“Okay, here we are,” Eastwood said, hauling a cardboard box through the stacks, moving with labored effort.
“What you got in there, a pile of bricks?”
“Better. Oracles.” Eastwood set the box down with a thud, then slid it over to Ree with a not-at-all-smooth push with his leg.
“How does this help us?”
“I did some research. Eriko, an old friend of mine from the Astral Cowboy days, who still works Spirit-side, got me a tip. She heard that you can mute a Strega’s power; there’s a way to cut off their connection to their patron, Fate. Poof, no more Hexomancy. Best bet from that source is that if you take a Strega’s favorite oracle, burn a copy, and make them breathe in the ashes, the sympathetic tie between them and the destroyed incarnation of the oracle causes them to lose their ability to control fate.” Eastwood looked like a kid talking about the PS4, not a grown man talking about stripping someone of their power.
“That’s your big plan? Rob these women of their powers entirely? No ‘make them swear to never come after us,’ no ‘convince them that you deserve to live and I should get to be a magical girl if I want to be’? You’re going straight to Fridging them via de-powering?”
Eastwood leaned back, hands crossing. He hadn’t been expecting that, had he?
“She tried to kill us. Lucretia broke the spirit, if not the letter, of her judgment in giving out information about us. Lucretia beating Grognard’s giese proved that. The Strega will keep on coming, and if we just beat them and try to lock them up, we’ll have ourselves an Arkham Jailbreak’s worth of trouble by next summer. This solves the problem without having to spill any more blood. This is the humane solution, Ree. It’s just not the nice one.”
“Don’t you think taking her power away from her will just make her hate us more? What’s to stop her from assembling another team and running us down when we aren’t prepared?” Ree asked.
Eastwood’s face darkened. “You have a better idea, then?”
She didn’t. But robbing someone of their power, especially a guy doing it to a woman, rubbed her several of the wrong ways.
“I don’t, but I don’t like it. We should call Grognard, maybe see about getting her run through a trial, too.”
“Lucretia stacked the deck in that trial; who says Connie wouldn’t do the same? Can you keep on counting on luck?”
“Who said it was luck that I won?” Ree realized she was yelling. She took a long breath and spoke again. “How would you even figure out which oracle is hers?”
“That’s not very difficult. Dab a drop of blood on one card from each deck, see which one resonates with a magical signature, using these.” Eastwood pulled out a set of Shade-designed glasses, undeniably ’80s. They matched the set she’d been given after the trail.
“I’m still not happy about this. Is there a way of making it less permanent, or making it just so she can’t use the power against us?” Ree asked.
“Not that I know of. And the Strega aren’t exactly forthcoming about how to help defeat them or slag their power. This solution cost me several favors, plus my original hero glaive from Krull.”
“Aw, I love that thing.” She’d found better tools since, but it was too ridiculous to not love.
“I want to make some calls before I sign off on something like this,” Ree said.
Eastwood held a hand out, inviting her to go.
Quick-drawing her phone, Ree headed toward a corner of the room, calling Grognard.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“It’s Ree. Got a question. Another Strega came after Eastwood, nearly took him out. We posse-ed up and now we’ve got her tied up in the Dorkcave. Go team,” she said, with little enthusiasm, her positivity batteries running red.
“But now Eastwood has this ritual that he says will take out her magic, permanently. And I’m not on board. These Strega think they’re doing Good Work, and Eastwood’s hardly squeaky clean. . . .”
“Mm hmm,” Grognard said.
“That it?”
“This is your call, Ree. Either you’re on board, or you try to stop him. This Strega tried to kill you, right?”
“Yeah, but people do that pretty often now. Doesn’t mean I’m excited to return the favor or cut away their magic. Alex Walters, sure, I’d have done it in an instant. Wouldn’t mind doing it to Lucretia. But this woman was getting her sister’s back; they think they’re Righteous.”
“Most villains do, though, right?”
“And Eastwood thinks he’s Righteous here, leaving my Chaotic Good ass in the middle.”
