“Another old friend of yours?” Crapsey said.
Elsie shook her head. “No, actually. Dr. Husch knows him. His name’s Christian Decomain, and he’s an anti-mancer.”
“Which means... what?”
“He
negates
magic. He’s a counterspell expert with an suppressive aura. Get close to him and spells fizzle, psychics lose their special insight, and levitators fall out of the sky. He’ll be fun to have around. Of course, he thinks of himself as a
good
guy, so Dr. Husch had to tell him that Marla was having a psychotic break and threatening to destroy the Hawai’ian islands. He thinks we’re just going to take her into custody, for her own good. It’ll be fun to put him next to Marla, then let Talion try to beat the crap out of her.”
“But when this Decomain guy realizes that we’re not just trying to capture Marla...”
Elsie nodded. “Fun, right? He’ll be super pissed. I’m not sure how that’s all going to work out, since I can’t mind-control him, but we’ll improvise. You’ve got a knife, right?”
Crapsey nodded.
“Good. If Christian gets out of line, I’ll need you to stab him in the neck. Negating magic means he can’t use magic to protect himself, so unless he’s wearing a suit of armor, he should be vulnerable to a direct attack.” She reclined her seat and closed her eyes. “Don’t let anyone disturb me, Crapsey dear.”
“I thought you didn’t sleep?”
“I don’t. I’m going astral projecting. Who needs an in-flight movie when you can travel invisibly anywhere on Earth?”
“What are you planning on going to see?”
“I’ve been locked in a magical cube for years,” she said. “What do you think? I’m going to go watch famous people have sex.”
Crapsey had no idea whether she was telling the truth or not, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He called for another drink.
“I think that’s everything.” Marla slipped Death’s bell into her pocket, careful not to let it ring. “The other things we need we can pick up on the Big Island.” She looked around the suite Rondeau had rented for her, trying to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, though she was less concerned about leaving a hairbrush than leaving, say, a jar of cursed seawater or an enchanted nene feather.
Pelham had emptied his steamer trunk, the glamoured bedsheet now an ordinary piece of fabric again, and Marla had filled the space with those magical and practical supplies she’d managed to scrounge up that afternoon: glass vials full of rarefied airs, a box of precisely shattered pocketwatches, hatpins with blood crusted on the points, and other nice things.
Rondeau let himself in – there was no way to keep him from having a key, despite Marla’s best efforts. “You guys almost ready? I booked us in at a resort on the west coast of the Big Island, and I got us on a plane tonight. It’s only about a twenty-minute flight, and we’re good for late check-in.”
“Three rooms, right?” Marla said.
“Two connecting, one across the hall, though they all have two double beds. I like to have one bed just for jumping up and down on, so – ”
“Not this time. You and Pelham can share a room.”
Rondeau raised an eyebrow. “You need
two
rooms?”
“I do,” Marla said.
“Then why didn’t you tell me to book
four
rooms – ”
Marla shook her head. “Three rooms, three people, it makes sense. When Nicolette and company come looking for us, I want them to see exactly what they expect to see. If we had four rooms, they’d wonder what the other one was
for
. Trust me on this, Rondeau. We’re about to get into a fight. I’m good at those.”
Rondeau raised his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, you’re the boss. Oh, wait, no you’re not, you’re, like, my
ward
– ”
Marla put her hand on his shoulder. “I know. And I’m sorry if I’m still acting like I have a right to tell you what to do without explanation. So: that extra room is going to be filled with traces of
me
, my clothes, bits of my hair, a little bit of my blood. I’m going to disguise my presence in the
other
room, and that fake room is also going to have some really nasty magical traps primed, so if anyone comes in unannounced, following a divination and looking to grab me, they’ll get something more unpleasant instead. Which reminds me, we’d better keep the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on that door at all times. I’d hate to spring a nest of shadow snakes on housekeeping. Okay?”
“That kinda makes sense,” Rondeau said. “But I still don’t see why you get your own room and I have to share.”
