Will even gunfire get the cops to come down here?
“What in Crom’s name were you thinking?” Eastwood yelled at her as she dashed to the smaller building they’d hidden behind. He started running to keep pace, unfairly unimpeded by a gunshot wound. Ree imagined that without the Sahara action-hero mojo, she’d have gone into shock by now, which meant that when the power gave out in a minute or so, she’d be well and properly fucked.
“I had to buy you some time to get away,” Ree said, her pace slowing as everything in her body started hurting. “No way you’d have made it out if the thugs were coming after you as well as Lucretia throwing her bitchy curses.”
They reached the chain-link fence that blocked off the pier, ducking under the same hole they’d used to enter. “Maybe, but you’re not in a position to make that call.”
“You’re welcome.” Ree scraped her wounded shoulder on the rough edge of the fence, and the pain spiked again. “Goddamnedmonkeyfuck that hurts.”
Eastwood shook his head as they ran across the street. “We need to stop so I can wrap up that shoulder.”
“Are we safe?” she asked.
Eastwood slowed to a jog and leaned over a manhole cover. “Not yet. Time for a shortcut.”
Ree sighed. “Sewers again?”
“Come on, unless you want to find out whether Tony had a backup clip.” He made a grand sweep of his hand, inviting her down the hole.
“What could possibly go wrong?” Ree asked, looking down the manhole. No ladder. She hopped down, bracing her legs to land wide and sink into the impact in the muck. I foresee a gigantic laundry bill in my near future.
• • •
Here’s a recipe for a crappy time: Take a knife across the ribs, get shot in the shoulder, run into a wall, then run another half-mile so you can take a stroll through a sewer, where your shoulder wound totally won’t get infected at all. I recommend it for everyone, as long as your name is Jay, Lucretia, or you are a brother of the most ignoble Busta Kappa Nu fraternity.
Eastwood power-walked through the sewer, and Ree struggled to follow, her adrenaline fading fast along with the confidence that had accompanied the action hero–ness. This section of sewer had a light every fifty feet or so, leaving patches of darkness between each.
“Where are we going now?” Ree asked.
“Dr. Wells’s. She’s good, don’t worry. Saved my life more than a few times. Five, to be exact. Though one of them might not count, since saving my life also saved hers. Spell thing. Point is, she’s trustworthy and won’t gouge me like some people. We just have to go through gnome territory first.”
“Gnome? As in David the?”
Eastwood shook his head, which Ree could see only from the shadows it threw on the wall. “Not hardly. They’re about three feet tall and are more like hyenas than people. They’re the scavengers of the undercity, hang around the outskirts of beasties’ territories, and live off the scraps. But if someone wounded comes through the area, they’ll come looking for a bite.”
Eastwood stopped, raised a finger to his lips, then peered around the corner. He faced her again, whispering. “This is where we start being quiet. They’re most active at night, in sync with the creatures, but that isn’t a guarantee.”
Ree said, “Seriously, gnomes?” Eastwood shushed her, and she continued softly. “They sound more like ghouls.”
“I didn’t make up the name. They started as earth elementals in Greece, became legend in the sewers of Rome, and they’ve been worldwide since the age of sail. Stay close, be ready to run—and this time I mean actually run.”
Ree nodded emphatically. “Oh, don’t you worry, I’ve used up my hero quota for the day.”
Seemingly satisfied, Eastwood drew his blaster and stepped around the corner. Ree followed, left shoulder cocked back to shield it from whatever crazy the sewers might reveal. She focused on listening to the sounds of the sewer and watched for the movement of shadows, all the while trying to get over the idea that “gnomes” were something dangerous rather than being tiny bearded heroes who rode foxes and tussled with trolls. She looked over her shoulder and thought she saw a shadow twitch. She stopped, took a step back, and saw that it was just a change in the angle of light from an overhead manhole.
A minute later, Ree thought she heard the sound of scuttling from down an adjacent hall, but Eastwood didn’t stop. Ree found her thoughts drifting to Alien and was grateful she was wearing more than her underwear, even if Ripley had a flamethrower to make up for it.
