Geekomancy (16 page)

Chapter Nine

The Precious

Carmine Wharf was one of Pearson’s worst neighborhoods. This was where the actual hard-core dealers lived and worked, where the real shit went down, where murders were covered up with concrete shoes and various other nastinesses.

Understandably, Ree hadn’t spent much time in the area. Fortunately for her, Eastwood seemed to know it like his backyard. Which, as an apartment dweller, he didn’t have and had apparently compensated for by learning the lay of the land in the city of Pearson’s best effort at aping Crime Alley. They passed an abandoned lot housing a crude tent city for a dozen, replete with jagged nylon tents and lean-tos made out of aluminum siding and cardboard.

Ree had spent a few afternoons in the Occupy Pearson camp over in Jackson Park, across from the courthouse. It was a bit of a shock to contrast that encampment of protesters with this one composed of the truly homeless.

Ree was glad she’d chosen something contemporary for her genre magic; there was no filter to break through, so she could easily speak in her normal voice.

“Here’s a question: Why don’t magicians do something about homelessness?” she asked Eastwood.

“If we got involved in one issue, we’d get involved in every issue. There’s no magicians’ union; we’re all independent, if occasionally interreliant. There are places where the rules work differently, though. More than a few smaller towns are basically run by practitioners, Town Elders–style.” Eastwood shook his head. “Pearson is too big for us to do that without drawing scary kinds of attention.”

“What about the Doubt?” Ree asked.

“That only goes so far when you start digging up fraud and conspiracy. Authorities might think you hacked in or stole documents, instead of copying them magically, but you’ll end up in jail just as fast. Plus, there are powerful factions of magicians who like the status quo right where it is.”

“But what if you just Batman-ed it up a bit down here?” She saw a pair of men in an alley on the opposite end of the street, probably selling drugs.

“Some say that’s how Branwen got herself disappeared.”

That stopped Ree cold.
Crap. If she was that powerful and got taken down . . .
Ree reconsidered her small inclination to sideline as a vigilante, no matter how much time she’d spent daydreaming about it when she was fourteen. “Where exactly are we going?” she asked, noticing that they’d garnered several people’s attention. She felt their gazes and found herself calculating sight lines, looking for cover, and figuring out what she’d do if someone opened fire at any given point.
Thank you, Sahara.

“She’s supposed to be meeting someone in a warehouse in Pier 7, which is down this street. Don’t worry about the people. Though maybe you should have dressed more shadily.”

Ree gestured to her outfit. “I would have thought ‘broke-ass twentysomething’ would pass muster.”

“ ‘Broke-ass twentysomething
artist’
makes you stand out. Next time, wear a hoodie.”

They turned a corner to face an A-frame long warehouse that extended all the way out to a pier. The rusted sign above the entrance read
#7
.

“Gotcha. And what is our plan?” she asked.

Ducking behind a smaller building, Eastwood pulled out a pair of rings, holding them out to Ree. “These will only work for a few minutes, so we need to delay use as long as possible. Get in, lift the Claddagh, and get out. No stopping, no fighting, and if we can swing it, no noticing. I did a bit of my own divination to figure out in which of her million pockets she’s stowing the Claddagh, so we should be good to go. Any other questions?”

Ree held out the golden ring. “Will this ring make me go crazy and lose all my hair?”

“Not if you use it for ten minutes, like we’re supposed to.”

“And if I keep it on?”

Eastwood shook his head, his face gone grave. He cracked a smile. “It’ll stop working.”

Ree matched his smile, stowing the ring in her pocket. She peeked around the corner and saw several dockworkers milling around fifty yards away. “Bystanders. Rings now?”

Eastwood nodded. Ree slipped on her ring, and at first, she thought it hadn’t worked. She could see herself fine.

But then Eastwood disappeared.

“Did it work?” she asked, waving her hand where she thought Eastwood could see it.

“Yep. Let’s go.”

They approached the warehouse, halting in front of the #7 door. Ree heard a rustling with the lock, then some sort of sci-fi gadget sound. The lock clicked open, and they moved inside.

The interior was vast, with a high ceiling, big piles of boxes, more boxes, and for a change of pace, in the far corner, there were some boxes. The space was sparsely lit, with high-wattage bulbs suspended twenty feet from the ceiling.

Ree scanned the room, trying to figure out where Lucretia was or would be.
If I were a bitchy Goth queen who makes Nabokov turn in his grave, where would I be?

Eastwood led her along one wall, and they stopped at the end of a row of boxes. At the other end of the room, Ree saw a trio of muscle-bound fratboys in their early to mid-twenties enter like they owned the place. Maybe they did. Or maybe they’d just drunk deeply of the Jersey Shore Kool-Aid.

A few seconds later, Lucretia emerged from a side row and nodded to the men. Feeling a tug on her arm, Ree moved forward, closing with the two groups. Several steps later, she realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled slowly, trying to slow her racing heart. They could be in a four-on-two fight if the invisibility gave out or if someone had a way to see through the enchantment or if fate decided to find any other way to take a dump on their heads.

Ree took a long breath to steady herself, trying not to overwhelmed by the hyper-vigilance the magic was giving her.
Keep it together. Use the magic; don’t get used by it. Or something.

Ree wondered if Carlssen was around or supposed to be around.
If I were bodyguarding, I’d be in the rafters, covering with a rifle,
she found herself thinking.

Ree scanned the rafters, but didn’t see anyone. So he was either not there, really good, or also invisible.
Damnit, now I have to worry about invisible people. It’s like fighting freaking Geth Hunters all over again.

Eastwood continued to tug her along until they got within twenty feet of the group, which meant she could make out the conversation.

