by S. R. Witt
The rest of the Sleepers closed ranks as they advanced on the cowboy, and Chase walked beside Blood Plague to benefit from his human shields. The Sleepers raised their firearms and unleashed a volley at the approaching Slayer, but the bullets seemed to avoid the cowboy no matter how carefully the shot was aimed.
Hex Gun fired his gun again, this time narrowly missing one of the Sleepers and opening a bloody furrow in Blood Plague’s left arm. The wound sizzled with blue fire for a moment, before the Slayer next to Chase slapped his hand over the wound and stifled the flames.
The crow-faced killer jabbed his spear toward the cowboy and screamed, “Kill him!”
The Sleepers abandoned their firearms and charged forward with melee weapons raised overhead. They screamed as one, raising their voices like a pack of hounds guiding one another to the kill. The Sleepers surrounded the Slayer, circling like sharks. The truck stop’s arc lights flared off the Sleepers’ weapons as they stabbed and slashed at Hex Gun.
The cowboy dodged one attack after another, then pulled his heavy duster across his body like a shield. Where the Sleepers’ weapons struck the leather coat, they bounced off as if they’d slammed into a stone wall.
Hex Gun bore the rain of blows, looking for a gap in the chaotic attacks. When he found one, Hex Gun shoved his revolver into a Sleeper’s masked face and squeezed the trigger, bursting his skull like a rotten apple with a firecracker shoved into its guts.
The enraged Sleepers redoubled their efforts, trying to bury the cowboy under a relentless flurry of attacks.
Infuriated by the Sleeper’s brutal assault, Hex gun roared and flung his arms wide. A dust devil erupted in an arc in front of him, kicking a stinging cloud of gravel into his attackers’ masked faces. The Sleepers faltered, and the cowboy took advantage to press his attack. He shot a leg out from a Sleeper, then slammed his revolver’s butt into the head of another, crushing her skull and dropping her to the ground. A devilish grin creased the bloodstained bandana covering his face, and the cowboy fired through the gap he’d just created in the ring of Sleepers.
The revolver spat flame and lead, throwing a deadly projectile at the space between Blood Plague’s bulging eyes.
For a moment, Chase thought the redhaired asshole was going down.
The cowboy’s shot struck the corner of his beak, and its armor deflected the bullet. With a whine, the flaming missile ricocheted off the redhaired man's face and disappeared into the night sky.
Blood Plague screamed and clutched his head, momentarily blinded by the unexpected attack.
Chase took advantage of the distraction to run for the gas pumps at the far end of the lot. She hoped Hex Gun would kill the crow-faced dick for her, but even if he did, she was going to have her hands full with the rest of her enemies. Chase had a plan, she just needed time to get it all worked out.
Her heavy boots skidded on the oil-stained pavement in front of the pump, and she grabbed hold of the lamp post next to it to keep from losing her balance. She dug a credit card out of the slim wallet in the front pocket of her jeans and wiped the blood from its front and back. She shoved the card into the slot and waited impatiently for it to ask for her PIN.
Chase punched in her digits, then repeated the move on another pump, and then a third. She’d gone a few minutes without anyone actively trying to kill her, and Chase was relieved to see she’d regained a couple of points of Fortitude and would no longer need to keep burning Willpower to ignore the pain. “Small miracles,” she grunted and jabbed her finger at a fourth pump’s keypad.
The killer in the gimp mask, Fire Binder, had changed course to come after Chase, and she watched the flames from his chain growing more intense as he spun it faster and faster in anticipation of their coming battle. “Keep coming, asshole,” Chase whispered.
She moved to the next pump and turned back to the fight to see the Sleepers’ attacks shred the cowboy's duster. Though he fired again and again, dropping one Sleeper after another, the cowboy’s shots were nowhere near fast enough to keep his enemies at bay. Though he didn’t have to pause to reload the brutally efficient weapon, Hex Gun couldn’t pull the trigger fast enough to keep the Sleepers from piling up on him.
