Ree filed the idea of Bikers vs. Aliens away in the part of her brain that knew that terrible concepts didn’t stop something from being saleable. Case in point: Battleship the movie.
Janet at the V:TES table ordered a round of mochas as part of what seemed like a bargain to get Rachel’s Bruja to protect her squishy Tremere, so Ree made her way to the espresso machine.
Ree lost herself in the familiar routine, the memory of thousands of lattes made across her food-service history. Ree let her mind wander as she steamed milk, touring through her memory of the last several Midnight Markets, trying to recall if she’d seen anyone with a mirror that might fit the ritual bill, refiltering gossip and bragging with her new priorities.
Ree had learned to store things away for future consideration whenever possible, but her memory was far from eidetic. Ree was pretty sure that most of her memory hard drive was filled up by trivia: movie quotes, monster stats, and card game text. The pie chart of her brain probably read something like:
Geek Trivia: 53%
consisting of
Comics: 18%
Movies/TV: 15%
Games: 11%
Literature: 7%
Anime: 2%
Everyday Knowledge: 18%
Taekwondo/Hapkido: 6%
Sarcastic Barbs: 12%
Job Skills: 11%
Luckily for her, that Geek Trivia converted directly to her magic, like an Obsession Skill in Unknown Armies.
The machine made a strange clunking sound while she prepared the mochas, which she logged to get to later.
Once the drinks were done, she returned to the cadre of card floppers with a trayful of mochas, setting them on a foldout stand by the table. She passed out the drinks, which were received reverently and slurped noisily, then placed in between clusters of sleeved cards and glass beads.
She popped in to the back room to check on Drake, who was humming something that sounded like a sea chantey, up to his elbows in suds and dishes.
“Doing all right?” she asked.
Drake turned and gave an unguarded pleasant smile that lit up his flushed-with-effort face. Oh, if only I had any capacity to pull off polyamory. Her one trial run had gone disastrously wrong, and Ree had identified herself as the problem, which took it off the table until she could reliably both communicate well and not be jealous as fuck when she saw people whose bones she wanted to jump getting attention from other people.
She returned the smile in brief and slipped back into the main room, laughing at her all-too-predictable responses.
When she was a teen, Ree thought that being an adult meant growing past the idiotic feelings of awkwardness around people she liked, learning not to put her feet in her mouth, and so on. In reality, it just seemed to be a case of accepting your habits and contextualizing. So instead of continuing to stew in the bowl of butterfly soup in her stomach, she set about cleaning the espresso machine.
She pulled out the portafilters, dissasembled the front of the machine, and found that one of the nuts connecting an internal pipe was loose (testing with hot pads so as to not give herself second-degree burns). She pulled out Grognard’s set of tools and tightened the nut, then reassembled the whole thing and steamed up some soy milk to make sure everything was fine. Since it was, she made herself a victory chai, with a bit of vanilla to give it an extra kick. She’d be up well past midnight again, so a steady stream of caffeine was essential.
The V:TES game wrapped up around 11 PM, and Ree took the opportunity to rescue Drake from the back room, where Grognard had put the adventurer to work in cleaning the silos and tanks for Grognard’s brewing.
“You’ll be back tomorrow,” Grognard said, not a question, just an assertion of understood reality.
Ree nodded, wondering if it’d be worth getting injured over the next day or so to call off from work and give Grognard’s anger a chance to settle a bit more. Probably not worth the medical bills, though. She’d already borrowed more against her credit asking about a mirror for the ritual, though Grognard had only been able to give vague possibilities. Golden Age of Hollywood was really out of his area of expertise.
She and Drake took the office exit, still avoiding the site of the cart’s demise. Grognard had mumbled about extending the wards on the store, but that would be as big a project as making a new cart, and not being at the Midnight Market would cost him thousands of dollars in lost business every month. So it would have to wait.
