Queen of Nothing (Marla Mason Book 9) Read online

  “So you can’t help us?” Rondeau said. “You could’ve led with that.”

  Big B sighed. “I’m more trying to set expectations here, okay? What I can do is make a courtesy call. I can sort of... send a message... to the underworld, and ask what’s going on, but the beings that dwell there are under no obligation to answer, and if Marla isn’t in the mood to talk to you, she might not talk to me, either.” He looked away from the camera for a moment, then looked back, his expression troubled. “There is one weird thing though. I’ve glanced into nearby realities adjacent to yours, and Marla is around in most of them, doing her thing, kicking monsters, causing trouble—she’s even trying to bother me in a couple of them, asking me to intervene in things I have no business getting involved with, just like you are here. But... the only realities where Marla’s missing are ones that branched off from the universe where the Outsider was running loose. So her disappearance might have something to do with that creepy disaster.”

  “Wait,” Rondeau said. “You’re talking to lots of versions of us right now?”

  “Right now, and five minutes ago, and probably five minutes from now, yeah. In one universe you stabbed yourself in the hand with a fork, Little B, to get my attention. It’s gonna leave a mark.”

  Little B frowned. “I know we’re blowing Rondeau’s mind with the apprehension of the infinite and everything, but back to the Outsider—what could it have to do with Marla’s disappearance? We beat that thing hollow, we bottled it up, it’s totally contained—right?”

  “That’s an affirmative. The Outsider is a threat to the fabric of reality, and if he was loose again, I’d know it. You sealed him up good, and he remains sealed in every branch of the multiverse.”

  “So if he didn’t do anything lately,” Rondeau said, “maybe he did something before we sealed him up? Something that Marla found out about, that led her to go off the grid?”

  “Being a detective sucks,” Little B said. “I thought I was good at it, but it turns out, I’m just psychic.”

  “Usually that’s enough,” Big B said. “Look, I need to go, there’s a technologically advanced version of Earth where scientists have built a device to generate something they’re calling a Seagroves-Raschke bridge, which basically connects adjacent parallel realities, and I kind of need to squish that before they turn my beautiful multiverse into scrap metal and screaming and monsters. I’ll send a ping to the underworld of your reality, though, and let you know if I hear anything back.” The screen turned black.

  “What even is the point of having omnipotent friends if it turns out they can’t do anything for you?” Rondeau complained. “So what now?”

  B shrugged. “Now I go back to teaching my apprentice, and we wait for word from Big B.” He said distracted farewells and let himself out.

  Rondeau looked at Pelham. “How’re you holding up, man?”

  Pelly gazed at nothing at all. “My existence has been centered on Mrs. Mason. Even in the months when she was away, I have endeavored to make things go smoothly for her return. If she is somehow lost to us... what will I do?”

  “Have champagne brunch with me forever?”

  Pelham shook his head. “I require purpose in life, Rondeau. I have been trained to provide support for those doing meaningful work. A life of hedonism would be, for me, a life of despair.”

  Rondeau pushed his plate away. “When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so appealing to me, either.”

  A Divine Visitation (or Two)

  Pelham sat on a park bench, throwing popcorn to pigeons, who squabbled even in the midst of his great largesse. It was hard not to view their bickering as a metaphor. Pelham felt he owed Mrs. Mason everything. He’d pledged himself to her service after a lifetime of training in arts practical, martial, and social. Pelham had been created to serve, but Marla had refused to use him simply as a valet or bodyguard or errand-boy. She’d grown to trust him, and treated him as a friend. She’d even sent him out to travel world, to find his own way and have his own experiences, to live as something more than an extension of her will—to find his own will.

  He was so grateful to her for offering him freedom that he’d become even more devoted to her as a result. Pelham did have his own life, now, independent of Mrs. Mason, but he would always be there if she needed him, and he couldn’t imagine an existence entirely absent of her presence and influence.

  He was afraid he might have to learn to imagine better.

