Broken Mirrors (29 page)

“Guys,” Rondeau said. “Um. The floor. Is melting.”

Marla leapt up. The boards were actually disintegrating – turning to dust and vapor – rather than melting, but this was no time to criticize Rondeau’s choice of words. They all ran, boards creaking and splintering alarmingly beneath them, toward the twisting corridors ahead of them. This is like one of those action movies, Marla thought, where the treasure hunter runs along a stone catwalk through a temple while the walkway collapses right behind him. Except in this case, there wasn’t a neck-breaking fall into a chasm at risk, but a potentially bottomless plummet into the gap between worlds. Marla ran, ignoring the branching tunnels and the doors – some of which were hanging crooked on their oh-so-ordinary brass hinges – and focusing on the way ahead. Great holes gaped in the walls, with that hellish biting wind ripping through, and the ceiling sagged down in places so low she had to duck her head to avoid brushing it, but it was the floor that worried her, as cracks began running in from the sides and holes opened that she had to leap across, Beta-B and Rondeau on her heels.

But then she turned a corner, raced past another of those doors (this one mercifully solid and shut), and there it was: the hole they’d torn in reality, smaller and partially healed-over but still big enough for a person to slip through, kaleidoscope lightning flickering within. “Through there!” she shouted, and was about to throw her bag through the portal and then dive after it when Rondeau bellowed.

She stopped, spun on her heel, looked back, and saw Rondeau standing on her side of a rapidly-widening crack in the floor… with Beta-B standing on the other side. He was tottering, barely keeping his balance, about to pitch into the depths. He recovered, falling back and sitting down on his ass, a look of total incomprehension on his face. The ground was literally disappearing around him, darkness and wind shredding the tunnel behind him to cut off his retreat, bits of the wall and ceiling turning to puffs of dust swallowed by the abyss.

“B, Bradley, man, jump!” Rondeau shouted.

But Marla knew that was hopeless. The crack that separated them from Beta-B was already several feet wide and getting wider, and Beta-B didn’t have any room behind him to back up and get a running start. He was on a melting ice floe in a tropical sea, and he knew it. The stunned look on his face vanished, replaced by a look of resignation. He shrugged, held up the palms of his hands as if to say “What can you do?” and glanced at the closed door on his left.

The very existence of those doors terrified Marla. Who knew what kind of places the possible witch needed easy access to in order to do her inscrutable work? The doors might lead to places where reality had altogether different rules, places where the air was boiling lead, places so dense they’d make black holes look like aerogel. But this wasn’t a case of choosing door number one or door number two. This was door number only. A Hobson’s choice: this, or nothing.

In her world, Bradley Bowman had lost his life and mind and soul and vanished into nothing.

This Bradley, at least, had a door.

He shouted something to Rondeau – Marla, standing farther back, only heard the sound, and the wind tore the sense away. Rondeau shouted something back, ran to Marla, and began pulling her toward the portal. She waited, though, even as the crack in the floor approached her, until she saw Bradley put his hand on the brass knob and open the door. She was hoping for some sign of hope – a radiant white light, maybe, the usual Hollywood visual shorthand for heavenly transcendence.

But the door just opened on more darkness, and Bradley gave her a dramatic, funny grimace – What, I have to go in here? – before stepping through.

“Come on!” Rondeau shouted. He climbed through the portal.

Marla followed, and entered her home universe with tears in her eyes.

Rondeau fell out of a tree, and rolled over in time to keep Marla from landing on top of him. He sat up unsteadily, looking around, trying to get his bearings. The sky was dark, the moon bright, and the only structure nearby was a white-painted gazebo. He groaned. “Marla. I think we lost some hours or something, should it be this dark?”

“We’re in Fludd Park. Back home. It’s later on the east coast.” She sat up, grasping her head. “Fuck. I have to. Turn it off.”

“Turn what off?”

“The city sense. Alarm bells in my head. Felport is screaming. Bad things happened here, Rondeau. They’re still happening.”

“Bad things happened back there, too. Bradley…”

Marla rose, bracing herself against the tree. “What did he say to you?”

“He said, ‘Go, then. There are other worlds than these.’” He shook his head. “Stephen King reference. Bonus points.”

“I don’t get it,” Marla said.

