She braced for an attack that never came. The mists swirled and Henry jumped through the throng of monsters, his blade flicking out and his arm-mounted exoguns spitting death. Four of the creatures went down and stayed down, giving Mareen a brief respite.
Henry slid to a stop in front of her, breathing deeply. He loudly exhaled and asked, “What’s up, hottie?”
Mareen’s eyes blazed and she fiercely kissed her husband. The infuriating man acted like he had been expecting it, but she didn’t care. She was so tired and relieved she began chuckling into his lips as she leaned against him. She heard Henry fire an exogun over her shoulder and she didn’t even look. She knew he probably had destroyed another monster that got too close.
Being useful was great and she was proud of herself. She felt like a real adventurer. Mareen knew she was truly powerful now…but damn it was nice to have her husband at her side again.
* * *
Vitaliya dodged another lethal strike. She concentrated for a moment and her flame flexed, twisting and charring the attacking creature’s clawed limb. She cursed when the unnatural thing just switched to its other arm.
The twisted, rotting monsters seemed endless and they felt no pain. Vitaliya had been in a number of battles, most of them through her training. When she wreathed herself in flames, other living creatures usually shied away or at least took pause. Not these things.
She’d never felt so helpless. Her flames didn’t even faze the huge group of monsters converging on her position.
And she could feel the ground thumping beneath her feet as something huge got closer.
Gonzo was holding his own. He was strong and fast, his ice attacks were debilitating, and he could even heal himself. He didn’t advertise his abilities, but Vitaliya had seen him heal a deep cut on his arm before.
The man was currently standing in a ring of ice spikes facing outwards from the ground at chest height, keeping the monsters off of himself as he tried to thin them out. He calmly fashioned magic spears one after another and threw them into the horde.
Gonzo and Vitaliya had both realized that hitting the diseased monsters in the head put them down for good, but Vitaliya had a hard time using her magic with that much precision. Her short sword wasn’t exactly the best weapon to be taking heads with, either.
At least Gonzo was effective, but he was still slowly, surely getting overrun. The monsters were impaling themselves on his spikes and starting to climb over each other. Whatever huge thing was approaching their location was almost on top of them, judging by how the ground shook. The situation was looking grim.
Suddenly, the footsteps stopped and a huge crash rattled the ground. Vitaliya spared a glance and saw Uluula rocketing out of the mists, her halberd trailing fire.
Vitaliya was mildly surprised. Uluula had never impressed her very much. She’d just assumed the Areva woman was a calculating aristocrat, working towards a cushy life through her association with Jason. Uluula practiced combatives and wore weapons, but Vitaliya had never taken the smaller woman very seriously.
Vitaliya’s blood chilled a bit when she saw Uluula almost casually cut a couple creatures in half. Uluula held an arm pointed behind her, her bracer throwing out a line. She let the line pull her back, zipping away from a couple attacking monsters.
The woman was fast and extremely skilled. Vitaliya immediately adjusted her assessment. One aspect of her training for Berber Intelligence was to never let personal pride interfere with analyzing facts.
“Hit them in the brain or cut off their heads,” she yelled.
Uluula nodded and called back, “That makes sense. I couldn’t bring the big one down until I put a mist spear through its eye.” Uluula’s polearm spun in her hands. She began hacking and slashing through the surrounding monsters. The halberd’s magic-fueled plasma blade charred putrid flesh and bones; the stink was overwhelming. Vitaliya gagged but she still preferred the smell to being dead.
Perhaps she’d have to buy Uluula a gift. Staying alive was a priority. If she were to die, she wouldn’t be able to see her precious Aodh again. Actually, where was Aodh?
She felt a flash of a panic and ruthlessly suppressed it, but her attacks on the surrounding creatures redoubled and her eyes hardened. She lashed out with her flames again and again, the attacks hitting with all of her desperation behind them. Where was her cousin? What if he died?
Vitaliya gritted her teeth and created a powerful jet of flame, burning a dog monster’s head until it stopped moving. She was going to figure out who had attacked them, and there would be hell to pay.
