by S. R. Witt
She landed hard on the ground next to the stairs and clenched her wounded side as pain stabbed through her torso like a rusty pitchfork. Chase had planned to use her new Slayer power to dart around the corner of the house and make good her escape before the deputies figured out she’d given them the slip. But the power would only last a few seconds, and the pain showed no signs of letting her move anytime soon.
Pull it together, Chase, she thought. You’re not dying in the dirt like a worm.
The thought of the assholes of Crucible getting the better of her goaded Chase into action. She focused on her rage, using it as a lever to push aside the pain.
“Where'd she go?” a deputy shouted, and other voices answered him in confusion.
Chase’s Willpower dropped from three to two, and the pain of her injuries receded to a dull gnawing, she dragged herself up to her feet and stumbled away from the deputies, making her way around the corner of the building before the Terrifying Disappearance power could fade and reveal Chase to her enemies. When she reached the far side of the house, Chase gritted her teeth against the pain and ran as fast as she could into the trees bordering the property.
Burning her Willpower let Chase ignore the worst of the pain until she reached the treeline, but the blessed numbness faded as soon as she entered cover. For a moment, Chase considered leaning trying the same trick again but discarded the thought before she could act on it. She couldn’t keep using that trick without dropping her Willpower to zero, and she was sure that was a terrible idea. That meant Chase had to live with the pain for the moment, which made it difficult to think, much less walk. She couldn’t run, or even walk, but had to take one painful, limping step at a time. It was brutal, exhausting work, but Chase wasn’t about to give up.
“She killed Jimmy!” an anguished voice cried out and flashlights stabbed wildly at the night in search of Chase. She groaned and forced herself to keep moving through the trees, despite the pain clawing at her wounded insides. Chase slapped a cluster of branches aside and burst through the far side of the thin strand of trees. The hill leading up to the Dodge, which hadn’t seemed very impressive on her way down, now looked as steep and daunting as Everest to Chase.
“You can do it,” Chase whispered to herself, “your daddy didn’t raise a quitter.”
She was less than a third of the way up the hill when she heard the deputies’ shouts closing in on her position. Their flashlights darted across the grass, picking her trail out from the waving blades far too easily.
Chase touched her side and bit her lip in frustration. The jump from the porch had re-opened her wound, and she’d been leaving a crimson trail that would be easy for anyone to follow. She ground her teeth in frustration and searched her talisman for anything that might help her crawl out of the hole she’d dug for herself. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a bezoar to activate another power, and the next tier of the Phantasm power, while very useful in the right circumstances, wouldn’t help her escape her enemies.
With the deputies on her tail, Chase decided there was no point in trying to circle around the hill like she’d done on her way to the house. It would waste energy, and the bloody trail made it impossible for her to lose the officers dogging her steps. Instead, she limped straight up the side of the hill. The starlit night would make her a clear target for the officers, but she had to risk it. The only hope Chase had of escaping her enemies was that she had enough of a head start to get back to the van before they could catch her. A quick glance over her shoulder told Chase that was a very optimistic hope.
Chase had reached the halfway point of the strenuous climb up the hill when one of the deputies squeezed off a shot. A clump of dirt far behind Chase kicked into the air as the bullet fell well short of its mark.
Chase kept pushing on, hoping that she was too far away for the deputies to draw an accurate bead on her with their sidearms. All that mattered was getting to the top of the hill, and the waiting van, before the officers closed the gap enough to gun her down.
The hill grew steeper as she neared its summit, and Chase’s energy drained at an alarming rate. She struggled to stay upright, exhaustion sapping her strength. She glanced at her talisman’s glowing pattern and was shocked to see how close she was to dropping dead. Her Fortitude had fallen to one and pulsed a warning red from the talisman’s second ring. Pushing herself so hard while she was injured was literally killing Chase, but she didn’t have the luxury of stopping.
A quick glance over her shoulder showed Chase the deputies were closing in on her. They were still a football field’s length away, but that didn’t stop the deputies from firing. Chunks of mud splattered into the air around Chase she struggled up the hill. A lucky shot grazed her arm, opening a bloody welt and causing Chase to stumble. The wound was more irritating than damaging, but if it had been just a little to the right it would have buried itself in her back and taken her down. “Fuck!”
Chase scrambled the last few yards to the top of the hill and threw herself over the ridge and onto her belly. She just had to get to the van, and she and Sarah could get the hell out of there.
Which was an awesome plan, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the van wasn’t waiting for her on top of the hill. Sarah had taken Chase at her word and bolted when the gunfire started.
“Every girl for herself,” Chase muttered, deciding she couldn’t stay angry at a girl destined to die, and crawled into the weeds. She stayed low, hoping the deputies wouldn’t notice her as she crawled through the tall grass in search of better cover. There was a dense forest on the far side of the hill and across the country road she’d driven down, Chase remembered. It would be a long, painful slog to reach the trees, but it was better than laying down and waiting for the deputies to catch up and start using her for target practice. There was still a chance…
The ground rumbled beneath Chase, and she heard the familiar roar of the van's engine. White lights blasted across the top of the hill, and Chase rolled to the side as the Dodge shot past her. She sat up and looked back the way she’d come, just in time to see the van plunge down the hill toward her pursuers. Chase scrambled back to watch van bounce across the irregular ground and plow into the confused deputies with a series of meaty thuds. Blood splashed across the stained front of the van and coated its sides with a fresh layer of crimson streaks. The deputies screamed as the vehicle smashed through them, scattering their battered bodies like meaty bowling pins.
