Attack the Geek (17 page)

Ree said, “Sally Strega will be back around in a few. It’s not like I stunned her with a blaster or anything.”

Wickham winced at that, proving her hunch. Wickham was a model, not an actress. Her nervous behavior earlier made a hell of a lot more sense now. She’d been sitting around for hours leading up to her low-rent Judas act, rubbing elbows with the very people she was about to screw over. The fact that she’d been uncomfortable actually spoke to inklings of humanity.

“How much was she going to pay you?” Ree asked.

“Enough.”

“What happened to the trust fund? The platinum card?”

“High-risk investment portfolios. When they win, they win big. And when they lose . . .”

Drake bit back a comment.
I got this,
Ree thought, squeezing his arm.

“So you sold us all out because you fucked up on the stock market? You were willing to kill a half-dozen people just to finance your hand-picked version of Steampunk?” Ree asked.

“I’ve already made my opinions on your pathetic clubhouse known,” Wickham said. “The fact that you didn’t figure it out only shows how moronic you all are.”

Ree cracked her knuckles. “So what’s stopping me from uglying you up something fierce, Ms. Part-Time-Model?”

“Your infantile sense of morality, I’d wager. You don’t have the conviction to kill me, which is what you should do.”

“Maybe I don’t, but my friend Eastwood’s been flirting with the Dark Side these days. Maybe I should just hand you over to him.”

That got a reaction. Wickham’s eyes widened.

Let that sink in awhile,
Ree thought.

Wickham’s silence was answer enough.

“Do you know where Eastwood and Grognard are?” Drake asked.

“Somewhere off that way,” Wickham said, pointing southeast.

“How far?” Ree asked.

“Far enough to not hear the fight, apparently.”

Fuck it.

“BOSS!” Ree shouted, aiming her voice upward. Let the monsters come. She was not going to spend the rest of the night wandering around a gorram death trap while her boss and Eastwood also wandered around said gorram death trap, their paths crisscrossing like a
Scooby-Doo
skit.

No answer. She turned in the other direction and cupped a hand to her cheek. “BOSS!” “EASTWOOD!” Her shouts dissipated into the vast dome above the labyrinth. “Any ideas?” Ree asked, turning to Drake.

“We could climb the walls once more and try to gain a higher vantage point.”

Ree checked her phone. It turned on long enough to laugh at her and then go back to sleep.

“Fresh out of juice. You think you can boost me up far enough?” Ree said, nodding at the twelve-foot-tall walls that enclosed the hallway.

Drake regarded the wall. “I think not.” And anyway, they couldn’t take to the walls entirely, since they’d have to haul Lucretia around and keep an eye on Wickham.

Ree wandered around for a few minutes while Drake kept tabs on the Violently inclined Femmes.

Zip. Zilch. Nada. Bupkes. And other crappy nothings.

She was about to double back to go the other way when she heard soft footsteps, coming fast. They got louder, closer, and Ree looked down a hall to see Eastwood and Grognard round the corner. They were sucking wind, but moving at an impressive clip, especially considering the weight Grognard was hauling around with that chain shirt. But Ree had learned that fairly amazing things were possible with the power of adrenaline. And who knows, maybe Eastwood’d had his own sideboard.

Her thoughts were derailed when she saw fireballs with eyes and gaping maws follow them around the corner, crackling like beach-ball-size bonfires.

One of the three crashed into the wall, obliterating the stone. But the other two made the corner, just a dozen paces behind the sweat-drenched geeks.

“Run!” Grognard yelled, waving Ree off.

“What the hell?” Ree asked, as much about their absence as the flaming Pac-Man-alikes following them.

“I said run!” Grognard said again. Eastwood looked up and waved her off as well.

She spun on her heels and headed down the hallway back toward Drake and company.

“Fireballs incoming!” she said. “Grab Lucretia!” The woman might be a sadistic bitch, but Grognard wouldn’t get any cash out of her to fix the store if they left her to die.

“Did you say fireballs?” Wickham asked, her eyes wide even from fifty feet out.

“Motherfucking fireballs! As in run away from them!” Ree said, her lungs, legs, and abdomen burning.