“Boys in one room, girls in the other. It’s traditional. Plus, I’m probably going to be doing a lot of enchanting, and that means weird smells and sounds and lights. You don’t want to be in there with me. You’re here as my friend, Rondeau, not a guy on my payroll. I know that, and if I ask too much of you, I’m sorry. I hope you know I’d do the same for you, if you needed it. “
He sighed. “I know. Just be ready. I’m going to get myself into some
hellaciously
big trouble and make you bail me out of it pretty soon, just to keep the balance right in our relationship.”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Marla said. “Now help Pelham carry that trunk, would you?”
Reva sat next to Marla on the flight to the Big Island, unpleasantly close due to the narrow seats on the little puddle-jumper aircraft. “I love the windowseat,” Reva said, once they were airborne.
Marla, who was the one actually sitting in the windowseat, grunted. She didn’t offer to switch places. She was over the wing anyway, so it wasn’t like the view was that great, but it was the principle of the thing.
“Looking down on the world, seeing the shape of the land, it’s like being a god.” He chuckled in an extremely annoying fashion. “Trust me. I should know.”
“Water looks like water whether you’re ten feet above it or ten thousand.” Marla looked out at the wing, wishing for a gremlin to appear, “Terror at Forty-Thousand Feet”-style, because hitting something would do her good, and dealing with a supernatural incursion at high-altitude posed some interesting tactical problems. Then again, she shouldn’t make wishes like that – with Pelham on board, there was a non-trivial chance the admittedly gremlin-like Nuno could appear at any moment. With all the chaos of solving a murder and preparing for war, they hadn’t had time to try a ritual cleansing to get rid of his infestation yet.
After a too-brief interval of silence, Reva started up again: “I hope you won’t hold Pelham’s little lie against him. He was just doing what he thought was best – ”
“I don’t hold it against him,” Marla said. “I hold it against
you
. The whole stupid plan to give me a fake murder investigation was your idea, and I know gods can be convincing. Pelham’s not the most worldly guy, despite all his traveling – he still has a bad habit of taking people at face value and thinking the best of them.”
“I
do
mean well, Marla – I want to help you find a new home, or adjust to the lack of a home, and at the very
least
I want to keep your enemies from killing you.”
“That’s why I’m not kicking up a fuss about your company – because I could use some extra firepower. Though I’m wondering what you can
do
exactly. Why are you even on this plane? Shouldn’t you be able to fly to the Big Island or something?”
“And miss the pleasure of your company?” His quirked smile was almost cute, but only almost. “When I take on a human form, like this one, I take on certain human limitations. Like the inability to fly. I could give up the body, and regain greater powers, but I find it easiest to deal with people when I’m
being
people. It makes me... think more like a human. When I’m fully a god, not using a human brain to do my thinking, not subject to the glandular passions that govern humankind, everything is a bit... cold. Abstract. Impersonal. The difference between being in the water, or thousands of feet above it. I don’t like that feeling. This is better. Besides, I’m not without resources – I have a certain degree of magical ability, and as Pelham told you, I have the power to... interact at a primal level with the mind of anyone who considers herself out-of-place or away from home. Your assassins aren’t likely to be local, so that could be useful.”
“Mind control, huh? How... godly.”
A flash of irritation crossed his face. “Again. It’s not. Mind control. It just makes people receptive to bargains, and I’m always careful to give more than I get. You have a history of meddling in people’s lives, too.”
“Yeah, but I’m a
person
, so it’s different.” She yawned. “Anyway, you’re going to have to get your own hotel room. I didn’t book one for you.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I don’t expect you to give me accommodations. All it takes is one clerk or concierge who isn’t a native Hawai’ian, and I’ll be staying in a better room than you are.”
“Sounds like mind control to me,” she said, and put on a pair of headphones before he could object again.
THINGS ARE NEVER SO BAD THEY CAN’T BE MADE WORSE
“We have walked a mile. Literally a mile. Where are our rooms?” Marla paused by a piece of ornamental sculpture to tighten her shoelaces.
“Well, yeah,” Rondeau said. “It’s like a sixty-acre resort. We’re in the tower farthest from the lobby, unfortunately. If we hadn’t gotten here so late, we’d be able to take the train, or a boat, but since we had late check-in they’ve stopped – ”
Marla stood up, scowled, and continued walking. “This is a hotel with its own
train line
. It’s a hotel with
canals
. What am I doing here?”
