Bryan hopped down, and a few seconds later, a light came on. Bryan stood flush against one side, with a trough for the waste going off to one side. “Come on down, just watch the sludge.”
Ree sat down into the pit, grabbed the ledge, and dropped off, slowing her fall so she could land on the side. The light showed a narrow tunnel toward the street, which Bryan climbed through. Patently avoiding checking out her boss’s ass, she followed him into a larger space. He clicked on another lightbulb to illuminate the room.
Compared to Eastwood’s Dorkcave, it wasn’t much, but it was a helluva lot more than she expected her mild-mannered nerdy Pagan boss to have stored away right underneath her feet.
The room held several beat-up old chests, a bookshelf that took up one whole wall, a small fridge, and a travel-sized weapon rack.
“Whatcha got?” Ree asked.
“If you’re going up against Eastwood, you’ll want protection from all of those props of his.”
“I have some armor I’m borrowing from a friend.” The words sounded strange coming out of her mouth. A smile slipped across her lips. A lifetime of video games and RPGs, and it’s all still weird.
“Yeah, but this should be better for going up against a Geekomancer.” Bryan pulled out a T-shirt-shaped quilt with four-inch-square blocks. When he held it up, she leaned in and took a closer look. There was screen-printed type on each block, bits of dates and locations. As far as she could tell, the dates were mostly in the ’60s and ’70s.
“What are the blocks?” she asked.
Bryan smiled. “This is made from the T-shirts of the first year of ten major science fiction conventions, including the first Worldcon, the first World Fantasy, and first Gen Con. The collected geek cred of these shirts is strong enough to shrug off most anything that’s powered by nerdstalgia.”
Ree chuckled, then cackled, then doubled over with laughter, thinking of all the proud gamers and geeks walking around game and sci-fi conventions with their T-shirts. She’d never been one for convention shirts. Nor band shirts, for that matter. But she did have a proud collection of Nintendo shirts locked up in her dad’s storage unit, and if things like that kept her safe, they’d be worth the strange looks.
Something else to have Dad send. Assuming I survive this whole thing.
“Has this been washed?” she asked with a smile.
Bryan rolled his eyes. “Wear that over whatever armor you’ve got for real stuff, and you should be able to stand up to whatever mojo he’s throwing around. But what are you going to do then?”
Ree leaned against the corner of the hallway, her head grazing the ceiling. “Still working on that. I know that I don’t want the deal to go down. I don’t know what Dork Lords of Hell do with souls, but I bet it’s not good.”
Bryan was absently flipping through a box of comics as she talked. “And Eastwood?”
Ree waved a hand, dismissive. “He’s in over his head. But I owe him my life at least once over. Best case is I pull his ass out of the fire and keep the demon from getting more soul Pokémon. Worst case, I get flayed alive and have incubi hump me to death.”
Disgust flashed across Bryan’s face. “You’re pretty nonchalant about all of this.”
Ree shrugged. “I’m overtaxed, outclassed, and exhausted. I came here half-expecting that you’d call the cops on me, and my troubles would get narrowed to a ten-by-ten padded room with room service. This is way better already.”
Bryan looked her up and down like they’d just met. Or like he was reevaluating her, maybe starting to consider her as more than just Ree—27, worked for me for two years, can drop a shot of espresso in 20 seconds on the dot every time, and knows more about the oeuvre of Marv Wolfman than anyone this side of the Rockies.
But what then? Ree—27, in over her head and six hours from dead, or Ree—27 and more of a badass than expected?
“What’s that look for?” she asked.
Bryan smiled. “You’re more than I pegged you for, Ree.”
Ree beamed that her boss had gone with the badass evaluation and struck a pose. “Call me Optimus.”
“Optimistic, for sure.” Bryan pulled out a backboarded issue, chuckled to himself, and set it aside.
Ree leaned into the room, scanning the shelves and stacks. “What else is up for grabs?”
“Just about everything. My friends donated a lot, but I can’t use much in here, it’s all over my head or out of my paradigm. The broomstick is my quick-escape plan, and the longbox at the bottom is set aside for the kids’ college tuition, but other than that . . .”
