Hexomancy (14 page)

The mural started with the original followers of Aesclepius and Thoth, the keepers of sacred medicine in antiquity in Saqqara and Thebes. Next were several pictures of Aesclepiomancers through the ages, passing down the mundane aspects of their art across the western world with pictures of traders on the Silk Road, mixing and trading secrets with other traditions, and then going into hiding during the Enlightenment with the rise of Technomancers.

And now, Dr. Wells: A Geekomancer’s best friend after nine rounds with the monsters (human and magical) of Pearson.

“He said you’d be coming.” Dr. Wells strode at Resident-on-Rounds speed back to one of her rooms. The new locale was much bigger than her older digs, big enough for a dozen beds in the front room, plus three private rooms.

The doctor opened the door onto an ICU room, tubes and wires, the whole nine yards. And at its center, a beaten and broken Eastwood.

“Holy shit,” Ree said, hand going to her mouth.

The bearded geek was wrapped up from head to toe, one eye and his mouth uncovered.

“You made it,” Eastwood croaked.

“How are you awake? And what the hell happened to you?”

“Strega Number Two. Turns out she wasn’t satisfied with just bleeding me dry. I stepped out of the Dorkcave tonight right into some art deco mousetrap. Pressure plate at the base of the stairs. As soon as it clicked down, a grate wrapped with barbed wire dropped down on the stairs, putting a roof on top of me. I couldn’t move the mesh, so I tried to get back inside, but she’d installed a super-magnet, which must have been activated by the pressure plate. I saw the marbles make their way down and around, gears and levers dancing together.”

A coughing fit stopped him, shaking the full-body rig. Dr. Wells glided straight by to the display instruments.

“Gently, Anthony. Shallow breaths.”

He took a slow, wheezing breath, and continued. “Then the grate came up and steel bowling balls started falling on me like monster-size hail. I tried to make a run for it, but all that got me was a face-first introduction to the concrete of the steps.”

“My goodness,” Drake said, his face gone white. Well, whiter.

“I couldn’t get out. There must have been eight or ten of the things on me, crushing my ribs, legs. One hand was already in my pocket, so I pulled out the sideboard. I couldn’t even see the cards, so I just started tearing. I knew the Nightcrawler was in there somewhere. But first I managed to half suffocate myself with a circle of protection, and then make my problem even worse by casting giant growth and shredding my back with the barbed wire. But I made it, and the Doc can pick up from there.”

“He had a shattered patella, ulna, and radius, a cracked jaw, broken ribs, and severe trauma pretty much everywhere else.

“If this weren’t the solstice, he would have died. But while the Strega’s powers are at their height now, so are mine. But it took every bit of skill to keep him from death’s door. The rest, he has to do on his own.”

“So you can’t heal him anymore?” Ree asked.

“Not with magic. The rest is up to mundane medicine and luck.”

“Shiiit. You get a good look at her?”

“That’s the good thing. She stood at the top of the stairs and gloated for a while. Couldn’t see the cards in time to stop me, which is why I managed to get away. Gotta love monologuers.”

“Takes one to know one,” Ree said, the tide of her anger rising again now that she knew Eastwood wasn’t in immediate likelihood of kicking off. Drake’s cough was quite clearly a tut of disapproval.

“You want to know what she looks like or what?”

“Yeah. Can’t let her walk around like she owns the town.”

“That’s what I thought. I’d peg her at five-six, Scandinavian.”

“A little short for a Scandinavian,” Ree said.

“They’re not all giants.”

“Says you,” Ree said, remembering her school trip to Amsterdam, where she’d felt like a ten-year-old at a basketball game.

Eastwood carried on. “Athletic figure. Runner’s gear, but designer, silvers and golds, with a big-ass art deco hairpiece, all silver triumphalist architecture-like.”

“So we went from gothic lolita to derby to art deco?” Ree asked.

“Everyone’s got a hobby.”

“Did she give a name?” Drake asked.

“Lachesis,” Eastwood said.

“They do like their flashy names, don’t they?”

“You get anything from her we can use to backtrack her?”

Eastood tried to nod, then winced and slumped back into the bed. “Wells has it. Just a bit of one of the levers of her traps. You’ll need to use magical methods, I figure. But if you set the sting right, you should be able to snare her. If she’s going to try to finish the job.”

