{"id":820,"date":"2012-09-13T13:36:21","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T19:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/?p=820"},"modified":"2012-09-10T13:37:01","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T19:37:01","slug":"178-dr-e-versus-da-goblinz-4-of-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/2012\/09\/178-dr-e-versus-da-goblinz-4-of-5\/","title":{"rendered":"(178) Dr. E versus Da Goblinz (4 of 5)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the short story I wrote, poked at, and have finally made available. \u00a0I’ll be releasing it in bits throughout the week, but if you are impatient and just want to read the whole thing, I have it available here: Dr. E versus Da Goblinz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If Carmelo had been an action hero, he would have said, \u201cSorry to rain on your parade,\u201d as the first drops of the weedkiller sprayed across the bushes. \u00a0Instead, it was a manly grunt and a hissing sound as the acidic drops touched the quivering plant army.<\/p>\n

He looked up at me. \u00a0Dare\u2019s cousin had come in the gate, no crawling over the wall, no concern over the strange light emanating from his cousin. \u00a0Just a bunch of chemicals and a hose, and, well, a grin.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome cut back,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I responded.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the little mundane, everyday bits you forget when working the magic angle. \u00a0The gun Dare waved brought it to mind. See, Dragons, and vampires, and wizards, I\u2019ve gotten too used to those. \u00a0I still had money from a bunch of Russian sorcerers paying my bills, so I was thinking about hexes and death curses, not about metal and bullets, and the fact that Colorado has this \u201cMake My Day\u201d law that meant while Dare couldn\u2019t quite shoot us with full impunity, no one was likely to ask too many questions.<\/p>\n

He couldn\u2019t hold the gun and the sunlight, though. \u00a0It had gone dark, and the scattering creatures began to grow quiescent once more. \u00a0I waited for someone to move.<\/p>\n

He said something in Spanish that I recognized a rude word from, and Carmelo grunted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are you?\u201d he asked me. \u00a0\u201cWhat are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m no one, really.\u201d \u00a0I shrugged, unable to help myself. \u00a0He didn\u2019t take the movement well, but I\u2019ll be honest, he also didn\u2019t hold the gun the way my friends with experience did. \u00a0Being shot by someone inept was still going to get holes in my hide, but it meant more of a chance of his missing, or being talked down, or anything but having him shoot, right? \u00a0\u201cJust your friendly neighborhood Portal Doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does that mean? \u00a0What do you want with my garden?\u201d<\/p>\n

Melo said another thing I didn\u2019t understand, but Dare ignored him. \u00a0He gestured with the gun as if I was supposed to answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI close doors,\u201d I said. \u00a0I watched as flowers wilted in front of me, as the acidic rain of whatever it was Carmelo used melted bits of my adversaries. \u00a0As they lay down, sleepy, in the moon\u2019s silvery light, the world seemed to turn from color to black and white.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not understand,\u201d he says. \u00a0\u201cI should shoot you. \u00a0Many things grow well in the blood of wizards.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not one of those,\u201d I caught myself before I laughed. \u00a0\u201cYou\u2019d be disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA… dryad? \u00a0Venganza de… esp\u00edritus de los arboles?\u201d<\/p>\n

Carmelo actually chuckled. \u00a0\u201cHe is no spirit of the trees. \u00a0Why, Dario?\u201d he rolled the \u2018r\u2019 almost sarcastically. \u00a0\u201cAre you afraid?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou carry herbicide. You are not from them.\u201d \u00a0He looked away to talk to Carmelo, which gave me a moment to step closer. \u00a0I didn\u2019t know what to do, but it seemed to be what everyone in the movies did. \u00a0Dare noticed and pointed the gun at me.<\/p>\n

Melo sprayed his cousin with the nozzle, and Dare screamed. \u00a0The sound of the shot was louder than I expected, and it missed widely. \u00a0Before Dario could get off another round, I did the only thing that made sense – I closed my eyes and ran into him with my right shoulder, getting a good whiff of the chemicals and knocking us both over into a stone planter. I\u2019m glad my eyes were closed because the impact was enough to see a flash of light.<\/p>\n

A flash of light that doesn\u2019t fade isn\u2019t properly indicated as a flash. \u00a0My neck hurt and I rolled off Dare while seeing that Carmelo had dropped the spray and instead stood in a circle of sunlight. \u00a0A circle that slowly expanded to fill the design Dare\u2019s garden had been built to summon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait, no!\u201d I shouted.<\/p>\n

Carmelo smiled at me the way he did when he said, \u201cRain tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dare was struggling while I tried to pick myself up using the edge of the planter. \u00a0I hurt in places I forgot I had, well, except whenever they hurt. \u00a0I wiped off some blood that had pooled on my neck with unpleasant surprise. \u00a0Yeah, yuck. \u00a0Or at least, yucca.<\/p>\n

Dare had been pinned by some no-longer somnolent goblins. \u00a0His gun rested in the grass, where he had managed to drop it in my surprise rush. \u00a0Well, it surprised me, although it shouldn\u2019t have surprised anybody who had ever seen a film. \u00a0I was guessing he didn\u2019t understand what was happening. \u00a0Probably was expecting esp\u00edritus de los arboles, whatever those were. \u00a0Or nymphs. \u00a0He seemed the kind who enjoyed a diversion of nymphs. \u00a0(That may be the official venery.)<\/p>\n

The glow continued, the warm gold of a summer\u2019s day. \u00a0I needed to try these guys against vampires and trolls, if I could be sure they\u2019d be on my side. \u00a0It felt like I was getting a dose of vitamin D. \u00a0Altogether, that\u2019s not all that difficult to produce, and in fact, I knew more than one brewer who could bottle it up as a liquid, but this was still pretty amazing.<\/p>\n

Choices, choices. \u00a0Help Dare, a known bad guy, or stop Melo, possibly a bad guy. \u00a0Dario was being dragged along the ground by the goblins, a mass of them gnawing and sliding and enough of them that having been pushed prone (by me), they overwhelmed him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many things grow well in the blood of wizards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interlude-madness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820\/revisions\/838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}