“What does being in your book get me?”
“More help.”
“Ah. I’ll take you up on that.” After I hung up, I pulled out my phone and started a book of my own. Like any good writer or game master, I’m never too proud to steal a good idea.
The rest of the shut-down I took care of in our suite. By five in the afternoon, Curious Diversions was idle and all employees locked out of the system.
To cap the day off, I caught sight of RainbowSparklePwnie climbing a fire escape and dropped a dozen 40mm grenades on top of him. The grenades blew him away, along with the building supports. The upper four floors came down on top of the little punk. It didn’t leave enough left of him for me to teabag, but I was dancing on the couch. There is no kill like overkill.
We met Josephine for dinner at Legendary, the Trove’s “Otherworldly Cuisine” fine dining restaurant. It was one of those molecular gastronomy places, equal parts cooking and chemistry. I’m guessing “Otherworldly Cuisine” meant the cook looked beyond the
Warblade
motif; I spotted items from a dozen games on the menu. I ordered a Deathclaw Egg Omelet with diced mole rat and meltdown sauce (an entire ostrich egg, ham from Spanish pigs, and a green chili sauce capable of melting the hinges of a safe) to go for Rose. I had to go with The Cake Is a Lie—a Beef Wellington made to look like a big slice of birthday cake. The frosting was a pâté of wild mushrooms and Marsala wine, but it looked just like chocolate buttercream.
I opened with, “I suggest we void the existing contract and go back to square one, because we never addressed someone buying the game instead of investing in it. Since the two outcomes we discussed don’t apply, the contract is moot anyway.”
Josephine’s poker face might as well have been a porcelain mask. “I see no good outcome to renegotiating a valid contract.”
I shrugged. “The contract is a good starting point, and if you’d rather amend it than do a new one, I’m willing to look at that as well. However, I’m not willing to put the fusion battery plans on the table any more.
Ecophage
and the battery were and are separate, unrelated issues.”
That got a response; her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. “You did not secure an investor for your existing product. Therefore, the agreed-upon provisions of the contract go into effect now. You have two weeks to begin developing
Ecophage
and surrender the technical materials as agreed.”
“My investor bought the game outright. I even have a contract to provide training and support for the next year. I’m sure any reasonable jury would conclude I’ve received an investment sufficient to fund the next year of operations. So, do you want to wait another year, or discuss amending the contract?” Holy Testicle Tuesday, it felt good to not be groveling.
Josephine has a phenomenally disconcerting ability to remain motionless. It’s an Elven thing, a level of kinesthetic awareness and control Humans can’t come close to. Most Elves only use it when meditating or hunting, and never around Humans. Turning into a statue is a good way to freak us out—unless we know about it.
I let her stew, and refilled my coffee cup from the carafe. The slight angle I was leaning at gave me a great view of the guy pointing a gun at Josephine’s head.
He had the same look as the scarecrows we’d dealt with last night—gaunt, dirty, and wrapped in tattered clothes. The gun was a snub-nosed .38 revolver. He cocked the hammer.
I threw the coffee cup at him. He ducked the cup itself, but took a face full of steaming coffee. He howled and jumped back. I charged him, still holding the carafe. Josephine’s bodyguard beat me to the guy, breaking his wrist with a collapsing baton. I kicked the gun to the side, grabbing the scarecrow’s shoulders and spinning him to the ground.
Two more Llewellyns sailed over my head and brought down a second scarecrow by the front door. Casino security charged in, one guy with pistol drawn and one reporting the situation into a shoulder handset. I raised my hands and started to stand up.
The bullet went into my side instead of the back of my skull. It hurt like a sonofabitch, but I had enough adrenaline and endorphins in my system not to feel it full-strength. I turned around, grabbing the back of a chair to help myself up.
Josephine kicked one of her shoes off and grabbed it out of the air. Her sensible flats must have been designed by MI-6, because she hit some kind of pressure release and a carbon fiber blade snapped up out of the sole, locked into place by a row of finger loops. Brass knuckles for the fashion police. She slashed the scarecrow across the stomach and down one arm, across his upper thighs, and straight up from his gonads to the middle of his chest. He stumbled back, trying to aim at her.
