Do Better: Marla Mason Stories

by T. A. Pratt

  The dog was pulling out the ghost, and in the process ripping Rondeau’s spirit from his body.

  Marla didn’t think. She took a few short running steps and kicked the pale dog in the head as hard as she could. The moment her foot connected, she was wracked by remorse—how could she have done such a thing, kicked a poor, sweet dog? The intensity of her guilt made her double over, gasping.

  The dog spun off Rondeau with the force of Marla’s kick, releasing the entwined spirits, which snapped back into Rondeau’s body. The dog hit the carpet, rolled, then gained its feet. Marla expected it to growl and snarl, but it only lolled its tongue, wagged its tail, and raced off down the stairs.

  But it would be back. Supernatural messengers weren’t the quitting kind.

  Sweeney could have escaped at any time during the confusion, but he was still there, half-smiling. “Damnedest thing I’ve seen all week,” he said. “Wish you hadn’t kicked the dog, though. I liked it.”

  Marla drew her dagger, bared her teeth, and rushed at Sweeney.

  He died like anyone. Nothing special. But she had Rondeau (who was sweating, shaking, and clearly frightened by his ordeal) wrap the body in a blanket. They would hold onto Sweeney’s corpse for a while, to make sure it didn’t stand up and walk away.

  Marla called Hamil, and told him to send a car. She sat on the couch smoking a clove cigarette, looking at the wrapped bundle on the living room floor. Trying not to look at Rondeau. He didn’t speak, either, just sat shivering in a chair.

  Marla’s cell phone rang, once. The driver was here. She picked up the wrapped corpse and slung it over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “Marla,” Rondeau said, voice trembling. “That thing... what happened with the dog...”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” she said, more disturbed by the whole thing than she wanted to admit. Marla wasn’t particularly good when it came to seeing around corners, and she didn’t see a clear-cut way to solve this. That made her nervous.

  And, somewhere out there, the dog was waiting. Wagging its tail.

  “He’s quite dead,” Hamil said, tugging the blanket back over Sweeney’s face. He frowned at Marla. “You executed him rather... enthusiastically, didn’t you?”

  Marla sighed. “I wasn’t in a very businesslike frame of mind. But he’s dead, really dead, and that’s what matters.”

  “Yeah, all our problems are solved,” Rondeau said morosely. “Except for the dog that’s after me.”

  “The dog is only a symptom of your larger problem,” Hamil said. “From what Marla described, this is more than a simple haunting—this ghost is parasitic. This is a possession-in-progress. The ghost is devouring your spirit, fusing with it... and once the process is finished, you will be gone. Only the ghost will remain, in your body. Every minute you wear the suit, the possession progresses a little farther. I’m sure it’s very difficult work for the ghost, taking you over this way... that probably explains the periods of dormancy. It’s psychic recuperation time.”

  It also explains Rondeau’s recent fascination with flashy cars and big band music, Marla thought. The ghost was already partly assimilated, its personality bleeding into Rondeau’s own.

  “Already the ghost is so entwined with you that the dog cannot drag one away without taking the other,” Hamil said.

  “I should’ve never bought this suit,” Rondeau said. “But it was only four dollars! And once I put it on... hell, I could tell it was haunted, but I looked so sharp! I figured, it’s just a ghost, it’s harmless, it’s a psychic burp, an aftertaste, an echo. Nothing to worry about. I mean...” He looked at his shoes, frowning. “I haven’t taken this suit off since I got it. I haven’t showered in a week. I thought I just... liked the suit a lot. But now I think I was compelled to keep wearing it, just like I was compelled to be nice to that dog.”

  “So take the suit off now,” Marla said. “Arrest the process.”

  “I doubt it will come off so easily,” Hamil said.

  Rondeau nodded. “It’s like its part of my skin.”

  Marla touched her dagger’s hilt. “So we cut the suit off.”

  Hamil shook his head. “Won’t work. Unless you’re prepared to take the skin with it.”

  Marla considered that. “Last resort,” she said finally. “Other options?”

  “I’m looking into it,” Hamil said. The expression on his face told Marla that he had ideas—just nothing he wanted to mention in front of Rondeau.

