Geekomancy (12 page)

“How have I not heard of this place?” Ree stage-whispered to Eastwood. She had to restrain herself from skipping up the aisles to fondle the merch.

“You can only get here if Grognard wants you to. This place is as much social club as bar or store.”

“How does he stay in business?”

Eastwood walked toward the bar, beckoning Ree to follow. “His customers are very, very loyal.”

Even hunched over, the man behind the bar was more than six feet tall. He had a full beard showing more salt than pepper, but his head was bald. He wore a leather jacket that was so worn in, it might as well have been his skin.

The bartender huffed approvingly and grabbed a lean glass to pour a pint of dark beer. “Good to see you, Eastwood. How’d the
oni
gig go?”

“Done and done. I had to get Morrison on him, though. Speaking of which, this is Ree. She’s new. I’m invoking my guest privilege.”

Grognard rolled his eyes. “You remember what happened last time you brought someone here?”

Eastwood settled his weight onto one hip. “I do. And
she’s
not that stupid,” he said, turning to look at Ree.

Not knowing and not wanting to know what incident they referred to, Ree smiled. “This place is amazing.”

In response, Grognard huffed.

Eastwood smiled. “You are twenty-one, right?”

Ree stepped up to the bar and looked at the liquor selection. She spent several seconds appraising, then said, “Macallan 15, just a drop of water.”

Eastwood nodded approvingly, and Ree hoped she wasn’t imagining Grognard’s near-twinge of a smile. The older man turned, plucked a bottle off the wall, and poured the Scotch with deliberate grace, taking up the well tap and kissing the water button, pouring enough into the drink to release the taste of the Scotch. It was a trick she’d picked up long enough ago that she’d forgotten who’d taught it to her.

Grognard slid the drink down the bar to her. Ree picked up the glass, took a sniff, then a sip. As good as ever. She flashed Grognard a smile, and this time he grinned in earnest.

Eastwood pulled out a tablet computer and spun it around to show to Grognard. “I’ve got a shopping list. Hope you can help me out.”

Grognard picked up the tablet and rubbed his face, thoughtful. The big man led Eastwood away from the bar and into a back room.

Eastwood turned at the door and said to Ree, “Don’t touch anything.”

Too hell with that.
The interdiction nearly compelled her to mess something up, but instead she downed the rest of the Scotch and walked into the store section of the lair. She found the vintage RPG section and lost herself in D&D supplements from the ’80s.

Looking up from a
Rules Cyclopedia
(which was technically a ’90s supplement, but Ree had played
Cyclopedia
with her first gaming group, and they all used their older brothers’ books from the ’80s), she caught a glimpse of something that made her double-take. Amid the middle-aged and unimpressively shaped customers, there was something of an oddity.

He wore the Gamer Standard-Issue Trench Coat™, in brown instead of black. He was shorter but not round, therefore defying both of the Stereotypical Gamer-Boy Body Types. His dirty-blond hair was cut in a professional style, and he wore jeans, brown boots, a vest over a white collared shirt, and, incongruously, goggles. They were strung loose around his neck but looked like they belonged on the 1st-place podium in a Steampunk costume contest.

Priya would shiv a nun to see those,
Ree thought, taking mental notes to relay to her friend, if she could figure out a way to do so without revealing too much else of what she was involved in.

The man caught her staring and strode over. He wore well-oiled brown leather gloves, removing one as he extended his hand to her.

“Greetings, mademoiselle. I do not believe I have seen you at this fine establishment before.”

Is he for real?
Ree met his hand and shook while giving him another look.

He gave a formal bow. “Drake Winters, at your service.”

With a name like that, he did belong in the D&D section.

She found herself dropping into a curtsy to match his bow.
William Goldman, you punk.

“Rhiannon Anna Maria Reyes.” She added, “Call me Ree.”

Drake spoke with all the bombasticity of a cast-off from Marvel’s Asgard. “It is always a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a beautiful woman, Ms. Reyes. What brings you to Grognard’s? Tomes of knowledge, figures of power, or merely a chance to let down your hair and mingle with fellow keepers of the light?”

Ree laughed. She had to think actively when speaking, since what was coming into her mind was all
Princess Bride
–flavored. “You can drop the LARPer act, man. I haven’t played since college.”

Drake straightened up. “It is no act, Ms. Reyes. I am . . . displaced, you might say, from my original context.”

Ree narrowed her eyes. “Run that by me again?”

Drake took a breath, then said, “I was born in the Year of Our Lord 1864, and while I was battling the Kadel torture-ships across the skies of great Avalon, my Aetheric Rifle had an unforeseen effect upon the Kadel gravitic drive, catapulting the ship into the deepest reaches of Faerie. After years of adventures with My Mistress, the Contessa of the Lapis Galleon, I found myself in the twenty-first century, far from home.”

Ree knew her eyes couldn’t get any narrower and take in light, but it wasn’t enough to convey her doubt. Still, he didn’t
look
like he was lying. “Are you serious?”

Drake leveled a severe look at her. “One must always be serious when speaking of the beautiful dangers of Faerie.”

Ree shifted her weight, continuing to work on the puzzle that was this man before her. “And what do you do these days?”

Drake smiled. “I do what I’ve always done. Protect the innocent, punish the wicked, seek to find the light of truth amid the dark cloud of ignorance.”

“So, super hero?” Ree asked.

His expression seemed to say
not quite
. “I have read the exploits of some of these super heroes.” He thumbed through a bin of back issues and pulled out a
Batman
comic. “I find the Dark Knight to be quite compelling—one man pitting his cunning and determination against the forces of corruption. Very inspiring.”

