by T. A. Pratt
“Not many, while it’s moving.”
As if Bethany’s words were a signal, the train slowed. “Huh,” Marla said. “I think we’re about to be boarded, hon. Get yourself prepared. The guy’s a blur, but I can slow him down. When he comes in, wherever he comes in, I’ll hit him, and while he’s distracted, work some mojo. I know this train must have a lot of power stored up in it, spinning like a prayer wheel all this time, and you’re going to need to tap into that. Hold him like a bug in amber, put ice crystals in his muscle mass, break every bone in his body, blow off his kneecaps, I don’t care, but drop him. And keep him alive.”
“Not a problem,” Bethany said.
Marla held herself at the ready as the train slowed to a halt. She was prepared to reverse her cloak—there was no other option, not if Mutex was still moving so fast—though she greatly feared the consequences of using the cloak twice in one day. A period of inhumanity was preferable to death, but only just.
The train stopped. The doors hissed open without any instruction from Bethany, which made her snarl. Marla tensed.
No one tried to enter the train. The platform beyond was dark. In the faint red light from the train, and with her night-eyes using every available speck of brightness, Marla could make out something covering the floor of the platform, a silent, undulant mass of—
“Frogs,” she said. “Shit.” The platform was inhabited by hundreds of tiny golden yellow poison dart frogs, though in the red light they glowed witch-light orange. Marla considered her options. She could probably generate a fireball or a sheet of flame to scour the frogs. She’d have to suck the energy for the fireball from Bethany, though, which would put her out of commission. Marla couldn’t take the thermal energy from the frogs themselves. They were amphibians, only as warm as their environment, and down here, underground, it was cold, which might explain why they seemed less inclined to hop and caper than they had on the surface. It was just as well. Conjuring flames in a confined underground space wasn’t a good idea, especially since magical fire didn’t much care if there was no immediate source of fuel—it would burn anyway, for somewhat unpredictable amount of times, and that could make this place an oven. But she had to do something. If the frogs were here in their lethal hundreds, a whole army of them, then their general, Mutex, must be nearby, too.
Something alerted Marla—the distant hum of a generator, a static crackle, something—and she squinted her eyes an instant before the floodlights on the platform came on. As she squinted, she registered movement and twisted, throwing her leg up and out in a side-kick. Mutex, moving almost too fast for the eye to track—but far slower, Marla noted, than he’d moved at Dalton’s, which was heartening—slammed his solar plexus into the bottom of her heavy boot. The shock of impact vibrated up her leg painfully, but her bones were laced with trace amounts of cold iron and almost unbreakable, and she’d cast an inertia-enhancing spell on her boots, so she didn’t lose her footing or slide back. Mutex bounced, the inevitable result of an almost irresistible force hitting an even more immovable object. He landed flat on his back, scattering his near-torpid poison frogs beneath him, doubtless squishing a few. He still wore his cape—which Marla now realized was made of insect wings somehow intricately woven together. It was fitting raiment for the king of frogs, she supposed. His never-ending-frogs basket hung on a strap on his back. She wanted to attack him now, while he was down, but the frogs all around him were too dangerous. But if Bethany could wound him, or knock him unconscious, then the two of them together could probably levitate him up onto the train, safely away from the frogs. Mutex started to sit up, touching the spot beneath his rib cage, though his face betrayed no discomfort, which meant he probably was using the frogs’ batrachotoxins to block pain. Marla hoped she’d cracked a few of his ribs.
“Bethany, hit him!” Marla shouted.
“Oh, I’ll hit, all right,” she said, and something in her voice made Marla turn, but it was too late. Bethany had a Taser-gun in her hand, a matte-black weapon whose shape reminded Marla of a fluke or a lamprey, something nasty that wriggled and struck in the dark. It was unlikely the weapon had the range necessary to hit Mutex, which meant Bethany intended to use it on Marla, as if that weren’t obvious by the glee on her face, her slit eyes and flickering tongue, the blush of heat and excitement in her cheeks; she was intoxicated by her own treachery. There was no time for Marla to move, to strike, or even to reverse her cloak, and once she was shocked by the electric current, she would hit the ground, and once she hit the ground, she was meat.