“It’s big, there are a lot of people, it’s on the coast, and it’s exactly what you asked for.” Rondeau was cheerful. “Plus, I know you love complaining, and I figured this place would give you lots to complain about.”
“It’s very beautifully landscaped,” Pelham offered. “And some of the artwork is quite exquisite. But, yes, it has a certain...”
“Disneyland vastness,” Rondeau said. “There actually
is
a Disney resort on Oahu, but I figured that might be pushing Marla a tad too far. But basically this is a family-friendly place, you can come here, stay a week, and never even leave the hotel grounds. It’s got like ten pools, and entertainment, and there’s a lagoon where they truck in fresh sand every morning – ”
“A fake beach,” Marla said. “In
Hawai’i
.”
“The coast right around here’s really rocky,” Rondeau said, reasonably. “I mean, you’d have to walk half a mile to get a nice sandy beach. I’m pretty sure the sea turtles and fish in the snorkeling area aren’t actually animatronic, if that makes you feel any better.”
“I’m not a big fan of the rustic experience,” Marla said. “You know that. The whole ancient Polynesian culture thing doesn’t excite me too much either, though I like their war clubs.” Her Samoan club was nestled in one of the suitcases even now. “But a grass shack on the beach, even though that would be depressingly close to nature, would be preferable to this manufactured, artificial... extruded hospitality product. It’s too neat, too clean, too fake, too orderly – ”
“Ah ha!” Rondeau said. “What’s that last word?”
“Orderly?” Marla said. She paused, then said, more thoughtfully, “Orderly. Really? You did that on purpose?”
Rondeau stopped to sketch out a little bow. “I
do
sometimes have reasons for the decisions I make, you know. Not always, but. We’re going to fight a chaos magician, and this place is all about the orderliness, the schedules, the cleanliness, the high gloss. All stuff that will salt Nicolette’s game.”
“All right,” Marla said grudgingly. “That’s pretty good.”
“There are also service tunnels,” Rondeau said. “Running all underneath the resort, so the guests never have to see the thousand employees it takes to keep this place in operation.”
“Okay,” Marla said. “Tunnels, I like.”
“They’ve also got a dolphin lagoon,” Rondeau said. “I fucking love dolphins. And it’s only two hundred bucks to swim with one, you believe that? A steal.”
“Ah, there’s our antimancer,” Elsie said.
“Good,” Nicolette muttered. “Maybe he can carry some fucking bags.”
For reasons known only to herself – maybe for the same reasons God was such a dick to his loyal servant Job – Elsie was heaping ever more abuse on Nicolette. Besides taking an apparent shine to Crapsey, which was the surest route to annoying the younger chaos witch, she’d also ordered Nicolette to carry everyone’s luggage, and as a result, she was heaped with two partially-overlapping backpacks, a messenger bag slung across her front, and the handle of a rolling suitcase in her one hand. With her buzzed hair and paint-spattered jeans and t-shirt, she looked like a furious art-school sherpa. They made an odd group overall: Jarrow in the lead, head held high, long red hair streaming behind her, heels clicking on the smooth airport floor; Crapsey in his increasingly rumpled pin-striped suit following at her heels and having unpleasant flashbacks to accompanying the Mason in similar fashion; Talion in his black leather, looking even more ridiculous given the morning heat and humidity here; Nicolette stumbling and snarling and dragging her burdens after him; and Jason bringing up the rear, no doubt thinking about making a break for it, but never quite mustering the courage to try. They all paused to allow a greeter, presumably from the Hawai’ian tourist board or something, to drape them all with sweet-smelling leis and say, “Aloha, welcome to Maui.” Talion took it with exceptionally bad grace, and Nicolette groaned, presumably because even the weight of a couple dozen flowers on a string was an unwanted addition to her considerable burdens. The necklace fit in nicely with the half a dozen other chains she wore strung around her neck, all festooned with beads and charms in various sizes, shapes, and colors – since she couldn’t wear enchanted items in her hair anymore, she’d resorted to wearing them around her neck, and she clattered like a dice cup when she walked. Elsie kept joking that Nicolette must have flashed her breasts a
lot
at Mardi Gras to get so many necklaces.