Lady of Misrule (Marla Mason Book 8) (30 page)

The Stranger took off her hat, wiped her brow, and put it back. “That’s... Hellfire. That’s a fair cop, Nicolette. This time anyway. So we can build a box to keep the Outsider in? So the only problem’s putting it
in
the box.”

“Shouldn’t be hard to set a trap,” Nicolette said. “We know where it’s going: the gazebo in Fludd Park. I had it looked at, Bowman. You gonna start paying me rent for keeping an entry to your realm in my city?”

“No more than I charge you rent for living in my multiverse,” Bradley said. “I’d advise your wizards to avoid trying to use the gazebo to get to my realm. The journey would be... unpleasant. Though, fortunately, quite brief.”

“Focus, people,” Marzi said. “We still have to get the Outsider into the box. We managed to trick it into a prison before. Of course, if the monster is smart, we might not be able to trick it the same way again.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Nicolette said. “Anything you can do, Marla, I can do better.”

Bradley in, and Just Outside, Felport

The psychic corps of Felport – the seers, sibyls, and oracles pledged to serve the chief sorcerer, guided by Bradley, because he knew what he was doing – got their first ping on the approaching monster in the morning two days after they arrived in Felport. Bradley had explained Cole’s idea to the psychic corps, getting them to blanket the area in constant surveillance and look for spots they
couldn’t
see, and it had finally worked: there was an impenetrable dead zone, moving toward them at the speed of a walking man.

Marla leapt to her feet from the futon when she got the word. “Thank the
gods
, even the ones I’m not fucking.” She and Bradley were staying in her dusty old apartment, in an abandoned building Marla technically still owned, though Nicolette was talking about having the whole structure demolished as soon as she had a spare moment.

Bradley rose from the armchair where he’d spent the past six-hour shift, hooked into the mental grid of Nicolette’s psychic monsters. “The Outsider’s a few miles outside of town, approaching from the West. Doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry.”

“Even so, I don’t know what took it so long.” Marla put on her coat and filled the pockets with pebbles. She’d spent the past few days enchanting the stones with who-knows-what nasty magics, because Nicolette wouldn’t let her take part in any of the planning. Nicolette had happily dragooned Regina, Marzi, Rondeau, and even Pelham, who had a surprising amount of tactical acumen, into the cause. Making Marla remain idle while her onetime home city was under threat was a really elegant way to fuck with her, Bradley had to admit. “Should’ve been here a couple days ago.”

“Maybe it took a detour to eat a river god in Mississippi or a slaughterhouse god in Chicago,” Bradley said. “You know, picking up a canapé or two on its way to the main buffet. We should be prepared for it to be stronger than before.”

“Road trip food. Right. I hope it didn’t get Reva. Who knows how well this thing can track gods? It got a whiff of the gazebo off of us easily enough.” She sighed. “If I could put the Outsider in a bottle, like I did with that nixie from San Franciso, it would make a handy monster-detector. Guess it’s too dangerous. I need another one, though. I don’t have Nicolette for a psychic bloodhound anymore.”

“How are you, ah, doing with all that? With her? The situation?”

Marla shook her head, then sat down to slip on her cowboy boots. “Nicolette... Damn it. She seems to have a handle on things. She’s got Felport running like a beautiful machine. As much as she’s tried to shut me out, to discourage people from talking to me, still, I can tell. The place is humming, and the sorcerous community has never been so coordinated. For me, getting them to do
anything
was always like herding cats, and also, the cats were on fire.”

“This Fisher King thing she did gave her a connection deeper than any you ever had here,” Bradley said. “The sorcerers are all connected to her, too, and her to them. It’s big magic.”

“Imagine if someone who didn’t
suck
had cast that kind of spell. If I’d done it, for instance. I would’ve been the greatest ruler this city had ever seen.”

Bradley smiled. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t have risked the spontaneous decapitations. I think this process needed to start with a terrible person who didn’t care about human lives. It’s kind of satisfying, in a way, don’t you think? Nicolette, the most selfish, small-minded, petty chaos witch I’ve ever met, turned into a supernaturally dedicated civil servant. She was trying to screw with you, but she got trapped in a new role in the process. Honestly, apart from how much she hates you, she hardly even seems all that warped and dysfunctional anymore.”