Ree nodded, finding it easier to speak in her own voice now that she was conscious of the
Princess Bride
energy pushing her to act differently. “I’ve always been more of a Spider-Man girl, myself. Do you know Eastwood?”

He nodded. “A stalwart if somewhat morose figure. Are you his apprentice?”

“No. Well, maybe. Has he had apprentices before?”

“None that I know of.”

Drake was charming in the same way that a Cinnabon roll was sweet. A little goes a long damn way, and a lot quickly becomes too much to stomach. “Do you know anything about the recent string of suicides in town?”

That eyebrow quirk said
no
. “I had not heard of such a thing. I admit I am not good at using thinking machines for news. I prefer the texture of the daily paper.”

Fair enough.
“Well, that’s what we’re working on. If you hear anything, can you drop me a line?” Ree fished a business card out of her purse—it was her “Rhiannon Reyes—Screenwriter” card, because why in the nine hells would someone ever make a business card that said “Barista”?

“I certainly will—I have acquired a mobile telephone, thanks to the infinite kindness of our dear host.” Drake produced a flip phone at least four years out-of-date, though she supposed that for a nineteenth-century throwback, it would be slightly less of a Future Shock while still being totally alien.

“So, what do you think of the twenty-first century?” she asked.

Drake paced back and forth, talking with his hands. “Everything is very clean here, except in certain neighborhoods which are rather more like the streets in Avalon. Technology has advanced in so many directions and fashions I would have never imagined. However, I find the everyday approach to technology rather impersonal.”

Drake threw back his coat, revealing a collection of gadgets on his belt and strapped to the inside of his coat, like a fake-watch-salesman-turned-vigilante.

“I made every piece of my gear by hand and know it inside and out.” He closed his coat and held up the phone. “But this phone. I couldn’t start to tell you how it works, where it was made, or how to repair it, and I feel that I am not far behind the average citizen in that regard.”

Ree shrugged. “Clarke’s Third Law.”

“Beg pardon?” he asked.

Right,
Ree thought. “Arthur C. Clarke was a writer of scientifically based fiction. His Third Law states, ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ I.e., for most people, technology might as well be magic, since they understand it so poorly.”

Drake nodded approvingly. “So it would seem, and it was much the same way in my day for those not among the privileged. I cannot say I am comfortable knowing that little about the technology I use, but adequately covering more than a hundred years of technological advances to bridge the gap of knowledge has proved difficult.”

Ree shifted her weight, taking in the sight of Drake Winters and his aggressive oddity. “I bet.”

“No wager necessary,” Drake said. “But I’m afraid I’ve waylaid you long enough. I shall take my leave and allow you to resume your mission.”

Drake gave a graceful bow and reached down to kiss her hand. Instead of making contact, he merely brought his lips to within an inch of her hand. She felt the warmth of his breath and ignored the small shiver that went down her back, blaming that, too, on William Goldman. Then the walking anachronism rose, spun on the balls of his feet, and walked away.

“Huh.” Ree considered the oddity for a moment, then went back to browsing. She had just found a well-loved copy of
Underground
when Eastwood emerged from the back room, a burlap sack thrown over one shoulder.

“Ready?” he asked.

Ree walked with Eastwood back toward the bar section. “I could spend a week in here.”

Eastwood huffed. “I’ve done that. Wasn’t very fun. But that was more due to the Yu-Gi-Oh! zombies.”

“Metaphorical or literal zombies?”

Grognard joined in from behind the bar, where he had returned to the Most Archetypal Bartender Thing Ever: cleaning glasses. “That time it was literal,” the big man said. “I stopped carrying that crack afterward. The profit wasn’t worth dealing with the junkies.”

“Does every part of the geekverse have a weirdo supernatural aspect?” Ree asked.

Eastwood nodded several times. “Just about. The trick is learning which what goes where and does what.”

“That was some Tennant-level vaguebabble.”

“Thanks, I’ve been practicing.” Eastwood swung the bag out for her. She caught it with a huff. It was somewhere between really heavy and really f—ing heavy. “And on that thought,
allons-y
!” Somehow he’d acquired a crook-handled umbrella, which he used to gesture as a cane.

“I’m mad, you’re mad, we’re all mad here . . .” Ree voiced to herself as she swung the bag over her shoulder and followed Eastwood out the door and back down into the sewer.

Chapter Seven

Mad Shopper What Shops at Midnight

The sewers had spectacularly failed at getting less drab and gross during their visit to Grognard’s, but after a couple of miles of walking, Ree decided to study the various types of grates, concretes, and doors. Who knew when a taxonomy of sewers would come in handy.

“What exactly is this place we’re going?” Ree asked.

“It’s the Midnight Market. Think of something between a town council meeting and a monthly convention.”

“Well, that’s not the least bit confusing.”

“You can say that again.” Ree was about to reply when Eastwood cut her off. “But please don’t. The Market’s the best place to acquire oddities, and we all check in to resolve issues, make plans, and, usually, get drunk and tell stories about the old times.”

“It sounds like I’ll have a blast.”

“You’ll get plenty of attention.” Eastwood led them down another stairwell. Ree was surprised that there was more down to be had, since they were already in the sewers. But given the week she’d had, it was barely worth a twitch on her WTF-o-meter.

On this level, even Ree had to squat to avoid the low ceiling. Eastwood and her steps synced up, making moaning chords in aged wood over concrete. “That’s the problem. I get hit on or ogled enough at work,” she said.

Eastwood chuckled as he reached the bottom of the stairs and opened another door. “But this will be ogling dangerous enough that you worry for your soul. Far superior, grade-A-plus major-league ogling.”