Chapter Eleven
After six or seven blocks, I stopped running.
I could not hear any pursuit, and there was no sense in drawing more attention to myself.
I had no idea what I was going to do. I could not take on the Hell Pack, and apparently, the council would not get involved unless it affected all of them.
I took a deep breath. Dominique whispered in my head, solve the first problem and then worry about the next one.
I needed a ride out of here. Who could I call that I knew would be on my side?
Then it hit me. I pulled out my phone and dialed Thomas.
“Hello.”
“Thomas.”
“Uh, yeah. Who is this?”
“I am Sah, Nisha’s sister, and I need your help.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“I need you to drive out to the east side and pick me up.”
“Yeah, I know. I said I would do what I could, but that’s not happening.”
“My clothes are shredded, and I am half naked.”
“I’ll be right there; give me the address.”
It was nice to know some things were still predictable. I gave him the address and found a quiet shadow to wait.
*
About an hour later, an honest to god DeLorean showed up.
I reevaluated my concept of Thomas. He must be a rich nerd.
He pulled into the liquor store parking lot across the street, and almost immediately, a group of men walked over to his car.
I sprinted across the street and was upon them just as he was dragged from his vehicle by a large guy wearing a white wifebeater shirt.
“Leave him alone.”
The guy turned around and took a long, slow, up-and-down look at me. “No problem, sweetness. I would rather look at you anyway.”
He took a step toward me, but I was already moving.
I batted his arm to the side and grabbed him by the throat.
A moment later, I drove my right foot behind his legs, forcing him to the ground.
He landed hard on the concrete. I sensed his friends coming close and extended my new claws just a little bit.
He got the message. Where did that come from?
I never heard a whisper from Dominique, or maybe she was running the show now.
“Hey, everybody, back off the bitch.” I tightened my grip a little bit. “This lady is crazy.”
Thomas got off the ground and scrambled back behind the driver’s seat.
“Now we are going to leave, and you’re going to just let us go, right.
” I cocked my head to the side and looked deep into his eyes.
His eyes went wild like he was looking at an unchained pit bull, and he just nodded his head.
I got up and looked around at the other guys, and they all took a step back and let me get into the passenger side of the DeLorean.
Thomas looked at me like I had grown a third head. He opened his mouth, and it moved like it was trying to say six different things, but what came out was, “Nice tats.”
“You would not believe what I had to go through to get them.” I smiled, but it did not seem to put him at ease. I ran my tongue over my teeth, and they seemed a little more pointed than normal. “Let’s go back to your place.”
“Okay.”
*
Thomas’s apartment was better than I thought it was going to be. It was in an upscale neighborhood off the loop and well furnished, except a for a few too many pictures of women in chain mail bikinis fighting dragons.
“Nice place.”
“Thanks. You thought I lived with my mother, didn’t you.”
I felt a little ashamed I had. “Sorry, about that and almost getting your car jacked on the east side.”
“It’s okay; it will give me something interesting to put in my blog, though if it’s okay, I will say that I saved your bacon.”
“No problem.” I looked at Thomas, and he seemed distracted. “What?”
“Umm, nothing.”
I looked down and realized that I had been right when I described myself as half-naked. The fight and other activities had shredded my sister’s fancy blouse. I looked at Thomas, and he smiled sheepishly.
“Do you have a T-shirt I could borrow?”
“Um, yeah.” He pointed to the bedroom. “Grab whatever you want.”
I opened his closet and found it entirely full of black shirts with different gaming logos. I pulled out one with two dice showing twenties that said “yes, they are natural,” and switched it with the blouse. “So, you’re kind of an expert on this Facade game, right?” I called out to the front room.
“Yeah, why? You don’t seem to be the gaming type.”
I walked back into the den. “What type do I seem like?”
“Well, when I first met you seemed like a hot librarian but now you seem more like Red Sonja.”
“Who?”
“Starbuck?”
“I thought Starbuck was a guy?”
“Wonder Woman?”
“Oh, I think I prefer Black Widow; she wears more sensible shoes.”
“You read the comics.”
“Nope, saw Iron Man 2.” I grabbed Thomas by the shoulders and maneuvered him into a chair. “Listen, I would love to continue talking about unreasonable male stereotypes of women in pop culture, but my sister and that cop I was with are in trouble, and I need some help.”
Thomas looked up at me. “Sure, but if that cop couldn’t help you, what can I do?”
“I think to figure out how to move forward, I need to know what started all this. Nisha said that the community turned on her after she published some materials for the game. Do you know why that would be an issue?”
“I am not sure. I mean, pretty much any group of gamers has a subset of people who hate women. Also, Nisha was pretty new to the fandom, and the idea of her putting out a module might have been seen as arrogant.”
“What is a module?”
“It’s an adventure set in the world of the Facade. Think of it kinda like a Halo custom map pack.”
“Okay, what was this adventure?”
“Well, in the world of the Facade, there is a person named the Scribe, and he maintains the book of tales. It is the history of the Menagerie. Every one of its secrets is in there. Nisha had an adventure where you and your party steal it.”
“Oh, really.”
“She sent it to me first, and while it was interesting, I did not buy the underlying conceit.”
“Which was?”
“That they keep it in the rare book section of the St. Louis Public Library.”
“Hmm. Thomas, I need a copy of that module, then fire up the DeLorean. We need to go shopping.”