“Ha. I’m supposed to take comfort in that? She wanted to prove she could rule the city better than I could, and she
is
. At least, assuming she doesn’t fuck up this thing with the Outsider, she is. Gods. Anyway. Where are we needed?”

Bradley consulted the orders dropped into his brain by the psychic network. “You and me and Marzi get to be the welcoming committee. Nicolette says, quote, ‘Put up a good fight, and if Marla gets eaten in the process, that’s fine with me.’”

“She wishes. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Come on.”

•

A car waited for them on the curb, a sleek black low-slung sedan of no identifiable make or model, its windows
and
windshield tinted a disturbingly opaque black, its engine idling.

I’m Sierra
, a voice said in Bradley’s head.
I’ll be your ride today
. It sounded like the soothing voice of a good GPS system.

“What the fuck,” Bradley said. “Marla, this car is
talking
.”

The passenger door opened, and Marzi got out. “Hey, guys. Sierra says hop in.”

“Sierra.” Marla walked around the car. “What is this thing?”

“Nicolette found her in some junkyard.” Marzi said. “Just sitting up on cinderblocks. She put new tires on, and the car just... woke up. Sierra says she doesn’t remember where she came from.” Marzi shrugged. “Magical car. Drives herself. Heals damage like she’s alive. We’ve been hanging out. I am very cool and jaded about magic now.”

Marzi keeps trying to turn me into a stagecoach
, the voice in Bradley’s head said, and he laughed. Marla frowned at him.

“Is it haunted or something?” Marla said. “You got a read on it, Bradley?”

“It is a car,” he said. “Not, like, a monster that looks like a car. Magical car, for sure. Beyond that... Not something I’ve ever encountered before.”

“Why is your name Sierra?” Marla said.

Why is your name Marla?
the car replied, and Bradley and Marzi both laughed.

Marla rolled her eyes. “I don’t even want to know what she said. Psychics. Everywhere I look, psychics. Even the
car
is psychic. Fine. Sierra, take us to the edge of town.”

They climbed in – Marla and Bradley in back, Marzi up front, everyone avoiding the driver’s seat. There was no steering wheel anyway. The interior of the car was dark, the seats made of something soft and plush that wasn’t exactly leather. The engine didn’t roar, but the car leapt forward like it had some major power under the hood. Bradley wondered if there was even an engine in there, or something else.

“What’s the plan?” Marzi said.

“We set up on the road where the Outsider’s approaching, and we try to kill it. Bradley will boost your power, you’ll try to squeeze the Outsider down into something human, and I’ll stab it in the face over and over while you shoot it with your pistol.”

“Ah. I thought we were just a distraction detail, to lull it into a false sense of security or whatever.”

Bradley nodded. “We are – the main body of the assault is happening in the park – but the more we weaken it, the better chance the rest of the sorcerers will have to knock it on the ground long enough to get it sealed up in Beadle’s box. When we fight it, go all out.”

“I want to kill it.” Marla cracked her knuckles. “It would be pretty sweet to rob Nicolette of her big moment.”

“Glad to see we’re all working together in harmony,” Marzi said.

“Teamwork for the win,” Bradley agreed.

•

They parked under the trees outside of town, on a two-lane blacktop road lined with keep-away spells to keep the ordinaries off the route. The sun filtered down through the trees. Bradley and Marzi sat on Sierra’s hood while Marla paced around and did knife katas and muttered darkly to herself.

Marzi nodded in her direction. “That is one high-strung chick.”

“She comes by it honest. She feels responsible for the Outsider, because her cultists are the ones who set it free.”

“You have weird friends, dude.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” Something in the psychic network hooked up in his head tingled, an opacity where there’d been transparency before, and he slid off the car and stared down the road. Marzi joined him. “Someone’s coming.”

Marzi stepped out into the middle of the road, knife in her hand.

“We’d best make sure he’s someone manageable, then.” Marzi held out her hand, and Bradley took it. The link between them, prepared in a ritual earlier, activated, and his brain lit up like a crystal chandelier. Marzi’s mind was a great engine, and he was helping to take some of the load so it wouldn’t overheat. Or something. Metaphors weren’t his strong point.

