Bride of Death (Marla Mason) (7 page)

I pulled out the smartphone Pelham had given me and fiddled with it for a moment, looking for local landmarks, such as they were. “There’s a truck stop a few miles ahead, with a diner.”

“I could use a bite to eat.”

“You don’t eat food.”

“No, but I eat chaos, and there’s definitely a scent in the air.”

“All right, then. Can you be a little more specific about what I’m getting into?”

Nicolette tittered. “Afraid it’ll be something you can’t handle? You’ve got a dagger forged in Hell – that’s the rumor, anyway – and an axe with a blade made of some kind of supernatural moonlight, and thirty years of experience as a mercenary sorcerer –”

“Thirty years? How the hell old do you think I am? It’s only sixteen or seventeen years since I became an apprentice!”

“– so I imagine you can cope. And if you can’t, lady, you’re in the wrong business.”

I started the bike again, mostly because I wanted to drown Nicolette out if she kept talking. The motorcycle ate miles as quickly as Rondeau downs drinks, so before long I signaled and swooped down a freeway exit and pulled into an oasis of concrete, diesel fumes, and big rigs. I parked my bike in one of the spaces away from the gas pumps, next to the diner itself, where I could see my ride from the windows. Not that anyone would have much luck if they tried to steal it or rifle through my saddlebags – I’d made sure the bike was enchanted with some nice anti-theft spells in addition to whatever Death had done to it – but because it was pretty much the only thing I had in the world, and I wanted to keep my eye on it.

I stood up from the bike and stretched, my spine crackling. The seat was comfy, but I wasn’t used to sitting for hours at a time, and my ass was numb. I started toward the diner door.

“You’re leaving me here?” Nicolette said.

I sighed. “I was. But okay. You can come, if you behave. Not a word out of you in there.”

“Squawk. Polly wants a patty melt.”

I unhooked the bungees that held the cage to the bike. I really needed to rig up some kind of quick-release attachment, or maybe just a sticky spell I could turn on and off, or something with magnets. The handle of the birdcage protruded through a slit in the cloth, so I picked up the cage that way and carried it into the diner with me. I chose a booth along the windows and set the birdcage down on one side before sitting on the other, where I had a view of the door. I scanned the room, but didn’t see much to worry me – certainly no obvious impending vectors for chaos. Just a few truckers at the counter, putting away slabs of pie and buckets of coffee, and a family, clearly on a road trip, with a mom and dad looking exhausted, and two disturbingly well-behaved children, one little girl and one little boy, aged somewhere between four and eight (I’m not great with kids), noshing on burgers and fries.

A waitress of the take-no-shit veteran variety came over and gave my covered birdcage the eye. “Is there a bird in there?”

“No,” I said truthfully.

“Because birds aren’t allowed. No pets, except service animals. Health regulations.”

“No bird, I promise.” I wondered what health regulations had to say about bringing severed human heads into a restaurant. Probably didn’t come up often, and likely covered by other existing laws.

The waitress cocked her head at me. “You travel around with an empty birdcage?”

I wanted to say “I keep my guns and drugs in there,” but instead I just nodded. “Some people like briefcases. Not me. I’m an eccentric. But I tip well.”

She rolled her eyes and pointed her pencil at me. “If I hear any chirps or squawks, you’ll have to take it outside, all right?”

“Understood.”

“Water? Coffee?”

“Yes,” I said.

The waitress slid a menu across the table and walked back around the counter. I flipped the menu open, and my stomach grumbled. Nicolette wanted to come here to eat chaos, but I could go for a plate of eggs and sausage.

The little boy in the booth next to mine was standing on the seat, staring at the birdcage. “Did you know parrots can live for a hundred years?”

“In captivity, maybe,” I said. “If you call that living. “

“Sea turtles can live even longer,” the boy said. He had ketchup on his face. Cute? Disgusting? Who am I to judge?

I wondered how we’d gotten onto the topic of sea turtles. I figured I’d roll with it, though. I’d been off the surface of the earth for a month, so I could use some conversational practice. “I used to live in Hawaii. I saw lots of sea turtles there.” I even met a turtle god, but I figured maybe I shouldn’t mention that.

“Leave the lady alone,” the mom said, and tugged the child back down to his seat.