“There’s this King book -”

“No, it’s okay, I don’t need to understand. You guys had your private jokes. I liked that, liked seeing you be friends, you should…” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Rondeau had seen her cry before, but she usually had an arrow sticking out of her thigh or something when it happened. “Fuck. I don’t believe in destiny, Rondeau, you know that, but I’ll be damned if the universe doesn’t have it in for Bradley. Shit. The universe. It’s me. I’m poison to that guy.”

“We don’t know what happened. What he found beyond that door. Maybe it’s the big rock candy mountain over there. Heaven with male strippers. An open-air sex and ice cream pavilion. It’s possible, right?”

Marla shrugged. “I keep you around for your optimism, Rondeau. At least we can imagine some kind of good outcome for him. What harm can it do? Next time I decide to rip apart space-time because I really miss B, just slap me upside the head, would you?”

“Will do. So… what now? I’m guessing we don’t have any time to grieve or process the shit that just happened, right? I mean, what did happen? Why the total collapse?”

“I think when the possible witch went wherever the fuck she went, her home base started to fall apart. It was a little bastion of order in a big chaotic void, and once she wasn’t there to maintain it anymore…” Marla shrugged. “We’re lucky we didn’t get stuck on that side.”

“Lucky. We’re stuck over here with the Mason now, right? And she’s done who knows what?”

“Yeah. We’re gonna have to deal with that.”

Rondeau leaned against the tree and closed his eyes. “Then let’s do what we need to do pretty fast, before the denial and numbness fade, okay?”

Marla rummaged in her bag and found her cell phone. Her sometime employee Langford, a technomancer, had fixed it for her so it could get reception even on the moon, but it hadn’t worked across dimensions. When she turned it on, though, it informed her she’d missed some calls.

About 875 calls in all. And she had voicemail messages aplenty. She pushed buttons at random, cursing, and finally handed it to Rondeau. “Can you work this thing and listen to the last message? Maybe we can hope for an executive summary or something.”

Rondeau nodded, punched the buttons, and held the phone to his ear. Hamil’s voice, hurried and worried and dripping with fear, entered his ear. He listened for a long time, then let the phone drop to the ground, and slid down the tree.

“Tell me,” Marla said.

“Granger dead.” He swallowed. “Viscarro turned to ashes. Doctor Husch – ah, fuck, Marla, Leda, torn to pieces.”

“What about Ernesto?” Marla said.

Rondeau shook his head minutely. “No. He’s… they got him. Dead.”

“Half the council,” Marla murmured. “She killed half my fucking council?”

“She could have killed Hamil, too. She left him alive to give you a message. The Mason says she’s at my club. In your office. She wants to meet with you.”

“I’ll just bet she does,” Marla said.

“If you don’t show up in the next 24 hours – less than that, now – she says she’ll destroy the whole city.”

“She won’t have to wait, we’re going now, we’re going to -”

“Marla.” Rondeau shook his head. “You can’t charge in. Not this time.”

“Bullshit. There’s not a problem I can’t solve with -”

“Didn’t you learn anything?” He didn’t shout, though he felt like shouting. He just didn’t have the energy. “You were sure you could just brute-force your way into bringing Bradley back to life, right? How well did that turn out? You managed to beat the Jaguar, but you did it because you had a good plan, you didn’t go all pissed off and try to beat him to death with a shovel. Like you said. The Mason killed half the council. I don’t think a simple ass-kicking is going to get the job done. I want her dead as bad as you do, but if we’re going to do this, can we do it with a plan? ”

Marla opened her mouth, expression furious, but then her face relaxed and she just sat down. “Thanks,” she said after a moment. “I guess I needed that.” She thought for a moment. “Okay. What did you have in mind?”

“Getting help. You know some serious badasses, Marla. Hell, call Genevieve, let’s get some reweaving going, turn the Mason into a field of cabbages or something.”

Marla shook her head. “Genevieve doesn’t have that kind of fine control. Her powers get away from her. That’s why she took herself out of the game, to her little bubble reality, because the world’s not safe when she uses her powers. Besides, she’s still human, and Crapsey can take control of human bodies at will – what if he jumped into her and took over her body before she had a chance to unleash her mojo? Think of the damage they could do with her abilities. No.”

Rondeau cleared his throat. “Well, what about, you know… The guy. With the rings. Mr., let’s say, Mr. D.”

Marla frowned. “What do you know about him?”