Ree looked around the room, starting to sort items by how useful she thought they’d be in the upcoming likely fight. When she’d finished, she realized she had something else she needed to talk with him about. “You know that if I survive, I’ll probably be stuck doing this hero crap some more. Will I have a job waiting for me?”
Bryan clucked his tongue on the back of his teeth. Ree had worked for him long enough to know that was a bad sound. “I don’t want trouble coming through my door, Ree. The store barely makes ends meet, and my insurance isn’t good enough to handle it if something does break bad.
“And if I play favorites, cut you slack, everyone else will start asking for it, too. If you can’t hack the schedule . . .” He put his hands out in a what can you do? gesture.
“That’s it?” Ree found herself getting angry, not at Eastwood or the Duke or any of the dozen beasts and bullies whose paths she’d crossed, but at her boss, whom she’d considered one of her best friends. This hero shit was all the less fun if you couldn’t leave it behind at the tabletop or the laptop.
“I’m sorry,” he said, passing her on the way to the tunnel. “I just don’t have the wiggle room. Take what you like and get going. I have to open up the shop.”
“I can stay until my shift’s up,” she offered, her voice wavering.
Bryan smiled. “I’m fine, Ree. Go do what you have to do. We can talk again after.” With that, he slipped out of sight, carrying the sleeved issue he’d pulled out.
Well, that didn’t go as expected. Ree had made up a short list of possible results, including: call sanatorium, uncomfortable firing, an outside chance of being totally okay with it somehow. “Here’s my arsenal” had not been on that list, for some strange reason. In the future, assume everyone knows about magic until proven otherwise.
Ree poked around the room, flipped through some old comics, and started loading stuff into her bag. She grabbed the T-shirt quilt-mail, slipped several dozen Magic cards into her purse, and reverently arranged a few late-’70s comics in board-backed sleeves, putting them away while a shudder went up her arm.
Don’t make me have to use these, please. If we have to destroy stuff every time we use it, sooner or later there will be no Star Wars laser discs, no Chaos Orbs, no Action Comics #15.
It was a lot more than she’d had an hour ago. Bryan may not be able to pay her for work she didn’t do, but the gear might end up saving her life.
She held the bag to her chest, looked around the room again, and slipped another couple of things into the bag, noting every single thing she took in case she needed to repay Bryan for the swag. Or at least, that spendy Ethiopian blend that his wife got him for his birthday every year. Fifty bucks a pound and worth every penny.
Well, I’ve got myself some weapons, an impressive if ridiculous ally, and I know what my opponent needs to succeed. Not much left to it but to do it.
Next stop, the Dorkcave.
Chapter Seventeen
Revelation Redux
When Ree met up with Drake a block from the Dorkcave’s basement entrance, the gadgeteer was casting glances over his shoulders, looking up and down the street suspiciously. “What are you watching for?” she asked.
He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I am not certain, but I imagine I will know if I see it. My adventurer’s senses tell me that things are coming to a head, my dear, and in such times, vigilance is a
given.”
He looked about as bad as she felt. “Are you all right?” Ree asked.
“I believe I may be in need of some tea.”
Ree shook her head. “Silly Brits. You need to cop to your mortality and start pounding cappuccinos like the Italians and the rest of the overstimulated world.”
“Perhaps you are right.”
“Okay, let me take the lead here. I need to clear things up before we can start talking sense into him anyway. And from what I can tell, he holds grudges.”
Drake took a deep breath. “For now—we have a greater purpose. But if the situation goes awry, do not hesitate to summon me.”
“All right, but it’ll be by text, not girlie scream. I don’t play damsel in distress. I don’t even like dresses. Except the slinky ones.”
She blinked a couple of times, trying to shake the sleep-deprived loopiness. No such luck. Yeah, I should have taken a nap before tackling the bad guy.
Walking down the stairs, she shouted over her shoulder, “Watch your phone, and try to act casual.”
