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

soul?”
    #
    Regina shook her head as she surveyed the interior of the cavern. “Savery, you hoarder. You’re almost as bad as your brother. I got them started collecting baseball cards – I love baseball, it’s funny, you’d think I’d prefer winter sports, but I don’t – and from there they both started collecting everything .” She walked along the shelves, peering at porcelain dogs, ceramic unicorns, and, of course, the profusion of snow globes.
    Marla, meanwhile, found a metal safe, punched it open with her brass knuckles, and scooped out several banded bundles of crumpled cash. She traded her services to sorcerers for knowledge, not money – so she had to make money where she could.
    “Oh,” Regina said softly. “I can’t believe he kept this.” Marla walked over as she lifted a metal toy monkey from the shelf. “It’s a tin toy from England. I bought him this, for his collection, the same Christmas he and his brother... Well. They gave me a snow globe that year.” She cocked her head. “This. This is his phylactery.”
    “You sure?”
    She shrugged. “If I’m wrong, we can just try sticking everything else in this house into the snow globe, until I grow too bored, and decide to go to war instead.”
    “Gotcha.” Marla took the two halves of the snow globe from her bag. Regina set the toy monkey on the globe’s base and started screwing on the top. It didn’t look like it should fit – the monkey was too big – but the glass sphere fit over it easily, and when Regina screwed it down, the globe filled with whiteness... and there, in the center, a black shape ran in wild circles.
    “That’s it, then,” Regina said. “Seems a shame to trap my son this way, but it’s more merciful than destroying his soul.”
    “Just think of it as putting your kid in time out,” Marla said, and Regina looked at her blankly. Right. She came from a time when disciplining your child meant sending him out to cut the switch you intended to beat him with. “Never mind. Can you help me get that frozen junkpile body up here? I need to cover my tracks.”
    #
    Marla checked her watch, figured the timing was right, and said, “Let’s do it.” She and Regina stood well back and watched as the meth lab exploded, a simple fire spell combining with the chemicals inside to make a big ugly boom that engulfed Savery Watt’s robot body in fire too. Regina whispered down a ring of ice to contain the fire and keep the woods from burning, which was considerate of her, Marla thought.
    If Viscarro sent someone to check up on her story, he’d find a smoking ruin and a bunch of scrap metal to support Marla’s version of events. Sure, he might start wondering when he never heard from his brother again, but with luck he’d just assume Savery was in hiding. Viscarro was arrogant. He’d be fine believing he’d utterly overpowered his brother.
    “So where are you going now?” Marla asked.
    “Better you don’t know, Marla. Thank you for saving me, even if it was unintentional. I’ll find a peaceful place and catch up on everything that’s happened since I was trapped.”
    “Wait’ll you hear about global warming,” Marla said. “You’re going to hate it.” She waved goodbye and went down the hill, and the car pulled up soon after she reached the bottom. The driver was a full two minutes late, which spoiled the perfectly-timed arrival she’d envisioned, but she was feeling magnanimous, so she didn’t even threaten him, just said, “Home, Jaws.”
    They passed a fire engine and two cop cars on the way, and the scream of sirens made Marla homesick.
    #
    “Fine, fine,” Viscarro said when Marla finished her tale, in which things went much as planned, unlike in real life. He held up the snow globe to the light, grunted, and placed it on a shelf behind his desk. “You did well. I suppose you’d like to be paid. What trick did you want me to teach you?”
    “I thought it would be cool to learn to summon an