Hexomancy (Ree Reyes Series Book 3)

by Michael R. Underwood

  “Who says she didn’t?”

  “Let’s just go home.” The pair walked to the cross street, Ree keeping a hand on the hilt of her lightsaber even as her vision blurred, lagging behind the movement of her head.

  Anger-drinking while explaining magical bullshit was, in reality, a terrible idea. She’d need a good liter or so of water and several hours before she’d be worth anything to anyone.

  After a few minutes’ wait, a cab turned the corner, and they flagged it down.

  Anya dozed with her head on Ree’s shoulder as the cab headed toward Anya’s side of town to drop her off first.

  All the while, Ree beat herself up mentally, pulling no punches. Months of omissions and deceptions all spilled out at once. It was like ripping a bandage off all at once, only this bandage was one of fifteen, each covering a different psychic wound. The melange of mental bullshit in her life, between Drake and Priya, Eastwood’s paranoia, the ruins of Grognard’s, and the maybe-threat of the Strega was just too much for her emotional RAM to handle.

  The cab finally arrived at her street, and Ree forked over half of her remaining money.

  Note to self: Invoice Drake for the booze and that cab ride. When you’re done being too mad to talk to him.

  She took the stairs up to the Shithole very, very slowly, now that the enormity of her binge-drinking had hit her like a backpack full of bricks.

  Step one was water.

  Step two was food.

  Steps three through six were more water.

  Step seven, if she made it that far, was more sleep.

  Ree got as far as step three when her phone lit up again.

  “No,” she said, staring at her cell as it displayed Eastwood’s name and picture. “Nope.”

  The call went to voicemail, and was quickly followed by a text message.

  Come quick. I just got jumped.

  “Fuuuck,” Ree said, reading the message.

  Myh hoem hlife just blewq up. totally drnkg rught nnw.

  She pressed send before seeing how typo-tastic her message was, but she let it slide, since it was an accurate representation of her not-fit-for-duty-ness.

  Shit. Get over here as fast as you can, then. I’m going into lockdown. Email when you’re at the door, everything else will be shut off.

  The dumbass, headstrong part of her wanted to stomp back downstairs and go on the warpath, but Ree had, in this case, enough self-awareness to know that doing so might just get her killed. And while that might resolve the love triangle that had just jumped in a bucket of gasoline and then started playing with a butane torch, it wouldn’t do Ree any good. Self-immolation solved so few problems, in reality.

  Returning to steps three through seven, Ree topped off her oversized plastic cup with more water and tiptoed to her room as best as she could for the sake of her neighbors, only causing two different crashing thumps as she knocked books and a stack of bills to the floor.

  Shitshitshitshit, Ree thought on a loop, sneaking into the bedroom and closing the door behind her.

  Ree took up her laptop and earphones and settled into a drunken meditative stupor, guided by last week’s episodes of The Colbert Report, downing water as quickly as her stomach could handle.

  Five episodes, four refills, and three trips to the bathroom later, Ree felt like she had her shit together enough to go over to Eastwood’s, though she gave herself only even odds as to whether she’d puke if she had to get into a fight anytime before she could sleep again.

  The sun was rising as she walked up to the Dorkcave and thumb-typed an email to Eastwood, announcing her arrival.

  She thought 6:15 was a reasonable time to pronounce “getting up early,” so she’d showered and changed into fresh, combat-ready clothes. She felt approximately 67.4 percent human, which was a good 30 percent more than she’d been expecting.

  A minute after her email had winged its way through the Internets, the door swung open with its Foley Artist 101 creaking sound.

  Ree stomped down the stairs, taking still-a-bit-tipsy joy in the thunderstorm sound.

  Crossing through the stacks revealed a bandaged Eastwood and an empty health potion amid the forest of empty soda cans.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  Eastwood rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve been better. Was my own fault; I shouldn’t have gone out without backup.”

  “No, you shouldn’tvead. Should not have,” Ree said, catching her slurred speech and auto-correcting herself.

  “Are you okay?” Eastwood asked back.

