Little Better than a Beast (Marla Mason)
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Cassandra Khaw Goodreads Author. Melissa Mead Goodreads Author Illustrator. To add more books, click here. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. Blood Engines Marla Mason, 1 by T. Pratt , Tim Pratt 3. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. Poison Sleep Marla Mason, 2 by T. Want to Read saving… Error rating book. Dead Reign Marla Mason, 3 by T. Pratt , Tim Pratt really liked it 4.
Spell Games Marla Mason, 4 by T. Broken Mirrors Marla Mason, 5 by T. Grim Tides Marla Mason, 6 by T.
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Pratt , Tim Pratt 4. Those Who Fight Monsters: It was a beast. Sure, the stories said it was all kinds of unstoppable, but tales tended to grow in the telling, and four hundred years offered lots of time for embellishment. After hefting the bat, Rondeau flipped his knife closed and put it away, choosing the blunt object over the razor's edge. This raises a couple of questions for me. I love your questions. They're always so insightful. I thought time travel was impossible? Or, at least, no sorcerer I've heard of has ever cracked it.
Some people say they figured out how to move forward in time, though it's more like putting yourself off to the side in an extra-dimensional stasis, set to re-enter normal space-time at a later date, unaffected by the passing time. But not many people try to do it, since there's no way you can go back again after seeing the wondrous future. I couldn't do it, and I can do damn near anything I set my mind to. It'd be nice to skip the occasional boring weekend. Okay, so my second question: Getting rid of your current problems and leaving it for your descendants to deal with?
A badass sorcerer with a knack for violence and the interpersonal warmth of a komodo dragon -- " "Doesn't sound like anybody I know," Rondeau murmured. The story goes he used charms and protective circles and various kinds of exorcism and banishment and eventually even tried appeasement, by which I mean human sacrifice, to keep the beast of Felport at bay, but it was all just temporary. The thing kept coming back. He couldn't kill it, couldn't drive it away, just failed and failed, and his little settlement was on the verge of permanent disintegration.
So one day he sucked it up, gave his dagger of office to his apprentice and chosen successor, and went out into the woods to finish things once and for all. And, apparently, left this letter explaining his plan to send the beast into the future, to be delivered to whatever poor sucker happened to be in charge four centuries later. A hard wind blew, making Marla squint, and a brown hairy thing the size of two gorillas fighting over a tractor tire appeared about three feet off the ground, slamming to the ground hard enough to crack the stones.
There was an impression of tusks, snout, and hard black eyes, but it was hunched and crouched and twisting and moving too fast for her eyes to encompass it. It stank like the sewers under a slaughterhouse. Marla began speaking words of binding and tossed a handful of charmed stones, but the rocks just bounced off the thing's matted hide -- disappointing, since they should have respectively burned, frozen, and turned it to stone -- and then an arm swung out, long as an extension ladder, and knocked Marla against a brick wall.
Rondeau went in manfully, baseball bat cocked, but the thing plucked the weapon away and swatted Rondeau aside too. Marla stood up, about to reverse her cloak, to make the soothing white exterior switch places with the bruise-purple lining and unleash her most deadly battle magic -- when the beast flung something slightly larger than Marla herself through the air, straight at her. That's a person , Marla realized, and then about two hundred pounds of human body -- dead or alive, she wasn't sure yet -- hit her square in the chest and drove her back.
She grunted, shoved the guy off her body, and struggled to her feet, all the wind knocked out of her. The beast of Felport took a moment to consider its handiwork, and Marla thought, Run for the alley, fucker, get caught in my bear traps , and then the beast crouched, leapt about fifteen feet in the air, grabbed a jutting chunk of brick wall, and went up the side of a building and over the rooftop like a gecko climbing a garden wall.
Who knew that thing could jump? He was a big, broad-shouldered man with a nose like a cowcatcher and bushy eyebrows, dressed in the filthy ragged remains of what might once have been nice old-fashioned clothes. He rose and stalked toward Rondeau.
Little Better than a Beast (Marla Mason, book ) by T A Pratt
You came here utterly unprepared. What kind of chief sorcerer are you? And you're Everett Malkin, I presume. I have spent time in the capitals of Europe, after all. Or the clubs and quickie check-cashing joints and bars in my neighborhood. They were still in the old city, which made an attempt to keep a certain vintage feel, but culture shock would hit him eventually. He gnawed at an apple Marla'd bought for him.