Ree sniffed smoke, and turned to see Eastwood lighting a deck of cards on fire.
“What the fucking fuck!” Ree said, running back toward the scruffy geek and the unconscious Strega. Eastwood dropped the deck in front of Connie as the cards caught fire at unnatural speed, fire leaping a yard high, coruscating through a million colors.
The deck burned by the time Ree made it back to Eastwood, diving shoulder-first and knocking him over, the two sliding along the concrete floor.
Eastwood grunted. “Frakking hell, Ree. It had to be done.” The older geek shoved Ree off to the side as he scrambled to his feet.
“No. Fucking. Way,” Ree said, crab-walking over to Connie as the ashes wafted up to her nose.
The woman breathed in deep through her nose, head snapping to attention, her eyes going wide, shot through with bloody veins that went from red to purple. Then her whole eyes went white. Ree felt the air grow heavy, then crack and shatter all at once.
Connie screamed.
Ree turned and hauled off on Eastwood, laying him out with a roundhouse. He came back up, blaster in hand, giving her a threatening view down the barrel.
“Cut that shit out, now. It’s done. Let’s see if it worked.”
“You cocky, self-righteous asshole!” Ree said, her voice filling the Dorkcave. Her hands were vibrating, her ears on fire.
“I just saved our lives from someone trying to kill us. Try to be a little grateful.” Eastwood plucked a Green Lantern ring out of his coat and slipped it on with his left hand.
Connie’s muffled speech turned both their heads.
She was struggling against her bonds, her eyes back to normal. Eastwood leaned forward with the shades.
“Her aura is gone. The magic, at least. She’s just a pissed-off derby blocker now.”
“Your definition of just leaves something to be desired,” Ree said, remembering the power of the woman’s blows.
Ree stepped over with care, prepped for random slips, muscle spasms, or falling pieces of roof. She ripped the duct tape from Connie’s mouth, not above taking a little pleasure in the woman’s pain. Light sadism was fine. The woman had tried to kill her, after all. And the pain of the duct tape wasn’t permanent.
“You arrogant, selfish asshole!” Connie’s voice was strained by fear. “You don’t know me, don’t know the people I’ve helped, the wrongs I’ve set right. My sister will come for you upon the solstice, and she makes me look like a rank newbie. What are you going to do next, slit my throat and offer up my blood to your dice bag?”
“I don’t want anything associated with you anywhere near my dice,” Eastwood said. “You have two options. You leave Pearson and never come back, or your story ends here.”
“I’m not letting you murder her in cold blood,” Ree said.
“Because you did a great job of stopping me before.”
“Motherfucker,” Ree said.
“We’ve established that,” Eastwood said.
Ree saw red, the murder cue from Kill Bill playing in her mind.
“Maybe I should just sit here and wait for you two to kill each other, and then I can just skate away, scot-free,” Connie said.
“Shut up!” Ree and Eastwood said in unison.
“I’m staying until I’m s
ure you’re not going to kill her, but then we’re done, Eastwood. Fucking done. No more bodyguard, no more Geek Girl Friday. ¡Estoy harta de bregar contigo!
“You were doing good for a while there, pulling off the whole Thunderbolt thing. But this is too fucking much. You couldn’t wait ten minutes for me to consider, try to convince me, instead of steamrolling right over a grown-up discussion by making a huge fucking decision without your partner?”
“That what you think you are, a partner?” Eastwood asked. “Because I’ve never seen anything to make me believe you’re anything more than a sidekick. You’re Robin, not Nightwing. Not even Red Robin.”
“Label me however you want. You’re still a sociopathic asshole.” Ree dialed Grognard again, stepping back, but keeping both the geek and the Strega in her view.
“Me again. He did it. He fucking did it. I need you to come over and help me escort Derby Strega out of town so that Darth Geek here doesn’t decide to just off her.”
“Okay. I’ll be over in a half hour.”