The pair stood under the orange-yellow light of the streetlamp, Pearson being one of the cities that had jumped on a more energy-efficient but totally ugly set of bulbs. They cast the street in a sci-fi light, everything one shade off of normal, even though Ree had lived with them for years now.
“I’ve got to get to the set in case something else comes for Jane. Rachel wasn’t forthcoming about the hows of Smokey the Terminator.”
Drake shifted his weight, clearly wanting to say something. He hesitated, then settled over his left leg and asked, “Do you need assistance?”
She wanted to say yes, but knew that inviting him would have a x3 Awkward multiplier with Jane. Danny would be there, and the security.
“I think we’ll be fine. Go rest up, since tomorrow we get to scour the city from top to bottom for the right mirror.”
Drake nodded. “I believe that a hot bath and a good night’s sleep are in order. I will be available at your earliest convenience tomorrow, and do not hesitate to call if events transpire this evening.”
Ree made a focused effort not to instantly throw out the dirty joke that came to mind. “Sure thing,” she said instead.
Drake gave an exaggeratedly deep bow, then rose with a smile. He was still of his time and place, but they’d become familiar enough to make jokes about their many differences.
Ree watched Drake walk off, wind picking up the edges of his duster and running its fingers through his close-cropped hair.
She sighed, and then checked her phone vs. her memory of the bus schedule. She fetched her earphones and cued up an episode of Buffy to calm herself down and prepare a power-up in case things broke bad at the set.
• • •
The bus trip to the set took the better part of an hour, far off the prime time. She was joined by a thin assortment during the trip: some college kids that hopped on for three stops, talking in booze-thick voices; a man sitting in the back corner with a bundle of plastic and paper bags who worried at his mostly-gray beard; and a no-nonsense woman in business black who spent the whole trip with her face lit by a seven-inch tablet.
Ree had her own twenty-first-century flashlight mood lighting, wrapping herself in the comfort of “Chosen,” feeling the burden of power along with the ever-harried heroine. At least I don’t have to fight in heels for the ratings, Ree thought, though she knew that she could if she had to, another gift of the genre emulation magic.
She reviewed her agenda as the bus reached the last stop before hers, making sure she was remembering everything.
Ree tugged on the call wire as they approached her stop, rising as the bus slowed to a halt on the empty street. She saluted the driver and hopped off, seeing the stand-up floodlights that One Tough Mama had set up throughout the trailer campus.
It was an odd feeling, heading into a situation not knowing if it was going to end with smooching, fighting, or both.
I have a weird life, she thought.
No shit came her brain’s response.
A bored-looking guard stopped her at the edge of the campus, standing underneath a pop-up tent. He waved a flashlight over her face and then waved her through.
Her night-vision completely shot, Ree blinked the light out of her eyes and continued on to Jane’s trailer. There was another guard posted at the door, the same guy who hadn’t recognized her earlier in the day. This time, he nodded and knocked on the door in the shave-and-a-hair-cut pa
ttern. The door opened from within, revealing Danny in a leather jacket, baseball bat in his arms. Ree saluted casually and stepped up as he moved out of the doorway.
“How are you holding up?” Ree asked.
Danny took a long breath. Up close she could see the bags under his eyes, the tension in his shoulders. “I got a nap earlier today when we had a full house. But it looks like it’s going to be another long night.”
Ree spoke in a lower voice. “How’s she doing?”
Danny pursed his lips, a restrained wince.
“That bad?”
“She’ll be very glad to see you,” he said. “We’ve got the trailer covered from all angles, and a pair of squad cars around the corner. We’re as ready as we can be without putting up barbed wire and putting machine guns in people’s hands.”
“All of this over a popularity contest.”
Danny shook his head. “I never thought it’d get this bad. Jane says you have a plan, though.”
“Ish. We need a lot of stuff still, and once that’s done, we still have to track down the jackass who got the whole thing rolling.”
