Queen of Nothing (Marla Mason Book 9) Read Online Free PDF

at the cathedral. “Oh, good old Emperor Norton. He was really my kind of guy. One of my people, you know?”
    Bradley lifted his head, with some effort, and looked at the woman, hard , with his full-spectrum vision... but she just seemed like an ordinary woman, on the near side of middle-aged, with a grin that wanted to eat the world. Which meant she either was an ordinary person, just one who’d made an improbably well-timed non-sequitur... or she was something so powerful she was able to hide her power even from a psychic as perceptive as Bradley.
    “Wait,” Rondeau said. “How did you –”
    “Toodles, gents.” She sauntered off.
    “Should I follow her?” Pelly said.
    “Yeah. Though don’t worry much if you lose her.” Rondeau’s voice was grim. “I think she’s following us . I’m ninety-eight percent sure that’s the woman I saw sunbathing in Death Valley, and a hundred percent sure she was in the bookshop yesterday.”
    Pelly frowned, nodded, and set off after the woman. It was hard to imagine the small man as a capable operative when it came to tailing someone, but from what Bradley had heard, Pelham was a man of many talents, and came from a long line of people trained from birth to be perfect assistants and helpmeets to sorcerers.
    Bradley straightened away from Rondeau’s support, testing his ability to hold his own weight. He was wobbly, but not so unstable he expected to fall over.
    Rondeau looked down the street, watching Pelham disappear around a corner. “We should ask Cole about local redheaded sorcerers, because she’s clearly taken an interest in us.”
    “Yes,” Bradley said. “But first take me someplace where I can eat a hundred eggs. Calling up that ghost took a lot out of me, and we didn’t get much at all in return.”
    “Sure we did,” Rondeau said. “You didn’t notice? You’re supposed to be the perceptive one.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, who in the underworld can tell a dead soul to shut up, and actually pull him out of your summoning spell?”
    “I don’t really have a complete understanding of the underworld—I’ve only been there once—but... Death could, I guess, or Marla.”
    Rondeau nodded. “That sure wasn’t Marla’s hand on the emperor’s shoulder. And it wasn’t Death’s, either. Every time I’ve seen that guy, he’s had a ring on every single finger, flashing a different gemstone in each one. That means there’s someone else down there bossing people around. I think something’s rotten in the state of Hades, B.”
    “I don’t know. They’re gods, they can look like whatever they want.”
    Rondeau shrugged. “Yeah, sure. I could be crazy wrong. But I’m curious. Summoning up an oracle didn’t work. Maybe it’s time to appeal to a higher power.”
    “Like who?”
    “Like your boss, or brother, or dad, or other self, or whatever,” Rondeau said. “The all-seeing Big B.”

A Terrible Tipper
    Matt leaned on the counter, looking at the sun shimmer on the lack of cars in the parking lot. The diner was in a deeper-than-usual mid-afternoon lull, with no customers in the place at all excepting a redhead in a back booth who hadn’t taken off her sunglasses.
    The new waitress, Mel, was keeping busy anyway, marrying ketchups and refilling napkin dispensers. He wasn’t sure what to make of her. She had some kind of trouble behind her, that was for sure—probably on the run from an abusive husband, if he had to guess—but she was tough as hell, no-nonsense, and a hard worker. He was pretty sure she’d work out. She was in her early thirties at the outside, so still plenty young enough to make a new life out of the ashes of whatever she’d left behind. A little too severe to be called pretty, but she was hardly homely, and she could catch a better man than the one she’d run away from, Matt figured, if that was her inclination. Though she didn’t much seem like she needed a man, or anyone at all, for that matter.
    The redhead