  “Go lie down in the spare bedroom, Rondeau,” Marla said. “Get some rest. We’ll keep an eye out for the dog.”

  “Go away and let the grown-ups discuss things,” he said, with just a trace of bitterness. “Got it.”

  “So,” Marla said once Rondeau was gone. “Give me the bad news.”

  “Your knife,” Hamil said. “It’s... special, as you know. I realize you largely limit its usage to assaults on the material, but under the right circumstances, the knife can also be used to cut the immaterial... even the flesh of the soul.”

  “So you’re saying...”

  “You can cut the ghost out of Rondeau.”

  Marla stood up. “Hell, let’s do it!” Seeing his dour expression, she sat back down. “What’s the catch?”

  “Think of the ghost as a cancer, and of Rondeau’s spirit as healthy tissue. It’s an imperfect analogy, but it will do. Imagine trying to cut away the cancer. Part of the tumor is easy to excise, and comes away cleanly. Sometimes, though, you have to cut away some healthy tissue along with the cancer. And sometimes...” He shook his head. “Sometimes, there’s no way to cut out the cancer, because it’s spread too far, and can’t be removed without destroying vital parts of the healthy tissue. Without killing the patient.”

  Marla nodded. “So I can cut away some of the ghost, but not all?”

  “Yes. Fortunately, unlike a cancer, the remaining parts of the ghost—those you can’t cut away—will not continue to grow or spread. But those parts left behind will have an effect. A few of the ghost’s memories, perhaps, or the ghost’s taste in food, or movies, or sex. Or larger personality traits may carry over. And in the course of cutting away the ghost, you may unavoidably remove pieces of Rondeau’s spirit, slice away sections of his memory or personality...” Hamil shook his head again. “It’s an ugly business.”

  “What do we need to get started?”

  Hamil waved his hand. “Herbs, oils, tinctures. We must create a charged atmosphere, one in which you can see and interact with the spirits. I’ll get you a list of what we need.”

  “Do it. I’ll go get the ingredients. You keep an eye out for the dog.” She looked toward the spare bedroom, her gaze softening. “And try to make Rondeau comfortable, as best you can.”

  The best brujeria in the city had no fixed address. Hypotheses and explanations for that fact abounded—some speculated that the owner suffered under a curse that made her endlessly restless. Others said the owner was pursued by one of the infamous Slow Assassins, and that the killer had drawn close enough that if she stayed in the same place for more than three or four days, he would find and kill her in her sleep. Marla suspected there was some magic involved—that the brujeria’s impermanence added to its potency. In those stories about magic shops, weren’t they always changing locations, appearing and disappearing without warning? There had to be something to that. Old stories almost always began in the mud of truth.

  Today the brujeria was located in one of the huge old sewer pipes by the bay. The tunnel was big enough to ride a horse or motorcycle through, but as usual, Marla walked. It didn’t take her very long to reach the shop, even though she was traveling by foot; she knew all the shortcuts.

  Her boots squished in a trickle of water as she walked down the dark sewer pipe. When the river flooded, this pipe carried the overflow off into the bay, but it was relatively dry, now. Marla approached the light at the end of the tunnel, where the brujeria was.

  Wind chimes tinkled in the breeze, dangling from the roof
of the pipe over the brujeria’s wooden shelves and tables. A man poked through the leaves and fronds piled on one of the tables, his back turned to Marla. The owner of the shop, a woman called Cecily, bowed slightly when Marla approached her. Cecily’s face was painted kabuki white, the lips sharply outlined in red. She wore a sky-blue silk robe. Cecily did not speak. She never did.

  Marla reached into her pocket and took out the list Hamil had made. She passed it to Cecily, who looked at it thoughtfully, then nodded and turned to a shelf filled with jars.

  Marla looked at the other customer’s back. She wondered if it was anyone she knew. There were plenty of apprentices, amateurs, and cantrip-throwers in the city that she didn’t recognize; probably it was no one she knew, though even the lowest of the sorcerous kind would recognize her.

  This guy had a nice suit, at least—

  Marla narrowed her eyes. She tapped the man on the shoulder.

