Attack the Geek (9 page)

Chapter Seven

The Bruce Banner Guide to Bull Fighting

“Go!” Grognard shouted as Eastwood threw open the door and they dove back into the tunnel.

Eastwood’s glow sticks still lit the tunnel in water-tinted yellow light. Shadows played off the tunnel walls as dozens of shapes moved outside the door.

While Ree and company were busy with the crazy storm, the Minotaur had brought some friends.

A dozen or so gnomes had returned, some clutching broken limbs or bloodied faces. Along with them were a handful of reptilian creatures that looked like crocodiles mixed with pit bulls—they had thicker bodies, stubby legs with knee joints that stuck straight out like a bulldog’s, and forked tails.

Ree didn’t even have time to gripe before Grognard leapt forward with a growl, leading with his Hulk hands. The Minotaur slashed with its axe, but Grognard swatted it aside with incredible strength and kept going for the creature’s nose ring. The destruction of his store had lit jet fuel in his blood, and nothing was going to stop him.

Glad I didn’t try to insist,
Ree thought. She stepped into the tunnel and contorted her left hand to unload a burst of webbing at a cluster of gnomes and one of the bull-crocs. The netting hit and stuck the creatures together, collapsing into the murky water that sat in the base of the tunnel. Ree jumped up onto the opposite side of the tunnel, then dove blade-first at another bull-croc, burying the blade to the hilt in between the creature’s shoulders before it could turn to face her.

The Minotaur was flailing around, stomping back and forth and slamming into the wall. The rumbles of vibration filled the tunnel, and yellow-gray snow fell around her as dust shook free from the old construction.

Go down already!
she wanted to shout at the creature. But if she drew its attention back this way, Grognard would have to crawl over the creature’s back to get to the nose ring.

Ree shot a burst of webbing at the Minotaur’s feet, hoping to pin it down long enough for Grognard to rip the ring free and remove the creature’s protections so she could backstab the thing for x4 damage and end this nightmare of a shift. The first web wrapped around the creature’s fire-hydrant-size hoof and stuck it to the concrete walkway.

She saw Grognard laid out with a huge swing of the Minotaur’s axe, folding the chain mail into his Lacuna Coil tour shirt. Her magical charge was nearly spent, but she shot another burst of webbing to pin the creature’s other leg, keeping it from following up.

“Get him away from that thing!” Ree shouted.

All of a sudden, she fell into shadow as the Minotaur turned and loomed over her, showing a bloodied nose and a face that made hamburger look good. The creature tore through the webbing before it could settle, leaving it free to pivot like a homicidal Bulls mascot.

Eeep.
Well, nothing left to do but the stupid thing.
Ree rammed Sting into the Minotaur’s right arm, then used the sword as a handhold and did her best howler monkey impression, climbing up the side of the creature until she was perched on the creature’s shoulder.

And because she had learned to take precautions, she pulled out the Ring of Giant Strength she’d pocketed from Grognard’s case, slipped it onto her finger, then dove over the Minotaur’s shoulder, catching herself on the nose ring. All of her body weight plus her enhanced strength hauled on the ring, and she felt something tear in the creature’s nose. But it didn’t come loose.

“Dogpile, now!” Ree said as the Minotaur started to flail, whipping her around like a dog with a toy. Her stomach simultaneously tried to escape out her toes while threatening to defy centrifugal force and come back up her throat.
Eeuuuccch.

Remembering long nights at the county fair riding the Whirl & Hurl, she tucked her legs up and then did an inverted sit-up, crouching against the creature’s face while the rest of the crew bound the axe down so it couldn’t take her head off. Springing off the creature’s chest, Ree wrenched with her ring-enhanced strength and ripped the nose ring off.

Consequently, this sent her flying straight into the wall.

Ree did her best to go limp, but she hit the concrete with the force of a thirty-foot fall. Pain cascaded across her body, rippling back and forth from a half-dozen spots.

For some long black moment, all she felt was pain. She heard shuffling, screaming, yelling, and the clash of blades, but mostly, she sputtered in bone-cracking agony.

A shadow fell over her, but this one came without the imminent sense of doom. Or maybe that was the shock settling in.

