Dark Game (Merikh Book 1) (17 page)

“You aren’t playing the game, Ahn.” Ehl was furious, stalking toward Ahn as though they might be about to do battle physically. It came to a stop inches from Ahn’s borrowed face and yelled. “You dare to try something like this, now? Must we tear this world apart because you can’t stand losing?”

Ahn’s voice rose but never exhibited any of Ehl’s apparent emotion. “I had nothing to do with this.”

Ehl moved away, studying the room as it paced. “They cannot exist without us. Unless…”

“Notice the dagger.” Ahn bent down to pick up the ancient weapon and the woman’s head fell forward.

“This human is planning on summoning her,” Ehl said. It waited for Ahn to correct the woman’s head before approaching to examine the dagger. “Could Wan, who we can no longer call Wanehl I suppose, have joined her?”

“She has not returned. We would know.”

“Would we?”

“Every part of creation would know.”

The knight had hoped to delay this until after the summoning, until things were beyond changing. He waited in silence, no longer afraid of his thoughts, until Ahn turned its wobbly head to face him.

“You hid this from me?”

“I did. I colluded with one of your children and now he is no longer yours.”

They were staring at him, an eternity of power and control forcing his eyes to the floor. Though he fought it, marshaling the strength that once led men to death to defend a kingdom, he couldn’t make himself look up.

Ehl dropped the dagger on the floor. “The blade means she is a player in the game, even if she isn’t aware yet.”

“We should act together. Put this to an end before it goes any further.” Ahn left the woman and her corpse fell to the floor. The knight wondered idly what Trevor Foster would think when he returned and found the bodies moved.

It was moot though, if the gods erased the house.

The knight drew in breath from between clenched teeth and said, “You cannot destroy the dagger, and she has been called.”

“You monkey is taunting us.”

“You can remove this house, these people. You can remove the entire town from history and it won’t change what has been set in motion.”

“What do you know of it, knight?” Ahn hung in the air, a brilliant ball of blue energy. It approached him and he stepped away until he was against the wall and couldn’t retreat any further.

“I am here to observe, and I have done so. Faithfully.” He was cowering away from the glorious light, terrified and amazed at the same time. “You used that dagger to kill her, before time. But her energy, her power and presence, live on. That dagger has tasted blood now, and not any blood but that of a true vessel. She will be drawn to it unless the ritual the acolyte of Wrath has started fails.”

He collapsed to the floor, desperate to get away from the light, from the intensity of his master’s displeasure. He was spent, the stream of speech the last of his strength.

“We can hide the dagger,” Ehl said. It had abandoned its body at some point, as well, and now hung in the middle of the room. It was a dull red and black energy, fractured and fit to bursting with power. “We can put it a galaxy away.”

“But we cannot destroy it,” Ahn replied. It was so close to the knight that he could feel his ethereal skin begin to blacken and peel away. “Wherever we put it, she will find it.”

“So you’re saying we should do as your monkey suggests?”

“I’m saying that completion of the ritual is important.”

“As long as it fails.”

“Indeed.” The heat and light retreated from the knight and he opened his eyes. The gods were waiting for him together in the middle of the room. “The knight has given us the tools to end this.”

“Wanehl,” the knight began, then corrected himself. “Wan, Despair, gifted the boy with a touch of his power before enhancing DeLacy’s gift. You can no longer touch him, and neither can Wan, but the assassin has all the tools he needs to stop this.”

“Then why did you hide it from me?” Ahn’s voice was softer and no longer threatened to split the knight’s skull.

He looked up at them. “I hoped you wouldn’t discover this. I hoped things would be different. I hoped…”

“You have no idea what you are doing,” Ehl said, “or what you’ve potentially set in motion.”

“He was desperate, I can feel it.”

Destroy him. The knight knew the words were coming and he was ready to accept his fate. He’d known this was a possibility and he was ready to face the nether.

