Dead Reign

by T. A. Pratt

  “You’re wrong,” Ayres said. “I am the greatest necromancer who ever lived. I am—”

  “Tedious,” Hamil said, and took his leave.

  Booth emerged from the bedroom. “He is a big buck, isn’t he? With a mean look in his eye. Still, you shouldn’t let him speak to you as if you were—”

  “Silence.” Ayres rounded on him. “Go now and fetch me a new walking stick. Stout dark wood. I don’t care where you get it, if you have to go into the woods outside the city and cut it from a tree with your teeth, fetch it.”

  “You should not—”

  “Go.” Ayres lifted his hands, and Booth’s body jerked about like a marionette on strings—capering around the apartment, jerking and stumbling and banging into the bar, stepping in broken glass from Death’s tantrum, tripping over the futon, continuing to dance even as it fell.

  I am the greatest necromancer who ever lived. The dead could not disobey him. Ayres had been so awed by Death’s presence, had been bewildered by Booth’s capability for speech and thought, he’d allowed himself to be distracted. But he had power now, power that did not depend on the regard of more powerful men, power of his own, a boon from the god of death, not a loan. “Go of your own will, or I will march you like this!” Ayres shouted. “You liked slavery, didn’t you? Killed a president because you were so sad to see slavery go? Well, I can accommodate you, then, Mr. Booth—you are my slave. Step. Fetch. Go.” He slammed Booth against the closed door, then released his control when Booth bounced off. “Do you understand?”

  The mummy, in his human glamour, crouched for a moment, then rose. “I understand,” he said, and departed.

  That was good, Ayres thought. But it was only the beginning. He had power. He was the new lord of Felport’s right hand. He would do great things.

  The Bay Witch arrived, dripping on the carpet, before Booth came back. Ayres greeted her warmly, offered her a drink—she declined—and then rang the silver bell.

  Death emerged from the bathroom, zipping up his pants. “My dear Bay Witch,” he said, all smooth urbanity. “That favor we talked about. I need to call it in.”

  “So soon?” She cocked her head. “What is it?”

  “There is a box in that bedroom,” Death said. “I’m going to have it wrapped in chains. Heavy chains, magical chains, enchanted chains of binding. And then I want you to take it to the deepest part of your watery domain, and sink it.”

  “It must be something you want to lose,” the Bay Witch said.

  “It just needs to be deep, where no one else will ever be able to find it.”

  “All right,” the Bay Witch said.

  Ayres frowned. “Aren’t you even curious? About what we want buried?”

  She shrugged. “Land things. I don’t care about land things. I have millions of dead mussels and clams to clean up.”

  “You’re welcome for that.” Death smiled. “Say, when all this is done, would you care to have a drink with me? Get to know each other?”

  “I drink brine,” the Bay Witch said. “Have your man bring the box in all its chains to pier 14. I’ll be waiting there.”

  “You’re a very beautiful woman,” Death said.

  “Yes. I know.” The Bay Witch said it as if admitting to an embarrassing medical condition, and then she went away, leaving a puddle where she’d been.

  “Humans,” Death commented. “Subset, women. Very bewildering.”

  “Mmm,” Ayres said.

  “Well, go fetch the chains, and so on,” Death said. “I left a whore in mid-thrust, and should be getting back.”

  Ayres nodded. “Booth should return soon, and I’ll see that he—”

  “Not Booth, not later. You, now.”

  Ayres flushed, mortified, glad Booth wasn’t here to see this.

  “By the time I come back, I want that…thing…in there to be falling into the sea. I’ve neutralized the spells sufficiently that you can move the wardrobe, but don’t even think, for a moment, about opening it.”

  “Sir, I am old, I fear I cannot move—” Ayres said.

  “I gave you power over the dead,” Death said. “Must I hold your hand and wipe your ass and show you which way the sun rises? Get the dead to help you, if you must, if you are too weak and infirm to shift a box. This is a city of millions of souls. Some of them are out there in alleys and bar fights and hospitals. Call to them. Bring them here. I’ve known carrion beetles who were smarter than you. When you’ve disposed of the wardrobe, don’t come back to this place. The stink of that thing is everywhere in this apartment, and it’s clinging to you already.” With that, Death left the apartment, slamming the door after him.

