“Not little poison ones anyway,” Cole said from the front seat. “Giant monstrous frogs from Aztec mythology might still prove difficult.”
“I’m not worried,” Marla said, climbing back to the driver’s seat, feeling the snakeskin shift against her body as she moved. “I’ve got a lot of rage I need to work off, and I’ve got the help of the greatest sorcerer since Merlin, right?”
“Hmm,” Cole said. “As to that, I have been sleeping for the better part of a century, Marla. And while I am not wholly defenseless, do not expect much from me in the way of offensive capability. I have always been a cautious sorcerer, and while I will admit without false modesty that I have achieved great things, those feats always required careful preparations. I have never been much good in the heat of battle—at least, not unless I had ample time to lay a suitably ingenious ambush first. I am at your service, but there is a good reason that I sought you out, rather than going to dispose of Mutex myself.”
“Oh,” Marla said, feeling her furious courage abate slightly. She’d expected this to be an easy op, with Cole giving her support, but if he didn’t have much to offer in the way of firepower…She looked at Ch’ang Hao. “So, big guy. Any chance you’d be willing to help me in the havoc to come?”
“I do not shy away from battle,” Ch’ang Hao said, “but I have had my fill of fighting for others. My former masters often used me so.”
“And let’s not forget who liberated you from your former masters,” Marla said. She regretted it as soon as the words were spoken. It was a stupid, insulting thing to say, and she never would have slipped like that if she’d been well rested, if she’d been back home, if she wasn’t thinking about B and Rondeau dead at the Celestial’s hands, if…
“That debt has been discharged,” Ch’ang Hao said coldly. “I fulfilled my duty. Do not think to—”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, it was a shitty thing to say,” Marla said, holding up her hands. “Mea culpa. Look, if I cut your harness now…will you forget about killing me? Call it even?”
“You would cut me free now only to save yourself. I am disgusted by the suggestion, and I am finished making bargains with you. I reject your offer.” He looked briefly upward, then back down at her. “Nevertheless, I will fight by your side.”
“Why?”
“I will try to keep you alive, so that when I have fulfilled my other responsibilities, I may return, and take your life myself.”
“How do I know you won’t try to kill me while I’m distracted with Mutex?”
“You have my word that I will not attempt to take your life on this day,” he said solemnly. “On another day, yes. But not this one.”
“I’d hoped we could get past this,” Marla said. “That I could make you understand why I’ve done the things I’ve done. That we could be…friends.”
“The moment you used me as a tool, you closed off any possibility of the two of us becoming friends. Did you never think that, had you set me free out of kindness, I would have counted you a friend, and helped you out of kindness in return? Instead, you bought me. And now you’ve killed one of my children, and ornamented yourself with his skin. Imagine if I had killed Rondeau before your eyes, and dressed myself in the torn remnants of his flesh. That is what I have just watched you do. I know you had your reasons, but that does not change my response. No, Marla. We will not be friends.” He shifted his huge bulk on the seat. “This space is confining. I will be outside.” He opened the van door and stepped out, into the afternoon sun.
Marla looked out the windshield. “This is no kind of January,” she said. “There should be wind, snow, ice. Look how clear it is.”
“I grew up in the woods of Canada,” Cole said. “I cannot say I mind the lack of snow here.” He glanced out the passenger-side window, to where Ch’ang Hao stood impassively near some bushes, on the edge of the vastness that was Golden Gate Park. “You are a brave woman, to make a god your enemy.”
“I didn’t mean to make him my enemy. But I guess I didn’t come close to doing enough to make him my friend.”
“Regret is a heavy burden,” Cole said.
“If I feel regret, that means I’m still alive, so I’m all for it. We should get going. The Tea Garden’s that way, according to the map.” Rondeau had circled the Tea Garden on the map—it was one of the places he’d wanted to visit. I should have let him come, Marla thought. I shouldn’t have given him such a hard time. And that was the closest she would let herself come to mourning for now.