Little Gods (30 page)

“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..."

Hamil cleared his throat. “Well, yes. The herbs he bought at the
brujeria
are used to make that charm, actually. To be effective, the charm must touch skin. Normally such a thing would be worn as a medallion, against the chest, but that's risky, of course—the medallion can be snatched away, torn off. Sweeney found a more clever place to put his. He wore the charm on the
inside
."

Marla looked at Hamil blankly. “He ate it? Aren't those herbs poisonous?"

Rondeau laughed. “I think what Hamil means is, Sweeney shoved the charm up his ass, like a mule taking cocaine across the border."

Marla shook her head. “The things people do to live forever. So. He has a freely migrating spirit. But he can't just hop from body to body at will, can he?"

“His current body has to die, before he can relocate. But he doesn't seem to have much trouble dying at will. He probably has poison and razor blades secreted on his person, things he can use to kill himself, in a pinch."

“So we knock him out, get the herbs out of him, and cut his throat, right?"

Hamil nodded. “Hardly glamorous work, but that seems to be the only course of action."

“Okay,” Marla said. “Let's find him. I bet he's at the best table in the best restaurant in town."

“Bastard's probably a terrible tipper, too,” Rondeau said.

“Todd Sweeney, sleeping the sleep of the wicked,” Rondeau said. He wore a powder-blue tuxedo jacket over a black t-shirt and faded corduroy jeans. Marla almost found his attire refreshing, after the horrible monotony of the zoot suit.

Sweeney lolled in a wingback chair, his hair disarrayed, his jaw agape, quite unconscious. “What did you give him?” Marla asked.

“Some cocktail of Hamil's. One whiff of a soaked handkerchief, and he passed out. Hamil says he'll be down for hours yet.” Rondeau grinned. “You should have seen me. I crept up behind him in the men's room at the Chatterly Club, and I dragged him out the
window
. Slick as can be. Nobody saw a thing."

“I don't suppose you, ah, removed his talisman, did you?"

Rondeau wrinkled his nose. “Look, I fetched kidney stones out of a toilet, yes, but I have my limits. I'm not going butt-fishing in Todd Sweeney."

Marla sighed and pulled on a latex glove. “This is what being chief-of-chiefs leads to, Rondeau. The dirtiest of dirty work. But once we get that charm out of his bottom, he'll be as mortal as you and me. Assuming we can get every sprig of leaf out of there. I don't look forward to the process.” She took a step toward Sweeney, then paused. Slowly, she smiled. “But then again, maybe there's another way ... Strip him for me."