“She would be making her way here,” Drake said.

“Nope. Wells made sure of that.”

The doctor nodded. “I’ve never met anyone who could find me that I didn’t want to. I moved because clients couldn’t get to me, not because the gnomes could.”

“So we go after Lachesis, then what? You want me to Incredible Nullifier her powers away, too? Then you try to convalesce and outpace the next season so we can do this whole thing again?”

“I’m in no condition to do it myself, kid. And you’re the one who declared yourself Pearson’s personal superhero.”

“Damn my heroic code,” Ree said, fully aware of how ridiculous she sounded. It was one thing to let Eastwood fend for himself when he was capable. Letting an attempted murderer run free and continue to endanger people in the city was something very different.

“You up for a game of cat and mouse?” Ree asked Drake.

“As long as this does not count as our first date. I’d rather preferred the notion of your traditional dinner and a movie.”

“Done.”

“Oh, good. That took long enough,” Eastwood said.

Dr. Wells smiled.

“You, shut up,” Ree said, pointing at Eastwood. “And you, back to bedside manner,” she said, pointing at Dr. Wells. “The lever?”

Dr. Wells handed over a mangled lever covered with runes

She checked her phone. It was getting late. That was good for a break-and-enter, but less so for a stakeout. And she
really
wanted to get back to the smooching part of the evening.

But first, they’d need to get out of the sewer, which she guessed might prove to be tricky.

“Okay. I’m on it.”

“The oracles are in the Dorkcave, if you can get back in. I remember you getting out easily enough last time you needed to.”

“Got it,” she said, not convinced in the least that the power-snuffing idea was remotely the best option. But she could cross that bridge when she came to it. Or just light it on fire, maybe.

“Thanks, Doc,” Ree said.

“Do your best with Eastwood. I rather believe that Ree is not nearly done being angry with him,” Drake said.

Dr. Wells nodded. “Try not to let whatever’s banging around outside in when you open the door, will you?”

Ree sighed as she walked back into the main room.

“I was hoping I was wrong about that,”

Sure enough, the sounds of splashing and stomping outside signaled that something not-at-all tiny was lurking in the sewer passage.

Ree plopped down onto one of the cots and pulled out her phone.

“Time for a power-up. What did you bring in terms of firepower?”

Drake took the cot opposite, scooting it forward so he could put his boots on either side of hers. They were all disgusting, but she appreciated the touch even through the stink and the thick leather.

“My rifle, a bayonet for same, my kukri, and the handgun. What were you thinking for this situation?”

Ree thumbed back at the wall and the unknown beastie outside. “That sounds like something big. Which makes me think I’m going to want the brick power suite. Or I could do Spider-Man again and go three-dimensional.”

“If that thing is truly as large as we’re thinking, should we not merely use one of your teleportation cards to make a quick escape?”

“I’m fresh out of cards that could move us both. This year’s been rough on my stash.”

“So be it. I can provide fire support, but it seems prudent that you once again take point, dangerous though that may be.”

“Just because there can be smooching after the Shake of Victory doesn’t mean we do this any different. You start getting all white knight self-sacrifice-y, and we’re going to have problems.”

“I know that now. But that will not prevent me from worrying.”

“Free country,” she said with a wink. “I’m feeling Buffy on this one. You good to watch the door while I power up?”

“Certainly.” Drake shifted around to face the door, rifle leveled. His left foot still pressed up against hers.

Ree cued up “Chosen,” her go-to empowerment episode for the show, with Buffy at the height of her chops, the show at its most overt and potent with its girl-power message. Sure it was on the nose, but she hadn’t met a Buffy fan who failed to shiver when they saw the beaten girl put her hand up and stop her abuser, who hadn’t gotten a smile when they saw the little leaguer’s look of
Oh, I
got
this.

Diving into the episode, Ree imagined herself among them, remembering the scrawny, awkward girl she’d been, desperate to be one of those Chosen.

Twenty minutes later, a charge of badass sisterhood put spring in her step, and she hopped up, moving to the door.

“Ready?” she asked Drake. He joined her by the door, a hand on the thick metallic ring that stood in as the door handle. She was point; he was mark.

“This is still not a date, by the way,” she said, flashing a hungry smile. “So we both have to get through this so there can be more smooching.”

“Agreed. Lead on, my dear.”

