Wager's Price

by G. P. Ching

  “Because I’m avoiding them.” He pointed across the stage at the gathered clowns.

  “What do they want?”

  Some of the clowns broke off from the group, disappearing behind the stage curtain. With fewer of them together, Wendy’s clone stood out like a sore thumb, as did another, a clone that looked exactly like Finn.

  “What the hell?” she said at his side.

  “The clowns are evil, Wendy. They want us dead.”

  She shook her head. “What? Why?”

  “Do you trust me?” Finn asked.

  “Yes. Finn, what’s going on?”

  “Fly up to that row of floodlights and stay there. Let’s hope our clones can’t fly.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to fight. Now go.”

  “Be careful, Finn.” Wendy kissed him on the cheek and took off toward the batten.

  “Where is the real Hope?” Ms. D asked. She’d arrived silently, appearing in the space beside him like a ghostly manifestation.

  “You noticed,” he said sarcastically, gesturing toward the balcony box where the fake Hope pretended to sing. “Unfortunately, I have no idea where the real Hope is.”

  “If Theodor has taught you anything, now is the time to use it,” she said.

  Finn’s eyes widened as the cloned Ms. D stepped up behind the real one. They were dressed identically. The only way Finn could tell them apart was by where each was standing.

  “You should be dead,” the clone said to Ms. D.

  “I’ve never been good at doing what I’m supposed to do,” Ms. D crouched, raising her hands defensively.

  The two women circled each other, air vibrating with the magic building between them.

  “Don’t just stand there, boy,” the real Ms. D said. “This one’s mine. Yours is waiting.” She’d barely gotten the words out when pure energy pulsed from the clone’s hands and knocked her off her feet. She broke apart into a column of smoke and reappeared behind her clone. Her arm wrapped around the clone, choking it by the neck.

  “Go,” she yelled to him.

  Finn soared to the catwalk and pulled his cards from his sleeve. A clown climbed toward him from stage right, but Finn’s own clone flew straight at him. So much for hoping he couldn’t fly.

  Raising the card for eviscerate, Finn waited, trembling as the clone drew closer. With only one spell capable of inflicting damage, he couldn’t afford to miss. The clone’s familiarity, its movements, gave him the creeps. Could he do this? Kill his twin? His eyes darted to the two of spades. Dark magic.

  “Crap,” he said, lowering the card. He’d sworn he wouldn’t use sorcery. The clone attacked, reaching for Finn’s neck. There had to be another way. He sifted through his deck.

  “Bind,” Finn yelled, throwing the two of diamonds at the clone’s feet. It stopped, unable to take another step. His lookalike flailed its arms helplessly toward Finn, who dodged out of the way, and caught the card as it boomeranged back toward him.

  White-gloved hands gripped his neck from behind. Under the constricting pressure of the second clown’s grip, Finn choked out, “Unbind.” The thing’s hands came apart, and Finn flew straight up and over its head. “Bind.” He tossed the card at the second clown’s feet. Success, but his luck was running out. His clone had successfully pried one foot from the metal floor. The spell was wearing off.

  Finn flipped through his cards, tempted to use eviscerate but settling on another option. “Ignite!” he yelled and tossed the card. His clone burst into flame. The card caught the second clown on its way back, consuming it in fire as well. Its white face melted in the heat.

  “Two for one! That’s what I’m talking about,” Finn yelled, catching the three of diamonds.

  He may have spoken too soon. The clown opened its thin black lips, its mouth spreading into a gaping black hole that took over its face. A black, oily beast broke through its striped shirt and black suspenders, spreading wings made of liquid shadow. It shrieked in Finn’s direction, loud enough for Juliette to have to sing louder to disguise it from the audience.

  Finn’s eyes darted to Wendy, who was watching in horror from the spotlight rigging. More clowns had gathered below him, watching his clone and the demon he’d ignited, bound and burning on the theater catwalk. The Wendy clone stared up at him with empty, calculating eyes.