But the words never came. The gods remained silent, keeping their conversation from him now that they knew he was listening. They hung in the air, beings of unbelievable power, and they gossiped behind cupped hands like children. He would have smiled, had he not been so scared.

“You will stay with me and continue to advise,” Ahn said. It was more emotionless than usual. “When the threat has passed I will destroy you, as you seem to wish.”

Ehl made no effort to hide its emotion. “And I will find whatever remnant of your line remains and see that they suffer before I send them after you.”

“As you wished.”

Ahn and Ehl left and the chain rattled. Time resumed and men came into the room to check on the bodies. A moment later, the knight was gone.

Chapter 15

I made it through the woods and to a road before I collapsed. The sounds of pursuit were long gone and I knew I’d escaped. I spotted the road and a moment later I was down.

The pain was still there, and more. Whatever had kept me going had allowed me to use my body despite it being broken. Muscles had snapped, bones had ground against each other, and organs had been pierced. Without the mysterious force to give me strength I wasn’t able to lift my hand to keep the sun out of my eyes.

I lay beside the road and prepared to die. Most of the roads out there had one use, and if the farmer at the end of the road didn’t feel like going shopping I wasn’t likely to see anyone. My skin began to burn and I could feel insects getting in position for the feast I was about to become.

It didn’t matter. She was dead. He’d snapped her neck and she’d fallen to the ground, her blood suddenly gushing from the chest wound.

I was detached from it in the moment but I suspected I’d be angry if I ever got up. We’d been handed an assignment that was impossible to complete, targeting a man who was impossible to kill, and we’d been shown the futility of our training and experience in the face of magic.

I didn’t want to die – I’d barely had a chance to live yet – but I was done with Trevor Foster. He could have his town. I wanted nothing more to do with him.

An ant crawled into my open, dry eye and I couldn’t even blink.

When Patty pulled up, I didn’t think she was real. How could I? There was no chance of her looking for me on that road, no chance of her looking for me at all. Her beat-up hatchback came to a stop in the perfect spot, despite me being hidden by tall weeds and unable to move.

She got out and stretched, turning to face the sun. She looked like an angel, though in fairness I don’t think my mind was functioning properly.

She leaned against her car and took out a pack of cigarettes. She didn’t smoke, had in fact directed pointed comments at Martha – an elderly teller from the bank – when she went out for her smoke breaks. There was still no reason to believe this was real.

She had one out and took out her lighter, before looking up briefly as though fearful of someone catching her, and saw me. I was going blind, the sun cooking my eyes for the insect feast, but my heart shuddered in its broken cage when her eyes passed over me. For just a second I wondered what devil had put her there to taunt me. And then she looked back, and dropped the cigarettes she had never smoked before and would never try again, and ran to me.

The next hour was a blur, my sense of time as broken as the rest of me. She got me into her car, planning on driving to somewhere with reception, and I managed to direct her to Claire and the diner. She had no reason to listen to the ravings of a dead man, but she did.

I woke in a bedroom, Claire and Patty both watching me. The pain was still there but somehow diminished, or maybe I was getting better at working out what part of the healing process I was at. I didn’t know and it didn’t matter.

“Water,” I managed to croak, and a straw appeared. The cold relief numbed my throat and had me choking, but when I was done coughing I asked for more.

I faded away again, waking up in the night to an empty room. I tested myself, starting at my head and moving each muscle group and joint in turn. I was taking inventory, forming a checklist of things that still needed work.

I could move everything. My muscles all pulled and my joints all worked, and I wasn’t choking on blood so my organs seemed to be in order. Whatever had kept me going and allowed me to amplify the damage Foster had done to me had left me with enough health to recover, it seemed.

I could feel the yellow energy descending on the town outside. It was probably what had woken me up. I got out of bed slowly, still testing myself for unexpected weakness, and shuffled to the window.

I was at Claire’s house on the outskirts of town, a rundown place with four walls and running water, but little else. It gave me a closer view than the motel had. The energy fell from the sky, slipping around the buildings and worming its way into everything, including the room I was in. It searched every corner before finally settling on me, but when it tried to enter me it recoiled like a living thing. It left the room to find a more acceptable host.