She didn’t even want to think of what she’d do if Aodh wasn’t safe.
* * *
Bezzi-ibbi gasped in exhaustion and fear. He was still keeping ahead of the big Adom that chased him, but just barely. The gap was getting closer and closer.
The huge, reptilian female was like a force of nature. Logs, branches, and small trees that Bezzi-ibbi had to go around, the big Adom just went through. If she ever got a hold of him, Bezzi-ibbi would be done.
He needed to loop back and get some help to deal with his enormous, scaled problem, but he’d gotten turned around and he wasn’t sure where he was anymore.
He didn’t even know what general direction the Battlewagon was in. For the first time in his life, Bezzi-ibbi felt like circumstances were entirely beyond his control. He still fought to maintain his calm, his focus, but he wasn’t sure how much good it would do.
He wondered if he would ever see Henry-ibbi and Jason-ibbi again. Even if he died, he was glad he had met his brothers. They’d given him the courage to be who he truly was, to become the best male he could be.
Still, even though the situation looked grim, he would not give up easily. Bezzi-ibbi smiled savagely, his eyes flashing as he pumped his arms and legs. He began looking for rock outcroppings and thicker trees to duck around, obstacles the Adom would not be able to smash through.
The Jaguar Clan heir chuckled, ducking around yet another tree. He heard a rock whiz past where he’d just been running. The big Adom had started throwing things at him.
If he somehow survived this test, Bezzi-ibbi would have excellent material for his first Troubadour song.
* * *
Jason hit the ground running. The fog bank covered more ground than he would have hoped. He could barely hear the sounds of combat anymore. Once his long legs began to eat up the ground, he focused on getting a good breathing rhythm.
One advantage of his Endurance skill was that he could run faster and farther than he ever could before in his life.
He focused on his task with single-minded determination…just one foot in front of the other. The rhythm of his pounding feet became his world.
He tried not to think about anything else. He didn’t remember how Henry had been attacked. He didn’t wonder if Uluula was still alive. He couldn’t afford to give in to despair.
He had to help his family, the only sense of home and belonging he had on Ludus. He would not let this world take them from him.
Jason ran faster and felt his rage growing, waiting to be unleashed.
Fighting with the Past
Thirsty couldn’t move. His fear was like a physical weight crushing him to the back of the Batttlewagon. Every time the porcine creature outside the barrier jabbed with its spear, Thirsty flinched and felt the strength of his air shield fading. The bracelet on his wrist that sustained the protective shield was developing cracks.
Nobody had come back for him. They could all be dead. He was on his own.
Thirsty knew the barrier wouldn’t last that much longer. It was true he had more shields he could generate with the bracelets on his wrist, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t even think. It felt like he’d gone back in time. He wasn’t Thirsty anymore, he wasn’t anyone’s friend. He wasn’t chatting every day with crazy Mo’hali or hot, armored men in a fantasy world. No, he was just Dashawn Givens again; a skinny, awkward, black queer kid with no friends.
Every
time the monster outside the barrier thrust with a spear, it was like he was 12 years old again, being beaten by his stepfather with an extension cord. Ron had never been able to “beat the faggot” out of him, but he sure had tried.
He was fourteen again. He relived being slapped in the face by bullies “because bitches get slapped” while walking to the lunchroom. He heard kids call him a fairy, a butt pirate, and an ugly faggot when they thought the other kids or the adults wouldn’t hear. He remembered what it was like to fear his peers.
He was fifteen years old again and his best friend Gregory was denying their friendship in order to avoid being bullied. He watched himself spend a miserable year in a new school where he was shunned for being black, or gay, or both…Or maybe he’d just been depressed and angry. Maybe he’d done it to himself; wouldn’t that be ironic? But the end result was the same: he had been alone.
He was sixteen again, and the boy he had kissed at summer camp was pretending to be straight at school, pretending that nothing had ever happened between them. The boy he’d thought he loved over the summer, Jeremy, told other students some of the embarrassing secrets that Dashawn had confided. That year was a living hell.