  “Theodor, I hope you have the trap ready because the bait is on its way,” Finn murmured. He swallowed hard, then swooped over the clowns’ heads, racing toward the back entrance and the stairwell to the hive. “Come on, you evil shitheads. Come and get it!”

  Victoria Duvall was not about to let her clone get the best of her. As one who had held the position of performance architect, she had full control of all the benefits the title endowed. Her clone, on the other hand, may have developed the same skills but it didn’t have nearly as much experience.

  The clone clapped her mottled hands together and conjured a spiked club. Smart. A gun wouldn’t work inside Revelations, and Victoria’s resilience abilities would render a sword or blade almost useless. But skulls could be crushed with enough pressure and the right magic. Victoria bent backward, the club whistling over her belly button. With the speed and angle of the movement, her bowler hat toppled from her head.

  The clone would expect her to right herself immediately. It wasn’t natural for a woman more than a hundred years old to stay balanced on her tiptoes with her back parallel to the floor. But Victoria wasn’t natural, and staying bent is exactly what she did.

  Circling her forearm, she called on her pyro abilities and engulfed the clone in a column of fire. The demon may be fireproof, but the flames were enough of a distraction to give Victoria a split second of time. She used it to conjure a whip. Snap. The tip went out, wrapped around the club, and yanked it free of the clone’s grip.

  Victoria caught the weapon in her opposite hand. With a wave of the clone’s hand, the flames receded, but Victoria was already on the offensive. She raised the club and swung, connecting with her clone’s head. The skull collapsed, but it wasn’t the end.

  A massive, grotesque beast emerged from the clone’s broken body, an oily creature with jointed arms and snapping jaws. It spread its dark wings and roared.

  “Scary,” she said coolly. “I’ll give you that. Only, when you shed the protection of my body, you also shed my abilities.” Victoria snapped her fingers and the demon froze. From the feet up, the dark, shadowy stuff the beast was made of hardened. Gas became liquid. Liquid became solid. Solid became brittle stone. Victoria punched the monster squarely in the chest. The demon shattered, a million tiny pieces flying around her in an explosion of oily black ice. The pieces landed on the stage where they sizzled and evaporated, leaving pockmarks in the wood.

  With the back of her red glove, she wiped a bead of sweat from her brow. “Theodor would approve.” She bent over to retrieve her bowler hat, repositioning it on her head.

  “What the hell was that thing?” the pyro boy asked. He stepped around the smoking bit of floor to reach her.

  Victoria didn’t answer. She was distracted by the conclusion of Juliette’s song. The imposter Hope had pretended to sing, but Victoria could not differentiate her voice. Clearly, the clone was rushed and not ready to perform. Or else Juliette was too vain to let her. Either way, the enchanter narrowed her eyes on Victoria from her balcony box. When she opened her mouth to sing again, her dagger-filled stare pinned Victoria’s feet to the floor and sent a paralyzing wave through her body.

  “I can’t move,” the boy beside her said.

  “Give it a minute,” Victoria whispered. “She won’t be able to hold us once she starts in on the next act.” So Juliette was in league with the demons. Victoria should have known. She never trusted the damn woman, not even when she was a resilience performer.

  The spotlight clicked on again. Onstage, Mike and Amanda stood on a platform over a large crystal bowl designed to look like an open oyster. Mike dove in firs
t, arching his back and slithering along the edge of the glass at a harsh and painful looking angle.

  Resilience was about pain. It was about discipline. Victoria saw both in Mike’s contorted spine and held breath. But Juliette’s song smoothed his underwater image, making a graceful dance out of a demonstration of torture. Michael finally burst from the bowl to balance on his hands on the lip of the oyster. His pained gasps were drowned out by the music. Like a contortionist, his body bent until his legs jutted out over the back of his head.

  Amanda was the next to dive in, the clone slithering around the bowl before splashing onto the opposite edge and executing a similar pose. Once they’d given the audience time to applaud, the two rocked back into the water, circling, splashing, churning up dark currents from below.

