Magic Unchained n-7

by Jessica Andersen

  And she wasn’t the winner until they reached the rendezvous point.

  Yanking her flare gun free, she blasted a trailing track of blue across the sky to signal the retreat, hoping to hell there were other survivors. She and her five remaining teammates raced to the drop point they had started from, darting into the black-painted circle that said they were in place for a teleporter to pick them up from their so-called op. “Come on, come on, come on,” she chanted as the seconds ticked by and nobody else showed up.

  “Try another flare,” Sebastian said.

  She fired again, though it was a dangerous move that pinpointed them too closely. Already the enemy would be headed their way, following the flare trail. “We’ll give them sixty seconds,” she said through gritted teeth as the exhilaration of victory started to wobble.

  At T-minus thirty seconds, she headed for the control button that would change the indicator light to amber, indicating that the op was over, that anyone not in the pickup zone had been left behind. Her stomach heaved. Six survivors—herself and five others. Was that all she would come home with? At the fifteen-second mark, she strained to hear footsteps—something, anything that said more were coming.

  Ten. Nine. Eight.

  Sebastian grabbed her arm. “Look!” There was a flicker of motion and Dez stepped out from a gap opposite them, weapon raised.

  Cara clamped her lips on a scream and hit the button. A siren whooped and the light turned amber. And the game was over.

  “We did it!” The cry came from Natalie, who burst from a nearby doorway, eyes shining from a red-streaked face. She flung herself on Cara, spinning them both around in a circle. “We won. We won!” Suddenly they were surrounded by winikin, all clamoring and high-fiving, and seeming not to care that they were covered with red paint.

  “You’re dead,” Cara said numbly, pulling away from Natalie and staring from one face to the next. “Don’t you get it? You’re all dead. I killed you. I—”

  “She was just playing the game.” Zane appeared beside her and dropped a heavy arm over her shoulders. “Right, Cara?”

  “I… What?” Her stomach felt like it was gnawing on itself, yet nobody else seemed to be upset by what she’d done. Even Sebastian was nodding, grinning, and accepting a couple of back slaps from his buddies. They weren’t pissed off that she had sacrificed them in exchange for a fake artifact that now weighed heavily in her arms.

  “He’s right,” a new voice said. “You played a good game.” She turned to see the king making his way toward her. On the surface, his expression was one of reluctant admiration, as if he’d been surprised by the winikin victory, but was willing to roll with it. His eyes, though, were locked on hers, and seemed to be warning her of something. But what? Zane’s grip on her shoulders increased as Dez came opposite her and the others fell back, leaving her and Zane facing the king together as the Nightkeepers’ leader continued smoothly. “If that was the way you played the patolli, I’m not surprised you bilked Sven out of his allowance nine times out of ten.”

  “He told you that?” It was all she could get past the sudden churn of confusion. She glanced around, but for the first time in days didn’t immediately see man or coyote.

  “War games are good practice for leadership,” Dez said, which wasn’t really an answer. It drew her attention back to him, though, and she saw the warning again when he said, “Just like training exercises are good practice for battle, without being the real thing.” He held out his hand. “Congratulations.”

  There were a couple of hoots from the crowd, a few low cheers, and Zane tugged her into a one-armed hug and murmured in her ear, “Go with it. Give them a reason to believe in you, and they’ll be yours.”

  She stiffened as it sank in.

  Was this what it was going to take? Was she going to have to pretend she’d been treating the exercise like a game? Her inner self rebelled, saying, Hell, no. They need to know that was a real decision, and that they shouldn’t trust me to lead if I’m going to pull shit like that. Except that Zane and Dez thought otherwise, as if having a leader who would sacrifice eighty percent of her army to win a single battle was better than letting the winikin continue their infighting. And who knew, maybe they were right. She didn’t know, but it didn’t feel right. She didn’t feel right.

  She looked around again for Sven, then told herself to knock it off. It didn’t matter what he thought; it was her decision. Besides, for all she knew, he had disappeared again.