He shrugged. “Your office is right next to my kitchen, boss. I hear you talking sometimes, and even if I can’t make out the words through the privacy wards, I recognize the tone of the guy’s voice – you don’t forget what the lord of the underworld and the incarnation of Death sounds like. The guy did take over the whole city and try to kill me, you know. I know you two are, ah… friends. Or whatever. That you’ve kept in touch. I mean, he’s death. Surely he can go to bat for us.”

“I can’t ask him for help,” Marla said, scowling. “We don’t have that kind of relationship. Besides, he’s not overly concerned with my survival. If I get killed, he figures that means the two of us just get to spend more time together. Which doesn’t sound bad in theory, and after another century or so of life, I might even get to like the idea, but not now.”

“If you asked for help, he wouldn’t kill the Mason?”

Marla shook her head. “He couldn’t. You remember when he saw my cloak? How it scared him, because it doesn’t come from this universe – from this multiverse? It’s an alien, outside thing, beyond his ability to affect. He can’t kill it. He’s the death of every living thing from this world… but the Mason’s from another world. Outside his jurisdiction.”

“Maybe he could kill the body the Mason’s using, though, I mean -”

“And maybe not,” Marla snapped. “Maybe that body is basically just a zombie now anyway. Look, it’s not a terrible idea, and I’ll take it under advisement. If all else fails, I’ll call him. Assuming I can get the little bell I use to call him, which is presently in a drawer in my office where the Mason is sitting reading my mail. But I’m not used to running for help to some man, even a man who’s not really a man, and I’m not starting now, especially since I don’t think he’d be much use in this situation. I can deal with this on my own. This afternoon I beat a god. I can handle a bitch in a magic cloak, especially when I own exactly the same magic cloak.” She looked at Rondeau as if daring him to challenge her, but he didn’t rise to it. She slumped. “Really, the Mason doesn’t worry me that much. It’s Crapsey. If I show up, what’s to stop him from knocking my soul out and wearing my body like a suit?”

“There are protection spells, right?”

Marla nodded. “Sure. Total psychic armor spells. They protect you from possession, the thing on the doorstep trick, mind reading, and everything else – it turns your mind into a lead-lined box. Which is fine, but it’s serious complex long-term ritual shit. The kind of spell Susan Wellstone likes to do, but I don’t have the months it would take me to prepare or the week to perform the ritual. And even a sniper putting a bullet in Crapsey’s head won’t help, because he’ll just take some other host. No, the Mason I can handle, but your evil twin… He’s the real problem.”

“I might be able to fix that,” Rondeau said. “If you call the Mason and Crapsey and set up a meeting. But not right away. Like, in the morning. We have to run some errands first, get prepared.”

Marla cocked her head. “Yeah? You’ve got a plan?”

Rondeau laughed. “Not even close to a plan. But I’ve got a tactic. I can take care of Crapsey. The rest is up to you.”

“Well all right.” Marla picked up the phone. She poked at the buttons for a moment, then thrust the cell at Rondeau again. “Dial my office number, will you? I can never remember how to get to the stupid contacts list.”

“She can kill gods, but she can’t operate a cell phone,” Rondeau said.

“I can kill annoying employees, too.”

“Then who’d work this thing for you?” He handed her the phone. “There. It’s ringing.”

Marla listened for a moment. Then she said, “Hi, you. It’s me.”

“Mmm. Your terms are acceptable. I’ll see you then. I look forward to our conversation. I don’t usually talk to insects before killing them, but I’m curious -” The Mason frowned, held the phone away, and looked at it for a moment. “The woman hung up on me.” She placed the phone back down on Marla’s desk.

“Some people are so rude.” Crapsey sprawled on the couch with his arm thrown over his face. “No wonder you want to exterminate all sentient life.” After they broke into Rondeau’s nightclub – which had pretty insane magical security, but nothing the Mason couldn’t circumvent – he’d taken a shower in Rondeau’s cramped bathroom and scrounged up clean boxers and a comfortably worn bathrobe. Wearing another man’s underpants was kind of weird, but since the other man was just another iteration of himself, Crapsey decided it was okay. The next step in his plan was to curl up in Rondeau’s surprisingly neat bedroom and sleep, but he’d wanted to stay awake for the Mason’s last murder of the day. The phone call from Marla had interrupted the fun. “So Marla’s back in this universe? Is she coming over? If so, I’m gonna need some of those uppers we talked about, because I am beat like a disobedient gimp.”