Love,
Your Departed Daughter
P.S. Morbid much?
Ree shook off the fatalism and snapped back to reality, where Eastwood was blasting away at the Minotaur with both power rings, blue and green beams hitting side by side.
And doing not a bloody thing.
“I’ve got it!” Uncle Joe said, and Ree heard the sound of tearing mixed with the release of magic.
A spectral hand popped into existence in front of the Minotaur. It swept Ree and Grognard off of the creature’s snout, pushing them back into the bar.
“The fuck!” Ree said. But then, the hand pushed at the Minotaur, the hand larger than the creature’s head. The Minotaur strained against the hand, snorting. Its eyes were red, and it had dropped the axe, pulling at the sides of the doorway. But inch by inch, the hand pushed the creature out of the door. Grognard leapt up and pulled the door shut, re-sealing the wards. “That door isn’t going to keep it out for long,” Ree said, looking back at Uncle Joe, who she suspected had pulled out the save.
“Was that a Bigby’s Hand spell?” she asked.
Joe had crumpled to the floor, binder at his feet. “Mint Limited edition, from the canceled Dungeons & Dragons trading card spell expansion in 1992. They only made four test sheets. That was all of them.”
Uncle Joe looked lost, hollowed out. Ree couldn’t imagine how hard that must have been for him—giving up singular artifacts like that. That’d be like Ree burning the only remaining Star Wars laserdiscs, or the original scripts for X-Men #1. There were times when Geekomancy totally blew. In fifty years, would any of their material culture be left? Or will people like me use it all up?
She looked to the floor at the torn comic. Digital editions were replacing every medium in narrative—she’d heard some chatter about digital transition for Geekomancy, but every answer she heard raised more questions. Not to mention how it’d change the experience for readers and viewers.
Ree felt a hand on her shoulder, and she pulled herself out of the maudlin of self-reflection. It was Drake.
“Are you quite all right, Ree?”
Ree exhaled. “Yeah. I just wish we didn’t have to destroy things for this magic.”
“You don’t have to,” Drake said. “The more prepared you are, the more you can use the renewable sources. But these are pressing times, and your life is worth more than an individual incarnation of a text or a trading card.”
Ree squeezed Drake’s hand. Why do you have to be dating Priya? Ree whined to herself, then sighed and looked around the room, jumping back into the moment.
Across the bar, Wickham’s movements were a shade sloppier, her bottle an inch emptier. The woman was actively ignoring the group. Better than heckling, Ree thought. Grognard stood by the door, rolling red-on-black dice while holding his back to the door. Eastwood was beside him, lending his middling weight.
“What’s the word on the wards?” Ree asked.
Grognard cursed under his breath. “Shitty, that’s the word. I can’t reset anything while Toro out there is ripping my door to shreds.”
“What can we do to help?” Chandra asked.
The brewmaster chuffed with his half-laugh. “Hold the door and pray to whoever you can get to listen.”
The gang piled on to the door, which led to a reverse game of whack-a-mole, where they tried to keep away from the parts of the door being torn up by the Minotaur’s horns. The door was quickly approaching the consistency of Swiss cheese, and shortly after that, it’d just shatter entirely.
“Wait. I can help.” Uncle Joe flipped through his binder, and pulled out several square-edged cards. They looked hand-cut rather than machined like most CCG cards.
He joined the group, then tore up a card and put his hand to the door. Several of the gaps closed up.
“But first . . .” Uncle Joe tore up another card, then reached through one of the holes and slapped the cards on the opposite side.
A moment later, there was a KABOOM! from the sewer.
Uncle Joe grinned. “Explosive Runes.”
“That thing can read?” Ree asked.
The cardmaster shrugged. Uncle Joe tore up another card, which closed the remaining gaps in the door.
“That should give you some time,” Joe said.
Well, hot damn, Ree thought. “What’s gotten into you?” she asked.
A mad smile hit Uncle Joe’s face: the smile of a berserker or a mad bomber who bombed at midnight. It was the face of “I no longer give a fuck.”
“I’ve already dropped a grand tonight. What’s another few hundred dollars?” he said.
