Hexomancy (24 page)

Eastwood looked to Eriko, then to Branwen, like he was pulled in seven directions at once. The conflict played out on his face, but only for a second. He’d made his choice, and he’d stick with it. The dude was nothing if not stubborn.

“If only one of us gets to live out our lives, it should be you,” Eastwood said to Branwen. “Be a mother again. I was a shitty father figure, anyway.”

Ree’s heart was pounding so fast, so loud, that she let the moment to snark pass right by.

Eriko limped over to join the group. Ree wrapped an arm around the wounded cyberpunk, bracing her up.

“So, Dukey, what do you say? The catch of the day, or years of blame, trials, cold wars, and infighting down in Hell, the Dork Lords carving up your kingdom into a hundred conventions and fiefdoms?”

The Duke laughed, the sound like an avalanche at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. “You’ll have your deal, Eastwood. I just wanted to wait for you all to fall over one another being noble and repressed.”

Ree was still on a hair trigger, ready to run, fight, or both at the same time. Her emotional landscape was a fucking disaster zone, love and fear and gratitude and anger and compassion adding up to a near-suffocating pool of feeling. . . .

The Duke flicked his hand, and a worn vellum parchment appeared, text blazing into existence, ornate red lettering filling the page. The Duke put thumb to the contract in the bottom left corner, then rolled it back up and lobbed the parchment to Eastwood. The geek tossed the bomb sideways to Branwen, who snatched it out of the air without blinking.

Eastwood caught the contract and unfurled, reading, one eye still on the Duke.

Ree kept a hand on the spiritual blaster, though she had every reason to believe that these weapons would likely do jack-all to the Duke.

“Ree?” Eastwood asked, indicating the contract. She stepped over and held the parchment in the air, unmoving thanks to the not-quite-physics of the Spirit realm.

Eastwood signed the contract, which burst into black light, then flew back over to the Duke, rolling up into his hand. The Duke opened his mouth wide and stuffed the contract down his throat like a sword-swallower.

He smiled, then snapped his fingers. “Now, boy. We should away. You have one minute for goodbyes, as per the contract.”

Eastwood handed the bomb to Branwen, then hugged her like he’d never let go.

Ree stepped back to let them have their moment, lovers reconnected after years. She imagined what she’d have to say to Drake if she were in the same position.
I’d never put myself in such a crappy situation
. Though really, she had no way of knowing.

A few moments later, they disentangled. Branwen stepped back, and Eriko limped up, grabbing on to Eastwood like he was a life raft. But not for balance. She dug her nails into the man’s coat, whispering something in his ear. Her eyes were wet, puffy. Not that Ree’s were any better, with the emotional roller coaster they’d all been through, one last drop just around the corner.

Eriko squeezed Eastwood tight one last time, then let go. Branwen offered a hand to help, but Eriko shrugged away, standing on her own two feet.

Finally, Eastwood extended a hand to Ree. “You’ve done more and better than I could have asked for, even if you were a pain in the ass.”

Ree took his hand, and shook. “Right back at you. The pain-in-the-ass part.”

Eastwood stepped back, turning to the Duke.

“You come back at us, I won’t hesitate to put you down,” Ree said.

“Please don’t,” Eastwood said, walking forward to the Duke, hands shaking, clearly trying to put on a strong face, to see his heroic gesture through to the end.

The Duke spoke again. “Know that The Gulch is not safe, never will be safe. Branwen, Ree. I’ll be seeing you later.” He gave them the same wave that Vir gave Mr. Morden, making it as creepy as a cute gesture has ever been, menace and delight mixed like a cocktail. He wrapped his red hands around Eastwood, pulled the man into his form, and the pair imploded, collapsing into a puff of sulfur.

And then, nothing.

Branwen dropped to her knees and screamed. It was a scream of defeat, of triumph, of freedom, of loneliness. It was a hundred different things all at once. It was open season in her heart, every doubt and joy and frustration all exploding and rampaging at once.

Ree went to her mother, hugging and crying, overjoyed and deflated.

An indeterminate minute later, she let go and went back to Drake, burned but still breathing.

She touched her earpiece, calling up the line out of Spirit. “Shade, we need a way out. But there’s a wrinkle. There’s four of us coming back—me, Drake, Eriko, and Branwen.”

