but it was hard to be sure.

  “Where are the spores?” it said.

  “In the box,” Cam-Cam said promptly “Take it, with our compliments.”

  The sorcerer shoved his way in, and they all pressed back as far as possible to make room. Jason was staring at the sorcerer, then at his gun, and then back again. The sorcerer—was it Bulliard, not quite as dead as Marla thought?—grabbed the box by one of its chains and dragged it out into the wider space outside the panic room. “This must be very well warded,” he said, bending down and snuffling. “I sense nothing inside it at all.”

  Rondeau and Jason exchanged glances.

  “These chains are not magical. These runes are meaningless.” Bulliard tore apart the chains like they were rotten twine. He began tugging on the well-bolted lid.

  “Don't open that!” Cam-Cam shrieked. “The spores, there's no telling what they're programmed to do, they'll kill us all!”

  “All of you, perhaps.” Bulliard paused in his efforts and looked at them. “But I have nothing to fear from any spore.” Brown mushrooms popped up under his hands, along the seams of the crate, and the wood rotted and burst. Bulliard tore open the crate like a man ripping apart a dinner roll, and pulled out the welded metal box inside. Evidently frustrated, Bulliard slammed the box against the exterior wall of the panic room once or twice, and one of the welded seams popped open. The sorcerer slipped a finger under the crack and pulled, ripping open the box and spilling the contents onto the floor.

  “A lead pipe,” he said, looking at the items at his feet. “A bucket.” He kicked the five-gallon bucket, knocking off the tightly sealed plastic lid, and sand and water poured out.

  “Also some packing peanuts and Bubble Wrap,” the sorcerer's associate—apprentice? slave? herald?—said cheerfully “Hell of a haul, boss.”

  “There are no spores here.” Bulliard kicked through the ruins of the crate Danny had so carefully fabricated, and loomed in the doorway of the panic room. “You have wasted my time. You have wasted the Mycelium's time.” He extended his filthy hands, mushrooms sprouting from his palms and fingertips, and advanced into the panic room.

  “You guys are fucked,” Bulliard's assistant said.

  B was having a dream.

  He was a bodiless floating entity, unable to control his movements, looking down on the world. Below was a forest of mushrooms towering high as buildings, their caps as broad as the decks of aircraft carriers and curved like domes, red and white and green and orange, sending up a collective stink of rot and sweetness and meaty scents, mingled into a disgusting aromatic mélange. As B swooped down past the caps, in among the high stems, nodes of bluish and greenish bioluminescence sparked to pale brightness, illuminating the ground below.

  Rondeau wandered in the forest beneath, lost, clothes torn, blood running from wounds in his chest, stumbling and calling out. B tried to go to him, to help his friend, but he may as well have been a bit of dandelion fluff in the wind, floating without volition. Rondeau stumbled and fell, sinking into a thick peaty mass that closed over him like tar in a pit. Suddenly B was there, inches from Rondeau's sinking form, trying to reach out for him, but with no hands, he couldn't. Rondeau sank into the reeking mulchy earth, and was lost to—

  “Darkness,” whispered a voice, but it was a whisper in timbre and not in volume; in volume it was the voice of a god, perhaps the voice of Bulliard's god, the Mycelium. “Oblivion. Darkness. Oblivion. Darkness. Darkness. Darkness.”

  B sat up in a dark place the size of a closet, trembling, hungry, exhausted. But that dream, it was one of those dreams, a message from wherever his messages came from, and he didn't need an oracle to interpret it, at least not the broad outlines—Rondeau was in danger, and B needed to save him.

  He stood up, eyes adjusting to the gloom, and found himself in what seemed to be a closet… or a cell. Where was he? What had happened? Hadn't they won?. He went to the door, where there was no knob, only a window blocked with a metal grate, and he pounded, shouting, “Hey! Let me out of here!”

