Poison Sleep (23 page)

“Want a sandwich?” he asked.

“How the fuck did you get down here without security noticing?”

“Have we met? I’m Zealand. I was trained by the slow assassins.”

She shook her head. “If you were hungry, why didn’t you just ask for something to eat?”

He hazarded a guess. “There seemed to be a certain, ah, buzz of activity about the place, and I didn’t want to disturb.”

Nicolette picked up a piece of turkey and munched it. Her shoulders slumped, and Zealand realized with something like horror that she was about to
confide
in him—she must consider him a friend! Or else she was convincingly pretending she did, for her own reasons. She was a chaos magician, which made analysis of her behavior difficult. She drew her power from disorder, so she couldn’t be counted on to do
anything,
not even to act in her own self-interest. Zealand found her far more terrifying than Gregor, who was as predictable as a bullet trajectory.

“Things here are fucked,” she said. “Gregor told me to find you and make sure you stay out of sight. Marla Mason is coming here, in about fifteen minutes, along with every other big bad sorcerer in Felport. Some of those fuckers scare
me
.”

“Why the gathering? Monthly quilting circle?”

Nicolette laughed. “These are good times for chaos, Z. Reave has brought a whole lot of craziness with him, and things are getting wild out there. You wouldn’t know, being all tucked up safe and sound in here, but there are buildings appearing out of nowhere, people disappearing, monsters roaming the outskirts…it’s a big beautiful wonderful mess. I’m positively
crackling
with power. But Marla’s worried about the state of the city. So she’s called us all together to make a game plan, probably, or at least quarantine the mess.”

“Marla is coming
here
to figure out how to stop Reave, who is allied with your master? I suppose you’ll be keeping
him
under lock and key, too, hmm?”

“Reave is a free agent, but he knows it’s better to stay away for a few hours, yeah. The boss and me will pretend to go along with Marla—we already had to roll over and let the meeting happen here—and keep, ah, pursuing our own agenda on the side. Gregor figures it’s a calculated risk—the relevant prophecies say he’s safe as long as he doesn’t leave the building, so he thinks it’s unlikely that Marla will attack him here.” She shrugged. “Typical backstabbing sorcerer shit, but on a bigger scale than usual, I gotta say.”

“Your own agenda? And what, exactly, is Gregor helping Reave
do
?”

Nicolette waved her hand. “Conquer the world. Crush all opposition with iron boots. You know, guy stuff. Very linear, very top-down.”

“I see,” Zealand said. He didn’t think he could get her to be any more specific than that—Nicolette was no fool—but he knew enough. Genevieve was somehow the key to Reave’s ambitions, and Zealand would make sure Reave didn’t get to her. Simple, really. And he was happier being on Marla’s side, for the moment, than he’d been fighting against her. He made another sandwich. “Shall I retire to my room, then?”

“Double-quick, and don’t come out until I tell you.” She escorted him upstairs.

Once he was alone in his room, Zealand settled down to wait. Marla had a plan, and he knew his place in it. He reached for his book—and realized he’d left it in the library in Genevieve’s palace. He sighed, but there was nothing to be done about it. It wasn’t as if he’d never read
The Art of War
before. He just found the familiar pages comforting.

Marla rode up the elevator with Rondeau, Joshua, and Ted. She tapped her foot and stared at the ceiling and thought murderous thoughts. She hated getting together with the other leading sorcerers. It always turned into a pissing contest.

“You look nervous,” Rondeau said.

“I’m not so good at diplomacy. But that’s why Joshua’s here.”

The elevator opened, and Marla strode out into the hall. She wore more finery than usual, with her white cloak across her shoulders—the lethal purple side turned inward, for now—fastened at the throat with a silver pin in the shape of a stag beetle. Her white cotton shirt and pants were loose and allowed great freedom of movement. Her reinforced boots were shined, and she had six rings on her fingers (only half of them magically imbued). Her dagger of office hung in a sheath at her belt, the hilt wrapped in alternating bands of white-and-purple electrical tape. The other sorcerers would be pretty much equally armed, everyone more comfortable with mutual assured destruction in the event of a fight than they would have been with some bullshit restriction on bringing weapons, which everyone would have ignored anyway. Marla wasn’t wearing makeup—she still had her limits—but she’d washed her hair before coming over. Right now, she was the leader of the sorcerers of Felport, first among equals, protector of the city, and it paid to look her best.

