Blood Engines(95)

 

Marla thought about that. It didn’t take much thought. She stepped aside, and Sanford Cole, the closest thing to Merlin this age had ever seen, came inside.

 

 

 

 

 

18

 

 

 

Marla didn’t have anything to offer Cole, except crappy coffee brewed in the little four-cup coffeemaker the hotel provided. Sipping from a Styrofoam cup, Cole made a face. “I can say in all honesty that this is the best cup of coffee I’ve had in decades.”

 

“Right,” Marla said. “Suspended-animation humor. If I survive the rest of the day, I’ll buy you a grande latte. Coffee’s come a long way since your day. But we’ve got other things to do first.”

 

“You seem to have a plan of action in mind already,” Cole said. “Which is more than I’d hoped for. What can you tell me?”

 

“Mutex is making his move today, this afternoon or evening.”

 

“And what is his move? Remember, I slept through all the rising action. All I know of this Mutex is that he is a powerful sorcerer—I have a talent for sensing that much, which is how I found you—and that he’s killed or driven away all the sorcerers who are meant to be protecting this city. What is Mutex’s goal?”

 

Marla was a bit surprised, having thought of Sanford Cole as a near-omniscient being, but upon reflection, it made sense—even the greatest sorcerers were just people. When they stopped being people, they stopped being sorcerers, and became monsters. Marla filled him in on Mutex’s religious notions, and his plan to raise Tlaltecuhtli. While she spoke, she had a hard time ignoring the digital alarm clock on the bedside table, every minute eroding the little time she had left to act.

 

“Mutex must not succeed,” Cole said. “And you say he intends to complete the ritual today? How can you be sure?”

 

“Have you ever heard of the Possible Witch?”

 

“I have heard,” Cole said. “But the path to reach her has been closed since the days when the Ohlone Indians fished the waters of the bay.”

 

“I had some help getting to her,” Marla said. “I know an oracle-generator. An opener of the way.”

 

“Astonishing! Emperor Norton had similar powers, but they drove him mad.”

 

Marla filed that tidbit of information away. As far as she knew, no one knew that Norton had possessed such powers, and she liked to impress Hamil and Langford with such esoteric trivia. The thought made her painfully homesick, and she turned her attention back to the matter at hand. “My guy isn’t insane. He’s a little weird, but that’s normal for a seer. We went to see the Possible Witch, and she gave us the best likelihoods about Mutex. He’s going to be at the Japanese Tea Garden today—possibly soon—and if I don’t stop him then, it’s going to be too late for anyone to stop him.”

 

“What is your strategy?” Cole asked.

 

“Strategy. Right. I can handle Mutex, pretty much, except for his poison frogs. I had a way to get around that—I sent a…ah, an associate of mine to find me a snake that’s immune to the frogs’ toxins—”

 

“And you planned to use sympathetic magic to make yourself immune as well, of course. But…?”

 

“But my friend hasn’t shown up yet, and I’m running out of time to wait for him.”

 

Cole frowned. “Is your friend, by any chance, shall we say, a non-human?”

 

“I think he’s an ancient Chinese snake god,” Marla said. “And he’s not my friend. He owes me a favor, but he considers me an enemy, and wants to kill me.”

 

“Your enemy? I’m sorry to hear that. You should have said you were waiting for a god. I’ve been sensing a god within the city’s borders for nearly an hour now. He appeared rather suddenly, but then, gods do that. He’s south of here. It may be—”

 

“South of here?” Marla slapped her forehead. “Shit. I bet he’s at the airport. Rondeau was supposed to pick him up. Damn it. Cole, come with me. I’ve got to do something I swore I’d never do again.”

 

“What?”

 

“I can’t believe it’s come to this,” Marla said. “But there’s no other way. I’m going to have to drive.”

 

Cole looked appropriately horrified by the notion.

 

 

 

 

 

B took a bus to Chinatown, feeling self-conscious in his cloak, though he didn’t draw more than the usual number of stares—only this time it wasn’t people looking at him because he seemed vaguely familiar, but because he was wearing something outlandish. He kept thinking of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movie (there had been a rumor in certain circles that B was being considered in the lead role for that back when it was being cast, but it had been groundless, as all such rumors were since he’d left the business). In B’s opinion, the best scenes in the film were those where Peter Parker was exploring his newfound abilities as Spider-Man, the simple glee he’d demonstrated as he leapt and spun and deadlifted tremendous weights. How many kids hadn’t imagined having just such powers? B certainly had. And, unlike most kids, he’d grown into a person who did, apparently, have powers of a sort, though B would trade all the second-sight and oracle-finding prowess in the world for, say, invisibility or the power of flight, straightforward powers that didn’t necessarily create more questions than they answered. Now B did have such powers, though they were borrowed from the cloak—speed, strength, and a will to violence. He wanted to feel that Spider-Man kind of joy, and he had, while he was up on the rooftop, trying out his moves. But now he was on his way to use those moves, to commit an act of violence against a living person, and he didn’t feel joyful. He’d seen Marla in action, watched her fight while wearing the cloak (though he hadn’t been able to follow the action in any useful way; Mutex and Marla had both been blurs during the battle on the train), and watched her kill without using the cloak at all. B didn’t know if he was capable of killing someone that way. The advantage of the cloak was that it removed such conscious concerns from the mind—once B reversed it, his logical, coherent mind would recede, and he would attack whomever he perceived as an enemy. That was liberating, but B didn’t think it would ultimately provide much comfort. He had put on a brave face for Marla, but he was terrified both of failing and of succeeding. Still, he had to save Rondeau. B lived a mostly lonely existence, because he suffered visions and afflictions that normal people couldn’t understand and that he didn’t dare share, and he’d found a friend in Rondeau. If it was in his power to help a friend, he would.