  “Ah, young master Bowman,” rasped Viscarro from outside the door. “You're awake.” The door creaked open. Viscarro was in the hall, leaning on a crutch—except it wasn't a crutch, but a long-barreled rifle.

  “Why did you lock me up?”

  “I remain under Bulliard's influence, though he is not exerting direct control, and I find myself temporarily at liberty. Marla cut out the mushrooms at my neck, but there are others, at the base of my spine.” Viscarro held out a hunting knife, hilt toward B, and B took it. “Cut them out of me before Bulliard decides I'm still useful.”

  “How did Bulliard even get away?”

  “I told Marla I would lock him up. Then, when Marla was gone, I let him go. I haven't been myself today. Now, please, the mushrooms?” Viscarro hop-turned around, lifting up his shirt to reveal a cluster of pale pink mushrooms sprouting at the base of his knobby spine.

  “Do I, ah…”

  “Take as much of the flesh as you must, and try to pull the mushrooms out carefully—the roots are wormed into my spinal column, tapped into my nervous system.”

  B knelt, cutting. “I don't have time for this. My friend—”

  “Is in danger, yes, of course, I'm sure, but if you don't do this, and Bulliard reasserts his control over me, you'll never make it out of my lair alive, Mr. Bowman.”

  B worked intently, ending up with a few shreds of dead flesh and four intact mushrooms with trailing roots.

  “Toss them on the floor, please.” Viscarro held a can of lighter fluid—where had he gotten that from? B complied, and Viscarro squirted the mushrooms, then muttered some phrase under his breath, and the flesh and fungi caught merry fire, shriveling to blackness. “Very nice. That's all. You can run along.”

  “Where am I? How do I get out?”

  “That depends on where you need to go.”

  “I—” He paused. “Fuck. I don't know.”

  “That is a snag.”

  “I need an oracle.”

  “I gather they come when you call.”

  “Yes, but—” He turned, and turned about, and went down the grimy hallway, shoving open the door to another cell, where iron shackles dangled from the wall. The shackles were empty… but there was a scatter of old yellow bones on the floor. “There's something here,” B said, that dreamy feeling stealing over him. He drifted into the cell, staring at the bones. “Hey there.”

  “Hey,” said the dead man in the cell, fragments of bone rising up to float in his otherwise ghostly form—a couple of fingers, a few fragments of spine, the orbit of an eye socket. He was haggard, a portrait of a starved man drawn in pale blue smoke.

  “Fascinating,” murmured Viscarro from the hallway behind him
, but B hardly noticed.

  “I had one of those dreams,” B said.

  “I know. Your friend is in danger, from an unexpected source.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Rondeau will die, if you don't go to him.”

  “But if I go, I can save him? He'll live?”

  “That's right.” The dead oracle lifted a ghostly cigarette to his mouth and drew deep of the smoke, which was exactly the same color as his body. “If you go fast enough.”

  “Where?”

  “A mansion, on a hill, with a view of the bay and the city You can get there quickly, as the pigeon flies—down this hall, up through the first drain in the ceiling, then fly north by northeast for five minutes, look for the big estate with the Spanish tile roof.” The ghost paused, bones bobbing, then said, “And the convertible Impala parked out front.”

  “Got it. Can I—”

  “Keep asking questions, and it won't be fast enough. Just so you know.”

  B nodded. “Okay What kind of payment do you require?”

  “That son of a bitch behind you. He locked me up here. Left me to die slowly”

  “Dirty thief tried to steal my treasures,” Viscarro said. “The apprentices know the rules. Don't feel bad for him.”

  “The payment,” B said. “Come on, you said time is short, what do you need?”

  “Stab Viscarro in the throat for me,” the ghost said.

  B spun and drove the hunting knife hilt-deep into Viscarro's throat. The force of the blow knocked the subterranean sorcerer back, and he dropped his crutch and hit the floor of the hallway.

  The ghost laughed, and then the bones clattered back to the floor with a sound like tumbling dice.

