A Sinister Game

by Heather Killough-Walden

She tentatively peeked around him, too shocked to do anything else.

  The Game Lord stood at the end of the hall, another transparent black box held tightly in his hands.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Game Lord smiled.

  Victoria swallowed a rising whimper. The sudden sound of footfalls had her spinning around to find four GC guards closing in on them from behind.

  Victor had clearly seen them too. He shoved Victoria out of the way and she went sailing to hit the opposite wall. Victoria braced for the impact, weathered it, and managed to stay on her feet.

  The guards were upon Victor in record time. Two of them were holding neutralizing bracelets, but Victor never gave them a chance to get anywhere near his wrists with them.

  He was beautiful, in a dark and deadly kind of way. It was like watching a wolf take down his prey. She’d done that a few times in the outskirts of the Field, in-between Games. She liked the wolves.

  And now she knew why. They reminded her of Victor Black.

  He moved with unnatural grace; a blurring form in head to toe black leather, his green eyes flashing like shattered emeralds as he crushed the windpipe of one guard, broke the neck of another, and then dislocated the shoulder and shattered a knee on the third. The fourth guard stepped back, trying to get away after seeing what Black had done to his companions.

  But Victor had no intention of allowing escape, and the fourth guard never stood a chance.

  When it was over a few seconds later, two sets of neutralizing bracelets lay unused on the floor along with four injured guards who were either unconscious or very slowly trying to crawl away.

  Victor straightened. He turned, and his eyes locked onto her as if she were a beacon. Victoria shivered. To think that Victor Black wanted her as badly as he did was almost a compliment. A scary, thrilling kind of compliment.

  Very slowly, Victor peeled his promising gaze from her and pinned it to the Game Lord, who was still standing where he’d been before, watching them.

  The Game Lord smiled and shook his head. “You truly are the best, Black. Really, if my hands weren’t occupied, I would applaud you.” His gray eyes glittered maniacally. “It’s so good to see you’re still with us after all. I’ll take two rehabilitated Gamers over one any day.”

  Victoria strode toward Victor and stood beside him. If they were going down, they would do so together.

  “If you come quietly,” the Game Lord continued almost conversationally, “I won’t have to blast you both into a coma first.”

  “I think you’re bluffing,” Victor stated, his accent coming through loud and clear.

  Victoria glanced over her shoulder at the sound of more footfalls. But rather than more guards, Simon, April and Ty came running round the corner down the hall. She held up her hand, signaling for them to stay back.

  As they’d been trained to, they obeyed her order and came to a halt. Then they saw the bodies on the floor. Ty and Simon raised their bows toward the Game Lord, and April went for her sword, pulling it loudly from its scabbard.

  The Game Lord ignored them. Instead, he addressed Victor.

  “I can see why you would believe that,” he said, referring to Victor’s bluff accusation. He shrugged. “After all, I’ve already used one black box today. How many could I possibly have created over the last three thousand years?” He chuckled. “Am I right?” He tilted his head and his gaze slid to Victoria.

  He winked at her.

  “Victoria, run,” Victor told her.

  “No,” Victoria replied, her own gaze narrowing. Fire pooled in her palms, illuminating the hall with crackling, jumping shadows.

  “You heard me,” Victor repeated. “Get out of here now.”

  The Game Lord’s smile turned cruel. He lifted the box and it began to crackle with electricity.

  But Victoria wasn’t about to leave Victor, not again. Not now that he was alive and she had a second chance. “I said no,” she whispered. “Accept it, Gray leader.”

  She could feel a spike of energy come from him then. He was angry, and the sensation was like ice on her skin.

  For the love of Thor, Victoria, get the bloody hell out of here, he mentally commanded.

  Forget it. Her reply was simple and strong. She began to pull her power forward, setting it in front of them like a firewall.

  That’s my girl, came another voice in her mind. Victoria recognized this one as Loki’s.

  I’m here too, Rose. Take whatever you need from me, said her sister.

