by T. A. Pratt
Zealand gasped, dropping his blades and clutching at his back, then slid off Ch’ang Hao, falling into the sand, blood pouring out of him at a shocking rate.
Marla jumped down, landing in a crouch beside him, then grabbed Zealand by one wrist and the opposite ankle, as they’d discussed. He stared up at her, grimaced, then gave her a wink and a smile.
“Thank you,” she mouthed. She dragged him toward the surf, muttered a charm to give herself a temporary burst of strength, and spun around three times before letting go and hurling his body far out into the sea. Halfway through the arc of descent, the body blurred, Mr. Zealand’s features disappearing, replaced by the vague, doughy, non-specific face that was Gustavus Lupo at rest.
Resting in peace, now, beneath the waves, disappearing with barely a splash. The body would never wash up, either. The shark god Ka’ohu had promised Lupo’s remains would be taken care of by his people. So. Soon to be resting in pieces.
Marla turned back to Ch’ang Hao, who was smaller again—perhaps even smaller than he’d ever been before, in her presence—and sitting on the sand, staring fixedly at his hands in his lap. She walked toward him cautiously, then sat down across from him, not quite close enough for their knees to touch. New fingers were wriggling out of the stumps of his palms, questing like blind worms seeking sustenance.
“I don’t have much in the way of healing magic,” she said, “but I know some people—”
“I will recover,” he said. His chest was spattered with gore from his slashed neck, but his wounds were already closing up. Gods had the best health care plan in the universe. Ch’ang Hao raised his black eyes and fixed his gaze on Marla. “You saved my life.”
She shrugged. “Looks that way.”
“Why? My death would have improved your life.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I gave in to my protective instincts, like an idiot. I guess it’s too late to ask for a do-over?”
He sighed. “I owe you my life, Marla Mason. That is a significant obligation.” The snake god rose. “And it is one I can repay this very moment—one I must repay this very moment—by saving your life.”
She craned her head and looked up at him. “Meaning?”
“Meaning I will not kill you.”
“So does that mean we’re not mortal enemies anymore?”
“I am prepared to consider our past relationship null and void. Let it be as if we have never met.”
“That works for me,” Marla said, and stood up.
Ch’ang Hao looked out at the water, toward the spot where Lupo’s body had vanished. “I assume you planned all this,” he said. “Somehow convinced an associate of yours to die on your behalf.”
“I find that suggestion outrageous and offensive,” she said, with no heat or emphasis at all.
“I’m sure you do. But I am not certain you planned it, and at any rate, it does not matter—my death was at hand, and you saved me. That fact is inescapable. I will take my leave now, Marla Mason. I hope you die, and soon, in some horrible circumstance, undone by your own arrogance.”
“Sure,” she said. “You take care too. And good luck saving the rain forests.”
He walked toward the surf, his body shifting and elongating as he went, until just at the edge of the water he transformed into a twenty-foot-long, deep green sea serpent, slithering beneath the waves, leaving only his bloody robes behind. Marla considered collecting them—the blood of even minor gods had potent magical properties, after all—but she preferred to put all this crap behind her.
She walked along the beach, found the path that wound up a hill, and eventually emerged in a wooded picnic area. Rondeau was there, and Pelham, with a wicker basket of food. They knew her well; she was always hungry after nearly getting killed by ancient deities.
Marla sat down at the wooden table across from them. “Did everything go all right, Mrs. Mason?” Pelham said, piling food on a paper plate and sliding it across to her.
“Everything went according to plan,” Marla said. “Which isn’t exactly the same as ‘all right.’ But I’m not dead, or likely to die in the immediate future.”
“That’s always a relief,” Pelham murmured.
Rondeau pushed a cup of pink lemonade toward her, and lifted his own cup. “To Zealand,” he said.
“To Lupo,” Marla said, and took a sip.
A mongoose edged hesitantly forward from the trees, nose twitching, approaching the table and looking for scraps to steal.
