Attack the Geek (14 page)

“After you, m’lady,” Drake said, matching an exaggerated gesture with a smile.

Ree sized up the corner again, then took several steps back. She pushed forward one, two steps, then pushed off on the third step, hiking up the coat-skirt as she did her best imitation of a long jumper, nearly clipping the inside corner as she went. She touched down without much grace, still running on fumes. She looked back to Drake, then mimicked his invitational bow.

She watched as Drake followed her lead, bounding around the corner with his rifle strapped across his back. As he set down, Ree heard fast footfalls behind her. But they weren’t people feet.

Ree turned, raising the sword in front of her, and saw a centaur looking back at her. He was the old-school type—burly shirtless dude with sculpture-worthy muscles and a mane of hair that would make Fabio jealous. He held a bow drawn, arrow nocked. His hotness was mitigated by his murder-eyes.

“The hell?” she asked, accusing.

The centaur’s gallop slowed. “Hades is far from here, mortal. This is the Labyrinth, and you are trespassing.”

“Not on purpose.” Ree waved her sword at his bow. “How’s about you put that thing down before we have ourselves a fight scene?”

The centaur reeled back, whinnying. “It is you who are the trespasser. Lay down your arms and I may yet spare you.”

Drake interjected, hands out in a classically reasonable display. “Noble sir, we mean no insult by our presence, for it was not our intent to come here. We mean only to reclaim our friends so that we might quit this place and leave you to your peace.”

The centaur narrowed his eyes, settling back on all fours. “You are well-spoken for an outsider, young traveler. From where do you hail?”

Drake nodded. “Distant Avalon, good sir. I had the fortune to accompany the Contessa of the Lapis Galleon for several seasons, sailing the aetheric seas.”

“The Contessa?” asked the centaur, enraged again. Dude must have a damned short temper. He raised his bow again. “That strumpet promised salvation to my cousins on the Straits of Haoron, but brought only destruction! You will pay for her crimes!”

“Mother. Fucker,” Ree muttered, swinging at the centaur’s bow as he drew back to fire at Drake. The Contessa had brought Ree more trouble than she could ever know, though she had to admit that if the crazy-ass force of nature hadn’t absconded with Drake, then Ree probably never would have met him.

Ree cut the head off of one arrow as she jumped to the side. The arrow spun off-target as it flew, shattering on the nearby wall. The centaur drew and fired again with incredible speed, but Drake dove to the side, rolling up to a crouch and drawing his rifle.

Meanwhile, Ree pressed, blade whirling. Equine Fabio had the high ground just by existing, and after his second shot, he used the bow to parry Ree’s blade. The sword took chunks out of the bow, but not enough to stop the centaur from swinging at Ree with a powerful overhead strike. No way could she block that cut. Instead, Ree leaned to the side, deflecting the blow enough that it missed her entirely. But even deflecting the cut sent shock waves up her tired arms.

End this. Fast,
she told herself. She sighed internally and swung low, hacking into the creature’s thin foreleg.

Centaurs—wicked-strong, with most of the strengths of both horses and burly dudes. Also, the weaknesses of same. Her inner ten-year-old, who loved nothing in the world quite so much as horses (other than
Star Trek
,
Spider-Man
, and The New Kids on the Block), cried as she swung back at the centaur’s rear leg. This time she hit above the hoof, cleaving deep. The centaur fell on its side, and she just barely dodged the creature’s massive rump as it crashed to the labyrinth floor.

“I’m sorry about your cousin. But next time I see the Contessa, be sure I’ll kick her ass for you.”

The centaur flailed, acting more horse than man, looking like a crippled stallion about to be put down. Ree had no intention of being that person, and she hoped that the centaur could recover. For all she knew, the Contessa did destroy his cousins, but that wasn’t her or Drake’s fault. And they had places to be.

They hurried past the wounded centaur and rounded the corner.

At least half an hour later, they’d wandered, dead-ended, doubled back, and generally gotten themselves thoroughly labyrinthified.

Ree had no yarn, but Drake had chalk, so every time they made a turn, Drake marked the corner. This kept them from getting irrevocably lost but didn’t help them find the older geeks.