  Viscarro moaned and sat up, pulling the knife out of his throat. “You grazed my voice box.” His voice was wreckage and sandpaper.

  “Sorry,” B said. “Call us even for the false imprisonment.” He became a bird and flew away

  Bulliard came at them, Jason fired his useless gun again, and Cam-Cam started shaking his fake amulets and chanting some nonsense he probably thought was a charm of protection or banishment. Rondeau realized he was going to have to step in. Marla didn't want Jason to know about the existence of magic, but a sorcerer with the charm of Charles Manson and the personal hygiene of Peter the Hermit had pretty much blown that.

  Rondeau Cursed. It was his ability of last resort, a power of unclear origin—some sorcerers believed he was mispronouncing the words of creation, or had tapped into the primal language of incantations, or was insulting natural order in the fundamental language of the universe. However it worked, the Curses had unpredictably destructive results, which generally didn't damage the speaker—but might harm anyone or anything else in the vicinity.

  The results of this Curse were particularly disastrous, perhaps because Rondeau was in extremis. The house shook as if in an earthquake, and Bulliard stumbled, falling back and tripping on the remains of the crate, landing on his ass… just in time for a large chunk of the ceiling to come crashing down on him.

  “Damn,” Bulliard's assistant said. “You know, he got dropped from the ceiling earlier today, and now you dropped the ceiling itself on him. No wonder this dude lives in the woods.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Jason brandished his weapon.

  “I'm a young man who's eager to meet your bullet,” the courier said. “Because, due to the fact that I'm not running away and whooping with joy, I can confirm that Bulliard isn't dead. Bullets didn't kill him—did you think a hunk of ceiling would?”

  Bulliard sat up, groaning, showering plaster as he rose. “I will kill you all.”

  “Whoa, now,” his assistant said. “You're pretty beat up, mossface. That skinny dude has some kind of good mojo, too—when he said whatever he said, I felt the heat way back here. And what, exactly, are we fighting for?”

  “The spores.” He shook his head. “But…Marla spoke truth? The spores do not exist?”

  “What is he talking about?” Cam-Cam said. “Why was the crate empty? Were we—did the dealer trick us?”

  “That must be it, the dealer—” Jason began.

  “It's over, Jason,” Rondeau said. “Don't you understand? This guy will kill us to get the spores, or torture us to find out what we know. Shit. There are no spores. It was a scam, Bulliard. We were running a game on this guy.” He gestured to Cam-Cam. “You got some bad in-tel, is all.”

  “I see.” Bulliard brushed himself off. “That is… troubling.”

  “Give us your keys, dude,” the assistant said.

  “What?” Jason held his gun half up, half down, unsure what to do.

  “The keys to that pickup—come on, toss 'em over. I'd hate for things to get ugly when our, ah, negotiations are going so well.”

  “Better do it, Jason,” Rondeau said.

  Jason dug out his keys and flung them to the assistant, who caught them adroitly “Much obliged. Sorry for the mess.”

  Bulliard started away, then stopped and turned back. “The Mycelium does not apologize to mortals, but… give Ms. Mason my own regrets. She told me the truth, and I did not believe her. Tell her, if she finds out who gave me this false information—who wasted my time, and the Mycelium's time—and she wishes my assistance in meting out appropriate retribution, I will be happy to oblige.”

  “Consider the message delivered,” Rondeau said.

  Bulliard withdrew, along with his assistant, who gave them a little wave on the way out.

  “That was bracing,” Rondeau said.

  “You piece of shit,” Cam-Cam said. “You lying piece of shit, how dare you do this to me?”

  Jason ignored him. “All this… magic… It's all real?”

  “It's not all real,” Rondeau said. “The spores are total fucking bullshit.” He paused. “Likewise vampires.”

  “You and Marla…you scammed me?” Rondeau couldn't tell if Jason was amused or furious.

  “Not sure you'd call it a scam, since we didn't want anything from you. Marla just wanted to protect you, keep you from getting hurt.”

