Were geeks save the midd.., p.1
Were-Geeks Save the Middle of Nowhere, page 1
Table of Contents
Blurb
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
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By Kathy Lyons
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Copyright
Were-Geeks Save the Middle of Nowhere
By Kathy Lyons
Were-Geeks Save the World: Book Three
Into every generation is born a really scary relative. In this case, it’s Walter Chen’s aunt, who puts the spirit of a Chinese chaos god into his body. At first he doesn’t notice because he’s focused on shooting his indie film in Nowhere, Wisconsin, but pretty soon he’s doing amazing kung fu. Cool!
Bing Zhi Hao was Walter’s lead actor and best friend until he disappeared to become a werewolf and save the world. Now he’s back and trying to make amends… except his shy roommate isn’t quiet anymore. In fact, he’s downright scary.
Bing figures out the demigod is taking over Walter—body, mind, and soul. Soon the man Bing loves will be gone and chaos incarnate will be born on earth. He has to convince Walter to fight off the possession and return to the man he was. But what can he offer a god to convince him to remain a man?
This story owes its existence to Brenda Chin. Without her, I would have given up. She saw structure where I saw a lump of yuck. She saw characters where I saw crap. She saw a world where I saw nothing but the four cluttered walls of my office. With her guidance, my mess became this amazing book, and I am incredibly grateful. Thank you, Brenda! You are completely forgiven for not knowing who Giles is (from Buffy).
Chapter 1
“IS THAT Sherlock Holmes?” a customer asked.
Sandra Chen looked up from behind the cash register of her shop in Chinatown. She did not have a single Sherlock Holmes item in her store of tourist kitsch, but she did have her cousin’s son visiting, and the boy did like to draw his heroes.
“You’re so good,” the customer continued, looking at his sketchbook.
Eight-year-old Walter grinned with pleasure. “Sherlock is so smart,” he said. “He knows everything.”
“But why is he doing kung fu? Sherlock lived in England.”
Walter’s voice crept higher as he defended his idea. “Sherlock knew everything. And this is a mash-up with Bruce Lee.”
The customer pursed her thin lips. “That’s wrong. Kung fu is Chinese, and Sherlock Holmes is English. If you combine the two, you look stupid.”
Walter’s eyes widened, but being a good Chinese boy, he didn’t argue with an elder. He held in his anger with a maturity far beyond his years… but he did clench his fingers around his colored pencils.
That gave Sandra a chance to intervene. “He looks like a boy with an imagination,” she said with a warm smile. Then she pointed at a different side of the store. “I have a scarf designed by a famous Chinese artist in Fujian. You can see his signature. It would look lovely on you. Come, come!”
It worked. She sold the irritating woman five of the mass-produced scarves at an exorbitant profit. She thought it a fitting end to the exchange until she looked back at her nephew. He’d put away his sketchbook and was staring angrily at a manga-style comic book. He wasn’t turning the pages but glaring at the art as if it had personally offended him.
They had gotten revenge on the customer, but obviously her nephew didn’t understand that.
Sandra pulled up a chair and sat beside Walter. “Do you know who my favorite superhero is?”
He rolled his eyes at the display of Bruce Lee paraphernalia.
“That’s a customer favorite, not mine.” She leaned forward. “I love the Monkey King.”
Walter wrinkled his nose. She’d taught him the Buddhist tale Journey to the West. He’d considered it a fairy tale, like the ones that told about the big bad wolf, or three bears and a nosy girl. To him, Monkey was simply a child’s tale that Disney hadn’t adapted yet.
He wasn’t old enough to know that the entities in the tale were real. She couldn’t teach him that now, but she could channel his talents in a better direction.
She picked up his sketchbook and opened it to a blank page. She wasn’t a good artist, but she could do the basics, so she started outlining Monkey with bold strokes. “Monkey was a demigod with amazing kung fu powers. There’s even a kind of kung fu called Monkey-style. Would you like to see?”
He nodded as she passed him back his sketchbook. Then she abruptly hopped up and moved about the store like a monkey. He laughed as he watched his middle-aged auntie prance, but gasped when she quickly punched, then kicked a stuffed animal display. This was powerful kung fu, and he was appropriately impressed.
Now that she had his attention, she could push for more. “What you know about Monkey?” she asked him.
Walter straightened in his seat as he recited what he knew. “Monkey was bad in heaven and imprisoned in a rock for five hundred years. Then he escaped, thanks to a monk, and they were given a quest to get sacred scrolls from India.” His eyes brightened. “On the way, Monkey killed ogres, bad kings, and fake immortals because he was great at kung fu and used a staff. Plus, sometimes he could fly on a cloud. In the end, he became a Buddha and everybody loved him.”