She nodded, and Drake hauled the door open. Ree thumbed on her lightsaber, and they bounded out into the sewer.

Oh, it’s just a crocodile
, Ree thought ironically.

A crocodile twenty feet long, with glowing green eyes and four-inch-tall demon birds with onyx wings and mad red eyes swarming around it.

No biggie,
she thought, gulping.

Chapter Fifteen

Still Not a First Date

The crocodile’s maw was a good five feet long and two feet wide. More than big enough to swallow her whole down to the calves.

Ree considered her plan, mental voice taking on a Buffy-esque patter:

Step one: Avoid getting eaten.

Step two: Take out a limb or two.

Step three: Wrasslin’.

Ree slid to the side, giving Drake room to open fire. Rifle-fire vaporized a few of the demon birds, sending the rest to the air in a cloud that was equal parts Hitchcock and
Pitch Black
.

The crocodile ran-swam forward, too big to just glide through the water, but getting a boost as it went, the winter melt leaving yard-deep water to work with.

“Stay up out of the water,” Ree said, lightsaber dancing around in a defensive pattern, working like a bug zapper as the demon birds swarmed her. A couple of birds winged through her defenses, coming all at once. Beaks and claws carved through her coat and bit into her buff jacket, the best present Drake had ever given her.

“You could just turn around and go the other way, you know,” Ree called out to the crocodile, which seemed to not be in the mood to respond.

This was the problem with nonsapient monsters. They didn’t appreciate good banter. Peter Parker didn’t have this problem, and Buffy’s rank-and-file mooks could at least grunt aggressively in response.

But this time, she was wrong.

The crocodile spoke with a voice like an avalanche. “This is our kingdom, morsel. We are Scale, sovereign of the sewer.” The crocodile bound forward, snapping at Ree.

“The fuck?” Ree cut at the croc’s face, jumping back, training saving her ass despite the talking-monster surprise.

“This is quite unusual,” Drake declared, still picking off the demon birds with deft, controlled shots. The swarm diminished, retreating to form a halo above the croc’s head.

“These sewers are ours now, mortals. The price for tresspassing is death.”

“Dude, I’ve spent more time down here than just about anybody. I’m the Duchess of Pearson’s sewers. Just ask Yelp.”

Scale growled, “Yield, and we will do you the favor of killing you before we consume you.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Ree said, drawing her phaser and zapping the croc at the left shoulder.

The creature roared, anger muting out language. And then it charged.

Ree slashed at the creature’s face, and the blade glanced off, raising sparks.

Ummm, that’s not supposed to do that,
Ree thought. The thing about lightsabers was that they were fucking
lighstabers
, and they cut through everything that wasn’t another lightsaber or Cortosis-weaved thing-a-ma-whats-it.

And w
ho the hell ever heard of Cortosis-weaved crocodile scales?

Plowing right through her attack, the crocodile bit down on Ree’s arm. Jagged teeth eviscerated the arm of her coat, and pierced the enchanted buff jacket, drawing blood.

Ree dropped the lightsaber, pain blue-screening her vision.

Scale worried at her, shaking its snout back and forth, teeth tearing into her arm. Without the Buffy magic, the bite would have snapped her bones like twigs.

Screaming seemed like the thing to do.

Blue bolts soared over her shoulder, searing wounds into Scale’s back. Drake dove past her with a kukri in one hand and his Hellboy gun in the other, rage in his eyes.

He landed hard on the creature’s back, sliding the kukri between two clumps of armored scales at its neck. With purchase, he started unloading the über-revolver, the gun’s report filling the sewer.

Thinking of Buffy and the Chosen, and maybe a little of smooches, Ree pushed through the pain, “Drake, get out of there!” She pulled her pocketknife out and chucked it at Scale’s eye, grateful for the hours of throwing practice at every range, including “close enough that maybe you should just hold on to the knife and stab,” which is what she would be doing save for the Cortosis-weave scales and the Ow-fuck-ow death grip on her other arm.

Thanks to Buffy magic, the blade struck true, burying itself to the hilt in Scale’s right eye.

The creature roared, releasing Ree’s arm. She dropped to her knees, blood flowing.

That’s going to need medicine or magic, ASAP
, she thought.

The demon birds pecked at Drake as he tried to ride Scale like a bucking bronco. But Drake was no cowboy, and the über-croc rolled, plunging the adventurer into the water.

