New Title 32 (30 page)

Rose looked smug. “See, you do need me after all. One big party, coming up.” I felt her charging up another spell as she filled her lungs with air. This time, her breath was a cloud of sparkling pink gas that filled the theatre all the way to the far walls. The gas pooled around everyone in the audience who didn’t have Elven blood, soaking into their skin and leaving them smiling in vacant bliss. Rose looked down with a smug, toothy grin. “There. They’ll be stoned out of their minds for five minutes and high as kites for two hours or so. Better get busy.”

Down in front of the stage, Nadia and the assembled Houseguard were casting the biggest version of
Retcon
they’d ever attempted. Between new memories and a major high from Rose’s happy gas, nobody in the audience would ever believe they had been in mortal danger.

Aerin was patching up wounded members of the audience. I waved at her while Gordon and Eric carried Lorena out onto the stage. Someone had taken off Lorena’s prosthetics and wrapped clean towels around her stumps. Nadia’s healing potion had stopped the bleeding, but she still had a horrifying number of wounds that were far from healed.

Dried blood had crusted one of Lorena’s eyes shut, but her other eye was alert. She smiled at Gordon despite the tears of pain. “Might…need a bit more makeup than I thought, but…I still want to be on the expansion’s cover.”

Gordon patted her hand. “I want you in the opening cinematic, too. Just relax and focus on breathing. There’s a…high-level cleric coming to heal you.”

“Better be…heroic level. I’m pretty damn messed up.”

That’s it! I laughed and clapped Gordon on the shoulder. “Lorena just salvaged this mess for you! Everything that just happened was a live-action preview of your next expansion. Dark Elves! Heroic classes for the priest, mage, and warrior. Emissary, Archmage, Warmaster. Rangers get dragons as legendary hunting partners.”

Gordon’s eyes glazed over. “That’s…insane. We already have an expansion to announce…” He closed his eyes and nodded. “Screw it. Won’t be the first time we’ve scrapped eighteen months of work overnight.”

I waved at Aerin again and this time she waved back. I turned back to Gordon and said, “Oh, you should let Rose enter the costume contest.”

“What do you mean, ‘let’ me enter?” Rose snorted smoke rings out over the audience. “Who’s going to stop me?”

“No costume is no costume,” Gordon said. “Those are the rules. You’re not wearing a costume, so you can’t enter. How about you being our special guest hostess for the show tonight?”

“Do I get a trophy?”

“I can do a big bag of goodies, candy, gift certificates, whatever schwag I can toss together.”

“Done.” Rose flared her wings out and bellowed, “All right BuzzCon! How great was that? Nothing like some raid content live on stage! Yeah!” She pumped her foreclaw in the air, triggering some feeble cheering. She shook her head. “Pathetic! Yell like you got a pair!” She roared again. People started joining in, and Rose kept encouraging them until the whole theatre was clapping.

As the applause died down, Rose looked around the stage and shrugged at the audience. “I can’t wait to show you what’s coming next, but there isn’t enough room up here! I guess I’ll just have to make some!”

She cast a handful of fireworks spells around herself, leaving plumes of colored smoke in the air to hide her transformation. I could see her Dragon body vanishing into dimensional storage, shrinking and smoothing into Rose’s Human form. She was wearing the red number I’d bought her when we met Mister M and his family. I think the crowd applauded harder for the dress than for the Dragon.

Rose bowed and said, “Now we have a surprise sneak peek at what you can look forward to in the next expansion! First up, Dark Elves as a player race! And here’s Angus, demonstrating the Fighter Heroic class, the Warmaster!”

Angus rolled his eyes, but started an elaborate Drow sword kata for two blades. With his near silent, matte black half-plate armor, he looked like a shadow come to deadly life. While he kept the audience enthralled, Aerin and Sandy made their way over to us.

Aerin knelt next to Lorena and looked her over. “Hmm, yeah, I’ve seen worse. Tell me, do you want just a patch job, or the full-body reset to default?”

Lorena pushed herself up to look at Aerin. “What do you mean, ‘reset to default’?”

“Full-body regeneration. Your legs grow back, scars vanish, and any cosmetic surgery you’ve had is undone. You will be as you should have been.”

“I’ll take you as you are,” Gordon said. “For better or worse, richer and poorer, to have and to—”

“Shut. Up.” Lorena took Aerin’s hand. “You must be the priestess David mentioned. Whatever that bitch was, she was evil, and you stood against her. That tells me what I want to know about your god. Heal me, and marry us, and I will follow your faith all my days. Please… I want to dance at my wedding.”