They turned a corner, and Ree felt air flow in from the tunnel they’d just left. She stopped to listen again but didn’t hear anything. She took three quick steps to catch up with Eastwood, who held out his hands to stop her, spreading them wide to take up the whole walkway.
Ree dug her toes in to stop herself before running into Eastwood’s hand breast-first. Having spared herself the embarrassment of a groping, she looked over his arm and saw black moving on black, shadows overlapping twenty feet away. The lightbulb ahead of them was burned out, broken or otherwise, not making light.
“Ready to run?” Eastwood asked.
“I don’t know where we’re going.” Ree heard chittering, like the sound cats made when they saw birds. It was one voice to start, then an echo from the other side of the tunnel. More voices joined them, all chittering back and forth until the sound was a continual buzz.
Okay, starting to get the gnome = creepy part.
Her shoulder decided to take that moment to kick up the throbbing a notch, dulling everything she felt below the socket. Thanks, body.
“Right at the next junction, then past three junctions, there’ll be a gray door on the left. Tell her I sent you, and take this.” Eastwood handed back the tanto he’d used in the last sewer fight. She hadn’t trained with a tanto, but it was a damn sight better than going in bare-handed, and was better in-close than a rapier.
Eastwood reached into his coat and pulled out a gel tube. How many random things does he have in there? Ree supposed it made sense that a Geekomancer’s equivalent of a utility belt would be a trench coat. He cracked the thing, and reddish light washed over the tunnel.
There were at least a dozen three-foot-tall creatures standing across the width of the tunnel less than ten yards away. They looked like wizened children with gore-and-spittle-stained beards. They wore filthy rags or nothing at all; one wore a Pokémon shirt that had probably once been white but was now soot-gray. They recoiled from the light but regrouped quickly, climbing over one another, fighting to get to the front of the group.
What I wouldn’t give for a good fireball spell right now.
“Got any handy tricks up your sleeve?” Ree asked.
“These things are mostly immune to magic, ’s why they’re so damned resilient.”
Ree’s shoulders slumped. “Awesome. Can we go around?”
“There’s about fifteen behind us, maybe forty feet back.”
Ree thought, How do you know that? but instead said, “Fantastic. So Butch and Sundance time?”
“Pretty much.”
And then Eastwood yelled. It wasn’t a nerdy-guy-trying-to-be-scary yell or an I’m-scared-but-trying-to-hide-it yell. No, it was a how-the-hell-does-a-guy-that-size-make-a-sound-so-big? yell. If the gnomes were as scared as Ree, the two of them would be fine.
Eastwood charged forward, blasting away at the group. Ree lurched after him, holding the tanto in a low guard and trying to find a gap in the minifiends’ line.
Eastwood punted one of the gnomes, smacked another with the closed fist of his flare hand, and blasted a third at point-blank range. The blasted gnome launched backward and smashed into the wall. As soon as it hit the ground, it charged him again. The gnome in the Pokémon shirt leaped at Ree as she closed in. Ree slashed at it with the tanto, and the blade cut through one of its arms and into the other hand. It crashed into her, and she swatted it off while another one scratched at her legs. She lashed out with her boot, met the tough resistanc
e of muscled flesh, and felt the sting of claws biting into her ankle. She jumped, trying to clear the crowd, and several more claws tore at her legs and feet. The entire shock of the landing went straight to her wounded shoulder, and she dropped to one knee.
Oh, this is bad, she thought.
Eastwood hauled her to her feet and proceeded to drag her as he busted ass down the tunnel. The chittering resumed, along with the scratching and clicking of claws on concrete that indicated the gnomes’ pursuit. She felt dampness from her shoulder running down her back and front, seeping into her shirt and the strap of her bra.
Now would be a really great time for a miracle. Ree gave the universe a second to respond, half-expecting something crazy to come along to help, but for lack of divine or celestial intervention, good old Doctor Who–style running through hallways would have to suffice. Her shoulder burned with a hateful intensity, worse than the time she’d cooked bacon in her underwear.
In her defense, she had been kite-high on weed. Ah, college.