Rondeau's joke about how he must be hungry, seeing as how he hadn't eaten in years, had fallen flat, though, and Rondeau had been quiet and sulky ever since. This is her neighborhood, and from what you said you don't think the beast will go too far. If it's in her bailiwick, the Chamberlain will find it. Old-fashioned stuff for history buffs and tourists scared to stay in the real city.
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The heart of the city nowadays, where the action is, that's south of the river. That's where I live. In my day it was only myself, Granger, and my apprentice, Corbin. The Bay Witch watches the water and the port.
Little Better than a Beast
A sympathetic magician named Hamil over by the university. Viscarro, who lives in catacombs beneath the city. A junkyard wizard named Ernesto out in the industrial section. That's about it for the council, but there are lots of talented apprentices and freelancers in town, too -- a mad-scientist technomancer type named Langford, an order-magician named Mr. Beadle -- not to mention the usual wannabes and alley wizards.
The Chamberlain was inside, dressed in her usual impeccable evening-wear finery, this time a silvery-shimmering dress. She beckoned with her elegant hand. Let's hear about the latest disaster. Despite his ragged appearance -- and the fact that this was his first time in a car -- he looked at ease. Like people who die of brain cancer and have their heads frozen so they can be thawed out in the future when there's a cure for tumors and decapitation," Rondeau said, apparently trying to be helpful.
Malkin just looked at him blankly and continued. These are merely facts.
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Why the hell did you hitch a ride? The beast stepped into the circle of power. I am surprised Felport survived with Corbin as chief sorcerer. The beast cannot be harmed by iron, or fire, or blades, or charms. Even my dagger of office, which can cut through all things, only scratched the beast, and the wound closed instantly.
Spells of disorientation made it wander, lost, for another year.
But it fights , and once it overcomes a particular spell, the spell loses all efficacy. I do not know if it is a demon, a sorcerer from long ago who attained immortality, or, indeed, an ancient god. It is a beast. It wants to kill all who encroach on its territory. It wants to rend flesh. It prefers to sleep in the day, and emerge at night, wandering and howling.
Its motives are no more comprehensible than those of any other beasts. I am sure it is disoriented by the changes here, and it will go to ground somewhere, hiding, and wait until dark to emerge. It will set fires, build traps. Your people will die. I'm still in charge here. We honor your past service and all that jazz, but you can't just come back and -- " "Silence, woman.
Give me my dagger of office, and let me begin my work. Sorcery is no business for you. Despite your mannish affect you are not unattractive, so perhaps you can serve me in some other -- " Marla punched him in the throat. Malkin gagged, grabbing at his windpipe -- Marla hadn't hit him hard enough to do permanent damage, but he wouldn't be speaking any spells -- and fished a sachet of sleep potion out of her pocket. The Chamberlain and Rondeau both grabbed their noses as Marla slapped the cloth pouch of lavender and stranger herbs into Malkin's open mouth.
He gagged, gasped, and then dropped into a deep supernatural slumber. I don't think I'll be able to sucker-charm him again, either. And if he wakes up, he can speak with the ghosts, his apprentice Corbin is among the residents on my estate. But, Marla, what of the beast? I'm gonna have to go see a guy about that. Rondeau was dressed like an extra in a movie about a special forces operation, all black padded vest and a helmet and night-vision goggles which he found more fun than Marla's more practical magical night vision.
He persistently referred to their operation as "playing dress-up," which was annoying, but Marla knew she could rely on him in a pinch, and he had a backup rifle, albeit less fancy. They were on the dark balcony of a charming little pied-a-terre a few blocks from the place where the beast and Malkin had appeared.
A Month of Marla: Little Better than a Beast
The apartment's rightful residents were off in Aspen or something, wherever rich ordinaries spent early spring. The Chamberlain's diviners had tracked the beast to that location, where their best remote-viewer said it was sleeping heavily on a mound of blankets and the shredded remains of a mattress. The beast hadn't torn the door off its hinges to get inside -- it had unobtrusively jimmied a side door with its claws. Smart beast, laying low. Marla wondered if it would be possible to communicate with it One minute you're fighting your mortal enemy in the woods, and the next, poof, you're in the future and there's not a tree in sight.