by Kresley Cole
He shook his head. He seemed less confused than usual. “I see far, not all.” He grasped my right hand, tapping the new marking. “I bet on you to take his icon.”
I supposed those symbols were a way to keep score in this sick game.
I thought I heard a gasp from the dungeon, and tried to imagine that space through their eyes. Would seeing the chained-up corpse make them understand what I’d faced?
If I’d gotten to Arthur’s earlier, maybe I could’ve saved that girl. I tipped my head back and stared at the low ceiling. How many others were out there in chains, waiting to be freed. . . ?
3
Finn stumbled out of the dungeon first, hand over his mouth. “About to Technicolor yawn.” He retched but kept it down.
Selena’s expression was blank when she exited. Without a word, she took a seat atop one of the counters.
When Jackson emerged, he looked like he was struggling to control his rage. For a boy who so often resorted to his fists, he despised violence against women.
He crossed to the table blocking the door, then sank down on the ground to sit against one of the table legs. To reinforce his blockade? Or because it was the spot in the room farthest away from me?
He seemed to be thrumming with frustrated energy, like a tiger prowling a cage. And like a trapped animal, Jackson now had nowhere to go.
I tried to put myself in his shoes. What would I do if I thought he was one way and he turned out to be something supernaturally different? I knew well what I looked like in the throes of my powers—I’d been horrified to see a past Empress in my nightmares.
If I’d been revolted, how could he not be?
Skittering sounded from above us, then a boom! as if furniture had been upended. “They’re back,” I whispered. Bagmen on our trail.
We all gazed up at the ceiling, Jackson and Selena raising their bows. How many were there? Would the decomposing body down here camouflage our scent?
After several heartbeats passed, they roved on. Selena and Jackson gradually lowered their weapons.
With a sigh of relief, Finn took a seat right beside Selena, clearly still infatuated; she glared.
“I’m guessing we’ll be here awhile,” he began, “and I need some questions answered. Like why you two were acting like you wanted to kill each other. Some of the last hot chicks on earth, I might add.”
“Tell them, Selena,” I bit out. I was still regenerating, which meant pain was radiating throughout my body. “Tell them everything you know about the game—everything you’ve hidden from us all along.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk!” Selena gripped the bow in her lap as if she was longing to fire on me.
“What do you mean by game?” Finn asked. “Strip poker’s a game. Quarters is a game. Games are fun.”
As though the words were dragged from her, Selena said, “Every few centuries, a contest begins, pitting twenty-two kids against each other in a life-or-death conflict. We’re called Arcana, and we have special powers, the same in each game.”
Finn held up his hand. “Whoa, you said before that you didn’t know why we had powers.”
“I lied,” she said without an ounce of shame. “The last one standing gets to live until the next contest, as an immortal. Our histories were recorded—on Tarot cards.”
I glanced over at Jackson to see how he was taking all these revelations. His eyes were narrowed, the wheels turning. Yes, Cajun, we all hid secrets from you, me most of all. Yes, we’re not totally, well, human. And, oui, you’re stuck in a cellar with the freaks.
Selena continued, “Some families keep logs of the players and battles, detailed chronicles. My family did. Evie’s as well. Her grandmother’s a wisewoman of the Tarot, a Tarasova. Yet for some reason, Evie says she’s forgotten everything about the game.”
“I forgot because I was young!” I snapped, though this was far from the whole truth. No need to confide to her that I’d been “deprogrammed” at CLC, an Atlanta loony bin. “I was eight the last time I saw her.”
Selena pointed to my hand. “Now Evie’s entered the game for real. She made a kill.”
Finn asked me, “So the guy out in the yard—the mad scientist—was an Arcana? How did you find him?”
“I heard his call, and I followed it.”
Selena explained to Jackson, “All Arcana have a catchphrase, like a signature about their character. We can hear each other’s. It’s how we communicate, I guess. How we can tell who’s getting closer.”