The lightshow was done just as the sun began to rise, and I turned away from the window to find my clothes. My rescuers had been to the motel and my suitcase was waiting for me at the foot of the bed. I put on jeans and a t-shirt, then packed another change of clothes in a backpack I kept in the suitcase before leaving the room.

Claire was waiting for me at her kitchen table, drinking fragrant tea from an oversized coffee mug. Patty was sleeping on the couch, the only other furniture in the house.

“The wounded hero rises,” Claire said. “You’ll have to tell me sometime how you heal so quickly. Coffee?”

I nodded, unsure what to say to her. She and Patty had saved my life and all I felt was resentment, as though they’d done something wrong. Again, I had no interest in dying, so the feeling confused me.

She rose and poured from a coffee pot she had ready. I drank it black and bitter, finishing it quickly and holding the mug out for more. She smiled and topped me up, then went back to her spot at the counter.

“I take it the job didn’t go well?”

I shook my head.

“Did you see the dagger?”

I was angry with her for asking, for showing what she was really interested in when the most important thing was Mouse. I shook my head again.

I think she finally noticed I wasn’t doing well because her voice changed, becoming more supportive and caring. I knew it was an act but it helped, anyway. “Can you tell me what happened?”

I nodded and finished my coffee before telling her everything. I recounted the day without emotion, getting the facts out and ending with Patty’s impossible decision to take up smoking just as I needed her. I poured myself more coffee while Claire thought it over.

“That force you felt keeping you alive sounds like Wanehl – Despair – but I don’t know how he would have done it. I can’t affect you at all and I don’t see why he would be any different. Trying to heal you last night was pointless. Luckily you’ve got your own abilities to take care of that.”

“Foster said Mouse was a true vessel.”

“A naturally occurring true vessel is rare. There’s never more than a handful in the world at any one time.”

“And unnaturally occurring?”

“When we – the gods, that is – die, we move on to a new host. In that moment we can select anyone we like and they become a true vessel. Otherwise I don’t know of any way to create one. It’s a coincidence that she would be one and somehow end up with you, but your life is full of coincidences.”

I looked at Patty on the couch. She was awake and listening, pretending to be asleep so we wouldn’t exclude her from the conversation. Her arrival was more than coincidence; it was miraculous.

“Could Wanehl be responsible for it? For the coincidences?”

She shook her head. “He couldn’t turn Mouse into a true vessel any more than I could, and as I said I have no idea how he’d gift his power to you when you needed it.”

“Something higher than you, then. A more powerful god?” I had bought the story, I realized. I now believed in gods and holy powers, accepting them as part of the world.

“There is nothing more than us. We were there when the world first formed and I have never seen anything that would lead me to believe there were more of us, or that there was a greater power.”

“Fine, then it’s all coincidences.” I still had my backpack over my shoulder and I saw her looking at it. “I’m leaving,” I said before she could ask.

“Going where? I know you have debts to pay. I’ve been inside Mouse’s head, and your entire life hinges on completing your job.”

“Then I’ll find some other life, and if they want to collect on my debt they can try.” I was perfectly calm. No emotion to my voice or in my head. I was done, with the job and with Midway, and especially with magic and gods.

Patty sat up and looked at me through the gloom. “This town needs you.” She got up and moved to the counter beside Claire. “She says there’s something happening here and it’s going down tonight. If you won’t stop it then who will?”

Her hair was a mess and she was wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing when she picked me up. I owed her my life, but I didn’t feel the need to explain myself.

“She has a point,” Claire said. “He has the dagger and he’s started the summoning. There’s rumors Littleton is gearing up to strike back for the raid. Things are going to go very badly tonight if you don’t do something about it.”

“Then let it.” I walked to the front door and unlocked it.

“I’m sorry about Mouse,” Patty said.

It made me pause for a moment, if only to realize that Claire hadn’t said it first.