  A bearded old man in a dirty trenchcoat dropped down onto the bench next to him, smelling of cheap cigars and feculent body odor. “Hello, Pelham.” He spoke in a voice Pelhem imagined was roughened by years of swallowing bad things and often vomiting them back up.

  Pelham believed in politeness whenever possible. “I’m afraid I have forgotten the circumstances of our prior acquaintance, sir.”

  “Last time we met, I looked a little different. My name’s Reva.”

  Pelham bowed his head. “The god of the exiles and the wanderers. Yes. I understand the Outsider tried to devour you. I am pleased you escaped unharmed.”

  Reva nodded. “I never thought I’d see Marla again, after she told me to stop meddling in her life back in Hawaii, but then she appeared just in time to save me from being eaten by the Outsider. I owe her.”

  “Do you know where she is?” Pelham couldn’t keep the hope out of his voice. “She is one of your people, an exile from her home city—can you find her?”

  “She’s an exile, but she’s also a god. Trying to find her is a bit like trying to capture fog with a butterfly net. Either she chooses to hide herself from me—and we know she values her privacy—or some other magic, beyond my own, seeks to conceal her. When I sensed you were in the city, I knew you would be worried about her absence, and thought I should come talk to you, and tell you what I know.”

  Something deep inside Pelham’s chest ached. “You sensed me. I am one of yours, then. An exile. Because Mrs. Mason is my home, and I do not know where to find her.”

  “I’m sorry. But yes. Pelham, after the Outsider tried to eat me, tried to take on the power of a god, and failed... it went in search of another meal. One even richer than myself.”

  “Oh, no. No. Not Mr. Mason?”

  Reva whistled. “You call the god of Death ‘Mr. Mason’? Well, I can see that. Yes. The Outsider devoured Death. That’s why the Outsider was so much more powerful than before when you all fought him Felport, and sealed him away—it was fat with the powers of Death.”

  Pelham frowned. “Then.... Mrs. Mason, is she in the underworld? Is that why she hasn’t returned? She is too busy running the business of the afterlife, without her late husband’s help?”

  Reva shook his head. “I don’t think so. You know how Marla used to travel magically, during her months as a mortal—she would step from this world into the underworld, take a shortcut, and then emerge somewhere else on Earth?”

  “Yes, I recall. A harrowing way to travel. While in transit, in the land of the dead, Mrs. Mason... changed.”

  Reva nodded. “All the godhood that was suppressed during her month on Earth came rushing back to her then. She became the Bride of Death for those few steps—Dread Queen Marla, beautiful and terrible. When I found out the Outsider had killed her husband, I waited in her realm, in her throne room, because I didn’t want her to be alone when she realized she’d been widowed. When she stepped from the mortal world, she realized something was wrong, that her domain was out of alignment, and she came to the throne room. I told her what I knew, what the Outsider had done... her rage and pain were terrible to behold, Pelham. I tried to console her, but she sent me away. She told me she was too busy for grief, that she had a world to tend, and no one to help her do it. I wasn’t sure what would happen next—if a new god of Death would rise, or if she would need to seek a new consort, because the god of Death is a dualistic god: not just the killing frost but the rising sap, death twinned always with rebirth, you know?”

  “What did happ
en?” Pelham said.

  Reva shook his head. “I don’t know. I tried to go back, later, to see how Marla was holding up. There are passages gods can use to reach the underworld, ways that would kill mortals—they lead through volcanoes, or pits deep in the Earth—but all the paths to the underworld were closed to me, sealed by a magic far greater than mine. I reached out in every way I could, but the underworld is a black box now. I have spoken to some of the other gods, and while there have been rumors of some great disturbance and upset in the underworld, no one knows what’s happening there, not for sure.” He sighed. “You haven’t heard from Marla, obviously.”

  “No, but knowing she was widowed seems a crucial piece of the mystery,” Pelham said. “Thank you for telling me.”