Marla threw an apple at the little beast. Her aim was as good as ever.
Sorcerer’s Honeymoon
I mentioned in the introduction that Marla married the god of Death. It’s a looooong story, told mostly in the novels, but basically: Death, sometimes called the Walking Death because he likes to see the world, is a pretty good guy for a god, and utterly devoted to Marla. She’s deeply in love with him, too, though she doesn’t usually say so out loud, because she’s her. This is the story about their long-overdue honeymoon.
“They did it!” Marla’s husband said, emerging from the little shop and brandishing a round, red cloth cap topped with plastic Mickey Mouse ears. He turned it around to show her the name “Death” embroidered in neat script on the back.
“Huh,” Marla said from a bench, parked in a puddle of shade out of the southern California sun. “I figured they’d refuse to write that, like they do with ‘slut’ or ‘asshole’ or foreign words for ‘grandpa.’ Did you have to poke your godlike fingers into their brains?”
“No, I just told them Death was a proper name—pronounced to rhyme with ‘teeth’—you know, like Peter Wimsey’s middle name. I conjured a driver’s license to prove the point.”
“I’m going to pronounce it that way for the rest of the day, you know.” Wimsey again. She’d gotten him started reading novels so they’d have something ordinary to talk about—a steady stream of conversation on matters cosmic and metaphysical could get a bit exhausting—and he’d devoted himself to mystery novels with a fierceness. He said it was because the entire range of human behavior, from the squalid to the noble, could be spanned within the covers of a good mystery novel, but Marla thought it was because he saw himself in every book that contained a dead body: countless invisible little cameos for Death himself.
But maybe that was unfair. His favorite Wimsey novel was Gaudy Night, after all, which didn’t even have a murder in it; though it did have a lovesick detective plighting his troth to a prickly independent woman who was more than his equal. Marla didn’t have to ponder long to figure out which parts of that book Death found relatable.
“Shall we ride the teacups?” he said, eyes shining with delight. He was absurdly overdressed for Disneyland and this heat, wearing a dark suit of elegant cut, but he still managed to look like an excited kid.
She groaned. “If we must.” She’d dressed more sensibly, in white linen pants and a white shirt, but she was sweating while he was perfectly cool. Of course, his body was an illusory temporary thing, while she was using the corpus she was born with. Hers probably had more sweat glands than his model. “Why did you want to go to Disneyland anyway? When you said you wanted to honeymoon I was thinking beaches, drinks with rum in them, horseback rides at sunset. All of which I hate, by the way, but at least they’d make sense thematically.”
He lifted his chin. “I am reliably informed,” he said, “that this is the happiest place on Earth.”
She snorted. “Fair enough.” She followed her husband toward the teacups, passing crowds of laughing, scowling, bickering, howling, enchanted children... and one child of about five who wasn’t exhibiting any of those behaviors, but just standing by a low fence, staring into empty space, as his mother crouched before him and said “Honey? Honey, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, mommy.” The boy’s voice was pure affectless monotone.
Weird. But the kid was probably just overstimulated and shutting down for a while out of self defense. Marla had only been in the park for forty
-five minutes and she was already craving a dark room to lie down in. But then Death turned his head, and flashed her a grin as bright as a diamond, and she thought, I guess if it makes him happy, I can suffer through.
Marla had married Death in a ritual, as part of a spell to work great magic, and had expected the marriage to be entirely symbolic in nature. But, as it turned out: nope. As the Bride of Death she had powers, and responsibilities... and a husband who wanted a real relationship. The whole situation was pretty weird, but the guy was starting to grow on her. (By “guy” she meant “personification of the natural processes of death and entropy, ruler of the afterlife, and overseer of the cycles of life-death-rebirth.”)
Plus, he was literally a god, so in a sense she really couldn’t have done any better.
