by T. A. Pratt
“First we’re going to Santa Cruz, to see if Marzi wants to saddle up and ride.”
Bradley whistled. “I thought you wanted to spare her from dealing with crap like this?”
Marla nodded. “I do, but, like we keep saying: fate of the world shit. If I had to ask Nicolette for help, you better believe I’ll ask Marzi too – she hurt the Outsider worse than either of us managed to, it sounds like. I won’t insist, though. Then... Well, I had a thought, and now we have to stop by Las Vegas.”
Bradley nodded. “Pelham and Rondeau could be helpful, now that we’re all on the same team and Nicolette isn’t going to kidnap them anymore. I’ll call and tell them not to leave Vegas before we get there.”
“Yeah,” Marla said. “We can take them along, sure. But we’re mainly going to Vegas for something else.”
“Dare I ask?”
“What,” Marla said, “and spoil the surprise?” She jerked her head toward the door. “Come on.”
“How’s it work? You put in the key, click your heels three times, open the door, and we’re in Santa Cruz?”
“Nah. It’s more like... taking a shortcut. Through this door, into someplace else, out another door to our destination.”
“Someplace else, huh?”
Marla grinned. “What, are you afraid to go through Hell?”
“Um, yeah, actually. I’ve been there before. I showed you the train to the underworld, remember? But there’s a little rule about not going to Hell more than once while you’re alive, or you forfeit your soul, right? If it’s a choice between a road trip and losing my soul, I’ll buy a bus ticket.”
“The old god of death had all kinds of rules,” Marla said. “Me and my Death are reformers, though. We’ve streamlined things. You’ll be fine, trust me. You have Dread Queen Marla’s promise. Come on. Let’s see what’s behind door number impossible.” She stepped to the door, then paused. “But, uh, just so you know, when I go through this door, I might get... a little weird. Just roll with it, okay?”
“When you say a little weird, you mean...”
“I’m not myself when I’m in the underworld. I’m more Dread Queen Marla, Lady of Hell.”
“Ah. So you’re not as warm and cuddly as you are now?”
“You tread on dangerous ground, Bowman.”
•
If Bradley hadn’t been psychic, he might not have noticed anything was wrong at all. They opened the door, and stepped into what looked for all the world like a foyer in a gloomy Gothic mansion: hardwood floors, dark wood paneling, flickering sconces on the walls, and a chill that settled immediately into his bones. But his psychic senses kept screaming at him that this place was not for him, that it was inimical to life, and from the corner of his eye he saw looming shadows, and firelight, and immense creatures moving with slow deliberation in his direction.
Then he made the terrible mistake of looking at Marla. She was taller than before, dressed all in white silks, her skin pale as a sheet of paper, her hair dark – as if she’d been rendered in black-and-white and then the contrast got pushed way up. The being before him was not exactly Marla, but she contained Marla. The goddess of death was a great tree, and the mortal Marla Mason was merely the seed. He could barely stand to look at her: it was like looking directly at the sun. A terrible, cold sun.
The dread queen turned her head toward him, her deep black eyes shining, and smiled, showing off teeth that were more fanglike even than the Outsider’s. She raised a hand toward him, and her fingers were dripping blood: somehow he knew it wasn’t her blood. “Living man,” she said. “You should not be here.”
He swallowed. “You brought me here. We... we’re on our way to save the world.”
She chuckled, a sound like skulls rolling down the stone steps of a crypt. “Ah yes. I see now. You are Bradley. You just look so much... smaller than I remembered. Mmm. Yes. This Outsider is beyond any death I can wield here. But there is another life, an irritant, the one called Nicolette. She has been given too much liberty. She belongs here in the underworld. I can take her, before we leave this place again, and I relinquish my true power.”
“But – everyone in Felport will die if she does!”
The goddess shrugged. “They will die soon anyway. Death is inevitable. New ones will be born. This will take but a moment.” Her gaze became abstract, faraway.
“We need Nicolette to stop the Outsider!” Bradley shouted, even though shouting at her felt like shouting at an uncaged lion. “We can’t do this alone, there’s a plan, don’t you remember?”
