T. A. Pratt

Do Better gathers more than 20 stories set in the world of sorcerer/monster hunter/death god Marla Mason, heroine of the ten-book urban fantasy series that began with Blood Engines (2007) and concluded with Closing Doors (2017), including two pieces original to this collection: "Do Better," about Marla's hunt for an escaped demon (and some personal growth), and "The Four Horsepersons of the Eucatastrophe," which sends Marla on a supernatural road trip with an amoral trickster god who wants to be her best friend. If you like trains to the underworld, inexplicably adorable hellhounds, snake gods, stylish cloaks that are actually malign parasitic entities from beyond the multiverse, anthropophagic monsters, abyssal squid, assassins who specialize in killing immortals, and impatient women who punch people who really deserve punching, this is the collection for you.

Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released on the first Tuesday of every month. EDITORIAL Words from the Editor-in-Chief-Jason Sizemore FICTION Irregularity - Rachel Harrison We Are New(s) - Bentley A. Reese A Priest of Vast and Distant Places - Cassandra Khaw Three Petitions to the Queen of Hell - T. A. Pratt NONFICTION Interview with Rachel Harrison - Andrea Johnson Interview with Cover Artist Benedick Bana - Russell Dickerson A Wave on the Sea: Ursula K. Le Guin - Paul Jessup Persistence of Vision: Black Panther - ZZ Claybourne COLUMNS Between the Lines with Laura Zats and Erik Hane Page Advice with Mallory O'Meara and Brea Grant

The adventures of Marla Mason, chief sorcerer and protector of the city of Felport, have been chronicled in novels including Blood Engines, Poison Sleep, Dead Reign, Spell Games, Broken Mirrors, and Grim Tides. Now, for the first time, her origins are revealed. Bone Shop chronicles Marla's early days in the city, her rise to power, and the terrible tragedies that shaped her extraordinary life. This is a story of questions answered and shadows forecast. This is the story of Marla Mason.

Brain-eating fungi, wannabe sorcerers, long-lost relations-does even a hard-core witch stand a chance? Mad sorcerers, psychic vampires, an army of vengeful demons, Marla Mason would rather face them all than a flesh-and-blood ghost from her dysfunctional family past: her con artist brother, Jason. As Felport's chief sorcerer, Marla would ordinarily consider it her duty to protect her town from such an unscrupulous ne'er-do-well. As his sister, things are a lot...trickier. Now, as Marla attempts to train an apprentice oracle whose magical wires have gotten crossed, Jason is setting up an elaborate sting and drawing her ever-so-corruptible partner Rondeau into the ruse. Their patsy is a filthy-rich wannabe mage and their bait is something so valuable, so dangerous, so sought after, it probably doesn't exist. But now word's gotten out that the Borrichius spores do exist and instead of a sucker Jason and Rondeau have a much bigger-and much deadlier-fish on their line: a reclusive sorcerer whose devotion to the mushroom god and command of vegetal magic could bring a fungal apocalypse to Felport. It'll be the mother of all bad trips unless Marla can pull off the ultimate magical switcheroo...and somehow live to tell about it.

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. . . .