Hexomancy (16 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Defender’s Creed

Drake’s RC tracker led them west, past the U-District and toward the water.

The adventurer stopped on a street corner, staring intently at the tracker’s readout.

“How we doing?” Ree asked, stamping her feet. Her second-string boots were for going out and dancing, not for turning aside winter.

Note to self:
Inquire about all-season muck-proof boots. No price too high.

Amended:
Many prices are too high. Still a priority.

“The source appears to be leading farther still to the west, into the industrial district.”

“Great, straight into gangland territory,” Ree chattered, teeth rattling.

“So it would seem. It is likely, however, that most of their number will just be waking up now, and less likely to go chasing after strange adventurers.”

“Yeah, but what about me?” Ree asked, winking.

Drake resumed, crossing the street. This time, he managed to wait for the light. “Your protestations of normalcy have been noted and will be attended to with all appropriate consideration, filed under ‘Owner of three complete sets of the
Star Wars
films.’”

“That’s totally reasonable. The VHS set, a Laserdisc of the remastered but not special edition trilogy, and the second edition of not-quite-as-terrible special edition DVDs. Also, magic.”

“None of the above is lending any credit to your case for normalcy.”

“Okay, I give up. Plus, the weird adventurers have more fun.”

“I would think this rather more fun were we not forging through weather more frigid than the outposts on Europa.”

“No disagreement on that here.”

Forty bone-chilling minutes
later (including a ten-minute thawing break in a coffee shop), they reached a warehouse building two blocks in from the wharf.

“The signal originates somewhere in that building, give or take twenty yards.”

“Okay, how do you want to enter?”

Ree walked down the street, taking the building in through her peripheral vision, in case Lachesis had surveillance running. The building was three stories tall, with double doors on the ground floor, and probably a back entrance on the wharf side. Some Spider-Mojo could get them up onto the second or third floor, but a lot depended on who else was there. Bad thing about being a hero (aka a moral human being) was worrying about collateral damage.

“Breaking and entering is rather more your area of expertise.”

“Are you saying that because I’m Latina, or because I’m the one with the lock-picking skills?” Ree joked.

“I was thinking more of your bold, aggressive combat style.”

“I’ll allow it. Looks like there may be another way in around back, probably less guarded. If we pop inside for a minute, I can run a reverse yellow pages search on this address, see what businesses pop up. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll have left a paper trail.”

“Well thought. I saw a delicatessen around the corner, and I would happily provide a cup of soup, should you be interested in some warm broth to fortify the constitution.”

“I’ll take every constitution bonus I can get in this crazy-ass Winter of Ree’s Discontent module.”

By the time the soup was done, several things were different:

1) Ree could feel her nose again.

2) Her hands had stopped burning.

3) She knew that there were three businesses associated with the address: an import/export business on the first floor, an upholstery show on the second floor, and something called Lachesis Logistics on the third floor. Bingo.

4) This place’s soup was awesome.

Ree went back to tip the guys at Otrowski’s an extra dollar, earning a nod of approval from the balding proprietor.

Rather than coming back at the building the same way, they went around the block, approaching the building from the wharf side.

“Okay, we’re looking for the third floor. Lachesis Logistics is a dummy company name if ever I’ve heard one. Strega number one was Connie Clothos-Line, and this one is Lachesis.”

“The Greek Fates. Fitting for women styling themselves as Strega.”

“Natch. Though that means the next one is Atropos, who is supposed to be the nastiest of them all. Death-bringer, life-ender, so on and so forth. That’ll be fun.”

“Again, I find your definitions of things such as ‘fun’ and ‘normal’ to be rather disassociated with what I’ve come to know as reality.”

Ree held her hood close as the wind howled, blowing snowflakes into her eyes despite her glasses. “I learned to embrace the ridiculous. It’s safer inside the clown house than next door.”

“That is one way of coping, I suppose. Now, how do you propose we gain entry to the third floor?”

“I’m sure as hell not going to just go up and knock. With as trap-happy as Lachesis seems to be, we need to think laterally. I see a skylight up there, so step one is getting up to the roof.”

