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stop him. The ticket sellers just laughed when B asked if there were any late
cancellations. Marla couldn’t cast a look-away spell, not while the ticket sellers were so
conscious of their presence. So she cast a nasty but ultimately not debilitating nausea
spell on a couple of tourists, who sold Marla their tickets at a generous markup; she felt
they deserved a little extra money, since they’d be puking for most of the afternoon.
Marla had to lean over the side of the ferry to vomit herself before long. The nausea
spell was based on sympathetic magic, and she had to make herself at least a little sick
in order for it to have any effect. Such were the sacrifices that sorcery demanded. At
least Marla was willing to make the sacrifices herself. Mutex, by contrast, wanted
everyone else to be sacrificed.
“So do we know what to expect when we get to the island?” Marla asked, sitting next to
B on a bench. There was no one nearby, so Marla didn’t bother to cast a quiet spell. And
if anyone heard them talking, they’d just assume Marla and B were insane. No harm
there.
“Not really,” B said. “We’re supposed to go to a particular cell—not one of the famous
ones—and step inside, face the back wall, close our eyes, turn around three times, and
walk forward, with our eyes still closed. Which, logically, would make us bump into the
far wall, but I assume that won’t happen. After that, we’ll find the Parable Witch, or
whatever her name is.”
“If it’s even a her. Or, rather, if it even appears to be a her. Because, honestly, it’s going
to be an ‘it.’”
“This feels different,” B said. “I talk to supernatural creatures all the time, but this…”
“This is different,” Marla said. “Anyway, it had better be. Because the same-old sameolds
won’t help us find out where Mutex is going to be. He moves fast enough that
chasing him is pretty much pointless. We need to get ahead of him and set an ambush.”
She glanced toward Alcatraz Island, a great rock in the bay topped with boxy buildings.
“How long is this ride anyway?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe. I’ve been on the tour once, but it was a long time ago.”
“We’ll be there in ten minutes. Not much time for us to talk. I’ll just say, you’ve been a
help. A greater help than I expected. Don’t let it go to your head, but thanks.”
He nodded, then grinned. “So how do we fill the other nine minutes and forty-five
seconds?”
“Casual conversation, I guess.”
“Then tell me about Rondeau,” B said.
“Hmm,” Marla said. “Well, he owns a nightclub back home, likes big band music, hates
dogs, and has stupid taste in clothes. Also, he’s an inhuman psychic entity that long ago
possessed the body of a little homeless boy, which he still inhabits. He’s been living as
a human, more or less successfully, though he does have the ability to Curse in the
debased tongue of the lesser gods—that’s one theory anyway—and cause localized,