Grim Tides (Marla Mason) (25 page)

“The oracle said wearing it wouldn’t do anything,” Rondeau said. “But maybe you have to wear it
and
say a magic word or something? Or twist it around three times? Or stick it on your toe? Maybe there’s an inscription on the inside, like people get for their wedding rings. Something useful like, ‘One ring to bind them all.’ Even ‘insert finger here’ would be helpful at this point.”

Marla grunted, wishing she’d thought of the possibility of an inscription. She held the ring up to the moonlight, squinting. Was that something incised in the metal, or just a glint? She brought the ring close to one eye, closing the other and squinting –

A red-haired woman on the sand raised her arms, mouth moving in silent screams or laughter, and a flock of burning parrots appeared in the air, rushing toward Marla. She leapt to one side, diving and rolling, then bounced up to her feet –

Nothing. No Jarrow, no birds. She looked at the ring, still clutched in her hands, and lifted it to her eye again. Looking through the ring, the empty beach became crowded: there was Crapsey, holding onto Rondeau’s lapels with one hand and punching him in the face with the other, and Jarrow again, now strangling a man Marla had never even seen before. The chaos witch didn’t look exactly as she had the one time Marla had met Jarrow, but she
did
looked vaguely familiar – Marla couldn’t quite place her. She put the ring down and frowned. “Shit,” she said. “Rondeau. This ring lets you see the future.”

Rondeau leaned in the doorway of the house. “Really? That’s handy.”

“You
look
through it,” she said. “Gods, it never occurred to me... but that’s one of Death’s powers, to see possible futures, it’s how he knows when people are going to die. Rondeau, stuff’s going to get ugly here, and I’m not sure when, I don’t know what kind of a delay we’re talking about with this ring, how far it can see, but we’d better get ready, we –”

The phone buzzed again, and Rondeau picked it up. “Yeah, Pelly, do you – oh. Uh. Just... just a minute.” He took the phone away from his ear and looked at Marla, eyes wide. “It’s for you. It’s not Pelham. It’s...”

“Jarrow,” she said, taking the phone.

“Crapsey, actually,” Crapsey said. He sounded almost exactly like Rondeau, voice perhaps a bit rougher from decades inhaling the atmosphere of the Mason’s version of North America, polluted as it was by the output of her vile magical engines. “How’s it going, Marla?”

“I’ve been better. How’s Pelham?”

“Little shit got away, actually. He scattered something on the road to pop all our tires, nearly rolled the SUV, but Jarrow kept us upright, and we managed to grab hold of your boy. I had him by the scruff of the neck, and we got the phone off him, but then he did some kind of crazy kung-fu shit and ran off into the dark. He’s going to get himself killed on those black rocks. We could’ve caught him, but Jarrow said leaving him loose was an ‘interesting variable,’ adding some uncertainty to the situation, so we let him go. It’s a chaos witch thing.”

“Makes sense. So what’s the big idea? Kick me while I’m down?”

“Kill you while you’re weak, yeah. I mean, personally, I don’t have a real grudge against you. Rondeau’s the one who tricked me into drinking that potion, and trapped me in this body. He’s the one I’ve got a beef with. Jarrow says she can settle that score for me along the way – she’ll either trap Rondeau the way I’m trapped, or make him suffer some other way.”

“You’re an idiot, Jabberjaw. Rondeau was acting under my orders. If you want to hate someone, hate me.”

“Oh, duly noted, but I was a henchman for a long time, and I believe in taking personal responsibility for your actions, even if your boss told you to do it. I want Rondeau to hurt, and Nicolette wants
you
to hurt, and since the two of you are hanging out together, hey, we joined forces.”

“And got Elsie Jarrow out of the hospital to use as a weapon. Well, I must say, at least you two morons know your own limitations. If you’d attacked me on your own, I’d be picking bits of you out of my teeth right now. But Jarrow’s a nuke. She’s weaponized anthrax. She’s not a weapon you can unleash without consequences.”

“Eh, it’s all under control.”

“You’ve got Doctor Husch helping you, right?”

Crapsey laughed. “Why should I tell you that?”

“Why shouldn’t you? You’re pretty sure I’ll be dead in a few minutes anyway. Besides, you’re supposed to keep me on the phone and distracted as long as you can so the rest of the idiot patrol can surround me. So answer my question, and truthfully, or I’ll hang up and start loading my rocket launchers.”

