“You said you didn’t want me. That hurt, Merc.”
“I lied. I’ve told you what I really meant.”
“Which also hurt.”
“I can’t even count all the ways I don’t want you.”
If he wasn’t holding her so tightly, she would have backed away. Instead, she locked eyes with him as he ripped her heart out of her chest.
“I don’t want you in my world. I don’t want you in my life. I don’t want you in my heart. I don’t want you seen by my enemies. I don’t want you killed because of me. I don’t want you hurt when I leave.”
“You are a cesspool of want.”
“I don’t want to want you.”
“And yet here we are. Wanting.”
He nodded. “Please go back to Colorado. If I survive what’s coming, I’ll come to you.”
“That’s very moving.” She smiled. “Let me translate that into human: there’s a big challenge happening at your convention that you need to focus on. Maybe I should come too.” Maybe she wasn’t ready to give up on him, master role player or not. She linked her arm with his and led him to continue their walk around the plaza.
“And here I thought you weren’t a gamer. How do you know about these big challenges?”
“I’ve read about them. You could initiate me.”
His eyes went big. “No. You hate role playing.”
“But I like you.”
He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. Ash loved the feel of his body, the way she felt when he held her. “You’re killin’ me, Ash.”
She nodded. “It burns both ways.”
I’m glad I came back, Ash texted Summer and Kiera later that night after Merc dropped her off. I figured it all out. It was a setup. A massive, complex setup. Merc’s a gamer. The whole town is in on the role playing. I guess there’s a big conference happening, which explains the huge influx of people.
Well, that’s a relief. I guess, Kiera answered.
You could have warned me, Sum. Really. Liege, Acier, Bastion, Guerre, Merc. I should have known just by their gamer names.
Um. I don’t know what to say, Summer responded.
Knowing now what a big gamer Merc is, I’m not sure where we go from here. I’m crazy about him, but this game he’s in is more meaningful to him than real life. I’m not sure where I fit in that.
Just take it a step at a time, Summer suggested. Don’t give up on him because of the game.
How do you manage with Sam?
We’ll talk when you get back.
I’m glad you figured it all out, Kiera said. I was really worried about how it was weighing on you.
Me too. And thanks. And yeah, Sum. We’ll talk in a few days. Love you guys.
Back atcha, Kiera replied.
Same, babe, Summer said.
Summer lowered her phone and looked at Sam. “I hate lying to Ash.”
“I know.” Sam pulled her close. “If I could have kept you from knowing about my world, I would have. I would have done anything to spare you. Sounds like Merc’s settled on this gaming explanation for what’s odd about him. It works, actually.” He grinned. “I should have been that clever.”
“No. I don’t want secrets between us. I don’t want secrets between them. How can they build a future based on lies?”
Sam let out a sigh. “It’s not easy. We have to respect his decision. Like it or not, he may reject the Matchmaker’s pairing.”
Summer stepped out of Sam’s arms. “You’re okay with Merc unilaterally deciding their future? Ash has no say in this? That’s not how love works.”
“It is for mutants. The choice is first the mutant’s. He can reject the pairing to save the human female’s life.”
“We decided on this together.”
“We did—because I was too weak to spare you.”
“You think I’m still in danger?”
“Yes. But I believe you’re safer with me than without me.”
Summer nodded. She blinked away tears.
Sam pulled her close again. “I love you, Summer. I love that we’re together. I love the future we’re building.”
“I want this for Ash and Merc.”
“Me too. But we have to respect what they decide.”
20
Merc looked at Ash sleeping peacefully in the bed. That afternoon, before Ash had come in, Merc had almost gotten inside the mine with his host. He’d been irritated when Ash interrupted him, but he’d learned an important lesson: there was a difference between astral travel and possession. In astral form, he could not penetrate the energetic protection set around the mine. But possession was a different kind of connection, one that was binary. He was either in possession of someone or he wasn’t. With a connection made to a host, he could open or close that door at will, which explained why he was able to snap back to himself without going through the protection Flynn had set.
He intended to finish his exploration of the mine compound tonight, but he had to reverse the crazy he’d set in motion here in the village first. Tomorrow, he’d go for the robe. After that, he could take Ash to go meet up with Santo—his original mission—then head home with her. Merc’s intelligence had the old guru waiting for him out near the training camp. Once they were back in Colorado, they could decide what they wanted to do with the mess the Matchmaker had put them in.
Keeping himself hidden, he went across town, heading toward the first mural wall. Artists had covered the blank pink wall with vibrant street art of tropical plants. What was left of the first gang leader Merc had condemned to a passive death was still in his seat, facing the wall.
A circle of flowers, trinkets, and religious items of all sorts filled a six-foot-wide circle around the chair, starting a few feet out from it—the buffer Merc had put in place so people wouldn’t get too close the corpse.
He now cancelled that protection, returning the cadaver to its normal state. The skeleton collapsed on itself and tumbled from the chair in a tangled pile of rags, sinew, and bone, spilling over a line of tchotchkes.
