by T. A. Pratt
“Gods. What the hell else did I miss?”
Marla counted off on her fingers. “Elsie Jarrow became a trickster god. That’s a long story.”
Nicolette whistled. “So that makes two gods who don’t like me much? I must be doing something right.”
Another finger. “My husband, the god of Death, was murdered.” A third. “A new Death arose in his absence, and the New Death... wasn’t very nice. Very fire-and-brimstone, punish-the-sinful-and-everyone-is-sinful, eternal-suffering sort of guy. He tried to wipe my memory and enslave me, among other antisocial activities, so... I tricked him and fed him to the Outsider.”
Nicolette was good at being jaded and affecting boredom, but her eyes widened. “Wait, you let that thing out again? We just trapped it! I mean... subjectively, from my point of view....”
“The Outsider is still imprisoned in his jar under Fludd Park, don’t worry. I opened a very temporary portal and shoved the New Death into it, then slammed the door again. Mr. Beadle says all the seals are still intact, so no worries there.”
“So, what... now you’re a widow twice?”
Three times, technically, since Marla had originally wed her beloved Death’s predecessor, but she just nodded. “Yeah. But I’m not the Bride of Death anymore. I’m... just Death. I gave up my own immortal soul, exchanged it for pure divinity, and bound myself to whatever system governs the rise and fall of gods.” Marla had no idea what happened to gods after they died, except that they didn’t get to go to the afterlife she ruled. Probably they just melted into primordial god-slurry and became raw material for the next generation of gods. Oblivion seemed the most likely destination. Though ideally that wouldn’t happen for a few millennia. She’d seen three death gods die, only one of natural causes, but usually there wasn’t that much turnover in the deity department, and she was hoping things would settle down.
Nicolette scowled. “I became witch queen, and you became god queen? You always have to try and outdo me, don’t you, Marla?”
“You’re young yet. Elsie Jarrow became a god, too. It can happen. You could become a god of... malice, or overalls, or headlessness, or heedlessness, or something.”
“God of decapitations would be pretty sweet. So, what, you’re all single-lady deity nowadays? I thought being god of Death was a partner dance.”
“It is. I’m on the lookout for a mortal consort, actually.”
“Ha. Did you come to ask me? We had so much fun together wandering around the southwest on motorcycle-back that you want to spend eternity with me by your side?”
Marla shook her head. “No. Though I admit, it did cross my mind. We’re... too similar, though, I think. I need someone who’s good with nature magic, someone who has a better instinctive sense of the ebb and flow of the world, someone who’s better at synching up with those eternal cycles, and someone with more compassion, empathy, warmth, all that stuff. You and me, we’re better at breaking stuff. Which is a valuable skill set, but one that’s well represented in hell already.”
“Aw. It would’ve been fun to see you get down on one knee and propose to me, so I could spit on your face and say ‘no.’ Are you going to keep screwing with my shit? Don’t you have better things to do now?”
“You won’t have to deal with me much anymore. I’m planning to withdraw from the mortal world entirely. I shouldn’t even be here now... but I wanted to tie up loose ends.”
“That’s what I am to you? A loose end.”
“Freezing you was a mistake, Nicolette. I admit that. You made something of yourself. You changed your life. You’ll be a good ruler. I shouldn’t have meddled, so now I’m un-meddling.”
“Huh. Tell me, oh wise god of bullshit, what would you do about Perren River? She was never happy with me being in charge, and she’ll be extra unhappy with me kicking her out of the big chair.”
Marla hesitated. “Is this one of those things where I make a suggestion and you do the exact opposite, just to be an asshole to me?”
Nicolette shook her head. “You suck, but you were pretty good at chief-sorcerer-ing. I’m not too proud to take good advice from anybody who’s offering.”
Given that Nicolette had made her old adversary Hamil her consigliere, Marla found that plausible. “I’d put Perren in charge of the most economically depressed parts of the city, and give her a role in youth outreach. Make her a lieutenant and give her lots of autonomy. She’s very grassroots, very community organizer. Play to her strengths. If you do that, I don’t think she’s likely to oppose your ascension.”
