Hexomancy

by Michael R. Underwood

  The creature roared, releasing Ree’s arm. She dropped to her knees, blood flowing.

  That’s going to need medicine or magic, ASAP, she thought.

  The demon birds pecked at Drake as he tried to ride Scale like a bucking bronco. But Drake was no cowboy, and the über-croc rolled, plunging the adventurer into the water.

  “Shit!” Ree called, running through her mental inventory. The lightsaber did nothing, Drake’s rifle did a little, the knife was fine, so was the gun.

  If Ree’d learned one thing in nearly three decades of video gaming, it was that you spammed attacks on the weak points.

  She dropped off the ledge into the water, plunging her head down into the sewer water, searching for the glint of silver. The tainted water stung her arm, accelerating the onset of bacterial DoomCrap, on top of whatever nasty shit was in Scale’s mouth already.

  Coursing her good arm through the water like an oar, she cut her hand on an aluminum can lid, but then knocked something cylindrical farther ahead of her.

  She kicked herself forward and reached, her breath already going short. It was more than a little hard to maintain breath control with a seeping arm wound. Her fingers found metal again, and she pulled it in, wrapping her hand around a familiar rubber handle. Ree tucked her legs up and stood up in the water, gasping. Drake was holding on to his kukri for dear life, his shoulder-mounted light strobing, mega-revolver silent. Downside to a revolver, even one that shot fifty-cal shells.

  Ree spun the lightsaber and thumbed the blade back on, the weapon leaping to life and adding her blue light to his yellow-orange.

  She dove forward, digging deep into the Buffy magic to guide her hand. She stabbed the lightsaber forward, leading Scale’s movements. The lightsaber missed his eye by inches, glancing back and off the creature’s neck.

  Point control’s for shit with this arm, Ree admitted.

  Scale mauled at her with one arm. Ree ducked under the blow, face smacked by choppy water. The croc’s claws ripped her coat in two but didn’t break the buff jacket.

  That coat was ruined anyway.

  Ree stabbed at Scale’s eyes again, missing as the creature dropped into the water, coming up for another massive chomp.

  Time slowed, and Ree saw her opportunity jump out at her like a Quick Time Event. A dangerous, disgusting Quick Time Event. But she knew that despite the slowing of time, she couldn’t get out of the way of this chomp. Knew with every inch of her sewer-sopped body.

  But there was another way. A gross, possibly fatal way.

  So she dove into Scale’s massive maw, making herself as narrow as possible and tucking her knees up to her chest, leading with the lightsaber.

  Focusing to keep her sense of up and down, she landed in Scale’s gullet and twisted her wrist, the lightsaber slicing a hole in the crocodile’s throat.

  Teeth tore at her on both sides, but she kept going, using the lightsaber like a whisk, careful not to let it cut up toward where Drake would be.

  Scale’s roar deafened her, and the world rocked and rolled around her.

  With a massive sound of spitting, Ree splooshed back out and into the water, cold hitting her on all sides.

  She dropped her lightsaber, flailing to get her feet under her.

  Ree kept her mouth closed, but sewer water rushed up her nose. Sputtering and bleeding and aching, Ree found solid ground with her feet, and she pushed herself up, head clearing the water once more.

  In the distance, Scale swam-crawled into the distance at ridiculous speed.

  And there was Drake, draped over the side, head flat against the sewer ledge, gasping.

  “That was . . . bracing.”

  “I’d call it a fucking scary time, but yeah, ‘bracing’ fits, too.”

  The demon birds were also gone, the cloud following the self-declared Lord of the Sewer.

  “What a night,” Ree said.

  “You may repeat that for emphasis,” Drake said.

  “What a night.” Ree kicked around in the sludge until she found her lightsaber again, then went bobbing for disgustingly-coated apples, retrieving her lightsaber once more. There was no point in wiping it off, but she did it anyway. That sword had saved her life once again, and Drake’s besides.

  “Indeed. I suggest we away presently, lest another sewer-dwelling monstrosity try to stake its claim. I owe you a milkshake.”

