Attack the Geek (18 page)

“I can prove everything, but Eastwood needs to die. If you stop me, others will come for him. And they will have far less regard for collateral damage than I.”

“Yeah, because you’ve been a fucking surgeon so far,” Ree said, gesturing to the ruined store.

“The point remains. My sisters will come. Charge me with whatever you want, have your trial at Market, do what you like to make yourselves feel better. But when the other Strega come, this city will burn.” Lucretia crossed her arms and stood. “Take me where you will.”

Grognard chuffed. “I don’t have the time or give the shits to look after you. But I won’t have to.”

The big man went into the back room.

Ree studied Eastwood, saw him shifting, nerves showing through the exhaustion.
What if Lucretia was right?
She obviously wasn’t, but if she was, would her sisters try to do some weird-ass time-travel shit to put things “right”?

Grognard returned from the back room with a frequent flier-size bottle of booze.

“Drink this, and then repeat after me,” he said, pressing the bottle into her hands.

“What’s this?”

“Drinkable
geis
. Drink and repeat after me.”

Lucretia raised a painted-on eyebrow at Grognard, inspecting the glass.

“It’s that or I get to babysit you here until next month’s Midnight Market, where we can get the community together for a proper trial. And you don’t want me for a babysitter.”

“I imagine not,” Lucretia said, opening the bottle. She shot the small drink, then looked back at the bartender.

“I, your name,” Grognard said.

“I, Lucretia d’Fete.”

“Do swear that I will deliver myself to the next Pearson Midnight Market.”

Lucretia repeated the phrase.

“To answer for my crimes against Grognard and Eastwood, and will not seek to harm either of them, nor anyone in the Pearson Underground, until the trial is complete.”

Lucretia repeated Grognard’s words but added “except in self-defense.”

Grognard nodded at the addition. “Lest I forsake my power forever.”

The witch gulped, then finished the pledge. The air around Ree snapped into place, the world going perfectly still for a moment, like the sliders on a lock settling into place.

“Whoa,” Ree said.

Grognard’s mouth quirked into a slight smile. “That one took me a year to brew, two more to mature.” He turned to Lucretia. “Now get the fuck out of my store. Don’t ever come back.”

The fate witch picked herself up and made for the door.

When she was gone, Ree slid around the counter and poured a healthy portion of scotch into four glasses and handed them out to the group.

“The rest of your liquor doesn’t have
geis
power, right?”

“Nope. Just the power to compel people to drunkenness,” he said.

Ree nodded. “Do you think Lucretia’s shitting us?” Ree asked.

“It does seem rather convenient,” Drake said.

“It’d be a great way to pull one over on us so she can get away with attempted murder without consequence,” Ree said.

“And if her sisters do start making an appearance?” Drake asked.

Grognard raised his glass. The group toasted, then Grognard downed the whole thing in one go. He slammed the glass onto the bar. “Then we send them screaming back to their goth sorority house, one by one. I’ve been around awhile and known Lucretia for years, and this is the first I’ve heard about any of this crap.”

Eastwood sipped from his glass, and breathed out, seeming to savor the scent of the old scotch. “If I am supposed to be dead, I might as well try to do something useful before the universe catches up with me.” He turned to Ree. “And I can’t think of anything better than trying to get your mother back from the Duke.”

Ree gulped her own drink down, the potent vapors kicking her nose like a mule. It burned so good, all the way down.

Drake sipped on his drink, dignified even though she knew he was dead on his feet.

“Boss,” Ree said. “Permission to clock out and go die for a while?”

Grognard nodded. “I’ll give you a call when I decide what to do with this disaster zone.”

“Anyone for milk shakes?” she asked.

Drake nodded.

“Good. That way I can give you your coat back.”

“There’s no rush. I intend to engage in some intense hibernation this week myself.”

Ree nodded to Eastwood. “When we’ve rested up, why don’t we pick a time and bring every rescue idea that doesn’t involve taking Dark Side points so we can start fresh.”

The cowboy nodded, still watching his drink as he swirled the clear caramel liquid around the polished glass.

Not supposed to be alive. That’d be a hell of a head trip, even though it’s probably crap.

Ree grabbed her normal, not-fighting-monsters jacket, and nodded to the older geeks as they sat leaning against the bar, another bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue open between them. Ree and Drake took the office exit, since if Ree never saw another sewer tunnel in her life, it’d be too soon.

Once again, Ree was eternally grateful for the twenty-four-hour Burger Bin. The post-adventure milk shake had become a tradition for her (and for Drake, to a lesser extent), a fast and delicious war to dump hundreds of calories back into her system in a hurry.