A guttural voice filled the train car, sounds that made the small bones inside Marla’s ears grind together, a language harsh as glacial ice cracking. She saw Rondeau entering from the next car, his mouth open, his face twisted, and she realized that he was Cursing, loosing a profanity fit to offend the ears of a god. The random wave of destruction triggered by his Curse made the flat-screen television implode in a crash and tinkle of glass, caused the reinforced windows in the train car to crack, and made the Taser-gun short out in Bethany’s hand, breaking and sparking. Bethany gasped and dropped the Taser. Marla sensed movement behind her and turned to see Mutex rushing toward her at merely human speed. Rondeau Cursed again, and the train platform cracked, one side rising as if in an earthquake, tilting Mutex off balance, sending him tumbling into the ground again. Bethany was still staring at her hand, which was scorched and smoking, when B slipped up behind her, armed with a heavy cast-iron skillet he must have taken from the dining car. He struck Bethany on the back of the head, and she fell, eyes rolling in her head. B stared down at her, then dropped the skillet and wiped his hand on the front of his shirt. He looked at Marla, his eyes wild. “She was trying to kill you,” he said, and Marla just nodded, since there was no time for anything more in the way of thanks or reassurance.
Mutex was on his feet again, standing in the middle of a field of torpid frogs, his arms crossed, looking at Marla, his face impassive.
Marla crossed her own arms, mimicking his stance. Rondeau stood on her left, and B on her right. “So,” Marla said. “Time for us to have a chat?”
“You have caused me problems,” Mutex said. “I can no longer ignore you in the hopes that you will leave. Perhaps you will see reason, and cease to pry into my affairs. You are a stranger here, and have no stake in this place. I am offering you an opportunity to leave unmolested.”
Marla snorted. “Yeah, sure. I’ll give you a chance to convince me. Let’s parlay. Bethany was helping you, huh?”
Mutex cocked his head. “Of course. When you first set foot on the stairs, she alerted me, and told me to come help her kill you. You are developing an unsavory reputation in this city, and we both felt it was best to dispose of you now.”
“Yeah, that was a good idea,” Marla said. “Shame you fucked it up so much on the follow-through. I guess she rigged the train to slow down, fixed it so the power would go out, and all that. I wondered what she was doing at the control panel. But I don’t get why she was helping you. She seemed smarter than that.”
“She understood the importance of heart’s blood,” Mutex said. “That there is strength to be gained from human sacrifice. Our motives were different, but our aims were the same. I merely wanted her to give me the Cornerstone, but she was no friend to Lao Tsung, and she convinced me that it would be better to kill him and take the stone myself.”
“So Bethany just wanted power? She didn’t believe that the universe is winding down like an old watch, and that it needs a little blood to grease the gears to keep it turning?”
“In time, she would have come to know and respect my gods,” Mutex said, and the absolute faith in his voice was chilling. “My aims are not selfish ones. I only wish to prevent the universe from dying, and to return the gods of my ancestors to the position of glory and respect they deserve. When Bethany looked upon the majesty of the returned gods, she would have been filled with faith. But for the time being, though motivated by baser desires for power and flesh, she co
uld still offer considerable assistance. She knew the other sorcerers would oppose her, so she could not help me openly. Once control of the city passed to her, she planned to help me bring back the old gods, and take control.”
“Probably by calling an emergency meeting of all the surviving sorcerers, am I right?” Marla said. “Get them all in a room to talk about the Aztec menace, and then lock the doors and let you mow them down. Or else just hit them all with tasers, to keep the meat fresh.”
Mutex shrugged. “It was an elegant plan, but it seems it shall not come to pass. It sometimes pleases the gods to confront us with adversity. It is not the first time things have not gone according to plan. Is Bethany dead?”
Marla didn’t glance down at Bethany. She didn’t think the sorceress was dead—B hadn’t hit her that hard, and Bethany most likely had spells to protect her skull. “Why do you ask?”
“If she is dead, then I will summon her noble warrior’s spirit back to this world when the gods return.”
“What, as a hummingbird?” Rondeau said. “Pretty fucking stupid form for a noble warrior spirit, don’t you think?”