  “Let’s hit the showers first, please. Dear God, please.”

  They escaped the sewers without further incident. Drenched in muck, Ree refused to do anything until they’d showered and changed. But since their relationship had started all of two hours ago, if it could be called that, neither had a change of clothes at the abode of the other.

  This was a time when having already gone public with her friends really paid off. Ree didn’t have to sneak into the Shithole, instead kicking her boots off at the door, announcing, “Sorry. Magic crap,” and stuffing the shreds of her coat into a garbage bag. She put a towel, shampoo and body wash, and a full change of clothes into a day bag, tossed some PowerBars in as well, and thundered down the stairs to meet Drake. Her backup coat wasn’t up to the winter, so Drake sprang for a cab.

  Once they were ensconced in his apartment, Drake tossed his ichor-stained coat into a corner.

  “After you,” he said, gesturing at the bathroom.

  “Ditching the coat was almost half the battle. Plus, if I dive into hot water right away now, wouldn’t be good for my system. Your home; you should go first.”

  Drake raised an eyebrow, and Ree shooed him toward the bathroom.

  Plus this way, she could join him once he got started.

  “Please make yourself at home. The kettle is on, if you care to make tea,” Drake said, stepping into the restroom.

  Ree waited for several minutes, pacing out the time it would take to make the necessary ablutions. Then she shed her jeans and her top and knocked on the door.

  “Can I join you?” she called, loud enough (she hoped) to be heard over the shower.

  “Yes,” Drake answered, just barely audible over the water.

  “W00t,” Ree said under her breath, opening the door. Drake’s bathroom had a sink on the left, a stack of parts and toiletries on the right, and an opaque brown shower curtain covered in gears and gizmos, a gift from one of his not-actually-magical Steampunk compatriots.

  Ree shed the rest of her clothes and pulled back the curtain with a “Hellooo?” in a singsong voice.

  Drake’s figure told the tale of an active life, and an interesting one. He had a number of scars that she’d never seen before, on his stomach, his thigh, and across his ribs. Nice butt, too, though his pants had made that clear long ago. His hand already covered his junk, but that would be resolved soon enough.

  Turning to see Ree, Drake froze. “Ree?!” he shouted in surprise, covering up even more, his cheeks going beet red. “What are you doing?” he stuttered, flustered as she’d ever seen him.

  Shitshitshitshit. Ree slid the curtain closed and jumped back, Drake’s surprise sending her into a guilt-embarassment panic.

  Clearly, he had in fact not said, “Yes, you should join me,” but “Yes, I can hear you, what?”

  “Shit!” she said from beyond the curtain, thankful that it was opaque as she realized she’d sashayed right past several boundaries in her eagerness.

  “I’m so sorry. I asked if I could join you, and I thought you said yes, when clearly that’s not what you said, because otherwise I wouldn’t have freaked you out, and I’m sorry for freaking you out and I’m going to leave now, okay?”

  Ree scooped her clothes up with one motion, then practically jumped out of the bathroom.

  She dressed at lightning speed, overcompensating for her massive faux pas. Most people she’d dated jumped at the chance for shower sex, but Drake was, as she’d established and s
hould have remembered, not like other people she’d dated. But she’d imagined that Drake had been having mad aetherial adventurer sex with the Contessa, given the way he went on about her. But even so, why wouldn’t he be prudish about sex?

  You have led me astray, libido, she told herself, taking long breaths to get her cool back.

  Two minutes that felt like two hours later, Drake emerged from the bathroom in a fresh set of clothes, his hair slicked against his head, and one hand over his eyes, a sliver opening between fingers to look at Ree. He dropped the hand, seeing she was fully dressed. He was still red, though part of that was being flushed from the shower.

  She hoped.

  He opened his mouth to speak. She stopped him, jumping in. “I’m sorry. Can I shower and then apologize some more, or do we need to figure it out now?”

  Drake stepped aside and gestured to the bathroom.

  “Thanks. Five minutes.”