“Hmm. Yeah, all right. What happened to Crapsey and Squat?”
“From what I understand, they’re sort of... freelancers... on a long-term contract with Perren. She’s got them doing dirty jobs, as necessary, mostly outside the city. She didn’t really want your most loyal monsters hanging around. I’m sure you can call them back.” Not for the first time, Marla thought of Nicolette’s crew as a sort of dark mirror of her own: Nicolette was an uncompromising sorcerer, ruthless and whimsical where Marla was ruthless and pragmatic. Squat was an ugly funhouse-mirror version of her own omnicompetent servant Pelham, and Crapsey was a psychopathic counterpart to Rondeau—quite literally, since Crapsey was a version of Rondeau from another, far less pleasant branch of the multiverse, stranded in this world through no fault of his own. “I wish you luck, Nicolette. I mean that. I think Felport will flourish under your hand.”
“My original plan was to make the city into a smoking garbage hole, just to hurt your feelings. Then I decided I’d run things better than you ever did, because that would hurt you even more.” She shook her head. “I’ve defined myself for years in opposition to you, Marla. It’s... pretty weird to have something to live for besides spiting you.”
“That’s how you can really defeat me, Nicolette. By not giving a fuck about me anymore.”
“Ha. Right.”
Marla turned and started to go.
Nicolette snapped her fingers. “Whoa whoa whoa. We’re not done here. You stole a year from me. You froze me. You owe me, don’t you think? You’re a goddess, even more of a goddess than you used to be, so how about you grant me a boon?”
Marla turned around slowly. Nicolette would never stop being Nicolette, would she? “You want a boon? Nicolette, your entire existence is a boon. Did you forget Elsie Jarrow cut off your head and threw it into a fish pond in Hawaii? I’m the one who pulled you out. I asked Death to withdraw his influence from you and return your life, despite your lack of a circulatory, muscular, respiratory, or endocrine system. Guess what? Now I’m Death, and I’m the one allowing you to keep walking up and down on the Earth. You’ve got a new body, a flesh-golem for your skullbox to ride around on, and your magic is animating its arms and legs, but my magic is the reason you can still do magic, or do anything at all. How’s that for a boon?”
Nicolette rolled her eyes. “Bitch, please. You know you can’t take my life without killing the whole population of Felport. I Fisher King-ed myself! My health and well-being are tied to the good people of the city with silver threads of sympathetic magic. You can’t kill me without massacring a city, so don’t act like that’s a favor.”
Marla suppressed a smile. True, Nicolette’s spell had tied her fate to those of everyone who’d lived in Felport when she first cast the spell. Some had moved away, or died, but their absence would mean no more to Nicolette than the loss of a nostril hair or a fingernail: the people were part of her, but there were so many of them in the city that they didn’t matter much as individuals. The loss of Nicolette, though, would reverberate through the entire population, her death sending shockwaves along every thread, striking the citizens instantly dead. That’s why Marla had frozen Nicolette into magical stasis instead of simply allowing her to die: she hadn’t figured out a way to spare the people the consequences of their chief sorcerer’s death.
That was back when Marla was half mortal, though. She had a lot more resources now. Marla had visited Nicolette’s frozen form
a while ago, after she became a full deity, and made adjustments to the system. She probably should have thawed Nicolette out then, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. She hadn’t been ready to have a conversation with her most intractable and oldest living enemy. She still wasn’t, but Pelham was right: better to get it over with.
“Check again,” Marla said. “You’re not quite as connected as you used to be.”
Nicolette frowned, and her eyes moved as she traced the magical silver threads emanating from her body out through the ceiling and walls. “Wait. These tethers, they don’t lead to people anymore, they go to... what? What did you do?”
“I disconnected your life from the lives of your people. It was kind of a dangerous system, Nicolette. You’re not invincible. If the Beast of Felport got loose and ate you or something, everybody would have died.”
“I’m still hooked up, though, damn it, I still feel the city!”