Mutex frowned, and Marla cheered Rondeau silently. Zealots hated blasphemy, and Rondeau blasphemed as easily as most people blinked. “Hummingbirds are a fitting vessel for the returned souls of dead warriors. But no. Once I have brought the old gods back to life, I will be able to open the gates to the Land of the Dead, and welcome the warriors back in approximations of their mortal forms.”
“Pretty good trick,” Marla said. “This is after you raise Tlaltecuhtli, right? Her mouth opens to the Land of the Dead, and all that?”
“You should not even speak that name,” Mutex said. “You dishonor it further by mispronouncing it.”
“Aztec isn’t my first language,” she said, grinning. He was not happy that she knew this much about his plans. “Surprised I know about your plans to raise Kermit the Earth-Monster? You shouldn’t leave so many clues lying around. Then again, I’m pretty perceptive, so there’s probably nothing you could have done to keep it a secret.”
“You seem marginally more aware than the fools who run this city,” he said. “I suppose a worm such as you might reasonably feel superior to maggots such as they.”
“Okay, frog-boy,” Marla said. “Keep underestimating me. It’s a recipe for hilarious results. So. You want me to leave the city? We can work something out. I have terms.”
“I am prepared to listen,” Mutex said.
“Marla!” B said. “You can’t negotiate with him! If you don’t stop him—”
“Quiet, B,” Rondeau said, pulling him back. “You really don’t want to get into the middle of this right now.”
“But—” B said.
“Really,” Rondeau said, and B must have believed him, because he went quiet, which was good, since Marla owed him, and didn’t want to have to silence him herself.
“I need the Cornerstone,” Marla said.
“Impossible,” Mutex said flatly.
“I don’t need to take it away forever,” she said. “I just need it to cast one spell, and then I’ll leave.”
“I will not let you near it,” Mutex said. “It is already in use, already serving to anchor the ritual that will return my gods to power. Any spell you cast would disrupt that process. No. The only thing I am willing to offer in this negotiation is your life. Leave the city, and I will spare you, though your heart’s blood would surely do well to fuel my magic.”
Marla laughed. “Afraid not, Mutie. You need a fear-filled heart, and I’m definitely not afraid of you.” She wasn’t, not exactly, though she wasn’t nearly confident enough to attack him head-on right now, not with all those frogs around him. They might be slowed by the low subterranean temperatures here—they were, after all, creatures from the rain forest, despite whatever enhancements Mutex had given them—but they were still lethal.
“Then we are at an impasse,” Mutex said.
“Looks that way. Negotiations broke down. They have a way of doing that when I’m involved. I don’t know why—I’m the most reasonable person I know. Guess you’d better kill me now, huh?”
She expected him to back down, to slink away and return to fight another day. But she’d forgotten the power of zealotry. He came forward again, his limbs blurring with speed. “Get back!” she shouted, and Rondeau and B rushed for the far end of the car while Marla retreated to the far wall opposite the door. The moment Mutex cleared the threshold and entered the train, with just a couple of the frogs sluggishly hopping along in his wake, Marla reversed her cloak.
At this higher level of consciousness, Mutex was visibly much slower than he had been at Dalton’s, probably no faster than Marla herself. He was surrounded by an aura of strangely flickering ruby light, and the distantly articulate part of Marla’s brain recognized flickering shapes like hummingbirds in his aura. That was it, the way this faster-than-the-eye magic of his worked. He had a coterie of the returned dead in the form of hummingbirds, and he’d tapped into their magics to give himself the same properties a hummingbird had, the ridiculous accelerated metabolism, the tremendous speed and maneuverability. But it probably took a lot out of him. A hummingbird had to eat, what, several times its own weight each day, just to fuel those metabolic processes? Mutex was running out of energy, slowing down, and while Marla wasn’t certain she could take him, she was reasonably confident that he couldn’t take her.
That was it for rational thought. After that, she gave in fully and became the beast, something that ripped, and tore, and slashed, and gutted. She attacked Mutex with claws of spectral form but formidable sharpness, and he dodged, and struck, but while he was as fast as she, he lacked her savagery, her utterly instinctual grasp of the best places to strike and the best methods to wound. Mutex fought too rationally, and he was simply no match for her under these circumstances, and he retreated.
