Dead Reign (8 page)

Ayres had conjured Booth’s illusory form from vague memories of the assassin’s photograph in documentaries about Abraham Lincoln. He could make Booth look like anyone, but the assassin wanted to appear as he had in life. Vain bastard. “You’re welcome to return to your prior state, and go around looking like an overdone piece of bacon, if you prefer.”

Booth joined him at the window. “My apologies, sir. You’ve done a great kindness for me, and I won’t forget that. May I ask, what are you looking for out that window?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A plume of smoke. An earthquake. People running and screaming. Some sign of the titanic battle between Marla Mason and Death. Though I suppose it’s likely to be a quieter affair.”

“Mmm. If I’d known there was a duel in the offing, I would have offered my services as Death’s second. Seems the least I can do, for his allowing me to leave…that place.”

“I’m the one who brought you out of that place. And don’t forget it.”

“But you derive your power from his,” Booth said, undeterred. “Much as a statesman derives his power from his constituents. Remove the goodwill of the people, and a politician is just a liar in a suit. Remove the goodwill of Death, and you’re just…well, courtesy forbids elaboration.”

“I can send you back to Hell,” Ayres said.

“Not if I send you to Hell first,” Death said, and Ayres rose as quickly as he could.

“My lord!” he cried. Death was spattered in blood, and his right hand was a crippled ruin.

Booth stepped forward and offered an illusory handkerchief, but Death waved him away. As Ayres watched, Death lifted his arm, making a fist with his remaining two fingers, and when he opened his hand, all his digits were back and whole.

“You might have mentioned that her dagger is enchanted.” Death visibly seethed, dark energy crackling from his shoulders.

“I…my lord?” Ayres had never been more terrified.

“When I took the knife, it cut me,” Death said. “Nothing cuts me.”

“Due respect, my lord, but…I thought the whole point of that blade is its ability to cut anything.”

Death grunted. “I didn’t seize it by the blade. It turned in my hand and…bit me.”

“I had heard rumors to that effect,” Ayres said. “My apologies. I did not think any mere enchantment would hinder you, my lord.”

Death seemed to consider that. “Indeed. It shouldn’t have worked—mortal magic is no more than sparkles and light to me. Perhaps it’s no mere enchantment, then. Perhaps it’s a fundamental quality of the weapon, that it cannot be taken by force. My father would…would have known. The sword was lost before my time, and I don’t know its whole nature.”

“Some artifacts must be given willingly.” Ayres took the risk of sitting back down. Death didn’t seem offended. “They bind to their owners, and can only be given away willingly, or passed down through some other protocol. I know this dagger has passed from hand to hand for generations, from one chief sorcerer to another, since Felport’s founding.”

“So even killing Marla might not be sufficient,” Death said. “It would just pass to her successor?”

“That is my understanding.”

“Hmm. What if I became chief sorcerer? With the blade in my rightful possession, I could strip away all the enchantments that govern its conditions of ownership.”

Ayres shook his head. “There is precedent that suggests only mortals can become protectors of Felport.” He was thinking of Somerset’s resurrection and attempt to regain control of the city. Somerset had been a heartless undead monster, and according to the stories, the dagger of office had burned his hand when he took it from Sauvage’s corpse. After Marla killed Somerset, she took up the dagger, and with it the mantle of Felport’s protector. Several of the other powerful sorcerers had supported her claim, and her position had held.

“I just want the blade,” Death said petulantly, and Ayres thought, again, that he seemed very young. “How can I get it? I’m afraid peaceful negotiations are probably out of the question. Marla Mason and I…clashed.”

Ayres mused. “I know little about her. She has a few loyal friends, but I suspect she might even let them die before bowing to you. She’s stubborn. But perhaps…” Ayres hesitated.

“What?”

“I…” Should he say this? He loved Felport as much as Marla did—it was perhaps the only thing they had in common. But the opportunity to cement himself in the new Death’s good graces could mean great power for him. Cities rose and fell, but power was eternal. He made his choice. “Marla loves the city above all else. If Felport itself was at stake, she might be willing to make a deal. Remove her from power and take over the city yourself. You may not be able to rule as chief sorcerer, but you could become a sort of dictator.”