He did that with each skeleton. He knew there were cameras trained on the dead men, but his hidden state meant his presence would be recorded only as a brief electrical interference that briefly blocked the cameras and the corpses they recorded.
Perhaps that would feed into the myths growing around the sites of these dead gangbangers. Perhaps not. It was far too late to worry about the things regulars would say or think. Their behaviors had never been his to control or judge.
He left the town and went up to the death pits. A few fresh victims were lying in the trenches. He’d only come up here once since the government had emptied out the pits after he first returned. Seemed the rate of fill had slowed. Whether that was due to word getting out and evildoers staying away, or because there was a smaller population of baddies to snag, he didn’t know and didn’t care.
It was time to end this. He kept himself invisible to regulars—if the padre was making his rounds, he didn’t want to be seen.
During his prior visit to the village, he’d tried to stop the curse in several ways, none of which had worked. He had to remember that he was dealing with energy, and energy behaved in predictable ways. It never ended—it could only become concentrated, distributed, or transmuted.
His curse had set an energetic cover over the pits that was defined by rage. Rage was fueled by fear. What had he been afraid of at the point when he set the curse?
The answer was simple. He’d been afraid dark would consume good. He’d lived it with the Omnis when they’d killed his family. And he’d seen regulars destroying each other here, in the wicked village of Valle de Lágrimas.
Maybe dark and light needed each other. One couldn’t exist without the limits imposed by the other. Without an opposite, there was no beginning and no end, no movement, only stagnation.
It occurred to him that to end the curse, he had to neutralize the energy he’d set in place.
What was the opposite energ
y of rage with an aspect of fear? Peace, with an aspect of hope.
Merc wished for peace and hope to take over the pits, releasing the previous intent he’d put in place. He spread his arms and felt the shift from imbalance to balance. It felt good. It felt right. His eyes closed as his entire body focused on the new feel of the space…until he heard Ash scream his name.
Everything after that happened in a flash. He jerked himself out of his own protection, sending his energy out from his location as he searched for Ash. She’d sounded so close.
He was unprepared for the piercing pain that slashed across his back.
Roll, Merc, Liege told him. Now.
His reverie shattered, Merc tumbled forward onto the dirt path between the first and middle pits, pulling his knife from his thigh sheath. Two ghouls flanked him. When they leaped toward him, he made swift strikes at their femoral arteries as he slipped from them into the first pit. The beasts felt pain, but they were made for fighting, and the volume of adrenaline an attack produced in them kept them upright long after anything a mutant or regular could have survived. The cuts he’d made would have killed a human, but not a ghoul—at least, not quickly. It would take several similar injuries to bring them down.
The beasts scrabbled at each other, thinking they had him between them. He wrapped an arm around one of the monster’s knees and tried to swing up behind him, but before could complete that maneuver, something grabbed his ankle, jerking him back into the pit. Too late, he realized that the removal of his curse had freed the damned.
The ghouls noticed the struggling humans and instantly lost interest in Merc.
What came next was the stuff of nightmares—a bloodbath no regular could survive.
Merc climbed out of the pit. He stood at the rim a moment. He had to help the humans, but the ghouls were already ripping them apart and feeding on them.
Merc summoned his last reserve of strength and sent an electromagnetic pulse straight toward the skulls of the ghouls, causing them to explode from the pressure.
As Merc turned toward the village, the pain of his wounds slammed into him. He stumbled, then felt himself buoyed by the spirit energies of Acier and Lautaro. He could feel the soothing healing energy of Guerre, who was already working on his wounds.
Ash, he said to his friends. Go to her. I heard her scream for help.
It wasn’t Ash, Guerre told him. It was Flynn. He couldn’t reach you in your reverie, so he had to break you out of it. He mimicked her voice.
Damn. Ash was as much Merc’s strength as his weakness. His legs gave out. The guys’ spirits supported his physical body as Guerre numbed his pain. I did it, Merc told his friends. I ended the curse.
Fuckin’ A, man, Acier said. When you’re healed, tell us how.
The three of them helped him get back to the room. Merc mentally opened the door and locked it behind him. His friends helped him remove his weapons and strip as he crossed the room to the bathroom. He thought he’d gone unnoticed until he heard Ash gasp. He was too weak to stop her from coming forward, but one of the guys forced her to stay put. It was all he could do to get into the shower, even with the help from his friends. Guerre had him numbed, shielding him from the pain of the streaming water, but his body was still in shock. Merc leaned a hand against the shower wall and bowed his head. He wasn’t strong enough to stand. Someone was supporting him.
Liege.
Tell me if you need us to come down there, Liege said.
It took Merc a couple of breaths to summon the strength to answer, even though their communication was mental. Don’t need you.
If you die, Ash will too. They won’t let her come back home.
I know. And if he lived and convinced her to love him, she would also die. Either way, his time was up, but hers didn’t have to be. He had to survive long enough to get her back where Liege could protect her.
She’s yours to protect. Not mine, Liege said.
She’s one of your daughter’s best friends. You will protect her.
I’m done with this death wish of yours.
Too fucking bad.
You’re no good to the Legion with one foot in the grave, Merc.
I’m done.