“You’re a pisser, Marla, I’ll give you that. You remind me of my old boss, only not as pretty, of course. Sure, Husch was in on it.
You’re
the reason she got torn to pieces, you know – me and the Mason wouldn’t have come to this universe if you hadn’t gone messing around with the fabric of reality. Husch is the one who let Jarrow out, and she’s holding the leash, keeping Elsie on task. Otherwise she’d just wander off and turn the Eiffel Tower into an anthill or something. The truth is, this is Dr. Husch’s operation. Me and Nicolette are just riding on her coattails.” He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Though to be totally honest, it’s Elsie’s show, now. And she’s a scary one. At least with the Mason, you knew what you were in for: she was going to try to kill you. With Jarrow? She could make you a palace out of emeralds or turn your liver into a swarm of fire ants, either or both for no particular reason. She’s going to kill you, I guess, but I’m pretty sure she’s going to play with you first, and the only reason is, she
likes
it.”

“You sure have a way of picking bad company, Crapsey.” Marla was walking around the site now, checking the traps she’d set up earlier, and content that all were primed, she returned to the tree where Rondeau sat cross-legged and muttered to ghosts, an enchanted lei around his neck. “Did you ever think about getting a job working for someone who
wasn’t
crazy and prone to acts of senseless violence?”

“I’m not sure I’m qualified for a gig like that. Why, are you looking for another guy in your entourage? I’d make a great replacement for Rondeau.”

“I have this policy against employing mass-murderers – sorry. And since you’ve actually lost count of all the people you’ve killed...”

“True. You’ve only killed, what, ten?”

“Seven,” Marla said. “And I regret them all. Every one represents a failure on my part – a failure of diplomacy, or imagination, or preparation, or nerve.”

“Only seven! You’re an amateur.”

“Hey, the night’s young. I could have a few more failures of imagination before the sun comes up. But I never killed on a
whim
, Crapsey.”

“It’s not like I enjoy killing people – ”

“I know. You just don’t
care
if you do. And honestly? I think that’s even worse. Okay, Trapjaw, are you people waiting for dawn? Where’s the attack?”

“Be patient, will you? We’ve got a way of doing things – ”

Someone screamed from off to the east, and Marla grinned. “You hear that screaming? Somebody just met one of our defenses.”

“What. The. Fuck,” Crapsey said. “Who are all these – ”

“They’re the ghosts of the priests who protected this place,” Marla said. “I’ve formally claimed sanctuary. And since you guys are marauders, trampling through a sacred space... let’s just say you’re on the wrong side of some big kahunas.”

“Fuck!” Crapsey shouted, and then there was a crackling sound, and nothing more.

Marla handed the phone back to Rondeau. “I think he dropped the phone, in the course of running away from some pissed-off priests.”

The ghosts were becoming visible now. Rondeau’s psychic field had a way of drawing latent supernatural manifestations into active status – faint ghosts became visible and capable of poltergeist activity, while presences that were more powerful to begin with could become corporeal enough to fuck or fight or drive motorcycles. The kahunas here were pretty faint, all things considered – they were from a long time ago, adhering to customs renounced by the later kings of Hawai’i, and some of them were miles and miles away from whatever remained of their mortal remains. Still, there was an impressive array: translucent kahunas in ceremonial feathers, drained of color and rendered white and gray, and furious chiefs with skeletal limbs armed with shark’s-tooth war clubs. Marla had her dagger hanging from her belt, and the massive Samoan war club she’d received from Arachne was in her hand, the latter all tricked out with vicious inertial magics. A love tap from that could cave in a rib cage, and might even knock Elsie Jarrow back a step or two.

And there, stalking up the path from the direction of a reproduction of a traditional temple, dressed in the ragged remnants of a naval jacket, wig askew, was the ghost of Captain James Cook, the accidental reincarnation of the long-lost god Lono, now looking around suspiciously with pistols in each hand, obviously spoiling for a fight.

Suddenly the torches she’d placed around the area to serve as an early-warning intrusion system burst into simultaneous flame. They burned bright green: that meant four people had broken the perimeter.

Marla hefted the war club. She grinned. She still had a lot of personal, philosophical, and existential problems, true, but right now, she also had the one kind of problem she knew exactly how to solve: people who needed a beating.

