by Jenn Stark
“Then where?” a tall, lanky avatar dressed in combat fatigues shouted as he stepped forward from the crowd. “Where can we best serve the cause of the Connected?”
I blinked. His words reached me on a soul-deep level, jarring my very bones. Or whatever electrical impulses passed as bones in this plane. He was right. They were here not as my army, but as their own army, the army of Connected souls who wanted to take up the fight themselves. Who was I to stand in their way?
Then again, who was I to allow them to die because they did not know their foolhardy, headlong race through the game could not possibly translate to the real world?
And that was it, I thought, this second realization following hard on the first. They were in the game, they were of the game, but they needed to understand that this was no game. They would not be able to start over from the beginning if their lives were suddenly stopped short by someone like Viktor, or Interpol, or a god gone mad. And there was no way I could explain that now.
So, on to Plan B.
“Recruit,” I continued. “As we go forward, what we do might look a lot like failure to start, no matter how successful we are behind the scenes. Don’t pay attention to what’s on the surface. I need you to wait, I need you to watch, and I need you to prepare. Understand the skills of those you have brought together. Understand the gifts that each of you possess. Chart those gifts, record them, and give that information to my House, the House of Swords.”
As if I’d said magic words, a ripple shuddered through the crowd. “The House of Swords,” the closest avatars to me murmured. “The House of Swords.”
“But who will take us there?” the young man in front demanded, and I realized he looked more than familiar. He could have been—no, he was Lin Wei, back in the game after all he’d endured in Tokyo…maybe because of what he’d endured.
Meanwhile, the Fool’s hands were on the shivering walls of the Emperor’s Tower. “You have to—you have to go, Sara. I didn’t build the game for this many players at once.”
“Right,” I said as the Tower shifted again. I unshouldered my pack and dropped to one knee, then rifled through the bag quickly—the cases were still there, untouched. I opened the amber and jade cases quickly, then pulled the wands free using the edge of my sleeve and stuck them into my hoodie pockets. The gold case of enlightenment went down my shirt, secured by my sports bra. Even in Arcania, apparently, I rocked functional undergarments.
“Who will lead us to the House of Swords?” The demand came again, more strident this time, and I stood again, jerking my attention back to the restless crowd. There must be over two hundred players staring at me, milling and churning.
“He will,” I shouted back, pointing to Brody.
“Sara!” Brody’s voice was a harsh snap, but I lifted my hands again, another burst of blue-white fire doing its job to slow the press of the crowd.
“Not in the game, though,” I ordered. “You want to seek him out, you do it in real life, as your real identities. He’ll need to know who you are, where you live, what you can do, and who knows about it.” I fixed them all with the sternest stare I could manage. “You can trust him, I swear it. And we can’t trust you if you don’t.”
“The House of Swords,” someone cried, far back in the crowd. “Follow the Knight of Swords!”
Others took up the refrain, and Brody stiffened in his saddle, looking stunned. After the cries grew louder, he held his sword aloft as if to acknowledge the responsibility I’d just landed on his shoulders, albeit a little awkwardly. He looked good brandishing his sword like that, I decided.
“Sara,” hissed the Fool behind me, apparently not nearly as impressed with Brody’s avatar as I was. “You have to go!”
I turned back one last time to the crowd of Connected, seeing it as the army it was.
“Go. Go now,” I cried. “Disperse and prepare. Watch and wait. And no matter what happens, report to the House of Swords. We need you now, more than ever. Your people need you now.”
They were still roaring with approval as I grabbed Nikki’s arm. She reached up for Brody.
“Get off that thing, Lancelot,” she shouted. “We’ve got to motor.”
“What?” he demanded, still stabbing his sword in the sky as his horse pranced in a circle. “Are you crazy? I can’t leave my horse here.”
I closed my eyes and ran straight through the stone walls of the tower.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The first thing I noticed about the inside of Viktor’s domain was the sound. The second was the assault on my eyes.