That was a very short summary of one of the great Chinese classics, and it was mostly right. The boy had missed the most important point, though—that the demigod energies of Monkey and his companions, Pigsy and Sand, were very real. They weren’t sitting with Buddha but were searching for a way to come back to Earth. They weren’t evil or good—she thought that came from their human hosts—they were very, very bored.
“Do you know what I like best about Monkey?”
“That he kicks bad guy ass like Bruce Lee!”
She tapped his nose. “That’s what you like best. What I like is that he’s always getting it wrong.”
Her nephew scrunched up his nose. “But that’s dumb.”
“Maybe. But when he messes up, he always tries to fix it.”
“Auntie, you’re supposed to do it right the first time.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But I never get it right the first time. Do you?”
He looked away, his cheeks colored in shame. Her heart twisted as she looked at him. He was the artist child in a family that excelled in science and math. Walter’s father was a doctor, his mother an accountant, and his two brothers seemed happy to live in the black-and-white world of engineering Lego cities and constructing robotic cars. She knew that would never work for Walter.
She tapped her crude outline of Monkey. “It’s fun to get it wrong, don’t you think? Monkey wasn’t ever mean—he just wanted to do fun things.” She turned the page back to his Sherlock Holmes/Bruce Lee mash-up. “Maybe you should be like Monkey and do whatever makes you happy. And if it turns out to be wrong, you can fix it later.”
He tilted his head as he thought about her words. “I don’t think Dad would agree with you.”
No. Her cousin would likely say that right was right and wrong was wrong and his son should know the difference. But they weren’t talking about math or science. They were talking about art.
“Here’s something your father won’t like much either.” She pushed forward an advertisement for Monkey kung fu classes. “Want to learn?”
Her nephew’s eyes widened in shock as he eagerly grabbed the paper. “But Dad wants me to go to science camp.”
She knew that. “He also wants you to get more exercise. If I can get him to say yes, will you go? Will you—?”
“Yes!” He made hands like claws. “I’m going to be like Monkey!”
She smiled. Better yet, a few minutes later, when she saw him drawing again, it wasn’t of his strange Bruce Lee with a pipe and magnifying glass. No, he was fixing her Monkey outline and filling it in with loving detail.
Late that evening, still buoyed by her happy time with her nephew, she closed up her shop and climbed the back stairs to her tiny apartment. It was small but clean, with sparse furniture and a few pictures of her family. She had a task to do tonight, but she waited, avoiding it while she ate noodles for dinner and watched television.
In the end, she could avoid it no longer. She was the caretaker of a demigod’s power, with no successor except an eight-year-old boy too young to know his own talent. It was her responsibility to make sure it was managed correctly, but she worried constantly. What if she was handling the power wrong? What if it was lost, or worse, misused? What did one do with a macabre necklace passed from one generation to the next for more than six hundred years? She had been given this responsibility from her uncle, who had received it from his father, who got it from his aunt, all the way back. She couldn’t be the one who misused it. She would not.
She sat on the cushion in the middle of her living room, meditating on the four noble truths and the eightfold path
“I undertake to gain wisdom from the demigod Sand for the good use of the world.” She said the words as she had been taught, but she also remembered that in her tradition, demon and demigod were the same thing. General Sand had power and wisdom, but he also had his own agenda.
She opened a box set before her and pulled the contents into her hands. It was a necklace of nine skulls, and it was the token that connected her to the energy of the demigod Sand. Fortunately, it wasn’t full-size. The skulls were the size of large beads, and they settled easily into her hands. Toward the end of his life, her uncle had taken to wearing it, but that was a step she wasn’t ready for.
As usual, General Sand’s voice filtered immediately through her thoughts.
You have neglected me.
“It has been two days,” she chided.
Too long.
Two minutes was too long for Sand. Boredom seemed to be his biggest problem, and no wonder. He had an eternity of emptiness to deal with, except for the times she asked him questions. She’d be bored too.
“Tell me more about Walter’s potential. What is his talent?”
He brings his thoughts to life.
It was the same answer he’d given the last hundred times she’d asked, and she hadn’t figured out what he meant yet.
“How can I make his talent stronger?”
Let me join with you. I will teach you everything you need to know.
“No.” Sand always wanted to climb into her brain. He wanted another life, another human body to use as he wandered the earth again. His desires weren’t evil, per se, but she didn’t trust him not to get in trouble. “Tell me more about his talent,” she ordered.
You must encourage his passion.
“He’s an eight-year-old boy. He wants to draw superheroes and play video games.” She lifted her chin. “I did get him interested in Monkey kung fu classes.”
Excellent.
She couldn’t remember now if Sand had suggested the martial arts classes or if it had been her idea. Either way, Walter would get them now.
I can help you become rich. I can show you how to make enough money to have anything you want.
“I will not use you for my own gain.” That was the first and most important rule when talking with a spiritual entity, especially one as powerful as Sand. She could never use him to profit financially—ever. It was how her family had retained the necklace without damage for six hundred years.