The figure walking down the road toward them stumbled, shook its head, then continued, moving faster now. Marzi had locked onto it, made it more human, and thus more manageable. Maybe even killable.

“Sierra,” Marla called. “You want to go run that fucker down?”

Marzi and Bradley moved out of the way as Sierra’s engine purred. Marla stepped aside too, making an “after you” gesture.

The car accelerated faster than seemed possible given the physical laws of the universe, covering the few hundred yards between itself and the approaching Outsider seconds.

The Outsider didn’t dive out of the way, didn’t even
flinch
, and Bradley heard Marla mutter, “Oh, crap.”

The car hit the Outsider and then
flipped
, flying through the air and landing on its roof half in the ditch by the side of the road. The Outsider rose from a crouch, one of its arms dangling at an angle that suggested broken bones, but it seemed otherwise unharmed.

Sierra, are you okay?
Bradley thought.

I’m upside down in a
ditch
, so I’ve been better,
the car said.
Kill that thing for me. It scratched up my paint.

“He shouldn’t be able to do that,” Marzi muttered. “I am squeezing him down
so hard
.”

“He must have eaten another god or two on the trip. He’s gotten stronger.” Bradley raised his voice. “Marla, be careful! He’s tougher now!”

The Outsider closed the distance, coming at a run now, and Marla stepped back into the middle of the road. “He ain’t shit!” she called.

The Outsider was close enough to see, now, still in a form caught somewhere between seedy and suave, dressed in an old-fashioned suit and a low-crowned top hat, with ostentatious rings twinkling on its fingers. “You again!” it called. “Come to escort me to the gazebo? It’s not necessary, really. I’ll find my own way.”

This time, Marla didn’t banter. She flung a handful of stones at the monster, and cacophony reigned.

Some of the pebbles burst into flame. Others exploded into shrapnel. A few landed on the ground and spun out tendrils of slime and spider silk and vines, crawling up the Outsider’s body and entangling it. The creature ducked, snarled, and lashed out with its fists. Black fire burst from the ground around it, destroying the entangling elements, and if any of the concussive stones had harmed the Outsider, it wasn’t letting on. While it was distracted, though, Marla moved in with the knife, slashing at the creature, making it dance back.

“Can’t get a clear shot.” Marzi was trying to flank the Outsider, pistol in her hand, but Marla was dancing around too much to give her an opening.

“Concentrate on making it more human.” Bradley felt the strain of Marzi’s psychic pressure, and suspected that, if she’d been doing this on her own, she would have popped a blood vessel in her brain by now.

Even so, the Outsider was easily evading Marla’s attacks, and its wounded arm seemed entirely healed. Marzi was pressing her vision of reality on the Outsider as hard as she possibly could, and boosting Marla into an avenging badass at the same time, and they
still
weren’t making a dent. The Outsider had leveled up. If Nicolette’s plan didn’t work, this world – and possibly all
other
worlds in the universe – was doomed.

The Outsider got in a lucky shot and knocked Marla’s legs out from under her, sending her sprawling to the ground. It walked over her, literally stepping in the middle of her back, and came toward Marzi and Bradley.

Marzi lifted her pistol, her mind
surged
so hard that both hers and Bradley’s noses began to bleed, and she shot the Outsider in the eye.

The monster clapped one heavily ringed hand to its face, howled, and raced down the street, moving with inhuman speed and grace – but at least it wasn’t eating them, and if they were lucky it would reach Fludd Park bloodied, in pain, and disoriented.

Marla pushed herself to her feet. “Gods
damn
it!” she shouted.

Bradley handed Marzi a couple of tissues – he’d come prepared – and put one to his nose, too. Marla staggered toward Sierra, and they joined her. Bradley said, “I guess we could flip her over. I think I remember a temporary strength spell.”

“Nah, fuck that. A door’s a door.” She shoved the big iron key into Sierra – the car squawked in Bradley’s head, but only in surprise – and tore yanked open the upside-down door, climbing inside.

Marzi leaned down and looked through the door. “Should I keep my eyes closed this time?”

“It’s kind of unpleasant in there, but it’s your call. We should hurry, though – I don’t know if she’ll wait.”