by Mark C. Wade
Also by Mark C. Wade
In the Azure Noon
Stand in Need of Comfort
Uniform Fantasies
Granite Peak Holiday
The Glyphaery:
Prince Elashor (Book 1)
Elder Ardryl (Book 2)
Irish Dream Hunks:
The Harp of Dunnbog (Book 1)
The Kelpie of Glansagart (Book 2)
The Staff of Dagda (Book 3)
Box Set: Books 1-3
Merlin’s Grove Series:
The Overlook (Book 1)
The Track Coach (Book 2)
The Enchanted Triangle (Book 3)
Box Set: Books 1-3
Copyright © 2019 Mark C. Wade
All rights reserved.
No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.
Cover art by designrans on Fiverr.
Table of Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Contact the Author
About the Author
The Games We Play
Mark C. Wade
For the early readers
who took a chance on someone new
and encouraged me to finish.
Prologue
Zane walked among the gods. Sometimes he could hardly believe he’d finished the Eburnean Passage. He looked around the exclusive zone. Hot springs bubbled and shops with the most exclusive of gear sprinkled the area.
Everything shimmered with a translucent blue. It was one of the few safe zones in the game; no one could attack another player or NPC—non-player character. It was the closest thing to heaven Zane had ever experienced.
And to think that Aeden wanted to deny him all of this.
Zane had spent a full twenty-four hours determining what his special skill would be. The choice wasn’t hard, but it could only be made once.
He brought up the local map on a screen that hovered just in front of his face, a luxury of virtual reality games. Only two other people were in this zone.
None of the mere mortals, incapable of the challenge of the passage, even knew that this place was called Liminal Peak.
The game had not made him swear to secrecy, but there was an unwritten rule that none of the demigods would reveal any unnecessary information about the passage or what lay on the other side.
Zane approached Aeden with caution. He was still angry, and though this was a safe zone, he didn’t want to be verbally assaulted, either.
Zane breathed in sharply as Aeden rushed at him.
What the hell?
Aeden stopped and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Was that a smile on his face?
Zane didn’t know what Aeden was talking about, and as he tried to look down at his body, the game went fuzzy.
He’d never seen a visual glitch like this before. The colors dimmed to almost blackness and then came back to normal. Everything swirled and then dimmed again.
It was like someone playing with a light switch. It must have been the lingering effects of a spell cast on him before he entered Liminal Peak.
But he was a god!
He should have been able to survive anything.
The second time the darkness returned, blackness overtook Zane. He didn’t even have time to be afraid.
Chapter 1
The rain came down in buckets. The streaks of water looked like spiderwebs through the night air, reflecting the harsh lights of the city.
Henry had no umbrella, but his sturdy, wide-brimmed fedora and hefty black trench coat kept him as dry as could be expected.
He blended into the city of blacks and silvers. Even the neon signs had paled in color, their reflections in the pools of water blinding everyone as they rushed passed.
It was an odd paradox: how the city only came alive at night, yet the people spent the night killing themselves with booze and drugs.
Henry trudged onto the sidewalk to avoid an autocab. It zoomed by, hovering just above the flooded asphalt. He rounded the corner and sighed. There was the sign he’d been looking for: a long red rectangle, a beacon of color in all the gloom.
He pressed forward with more urgency now and pulled open the hefty metal door. He stood just inside for a moment to take it all in.
Gray smoke billowed around the dark room. It danced liked threads of ash through the tavern air. It was, of course, synthetic, and Henry missed being able to go to bars with actual smoke.
Not that he’d ever smoked.
He just identified deeply with the brooding, noir aspect of the activity. Henry loved that this tavern still allowed this form of vaping to fill the bar, and people took them up on it.
Ah, this truly was one of Henry’s favorite places in the world. It filled his soul with the sense of being in an old movie.
The name, The Glistening Baboon, could have had a bit more thought put into it, though.
The rest of the tavern looked quite average. The old, refurbished wood of the bar hooked in a long L, and a handful of solitary drinkers sat in patches around the place.
Henry thrived on this vibe; it was the place where people went to drink who didn’t have any friends to do it with.
He removed his coat and hat and shook the wet off. Little droplets spewed everywhere, causing a few heads to turn and scowl at him. He gave a weak smile and settled into his own isolated corner on the short end of the bar.
He waved the bartender over and said, “I’ll take my usual.”