“Is Eastwood okay?”

“He’s gone, Shade. It’ll be Branwen coming back with us. We need a way to get her out without a tether or whatever.”

“Ah,” Shade said.

“I can get myself out,” Branwen said. “I’ve done it before.”

Damn, Mom
. Ree nodded, impressed.

“Just the three, then.”

“Understood,” Shade said. “Just a minute.

A silent moment passed, spectral winds passing through the street.

Ree and Branwen pulled Drake up and held him between them, still out for the count. His burns looked nasty, though the jacket had taken much of it. Spiritual armor or something. He had spent years and years adventuring through Spirit realms, after all.

“Portal opening now,” Shade said.

A two-yard-tall circle opened up in front of them, the portal showing the Dorkcave, Shade and Dr. Wells standing by.

“You good, Mom?” Ree asked.

Branwen put her hands together, took a long breath, and blinked out of existence.

A moment later, she blinked into sight in the Dorkcave.

The two women stepped through with their unconscious companion, and the world went white.

Ree woke up
in her seat, Drake beside her. He was distinctly not burned to a crisp.

She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek, waking him up at a lurch. Ree squeezed his shoulder. “It’s fine, we’re safe. I’m here.”

Drake relaxed into her touch, looking around.

“Where’s Eastwood?”

“He’s gone,” Branwen said. She stood with Shade and Dr. Wells. Eriko reclined in her chair, asleep, but Eastwood’s chair was empty.

Ree pointed at the chair. “Where’s his body?”

Shade said, “Disappeared shortly before you checked in. From what Branwen tells me, the contract was sufficiently binding to bind his body to his spirit, the both of them transported to hell at once.”

Ree hmmphed. She didn’t really have energy left for anything else.

She wobbled to her feet and offered a hand to Drake as he did the same.

Turning, she saw Grognard and Talon, each leaning against a row of the stacks, bloodied and looking three miles past exhausted.

“Thanks for having our backs,” Ree said, sufficiently battered and wrung dry that she actively had to focus to put any real emotion into her words.

Grognard raised the head of his halberd an inch in recognition. Talon nodded.

“I think this calls for milkshakes. Lots of milkshakes. Mostly so that we don’t collapse from lack of blood sugar,” Ree said, looking at the crowd.

Dr. Wells said, “I’ll stay here with Eriko. That long spent with a cut tether has weakened her.”

“You good to hold the fort, then?” Ree asked, realizing that the Keeper of the Dorkcave wasn’t due back anytime soon. Or, really, at all.

At that thought, her phone buzzed a notification.

When she pulled it out, the screen was white, with black text. Eastwood’s voice spoke the message.

“If you’re hearing this, it means that my eventuality for the Thrice-Retconned Duke of Pwn’s return has gone off, and I’m being fitted for torture cuffs or something unimaginably nasty in hell, like watching
Manos: Hands of Fate
for all time alongside a devoted, ecstatic audience that just won’t shut up about how awesome it is.

“Ree, if you’ll have it, the Dorkcave is yours. If my gambit brings Branwen back, I need the two of you to move on with your lives, keep fighting the good fight, and not try to get me out. That dumbass move never works out well, and even if it did work, the Duke’s backlash would be even worse.

“I’ve made my choice, and please let it stand. If I frakked that all up, and neither of them are around, I want Grognard to look after the place. Sorry I couldn’t stick it out, brother.

“Whoever hears this, keep following your passions, turn them into something positive, some way to help. I got wrapped up in guilt and revenge and arrogance, and I lost sight of what got me into this whole thing: I wanted to be a hero; I wanted to help people. I lost perspective, and now I’m paying the price.

“Eastwood out.”

Branwen coughed back a sob, and Ree leaned into Drake, cacophony of emotion still deafening.

“And after milkshakes, I’m going to need a lot to drink,” she said.

“I’ve got that covered,” Grognard said, pulling himself up, chain mail rustling. He extended a hand to Talon, who stood as well.

“That was a hell of a thing. Kit worked out fine, though.” Her shield was dinged in a hundred places, and the spear was stained red a foot past the blade. But even bone-tired as Talon looked, she was proud and pleased in equal degrees. This was a woman born to fight, and she loved what she did. It was scary but infinitely useful.

