Geekomancy (14 page)

Sven Carlssen turned in his chair and flashed a nasty look at Eastwood. “Don’t you dare.”

“Silence!” called the auctioneer, her voice somehow filling the room from all directions. The room fell silent save for the echoes of her voice. “Lady Lucretia, do you wish to add to your bid?”

Lucretia shook her head. “If Eastwood is willing to part with so dear a thing, his need for this ring must be greater than my own. I withdraw my bid.”

The auctioneer looked around. “Do I have any other bids?” There was no response except more murmurs and shuffling. It was as if anyone else were scared to go for the item.
She must have been hot shit around here,
Ree mused.

“Going once, twice . . . sold to Eastwood for a signed white-box Dungeons & Dragons set, the original confetti Chaos Orb, and the lightsaber of Branwen nic Catrin.”

The auctioneer clapped her gavel and the crowd applauded.

Eastwood sighed a deep sigh. “This had better work.”

The auction moved on with several more lots, but Eastwood stepped out a few minutes later, Ree following.

“Who was Branwen? Is that the Jedi you were talking about?” she asked.

“Yes. She was a . . . close friend.” Eastwood said it in a way that made it clear she had been much more than just a friend. “When she passed, I inherited her implements and collections, according to her will.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate you wanting to save people’s lives, but why is that Claddagh so important that you’d trade off her weapon?”

“It’s what she’d want. She was the most selfless person I ever met. She’d approve.” Eastwood sounded like he was trying to convince himself that what he said was true.

“Let’s take a walk. Want a drink?” Ree said, jumping into her Take Care of a Friend in Crisis mode without even realizing it.

“I shouldn’t, but thanks.” Eastwood’s walls went back up, and Ree backed off. They wandered the floor until the auction was over. Ree continued to take mental and digital notes about the stalls, the merchants, and the buyers.

Next month I come with a plan, a bag of swag to trade, and a shopping list.

Another set of bells rang out, and Eastwood turned back to the auction area. “Time to settle up.”

Ree swung the bag of goods onto her other shoulder, feeling the burn in her forearms. The ring would be a hell of a lot lighter than all the crap she was lugging around now, though she suspected the bag contained more than his bids.

Back in the auction area, there was a short line of bidders in front of the auctioneer and her sharp-dressed staff. Lucretia and Sven had made up enough to be chatting amicably ahead of them. A half-dozen auction winners collected their goods, walking away with knives, discs, tomes, and more before Eastwood approached the stage.

Ree opened the bag, and Eastwood produced his bids. First, the beat-to-hell D&D box, cardboard worn through at the corners. He held it for a moment, sighed, then handed it to one of the attendants. He pulled out a small clear plastic box filled with shredded paper, the confetti Chaos Orb. He handed that over as well, then reached into the bag and pulled out the lightsaber. This was a different model from the one he’d used to save Ree from the troll, but even from a few feet away, she felt the energy contained in the prop.

It called out to her, and she had to restrain herself from reaching out for a touch. Eastwood held the prop like a baby, and Ree saw a tear bead up in the corner of his eye before he handed the lightsaber to the auctioneer directly, stepping past the assistants.

“Remember the legacy she left. I hope you will honor her memory as I have,” Eastwood said.

The auctioneer took the lightsaber and admired it, running her hands over the handle. “I will do with it as I see fit, Eastwood, but I will remember your words. Branwen was well known to me.” More support for Ree’s not-just-a-friend suspicions.

The auctioneer produced a small velvet-covered jewelry box and popped it open to reveal the ring, gilt and gorgeous. Eastwood exhaled upon seeing the ring and accepted it like it was as delicate as a Fabergé egg.

He slipped the box into a pocket of his coat and shook the auctioneer’s hand. Ree failed her save vs. curiosity and looked into the bag. There wasn’t much light, but she saw a cast-iron teakettle, a sheathed
tanto
knife, and the real culprit of weight, a white half-longbox, which would explain the boxy chunk o’ heavy she’d felt digging into her back.

“So, what now?” Ree asked.

“Now it’s time for a drink.” Eastwood looped around the stalls and made straight for Grognard’s stall, moving at a “walking crosstown in Manhattan” clip. Ree kept pace as best she could with the sack.

Eastwood already had a drink in hand when Ree caught up to the stall. He downed it in a single go.

“Okay, let’s go. I’ve had my fill of this place,” he said, tossing the empty cup into the nearby trash can.

Without so much as a glance in Ree’s direction, Eastwood delved into the crowd, geeks parting to make way as he passed.

•   •   •

They were deep in the tunnels and halfway back to Grognard’s proper when Eastwood stopped to sniff the air. “We’re being followed.”

Ree looked over her shoulder, trying to listen. “How do you smell anything down here?”

“Experience. I need you to get the
tanto
and the blaster.”

Ree set down the bag and rummaged through it, trying to identify things by touch.

“Faster. They’re closing.”

“Who’s closing? Can’t we run?” Ree asked, panicking.

“No good. They’re cutting us off at this juncture. If we go back now, we get trapped into a set of downward paths toward bad-nasty’s territory. Get that sword ready, it’s time to test your steel.”

Ree found the
tanto
’s hilt and kept feeling for the blaster. She found something vaguely gun-shaped and pulled it out. Eastwood took both weapons, stuffing the
tanto
into his belt and drawing the lightsaber she’d seen earlier. Ree drew her rapier and scanned the darkness for movement.

She heard the laughter first, a throaty laugh in a deep but feminine register. Lady Lucretia stepped out of the shadows, followed shortly by Sven Carlssen, his hair brushing the ceiling of the sewer passageway. He hefted a bat’leth in both hands, the Klingon weapon that seemed a whole hell of a lot scarier in person than on TV.