  Victoria cleared her throat and tried to sing in retaliation, but Juliette shifted her gaze and redoubled her efforts. She’d grown stronger than Victoria remembered. The performance architect’s voice petered out behind her useless lips.

  Juliette’s aria darkened and so did the act. In sweeping, artistic motions Amanda attacked Michael, wrapping her fingers around his throat and dragging him under. Water sprayed across the stage. The momentum increased, Mike tossing her from the bowl only to have Amanda flip higher and higher before returning to his arms. The audience was delighted. Only Victoria saw it for what it really was—a carefully disguised murder.

  One more flip, and this time Amanda landed on the platform and pulled a lever. The upper shell of the oyster snapped closed, locking Michael under the water.

  “She means to kill him,” Victoria said to the boy.

  “Who? Mike?” The boy beside her grew visibly agitated, struggling against his unmoving feet.

  “What is your name?”

  “You know my name, Ms. D.” He patted his chest. “I’m Jayden.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Jayden. I am afraid for your friend Michael. We have to help him.”

  “I still can’t move,” Jayden said.

  The audience gave a collective gasp as Michael struggled against the lid of the oyster. A woman in the front row cried out his name. Juliette’s voice soared, and Michael magically appeared next to Amanda. They grasped hands and raised them over their heads.

  “He’s still in the bowl,” Victoria said.

  “What?” Jayden’s eyes darted from the bowl to the clone holding hands with Amanda.

  “Jayden, do you still have your abilities?” Victoria rubbed her throat. She was still weak from her earlier battle and the force of Juliette’s song.

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  She smiled. It was like Juliette to underestimate the boy. “If you care for your friend, you will start Juliette’s dress on fire. Now.”

  Jayden turned his confused expression on Juliette. The boy stared, unblinking long enough for Victoria to question his abilities. Then Juliette’s peacock dress burst into flames. The imposter Hope attempted to beat the flames with their bare hands as Juliette struggled to continue to sing. Quickly, one of the crew closed the main curtain.

  It was enough of a distraction to ease the grip on Victoria’s vocal cords. She opened her mouth and sang, freeing her feet and clearing Juliette’s illusion for those behind the curtain.

  “Mike!” Jayden yelled, seeing for the first time that his friend was still inside the bowl. The real Mike flailed and pounded on the glass, drowning under the feet of the two clones that stood on the lid.

  Jayden picked up the baton from his performance and charged the bowl, swinging at the glass. The strike bounced off the giant crystal oyster.

  “Knock it off, Jayden.” The Amanda clone jumped from the lid and popped him in the jaw. The boy took the pounding, wiped a spot of blood from his lip, and fired up his baton.

  “Get Mike out of there,” he commanded, pointing the flaming baton at Amanda’s head.

  Good boy, Victoria thought. She continued to sing but leaped to the top of the bowl and dove for the lever. Only, cloned Michael grabbed her wrist.

  She kneed him in the gut, then dug her fingers into the skin at the back of his head and tore. There was a gurgling sound and the flesh gave way. A half-dozen long, segmented arms gripped Victoria with oily black fingers. She sang louder and the demon shivered, wings stretching as it struggled to break free of her illusion. She was planning her next move when a flaming sword pierced the demon’s neck, sending its oily head tumbling. The headless body flopped from the platform, legs still kicking.

  Jayden tossed the flaming sword above his head and caught it in his other hand. “Turns out, one of the Seven Kingdoms is badass.”

  Victoria pulled the lever and met his eyes. “As are you.”

  The cap rose, but Michael’s head did not break the surface. Jayden jumped in and pulled his friend from the depths. “He’s not breathing!”

  Victoria hooked her hands under Michael’s shoulders and helped Jayden lift him onto the platform. The boy was blue. She started CPR, blowing into his mouth and compressing his chest in a steady rhythm, but Michael did not respond.

  “No. No. No. Not again,” Victoria said. “Don’t you die.” She needed help. She didn’t have enough power left to revive him.

  Her eyes caught on a small girl huddled on the rigging high above the stage. “You there. Where is Theodor? Can you see the magician?”