  “Drake and Priya’s relationship just blew up because magic and condescension, so Anya and I have been in triage mode, with bonus exposition. I can’t keep my friends in the dark about this shit anymore. This is my life, and I want them in my life. Ergo . . .”

  “Bad idea, kid,” Eastwood said, arms crossed. “That just puts more people into the crosshairs.”

  “I am not having the Peter Parker secret identity talk right now. Priority here is getting you to a not-in-imminent-danger place. What happened?”

  “Got hit-and-run by a derby girl. But, like, an armored, paramilitary derby girl. Her pads were all metal, and her gloves and skates had razors on them.”

  Eastwood waited a beat, for effect. “We’ve got a Strega on our hands. Right on time. I don’t know if this was a planned ambush, string-tugging and all, or if she just caught me unaware and made the most of the situation. Hard to tell with Fate Witches. She got me but good. Would have punched my ticket if I hadn’t BAMF-ed back here with a Nightcrawler card I’ve been carrying around since Lucretia’s trial.”

  “What did she look like? You get a picture?”

  A shake of the head said not only no, but hell no. “I mostly saw her from the back, after she plowed me over and opened me up like a filet. Her uniform was green and silver, the skates were black with the metal cops, and she had black hair tied up into a bun under the helmet. Middle Eastern, bigger, probably five eleven, two hundred pounds. I’d know her if I saw her again, I think. Definitely would if she’s in her gear.”

  “Not a lot of derby girls with steel-plated pads, last time I checked,” Ree said. Though armored roller derby did sound like an awesome, terrible idea. Definitely not a lethal, insurance-nightmare-inducing idea. Maybe something for the directors of Bloodsport to circle the wagons around and use to try to make a triumphant return. “So, you want to go after her now, or try to do some tracking mojo? What’s the plan?” she asked.

  “A quick check to make sure she isn’t laying C4 in the outside wall of the building wouldn’t go unappreciated. Short patrol, maybe, with one earbud plugged into my security systems here, in case she wanted to draw us out in order to trap the place up.”

  “That’d be pretty dumb, though. If she’s heard about you from Lucretia, what with the Wile E. Coyote setup here.” Ree gestured to the half-dozen traps, loaded crossbows, trip wires, and other security systems Eastwood had laid in over the last several months as he spiraled deeper into paranoia.

  “Yes, but Lucretia doesn’t know about this,” Eastwood answered, patting his trap master (a modded Xbox 360 wireless controller).

  Ree picked up the Wonder Woman bracers she’d used during the fight last Halloween. She should just ask him to keep these. But that’d be a month’s worth of wages, and she couldn’t deflect bills with them, just bullets. “Or we could hang out here and let her try to make a run at the base. Home field advantage and all.”

  “I doubt she’s that bold.”

  “So bold enough to try to shiv you on the street, but not so bold she’d break into your house? How’s that again?”

  “One is bold and slightly stupid. The other is very bold and incredibly stupid.”

  “So out we go,” Ree said. “Power-up first?”

  “Go for it. The con is yours.”

  And by “the con,” Eas
twood meant his ten-petabyte media database of films, TV, cartoons, and odd video clips from all around the world. It was the closest thing Ree had ever seen to a complete media library, which made it the Geekomantic equivalent of the Library of Alexandria. Minus the burning.

  Ree kicked off her mental algorithm, brainstorming the most appropriate power and source for the situation.

  The Strega was on wheels, so she’d be fast, but somewhat bound by momentum, and not as good over rough ground. Spider powers would be a good counter—speed, three-dimensional movement abilities, webbing would gum up skates pretty damned well. But if Lucretia’s been informing, they’ll expect that.

  What else?

  Ree ran a search query and saw that Eastwood had the short-lived ’90s Flash TV show, so that was an option. Meet speed with super-speed. But that level of power would burn through her charge really damned fast. For Ree, the Geekomantic sweet spot was the the perfect middle ground between:

  1) Properties she loved

  2) Versatile but not ginormous powers

  3) Abilities that combined well with the props and tools she had on hand

  Which at that moment were her lightsaber, the phaser, and her standard sideboard. However, she was standing in the middle of a Geekomantic Fort Knox.