Grognard rolled the dice once more, then whooped. There was another thud, but this time, it was met by an equally loud zot.
The brewmaster stood and slid the dice back into his apron. “That will hold it for a while. Now, how exactly do we kill that thing? The nose ring?”
Ree nodded. “If you pull the ring out of its nose, the immunity goes away. But it has to be done by hand. And it isn’t exactly easy.”
“So we need some superstrength,” Eastwood said, stomping his way over to the store section.
“I got it,” Ree said, producing her phone. She had clips to spare for this one. Namely, the entirety of “Chosen,” since she found herself defaulting to Buffy powers so often.
“No good. We want superstrength multiplied by normal strength. It should be me,” Grognard said. “Bring me those Hulk gloves.”
Ree stepped up to the store section, then heard movement off to her right. She looked back to the group, then to a clearly inebriated Wickham at the bar.
“What was that?” she asked. Mice? Cockroaches? But it hadn’t sounded like skittering. It was more like shuffling.
She stepped over an aisle and caught another flash of movement at the end of the row. “Ha!” she said, rushing down the aisle. Minotaur or no, she was not going to let some vermin run around and trash her (well, Grognard’s) store.
“What the hell are you doing?” Grognard asked from across the room.
“There’s something here, boss.” Ree peeked around the corner of an aisle, and saw it.
The fuck? It was a Warhammer 40K Ork bike, painted red (naturally), from one of the pre-painted sets Grognard sold on commission.
And then, from behind her, she heard blaster fire. She hit the deck, turned, and saw that an Amidala’s blaster pistol prop was firing at random, twitching on its rack.
“Boss, we’ve got a problem!”
All at once, the store went crazy. Weapons fired off, CCG cards jumped out of their sleeves, burst into flame, and then were replaced by summoned creatures, artifacts, and spell effects.
Great, I’ve gone from Assault on Precinct 13 to Jumanji, Ree thought, reaching for her lightsaber.
She commando-crawled her way to a corner, out of the lines of fire from the blasters, bow-casters, and the rest of Grognard’s ranged armory. Unfortunately, that put her clear on the opposite side of the room from everyone else.
Drake and Grognard had taken cover behind an overturned table, firing at slivers, skeletons, oni, and other creatures that had appeared out of nowhere, summoned by Geekomantic artifacts gone haywire. Wickham had jumped the bar and was hiding, only the top of her hairpin visible over the bar rail.
Ree flashed her lightsaber on, hoping it had enough juice left in its nostalgia battery to get them through whatever wild magic was causing the store to go bugfuck crazy.
She cut her way through a goblin from Legend of the Five Rings, then took the legs off of a robot from Robo Rally. She crawled on and found herself face-to-navel with a Troll Hunter from World of Warcraft. The Troll raised a rifle to shoot, and Ree dove forward, hacking at the creature as she went.
The Troll matched her acrobatics and backflipped up onto a table. It kicked several game boxes off of their perch, and as they crashed to the floor, the boxes burst open, pieces coming to life, a cluster of miniature space fighters from Twilight Imperium forming up and taking a strafing
run at the Troll.
The Troll fired its rifle in her direction, taking a chunk out of the concrete floor. Ree slashed up at the table, forcing the Troll back.
More of the Twilight Imperium spaceships had taken flight, red and blue plastic figures warring with one another while the green pieces opened fire on the Troll. The Troll swatted the pieces out of the air, then did a round-off from the table. It drew a flaming blue machete and growled in her direction.
Behind her, a Maine Coon–size Mi-go took wing with a “Skree!” Ree caught a quick glimpse of the others as she looked back toward the Troll. Still pinned down by errant weapon fire, as well as a rampaging ogre with a tetsubo.
She saw the Troll just in time to jump aside to avoid its machete. The creature cartwheeled forward with its cut and Ree caught a kick to the head. She staggered backward and lashed out with the lightsaber, and when she opened her eyes again, the creature was missing a leg. She pressed the advantage and finished the Troll off with a thrust, then took up its machete in her left hand, preparing for the inevitable failure of her magic sword.