And the Sleepers weren’t letting up on their attacks. Individually, they were no match for the masked cowboy. But their blows chipped away at his strength, reducing his Fortitude with one lucky strike after another. Finally, one of the Sleepers, armed with an oversized ax, chopped the cowboy's left arm off at the shoulder. Another of the black-masked maniacs snatched the fallen limb and began beating Hex Gun with it.
Another Sleeper’s attack ripped a survival knife across the cowboy's throat, and yet another tore his belly open with a sharpened lawnmower blade and unleashed a torrent of intestines that poured down to Hex Gun’s knees like a grisly skirt.
The crow-faced killer howled, shoving his way through the circle of Sleepers. He gripped his spear with both hands, raised it high overhead, and then plunged it down into Hex Gun’s face.
Chase moved to the third pump, then stepped back. She wasn't sure if her plan was going to work, or if it did work whether she'd be able to escape before everything went to Hell.
“I guess we’ll see,” she said, and punched in her pin code for the last of the six pumps.
A sudden chill passed through Chase, and she turned to see Blood Plague tear Hex Gun’s heart out. He raised something glowing green over his head, tilted his face back, and then dropped the grisly glowing gobbet down his throat.
“That's two!” he shouted.
Chase didn’t like the sound of that. If the crow-faced asshole had two markers, and so did she, that left one in play. Was the librarian still out there, or had someone snatched her up?
Chase tried to imagine killing Sarah and found it was harder than she wanted to admit. But if she couldn’t kill her, then she’d lose the marker. Something told Chase going into the Temple of Bone without a majority of the tokens would put her at a disadvantage in the final battle.
But not as big as the disadvantages she was stuck with now. The Sleepers and Blood Plague had turned their murderous attention toward her, and they were advancing in a bloodthirsty mob. The Sleepers’ suits were stained with gore and soaked with blood, the black masks streaked with gruesome ribbons of torn flesh. Chase waited by the gas pumps, sickle in her left hand, her right hand flexing as she waited for the right moment to strike and preyed her plan would work.
Fire Binder chose that moment to rush forward, howling with maniacal glee.
Chase had lost sight of that dickhead for a moment. She'd been too busy concentrating on the Sleepers and Blood Plague, and now she was going to pay for her inattention. She narrowly avoided having her head obliterated by the swinging hook, and the heat of its fire singed her hair and released a pungent cloud of foul-smelling smoke.
In response, Chase ducked and slashed her sickle at the man's right leg. His leather leggings turned aside the brunt of the attack, but the sickle’s tip ripped open a thin red line across his thigh. It wasn’t much of a wound, but it was more than enough to drive the chain-wielding maniac into an apoplectic rage.
The chain swept toward Chase’s chest, the flames passing close enough to leave a burning hole in her t-shirt. She tried to counterattack, but the chain was already coming back around, and Chase had to throw herself away from the weapon to avoid getting skewered by the blazing hook.
The evasive role took her into the path of one of the Sleepers, who slammed a crowbar across Chase's back. “Heretic, infidel!”
The blow wasn’t strong enough to damage Chase, and she lashed out with one booted foot, sweeping the Sleeper's legs from under him. She rolled onto her side, and stabbed the asshole in the throat with her sickle and slurped his lone spirit orb into her talisman.
The crow-faced killer’s gigging pole caught Chase in the thigh, but couldn't penetrate her armor. The four barbed tines slid off her leg, leaving Chase unharmed.
Chase scrambled awa
y from Blood Plague on her hands and knees. When she’d cleared the gigging fork’s range, she sprang to her feet.
Just in time to catch Fire Binder’s whipping chain across her chest. The blow slammed Chase into one of the gas pumps hard enough to crack its metal housing. She winced, sure that attack had done her in.
Fortunately, the time out of combat she’d earned by tricking Blood Plague and his Sleepers into going after the cowboy had restored most of the orbs of Fortitude she’d lost in the diner. She had three of her six Fortitude left, which was more than a fighting chance.
“Hope you enjoyed those extra seconds of life,” the crow-faced killer sneered. He drove his gigging fork toward Chase’s left side, but she anticipated the attack and slipped out of its path before it could strike her.