A red-haired woman dressed in a pale yellow summer dress stepped into the light cast by the torches. “Marla Mason, I presume?” the woman said, then winced. “Shit, that line’s from Africa, isn’t it? All these hot savage places look the same to me.”

“Elsie Jarrow,” Marla said. “Welcome to paradise.”

THERE’S ALWAYS SOMEONE BETTER THAN YOU

The ghost of Captain Cook shouted and fired his pistols at Jarrow, billowing clouds of white smoke rising from the barrels of his guns. Jarrow looked down and patted her chest. “Ghost bullets! Nice, very nice. They would have ripped my soul right out of my body, if I didn’t have supernatural kevlar, but of course, I
do
.”

The ghost of Cook was trying to reload his pistols, but it was apparently a very involved project. The ghosts of the kahunas rushed toward Jarrow, weapons at the ready. Jarrow took a folded bit of tissue from her pocket, dabbed at the corners of her eyes, and then blew her nose – a great, ferocious, honking blow. The ghosts stopped running and leaned back, as if being pushed by a great wind, and then burst into flower petals, blowing through the City of Refuge and scenting the air with heavy perfumes. The ghost of Captain Cook scattered as well, the last look on his face outraged and disbelieving. He’d probably worn that expression a lot in his last moments of life.

“Shit,” Rondeau said, wobbling a little on his feet, and putting his hand on Marla’s shoulder to steady himself. “Listen, their spirits are still here, but they’re scattered, really tenuous, it’ll take me a while to get them back, but when I do, they’re going to be
pissed
, they’re going to start calling on shark gods and the god of sorcerers and – ”

“Oh, this will be over before the ghosts and ghoulies pull themselves back together,” Jarrow said. “Are you two done with opening ceremonies yet? Can I start my guest of honor address? Thanks. I’d like you to meet my friend Christian Decomain.” She gestured, and a small, dark-haired man with chunky hipster glasses stepped forward. His clothes were torn, there was a bruise forming on his cheek, and overall, he didn’t look too happy. “Your ghost guards smacked him around a little. Not exactly what I was expecting! Those spectral shark’s tooth clubs pack a pretty good wallop, if you stand around and let them hit you. I think poor Christian lost a tooth.”

“Christian Decomain. That name rings a bell,” Marla said. She turned to Rondeau. “Wasn’t he – ”

Rondeau nodded. “He was one of the freedom fighters in San Francisco – one of Sanford Cole’s men. He got killed in a raid on the Jaguar, we never even met him.”

“What are they talking about?” Christian said, alarmed.

“She’s crazy,” Jarrow said breezily. “Probably just one of her delusions.”

“Wasn’t he some kind of master of counter-magic?” Marla said. “An – ”

“Anti-mancer,” Jarrow said. She frowned. “Christian, you should have turned on your anti-magic shell when I said that, the light from the torches would have gone off, it would have been very
dramatic
.”

“Ah. Right.” Christian snapped his fingers, and the torches went dark. Marla drew her club. Shit. No magic, which meant her club was just a heavy stick again. The ghosts wouldn’t be coming back while Christian was working his mojo, either. All Marla’s fancy traps and preparations had just been made useless, their enchantments blocked. On the bright side, her enemies couldn’t cast spells, either. Her dagger would probably still work – artifacts were a lot tougher to neutralize than ordinary bits of magic. It was the same difference the honu oracle had mentioned: the difference between something being wet, and something being water.

“Thanks for that, Jarrow.” Marla’s night vision was screwed up from the torches, but the others probably weren’t much better off. “You’ve turned this into a fistfight, and that’s kind of my forte.”

“Ms. Mason, there’s no need for violence.” Christian’s voice was absurdly soothing. “I know it’s hard to believe, but we’re not your enemies. You’re sick, and we want to help you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Rondeau said, from somewhere off to the left. “You’re here for an assassination, not an intervention.”

“That’s just paranoia talking,” Christian said. “We’re here for your own good.”

“Is that you, Rondeau?” Jarrow said. “I’ve been wanting to meet you! But the grown-ups are busy now, so behave, would you?”

Rondeau squawked, and a moment later, a voice much like his, but rougher, said, “I’ve got the little fucker, boss.” Marla closed her eyes. Crapsey had evaded the ghosts, it seemed, and found Rondeau. “The chloroform worked like a dream. He won’t be stealing anyone’s body for a while.”