  “I heard Finn say he was meeting him in the hive. What does that mean?”

  “Never mind. Find Orelon. Ask him to load up the buses.”

  The girl flew.

  “He’s not breathing,” Jayden said, looking from Michael to Victoria.

  “Help the girl,” she ordered. Then she gripped Michael tighter and dissolved in a column of purple smoke.

  47

  Resurrection

  Hope’s inhale was both loud and painful. She regained consciousness in a tunnel of bright blue light. Her body was floating in a hexagonal tube of warm water, and she assessed her surroundings with wild eyes and racing thoughts. Although she was still dressed in her torn uniform, both shoes were missing and her pants were shredded below the knee. Once her breathing evened out, she bent and straightened her fingers, flapped her feet, and cracked her neck. She’d definitely been dead again, which meant the growing queasiness in her stomach was going to become a problem.

  She pressed her palms against the sides of the tube. Metal, like stainless steel. Her pointed toes touched stone. When she reached above her head, her fingers hit a waxy material. Wax she could deal with.

  Flipping over, she got to her knees in the water, hunched in the tube. She recoiled her arm and punched. A fist-sized hole appeared in the wax, just as her stomach turned inside out. She cursed as the side effect of her resurrection blew through her lips. A wave of vomit hit the water and what was left of her uniform. She cursed and pulled her fist back again for another go. But someone else’s fingers appeared in the hole she created, breaking off chunks and throwing them aside.

  “Unbind.” The wax melted away and Hope poured out of the tube along with the water and sick. She grunted when her body slapped the floor.

  “Theodor.” She stared up into the face of the magician before giving herself over to another round of vomiting.

  “Scour,” he said, tossing a card in her direction. In a blink of an eye, all the sick was gone, as was the water. The bloodstains from her uniform disappeared.

  “Thank you,” she said. “But I’m not finished.”

  He crossed the room in three long strides and returned with a garbage pail, shoving it under her chin.

  “You were dead,” he said.

  “Yeah. Resurrecting is something I do.”

  “Your legs grew back.”

  “That’s something I do too.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Finn sent me to look for you. By the time I found you, Applegate had done her damage. It was all I could do to evade her and pry you from the water dragon’s jaws. Sorry about the tube. I needed to hide your body in case I had visitors.”


  Hope looked up into the man’s impassive face. “Thank you for coming for me.”

  “Thank Finn. I wouldn’t have known you were missing if he hadn’t figured it out.” He straightened his suit jacket. “As much as I’d like to prolong this chat, there’s still work to be done.” He rushed down a hall to her right.

  Hope pushed to her feet and followed Theodor, the hall bending around an orb of glass that glowed bright blue. “Is that the star?”

  “It is. Don’t touch it. It’s very hot.” He stopped in a room that looked like a former laboratory, only all the equipment had been stacked against one wall. On the floor, in the cleared space, Theodor had drawn a symbol Hope had never seen before. It looked like a compass with arrows in eight directions, but he’d enclosed the entire thing in a triangle with circles capping each point.

  “What is that?” Hope asked.

  “Goat’s blood.”

  “I mean the symbol.”

  “It amplifies the magic,” he said quickly. “I’m sending these things back to where they came from. Only, I’m not exactly sure where that is. I’ve never been to Hell in order to picture it clearly. This magic is a spell for returning things. I’ve drawn it on top of a portal spell. It will analyze the creatures’ constitution and open the portal based on what it finds. The circles at the points are anchors. You stand in one, Finn in the other. I’ll be in the third. Everything else in this room will go straight to Hell.” He dusted off his hands. “Wherever in the universe that happens to be.”

  Hope scoffed. “You’re going to open a portal to Hell?” She hardly thought he was powerful enough, but even the thought was terrifying.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  Automatically, her fingers probed the base of her neck for her triquetra. Applegate still had it. After a few moments, she answered, “No.”

  With a nod in her direction, he picked up a pail and added another layer of bright red goat’s blood to the symbol. “Do you know where Hell is? If you do, it would make this easier.”