Alexander offered Del his hand. “Thank you, Del. Without your distraction, we might never have made it this far.”
“No need for thanks, Majesty.” Del bowed his head. “This was our war long before your people arrived on Io. It is we who offer you thanks for the death of the wizard.”
The dragons helped Max search the throne room for any secret caches. Fitz pointed them toward the throne, as he’d found a stash of the orbs under the throne in the Dark One’s stronghold. Sure enough, there was a panel there that, when pressed, opened a section of floor behind the throne and revealed a ramp leading downward.
At the bottom, they found a treasure vault filled with items. Weapons, gems, gold and silver, magical trinkets, and the like. Beatrix squeaked with joy, then growled at Alexander when he closed the passage. “What are you doing?”
“We can go through and divide all this up later. Jeeves, please make an accounting of all these items and their value if possible,” Alexander said. “We need to get back to the keep.”
Jules voice came through raid chat just then. “Well, that sucked. I’m guessing from the portal in front of me and the way my UI has lit up that we won?”
“Yup! Tons of XP, lots of loot. We ROCK!” Beatrix answered.
Alexander added, “You and the others, take the portal. It should drop you back at the keep. Let us know if it doesn’t and we’ll come find you.”
He waited a few moments before she answered. “Back at the keep. There’s a party going on here already.”
Alexander looked to the raiders around him. “Well done, my friends! This has been our hardest fight to date. We lost some of our best along the way. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten.” He took a moment to catch the eye of each of the remaining orcs and minotaurs.
“Unless anyone else has business here, I say we go back to the keep. There is food, drink, and comfort!” A ragged cheer went up from the raiders.
Fitz broke off from the group. He walked over to Veldizar’s corpse, drawing a sword as he went. One quick blow removed the head from the body. It was gruesome looking. Both eyes gouged out, the flesh and hair burnt and melted. His mouth still formed his death-scream.
Walking back as he produced a box and stuffed the head in it, he noticed everyone watching him. Brick asked, “Gonna mount it above yer mantle?”
Fitz chuckled at him. “No, master dwarf. I plan to use one of our captured orbs and send a message to whichever wizard it leads to. I imagine it will ruin their day.” He waggled his eyebrows as the others laughed.
“That reminds me.” Alexander held up a finger. “Who wants to remove his heart for Lady Lia?” Molgo obliged, stepping over the corpse and reaching into the wound Alexander had made with his sword. A moment later he retrieved the black heart of the drow and handed it to Alexander with a bow of his head.
Leading the way, Fitz stepped through the portal. The others followed in ones and twos.
Chapter 17
Close Call
Matt waited as patiently as he could for a message from his mole. She’d need time to safely retrieve the stash of explosives and distribute them through the Olympus compound. It might even take her several days. He knew security was beefed up well beyond normal measures.
He’d lain down on the mattress that was set on the floor of the living room and gotten a solid six hours of sleep. He’d made himself some hot oatmeal with honey for breakfast, then spent some time scanning news feeds for any news on the manhunt by the various agencies pursuing him. All he’d found was an update on his father, who was still being held in solitary and who was still refusing to cooperate with authorities.
Matt spent some time thinking that over. He didn’t trust the news feeds. Could that story be meant to put him at ease, when in truth his father had given him up? Not that it mattered much. Most of their network had been destroyed as people were arrested and questioned. The FBI was good at tracing financial transactions, phone records, travel, etc. His people were probably dropping like flies.
Which was fine by him. This was the endgame. Except for the few who still provided him with food and arranged for the next safe house, he didn’t need the others. And many of the fools had been arrested before being paid, so the FBI was saving him money.
After a few hours of pacing and thinking, he decided to get back into the game. If nothing else, he was curious about the old wizard’s response to his failures.
Taking a deep breath to prepare himself for the pain his avatar was likely experiencing, he closed his eyes and logged in.
>>> System Message<<<
Your last bind point is no longer valid.
You will be transferred to the nearest available faction bind point.
“What is this?” he asked himself aloud as he appeared in an unfamiliar room. Even before he was through speaking, he was seized by rough hands. “A human! How did he get here? Take him to the wizard!” A drow guard standing in front of him spoke to the two who were now holding him captive.
“Yes, take me to the wizard, fools!” Matt nearly spat at them. “And take your hands off me. Do you not know who I am?”
“A dead man. That is who you are.” The lead guard looked at him with disdain. “The wizard will want to know how you managed access to this stronghold before you die. I suggest you save yourself some pain and tell him quickly. Or don’t. All the same to me, really.” He motioned with his hand and Matt was dragged out of the room.
Two long corridors and a set of doors later, he was dragged into a throne room. This one was smaller than his master’s home, but it held all the ominous feelings of threat and fear he was used to.
The guards dragged him forward and tossed him to the ground in front of a throne. This one was set at ground level rather than atop a dais. When Matt lifted his eyes, he saw a drow wizard, but not his wizard. This one appeared much younger and had a cruel smile on his face.
“A human in my home. Of his own volition. I don’t believe that’s ever happened. Who are you?”
Matt looked around. There were a dozen or so drow gathered around, watching. None of them looked familiar.