They had passed the second of the three junctions when one of the gnomes caught up to her, kitten-sharp claws raking across her calf. She kept running—
And her leg gave out. She half-rolled to the floor, taking the fall as best as she could. Concrete scraped her knee and forearms hard, and she called out to Eastwood, “Help!”
The older geek grabbed an overhanging pipe and swung around it, parkour-style, charging back to fire into the crowd of chittering scrapes behind her. Ree tried to flip over to her back to face the gnome that had bitten into the back of her thigh.
“If I go out this way, I’m so haunting you,” she said to the little fiend. Up close, she saw it had sunken eyes, wrinkled skin mottled by liver spots, and small flecks of skin and muscle in a stringy bloodstained beard. All positive associations of gnomes were irrevocably thrown out the window, a facet of her childhood retroactively pwned.
With defenestration on her mind, Ree grabbed the gnome by the shoulders and kicked it over and behind her. She pulled herself up with her good arm to stand on her good leg. Eastwood supported her, laying down covering fire with the blaster.
“It’s not far, come on.”
She hobbled on, feeling faint from lack of blood. So that’s what it feels like, she thought as her eyes got heavier, her thoughts more clouded.
“Stay with me, kid!” Eastwood shouted, shaking her. One foot in front of the other, she dragged herself along. The chittering was a constant drone in the background, drowned out only by the crash of blaster bolt on concrete and flesh.
“We’re here, hold on to this.” Eastwood draped her good arm over a pipe, and she held herself up while Eastwood pounded on the door. “Wells, it’s Eastwood! Open up, now!”
A few seconds later, Ree heard the croak of hydraulics, and the door opened. Eastwood half-threw her through the opening. She heard a final triplet of blaster shots, then a powering-down sound. Eastwood muttered a string of curses in Klingon as he dove through. The door slammed shut begind him, crushing several small clawed hands. Gasping for breath, Ree looked up to see their savior.
The presumptive Dr. Wells was a black woman who stood about five-five in black stilettos. She wore her thickly curled black hair cut short and the obligatory lab coat over a fine purple blouse, with flared black slacks rounding out her look. She was somewhere between thirty and forty-five, either youthful or well preserved. She had a heart-shaped face and amber-brown eyes behind red plastic-rimmed glasses.
Pounding continued at the door as Ree looked around the room. It looked more like what she’d seen of morgues from TV shows than an actual doctor’s office. Everything was metal or slate-gray concrete, with several examining beds spaced across the room and various indescribable accoutrements that probably added up to cost more than the doctor’s degree.
Ree blacked out for a second, and when she opened her eyes, she was prone, her back to a cold slate of metal. Dr. Wells was above her, latex gloves and scalpel in hand. “This will be easier if you’re unconscious, dear. Just lie back and close your eyes.”
Ree intended to resist long enough to get a word in edgewise, but her head found metal, and she drifted away.
Chapter Ten
Suck It, Crystal Ball
When Ree came to, the first thing she saw was a derby girl on the ceiling. Derby girl had impossible features, exaggerated waist-to-hip ratio and too-big eyes. Derby girl was hunched over in ready-to-skate position, winking down at her.
Ree blinked, but derby girl was still there. As her eyes continued to focus, she saw it was a painting, one of many on the ceiling, which she hadn’t noticed when she first arrived.
Dear Derby Girl,
Why do I have to fall unconscious so much? I appreciate the sleep, but I imagine there are better ways to get some Z’s. Speak to me, O painted muse.
Big fan of your sport,
Ree
Her shoulder and leg felt numb, but numb was a damn sight better than “burning hotter than the flames of Mount Doom.” She scanned left and right, looking for Eastwood or the doctor. Eastwood was standing in the corner, leaned up against the wall and fiddling with a smartphone. He looked up and caught her gaze. “Good morning.”
“Morning?”
“It’s 7 AM, Sunday.”
Crap. Ree was on the schedule to be at work approximately now. With the look of panic on her face apparently clear as daylight, Eastwood raised his hand. “It’s fine. I called your roommate and told her you’d gotten into a small fender bender, nothing serious, but that she could call off for you.”
