Poison Sleep

by T. A. Pratt

  “Not exactly utopian, is it?”

  “I’m practical,” Marla said. “If you know nothing else about me, you should know that.”

  “So why the conflict between the two gangs? Philosophical differences?”

  “Eh. The Honeyed Knots are more badass, much more exclusive. They also like face tattoos and body piercings and crap like that. The Four Tree Gang outnumbers them by about three to one, but they’re mostly wannabes and never-weres. If they didn’t have the numbers advantage, they’d get splattered. I’d rather keep some parity between them, though. Letting them scuffle with each other keeps them from bothering me. The Four Tree Gang is encroaching on Honeyed Knot territory lately, hence the increased hostilities. Hamil’s been spreading the word that you’re my new apprentice, so no one should suspect you’re a lovetalker. You’ll be charming and get them to chill the hell out—”

  “Evening,” drawled a voice from the shadows. Marla had her night-eyes on, and she could see the man standing there, holding a gun, perfectly well. “Be nice, and nobody will get hurt.”

  “Oh, dear,” Joshua said, and the man in the shadows stood a little straighter and peered at him, mouth hanging open. Joshua had that effect on people.

  “Well, not nobody,” Marla said. “I mean, you’ll get hurt.” She was glad of the opportunity to show off. She’d have to be careful not to kill the guy, just disarm him and make him beg for mercy a little.

  “It’s impolite to startle people,” Joshua said. “And a gun? Very tacky.”

  “I—ah—”

  “Say you’re sorry,” Joshua said firmly.

  “Sorry,” the mugger said. “Really, sorry. I didn’t know—I mean, if I’d seen…” He trailed off. Joshua stepped forward, took the gun from him, and tossed it over his shoulder, a move he executed with such great grace and panache that Marla wanted to applaud. “Move along, now,” Joshua said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder.

  “Maybe I’ll see you later?” the mugger said hopefully, staring at Joshua wide-eyed.

  “If you’re good, perhaps.”

  The mugger nodded and hurried away, looking back over his shoulder at Joshua as he went.

  “Very smooth,” Marla said. “I’m impressed.”

  “Strangely, Marla, I find myself eager to impress you. I’m not sure why.”

  “Maybe because I’m not easily impressed. By the way, next time you throw a gun over your shoulder, you should make sure it’s not loaded. Or at least that the safety’s on. It could have gone off when it hit the ground, and getting killed by a richochet would have spoiled the effect.” She found it hard to criticize him, but forced herself to do so. He deserved it. His charms were tremendous, but she was aware of them, and surely that gave her some power to resist?

  “Of course. You’re right. I don’t have much experience with guns.”

  “Let’s go talk to the gangs, shall we? Follow my lead, nod and smile when I signal you, and smooth things over if they start to bitch and snarl, okay?”

  “I am yours to command,” he murmured.

  Zealand followed the Bentley from a fair distance, troubled by the break in Marla’s routine. She usually worked all night in her office, going to her flophouse apartment in the wee hours, presumably to sleep. But now she was out, with a stranger, headed who-knows-where. When they parked and headed into the warren of warehouses he decided to sit and wait. He wouldn’t be able to follow unobtrusively on foot, and they’d come back for the car eventually, when they finished whatever business they had here.

  He cursed. The Bentley shimmered and vanished. More magic. Probably just a theft deterrent, but he hated the uncertainty of dealing with sorcerers.

  About twenty minutes later, a tree appeared in the center of the street, not fifteen feet from Zealand’s car, showering blossoms to the pavement. Something long, dark, and oddly jointed slithered down from the branches and paused on the ground, lifting an angular head and looking at the car. Zealand turned on his headlights, and the thing scurried away into the shadows before he could get a good look, though there was something horribly asymmetrical about its movements. The tree’s branches waved, as if in a wind, and then, abruptly, the tree disappeared.

  “Magic,” Zealand muttered. He doused his headlights and checked to make sure all his doors were locked.

