Dark Game (Merikh Book 1) (16 page)

“Well done. Get out here and I’ll buy you a drink.”

“I’m on it.” I checked the inside pocket of his suit jacket and found the dagger Claire had asked for. It did look like something out of a museum, or Indiana Jones film. It was little more than rusted iron attached to weathered bone. It had to be magic because it wasn’t much good for anything else.

We’d found a floor plan of the house in the county records. It was out of date and didn’t include the office I was in, but I knew where I was. I reopened the door and stepped out confidently, turning back as though I was waiting for Foster to join me. Nobody was in the hall and I dropped the ruse.

I realized I probably didn’t need a distraction. Nobody was waiting. In his arrogance, Foster had left himself without any protection. I pulled the door closed, ready to simply walk out a side door and be on my way.

I thought I’d seen him move, just as the door blocked him from view. For a moment I was willing to believe I’d imagined it, that I’d been prepared for more of a fight and my mind just didn’t want to accept that it was done.

I’m an idiot, but I’m a professional, so I opened the door to double check.

Foster was getting up, not like someone who’d just almost died but like someone who was about to kill. I’d left the letter opener in his back and had no weapons beyond my fists.

You work with what you have, no matter how suicidal.

I jumped at him, slamming the door shut and reaching for the opener as he got to his feet.

He spun, faster than I could follow. His fist slammed into my stomach with enough force to lift me in the air and throw me back against the door. Foster grinned at me through the blood still pouring from his nose. Then he kicked me hard enough to shatter the door and throw me into the hall.

Pain washed the world away for a moment, leaving only his voice.

“Bring the woman here,” he said to someone back in the land of the living.

Chapter 14

I got an impression of rapid movement followed by an ocean of pain.

He’d sent his men after Mouse. She could take care of herself, not least of all because she had the ambrosia, but I didn’t want to be a bargaining chip for Foster.

I had to wake up, get up, and fight back.

But it was hard. When I managed to force my eyes open, I still couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. I thought I might be able to feel the marble against my face but I wasn’t sure.

I’d been trained for this, at length and by the best. I was a disappointment, a failure, if I just let them beat me.

I was everything the masters had said I was, only this time it was my fault. This time, instead of an accident and a betrayal, it was my own weakness that had brought me low.

Get up.

The world came slowly into focus, reality swimming out of the murk. I was still in the hall. Foster was standing in his office doorway, watching me.

Get up, anyway.

He was watching me as my mind made contact with my limbs and ordered them to move, relaying the command over nerves that weren’t working properly. It was like playing a bad video game, every movement telegraphed an age before the action.

I felt my ribs moving in ways they shouldn’t have.

Get up, you waste of space. Get up or die, but do something.

I rose slowly, pushing myself up on arms that felt as weak as a newborn’s. Foster watched me, never moving to stop me, confident that he could take me if he had to.

When I managed to sit up, he finally spoke.

“You had me, Merikh.” The blood flowing from his nose had stopped. He looked well. Even his nose wasn’t broken anymore.

“You’re a fool,” I managed to croak. My ribs slid around inside my chest and I had an almost overwhelming urge to cough. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to fight it.

“Seems so.” He crouched beside me, his hands crossed on his knees. “I’m usually pretty good at reading people, and I thought you were smarter than this. I offered you whatever you wanted in exchange for something you can do with such ease. A life of luxury and privilege, better even than my own.”

“I’m an idiot.” I tried to continue the slow journey to my feet but he placed a hand on my shoulder. It was the hand of a giant, with strength so far beyond my own it was laughable that I’d ever tried to kill him. I stayed where I was.

“Yes, and now you’ll die. But I’ll take care of your friend first, as a lesson. You’ll arrive in the nether with the worst memories, and that will be my parting gift to you.”

“Bite me.”

“Be careful, I might.” He shot me that annoying smile, now terrible with the coating of blood he hadn’t bothered to wipe off.