  Ayres closed his eyes. That had been unpleasant. But it was a good reminder. He did have power. It was time he used it. He went to the window, looked down on the humid summer night streets of Felport, and whistled for the dead.

  10

  R ondeau spent the night sleeping in one of Hamil’s secret safe houses, in a storage shed in a rooftop garden. He’d never been to the garden before, though he’d heard of it, a green oasis in the middle of the financial district, on the roof of an insurance building. Some rich old coot of a businessman had built the place decades before and left a big chunk of money behind in his will to keep it going. The garden was open during daylight hours to anyone who cared to visit, and sometimes there was live music on weekends. Lots of local office drones came up to have lunch beneath the fruit trees and sit by the ornamental fountains. But Rondeau had it all to himself at night, and he liked it that way, sitting on a stone bench and watching koi swim in a pond, though he felt a little disloyal for enjoying the place—Marla would have found it unpleasant, a perfectly good rooftop ruined with out-of-place nature. Gods, he missed her.

  When morning came, he descended to street level and took subterranean tunnels directly to the back room of the Wolf Bay Café. The owner brought him a strong coffee and a change of clothes—shorts and an oversized T-shirt with a picture of a smiling anthropomorphic doughnut on the front.

  At the stroke of nine, Beadle strolled in, newspaper under his arm. “The hook is set.” He sat down across from Rondeau. “I loosed a rumor in the brothel Death visited yesterday evening that Mary Madeline Monroe was eager to test her sex magic by copulating with a god. Monroe’s own reputation as a lover of unparalleled skill and enthusiasm did the rest—I didn’t even have to embellish. I’ve heard from sources that Death returned to the brothel very early this morning, in the wee hours, and word of the rumor reached his ears. He was intrigued. We’ll send him a note from her this morning, asking if he’ll meet her at moonrise tonight, at a warehouse near the old rail yard.”

  “Nice,” Rondeau said. “And it’s even a waxing moon. That’s good, for sex magic. You know”—he made a vague gesture in the vicinity of his lap—“symbolism.”

  “Mmm,” Beadle said. “Langford and Partridge are at the warehouse now, wiring the place. We’ll cast a keep-away spell around the perimeter to keep any ordinaries from getting hurt in the explosion. The note will say there’s a spell to ensure their privacy, which should keep Death from wondering.”

  “Pretty clever plan we’ve got, huh?”

  “Actually, it’s base and transparent,” Beadle said. “The sort of plan anyone could make, and almost anyone could see through. But we’re counting on Death’s arrogance, vanity, and absolute unfamiliarity with the concept of armed resistance. There are no revolutions in the underworld. How can the dead rebel against death? It would be like a fish rebelling against water. If we’re lucky, this will work, but we’ll have to be a lot more clever next time. I imagine the god learns quickly.”

  “Ah, but next time we won’t have to be smart, because we’ll be strong. We’ll have Marla’s cloak.”

  “We’ll go to her apartment, you and I, while Partridge and Langford make sure things with our dictator go smoothly.”

  “It’s a plan,” Rondeau said. “So any word from Hamil or Ernesto?”

  “No.�
�� Beadle shook his head. “I heard Death roused Hamil in the middle of the night, but I didn’t get any details, and we shouldn’t expect to hear from Hamil immediately. His position is delicate, and he doesn’t want to tip his hand. At this point, Death doesn’t even know there is a resistance, and Hamil doesn’t want to do anything suspicious.”

  “Great,” Rondeau said. “So…we’ve got all day before we move. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to run through the plan a few thousand more times. It’s just my way.”

  “I think I’ll go meet with the Four Tree Gang,” Rondeau said. “I bet they’ll join our cause. They’re a bunch of sneak thieves and second-story men, could be good for recon and intel. Do you know where they’re hanging out these days?”