Marla nodded. “I’m here in amends-making mode, like I said. I didn’t want to rob you of your magical connection to the city, so I made sure you retained it, just... in different form. Now you can really say ‘Felport c’est moi.’ I connected those strands to more abstract things: the city’s financial health, the quality of the water in the rivers and the air in the skies, the robustness of the electrical grid, the timeliness of the mass-transit system, and so on. When the city prospers, you will, and vice-versa. Pretty much the same as before, just without the chance of accidental mass death. But I also tweaked the spell so that, when you do eventually die, the connections will wither, like dying vines. That way the city won’t experience permanent damage just because you do.”
Nicolette ground her teeth and balled her fists. “That spell was potent, it was ironclad, it was a collaboration with me and Hamil and Beadle, how the hell—”
“What has two thumbs and the powers of a god? Being a god is kind of weirdly restrictive, because you can’t act against your own nature, but it turns out the kind of magic I did on you is within my purview—cities, and even civilizations, can die and be born, so I have a degree of influence over them. Anyway, now you see what I’m saying: I could totally drag you to hell, and instead, I’m keeping you alive. That’s a definite boon. Actually, giving you that whole connection to the city is a pretty great boon, too. I booned the ever-loving shit out of you. You’re welcome. Let’s never talk again.” Marla turned and started toward the nearest shadow.
Nicolette must have amped up her new body’s reflexes and speed way beyond mortal norms, because she came around the desk fast. Marla felt the whoosh of moving air and started to turn, just in time to see a flash of silver and Nicolette’s grin before everything started to spin.
Marla blinked up from the floor, confused by the angle of her vision, and by the sharp line of pain she’d felt drawn across her throat. She tried to get up but her body didn’t respond. After a moment Marla realized why her perception seemed skewed. She was resting at an angle that would have been very uncomfortable... if her head had still been attached to her shoulders. She could still move her eyes, and if she looked to the right, she could just glimpse her body resting a few feet away, severed neck-stump weakly pumping blood.
Nicolette had decapitated her. Well. There was a certain poetic justice in that, given their history.
Nicolette stood over her, holding a curving silver hatchet in her hand. That stupid axe. An artifact of unknown provenance, stolen years ago from the vault of a hoarder sorcerer. Marla’s best guess was that it had once belonged to some moon god or another, that it was literal moonlight hardened by magic. Nicolette had gotten her hands on the axe more than once and felt she had a claim, even if it was the same kind of claim D.B. Cooper had to the money he’d stolen.
Nicolette crouched down beside Marla. “Huh. Look at you, still blinking, nose still twitching. Gods take a while to die, I guess?” She slashed the blade through the air in front of Marla’s face. “I put a little come-to-me spell on this hatchet not long after I conquered Felport, since you kept taking it away from me. Say the magic word, and the axe appears in my hand. Nice, huh? You used to do the same thing with your dagger of office, as I recall.” She pressed the blade against Marla’s cheek and scratched, almost gently, sending a burning line of pain down Marla’s face. “Not a lot of things can hurt a god, but I can.”
Marla opened her mouth, and then realized that speaking would be tricky with no lungs to push air through her vocal system. She’d need to do some magic to conjure a voice, which was slightly tricky without being able to speak or make gestures, so—
Then the problem was moot, because Nicolette kicked Marla’s severed head against the nearest wall and shouted “Goal!”
Two Hits
The assassin came for Bradley while he was teaching his apprentice Marzi McCarty how to breathe underwater. They were in Lake Merritt in Oakland, standing on the silty ground in the deepest part—which was just a hair over ten feet deep, because this was honestly less of a lake and more of a tidal lagoon—watching boats drift by on the surface above, and occasional cormorants diving down to catch and eat swimming things. The water was pretty murky, but Bradley had cast a look-away spell on them anyway, so nobody paddling around in a canoe would look down and see the top of their heads.
Since Bradley and Marzi were both gifted psychics, they’d set up a solid directed telepathic link, and they could talk to each other in real sentences mind-to-mind, which was way better than the emotion-and-image-heavy communication involved in most telepathic links. This was more like talking on a CB radio; the other way was like trying to communicate with flash cards and hand gestures and semaphore flags while tripping on acid.
