A Sinister Game

by Heather Killough-Walden

  “I intend to,” the Game Lord replied to Max’s request. He turned to her once more, a syringe held aloft in one gloved hand.

  Victoria swallowed loudly, barely managing to work past her ragged breathing and her racing pulse. She felt dizzy. This isn’t happening, her mind insisted. None of this is happening. She couldn’t save herself, and no one else was going to save her. Her team had been beaten.

  Victor was dead.

  Even the gods had abandoned her.

  Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. Her golden eyes began to glow, despite the saps that were still wrapped tightly around her forearms.

  “Now, now sweetheart. Don’t cry. This is a harmless painkiller. There’s a sedative in it as well.” The Game Lord approached her. Victoria shrank into the leather chair. He smiled and nodded to one of the guards.

  The guard came forward and produced a blade from his inside jacket pocket. Victoria’s pulse kicked up a notch, thudding painfully against her rib cage.

  The guard placed the blade to the leather of her uniform jacket and proceeded to slice the jacket off her body. He was quick and efficient, and the blade must have been impossibly sharp to do what it did.

  The guard pulled the jacket completely free, leaving the tight undershirt beneath intact. The Game Lord leaned down and placed the tip of the syringe to the inside of Victoria’s elbow. She winced, trying to shrink away, but was unable to move.

  The Game Lord gave her a slightly reproachful look. “It’ll make you feel better, Rose,” he told her, his slate colored eyes glittering with triumph. “I’ll even give it a few moments to kick in before we begin.”

  He drove the needle into her arm, and Victoria looked away. As he depressed the syringe, she felt the drug burn through her arm and last of her hope slip from her grasp.

  A few seconds later, a not unpleasant warmth radiated out from the injection site, climbing upward and spreading across her body. It had an instant calming effect.

  The Game Lord emptied the entire syringe’s contents into her arm and then gently pulled it back out.

  Victoria couldn’t help it when she relaxed against the chair, letting her head fall back against the leather headrest. The drug was coursing freely through her system now, and it honestly felt good. Very good.

  “That’s it,” the Game Lord gently lauded.

  Rose, don’t surrender. Don’t give in.

  There was that voice again – Victoria’s sister calling to her from the ether. Victoria lazily blinked, her arms and legs relaxing into their bindings. Her breathing slowed.

  Rose! I’m here. Remember who you are. I won’t let you forget.

  Warmth blanketed her body, wrapping around her like a fleece blanket, dark and binding. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t have fought it if she’d wanted to.

  “It isn’t strong enough to kill all of the pain,” the Game Lord was saying. “I can’t give her any more without risking injury, however, it’ll take the edge off.”

  A strange cold spot that rested just over her heart was the only exception to the comforting warmth that enveloped her. She didn’t understand it and had no idea what it was. It wasn’t the Needle – that was going to go into her brain, not her heart. But she also didn’t care, not even when the spot became so cold, it almost burned.

  Distantly, she felt someone take her hand. She slowly opened her eyes to find Max crouching beside the chair, his hand interwoven with hers. She gazed sedately into his blue eyes and vaguely recognized that strange expression again. There it was. What did it mean?

  It didn’t matter. Not any more.

  Because the Game Lord flipped a switch on the control console and the Needle whirred to disturbing life.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Max’s mind was spinning. It had been spinning since he’d pulled his sword out of Victor’s body the second time in that clearing.

  He couldn’t believe he’d finally done it. He’d wanted to kill Victor Black from the moment Black first laid eyes on Victoria. Max had known it was only the beginning – that Black would come to covet Victoria as Max did.

  He’d wanted to reveal himself to Black as a dark leader and warn him to stay away. But the Game Lord had forbidden it. No amount of petty jealousy, he’d said, was worth risking his cover. He was there to keep Victoria on the right path, and that was it.

  So Max had let him go.

  Until now.