  Beadle checked his notes and scribbled the current address of the Four Tree Gang’s ever-changing headquarters, an old frat house near the college. The frat had been disbanded after a scandal involving various prostitutes of assorted genders and rather inventive hazing rituals, made public when some videos were leaked to the Internet and went viral. “Meet back here at 7 P.M., and I’ll let you know if everything is going as scheduled.”

  Rondeau went out the back way, down the stairs to the secret tunnel, whistling. Maybe there were still some kegs at the old frat house. The Four Tree Gang knew how to party, and what was a revolution without a little fun?

  “Come on,” B insisted. “There must be some things you like doing. Where you’re going…not to be a downer, but sometimes there’s no coming back from there. This could literally be your last day on Earth. You should have some fun. You can’t do anything else until after midnight.”

  “I want to punch Death in the face,” Marla said. They sat in the early-morning sunlight of Cole’s deck, and Pelham was in the kitchen smoking some kippers, or whatever valets did when it was time to make breakfast. Cole snored from the living room, steady as the breaking of ocean waves. “I want to be sitting in my office looking for messages from my spies in the classified section of the newspaper.”

  “You still use newspapers? That’s old-school. Susan switched over to using ‘missed connections’ ads on Craigslist to pass messages.”

  “Susan Wellstone can bite my—”

  “Breakfast.” Pelham came out bearing a tray. They moved over to the picnic table and tucked in, Pelham joining them at Marla’s insistence—she’d break him of his deference eventually. She didn’t mind respect, or even total obedience, she just wanted them for the right reasons—because she was scary, not because she was rich.

  “How about you, Pelly? Marla’s no fun, so what do you want to do? You’re in California now. Think big. Though we should probably avoid going into San Francisco.”

  “Ah,” Pelham said, blinking. “I don’t…ah…Hmm.” He retreated into his bacon and eggs.

  B sighed. “You two. It’s going to be a laugh-a-minute romp when I get back to Felport, isn’t it?”

  “You’ll have Rondeau to keep you entertained, in the rare moments when I’m not working you like a dog,” Marla said. “Hell. Okay. This is your town. Show us the sights, then.”

  “That’s an idea. I know a place in Oakland’s Chinatown that sells knives and swords and all sorts of lethal-edged instruments.”

  “That’s promising,” she said.

  “And when was the last time you went to see a movie?” B said.

  Marla frowned. “It’s been a while. But I can see a movie anywhere.”

  “Ah,” B said, “but at this movie theater, there are beat-up old couches, and pizza, and beer. On tap. And there’s all this decaying flaking faux-Egyptian decoration all over the walls.”

  “Okay,” Marla said. “I can tentatively admit that might be interesting.”

  “And after that,” B said, “I’m going to take you to a café that’s also a capoeira studio. You can drink yerba maté and watch capoeistas jump around.”

  “I know capoeira,” Marla said. It wasn’t her favorite martial art, but it had some nice elements, and it tended to attract beautiful practitioners. She wasn’t averse to taking in some eye candy.

  “They might let you do a demo,” B said.

  “You sound like you’ve been planning this,” Marla said, suddenly suspicious. “Why’d you even ask me what I wanted to do, if you had all these ideas?”

  “Politeness. I knew you wouldn’t want to do anything. And then we’re going to the zoo.”

  Marla grunted. “Do they have deadly predators there?”

  “Loads,” B said, grinning.

  “Mmm. I grudgingly consent.” She drank her coffee, gave B a brief smile, and thought about all the things a person might like to do if they were about to descend into a land from which few ever returned, and from which no one returned unchanged. Spending time with one of your only friends in the world probably wasn’t a bad choice.

  “Ah, Booth, how nice of you to return,” Ayres said. The assassin stood in the doorway of the penthouse, holding a decent-looking walking stick, looking about with obvious dismay at the half a dozen animated corpses that were dusting, straightening, and generally making Sauvage’s old apartments suitable for habitation again.

