Geekomancy (35 page)

“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.”

“Go to hell,” Ree said.

“I’ve been there, kid. I fought my way to the obsidian gates and tore through a dozen demons, and it got me frakkall. You’re in way over your head, and yet you think you know everything.”

“Go away, all of you!” Aidan shouted, twitching nervously.

“No.” Eastwood fired off a shot at Drake, who dove to one side. The blast blew off a tree limb.

Ree jumped forward, hoping to tackle Eastwood before he could fire another shot. “Get into cover!” she shouted to Aidan.

Eastwood strafed away from Ree, tracking on Drake and firing again as the gadgeteer came up to his knees. Drake aimed his rifle as Eastwood’s shot bounced off of a shimmering field that was visible for a split second in front of the adventurer. An amulet around Drake’s neck shimmered the same color, and then he returned fire.

Now,
that’s
what I’m talking about
.

Ree leaned back and dropped her pace as the shot came in, and Eastwood pivoted in place with
Matrix
-level speed. The shot went past Eastwood’s shoulder and flew off into the distance.

Ree leaned forward and jumped at Eastwood with a roundhouse to the shoulders. Without Geekomancy, she was stuck with her own skill set, which she hoped was better kung fu than what Eastwood had.
As long as I can get that gun out of his hands.

Eastwood ducked forward under her kick, but not at
Matrix
speed.
His tricks are all one-offs, and I can fight like this all day.

Ree flew over him, turning through her kick so as to land facing the older geek. Eastwood came up with a flashing knife, which she caught on the thick wrist cuff of her buff jacket as she landed. She felt a small bite from the cut but ignored it as she wrapped her hand around Eastwood’s wrist, trying to lock him in a chicken wing and make him drop the knife.

Eastwood spiraled with the hold and continued to cut, piercing her coat to draw blood inside her wrist. Ree let go and threw her arm out, away from the knife. Eastwood dropped from her sight as she winced with pain, and she saw him on the ground, Drake beside him.

The older geek kicked for Drake’s head, which Drake blocked by ducking behind his forearms. Eastwood scrambled back as Ree followed, trying to land a quick low kick. But Eastwood scrambled with grace that belied his potbellied form and found his feet, firing a blaster bolt at Drake and slashing up and to his left to tear through Ree’s jeans and slice open her shin. Ree fell to the ground, holding her leg, and she heard Drake hit the ground as well.

Ree looked through pain-lidded eyes for Eastwood. The geek leveled the blaster at Drake, but when he pulled the trigger, the gun made a whining sound instead of firing. Ree smiled through the pain.
Ha! Out of juice.
As Eastwood pistol-whipped Drake in the head, his eyes glazed with rage. Drake slumped to the ground, limp.

Eastwood tossed away the blaster, saying, “Pudu.”

Watching Drake loll on the ground, Ree’s cheeks flushed, ears getting hotter.
I didn’t need any more reasons to kick your ass, but you have to keep giving them to me.

Looking up at Eastwood, she saw nothing but cold fury in his eyes. “I gave you more than enough chances to leave me alone, Ree. Branwen will never know what happened to you.”

Ree lashed out with her good leg and caught Eastwood behind the knee, sending him stumbling.
I have to get to Aidan, but I can’t leave Eastwood alone with Drake. He’s still got the knife and who knows what else.

Ree didn’t know how much time Eastwood needed for the ritual or where he needed to be. She didn’t have the time or the information, just a desperate man chasing her with a blade.

Ree crawled over to Drake and picked up his rifle, hoping that it had some juice left after all the use of the past day.

As she sighted the rifle on Eastwood, he threw the knife at her. She ducked under the flash of silver, which hit wrong and bounced off the hard bark of the tree instead of sticking. Realigning her shot down the barrel of the rifle, she saw only a puff of smoke where Darth Geek had been.

“Ninja vanish? Fucking hell.” Ree looked around the clearing for Aidan.
Gone. Thanks, universe. I needed that salt on my wound.

“Drake?” she called as she crawled over to him. He moaned in response, curling up into a ball.

“Get up, we’ve got to follow him.”

Drake’s voice was dreamy, distant. “No, Mistress, I cannot.”

Sounds like a concussion or worse. Shit, shit. The longer I leave Eastwood alone with Aidan, the more likely it is that everything will go straight-to-the-pole south.

“Come on, Drake. Your
Mistress
needs you.”

After a moment, Drake grunted and uncurled himself, his eyes blinking open. A wave of realization hit, and he exhaled. “By stars, that hurt.” He spoke haltingly, his focus somewhere else.

“Looks bad, and you probably have a concussion. But Eastwood’s gone, and so is Aidan, so we’ve gotta go.” Ree stood and tried to help Drake up. But with one leg for balance and no help from Drake, she pulled him up only to sitting.

Adrenaline won’t last long, girl. Vamos, rápido.

“You’ve got a first-aid kit in here somewhere, right?” Ree asked, gesturing to Drake’s coat.

“Kit. Yes. It’s . . .” Drake fumbled at his coat, and Ree waited for a second before pawing through it herself.

“I’ll buy you dinner when we’ve made it through this.”

Drake stared up to the darkening sky. “We dined with the crown princess of Jupiter.”

Ree cupped his chin with one hand. “Oh, boy. You are way out of it. I can’t leave you like this.”

She had to follow Eastwood, protect Aidan, and get Drake to a hospital, none of which went together with any ease. She could call an ambulance for Drake, but he probably didn’t have insurance and might get himself sent to the psych ward if the concussion made it hard for him to remember he wasn’t in the 19th century anymore.

She found a canvas bag with bandages, glass bottles of pills labeled in scrawling longhand, as well as tweezers and a scalpel. She took out some acetaminophen and got Drake to dry-swallow it, since she wagered the crap in the pond water would be worse for him than the blow to the head. Then she took some bandages for herself. She pulled up her pants leg and slathered some antiseptic over the cut, restraining a scream. She bound the wound with some gauze, wincing all the while.