  When Max yanked the rest of the blade free and watched as Victor slumped forward, he realized it should have felt better to him than it did. There had never been a more worthy opponent than Victor Black. In fact, Black was a man impossible to defeat in fair combat.

  Max had been forced to attack him from behind at first.

  And now Max felt strange. It had begun with that attack on Victor… but it’d grown worse when Ullr had touched him.

  Max instantly recognized the god. He’d turned to find himself staring into Ullr’s ice castle eyes and he’d known he was gazing into the eyes of his own champion god – the one who’d made him a dark leader – the one responsible for all of Max’s powers.

  A moment later, Ullr vanished, and Max faltered. He turned in place, taking in everything around him from his fallen opponent to the Game Lord, who was dragging Victoria toward the trail that led to the secret transporter cube.

  It was time to go.

  Despite his sudden and odd sense of disconnection, Max had caught up with them easily enough, and the group made good time getting to the transporter. But Victoria wouldn’t look at him. Tears stained her cheeks. Her skin was pale with grief. And she couldn’t stand the sight of him.

  As the transporter cube whirred and blurred through time and space, Max’s head began to swim. It felt fuzzy, suddenly… as if he’d been poisoned or something.

  He wondered if he needed a brief trip to the MRU. But he didn’t want to leave Victoria’s side, not when she was headed for immediate rehabilitation.

  He wanted to be there when it happened. He wanted to be there when she woke up.

  The way the Game Lord was there when I woke up….

  Max blinked. He felt the blood drain from his face. He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. A throb was starting up behind his eyes.

  Voices floated unchecked through his mind. He couldn’t make out the sentences, but there were words here and there: Arthur…. My idea…. Serve me now….

  Max winced when the throb became a sudden sharp pain that stabbed behind his right eye. He looked up, wondering whether the Game Lord had noticed his sudden distress.

  Luckily he hadn’t; he was too busy watching Victoria. He watched her with blatant hunger. He wanted her power, Max knew. But it was more than that. There was lust there as well.

  Who wouldn’t lust after her? Max asked himself bitterly. She’s beautiful.

  You thought you could hand me a job and boss me around and just expect me to turn over my creations?

  Max blinked again, this time reeling with the impact of the words that suddenly shot through his memory. A voice rang out in his head. He remembered it now.

  I Remember….

  Oh no, Maxwell. You have done your part. You tore down the armies that stood against you. You became Bloody Max. Congratulations, the voice taunted. Now it’s my turn. The wall was my design, after all. Your idea, Max – my creation. Therefore, I should be Game Lord…. Not you.

  Max’s breath stilled in his lungs. There were bits and pieces, puzzle fragments that floated. The conversation made no sense. The full memory was there – just out of reach.

  They made it to Game Control and entered the rehabilitation chamber. “Strap her to the chair,” the Game Lord commanded. The GC guards immediately got to work following their instructions. Victoria fought valiantly, but of course it did no good.

  And it hit him like a brick wall in that moment. Victoria was going to be rehabilitated. She was going to forget all about him. She would forget about everything they had done in the last fifteen years, and it w
as going to hurt her.

  He didn’t want her to forget. He didn’t want her to suffer!

  “Give her something for the pain,” he said. It was all he could think of saying.

  More memories assaulted him. I would give you something for the pain Max, came the Game Lord’s voice. The Game Lord! He was the one speaking to him in his memory! But the truth is I’m sort of looking forward to hearing you scream.

  Max stumbled back, bracing himself on the wall behind him as the guards strapped Victoria into the chair. The Game Lord came at her with a syringe in his hand. “Now, now sweetheart. Don’t cry. This is a harmless painkiller. There’s a sedative in it as well.”

  The Game Lord’s guard cut Victoria’s downtime jacket off of her slim body and pulled the leather away. Max’s vision swam, his heart raced. His skin felt flushed and clammy, and his head pounded.

  “It’ll make you feel better, Rose. I’ll even give it a few moments to kick in before we begin.” He plunged the needle into her arm and Victoria turned away. Max watched the Game Lord shoot the drug into her system, and a queasy uneasiness uncoiled like a snake in his stomach.