Only the center fratboy had been speaking to Lucretia. He wore a pink polo and a Yankees baseball cap over his clipped-short black hair. His skin was bronzed, but it looked like he’d earned it the natural way instead of buying spray-on orange (poor Charlize Theron at the ’04 Oscars). His eyes were a too brilliant blue, probably colored contacts.

Ree made out “ . . . it before I’ll talk prices . . .” as their words settled into sensibility.

Lucretia smiled. “Of course, Antonio.” She reached into her skirts and produced the ring, holding it up for the boys to see. “The price stands at ten thousand, which you must agree is a pittance for gentlemen of your means.”

“Shit, ten G’s?” one of the other fratboys said. He was a meathead, no hair to be seen anywhere on his head or bulging arms.

“I’ve got this, Nic,” said the leader. “I said five, and don’t you try to gyp me.”

Lucretia drew herself up to her full height, leaning into the somewhat confused Antonio. “The Roma are an ancient and proud people, boy. To reduce them singularly to thieves and misers does as much disservice to you as it does to them.”

Ree felt another tug, and they closed to within almost arm’s reach of Lucretia. The annoying hair at the back of her neck that grew far too fast and always made her want to take a razor to it stood up on end. She continually scanned back and forth between the fratboys and Lucretia.

The ring disappeared from Lucretia’s hand, and her eyes went wide. She snapped her fingers, calling out, “Hireke!”

In an instant, Eastwood appeared in front of her, holding the ring pinched between his fingers. Seeing that he was exposed, Eastwood hustled to the side, putting Lucretia between himself and the fratboys.

“The fuck?” cried Antonio, looking between Ree and Eastwood.

Shit—mine, too?
Ree thought, realizing her cover had been blown.

Antonio reached behind him to pull a chunky gun from the band of his pants. The bald meathead pulled out a set of knuckle-dusters large enough to fit his Vienna-sausage fingers. The third guy, who looked like a throwback to the greaser era, drew and pointed a knife in Ree’s general direction.

Antonio and the bald meathead did a chest bump, which Ree thought was kind of excessive.

Then Ree saw mostly translucent blue-silver armor plates shimmer into focus around Antonio. Beside him, ghostly fists the same shade of blue appeared around the meathead’s brass-knuckled fist.

Well, shit.

Ree circled opposite of Eastwood, trying to draw the attention of all three.
And now I’m running interference in the grandest tradition of the sidekick.

“Get out of here, and watch for the Bromancy!” shouted Eastwood, who was chewing pavement down an aisle. Lucretia flipped her hand, the air popped, and Ree heard him shout, “Frak!” just before the wet-slap sound of him hitting the floor.

He wasn’t kidding about Bromancy,
Ree thought as she continued to circle around, putting the meathead and the slick-haired third mook between her and Antonio’s gun. Her life just kept getting weirder, and it was showing absolutely no signs of stopping.

Pay attention,
she told herself as the meathead came at her with a confident cross. With her martial arts skills enhanced by the talents of
Sahara
’s Al Giordino, she hopped out of the way of the enlarged fist, watching Eastwood scramble to his feet. Ree exploded forward when the meathead twitched again, punching his bicep to stop his swing. She pressed forward, shooting under his exposed arm, then wrapped her arm up around his neck to prepare a hip toss.

She felt him yield an inch, but then he settled back down onto his feet. Even her magically enhanced kung fu wasn’t enough to topple the three-times-her-size thug. She struggled with it, trying to take his balance, but he was too well planted. And here came his bro.

The greaser dove at her with the knife, and she pulled on the meathead to get out of the way, trying to keep him between her and the knife.

All right, you’ve bought enough time—get the hell out.

Ree kicked the meathead in the nose the next time he closed, giving herself some breathing room. She turned and jumped through an empty spot in the stacks of boxes, hearing the crack of gunfire as she went. Shots hit boxes with the sound of exploding shards, but nothing caught fire or
felt
shot, so she kept going. Ree rolled to her feet and made for the door they’d used coming in, hoping that she could catch Eastwood on the outside without the fratboys.

As she ran past a break in the row of shelves, the greaser slammed into her, knife-first. He caught her in the side, and she felt the blade skip off a rib, which was far more painful than “skipping” anything would normally imply. They rolled to the ground, Ree reaching for the knife on instinct as she screamed. She tried to shove back the wave of pain, but that was about as effective as pushing against an actual wave. She felt her genre magic starting to fizzle.

No, screw that. I have to use the pain. Use it,
she thought, digging in.

Ree found the greaser’s wrist and dug her nails into his veins. She drew blood, and the greaser snarled at her in a string of creative, if lowbrow, curses. Hoping she could remember them later for a script, Ree waited until she was on her back and kneed the greaser in the groin.

His strength vanished, and Ree socked him across the jaw and then pushed him off of her. She pulled on a shelf to haul herself out from under his well-tanned body, her side roaring with pain. The door was thirty feet away, so she ran full out, wishing she’d kept up with her Wii Fit this year.

There was another pop in the air, and she felt a lava-hot tear in her shoulder—
Ow ow ow ow! Damnit, keep going,
she told herself.

Still sprinting, she ran into the door without opening it. She fumbled with the handle, hearing bullets ricochet off the cement wall but, thankfully, not off her. She nearly fell through the entryway, barely catching her feet as she continued to bust ass back to where she and Eastwood had put on the rings.

She saw Eastwood twenty yards away, waving his hands frantically. It would have been funny except for the burning pain that was doing its best to crowd out every single other thought or sensation.

The only thing that occurred to her was another letter to her dad.

Dear Dad,

When you said that getting shot sucked, I believed you, don’t get me wrong. However, I now realize how painfully right you were.