  Victoria closed her eyes as the familiar voices swirled through her head and soul. She reached out and touched them, drawing from each of them as if they were unseen founts. She felt stronger than she had ever felt before. Even the drug still coursing through her system failed to bend her concentration. If anything, it merely relaxed her, took away the fear, and made her braver.

  Which made her more dangerous.

  As if he could sense this change in her, Victor turned and looked down at her. Green eyes met gold.

  “I’ll give you one last chance, Rose.” The box in Arthur Zero’s hands was crackling with more urgency now. “Think of it, Tyrnan,” he continued. “You’ll be with your team again. You’ll live forever. You’ll be happy.”

  Victor and Victoria turned back to regard him.

  “Not that I need remind you of this love,” Victor told her as he warily eyed the Game Lord, “But I wouldn’t listen to him if I were you. He’s a very good liar. And, what’s worse,” he paused, giving Arthur a knowing look. “He plans to make you his wife. He’ll implant the memory in your mind first chance he gets.”

  Ty Murrey and Simon Roon let fly with their arrows. The bolts shot through the air, sailing well over Victor and Victoria’s heads toward the Game Lord.

  Arthur Zero raised the box in his hands. A flash of light erupted from it. The arrows burst into flames and were diverted. They went flying to the sides to bank uselessly against the walls of the hall and drop smoldering to the ground.

  Victoria watched this with a growing sense of doom. Victor must have been reading the Game Lord’s mind to know his intentions. She didn’t want to think about what else he might have read in there. No doubt, he was editing his thoughts for her sake.

  But Arthur Zero didn’t deny it. “The old gods are all but dead, but the wall still needs champions,” he said. “If not by birthright, then by birth, alone.” He stared at Victoria, and now she recognized the lust in his expression. “You would create beautiful children, Rose.” His eyes reflected an inner hunger. “And powerful.”

  Without warning, Victor released a stream of cold energy, no doubt meaning to freeze the Game Lord from the inside out. At the same time, both Simon and Ty released a second volley of arrows.

  Again, the arrows were stopped, this time coming to a complete halt in the air and dropping to the floor like rocks.

  Likewise, Victor’s cold stream seemed to bounce off the Game Lord. The wall to Arthur’s right was caked over with crawling, crackling rime, but Arthur himself was untouched.

  A muscle in Victor’s jaw ticked. He waved his hand; Victoria recognized the attempt at telekinesis. But the Game Lord stayed put, once more completely unaffected by Victor’s magic.

  “Very nice, Black. But you can do better than that.”

  Victoria stepped back when Victor released his sleep and weakness powers next. She could feel the influence slithering across the hall and fully expected the Game Lord to feel something this time.

  But he didn’t. The box, however, seemed to have grown brighter in his hands. She frowned. Maybe it was even larger.

  “Victor, you have to stop,” Victoria told him, moving forward to gently grasp his elbow. “You’re only making him stronger.”

  The Game Lord’s eyes glittered. With merriment? Pride? Whatever it was, it wasn’t good, and when it settled once more on Victoria’s form, she could almost feel its weight.

  “Yes, indeed,” he commended. “You’re as intelligent as you are b
eautiful, Tyrnan. I believe you will warm my bed quite nicely.”

  Victor’s entire body was rigid with pent-up rage. At that final obscene challenge, he seemed to be able to take no more. He tore from her grasp and strode toward the Game Lord just as the black box in Arthur’s grasp grew completely transparent.

  Victoria could now see a vortex spinning within it. She hadn’t witnessed the Game Lord using the black box the first time on the clearing outside of Ocanus. She’d been unconscious at the time.

  But now she had a front seat view when the box opened up and a kind of lightning shot from its core.

  The first stream of white-blue light struck Victor in the chest with the force of a focused hurricane. Victor was lifted off of his feet and thrown down the hall, the arm of lightning following him as he went. Victoria spun to go after him, but a second stream from the black box hit her next, knocking her back as well.