  Reva rose. “I have to minister to my flock—San Francisco is booming now, and it’s full of strangers who’ve moved here for jobs and opportunities... and displacing longtime residents who can no longer afford to live in their home. All of those are my people, and some need my help.”

  “You have a purpose,” Pelham murmured.

  “I am my purpose,” Reva said. “That’s what it is, to be a god. People think it’s power, but it’s not. It’s duty, personified.”

  “I have a duty to Marla. To help her if I can.”

  “I know. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

  Pelham nodded, and watched Reva walk away, scattering the pigeons briefly as he went. Then Pelham took out his phone to tell Rondeau what he’d learned.

  •

  Bradley was in a dance studio with Marzi, teaching her mirror magic. They focused on scrying and spying, mainly, but Cole had recently told him about a way to travel from mirror to mirror, and they were talking over the principles of that, too, though in some ways it was even riskier than traditional teleportation. A motion in the mirror startled him, and he turned his head to see his reflection raise its hand in a wave that Bradley hadn’t initiated.

  Marzi fell back, raising her hands in preparation to weave a net of defensive magic, but Bradley put his hand on her shoulder. “No, it’s not a feral reflection, don’t worry—it’s my boss.”

  “You wound me,” the reflection said, though how an image in glass could speak audibly was a question Bradley hadn’t been able to satisfactorily answer. Big B crossed his arms and scowled. “I’m not your boss. I’m more like your big brother.”

  “Do you have any words of brotherly wisdom?”

  Big B sighed. “Look at this shit.” He waved his hand, and the mirror changed, becoming something like a movie screen instead, showing entirely different images: a shadowy cave, lit by torchlight.

  “Whoa.” Marzi stepped forward, tilting her head. “That’s a nice trick. How’s he do it?”

  Bradley shrugged. “I would do it with either a light-bending illusion, or by psychically pushing the image into the viewer’s mind. I have no idea how he does it.”

  “Duh,” Big B said. “I do it with magic. Now look. This is what happened when I tried to get in touch with Hell. I found a nice gloomy cavern full of skeletal remains and sent a query.”

  “I don’t see you in this image,” Bradley said.

  “That’s because it’s a reconstruction of what I saw through my eyes, or what you might as well call my eyes. Think of it as a first-person shooter with no shooting.”

  The image shifted, taking in gloomy stone walls, and, yes, there were fragments of white bone scattered around. A hand appeared in the field of vision—Big B’s hand—and snapped its fingers. A large fire burst into light, hovering inches above the cavern’s uneven floor, flames burning yellow with occasional flashes of blue. “Person-to-person call, the overseer of the multiverse to the gods of Death, please.”

  The fire flickered, then grew, flames rising nearly to the ceiling, and then an oval of darkness grew in the midst of the flames. A figure appeared, not stepping through the fire, but hovering just back in the doorway. He had the body of a man, skin bronze and bare chest criss-crossed with scars. He wore loose pants of pale fabric, held up with a belt of rope, but something about his bearing struck Bradley as more penitent than hillbilly.

  The newcomer had the skull of a cave bear where his head should have been, all yellowed bone and oversized fangs. The head tilted, and in the eye sockets, motes of red light rose and vanished in a stream, like burning cinders wafted upward by the breeze of a campfire. “There is only one god of Death in the underworld, just now.” The cave bear’s mouth opened and closed, though a lipless mouth couldn’t have really made all those sounds, and the voice was deep, echoing, sepulchral. “What business do you have with me, watchman?”

  “I’m curious about the whereabouts of an old friend, Marla Mason. Last I checked, she was one of the gods of Death.”

  “Much has changed. Marla Mason neither dwells in my realm, nor rules it.”

  “Do you mind if I asked what happened?”

  “Is this universe in danger? Do you have some cause to ask these questions, beyond mere curiosity?”

  “No, I just –”

  “I am busy, watchman. If that is all, I will go.” The thing with the bear skull—the new god of Death?—waved a hand, and the dark oval in the fire narrowed until only flame remained.