  He turned, holding a bundle of herbs in one hand. When he saw Marla, he stumbled back against the table.

  It was Sweeney. Here. Alive and well, even though Marla had left his body at Hamil’s an hour ago.

  Marla grabbed him by the throat, choking off his smile. “Cecily,” she said. “Get me rope.”

  Sweeney’s eyes widened.

  “I’m not going to kill you this time,” Marla said. “Not right away. I’m going to figure out what the hell your game is first. I might hurt you, to make you talk, but it’ll be a while before I open your throat again. It never seems to work anyway.”

  Cecily brought her a coil of rope that, upon closer examination, proved to be a supple vine. “Tie his hands behind him,” Marla said, and Cecily complied, then bound his feet as Marla instructed. Marla shoved Sweeney down, leaving him to lie on his side by the trickling water, wetness staining his suit. He whimpered. She kicked him, rather gently, all things considered, and his noise subsided.

  “Get that stuff together,” Marla said to Cecily, and she did so, her face completely serene, though that may have been an effect brought on by the white makeup. Marla poked through the jars on the shelves until Cecily tapped her on the shoulder. She handed Marla a brown bag with the top rolled down, and a piece of paper—a neatly itemized bill. She’d even charged Marla for the vine used to bind Sweeney, but it was a reasonable price, so Marla didn’t complain.

  Marla tucked the bag under her arm and bent to pick up Sweeney.

  That’s when she noticed that he was dead. Sweeney was face-down in the trickle. Somehow, he’d managed to drown in an inch of running water. He’d rolled over onto his stomach and stuck his face in the flow. That couldn’t have happened by accident. That took effort. Marla said she wasn’t going to kill him, so he’d killed himself.

  He still clutched the bundle of herbs in his bound hands. Marla checked her bill, and saw that Cecily had charged her for those, too. Fair enough. Let Hamil have a look at the herbs. Maybe they were a clue.

  The two dead bodies of Todd Sweeney lay together on Hamil’s long library table, one wrapped in a sheet, the other still bound with vines.

  “Most odd,” Hamil said finally. He took the herbs from the second Sweeney’s hands. “I’ll find out what these are.” He nodded to the bodies. “And I’ll find out what those are, too. I’ll get Langford to do an autopsy.”

  “And in the meantime...” Marla said.

  “Yes. Rondeau. I’ve set up the ritual space, the circle is primed. Once Rondeau enters the perimeter, you’ll be able to see his spirit, and the ghost’s. Cut carefully.”

  “Will there be... I don’t know... any mess?”

  Hamil smiled grimly. “Not even ectoplasm. Though if the knife slips, and you cut his body, Rondeau will certainly bleed.”

  “What will happen to the ghost, once I slice it out?”

  “It should stay with the suit. You’re only cutting it away from Rondeau, not out of the place of its original haunting. Be sure to strip the suit off Rondeau right away. The ghost will begin re-attaching itself to his spirit very quickly.”

  “Okay. I’ll get started.

  “Watch out for the dog, Marla. Your cutting will almost certainly excite the ghost, and that could draw the dog’s attention. Can you handle it?”

  “As long as I can kick it before I start wanting to snuggle it.”

  Hamil stood. “I suggest drugging Rondeau, knocking him out. Having someone carve on your soul is probably quite unpleasant, if you’re conscious to experience it.”

  Rondeau rested on the library table, his suit wrinkled and more than a little rank from constant wear.

  Marla lit the candles and the bowls of herbs and whispered the incantations, words that seemed to twist in her mouth and wriggle off her tongue. Marla washed her hands in a bowl of wood alcohol and spring water, reminded of the scrying bowl at Langford’s. She’d intended to ask for a way to effectively kill Todd Sweeney, but she hadn’t gotten the opportunity. She still had to figure out how to get rid of Sweeney permanently, but saving Rondeau was more important.

  When Marla said the last words, the light in the library changed, became crystalline; light with edges, with texture. As though Marla were looking at the world through a sheet of slightly prismatic glass.

  And she could see spirits.

  Her own, clinging to her skin like a pale aura. Rondeau’s, which hovered a few inches above his body, drawn out because he rested at the focal point of the spell. And the ghost, all tangled up with Rondeau’s spirit, melted into his chest.