“There could be questions,” Sandy said. “People close to you are going to notice you have legs again. Your fellow veterans might want to know how this happened, and you won’t be able to tell them. Are you sure you want to deal with all that?”

Lorena nodded. “Yes.”

Aerin nodded. “As you wish, then.” She took a calming breath and held her hand over Lorena’s head. “Crom! This warrior has done great things and won honor for her name. Grant me the power to restore her body that she may rise and fight anew!” Aerin touched her hand to Lorena’s forehead, and in the blink of an eye, it was done.

“Oh, whoa…everything itches.” Lorena stood up, weaving back and forth like a drunken sailor. She grabbed Gordon’s shoulder for balance and patted her chest for a moment. “Hunh. I guess these got reset to default too.”

“They’re fine,” Gordon said. “But if you want, we can go to the best surgeon in Beverley Hills. Anything you want.”

Sandy took Lorena’s hands and concentrated for several seconds. “There. How do those feel?”

Lorena checked Sandy’s work and her jaw dropped. “Oh, wow. They’re spectacular. And...real! How did you do that?”

“Flesh shaping. A gift resulting from generations of horrific breeding experiments my ancestors carried out on their own children.” Sandy smiled and patted Aerin’s hand. “Your husband is nearly finished. Shall we go amaze the masses?”

“Absolutely.” Aerin gave Sandy an elaborate bow. “After you, Matriarch Llewellyn.”

Sandy returned it. “I couldn’t possibly. We are but humble guests of your honored household. After you, Matriarch Cullan.”

“You know perfectly well I can’t refuse the frigging guest-right. Oh fine, you win.” As they walked off, waving to the crowd, Aerin added, “Your dress is great. Do you still have those bunny slippers? The ones made from real rabbits?” As she passed, Aerin touched my shoulder. It only lasted a moment, but afterward I felt whole and healthy for the first time in weeks.

I looked around backstage, trying to find a quiet spot. Out on the stage, Aerin and Sandy created animals made of colored smoke and sent them chasing each other around the auditorium. Backstage, Nadia was introducing Eric to Angus. Toni was Human again, talking to a small group of young children over in the wings. The 50 DKP Minus crew had finished putting the band’s stage together and was moving it into position, ready to roll out for the show.

I went to the loading dock door. The night air was hot, thick with dust and the smoke of nearby fires. It still seemed sweet and clean after being inside the theatre. The volcanic ash covering the parking lot had broken down into powdery, talc-like dust. Much of it had already blown away in the wind, along with whatever remained of the Sanguine Vanguard corpses.

What didn’t make sense was that the bodies of the people killed by the Vanguard were still where they’d fallen. Thanks to Tony’s spit, I could see their spirits just standing around, looking lost and scared. I still had the spear tip, and the blood on it was still fresh and wet.

Risenue’s blood was acidic. This blood wasn’t. It belonged to someone else—someone who’d died on a hill outside Jerusalem. I took a deep breath and whispered, “I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing in for them. They didn’t deserve to die this way. I just want to make that right.” I took another deep breath, heart hammering in my chest and touched my little finger to the blood.

It didn’t kill me. In fact, I felt…fine. I even felt approval. I kneeled down and brushed it on the lips of the nearest dead guard. “Rise and walk,” I whispered.

His eyes opened.

I jumped back, sprawling on my ass. His wounds had vanished outright. No scar, not even any blood to mark where the wounds had been.I got to my feet and dealt with the others as fast as I could.

Once I finished and all the recently-dead folks were coming around, I felt the spear tip move in my hand. It had never demonstrated any degree of willful intent before, so I stopped and opened my hand to look at it.

It shot straight up into the night sky, along with the broken sections of the shaft out of Granfer Vic’s car. I waited, but after a few minutes they still hadn’t come back down. Fair enough. Back under lock and key. I saluted the night sky and headed back inside.

Angus was waiting for me. Even without his disguise on, he was easy to recognize. His face and features were almost the same, other than his onyx skin, violet eyes, and bone-white hair. That aside, the scar was a dead giveaway. “So, you found the Spear of Longinus. Where is it?”

I pointed up. “Safe. I don’t think it’s going to get out much.”