  The view of the cavern disappeared, and Big B was back in the studio’s reflection, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “That was all I got. Other attempts at contact were ignored.” He shrugged. “Unless he was lying, Marla’s not dead, but she’s not running things anymore. Knowing Marla, it’s hard to imagine she went willingly, and even harder to imagine that she hasn’t tried to do anything about it. Maybe she got dumped on Earth and she’s in a coma or something, shielded from magical divination.”

  “Gods. What happened to the old Death?” Bradley asked. “What, was there a coup?”

  “For the really important gods, the universe abhors a vacuum,” Big B replied. “Gods can die, and if something killed the old god of Death, the universe would have called up another one.”

  “Okay, but I thought Marla was married to the office of Death, not to any particular incarnation. Shouldn’t she still be the Bride?”

  Big B shrugged again. “Maybe Skullbear wanted a divorce.”

  “Can they divorce? Isn’t marriage among gods one of those law-of-nature things?”

  “If so, maybe Skully had to settle for a separation. I can’t do much more for you, B. I’m starting to feel myself fray a little just meddling to this extent. There was black mold on the wall of my house this morning and all the tomatoes in the garden are full of these tiny biting worms—Henry was pissed. I need to tend to my own business. Marla’s probably not dead, though, which means she’s out there, which means maybe you can find her. Take care, and good luck. Call me if you get bored on the mortal coil and want to rejoin the collective.” Big B shimmered, and then he was just Bradley’s ordinary reflection again.

  “Damn,” Marzi said. “My boyfriend and I were talking about getting married in a year or two. Maybe I should reconsider. That shit seems fraught.”

  “Every unhappy marriage is unhappy in its own way, I guess,” Bradley said. “I’d better call Pelham and Rondeau and tell them what this new dead end looks like.”

  •

  Rondeau stood on the balcony overlooking the bay, phone to his ear, and when Bradley had finished talking, he said, “Wow. Pelham just called me—he got a visit from Reva.” He relayed what Pelham had learned, and there was a long moment of silence.

  “Well, shit,” Bradley said at last. “Putting those pieces together makes a picture start to form, huh? The old god of Death died, and a new one rose up, and I guess he didn’t get along with Marla.”

  “She can be difficult,” Rondeau said dryly.

  “So Skully did something to Marla. Maybe he couldn’t divorce her, so he kicked her out of Hell?”

  “First she gets exiled from her job as chief sorcerer of Felport, then ousted as co-regent of the underworld,” Rondeau said. “Her résumé is ki
nd of a mess.”

  B ignored him. “So where is she, and how do we find her, if she’s not reaching out and the god of Death doesn’t want her found?”

  “I mean... maybe she’s making a new start,” Rondeau said. “She was never too thrilled with being a god of death, right? She felt like she had too much to do here on Earth to spend all her time among the dead. So... maybe she saw her chance to start over, and took it. I hate to think she’d leave us all behind, but we didn’t part on super good terms. Maybe she’s just clean-slating things.”

  “It’s a possibility. But as much as she used to complain, there’s nothing Marla takes more seriously than her duty. You think she’d just give up her responsibilities in the underworld?”

  “I dunno,” Rondeau said. “I mean... maybe she thought Skully could do a better job than she could.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then Bradley said, “Have you ever known Marla to think anyone was more qualified than her to do anything?”

  “True words,” Rondeau conceded. “But what happens now? How do we find her?”

  B sighed. “I’m starting to think the better question is, how do we learn to accept that maybe we can’t find her?”

  Going On

  “I know, Pelly, but what are we even doing here?” Rondeau zipped his bag closed. “We’ve been waiting around for weeks, and nothing’s happening. I know I don’t seem to do much back home, but I am the co-owner of a hotel and casino, and they need me around occasionally. I could fly back and forth from here to Vegas, but San Francisco is a pretty damned arbitrary place for us to be anyway.”

  “Is that it, then?” Pelham sat in the corner, head bowed. “We just give up on Mrs. Mason?”