  “You got some cards or props for glue traps or grease spells?” Ree asked.

  Eastwood grunted in the affirmative, and made his way to the stacks.

  “What are you thinking of, power-wise?” he asked, his voice bouncing off the far wall and echoing back, hollow.

  “Spider-Man’s the obvious choice, but probably too obvious, since twenty bucks says Lucretia was keeping tabs on us during the fights at Grognard’s.”

  “Fair bet. What about Static Shock? Close, but sufficiently distinct . . .”

  “To be just different enough. You got an appropriate flying-thingie board?”

  “That might be the rub.”

  Tumblers in her brain still spinning, she turned back to the media library.

  “If you don’t have a good flyer, I’ve got a fun alternative.” She called up Captain America: The First Avenger, and selected forward to Cap’s first mission, rescuing the POWs, which was quickly followed by a montage of awesome. Plenty to get excited about (and not just Chris Evans’s abs, Hayley Atwell’s lips, or Sebastian Stan’s brooding brows). And the Captain America power suite overlapped with Spidey’s just enough—speed, strength enough to overpower a woman who outmassed her by no small margin.

  “You got a decent Cap shield?” she yelled over her shoulder.

  “I have a half-decent one. Won’t those bracers do?”

  “Better resonance with the movie if I can have the actual shield. At least, that’s what Talon says.”

  “She’d know,” Eastwood said. He rustled around through a couple of boxes, then said, “Ha! Canceled order. Never shipped, then I forgot to put it back in the right place.”

  “If you would let me handle all of the mail orders . . .” Ree said.

  “Later,” Eastwood said. “Here, catch!” Eastwood tossed the shield like a Frisbee. Ree caught it with both hands. It was a cheaper prop, less than two feet across, and made of plastic.

  “This is a kid’s toy.”

  “It’s what I’ve got.”

  “I’ll give it a shot.” Ree turned back to the screen and cued up the film, letting the massive wall-mounted speakers go to work.

  The film popped up on nine synced flat-screen TVs, the standard media consumption mode in the Dorkcave. They’d tried playing films on the full five-by-five, but you had to sit so far back to get the full effect that the stacks cut off a third of the screen on either side.

  Ree wheeled the gaming chair back into her preferred spot and dialed into the film, focusing on Steve Rogers’s earnest compassion and selfless bravery, his devotion to his friend, and his desire to be more than just a curiosity, and hoping the magical power-up would sweep the rest of her inebriation and exhaustion off the table.

  Ree watched the set of scenes twice through, and by the end of the montage, had the film’s Captain America theme buzzing in her ears, all bright brass and retro enthusiasm. She wasn’t a huge American Exceptionalism fan, but this Cap, at least, came off like America Doing Right. Nazis were a slam-dunk of a bad guy, and so Hydra, as super-Nazis, were all the better. You couldn’t go wrong in fighting bad guys that disintegrated people at the drop of a hat. Worked for Leia and Han; it’d work for Cap and Ree.

  Wishing she’d started working with Priya to get some cosplay action going so she could have the corresponding outfit, Ree strapped on the shield, which felt not much heavier, but far sturdier in her grip. It might not last too long, being a low-grade prop, but it’d have to do. Plus, she had her own crossover action going on with the Wonder Woman bracers.

  They wouldn’t cancel each other out, right? She’d crossed the copyright streams before, and it had been fine. But Geekomancy wasn’t anything resembling an exact science. Like the films, comics, and games they came from, the rules of Geekomancy seemed to be relative, based on more factors than remotely made sense. It was as if a set of rules lawyers occasionally broke down the GM of the universe to institute house rules, or got the GM to update to a new rules set.

  But the music was strong, the Super-Soldier Serum was with her, and she had double defense action between the shield and the bracers, a good match for the Strega’s blades, especially when paired with her standard melee and ranged weapons.

  She did, however, look kind of ridiculous, walking around with a kid’s plastic prop. But she’d survived middle school; she could survive some odd stares from the people of Pearson.