“Holy shit, librarian,” Chase marveled.
She never would have guessed Sarah had it in her.
What else are you hiding from me, Chase wondered.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Recovery
The van turned at the bottom of the hill and climbed back up the grassy incline. Its rear wheels slithered from time to time as they ground one of the deputies into the dirt, but Sarah managed to coax vehicle over the rough ground with surprising skill.
Chase stood and waved her hands overhead to get the librarian’s attention. The van adjusted course and moved in her direction.
At the top of the hill, Sarah threw the van into Park, opened the driver's door, and swung out. She ran around the van and threw an arm around Chase’s side to support her before the Slayer could collapse. “Are you okay?”
“I'm better now.” Chase groaned as Sarah helped her limp to the van. “Thanks for taking care of those dickhead deputies. I was good as dead.”
“It was the least I could do,” Sarah said as she helped Chase clamber back up into the van's driver seat and get settled behind the wheel. “I mean, you did save my life. At least, you know, temporarily.”
Chase closed the door and leaned back, pressing her shaking hand to her forehead. That had been too close. If Sarah hadn't been on the ball and come to rescue her, Chase had no doubt she'd be dead. And if she failed, her whole family would die right along with her.
Sarah climbed into the van and slammed her door. “Did you get what you need?”
Chase sighed
. “I think so, but I'm not sure.”
From the top of the hill, Chase counted the glowing golden rings in the sky and cursed.
“Do you see that?” Chase asked.
Sarah turned her head out the window. “What?”
“There should be five martyrs, right? Five soul tokens for the Slayers to take?”
Sarah nodded. “That's what the manual says.”
“Well, fuck,” Chase growled. “I guess I can’t see the quest marker for you because you’re right next to me, so that explains why one of the quest markers is off. But there should still be four other martyrs running around out there. I only see three rings in the sky.”
Sarah nodded. “Makes sense. I mean, there are six other Slayers out there trying to gather the markers.”
“Five,” Chase corrected. “That guy back at the barn isn’t hunting anyone.”
Sarah grinned. “Right. Okay, so you plus five others. It only makes sense that someone would have taken another Sacred Martyr’s token by now. We’re not exactly much of a fight for the Slayers.”
Chase drummed her fingers on the dash. “What happens when someone gets them all?”
Sarah stared out the window, eyes unfocused as if she were trying to remember something. “Whoever gets all the markers has to bring them back to the Temple of Bone, to complete the sacrifice and seal the darkness. Until then, the game continues.”
Chase asked, “As long as I keep you alive, the game can’t end?”
“That’s true,” Sarah said, “but once all the markers have been claimed, the Slayers will be able to sense the locations of their nearest rivals. The Red God needs the game to end and the sacrifice to be made. He can’t have Slayers hiding out for days and days.”
Chase considered that for a moment. It made sense. It reminded her of the book she'd read once, Battle Royale. The organizers kept shrinking the circle of the arena the kids were fighting in until they were forced to kill each other off. “Some things never change,” Chase said.
Sarah nodded. “This certainly doesn't. Now what?”
Chase studied the talisman’s pattern for a moment. She only had three spirit orbs left in the pattern’s center, but they weren’t doing her any good there. She dragged all of them down to the Phantasm Power to activate its third ability, Horrifying Apparition. She didn't know how useful it would be, but she figured more abilities were better than less. Those orbs weren’t doing her any good just sitting there, anyway.
“Now, we need to go to lovely downtown Crucible,” Chase said, and explained what she'd seen on the sheriff's phone to Sarah.
“I can show you the way. But there's going to be a lot of Sleepers down there,” Sarah pursed her lips. “They like to build bonfires and stuff during the Nightmare Game. It gets them all worked up to fight.”
Chase thought about the Sleepers she’d seen outside the old Harrow place. “I don’t think they need a lot of help getting wound up,” she muttered and eased the van back onto the road.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Leap
Chase was wobbly behind the Dodge’s steering wheel, but she managed to keep the van on the road. Her Slayer’s body was stitching itself back together, a little at a time. If no one tried to tear her a new asshole in the next fifteen minutes or so, Chase would be right as rain.
She hoped.
Though she was recovering physically, Chase’s nerves were frayed and she felt jumpy and anxious. Even worse, a growing hunger for violence churned in her guts. She found herself hoping a deputy or pack of sleepers would pop up on the road ahead of her so she’d have a target for her burgeoning lust for blood and carnage. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” she muttered.
Sarah stared at her for a moment, and asked, “Have you been using your Slayer powers?”