Marzi’s thoughts were tinged with amusement and mild annoyance. I can’t believe you made me jump in a lake first thing in the morning. There are like five brunch places around here where we could be eating. Think about your choices.
I take your training seriously, young padawan. Marla used to wake me up with a bucket of cold water and miscellaneous screaming. You’ve got it easy. Besides, you have to admit: this spell is pretty cool.
Admitted. Grudgingly. So can I use this spell to breathe in outer space? Marzi had been super obsessed with going to the moon lately. Something about painting lunar landscapes. Who could fathom the mind of an artist?
Bradley said, Nope. We’re actually breathing right now. We’ve basically got gills, so we’re extracting oxygen from the water. There’s no oxygen to extract in vacuum. The whole go-to-space thing is theoretically possible but it’s a totally different set of spells. We’re talking total environmental protections. You have to bring your own air and heat and surface pressure and radiation shielding and everything.
Marzi knelt and picked up a handful of lakebed mud. It’s pretty gross down here, man. Space is way cleaner. I wish I’d worn a wetsuit. And maybe a diving helmet. She was wearing a red one-piece swimsuit, and, incongruously, a leather gun belt with a plastic toy pistol tucked into its holster. She said she always felt better with a gun on her hip. Bradley had on swim trunks and a rash guard, the latter mostly to... guard against rashes. The lake was pretty gross, and bodies of water in the Bay Areas had a tendency to give people swimmer’s itch—and that was just the lakes people were allowed to swim in, which definitely did not include Lake Merritt. He didn’t need to have a gun, a knife, or any other weapons, though. Bradley could make people fall asleep by looking at them, which pretty effectively solved most conflicts.
He waved a floating clump of algae out of his face. Back in the 1800s, Lake Merritt was a tidal marsh, and it was also the city’s sewer. People dumped their crap, like their literal crap, in here, because it was really acidic water, and it broke the crap down quickly, and the bottom feeders ate it up.
Marzi scrunched up her face. We’re breathing poo water? I hate you.
Bradley chuckled, sending up a flurry of bubbles. Nah, the stink was so bad that people in nearby cities complained about it. Mayor Merritt, who had a house on t
he lake, decided the city should clean it up. In the 1860s or ‘70s they dammed up the connection to the bay, redirected the sewage elsewhere, and made the lake all nice and shiny. This is my favorite place in Oakland, I think. Though the view is better above water.
You used to live around here, right? Marzi did a little jump-and-pirouette, twirling lazily in the water, bringing her head within a couple of feet of the surface.
A couple miles north, yeah. My boyfriend and I used to come over here a lot. There’s a great farmer’s market near the eastern shore on Saturdays. I—
Something in his head, a sort of mental klaxon, started squawking, and Marzi’s head whipped around, scanning the murk. Is there... there’s not... something’s down here, B.
I sense it, too. He was highly sensitive to magic—Marzi nearly as much so—and this was some serious magic.
She twisted slowly around, hand on her pistol. Is it another sorcerer? Or some kind of creature?
Bradley shrugged. He thought about the ludicrous local tales of lake cryptids he’d heard over the years. There were some probably apocryphal stories about a swamp monster the native Ohlone tribes had glimpsed in the area centuries prior, when this was just marshy estuary land. There were also scattered contemporary reports of a creature, variously serpentine or amphibious, dubbed “the Oak-ness Monster” by locals, which purportedly fed on turtles and crabs and shrimp and snails. Bradley was almost completely sure there wasn’t any such cryptid, because the odds of something like that living undetected in these shallow waters in a decidedly urban area were vanishingly small... but what if there was something supernatural, something with one foot (or fin) in this world, and the rest of it in another? Some creatures could teleport, or phase in and out of existence, or hide themselves with uncanny stealth. There could even be the ghost of some long-dead creature, now brought into sudden coherence by the presence of Bradley and his natural tendency to amp up the power of anything magical in his vicinity.