The bartender nodded and dumped more bourbon into a glass than many people drank for a whole night. He slid it in Henry’s direction, and Henry had to reach along the grainy wood to get to it.
The bartender left to talk to a man at the other end without a word.
Alone, again.
Henry watched the light of the old chandelier dance on the exposed red brick of one of the walls. He liked how these accidental details added to the charm of the place. He didn’t understand how something so depressing could make him so happy.
Henry felt the vibration of his phone. He pulled it out and saw he had a message from Quillen, the police chief of the city.
That man was relentless.
Henry hadn’t taken any of the freelance offers Quillen kept making since the incident, as Henry referred to it in
his head now.
He continued to sip the liquid courage as he went down a rabbit hole of links.
Somehow, he found himself with two empty glasses and a screen full of unseemly images.
How did the most benign starting place always lead to these webpages? He wrote it off as Rule 34 but feared the algorithms knew something about him he didn’t even know about himself.
Henry flicked the screen, and the phone promptly shut off. He looked around to see if anyone noticed. He always felt he was being judged as old fashioned for not having his phone as an implant.
He hunched over his current half-empty whiskey and scanned the room for a potential hookup. A woman with spiky blue hair and a brown leather jacket over a white tank top accidentally made eye contact with him.
She was a bit intense for Henry’s taste, but he wasn’t exactly George Clooney. He couldn’t be picky if he expected to find success.
Henry stood and began his seductive walk. The saunter turned to a stumble as he tripped over a barstool someone hadn’t pushed in enough. He cursed the inconsiderate human and tried to make up for it with a graceful landing.
Instead, he plopped down heavily, and a bit of whiskey sloshed out of the glass.
“Whaddya say we gets a drink together?”
Shit.
Henry didn’t think he’d had that much. Why was his speech slurring? He tried to focus on what appeared to be a face tattoo of a barcode.
She calmly said, “I think you’ve had enough.”
Henry went back to brooding over his drink. It was almost gone, and he rationalized that since some of it had spilled, he deserved another. He tried to guess how many that would be and was shocked to realize he didn’t know the answer.
Henry looked up to get the bartender’s attention, and a man across the bar snickered to himself.
Hey, at least I’m making an effort.
The man got up and meandered over to sit next to Henry.
He said, “Smooth. What are you drinking?”
“Bourbon, neat.”
The man waved the bartender over and ordered it. The bartender gave Henry an incredulous look. He’d never been officially cut off, and he could tell the bartender was tempted to exercise that power now.
But then he relented, probably considering the commotion it would cause and what it would do to his tip. Henry was a regular after all.
The new drink came, and Henry pushed his now empty glass forward.
The bartender gave the man a stare and said, “Jared. You can’t be serious. I know you’re into the older, daddy type. Heaven knows what you find attractive about a beer belly. But seriously, this guy is pathetic. Don’t debase yourself just to get back at me.”
Oh.
Oh!
Wait. They did realize Henry was sitting right here, right?
Henry put his hand to his stomach, conscious of his beer belly. He didn’t even like beer. And it hadn’t gotten that bad. Henry now gave Jared, if that was indeed his real name, a more thorough examining.
He was reasonably attractive—a bit tall, but a nice square jaw, piercing blue eyes, and brown hair, a normal color.
Henry wasn’t picky. Men, women: he’d slept with both and everything in between. He wasn’t too sure about this revenge thing going on with the bartender, though. Henry wanted to come back to this place in good graces.
Jared stood forcefully, and the barstool flew out behind him to the floor.
Jared leaned over the bar to get in the bartender’s face and said, “You don’t get to tell me what I can do anymore.”
“You’re right. Stay. See if I care.”
“No. I’m leaving.”
Henry took a gulp of his bourbon. It was looking as if this wasn’t going to happen. Jared stormed out of the bar, and the world had turned foggy enough that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to perform anyway.
“You see what I did there?”
Henry looked up slowly. He hadn’t even realized the bartender had been speaking to him.
Henry asked, “What?”
“Reverse psychology. I knew he’d do the opposite of what I said, so I told him to stay.”
“Thanks. That worked out well for me.”
The bartender crossed his arms. “Oh, come on. You weren’t actually interested. I saw you flirting with that woman.”
Henry mumbled, “Sure.”
The small TV screen at the edge of the shelves of bottles had some sort of breaking news come across it. Even the bartender shifted his attention.