A thumping bass rattled me to my core as Nikki and Brody burst through the wall behind me and into the psychedelic-colored space. Lights glittered and shone down from every angle, in all colors of the rainbow—green, blue, purple, yellow, red, and all the rest.
“What in the…” Brody demanded, and a quick survey of our space revealed that he had not, in fact, brought his horse with him. However, neither had the Fool come through.
“Hale’s here, somewhere,” I said. “Wherever she is, the Emperor is.”
“Maybe.” Nikki didn’t sound so sure. “Or she’s been fried by a million volts of electricity. Remember where we saw her last in real life. Or sort of real life.”
“Let’s move out,” I said, patting my pockets to convince myself the wands of life and darkness were still there. They were, and the gold case that had once held the scroll of enlightenment remained firmly lodged against my chest. I dropped the pack to the floor to allow me to move better. The wand cases would survive whatever was going to happen next. Or if they didn’t, chances were I wouldn’t be in any shape to care.
“First things first,” Nikki said, gesturing the three of us close together. “You gotta get this download from the Fool I pulled out back there in the Land of the Lost. You too, sugar lips.”
In low, terse tones, barely audible over the driving bass, she laid out what she’d learned.
“Simon thinks Viktor is about to crack—and he thinks the scroll of enlightenment is what's going to crack him. Because back in the day, in his drug-addled mind, Simon associated anything to do with the realm of enlightenment with something that caused Viktor great weakness. That’s why he was so eager for you to find it, dollface. Simon wanted to be the one to cripple Viktor. If he could do that, he thought maybe the Magician would forgive him for…everything he’d done. But when Viktor started having Simon trail you, Sara, and report your actions, advancements, and whereabouts, Simon feared he’d run out of time…even as he desperately wanted you to find the realm that the other players of the game couldn’t. Simon hung everything on the idea of finding Shambhala.”
The artifacts seemed to lurch in my pockets, their energy amping up in this weird space, but before I could respond, another voice broke in.
“And that, right there, shows you the Foolishness of youth. And the absurdity of it.”
The words rolled across the sudden silence in the room. The music was gone, and nothing was left but the rich, supercilious tones of the Emperor, his words cascading over themselves, multilayered, emanating from the very walls. In another moment, those walls turned and shifted away, leaving Brody, Nikki, and me in an enormous space. A single beam of light shone down in the center of the room, while the walls and corners remained in shadows.
Nikki’s and Brody’s hands went for their guns, which were back on their persons. I kept my arms loose at my side, however, my hands free.
I couldn’t quite express what it felt like to hear Viktor’s voice again. I had reconciled myself with his role in the children’s abduction, convincing myself that I could rectify the wrong he’d done simply by returning the children to their families.
But I knew now the full extent of that wrong. Hayley Adams had been pulled back into the dark designs of the Council, and I’d done nothing to stop that from happening. I hadn’t protected her at all in the end. I hadn’t protected any of them.
But there was more to it than that. No ma
tter how Simon had tried to argue otherwise, Viktor had killed my mother—or, maybe worse, knew who had. I’d buried that fact so deeply behind the veil of my own insecurities, my own weakness, but there was no ignoring it anymore. Sheila Rose Pelter had died…for nothing. My foster mother had merely been in the way, wanting to be more than what she was, and she’d gotten killed for her trouble.
Guilt gnawed at me, honing my anger into steely points.
Now the Emperor stepped into the light, the effect of the downward beam lighting him up like a Christmas tree. He was arrayed in gold and silver armor, a shimmering red cloak flung back over his shoulders. His face was older, more patrician than I remembered it, but I was used to imagining Viktor as the man I’d seen when I was still a kid myself, the man I’d known in Memphis, who Brody and I had interviewed in connection with the missing kids. How he’d laughed at us then, I thought. How he was laughing at us now.