He was seventeen again, hating himself for secretly dating Jeremy.
He was eighteen, staying home alone on prom night. He was looking at himself in a mirror with his dress on, knowing he had to hide it before his mom saw. She thought he was going to be a nice, normal boy. She didn’t understand. She asked why he hadn’t asked a girl to prom like his best friend Jeremy had.
He was nineteen again, broke with no job, no prospects. He was couch surfing and stressing already thin, strained relationships.
He was twenty and being beaten by the older man he dated.
He was twenty-one, the year his mom disowned him. He was wondering how he was going to feed himself.
The years rolled by and Dashawn drowned in the past. Yet still, with all the terrible memories he cycled through, his current situation was the worst he’d ever experienced. If he could just give up, just let it all be over and done with…if he could surrender, it would be fine.
But he couldn’t.
A tiny speck of stubborn pride remaining within him, the core of who he wanted to be, the part of him that was inspired by his idols on Earth, by Bezzi-ibbi and Henry…That part was whispering, “No.” He wanted to live. He wanted a chance to see his drag momma again, dammit. He missed his entire drag family.
Tears of frustration ran down his cheeks and he gasped deep, racking sobs. He was letting down his new friends. He was a failure. He was nothing. His stepfather Ron had been right. If the man had not died in an alcohol-fueled accident, he would have been vindicated for sure.
Dashawn curled his hands into fists. He clenched his jaw, wishing the terrible creatures outside the shield would just get it over with.
The tall, thin man was continuing to wallow in depression and helplessness when he heard Aodh groan. Aodh, the young man who had befriended Dashawn, was also trapped. Aodh, who had so much in common with him despite being a different race, age, and even coming from a different world.
If Dashawn did nothing, he wouldn’t just be letting down everyone in the group, he’d be directly betraying his half-conscious young friend. The thought hurt him somewhere he wasn’t even sure he could hurt anymore.
Dashawn hadn’t prayed in over a decade, not since a woman had told him that God hated him, had said that he was spitting in God’s eye for being gay. But in that moment, in his darkest hour, he whispered, “Please, God, help me.” His prayer wasn’t for himself, but for all the people in the fog.
His heart ached for his companions, the people he’d come to care about in such a short amount of time. He prayed for his friends who were no doubt fighting for their own lives…and for his.
Suddenly, Dashawn noticed that Keeja’s music player was still on. It was louder than usual, too. “White Wedding,” another of Mareen’s song picks, was playing at full volume.
He frowned, the distraction barely overcoming his fear enough to make him crack his eyes open. Through tears, he stared at the monster outside in horrified fascination. It was hitting the Battlewagon with its spear.
Dashawn could feel the vibrations…but he couldn’t hear anything.
In a flash, he understood. His barrier was blocking sound, keeping it from entering or leaving. He looked out into the dense, swirling fog and realized he had probably been further dooming his friends. They had no way to even tell where the Battlewagon was.
Dashawn was about to curl up again and just wait for death when everything changed. Billy Idol’s song came to an end, and a new song began playing.
The next song was “Champion,” by RuPaul, the goddess herself. Dashawn listened to for a few seconds and his eyes widened. Despite his fear, he began lip syncing the words. “Champion” was the first of the songs he’d queued up on Keeja’s music player. His eyes widened as the words of the song seemed to pierce his heart, hit him right at the core of who he was as a person.
He gritted his teeth. He might not feel strong enough to do anything as Dashawn, but anything was possible as Thirsty. When he was Thirsty, he felt strong and beautiful. He realized his feeling about the transformation made no sense, since Thirsty was a part of him, but there were freaky-ass monsters less than 10 feet away. It wasn’t time to have an existential crisis. Logic could get fucked.
Dashawn took a deep breath and forced his hands to uncurl. He crawled on hands and knees to his backpack.
With shaking hands, he got his heels and his wig out of the backpack. Every movement was slow and deliberate. He’d never had a harder time putting on a wig in his life. Each bobby pin seemed to take an eternity to fasten.