Ree got her customary Shake of Victory, which basically involved throwing every single ingredient in the place into an industrial-strength blender and pressing Go.

Drake had vanilla.

They made their way out as soon as the drinks were ready, not wanting to press their luck in terms of the discretion of the overnight employees, who hadn’t bother asking what the hell the two of them had been doing before walking in. Drake had put together a pretty good olfactory glamour to hide the sewer smell, but they still looked like rejects from a Victorian postapocalyptic rave. Plus, she still had a puffy shirt skirt instead of pants, which even bored high school Burger Bin employees had to think was weird.

They made their way to the park two blocks away. It was really just a triangle of grass, a few benches, and a couple of trees that filled up a street corner too small to hold a useful building. Ree took off her boots, laid her squidgy socks over the back of a bench, and walked on the dew-cooled grass. She took several long breaths, soaking in the texture of real earth, the crunch of the grass, and the scent of fresh city air. No walls, no dome, and, best of all, no fucking monsters.

And the whole time, a part of her brain circled back and back and back to Drake. The look he got when he reacted to the richness of the ice cream, the restrained flickers of unalloyed pleasure kept at the edges by his propriety, the curve of his arms, the bare skin of his neck.

Stay good, Ree.
She stared at her milk shake, hiding in the exhaustion as they talked. The sugar and caffeine pushed her aches back, dimmed the headache a bit, but she still felt as wrung out as a pile of washboard laundry.

They’d found the right time of night to be ignored by the world, only a half-dozen lights visible from their spot in the park. It was a rich enough neighborhood to have a Burger Bin, was off the drop routes for the city’s drug trade, and was populated enough to be a bad choice for muggings. Though she’d like to see someone
try
to mug the two of them, especially after the miserable night they’d had.

When both straws started making sucking-on-air sounds, they made their way through the four-AM empty streets to Ree’s building. The same mischievous voice, rampaging on a sugar high, said on a loop,
Smooch him!
in the weird cousin to the “Shoot her!” line from
Jurassic Park
.

But her libido was not the boss of her. “You want I should bring your jacket back down?” Ree asked.

Drake waved off the idea. “No need. I wouldn’t ask you to use the stairs any more than necessary. We will speak again soon.”

Smooch him!
the voice said again.

“Got it. Sleep well, Drake,” she said instead.

Drake tipped a hat he wasn’t wearing, an affectation he’d picked up from one of the many movies she’d inflicted on him.

The
Smooch him!
voice called out again as he stepped back to turn away. She wanted to watch him go but forced herself to tromp up the stairs and put her fool-ass self to bed.

Dear self,

Go the F@*% to Sleep.

And so she did, dreaming aggravatingly pleasant dreams of Drake punctuated by Scott Pilgrim–esque nightmares of Gothic Lolita ninjas attacking Eastwood. Because that was her life now, like it or not.

Acknowledgments

First, my Epic Level +5 Radiant thanks to Adam Wilson, for his enthusiasm and wisdom in helping to shape the continuing adventures of Ree, Drake, and the gang.

To Meg White, for her thoughts on Lieutenant Wickham, as well as her stalwart support and tolerance of weekend afternoons in coffee shops.

To Sara Megibow, agent of awesomeness, for bobbing and weaving through the mad melee of publishing to keep me working and able to share these stories with the world.

To my readers, for the incredible honor they do me by engaging with my work, and for the unmatched, primal joy that comes from knowing that you’ve made people happy through storytelling.

To my fellow writers and storytellers, source of limitless inspiration, support, and camaraderie. You help make a lonely job far less isolating.

And most of all, thank you to the gaming community—dice chuckers, card-floppers, pewter painters, tabletoppers, console warriors, LARPers, game designers, everyone. Games and gaming have been a huge part of making me who I am and brightening my mood in times when I was low. This story is an attempt to reflect some of that brightness out into the world.

Michael R. Underwood

Baltimore, Maryland

November 2013

About the Author

Michael R. Underwood is the author of the Ree Reyes urban fantasies
Geekomancy
and
Celebromancy
, as well as the forthcoming
The Younger Gods
and
Shield and Crocus
. By day, he’s the North American sales and marketing manager for Angry Robot Books. Mike grew up devouring stories in all forms, from comics to video games, tabletop RPGs, movies, and books. Always books.

Mike lives in Baltimore with his fiancée, an ever-growing library, and a super-team of dinosaur figurines and stuffed animals. In his rapidly vanishing free time, he studies historical martial arts and makes pizzas from scratch.

Also by Michael R. Underwood

Geekomancy

Celebromancy