Leaning against a wall as they took a break, Ree mused out loud. “I’d just yell for them, but chances are, all that’d do is bring us seven kinds of trouble from the locals, even if Grognard and Eastwood could hear us.”

Drake nodded. “I fear you are correct. If we could locate the aerothopter, I might be able to repair it, but only if we were able to find a proper workshop.”

“What about carpenter boy?” Ree asked.

“Wooden pieces would upset the weight balance, and I’m certain that at least one of the rotors will need to be replaced.”

“Fucksticks,” Ree said, more grumpy than actively pissed off. Lucretia was maxing out Ree’s Hate Meter, leaving Wickham’s rating in the dust. Pissing on her friend’s achievements was bad, trying to get them killed was a whole other ball game, like the difference between croquet and
Blood Bowl
.

Ree leaned forward off the wall and cracked her neck. “Shall we?”

More twists, more turns. Three left turns later, instead of a dead end, they found themselves facing a long hallway straight out of
Tomb Raider
.

The walls had climbed to forty feet tall on both sides. In the hall proper, every other span of five feet (Ree couldn’t help but think of them as squares in
D&D
, her life turned into a dungeon crawl) held a spike pit. A tall metal frame held bladed pendulums that swung in a tight pattern back and forth over the spike pits. And every third platform held an armored skeleton holding a pair of axes.

The skeletons raised their weapons in unison, their heads rattling on their spines like a boney cousin of the forest spirits from
Princess Mononoke
.

“Huh,” Ree said. “That’s new.”

Chapter Eleven

Jump Jump Revolution

Ree watched the blades scythe back and forth for a few moments, trying to catch the pattern. Since the skeletons were just hanging out, she could assume that the platforms wouldn’t sink under her like those hateful parts in platformer video games.

“Can you take care of the bone brigade?” Ree asked. Drake brought his rifle up and took aim.

The nearest skeleton crossed its axes, still rattling its head, now looking more like a baby toy for the kids of Metal-heads.

Drake fired. The blue blast ripped through the air, hitting the skeleton dead center.
Heh, dead.
But when the blue energy hit the axes, it dissipated into the weapon.

The axe glowed blue, and the skeleton pointed it back at Drake. In a totally unfair imitation of Link, the blast fired out from the axe, zipping past the swinging scythes.

Ree pushed Drake down and to the side, and the blast took a chunk out of the end of the hallway.

“Perhaps we should go another way,” Drake said.

“Word,” Ree said, getting back up. The pair backtracked, but when they tried to turn right, they were stopped by a dead end.

Ree tested the s that shouldn’t be there with her sword, and it made the
tink
of hitting stone. Then she tested it with her open hand. It was cool, musty, and totally solid.

“Not fair!” Ree shouted, her mellow long since harshed. She pulled out her phone to check the charge: 12%. She’d turned on airplane mode when she established that the labyrinth didn’t get cell signal, but even so, it didn’t leave her with much oomph for magical power-ups.

“Thoughts?” she asked.

Drake tested the wall, gloved hand pressing against the stone. “I could attempt to remove the wall with an explosive, but there’s no guarantee what little munitions I have on hand would be sufficient.”

“You just carry explosives around on a regular basis?”

“Why shouldn’t I? Your military uses grenades.”

“But what about accidental explosions if you take a hit and land on something wrong?”

“That, my dear, is one of the advantages of using nontellurian physics. There is an element of volition required for my munitions. They’re quite safe.”

“What about exploding the skeletons, then?” she asked, turning back to the hall of trapitude.

“I’m sure that my small devices would suffice, but it seems rather a waste. Bludgeoning attacks should suffice. The difficulty will be taking the occupied platforms.”

Ree eyed the skeletons, which stood at attention, heads rattling. The nearest one’s axe was back to normal, so Drake hadn’t accidentally given it a permanent power-up.

“There’re a few ways to do this. The
Prince of Persia
way, with swashbuckling, The
Tomb Raider
way, trying to climb up the rigging and brachiating our way over, and the
Doom
way, which would involve blowing everything up.”

“I’ve always been partial to swashbuckling, but in this case, that would be quite bold.”

“Quite,” Ree said. The climb might be doable, but then they’d still have to swing and jump to avoid the scythes.