“Invasive much?”
“It means you get to keep your job for another day.”
“Does anyone in this world hold down a regular job?” Ree asked, trying very slowly to sit up. Her sight lagged behind her head, but one inch at a time, she righted herself.
Eastwood walked to a coffee mug on a table and poured a cup, then walked to Ree. He offered the Styrofoam cup, which Ree took with reverence. “Not many. Those who do are their own bosses.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” Ree took a whiff of the coffee, regretted it, then sipped some anyway. Caffeine was a mistress cruel enough to shame the most aggressive dominatrix in Amsterdam. Colors brightened, and her head cleared slightly, despite the terrible smell and taste.
“Where’s the doc?” Ree asked.
“Sleeping. She said you’d be free to go when you woke up.”
Ree pulled the sheet back enough to make sure she was wearing clothes. A hospital gown could barely be called clothes, but it covered enough for her to pull the sheet back more and check her legs. They were bandaged, but when she tried moving her feet, they seemed to work fine. “Is she magic, too? Aesclepomancy or something?”
Eastwood cracked a smile. “She doesn’t call it that, but yeah. The rituals of medical science are more than enough to charge up her magic. We need to get back to the Dorkcave and put this”—he held up the Claddagh ring—”to work.”
Ree held up two fingers. “Two things. One, where are my clothes? And two, how are we getting out through the gnomes? The rings again?”
“The rings will take a while longer to recharge, plus I won’t know if Lucretia permanently broke the enchantment until I do a study at my lab.” Eastwood reached under an adjacent examination table and pulled out a bag. “These are your clothes, and I spent the last three hours working up a ritual that will keep us safe from the gnomes long enough to get out.”
“Why couldn’t you—”
Eastwood cut her off. “—have done that earlier? I didn’t know we’d be going through gnome territory, since I expected a quick in-and-out, not your ‘heroics.’ Anything else?” He was more terse than usual, each new word jumping in at the end of the last, leapfrogging in a race to finish.
Ree took another sip of coffee, then set it down to rummage through the bag. The pants had been shredded but might be salvageable as jean shorts. The rest were dirty but intact. “Changing room?”
Eastwood s
hook his head and turned around, walking toward the corner.
Fair enough. Ree slid down from the table, cautious about putting weight on her legs. They supported her well enough, though all the sensations were fresh, heightened, like the just-shaved-your-legs closeness. She pulled off the gown and started dressing. Something will need to change if I’m going to keep doing this crazy stuff and not lose my job. It’s not like Eastwood is paying me. Well, maybe.
“You make your money with the memorabilia and props, right?” she asked.
“Yes. Can I turn around?” he asked.
“Not yet.” She ripped off the bloody scraps of the jeans, making a rough approximation of cutoffs. Geek tested, Punk approved.
She checked to make sure everything was in place, then said, “Go ahead.” Eastwood turned around as she continued, “There’s no way I can keep regular hours at Café Xombi and be a magic super hero or whatever you put in the Career box. So I need another job. Could you use another hand around the shop, help move lots, maybe drum up some buzz?”
Eastwood narrowed his eyes. “I’m doing fine as is.”
“If I lose my job and get evicted, I won’t be able to help you. No more snappy Sherpa, no more ground-pounding kung fu investigator. Sandra doesn’t make enough to float me for rent more than once a year, and my dad the hairstylist isn’t exactly swimming in cash.”
“I’ll take that under advisement. Now here’s how this is going to work.” Eastwood pulled out a makeup kit from his vast trench coat. “Ever play in the Camarilla?”
“I was One World all the way.”
“Same difference. We’re going to obfuscate our way out of here.” Eastwood pulled a folded paper from the kit. “Here’s your character sheet. I’ve already taken the liberty of doing the makeup.”
Ree took a hand mirror from the kit and saw what Eastwood had done. Her face was dusted white, eyebrows accented, and she had a general pallor that screamed Nosferatu, the clan of horrifically ugly vampires who, in the game, were masters of the arts of disguise and stealth.
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