  Breathing through the pang brought by that thought, she handed Dez the paint-smeared statuette. Then, meeting the king’s eyes, she said, “Thank you, sire. I’m just grateful the gamble paid off.” And with that, she bought into the fiction, and hoped to the gods she was doing the right thing.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Later that afternoon, Sven found Dez in the last place he would’ve expected: the game room.

  When the survivors had first reunited, the big room on the first floor of the mansion had been the go-to spot for their downtime. The magi had sacked out in the comfort of the home theater at one end of the long, narrow space; played endless hours of Viking Warrior and Grand Theft Auto on the two dedicated gaming consoles at the other; huddled over the pinball machine, billiard table, and foosball set up in the middle; and stocked the built-in shelves with every grown-up toy known to mankind, along with a few that were pure magic. With its wood paneling, neon bar signs, and random collection of laughably bad art, the game room was where they had gotten to know one another, testing strengths and weaknesses and forming the bonds of a team that would—gods willing—see them through the end-time war.

  Over time, though, things had changed. Mates had paired off, the threat level had ratcheted up, and there had been less and less time and inclination for playing around. Less need too, as the Nightkeepers knew and trusted one another by that point, and had more important things to do. Sven had been one of the last holdouts, hanging out by himself, sometimes using the games to burn off his restlessness, other times watching too much boob tube in an effort to stop his mind from racing, not realizing until almost too late that the magic had been preparing him for Mac’s arrival. Because from the day he and his familiar finally bonded, he hadn’t needed video games or TV anymore; he’d needed action.

  Since it had been a good ten months since he’d really spent any time in the game room, he shouldn’t have been startled to see some changes. One of the pinball machines had been replaced by a full VR setup complete with couch, goggles, gloves, and shit; a Wii station had appeared in place of the Skee-Ball; and the questionable art had undergone a renaissance of sorts, and now trended toward black-and-white photos of the Denver cityscape, though the poker-playing dogs and Led Zeppelin posters remained.

  “Wow,” he said, letting the door bump his ass on the way shut. “This is different.”

  Dez had been leaning over the billiard table, shooting a solo game of nine-ball. Now he straightened and turned, shifting the pool cue to hold it like a baseball bat, as if violence were his first reflex. Which it pretty much was.

  Relaxing when he saw who it was, the king flashed his teeth. “Couple of upgrades, that’s all. Reese and I like to come in and unwind when we’re here.”

  “Don’t blame you,” Sven acknowledged. But he wasn’t tempted like he used to be. He was just there for info. “Got a minute?”

  “You have something for me?”

  In the end Sven had agreed to spy for the king, but he’d used Mac, a couple of bugs, and some old-fashioned skulking to do it rather than leaning on Carlos and Cara. He’d gotten their forgiveness, though it had taken him a couple of days to talk to Carlos. The winikin had made it too easy for him, even claiming it wasn’t necessary. It was, though, and he had a feeling they wouldn’t be so quick to forgive if they found out he’d been using them to get to the winikin, so he’d found other options. Besides, he’d needed to keep his distance from Cara, for sanity’s sake… but that had backfired, because while he’d been staying on
the outskirts, it seemed that something must’ve been going on inside her head. The Cara he knew never would’ve knowingly sacrificed her people like that, game or not. That hadn’t been collateral damage; it’d been a massacre.

  He should know. He’d been one of the ones doing the shooting.

  In answer to Dez’s question, he shrugged. “I’ve got a few thoughts. But I’ve gotta ask… what the hell happened out there today?”

  “You first.” Dez tossed him a pool cue. “And we’ll play while we talk.”

  Sven caught the stick on the fly and masked his impatience, knowing that the king had his own system, his own agendas. “What’re we playing for?”

  Turning his back on Sven, Dez started racking up another game of nine-ball. Over his shoulder, he said, “Future claim?”