  “Take your time, please. I rather need a sit-down.”

  “Five minutes.”

  Ree shut the bathroom door behind her and continued to beat herself up while she disrobed. The glory of hot water helped wash away a lot of the embarrassment, but not all of it. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed to be seen naked, much more about how Drake freaking meant that she’d been the one to embarrass him, and that wasn’t cool. Sex-positivity was all well and good, but it was a whole lot of crap without mutual consent.

  She took as quick and utilitarian a shower as she could manage, given that she still had to get sludge off her. Ichor dissolved off streets and crap within a few minutes. But if it got onto clothing or flesh? Then the crap had damage resistance for miles. The third shampooing got the stench out of her hair, so she finished up and dressed.

  She knocked on the door. “I’m done, and I’m clothed. Okay to come out?”

  “By all means.”

  Ree stepped back into the room, seeing Drake on his love seat, no longer covered in a heaping pile of gear and equipment.

  “I am sorry for startling you,” he said.

  Ree laughed. Just laughed. Here she was, running roughshod over his boundaries, and then he goes and apologizes.

  “You don’t have to apologize for anything, man. This is all me. I tried to jump straight from makeouts to shower sex without being clear. I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable,” she said, emphasizing I’m and you, with pointing.

  Drake was still pink, from the shower or from embarrassment or probably a bit of both.

  “I . . . was not expecting that, at all. Your courting customs are radically distinct from those of my time.”

  Drake stopped for a second, just looking at her. “And might I say, now that I’m not panicking, you look quite ravishing straight from your ablutions.”

  “You like my shower-hawk?” Ree asked, gesturing to her hair.

  “Hawk?”

  “As in Mohawk.”

  “Ah. But not the American Indian tribe, members of the Iroquois Confederacy.”

  “Correct, and well done on the history chops. Shall we have tea to help combat awkwardness?” she offered, borrowing from Questionable Content.

  “Quite.”

  And so, Drake went to make tea. Ree did some mental math to recalculate how she was expecting the evening to go.

  A few minutes passed in silence while the water boiled.

  ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 15G

  TEA VS. AWKWARDNESS

  Drake started up again as he poured the tea, an herbal concoction with hibiscus.

  “That was rather not how I imagined the evening would proceed, though given the activity that Eastwood’s plight interrupted, I might have been better prepared.”

  “My bad,” Ree said, both hands up. “How would you like to see this evening go?” she asked, giving her best flirty eyebrows over the steaming mug, floral scents opening up as leaves and hot water engaged in their magical process of becoming tea.

  “I had rather imagined that we would discern how to track down the Strega using that fragment from the device, but I get the sense you might have more sensual pursuits on your agenda.”

  “Right in one. But it takes two to tango. I’ve played the bold card twice, and gone offsides once already. This time, I’m playing good. You seem to be on board with the smooches, but what do you think about us? Should there be an us, and what sort? Usually this comes up later, but this isn’t exactly a blind date kind of situation.”

  Drake took a long, studied sip of his tea, looking like a painting you’d buy at a corner booth at a Steampunk convention.

  “Indeed. I am tremendously fond of you, Ree, and were we in Avalon, I would be calling upon your family, asking for permission to court you.” Drake set his tea down, and the corner of his lip curled up. “But as we are on Earth, and as you are you, I will say that I would be your boyfriend, and have you as my girlfriend, and seek to make your happiness in all things my highest calling.”

  Ree took her own sip of wits-gathering, heart pounding at machine-gun pace.

  “That’s very sweet. And since we already know each other and have been through lots of shit, I get that this isn’t going to be like a Match.com relationship or anything. But how about we start with hanging out like we did, plus smooching and making googly eyes at each other? I’ll back off the macking, and we both hold off on the ‘You are my everything’?”

  “I believe I am amenable to these terms. But for clarity’s sake, would you be so kind as to unpack what googly eyes and macking are?”

  Ree laughed. It took the edge off of the “Squishy feelings, ack!” tension, so she laughed again.

