Poison Sleep by T. A. Pratt Page A

weight over a map or something?”
    “I’m not a
dowser,
Marla,” Langford said, affronted. “I’m a
scientist
. I have some techniques that might work to connect these items to their owner, using spooky action at a distance and principles of quantum entanglement—”
    “Don’t care,” Marla said, holding up her hands. “Just get it done. And call me as soon as you know anything. The sooner we get Genevieve settled back in Blackwing, the happier I’ll be.”
    “She’s awake now, Marla, at least sometimes. She may not be willing to go to sleep again.”
    Marla smiled. “That’s what sedatives are for.”
    Ted drove Marla back to the club, where Rondeau was talking to the bouncer and the bartender, getting ready for the evening ahead. His club, Juliana’s, was currently pretty popular with kids from Adler College looking to dance all night, and Marla’s operation was making good money selling them tabs of ecstasy, though she’d nixed Rondeau’s plan to charge dehydrated customers $10 each for bottled water. She sent Ted upstairs with instructions to call in an order for lemon chicken and some egg rolls, then beckoned Rondeau over to the DJ booth to talk privately. “So, this Genevieve Kelley we’re looking for, if you see her, don’t let her touch you. She’s contagious. If you touch her, there’s a good chance you’ll get pulled into a fucked-up dream world full of buildings made of bones and bald guys with daggers.”
    “Sometimes I hate my job,” Rondeau said. “I assume you contracted this little malady? But didn’t manage to catch the lady in question?”
    “Yeah. And it’s possible I’m contagious, too, since she touched me. So keep your hands to yourself, all right? I haven’t touched you since then.”
    “But you’ve touched Ted?” Rondeau said.
    Marla nodded.
    “And I touched
him,
when he got here. I shook his hand. So…”
    Marla sighed. “Good point. At least if you find yourself in a place that smells like oranges, you’ll know what’s going on. Just hunker down and wait it out. I didn’t stay in the dream world for long.”
    “That’s a comfort.” He rolled his eyes. “But for now, I should get back to work. The DJ’s late, and we open in an hour.”
    Marla shooed him away and went upstairs. There wasn’t much she could do now—wandering the city aimlessly looking for Genevieve wouldn’t do much good. If Langford got a fix on her, Marla would call Dr. Husch and they’d figure out a containment plan. Maybe something as simple as shooting Genevieve with a tranquilizer dart, maybe some kind of big constrictive magic, whatever seemed warranted. She paused on the stairs and called Hamil to fill him in on the potential for contagion, and he groaned. “Shall I let Joshua know? I assume you did touch him?”
    Marla hesitated, then sighed. “Hell. Yeah. Go ahead. I hope he doesn’t get pissed off and quit.” She hung up. She thought about telling Ted, but how could she explain to an ordinary that he might get sucked into a surreal dream world? She
couldn’t,
not yet. She’d just have to keep him close, and hope for the best.
    She went into the office. Ted was looking at her antique chess set, with its inlaid board and weird pieces carved from stone. “You like it?” Marla said.
    “It’s a chatrang board,” he said. “It’s remarkable.”
    “That’s a chess set, Ted.”
    He shook his head. “Chatrang is a precursor to chess. The pieces must be very old, though the board is newer.”
    “Huh,” Marla said. “I got the set from an old friend. I don’t know its history. I just thought it was chess with funny pieces, you know, like the boards that have Civil War soldiers or whatever instead of normal chessmen.” She’d inherited the board, along with most of her other worldly possessions, from Sauvage, her predecessor as chief sorcerer. Her possessions would, in turn, pass on to the next sorcerer to take over Felport, though if she retired, she’d get to