“Any chance you could put a rush on that? Things aren’t exactly comfortable here, what with the betrayal, the assault, and the burning rancor of a woman in armor.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Try to keep the body count to a minimum, okay?”
“That’s the plan. Thanks, man.”
Grognard grunted in assent, then hung up. “He’s coming in a half hour. The three of us are going to escort Ms. Clothos-Line here out of town.”
Ree turned to the Strega. “When we drop you off, you’re going to do yourself a favor and never set foot in this town again. You won’t inform on us to any of your sisters except to tell them to stay away, and you’re going to be a good person, helping babies and shit.” Ree realized she was rambling but leaned into it.
“You say you’re a white hat, then prove it. Go forth and be awesome, bringing light and shooting rainbows out of your butt. Then we can feel bad for taking away your power, and you can be all smug about it and we’ll brood, pondering our slow, incremental descent into villainy. Or at least, Eastwood here will do that, and I’ll be busy having nothing to do with him. ¿Tu me entiendes?”
Connie’s voice was cool. “Got it. You won’t see me again. You going to take these cuffs off, or what?”
Ree looked to Eastwood. “Hell no,” he said.
“Not yet,” Ree answered.
“Can I at least get some water, then? Fights leave me thirsty as hell.”
“I wonder why that is. Maybe the part where you almost killed me?” Eastwood asked while Ree went over to pour water from Eastwood’s water cooler. It was probably the most innocuous office-y thing he had, the standard plastic setup with two spares waiting.
Ree helped the woman drink, her hands still bound.
And the following twenty-nine minutes passed without words, without anything resembling comfort or relaxation for any of the three in the room.
When the door buzzed, Ree jumped in place, the awkward equilibrium disturbed.
After quick pleasantries between Grognard and Eastwood, the ex–Console Cowboy released Connie’s manacles, reattached them once she was on her feet, and the three of them walked her to the door.
Eastwood stuffed his psychic paper in his front coat pocket, all of the excuse or justification they’d need if anyone stopped them.
An hour later, Grognard dropped Ree off at the Shithole, and awkwardness dropped off her like squamous scales falling from her eyes. But no way was she changing her name to Paul. Being a saint would be nice and all, but she was never any good at being a Catholic, which made her an outcast to both sides of her family. Luckily, her dad didn’t give a crap about any of that and kept her shielded from most of the familial censure.
Ree walked into the apartment to see Sandra, Priya, and Anya sitting around the couch, several bottles of liquor open between them. Her roommate, Sandra Wilson (Strength 15, Dexterity 13, Stamina 13, Will 12, IQ 12, Charisma 13—Geek 3 / Scholar 3 / Professional 2 / Dancer 1 / Teacher 1 / Waitress 1 / Chef 1), was a Greek American Amazon, just over six feet tall, with perfectly-formed ringlets of hair. Normally dressed business casual like it was her second skin, today she had on a T-shirt and worn pajamas, making the most of her Funemployment.
“Hey,” Ree said, dropping her keys into the Bowl of Unlost Keys.
“Hey,” Anya said. “I figured it was time to close the circle of knowledge.”
“Thank God. Where are you?”
Sandra piped up. “I’ll tell you where I am. I am confused, befuddled, a bit impressed that you kept this from me, and more than a little angry that you told Priya and Anya before you told your frakking roommate.”
Ree tossed her coat into the closet and went to join the crammed couch. She poured herself some rum, drank, then poured some more.
“I’m sorry. It seemed safer, and it was unfair, and I’m so glad that you know now. I don’t want to keep anything from you three. Never wanted to, won’t ever again.”
“Except weird sex stuff. You keep that shit to yourself,” Anya said.
The laughter was stilted, a bit forced. This is going to take more booze.
“So, what do we say? I think this calls for dinner. A big, fuck-off amazeballs dinner, just the four of us, get shit back where it’s supposed to be, no magic crap,” Ree said.
“You going to cook?” Sandra asked.
Ree smiled, this one coming more easily. “I just said it was a good idea. If only we had a trained chef among us.”