Drake brightened. “For that, I have a solution.” He opened his coat and reached almost cartoonishly deep into a jacket pocket, pulling out a stumpy gun with a grapple in the barrel. “It is a far cry from an ornithopter, but I wagered that we might need to move vertically in the near future.”

“Will that support two?” Ree asked.

“The winch is only rated to two hundred pounds, so we will need to go one at a time, I’m afraid. I have inquiries out for a superior spring crank, but as it involves what Wickham calls ‘cheating Steampunk,’ my resources are rather more limited.”

“That corner looks promising,” Ree said, pointing at the near edge of the building, with thicker crenellations around the lip of the roof.

“That should suffice, yes.” Drake stopped next to a fire hydrant, squared his stance, and raised the grapple gun. He aimed and waited for a moment, the winter wind whipping his coat around and nearly pulling Ree off her feet as it filled her coat. She turned in profile to the wind, no longer feeling like an umbrella about to be whisked off to see Mary Poppins.

Drake fired, and the hook arced right over the lip of the building. He pulled the grapple gun tight, then wrapped the bottom around the hydrant.

Their totally conspicuous adventures went unnoticed, since again, fucking blizzard cold out. Anyone and everyone who
could
stay inside
was
staying inside.

“When I am safely atop the building, untie the rope and press this button, and the winch will retract. You should then be able to climb up the side of the building.”

“ ‘Should’? Have you tested this thing?”

“You said that you liked adventure, yes?”

Ree’s face fell.

“I jest. Yes, I have tested this function. It has performed marvelously.”

“Why don’t you just winch your way up and toss the gun back down to me?”

“The device is too fragile. And this is not my first time brachiating up to break and enter an enemy’s lair.”

Ree said, “You really are my kind of weirdo.” She pecked Drake on the cheek, then squeezed his forearm. “Be careful.”

“I will take as much care as I can, though a certain bravado is necessary for such ventures.” Drake rubbed his hands together, pulled his gloves tight, then jogged over and leaped up, grabbing the rope with both hands. The cable stayed taut, sparing Drake from a slacklining climb.

The adventurer scaled his way up toward the building as quickly as a five-year-old on a jungle gym.

“Impressive,” she said, just as the reality of what she was about to do pinged her fear of heights.

You know, like climbing up a three-story building, Adam West Batman–style.

“Gulp,” she said.

Some panic-stolen amount of time later, a whistle cut above the wind. Ree looked up to see Drake gesticulating at the grapple gun.

“Time to face the music,” Ree said. She could power-up with something to fly, to climb, or some other way of making it up the wall, but a street-level hero with a fear of heights was a recipe for trouble, and situations like this were the best possible way to fight through that fear.

“I can do this,” Ree told herself, untying the grapple gun from the fire hydrant, cable already slicked by melting snow.

Taking the grapple gun in hand, she walked over to the warehouse, as nonchalantly as it was possible to approach a building you have no business approaching while holding a grappling gun in your hands and trying not to retch.

Easy-peasey
, Ree thought, trying to hype herself up.
You’
ve seen this a thousand times. You’ve climbed up buildings with just your hands and toes; you’ve survived dogfights through downtown and crashing into a labyrinth.

It was like a ropes course on rails. Easier than the big climb in leadership camp. Ree’s dad had responded to her shyness and fear of heights in the way that only an oversupportive marine could—he’d enrolled her in a “leadership” course that mostly involved team puzzle athletics (The floor is lava! You have a small supply of lava-proof two-by-fours! Go!) and indoor wall-climbing. Ree had made it up the fifty-foot-high course only once and had puked her guts right out afterward. That was the end of the leadership course.

Ree put a foot up on the concrete wall of the warehouse, exhaled, and pressed the button. The grapple gun’s winch started spinning, pulling the cable in from the slack she’d generated. She watched the cable move like a venomous serpent, snaking across the ground, coming toward her.