“Ree?” asked a voice. Ree focused on breathing, but her ribs felt like they’d collapsed into a jagged pile of lung-shredding shrapnel.

She opened her eyes, and saw a brownish blur, but not a fuzzy one. She felt a gloved hand touch her face softly, and then she blacked out.

Ree woke up feeling three-quarters dead. She tried to move, and her whole body was numb and cold.

She blinked her eyes open and saw the flat gray ceiling of Grognard’s, only identifiable because of that odd red-brown stain the shape of a classic Base Star.

“Did anyone get the name of that wall?” Ree asked, the world wobbling as she tried to sit up.

“It would be best to keep resting, Ree,” Drake said from her left.

Ree settled back against the floor? Table? And talked with her eyes closed.

“Is Grognard all right?”

“The drink kept the blow from being fatal. But we had to use extensive magical healing on both of you. Eastwood gave a detailed explication on metaphysical endurance limits and physio-spiritual strain. It was quite fascinating.”

“What’s that mean when it’s in English?” Ree asked.

“Your body has been greatly taxed by the repeated magical healing. He said you should expect substantial fatigue, low core temperatures, and disorientation.”

“Three for three,” Ree said, bringing her hands up to massage her temple. Where she expected to find her glasses, she felt something else, larger, that covered her eyes.
Goggles, maybe?

“Where are my glasses?” Ree asked.

“We think they’re still in the tunnel. When we pulled you back inside, they were gone. I adjusted these goggles to your prescription,” Drake offered.

“Should I ask how you did that?”

“If you like. The goggles were designed with medical as well as tactical applications. It was a simple modification.”

“Did we get the Minotaur at least?” she asked, hoping the run had been worth it.

“The beast has been dispatched. But from the sounds, there are more creatures remaining.” Drake sighed. “I would be impressed by Lady Lucretia’s resourcefulness were it not currently leveled at us as artillery.”

Ree tried to roll over onto her side. Her whole body was on pins, like a limb that fell asleep and then stung when you started it going again. “She’s a regular bad luck ninja. Did Eastwood say when I’d be back on my feet?”

“You should be able to move shortly. Fighting may be another matter.”

“Unless our visitors decide to bugger off, we don’t have much of a choice.”

“There’s always a choice, Ree,” Drake said, his voice kind. “It just so happens that we appear to be bereft of favorable options at this juncture.”

Again, Ree wished that Drake and Priya had not met at that Steampunk salon, that they had not hit it off, and that somehow Priya was not one of her best friends. Then she could get with the smooching already. Honest, smart men with strong jaws and genuine smiles weren’t in great supply anywhere, especially ones who could shoot, fight, and cobble together devices that thumbed their nose at the laws of physics.

Stow the pining, Reyes,
she told herself. She gritted her teeth and sat up to take a look around the room.

Grognard was laid out on the floor ten feet away, his chain-mail coat rent open across the chest, dried blood crusted onto his shirt.

Chandra and Talon sat at a nearby table. Chandra held a bundle wrapped in a bar towel to her side, and Talon’s shoulder was wrapped in bandages. Three empty bottles sat on the table, as well as two half-drunk pints.

Uncle Joe sat at another table, fiddling with several stacks of cards. His hair was matted with blood, and the left leg of his jeans ended below the knee, revealing bandages wrapped from his calf down to his ankle.

Eastwood paced the store. His coat was off, and she saw cuts up and down his arms, sealed over (probably with magic), but not bandaged. She stopped to pick up a prop
Harry Potter
wand, tested it for a second, then walked it back to the bar area and set the wand on a table that stood beside the steps between the bar and the store. It joined a small stack of other props—a dagger, the Sting replica, an
Aliens
-style pulse rifle, and several others that Ree couldn’t pin down unless she got closer. The goggles worked just fine, but they felt weird, even through her dulled sense of touch.

Ree looked back to the bar, expecting a sloppily drunk Wickham, but she was gone. Ree scanned the rest of the room, but didn’t see her anywhere.

“Where’s Wickham?” Ree asked.

Drake shook his head. “She’s gone. It appears that she took the confusion as her opportunity to slip away and take her chance in the sewers. Perhaps if we’re all fortunate, the gnomes have taken her to be their plaything.”