“On this world I am known as the Dark One.” He puffed out his chest and held his chin high.
“Ahhh… Veldizar’s adventurer. That explains much.” The drow tapped a finger to his chin as he considered this information.
“Why am I here? I should have arrived in Veldizar’s stronghold,” Matt demanded.
“Ha! Have you not heard?” He leaned forward in his throne and sneered at Matt. “Veldizar is dead! The boy king, the one that YOU failed repeatedly to eliminate, captured his stronghold and ended him.”
Matt absorbed that. This new drow was right. That did explain a lot. His bind point had been in Veldizar’s stronghold. If Alexander held it now, the game would have automatically moved his bind point so that he didn’t appear in enemy territory and get killed immediately.
“And where am I now? May I ask your name?” he ventured to the wizard in front of him.
“You may ask, worm. But I will not answer. I will not make the mistake my colleague did. Your grand plan to attack all the light capitols has been a failure. All but two cities repelled our invasions. Even now, my stronghold and others are being attacked by groups of adventurers like yourself.”
The drow rose from his seat. “We have learned much about you adventurers in recent months. Including the fact that you can retreat to your world at will, leaving your bodies here.”
He took a step forward, his hands clasped together. “Unless, of course, you are in combat.” Too fast for Matt to follow, he drew a slim dagger from a wrist sheath and stabbed it into Matt’s shoulder. “Which you are, as of now.”
Matt grunted in pain and placed a hand over the wound. He instinctively reached for his bag to retrieve a health potion before remembering that he no longer had a bag. He cursed under his breath and tried not to make eye contact.
The drow didn’t care one way or the other. With a wave of his hand, h
e told the guards, “Feed him to the dogs. One small bit at a time. Keep him alive as long as possible to enjoy it.”
Matt screamed obscenities at the wizard as he was dragged away. He knew as long as he was in combat, he couldn’t log out. Meaning he’d have to endure all the pain they were about to inflict upon him. As they reached the door, he changed to pleas for mercy. The drow just turned his back and stepped back to his throne.
*****
Back in the safehouse, Matt was screaming as he ripped the headgear off and fell out of his recliner. His nerves screamed with echoes of the pain the drow had inflicted upon him.
“God dammit!” He was breathing heavily, his face on the carpet, spittle adding to the various stains there. “If I wasn’t hiding from Odin, I’d report that shit to the devs. That was way overboard! Leave it to fucking Jupiter Tech to allow such a broken mechanic in their game.”
But not for much longer. He quickly regained his feet, though his legs were wobbly. Opening his phone and turning it on, he waited for the powerup sequence to finish, then checked for messages.
Nothing.
A quick look at the time showed him he’d been in the game for about thirty minutes. It seemed much longer than that. As he used one hand on the back of his recliner to support himself, he happened to glance at the window. The light from a pair of headlights was barely penetrating the paper his people had used to cover the widows.
Light itself was no big deal, but this light was moving very, very slowly. And now stopping outside near the house.
That was all Matt needed. He grabbed his headgear and his bag and dashed for the back door. He didn’t take time to sanitize the place and remove any fingerprints or DNA that might be found by the cops. If they were here now, they already knew who he was. If it wasn’t cops outside, his people would clean up the house later.
Slamming open the back door, he flew across the yard. A few spare cement blocks gave him steps to get up and over the eight-foot high wall. Once on the ground on the other side, he ran down the alley and cut left across a yard. Roughly a minute and four blocks later he was in his truck.
Starting the engine, he cut off the headlights. A quick check for anything suspicious, and he made a U-turn. As soon as he was moving away from the safe house, he turned the headlights back on and drove the speed limit for two blocks. He carefully came to a complete stop at a stop sign, then turned right and went another few blocks. He tossed his phone into an alley as he passed it, thinking they may have used it to track him.
He continued this pattern for nearly a mile before taking a main road and leaving the area entirely. After holding it together for half an hour, he pulled over in an airport strip club parking lot. Putting the truck in park and turning off the engine, he sat there, breathing deeply and trying to think.
“Shit! Shit shit shit shit!” He pounded on the steering wheel. Now he was second-guessing himself. Maybe the headlights were just someone stopping at a neighbor’s house. Maybe he just bailed for no reason.
A moment later, a helicopter passed overhead, moving in the direction of the safehouse. That settled it. He hit the steering wheel again. “They must have caught Jenni. Which means they know everything.” He sat and seethed for a while.
After an hour of alternating between being pissed and feeling sorry for himself, he got out of the truck. He’d parked behind the building and away from any lights. Pacing back and forth, he mumbled to himself. The sound was drowned out by the thump thump thump of the music from inside the club. But it didn’t matter, he knew what he said.
“It has to be me. I’m the only one left I can count on. Have to assume everyone else is compromised. I need to get inside and find those explosives. If she hasn’t told them yet. They’ll never expect me. They’ll think I’ll run.”
The adrenaline rush of his flight from the safe house was gone and he was crashing. He needed to rest. As with many strip clubs near airports, there was a motel right next door. He left the truck where it was, making sure to lock it before he left. Walking over to the motel office, he paid cash for a room for three hours. The kid at the desk smirked at him. “Three hours? Right on, stud,” he said as he looked around for Matt’s companion.