He stayed with me until he got word that they had Mouse. My heart raced at the news, adrenaline flooding my system, but I couldn’t fight that single hand on my shoulder. That inexorable force keeping me down.

When he was done talking to his goons, the hand holding me down gripped my shirt and lifted me off the floor with ease.

He took me to an empty room upstairs and presented me to Mouse like a cat bringing home a rat. I was dropped on the floor at her feet. To her credit she didn’t react, but I did, screaming as a fresh swell of pain ripped through my body.

She had two goons on her, holding an arm each, but she wasn’t fighting. She knew the situation and was biding her time. I could do the same.

Another goon dragged me away from her and left me against the wall, giving me a view of the room that would make sure I could watch Mouse die.

“Did you hear what I offered you?” Foster said to her. He was in her face, blocking her from view. “Did you think about what you turned down or are you just so stupid it never occurred to you that doing as I asked was an option?”

“We don’t like bullies,” she said. It made me smile, which hurt.

“I’m not a bully, you stupid woman.” He had her chin in his one hand and the other raised in the air. “I am the prime disciple of Garehl. I’m a king among kings.” He slapped her and the sound echoed for ages.

I could feel myself healing but it was happening too slowly. It would take hours before I was able to stand, maybe days before I could fight. I forced myself up, anyway. If we were going to die I planned on doing it with the same confidence Mouse was showing. The same pride.

“Let me tell you something about the afterlife you might not know.” Foster stepped aside so he could address both of us. My peripheral vision was blurry and he faded away. Blurriness improved him, and it let me focus on Mouse. “There is no heaven or hell when we die, kiddies. Just the nether.

“The nether is a lovely place, with strict rules and timetables. It’s a place that punishes us all in some way, whether we were good little boys and girls or bad. That punishment comes with us from here, because the gods are dicks and they hate us.”

“Shove it up your ass,” Mouse said softly, never taking her eyes off me.

Foster laughed. “If I hurt you before you die then you’ll get hurt when you get there. Endless pain playing the same tune I pushed you out of the world with. And you”—his blur spun in place and focused on me—”will experience an eternity of watching her suffer. That’s my gift to you; I’ll kill you quick because I know what’s waiting for you.”

He reached out and placed his hand on Mouse’s chest, between her breasts. He was watching me and grinning as he whispered something under his breath. There was a blinding light, a star in his hand that outshone the meager light coming in through the windows. It entered her and her head jerked back, her mouth open in a silent scream. Foster was laughing and all I could hear was the blood rushing through my head.

Mouse closed her mouth and returned her gaze to me. As Foster’s confused face turned to her, she smiled at me.

“Well,” she said, still not speaking to Foster, “that was anticlimactic.”

“What the hell?” he whispered again and the light returned. This time when it entered her, she didn’t react.

“Seems like you’re all bluster and pyrotechnics, Foster.” Mouse had a grin to match Foster’s now. She was still looking at me and I could tell she had no idea what was going on, and that she still expected to die. But she was going to enjoy the moment, anyway.

“How are you doing that?”

“What, feeling a little impotent, are we?” she said, and one of the goons holding her allowed the slightest of smiles to appear.

Foster raised his hand and when the star entered the goon, I got to see what it was meant to do. The goon stepped back as the power inside him began to burn its way out. Slowly at first, his suit blackening and his eyes turning red. He scratched at his chest when his skin began to melt.

He died without screaming because the power had cooked his throat closed.

“Are you a god?” Foster said. There was a tremble in his voice. He had the ancient dagger in his hand and it was shaking. “Or their plaything?”

Mouse’s lips parted with a reply, probably something witty and crude, or at least crude. Foster stabbed her in the chest and stopped her from finishing the thought.

I was on my feet and moving toward them, even as Mouse looked down to see the blade sticking out of her chest. He’d hit her heart, I knew. I couldn’t tell if the killing blow would succeed this time.

I launched myself at the remaining goon, every muscle movement a flash of agony, every breath the end of the world. I was blind with the pain and the fear for Mouse, and I killed the goon without noticing. My fingers dug into his throat, took hold, and tore out the meat. I turned to Foster.

