Geekomancy

by Michael R. Underwood

  Thank you, Mrs. Haines and company—how’s that for leadership?

  Ree shimmied on her stomach toward the window, then took off her coat and wrapped it around her left hand. She closed her eyes and turned her face away from the window, breaking through the window with a hammerfist. The glass gave on the first blow, and Ree carefully pulled her hand back through.

  Clearing out the rest of the window, she flexed her hand to feel for cuts, then pulled off the coat and checked again. There were several scrapes and little marks, but nothing worth stopping for. She poked her head outside and saw that the drop was only about five feet to the alley.

  Rock.

  Ree slipped on her jacket again and spun around to stick her legs out the window. She jumped out and took the fall, kneeling into the impact and dropping to her side. She dusted herself off, looked back up at the window, and smiled at her own awesomeness.

  After making the executive decision that a triple cappuccino was essential for morale and a functioning brain, Ree made her way across town to Miner Park, sipping her drink.

  The little-kid trick-or-treaters were already out as she rode the bus north. Smiling, cautious, or consternated parents followed kids by ones or in packs, bright orange plastic pumpkins already getting full. A kid in a cowboy costume held his pumpkin in both hands, filled to the brim.

  Ree thought about what her plans for Halloween had been. Without this insanity, she’d have thrown together a costume for Trollope’s Trollops’ holiday burlesque. Trollope’s Halloween bash was the best of the year, with costume contests, epic decor, and specials on the local pumpkin beer. Sandra would be performing, and Ree would have been watching alongside the Rhyming Ladies and Darren. At one point they’d discussed going as gender-swapped supers: Plastic Woman, Kraven the Huntress, Booster Goldette, and Iron Woman.

  Ree had called dibs on Booster Goldette, in honor of the family dog. She ground her teeth at the lost chance, but the sight of children enjoying themselves as they kicked their way through piles of leaves undercut her angst enough that she got her focus back.

  Ree took a long sip of her cappuccino.

  Eastwood is at least pretending like he knows what to do. So either he’s already gotten the fifth soul and didn’t tell me, or he has a hunch about where to go for it. She’d been decently armed at Eastwood’s, but now all she had was the multi-tool. Drake would have his gear, but no doubt Eastwood had loaded up. Which meant that a head-on confrontation would be dangerous, even with 2–1 odds.

  Ree rocked lazily with the motion of the bus, holding a handrail as she zoned out, facing the window. So we can wait until he starts to do whatever it’ll take to make the deal, or we can try to stop him before.

  Option one would involve demon lord danger, which seemed like a terrible idea. But Eastwood would be distracted then, whereas he wouldn’t be while on the hunt.

  Damnit, Mom. Ree spent the rest of the ride spinning her wheels.

  Ree hopped off the bus at the corner of Miner Park, near the edge of the city that used to be a rough part of town but had since made its way up in the world. Bryan’s family lived a few blocks away, and she’d been to a few big parties not far from here thanks to Priya’s connections. The park itself was several square blocks, large enough to hide in but not so big that you could stay hidden.

  She dumped the empty cappuccino in a trash can at the edge of the park and called Drake.

  The call rang through to voicemail. As Ree started talking, her phone buzzed with another call. It wasn’t from Drake, it was from Bryan’s cell.

  “Hello?” she said as she picked up.

  “Ree? It’s Bryan. Aidan’s gone.” Bryan’s voice was thick with worry. “Amy called and said he left the house in a hurry, with a bag.”

  Ree’s heart sank. She had a solid guess where this was going, and that was Nowhere Good. “Where’d he go?”

  Bryan was rushed, far more panicky than his normal mellow self. “I don’t know. But with the mission you mentioned, and the time you’ve spent with him, I figured . . . The police won’t do anything yet, Amy’s home with the kids, and I can’t close the store.”

  “I’ve got a lead, Bryan, it’s a crazy-bad time.”

  “Please, Ree. I called my other friends, but they’re up to their neck, saying the spirit world is crazy with All Hallows’ Eve and some explosion at a transport nexus.”

  Ooops.

  “Find him, Ree. You’re my only hope.”