To find the Alchemist, I’d learned how to block out some calls and home in on others, like dialing in a station on an antique radio. Even when I wasn’t tuned in to the Arcana Channel, the broadcast would still play for others. “That’s right, Selena,” I said. “And yet you told us that you’d never heard voices, called us crazy.” Finn gave me a damn straight! look.
As if I hadn’t spoken, she told Jackson, “We can even hear some thoughts if they’re accompanied by sharp emotions.”
Right now the Arcana were abuzz, and we were all hearing it:
—Empress made her first kill!—
—Alchemist no more!—
—She’s worth two icons now.—
The others fell silent when Death spoke: —The Empress’s blood is mine to spill. Govern your game accordingly.—
Having been threatened by him for months, I wasn’t even fazed by his words. Death wanted to gank me? Must be Tuesday.
Finn asked, “How come Death gets to talk to everybody?”
Like Matthew, Death could mentally communicate with all of us. But especially with me.
“He’s won the last three games,” Selena said. “He’s over two thousand years old. I’m sure he’s figured out some tricks.”
I supposed as the last victor, he was king of the airwaves or something. Did that explain how he could read my thoughts?
If Selena expected Jackson to enter the dialogue, she was disappointed. He didn’t reply, didn’t ask a question. Why? He was a puzzle-solver, and if there were ever a puzzle to be solved . . .
“The guy you offed was the Alchemist, huh?” Finn asked me. “What? No Serial Killer Card? Or The Deranged Murderer?”
I shook my head. “Also known as the Hermit Card. He had healing serums and potions to give him superhuman strength, but he didn’t even know about the game. He told me he was archiving folks’ stories of the apocalypse and promised me a meal if I let him tape mine.” A total ruse. “I noticed that he’d drugged my drink, so I played along, acting out-of-it, because I thought I’d heard someone in the basement.” My eyes darted to the dungeon. “He had four girls chained in there, experimenting on them. One hadn’t survived it. I freed the others.” I turned to Matthew. “Will they be safe tonight?”
“The girls are fleeing Requiem. Two will live. Third wouldn’t in any scenario.”
My heart sank.
Selena said, “So you made the Alchemist pay.”
Seriously? “I didn’t want to hurt him, never wanted to kill anyone. Part of me refused to believe that only one of us was getting out of here alive. Not until he told me to dig my new collar out of those remains and put it around my neck!”
“Duuude,” Finn murmured, the word imbued with sympathy. “Looks like the Alchemist dicked with the wrong chick.”
I didn’t deny that, because, well, he had.
“Now I get why Matthew keeps talking about killing bad cards,” Finn said. “Are most of them homicidal? Are those freaks going to be coming after us for that immortality prize? And hey, why were you two talking about killing each other?”
Matthew stage-whispered, “Kill the bad cards.”
When he’d first said that a few days ago, I’d thought he meant a battle between good and evil. How naïve of me. In a way, we’d all been born to do evil.
“Bad cards, Matto.” Finn raked his fingers through his sun-bleached hair. “We’re not bad. So nobody’s offing anybody. We’re all friends. Right, Selena? I mean, yeah, I broke apart our new little fa
m unit with my ill-timed illusion,” he said, his dudebrah accent thick. “But I’m hereby saying I’m sorry. I screwed up—my bad. Guys, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Ill-timed illusion? Had he used his powers to make himself look like Jackson, then kissed Selena? I’d begun to suspect as much—or rather, to hope. “Finn, that was you, with . . . her?”
Finn gave a pained nod; Selena stared daggers at him.
I recalled that same night when Finn had asked me how to win her over. He’d told me he would “devise something.” God, had he ever.
Then where had Jackson been? We met gazes. He lifted his chin as if to say, You had me all wrong.
How did I feel about him, knowing he’d never kissed her? I tried to take a mental inventory of my emotions. Everything was raw and numb. But it didn’t matter how I felt about him. He’d revealed his disgust with me.
The sign of the cross, Jack? Really? Did he think I was some sort of demon to be warded off? Should he? I looked for my red ribbon. At some point he’d either tucked it into his pocket—or discarded it.