Use the money for your nephew. See that he has everything he needs.
As temptations went, it was a good one, but she knew better. “Tell me how to help him or I will crush these beads, and no one will speak with you ever again.”
Then who will tell you how to make money?
“Who will lessen the weight of your boredom?” Taking a deep breath, she set the beads down. It was her indication that she was done speaking, but as usual, he pressed the connection, trying for more time together.
You have an illness, Sandra Chen. Pick a new acolyte now before my knowledge is lost. Let me talk with someone new.
Horror filled her at his words. Her immediate reaction was that he lied, except she knew he couldn’t. Mind-to-mind communication prevented that. If he said that she had an illness, it was the truth. But an illness could be something as simple as a cold.
“There is no acolyte to teach except Walter, and he is too young.”
I could make sure that you survive. I could take away the pain. Let me join with you. We will share your body. I will keep you healthy.
“I will not use you for my own gain,” she stated. Then she returned the necklace to its case and put it away. Tomorrow she would try again to learn more about Walter’s gift. Meanwhile, she had a shop to run and a life to live.
One month later, she found a lump in her breast.
Over the next twenty years, she saw doctors, drank special teas, and became a cancer survivor. She walked in a parade and even ran a marathon. She cheered as Walter grew into a fine man, a creative artist who published a manga comic that became a favorite in Asia.
She didn’t tell him when the cancer came back. She didn’t want to diminish his excitement when his manga got picked up to be a live-action television show.
The only one she talked to was Sand. He explained in detail the progression of her disease. And he told her how he could stop it, if only she let him share her body.
She said no. Every night, she said no. It was forbidden.
We can share your body, he whispered. You have a strong will. You can keep me from doing anything terrible.
“How? How do I stop you once you are inside me?”
Say no. I will not be able to do anything that you deny.
He could not lie, and she did have a strong will. She could deny him long enough for Walter to return from China, where his show was about to start filming. She could then pass the necklace on to her nephew.
“Can I cast you out when I am done with you?”
Yes. If that is what you truly wish.
She thought about it, but she could not get past her uncle’s first rule when working with the necklace. She could not use the demon for her own gain. Taking away her cancer would be her gain and was therefore forbidden.
“No.”
She put away the necklace. She put away the necklace the next night too. And the night after that, but her cancer got worse.
And then even worse.
You cannot let my necklace fall to anyone. You must live long enough to teach Walter the rules.
She didn’t speak. She hadn’t the strength. She lay on her bed with the necklace in her hand because the demigod was her only companion. She thought of Walter, across the globe and completely unaware that he was special. She thought of the necklace lost among her possessions with no one to know what it was. What if it was thrown away because no one knew it was connected to a demigod? What if the wrong person picked it up and began to talk to Sand? What if…?
“No,” she rasped. She would be strong.
She was strong until the moment the pain overwhelmed her. A single moment when she cared for nothing except an end to the agony. And in that moment, she faltered.
“Yes.”
The pain faded instantly. Her body strengthened, as if she were a young girl again. And then she realized she’d been wrong. Sand wasn’t just bored. He had an agenda. And task number one was to bring Monkey back to possess Walter.
What a fool she’d been. Why hadn’t she prepared her nephew ahead of time? He was completely defenseless against a demigod.
In the end, she only hoped he’d forgive her.
Chapter 2
China
THERE WERE days so steeped in happiness, they were like the perfect ending to a well-loved series. It was Han and Leia kissing before Kylo Ren screwed up their happily-ever-after. It was saving the galaxy, recovering the lost treasure, and rescuing the princess all at once, and Walter Chen clutched every second to his heart, wishing he had the power to slow down time. But this wasn’t a book or a movie. This was his life, and he wanted to remember the details so he could savor them whenever his anxieties overwhelmed him.
Today was the opening ceremony, often called the booting ceremony, for his manga comic to begin filming for television. It was how Chinese productions asked for blessings before shooting began. The production company, the stars, and the creators got together. Media was present, and everyone joined in the celebration. He didn’t even care that he was standing in the back of the soundstage, barely visible behind the lighting crew. He knew they thought he was an unimportant cog in the vast machine that was television.
It didn’t matter because he’d been the first cog. What had started as a fever dream, then drawn in desperate breaks from his barista job, was now about to become a television show, and he thanked everyone he met for their part in his good fortune.
“Yaz!” he said as his agent stomped up to him on her impossibly high heels. “Can you believe this?” he said, gesturing expansively around the set.
“No, I can’t!” she snapped. “It’s un-freaking-believable. I’m going to put a stop to it right now.”
He blinked. She didn’t sound giddy happy like he was. In fact, her brows were lowered, as if he’d just killed her favorite purse Chihuahua, Louis. “Um, what?”