“Here goes nothing,” Ree said, responding to the cable’s tug by pulling up, starting her ascent.

The first few steps went easily, just tracking with the motion of the grapple gun. It was doing all of the work; she just had to support her weight.

“Next time, can we bring a harness? Or a kiddie seat?” Ree yelled up the wall, not expecting to be heard. But snarking let her take her attention off the situation.

She pretended that forward was down, and that like the old Batman show, it was the camera that was sideways, not her body. That illusion lasted until the second floor, when a wind gust knocked her off her feet. Her right side bounced off the concrete wall, sending a double-shot of terror down her spine. She wrapped a hand around the cable and tried to get her feet back under her, in that “under” that was actually on the side and . . .

Ack.

Her climbing instructor’s voice came to her.
Stop. Breathe. Check your rope.

She squeezed the cable, still retracting. “Check.”

Check your footing.

“In progress,” she said, continuing to bounce off the wall, the wind doing its inanimate best to twist her up in the cable and shear her arm off or some shit. She got one foot on the wall, then the other, and shuffled up to resume her ninety-degrees-from-upright stance.

“You’re almost there, Ree,” Drake called from the roof. She looked up, and what did you know, he was right. Drake leaned over the lip of the roof, lips tight.

“Keep talking. Anything, just keep talking, please,” Ree asked, shaking from hand to toes, and trying very, very hard to ignore the category-four storm rumbling in her stomach.

“This was rather brave of you; we could have done this. . . .”

“Not. That. Anything else,” Ree almost hissed through gritted teeth.

“Ah, my apologies. The gravel coating the roof here reminds me of the volcanic rock in the terrain of the Incarnate duel.” Ree zoomed in on his words, wrapped the familiarity of his patter and cadence around her as armor against fear, the sounds crafted into parapets, each word another brick to hold back the panic.
Fifteen feet, come on.

“I went back and watched the video, did I tell you? You were magnificent.” She slowed her breath as best as she could.
Ten feet more. Almost there.
“Not that there was any doubt that you would be magnificent, but I agree with Grognard that based on my understanding of the rules, Lucretia could not have Incarnated that quickly all three times.”

Five feet. She wanted to reach out for Drake’s waiting hand, but she didn’t dare let go of her death grip on the grapple gun. Drake helped haul up the cable, and grabbed her forearm, giving her enough to pull back on and get a foot over the lip of the roof.

She rolled onto the roof, going flat onto her back, hyperventilating.

I made it.

I made it.

That’s your cue to resume normal service, lungs.

A minute later, she could breathe again.

Ree opened her eyes and saw Drake waiting, lips still thin. “I’m fine,” she said. “That was more of a thing than I wanted it to be. Should have used mojo to get up. The grapple gun does work, but next time I would like a harness, please.”

“Understood. That will be rather easier to arrange, as opposed to the cushions on the ornithopter.”

“Any plans to make another one?”

“The materials necessary would require a journey into Deep Spirit, as replicating such a working without those materials entails alchemical talents beyond my ken.”

“Road trip?”

“So to speak. First we would need a vessel capable . . .” Drake stopped himself. “Another time. Shall we attend to the matter at hand?”

Ree stood, shaking out the jitters. “I’m good. Did you get a look into the skylight?”

“I did not.” Drake smiled. “I was rather more focused on the well-being of the beautiful woman with the fear of heights.”

“Okay, let’s get to it, then. You have something to break the glass with that won’t lead to us jumping through jagged shards? Something quiet, maybe?”

“You don’t just want to try to pick that lock?” Drake asked, pointing at a roof access door.

“I’m going to blame that on the fear. Yep, the fear,” Ree said, walking over to the door, giving the skylight a wide berth. Again, cameras. Or Mark-1 eyeballs.

Ree took one glove off and rummaged through her bag for her lock picks. They were low-end since, of all the things in her bag of tricks, these were the most likely to get her on someone’s police watch list, even with her friends in SWAT. She could get set up as a bonded locksmith, but that was way too much hassle for a skill that was only occasionally more useful than just getting superpowers.