Geekomancy (38 page)

The Duke took a deep breath, seeming to savor the . . . whatever Eastwood had put together. Ree watched Eastwood. He was putting on a brave face, but worry crept into his eyes, however slowly.

The Duke stretched his fingers, dropping the Pokéball as he rolled his head back and around, the cracking sounds as loud as shattering bones.

The Duke licked his lips, then raised an eyebrow. “Something’s off.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at Eastwood. He sniffed, then snarled at the magician, “Did you think you could fool me, whelp?”

Eastwood took a step back, hand up, placating. “The others are all real, I promise. I was so close to the fifth, but I couldn’t get it. The Muse was dead, and I couldn’t find another. There just weren’t any more, and I couldn’t kill them myself, right?”

The Chief of the Dork Lords of Hell pulled himself up to his full height, and the lights in the room flickered. With the wave of one hand, the vision of Sionnan vanished. In her place was a trio of shadowed creatures who jumped down and flanked the Duke.

All three were dressed in tattered T-shirts and ratty jeans. They looked like a perp walk of Geekdom’s Worst Hits. One man was tall and skeleton-thin, with a face made more of acne than skin and with hair so thin it was translucent. The other man was literally round, with hands that looked like balloons and an underbeard that failed to cover three chins. The third was a woman with tangled and matted hair down to her ankles and a body shape more Weeble-wobble than pear.

“These three are the last of your kind to try to weasel out of a deal, Eastwood. If you give up quietly, I might even let you see Branwen once before I start your torture. And I will parade you both through your apprentice’s dreams every single night.”

Eastwood reached for his lightsaber and clicked it on with the signature
whoosh
.

Ree raised her shield and the sword. She left the Glaive on the ground since she didn’t know how a real person could use it without hurting themself. Mojo or not, Sting was still a weapon.
Right?

She suddenly understood better why everyone in the magic underground seemed to walk around armed to the teeth.

The Duke took several steps back as Ree circled around the trio. Faced by weapons, the three hissed, their eyes turning red. The geeky servitors’ hands bled. Instead of just hitting the floor, the blood solidified into dripping claws.

Eeuch.
Ree stood with her right leg forward, the shield up and forward at an angle. “Time to get my Spartan on, then,” she said. Eastwood nodded at her, spinning his lightsaber in slow arcs around himself as the trio spread out to encircle the older geek.

“Hey, uglies. What about me?” Ree advanced on the tall, thin man and reached out with a jab. Her opponent folded over on himself, bending backward and blocking her shot with his blood-encrusted hands. The block knocked her arm all the way over her head, and she stepped back.

Bugger’s strong for being made out of skin and bones. Fucking nerd-demon mojo.

The rail-thin man flipped his head backward and righted himself, facing Ree as he lashed out with bloody claws on elastic arms.

Ree took the slash on the shield, ducking under it and rising with an upward cut to his leg. He took the cut, but the gushing blood hardened almost instantly, looking like a plate greave.

“Frak me.”

Turned into a bloody whirlwind, the man began raining blow after blow down on her with spindly, sharp limbs. Ree turtled underneath her shield; it was all she could do to keep from being overwhelmed. She caught a few small cuts along the ankle and shifted to keep her bad leg back, praying that the painkillers would hold out.

“How you doing, Eastwood?” she shouted, unable to see him in the melee.

“They’re cheating! Blood is not supposed to be proof versus lightsabers!”

Ree threw a wide slash, trying to push the tall man back. “Uhm, I don’t think their boss cares if they cheat. Any tips?” The tall man grabbed at her shield with one bloody hand, so Ree pushed into him and wrapped a cut around, slicing into his back. She felt the blood hardening around her sword as she pulled the blade back.

Now I have a chunk of solid blood on my sword. Marvelous.

Eastwood said, “
Highlander
or
Terminator,
most likely.”

“Got any pipe bombs?” Ree asked.

“Fresh out, sorry.”

The Duke interrupted them, saying, his voice again all around them, “You can still give up, children. Spare yourself at least
some
pain.”

“Could you monologue some, maybe?” Ree held the shield forward and took the offensive, confidence building with her snark. “Call off your mooks and explain to us in painful detail the intricacies of your brilliance? Pretty please?”

Spindly grabbed her shield with both clawed hands and yanked. Ree felt her arm pop out of its socket, and the shield slipped off into his grasp. He grinned wide, his teeth bloody.

“No such luck, my little pet,” said the Duke. “In a past life, perhaps. But I am not called Thrice-Retconned without reason.”

Ree wanted to give another pithy response, but she was busy writhing in pain. Her left arm hung limper than an overdone noodle, and it was all she could do to keep her eyes open. She scurried away from her dance partner, who spun his elongated arms in circles. The clawed hands pulled air past her face as she kept barely ahead of the blows.

“A little help, please!” Ree called to Eastwood as she scrambled back, ripping things off the shelves to toss at the creature. She threw small boxes, bags of dice, identification cards, and caltrops, to no discernible effect.

“Still busy!” Eastwood called, dashing back and forth between the two dead geeks, lightsaber flashing.
I guess you don’t spend years running with a Jedi without picking up some serious moves.

Ree grunted, pulling an arrow out of a quiver and throwing it like a tiny javelin. The arrow stuck in the tall man’s leg, the wound spilling out and adding to the blood armor. Ree grabbed another pair of arrows, but as she stood to throw, fatigue dragged on her. She steadied herself on the nearby shelf.

The rail-thin man closed on her as she found her feet, the arrow weighing twenty pounds in her hand as she fought past the fatigue.
Not now,
she thought, grinding her teeth. Grabbing the arrow with both arms, she rammed it into the man’s throat. The wound spurted blood like a Sam Raimi character.

