A Sinister Game (19 page)

Where are you
?
The demand was nearly shouted into his mind.

Victor
moved
then,
and
with
s
peed that matched her own. T
he wind picked up around him. Victoria gasped as he came to stand directly beside her and bent to whisper in her ear.
“The first round is nearly over, Victoria. Do you admit defeat?”

She whirled around
to face him, her shimmering locks fanning out around her. He
saw her next move coming before she made it
. She raised her hand, no doubt to send him flying telekinetically into the nearest tree trunk.
He countered quickly,
speeding out of range, and she wasted her energy on thin air.

Frustration
blossomed
in her lovely features. She realized that he’d moved when she felt an emptiness at the end of her mental rope. She lowered her hand and tr
ied to quiet her breathing as she
peered
desperately
through the darkness surrounding her.

He could have watched her forever.
Her long, golden hair was wavier than usual
due to the
sea air. It caused ringlets to frame her beautiful face
. Her skin glowed,
pore-less
and peach
toned
, her cheeks flushed with exertion
.
Her lips were parted and he could see her straight, white teeth where they rested behind the plump, pink pillow of her bottom li
p. He wanted to kiss that lip. He wanted t
o bite down gently and then deepen the kiss, forcing her to open to him.

Open for me.

Victoria gasped and
spun
again, this time coming to face him properly. She searched the area directly around him with a fierce tenacity.
“Show yourself,” she commanded.

“Very well.” He let his invisibility dro
p. There was no point to it now
anyway.

Victoria’s eyes
widened as
they fell on his now visible form. He watched her gaze slide to his hair and then to his shoulders and then to his eyes and he could swear that she blus
hed
.
He brushed her mind.

Victoria
tore her gaze away
, her blush deepening.

A
semblance of
real, live
hope leaped to life within Black.
Victoria
wanted him. It was undeniable.
And, if she wanted him
half
as badly a
s he wanted her, then there was
infinite
hope.

“
Let’
s cut to the chase, Victoria. Are you going to come willingly
, or shall we have it out here and
now
?”
h
e asked her
. His question intimated
that he’d
already
won
their Game
– and in the fi
rst round, no less
.

“I think we’ll have it out here and now,” came a voice from behind them. They both turned to look just as Max rushed forward from whatever darkness he’d been hiding in and swung his sword toward Victor’s head.

* * * *

There was a moment of horrible a
wareness for Victoria when, first she
feared that Max might be suc
cessful in his attack, and second
realized
that she
feared
Max might be successful.
Why should she fear such a thing?

But in the next
milli
-moment old brain instinct
took over.
Self-preservation
kicked in
, and she spun around to run
.

She had no idea what was happening behind her. It was loud as she crashed
through the underbrush of the dense forest
and went racing
deeper and deeper into the
woods
.

She ran. She thought of the Game, of Game Control, of things she couldn’t quite remember, and some fire inside of her fueled her every flying step.
After what seemed
like hours but was probably
mere minutes, she came to a stop.

There was no sound from the forest around her. There was only the heavy hitchi
ng of her quick, exhausted breaths. Victoria
had no idea how she’d managed to make it so deep into
the forest without falling or
smacking into something horrible.
She’d been in a blind state of fleeing.

But she was here now, lost and alone, nothing to guide her but the tall, dark trees and their long, dark shadows.

There was no time to duck; the sword’s heavy, razor-sharp blade was going to split his skull wide open.

So, Victor
created
time. He’d never had to do it
like
this before and he’d never been forced to do so in order to save his own skin. It was a sobering m
oment in perpetuity.
But he managed it.

His efforts afforded him an extra precious second and a half to dodge to the side before Blood’s sword finished its downward arc. The flashing blade sliced with ease through the black leather of Victor’s jacket and onward into the thick muscle of his bicep before he could completely roll away.

Victor hissed and bared his teeth, hitting the ground to kick up sand and dust and then come up with his booted feet beneath him. He could feel his eyes glowing now;
there
was pressure and heat and
then
everything came into sharp focus.
That
happened when he was angry. Or in pain. Or when he dreamed about Victoria Red.

But Victor’s eyes were not
the only ones glowing.

Maxwell Blood stood across from him, a towering, hard-built form in black with a pale, angry visage and blue e
yes that had taken on the unnatural
and eerie appearance of ancient, ocean
ic
ice.

Victor considered his opponent, sizing him up quickly
.