“You’re next.” My voice was rough, barely audible, but he heard me. He was just too preoccupied with Mouse to care.

She remained standing and there was no blood coming from her wound.

“She’s a true vessel,” Foster said under his breath. I barely heard him over the razor wire tearing through my veins. “Brought to me in my hour of need.”

He finally looked at me, his face that of a man who’d just won the lottery.

I lashed out at him, taking advantage of the wonder on his face and trying to catch him off guard.

He caught my hand, crushed it, and tossed me aside as though he barely noticed I was there.

Mouse was frozen in place, but she was alive, and I was standing again. Somehow the pain was keeping me going, feeding me. I lurched toward Foster again.

“Come one step closer and I’ll kill her,” he said. I ignored him and took another step. “I know what she is now, and I know how to kill her.”

I took another step anyway. The image of the dagger in her chest gave me strength enough to ride the pain.

“Fine,” Foster said.

He reached out, took hold of her neck, and snapped it.

She fell to the floor and the dagger clattered away from her, trailing blood. I’d stopped moving and Foster turned to face me.

“Did you expect to escape this? Maybe even to beat me?” He shook his head. “That isn’t how the world works, assassin. People like me win, and people like you do what you’re told or you die.”

He hit me and I fell back to the floor. My eyes somehow never left Mouse.

“I’ve never met a true vessel, and you brought her right to me. Did you know what she was?” He kicked me and I went tumbling until the wall stopped me.

Mouse was dead. No more comebacks, no more fighting. She lay on the floor in her own blood, her neck at an unnatural angle. She was dead, so I was done here.

The pain still kept me going, the agony somehow buoying me up instead of destroying me. I was back on my feet and running for the stairs with Foster shouting behind me. I couldn’t hear him.

I ran into one of his men in the hall and shouldered him aside. I didn’t have time to fight. I didn’t know how long my strength was going to last.

I ripped the front doors open and ran into a heat I couldn’t feel on my skin, heading for the woods.

The Knight: Interrogation

Indahn, the god of diligence, ground its teeth. It couldn’t know the source of its discomfort, nor how painful its headache would become when the secret interrogation was over.

He was a Chinese man, and he sat at a large boardroom table surrounded by others in expensive suits. Ahn hovered behind its child, a tendril extending from its glowing core and entering Indahn’s head.

This was the third of Ahn’s children they’d visited, and none had so far been involved. The knight stood at the large floor to ceiling windows, watching the strange world outside. He didn’t know what city they were in – they all looked too similar to him – but it was magnificent. Towers built on the side of a mountain overlooking a large bay, with another enormous city on the opposite shore. It was filled with the same pointless grasping as the rest of this world but sometimes he just wanted to enjoy the spectacle of it all.

It also helped to keep his mind occupied. He knew Indahn would have no information for Ahn. Ehl would be the first to get anything from the gods under its control, and then things would get interesting.

He felt Ahn’s shock through the chain and turned to find the god had vanished. The chain rattled as it prepared to drag him away, but he got a chance to see the look of relief on Indahn’s face before the world snapped away.

It was replaced with an empty room in a house, with two bodies on the floor and Trevor Foster glaring at an empty doorway. Ahn was in one of the bodies – the woman who called herself Mouse – and Ehl had taken the other corpse, a man in a suit with his throat ripped out. They waited until Foster left before getting up.

“Where is Wanehl?” Ahn asked as soon as the human had left the room. The woman’s neck had been broken and the god didn’t heal her before rising. Her head rested on her neck at an odd angle.

“Wanehl is no longer mine,” Ehl said, lifting the man’s body into the air and depositing him on his feet. Ehl didn’t heal the man, either, and his voice came from the ether rather than through his ragged throat. “Despair is now yours?”

“Not mine,” Ahn replied. Foster was shouting in the hall outside and the knight heard men running their way. Ahn glanced at the door and time froze. “He cannot have denied us both.”