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

incubus,” she said.
    Viscarro shuddered. “Youth is repulsive. The young and their urges and fluids repulse me. Fine. Return to me on the next new moon and I’ll show you the ritual. Are we done?”
    “Ah, ah.” Marla waved her forefinger at him. “You still owe me a secret.”
    “Yes, fine . Do you want to know the true identity of Kaspar Hauser? Where Ambrose Bierce ended up? What happened to the Lost Colony?”
    “I was thinking more, I want you to tell me who’s trapped inside that snow globe, and why.”
    Viscarro’s hands curled into configurations even more clawlike than usual. “Those are secrets that touch on me, Marla.”
    She shrugged. “You didn’t say no personal questions. I like to know about the people I work for.” She knew Viscarro would keep his promise. Sorcerers would twist, lie, and deceive all day and all night, but if they said they’d do something, they did it – a sorcerer’s word was one of his most valuable currencies.
    “Fine.” He spun in his desk chair, looking at the snow globe, which stood between a blue glass bottle and a Faberge egg, on a shelf full of similarly dissimilar bric-a-brac. “If you must know, my mother, Regina Viscarro Watt, is trapped inside the snow globe. As for why? Because she’s incredibly dangerous.”
    “How so?”
    “I’m sure your sense of history is as stunted as those of every other person in their twenties, but perhaps you’ve heard of the Blizzard of 1899? No? Well. It snowed in the South, that year. It snowed in Florida – the only time in recorded history Florida has ever experienced sub-zero weather. It snowed in Louisiana. There were ice floes in the gulf of Mexico. Where we lived, in Erasmus Tennessee, the temperature dropped to 30 below zero. And do you know what caused that cold? My mother did. She was a weather witch with ice water in her veins. And do you know why she froze the South? Because my stepfather wouldn’t take her on vacation. She was angry, and she threw a fit, and the world paid the price. It was not the first time she did something like that, nor the last.” He shook his head, and swiveled his chair back to her. “The man you took the snow globe from is my half-brother, and he has been... unreliable since his body was destroyed. The ordeal drove him a bit mad. I felt I would be a better choice for custodianship of our mother. He disagreed. So I sent you to press the issue. I am a dangerous person, Marla, as you well know, but I am nothing – nothing – compared to my mother. The world is a better place with her on this shelf. “
    “Wow,” Marla said. “That’s, uh... Wow.” What had she set free? Hell. It wasn’t her fault. Viscarro should have given her a bomb that worked.
    “Leave me now,” Viscarro said, and turned in his chair to stare at the snow globe some more.
    Marla walked out of Viscarro’s catacombs, past hurrying apprentices, down narrow corridors, through brick-lined tunnels, and climbed a ladder to emerge from a manhole not far from her apartment. Autumn was getting a grip on Felport, and there was a definite nip in the air. Winters here were always hard, but did it seem... colder than usual, for October?
    “Ice will suffice,” she muttered, and wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself, and set off for home. Maybe this year she’d send her mother a Christmas card. All things considered, maybe the old lady wasn’t so bad.

STORY NOTES
    It's always nice to go back and tell stories from Marla's mercenary days. Even if I kill her in a novel someday (which is a distinct possibility), there are countless interstitial stories I can tell from earlier in her life. The villain, Regina Queen, is one of my favorites, and I may return to her someday. She's still out there, after all, working her cold ways. I also like this story because it gives a small glimpse into Viscarro's inner life. He's one of the more cold and unsympathetic characters I've ever written, but I've always had a fondness