Share

Meet Marla Mason--smart, saucy, slightly wicked witch of the East Coast....

Sorcerer Marla Mason, small-time guardian of the city of Felport, has a big problem. A rival is preparing a powerful spell that could end Marla's life--and, even worse, wreck her city. Marla's only chance of survival is to boost her powers with the Cornerstone, a magical artifact hidden somewhere in San Francisco. But when she arrives there, Marla finds that the quest isn't going to be quite as cut-and-dried as she expected...and that some of the people she needs to talk to are dead. It seems that San Francisco's top sorcerers are having troubles of their own--a mysterious assailant has the city's magical community in a panic, and the local talent is being (gruesomely) picked off one by one.

With her partner-in-crime, Rondeau, Marla is soon racing against time through San Francisco's alien streets, dodging poisonous frogs, murderous hummingbirds, cannibals, and a nasty vibe from the local witchery, who suspect that Marla herself may be behind the recent murders. And if Marla doesn't figure out who is killing the city's finest in time, she'll be in danger of becoming a magical statistic herself....

From the Paperback edition.

"It's no good. This alley isn't any better than the other two places I tried. I don't know where all the lines of force are in this city, so I can't interpret the scatter worth a damn. I thought I could triangulate, but even then it's too vague. There's something or someone of power over there"--she gestured vaguely eastward--"but I don't know if it's the guy we're looking for. I'll have to do a wet divination." The air smelled faintly of piss and coffee, but not even those familiar urban smells set Marla at ease.

Her companion, Rondeau, stood slurping rice noodles from a waxed-paper box. "I guess guts never lie," he said, prodding the noodles with his chopstick and plucking out a morsel of chicken. "What are you planning to eviscerate?"

Marla wrapped up her velvet cloth and divining tools and stowed them in a leather shoulder bag. She stretched her arms overhead until she felt her joints pop, then sighed. She'd missed her morning workout,
then spent several hours cramped in cattle class during a cross-country flight, and her body was feeling uncooperative.

"If I didn't have such high moral standards, I'd do a human, just because it's more accurate. Then again, this isn't my city, so it's not like I have a responsibility to protect these people." She was kidding, of course. Murder for mystical purposes incurred a nasty karmic debt, and it was wasteful besides. There were better uses for people. "I don't know. A cat, maybe. Or a chicken. Nothing too advanced. I doubt Lao Tsung is trying to hide from me."

"Why do we have to look for him anyway? Why didn't you let him know we were coming?" Rondeau wiggled his fingers around his left ear. "Ever hear of a telephone?"

Marla snorted. "He's not the kind of person who has a phone number. There are ways to get messages to him, but it would take a few days, and there wasn't time for that. I'm in a hurry."

"I gathered that," Rondeau said, wiping his mouth with a wad of napkins. "I think my first clue was when you busted into my place, told me to pack a bag, hauled ass to the airport, and hustled me onto a plane. You didn't even let me sit by the window." His tone
was aggrieved. "My first time on a plane, and you stick me in the middle beside a fat guy with sweat stains. He was smelly."

"Oh, you noticed that, too? I think it's your keen powers of observation I value most."

"You know, I kept hoping you'd volunteer the information, but since you aren't--what are we doing in San Francisco? What's so important that you have to see this guy Lao Tsung right now? And why did you
need me to come?"

Marla considered. She and Rondeau had saved each other's lives far more often than they'd threatened them. Keeping secrets was a useful habit, and deeply ingrained, but it paid to remember she did have
a few allies she could count on. "It's Susan Wellstone, she said, and found herself reaching almost superstitiously for the comfort of the daggers up her sleeves.

Rondeau's eyes widened. "Really? Her? Of all the movers and shakers in Felport, I never thought she'd be the one to move on you. Gregor, maybe, or Viscarro . . ." He tossed his empty noodle carton in a
garbage can.

Marla shook her head. "Gregor would stab me in the back if I ever gave him the chance, and Viscarro will be there to steal the jewels and gold fillings off whatever corpse falls first, but Susan's the only one willing to make an opportunity, instead of just waiting for one. She knows that if she loses, I'll destroy her. But she's a perfectionist. She doesn't intend to lose. She means to overthrow me."

Rondeau frowned. "So why isn't she hanging...

 

"Blood Engines wastes no time: by page three I knew I was reading an urban fantasy unlike any I'd previously encountered. The characters and world are real, immediate, and unapologetically in-your-face, throwing you into a story that trusts you'll keep up with the fast pace without flinching. It charges along with crisp pacing, a fascinating range of secondary characters, and a highly compelling lead in Marla Mason. She may be one of the genre's requisite sharp-tongued females, but her ruthless pragmaticism gives her a completely different feel from her fictional contemporaries. I genuinely look forward to the next book!"

 

"A fast-paced, thoroughly fun, satisfying read."

 

T.A. Pratt lives in Oakland, California with partner H.L. Shaw, and works as a senior editor for a trade publishing magazine.


From the Paperback edition.