B was weeping.
Tlaltecuhtli turned its vast head, and looked upon them, and saw them, though they were mere specks on a small island. The great monster of the Earth crouched low, and then leapt, up and out toward them, and Marla looked into the sky, where doom was falling toward them like a great green stone.
And then the world flickered, and the sky was only blue. She looked toward the city, and there was no smoke, no monsters. B stood up, shakily, and Marla did as well. “It…that wasn’t home,” he said.
“No,” Marla said. “I guess it wasn’t. But it’s what could happen. If we don’t move fast enough. If we fail.”
“Do you think this is it?” B said. “Are we back?”
“It looks like the world we left,” she said. “Let’s try to find a ferry.”
There were tourists on the island, and a boat preparing to leave. Marla and B slipped into the back of the ferry, and sat huddled together. It wasn’t as cold here as it had been in the glacial other world, but a San Francisco morning on the bay in January was still far from balmy. They were both miserable, cold, hungry, and shaken from their experience. They didn’t speak on the trip back across the bay. When they arrived at the pier, Marla actually asked B to get a cab. They rode to the hotel, and Marla’s hunger fought for space with her worry. They went into the hotel restaurant, where brunch was being served, and gorged themselves. When they were done eating, they took the elevator upstairs.
Rondeau wasn’t in the room. There was no note.
“Maybe he went out for breakfast,” B said doubtfully.
“He’s flaky, but he knows better than that,” she said. “Besides, his bed’s made, and it’s too early for the maids to have come in. Rondeau doesn’t make his own bed, so that means he didn’t sleep here.” Maybe he was flaking out—maybe he’d run into Zara and slept with her. But Marla had told him to come back to the room, told him and meant it, and she didn’t believe he would have disobeyed her if it had been in his power to comply.
She checked the voice mail on the cell phone, but there were no messages. The fact that she and the phone had been in other universes all night might have had something to do with that, she supposed. She noticed a light blinking on the phone beside the bed. “I guess there’s voice mail for the room,” she said, and pushed the button.
The first message had come in that morning, just a couple of hours before. It was the Chinese sorcerer, speaking in the sweet stolen voice of his apprentice. “Meet me at my shop, today, at three o’clock. Bring me Ch’ang Hao, properly restrained, and I will return your lickspittle Rondeau to you. And then we will discuss restitution for the damage you have caused my reputation and my shop.”
Marla swore. Then the next message began. It was her consiglieri, Hamil.
“Marla,” he said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. I just got word from another one of my spies. Susan is going to cast the spell tonight. If you don’t find the Cornerstone now, soon, it’s going to be too late.”
That was bad news, but it could have been worse. Marla was going to confront Mutex this afternoon, and one way or another, things were going to end. She would get the Cornerstone, or she would die. If she got the stone, Susan’s spell tonight wouldn’t be a problem. If she died, well, Susan’s spell still wouldn’t be a problem.
Then the automated voice of the machine told Marla the date and time of Hamil’s call. His message was older than the Chinese sorcerer’s. Hamil had called the day before, in the afternoon, while she was in another world with B.
Which meant Susan had cast her spell to take over Marla’s city the night before, while Marla was trapped in another universe.
Marla began to laugh.
17
So what’s the news?” B said.
Marla didn’t hesitate. B had proven himself, as much as anyone could in two days. “The bad news is, the Chinese guy has Rondeau. I’m supposed to meet him at three o’clock today to negotiate his safe return, or, more likely, to walk into his ambush.”
“Three o’clock. The same time you’re supposed to lie in wait to ambush Mutex.”
“I see you’ve been taking notes.”
“So what’s the good news? Or is this a bad-news/ worse-news sort of situation?”
“Temporarily good news. I’ve been granted a stay of execution.” Marla was marginally cheered, just thinking about the kind of day Susan must be having, checking her spells, finding them sound, checking her components, finding them flawless; and then falling into a depressed contemplation of the great intangible quality that drove all magic, from the merest cantrip needed to light a cigarette to the great spells that could cause earthquakes and raise leviathans: the sorcerer’s will. Susan would have no choice but to assume her will was the weak point in her spell, that her attempt to destroy Marla had failed because Susan didn’t need, want, deserve it enough.