  It felt like an arm of iron had slammed into her sternum, stealing her breath and fibrillating her heart. She failed to process any coherent thought in that moment. The impact was white-hot and utterly draining. She slumped against the wall she was thrown into and slid to the floor to land on her hands and knees.

  Her body was on fire. It was eating her alive, stealing her vitality from her, leaving her empty.

  Victoria….

  Victor’s voice whispered through her thoughts, barely audible over the maelstrom of blood rushing in her eardrums. She could have sworn she heard her body cracking.

  I’m so sorry, love.

  She felt his presence slipping away, as the world felt the withdrawal of night before the sun rose. She knew the bulk of the box’s evil was focused on him. The Game Lord was going to take him out first. Victor posed too much of a threat.

  She tried to look up, but found herself on the floor, having to force even her eyelids to obey. She felt so heavy, as if she were made of lead and would even fall through the marble tiles beneath her. She could not move her body, not at all.

  The torment continued, draining one of her powers after another. She could almost recognize them as they passed from her soul to the black box. Telekinesis first. Then fire. Her sister’s powers faded as well, the ice melting and the cold growing tepid. All sound within her mind ceased.

  Her healing ability began to go, its molecular mending slipping past like wisps of smoke on a breeze.

  But a bellow of rage sounded through the buzzing, lit-up hallway. A cry of surprise promptly followed.

  The lightning suddenly stopped, the snapping and crackling no longer piercing her to her core. The pain began to recede, dropping away like the sloughing of an acid-lined blanket.

  Victoria moaned. She pushed herself up – and slumped forward, gasping for breath. A drop of blood fell to the floor beneath her, splattering into a beautiful many-pointed star. Then another.

  She tried to sit up again, succeeding a second time. She wiped the back of her hand across her nose, knowing full well it would come away covered in blood. She didn’t care.

  Victor’s body lay on the floor ahead of her.

  Not again.

  Several yards away, Maxwell Blood and the Game Lord were locked in a mortal embrace. Max’s sword had been sunk into the Game Lord’s abdomen and protruded disturbingly from the other side, red and shimmering with blood. She saw Max give it a brutal twist, even as the black box in Arthur’s clutched fists sent bolt after vicious bolt of draining electricity into Max’s body. It stole not only his powers, but his very life.

  For Max, the power drain didn’t matter. He’d been trained as a fighter, a team captain. With or without his dark leader abilities, he was a champion, and his sword arm was as deadly as his mind.

  But he was dying.

  Victoria crawled forward until she knelt beside Victor.

  She watched Max. Another twist, and Max pulled the sword back out of his opponent’s chest. Then he thrust it back in.

  The black box finally clamored to the marble floor. The Game Lord would have fallen but for the length of Max’s blade holding him up like an insect on a pin.

  However, Max’s own knees gave out then. Both men fell to the floor.

  “Max,” Victoria said his name.

  Forgive me, Victoria. Max’s head bowed in deathly weariness as the Game Lord’s eyes closed. Max removed his sword, yanking it out in one final, defiant show of strength. The Game Lord slumped forward to fall onto the box he had dropped.

  Max looked up. Slowly.

  His blue eyes were no longer glowing. But they were beautiful nonetheless, and clear as the Mare on a summer morning.

  Forgive me, his mind whispered again. It was a plea, soft but urgent. His life slipped away.

  Her response was vital.

  She swallowed an impending sob and nodded. I forgive you. Her vision blurred with tears, and she let them fall.

  He smiled at her then. It was a small smile, but it was enough.

  As he fell, Victoria closed her eyes. She could not watch. She couldn’t watch him fall for the last time. He’d been her captain. He’d been her best friend. And despite everything, in the end he had sacrificed himself to save her.

  “Victoria,” April was beside her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. Victoria opened her eyes and looked down at the Gray leader. She couldn’t believe that in the space of seconds, she’d lost them both.