The goddess focused on him again – it felt a bit like having his skin peeled away in layers, one millimeter at a time – and then sighed. “Ah. Yes. The plan. How petty. But it will serve, I suppose. Very well.” She flashed across the foyer, her movement a flicker of speed impossible to follow, and opened the door on the other side. “Please. I will follow.”
The thought of stepping through first, and turning his back on her, made his skin crawl, even though he knew it wasn’t particularly dangerous. After all, she could kill him just as easily to his face.
Bradley went through the door, and the sense of terrible wrongness receded, though he sank against the wall of the desert-painted storage room in Genius Loci and gasped, his eyes closed.
A moment later, he heard the click of a closing door. “You all right, B?” Marla said, her voice perfectly mortal again.
“You are awesome and terrifying, Marla.”
“On my good days. I can’t remember anything that happens to me when I’m... her. The goddess. The whole experience just gets wiped out of my brain, like I signed a cosmic non-disclosure-agreement. Was I nasty?”
“A little bit scary, yeah.”
“Cool. Come on, open your eyes, we have to talk to Marzi.”
Bradley was afraid to look, but when he did, she was just Marla again, no sign of the supernatural vastness she’d just contained. There was no magical door in the room, either, which was comforting: apparently they’d just emerged through the door that, in the normal world, led into the kitchen.
“I just looked death in the face,” Bradley said.
Marla patted him on the cheek. “I know. Won’t be the last time you do that today, either, kid.”
•
Marzi groaned. “Jonathan will kill me. If I go off monster-fighting and die he’ll never forgive me.”
“You’ll just be backup, riding drogue,” Marla said. She sat in the office chair by Marzi’s drawing table, swiveling gently back and forth. She drawled, she was taller than usual, and her hat cast unnatural shadows across her face – all alterations caused by Marzi’s presence – but they were such minor differences compared to the way she’d changed as the goddess of death that Bradley hardly noticed.
He and Marzi were sitting on the edge of the bed, though, giving her lots of space anyway. Marla didn’t look like someone you wanted to crowd right now. She said, “The main posse will have the big guns trained on the Outsider, don’t you worry. You’ll just be exerting your psychic pressure, and Bradley can help you boost that, too, so you won’t get brain damage or nosebleeds.”
Marzi nodded. “Sure, but I might still die, right?”
“Might could,” Marla said. “If’n we don’t stop the Outsider, though, everybody dies.”
Marzi sighed. “All right then. I’d better leave Jonathan a note.”
•
“I’m serious,” Bradley said. “Close your eyes. I can spare you that much.” He held out his hand.
Marzi shrugged, took his hand, and closed her eyes. Bradley gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Marla put the key in the door of Marzi’s room – the key shouldn’t have fit, but reality didn’t seem to mind – and opened it onto that grim foyer again. Bradley stepped inside, leading Marzi, and Marla followed.
Then Marla walked past him, and she was the dread queen again... except she was still wearing a cowboy hat. The goddess took off the hat, frowned at it, a
nd the hat turned to ash without bothering to burn first, gray dust sifting through her fingers. “Hmm. This Marzipan has great power... by human standards. Come. The longer I stay here, the harder it is for me to remember why I should ever leave, when I have the business of life and death to attend to. If this Outsider didn’t threaten everything in the multiverse, I would leave you two here and get on with more meaningful work.”
“Damn.” Marzi kept her eyes closed as she spoke. “I thought you were bitchy in the real world.”
“What she means is, we’re ready when you are,” Bradley said.
The goddess flickered her tongue – black and pointed, of course – at him, then opened the door.
They stepped out of the wall of a hotel onto the Las Vegas strip at dusk, and Bradley said, “You can open your eyes now.”
“Dang,” Marzi said. “That’s a nice way to travel. Beats the hell out of driving to Vegas.”
“You gotta go through a pretty bad neighborhood on the way, though,” Marla said. “Y’all go fetch Pelham and Rondeau from the hotel.”
“Where are you going?” Bradley said.
Marla hitched up her pants, turned her head, and spat onto the sidewalk. “Gotta go see a demon about a woman.”