Drake crossed his arms and leaned against the railing above the basement steps. Even that bit of casual managed to look awkward on him.
At the bottom of the stairs, Ree knocked on the door and leaned on the bell for several moments. She waited, arms crossed. Come on, come on.
She knocked again, then leaned up against the door to listen. The surface was as cold as it had been yesterday and yielded no more sound.
A half-minute later, Ree kicked the door, then instantly regretted it, having not worn her steel-toed boots to work.
She bit her lip and knocked again. A voice in her mind said, He’s not home, or he knows it’s you and he’s not answering. Just go home and go to bed.
Oh, bed. How she longed to creep under her sheets, pile blanket on top of blanket, and curl up with her hot pad to pass the hell out and not wake up until November 11th so she could play Skyrim.
Instead, she knocked on the door again. She turned over thoughts in her mind, trying to think if there was a genre-fu move she hadn’t thought of that would get Eastwood to show. She wouldn’t do any kind of Mind whammy, reach into his mind and force him to abandon his plan. That would be Left-handed, Dark Side, and worse karma than kicking a three-legged puppy in the rain.
Footsteps. Ree put her ear to the door and heard them coming toward her. She threw Drake a thumbs-up, and he walked toward the corner, leaving her alone as the steps grew close.
Ree stepped back and smiled, then dropped to a neutral expression. How do I play this? Happy to see him, angry at his continued dumbassery? Compassionate and empathetic for his obviously crazy-emo situation?
The door creaked open, swinging on the when-were-you-last-oiled? hinges.
Standing in the doorway, Eastwood looked tired, even worse than Drake. His hair was mussed, his shirt was stained by what might have been sweet-and-sour sauce but was probably blood, his pants were rumpled, and his face was mottled with purple and blue bruises. The way he held himself made Ree think he might have other bruises elsewhere. What put him through the wringer?
“Thanks for answering the door.”
Eastwood sighed. “What do you want?”
“I think we owe it to each other to sit down and talk like vaguely adult-type people.”
“I’m busy,” Eastwood said.
“No, really?” Snark not helping now, girlie. “Sorry. Ten minutes?”
Still holding the door, Eastwood settled his weight onto his right leg. He curled his lip, considering, then stepped back, leaving the door open for her. He turned and walked back inside slowly. Which was when Ree saw the blaster he carried in his right hand. He’d probably been ready to blow me away, or was that for someone or something else?
Ree walked down the stacks and stopped in front of Eastwood’s wall of screens. She turned and saw him put the blaster down and pick up a thermos of something that she hoped was caffeine and not booze.
“Do you have the fifth soul?” she asked. No reason to beat around the bush. Well, there were plenty of reasons, but if he’d already done the deal, then what was the point?
“No.”
“Do you have a lead?”
“Are you here to stop me?” Eastwood asked, crossing his arms and sitting on the desk, his back to the dozen screens that showed Star Trek reruns, CNN, and on one screen, a live-updating RSS feed that included Pearson PD, what looked like voice-to-text transcripts of a suicide hotline, and several other emergency services.
Ree waved at the screens. “I killed the Muse. Your chances of a natural suicide that fits the bill today are what, a million to one?”
Eastwood’s nostrils flared, and with the puffiness around his eyes, it looked like he could start to cry. “If I don’t deliver, Branwen will be tortured for eternity.”
Ree stepped toward Eastwood. Even sitting on the desk, he was taller, but she did her best to up the menace factor. “So you’ll condemn five innocents to take her place?”
Eastwood exhaled, his brow set as he waited a second. “Yes.”
“And when she gets back, what will she do when she finds out what you did?”
Eastwood looked like a petulant child. The same look Ree had used a hundred times on her father and saw little kids use every day to get a cookie from their parents at the café.
“It’ll be too late then. No one would willingly go back. She’ll learn to forgive me,” he said.
He’s just another hurt lover missing the one who got away. Shit, who of us doesn’t?
“I don’t know. You make her out to be pretty saint-tacular. Why do you get to make this choice for her, to say that her life is worth more than five children?”