The news anchor said, “After almost a year, a new leader has emerged on the Eburnean Passage leaderboards. The user that goes by the name Nyissa now has a firm lead for the monetary prize at the end of the year after a sudden disconnection of the old leader…”
Henry couldn’t focus, and even if he could, he wasn’t sure any of those words made sense anyway.
The bartender said, “Oh, man. That’s spicy. I love that game. I wish I was on the leaderboard. Do you play?”
“It’s a game?”
“Yeah.”
Henry said, “Does it look like I play games?”
The hottest woman Henry had ever seen appeared on the TV screen. After a moment, he realized his mouth had been hanging open, and he was practically drooling into his drink.
She had beastly arms and lugged a huge sword overhead as if it weighed nothing. She wore black, skintight spandex that covered her arms and legs. Her hands and feet appeared to be made of metal.
She even had a hooded cloak flowing out behind her.
Was she a secret assassin that struck in the night?
The thought gave Henry chills, and he asked, “Hey, is that woman in the game?”
“Yeah. She’s literally the best right now.”
“I might start playing then.”
The bartender laughed. “It would take years of playing to get to any level where she’d even acknowledge your existence. Plus, that’s just her avatar. Who knows what she actually looks like? She could be a fat, drunken slob of a man. On second thought, she might be perfect for you.”
“Ha-ha. Very funny.”
The door to the bar swung open, and a shock of light came in from the street. An hourglass figure emerged and stood in the doorway with incredible poise.
Henry couldn’t believe it. It was the woman from the TV.
No.
That had just been his imagination. But she didn’t look all that different. She walked right up to Henry and sat down next to him. Her elegant black dress swooshed as she walked, and Henry thought she perfectly fit in with the atmosphere here.
“Hey, big boy.”
The bartender scoffed for a moment. “What is with you today?”
Henry opened his mouth to speak, but he thought he was going to be sick. He closed his eyes until the moment passed, and the world went dark.
Chapter 2
Henry slowly lifted one eyelid. The throbbing in his head made even this painful. The light from the sun came streaming in and shot needles through his eye.
Henry quickly shut it again.
Darkness, my old friend. Why have you left me?
At least Henry saw he was in his own home—in his own bed. He had no idea how he’d gotten there, but surely someone at the Glistening Baboon would love to tell him the story someday. They always did.
Henry groaned and tried to lift himself up. He looked around for the remnants of another person having ended up here. He saw nothing, and so he decided to get breakfast delivered to him in bed.
“Ykülma?”
Nothing.
“Ykülma!” He tried to accentuate the rolling guttural noise as he said it.
Fuck the stupid technology companies.
Henry demanded, “I know you hear me. Just answer already!”
A calm, female robotic voice asked, “Yes, Henry?”
“First, I’d like to change your name to something pronounceable.”
Ykülma said, “We’ve been through this 1,243
times. All voice-activated AI names must contain sounds not native to your birth language, so you do not accidentally activate something against your wishes.”
“How about Bob?”
“I can reprogram my name to be Szczypópaskúlckckn if you’d like.”
Henry said, “Oh, God no. Please never say that again. I think that just made my hangover worse.”
“Henry, this is the fifth morning in a row you’ve had a hangover. I’m beginning to think you might have a problem.”
Was it even legal for an AI to say stuff like that?
Henry said, “Just get me my usual.”
He heard a whirring noise from the kitchen as Ykülma whipped up his signature anti-hangover smoothie. The sound ended, and a tall glass filled with green sludge wheeled into the room on an automated cart.
Henry said, “Thank you, Bob.”
“I know where you sleep.”
The thought disturbed Henry. He decided he should maybe tone down the snark and aggressive settings on Ykülma. He had thought it would be funny when it was first set up, but it had gotten unnerving during his many hungover mornings.
Henry sipped at the vile liquid. The taste of apple cider vinegar, supposedly purifying for the liver, came through the strongest. The thought of the raw egg in it combined with the flecks of kale made Henry gag for a moment.
Just get it down.
Henry plopped back onto the bed and zoned out. He’d been in this position enough times to know that a quick morning nap would get him back into a semi-conscious state.
He tried to ignore the nagging in the back of his head that said it wasn’t normal to need a nap before one even left the bed.
When Henry awoke, for the second time that morning, everything was clearer. In fact, he now noticed a few curious details. He could see to the toilet, and the seat was down. He never left the seat down, even when blackout drunk.