Lucretia smiled, locking them in her gaze. “I’ve come for the ring, Eastwood.”

Chapter Eight

With This Ring, I Thee Pwn

“Frak off.” Eastwood held the lightsaber in a low guard out and to his right, not yet activated.

Lucretia’s painted lips drew up into a terse smile. “This is not a negotiation. This is a trade. I take the ring, and you keep your life and that of your apprentice.”

Sven curled his hands around the bat’leth, a caged tiger waiting to be released to the hunt.

Ree started to protest, “I’m not his—”

“She’s not my apprentice.” Eastwood cut her off, his voice raised and laced with anger and frustration.

“Whoever she is, she dies unless you give me the ring. You can fend off one of us, but do you think you’re Geek enough to take us both?” Lucretia looked straight into Eastwood’s eyes, smirking. “You’re no Branwen.” She spat the woman’s name at him like a weapon.

Eastwood raised the blaster, pointing it at Lucretia. “How about you leave, and I refrain from disintegrating you and cutting off Swedish Chef’s balls to serve to his wailing children?”

Sven shifted his weight side-to-side, clearly antsy. Lucretia was photo-still, her breathing imperceptible. Eastwood, Sven, and Lucretia maintained a stare-down for most of a minute, while Ree did her best to seem intimidating. She grabbed on to the magical energy in her mind with white-hot mental knuckles.

All right, William Goldman, don’t fail me now.

Sven broke first, lunging forward with a huge pace. He moved far faster than anyone his size had a right to, cutting up toward Eastwood’s neck with a swipe of the bat’leth. As Eastwood’s lightsaber fired up, the tunnel filled with green light. Eastwood faded back and under the cut, dodging by inches and counter-attacking with his own upward slash. Sven reversed the blade and parried the lightsaber with the back side of his blade.

Inconcievable!
Ree thought.
Or not.
She focused, using the
Princess Bride
brain to try to predict what would happen next in the fight.

Lucretia raised a hand and said something under her breath. A jagged pattern flashed in front of her hand, and the hair on Ree’s arms stood straight up. Something cracked in the air, and Eastwood lost grip of his lightsaber. The blade reverted to prop form as it dropped into the sludge at the center of the tunnel.

“Frell!”
Eastwood said in a panicked voice, ducking under Sven’s horizontal cut and firing a point-blank shot with the blaster. When it went wide, he dived to the sludge, trying to fish out the saber.

Sven carried his cut through, on track to take Ree’s torso off at the rib cage. She responded automatically, pushing off one foot to jump back and parry into the cut. Her blade was pushed out of the way by Sven’s powerful strike, but the blow was deflected enough to miss her by inches.

Ree moved with the rapier’s momentum from the parry, circled it over her head to cut at Sven’s shoulder. The blond man backed off, raising the bat’leth at an angle to stop the cut. The tip of his blade bounced off the ceiling, but the parry held.

Oh, this is awesome,
Ree thought as she let the magic guide her though the fight. She skipped back another pace, watching Eastwood sweep a hand through the muck while rapid-firing at Lucretia, who somehow danced around the shots, dodging them time and time again.

Eastwood pulled the lightsaber out of the muck and fired it up again, the iridescent green blade lighting up the tunnel once more. He fired a couple of shots at Sven as the blond man turned away from Ree. Sven took the blasts, which singed his coat but seemed to do little to stop him as he charged.

Ree pushed her weight off her back foot and launched forward, leaning into the lunge to align her whole body with the strike. The shot landed around the side of Sven’s rib cage, but the blade skipped off his coat.

She cursed at his somehow-armored coat, but instead of “Fucker!” it came out as “Cowardly sod!”

Eastwood took a wide stance in the muck, meeting Sven’s downward cut. Sven pushed Eastwood back, trying to tangle the lightsaber up with the blaster. Ree slashed at the back of Sven’s head, figuring that it’d be harder to armorize one’s neck. Without looking, Sven leaned forward, dodging the cut. Ree felt her feet slip on the muck-covered concrete and had to flail to keep from falling into a forward split.

Ree felt the magical energy fading as she fought, the buzz dimming.
Not just yet,
she pleaded with herself.
Keep going . . .

As Ree recovered from the slip, she saw Lucretia backing up, the woman’s long fingers dancing in a pattern. The air in the tunnel crackled with energy again, and the next time Eastwood’s blaster fired, it made a pathetic
wooom
sound of powering down. Sven pressed the attack, pushing Eastwood’s blade aside and clocking him across the temple with an elbow.

Eastwood collapsed into the several-inches-thick sewage, and Ree leaped to intervene, her blade whirling in a tornado of slashes and thrusts.

Sven parried each attack, taking one, two, then three steps back. As she pushed forward with a double-disengage thrust to the shoulder, Sven leaned into her attack, knocking the sword out of her hand and slamming her into a sidewall.

Red and black covered her vision, and the world faded away.

•   •   •

Upon waking, Ree’s first thought was:
What a hangover
. Except she hadn’t been drinking.

Her next:
Where am I?

Right. In a sewer, fighting Bitchy McStrega and the Swedish Cuisinart.

She opened her eyes, regretting it when the light came into her eyes like hot-blasted sand. She closed them, trying to feel out her surroundings.

The ground below her was something squishy, and the room smelled like old paper, the air stiff. Her neck was cramped like she’d slept upright. She tried rolling her neck, feeling more than hearing the cracking and popping.

She brought a hand up to her face and tried opening her eyes again. The light still stung, but she managed to take in the room. She was flanked by bookshelves and a desk with stacks of old computer equipment. The squishy floor turned out to be a smelly futon. Ree looked around the room and heard someone whinging just before she spotted Eastwood behind the top of a shelf. His shirt was off, and he was wrapping a bandage around his chest, covering a nasty wound in his side.