“I know the Burger Bin is accepting, but this might push even their limits,” Ree said, making her way to the door, shedding weapons and armor as she went to slightly mitigate how badly they’d stick out of the crowd.

Once they’d had food, she could start the daunting task of processing all the crap she’d just gone through.

But first, shakes.

Epilogue

Breath of Life

They got more than a few stares at the Burger Bin, even de-armored and with the big, obvious weapons left at the Dorkcave with Dr. Wells. But money talked, and the group racked up a $120 bill and pushed two tables together to have their version of post-battle shwarma in the form of burgers, fries, and milkshakes.

Oh, the
milkshakes
. Choirs of angels should accompany the Burger Bin’s milkshakes. Even their straight-up vanilla was inspired—homemade ice cream, sumptuous texture, and with none of the chalky aftertaste that was endemic among crappy corner-store and chain milkshakes. This was the real shit. And for Ree’s favorite, every flavor combined to make a taste symphony, a seventeen-hundred-calorie yumpocalypse.

The world went from 360 to 1080p as caffeine and blood hit Ree’s system, and by the time the monstrous concoction was half-gone, she felt like she could rejoin the conversation.

Branwen caught up with Grognard and Shade, going back over several years’ worth of milestones. Drake sat beside Ree, a comforting arm around her shoulder, leaving him to eat with his left, which he did quite adeptly.
Clever boy
, she thought.

“I’m going to have a lot of catching up to do, aren’t I?” Branwen asked.

Grognard started rattling off titles. “You gotta start with MCU Phase One. It’s the most impressive work of cinematic franchising since the James Bond movies.”

“The X-Men movies were fine and all, but don’t tell me that the Iron Man movie was actually good. RDJ is an inspired bit of casting, but the character is second tier, at best.”

“No, seriously, Mom,” Ree said, energized by the three major forces in the universe: sugar, caffeine, and squee. “We can go watch it right now. And that’s not even the best one of the bunch. They managed to make Captain America not just a retro jingoistic mess, and Branagh directed
Thor
. It’s Kirby-tastic.”

“
Thor
is quite impressive. Ree says that’s because it’s as melodramatic as I am, and while the critique may be on point, my praise remains,” Drake added.

So, that’s one meet-the-parent conversation down
, Ree thought, noting the oddity of hanging out and talking magic shop and geekdom with her mom, her mom, who had helped make her the geek she was today, and was, after all, the reason she was in this magical world in the first place. The circularity of it all was kind of overwhelming, so she went back to her milkshake, leaning into Drake’s embrace.

This, this made sense. Odd couple though they were, it was one of the best things to come out of her urban fantasy life. The adventure and excitement were definitely up there, but they came with a crap-ton of peril.

And these folks. Her magical family of choice, weirdoes all, just as weird as her, but every single one weird in a different way.

“And more important,” Ree said, “George Lucas sold
Star Wars
to Disney. Which means new movies. Lots of them.”

At that, Branwen’s eyes lit up.

Grognard cleared his throat. “I’m going to order some of their soda to go, and then you’re all going to come down to my place to drink to Eastwood’s passing.” It wasn’t an invitation.

Ree went back up to the servers and slipped them a $20, figuring that a bit of scratch never hurt in keeping up a good relationship with one of her favorite all-hours purveyors of life-giving drugs.

At Grognard’s, it
took approximately 3.7 seconds for the booze to come out. Grognard wheeled out a barrel of his Critical Hit, in honor of Eastwood. The place was still closed, and would be for the rest of the day, if she knew her boss.

The brewmaster had called Chandra and Uncle Joe on the way, but other than that, it was going to stay a closed wake. There would be a memorial during the next Midnight Market, and even thinking ahead to that meant that Ree opened herself up to a flood of actuarial anxiety, the burden of the Dorkcave and the emotional baggage that came with it coming at her like whitewater.

Glasses full, Grognard started the toasts. “Eastwood wasn’t just another guy, just another friend. He was as noble a fuckup as I’ve ever known, and as a fuckup, I admired him. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but that’s what friends are good for. They call you on your bullshit, tell you when you’re going off the rails. He kept me in check, and I did my best to return the favor.”

Raising his stein, he continued. “Here’s to Eastwood. He died so others could live.”