Black was a new color for the
Red captain. Maxwell Blood was in effect
dressed in pr
ecisely the same manner as
Victor
.
Interesting.

Victor
took this in and filed it away.
It was time to
do away with Blood’s
strength. With a concentrated effort, Victor shoved a bit of his power at the captain and imagined
it leaching the vigor from Blood’s
muscles.

He waited to see the signs of his
attack on the captain’s face, b
ut instead of the grimace or deepening glare he’d expected – Blood
smiled
.
“It won’t work on me this time, Black.”

Blood
lunged forward, bringing his sword around with expert speed and efficiency
,
and again Victor found himself needing every extra bit of alacrity he could muster to avoid being killed. He called on his dark leader ability and blurred out of the way a
hair’s
breadth
before the weapon would have carved a deep line through his midsection.

He countere
d, spinning around and sending more of his power it into his opponent’s body. This time it was a
n invisible, insipid lullaby that should have forced Captain Blood to his knees with unwanted sleep.

However,
Blood
merely
waved his free hand
as if swatting at a fly,
and a blue-green spark erupted in the air between them, negating Victor’s powerful
effect
.

Victor straightened, the reality of the situation striking home.

Impossible.

He tried something else, something far more serious. It was a test now, more than an actual attack. He wanted to know for certain.

He
rarely used what he considered the most
malevolent of his abilities. S
omething about opening a wound in another person’s body had
never appealed to Victor
. However,
this time
he didn’t hesitate. He imagined the lesion splitting across the captain’s chest, and concentrated on the pain it would induce as opposed to the actual damage the cut would cause.

Blood hissed and recoiled,
looking down at his chest
.
B
ut as the
damp, dark spot
appeared and began to spread across
the front of his black shirt, the captain straightened and closed his eyes.

Victor felt his
own
power recoiling
on itself
, turning back
toward him
as if he and Blood were two negatively charged ions
,
and their essences did not want to touch.
When the
dark stain stopped
spreading across the captain’s shirt, Victor knew that his opponent had managed to fend off the mental attack
before too much damage had been done
.

And that was all the proof Victor needed.

“Victoria’s mine, Black.” Blood opened his eyes. “She doesn’t belong
out here, playing your stupid g
ames. She belongs with me, at the head of her team on the Field, where she was
born
to be.”

Blood’s voice had changed.
It had lowered and grated more
. His eyes were
officially
glowing
,
and
a
captain’s eyes should
never
glow.
Finally,
there was a confidence about him
that Victor had
never
noticed
there
before
. It was a
s if he’d been wearing a lamb’s skin
a
nd was shedding it.

“When were you planning on telling her?” Victor asked icily.

There was no answer, but Victor hadn’t really expected one.

“
H
ow did you find her?” Victor
asked
next
. His instincts were humming, his senses
more alive than they’d been in forty decades. He knew that Maxwe
ll Blood hadn’t retrieved
Victoria’s location
from Arthur One. If he had
, Victor would have detected those
memories when he’d ransacked the techie’s brain.

But Blood had found her
nonetheless
.
How?

“This
isn’t your concern, Black. Give up now and return to the Field.” The captain lowered his head, his intense glacial gaze slicing through the tops of his blue eyes. “I will take care of Victoria.”

Victor smiled grimly.
Not bloody likely.

“It’s been a
n act all along,” he said softly, ignoring Blood’s mention of Victoria.
“
I must admit that I’m impressed.
”
He had no clue as to why Captain Maxwell Blood would have hidden his
true nature all of this time, o
r
even
how it could have escaped Game C
ontrol’s notice
. But he knew that it couldn’t have been easy. Blood would have had to allow his
d
ark leader opponents just enough leeway to read his surface thoughts when he wanted them to. He would have had to allow himself to be batted around with telekinesis, chilled with cold waves
,
and
even wounded using the most iniquitous
d
ark powers available to his adversaries.

And for what?

“She’s worth it, Black
,
” Blood said. “It’s a pity that you’ll never know exactly
how
worth it she is.” He lowered his sword.

Victor’s jaw tightened
, but he kept his face an impassive mask
. “Oh?”

“There’s no point
in
continuing this sport of yours
,
” Blood continued. “You’ll never beat us both. And even if you do
,
”
he
paused, cocking his head to one side a
nd
stud
ying
Black with the same intensity that Victor
had directed toward
him
,
“You’ll never
truly
win
.”