Marla had never been to Disneyland as a kid. She’d grown up poor in rural Indiana, and hadn’t even seen the ocean until she was a teenager, and while she had a proper amount of cynical adult world weariness, she had to admit, Disneyland was impressively engineered to deliver a particular experience. There wasn’t a scrap of trash on the ground anywhere, and when she pointed that out to Death he told her they were walking on top of a massive network of maintenance tunnels, with workers popping out of the ground to clear away any bits of dropped debris. He also told her there was an army of cats that came out at night to keep the place free of vermin, and that the bits of the park where people weren’t supposed to go were painted green—”go-away green”—to blend in with the background scenery.
“Somebody read a guidebook,” Marla said as they sat on the upper deck of the Mark Twain riverboat, steaming gently around Tom Sawyer Island. There were a couple of kids sitting on a bench on the other side of the deck, staring into space blankly while their parents leaned on the railing and chatted. This was probably the least thrilling ride in the place, admittedly, but the kids looked beyond bored—almost catatonic. Just like that other kid had...
“This place is famed for its secrets,” Death said, interrupting her thought. “Not just the tunnels. There’s an apartment in Cinderella’s castle where people are sometimes invited to stay overnight—pop idols, movie stars, and the like. Hidden vents pump in custom scents all over the park—the smell of sea air in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, for instance. There’s a small basketball court on the fourth level of the Matterhorn, where employees can play on their breaks. And of course Club 33, the exclusive restaurant in the New Orleans area of the park. Only members and their guests are allowed—and it’s rumored there are only 500 members worldwide, who pay thousands to get on the list and thousands more in annual dues to maintain their places. That club is the only place in the whole park where you can get a cocktail.” He paused. “Would you like to go?”
She snorted. “Are you a member?”
“I am Death, my love. The whole point of me is that I can get in everywhere.”
They strolled through the French-Quarter-themed section of the park—which was laughable in a way, because the actual French Quarter was the opposite of this orderly, neat, every-element-in-place simulacrum—to an unassuming door beside a mirrored plaque reading “33.” Maybe in the days before the Internet the place had been a real secret, but plenty of people knew the score now, and other guests gaped at them as Death moved aside a panel to activate the intercom. At least, some of them gaped. There were a couple more staring-at-nothing kids, too. It was getting a little Village of the Damned around here, and Marla had a twist of unease in her stomach. Despite her sorcerous capabilities, she was about as psychic as a snow shovel, but she still got the sense that something was wrong.
Death murmured a name over the intercom, and a moment later the door opened, a brightly-smiling hostess ushering them in. The foyer was elegant, if a bit stuffily decorated—the place was all gilt frames and porcelain busts—though Death exclaimed over the antique French lift, and it was pretty cool in an ancient-deathtrap kind of way.
The actual restaurant was surprisingly crowded for a place that was so exclusive. There were even a few children, two of whom were doing the blankly-staring thing—their parents probably just thought they were being on their best behavior, or bored by the comparative grown-up-ness of the setting, and Marla might have thought the same, if she hadn’t noticed the same symptoms earlier.
She had grilled lamb—not bad—and Death had something that involved chicken and stone fruit chutney and truffle mac and cheese. She pointed with her fork at the silent kids. “Death. Have you noticed? Kids acting all weird?”
“Human children all seem exceedingly strange. I’m not well-versed enough in mortal behavior to know what falls outside the normal range, though.”
“Yeah, but...” She frowned. “Something’s off. Either the park is pumping kid-specific soporific neurotoxins into the air along with the custom-made smells, or there’s some kind of magic happening.”
“Mmm.” He closed his eyes for a moment, and the air around his body seemed to shimmer, a telltale sign that he was doing something—expanding his consciousness, working some godly mojo, astrally projecting, whatever. He sighed and opened his eyes. “We’re here to play, you know, not work. You’re on your honeymoon, and anyway, you’re not a chief sorcerer or occult detective or monster hunter just now.”
“You have fun your way, I have fun mine.”
“Hmm. So it’s to be Busman’s Honeymoon, is it?”