  “Not bad,” Marla said after the meeting broke up. She and Joshua were alone in the big, drafty warehouse, sitting side by side on some splintered wooden pallets. Marla resisted the urge to scoot even closer to him. He smelled amazing, like honey and vanilla and sweat. “You played them like cheap violins.” The Four Tree Gang had agreed to withdraw to the limits of their old territory, in exchange for right of free passage through certain areas controlled by the Honeyed Knots. Marla could have forced them to make the agreement with threats and verbal bludgeoning, but the peace would never have held. Under Joshua’s influence, though, the gang leaders had actually shaken hands before leaving, something unheard of in Marla’s experience.

  “I’m happy to have helped. So I passed the test?”

  Marla laughed. “These guys were kittens. Pretty soon you’ll be dealing with tigers. The leading sorcerers are cranky, egotistical, and a little bit psychopathic. All necessary qualities in a top-notch sorcerer, of course, but it does make them hard to wrangle. Those negotiations are going to be a bitch. But, yeah, you did well enough that I’m willing to toss you in the tiger pit and see how you fare.”

  Joshua yawned, and Marla wanted to kiss his mouth. “Are we done for the night, then?”

  “Need your beauty sleep?”

  “This face doesn’t happen by accident,” Joshua said dryly.

  “Come on, then. I’ve got a few hours of work left in me, but I’ll give you a lift back to the club and send you on your way.” She wanted to invite him up to her office for a nightcap, but it wouldn’t do to look too eager. If he asked her if he could stay, though, maybe she’d allow herself to grudgingly consent….

  They stepped out of the warehouse, into the alleyway, and Marla stumbled, her sense of balance deserting her entirely. She fell into Joshua, who exclaimed in surprise and then caught her—but a moment later he disappeared, and she completed her fall, sprawling on—

  The cobblestones? “Oh, hell,” she said, rising, the ringing in her ears subsiding. She was back in Genevieve’s world, sunlit and warm, surrounded by dozens of orange trees heavy with fruit, a whole orchard growing unaccountably up from rounded cobblestones. The branches rustled, though there was no wind, and something like an ambulatory spinal column with too many legs and a head like a wedge dropped from a branch and hissed at her. Marla drew her dagger of office—she always went armed to gang situations—and crouched. “Come on, then, you slithery bastard.” Abruptly, the light vanished, and it was suddenly cold.

  “Marla!” Joshua said. “Where did these trees come from?”

  She was back in Felport, among the warehouses. But the trees—and the slithery thing—from Genevieve’s dream world had come with her. This was bad. Getting infected with Genevieve’s dreamsickness was trouble enough, but now the woman’s nightmares were popping up in Felport spontaneously?

  The slithering thing ran back up the tree, apparently as freaked out as Marla was by the change of venue. Joshua hurried to her side, and she opened her mouth to warn him away, but it was too late. Sunlight reappeared. “What’s happening?” Joshua said, bewildered, and Marla felt an overwhelming desire to protect him. “You just vanished, and now…?”

  “I think we just accidentally hopped on a freight elevator to dreamland.”

  “Does this mean—I’m infected? Like you were afraid would happen?”

  “Well…” She gestured. “Not necessarily. Look at all the bits of trash scattered among the trees. I think anything that happened to be in the vicinity when the trees transitioned back to the dream world got swept up with them. Langford warned me that might happen.”

  “We’ll go back, though, right?” He shrugged out
of his coat, and Marla followed suit.

  “I’ll get us back,” she said firmly. The trees began to shiver again, all of them, and Marla wondered how many segmented nasty things lived in this grove. “Better to move on, though. There’s stuff here that won’t succumb to your charms, I don’t think. Unless you’ve got a special rapport with monsters?”

  “Only people. Dogs don’t even like me.”

  “Come on,” Marla said, grabbing his hand—thrilled at the excuse to touch him—and pulled him away from the trees, toward cobblestoned hills.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Higher ground, so we can see…anything there is to see.” They went up the hill. Marla glanced nervously back at the grove, but whatever lived there seemed content to stay. “All right,” she said when they reached the hilltop, trying to figure out what the hell to do next.

