Blood Engines(108)

 

“Mr. Toad is kind of a shitty fighter,” Rondeau said.

 

“That’s the problem with taking over someone else’s body,” Marla said. “People are used to their own bodies. It’s tough adjusting to a new one, I bet. Especially when your old body was human and your new body is a rapidly growing frog with too many mouths. I’m surprised he can control the body well enough to stumble around at all.”

 

“Mutex could have been immortal,” Cole said. “If he’d been allowed to take on his full size, he would have been unimaginably formidable. Mutex’s plan was a good one. An evil one, of course, yes, but a good one.”

 

“He shouldn’t have taken something I needed,” Marla said. “I would have left him alone if he hadn’t taken the Cornerstone. Until he tried to expand his theocracy too far east anyway.”

 

Ch’ang Hao twisted off Mutex’s head and flung it to the ground, where it exploded in a geyser of vegetation, creeping vines and big, waxy, white flowers. The frog-body shuddered, slumped, and became a mound of dirt. Ch’ang Hao looked at the remains of his vanquished foe for a moment, then began shrinking. He was soon out of sight below the tree line.

 

“Think the collapsing god managed to smother all the poison dart frogs?” Marla asked.

 

“I will find out,” Cole said. “Perhaps I can enlist Ch’ang Hao to crush any that remain. And I will find that odd basket Mutex had as well. It may simply be enchanted, but it could also be an artifact, and those are always useful.”

 

Marla took off the snakeskin belt and laid it on the grass. “Cole, could you give this to Ch’ang Hao? So he can, I don’t know, give it a proper burial or whatever?”

 

“I don’t think the gesture will make him forgive you,” Cole said.

 

“Yeah,” Marla said. “I don’t expect it to. How many mortal enemies does this make now, Rondeau?”

 

Rondeau hummed and counted off on his fingers. “Do we count the Rummage twins as one mortal enemy or two?”

 

“Two, I guess. They’ve got separate issues with me.”

 

“I count thirty-five, then,” Rondeau said. “But most of them are shit. Not like Ch’ang Hao. And he’s a god; gods are patient. So you probably don’t have to worry about him for a while.”

 

Marla didn’t answer. The Cornerstone was gone. She didn’t have to worry about any of her enemies, really, except for Susan. Soon enough, Susan would cast her spell, and that would be the end of Marla. At least when she was erased from the world she would have no regrets. There wouldn’t be anything left of Marla to do the regretting, not even a ghost.

 

“Those two pretty much wrecked the Tea Garden,” B said after a while. “That’s too bad. It was a really nice place.”

 

“They’ll rebuild it,” Cole said. “That’s the nature of San Francisco. Earthquake, fire, economic depression, titanic battles between gods, no matter what, it rises from the wreckage and lives on.”

 

“Maybe it’s not such a shithole quakemeat city, after all,” Marla said.

 

 

 

 

 

20

 

 

 

Marla sat in one of the comfortable chairs in her hotel room, looking out at the night skyline, her feet propped up on the windowsill. She was smoking a clove cigarette for the first time in years, because for the first time in years she wasn’t worried about cancer or diminishing her lung capacity.

 

The door opened, and she didn’t bother to turn around, because even if it was an assassin, what did it matter?

 

“Marla,” Cole said. He sat down on the edge of the bed behind her.

 

“Hey,” she said. “How’d it go?”

 

“It went well. I performed the psychic transposition—what do you call it? The Doorstep trick?”

 

“The Thing on the Doorstep,” Marla said. “A guy named H. P. Lovecraft wrote a story with that title, about a bad wizard who stole a girl’s body. You should read it. The prose gets a little purple, but the story’s a good one.”

 

“Mmm,” Cole said. “I’ll look for it. At any rate, I put the apprentice’s mind back in her own body. Nearly all the necessary components were available in the Celestial’s shop. He was still unconscious, deeply traumatized by seeing the spirits of his ancestors. Or the things he thought were the spirits of his ancestors. That friend of yours, B—he’s powerful. I don’t think he has any idea how powerful.”

 

“What did you do with the Celestial?”