“Shit!” Ree called, running through her mental inventory. The lightsaber did nothing, Drake’s rifle did a little, the knife was fine, so was the gun.

If Ree’d learned one thing in nearly three decades of video gaming, it was that you spammed attacks on the weak points.

She dropped off the ledge into the water, plunging her head down into the sewer water, searching for the glint of silver. The tainted water stung her arm, accelerating the onset of bacterial DoomCrap, on top of whatever nasty shit was in Scale’s mouth already.

Coursing her good arm through the water like an oar, she cut her hand on an aluminum can lid, but then knocked something cylindrical farther ahead of her.

She kicked herself forward and reached, her breath already going short. It was more than a little hard to maintain breath control with a seeping arm wound. Her fingers found metal again, and she pulled it in, wrapping her hand around a familiar rubber handle. Ree tucked her legs up and stood up in the water, gasping. Drake was holding on to his kukri for dear life, his shoulder-mounted light strobing, mega-revolver silent. Downside to a revolver, even one that shot fifty-cal shells.

Ree spun the lightsaber and thumbed the blade back on, the weapon leaping to life and adding her blue light to his yellow-orange.

She dove forward, digging deep into the Buffy magic to guide her hand. She stabbed the lightsaber forward, leading Scale’s movements. The lightsaber missed his eye by inches, glancing back and off the creature’s neck.

Point control’s for shit with this arm
, Ree admitted.

Scale mauled at her with one arm. Ree ducked under the blow, face smacked by choppy water. The croc’s claws ripped her coat in two but didn’t break the buff jacket.

That coat was ruined anyway.

Ree stabbed at Scale’s eyes again, missing as the creature dropped into the water, coming up for another massive chomp.

Time slowed, and Ree saw her opportunity jump out at her like a Quick Time Event. A dangerous, disgusting Quick Time Event. But she knew that despite the slowing of time, she couldn’t get out of the way of this chomp. Knew with every inch of her sewer-sopped body.

But there was another way. A gross, possibly fatal way.

So she dove into Scale’s massive maw, making herself as narrow as possible and tucking her knees up to her chest, leading with the lightsaber.

Focusing to keep her sense of up and down, she landed in Scale’s gullet and twisted her wrist, the lightsaber slicing a hole in the crocodile’s throat.

Teeth tore at her on both sides, but she kept going, using the lightsaber like a whisk, careful not to let it cut up toward where Drake would be.

Scale’s roar deafened her, and the world rocked and rolled around her.

With a massive sound of spitting, Ree splooshed back out and into the water, cold hitting her on all sides.

She dropped her lightsaber, flailing to get her feet under her.

Ree kept her mouth closed, but sewer water rushed up her nose. Sputtering and bleeding and aching, Ree found solid ground with her feet, and she pushed herself up, head clearing the water once more.

In the distance, Scale swam-crawled into the distance at ridiculous speed.

And there was Drake, draped over the side, head flat against the sewer ledge, gasping.

“That was . . . bracing.”

“I’d call it a fucking scary time, but yeah, ‘bracing’ fits, too.”

The demon birds were also gone, the cloud following the self-declared Lord of the Sewer.

“What a night,” Ree said.

“You may repeat that for emphasis,” Drake said.

“What a night.” Ree kicked around in the sludge until she found her lightsaber again, then went bobbing for disgustingly-coated apples, retrieving her lightsaber once more. There was no point in wiping it off, but she did it anyway. That sword had saved her life once again, and Drake’s besides.

“Indeed. I suggest we away presently, lest another sewer-dwelling monstrosity try to stake its claim. I owe you a milkshake.”

“Let’s hit the showers first, please. Dear God, please.”

They escaped the
sewers without further incident. Drenched in muck, Ree refused to do anything until they’d showered and changed. But since their relationship had started all of two hours ago, if it could be called that, neither had a change of clothes at the abode of the other.

This was a time when having already gone public with her friends really paid off. Ree didn’t have to sneak into the Shithole, instead kicking her boots off at the door, announcing, “Sorry. Magic crap,” and stuffing the shreds of her coat into a garbage bag. She put a towel, shampoo and body wash, and a full change of clothes into a day bag, tossed some PowerBars in as well, and thundered down the stairs to meet Drake. Her backup coat wasn’t up to the winter, so Drake sprang for a cab.