Unfortunately, while clothed in the purple, Marla lacked anything resembling an instinct for self-preservation. This was a state akin to the berserker madness that Viking warriors had once invoked, and so when Mutex fled she pursued him from the relative safety of the train. Mutex scooped up handfuls of tiny frogs and flung them at her. She batted the frogs away, but the poison still burned her. The pain did not slow her, only enraged her further, and she continued rushing for Mutex, much to his surprise—clearly he’d expected her to fall, dead from the poison. The red aura around him intensified, deepening almost to the color of arterial blood, and he raced across the platform, up the stairs in a flash, doubtless emptying whatever reserves of energy he held in his desperate rush to escape.
With her prey gone, Marla raced back into the train, looking for more targets, and she saw Rondeau and B. Before she could attack them, the tiny coherent compartment of Marla’s mind wrested control of the cloak and reversed it back to white—at which point she collapsed to the ground in horrendous pain. The alien intelligence asserted itself, but uselessly, because it could not move her body—her flesh felt as if it had been etched with acid. Then the soothing coolness of the cloak’s beneficent white side spread through her, and it began the process of healing her wounds. She sweat profusely, and where the drops of sweat hit the carpet, they burned through the fabric to the metal below. Her teeth chattered, and she shivered, aware of Rondeau and B bending over her, but the awareness was distant, as the cloak sealed her off from the pain of the poison leaving her body. And this was from the barest touch of only a few of the frogs, just glancing contact as she brushed them aside. If Mutex had lured her farther onto the platform, into the midst of the frogs, the poison would surely have overwhelmed even her cloak’s ability to cope with the pain and damage. As it was, she wondered if she would survive this much of the poison, but even that concern had a detached quality, as the alien intelligence maintained control, trying to hold on through the pain.
Finally she rolled over, and vomited weakly, and then B and Rondeau were helping her to her feet. Normally after the cloak healed her, Marla fe
lt no ill effects at all, only a ferocious hunger, and while she was hungry now, she also ached, deep in her muscles. She thought Bethany had a good idea when it came to eating people, and she considered the possibility of snapping B’s neck and eating his flesh raw, perhaps taking in some of his seer’s power in the process. She reached for B’s throat to choke him and throttle him down, but her muscles trembled, and the best she could manage was a weak clutching at his shoulders.
Then Marla shuddered and pushed at the alien intelligence, and though it resisted her ferociously, it couldn’t hold on against her steady mental pressure, and Marla was herself again, although weak and famished.
The frogs hadn’t killed her, but it had been a near thing—which was fortunate, in a way, since if she’d been less damaged the cloak’s alien intelligence would have succeeded in killing B and eating a fair bit of him before Marla could reassert control.
She couldn’t face Mutex’s frogs again, not without some protection—there was no reason to think she’d be this lucky twice. She’d known that before, recognized the threat the frogs posed, but now that their poison had scalded her, she understood it more deeply, and knew they weren’t a problem she could simply improvise around.
Bethany moaned and opened her eyes. “What?” she said, blearily.
Marla shook off Rondeau and B, who were still holding her arms, as if afraid she would fall down again. Marla drew her dagger and knelt, shakily, beside Bethany. She felt around in her own mind as if probing at a loose tooth with her tongue, feeling for some shred of the alien intelligence, but it was gone—she was choosing to do this on her own, with her humanity intact, for what that was worth. Marla tried to think of something to say. It took a moment, during which time Bethany’s eyes struggled to focus. “I enjoyed talking with you,” Marla said finally. “Under other circumstances, I think we might have been friends. I understand why you did what you did. I understand the lure of power. But you would have sacrificed your city, would have let Mutex wreck everything and kill everyone in this place you’re supposed to protect, and though I don’t give a shit what happens to San Francisco, you should. It’s your city. I could forgive you for trying to kill me. I’ve forgiven people for worse. But you didn’t just betray me, you betrayed your city, and that can never be forgiven.”