Sandra raised a hand of correction. “Partially trained.”
“And the three of us put together are at least good enough to be one sous-chef,” Priya said. “Let’s see how ridiculously we can mess up the kitchen and leave it for Ree to clean up.”
“I take it all back,” Ree said, chuckling.
Sandra added, “And we’re telling Darren when he gets back from his conference. I won’t be able to keep the secret, so you should just go ahead and explain it to him, too.”
“And the Scooby gang grows,” Ree said, resigned.
“We’re no Scoobies,” Anya said. “I have no intention of gallivanting around the town with you trying to get ourselves killed, thank you very much.”
Priya nodded. She wasn’t her usually-animated self, still reeling from last night’s drama.
Holy crap, that was only last night. The reality of it hit Ree like a dodgeball to the face.
Ree threw herself into routine, trying to wrap Priya up in the chatter, the energy of the group, to help throw out a life preserver of love and appreciation.
As someone who’d spent more than her fair share of time treading water in the oceans of Post-Breakup Depression, she knew the look well. Priya would recover in her own time frame, and she didn’t want to push. This amount of time after getting dumped by Jay, Ree had been hurling in the bathroom, so compared to that Priya was doing great. Though who knew what the evening would bring?
Which reminded her that she should call Drake, both to yell at him some more and to tell him what Eastwood had done. Drake could make his own decision about the Geekomancer, but he deserved to know the truth about what had just gone down.
A general truthiness and freedom of information policy seemed like the way to go. Like freely informing him that she was still pissed off at him for how he’d treated Priya. But that freedom didn’t extend to telling him how she’d felt about him right up until he’d dumped Priya. Really she still felt that way, but she was too busy being angry at just that moment. Angry hooking up wasn’t a good idea for either of them, so that would need to be avoided at all costs.
Ree was pretty sure that the impropriety of such an occurrence would lead Drake to spontaneously combust, which helped. Sort of. Not really.
A half hour later, the kitchen was in full-on Chaotic Joyful mode. Three women tried to scramble around one another, moving between the
small dinner table and the kitchen, making a salad, braised chicken, cous-cous, lamb saag, and—Ree’s contribution—take-out crack fries from Turbo’s.
On the way back from Turbo’s, she’d called Drake but got no answer. She left a rambling voicemail:
“Hey, this is Ree. It’s fine if you don’t pick up, though why would you, because this is a voicemail and things don’t work like that anymore. Did you ever have an answering machine? Anyway, Eastwood and I ran across the first of the Promised Strega. Yeah, with capital letters. So anyway, she was a derby girl and had a whole team, and she nearly killed Eastwood, but we won, and then he was all ‘I know how to solve this, I just have to do some creepy magic ritual; that’s fine, right?’ and I was all ‘No, that’s unacceptable!’ and then I went to call Grognard to get my back, and the fucker did it anyway. So then I punched him and said I was done with him, for realz. Grognard came over and then we kicked Connie Clothos-Line out of town, and so here we are.
“Also, I’m still mad at you. But be careful.”
Ree kept the voicemail to herself when she got back to the house, though it was kind of directly counter to the self-congratulatory truthiness she’d just been thinking about.
Fuck off, self. Life is complicated. Plus, she was sparing Priya’s feelings. No one needed to hear about their ex right after a breakup, unless it was along the lines of “Yeah, screw that guy! We never liked him,” which Ree couldn’t muster, even if she was perfectly livid enough to do so.
Too much of her last twenty-four hours had been spent in mortal peril or so angry she could vibrate out of her shoes.
But now she had crack fries, Cole Lutz’s imported and adapted version of a Midwestern locavore’s divine recipe for duck-fat fries with Parmesan, red pepper flakes, cilantro, and something else that Cole wouldn’t say. Not even to Ree, the most beloved of Cole’s broke-ass customers.
Ree offered the fries first to Priya, meaning them to be an olive branch. After all, knowing Drake was all Ree’s fault in the first place.
Hexomancy Page 9