Lady of Misrule (Marla Mason Book 8) (3 page)

“Sorry,” Rondeau squeaked. Bradley had been a nice enough guy once, but now he was something far beyond human, however normal his face looked.

Pelham cleared his throat. “Mr. Bowman, sir, we have a terrible problem – Regina Queen has threatened to kill – “

“Hey, Pelham, yeah, I know. This isn’t the only universe where she pulls this crap, and it doesn’t look good for you, but there are a few paths where you come out the other side intact, basically. You’ll work it out. My job is watching out for existential threats to the fabric of reality, incursions from hostile universes with inimical physics, stuff like that, not... fighting ice witches. I sympathize, but I’ve got an exiled outsider from an especially nasty bubble in the quantum foam increasing his ontological mass on your Earth at an exponential rate, and I’m a lot more concerned about him than I am about Viscarro’s mom going around killing people.” He paused. “Can you believe Viscarro has a
mom
? Who’s still alive? I figured the dude was hatched from a spider egg or something.”

“If you can see worlds where we don’t fuck this up,” Rondeau said, “maybe a little guidance – “

“Rondeau, if you need guidance, you can summon oracles. I know – you use the brain that used to belong to
me
to do it. Take care of my body, would you? It wouldn’t hurt you to get on a treadmill every once in a while, lay off the all-you-can-eat buffets a little. As for this Regina thing, keep doing what you’re doing. There’s a good sixty percent chance you won’t even die.”

The television turned itself off.

“Hmm,” Rondeau said. “Keep doing what we’re doing. So. Next witch on the list?”

•

“You’re sure this will work?” Rondeau said.

“Mrs. Mason told me it would attract Genevieve’s attention.” Pelham was methodically slicing his way through a bag of lemons from Rondeau’s bar.

“But you make lemonade all the time. And lemon chicken. And lemon drops. Lemon meringue pie. You slice lemons a lot, is what I’m saying, and it’s never tempted a reweaver capable of altering the nature of reality to come out of the pocket dimension where she lives.”

“The element of intentionality is necessary.” Pelham picked up a lemon and sniffed it, eyes closed. “I have to call her, with my mind.”

“Not fair. Why did you learn this summoning trick? Did you ever even
meet
Gen? I was actually there, when she was turning Felport into a hallucination amusement park. I even helped stop the nightmare king who tormented her. At least, I mean, I was
around
at the time...”

“Hello, Rondeau,” Genevieve said. One end of the kitchen had turned into a pavilion of white silk, and a woman with violet eyes and caramel-colored hair stood shyly, half-hidden by a curtain. “Did you need something? Is Marla all right? It’s only, I shouldn’t stay too long. Just being in the world like this, it makes thing start to go... soft... around me...”

Rondeau suddenly regretted suggesting they call Genevieve. She’d developed some control over her powers, so her worst nightmares didn’t just pop into being anymore, but she was still dangerous, and she
knew
it – that’s why she chose to inhabit a little pinched-off bit of reality, where she could reshape the landscape to suit her whim without damaging a place where regular people actually
lived
. “Uh,” he said. “The thing is....”

Then he blinked, or didn’t even blink, but it was like
reality
blinked, and he was on his back underneath the glass-topped coffee table in the living room, wearing only one shoe, with a terrible headache, and Pelham was sitting up groaning beside the frosty balcony door. “Wha?” Rondeau said. “Did Gen... do something?”

“I think she left,” Pelham said. “I think... she might have been annoyed? That we called her for this?”

Rondeau squinted. Had there been yelling? His memories were like those of a dream, fading from his short-term memory as he came awake. Something about how if Genevieve meddled, she might cause a drought that would consume the world, or bring on a new Little Ice Age? About how you didn’t bring a thermonuclear bomb to a knife fight? “Oh. Right.”

He turned his head. His beautiful big-screen TV was gone. In its place rested a single yellow lemon.

“Damn,” he said. “I liked that TV.”

•

“What?” Rondeau held the conch shell to his ear. “You – okay, I get that, I know, Marla owes you a favor, you don’t owe anyone any favors, I’m saying, maybe I’ll owe
you
a favor if you come help. I don’t know, you’re an ocean witch, that’s basically the same as weather magic, and anyway, won’t this hyperborean vortex mess up the Gulf Stream or something – Huh. That’s – right. Okay. Uh, no, yeah, I’m still gay, not planning to hit the coast soon anyway – right, sure, thanks.” He hung up, if that was the right terminology to use for putting an enchanted conch shell back down on the table.

