Mommy Issues of the Dead (Marla Mason) Read Online Free

last names, so I made up my own, suitable to my station. Some called me the Snow Queen, though I’m not from a fairy tale.” She stretched her arms overhead, turning her face up to the sun. “Oh, it’s so nice to be out and about. I love the winter, but that was too much of a good thing. Now. Why did you set me free?”
    Marla considered lying, but who knew which lie would keep her from being turned into an icicle? “I was sent to, ah, blow that guy up. Your son. No offense.”
    “Of course, of course.”
    “And to steal the snow globe, though I didn’t know there was anybody in it.”
    “Mmm.” Regina sat cross-legged on the dirt, produced a hairbrush from somewhere not entirely obvious, and began brushing out her long black hair. “Who hired you?”
    “A sorcerer in Felport, named Viscarro.”
    “I see. I mentioned I was married twice. My second husband was the Reverend Reginald Watt, poor Savery’s father. My first husband, father of my firstborn, was Captain Antonio Viscarro. So I assume your employer is my son Leland? And that my boys had some sort of falling out?”
    Viscarro’s name was Leland ? He didn’t look like a Leland, but then, he didn’t look like anything except maybe Methusaleh. “He didn’t tell me his family history. Ma’am. Just sent me with a dud bomb and orders to steal a snow globe.”
    She finished brushing her hair and stood up. “All right. I have no intention of being imprisoned again, which means, as much as it pains me, I’ll have to go kill my son Leland.”
    “Is that totally necessary?”
    “I’m afraid so. You’ll take me to him, of course.”
    “That’s maybe not such a good idea.”
    “If you aren’t with me, Miss Mason, then you are by definition against me.” She walked over to one of the meth monkeys and kicked his arm, the limb snapping off and shattering into chunks of ice. “Which is it?”
“Right.” Marla had no great love for Viscarro, but he was a ranking sorcerer on Felport’s council, and if some outsider came into the city and murdered him there would be consequences. Chaos, retaliation, all-out magical warfare, and other disruptive, city-wrecking unpleasantness, and if Marla was on either side of the conflict, it would be bad for her. Plus, Marla wouldn’t be able to get paid if Regina killed Viscarro. “So, you want revenge against your son, or...?”
    “Of course not. I love my boys. They had their reasons for imprisoning me. But once Leland realizes I’m no longer in the snow globe, he’ll come after me, to kill me, or trap me again, and... I can’t abide that. I don’t know for sure if I’ll win a fight against my son, but with the element of surprise on my side, and your help getting in to see him, it’s possible. I’d prefer to go somewhere up north and avoid the whole ordeal, but what choice do I have?”
    Marla thought furiously. “What if Viscarro didn’t know you’d escaped?”
    “The snow globe is empty, dear. That will be readily apparent when you deliver it. And while we could, I suppose, kidnap some hill person and trap them in the globe, they would soon perish in the snow there, and the ruse would be revealed. Only someone with certain... immortal qualities... can survive inside that sphere.”
    “Yeah, okay, but what if we put him in the globe?” She pointed to the frozen junk sculpture that was Savery Watt. “Getting your other son out of the way too?”
    Regina shook her head. “That’s not my son. That’s just a pile of junk. His soul isn’t in that body, he was just using it. His soul resides in some object – probably an egg, or stone, or jewel, but a lich’s phylactery can be almost anything. I grant you, your plan works in theory, but without the phylactery, we can’t trap him. No, I’m afraid war is the only solution.”
    “Come on,” Marla said. “I know where Savery lives. You’re his mother. Are you saying you don’t know your son well enough to guess where he might have hidden his