“To Eastwood,” they chorused, and then drank. Ree took a sip, then a longer chug.

Her emotional HP was totally tapped out. She was all out of go, but it was important to be there for everyone. There were too many things to resolve, too many words to say, and all she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and spend a weekend processing everything that had happened over the last year, the highs and lows, the things said that couldn’t be taken back, lines crossed, friendships made, strained, and broken.

Twenty minutes later, Grognard came along with a flask. “You look beat. Pearson’s going to need you to be strong. With Eastwood gone, they’re going to look to you now.”

“The hell they will,” Ree said. “There’re a dozen people more senior than me.”

“But they’re not the ones pounding the pavement. You’ve stepped up, and people have noticed. Every community has its champion, and you’ve built yourself a fine reputation the last year and a half.”

Ree accepted the flask and took a shot. It was more Critical Hit, but the fortified version, Grognard’s Geekomancy expressing itself through brewing. One sip, and she felt fatigue drain out of her body, the gray cloud in her mind breaking up. “If I’m the champion, then we’re in trouble.” But this time, she said it with a wink.

“Thanks, boss,” she added.

“If you’re taking over the Dorkcave, you think you’ll still have time for little old Grognard’s?”

“Only always. I might ask for a change of job description, get out of the server business.”

“You’ll miss the tips,” he said.

Ree took another sip of the Critical Hit and handed the flask back. “But I won’t miss the food stains, so it evens out. Plus, if I’m going to be all Pearson Protector, I may not have time for a night and day job anymore.”

“I bet you can handle the cave by day, take the time you need at night,” Grognard said. “I’ll take whatever help you want to give. Before this all went down, I was going to ask if you wanted to go full partner, stake into the business. The offer still stands.”

“No shit?” Ree leaned sideways into the bar. “That’s a hell of a thing. Get back to you after I’ve slept this all off?”

“Of course.” Grognard clapped her on the shoulder, and she returned the gesture.

Reenergized, she hopped off her stool and went over to Shade and Branwen, who were chatting up a storm in one of the booths.

“They fought the whole night, kept going out again and again. I was out most of the time, thank goodness. I don’t have the stomach for all of the meatspace hand-to-hand,” Shade said. “Not like your girl, here. Ree, your mother was telling me that you enrolled in martial arts when you were six?”

“Yep, that’s me. Bullies: terrible for a kid’s self-confidence, great motivation to take up Taekwondo.”

Ree slid into the booth, taking a space by her mother. She blinked and reassured herself that her mother was still, in fact, there. She hadn’t ever known her mother as an adult, and seeing her in the rags of her Darth Atropos outfit, hair stained and ragged, made her as strange as what the years had done to her face, her hair. But spend a few years being tortured and brainwashed by a demon, see how good you look. On second thought, don’t. That’s what imagination was for.

“She wasn’t really serious about it for a few years. And then you started sparring at twelve, right?”

Ree took a long sip from her stein. “Yep. Twelve-year-old girls are terrible. Sparring let me hit things. It was good therapy.”

Branwen ran a hand through Ree’s hair, the motion familiar and strange all at once. Halfway through, Ree flinched away.

“Sorry.”

“No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“We’re a regular soap opera here, aren’t we?” Ree asked Shade.

The cyberpunk raised his hands. “Far be it from me to tell someone they’re strange. My heart and cyber-soul belong in 1986.”

“Can we chat for a minute?” Ree asked Branwen.

“Excuse me, my drink appears to be broken,” Shade said, catching the hint.

The booth empty, Ree spun through her mental Rolodex, trying to figure out what to say, what she should say.

What came tumbling out was what she’d wanted to say for years.

“You fucked up.”

Branwen took the words like a body blow. She righted herself, looked at her drink, took a long sip, and sat for a moment.

“I know. I’m sorry. You got the message I left with Eastwood?” she asked.

“Yep. Still doesn’t help. You broke Dad’s heart, and my heart. It took us a long, long time to get better. You could have told Dad about the magic stuff, about what the movies and shows were doing to you.”

“Just going cold turkey wouldn’t have helped. I needed to be free again, to be the most important person in my own life. It’s selfish, and I wish I’d figured out a way to be my own person and be a mother and a wife. But I couldn’t hack it.”

“Are you going to call him?” Ree asked.