Rondeau in His Element
Rondeau lounged in his silk robe and watched Pelham fuss over Marzi, offering her tea and sparkling water and whatever else. The girl had a definite sparkle of magic, a bit like his own, but subtly different – like two different strains of weed, Sativa versus Indica, maybe.
Bradley sat beside him on the couch, and he elbowed Rondeau in the ribs. “So the Pit Boss is cool with you staying here?”
“Hmm?” Rondeau stuck a finger in his ear and twiddled it around. “Oh. I dunno what Marla said, but she put the fear of... something... into my demon-tulpa-kid-whatever. He had a couple of goons – humans too, not trash golems – here to meet me, and they gave me a warm welcome. Gave me a big old briefcase full of cash in exchange for my share of the casino, and returned access to my bank accounts, so I’m actually better off than I was before, in terms of straight-up liquid assets. They even offered me use of my old suite, for life, whenever I want it. I get the feeling the Pit Boss doesn’t much want me around, though – he’s just afraid to be inhospitable.”
“Well, sure,” Bradley said. “No wonder he doesn’t want you around. You made him, so you could unmake him.”
Rondeau frowned. “I could?”
“He came out of your brain, man. You literally conjured him, or at least gave this particular shape to some lurking primal force, endowed it with sentience and consciousness. So it follows that you’ve got the power to dispel him, too.”
“How the hell do I do that?”
Bradley shrugged. “I dunno. Do some research, find the right spell. Or just summon up an oracle and ask it how.”
Rondeau groaned. “Just thinking about doing all that makes me tired. Having your power is too much for me, B. I liked it better when I was just a simple psychic parasite with a knack for causing bursts of magical chaos. That was a manageable kind of magic. This shit... nah, fuck it. The Pit Boss did me a solid, got rid of Regina Queen, held up his end of our deal. He’s not screwing with me anymore, so I’m not screwing with him, either.”
“Seems silly to worry about it, since the whole multiverse might get destroyed in a day or two anyway,” Bradley said.
“Yeah, about that. When do we leave for Felport? I could’ve just stayed. Though it is nice to be back in my suite for a minute.”
The door to the hallway swung open, and Marla walked in.
Regina Queen came in behind her, as regal and ice-faced as ever, dressed in her long fur-lined cloak.
Rondeau whimpered and jumped over the back of the couch, crouching behind it.
After a long moment of silence, Marla said, “Rondeau, come out from behind there.”
He stuck his head up. Regina looked at him with infinite amusement. “What the fuck is she doing here?”
Marla shrugged. “I asked her along to help us deal with our little problem in Felport, that’s all.” Something about Marla was strange – she looked a little taller, and her voice was slow, laconic.
“Marla. She’s...” He shook his head.
“She is an unrepentant mass murderer, Mrs. Mason.” Pelham said, as if pointing out that she had a bit of spinach in her teeth.
“She wants to redeem herself,” Marla said. “Ain’t that right, Regina?”
“Oh, my, yes.”
The temperature in the room dropped noticeably – and Marla reached over and smacked Regina on the arm. “None of that. Behave, or its back to the pit with you.”
The cold snap abruptly stopped.
“Am I missing something?” Marzi said.
Regina looked the woman up and down and smiled frostily. “Oh, my, yes, dear. You probably miss almost everything.”
“Wow.” Marzi whistled. “That’s some fancy new kind of a bitch you’ve got there, Marla.”
Regina hissed, and icy fog puffed out with her breath. Marla smacked her again, and Regina flinched, then looked ashamed. “I will wait in the hallway.” She turned and swept out of the room.
“Marla.” Bradley cleared his throat. “Asking for Regina Queen’s help... isn’t that a little bit like asking for a rattlesnake’s help to kill a spider?”
“Strange bedfellows and shit, B.” Marla dropped onto the couch where Rondeau had been. “I went to the Pit Boss and told him I needed Regina, and after a little chat, he agreed to hand her over.”
Something clicked in Rondeau’s head. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “You threatened the Pit Boss with me, didn’t you? Told him you’d teach me how to un-summon him? Right? Send him back to my id or the spectral ether or wherever he came from?”