He nodded. “Better that way.” He clasped my wrist and said, “Well fought, friend.”

“And you.” I wasn’t sure what to say, so I added, “Well fought as well.” Hopefully, it didn’t sound…noobish.

He accepted it with a nod and clapped me on the shoulder. “So, care to explain how one night schtupping you was enough to drive my daughter into marrying a gender-conflicted Dragon?”

Caught off guard, I couldn’t think of anything for several long seconds. Finally, I shrugged and wagged my thumb out the loading dock doors. “Vegas, man.”

Angus roared with laughter and we went off to find our ladies.

White Weddings

“There’s Antonia and Valkrys, of course, and Giselle. She’s…seventeen now, and quite a good student with conjuration and charm magic. She’d be delightful as a flower girl.” Aerin scribbled more notes, still talking. “Mandy can do the ceremony, but she might not be available without a lot of advance warning. We should plan on having Gaar do it. Alissa will have to come, of course, which means we have to find a place to keep Shadow while she’s here. Disguise spell is out. We don’t want a saber-toothed tiger wandering around disguised as a pony or whatever.”

“Mother, stop.”

“I’ll have to invite Nikolai, of course, but the last thing I want is for your father to get into a pissing contest with Angus over who gets to give you away.”

Nadia yelled, “Crom’s balls, Mother! Stop!”

Aerin’s pen stopped in mid-skritch, her eyes wide. “What? Did I forget someone? Please don’t make me start over again.”

Nadia took a deep breath. “Mother, Eric and I are running down to the marriage license office and doing our paperwork before they close. Then we’re going to find a little chapel, get some flowers, and have Elvis do the ceremony. Not Gaar. Not Mandy. Elvis.”

“Elvis? Oh, really?” Aerin crossed her arms. “If you think I’m digging his ass up and doing a
Raise Dead
just for your wedding ceremony…”

“Not the real Elvis,” Nadia howled. “Oh, god, mother! An Elvis impersonator! He doesn’t even have to be a good one!”

Aerin pursed her lips. “Well, fine. You should have been more specific.”

“All right, then, I’ll be specific. It’s just…we don’t want a big production, or a nice respectable ceremony. We want our wedding to be pure Las Vegas.” Nadia caught the look in Aerin’s eyes and sighed. “We can have a big, formal wedding later. I won’t argue against it and you’ll have time to get everyone together. But I want this wedding tonight, and I want it cheesier than a Dragon’s fondue pot.”

Aerin threw her hands in the air. “Fine. You can do that. But Daria and Natasha need to be here. It’s your wedding, so you need to call and invite them. I’ll call Alexander and your father can wake up Matthew.”

“Fine.” Nadia took her phone out and started dialing. “You can pick them up while we’re getting the license.”

Out on the patio, I shook my head in sympathy for Nadia’s situation and snagged two more sausages onto my plate. Aerin’s version of the old loaves-and-fishes routine was a hero’s feast stacked with joints of mutton, whole roast boar, racks of beef ribs, venison kabobs on skewers as long as rapiers, and huge ribeye steaks cut from a Columbian mammoth. Those things were caveman cuts, three inches thick and larger than a vinyl record album. Rose was working on her third one already.

For the record, medium-rare Columbian mammoth with rosemary au jus is freaking tasty. It was enough to make me wonder what a serious pit master could do with a rack of mammoth ribs and a truck bed full of hickory chunks.

In between bites of steak, Rose pulled another gold envelope out of the gift bag Gordon had cobbled together for her. On top of the shopping gift cards and the gameplay time vouchers, he’d tossed in several handfuls of Questgiver reward satchels. Much to Rose’s disappointment, a kid from Nebraska had already won the grand prize. Not that she was in any danger of running out of her own gold coins anytime soon; it was just the typical more-is-always-better attitude Dragons have.

Rose licked her lips and tore the satchel open, naked avarice gleaming in her eyes. It seemed her desires were rewarded; the satchel contained a gold-foil game card with an embossed hologram image. She cocked her head to the side and said, “David, what is a citadel?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Supposedly it’s the general term for
Warblade
’s new housing system. They haven’t made any details about it public yet.”

“But it’s land?”

“Of some kind, yeah. Did you win one?”

Rose nodded. “Yes. My choice of any Legendary-level citadel site, and automatic completion of an Epic-level personal house. This is going to be worth a fortune.” She tucked it away and picked up the last satchel.