  Gently, and with shaking fingers, Victoria brushed a lock of raven hair from Victor’s forehead. Even in death, he was impossibly beautiful.

  They’d never finished their Game. Distractedly, she realized they would still have a several hours left in it.

  Another tear escaped to travel down her cheek. She would have surrendered to him willingly.

  He’s not dead, Rose.

  Victoria blinked. She hiccupped. What?

  There was no reply, but that didn’t stop Victoria from placing her hand over Victor’s heart. She felt no heartbeat. He wasn’t breathing. There was nothing –

  There. One single beat. Faint, but present.

  He was alive.

  With a cry of alarm, Victoria placed both hands over his chest and furiously focused what remaining energy she had. Her ability to heal was the last power the box had tried to take from her. It was the only one it had failed to steal.

  She imagined Victor as he had been only moments before: tall, strong, intact. She imagined him perfect, because that was what he was. In all of his darkness and all of his dangerous glory, he was perfect.

  Do you really think so love?

  Victoria’s eyes flew open. He still appeared to be asleep. But beneath her palms, she felt his heartbeat kick again. It was stronger this time. And again. Her own breathing hitched with hope just before his chest rose and fell beneath her hands. He was breathing.

  “Victor….” She glanced down at her hands, transfixed with his expanding and contracting chest.

  When she looked back up again, it was to find him gazing steadily at her.

  She went to move her hands from his chest, suddenly self-conscious. But his movement was lightning fast. He had her wrist in his firm grip before she could pull away.

  Her breath caught. The contact was like fire and ice.

  Slowly he sat up, his gaze never leaving hers. She watched him in mute fascination, her eyes wide.

  He leaned toward her, his green eyes glittering with nothing short of triumph as he came close enough that his next words whispered across her lips.

  “Got you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A revolution is like mourning. It comes in stages.

  First, there is a disbelieving quiet, like the restless, electric silence just before a storm. Then a ripple of noise erupts across a nation, and the people awaken to a different world.

  The Playing Field was a skeleton of a beast now that its muscle had been killed. The wall was no longer operational – and in fact, no longer there. Once power was returned to the gods, the wall simply vanished.

  Suddenly, the Fiel
d and the outside sectors were side-by-side, touching, intimate whether they liked it or not.

  There had been so much to do after the Game Lord’s death, so much to set right and tend to, it had taken a gathering of every leader who had once played on the Field to keep control of the situation and handle one issue at a time.

  As expected, fights broke out. Offices within the various buildings on the Field were raided, and rehabilitation machines were set on fire or destroyed through other means. A few players were distraught or even terrified.

  But trouble was kept to a minimum. The gods were once more in command, and memories had been restored. People understood what had transpired. It was hard for many of them to deal with, but others helped them through it, and the gods offered strength when it was really needed.

  Some former players mourned the loss of loved ones and the theft of years of their lives and their family’s lives. Others raced as quickly as they could to get back to the villages they’d been taken from and see if anyone they knew still remained alive.

  It was a bittersweet victory.

  The Game had gone on too long and the outside world had been torn down to a dwindling, aged population. For far too many players, there was simply nothing to go home to.

  And so, Victor and Victoria, whom everyone seemed to turn to in this crisis, began making preparations to change the Field.

  The foundations of a civilization were already in place. There were buildings and there was a technological infrastructure. There was food, there were jobs, and there was medicine.

  While a few Gamers chose to leave the Field forever and return to the villages to help build them back up again, those from outside the wall who desired to see the Field were carefully and slowly brought inside.

  Sections were designated, people were assigned tasks, and time passed. Each morning dawned on a Field a little less frightened and a little more certain than it had been the day before.

  Now, six full weeks after Arthur Zero’s death, Victoria stood at the railing of her suite in the former Red Tower and looked out over the land below. The night breeze sent her long gold locks playing about her face and painted her red gown to the slim, graceful lines of her body.