Danny cracked his knuckles, shaking his head. “Walters. I never liked him, but I thought it was just because he was a smug prick.”
“That’s a perfectly good reason not to like him. But now we have a reason to kick his ass if he shows up.”
Danny chuckled. “You have great anger.”
“Was that a Yoda condemnation or a compliment?” Ree asked.
The bodyguard shrugged.
Ree scanned the room, reminding herself how she would take cover, gain ground, or flank someone in this room, then headed toward the back room.
“Jane?” she called, announcing her presence.
The door to the bedroom opened, revealing Jane in her silk robe over a pair of tights and a loose shirt. If Danny had bags under his eyes, Jane had suitcases. Ree closed the door behind her as she scanned the room.
Someone had ridden a whirlwind through the bedroom, turning out closets, spewing books and magazines all over the bed and the floor. Nothing was in the same place it had been, including the bed, which had been pushed up against the corner of the room farthest from the window.
Jane wrapped Ree up in a full body hug, leaning into the erstwhile heroine.
“I can feel it coming, Ree. You were right, and I knew it, but I didn’t care, and now it’s coming.”
“What, Smokey?” Ree asked.
Jane sobbed into Ree’s shoulder. “I don’t know. But it’s never been this bad. I can feel the magic trying to empty me out from the inside. I close my eyes and all I can see is that thing straddling me, its hands around my neck.”
Guilt hit her like a sledgehammer to the gut. Well, shit. And here I’ve been kicking around noshing on pizza, treating this like a scavenger hunt.
Ree squeezed the star. “It’s going to be fine. We’ve got this place locked up tighter than Amazon’s sales numbers.”
She ran a hand through Jane’s hair while the actress trembled in her arms. The Buffy energy continued to buzz in her mind, enforcing her desire to protect this woman, Danny, and the cast. But she didn’t have anything to fight, just a big emotional mess and a sense of a monster-sized other shoe about to drop. She stayed like that for a long moment, holding Jane tight, trying her best to fight off the demons just through her presence.
You know we’re screwed when I became the emotional rock in the situation. Her ex Jay would laugh his ass off at this. Well, fuck him anyway, she thought. It wasn’t my fault he’s a heartless sod.
When she heard shouting from outside, it was almost a relief. The noise came from the far side of the alley, near the office building set.
Ree hugged Jane tighter, then untangled herself. “I’m on it. Stay here, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you. Nothing.”
Jane pulled herself together and stood to her full height, putting on a noble bearing only a bit marred by the puffy eyes and tears. “Kick its ass.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Nineteen
Shout It All Out
Cosmic Studios has announced this to be The Year of Creatures. The film juggernaut is re-releasing its Classic Creature Cinema Series on Blu-Ray, starting with The Orcs Return on April 17, and continuing with De-Evolution on July 18, Dragonstrike on August 23, and Panther-Fly on September 12, with more to be announced.
—Plugged.com, January 17, 2012
Ree booked it out of the trailer, through the short hall, and then down the stairs as fast as she could, the trailer door slamming against the outside wall. Ree stopped at the base of the steps to look, and the door guard pointed.
“There. It sounded like Grant.”
Not that Ree knew who Grant was, but the direction was enough for her to bolt toward the noise, dipping into the energy of Buffy for a boost. She hurdled metal fences, dodged huddled extras, and tore down the pavement until she passed the last trailer and turned to see.
Monkeys. Well, apes, really. But her mind went to Giant Freaking Monkeys. And these weren’t normal gorillas. The same hairs on the back of her neck were on end that danced a jig when big-time Magic was going on. So, magic gorillas. Maybe summoned, like the other creatures Alex had been sending her way. Hopefully not demon gorillas.
One particularly large gorilla was hunched on the roof of one of the carts used to shuttle personnel and props around the campus. It howled to the sky, hammering its chest with its fists, while another two were cornering a cluster of crew and extras in one of the three-sided tents.