“You can bristle all you want, Sara,” Viktor said with silken derision. “I know the feeling. For decades, I was forced to endure the sanctimonious overreach of power from your precious Magician, to bend to his will, as he sought to balance the puny magic of this world. When all the while I knew that there could be so much more magic. So much more power. So much more inherent strength wielded by those with the fortitude to manage it. He wouldn’t listen. He wouldn’t listen even when other members of his own Council wanted to let that magic free once again, wanted to refill the ocean of possibility that we have been slowly draining this world of all these millennia.”
Unbidden, two images sprang to my mind. Kreios, his eyes alight as he talked of wanting to see the world suffused with the chaos of creation again, and the hollow-eyed Magician, trapped in the stone fortress in Simon’s game, watching but never moving. Watching…
I shook my head hard. Focus!
I needed to keep Viktor talking until I could make my move from a position of strength, because here, it was him and us—and no one else. Even if the other Council members breached this hall, they had no power over Emperor, not in his own domain. One of the more valuable perks of the Arcana Council Home Owners Association.
“You were the one who notified Interpol of my whereabouts, weren’t you?” I challenged baldly, as Brody, Nikki, and I edged slightly farther apart. “It wasn’t Dixie at all.”
“Oh, it was Dixie,” Viktor replied, squashing that feeble hope. “It took nothing at all to swing her to my side. To show her the value of having gods and goddesses walk the earth again. The value of a drug like Charisma as well—Charisma, Life, even the gorgeous but short-lived strain that Gamon sought to create using your own blood… The possibilities are staggering. Turning Dixie was child’s play, especially after you, dear Sara, had given her a taste of what was possible by amping up her psychic skills, virtually by mistake. And then you took her staunchest ally and most gratifying supporter from her, without even thinking twice. That was poorly done.”
Beside me, Nikki cursed quietly, but in the harsh world of Viktor’s words, I could see it all so clearly now. Dixie was one of those people who needed validation every time you passed by her—for her influence, her abilities, her value to the community, even her looks. Nikki had been her right-hand woman, and then I’d come along. Now Nikki was my Ace, and Dixie was Viktor’s…what?
“What have you done with her?” The anger was there, in my voice, in my body, but the strength still wasn’t. Neither was the confidence in what I needed to do. The wands of life and darkness shifted again in my jacket, beginning to give off their own heat. They were ready, even if I wasn’t.
“The same thing I’ve done with all those who have helped me, but who haven’t quite proven their mettle.” Viktor waved a hand, and new lights shone down around the room, igniting several frozen forms caught in acts of terror or fury. One of them was lit most brightly.
Nikki gasped. Ten feet in front of us, Dixie stood with her hands up, her eyes wide, her mouth open as if to scream, her expression telegraphing not only pain, but horror and dismay.
Viktor continued smoothly. “You ignore the foot soldiers in your own army at your own risk. Something you should have learned long ago. After Dixie shared all she knew about you to Interpol, as my mouthpiece, she returned to her battle on the streets of Las Vegas. She’d begun to believe her own press, I’m afraid, that she was going to make a difference in the drug trade, never realizing that I was the primary founder and funder of that trade. I couldn’t stand for that, of course. And so, she had to be dealt with…after I explained to her exactly what she had done to betray all her kind.”
Dixie’s spotlight dimmed, and other captives were highlighted, riveting me in place. Six larger-than-life males, bristling with muscles and fury, their gazes malevolent as they stared across the floor to Viktor. “The Syx,” I murmured.
“The Syx,” Viktor agreed. “Or the djinn, or the damned, if you prefer. Six bona fide demons from the age of Atlantis, brought back into the world by none other than the illustrious Sara Wilde. I honestly didn’t know if you could do it, but you did. And now I have them. The best, most brutal bounty hunters mortal kind could ever imagine. Killers, sages, thieves, enforcers.”
“Uh-huh. Then why are they locked up in your light prison?”