Death smiled. “You may be on to something there, Ayres. Perhaps you’re worth keeping around, after all. I’ll go for her just before dawn, when she’s tired and unprepared.”

“Just let me know if my—” He almost said servant. “My associate Mr. Booth and I can be of service. He has some experience toppling heads of state, if I recall.”

“Sic semper tyrannis,”
Booth said agreeably.

“S
o who the hell was he?” Marla said, and Hamil shook his head, peering at his computer screen.

“There’s nothing in the most recent edition of
Dee’s Peerage.
” Hamil scrolled through the digital database. The laptop was like a toy under his big hands. “The eight rings seem like a good unique variable, but no, I’ve found nothing.” The great compendium of notable magic users didn’t include every sorcerer in the world, but it damn sure should have mentioned someone capable of beating Marla in a fight, at least by an alias. Marla’s own name had appeared there as soon as she found her magical cloak in a thrift store, though at first the description hadn’t mentioned much
besides
her possession of the cloak. Her entry had grown considerably longer over the years. No one knew who updated
Dee’s Peerage,
but new editions appeared mysteriously on every sorcerer’s doorstep each year, once upon a time bound in paper that dissolved after twelve months, more recently on computer discs that decayed each year. Since the
Peerage
contained only widely known biographical information—no real secrets—no one was sufficiently motivated to track down its creator. It was also rather useful, usually, in cases like this.

“Crap.” Marla leaned back in the leather chair. “Do you think…I mean, is there any chance…that he’s really
Death
? Come to reclaim his property? We’ve all heard the stories, that my dagger’s really a shard from Death’s scythe, or that some sorcerer won the blade off Death in a card game, but I always figured they were bullshit. Could they be true?”

Hamil pushed his great bulk back from the computer. He had a specially designed high-end office chair that could have probably seated a polar bear comfortably. “The issue of the afterlife is a tricky one. There are plenty of stories of sorcerers going to the underworld—or places they believed to be the underworld. Ghosts exist, though most ghosts are just stuttering repetitive psychic stains, doing the same pointless things over and over. Persistence of personality after bodily death is also possible through magic—liches and the like. That proves there
is
something inside us, a soul or a spirit or a force of will, which can outlive the body’s death. For those of us who don’t become conscious ghosts…where does that spirit go? Some say to the afterlife, or to one of many afterlives, depending on the individual soul’s beliefs and expectations. Most necromancers claim to know the truth about the afterlife, but their truths all contradict one another. Some theorize there’s only a single underworld, a sort of malleable space that appears in whatever form the dead person—or, in rare cases, the living explorer—expects, consciously or subconsciously. If such a realm does exist, it’s reasonable to assume it has a ruler, some ancient being or series of beings that is—or at least styles itself to be—Death personified.”

“Thanks,” Marla said. “That was nice and definite. Just what I needed.”

Hamil shrugged. “It’s not my area of expertise, I’m afraid.” Hamil was a master of sympathetic magic, not corpses and ghosts. “You could ask the opinion of that necromancer who just got out of Blackwing. I know you have reservations about him, but he clearly wants to prove his usefulness. All necromancers interact with
something
that claims to live in the underworld.”

“I’m not ready to eat my pride just yet,” Marla said. “We’ll see if Mr. Death decides to come back. With luck, the loss of a few fingers will give him pause. On to the other turd in the punch bowl of my day: I met with the Chamberlain. I guess it wasn’t a total disaster.”

“Good. I’m having a new tuxedo made for the ball.”

“Oh, yeah? I didn’t know there was enough fabric in the
world
to make a new tuxedo for you. Prices for cloth must be soaring all over the world, what with you sucking up all the supply. I should make some investments.”

“A fat joke, Marla? Isn’t that beneath you?”

She sighed. “Probably. Sorry. You just reminded me I have to find something to wear. I’m not looking forward to shopping for a dress. The Chamberlain was very specific about that. I gotta wear a dress. The ghosts of the founding families are particular about what women should wear. And if I send Rondeau to buy something for me, gods, can you imagine the slutwear he’d buy? I’d look like a stripper.”

“I’m sure your new valet can help you find something suitable.” Hamil gave the slightest of smiles.

Marla groaned. “Word travels fast.”