  “Ready, Sergeant?” she asked, her voice coming out broad and earnest. She laughed at herself, wondering how much she must be sticking out her chest, both metaphorically and literally. As long as she didn’t look like Rob Liefeld’s Cap, she’d be fine.

  “Sergeant?” Eastwood said, eyebrow raised. He had his trusty Star Wars blaster, his own lightsaber (green to Ree’s blue), and a set of bagged-and-boarded comics stuffed into the outer pocket of his well-worn (and bloodied, and muddied, and so on) trench coat. He wasn’t Hollywood’s vision of a hero, but he’d proven his grit more than often enough.

  “Onward!” Ree pointed toward the door, reveling in the cheesiness of it all. Usually her Snarky Good inclinations ran counter to such uncomplicatedly earnest goody-two-shoes-ness, but it was fun to play the part, live a little while in a world that wasn’t so many shades of gray all the time.

  Eastwood opened the door, and they went on the hunt.

  Chapter Eight

  Sk8er Girl vs. G33k Girl

  The pair started with a quick whiz around the neighborhood but expanded their search, Ree very much aware of the ticking clock on her Geekomantic charge. If she didn’t use any power, it’d stay for a while, but if they were stomping around for thirty minutes with no contact, she’d need a re-up, which would leave them vulnerable.

  “Any ideas of where to search next?” Ree asked.

  “Skate park?”

  “Good call.”

  The Sandusky Park had been assembled between several skater clubs, teaming up with an Indiegogo to buy the abandoned lot and turn it into a skate park.

  Some local grumpy gray-hairs and yuppie parents complained but seemingly only out of a sense of propriety. Several of the skater kids’ grandparents would hang out in the park, playing checkers on the tables at the edge.

  The park had a half-dozen skaters spread around, rolling up, jumping off, and standing around on the various apparati. Most looked under twenty, with an older cluster in one corner, rotating through being filmed as they tried (and often failed at) complex tricks, earning scrapes and bruises at a rapid pace.

  “Any sign?” Ree asked, scanning the park.

  “Nope. Not that easy.”

&
nbsp; Feeling bold and a half, she started toward the nearest group of skaters. “Let’s ask the locals. Maybe one of them has seen her.”

  “Nice shield. You steal it from a kindergartner?” one of the skater kids asked, an African American girl with a Blink-182 shirt and red athletic shorts.

  Ree’s natural inclination was to bite back with something like, “Yeah, I stole it from your room. No dust on it, though. Weird.” But what came out was “Very funny.”

  Being square-jawed and forthright is kind of boring.

  Eastwood stepped in, drawing attention. “Any of you seen a derby girl, around yay tall, muscled, wears metal elbow and knee gear?”

  Half of the park was watching them now, the sounds of rubber wheels on concrete faded to just the far trio with their flip camera.

  “Pretty simple question, folks,” Ree said.

  “Take a hike, Comic-Con,” said another skater, a lanky kid with a splash of acne across his face as bad as Ree’d ever had as a teen. He was tall already but looked like he had more to grow, his hands and feet still a size too big for his body, like a puppy.

  “Well, actually, I have seen someone who fits that description,” said a female voice from behind them.

  Ree pivoted in place, her shoes scrunching on the concrete.

  Behind them, ten paces back, a redhead in a coat. As she ditched the raincoat, her whole image shifted from a bland middle-aged white redhead to a thickly-muscled Middle Eastern woman, six feet tall with skates, and shimmering metallic armor in the form of skating gear, elbows and knees, a polished metal helmet with the blocker stretch-cap on the top.

  Also, blades on the gloves and skates. Don’t forget the blades.

  “That her?” Ree asked.

  Eastwood sighed, reaching for his weapons.

  “No ambush this time?” he asked.

  “What do you think this is?” the Strega responded, hands open.

  I really, really don’t want to look behind me, do I? Ree asked herself, but she did anyway, not one to invite a sucker punch.

  Back at the skate park, illusions wavered and dropped, revealing a ten-woman derby squad, from petite, lithe women to larger bruisers like the Strega, with a half-dozen between them, muscled women in their twenties through their fifties. Their aggregate stocking display could make a strip-mall witch blush, but all wore the black and red jerseys.