Maybe there was an easier way. She pulled out her phone again, wishing she still had her sideboard or access to Grognard’s to get her hands on some Turn Undead mojo. Again, she found herself wishing that there was a
D&D
movie worthy of fandom. There was the cartoon, but she couldn’t honestly geek out over that anymore.

She pulled up a clip from
X2: X-Men United
, where Jean Grey threw around serious telekinetic fu. She wouldn’t need a big push, just enough to knock the skellies off their feet and into the pits. If she had more battery, she’d just go for some flight mojo and hope that they could get over the wall without being fireballed to ashes.

“Can you keep an eye on the bone brigade for a minute?” Ree asked, starting the clip.

She heard Drake answer in the affirmative, but she was already zoning in on the scene, connecting with the character. Jean Grey, with her power growing inexplicably, driven by her devotion to the dream of her mentor, torn between the safety of Scott’s familiar love and the excitement of the strange with Logan. The romantic anxiety angle hit home plenty well, even with her situation’s differences from Jean’s.

As the clip ended, Ree looked up to the skeletons and saw fire dancing at the edges of her vision. Several different minds whispered at the edge of her attention, but shut them out. She wouldn’t get a lot out of the clip, and if she wasted any power, they might find themselves stuck in the middle of the hall while she tried to go back for a second dose.

“Ok, let’s go,” Ree said, stepping forward. The blades scythed back and forth, the skeletons waiting with axes shining and heads rattling.

She synced back up with the blades, watching the timing. “You good on these?”

“I’ve managed my fair share of deadly pits, thankfully,” Drake said. “After you.”

Ree winked at Drake, rocking back and forth. She found the timing, then jumped as the blade cut across the pit. Old-school platformers must have all been set in low-gravity worlds—Mario and Mega Man both had vertical leaps more than twice their height. She only needed five feet at a time, and thanked her “leadership” courses during junior high as she landed on the first stand-alone platform, staring across a second empty ledge at the skeleton beyond. She waited for the scythe in front, then jumped again, feeling the blade cut through the air behind her.
Eep.
That one was a shade faster than the other.

She heard Drake’s soft grunt and turned to see him land on the first platform.

“And now,” Ree said as she turned back to the skeleton. She reached out with one hand toward the skeleton, and put the other to her forehead, miming Jean Grey’s most famous this-is-me-using-my-powers gesture.

And . . . push!
She saw the skeleton topple over backward, crashing like a giant-size game of pick-up sticks.

Ree brought her hand down from her forehead and blew out the fake smoke on her not-gun finger. “Nice.”

They bounded over several more pits, and Ree TKed the second skeleton as well.

But by the time she got to the platform in front of the third skeleton, the power was gone. Drake hopped beside her and she pulled out the phone again.

Ree pressed play on the video, and something overhead said, “Caaaaw!”

Ree snapped her neck up and around to see. A motorcycle-size crow arced over the labyrinth, then folded its wings into a dive, headed straight for them.

“Seriously?” Ree asked the universe, feeling cosmically shat upon. Drake popped off a shot, which blew a hole in the bird’s wing, but it kept coming. It opened its wings, catching the air. The bird wavered, one wing’s aerodynamicosity ruined by the smoldering hole, but managed to alight on the metallic frame holding the scythes, if ungracefully. It hopped from rung to rung.

“What would you say if I wanted to keep this one?” Ree asked.

“I’d say you’re quite mad,” Drake said, chuckling.

“Yeah. So what?”

Hopping down from the metallic frame, the corvid became a disturbing mashup of Edgar Allan Poe and
Super Mario Brothers
. Determined not to be squished like a Koopa, Ree sliced at the bird’s foot, chopping off a toe. It unfurled its wings in the space between the scythes, wafting in the air.

Bad move, Bird-o.
She spun the blade around for another cut, the weapon moving like flowing water in her hands. The
jian
wasn’t a hefty weapon, but it handled like a dream. The slash took another chunk out of the creature, and it cawed at ninety decibels right in her face. It followed up with a peck, which she dodged by ducking to a squat, thankful for her young knees. She swung again, and got a splatter of ichor for her trouble.