  And . . . the trump card. Ree sighed. “Of course, Bryan. I’ll do everything I can.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Be Vewy Vewy Quiet, We’re Hunting Cowboys

  Miner Park was already dim, lit only by the intermittent lampposts and the wan light of the full moon. Ree had stomped through most of the grounds, and she was getting worried. First she had jogged through the clearing where Aidan and his friends played boffer LARPs during the summer. Then she’d wound her way through the path that he’d mentioned taking Diana along for their second date. She passed several bundled-up couples and a few joggers, but no Aidan. She walked through the basketball court and the playground, scanning the small stands of trees around the edge of the court.

  Nothing. Where the hell are you, Aidan? Where else would you go to be alone?

  Ree pushed through the loose brush in the thickest wooded area, looking into the trees and pulling apart the bushes. She already had scratches on her hands, legs, and face, even with her gloves, boots, and scarf.

  He might not even be in the park—but where else would he go?

  Ree stopped to fire off yet another text message to Aidan. She’d called ten times and texted fifteen. She wished that Eastwood were on her side, that he could ping cell-phone towers and track Aidan with Big Brother hacker fu, while all she had were her feet and an out-of-time dandy tracking the man who should be helping her.

  Ree pushed a sparsely leaved branch out of the way and saw something black moving in the distance. She made her way past several more branches and saw the image: someone in a black trench, head down, making their way through the trees, bound for the pond in the corner of the park.

  Either that’s Eastwood, or another member of the trench-coat mafia has decided to take a very coincidental stroll. Ree scanned the branches for Drake but saw only the one figure making its way. She quickened her pace, pulling her scarf up to cover her face as she moved through nettles and bushes.

  Ree closed distance on Eastwood, then saw him turn and notice her. She heard him say something along the lines of “frell,” and he began running, swatting branches out of his way.

  Eastwood broke through the edge of the woods, and his shape faded quickly in the distance. Ree heard the sound of the river that fed out of the pond, bubbling out to the east, and started huffing as she took huge steps through the brush. She pushed aside branches and stepped over bushes, thankful for her stompy boots.

  “Eastwood, stop!” she shouted as she broke through the tree line and took a look around.

  The pond was twenty feet across, dotted with fallen leaves in orange, brown, and red. The river flowed down from it for twenty yards or so before emptying out into a drain that took the water beneath the eastern edge of the park.

  On the opposite side of the pond, sitting on a bench with an orange prescription bottle in his hands, was Aidan Blin.

  Eastwood was standing beside him, speaking in a low voice.

  Even twenty feet away, Ree could feel Capital-M mojo rolling off of the prescription bottle. It hit her like an echo of the cold burn she’d felt when the Muse had taken a chunk out of her soul.

  Oh, no you don’t. Not him, not now, and sure as hell not while I’m around.“Get the hell away from him!” Ree shouted at the top of her lungs. She ran around the pond, hoping that Drake would hear all of the commotion and come in the nick of time.

  I’ve got to get Eastwood away from Aidan, or at least get rid of that bottle, she thought.

  That won’t be hard at all, replied the sarcasm drippin
g out of her mind.

  Eastwood lifted a blaster in her direction while leaning in to Aidan. “Go home, Ree. This is his choice.”

  Aidan looked up at Ree, tears in his eyes, before turning back to Eastwood. “She’s my friend. I don’t know you.” Aidan’s voice was strange, distorted. Is that the bottle, too? Does it have some kind of lock on him?

  “I’m trying to help you, Aidan.” Eastwood’s own eyes were bloodred, his movements jerky. He looked like he’d either pounded a six-pack of energy drinks or just come through a fight with a jackalope. Maybe that’s Drake’s doing—but where is he?

  Ree took two more steps along the edge of the pond, and Eastwood’s gun moved to track her.

  She stopped in place and put her hands up by her shoulders. “Put the gun down, Eastwood. Let’s talk like civilized nerds.” She’d charged up with The Matrix on her way to the park, but since the fates were kicking her ass, it had faded by the time she saw Eastwood, and it wasn’t like he was going to wait for her to refresh.

  Eastwood waited for Aidan. “Put the gun down,” the boy said. Eastwood holstered the blaster and knelt beside Aidan, speaking sotto voce. Ree hurried around the pond and took a seat on the bench next to Aidan.