The meeting room was appointed with couches, club chairs, and stools, and Nicolette was unfolding extra chairs as they arrived. The place was jammed with Felport’s most prominent handful of sorcerers and their retainers, and they all turned to stare at Marla when she walked in.

Viscarro sat in a far corner, peering at her through his gold-rimmed monocle, his skin paler than the snow outside. He wore a velvet smoking jacket from another era, though it might have been fashionable the last time he emerged from his vaults into the wider world.

Ernesto, a big man wearing a tuxedo with grease-stained lapels—for magical purposes, not just because he was a slob—sat on a stool popping olives into his mouth, and he grinned at Marla and waved. He was still happy with her because she’d given him a contract to clean up pollution in the bay, and allowed him to use the resulting filthy residue to make a pollution golem to patrol his junkyard.

The Chamberlain stood by the window in a long black evening gown that revealed the smooth length of her back, her skin dark and lustrous, and she turned to regard Marla with a glance of infinite pity and scorn; Marla never felt more like a dirty child pretending to be a grown-up than she did in the Chamberlain’s presence, but the Chamberlain wasn’t exactly an enemy. She hadn’t brought bodyguards, but she had the ghosts of Felport’s founding families at her beck and call, so she hardly needed backup.

The Bay Witch wore her usual dark blue wetsuit, her blond hair was disarrayed, and she dripped water in a spreading puddle on the carpet. She kept casting anxious glances toward the eastern wall—she didn’t often leave the bay, and was clearly uncomfortable this high up.

Granger—that idiot Granger—sat picking his nose, oblivious to the gravity of the situation. He was a hereditary sorcerer with no particular intelligence or wit, but his family had been the caretakers of Fludd Park back when it was just the village commons; he was tied to the land, and had power to go with it. Nature magic made Marla uncomfortable—she was a city woman by choice—but he was unquestionably important enough to have a seat at the table, even if he didn’t do anything with that seat but wipe boogers beneath it.

Gregor stood as far across the room from Marla as he could get, and he looked unhappy. If Marla hadn’t known about his plans to kill her, she would have assumed he was just pissed about the Bay Witch dripping all over his carpet—Gregor was a notorious neat-freak.

Hamil was here already, and he gave her a nod from the vast overstuffed armchair where he’d installed himself. He gestured toward another chair, apparently left unoccupied as a courtesy for her. The chair faced all the other seats, which meant she could address everyone easily, but it also looked a little like a hot seat.

“Hello, everyone. Thanks for coming.” Marla sat, and Joshua stood a bit behind her, where everyone could see him. Rondeau and Ted stood back against the wall with the other assistants, apprentices, and assorted hangers-on. “You all know why you’re here. There’s a woman named Genevieve Kelley wandering the city, and her bad dreams are intruding into our reality at an exponential rate, probably because of all the stress she’s under. Worse, one of her bad dreams has a mind of his own. Reave is dangerous, but if we can reach Genevieve and get her back to Dr. Husch at the Blackwing Institute, I think we can get Reave under control, too.” Marla wasn’t sure of that at all, but getting Genevieve out of the city couldn’t hurt the cause.

“Why don’t we just kill her?” Viscarro said, his voice harsh and grating from long disuse.

“You want to make it our policy to kill insane sorcerers, instead of confining them to the Blackwing Institute?” Marla said, and Viscarro flinched. He’d been confined in Blackwing himself for a few months after having a nervous breakdown many years before, but he’d recovered.

“Of course not,” the Chamberlain said, and everyone turned to give her their attention. She could have been chief sorcerer, if she’d wanted, but she wasn’t interested in the job—she only cared about the Heights, the historic and hoity-toity area of the city where her ghostly extended family lived among the oblivious yuppies and nouveau riche. “Killing the mentally ill is bad policy. But if there are no other options…”

“There
are
other options,” Marla said. “I have a good lead on Genevieve, and expect to have her in hand tomorrow afternoon.”

“What lead?” Ernesto asked.