Selena told Finn, “You’re lucky to be alive after what you pulled with me. See, Evie? I’ve already made sacrifices for this alliance. Normally I would’ve punished the Magician for using his powers on me. He played me—”
“For a fool,” Matthew said.
Selena glared at him, then said, “But I’ve made allowances to keep us strong.”
“Are we an alliance?” I asked. As of a few days ago, the Archer had been plotting to kill me. “Why the turnaround?”
Her eyes flitted to Matthew and back. “We’re an alliance,” she said in a firm tone. He must’ve told her something about the future.
“Punish me?” Finn snapped. “Stop talking like you’re a warlord, Selena. I didn’t mean to treat you like a fool. I can’t control it . . . sometimes I have to trick people—”
More skittering upstairs. I jumped when one Bagman gave a sharp wail.
“I don’t understand this,” Selena whispered. “Shouldn’t they be happy in the rain? Why aren’t they standing there with their mouths raised to the sky?”
“Back to the subject at hand.” Finn’s gaze fell on Selena’s bow. “Tell me you hadn’t ever planned to kill us in this game.”
“Of course she had,” I said in a low voice. “You heard her. First we take out Death, then all bets are off.”
Gazing around wildly, Finn opened his mouth and closed it. Open, closed. “You guys are humming my balls, right?”
Everyone frowned at him.
“Gargling my marbles? Screwing with me?” His eyes looked frantic. “Tell me, Selena!”
She didn’t reply. Just stared straight ahead.
“Tell me or I swear I’ll yell.”
Jackson raised his brows, giving the boy a dafuq? look. With a subtle movement, he aimed his bow, ready to shut the Magician up in case of emergency—ever the survivor, prepared to do whatever it took.
At length, Selena said, “One player gets to live. That’s the rule. I was raised to play this game, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy any of it.”
Finn looked like something had broken in him, any yell quashed.
Jackson lowered his bow, a disturbed expression crossing his face. He and Selena might never have been involved, but I was sure he’d considered her a friend.
Not a cold-blooded murderer. This game was going to turn us all into murderers.
If we let it.
Jackson glanced at my bare legs, at the skin mending itself, then slipped his flask from his pocket for a generous slug. Freaked out much, Cajun? Not that he ever needed an excuse to drink.
Finn hopped down from the counter to sit by himself. “I can’t believe I gave you food and shelter,” he told Selena. “I even gave you my last Snickers bar! Might’ve been the last one on earth.”
Her face was blank.
“So why have you held off?” he asked her. “From ganking us?”
Selena looked at me rather than him. “Though it galls me to say this, I need you.”
I made a scoffing sound. “I’m supposed to trust the Bringer of Doubt not to slit my throat if I lower my guard for a second?” Apparently I could no longer depend on Jackson to watch over me as I slept.
Finn turned to me. “Now that you’ve remembered the game, are you gonna kill us?”
“No.”
Selena whipped her head around. “Now who’s the liar?”
“I don’t play games where I don’t make the rules,” I said, sounding like a Frau Badass, like my fierce mother had been. Finally. And more, I believed what I was saying. “I’ll take out Death. Then I’ll stop.”
I’d get a handle on that “heat in battle” aspect. Yes, bottling up my powers had caused me problems, but I had an ace up my sleeve. “My grandmother, the Tarasova, will help me. All I have to do is reach her in North Carolina.” Assuming she was still alive. Which I did. I felt like she was.
Selena was eyeing me with new interest. “You can’t just stop.”
“Watch me.” Maybe I didn’t have to reject my abilities. I could use them outside of the game to help people, like those girls in the dungeon. If I’d been empowered to play this messed-up game, I could repurpose myself, fight freaking crime if I had to. “I want no part in this game. I’d rather die than hurt Matthew.” He patted my marked hand again.
“How are you going to get past the other cards?” Selena asked. “I already sensed some not too far away. With the Alchemist’s death, they’ll come running for us. They could be waiting outside this basement in the morning, ready to give us a wake-up kiss.”
“Then I’ll have to convince them not to play.” Was my voice growing fainter? “I’ll start a different kind of alliance.”