  A decision that became even more complicated when she looked down the other side of the hill and saw a dozen ordinaries clutching one another, terrified. Men, women, and children, from the well dressed to the ragged, sat in a huddled mass beneath the burned remnants of a gazebo. “Oh, fuck,” Marla said, and one of the people—a woman in a nurse’s uniform—approached her, coming warily up the hill.

  “Who are you? I don’t remember you from the hospital.”

  “Hospital?” Marla said. None of the people down there looked particularly ill or hurt, just scared.

  The nurse frowned. “Yes, Felport General. That’s where we were.”

  Marla nodded slowly. “Did you, ah, happen to see a woman with light brown hair, kind of weird violet eyes…”

  The nurse began nodding. “She came into the waiting room, talking to herself, bothering people, grabbing their hands, and I went to talk to her…I think I fainted. I woke up here, and these others…they were all in the waiting room, too. What’s happening? Can you help us?”

  Marla wasn’t sure what to say. These were ordinaries. How could she begin to explain?

  Then Joshua stepped forward, and the nurse only had eyes for him. “It’s all right, dear,” he said gently. “We’ll help. Why don’t you introduce me to everyone?”

  “Joshua,” Marla said, questioningly.

  “I’ll keep them calm,” he said. “And you’ll figure out how to get us home. Yes?”

  Marla couldn’t disappoint him. “Of course.”

  Joshua went down among the people, and they all turned their faces toward him like flowers toward the sun. He was gentle, he was kind, he soothed them, he told them everything would be all right. In a few moments he had them laughing, telling their stories, smiling, convinced this was something like an adventure. Religions formed around people like him. He glanced up the hill at Marla, and she jumped a little, startled by the directness of his gaze. If she wasn’t careful, she’d become a worshipper, too. “I’ll be back,” she called, and went back down toward the orange grove.

  Escaping this dream world—let alone leading innocents back to Felport—wasn’t in Marla’s power, but she couldn’t let Joshua down, not after he’d proven himself. Now that she wasn’t in his immediate presence, his supernatural attractiveness was lessened, but she still liked him, he was brave and good-hearted, and from disarming muggers to helping refugees he’d proven himself tonight. This morning, she’d expected to meet a callow selfish spoiled brat, but Joshua was more than that. She wanted him to like her. She wanted him to admire her. Which meant fixing this mess.

  She skirted the orange grove and walked on, finding an iron park bench. If this place really was made from Genevieve’s mind, she probably wasn’t far off.

  Marla sat on the bench. “Genevieve,” she said. “Could I have a word?”

  “You’ve been here before,” Genevieve said, appearing on the other end of the bench. “Haven’t you?”

  “There are some scared people over there,” Marla said. “They don’t belong here. Can you take them back?”

  “Back? People? What?”

  “You know what it’s like to be afraid,” Marla said. “Do you want to make other people afraid?”

  Genevieve began humming to herself.

  “Will you walk with me?” Marla said.

  Genevieve frowned at her. “I will walk,” she said, rising, and set off toward the orange grove. Marla hurried after her. “Nasty things there,” Genevieve said, gesturing at the trees. “Used to be pretty, but ugly things get in everywhere, everywhere.”

  “There are some people I want you to see,” Marla said, not touching Genevieve, but guiding her with gestures to the top of the hill. “See? Those people don’t belong here.” None of the people below looked up, all of them enthralled with Joshua, who seemed to be telling a story.

  “I’m tired,” Genevieve said.

  “Damn it, don’t you understand me?” Marla said. “Those people. They need to get back to Felport. Do you understand me?”

  “Is it cold?” Genevieve said. “Are you cold?”

  “It’s not cold, it’s—”

  But then it was cold, bitterly, and the hill was gone. Marla fell several feet to the sidewalk, barely managing to land in a crouch that made her ankles pop but, fortunately, didn’t do anything worse than jar her bones. They were on the snow-covered quad of Adler College, about a mile from the hospital where these people had started out.