The Mi-go skree!-ed its way around the room, leaving Ree with an opening to get to the end of the aisle. From there, it was a straight shot to the bar, and to backup.
Behind her, the Troll popped into ichor like monsters do . . . but so did her machete. Ree dropped the goopified sword as fast as she could, but it still got a healthy splash of ichor on her pants.
At least these are work pants, Ree thought. She’d stopped wearing her good jeans to Grognard’s when she and Drake got stuck in the sewer after Midnight Market.
Ree clicked off her lightsaber and switched out to the phaser as she did her best roadie-run along the aisle. Thirty feet . . . twenty-five.
And then Grey Dragon from Alley Assault jumped into the aisle and squared off against her, gray gi looking almost black in the low light. Alley Assault had never been more than an off-brand Street Fighter, but the pizza place Ree’s dad had taken her when she was seven only ever had Alley Assault, and so she had a warm spot in her heart for the long-dead fighting franchise.
Ree opened fire, but Grey Dragon raised his hands and blocked, the energy dissipating against his muscled arms.
Balls. “It’s going to be like that, is it?” Ree asked, taking a fighting stance. Dragon punched forward with one fist, shouting “Fireball!” A shimmering ball of silver-white energy leapt out at her, and she jumped over it, landing with a punch in Grey Dragon’s direction, which he also blocked.
Ree fell into a crouch, and tried to sweep the leg in her best homage to the No More Kings song. But Grey Dragon shouted “Ascending Punch!” leaping into his uppercut and jumping over her kick.
But her years as an arcade rat had taught her the weakness of the Ascending Punch: if it missed, you were a chump the whole way down. Ree stood and reached out to grab Grey Dragon’s gi, then slammed him to the ground with all her weight, which wasn’t much.
But the throw got him out of her way, which is all she needed. She gamed the Alley Assault system, curb-stomping Grey Dragon in the head while he was on the ground, hoping it’d put him out. Not bothering to stop and see if it had, she booked it to the bar, power sliding under the legs of an ogre.
“Hi, guys. Did you miss me?” She leaned to the side as the ogre lashed out with the tetsubo again, biting into Grognard’s sturdy-as-hell tables.
“Are these warded too?” she asked, pointing at the tables.
“Reinforced against everything under the magical sun. Especially stains,” Grognard said.
“So why aren’t these on the door?” Ree asked as she popped out from the table and fired her phaser at the ogre. It lurched back with the blow, giving Eastwood the chance to pour on fire from his blaster as well.
“Same wards. These just stay fresher.” Grognard unscrewed a leg of the table and pulled out a plastic tube the size of Ree’s forearm. It had a stash of cards, a few bandages, and a tiny bottle. Grognard popped the bottle cap off and downed the drink.
Then with a bellow, Grognard jumped over the table and delivered a thundering punch to the creature’s midsection. It crumpled up, so the brewmaster laid the creature out with a right cross.
Ree looked to the other geeks behind the tables. “What was that?”
“That was my real Critical Hit ale,” Grognard said. “The magic version takes twenty times as long to brew.”
The ogre popped into ichor, causing a temporary lull in the bar section. But the elevated floor was still a madhouse. Several scenes played out, creatures and artifacts fighting among themselves. But at any moment, something else could decide to go for a new target.
Ree used the breather to pull out her phone for a quick power-up.
“Cover me?” she asked Drake.
“But of course,” he said, keeping watch while he checked his ammunition stores.
Ree tapped her way through her playlist as fast as possible, replaying the scene from Spider-Man so she could change the game.
As she homed in on the scene, she heard the others chattering around her.
Chandra asked, “Does anyone know what’s causing this ridiculousness?”
“Frak no,” Eastwood said. “But I stopped wondering about pudu like this a long time ago.”
“I’ve found that this city is very nearly as odd and prone to bizarre occurrences as the Deepness of Faerie,” Drake said.
“You can say that again,” Eastwood said. “But don’t.”
Drake chuckled. “That idiom I am familiar with, at least.”
“There’s hope for you yet, kid,” Eastwood said.