  “Fuck that.” There was no way he wanted to owe the Nightkeepers’ master manipulator something like that. “Fifty bucks.”

  “A hundred.”

  “Deal.” It wasn’t like the money really mattered, anyway. Even with the dicey economy and some big-ass withdrawals they’d needed for techware and weapons, the Nightkeeper Fund was more than flush. It had been intended for an army of hundreds, even thousands. Not a dozen Nightkeepers and fifty or so winikin.

  “Shoot for break,” Dez ordered. “And start talking.”

  Sven lined up on the cue ball and shot it straight for the far bumper, trying to land it as close to the dotted line as he could. But it rolled like a damn ball bearing on a foosball table, and went well past the mark. As they swapped out, he began, “For starters, I don’t think any of the winikin were responsible for letting those things into the compound.”

  After putting his ball nearly on the mark, Dez set up for the break. “How sure are you?” He shot, scattered the neat diamond, and then muttered a curse when the yellow-striped ball bounced just short of the corner pocket, denying him the insta-win. Nothing else dropped into a pocket, so he stepped back.

  “Pretty positive. I’ve spent the past few days ghosting in and out of their stomping grounds and quartering the compound with Mac, looking for hot spots, and I haven’t found jack. There’s no evidence—at least that I can see—that any of the winikin have the kind of power that would’ve been needed to punch through the blood-ward and bring those things through the barrier. Hell, I’m not seeing that any of them have any kind of magic, period.”

  Dez’s expression flattened. “Yeah. Shit. I keep hoping for a miracle there.” Waving Sven toward the pool table, he added, “How much trouble are the rebels going to be over the next few months, do you think?”

  As he lined up his shot, Sven shook his head. “That’s a tougher question to answer, especially after what happened today.” He paused, looking at Dez with a raised eyebrow.

  “Just give me your general impressions.”

  Frustration kicked, along with the suspicion that there was more going on here than just a debriefing and a game of nine-ball. “Most of them are about where you would expect, given the history. On a personal level they don’t trust us Nightkeepers as far as they can throw us, and they hate being under the rule of a mage king… but on the save-the-world level they’re committed to doing whatever they can. There are a few outliers, of course. Sebastian was talking about taking a band sander to his bloodline mark, and I think he’s capable of doing it.” At Dez’s wince, Sven nodded. “Yeah. Anyway, he’s loud and pissed off, but I don’t think there are layers to him. You kind of get what you get, ya know? Then there’s Threefer, Nance, and Wyeth. They’re young, impulsive, and angry. I don’t think they would start something, but they’d be the first ones to jump on board.” He finally lined up, closed one eye, and shot, banking the one ball and getting it—barely—into the side pocket. Shit, he was rusty. Two years ago, he could’ve run the table, no problem.

  “That it for people who ping on your ‘need a closer look’ radar?”

  “Yeah.” Sven missed with the two on a nearly impossible shot, but managed to hide the cue ball in a corner behind the six.

  The king curled his lip in an appreciative snarl, but then hopped the white ball right over the six and sank the two. “You sure about that?”

  Had he caught something in the tone, or did he have suspicions of his own? Sven wasn’t sure, and he didn’t know if he really wanted to go there, but after a moment, he nodded. “Okay, no, I’m not sure. There’s someone else: Zane.”

  “Seriously?” The king’s expression suggested that either he’d been fishing, or his suspicions had been leaning elsewhere.

  Shit, he should’ve kept his mouth shut, especially when he wasn’t sure whether the brush-haired bastard was hitting his radar because of his obvious interest in Cara, or because there was really something going on beneath the military exterior. But it was out there now and he couldn’t take it back. “It’s just a hunch. A bad vibe, a few looks I haven’t liked. Maybe it’s just that he’s in such a key position that it’s hard not to look at him and think that he’d be perfectly placed to make trouble.” He shrugged. “Not to mention that I just flat-out don’t like the guy.”