So much for human interaction. Who needs it? My mission was inhuman interaction anyway.

The waitress came back with the drinks and took my order, and I warmed my hands on the porcelain coffee mug. I didn’t get any sense of impending chaos, but then, if I had a good sense for that kind of thing, I could have avoided a lot of problems in the past, and I wouldn’t have needed Nicolette.

A few minutes later, the waitress brought over a big plate of fluffy yellow scrambled eggs and crisped-black sausage and a little plate of light brown toast. I took a couple of bites as she refilled my coffee mug, right to the brim with scalding rocket fuel. All good stuff, but I couldn’t enjoy my meal, because I couldn’t relax. Was anything even going to happen here? Had Nicolette actually sensed impending chaos, or was she just messing with me, asserting her independence, wasting my time?

I slid the wedding ring off my finger. I’d given Death a plain old ordinary gold band, but his ring for me was a little fancier. I held it up to my eyeball and looked through the hole, peering around the diner. Doing so doubtless made me look like a weirdo, but I was already the chick in a leather coat who brought a birdcage into a diner, so that ship had pretty much sailed.

Peering through the ring can give me a glimpse of the future. The immediate future of the immediate area, and, if I focused on an individual, a deeper look at their
personal
future. Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately – the future isn’t fixed, so the ring just shows me the most
likely
futures, and the view is more-or-less blurry depending on just how likely, or unlikely, a given future is. The layout of the diner itself didn’t change much, which meant that, shockingly, it would still be standing for the next ten minutes or half hour. I caught a glimpse of flashing lights outside, implying police cars or fire trucks in the future. Okay, that was something. I focused on a couple of the truckers, and saw nothing unremarkable – them, driving trucks, eating beef jerky, watching TV in motels. The little boy popped up and stared at me again, so I gave him a long look, and was surprised – mostly I saw haze and blurs and school corridors and beaches, but I did get a brief, sharp image of him much older, probably in his twenties, in a jungle, his face and bare chest smeared with blood, his hair decorated with bright feathers, a halo of bluish magic crackling around his upraised hands. The kid had at least a chance of stumbling into the world of magic and becoming a sorcerer at some point. The future holds all kinds of weird possibilities.

His mom tugged him down again, so I swept my vision toward the approaching waitress –

– and saw her crumpled on the diner floor, a gash in her throat and a wound across her face, blood everywhere.

There we go.

The bell over the door rang as someone entered, and I slid the ring back onto my finger and watched as a twitchy, scruffy-looking guy in his thirties shuffled in. He wore a dirty red flannel jacket, and he kept wiping his nose with his crusty sleeves. The guy was on some kind of drugs, obviously, and from the look of him, I didn’t want any of what he was having. “Lucille!” he shouted. “Lucille, I need to talk to you!”

The waitress who’d served me crossed her arms and scowled. “Lucy ain’t here, Gary. Why don’t you just go on home and wait for her.”

“She worked today!” he shouted. “She works every Friday! Don’t you lie to me, Arlene!”

“It’s Thursday,” Arlene said. “You look like a mess. Maybe you shouldn’t be driving. You have a seat and let me get you a cup of coffee –”

“I don’t need coffee, I need
Lucille
, it’s payday and she needs to sign her check over so I can get my medicine, I can’t wait no more –”

“It’s not payday until tomorrow, anyway, and you can’t be shouting like that, you’ll scare the customers –”

“
Don’t you tell me what to do!
” he shouted – screamed, really. “Lucille, get out here right
now
!”

“She told you Lucille ain’t here, son,” one of the truckers said. He was a big guy, probably ran two-eighty and only some of it fat, and he put his hand on Gary’s arm, not even in a threatening way, more conciliatory.

Gary came out with a hunting knife and slashed at the trucker, who fell back, shouting. He slid off his stool, blood welling through a long tear in his sleeve. Gary had slashed his bicep, which probably hurt like hell, but he wasn’t likely to die from it.