Wickham took off down the hall as Drake tossed Lucretia over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, her voluminous skirts obscuring his vision.

“This will prove problematic,” he said, trying to adjust the woman to give himself a view.

Running was one thing, but if they couldn’t outmaneuver the fireballs, then someone would fall behind until they became barbeque.

“Drake, you got any ice crystals left?”

The inventor froze, then straightened. “Third rear pocket, the fold with two snaps!” Drake fumbled around until he un-slung his rifle.

Eastwood and Grognard rounded the corner.

“What are you doing? Run!” Grognard said, wheezing.

“I got this, boss!” Ree said, stopping to grope around in Drake’s jacket.

One, two, three. The pouch she found had one strap, so she reached around the area.

Three there, another one.

Ah, there we are!

She unsnapped the fold and breathed in so she could reach down into the pocket. Her fingers closed around a cold, smooth cylinder, and she pulled out a glowing ice-blue crystal.

“Eureka!” she said, accepting the rifle from Drake. She pulled the locking whatever thing back and dumped the current crystal out as Grognard said, “Clear the hall!” Ree leaned against the wall as she loaded the crystal into the rifle.

Come on, come on. No time to be tired, no time to be slow.

She raised the rifle and fired. The blast clipped the nearest fireball, freezing it over the course of a second like Cryo Ammo in
Mass Effect
. The sphere dropped to the floor like a bowling ball and shattered.

Grognard passed the group, leaving just Eastwood and a fireball hot (yes, hot) on his heels.

“Duck! Dive! Something!” Ree said.

“It’s too close! Toss me the rifle!” Eastwood said, hobbling forward with a limp.

“Are you crazy!”

“Goddamnit, trust me!” Eastwood said with desperation in his voice.

Time slowed as she thought back to their fight that had kicked off the night, about holding the door together, fighting back to back.

He’d keep fucking up. Everyone fucked up. He was totally emotionally compromised about her mom, even more than she was. But he always came through in the end.

Ree tossed the rifle to Eastwood and slammed herself back at the wall.

Eastwood caught the rifle, and in one smooth motion, he lifted it over his head and fired blind.

The fireball started to freeze, then shattered as it exploded against Eastwood’s back, knocking the man to the floor.

Holy crap.

From behind her, Lucretia shouted, “Yes!”

Ree looked over to see the fate witch looking over Drake’s shoulder, far less unconscious than she’d looked just five seconds before.
Sneaky git.

But she hadn’t gotten him. Right?

Ree pushed off the wall and knelt down next to her onetime mentor. “You okay?”

The man was still for a moment. Then he gasped, taking in a large breath.

“Gorram frakking piece of go-se
,
”
Eastwood said with heaves, his lungs bellowing with visible effort. “I’m getting too old for this stuff.”

“I’ll take that as a yes?” Ree said, her heart ten pounds lighter.

“It’ll have to do for now,” the man said, pushing himself up to his feet.

Ree turned back to Grognard. “Are you okay?”

The bartender wheezed, clearly pained. “Just a couple cracked ribs. I’ll be fine.”

“Where’s Wickham?” Drake asked, spinning in place. He’d dropped Lucretia to the floor. The woman backed herself up to the wall, and started doing something with her hands.

“No.” Grognard took one big step over to the fate witch and dropped her to the ground with a fluid motion that spoke of years of work being his own bouncer. The moving stopped.

But Wickham was gone. “If I weren’t so pissed off, I’d be impressed. Twice in one night,” Ree said.

Eastwood walked over to Lucretia and knelt down, speaking into her ear.

“You’re going to answer for all of this. I hope you’ve got a fortune squirreled away somewhere, because by Grognard’s estimate, you owe him half a million in damages.”

Lucretia spat at Eastwood. “The only thing I owe is retribution. When you were traipsing around trying to bring your dead girlfriend back, I was trying to correct the course of history. And now it’s nearly too late. If you have any sense, you’ll release me at once and join my quest.”

“The fuck are you talking about?” Ree said.
Self-important much?

“Perhaps we should adjourn from the maze full of death traps to discuss this further,” Drake said as something tenebrous winged its way across the sky.