“That didn’t sound good,” Pelham said.

“Zufi was in a pretty lucid state of mind,” Rondeau said. “Not having one of those days that’s all non sequiturs or talking in rhyme or making dolphin noises, so at least I got a straight answer, even if the answer was ‘no.’” Zufi, the Bay Witch, was one of the more powerful sorcerers they knew from their old days in Felport, and she’d given them a hand in Hawaii not long ago, so they’d had hopes she might intercede this time too.

“Did she say why she can’t help?” Pelham said.

Rondeau shrugged. “She’s an ocean witch. Nevada is landlocked.”

“There are
planes
,” Pelham said. “Rivers, too, if she insists on swimming. Lake Mead isn’t entirely frozen over yet.”

“You ever try arguing with Zufi via conch shell? It’s even more pointless than arguing with her in person.” He sighed. “Who’s next? And what will we have to sacrifice or chant or
en
chant in order to call them?”

“I suppose we could try Hamil,” Pelham said. “He actually answers his phone.”

Rondeau nodded. Hamil had been Marla’s consigliere when she was chief sorcerer of Felport, and he was still a big deal there, second-most-powerful figure on the council, and a master of sympathetic magic. “I don’t
think
he has any particular reason to hate me,” Rondeau said. “And at least he’s extremely unlikely to turn either of us into a lemon.”

Marzi in Santa Cruz

Marzipan McCarty, known as Marzi to everyone other than her whimsical parents, gasped herself awake in the tiny apartment over the café she co-owned. She rolled out of bed, her boyfriend Jonathan grumbling beside her at the disturbance. He knew she was a light sleeper, and had long since grown immune to waking up himself just because she had a nightmare. She had them often: mostly about mudslides, earthquakes, wildfires.

But this dream hadn’t been one of the usual sort. This one seemed meaningful in a way that was familiar, and unwelcome. A few years earlier, her dreams had contained messages from powerful forces dwelling among the hidden machinery of the world, and she’d done what was necessary to stop the evil those dreams had revealed, but damn it, she was
done
. No more visions, please.

She went to the little round window in their attic apartment, the one that looked down onto Ash Street. Santa Cruz streets in summer were rarely entirely deserted even this late at night, and a chattering group of twenty-somethings went by laughing and babbling, probably a little drunk. About as normal as normal could be. Dreams didn’t
have
to mean anything –

A shadow detached itself from the wall of the hot tub place and spa across the street, and Marzi stared, waiting for it to resolve into the form of a drunk, or a homeless guy, or even a mugger. She’d be grateful for a nice mundane mugger.

But it just remained a shadow, even when it entered the pool of light cast by a streetlight: a swirling coil of darkness, like a long black chiffon scarf twisting in the wind... or like a sea serpent, undulating through an invisible sea, moving gracefully toward the four people walking.

Was she dreaming still? Because she’d dreamt of something like this. Only in the dream it had been a rippling shadow drifting across the sky, growing larger and larger until it hung over the world like a veil, blocking out all the light, plunging the world into a somehow carnivorous darkness.

She rubbed her eyes. It had to be a trick of the light. Or, okay, it didn’t
have
to be, she knew better than that, but she was out of the monster-slaying business, so she
hoped
it was.

A coil of the floating darkness reached out toward the streetlight, and the light blinked out. In the sudden darkness, Marzi couldn’t tell exactly what happened – there was some motion, perhaps, and maybe a muffled gasp, but that was all. She kept watching, waiting for the group to appear again in the light cast by the streetlight on the next corner, but they didn’t. The darkness wasn’t
that
complete, but... she couldn’t see them at all.

She put her nose against the window, trying to get a closer look, but her breath just fogged the glass. Cursing under her breath, Marzi picked up the black silk robe Jonathan had given her for their fourth anniversary and pulled it on over her pajamas. She slipped on her flip-flops and started toward the door, then paused and picked up the revolver resting beside her drawing table. It was a toy, a vintage cap-gun from the ‘50s... except once, in a showdown, it had been more than that: a more potent weapon than any mortal firearm. If there was any magic left in the thing, it wasn’t evident, but holding the pistol always made her feel stronger, more brave, capable of anything. After all, hadn’t she once done the impossible, and slain something very like a god?