  “Noted.” Dez took his shot, and the three ball kissed two bumpers before dropping into a corner. “Question becomes: Is that coming from your warrior’s talent or something else?”

  Careful. Now he’s definitely fishing. And Sven didn’t have any intention of giving him a nibble, just in case this conversation wasn’t entirely about the winikin, after all. “I don’t know. The feeling’s mutual, so it could just be bad chemistry.” That was what he kept telling himself, in fact, trying not to let personal stuff get in the way of his investigation. When Dez just nodded, he pressed, “Come on, spill. What the hell happened out there today? One minute Mac and I were patrolling one of the temples, and the next we’re in the middle of a firefight—hell, it wasn’t even a fight, more like a paintball bloodbath.” And it had been too damn easy for him to gun down the winikin, too much like what he’d spent the past six months doing.

  Dez grimaced. “On one hand, their plan was pretty impressive. It was a slick move putting Zane outside the game zone as a sniper and surveillance, the low-velocity paint grenade was a clever tweak that we’re thinking about using ourselves, and the flares were an effective—if unsubtle—solution to the radio blackout.… But then Cara took a look, saw the situation, and deliberately sacrificed eighty percent of her manpower in order to get herself into the pyramid.” The king shook his head. “Sure, she won, but it was at a hell of a cost.”

  “Deliberately? Are you sure?”

  “I was watching on the surveillance feeds. I saw it in her eyes. She got a look at where our manpower was headed and she just… blanked, I guess. The next thing I knew, she had signaled the attack, and three of her four teams were headed straight into enemy ambushes. So, yeah. It was deliberate.” The king paused, grimacing. “Thank the gods we were able to spin it to the other winikin as game strategy. A few of them are probably suspicious, but so far they’re not calling for her head.”

  Sven’s gut tightened. “Will they?” He didn’t like the sound of that. Hell, he didn’t like the way any of it was sounding all of a sudden. What had happened out there? The Cara he knew wouldn’t blank under pressure or turn against her friends like that, no matter what.

  “Not if I can help it, and I could use your help.” Dez sank the four, then looked up, his expression deadly serious. “I need to know that the winikin are solid, Sven, more now than ever before.” He pocketed the five and six in quick succession and then said casually, “What do you think of Cara?”

  Sven clamped his lips, but the answers were right there, just as she was right there at the edges of his mind. I think that she’s amazing and doesn’t realize it. I think she terrifies me because she’s so determined to be a good leader that she’s losing track of what it means, especially if what happened today is any indication. I think she’s strong, tough, independent, brilliant… and that she’ll kill herself—and maybe everyone around her—trying to prove i
t.

  Those weren’t the thoughts of his logical warrior self, though. So instead he said carefully, “As a leader, you mean?”

  Dez cut a sharp look in his direction. “Of course.” He missed with the seven, though.

  “She’s tough, ethical, she works her ass off, and her instincts are generally good.”

  “I take it that ‘generally’ doesn’t include the stunt she pulled today?”

  “I don’t know what really happened today, and neither do you until you ask her point-blank.” Sven sank the eight with a smooth, deliberate move. “You haven’t, which means you don’t really want to know. You also said that if they won, you’d think about pulling the Nightkeeper leaders off their teams. So I guess the question is… are you going to let the winikin lead themselves? And if so, are you going to let Cara be in charge?” Whether the winikin liked it or not, the Nightkeepers’ king had the final say.

  To Sven’s surprise, he tightened up waiting for Dez’s answer. His warrior self—the Nightkeeper mage who thought in terms of strategy and the war—said it would be a bad idea to change things up this close to the end date, a worse idea to have the Nightkeepers’ king be the one to force the change. More, the part of him that cared for Cara didn’t like thinking of her making life-or-death decisions for dozens of her friends… and, worse, learning how to do it too easily, as he had with the killing. He wanted to protect her, insulate her, like he hadn’t done before. He wanted…

  Yeah. He wanted. And that was the damn problem.