  You can’t do this! His memory shouted. It was him screaming. Arthur, let me up! Max closed his eyes against the onslaught.

  It’s too late, Max. It worked, you know. We built the wall and the gods are dying. Your idea worked. There was laughter, harsh and terrible. And finally, Max could see his face once more – clear as day.

  It was the face of the man who had ambushed Max hundreds of years ago and wiped his memories. It was the face of the man who had taken over inside the wall, taken control, and given himself the position of Game Lord.

  It was the first Arthur.

  But you made a fatal error Maxwell the Bloody, Arthur went on. You trusted a geek. Never trust a genius to give you something greater than he can give himself.

  Max remembered the pain of the Needle next. His struggles had been useless in the chair. No matter what he did, no matter what he said, Arthur continued with his insidious plan. He erased Max’s memories.

  The pain had been unbearable. Max had blacked out short seconds after it had begun. Then he’d awoken again, still in agony. Over and over, this had gone on. The gods only knew for how long.

  When he’d awoke the final time, he awoke believing that he was Maxwell the Bloody – but not the conqueror, not the man who had envisioned the wall and appointed a genius named Arthur to figure out how to build it. But Maxwell the Bloody, the Game Lord’s second in command.

  Arthur had won. He’d become the Game Lord and had run the Game for three thousand years, even doing so with Maxwell Blood’s unsuspecting and unending support.

  And he was about to win again.

  Max’s world tilted. Was there anything he could do to stop him?

  He knelt beside the rehabilitation chair, and took Victoria’s hand. It was warm and soft. She slowly rolled her head to one side and opened her eyes, gazing out at him with glowing golden orbs half sheltered by heavy, drugged lids.

  He felt sick.

  The room was filled with Game Banded GC guards. The Game Lord – or Arthur Zero – was starting up the machine.

  And Max had killed Victor Black, the one man who might’ve stood a chance against the Game Lord and his small army.

  Ullr had given Max back his memories with that touch. The problem was, they’d come too late.

  Above them, the Needle whirred to life. It began spinning as it descended, and Victoria glanced up. She whimpered softly, but the bulb behind the needle flashed, emitting a pulse of mesmerizing light. She stopped moving, her gaze transfixed.

  Max slowly released her hand and stood. He felt the weight of his sword in its scabbard on his belt. He noted the location of every GC guard in the room. There were eleven of them. There were more just outside the door, and even more further down the hall.

  But if he took out Arthur first… would the others follow?

  Slowly, very slowly, he reached for the grip of his weapon. And the Game Lord’s steely gaze cut to him, pinning him to the spot. “I wondered whether your trip outside the wall would cause you to remember, Max.” Arthur Zero’s voice was low, his tone utterly and deceptively calm.

  He nodded at the guards who had somehow positioned themselves around Max. The air was filled with the sound of pulled swords just as Victoria Red began to scream.

  * * * *

  The discomfort was mild at first. It was a buzzing coldness that was sort of there, but sort of not. And then, in the space of no time at all, it grew and intensified until no amount of painkiller in the world could have fooled her neural synapses out of the pain.

  Her back arched in the leather chair, and her scream pierced the air of the rehabilitation room. All around her, chaos had erupted, but it was a secondary reality to her own. First and foremost was the agony. Nothing else mattered.

  I’m here, Rose. Use the power you have within yourself! Use my power!

  The cold on her chest grew colder, becoming a freezing impression that would not be ignored. It seared into her breastbone, icing over her skin, and Victoria was able to focus on it. Just barely – but enough.

  Help me! she screamed, knowing now that the cold was coming from the necklace she’d spotted on herself in the transporter cube.

  The necklace in question was her sister’s, not her own. It was her sister’s counterpart to her own crystal compass and had a piece of Andromeda inside of it. That was the magic that had always tied the lockets together.