You’re done when I tell you you’re done.
Merc shook his head. There’s nothing left in my heart.
Then fill your heart with Ash.
Ash roused from a deep sleep. Merc was back. He’d come in without knocking. She watched him move in an odd way across their room, as if he were leaning on something she couldn’t see. Shadows striped his back like light through blinds.
She couldn’t move. She was frozen again, in that awful sleep paralysis—she could see but not sit up. She struggled to clear her mind and her body, until at last she was able to toss the sheet off and cross the room. The shower was running. She reached for Merc’s clothes, then dropped them and recoiled in shock. They were shredded and covered with blood.
As she watched, a red swirl appeared above his torn shirt, passed over his pants and other clothes, and spiraled into the bathroom through the crack under the door. When she looked at his shirt next, the blood was gone from the shredded mess of his shirt.
She shook her head. She had to be dreaming. A nightmare. A weird, very real, movie-like nightmare. She went into the bathroom and flipped the light on. Merc was in the shower, his face pressed in the corner, his arms hanging loosely beside him. His back looked like he’d been mauled by a big and powerful animal.
Maybe a jaguar. Or a bear. Something with wicked-long claws.
“Merc! Oh, God. Merc.” Ash rushed to him in the shower, at a complete loss as to how to help him. He seemed barely able to keep himself upright. “Let me help you.”
“Go to bed, Ash. I don’t need you.”
Ash looked at the blood washing off his body, pooling at his feet. “You’re right. You need an ambulance and an emergency room.” Neither of which were amenities the village offered.
“No.”
“Merc, what attacked you?” This was very real. No way could it have been part of whatever game he was playing here—unless the game had taken him someplace dangerous.
Merc’s answer was an unintelligible grunt. He turned as if to leave the shower. Ash shut off the water then reached for a towel, but had no idea how to dry him off with such terrible wounds.
“Don’t. They have me.”
Oh. No. He was delirious. This was not good. They were hours from a town with any kind of medical service. She tucked herself under his shoulder, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and half supporting him with her hand in his armpit—she didn’t know where on his back to touch. “We’ll just get to the bed. Then I can have a look at you.”
Merc collapsed facedown on the bed, taking up the whole thing with his arms and legs spread wide. Ash flipped the light on. His back was even worse than she’d thought. The gashes were inches wide and very deep. There were four main ones and a few smaller ones. There was a big bite mark on his shoulder. What she couldn’t understand was that the bleeding had somehow stopped. The wounds were already scabbing over.
This was not a good place to have an injury like this. The bed, the room—none of it was sterile. But if she tried to transport him, and he went deeper into shock, the trip might kill him.
Ash knelt on the floor and touched his face. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Tell me what to do. I don’t know how to help you.”
“Curl up next to me.”
“That’s not going to help.”
“It’ll make me feel safer.”
Ash huffed a breath. “I’ll be no help at all if whatever did this to you comes back for you.”
“It’s not coming here. And Guerre is already healing me. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
Ash shook her head. She tried to argue, but he was stubbornly set on doing nothing. And then he reached a beefy arm out and dragged her up next to him, turning her so that her back was against his side.
She tried to pull free, bu
t his arm tightened around her waist. “Stay. Just until I’m asleep.”
“Merc—“
“Please.”
She quit resisting him. It occurred to her that he was holding her like a kid did a favorite stuffed animal. There was nothing sexual or aggressive in the way he pinned her to his side. No, it was purely for the comfort of human contact.
She relaxed against him. Minutes passed before his grip eased. She waited another ten minutes before slipping away. When she was free, she grabbed her phone. The light was still on next to the bed. She snapped a pic of his back and texted it to Summer.
A moment later, Summer called. Ash went into the bathroom so she wouldn’t disturb Merc.
“Ash—you okay?” Summer asked.
“I am. Merc’s not. He’s been mauled by some animal. He needs medical attention. I don’t know what to do.”
“Wait. Let me get Sam. Hold on.”
“Ash.” Sam’s deep voice came over the line. Just hearing him began to calm Ash’s panicked mind. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“No, it’s not, Sam. Merc needs stitches. He needs antibiotics and rabies shots. The town needs to be alerted before whatever mauled Merc hurts someone else.”
“No. The best thing you can do for him—the only thing you can do for him—is to lie down next to him so he knows he’s not alone.”
“Sam—did you see the picture I sent?”
“Yes. Everything is going to be okay. You are safe. He’s safe. We’ve got this.”
A terrible thought entered Ash’s mind: this had happened as part of the game they were playing. Of course Sam didn’t want her to spill the beans and get the outside world involved.
“I don’t care about your fucking game, Sam. Merc might be dying.”
“He’s not dying. Shut off the lights. And go lie down with him.” The line went dead.
Ash complied with his directives, feeling oddly numb. She was crying, but she was also filled with a warmth that told her everything was going to be all right. None of it made sense. She shut off the lights and climbed in next to Merc. He groaned when she lifted his arm over her waist, and then he shifted so that his head was on her chest. She pressed her lips to the top of his forehead.
O-Men: Liege's Legion - Merc Page 20