  “I looked for you at Marla’s, but—”

  “You eventually had the wit to seek me here. Aren’t you bright.” Ayres snapped his fingers, and one of the fresher-looking corpses—you might have mistaken her for merely ill, in dim light—hurried to fetch him a drink. Ayres didn’t even need to speak. He didn’t even need to snap his fingers, really; that was just theater, for Booth’s benefit. These corpses were not animated as Booth was. They were essentially appendages of Ayres’s own body, and he needed only think to move them. “Meet your new brothers and sisters!”

  “These are no kin of mine.” Booth threw the stick at Ayres’s feet. “Your staff.”

  “I think I’d like it if you called me lord,” Ayres said. “As I call Death lord. It’s a title fitting for a god, and I am your god.”

  “I will never call you that. You overstep yourself.”

  “But don’t I have the power of life and death over you, Booth?” Ayres reached out his hand, curled his fingers, and clawed through the air. Booth gasped, fell to his knees, and slid a couple of feet along the carpet. “Try it. ‘Lord.’ Go ahead.”

  “Never,” Booth said, and Ayres tugged a little harder, hooking his ethereal fingernails into Booth’s spirit and dragging it out of his mummified body. Booth moaned. Ayres let the spirit go, and it snapped back into the assassin, sending him sprawling on the ground.

  “Now,” Ayres leaned forward, “choose your next words carefully, Booth.”

  “My…lord,” Booth said.

  “There we go. Death will be pleased I’ve finally housebroken you.”

  Booth struggled to his feet and straightened his illusory clothing with great dignity. “Where is Death?” A beat. “Lord.”

  “I’m here.” The god of death appeared, as he so often did, from a room he hadn’t previously inhabited, and crossed to Sauvage’s bar. “I’ve worn out every whore in that brothel, and they’re grumbling they must be paid, or else they’ll starve. I told them you’d take care of it, Ayres. Surely Marla has coffers that are rightly mine now?”

  “I’ll see to it, my lord,” Ayres said.

  Death appeared to notice the walking corpses for the first time. “Oh, my, Ayres, you’ve finally decided to find some help. Good, good. I like having a few dead ones around.”

  “Does it remind you of home, my lord?” Booth inquired politely.

  “Not at all. Where I come from, we have the spirits, but not the bodies. These are bodies, stripped of their spirits. All fall under my authority, of course, flesh and spirit both, but no, rotting meat-husks don’t remind me of home. You are the only one here who reminds me of home.”

  Booth practically preened, and Ayres gritted his teeth.

  “My lord,” Booth said, in his smooth, urbane voice, “perhaps you could see fit to put me directly under your au
thority, so that I might better serve you. I spend so much time helping Ayres now, I fear—”

  “Cease your prattle.” Death tossed back a whiskey. “I’ve just listened to five whores complain endlessly about hunger and exhaustion, and I’m in no mood to listen to you. I gave Ayres dominion over the dead, and you’re dead, so do as he says. I told him not to banish you. Be grateful.”

  Ayres grinned at Booth viciously, victoriously. “My lord. Among mortals, titles are important. The other sorcerers might accept my authority as your spokesperson more readily if you called me, say, consiglieri, or prime minister—or, perhaps, vizier?”

  Death belched. “Call yourself King High Shit of Excrement Hall, for all I care, Ayres. Tell me, have you heard of a woman called Mary Madeline Monroe? I’m told she wants to fuck me.”

  “Ah,” Ayres said. “Yes, she is a famed sexual magician. I imagine she would leap at the chance to pleasure a god.” She’d reportedly fucked an incubus, a succubus, a rakosh, something radiant that claimed to be an angel, a djinn, and various lycanthropes, and increased her magic tenfold with every conquest.

  “Yes, but is she worth a lay?”

  “I have never experienced her intimate company, my lord, but her beauty is supernatural, and her skills are reportedly unparalleled.”

  “Right, then. I’m fucking her this evening. Is there any pressing business I should attend to before I visit this casino Nicolette has been telling me about?”

  “There is the matter of Viscarro, sir,” Ayres said. “He is the only sorcerer of note who hasn’t sworn fealty to you. He refuses to emerge from his spider hole.”

  “All right, fine, I’ll go kick down his door tomorrow. That all?”