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“Call me Marla,” she said, and leaned back against the wall. “Did that Chinese guy call
you and tell you I was coming?”
Finch shrugged. “Reporting on the presence of out-of-town sorcerers is one of his
responsibilities while I’m in charge. He asked me not to kill you, by the way. He looks
forward to that honor himself.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Marla said. “And here I was worried you were going to try
fucking my ghost. Or do you only do that to boy ghosts?”
He waved a hand. “A ghost is a ghost is a ghost. They’re malleable—I can shape them
into nearly anything I want. You told my colleague in Chinatown that you were here to
find something—something Lao Tsung had?—and that then you’d be on your way.
How can I expedite matters, and get you out of my city?”
She crossed her arms. This was it. “I need access to a Cornerstone, and Lao Tsung told
me there’s one here.”
Finch just stared at her. “A Cornerstone,” he repeated.
Marla ignored him. Verbal delaying tactics didn’t interest her.
“Hmm,” he said. “It’s true that there is one in San Francisco—I’m sure you know that
much already—and it’s true that Lao Tsung made use of it. In return for its use, he
stayed here and acted as its guardian. But the stone itself…every use erodes it, Marla,
and the making of such artifacts—if they were ever made at all, if they aren’t the
gallstones or coprolites of a primordial god or something else supernaturally
occurring—is lost to us. I can’t let you near the Cornerstone without a fantastically good
reason.”
The most fantastically good reason was that Marla wanted him to, and she’d pull his
intestines out through his face if he didn’t do as she asked, but there was no need to get
nasty and physical right away. Especially since Finch might have tricks of his own.
“Erosion? Be serious. You could cast spells with the Cornerstone every day and it
would still last centuries.”
“We take the long view,” Finch said. “We want it to last millennia. It’s a civic resource.
What spell do you need to cast that requires the power of a Cornerstone behind it?”
“I need to cast a binding spell. An ironclad one that will last forever, and can’t be
undone. The Cornerstone is the only way.”
Finch frowned. “That’s rather vague. Aren’t there other options for you? I understand
there’s a Cornerstone beneath the British Museum—”
“No, the old chief sorcerer of London, Ballard, got his hands on that one; he crushed it
up and ate it last year. Ingested its energy as it dissipated. Don’t you keep up with the
international news? Now Ballard’s an immortal statue in some protected monastery
courtyard, set to wake up and become flesh again when the last rain forest is destroyed.
Then he’s going to summon the angry ghosts of all the devastated ecosystems and take