“Because I, too, can make mistakes.” Viktor shrugged. “I didn’t watch them as carefully as I should have, when they had the children in their care, and I didn’t watch them carefully enough here. I let their chains grow a little too long. While I was distracted, they encountered an unfortunate soul—still nameless but not blameless—who made them believe there were other options than the service they owed me. I don’t know who turned them, but I will. Until then, the djinn will remain in complete stasis. It’s a handy condition, having monsters on tap. I’ve even recently let a couple of them out to play. You’ll like what they brought back to me, I think.”
He said this last with a derisive sneer, and despite my iron grip on my emotions, I could feel my hands growing warm too. The desire to blow him up was becoming almost unbearable. But there was too much I still needed to know, too much that Viktor seemed willing to tell me.
Of course, I knew that Viktor talking at all was a very bad thing. This was not a man who would spill his candy if there was any possibility he could be beaten. He wasn’t a fool, nor was he an overconfident idiot. He’d spent more than one lifetime as a scientist and even a shrink, one who loved to mess with the mind. But I couldn’t think about that right now. I could only focus on him and what he was saying…what he had done.
“What have you done with Hale?” I asked.
“Ah, Hayley Adams. The strongest of the children, and the most nondescript. Isn’t that always the way? When I asked Simon to go find the lost and provide me updates on their whereabouts, what they were doing, to report any anomalies, I could tell right away she was special. When he suggested that he hire her for his ridiculous side hobby, I watched, and I waited. Because I knew that Simon was fraying a little at the edges.” He sneered again. “It’s difficult not to fray a little with his history. But he was doing everything else I asked, everything. I knew more about you than you knew yourself. Every time we spoke at the Council meetings, I could practically speak your very thoughts, thanks to Simon. I didn’t realize he was trying to protect the girl, of course. Not at first. But I didn’t want her. At least, again, not at first.”
He waved his hand again, and another spotlighted figure flared to life. Hale, of course, but unlike the others in his sway, her hands weren’t outstretched in agony or anger. They were held together, almost in prayer, her eyes focused on her cupped hands, her face set. She did not at all look like a victim in stasis. She looked like someone in a deep mental trance.
“I must say, having her physical body onsite has allowed me to create electrifying illusions, illusions that vastly exceeded my expectations. To know that I held dominion over the Magician, even for a scant few moments, as he was trapped by his own deep guilt and inertia, was perhaps one of the m
ost gratifying periods of my life.”
I glared at Viktor. It was all I could do to hold my tongue. Be smart, be smart…
Fortunately, Viktor kept talking. “And of course, one cannot discount this find. The most recent chore I set for a few of the djinn, letting them free from their cages to explore the farthest reaches of Hell, like the good little creatures of the damned they are. They barely got to my quarry ahead of the Devil, in fact, the irony of which was not at all lost on me.”
Hell. Before I could fully process his words, Viktor illuminated the last cage, and beside me, Brody sucked in a sharp, agonizing breath. I understood why. Caught in the newest frozen beam of light was Sariah Pelter, my…what? Sister? Doppelgänger? Second self?
It didn’t matter. It was Sariah: real, true. Here.
Like Hale, however, Sariah didn’t appear harmed or in any sort of distress. Her transfixed eyes were curious and a little surprised, her expression one of deep interest. What had she seen before she was taken? I wondered. What was she thinking now?
Once again, it didn’t really matter. She was frozen in place like every other creature in this room. Like we were too, I realized, as the light intensified around the three of us in a sudden, enervating pulse. My pulse quickened and my energy jumped, however, even as Nikki and Brody gasped aloud.
Not all of us were caught, dammit.
Not all of us.
Viktor smiled, practically leering at me. “Did you know the only thing you really need to trap a wild animal is merely time?” he asked silkily. “Time when they’re not moving—or moving very little—time to spring the trap. Even the fastest creatures in the universe can be held in place with the proper lure.
“Dollface.” Nikki gritted out the words. Both she and Brody were now frozen fast in their energy-sucking stasis light, but I was not like Brody and Nikki. I was not like Hale, I was not even like the mighty djinn of another time, virtually another world entirely.