  “What can I do to help?” she asked. And sit still long enough for me to get that bottle.

  Aidan doubled over, sobbing. Ree heard a muffled word that she guessed was “nothing.”

  Ree moved slowly at first, reaching down for the bottle. Eastwood slapped her hand away. Ree shot Eastwood the nastiest look she could manage. He met her gaze, his bloodshot eyes unyielding. He showed the blaster again. She didn’t trust him to have it set on stun.

  Ree wrapped an arm around Aidan, hoping that physical connection would let her break through whatever the bottle was doing. “Did he tell you why he’s here, Aidan?” she asked. “He’s let four kids be pushed to kill themselves, and he wants you to be the fifth, all so he can cheat death himself.”

  A cold wind howled through the trees behind her and into the clearing, blowing leaves up into a spiral around the three of them.

  Aidan shook with the cold, and a moment later, he pulled himself up and looked at Ree, holding the bottle with white knuckles.

  His voice broke as he said, “Diana dumped me when I told her I didn’t get into Stanford. She said I was a waste of space—she dumped me to go to Stanford with some guy she’s only met once—she knew it for six months and never told me. I screwed it all up.”

  The air went out of Ree’s lungs. She’d guessed Diana would break it off, but the girl didn’t have to be a bitch about it. And Ree couldn’t exactly comfort him with Eastwood hanging around like the fucking Grim Reaper and that bottle pushing Aidan to the edge.

  Eastwood leaned in. His eyes were sad, but his face was hard-set, determined. “I promise I can help you take the pain away, Aidan. And you’ll be helping someone who was loved, a hero who died too soon.”

  Ree nearly hissed at Eastwood, balking at the stalemate. Eastwood was loaded for bear, so Ree knew she couldn’t take him straight up, especially with Aidan in the line of fire. And yet if he thought he could get away with gunning her down or knocking her out, he would have done it by now. Which meant that he’d lose credibility with Aidan.

  Which meant her best play was trying to talk Aidan down.

  “Plenty of people love you, Aidan. Your parents love you, the twins love you, your friends love you. If you give up now, your story will be unfinished, and even if it brought back Gary Gygax, Steve Jobs, and Mahatma Gandhi, it wouldn’t be worth throwing your life away.”

  “I don’t care,” Aidan said. “I don’t want to feel anything.” He fingered the prescription bottle, hands shaking.

  Shit shit shit. Ree’s mind flailed. She had to pick every word exactly right, say it exactly the way he needed to hear it, and beat out a shoulder devil. How can Eastwood honestly push a sixteen-year-old boy to suicide? Is he that broken? Or is he just honest about it?

  Ree said, “Breakups suck. They always suck. They suck if you’re the one doing the breaking up. They suck even if you’ve only been going out for three weeks. I’ve dumped, I’ve been dumped, and I’ve had relationships stop before they started. No matter how it happens, it sucks for a while. But it always gets better, because there’s plenty more to live for. If you quit now, it’ll never get better. Just worse.” She jabbed a finger at Eastwood. “He’s trading these souls to a demon, Aidan, a real honest-to-goodness demon, the deal-making, soul-taking kind, not the flappy-skin Clem kind. You think you’ll just blink out like a light when you go?”

  Ree reached out a hand and pulled Aidan’s chin up to face her. “The way you’re feeling now will be a happy fucking memory compared to when that demon gets its hands on you. Who are you going to trust here? I’ve known you for three years, and this asshole rolled up five minutes ago offering you the coward’s way out.”

  Aidan’s eyes went wide, and Ree prayed she was cutting through all the pain to get him to wake up.

  Eastwood intruded on the moment. “I can guarantee that the Duke won’t do anything to you, Aidan. He wants your energy, not your soul.” He was unable to fit himself into the intimate moment, uncomfortably shifting between kneeling and standing, trying to cover Ree without getting close enough that she could jump him.

  “That sounds pretty damn fishy to me,” Ree said. “What do you think?”

  Aidan stood and pushed them away. “Leave me alone, both of you.”

  Ree snatched at the bottle, but the teen had a death grip on it. Eastwood fired a shot into the ground by her feet, and Ree backed off, cursing under her breath.