“I won’t mock you further. It’s too easy.”

“Thanks, Hamil. I’ll make sure the caterers have plenty of those little shrimp puff things you like.”

“Such benefits make life in your service worthwhile.”

After Marla arrived at the club, cutting around the line that snaked outside and nodding to the bouncer on her way in, she headed straight for the back stairs that led up to Rondeau’s apartment and her office, which once upon a time had been his spare bedroom. She wasn’t much for dancing, and the horde of college students and hipsters in the club never failed to make her feel old.

Easing her way around the dance floor, she was first surprised and then annoyed to see Pelham tending the bar, moving with the precision of a Swiss clockwork figurine, pouring drinks and taking orders and eyeing the shouting customers with a combination of patience and concern. “Rondeau!” she shouted, and he was there, by her elbow, steering her toward a corner of the bar. He was dressed in a pin-striped suit that would have been tasteful if not for the giant fake orange flower dangling from his lapel, and the hideous polka-dotted bow tie. Once they were out of the press of the crowd, in the lee of one of the support pillars that dotted the floor, Marla snapped her fingers and said “Tace,” causing a field of silence to wrap around Rondeau and herself, cutting out the pounding beat of the dance music and the dim roar of the merrymaking crowd. “Rondeau, why is my valet working in your nightclub?”

He winced. “I’m sorry! But one of my bartenders called in sick and the other one just flat no-showed. You know I’m useless behind the bar, and I was trying to find out if the bouncer knows how to mix drinks when Pelly just sort of appeared out of nowhere and cleared his throat and said that, being at liberty for the moment, he would be happy to serve. I knew you’d be pissed, but we were opening in five minutes, so I said sure.” He glanced toward the bar. “And I have to give the guy his due. He knows the whole bartender’s bible by heart! He may have never left the estate before, but he can mix a drink.”

Marla sighed. “Call me next time you want to hijack my valet, would you? I mean, I don’t
care,
but I’d like to be notified.”

Rondeau grinned. “I thought you didn’t even want the guy.”

“I need somebody to hang crepe paper and to order the chocolate fountain and to sprinkle glitter on the swans, or whatever the hell rich people do to prepare for their parties. After that…”

“What, you’re going to drive him to the edge of the woods and set him free?” Rondeau gestured. “Look at the guy. He practically begged me to put him to work! He’s over there smiling, and it doesn’t even look fake. He lives to serve. And you do need an assistant.”

“I’m just not comfortable with the whole manservant thing.”

“So pay him more than he deserves, if it makes you feel better. Give him lots of time off. Just as long as you pay me more, you know, on account of seniority.”

“We’ll see,” Marla said. “I’m going upstairs. Holler if you need me.”

“Sure you don’t want to grab a drink? Pelly mixes a mean Manhattan.”

“Maybe later.” Marla went up the back stairs (which were invisible to casual observers, hidden under a look-away spell), and to her cluttered office. She switched on a brass lamp and dropped into the chair behind her desk, drawing her dagger of office from its sheath to set it on the desk before her. She idly spun the dagger on the blotter, and when it stopped twirling, the point was aimed at her chest. She grunted.

Marla owned two magical artifacts, which were two more than most people ever even
saw.
The first was her cloak. With the pale white side showing, it healed her, protecting her from taking physical damage. With a mental command she could reverse the cloak, making the bruise-purple side flip to the outside, and when she wore the purple, she became a monster, a pure killing machine. She’d discovered the cloak in a thrift store soon after she became an apprentice in Felport. The cloak shouldn’t have been there—no one had sold it to the store, no employee had hung it on a rack, it was just
there
—and it had called to Marla, almost literally whispering to her. She paid the three dollars the clerk demanded, put on the cloak, and soon became something of a legend in the town, the ex-apprentice with an artifact, the stone-cold mercenary who would do almost any job, and who always demanded knowledge in payment instead of money—spells, tricks, secrets. At first, she’d been able to demand only a small lesson, but as she became more sought after and proficient in martial magics, she’d started acquiring tidbits of true power. Some people still grumbled that the
cloak
had the real power, not Marla, but if that was ever true, it wasn’t anymore; she hardly wore the thing these days. It was simply too dangerous.