“We go up against the wrong cards and you’ll never get a word out.”
Despite the threat of more Arcana, I leaned against Matthew as another wave of dizziness hit. “I’ll take my chances,” I said, barely keeping my eyes open.
Finn considered all this, then asked me, “What’s so important about this Death dude? Why’s he the only one you’ll fight?”
“Because he’s a psychopath, who won’t stop until I’m dead.”
Poor Matthew’s stomach was growling. Even as exhaustion dragged me down, I asked, “Anybody got any food for Matthew?”
Finn raised his brows at Jackson. “Somebody didn’t give us a lot of time to provision for the gotta-save-Evie trip.” To me, he said, “We abandoned my copious stores. Glad we got here in time to save you, by the way.”
I turned to Jackson.
He held up one empty hand and his crossbow. In a curt tone, he said, “I got nothing for coo-yôn.” Cajun for fool. “My bag’s in the truck.”
What had he been thinking to leave his bug-out bag? He considered separation from one’s survival gear to be a cardinal sin, like suicide, had dog-cussed me whenever I’d stepped even five feet from mine. “You doan have this bag?” he’d said, shoving it into my arms. “Then you’re done. You hear me? DONE.”
I’d managed to hold on to mine until I’d been kidnapped by that militia group. Jackson had saved me from those men, proving himself a hero.
Had that only been three days ago?
Now he was right here with me. And he’d never been with Selena. I wanted his strong arms around me. I wanted him murmuring Cajun French to me in that rumbling voice of his, the words I alone understood. But he felt a thousand miles distant.
I couldn’t stop myself from asking him, “You’re not going to say anything about all this?”
He gave me a cruel smirk, a flash of his white teeth. “This ain’t my party, now is it?” Anger gleamed in his gray eyes.
“No. It isn’t.”
Everyone fell silent.
Despite the tension thick in the air, my lids grew heavier. Sleep was about to overwhelm me, but I feared Selena.
Matthew whispered in my mind —She’ll protect you with her life, until Death is done. If Death is done. She know
s you’re his sole weakness.—
And me? Will I hurt them? By accidentally unleashing poisonous spores and such.
—Safe. You have control now.—
At that, I closed my eyes. I could feel Jackson’s gaze on me, even before Matthew said —He stares. He stares. He hungers to know what’s behind your false face. The curiosity burns him.—
I turned in to Matthew, wanting to hear more. False face? Is that why he looks like he hates me?
—Loathe/love. Hurting/hating.—
I don’t understand.
Matthew didn’t reply. Probably staring at his hand, which always meant: subject closed. And I didn’t have the energy left to press.
Finn cleared his throat. “So this Death dude, he wouldn’t, like, trouble himself to come after a second-stringer like me?”
Just as I slipped off to sleep and into dreams, Matthew murmured woefully, “Death comes for us all. . . .”
I’ve lost too much blood; it streams from a wound in my side, dripping to the desert sands.
My enemies have closed in on me. We’ve collected in this place like leaves on a whirlpool. Their calls sound even louder in my head. I’ve already killed four of their strongest, but am now drained of power, injured.
I have no thorns, no vines, no trees to aid me. Nothing grows in this wasted land. No water in any direction, just canyon wall after wall.
And I have no idea how to navigate the terrain, no horse to carry me. As I stumble through a maze of interconnecting gorges, my feet sink into the sand. Going in circles?
There, ahead . . . I see my own blood trail. I have been walking in circles! I lean back against a rock. Why couldn’t I have been gifted with the Mistress of Fauna’s senses?
Hoofbeats begin to echo through the canyon, what sounds like a massive steed. Death? Has he found me at last? I somehow manage to increase my pace, a shuffling run. Sweat pours. Blood pours—
I stumble to a stop. I’ve reached a dead end. Trapped. I spin around as the Reaper comes into view.
He is alone, astride a white stallion with red eyes. He wears black armor, a helmet covering his face. Two swords hang from his belt. A polished scythe juts from a saddle holster. “Empress,” he intones.