  “It’s okay!” Joshua shouted above the general hubbub. “Everyone, come to me, it’s okay, we’re back now! I told you we’d be safe!”

  For the moment, Marla thought. Genevieve was gone, but she’d touched these people, and that meant they might vanish back into her dream world at any time. Marla wished she could believe she’d convinced Genevieve to bring them all back, but talking to her had been like talking to a river. If the woman wasn’t stopped, somehow contained, Marla could have a serious state of emergency on her hands. She opened her cell and called Hamil, who answered sleepily.

  “Send four or five cars,” she said. “And a few doses of that special forget-me-lots potion. I’ve got some short-term memories to blur here.”

  “Is this about Genevieve?” Hamil said.

  “The lady gets around,” Marla agreed, and told him where they were.

  “You were pretty good back there,” Marla said, when she and Joshua were alone again in the back of a car driven by one of Hamil’s employees. The refugees had been sent back to the hospital with confused memories, already filling in their harrowing experience with plausible inventions—low blood sugar, fainting spells, sleepwalking. Ordinaries were good at covering over the cracks in reality.

  Marla wanted to snuggle up to Joshua, but she kept herself on her side of the car with an effort. It had been easier to resist his charms when she thought he was probably a bastard, but he’d come through tonight, and now the magical attraction was joined by genuine admiration. The whole point of lovetalkers was that they made you love them, but Marla now thought Joshua was probably worthy of love.

  “You were wonderful, too,” he said. “You brought us back from that place. I’m not ashamed to say I was frightened.”

  “I did promise you working for me would be interesting.”

  “I can’t say you lied.”

  “Want to get breakfast with me tomorrow?” Marla said, keeping her tone businesslike. “We can go over the game plan for the big negotiations.”

  “I’d be delighted to dine with you. But…don’t you have to deal with the strange woman and her plague of dreams?”

  Marla shrugged. “I’ve got people working on it. A crazy wandering sorcerer isn’t a good thing, but she’s not actively malevolent. I’ll handle it. I’ve had worse problems.”

  Joshua shook his head. “I don’t know how you can stay so calm.”

  “All part of the job,” she said. The driver stopped in front of the club. “Sleep well, Joshua. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And I’m sure I’ll see you in my dreams before then.

  Two days later, Hamil dropped by the office to see her. “My spies have further reports of strange manifestation
s. Orange trees, mostly, where they shouldn’t be. Is Langford any closer to finding Genevieve?”

  “I called him yesterday, he said he’s working on it. Don’t worry. Mysteriously appearing orange trees aren’t the end of the world.” Marla watched the clock on her desk. In half an hour, she was having lunch with Joshua. They’d had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together the day before, and the more time she spent with him, the more fun she had. He had a wealth of amazing stories, and he’d traveled all over the world, seen so many things, met so many people. No doors were closed to him, of course, and Marla could see why. Even if he hadn’t been a lovetalker, he would have still been charming, beautiful, funny—

  “Marla, are you listening to me?” Hamil said.

  She frowned. The clock said two minutes had passed. Had she really just spent two minutes staring into space thinking about Joshua? Well, so what if she had? Was there anything better to think about? Didn’t she deserve some happy thoughts? “Of course I’m listening,” she snapped.

  Hamil scowled. “You were supposed to have lunch with the Chamberlain yesterday, and she told me you canceled. And you missed the afternoon meeting with Granger, about planting trees inhabited by dryads in the freeway medians to help combat car emissions. And I note the pile of expense reports on your desk is still there, untouched. Then there’s the matter of Viscarro’s unauthorized tunneling toward the park—”

  Marla held up her hand. “Enough. You don’t have to tell me my job. I just got busy.”

  “So busy you had lunch with Joshua at the Green Apple yesterday?”

  Marla drew herself up. “You spying on me now? I think you’re confused about the nature of our relationship.”

  “Hardly spying. I do own the restaurant, you know, Marla, and the maître d’ knows you by sight. He said you looked like a woman in love.”