Chase nodded. “Didn’t have a lot of choice. I needed to get past those cops on the way into the house, and then I had to get back out before they could gun me down. Why?”
“Your parents should have—”
Chase felt a familiar itch in her hand and realized the knife had almost materialized in response to her rage. “Don't talk about my parents. They tried to save me from all this.”
Sarah frowned. “But this is an honor. Being a Slayer is probably the most important job in the world. I mean, if there were no Slayers, then the Adversary would win. And if that wins, it’s game over. Like, really over.”
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, Chase thought. She focused on the road to keep her anger at bay, and asked Sarah, “What was that about Slayer powers?”
“You have to be careful. You're stronger as a Slayer. It takes more to kill you, and you can ignore even the worst of your injuries if you push yourself hard enough. You’ve also got supernatural powers that help you fight the Sleepers and other Slayers. But that all takes a toll on you by burning up your Willpower. Once that drops to zero, you'll go berserk. You won’t be able to control yourself; you’ll do anything to restore your Willpower.”
Chase glanced at the image of her pattern and saw that all of her Fortitude had returned. She still felt like someone had been using her as a punching bag, but that was a far cry from death’s door. Her Willpower, on the other hand, was still sitting at a measly two. “So, um, let’s say a Slayer leaned into her Willpower pretty hard. How would a girl go about restoring it? Preferably before she goes berserk.”
“Turn left,” Sarah said, pointing at a small gravel road that was almost entirely obscured by the bushes on either side. Thorns scraped the van's flanks as it shouldered through the grasping foliage and made its way onto the dirt road. The Dodge bounced as its wheels crunched through ruts and over bumps.
“Has anyone ever thought about paving these fucking roads?” Chase asked.
Sarah rolled her eyes. “There's not much money out here. Most of what we get comes from the truckers on their way through town. There used to be a bunch of farms but,” Sarah shrugged, “there are a lot fewer of us now than there used to be. People get by doing what they can, cashing their welfare checks, whatever. Most of them don’t do much of anything. They just wait until the game rolls around again”
Chase tried to imagine a life like that. Clinging precariously to the edge of existence, no motivation, no real forward momentum. Just waiting for that one night every generation when all hell broke loose, and you'd have a chance to vent your rage and frustration on your neighbors. She couldn't pull it together. It didn't make any sense to her.
“Anyway,” Sarah said, “you gain soul orbs by killing Sleepers or Slayers. Some regular people can be harvested, too, but only if they’re pretty tough. A victim has to be at least close to as powerful as you for it to be worth the trouble. You can tell by their auras. White is almost too weak to harvest, green is close to your strength, yellow is your equal or a little better, and orange is a serious challenge. And if you see anyone with a black aura, you should just turn and run. They’re far more powerful than you.”
“What about my Willpower?” Chase asked, again. “It would be really good if I figured that out very soon.”
Sarah grimaced. “That only returns when you harvest a victim.”
“Like a Sacred Martyr,” Chase asked before she could bite her tongue. She heard the hunger in her voice and felt a twinge of horror at her eagerness to slaughter someone, anyone, for her own gain.
Sarah mirrored Chase’s horror, her eyes wide and lips trembling. “Yes,” she said, quickly turning away from the Slayer sitting next to her, “like that.”
Chase dropped the conversation after that revelation. It seemed rude to talk about how it might become necessary for her to kill Sarah to keep from going berserk. But she mulled over the librarian’s words, trying to see if there was a loophole she could exploit.
Sarah had said victims, not martyrs. Maybe there were other kinds of victims, ones that deserved to have their hearts cut out of their chests.
Maybe there was a victim out there that Chase didn’t think of as somethi
ng close to a friend.
Before Chase could come up with a tactful way to ask the librarian about who she should kill next, they’d drawn closer to Crucible proper, and new dangers grabbed her attention. Fires flickered behind homes and danced in clearings between the trees. It looked like everyone in Crucible was out on the streets, whooping it up and looking for a fight. Regular folks shouted at one another and drank deeply from cans of beer and bottles of cheap whiskey as they staggered from one bonfire to the next. The drunks and degenerates didn’t bother Chase, at least not much, because there was a much darker threat out there.
Black-masked Sleepers flitted between houses and dashed across roads like kids on their way to go trick-or-treating.
She was so preoccupied with the figures in the woods that she didn’t see the roadblock until they were almost on top of it. “What the fuck is that?”
Someone had pulled a pair of luxury SUVs across the road, blocking it with a wall of chrome and gleaming paint. A bonfire blazed on the weathered asphalt in front of the blockade, and a clot of masked figures huddled around it. They turned their heads as one when they heard the van approaching, and stood. They had rifles slung over their shoulders, and their tailored clothes made them look like modern nobles out for a fox hunt.
“Sleepers,” Sarah said, her eyes wide. “You have to get us out of here. They'll kill us.”
Chase slowed the van, but she didn't turn away from the blockade. “How close are we to that spot I showed you on the sheriff’s phone?”
Sarah pointed. “It’s the tall building, a couple of blocks up. But you'll never get there. Look how many there are.”