“You’re all idiots!” Wickham said, from behind the bar, her voice starting to slur.
Ree tried to shut out their banter and focus on the scene through the roaring, clanging, chattering, but it just wasn’t happening.
She took a long breath, and restarted the clip. This time, she managed to keep the sounds out better, until a paper crane winged its way across her vision, then looped into a half-Immelmann over Eastwood and dive-bombed his face.
Eastwood reached out and caught the crane, which unfolded in his hand and started talking. It spoke in the voice of Lucretia d’Fete, one of the Pearson Underground. She was an Elegant Gothic Lolita Fate Witch, and was in no way a fan of Eastwood’s.
Dear Anthony,
By now you will have had the fortune of enjoying the first phases of my vengeance for your despicable affront and robbery last fall. As revenge is a dish best served cold, I decided to inflict my fury on all those who would associate with you, including that nursemaid Grognard, with his childish clubhouse; your erstwhile upstart apprentice; and, well, whomever else happens to be around.
I thought it most appropriate to turn your little ritual tools against you. Perhaps robbed of your crutches, we will see what you’re truly made of.
I look forward to gazing down on your bloodied broken corpse and reclaiming that which was stolen from me. And then I will leave you out in the street as a message to all in Pearson that to cross Lucretia d’Fete is to invite death and ruin.
With coldest regard,
Lady Lucretia d’Fete
Eastwood let out a string of what Ree assumed was cursing in either Mandarin or Cantonese. Ree suspected he’d repeated one of the longer curses from Firefly—“Holy Mother of God and all her whacky nephews” or “Shove all the planets of the universe up my ass”—Ree had learned some of the translations but not the curses themselves.
Grognard shook his head, cracking his knuckles. “When I get my hands on that snooty, sanctimonious—”
The brewmaster’s rage was cut short by a flurry of motion. Ree ducked back behind the table when she saw it coming, so the arrow that had been heading for her face managed to cut off only a chunk of her hair, making a gash through her cheek along the way.
“Cockwaffle!” she shouted as her hand went to her face. The cut wasn’t deep, but if she hadn’t moved, she would have become the punch line of a Homestar Runner joke.
Ree bent over and grabbed the small medical kit from Grognard’s stash. Drake rolled between tables with his usual efficiency and set his rifle down at her feet.
“Why don’t you let me do that,” he said with a knowing smile.
Ree tried to focus on the fact that it was dumb to do first aid on your own face rather than the fact that it was a chance to have his hands on her face. Yep. Staying good, that’s me.
Eastwood kept up the suppressing fire and Talon slashed at anything that got close enough to grab Ree’s and Drake’s cover. Grognard hadn’t come back behind the cover.
“What the hell is Grognard doing?”
Drake peeked out from behind the table. “He appears to be wrestling a set of floating longbows.”
Ree laughed, then instantly regretted it as moving her cheek opened the cut up even more.
“Please stay still,” Drake said, only a hint of exasperation creeping into his voice.
She wanted to make another snappy comeback, but instead she took a long breath and let Drake apply the butterfly bandage. But will I get a rad scar? Ree wondered. I probably don’t want a rad scar. Unless I can get one on each cheek like Inigo Montoya.
“There. That should suffice until we are able to get out of this morass,” Drake said, taking up his rifle again.
“Thanks.” Ree raised her phaser, and they nodded to each other. Ree looked around the table back into the fray, then took a pot shot at a fat orc that was waddling its way over with an oversized mallet.
The orc took her shot in the belly, and kept coming. Ree adjusted her fire upward, and her blast hit the thing in the head at the same time as Drake’s green blast. The orc went down, and Ree changed targets.
If this was all Lucretia’s doing, then it’d have to be chaos-oriented—her magic was all about fate, luck, destiny, and curses. The big question left was just how long the magic would hold out. It would take a huge amount of mojo to make Grognard’s store go crazy, but Lucretia’d had several months to weave the curse, in all likelihood. Ritual wasn’t Ree’s thing, but it seemed like with enough time, you could do nearly anything.
Attack the Geek: A Ree Reyes Side-Quest Page 5