Eastwood’s mouth flexed like he was about to say something but swallowed it instead. “I don’t have to explain myself. Are you here to help or to lecture me?”
“Are you going to be a petulant selfish ass, or are you going to listen to reason?” Ree regretted the harshness as soon as she finished, but damnit, she was in the right. Moral high ground, population = me. Ree didn’t want to live in a world where sacrificing a bunch of kids was something the good guys did. “Why did you even get me involved if you were dealing in crap like this? Did you think I wouldn’t find out what you were up to?”
Eastwood shook his head. “I could tell in the alley that you weren’t going to walk away without an explanation. I sent you to the Moorelys’ to put the fear of God in you, but you had the dumb luck to get jumped by that Atavist and ended up pissed off instead. By then I knew you were too dug in. And I thought maybe you’d want to help me even after finding out.”
“What the hell makes you think I would ever—” Ree paused to fume. “Ever help you do that to those kids?”
Eastwood’s eyes lit up with anger, and he growled, launching off the desk and walking away from her. “She told me not to do this, but if you’re not going to listen, then I don’t give a flying frak.”
Hey, what the who now? What’s he talking about?
He took another few steps, then turned back to face her. “Branwen nic Catrin was her name here, in the magical underground. But she was born Sionnan Casey.”
By Lucas’s Force Ghost . . .
Mom?
Ree crash-landed through a dozen emotions, skidding across surprise, disbelief, anger, relief, guilt, and settling again on anger.
“What? What? Are you fucking kidding me? You knew my mother, were trying to bring her back, and you waited until now to tell me?” Ree took a step toward Eastwood, her ears hot. “Why would she tell you not to say anything? And while we’re at it, why the hell did she leave the first time? My dad nearly died when she left. He put his life together piece-by-LEGO-sized piece after she walked out on us, and for what? So she could play Jedi with a hacker burnout?”
Eastwood backed up onto the desk, hands up to placate her. “Slow down. I can’t answer eight questions all at once.”
“Then get started.”
“I can do you o
ne step better.” Eastwood picked through a pile of papers and hardware on the desk and handed her a cube.
“What’s this, a holocron?” she asked, turning the cube over in her hands.
“Not quite. This has a USB port.” Eastwood plugged the cube in and ran his fingers over one of the desk’s many keyboards. Ree sat in one of Eastwood’s cushy chairs, dead tired but with a strange energy running through her.
The wall of monitors all went black. A moment later, they showed her mother against a blue background. She was older than Ree remembered, maybe mid-forties. Her brown hair was pulled back in a complicated braid. She wore simple cloth-spun clothes and a leather vest. Her face was pale, her eyes bloodshot.
This could be a fake, Ree thought.
“Hello, Ree. I’ve tried to record this message, I swear, a hundred times, but I can’t get the words right. I should have sent cards, presents; I should have been there for you, and I miss you every day. I miss you and Julio both, but I couldn’t stay.
“I stopped doing magic when your father and I settled down. I knew I couldn’t risk anything happening to Julio and then to you. But I couldn’t stop being who I was. Every TV show, every commercial, every book and song pulled at me, begged me to fall into it. And when I did, the next show called. I kept shifting, my mind rearranging with each new input. Some Geekomancers can handle the changes, but not me. I was too much a specialist, I couldn’t keep up.”
Ree’s doubt fell away like the years, and she felt like a kid again. She wanted to reach out, to touch her, to have her mother gather her up in her arms and make the hurt go away. But she was gone, and the only way to get her back was unthinkable.
Her mother looked away from the camera, wiping her eyes. “A friend called it genre-schizophrenia, and it nearly drove me mad. I couldn’t cut you off from the world, couldn’t tell Julio that the stories that had brought us together were making me unhinged. I couldn’t . . . I did my best, tried to fend off the barrage, but I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“That’s crap!” Ree said, turning to Eastwood. “Isn’t it? I’ve been doing this for a week, and none of that has happened.”
Geekomancy Page 22