Matt ignored him, leaving the office and walking calmly as his heart pounded in his chest. He felt exposed. Constantly looking for the video cameras that were everywhere these days. He tried to keep his head down and his face hidden as he located his room and unlocked the door. Not bothering to turn on a light, he closed and bolted the door and sat on the bed.
A few minutes of deep breaths and he was sufficiently calmed. He’d brought nothing in with him, leaving it all in the truck. It was safer there.
He went to the bathroom and unwrapped one of the plastic cups. Two cupfuls of water later, he set the cheap alarm clock next to the bed and laid himself down. It took him nearly an hour to calm his mind enough to sleep, but eventually exhaustion won out.
*****
McCoy cursed as one of the local PD undercovers rolled right up in front of the house and parked. “What the hell?” he hissed into the radio. “What are you doing?”
There was no answer from the police vehicle, but it didn’t matter. There was a fast-moving shadow inside the house, then the bang of the back door slamming shut. McCoy and his partner leapt from their car and ran towards the house. By the time they’d leapt the fence into the backyard, no one was there. They followed Matt’s route up the concrete blocks and over, stopping to look and listen when they were on the other side. There was no sign of their suspect.
They split up, each going opposite directions down the alley. McCoy went at a jog, talking into this radio as he went. “Suspect fled out the back when fucking local PD spooked him. We’re searching the alley. We could use some eyes in the sky.”
He listened to the radio chatter. The units they’d had coming in to surround the house were adjusting into a search pattern. He cursed the cops again. Ten more minutes and they’d have closed a net, and it wouldn’t have mattered if the kid ran. He was too old for this running around shit.
Five minutes later, they gave up the foot search. There was no sign, no trail to follow. He was walking down a block of mostly-lit houses. A man sitting on his porch smoking a cigar called out a greeting. McCoy turned with a start. The guy’d been sitting in the dark and McCoy hadn’t even seen him.
“Good evening, sir. Have you been out here long? Did you happen to see anyone suspicious run by?”
The man leaned forward to get a better look at McCoy. “You a cop?”
“Something like that. I’m a federal agent. We’re looking for a suspect who fled on foot from a house about four blocks that way.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
The man nodded. “Guy in a hurry got in a pickup truck. He wasn’t running, but he acted weird. As soon as he started the truck, he turned the headlights off. Made a u-ey and went off that way.” The man pointed down the block.
“Did you get a good look at the truck?” McCoy was already on the radio as the man gave him a description of the vehicle. It was an old Chevy pickup truck. An antique. The kind built in the late 20th century when they still made them out of metal and they came with 8-track players and AM radio. It wouldn’t have any electronics that could be tracked, unless the kid had been stupid enough to add a GPS. And based on his vehicle choice, McCoy doubted that.
The good news was, trucks like that were not that common anymore. He put the description out over the radio and thanked the man before turning to head back to his own vehicle.
When he reached the car, his partner was waiting for him. The first of the helicopters arrived overhead as the two of them walked to the unmarked cop car that had spooked their suspect.
The two officers were still sitting in the car. They hadn’t even gotten out to assist with the chase or the search. McCoy tapped on the window. The officer in the driver’s seat rolled down the window. “Yeah?”
“Yeah? YEAH!? That’s what you have to say to m
e? Are you shitting me? What’s your name, officer?”
“Cheek. What’s yours.”
“Cheek. Oh, that’s perfect. Cheek. What the actual fuck did you think you were doing here?”
“Screw you, pal. I don’t answer to you. You got a problem with me, call my sergeant.”
Just then McCoy’s partner shouted, “GUN!” and the passenger side window exploded. McCoy ducked down and moved back by the rear door of the vehicle as he drew his own weapon. He saw through the windows that his partner was hit and falling backward. McCoy didn’t hesitate. Shouting for assistance into his radio, he fired through the back door window toward the front passenger seat. Three rounds, just to be sure. Then he stuck his hand through the shattered window and put three more rounds through the driver’s seat headrest.
Other agents and officers were arriving, some by foot and others screeching to a halt in vehicles. McCoy shouted that the cops in the car had fired on his partner. As he did, he moved up slowly toward the driver’s window. Gun first, ready to fire.
He relaxed slightly when he saw the brains splattered across the windshield. Another officer who had approached from the other side of the vehicle shouted, “This side clear!” and bent down to check on McCoy’s partner.
McCoy sheathed his weapon and ran around the back of the car to do the same. He found his partner laying in the grass, groaning. The cop looked up and said, “His vest stopped the round. He’s fine.”
“Screw you! I feel like a damn elephant just kicked me in the chest!”
McCoy laughed, shaking with a combination of relief and adrenaline.
His partner looked up and said, “What the hell, man? Those were cops? Why’d they fire on us?”
McCoy looked at the cop standing next to them. “Good question. And why’d they pull right up here and spook our guy? Did you know these guys?”
The cop bent to look in the passenger window. “This one’s Clinton. Not much left of the other one’s face, but I’m guessing it was his partner, Cheek.”
World At War Page 36