Gary started for the counter, knife raised high. Arlene was pretty clearly his next target. He went through the pass-through behind the counter, and Arlene surprised me by vaulting right over the counter before he could get to her, knocking salt shakers and coffee cups out of the way in the process. Gary wasn’t impressed by her athletic prowess. He just changed course, came back around to our side of the counter, and lifted his blade. Arlene moved past me, toward the booth where the family was sitting, but there was nowhere for her to go after that, and Gary was advancing. Lucky for Arlene, he’d have to pass by me to get to her.

I’ve been trained by some of the best knife fighters in the world. I know about the advantages of the reverse grip, hammer grip, icepick grip, and fencer’s grip. I know the uses of biomechanical cutting – slashing at your opponent’s muscles to disable them – and I’ve been in my share of actual trying-to-kill-somebody fights. Plus, I’ve got a dagger so sharp it can cut through ghosts.

But I didn’t pull my knife and tussle with Gary. The thing about knife fighting is, it’s ugly. The only time you get to use fancy moves is in a formal duel or a demonstration bout between masters. If you want to win a knife fight in the real world, the best way is to strike before the other person even knows they’re
in
a knife fight – just rush them and stab them as hard and fast as you can, prison-yard style. A surprise blitz attack is almost impossible for any knife fighter to defend against, no matter how well trained they are. Going at Gary, when he was jacked up on who knew what exciting substances and clearly had no particular concern for long-term consequences or self-preservation, would be a good way for me to get cut, and getting cut hurts.

So instead I picked up my full coffee cup, took aim, and threw it at Gary’s head as hard as I could. The side of the heavy porcelain mug struck him right in the middle of the forehead, staggering him and splashing hot coffee across his face and scalp, and all down his front as the cup tumbled. He didn’t fall down, but he wobbled, and the arm holding the knife hung loose at his side.

I knew he was seeing stars, but depending on what he was on, he wouldn’t be staggered for long. I slid out of the booth, the plate in my hand, and took a few quick steps toward him. His eyes finally focused on me, but before he could bring the knife up, I smashed him across the face with my plate, getting scrambled eggs in his eyes. Too bad for him I like my eggs with lots of hot sauce.

He screamed and fell backwards, and when I saw my chance, I stomped on his wrist. I hadn’t had the chance to work any nasty inertial charms into the boots yet, but a heel with all my weight on top of it was sufficient to make his hand fall open, releasing the knife. I kicked the blade away, knelt down, flipped him over on his belly, and jerked his hands up behind his back. I had zip ties in one of my coat pockets – among other useful things – so I bound his wrists, then grabbed the tie and used it as a handle to drag him across the floor. I don’t
think
I dislocated his shoulders, but he hollered like I did. I left him in the entryway, shoved off to one side by the bubble gum machine and not blocking the door, on account of fire safety, and also because I knew I’d better be leaving soon.

Gary groaned, and I didn’t even kick him, because I’m trying to Do Better.

I stood up, and the whole diner was staring at me. The cook, an old fat guy, had finally emerged, and was pressing a wad of paper towels against the trucker’s bleeding bicep. Arlene’s mouth hung open, and the other diners were all on their feet. One of the truckers clapped, and someone else cheered.

The only person not looking at me was the little boy, and his behavior went unnoticed by his parents, since they were focused on my selfless act of violence. He was crouched by my booth, lifting up the edge of the cover over Nicolette’s bird cage. His eyes were wide, and he was nodding, as if agreeing with someone.

“I’d better be going,” I said, and shoved through the crowd, which parted for me the way they usually do for someone whose shown a capacity for mayhem, only with more of an air of gratitude. The boy let the cover drop and backed away hurriedly, trying to look innocent and failing. I started to pick up the birdcage, then swore and reached into my pocket for some money.

“Honey, your meal is on the house,” Arlene said.

“I should really be going.” I said.

She chewed her lip. “The police will want to –”

“I’m not a big fan of the police.”

Arlene nodded like she understood. “Which way are you headed?”
I hesitated. “South.”

“Is that true, or what you want us to tell the cops?”

“It’s true.”

“Then if anybody asks me I’ll say you headed north.”

Despite myself, I smiled. “That’d be fine. Thanks, Arlene.”

“Honey, thank
you
. Gary Singer’s always had a mean streak, but he’s never been mean
and
armed before.”

“Yeah. People change.” I picked up the bird cage.

“Now tell me the truth,” Arlene said. “
Is
there a bird in that?”