  What do I do? her fevered brain demanded.

  Concentrate, Rose. Use my dark leader abilities!

  Andromeda was right. Victoria had already sensed them there when she’d been able to read Victor’s mind. It was Andromeda.

  Because Andromeda was Ullr’s champion, and because she and her sister were twins, they shared each other’s talents to some degree. And now Victoria also wore her sister’s locket. The locket intensified what few dark abilities she possessed, but would it be enough to override the saps on her wrists and get her out of that chair?

  I can’t do it.

  The Needle inched closer and the renewed shooting pain in Victoria’s head temporarily distracted her. She felt like vomiting. Nausea roiled through her, the pain a steady, constant, throbbing force that threatened to overwhelm her.

  You’re the one wearing the neutralizing bracelets Rose, not me! Use my power! Draw it from me now! Freeze the shackles, Rose. Break free!

  Victoria tried to concentrate. She tried so, so hard – she really did. But it was nearly impossible. Very nearly impossible.

  Just not quite.

  She imagined the steel band around her right wrist freezing. She imagined it icing over in blue-white rime that popped and crackled. She imagined its molecules crystallizing and its basic building-block materials becoming brittle and delicate – fracturing.

  She imagined this with every ounce of will she had ever possessed.

  And then, when she finally felt the cold of the manacle bite into her right wrist, she gave it a single, hard yank. It shattered. Victoria instantly reached up with her now free hand and ripped the sap off her left wrist. Then she moved her right wrist in front of her left fingers did the same thing to the second sap.

  Within moments, she was free of the neutralizing bracelets.

  Her power surged back to her, renewed by nothing more than mortal fear.

  She focused that power on the Needle above her. It stopped spinning. She focused harder. It crackled, and wires of electricity inside fizzled and popped. It began rumbling as its motor started to die.

  Across the room, Max and half a dozen GC guards were in furious hand-to-hand combat. Max removed his hand from one of the guard’s chests, and the man fell to his knees. His body was caked with ice, his heart no doubt frozen solid.

  At the same time, another guard came up behind Max and wrapped something leather around his thick throat. The Game Lord stepped back. Max’s eyelids closed and the sword slippe
d from his hand.

  Victoria realized that the leather strap the guard held was none other than a neutralizing bracelet, unfastened and stretched out.

  Time pressed in on her. Victoria blasted the metal bands off of her limbs, freeing herself from the chair. She leapt to her feet.

  The Game Lord spun away from Max, and his gray eyes locked on her. “Stop her!” he bellowed.

  He rushed toward her, but she swatted at the air between them as if she were swatting at a fly, and his tall form went sailing backward into the control console behind him.

  More GC guards moved in, refocusing their fight on her. She spun to face them, her golden eyes glowing like mini-suns, her straight, white teeth bared. Several of the men caught on fire, their hair exploding into flames, their clothes igniting to send them scrambling back in cries of alarm.

  As they flailed madly, Victoria concentrated on the door to the rehabilitation room. It swung open, crashing against the wall behind it. She ran through, not caring about the mess of fire and pain she left behind her, not caring about Max unconscious on the floor. He had betrayed her. He had killed Victor. All she could think about was getting away. All she wanted to do was escape.

  She dealt with the four guards in the hall by lifting them up telekinetically and slamming them viciously into each other to knock them out. They hit the floor and she rounded a corner with blurring speed only to slam into another tall, hard body.

  She stumbled back, temporarily stunned. A pair of strong hands grasped her arms, holding her steady.

  She blinked and looked up.

  Glacial green eyes gazed back down at her.

  “You all right then, love?” Victor asked, the hint of a smile curling his lips.

  She blinked again, finding herself at a sudden and very real loss for words.

  Maybe Game Control had succeeded and she’d never freed herself from that chair. Maybe she’d died in it instead and now her dying mind was imagining things.

  But when he shoved her roughly behind him and it hurt a little, she realized it was real. He was real. And he was shielding her with his black-clad body.