Bride of Death (Marla Mason) by T.A. Pratt

Author:T.A. Pratt [Pratt, T.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: marlaverse, urban fantasy, fantasy, Marla Mason
Publisher: Tropism Press
Published: 2013-11-04T23:00:00+00:00

A PLAN IS A THING THAT FAILS

The street was filled with the dead, mostly Sarlat’s people, cut down by Orias’s crew. Nothing was moving, not even scavenger birds, though I imagined the buzzards would be along in time to eat whatever corpses proved edible – many of the dead were so inhuman their flesh probably wouldn’t be compatible with a vulture’s stomach. We picked our way among the fallen, Squat pausing occasionally to mercifully dispatch the not-quite-dead-yet from both gangs.

Tolerance was a ghost town again, pretty much. I kept expecting Sarlat to emerge from the jail, transforming into a wolf as he came – and I gave it even odds that Squat would turn on me to help his old boss, in that case. He wasn’t bound to me, and I didn’t have time to put him in a circle just then.

But the loup-garou didn’t come out, which was odd. He didn’t strike me as the lying-in-wait type. More the fools-rush-in type.

“So Sarlat can’t kill you?” Squat said, standing beside me just a dozen yards from the yawning-open door of the jail. “Maybe that’s why he’s holding back, hoping you’ll just go away?”

“I’ve heard crazier ideas.” I crept up to the door, trying to think of loopholes in the geas that prevented him from acting against me. Could he set a booby trap? Not if he had any expectation that I’d be the one to trigger it, not without dying himself in agony for breaking the deal. But maybe he’d tried to do it anyway, pain of painful death be damned? He seemed too conceited to give up his own life just to kill me, but it wasn’t like I knew him all that well.

“Marla,” Nicolette shouted. “If that’s you, get me the fuck out of here. I didn’t think it was possible for me to hate you any more, but I hate you so fucking much right now –”

I stepped into the jail. The only light in the room came from a lantern inside the cell, but I could see well enough. Nicolette, still disguised as Orias, was on the floor, resting on one cheek. Sarlat was also on the floor, in a pool of blood, very much dead.

“Gods damn it.” I’d had such a clever plan. Trap Sarlat in the geas, force him to tell me about the Eater, and then force him to help me take out the Eater, assuming the Eater was someone that needed to be taken out. Gloat a little and rub it in his face that I’d outsmarted him – petty, sure, but I didn’t think it was a failure of character to act like a jerk to someone who sold virgins to cults for ritual sacrifice. But Sarlat was dead. So much for being clever. “What happened here, Nicolette? Did one of Orias’s people get in and kill him?”

“I killed him!” she said – or screamed, and for the first time, I realized she was really upset, not just being ill-tempered or pretending outrage to amuse herself.

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