  The plants had spirits, too, and a few of the books on the shelves. Marla wondered if Hamil knew about those.

  She washed her dagger in the bowl, then held up the blade and tilted it. The knife didn’t have a spirit. It only glinted, wet and sharp.

  The ghost muttered and shifted, then melted into Rondeau’s spirit a bit more deeply.

  Marla put the knife against the ghost’s neck and felt resistance. She grinned. This would work. With a steady pressure, she bore down on the blade. It was like cutting through a stomach, the resistance of muscle, but nothing bone-hard, nothing too unyielding.

  The ghost’s eyes sprang open and rolled toward Marla. It scrabbled at the knife, and its fingers sheared away when they touched the blade. The severed fingers fell on the suit and melted into the fabric. The ghost swung its other hand at Marla, but she felt nothing—the hand just passed through her. For the ghost, only the knife was tangible. Still, it writhed, distracting her. She bit her lip and cut slowly, carefully slicing at the place where Rondeau’s spirit and the ghost were joined. At least she couldn’t hear the ghost, and Rondeau was unconscious, unaware of what she was doing to him.

  Fifteen minutes later, perhaps halfway through the surgery, Marla heard the “tick-tick” of claws on the wooden floor.

  She turned. The white dog stood on the floor, tail wagging, exuding benevolence and adorability.

  But now, for the first time, Marla could see the dog’s spirit.

  Dark and looming, the dog’s spirit was a vaguely defined manlike shape with eyes like distant stars and long, multi-jointed arms that terminated in grasping fingers, the digits sprouting a profusion of hooks and barbs. Its squat, powerful legs ended in blunt feet with toes like ice-axes, feet that would dig in and not be moved. That was the essence of this creature, then—a beast of function, something made to grasp things and drag them away.

  The dog filled Marla’s head with summertime and protective love—she couldn’t hurt it. Even the memory of kicking the dog oppressed her, filled her with twisting snakes of guilt.

  But the dog’s spirit—that was monstrous and terrifying, and Marla could focus on it, the claws, the feet, the squat body. Never mind that it was part of the dog, the essence of the dog. She could keep them separate in her mind.

  She could attack the dog’s spirit.

  Marla rushed the dark thing, lashing out with her dagger.

  The dog howled as a great rip appeared in its spirit, spilling darkness like a cloud of ink expelled into water. The
dog turned around quickly, snapping at its own flanks

  —and disappeared, with no fanfare.

  Marla had wounded it, and driven it away.

  She had little doubt that it would return, and that it would be angry.

  Marla finished cutting the ghost off Rondeau intently, quickly. She felt certain she was being watched.

  Rondeau wore a bathrobe and sat sipping tea from a white porcelain cup. He’d been in the shower for nearly an hour, cleaning away the stink from his body. “I feel normal,” he said. “But then, I felt normal when I had the suit on, too, so who knows? But I feel like me.” The suit was on the floor in the corner, a wrinkled pile of purple and gold.

  “Good,” Marla said. They would have to wait to see how much of the ghost was left, and how much of Rondeau she might have accidentally cut away.

  The door opened and Hamil rushed in. “Homunculi!” he said triumphantly. “Duplicate bodies, grown in great yeasty vats of meat!”

  “No shit?” Marla said. “So those bodies weren’t Sweeney at all? Just decoys, copies?”

  Hamil shook his head. “Copies, yes, but not the usual sort, not just stupid doppelgangers. Sweeney’s been moving his mind, his soul, from one body to another.”

  Marla whistled. “That’s insane.”

  “There are dangers and repercussions, yes. The soul can be lost in transit. But even if the transfer goes perfectly, there’s wear. Attrition of the soul. The edges get ground away, the substance of the spirit thins out. Every time Sweeney switches bodies, he loses a little of his humanity. He’ll become more and more monstrous, until one day the thing looking out of Sweeney’s eyes isn’t really Sweeney at all—isn’t even human. But it’s one of the paths to immortality, if you’re stupid enough to follow it.”

  “Doesn’t he need a charm, something to loosen his mind from his body? I didn’t see anything like that on him...”