Lucretia sighed. “If someone would kindly remove his massive knee from the small of my back, I would happily lead us all out of here so we can have a reasonable discussion like adults.”

Grognard released the pressure and pulled Lucretia to her feet, hands locked behind her back. “No cutesy shit, got it?”

“Understood,” Lucretia sneered.

They took Lucretia on a winding perp walk, the fate witch directing them through turns until they came to a dead end. She opened a portal, one hand always restrained by Ree or Grognard. But finally, after what felt like a week in the
verdampt
place, they made their way back into the sewer, and to Grognard’s.

Shade had come to, so when they returned, Talon and Chandra pledged to walk the battered cyberpunk home. The group made their farewells, most failing to hold back their dagger-eyes for Lucretia, the architect of their ruined night.

When the others had gone, Lucretia asked for a glass of water, and then began.

“What you have to understand is that everything has already gone wrong. And there isn’t much time left to set things right.”

Epilogue

Timekeeper

Lucretia spoke matter-of-factly, with none of the drama that often went into her speech.

“If time is a river, then I am a custodian, making certain that when a tree falls into the stream, it is removed, so that the flow is not disturbed. My sisters and I monitor the strands of fate and probability to anticipate disturbances and to ensure that history flows as it ought, directed by human action.”

Ree raised a hand. “Holdonasec. Why have I never heard about this before? Normally you’re all schemy Bitchy McStrega, now all of a sudden you’re supposed to be some Rorikon Time Cop?”

Lucretia took a long drink, her eyes never leaving Ree. “My business is my own, child. And my sisterhood finds that we can do our duty best when we don’t advertise ourselves. But since Mr. Eastwood has so blithely disrupted the flow of events, I’ve had to be more . . . overt in my actions.”

“Why then, pray tell,” Drake asked, “did you wait most of a year to act following this supposed disruption?”

Lucretia nodded at the comment. “When a change is made, sometimes the ripples of fate will resolve themselves. We see many possibilities, and try to avoid taking drastic action. But once I knew that the course needed to be corrected, I had to muster my power and find the most opportune time. And as they say: revenge, cold, and so forth. I won’t deny there was also a personal motivation.”

“And by correcting the course, you mean that I need to die?” Eastwood stood with his arms crossed, in full Cowboy Glower Mode.

“Yes. You were not supposed to survive Halloween. Our predictions showed that you would be consumed by your quest, and that Ms. Reyes here would enter the Underground only briefly before returning to her life. The ripples of change are compounding, and we’re nearing the time when the changes will be irreversible, disrupting centuries of prognostication.”

“So I was supposed to just go back to my life? And you’re saying I only stuck with this because of him?” Ree asked, throwing a thumb at Eastwood.

“That is what our projections indicated. There is always room for individual choice, but the flows of influence, of ripples, all became clouded when Eastwood refused to die on Halloween.”

“So somehow this is all my fault for saving his ass?”

“Yes, to an extent. But it is mostly Eastwood’s fault, for turning away from making the sacrifice.”

Eastwood harrumphed at that.

“And why should we care what your sisterhood thinks?” Ree asked.

Lucretia scoffed, maxing out her aristocratic air. “Not all of us care to live our lives so blithely careless to consequence.”

Ree cracked her neck, holding back with the punching. She was also dead on her feet and had no desire to talk about anything wibbly-wobbly or timey-wimey right now. She wanted a huge-ass milk shake and then she wanted to go to bed.

“I think she’s full of it and just trying to get off scot-free. Can we lock her up and go home now?” she asked.

Grognard chuckled. “I like the sound of that.” He turned to Lucretia. “Screwed-up time or not, you’re going to pay to fix my store. For your sake, I hope your sisterhood has deep pockets.”

“That we do, but repairing a grown man’s playroom is hardly my first concern. We must correct the flow, and it starts with Eastwood sacrificing himself. Once he removes himself from the river of time, the ripples will dissipate.”

Eastwood’s nostrils flared. “Like hell. What proof do you or your sisters have that you haven’t just concocted a whole cosmology to justify pulling people’s strings? I’ve heard of way less ridiculous worldviews used to justify killing people, and those were crap, too.”