“At least she’s finally gone.”

There was a groaning sound, and Ree turned to see Grognard fumbling into consciousness. She walked, gingerly, over to her boss and knelt down to help him as Drake had helped her.

“You’re safe, boss. We’re inside,” Ree said, a soft hand on the brewmaster’s shoulder.

“How many bottles did you use?” Grognard asked, rubbing at his head, likely as fuzzy as Ree was.

Ree looked up to the others, who consulted between themselves for a few moments.

“Nine. Three for you, three for Ree, one each for the rest of us,” Chandra said.

Grognard nodded slowly. “Someone please tell me we got that bastard.”

“Done and done. But there’s plenty of company left outside,” Ree said.

Grognard sat up, and blinked several times. He started to pick himself up, and Ree offered her hand, leaning back as the big man rose to his feet.

“Then we’ve got to put this to bed.” The shopkeep looked around, to the pile of props on the table, and then over to Drake’s contraption.

“That thing is still charged, right?” he asked.

Drake nodded. “Indeed. It will need a siphon to shunt off the charge soon.”

Grognard smiled, as if Drake had said exactly what the big man wanted to hear. “I’ve got an idea. Bet it’ll take some tinkering, though. Think you could hook that thing up to one of my brewing vats?”

Drake quirked an eyebrow. “For what purpose?”

“When you and Ree lost the cart, I decided to try out a new recipe. It needs to age a bit more, but if we rig that thing up right, we might be able to speed up the brewing and get ourselves a game-winner without having to wade out into that bullshit again.” Grognard waved dismissively at the door and the infrequent thumps,
thud
s, and weakening
zot
s of magical backlash.

“How exactly will that work?” Ree asked. She noticed that Eastwood had fallen in beside her, several feet off to her right. Close enough to be in the conversation but not so close that he got into anyone’s bubble.

“Inspector Gadget and I can take care of that. Everyone else needs to keep those things outside long enough for us to make it work.”

Ree looked to Talon, Chandra, and Uncle Joe, who tensed up. None of them were fresh, and their arsenals were getting thin.

“We can do this, Ree,” Eastwood said from beside her. She looked to the bearded geek and saw determination on his face. Not the mad bravery that had been his default for most of the past year, just a tired certainty. As he slipped his trench coat back on, she couldn’t help but think of it as Grit.

Ree pointed at the door. “This, yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m in on your plan,” she said, rehashing the argument that had started their evening.

Eastwood nodded in a conceding-the-point kind of way. “Never thought it did. Lucretia first, then we can figure out how to get Branwen. We’re on the same side. Always have been.” Eastwood paused as Ree started to roll her eyes. He raised a hand to hold off her doubt. “Except when I went off the rails. You can trust me.”

Conflicting impulses threw a mosh pit in Ree’s gut, turning into a cartoon dust cloud with arms and legs sticking out as it rampaged across her emotional landscape. She wanted to deck Eastwood, hug him, and get drunk all at once.

And the whole time, the long-suffering door shuddered under the constant assault from outside.

Chandra, Talon, and Uncle Joe fell in, completing a circle with Ree and Eastwood by the door.

“Are we going back out there?” Uncle Joe asked, looking at his feet. Something in the end of the last melee had shattered his hard-won confidence, and he was back to the nervous collector she’d always known.

Talon was loaded for bear, longsword at her hip, a smaller blade over her shoulder, and throwing knives strapped to her hip opposite the scabbarded sword. In her hands, she held the
naginata
. She looked like an advertisement for
Diablo III.
Ree wanted to take a picture and post it on Tumblr. Unlike Joe, Talon—battered but unbroken—still had the fire in her eyes.

Chandra was somewhere in the middle—she looked hurt, and she was clearly running on empty, living in that place where you keep going on willpower until you’ve got nothing left to give. The punk Geekomancer held a
kukri
strapped to her hip and clutched the
Aliens
pulse rifle like it was a shiny, ass-kicking baby.

“If we go out, we need to plan for as many eventualities as we can,” Ree said. “We can assume there will be more gnomes, and maybe some of those bulldog crocodile things. But there could be more bruisers, and Lucretia herself.”