“You all know Langford, the technomancer. He’s found a way to track Genevieve, and—”

“Nonsense,” Gregor said. “I’ve been trying to track her myself, and she only pops out of her dream world for a few minutes at a time. She can’t be found.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” Marla asked, and she noticed Joshua from the corner of her eye, frowning and shaking his head at Gregor. Good boy. “Langford uses different methods from yours, Gregor, and he’s got some of Genevieve’s personal possessions to work with, too. You’re the best when it comes to traditional methods of divination, no doubt, but Langford’s got a gift for improvisation on the fly. He says he’ll have Genevieve’s location by tomorrow—actionable intelligence, info we can
use
—and he’s not the type to boast.”

“All right,” Gregor said. “My apologies. Go on.”

“The more immediate problem,” Marla said, “is the whole city going to hell. We need to deal with containment and quarantine. Right now, Genevieve’s little reality-alterations are confined to a few areas, but they’re spreading, and we don’t want them to get beyond the borders of Felport. We need to cut off communication with the outside world, and keep people from getting in
or
out. Any ideas?”

“The border guardians can whip up a blizzard,” Hamil said. “Bad enough to close the roads. And if things get really bad, beyond the ability of our own forces to contain, we can always activate the secret oaths—the police force will help us without even realizing why they’re doing it.”

“Cutting communication is easy,” Ernesto said. “Consider it done.” Marla nodded; Ernesto was good at infrastructure.

“I’ll secure the sea route, not that there’s a lot of oceangoing traffic in this weather,” the Bay Witch said.

“It would be good to get more of our people out on the street,” Marla said, “to deal with shit before it gets too bad. Things have been glimpsed in alleys and back-streets, and while they haven’t attacked any people yet, it would be good to have defenses ready.” Marla outlined the neighborhoods she wanted defended, and delegated people to cover each, and the grumbling was surprisingly minimal, thanks to Joshua’s nodding and beaming at her every word. He was worth his weight in platinum.

“I’ll get the mayor to declare a state of emergency, ostensibly because of the blizzard, and advise everyone to stay home,” Marla said. “We’ll close the airport, train station, bus depots, everything. It wouldn’t kill us to get some sort of soothing stay-home vibe going through the city, too.” None of the current ruling cabal was particularly adept at such mental magic, but many of them had projecting empaths and the like in their employ. “Not that people are necessarily safer inside their homes, but so far most of the big interruptions in reality are happening outside.” She went over a few more specifics, assigning tasks and offering compliments or incentives or threats where necessary, but by the time she finished, she felt things were well in hand. Damage control was never fun, but it could have gone a lot worse—without Joshua’s silent yet charismatic support, there would have been a lot more bitching and moaning.

“If we’re done here—” Marla said.

“When are you going to divide up Susan Wellstone’s assets?” Viscarro said. “Her property, her interests in local business, it’s all just sitting, going to waste. Making money for
you.
”

“The income from Susan’s businesses is held in trust, and you know it. We’ll meet on that subject in a couple of days, assuming the city isn’t a smoking hole in the ground by then. Perspective, people. I don’t
want
Susan’s shit, so stop suggesting otherwise.” She didn’t bother to hide her irritation. Viscarro wanted
everything.
He was a classic hoarder. Rumors said he was part dragon, but Marla didn’t believe in dragons. He was just a greedy fuck.

Viscarro scowled, rose from his chair, and stalked off. The others left, too, most pausing to shake her hand and exchange a few words, taking their entourages with them. When only Marla, Hamil, and their people were left, Gregor approached them, frowning, with Nicolette at his side. “If you’re done imposing on my hospitality, I have to clean up the water puddles and grease stains left behind by our esteemed guests.”

“We need to chat, Gregor,” Marla said. “You’ve been a naughty boy.”

He had enough self-control to keep his expression calm. “I’ve been nothing but cooperative, while you’ve let the city fall apart. I have half a mind to—”

Marla kicked him in the knee, and Gregor fell, gasping and clutching at his leg. Nicolette reached for one of the charms in her hair, but Hamil was already winding a piece of string woven with a stolen strand of Nicolette’s hair around his finger, and the sympathetic magic bound up the chaos magician, too, freezing her in mid-motion.

“What’s going on?” Joshua said, alarmed.