Once they were ensconced in his apartment, Drake tossed his ichor-stained coat into a corner.

“After you,” he said, gesturing at the bathroom.

“Ditching the coat was almost half the battle. Plus, if I dive into hot water right away now, wouldn’t be good for my system. Your home; you should go first.”

Drake raised an eyebrow, and Ree shooed him toward the bathroom.

Plus this way, she could join him once he got started.

“Please make yourself at home. The kettle is on, if you care to make tea,” Drake said, stepping into the restroom.

Ree waited for several minutes, pacing out the time it would take to make the necessary ablutions. Then she shed her jeans and her top and knocked on the door.

“Can I join you?” she called, loud enough (she hoped) to be heard over the shower.

“Yes,” Drake answered, just barely audible over the water.

“W00t,” Ree said under her breath, opening the door. Drake’s bathroom had a sink on the left, a stack of parts and toiletries on the right, and an opaque brown shower curtain covered in gears and gizmos, a gift from one of his not-actually-magical Steampunk compatriots.

Ree shed the rest of her clothes and pulled back the curtain with a “Hellooo?” in a singsong voice.

Drake’s figure told the tale of an active life, and an interesting one. He had a number of scars that she’d never seen before, on his stomach, his thigh, and across his ribs. Nice butt, too, though his pants had made that clear long ago. His hand already covered his junk, but that would be resolved soon enough.

Turning to see Ree, Drake froze. “Ree?!” he shouted in surprise, covering up even more, his cheeks going beet red. “What are you doing?” he stuttered, flustered as she’d ever seen him.

Shitshitshitshit
. Ree slid the curtain closed and jumped back, Drake’s surprise sending her into a guilt-embarassment panic.

Clearly, he had in fact
not
said, “Yes, you should join me,” but “Yes, I can hear you, what?”

“Shit!” she said from beyond the curtain, thankful that it was opaque as she realized she’d sashayed right past several boundaries in her eagerness.

“I’m so sorry. I asked if I could join you, and I thought you said yes, when clearly that’s not what you said, because otherwise I wouldn’t have freaked you out, and I’m sorry for freaking you out and I’m going to leave now, okay?”

Ree scooped her clothes up with one motion, then practically jumped out of the bathroom.

She dressed at lightning speed, overcompensating for her massive faux pas. Most people she’d dated jumped at the chance for shower sex, but Drake was, as she’d established and should have remembered, not like other people she’d dated. But she’d imagined that Drake had been having mad aetherial adventurer sex with the Contessa, given the way he went on about her. But even so, why wouldn’t he be prudish about sex?

You have led me astray, libido
, she told herself, taking long breaths to get her cool back.

Two minutes that felt like two hours later, Drake emerged from the bathroom in a fresh set of clothes, his hair slicked against his head, and one hand over his eyes, a sliver opening between fingers to look at Ree. He dropped the hand, seeing she was fully dressed. He was still red, though part of that was being flushed from the shower.

She hoped.

He opened his mouth to speak. She stopped him, jumping in. “I’m sorry. Can I shower and then apologize some more, or do we need to figure it out now?”

Drake stepped aside and gestured to the bathroom.

“Thanks. Five minutes.”

“Take your time, please. I rather need a sit-down.”

“Five minutes.”

Ree shut the bathroom door behind her and continued to beat herself up while she disrobed. The glory of hot water helped wash away a lot of the embarrassment, but not all of it. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed to be seen naked, much more about how Drake freaking meant that she’d been the one to embarrass him, and that wasn’t cool. Sex-positivity was all well and good, but it was a whole lot of crap without mutual consent.

She took as quick and utilitarian a shower as she could manage, given that she still had to get sludge off her. Ichor dissolved off streets and crap within a few minutes. But if it got onto clothing or flesh? Then the crap had damage resistance for miles. The third shampooing got the stench out of her hair, so she finished up and dressed.

She knocked on the door. “I’m done, and I’m clothed. Okay to come out?”

“By all means.”

Ree stepped back into the room, seeing Drake on his love seat, no longer covered in a heaping pile of gear and equipment.

“I am sorry for startling you,” he said.

Ree laughed. Just laughed. Here she was, running roughshod over his boundaries, and then he goes and apologizes.