Hell yeah!
Ree’s eyes went wide. Her momentum back, she raised another arrow, leaped forward, and buried it in his eye. Ice-cold blood sprayed all over her shirt, which made her doubly squicked since: 1) well, blood, and 2) blood was supposed to be
warm
. She had dead man’s blood on her.

At least I’m not a vamp from
Supernatural
.

Ree pulled out Sting and raised it high to chop the fiend’s head off, kind of hoping that it was overkill but not really ready to fight someone with an arrow coming out of his eye. The sword clanged off of the cement floor with her downward stroke, and the head rolled to the side, sticking to the ground at an angle as the blood hardened.

She exhaled slowly, scanning the room for Eastwood. He’d backed up and onto his desk, using the high ground to keep the two dead geeks at bay. The Duke stood to the side, watching and buffing his fingernails.

Options unfolded in front of her like a cynical Choose Your Own Adventure.

If you charge into battle to help the man who tried to get your boss’s son to commit suicide, turn to page 73.

If you take the coward’s way and run the hell away, turn to page 497.

If you try to sneak up on and backstab the Thrice-Retconned Duke of Pwn, turn to page 666.

If you try to pop your shoulder back into its socket by shoulder-checking a metal shelf, turn to Chapter 21.

Chapter Twenty-one

You Have Chosen Medical Masochism

Ree figured that the backstabbing option would get her killed pretty fast, and her sense of do-gooderism wouldn’t let her abandon Eastwood. She knew intellectually how to put her arm back into its socket, but she was afraid that if she screwed it up, she might lose the arm.

Then again, if the arm is deadweight, I’m screwed if it loses me the fight. So what’s it going to be?

Ree leaned against a shelf, grounded her feet, grabbed her left arm with her right, and took a breath. She lunged forward, ramming her shoulder into the shelf as she pushed with her good arm. Ree felt more than heard the
pop,
which was followed by a fresh wash of pain.

She slumped to the floor, eyes hot with tears of pain.
Holygoddamnedmonkeyballsow
.

After sobbing for a few moments, she rolled over and sat up, looking at an increasingly harried Eastwood on his desk, using the lightsaber more like a broom desperately warding off vermin than an experienced fighter wielding an elegant weapon from a more civilized age.

Not over yet.
“Big Damn Hero time, Ree.”

Striding down the aisle, she gathered her courage and pushed back the pain. She picked up the sword and retrieved the Captain America shield from its resting place atop the tall man’s body.

“Player Two has entered the game, motherfuckers!” Ree shouted, drawing the woman’s attention away from Eastwood. The same bloody claws, but her hair was also red-streaked, with arrowhead-shaped chunks of hardened blood dotting her dishwater-colored mane. Ree slashed horizontally, pushing the woman back and away from Eastwood. Carrying her cut through, she pivoted in place and cut at the round man. Her sword sliced through layers of back fat, drawing blood, more quick-harden armor forming over the cut.

As the round man rolled her way, Ree gave ground. “I got the other one with an arrow in the eye,” she said, skipping back to face the dead woman, who wound up her hair like a whip, then cracked it at Ree.

Ree jumped out of the way, favoring voids over deflections to keep from giving the woman more blood armor. “Maybe they take head shots?” She caught a few cuts on her jacket and along her sword arm, but the leather took most of the bite.

I’m sorry, cows. You wanted me to think of you as more than burgers, and now I know you make awesome armor. Probably not what you were looking for. Note to self: Remember to thank Drake for his awesome coat.

Eastwood jumped to his left, dodging a meaty swipe from the round deadie. “Could be. But he parries like a master.”

“Fight better, then!” Ree hid behind her shield as the dead woman swung her hair around again. The sound of the hair on the shield was like hail mixed with the floppy squeegees of a car wash. And it smelled like patchouli old enough to order a beer.

Ree cut at the hair as it squeegeed off the shield. She caught a chunk and sent it off to the side, which elicited a hiss from the dead woman. The shorn ends of the hair bled, forming a matted chunk of blood plate.

Great, now her hair has a mace in it.

Ree stepped forward, trying to cut at the woman’s neck, but the dead woman spun back, taking the shot in her thick hair. Another gob of hair went flying, replaced by another mass of bloody plate.

This is going to stop working really fast.

Ree mimed a third cut, and the woman dodged back, whipping her hair around. Ree turned her wrist, pulling the cut, then swung it up again once the blood hair had whipped past. Ree took cuts along her right side and a dull blow from one of the blood plates, but she connected, tearing off the dead woman’s jaw with the blade. Ree quickly cut up from the right and took the woman’s head off, sending blood spraying all over Eastwood’s wall of screens.

Ree shuddered.
That effect is a lot scarier in person than on-screen.

She shook off the image and turned left to see Eastwood throw a combo, feinting to each limb before shooting straight forward and spearing his opponent through the mouth. The round man rolled back and went limp, his thick limbs hanging out from his rotund core.

Eastwood walked along his desk, holding the lightsaber out at the Duke. “Here’s how this is going to go.” Eastwood furrowed his brow, concentrating. “You’re going to conjure up Branwen, and then you’re going to get the
fuck
out of here and never show your yellow-toothed face in Pearson again.”

It was the first time Ree had heard him curse in English. Not Klingon, Chinese, or made-up-SF languages, but plain ole English, and with more vitriol than she usually strung in a whole sentence of cursing.

Ree watched as the Chief of the Dork Lords of Hell reacted to Eastwood’s ultimatum.

“And why would I bother acknowledging these terms, boy? I have hundreds more where those three came from, and I know enough about you to destroy you from the demon pits just as easily as from here.”