She tucked the gun into the pocket of her robe but kept her hand on the grip, then unlocked the door. Their little apartment – they called it “the pigeonhole” – was technically the finished attic of the café she co-owned, Genius Loci, but she didn’t have to go through the café to get outside; there was an outside entrance with a set of wooden stairs leading down to the street, so she stepped out onto the landing and looked down. The extinguished streetlight was back on now, and its light revealed absolutely nothing. No shadow, no twenty-somethings walking along, no signs of anything... except, was that something glinting in the gutter? Probably just broken glass or the shiny inside of a torn potato chip bag, but...

Marzi went down the stairs, hand on the toy gun’s plastic grip, and continued over the sidewalk, across the street, to the far side.

The thing glittering in the gutter was a set of keys, and now that she looked there were three other sets, too. Among other things. Several debit and credit cards and driver’s licenses, but no wallets, except for one made of duct tape, and it was falling to pieces. What looked like the rivets and buttons and zippers from a couple of pairs of jeans. A set of eyeglasses, and a four-ounce stainless steel flask engraved with the initials RF. A couple of rings, a pair of hoop earrings, a silver necklace with a tiny leaf pendant, and a scatter of coins.

“What’s up?” a voice said, and she whirled, drawing the gun.

Jonathan, wearing his own robe, held up his hands and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t shoot, marshal, I’ll go peaceful-like.”

She tucked the gun away, shook her head, and pointed into the gutter.

Jonathan squatted, peered at the litter without touching it, and whistled. “Well. That’s weird. People drop stuff, but... is that a zipper? How do you drop a zipper?”

“I had a bad dream,” she said. “Woke up, went to the window, and saw some people walk by. There was this thing... a shadow, but moving, swimming through the air like a sea snake... then the streetlight went out, and.... I think the people disappeared. Or something. I came down, and found this stuff. Now you know what I know.”

Jonathan grunted. “And your hypothesis is... killer shadow?” He didn’t sound incredulous, and she loved him for that. Then again, he’d seen a few impossible things in his time with her. They’d met in the midst of that nightmarish summer when she’d discovered the true malleability of reality, after all. She’d very nearly lost him to it.

“The thought crossed my mind. Maybe they did just drop this stuff. Maybe it’s, I don’t know. An art piece. Art students are always doing stupid bullshit.”

Jonathan snorted. He’d been an art student, and had a PhD in critical theory to show for it, which he said was a great qualification to run a café. Marzi had been an art student once upon a time, too, until she dropped out to focus on making comics instead. “So what we’ll do is, we’ll call the cops,” he said. “We’ll tell them we heard a commotion, and when we came out, we found all this stuff.”

“Declining to mention our killer shadow hypothesis.”

Jonathan shrugged. “That would be my advice. There are heaps of ID here. If the people did just drop this stuff, the cops will find them, and cite them for littering or something, and all will be well. If something else happened.... We learned a few years back there are some things cops aren’t capable of dealing with.”

She groaned. “But
I
don’t want to deal with it either, Jonathan. This whole normalcy thing – I like it.”

“Maybe it’s nothing we’ll have to deal with. Maybe it’s just... I don’t know. Sometimes, every once in a while, a shark eats a surfer. Maybe, if something did this... maybe it’s just something like a shark. Just passing through.” He looked around. “Though staying in shark-infested waters doesn’t sound like a great idea. Maybe let’s pick this stuff up and go inside, huh?”

“If it’s a crime scene we shouldn’t disturb it,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure killer shadows don’t leave fingerprints, and if we leave it all here unattended, somebody will wander by and take the credit cards... but okay. Let’s at least go up on the porch, okay? We can keep an eye on the stuff from there.”

She nodded, and they withdrew to the steps, the ones leading up to their huge wraparound porch covered in tables and benches, one of the café’s great attractions when the weather was nice, which it was more often than not here on the coast of central California. Jonathan went upstairs to get his phone, then came back down and called the cops.