Instead of running, Josephine grabbed his gun hand and yanked, driving the crown of her skull into his forehead. He dropped the gun. Josephine brought the blade down, spearing through the back of the scarecrow’s hand and pinning it to the unmarred oak dining table. She grabbed her other shoe and popped out its hidden weaponry as well. As she scanned the room, the scarecrow tried to reach for his gun. She took a butcherblock carving board from a server’s trolley and banged it across the back of the scarecrow’s head until he stopped moving.
I weaved a little as blood loss took its toll. A frail-looking, elderly woman with a walker pulled a .45 automatic out of her purse and aimed at Josephine. I lunged, trying to knock Josephine out of the way. Stupid. We both got hit.
I woke up in Aerin and Angus’ suite, on the marble island in the middle of their kitchen. Everything below my neck was numb. I started to panic until Rose touched my cheek.
“You’re fine,” she said. “The spell keeping you still will wear off in a few minutes. One bullet came close to your spine, but there was no serious damage.”
“How is Josephine?”
Rose shook her head. “The one who shot you also hit Josephine three times. Her body armor stopped two, but the third lodged in her skull. Aerin is still working on her.”
I nodded and tried to relax until I could move again. By the time I managed to sit up, Josephine was out of danger and sleeping the same spell off. Aerin and Danya were zapping the bloodstains on the counters and floor away, so I collected my shirt and followed Angus onto the patio. Nadia was working away on a monster of a high-end laptop, wearing haptic feedback gloves and video-output goggles. I left her alone and asked Angus, “Do we have any idea who these guys were, or what they were after?”
“Random people, like before.” Angus handed me a grimy, blood-spattered piece of folded paper. “They wanted you. Everyone else was…collateral damage.”
The paper was a photocopy of a cell phone picture of me at our booth. Probably taken early yesterday, from somewhere near the exhibition hall doors. I handed it back. “Was anyone else hurt?”
“Some. One Houseguard shot in the arm. His emergency potion patched him up. You and Josephine are the most serious injuries.” He shrugged. “The official story is a botched robbery.”
“What about the cameras?” I waved at the ceiling. “Casinos have them everywhere.”
“
Retcon
works on electronics. They run those tapes, they won’t see us.”
“Nice spell. Why me, though?”
Angus snorted. “They’re the Bloodmaiden’s followers. I doubt it was their idea.”
I thought for a few seconds, but didn’t care for where those thoughts took me. “She’s trying to kill me to keep Crom’s game from being made.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Angus unfolded the paper again, pointing to some smudges in the margin. “Mmm. The boneheads left good leads. Smells like…lawn care chemicals. Garbage. Oil and gasoline. Piss and shit. Running water, lots of crap in it. Clay. That means a steady flow of water and lots of material.”
“Where can water deposit clay in a location likely to be pissed on? Vegas doesn’t have any rivers.” My mind raced a few seconds before the jackpot bells went off. “Storm drains.”
Angus nodded. “Agreed. Find ’em, pay ’em a visit.”
“Yeah.” I looked at Josephine, then back to Angus’ throat. “May I ask you a personal question?”
He snorted. “Is it about my scars?”
Don’t be a noob. I shook my head. “Not exactly. What kind of injuries can’t be fixed by the magic you all have to call on? I’d like to know what to avoid.”
“Don’t get killed. Keep your brain intact. Remove foreign objects from the wound.” He tapped his throat. “Shrapnel did all this. A Viet Cong mortar during the Tet offensive. A medic removed a bunch of shell frags from my chest, but then he got a good look at my throat. Put me right into a body bag.” He pointed out a small ring on his left hand. “Ring of Regeneration. My heart was fine in ten minutes, but my dog tags and chain got tangled up in the throat wound. The ring couldn’t heal my throat. It just made layers of scar tissue. This poor corpsman in San Diego finally removed my tags three days later. The throat healed and I woke up. The corpsman left shit stains clear to Tijuana.”
“What did the Army say?”
“‘You’re dead, Jim.’ I stole some clothes, hitchhiked to Berkeley, and continued our quest. The whole time, the guy was at Harvard taking world history classes.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Anyway. The throat’s fixable. I just have to cut off my head.” He started laughing, and after a moment, I joined him.
Aerin came out and snuggled up to Angus. “I’m keeping Josephine unconscious until morning, just to make sure there’s no swelling in the brain. I fixed her scalp, but I left the right side of her skull open just in case. Sandy and Richard are flying out and should be here tomorrow morning. Josephine may hate it, but she’s still mommy’s little girl. At least her mother thinks so.” She looked across the table at Nadia and swooped down on her, pulling my new vice-president into a hair-tousling hug.