  Aidan started on a path down to the pond and knelt, looking into the broken mirror of the water.

  Ree followed him. “I’m not leaving you, Aidan. You need to hear that you are important. You’re not a waste of space, you never have been. Diana is a callous bitch who was trying to justify her terrible decision.”

  Eastwood took a step toward Aidan, hands open. “I’ll leave, Aidan, but Ree has to leave, too. It’s your decision, not hers. You have the power here.”

  Ree took a couple of wide steps to get into Aidan’s peripheral vision. “If you have choice, then you have hope. Eastwood is desperate. If he doesn’t get his way, he’ll pull out his blaster and try to blow me away like he did when I confronted him earlier today. Do you see the burn marks on my shirt? He tried to kill me for getting in his way.”

  Aidan looked back toward Eastwood. “Is that true?”

  Ree heard anger in his voice and gave a silent cheer. Anger is good. She felt the aura from the bottle dim and recede, and she jumped in. “Good. Be pissed. You have every right to be pissed—at Diana, at Eastwood, hell, at your parents for not being rich graduates of Stanford. Anger means that things matter, that life matters.”

  Eastwood pointed at Ree. “She threatened me, and I defended myself. And the woman I’m saving? It’s Ree’s mother. The one who left and broke her. I’m trying to rescue her mom from hell, and I asked her to help me, but she’s afraid to get her hands dirty to do it.”

  Ree snapped back at Eastwood. “I think convincing kids to kill themselves gets more than just your hands dirty, you son of a bastich.”

  Aidan pursed his lips, thinking.

  Come on, Aidan. I can’t take him in a fight when he’s loaded up, especially since Drake is who-knows-where. He should be here by now, which means he’s probably hurt or dead. Ree searched Eastwood’s face for answers, trying to find catches of guilt or worry that would give him away.

  Aidan stood to his full height, looked at the bottle, and dropped it in the pond. He turned, pointing to Eastwood. “You. Leave.” His voice was his own again.

  Ree barely restrained a shout of joy.

  Eastwood’s face darkened. He turned the blaster on Aidan. “Sorry, kid. Not going to happen.”

  “See?” Ree said, pushing forward to interpose herself between Eastwood and Aidan, who stumbled back, holding her wrist tightly. If
he needs them to be suicides, how is he going to force it? Or maybe the Duke doesn’t give a shit about what kinds of souls he gets.

  Ree leveled her best I Am Intimidating glower at Eastwood and spoke with determination. “You’re going to have to finish the job with me before I’ll let you touch him. And if you kill me when you swore to protect me, do you think my mom will give you a chance to explain yourself?”

  Another gust blew through the clearing, flipping leaves in spinning routes between her and her adversary. The wind rolled over the pond and whooshed out the other side.

  I have to end this fast and get Aidan home.

  Ree said, “Drop the gun and back off. And then maybe I won’t come after you. But if you try anything, or if you come after me or any of my friends again, all of the revenge movies in the world will pale next to the shit I’ll do to you.”

  “That won’t help Aidan,” Eastwood said, advancing on her.

  Ree inched forward. “Nothing is going to help Aidan. Except me.” That’s right, get closer. Let me within range of that blaster.

  “May I play as well?” came a voice from Ree’s left. That better be who I think it is.

  Drake Winters stepped through the tree line, brushing leaves and brambles out of his coat. His left eye was swollen with a bruise, and his coat was burned just above the hip.

  “I apologize for my tardiness, Ms. Ree. This ruffian bushwhacked me as I was tailing him.” He hefted his Aetheric Rifle and leveled it at Eastwood. “I am rather inclined to return the favor, if you do not terribly mind.”

  Eastwood turned his blaster on Drake and circled around toward Ree, trying not to be flanked.

  “Now I feel left out. Where’s my phallus?” Ree asked.

  Aidan laughed, and Ree smiled. “You’re done, Eastwood. Beat it,” she said.

  “Just saying that doesn’t make it true. The fop can try me, and you’ll have another body to handle.” Eastwood turned to Aidan. “You can end this now, Aidan. With those pills, you can make the whole situation go away. Everyone else goes home, Ree gets her mother, and I get my life back.”