Marla shrugged. “You use the carrots and sticks you’ve got on hand. I figure making a monster of molten rock who runs Las Vegas a little bit scared of me is good, even if I have to use you to scare him.”
“Yeah, great, but what if he decides to murder me? Remove the threat?”
Marla waved a hand. “Oh, I told him his life might be tied to yours, that if you die he might cease to exist. He’s gonna be looking out for you, actually. Though I did have to dissuade him from putting you in a medically-induced coma with round-the-clock medical care, keeping you alive and out of danger forever, which is what he wanted to do.”
“Oh, good. Now I just have to worry about Regina killing me for throwing her in a volcano.”
“She’s harmless. We did a circle of binding. I’m not an amateur here, Rondeau. Promises were made, the unbreakable kind, and she was willing to make a lot of concessions in exchange for me letting her out of the hellish pocket dimension where she was trapped. Regina won’t hurt you, or any of my people. She’ll help us with the Outsider, and then she’ll fuck off back to the frozen north. She’s got some crystal palace up there full of ice golems or something, who knows. Having her up there’s actually good for the whole climate change thing – she’s keeping at least some bits of the polar ice cap from melting. I’m being a responsible steward of the Earth, here.”
“You people are into some heavy shit,” Marzi said. “There are more magical motherfuckers in this room than I knew existed in the whole world.”
“Ha,” Marla said. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, darlin’. We’re gonna grab some food and some shut-eye, and in the morning, we’re attending a gen-yoo-wine council of sorcerous war.”
•
Rondeau sat out on the balcony late that night, smoking and brooding, looking at the never-darkening lights of Las Vegas. Regina Queen was down the hall, booked into another room, sleeping by herself, assuming she even slept. Marla insisted the bindings on her were sufficient to keep her from turning fugitive, but it didn’t make him feel too restful, having her so close.
Marzi came through the sliding glass door and sat down beside him. “Can I bum one of those?”
Rondeau nodded and hande
d a cigarette over, then gave her a light. “I didn’t think anyone from California still smoked. Apart from weed.”
“There are still a few terrible disappointments out there.” She drew in a lungful, then slowly blew it out. “I don’t smoke, usually, but I’m a little stressed. Just got off the phone with my boyfriend. He’s not real happy about me taking off without warning, going on a magical misadventure. He’s pretty supportive about things, but he says I should have talked it over with him first. He’s big on talking. Does have a point, though. I feel bad.”
Rondeau nodded. “That’s why I never make meaningful human connections.”
Marzi snorted. “So, you do this kind of stuff all the time? Magic, I mean?”
Rondeau hesitated. Explaining that he wasn’t human, but a psychic parasite of unknown provenance currently residing in his second stolen body, might be a little on the overwhelming side, so he just said, “Since I was a kid, pretty much. I met Marla when I was living on the street. She gave me a hand up, taught me some stuff. It’s a better life than I would have had otherwise, that’s for sure, but there are definitely periods of unrelenting terror.”
“Damn.” Marzi put her feet up on the railing. “Part of me is really curious. There’s a whole secret world out there, I know that – I helped kill a god, once, it’s not like I didn’t realize there must be more. But I’ve spent the last years trying not to think about it, to have a normal life, one focused on love and art. But am I living in a tiny room, when there’s a whole big mansion out there, if I just have the courage to step through the door?”
Rondeau nodded. “I should warn you, I’m pretty famous for making terrible decisions and giving terrible advice, but I will say this: if you get into sorcery and all, it doesn’t replace regular life. Regular life is still there. You drive places, you get drunk, you talk shit with your friends, you make out with people, you do your job – regular stuff. Like, you own a café – before I sold out, I used to run a night club. Sure, I’m a wizard, or whatever. But I still had to call in the liquor order. Still had to check IDs at the door. Still had to pay taxes, at least a little bit. Joining the magical community, it’s not trading one life for another life. It’s adding more to your life. It’s like if you had a really hardcore hobby, one that ate up every bit of your free time. Sure, it might piss off your loved ones a little, but it also gives you something to fill your hours.”
