Lady of Misrule (Marla Mason Book 8) by T.A. Pratt Read Free Book Online

into one of the mismatched wooden chairs across the wobbly rectangular table from her. “Did you paint it? I get, ah, kind of an artistic vibe off you.”
    What did that mean? Her hair wasn’t even pink anymore. She’d dyed it brown before she went to the bank to get a business loan to take over Genius Loci, and had let it stay that way. By Santa Cruz standards, she looked appallingly conservative. “Nope, these aren’t mine. They’ve been here since the late ‘80s.”
    “Oh. I could have sworn you were an artist – “
    “I do a webcomic. Look. Gods and doors. You got my attention. Who are you? What do you want?”
    “I’m... my friends call me B.”
    “Fascinating,” she said. “What should I call you?”
    “Bradley, then. And you are?”
    “Marzi.” She frowned. “The dead movie star you look like was named Bradley.”
    “True enough. Bradley Bowman. And who says he’s dead?”
    “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I thought I heard he OD’ed or something. Or fell off a boat and drowned. I don’t remember.”
    “Boy, you drop out of sight for a few years, and people consign you to the dustbin of cinematic history. No, I’m alive. Just... keeping out of the public eye.”
    “Shiiiit.” Marzi drew out the syllable appreciatively. “I knew a girl in college who had a poster of you on her wall. You were pretty good in that one movie, about the musician who got hooked on crack.”
    “ The Glass Harp . Thanks. I never had much trouble playing addicts. Method acting and all that.”
    Marzi snorted. “You look pretty straight to me now, apart from talking about gods and doors.”
    “I never said I didn’t almost die, and you can overdose and live to regret it. I hit rock bottom, dug my way down a little deeper with pickaxe and shovel, then finally started dragging myself out of the hole. Kinda like crawling out of your own grave, zombie-style, but here I am, up in the sunshine again.” He leaned forward. “Now I’m in a different line of work. The pay isn’t as good as being a movie star, but at least it’s dangerous and the hours are lousy. See, sometimes... I have these dreams.” He searched her face, and though she tried to betray nothing, he nodded like she’d given everything away. “Yeah. You know about those dreams, don’t you? You’re sensitive, like me. In kind, if not degree. My dreams got so bad I did a lot of drugs to keep them quiet, but I’ve learned to live with the visions. They don’t just come when I’m sleeping, either. When I touched your hand, I saw doors, and mud, and cracks in the earth, and scorpions, and ... a cowboy? Some kind of Old West outlaw?”
    Not some kind of outlaw – the Outlaw, a godlike spirit of destruction that Marzi had perceived as a villainous gunslinger. “That was a long time ago,” she said. Granted, some days, it felt longer ago than others. “Nowadays I draw comics and make drinks, and those are the only jobs I’m interested in. I’m out of the saving-the-world business.”
    Bradley nodded. “I’ve had the urge to quit myself, but sometimes the job’s gotta be done, and there’s no one else around to do it.” He sighed. “Or the person who should be doing it is taking a long-ass nap. But anyway. I saw something else when I touched your hand, something that felt fresher – something like a shadow, but also like a snake?”
    Okay. Marzi had tried the denial thing the last time weird stuff had infringed on her life, liberty, and happiness, and it hadn’t done a bit of good. In fact, putting her head in the sand (the dry desert sand) had probably made things a lot worse back then. But still. “I’m not joining your posse or whatever, all right? I’m an upstanding businesswoman these days. My days as a metaphysical gunfighter are way behind me, and I want to leave them there. But, okay. I’ll tell you what I saw, a few days ago. If you want to do something about it, that’s on you.” She gave him the story, about waking