“Ook ook,” Ree said, grabbing the apes’ attention. One of the two turned to face Ree, as did the roof-rider.
The roof-riding gorilla bounded down and landed in a crunch of corded muscle in front of her. It looked . . . bigger in person than on TV or fifty feet away like she’d seen them in the zoo.
Ree took a step back, which the gorilla took as an opportunity to charge.
Doubting even Buffy-level strength would stop a gorilla head-on, Ree jumped the charge, clocking the gorilla upside the jaw with a kick as she went. The gorilla stumbled and fell under her, and she saw a second one following close after. She dodged forward and left this time, diving under the gorilla’s long arms to strike the beast under the armpit.
Need weapon, stat. Ree reached into her bag and pulled out the lightsaber, glad that she hadn’t used it since yesterday and would be topped off full of mojo.
She ignited the blade, and the gorillas took pause when they saw the glowing blue sword.
“That’s right! Kicking it Old Republic–style, Grodd,” Ree said.
But it was still three on one, the third gorilla joining its companions.
“Get out of here, I’ll take care of them!” Ree said to the cast and crew. Crew members dragged off a fainted actor, but the gorillas ignored them, instead moving to circle Ree.
“Who wants it first?” Ree asked, turning constantly to keep them all in her field of vision.
One of the gorillas obliged, so Ree turned and chopped down through its outstretched arm. The arm hit the ground with a wet thump, and the gorilla roared, reeling back. The other two charged as one, and Ree jumped, sweeping the lightsaber down to ward them off. Ree landed on the roof of an uncrumpled cart. Now she had the height advantage, and the gorillas’ heads were in snicker-snack range.
She took a swing, but the gorillas were out of measure. Instead, the gorillas hunkered down and bullrushed the cart. Ree started to jump off, but lost her footing. She turned the drop into an attack, cutting deep into one gorilla’s back.
The one-armed gorilla tackled Ree from the left side, knocking her out of the air. The creature landed half on her as they tumbled to the ground. Ree turned the lightsaber on it, and it went limp. She heard the bubbling of dead monster moments later as she stood, which took the Am I killing endangered animals? worry rig
ht off of her plate. She had been about 95% sure already, but to her knowledge, no normal breed of gorilla dissolved into ichor upon death. She would have remembered something like that from Bio class.
That left only one gorilla, which she held at bay with her glowing blade. The sewage-and-blood smell of the monster’s remains reached her nose, mixing with the rubber and asphalt of the lot.
I’ve got this, Ree thought as she prepared to dart forward and finish off the last creature.
Then there was an earsplitting cry from across the campus, followed shortly by a BOOM!
Looking past the gorilla, she saw a plume rising into the air, smoke curled around flame.
“Fuck!” Ree said, diving forward, spearing the gorilla through the chest, and then continuing on. She poured the Buffy mojo into her legs again, moving with Six Million Dollar Man speed.
She saw the silhouette of something large moving through the air and heard another scream.
Shit. Wow. Fuck. It was a dragon. A No shit, there I was dragon, blood red and looking like it had just winged its way out of Sucker Punch, soaring through the now-upturned floodlights.
The dragon shot out another breath attack, and Ree leaned to her right to move away from the blast. She grabbed a guardrail and swung herself around to come at the dragon’s side.
Except that it was twenty feet up. And that everyone around her was running around in full Dragon Panic Mode.
Ree looked to the lightsaber in her hand, then up at the dragon. Wrong tool for the job. She deactivated the blade, stuffed it back in her bag, then rummaged around for a better weapon.
Sonic screwdriver? No. Phaser? Maybe. Ree’s hand ran over wool, and she started cackling. Ree pulled out a quilted cap and pulled it on.
But this was not any cap, no, it was a quilted version of the iconic helm of the Dovakiin from Skyrim, seen in all the covers, signage, and pretty much anywhere that the game was promoted, including viral videos that had bred like bunnies across YouTube earlier that year.
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