When the wig and heels were both on, Dashawn squeezed his eyes shut tightly, cleared his mind…and became Thirsty Zha Zha. The situation sucked, but she could do this…even in an old-ass pair of dirty man clothes. There was no time to tuck or put on a dress, much less any makeup…Even just the bare essentials in her backpack would take too long. Fuck it. She would be gorgeous in a straightjacket.
First things first, she had to wake up Tony. After that, she was going to drop her shield to let the music out. Then everyone would know where the Battlewagon was.
She was gonna serve up some magical powers realness. Fuck all this crying and moaning bullshit. It’s time to buckle down, bitch. Do yo’ thang.
Thirsty gave one last sniffle, rubbed her eyes clear of tears, pursed her lips, and got the fuck to work. It was time to beat some monster ass and look fabulous doing it.
* * *
Aodh woke up fully with a splitting headache. Someone was shaking him. He groaned to make the shaking go away, but it wouldn’t stop. He opened his eyes.
Thirsty was standing above him, wearing the shirt and skinny jeans he’d brought from Earth. However, he was also wearing high-heeled shoes and his drag queen wig. He looked like he’d been crying.
Aodh blinked and glanced around, hissing through his teeth when he saw the monster outside the barrier. As he watched, another creature joined it. The new monster looked like it might have been a man once, but now existed as a decaying corpse in armor. Its dead eyes were disturbing and its cloudy pupils focused on him.
“What, what is going…” Aodh muttered. “There’s fog and monsters and—”
“That’s right, honey. We’re in a world of shit.” Thirsty was holding his wand made from bronze cones and his bare arm sported all his enchanted bracelets. He stood tall and looked more confident than Aodh could remember. The wig and women’s shoes coupled with his face full of stubble seemed a little odd, but Aodh thought everything about Thirsty was odd. He was just glad his friend had woken him up and had apparently been protecting them. He realized the barrier had to be Thirsty’s.
The roiling fog outside looked ominous. Thirsty breathed deeply and said, “Okay, Tony, we need to help everyone. They’re all out there fighting. You’ve been unconscious for a while an
d I was feeling sorry for myself, but it’s time to work. It’s time to be a fierce bitch, you know what I mean?”
Tony had no idea what Thirsty meant, but he nodded anyway.
Thirsty sighed and said, “Right now, my shield is blocking sound. Everyone else is fighting out there. I think I can change my shield to let sound out, but if I do, I have a feeling that more of these freaky things might come and start attacking. We might as well just drop the whole thing and try to clear an area for everyone. Are you ready?”
Aodh gulped and found his quarterstaff. He unpacked one heavy claymore mine and held it under his arm. He understood the situation and also understood that without Thirsty protecting him, he might already have been dead. Aodh swallowed and decided he had to speak what was on his mind, or he’d be more of a coward than he already knew he was. “Thank you,” he said, “for everything. You saved my life, didn’t you?”
Thirsty smiled. “I’m Thirsty Zha Zha, kid! Being amazing is my job. Plus, what are friends for?”
Aodh absently noted that Keeja’s music player had started playing a new song. Aodh recognized it as one of Thirsty’s favorites. He thought it was called “Glamazon” or something, but he didn’t understand most of the lyrics.
Thirsty’s eyes got huge and he smiled. “This is the perfect song to make my Ludus debut. The show is about to start, honey. I think these things are zombies, so aim for their heads.”
Suddenly, the barrier protecting the Battlewagon fell and the fog slowly moved in. The two monsters stood still for a moment, slow to react. Thirsty pointed at one of them and discharged his wand. With a loud pop, one small piece of bronze zipped through the pig-looking creature’s head. The back of the creature’s head blew outwards and it collapsed in a heap.
Thirsty crowed, “Say hello to Thirsty Zha Zha, bitches!” The drag queen stood tall and made a pose. Aodh had no idea what the hell his friend was doing. Why wasn’t his friend just dealing with the monsters? Why make poses?
Delvers LLC: Obligations Incurred Page 21
