Attack the Geek (7 page)

“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.

“Anyone have any bright ideas how to stop this curse?” Ree asked at a shout to be heard over the din.

Chandra spoke up. “High-grade counterspell ought to do it, but none of us are Hexomancers, so it’ll be tricky no matter what.”

A fighting robot flipped forward into the bar, energy staff spinning.

“Dibs,” Eastwood said, jumping forward and igniting his lightsaber. The robot spun and slashed so fast, Ree could barely follow the motion. The two went blow for blow for a few seconds, but Eastwood’s eagerness crumbled very quickly as he was forced to backpedal, gaining space to have the time to block the construct’s strikes.

Ree fired off a shot with her phaser, but the killer robot blocked it, redirecting her continuous beam at Eastwood, who ducked and blocked with his own lightsaber, deflecting the beam into the ceiling, where it started to cut through the concrete. Ree cut off the beam and took up her own lightsaber.

However, taking the robot on was not going to be as easy or flashy as a two-on-one usually indicated. Neither Ree nor Eastwood had the Force guiding their blows, except in the general spiritual sense.
Though, maybe . . .

Ree stepped forward with an upward cut, which the robot parried, responding with the other end of its staff. Ree ducked under the blow and sidestepped, trying to put the bad guy between the two of them without putting her back to the rest of the store. Which was pretty much impossible. But the robot was likely to kill her now, so she decided to focus on that. With the thing’s attention split, Eastwood went back on the attack.