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

huh?”
    “Read this.” He reached into the pocket of his blazer, pulled out a folded sheet of paper, and tossed it toward her.
    She bent, picked the letter up, and read it aloud, in a showy, declamatory voice. He knew that Marla could make anything sound contemptuous if she tried, and she was trying pretty hard. Crapsey had found the letter in the RV, among Rondeau and Pelham’s crappy possessions, and handing it over spared him having to tell the story himself. Nicolette had written it – or rather, since she’d been a conscious severed head in a birdcage at the time, she’d dictated it to a mind-controlled hotel maid who’d done the actual writing – in her usual gloating-and-crowing-and-boasting tone. In the note Nicolette explained how she’d learned that Marla was a goddess. That she’d sweet-talked and lied and turned Marla’s hired muscle, a cursed and lethal goon named Squat, against her. That with Squat’s help she was going to escape and spend the month Marla was down in the underworld wreaking havoc, or plotting revenge, or researching how to murder gods. And how she was going to finally make Marla take her seriously as a nemesis.
    When she was done reading – “Thugs and pisses, Nicolette” – Marla snorted and threw the letter on the ground. “Gods, Crapsey. You’re working for Nicolette, now? You used to be a henchman for queens of villainy, and now you’re, like, assistant dogcatcher. You’re working for a head in a cage –”
    “I don’t think she spends a lot of time in a cage anymore,” Crapsey said. “I hear she got herself a new set of legs, and all the stuff in between, too, I imagine. The thing you don’t get it is, you’ve made Nicolette dangerous, more so than she ever would have been without you to prove herself against. I get that Nicolette’s ambition has exceeded her ability in the past, but you’re the standard she set herself against, Marla. All she wants is for you to take her seriously. It’s sad, but at the same time, it’s pushing her to do great things, for a certain fucked-up definition of ‘great.’ She’s determined to become dangerous enough that you can’t just snort and roll your eyes when she comes to cause trouble.” He shrugged. “I don’t know her whole plan, but from what she’s told me... hating you has given her some real inspiration. She’s making some moves.”
    Marla closed one of her nostrils with her finger and blew, spraying dirt and less sanitary things at Crapsey’s feet, making him jump out of the way. She cleared the other nostril the same way, then said, “I really don’t have time for this, Crapsey. Do you know why none of my cultists are hanging around right now, ritually sacrificing you to me? It’s because they discovered something in the caves down below, something that ate them, and then flew away. At least, we think it flew. It’s some kind of serious primal monster from out of deep time, imprisoned here by ancient wizards or some shit, maybe not even human wizards, at that. I told Rondeau and Pelham to get started on trying to track the thing, and now you tell me Nicolette has kidnapped them? I am just so not in the mood to make a side trip to smite her.” She sighed. “Crapsey, it’s stupid . Nicolette, by all rights, should be dead. She even admits it in the letter. Elsie Jarrow decapitated her, and her original body is literally fish food now. The only reason she retains her consciousness is because I called in a favor and had death.... withdrawn from her. I kept Nicolette alive and conscious because I thought she could be useful to me, as an oracle and a bloodhound for dangerous badness and chaos. I needed her as a compass for my monster-hunting trips, that’s all, and there are other options for tracking down big bad beasties. If Nicolette annoys me, all I have to do is let nature take its course again, and she’ll get bounced right off this mortal coil. Plus, as she may have mentioned, I’ve got some