Free Mommy Issues of the Dead (Marla Mason) by T.A. Pratt

MOMMY ISSUES OF THE DEAD
    T.A. PRATT
    “It’s not an assassination, precisely.” Viscarro, the subterranean sorcerer who dwelt in the tunnels and vaults beneath the seen-better-days city of Felport, tinkered with an oddly beautiful contraption on his desk, all brass gearwheels and copper spheres on articulated arms, all together no bigger than a football. “It’s more that I want you to physically inconvenience someone by tricking him into putting high explosives inside his chest cavity. But it’s not murder, because Savery Watt is already dead.”
    Marla Mason propped her feet up on Viscarro’s desk, because it annoyed him. “I’ve got nothing against the dead. Dead people don’t bother anybody. You, on the other hand...”
    Viscarro bared his hideous teeth at her. “Do you want to engage in pointless banter, or do you want to find out about the job , you insolent child?” He had the patience of a trapdoor spider when it came to plotting, planning, and scheming, but he got irritated quickly when dealing with people who didn’t just nod and say “Yes, master.” He had about fifty apprentices, pale cowed creatures who filed his vast archives, sorted the mountains of junk he bought from auction houses and estate sales in search of magical artifacts for his collection, and – for all Marla knew – competed for the honor of giving him nightly massages complete with happy endings. Of all the sorcerers she’d worked with in Felport, Viscarro was her least favorite – and competition for that spot was fierce – but he paid well for her mercenary services. Marla didn’t ask money for these jobs: she asked for knowledge and power, and Viscarro had promised to teach her a trick and tell her a secret in exchange for this job. She knew what trick she wanted. She was still thinking about the secret.
    “Lay it on me, old man.”
    Viscarro nodded. “It’s simple. I want you to blow up Watt’s body. But don’t worry – it won’t violate your silly moral code. He can always get another body, you see. Watt is a lich.”
    “Which ones are liches again? Do they drink blood or eat corpses? I forget.”
    Viscarro sniffed. “Neither. A lich is essentially a corpse animated by its own ghost. For some reason – genetics, a curse, something else – conventional paths to sorcerous immortality were closed to Watt, so in order to cheat death he performed a dark ritual. He put his soul into a phylactery – some small object, traditionally a gem – committed suicide, and awakened as an undead creature. His original body was recently destroyed in an explosion, so he’s building a new one. He thinks he’s buying a power source for his new body – I gather it’s a junkpile robot sort of thing – but he’s actually buying... well. Kaboom.” Viscarro tapped the weird little engine on his desk to set it spinning, and it whirred away, generating a low hum, as its spheres orbited and gears interlocked.
    “So that thing’s a bomb?”
    “It is both a perpetual motion machine and a bomb.”
    “There’s no such thing as perpetual motion.”
    “Of course not. This device steals small quantities of velocity and momentum from various other sources – passing cars, grandfather clocks, merry-go-rounds, even the rotation of the Earth. Built by a mad technomancer named Canarsie a century ago. With this, Watt won’t need to recharge his batteries.”
    “It’s not your style to blow up some fancy old magical thing. Won’t it leave a hole in your collection?”
    Viscarro waved a hand, though it was more shriveled and clawlike than most things people called hands. Marla didn’t know how old he was, but “ancient” was a good guess. “I have two other examples of Canarsie’s engines. Besides, Watt is going to trade me for a certain... item I require.”
    “So why the explodey double-cross?”
    “Hmm? Oh, because he’s planning to cheat me, of course. He knows I won’t go in person –” Viscarro had agoraphobia, though