  “You don't protect someone by giving them less information.” Jason's eyes were hard, dead things—definitely not amused, then. “If I'd known the real lay of the land, I could have worked this differently I could have—”

  “Taken me for more?” Cam-Cam grabbed Jason's shoulder and tried to spin him around. Cam-Cam was smaller than Jason, though, so it didn't have much effect. “Ripped me off more efficiently? You aren't even an initiate in the mysteries? Nothing you told me was true?”

  “Sorry,” Jason said. “You were just a pigeon. I'd hoped to pluck you a lot more thoroughly, but I'll settle for those tail feathers I took off you today.”

  “You guys all right?” Danny Two Saints was in the doorway, dressed all in black, face streaked with dark facepaint, a walking shadow. “Sorry I didn't step in before, but I had the feeling I was outgunned.”

  “You believe this shit, Danny?” Jason said. “Sor cer ers, all that, it's real.”

  “Hey, if you believe in God and his angels like I do, it only makes sense to believe in the devil and his minions. There are people with powers. I told you about my grandmother with the evil eye. I didn't take Ronnie for, whatever, a black magic kind of guy, but who knows?”

  “Fucking magic,” Jason said, affronted.

  “Anyway,” Danny said, with the air of someone broaching a difficult subject. “Looks like we've played out this string. We got a nice sack of cash out of it. I say we blow this guy off.” He nodded toward Cam-Cam.

  “You won't get away with this,” Campion said. “I'm a rich man. I have resources. I'll hunt you down, and see that you suffer.”

  “I know you would,” Jason said, almost kindly “But we won't let you.”

  Jason lifted his pistol and shot Cam-Cam twice in the chest.

  “That's done, then,” Danny said.

  Rondeau stared at Cam-Cam, who only gasped once or twice after he fell, blood welling up from h
is chest like water from a spring, then slowing as he went still. “You—you killed him.”

  “Not our preferred form of the blow-off,” Jason said. “But an acceptable method that's served us well in the past.” He looked meditatively at Cam-Cam's corpse, then sighed. “I guess you'll have to tell Marla about this.”

  “Um,” Rondeau said. He occasionally did stupid things—trusting Jason was apparently one of them—but he wasn't a stupid man. “No way. I'm standing here, I'm an accessory to the crime, I can't tell anyone without incriminating myself, right? It's our secret. Marla never has to know.”

  “That's right,” Danny said. “He's right, isn't he, Jason?”

  “When you're right, you're right,” Jason said.

  “Still,” Danny said. “Even so.”

  “Even so.” Jason pointed his gun at Rondeau, and pulled the trigger.

  Rondeau had never been shot before. Being hit in the chest with a sledgehammer might have been comparable—or perhaps swallowing a bomb. All sensation in his legs instantly vanished, and he fell, an agony of ripping and tearing filling the upper half of his body. His heart was like a terrified animal in his chest, backed into a corner and fighting for its life. Staring at the ceiling, his vision began to go white at the edges, and there was a strange heat on his skin. The blood running out of him, he supposed. Someone seemed to be turning a knife in his lungs, too. A hot knife. After a few eternal seconds, though, the pain began to recede and everything became strangely distant.

  I will take Jason's body when I die, Rondeau thought, calmly. Knowing the immortality of his mind—or soul, or psyche, or whatever—had always been a comfort to him, and made him cocksure and reckless. He hadn't anticipated the pain of dying, but he knew, for him, dying was not an ending, but simply a doorway. He would pass through that door, climb into Jason's head, and shove out the man's poisonous soul. Then he would raise Jason's gun and kill Danny Two Saints. Having a plan made him feel better. Almost serene.

  “He's bleeding out,” Danny said. Rondeau was surprised he could hear so clearly, that conversations could go on in the wake of the gunshot's tremendous noise. “But he's not dead. Want me to put one in his head?”