She snared the spear’s shaft under her left arm and yanked the pump out of its holster. Her elbow smashed down on the Premium button, and her fingers squeezed the pump’s trigger to unleash a torrent of amber fluid into Blood Plague’s masked face. Chase swept the nozzle back and forth, soaking the Sleepers who dared come near her. Then, she turned in a circle, covering the ground around her with a shimmering ring of gasoline.
While Blood Plague and his minions slapped at their faces and clawed at their stinging eyes, Chase faced the chain-wielding Slayer. She'd expected Fire Binder to lunge forward, swinging the flaming hook at Chase and igniting the gasoline surrounding her. Instead, he took a step back, eyeballing the situation.
Chase groaned. When she needed the lunatic to attack, he was getting paranoid and cautious.
She tilted the hose up and sprayed gasoline across the space between Fire Binder and her. The enemy Slayer tried to jump back, but the amber fluid splashed over his lower legs and thighs. Chase tilted the hose up and soaked the man from the waist down.
Good enough, Chase thought.
She rushed forward, stomping over the gas-soaked Sleepers writhing on the asphalt around her. Unleashing a savage roar, Chase attacked the chain-wielding Slayer with wild abandon, swinging her weapon in wide arcs.
Surprised by his enemy’s sudden offensive, the Slayer reflexively whipped his chain at Chase.
Chase knew the defensive attack was coming, but she let it slam into her shoulder. The hook burned through her jacket and impaled the trapezius muscle above her right shoulder. Before the chain wielder could pull his weapon back, Chase looped her sickle through its links, tying it into a knot.
“Gotcha,” Chase snarled and yanked the chain toward her chest as she pivoted on her heel. The maneuver jerked Fire Binder forward, and he slammed into the pump behind Chase.
Stunned, the Slayer’s head flopped back, and his legs buckled.
Before Fire Binder could fall, Chase tore the burning hook out of her shoulder and looped that end of the chain around its owner’s neck, choking him against the pump’s supports.
Then she grabbed the hose and splashed a stream of gasoline onto the Slayer’s masked face and naked chest. As he gasped and spluttered, Chase sprayed more gasoline on the ground, connecting the puddle around the Slayer to the pool she’d already poured around the gasping crow-faced killer and his Sleeper minions.
She pulled the gasoline hose back as far as it would go. Then she aimed the nozzle at the Slayer’s flaming chain and unleashed a torrent of fuel. The instant she saw the gas catch fire, Chase turned and ran as fast as her legs would carry her.
A dull roar filled the air behind Chase as the fuel erupted into blazing flames. Sleepers screamed as their tailored suits went up like cheap rags. Their black masks writhed as they transformed into death shrouds and smoke leaked around their edges. Blood Plague and Fire Binder howled as well, their voices raised in tortured unison as the flames consumed their flesh.
Chase turned back to watch the two slayers strugglewith one another as if, even in the throes of death, they were each desperate to get the tokens the other carried. They fought until the fire burned their muscles away and left their corpses as blackened, smoldering husks.
The Sleepers were little more than cinders surrounded by glistening pools of burning fat. Their hands were curled up onto their chests, hooked into blackened claws. The black masks were gone, revealing charred skulls with their mouths opened in one final scream.
Chase sat flat on her ass and watched the fires burn down to sputtering flickers. The rush of energy she’d felt after taking the token from the Martyr was gone, replaced by a bone-deep weariness. In the long minutes it took for the fire to burn itself down, most of her Fortitude had restored itself, but Chase still felt like she’d just run a marathon through a field of brambles. She glanced anxiously at her two Willpower, and wondered how long it would be before she went berserk again.
When the fire shrank down into scattered candle flames, Chase headed toward the pumps to collect the markers from the fallen Slayers. Having four out of five had to give her a serious edge in the last fight.
And maybe there wouldn’t even have to be a final fight. Once Chase had four tokens, she’d just need to track down Sarah and get the last one. She hated to kill the librarian, but the game had left her no choice. And it wasn’t as if Sarah hadn’t encouraged Chase to do what needed to be done. She believed in the game, for some reason, and Chase didn’t think she’d fight her fate when the time came.