“Mother…” Nadia fought for a moment, surprise and wariness flitting across her face. She relaxed and accepted Aerin’s touch, but she still looked uncertain as to how to respond. As soon as she could, she turned back to her keyboard and said, “I think I found something.”
As we crowded around, Nadia switched her display from the glasses back to her monitor. A sandy-blond woman in her late thirties was posing for a mug shot. “Elise Vaughn, former reporter for one of the local television stations. Arrested for smoking meth with an underage informant in the parking garage of a shopping mall. Fired for staging several stories to boost ratings. One was an attack on a homeless man, beaten to death by a street gang she’d paid to carry out the assault. She pled guilty in exchange for a suspended sentence and community service. Court records show she’s working at a secondhand store in old downtown.”
I studied the picture, but I was sure I hadn’t seen her before. “Any connection to the Meadows homeless shelter?”
Danya said, “Yes. Toni had a coupon for special discounts on kid’s clothes for shelter residents. She was going to try to buy a dress to wear to the costume contest tomorrow.”
“Let’s have a look,” Aerin said. She got out her crystal ball and focused on Elise Vaughn. The fog in the glass cleared, showing us a woman who looked nothing like her mug shot. The mane of flowing golden honey hair was gone, replaced with a medium brown bob. She was thinner, harder looking, and there was something broken in her eyes. She was in the back of the secondhand store, sorting clothes and stapling on price tags. If she detected the scrying, she gave no sign.
Aerin moved the view outward, showing more of the back room. Three other women were doing the same tasks, sorting clothes or bric-a-brac and attaching prices. Another clerk came through a pair of double doors and hauled a rack of clothes back with her onto the sales floor. Aerin followed, and then left the clerk behind and swooped up to the display cabinets in the front of the store.
Paydirt. Two dozen of the Bloodmaiden’s emblems were on display, being touted as Sacred Heart Holy Protection Medallions, complete with a big swath of Latin text and pictures of bullets bouncing off a force field.
Aerin snorted. “I think they’re trying to say some holy power protects the wearer from catapult stones.” She pointed to one of the sentences and asked Angus, “Can you make that out?”
“Accomplish the sacred blood stacked higher than the evil which will be throwing of many catapults rocks upon your head,” he replied. “Can you show the card backs?”
“Of course.”
The actual maneuvering of the eyeball we were looking through took a bit, but Aerin’s skill and focus were more than up to the job. The back of the cards packed with each pendant had a simple, innocent-sounding prayer asking for God to protect the wearer from random bullets and intentional ones alike. I didn’t see anything funky, but Rose did.
“There. Start with the first word, then every third. Don’t read it out loud.” She traced her finger over the words as she spoke. That pattern revealed an oath, promising fealty to the Bloodmaiden once the speaker donned the amulet. Call me paranoid, but I’m not going to repeat it here.
“Using bulletproof amulets to recruit low-level flunkies,” Aerin sad. “That’s almost creative, by her normal standards.” She cocked her head to the side and pulled the Lens of True Seeing out. “Those can’t be permanent enchantments. The materials would never stand up to that amount of spell energy.” She paused to peer through the lens at the medallion’s image, turning the scrying crystal in a slow circle.
After tucking the lens away, Aerin said, “I was wrong, those are permanent items. The problem is they’re blood-fueled. Once the initial charge is used, the medallions convert the user’s blood into magical energy, and they don’t stop when the medallion is full. They just keep feeding until the wearer dies.”
“Any chance they’re locally made?” The corner of Angus’ mouth curled up into a small smile. “
Fireball
doesn’t need a search warrant.”
“Not enough information. I’d need a dormant medallion.” Fog billowed up to conceal the images in the crystal ball. Aerin focused again, this time showing the inside of a convenience store. Another batch of medallions was mixed in with a collection of lighters, pot decals, raccoon tails for your car antenna, and fifty-piece nut driver sets. The scene changed again, focusing on a street-side vendor selling Vegas paraphernalia and T-shirts reading “What time does the midnight buffet start?” This time the pitch was different—it claimed to bring luck and help you obtain the righteous prosperity God wanted you to have.