  “Sure thing. Macking is kissing, making out, French kissing, etc.”

  Drake nodded. “Though I never could understand what made it French. Also the fries.”

  Ree coughed, bringing Drake back on task. “And googly eyes?” She leveled a lovey-dovey look at the strange and wonderful man who’d been a part of her life for very nearly the entire time it’d been magically bizarre, and thank Jeebus for that.

  “These are googly eyes.”

  Drake met her gaze for a moment, then blushed again and set down his tea.

  “I see. In that case, agreed. Shall we take a brief respite for macking, and then get to our heroic endeavors?”

  “Now you’re talking. But in the interest of heroism, is there something we should be doing first, device- and doodad-wise?”

  “Just so,” Drake said, standing up and crossing to his laboratory. “We will need to calibrate the tracking device to seek out either material like itself, leading us to other parts of the trap, or to trace semiotic ties, which should lead us back to the trap’s creator, our ultimate target.”

  “Cool. How do I help, aside from refraining from makeouts—which I assure you is, in fact, rather difficult. A heroic effort, really.”

  Drake chuckled. “So noted. I can set the tracking device to begin calibration, which will then free us for amorous pursuits for some time.”

  “Very reasonable,” Ree said, happy to be back to equilibrium quickly. For all that Drake was old-fashioned, he knew how not old-fashioned Ree was. Advantage of dating someone you’ve known for a year and faced death alongside.

  Looking for Group: How to Hook Up with the Partner of Your Dreams by Building an Adventuring Party and Risking Your Life a Bunch—coming soon from some publisher that publishes weirdly specific gimmicky dating books.

  Though with this one, maybe she could get Quirkmillan interested.

  Ree hovered while Drake set up the machine, the piece of lever from the Rube Goldberg trap set on the platform at the top of the device. Interrupting the process wouldn’t really do any of them any good except in the fun way, so she kept herself occupied with chatter.

  “So, if you didn’t have an idea what I was asking you over for tonight, would you have made a move?”
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  Drake crouched by the machine, adjusting dials and knobs. “Were that the case, I would have been stymied by the social entanglement of wishing to procure a blessing by way of forgiveness from Priya, given the faux pas of courting a member of her inner circle after so famously bungling the previous courtship.”

  “Taken care of. But how would you have actually asked me out or made a declaration of intent or whatever it is you would want to do? My way was what I imagine you’d call abrupt, and I bet you would have been a lot more Drake-y about it.”

  Drake looked up at Ree, eyes narrowed. “I’d like to lodge an official complaint as to the use of my name as a diminutive adjective.”

  “So noted. Your complaint will be taken into advisement by the hilarity bureau.”

  “And who, pray tell, sits on the hilarity bureau?”

  “That would be me, myself, and I.”

  “Somehow, I imagine that my suit’s chances would be rather slim in that case.”

  “Normally, yes, but the bureau is incredibly biased, and doesn’t like making people uncomfortable if it’s actually a bother and not just being cute.”

  A valve started spouting steam, and Drake jumped. “Wells’s ghost, what are you doing?” he asked the machine, hands jumping back and forth as he adjusted more knobs and dials.

  “Everything okay?”

  Note to self: Revise Drake’s Devices drinking game to add “Wells’s ghost.”

  “So, what would you have done, if you got Priya’s blessing? Flowers? A finely-calligraphed letter?”

  “I considered both of those options, but in truth, I was somewhat left at a loss. Televisual programs provide few reasonable examples, as most couples tend to take your approach, as you say, ‘going for it.’ ”

  “Yeah, TV and movies aren’t the place to go to learn how to date.”

  “In truth, is there a better resource for modern courtship?”

  “Other than trial and error? Not really. Most dating books I’ve read are crap, save for the ones that are so reasonable and remedial they might as well be stick-figure anatomy lessons.”

  “In that case, I must express my most sincere gratitude that you spared me the indignity of attempting to synthesize our disparate worldviews for an acceptable declaration of intent, though your ‘going for it’ very nearly gave me a heart attack.”