Lost in her thoughts, Chase didn't notice the crow-faced killer stir until was almost too late.
He shuddered and then thrust himself up onto his hands and knees. Ashes rolled from his back and tumbled from his shoulders, collecting on the ground around him. He rose, standing like a phoenix in the ashes of its own pyre.
“Of course,” Chase said. “What fucking slasher movie is complete without the killer unexpectedly rising from the dead?”
She didn't wait for the burned Slayers to regain their composure and come after her. There was no way she could face both of them at the same time and have any chance of winning. She turned and ran, heading back for the blood-stained Cayenne, hoping she could find Sarah before it was too late.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Taum Sauk
Chase slid behind the wheel of the battered Cayenne and cranked the ignition to life. The reek of gasoline and burning flesh still filled her nostrils, choking her, making it almost hard for her to catch her breath even with the car’s windows cranked all the way down. She couldn’t remember ever being so tired. Her physical wounds were healed, but she still felt their psychological impact, and her Willpower was dangerously depleted. She wanted to find somewhere dark and cool, lay down, and sleep for the next year.
“Hang in there, Chase,” she said to herself. “Not much longer now.”
The Nightmare Game was coming to an end, and Chase was one of its final participants. Her mask told her there were no more Sacred Martyrs out there waiting to be harvested, and three of the Slayers were dead or otherwise out of commission. Chase had accounted for two of the dead herself, and she wondered what had happened to the other one. She shook her head. She’d figure it out later. It didn’t matter how they’d died, just that they were finished.
As she pulled away from the diner, leaving the revived Blood Plague and his dead minions behind, Chase saw something new had entered the game. Its position was marked by a blazing red spear of light rising from the peak of Taum Sauk Mountain on the northwestern edge of Crucible. There was only one thing that light could possibly mark.
The Temple of Bone. The site of the final battle between the surviving Slayers.
“Of course, it's at the top of a fucking mountain,” Chase sighed. Nothing could ever be even halfway easy.
Her mask drew a red line on the road before Chase, showing her the path she needed to take to reach the mountain. She tensed when she realized it was driving her through the town, but no one tried to stop her. Crucible was still alight with bonfires and torches, but nothing and no one moved. The Sleepers were nowhere to be seen, which cleared Chase’s path through town but also told her they were up to something very n
asty. She had no idea what they were planning, but she imagined it involved a last-ditch ambush and one more fight with Blood Plague.
“This time,” she whispered to herself, “I’m not leaving until I’m sure you’re well and truly dead, asshole.”
As Chase drove, she kept flicking her eyes up to her talisman, examining it for any benefits she could glean for the final battle against the other Slayers.
She still had both orbs of Resilience, and she knew that she'd reduced the total for the crow-faced killer by at least one with her trick at the gas station. She hoped he’d suffered more than that, but she knew better than to count on her luck running hot. She had to assume Blood Plague had at least some Resilience left. If she put him down, she’d keep right on hacking at him until she was sure he’d stay down.
She had two of the martyrs’ tokens, and the crow-faced killer had claimed to have the same number. There were no more golden circles in the sky, which told Chase that either Sarah had been taken, or the librarian was so close to another Slayer that the Nightmare Game thought she’d been taken.
Best case scenario, that meant Chase would be facing off with one other Slayer with the same number of markers as she had in her possession, and maybe one more Slayer with a single marker.
The Oracle marker seemed to have given Chase a slight touch of foresight, a glimpse a half-second into the future. It wasn’t much, but it was a critical benefit in a fight. Chase had no clue what the Fool was for, nor did she have any idea what the other markers would do for the Slayers who held them.
“There’s a whole lot I don’t know here,” Chase grumbled.
When she reached the edge of the Taum Sauk National Park, Chase found that the Sleepers weren’t done fucking with her. They’d gathered at the base of the road leading to the top of the mountain and put together another of their makeshift luxury car barricades.