Branwen froze, like a deer in the headlights of a demon car.

“I don’t even know what I’d say.”

“You could say you were sorry. He needs to hear it. But he also needs to keep moving on with his life. So I don’t know what to do. Should I forbid you from calling him so you don’t open up old wounds and send him right back to where he was when you left? Or keep this secret from him for the rest of his or my life? I don’t know, and I figured you’d want to weigh in.”

“I loved your father very much. He was the kindest person I’d ever met, and he gave me years of peace. But I can’t be that woman.”

Branwen pointed to Ree’s lightsaber, peeking out of her apron. “That is who I am. I’ve bound up my whole life in it, can’t not be it. The prequels were crap about a lot of things, but for me, a stable family and my calling don’t go together.”

“What about Eastwood?”

“Eastwood wasn’t the type to settle down. Never was, never would have been. He was good and bad for me, I was good and bad for him. It worked more than it didn’t.”

“So what are you going to do, then? Stay in Pearson? Go itinerant? Return to Dagobah?”

“My master is dead, years ago now. The only place I know people is here. But this is your city now, not mine.”

Ree reached out a hand, rested it on her mother’s palm. “It’s a big city, Mom. I’d rather not lose you again, if I can avoid it.”

Branwen smiled, and Ree saw her mother again, the woman she’d known as a girl, underneath the wrinkles and burns and years of pain.

“Good. Because someone needs to take over the Dorkcave, and that thing is just too Gen X for my taste. Though I would love to keep a key to raid it as an armory, if you don’t mind.”

Branwen grabbed Ree’s hand and turned the touch into a handshake. “On the condition that you come by at least once a week to talk.”

“Deal.”

That’s one thing down.
Ree slid out of the booth.

“Awesome. I’m going to go sleep for a week or so, and then I’ll come by.”

“Can’t wait,” Branwen said, her familiar glow still going strong.

She found Drake
at the bar, recounting the most recent adventure with Talon and Grognard.

“It was a fight for the ages, something out of a saga, every bit as dramatic as any of the films whose props they bore.”

Ree grabbed a stool and let him talk, embellishing and digressing from a story only hours old, applying the experience of a man who’d traveled across worlds, who had learned to fit in anywhere, if oddly. But no matter where he went, he stayed himself.

“Pardon me, folks,” Ree told her friends. “Can I steal you away for a minute?” she asked Drake.

“No,” he said. “You needn’t steal that which is freely given.”

And he says stuff like that.
She held out a hand and led him over to another booth.

“Are you okay?” Ree asked.

“Dr. Wells gave me a restorative, and that in addition to the joyous shake has put me in fine enough condition for one who has been through the wringer.”

“Really okay, or not-dead okay?”

Drake leaned in and kissed her. Gently, attentively, like his whole focus was on kissing just right, a sharpshooter’s attention to the precise deployment of two lips. “A portion of both, I suppose.”

“You wanna get out of here, then?”

“Are you making intimations of an amorous nature?”

Ree waggled her eyebrows in her best impression of Groucho Marx. It was pretty terrible impression, as she’d never gotten remotely close to his control.

But the mere attempt got Drake to chuckle, so it was always worth it.

The pair made their farewells. Hugs from Shade and Talon and Uncle Joe, kisses from her mom, a bear hug capped off with healthy claps on the back from Grognard, and they were off.

Back at Ree’s,
they kissed and laughed and tossed off sweaty clothes, making their way as quietly as possible to the bedroom. Ree left a sock on the door, and turned to Drake, already tucked under the covers, his shirt gone.

Drake sat up in the bed. “I’ve been thinking that it was high time that we celebrate another milestone. Seeing Eastwood’s sacrifice, I realized that there is nothing I would hold back from you, nothing I don’t want to do together.

“I am yours,” he said. “Heart and soul.”

Ree slipped into bed and kissed him on the forehead, then the lips. “I love you.”

Drake smiled a rakish grin to end all rakish grins. “I know.”

Ree waited a moment, then laughed with all the energy she had left. She kissed Drake again, then gave him a high five. They settled into a comfortable embrace, laughing contagiously.

+10 points for Harrison Ford’s
improv win.

“Also, when you mean you are mine, do you mean . . . ?” Ree asked, trying not to probe right after hitting one milestone and blunder her way toward another.