That was the last Peter Wimsey novel, where Lord Peter and his new bride Harriet Vane attempted to go on a honeymoon in the country, only to wander into a murder mystery they had to solve instead. (Or, rather, in addition.) She grinned and pointed her fork at him. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? I knew you didn’t just want to see Disneyland. You got a whiff of some sorcerous nastiness and knew I’d want to dig into it to amuse myself.”
“I also wanted to see Pirates of the Caribbean,” Death said. “But, yes, I attempted to plan a trip that would be entertaining for both of us.”
“I think I kind of love you, Death,” she said.
“And I you,” her husband replied.
Marla tossed her napkin on the table and rose. “Let’s hunt bad guys.”
“I could just tell you,” Death said.
“No. That’s cheating. Besides, you don’t care if people live or die, you’ve got no skin in this game.” She crouched on the ground behind a garbage can, out of the general flow of the crowd, arranging her tools.
“I care very much about life and death,” he said. “Not so much about individual lives and deaths, it’s true. They’ll all die eventually, after all. Soon, honestly, as I reckon time. That’s why I need you ruling at my side. To provide that compassionate mortal perspective.”
“Compassion, thy name is Marla,” she muttered. “Go away, I’m working, I’ll call if I need you.”
“I did want to ride the Haunted Mansion again. There are particles of dead people all through there, relatives sneak in and scatter the ashes, and the employees can never sweep all of it up—all right, fine, I’ll see you soon.” He strolled away, the crowds parting before him without even realizing they were doing it. Even the increasing numbers of affectless children moved aside to make way for him.
Marla had carried the bones from Death’s chicken out of the restaurant in a napkin, and she’d stolen a salt shaker, too. She snapped the bones into small pieces and arranged the fragments in a circle, then poured the whole container of salt into the center. This kind of divination was more about boosting one’s own psychic sensitivity, turning hunches and unconscious observations into big blinking neon signs reading OVER HERE OVER HERE. She bowed her head, muttered a few words that were less incantation and more concentration exercise, and paid attention as hard as she could.
The salt in the center of the shaker shifted and twisted and formed itself into an irregular mound. Marla frowned. She’d been hoping for a pointing arrow, or letters spelling out the name of the her mysterious joy-killing enemy, but what was she supposed to glean from —
<
br /> Oh. She lifted her head, and looked across the park.
The mound of salt was a perfect replica of the Matterhorn.
She considered cleaning up the mess, but some janitorial mole-person would climb out of the secret tunnels to restore order soon enough, and it was entirely possible time was of the essence, so she strode off in the direction of the big fake-mountain bobsled ride, lair of her enemy.
Oh, the honeymoon was so much more fun now that she had an enemy.
Conditions worsened as she got closer to the Matterhorn. More and more kids had turned listless and blank, from kids barely old enough to toddle on their own to teenagers, though with the latter it was possible the apathy was natural. The area around the Matterhorn was a zone of quiet subdued humanity, concerned parents fussing over children who couldn’t even be bothered to heave a weary sigh. She was approaching the epicenter of emotional nothingness. Was her bad guy a nihilomancer, like the notorious Agnes Nilsson? A projecting empath sending out waves of exothermic despair? If so, why was it only affecting the children?
The Matterhorn was closed, with a sign saying the ride was undergoing maintenance. Sure it was. Marla prowled around until she found an employee entrance, and pushed inside, bumping immediately into a teenage cast member leaning against a wall, staring at the floor. “Hey,” he murmured. “You shouldn’t....” Then he trailed off.
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t,” Marla agreed, and went past him.
She made her way through the interior until she found an elevator, and rode that up to the fourth level. She’d expected something more grand, like Club 33, but this was a grungier space, suitable for the peons and cast members who were the only one allowed behind the scenes. There was a basketball half-court and a ping-pong table, plus a break room, and wooden stairs leading up higher, to the place where the acrobat playing Tinkerbell could launch on her nightly ride on a wire through the Disneyland skies.
